It would appear that our society is submitting to a spirit of offense with increasing regularity. Many harbor bitterness and resentment, it manifest into hate, anger, intolerance, violence and yes, fear. With all of these in place, it distorts views on truth, some become ignorant. Ignorance produces more of the same! Offensiveness exists but it is not necessary to pick it up and run with it. Hate exists but we do not have to act upon it. We do not have to assume a victim mentality, if we know the truth. When we know the truths damaging side effects cannot touch us. We then become part of the solution and not the problem.
Americans find many, almost everything offensive, and here are only a few researched, and the most offensive are not at the top of the list.
- Offering an 18-Year-Old a Drink
- Leaving Kids in Strollers Outside Stores
- Talk in the Imperative Form
- Saying Certain Words
- Not Leaving a Tip
- Letting your child play nude in fountains, pools.
- Not smiling at people
- Discussing salary
- Eating certain foods
- Commenting on weight
- Hiring someone based on looks.
- Standing too close to another person
- Topless women
- Staying at a restaurant visiting after finishing a meal
- Letting a birthday person pay for on food
- Waving at a waitress or waiter
- Slurping food
- Sitting through the National Anthem
- Putting money on counter when paying
- Kissing on the cheek
- Speaking another language in front of others
- Clothes-less people on TV
- Cursing on TV
- Using Metric
- Sitting in front of a cab
- Offensive nicknames
- Smooching in public
- Red light districts
- Staring
- Sharing cultural things
- Public baby feeding
- Not glorifying the military
- Having more than one wife
- Disrespecting the National flay, wearing it on clothing for example
- Friendly banter
- Not replying back
- No swearing, vulgar language
- Discuss your sex life
- Laughing at accents
- It’s offensive to make racial slurs
- It’s offensive to make sexist comments
- Why don’t you have kids
- Gay relationships, which of you are the man/woman
- Will you tell your child he/she is adopted
- Death – they are in a better place
- I will pray for you
- Are you pregnant (overweight people you just met)
- Your just a housewife
- I’m not racist, but
- Calling someone retarded
EAJM
The Last Chapter 
Interesting list, Elizabeth.
I have found of late, in the street, that number 7 could also include ‘smiling at people.’ !
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I agree. E.
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Some of that stuff is offensive though. I mean, why would anyone laugh at an accent?
I guess I’m not sure what the point of the post is. I agree that people take offense at silly stuff and outrage culture is out of control, but that list includes tons of stuff that is objectively offensive
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The point was, we should “think” before we open our mouths, yes some is offensive. The second point was that we are becoming a Nation where we are making “everything” offensive, no matter how silly it sounds. We need to make changes, but we also need to recognize when it is being taken too far. An example, I had a handi-cap daughter, she was at times call retarded by what I surmised as a stupid individual. However, I could not curse, fight, protest, then one is only feeding into the stupidity and giving them reason to react. Thank you for your insightful comment, is was appreciated. E.
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