I was hanging out at the car repair shop one morning, where the manager for noapparent reason plays Faux News in the waiting room (to his credit, he’ll change it if I ask, and pleasantly too). I can’t tune it all out, unfortunately. I hear things like Texas Gov. Good Hair suggesting the federal government should learn how to govern by looking to his state. I guess Kay Bailey Hutchison disagrees.

Of course, he was lying about public option, too, saying it would cost Texas “billions.” But that’s just what Republicans do.

Rick Perry, he’s just an annoyance. The ignorance comes from elsewhere.

And I’m not talking about the Faux News White House correspondent somehow managing to insert John McCain’s time as a POW in Vietnam into a report that somehow managed to conflate Obama’s process to decide whether to send thousands more cannon fodder … I mean, troops into Afghanistan with his support for green energy. Although that certainly counts.

On this particular day, the Faux anchors were whining, in their inimitable fair and balanced way, because Home Depot has a policy that says employees may not wear non-company-related buttons. See, that means they can’t wear a button with the pledge of allegiance written on it.

A side note — I seriously don’t get pledging allegiance to a flag. What the fuck? A flag? A piece of cloth? How about pledging allegiance to the fucking Constitution? At least that has something going for it other than some amorphous symbolic nonsense that everybody interprets the way they see fit. Makes absolutely no sense to me. Unless maybe it’s supposed to be just another way for one group of people to accuse another of being unpatriotic.

Anyway, there’s the Faux anchors, horrified that this poor trod-upon Home Depot employee can’t wear his “one nation under god” button. I mean, what’s next? Employees can’t celebrate the 4th of July?

And, as they are want to do, the Faux anchors read some e-mail. Honestly, I’m surprised some of these people know how to use e-mail. My very favorite of the comments was this one (and I’m sorry but I must paraphrase — it was early in the morning and my powers of total recall were not yet functional).

I’m glad Home Depot has this policy. Do we want people to wear atheist buttons? Or Mao Rules buttons? Or Muslim buttons? This policy keeps out other offensive buttons too.

Maybe it was sarcasm God knows that would go over the heads of Faux anchors. I do tend to believe that if I see it on Faux News, somebody somewhere really is thinking that way. But it’s the kind of thing Andy Borowitz would say. Or The Onion, and Faux anchors have fallen for Onion reports before.

But this was an e-mail sent directly to Faux News, from someone who was obviously watching that morning. Granted, so was I, and if that someone else had enough brain power at that hour of the morning to punk those bozos, god bless her. Maybe we should join her. The Faux News team did choose to highlight that particular e-mail for some reason. I suspect it’s because they agree — or at least they know their viewers do.

Gosh, such nobility. We’ll sacrifice our god-given right to wear buttons saying we’re a Christian nation because we sure don’t want those atheist, or, heaven forbid, Muslims to be wearing their buttons.

Me, I’d wear my Militant Homosexual button. Or maybe Commie Dyke would be better in this case.

But dontcha just love how these folks are all about how companies should be allowed to decide all kinda things — just not what kinda buttons they wear? As if it’s some kind of 1st Amendment issue.

Oh, yeah. I forgot. These folks don’t know that the 1st Amendment doesn’t apply to corporations. It applies to the government, as in “Congress shall make no law.” And I’ll just bet that Home Depot’s button policy wasn’t handed down from Congress.

Y’know, I’ve worked at plenty of places where the dress code says not to wear shirts with slogans, particularly political slogans, or shirts from competing interests. It’s logical. When you’re serving the public, you just don’t know who’s gonna come through the door. For example, I can tell you that every plumbing company truck I see with a McCain-Palin sticker is crossed off my list of companies I’ll do business with. Obama stickers do not get crossed off, although I seriously worry about a company that allows its employees to post their political preferences on their vehicles — or the owner’s, for that matter. But no sticker, no problem. Kinda my own little “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

But that’s how I feel about a lot of things. You’ve got your opinion, I’ve got mine. As long as your opinion doesn’t infringe upon my space, we’re fine.

And no, I don’t mean  you can’t talk about your opinion. You certainly can. But the second you think your opinion should be elevated to the point of law — well, that’s where it infringes.

There are certain opinion-type things that have been elevated to law, and for good reason. Killing people is bad, for example. Taking things that don’t belong to you. Those things hurt other people.

Other things don’t hurt a soul and have no business being legislated. Like going to church, synagogue, temple, orange grove, mosque etc., or marrying the person you love, regardless of that person’s gender, and your own. And you can even change which church, synagogue, orange grove, temple or mosque you go to.

I’m sorry, but this shit’s just not that difficult. I guess that whole “love thy neighbor as thyself” thing never really took hold — or maybe there’s just a lot more self-hatred out there than we ever thought.

For sure there’s a lot of fear out there. A lot of insecurity. Why else would someone feel the need to install his or her beliefs above everyone else’s, in place of everyone else’s? Why else would one be so offended that a “one nation under god” button is banned from a workplace under a workplace policy that says “no non-company-related buttons?”

Got me. But then I don’t understand why people are afraid of a black president either.