State, Police

The title of this post comes from the excessive number of horrible stories regarding law enforcement recently. The recent declining by the Supreme Court to hear a case intended to prevent civilians from filming police atrocities only reinforces our civic duty to call out monstrous action.

Once, long ago, police brutality was only prevalent in horrible neighborhoods and was evidence of social decline. Such stories were an outcry for societal change and the improvement of quality-of-life. Today, however, there is no longer such division. It matters not what your race, gender or political affiliation may be; if you're even perceived as stepping out of line you can be killed and your murderer will skate by with a slap on the wrist.

Case in point: http://tinyurl.com/OttoZehm A mentally handicapped janitor was beaten to death while performing his nightly routine at the local convenience store. He would always grab a soda and a Snickers bar. Officer Karl F. Thompson, Jr. had heard that a man fitting Otto Zehm's description had stolen money from an ATM. When he saw Zehm in the convenience store he charged in and savagely beat the man, hogtied him, fitted him with a rubber mask to gag him, and then had fellow officers sit on him. Zehm fell into a coma and died two days later from pulverized organs, internal hemorrhaging, and other critical injuries from his beyond brutal treatment. Zehm's last words were, "All I wanted was a Snickers bar..."
After six years, Officer Thompson was sentenced to a minimum of four years in prison. Four years for murdering a man. Thompson had not read Zehm his Miranda rights, nor had he charged him with a crime. The prosecutors of Spokane, WA, declined to bring any charges against Thompson until public outcry reached a fever pitch, and even then they only charged him with violation of civil rights, not cold-blooded murder.
Any ordinary person who brutally beat a fellow human being to death, tied him up and dehumanized him would be sentenced to life imprisonment nine times out of ten. But because Thompson had a badge, even though he did not make an arrest, his act of murder only warrants the duration of a college education.

Not convinced that police are going insane yet? Okay, let's serve up another one: http://tinyurl.com/cupxrfg Gilberto Valle, an NYPD cop, had stolen information on over 100 women from police databases. Creepy yet? Oh, it gets worse. He planned to kidnap, cook and eat these women. Valle kept a journal of how he would fit women into ovens or slow-roast them over flames, determined to keep them alive for as long as possible while he watched them suffer and die. He had blueprints for his first abduction and had even met with one of his targets, noting in his journal how "tasty" she looked.
Valle pled not guilty on charges of conspiracy to abduct and murder these women. His defense attorney argued that these plots were pure fantasy, despite the overwhelming evidence in his possession that he had the means to perform these kidnappings and was only stopped before he could carry them out. Because Valle is a police officer, he may very well get off with a minimum sentence. The jury will almost assuredly find him guilty, but the judge will likely prevent him from receiving the same treatment that anyone else would.

And the litany of madness continues. To further inundate the reader with disturbing news stories, let's get back to good old-fashioned police brutality: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7424053n At Philadelphia's Puerto Rico Day parade, a police officer had a plastic bottle thrown at him. He selected a woman who was in the direction from which the bottle had been thrown (and who had not thrown the bottle, as the video attests), stalked calmly toward her and savagely punched her over and over again. When video surfaced, the cop claimed self-defense. Yeah, right. She was about as much of a threat as our next story:
http://tinyurl.com/cak4pxm In case the headline on that page is too obtuse, an officer shot and killed a double-amputee in a wheelchair. It's not like he could just step around the wheelchair, move back, or knock over the wheelchair. He had to shoot the man who was waving a terrifying metal object, a metal object that turned out to be a pen. The officer was placed on "administrative leave." To the best of my knowledge, the murderer has not been charged.

Not insane enough for you? I have more! http://tinyurl.com/46in5secs Yes, the title is pretty clear: a group of six police officers played the part of firing squad and turned a man into Swiss cheese, shooting him forty-six times in five seconds. The shredded victim (calling him murdered seems so passé for what happened to him) was simply standing in front of a shut-down restaurant while holding a knife. There were no bystanders within range of attack and he was not acting threatening. Police claimed that the man was "assaultive" and was threatening police, but they had time to line up and gun him down. Witnesses saw no proof that the victim was planning to attack; he was simply arguing with police. Why they thought forty-six shots was a better alternative than a taser is anyone's guess.

Before I conclude this little foray into state-sanctioned cruelty, let's go all the way to the top. Or, rather, that's where this next guy wanted to point his gun: http://tinyurl.com/cprl87p Yes, you read that right: a police officer in Jacksonville, Florida stated that he would enjoy killing President Obama. When questioned further, he said he'd also like the entire Northeastern US to be obliterated with nukes because they voted for Obama. The officer since quit, but I hope the Secret Service are keeping tabs on him.

So, what has caused this sudden surge in abuse of power and police brutality? It's not that hard to figure out. Look at the sanctions after September 11th, 2001. Suddenly the government claimed to have seen the enemy, and they were us. The "we are all Americans" sentiment lasted for less than a month before we were all told to fear our neighbors. State and government lawmakers capitalized on this fear by expanding their power base. Anyone attacked or arrested was assumed to be a terrorist sneaking around. We may be moving past this paranoia with a more level-headed man in the Oval Office, but Congress is still filled with deranged conspiracy theorists and state governments are still capitalizing on such insanity. Just look at Arizona, where you can be arrested for simply "not looking right."

When our protectors turn their sights and their guns on those they are supposed to defend, that is when we have truly lost. Our only hope now is to reclaim sanity for our nation and restore the balance between power and responsibility. Goodnight, and stay safe.

Monsters

Our military does not deserve the money we pour into it. Not only do we spend more on our military than all other nations combined, we need only look at the sheer number of rapes and unbelievably atrocious murders at a military base such as Fort Bragg to see the true face of our military. For those readers who want an article to directly reference, I aim to please even in such a dark matter: http://tinyurl.com/huffpostmsa

There are two issues, in my eyes, that have contributed to the utterly unconscionable and seemingly endless rise in sexual assault, rape and murder against women in the military. The first is that the military is entirely voluntary, and I addressed most of that problem in a prior blog post. What I did not address was that after 9/11 military leaders saw fit to slacken the recruitment requirements, permitting convicted felons - even rapists and murderers - to serve in the military. That slackening has never been undone. However, even non-criminals who volunteer in the military tend to be emotionally immature, prone to violence and of the alpha-male mentality. In the outright feral conditions of military service and drill indoctrination intended to strip individuality and morality from the soldiers, this makes it only too easy for such abominations to simply stop giving a fuck about human decency and see their female squadmates as nothing but a vagina with legs. They then decide to just take what they want, calculating and waiting until their target is isolated and unarmed. These acts of rape are often some of the most premeditated and would make criminal psychologists blush at the monstrous coldheartedness of the perpetrators.

Worse still, the military covers up these acts and tries to silence women who have been victimized. In my opinion, this makes the United States military even worse than the Catholic church in coverups: they expect these women to fight and die for their country but won't even provide the barest hint of justice against those monsters who attack them.

The second issues is cultural: by and large volunteers for military service tend to skew Conservative in their political beliefs. This makes sense as generally the first response of Conservative constituents to anything negative is to call for its destruction, so the chance to go into another country, destroy things and kill people who look different is a hard opportunity to deny.

The issue with Conservative philosophy, however, is that by and large right-wing ideology views every race and gender other than white males as slaves or possessions who've managed to wrangle freedom from the government. Of course, full right-wing ideology also sees anyone without billions of dollars as an uppity serf, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, while it's utterly disgusting it's not at all surprising that people in the military with that mindset would be all too eager to sexually assault the women in their platoons, especially since they know that they'll usually be completely protected or let off with just a slap on the wrist.

Military service is a rapist's paradise, a Sandusky-level pick of the litter that lets a monster watch his intended victim, learn her patterns, then attack and get off scott-free even if he's identified. In stark contrast, women who call attention to this disease are usually stripped of rank and may even be dishonorably discharged for their righteous dissent.

When the victims are punished for their suffering and the attackers are praised for their actions behind closed doors, the experiment has failed so spectacularly that words do not exist to express the sheer amount of disgust this elicits. Now, more than ever, I say that we must bring our troops home not for their own good but so that we can dismantle this necrotized chain of command and obliterate the evil that festers therein.

We may sleep soundly because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf, but who stands on the behalf of the rough women who are victimized by the very system that protects others?

Feminism: An Outsider's Perspective

[A note to readers: this is the article that led me to move my blog, as a massive downpour of personal attacks and threats was heaped on me. I'm not going to be the submissive little boy that pseudo-feminists seem to expect all men to be, however, so here is the re-edited version with additional content]

I find myself compelled to revisit the feminism argument after my potentially notorious column on women's common choices in popular literature and television after some recent events. The first was a friend contacting me while I was playing a game to tell me that she was being attacked for her character somehow being anti-feminist. A beer-swigging dwarf priestess in an online video game was somehow anti-feminist. This accusation was leveled in (apparently) a personal attack by controversy generator Anita Sarkeesian, who's been at the head of feminist interpretations of video games for a long time. Sarkeesian has been the target of a number of brutal anti-woman campaigns, including a sick video game where you could "beat up" an image of her. I know nothing about Sarkeesian herself, but a very well-reasoned argument from another blogger pretty much says all I need to know: http://tinyurl.com/SarkeesianGame Sarkeesian may have good intentions, but she's letting her crusade and bias color her interpretations of games and is creating controversy where none exists.

Then, I found an Internet review that is the poster child for Completely Missing the Point: the Nostalgia Chick's review of Charlie's Angels - http://tinyurl.com/nchickangels

Normally I don't like to criticize comedians unless they say something truly cruel. My opinion is, even if they say something with which I don't agree, it's generally in good fun and I can respect that they hold differing views. A comedian preaches to his or her audience, so any issues I prefer to address in the consumer rather than the provider.

However, the Chick likes to portray herself as more of an intellectual, touting a film degree and analyzing issues. Even if I don't think she's the funniest, she usually has interesting insights. This time, however, she is entirely off the mark.

At the beginning of the Chick's video, she declares feminism to be dead, but for an entirely different reason: she claims that since sexual objectification hasn't ended feminism has failed, and includes remarks about the "get back in the kitchen" jokes. In this case, I believe that being a pretty, young, white woman has placed her in a disadvantageous place from which to give commentary. The first issue is that objectification goes both ways, as boy bands and Twilight-style fiction show. Just because it's in text or subtext rather than in images does not make it any less tangible, but it's exactly because of the third wave of feminism that women are allowed to do this while men are not:

Current-generation pseudo-feminists have drawn a line in the sand: you cannot criticize a woman for anything or you are a misogynist pig and deserve to die.

Now, the above statement does not apply to all women, but it does apply to those who seem to think that any criticism is automatically sexist or driven by jealousy; and to those who believe that feminism means granting women privileges that men cannot have instead of the crusade for complete equality espoused by the first and second waves of feminism.

We'll get back to that point, but first, the true objectification of women needs a new title. The word "objectification" is so bandied-about that it's lost its impact. In addition, as women increasingly objectify men, we need to let that word have its own application so we can address objectification as an individual problem. The exploitation of women, therefore, could be better worded as the "possessionizing" of women. In truth, the image and the tangible are the least of a true feminist's problems when it comes to this. There is a staggering minority subculture in this nation who believes women to be fundamentally inferior. It is not based on sexualization, and attacking that angle is not only disingenuous, it's plain stupid. That's like getting gangrene and thinking that painting your leg pink again will fix everything.

The possessionizing of women is based around the idea that women are not people, but things. Since they are things, there is no issue in exploiting them physically or sexually, whether through repeated childbirth, homemaking, sexualization or rape.

Furthermore, attacking this surface only further lends to the dichotomy not only between men and women, but between women and women.

To readdress the point I earlier delayed, modern pseudo-feminism has transformed the world of criticism. Nowadays you can't legitimately criticize a woman without at least one rabid zealot suddenly decrying you as evil. If you're a man it's because you're a chauvinist pig. If you're a woman it's because you can't stand someone else being empowered, or you're jealous because she's prettier than you, or any number of other arguments.

Dear god, in an online fashion column I said that an actress looked lovely, questioned that the slit of her dress might rise too high, and stated that her heels were hideous and did her a disservice. I had not revealed my gender, but I was immediately decried as being an ugly and jealous woman, bitter that I couldn't look like that. Modern pseudo-feminism tries to shield any woman from criticism, reasoned and legitimate though it may be. However, that "any woman" has to be someone in power, apparently, just as the Tea Party defends the rich while ignoring the poor. When zealotry like this is the norm, that is when I declare a movement to be a failure.

Ms. Ellis - in case my constantly referring to her as the Nostalgia Chick is somehow seen as sexist - also seems to be making the wrong interpretation of the "kitchen" jokes. Now, I welcome to be refuted on this, as it may just be my inherent optimism, but these jokes seem less like an insult toward women and more of an acknowledgement of the possessionism that women face every day, the deep-seated idea that women belong in the kitchen and bedroom to serve men.

Again, I see very few if any ads that depict sexy women in the kitchen, so this isn't caused by the sexualization of women; it runs far deeper than that.

For many women, the ability to look really sexy, kick ass, and be respected for both is a major empowerment fantasy, but the confused morass that is feminism will also attack this for pandering to male fetishes.

Let me be very clear: men are visual and sensual creatures by nature. What we can interpret through sight, smell, touch, etc. is the most significant to us, particularly when it comes to the opposite sex. Women are naturally appealing in all of these areas; biology has designed us as such for prime procreative opportunities. Men obviously go too far in wanting to see women, but as we are left with fewer and fewer aspects to legitimately debate without being crucified, many men latch onto the same arguments women make about one another, namely based on appearance and sex appeal.

Attacking all men for acting as nature built us, particularly when boys are maturing and beginning to understand sexuality, is to color their interpretation of women as angry harpies who want to look sexy but will crucify you for noticing. Moderation in the argument against objectification is what is needed, not the Spanish Inquisition.

And that's the crux of the matter. Feminism should be about wanting to be respected and welcoming legitimate criticism, not shouting down any dissent or opposing viewpoints.

I believe above all else, though, that Ms. Ellis made the biggest error in using a burqa (or niqab, as she claims, though it's actually not since a niqab doesn't conceal one's face) to make her empowerment statement that men can't sexualize you if they can't see you. Not only is the option to hide yourself using that a massive insult to women who are forced to wear them every day regardless of whether they want to or not - and who are killed or driven back into burning buildings for not having them on, even if their coverings have also caught fire or have already burned away - it is also blatantly and provably wrong. Arab malls, particularly the high-end ones, can have sex shops that stretch across multiple floors, all of which women are forbidden to enter. Men select what clothes and toys they want to use on their possession, and women are required on pain of violent punishment or death to acquiesce. When completely covered, these women are more viciously sexualized and objectified than any American woman is in this day and age, even in the most ass-backward redneck towns.

So, Ms. Ellis - Lindsay, if I may be so bold - if you ever read this, please take into account that you are held in some genuine esteem as not only a comedian but a sociological commenter. To attack the barest symptoms of a problem without even addressing the genuine issue; to use a symbol of enslavement as a symbol of your own personal freedom for the sole reason that you have the choice of whether or not to wear it; to accuse a director of being racist or making a fetish piece seemingly only because you think of him as anti-feminist; all of this is an insult not only to your viewers but to all women. And I'm not just talking about women around the world who are enslaved by your own image of empowerment; I'm talking about women in this country who are treated as second-class citizens or worse simply because of their gender. This problem is not at all about sex: it is about turning a person into an un-person, and sex just happens to be an avenue through which to exert that oppression.

Aftermath

Following this article I was told in many vulgar and violent terms not to insult feminism, that I had no right to speak for my fellow human beings since I don't have a vagina, and that no one is allowed to insult Anita Sarkeesian. In a truly amazing bit of hypocrisy, more than one man and woman in the flurry of insults admitted that they disagreed with Sarkeesian but were unwilling to speak out on it because they would be destroyed by other rabid fans. How can people justify to themselves that they shouldn't issue genuine criticism because people won't like it?

Ellis herself accused me in her Twitter account - unwilling to insult me directly, while she linked it exclusively to other men to get them to gang up on me, confusing in that her message is that women shouldn't need men to protect them - of wanting all women to shut up and just take it. Like Sarkeesian herself, it seems that Ellis refused to actually look at the content and made up her mind immediately about the message and purpose of my blog. On her Twitter account and on a LiveStream, she was gladly speaking that she didn't care that she was attacking someone with clinical depression and wouldn't bat an eye if I killed myself.

In conclusion, what you do when you feel you're free from repercussion proves the kind of person you are, and Miss Ellis is a horrible one indeed. In looking at her history I have seen that she has a blowup like this about once a year, attacking the people she thinks she can get away with hurting and then hiding among men who reaffirm her status as being some sort of feminist valkyrie. I saved the Facebook assault and private messages, though I was unable to get screenshots of her LiveStream. The Twitter messages are still buried in her account. In my first post to her, I said that I did not mean to attack her and did not think she was a bad person. I change that position now. I do think she is a bad person. She got all of her fame through a man - Doug Walker - and relies on other men for protection and emotional support while declaring that women shouldn't have to rely on men. She stands against anti-gay bigotry but doesn't care about anti-male bigotry. She releases a film on having an abortion in 2007 and acts surprised and offended when one of the most controversial topics in the nation incites some people to anger.

Fuck you, Lindsay. I hope you and your boyfriend succeed in starting that other website so you can stop polluting a comedy site with your divisive, sexist and smugly self-superior filth.

Maturity

I read a well-written article today that, while it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, did return my mind to a topic that everyone seems to be trying to forget about: our nation is still embroiled in a thankless war. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/27/no_army_for_young_men?page=0,0

The overwhelming majority of military recruits are young and male, and the majority of that section is white. With our military still being entirely voluntary, this says a lot about the state of our society. As my readers know, I recently had to change my blog address after a vicious barrage of personal attacks I received due to a post on feminism that I have since taken down but plan to restore soon. These attacks in essence confirmed my argument, but I didn't want to deal with the sheer amount of hatred being spewed. However, feminist sentiments - specifically, the stronger and more meaningful first and second waves of feminism - have strong meaning here as well.

Feminism stands against patriarchy, but as my Women's Studies instructor in college - herself a veteran of the Civil Rights era - said, feminism isn't working anymore because it's becoming too isolationist. Just as the black rights movement abandoned the feminists that helped them gain momentum and offered unwavering support, so too is feminism now abandoning disenfranchised men as we all suffer beneath the tyranny of patriarchy.

Patriarchy is the root cause of many issues in America. It is an outdated system of beliefs and values that have no place in the modern world. Patriarchy treasures aggression and intolerance, an alpha-male mindset that allows those educated and privileged to follow the example of this world's Romneys and Roves, obliterating businesses and communities for even a modicum of personal gain and increase of power. For those without education or privilege, patriarchal sentiments instead lend themselves to shows of violence and undue aggression. In minority communities this more often leads to gang activities, the most brutal or cunning people gathering like-minded sycophants to enforce their will and spread influence. In poor white communities, where xenophobia runs high, joining the military to prove your strength and kill people who look and talk different is often the apex of one's aspirations.

The reason why older and more mature people don't join the military as readily as grunts fresh out of high school (or freshly 18 after having dropped out of school) is very simple: they are older and more mature. They have an understanding of life, don't want to lose theirs, and don't want to contribute to the taking of lives in a pointless war with no clear goal. People who are older and more mature who still want to join the military in this climate often have a skewed concept of patriotism.

To whit, the article above gets one thing wrong: the military isn't recruiting kids because of misguided ideals in the recruiters' department. The military is recruiting kids because they're often the only ones who'll join.

What many people don't realize - or don't want to acknowledge - is that the patriarchal ideals aren't actually based on male superiority. They're based on the traits of aggression, exploitation, dominance and intolerance, regardless of who espouses them. It's actually to the benefit of patriarchal society that the genders continue to duel with one another, as it fosters those very sentiments and traits.

When half the men are raised to believe that they deserve power based on physical strength or a hot temper; when half the women are told that they must be subservient or else must grow dominant and enforce those same values; when the other half of women are raised on warped concepts of feminism that espouse inequality in favor of women and focus on the physical and material instead of the sociological; when the other half of men are told they're inferior by male and female society alike for any number of reasons from lack of aggression to possession of a Y chromosome, turning them into resentful cretins... All this leads to is continued conflict, emotional trauma, and the perpetuation of the aggression and divisiveness that patriarchal society so treasures.

To sum up that rant, we need to change society at the fundamental level before we can reach true equality, and that means no more gender dueling. Men must stop treating women as possessions, walking sex toys or challenges to be beaten or avoided. Women must stop treating men as antagonists or objects of impossible physical and mental fantasies. Only when we set aside our animalistic tendencies can our society truly come together and shed the psychotic aggression that permeates our youth.

Dichotomy vs. Dialectic

Anyone who's read the news recently knows of the mad rioting going on in Arab nations in regard to a disingenuously made film that has been presented under myriad titles including 'The Innocence of Muslims'. I feel that this is a good time to explain to those on the outside one of the primary tenets of Islam, one of the reasons that reactions like this can be seen as justified. This is also a chance to address religion as a whole.

Islam

One of the most important things to know about Islam is how it differs from the other Abrahamic religions. While Christianity and Judaism are mostly mum or contradictory on the concept of human free will versus divine control, Islam has no such uncertainty, which is in my opinion one of its greatest weaknesses: Islam states that human beings have no self-control, morality or motivation of their own. In essence, our actions and even our thoughts are not our own; we are nothing more than meat puppets to be manipulated by either God or Satan.

Now, I don't claim to be a scholar on the Quran, but from what I have read it seems that the truly faithful are supposed to be able to tell whether someone's actions are motivated by God or Satan. This conceit of good against evil creates a false dichotomy, a ruthless black-and-white in a world of gray. In essence, anytime someone does something you don't like you could argue that their actions are being dictated by Satan. Obviously, most Muslims outside the Middle East are far more relaxed in regards to this concept, but in the theocratic dictatorships of the Mideast this concept is alive and well. It's one of the reasons dictators can so easily rise to power: Muslims are supposedly led to success by God and ruin by Satan, so those with power are obviously more faithful than those they oppress, right?

The Arab Spring was a turning point, but not strong enough on its own. Muslims may have sought the right to self-determine but they have not abandoned their religion or the dichotomy it espouses. Their ire against those possessed by Satan, who have supposedly given themselves over to evil enough to speak out against Mohammed, is still so easily roused that one asshole on YouTube can produce international murderous riots. In the eyes of such extremists, the fact that the creator hasn't yet been publicly murdered is a sign that the entirety of America agrees with that view and so everyone must be purged.

The principle of Islam that humans have no power nor free will is one of the reasons why I am loath to date any Muslim women: it's not because I believe that every Muslim is a crazy extremist, but because I don't think I could tolerate on an intimate basis someone whose views about mankind are so diametrically opposed to my own.

Speaking of diametric opposition, this is a perfect segue:

Dialectics: Religion & Humanity

The core of Hegelian philosophy is of the dialectics: the idea that two opposing concepts (or organizations, or individuals) must meet one another to be mutually destroyed and form a fundamental truth from the shattered essences of two incomplete conceits. This is what I believe must happen with religion and its rejection.

While religious fervor worldwide is climbing to a crescendo not seen since the Crusades, for the first time in the recorded history of mankind there is a significant number of human beings who fundamentally reject religion and mythology, preferring to focus instead on the here and now.

I believe that the fundamental principles of most religions - inclusion, striving to better oneself, defending your innocent fellows - should be preserved while the structure, power grabbing, and other corrupt practices of organized religion should be obliterated. Likewise, I believe that humanity does not require some mythology or clandestine order to instruct us on what is moral and right, but that the vehement and resentful rejection of other human beings' belief systems should be excised from our society.

I believe that, if we can succeed in removing the corrupt and fanatical religious devotion and erase the enraged anti-religion tenets espoused by the jaded, we can survive the coming turmoil. With luck, when the dust settles from the cataclysmic impact between religion and human interest, we will find a beneficial outcome from the dialectics.

A Cult

I have no premeditated witticisms for this one. I'm too pissed-off for that, but I'll probably toss some stuff out on the fly just so I don't cry myself to sleep tonight. I can no longer sit idly by and pretend at some facsimile of political correctness or benefit of the doubt. That time has passed, and I must truly speak my mind. I make no apologies to anyone who is offended or thinks that I am too harsh.


The Republican Party is a cult, as sadistic as Charles Manson's family and as fiercely devoted as the residents of Jonestown. They deny science, dehumanize anyone who doesn't conform to their delusions, and call for the deaths of whomever they arbitrarily declare to be the enemy. As I write this all off-the-cuff, I realize that I must give this some structure or I may devolve into the same firebrand death-wishing as those I so despise, so let's do this.

Formation
First off, a cult does not need to be established around a religion; a dogma or philosophy works just as well, as Nazi Germany showed. The National Socialist party was most certainly a cult, and it rejected all religion.

The only true necessity for a cult to form is a dogma strong enough to gather like-minded followers and enough intelligence in the leader to realize that it needs to be kept silent. I cannot point to exactly when the Republican party became wholly infested by their cult, but I know that Conservative dehumanization, death-wishing and regressionist campaigning has existed ever since before the Civil War. My best guess for the firm entrenchment of this cult would be during the McCarthy era, wherein the madmen found that the public was willing to go along with the wildest accusations if driven by fear, and the Other was certainly enough to incite this fear.

The fall of the Soviet Union had to be a crushing blow to this cult, as suddenly there was no looming Other to terrify the proletariat. In the face of this, the cult dug deep and dipped into the collective fears that are nurtured by religious dogma and the willful ignorance that has always been a secondary goal of the Church since its rise to power at the fall of the Roman Empire. Lacking one major Other, they decided to instead sow the seeds of terror and division far and wide, striking at anything they could: homosexuality, women, other races, other religions, other demographics and educational levels; anything that could be painted as Different, Other, and Evil was done so. Fear is the single greatest motivator to make a person act against his or her own best interests.

Dogma
What makes one small group a religion and another group a cult? Well, there are all sorts of reasons, but the number-one thing that separates a religion from a cult is that religion is supposed to be a part of your life, while a cult is intended to BE your life. Nothing can supersede your loyalty to the cult, your subservience and dedication to your leaders. This certainly explains how so many competing Christian religions, who normally despise one another to the point of near-civil war, can work together in the Republican party while still making religion one of their primary stances. The reason, of course, is that their religion is their cult, not whatever denomination they claim. They ally with a church to gain the loyalty of the cattle, following basic talking points while keeping their true intent hidden.

This is another important point in defining a cult: they keep their behavior secret. They do not share their beliefs with others who have not yet been heavily indoctrinated, nor do they share anything about themselves, their lives, friends, activities, or anything else if they can avoid it. Todd Akin's recent verbal atrocity hints at this: we all know that the Republican base believes his words, that the vagina is some magic creature that can slay unwanted sperm, but I don't honestly believe that the cultists in power believe this. This is the dogma they spout to their constituents to get them to fall in lockstep; Akin made the mistake of sharing it with people who would protest, so the rest of the party immediately disavowed him.

In addition, cultists actively reject facts that do not gel with their fantasies. Whether these facts are that their leader is only human and not a god, or that economic deregulation has never worked in the history of modern America, they are ignored and violently shouted down. As with most cults that find their origins in heresy, Republican cultists have no problem with picking apart their holy book - the Bible - and rewriting sections to fit with their own interpretation of the world, to hold up homosexuality as a far greater sin than violating the Ten Commandments or the Two Commandments of Christ's covenant, and to somehow completely negate Jesus' lessons to support the poor and donate their wealth as the rich can never enter Heaven.

Something odd, though, is that most cults don't last very long because they have a single godly figurehead, and with that lost most can no longer cling to their madness, or at least cannot perpetuate it. In this case, scarily enough, I believe that their god-figure is the dollar. Every policy recently offered up that did not strip individuals of their rights was somehow designed to leave more Americans unemployed or stuff even more money in the pockets of the richest Republicans. In this case, the cult's leader will never die as the dollar cannot truly be killed. Instead, we are tasked with the nightmarish challenge of defeating the worshippers rather than executing their leader.

Principles
Cults always stand against human decency, acting in manners directly anathema to the survival of the species. In this case, we know the origin of their actions: fear of the Other keeps their followers quietly in check, following along in abject terror of some evil brown person leaping out to slay them, with the occasional carrot being dangled before them to make them move faster - usually something to do with religion or the stripping of human rights from women or minorities.

However, fear has been working less and less. Americans don't have as much to fear. Fewer and fewer people, though still more than is in any way acceptable, fear others for the color of their skin, their religion or orientation. So, faced with this glaring fact, the cult has changed to incite hatred.

This scares me more than ever, even more than when I first learned about Bush-era renditioning. Tea Party rallies cheer when someone dies from lack of medical care, they call for the deaths of their candidates' political rivals, and plot the demise of our President. All the while their cultist puppet-masters continue to drive them forward, stoking the flames of their rage.

Republicans have made more unfounded claims regarding fellow Americans than we have seen since the age of McCarthy, and now the motivation of these accusations are not fear but hate. We have seen a total of eight mass killings in one month, and the month isn't even over yet.

We need to declare this Republican cult to be the religious terrorists they are before they amass and strike against peaceful Americans. Human compassion from the Right is at an all-time law, and they believe murder to be justified in idealistic disagreements. I do not normally stand as an advocate of fear or direct negative action against fellow human beings, but I can no longer sit quietly and watch as the raving masses continue to build power and create a feedback loop of rage amongst themselves. This bubble of hatred is soon to burst, and I fear for all those who believe in self-determination and human moral responsibility. The most outspoken of them will likely be the first casualties.

"Leave me alone!"

It's the rallying cry of all indignant, overprivileged teenagers, the assertion that they somehow know more about self-sufficiency, survival and the world at large than their parents. It's also the rallying cry of the Republican party, whose constituents all seem to have the mentality of teenagers or children younger still.

From their statements, Republican sentiment is clear: they don't want a federal government, they don't even want united states, and they certainly don't want an American people. The only thing that matters to them is what each one of them can get, and the more people they have to hurt to get it, the better that 'it' must be.

Well, from hearing all of these seditious little cretins' nonstop bitching, I've come up with an idea that might work for everyone:

Allow States to Temporarily Secede

If these Republican states believe that they can function without the federal government's protection or interference, if they want the chance to prove the superiority of their governance, let them take full responsibility for it.

Take one of the most insane states in the nation, Missouri. Offer them the chance to operate entirely as they will; however, they will be denied all federal support. No more Social Security, welfare, unemployment or aid for the ACA. All government funding for education, law enforcement, and emergency aid will likewise be cut, since according to Republicans the federal government doesn't have anything to do with that anyway. No more funding for their roads or utilities, so we can look the CEOs in the eye, point to the un-maintained roads and remind them that they DIDN'T build that, and their refusal to support those who do build those things will destroy their state.

If they accept (which is unlikely, since the politicians know the truth but like to keep their base ignorant), then broadcast the results. Show the people what happens when you let theocratic tyrants control a section of America. When the American people eventually realize what a horrible thing Conservative control actually is, perhaps they'll put the current Republicans out the way of Old Yeller and elect politicians who actually want to be cautious and conservative with our nation's resources instead of abandoning everyone to die at the feet of the ultra-rich.

Reviews: Darksiders II

Anyone who talks favorite video games with me knows that the first Darksiders ranks high up on the list. The storyline was engaging, the main character a delightfully honorable and diplomatic breakaway from similar games' emo pretty-boys or angry no-necked killing machines, and the gameplay the perfect combination of brutal bloodshed, fast-and-furious strategizing, and mind-bending puzzles.

The sequel does not disappoint.

The second game is not a sequel as much as a "simulquel," occurring during the same time period as the first game but following an entirely different storyline. On Earth, the noble War works to end the fighting, free the earth from demonic tyranny, and clear his name by exposing the originators of the apocalypse. In other dimensions, however, the more cunning and acid-tongued Death fights to restore humanity and end the threat of Corruption, a sort of spiritual virus loosed into the realms that has been infesting everything.

First off, the game looks excellent. The characters are wonderfully stylized by masterful artists and give the entire universe its own feel. The architecture is amazing, much of it looking as though it could be from snapshots of ancient ruins, and the environments feel rich and inviting. Much like in the previous Darksiders, there is more to see than to explore, but that's forgivable. In a dungeon-crawling action series like this, a bit of linearity is expected. However, the first two worlds are vast and offer many opportunities for exploration to discover their secrets.

Second, the sound is amazing. From sound effects such as metal on stone to the ultra-realistic sounds of Death's horse Despair galloping through forests, all are top-notch. The music ranges from "fuck yeah!" awesome to heartbreakingly beautiful. To stand above a waterfall and listen to the music intermingle with the rush of the water, or to crest a cliff and stare into the misty abyss with the haunting score in the background, is a breathtaking experience.

Third, the gameplay remains top-notch. When the first Darksiders came out, I happily proclaimed it to be better than the God of War series, and the sequel has maintained that lofty standard of a carnage-based series. One of the things that struck me as brilliant in the first game was the seamless merging of God of War's rampant slaughter with Devil May Cry's flow-based gameplay. War could move like water through legions of enemies, cutting them down with an ease that would make Kratos blush and a fury that would turn Dante green with envy.
Darksiders II has Death, faster than War but also weaker, who fights with more acrobatics. He doesn't have as much reach as his big brother, but he can close distance more easily. If War moved like water, then Death moves like a dancer.

The second game has adopted a more RPG-style bent than its predecessor, adding in item merchants, potions, equipment management, fast travel and a hub area. The shift was risky but pays off for the most part, though it does lead to a couple of downgrades.

First off, it makes the game more about item management than I believe it needed to be, particularly in regards to health potions. You can recover Wrath, the power for your special attacks, by utilizing your scythes instead of secondary weapons, but you either need special weapons to recover health bit by bit or you need to keep a full stock of health potions. It just feels a bit like a crutch added in to boss battles as well as a detriment to make fights with normal enemies a bit more threatening. Artificial difficulty adjustment, is what I'm getting at.

Second, making the game more RPG-based seems to have sacrificed some of the amazingly creative set ideas that the developers implemented in the first game. One could argue that it's simply because the special abilities aren't as blatantly exploited as in the first game, but that exploitation was still fun. I miss the spider queen's boxlike chambers where you could see through the floors and ceilings to peep at other nasty critters you'd eventually have to fight. The portal puzzles in the Destroyer's massive spire are some of my favorite memories, even though they could be hair-pullingly frustrating.

That's the final downgrade: the puzzles aren't as difficult as they were in the first game. Now, I understand the reason for toning down the insanity. Puzzles of the caliber of Portal, especially in an action game, can lead to a full-stop in the gameplay and that's bad. I experienced that myself in the first Darksiders with many of the portal puzzles.

Despite its deviating from the original game and taking many risks, a few of which failed in my opinion, I would never call Darksiders II a disappointment. It held me engaged every step of the way and, as a continuity nut, I was on the edge of my seat to see how the vast conspiracy would further unfold. I was not disappointed. Darksiders fans, don't skip the credit roll at the end of the game. It includes a stinger that furthers the plot and confirms my suspicions from the end of the first installment.

So, with plenty that's good and nothing that's truly bad, Darksiders II comes with my seal of approval!

Retrospective: Dead Space -or- EA can't fuck up ALL the time

Electronic Arts is the serial killer of the gaming world. They butcher companies, buying them out and gutting them, and turn the corpses into meat puppets. One has only to look at the necrophilic orgy that is Origin Systems or the slaughter of Westwood and subsequent closure of the Nevada studios to see this statement clearly evident, sensationalist though it may be.

However, they have still managed to put out some decent games. Back when EA let its companies work as they would, we had Westwood Studios blazing the trail for Real-Time Strategy, beginning with the Dune games and graduating up to their grand achievement, Command & Conquer. The first two C&C games, and their Red Alert spinoffs, were fantastic to say the least.

Then EA happened, stripping Westwood apart and implementing all new rules and restrictions that stifled the creative minds of the Nevada team. Frank Klepacki, brilliant games composer who singlehandedly helmed the scores of Command & Conquer, C&C Tiberian Sun, Red Alert AND Red Alert 2, was chased off because he wouldn't sign a new, much more limiting contract. Dozens more developers who helped put EA on the map in the 90s, who made EA at the time a symbol of quality gaming, were ousted and forced to seek employment elsewhere.

Electronic Arts murdered the Ultima series, imposing a stranglehold on the already of-questionable-mentality Richard Garriott, aka Lord British and outright obliterating the eighth and ninth games.

I already did a post about how EA gutted BioWare's creative integrity and the fetid abortion that was Mass Effect 3, so I won't even go into that again.

However, just as rotting corpses can produce new life, so too can EA make something good on that rare occasion - appropriately, with rotting corpses.

Enter Dead Space, the hands-down scariest game I have ever played, and a true joy to experience.

Now, before the horror-game diehards grab their torches and pitchforks, let me explain my above statement. I have experienced the greats of horror, from Silent Hill 2 to Amnesia. None of those scared me. I could speculate on all number of reasons that they didn't, but my best guess is that my own mind is far scarier than any dissonant pseudo-world that those games can create, and the inner demons I've faced during my deepest throes of depression are a thousand times scarier than any lumbering humanoid in those games.

What works in Dead Space, especially for me, is the feeling of direct malevolence. These aren't creatures that just drift around, attacking you only if you get too close. These beasts are out for your blood, and they're built explicitly for that purpose. The monsters are faster and more mobile than you are, so running is out of the question. It's kill or be killed, prey against predator, and that alone is eminently terrifying.

Humanity has spent so long at the top of the food chain that we forget what it's like to be hunted. This is why movies like the original Halloween produced such visceral terror: we get to experience, often for the first time, the feeling of being prey.

In Amnesia you are being hunted as well, but it's a rather "false" hunt, a disingenuous kind of fear. You have no capacity to fight back, so over time the effect changes from, "Holy god I'm gonna die" to, "Ah shit, gotta reload my game."

Giving the player a means by which to fight and even defeat the predators, Dead Space creates a truly animal setting: kill, or be killed. This is different from fighting other humans, because in shooting games like Call of Duty you've done something to incite combat. Against the monsters of Dead Space, your only crime is being food.

Many critics complained that it was too easy to mow down legions of enemies, that it should have been more like Silent Hill. That's fine for survival-horror games, but Dead Space is action-horror, a different breed. In addition, the reason why the monsters are so scary is precisely because of how many you kill. The ease with which these monsters will kill you shows how dangerous they are, and when you realize how many there are... When I first saw the legions of necromorphs in Dead Space 2 I was reminded of the army ants. Indeed, necromorphs take the most horrible parts of the Amnesia monster and the army ant and fuse them together: they're designed explicitly for killing, and there are so many of them that they overwhelm damn-near anything.

The religion that rises around these creatures - a real religion, not just some blood-drinking cult - is also a part of the terror. Unitology, the Marker, "Make Us Whole"... As the story of the two games unfolds, you realize just how little anyone knows of the true inner workings of Unitology, how little anyone understands the necromorphs' hive mind.

I think that slasher movies have since desensitized most people to the predator-prey concept, so games like Dead Space are dismissed as just jump-scare fests without real scares. However, I believe that if one allows oneself to be immersed in the world of the hunted, to actually experience the isolation and tension of being alone against an endless legion of predators that the game presents so masterfully, one can truly find one of the most rewarding - and chilling - experiences in modern gaming. Likewise, for every jump-scare there are two, three or more subtle occurrences that can be missed if one's eyes aren't open. To me, that's much scarier than an endless barrage of cutscenes that outright order the player to be disturbed. Finding yourself in a living world, one that goes on with or without you, and is falling apart regardless, is to me far more terrifying than being trapped in a world made up of inner demons that would piss themselves at the dark thoughts running through my head when I'm off my meds.

Skyrim: A Political Fairy Tale

Allow me to first disclaim this: not only do I not own Skyrim or anything else produced by Bethesda Softworks, I do not claim the thoughts expressed in this post to be the thoughts of the programmers and writers. I am using this to make a point, nothing more.

BTW, SPOILERS

Now, with that out of the way...

The underlying conflict of Skyrim, beneath the dragons, is that the empire is on the brink of death. It faces a foe more powerful, patient and charismatic than itself, and is teetering on the precipice of annihilation. While this is going on, there is simultaneously a civil war occurring in Skyrim between the Nords and the rest of the empire. The Nords believe that they have the obligation to overthrow the Empire of Tamriel, rebuilding it in Skyrim, because the empire was not powerful enough to defeat the Aldmeri Dominion. The Nords - specifically, the Stormcloak rebels - believe that the entire empire deserved death in their defeat and that every day alive is a day of shame.

The civil war's impetus was the Dominion's primary agents, the Thalmor, being permitted to rendition away worshipers of Talos when the Dominion had outlawed the god's worship. Of course, while the empire had agreed to the outlawing, they simply moved all temples indoors and continued worshiping in quiet protest while they built up strength to overthrow the Dominion.

Then, Ulfric Stormcloak happened. Ulfric attacked the city of Markarth, which was at the time being run by the Reachmen instead of the Nords. He slaughtered every Reachman he could find and then began publicly executing every Nord man, woman and child who did not immediately take up arms against the Reachmen when Ulfric sacked the city. Ulfric then publicly demanded that the empire permit worship of Talos once again or he would kill every one of his captives. The empire relented, planning to arrest Ulfric as soon as he released his captives. Unfortunately, the Dominion found out and ordered the empire to allow Thalmor police into Skyrim to seek out sedition or the war would begin anew. The empire, unable to sustain another war without annihilation, relented.

This was the impetus for Ulfric's rebellion: a crisis that he caused, which he then says he can fix. Beyond that, he murdered Skyrim's High King even though the King, Torygg, would have gladly stood beside Ulfric and worked toward change. Ulfric's first goal in the civil war is to obliterate the neutral city of Whiterun, because as he frequently says, "If you're not with us, you're against us."

I genuinely doubt that the good folks at Bethesda intended to make a statement on the American political climate; rather, the theme seems to be to look beyond the surface. At first blush, the empire seems like the bad guys, since your character gets swept up in an Imperial ambush and captured with Ulfric, set to be executed without trial. So you go to meet Ulfric and then learn all this stuff and realize that he's the real bad guy in this civil war.

So it is with our two-party system. Beware the men who ride in on white horses who claim that they can fix all your problems. It's true that Democrats, like the Imperials, are not always right, but they're trying to keep everyone safe despite their failures. The Republicans, like the Stormcloaks, are crusading to end a problem that they created, but blame everyone else for that problem. Just as Conservatives lobbied for America's businesses to collapse, so too did the Stormcloaks wish for their entire populace to be slaughtered and enslaved rather than a surrender reached.

The Stormcloaks argued for religion when religion was never truly threatened, yet they created the very crisis against which they now campaign. Likewise, somehow the Republicans have turned this into a war on religion when no one is trying to take away religion. Conservatives have constructed their own Thalmor in their mind, some sort of secret thought police to prevent Christianity from being practiced. All the while, of course, they act to harm and outright destroy those of our populace who hold differing ideals.

Speaking of differing ideals, the Stormcloaks embody and frequently state that, "You're with us or you're against us." There is no chance for peace, no opportunity for diplomacy or reconciliation of ideals. Either you fall into lockstep or you are the embodiment of all evil and need to be purged from the earth. Does that sound familiar? The Republican-dominated Congress has been completely obstructionist, doing nothing to help the American people unless we cater entirely to their demands, at which point they MIGHT be convinced to throw us a bone of a job-creation bill or some other protection, but more than likely we won't get anything because we're not "true Americans" and thus are undeserving of any care or aid, just as the Stormcloaks refuse to aid anyone who isn't a "true son or daughter of Skyrim."

The Stormcloaks fight to chase all the other races out of Skyrim. From their own descendants - Breton, Redguard and Imperial - to the elves who have never done anything to harm Skyrim. Ulfric's father opened the gates of his city to the dark elves, since thousands of Dunmer were left homeless and destitute after natural disasters in their province. Ulfric's father was a font of charity and goodness. Ulfric segregated his city of Windhelm the moment he inherited the throne, turning the Dunmer into second-class citizens. Anyone who is not a Nord is presumed to be a seditious traitor until proven otherwise; non-Nords are often beaten, murdered, or kidnapped and tortured.

Do I even need to continue to draw parallels to the Republican party? George Romney was a man of integrity who lost his party's presidential primary because he would not stoop to the seditious and evil demands of the radical Right. Now his son stands for everything that George did not. Willard Romney upholds the principles of separation, inequality and privilege for only the few.

What I find truly amazing is that I still don't believe that Bethesda was out to convey a political message. I think they were just trying to envision the most deceitful, semi-believable militant bigots possible and put them into the game as the objective "bad" side, yet not defined as such by everyone. I'm certain that the writers for the Elder Scrolls series were just as surprised as I am that the Republican party has come to embody every evil of the Stormcloak party, from their leader to their principles.

However, just as in the game, striking down Ulfric and breaking apart his treasonous slaughter of fellow citizens is not the end of the troubles, and neither will a defeat of the Republican party in November be a full-stop win for America. However, without people trying to kill their fellow Americans, denying medical care and employment to people for not having been born into some arbitrary group, we can perhaps start to rebuild what we have lost.

Our own real-world Thalmor and Alduin the World-Eater may hover above us in the form of global economic damage and political upheaval, but if we can stand as one people we have a far better chance of surviving the onslaught than if we remain in conflict or slaughter/disenfranchise anyone outside of the Republicans' narrow definition of a True American.

Soapbox

Civil rights issues are like a bad pimple. They fill up with more and more pus and vitriol until finally it rises to a head and bursts. The Greensboro Four were one example, taking a stand against unspoken civil injustice. In that case, Woolworth's was the first battleground in that war for equality.

Now we face a new war for equality, and again it is an eating establishment that is at the forefront. However, this controversy has exposed more than simply a battle for equal rights based on sexuality; it has exposed an ongoing battle against rational thought and equal protection under law for all citizens of this nation.

Time and again I have heard Republicans insult gays and Liberals, calling them hypocrites for exercising their own right to freedom of speech. They parade the mayors of Chicago and Boston up and down, ignoring the many civil cases in the South where people are fired based on their political leanings.

Emmanuel Kant codified his categorical imperative after the Christian "golden rule": do unto others as you would have done unto you. In Kant's case, the entirety of his primary philosophical conceit was that morality is universal. If you wouldn't want someone else cheating on a test, or stealing from you, or murdering you, you shouldn't steal or cheat or murder. Other people's leanings were irrelevant. For example, the categorical imperative did not say that you were allowed to stop other people from eating foods they liked just because you don't like them, because you wouldn't want somebody stopping you from eating the food you like, right?

This applies not only to marriage equality but to this nation as a whole. Conservatives think that the law should apply only to them. When the government tries to create jobs it's a handout, yet when a business receives hefty governmental aid it's capitalism at its finest.
When Conservatives boycott stores or campaign to strip citizens of their rights, that's supposed to be protected under law. When Liberals boycott stores and campaign to ensure equal rights for all, somehow that's unconstitutional.

This, I believe, is the greatest issue facing Americans today: the idea that one way of thinking is the only true way, that only one group of people are allowed to get away with amoral and blatantly evil actions while the rest of us are supposed to abide by law.

It can be seen in other arenas besides the civil rights debate: Harry Reid has recently called out Mitt Romney, citing a currently anonymous source within Bain Capital that Romney has paid no federal taxes for at least a decade. Romney fired back at Reid to "put up or shut up," saying that he has paid taxes and that America should trust him.
Trust him, really? When Romney campaigned for Massachusetts he not only demanded that his opponent show her tax returns - which she did - but also her husband's tax returns, on the grounds that there could be fraud. Meanwhile neither Willard nor Ann Romney released any of their tax returns.

Conservatives panic whenever a church is discredited, riot if a church's rights are threatened, and decry any pedophiles or other criminals within the Church as not representative of the entirety of the Church. Yet when a Jew or Muslim steps anywhere out of line it is somehow evidence that their entire religion is corrupt and evil.

A wise pastor once said that we cannot categorically define good and evil, that God and Satan are abstract ideals and we cannot simply look at a person's actions to know their heart. While I agree, I do believe that right and wrong - on a moralistic level - are nowhere near so abstract. Certainly one can do the right things for the wrong reasons and vice versa, but determining the merit of an action is much easier than determining the morals of a person.

In this case, with blatant hypocrisy and the insistence that they don't have to abide by their own laws, principles and talking points, Conservatives are certainly proving that, while we might not be able to judge their souls, their actions are certainly heavily slanted toward the Dark Side.

Christlike

It's Bible time again, kids. Pull up a chair and learn about Jesus - the actual Jesus from the Bible, not the Jesus portrayed by Christian media as some sort of hatemonger.

I had been planning to make a post about this subject earlier, and then I find a blog saying something similar to my own idea, so let's build on that: http://tinyurl.com/cogts7t

The Gospel of Matthew, and Matthew 22:36-40 in particular, establish the new Covenant, and the two Commandments which supersede all others, regardless of whether prior Commandments were from man or God. To paraphrase, since you can just click the aforementioned link and read the quote in its entirety - or grab a Bible and get the same info - Jesus tells us that the two most important things, the two Commandments that stand above EVERY other decree ever made, are to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. In another verse, Jesus acknowledged all mankind, strangers and friends alike, to be his brothers and sisters, so in this case "your neighbor" means all of humankind, regardless of their leanings.

For example, we all want the right to love those we love, right? The right to take that person, loved above any other human, into our family? There is no excuse to spread hatred and to disenfranchise our fellow humans for being gay, any more than there is excuse to hate a person for being black or Jewish or even for being Pastafarian (look that up; it's awesome).

Jesus invited everyone to sit at his table and share in the food he had prepared, much to the surprise of his disciples. Thieves, liars, tax collectors, the rich and the poor and the diseased and the mad, none were turned away. That is the entire reason Christianity began, and how it became so massive: at the beginning, Christians led by example, following Jesus' lead and meeting everything with love and acceptance. This made people want to be a part of this wonderful group that spread love. Nowadays, sadly, Christianity is about exclusion and superiority, about who to hate and how to say "we're better than you."

This is the reason why I utterly despise the cult that is "born-again" Christianity. There is no greater arrogance than to say that because you fucked up and were forgiven you're somehow better than those who have never fallen. For all his militance, especially after Jesus' death, Paul never once placed himself above the other disciples because he had been a bad man before enlightenment. Jesus never once said that bad people who repent are somehow cosmically better than good people who have never committed grievous sins.

In addition, the perception of what is the greatest sin seems greatly skewed in modern understanding, despite the fact that it's pretty obvious how Jesus felt: look through the Bible for the only time Jesus raised a hand in genuine anger, the only time he attacked another human being. Did Jesus strike down murderers or liars? No, the sin to which he took the most offense was greed, physically hurling the money changers out of the house of God. Murder can be justified to oneself as being for a good reason, and a lie can sometimes save lives. But pure greed, taking the livelihood of fellow human beings for no other purpose than to make yourself wealthier, leaving others destitute and with no way to support themselves and their families, is pure evil. It cannot be justified.

How do modern Christians defend groups that work to take money from our weakest when that was the one offense that sparked rage in their Savior?

Pros and conned

The recent Chik-Fil-A controversy has unveiled a disturbing number of gay-haters, many of whom try to disguise their bigotry - even to themselves - with rhetoric and differing arguments. The "pro-" movement has existed for a long time, and is most often utilized by the ignorant in an attempt to positively or negatively charge a debate.

Take some of the most common (and inaccurate) terms: Pro-Life and Pro-Family. Pro-Life is just a blatant lie. If life is sacred, why is it only sacred until birth? After that, Conservatives work to strip healthcare from mothers and children, stating that programs such as welfare and Medicare are only a drain on society, and it's every person's duty to take care of themselves. Of course, this is why Ron Paul, one of the biggest supporters of abolishing Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security makes excessive use of all of them for himself and his family. Apparently only those capable of easily supporting themselves deserve handouts, because why should those with the ability to do so actually do so?
People who are Pro-Life also frequently favor the death penalty and leniency in killings with laws like Stand Your Ground, so again life is sacred only until birth, then they don't seem to care if people die or are murdered. Truly, Pro-Life is simply Anti-Abortion trying to make itself appear friendlier.

Pro-Family is another laughable concept, if one actually takes a step back. Those people who claim to be Pro-Family stand behind representatives who are adulterers, who hate their own family members for being different, who divorce their spouses or abandon them to die, and numerous other atrocities against the concept of family.
The entirety of the Pro-Family argument is basically "pro-anything that's not gay." Gay children are shunned, and gay people are hated. Many of homosexuals' detractors say that gays are "anti-family" or "anti-traditional marriage." This implies that they wish to abolish marriage or tear apart families, and where has one advocate for gay rights seriously come out and said that gay marriage should be the only marriage? I'm seriously asking for a single recorded statement, on the record in a press release, saying that this is the goal.

Now for two actual "pros": First is Pro-Choice, which does nothing but acknowledge that it is each woman's, and each family's, choice. If Pro-Life doesn't care that parents torture and violently beat their children, and calls for the deaths of people every day, how can they claim the moral high ground over a movement that just says that a person's body is his or her own?

Next is Pro-Equality, a common term for the gay rights movement. As the name says, the movement is focused on equal rights, not on superiority. Gays only want the same rights as any other Americans, the ability to visit their loved ones in the hospital and to share the precious commodity that is health insurance, among other things.

As an addendum, I truly do not understand the hatred of gays. Homosexuality is not condemned by the Ten Commandments, nor by any sacred covenant between God and His people. How do the religious Conservatives justify permitting violators of the Ten Commandments, the very building blocks of Christianity, to hold rights that they would keep stripped from gays?