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?
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
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?
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?
An Outpouring of Rage
I am a writer. No, that's not strong enough. I am a baccalaureate scholar with a degree in English literature. No, that's not good enough either.
I am autistic.
As many of those with autism associate with numbers, so do I with letters. Words are my lifeblood. Still, I suffer from occasional yet thankfully brief bouts of aphasia, which can still almost induce panic attacks. Were I to suffer a stroke or other calamity that stripped me of my ability to use words, I fear that I might die simply due to being separated from that which makes my mind whole.
Due to this, I cannot simply sit back and mock as others do the prevalence of books such as Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey as they top the bestseller list. True, books such as these, abominations that clutter the bargain shelves, are sometimes quite literally a dime a dozen. What sets off those two, however, is that they have sold millions of copies and are lauded as paragons of writing by a significant portion of the English-speaking world.
Twilight is bad enough, but Shades is even worse. It began as Twilight fan-fiction, in an alternate continuity where Edward was a multi-billionaire with an obsession with sadism in place of being a sparkly bloodsucker. It evolved into a three-part series of piss-poor smut with endlessly repeated phrases, bland characters and bullshit. Then again, the characters are once again bland so that the sheltered reader can self-insert and fantasize. Shades capitalizes on the rape fantasy that many women seem to have, the concept of "safe" rape. These women are deeply disturbed. To somehow sexualize an act that is literally built on stripping the humanity from a fellow human being requires a mind that I, thankfully, do not possess.
I have nothing against bondage or S&M kink, but this is none of that. It is bullshit pretending to be kink, allowing housewives to have their cake and eat it too by providing not only safe rape, but a bad boy for them to change. The sheer number of daddy issues in that last sentence alone should make several psychoanalysts spontaneously ejaculate.
It deeply troubles me - no, not strong enough. It terrifies me that the English language as a whole seems to be growing more stupid. This isn't like Shakespeare, where brilliant plays were presented to a bawdy and undereducated audience. This is a series of over two thousand pages, rife with spelling errors and endlessly repeated words. This was clearly published without any oversight or editing, as the author just did a find-replace search to remove Edward and Bella's names. The repetitiveness is understandable from that angle because a bad writer doesn't reread her previous chapters, so each new chapter of the fan fiction, posted as an independent document, would have the same cliches.
Words are my lifeblood, and this is an outpouring of necrosis. Consumers dictate what writers will produce in an attempt to make a living, and I am petrified to think of what may come next with this precedent set. Obviously these books cater to a festering psychological sore in Western women's lives, but if we hold up our damages as badges of honor, turn a detriment into a desirable, then our culture - and our language - will assuredly backslide into a fetid monstrosity.
I am autistic.
As many of those with autism associate with numbers, so do I with letters. Words are my lifeblood. Still, I suffer from occasional yet thankfully brief bouts of aphasia, which can still almost induce panic attacks. Were I to suffer a stroke or other calamity that stripped me of my ability to use words, I fear that I might die simply due to being separated from that which makes my mind whole.
Due to this, I cannot simply sit back and mock as others do the prevalence of books such as Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey as they top the bestseller list. True, books such as these, abominations that clutter the bargain shelves, are sometimes quite literally a dime a dozen. What sets off those two, however, is that they have sold millions of copies and are lauded as paragons of writing by a significant portion of the English-speaking world.
Twilight is bad enough, but Shades is even worse. It began as Twilight fan-fiction, in an alternate continuity where Edward was a multi-billionaire with an obsession with sadism in place of being a sparkly bloodsucker. It evolved into a three-part series of piss-poor smut with endlessly repeated phrases, bland characters and bullshit. Then again, the characters are once again bland so that the sheltered reader can self-insert and fantasize. Shades capitalizes on the rape fantasy that many women seem to have, the concept of "safe" rape. These women are deeply disturbed. To somehow sexualize an act that is literally built on stripping the humanity from a fellow human being requires a mind that I, thankfully, do not possess.
I have nothing against bondage or S&M kink, but this is none of that. It is bullshit pretending to be kink, allowing housewives to have their cake and eat it too by providing not only safe rape, but a bad boy for them to change. The sheer number of daddy issues in that last sentence alone should make several psychoanalysts spontaneously ejaculate.
It deeply troubles me - no, not strong enough. It terrifies me that the English language as a whole seems to be growing more stupid. This isn't like Shakespeare, where brilliant plays were presented to a bawdy and undereducated audience. This is a series of over two thousand pages, rife with spelling errors and endlessly repeated words. This was clearly published without any oversight or editing, as the author just did a find-replace search to remove Edward and Bella's names. The repetitiveness is understandable from that angle because a bad writer doesn't reread her previous chapters, so each new chapter of the fan fiction, posted as an independent document, would have the same cliches.
Words are my lifeblood, and this is an outpouring of necrosis. Consumers dictate what writers will produce in an attempt to make a living, and I am petrified to think of what may come next with this precedent set. Obviously these books cater to a festering psychological sore in Western women's lives, but if we hold up our damages as badges of honor, turn a detriment into a desirable, then our culture - and our language - will assuredly backslide into a fetid monstrosity.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
The Call of Duty Principle
Look at any Internet meme regarding Call of Duty, Battlefield, or any other first-person shooter with online multiplayer. Inevitably, the joke will be that the enemy team are experts and master strategists, while the poster's team are about as competent as the primates from the opening of 2001.
This, what I have dubbed the Call of Duty Principle (hereafter referred to as the CDP), is equally applicable to the gun control debate. One of the common by-rote refutations of gun control is that gun ownership demands responsibility, and therefore gun owners are responsible. That kind of ass-backward logic is analogous to saying that running a country requires one to care for and protect his people, therefore Edi Amin cared for and protected his subjects.
Guns might demand responsibility, but since they're not sentient they can't insist on it. All of the cases of imbeciles shooting themselves, children shooting themselves or others with unsecured guns, and "amateur" hunters and showmen killing bystanders pretty much prove that guns aren't very fucking well controlled.
The second common argument, repeated like a Z-grade movie zombie repeats "braiiiiins," is that criminals will still obtain guns illegally, so why have laws in the first place? And to anyone who legitimately posits this 'reasoning,' please kindly enact celibacy and become a hermit so that neither the gene pool nor humanity's minds are tainted by your caustic stupidity. By that reasoning, there should be no laws at all. People will still take stuff, so why make theft illegal? People will still kill each other, so why punish murder? People will still crash their cars, so why put up speed bumps or fine speeders or arrest for vehicular manslaughter?
Gun control laws were originally intended to make it harder for bad people to obtain deadly weapons, and they might have worked had imbeciles not continually bitched about them and fought to repeal or weaken the laws. Smuggling in weapons, particularly large ones like assault rifles and shotguns, is expensive and very risky. Sadly, since gun stores now sell these firearms and lack of responsibility makes them easy to steal, there no longer needs to be any smuggling. You can illegally obtain any firearm these days by sneaking into a gun shop after hours or robbing your redneck neighbor. No need to even leave town.
Moreover, assault weapons are generally only used in massacres. Gangs and other criminal groups don't use them because they're hard to conceal. The majority of weaponry used in mass killings is purchased legally, since the killer doesn't care about being caught. Illegal assault weapons are generally only found during large-scale gang warfare or on the persons of cartel bodyguards.
Finally, there's the idea of defense. "If they're gonna attack with assault weapons, I need one too!"
Slow it down there, Skippy. This isn't like Rocky, where you need to be just as big to beat up the other guy. All an assault weapon in your hands will do is to harm more innocent bystanders.
I refer, finally, to the CDP: on the whole, people with legally obtained guns are fucking morons. Recall any recent shooting where the attacker was taken down by a bystander. Did anyone make use of a firearm? No, it was usually an unarmed and elderly person. What happened to these posturing maniacs? In general, such skags tend to run or curl up in a ball and piss themselves. They want a gun to feel like a man, or to compensate for having a toothpick for a cock, but when actual danger calls they're a blubbering mess of tears, mucus and fecal matter.
And even if you did pull out a goddamn Kalashnikov, what then? Somebody starts shooting, then you start shooting, then everybody else starts shooting? How do you know if the other shooters are defending themselves, if they're friends of the first shooter, or if they just want to kill you too? What do you do? Do you keep shooting until you're the last one standing? And how do the police know who's defending themselves and who's attacking? Is the solution then to just kill everyone who's not you?
Even more bizarre are the nutjobs who claim to need a goddamn military arsenal for home defense. Some ex-military fuck admits to having six assault rifles, three shotguns, a bunch of pistols, and enough ammunition to supply Monaco's police force. Who does he expect to attack him, the Huns? Is he going to be raided by Commies who somehow snuck an entire platoon through Customs?
"Yeah, a buncha Nazis ended up in America, and they used their super-secret time machines like Captain Jack Harkness to jump ahead to an indeterminate time. So at any point these fascists could teleport into my living room, guns blazing. I need to be ready for that!"
The argument is that they don't know who might attack their home. But I can say with reasonable fucking certainty that it's not going to be the Egyptian military rolling through your den!
In addition, having that many guns is a detriment. I know that these deep-in-denial shitstains like to believe that Leave It To Beaver was a documentary and that burglars all wear striped prison uniforms and crash through windows, but the truth is, criminals - especially burglars and home invaders- are SNEAKY. They SNEAK. The reason they sneak is because what they are doing is illegal, just like fucking your sister, which most gun-lovers do too. Well, I don't think incest is illegal in West Virginia, but that's where they filmed the documentary The Hills Have Eyes, so that doesn't fucking count.
So you see, a burglar, being SNEAKY, sneaks into your home. Now, since you're an asstard who doesn't secure his sixteen guns - including the Luger-shaped dildo you shove up your pucker - the burglar who SNUCK into your home now has your guns. He can then sell them from his trunk, meaning that you have just helped abet the illegal gun trade.
And let's say that you do wake up. Being the traditional gun-happy sombitch, you are not SNEAKY. You clomp down the stairs with your belly bobbing in front of you or fart your way through the halls. Well, now the burglar has your guns and he knows you're coming. He can shoot you. There are enough cases of people being murdered with their own firearms to support this.
So now you're dead, shot with your own weapon. And why? Because art imitates life, and the CDP applies in both. The bad guys, who make a living at being careful and/or killing people, are much more capable of killing you than you, a couch-potato who has delusions of Rambdeur, have of stopping them.
So shut the fuck up about guns. If you're worried about getting attacked, get a Derringer or other small, maneuverable weapon and load it with hollow-points or explosive bullets. If home defense is your concern, get a bigger gun, maybe a Desert Eagle, and again, hollow points. At most, a pump-action shotgun is all you need.
And if you can't be bothered to become competent enough with a pistol or a shotgun to reliably hit your target, then whatever happens is your own fault, and you wouldn't have been saved by an M-16 or a chaingun.
This, what I have dubbed the Call of Duty Principle (hereafter referred to as the CDP), is equally applicable to the gun control debate. One of the common by-rote refutations of gun control is that gun ownership demands responsibility, and therefore gun owners are responsible. That kind of ass-backward logic is analogous to saying that running a country requires one to care for and protect his people, therefore Edi Amin cared for and protected his subjects.
Guns might demand responsibility, but since they're not sentient they can't insist on it. All of the cases of imbeciles shooting themselves, children shooting themselves or others with unsecured guns, and "amateur" hunters and showmen killing bystanders pretty much prove that guns aren't very fucking well controlled.
The second common argument, repeated like a Z-grade movie zombie repeats "braiiiiins," is that criminals will still obtain guns illegally, so why have laws in the first place? And to anyone who legitimately posits this 'reasoning,' please kindly enact celibacy and become a hermit so that neither the gene pool nor humanity's minds are tainted by your caustic stupidity. By that reasoning, there should be no laws at all. People will still take stuff, so why make theft illegal? People will still kill each other, so why punish murder? People will still crash their cars, so why put up speed bumps or fine speeders or arrest for vehicular manslaughter?
Gun control laws were originally intended to make it harder for bad people to obtain deadly weapons, and they might have worked had imbeciles not continually bitched about them and fought to repeal or weaken the laws. Smuggling in weapons, particularly large ones like assault rifles and shotguns, is expensive and very risky. Sadly, since gun stores now sell these firearms and lack of responsibility makes them easy to steal, there no longer needs to be any smuggling. You can illegally obtain any firearm these days by sneaking into a gun shop after hours or robbing your redneck neighbor. No need to even leave town.
Moreover, assault weapons are generally only used in massacres. Gangs and other criminal groups don't use them because they're hard to conceal. The majority of weaponry used in mass killings is purchased legally, since the killer doesn't care about being caught. Illegal assault weapons are generally only found during large-scale gang warfare or on the persons of cartel bodyguards.
Finally, there's the idea of defense. "If they're gonna attack with assault weapons, I need one too!"
Slow it down there, Skippy. This isn't like Rocky, where you need to be just as big to beat up the other guy. All an assault weapon in your hands will do is to harm more innocent bystanders.
I refer, finally, to the CDP: on the whole, people with legally obtained guns are fucking morons. Recall any recent shooting where the attacker was taken down by a bystander. Did anyone make use of a firearm? No, it was usually an unarmed and elderly person. What happened to these posturing maniacs? In general, such skags tend to run or curl up in a ball and piss themselves. They want a gun to feel like a man, or to compensate for having a toothpick for a cock, but when actual danger calls they're a blubbering mess of tears, mucus and fecal matter.
And even if you did pull out a goddamn Kalashnikov, what then? Somebody starts shooting, then you start shooting, then everybody else starts shooting? How do you know if the other shooters are defending themselves, if they're friends of the first shooter, or if they just want to kill you too? What do you do? Do you keep shooting until you're the last one standing? And how do the police know who's defending themselves and who's attacking? Is the solution then to just kill everyone who's not you?
Even more bizarre are the nutjobs who claim to need a goddamn military arsenal for home defense. Some ex-military fuck admits to having six assault rifles, three shotguns, a bunch of pistols, and enough ammunition to supply Monaco's police force. Who does he expect to attack him, the Huns? Is he going to be raided by Commies who somehow snuck an entire platoon through Customs?
"Yeah, a buncha Nazis ended up in America, and they used their super-secret time machines like Captain Jack Harkness to jump ahead to an indeterminate time. So at any point these fascists could teleport into my living room, guns blazing. I need to be ready for that!"
The argument is that they don't know who might attack their home. But I can say with reasonable fucking certainty that it's not going to be the Egyptian military rolling through your den!
In addition, having that many guns is a detriment. I know that these deep-in-denial shitstains like to believe that Leave It To Beaver was a documentary and that burglars all wear striped prison uniforms and crash through windows, but the truth is, criminals - especially burglars and home invaders- are SNEAKY. They SNEAK. The reason they sneak is because what they are doing is illegal, just like fucking your sister, which most gun-lovers do too. Well, I don't think incest is illegal in West Virginia, but that's where they filmed the documentary The Hills Have Eyes, so that doesn't fucking count.
So you see, a burglar, being SNEAKY, sneaks into your home. Now, since you're an asstard who doesn't secure his sixteen guns - including the Luger-shaped dildo you shove up your pucker - the burglar who SNUCK into your home now has your guns. He can then sell them from his trunk, meaning that you have just helped abet the illegal gun trade.
And let's say that you do wake up. Being the traditional gun-happy sombitch, you are not SNEAKY. You clomp down the stairs with your belly bobbing in front of you or fart your way through the halls. Well, now the burglar has your guns and he knows you're coming. He can shoot you. There are enough cases of people being murdered with their own firearms to support this.
So now you're dead, shot with your own weapon. And why? Because art imitates life, and the CDP applies in both. The bad guys, who make a living at being careful and/or killing people, are much more capable of killing you than you, a couch-potato who has delusions of Rambdeur, have of stopping them.
So shut the fuck up about guns. If you're worried about getting attacked, get a Derringer or other small, maneuverable weapon and load it with hollow-points or explosive bullets. If home defense is your concern, get a bigger gun, maybe a Desert Eagle, and again, hollow points. At most, a pump-action shotgun is all you need.
And if you can't be bothered to become competent enough with a pistol or a shotgun to reliably hit your target, then whatever happens is your own fault, and you wouldn't have been saved by an M-16 or a chaingun.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
The religion of the self
I was raised Christian. I grew up around radicals and undereducated, self-righteous hatemongers. One of the most common faux-intellectual arguments I found disseminated in so-called Christian book and video stores was that of the "religion of self."
The basic idea behind the religion of self argument was that questioning Christianity, wanting scientific or empirical explanations for phenomena, or even reasoned explanations for policies of exclusion; all of these things led to atheism, the so-called "religion of self," focusing on the immediate and the human aspect instead of the spiritual.
However, let us take a look at the concept of a religion of self. The basic idea spread by Christian organizations is that questioning faith means turning away from God, and that such an action leads to debauchery and hatred. Unfortunately, the evidence does not support these statements. Rejection of mass-produced Christian doctrine has tended toward acceptance and protection of your fellow people, including self-sacrifice for the betterment of all instead of the betterment of select groups.
From the Boy Scouts to Chick Fil-A to the Salvation Army, national and international Christian groups have chosen to discriminate against gays, races, and more. Directly contrary to the preaching of love toward all peoples, sinners or saints, these groups choose instead to propagate hatred and inequality.
From an even-handed perspective, the title of "religion of self" belongs more to fundamentalist religion than to atheism. These "born-again" radicals ignore sections of the Bible that disagree with their prejudiced world views, picking and choosing only the verses that they like in order to build their own religion that runs directly contrary to the original Christian doctrine. Christianity has gone from asking God to forgive your murderers, and has moved on to telling God that your murder of an innocent is justified, and then ordering God to send those you killed to Hell.
The presumption of humans that they not only know every nuance of God's plan, not only can speak for God, but can actually instruct God on how to act, how is this anything other than a religion of self?
To speak exclusively of Christianity, since I don't have in-depth experience in other fundamentalist religions, these self-centered and hateful doctrines are condoned by the vocal minority yet are not universally decried by those Christians who do not believe the same. Atheism and the demonized "religion" of knowing right from wrong are not the religions of self, they are the religions of wholeness. Christians who stand up for equality are demonized and attacked by the radicals, yet the rest of the moderate or liberal Christians do not stand up for their fellows.
Christians, answer me this: if it is a sin and evil to share love with everyone, to look upon all humanity as your family, then doesn't that mean, by that definition, that Jesus Christ was the most vile sinner of all time?
The basic idea behind the religion of self argument was that questioning Christianity, wanting scientific or empirical explanations for phenomena, or even reasoned explanations for policies of exclusion; all of these things led to atheism, the so-called "religion of self," focusing on the immediate and the human aspect instead of the spiritual.
However, let us take a look at the concept of a religion of self. The basic idea spread by Christian organizations is that questioning faith means turning away from God, and that such an action leads to debauchery and hatred. Unfortunately, the evidence does not support these statements. Rejection of mass-produced Christian doctrine has tended toward acceptance and protection of your fellow people, including self-sacrifice for the betterment of all instead of the betterment of select groups.
From the Boy Scouts to Chick Fil-A to the Salvation Army, national and international Christian groups have chosen to discriminate against gays, races, and more. Directly contrary to the preaching of love toward all peoples, sinners or saints, these groups choose instead to propagate hatred and inequality.
From an even-handed perspective, the title of "religion of self" belongs more to fundamentalist religion than to atheism. These "born-again" radicals ignore sections of the Bible that disagree with their prejudiced world views, picking and choosing only the verses that they like in order to build their own religion that runs directly contrary to the original Christian doctrine. Christianity has gone from asking God to forgive your murderers, and has moved on to telling God that your murder of an innocent is justified, and then ordering God to send those you killed to Hell.
The presumption of humans that they not only know every nuance of God's plan, not only can speak for God, but can actually instruct God on how to act, how is this anything other than a religion of self?
To speak exclusively of Christianity, since I don't have in-depth experience in other fundamentalist religions, these self-centered and hateful doctrines are condoned by the vocal minority yet are not universally decried by those Christians who do not believe the same. Atheism and the demonized "religion" of knowing right from wrong are not the religions of self, they are the religions of wholeness. Christians who stand up for equality are demonized and attacked by the radicals, yet the rest of the moderate or liberal Christians do not stand up for their fellows.
Christians, answer me this: if it is a sin and evil to share love with everyone, to look upon all humanity as your family, then doesn't that mean, by that definition, that Jesus Christ was the most vile sinner of all time?
Friday, July 20, 2012
No bliss for the ignorant
I've used the phrase more than once, the term "willful ignorance." It bears more definition, and not as part of a greater idea or as supporting evidence for another concept.
People try to codify the world.
They try to organize it like some big library or the chambers of a mad scientist's laboratory. They take everything in the world, everything that they perceive or understand, and put it in a big box that they slap a label on, reading This is what IS. And anything that comes into their perception after they've made that box, after they've sealed it up and put it away? It's not just turned away like somebody without an invite to the gala.
It's met with more than just derision and scorn, it's met with hate. Pure, almost tangible hate, so intense in its heat that it wraps around to become utterly freezing. How dare the world attempt to be more than what they have codified it as?
This codification, this boxing away, is for more than just facts. Presumptions, generalizations, everything goes into the box. If any of these beliefs are challenged, the challenge is met with self-righteous fury and the fervor of a zealot.
The saddest thing is that such ignorance, such imposition of limits on the very universe itself, is not limited to just the uneducated. Scientists will reject theories simply because they don't meet with that scholar's interpretation of the universe; sociologists will deny that a community can act in a certain way because it doesn't gel with what they understand. Even conspiracy theorists and believers in aliens will reject better-argued theories because such things don't gel with their beliefs.
When our beliefs are challenged, it is natural, understandable and even right to want to defend them. But to confront such questioning with nothing but violence, hate and noise is to do a disservice to oneself and humanity as a whole. One must be willing to learn.
That the earth revolves around the sun due to gravity is a process that can be observed readily, and nowadays only the most radical protest otherwise. But at the time it was proposed, the theorists were threatened with death and dismemberment for daring to question the existing system of "facts," which have since been proven false.
Today, a disturbing number of people prefer to think of George Zimmerman as a man who defended himself against an attack by a thug, or think he was justified in killing someone who would have killed someone at some point in time. These same people believe that all evils in the world seem to be caused by acceptance of people and concepts that they would rather not acknowledge as fact.
I put it to the people of America, and the people of the world: the single greatest threat facing us is the willful ignorance of humanity at large: denial that toxins are poisonous, rejection of the potential of global climate change instead of taking care just in case we are killing the planet, and other such examples of completely backward thought can all draw their origins back to willful ignorance, rejection of information that does not fit one's limited perceptions of the universe.
Evil in itself is a powerful force, but willful ignorance allows for the propagation and festering of evil more than any other concept, and it is also the hardest to cure, as we can't force people to learn, nor can we control what people think without becoming monsters ourselves.
People try to codify the world.
They try to organize it like some big library or the chambers of a mad scientist's laboratory. They take everything in the world, everything that they perceive or understand, and put it in a big box that they slap a label on, reading This is what IS. And anything that comes into their perception after they've made that box, after they've sealed it up and put it away? It's not just turned away like somebody without an invite to the gala.
It's met with more than just derision and scorn, it's met with hate. Pure, almost tangible hate, so intense in its heat that it wraps around to become utterly freezing. How dare the world attempt to be more than what they have codified it as?
This codification, this boxing away, is for more than just facts. Presumptions, generalizations, everything goes into the box. If any of these beliefs are challenged, the challenge is met with self-righteous fury and the fervor of a zealot.
The saddest thing is that such ignorance, such imposition of limits on the very universe itself, is not limited to just the uneducated. Scientists will reject theories simply because they don't meet with that scholar's interpretation of the universe; sociologists will deny that a community can act in a certain way because it doesn't gel with what they understand. Even conspiracy theorists and believers in aliens will reject better-argued theories because such things don't gel with their beliefs.
When our beliefs are challenged, it is natural, understandable and even right to want to defend them. But to confront such questioning with nothing but violence, hate and noise is to do a disservice to oneself and humanity as a whole. One must be willing to learn.
That the earth revolves around the sun due to gravity is a process that can be observed readily, and nowadays only the most radical protest otherwise. But at the time it was proposed, the theorists were threatened with death and dismemberment for daring to question the existing system of "facts," which have since been proven false.
Today, a disturbing number of people prefer to think of George Zimmerman as a man who defended himself against an attack by a thug, or think he was justified in killing someone who would have killed someone at some point in time. These same people believe that all evils in the world seem to be caused by acceptance of people and concepts that they would rather not acknowledge as fact.
I put it to the people of America, and the people of the world: the single greatest threat facing us is the willful ignorance of humanity at large: denial that toxins are poisonous, rejection of the potential of global climate change instead of taking care just in case we are killing the planet, and other such examples of completely backward thought can all draw their origins back to willful ignorance, rejection of information that does not fit one's limited perceptions of the universe.
Evil in itself is a powerful force, but willful ignorance allows for the propagation and festering of evil more than any other concept, and it is also the hardest to cure, as we can't force people to learn, nor can we control what people think without becoming monsters ourselves.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
We are the proletariat
Few things incite human cruelty like the opportunity to look down on someone, to define yourself as better than someone else.
In my short time as a blogger, I have also become an avid commenter on the Huffington Post. Recently I have made some comments there that hold special relevance to the topic at hand. I'll be copy-pasting these here, so forgive the changes in font or size.
There's a reason why mall rent-a-cops and by-the-hour security so often act like fucking tyrants: that sudden elevation, the idea that you have power over others and that your former peers are suddenly lessors to you, unlocks the penchant for cruelty and abuse that all humans hold within themselves.
This led me to a revelation as recently as last night, which I will share with you now: I have always thought that it was an obligation for good people to believe that humanity is inherently good, but I actually found it more comforting, and more sensible, to remove that stigma of obligation. I have come to the conclusion, on seeing the effects of mob mentality and the ease with which humans fall into evil, that humanity is in actuality inherently evil, and it is only the exceptional people who can rise above this tendency toward malice and become good people.
Now, to return to the topic, what happens when someone hasn't just had power over his peers given to him yesterday, but has been told - and had these statements reinforced by the world at large - that the world owes him everything and he owes nothing in return?
Well, that's where Mitt Romney and, by extension, all Conservatives at large come into the picture. Ann Romney said that her family has given "all you people need to know about our finances." On the Huffington Post's article, I had this to say:
“The phrase, "you people," is the perfect representation of the Conservative mentality. We are not them, therefore we deserve nothing. Conservatives have established this dichotomous mentality not only against Liberals but against their own constituents. If you aren't filled to the gills with money and siding with Conservative ideals, you're "you people."
The policy hasn't even been one of, "Trust us, we know best"; that is too kind for Republicans. The policy has been, plain and simple, that they owe nothing to the American people. Not job creation, not information, not health care, not any sort of economic safety or assurance that we won't be stripped of our rights.
What a disgusting sentiment.”
Now, believe it or not, this madness continues. Further accentuating the divide that Republicans seek to perpetuate between those who question and those who follow blindly, happy in their position as serfs, a top Romney adviser stated in a press release that voters asking for Romney to clarify his policy on Afghanistan are attacking him and that "real Americans don't care about Afghanistan." I mean, holy shit, talk about your bourgeois bastards. If you so much as question them you're a potentially traitorous bad guy?
“Again, more of this divisive rhetoric intended to promote an "us and them" mentality. What, to these men and women who continue to use this phrase, does define a "real American"?
Is it something you're born into, a genetic hierarchy like the nobles of Europe?
Is it an alignment Republicans see as favorable, a racist mindset and an eagerness to harm others for the chance at personal gain?
Is it how much money you have?
Or is it a combination of all of the above, with the only "real Americans" being the richest and most cutthroat Conservatives, those same people who have sunk the US economy, promised to kill the government if their demands are not met, and gladly condemn to death the people they should be protecting just for the chance at power and wealth?”
“Obviously everything is an attack. They are under no obligation to share anything with us, so when we ask them a question they panic just as the French aristocracy did when the proletariat began to grow restless.
If we want answers, or even actual governance? That's overstepping our boundaries and downright treasonous. We should just shut up and sit down while they strip our rights and bleed us dry.”
I genuinely can't believe we're living in a society where this person is even tolerated to campaign for the presidency! Not to mention that Romney literally has no business even trying to be President. Regardless of whether he lied about his position at Bain during his bid for Massachusetts governorship or in his try for the presidency now, he has committed perjury, which is a federal crime. By American law, someone with a criminal record CANNOT be elected President. Period.
In my short time as a blogger, I have also become an avid commenter on the Huffington Post. Recently I have made some comments there that hold special relevance to the topic at hand. I'll be copy-pasting these here, so forgive the changes in font or size.
There's a reason why mall rent-a-cops and by-the-hour security so often act like fucking tyrants: that sudden elevation, the idea that you have power over others and that your former peers are suddenly lessors to you, unlocks the penchant for cruelty and abuse that all humans hold within themselves.
This led me to a revelation as recently as last night, which I will share with you now: I have always thought that it was an obligation for good people to believe that humanity is inherently good, but I actually found it more comforting, and more sensible, to remove that stigma of obligation. I have come to the conclusion, on seeing the effects of mob mentality and the ease with which humans fall into evil, that humanity is in actuality inherently evil, and it is only the exceptional people who can rise above this tendency toward malice and become good people.
Now, to return to the topic, what happens when someone hasn't just had power over his peers given to him yesterday, but has been told - and had these statements reinforced by the world at large - that the world owes him everything and he owes nothing in return?
Well, that's where Mitt Romney and, by extension, all Conservatives at large come into the picture. Ann Romney said that her family has given "all you people need to know about our finances." On the Huffington Post's article, I had this to say:
“The phrase, "you people," is the perfect representation of the Conservative mentality. We are not them, therefore we deserve nothing. Conservatives have established this dichotomous mentality not only against Liberals but against their own constituents. If you aren't filled to the gills with money and siding with Conservative ideals, you're "you people."
The policy hasn't even been one of, "Trust us, we know best"; that is too kind for Republicans. The policy has been, plain and simple, that they owe nothing to the American people. Not job creation, not information, not health care, not any sort of economic safety or assurance that we won't be stripped of our rights.
What a disgusting sentiment.”
Now, believe it or not, this madness continues. Further accentuating the divide that Republicans seek to perpetuate between those who question and those who follow blindly, happy in their position as serfs, a top Romney adviser stated in a press release that voters asking for Romney to clarify his policy on Afghanistan are attacking him and that "real Americans don't care about Afghanistan." I mean, holy shit, talk about your bourgeois bastards. If you so much as question them you're a potentially traitorous bad guy?
“Again, more of this divisive rhetoric intended to promote an "us and them" mentality. What, to these men and women who continue to use this phrase, does define a "real American"?
Is it something you're born into, a genetic hierarchy like the nobles of Europe?
Is it an alignment Republicans see as favorable, a racist mindset and an eagerness to harm others for the chance at personal gain?
Is it how much money you have?
Or is it a combination of all of the above, with the only "real Americans" being the richest and most cutthroat Conservatives, those same people who have sunk the US economy, promised to kill the government if their demands are not met, and gladly condemn to death the people they should be protecting just for the chance at power and wealth?”
“Obviously everything is an attack. They are under no obligation to share anything with us, so when we ask them a question they panic just as the French aristocracy did when the proletariat began to grow restless.
If we want answers, or even actual governance? That's overstepping our boundaries and downright treasonous. We should just shut up and sit down while they strip our rights and bleed us dry.”
I genuinely can't believe we're living in a society where this person is even tolerated to campaign for the presidency! Not to mention that Romney literally has no business even trying to be President. Regardless of whether he lied about his position at Bain during his bid for Massachusetts governorship or in his try for the presidency now, he has committed perjury, which is a federal crime. By American law, someone with a criminal record CANNOT be elected President. Period.
Monday, July 16, 2012
"I wash my hands of this weirdness."
News flash! Romney is linked to still more scandalous and politically damning corporate clusterfucks: http://tinyurl.com/cuc2xx9
'Nother news flash! Romney's supporters don't give a good god damn!
...Seriously, I fucking give up. I'm tired of trying to educate the willfully stupid. Any political commentary I give from now on will be personal opinion, deconstruction of rhetoric and shitty arguments, or both. Bad, stupid people flock to the Republican party like flies to shit, and I really feel no remorse or fear hyperbole when I say that I will be fucking astounded if anyone decent still claims to support the Republican party. That is, anyone decent with half a goddamn brain.
Only the stupid and hateful can follow a party of such unadulterated evil, a group that would sacrifice the welfare of the very people it wishes to govern just for the chance to do things their way; and even then they'd still sacrifice the majority of us to feed their corporate tumors.
Evil.
That's truly the best adjective to describe the Republican party nowadays. This isn't the modus operandi of an apex predator; one doesn't see a lion hoarding a hundred dead antelope and gorging himself on them every chance he gets. This is pure exploitation of human beings for the sake of exploitation, to gain power and wealth for its own sake. In fact, were I a more religious man...ah hell, I'll make the comparison anyway. The Republican party represents the seven deadly sins in their most crystallized form: greed, envy, lust, pride, sloth, wrath and gluttony. It's a rare day when I can be asked what's wrong with humanity and, with few exceptions or shortcomings, I can just point at Conservatives and say, "That."
...Despite what it might seem, I don't like to hate. I don't like feeling this way. That's why I share it on this blog; I have to vent it, to get the evil out of me. And if, in the process, I can open someone's eyes to the crimes against human nature that are being committed, all the better.
In the end, though - as I've said before - I'm only one man, and I can't do much on my own. Some people are gifted, through talent or luck or fate, to be the voice of the oppressed. I lack at least one of those gifts, so I'm just one more guy barking in the dark.
'Nother news flash! Romney's supporters don't give a good god damn!
...Seriously, I fucking give up. I'm tired of trying to educate the willfully stupid. Any political commentary I give from now on will be personal opinion, deconstruction of rhetoric and shitty arguments, or both. Bad, stupid people flock to the Republican party like flies to shit, and I really feel no remorse or fear hyperbole when I say that I will be fucking astounded if anyone decent still claims to support the Republican party. That is, anyone decent with half a goddamn brain.
Only the stupid and hateful can follow a party of such unadulterated evil, a group that would sacrifice the welfare of the very people it wishes to govern just for the chance to do things their way; and even then they'd still sacrifice the majority of us to feed their corporate tumors.
Evil.
That's truly the best adjective to describe the Republican party nowadays. This isn't the modus operandi of an apex predator; one doesn't see a lion hoarding a hundred dead antelope and gorging himself on them every chance he gets. This is pure exploitation of human beings for the sake of exploitation, to gain power and wealth for its own sake. In fact, were I a more religious man...ah hell, I'll make the comparison anyway. The Republican party represents the seven deadly sins in their most crystallized form: greed, envy, lust, pride, sloth, wrath and gluttony. It's a rare day when I can be asked what's wrong with humanity and, with few exceptions or shortcomings, I can just point at Conservatives and say, "That."
...Despite what it might seem, I don't like to hate. I don't like feeling this way. That's why I share it on this blog; I have to vent it, to get the evil out of me. And if, in the process, I can open someone's eyes to the crimes against human nature that are being committed, all the better.
In the end, though - as I've said before - I'm only one man, and I can't do much on my own. Some people are gifted, through talent or luck or fate, to be the voice of the oppressed. I lack at least one of those gifts, so I'm just one more guy barking in the dark.
Friday, July 13, 2012
"Love" songs
What happened to music?
Most people would say that things like boy bands are nothing new, but considering that the modern boy band is only about 30 years old I'd beg to differ. Referencing boy bands, what confuses me is how musical popularity seems to have changed over the generations.
Mick Jagger, Steven Tyler, Eric Clapton: none of these men are what one would call classically attractive, yet they have all been sex symbols in their time. At Beatles concerts women would pass out at the first song and remain unconscious throughout the concert, according to some roadies.
This is the classic concept of being a musical celebrity: the music that you make, the emotion you can invoke is what makes you attractive. It was not only appealing for those less-attractive to have the chance to be sex symbols; it was a beautiful sentiment that love and other emotions can be evoked through music.
Now look at the most rampantly popular "artists" of the last few decades: Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, One Direction, Ke$ha, Rihanna and Chris Brown.
These days it seems that sex appeal (or so-called "romance appeal" in the vein of Bieber and One Direction, as Twilight has shown the belief that some magical girly-boy will take the girls away to an enchanted castle seems to be one of the best selling points of the modern age) is the greatest selling point to make stars out of nobodies, and even those short fifteen minutes of fame make millions upon millions for record execs so this process continues.
The douchebag movement seems in full swing, as every pop sex-celeb seems to be focused on getting more and more disgusting and obnoxious. Anyone who's seen Bieber's latest hairdo should be able to attest that it would make even Jersey Shore rejects recoil at its foulness, while Spears poses in classic trailer-trash mirror pics wearing a bikini with her children gleefully in the shot.
This is to say nothing of Rihanna, who is not only a skank but further setting back feminism. She gleefully spends more and more time around the piece of fossilized cat shit that beat the ever-loving fuck (and possibly the common sense) out of her, saying that she's an independent woman who doesn't have to explain her decisions. This is, of course, when she's not going around topless in entirely see-through bras.
This, of course, leads to the idea of modern sex appeal, which seems to be that the trashiest women seem to be lauded as the sexiest woman alive. See Rihanna last year, praised for her sexiness despite her saggy body and lack of self-care.
Now, I'm not saying that every woman needs to aspire to some idea of perfection in order to be considered attractive, but that a bit of self-respect is necessary. There are plenty of beautiful women who deserve that accolade far more than Rihanna and who don't go around whoring themselves out to cameras.
In this "modern" concept of sex appeal, men are reduced to nothing more than some sort of magic fairy-person to whisk the woman away to a life of luxury, and anyone who doesn't live up to that is filth. Likewise, women are reduced to nothing more than vagina, tits and ass to be used and thrown away as one sees fit, and real women then suffer under this supposed "requirement," branded as sex objects by advertising and insulted for having two X chromosomes.
So, to everyone who thinks that Bieber is the ultimate man, an asexual little simp who claims to want only to love you for eternity and can be picked up or put away at will; to everyone who thinks Rihanna is the ultimate woman, a trashy, easy-to-get living sex toy designed to give it up and not care about anything else; kindly go fuck yourselves, violently, with a corkscrew.
Most people would say that things like boy bands are nothing new, but considering that the modern boy band is only about 30 years old I'd beg to differ. Referencing boy bands, what confuses me is how musical popularity seems to have changed over the generations.
Mick Jagger, Steven Tyler, Eric Clapton: none of these men are what one would call classically attractive, yet they have all been sex symbols in their time. At Beatles concerts women would pass out at the first song and remain unconscious throughout the concert, according to some roadies.
This is the classic concept of being a musical celebrity: the music that you make, the emotion you can invoke is what makes you attractive. It was not only appealing for those less-attractive to have the chance to be sex symbols; it was a beautiful sentiment that love and other emotions can be evoked through music.
Now look at the most rampantly popular "artists" of the last few decades: Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, One Direction, Ke$ha, Rihanna and Chris Brown.
These days it seems that sex appeal (or so-called "romance appeal" in the vein of Bieber and One Direction, as Twilight has shown the belief that some magical girly-boy will take the girls away to an enchanted castle seems to be one of the best selling points of the modern age) is the greatest selling point to make stars out of nobodies, and even those short fifteen minutes of fame make millions upon millions for record execs so this process continues.
The douchebag movement seems in full swing, as every pop sex-celeb seems to be focused on getting more and more disgusting and obnoxious. Anyone who's seen Bieber's latest hairdo should be able to attest that it would make even Jersey Shore rejects recoil at its foulness, while Spears poses in classic trailer-trash mirror pics wearing a bikini with her children gleefully in the shot.
This is to say nothing of Rihanna, who is not only a skank but further setting back feminism. She gleefully spends more and more time around the piece of fossilized cat shit that beat the ever-loving fuck (and possibly the common sense) out of her, saying that she's an independent woman who doesn't have to explain her decisions. This is, of course, when she's not going around topless in entirely see-through bras.
This, of course, leads to the idea of modern sex appeal, which seems to be that the trashiest women seem to be lauded as the sexiest woman alive. See Rihanna last year, praised for her sexiness despite her saggy body and lack of self-care.
Now, I'm not saying that every woman needs to aspire to some idea of perfection in order to be considered attractive, but that a bit of self-respect is necessary. There are plenty of beautiful women who deserve that accolade far more than Rihanna and who don't go around whoring themselves out to cameras.
In this "modern" concept of sex appeal, men are reduced to nothing more than some sort of magic fairy-person to whisk the woman away to a life of luxury, and anyone who doesn't live up to that is filth. Likewise, women are reduced to nothing more than vagina, tits and ass to be used and thrown away as one sees fit, and real women then suffer under this supposed "requirement," branded as sex objects by advertising and insulted for having two X chromosomes.
So, to everyone who thinks that Bieber is the ultimate man, an asexual little simp who claims to want only to love you for eternity and can be picked up or put away at will; to everyone who thinks Rihanna is the ultimate woman, a trashy, easy-to-get living sex toy designed to give it up and not care about anything else; kindly go fuck yourselves, violently, with a corkscrew.
Friday, July 6, 2012
Antidepressants
Have you ever felt like you're worthless? That nothing you do has any meaning? That no matter how hard you try you just end up hurting people and making the world a worse place? Does it ever seem a kinder option to those you love to just remove yourself from the equation?
I do. Every day of my life for as long as I can coherently remember, I have felt like that to some degree. I would involuntarily replay minor events in my head, picking apart circumstances and mentally punishing myself for the smallest infractions even against legitimately bad people. Even in situations where I was clearly in the right, I could find fault with myself.
After a major betrayal from someone I thought I knew and loved, I fell over the edge. I contemplated suicide. Hell, if I wasn't so afraid of blood and sensitive to pain I probably would have attempted it. Had I possessed a firearm I would not now exist. My brain instinctively tells me that I have a moral imperative to die. And I can't even vent my frustrations. I can't break things without beating myself down even further; shit, I can't even scream in anger for fear of drawing the ire or notice of people I don't give two fucks about.
I live every day on medication because I can't live with the hell that is my own psyche without help. I have already had to increase the dosage once, because I had a particularly horrible day which left me curled up on my bed sobbing, with a desperate subconscious plea for anyone to help.
Today has been another of those days. I felt about to explode in a cataclysm when I finally realized what this was: either I need to up my dose again, or I'm just having a really fucking bad day. Whatever the cause, I'm a half-step away from breaking down in tears or trying to decapitate myself with the butcher knife.
For some reason I have no qualms about sharing this information with the general public; shit, I share this with people whom I genuinely hate because even then my misguided mind can't stand to have them upset with me.
Thankfully, this post is not a plea for help. Not really. I have experience enough to know what I'm facing, so I know to stay away from the sharp objects and to be open about what I'm feeling. I have to gather up everything I can and tell the world to go fuck itself, that my needs come first for once. Every day, even on medication, I continually beat myself down. I never live up to expectations, either the expectations of others or the irrational expectations I project onto others so that my mind can justify more self-loathing and disappointment.
It's days like these, however, that define us. They let us decide what kind of people we are, whether we'll try to ignore our problems and trudge onward, or if we'll admit that we are fallible and human, and try to recover from our inborn wounds. I just hope that this is a genuine philosophical concept and that I'm not sabotaging myself on orders from my twisted psyche. Just like John Nash, I must scrutinize everything. Unlike Nash, however, I have no such easy fix as asking others if they can see what may be a hallucination. Everything with me is locked inside my head, so no observers can help guide me out of the haze.
I do. Every day of my life for as long as I can coherently remember, I have felt like that to some degree. I would involuntarily replay minor events in my head, picking apart circumstances and mentally punishing myself for the smallest infractions even against legitimately bad people. Even in situations where I was clearly in the right, I could find fault with myself.
After a major betrayal from someone I thought I knew and loved, I fell over the edge. I contemplated suicide. Hell, if I wasn't so afraid of blood and sensitive to pain I probably would have attempted it. Had I possessed a firearm I would not now exist. My brain instinctively tells me that I have a moral imperative to die. And I can't even vent my frustrations. I can't break things without beating myself down even further; shit, I can't even scream in anger for fear of drawing the ire or notice of people I don't give two fucks about.
I live every day on medication because I can't live with the hell that is my own psyche without help. I have already had to increase the dosage once, because I had a particularly horrible day which left me curled up on my bed sobbing, with a desperate subconscious plea for anyone to help.
Today has been another of those days. I felt about to explode in a cataclysm when I finally realized what this was: either I need to up my dose again, or I'm just having a really fucking bad day. Whatever the cause, I'm a half-step away from breaking down in tears or trying to decapitate myself with the butcher knife.
For some reason I have no qualms about sharing this information with the general public; shit, I share this with people whom I genuinely hate because even then my misguided mind can't stand to have them upset with me.
Thankfully, this post is not a plea for help. Not really. I have experience enough to know what I'm facing, so I know to stay away from the sharp objects and to be open about what I'm feeling. I have to gather up everything I can and tell the world to go fuck itself, that my needs come first for once. Every day, even on medication, I continually beat myself down. I never live up to expectations, either the expectations of others or the irrational expectations I project onto others so that my mind can justify more self-loathing and disappointment.
It's days like these, however, that define us. They let us decide what kind of people we are, whether we'll try to ignore our problems and trudge onward, or if we'll admit that we are fallible and human, and try to recover from our inborn wounds. I just hope that this is a genuine philosophical concept and that I'm not sabotaging myself on orders from my twisted psyche. Just like John Nash, I must scrutinize everything. Unlike Nash, however, I have no such easy fix as asking others if they can see what may be a hallucination. Everything with me is locked inside my head, so no observers can help guide me out of the haze.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
What is this I don't even...
Intermittent Explosive Disorder.
I.E.D.
EYE-EE-FUCKING-DEE!?
Some scientist bastards had the gall to make up a disorder where people get angry and then name it after a terrorist weapon that has killed thousands of American soldiers and ten times that many international troops and civilians?
Moreover, not only is this just stupid on the level of inventing another disorder with a stupid definition and a stupid monogram - Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD), anyone? The disorder where you get sad as it gets gray outside and the leaves fall off the trees? - but studies are coming out now saying that 2 in 3 teens go undiagnosed with IED. Teenagers, who are more and more often experiencing rampant abuse in schools and neglect at home, might be angry. But instead of offering counseling or wanting to legitimately help these kids, the fuckers just slap another label on them, call them broken, and then call it a day.
I mean, I know people are more and more inclined to just treat their kids as decorations or accessories like Paris Hilton's chihuahuas, but sometimes kids have legitimate reasons to be angry. Such reasons include, but are not limited to: being ignored and/or neglected; being harassed in school and having one's identity and sexuality challenged by increasingly violent and cruel peer pressure; growing up in a broken or unsafe home and having deep-seated issues of anger and/or abandonment that need to be talked out; and being forcibly medicated for other issues that can't be cured by tranquilizers or "shut up for mommy" pills.
ADD does actually have some legitimate backing behind it: parents who let Uncle Television babysit their little bastards are training their children to have shorter attention spans as they learn to zone out as the commercials come on. Their developing brains learn this trend and apply it to everything, since as Mommy's too busy for her baby Uncle TV is their entire world in their development stages.
But labeling angry children, most of whom have very fucking legitimate reasons to be angry, as suffering from a disorder? Labeling these upset kids as having a disorder isn't an excuse for the teens; it's an excuse for the parents so they don't have to admit they failed in their duties as caregivers. Their teens are emotionally damaged but the parents don't dare admit responsibility, so they blame their children for growing up maladjusted and shove more pills down Junior's throat so they don't have to deal with him tonight.
I mean, I know people are more and more inclined to just treat their kids as decorations or accessories like Paris Hilton's chihuahuas, but sometimes kids have legitimate reasons to be angry. Such reasons include, but are not limited to: being ignored and/or neglected; being harassed in school and having one's identity and sexuality challenged by increasingly violent and cruel peer pressure; growing up in a broken or unsafe home and having deep-seated issues of anger and/or abandonment that need to be talked out; and being forcibly medicated for other issues that can't be cured by tranquilizers or "shut up for mommy" pills.
ADD does actually have some legitimate backing behind it: parents who let Uncle Television babysit their little bastards are training their children to have shorter attention spans as they learn to zone out as the commercials come on. Their developing brains learn this trend and apply it to everything, since as Mommy's too busy for her baby Uncle TV is their entire world in their development stages.
But labeling angry children, most of whom have very fucking legitimate reasons to be angry, as suffering from a disorder? Labeling these upset kids as having a disorder isn't an excuse for the teens; it's an excuse for the parents so they don't have to admit they failed in their duties as caregivers. Their teens are emotionally damaged but the parents don't dare admit responsibility, so they blame their children for growing up maladjusted and shove more pills down Junior's throat so they don't have to deal with him tonight.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Evil
This is not a post about an arguable evil, such as the back-and-forth of Conservative and Liberal idealism. This is about evil in its purest form, causing pain and suffering for the explicit purpose of harming others, with no benefit for the inflictor of such agony other than a truly monstrous enjoyment of others' pain.
http://tinyurl.com/cpye63y
The term 'bullying' should be abolished from the English language, or at least not applied to these crimes. Honestly, I can't even say that hatred or ignorance is the cause of these acts, at least not all of them. Certainly homophobia and the conspiracy theories or moralistic high-horsing of those against gays doesn't help, but this does not explain the outright sadism displayed by students without something so easy to target. In truth, it seems that anyone perceived as weak is fair game to be destroyed simply for the sake of destruction.
This is the next generation that will steer our country: half of them emotionally shattered - those who survive - and suffering from post-traumatic stress, the other half laughing as they torture and harm others for no reason. Our future generation is literally comprised of two common personalities in Batman comics.
This is not bullying. Bullying was striking against others when you couldn't retaliate against those you truly wanted to harm, or attacking those who defy you if you were raised in opulence. This transcends such motivations and becomes pure evil.
...I honestly have little more to say on this. This goes beyond mere words. Our children are, directly or indirectly, murdering our children. And yet the biggest opponents of these acts are Cartoon Network and other children's programming sites. Parents, as a whole, seem not to care. They take no action to make sure their children are protected, or to confirm that their children are not the ones inflicting such nightmarish pain.
http://tinyurl.com/cpye63y
The term 'bullying' should be abolished from the English language, or at least not applied to these crimes. Honestly, I can't even say that hatred or ignorance is the cause of these acts, at least not all of them. Certainly homophobia and the conspiracy theories or moralistic high-horsing of those against gays doesn't help, but this does not explain the outright sadism displayed by students without something so easy to target. In truth, it seems that anyone perceived as weak is fair game to be destroyed simply for the sake of destruction.
This is the next generation that will steer our country: half of them emotionally shattered - those who survive - and suffering from post-traumatic stress, the other half laughing as they torture and harm others for no reason. Our future generation is literally comprised of two common personalities in Batman comics.
This is not bullying. Bullying was striking against others when you couldn't retaliate against those you truly wanted to harm, or attacking those who defy you if you were raised in opulence. This transcends such motivations and becomes pure evil.
...I honestly have little more to say on this. This goes beyond mere words. Our children are, directly or indirectly, murdering our children. And yet the biggest opponents of these acts are Cartoon Network and other children's programming sites. Parents, as a whole, seem not to care. They take no action to make sure their children are protected, or to confirm that their children are not the ones inflicting such nightmarish pain.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Barbarism - Violence Breeds Ignorance
I don't have much to say on this subject that the accompanying article doesn't already say, so let me just drop in the link and add my thoughts:
http://tinyurl.com/dxy8cbh
I have found myself exempt from the issues in meetings and cities, though I hold that up to autism rather than being some sort of special superhuman. However, the violence and neglect against children is a sticking point that I have always held up as a system that DOES NOT WORK. Beating children does nothing to promote goodness or obedience. In a zealously Christian family with which I was once friends, they did not spank their first daughter but did their second and third. The parents wondered why their first daughter was honest and kind but the middle and youngest daughter would lie and shirk responsibility. They couldn't comprehend that hitting their daughters as punishment resulted in them wanting to avoid punishment.
Being hit doesn't teach you responsibility or how to be a good person; it only teaches children that making a mistake and owning up to it means you get hurt. I was raised that if I made a mistake or broke something it was my responsibility to fix it, make it right, or work to replace it or make up the value of what was lost.
If you want to teach children about responsibility, actually give them responsibility. Hitting them just means that if you're bigger and stronger you're automatically right.
http://tinyurl.com/dxy8cbh
I have found myself exempt from the issues in meetings and cities, though I hold that up to autism rather than being some sort of special superhuman. However, the violence and neglect against children is a sticking point that I have always held up as a system that DOES NOT WORK. Beating children does nothing to promote goodness or obedience. In a zealously Christian family with which I was once friends, they did not spank their first daughter but did their second and third. The parents wondered why their first daughter was honest and kind but the middle and youngest daughter would lie and shirk responsibility. They couldn't comprehend that hitting their daughters as punishment resulted in them wanting to avoid punishment.
Being hit doesn't teach you responsibility or how to be a good person; it only teaches children that making a mistake and owning up to it means you get hurt. I was raised that if I made a mistake or broke something it was my responsibility to fix it, make it right, or work to replace it or make up the value of what was lost.
If you want to teach children about responsibility, actually give them responsibility. Hitting them just means that if you're bigger and stronger you're automatically right.
Women, it's your fault
I can already tell that I'll catch some flak for this one; good thing I don't much care. As a disclaimer, however, "women" as referred to in this post is not a statement of all female homo sapiens, it is instead a generalization of the cultural representation of the fairer sex.
People, take a look at this last decade's most popular sensations for those of the double-X chromosome: Sex and the City and Twilight. If you haven't been able to tell what the problem is by just those two names being listed, I will illuminate.
For as much as men don't understand women, women's lack of understanding as pertains to their male counterparts is just as significant. Problem is, women believe that they understand men. Somewhere along the way, feminism got lost. It went from wanting to eliminate inequality and the double-standard of male advantage to wanting to institute a double-standard of female advantage and a right to be as foul as the worst men and yet still treated as independent and respectable women.
The issue, as pertains to Sex and the City, is that women perceive the vocal minority of male douchebags to be the window into the entirety of mankind. This is a horribly insulting inference, as it states to men that women see us all as poon-chasing monkeys who'd have difficulty choosing between living another day or getting laid. This leads to characters like Samantha, a borderline nymphomaniac who loves one-night stands. This is not what being an independent woman means: being independent and liberated is not analogous to being a slut, regardless of gender. Do you know what we men call guys who sleep with a lot of women and brag about it? We call them assholes. Barney from How I Met Your Mother is not idolized for his womanizing ways; male viewers find his tendencies humorous, balanced by his kindhearted nature and strong friendship.
This is a common misconception only further perpetuated by advertising and stereotypes. While sex sells, women are as much at fault as men, nitpicking anything they can about women in the media. This stems from envy or insecurity, but it only reinforces women's need to reach perfection. These days, it's even less about men - men who matter, at least - and more about other women.
Now, this isn't to say that men aren't at fault. Universally, my gender is wired to notice the visceral and visual first. I like sex appeal, sure, but that isn't the end-all, be-all as many women seem to think the male mind works. I have had numerous chances to be the douchebag that women's media believes all men to be beneath the surface, but I have no inclination to sleep with a woman simply because I am physically attracted to her. I know it would leave me feeling hollow and cheap, which is another reason why Barney is a good character: his development shows that he is looking for true love yet his upbringing and bending to peer pressure has led him to seek refuge in shallow relationships.
True men, those who aren't looked upon with scorn by the rest of their gender, do not treat women like slabs of meat with holes for one's penis. Most men aren't afraid of commitment because we suddenly realize how much pussy we won't be getting; we fear we won't be good enough for the women we love.
This is what made Charlie Sheen's run on Two and a Half Men funny: it wasn't entertaining because he was "living the dream" of being single and fucking anything that moved, it was fun because he was a sleazy person and most often got what was coming to him.
Now, I referenced perfection earlier, and that is another major issue for women in this day and age: women - especially young women - aspire to a sort of miserable perfection, the kind personified by Bella Swan in Twilight. The girl automatically makes friends, everyone loves her, she draws the attentions of the two most "attractive" men in the world (at least in the books' world), and yet she still mopes and weeps her way through the books, bitching about how hard life is for her even though her existence is fucking charmed. It seems that many women enjoy this playacting at persecution, personified by the pitiable prevalence of prepubescent pricks, particularly the presence of popular culture's "scene" and "emo" trends. Bella has pretty much no personality on purpose, so that any female reader can self-insert into the book and live out a fantasy of mopey goddesshood while attended by beautiful, eternally young models.
Ignoring the glorification of actions previously only undertaken by stalkers and serial killers (sneaking into a girl's house to stare at her as she sleeps?) and the outright disturbing actions Bella - and, by extension, the book's readers - undertakes to torment and manipulate her worshippers (yes, they're more like worshippers than lovers or suitors. And please look up Doug Walker's speech on how in another book Bella would make a magnificently horrible villain with her existing actions intact, tormenting men who love her), or the horrible ideas of child marriage brought up in the last book, Twilight opens up another can of worms that has until now been more subtle in popular culture: dependence on a man.
This has been prevalent for years in all levels of women's media. The recent Disney movie Brave is trying to paint itself as a first for the company, with a strong and independent heroine who doesn't need to rely on a man. Problem is, this was done more than a decade ago with Mulan. The woman trained alongside men, many of whom had been practicing in martial disciplines all their lives, and not only held her own but led the pack. She excelled in the military, won her army's most important campaign, and saved her entire nation. All the while, she only entertained the barest affections for her commanding officer, and at the end of the movie the two didn't even end up as a couple. Then Disney made a sequel that tore apart Mulan's character and made her another simpering, man-dependent bimbo.
Now look at Sex and the City and the movies. The biggest dramas were which man the single women would hook up with. There wasn't really a character study or a reconciliation of past issues; it was all about finding the man of your dreams.
Our next example is The Hunger Games. It's a story about a dystopian future which forces the shattered Unites States' provinces to send children to murder one another in order to win supplies for the victor's province. Now look at the cultural impact: was there a single major discourse on the societal implications of the book and how we could avoid a collapse of the same type? No, it was all about the potential romance between Peeta and Katniss. Women want Hunger Games-themed weddings because they don't even comprehend the death and destruction; they just see two teens in the woods and fantasize romantic on that bare interpretation.
So, armchair feminists and bra-burning "women's empowerment" firebrands, next time you want to bitch about how society is holding women back, don't point toward those with dongs; we're not the ones who have been constructing these anti-feminine-empowerment fantasies. That's all on you.
People, take a look at this last decade's most popular sensations for those of the double-X chromosome: Sex and the City and Twilight. If you haven't been able to tell what the problem is by just those two names being listed, I will illuminate.
For as much as men don't understand women, women's lack of understanding as pertains to their male counterparts is just as significant. Problem is, women believe that they understand men. Somewhere along the way, feminism got lost. It went from wanting to eliminate inequality and the double-standard of male advantage to wanting to institute a double-standard of female advantage and a right to be as foul as the worst men and yet still treated as independent and respectable women.
The issue, as pertains to Sex and the City, is that women perceive the vocal minority of male douchebags to be the window into the entirety of mankind. This is a horribly insulting inference, as it states to men that women see us all as poon-chasing monkeys who'd have difficulty choosing between living another day or getting laid. This leads to characters like Samantha, a borderline nymphomaniac who loves one-night stands. This is not what being an independent woman means: being independent and liberated is not analogous to being a slut, regardless of gender. Do you know what we men call guys who sleep with a lot of women and brag about it? We call them assholes. Barney from How I Met Your Mother is not idolized for his womanizing ways; male viewers find his tendencies humorous, balanced by his kindhearted nature and strong friendship.
This is a common misconception only further perpetuated by advertising and stereotypes. While sex sells, women are as much at fault as men, nitpicking anything they can about women in the media. This stems from envy or insecurity, but it only reinforces women's need to reach perfection. These days, it's even less about men - men who matter, at least - and more about other women.
Now, this isn't to say that men aren't at fault. Universally, my gender is wired to notice the visceral and visual first. I like sex appeal, sure, but that isn't the end-all, be-all as many women seem to think the male mind works. I have had numerous chances to be the douchebag that women's media believes all men to be beneath the surface, but I have no inclination to sleep with a woman simply because I am physically attracted to her. I know it would leave me feeling hollow and cheap, which is another reason why Barney is a good character: his development shows that he is looking for true love yet his upbringing and bending to peer pressure has led him to seek refuge in shallow relationships.
True men, those who aren't looked upon with scorn by the rest of their gender, do not treat women like slabs of meat with holes for one's penis. Most men aren't afraid of commitment because we suddenly realize how much pussy we won't be getting; we fear we won't be good enough for the women we love.
This is what made Charlie Sheen's run on Two and a Half Men funny: it wasn't entertaining because he was "living the dream" of being single and fucking anything that moved, it was fun because he was a sleazy person and most often got what was coming to him.
Now, I referenced perfection earlier, and that is another major issue for women in this day and age: women - especially young women - aspire to a sort of miserable perfection, the kind personified by Bella Swan in Twilight. The girl automatically makes friends, everyone loves her, she draws the attentions of the two most "attractive" men in the world (at least in the books' world), and yet she still mopes and weeps her way through the books, bitching about how hard life is for her even though her existence is fucking charmed. It seems that many women enjoy this playacting at persecution, personified by the pitiable prevalence of prepubescent pricks, particularly the presence of popular culture's "scene" and "emo" trends. Bella has pretty much no personality on purpose, so that any female reader can self-insert into the book and live out a fantasy of mopey goddesshood while attended by beautiful, eternally young models.
Ignoring the glorification of actions previously only undertaken by stalkers and serial killers (sneaking into a girl's house to stare at her as she sleeps?) and the outright disturbing actions Bella - and, by extension, the book's readers - undertakes to torment and manipulate her worshippers (yes, they're more like worshippers than lovers or suitors. And please look up Doug Walker's speech on how in another book Bella would make a magnificently horrible villain with her existing actions intact, tormenting men who love her), or the horrible ideas of child marriage brought up in the last book, Twilight opens up another can of worms that has until now been more subtle in popular culture: dependence on a man.
This has been prevalent for years in all levels of women's media. The recent Disney movie Brave is trying to paint itself as a first for the company, with a strong and independent heroine who doesn't need to rely on a man. Problem is, this was done more than a decade ago with Mulan. The woman trained alongside men, many of whom had been practicing in martial disciplines all their lives, and not only held her own but led the pack. She excelled in the military, won her army's most important campaign, and saved her entire nation. All the while, she only entertained the barest affections for her commanding officer, and at the end of the movie the two didn't even end up as a couple. Then Disney made a sequel that tore apart Mulan's character and made her another simpering, man-dependent bimbo.
Now look at Sex and the City and the movies. The biggest dramas were which man the single women would hook up with. There wasn't really a character study or a reconciliation of past issues; it was all about finding the man of your dreams.
Our next example is The Hunger Games. It's a story about a dystopian future which forces the shattered Unites States' provinces to send children to murder one another in order to win supplies for the victor's province. Now look at the cultural impact: was there a single major discourse on the societal implications of the book and how we could avoid a collapse of the same type? No, it was all about the potential romance between Peeta and Katniss. Women want Hunger Games-themed weddings because they don't even comprehend the death and destruction; they just see two teens in the woods and fantasize romantic on that bare interpretation.
So, armchair feminists and bra-burning "women's empowerment" firebrands, next time you want to bitch about how society is holding women back, don't point toward those with dongs; we're not the ones who have been constructing these anti-feminine-empowerment fantasies. That's all on you.
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