Civil Rights - OR - Why Can't We Just Kill Everybody?

The title isn't really a joke; more and more, with the sheer number of willfully ignorant and hateful people infesting this nation, I think a zombie apocalypse or another giant asteroid might actually make things better.

So what has me pissed off today? I'm glad you asked, disembodied source of inquiry! There are two things that are really making me angry as of this moment. The first is the NRA and the second is the marriage equality debate, and both have to do with equal rights under the Constitution.

First off, the marriage equality debate should not be a debate. At all. The Constitution is pretty clear on this in the 14th Amendment, providing equal rights and protection under the law for all US citizens. Ever since Loving v. State of Virginia, marriage and all the laws/protections provided thereby are counted as rights for anyone willing to make use of them. This isn't quantum physics or an attempt to prove Toni Morrison isn't a repetitive and formulaic writer; things are pretty damn straightforward.

I will illuminate: According to US law, no citizen can be denied equal rights and protections under law. Also according to US law, marriage is a right that provides more than 1,500 protections. Therefore, since even criminals are still permitted to marry, there is quite simply nothing legally preventing homosexuals from getting married and any preventions thereof are demonstrably unConstitutional.

The only things in opposition to the very real legal imperative to permit marriage equality are the religious and right-wing lobbies. For some reason lawmakers are so scared shitless of these groups that they are willing to ignore unConstitutional laws being written into existence and to permit the obliteration of every principle upon which this country was founded.

The nation of the United States of America was founded on the principle of religious freedom. No religion could impose its rule onto the people of the nation. Should "Christian" laws get ratified by the Supreme Court, this nation will have obliterated one of its oldest tenets.

The only thing preventing our Supreme Court from doing the right thing is a combination of personal bias and fear of retaliation. If we had given in to petty squabbles and fear of a violent presence instead of standing as one, this nation would never have been founded. Every moment of hesitation on the part of the Supreme Court is another moment spent shitting on each and every person who died defending this country or who dedicated their lives to ensuring the survival and correct course of our nation.



Now, since I don't really have a segue, let's just take a moment and shift gears. From the legally-ensured right to the Pursuit of Happiness, let's move to the right to Life. Hey, that was a segue after all!

So the NRA have started sending robocalls into Newtown, just three months after the Sandy Hook massacre. Well of course they are; after all, how long do you have to take to get over your children's deaths? They're just noisy little bastards who aren't good for anything. You can't even get 'em to work since those silly child-labor laws got passed. Like any other possession, it should only take a month or two for you to get over it and focus on what's really important, like guns!

The Second Amendment is one of the least-contested of the Constitutional Amendments and for the life of me I can't see why. The entire point of the Second Amendment, as written into the Bill of Rights, was to ensure that the states could protect themselves should another nation invade or a civil war between states stir up. That was the reason for the first phrase in the Amendment: "A well-regulated militia." Well, now we have a well-regulated militia. It's called the National Guard. State militias have been outlawed, since heavily-armed groups with questionable sanity and morals are a threat to everyone else, so there's really no need for all these firearms.

Of course, the Supreme Court spat in the eyes of our Founding Fathers on that one, ruling that the well-regulated militia part of the Second Amendment was outdated and everybody had a right to guns whether they intended to defend their nation from invasion or just planned to kill their governors.

Gun violence in this country should have reached its saturation point last year with the sheer number of mass shootings, but sadly it seems that no number of dead children and loved ones can sway gun-lovers' hearts. Apparently a chunk of metal designed for murder is more important than the life of your spouse or parent or child.

The illegal firearms trade is inextricably linked to the war on drugs. By turning drug possession into a multi-billion-dollar black market, we've made it a requirement for all drug peddlers - from cartel lords to street pushers - to carry guns so they can murder one another and take territory. Basically we established an underground repeat of early-Renaissance mercantilism, and we all know how fucking well that turned out.

Honestly, I foresee that if the underground drug trade were killed through legalization, taxation, recuperation programs and the decriminalization of those users inadvertently hooked, the illegal firearms trade would all but dry up. There just isn't any other major money-earner for gangs that can be hidden and shipped so effectively, so gangs wouldn't have the income to continue buying guns and their rackets would be easier to shatter.

And then, when the illegal gun trade is practically dead, perhaps people's eyes will be opened to the wanton slaughter perpetrated by psychotic alpha-types when they feel their authority is threatened, or by self-styled victims who decide to lash out.

We've created this mess, true, but we can still undo the horrors we've helped to bring into existence. We need to follow the moral compass provided by human empathy and common sense. It's not that hard; it's just inconvenient sometimes, and some people would rather a million innocents die than they be inconvenienced for a minute.

Goodnight, and stay safe.

A Cult

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Skyrim: A Political Fairy Tale

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

BTW, SPOILERS

Now, with that out of the way...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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