The Boston Bombing and My Thoughts

Today there was a bombing in the city of Boston.  At the time of this post, two people are confirmed dead, and dozens are injured.  From reports, there were two explosives.  This is an act of terrorism, and it saddens me that there are people in this world that would do things like this.  But I do have a few thoughts.

We Americans take for granted how safe we actually are.  In countries like Afghanistan or Iraq, they don’t have that luxury.  I will never for a second condone this tragic event, but the fact that Americans are so complacent is interesting to me.  After 9/11, the people were terrified.  American soil had been attacked.  Over 1,000 people died.  This sort of thing made our nation so scared that it immediately had people willing to throw away their freedoms to feel safer.  You can bet that the media had a field-day with this fear.  The reports that were coming out were about as gloom-and-doom as it gets.

Then you have the other side of this equation – the people who want to believe that danger is every single place.  They had absolutely no problem throwing away freedoms after 9/11.  I cannot tell you how many people in my immediate area were saying stupid hyperbole like, “people shouldn’t be worried if they’ve got nothing to hide!”  That sort of sentiment just drove me up the wall.  But hey, that’s America for ya.  And when the government decided to make some unbelievably stupid decisions following a tragic event, we all went along with it, because fear and sensationalism were rampant.  I am hoping that this tragedy is not another repeat of that, should it be found out that a terrorist organization was responsible.  If we are EVER going to get out of our species infancy, we have to start being able to talk about things.  Otherwise, this kind of tribalism is going to drive us into the ground.  That is, to be honest, how I think the human race will end.

Though all things being said and done, here’s what we need to remember – we need to be able to talk about this.  I am one of the people who thinks that when we are going overboard about these issues, we are basically just selling out our freedoms for not even close to what they are worth.  What’s more, these discussions need to be rational!  I cannot tell you how many people are already online saying that this is the Muslims.  Then there are the conspiracy whack-jobs who are saying that this was all one big government scheme.  I swear, those people must think that our government is the most well-oiled machine in the world to make every single national tragedy happen without a single open omission or confession from one of the people involved.  But the reality here is that we aren’t rational about this.  Battle lines are already being drawn and we are already starting to fight it out.

Another thing that I want to add, if this was a terrorist attack, is that I have a very galvanizing opinion about terrorist attacks (if that is indeed what this was).  See, here is my thought – I have a TON more respect for the tradition mob hitman than I do for a person who kills innocent people for what they believe is a cause.  There are a couple reasons why.

The first is that the mob hitman doesn’t do this because of some delusion of it being a for a good cause.  The hitman is doing it for money.  They are doing it to survive.  They do a job that they know they are good at (if they have been alive doing it for a long time, they know that) and that they know will earn them the money they need.  This person has an understandable reason for their work.  Whether you agree with it or not, that should make sense to you.

The second reason is that the mob hitman doesn’t kill innocent people to do their job.  Don’t go off on me before you think about it.  They have a target.  A professional enforcer for the mob will know to take out their target in the most efficient way possible.  Does gunning that person down in a large crowd sound efficient to you?  Absolutely not.  They do their work in a way that can maximize efficiency while minimizing risk.  That’s the smart way to do these things, and criminals are a lot smarter than people give them credit for.

Look, this is a tragedy.  We should take time to mourn the victims and try and help those who can be helped.  One of the refreshing reports I got after this was that people were running in to where the blasts were to help those who were hurt.  That’s the kind of attitude that we should have.  We should come together and work together, instead of taking to the internet to fight it out.

Consensus is possible.  Our species doesn’t have to follow its usual pattern of immediately finding ways to get mad at each other.  But maybe I am just being too hopeful.  Keep the people involved in this tragedy in your thoughts.  Pray for them, if you must.  But most of all, please, keep an open mind and try and think about this rationally.  Please?  I am tired of hearing reports about how another school shooting has devolved into an argument about gun rights, when it should be us looking at what the causes of people’s violence are (and please don’t insult my intelligence by saying violent movies and video games.  That’s ignorance at its worst).  I am sick of tragedy being a battle over which rights that we lose.  We need to be smarter than this.

Otherwise, the point that others have made countless times before me is true – the terrorists have won.

Until next time, a quote,

“But it’s pretty obvious that a lot of people, in the absence of any kind of definitive answers, are clamoring for someone to blame.  And, really, in my opinion, that shouldn’t be our first imperative.  We shouldn’t immediately say ‘who can we blame for this?’  We should be all about finding the truth.”  -TJ Kirk, THE BOSTON BOMBING – What happens now?

Peace out,

Maverick

charity: water – Let’s Help Make the World a Better Place

I have spent the better bulk of my time on this blog bitching about how much humanity sucks.  And you know what – it does suck.  Every day, I get to see articles about the very worst of us.  Like the one about how quick store employees put a boot on the wheel of an ambulance, which was illegally parked, because it was responding to an emergency.  It’s lights were on, and it was clearly there for an emergency.  But the people working at the quick store decided that that didn’t matter.  They were illegally parked, so they were going to send a message.  To make things worse, when the ambulance driver discovered that his wheel had a boot on it, he demanded that the employee remove it.  But when the employees finally did, they found that the tire was flat.  So, they had to get a replacement ambulance to get the patient to a hospital.  If this had been a dire emergency, that patient might have been dead.  And why?  Because some asshole employee of a fucking quick store decided to be a dick.  That’s the only reason.  He’s a little prick.

Or, I can read stories about how suicide has passed motor vehicle accidents in the leading cause of death and injury in the United States.  And this isn’t just among teenagers.  The numbers are staggering across the board.  The fact that we simply want to talk about the people who kill themselves like they are either worthless, or saying that they are weak, or even worse – belittling what they died for, and making stupid laws that do nothing, instead of looking at the root causes, is pathetic to me.

I could, and do rage about this all the time.  But then, I see causes like charity: water.  This is a group who is dedicated to a single goal – providing clean drinking water.  Dirty drinking water accounts for more deaths each year than all kinds of violent death put together.  Drinking water that isn’t clean carries disease, toxins, and all manner of other health hazards.  Studies have been done showing that in places where there are outbreaks of deadly diseases, that still scare even Americans, one of the key links is the status of their drinking water.  There are places in this world where people have to walk miles, across arid landscapes, in order to get drinking water that they know isn’t clean.  This is a reality that over 800,000,000 people have to worry about every single day.  Mothers go to get water that they know might be contaminated, just because they have no other choice.

The group “charity: water” gives every single penny of their donations to projects that are getting clean water across the world.  Their website has ways that you can track the money that you gave, and see the results of your efforts.  The overhead and admin costs of this group are handled by outside investors.  They give every cent of their donations to this cause, and they need our help.

Here is a link to a fundraising effort by The Amazing Atheist for charity: water.  Here is another link to a video he has made, where he has said that for every thousand views he gets on the video, he will donate $1, with the cut-off being at $5,000 for 5,000,000 views.  I am poor as hell, so I will be donating $100 dollars to his fund-raising effort.  That’s the most I can afford.  But I think it is a moral imperative.  As a human being, I have to do something to help the people of this world.  And here is a chance for both you and me to help make this world a better place.  This isn’t a question of if we can or can’t do it.  This is a much harder question – will we, or won’t we?  You can donate.  You can donate even a measly sum of money.  But will you?

Will you help make the greatest holiday gift of your life?  Don’t give to the bigoted Salvation Army.  Don’t give to groups like Invisible Children, who are intellectually and morally bankrupt.  Give to something that matters, and visibly makes a difference.  I implore all of you, even if all you can give is $5, to do so.  Your donation might be the difference between some young boy having clean water to drink or not.

Give the greatest gift this holiday – the gift of a better life.  What can you give that would top that?

Until next time, a quote,

“The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful then a thousand heads bowing in prayer.”  -Mahatma Gandhi

Peace out,

Maverick

Justin Bieber is STILL Popular, and Teen Girls are STILL Stupid

I did a post a couple years back called “Modern Teenage Girls = Dumb.” In this post, I talked about how, if you look at teenage pop culture, and how ridiculously stupid it is.  The role models for teenagers now are the tepid, pathetic, asexual imps.  Unless, of course, they are girls, but even then, the girls in these pieces of pop culture who are interested in love don’t have a CLUE what real love is.  To them, love is the Full House, pathetic and super-awesome all the time attraction.  Love is simple, easy, and has no problems.  As is the case with the music of Justin Bieber.

Justin Bieber represents everything that is wrong with our culture.  This pathetic, asexual little girl (he isn’t not a man.  He has no balls) need to be forgotten by our culture.  But he isn’t being forgotten.  No, instead, while his popularity is nowhere near what it used to be, he is still a large figure in the public consciousness, and teen pop culture.

My favorite YouTube vlogger just did a video about this, and he pointed out something that I hadn’t thought of, but is very true, if you think about it.  Teen pop culture takes in what is dark, Gothic and cool, and turns it into something pathetic, whiny, bitchy, and ball-less.  Anyone remember when Vampires were something to be afraid of?  They made these great movies about how dark and sinister this creature was.  It haunts the night, stalking humans like a farmer, checking its chickens to see which would be the best food for the night.  They were something that was from your deepest nightmares, because it was neither animal nor man.  Neither zombie nor human.  It existed between worlds, forever in darkness.  That’s pretty fucking bad-ass.  Then, a Mormon author named Stephanie Meyer came along and said, “I bet I can make my own version of that, and it will be better!”  Actually, fuck that.  She saw a way to market, and she took it.  She saw a way to market her Mormon antiquated values, and she jumped on the bandwagon.  That’s the real truth.  And her publisher did SO many favors for her in marketing that crap.  But now, the teen pop culture has taken in vampires, where once they were something to be afraid of, now they are sparkly, and gay, and stupid.  They are a giant waste of time.

Anyone remember the werewolf?  They were another creature of the darkness, that existed in a place that was somewhere we didn’t want to be.  They also stalked the night, hunting us down like cattle.  We could mount no defense against them.  We were helpless before them.  The aforementioned author got a hold of them, and now, something else that represented fear and terror is about teenage unreal and unrealistic love.

In the 90′s, there was this strange new trend of taking Shakespearean and other great pieces of classic film and turning them into teen popcorn flicks.  Anyone remember the film “Cruel Intentions?”  Yeah, that little cinematic travesty (that guys only watch for the chicks making out) was part of this.  Or there were all the teenage versions of Shakespeare’s plays, like Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet, or O (an adaptation of Othello.  Why the fuck did they not include the whole title?!), or The 10 Things I Hate About You.  All of these were pieces of shit.  But teen culture ate it up.  Just like now, where Justin Bieber has replaced Kurt Cobain as the teen heart-throb.  This is what modern pop culture does.  It digest what’s cool, and it regurgitates what sucks.

It annoys me to no end how the modern view of being a teenager is that one is supposed to be stupid, and ignorant, and embrace partying and making an ass out of yourself, instead of intelligence and cognitive thought, and trying to make yourself a better person.  I was the leader of the outcasts in high school, and my outcast brethren were people who liked to read, and be smart, and do cool stuff.  They didn’t want to party and get involved in high school drama like the rest of them.  They didn’t want to embrace the socially corrosive culture.  And while there were a lot of us, the fact is that we were not the in-group.  We were the outcasts, in a culture that was just as dumb.  But it’s getting dumber.

And when people say that my problem is that I’m jealous of Justin Bieber, like TJ, I say, “fuck yeah, I am!”  I wish that I could be as good as that idiot at getting people to give me their money.  I wish I had a couple of mansions that my throngs of dumbass fans (in this instance, I have his.  I’m not insulting you, my regular readers. ) got me because they convinced their parents to buy my crap.  That’s all Justin Bieber has done!  He’s convinced the dumb to buy his garbage.  Teen girls are becoming the living dead.  If they were told that they had to rip apart a bunch of puppies in order to kiss Justin Bieber’s hand, I guarantee you that they would dig in without a moment’s hesitation.  That’s who this idiot’s fans are.  And I wish I had that kind of support.  I don’t.  I am a relative nobody, on a blog on WordPress, talking to my audience about what I think matters.  Everyone who hates this kid is jealous of his ability to have absolutely no talent, but make metric tons of cash.  To have President Obama want to hang with him, and get a medal from the Canadian Prime Minister.  Fuck yeah, I’m jealous of an idiot who has no talent, creativity, or even musical savvy, living a life of absolute luxury!  Who wouldn’t be?!

And this is what gets on my nerves – these are the people we surround ourselves with.  Parents don’t like this kid.  Nobody likes him.  Then why do we still buy his shit?!  Well, that’s obvious – because these girls want to believe that at any moment, they could turn a corner, and this pathetic little worm is going to be there, ready to tell them that he loves them.  I got news for you, girls – he doesn’t give a shit about you!  This trained monkey is doing what his handlers want so that he can make money!  All he cares about is the money!  He will never, ever care about you, what you think, how you feel, or anything connected to that!  And the fact that our culture isn’t crucifying this socially corrosive bullshit pisses me off!

Fuck this crap!

Until next time, a quote,

“Say it with me – Justin Bieber doesn’t give a shit about me.  He only cares about my parents’ money.”  -TJ Kincaid, 5 Reasons Justin Bieber Still Sucks 

Peace out,

Maverick

The Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church Get Away with Sex Crimes?

There is a bitter and tragic reality that is being brought forward more and more in this country.  The reality that behind the veils of a good, wholesome and supposedly more organization, there is organized corruption, along with vile and disgusting people who are getting away with sex crimes.  What makes this worse is that these crimes are against children.  Young children who are putting their trust in these people.  They think that these adults are there to look after them.  To protect them from the ugliness of the world.  They are trusting these people more than any others, and what is happening to them?  They are being violated in ways that are beyond sick.

First, there is the Catholic church.  This is an organization that simply astounds me in how it gets away with what it does and never, ever feel any major repercussion.  The crimes of the Catholic church and the Vatican are well known.  You don’t need me to tell you about it.  Among those like me, it is well-known that the Vatican openly protects these pedophile priests and deacons who have molested thousands of children.  They keep files on every single incident that happens, stating that the files cannot come out until ten years after the person becomes an adult.  As if to stick its nose up at the rest of us because we can’t do anything to them anymore.  They pay off the families who are the victims of this molestation, and threaten anyone who wants to talk with excommunication from the church.  They are corrupt thugs who use their power over people and government to keep the law from ever touching them in any significant way.

And they have a massive following.  These enablers of pedophilia are getting away with this, and they still have a massive following.  I mean, how else do they continue funding their opulent palaces that spit in the face of everything their savior preached about embracing poverty and being humble?  These people are totally okay with the fact that the Pope, their head person, is openly part of a system that is protecting child molesters and rapists.  Yes, there are incidents where these priests have gone that far, yet they still have millions upon millions of supporters.

But, in a recent article by the LA Times, another group has come to light that is responsible for the molestation of thousands of young boys.  Exclusively boys.  The Boy Scouts.  That’s right, an organization that is supposed to stand up for duty and country and honor has a very elaborate system that is protecting Scout Leaders who are responsible for molesting young boys.  After a review of over a thousand secret files, the LA Times has found out about the intricate network of corruption that is keeping these people from feeling the law.

You see, it breaks down like this – when an incident of molestation is reported, the Scouts put the person who did the crime on a secret blacklist.  The blacklist is called the “perversion files.”  These files are kept from seeing the light of day, reportedly, in the interest of protecting those involved.  This was supposed to protect people.  But, as the story shows, this blacklist was repeatedly gotten around by these sexual predators, and some of them went on to continue molesting young boys for over two decades.  Meanwhile, when the hammer of the law should have been felt, instead, the Boy Scouts kept this all under wraps, choosing to cloak themselves in ignorance.  What a bunch of fucking heroes, aren’t they?

In some cases, these predators weren’t even stopped after it was first reported that they molested one of the scouts.  The larger organization behind the Boy Scouts of America chose to wait for other instances to surface before doing anything.

The tales of these instances are heart-breaking.  One boy wrote about his experience, saying he was “going to quit the troop and tell my daddy.”  But, just like the Catholic church, these people are hardly feeling the hammer come down on them.  But maybe now, with the release of these files, there is some hope of justice for the boys who were violated by these people who they put their trust in.

There are a lot of days when people tell me that my hatred of this species is uncalled for.  That people are generally good, and do good things.  But then I read stuff like this.  Thousands cases of molestation have come up in the Boy Scouts since 1970, and the knowledge that this corrupt organization was helping keep this under wraps.

Many people will say that the kids should have come forward.  Those who say stupid shit like that don’t get what it’s like.  A boy is supposed to be tough.  When most boys are a kid, and they get hurt and cry, their dad tells them to “suck it up.”  The shame and humiliation in this are powerful weapons.  It is awful, and it is the exact same thing that the Catholic church does.  Both organizations are helping sexual predators get away with sexual crimes.  That is who these people are.

I have a friend.  She and I have gotten quite distant lately.  She told me of an instance when she was a lot younger.  She was a figure skater (and she still is damn good at it, even though she can’t skate professionally anymore), and was also a skater as a kid.  One of her coaches molested her.  She didn’t tell anybody.  Hearing stories like that, and then hearing about these people, it reminds me that not only is my hatred of humanity justified, it is outright true.

People are monsters.  We are disgusting animals, who can occasionally rise above the status of pure evil.  And that is only the best of us.  I am with TJ on this one.  Humanity is overrated.  And anybody, ANYBODY, who can defend either the Catholic church or the Boy Scouts of America in this should feel ashamed of themselves!  This is revolting, and this is what America has to put up with.

Until next time, a quote,

“And I’m not unsympathetic to those who cling to hope.  I too have seen extraordinary acts of kindness and love from this species.  Many people try to do good.  Both on a large and a small scale.  But here’s the problem – to create something, it takes cooperation, understanding, compassion, drive.  To destroy something, all it takes is one little action.”  -TJ Kincaid, HUMANITY IS OVERRATED 

Peace out,

Maverick

RE: THE AMANDA TODD SQUAD

I saw a video by my favorite YouTube vlogger, The Amazing Atheist.  He talked about the Amanda Todd tragedy, and his take was actually rather poignant.  He got me to think, and I have some responses to questions he asked in the video.

He pointed out that while Amanda Todd’s death is tragic, she isn’t the only one.  Kids all over this country are killing themselves after being bullied, and they don’t get the national stage that she has.  And people die all over the world from hunger every day.  Where are their voices?  Well, before we get to that, let’s answer TJ’s questions.

1. What makes Amanda Todd more important than Joel, Kenneth, Rachel and all of the other kids who have been pressured into of taking their own lives because of being bullied?  And if she’s not more important — Then why are you focusing on her to the exclusion of all the other victims of bullying?

Well, to be honest, she isn’t more important.  I freely admit that Amanda Todd is just one of the many victims.  But to the second question, I am not focusing on her to the exclusion of all other victims.  I am with Mr. Repzion on this.  We need to use her as an example for how this can and is happening to all sorts of other kids right now.  I am definitely trying to figure out how to deal with this on a larger scale.  Amanda Todd, to me, isn’t so much a martyr, as much as a reminder.  She is a reminder that this kind of thing happens all the time, and it goes unchecked, until the shallow society does as many have done with Amanda, and raise her on a pedestal and ignore everything else.

2. Why do you only care about bullying victims after they’ve killed themselves?

Again, I don’t.  This happens all the time, and I hate that.  I have seen it all the time where I grew up.  Back in my hometown, a good 80% of the girls in my school were vicious snakes, and the rest were their victims.  I always stood against that.  Being a titan of a man, I was able to bring those who were outcast into my fold, and give them a place and a home.  But there are many more who I couldn’t help back then, and who I realistically can’t help now.  If we are going to use Amanda Todd’s death for anything, it should be to remind people of that.

3. Why isn’t anyone talking about what REALLY needs to be done about bullying?

That’s a good question.  TJ brings up a lot of good points.  The American education system is broken.  That can’t be argued against.  I have railed against the broken education system in this country time and time again.  TJ’s solutions were pretty simple.  1. We need smaller classroom sizes.  Kids are being crammed into these rooms because the government won’t put any real money in education, because clearly, going overseas and killing people is much more important.  2. We need more teachers, and better pay to incentivise teachers to stay.  The average turnover rate of teachers is five years.  After five years, most teachers give up on the profession because the pay is miniscule, and the work is mind-numbing.  No teacher works an 8 hour day.  They work a 10, 12, 14 hour day.  If they didn’t, there would be no homework graded, no tests corrected, no tutoring, no coaching, no extra-curricular activities of any kind.  A teacher has to work their ass off, and they are chipping away at their student loans with pay that is downright pathetic.  It is shameful that we pay trained gorilla millions of dollars to throw a football, but we can’t pay the people in charge of the future generations a decent wage.  3. Children shouldn’t be left unsupervised on social networking sites before they can handle what comes with that.  4. We need to teach kids about how to fight against bullying.

TJ makes an especially good point there.  You think bullying stops the moment you get out of school?  Fuck no!  There are a metric ton of adult bullies who use their power over other people to make their lives miserable.  Kids should be taught to rely on nobody.  Remember that video where these boys were picking on a fat kid, and the fat kid got up and beat the shit out of them?  I remember that went viral.  Good on the kid who beat them.  We should teach kids to be strong, and not to take shit from anybody.  It will serve them well in the real world, away from school.  5. Exploration into the root causes of bullying.  Yeah, that makes sense.  I am with TJ.  Anybody who is against bullying should be for that.

4. Hundreds of thousands of people die every day from causes far worse than bullying.  Where are their stories?

Yeah, that’s a good point.  It is worth pointing out that America love a victim.  An American victim who they can latch onto and make into a poster-boy/girl for their cause.  And the reality is far more ugly than any of us can hope to believe.  My retort, though, would be that one has to pick their battles.  If my time being informed and seeing the world go to shit has taught me anything, it’s that you can’t take on the world.  One can only charge at windmills for so long before they are broken against it.  Now, this issue itself might be too big, but for those like me, who actually do want to do some good, this is far less of a windmill to climb than some of the others.  At least, that’s what I  think.

TJ pointed out at the end that if the story of Amanda Todd turns things around, he will admit that he is wrong in having contempt for those who have made this girl into a martyr.  I would like it noted that I have contempt for them as well, despite how passionate my post about her was.  This girl is a victim, and a tragic reminder of how our system has, and is failing.  But, like TJ, I don’t think that that will happen.  The news cycle will move on.  Amanda Todd will be forgotten,  Or, as he pointed out, we will pass some pathetic law, probably in her name, that doesn’t even try and solve the root cause of bullying.  It merely looks at the symptoms, and thinks that if we patch it up, that’s enough.  Because that is how America does.  America does what they think is just enough, and won’t cost a lot of money, because non-existent God-forbid that we actually work and make things better.  No, that would be just too much of a pain in the ass.  Instead, we will do the bare minimum, and that’s it.  Because America is the land of the lazy, and the home of the cost-effective.

Accomplishing real progress just isn’t in the fiscal plan for the year.

Until next time, a quote,

“And if you don’t like what I had to say in this video, then I urge you to prove me wrong.  Not with words.  Not with name-calling.  It makes no sense to bully me in the name of anti-bullying.  Prove it to me with your actions.  Show me that I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about by showing me how really and truly dedicated you are to this issue.”  -TJ Kincaid, THE AMANDA TODD SQUAD

Peace out,

Maverick

Lucien’s Opinion about the 2012 Election

Why the fuck do we care?  That’s my entire opinion.  Who fucking cares?  This is just another election that shows the greatest failure of modern democracy – that we actually think that it is worth something.

I tried to explain my position on my professional blog, in a way that makes sense, but people still seem to want to know what I think.  You wanna know what I think?  Well, here it is – this is so stupid!  There is a reality about the current social and political climate in this country that I don’t think people respect.  Or if they do, they don’t respect it enough.

There are two parties who control the bulk of politics in this country.  One is the Democrats.  At best, and I do mean at the very, very best, they are completely spineless cowards who will kowtow to Wall Street and the banks, unwilling to fight for anything and totally bending over for anything that big business wants.  At worst, they are completely and utterly complicit in the system that Matt Taibbi wrote about in his newest book, “Griftopia.”  People who are robbing us blind and don’t care about what happens to the rest of us.  We are little more than slaves to these people.  There was a bit on FRONTLINE about this, where a woman who worked at the bank said that when she saw the Occupy protestors outside of her building, she legitimately didn’t understand why they were so angry.  And the Democrats are 100% behind this, at worst.

Then you have the Republicans.  They are evil.  Straight-up, no bullshit, evil.  They are a party who has been engaged for the last few years in social battles that they lost in the 60′s, and have no chance of winning today, all for the purpose of keeping the eyes of the people away from Wall Street.  To keep people subservient and stupid.  And the worst part of all is that it works.  The people are totally behind this.  Their base of ignorant, white, middle-class voters stands up and cheers for the corporate slavish behavior of their party, saying how good business is, and how bad government is.  If only they knew that the government they so deride is a slave to big business.  A servant.  Oh well, that was too much to dream.

These are the people who control our government, and make all the big decisions.  And as we have seen with the Occupy movement, they don’t give a flying fuck what the people have to say!  When the people came in solidarity against SOPA and PIPA, what did they do?  They took down MegaUpload.  They did what those acts were designed to do, but without the legal crutch to lean on.  They just did it because they could.  That’s how this government works.  To hell with the people.  To hell with what they want.  It is all about what they want.  And what they want right now is whatever Wall Street wants.

Once upon a time, Obama was quoted saying, “America is back.”  Thank non-existent God that the people were smart enough to see that bullshit line for what it is – bullshit.  They didn’t buy it then, and they don’t buy it now that things are good.  We are smart enough to realize that things are really, really bad.

After the collapse of the economy in 2008, people expected massive reforms, to prevent this from happening again.  What did we get?  We got nothing.  We got toothless, in the most profound way, Wall Street reforms.  We got a Health Care Reform Act that is nothing more than a birthday present to the private insurance companies, since there is no public option.  We got Obama having the same people who got us into this mess telling him what to do with the economy.  And for some ridiculous reason, this is what people think is a good thing.  It’s good that we have a President who is showing his true colors of being Wall Street’s bitch.  Just like Bush, just like Clinton, just like Bush I, and just like Reagan.  Just like all of the Presidents of recent memory.

So, what do I think about this latest election?  I think it’s a fucking joke.  And the punch line is that people are talking about this like it actually matters.  It doesn’t!  This is the most stupid, asinine, pointless bullshit in all of existence!  No matter who you choose, it all ends the same!  We get a Wall Street slave who will continue this country’s downward spiral.

You know what hurts me the most about American culture?  How hard we have fought to get here.  To get to this point, so many people, from the million black people who marched on Washington, to the LGBT community, who even now has to deal with a massive culture of hatred, bigotry, and disgust.  So many people have tried so hard, and what do they get for their trouble?  They get where we are now.  They get this pathetic, shell of what was once a great country.

So, my thoughts about this election – who the fuck cares?  I don’t.  I am just enjoying watching people pretend that it matters.  That is always good for a laugh.

Until next time, a quote,

“At best, humanity is a bunch of simple-minded assholes who are so misinformed that they think voting means something.”  -TJ Kincaid, HUMANITY IS OVERRATED 

Peace out,

Maverick

Daniel Tosh, Rape Jokes, and Tumblr Feminists

Well, I thought that I would get into the middle of the internet drama again.  What can I say, I’m wired and I’m bored.  Daniel Tosh was recently performing at a comedy club in LA, The Laugh Factory.  He asked the audience what he should talk about.  Somebody shouted “Rape!”  It was then that a woman who is also a Tumblr feminist was in the club and decided to make a HUGE issue out of this.

The Tumblr feminists are a fascinating group of people.  To anybody who has a chance to see them, they are awesome.  Here’s a link to the Tumblr feminist who was at the club where Tosh was performing and decided to heckle him on-stage.  See, in her mind, when somebody even thinks about making a joke about rape, this must immediately be attacked and Tosh must be vilified in the worst way possible.  I’m not going to do this as a hit-for-hit style post, because I’m not in the mood for that, but I will give a little snippet, and you can read the rest if you like.  It is very telling of the kind of person this writer is.

I should probably add that having to basically flee while Tosh was enthusing about how hilarious it would be if I was gang-raped in that small, claustrophic room was pretty viscerally terrifying and threatening all the same, even if the actual scenario was unlikely to take place. The suggestion of it is violent enough and was meant to put me in my place.

Yeah, I wanna have a drink with this person and get into her head.  It must be a fascinating place.  To have this mindset, even when she didn’t get her facts right, is very interesting.  First, Tosh didn’t say that people should rape her.  When she heckled him on-stage, breaking the comedy club social contract, which stipulates that you don’t have to be there if you don’t want to be, and you can leave at anytime, so you don’t heckle the person on stage performing.  It’s just not done.

So, she disrupted the comedy club social contract, and when Tosh, the comedian who is kind of boring, sends it back at her, she goes on to Tumblr and reaches out to the Tumblr feminists, a group of radicals who don’t have a clue about what actual feminism is.

Let’s talk about them.  These people are a gold-mine of hilarity if you are ever bored.  These people have the basic belief that all men are evil.  For real, if you’ve got a dick, they hate you.  Or if you’ve got a dick, but you don’t feel like shit for having that dick, and feel like you are a monster who is oppressing women all the time, they hate you.  These women, and sometimes men, are some of the most self-involved people that I have ever come across.  They are wallowing in a deep pit of self-pity, self-martyrdom, and self-indulgent beliefs of their own superiority, with the rest of us being just a bunch of losers.

And these people are very ugly about their beliefs.  Anyone who challenges them is lambasted by their entire community.  But here’s the kicker – they aren’t above attacking one of their own!  Laci Green, a YouTube vlogger who I had had a lot of respect for until a while back, when I found out that she is one of them, has become the target of their rage.  She posted in a video and said the word “tranny.”  The Tumblr feminist community latched on to this and turned on her so fast that it probably made her head spin.  She had made an apology that to normal people would have sounded reasonable and acceptable.  But to these people, since they view anything that isn’t in their incredibly narrow way of thinking as wrong, decided that they were going to put up pictures of her apartment, and make death threats against her.  Laci Green, one of these self-pitying people, has become one of their targets.  What does that say about a community when it takes almost nothing to make them turn on one of their own?

But this thing with Tosh has galvanized them into action.  They are starting petitions to get his show removed from Comedy Central.  They are having this huge actions against Tosh, and why?  Because one of their own lied about what he said on stage, even after she was so rude as to break the comedy club social contract and not one of them fact-checked her.  This apparently is news.

What is with these women, anyway?  They seem to believe that they are the victims of some horrible social atrocity.  What, that they were born a woman?  These are women, in the Western World, between the ages of 15 and 25, bitching about how abused they are, and how awful their lives are, and how awful being a woman is.  How much do you wanna bet that not a single one of these women has been to Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan?  How much do you wanna bet that not one of these women has been to Haiti, or Uganda?  These women fascinate me in how they can talk about how oppressed women are, yet they have never seen real oppression.  No woman in America who talks about how oppressed American woman are has ever seen real oppression, because if they had, they would know better.  There are real gender issues in this country, but to call it “oppression” is beyond a reasonable stretch.  It’s an outright lie.

And let’s talk about rape jokes.  The Tumblr feminist community seems to believe that these are the worst kind of jokes, and pure evil, and that rape is the worst thing of all time.  Tell me – in what way are rape jokes somehow worse than other kinds of jokes about harsh stuff, like child molestation, or war, or murder?  We make jokes to take the harsh stuff and make it digestable, so that we can look at things from another way.  The point of humor is to make the difficult understandable.  We mock it, and the human condition.  I have been to many women’s shelters, and let me tell you, I have seen a lot of rape victims, and sometimes, the best thing that can be done for them is not to mock them, but to make a joke, because it makes the harsh easier, along with the heart-breaking.  I don’t think that women are the doormats that Tumblr feminists do.  Real rape is horrible and tragic, but to correlate a rape joke with supporting rape is just ridiculous!  Nobody with a soul supports rape, but we can all support humor, because it is what binds us together.

Here’s the ultimate truth that one can surmise about this group – they are bullies.  A woman punches a man because he says something she doesn’t like.  Violence being used to stop somebody from saying things that a group doesn’t like.  That is what thugs do.  They will attack people for saying what they don’t like, and threaten one of their own for saying something that they don’t like.  They also want to get rid of the Freedom of Speech when it offends them, trying to legislate their tastes and their ideas, to the detriment of a fundamental freedom that we all are supposed to have.  These people should offend real feminists who are fighting for women’s rights, and real equality activists like myself, who want equal rights for everybody.

Being a thug is never okay, it doesn’t matter what gender you are.

Until next time, a quote,

“Look, I know that not all feminists are a part of this.  This is a very specific set basically tyrannical fascist people, who want to censor everybody who says something that they don’t agree with.”  -TJ Kincaid, Tumblr Feminists 

Peace out,

Maverick

Texas: the Stupidest State in the Union

Yeah, again, I wish that I was making this up.  I wish that I had the imaginative skills to be able to make a satire of this.  It has come to the point where Texas has become its own satire.  This state is so stupid that it truly does amaze me.  Yet, as stupid as they are, they now what to make themselves stupider.  No shit, that’s exactly what Texas is trying to do.  They have written down, in the Republican Agenda, a new statement which absolutely astonishes me.  I had to have a few moments with this document.  In fact, let’s have some bits from it all over, so you can see where I am coming from in being amazed that Texas wants to make itself stupider.

Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

Wow.  Take a minute.  For real, take a minute, look at this bit from the article I linked to above.  Now, let it sink into your subconscious.  Texas, the state in the Union with some of the worst SAT scores, along with worst education, wants to abandon teaching that focuses on critical thinking.  That is…amazing, stupendous, unbelievably awe-inspiring.  I don’t think that I have seen something this incredibly stupid in my entire life.

An entire state of this country is openly admitting that they want to make our kids stupid and compliant to authority.  The levels of marvel that this strikes is unfounded.  I literally feel like I am watching a sitcom right now.  Texas, you are the dumbass dad from a bad sitcom, trying to make your kids obey you, and trying to make them stupid.  I love how they aren’t even hiding how evil they are anymore.  But guess what, it doesn’t end there.  These people, and their stupidity, goes all over the place.  Here’s another tidbit.

Supporting Motherhood ― We strongly support women who choose to devote their lives to their families and raising their children. We recognize their sacrifice and deplore the liberal assault on the family.

There’s been a running gag among liberals like me that Republicans want women pregnant and in the kitchen, barefoot.  Well, now it’s not a running joke.  The Texas Republicans have actually come out and admitted it!  I love this document!  This is the most awesome politically incorrect publication of a government plan that I have ever seen, and it gives me joy.  Not for the women of Texas whose rights could potentially be undermined while the government there tries to tell them that they should have kids and not pursue careers of their own.  No, I feel joy for the rest of America, who gets to have a laugh at how fucking stupid these people are!  If you are an intelligent person, and you live in Texas, run away.  Leave.  You have no places there.

But wait, it gets even better.  Here’s another morsel from the document.

Homosexuality ― We affirm that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society and contributes to the breakdown of the family unit. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans.
Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable “alternative” lifestyle, in public policy, nor should “family” be redefined to include homosexual “couples.” We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin. Additionally, we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction or belief in traditional values.

This is incredible.  Does decency mean nothing to the Texas Republicans now?  I am glad that I can rest in the knowledge that not a single Republican from Texas will write on here that I am taking this out of context.  They want their evil opinions know throughout America.  They want the rest of us to know how horrible they are.

First, how is homosexuality destroying families?  If just one person could explain that to me, that would be great.  Oh, wait, they can’t, because it isn’t destroying the family unit.  It is just a group of people who want to lead their own lives and be left alone.  Apparently, that is too much to ask from the Texas Republicans.

Second, thank you for saying outright that there should be no legal repercussions for harassing and bullying LGBT youth and probably adults.  Hate laws, I guess you want to get rid of them.  Thank you for openly admitting that you want to spread hate throughout America.  Thank you for openly declaring that you hate gay people.  Not in as many words, but you have left absolutely no doubt.

Pornography ― We encourage the enforcement of laws regarding all forms of pornography, because pornography is detrimental to the fabric of society.

I guess all that jerking off really hurts Texas.  Like they think that if guys jerk off, they won’t want sex anymore.  News flash, Texas, guys who are jerking off would LOVE real sex.  Why do you think that porn has an audience?

Classroom Discipline –We recommend that local school boards and classroom teachers be given more authority to deal with disciplinary problems. Corporal punishment is effective and legal in Texas.

Hey parents, want the teacher to have permission to beat your kid?

Juvenile Daytime Curfew – We strongly oppose Juvenile Daytime Curfews. Additionally, we oppose any official entity from detaining, questioning and/or disciplining our children without the consent of a child’s parent.

There’s nothing I can say about this.  It doesn’t get any stupider.

I would love to comment on all the parts of this document that are stupid, but honestly, there’s just no point.  Check it out for yourself.  It is proof like no other that Texas is the stupidest state in the Union.  It literally doesn’t get any dumber than that.

Texas, you are evil.  You are led by evil people who are hate-mongering bigots, and obviously hate all of you.  Enjoy your stupidity.

Until next time, a quote,

“I will just end by saying this – fuck Republicans, fuck Texas, and double-fuck Texas Republicans.”  -TJ Kincaid, WTF TEXAS?! 

Peace out,

Maverick

America: Crucifying Sandusky, while Cheering Our Monsters

There was a video put out by The Amazing Atheist today, and it was something that I have been thinking about for a long time.  Now look, I am not going to be one of those people who says that what Sandusky did isn’t that bad.  What he did was monstrous, and he should go to jail for the rest of his natural life.

But there was a video that Source Fed, a group that I find very enjoyable, which talked about this as well.  They said that there was a report in the news about how when Sandusky reported to prison to serve his time, the inmates serenaded him with “The Wall,” which had the lyrics, “leave those kids alone.”  The general tone seems to be that America is totally cool with what is about to happen.

There was also this graphic floating around -

The Amazing Atheist pointed out that condoning horrible actions of other people is not the values system of people who say that they are for justice. I agree with him.  There are a lot of days when I find the culture of this country rather disturbing.  Horrible people do horrible stuff.  That makes sense.  Sandusky did do horrible things.  But when we just turn a blind eye and acknowledge that we don’t care that another person is going to rape and probably brutalize a person because of what they did, what does that say about us?

If America is going to be openly unethical and morally bankrupt, as there are so many facets that are these days, can we at least just go all the way?  For real, balls-to-the-wall, let’s take this concept as far as we can take it.  Let’s say that rapists should be brutally sliced and diced in the street, huh?  How about we take murderers and stone them to death?  Get the little kids to throw a big rock and bust their brains out!  Hey, here’s an idea, how about we take all domestic abusers, both male and female, and tie them up and let people beat them for hours in public!  Or maybe we could take thieves and publicly cut off their hands.  If we are going to take delight in the rape and beating of other people, let’s just go all the way and decide to abandon our squeamishness and take it as high as it can go.

Oh, right, we won’t do that.  We won’t do that because America is a cowardly people.  They like to fantasize about violence toward people they don’t like, but they won’t do anything themselves.  They won’t do that because it is easier to simply hate and cheer from afar than it is to acknowledge your own moral bankruptcy and to say that you are the good guy.  We have to believe in our own goodness, while cheering the rape of an old man, just because he did something horrible.

There are a lot of days when this culture and what is acceptable to us disturbs me.  America is totally cool with mutilating men, women and children overseas.  We are totally fine with filling tiny graves with the bodies of babies so that we can fight wars that we choose to believe are “just.”  We won’t take the money from those useless wars and invest it in something useful, like universal health care.  We let the poor die, claiming that them being sick and them not having medicine is there fault, and how we shouldn’t have to feel bad for them.  Like they could have chosen to not be poor.

I got a fucking clue for you, America – you are NOT the morally superior people that you think you are.  I acknowledge that I won’t shed any tears if Sandusky does get raped in prison, but I am not going to actively encourage it.  I’m not that much of a monster that I will say that this man should be violated by other people because what he did was wrong.  He is going to do his time.  He is going to be removed from society.  The social contract is fulfilled.  Meanwhile, while horrible things are happening every day in this country, people here want to think that we are the good guys, and that we have some kind of high ground to stand on.

BULLSHIT!  You have nothing!  You have the barren corporate wasteland that you have let your country become.  You have the unethical medical system that is causing more bankruptcy in this country than any other cause.  You allow this country to imprison more people than any other nation on Earth, most who are non-violent offenders.  People whose only crime was putting something in their body that you don’t like.  You legislate your taste because apparently, the common good is what you say it is, and damn anybody who says otherwise.

TJ pointed out, we tell our kids to be nice, to help each other, and to play fairly with each other, but then, after the show turns off, what do we do?!  We do the exact opposite!  America is a country that canonizes back-stabbing, unfairness, ruthlessness and greed.  We let the sick in this country starve and die, even though we could so easily afford to help them.  It would be cheaper, by billions of dollars, to have a universal health care system than what we have now.  America would be saving money, but I guess that’s just wrong.

If America is going to be a nation of cutthroats and murderers, can we stop with the pretense?  Can we stop pretending to be better than we are?  Can we stop pretending like we have a values system that is better, when we are cheering for an old man to get raped?  Oh, right, we’re the good guys, because we gave him a trial.  God forbid that we actually think that him being in jail is punishment enough.

Fucking idiots…

Until next time, a quote,

“Jerry Sandusky is not being punished because he’s a monster.  Alright?  He’s being punished because he’s not the right kind of monster.  He didn’t get the memo that here in America, when we ruin the lives of those who are weaker than us, we do it from afar.  With an air of detachment, so we can pretend we’re the good guys.”  -TJ Kincaid, Jerry Sandusky: The Wrong Kind of Monster

Peace out,

Maverick

North Carolina and Ye Olde America

Have you ever thought to yourself – I bet having a time machine would be so cool! (Something I admit to doing all the time) Well, you don’t have to wonder what having a time machine would be like.  You can go to places all over America and see what life was like before the modern comforts such as indoor plumbing, equal rights and the basic treatment like human beings.

North Carolina has officially become the 31st state to have a constitutional ban on gay marriage.  This Amendment, Amendement 1, has made it clear that marriage is between “one man and one woman.”  There was a lovely tidbit from Tami Fitzgerald, the head of Vote for Marriage in North Carolina had this to say -

Marriage is between one man and one woman…you don’t rewrite the nature of God’s design based on the demands of a group of adults.

You know, I have been hearing about this for years.  I have been hearing about this whole “God’s design” argument.  It comes up in many ways.  All of the ways that I have heard it, however, are stupid.  Really fucking stupid.  The idea is that the reason that God exists is because (in Christians’ minds) everything on Earth is so wonderfully perfect, and could only have been designed by God.

Let’s take a look at that, because the fact is that there are a metric ton of things in this world which are not “intelligently designed.”  And if God created all things, he has to take credit for this.  What are some of these things, you ask?  Well, here is a nice list to help you get a grasp on the situation.

• The human appendix.  It does nothing for you, and often gets infected and has to be removed.  If it isn’t removed in time, it explodes. You get septic in a matter of hours, and die.  Guaranteed death.
• Wisdom teeth, which also serve us no purpose are are almost always removed.
• You eat through the same pipe that you breath through.  All eating requires you to hold your breath.
• Over 99.9% of all lifeforms that have ever lived on this planet are extinct.
• 14% of the world’s population is starving.
• All birth defects
• All illness
• The fact that an entire universe was “created,” full of galaxies, each with billions of stars, and we are on a tiny little planet out in the middle of a nowhere galaxy as the one planet capable of supporting life that we have found in our solar system, or anywhere else.  We have found planets that perhaps could support life, but we are not sure.
• 95% of the known universe is made up of Dark Matter (which we have no idea what it is).

Do all of those things sound perfectly designed to you?  No, but if you are going to make the claim that everything in this universe was designed by God, then you have to account for that.  You have to account that this guy was able to fuck up.  Not one of these things are intelligently designed.  Well, maybe except cancer.  Cancer is an almost perfect cell.  It is immortal and nearly invincible.  Killing cancer is getting easier, but it is still a resourceful son of a bitch.  The fact is that arguing that the universe is perfectly designed is ridiculous.

Of course, even if we did accept that premise, that all things in the universe are perfectly designed, that wouldn’t prove the existence of the Christian God.  Not even a little.  If anything, it only says that there is a deist god whose properties are up in the air.  Disproving that is impossible.  Proving the Christian God isn’t real is easy.

But back to North Carolina, let’s tackle the most obvious problem – they are amending the state’s constitution based on biblical reasoning.  I guess that whole 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America that says that your desert fairytales have no place in our government doesn’t mean much to the elected officials of North Carolina, who voted this in at 61%.

However, let’s put all the religious crap aside.  Let’s look at this purely from a bureaucratic standpoint.  The problems with this Amendment are huge.  One of the biggest is that the language of this Amendment is incredibly vague.  It not only can go after gay marriage, but also domestic partnerships and civil unions.  And it goes further.  Among the problems associated with it are – children born to unmarried parents could be inelligible for health insurance, couples that are living together but not married may not have domestic violence protections and many others.

When you have Bank of America saying that this is a bad thing because if it takes away from domestic partnerships, it can severely hurt North Carolina’s economy, you should take that seriously.  Their economy isn’t doing well, and taking away potential business will inevitably do more harm than good.

Of course, like what happened with here in Anchorage, voter fraud was a huge problem, with many of the North Carolina voters not even having Amendment 1 on their ballots.  More proof that the entire system is rigged.  But if the people will not go out and stand up against this, and demand as a unified body that something be done, with the threat of civil disobedience, this knowledge means nothing.

Now, some people are just shrugging this off, saying that this Amendment will go away in time, as there are changes in the culture driven by new generations.  But to say that is to ignore the reality – that they may be wrong.  Social progress isn’t a guarantee.  History has show this.  This needs to be taken seriously.  Of course, like most things in America, it isn’t.

But, once-again, let us say plainly that the greatest problem with this Amendment is that people are saying it needed to pass, not for any really intelligent reason, but because Gawd wants it that way.  That is not how America’s government should work.  Gawd has no place here.  Never has, never will.  And as you have seen, you don’t need a time machine to go back to Ye Olde America.

Until next time, a quote,

“Oh, man.  You guys are still doing this argument?!”  -TJ Kincaid, ATHEISM is a HOAX? 

Peace out,

Maverick