Violent Rhetoric

Since the Tucson shooting, the hot topic has been about the violent rhetoric. Most of the criticism I hear is towards the right, mainly because most of my friends are moderate liberals. But, there is no shortage of violent quotes from the left, too. I am about to quote many violent sayings from politicians or political news people, but first, a disclaimer: I realize that there are many more on here from the right than the left. This in NO WAY mirrors my beliefs; rather, it indicates how much more violent rhetoric comes from the right. I always try to be fair in my opinions, and this is no exception.

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” -President Barack Obama

"I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out." -Glenn Beck

"The nation is arming. What are they arming for, if it isn't that they are so distrustful of their government? They're afraid they'll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways? That's why I look at this as almost an imperative. If we don't win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?" -Sharron Angle

"Don't retreat; instead, RELOAD!" -Sarah Palin

"And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, uh Obama. Well, both, if we could." -Liz Trotta

"I know how the 'tea party' people feel, the anger, venom and bile that many of them showed during the recent House vote on health-care reform. I know because I want to spit on them, take one of their 'Obama Plan White Slavery' signs and knock every racist and homophobic tooth out of their Cro-Magnon heads." -Courtland Milloy

“We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” -Ann Coulter

"I hope that's not where we're going, but you know if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out." -Sharron Angle

"Every night I get down on my knees and pray that Dennis Kucinich will burst into flames." -Glenn Beck

"You know why there's a Second Amendment? In case the government fails to follow the first one." -Rush Limbaugh

“We ought to tell every other Moslem (sic) living in this nation that if you say one word, you’re gone.” -Jimmy Swaggert

And then, of course, we have the everyday, run-of-the-mill common people, like in this instance.

Please, guys, stop with the violent rhetoric. Some of these people who listen to you are actually impressionable enough to believe you. Why can't we all just get along and stop all the fighting?

Was Palin Involved?

Not directly, no. She didn't pull the trigger in Tucson. But indirectly? Let's look at the facts and decide for ourselves.

First, a recap of saturday: Rep. Gabrielle "Gabby" Giffords was holding an event called "Congress on your Corner" around noon. During the processions, a man pulled out a gun and shot Giffords in the head, as well as going on a massacre with the current stats at 6 dead, 14 wounded. Eventually, while reloading, the shooter, identified as 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, was tackled. Those shot were rushed to nearby hospitals. As of now, Rep. Giffords is in critical condition, though her surgeon said he was optimistic.

Now, as soon as the news broke, most news outlets were keeping people updated on the news. For the most part, I flipped between CNN, which I have found to be the most moderate news channel, and Fox. One thing I did notice was that, while CNN was simply giving the breaking news and doing interviews, Fox was solely interested in blaming the left. *shrug* That was foreseeable, right?

Many outlets, which I do apologize for their hasty response, were much like a mirror image of Fox: trying to pin things to the right, specifically Sarah Palin. The immediate connection was to her "hit list" map from a while back, which included Giffords in its list of targets. I have been doing a lot of research since these accusations came out, and this is the information I have gleaned:

• Many on the right bring up a map from during the Dubya years that is much like the Palin map. They attempt to use this as reason to call the left hypocrites, but there are a few differences. For one thing, the map does not target individuals, but rather states. Second, the text at the bottom (which does have a lot of militaristic termology) says that those are where democrats should be trying to win enough votes to stop Dubya from being re-elected. Let me give you a challenge: just TRY rewriting the text without using a single militaristic term. Here is the image. Difficult, no?
• Many on the right attempt to say that the shooter is a far-left "nut", their strongest reasoning being that The Communist Manifesto is on his list of favorite books. They ignore the fact, however, that his favorite books also include Mein Kampf, a highly conservative book. Also on this list are The Wizard Of Oz and Peter Pan, so can we assume he was a pedophile? No. His books offer no insight into his political motives.
• Very, VERY few on the right bring up the man's YouTube page, though many at the left jump at the chance. Why? Because he was an avid conspiracy theorist and anti-government advocate. His YouTube page, without a doubt, shows that he has strong conservative morals.

Of course, this is about whether Palin had anything to do with this, not the conservative right. None of the evidence gathered thus far gives any reason to conclude that Loughner was impacted enough by Sarah Palin individually to go on a shooting rampage. The evidence does, however, point to Loughner being an extreme rightist lunatic, much like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck; if he has been impacted by anybody, I'd bet it was from one of these two. So please, quit blaming Sarah Palin. She may be a complete idiot and an even more complete bitch, but that's no reason to blame her for something she had little-to-no part in.

Optometrists Killed in Afghanistan

Ten optometrists (6 Americans, a German, an Englishman, and most stories say two Afghans, but some say four) were killed in Afghanistan while trying to help the blind.

WNYT News, a New York local station
New York Times story

Dad: "If these idiots would stop listening to this nigger president Obama, we wouldn't have these problems." I'd love to see how any part of this story connects to Obama.

Freedom Of Speech, Guys

(Moving things over from my old blog)

This girl that is friends with a lot of my friends used to be my friend on FaceBook. But I didn't actually know her, so I deleted her. Since then, I have denied requests from her twice. Today, she messaged me telling me to stop posting statuses bashing her dad, who is a local "political cartoonist." I put that in quotes because he has no idea about politics.
Naturally, being the kind of guy that is open about his opinions, I let her know that I don't care who he is related to, especially if I don't know them. If I have an opinion, I'm going to express it regardless of who witnesses it. I may have also said something about how apparently, seeing as she didn't understand free speech, political ignorance runs in the family. Oops.
Anyway, she replied saying that she knows not everybody is going to agree with her dad. Thing is, nobody knows what his actual views are, because he doesn't seem to know what is actually going on in politics. I don't have a problem with his views themselves; I never get pissed at somebody for being conservative and whatnot. The reason her dad pisses me off is that he has a career making witty remarks about politics, but he has no idea what he is saying. That's like me being a bartender without knowing what alcohol is.
As always, I do have a point to this post:
1) Nobody cares what you think about their opinions; they're still going to have them.
2) If you're going to have a job where you react to the public, it's a good idea to know HOW to do your job.

The Gay Bachelor

(Moving things over from my old blog)

It's all over the news: Jake Pavelka, the former star of ABC's "The Bachelor", is in some deep doodoo. Once he and the girl he chose on the season finale broke up, the proverbial shit began hitting the fans. People from his past have been popping up left and right and giving us all insight into the REAL man many know as the "perfect gentleman." Now, I'm not very big on things like this, but there is one part of this situation that intrigued me: allegations of his homosexuality.
-Jake was seen getting very cozy and intimate with a fellow castmate, Juan Barbieri, at a well-known gay bar in West Hollywood, Mickey's. While Juan maintains that he himself is not gay, he says "Jake might be gay." Since the big breakup, he also declares, "Maybe he can call me now and we can hang out!"

-Jake was very against any intimacy with the female "love of his life", and though he denies this, another of his exes says that this is very much like what happened with her. She says that initially they would have sex often, but suddenly he put the brakes on their intimate relationship, supposedly for "religious convictions." Jake was often known to be huddled in a closet with a Bible, refusing to come out.
Personally, I find it hard to believe that people could be so oblivious as to what is going on here. No, I don't mean that this is some elaborately planned attack on Jake; I mean that he is in the closet(no pun intended), and desperately trying to use anything he can to rid himself of his homosexuality.
Now, I say that it should be obvious to everyone, but it may just be this apparent to me because of my past struggles with my own sexuality. Not even a year ago, I attempted to ask God for forgiveness, and believed that through Him anything could be fixed. That worked just as well as the two or three times I had attempted religious intervention, and ended in the same way: strengthening my conviction that there is no God, and if He does exist, he doesn't care about sexuality.
Many people would say, "But he was looking for love in WOMEN, not men, on 'The Bachelor'." To them, that says that he isn't gay; it gives me more evidence. I've tried this 'de-homoing' technique at least twice in my life. The logic works like this: "I've never been with a girl. I'm not attracted to them. Maybe I have to be with one in order to activate my heterosexuality." He's obviously tried this at least as many times as me, with the same result: nada.
He needs help. Not for his homosexuality, but for his denial of it. It seems that our homophobic society has convinced him that his true feelings are wrong, and this view has hurt more people than it has helped. Not only would counseling be helpful for him, but it would assure the girls that he has used in the past that it was not their fault, it would save other girls from being used in the future, and it would help him come to terms with who he really is and be able to find happiness.

Arizona More Ig'nant Than Alabama?

(Moving things over from my old blog)

I meant to post this a few days ago, but it's been a sleepy weekend.
I'm sure we're all well aware of the new bill in Arizona; if you aren't, why the hell are you reading this? Anyway, basically it says that if somebody is suspected of being illegal, they will be asked for all the necessary documentation, and if they can't provide it, they go to jail.
Now, I have a few problems with this:

1) How are they going to "suspect" that somebody is illegal? Only two ways: what they look like or how they speak. If they are not white, check 'em. If they have an accent or don't speak English, check 'em. And anybody knowledgable in law know that this is racial profiling, and is wrong. You can't decide whether you think somebody is illegal or not based on race or language.
2) The bill doesn't specify what "proper documentation" is, and as a video circulating quickly on YouTube shows, ID isn't necessarily all you need.
So basically, I could decide to (and have been, to prove my point) ask anybody who doesn't speak proper English to show me their ID, birth certificate, Social Security, and Immigration papers, and I have to see all of those right that second or you're going to jail. This causes problems, not only because NOBODY caries all those papers around, but also because if somebody was born in America, like the man in the video, they won't HAVE immigration papers.

We're All Right... On The Inside

(Moving things over from my old blog)

Why can't people understand that just because THEY think something is right, doesn't mean that it is? I frequently have this problem with religious folks, who tell me "I know I'm right." When I tell them, "That's what everybody thinks; if they didn't think that, it wouldn't be their beliefs," they just give me a look of befuddlement. This is often followed by a "No, they only think they are right, but I know for a fact that I am right." To which I reply the same thing as before. They just can't seem to wrap their minds around the concept that a belief IS a belief because the believer thinks they are right. Now I know that some of the concepts I easily wrap my mind around and embrace as possibility(such as the Alternate Colors Possibility, Mind Over Matter, and the Other Senses Theory), most people could never imagine, but still, this is a fairly simple concept:if you believe that you are right, why wouldn't everybody else? Do you think everybody else has wavering doubts about their beliefs? For that matter, can you honestly say that you have never had waveringdoubts about your own beliefs?


C'mon people, open your minds and see things from another's eyes. If you don't, you will always be wrong in your pursuit of truth.