Embryo of Philosophy

Okay, has the world just decided that it wants to make me furious and sad? Is this some grand conspiracy? Because Jesus H. Christ on a freaking pogo stick.

Somebody makes a post at fanfic rants about an author using "gay" as an insult. Irritating right? I hate when people do that. But if that's all it was, I wouldn't be making this post.

In come the Lesbians Who Aren't Offended By Anything. Watch as they blow off valid examples of homophobia! Thrill as they say that people are "looking to be offended!" Their ability to be total assholes will astound you!

I'm in there sporadically (mostly making snarky comments), but my main confrontation with one of the people is here. It's amazing how anyone can be that ignorant, condescending, offensive, and factually wrong all at once.

On the upside, the person who originally made the "gay" comment both changed her wording and apologized. That's how to be a class act, people. However it is not nearly enough to alleviate my rage over the whole situation.

One of my dollar bills had writing on it. It said, "Protect our borders." I, for one, agree completely. We are not policing our border with nearly enough rigour. The main problem, I think, is that we're not paying attention to the correct border. I don't trust those Canadian fuckers. They pretend to be all friendly, but I'm sure that they're planning a takeover. Then they'll come down and impose their way of life on us. Health care for everyone! Politeness! Not taking Focus on the Family's crap!

...On second thought, I for one welcome our new Canadian overlords.


In other new, I just a second ago, uh, dumped water all over my keyboard. Way to go, Veleda.

Two things have been occupying my mind as of late.

Ralph Nader was speaking at CU last Wednesday. I didn't go, as Wednesday is D&D night, and I cancel on tekararogue and my brother quite enough as it is. But it did get me thinking about third party candidates.

After the 2000 election, I defended Nader voters. It wasn't Nader who stole the election from Gore, it was Bush and his Republican cronies. The Nader voters hadn't done anything worse than vote for the candidate that they liked best, I argued.

Four years later we came to another election. I was disturbed to learn that Nader was running again, and that some people were planning to vote for him. Bush was a disaster, that was clear. I felt that the most important thing was getting him out the White House and stopping him from doing any further damage. "Anybody but Bush" was a slogan going around, and I agreed. I couldn't vote at the time, but I supported Kerry and felt that others should as well. Still, I didn't feel like I could really criticize Nader voters. Doesn't everybody have the right to vote for what they believe in?

So, now another four years have passed, and we come to our current situation. Once again Nader is running, and once again people (especially progressives) are talking about voting for a third party. For a while, though I was even more bothered than in 2004, I still didn't feel like a could really pass judgment. Then, I found this quote from the November/December 2004 issue of Mother Jones, which finally made things clear for me:

"Anyone that the Democrats run against Bush, even the appalling Joe Lieberman, should be a candidate around whom every progressive person in the United States who cares about the country's future and the future of the world rallies. Money should be thrown at that candidate. And if Ralph Nader runs -- if the Green Party makes the terrible mistake of running a presidential candidate -- don't give him your vote.

Listen, here's the thing about politics: It's not an expression of your moral purity and your ethics and your probity and your fond dreams of some utopian future. Progressive people constantly fail to get this."

It's true. People know that their third part candidate of choice won't win, but they vote to "make a statement." And that just doesn't work. Maybe it did once, I don't know, but it certainly doesn't now. Yeah, you could make your statement. But is making statement really worth damning the entire world to more of the same shit that we've been trying to survive this past eight years (and that many people haven't survived, thanks to, among other things, multiple wars)?

In perfect world, the Green Party candidate, Cynthia McKinney, would have my vote in a second. But we don't live in perfect world, in case you hadn't noticed.

You want to make a statement? Tell the Republican party that we want our country back. We're kicking them out of the White House. There's a statement for you.

Now that I've alienated a large number of you, let's try and get the rest.

Last week, I found myself debating with a small group of conservatives. It left me with a question. Why are conservatives so stupid? Now, hang on! Don't walk off in disgust yet. Allow me to explain.

These were gun nut conservatives, specifically. It may be surprising to people that I don't have entirely fully formed opinions on gun control. I hate guns, and wish that private citizens wouldn't own them, but whether I'd like a law outlawing guns altogether, that's harder to say. But these gun nut conservatives were far too out there for me to be feeling shades of grey. Their talking point du jour was that people should be allowed to carry concealed weapons on college campuses. Their argument was that the Virginia Tech shooting wouldn't have happened if everybody had had a handgun. Now, anti-gun control people make this argument all the time, just switching out the specific tragedy in order to be timely. I made the same rebuttal that I always make: So one person comes in with a gun, then another person pulls out a gun, then everyone feels under attack, so they all draw their weapons, and no one's sure who the enemy is, and maybe somebody shoots accidentally, and we're left with mass panic in room full of armed people. Does that strike anyone as an good situation?

A girl argued that that wouldn't happen because you need a license to own a gun, and I argued in return that you also need a license to drive a car, but that doesn't stop people from engaging in both road rage and plain old fashion stupidity. She mumbled a reluctant agreement and wandered off.

But there were three other people there and they kept going. Quoting one of the greatest minds of our time, I pointed out that while guns may not kill people, they certainly help. One person's reaction? "No they don't! No they don't!" Yes. Yes, he did indeed say that guns don't help you kill people. He went one to tell me that he could kill people with his car, or kill people by making pipe bomb. When I pointed out that pipe bombs were illegal for that very reason, he told me "Yes! Exactly!"

And at that point, I realized that these people didn't even understand what they were saying, and I left in disgust. But the conversation stuck in my mind. We have people who insist that guns don't help you kill people, who think that you've proven their point when you note the problem with their comparing gun ownership to pipe bombs.

It's not just this one incident, of course. Some time ago, a friend of my mother's (who's also homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, and an all around bigot) emailed her a story that the ACLU was trying to remove all crosses from cemeteries. Now, common sense will tell you that that's ridiculous, and five minutes of research will confirm that (if I remember correctly, she sent him the snopes page debunking the story), but he swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. Then, there are the people who honestly seem to believe that the CEO of the Procter & Gamble corporation is a Satanist who donates part of his company's profits to the Church of Satan. (I am not making that up.) There are people who still believe that Obama is a Muslim, and even worse, these people think that it actually matters.

Not all conservatives/Republicans are stupid, of course. But a large number of them are, and it's not your run of the mill, basic stupidity that can happen to anyone. So why are these people so stupid? I have a two part theory. It could be bunnies.

The first part is that stupid people are drawn to the Republican party. It makes sense. The Republican party revels in idiocy. Being intellectual, hell, even being informed is seen as "elitist" and bad. Look at Bush's "aw shucks" routine, or the way that Palin seems to take pride in being uninformed. Look at the fact that McCain has admitted that he doesn't know how to work a computer. Here's a party that isn't going to make you think too hard. (They don't want you too think to hard. That would ruin the whole racket.)

The other part is that they have to be stupid. There's no other option if they want to keep on believing what they do. If they had to think intelligently about what they believe, that would ruin everything. It's not normal foolishness that makes you think that allowing college students to carry concealed weapons on campus would somehow make for fewer school shootings. That kind of mind boggling idiocy has to be cultivated. No one actually using their mental facilities could continue to believe that the war in Iraq is going fine and dandy. Ann Coulter, that fine example of humanity, has a book entitled If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. This second type of person disgusts me more far more than the first. It's one thing to be dumb, it's another to be purposefully moronic in order to keep from having to reevaluate your convictions. (Sexist, homophobic, war mongers for president? Perhaps not such a good idea.) The former is the Republican party taking advantage of people. The latter is a group of people taking advantage of all of us.

Well, uh, it's good to know that I've been an equal opportunity offender today.

Normally when I post articles, they're political in nature. World or national news, or commentary on whatever sexual sub-culture has caught a reporter's eye. Today is slightly different. Today is an article on money and finances. It's not very useful. Why am I posting it, then? Because never before has one article summed up what's so very, very wrong with American's--without even realizing it.

Middle-class reality check: The 'essential' indulgences

( Or read it here )

The premise of the article seems sound enough, at first glance, if more than a little obvious: it's the extra things we buy, that we assume we need, that tend to cause money problems for otherwise well off people. The problem is in phrase "we assume we need." The article never challenged that. The author says that Starbucks coffee and manicures aren't necessities once in the article, but the more you read, the more you realize that in her heart, she believes otherwise.

The article does present the blindingly obvious conclusion: stop buying shit that you don't need. But the tone of the article makes it clear that this "expert advice" (what kind of expert do you have to be?) isn't practical. You can't stop buying your four dollar latte, because you need it. It's like saying, "You shouldn't hit someone unless the really deserve it... but everyone deserves it." The article is also without purpose. "Too bad, so sad, but what can we do? This is just the way things are now."

The part I really hate, the part that comes close to making me physically ill, is the last part.

On a recent run to the drugstore (Band-Aids, paper towels, dental floss) Harper spied a battery-powered Hello Kitty toothbrush and brought it to me with a breathless catch in her voice that I recognized from my own.

"Mama, please!"

I took a close look at this candy-colored cartoon character, a dual-headed number that promised to clean my child's teeth in a whirling vortex of bliss. It was $7.99. Then I glanced at the much more practical, soft-bristled, sad little substitute, which had the unfortunate luck of being stocked next to its superstar cousin. It was perfectly adequate and $2.99.

Harper saw me hesitating and saw she had but one moment to make her case.

"Mama, I have to have this."

I knew exactly what she meant.

What the fuck are you teaching your child, woman!? Your daughter does not have to have some flashy toothbrush. I was under the impression that the difference between want and need was one the most important early lessons to teach a child. Then again, the line between the two is so blurred in the author's mind that I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised. But, god damn it. No wonder we live in a nation of such rising debt.

It's not as if I don't understand the desire to own, to have more. It's not as if I don't buy plenty of shit that I don't need. I'd be loathe to give up my monthly manga purchase. But I don't think my precious comic books are a necessity. I'm not so deluded, not so mind-numbingly stupid.

I talk about spending too much; I talk about how money burns a whole in my pocket. The chilling truth seems to be that I'm a model of fiscal responsibility. And it's not that I cut back on luxuries. I just bought an anime artbook that I'm having shipped from Japan. That ain't cheap. But, I wouldn't buy it if I didn't honestly think that I could afford it. I could go without fancy ebay stuff, and, yes, if I had to, I could even stop buying manga. (Let's hope that it never comes to that.) Plus, I'm careful other places. I make a serious effort to never spend more than ten bucks on a haircut. I buy my clothes at thrift and discount stores. (With the exception of t-shirts. Witty/cool t-shirts are one of the luxuries that I allow myself.) When grocery shopping, I look for sales, and never buy name brand over generic unless there's a marked difference in quality. (And I'll look at a generic brand from a different store before I do that.) And when I get things that I in no way need, I try and be reasonable about it. If I'm getting special snacks at the grocery store, I make sure that I only get what's on sale. If I'm downtown and want to buy lunch, I'm still not going to spend ten bucks on a sandwich.

None of this is particularly amazing. However, this society is so blinded by greed and entitlement, that it begins to sound practically radical.

Next time one "stuff that gets Veleda really, really fucking pissed off:" People who can't even make the most basic effort to sort their recyclables.

You know, I am the very embodiment of this comic. I can't let things go. I have to argue, have to exhaustively point out all the myriad ways that my particular view is the right one. Even when I know it would be smarter and easier to walk away, I just can't. I tell you this so you know exactly what perversion of sense led me to have the following conversation on the ff.net Yami no Matsuei forums.

( For your, uh, enjoyment )

Oh, YnM fandom, I wish I knew how to quit you.

So, I belong to a queer support/activity group called OASOS. I'm also youth board co-chair. We had a meeting today. I am ready to kill everyone and everything.

My co-chair is intelligent and has experience serving on boards due to his time as a boy scout and eagle scout. The problem with this is that he wants to do everything according to rules that the the rest of us don't know. This slows things down considerably, but usually it's not too much of a problem. However today there was another girl there who used to be a youth board member, but isn't anymore. I swear, I could have strangled her.

The youth board recently revamped itself. It used to be that the only thing you needed to do to join was say that you wanted to. If you wanted to be an officer, the youth board took a vote. We've changed that, and now the OASOS group as a whole gets to vote for the youth board members. This girl wasn't there for either of the two large groups where we discussed this and elected people.

So, youth board starts discussing reelections. Should we have them? How often? Etc. She interrupts, insisting that we've always had elections and the whole thing is "bullshit." I try and explain that we're talking about elections by the large group, but she interrupts to tell me that we need reelections because I've been co-chair "like forever." I have indeed been co-chair for years, but I've never had any complaints, and besides that, I WAS JUST REELECTED, AND IF SHE HAD BOTHERED TO COME TO THE LARGE GROUPS SHE WOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT.

This girl went on making discussion impossible by just being uncooperative and rude. And what's worse, the adult facilitator was encouraging her! When I pointed out that "Whatfuckingever" and other such comments weren't particularly useful, the facilitator contradicted me. No, I'm sorry, but a few vulgarities repeated ad nauseum don't count as constructive dialogue.

When I mentioned that I wouldn't be able to attend the large group because I had to go home and study for finals, she told me off for being co-chair yet not attending groups. (Well, I'm sorry for wanting to pass my damn classes.) However, when she suggested that another youth be the emcee for our summer talent show, and was told that he hardly ever came to group, she defended him by saying that he had school, a job, and his own apartment.

...I have school, my own place, and I'm job hunting. Fuck you, sweet heart.

The whole thing was god damn infuriating. I hate people.


In other news, I finally have a profile. Granted, it's just stolen from my lj, but still.