Category Archives: Politics

Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond Of Each Other

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I saw this news item from thinkprogress.org:

 

“Republican House Leader Vows To Use ‘Power Of Humiliation’ To Undermine LGBT Program”

My first reaction was a knee-jerk one of course. “What is it to you?” What is it about gay people that gets these particular people all worked up? I’ve always wanted to know that. My curiosity of course is somewhat rhetorical as it’s pretty much obvious that much of this comes straight (ouch, pun) out of the pulpit and is certainly reinforced by the mirror maze of political self-convincing talk.

What would these people do if they were faced with the reality of what they say? The subject of their ire is the Mental Health Services Administration’s book titled “Provider’s Introduction to Substance Abuse Treatment for Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender Individuals.” So, what about this document? The title is really quite plain and explanatory and being a gay man, and knowing my particular niche culture gives me a unique viewpoint on this particular issue. Is it important? Do you think that people who are sick should be cared for, that people who are despondent and without hope should be helped? What are your thoughts on suicide? This gets right to the heart of it. I bet a lot of these people are upright god-fearing Christian types, they hail from Oklahoma and there is a stereotype, lets face it, about that region being rather salt-to-the-earth and quite red when it comes to politics. Sit back and let’s think for a moment about what your self-professed lord and savior, Jesus Christ, would think about “Provider’s Introduction to Substance Abuse Treatment for Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender Individuals.” Your lord and savior wandered around healing the sick, he never asked anyone if they were gay, lesbian, or transgendered. It just didn’t matter to him. People who cared for the sick like he did, he said, would be favored in God’s sight because they cared. Care. That’s what it really gets down to, who cares and who does not? Who hides behind a carapace of bigoted ignorance and who really cares? For these people in this meeting, all of them who didn’t stand up, who didn’t stomp their foot on the ground and argue against this – all of them – how can you face your self-professed lord and savior who you see every Sunday, nailed to a crucifix? Yes, he died to absolve you on sin, but when he was alive, when he was teaching – what was that part? Did you all miss that part? In your haste to be absolved of your sins, perhaps you missed everything up until the climax and after it was all over, you just rolled over and fell asleep?

These are valid questions that I would love answers to. I would dearly enjoy facing these people after we all march through the stations of the cross together. Jesus healing the lepers, Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life, Jesus and the children. Then turn to me, turn to a younger me, turn to any gay man, lesbian, or transgendered person and spit out that vitriol about the “Gay Agenda”.

Ma’am, yes, we do have a Gay Agenda. You caught us red-handed. Our agenda is simple. We are in pursuit of ending suffering of the people who are like us. The kids who grow up bullied and turn to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of being mocked for being different. Not the color of our skin, not anything patently obvious like that, but mocked for who we love. You mock us over love. How can you face Jesus Christ when you mock people for loving? Wasn’t Jesus all about Love? Isn’t that what he preached? Love each other, be good to each other, and for the love of god, stop killing each other! So, where’s the love? That’s what the agenda is. We want to save ourselves and people like us. We want to reduce the suffering, we want to catch the sad and hold them tight and tell them that they are not alone. We want to rescue people who are so alone and unhappy that all they want to do is hang, shoot themselves, or drink or take drugs until they die.

So, is this document that the Mental Health Services Administration is providing a good thing or a bad thing? What are your feelings on dead children? How about young men and women dying at their own hands? What about that? How does that stand up to your fear of some undefined pink menace coming for you and yours?

Jesus Christ My Ass.

 

An Open Letter to State Senator Tonya Schuitmaker

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State Sen. Tonya Schuitmaker votes for bill to exempt Michigan-made guns from federal regulations | MLive.com.

Dear State Senator Schuitmaker,

I read the article above and I understand the political drive that stands behind your decision to pursue this action but as a concerned citizen of Kalamazoo Michigan I beg you to reconsider your actions. Regulating guns is actually part of the directive from the Second Amendment, an amendment that I know you hold very near and dear to your heart. The text of it contains this phrase “A well-regulated militia” and so, in that context we both can agree.  The state has a well-regulated militia, represented primarily by the National Guard, and all the state, county, town, and township Police. What makes Michigan-made guns so special? Do you think that somehow exempting Michigan from these regulations, which you know would never work anyways, would somehow bring jobs, money, or praise to our beleaguered state? The answer Senator is not more guns, but well-regulated militias. Well regulated militias with well-regulated guns.

Let us put talk about politics aside just briefly and discuss what I am really getting at here. How many people must be killed before guns lose their allure to you? How many perforated children must lie dead at your feet for you to consider that perhaps stricter controls on guns, and yes, gun manufacturing may be a good idea? I and the rest of the citizenry would really quite like to know. If you have not seen the news recently we have two epidemics sweeping the land. One is influenza, and the other is gun crimes. While there is little to nothing that a legislator can do about influenza, you can do something about access to guns for these criminals. Let us speak plainly here, people are broken. Your citizenry are sick. Many people have untreated and undiagnosed mental disorders which interfere with rational cognition yet these people have no problem acquiring guns and ammunition and killing other people. These are criminals, and the law does not prevent them from accessing guns.

The classic republican design for guns is rooted not in lawful behavior but actually in mutually assured destruction. Republicans would quite enjoy it if every person was armed, because then the notion of gun violence, in the republican way of thinking, would evaporate. This design may work and I admit there may be something to it worth at least thinking about, but there is one problem to this design. Some citizens are mentally ill. Would you hand a mentally ill person a weapon and expect them to rationally consider mutually assured destruction? What if they are plagued by voices or have rage control problems? What does the republican model say in that situation? It devolves into a mexican standoff, moments before a blood bath. The Republican Party has a choice. You can go either way forward from the fork of gun control or addressing the mental health crisis in America. You can’t have it both ways. Either everyone gets guns and the mentally ill are cared for or there are strict gun controls and the mentally ill are left as they are.

So, Senator Schuitmaker, as a concerned voter in Kalamazoo I ask that you please reconsider this position. You can think of any part of your constituency when you make these decisions. The potential victims, men, women, and children and the various mentally ill people who mingle amongst us. We don’t ask for gun bans, but we do ask for gun regulations and I am willing to trade damaging the economics of gun manufacturers in this state so that we do not have to endure any more headlines about a field of dead children.

Two Kinds Of Law

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I’ve lived my life under a really useful expression. “Do not invite Vampires or Policemen into your home.” mostly because you just cannot trust a cop. They are supposed to protect and serve, at least that’s what it says on paper but everyone has seen instance after instance where the police abuse their powers granted to them by the people to do everything from simple infractions or derelictions of duty all the way up to what could be argued as murder. It runs the gamut, between the cop who turns on his sirens and lights to zoom through an intersection just so he can get to the donut shop because he’s got a dire craving to the cop that beats a retarded man nearly to death with a baton.

We don’t get that kind of action so much here in the delightful little town of Kalamazoo. By and large I’d say the cops are more an ever-present miasma than they are a downright menace. It’s a little town with a lot of police. You’ve got Michigan State Cops, you have Kalamazoo City Cops, you have County Sheriffs, and you have Kalamazoo Township Cops. Their spheres of influence are a messy geographic venn diagram and so because you don’t really get who does what, you just shrug and go about living your life.

Everything is just fine until you witness a cop breaking the law. Now I have to say that there are some situations where the law bends for a cop, like in an emergency the speed limit doesn’t matter and this post isn’t about that sort of thing. This post is about what happens when a cop, probably without thought, does something that is patently illegal – and you catch him at it.

Video says so much… so here we go. Officer Friendly driving 082 X 046 did something wrong:

[jwplayer mediaid=”2272″]

Yes, this is a very small infraction and lots of people do it all the time, I get that. But what irks me is when those who are set above us to “enforce the law” do not do so themselves. After looking up this particular naughty I came across this, which I sort of want to put on a ticket and attach to the cops car:

Negligent use of a motor vehicle – Prosecutable
Unattended – engine running or brake not set
Driver not in proper control of vehicle

Anyhow, I just took the video principally for lulz, but still, it is worth talking about. Who is above the law and who isn’t, and what those who aren’t do when they find out that the ones who are, aren’t.

Who might run for President in 2008? Hindsight Lulz!

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If only he’d run…

I’ve been thinking about 2008. Who I’d vote for and who I’d like to see run… I’m registered a Democrat, one look at my blog and that’s painfully, and quite obviously apparent – so I’d first vote in the Democrat’s Primary.

So who do I really want to see as both the primary winner and ultimately the final winner?

Senator Barack Obama from Illinois.

Commenter 1:

I dont forsee that happening.

Reason #1: TOO INEXPERIENCED – I’m not doubting the Senator’s capabilities, but as a junior member, I dont think he’ll receive a lot of backing. This is unfortunate, because somebody who might truly be very capable is likely to be glossed over for somebody with considerably more voice/mind share (ie LOLLary Clinton).

Reason #2: NOT WHITE – Spinning off from being too inexperienced, I dont think the majority of the Democrats will be behind a minority candidate they dont know.

REASON #3: JOHN “GOREBOT” KERRY – I’m not entirely sure the Democrat party will know to avoid a repeat of Algorebot by running a loser two elections in a row. I can’t objectively think of anything that makes John Kerry more endearing to the American public at large than Algorebot. Plus that hideous wife of his. And he’s French.

Commenter 2:

hmm. respectfully, #1 – almost NO ONE is now “too inexperienced” after the current prez. bush has lowered the bar to almost nonexistent. experience has little to do with it.

#2 – “not white” can easily be a huge plus, not a minus, in fact. example – why do u think the Republicans are making noise about Rice? only because her sex and race give her Pluses.

#3 – just because Kerry came up on top of the heap last time around is meaningless to the present. Kerry is a non-issue. and Gore in 2000 got more votes than the “winner” did.

i enjoyed your interesting observations, though 🙂

Commenter 1:

#1 Running somebody as “EVEN LESS EXPERIENCED THAN BUSH!” isn’t going to be a strong rallying cry for Democrats in 2008. Remember how people said that Gov. Bush lacked any experience in foreign policy (HILARIOUS IRAQ JOKES ASIDE, for now anyway)? I do. Foreign policy will no doubt be a major issue in the 08 elections. If Obama lacks experience in foreign policy (and I dont know conclusively, but I’d guess that, as a junior Senator, his experience cant be very high, compared to other more senior Democrats anyway).

#2 It’s not that being a minority is a negative. Not at all. But if the USA is ready for it’s first Africano President, they’re going to want somebody they “know.” This is why Colin Powell was just a strong choice for President for the GOP; he’s got oodles of experience (particularly as a former General) and he’s known on both sides of the political fence and internationally. For all his merits, I just dont think Obama can measure up to the standards that will assuredly be placed on the first serious black American running for President (Carolyn Mosely-Brown nonwithstanding).

#3 Senator Kerry hasnt renounced any plans for running for President in ’08. And, given that the 2004 election was very close, it’s very likely that he could run again if he can make a stronger case than the Republican nominee in 2008. Two years is a long time in politics, but we could be seeing Kerry against Hillary as the Democrat ticket in the primaries. Kerry has a lot of political ambition, so I wouldnt count him out as running again. And Kerry would surely beat out Obama in the primaries, so, for the time being, Kerry is still a contender (although a terrible choice, in my opinion).

Commenter 2:

politics –

u make salient points, but i am unconvinced ANY Senator can be elected, to be honest. Senators – all of ’em, McCain, Clinton, Obama, Kerry, Frist (haha) – all suffer in some serious way from necessary public statesmanship doing their job; they turn off too many pleasing some.

i’d prefer Obama, like Andrew; i really think he’s the shit. Powell is a fascinating topic u bring up – before he totally allowed himself to be used like toilet paper wiping bush’s ass, he could’ve been elected in a heartbeat i think, i would have voted for him enthusiastically. no more. bushies have truly ruined him and he allowed that to occur, so i no longer respect Powell.

i despise Rice because of her lies heading into Iraq, and her incompetency prior to becomming the Sec of State – so far she’s doing pretty well in her new job, and it’s great having a black woman rep us in the world, i like that a lot. still, i’ll never forgive her for her pre-Iraq garbage.

i would be excited about Sen. Clinton as president – there’s history. it’d be fascinating. she is too conservative for me, but so was her husband, but she would at least balance the budget as he did (i suspect). and i think she’d rep us well in the world, as opposed to what we have now.

i’m mad at kerry, he sucks, he ran a poor campaign at best. it’s tiresome that Dems get balls AFTER they lose. this is my problem with Gore, altho i like him more than Kerry. i would be thrilled with a Gore Presidency. and Gore is a hawk, and i hate his wife Tipper who is anti-firstAmendment, but i think Gore would still make a great President once he was in.

Commenter 3:

Commenter 1’s #1 is mine. As many good things as Obama is, I don’t really feel confident that he’s ready for a run for the Oval, nor do I think that he’d pull it off. It may take a decade, but I think that he could become an amazing power for good in that time.

Ugly, but hey, the hats kind of neat…

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The Catholic Church opens its mouth and they say the darnedest things. They live in an uniquely distorted world: People aren’t exactly flocking to churches, the Pope himself is deeply implicated with shielding pedophiles in the Church ranks and then they say this out loud. How exactly are you spreading the word of Jesus Christ? Is it by preaching hate and sexually abusing children that you think is the path to salvation?

Much like the conservatives, it seems that the Church has drifted so far off its axis that they no longer seem to have any grip on reality.

But hey, who am I? Hah! Have you looked in a mirror lately?

Stunning

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There is something quite breathtaking when you find a female misogynist. Articles like this just dazzle me. She writes for the National Review and she’s a conservative. I can’t help but compare her to Ann Coulter and I think the both of them would be perfectly fine being compared to each other.

I can’t help but see how this is just one more nail in the coffin for conservatives. They have exited reality long long ago and it seems that their playbook only contains hatred, bigotry, stupidity, and monumental self-loathing. A surprising number of conservative men are actually downlow gay and the women are either breathtakingly free of empathy or incredibly misogynistic.

How is it that anyone votes, listens to, or endures the suffering pouring out of these awful false people? There should be a pill for this… 🙂

Measure of Civilization

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I have determined that there is a minimum measure for whether or not you are part of civilization or if you are a filthy barbarian.

This is in your house if you are civilized:

20130101-170320.jpg

And if you are a filthy uneducated barbarian:

20130101-170401.jpg

As you can see, the differences are both subtle yet strangely profound. If you select this one thing incorrectly, you should be ashamed.

Now you know…

Commentary

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Sometimes really good stuff comes when your patience is tried… this comment that I just wrote I think deserves to be elevated to a blog post all on its own.

Remember, if you don’t like what I write, you do not have to read it. Not reading this blog will not break my heart or hurt my feelings. You may want to think twice before trolling me.

***

My point wasn’t necessarily about the political argument surrounding welfare as much as it was about how we all need each other, socially, to do those things that must be done to make life better for us all. States that want to secede do not understand the larger context of their actions. Secession involves necessarily a new series of trade agreements between bordering states. If Texas, for example requires fresh drinking water from the Great Lakes Compact region, they will have to trade something they have and the Compact will have to determine what we are willing to sell our fresh water for, as an example. Plus for the states that abandon the Union, they’ll have to take on all those services that the Feds have taken care of, so, hard winters, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes will require even more exchange of goods and services to compensate for assistance. No man is an island, and no state is an island either. If Texas were to leave the Union, as they are fond of posturing that they will do, then their interdependencies with other states will be much more complicated. They may have a lot of oil, or in some other states as you say, natural gas or coal resources, but without access to shipping it would be a challenge for these states to get the drilling equipment as well, so they can make good on their resources.

I don’t engage with people who go out of their way to whine about socialized care programs because their arguments are always incredibly myopic and almost always come from a sense of unbearable greed, obnoxious heartlessness, and a general lack of human empathy to people who aren’t as fortunate as others. I get it a lot from my conservative family members, especially when they say blanket phrases like “If they’d just get a job, they wouldn’t need welfare!” Well, yes, that’s obvious – but where are the jobs? Sometimes you can’t find employment despite every effort; For conservatives these poor people are just parasites and nary a single thought is spent on whether or not lives are lost just because of economic misfortune. There is no pride in taking welfare and people are ashamed of doing so, but have no other choice. Conservatives never really go out of their way to find people who use these services so they are told by their media outlets and by each other what these people are like, they use various logical fallacies to magnify one instance of someone taking advantage of the system and then use that to denigrate the entire framework. There may be people who take advantage of the system, but for someone with a functioning sense of empathy, it’s far better for ten people to misuse the system than for one person to starve to death through no fault of their own.

We will never see eye to eye on this. It is my conclusion that there are two different camps, and they are drawn on the political continuum between liberalism and conservatism. There is no middle ground, it is effectively a DMZ loaded with dead bodies and land mines. I do not seek to change your mind. I do not offer arguments to you to alter how you see the world. I simply try to live my life according to my ethics and morals and how I think the world should work, just like you. Because I offer no argument, there really is no room for a reply from this statement that I write. Consider it a billboard for this blog, you can rail at a billboard until you grow hoarse, but it will do no good. You will not change my mind.

Some would argue that this is unfair, that I am not giving my blog readers a place to express themselves and by effectively shutting down an argument and asserting that mine is the last word is the height of arrogance. You would be the definition of right. Nowhere on this blog do I state that I will behave in any particular way, so, as my partner is fond of saying, learn to cope.

Citizens from 15 states have filed petitions to secede from the United States – Dallas Top News | Examiner.com

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Citizens from 15 states have filed petitions to secede from the United States – Dallas Top News | Examiner.com.

The list includes Louisiana, Texas, Montana, North Dakota, Indiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Colorado, Oregon, and New York. Of that list, I would be dismayed only for the last three, the others? I couldn’t push them out the door fast enough.

What’s most curious is that most of these states consume a lot of federal money. If they left the union, life would become very difficult for them. Just imagine the new tollways that would open up on their now-not-federally-supported-segments of the Eisenhower Interstate System. You thought the NYS Thruway was an expensive axle-mangler, just wait until Albany has to figure out how to fix it all on their own.

I think we can all say with a fair amount of humor, that Texas can leave whenever it damn well likes. Stop posturing and threatening, just do it already. I can’t wait to see how OPEC deals with The Great Christian Domain of Texas. That’ll be hilarious.

Hurricanes that slam into Galveston will now be regarded as Reality TV as “Those poor fools in Texas” try to cope without the rest of us. A lot of these red states think they can exist outside of all socialized connections with the other states and the Union, and I think they should be allowed to leave to feel what being truly alone feels like.

How fast they would rush back. And my, what sort of concessions they’d have to part with just to get back in. Just ask South Carolina about secession. It’s been more than a hundred years and they still haven’t recovered from the last time. But you never know, it might be different this time. (no, it won’t, it’ll be worse)

How Lovely

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I just got an email from my blog about a comment that was posted about my earlier post regarding controlling ammunition. There is no hidden agenda on my blog, I am a liberal and I proudly defend my opinions and thoughts and when it comes to weapons, what I write comes from the heart.

So, on with the comment from a user by the name of Joe Joe, email address bgyiu@gmail.com from IP address 166.152.62.75:

Move to chicago or new york ass munch. They have almost completely dis-armed their citizens, and now they are at the mercy of thugs who don’t follow the law anyway, dick mouth!! It’s candy ass turds like you who are the first to be raped and killed. Just because you don’t mind being defenseless, don’t expect the rest of us to be so anxious. Cowardly turds like you are precisely why this country has become a joke. Even if the criminals didn’t have guns, then we are at the mercy of an out of control, authoritative government. NO THANKS!!! Just move somewhere where they have disarmed everyone and allow YOUR family to be raped, pillaged, and plundered!!!! Keep your warped agenda to yourself, butt munch.

So that comment of course is certainly provocative. I find the actual word selection to be most interesting to me. Let’s set some assumptive defaults regarding the poster of the comment – first, I think it’s safe to say that anyone who reacts this way is likely a conservative and if so, we have to have pity for them because they are political lepers. Nobody wants to engage with them because all they have is vitriol, anger, and reactivity. This particular fellow also has a uniquely bent vocabulary.

Let’s move beyond the fear of control from the government and get at the core pillars of the comments contents. The first one is fear. This comment reeks of fear. Fear of criminals, fear of the government, and fear of what I said in my blog. I don’t feel anxious or attacked by the commenter, I feel sad for him – as I would anyone who lives in that much fear eventually would de-evolve into nothing more than a gross sort of pavlovian kicks and jerks. Now on to what really is entertaining about this comment, and these words are at the core of it: “ass munch”, “dick mouth”, “candy ass”, and of course, “rape”. Now my higher education is in psychology and english and I can’t help but feel excited at these very colorful phrases. The writer reveals more to me in his word selection than the actual content of what he is trying to convey. As I have said time and time again when it comes to conservatives who are so angry and upset with homosexuals, it has more to do with them fighting their reflections than it does anything else. This fellows comment is a perfect example of this. A rational argument could have been made without all these colorful epithets however this fellow spent time typing these in. I think this commenter has a deep psychosexual issue that he has not dealt with yet. He is typing “ass munch” and he is thinking about analingus. He writes “dick mouth” so obviously fellatio is foremost on his mind, “candy ass” has a rather well-known connotation to cowardice however when this phrase is in the same statement with the others, it’s not cowardice but rather a begging for anal sex. In the end we get to “rape”, and that imagery comes up quite a lot. I am unsure as to whether the commenter is fearful of being raped, anxious about having rape ideations or what, but he spends a rather long time thinking about it. I’d have to say that the phrasing is homosexually receptive, as it’s something that bottoms are fond of in general. So the commenter is probably a closet homosexual with ideations of being overwhelmed by a more masculine partner and likely fantasizes about having his will dominated by another man. The popular image of this is the ultra-butch muscle mary who at the drop of a hat drops their shorts for a righteous pounding. I would say that in the extremis, this fellow, if he wasn’t ruled by fear, would probably enjoy anal sex and from the sheer massive content of homosexual phrasing in such a short comment,  how could anyone see it any other way?

So, I feel more pity for him than anything else. Joe Joe, I hope you stop trying to troll blogs like these because your deeper psychology is leaking out in your vocabulary and I suspect that you really would prefer people to not know of how much homosexual ideation goes on between your ears.

As for the message you tried to convey? It is lost on me. I know what you wanted to say and stripping off your homosexual panic and the fear, I do get you, however I still do not agree with you. I still believe that controlling ammunition is the best way to control guns. Obviously it isn’t a topic that a liberal or a conservative is willing to budge on so perhaps leaving the comment was a faux-pas on your behalf. In any case, you did entertain me and for that, I am thankful.

You should  do something about all that homosexual panic though, it’s not good for you. Really.