homophobia

The Hazards Associated With Hate Speech

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A recent back-and-forth with an old friend led me to believe that some clarification on the topic of Hate Speech might be in order. I like to think that other people might also benefit from this.

First of all, there is no clear or concise definition as far as what constitutes Hate Speech…but it’s most often understood to be speech that is disparaging, dehumanizing, and derogatory toward a group of people based on Inherent and Immutable characteristics such as Ethnicity, Nationality, Disability Status, Gender/Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation.

Many people claim it should apply to Political Affiliation and Religion, but to define either of those things as “Inherent or Immutable” is a huge stretch, since both of those two things are choices (no matter how difficult it may be for people to separate themselves from the Politics or Religion of their upbringing and environment). I was raised as a Catholic, but am not Catholic. I was raised in a deeply Conservative environment (South Dakota), but I am not Conservative. The same applies to many of you who are reading this.

Thus, I personally do NOT extend the definition of Hate Speech to cover things that are choices made by individuals. It is precisely the choices and behaviors of people that are the things we can (and I dare say, SHOULD) judge people by. The choices we make and the actions arising from those choices are the things we uniformly agree upon as conditions upon which we can be convicted, in court and otherwise. It’s judging people by things that are simply part of who they are, unchangeable and permanent, where the problem arises. So, regardless of how off-base and idiotic I find a lot of the rhetoric being tossed around with respect to Political Opposition, I do not consider that Hate Speech. It can be just as harmful and toxic, but hating people over Political Ideology is not the same as hating someone over characteristics that are intrinsically part of who they are.

Sure, some people have so thoroughly immersed themselves in their Political Ideology that there’s little identity left once that is stripped away, but that was nevertheless a choice they made. That is the downside regarding Identity Politics (and especially what that term has come to mean in recent years), in that it becomes all too easy to lose oneself along the way. And, like many things, Identity Politics is something that’s been co-opted by non-marginalized people. And, of course, it’s been corrupted in the process, especially in America.

It originated as a way for people of marginalized groups to come together, advocating for one another, and rallying against shared experiences of systemic oppression, exploitation, and neglect. Where one person’s voice could be easily drowned out, a collective movement could effect structural change and draw attention to systems built on platforms of injustice and prejudice. Unfortunately, as could easily be predicted, those who had benefited from said systems were less than accommodating when it came to opening the doors and embracing equity and equality. It took almost no time at all for White Supremacists to manipulate the dialogue and distort everything to make reasonable demands for a seat at the table sound like threats to the table itself and those who had historically taken all of the seats.

And that’s where we still are, with even otherwise reasonable people so caught up in this fictional narrative that they can’t see the threads they’d need to tug at to unravel the tapestry of lies they’ve been conditioned to believe. They’re so scared of one boogeyman after another that they can’t recognize how flimsy and silly the imaginary threats happen to be, until they’re jumping at shadows around every corner.

Now, as far as what I wanted to clarify. There is a huge difference between your racist uncle or some dude at the bar expressing bigotry and someone using a national (or international) platform that reaches thousands or tens of thousands of people at a time.

“Talk shit, get hit,” applies to the racist uncle or random dude at the bar or on the street, if one is so inclined. It’s toxic and upsetting, but that kind of Hate Speech can be dismissed by most people, including the marginalized group being targeted by said bigotry. It’s terrible and ignorant, but it’s also white noise.

There is a huge Qualitative and Quantitative difference between that and the same Hate Speech being expressed by Public Figures with wide-reaching influence. That’s when Hate Speech truly becomes dangerous and a cause for valid concern. Politicians, Television Personalities, successful Podcasters and Influencers, and Public Speakers should have both a greater responsibility to uphold the Social Contract and a greater set of standards to which they are held. This is precisely because they have the historically proven capacity to influence the nature and quality of public discourse.

We’ve seen the results of Hate Speech being legitimized by platforming it and treating it as nothing more than the Free Expression of a different opinion. It produces a Discriminatory Environment for individuals within the targeted marginalized groups, and can easily become a case of Incitement to violence. Both of which, I might add, are conditions that are not covered under Freedom of Speech.

We can look at it this way, if need be. A random person muttering “theater” to himself in a crowded fire isn’t likely to get much attention. But if we put someone front and center for the whole conflagration with a megaphone in their hands so that they can shout, “Theater,” everyone in that inferno is going to be singing, “Let’s All Go To the Lobby” in no time at all. It’s a matter of magnitude and amplification. It’s the scale that makes all the difference, and that one person can overwhelm the voices of hundreds or even thousands of people shouting in unison.

Some would surely insist that, regardless of how loud and how far-reaching, those are still just words. Some will insist that words can’t be violence, that only physical violence is violence. To those people who need to better understand that there are more forms of violence than the fist, the bullet, and the bomb, I’ve already spent some time exploring the topic here. For everyone else (including those who require further simplification), I can only hope this next bit sinks in.

You’re already most of the way to the finish line if you’re capable of recognizing that threatening, insulting, humiliating, and intimidating behavior within the framework of a relationship (romantic, parental, or other) constitutes abuse. That is acknowledgment that words can be (and are) violent when the conditions are appropriate. Even if you, for some reason, don’t think Emotional or Psychological Abuse qualifies as violence, the legal system definitely does treat Coercive Control as a crime in more than a dozen states. And for marginalized people, bigotry has always been a form of Coercive Control, at the societal level.

I want you to step back, set aside your preconceived notions for just a moment, and perform a little thought experiment with me. We’ll make these examples personal because some people require that someone they personally care about be impacted before they can rationalize these things. I don’t even want to begin unpacking what that says about them.

If you have a daughter or a sister, I want you to ask yourself something. What message does it convey when so many people openly insist that Hillary Clinton (or any other woman) shouldn’t be President because women are too emotional? Especially in light of how emotionally unstable Donald Trump has proven himself to be on several occasions, what does that say about your perspective regarding the women in your life? When public figures plastered social media, television, and other public forums with claims that Kamala Harris only achieved anything she’s accomplished because she slept with people to get to the top, what message does that pass along to your daughters, sisters, and other women in your life? These aren’t things you’d say about male candidates. This isn’t to say I’m particularly fond of Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris, but to pretend that either of them was somehow less qualified to serve as President than Donald Trump is something that requires far more imagination than I’m capable of mustering.

Assuming you know any Black people, how do you think it feels for them (throughout their whole lives) to have people vocally expressing the opinion that any successful Black person only achieved their success at the expense of a more qualified white person? First, it was Affirmative Action, then it was Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policies, that explained how they enrolled in college, rose up the corporate ladder, and established themselves in their careers. Unless we’re talking about specific athletic fields, particular musical genres (god forbid a Black man or woman encroaches on the sacrosanct Country Music genre), or a couple of other isolated career paths, there’s no way for people to avoid having their accomplishments denigrated and dismissed as handouts. As a white man, I can guarantee I’ve heard that kind of talk from people my whole damn life: from random imbeciles, radio and television personalities, podcasters, public speakers, and politicians (right up to Donald J. Trump, himself).

This idiocy was never clearer than when Barack Obama was elected President. His devout Christianity has been called into question from before he was nominated to the present. His sexual orientation was questioned (by people who somehow still believe that certain sexual orientations diminish someone’s value), and prolific Conservative voices spread rumors of him trading homosexual favors for drugs while he was in college. His status as an American was a topic of debate at the highest levels of Conservative Politics, despite being categorically absurd and based on nothing more than the petty machinations of the man who is currently sitting in the White House. Obama’s birth certificate was a matter of public record in 2008, as was the birth announcement in a Hawaiian newspaper. Yet Donald Trump continued questioning Obama’s place of birth for several years. Of course, none of that matters at all because Obama’s mother was an American citizen, born in Kansas, as were both of her parents. He could have been born on the lunar surface, and he’d have still been an American citizen, because his mother was a native-born American. Even the color of the suit he wore was a point of contention. And, to make all of this more absurd, people took it seriously. Imagine, for just a moment, how it had to feel for a Black child to see and hear these ridiculous lies and accusations parroted wherever they looked, knowing that it was only happening because a Black man dared to become President. What’s worse is that it wasn’t even exclusively the Conservatives, because he had to fight against his own party in Congress far more than any other President in my lifetime.

Of course, it didn’t end with Barack, because Michelle was repeatedly denigrated. She was repeatedly accused of being a man (by people who believe accusing someone of being Transgender is the best insult ever). Her platform, as the First Lady, to provide our kids with healthier meals in school, was derided, but when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. proposed something similar, it was praised as an example of his brilliance. Their daughters were mocked and derided over their appearances, their intellectual capabilities, and anything else pundits could throw at them on national television. Of course, they did the same awful shit to Chelsea Clinton, so it tracks that they’d be doubly harsh when it was a couple of Black girls in their sights.

This is the environment America has cultivated for marginalized people of all kinds. I may have focused solely on women and Black people in these examples, but the systemic hostility and disenfranchisement have been impacting Indigenous people, Latin Americans, members of the LGBTQ+ community, Muslims, and virtually anyone else you can think of who isn’t a cisgender, straight, white Christian for longer than I’ve been alive. And being a Christian isn’t even that important, judging by how far people can suspend disbelief where it concerns Donald Trump’s performative Christianity.

This is abusive. The way America has treated marginalized people has been categorically abusive. It’s not a Democrat vs. Republican thing because both parties have played their parts in the systemic oppression and cruelty. But there’s no group more firmly caught up in maintaining an abusive, White Supremacist hegemony than Conservatives today.

It needs to stop.

Political Violence and the Selective Acknowledgment of It

/ MeltdownMessiah / 1 Comment

Political Violence comes in more shapes and sizes than Pokémon. And yet, it’s only ever a specific variety that most people seem willing to acknowledge, and then only when it suits the narrative they prefer to frame. When someone is killed in an act of direct Political Violence, hand-wringing, condemnation of physical violence, and proclamations that we are better than this inevitably follow closely behind. This is true, even (or especially) when the violence in question was a direct response to less overt forms of violence. You see, those more subtle forms of violent action are insidious in that people can easily dismiss them if they’re so inclined, but are often (if not always) more harmful.

Willhelm Frick, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Julius Streicher, and several others who were sentenced to death following the Nuremberg Trials had never killed anyone, and had (to the best of anyone’s knowledge) committed no acts of direct violence. In fact, Hermann Göring, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and Martin Bormann were among the minority, in that they had committed acts of direct violence and murder during their tenure within the Nazi Party. But, in 1946, we recognized that Political Violence comes in many forms, and the guilt of the 12 men who were sentenced to execution was not open to debate. Adolf Hitler, himself, has never been connected with evidence that he personally murdered anyone aside from possibly Eva Braun, before taking his own life. The same can be said for Joseph Goebbels, though he and his wife killed their six children and then themselves. These men, and many others, had been complicit and had knowingly issued propaganda and orders that led to the deaths of countless others.

Would anyone like to present the defense that these men were killed (or killed themselves to avoid being killed) because of their political opinions? Is that the extent of cultural relativism that we should be applying to the architects of the Holocaust? That’s what I keep hearing lately: that people shouldn’t be threatened, persecuted, or harmed over a difference of opinion. All I can assume is that many people need to better acquaint themselves with the definition of “opinion” before they start concerning themselves with differences between them.

Opinions are just assumptions or judgments that an individual develops regarding any particular topic. They can be informed or uninformed, but they’re little more than a subjective viewpoint with greater or lesser value depending on the expertise and the degree of authority invested in the individual sharing said opinions. Critiques of policy and ideology are political opinions. Whether they’re right or wrong, they’re opinions, and people are entitled to their own. Hate Speech, however, is not an expression of an opinion. Hate Speech is an attack, using dehumanizing and demeaning language to target an individual or a group of people based on features of their identity: Ethnicity, Nationality, Skin Color, Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, and so on. Hate Speech targets (often immutable) characteristics of the individual or group, for the purpose of expressing bigoted, biased, and prejudiced perspectives. Thus, we have the difference between those who condemn the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Government, compared to those who condemn Jewish people or the people of Israel as a whole. One is a criticism of policy and the actions taken by a group, and the other is a condemnation of a group of people based on either Ethnicity or Nationality, depending on whether we’re talking about Jewish people or Israeli people. There is a massive difference between the two things, and yet we see colleges and universities losing funding because certain people want to conflate these two things with false equivalence.

Hate Speech is, in reality, a form of Political Violence that gets shrugged off as nothing more than a difference of opinion, typically by those who are not impacted by that violence. Hate Speech and hateful rhetoric paved the way for the Holocaust, along with the more recent Genocides in Rwanda, Myanmar, Bosnia, and Herzegovina.

Sheltering Hate Speech under an umbrella by treating it as if it’s nothing more than another legitimate opinion that one is entitled to share is just part of the weaponization of public discourse. It promotes discrimination and violence, especially when it’s combined with disinformation/misinformation campaigns designed to reinforce the bigotry involved.

Still, one might, of course, look at those guilty men I referenced above and argue that they were guilty of War Crimes. Therefore, the sentences were both just and appropriate. But, by the same standard, our current Administration should also face a tribunal.

Despite no evidence supporting the claims and the US Intelligence Apparatus contradicting them, the Trump Administration confidently states that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is linked to Tren de Aragua, and that a U.S. strike on a foreign boat in international waters was justified because that boat was carrying cocaine to our border (sans evidence). By any standards, the killing of foreign civilians in international waters is (by definition) a War Crime. The Trump Administration is hardly alone in this. Every President in my lifetime has been guilty of actions that should constitute War Crimes. Why are we not holding ourselves to a higher standard than we held the Nazis in 1946?

But, of course, it’s not just War Crimes that we’re dealing with today. The current Administration repeatedly flaunts International and American Law, violates the Constitution, and works to erode the mechanisms of Democracy within America. Men like the late Charlie Kirk have been instrumental in both endorsing and encouraging those actions, as well as being directly involved in helping to place Donald Trump in the position of authority he presently holds.

Charlie Kirk fostered an environment of White Christian Nationalism throughout his time in the public eye. It takes little effort to find several instances of outright Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, Xenophobia, and myriad other forms of Bigotry in his Podcasts, Social Media posts, and Public Appearances.

He repeatedly expressed a baseless and racist endorsement of the Great Replacement conspiracy, wherein non-whites were coming to America (and other Western Nations) to replace whites. Just last month, he claimed, “The Great Replacement of white people is far more sinister than any redistricting project.” The Great Replacement theory is directly linked to several acts of Political Violence, targeting non-whites. More importantly, the Great Replacement is virtually identical to the White Genocide conspiracies that have been core aspects of neoNazi ideologies for a long time now.

Charlie Kirk accused Transgender people of being predators and actively encouraged his listeners/viewers to bully and harass them. Transgender people, while making up a tiny fraction of the population, are somehow substantially more likely to be victims of violence than cisgender people are.

He couldn’t even manage to consistently maintain his performative support for Israel and condemnation of antisemitism, despite knowing that he needed to tow that line because it might be a bridge too far for some of his audience. Nevertheless, he still managed to spout off tired old antisemitic talking points about Jewish people controlling everything from higher education to Hollywood, pointing the finger at Jewish financiers of “Cultural Marxism,” and acting aghast at Jewish people promoting anti-white hatred despite wanting white people to do away with that same kind of hatred against them.

To pretend that isn’t often Political Violence is tantamount to saying that violence perpetrated against Jewish people by German citizens in 1940s Europe was not Political Violence. When the apparatus of government endorses, however tacitly, the dehumanization of a group of people, it requires extensive mental gymnastics to pretend that the acts of violence perpetrated against that group of people are not acts of Political Violence. It also requires an impressive gymnastics routine to pretend that the propagandists who spread the dehumanizing message aren’t complicit in the outcomes.

Was it not Political Violence when Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and injured more than 50 others at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL? He may have claimed to support the Islamic State, but his motivations (even according to his father) were based on the same anti-LBGTQ+ sentiment we hear expressed by White Nationalists regularly. Since LGBTQ+ rights (and the existence of LGBTQ+ people) are treated like a political football, that would make any violence arising from homophobia and anti-Trans perspectives Political Violence. And this is State-Sanctioned violence, because Republicans certainly dedicate a lot of bandwidth to demonizing LGBTQ+ people, while Democrats often turn a blind eye to the violence perpetrated against them. And, whether Liberals want to accept it or not, neglect and dismissal are forms of Political Violence as well. But that’s a discussion for another time.

Men like Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, Nick Fuentes, and even Donald Trump have a particular skill, even if they lack any others. They can extrapolate from their own insecurities, fears, and failures to develop a form of demagoguery that plays on those same weaknesses in an audience. This only works when the demagogue is in the majority, because for some people, there’s always an undercurrent of resentment and fear associated with imagining the loss of the power that comes with being the majority. Some of that, I’m sure, arises from the assumption that (if the roles are reversed) they will be treated as poorly as they have treated the minority group(s) within society.

Men like Kirk taste fear and weakness in their audience the way a shark tastes blood in the water, and they’re just as predatory about it. They stoke that fear with misinformation and cruelty, dehumanizing anyone who isn’t part of that majority group, and assuring the audience that they can rest assured of their superiority. They make them feel threatened by the outsiders, regardless of the fiction required to do so, because they know these people won’t risk eroding the false confidence they’ve built up by digging too deep or tugging at threads that could unravel everything.

And, as that manipulation leads to the inevitable results, they hide behind the shield of Free Speech, insisting that they’re just asking questions, voicing their opinions, or engaging in healthy debate. We’ve seen this happen several times in the past, with January 6th, 2021, as one of the most vivid examples. The architects of the direct Political Violence are smugly distancing themselves and feigning a sense of horror at what’s happening, as they assume no one will recall how openly they encouraged all of it.

One way or another, there needs to be consequences for the Political Violence perpetrated by those who conveniently, like cowards, hide behind a misapprehension of what “Opinion” means. And, just as important, people need to learn that calling for violence against one’s oppressors and those who have wished or encouraged violence against them is not at all the same thing as wishing harm on people just because they have a different opinion. Malcolm X wasn’t the same as the white racists who fought to maintain segregation and oppose the Civil Rights Act, because he called for reactionary violence. He was already the victim of Political Violence, and was only speaking the same language as those who perpetrated that violence. If you threaten someone or encourage others to act violently toward them by dehumanizing them and manipulating others into thinking they are a threat, you are not expressing an opinion. That isn’t merely a matter of differing political viewpoints.

Regarding the present situation, and the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s apparent assassination, we don’t even know if it was an act of Political Violence. It stands to reason that it probably is, but it’s just as likely to be someone who agreed with him on most accounts as it is to be someone who was politically opposed to his ideology, stripped of the Hate Speech and hateful rhetoric. After all, the same people storming the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, were the same people most vocally supportive of “Back the Blue” perspectives, yet they assaulted police officers without any compunction. When one promotes an atmosphere of hate and fear, in which violence is encouraged, we’re just as likely to see that violence turned upon people in the same group, the moment fractures appear. It’s worth keeping that in mind.

Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby, Narrated by Adam Lazarre-White

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There is no question why S. A. Cosby’s Razorblade Tears made it to many national publications’ best of 2021 lists. This novel rests near the top of my list of best titles published in 2021 as well, especially when I focus on non-horror titles. 2021 was a good year for crime and suspense literature. Stephen King released Billy Summers, Kristopher Triana released And the Devil Cried, and S. A. Cosby released the absolute masterpiece Razorblade Tears.
Neither Ike nor Buddy Lee were great fathers when their sons were alive. Between recurring stints in prison and their prejudices about the fact that the boys were gay, in large part informed by antiquated perspectives on what it meant to be a man, the two men had driven substantial wedges between themselves and the sons they loved with reservations. It was only after the two young men were murdered that either father allowed themselves to embrace the sons they’d shown far too little affection when they were alive. Isiah and Derek, the interracial married sons, are like ghosts at the periphery of the tale Cosby weaves for us. They haunt the two men we come to admire, despite all of their faults, at the core of this novel.
Had Ike and Buddy Lee been able to overcome their ingrained bigotry while the boys had been alive, the two would have met years before the funeral, but that was not who the two men were. It turns out that the meeting of these two vastly different–yet strangely similar–men would be a fateful occasion that would lead to more bloodshed than either of the men could anticipate.
As the police investigation into Isiah and Derek’s deaths stalls out, Buddy Lee approaches Ike with a proposition that the two of them might have better luck taking matters into their own hands. Unraveling the mystery behind the brutal murder of the boys will force the two ex-cons to confront their pasts, their preconceived notions, and their concepts of love as the trail leads them through Hell and back before bringing them closer to home than they could’ve imagined.
The regret and retribution at the core of this book are at turns heartbreaking and viscerally satisfying. Most important, Cosby doesn’t shoehorn in any ersatz redemption for Ike and Buddy Lee because both men are so damaged and broken that redemption, in the sense that many writers would define it, simply wouldn’t make sense. That is not to say there’s no redemption here; there is redemption in these pages, but it’s the hollow sort that arises from the transformations coming far too late for it to make any difference.
Witty dialogue, well-crafted characters, and realistic portrayals of race relations, homophobia, and the difficulty associated with escaping a criminal past fill this novel with so much depth and honesty that it would be impossible to convey in a review. All I can say is that anyone delving into this book will come out the other end with an understanding that they didn’t have when going in.
Adam Lazarre-White’s narration for the audiobook is phenomenal. The additional character he brings to both Ike and Buddy Lee with his delivery of their dialogue is something that weighs heavily in favor of the audiobook edition of this novel because there’s such life and depth added to the characters with that extra texture.

A Little Something To Think About

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The current political climate is a horrifying thing for anyone who is capable of rational thought, neither of the major political parties inspire much faith or hope in the nation we live in today or for the future that expands before us.

What scares me most about the Republican Party as it exists today is the trend towards devolution that is so seemingly pervasive. The rhetoric that is spewed is something that should make us all laugh at the sheer ludicrous nature of it; and it might if it weren’t so truly terrifying, and made all the more terrifying by virtue of the fact that so many people are altogether too willing to accept it as fact instead of the theatrical nonsense that rhetoric (by nature) always is.

Beyond the rhetoric, though, is the subtext, and that is what is most mortifying. Racism, homophobia, and sexism abound in ways that should be appalling to everyone, not just those who are of the opposition. I used to be proud to say that I am a Conservative (capital letter intended), but there is nothing that I want more these days than to sever all ties with that hate and fear mongering culture that has devoured and transformed what was once the Republican Party.

I’ve seen Republicans point fingers at men like Robert Byrd and George Wallace as examples of the racism that was once associated with the Democratic Party, and they aren’t wrong in doing so. There is ample evidence of racism and sexism within the Democratic Party during the civil rights movement. They, of course, choose to ignore men like Jesse Helms who may have started out as a Democrat but was happily accepted into the Republican Party during the 1970’s, the party where he spent the majority of his political career. As appalling as I find any of those particular views, I also recognize that, at the time, they were pretty damn common. It was a different nation, and a different world, 40 years and more ago. That doesn’t make it acceptable by any stretch of the imagination, but it does make it a bit easier to understand. A few bad apples (or even a few dozen) decades ago doesn’t spoil the bunch today.

The Republican Party lost my support and my votes in any instance where it is pandering to the lowest common denominator like the tea party and fanatical religious right, and I’ve been hard pressed to discover any place where that is not the case. It’s fucked up that, as my Republican friends gleefully point out, during the civil rights movement it was the Democrats who were notably racist and sexist, but are now championing the rights of homosexuals and women…how times have changed. Both parties have changed since then, but only one of them seems to be changing in a positive manner anymore. America, as a whole, has been circling the drain for a good, long while, I have no doubt about that. But the GOP deciding to turn their back on progress and reality by stupidly picking up the banner dropped by men like Robert Byrd and George Wallace might be a sign that they will reach the drain ahead of the rest of us.

I’m not a huge fan of the Democratic Party, I disagree with a lot of the policies that are promoted by the party leadership, but at least they want people to be treated like people. There isn’t a widespread assumption within the Democratic Party that God has delineated certain people and lifestyles as being subhuman, and that alone is enough cause for me to throw my lot in with them in the coming election, and it should be enough for you too.

The only valid issue I’ve ever witnessed any of my Republican friends complaining about with respect to the Democrats was their short-sighted, knee jerk stance on gun control. It’s exceedingly rare that the gun violence which perpetuates their stance is perpetrated by legally obtained firearms, thus tighter restrictions are of little to no value. However, the insipid Second Amendment argument does not make their case at all. Seeing as how none of these mouth breathing, brainwashed jackasses are members of a “well regulated militia,” the right to bear arms does not apply to them. The wording was very clear in our Constitution, and it did not even ambiguously indicate that it was meant to be interpreted as a right for any Tom, Dick, and Harry to purchase and bear arms. What scares me, and makes me desire stricter laws where firearms are concerned, are these religious nut, tea party idiots having guns. I wouldn’t place a firearm in the hands of a severely mentally challenged child, and the same basic reasoning applies here.

A good friend of mine optimistically believes that all of this appalling shit (from racism to fanatical Christianity) will be ground under the feet of reason and science within the next 50 years. “Don’t hold your breath there,” is what I have to say in response. He has far more faith in human nature than I do. You can force feed facts and reality down people’s throats and it doesn’t hold a candle to feeling like they are special and that every action that they commit, no matter how heinous, is ultimately forgiven by the only judge that matters even if no other human being would ever provide said forgiveness.

The reality that we are all mortal, insignificant creatures who will be utterly scoured from the face of the universe in another couple of billion years when the atmosphere and everything else is burned away simply lacks the appeal of being eternally loved, special little beings for whom the whole universe was assembled. There’s simply no way to compete with that. We’re arrogant little fuckers, human beings, and when it comes to a choice between being special or being little more than a dust mote, most of us are going to choose the former.

I made my choice.