Tribalism

Here's something I've been bothered with for a bit now: Every now and again, there will be an issue, and that issue will have two 'sides'. The reason we have sides is because we have differing principles as human beings, for example:

Seatbelts, discuss:

Pro: Seatbelts save lives, and parents should make sure their children wear seatbelts in order to save their children's lives.

Anti: People should have the freedom to choose whether or not to wear seatbelts, and it should not be mandated by the state how one should raise their child.

Okay, I think both of those arguments have some merit. Let's even say, hypothetically, that I had an opinion on the matter (I don't) and sided with Pro-Seatbelts. I'd go on the forums and poke fun at Antis, and make twitter posts about them, and perhaps go on a podcast to sleepily make some bad jokes. Maybe I'd also grab a screen cap of an Anti saying something ridiculous, like:

Anti: Children wearing safety belts is basically like the straps across the chest that the Hitler Youth used to wear.

Ohhhh noooooo, HITLER!

Okay, so that's some funny shit, because it's so extravagant in its retardation. But then, someone Pro says something insane as well:

Pro: I hope your child dies in a car wreck, you bumbling jizzwad. (I crossed out that last line because that would actually make it funny, rather than just a horrible thing to say)

So I say to the Pro person, "That's a pretty awful thing to say." and even though I'm on their "side", they're all like, "YOU MUST BE ANTI" and I'm like "Nooooooooooooooooooo"


And scene.


This is a really dumb thing that people do, because I argue based on principle, whereas it would seem that many people are arguing based on scoring points for their side. That means being right, even if it's totally wrong. This also means they will support someone who has devoted their life to being the scourge of humanity, so long as that person shares and reinforces their views and attacks "the enemy".

That's what happened when I was more into hashtag GamerGate; I'm still pro-media-being-honest and I'm very much anti-censorship. My hope and dream was to see Gawker Media burn to ashes, and now that such a wonderful dream has come true, I have retreated back into the shadows, lurking and waiting. Point is - I'm not going to do a "Someone in GG disagreed with me, and that's why I'm out" rant. That would be ludicrous because #GamerGate is a hashtag, not an organization, and because I stuck it out until I was satisfied. What I will say is this: along the way, I was always against personal attacks. My thought was that one of the colored-haired folk would be taken to task for their terrible conduct, not for their looks, not for their weight, not for any of that. Simply put, the merits of their arguments would crumble if challenged. However, rather than challenge their arguments, some people decided it would be much more productive to insult, belittle, and berate them, ironically giving credence to anti-GG's argument that #GamerGate was a vehicle for harassment.

This is not, however, 'censorship', because I have no authority to enforce my views. It is, however, my firm advice to anyone who claims to be on that same 'side' as myself, but it often falls on deaf ears, as they would much rather froth at the mouth. Not that I didn't understand the anger, mind you - there were times when it seemed like the media would never be held accountable for their actions, and if it were not for some glorious bastard selling a VHS tape of a huge man with hotdog skin having sex with the mistress to an unscrupulous media outlet, we would further have to contend with articles about 'white males' are somehow ruining the world.

My most recent qualm may just be water under the bridge, but I do feel as though the issue may come up again, because I do feel strongly about manipulative people, and there are rising stars in the new media who are feeding off of fear, and are deliberately painting propaganda to preach to a choir of ever-growing extreme right-wingers. It is difficult to stand and be honestly anti-leftist when my closest allies are no longer fighting for human decency, or for freedom of speech, or anything noble, but to simply hurt the opposition. If I go, "Hey wait a minute, let's think about this..." and they go "Go back to your mosque, uneducated liberal filth" (Kind of an abridged version) then the only allies I have are enemies. Principle is important, and it's important to step back, think things through, and be able to empathize with other human beings, and I'm just not really seeing much of that lately.

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THE END

Posters Gone Wrong

Sometimes, when you're online browsing around, you'll notice someone has posted a kind-of odd political poster. They rarely actually make their own posters, but look at one and go, "Holy shit, that's worth sharing with everyone who knows me!" but unfortunately, most of them are pretty stupid, because I can only assume that the people who made them are either lazy or are deliberately trying to misinform people.

Here's a CLASSIC example. Hey, all my moderate friends who are kinda undecided about their political preferences, do you like Democrats? If you do, you're basically supporting the next Chairman Mao Tse-Tung and the fall of America and your family will get raped.

Except that Mao didn't come to power until 1949, so he could not have "BANNED GUNS". The creator may have been thinking of Adolf Hitler, but Hitler did not become chancellor until 1936.

DO YOU GET IT YET? That's the condescending tone I like to use when explaining to people how relational databases work.

This is truly a terrible work of "art". The intention here is to scare people, but I think most people already realize how insignificant and manipulated their lives ultimately are, and are pretty much numb to that fact already. We, however, get some Chess pieces, showing how we're being controlled by Jacob Rothschild (doing his best Mr. Burns impression) who lurks in the darkness and uses a photoshopped hand to move Chess pieces around. Yeah, that's not his real hand.

What really strikes me as odd is that there's "science" in double-quotes above the bishop. What does that mean? Science is the illuminati? Gravity is just a Jewish plot? Electromagnetism is a Zionist conspiracy? What the hell is this?

There's almost too much going on here. Sticking to four primary colors is good, and it's not too distracting. Putting a massive paragraph under is kind of a no-no. Also, "People should be offended by his facial hair. Not Hitler's." kind of screams "THIS WAS MADE BY WHITE NATIONALISTS". Yagoda has the same facial hair here as Hitler, but honestly, nobody is offended by the mustache unless they're retarded. It's more of the things that Hitler did that make him offensive. But since this poster was obviously made for retards, there is an arrow pointing to Yagoda's face, letting us know where his face is so we can see the facial hair. Otherwise, we might not know whose facial hair was being discussed.

The paragraph is mildly accurate, because Yagoda was Jewish, but referring to him as "the Jew" makes me want to slam my head against my desk. Furthermore, since Russia was the home to the Eastern Orthodox Church, a majority of the population was Christian, and since Russia did not colonize any African states, of course they didn't have a black population. So to say "White Christian Russians" is incredibly intellectually dishonest, because the implication is that Communist Jews are out to get 'White Christians'.

The funniest part, to me at least, is that red background. Someone took the time to make that and were like, "Yeah, that looks scary enough. Wait hold on, I need to make it look more blood-spattery."


"but not before he had done his dirty for for"

This is probably one the dumbest, most insane things I've ever seen on the internet, which is saying something. This is like a schizophrenic's paranoid ramblings, where they think the government is spying on them, and the lady who works at Walmart is working for the CIA. But, there's an Israeli flag, so it must be true cuz Jews.

Also, shut it down, the goyim know.

Okay, this one is genuinely intriguing to me. This guy obviously has a great "screaming muslim" face, but the picture in the bottom left corner, and the picture in the bottom right corner are the same picture, with the one in the bottom right being doctored. There's a good reason for it, too. Like Scumbag Steve, he became memeified.

What is wrong with this poster is that it plays on the short-memory of most people. We actually don't see this guy's face every time there is Islam in the news, but this poster says: "You totally do." and then you're like "Oh, yeah, I do." even though you don't.

Also, I hate the excessive usage of ellipses... everytime... and words that Are randomly capitalized...

"Whenever there is a News"

This is just bad. But somewhere, somehow, someone decided to poorly crop the pictures of a bunch of Fox News hosts, paste them together in a collage of sorts, put a Merkaba on their foreheads (so you know they're controlled by the j00z), also shop in some dollar bills on the side, then also add some spattering blood. Then they stepped back and said, "This is perfect. My magnum opus."

F- try again

This is actually a parody of a real poster. But someone posted this unironically, without noticing that... yeah. This shows how easy it is to manipulate people using imagery, because people are too damn lazy to spot photo-editing and/or do research. These types of posters aren't meant to win anyone over, either. They're meant to preach to the choir, because the conspiracy community is getting bigger and it's becoming a 'market' to be tapped into.

What's really scary is just how far photo-editing has come. Visual effects for the average person are becoming more and more accessible, and with a little bit of practice, a person could easily create a piece of propaganda that looks very real, but is incredibly misleading. I'm not looking forward to the day when edits become so good that there is no distinguishable difference between the edit and reality.

Parody Feminists React To: Political Correctness After A Mass Shooting!

 Earlier today, we got the news that a gunman entered a nightclub and opened fire, killing and wounding dozens of people. For the families and friends and co-workers of the victims, and for the wounded, life will go on, albeit with the shadow of this event hanging over their heads for a long, long time. During their moment of tragedy, our want and our need to do something - anything - kicks in. The visceral reaction we feel upon hearing such news is an inevitable part of human nature, because part of our community, our country, our tribe (whatever you want to call it) was struck, and we want action. The problem is that some people are just way too stupid to let go of their ideology for one second and just repeating some shit they heard somewhere that seemed to make sense.

 Maybe it's a coincidence, but I saw this cartoon the other day (I don't know who made it) and thought it was kind of funny:

Political correctness is killing us. Every time there is an act of terrorism, people start the 'gun debate' and it's absolutely comical outside of the extreme circumstances we see ourselves in, because as the tragedy fades away, we can be assured that, during the next one, the same stuff is going to come up. Every time. But we live in a post-gun world. Pandora's legs have been opened, and her STDs on society are going to go away but pop up and be really itchy for awhile every once in awhile.

But before I go further, let me just say this: it is in the realm of human nature to commit acts of violence given the right circumstances. Anyone can kill. We haven't evolved past the point where we can honestly assess ourselves and say, "I would never kill someone, ever." It will take us eons before we're conscious enough to just be at peace with everything and absorb sunlight for nutrients. Right now, we're the chicken, and the gun is our egg. Trying to change human nature overnight, or 'get rid of all the guns', or 'ban violent video games' is not going to happen. Anyone who tries to make it happen is lying to themselves. 

Why? Because one of the reasons we kill is because of greed. I kind of lump greed and power together into the same category, because I kind of just see them both as a lust for control over other people. If you have money, you can make people do things. You can dare a woman to pump gasoline naked while you video tape it for 300 dollars. That's basically power. But that's kind of a side-tangent. The point is, these slogans like "Ban violent video games", or "Ban assault weapons" are invented by people who want more power. They're not concerned with actually solving problems. They just want more power. Don't get me wrong - the gun lobby people want power, too - and both pro-gun and anti-gun people are using fear as a means of getting it. It's really sick, but tragedies like these are GOOD for the pro-gun people, because pro-gun people get scared and buy guns, and it's good for anti-gun people because they get to get on their "I'm all about banning guns, give me your votes, you stupid sheep" parade float.

The thing is, in the US, gun ownership is part of our culture. Our second amendment, often misquoted, reads:

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

 And listen, I own zero guns, unless you count super-soakers. I'm not a big gun-person. I have no desire to shoot another human being. I might buy a knife, though. Then I can just have my knife with me to keep me safe. However, that aside, the 2nd Amendment says that gun-owners are NECESSARY for the security of a free state, not the THREAT. I mean, what if someone blew that gunman away and stopped him from killing so many people? I mean, I only want three things: background check (so you're not a crinamal), gun owner safety course (so you can take care of your weapon properly and shoot the intended target and not yourself in the leg), and a license, so you can prove you are who you say you are. I really think learning to shoot and be safe is REALLY important, too. It took one police officer to stop Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi from killing a lot of people, so it's not unfathomable that a 'civilian' could do the same thing with the proper training.

As far as the whole Islam thing goes - we're in a cultural conflict, no doubt about it. I think the fear that liberals have is that we're headed for some genocidal conflict. I think there are a lot of insane people who are like, "LET'S JUST DO IT ALREADY" and want to murder all the Muslims, but we can't do that. I've debated many extreme Conservatives, white nationalists, and possibly just people trolling me, who have said some crazy-violent things that have alarmed me, and perhaps rightfully so. There is no historical precedent for a mass deportation or cultural feud that has led to anything other than suffering a colossal scale to innocent people who had nothing to do with anything. 

The religion itself, however, is reprehensible. I do not care much for 'tolerance' of different beliefs, and I will say that this religion is legitimately harmful, and deserves the same treatment as Christianity in politics by liberals. Christianity has no place in the realm of a sane and free society's government, and neither does Islam. I have nothing against a Christian president, or senator, or governor, but please, I don't ever want to hear them say that they are doing a harmful thing but justifying it by way of divine direction. Islam is more conservative, more hateful towards gay rights, more disrespectful towards women, and more subservient to 'the will of God' than Christianity. Liberals should be saying that this religion is nonsense and that it must follow the laws of the land it inhabits.

For example, Christians hate abortion. There was a doctor, George Tiller, who was shot in the head and killed by an anti-abortion activist. I don't remember the anti-abortion guy's name, and I should probably Google® search it, but his name isn't important. The thing that's important is that guy was a dick. Everybody knew he was a dick. No liberals were going, "Let's just be tolerant of Christian views" and shit, because they knew what he (the gunman in that incident) did was despicable. I mean, aborting babies is pretty sick, too, let's be honest, and we could go into a whole thing, but it's legal for women to make that choice. As fucked-up as it is, it's legal for women to make that choice, but there are cases where the mom is on crack, and she knows she can't have this baby, because its life is going to be absolutely horrible. If you go, "Well, can't do it because Jesus." then cool beans, it's a free country. But if you're a policy-maker, you better have a goddamn better reason than your religion for making a decision like that. So if some Islamic people get elected to positions of power, and want to implement some Sharia stuff into the law-books because it's in the Qu'ran, no. Just no. 

If you're like "What does this have to do with the shooting?", I'm saying it kind of has something to do with it. Kind of. That's the operative phrase here. Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world right now, and it's not because we in the West aren't fucking hard enough; it's just that a lot of nations that have been in poverty are emerging from decades of cultural stagnation, and many of those nations are majority Muslim, like Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc. These are 100 million+ population countries where they're going from streets made of mud to high-rise apartments in the last generation. More wealth in these countries means more people are going to have opportunities to buy plane tickets and live in other places, and they're going to look for opportunities to live in Europe, and the United States. Most of them are okay folks with really bushy eyebrows, but as long as they keep the eyebrows trimmed (Here I go being racist as fuck again) and follow the laws of the land, we'll be fine. If we do things like Sweden or Germany where we just turn a blind eye to people getting assfucked because it's not 'politically correct' to arrest the immigrants, then we're also going to get assfucked, and I believe there is well enough assfuckery in the United States as there is. This whole out-of-control political correctness thing has people going, "I feel bad for all the Muslims who are going to be afraid because of this shooting." YOU KNOW WHO I FEEL BAD FOR? THE GAY AND LESBIAN COMMUNITY WHO ARE AFRAID BECAUSE OF THIS SHOOTING, YOU FUCKING RETARD.

I dunno, just a lot on my mind, I guess. It's an election year, so all the politicians are doing their thing, and people are parroting that shit, so I'm saying what I feel. I'm not 'using a tragedy to push an agenda', cuz I don't have an agenda! I don't make any money off this shit. I'm not working for anyone's political campaign. I don't even like anyone running. Not even Gary Johnson. 

tl;dr: fuck you, read it anyway.