Bullies and Bigots

There is a tumblr post going around about a guy who trolls an ignorant bigot on facebook.

Its funny. And I think its funny because the the ignorant bigot is so unbelievable to me. It feels like a Saturday Night Live sketch. Over the top. An exaggerated version of real life.

But stop. Wait. No. This is real. And then its just sad and a bit depressing about human nature on both sides.

This bigot is struggling along with the IQ probably pushing 90. Education failed him. He doesn’t know he’s struggling under this incapacity. He thinks he’s thinking.

The troll is warping along pretending he is some kind of heroic enlightened person pointing out the bigot, but in reality he is a bully pushing around the weak kid to get laughs.

The bigot isn’t going to change. He’s very likely incapable of it. His hateful ideology is part of his identity. And studies show that you generally need a certain level of intellect to change deeply held ideas and beliefs.

There are also studies that show that making something ridiculous changes people’s minds. And there is an entire sect of Atheists and Liberals who pursue this as an ideology. The followers of PZ Meyer come to mind. The bully knows he isn’t going to change the bigot’s mind. But he has an audience. And those people may be influenced.

Even though the bully and I share many of the same viewpoints, I will never give up on the concept that kindness is a better way to pursue life and that being a bully in any context is not the person I want to be.

I don’t think we have to pursue a taunting attitude when we stand up to bigotry. Although, I concede that it is often an easier one.

The BURN is deep on this…

Donald Trump uses lawyers gratuitously to shut up his critics. He sent one of his lawyers after Jeb Bush’s Leadership PAC. This turned out to be a mistake…. The following is excerpts from a letter was sent back to Trump’s lawyer:

… In fact, RTR has made almost $300,000 in contributions since its creation in January 2015. Unlike your client, we only support conservative candidates.

It is possible you are confusing RTR with any number of federal independent expenditure-only committees (i.e. “Super PACs”) that have exercised their First Amendment rights to educate the public about your client’s public statements and stances on important public policy issues. We suggest you consult the Federal Election Commission’s (“FEC”) website (www.fec.gov) to familiarize yourself about the differences between Leadership PACs and Super PACs,

…Should your client actually be elected Commander-in-Chief, will you be the one writing the cease and desist letters to Vladimir Putin, or will that be handled by outside counsel? As a candidate for President, your client is a public figure and his campaign should, and will, befact-checked. The ability to criticize a candidate’s record, policies and matters of public importance lies at the heart of the First Amendment, as courts have repeatedly recognized. If you have the time between bankruptcy filings and editing reality show contracts, we urge you to flip through the Supreme Court’s decision in New York Times v. Sullivan. If your client is so thin-skinned that he cannot handle his critics’ presentation of his own public statements, policies and record to the voting public, and if such communications hurts his feelings, he is welcome to purchase airtime to defend his record. After all, a wall can be built around many things, but not around the First Amendment.

[emphasis is mine]

The beauty of this letter, is it’s perfectly controlled intellectual condescension, which hits every note perfectly. Bush is apparently smart enough to hire good people and has been raised to be what he is – a career politician.

Trump – well neither of those things apply is the pleasantest way to put it. And nothing could be more snidely implied in this letter.

Bush took his assets and jabbed them deeply between ribs of Trump’s fragile ego. I have to appreciate that.

I may never vote for him, but I find Bush far more tolerable as a potential leader than Trump or Cruz or nearly every other potential on the Republican board. If for no other reason than a career politician understands the value of compromise.

I’m new here… and its a bit disturbing…

welcome_mat The internet is very good at providing a cocoon of sameness. Google etal all have algorithms that recognize patterns in your online behavior. And they know if you are a liberal, for example. They then provide that sort of thing to you when you search.

This makes being online very very much more comfortable.

On tumblr, I started by following the people I met on Twitter. And then I followed the people those people followed and the people those people followed. And so on.

What I essentially did was create my own little algorithm of like minded people. As a result, a disproportionate number of the people I follow on tumblr are socially liberal. None are overtly religious.

I’m slowly migrating away from tumblr because its not supporting commenting and its become less enjoyable.

So I’m slowly meeting new people over here. But as I look about at the various blogs on here, I find I’m definitely outside the liberal zone I’m used to. There are blogs on here that make me cringe. I obviously don’t follow them, but I’m finding the search for community on wordpress is not as obvious or as easy to find.

And then there is the question of the like minded cocoon in the first place. Is it a good thing? Its comfortable. There is NO doubt about that. But is it good? Probably not.

On the other hand, my mental well being is not so great. And reading things that upset me, things that me cringe like hate and bigotry are not things that help the promote a healthy state of my mind.

So. Here I sit, a little bit disturbed about the neighborhood and wondering if its worth the effort to forage forward to find new friends.

The world is a horrible place.

597px-veave_in_jail And it always has been.

But most of the time my mind is effective at filtering and ignoring the horror.

Today it is not. And all I can see is the terribleness of things that have happened, things that are still happening and the horrors keep inflicting themselves inside my brain.

I call this the crawls. Because I want to crawl outside my brain. To hide.

But I’m trapped in here.

Today is another day.

la_vesvre_de_saisy_morning_mist Specifically, its day 8 of antidepressants.

Day 7 was a failure. I did not go to work. But sat in stillness in my bed.

Say what you will about time, it will always give you another chance.

There is always the next day, the next minute, the next week. It just keeps on marching and dragging us with it.

So today is a new start. One where I will go to work. And earn a living. And it will be better than yesterday. Continue reading “Today is another day.” →

Maybe there is Hope.

Maybe we should just take her down.

statue of liberty

You know what the poem inside says?

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

I imagine a future of Trump Land, where she will be dismantled and a large gold Trump sign will be erected with something printed below about being the home of white rich people who claim christian descent, if not actual practice.

Although, to be fair, we have ignored with impunity the sentiments of this poem for longer than is seemly.

Trump is merely the next logical step to our ever more legalized xenophobia.

In Which I take encouragement from a bad day.

Today was not grand. Again.

But I went to work and there was a rather dangerous moment this morning when I wasn’t going. I do best when I have something I need to do. And when I remembered that I had unfinished work on my desk, I got up and went to work. Easy peasy.

I did not enjoy the day. The trainee is… a hoverer. This is bothersome. I am not in the best place for being patient and I snapped at him at least once.

But the brain is the reason the day was bad. It won’t stay focused and it is having a very grand time making me feel like a large dung heap. I think of all the very valid reasons why I suck as a human. And this is not conducive to feeling particularly cheery.

And all of this while taking antidepressants.

But I’ve only been on them for 6 days. So. Not really fair to blame them. Or is it?

Because I remembered. Some people commit suicide when they first start taking anti depressants. And that is what I found encouraging.

Stick with me on this.

I’m feeling like so much crap – worse in some respects than I did during the 3 weeks in the deep hole of last month. Its all centered around this self disgust. And then I realized – its the drug. It creates this sensation before it makes things better. A sensation that makes people feel bad enough to give up.

A doctor once told me that people commit suicide after starting the drugs because it makes people feel well enough that they have the energy to act out the suicidal thoughts. But after these last few days – I think not. I think its magnifies the bad for a period of time before it moves into the good.

No proof of course. Just me thinking.

I’m not suicidal. But damn, this is not pleasant.

Did I ever tell you about our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree?

In my last year at college, my friends and I were facing Finals just before Christmas. This is a time of extreme stress in college life.

One night, we decided we needed a Christmas tree to cheer us up. As a group, we were NOT wealthy. So we went to the Christmas tree lot with the full intention of buying the cheapest tree on the lot.

We did not intend to spend more than $5 on this tree. We spend $7.50 after intense negotiation on a tree that would never have sold.

It was – well it was scraggly and not quite straight and there was a very large hole one side with no branches at all. But we loved it as our very own Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.

We took the tree to my friend’s uncle and he provided us with an old stand and cut the bottom as is customary.

We then went to our rooms and took down the Christmas lights we had used to decorate our rooms and strung them with abandon around our lopsided tree.

We popped popcorn and spent hours stringing it. We cut out paper snowflakes and wrote sweet notes to each other on them.

And then we got all of our bedding from our various rooms and had a tremendously enjoyable sleep over in the light of our Gorgeous Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.

That was the best tree I ever had. It was beautiful. It was spontaneous and it was about doing something with people you love to make a thing that in many ways represented the love we felt for each other.

For me that is what Christmas will always be. Not gifts. But the making of something together. The experience of being with people you love to make something that means that love.

I wish I had a picture of that. But alas, I did not go to college in the era of cellphones. If there was a picture, and there may have been, it is gone.

Today was a day…

I worked 2 hours over. And I still wasn’t done.

I’m not doing that tomorrow. Just so you know. I’m NOT.

I was going to go in early and then I remembered I’m supposed to go to the doctor tomorrow.

And I’m going to demand drugs for this mental illness. I am.

I’m really bad at this.

I have a hard time verbalizing this issue. And I know that seems crazy when you look at all the crap I write on Tumblr, but its true.

So. Anyway. That’s the goal. Verbalize to the doctor that I am struggling.

I will report back on this subject tomorrow.

Continue reading “Today was a day…” →