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What About The Children?

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Pew Research put out a report a couple of days ago that (you should have seen this coming, since it’s “research”) has some right wingers in a tizzy. The research, called Breadwinner Moms finds that women are now the primary or sole breadwinner in 40% of American households. I wasn’t even remotely shocked when I read this report because I fucking live in America. I have plenty of friends who earn more money than their husbands, or who are single moms. I do not live in a 1960s bubble where Mad Men is a reflection of the times, rather than a look back to days of old where the Fox News family seem to live.

Watch Lou Dobbs, Juan Williams, and Erick Erickson lose their shit over modernity;

 

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Let’s go through the batshit crazy in this video point by point.

Juan Williams (the “liberal”) makes the point that men have been harder hit by the recession than women. Why is that, Juan? Could it be that professions like construction work, coal mining, and other industries that are male dominated have taken the biggest beating in the past twenty years? Then he refers to “something going terribly wrong in American society, and it’s hurting our children”. Why, Juan? Why are the children affected by which parent the breadwinner is?

And then Lou Dobbs gratuitously mentions the number of abortions that have taken place since Roe v Wade, as if those children having been born would have resulted in fewer female breadwinners? What the fuck?

And then we get to the grand poobah of douchebaggery Erick Erickson, who absurdly claims that people who are fine with female breadwinners are “anti-science” because nature shows us that males are born to dominate. Hey asshat, have you ever heard the term “queen bee”? I won’t go through the list of species in which females dominate because you can Google that for yourselves, and because that’s not my point. My point is that it doesn’t get any more anti-science than making bogus claims about nature, just to bolster more bogus views. He goes on to ramble about “complementary” relationships between men and women, assuming that men and women can only complement each other as long as the male is dominant. Wow! How much Xanax does your wife have to take, just to get our of bed every day? Erickson then goes on to twist some of the data in the report. He claims that “3/4 of the people surveyed recognize that having moms as the primary breadwinner is bad for kids and bad for marriage”. What the report actually says is that 74% of adults say the increasing number of women working has made it harder for parents to raise children, and that 50% say that it has made marriages harder to succeed. I will get to Erickson’s monumental douchebaggery later. For now, I want to finish unpacking this video.

Juan Williams jumps in to add, “…it is tearing up minority communities even worse than white communities in this country”. I’m sorry, Juan I’m not getting your point here. Are you blaming minority women for being more careless with their families than white women? Do you think that maybe minority women need to work more because of the increased unemployment rate among minorities? Could that be the cause?

In my view, the feminist movement wasn’t about putting women in the workforce. It was about giving women the same options that men have. Unfortunately, right after the feminist movement got some serious traction, those options immediately became limited. Why? Because somewhere in the 80s, families could no longer make it on a single income. I believe that lots of women were forced to work because their husband’s salary was not sufficient to support the family, which is why Erick Erickson is a giant douchebag.

You can’t light your hair on fire over the increasing presence of women in the workforce, while supporting policies that bring wages down. You can’t be for busting unions and for stay-at-home moms. You can’t support Paul Ryan’s bill to eliminate overtime pay and expect those worker’s families to make it on a single income. In short, you can’t support GOP wage suppression policies while demanding that women stay home and raise the kids.

So apparently Erickson got enough shit for his comments, that he had to write a post to clarify his comments so that he would sound less misogynistic. Here’s what he said;

Prior to having kids, Christy and I both worked. Once we had our first child and I was making a full time go of RedState, Christy had to work if we were to have insurance. Frankly, we could not make ends meet on my salary alone and, even after the cost of day care, had to have the remainder of Christy’s salary to help make ends meet. We still struggled.

Hold on Erick, did you just make a case for health insurance reform? And did you just say that you lived my point about families not being able to make ends meet on a single income? I will never understand people who go through the difficulty of a situation and continue to advocate against remedies to those difficulties. This man is an asshole, who goes through life learning nothing. He goes on to say;

At one point I had to contemplate being a single dad, but thank God I did not have to be. When we made the decision that Christy would stay home with the kids…

I’m sorry, did you just liken your wife going to work every day with single fatherhood? Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?

And then he goes on to say;

What should be insulting to single moms is for society to tell them they can do it all and, in fact, will subsidize their doing it all. I know a number of wonderful, nurturing single mothers. They do as best they can. Most of them have wonderful children. But not one of them prefers to be a single mother.

Then why the fuck are they doing it, Erick? Could it be that financial pressures are a big factor in marriages falling apart? Do you think that Boeing opening a plant in South Carolina (a nonunion state) and paying those airline mechanics half of what they pay the union workers in Washington may be putting some pressure on the families? Asshole!

You can’t make a career out of beating up on workers and then beat them up for the consequences of those policies. Something has to give here. You can either have a society that implements the tools necessary for a single breadwinner household or you can embrace the effects of not doing so, but you can’t do both because that just makes you a bloviating asshole.

 

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Hey Terrorists, You’re Doing It Wrong

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I’m not generally in the habit of giving terrorists advice, but I’m fed up with the IEDs, the killer cookware, and the complications in my life (like the airport security nightmare) that are a direct result of the dumbass way terrorists are approaching this whole “taking America down” thing.

So I’m going to give you would be terrorists a little piece of advice. Your approach to this whole jihad thing is all wrong, and totally ass backwards. This scavenging around the middle east for scraps to make home made bombs with is stupid. Trolling the aisles of Bed Bath and Beyond for cookware to use in your bombs is stupid. Placing bombs in your crotch, shoes, hair, armpit, or wherever else you think you can hide them is stupid. These approaches are all incredibly dumb because you’re going to end up either droned to death, dead because you successfully killed yourself, in prison, with a scorched crotch, or in prison with a scorched crotch. You’re doing it all wrong because in any scenario, your future doesn’t look so good.

Here’s what I think you should do instead; you should become a member of the United States Congress. You should run as a tea party conservative, a fiscal conservative or even a blue dog democrat, pledging to never, ever raise taxes under any circumstances. And you can prove your commitment by signing Grover Norquist’s pledge.

And then once you are elected, honor that pledge. In fact, go further; lower taxes. You’re going to have to do your rich donors a solid anyway, so go ahead and lower taxes for 1%. And then when you find yourself without any funds to run your district or your state, take money out of any infrastructure projects that may be slated to happen.

Here’s where your jihad plan really takes off because after you’ve done all that, you get to sit back and watch America fall into the oceans bit by bit. You can sit around and watch bridges collapse all around the country. You can sit around and watch steam pipes explode in heavily trafficked places like Grand Central Station. You can sit around and watch sink holes all across the country swallow whole communities.

In short, you can destroy America without risking the burns to your crotch or martyring yourselves. Sure, you’ll have to give up that whole “72 virgins” notion, but who are we kidding here? I’ve seen what you all look like. Even you can’t believe there’s a realm of existence that contains women, more or less virgins that are willing to fuck you.

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Freedom Of (and from) The Mainstream Press

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So as I watch main stream media is inundating us with nontroversies like Benghazi and the IRS this week, at the behest of the right wing, I find myself in an elevated state of bitchiness that goes eighteen levels deep.

First off, the Benghazi and IRS stories are largely bullshit. Benghazi is 100% bullshit. The IRS story is mostly bullshit. I say mostly, because while it’s true that targeting organizations for extra scrutiny based on political affiliation is wrong, doing your fucking job isn’t. The fact of the matter is that it is illegal for a nonprofit “social issues” group to electioneer. And the twisting and stretching of the law to neuter the FEC’s ability to do anything about said electioneering, doesn’t change the fact that it’s illegal. Should the IRS have targeted organizations based on specific key words? Absolutely not. But they shouldn’t back away from scrutinizing organizations who may potentially engage in electioneering, that want tax exempt status. They should ramp up their scrutiny. And let’s be clear on one thing; there is no evidence whatsoever that this additional scrutiny was given at the behest of this White House. And furthermore, I don’t see how asking for more information before being granted tax exempt status is outrageous. The IRS wasn’t auditing groups based on political bias, not like they were doing for the last administration, they were simply asking for more paperwork. In the grand scheme of outrageous behavior, this doesn’t even make my bitchy radar especially since it was shut down last year, when it was discovered. So I’m sorry, main stream media, you can’t raise my blood pressure with this bullshit.

The thing that we learned this week that has me livid at the administration, is that the justice department subpoenaed (without their knowledge) the phone records of The Associated Press and their reporters. If this doesn’t scare the shit out of you, it’s either because you’re not paying attention, or you’re fundamentally ignorant about what freedom and threats to that freedom look like. Asking an organization for paperwork before you grant them the right to siphon off federal taxpayer money is not a threat to your freedom. It’s fucking paperwork. Scaring the press and their potential sources is the real threat to your freedom. Anything that attempts to choke off the flow of information to you is a threat to your freedom.

This blatant attempt to intimidate the press and potential whistle blowers is fucking unacceptable. It’s even more unacceptable when the president doing it is a former constitutional law professor. This bullshit maneuver strikes at the heart of the constitution, as Rachel Maddow so eloquently pointed out last night. And yet, there seems to be no real outrage from the right. Not from the wingers, and not from the libertarians. Why not? Cause they like it. And as Maddow pointed out, they’ve done fair share of muzzling the media.

So I’m pissed off first and foremost with The White House, Barack Obama, and Eric Holder. I’m pissed off at the main stream media for continuing their steady stream of right wing talking point bullshit on Behghazi and the IRS instead of educating Americans on how dangerous these subpoenas are to our very foundation. I’m pissed off at the “patriots” and “constitution lovers” for posting Benghazi bullshit because they still think that’s their best shot at damaging (they think) Obama (but they are in fact being used to damage Hillary).

You wanna know who else I’m pissed off at? Chuck Todd. Watch;

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Why am I pissed off at Chuck Todd? It’s not for what he said, since I agree with 100% of the points he made. I’m pissed off because Chuck Todd has no right to say it. He abdicated his power as a journalist a long time ago, in exchange for invitations to the best Georgetown parties. You’re not a fucking reporter Chuck, and you should spare me the outrage. You neutered yourself a long time ago. David Gregory, Howard Kurtz, Lara Logan, Brian Williams, Judith Miller, and a very long list of others can’t be outraged over this. You’re not fucking journalists because you sold us out to be one of the cool kids a long time ago. You’re all fucking stenographers. No one would ever get anything from your phone records because you all suck! You can’t be neutered by the government because you already handed over your own balls.

You wanna know who gets to be outraged? Michael Hastings, Matt Taibbi, John Nichols, Jeremy Scahill, Dana Bash, Soledad O’Brien, and a few other people who are actually doing their damned jobs. They understand the importance of the media in our society, and they deeply respect their craft. These are journalists. These are the people holding our government to account for their actions.

So liberals, when you see bullshit Benghazi and IRS posts on your social networking feeds please do me a favor and shut those stupid people down and point them in the right direction. It will be a win for everyone; your wingnut friends get to attack Obama for legitimately fucked up practices, and you get to shine light on an issue that is actually important.

 

 

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The NRA Is About To Become Your Friend

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I’m more surprised than you are, but it’s true that the NRA is inadvertently going to help Americans for a change.

I know that you’re thinking, “how the fuck is this going to happen, Bitchy?” Good question. I’m sure you are all aware that the NRA stopped representing gun owners years ago, and have become the lobbying arm for gun manufacturers. They don’t give a shit about the safety of gun owners any more than they care about the victims of gun crime. They care about one thing; selling a shit ton of guns to whoever has the money to buy them. The NRA has always mounted a strong attack on anything that hurts gun sales, and they always will.

You wanna know what hurts gun sales? Being able to print guns at home from schematics that you illegally downloaded from The Pirate Bay. This is not something the NRA will stand for. Trust me, the NRA is going to do everything they can to shut this down. My prediction is that Cody Wilson (the shitbag who started Defense Distributed), whose mission is to open source gun manufacturing, is about to feel weight of Wayne LaPierre’s boot on his throat.

So stop freaking out over 3D gun printing. In the short term, this problem will be solved by our new ally, the NRA. I think that in the long term, we’ll see a technology solution to this technology problem. There are a myriad of different ways to approach this. The one I can think of right off the bat, is to make make sure that 3D printers don’t work unless they’re connected to the internet. At that point, the giant data collection apparatus the NSA has set up can track every gun that is printed. But there are a ton of different ways to deal with this.

And we may just all end up with a net win from this whole situation. If the NRA does what I think they’re going to do, they’re going to have to expose themselves for what they are; lobbyists for gun manufacturers and gun smugglers. And when people like little Cody Wilson feel the wrath of the NRA, we may see some gun nut on gun nut violence (I’m speaking metaphorically, of course).

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Accidental Homicide, My Ass

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I’m sure that by now, you’ve heard about two year old Caroline Sparks, who was accidentally shot and killed by her five year old brother Kristian. If you haven’t heard about it, here’s what happened. Kristian was playing with the rifle that he got for his fifth birthday. He was playing with it, because his genius parents kept it in the corner of the trailer they live in. In keeping with the stellar parenting skills that determined that a five year old should have a gun, they didn’t bother to unload the one and only bullet that this rifle holds. When Kentucky’s mother of the year stepped out into the porch, leaving her kids unsupervised, she heard a gunshot. Kristian had accidentally shot and killed his sister.

I’m going to pause at this point in the story to review everything that is wrong with this picture. Let’s start with the rifle; it’s made for kids. Let’s watch one of their charming commercials: YouTube Preview Image

Fucking awesome, right? Now let’s take a look at the parents who, for some reason, the media doesn’t want to indict. Fortunately, I’m not shy so let’s skip indictment and go straight to conviction. Did you catch the part where I told you that the family lives in a trailer? Yeah, this family’s home has wheels and yet, someone shelled out $120 for a rifle for a five year old kid. These assholes couldn’t scrape together $129 to get a cabinet to lock their weapons in, but instead prioritized getting their five year old his first fucking gun. And what the fuck, if you’re not going to lock up the goddamned gun, why bother unloading it before you toss it in the corner.

I brought up the trailer because the right wing, who love crowing on about the outrage of welfare recipients who have cell phones, have said nothing about this. No one is outraged when the parents of two kids prioritize owning guns over giving their children a home? Hey assholes, a better way to protect your kids than with guns is with walls that are stronger than fucking reynold’s wrap.

I’m already fuming at what I’m reading about this incident, not realizing that I was about to get a shit tone more bitchy. The part that really pissed me off, was the reaction of the locals. Cumberland County Judge Executive John Phelps explained how things are in those parts, “It’s a normal way of life, and it’s not just rural Kentucky, it’s rural America — hunting and shooting and sport fishing. It starts at an early age,” And then, he added (about the shooting), “This was a total shock. This was totally unexpected.” Really, asshole? Because if you’d told me that your assbackward town routinely gives guns to kids, I totally would have fucking expected this.

But the most disgusting reaction to this tragic incident came from Caroline’s batshit crazy grandmother, Linda Riddle who said, “”It was God’s will. It was her time to go, I guess…” No you stupid bitch, you’re confusing God’s will with some seriously shitty parenting, which is apparently a tradition in your fucked up family.

And the really bitchy inducing part of this story is that I haven’t heard the words “investigation” or “negligent homicide” yet. Do I think these parents deserve to go to prison? You bet your ass I do. I’ll go further than that; I believe they need to go to prison in order to save the rest of us. For me, sending them to prison isn’t so much about causing them more pain, as it is setting a precedent in this country. I believe that anytime a minor puts a bullet into another human, we need to throw mom and dad in prison for putting a weapon into the hands of a minor who isn’t legally allowed to buy said weapon. This is what I like to refer to as “taking responsibility” and “dragging yourself around by your own bootstraps”. If your kid damages my property, you are going to be liable to pay for that damage. Why the fuck are we so nonchalant when a kid puts a bullet into someone?

In my opinion, there is no such thing as an “accidental homicide” when a minor does the shooting. Someone should be going to prison every time. I understand that in some parts of the country, putting guns in the hands of minors is a totally normal part “of the culture”. Guess what? Your culture is idiotic, and I don’t have to respect it anymore than I have to respect the traditions of some, to stone a woman to death for committing adultery. It’s time to change the culture by holding people accountable for their actions. Taking responsibility is the republican mantra, right?

As a society, we’ve decided that I can’t have a giant pile of heroin because this is bad for all of us. I would argue that my having a giant pile of heroin is less detrimental to “us” as it is to “me”. Nonetheless, I don’t have a giant pile of heroin because I don’t want to end up in prison. It’s time to up the ante on this “kids with guns” stupidity. And maybe, if we send enough of these dumbfuck parents to Oz to be Beechered for three to five years, their neighbors will think twice before buying their five year old their own rifle.

You change a culture by changing it. It’s time we stop deferring to the judgment of the dumbest among us, and start proactively changing the culture. You can put a gun in the hands of your kids, but just know that if they shoot someone, there will be jail time, and you’re the one that’s going to be doing it.

 

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Rooting For The Homegrown Whackadoo

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I’ll admit it, I was hoping the Boston Marathon bomber was a homegrown, domestic whack job rather than an import. That sounds fucked up, I know but hear me out. Part of my reason was altruistic, and part was purely selfish, but both stem from the same logic.

I wanted the bomber to be a domestic whackadoo because we don’t lose our shit when the terrorist is white.

The altruistic part of me wanted the terrorist to be white because no white guy, even if his last name is McVeigh was ever randomly beaten up by ignorant assholes looking for revenge. I lived in Los Angeles when 9/11 happened. In the weeks after the attack, I remember seeing a cab with an American flag that was made to be displayed from your home, strapped to the antenna of his cab. And when I looked at the cab driver, I understood why; he was a Sikh. That poor bastard had to find the biggest American flag that China could manufacture to put on his cab so that he wouldn’t get the crap kicked out of him by lunatic vigilantes who couldn’t tell a Muslim from the holes in their own asses. So for that reason, for my love of humanity, I wanted the terrorist to be white. We don’t react when the terrorist is white. Does anyone think that we’re going to round up all of the Elvis impersonators in the country, and haul their sequin adorned asses down to Guantanamo for interrogation, just because an Elvis impersonator sent ricin to the president? I think not. So for the love of humanity, I wanted the terrorist to be white.

The selfish part of me wanted the terrorist to be white too. My life would have been easier because we tend to be less reactionary when the terrorist is white. Gabby Giffords was shot by a white terrorist, and I didn’t have to take off my shoes, belt, or remove my laptop from my bag because of it. Shit, I still don’t even need to go through a background check to get a gun, and I can buy as much ammo, in the biggest clip I can. Nothing changes to complicate my life when the terrorist is white.I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to give up a DNA swab if I want to be anywhere near a public event in the future.

So judge me as a racist if you will, but I think that a lot of you secretly agree with me. Everyone would have been better off if the terrorist were a white, homegrown, protestant whackadoo.

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Being Principled Is Sometimes Painful

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I don’t mean hypothetical or hyperbolic pain. I mean actual, vomit inducing, physical pain. Normally my principals give me the comfort of knowing that I have a moral compass which serves to enrich my soul.

Yesterday was not one of those soul enriching, principled days for me. It was a day when my principles caused me to vomit in my mouth repeatedly for about thirteen hours. The source of my nausea? I spent the day agreeing (vehemently) with Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. In case you missed it, Rand Paul conducted a thirteen hour long, old fashioned filibuster, protesting the Obama administration’s assertion that the president has the right to assassinate US citizens on US soil.

That’s right, the former constitutional law professor believes that he has the power to act as judge, jury, and executioner in our quickly evaporating democracy. If this assertion doesn’t scare you shitless, you’re either an idiot or an Obamabot (yes, those are synonyms). In either case, I have two words for you; posse comitatus. Google it.

Democrats quietly went along with Obama when he decided that he had the power to kill thousands of innocent Pakistanis by drone strike, with no oversight at all (cause who the fuck cares about Pakistanis?). Democrats went along with Obama when he gave himself the power to assassinate a US citizen outside of the US, without presenting any evidence that he needed killing (cause he must have done something wrong, so who the fuck cares?) And now, there are a great number of democrats that will go along (by sitting silent) with Obama’s belief that he can kill any of us anytime, anywhere, and with no proof that we need killing.

Well kudos to you, little lemmings. It must be comforting to have a “team” to play for. It must be comforting to have a “daddy” that you trust implicitly to take care of you. It must be comforting to live in a world where you willingly give up your most basic civil liberties in support of a daddy, who you trust won’t ever do you wrong.

You’re all fucking idiots. If you were incensed by Bush’s rendition programs, but are nonplussed by Obama’s belief that he can kill you whenever he wants, you need to shut up now. You need to stop calling yourself a liberal, because doing so forces me to call myself something new so that I can differentiate myself from your stupidity. Frankly, I think that you’re the ones that should have to come up with a new word to describe yourselves, since my principles aren’t the ones that changed. You need to go attend a tea party somewhere because that’s where you belong; with your intellectual equals. Maybe you can call yourselves libbaggers?

But enough about the Obamabots. Back to my pain. I spent thirteen hours watching Rand Paul, who I believe to be both a craven politician and an all around idiot, do something that I whole heartedly agree with. And I had to watch Ted Cruz, who I strongly believe suffers from mental illness, say things that I whole heartedly agree with. And for thirteen hours, I supported the efforts of people that I generally despise, as they worked to expose the hypocrisy and outrageous behavior of the guy I voted for. I rooted for them because they were the only ones standing up for me.

The worst part of my thirteen hour long trip to the Twilight Zone is that no “liberals” (with the exception of Ron Wyden) showed up to be fucking liberal. Where the fuck were Al Franken, Elizabeth Warren, or Bernie Sanders? Where were the bold progressives?

The whole thing was disgusting. It was disgusting because my principles stand, regardless of whose side I’m on at any given moment. And yesterday, I was on the side of morons and whackadoos because they were the only ones standing up for our rights.

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Why Are These Gun Owners’ Panties In A Bunch?

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I was flummoxed by this story on cnn.com this morning. Apparently, a bunch of gun owners in Westchester and Rockland Counties have their panties in a bunch because a local newspaper (The Journal News) published an interactive map that contained the names and addresses of all gun owners in the area. One commenter actually wrote, 

“So should we start wearing yellow Stars of David so the general public can be aware of who we are??”

Whoa! Let’s back up for a second. Nazi references are completely uncalled for, unless we’re talking about a situation where there is a mass genocide of a race or culture, so shut the fuck up with the hyperbole already. Sheesh!

More importantly, I don’t see the problem here. Your address is easily found on the internet, complete with pictures of your house, so the only information being disclosed by this map, is the fact that you own a gun. Shouldn’t this make the gun owner happy, since it amplifies that whole “self defense” purpose? Isn’t someone less likely to break into your house if they know that you’re packing? Don’t you want the robbers to be deterred by the knowledge that you’re a gun toting badass that shouldn’t be messed with, and that they should instead break into your pacifist neighbor’s house? Don’t these people want to head off potential shooting situations off before any shooting has to happen? 

Also, if I were a parent in the neighborhood, I would want to know if you have a gun in the house before I decide if I want my kid hanging out at your house. I don’t mean that in a punitive way. I mean that I would want to make an informed decision on whether I feel comfortable with my child being in your house with a gun. Statistically speaking, if you own a gun, members of your household are 4.5 times more likely to get shot. I would want to know if my child is 4.5 more times likely to get shot, while in your house. This isn’t hyperbole, it’s math.  I wouldn’t want this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this,or this happening to my kid. By the way, did you happen to notice how many of these accidental shootings happened in the homes of police officers?

I’m sorry gun owners, but you’re not the only ones with rights in this country. I should have the right to all of the information I need before deciding if it’s safe for me or any member of my household to enter your home. I have no desire to stop you from having your (okay, certain types) gun, but I have the fucking right to my information.

And if you don’t like being known as a gun owner, maybe you should rethink the gun. You don’t get to hide by denying me information that I feel I need. And the fact that you want to hide makes me suspicious of you. You get to protect yourself your way, but I get to protect myself my way too. If you don’t like that, you can suck it.

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A Culture Of Violence

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We (Americans) live in a culture of violence. This is the last argument from gun nuts that don’t want to pass any legislation to stop the killing fields that our country has become. The first argument is (of course) that banning certain types of weapons won’t do any good, since criminals will always be able to get them. This argument is easily debunked by looking at Australia, Japan, and a number of countries that have managed to bring down their death tolls by tightening legislation around fire arms.

Once all of the empirical facts are presented, the gun nut invariable changes their tactic to make hypothetical arguments that are less easy to disprove. Arguments like, “we are a much more violent culture so you can’t compare us to other countries”. To this, I say bullshit! The idea that other countries don’t play violent video games, or watch violent movies is absurd. I’ve got some news for you, Rockstar Games has enjoyed huge sales numbers all around the world for Manhunt, which consistently tops the list of most violent games. And if you don’t think that the Japanese (one of the most technocentric cultures in the world) aren’t playing Mortal Kombat en masse, you’re not paying attention. They’re building and embracing companion robots, for god’s sake! I promise you, that Django Unchained is going to be the #1 box office blockbuster in every country that plays it. You’re batshit crazy, not to mention intellectually lazy, if you think that we’re just inherently more violent than the rest of the world.

But I do agree that we have a cultural problem. We used to be a culture that believed we could do anything. We used to be a culture that saw our bankers robbing the country so blind that they caused the great depression. We believed we could stop it, and we did. We passed legislation that worked very well for 45 years before those laws started to be systematically  repealed by both democratic and republican legislatures.

We used to be a country that decided that having parents working side by side with their kids for twelve hours a day, six days a week was wrong, and that we could change it. And guess what? We changed it by passing legislation. In fact, we changed it so effectively that it was possible for a family to thrive on a single income. That changed when we slowly let our wages flatten or decline, and accepted that two incomes were necessary to feed, clothe, and house a family.

We used to be a country that cheered when the president said that we will put a man on the moon within 10 years. We’ve become a country that would laugh with cynicism at such a statement today.

We used to be the country that cured polio and small pox. Now we’re a country that accepts a lifetime of “treating” illness with pharmaceuticals.

We used to believe that we could accomplish anything we decided to accomplish. We, as a society, don’t believe that anymore. We don’t believe that government can accomplish anything good. Worse than that, we don’t believe that we can push our government into doing anything good.

I will admit that I am among those who don’t believe that our current system of governance can’t produce good results for its people. It doesn’t much matter if you’re on team democrat or team republican. Neither work for you. They work for the corporations and billionaires that feed the system with their money. The only difference between the two parties, is the speed with which they will get us to the inevitable endgame. Republicans want to put the pedal to the metal and turn us into wage slaves as soon as possible, so that their corporate benefactors can exploit our labor. Democrats are okay with this plan, they just want to go slower and throw us a few crumbs along the way so that we go along willingly.

But I differ from the defeatists in that, I believe we can change the system. I don’t believe that we’re doomed to live with this corrupt government whose only objective is to serve it’s multinational corporate masters, at the expense of is country. I understand that we’re pretty screwed right now, but I don’t believe that we’re completely fucked. We do have one (and I mean only one) option available to us.

I’m going to go more into what I think we can do in the next blog post (and most of the blog posts next year). For now, you can check out Wolf Pac for a preview.

This post is about identifying where we’re going wrong in our thinking. We have a cultural problem, but not the one that most people think we have. We’re not more violent than anyone else. We just have a defeatist attitude that is fucking crippling. It’s crippling us from stopping the killing epidemic, and it’s stopping us from having the equality of opportunity that we once had. It’s time to stop defeating ourselves. We need to see where our country has been, and we need to realize that we can do good things.

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Gun Uncontrol

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I’ve seen a lot of “debate”about gun control since Friday, and I must say that my usual state of bitchiness has been elevated to level of pure rage. I put debate in quotes because we’re not actually having a debate. Comments I’ve read from pro gun nuts do not constitute serious discussion. The discussions being had are not two sides of a coin, much like the evolution vs creation discussion are not two sides of a coin. One side of that debate is based on science and discovery like archeology and carbon dating, while the other side consists simply of blind faith.

I’ve seen the same dichotomy in discussions about what to do about the gun violence in America. One side (my side) offers several solutions to the mass shooting epidemic in America. solutions like;

  • More thorough background checks. TSA applicants must fill out a 17 page background check form called the SF – 86 in order to apply. I want gun buyers to go through the same process, including fingerprinting. If you can’t wait a month for your background check to clear, I don’t want you to have a gun.
  • No more semiautomatic or automatic weapons. There’s no reason on the fucking planet for anyone to be able to fire rapid rounds, other than to kill lots of people quickly. This is not an unreasonable restriction on the second amendment, so shut the fuck up about your constitutional rights. The more you want an automatic weapon, the more evident it is that you shouldn’t have one.
  • No more clips that hold more than six bullets. If you need more than six bullets before having to reload, you’re either doing something very bad, or you’re an extremely shitty shot. Either way, I don’t want for you to be able to fire more than six shots before reloading.
  • I want you to attend annual, mandatory training classes if you own a gun. If I have to renew my driver’s license every few years, you should have to demonstrate that you can responsibly handle a firearm every year.
  • I want you to apply for a permit in order to be able to carry a concealed weapon. I want a record kept of who you are, and which gun you’re carrying. If you’re not planning on doing anything wrong, this shouldn’t be a problem for you.
  • I don’t want you to have a gun if you have one iota of violent behavior, or mental isstability on your criminal record.

I don’t feel that any of these requirements are unreasonable. I also don’t feel that any of these requirements infringe on your right to own a gun. And guess who agrees with me? The vast majority of NRA members. 

So that’s my side. What is the other side saying? Well, they’re mostly mischaracterizing my side with hyperbole about taking away everyone’s guns. The fact of the matter is that no one has talked about taking away everyone’s guns in decades. That’s a fact. And I defy anyone to come up with any evidence of single legislator putting forward any bills to take away people’s guns. I defy anyone to come up with a single example of a political analyst or reporter in any main stream media outlet that has espoused taking away everyone’s guns. That’s just not happening in America. And yet, if you listen to Wayne LaPierre, you would think that there was a widespread movement to everyone’s guns away. There isn’t even a movement to limit the number of guns that a person can own.

To the extent that the pro gun nuts have a solution to the problem, it’s this; arm more people. To be clear, this “solution” is to stop a maniac after they’ve got a gun in their hands and have begun shooting. I’m sorry but if your “solution” doesn’t start before the shooting does, then you don’t give two shits about the victims present or future. You care more about whatever crazy ass John Wayne fantasy than you do about saving lives. And you should go fuck yourself. I’m not going to take you seriously because you’re not serious about solving the problem.

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