Month: May 2016

Three for today, well, one big one and two others

First and foremost is this story Queens, New York. A veteran teacher is suspended after a student threatened her, and she had the audacity to speak up. Yes, her words were “extreme,” but if someone much larger than you was threatening massive harm on your body, would you just sit back as if nothing was happening? To me, the real insult is the non-punishment this student received. The student has, apparently, a long history of being a disruptive influence, but no, let’s let him lie and get a veteran teacher kicked out. We see screams for body cams for cops to “curb the racist violence” so why not put cameras in classrooms? For the same reason cameras will be decried as “bad” or “faulty” when they begin showing the thugs who try to kill cops doing just that, rather than the “poor innocent teen just trying to buy a soda.”

On the tail of that story is a brilliant meme that utterly destroys the “all whites are racist and all non-whites are beaten down all the time” idiocy. Al (not so) Sharpton claims, daily, that racism is horrible, as if he’s not allowed into diners, or is forced to use a separate bathroom. Well, if he was such a target, why isn’t he in jail for his MASSIVE tax bill? Simple, he’s got friends in high places, lawyers to distract those he can’t pay off, and will likely end up pardoned by the apologizer in chief later this year.

Finally, Trump’s 2nd Amendment plan has people up in arms. Naturally, it’s because he’s (a) white, (b) Republican, (c) can’t be bought off, and (d) doesn’t tow the “all guns are evil and possess people to do evil things” party line. Oddly enough, he’s saying most of the things (save the “take away everyone’s guns” bit) that the left wants. He wants to get guns away from criminals (not legal owners,) fix the background checks, and fix the failed (not failing, failed) mental health system. If Hillary or Bernie was saying it, the media would be praising their vast intelligence, but when Trump does, well, we know how “fair and balanced” the “main stream” media is, don’t we?

Yet more evidence that the world is lost, well, almost

First, the good news. Recently, our illustrious emperor issued an executive decree that all schools must allow students to pick which restroom/locker-room they want to use. Well, several states are pushing back. The decree, like the others, does not carry the weight of law, and Obama knows that law will never pass. People who identify as the opposite sex are, from what I’ve found, less than half a percent of the population, and about the same in the LGBT population. So, the big question, why is a fraction of a percent of the population able to push their agenda? The simple answer, it goes against everything America was founded and built on, and it distracts people from the real problem, our elected leaders in DC. Hillary should be in prison for her data skills and her abandoning the Benghazi Embassy, and she’s by no means the only one in DC who should be. A great example of how this is just a distraction and media circus is a security guard having been arrested for removing a male from the women’s restroom. In this story, the guard apparently told the man that there wasn’t a law yet, but the guard was still arrested. Naturally, it’s being called a hate crime, when two questions should have cleared it up quickly. First, was there a law forcing this in place at the time? No, there wasn’t. Second, did the store have a policy to allow this regardless of a law? As a guard took action, the answer is no. This is exactly what is done over and over, people scream that “you can’t do this, it’s my right” and ignore that it is NOT A RIGHT! I honestly don’t care if I offend people any more, if you have the plumbing of a man, use the men’s room and vice versa, that’s it!

While that happens and our leaders ignore us as the country begins to burn, this happens and I’d lay a large bet that nothing will happen to the idiots at the first gym. Anyone who’s been online in the last 2 years will be able to attest that women in gyms generally wear some pretty revealing outfits. The woman in question is apparently vertically challenged, and was in a tank top, which made her breasts appear larger. She was asked to leave because her outfit was making “staff and other guests uncomfortable.” She, however, says no guest she asked said it did, so it was just the staff. So, it’s fine for a man to use the women’s locker room, but not for a woman to wear a tank top if she’s well endowed.

I’m sorry folks but this is precisely the problem in today’s world. People firmly believe they have this right or that right, and that they can act and no one can be upset or counter their actions. We’ve seen a woman who is very overweight tell an expert on fitness that there’s “too much focus put on health” even calling that “healthism” while telling him she’s happy with her body, then getting upset when he tells her that’s not OK. We’ve seen a student screaming vulgarities at a speaker and chanting “get your hate speech off our campus” as if she is the end all/be all in the decisions about what can and can’t be uttered on campus. Never mind free speech, which has already been curtailed on many campuses by “free speech zones” and even those aren’t correct since you must apply to use them and that depends on the person you must apply to.

We live in a world where you’re told not only what you can and can’t do, but also say, and soon, believe. Pastors have been ordered to turn over their sermons so they can be looked at for hate speech, ignoring that is a deliberate breech of the first amendment, since the State was seeking to silence the Church, but if you dare say Christmas on campus, or wear a cross to a school, you’re “violating the separation of Church and State.” Just a note, that last bit in quotation marks isn’t in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, or Bill of Rights. So, how do we fix it? I’ve got a great idea, stop pandering. Tell people to be adults and realize bathrooms/locker-rooms are sex based, not “whatever you want to be today” based. Tell students to sit down, shut up, study and learn, and the government, well, I say we tell every person in DC to get out and not come back.

A question for today

I get calls from telemarketers all the time, and I’ve gotten pretty good at bugging them so much they hang up. If they have an American or Indian accent, I just start saying random words in German, otherwise I just mute my mic and see how long they last before they hang up. But, the question I have is why these still go on today. I got a call today, no voicemail left, so they just got blocked when I tracked down the information. This one is apparently a scam involving the caller telling the person they call that an insurance payment failed, obviously in hopes of getting a credit card number. The last one I received and answered (they just happened to be calling from the same city as someone I was waiting to talk to) told me that my computer had a virus and they needed access to take care of it. In the first situation, one person who reported this said the caller wouldn’t answer questions such as what company they work for, while in my case, they specifically said your Windows PC, and argued with me when I told them I don’t have a PC any more. At the end, I said (verbatim) “take my number off your list or I will sue you. I told you I do not own a Windows PC and you then all but called me a liar. I will not be insulted, and will sue you personally, your company, and anyone else possible if you ever call me again.” I blocked the number after that, as I don’t want to worry about it, since I know they’ll call back later with another scam. But, why are these still happening? Do we truly have people so stupid that they believe these things? What do you think?

A question for you to start the week

In recent months/years, we’ve heard more and more that we must be “tolerant” of the LGBT community. We’ve been told quite harshly that it is not a lifestyle choice, and those who “dare” defy that are vilified or worse. There is NO EVIDENCE that homosexuality or “being the opposite gender to your body” is in any way biological, genetic, or anything more than a choice, even if buried so deep in your subconscious, but we’re told we cannot question that it’s not a choice. The most recent manifestation of this is the restroom question. We have people ORDERING the world to let them choose which restroom they wish to use, and anyone who doesn’t immediately bow to their demand is a bigot or worse.

The biggest opposition to this is from parents of children who will be faced with people that aren’t the same sex as them in the restroom/locker-room, but as is now obvious, a parent’s concern for their child is lesser than someone feeling uncomfortable. There have been instances of men “identifying” as a woman just to plant cameras or just ogle the women they now can. There WILL be rapes and assaults, but we can’t suggest that because to do so is “denying the rights” of those who truly feel trapped in the wrong body. This comes down to the same question that has been at the forefront since homosexuality became a “hot button issue.” Why can’t we even question it? The “right” to demonstrate and parade is only vehemently defended by those who parade or demonstrate almost nude. Men who are grossly overweight want to walk the streets in nightwear no one wants to see, but to suggest that no one wants to see that, nor should children ever see it is “denying rights.”

Personally, I believe that homosexuality is not “normal” as the purpose of a species is reproduction, and you cannot reproduce without someone of the opposite sex. As a Christian, I believe it is a sin, and as it was called in Soddom and Gomorah, an abomination. That said, I am simply one person, I am in no position to hire/fire, nor do I have any influence on public policy or law that my fellow citizens do not have. I am simply a voter, yet I’ve been told, loudly and profanely, that my simply believing this is tantamount to having them burned at the stake, only to be told “I just don’t understand” when I ask how a simple thought that is only in my head has that power. The answer is, IT DOESN’T! Our government is not a democracy, it is a representative republic, and as such, we elect our leaders, then they debate (endlessly in many cases) and pass laws. My one vote is my way of expressing my opinion as to who should represent my state/district, that’s it.

Getting back to the restroom question, we’ve seen many reactions to this. Some companies ignore the situation and just let people do what they wish, some go full negative, enforcing that the restrooms are based on biology. Others went a different way, offering a third option, a unisex restroom, that is single occupant. Naturally, that wasn’t enough, giving an option that isn’t complete capitulation is tantamount to the Scarlet Letter or an armband a la Nazi Germany. Let me tell you a secret, NO ONE CARES WHO USES THE UNISEX RESTROOM! There is no camera taking pictures to post and “out” the trans people who use it. There is no one standing guard and writing down names! In many cases, the unisex restroom, as it’s where parents take children to change diapers and such, is the only one truly clean and people will stand in line for it, ignoring the restrooms based on biology. Much like the parade issue, if you’re gay, but aren’t so flamingly gay that you even offend or worse, sicken, members of your own community, I cannot do anything other than believe as I do. If you feel you can’t use the men’s room because despite having male “plumbing” you’re really a woman, just use the single occupant restroom, without making a fuss. It’s only when you’re loud about “why can’t I go in the women’s room? I’m a woman in a man’s body, you’re oppressing me, you’re all evil.” that you get attention. If you just go in, do your business, and leave, NO ONE CARES!

But, then again, I’m using logic to point out the idiots screaming about rights, disenfranchisement, bigotry and such do more to their own cause by acting like rank idiots, so of course, I’m evil for not emptying my brain of all but autonomic functions and screaming “you’re so brave to stand there and order us around. You’re so wonderful for telling me how to live while demanding no one tell you how to live.” Sorry, not gonna happen. I have a brain, I’ve been well educated in history, sociology, psychology, political science, and more, and I’m NOT going to let anyone order me to do something against my belief, just because it’s against theirs.

Your rights don’t trump anyone else’s rights, and they end where the other person’s nose begins.

Why is the first reaction always to hamstring the helpers?

OK, while it’s technically a spoiler, it’s from the trailer, so I’m not sorry. We know that the main plot of Captain America: Civil War is that the governments of the world want to force the Avengers to accept someone being in control of them, and that causes a split. We also see in the preview, General Ross (although he’s not named beyond his title of Sec. of State) showing clips of NYC (Avengers,) DC (Winter Soldier,) Sokovia (Age of Ultron,) and Lagos (Civil War,) as if to cement his assertion that the Avengers are the problem, when that’s only mildly true in the case of Sokovia, since Tony and Bruce did create Ultron, who then caused the destruction in Sokovia. In the case of NYC and DC, it was “SHIELD” either messing with things they shouldn’t (the Tesseract) or Hydra acting from within SHIELD to kill millions. Now, let’s look at each instance where the Avengers were not responsible for the issue being present, meaning all but Ultron.

Avengers, Fury was trying to make better guns, which caught Loki’s attention, and ultimately led to an alien invasion. The Avengers were only brought in when it was clear Fury’s soldiers weren’t able to find or capture Loki, and he then was silent about their getting involved. Yes, he did try to stop the plane he thought was going to nuke New York, but that’s all he did in regards to the Avengers acting against the Chitauri. In Winter Soldier, it’s Hydra exposed as running SHIELD, and their plan to kill millions “to save Billions.” Fury tried to stop the launch of their plan, and when he was killed, had Steve and the others not acted to stop what they had zero part in starting, well, I don’t think General Ross would be alive to sign those accords, nor would T’Chaka or T’Chala be around to glare at those who didn’t sign them. Finally Lagos, without spoiling the movie, it’s Steve’s team acting to stop someone they know, but that acquaintance is the only connection. It’s the same as if a S.W.A.T. commander had worked with someone in the past, then he and his team had to storm a building to stop a drug ring, and in the firefight, more than just the bad guys went down. Is it S.W.A.T.’s fault that they were fired on, and since they ducked and took cover, the bullets continued flying?

This is the argument we hear today, the “if you hadn’t been reckless” or “if banning guns saves even one life” as if that’s possible. The same people who scream these arguments to any camera they can are those who belittle and demean the police when they don’t act fast enough for their liking. When it’s a police officer in a shooting situation that takes cover, leading to the criminal killing others that they expect to show up in seconds and violently arrest the “evil man who didn’t knock when he wanted to read the meter” or some other plainly idiotic thing. When it’s pointed out that “banning guns” would only remove firearms (a gun is any weapon with a smooth barrel, a pistol/rifle with a rifled barrel is not a “gun” just FYI) from legal owners who aren’t going to use them for criminal reasons, they rant about how you “just don’t get it” or “how naive” you are. They point to some family of a robber who is wailing on TV about their “poor child who just wanted some money to get a meal” while ignoring the pages and pages of criminal history, and while ignoring the victims of illegally owned firearms, since it doesn’t fit the narrative.

So, what do you think?

So, an old question, just in a new way

I recently came across a social media thread that started out with someone yelling about how they hate Minecraft, superhero movies and Beyonce, only to be told to focus on what they like, rather than what they hate. When the person says they like Donald Trump, however, the person saying not to hate, well, we’ve seen what happens when someone says they like Trump, right?

So, in a wider sense, here is my question. Why is it “wrong” for one group to “hate” something, simply by not agreeing with or praising those who do, while the other side is “just standing up for equality” when they go completely off the deep end and all but murder people for “intolerance” or “hate?”

I’ve asked this in several ways in several different places, and only get hate and worse back, but the question is still valid. How does my personal belief system, my being a Christian, “deny rights” to anyone? I am not (nor ever will be) an elected official (I like my hair and health.) I hope to never again be in a position to hire/fire, and thus, I’m not responsible or involved in any way in who works for the company I work for. When I was in management, however, my primary foci were appearance (clothing and grooming) and ability. If you adhered to dress code (if there was one, if not, if you dressed appropriately for the job) and could do the job, that’s all I cared about. Oddly enough, the only two people I’ve ever fired, were white males.

Sadly, every time I’ve asked this question, even being as specific as to say “my person belief, not a manager, not a politician, just me specifically,” all I get in return is hate, and barely coherent rambling hate at that. I’m told loudly that “Christians are holding back equality,” am shouted down about how “Christians want to force women into back alley abortions only,” and when I “dare” try to interrupt (meaning I try to speak in reply to a comment when they pause) I’m simply shouted down.

I’m sorry folks, equality is a good thing in many respects, but not achievable in all. In hiring, it’s great, let qualifications decide who is hired. In other respects, you can’t have a right to free speech and silence others, that’s not equal, that’s simply giving total control to the loudest complainers. While funny in a “we’re going to hell in a handcart” way, the student screaming obscenities at the speaker then chanting “keep your hate speech off our campus,” who has now been dubbed Trigglypuff, is a sign of the times. These people firmly believe that by just calling something “hate speech” they are fully capable of forcing you to leave. This doesn’t just apply to racism or sexism discussions, you could suggest that by lowering income tax, and thus putting more money in the bank accounts of citizens, you’d actually see more money going to government through luxury taxes and the like, and they’ll happily call you names, then when you protest, it’s “hate speech” and “trying to censor their free speech.”

So, the final question here, how, if at all possible, do we turn this around from people who are so convinced that simply calling anything they don’t like or agree with “hate speech” doing anything they want, to what we were only 30 years ago, a country where freedoms were actually what they were laid out as?

One for tonight (and two questions I’ve been asked get answered)

OK, first, the questions. I doubt many (save close friends) know that I blogged from 2004 to about 2006 when school heated up after I returned to college and was done with the basic stuff. Now, I’ve been back blogging again since December of 2014, and I’ve been asked why, since the vast majority of bloggers have moved to Facebook, and just use Twitter to help get their stuff seen. To answer that simply, I like the WordPress interface, as I’m able to use HTML (yes, I actually studied HTML way back in the 1990’s) to make the posts a bit more “professional” in appearance. I have linked the blog to a FB page and to a Twitter feed, and I’m sure that the vast majority of any views are there, not on the actual blog, at least to start.

The other question I get asked the most is, why do this at all? Simply put, I won’t sit idly by and let this country just crash and burn. The topic I’ve picked for tonight is a great example of that, so let’s just roll into it and you’ll get your answer to this question.

In a speech at UMass Amherst, students shouted and cursed at the speaker, at one point chanting “keep your hate speech off our campus.” Sadly, this is not random or new, children are taught very young that if something “offends” them then it should be done away with. Sports teams aren’t allowed to reject any try out, nor are they allowed to cut players, as this would “hurt the young athlete’s feelings.” When this happens, the coach is simultaneously told, at least subtly, that they still must win as much as possible. Teachers aren’t to “hurt feelings” with words like fail or by using red ink (that last one, thankfully appears to have quickly been forgotten) since students need to be built up, not torn down by words like fail, when they fail an assignment. Well, where does this lead to? Here is where it leads. Students who’ve been coddled and made to feel as if they rule the universe for so long, that saying something they don’t agree with is “hate speech,” or where a chalk writing of the name Trump “frightens” them so badly they “feel threatened and unsafe.”

I’m sorry princess, but you aren’t the only person on the planet, and not everyone agrees with every piece of crap drivel that comes out of the hole in your face. It is not hate speech for me to say I feel that a male who “identifies as female” should not be allowed in the women’s restroom, as young children use those too. We’ve seen, before and after cities/businesses/schools allow this officially, people doing this so they can video or otherwise ogle the others in the restroom. At this point, I feel the only way to stop this lunacy is to get rid of multi stall restrooms and go to single person rooms. Of course, this will be decried as “wrong” and as “separating people based on their lifestyle” even WHEN rapes will have happened, as the idiots screaming this, just as the idiot SJW above screams about hate speech. I attended 3 rather large, public, colleges in north TX, so you’d think I’d have been in a rather conservative environment, being Texas, but you’d be wrong.

I won’t name the schools, but I was called a racist bigot while discussing classical vs supply side economics, I’ve been almost punched while debating historical comments, and I’ve been grabbed when I walked away, only to have the idiot who grabbed me claim I assaulted them when I simply got to within an inch of touching them and stared at them until they backed off. In the latter two cases, campus PD was present (we were in the outdoor areas, which were patrolled regularly) so nothing happened. At another time, after only a few seconds, some idiot began shouting whenever I would begin to speak, so I simply wrote out “if you refuse to allow me to speak, you are automatically wrong, and lose this argument.” They of course began shouting that I was wrong, that I needed to be silenced since I was promoting hate (how they got that from the 3 seconds I was able to be heard is amazing,) and how they’d “have be expelled for my obvious racism and hate.” Naturally, nothing came of it, as the Debate sponsor was having lunch with me and the rest of the team, and after silencing the moron, told him that by Robert’s Rules of Order, if you deny your opponent the ability to speak, you are disqualified, at which point he called her a stupid bitch, and stormed off. Comically, he then was surprised to find her as his Speech teacher the next semester, and was eventually expelled for his idiocy in class.

So, here’s the closing bit to all of this, and the ultimate answer to why I keep up with this. When you look around at people who firmly believe they have a right to resort to vulgarity and shouting down anyone who disagrees with them, at a world where if you don’t tow the constantly changing party line, you’re instantly a racist/sexist/bigot/etc, and at a world where people scream racism or sexism for not voting for this candidate simply because of their race/sex, but who then grow angry when you point out that another candidate, who is a woman or minority (or minority woman in the case of Condoleeza Rice) and who was basically run out on a rail, they instantly cry that you’re “stifling them” or “attacking them,” would you sit by and let the world be run by those idiots, or would you do all you can to shine the light of day on them, expose their attempt to impose a draconian standard on the world, and hopefully, push the idiocy back for even a short time?

I can tell you, I won’t sit idle, I can’t say how much I’ll accomplish, but I would rather go out fighting, than on my back in compliance.