TheBigCat [none/use name]
I largely believe that most of what goes on in my conscience is of my conscience, but I’ve only had a handful of things that make me think, “okay, maybe there is something out there that loves us…” and Yknow, it’s comforting. It doesn’t seem demanding or jealous, just…love. I’m a very grounded, very cynical person who believes in science and materialism, but I do leave a chair at the table for a little bit of reasonable faith and hope. I guess what I’m saying is if something gets someone through a rough patch or through their day even, I’m not going to kick them while they’re down, but I sure as hell will shove them if they try to make me do the same as them. That’s my take on religion in a socialist society: people can pray and believe in God and heaven and all that if it helps them deal with the big questions and tragedy and stuff beyond human control, but that’s a personal thing and don’t expect others to kowtow to your beliefs.
Except it doesn’t. The states that are counted due to the electoral college are predominantly white, which makes them hardly a racial minority in the US. The electoral college made a modicum of sense when voting was scattered at best, but it’s yet another relic of a time long since passed. “Minorities” in the colloquial sense is a liberal platitude to turn black and brown and LGBTQ folks into a monolith that is easily weaponized against itself like in the image above (“If I’m a white guy living in the inner city then I’m a minority!!!” Which, locally, yes, but broad scale, no). The EC is bad and outdated because it distances the people from democracy. And while chuds love to trot out “we’re a republic, not a democracy!” a republic is not possible without some form of democracy because who chooses the representatives then? A republic is a democracy. You just vote for a representative to vote for shit you don’t want to be bothered to directly vote on, which means we’re not a direct democracy, but no country has ever been that because it would be insanely unwieldy even with the internet! I wish I could be buzzed at work because at least then I could argue this with a sense of confidence and coherence Lol.
That’s probably a part of it, along with the fact that they’ve identified social progress as being the fault of our decline when it’s far more complicated. Sexual liberation, the genesis of LGBTQ activism in the mainstream and the end of legal segregation coincides with the beginning of the decline of American dominance. They point to those things and say, “That caused it!” When in reality the capitalists weren’t okay with everyone having a slice of the pie, Europe and Japan were largely rebuilt and reindustrialized by the 70s and by the 1990s you have global capitalism in full swing rendering American labor a costly liability to high profit margins. Along with that you have the embarrassing realization that America lost a war in living memory and it’s because counterinsurgency pretty much just turns into genocide and concentration camps for it to be “successful” and even then it turns into a prolonged, bloody struggle that gets too costly in terms of resources and bodies turning the people back home against the war. But conservatives don’t have a materialist analysis of history or present conditions so they just latch onto things that make them uncomfortable or feel they’re “supposed” to hate. I have a pet theory that more people than we realize require special education, but mainstream education is one size fits all so they become anti-intellectual as a coping mechanism for their purported failures in education. Which, solution to that is simple: free community college with attentive professors and tutors and small class sizes in K-12 of no more than 20 children with one teacher and multiple floating support staff AND allowing certain students to work one on one strictly with a tutor. But hey, I’m just some asshole who doesn’t care about high taxes on the wealthy and laughing off fears of a “national debt” (like that means anything lol).
Jesus: Be kind, be forgiving, give to the poor, give food and medicine to those who need it, be willing to die for others because you love them so much no matter what. Get executed in one of those worst ways possible.
These pricks: Pronouns?! Tolerance?! This is too much man!
It’s courteous to address someone how they would like to be addressed: man, woman, he, her, they, just their name, he’ll even Mr. or Miss or Mrs are signs of respecting how someone would like to be addressed. With transgender peoples now you have the tiniest amount of being considerate with something deemed “weird” mixed with all sorts of online-ness so people have a shit fit when a celebrity realizes they’re trans and would like to be addressed as such. You can chalk it up to transphobia (which it is), but it’s a deeper rot into how they cannot see themselves as part of a society filled with other people like them capable of emotions and vulnerabilities. In a way they’re sociopaths and I honestly don’t know how we handle this widespread cultural sociopathy when the advice of “just be nice to people” is met with “why should I.”
I forget how pathetic the Nazi Empire was at least compared to what it dreamt of being. It started expanding in 1937 (or was it ‘38?) and rapidly gained territory until late 1942 when it started losing territory in North Africa with Operation Torch and with an incredible Soviet defense of their key cities the Nazis maxed out their empire in only five years, and even then they didn’t even have any real control outside of their imperial core in Central Europe! They were marauders, looters and genocidaires who put all their efforts into murdering innocent people for not fitting into their little psychotic hug box of xenophobia. I shudder thinking about if they had focused “just” on political enemies and eugenics because they might still be around to this day (I mean a coherent nazi state not nazis in general). Then I think about it a little more and holy shit if that isn’t what America is: a toned down version of the Fourth Reich.
My concern is that there will be two vaccines: a free one and a paid for one. The free one will be a rushed job with potentially serious, unknown side effects and a lesser efficacy whereas the paid for one will be exorbitantly expensive but will be proven safe and incredibly effective. While a vaccine is helpful, what really help is the longer systemic treatment of the pandemic: two month hard shutdown with freezes on all loans and bills, a cash stimulus for individuals and businesses, contact tracing and free treatment of COVID along with mandatory testing. But of course that wouldn’t happen because you might have to seize some wealth to pay for things and you might have to tell people to stay home with their spouses and children who they secretly hate.
Christmas, the celebration of the birth of the messiah or in a secular sense a day to celebrate our common humanity, selflessness and goodwill to all being celebrated like this is just depressing. Imagine taking a holiday like that and twisting it like this. Just…fuck man. General Sherman better be the Horseman of War because this shit is ridiculous.
Except even then he was, but he wasn’t. Pontius Pilate didn’t really see the point in executing him, but the Jewish religious elite wanted him dead whereas the Jewish people seemed to like him. So not all that different from politicking today: one faction is indifferent, one faction is threatened and the people writ large like something that neither faction wants at the end of the day. 2,000 years and not much has changed.