SRF Heavy Industries

I have a policy. Well, a rule of thumb. A little rule — one of two — to help me decide whether I should do something that seems like it would be fun. The second rule (not that they really have an order — new fun should try to pass both) is “Avoid scenarios that would be difficult to explain to the paramedics, should they be required.” The first one is “Avoid scenarios that are likely to end in a hail of bullets.”

Beginning to rethink that one. Obviously some things are worth getting shot over.

Politically, people always mistake me for a Democrat. I just kind of shrug. I remember Clinton as well as I remember Reagan and the Bushes. Obama has made certain promises but hasn’t made it the right kind of priority to get follow through. See, what I’m really for is fairness, and justice, and human rights and civil rights.

Let me tell you, Republicans and Libertarians, et al., if that makes you think I’m a Democrat, that’s a wake-up call.

So.

If you were to ask me what the biggest remaining problem on Earth was, I’d say bigotry. Let’s talk about bigots for a minute.

A bigot is the sort of person who assumes that he or she personally has value — is a good person because of personal accomplishments, because of the values they embrace, because of family or family history or culture, or any of a number of things. Then this person assumes that people without those qualities, people dissimilar to himself or herself, are of lesser value. Those people are animalized, demonized, to make the bigot feel better about hating them. The bigot then acts like human rights and civil rights and compassion are something scarce, something affected by rules of economy, and that the objects of bigotry are in dangerous competition for the scarce resource of humaneness and humanity. Being animals, they don’t take up any precious humanity resources, like consideration and respect.

And don’t think the bigot just picks one other kind of person to demonize. They have a list. You hear about what’s on the top of their list mostly. But trust me on this: if you’re not an accepted member of a bigot’s family or close circle of friends, a person who worships the god of their choice in the way they do, you are probably on that list somewhere. And you’ll see it in their eyes the instant they are forced by protocol to shake hands with you.

You can see the fallacy there, right? And the perversity. There is no scarcity, no expense of supply and demand, for acting like a decent human being. The bigot acts like an animal to a human being who is different from himself or herself and feels justified because he or she thinks the other person is scarcely better than an animal.

You see how that’s at the root of the horribleness, don’t you? People only screw they other guy. Maybe that other guy is everybody, for a certain class of human monster. But usually it’s only black people. Illegal immigrants. Gay people. Jewish people. Arabs. Muslims. Catholics. Poles. Serbs. Gypsies. Irish. Italians. Southerners. White trash. Ignorant people. Godless savages. Athiests. New Agers and pagans. Transexuals. Gingers. Rich people. Educated people. Ad #^@&in’ infinitum. Seriously, there’s no end to the places where people feel justified in drawing a line between themselves and anybody else.

And it distorts vision. For instance, there’s been a lot of noise from current Republican presidential candidates about not wanting to take money from taxpayers (i.e., “white people”) to help black people on Welfare. Meanwhile, back in reality, there are more white people on Welfare than there are black people. And it’s a squabble over whose children deserve feeding. Whose grandparents deserve heating for the winter. I’ve never seen such bullshit — especially not from people who ought to be trying to compete for our respect.

And this thing about limiting voting. That’s some scary nastiness. Who is it again that doesn’t deserve to vote? Poor people? People who have been so marginalized by society that they haven’t needed ID for anything else? People who have trouble understanding complicated instructions handed out only in English? People in demographics that are far more likely to vote Democrat than Republican? That’s some bullshit right there. How the hell can you be for liberty and freedom and be on board with restricting who can vote?

Take a look at that picture at the top of this post. There’s a poor bastard troweling up the clotted blood of a man who was shot in the face for the nerve of speaking out for the civil rights — including the right to vote — of people that those in power were trying to exclude. Are we down to that again? Is it time for someone to get shot, nearly fifty years later, to show that we haven’t learned a damned thing?

Whatever. Thanks to the NDAA and associated legislative drivel, imprisoning people the government doesn’t like, indefinitely without trial, in the same kinds of concentration camps we used against American citizens of Japanese descent back during WWII is now legal. All it takes is for someone in power to name you — which does not take a trial — a sympathizer with some group that the same government has also arbitrarily decided is an enemy. It’s obvious we haven’t learned a damned thing. It’s all ridiculous US-versus-Them, More-for-Me-None-for-You bullshit based on the mistaken notion that there isn’t enough humanity to go around.

I’m officially too disgusted to continue this.

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