Fits And Snarts

Yeah, I have many deep thoughts during the day, but by the time I reach this keyboard, the brain cells have combined and retreated from the contact with ideas, and wish instead to find a safe place.  Because it sure as hell seems like the rest of the world is going nucking futs.  And the rest.

I don't begin to understand what the hell goes through some people's minds.  There's that Congresscritter who thought himself such a manly man he posted a cartoon someone else created about him where he goes around killing other people he's supposed to be working with.  I guess it helps when the dipshit doesn't care about doing his job, he simply enjoys sitting in Washington and being fed from the Congress Trough and taking the money from his constituents, who apparently elected him to provide good TV.

But let's be fair - it sure as hell seems that the feminine side of Congress seems committed to outdoing the men in shameful behavior.  I mean, when I was a kid, it seemed a congresscritter a week was getting caught with his hand in the nookie jar - that is, some of their payroll went for less constituent-focused resources, and those more focused on making the flaccid old man rise to ... well, a pathetic occasion, I guess.

Because I'm seeing news about the heavily armed woman from Colorado who thinks joking about terrorists is funny - I suppose that's what happens when you're raised to treat everything like a joke and lack the respect that our parents used to teach us to render to the average person we encountered.  Because I know damned well that my parents taught me that every other person in the world was due at least the minimum amount of respect that we would expect to be returned to us.  Ya know, that creepy old tale about doing unto others as you would have done unto you.  Seems the Colorado Harpie is hell-bent on protecting the entire country from ... I dunno, honestly.  It's painfully obvious that the plethora of weapons being hauled around in public is creating less safety.  Ask any school kid.  

But the Colorado Shrike isn't alone.  There's another windbag off to the south who glories in the praise of her ... well, that fellow whose name is 80% composed of a euphemism for Ass.  Yeah, I went there.  But when the universe goes to such an effort to accurately name something, I really find it disrespectful to ignore the obvious.  

So yes, I'm going there.  But I'm not going to tell you that the other side of the world is without fault.  However, the next person from that side who hefts an automatic weapon or two for the cameras before spouting off about the safety they've created for those around them by open-carrying a howitzer or some other military weapon, I'll have them up on a pile of petrified shit as the top turd.  Based on current, obvious contenders, I'm not seeing a line for that sort of glory.

I do despair, no matter how big a sin it may be, that we're somehow building a society which is no longer willing to work together.  I find it absolutely unforgivable that a country which considers itself great because it stole the land under it's feet from the indigenous inhabitants is fairly pathetic when it comes to denying any further people the opportunity to come here.  I should think that any half-conscious half-wit who has spent more than 30 minutes learning the history of this country would recognize that while we did steal much of the land from those who were here first, we did do some good things with it - but we had damned well better set to an accounting for what we did to steal the land from those who were here first.  Because, folks, until we acknowledge what happened, and by that I mean every single, sickening thing, we're not decent people.  

Yeah, I do think that it's despicable to steal from others.  I don't care what the theft is, it's wrong.  Because it is wrong to take that which is not yours.  If you think you've earned that which you've taken, please, explain to me why you think your right to a thing is more than those who currently possess it.  Now, I'm willing to bend a fair ear.  I have, after all, found my way to the exalted second or third step up from the swamp by making it through the better part of nearly six decades on this planet, which some do not have the chance to do.

I'm minded of an infant who did not make it to the six month mark - that is, the infant did not survive as long outside the mother as those rabid pro-lifers might insist the infant survived on the inside of the mother.  I tell you again, no one deserves the label "pro-life" until they can tell you they are fully behind every single social and economic program to assist young parents to earn a decent living, provide good health care to their families, and that includes shelter and food and education.  If a community wishes to be considered great, that should be the absolute minimum they can do.  If they want to stand above the others, let's make damned sure the schools are above top-notched, every graduate, no matter the ability they possess when beginning their education, can outwork, outthink, and outflank every other graduate from any other school - because our best should inspire the rest of us to do better. 

Rather than as it seems so often today, the leader of the pack seems hell-bent on finding a new way to expose some new character flaw, social ill, or perceived slight for which they will exact such revenge no one will ever consider repeating such an offense.  I noted in the local news the other day a fellow was going to be sent to prison for four years for killing someone who might have brushed against him, accidentally.  If you lack such the self respect that you must kill someone because they brushed you, and in doing so, degraded what little self-respect you had for yourself, well, I don't think Jail is an appropriate receptacle for you.  I'd suggest a corral with other angry bulls, or perhaps a small den with rabid ferrets.  If you haven't got the self-respect to accept an apology, or forgive some oaf who lacks the grace to apologize, well, your life must be miserable.  You must spend most of your days looking for offenses against you, and in seeking to right the alleged wrong just goes to show you probably shouldn't be allowed out in public.  At least, not without extensive medication and a team to insure that the damage you do is minimal, to yourself, at worst, and none at all to the rest of the public. 

And if you're one of those freaks who glory in provocation, all I say is please, universe, grant unto them that which they wish to receive, and if at all possible, limit the damage dealt to the innocent and the uninvolved, because they do not deserve such abuse.  

Yeah, I despair because I see the world done with circling the drain.  We're headed down.  We haven't figured out how to leave eachother well enough alone.  We're insistent that you believe that which everyone else believe.  And while I know that certain American values are core to that which binds us together as a country, it's far past obvious that there are far too many who are no longer capable of or even know how to compromise. I know my neighbor wants to live in a quiet neighborhood, one that is safe for him and his family.  However, when the neighbor comes home with a new car that rumbles and shakes my windows when it starts, due to the deliberate damage to the muffler which they think "sounds cool" that's where I question the fundamentals.  If you value loud noise, then I suggest you go find that island where you and the hundreds of others who enjoy that sort of noise can be together.  But wait, you cry, if we're all noisy together, then none of us stand out from each other!  Right.  If you wish to be noise, I suggest you find a space where you can do that which is away from those of us who prefer quiet.

And if you wish to carry a weapon around everywhere you go, then please, do it elsewhere.  We've got far too many examples of what happens when some small person finds an offense and decides to take their rage out on others.  There's the fellow who was firing from a hotel in Las Vegas.  There's the weekly school shooting.  And there's the whole rest of the country that says "oh, those poor people with all of those guns.  They're not as responsible as those of us are here."  Right.  Look, I know some people who are beyond safe with their firearms.  I don't have a problem with them.  Because I know and trust that they are only going to open fire when the need is great.  They're not going to send a child across state lines with a military-grade firearm that a friend bought them "for fun" and then sleep comfortably when that child killed two others.

And is acquitted of the deed.  Look, I get it.  There's sometimes a gulf between the right thing and the legal thing.  All too often it's not what the person did, but what they can be convicted of, that determines their charges.  But I know of no sane individual who will say that to allow a 17 year old child to carry a military weapon, in public, in a demonstration where police are there, is a good idea.  That's wrong.  And the sooner we get back to the general idea that hey, the point of life is to build a better one for yourself and your children, and spend less time trying to figure out how to screw the folks on the other side of the road, just because they have no stars on THEIR bellies (unlike the ones we've so carefully drawn on ours, you know), right.  

And that's enough of a rant for the day.  I just needed to get this out of my system.  I want to look forward to a better future, not down a drain at a dystopian end.  But I'm fairly certain that if the wingnuts who are running this nut show continue to do so, we're all less likely to be FUBAR'ed beyond all recognition and just be a dry dust ball that orbits a star, and some civilization will pass by and note that there's no chance intelligent life ever evolved or came into existence on such a fried cinder.  I'd like to think of better futures, not what we're likely to hand to our children.  We should have done a better job.  Instead of giving them a nice set of tools in a clean, shiny toolbox, they're getting the stinky, sticky, smelly end of the old stick we used to beat each other.  Sure hope they figure out how to turn it in to something useful.