“It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things.”
-Niccolò Machiavelli, “The Prince” (1532), Ch. 6
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
Matthew 25:40-45
U.S. Implementing ‘Third Country’ Rule On Central American Migrants Seeking Asylum (NPR)
Here are some tips on how to have a happy marriage, from someone who has been married for 28 years, and is still happy about it.
I have cat named Vixen. She is affectionate, and playful, and brings me toys so that we can play together. When I am gone, she misses me, and greets me when I get home.
Or she used to. About seven months ago, I brought home a kitten. I had hoped he would be a friend to her, a playmate and companion for when I’m not around. Unfortunately, he bullies her, relentlessly. She growls and runs, and he chases her. Or she growls and fights back, and they fight. This continues until I end it. She hates him, and she has good reason. She spends most of her time hiding from him. She doesn’t play anymore. And sometimes when I go to pick her up, she growls at me. If he has been bullying her, she might even bite me. I have a mark on my hand right now from where she drew blood a few days ago.
I’m not her enemy. I love her more than any pet I’ve ever had (and most people). But an animal who is angry and in pain can’t always tell who is a friend and who isn’t. They just lash out. All you can do is be patient, and kind, and hope they come around.
People are like that, too.
You see a meme from time to time that no one born with hate. That hate is learned. There is usually a photo of babies, or of Nelson Mandela.
I don’t think that’s entirely true. I think some people are born with hate — or perhaps, are born with something else missing. The part that feels compassion. The part that sees other people as people.
And I think there are more people like that than most of us realize. A lot more.
[sīəns fikSHən]
noun
“Science fiction” is that subset of fantasy that uses the vocabulary of science to lend verisimilitude to the story.
First known use: 1925
I’ve seen a lot of good arguments against oppressing women — and a lot of hypocritical and/or morally bankrupt arguments for it.
I’d not seen this take on it before. The place I found it had it as an image, so I have transcribed it here.
If my younger sister was in a car accident and desperately needed a blood transfusion to live, and I was the only person on Earth who could donate blood to save her, and even though donating blood is a relatively easy, safe, and quick procedure no one can force me to give blood. Yes, even to save the life of a fully-grown person, it would be illegal to force me to donate blood if I didn’t want to.
See, we have this concept called “bodily autonomy.” It’s this… cultural notion that a person’s control over their own body is above all important and must not be infringed upon.
Like, we can’t even take life saving organs from corpses unless the person whose corpse it is gave consent before their death. Even corpses get bodily autonomy.
To tell people that they must sacrifice their bodily autonomy for 9 months against their will in an incredibly expensive, invasive, difficult process to save what you view as another human life (a debatable claim in the early stages of pregnancy when the vast majority of abortions are performed) is desperately unethical. You can’t even ask people to sacrifice bodily autonomy to give up organs they aren’t using anymore after they have died.
You’re asking people who can become pregnant to accept less bodily autonomy than we grant to dead bodies.
(copied from a user called fandomsandfeminism)
Naturally, when I was looking for the original source for this (which I didn’t find), I found some hypocritical and/or morally bankrupt responses to it.
But here’s the thing: if your first reaction, on reading this, is to try and find some ethical loophole that will allow you to continue to oppress and enslave women while the tattered scraps of your conscience maintain plausible deniability, you are a terrible person. Take a long look in the mirror, and ask yourself how you became this shallow mockery of a human being.
I was a capital-L Libertarian for a decade or so. The thing is, they are absolutely opposed to the initiation of physical force, because it’s the single greatest infringement of another person’s liberty. I think this is a good thing. For one thing, it would make the USA far less of an analogue of the Empire in Star Wars.
There are, unfortunately, two rather significant problems with libertarians. First, although they are opposed to the initiation of force, far too many of them fetishize the idea of retaliation. Once you do that, it becomes very easy to rationalize any violence or atrocity, because after all, “they started it”. You’ve seen the Gadsden flag, I assume, the one with the snake? “Don’t tread on me”? That’s not a celebration of living in peace and harmony: it’s a fetish symbol for someone who wants the opportunity to use violence and is looking for an excuse.
The second major problem with libertarians is that they are purposefully blind to the fact that physical violence is not the only form of coercion. A libertarian is perfectly fine with a single company buying all of the patents on a life-saving drug and then demanding your life savings for a dose of it, because that’s not physical violence — but it is obviously a direct “your money or your life” form of coercion, to everyone not blinded by their religious fervor. And it is a religious fervor, make no mistake. When you adhere to a creed or philosophy in defiance of the clear and measurable harm that philosophy causes, you have become a religious zealot — a fanatic.
Happy Columbus Day! Much like St. Patrick’s Day, this day has very little to do with the actual historical Christopher Columbus (who was by all accounts a truly despicable human being, although he may also have been a completely typical example of his time). What we are actually celebrating is the spirit of exploration that is tied so firmly to the American spirit. We are explorers and pioneers. We went where no one had gone before. We are risk takers who follow our dreams even when the people around us claim that we’d fall off the edge of the world (not in Columbus’ era — those folks knew the world was round). It’s also a day to celebrate the contribution that we Americans have gained thanks to Italian immigrants and (if we’re lucky) our Italian ancestors. These are things worth celebrating.
If you use this as an opportunity to complain about Columbus, Imperialism, or colonialism… well, there are good reasons to be aware of those things. But that’s not what we are celebrating on Columbus Day.
Pick big fights with your enemies, not small fights with your friends. “Micro aggression” is nonsense, when there is macro aggression to worry about, and there is no such thing as “cultural appropriation”. Culture spreads and changes, or it stagnates and dies — there is no third choice.
There is too much at stake for us to get distracted by pettiness. Don’t be the wanker criticizing the wallpaper on the Titanic.
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Blackmoor Vituperative