Blackmoor Vituperative

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Much like Columbus Day, this day has very little to do with the actual historical St. Patrick. What we are actually celebrating are the good things that we Americans have gained thanks to Irish immigrants and (if we’re lucky) our Irish ancestors: an appreciation of good food, good friends, and good beer. These are things worth celebrating. If you want to go deeper with it, and celebrate more complex aspects of Irish culture and what we’ve gained from it, that’s great, too.

If you use this as an excuse to complain about St. Patrick, the Catholic Church, or cultural stereotypes, you are missing the point.

Happy Birthday to William S. Burroughs — American novelist, short story writer, satirist, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer.

I’ve written a bit lately, urging my similarly-aligned friends and acquaintances to refrain from insulting half the country because they voted differently, or didn’t vote. I’ve urged my allies not to call people “Nazis” or “white supremacists” unless those people actually are such.

This is an example where calling someone a “Nazi” or a “white supremacist” is appropriate, because that’s exactly what this guy is: his words make that clear. Now, is everyone in the audience also a white supremacist and/or Nazi? We can’t know that, and we should not assume that. But it’s reasonable to assume that the people cheering and giving the Nazi salute are. Or think they are (I suspect that a lot of these people would be surprised to find themselves taking a train ride in actual Nazi Germany).

So the question is, how do we get people who didn’t vote, or who voted for Trump, to see that this is the result of their actions? If we want a better future, we need them to realize what a terrible mistake they’ve made. The future depends on us working together. We simply can’t afford to hold grudges.

P.S. That was kind of a clever word-play there, comparing “leftists and cucks” to the golem, a figure from Jewish mythology. He’s not explicitly saying that he’s referring to Jewish people when he asks “if these people are people at all, or instead soulless golem”. Not explicitly.

P.P.S. What the heck is a “cuck”? Is he calling non-Nazis chickens?

P.P.P.S. I use the phrase “taking a train ride” in the second paragraph. As far as I know, I came up with that allusion myself — I don’t think I borrowed it from anywhere. However, on proof-reading this, I was reminded of another reference to taking a train… man. That’s dark, Dalton.

P.P.P.P.S. “Cuck“. So, that’s a thing, I guess. Ugh.

If you want to see someone as an enemy, there will always be an excellent reason for it. Hatred is the easiest thing in the world. “I hate them because they hate me” is the easiest excuse of all. How many times must we re-learn that “They hate me because they do not know me” is usually much closer to the truth? Shakespeare told us. Twain told us. Roddenberry told us. But we keep forgetting.

But we have grievances, do we not? Of course. We always do. And our grievances are just, while theirs are petty and childish. Our fears are based on reality, while theirs are based on delusion. Our leaders may be imperfect, but theirs are monstrous, and want nothing less than the complete destruction of what we value most. So we will elevate someone to leadership despite their flaws, because to do otherwise is to surrender to annihilation. This is no time for idealism.

And how dare anyone on our side suggest anything less than seeking their complete annihilation, in the face of such an existential threat? How can anyone even suggest compromise with such savages?

After all, genocides have happened. Holocausts have happened. Must we not strike first, to prevent it from happening again, to us? How can we ever live in peace unless we first exterminate those who threaten that peace?

How indeed.

I am putting this here so I can find it later (and not have to write it from scratch every time).

Moral argument: NO ONE should have their privacy invaded to earn an honest living, much less to receive assistance when they are struggling. The only time it’s even remotely defensible is when someone is operating heavy machinery or otherwise directly responsible for the safety of others, and at those times the test should be for the person’s ability to operate that machinery — and that should include the effects of ALL drugs and illnesses which impair motor function. Until that happens, “drug testing” is no more than an excuse to exert power over others just for the sake of doing it.

Practical argument: Several states have enacted laws requiring drug testing of those receiving public assistance. In those states, the evidence is overwhelming: more money is spent on drug testing than is saved by withholding support from people who test positive for the substances being tested. The only purpose for drug testing recipients of public assistance is to pay extra in order to treat them like shit.

Pragmatic argument: The surpassing historical ignorance of those who would deprive the poor of food never ceases to amaze me. Even if there were no other arguments for keeping the poorest among us fed — if chubby bourgeoisie like me were all heartless, rapacious narcissists — the simple fact is that when the poor are kept hungry, we chubby bourgeoisie tend to find our heads in baskets. I like my head where it is, thank you very much.

There nothing as destructive to humanity as the preservation of the enmity of previous generations, long since dead.

(This might not be literally true. There may be more destructive things. But this one really irks me.)

This is my favourite scene from Willy Wonka. Because it’s not how others treat us that matters, but how we treat others… even if they are crooks, and even if we don’t win a lifetime supply of chocolate as a reward. The world is overflowing with vengeance and pettiness and bitterness: when has that made anything better? It’s better to be true and kind and forgiving, even if your only reward is that you are true and kind and forgiving.

R.I.P., Gene Wilder.

Prediction: In five hundred years, our current system of “intellectual property” (copyright, trademarks, patents) will be considered an archaic affront to basic human rights, rather like “creative feudalism”. It will be mentioned alongside multi-level-marketing and trickle-down economics as one of the peculiarly unchallenged scams of our era. People of the future will wonder how we could have possibly been so stupid.

I think it’s telling that the only people in the Star Wars movies that treat robots as though they were people are Luke (who is desperately lonely) and Anakin (who is a mass-murdering, child-killing psychopath). To everyone else, the fact a machine can talk means no more than it does for you and I when our car tells us the door is open or our phone tells us that we have an appointment in 15 minutes.

That a robot has a red arm means exactly as much as the fact an old yellow Fiat has a red door.

[vur-choo siɡ-nl-ling]
verb
gerund or present participle

1. a phrase used by sociopaths when trying to explain the behaviour of someone who has empathy.
    
   “she is collecting cans of food for the hurricane victims, but that’s just virtue signaling”
   “my rape jokes were funny, but I got fired because my supervisor was virtue signaling”
   “people who call Donald Trump a bigot and a sexist are just virtue signaling”