Sometimes I come across real gems and this is no exception. On par with being a politician these days Republican Indiana State Rep displays compartmentalized lunacy when he states that Girls Scouts are a radical organization which promotes homosexual lifestyles. Oh, the horror. Lets take this apart just a bit. He and others which share his backwards view aren't all about protecting girls from things they deem harmful. Rather it is the idea of subjugation and control which stems from a more 'traditionalist' mindset of misogyny. It's quite telling that anytime these conservative white old men address anything which has an impact on women that their oppressive views of women, and it some cases down right hatred, are poorly obfuscated in absurd babble. A recent and explosive display of this is occurring with this whole birth control issue. Hiding behind abstrusely contorted interpretations of the first amendment to claim 'religious freedom' being reason enough to deny swaths of women coverage for birth control is a blatantly transparent veneer for what is actually being said: Females, especially young ones, shouldn't fuck without being punished.There are so many things wrong with that kind of view which I may delve into in a later post but for now back to this wingnut.
“Nonetheless, abundant evidence proves that the agenda of Planned Parenthood includes sexualizing young girls through the Girl Scouts, which is quickly becoming a tactical arm of Planned Parenthood,” Morris wrote.
This is crazy deceptive. You see in minds like this guy's even making girls aware of birth control is 'sexualizing' them. In their world its tantamount to telling a room full of preteens "Hey! We can screw all we want with no worries of pregnancy! Lets seduce all the boys!" complete with open windows, knocked over desks, and other clutter which results from everyone leaving the room in a cartoonishly fast manner. This comes as no surprise though. It seems that the conservative stance on sex education, especially towards girls, is to deny knowledge and tell them Jesus died for them and cries every time something enters their hoo-ha. Even overlooking the concept that men essentially own their daughters' cherries, something which also makes me ill, the damage of this mindset of information derailment is obvious to anyone who actually thinks on it and has the relevant data. Children need to be educated in sex and sexuality before they start having sex and not after Jack and Jill find out that the pullout method is woefully inadequate. This falls on willfully deaf ears though because these people want STDs and pregnancy to be lurking around every corner terrifying girls and ready to pounce on them for daring to express themselves sexually. Even showing these people that STD and pregnancy rates per capita are higher in groups of children who are inadequately taught about sex doesn't sway them. Its all 'liberal propaganda' and 'not my child!'.
He continues that the Girl Scouts also let in boys “who decide to claim a ‘transgender’ or cross-dressing life-style” and, in general, promote being gay. “Many parents are abandoning the Girl Scouts because they promote homosexual lifestyles,” Morris said. “In fact, the Girl Scouts education seminar girls are directed to study the example of role models. Of the fifty role models listed, only three have a briefly-mentioned religious background - all the rest are feminists, lesbians, or Communists.”
Communists? Where in the blue hell did that come from? Is this guy stuck in some neomacarthyist conspiracy bubble? Hey buddy, the USSR fell in 1989 and the 'red scare' or what was left of it promptly flew out the window with it. I 'king remember it happening. So only three of the role models have a briefly mentioned religious background. Cry me a river, or better yet use that glob of grey matter stuck between your ears. Here's idea for you: women who have fought and still fight for the rights of women tend to reject the whole monotheist patriarchy you so staunchly favor. It's not our fault your religion doesn't produce good role models for girls, and don't be fooled, when his lot states 'religious' they really mean 'devout Christian'.
If what the Girl Scouts represent is 'radical' then we need more of it in spades. He claims he did some web browsing to find his 'evidence' but I suspect it was limited to the likes of Christian Answers dot net and Fox News rather than finding actual impartial facts and such. People like him don't want young girls growing up thinking its OK to voice their opinion or call someone out for making a sexist joke. In their minds if women exercise control over their reproductive and sex lives the sky will fall. I want the sky to fall...directly onto them. I'm quite fond of the opposite gender to mine and have no problem taking some jerk who won't listen to anyone without a swinging dick and making him listen by dressing him down in front of everyone. Actually, I quite like doing that, :o)
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
I think I'm going to post here more often...
As was my honest intention when I signed up for this thing. Stuff happened, everyday stuff, such as breaking my foot and it got lost in the shuffle. I do write a bit and most of what I write is on a different site. However things are getting wonky over there and I decided to download all I had written there. Seems it was an inspired move as for the last 24 hours I can't even connect to the domain. We'll see. It may just be a server change up or something else maintenance oriented, actually it probably is. However when I signed up for this blog my intention was to post what I wrote at both...well, what is applicable anyway. The other place is more of an anonymous closed community for the most part. This is NOT. So some of my skeletons probably won't be aired. My internet stalking skills while considerable enough to get the job done are peanuts compared to particularly motivated individuals with lots of resources. I'm not afraid to post what I think or be critical of ideas I find off putting. My critical stance on Christianity as well as religion in general can be a particular lightning rod.
That isn't what bothers me though. I have a seriously thick hide which has been developed over a decade or so of questioning what many hold sacred. As a result I have come to expect the vituperation consistent with that territory. My proverbial middle finger has not been neglected in those cases where someone demands I shut up or imply harm may come my way for pointing out that teaching children their salvation lies in a vicarious human sacrifice is in my mind a reprehensible thing to do. Lets face it, we all have aspects of ourselves that stay private or kept very close. Emotions, actions, and desires can all fall into that category and lets face it, that information is not only unnecessary for anyone to actually know but is very volatile and a perfect weapon. I tend not to say or write anything which I wouldn't say or write to anyone directly(if applicable) but I have learned the hard way that truth rarely matters. It's perception that wins or loses the day.
Anyway, as I feel like it I will add things I have written in the past and they will be noted as such. Most will probably be dated and come with a little intro but the ones I dig up from wayyy back will come from my memory and may lack particular specifics. That as is said is that.
That isn't what bothers me though. I have a seriously thick hide which has been developed over a decade or so of questioning what many hold sacred. As a result I have come to expect the vituperation consistent with that territory. My proverbial middle finger has not been neglected in those cases where someone demands I shut up or imply harm may come my way for pointing out that teaching children their salvation lies in a vicarious human sacrifice is in my mind a reprehensible thing to do. Lets face it, we all have aspects of ourselves that stay private or kept very close. Emotions, actions, and desires can all fall into that category and lets face it, that information is not only unnecessary for anyone to actually know but is very volatile and a perfect weapon. I tend not to say or write anything which I wouldn't say or write to anyone directly(if applicable) but I have learned the hard way that truth rarely matters. It's perception that wins or loses the day.
Anyway, as I feel like it I will add things I have written in the past and they will be noted as such. Most will probably be dated and come with a little intro but the ones I dig up from wayyy back will come from my memory and may lack particular specifics. That as is said is that.
Monday, May 9, 2011
My Mortality
There is a nice quote which I really like. I feel it puts things quite succinctly:
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.
That really does ring true with me.
I don't fear being dead. I haven't for quite sometime. Like any rational person I'm quite pensive about going out in a grotesquely painful manner. Things like burning alive or not being able to die with dignity at the end of a battle with a progressive disease thanks to so called right to 'life' lunatics don't top my list of things I like to ponder. The actual state of death holds no sway over me though. This has provided me with a point of view which I never could have had while religion was in my life. I see it in a lot of those in my life who do have theistic beliefs, even really lax ones. It seems a lot of their personal and life decisions have to pass a kind of litmus test founded in superstition and it saddens me when this causes them undue grief. Grief which is totally unfounded and objectively superfluous. Using a yardstick of fantasy obfuscated in tradition and 'morality' extending not from one's own being but from which ultimately can be traced back to the likes of illiterate goat herders living out of tents. That my friends is a tragedy.
It's a waste of the very life which was never ordained by anyone or asked for by any of us. I don't believe in heaven, hell, or any kind of afterlife. Nor do I believe in any kind of higher power or gods. Far from taking away from my life and stripping meaning from my existence it has brought great meaning to every moment I live. Every time I wake from sleeping I get to experience the joys of life. Little simple things which no one could ever substitute with superstitious vapidity. Though never substitute these things, it could poison them and without sufficient or legitimate reasons to do so. I had a simple moment the other day which illustrates this perfectly:
A few days ago came home from running errands and opened my garage door as I pulled up in the driveway. A young dove flew haphazardly into the garage, obviously startled at the roll up door opening suddenly and loudly. It landed beside the single step leading to the door inside and was petrified, it couldn't see a way out. I walked up to it and bent down to look at it. It was mortified, birds tend to behave a certain way when they are. It looked up at me not knowing what to make of me. I tried to imagine what it must be feeling as it gazed up at me, closing in on it. I got my hands under it and as soon as I picked it up enough to clear the step and see light it flew off. moments like that one make my life meaningful and worthwhile to me. I needed no creator to marvel at or thank for sharing this world with such a creature. No magic had to be invoked in order to appreciate this animal, which at some point in the 3.8 billion year or so known history of life on this world I know I shared an ancestor with . Knowledge and self awareness allowed me to experience that moment and multiplying it with unnecessary entities would serve only to take away from it.
Enjoying the music I love, learning things I previously didn't and correcting things I was in error about, the unconditional love of little girls, a nice thunderstorm, are a few things on a very long list of experiences which make my life worth living. They enrich my life and if by existing I have made a difference for the better in some of the lives around me then all I feel I can rightfully ask for is already mine.
When I die I will not lose any of it. Not because I can take any of it with me but because I will not exist and be unable to be deprived of it. After every shred my existence in memory, engraved, recorded or otherwise is gone, indeed, even humanity is gone, I will have lost none of it. It's for this very real reason that I can honestly say that death now has no dominion over me, and never will again.
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.
~Richard Dawkins
I don't fear being dead. I haven't for quite sometime. Like any rational person I'm quite pensive about going out in a grotesquely painful manner. Things like burning alive or not being able to die with dignity at the end of a battle with a progressive disease thanks to so called right to 'life' lunatics don't top my list of things I like to ponder. The actual state of death holds no sway over me though. This has provided me with a point of view which I never could have had while religion was in my life. I see it in a lot of those in my life who do have theistic beliefs, even really lax ones. It seems a lot of their personal and life decisions have to pass a kind of litmus test founded in superstition and it saddens me when this causes them undue grief. Grief which is totally unfounded and objectively superfluous. Using a yardstick of fantasy obfuscated in tradition and 'morality' extending not from one's own being but from which ultimately can be traced back to the likes of illiterate goat herders living out of tents. That my friends is a tragedy.
It's a waste of the very life which was never ordained by anyone or asked for by any of us. I don't believe in heaven, hell, or any kind of afterlife. Nor do I believe in any kind of higher power or gods. Far from taking away from my life and stripping meaning from my existence it has brought great meaning to every moment I live. Every time I wake from sleeping I get to experience the joys of life. Little simple things which no one could ever substitute with superstitious vapidity. Though never substitute these things, it could poison them and without sufficient or legitimate reasons to do so. I had a simple moment the other day which illustrates this perfectly:
A few days ago came home from running errands and opened my garage door as I pulled up in the driveway. A young dove flew haphazardly into the garage, obviously startled at the roll up door opening suddenly and loudly. It landed beside the single step leading to the door inside and was petrified, it couldn't see a way out. I walked up to it and bent down to look at it. It was mortified, birds tend to behave a certain way when they are. It looked up at me not knowing what to make of me. I tried to imagine what it must be feeling as it gazed up at me, closing in on it. I got my hands under it and as soon as I picked it up enough to clear the step and see light it flew off. moments like that one make my life meaningful and worthwhile to me. I needed no creator to marvel at or thank for sharing this world with such a creature. No magic had to be invoked in order to appreciate this animal, which at some point in the 3.8 billion year or so known history of life on this world I know I shared an ancestor with . Knowledge and self awareness allowed me to experience that moment and multiplying it with unnecessary entities would serve only to take away from it.
Enjoying the music I love, learning things I previously didn't and correcting things I was in error about, the unconditional love of little girls, a nice thunderstorm, are a few things on a very long list of experiences which make my life worth living. They enrich my life and if by existing I have made a difference for the better in some of the lives around me then all I feel I can rightfully ask for is already mine.
When I die I will not lose any of it. Not because I can take any of it with me but because I will not exist and be unable to be deprived of it. After every shred my existence in memory, engraved, recorded or otherwise is gone, indeed, even humanity is gone, I will have lost none of it. It's for this very real reason that I can honestly say that death now has no dominion over me, and never will again.
The last thing I need...
I'm still working out the idiosyncrasies of this particular blog flavor so things could be a tad FUBAR for a spell.
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