First They Came For The Vulnerable (Post Election Anger and Pain)

First they came for the vulnerable...
and you said f' them, yolo, and promoted not caring about others for 3.5 years.
and then, well, here we are.... did you think promoting a society where we didn't care about those perceived as vulnerable would lead somewhere else?
Do you care yet? Still only about select groups?
#ItsSoMuchWorseThanYouThink #ItDidntHaveToBeThisWay #NotEveryoneSurvived #NotEveryoneWillSurvive #IDontKnowHowToMakeYouCare #DoYouGetItNow 

You Miss, I Miss

You miss activities we used to engage in.  I miss not having to constantly hear how you miss them and constantly feeling gaslit for trying to be responsible and trying to take responsibility for the message I send and the activities I promote.  I miss the days when people remembered the things we accomplished the prior year instead of jumping to the need to go back to pre-pandemic behaviors.  I miss not feeling defeated at every step (and admit that this may be my white straight cis-male middle-class privilege shining through).  I miss seeing some sort of hope for the future (again, privilege).  I miss feeling good about anything I do.

You don't like the fact that I'm still masking.  I don't like the fact that I have a higher risk of long covid.  I don't like the fact that I have a couple comorbidities. I don't like the fact that the city I live in didn't reach moderate transmission rate or even high transmission rate when we had nearly stalled out our progress prior to the removal of mask mandates and saw the rates increase again.  I don't like that masking has been made out to be some significant hinderance.

You're tired of precautions.  I'm tired of people not taking precautions for more than a month or two at a time.  I'm tired of the media, government, and individuals not learning from 2 years' experience.  I'm tired of people not going past an initial statement, like "this other country has re-opened in-person schools" to get to the rest of the story, such as "along with having constant testing of all students and are also seeing another wave so they're doing a lock down the likes of which have not been even considered in the US."  

You wish we could just go back to life the way we lived pre-covid.  I wish I didn't have diabetes and could go back to not watching what I eat and not exercising.  I wish I weren't getting older.  I wish global warming weren't a thing and that war and genocide and discrimination didn't exist.

Say Something, I'm Giving Up on You

I don't know how to let you know how much your words of property being worth the same as life has damaged our relationship. 

I don't know how to get you to care about other people more than going to the grocery store right this instant.

I don't know how to get you to care the people around you that have to remain vigilant because it's life/death for themselves or members of their household.

I don't know how to get you to realize that many of your peers are remaining vigilant despite being tired and not being at risk themselves.

I don't know how to let you know that what you say now impacts how I will interact with you in 6 months and that I am considering walking away from various communities, including those I have been a part of for just about all my life.

I don't know how to express the sorrow I feel having not believed in personal responsibility prior to this year and seeing now that I still managed to believe in it more than I should have.

I don't know how to say that I'm struggling not to give up right now and need someone to say something again because it's been a minute and I'm just so tired and so done.

Random Ranting On Ridiculousness Recently Received on 16-Feb-2020

This started off as a small FB post but evolved into something just slightly too long for that so...

I heard someone on the news just say that they believe it is God's will that Trump be President because if it weren't, God wouldn't have allowed it to happen... fair enough, then it was also God's will that Obama be President for 8 years, right? Also, does God's will in this way apply only to Presidents or is it all things? If it's all things, then there's no point to you discussing any of this since it's clearly God's will that the viewers of this MSNBC show and you will forever disagree, most likely on everything that comes out of your mouth. Let's say it's only Presidential elections that God intervenes in. How much do you want to bet that it won't be God's will when a Democrat comes to office and can we forego however long that takes and have you just hand over that bet money to me now?

Moments later in the discussion, this same person said that Trump was in office to allow the country a chance to "recover"... ok, recover from what? If it's God's will that whoever becomes President becomes President, was it not, therefore, God's will that Obama be President and was it not also God's will that everything that transpired did transpire in those 8 years? And in what way are we "recovering" right now? Were we not deporting enough people when Obama ramped up deportations during his Presidency? Did we not have enough support for racism and bigotry? Perhaps Obama wasn't vindictive enough and wasn't political enough when giving speeches in the well of the House or when giving press conferences?

Minutes after these points, the same person then said that there was an election and this was therefore the will of the people.  I'm SO tired of hearing that elections have consequences.  Where was this explanation coming from the Right in 2009 when the Tea Party was sprouting into existence and rallying against Obama, literally hanging effigies of him?  How does this defense work in tandem with the suggestion in 2012 and 2016 that the Right must "take back" the country?  "Take back" from who?  Also, not for nothing, but will of the people?  How is it the will of the people when "the people" vote for one person by 48.2 to 46.1 and the person with 46.1 percent becomes the President?  You can't say "the people" voted for this President when it was a minority of the "the people" who made the decision.

Ok, rant almost over, I promise.

The news piece was actually about how Trump is acting like an authoritarian leader in the way that he governs and the way that he behaves toward the news.  This is absolutely on-point.  The correspondents were pointing out that the news teams have an obligation to not just give both sides' talking points, not just sometimes say when one side is lying, but to tell the story so it is clear as day what is happening.  I'm not entirely sure how that was spun into "this President was elected by the people and it was God's will that that happen so suck it."  Really, I feel there's no answer that can be legitimately provided in response to this so the only answer to be provided is one that changes the narrative ... even if it is to something blatantly false like that the news media only lies about Trump (the first response provided in the discussion) or an explanation of "well, he's in office so it must be God's will" when asked "President Trump has said that it's God's will that he be President, do you agree".

The Bias Against Conservatives is Real.... even Facts are Against Them

I almost feel badly for conservatives in this country... the main stream news have a bias against them, hollywood has a bias against them, teachers and universities have a bias against them, unions have a bias against them, the courts (until now) have/had a bias against them, and now big tech has a bias against them... hell... even reportedly unbiased news/internet searching has a bias against the President they elected.... I would suggest that history, the last 1,000 years of cultural progression, and general facts have a bias against them, even sci-fi tends to have a bias against them.... must be really hard.... harder still for those that are even further on the Right that are villainized by the generally accepted culture, such as white nationalists who are the villains of many a movie, tv show, comic book, history book, and you know, common sense... just imagine if you believe in the ideals of the Nazis today and have to live your days being told you're evil by... you know.... everything around you except for the right wing media and your family / white-supremecist friends. Almost makes me feel badly for them.... almost.... ok, not really ... except for maybe those that don't realize that's who they are.

(in case you're reading this and need a quick explanation of why it's come up now... various big tech companies have recently banned various far right personalities such as Alex Jones, who is a well known and widely followed somewhat extreme right-wing talk-piece who has claimed such things as that the shooting at Sandy Hook was faked and other ridiculous conspiracy theories that present the left as fakes or villains... and the Right is proclaiming that tech is presenting a bias against them and infringing upon their free speech.... as opposed to what is happening which is that private companies are halting extremist, hateful, and dangerous speech from being spread on their platforms)

Reason for Violence in Schools is Separation of Church and State?

Before I get started, I'd like to point out that this is not targeting most religious people... many religious people would never make this assertion.... those that do, well, that takes a special kind of... well, ok, I've made my disclaimer, go ahead and read

message reads:
Dear God, Why do you allow so much violence in our schools? - A concerned student;
Dear Concerned Student, I'm not allowed in schools. - God

Let's explore this a bit shall we?  First, this is a direct response to the mass shootings we've seen at schools... so let's look at other places where mass shootings have been happening.

theaters - well... yeah, heathens go to theaters, they're the devil's playground.  Full of violence and sex and filth.  Makes sense that God would allow violence there.

malls - heathens go to malls to shop.  Look at all those evil places like Victoria's Secret and Apple and TJ Max and...

college campuses - well, duh

military bases - well, since we allowed gays in, right?  (oh, sorry, I seem to have moved to calling the person relaying the message homophobic somehow... I would say I'm sorry but I suspect you're realizing that I'm not particularly happy with anybody expressing this opinion)

churches... oh.. wait... God allows violence in churches because... hm...

Timeline of DACA - Trump relationship

I'm just going to leave this progression of Trump's relationship with DACA and the Dreamers here:

throughout 2016 Campaign [1]: DACA was an illegal overreach by President Obama

5-Sep-2017 [2]: I like Dreamers so I'm going to try to get Congress to pass something that I consider legal and give them until March, 5 2018 to do it... once we hit March 5, I'm going to undue DACA because it is illegal (and therefore, even if it hurts those I really like, trust me, believe me, I like them, a lot, I'll get rid of it).

09-Jan-2018: I like Dreamers so much that I'll sign any bill that deals with them that Congress passes

21-Jan-2018 [3]: Democrats are wrong to shut down the government over Dreamers

14-Feb-2018 [4]: Nope, I don't like the bill that the Senate has come up with so I'm threatening a veto

16-Feb-2018 [5]: Democrats are to blame if DACA goes away without something in place to replace it.

Sources:

1) https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/us/immigrants-donald-trump-daca.html

2) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/us/politics/trump-daca-dreamers-immigration.html

3) http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42759934

4) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/14/us/politics/trump-immigration-veto-threat.html

5) https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/16/trump-slams-democrats-daca-disaster/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

Mini Rant - I don't like that law so I won't follow it

I love people who explain that a law is unjust because they're not complying to it and that they're not complying to it because it's unjust. Was just listening to a call-in show where someone said that he had 10 cars that were in violation with the emissions standards based on his not having gotten them checked recently and that he hadn't done so because he didn't have time and the emissions standards law is not reasonable. I thought Conservatives were supposed to be the ones that believe in authority? I guess that links us back to the Bundys huh? So, let me get this straight, it's not o.k. to not follow the instructions of the police or not to follow the laws of your city, state, or country... unless you don't agree with them... well, o.k., it's still not o.k. to not follow the instructions of the police or not follow the laws of your city, state, or country... unless... um... I guess unless you're Conservative? I would say "unless you're white" but I don't want to assume this guy was white (though the racist in me is assuming that, "you betcha") and I'm pretty sure that Conservatives would still have a problem with a white Liberal not obeying the law when they feel it's unjust.