No, You Really Don’t

And the irony is I wouldn’t even give a fuck about these constant pity parties if they weren’t constantly working to make the shitty lives of various minority groups even shittier.

W.F. Price, Not At All Compensating for Our Penis Head:
A NY Times Mother’s Day Op-ed: Trannies are Equal Moms

The denial of privilege is a very common thread in wingnut posts. Which makes perfect sense. If one can deny that one is more advantaged than other groups, you can imagine that your social advantages are due to inherent internal ability (i.e. you have a better job, easier life, etc… because of being super smart or better at life) rather than exploiting oppression. It also helps alleviate guilt when you enforce unfair or oppressive systems, because you’re not kicking the people below you on the ladder, you’re just standing up for the way the world naturally is, which is why it constantly needs to be enforced with legal and social backlash… wait, what?

Jeffrey T. Brown, American Schmuck:
Like the IRS Scandal? You’ll Love Obamacare

But of course, in a world where relative social benefits flow like eternal ice cream into the cups of the privileged groups (i.e. a world where dominating all media attention, all participation, and all control is seen as normal), there inevitably comes a time when a spare drop falls on an oppressed group. Maybe there is a historic first professional sports player or a historic rights bill gets passed or maybe a news media story or television show is focusing on someone other than a dominant group member for an episode. Whatever it is, for the person used to pretending that the current inequal state is a perfect equality, it seems like a disruption of the natural order. Something unfair to them.

Kyle Smith, New York is an Unwilling Host:
Gag Order

Matt “I Swear I Only Look at Gay Porn for Research” Barber, Renew Erection:
Memo to Christian Troops: “We’ve Got Your Back”

Robert VerBruggen, National White Supremacist:
Heritage was Wrong

Thus, we are, from time to time, “treated” to a particular variation on the conservative whine about privilege and oppression. A pure tantrum by a dominant group, not just denying their advantages, but trying to pretend that it is actually they who are the aggrieved minority whose important struggles are ignored by the media. That they are the ones whose lives are harder just for being a dominant group, the ones suffering societal oppression. And often there is an unspoken (or sometimes far too spoken) belief in these posts of… well…

Shorter Myopic Assholes Everywhere:

  • Wah! Our lives would be so much relatively better if we were oppressed minority group instead of boring old “safe to hate” dominant group. If we were the real minority group, then we’d finally have the moral high ground we so desperately crave.

(With a bonus point if they invoke the dread spectre of “political correctness” to make their point without a hint of irony or awareness that “political correctness” just means not being a deliberate asshole unless you want people to notice you are a deliberate asshole)

And to every instance of these writers, I say this:

No you don’t.

You don’t actually want to live even a fraction of the lives of a real minority group, to suffer even a picoliter of the bullshit and oppression that minority groups face every day. Fuck, you couldn’t even begin to withstand the fear and pain it takes to actually change society enough to be a place where a minority group can live safely and equally.

And yes. I get that most of these chuckleheads don’t really sample their own product on this. That it is in essence, a fantasy they sell themselves and their followers in order to justify the horrible things they do to minority members, the oppression they help enact in their daily lives. For all the blather about how “lucky” welfare recipients are, there isn’t a rich conservative in the world who would legitimately swap places with them and “enjoy” all that supposed free money without effort while letting the lower-class “mooch” learn how truly difficult it is to write poorly sourced bullshit once a week for a 6 figure paycheck.

But they still want to do their little dance every time a minority group starts getting a shred of dignity and pretend like their little group of over-privileged assholes is the Queen of Daniel getting eaten by Lions Mountain. And it’s so easy to do so because our society is designed to make relative social power invisible largely by the efforts of said douchebags to treat their privileges as “normal and right” and to help discourage minorities speaking up about their life experiences in public.

And thus, I’d like to take a quick deviation from my usual format and hammer home just how incredibly shitty it is to be a minority group member in today’s America.

Assorted wingnuts and crybabies, you know what life is like for you? All the little ways you’ve made your lives worse by promoting policies to screw the little guy that ended up screwing you too? Imagine that, but everything is suddenly unnecessarily ten or a hundred times more difficult. Because for all minority groups may talk about specific injustices, it’s worth noticing that this occurs on a backdrop of how life already sucks for everyone else.

Take for instance, getting fired without a social safety net. Sucks pretty hard for any American with the massive stress about how fast your savings might run out, having to go through the rigmarole of searching for a new job, update your resume, and so on and all because you had an asshole boss or your work wasn’t quite enough to stand out from the pack.

Now imagine that the reason you got axed wasn’t about trying to fuck the secretary or calling the big client an asshole, but it was because you wouldn’t sleep with your boss. Or that you were the best at your job in the whole company and were widely recognized for it, but your bosses decide that you have to go because you’re the wrong race, sexuality, or gender identity and no matter your performance, they don’t want to risk putting off what they imagine old white men in suits think.

Imagine in searching for that new job that every single accomplishment you have will be viewed as 20-50% less impressive just because of how your name sounds or what gender you are. Imagine having to figure out how much to downplay your last employment because they know you by the wrong name or gender and might reveal something to interviewers. Imagine having to bleach your skin or go in drag to your interviews knowing that if you get the position, you’ll have to do that every day hence.

Imagine further that there is no savings to last a couple of months on. That if you don’t find a job by the end of the week, you will end up homeless or without food for a month. Imagine that you could end up homeless or without food even when you are working 40+ hours a week. Imagine that you don’t have a long list of industry-relevant experience because when you entered the job market, the economy was shitty enough that entry level positions required 5 years experience. Imagine you only have a small stream of under-employment complete with various gaps to show for yourself.

Even more, imagine trying to job search while actually homeless, where every single employer looks at your PO Box home address as a symbol for “lazy and untrustworthy” regardless of your qualifications. Imagine how much stressful all of this is.

Actually, scratch that, you tend to suck at that. So instead think of this. You’re going to interviews so depressed that the world seems in a fog. You can’t focus on things and you’re forgetting more than usual. Every morning it’s difficult to wake up or really sit down to work and every fiber of your being is calling for you to curl up into a fetal position and give up. Your hands are shaking, your back is seizing up, you’re choking for no physiological reason and you can’t ever see a doctor about it because if you do it’ll bankrupt your family for generations.

You’re also driving a car on its last legs and if it dies, well you’re just fucked because there ain’t no way you can afford to replace it or repair it. Or maybe you have to fill out applications by the dying light of a cell phone in the backseat of your car, which will be your room for the night and every night hence. But do it quick if you don’t want to die out on the streets, especially with winter fast approaching.

And you can’t ever stop for an instance, take a vacation and clear your head, because if you did you’re going to end up without food or shelter and may very well end up dead by either exposure or suicide.

But hey, money is what it is, but if you have the love and support (especially that support, financial or housing support in times of transition can be literally the difference between scrapping with the dogs in the street and having a warm bed) of your family, you can carry through, right?

Yeah, thanks largely to people like you, that’s hardly something a number of groups can count on. Did you have to acknowledge that you’re an atheist? That you’re gay? Heaven forbid that you are trans*? Or poly? Or a sex worker? Welp, then more often than not, say goodbye to that family.

Also, note that this will often work in concert with job and life discrimination. Are some assholes ranting about how people like you are evil sinners who are destroying the world because “their faith”? Well, that’s used to justify the cowardice of employers and their willingness to get rid of you in illegal fashion in case those mean haters spend less money on their company’s products because of some filthy faggot or tranny. And then that discrimination is used to justify more. Hey, being that minority group seems to net you fewer job opportunities, more on-the-job discrimination where your job performance doesn’t matter, worse treatment by society. What must you have been thinking to choose that lifestyle? I guess people like you just aren’t qualified for whatever reason. What reason could that be? I dunno, but let’s pick one and use it to justify doing the same to anyone like them down the road.

Fewer latin@s and blacks are in the boardrooms than there should due to discrimination? They must be inherently stupid, that’s why we can’t promote them. Fewer women feel safe going to our conferences because of harassment? They must be foreign invaders on the subject and must be treated as such with more harassment. A trans* person is being discriminated out of a job and people are ignorant on queer issues? Well, it must be because they sabotaged their life and career and frankly why should we support someone whose life is in a tailspin.

Know why this touching letter of support for a gay son went viral across the internet?

Because most letters from one’s parent when one is queer look more like this*:

So I’ve been hearing about your last few conversations with Uncle. Boy, have you dug yourself into a shithole. Let’s recap: so far in 2013 you’ve torpedoed your career, alienated your uncle, and sent your mom into therapy. Well done.

I firmly believe in second chances, and taking responsibility for your actions. If you think your life is heading in the right direction then by all means – tally ho! But if you see it as the train wreck it’s become, and you maybe want to talk, let me know. I’ll be in Location next week and we can meet up. But just you, no Partner (one piece of free advice: she’s your Iago, and best you realized this before you wake up and wonder where all the blood came from).

Also, “talk” in this context doesn’t mean you get to tell me how you’re “transgender” (which is bullshit) or how all your problems are caused by external forces (double bullshit) or that studies show blah blah blah. This is the kind of talk where you get told to man up, and how I might help. Just so we’re clear.

Cerberus, your mom and I love you very much. It’s time you decided to love yourself as well.

You know how to reach me.

Dad

And even when they are trying to be supportive, are more likely to contain lines like**:

In fairness if Partner loves you and has your dick and balls removed you should have her cut off her clitoris so you two would be “sexually” equal. Just a thought.

To love someone so much you would mutilate yourself and your lover is pushing you to that end is not a sign of a great relationship. You played many fantasy games as kid but you are old enough now to understand the real world from fantasy. What kind of sexual relation do you have with Partner? Do you fornicate or has she reduced you to a limp dick confused about who you are?

But wait! There’s more!

Work and family are just a piece. There’s also society at large. Surely it is here that those assorted dominant groups are the most hard-done. I mean, they have to deal with… people treating their dominant group membership as a given… and also having terrible things they say get reacted to poorly by the people they dehumanize and demean… and let’s not forget the way people say MEAN THINGS by noting that other people like them have unearned relative privileges or have supported the continued oppression of minority groups.

Certainly getting called out for bigotry is so much worse than:

1) Living in a world where you and everyone like you are not just casually assumed to be the sex class and thus open-season for rape and molestation to the point where it is actually hard to find a fellow-group member who hasn’t been raped in some way. But then, also living in a world where rapists are constantly publicly cried over, because “they didn’t deserve to have their lives ruined over a mistake” even when they ruin someone else’s life. And one where no matter how brutal and obvious the rape, there’ll always be someone there to blame you for it.

Oh, and just in the very likely case that you’re one of those people devoted to minimizing rape and sexual violence against women, here’s some of the lifestyle changes that rape often entails for the victim. You’ll get to enjoy: Constant ‘nam style flashbacks to the scene of the attack, internalized hatred constantly seeking a way it was your fault by ignoring red flags or not speaking up enough, giant triggers around areas of your body or non-sexual activities (hey, have you ever wanted your entire right thigh to feel like a creepy-crawling zone of intense panic and fear unless you squashed it up against the couch at random intervals? Look no further!), random fits of unfocused rage or deep depression, TRIGGERS! Lots and lots of triggers about everything (Did your rapist once eat an english muffin? Enjoy having that turn into a day-destroying source of pain and frustration), a lowered ability to enjoy sex in general (hey, it’s not like you were using that ability to get hard without weeping uncontrollably anyways), problematic intimacy with your main romantic partner (hey, being able to cuddle your partner or sleep in the same bed without occasionally kicking them in the head in blind fear was overrated anyways!), and of course all those various depression symptoms we were talking about in the work section. Bonus points if you’re going through the flashbacks during the job discrimination like I did. Ever called in sick because you were stressed out and needed a day? Yeah, I didn’t get to have any of those. And I had to perform like I was manically happy every day I was at work. FUN!

2) Living in a world where the color of your skin marks you as an expendable criminal no matter your behavior in real life. Imagine, white people, that you are a butcher going home on the train because it’s a convenient way to get home. Two idiots are fighting and you break it up. So a man puts you on the ground, restrained and puts a bullet in your head and no one expects him to do anything other than walk, because he’s a white police officer and you are a black man. Imagine that the police felt fully comfortable confiscating any evidence of their execution, but even with that evidence, they still walk. Imagine that your kid is walking home and a black man shot him dead on the street after stalking him and the cops who have all the details not only refuse to arrest the man but actively work to compromise any case that could be made against him. You pretty much can’t imagine that outside of some weird Batman or Punisher comic, but in our world, you made the shooter your national hero and whine about how you’re not allowed to tamper with the state’s witnesses to further hurt the case.

Imagine being a national hero, the one man brave enough to solve a decade’s old case and rescue our most precious national resource: blond, white children. Imagine that even then, as the cops and news media circle to congratulate you, being so used to a system where a police siren means unnecessary harassment or premature death, that a police siren nearly makes you have a heart attack on camera. And where you yourself have trouble processing yourself as anything other than a villain because that’s the most common depiction of you in media.

3) Living in a world where society’s opinion is simply that you deserve to die and that anyone who can aid this process should be complimented and cheered. Where the suicide rates for your population are nearly 1 in 3 and over 50% attempt. Where no one feels even a moment of conscience for letting their glee over trying to destroy you shine. Where people regularly get more money than you’ll ever see in your life for saying that everyone like you deserves to die. Where that isn’t the viewpoint of some crazy on the street, but rather a majority opinion. One where your population has the highest percentage of hate crimes and murders based on your identity committed against you. Where you having the right to pee in public is seen as a taut societal issue.

Imagine that people feel fully justified in denying you housing, aid, or employment, even if it’s against the law, no matter if you are able to afford it or are highly qualified. That when you walk down the street, being looked at with mild contempt is fairly common even if you’re not making a big show of your identity.

And again, let’s make it easy for the empathy impaired. This is the common reaction to minor shit. It’s like if you just wore a subtle little inch long cross in a chain under your shirt and by doing so expected that 1 in 5 people on the street will look at you as if you were a cross between a serial killer and a child molester. By doing so you expected that most jobs will find an excuse not to hire you and most jobs you belong to will try to eliminate you no matter your quality. Or that by doing so you were blocked from using the restroom. No imagine it’s not a necklace, but something you can’t hide. For a population that whines when a business owner loses federal aid when they try and oppress other minorities, I don’t need to guess that a day in this life would break you like Batman’s back in a famous 90s era comic.

That people would actually try and manufacture a system where you were in fact encouraged to commit suicide because that way you weren’t “inconveniencing normal people”.

Oh and let’s throw on the final over-privileged tantrum. Media depiction.

Oh noes, men are sometimes depicted as goofballs… and also nearly 100% of all heroes in every form of media anywhere. Iconic characters in one medium like a comic book or tv show will happily be translated to another medium like movies without people trying to downplay or destroy what you loved about them because by depicting a strong female hero, they’re instantly “controversial” or “uninteresting”. And they never ever get treated like the reward for the hero that he wins for doing a good job. And they get to be praised when they do heroism in real life, unlike women when they do something brave like save elementary school kids from a gunman, who get half a mention, if that.

Oh noes, white people are… well depicted in every form of way imaginable, while black and brown characters get to exist as thugs, support characters, and stereotypes! Yeah, that’ll totally help those watching them feel like they exist and matter and those depictions will never ever be used constantly by conservatives to argue that black and brown people in real life must be treated as if they were all movie and tv stereotypes. They certainly will never react in anger and disbelief when a prominent black or brown person turns out to fulfill none of the proscribed stereotypes and is successful on their own terms. And they’ll never ever deal with this dissonance by trying to scream that the person actually is all the stereotypes simply because they can’t handle a successful black or brown person being their own person.

Oh noes, Christians are depicted occasionally as small-minded bullies in fiction because their most proud and public face in reality is the small-minded bullying of queer people and women. That’s so much worse than being barely depicted at all, and when you are, you’re depicted almost universally as sex-obsessed psychotic killers or pathetic jokes lost in self-delusion. To such an extent in fact, that the most common public perception of the real people separate from the fiction is in fact, that, which is then in turn used to justify real discrimination and bigotry in the real world against real, non-fictional people.

And then, let’s bring up social rights. All those fights and parades and historic laws and first X Ys. You know why we constantly have those headline grabbing stuff?

Because we don’t have it now.

Because we didn’t have it for generations beforehand. When we fight for gay marriage, it’s because our relationships with our loved ones, something you take for granted, are treated as jokes unworthy of all the protections you can gain by simply driving down to Las Vegas in a drunken haze. When we fight for the right of brown people to walk down the street unmolested, it’s because they don’t have the right that every white person walking their dog or jogging down the street takes for granted. When we cheer the first atheist or Buddhist legislator, it’s because the other couple of hundred are all out Christians who often try and make not being Christian a punishable offense. When we have to stand up and “come out” about our experiences with rape or needing to undergo a common and legal medical operation, it’s because there are whole movements dedicated to shaming anyone who does.

It’s just not on the same level. No matter how much you might try and delude yourself that you’re as much a victim of the system or having one person calling you a douchenozzle somehow equals unrelenting and overpowering hatred from every corner making every task more difficult, it’s just not true.

And what makes it worse, is that the struggle to fix inequality, real inequality, is a genuine martyr’s game.

Every single goddamn time, a right that in a few generations is seen as a no duh that everyone must have supported, is won by people taking a risk and being seen visibly as speaking out on or being something despised and oppressed and being tortured over it. The right for people to work was built by people being visible at work and being fired for it until that happened less and less. The right for people to be themselves in public was won by people being murdered, hated, or looked down upon and having to gamble their lives everyday, often for the worse. The right for people to have basic human dignities we take for granted today began with people being murdered for it, beaten for it, having their name turned into a universal synonym for scum, and often sacrificing their right to ever be employed or treated as anything other than an enemy by the majority of the population.

And if any minority member wanted a world where they had that equal treatment and didn’t want to be discriminated against, it meant they had to sacrifice themselves on that track. Take the risk, be public, be burned, have to gamble on basic survival, often lose, because without those people being out there and changing that public ignorance, fear, and inherited bigotry, there is nothing to humanize them, make things better, make a world where they could be free and supported.

And you can be damn well sure that a lot of bigots understand that. It’s why that backlash is brutal and unrelenting. Because they know that if they can scare enough minority members from being visible, from taking that first step, from risking themselves by simply being themselves, then they can buy a few more years where simply not being that feared “other” can be an invitation for unearned rewards and where ignorance and hate are seen as “proper values”.

And it’s the loss of this, most of all, is what leads these smug sonuvabitches to mewl like wounded kittens about the fictional loss of a meaningless expectation. Of a mere request on people to be mindful of other people, try and use some basic empathy, and try not to make their already shitty oppressed lives any worse. And to try and minimize and victim blame all they can on that before trying to steal even the not-at-all-worth-it moral high ground and underdog story as well.

Because a world in which anyone not a white cis straight christian male from the middle or upper class tax brackets is given even the slightest hint of anything is one that assholes will fight to the death to uphold and then two generations later deny fighting at all.

And for those of us continually caught in the thresher’s teeth, desperately trying to find a way to survive another day, much less another week, it’s getting harder and harder to even fake sympathy for all you fuckers and your “but I swear I’m the jew of Minority Fascism” bullshit.


‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. Not a single quote from any of the articles, but still nearly 50000 words. What’s up with that? We are aware of all Internet traditions.™


*Actual email from my father, names changed to protect the innocent and guilty alike.

**Excerpts from actual email from my uncle***.

***I know I used a number of personal examples, but what makes it worse is that my story isn’t in fact remarkable in any way and may in fact be better than what a lot of trans* people are dealing with. I would have gladly stuck to the more universal examples if I didn’t have so fucking many life experiences that resonated with the response that the posts that prompted this rant demanded. Fuck anyone who ever even thinks about saying that being this way is some grand old choice because sometimes occasionally institutions try and do a tiny little bit to fix the damage. It’s pretty much like trying to blow up rescue helicopters working to save people trapped by rising floods, because you didn’t get a ride up to your roof last summer to repair the storm tiles and thus it’s unfair that anyone ever get a “free ride” on a helicopter. And for those of us drowning, we look at you fucks about the same way you’d look at a person who did that****.

****I mean, sheesh, you wonder why people have slowly learned to hate you simply for “speaking your mind”.

*****Just consider this a footnote for the entire post, but all of these oppressions would hit a fuckton less if we actually were allowed to have a functional safety net in place. Being disowned by family members wouldn’t matter if you were always guaranteed a roof and a meal. Being discriminated out of a job wouldn’t matter with a guaranteed living wage that made it possible to use the free market to legitimately punish workplaces that discriminated by allowing the discriminated against to form rival companies and bleed off all the non-bigots. Being hated in public wouldn’t matter if the legal protections for minority groups had real enforcement that ensured that no one slipped through the cracks. Which is sort of the real reason that conservatives are so anti-safety-net. If people could be themselves without living in fear for what that might mean to their job prospects, familial support, or ability to survive in the world, then they’d simply do so, forcing everyone to see and discover that minority group members aren’t actually the evil monsters they’ve been led to believe, which would lead to even further social growth away from the archaic social values that conservatives love to cling to. And no, I don’t at all forgive them for casually condemning so many people to misery and death simply because they don’t want to have to grow up like the goddamn adults they pretend to be. And that’d be true even if I wasn’t one of the ones in the rubbish bin.

 

Comments: 166

 
 
 

FRIST!

 
 

Like the IRS Scandal? You’ll Love Obamacare

Heh. I just read my wingnut cousin bitching that Obamacare was making things unaffordable for him and his new wife… before admitting one post later that “Luckily we actually have a really good policy. BUT IT WOULDN’T SURPRISE ME IF IT WENT AWAY!!!!”

The new HCR bashing meme, because they’ve apparently tried everything else; “it doesn’t suck, BUT IT TOTALLY MIGHT because Obama!”

On to the rest of the post…

 
 

And now that I’ve read the article,

Cerb, I’m truly sorry.

I’ve been feeling sorry for myself for how we poor autistic folk are getting the short end of the stick, but my horseshit (which began upon being outsourced to Bangalore – literally – in 2003) is pretty small peas compared to yours, I feel like an even greater asshole than how I felt upon the beginning of this day.

Thank you very much. My world is a much brighter place with you in it.

 
 

Jesus, Cerb. I had no idea you were fighting your family on top of all the bullshit from your (I guess now ex-) employer. This ain’t usually the site for being sincere, but I hope things get better, and I hope you’ll turn to the readers for help if that’s needed.

 
 

Sheesh, what a load of crap to have to deal with. There will always be some people who will accept you, and some who won’t, I guess. It sucks when family choose to be on the won’t side, though, and I’m sorry you’re having to experience it.

 
 

LittlePig-

You’re not an asshole. And I’ve encountered enough recently to know.

Funkula-

And on top of this, my partner is unrelatedly dealing with a bully trying to get her fired because to sociopaths that’s an easier pathway than learning to be civil to people who are different than you. Fun!

Been riding out the last little bit by being flawless in order to keep getting a paycheck (with constantly diminishing hours. This week I’m scheduled for a half day shift while the average for my co-workers is around 2 and half days. And this has been occurring for months now. Got some interviews for a summer job and am doing well so far in the parts I can control. Yay! But I had to go back in the closet for them because I can’t take any risks now that I don’t have even the illusion of a lifeline if things get bad. Fun, fun, fun!

Personal life is going all right though, if I don’t count the depression symptoms for both me and my partner and the odd physiological tics. So hey, it’s not all “fun”.

 
 

Just consider this a footnote for the entire post, but all of these oppressions would hit a fuckton less if we actually were allowed to have a functional safety net in place. Being disowned by family members wouldn’t matter if you were always guaranteed a roof and a meal. Being discriminated out of a job wouldn’t matter with a guaranteed living wage that made it possible to use the free market to legitimately punish workplaces that discriminated by allowing the discriminated against to form rival companies and bleed off all the non-bigots. Being hated in public wouldn’t matter if the legal protections for minority groups had real enforcement that ensured that no one slipped through the cracks. Which is sort of the real reason that conservatives are so anti-safety-net. If people could be themselves without living in fear for what that might mean to their job prospects, familial support, or ability to survive in the world, then they’d simply do so, forcing everyone to see and discover that minority group members aren’t actually the evil monsters they’ve been led to believe, which would lead to even further social growth away from the archaic social values that conservatives love to cling to

Quoted for truth and bolded for importance. That’s exactly why they hate working safety nets so much. “Unemployed? Homeless? Wanna feed your children? Then you’d better sit through this sermon and sing loudly when it’s done!” And various other things. Conservatism => the voice of a thousand petty tyrants who’re afraid that a government safety net will allow their victims to move out from under their shadow.

Also… wow. Your dad is an asshole. I might just have to save that letter as the gold standard of “how not to, ever,” on the off chance that I ever have kids.

 
 

I am told, both by the Jewish rabbi whose moral code I find quite acceptable (though I’m no way a Christian because Original Sin is quite transparent horsehockey), and by my rehab counselors, that hate is a Very Bad Thing. I’ve prayed for Dick Cheney, struggling to hold my bile, because that was the penance allotted to me, but I’m am so sick of these evil bastards (yes, I know there is no evil) that I want to puke.

It’s wrong, but I read David Waldman’s (sp?) Gunfail with unseemly glee, because while justice may be the sickest fucking concept we plains apes have come up with, I enjoy seeing the rare times in this society that stupidity actually has fucking consequences.

It’s wrong, but I love hearing people whine about ‘ohhh, I have to wait for the plane’, ‘oohh, the roads are lousy’, ‘ohhh, my local park looks like a third world dumpster’ (yeah, who’m I kidding, we are the third world now) when I know those particular wretches voted Republican out of pure racism, and take great delight in those rare times when I can tell them ‘shut up, fool, you’re getting exactly what you voted for’. (I’m still in shock that my home state of Arkansas voted for goddamn Mitt Romney. Yes, I’m still pissed about Mountain Meadows. Didn’t no state of black folk massacre Arkansans for just walking by).

It’s wrong, but I love the shit about the AP getting reamed by DOJ. Ron Fournier never met a totalitarian he didn’t fellate, so it pleases me to see sauce for the goose becoming sauce for the gander. (there’s that damn justice instinct again. Dammit)

Hopefully I will live long enough to see these morons die in millions from Global Warming, which is very fucking real and is obvious to all life forms above planaria. Yeah, that’s sick, and that’s wrong, but fuck these monkeys (that are too fucking stupid to believe in evolution).

The meteor would be a kindness. Doctor Zaius was right – man is an abomination.

 
 

Oh dear. You dad really is an asshole.

 
 

Our lives would be so much relatively better if we were oppressed minority group instead of boring old “safe to hate” dominant group

Nobody would hate them if they weren’t so hateful.

 
 

Gah, Uncle is worse than Dad. Cerb, is there anything we can do to help you keep the wolves at bay?

 
 

Also, fuck your relatives, Cerb. They suck.

 
 

What sucky e-mails. I sometimes despair about my parenting but…sheesh. And one does not understand the wingnut obsessions with social conformity but financial liberty. It couldn’t be that they are sociopaths surely?

 
 

For all the blather about how “lucky” welfare recipients are, there isn’t a rich conservative in the world who would legitimately swap places with them and “enjoy” all that supposed free money without effort while letting the lower-class “mooch” learn how truly difficult it is to write poorly sourced bullshit once a week for a 6 figure paycheck.

(I got further into the post–incredible work–but here’s where I comment.)

What’s amazing and surreal is how obviously false the “lucky poor,” or for that matter the “lucky minority” gambits are. Unexaggeratably grotesque nonsense. Pure ideology, wholly ungrounded, not just subjective but anti-objective. I mean c’mon: poor people are, by definition, NOT the primary beneficiaries of an economic system’s distributive faculties. Not per capita, not in the aggregate, just not. There’s no math, no sense in which their appliances or entertainments or leisurely un- and underemployment make up the difference. If there were, rich people would live more like the poor do, here in the U.S. — better yet, like the poor in Bangladesh, I mean why cheat yourself?

People born to privilege play at being poor or minorities, but it’s not the same, and seldom even results in the artwork they hope to produce in so doing, for example. Or the strength of character that so many wealthy parents hope to inculcate by creating artificial tests for their kids. As if briefly, symbolically holding a summer job to “earn” your luxury car somehow compares to working through high school because otherwise you and mom would be on the street. (I had friends who worked from an early age to make household ends meet; their grand reward? Cigarettes. A roof over their heads, maybe not even that, depending on mom’s state of affairs.)

 
 

FUCK LIBERALS.

Yes. Sigh.
Ours are liberal in name alone.

OTOH: British Columbia also just elected its first Green MLA.

 
 

Fuck the Greens. It isn’t that hard to take over the NDP and they aren’t that far apart policy-wise, but purity sure is great for throwing elections to the other team.

 
 

Just consider this a footnote for the entire post

Incisive and entirely, painfully true, Cerb. Thank you for a glimpse into your soul, and I dearly wish there was something I could do for you. At the very least, be aware that you have a devoted following here, who consider you a pearl beyond price, and your every post a slice at the right-wing monster.

 
 

Hugs for brilliant Cerberus

 
 

OK, so I feel I’ve gotta admit I didn’t get as far as Cerb’s quoted letters from dad before posting @6:47.

She seems to go long, but really there’s a condensation of ideas and emotions, but delivered with improvisatory immediacy and directness, in spite of a signature cogency among the various parts, however wide-ranging.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to be on the receiving end, ire-wise. The targets are I think congenitally unaware of how they err, hence how they’ve been blasted … (I looked it up after typing: “characteristic or feature in a person is so strong that you cannot imagine it ever changing, although there may seem to be no [logical or inherited] reason for it.”)

 
 

People born to privilege play at being poor or minorities, but it’s not the same, and seldom even results in the artwork they hope to produce in so doing, for example

Relevant:

Rent a flat above a shop
Cut your hair and get a job
Smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school
But still you’ll never get it right
‘cos when you’re laid in bed at night
watching roaches climb the wall
if you called your dad he could stop it all
yeah
You’ll never live like common people
You’ll never do whatever common people do
You’ll never fail like common people
You’ll never watch your life slide out of view
and then dance and drink and screw
because there’s nothing else to do

 
 

Check out this piece by Daren Jonescu who finally admits what we’ve all long suspected: conservatives see the suffering of the poor, of gays, and of women as a “theoretical abstraction” not at all like the real suffering.

Benghazi Reveals the Heart of Progressivism

 
 

Empathy. The ability to see yourself in someone else’s position is only ONE of the many failing-at-human the conservatives and slave-loving libertarians have.

The ability to see someone else succeed at something and not feel the desire to tear them down, because they don’t “fit” your mental image perfectly.

As Lou Reed says: “Let’s stick it to these guys — right in their heads”.

 
 

You rock, Cerb.
Your father and uncle deserved to be urinated upon from a great height.

 
 

Sorry to hear how horrible your uncle and dad can be. That their ignorant bigotry is so rampant that it blinds them to their own personal experience. Seriously, it takes a lot to make the “some of my best friends are” crowd look good in comparison.

 
 

Goddamn, Cerb, I don’t know what to say.

I mean, I don’t know what to say.

That’s the fun of being an Aspie – you see someone hurting and you can’t figure out how to communicate your concern and support.

But that’s my own deal, and yours is worse. So consider yourself *hugged*.

I wish I could be as brave as you.

 
 

this piece by Daren Jonescu

The article is bad enough, but the comments thread really takes the cake – especially the very first comment, equating Obama and Clinton to Stalin, because you know starving millions in the Ukraine is JUST LIKE letting four people die in Benghazi.

Plus the one later about the list of Presidents (the writer couldn’t think of any offhand, but DOZENS) who moved heaven and earth to save one or two American in a distant dirty foreign country. I suppose letting thousands die right here in America due to ineptitude and inaction doesn’t matter though.

 
 

BTW, the saddest thing – that even if they knew the hell Cerb was going through, it still wouldn’t affect their quest for Oppressed Minority Poo’ Poo’ Pi’ful Me status, since that’s about the only validation they have of their twisted world view.

 
 

Double BTW – reading the article Substance linked to makes me realize once again how much foreign news is more maturely written than here in the U.S.

 
 

Bravo is all I can say. And sorry on behalf of the the dominant group that I was born into.

 
 

Reading the article Substance linked to makes me realize once again how much foreign news is more maturely written than here in the U.S.

They have grown-ups running things in other countries. Lucky bastards.

 
 

I’m laughing at you Taco Bell, if that really is your name. Do you eat that shit as well as smear it on your face?

 
 

How come we have children running our country? This guy obozo is a joke.

TELEPROMPTERS HURR HURR

*yawn*

The Pigman does it much better.

“Better” being a relative term of course.

 
 

Heh. I just read my wingnut cousin bitching that Obamacare was making things unaffordable for him and his new wife… before admitting one post later that “Luckily we actually have a really good policy.

ahhhhh, yes…my mother obsesses about this type of thing…’they better not screw up my good insurance!’ which is my dad’s postal insurance…from which he has been dead from for nearly 13 years…but heaven forbid anyone else get something for nothing! it makes me want to throw some head punches sometimes…

also:

Also, fuck your relatives, Cerb. They suck.
yes…

too:
Incisive and entirely, painfully true, Cerb. Thank you for a glimpse into your soul, and I dearly wish there was something I could do for you. At the very least, be aware that you have a devoted following here, who consider you a pearl beyond price, and your every post a slice at the right-wing monster.

yes…

and finally:
Hugs for brilliant Cerberus
yes…

 
 

If there’s one thing which starts my day off right, it’s seeing a fresh Sadly, No! post when I get up. I often laugh from beginning to end of the post, and frequently even read them.
I’m always glad to see ’em

 
 

wow…that ny times thing really ran as a serious op-ed piece? here’s a mango from the comments:
Having genitalia that doesn’t match your mind (or having a mind that doesn’t match your genitalia) is a disability, why brag about it?

seriously? why ‘brag’ about a ‘disability’? further down the chain, ‘realist’ says that motherhood is about birthing…sorry step, adoptive and foster moms!

that piece and the comments are a shittonne of shit shoved into a sandwich bag…

 
 

“And yes. I get that most of these chuckleheads don’t really sample their own product on this.”

Oh they could, but that wouldn’t be honest. No, they must remain true to themselves, no matter the cost! No matter how advantageous the alternative, they will remain white and straight and worship the CW.
They have to think of the children.

 
 

I CAN HAZ BETTR TROLLZ PLZ?

 
 

Shorter Right-wing reasoning: ‘If only we got rid of those stupid Civil Rights laws, we could oppress and discriminate for the right reasons, instead of having to use economic and social methods which inadvertently oppress certain white people. Well,white folks, the choice is up to you”

I’ve been watching this since the laws passed.

 
 

“I’m sworn to secrecy on that one, sorry.”

I see. And how, exactly, do you intend to keep me quiet?

 
 

“And sorry on behalf of the the dominant group that I was born into.”

Oh yes, do remind us of that, and please, do it as often as you can. People may forget who their dominants are.

 
 

The CBC’s Vote Compass. Try it if you’re interested in being a Real British Columbian. Kind of a long quiz though…

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/bcvotes2013/features/votecompass/

 
 

People may forget who their dominants are.

Those are the ones with the nipple clips, uless I’m mistaken.

 
 

Real doms don’t say sorry.

 
 

Those are the ones with the nipple clips, uless I’m mistaken.

They’re called nipple clamps actually. Don’t ask me how I know that.

 
 

SHITR!

I see what you did there…

OT, but stinging nettle pesto (pesto al’urtica) kicks ass. Next up, a nettle/spinach take on spanakopita.

 
 

They’re called nipple clamps actually. Don’t ask me how I know that.

oh, great! this is what i get to look forward to from tsa the next time i fly?!?!

 
 

OT, but stinging nettle pesto (pesto al’urtica) kicks ass. Next up, a nettle/spinach take on spanakopita.

really, are nipple clamps and spanking ever really off-topic here?

 
 

Having genitalia that doesn’t match your mind (or having a mind that doesn’t match your genitalia) is a disability

Having a disability means you have rights that MUST be respected and discrimination against the disabled, including refusing to accommodate them, is against the law. So, you want to stick with this line of reasoning?

 
 

really, are nipple clamps and spanking ever really off-topic here?

Erotic urtication may be a kink too far.

 
 

So, you want to stick with this line of reasoning?

last night hubbkf and i watched a couple of intelligence squared debates on teh new pbs channel on our roku box-thing…the first one asked ‘does science refute god?’ and featured laurence krauss and mike schermer on the ‘for’ side and our buddy dinesh d’souza and ian hutchinson on the ‘against’ side…laurence used almost this exact same line on dinesh a couple of times…the ‘fors’ won out slightly…

the next debate was ‘should college football be banned?’ the debaters were buzz bisinger and malcolm gladwell ‘for’ and tim green and jason whitlock ‘against’ those two really ended up making the argument for banning in that most of the buzz and malcolm’s statements left them dumbfounded and struggling at times for words…their main argument, which was central to their point was, ‘free-dumb!’ also, too…and i am not even kidding…jason whitlock actually said, ‘this is america and that means freed-dumb…you can’t have the ‘free’ without the ‘dumb”…which meant they also kept repeating, ‘this is america!’

the audience was 16% for | 53% against | 31% undecided pre-debate

and post-debate they were 53% for | 39% against | 8% undecided
it was the first time i have ever seen patriotism fail on such a level…

 
 

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

 
 

Mmmmmmmm tasty shit! Shit is tasty! OM NOM I like shit! Shit in the morning shit in the evening shit at supper time!

 
 

Does this shit eyeliner make me look fat?

 
 

Look! I made poopy! Mmmmm tasty poopies!

 
 

Why yes, that is a shit eating grin I’m wearing.

 
 

Urti Caria – Mariah Cary’s ill fated first stage name.

 
 

Christ on a crutch.

Neither claim was true. There’s no indication Obama played any role in the crafting of the talking points, which had nothing to do with what the president did during the attack. But for ABC, the editing process for a sheet of talking points is now considered a “leadership crisis.”

 
 

But for ABC, the editing process for a sheet of talking points is now considered a “leadership crisis.”

In other news, eighth grade English composition classes are causing a nationwide leadership crisis. Fortunately no one at ABC ever took a composition class, and believed ‘rough draft’ to be a boat that takes on water in bad weather.

 
 

Troll went nappy-time

 
 

They’re called nipple clamps actually. Don’t ask me how I know that”

I don’t get it. What could be wrong with a job in a dairy? It’s not like you’re cutting them into steaks or something.

 
 

Troll went nappy-time

Many thanks.

 
 

Personally I have always relied on nipple vise-grips.

 
 

Did someone mention pigs and poop?

 
 

Someone needs to lern teh NYP how to make a VPR.

 
 

I love this website.

 
 

You damn kids cut that out or I’m turning this car right around!

 
 

Get Chutney Love

Winning Obscure Media Reference Of The Day

 
 

Warning: If you visit this site, you will get nothing done all day.

 
 

Warning: If you visit this site, you will get nothing done all day.

8150 on my first round. Don’t know if that’s good or not.

 
 

Wait, what?

The number of Americans tapping the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) reached a record in December, bringing the program under fire for last year’s $74.6 million in spending. That’s more than double what the program paid out before the Great Recession.

As a result, both the Senate and House are debating measures that would shave the program.

The program is under fire for fucking doing its job?

Bonus wingnutty in the comments – I dare you to make it to Comment #3 without wanting to punch someone.

 
 

Someone’s trolling the wrong blogger.

 
 

This is so sad and maddening, Cerberus. One good friend can be so sustaining, though. I’m wishing you both strength and the good fortune of finding a workplace in which you can be at home. You have entirely too much talent, skill, and intelligence to have it wasted on the narrow-minded and socially blind. The hell that you should have to make them money.

Bigotry and discrimination is a waste of human resources, that gives unearned merit to those whose primary “qualifications” are being born white and male and cisgendered, which is not an accomplishment and has no real value— it’s just a description.

 
 

WOOHOO! Your guess was 18.402 km from the correct location and gave 5214 points.

 
 

I got one within 3 km, but then it was in a US state I was familiar with.

Here’s my 2nd game* – See if you can beat my score of 18754.

The first location is Really Cool(tm) and extra challenging because you can’t follow a road… (Hint: My guess of the Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea should have been much better.)

________
*My first game didn’t give a final score or challenge URL cuz I hadn’t given ALL google api’s permission to load… :p

 
 

HAH! Your guess was 44.373 km from the correct location and gave 4156 points.

Damn, I’m GOOD!

 
 

16134 points first round. *polishes fingernails on shirt*

 
 

Bonus wingnutty in the comments – I dare you to make it to Comment #3 without wanting to punch someone.

why do i do it?!?!?!

 
 

I’m so betting the bit about using food stamps at burger King came from Limbaugh.

 
 

I dimly remember a time when journalists resigned when they found out that they’d been attacking a politician on the basis of documents that turned out to be fake.

 
 

Your guess was 0.012km from the correct location and gave 6478 points.

Damn. I can’t beat that. I should just quit now.

It sure helped that there was a picturesque lighthouse and a sign that said “Welcome to Peggy’s Cove.”

Visited there as a young’un… was bored to the point of wanton destruction of private property – I carved my initials into a picnic table with the file on a pair of nail clippers.

 
 

Quick, check the kerning on those e-mails!

Oh, wait, it’s a Democratic President. Never mind. ATTAAAAAAACK!

 
 

I mean, what kind of utter cretin suggests cutting SNAP because more people used it during a fucking recession?

And bonus wingnut points to the asshole suggesting vouchers for certain types of food. I guess if you’re gluten/dairy intolerant you just go without, moocher.

*headdesk* *headdesk*

When did we become such a fucking vindictive country?

 
 

Oh, Cerb. I have no idea what to say, being of the dominant-est dominant group but we aren’t all assholes. If you’re willing to relocate I can do what I can to help you find employment with my current employer, who just today reiterated their support of LGBTQ people. For that matter, we have offices worldwide so there might be something somewhere for you.

In any case, best. I don’t think I have to have been down to empathise with those who are or to think, “there but for the grace of random mutation go I.”

Also, your dad and uncle need an intervention with a cattle prod.

 
 

I mean, what kind of utter cretin suggests cutting SNAP because more people used it during a fucking recession?

“A conservative.”

SASQ…

Their utter abhorrence at someone, somewhere, maybe getting something they don’t “deserve” is IMHO what separates conservatives from progressives.

 
 

The well of venal, mean-spirited stupidity appears to be bottomless. It’s only funny because it’s so depressing.

 
St. Trotsky, Pope-in-Avignon
 

9678 my first round. My furthest reach mistook an ass-end of nowhere road in Botswana for an ass-end of nowhere road in Australia. But I did much better in following guesses.

 
 

That website was indeed a fun time waster. I got 23663 points. I cheated by using google in another tab to find identifiable landmarks. The last one was a complete guess though.

 
 

Appropos of nothing, I humbly submit for your entertainment:

America is about ressling!

 
 

Their utter abhorrence at someone, somewhere, maybe getting something they don’t “deserve” is IMHO what separates conservatives from progressives decent people.

Fixed for accuracy.

 
 

Your guess was 19141.138 km from the correct location and gave 16 points.

Whod’a thunk New Zealand would look so much like Britain?

 
 

Gee, Cerbs, I hate to call your relatives a bunch of assholes…but what a bunch of assholes! I have faith in you. And I know that that you will not only survive, but that you will prevail.

Also, thanks for putting the sleeper hold on Mr. McTroll.

 
 

Cerberus, you are a righteous raging goddess beloved by your blog followers and you will prevail. Remember, “family” is nothing more than a bunch of strangers who share your chromosomes.

 
 

You can choose your friends but you’re stuck with your family.

Mine put the fun in dysfunctional.

 
 

I just looked it up, there’s no diagnosis for “asshole” in the DSM-5

 
 

Having genitalia that doesn’t match your mind (or having a mind that doesn’t match your genitalia) is a disability

Dunno who wrote this orig., but it shows a lack of empathy and imagination. I think the above is essentially a situation. Beyond that it’s up to the mind/genitalia-haver, what to do in this situation; some paths are harder than others, given the circumstances, but that can’t be the only measure of which choice to take, huh? The lot of choices are inscrutable to most folks anyway, why defer to them? It’s not as if trans can win by playing to the crowd. Being 5% less hate-able or questionable is nothing to jump at, but that’s what you get from pandering until discovered or caught being frank, amirite?… But again, what I’m describing isn’t a disability, it’s a situation or opportunity or predicament at worst.

 
 

I see the 12-year-olds are out in force.

 
 

Family is all you have.

If you’re living in your mom’s basement, yes.

 
 

1 out of every 3 trannies end up in a bad place.

We all end up in the ground, homeslice.

 
 

I see the 12-year-olds are out in force.

That’s demeaning to 12-year-olds.

 
 

Selling dog food in tortillas is more fucked up.

 
 

DAMMIT I want to call Get Chutney Love (still the best cultural reference I’ve seen in ages) GCL for short and that makes me think of GPL i.e. Grand Prix Legends and I want to drag out the steering wheel and take a few laps at Watkins Glen and see if I can keep my car on the track and maybe download that Can-Am mod I saw so I can run at Laguna Seca. Maaaaahhhhh.

It’s hell living in your own stream of consciousness sometimes.

 
 

growing tits/ penis when you are opposite sex

You can just GROW them, now? At will?

Wow.

Thank god for Obamacare!

 
 

growing tits/ penis when you are opposite sex

You can just GROW them, now? At will?

Wow.

Thank god for Obamacare!

At last we know why Obama has been so disturbingly cozy with Monsanto! Genetic engineering roolz!

 
 

You CAN grow tits (take note, Taco Bell). From what I hear, that’s the easy part. Trust me, I’m a sorta fat guy but I eat ALOT of tofu, and never exercise. You can just GROW them, now? At will? Wow!

Yes. It’s on!:
We’re havin fun now, me and all the gang
learnin from each other, while we do our thang!
Na na na, gonna have a good time (HEY HEY HEY!)

 
 

1 out of every 3 trannies end up in a bad place.

I’m sure that has nothing to do with assholes like you making their lives miserable.

This argument always galls me. We treat you like subhuman garbage because we don’t like some aspect of you. And if constantly being treated like that has some negative effects, that just proves our point that that aspect of you is bad.

 
 

It’s hell living in your own stream of consciousness sometimes.

You strange person, I have no idea what you’re on about.

 
 

If you’re living in your mom’s basement, yes.

High-fiving the screen…

We treat you like subhuman garbage because we don’t like some aspect of you. And if constantly being treated like that has some negative effects, that just proves our point that that aspect of you is bad.

The downward spiral of the awful. Now where’s Becky to eviscerate this other troll?

 
 

Sorry Pere Ubu, I should consider Poe’s Law and avoid sarcasm and facetious remarks online. I meant to say, you are funneh

 
 

growing tits/ penis when you are opposite sex

I need never leave the house again.

 
 

Challenge game finished!

You won the challenge with 24975 points against 18754.

Guessed the first spot to be in the Greek Isles, so still off. All the others I got pretty darn close.

 
 

So, Mooser, who dis?

 
 

Yeah… no.

See, we don’t actually need the object lesson on how oppression works. About what I was saying about the discrimination and oppression being used to justify more discrimination and oppression (there must be something wrong with X, look how they have a harder life than “default” privileged group). Or an example of the raw hatred that subhuman garbage have and try and keep alive in order to have an excuse not to grow and treat others like full human beings.

We have enough of that in our day to day lives, thank you very much and if you think I’m going to stick my neck out for your intentionally trolling attempts to make any trans* commenters I have feel like shit, yeah no. Your shit is going to be banned. Every time. And erased in a mere handful of keystrokes. And you and your hate whether genuine mental illness or “I’m just playing pretend for the lulz” are just as temporary as the hate you try and spew on this site. Here for a second and then gone in a puff of smoke, hardly remembered and never missed.

K thanks, bye.

 
 

Or in other words, here I am taking out some more trash.

 
 

May I suggest disemvoweling? It’s little disconcerting to see apparent responses to nothing…

 
 

Understood. That barrage went beyond the usual troll buffoonery into real vileness. Good riddance. Let him/them go bug Becky instead.

 
 

No one could have foreseen that arrogant sanctimonious assholes might have some difficulty getting along like normal people in public spaces.

 
 

Sentient,…

What the fuck was I thinking?

 
 

How did I not pick up on the fact that Kevin Williamson was the asshole from lasthread?

You know those people. They all look alike to me.

 
 

growing tits/ penis when you are opposite sex

You can just GROW them, now? At will?

As for the penis, I think you have to order some sort of herbal supplement, but they all assure me I can grow 2-4 inches of manhood!

Evolution said,
May 16, 2013 at 13:20 (kill)
Sentient,…
What the fuck was I thinking?

It’ll be fine once you FINISH THE DAMN JOB.

 
 

I just looked it up, there’s no diagnosis for “asshole” in the DSM-5

I think the shrinks spell it ‘sociopath’.

 
 

I wish I could remember the source, but I recall a conservative’s writing that his objection to any sort of effective social safety net was precisely that it allowed more people to ignore their families’ opinions. (This was an explicitly non-‘libertarian’ conservative of the ‘Pope decries capitalism and usury is still a perfidious Jew sin’ sort.)

 
 

I was in my 30s before I found out that anti-handicapped hate crimes are a thing. I mean, I realised that people treated us like shit oftentimes, but by that I mean the low-level sort of “treat like shit” that includes getting talked to like you’re five when you’re an adult, or getting picked on in school, or having a hard time moving around in public spaces, that sort of thing. I was like, “Hate crimes? Actual hate crimes? The fuck?!”

I guess I lead a relatively sheltered life…and not in the “sheltered workshop” sort of sense, either.

This is, I suppose, an improvement over most of us dying young due to hideous conditions in various institutions (I’m probably among the first or second cohort of people with cerebral palsy who will live to a relatively old age, yike), but shit, man, that’s like saying the flu is better than dengue fever. Objectively, it is, but you still kind of don’t want to go there.

Shorter ?!: I feel most of your pain, Cerb. At least my relatives are supportive to a certain degree, though. I thought my dad was one, but wow, are yours assholes…

 
 

“As for the penis, […]”

 
 

W.F. Price, huh? I had a run-in with that specimen a few days ago. It wasn’t over transgenderism. It wasn’t over feminism. It wasn’t over anything I’d said about him or his little MRA treehouse. No, it was over a post I wrote a few weeks back about how I missed my ex-fiancee. After opening with an abusive and oddly racist post (my fiancee was Chinese), a bunch of his flying monkeys streamed into my comment section to – for lack of a better word – “convert” me to their way of thinking.

Best as I can tell, it wasn’t really about me at all, but about David Futrelle, an anti-MRA blogger whom Price loathes. I’ve left a few comments on Futrelle’s blog, which is how Price found me in the first place. The whole thing appears to have been an impotent, roundabout attempt to shame Futrelle by proxy.

Charming fellow.

 
 

Update on “it’s always about me” stuff. Got a job for the summer at least which should pay summer bills. Should get me through to the school year where there should be more teaching related jobs opening back up.

 
 

Gee, looks like i missed something.

growing tits/ penis when you are opposite sex

I’m no expert but I thought penis growing due to the opposite sex is how it works for most males.

 
 

growing tits/ penis when you are opposite sex

I wondered what the real reason was for all that research into cloning stem cells was. It’s always about the PENIS.

And I’m really glad I missed the trollfestation.

And I’m also, too, glad that you’ve got a summer gig lined up Cerb. May things continue to improve, and may karma properly afflict the assholes in your life.

 
 

Submitted without comment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEhYBkggftk

 
 

interro:
(I’m probably among the first or second cohort of people with cerebral palsy who will live to a relatively old age, yike),

what means you by this? i’ve have been hearing that people with cp age faster than persons w/out cp…i’ve looked it up (marginally) but didn’t see anything backing that up…
.
.
.
oh…wait…i see what you are saying now…carry on!

 
 

also, too…the daughter got 2nd in the 25 meter dash in her heat today at the big s.o. track meet…wish i could have been there…

 
Origami Isopod
 

Cerberus, I’m really sorry. I don’t have any other words. This is an excellent post, but I’m sorry that the most throat-grabbing parts had to come from your personal experience.

Little Pig: You gotta do what you gotta do, and if your rehab is working for you, it’s working, but honestly I don’t see anything wrong with loathing people like Cheney or Fournier and freuding your schaden off when and if they step in it.

 
 

Submitted without comment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEhYBkggftk

First I was all “d’aww, that’s adorable!” and then I looked at the comments. Never look at the comments.

Unrelated, also too: McLaren-Honda will be back in F1 in 2015! Now if they could just clone Senna with those new stem cells…

 
 

First I was all “d’aww, that’s adorable!” and then I looked at the comments. Never look at the comments.

exact same experience…

 
 

Just screened a person with a blood pressure reading of 210/90.

You don’t need to be donating plasma, you dumbass, you need to be in the emergency room. Which I didn’t tell her, of course, but there you are.

*gggrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*

 
 

Never look at the comments.

These are never the mangoes you’re looking for.

 
 

No one could have foreseen that arrogant sanctimonious assholes might have some difficulty getting along like normal people in public spaces.

NRO has released the flying monkeys over at that Gawker article. Internet tough guys a-plenty.

You can tell junior high is out for the summer.

 
 

Internet Explorer won’t show me the comments on that article.

It may indeed be smarter than I am, which is depressing.

 
 

Where was Kevin Williamson’s AR-15? IN HIS PURSE?

 
 

Good luck Cerb. Even if you weren’t totally fucking awesome, I would wish you immense success just to spite those bigoted jackasses. But more importantly than that – you are totally fucking awesome.

 
 

Where was Kevin Williamson’s AR-15? IN HIS PURSE?

lol..

 
 

He really is an idiot Money quote near the end “You don’t have the right to cast aspersions on my asparagus.” Not making that up.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/holder-smacks-down-clueless-gohmert-over-bo

 
 

Of course, growing some other penis when you are the same sex would be gay wouldn’t it.

 
 

“You don’t have the right to cast aspersions on my asparagus.”

Feels like nobody around him understands his potato.

 
 

So, Mooser, who dis?”

Who dat dere? I don’t know. The adult bull moose is a solitary creature, morosely wandering over forest and plain, taciturn, meditative, yet casting a compassionate glow withal. Mooses sometimes “yard” a fore-gathering process which involves meeting in no particular place at no particular time, usually in the cool, cool, cool of the evening. And you you can tell ’em I’ll be there!
Any way, that is somebody I don’t know, Gotta nice rack tho,.

 
 

It’s sort of like being a late 19th Century existdentialist and mystic who eats up to fifty pounds of aspen shoots, wiillow leaves and tender water plants a day.

 
 

in the cool, cool, cool of the evening

DAMMIT THAT SONG IS IN MY HEAD NOW

anyway, how’re they gonna save you a chair if you’re, you know, a quadruped?

 
 

I do not as well remember “aspen shoots” listed in those lyrics.

Also too.

 
 

Charles Pierce on the Gomer/Holder kerfluffernutter

“Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, perhaps the dumbest mammal to enter a legislative chamber since Caligula’s horse, and Gohmert’s only the half of that, pretty much got pantsed in front of the world yesterday by Eric Holder who, while I still think he should resign, seems to be getting pleasantly fed up with the denizens of the Republican monkeyhouse. By the end of it, Gohmert was hollering incoherently, and the committee chairman, Bob Goodlatte (R-Venti) looked like he would liked have very much to have Gohmert sedated and sent to a quiet farm in Alberta for a few years.

Read more: Daily Politics Blog – Charles P. Pierce – Political Blogging – Esquire
Follow us: @Esquiremag on Twitter | Esquire on Facebook
Visit us at Esquire.com

 
 

Submitted without comment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEhYBkggftk

Make Way for Ducklings: The Movie.

 
 

New post. This one on Benghazi, because we’d be remiss if we didn’t comment on that right-wing tantrum.

 
 

AlsoAlso, fuck your relatives, Cerb. They suck.

I would be willing to bet that they don’t all suck. That said it is a shame that your Father and Uncle cannot take an enormous amount of pride in the fact that, you Cerb, are an amazing person, witty, insightful, brilliant, caring, empathetic…I could go on and on if I could locate my Roget. Point being that you demonstrate and embody every positive characteristic that I would want in a child, S.O. or good friend.

Fuck the fucking fucks.

Gotta run.

XOXOX, Cerb.

 
 

Louie Gohmert of Texas, perhaps the dumbest mammal to enter a legislative chamber since Caligula’s horse, and Gohmert’s only the half of that

Veiled Horse’s-arse reference.

 
 

Veiled Horse’s-arse reference.

Very nicely done, too.

 
 

“Living in a world where you and everyone like you are not just casually assumed to be the sex class and thus open-season for rape and molestation to the point where it is actually hard to find a fellow-group member who hasn’t been raped in some way. But then, also living in a world where rapists are constantly publicly cried over, because “they didn’t deserve to have their lives ruined over a mistake” even when they ruin someone else’s life. And one where no matter how brutal and obvious the rape, there’ll always be someone there to blame you for it.”

… sounds a lot like being male, actually. Except for the “rapists get cried over” bit, because most people can barely comprehend the concept of male rape victims, let alone punish their rapists. It gets treated like a type error or a mildly offensive attempt at humor, if you’re lucky.

No, this doesn’t mean women are secretly oppressing men. As the actual studies show, members of “oppressed groups” share the same subconscious prejudices as those who are supposedly “oppressing” them. This is a problem with society; there is no convenient dragon to slay and then it’ll all be OK again. There is no secret patriarchy controlling everything.

“This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us.” – Watchmen

 
 

Wow. I know it’s a shopworn phrase among us liberals to use in these circumstances,but Cerberus, you truly are brave. That’s a lot of heavy shit coming at you … and from people who should be supportive of you.

One minor quibble, though: people who have to turn out four pages or so of poorly sourced bullshit once a week really do struggle. You should have seen how hard it was for my students in the “writing intensive” course I teach to keep up, especially for the third of the class that didn’t understand the concept of properly citing their sources (how they passed general education college writing is beyond me, but I guess if my general chem students can’t remember simple stoichiometry from one semester to the next, we can’t expect juniors and seniors to remember stuff they learned in a general education class they took eons ago as freshmen). So apparently, it is a huge deal to turn out poorly sourced bullshit once a week.

Either that or my worst students would do well to give up chemistry altogether and get on the wingnut welfare gravy train.

 
 

I hate to sound like some sort of movie tagline, but sometimes being brave isn’t an option anymore. Good luck on your summer job and beyond.

GCL aka DA

 
 

“anyway, how’re they gonna save you a chair if you’re, you know, a quadruped?”

‘Save me a bed of fragrant pine needles and soft leaves’ wouldn’t scan.

And now for something which is worth earworming
I got a transcript of the bass line from my teacher (wow!) and Lou’s solo,

 
 

If I could comp a quarter like Patton I could die happy. Only then I wouldn’t want to.

 
 

Man, just try to put the old twenty-three skidoo back in a twenty year wedded abyss! So I’m working on the song, and I sing it to my wife. I get to the line “Don’t laugh, at my jokes too much” and she cracks up. Gale-force jellicosity ensues. When she catches her breath her exit line is “Oh, no danger of that, Caruso!”
Woman, thy perfidy is something-or-other which I forget now, but this is the thanks I get for twenty-two years of home-cooked, hand-made nifties, and scads of boffo yoks, yet rendered with taste and erudition, withal?
I am totally stuck on this “withal” thing. It’s the goods, all right. Just wait til I find out what it means! I’ll do that today, if I have time.

 
 

“Living in a world where society’s opinion is simply that you deserve to die and that anyone who can aid this process should be complimented and cheered. […] Where no one feels even a moment of conscience for letting their glee over trying to destroy you shine. Where people regularly get more money than you’ll ever see in your life for saying that everyone like you deserves to die. Where that isn’t the viewpoint of some crazy on the street, but rather a majority opinion. One where your population has the highest percentage of hate crimes and murders based on your identity committed against you. […] That people would actually try and manufacture a system where you were in fact encouraged to commit suicide because that way you weren’t “inconveniencing normal people”.”

You know, this one doesn’t seem like the others. Can I get a source for this? It just seems … confusing. Mistaking transgendered people for cis people wearing drag for their own nefarious purposes is understandable, if contemptible, but this just seems like poorly-written Fantastic Racism. It’s easy to stereotype a gender as incompetent or an ethnic minority as The Enemy, but what kind of thinking leads to this?

Damn, my second comment and already I sound like I’m a conservative attacking everything you say. I actually agree with most of this, I swear, I just have nothing interesting to say that isn’t some sort of criticism. Sorry 🙁

 
 

[…] personally, I know the holiday has become more… interesting, psychologically speaking, given recent events with my own father. But you didn’t tune in to hear about that, but rather how the various dungeon denizens of […]

 
 

Wow that was odd. I just wrote an incredibly long comment but after I clicked submit my
comment didn’t appear. Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that
over again. Regardless, just wanted to say excellent blog!

 
 

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