wake the fuck up

A few posts ago I wrote about gun laws and how they need to be stricter. I want to now admit that I was wrong when writing that post. For whatever reason I was trying to be diplomatic, I said, and I’m paraphrasing here, I get why people need guns, but that was wrong. In the wake of another mass shooting I realize that I was too understanding of what is a moronic, idiotic, shameful point of view. I got more traffic on that blog post than any prior to or after it and a lot of people defended gun rights. All of those people are idiots. Plain and simple, these people that defend guns, or condemn background checks, or push for extended clips, you are stupid.

I thought about writing this entry after the massacre in Las Vegas but I didn’t, not sure why but I knew at the time that I could rest easy knowing that in a matter of weeks I would have another opportunity. And here is the other opportunity. What is the reason for the embarrassing gun laws in this country? How god damn stupid do you have to be to think that guns are not a massive issue? There was a mass shooting in England… they banned guns. There was a mass shooting in Australia… they banned guns. There was a mass shooting in America… nothing happened. Anyone that even remotely thinks that gun control isn’t an issue, that more guns is the answer, that an armed person in the church would’ve stopped the shooter, that if we disarm the good guys only the bad guys will have guns, WAKE THE FUCK UP. You are too stupid to be allowed on this planet. You know what would prevent mass shootings? Laws against guns. Plain and simple.

“Now is not the time to talk about gun laws.” THEN WHEN IS THE FUCKING TIME? Because in a matter of days this will be forgotten. Because mass shootings are normal. In a country that strives to be the global power, a completely preventable occurrence happens with alarming regularity. You have to be actively lying to yourself to think that guns are not the problem. And the argument that hicks offer up is that good guys with guns will stop the bad guys with guns. No they fucking won’t. Stop being so fucking stupid, guns are the problem!!

From Lee to Washington

So, I have very little to say about Charlottesville that hasn’t already been said in more colloquial terms by people other than me. This post is not to condemn the “president’s” appalling response and backtracking and Nazi apologetics, although he deserves to be impeached on his response alone. This post is also not to condemn Nazis, although I do condemn them in the harshest possible way. Trump gave these “people” a platform and now we’ve seen how truly dangerous an uninformed, stupid electorate is. This post is for the people who, like the president, made that utterly ridiculous argument that is as follows, “What comes next, tearing down statues of Washington?”

I recently had a, let’s call it a debate, with a seemingly well-meaning idiot that made this claim but unlike most people dumb enough to say this, she was actually receptive to my reasons as to why this is a completely farcical and ridiculous line of thought. Let’s break it down. First and foremost, Robert E. Lee was not a hero. He was a treasonous general on the side that lost the civil war and whose main reason for fighting was based on the abolishment of slavery. Any argument about how the war was fought for other reasons is bullshit. Plain and simple this war was fought over slavery and Robert E. Lee was the general for the southern army. This is not worth memorializing. Another argument I heard from this woman was that these statues were part of history. I had 2 rebuttals to this, first if you want to learn about Robert E. Lee go to a museum or read a book, second, and more importantly when you look at when almost all of these statues were built, this should be enough to realize the insidious nature of these monuments. Almost all of these statues and monuments to southern generals or “people of import” were built during two periods. They were built either during Jim Crow, or during the Civil Rights movement. Consider this, these statues honoring advocates of slavery, were built after black people had been freed, however, as southerners wanted to continue to bully and dehumanize black people they built statues of those that enslaved them in order to continue to promote fear.

Now, onto the final point, “George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison etc. all owned slaves, should we take down all of their monuments and statues too?” I can admit that on the surface, if you don’t look at this statement any deeper than merely hearing the words I can almost see how you arrive at this ludicrous statement, but the fact is, that as soon as you think about this for even ten seconds it becomes very evident to anyone but a trump supporter that this is a complete and total false equivalency. As stated earlier, Robert E. Lee is famous for being the general of the southern army, he was not a founding father, he didn’t break down any barriers, he didn’t invent anything beneficial to humanity, he was a general of a losing army. George Washington was instrumental to the founding of the nation, as were all of the founding fathers, hence the name. They did great things for our country and helped get it to where it was a few months ago. (Since last November we have regressed as a nation and I would like to think the founding fathers would be disgusted at the state of our country as it is now.) These men were flawed, owning slaves no matter how socially acceptable at the time makes them flawed as does other less than admirable traits, however the difference here is that they are not revered, they are not memorialized, accept for by the people shitty enough to be at the Charlottesville protest, for owning slaves. They are flawed yet admirable men who are memorialized for the service and work they did in founding the country, and that is more than can be said for Robert E. Lee.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, no person living in this country should have to be reminded of a time when their ancestors were owned and beaten and lynched and raped by men due only to the color of their skin. History, tradition, remembrance, whatever the hell you want to call it, if it offends a large subset of the American population just by existing, it needs to be taken down. The Dylan Roofs of the world see this as a war against white people, the decent people in the world see this as making the country comfortable for people to live in. If you have to drive on Jefferson Davis highway every day and be reminded of the man that decided to secede from the United States because he wanted to continue owning black people, and this makes you uncomfortable, that is the only reason that decent humans should need to take down statues, or flags, or road names, and the people that don’t see this as the decent thing to do will continue to expose themselves for the racist, bigoted, intolerant fucks that they are. We’ve taken a step back over the last several months, but it won’t last. Nazis feel more comfortable now then they have since the 40s but they and they’re monstrous ideals are not safe.

Transgender people in the military

In my first or second blog post I made a statement that I need to redact. I said that, and I’m paraphrasing here, that if trump turned out to be a great president I would forgive him for everything up until that point. I am now positive that trump will never be a great president, he will never be a good president, he will never be an almost competent president, however even if he somehow became not the worst of the 45 presidents I would still not support or forgive him. Simply put, the reason for this is that acknowledging him as a good president validates the abhorrent behavior he has demonstrated up to this point and I can’t do this. So, after redacting my statement that I made a few months ago I can move onto the most recent of colossal fuck ups that trump has committed, and I realize that in the last few days that could apply to several different things but I am specifically addressing trump tweeting about banning transgender people from serving in the military.

Now, let’s consider for a moment first and foremost, that in trump, we have a president that deferred five times to actively not serve in the army and here he is saying that people who volunteer for the armed forces are not allowed to. Let’s also consider that I know, while trump may or may not, that in tweeting this it does not become a thing and in all likelihood it will never be put into practice. I also know that in tweeting this it is trump’s way of diverting attention from something more egregious and worse for our country but none of these statements are the point.

The point is that the “president” has something like 35 million twitter followers, and while I hope most of them follow him because they like to troll him I know a lot of them don’t. A lot of them are, against all odds, still trump supporters. Also as embarrassing as it is for our country and humanity in general when this orange fucking clown tweets something absurd and disgusting and bigoted, it makes the national news, so any dumb fuck trump supporters that don’t follow him on twitter will hear about this tweet regardless of that fact, and that is the issue. That is the danger in having a president who is bigoted, intolerant, and mean at the helm, his supporters are also bigoted, intolerant, and mean. (As a quick aside, if you are a trump supporter don’t waste your time telling me you are not these things, you are, there is no excuse to still be supporting him unless you are, the jobs he’s promised haven’t been created, ISIS is still going strong, the ACA hasn’t been dismantled, and that entire “tough on Russia” message couldn’t be bigger bullshit. So whatever you want to tell yourself when you look in the mirror, the fact is, if you are a trump supporter you are a bigoted cunt.)

Trans people have had for lack of a better term, a rough go at it, made even worse recently. Since gay marriage has been made legal trans people have become the new group that gets institutionally dehumanized. (I am not by any means saying that gay people have nothing left to fight for), I am saying that trans people have even further to go, and evangelicals have a tendency to pick on the easiest target like any grade school bully. And here is my very roundabout, semi clunky way of saying that this is why trump’s tweet is such a dangerous thing. It will not become law, trans people are not getting banned from the military, but trump supporters are too stupid to realize this. They see a trump tweet like this one and it once again validates their transphobic opinions. “If the president is saying they can’t fight in the military then fuck ‘em, they must be pieces of shit.” When the electorate is dumb enough to vote donald trump into the white house, you can be damn sure that they are dumb enough to see this tweet and take it as permission to dehumanize a subset of the population and react accordingly. They are too stupid not to. Someone will be hurt as a result of this tweet and that is a fact.

@evol_ocean

P.S. for anyone who wants to say that this is a decision based on costs, admitting transgender soldiers and paying for their operations costs between 2.4 and 8.4 million dollars, compared with the 6 BILLION dollars we now spend on soldiers health. That is .134% of that budget, and we spent 84.24 million dollars on erectile dysfunction drugs for soldiers and vets in 2014 according to the military times, so fuck off with this argument.

Private worshipers

Whenever I find myself talking about religion with someone else, a question that always seems to come up is, what about the person that worships privately, minds their own business, and doesn’t try to actively convert or preach to other people? What is wrong with this person? And in my newer, more primitive atheist days, this was a question that gave me pause, for lack of a better word. I bring this up now, because not too long ago this question came up again in casual conversation and recently I have found the way to articulate my problem with the person who worships privately. So, in this conversation with an acquaintance I gave them my answer with more vigor than perhaps was necessary, however I had to make up for all of the times I let this question slide due to my inability to properly articulate my response.

The problem with the person who worships in home and keeps their opinions to themselves is that they lend credence to the homophobic photographer that won’t take pictures of a gay wedding, they give credibility to the EMT that won’t let a gay man into their ambulance, these people validate all of the bigoted, antiquated opinions that the more outspoken, heinous religious people hold so dear and this is a huge problem.

Back up and look at this issue for a second. If Catholicism was dominated by racist, gay bashing, misogynists, they would not have this massive platform that they currently have today. If 98 percent of religious people actively hated the people they are told to hate by the bible, (or the Quran, or any other religious document) than I’m pretty sure the government wouldn’t continue to subsidize the organization. I’m pretty sure mass would be protested every Sunday morning and people would stop giving their hard earned money to these hate groups in return for nothing. If all religious people were as dangerous and outspoken as KKK members, religion wouldn’t be a thing in this country, at least not to the extent that it is by a massive margin. And this is the problem with those people that worship privately.

The truth is, most religious people are not refusing to let gay people into their restaurants or actively beating their wives. Most religious people go about their business, maybe they go to church every Sunday and maybe they don’t hate gay people, but they actively support an organization that does. They make it okay for the bigots to voice their appalling opinions because the response is, “well not all religious people are like that” and while that may be true, if all religious people were like that then religion wouldn’t have the platform that it has in this country. This doesn’t even touch on the fact that those kind, peaceful, loving religious people are still perpetuating a system that lies to the people that believe in it. These people aren’t out protesting same sex marriage or trying to defund planned parenthood but they are still giving credence to an organization that actively lies to you, and if this isn’t dangerous, at the very least it’s stupid, and that’s something this country doesn’t need more of at this current point in time.

So while I am not saying that the individual who worships privately is as bad a person as the homophobic photographer, the private worshippers do more damage as a whole than the bigots that most rational people detest.

 

@evol_ocean

P.S. Once again, I apologize for the extended gap between posts, I will attempt to get back to my biweekly posts from this point on

TLC vs. Comer

With everything that has been happening over the past 100 or so days of the shit show that has been the trump organization you could be forgiven for not being up to date with everything that has been going on in the rest of the country. I am positive that there are hundreds if not more very important news stories and court cases and things of that nature that I am not aware of. However, this is not one of them. If you have not heard of the Trinity Lutheran Church of Colombia Vs. Carol S. Comer, the director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, then you are like the majority of the country and can be forgiven for not being aware of a seemingly minor court case taking place in the less than impressive state of Missouri. If you are aware of this court case then you are also probably aware of the far reaching implications of this case and are hoping against hope that the Trinity Lutheran Church of Colombia does not win. (If you are hoping the Trinity Lutheran Church does win, you are probably not reading this blog.)

Briefly, this case addresses an instance where the state of Missouri denied funding for the TLC (Trinity Lutheran Church from now on) to cover its preschool playground with recycled rubber. There is a provision of the Missouri State Constitution, among other states, that says, “No money shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church sect or demonization of religion or in aid of any priest preacher minister or teacher.” It was on this grounds that the TLC was denied its funding.

Now, upon first reading the premise of this case it sounds as if the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MINR from now on) is being a bit asinine in denying funding for a playground. This case however, is not about giving children a safer place to play during recess, it is about the constantly shrinking gap of the separation of church and state. This is an extremely important case, as if the Supreme Court rules in favor of TLC, a situation that is entirely too possible given the younger version of Antonin Scalia that now occupies the ninth seat on the Supreme Court, there will, in the future, be a precedent for funding churches and religious organizations. Given the calamitous Secretary of Education this would be a huge win for her and a massive loss for people that are interested in their children learning about things like evolution and science rather than god. “A ruling in favor of Trinity Lutheran could safeguard religious schools’ place in school voucher programs.”

Now I believe I have stated before and I also believe that it should be fairly obvious that I am not a lawyer. As with any case that makes it to the Supreme Court there are hundreds of finer points and minute details that minds far better than mine have to consider when looking at this case. However, it is obvious to me that given that evangelicals are the reason that Trump is in office, given the rising incidents of racism, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Semitism, and given the appointment of Betsy Ross as the Secretary of Education, that the separation of church and state is rapidly shrinking. While other countries are slowly walking away from religion America seems dead set on sprinting full on ahead to embrace the “lessons” of the bible. Our education system is already not in a great position. We are struggling to keep up with more progressive countries and will continue to fall behind until we embrace some of these changes that other countries have made. However, if TLC wins in this case there will be changes made in the complete opposite direction. In an America that seems in constant peril of serious regression this bill that you have probably never heard about needs to be on your radar. It needs to be legislated correctly and the Supreme Court cannot rule in favor of a case that will ultimately end with school vouchers going to religious schools.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/trinity-lutheran/523542/

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/missouri-playground-case-touches-on-separation-of-church-and-state/article_c4c6433b-ebaf-5f74-b49e-67a02f7e1145.html

@evol_ocean

Kendrick vs Drake vs J. Cole

I would like to preface this entry with a brief apology for the delay between posts. I teach and have been on “summer” break for the last 5 weeks and writing took a back seat to my vacation so once again, I’m sorry for the extended delay. I would also like to briefly explain the subject of this post. As I am still on vacation, I am not going to address Trump or religion with this post. I am going to keep it a bit lighter.

A couple of weeks ago Kendrick Lamar released his 4^th album and I would like to give my 2 cents to the Kendrick Lamar, Drake, J. Cole debate. Now, once upon a time I was up to date with rap music and I was pretty much aware of most of the new music that was coming out, but alas, since I’ve lived overseas I have not been as diligent in keeping up with new music.

Now it seems fairly obvious why these three names are so often brought up together. Drake is one of, if not the biggest superstar on the planet and for better, or more often worse, whatever he puts out becomes the trend of the rap and pop world. However, this is not a good reason to compare his pure rapping abilities to that of Kendrick or J. Cole. When he raps, and I don’t mean hotline bling or the garbage that was Views (admittedly I haven’t listened to More Life because I am at a point where I can’t stand Drake) he is a talented rapper. Songs like The Language and the album Take Care are good projects, however that is all they are. No one hails Take Care as a classic nor should they. In fact the only reason I think Drake is in this conversation is because of the “cold war” going on between Drake and Kendrick. If Kendrick were to put his abilities to murdering Drake rather than making meaningful, topical albums, even Drake’s superstardom wouldn’t be enough to save him. All things considered Drake has somehow found himself being compared to Kendrick and it’s a ridiculous comparison.

Onto Jermaine. I will start by saying I am a huge J. Cole fan. He is actually the rapper I credit with making me a hip hop head rather than just a casual listener. However again here the Kendrick comparison is not a good one although it is more fitting than the Drake Kendrick one. J. Cole’s mixtapes were great! Friday Night Lights, The Warm Up, and The Come Up, are great projects. Enter Cole World: The Sideline Story, a wildly mediocre project that I haven’t listened to in years. Born Sinner was a better effort with tracks like Let Nas Down and Born Sinner standing out from that album. It was a good album, pleasing and easy to listen to. Forest Hills Drive is J. Cole’s best album to date. I would not personally give it classic status but I would be willing to listen to someone make that argument. Tracks like A Tale of 2 Cities, Fire Squad, and Love Yourz are great and that’s just to name a few. It’s personal it’s got a few bangers, it’s cohesive. I still love this album. 4 Your Eyez Only, is to me a step back for J. Cole. I don’t claim to know what he thinks when he’s in the booth but it feels to me like he is trying too hard to not play the game. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to be Drake, in fact I applaud that sentiment, and 4 Your Eyez Only is by no means a bad project, again, it is personal and touching and cohesive, however again it falls short of a classic. People lump Kendrick and J. Cole into the same category and I can see why but I think this comparison does no favors for J. Cole.

Enter Kendrick Lamar Duckworth and Section 80 his first album. Following Overly Dedicated, (a raw, unpolished Kendrick Lamar still outperforms Drake’s best effort.) Kendrick puts out the best album of the year in a year that features Take Care, Cole World, Finally Famous, and Watch the Throne. It has some truly brilliant tracks. Keisha’s Song, ADHD, Rigamortus, Hol Up to name a few, not to mention, Hiipower which is still 6 years later one of my favorite songs. The album isn’t flawless, it misses but the misses are infrequent and near misses. No Make-up isn’t amazing but here is the difference between Kendrick and the field. When Kendrick misses he doesn’t give us a track like Work Out, he still gives us a good song with a strong message. His mistakes are better than most artist’s successes.

Good Kid M.A.A.D. City is Kendrick’s first major studio album, and this album is as close to flawless as it’s possible to be. It tells a story so vividly that it’s impossible to believe that Kendrick is reflecting back on things that happened 7 years prior to the album’s release. It also contains Sing About Me, one of my favorite songs of all time, it is brilliant, it is tragic, it is creative, and it is thought provoking, Kendrick could have coasted off of that track alone but of course he would never do that. To Pimp A Butterfly, wow! An album that has created college courses, an album that has been archived in Harvard’s library, an album that motivated young black people while simultaneously terrifying old white people. This album is incredible and if you didn’t have Kendrick Lamar as a contender for the GOAT yet you should have after this effort. And now DAMN (Untitled Unmastered I am going to gloss over but make no mistake it is still an amazing 8 tracks and that is Kendricks outtakes.) DAMN is still too new for me to analyze properly, however it is challenging, and difficult and amazing.

Kendrick Lamar, Drake, and J. Cole, are often compared and mentioned together. This is both an insult to Kendrick and unfair to Drake and J. Cole, Kendrick stands alone at the top.

For brevities sake I didn’t touch on specifics, things like lyrical ability, storytelling ability, creativity, social impact, and more, all of which for the record Kendrick has more of than the aforementioned artists, I will expand on these things in a future post possibly. I also limited it to these 3 artists only although personally if anyone is going to even try and compare to Kendrick it is Logic, he should be in the conversation before both Drake and J. Cole but for some reason he is for the most part forgotten about.

These are my thoughts on these three rappers, I will return to Trump with my next post and I promise not to take too long before posting again.

Statute of limitations

Up until now I have used this blog more for political purposes than for religious ones. However with this article I would like to take a break from trump bashing, fun as that may be, and turn to the original purpose of this blog which is the condemnation of religion. I will return to trump next post and by no means is this trump hiatus me offering my support to the comrade in chief. I just felt like shifting my focus for one post.

Statute of limitations – a statute prescribing a period of limitation for the bringing of certain kinds of legal action. The intention of these laws is to facilitate resolution within a “reasonable” length of time.

There is, at least to me, some credence to this idea. I think most people would agree that this is a reasonable sentiment. Being penalized decades later after the fact seems petty. This is an idea I can get behind, however to me, my tolerance for this idea extends only to nonviolent crimes. The morality, or immorality, of nonviolent crimes notwithstanding, debates can be had as to whether or not these are actually nonviolent crimes, but for brevities sake in this article they are.

This is not true with rape. Rape is, and has always been in my opinion, the worst crime a person can commit. I am utterly and completely disgusted by anyone that is capable of committing such a horrifying and despicable act. The only thing in the world more appalling to me is rape perpetrated against a child. And make no mistake, child rape and the Catholic Church are at this point synonymous. The Catholic Church has for centuries, if not longer, repeatedly raped young boys. Men that have taken a vow of celibacy have used positions of power to rape time and again young, vulnerable children who are in the one place they are taught to believe is safe above all others. This atrocity is not what this article is about, I could go on for pages and pages addressing the betrayal of the highest order that this is, and how if there was a god, this would be punished swiftly and vengefully, but that is for another article possibly.

My gripe, at the moment, comes from the Catholic Church fighting against the lengthening of the statute of limitations for rape victims. Consider this, the Catholic Church has ostensibly confessed to harboring and protecting child rapists, but what’s more is that rather than sympathize with the victims, rather than lock up the sadists who commit these acts, they have spent government money trying to make sure that these victims have a limited amount of time in pursuing legal recourse, they have blamed the children for getting raped (the altar boy uniforms stop mid-thigh apparently) and in certain cases they have pursued libel cases and worse against the victims. If I were Pope Francis, my first order of business would be to abolish the statute of limitations in accordance with rape, my goal would be to cleanse the church and appease the victims as much as is humanly possible. It would be to try and make the church what it was designed to be, a safe place. If your institution is condemned for knowingly raping boys you should be the first one to advocate for fixing the problem, you should be the first to stand and say “we have a problem, we are fixing it. These deviants are going to spend life in jail so as never to rape another boy again. There is nothing we can do to prevent what already happened but we are going to make damn sure that it never happens again.” There is no justification, there is not even the slightest sliver of hope for any organization that would not do this. Aiding and protecting a known rapist not anointed as a child of god would get any person the decades in prison that they deserve, why does the Catholic Church get a pass? The fact that there is a statute of limitations is a gross misappropriation of justice as it is, but the fact that this government subsidized house of pedophiles is defending its rapists falls miles short of any sort of justice that could ever exist.

People will claim that the institution is not to blame for the indiscretions of a few. I refute this claim with these two points. First off it is not a few, the Catholic Church has knowingly employed hundreds of men (if not more) who have taken advantage of and sexually abused young boys. Yes maybe percentage wise that is a small minority but it is still a number that is far too large. Second off the institution should not be blamed for the indiscretions of a few, I agree, however the institution should be on the front lines as far as condemning and punishing the convicted advocates. They should not under any circumstances defend these rapists and yet they do. They argue against extending the statute of limitations law, they say that the good outweighs the bad, as “punishment” they reassign these men of the cloth to different areas which only serves to give them a new set of boys to rape. This is disgusting. There is no other word for it and there is no possible defense. No matter how much “good” one person does, sexually abusing young, vulnerable boys who believe themselves to be in THE safe place negates any positive impact you have had and sends you miles in the other direction.

The statute of limitations is an abomination and the fact that the church fought against extending it is an unthinkable act of evil and cruelty.

This issue makes me madder I think than any let’s call them indiscretions of the church, and on risk of making me more furious than I already am I will end this article here for now. Likely it will be revisited at a later date.

atheistanalysis1@gmail.com

@evol_ocean

The 2nd Amendment

A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

 

Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages that remained in place from 1920 to 1933.

 

Amendment

Noun

1.

The act of amending or the state of being amended.

2.

An alteration of or addition to a motion, bill, constitution, etc.

3.

A change made by correction, addition, or deletion

 

The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had mandated nationwide Prohibition on alcohol on January 16, 1919. The Twenty-first Amendment was ratified on December 5, 1933

Recently President Trump in his infinite wisdom repealed the order that banned the mentally ill from owning firearms, making this post slightly dated but, in my opinion, necessary.

I have never shot a gun. I have no interest in ever shooting a gun and I do not know what could ever make me shoot a gun. I have only ever held a gun once. Some people like guns. That is the argument for guns. People like them and enjoy buying and shooting them. It is not a great argument but it is the only argument available. Gun advocates are too quick to point to the second amendment as a reason why guns should be legal and allowed.

Let me preface this article by saying that I do not think the only solution is to ban guns. Yes I believe guns should be banned, I think that owning a gun is the height of stupidity and in countries where guns are universally banned gun violence is significantly less frequent than it is in the states. I am not sure if there is a correlation there but it is worth investigating. Having said that, people argue that guns are a right granted by the second amendment and this is true. However, as illustrated amendments can and have been changed in the past, so the fact that the second amendment does exist does not mean it has to forever. I am also going to gloss over the fact that the second amendment was written to defend the electorate from a tyrannical government showing up at your house and demanding that you pay taxes. As this doesn’t happen the second amendment is dated and at the very least needs to be reexamined. However this article does not concern the banning of guns as much as I may want that to be the end result.

Guns in the right hands are no more dangerous than any other tool. I think they are stupid yes, but some people, most people in fact, that own guns use them to hunt, or to go to a shooting range, or in some cases protection, and these people use their guns safely and responsibly. (I could go on for quite a while about hunting or protection but that is not the aim here.)

The aim here is to question anyone that thinks that there isn’t a problem with current gun control laws. The number of mass shootings in America account for %31 of mass shootings globally, and the number of accidental shootings between 2014 and 2016 of children under the age of 17 was more than 1,000. The fact that a kid can walk into a Walmart with $135 (give or take) and walk out with a gun is absolutely ridiculous. The argument against gun control is nonexistent. No president, and especially not President Obama, has ever argued for banning guns. The NRA is a very intelligent, very powerful organization that caters to any fears that they can exploit and as a result they get people to believe that Obama is after their guns but this has never been true. Universal background checks are not infringing upon anyone’s rights, not letting private sellers sell to the highest bidder under the guise of a gun show is not a fascist regime out to destroy freedom, having mandated waiting periods while certain details are examined does not prevent anyone from living their life as an American citizen. These arguments are silly at best and dangerous at worst. Guns are dangerous, this seems like the most obvious thing I have ever written but I feel that it needs stating because those people that let their toddlers get a hold of their guns and shoot themselves seem not to realize this. Gun laws need to be changed. This isn’t up for debate. There is no argument for not changing them. The man who perpetrated the worst mass shooting in the history of the world was on an FBI terrorist watch list and yet he was still able to legally buy a gun. People who own and use guns responsibly should be the first in line to want stricter gun laws because it is the mass shooters that give them a bad name but for some reason it is these people that are the first out of the gate to cry second amendment after a mass shooting, I cannot stress enough that nothing that Obama has done has even remotely limited people’s ability to buy guns legally. In fact, gun laws under Obama have actually become looser than they were under former President George Bush. And yet every time there is a bill proposed to make common sense laws like universal background checks mandatory gun toting idiots claim that the commie wants their guns and the only way to stop him is by buying more guns.

The Sandy Hook shooter did not acquire a gun illegally, someone that would willingly shoot kindergarteners should not be able to get their hands on a gun. Again this article is not about banning guns, and I have no idea if anyone who does own a gun would read this article but the amount of common sense it takes to see that something that has the ability to kill multiple people in a matter of seconds should at least be more closely monitored is ludicrously low. I have lived overseas for almost 4 years now and when with my British friends guns come up they make fun of me and I find there is nothing I can say or do to defend myself. A two year old shoots his mother and nothing happens. A man opens fire in a movie theatre killing a dozen people and nothing happens. A couple murders 14 people in San Bernadino and nothing happens. 2 high schoolers bring guns to school and kill 13 peers of theirs and nothing happens. A man walks into an elementary school and shoots 20 students and 6 adults and nothing happens. A kid opens fire on a black church in South Carolina killing 9 and nothing happens. A man walks into a night club and kills 50 people and nothing happens. All of these, excluding Columbine are alarmingly recent and the only link between them is that after the fact nothing happened. What has to happen for gun laws to be made stricter? This is not a rhetorical question because after every one of these shootings people cry second amendment and refuse to open up a discourse because it is their right to own guns and no one can take my gun from me. How stupid must we look to the rest of the world? How ridiculous is it that after 50 people are killed in a matter of minutes people rush to defend the gun laws not the victims? It is unthinkable that time and time again after these mass shootings nothing happens.

Maybe stricter gun laws wouldn’t work. Maybe this would succeed in arming only the bad guys. Maybe the statistics would stay the same. Maybe this would lead to more shootings and more deaths but I honestly don’t see how that would even be possible at this point. Gun laws must be fixed, now more than ever, and what has Trump done about this? He has made it easier for the mentally ill to get their hands on guns.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/10/14/ap-usa-today-gun-accidents-children/91906700/

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/27/health/u-s-most-mass-shootings/

 

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/28/517799119/trump-repeals-rule-designed-to-block-gun-sales-to-certain-mentally-ill-people

 

atheistanalysis1@gmail.com

@evol_ocean

Now is not the time to go soft

At the time of this writing the call for Attorney General Yosemite Sam’s resignation had just been announced and as a result this post, when you read it, could be dated. However, I am going to discuss not Jeff Sessions, rather Donald Trump’s joint speech to congress that he made on February 28^th.

By all accounts it was a decent speech, he didn’t yell at the media, he didn’t mock disabled reporters, and he even managed to stay calm for the entire hour. However, this does not make his speech a good one, it merely makes it a good speech for Donald Trump. I will say that given his most recent press conference this speech almost made him seem like a human being but he should not be given credit for doing what thousands of students do in high school and college in communication classes. Since when is not throwing a child-like temper tantrum for one hour grounds for a good speech? Imagine if President Obama had given the exact same speech. Whatever you think about the man, whether or not you liked his policies, he is undeniably an incredible orator. As a result, had President Obama given the exact same speech that Trump did, the numerous flaws would have been immediately seen and taken to task by every critic in the country. Just because we saw that Donald Trump is capable of being quasi-normal it does not mean he is getting better at his job. As you’re reading this his Attorney General may very well have already resigned. My point is, this is not the time to be soft, now is not the time to say “maybe he is getting better at his job and we should lay off him a little bit.” Now is when we have to remember his transgressions of the past and now is when we have to keep him under that huge magnifying glass and look into and scrutinize every single thing he does. Nothing can be more harmful than falling asleep at the wheel or getting lazy, I mean, the fact that he gave a spectacularly mediocre speech and is being praised for it is proof that he is as divisive, stupid, and dangerous as ever.

He still took credit for several things that began with President Obama and have very little if anything to do with him. He lied about the unemployment number by stating that 94 million Americans are unemployed. The truth however, is that 94 million Americans are out of the labor force. This may seem like an arbitrary distinction, but the vast majority of these 94 million Americans are not looking for work. That poll he cites counts everyone aged 16 and up. It doesn’t take into account that most of those 94 million people are students, retired senior citizens, or people who are not actively looking for work. This is a distinction that has to be made and realized. Once again it shows him picking and choosing what he wants to benefit him the most.

However, the most offensive thing he did, the most appalling, disgusting and manipulative thing he did during his speech was when he brought out the widow of the slain navy seal from the Yemen mission that has thus far revealed no positive results and by all accounts was a waste of money, time, and most importantly lives. This woman has suffered an enormous, life shattering loss and to use her for political gain is terrible. This was not some altruistic deed done out of the goodness of Trump’s heart, as he is still, simultaneously denying that the mission was a failure, while also assigning blame for the mission to the administration in place before him. “This was a mission that was started before I got here. This was something they (the military) wanted to do.” Need I remind you Trump, one of your titles is commander in chief. The military falls under that purview. Following the speech Sean Spicer also tweeted out a picture of the president with Carryn Owens. These are not the acts of a compassionate selfless man, they are the acts of a narcissistic, manipulative, sociopath. (Also while editing this post it has been revealed that Trump has said that Ryan Owens is looking down from heaven happy because his standing ovation was the longest on record.)

1. I’m fairly certain Ryan Owens would prefer to be alive.
2. This is not an accomplishment for Trump

Donald Trump is as much a threat to the US as ever, and just because he gave a speech where he was coherent for the first time in his life he is not turning a corner. Now is not the time to go soft on Trump.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ap-fact-check-trump-distorts-immigration-report-031927207–politics.html

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/carryn-owens-widow-slain-navy-seal-cries-trump-speech-article-1.2985260

atheistanalysis1@gmail.com

@evol_ocean

Betsy Devos

If I can be thankful for one thing that has come out of the Trump administration it’s that there is never a shortage of material to write about. As I began this most recent post I had to make a decision. The decision was to write about Trump barring certain media outlets from his briefing room or to write about the disaster that is Betsy Devos. Ultimately I decided on the latter and the rationale for that is based on the fact that it wasn’t as well covered as Trump negating the first amendment. For those of you who are not aware of what I’m talking about it has to do with the Council for National Policy and the suggestions they made to Betsy Devos. Before I write anything more I want to clearly state that these suggestions have not been made into law. There is nothing to say that they will be and as of this posting all of these are recommendations not fact. Nevertheless, what is being proposed or recommended is terrifying enough that I thought it warranted a blog post. Also given Betsy Devos’ attachments to the Council for National Policy these suggestions could very well become a reality.

First I would like to discuss what it is this group does and who they are. Simply put the Council for National Policy is a group of very wealthy, very powerful conservatives that meet a few times a year behind closed doors to discuss strategy and how to advance the far right’s agenda. This is a very rudimentary definition and if you would like more information about them I will post a few links on the bottom of this page but for brevities sake that is all I will say about them.

Now it is necessary to discuss Betsy Devos’ relationship with this group. As I’ve already stated what they proposed has not been approved or confirmed yet, but given her ties to this group, it is disturbingly clear that someone who suggested arming teachers as a response to bear attacks is not smart enough to refute anything this organization has to say. Possible president Steve Bannon is on the board of governors of the CNP as is Devos’ mother. Kellyanne Conway serves on the executive committee of the CNP and her father in law Richard Devos has twice been president of the CNP. Given these credentials it seems abundantly clear that any “suggestions” given to the secretary of education will be ardently supported.

Onto what the CNP actually proposed. These four statements are assumptions that they believe education reform should be based on.

1. All knowledge and facts have a source, a creator; they are not self-existent.
2. Religious neutrality is a myth perpetrated by secularists who destroy their own claim the moment they attempt to enforce it.
3. Parents and guardians bare final responsibility for their children’s education with the inherent right to teach or choose teachers in schools whether institutional or not.
4. No civil government possesses the right to overrule the educational choices of parents.

Aside from these assumptions the CNP also calls for,

• Restoring the 10 commandment posters in all K-12 classrooms.
• Clearly post America’s constitution and declaration of independence.
• Encourage K-12 to recognize traditional holidays as celebrations of our Judeo-Christian heritage.
• Implement select bible classes.
• Encourage instruction on US and world history from the Judeo-Christian perspective for middle school and high school history and civic classes.
• Develop and recommend In-service training on philosophy of education for K-12 faculty based on historical Judeo-Christian philosophy of education.
• Strongly push states to remove secular-based sex education materials from school facilities, and emphasize parental instruction.

These pillars, or assumptions, or suggestions, or whatever you want to call them are egregious violations of the establishment and separation clauses of the 1^st amendment. In any ordinary administration these would hardly be worthy of addressing as they would be laughed out the door without ceremony. However, under a Trump administration with Betsy Devos as the secretary of education, these “recommendations” are all but certain to happen. I hope I’m wrong. I want nothing more than for me to be wrong. I hope these suggestions are thrown out and don’t get one more minutes consideration. But it is my genuine fear that the separation of church and state will continue to shrink and that these suggestions will be implemented into our public school system. It is growing ever harder to defend the America that is unfolding before our eyes yet I will continue to do so. I will continue to find the good in the country but if these suggestions become realized, it is difficult to see where the proverbial rabbit hole ends. The idea that Trump is a tyrant and the comparisons to past dictators are becoming harder to ignore every day. These suggestions proposed by the CNP must be condemned and denied.

 

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/02/20/evangelical-blueprint-restore-god-schools-handed-trump-devos.html

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_for_National_Policy

 

atheistanalysis1@gmail.com

@evol_ocean