Unkind and unfair

I was thinking about the resurgence of the '70's policies and their inevitable consequences, and I realized something. 

We, as a nation, have become profoundly unkind and unfair.  

History repeats; or if it doesn't straight up repeat, it rhymes.  Or at least, that used to be the case, when it was actually taught as a series of choice/consequence pairs. Now, it just repeats.  Over and over.  About every twenty or thirty years.  

We used to learn from history, until people who were kind and gentle and didn't want to traumatize the kids changed the way it was taught (at the behest of people who thought that they'd find it easier to seize power if it wasn't taught...and they were right).  We no longer learn from the mistakes others have made; instead, we make our own.  

When I was in school, I read history.  I read a lot of history.  Mostly because of the self-esteem movement blocking me from reading-level-appropriate fiction because "we don't want to make your classmate that can't read feel bad."  I read a lot dissecting how this act led to that reprisal.  

And then, I saw similar playing out on the playground: one of my classmates would be an asshole, and another classmate would bop them, or kick them, and their behavior straightened up.  Action/choice led to obvious (and fair) consequences.  

And so, children used to learn not to be dicks to each other.  

I also saw when the "anti-bullying" turned from "Hey, y'all, stop being a dick to the weird kid" to "Oh, you poor, disenfranchised baby, you can be mean to anyone, and we'll punish them for applying consequences." 

That was profoundly unkind, and unfair: kids are dicks.  And they've got to learn that there are consequences.  By preventing the consequences of their actions from being applied, the "kind" grownups removed an opportunity and an incentive to learn socially appropriate behavior.  

It's spreading, even now: we've seen it with people living way above their means; we've seen it with businesses going under because they've made long-term stupid their missions statement.  And it's because kids aren't taught consequences of their choices at young enough ages, because kids are protected from the fallout of their own stupid choices.  

It's a profound disservice, and we're really starting to see the economic fallout: in slapping layers of regulations on businesses, the government are jacking up the costs of doing business.  The businesses start jacking up prices, and people stop buying from them.  The government slaps more regulations on the businesses, limiting how much they're allowed to charge, so the business cuts prices...but also cuts quality.  Which drives more people away from them...and then the business starts failing. 

We've seen what happens when they're allowed to fail.  Yes, it's horrible for the people employed by the business; however it's worse when the business is bailed out by the government.  Especially when part of the bail out is new regulations that prevent new businesses from rising up and doing what the failing one was doing, but better and cheaper and higher quality, because there are better choices--smarter choices--being made.  

Case in point: car makers with plants in the United States.  The ones owned by American companies are infested with unions and slammed with regulations; the ones owned by foreign car manufacturers have some of the same regulations, but they're not infested with parasites on top of it.  American car makers are failing; they're failing, and their flailing for government bailouts.  

Unfortunately, those come with more shackles strings attached.  

I say let them fail.  Let the unions murder the jobs that they claim they're trying to protect.  Let the government murder the industries.  Let them fail.  

Maybe, just maybe, we can figure out where the fail point was, and fix the problem.  

But it takes failure, it takes natural consequences to punish bad choices before we can even begin to recover.  

The fail point is government.  The fail point is regulations, regulatory costs, and the push by the stupid and uneducated toward the impossible. 

It's not fair to the rest of us.  It's not kind to us, or to our children.  

We're not allowed to hit the bully back.  We're not allowed to side-step the increasing regulations laid on vital infrastructure.  

Sarah Hoyt says "Build over, build under, build around." And we're going to have to.  Because the Gods of the Copybook Headings will not be gainsaid.  

Not teaching that has been the harshest, most unfair, most unkind thing that weaponized "nice" has done.

Free is worth what you pay for it.

I think I've figured something important out. 

A few years ago, before I had the kids, I worked with the football team.  I tutored, and helped them correct, their writing about five hours a week.  Was paid about $10/hour for it.  I'd've been happy to do it for free, but for something a colleague (the one who set the whole thing up) said: "You have to set a price.  If you don't, they won't value what you're offering."

Most of my students don't pay for their own college tuition and/or fees.  They get grants, scholarships, and loans for that.  They don't have to bust their asses at work, trying to earn the money to pay $300+ per class, plus the approximately $700 for all the other assorted fees and textbooks.

From what I've seen, few of the traditional students--those who take out the most in loans and grants--don't value their classes.  They love classes like the "university experience" class (what used to be Freshman Orientation, and was a 1 cr hr 6 week course, but is now a 3 cr hr 16 week course), because they're "easy A" classes, or classes that it's "okay to skip because the professor doesn't care." 

And Bernie Sanders wants to make all undergraduate work "free." 

The thing is, most people see the grants and loans as "free" money.  They don't think about how much it's going to take to pay off the loans.  They don't think about the future.  And they damn sure don't think about what others have to do to earn the money for the federal grants.  It's "free."  Not worth anything.

I think I'm beginning to understand why so few value their voting rights.  Free is worth what you, yourself, pay for it. 

Because, with most of these kids, if they're not the ones earning it, then it's worth nothing.  They don't see others' sacrifice, and absolutely don't look toward the future. 

My giveadamn's busted.

Baltimore.  I just...don't care.  The people of Baltimore have chosen the course that has led to the consequences they're facing.  They voted for the shitheaps that created policy that led to the repeated incidences of police brutality that had everybody believing that the cops there severed Gray's spinal cord.

It isn't going to matter if evidence and autopsies prove that he did it to himself in the hopes of being able to sue the city.  Like with Ferguson, rioters are converging on Baltimore to destroy it, and no inconvenient fact is going to interfere with their beliefs that the cops murdered another undeserving black man.

I cannot bring myself to feel for the "victims" of the rioting.  They chose this, through their voting patterns, and through remaining in the situation.  The only ones I feel sorry for is those who are trying to keep family-owned businesses that have been in the same place for generations, businesses who literally could not survive without their long-built-up customer bases...and I question how many of those there actually are.

I do not feel sorry for the rioters--they aren't there for Gray, or for any honest protests about police brutality.*  So fucking what if their bail is "unfair" (according to lawyers)?  They earned the price the judges set on their heads, every penny.

I do not feel sorry for the scumbag's family.  If they'd really cared for the young man, they'd have stepped in a long time ago and taught him real, civilized values, instead of turning him into a stupid sociopath predator.

I do not feel sorry for the scumbag.  Especially since evidence has come out showing he'd done it to himself.

I do not feel sorry for the police force.  From what I've read, they've been predators on the law abiding almost as bad as Gray was.

I do feel sorry for the good ones amongst the bad, but that's limited by the fact that they have not stepped up to boot the scumbags out of uniform and out of the force.  They are as much at fault for the current situation as the bad cops.  Remember what they say about what allows evil to flourish.

Seriously.  At this point, after all of this, my ability to care, which is sorely limited by my own borderline sociopathic tendencies to not care about other people, has been completely worn out.

Um, no.

There's a church, a Baptist church, that is not too far from the campus.  We drive past it every time we take the kids to school, or Odysseus goes to class, or I go to teach.  Often times, their moveable type billboard is amusing ("Forbidden fruit makes for some interesting jams"), but recently, their message makes me want to slap somebody:

"Jesus died just for you."

Really?

Really.

Really.

What kind of special snowflake narcissist does it take to accept that message?  That they are, personally, more important to God and Christ than the rest of us.  Seriously?  Jesus died just for me?

Hardly.  I am one soul, in two thousand years of lost ones.  How am I more important that the uncounted billions between then and now? My kids are, in my opinion, far more important than I am.

No.  Christ didn't die "just for you."  He didn't die just for me.  He did something far more ballsy: he took on the sins of all of us, from the moment Adam fell through when the last human being goes poof because God decided he'd had enough of all of us.  He didn't die for any single one, but took on the sins of, and died to atone for, all of us.   

"Jesus died just for you."

Right. 

Who is my neighbor?

I hold myself--not the government, but myself--responsible for doing what I can to alleviate need I see in my neighbors.  A year or so ago, it was literally across the street: we had Bob and June Wheeler move into a house on the corner across the street that should have been torn down years ago.  They had nothing.  Literally nothing.  Only barely enough clothes for their kids.  No water, no electricity--the house wasn't up to code, and they couldn't afford to turn on their utilities, anyway.

We fed them all summer.  Took June to pick up an antibiotic prescription.  Helped literally as much as we could, up to and including attempting to get them signed up for the aid that they desperately needed, and what we couldn't afford to provide.

And then, we helped them scrape the money together to put gas in their truck to move in with her mother, most of the state away from us. 

It is my responsibility, when I see need, to do what I can to alleviate that need without endangering my own family's survival. 

That's why I linked this guy's GoFundMe page.  From what I gather, he is a patriot.  He has worked, and worked hard, all of his life.  He had an accident--which he didn't cause through bad behavior, mind you--and can't work any longer. 

In the Bible, Jesus was asked, "Who is my neighbor?"  He told a long, beautiful story about a man who was robbed, beaten, and left for dead, and how people who should have stopped and helped, didn't.  How somebody that, by all rights, should not have felt obligated, stopped.  It wasn't the government that helped.  It wasn't the church.  It was an ordinary, everyday individual.

The main point was, and still is, that we are all neighbors.  We are all supposed to help one another back up when we fall.  We are all supposed to nurse one another back to health when we're sick, clothe one another when we're in need, and feed one another when we're hungry.  We aren't supposed to shrug, say, "Well, I pay taxes--let the government do it," or "Isn't that what the church is supposed to do?" 

I can help Steven at the end of the month.  I can't help now.  He needs as much help as he can get, as fast as he can get it. 

He is my neighbor.  I am doing what I can, even if all I can do at the moment is to help get the word out.

Unpleasant.

A white Chevy pickup with a tow bar in back and light bar across the top pulled up in the middle of the street next to our car, last night.  Driver got out, and started eyeballing it.  Passenger got out and pointed to the bottom corner of the windshield.  I brought Odysseus's attention to it, and he stepped out onto our porch, and asked what the hell was going on.  Driver of the pickup--a man in his late 40's--started up our front walk, holding out some papers.  Odysseus put his hand on his gun and backed up, and told the guy to stay back.  And then to get the hell off the property and away from the car.

Then, when the truck pulled on down the street, Odysseus called the local PD to report suspicious behavior. 

...and the truck pulls back up from the other direction.  Numbnuts went around the block.  Goes to our neighbor's house and talks to him for a bit, then heads back towards our car. 

At which point, the local cops pull up behind him, and he freaks out, then bugs out. 

Now, I'm not sure whether that was a legitimate repo guy looking for a car, and mistook ours for the one he was looking for (easy to do at TEN FUCKING THIRTY AT FUCKING NIGHT), or was a thief looking for a payday.  It doesn't matter, because we've owned that car since '04, and have had it paid off since '07.  Anybody towing it is stealing it, whether it's a mistake on their part, or not.

Either way, I spent a bad night with a fuckton of nightmares, and Odysseus had a short night after being unable to get to sleep until nearly two this morning.

And if I see that truck, and that individual messing around our vehicles again, he's not going to be real happy.  Nobody is, looking down the barrel of a handgun. 

Just seen on Facebook:

"Kate Middleton is officially in labor!  What do you think?"

As a mother who's been through it twice (once very early, leading to a hospitalized imp; and twice with a distressed baby with an umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, leading to a rushed delivery), I hope her labor is short and safe, leading to a healthy baby.  Otherwise, I couldn't give less of a shit.

Idiot.

Harry Reid is one. 

Climate change isn't what's responsible for the devastating wildfires in the Western states.  It's the attitude that all forested areas must be maintained as-is, with no brush-cutting, no controlled burns, no preventative measures. 

A natural forest has smaller fires more frequently--things that clear out tinder.  And then, they go out. 

When the tinder isn't cleared, it builds up enough for lightning strikes to spark a fire, and for the fire to quickly grow out of control.

It isn't climate change in any form causing fires.  It's the environmentalistas meddling where they lack a basic Boy Scout level of understanding.

Disgusting, but not surprising.

There was a murder over Independence Day weekend.  A kid celebrating his 21st birthday attacked and stabbed a homeless Vietnam veteran. 

I say it's not surprising because I know that age group, and I know how many of them have grown up in a home where the parents are either absent entirely, leaving them to raise themselves without a sense of right and wrong, or the parents want to be their "friend," and it's a miracle if they ever learn to distinguish between right and wrong because they have no boundaries set. 

I will admit, it's not easy to raise children.  Especially not smart ones, who want to know why you told them not to throw things in the house, or why you're telling them not to run in the house, or why they have to stop doing something they want to do (but has the potential to hurt them really badly).  I'm still trying, though.  I've set boundaries, and told the imp that he's not to do this or that because he might hurt himself or someone else.  If he goes ahead and does it, and it's only going to hurt him (a little), I let him, because then he doesn't do it again.  If it has the potential to hurt someone else, I immediately stop him, and tell him he's going to hurt someone else.  If he persists, I spank him. 

Boundaries are important.  Kids need to learn, and early, what is and isn't acceptable behavior.  They need to learn that other people have feelings, and that their lives are also important.  If children don't learn that as children, they won't learn it as adults, either.  And they end up seeing the world as something placed for their convenience, and peopled by cardboard cutouts. 

Parents used to teach their kids right from wrong, or if they didn't, their church family did.  In a nation peopled increasingly by adult-aged spoiled toddlers who don't want to put themselves out to raise their kids, or listen to a message that there is an absolute moral code by which they should live, we're going to see a rise in the number of nasty little sociopaths, and stupid ones who can't see why they should put on a mask to fit in and hide what they are, much less be able to.

Eloquent.

DaddyBear's lovely wife gives a wonderfully stated, beautiful summation of the anger of middle class Americans faced paying for insuring those who aren't worth the space they take up. 

I have had one single employer who offered health insurance.  One.  Only.  And it was my grad school, for whom I was a teaching assistant.  I have paid out of my own pocket for health insurance since then.  We have catastrophe only coverage, with a $10,000 deductible, on a family of four...and it costs us nearly $300/month right now.  I'm sure that's going to spike, soon.  And then we'll also be paying fines for not having insurance compliant with minimum requirements.

I'm ready to say "fuck it," drop insurance entirely, slap the monthly premiums into savings, pay cash for the doctor, dentist, and optometrist (like we do already), and just flat out pay the fine. 

Because my household income doesn't quite come up to the the cost of the plan that the fed.gov considers minimum allowable without a fine. 

And I'm about ready to start advocating race rioting in the inner cities to cut down on non-taxpaying leeches. 

Please don't feed, poke, harass, or take pictures of the animals.

When they get agitated, they get aggressive. 

I think it's time to thin the pack a little. 

Oh...lovely.

It's not compassion pushing the euthanasia laws in Europe.  It's the fact that those who are terminally ill suck down a massive dollar amount of the socialist medical services, leaving less money available for those who can be helped.  It's a cold-blooded assessment of return on investment; there is no compassion anywhere but perhaps in the doctors who can't stand to see their patients suffer, and in the family members whose loved ones are suffering with no relief in sight but death.

Now, Belgium had decided that the practice of euthanasia can and should be extended to children.  Individuals who are incapable of informed consent to smoke, drink, and have sex.  Why is it that the government believes that giving informed consent to taking poison is any different?

Is this what we want for our country?  If we follow in Europe's footsteps with permitting the termination of the terminally ill, how long will it be before it's determined that nobody who is terminally ill can knowingly consent because of the medications they're on, and that all terminally ill individuals, whether it's a 90 year old or a 9 month old, must be terminated? 

And how long will it be before people are wrongfully diagnosed as terminal, and terminated when they've got years of high-quality life left?

Case in point: when my husband worked as a loan shark payday lender, he had a regular customer for the prepaid visas.  This woman was diagnosed as having less than a year to live with lung cancer (I think).  We saw her, recently, at Sam's Club.  It's been more than five years since that diagnosis.  And, from what I know of her, she's lived--really lived--every day of that extra time.

Euthanasia laws bother me, less because I have a problem with people choosing to end their own lives, and more because of the rationale behind them.  Especially when there's a distinct possibility that the person who will be euthanized either can't choose it for themselves, or are ordered to die to save money in a system of socialized medicine. 

Bursting with class

You know, I had no real idea who Jesse Ventura was.  Still don't.  All I really know about him is that he's painted in a very bad light in murdered Navy SEAL Chris Kyle's book, was suing Kyle for defamation of character, and that he's trying to shift the lawsuit to Kyle's widow.  I suppose he's trying to save face...but what he's actually doing is demonstrating what a classless, sack of shit moron he is. 

Ventura needs to remember that Kyle had something he doesn't: a sense of honor that wouldn't let him publish something untrue.  He should also remember that suing a murdered man's widow just proves that Kyle's claim of Ventura badmouthing military at a memorial for a fallen SEAL is more than likely understating the matter.  

Ventura will be remembered, but only as the classless jackass that not only can't keep his mouth shut but sues a dead man's widow for something (true) the dead man said.  However, I don't think this is how he wants to be remembered. 

Wow. Big surprise, there.

It makes enormous sense that physically strong men are more independent, more conservative, more likely to believe that they, and they alone, are the only ones entitled to their hard work, while weaker men are more likely to believe in a welfare state. 

If they're not working out (and learning the value of hard work as they build their muscles artificially), they're working at hard, physically demanding jobs.  Jobs that are either very high paying, or very low paying.  And they understand the value of being willing to work, and work hard. 

Weaker men, on the other hand...see the stronger men, and think, "I want what they've got.  But I don't want to work for it.  I'll just have the government hold a gun to their head, and make them hand it over to me."

They carefully noted that there was no difference between stronger and weaker women.  But that's not where the divide lies, there: the divide lies between women married to a breadwinner, and single women who spread their legs for all-comers, and depend on their low-hanging crotch fruit as income generation. 

You know...the ones screwing the pansies that want the government to pay for everything. 

Wow.

If soldiers were really the ravening barbarian murderers that their detractors bawl out at anti-war rallies and protests, this would have ended much differently. 

Even those who decry our military as evil baby-killing murder-mad psychos understand, on a deep, gut level, that our soldiers are some of the best, noblest, most self-disciplined individuals* in the world--if they didn't believe it, there's no way they'd be brave enough to act like they did in the seventies, and like some of them still do, even today. 

*For the most part.  There are bad ones in every bunch.

Gah. People.

I want to tell a bit of a story, basically what I know of a friend's backstory.

See, her mother got pregnant with her at seventeen at a drive-in theater (which is why I probably won't let my kids go on dates to our local one when they're old enough).  The biological father disappeared, and her mother eventually got married to someone else.

I met my friend in '98, just before I started college.  Not too long before she got married to another who also quickly became a friend.  We were close at college, but drifted apart afterwards.  We reconnected, and it seemed like no time had passed once I moved back to the area after I got my MA degree, about three or four years later. 

I found out that, during the time we'd been apart, her mother and step-father had divorced (after her step-father announced he was gay and moved his boyfriend in--which really messed up her little brother), and her biological father came back into the picture. 

That man is a whining, backstabbing, abusive cunt of the first degree.

My friend's marriage was never the strongest.  Instead of being supportive and trying to help, her male genetic donor (hereafter mgd) called her husband gay for liking his ex-father-in-law better.  Called him trash.  Pressured my friend to divorce him.  Pulled her mom into the middle of things, manipulated his daughter, his wife, and basically the entire situation to try to shift fault from himself to anybody or anything else.

He's rude, abusive, and dismissive toward all attempts to come to any kind of truce--he goes so far as to hang up on his daughter if she has the gall to call her own mother on her mother's home phone.

My friend has since divorced, remarried, and had a beautiful baby boy.  Babies take a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot of energy both mental and physical. So, when my friend forgot to call for her mother's birthday or anniversary (not real clear on which), he left her a nasty message on her Facebook wall. 

I have known my friend much longer than he has--at least four years longer.  I know damn well she is not manipulative and backstabbing, as he's called her.  Nope, I'm pretty sure that's nothing more than projection. 

So, of course, being the nosy bitch I am (his words), I jumped on him with both feet to defend her--mentioned his lack of presence during her formative years (which he blamed on his father wanting to marry her mother), and pointed out what a hero he was for verbally attacking my friend in a public forum...at which point, he left me a nasty response with a bit of profanity, then deleted the whole posting, rather than let anybody else jump in to defend her. 

Nice, huh?

Well, today, he left me a long message via Facebook about how wrong I was about the whole situation, how he's the victim, and my friend is the lying backstabbing horror. 

Uh-huh.  Yup.  He reminds me of my mgd. 

  

And, for the record, I will jump in and defend any of my friends facing verbal attack by an asshole.  Unless it's a joke between friends. 

I usually don't say things like this.

But I firmly believe that Planned Parenthood abortion providers and advocates are going to hell.  To say that a person who went in to have their unborn baby murdered and the doctor committing the murder have the right to kill the baby anyway if it manages to survive what they attempted to do, and is born alive and breathing is horrendous. 

I've had people tell me that being pro-life and pro death penalty is being a hypocrite.  I don't think it is.  The person who's been sentenced to death has committed first degree murder--has coldly planned and executed a plan designed to end in the death of another person.  The person on death row is less than a rabid animal, and should not be permitted to be anywhere near civilization.  A baby aborted has literally done nothing wrong.  The only person who has, in that instance, is the baby's mother, who has coldly planned and executed a plan that she intends to end in the death of an innocent.  Her baby.  Honestly, I think almost the same of a woman who chose to have an abortion as I think of a first degree murderer--almost, because most of these women have bought into lies propagated by Planned Parenthood and the death culture of the left. 

Now, being pro-abortion and anti-death penalty...now that's not hypocritical, either.  Because those who are pro-abortion are also pro-first degree murder.  Being pro-abortion is evil. 


*I am not fully anti-abortion.  I do believe it should be legal for a doctor to perform, but not for a woman to choose because she wants to end an unwanted, unplanned pregnancy.  Sometimes, abortion is the best option for the fetus, and sometimes it's necessary to save the life of the mother. 

Prince Charles had better hire a food taster.

If Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II thinks she's going to die, she's going to make sure that Charles precedes her.  He'll make a truly awful king, and complete the job of destroying the tradition of monarchy that her grandson will be able to preserve.

"Against policy."

A woman died in a rest home after a nurse that worked there refused to give her CPR because it was against company policy.

Before too much longer, it's probably going to be against hospitals' and clinics' policies, as well, thanks to mandatory Medicaid not paying overhead costs much less enough to make payroll.

If CPR is against company policy at a retirement home, then the person who owns and runs it should be placed in their own business after they retire, and have to abide by the policies they set.  And I hope they choke on a chicken bone, and are refused the Heimlich maneuver. 

That's awesome.

A man in Utah re-learned the old lesson--don't bring a knife to a gun fight. 

You know, I'm really starting to get the feeling that people don't trust their government agencies (which includes the police) to protect them.

All I can say to that is...good.