bookmark_borderNo, Tolstoy was not saying that making statues is wrong

Take a look at this great post, with a very true and meaningful quote, and then the obnoxious comment below it:

Um, what? He was talking about you? Really?

First of all, we are not the majority. People like those at Monuments Across Dixie and myself are the minority, as evidenced by the fact that our statues and monuments have been subjected to an almost entirely unopposed and unchallenged campaign of brutal and violent destruction across the entire country.

Second of all, Tolstoy was talking about people who design and commission statues? Really? Tolstoy was saying that making statues is wrong, even though the majority shares in it? Somehow, I doubt that very much.

What an infuriating and idiotic comment. Continuing to see people expressing sentiments such as these is exasperating and mentally exhausting.

Good for Monuments Across Dixie for posting this Tolstoy quote. Contrary to what Richard Binns claims, this quote is much more applicable to the brave minority fighting to defend what makes life worth living (Confederate statues), than it is to the cowardly majority who are cruelly destroying it.

bookmark_border“Anti-Trump Burnout: The Resistance Says It’s Exhausted”

I recently came across an article titled, “Anti-Trump Burnout: The Resistance Says It’s Exhausted.”

This headline confuses me, because people who are anti-Trump are the opposite of the resistance. They are the authority. They are the establishment. They are the people who run the institutions of our society, who hold the power. They are, as hippies would say, the “man.”

This headline is a contradiction in terms, because in reality, Trump and his supporters are the resistance. 

That’s why people were arrested en masse for protesting at the Capitol building in support of him on January 6, 2021.

That’s why one of those protesters was killed by a police officer, and why society almost unanimously reacted to her death by viciously insulting, condemning, ridiculing, and shaming her as opposed to the police officer who killed her. 

That’s why Trump was banned from all of the major social media networks.

That’s why he has been charged in four different criminal cases.

That’s why states have removed his name from their ballots.

That’s why the term “MAGA Republicans” – an abbreviation for Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” – is used as an insult. 

That’s why it is considered socially unacceptable to say that you support Trump, or that you voted for him. 

That’s why, when hundreds of people personally attacked me on social media for expressing my support for statues, one such person noted the fact that I had once retweeted a pro-Trump post and summarily classified me as “human garbage.”

Nothing could be more twisted, or more wrong, than to call the people who control society and use their power to harm and oppress others, the resistance.

It’s also completely lacking in empathy that the so-called “resistance” – which in reality is the anti-resistance – would characterize itself as “exhausted.” There is nothing exhausting about holding all of the power in society and using it to harm and oppress other people. Trump and his supporters are the ones being harmed and oppressed. We are the ones with no power. We, and not the people harming us, have reason to be exhausted. The anti-resistance has nothing to complain about: if harming and oppressing others is so exhausting to you, then stop doing it.

bookmark_borderBigots and bullies threaten to “bird dog” those with dissenting views

Bigots and bullies recently held a rally outside the headquarters of the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. The purpose of this rally, apparently, was to protest the existence of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative-leaning think tank. In other words, the purpose of the rally was for the attendees to protest the existence of people who are different than them. 

“We need to go find out where they live, where they go to church, who they hang around with, and bird dog they asses,” said one of the speakers, according to Breitbart News. Fellow bigots and bullies cheered and yelled, “hell yeah.”

In case anyone needs to be told this, it’s disgusting and despicable to hold a rally protesting the existence of people who are different than you.

It’s disgusting and despicable to hold a rally outside a place where people work, with the intention of intimidating the people who work there.

It’s disgusting and despicable to call for people who are different than you to be stalked, harassed, and “bird dogged” (whatever the heck that means).

It’s disgusting and despicable to cheer or express agreement when someone calls for such a thing.

It’s disgusting and despicable that our society tolerates these behaviors and allows people (and I use that term loosely) to engage in them with no consequences. 

These behaviors demonstrate complete intolerance for diversity, for dissent, and for anyone who differs from the norm in any way. Anyone who engages in these behaviors is a bigot and a bully. 

As for the aforementioned speaker at the rally, I think that someone needs to find out where he lives, where he goes to participate in whichever activities he participates in (because the odds that he goes to church are probably pretty slim), and whom he hangs out with, and then “bird dog” his ass. In fact, I think these things should be done to each and every excuse for a human being who attended the rally. 

Maybe then they would gain some understanding of the harm that they are inflicting on other people through their disgusting and despicable words and actions.

Or, as this meme posted by the Nashville Tea Party so eloquently (and correctly) expresses:

 
 
 
 
 
View this post on Instagram
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by Nashville Tea Party (@nashvilleteaparty)

bookmark_border“A light dusting of snow” – a poem by me

The sun beckons with the promise of spring
But the wind still howls
And rips through the air with bitter cold claws.
Geese congregate on the grass
By the pond, still frozen solid;
A light dusting of snow coats the ground.
All is deserted and quiet,
Save for ducks quacking as they waddle around.

A light dusting of snow coats the ground,
Newly fallen this time.
The picnic table, plants, and stone wall
Like eerie black shadows against the white background.
The big tree looms overhead
And the statue, as always, stands guard
With white flakes clinging his hat and shoulders.
All is peaceful and quiet.

bookmark_borderIn praise of Aaron Rodgers

New York Jets (and former Green Bay Packers) quarterback Aaron Rodgers recently went on Joe Rogan’s podcast and shared his views on vaccine mandates and standing up for what he believes in. 

“I’m going to continue talking about this because it’s important to me. I don’t want the memories to be lost. I don’t want what I went through to get brushed over… Look at my situation, I lost friends, allies in the media, millions of dollars in sponsorship because I talked about what worked for me in my own beliefs and my own health reasons why I didn’t get vaccinated.”

I agree with Rodgers 100%. It seems that, for the most part, people have forgotten about the violations of people’s fundamental rights that were committed in the name of fighting the Covid pandemic. I will never forget the fact that my hometown of Boston decided that people like me would not be allowed into restaurants, bars, gyms, theaters, museums, or other indoor public places. The signs in restaurant windows, announcing that proof of vaccination was required to enter, will forever be seared into my memory. This policy was immoral and wrong. The people who enacted it should not be allowed to just continue with their lives, and move on to other issues, with no negative consequences.

Rodgers is right. The memories should never be lost. Violating people’s rights should never be brushed over. 

Rodgers continued: 

“You stand for something, you stand courageously for what you believe in or the opposite side of that is saying nothing or being a coward. I wasn’t willing to do that. Say whatever you want about the way I went about doing it…

In the end, I believe what I did and what I stand for is a tough position to be in. But I think it’s (an) important responsibility to continue to speak up and use my voice to give other people the permission to stand up as well because there’s a lot of people that believe a lot of the things that I believe in that don’t have the opportunity to do it, don’t have the courage to do it, don’t have the platform to do it in. I feel like I can speak for some of those people and hold the line to some of those people regardless what crosshairs that puts me in with certain media members.”

I absolutely love these sentiments.

Amen.

Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, the article about Rodgers and Rogan’s interview, which was originally published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and also published on Yahoo News, demonstrated the bias that is typical of media outlets. 

The article states:

“Rodgers claimed that people ‘didn’t do critical thinking’ during the pandemic and alleged that ‘as more research comes out, there’s more papers published in very reputable scientific publications that talk about all of the things I was stumping for and talking about.’ What exact scientific publications he was referring to wasn’t clear.”

The fact that people didn’t do critical thinking during the pandemic is not merely something that Rodgers is claiming; it is true. Far too many people failed to think critically during the pandemic, as demonstrated by the widespread enactment of, and public support for, policies that violate people’s rights. 

It’s also unnecessary to mention that it is unclear which scientific publications Rodgers refers to. The author could have simply omitted this sentence. It doesn’t add any information or explanation but is merely the author’s way of expressing his skepticism of, and disdain for, Rodgers. And expressing one’s opinions or feelings about the subject of an article is exactly what journalists should avoid doing.

Another thing mentioned in the article is that Rodgers lost his weekly appearances on “The Pat McAfee Show” due to his controversy with Jimmy Kimmel. This angers me, because Rodgers didn’t do anything wrong and does not deserve to be punished in any way for his comments on Kimmel. As I explained in an earlier post, Kimmel is the one who behaved wrongly in this situation, and therefore the one who deserves to be punished. Kimmel deserves to lose his late-night talk show more than Rodgers deserves to lose his radio appearances.

bookmark_borderYet another instance of election hypocrisy

 
 
 
 
 
View this post on Instagram
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by Defiant L’s (@defiant.ls)

In this post, Dean Obeidallah demonstrates hypocrisy, as well as intolerance and authoritarianism. 

There is no such thing as an “election denier.” It’s called a person who believes that the election was illegitimate.

There is no such thing as a “democracy denier.” It’s called a person who doesn’t believe that democracy is the best form of government (which it isn’t, by the way.)

Obeidallah needs to stop presuming the truth of what he is trying to prove, because as I explained in a previous post, doing so is the very essence of intolerance and authoritarianism.

Enough already.

bookmark_borderAnother instance of election hypocrisy

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Defiant L’s (@defiant.ls)

Contrary to what George Takei claims in the above post, there is no such thing as an “election denier.”

It’s called a person who believes that the election was illegitimate.

Takei needs to stop presuming the truth of what he is trying to prove, because as I explained in a previous post, presuming the truth of what one is trying to prove is the very essence of intolerance and authoritarianism.

Repeatedly seeing posts like this – and by “this,” I mean Takei’s posts, as opposed to the post by Defiant Ls pointing out his hypocrisy – is exasperating and mentally exhausting.

bookmark_borderThe statues weren’t hurting anyone, and neither was I

Everyone else wore jeans and t-shirts. I wore jumpers, plaid skirts, cardigans, Mary Janes.

Everyone else got their hair highlighted and wore makeup. I wore hair ribbons and pigtails.

Everyone else spoke in the latest slang in order to sound “cool.” I used big words and spoke formally.

Everyone else IM’d with their friends after school. I went online to read about historical figures. I made drawings and paper dolls of them.

Everyone played the same computer games, listened to the same music, watched the same TV shows and movies. Everyone except for me.

I collected dolls, toy soldiers, Beanie Babies, and model horses. Everyone called me babyish and weird.

I picked my nose, and the other kids whispered to each other about how gross I was. I picked at my face and scalp instead, but the other kids still whispered to each other about me, and how weird I was. So instead I went through my hair and took out the strands that had become detached, tidying and cleaning up my hair, but the other kids commented on how gross and weird that was as well. So I forced myself to sit, uncomfortable and bored out of my mind, with nothing to occupy my hands.

I was not hurting anyone. I was not hurting anyone by dressing the way that looked good to me, moving and organizing my body in the way that felt good to me, spending my time and energy pursuing the things that I was interested in. I was not hurting anyone by existing in the world as my authentic self, in a way that was different from other people.

The statues are the same as me. They dressed differently from people today, looked differently, spoke differently, thought differently.

Therefore, the statues weren’t hurting anyone either.

The statues symbolized people like me, people who are different. The statues symbolized the idea that people like me have a right to be included in society. When people tore down the statues, that is what they attacked.

Seeing those statues standing, in public parks and city squares, told me that I had the right to exist, even though I am different from others. Because those statues were different from other people, and they had the right to exist.

When people tore down the statues, they took that away from me.

When mayors and city councils ordered the statues removed, they were literally redesigning public spaces in order to communicate that people like me do not have the right to exist there, in order to ensure that people like me would feel excluded.

This is not being inclusive, or ensuring that everyone feels welcome. It is the exact opposite.

When people tore down the statues, they did so because they believe that a person who dresses differently, looks differently, moves differently, speaks differently, and thinks differently should not be allowed to exist.

When people tore down the statues, they did so because they believe, through some perverse logic that is incomprehensible to me, that their right to be surrounded entirely and exclusively by people who dress like them, look like them, move like them, speak like them, and think like them, outweighs my right to exist.

This is not diversity. It is the exact opposite.

This is why Confederate statues and Christopher Columbus statues are so important.

This is why the issue of statues is personal to me.

This is why I will never forget what people did to the statues, why I will never move on, why I will never stop writing and posting about the statues, why I will never focus on other, more important issues.

Because there are no issues more important than this.

I wasn’t hurting anyone by existing, and neither were the statues.