Cocktail / Dinner Party Don’ts

Discussing, politics, religion, & the family doctor at social gatherings… BIG social no-no’s!

Audrey-Hepburn-cocktail-partyI was at a dinner party the other night.  It was nice until someone assumed that everyone in the crowd would be voting for Hillary!  I corrected him, simply saying that I wasn’t. Then he called me a misogynist because I’m not on the Hillary bandwagon.  Hey, I’m not voting for Trump either!

In hindsight, since the word misogynist rolled off the guys tongue with the same venom as the word “Racist” I probably should have kept my mouth shut.

I didn’t!

I asked this person to explain their logic.  Things went down hill from there, I really need to learn how to disengage, or better yet not engage at all!
98bfb6e471935dadaa9cf4a349113cf1

This person explained that is was time for America to have a woman president.

He went on to justify that statement by saying European countries had elected women leaders. I asked how he could justify voting for Hillary when we know she’s lied about at least one issue of national security regarding her email server, and that the FBI is currently investigating her.

I also pointed out that if she were a man, or Republican, or a citizen like everyone in the room, she’d be out of the presidential race and likely in jail. The response was, “Hillary is better than Trump.”

“What about Fiorina,” I asked.

“She’s a Republican!”

Hillary-Clinton.pngAt which point, I pointed out that his choice of Hillary was in fact not based simply on the fact that America needed a woman president but party politics.

Then the guy tried to “WIN” the conversation by loudly asking me again if I was a misogynist and accused me of being afraid of a woman president.  I told him that I thought his attitude was based in misandry and given that he was a man I found that quite ironic.

Thinking about it… That was when I should have stopped.

He didn’t understand what I’d said, so I should have realized I was having a war of wits with and unarmed person.

The discussion, such as it was, devolved into his pronouncements that no-one should have guns and everyone in America was afraid.  I told him I thought that he was overstating the issue. Especially considering that Munich was currently on lockdown due to threats from ISIS. And that in the wake of Paris, and San Bernardino perhaps being prudent and more aware of our surroundings was not a bad idea.

His rather angry response was to tell me that being alert and aware of your surroundings, or preparing for things like fire, or earthquake, and more recently jihadi attacks, by noting things such as exits in a public place is paranoid and demonstrative of the cowardice of America.

Therefore I was paranoid and a coward. Uhhh WOW!

Justice-in-the-Form-of-a-New-Law-Served-to-PA-Crime-VictimsI pointedly asked him if he really thought it was paranoid to take just the slightest moment to note exits in case of an emergency. He responded that even if terrorists came into a restaurant shooting he’d be ok getting shot.

My brain rebooted.

In my world view  you never just lay down and die, especially not when you have options, like the ability to retreat.

DUDE-WTF-IS-WRONG-WITH-YOUI asked him to explain himself and honestly was curious about the foundations of his belief,  because that mindset is so completely Alien to me.

He started spouting circular and rhetorical talking points that led me to believe he worked for the progressive Democrat movement. After several rotations of the talking points, suddenly he threw in people don’t need to carry guns.

I said what?

Then I realized he was referring to the new Texas open carry law, and that somehow in his world view, now everyone was carrying guns all the time everywhere. I even pointed out that people exactly like him had managed to take the right of open carry away from their fellow citizens in California.

I kept asking questions and he kept parroting the progressive liberal talking points. It became very clear that he wasn’t actually thinking. I have no problem with people having differing opinions from mine, I have a real problem with people regurgitating stuff that they’ve not really thought about.

moderate-alcohol-consumption-beneficialGranted there was some alcohol involved and somewhere in my brain there was a diagnostic running that was questioning if I was drunk and being an ass.

The little boy in me said “He Started it!”

I’d decided to disengage because I was tired of making points that he tried to erase by parroting canned talking points, but being unable to discuss or expound on any of those points.

Later, It occurred to me that this person had probably never in his entire live been in a situation where they were the least bit on the edge. His world experiences were so safe or he was so oblivious, that he actually believed he was safe from everything all the time. This is a person who believes they don’t have to have an earthquake kit because the government will be there to make everything fine, instantly.

At that moment, I wasn’t able to look at this person with anything but contempt. I saw the guy as prey, a sheep, weak, and someone that I wouldn’t miss if I never saw him again. If an earthquake had happened at that exact moment, I’d have done nothing to ensure his safety. Sheep die all the time…

Things really took a turn towards the surreal when my other half told the guy he was being an ass by not allowing me or anyone else to complete a sentence without interruption.

The other half even said I wasn’t being an Ass, but that the other guy was. I began looking for signs I’d entered an alternate universe, I didn’t find any so…

Surprise Surprise Surprise! I’m not a complete asshole!

That my other half took a side like that, surprised the hell out of me

Normally I’m allowed to make an ass of myself without comment. On rare occasion I’m  told I’m being an asshole, and that I need to shut up.

In this situation apparently, my only fault was answering someone who was clearly interested in a battle of wits, they thought they’d win.

They weren’t prepared to have someone say, “Defend your opinions.”

I was really worried that the other half was pissed at me. I asked about it and was told it wasn’t me.

Church Lady isn't that specialA friend reminded me that I should have dropped to my Southern upbringing and simply avoided the whole conversation with;

“How nice” or “Bless your heart”

That’s really good advice and I’ll be taking it next time.

The end of white guilt ?

White people shoulda thought of this years ago. White guilt is going to be eliminated, not because any of the issues actually get fixed, but because the trigger words for white guilt will have lost all meaning.

This country is racist, That town is racist, This person is racist, That college is racist, The police are racist, The media is racist,

racist

RACIST

RACIST


Cursed.jpegIt reminds me of the scene in The Mummy Returns where one of the bad guys is grumbling at another bad guy “This is Cursed, That is Cursed,” and starts pointing at random objects “Cursed, Cursed, Cursed!”

Of course all three of those bad guys come to a nasty end at the hands of their employer, The Mummy. Nonetheless it stands as an example of what happens when you overuse a word.

After a while the word loses all meaning and no-one pays attention anymore. Oops! The Mummy just ate you.


College-Campus.jpegSince I mentioned “trigger words” I wonder where the White safe space is? Where on college campuses can oppressed fearful white student go and not hear the incessant “trigger word” of their assumed guilt.

Oh yeah, there aren’t any spaces like that. Not anymore, even though there used to be. They were called college campuses. Ironic that once the Campus was the bastion of freedom of speech, free exchange of ideas, and an opportunity for young adults to mature while coming to grips with the world in a place of safety.

Today however that feeling of safety has been reduced by nothing other than Social Justice Warriors run amok. Now it’s perfectly okay to terrorize people who are symbols of oppression even if they themselves are not oppressors, and never have been.

WTF

Unless those people happen to be followers of Islam / Daesh.

Then it’s forbidden to say anything at all, regardless of the horrific oppression of women, the enforced control over women’s bodies, the enslavement of children for sexual purposes, the murder of people who believe in a different version of God, the murder of gay people, or simply those presumed to be gay.

Speaking out against these horrors is racist, leaving a large percent of the population with a WTF look on their faces.

Yes, I just conflated Islam with Daesh. I did it on purpose and in this particular way because there’s not much difference, and because Isis, was an Egyptian goddess and I’d like to see her name restored to her.


My point is, that amidst all the noise and craziness of tiny events and small affronts, we’re losing sight of some really important global issues and simultaneously devaluing the impact that certain words should have.

If you call someone a racist, that word should have impact. It should mean something and is supposed to be a word that invites censure of the person being described as such.

If everyone is racist, then no-one is. If everyone is special, then no-one is.


What has brought this particular train of thought to derailment in this blog, is the recent dust-up at a Missouri college. Apparently the football team is threatening to strike unless a white university president is removed.

ap-university-of-missouri-protests-grow-after-athletes-jump-in.jpgI’m sad to report that Monday, the rabid crowd got their wish, the president resigned.

BUT was it his fault that there was name calling? That some drunken frat boy yelled the “N” word at members of a black student organization?

That two trucks drove by a student protest flying Confederate Battle flags? That someone made a swastika of Poo in a Dorm bathroom?

NO! It wasn’t.

confederate-Flag-in-a-truck.pngRegardless of what many people apparently would like to think, white people are not all controlling, omniscient, all powerful beings.

This president’s ONLY failing in this matter was that he happened to be white.

That is exemplified by one of the student groups issuing a long list of demands that read like random sections from a drunken reading of Mein Kampf. (I know kids, you don’t know what that is and you’re afraid to read it because it was written by Hitler and might trigger you.)

The standout demand was they wanted the university president to acknowledge his “white privilege”. Which to me is akin to nothing short of saying “I’m a racist, and all white people are racists. Please kill us and burn our societies to the ground. Then bitch at those of us that survive because you can’t charge your damn iPhone.”

Whatever investigations this university president may have initiated to get to the bottom of the events didn’t bear fruit within the requisite 15 minutes demanded by a campus full of short attention span morons.

No white people were randomly dragged forth from a dorm to be punished by the mob for their complicity in institutional racism. The crowd demanded instant action and heads of the offenders on pikes.


Funny story. There once was a little town in Florida called Rosewood. The town was almost exclusively black and it’s people lived in relative peace with churches, stores, a turpentine mill and sugarcane mill. In all respects it was a nice middle class town.

In 1923, in a completely wrong misguided quest for instant “Justice” white men lynched a black resident of Rosewood because a white woman who was having an affair told a lie.

Seems the woman had been smacked around by her lover while her husband was at work. In an attempt to explain her injuries she claimed a black drifter had beaten her and she implied she’d been raped.

Predictably, people lost their damn minds. The folks in Rosewood justifiable organized to protect themselves. The white folks organized to essentially compound their screw up and began combing the countryside for black people and burned virtually every structure in Rosewood to the ground.

The town was abandoned and never rebuilt.

I learned about Rosewood in junior high school, in Florida… You know that place everyone likes to call redneck and stupid???  

The lesson about Rosewood was that misguided “Justice” is NOT Justice at all. Lies have consequences, People shouldn’t rush to judgement or punishment, because if you do without due process and obedience to the laws we all have a hand in creating, you create far more damage than good.

Rosewood isn’t just a lesson about racism. It’s a lesson about how panicky and stupid people can become if they become a mob and have a target.


When there were no heads on pikes and “frontier justice” didn’t happen… After all, HOW are you going to track down random individuals who may or may NOT be students of the university? The ONLY conclusion the SJW crowd could come up with was that the president of the university must inevitably be a racist, and therefore part of the problem.

At this point the social justice crowd has demonstrated far more institutionalized racism than a few individuals yelling nigger, or being artistic with shit.

The first event; The student government president who is black, claiming someone in a passing truck (were they students?) called him bad names,” has yet to be verified.

Yet the mere suggestion that nothing was being done was enough to start an inevitable cascade of insanity. Unverified as the allegation is, and will no doubt remain, I wonder if there was some conflict between the Student government president and the University president.

Was this a revenge situation that got out of control? We’ll never know because with the resignation of the offensive white sacrificial goat all investigations will stop. Case closed, we got our man and he was punished.

The only thing we have to show for all this angst is a man who happened to be white was persecuted, bullied, and intimidated, into leaving his job and potentially losing his career with no proof of wrongdoing, apparently only because he is white.

KKK.pngI call that pretty much the definition of racism.

Good job! Students of the University of Missouri. The only thing you didn’t do was march in sheets with torches, burning crosses on lawns.


In related news this morning, The Chancellor of the University of Missouri is also resigning. There had apparently been complaints of various types against him.

Given that the students are now running the show and are on a roll, why don’t they just demand degrees and finish the job of devaluing American College degrees to toilet paper.

Based on the “Critical Thinking Skills” demonstrated by these and other “Thinkers” in the SJW crowd college diplomas clearly aren’t what they once were.

This one was simply too good to pass up

Roswellheadline

Reading the Sunday news, and since I like science better than snarky Entertainment or Political news (one in the same in my opinion) I turn to the SciTech section of Google News.

There I find this; 

A crew of astrophysicists on the University of Toronto present in a study that Jupiter might have ejected one other main planet from thephoto voltaic system over 4 million years in the past.

– via Statesman Tribune

That paragraph is messed up in soo many ways. Sadly, it’s also the lead. This article proves that Journalism and English are quite dead. 

So, some number of astrophysicists are somehow riding atop the University of Toronto? I’m not going to touch the ambiguity of “present” in the sentence.

Apparently, we live in a photovoltaic system, instead of a Solar system.

Ok so you’d think that maybe the author was in a hurry while writing the lead, and perhaps he was in a coffee shop finishing the article on an iPad and got distracted…

You give the guy the benefit of the doubt and try to soldier on. Then you encounter these jewels;

Ejections of planets usually happen when one of many planets begins to speed up so quick and so usually that it manages to interrupt free from the Solar’s highly effective gravitational pull. Earlier, Saturn was regarded as the perpetrator, however the brand new analysis has urged that it was Jupiter that booted one other huge planet of the photo voltaic system.

The Photo voltaic System has all the time been recognized to comprise solely 4 large gasoline planets in its roster of worlds: Neptune, Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter. Previous research have instructed this phenomenon is feasible between gasoline giants however failed to have a look at the impact such an occasion would have on the planets’ moons.

So the Canadian astronomers turned their consideration to moons and orbits, growing pc simulations primarily based on the fashionable-day trajectories ofCallisto and Iapetus, the common moons orbiting round Jupiter and Saturn respectively.

– via Statesman Tribune

gasoline giants? fashionable-day??? WTF?

SaganQuote

After your brain reboots multiple times, you realize that this article is appearing on a worldwide distribution system like Google and that’s when I conclude…

Either the guy writing this article had no clue what he was writing about. OR he may have picked up the piece in some language, (perhaps his native language) other than English, then ran it through an online translator relying on the accuracy of a machine to produce a publishable article for him.

The author should be fired.

The content of the rest of the article is so bad, that attempting to read further causes brain damage.

I think I’m going to go back to reading about the “Skull Asteroid” that missed earth last night. Reading the comments about it being a sign of the end times is a lot more amusing and informative.

The Statesman Tribune should be ashamed of itself.

Not a “Hero”

kimdavis1

Kim Davis is not a hero, no matter what the religious right or ultra conservatives say.

She is a very narrow minded person who is a classic case of a person living in a glass house throwing stones.

She’s a hypocrite and spectacular failure at marriage, not to mention an adulteress and obvious fornicator, both I should point out were punished harshly under biblical law.

When she starts spouting about religion, and God, and all that stuff, all I can think is that she’s damn lucky she’s living in the United States now. Just a hundred years ago she’d have been in a much different circumstances. Even today if she where in the middle east she’d be stoned.

kimdavis2

Mrs. Davis is in jail for defiance of the law, and rightfully so.

She defied multiple court rulings and a direct order from the governor of the state. I argue that she should have been FIRED for failure to do her job and obstructing others in her office in the completion of their jobs.

Mrs. Davis as a public official is required to execute the lawful duties of her position. She can take vacation time to picket a law she doesn’t agree with. She can speak out against the law. She can hold prayer vigils, and light candles. She’s welcome to handle rattlesnakes and scorpions and spiders, while asking God to make the gay go away, for all I care.

kimdavis3

What she CANNOT do is pick and choose which laws she will obey. She’s not allowed to look at her job as a buffet.

As I was thinking about it,  I pictured that if Mrs. Davis were not the clerk, and instead the clerk had been a devout old school Catholic,  Mrs Davis wouldn’t have been issued a marriage license due to religious reasons.  Think about it, In the eyes of the church she wouldn’t be divorced unless her former marriage(s) were annulled.  Henry VIII had the same problem, the Catholic church’s refusal to grant him divorces resulted in several murders and the creation of the Church of England.

supremecourt

Had my hypothetical situation occurred, Mrs. Davis would have been screaming bloody murder about the violation of her legal rights, by a religious zealot. It’s doubtful that anyone would be rallying to a Catholic clerk jailed for refusal to issue marriage licenses to a known adulterous person. That whole religious argument cuts both ways. 

Neither Mrs Davis, or any of the other people across the nation, refusing to issue marriage licenses or perform their legal duties are heroic, they’re misguided hypocrites using religion to selectively deny a specific group of people the ability to enter into a contract. 

Yes! It’s a contract nothing more.

contract

The contract put simply says “We’re gonna share everything equally, if you die it’s all mine, if I die it’s all yours.” This contract is freely entered into, and broken thousands of times a day. There is nothing special or divine about it except the specialness the participants bring to their joining and that the state (the government) recognizes and enforces the financial aspects of the contract.

The state was essentially providing privileged status, (which was otherwise unavailable to non members of the class), to selected  members of the population. If that’s not segregationist and unfair I don’t know what is.

The minute GLBT soldiers were accepted in the military, the government had a problem. Two service people married in a state which allowed same sex marriage were entitled to survivors benefits. But if that couple was transferred to a state which did not recognize same sex marriage, what is their status then?

Can you prosecute under the UCMJ adultery in a state where to gay people aren’t legally married anymore? Does the military still pick up the tab for spousal healthcare? Are survivor benefits still payable?

whatmarriageis

The legal wrangling could have, and probably would have, gone on for years. The governments only logical choices were to forbid same sex relationship in the military, OR simply allow any two consenting adults to be married. The court decided in favor of the simplest, fairest, and most direct solution based on common sense.

We’re all equal under the law. Marriage is an important aspect of many people’s lives, we should all be allowed to participate equally in every aspect of our society.

If these hypocritical religious people were really smart, they’d be going to school to become wedding planners and divorce attorneys. I have a feeling these will be the next growth industries.


Fired

Since I started writing this I noticed that Mrs. Davis has doubled down on her stupidity. Now she’s asking the 6th circuit to exempt her from following the law and the governor’s orders.

Why the hell doesn’t someone relieve her of her JOB? That would spare her from all the pain to her soul and spare those of us who call the South Home, and specifically those of us who grew up in Kentucky continued embarrassment.

Can’t take it anymore…

IBM PC XT

I’ve been pointedly ignoring all the bullshit about Trump, the billion or so goofball Republican candidates, Megan Kelly (Who the hell is she?) And Hillary freakin Clinton.

I can’t remain silent anymore.

Hillary Clinton should be in Leavenworth, in a deep dark hole of a cell, shackled and awaiting trial. The FBI should have picked her happy ass up wherever the hell she was on the campaign trail the moment it was discovered that she had sent classified material over her private little server.

Hillarys Email Server

I’m not talking about material that has since been classified, or material that has been declassified, because there is no distinction. The business of the State department of the United States of America, should by default be considered Confidential if not Classified from the get-go. That’s why the United States has a whole bunch of Operational Security specialists, and requires employees and contractors to be re-certified in Operational Security every six months to a year, (Depending on the materials employees are handling,) just to keep it straight. And the rule of thumb is ASSUME a document is Classified and you’ll never go wrong. 

Classified

Which means this private email server should never have been allowed to exist. Innumerable agencies within the government who are charged with maintaining the security of the United States had to know about this server, its location, and its security status. They were told to “ignore it” because… why?

If I’d done what Hillary did… I’d be lucky to be sitting in Leavenworth. I think it’s more likely I’d have been sent someplace really nasty, provided the government didn’t put me on trial for treason then shoot me.

Leavenworth Penitentiary

I don’t think treason can be proven but the government tends to “over charge” in this kind of litigation because they want to make sure you don’t get off on a technicality.

One only has to look at the case of Aaron Swartz as example.  

Aaron Swartz

Swartz was simply making academic articles available via a P2P network from JSTOR and the issue had been settled between JSTOR and Swartz when the Federal Government stepped in.  Once involved, the Feds slapped Swartz with 13 criminal charges carrying a potential 35 years in prison and 1 million in fines. The case was pending when Swartz killed himself. By the way, most if not all, of the information Swartz distributed, was free, and still is today. I think the majority of Swartz’s crime was that he used the P2P distribution system to bypass JSTOR’s requirement for you to be a registered subscriber. I’m not clear on if he was costing JSTOR money.

So here we have a guy who’s maybe costing someone a little cash.

Hillary Clinton

Then we have Hillary who, for her own convenience hired a company that appears to have been unvetted by the US government, whose employees were apparently not subject to background security checks, to set up a server outside the control of the US government, handling Classified material and emails from one of the highest levels of the US government.

As the onion got peeled Hillary denied that classified emails were on the server. (Turns out there were classified emails on the server.) Hillary then said SHE decided what was important to turn over to the government, and deleted the rest of the information. Uhh that’s not how this works ma’am.  Now we’re finding out that the security of the server is in question. (Was there encryption? Who had physical access to the machine?)

Hillary Clinton

Hummm. IS IT JUST ME?

I thought rules and the law were supposed to apply equally to everyone. Yet here we have a clear example of someone who is not only above the law and social constructs, but they are still running a campaign to become President!

For God’s sake people, we’ve burned other politicians down for far less.

It’s well past time to force Hillary out of the Presidential Race.

This is not the kind of elitism we need in our government. We don’t need another liar in the White House. We don’t need yet another person in office who doesn’t understand and obey the rules.

I admit, I look forward to Hillary’s arrest for Contempt of Congress. That will be a day to be watching CSPAN.