Month: January 2015

I Have Come to a Grimm Realization

Wow.

I was preparing a response to a Facebook post, and came to a horrible conclusion.

The post was one of those images that said: “Why is the 2nd Amendment the only one that requires a permit.”

This is what I realized.

The 1st Amendment:
The Speech, Assembly, and Journalism clauses are (by “law”) a fast track to the terror watch list.

The 2nd Amendment is highly contentious, but it really does tend to get trampled.

The 3rd Amendment… Well, this one is pretty much the only one that is good to go. I guess it is because it would be SUPER obvious if they fucked with this one.

The 4th Amendment gets new wholes poked in it every few days. There is a constant, gradual, erosion of the definition of reasonable.

The 5th Amendment, thanks to a recent court decision, is admissible as evidence in a court of law. Pleading the 5th now has the same legal impact as pleading guilty.

The 6th Amendment has been questionably enforced darned near from the start. Impartial is often active fought against by lawyers, and peers has rarely been enforced.

The 8th Amendment is a crap shoot at best. It is pretty much entirely at the whim of the judge to decide what is appropriate, as well as what is cruel and unusual.

The 9th Amendment is pretty much ignored by law makers in its entirety. It is almost as if it doesn’t even exist.

The 10th Amendment has been up for dispute pretty solidly… And the rights of the people presented there? I am not sure if that line would have even made it into the constitution if it were drafted at any point after 1900.

So, yeah, the 2nd Amendment gets abused, but it is far from the only one. The bulk of the Bill of Rights is pretty much under constant attack.

It is ok to have pet issues. It is ok to focus your energies on fighting for a single issue, or a few issues. Just don’t burry the other issues in the process. Do not make light of other issues or pretend they don’t exist.

Fight your fight, but don’t make it harder for your neighbor to fight their fight either. When it comes time to stand together, you don’t want to have to question if you are on the same team or not.

Trigger Warning

Trigger Warning.

It is two simple words, with much meaning.

Two words that cause so much contention.

I periodically see people post the words “Trigger Warning” at the top of an article or blog post. It almost always inspires the worst in internet commenters.

They will say it is political correctness gone mad, or that the poster is being melodramatic. They will say that the only people who need trigger warnings are week minded people who are too easily offended.

In short, they don’t get what a trigger warning is, they are lucky enough that it is an alien concept to them. To be honest, I don’t begrudge them that. I am happy for them. I just wish that they would show a little compassion for those who are not so lucky.

Trigger warnings are not about political correctness. They are not about what might offend. They are not about what is politically correct, or what might make a person uncomfortable.

They are about emotion. They are about a soul so broken that there is something so beyond their control emotional that even mentioning it can cause them pain and anguish.

It is about walking down the street when a word, an image, or even a stray thought hits you so hard you are physically knocked over by it. It is about a word, meant in kindness, causing sudden waves of grief that there are no words to explain.

Sometimes you know what your triggers are. After all, you know what the root cause is, so that can kind of tell you what you should avoid to stay away from that emotional place

Sometimes you know what your triggers are, and sometimes you don’t.

Trigger warnings are not a way of saying “Oh, this might make you angry or sad.” They are about the realization that there are people in this world that have lived through experiences that no human should have to experience, and survived.

Trigger warnings are not to protect the week minded, or the fools. They are to protect the strong who have walked through this world with burdens that no one else can see. They are for people who have experienced things that have driven others to madness, or left them dead or hollow. They are an acknowledgement that what is to be said must be said, but that there is some trauma so common in this world that it is almost guaranteed that it will effect some people.

Imagine living through an event that was so horrible and so painful that your mind and body just wanted to shut down? Imagine that something happened to you that left you for ever changed? Imagine that there is a scar on your soul that you are certain you will carry with you into the next life and beyond.

That is what trigger warnings are about.

There are things that are common. There are things that humans regularly do to their fellow humans, that are so horrible that they should never happen. Those are the “easy” trigger warnings. Easy is in quotes, because I just mean those are the ones that are easy for us to think of.

Then there are other triggers that are not so simple. Some things are hard to warn about because you really don’t know. If I manage to hit one of those without warning, I apologize.

Sometimes you know what your triggers are. After all, you know what the root cause is, so that can kind of tell you what you should avoid to stay away from that emotional place

Sometimes you know what your triggers are, and sometimes you don’t.

Imagine being afraid to walk into a toy store, because you are not sure if you are going to walk away happy, or holding back tears. Imagine looking at a calendar, and the date being enough to push you to the edge of sanity. Imagine city parks being a place of terror because you don’t know if the laughter of children is going to make you happy, or cause you to break down in tears.

Time heals all wounds, but deep wounds leave scars as they heal

That is what trigger warnings are about.

If you don’t have any triggers, great. I am happy for you. Read the article in question, and assume what you will. Please though, don’t go off on a rant about political correctness gone mad. Having a scar is not about being weak. It is about having survived.

Ken Ham’s Response to the Secular Ten Commandments

So,

Not too long ago (and it has been done a few times I think), a secular website released what they called “The Secular Ten Commandments.”

Ken Ham has decided to respond to each of the ten with bible verses.

In case you were wondering, no, the Bible is not going to be a conversion tool for Atheists. Telling them that the Bible says something is a certain way provides no leverage in convincing them of anything.

To an Atheist, the bible is seen in much the same light as modern people see the ancient texts about Zeus and Poseidon. I intend no disrespect to those that follow that pantheon, but people outside of a given religion don’t tend to put a lot of stock in the stories and legend of other groups.

Telling an Atheist that they are going to hell if they don’t follow Jesus is about like telling a Christian that Herne is going to stalk them in the night if they piss off the pagan gods.

His final conclusion of course is that a 10 commandments type list means nothing in an Atheistic world view, because, in his view, morality can only come from God and the bible.

There are many religions in this world. Only one of them (or one Category of them depending on how you look at it) even believes the bible is anything more than an intriguing piece of literature. Not all of those religions believe in the Christian God, and a hand full of them are a little sketchy on the existence of gods all together.

They ALL have morality. They all have life views that provide them a way to see the world, and to see what is right and wrong.

Even a large number of professed Atheists have other disciplines and philosophies that they follow/practice. The word Atheist does not discuss what a person believes, only part of what they don’t believe.

Ken Ham’s ego trip, like so many he has gone on in past, does nothing to convert Atheists. It just provides them fodder for their own conversations/amusement.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/01/03/ken-ham-responds-to-the-secular-10-commandments-with-the-bible/

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/12/20/after-2800-entries-heres-a-secular-version-of-the-ten-commandments/

http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2014/12/26/10-atheist-non-commandments/

Imagine if You Were Powerless

Trigger Warning. I am not sure how to label it beyond that.
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The Trans Community lost a child last week. It’s probably not big news everywhere, it happens so often, but in my corner of the web things have exploded.

On 28 December, 2014, Leelah Alcorn walked in front of an oncoming truck. She was only a few months shy of her eighteenth birthday.

Since then members of the LGBTQ community and their allies have been posting about it on Facebook, Tweeting about it, and writing articles for various websites (such as the link above).

I have seen people label what happened as abuse and negligence, and I have seen people defend her parents as innocent. I am not going to voice my opinion in this article, because that is not what this post is about.

When she decided to leave, she left a message behind in the form of a set of Tumblr posts that were scheduled to post after the fact. Her Tumblr profile is no longer there but the various articles go into detail about what she said.

What has prompted this article however was what I have seen in conversations on Facebook.

I have seen people defend the parents’ innocence, insisting that they were in no way responsible for their child’s suicide.

I have seen people insist that being trans was a mental illness, a delusional disorder. They insisted that the parents were simply doing everything they could. They insisted that it was up to Leelah to dig deeper into her spiritual reserves to find inner strength to persevere just a little while longer.

I have seen people refer to her as delusional, a coward, selfish. They have expressed no sign of empathy or compassion for a child who was so lost that she would take her own life. They only expressed defensiveness because they felt their religion was coming under attack for the role that it played in this child’s death.

They insist that there was no abuse obvious in the stories they have read, or what they have heard from the family, who told CNN that they loved their SON unconditionally, but just couldn’t support THAT religiously.

For the Christians that are out there, that just don’t understand how there could possibly be any abuse in what the family did, or how it could possibly lead to a child’s death, please read on. I present here a thought exercise.

Imagine this:

You were born into a non-Christian family, but you came to know Christ. At a young age, your family found out about it, and forbid you from practicing.

They tell you it is just a phase and will soon pass.

You aren’t Christian, you are just confused.

They love you, but they just can’t accept this part of you.

They don’t let you talk to Christian friends. They look over your shoulder to be sure you aren’t visiting Christian websites. They go as far as to say there is no such thing as a Christian.

Now extend this out to the rest of your life. None of your friends at school, at least the ones you are allowed to talk to are Christian, and they either blow it off, or they actively attack you.

Imagine half of them don’t believe Christianity is a thing, and the other half believe you will burn in Hell for it.

Some are convinced you are going to aggressively recruit them, and verbally or physically attack you for even talking to them once they find out you are Christian.

Now extend it out further. The city council has voted in laws saying it is legal to discriminate against you because of who you are. You have committed no crime, but this existential part of your psyche is grounds to take away your rights.

People can legally declare self-defense if they attack you because your beliefs freak them out.

Extend this out further: your state legislature has passed laws saying that Christianity is an affront to their faith and an attack of civil society.

Your very existence is a blight on humanity. They are not only not going to censure your city level law makers, they are passing laws forbidding you from even taking the case to a civil or legal court.

Extend it out further: The national legislature is made up primarily of members of this majority religion. Some of them pay lip service to civil rights, but the rest actively work to codify the abuse you are receiving at the national level.

The Supreme Court, every member of which is this other religion, rules almost unanimously that there is no reason to protect your rights.

It’s your choice to believe in your God. They hold up the handful of Christians in the legislature as examples of why everything is perfectly fine.

Extend this out. The UN pays lip service to civil rights protections, but don’t really give a fuck. After all, they are all in the majority religion, or one of the larger groups.

The fact that it is unofficially, but effectively legal to kill you in the streets like a rabid dog is a primarily domestic issue.

Beyond that, your nation has veto power if the UN did decide to move.

There is a small ray of hope. There are obvious natural allies in the world, people who should understand your plight entirely. There are other Abrahamic religions who are also persecuted. They stand together with each other, and it would be expected that they should stand with you as well. Except they don’t most of the time.

Most of the time, members of these other two religions will pay lip service to having you around. They might even drag you from one party to another sometimes, to prove they have a Christian friend. When your back is against the wall though, they are just as freaked out by your Christianity as the members of the majority religion.

I know this sounds outlandish, but all I have really done is taken a description of the life of a member of the Trans community, and replaced them with religious labels and terms.

Even in places where great strides have been made for gay and lesbian men and women, trans people have been left in the dark. When they speak up, they are told by the LGB community that they are being selfish and asking for too much. I left off the T and the Q, because in this context the L and the G may as well be a bunch of cis straight dudes.

Try looking at the story through different eyes and see how different it looks.

Don’t look at everything from the perspective of the straight conservative Christian who is feeling insecure because someone has said their religion has caused harm to some minority.

Look at it for a moment through the eyes of a scared child, who belongs to a class of people who is a minority within the minority, whose very existence is treated as an abomination, and isn’t even allowed the strength that friends and family could provide.

Then ask if it is such a wild idea that she could have broken, that she could have found herself walking off into the darkness with no beacon to guide her home. The people who were responsible for holding the light up for her were the ones that took it away and left her to wander.