One Toke Over The Line

There is this woman on my Facebook friends-list whose kid I dated in high school that is only on my friends-list by virtue of the fact that I know her IRL. In spite of the fact that she is about almost twice my age, she is liberal to the point of being borderline SJW. I’ve vented about her somewhat on my Tumblr already, so you can read the full backstory there, and I’ve removed her from my FB feed so that her posts don’t ruin my day, but every now and then my heart softens a little and and I check on her page to see how she’s doing…and every time, I get suckered into reading some sanctimonious liberal fuckery that I can debunk in a minute.

Finally, I broke down and decided to do the dick thing – I screencapped all of the worst offenders, and now I’m going to sound off on each one as to why it’s entirely wrong and unfounded.

(All names censored except for my own):

This right here sets the stage for what follows. Let’s just see how many “open-minded observations” she contributes her insight to…

Granted, this is a joke. Still, everyone’s idea of what constitutes as being an asshole is subjective, and then some.

Ebeneezer Scrooge notwithstanding, I’m pretty sure nobody openly objects to somebody wishing them a “happy holiday” unless they’re in a bad mood…as described by this post here:

(By the way, as I was capping these screens I noticed that she shares photos from that “ATTN:” page a lot. I peeked at it, and it looked like a bunch of mindless political nonsense.)

You know, I happened to be born on Elizabeth Taylor’s birthday, but in no way does me celebrating my birthday infringe on the glorious Liz Taylor’s special event. And in a country where you have the freedom to bitch about holiday semantics, chances are you also have freedom of religion. Just because you celebrate Yule or Hanukkah or Secular Tree-Decorating Day or whatever doesn’t mean that Christmas doesn’t also happen around the same time, just like the fact that I exist doesn’t mean Liz Taylor never existed. And for what it’s worth, Democrats can be Christians, too.

According to history, the indigenous people of the American continents emigrated from other parts of the world, same as good ol’ Whitey. I can’t account for the terrible things that happened to the Native Americans back in the day, seeing as I wasn’t there (trust me, I’d apologize for the counterculture if I could). However, I can speak for my own experiences, and I’ve spent my entire life around Mexicans who thought they were better than me because of the color of their skin, terrorized me and my family, stolen from me, and forced me out of my home – hell, it wasn’t until high school (or maybe even college) that I realized not all of them were like that. And those were just the Mexicans I’m biologically related to. So if you want to get into a pissing contest about immigrant usurpation, bring it on.

This one was so bad I had to comment on it myself (notice she didn’t respond). I see atheists in particular do this all the time – what was once the mere disbelief in any deity or higher power has now become the unofficial Church of Science vs. Religion. I particularly dislike the ones who try to preach the Bible verbatim to make some kind of counter-point without taking into account the context of said scripture – what they mistake for “hypocrisy” is actually a history of the early Jews, which documents the ways their laws and doctrine changed over time. Some denominations of Christianity believe in a continued revelation, meaning that through prophetic guidance their doctrine can be modified yet again if need be for salvation. And of course, if you say something like “science and religion aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive”to a militant atheist, they’ll generally lose their shit and start quoting Dawkins or whatever their version of “scripture” is, same as any fundamental theist when their own beliefs are challenged.

Seriously, though – just replace “Christians” with atheists, pagans, whites, blacks, gays, or any other demographic and the rest of the status reads exactly the same.

Personally, I don’t think Republicans or Democrats as a whole give a dry cat crap about where the United States ends up, just so long as the oligarchy gets their cut. Every time one side gets elected to office, the whole country gets fed up with them and wants the other side to win, then the other side wins and the cycle repeats. But considering that the last Democrats in the White House prior to Obama were Clinton and Carter, I wouldn’t be so smug.

First of all, never take anything a comedian says as a life lesson (people like to do that with George Carlin and Louis CK a lot). They’re just joking. Second, I’m pretty sure Margaret Thatcher was involved in more than just “intense negotiations”…

But if I’m divorced and I’ve cheated on both of my husbands, that gives me every right to talk about gay rights, right? All kidding aside, while this image is right in pointing out a very real hypocrisy, coming from her it’s the pot putting on blackface and calling the kettle racist (I didn’t make that one up, but I wish I did).

Not even the President’s wife kisses his ass this hard. I voted for Obama in the 2012 election too, but damned if he didn’t take my vote and run it into the ground. Bank bailouts and Obamacare were meant to bring up the middle class, not to help outliers in the ass-crack of the ghetto survive. One of my best friends told me that thanks to Obamacare, her health insurance rates have gone up, and what the hell are people supposed to do when they don’t qualify for Medicaid but can’t afford Obamacare? While the state of the nation is far from being Obama’s fault, he certainly isn’t helping the situation.

This is the post that finally made me snap. Minimum wage isn’t meant to be a living wage. Those who are using it as a living wage are generally applicable for government assistance – if not cash aid outright, then at least food stamps. You would think that a woman who has spent God knows how long on government assistance and takes issue with being stigmatized for it would know that – you know, like I somehow was aware of that. In fact, in order to qualify for government assistance in California, you have to be working a shit job that doesn’t pay enough to meet basic needs if you’re not in school, disabled, a breastfeeding mother, or some other asterisk on a form. If minimum wage goes up, all other wages have to increase, which will just result in more inflation.

But what is more likely to happen is that to make up for the cost, employers will overhire people at a maximum of two hours a week per employee so they won’t have to worry about benefits or any other technicality, same as they do now. Raising the minimum wage is treating the symptom, not curing the disease – if you really want these people to be paid fairly, start putting better business practice laws into place.

(Bonus fact: the current minimum wage varies from state to state depending on the cost of living.)

Clickbait yellow journalism aside, her commentary is inaccurate. When a child is born out of wedlock, the alleged father has to sign a Declaration of Paternity indicating that the child is legally his, but if he’s not there to do it by the time the hospital kicks his baby mama’s ass to the curb, the mother has to declare on the birth certificate that the child’s father is unknown…and Daddy has to go to court to get his name on there. At least, that’s how it works in California – in Texas, they probably just go the shotgun wedding route and avoid all that messy paternity paper nonsense.

I personally disagree with this statement because I was born a welfare baby and I’ve been the means to someone else’s end for most of my life – parents, foster parents, exes, the works. Things I should have learned from my parents I learned from the ex-husband who groomed me into becoming his trophy wife and eventually became my surrogate stepfather, or else numerous life failures that earned me criticism rather than guidance. I’ve found ways to survive and better my situation because I ignored the people on government assistance who told me it wasn’t possible. I’m not saying that all people on government assistance have that mindset, because they certainly don’t – what I’m condemning is the negative attitude that many people who spend their lives in poverty adopt as a defense mechanism for dealing with stigma. It’s been my experience that people who survive and climb out of the pit are more likely to look at other people this way – not because they’ve forgotten where they came from, but because they start to think “I did it, and you can do it too” while forgetting that not everyone has the same strengths (I myself fall into this trap). Obviously, there are ignorant trust fund babies who think that people on welfare are just receiving government handouts because they don’t want to work, but the world isn’t so black-and-white as saying “the rich hate us for being poor.”

And in typical SJW fashion, if somebody calls you out on your bullshit, become the victim:

Honestly…you claim you’re “open-minded,” you claim you can take criticism, and though you can dish it out, you can’t eat it when it’s served.

Okay, rant over. I think it’s finally out of my system this time.

People In Hemet Can’t Drive.

Well, it’s been almost a month since I moved to Anaheim, CA from Hemet, CA. So far, I hate the noise pollution (from overpopulation of both people and crows), I hate sharing a garage with neighbors who understand sharing space about as well as they understand English, and I hate that living out here has only succeeded in making me more hateful and biased when my New Year’s resolution was to become less so (clearly, it’s a work in progress).

However, there are several things I don’t hate about living in Anaheim. I like the fact that there are various fast food and liquor stores closer to my location now than before, I like having my own space to work in, I like how the weather is constantly in the 70 degree Fahrenheit range, I like being closer to the local supermarket than I was before…and one of the things I like best about living in Anaheim thus far is that people out here actually know how to drive.

Hemet was, and to the best of my knowledge still is, an absolute clusterfuck when it comes to crossing the street or driving. I believe it’s largely due to the small population of the town, but I’m still convinced that Spongebob Squarepants could walk into the DMV down there and come out with a driver’s license five minutes later. People in Hemet don’t know how to fucking drive properly, plain and simple.

Some of my favorite examples are the inconsiderate cocksuckers who think that intersection crosswalks are a buffer zone to camp inside while waiting for the light to turn green. Never mind that Hemet is made up mostly of old people and single moms, so getting across the street with a wheelchair or stroller is damn near impossible in these situations, but even as an able body on my own two feet I don’t appreciate having to walk outside of the crosswalk (becoming a liability in the process) to maneuver around a piece of heavy machinery that can easily crush me in its driver’s impatience to get to nowhere of consequence. Pedestrians have the right of way, motherfuckers; read the DMV Driver’s Handbook.

(Pictured: Not in Hemet, but it illustrates my point nonetheless.)

Another timeless tactic used by Hemet drivers that I’ve grown accustomed two is when some idiot pulls out of a perpendicular street to merge into the turn lane, waiting for his/her opportunity to haul ass out onto the open stretch while failing to look both ways to see if A) cars are coming from the opposite direction or B) some pedestrian(s) have been waiting upwards of fifteen minutes for their chance to cross the street. They are often still oblivious when I get impatient and cross the street behind them, and only bother to make a successful merge once I’ve fully crossed the street. Sometimes I see them peel away next to me once I’m across, and I narrowly resist the urge to give them a one-finger victory salute in congratulations.

Speaking of narrow, there are also the impatient assholes who, while somehow gathering their wits long enough to wait for me to cross the street, put the pedal to the metal the moment they think I’m out of their vehicle’s striking range and pass by close enough to scrape the shit off a redneck’s ass. They usually do this when I’m walking with one of my school-aged children in tow – once, after barely allowing Simon and I to walk past, the aforementioned asshole then proceeded to turn in the direction we were walking, almost encircling us completely as we tried to cross the street. I hope that person crashed into a fire hydrant and got decapitated shortly after almost killing me and my six-year-old son.

It’s not limited to disrespect for pedestrians, though – even when safely tucked away inside a car, no one is truly safe in Hemet. Other drivers still don’t know how to signal, merge, abide by speed limits, or even abide by the car-width rules. I don’t even have a drivers license yet and I’m more aware of my surroundings than anyone else on the road in that town – but the fact that I don’t have a license yet is for their own good, because given my short fuse and impatience with Hemet drivers, I’d be arrested before I pulled out of the DMV parking lot.