I Don't Get Racism Well Enough, Apparently

I have a soft spot for graffiti art.  Not for graffiti, in the traditional sense.  You know, gang signs and such.  I’m talking about real graffiti art, where the guy that does it is a true artist and the graffiti is beautiful enough when he’s done with it that anyone that goes to “clean it up” feels bad about destroying it to the point to where folks usually just leave it up. 

Here are some examples:

I saw this series of pictures about a guy who was going around putting googly-eyes on things and making cartoon characters out of mundane things around his town.  The artistic value of all of this is a bit less than the examples, but the results are funny and light-hearted, and I know that if I were to run into these in my home town, it would make me laugh and brighten my day a bit. 

Here they are. 

The comments in the forum where these pictures were posted almost immediately went off the rails with righteous indignation.

Care to guess why? 

I’ll give you a hint:

 

Yup.  That one, right there?  That one is apparently RACIST as all holy fuck. 

For the life of me, I cannot figure out why.  It could easily be interpreted as attempting to portray the stereotypical 18^th century Chinese man, with the round, pointed hat and the long, wispy beard and mustache, but why is that offensive or racist?  This is, by all accounts, the way that Chinese men dressed in the 18^th century.  It was the fashion back then.

I see depictions of 18^th century white guys all the time.  Why is it not offensive to show a picture of a European wearing a frilly cravat and a tri-corner hat with knee length britches and stockings?  That’s how they dressed in the 18^th century.  If someone is going to be embarrassed about the way they used to dress, Europeans should be the ones that are sensitive about it.  I mean, seriously?  Knee length britches and frilly lacey shit?  What a bunch of prancing nancies.  So by the same reasoning (ie, showing a man in traditional 18^th century dress is racist) then why isn’t this racist?

I see very, very stereotypical depictions of norsemen as Vikings all the time, with horns coming out of their helmets (something they almost certainly did not do, by the way) and broadswords and so forth.  Even worse, most norsemen DIDN’T actually dress this way.  Why isn’t this racist?

Or a depiction of a german man wearing lederhosen?  Or a Scotsman wearing a kilt?  Or a Russian wearing fur hats?  Or an Indian man wearing a turban? 

The offensive stereotypes applied to Chinese men are not shown here.  An offensive depiction would have him painted yellow, wearing thick glasses, with deeply slanted, or even closed eyes.  Wearing the hat that they wore, with the facial hair done in the style that was prevalent back then – and that’s racist?  I don’t get it.  It makes no sense to me.

Are we supposed to forget that Chinese men dressed this way?  Is the fact that they did dress that way somehow shameful in a way that I’m not familiar with?  Is it my white privilege that’s keeping me from understanding why a cartoonish depiction of 18^th century Chinese dress is offensive?  

Flipping Antis the Bird Might FEEL Good, But...

Interesting and controversial discussion over at Tam’s today about a woman who has a facebook page where she poses with guns and then captions the photos with various pro-gun phrases that are stereotypically typical of the pro-gun movement.  You know, the tough-guy, you can have my gun when you pry it out of my cold, dead fingers stuff.

Well, her stuff seems to be disproportionately leaning towards the “just give me a reason and a chance” variety.  One caption says that she’s hoping someone will break into her home, because she’s just itching to try out her new AR-15. 

Tam said it made her feel squicky.  I agreed.  Many did not, and felt like Tam was a turncoat against the pro-gun cause by speaking negatively about this woman’s blog. 

Here’s why I think Tam is right:

There was a study done once that showed that only about 15 to 20 percent of front-line soldiers ever actually fired their weapon at people, even in time of war.  Even during times when the other guy was shooting back and trying to kill them.  We monkeys are very good at killing each other, but we are, most of us, wired not to do so. 

I can believe this. I can totally see soldiers seeing groups of enemy soldiers and just sort of pointing their weapon in their direction and popping off rounds, never really knowing if they hit anything or not, as opposed to picking out one individual, a man with hopes and dreams and desires of his own, with a face, and a wife and maybe some kids back home, and putting three in his chest. 

Killing someone, I’m lead to believe, (and probably meant to believe) is a hard thing to do.  It should not be easy, and only a select few of us monkeys have the ability to do it without experiencing psychological damage as a result.  I am not one of those monkeys.  I don’t care if the guy was in my home threatening to harm my family – killing him would damage me.  I know this.  Not because what I did was wrong, but because there are far-reaching ramifications to a killing that you just can’t imagine at the time you pull the trigger.  I pray that I’ll never, ever have to take a life.  I stand prepared to if I have to, but if I get through my entire life without having to shoot anything but game and targets, I’ll die happy.

Thinking about having the opportunity to kill someone so often that it justifies a facebook page and posed photographs is not healthy.  This is squicky, gang.  I know she’s technically on our side, but that doesn’t change the fact that, while she’s on my team, she’s that team mate that you’ll work with on the field and do what is necessary to help the team win, but that once the game’s over you don’t want anything to do with her. 

Also, don’t discount the gay-parade angle.  Is running around half nekkid, dressing as an anthropomorphic penis, and pretending to have teh buttsecks in a public pride event more, or less likely to get people on your side?  Waving your middle finger at the anti-crowd feels good, but it makes you look like a jackass, and people in the middle or who are undecided are going to see things like this and gravitate away from us as a result.

Also, think MLK vs. Malcolm X.  Which one got the most support from the people that they needed support from the most?  The one that was scary and talked about violence a lot, or the one who preached peace and equality?  Being scary and intimidating to the anti-crowd may feel good, but it is going to scare undecided away, too. 

This woman is not going to bring people over to our side.  She may run off some undecided folk, or she may not.  Either way, she’s not doing herself, or the pro-gun movement any favors.  Not that I think she should stop if it makes her happy; it’s just that I wish she would.  Stop, that is.  

Parenting 101 - Teaching Your Kid to Not Be an Asshole

Parenting, as it were, is a remarkably simple task that is very, very hard to accomplish correctly. 

All you really have to do is make sure they have enough food to not starve, and are safe enough that they survive childhood without getting run over by the UPS truck, and you’ve successfully raised an adult.  The trick is that in doing so, you probably haven’t raised a very well-adjusted, happy, or productive adult.  This is the part that people make out to be trickier than it needs to be. 

There is one thing that I would suggest that all new parents get through their thick skulls in whatever way possible, and it is this:

Kids absolutely, positively need boundaries.  Their little minds crave them.  They have to know what is right and what is wrong.  They are hard-wired to NEED a black and white world.  In everything that they do, and every act that they partake in, they need to know that in doing right, there will be reward, and in doing wrong, there will be consequence.  Their little brains crave this.

Proof of this is easy to find – locate a child whose parents have not set boundaries, and look at what that child invariably does:

Bad things. 

Increasingly bad things, to be exact; things with no benefit to the child at all, other than to just be bad.  This is not because children are jerks; it is because that kid is craving boundaries, and will continue to do increasingly bad things until he finally gets an adult to tell him “NO!  This far, and no further!” 

He isn’t being a jerk because kids are wired to be that way – he’s begging for someone to give him the black and white world that he craves, even if subconsciously.  Yeah, he’ll be all pissy when you tell him “no,” but at the end of the day, he’ll be a happier, more fulfilled child to know that his world has boundaries and is black and white. 

This is why giving your child a say in the way he or she is raised is horribly damaging to them, psychologically.  They don’t want a say.  They want rules and boundaries, and even punishment when they go outside those boundaries.  They want their parents to be infallible gods, not fallible humans who need to ask them advice before they make a decision; who collaborate with children before they choose.  The kid will appear to rebel against rules on the surface.  They’ll whine about bedtime, and get mad when they don’t get their way, but in the end, they will be happier children than they will be if you give them the run of the roost and let them “express” themselves.  They don’t want to “express” themselves in that way, nor will society allow them to “express” themselves when they grow up, resulting in a shock to their system when they learn that everything that they know and learned as a kid is untrue.  They want to be safe and secure, and KNOW, not just hope, that the people in charge of them, taking care of them, and setting rules for them have it under control.  There is nothing worse for a child to suspect that their parent doesn’t have it under control.  Asking your kid if it is okay to do this or that is like telling them that they are in control, not you, and that scares the shit out of them. 

Look at what happens when kids get old enough to learn that their infallible parents aren’t really infallible; when they become teenagers, and they become defiant and sassy and insubordinate.  But then, they are adult enough, and have enough life behind them to deal with that.  Parents that don’t do these things for their young children get the same defiance and sass and insubordination of a teen that’s discovered that their parents aren’t god, but from a much younger child.  In essence, those parents have forced their toddler or pre-teen into becoming teenagers much sooner than they are wired to be, and this isn’t good because they AREN’T adult enough, and they DON’T have enough life behind them to be able to deal with that. 

So all of that, coupled with one more thing:

Teach your kid not to be an asshole. 

My friend has a daughter that doesn’t really have very stout boundaries set, and who has been given a controlling vote in decisions made in her life since day one.  She is eight years old.  Her controlling vote comes in the form of throwing temper tantrums or whining.  Once she does either, she generally gets her way.  Oh, sure, her parents express their discomfort at her actions and scold her, but in the end, she usually wins, and they usually lose. 

So they’ve trained her that the way to get what she wants in life is to whine until she gets her way, and then throw a crying tantrum if that doesn’t work.  They express frustration that their daughter seems to be incapable of communicating outside of whining and throwing fits, yet they continue to reward that behavior and reinforce in her mind that it is the best way to get what she wants.  She can be kind of hard to be around. 

As a result, they tiptoe around her as much as possible, trying to not to set her off.  In a sense, they appease her so that they don’t have to deal with the tantrums.  This girl, predictably, acts horribly as a result.  There are no consequences to acting horribly, and since she craves those boundaries I talked about before, she continues to do increasingly bad things trying to get someone to tell her “no.” 

Yesterday, she was on a “correcting” binge, where everything someone else said, no matter how mundane and inconsequential, was incorrect on some point of minutia in her opinion, and she would rush to correct what was said in the most snooty, self-gratifying way possible.  Remember, she’s 8 years old, so this is, at least to me, rude and unacceptable behavior beyond anything that I’ve ever dealt with from a child before.  An example: Mrs. Goober found a pretty rock and showed it to Mini-Goober, and said “look at the pretty purple rock!” and Little Gal snootily chimed in “That rock isn’t purple!  It is bluish-brown!”

We were on my boat, fishing.  Bird Dog was on the back deck, trying to jump in the water to retrieve the bait I’d just thrown (as an aside, taking bird dogs fishing is a pain in the ass – they aren’t designed with a “hold still and chill out in the boat” setting).  Bird Dog understands a few commands, one of which is “get in the truck.”  It means “get into whatever thing it is that I’m telling you to get into.”  I use this command to tell her to get into the camper, get onto the 4-wheeler, get into the truck, and in this case, I used it to tell her to get back in the boat.  (As it were, the idea behind this is that “truck” is a unique word with a unique sounds, so it is an easy identifier word for a dog to remember). 

Little Gal corrected me in her typical snooty manner: “We aren’t IN a truck, Uncle Goober, this is a BOAT!”.  This came after four hours of being in the boat with her where literally every time she opened her mouth it was to whine about something that she wanted her parents to do for her, or for me or my wife to do for her, or to correct something someone had said.  It was wearing thin.  I muttered “Jesus Christ” under my breath after she corrected me, mainly because neither her father or mother made any attempt to do anything about it.  I know when I was a kid, if I’d been stupid enough to correct something an adult said, I’d get an ass-chewing the first time I did it, and an ass-blistering if I was moronic enough to try it again. 

What her Dad did do was to step in to her defense and explain to me that I needed to be patient with her, and that she was only 8. 

I love this guy like a brother.  He is my best friend on Earth, and I would never, ever do anything that could possibly ever come between us (I’m a little nervous about writing this, even anonymously, since the series of events is unique enough that he’ll know who this is writing this, and it will hurt his feelings.  But it needs to be said, because I need an outlet for my frustrations on this issue, so I’m taking the risk.  If he does read this, I hope he’ll understand and give me the benefit of the doubt here.  I love him and his daughter and his family with all my heart.  Nobody’s perfect.  Especially not me).  As a result, I bit my tongue and agreed with him, and let it drop without saying anything more. 

But here’s the thing I WANTED to say to him:

“I would not accept her treating me like this if she was 40 freaking years old, man!  Why in the hell would it be MORE acceptable when she’s eight?”

And therein lies the trick.  Our society has a set of baseline standards to which a person must fall within, or risk being considered an asshole.  The most important thing to keep in mind is that once a person reaches 3 years old (or thereabouts) these standards apply uniformly, across the board.  If a 40 year old can’t do something without being an asshole, then an 8 year old can’t either.  Once you’re three years old (or thereabouts), crying tantrums in public directly equates to assholery.  Once you’re three, not applying the uniform rules of polite conversation (ie, saying “please”, “thank you”, and just generally being polite) equates directly to assholery.  Whining to get your way equates directly to assholery.  It doesn’t matter if you are 8 or 40.  In fact, it wasn’t that long ago that society had MORE STRINGENT rules for not being an asshole for kids than they did adults, and kids all over the country were adhering to the more strict kid’s rules of not being an asshole, then. So don’t tell me that your daughter is incapable of not being an asshole because she’s only 8.  It is BECAUSE she’s 8 that a higher standard of non-assholery applies to her. 

When I was 8, I got it.  I would never have dreamed of keeping my seat in a room where the seats were filled once an adult came into the room.  I’d get up and give my seat to the adult.  I don’t do that now because I am an adult; thus, proving my point that kids are capable of adhering to higher standards.  Little Gal, on the other hand, would purposely wait until I left my seat to go and take it, and then refuse to get up when I came back to reclaim my seat.    

As a kid, I would have never dreamed of correcting an adult, even if I KNEW they were wrong, because I was a kid and that wasn’t something I was allowed to do.  I don’t even know what my Dad would have done if I’d ever whined about something, because by the time I grew old enough to have memory, he had already taught me that whining was fruitless, and so I never, ever did it. 

My two year old does not do any of these things anymore, except for very rarely when she’s over-tired and not thinking straight.  She doesn’t do them because she’s learned that they are fruitless things to do which, instead of leading to the desired outcome, will lead to consequences.  Whine about wanting something?  Get told to stop, and made to stand in front of me and ask nicely, saying “please” and “thank you.”  Throw a fit?  Get told to stop immediately, and if you don’t stop, get told LOUDLY to stop immediately, and if that doesn’t work, you go to your room (time-out) for a bit until you calm down, at which point you can only come out if you apologize for your behavior to every person who witnessed it.  This is my TWO YEAR OLD, folks.  She is the happiest, most well-adjusted kid I know.  My other friends who discipline their kids similar to me also have the sweetest, most well-adjusted and happy kids in my group of friends.  My baby loves her Daddy so much that she wants nothing more than to be around me, and it is in no small part because she knows that I am infallible, and that I will tell her what is black and what is white without her having to find out on her own, and that I will provide for her the things she needs to become a good person, and not be an asshole.  I am, in a way, her everything.  And she loves that and appreciates it.  She is good because she wants to please me, and also because she knows that being bad will have consequences.  She isn’t forced to bad behavior in an attempt to learn her boundaries; I set them from day one without her asking, and this is a GOOD THING, folks.  I am not squashing my child’s ability to be happy and learn and play.  I am enhancing it by teaching her to be a good functional member of society that people want to be around. 

Training your kid to be an asshole will lead to them living the life of an asshole – lonely, unhappy, and unfulfilled.  You aren’t harming them by disciplining them and giving them boundaries.  You are harming them by NOT doing those things.  

The Priorities of the Anti-Gun Movement

I just had one of those moments where several things that I’ve known about for years, and never considered to be all that linked, came together in and meshed in my mind in the form of some sort of “well DUUUUH!” type epiphany. 

We all know that a good portion of the anti-gun celebrities have body guards that carry guns to protect them.  Loudly anti-gun folks, like Mark Cuban, and Rosie O’Donnell have gone on record saying that it is okay for them to have guns, because they are a celebrity and need them to protect themselves, but that us hoi-polloi shouldn’t have them, because, I guess, we don’t need to protect ourselves.  Or something.  So, we’re okay with using guns to protect our celebrities.

We also know that anti-gun people are generally okay with armored car drivers and mall security being armed.  So, we’re okay with using guns to protect our money and our shopping centers. 

We also know that anti-gun people are fine with using guns to protect politicians, since I’ve never seen an anti-secret service protest from them.  So, we’re okay with using guns to protect our politicians. 

This is where I went off the rails, because anti-gunners are totally okay with using guns to protect money, celebrities, and politicians, but when someone suggests that we use guns to protect our children, they fucking shit a kitten. 

Dude, you don't even want to know where I've been...
Rosie...
O'Donnell...  

I guess it goes to show you where the priorities of the anti-gun crowd really are.  

Grand Unified Theory of Male Grieving Process - Revisited

I’ve been spouting my “grand unified theory of the male grieving process” for several years now, and over the years, I’ve had several people come back to me and reject my theory, since they claim that getting angry and desiring vengeance is not evolutionarily sound thinking, and that instead, it is proof of the irrationality of the angry male thought process. 

Not surprisingly, these were almost all feminists. 

Their argument, as it were, is this:

Imagine a tribe of cave people back in the cave people days.  Imagine that the tribe looks on helplessly from a distance as a pack of dire wolves attack and kill a young girl in the tribe.  This being tribal days, every man in the tribe would have viewed that girl as family (and she probably would have been related to most, if not all of them, anyway) and they get pissed.  They put together a party to go after the pack of dire wolves, track them down, and kill a bunch of them. 

 

Artist's rendition of described events

The feminist theory is that this is not productive, because the time spent tracking down dire wolves and killing them is a net loss to the tribe, since none of those men are spending their time hunting or trapping or gathering for the tribe, and maybe a man or two dies in the process of fighting the pack. 

I do not think that this is the case.  Evolutionarily speaking, there is nothing more productive than to go after a pack of animals that has taken to hunting your kin.  If you succeed in tracking them down, and killing as many of them as you can, you are modifying the behavior of those animals through negative reinforcement.  It doesn’t even matter if their primitive brains can tie killing the girl to the retribution; if you kill enough of them, the survivors will live the remainder of their lives knowing that it is best to avoid humans altogether, since humans have the ability to kill them.  They will teach this to their young, and in one retributive killing spree, you will have several generations of dire wolves that know not to fuck with human beings.  Oh, it will wear off eventually, and men will have to go teach them again, and there will always be the odd cases of desperation where starving dire wolves eat people because the alternative is to starve to death – better to be speared tomorrow than to starve today. 

But in the end, this, to me, is the only reason that humans rose to the level of apex predator. An apex predator is a predator that does not get preyed on as a general rule, by other predators.  Lions are apex predators, because noting kills and eats lions (by the by, lions are one of the only other species of animal that will seek revenge after one of their own is killed – coincidence?).  Great White sharks are apex predators, because nothing kills and eats Great White Sharks.  You don’t see wolves preying on Grizzly bears, or vice versa, and the reason is that there is too much risk.

Humans rose to the point of being apex predators specifically because of this male grief response.  We taught every other predator on Earth, early and often, that if you kill humans, we will vengeance stab the ever loving fuck out of you, so you’re better off just leaving us alone.  

Misuse of Power is Bi-Partisan

So the Federal Government doesn’t get its way, and closes down unmanned, open air parks and monuments, bans people from viewing Federal monuments even from a distance, shuts down military grocery stores (but keeps open a golf course used by politically connected military types) and so on and so forth, in a vindictive attempt to hurt the American People as much as they can to prove their power over us, and the news kind of reports on it, sort of…

No, peasant, you can't use your eyes to look at this mountain without our permission.  Go fuck yourself.  Love lots: Barack Obama

…and when they do, they spin it as if it is all the fault of conservatives, when in fact, it was edicts handed down from the top to make it hurt that caused these problems. 

Then, a State Governor’s office closes down three lanes of afour lane highway, creating gridlock, for (at least preliminarily) political reasons – their intent seems to be that they wanted to punish a political opponent – and it is all gasping and pearl-clutching as if this is simply beyond the pale.  Guess what party this state governor belongs to?

Other than the "Morbidly Obese" party

The fact is, while this is being spun as a partisan political issue, I don’t see it that way.  There is nothing partisan about the inappropriate use of power – people of all stripes, colors, and political persuasions will do it if they think that they can get away with it.  This is the basic rule of subordination – from one side, it suggests power over other people’s lives and destinies, and from the other side, it suggests a lack of power to do anything about it, and this rule will apply to both sides, all the time. 

You get people absolutely terrified of the government’s power to force them to make changes in their life, and yet are likewise terrified – often even more so – of living without it. 

So politicians wield their power for personal enrichment, and the hoi polloi accept it because they fear the alternative more. 

So to me, both of these cases are perfect examples of why we hoi polloi need to do everything we can to REDUCE the power others wield over us and our decisions, not increase it.  And yet, progressives everywhere will chime in about giving the government MORE power, and MORE oversight in order to prevent these types of things in the future, virtually guaranteeing that next time, it will be even worse.