Tag: ambivalence

Quick thought on our history…

Just going to put this out there…our perspective of our own history (as Americans) is almost always myopic and exaggerated. Everyone wants to think that these horrible events have not happened to us before, or recently…or inferring lots of other caveats to justify the semantics of our aims.

The events we are experiencing, Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, Las Vegas…this has all happened before, and with each passing, as a culture we react, as individuals we react, and thereby give power to improving ourselves, our ability to persevere, and our ability to understand.

…but only if we stop trying to act like this is new to us, that this is not our nature culturally. That this is not US allowing this to happen, or reacting with indifference or ambivalence solely because it is not an ethical or moral imperative for you.

Sometimes I just find it offensive to have to wade through mountains of content solely published geared to get us to react…because rather than foster solutions, it causes up to become myopic and dwell on problems and assigning blame.

Not that I feel we have any control over the weather…or the human condition, but at some point I just think we’ll be better if embrace an ethical boundary that is more sympathetic to our basic quality of life rather than it profitability and viability to commercial influencers.

/end rambling thoughts…




My take on the election.

My Clinton and Trump dump is finally here, and before you read further…no…this is not heavily thought out and to be honest I am out of practice in making my rants attractive, appealing, or even remotely warm and fuzzy. Read at your own risk.

So yes, we have a new president, and to be honest after this short rant, I am done bitching about the candidates. I have always stated clearly that I am an equal opportunity hater when it comes to our political parties and election system.

…and now the election is over. (YAY!)

But somehow, this has caused people to think that it is now time to wreck some shit because their candidate didn’t get elected. Y’all need to work something out if you seriously think you need violence and vandalism to make a change. Protests definitely have a role, but rioting, vandalism, and violence only serve to feed the argument against whatever you’re rooting for.

It pretty simple for me, in candidates, I always first ask myself if the candidates can be trusted with their finger on “the button.” Because of all the crazy things that can happen in the world, our ability not only to develop WMD’s is surpassed only by our idiotic sense that they are somehow necessary in a conflict. Our ability to instantly destroy that which we have no right to even consider, rests solely in this person’s moral scope of viable options.

Clinton in this election proved that she could be the only candidate to represent a broad scope of human rights necessities and social progress, while simultaneously shitting on our country’s national security and judicial system, and scaring the hell out of everyone in the world by promising to escalate every foreign conflict via embargo and military action rather than negotiation. All this said, Clinton would push the button, and blame someone else for the choice like it was some sort of scandal. She failed my “Button Finger” test immediately.

Trump has managed to become elected by boasting so many outrageous platforms and agendas completely outside the scope of the president’s power, inciting violence, and giving the public an excuse to become apologists for damn near everything a majority of us in the US stand wholeheartedly against, and still be the only candidate that might be capable of keeping the world from shutting us down economically, and fixing our deplorable foreign trade agenda…and maybe, just maybe, being able to amend a certain healthcare act that is putting damn near everyone I know into debt…just to have healthcare. Trump is a misogynist child in an old mans body that loves getting what he wants. His values are not anywhere remotely in the human liberties, freedoms, and rights. I am always given the impression that he would not only hit “the button,” he would do so for financial gain, and just like Clinton, pawn off the use on some scandal.

Johnson was the low-key candidate I wanted, but I saw some indifference in him on certain subjects that made me cringe. I suspect that his agenda was relatively closed to only deal with what he though the government should deal with, and thereby leaving the rest of the popular platform items by the wayside. The funny part, this guy, who was distant and slightly uninformed, came off as the only guy that wasn’t trying to start wars and dig our nation into an early grave (remember, we’re still a young nation by comparison.) Most importantly, he doesn’t present as a man who would allow himself to hit the button…I would only have to sacrifice all of my other moral, ethical, diplomatic, and economic concerns.

So yeah…voting this election for me was painful, too. I think it was like that for everyone. But…you don’t see me running around breaking shit over the results.

Of course…I would like to thank everyone who voted, and think everyone who did vote should pat themselves on the back for taking the time to show enough interest in the directions and policies our country is adopting. The system might be screwed up, but ambivalence, indifference, and reticence with regard to our elections will never solve this country’s problems.

That said, I think some people need to get their head out of their asses learn more about not only the election process but the greatest problems facing our elections, read up on the awesome people that run, but get no voice, while still trying to make our country better, and take a day or two to work an election/campaign and see how the process really works before they resign to temper tantrums against innocents and property in response to the election results…don’t be surprised when your vote doesn’t have the effect you expect when half the country doesn’t care enough to vote. Don’t shit on people that didn’t see the changes they are hoping for. There is your missing majority, there lies the greatest threat to our country…indifference.

I have been watching people get angry about the results and protest…and get violent. Look, we all want a better country to live in, and while we obviously aren’t getting the presidential candidate material we all wish for, protesting is your right. But Violence is definitely not. Turn that crap off. If you think it is your right to commit violence and destroy property, this isn’t the country that stands for it, and any movement, ideal, or group that advocates it will never get the support it needs to succeed. Plus, violence makes you an asshole.

In case you are wondering how I feel. not altogether unlike this guy.




Ambivalence and Experience

I feel more and more ambivalent about opinions in Facebook – well actually almost all social media – because of this specific misconception:

“Having equal rights does not mean having equal talents, equal abilities, or equal knowledge. It assuredly does not mean that ‘everyone’s opinion about anything is as good as anyone else’s.’ And yet, this is now enshrined as the credo of a fair number of people despite being obvious nonsense.”
Tom Nichols (The Death of Expertise)

There are a lot of things wrong in this world, among the worst is the voice that carries and and presents inexperienced, uneducated, uninformed, and/or misinformed opinion as fact. Not only does it saturate social media, but it has begun rearing its ugly head in the workplace…where the more experienced and/or knowledgeable voice is drowned in the sea of people basing their comments, opinions, and knowledge on 5 minutes of internet searches.

This is what unlimited access to information has become: The ability to rely on unvetted conclusions and winging it when the shit doesn’t work. You have only to read the first few posts in your facebook feed to get an example. People have neither the ambition nor need to invest themselves in an issue, ergo they rely on the scope of their internet searches. This is awesome is your looking for solid ways to get the stain out of a favorite shirt…but hardly the evidence necessary to substantiate a decision in the hiring process or voting…yet we’re doing this every $#%#ing1 day.The really sad part is we’re all guilty of it. It’s almost impossible to avoid ingesting some party’s rhetoric or agenda while checking out your friends awesome baby pictures. A few days into it and you now, without having researched or read any documentation, proof, or report, exactly how many people carry a gun, got killed last year by guns, and most importantly, how important people feet it is to contribute rhetoric on the color of a !@#$ing coffee cup.

This is who we are now: a great big society chuck full of people too preoccupied with themselves to invest in knowing what the !@#$ they are talking about. Ugh.

-T

Show 1 footnote

  1. Yes, I am actually putting an effort into keeping the language *somewhat* civil. 😉