Trending Topic #Liberaltips2avoidrape Completely Misses The Mark.

Image found at Mother Jones*

 

In the last 24 hours, a new hashtag has started to trend on Twitter known as "#Liberaltips2avoidrape."  When I first heard about it, I was greatly offended not just for women, but really for the entire human race.  I still am, in fact, especially since I spent a good two hours pouring through these awful tweets.

The trend started as a way to mock Democratic State Representative Joe Salazar of Colorado, who had introduced a bill making it illegal to carry weapons onto college campuses even if the holder has a conceal and carry permit.  Opponents to the bill say that passing such a law would make it more difficult for students to protect themselves against mass shooters and rapists (apparently ignoring the fact that no mass shooting in the last 30 years has been stopped by an armed civilian, and that "in 2010, nearly 6 times more women were shot by husbands, boyfriends, and ex-partners than murdered by male strangers" (Mother Jones)).

Here's more from Mother Jones:

Salazar came down on the side of those who believe that more loaded guns on college campuses is a terrible idea. (This isn't such a radical opinion if you look at the data.) He delivered the following rebuttal on the state House floor:

It's why we have call boxes, it's why we have safe zones, that's why we have the whistles. Because you just don't know who you're gonna be shooting at. And you don't know if you feel like you're gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone's been following you around, or if you feel like you're in trouble and when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop... pop a round at somebody.

There's footage of the speech here.

It's pretty clear what Salazar was trying to say: Frightened college kids carrying handguns might result in unintended casualties. You could argue that it was clumsily phrased, but there isn't anything nefarious. The statement was so blah that the Colorado House Republican minority didn't bother to issue a press release about Salazar's statement. At least not until after conservative bloggers, seeking to brand somebody the Democratic Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin, commenced their social-media freak-out during the long President's Day weekend.

Salazar was labeled the new poster boy for the "real war on women," and painted as someone who denies women the right to protect themselves against sexual assault. He was portrayed as an out-of-touch, gun-stealing lefty who promoted blowing a whistle over actually fighting off an attack. Many also latched onto Salazar's "you don't know if you feel like you're gonna be raped," upgraded the meaning to something around the lines of, "women can't ever tell when they're about to get raped/getting raped," and voilà! New Todd Akin.


Oh, now I get it!  The trend is supposed to be funny!  Okay.  I mean, really, check out some of these hilarious gems just annihilating Salazar and his crazy liberalness!

 Divadoll123 is right!  It isn't about gun control at all.  It was only started in response to a Democratic representative arguing to keep campuses safer by arguing for gun control.  Wait, what?  Gun control was exactly why this topic was started, you mouth-breather. 

This isn't about empowering women to protect themselves at all.  It's about stopping people from harming innocents.  Please explain why mace or a taser won't work.  Why do you need a gun?  Do you need to have something that will take someone's life away?
 

 It's funny because of how much he missed the point!  Raising your son to respect women is teaching someone not to rape.  Instead of telling women that they shouldn't wear certain clothes because it makes them seem more "rape-able," why don't we focus more on creating a culture where men don't treat women as objects? 

You see, what Bill "Hyperbole" Zeiser is trying to do is make it seem like liberals want to take women's guns away and just "teach men not to rape" which, judging by his sarcasm, he doesn't think will work (probably because he's oversimplifying things).  If he could have typed a little more, I guarantee his next sentence would have been obvious: "Liberals are trying to increase the odds of rape for a woman." 

Ahahahahaha!  Too funny, Beer_Wolf!  Gang rape is incredibly funny!

Now, now, let's not be silly.  He can't be every where at once, now can He?    

Hahaha, way to stick it to Salazar!  Oh, wait... you're not.  In fact, a pretty high percentage aren't.

Better to be a kind, caring individual then a closeted psychopath that's one finger twitch away from being a murderer.

See, here are the problems with this trend:

1) It's suppose to be poking fun at liberals for our beliefs, yet really all it's doing is insulting rape victims by attacking beliefs that conservatives think liberals have.

2) It was started as a way to call attention to Salazar's comments, but his comments were taken out of context.  Many people using this hashtag are wondering why liberals and women's rights groups aren't just as upset with Salazar as we were with Akin.  Perhaps it's because what Akin said was stupid, misogynistic, and went against all of biology and common sense combined, whereas what Salazar said was just kind of bumbled.  Yes, it could have been phrased better, but all he was saying is that it's easy to discharge a loaded weapon in a panic and hurt someone innocent.  Akin said that legitimate rape does not result in pregnancies, inferring that if you were raped and became pregnant, then you must have been consenting to it and it was never rape after all.  That's sick. 

3)

This one comes up a lot too, and I think it has to do with that Letterman thing awhile back.  I don't know of many people that actually thought what Letterman said was funny (or, really, that he's a funny person at all).  He apologized for what he said, but the fact remains: rape isn't a joke.

This trending hashtag is disgusting and vile, and everyone who contributes to it has no idea why it was started, or what Salazar's original comment was in its entirety.  The only thing it is good for is determining who on Twitter is a complete fucking idiot. 

So here, read this article - the same one cited above - and educate yourself.  Or go here, to the Twitter Search Feed, and subject yourself to tweet upon unsavory tweet until your mouth tastes of ash and you hate humanity.  

Author's Note: I was originally going to approach this post sarcastically and praise the conservatives for such a fantastic argument (see what I did there?), but I couldn't.  It hurt my soul to try.  Rape isn't funny.  Period.  If you think that Salazar's comments are even in the same ballpark as Akin's, then you have obviously missed the point of the Akin outrage.  Grow up, educate yourself, and then join the rest of the world as we progress into the rest of the 21st century.    

*As far as this very top image goes, I am floored.  The creator of this image, a conservative tweeter, attached this to his hashtag, apparently arguing that a good way to not get raped is to be old, bitter, and ugly.  I'm glad he censored the "ass," though.  Otherwise this image would have been very insulting.

Christianity and Gun Rights Are Not Compatible.

Posted below, for your enjoyment, is an article written by Andrew Sullivan over at The Daily Beast.  I enjoyed the article so much, that I wanted to share it with you, my readers.  It reinforces my question from an earlier post: why do modern day republicans think that Christianity is compatible with their political beliefs when it clearly isn't?

I, personally, do not believe in the Christian God, nor do I think that Jesus Christ was His son.  However, I find his teachings to be absolutely wonderful.  Whether he was real or not is irrelevant.  He was a fantastic human being.

The article below can be found at its original posting site here.  All credit goes to Mr. Sullivan - he wrote this beautifully worded article, not me. 

I just read a post on National Review arguing that Christianity is in part about armed self-defense and the Second Amendment. I kid you not. Christianity is now apparently compatible with the gun lobby. For some reason, this particular statement from Jesus - one of the most famous in all of human history - doesn't appear in the post:

You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.
You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.

The great drama of the Passion requires absolute nonviolence in the face of even immense injustice. Not only did Jesus not resist the violence done to him, he refused even to offer a word of self-defense in front of Pilate. When Peter used a sword to cut off the ear of one who had come to arrest Jesus in Gethsemane, Jesus' response is unequivocal:

While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people... Jesus said [to Judas], “Do what you came for, friend.” Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. With that, one of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.

He then heals the wound created in self-defense. The whole point of Christianity, on a personal level, is a refusal to use violence even in self-defense and even when one's own life is threatened. For centuries, this radical nonviolence was celebrated by the church in its canonization of martyrs who chose to be mauled alive by animals than submit to the civil order's paganism. Martyrdom was the first and ultimate form of nonviolent resistance to injustice and, like the Christian-rooted civil rights movement or Gandhi's campaign for independence, it was precisely this staggering refusal to defend oneself, the insistence on being completely disarmed, that changed global consciousness. It was what made Christians different. It's what made Martin Luther King Jr different. To use Jesus as an advocate of armed self-defense is almost comical if it were not so despicable.

I can see much more worldly arguments for physical self-defense, course; it is at the core of the modern Hobbesian and Lockean model for Western civilization. In a fallen world, there is also a case for just war (but one that Aquinas had to come up with, for Jesus was uninterested). Machiavelli went even further - but there is a reason he is associated with evil, and remains one of Christianity's greatest intellectual foes. And I can see David French's point about defending one's family. But here's another news alert to the allegedly Christian right: so far as we can tell from the Gospels, Jesus disowned his family in public in his teens and abandoned them on his ministry, telling his disciples to abandon theirs - and their entire source of income - as well. Jesus, we are told, said the following words - outrageous today, unimaginably heretical in its time:

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.

This man is now a symbol for "pro-family" and "pro-gun" Republicanism. And yet he had no property to defend, no wife to protect, no children to keep safe, no house to live in. He never carried a weapon and rebuked his friends when they used one against a mob armed with clubs and swords about to arrest and torture him to death. He was homeless, completely dependent on the good will, shelter and food of others. He was, as today's Republicans would say, a "taker". But of course, it is in giving that you receive in Christianity. Jesus inverted the entire maker-taker paradigm. So no, congressman Ryan, you cannot be a disciple of Ayn Rand and Jesus of Nazareth. In any way whatsoever.

In my view, Jesus should not be dragged into any of our current policy debates. The issue of gun control in this country at this time is complex and worth debating in civil and secular terms. I think we can make things a little safer, but given the ubiquity of guns and the Constitution of the US, I wouldn't expect much that doesn't end up making things even worse. Bishops who pontificate on this in political contexts are equally violating Jesus' apolitical spirit.

But when Jesus's example is used to defend violence, to celebrate self-defense, to find ways to look away from the mass murder of children, beware. Jesus' response to unspeakable violence was unconditional surrender and yet more still:

Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.

It's Official! President Obama To Seek Third Term As POTUS.

Readers, you all know by now that I worship President Obama.  I have an entire room in my apartment dedicated to his existence, complete with hair follicles, pictures, and a piece of gum he spit out on his last trip to Maine.  It's obvious, I think, by now that he has never done anything wrong in his life, nor will he ever, and will go down in history as the greatest president to ever hold the office of Commander-in-Chief, future presidents included.  He is the reason I get up every morning (I have to recite the Obama Loyalty Oath during the rise of the sun), and the reason I go to bed every night (he frequently visits me in my dreams for a little homo-erotic subconscious sinning).

I, like all leftist, atheist, liberal socialists, was afraid last year.  I was afraid that our Dear Leader would only have four years to accomplish the take-over of this country.  Luckily for us, Romney was soundly defeated thanks to our tampering with the vote count in Florida, Virginia, and Ohio, bringing about four more years of radical change.

The innocent Republicans are scared and on the run, but all they have to do is hang on until 2016.  Will that be enough time for us to finish our mission, my brothers and sisters?  No, it won't.  Thankfully, President Obama's loyal and devout followers have realized this.  Representative Jose Serrano of New York has begun taking the necessary steps to repeal the 22nd Amendment with HJ Resolution 15.

Does HJ Resolution have any chance of passing?  No... in fact, it has zero chance of making it out of committee.  It always has.

Oh, did I say "always"?  Well, President Obama actually began taking the steps to secure his third term back during the Bush Administration in the year 2001.  Clever, huh?  Unfortunately, Serrano's resolution won't be the president's solution to his third term.  In fact, changing amendments won't do it at all.

According to page 45 of the Ninth Essentials Edition of "We The People" by Ginsberg, Lowi, Weir, Tolbert, and Spitzer:

"The Constitution established procedures for its own revision in Article V.  Its provisions are so difficult that the document has been successfully amended only 17 times since 1791, when the first 10 amendments were adopted.  Thousands of other amendments have been proposed in Congress, but fewer than 40 of them have even come close to fulfilling the Constitution's requirement of a two-thirds vote in Congress, and only a fraction have gotten anywhere near adoption by three-fourths of the states."

Shit.  Only 17 times, huh?  Looks like Representative Serrano missed the mark, here.  So what, then, is our Dear Leader going to do to get reelected in 2016?  Simple!

The recent spike in gun violence in this country has given our side an advantage.  We can now use the threat of future violence to lure centrists to our side and get the numbers we need to do what must be done to finish our radical liberal take-over of America:

Take their guns.

Without their guns, the right-wing will be completely defenseless, allowing President Obama to move U.S. troops into every state to usurp the rights of conservatives and Republicans alike.  It'll be quick, almost overnight.  We can't give them any warning.  It's why Obama has yet to take a single right away from anyone since he took office in January of 2009.  They can't see it coming, and they can't be able to defend themselves.  A strong right-wing defense just means more left-wing casualties.

Soon we'll be able to stop pretending that we're the ideology of peace and rational thought, of equality and love.  Soon we can cast aside that mantle and show our true colors!

Of course, Obama will need millions of loyal agents willing to go into the homes of their fellow Americans to actually take these guns.  We'd need to get law enforcement involved and ready to go along with the plan, too.  Courts would also need to look the other way... logistics might be an issue... and conservatives would probably defend themselves from the seizure...

You know what?  Let's not think about the crazy details just yet.  We've got four years to work the kinks out.  And a third term?  Totally doable.






























Anyone who believes that President Obama is running for a third term is a fucking idiot.  And to think that his supporters are "sheep" enough to go along with something so ridiculous is ignorant and disrespectful.  He's a good president, sure, but goddamn, he has no intention of running for a third term in any way, shape, or form.  Why the hell would he?

For more on why this story is a conspiracy theory and nothing more, check out this Addicting Info article.

Or this quote from David Adler, director of the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University:

“There is nothing in his tenure as president, nothing that we know of him, that indicates that Barack Obama is going to seek a third term. Short of a military coup, the 22nd Amendment stands as an insurmountable obstacle to a third-term president today, and there is no evidence to suggest Obama or his supporters are planning on staging a coup. It’s a right-wing fantasy cooked up to try to frighten Americans.”

America's Obsession With Guns.

Fuck guns.  Seriously.  Fuck them.  And if you own an assault weapon like the AK-47 pictured above (and you're not in the military), fuck you too.  It's unnecessary and a bit paranoid to own anything other than a handgun, a hunting rifle, or a shotgun for self-defense purposes.  You're not Rambo.

You're probably wondering why I'm so pissed off.  Well, I'm of the mindset that the tragedy in Aurora should have made us examine our culture, our rights, and our obsession with guns under a microscope.  But that was clearly wishful thinking.  Instead we banned costumes at movie theaters because, let's face it, that was the problem.