Long Windedness.
I need to blog more. It puts me in the frame of mind to get writing done, which is something that I've been telling myself to do for years. I have good ideas and I cannot write them if I spend all of my time on the PC looking up inconsequential things.
Having said that, I am interested in reading more livejournal posts. I love my friends but I have a feeling that most of my friends are inactive, which leaves a grand total of maybe 7 people that regularly post. If you have any suggestions of friends of mine that I may not have on my friends list, or any other really good journals, please comment or message them to me. I'd really like to read more.
Aside from playing around with making a character for "Mutants and Masterminds" I've done very little tonight, however in the last few minutes (perhaps 30) I've taken a moment to check my email and find the end result of my "Change" chain email war.
Allow me to explain (I've decided to keep this blog short as a means to train myself to be short winded) ((...I could have just left it at "Allow me to explain)).
....fuck. "I should have just left it at allow me to explain" was long winded and I should have deleted it.
ANYHOW.
A family member recently sent me and her entire address book a chain email that basically pits modern day Mexican citizens vs. Ellis Island immigrants. Long story short (Short winded attempt in 3..2..) is that it says the Ellis Island immigrants wanted to be American and that the Mexicans are rude, antipatriotic assholes.
(Another short winded attempt in 3...2..) So I basically sent them 2 days worth of emails citing the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, The Civil Rights Act of 1866, and told them that they should be ashamed of themselves to claiming to have Christian values while they're so eagerly disregarding the lives of other human beings for the sake of politics. One of my responses is in an earlier post.
So, the contemplative sort that I am started thinking about what motivated me to risk alienating family members for what I felt was a good cause. (Yes, people, while I'm making dick and fart jokes I'm secretly on the inside constantly calculating and contemplating my existence. It may not seem so...but the side of me that I rarely bring out is one deep bastard that feels that he cannot connect to most of the human race.) The reason why I did it was simply that I've come to realize that the concept of "polite company does not discuss these things" has led a certain amount of the population to believe that you should not discuss politics and religion with friends. This has led a splinter faction of our society to bully others with their religious/political beliefs and accept people shying away from the conversations as some form of victory.
My final response to them last night came after one of the people on the email list stated that a "War is coming" and the war would be the result of people fighting to save the American way of life. He stated that this country should only include people that want to be American, and that the Mexican immigrants are a danger to this. My reply is behind the cut. It's mostly Adolf Hitler quotes and a few "PS" entries from my reply.
P.S. Many of the immigrants at Ellis Island were not invited to America per an approved immigration system. They couldn't be sent back so customs had to accept them. They were given shelter, work, food, and clothing. This is how the german/italian/dutch neighborhoods formed in certain cities. Right now we have similar "Mexican" parts of town here in Phoenix. The difference is that the undocumented immigrant has been given a third of the regular American wage, little political representation, and much contempt from the American populace. Many of them stand on the street corner waiting for someone to offer them money to work, as if they're carrying a "Will Work For Food" sign. That is NOT the same deal we gave my grandmother's parents.
P.P.S. If the important thing is that we're "American", then we need to take steps to create a state of Nationalism in which we only celebrate our American culture. This means that there should be no importance placed socially in coming from an Irish, German, African, or Asian background and should instead place the utmost authority on focusing on our "American" ideal. I do not believe that we should do this, because this was a part of Hitler's message in his book, Mein Kampf.
Here's some quotes and a few articles:
1. Proposed outdoor "Tent City" for illegal immigrants:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/06/08/20100608arizona-governor-candidate-martin-border-plan.html
“An evil exists that threatens every man, woman and child of this great nation. We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland.”
Adoph Hitler, 1939
"Humanitarianism is the expression of stupidity and cowardice."
-Adolf Hitler
“The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.”
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), German dictator. Mein Kampf, vol. 1, ch. 3 (1925).
"The majority of the illegal trespassers that are coming into the state of Arizona are under the direction and control of organized drug cartels and they are bringing drugs in,"
-Governor Jan Brewer, Arizona (This quote was revealed by the Border Patrol Council to not be accurate)
"Yes, of course, and we never proposed amnesty. But then you’ve still got two other aspects of this issue that have to be resolved as well. We need to sit down as Americans and recognize these are God’s children as well. And they need some protection under the law; they need some of our love and compassion. I want to assure you that I’ll enforce the borders first. We’ll solve this immigration problem."
-John McCain
Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
-Abraham Lincoln
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
-Abraham Lincoln
So my summary is this: I've given a lot of thought in this life as to why I'm here, and if there's any divine purpose to existence as a whole. As a human being I find the entirety of my existence and the existence of existence itself to be wholly illogical and pointless. This leads me to feel that there's a point to existence and that the search to find answers on whether or not there is a divine creator is a complete waste of time. Since our lives and existences don't make any sense and the universe itself is near infinitely large and strange...I'm willing to believe that there's a bigger meaning to this life of mine. However, I think the "search for god" question has a very simple answer: The system, if any is designed in one of two ways. There is either no bigger picture and my death will come as a complete cessation of my existence. If this is the case, I won't have the ability of thought to mourn my loss of life. Insert "Pac Man dies music" and get over it. However, if there is a larger, more divine picture...the story isn't going to reveal the ending to me until the chapter that happens after I die. So fuck it. Why bother trying to sell people real estate in heaven when all I have are a handful of theoretical books by equally mortal assholes to guide me?
This is my life. This is my existence. This is my mystery to explore. No one else's. God, if it exists, is not ours to create. I am alone and I am comfortable with that. I cannot own God and tell myself stories that make me less afraid of the fact that someday I am going to experience myself dying, and that there's a possibility that it's going to lead to nothing but emptiness and nonexistence.
Moving forward, I find that I'm tired of watching people not practice the values that they claim to have. In my previous entry, I attacked my cousin Matt for being a fundamentalist Christian but taking the "illegal is illegal" standpoint, which is a rather non-Christian angle in my opinion. I'm tired of seeing people believe that being a member of a religion, club, philosophical practice, college, business, secret society, MMA training gym, weight loss group, or internet message board actually makes them better people. We all die alone. We shouldn't need ethical support groups to provide us with the strength to do something that we should be fully capable of doing alone without any encouragement.
We all feel morality. Morality is simple. When you have to harden your conscience and hide behind the tenets of your beliefs to make you feel better for a course (or lack of) action, then you are not being moral. We all feel bad seeing things in pain and seeing them die. We are all afraid of death, and we are all capable of looking at someone or something suffering and feeling that pain in our guts that makes us thankful that we are not experiencing such pains. If we allow ourselves to become desensitized to other peoples' pain, then we make it easier to accept others' suffering.
...so I chose to not be polite company in these chain emails. I told them that I loved them and then I told them that they were ethically and politically wrong. I didn't do this because I wanted to feel right, or that I wanted to feel some sort of internal self assurance that I'm a more moral or loving person that they are. In fact, after I'd done it I felt nothing but tired and lonely. No one wins.
I hate the way that people treat eachother. Sometimes I think I know exactly how that Buddhist monk felt before lighting himself on fire to protest the Vietnam war.
The end of this story involves a final email I received as a response. As I think about it, writing in this blog now, I'm feeling an approaching feeling of negative emptiness. The reply stated the following:
Delete me from your address book. I have no intent on partaking
of your stupid shouting match.
None of youm people know what you are talking about.
We who are doing something about it resent you unknowing
opinions.
...it was then that I realized that I may have done nothing more than empower some of them in the opposite direction than what I was trying to make them see. In three long emails citing quotes and references to the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Mein Kampf, Emma Lazarus, the dangers of Nationalism, and Christian values that I may have achieved nothing more than providing them with an email to skim over reading "blah blah blah liberal asshole trying to tell me that I'm a bad person". That, perhaps in my own way, I was conducting warfare too.
I should have just lit myself on fire.
-L
Having said that, I am interested in reading more livejournal posts. I love my friends but I have a feeling that most of my friends are inactive, which leaves a grand total of maybe 7 people that regularly post. If you have any suggestions of friends of mine that I may not have on my friends list, or any other really good journals, please comment or message them to me. I'd really like to read more.
Aside from playing around with making a character for "Mutants and Masterminds" I've done very little tonight, however in the last few minutes (perhaps 30) I've taken a moment to check my email and find the end result of my "Change" chain email war.
Allow me to explain (I've decided to keep this blog short as a means to train myself to be short winded) ((...I could have just left it at "Allow me to explain)).
....fuck. "I should have just left it at allow me to explain" was long winded and I should have deleted it.
ANYHOW.
A family member recently sent me and her entire address book a chain email that basically pits modern day Mexican citizens vs. Ellis Island immigrants. Long story short (Short winded attempt in 3..2..) is that it says the Ellis Island immigrants wanted to be American and that the Mexicans are rude, antipatriotic assholes.
(Another short winded attempt in 3...2..) So I basically sent them 2 days worth of emails citing the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, The Civil Rights Act of 1866, and told them that they should be ashamed of themselves to claiming to have Christian values while they're so eagerly disregarding the lives of other human beings for the sake of politics. One of my responses is in an earlier post.
So, the contemplative sort that I am started thinking about what motivated me to risk alienating family members for what I felt was a good cause. (Yes, people, while I'm making dick and fart jokes I'm secretly on the inside constantly calculating and contemplating my existence. It may not seem so...but the side of me that I rarely bring out is one deep bastard that feels that he cannot connect to most of the human race.) The reason why I did it was simply that I've come to realize that the concept of "polite company does not discuss these things" has led a certain amount of the population to believe that you should not discuss politics and religion with friends. This has led a splinter faction of our society to bully others with their religious/political beliefs and accept people shying away from the conversations as some form of victory.
My final response to them last night came after one of the people on the email list stated that a "War is coming" and the war would be the result of people fighting to save the American way of life. He stated that this country should only include people that want to be American, and that the Mexican immigrants are a danger to this. My reply is behind the cut. It's mostly Adolf Hitler quotes and a few "PS" entries from my reply.
P.S. Many of the immigrants at Ellis Island were not invited to America per an approved immigration system. They couldn't be sent back so customs had to accept them. They were given shelter, work, food, and clothing. This is how the german/italian/dutch neighborhoods formed in certain cities. Right now we have similar "Mexican" parts of town here in Phoenix. The difference is that the undocumented immigrant has been given a third of the regular American wage, little political representation, and much contempt from the American populace. Many of them stand on the street corner waiting for someone to offer them money to work, as if they're carrying a "Will Work For Food" sign. That is NOT the same deal we gave my grandmother's parents.
P.P.S. If the important thing is that we're "American", then we need to take steps to create a state of Nationalism in which we only celebrate our American culture. This means that there should be no importance placed socially in coming from an Irish, German, African, or Asian background and should instead place the utmost authority on focusing on our "American" ideal. I do not believe that we should do this, because this was a part of Hitler's message in his book, Mein Kampf.
Here's some quotes and a few articles:
1. Proposed outdoor "Tent City" for illegal immigrants:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/06/08/20100608arizona-governor-candidate-martin-border-plan.html
“An evil exists that threatens every man, woman and child of this great nation. We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland.”
Adoph Hitler, 1939
"Humanitarianism is the expression of stupidity and cowardice."
-Adolf Hitler
“The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.”
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), German dictator. Mein Kampf, vol. 1, ch. 3 (1925).
"The majority of the illegal trespassers that are coming into the state of Arizona are under the direction and control of organized drug cartels and they are bringing drugs in,"
-Governor Jan Brewer, Arizona (This quote was revealed by the Border Patrol Council to not be accurate)
"Yes, of course, and we never proposed amnesty. But then you’ve still got two other aspects of this issue that have to be resolved as well. We need to sit down as Americans and recognize these are God’s children as well. And they need some protection under the law; they need some of our love and compassion. I want to assure you that I’ll enforce the borders first. We’ll solve this immigration problem."
-John McCain
Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
-Abraham Lincoln
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
-Abraham Lincoln
So my summary is this: I've given a lot of thought in this life as to why I'm here, and if there's any divine purpose to existence as a whole. As a human being I find the entirety of my existence and the existence of existence itself to be wholly illogical and pointless. This leads me to feel that there's a point to existence and that the search to find answers on whether or not there is a divine creator is a complete waste of time. Since our lives and existences don't make any sense and the universe itself is near infinitely large and strange...I'm willing to believe that there's a bigger meaning to this life of mine. However, I think the "search for god" question has a very simple answer: The system, if any is designed in one of two ways. There is either no bigger picture and my death will come as a complete cessation of my existence. If this is the case, I won't have the ability of thought to mourn my loss of life. Insert "Pac Man dies music" and get over it. However, if there is a larger, more divine picture...the story isn't going to reveal the ending to me until the chapter that happens after I die. So fuck it. Why bother trying to sell people real estate in heaven when all I have are a handful of theoretical books by equally mortal assholes to guide me?
This is my life. This is my existence. This is my mystery to explore. No one else's. God, if it exists, is not ours to create. I am alone and I am comfortable with that. I cannot own God and tell myself stories that make me less afraid of the fact that someday I am going to experience myself dying, and that there's a possibility that it's going to lead to nothing but emptiness and nonexistence.
Moving forward, I find that I'm tired of watching people not practice the values that they claim to have. In my previous entry, I attacked my cousin Matt for being a fundamentalist Christian but taking the "illegal is illegal" standpoint, which is a rather non-Christian angle in my opinion. I'm tired of seeing people believe that being a member of a religion, club, philosophical practice, college, business, secret society, MMA training gym, weight loss group, or internet message board actually makes them better people. We all die alone. We shouldn't need ethical support groups to provide us with the strength to do something that we should be fully capable of doing alone without any encouragement.
We all feel morality. Morality is simple. When you have to harden your conscience and hide behind the tenets of your beliefs to make you feel better for a course (or lack of) action, then you are not being moral. We all feel bad seeing things in pain and seeing them die. We are all afraid of death, and we are all capable of looking at someone or something suffering and feeling that pain in our guts that makes us thankful that we are not experiencing such pains. If we allow ourselves to become desensitized to other peoples' pain, then we make it easier to accept others' suffering.
...so I chose to not be polite company in these chain emails. I told them that I loved them and then I told them that they were ethically and politically wrong. I didn't do this because I wanted to feel right, or that I wanted to feel some sort of internal self assurance that I'm a more moral or loving person that they are. In fact, after I'd done it I felt nothing but tired and lonely. No one wins.
I hate the way that people treat eachother. Sometimes I think I know exactly how that Buddhist monk felt before lighting himself on fire to protest the Vietnam war.
The end of this story involves a final email I received as a response. As I think about it, writing in this blog now, I'm feeling an approaching feeling of negative emptiness. The reply stated the following:
Delete me from your address book. I have no intent on partaking
of your stupid shouting match.
None of youm people know what you are talking about.
We who are doing something about it resent you unknowing
opinions.
...it was then that I realized that I may have done nothing more than empower some of them in the opposite direction than what I was trying to make them see. In three long emails citing quotes and references to the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Mein Kampf, Emma Lazarus, the dangers of Nationalism, and Christian values that I may have achieved nothing more than providing them with an email to skim over reading "blah blah blah liberal asshole trying to tell me that I'm a bad person". That, perhaps in my own way, I was conducting warfare too.
I should have just lit myself on fire.
-L