Bored, so why not offend as many people as I can! Hurrah!
Haven't updated in a while, why not see who I can alienate! Woohoo!
My first order of business is this link. For me on reading this the one and only person I blame is that cities government. Emergency protection services should not be an "opt out" fee, it should be in that persons yearly taxes, end of story. I do not think Fire Department or Police Department should be a city service left up for privatization, it simply leads to situations like this one. But what's even worse is the comments connected here, it's more that people are taking a side without thinking about the situation at all.
And to start off, I so hate the "where are the christians in that Fire Department?" argument. This is just one of those arguments that brought up during any kind of moral discussion and I hate it. Simply for the fact that values are values, why does everything have to be a CHRISTIAN value in order to be recognized? It doesn't. And it shouldn't be. The whole world does not revolve around Christianity, there are MANY other types of religions and mind sets out there and this argument is just insulting to everyone else.
First off, these FD workers came from a nearby county to put this fire out. This guys house is a mobile home, and trust me, mobile homes go up like tissue paper. Even if they responded on the first call I guarantee by the time the FD got to this location there would have been little left to save even if they HAD tried putting the fire out. Their only option was to protect neighbouring houses which they did. The people throwing in hypothetical situations of "what if someone was in the house" again we come back to house would have already been burned nearly to the ground by the time the FD responded and the Fire Chief isn't going to NOT rescue someone in danger. Throwing in a hypothetical to a situation that already happened is not fair and only is used to make the FD look bad for following orders set up by their employers.
Also, the argument that he could have paid when the FD responded fails if you look at the big picture. This is a small place, small enough it does not support it's own Fire Department (again, failure on the city government part for not forcing the emergency services tax in peoples yearly taxes). The only way they can afford Fire services from the neighbouring county is buy offering the "optional" $75 dollar yearly Fire services tax. IF one person has a house fire who has NOT paid that yearly tax, and merely has their fire put out "on credit" or pay the fee then, no one in that area is going to feel the need to EVER pay that tax. Because putting out house fires is only PART of what a Fire Department responds too. If people only pay when they NEED the service because their house is burning down the program will be bankrupted quickly. Meaning that forces this city to yet again have NO Fire services. Yeah it seems callous they wouldn't let him pay at the time, but if that city chooses that type of tax and that man KNEW there was a chance his house fire wouldn't be put out, then that's his gamble. He should have played by the rules and not freeloaded, assuming since he was in need the Fire Department would go against orders and put his house fire out anyway.
It all comes back again to it being City Government at fault. The son, instead of punching out the Fire chief should have went to the City Commissioner and punched him out instead (or whoever was in charge of creating that ridiculous "Opt Out" type of tax).
And sorry, I have a hard time feeling sympathy for a dude who flat out says he didn't pay the fee but thought they'd put the fire out anyway. I guess this means that I can not pay my car insurance premium until I get into an accident so the insurance can cover me then?
Anyway, some things shouldn't be privatized, emergency services is one of them. Cutting budgets on emergency services and education should be a LAST resort. This is why we NEED to pay attention to what our politicians are doing! Yeah that city would have less taxes to pay, but what's the cost? You forget to pay your $75 fee and lose your house.
Also...who in the HELL burns things when it's THIS fucking dry out?! I mean seriously? Why would you do that, that's STUPID to the max. Dude might as well have just kicked the fire over onto the house then and there and been done with it.
Next point is this link. This? Where do you begin on this? I thought maybe we were to a point where younger generations were almost passed the "It's so icky and weird" in reference to something different from them. Be it religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. I was wrong.
What mode of thinking makes ANYONE think turning sexuality into a joke to be shared with the public is funny? Why is it still funny to make jokes about someone's sexual orientation but taboo to make a joke about someone who is black? Even in that same thought why is it the most awful thing in the world for someone to mock Christianity, but the social norm to mock Islam?
Bullying is wrong, in any form. Yes, as kids we go through it, it thickens our skins because there are some truly callous and heartless assholes in the world. But there is a point where bullying crosses a line. There is a point where people break.
If someone is straight, they are socially accepted and embraced, they don't understand in any way what it's like to be anything BUT straight. They don't understand how you think about the inevitable disappointment (or anger) you'll face when you tell your parents that you are gay. How they'll likely rail that they did something wrong raising you instead of instinctively trying to make you feel better for being honest and truthful for the first time. They don't understand how socially your friends will split, between people who say "and?" and the people who will then treat you like you carry the bubonic plague.
Straight people don't have to answer questions like "How do you know you are gay if you haven't slept with a boy/girl before?" "When did you choose to be gay?" "How can a guy/girl have sex with another guy/girl?". No one likes to answer awkward questions like those that no straight person would EVER be asked. And for the record "Attraction to the opposite sex was negative on the richter scale, that's how" "I only chose to come out, not to be gay" "Very easily and very well thank you".
Straight people don't have to worry about religion fanatics telling you you are an abomination and should be killed (even going out of their way to telling small children their mommies or daddies are going to hell and should die).
These are NORMAL things a gay person has to go through. I can't walk through the streets holding my girlfriends hands in absolute fear that it will piss someone off and they might attack me. So if these things are normal, why wouldn't aggressive bullying of a teenager NOT push them over the edge?
When there is no awareness of what it's like to be different (not just gay here, any kind of different), how can we expect the bullying to stop? Why aren't teachers/friends/parents stopping this bullying? Simply the bullying will NOT be stopped as long as hate is being bred. And lots of people hate anything that's not like them.
But one thing that's really bothering me about this situation, outside of the gross bullying in such a public manner, is how celebrities have jumped all over this to "make a statement". As much as I love Ellen and Kathy Griffin and several other celebrities, I hate when they bring out their soap boxes to publicly talk about these things because it does NOT feel real. It doesn't feel like they are using it to talk about a terrible situation, it feels like they are seeing a high profile situation that's all over the news and are jumping on it for face time.
Where were all the stars for the four other teen suicides that happened before the Rutgers story broke?
In relation to this, is this video. Yes, I get the church speaking out against being gay, it can do that 365 days a year (and in some cases I'm sure they do). Yes I'm impure, and going to hell, and spawn evil and whatever else you want to say. Yes I know the leviticus quote. Yes it's just plain wrong.
But a teen is literally bullied to death and instead of talking about the gross inhumanity of the bullies you talk about how a dead gay teen is basically damned to hell so protect your children? Instead of "bullying is judging, and God says "Judge not, lest yea be judged", you basically tell the parents to make sure their kids aren't gay, and more or less supporting conversion therapies (which are crap and inhumane)?
Wow. And I thought Westboro was off the mark.
Oh well, guess I should get back to my gay agenda and stop offending people!
My first order of business is this link. For me on reading this the one and only person I blame is that cities government. Emergency protection services should not be an "opt out" fee, it should be in that persons yearly taxes, end of story. I do not think Fire Department or Police Department should be a city service left up for privatization, it simply leads to situations like this one. But what's even worse is the comments connected here, it's more that people are taking a side without thinking about the situation at all.
And to start off, I so hate the "where are the christians in that Fire Department?" argument. This is just one of those arguments that brought up during any kind of moral discussion and I hate it. Simply for the fact that values are values, why does everything have to be a CHRISTIAN value in order to be recognized? It doesn't. And it shouldn't be. The whole world does not revolve around Christianity, there are MANY other types of religions and mind sets out there and this argument is just insulting to everyone else.
First off, these FD workers came from a nearby county to put this fire out. This guys house is a mobile home, and trust me, mobile homes go up like tissue paper. Even if they responded on the first call I guarantee by the time the FD got to this location there would have been little left to save even if they HAD tried putting the fire out. Their only option was to protect neighbouring houses which they did. The people throwing in hypothetical situations of "what if someone was in the house" again we come back to house would have already been burned nearly to the ground by the time the FD responded and the Fire Chief isn't going to NOT rescue someone in danger. Throwing in a hypothetical to a situation that already happened is not fair and only is used to make the FD look bad for following orders set up by their employers.
Also, the argument that he could have paid when the FD responded fails if you look at the big picture. This is a small place, small enough it does not support it's own Fire Department (again, failure on the city government part for not forcing the emergency services tax in peoples yearly taxes). The only way they can afford Fire services from the neighbouring county is buy offering the "optional" $75 dollar yearly Fire services tax. IF one person has a house fire who has NOT paid that yearly tax, and merely has their fire put out "on credit" or pay the fee then, no one in that area is going to feel the need to EVER pay that tax. Because putting out house fires is only PART of what a Fire Department responds too. If people only pay when they NEED the service because their house is burning down the program will be bankrupted quickly. Meaning that forces this city to yet again have NO Fire services. Yeah it seems callous they wouldn't let him pay at the time, but if that city chooses that type of tax and that man KNEW there was a chance his house fire wouldn't be put out, then that's his gamble. He should have played by the rules and not freeloaded, assuming since he was in need the Fire Department would go against orders and put his house fire out anyway.
It all comes back again to it being City Government at fault. The son, instead of punching out the Fire chief should have went to the City Commissioner and punched him out instead (or whoever was in charge of creating that ridiculous "Opt Out" type of tax).
And sorry, I have a hard time feeling sympathy for a dude who flat out says he didn't pay the fee but thought they'd put the fire out anyway. I guess this means that I can not pay my car insurance premium until I get into an accident so the insurance can cover me then?
Anyway, some things shouldn't be privatized, emergency services is one of them. Cutting budgets on emergency services and education should be a LAST resort. This is why we NEED to pay attention to what our politicians are doing! Yeah that city would have less taxes to pay, but what's the cost? You forget to pay your $75 fee and lose your house.
Also...who in the HELL burns things when it's THIS fucking dry out?! I mean seriously? Why would you do that, that's STUPID to the max. Dude might as well have just kicked the fire over onto the house then and there and been done with it.
Next point is this link. This? Where do you begin on this? I thought maybe we were to a point where younger generations were almost passed the "It's so icky and weird" in reference to something different from them. Be it religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. I was wrong.
What mode of thinking makes ANYONE think turning sexuality into a joke to be shared with the public is funny? Why is it still funny to make jokes about someone's sexual orientation but taboo to make a joke about someone who is black? Even in that same thought why is it the most awful thing in the world for someone to mock Christianity, but the social norm to mock Islam?
Bullying is wrong, in any form. Yes, as kids we go through it, it thickens our skins because there are some truly callous and heartless assholes in the world. But there is a point where bullying crosses a line. There is a point where people break.
If someone is straight, they are socially accepted and embraced, they don't understand in any way what it's like to be anything BUT straight. They don't understand how you think about the inevitable disappointment (or anger) you'll face when you tell your parents that you are gay. How they'll likely rail that they did something wrong raising you instead of instinctively trying to make you feel better for being honest and truthful for the first time. They don't understand how socially your friends will split, between people who say "and?" and the people who will then treat you like you carry the bubonic plague.
Straight people don't have to answer questions like "How do you know you are gay if you haven't slept with a boy/girl before?" "When did you choose to be gay?" "How can a guy/girl have sex with another guy/girl?". No one likes to answer awkward questions like those that no straight person would EVER be asked. And for the record "Attraction to the opposite sex was negative on the richter scale, that's how" "I only chose to come out, not to be gay" "Very easily and very well thank you".
Straight people don't have to worry about religion fanatics telling you you are an abomination and should be killed (even going out of their way to telling small children their mommies or daddies are going to hell and should die).
These are NORMAL things a gay person has to go through. I can't walk through the streets holding my girlfriends hands in absolute fear that it will piss someone off and they might attack me. So if these things are normal, why wouldn't aggressive bullying of a teenager NOT push them over the edge?
When there is no awareness of what it's like to be different (not just gay here, any kind of different), how can we expect the bullying to stop? Why aren't teachers/friends/parents stopping this bullying? Simply the bullying will NOT be stopped as long as hate is being bred. And lots of people hate anything that's not like them.
But one thing that's really bothering me about this situation, outside of the gross bullying in such a public manner, is how celebrities have jumped all over this to "make a statement". As much as I love Ellen and Kathy Griffin and several other celebrities, I hate when they bring out their soap boxes to publicly talk about these things because it does NOT feel real. It doesn't feel like they are using it to talk about a terrible situation, it feels like they are seeing a high profile situation that's all over the news and are jumping on it for face time.
Where were all the stars for the four other teen suicides that happened before the Rutgers story broke?
In relation to this, is this video. Yes, I get the church speaking out against being gay, it can do that 365 days a year (and in some cases I'm sure they do). Yes I'm impure, and going to hell, and spawn evil and whatever else you want to say. Yes I know the leviticus quote. Yes it's just plain wrong.
But a teen is literally bullied to death and instead of talking about the gross inhumanity of the bullies you talk about how a dead gay teen is basically damned to hell so protect your children? Instead of "bullying is judging, and God says "Judge not, lest yea be judged", you basically tell the parents to make sure their kids aren't gay, and more or less supporting conversion therapies (which are crap and inhumane)?
Wow. And I thought Westboro was off the mark.
Oh well, guess I should get back to my gay agenda and stop offending people!