People who need a whack in the head

Ok, so I play World of Warcraft. Not as much as I used to, but a couple times a week for a few hours. It's an entertaining diversion. Anyhow, I belong to a guild which is made of a bunch of players I "met" ingame via connections with real life friends. So, I've played with some of them for about 4 years. We actually do know each other in many important ways. Actually got together a couple months ago in Portland for a real world face to face dinner and drinking. Much fun.

So, the guild has a website to talk about game stuff, strategies for big encounters in game and stuff like that. People also talk about real issues some times too. Imagine what's been the topic of late?

Healthcare reform... to sum up 5 pages of wild commentary: Republicans think universal healthcare will outright DOOM us all... DOOOOOOOOM! Democrats seem to think that may not be the case. Libertarians think its just all bad.

So, the rhetoric has been mostly of the "people should just suck it up" and "Capitalism would be the right way to approach this." Even though when I note that capitalism nearly killed Wall Street and the auto industry they quickly blame the government for the bailouts instead of letting Darwinian economics that place... wait. That's not Capitalism. That's Free Market... yeah, we don't do that here in the US. Free markets are scary to them what's got money and power.

One guild member who has made it excruciatingly clear that he is a staunch conservative finally tipped me over the edge. He said "I don't need them [the government] to tell me what oppurtunites [sic] I need to succeed, I can do it myself, and that is what nearly every American has been doing since the formation of this country."

What the fuck is he talking about? What follows is my response. And pretty much what I want to cram down the throat of every fucking "compassionate conservative" dickweed out there:

That's only true if you were white and male until the 1920's. And until the advent of mass communications of the electronic age, very very few people voted. And then voter fraud was particularly rampant in the post Civil War era South and pretty much all of 19th, much of 20th century Northeastern cities as well.

So, a government for and by the people... not so much. By the corporations and their pet politicians maybe. So, the theoretical mess has been foisted upon us not by us, but by backroom shenanigans of power brokers and monied robber barons.

So, please don't tell me that people don't need help. Yeah, actually I see it every day. People need help. So as much as the 'up-by-your-boot-strappers" would like to divest themselves of any notion of a social contract (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Contract,_Or_Principles_of_Political_Right) so they can appease their aching consciences while they do as they please and blame the ills of society on the dregs who weight us down... remember, this country was founded by the dregs of every society in the world (except those sent to Australia) on the premise of "Give me you poor, your tired, your huddled masses, yearning to be free..."

If that's no longer the case... if you can rely on no one but yourself... if you can expect no help to maintain even a modicum of tolerable housing, health, food, education... then shutter the windows and sell it all because the American Dream is dead...

No ONE ever made it in this country on their own. Save for a very few exceptions. And it is those exceptions that people keep touting as the example for the rest of us. What a load of crap. We live in community. We live in constant contact with others. No one makes it alone.

If you do, you're a Family Guy episode, so throw up a fence, secede and name yourself King Peter. See if it goes any better for you.

Semantics are important

There are a few things I'd be quite happy never ever ever to hear ever again in my life. (Yes, Michele, that song is one of them.) One of them has peaked my pique today. Not sure why, but where there is grist, mill it. (millet?)

Right: If I were you, I'd (fill in the sage words of advice).

The existentialist in me rails against this phrase for the following reason: if you were me, you/me would have my experiences and thought processes all of which would inevitably lead you/me to the same conclusion at which I/me have found myself the result of which would then be me asking you for input. At which point it all becomes a recursive logic loop upon the likes of which seasons of Star Trek (the Various Incarnations) were founded. A worm hole suddenly appears and I find myself face to face with my Van Dyke'd (not goteed as popular nomenclature would have you believe... Google it, g'wan, I'll wait) evil twin who is crazy good with a rapier.

So, don't say dumb things like "if I were you". Words are important. How we say what we say carries far more weight than the stunningly wrong children's rhyme would have us believe. "Sticks and stones" and all that... yeah, well, chuck a rock at me and I at least know how to respond. As a kid, if you hear things from your parents that aren't so helpful, how do you respond? I have a case load of kids who would vehemently disagree that "names will never hurt me." Not that the parents in question came right out and said dummy, idiot, or whatever.

Oh no no no. That'd be far too easy to address. This is the best type of insidious parenting, "Yes (insert example of child's exemplary behavior, praise, what-have-you), BUT (insert qualifier that completely emasculates the self esteem of said child)." Loads of fun to correct in parents who are NEVER the cause of their child's "problems"...

Really? All this just spontaneously occurred? You, model parent, modeled parenting immaculately? You are the exemplar of humanity you expect your child to become? Huzzah! Huzzah! Huh-freakin-ZAH! And yet, this child with some genetic predispositions toward behavioral patterns and some penchant for environmental imprinting has managed to avoid all of those powerful influences, the nearly nigh omnipresent presence that is you in all your glory to become this wretch of a human? A mockery of all that you bring to their world? This child who deigns to shun that which you would bestow upon them...

Say it ain't so.

The toughest day of my life was when I realized two things: A) I needed to be the person I wanted my kids to become and B) I was going to fail at that horrifically. I am far from perfect. As my kids remind me. But they appreciate the effort and the honesty.

Semantics are important. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can scar so deeply.