Monday, May 8, 2017

Winning the argument!

"You're welcome!"
-the guy we let 
pick our President
The last few months have seen a dramatic uptick in protests in the U.S, which is unsurprising given how awful everything is right now. I mean, people are upset. A doughy, ex-KGB agent used hackers and bullshit Facebook stories to screw with our election and make sure that the person most of us voted for for president winds up on the lecture circuit while an inarticulate, unqualified, thin-skinned, Tweet-happy misogynistic child-man of a gameshow host whom even Alec Baldwin is getting tired of making fun of, got her job instead. And did I mention that he still lost the popular vote? Did I miss anything?

Ok, the point is, it's enough to make you want to call up three or four hundred thousand of your friends and march because hey, it's all we've got left, right?
"The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
Although having millions turn out to protest your election is pretty bad too."

-Oscar Wilde
"GOP? More like G-oh-please..."
-Our 16th President,
throwing some shade
Yes, but not for long. According to this, there are bills both in legislatures and even on the books in more than 20 states cracking down on the constitutional right to protest which, it turns out, is like super inconvenient for Republicans and the afore mentioned child-man they inexplicably allowed to highjack the party. A party who, in what I can only assume is meant with tragic irony, still calls themselves the party of Lincoln. So...what, they're just going to lean into this whole totalitarianism thing and see where it takes them?

"Whoooops..."
-Drivers in Tennessee legally 
immunizing themselves
Apparently. Most of the laws are about banning masks in public and increased penalties for rioting but there's one in Tennessee that kind of legalizes running over protestors. Yes. Running over protestors. You know, because they're threatening you with poster boards I guess. Anyway, if you do hit one of those sign waving hippies, you still have to say it was an accident, but under this law you'd pretty much be able to plow over anyone who dares question the decision making abilities of the former host of The Apprentice. I guess if you're loosing the intellectual argument why not try vehicular manslaughter?

Yeah, will we though?
Look, I know a lot of people who voted for Trump did so because they felt left out and frustrated during the Obama administration. After all, his presidency did leave America a smoking husk of its former glory with marriage equality and poor people getting medical insurance. But they really need to understand that this isn't a one-to-one ratio. I recently passed a t-shirt in a gift shop that gave me pause. And by pause I mean I nearly stopped to argue with it. The t-shirt. I mean, I thought the better of it, it is, after all, a t-shirt, but I still got irrational angry that it existed. How come? Here, I found a similar one on the internet (see left). It reads: "I survived Obama, you'll survive Trump." 

Pictured: the woman who is
somehow not the President.
But this isn't the same thing. For years we had to listen to the right question Obama's legitimacy because Donald Trump made up some crazy bullshit about him being born in Kenya. That was it. It was bullshit but people bought it because they couldn't get over the fact that a black guy beat a white war hero in an election. Trump on the other hand, lost every debate, frequently lost his temper and, if I haven't mentioned it enough, lost the popular vote. But despite all this and the cloud of Russian interference is currently the President.

And so people are upset. Legitimately upset and need to have themselves heard through peaceful demonstration which is why the uptick in protests. But when you start chipping away at the First Amendment because you don't like what the protestors are saying you need to understand that this will come back to bite you someday. Hopefully sooner rather than later because when you have to put it in gear to win an argument you've lost the moral high ground.
So I guess they only care about the parts of the
Constitution that involving shooting at things?

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