Blog

(This is a guest post by Noel Zeigler on The Amazing Atheist’s second “Answers for SJWs” video)

The Amazing Atheist’s “Answering SJWs” series isn’t actually about having a dialogue, as in listening to the concerns of the concerns of those on the other side and giving real answers that debunk them.

It is yet another dog-and-pony show for TJ. It’s his chance to avoid answering insightful questions raised and just use those questions as an opportunity to go on self-serving rants, giving the impression to gullible fans that he’s actually in support of rational debate all the while.

The first question TJ answers in his second video is from Steve Shives, who asked that, if so many anti-SJWs abhor third-wave feminism as opposed to second-wave feminism, what second-wave feminist literature have they actually read and admire?

In case you missed it, TJ is being asked here about what he actually knows about second-wave feminism. Steve is betting that he hasn’t read anything about it.

Steve is brilliant, as TJ responds to his question very clearly: he has read absolutely nothing.

But even more delightful than the fact he hasn’t read anything from the movement he criticizes is the resulting utter lack of self-awareness he has about his own ignorance of the movement he detests.

He states that second and third wave feminism is the same to him, and the only real feminist movement that has any credibility was first wave. Then, he says that the problem with second and third wave is at the turn of the century society was very different from today, and that women didn’t have legal rights such as the right to vote. In his opinion, first wave feminism achieved those rights by 1920, in his opinion.

To say that’s ignorantly off the mark is an understatement.

First, a clarification. Yes, of course society was very different for women at the turn of the century. That’s exactly there are different waves of feminism. No one is pretending that women still do not have the right to vote or own property. Those days are long past, which is the reason second and third wave feminism succeeded the first wave movement.  The whole point was to move on and have conversations about other issues women faced.

I mean, TJ’s argument basically boils down to his annoyance that there are more waves of feminism after women’s status in society improved, and he doesn’t seem to realize that multiple waves of feminism exist for the express purpose of addressing women’s changing condition in society. If you think women’s entire social and legal inequality in America was due to their inability to vote, you are completely out of touch with the history of feminism.

So when he blurts such a colossal non-point as “American society was different in those times,” my response is that’s the idea. If you understood the first thing about second and third wave feminism, you’d realize that.

TJ also exposes how little he actually has bothered educating himself about feminism by further lumping second and third wave feminism under the same vague caricature of “controlling sex”, “controlling the media,” and getting “special privileges for women.” All are impossibly unclear and ill-defined allegations, as are most of his charges against feminism. But the most important thing here is that he seems to be laboring under the delusion that second wave feminism had nothing to do with achieving women’s legal rights and amounts only to the third-wave feminism’s goals of criticizing the perception of women in media and society.

He is wrong.

It’s easy to see that Steve Shives’s intention in asking him about second wave feminism was to expose his ignorance on it, and he did.

Because TJ says that he doesn’t need to read books by second-wave feminists because he can “look at history and what they’ve done and what they’ve championed.”

Cute, considering he clearly hasn’t done either.

We can do better.

Let’s not just run our mouths about it.

Let’s actually take a look at it.

Second-wave feminism’s primary purpose was to broaden women’s legal rights beyond the single issue of voting and property rights. It broke down the barriers that prevented women from actively participating in the public sphere. Not only did second-wave feminism draw attention to domestic violence and marital rape issues that were widely overlooked by the nation’s laws, but it also achieved the right of women to manage their own reproductive health without interference from the government in the form of the birth control pill being legalized. Women’s jobs were severely limited to being a nurse, a school teacher, or a secretary. Second-wave feminism sought to address gender discrimination in the work place, for which there were previously no laws to protect women.

The major effort of second-wave feminism was passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, making gender equality protected under the Constitution. The amendment ultimately failed because anti-feminists such as the notorious Phyllis Schlafly successfully campaigned against its ratification in 1972. What were their arguments against it? That the ERA would take away the many privileges enjoyed by women, such as the luxury of not being drafted.

Consider the irony here.

The Amazing Atheist has previously argued that the fact that women aren’t drafted in the military is a failure of feminism, ignorantly unaware that the refusal to draft women into the military is a product of anti-feminism that destroyed the primary goal of second-wave feminism!

Remember that The Amazing Atheist also claims that second-wave feminism was about fighting for the “special privileges” for women – but those were actually the arguments of ANTI-feminists at the time who opposed the second wave!

Clearly, The Amazing Atheist doesn’t know the first thing about second-wave feminism.

Here is someone who in one breathe insists that he knows all he needs to about it in order to condemn it, and yet in the next breath, in under a minute, he thoroughly betrays just how out of touch he is with the history and the most basic fundamentals of the movement. His understanding of feminism is like his understanding of most social progressive movements. He projects his own personal conjecture as if it is actually a sober-minded critique. He exists in a perpetual state of intellectual self-validation. He is his own echo chamber, and his followers will gleefully rally around him and solidify his bubble of ignorance. TJs mentality is, “I already know everything I need to know because it suits what I want to think, so nah. Screw your feminist books and screw history. I know things.”

He fell right into the trap Steve Shive’s question was meant to create, and shows off his ignorance.

TJ further insists he understand feminism perfectly well. He concedes that feminists argue that women are objectified and commodified, and that we still live in a patriarchy. He rightfully says that feminists believe that media is male-dominated, the political system is male-dominated, entertainment is male-dominated, and religion is male-dominated. Yet according to TJ, none of this is true. There’s no evidence that any of it is true and it’s all bullshit, right in the face of the fact that the disproportionate amount of men versus women in these fields is well-documented.

Let’s take the two that are in my opinion the most bold-faced of lies. First, TJ’s claim that there is no evidence that politics are male-dominated. Any reasonable person should be shaking their heads at this.

Yes, the fact that women make up 51% of the population and yet only 18% of Congress is bullshit. The fact that only recently in the year 2016 has a woman been nominated for president by a major party for the very first time is bullshit. The United States currently ranks 60th in the world in women’s representation in politics, behind even countries with a long histories of the oppression of women like Rwanda. The vast majority of the politics in the United States, including policies about women’s own bodies and reproductive health, are being decided by men.

But… politics are totally not male-dominated, you guys. Move along. Nothing to see here.

As if this wasn’t as ridiculous on its own, TJ actually argues that religion is not dominated by men.

Did you read that?

He argues that religion is not dominated by men.

Seriously.

Let’s not even get into the fact that the Bible routinely sanctions taking virgins as spoils of war, stoning women for not being virgins on their wedding night, and calls for women to be submissive to their husbands and quiet in churches. Most atheists who read this blog are fully aware of this, and TJ as an atheist who has built his channel are criticizing religion absolutely should be, too.

Let’s talk about the fact that most of the major Christian denominations the United States, including Southern Baptists, Mormons, and Catholics, still do not allow women to become ordained.

Anyone who grew up in the church can tell you that women are still widely taught to be submission to their husbands and allow him to be the spiritual leader of the household.

And of course, there is the treatment of women in the religion of Islam at the hands of Muslim clerics which brings me to TJs most unbelievable and pitiful gaffe in the entire video.

When asked what he is doing to actually empower moderate Muslims and work with them to solve problems, TJ responds by saying that people should be less concerned with him refusing to actually do anything about the things he ceaselessly complains about in regards to Islam and to be more worried that other problems exist, such as the fact that Saudi Arabian Muslim clerics like Dr. Salih bin Fawzan issue fatwas declaring that girls of any age can be married off to older men.

To state the obvious for the sake of his supporters, this is what a deflection looks like.

The question isn’t about whether or not people are more concerned about you or human rights violations in Muslim countries.

The question that’s being asked is if you care so much about what’s happening in Saudi Arabia, then what the hell are you doing about it? TJ didn’t have a response for this because he isn’t doing anything. So instead, he goes on an incoherent rant about the dangers of “illiberal, intolerant, and frankly disgusting” Muslims.

But hey, I’ll give him points for going meta and using the three words that most perfectly describe his positions on almost everything in regards to human rights.

Here we see the root of TJs feigned concern about the treatment of human beings in Islam. TJ, earlier in the video, also argued that if someone was to say women in Saudi Arabia need feminism, he’d be right behind that. Yet to say women in the United States need feminism is “ridiculous.” Because apparently, in order for women to need feminism, they have to be denied the right to travel or go into public without male permission, denied the right to drive, forced to cover their bodies in public under threat of legal punishment, and face the threat of honor killings for having premarital sex. There is no in between, ladies. Either you live under the most oppressive and misogynistic religious theocracy on earth, or you’re perfectly equal in every way to men and should shut up already. This is the cognitive wasteland TJs belies concerning the proper place of feminism.

The fact that it takes such extremes for TJ to admit feminism is necessary betrays something striking about him.

He doesn’t actually give a damn about women in Saudi Arabia. Their suffering is a convenient talking point for him to silence women in America about their own experiences.

This is a classic game of victim Olympics. Tedious and pointless, and meant only to silence one set of victims while shamelessly using the other as bargaining chip.

But, going back, remember what TJ said about religion, about it not being male-dominated? That’s bullshit, and there is no evidence for it. However, contradictorily, he states that Saudi Arabia, a country ruled by religious theocracy, is the only country where women are truly oppressed, and Islam oppresses women.

The fact that TJ can rationalize holding these two thoughts in his head at the same time tells me about the purpose of these videos. Whatever argument is the most convenient talking point to dismiss feminism, he will run with no matter how inconsistent and intellectually dishonest he has to be to do it.

If you say American women need feminism, he’ll say you’re not really oppressed, and he’ll use the oppression of women at the hands of religious dogma to make you look like a whiny crybaby who doesn’t have real problems.

If you then say religion is male-dominated, he’ll say he can’t possibly understand why feminists think that is true and there’s no evidence to support it.

I wish I was making this up.

So when religious oppression of women offers a convenient opportunity to dismiss women’s issues in the West, he’ll take it. When religious oppression of women means he needs to agree with a popular feminist argument, he’ll then rationalize away the same exact thing he just used as his own talking point.

In the video, these two things happened with minutes of each other. And the fanboys eat that shit up.

He will admit that religion is oppressive to women if that means that he can get out of talking about the disadvantages women face in America. But don’t dare ask him to actually have a conversation about the oppressive nature of religion because that would require him to have a real conversation about how women are disadvantaged rather than simply mentioning their marginalization in passing to make a point.

The only time that TJ is ever willing to admit that women are oppressed in any meaningful way is when he can use the existence of that oppression to diminish the issues women face in the West. And if he can also use that oppression to criticize Muslims and Islam, that’s all the better.

He’ll gladly talk about Muslims oppressing women, but the minute you point out that it’s also men oppressing women, his brain comes to a screeching halt and goes into denial mode.

Religion is not male-dominated, but Islam and Muslims are a problem. Right.

This endless game of hide the ball has been utterly mastered by TJ. He will admit that feminism is needed somewhere only when it can be used to deny that feminism isn’t needed elsewhere. Then when feminists say okay, then let’s talk about how religion is male-dominated, he then insists that there’s nothing to talk about. When your position on a particular subject changes dramatically based on the context of the conversation and whether or not that position leads to a conclusion you like, you need to stop pretending you are a critical thinker. You need to stop pretending that this bullshit has anything to do with the truth and rationality.

So.

Anti-SJWs are losing it over this.

YouTube is working harder to clean up its content, it seems. I guess advertisers, for some reason, don’t want to put their brand on stuff that is inappropriate.

Because a select group of contributors will get YouTube points for reporting videos accurately. And if they get points, they can get more points so that they can report videos more efficiently. And so that they can get a bunch of perks, like become part of special behind-the-scenes groups, be able to curate comment sections, mass-flag videos, test new YouTube features first, and so on.

It’s YouTube’s way of making their site more advertiser friendly and “better for everyone.” I’ll be interested in seeing how it works, because currently it seems as if the more decently-minded YouTubers get pushed out due to current YouTube culture, it seems.

Now, I do enjoy being challenged in my views and I enjoy healthy debate. So I hope many videos stay. But I do think that YouTube’s decision to label people who make YouTube a better place “heroes” is a good thing that can make YouTube a true home for high-quality content.

For more information on this and its history, see this link.  For a list of the rules of being in the program, see here. If you qualify for the program, an application is here.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. I have a Patreon, in case you’d like to help me keep writing.

The Amazing Atheist tried to answer the YouTube video “Reasonable Questions for Anti-SJWs.”

It got about as many upvotes from TAA’s racist, sexist fanclub as a typical Hitler video gets on YouTube from white supremacists (and the video it’s attacking is on its way to getting about as many downvotes as a typical anti-Hitler movie gets from Hitler supporters on YouTube), indicating that his strident stance has made it so that only a set of predominantly Trump supporters like him.

But it’s just bad. And I don’t mean “bad” in the shake your fist kind of way. I mean that it’s just bad reasoning. I can only really explain the people in the comment section who declare that he “pwned” the SJWs to the hypothesis that he has a bunch of unthinking fanboys, because he really didn’t. Most of what he stated was clearly lazy nonsense.

The first question he answers, which basically boils down to an inquiry as to whether he recognizes the irony of criticizing the SJWs for their supposed hyperreactions when he and other anti-SJWs also have hyperreactions, he basically answers with the response, “It’s OK when we do it, because we’re right.” He says that their extremes don’t match SJWs extremes, which is true — they’re different in content and, in my opinion, the extremes of anti-SJWs themselves are somewhat…well, over the top in an attempt to be entertaining.

I mean, this is just a *sigh*. Those who disagree with you can use the exact same argument — which boils down to, “It’s OK when we do it, because we’re right.”

And even though my piece here is meant to be more serious than entertaining, I have written blog posts that have been intentionally entertaining and a bit over the top, as do several other bloggers, and we get criticized by it by anti-SJWs for it repeatedly. We could use the exact same counterargument of “It’s OK when we do it, because we’re right” but that would be nonsense.

Then he discussed three scenarios that supposedly proved the inferiority of feminist concerns: getting upset at speakers coming to a campus, at “nigger” being a word in Huckleberry Finn, and at women in skimpy outfits in video games. Getting upset when a speaker comes on campus — well, free speech is a thing. If you don’t like a speaker on the campus, you have a right to make your voice heard. And the word “nigger” in Huckleberry Finn — I haven’t heard feminists get upset about that, but that’s an important piece of literature that often is taught in schools, so the way it is interpreted obviously has more cultural significance than constant gripes about Anita Sarkeesian. And the criticism about women in skimpy outfits in video games isn’t on what they’re wearing, but on how women are discouraged from playing video games due to characters who are ONLY eye candy for men and not characters in their own right (in many games, there is not even the option to choose a female character) — so many of these women work with video game companies to make the  video games more appealing to women AND men. It’s these drastic simplifications and straw men that get views and create entertainment, but mischaracterize genuine concerns.

And this last bit of rhetoric:

So SJWs are crybabies who throw tantrums and the anti-SJWs side is made up of reasonable people using theatrical techniques and humor to make points.

It seems to me that this could be switched to say, “Anti-SJWs are crybabies who throw tantrums and the side labeled SJWs is made up of reasonable people using theatrical techniques and humor to make points.”  It’s just sophistry. It’s admitting that yes, we’re hypocrites — it’s just OK when we do it, because we’re right.

Then TAA answers the question of why he doesn’t identify as right-wing when he has so many right-wing ideas. He responds with several statements that sound left wing, and then says he simply doesn’t fit in with the right wing, although he doesn’t fit in with the left wing because he doesn’t like “identity politics.” Blah, blah, blah….

Whatever. Here’s the deal.

TAA encourages his followers to vote for Donald Trump, arguing that Donald Trump is also left-wing.

You’ll excuse me if I take his definition of “right wing” and “left wing” with a bucket of salt.

Is someone who encourages people to vote for Donald Trump over Clinton and Jill Stein and even Gary Johnson a left-winger? I don’t know about you, but that seems pretty disturbingly right-wing to me.

Moving on.

TAA is then challenged as to why he doesn’t engage in discourse with other people, and says that others fail to engage in reasoned discourse with him.

…….yeah.

I mean, never engage in reasonable discourse? Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. And I’m not the only one — several SJWs have engaged in reasoned discourse, all the time. The fact is that, in many cases, they just don’t want to debate us.

I mean, I offered to raise $500 of charity money once if TAA debated me on his characterization of black culture as a crybaby “victim cult” and after agreeing he backed out, offering the BS excuse that he was afraid I’d call him a racist. Really? He insulted an entire black culture, and he won’t talk to me because he’s afraid of being called a racist?

What a delicate flower.

So yeah. When he says, “This notion that we’re the ones avoiding rational dialogue is fucking absurd” I can only conclude that he either has a bad memory or he’s lying.

Anyways. Moving on…

In answer to a question on why the anti-SJWs troll if they’re interested in rational discourse, TAA says the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

Let’s see. If you’re trolling someone, you’re saying something designed to get under their skin. You’re not engaging in rational discourse and understanding with that person. So yeah, the two are mutually exclusive. If you try to get under people’s skin for sport, you’re not engaging in rational discourse with them; you’re trying to psychologically annihilate someone and then laughing your head off when your skilled barbs ruin their emotional health. That’s schoolyard bullying, not mature conversation. Which honestly seems uninteresting to those of us who are seeking real, rational solutions to these problems, which is why your wins in the entertainment realm won’t actually translate to the actual reforms we are attempting to make in the real world. People like Trump and TAA may get a lot of popularity with trolling, because it is entertaining, but nobody in the know is going to trust them to actually come up with real solutions to the problems we face, which is the reason both of their tactics may win a few battles, but will ultimately lose the longer-term culture war.

You want to join the team that’s looking for solutions? Then stop trolling for a moment and let’s have a real conversation. You want to troll? Fine. But let’s not pretend that you’re remotely relevant to constructing solutions to the very real issues very real people in the United States are facing.

The next question is from someone who asks whether anti-SJWs realize that terms like “cuck” and “SJW” have been diluted of meaning and derail conversation. TAA doesn’t answer and laughs at the guy’s outfit.

…yeah.

Anyways, in answer to a question by a YouTuber who works in mental health issues for men on working together, TAA boasts that he doesn’t need the help because he and his millions of subscribers contribute money to charity, saying that if they want to help, maybe contribute money to charity.

How does he know she doesn’t? Furthermore, she actually helps mentally-ill patients, so that’s, like, valuable know-how and work.

Y’know, this reminds me of the racist landowners who gave money to NAACP while keeping black neighborhoods they owned separate from white neighborhoods they own. This idea that giving to charity gives you a free pass to be rude to groups of people just kinda is nonsense. You can’t buy a license to being a dick to people just by giving to charity. Giving money to a problem that you’re causing, in the case of exalting misogyny, doesn’t change the fact that you’re causing and exacerbating the problem, or remotely mean that a professional who works on solving the problem day in and day out can’t help you solve the problem.

I mean, when he goes on his tirade on how the questioner supposedly just “talks” about making lives better for women and he actually does it…did he miss the whole part about how she actually works in helping people with mental health issues? Like that’s her job, as opposed to “helping” women by saying stuff like this (pages 90-91):

Rape isn’t fatal.

So imagine my indignation when I saw a chatroom called“Rape Survivors.” Is this supposed to impress me? Someone fucked you when you didn’t want to be fucked and you’re amazed that you survived? Unless he used a chainsaw instead of his dick, what’s the big deal?

I don’t mean to be horrendously offensive and insensitive here, but everyone survives rape. Some women are killed afterwards, but that’s murder, not rape. To say that you’re a rape survivor is as meaningless as saying you’re a jury duty survivor or a divorce survivor. Lots of things in life suck—that doesn’t mean we survived them.

The word survivor applies to people who are alive after being stabbed 73 times with an ice pick or mauled by rabid wolverines, not to a woman who gets dick when she doesn’t want it. Just because you got raped, you have to rape the English language? You vindictive bitch!

Also, don’t you ever get tired of being the victim? How many failed relationships are you going to blame on a single violation of your personal space? I’m not making light of it. I know that it is damaging, a reminder of your powerlessness against the world—but it should be a wake up call. We are all powerless against the forces of fate (or chance). We’re all on different paths, but they all lead to the same place.

I just showed this writing to a friend of mine, along with the question, “Is this too offensive to release?” I was looking for a yes. I got one. So, I’ve included it here. I’m here to cross lines. This is not The Amazing Atheist from those cute little youtube videos you love so much—this is the real me. And the real me doesn’t give a fuck about your small-minded boundaries.

If you’ve been raped, does the above passage add insult to injury? Does it make it hurt worse? How could it? If rape is the paramount psychological trauma in life, then how could my words aggravate it whatsoever? Too often in this culture, we fear words. But even if my words are the height of ignorance, they should elevate you. If you find them funny, then you will laugh and dismiss them as a joke. If you find them honest, you will respect my bravery. If you find them infuriating, I will have given you power. If you find them sad, then I have enriched you.

Words never make less of a person, unless they are bland.If you feel something, then I’ve done my job as a writer.

There’s the claim that this actually is the best advice a rape victim can receive. Having talked to women who have been raped, who he would label crybabies…I have my doubts. And besides, can’t this be turned around? Why are white people here complaining about BLM, when white people in other places, like Syria, have much worse problems? Why do men complain here about being attacked for playing video games while men on the other side of the world have AIDS? If we contributed to AIDS victims on the other side of the world as a “men’s issue,” does that license us to say what we like about video games and rape accusations?

You see the nonsense here? And he ends with:

You know how you can help me? The next time we do a charity event, why don’t you shut your mouth and open your wallet. That’s how you can help me make a difference, bitch.

Wow. So not only does giving to charity give him the right to say whatever he wants, it also gives him the power to tell women, “shut up, bitch” and make them morally obligated to say, “Oh, thank you TAA”? Really?

This is sad.

Moving on.

Then Steve Shives asks about their objections to third-wave feminism, inquiring about their specific objections to it.

Now, Steve is infamous for blocking people. He says that it’s largely because anti-SJWs are more interested in Internet drama than actually having substantive conversations. At first, I admit, I was skeptical of this, after I heard about his reputation soon after doing a YouTube interview with Shives. But the fallout kinda convinced me that…yeah, if I were getting these kind of responses, I wouldn’t really want to engage in conversation with people determined to smear me, either. And I wouldn’t have to. You are under no obligation to become a troll’s plaything, especially if their end goal is to ruin your emotional health and laugh at you as you receive death threats from their fans.

I mean, where did Shives get the idea that conversation with anti-SJWs would be pointless, when the response to his question was this:

Steve, if your skin is so thin, don’t be surprised when people use you as a condom to fuck your wife…. And this guy has the audacity to sit there and act as if we were somehow beholden to him. As if we owed him answers. As if we now had to give our response to a question of his which he, without a shadow of a doubt, will ignore anyway. No. No. No. Fuck you, Steve. Go watch someone fuck your wife.

So, yeah. Gee, I wonder why Shives blocks anti-SJWs? Also, way to chicken out of the question.

Then there’s the question on an infamous extreme feminist nicknamed Trigglypuff. In answer to why anti-SJWs think this represents all feminists and why out-of-control anti-SJWs (an example is provided) are supposedly not characteristic of anti-SJWs, TAA’s answer is basically nonsense.

First he says:

No one has ever made the argument: Look at how ridiculous Trigglypuff is! All feminists are like Trigglypuff.

But then he contradicts himself when he says right after that:

It’s just that someone like Trigglypuff is such a fucking amazing example of feminist stereotypes that how could people not use her on their channel… she perfectly embodies all the worst aspects of feminism. She’s whiny, loud, entitled, disruptive, emotionally unstable and really fucking incredibly stupid and instantly unlikable.

Sounds like feminism to me.

Wait. I’m confused. So…it’s not representative of all feminists but of all feminism? Then the question is still there, right? Why aren’t the extremist anti-SJWs, who say, I think we’ll all agree, some pretty messed up stuff…why aren’t they representative of all anti-feminism? I mean, they can be all of the above listed characteristics of Trigglypuff.

In other words, he doesn’t answer the question. But if you’re part of his fan club, you’ll like his video the same way Hiter supporters like his speeches, I guess.

Ok, this blog post is kinda long and I have some work I need to do, but that’s OK, because I can respond to the answers to the next three questions summarily. The questions they are asked concern why the anti-SJWs dismiss feminism based on extreme examples instead of looking at serious, academic feminism and solutions to the real problems women face. The best-sounding answer of the video is given by a YouTuber named Kraut and Tea to this question, who said he was inspired to start his channel after feminists protected a mass rape perpetrated by Muslims in Germany. That’s actually a somewhat reasonable-sounding response on its face; it would be nice if the video had more of those…although I have doubts that academic feminists support rape, whether Muslims do it or not, and would have liked some more detail. I mean, even Buzzfeed feminism was outraged at the assault and the German laws that made much of it unprosecutable.

But the rest of the answer was just the same old drivel. TAA said that he talks about extremist concepts of feminism because that’s the popular side of feminism and gets him views. I would argue that those are the stereotypes of feminism and people watch to get their stereotypes confirmed — but, more importantly, it seems that he is attempting to replace feminism with an extremist anti-feminism (as expressed, for example, in his above quote on rape) instead of with a more sensitive feminism. I mean, he makes trolling people — or ruining people’s psychological health — into a sport for kicks and views. This is not building something better. It is pure entertainment, not reason, not solution building, not relevant for anything outside of confirming previously held stereotypes and gathering views. The people working towards making things better — and thus working towards real reforms — are the academics, not the YouTubers who are actively working to make the discourse disintegrate into more mud-slinging.

So, yeah. I guess he’ll make two more auto-liked, meaningless drivel for his fans. I dunno if I’ll respond or not…this was pretty underwhelming, so we’ll see.

In any case, thanks for reading.

P.S. I have a Patreon, in case you want to support the blog.

Clinton has definite crossover appeal. Even though I would rather have had Sanders as the nominee, I have to admit that Clinton is leading an opportunity for Democrats to win this election by a landslide. And in addition…I am deeply distressed by the hold that Trump has taken on the minds he has closed and the hearts he has frozen.

I’m not alone. It has been recently revealed that even President George H.W. Bush is voting for Clinton.

As Politico states:

Bush, 92, had intended to stay silent on the White House race between Clinton and Donald Trump, a sign in and of itself of his distaste for the GOP nominee. But his preference for the wife of his own successor, President Bill Clinton, nonetheless became known to a wider audience thanks to Kathleen Hartington Kennedy Townsend, the former Maryland lieutenant governor and daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy.

On Monday, Townsend posted a picture on her Facebook page shaking hands next to the former president and this caption: “The President told me he’s voting for Hillary!!”
In a telephone interview, Townsend said she met with the former president in Maine earlier today, where she said he made his preference known that he was voting for a Democrat. “That’s what he said,” she told POLITICO.

This truly shows how despicable Trump is as a candidate, as well.  It seems difficult to find prominent Republicans who support him without earnest and strong reservations — and yet, the masses of Republicans are voting for him, leaving many Republicans of the past truly disappointed about how much compassion we have lost. We’ve come a long way in heartlessness since the 1980s, when Reagan and Bush were arguing about who was more compassionate to undocumented Mexican immigrants. As George H.W. Bush said then:

“We’re creating a whole society of really honorable, decent, family-loving people that are in violation of the law, and secondly we’re exacerbating relations with Mexico. The answer to your question is much more fundamental than whether they attend Houston schools, it seems to me. I don’t want to see … six- and eight-year-old kids, being made, you know, one, totally uneducated, and being made to feel that they’re living outside the law. Let’s address ourselves to the fundamentals. These are good people, strong people. Part of my family is a Mexican.”

Contrast that with the hate of the current Republican nominee, and it’s not hard to see why Bush can’t vote Trump. As Trump infamously said when announcing his candidacy:

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

The compassion is gone, the empathy is gone, the understanding of humanity is gone. And no, the Republican Party goals weren’t all ideal — the war on drugs, for example, remains a dark stain on our nation. But even much of the little that was truly compassionate has largely disappeared.

And the clash is arguably even stronger with Reagan, who said, in the above clip:

“Rather than talking about putting up a fence, why don’t we work out some recognition of our mutual problems, and make it possible for them to come across.  And then, while they’re working and earning here, they pay taxes here? And when they want to go back they can go back, and cross. And open the border both ways, by understanding their problems.”

Trump, meanwhile, can’t stop talking about not only putting up a fence — he wants to build a big wall and aggressively kick all the undocumented Mexicans out. It seems clear that if Reagan were alive today, he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to vote for Trump either.

The contrast could hardly be more clear, and it’s sad to see how much the party has changed.

And the only thing more angering than this is that people voted for this hate. They support this hate. They want to raise our flag and force us to salute to this hate due to the influence of a party that has become more horrifying than Reagan or Bush had ever dreamed.

I know Trump likely won’t win. But the contrast between the Republicans of yesterday and those of today still shows the darkening of the American psyche. It is truly a sad time in America.

Thank you for reading.

P.S. I have a Patreon, in case you want to help me keep doing what I’m doing.

A while ago, I exploded upon seeing that The Amazing Atheist said racist things, and called him a racist. That got a lot of flack. Recently, however, I’ve moved on from discussing him specifically, for the most part, although I have become more concerned about a growing, increasingly racist section of atheism.

But this crossed my radar.

The Amazing Atheist said:

I will probably not vote. But if you are inclined to vote, I say, “Vote for Trump.”

His argument, basically, is that you should vote for Trump because he’s no worse than any other politician and is pushing Republicans left. If he wasn’t racist and sexist, he would see a clear difference and not encourage people to vote for Trump.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/bQueaSlvjCw[/youtube]

But not only did he encourage them to vote for Trump — he proudly said that he won’t vote. Which galls me. How are we supposed to ensure separation of church and state if we don’t vote? And how do you endorse a candidate who says he’ll violate that boundary with statements like, “When I’m President, we are going to start saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again, that I can tell you”? I mean…what?!

He’s not doing it to support atheism, folks, because Trump would be bad for atheism. He’s doing it because Trump is racist and sexist, and thus pissing off all the people the racist, sexist side of atheism pisses off. It’s not about atheism. It’s about showing off how rude you can be to the most sidelined, marginalized people in this country.

Welcome to YouTube atheism, folks. It confirms what I’ve been saying in the worst possible way.

There is a viciously racist wing of atheism that is taking over much of our internet presence, especially on YouTube. It’s why I don’t say I’m an anti-theist, anymore. I cannot, in good conscience, convince someone loved by a liberal church who is passionate about progressivism that God doesn’t exist only to put them in a group of passionate Trump supporters, or be seen as associating with them.

Here’s the deal: This represents me. Yeah, I know. Atheism is just about a lack of belief in God, you can’t control what other people think, they’re not a hivemind yada, yada, yada. I’ve heard it all a zillion times before. Let’s be real here.

When you raise that Trump flag high on YouTube as the biggest atheist YouTube celebrity in the world, you’re affecting the way people view atheists. I have these conversations with people all the time. Just Thursday someone was talking about how atheists are sexist, racist, etc., for the most part, and when they see the top YouTuber endorsing Trump…it’s not hard to see why.

It pisses me off, to be honest with you. When I tell someone I’m an atheist, I want them to think I love people, as opposed to God. I don’t want them to see me as insulting to women, laughing at rape, racist as hell, proud of insulting every marginalized group I can muster. I don’t want that image. I want to be as far back away from it as I can, because that’s not me. And yeah, I know they would agree — they’re their own people, etc. But this is important. Like, if we don’t want to be branded like this, we have to take a stand.

It’s time for the goddamn atheist community to get a divorce. I don’t want to be part of that side of the community, I don’t want to be associated with that side of the community, when I say I’m an “atheist” I want that side of the community to be the last thing that the person I’m talking to even begins to think about.

I am not going to idly stand by and not call out an atheist community of racist, sexist, bigoted-as-hell Trump supporters.

No. No. No.

And if you have a problem with that, do your worst. But this is too far.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. I have Patreon, if you want to help me keep writing.

Walking Pneumonia isn’t a big deal. You can get it by keeping phlegm down when you have allergies and bronchitis – – that phlegm can infect the lungs. It’s happened to me, actually.

Even Fox News says it’s not a big deal,  as an anti-Clinton commentator revealed when saying SHE had Walking Pneumonia – – right there, on the set.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/WqWEDZkZprc[/youtube]

So yeah. Even Fox News knows it’s small potatoes. You just need to recover. 

And like Clinton, they get right back to business. 

Could the rest of the country follow suit? 

Thanks for reading. 

So, it turns out that Hillary Clinton has had pneumonia since Friday.

Have you had pneumonia before? Even at my young age about thirteen or so years ago, it was tough. I don’t think I would have been able to handle a full campaign schedule.

Now, I’ve been a Sanders supporter. What I liked is his grit and determination. I wondered, to be honest, if Clinton had what it took. Did she have the determination and strength to be President?

We’ve just seen how she handles pneumonia. Which is a horrible illness — it’s amazing she wasn’t coughing more. She had a fever. She may have been sweating, nauseous, desperately wanting to lie down. Pneumonia is hell.

But she kept going. Not only did she keep a full campaign schedule — she tried her darndest to be the picture of perfect health.

It’s everything that I like and dislike about Clinton, but it tips the scales in the favor of what I like about her. She is trying to shore up her public image, constantly. But underneath it all, she is working her hardest for the American people. She feels like she has to hold back, constantly, due to the stigma surrounding her and due to long decades in the limelight, but if you watch her actions you’ll see she is really working hard for successfully in fighting for the American people — sacrificing, caring. As she stated recently:

“If you want to run for the Senate, or run for the Presidency, most of your role models are going to be men. And what works for them won’t work for you. Women are seen through a different lens. It’s not bad. It’s just a fact. It’s really quite funny. I’ll go to these events and there will be men speaking before me, and they’ll be pounding the message, and screaming about how we need to win the election. And people will love it. And I want to do the same thing. Because I care about this stuff. But I’ve learned that I can’t be quite so passionate in my presentation. I love to wave my arms, but apparently that’s a little bit scary to people. And I can’t yell too much. It comes across as ‘too loud’ or ‘too shrill’ or ‘too this’ or ‘too that.’ Which is funny, because I’m always convinced that the people in the front row are loving it.”

Thanks for reading.

Patreon

I wish I could find the humor in this karma. But the hypocrisy is too distracting.

So, YouTube basically changed its terms of service, in June. Basically, it drastically restricted the videos that it will allow to be monetized. Many creators didn’t find out about the demonetization until late August.

This has caused no small stir in the YouTube Anti-SJW community, because they have often offensive content. But there is also non-offensive content that gets demonetized, too. Suicide and depression, for example, are topics that apparently advertisers are apprehensive about having their ads associated with.  Or at least, that’s what YouTube thinks.

I’ve had an experience like this, too. For example, on this website, Patheos, I can write whatever I want. I just won’t get featured or promoted by Patheos if I have profanity in the title. I can have it anywhere else; just not the title.

The last website I was on before this, Hubpages (a good site if you want to develop blogging abilities, by the way) had even stricter rules.  I remember I couldn’t get a post about Leelah Alcorn (a trans woman who committed suicide due to religious pressure from her parents) monetized because it was about suicide.

I wasn’t upset. I didn’t cry. I didn’t become a victim. I went to the place they talked about advertisers, and Hubpages said this:

Put yourself in the shoes of an advertiser. Would you want your brand to be associated with domestic violence? How about self harm or illegal drugs?

Chances are you are shaking your head. Rest assured, you are in good company. Most ad networks have rules about the type of content on which their clients’ ads can be presented, and this is most certainly the case with our ad partners.

For this reason, we may disable ads (based on automated filters or moderator review) on Hubs that address the following subjects:

• Adult subjects: This includes Hubs discussing things like prostitution and abortion
• Sexual subjects: This includes Hubs containing descriptions of sexual acts or body parts
• Content about drugs
• Content about self harm
• Content about violence: This includes Hubs touching on domestic violence and hate crimes

So long as a Hub you write on one of these subjects also meets our publishing standards (note that Hubs that are adult, mature, and addressing illegal drugs donot), the Hub may remain published. Just bear in mind that the Hub will not make you any money.

That’s even more strict than YouTube’s current terms of service are, and I respected that. It wasn’t that these topics were bad. It was the free market at work. And I didn’t give it a second thought. It was just irrational for me to force people to give me money for content they didn’t want to give me money for. It seemed kind of greedy in some way.

I could still publish whatever I wanted, I thought. They weren’t infringing on my free speech. I’d just take a loss. And you know what? If your audience wants you to do that content, and you need compensation to justify the time you spend on it, you can always set up a Patreon or something so that they can keep it going. It’s really not a big deal. It’s not censorship because Hubpages, personally, doesn’t like my ideas, necessarily. It’s because Hubpages was a business. And I dealt with it; took it in stride.

If anyone should be able to understand that, it should be these anti-SJWs who are constantly complaining about how I and others are members of “victim cults” who should just get over any injustices that happen in our society and prevail past that, accepting that people have a right to their own decisions and actions. I was able to do that here. It was no big deal. If tomorrow, Patheos decided they could no longer monetize atheist blog posts because they weren’t advertiser-friendly, sure I’d be a bit upset, but I’m going to take it in stride and figure that they’re a business. They can make their own decision. I’ll find someone else to support me, or leave the platform, or just write atheistic blog posts for free like I did for years.

I guess it’s a bit confusing to me that the same people who have been getting on my case and the case of other so-called “SJWs” who are talking about actual injustices that happen in the world, actual positive changes we can make in the world — these people are so astonishingly thin-skinned about this. I understand it in principle — yes, it’s touching their pocketbooks. That would affect people who make their living making anti-SJW videos, sure.

But here’s the thing: making money off of videos on YouTube is a happy accident of YouTube marrying advertisers. You’re kind of the third wheel in the relationship. You’re benefiting from the consummation of their love fest. And their demonetization of videos is not infringing on your free speech. You still have free speech, by their good graces. It’s because of the needs of the advertisers — what they do and don’t want their ads associated with. It’s a rational choice, and complaining about it really makes you look like a big-league victim. I mean, honestly — most of the people the anti-SJWs criticize for being victims have far bigger problems than worrying about sustaining a career as a YouTube celebrity.

It’s really not a big deal. Or, at least, considering your criticism of “victim cults” in general, you should just take it in stride, understand that this is simply the way things work, and deal with it. I mean, I did that. It’s not hard. All it takes is applying all these principles you apply to other people, to yourself.

But they are making a big deal about it. There are a ton of videos about this on YouTube; you can go look for yourself and see all the complaints. And some I understand — like, if you’re sensitive and hurting already and not yelling at other people for being sensitive and hurting — then yeah, you’re not a hypocrite. Go ahead and be honest about how difficult this is for you. But if you are constantly telling other people to “man up!” or “woman up!” as the case may be — if you don’t follow your own advice here, you’re telling me that being a victim is OK sometimes, in a situation that, frankly, sounds hypocritically not quite as bad as the people you so often poke fun at.

Some YouTubers have taken to using this to ask for more monetary donations. So they actually are doing the very thing they accuse others are doing it — except in a more extreme way, for a less important cause. They’re fixing the problem by “playing” the victim. Hardly any of them are saying that they need to just push through it and accept responsibility, that they shouldn’t complain, that they should just deal with reality. They seem…a little whiny, to be honest.

Now. I’m not doing this to say they don’t have a right to do that (although I think they might be overblowing it, but whatever). If you’re a victim, and want to rectify the situation, you should seek to rectify the situation and be honest about your victimization. But that’s my logic. Theirs, in my experience, has been, “Just get over it, and move on.”

Maybe that sounds good for other people, but you can see, here, how that’s hypocritical, and a standard you can’t follow yourself. I think, personally, that everyone’s a victim in some way or another, and it is by victims coming forward and being honest about their victimization that we can solve problems. That’s a bit more consistent. And it applies to gender, to race, to class, and even something less important than that, like whether you make money off a YouTube video.

Basically, what I’m saying is that if it’s OK for you to be in a victim cult based on whether or not you’re making money on a video you freely offered to a platform and they’re freely hosting…you can’t turn around and say that black people can’t complain about getting brutalized by cops at higher rates. You can’t say someone with a broken leg can’t complain and ask to be taken to the doctor’s office when you’re crying and headed there via ambulance because you got a splinter.

Stop with the double standards; if you’re allowed to complain about your smaller problems, others are allowed to complain about their larger ones.

Gravy?

Thanks for reading.

P.S. Yes, I have a Patreon, too, if you want to help me keep writing.

Political correctness….

Political correctness tells you to value cloth over people, these days. But we don’t have time for political correctness. We have to do what is good for the American people. We have to tell the truth if we want to Make America Great. We know the Trump right is LYING when they say America is great right now, OK? They’re LYING.

And yes, folks — yes, they do say America is great. They stand up in their seats every anthem and pretend America’s great. But it’s bad; they know it — everyone knows it. It’s bad.

We have cops who — we don’t know what these cops are doing anymore. They’re shooting people, OK? They’re shooting people. These people they’re shooting, they’re good people. And they’re shooting them. Down, dead.

Why is this happening? We need to keep a closer eye on police until we know What Is Going On.

The truth is that when the government sends police officers to black communities, they’re not sending their best, folks. They’re not sending their best. They’re sending killers, they’re sending rapists — and some, I assume, are good people.

So I read this story the other day — have you seen this story? — I read this story about a 49ers quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, who is wearing socks with a design that has pigs who are in police caps to spread awareness about police brutality.

And people — listen to this — people are saying (Unbelievable. Unbelievable.) — people are saying that he hates cops.

He is the least cop-hating person, ever. He knows so many cops — he has two uncles and friends who are police officers, OK?  People who understand, unlike so many of these people, that ALL lives matter (yes, even the black ones).

Look: How can he be anti-cop if he has cop friends? It’s a simple question.

It’s a simple question.

And the cops love him. They love him!

He gets along so great with the cops, you wouldn’t believe it.

But people are whining. They’re whining and they’re saying: “Oh, he’s not ‘politically correct.’”

I think it’s a terrible thing, it’s disgraceful…and you know, maybe they should find a country that works better for them and takes non-patriotism seriously. Like North Korea. Let them try, folks. Let them try.

It isn’t going to happen.

They need to grow thicker skin. They’re just going to have to get used to it.

Because — believe me folks — I think that in the end, we’re going to win.

We’re gonna win.

Thank you for reading.

P.S. I have a Patreon, if you want to help me do what I do.

One of the things that this Colin Kaepernick fiasco has done is prompted me to take a better look at the national anthem.

There’s a part of it that actually never gets sung:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave, —

Wait. Wait. Wait.

Stop the tape. Stop the tape. STOP THE GODDAMN TAPE.

What the fuck?

No. Just no.

What the hell is that about?

Well, I read about it — and apparently there were some slaves who fought on the British side in the War of 1812, cuz the Brits were promising their freedom.

Awesome, right? If I would have been there, fuck patriotism. I wouldn’t feel patriotic at all, picking all that cotton — first chance to get on a British ship I could get, I’d take. As would you.

So they totally found their way to British ships, and the slave men fought for the Brits in exchange for no longer having to wear their chains — and their families not having to either.

They fought in that battle of 1814 that Francis Scott Key was singing about. Yeah. In the regiment The Colonial Marines.

That same one that involved “the rockets red glare.”

And so…the battle likely killed some of them.

Then Key got all inspired and shit and that beautiful sight, I guess, prompted him to jot off that song that’s become our anthem for whatever twisted reason. Like, that verse was STILL FUCKING IN THERE in 1931, when it became our national anthem.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

After the war, the United States wanted its slaves back — some 6,000 men, women, and children. And Britain was like, “Hell no, you ain’t getting these slaves back. They fought and died under your rockets’ red glare and all that; we’re gonna show them what freedom looks like.”

And then the former slaves went to Canada, Trinidad, etc., and to this day their descendents are known as “Merikans.”

For reals.

Now, Francis Scott Key himself was no saint. He was a racist, slave-owning asshole who went around saying some bullshit, like that thing about black people being “a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community.”

Hell. Naw.

This motherfucker…

Oh, it gets worse.

He became a slave owning, racist, black-deaths-rejoicing district attorney in 1833.

This guy, who said that black people were “the greatest evil that afflicts a community” became a fucking district attorney.

As the book Snowstorm in August by former Washington Post reporter Jefferson Morley puts it, the police in Key’s part of town would steal from black people as they wanted, and just disregard their rights like clockwork. One night, they tried to attack this black woman, and she got away, crossed a bridge — then fell off the bridge into the Potomac below, and drowned. She was silently buried (no, her name wasn’t Sandra Bland; wrong century).

An abolitionist paper wrote, ““There is neither mercy nor justice for colored people in this district. No fuss or stir was made about it. She was got out of the river, and was buried, and there the matter ended.”

And Key prosecuted the cops? No. Course not. This proud writer of the national anthem, home of the free and brave and all that, said that abolitionist paper was going out of its way “to injure, oppress, aggrieve & vilify the good name, fame, credit & reputation of the Magistrates & constables of Washington County.”

Further evidence that black people are “a distinct and inferior race of people…the greatest evil that afflicts a community.”

I don’t say the following words lightly:

Fuck Francis Scott Key. Fuck the national anthem.

Not convinced? Well, after he wrote this:

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,

His VERY NEXT LINES were this:

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

How the? What? How is that free? How the hell do you sing about slaughtering slaves proudly and then sing about protecting the home of the free and brave you racist, slave owning, bigoted — how does that happen? How does that make sense?

It doesn’t.

It doesn’t make any goddamn sense at all. That song does not represent me. That definition of “freedom” does not represent me. I am better represented by the 6,000 slaves that this song goes out of its way to exploit, by the black men and women Keys went out of his way to insult, by that woman buried in a grave that he disregarded, than I will ever be by such a bullshit anthem written by such a racist asshole of a man. Sorry, but not sorry. Go cry about it somewhere else through your teary-eyed illusion.

And maybe someday we’ll get past that. And we’ll recognize freedom. But when there is mass inequality in the United States of America — the only thing that anthem should be doing is reminding us how goddamn inconsistent we are, and have been since the beginning of ever in America, when it comes to upholding this “land of the free and the home of the brave” bullshit.

And the best way that can be done, I’m seeing, is by doing something that few of us have the guts to do, because it has been so inculcated into our culture that we’re not supposed to commit this slight of tremendous magnitude — and that is to stay seated during the pledge, as Kaepernick has done.

Thanks for reading.

P.S.  I have a Patreon, if you want to help me do what I do.