The first would be when someone does something despicable (I find it often comes up after a mass shooting or other terrorist attack), and people refuse to believe a healthy human mind could do such a thing, and, in the same breath, wish ill upon the person. The naivete about a healthy human’s ability to kill another human doesn’t bother me so much, although I will try to educate the speaker. No, what bugs me is that they’re simultaneously saying that it’s not the person’s fault (even though the mentally ill are far more likely to harm themselves than anyone else), and then blaming them for that same thing that they say isn’t their fault. The pure cognitive dissonance, along with the unnecessary stigmatization of the mentally ill, pushes all of my buttons.
The second “mental illness” thing that sets me off is when someone is acting in a manner that the poster doesn’t agree with, and the poster uses words like “nutjob.” I’m generally okay with behavior being described as “crazy,” but mental-illness-themed pejoratives directed at peopleinfuriate me.
[Insert rant here about pejoratives, dehumanization of both the insulted and those the insult would normally describe, etc…]1
My family has been deeply touched by mental illness. When you use mental illness as an insult, you are insulting my family. And I cannot, will not, let that go.
1I’ve already posted this rant multiple times, and if someone really wants me to dig it up again, I will, but I just don’t have the energy to write it all out again.
I think these are major reasons. Realistically I’m not making decisions about where my electricity comes from and I find my choice of transportation is really constrained by what economic opportunities are available to me. Others have to fix it because I can’t. Even the field of chemistry I’m gradually moving into isn’t going to be one that potentially solves this problem. It’s leaps and bounds beyond my paygrade. The solutions are all at a technocratic and political level that rests above our heads. Most people feel powerless about the road that needs to be paved down the street or the TTP. For something as complicated as reforming the global energy infrastructure? Helplessness doesn’t begin to describe it.
There’s a group of enthusiasts driving “coal smokers.” Cars that deliberately run dirty and burn inefficiently. Someone on my Facebook was incredibly pissed off about it, which to me illustrated how helpless he feels about global warming. Those trucks are an insignificant drop in the bucket compared to global carbon output, and are a passing fad. But he was pissed and I understand why.
It’s interesting, but one reason my views on gun regulation have moved left during my time in Texas is that I’ve met and interacted with a lot of other gun owners who don’t take a hard line against regulation and are down-right punctilious about following the regulations. Contrast that with LA where most gun owners I knew had illegal guns and much less experience.
Exactly. I go the other way and consider them beneath the level of my concern, but I still feel a little affronted.
I went back and forth on gun control before realizing I found both prohibitionists and ammosexuals to be incredibly annoying. I have more respect for prohibitionists because I can see the intense practicality of the argument: No guns=No shooting. That makes sense. I can’t go along with it because I do think our problems can be largely mitigated without prohibition and I do have a fundamental sense that there should be limits on society’s ability to restrict your activities. If I believed the problem couldn’t be fixed without prohibition, that might be a different story.
As for the other side? Rationality and reason kind of fell down a deep hole as far as I’m concerned. There’s a part of me considering hoarding something already super popular like .22 ammo and then waiting for Hillary’s inauguration so I can spread a rumor it’s going to be outlawed. I’d make bank because this crowd is incredibly paranoid. Every regulation is the end of gun rights to them, no matter how minor. You think I’m kidding about the ammo selling thing, but I’ve seriously considered it because panic buying is so common.
The day after Barack Obama was sworn in, .22 LR quadrupled then doubled on top of that in price a few days later in Northern Idaho if you’d believe some friends of my family.
It’s so easy to compartmentalize each other – this is/she is/he is bad and vice versa. Perhaps it’s human nature. But all of us are vast contradictions unto ourselves, and to recognize and confront it takes courage, I think. I also agree with many of your statements about guns, although I’m always hesitant to go out on that branch because so many of my views align with people who advocate prohibition. I grew up around guns. My father has hunted at the same cabin in southwestern Virginia for nigh on 40 years, and what they hunt, they bring home to eat or they process to give to families in the area who actually need the food. Responsible gun ownership has been drilled into my consciousness since childhood. So, my views cause me cognitive dissonance, to say the least. I hope by recognizing our contradictions, it makes us all more fully realized and empathetic human beings. (I should note that my father also keeps bees, gardens, fixes computers, and does ham radio. So, when the apocalypse finally hits, I am so going to his house.)
Standing O for this post in general, but that quote – right to the heart. Right to the heart. It’s where the personal intersects the universal and meaningful dialogue occurs.
I hear ya. And honestly, one reason I give the gun threads a nice wide berth is because half the time the unproductive arguments will be with friends or at least people I agree with 99% of the time. I recognize it’s an issue that’s hard to stay clam when talking about. I don’t blame anyone for that. Maybe if it was an issue I was passionate about, like racism or sexism or even healthcare, I’d wade into those discussions. But as it is, it’s just not the topic I want to expend temporal and emotional capital on.
I honestly wouldn’t know where to find gun threads and frankly, I’m not eager to try that search. It’s like when my dearly beloved, but equally impish, friend told me to seek Internet wisdom about the plot for “The Human Centipede” when I asked her what it was. I’ve still not forgiven her.
Things that I like? Psychotronic/bad/obscure movies… @Jilly I already knew about “The Human Centipede” as it was big ‘hit’ at SIFF but I knew from the description it wasn’t my thing.
Discovering new or new to me music that is totally out of the mainstream and @pesco’s recommendations do not help with my music buying budget.
I guess mine is probably economics. Having been up and down the range from “don’t have to worry about anything” to “how are we going to get from the abandoned building we’re staying in to the place giving out food and back again?” to “making good money and living well but paycheck-to-paycheck, so anything could knock the floor out from under us at any time” and so on, very lopsided viewpoints irritate me. But many people have never been outside of one economic level their entire lives. And our cultural ideals about such things don’t change nearly as quickly as the economy itself changes.
There’s also the whole boiling frog thing - it’s happening slowly enough, and appears to be some nebulous time in the future. One could say that we’re addicted to things that pollute, and like a smoker or drinker knows that eventually the lungs or liver will be damaged, things seem ok enough for now.
I never would have guessed. Whenever I see your avatar my mind goes back to going to see “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me!” here in Nashville. For the “Not My Job” segment Vince Gill was asked questions about Vincent Price. He didn’t get all the answers right but I did.
I would love to know some favorite obscure/bad/good movies I should check out. There’s such a fine line between bad/awesome and bad/boring. “Miami Connection” is great fun. But i just tried to watch “Searchers of the Voodoo Mountain” and fell asleep.
Whenever I see your avatar my mind goes back to going to see “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me!” here in Nashville. For the “Not My Job” segment Vince Gill was asked questions about Vincent Price. He didn’t get all the answers right but I did.
