The thing about "locker room" talk...

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Monday October 10, 2016 · 11:05 AM PDT

2016/10/10 · 11:05

People who are assholes in locker rooms are assholes out of locker rooms. There is no secret code of the locker room where guys get to talk about their secret abusive nature free from criticism. Most men don’t view women as people to grope against their will and they don’t talk that way anywhere, locker room or not. There is a minority that does feel this way and obviously they have a large negative impact on society.

I guess I am writing this because there’s a thing that men do where they describe “guy culture” as if guys are all the same and like them. “Guy culture” is usually made out to be something about drinking beer and watching football and driving trucks and hating ballet. Trump is trying to tie his behavior into some supposedly acceptable stereotype about how all guys have violent testosterone driven anti-intellectual personalities. He’s trying to speak for all men when he passes off his abusive talk and actions. Fuck that. It’s been obvious since forever that Trump is a horrible excuse for a human being. That’s all on him.

Peace, Love and Voting

Shadowmuffin

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Tuesday April 19, 2016 · 11:22 AM PDT

2016/04/19 · 11:22

So…I’m getting mighty tired of the pie fights. And yes, I know I don’t have to read them but the mere fact of so much ugliness lurking in the rec list titles is depressing.

The thing about people is that they mostly make decisions based on emotion. This is probably the product of evolution, a holdover from the time when you had to look at an animal or situation and decide if it was going to kill you before you had the opportunity to do tests and work it out logically. That’s why advertisers don’t explain why their product is the best, they show young people in swimsuits having fun with their product so you’ll long to be like them.

My point is, angry blogs about how a candidate is going to cause the earth to spiral into the sun and why are so many stupid people supporting him/her don’t do anything but get people angry. If you want to change people’s minds you have to talk to them in a manner that shows that you are actually interested in them and their opinions and that you don’t think you already know everything and are willing to accept that there is more you could learn.

For the record I’m a Bernie supporter, but realize he’s probably not going to win and plan to vote for Hillary in the general and be glad when she wins. The policies that Bernie wants are for the most part long term projects and they neither depend upon him nor is he necessary for them to be implemented. Radical policy change is going to have to be driven from the grass roots, in the way that the “fight for 15” is making strong headway. Politicians are generally followers, the people are going to have to lead.

I sense a great butthurt in the force

Shadowmuffin

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Friday June 26, 2015 · 2:02 PM PDT

2015/06/26 · 14:02

I'm not being able to fight off the schadenfreude today. First the confederate flags are going down, then Obamacare continues unimpeded, and now gay marriage for all! Whine more, conservative politicians, it is sweet music.

Mike Huckabee:

...I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our Founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch. We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat.

Suck it Huckabee, you will acquiesce like the powerless troglodyte that you are.

Scalia:

[T]o allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation.

Suck it Scalia, there will absolutely be social transformation.

Ken Paxton:

But no court, no law, no rule, and no words will change the simple truth that marriage is the union of one man and one woman.

Suck it Paxton, that "simple truth" is now changed.

Reality is not changed by conservative tears.

Way to go Utah[/golf clap]

Shadowmuffin

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Monday March 23, 2015 · 9:14 PM PDT

2015/03/23 · 21:14

It is now legal in Utah to execute prisoners by firing squad.

http://abcnews.go.com/...

Probably won't get back to drawing and quartering for a few more years.

Time to turn to local politics

Shadowmuffin

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Wednesday December 10, 2014 · 11:58 AM PST

2014/12/10 · 11:58

It's rather a fool's errand to try and predict the future in politics, and even more foolish to count on your predictions coming true. Nevertheless...

On the national level, the next two years are going to be a tale of gridlock and vetoes and meaningless political posturing. In 2016 I think the Democrats have to be favored to win the presidency. We'll pick up seats, maybe even take the senate back, but we're waaaaayyyyy down in the house and it seems very unlikely that we'll take that as well. Democrats don't vote in midterm elections so it looks like gridlock all the way to 2020, where there might be a chance for Democrats pick up enough house seats to do something before the next mid term, assuming they decide not to let themselves be filibustered into oblivion again.

The real action in the foreseeable future is going to come on the state level and below. I hope that Daily Kos turns a good bit of their attention to these things. I think liberals can make a very strong push to, for example, get minimum wage raised in every state that has an initiative process. I think it's time to stop looking to the federal government for leadership.

Rollin' Coal

Shadowmuffin

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Friday June 27, 2014 · 2:22 PM PDT

2014/06/27 · 14:22

I saw this article by way of Wonkette. Apparently there is a thing where guys buy trucks and tune them badly for the purpose of making huge clouds of soot come out of their exhaust pipes, the better to piss off liberals.

I guess I'm used to rightwingers being a-holes, but I am more than ready to move on from the meme that "manhood" equates to being immature, uneducated, and unnecessarily aggressive. In real life these qualities are not necessary features of any class of people, but if we must associate them they are closest to the markers of painful and ugly adolescence. That some people can't get all the way through adolescence to the other side is tragic, but we should do the opposite of suggesting that they show any special degree of "manhood."

Welfare? What welfare?

Shadowmuffin

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Monday June 09, 2014 · 10:13 AM PDT

2014/06/09 · 10:13

One of my guilty liberal secrets is that I've never really been able to dismiss the right wing talking point that welfare breeds dependence. I know that no one aspires to be on welfare and that it does not confer an enviable lifestyle on anyone, but balanced against the soul crushing experience that is seeking a job without qualifications or much of a work history some people likely give up in despair. I know that I have worked jobs where I saw the same people coming in every month to apply so that they could fulfill a welfare requirement that they seek work, even though they didn't really expect to get the job.

I've nevertheless always thought we needed to have Welfare. You just can't let people starve and die because someone might take a bit more than in some theoretical world was ideal.

Shadowmuffin

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Friday October 25, 2013 · 9:19 AM PDT

2013/10/25 · 09:19

http://www.dailykos.com/...

Having read this diary, I wanted to fulfill the request and talk about why I'm a Democrat, but I'm not sure I have anything particularly interesting to say. I was born in a liberal household in a liberal neighborhood so diverse that I didn't really get the concept of "different races" until I was in 3rd or 4th grade because to me race looked like a continuum rather than discreet sets of cultural identities. My earliest political memory was being surprised at George McGovern's loss to Nixon in 1972- everyone in my neighborhood had McGovern signs in their yard so I assumed he was bound to win.

Shadowmuffin

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Tuesday October 08, 2013 · 1:29 PM PDT

2013/10/08 · 13:29

...for the Democrats to find some moderate Republican representative (is that even a thing) and make a deal where they agree to all vote for him for speaker of the house in exchange for opening government. That would let the R's save face by blaming everything on Boehner and throwing him under the bus, while the Democrats wouldn't really have to give up anything and would in fact gain a speaker who is willing to defy the tea party.

Yawning past Hypocrisy

Shadowmuffin

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Tuesday October 01, 2013 · 12:10 PM PDT

2013/10/01 · 12:10

One of the common features of political debates is frequent accusations of hypocrisy. "You didn't care when your guys did something similar," the accusation goes.

Here's the thing: I don't care. I don't care when Democrats do it, and I don't care when Republicans do it. People are natural hypocrites, the reason being that we are emotional creatures who make a most of our decisions based on how we feel rather than cold hard logic. If John Boehner had Elizabeth Warren's views and voting record I wouldn't even notice his orange skin, but he doesn't and so I have the urge to make fun of him.

Hypocrisy is the puniest of crimes. If a thing is wrong then it seems stupid to me to complain that someone is against it merely because they weren't against it when their guy did it. They were wrong then, they're right now, just get over it.

Complaining about hypocrisy is always a side issue, a distraction from the actual heart of the matter. The only reason to bring it up is to make yourself feel superior.

All of a sudden, profiling is bad

Shadowmuffin

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Wednesday May 15, 2013 · 10:21 AM PDT

2013/05/15 · 10:21

I thought the conservative line was that profiling was just common sense. Sure you pull over Hispanic drivers and demand their papers; they might be "illegals." Sure you search people of middle eastern descent at the airport.

But now when the IRS wants to look at non-profits with the name of a political anti-tax movement in their name to see if they might be a political group hoping to avoid taxes, all of a sudden profiling is bad. Curious...

There's always hope

Shadowmuffin

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Thursday February 21, 2013 · 8:00 AM PST

2013/02/21 · 08:00

Seven years ago we adopted my son from Korea. It was love at first sight. I still remember the times right after we got him, and how my wife and I would take turns sleeping with him on a mattress on the floor in what was to be his room so that he wouldn't feel alone in the new place. In the early mornings I would wake up and carry him down stairs to sit in a recliner with him sleeping on my shoulder, his little face inches from mine and gentle snores in my ear. There is no better thing than sitting in a comfortable recliner with sleeping baby, none at all.

Jason was always something of a late bloomer. He didn't walk until he was 2 years old and even then he had trouble getting off the floor. He clearly understood a lot of words but didn't speak much until late. We took him to the doctor and a physical therapist but no one seemed much concerned about it, telling us he'd catch up soon enough. And then one day his preschool teacher told us that she thought we ought to have him screened for muscular dystrophy.

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The thing about "locker room" talk...

Peace, Love and Voting

I sense a great butthurt in the force

Way to go Utah[/golf clap]

Time to turn to local politics

Rollin' Coal

Welfare? What welfare?

My Democratic Journey

I wonder if it would be possible...

Yawning past Hypocrisy

All of a sudden, profiling is bad

There's always hope