Brigham Young University has been in the news this week for its Honor Code that it makes prospective students agree to. While I personally would despise living under the Honor Code, I respect BYU's right to have it in place to foster the sort of environment it wants, and recognize that it's a positive experience for the vast majority of students who go there. Nonetheless, the way it's applied and enforced has been a nightmare for some. To be clear, this is all they're complaining about on the Instagram page "Honor Code Stories", which has a lot of followers - I've seen several articles that cited the number of followers but when I went to the link the number was already higher than that, so I'm not going to bother. I fully support these students' cause and wish them the best. Again, this has nothing to do with trying to abolish the Honor Code or even change what's included in it, despite what some Latter-day Saints who belittle these students without reading what their actual grievances are would have you believe. Anyway, I thought that now would be a good opportunity to recollect the time I made some young ladies at BYU break the Honor Code. It was long enough ago that I don't think they'll face any repercussions even if their identities are discovered from the zero identifying information I'll provide. It was December 2013, and I was returning to Utah from New York after Christmas, but winter weather delayed the plane so much that we arrived after Salt Lake Express stopped running. As good fortune would have it, my friend Laura was returning to Utah from Vermont on the same flight, and happened to know a group of BYU students on the same flight, and she arranged for us to both crash at their apartment. Instead of, you know, on the airport floor. I realized in hindsight that having me, a member of the opposite sex, in their apartment overnight was a violation of the Honor Code. And I couldn't possibly be less sorry. As Nicholas Cage would say, "Here's to the women who did what was considered wrong, in order to do what they knew was right." A hair salon in Provo is also under fire for only including white, mostly blonde women in its ads. And normally I'm all in favor of diversity, but in this case it would actually constitute false advertising because, um, hello, this is Provo we're talking about. It makes the rest of Utah look like the United Nations. But unfortunately that's only the second stupidest controversy I heard about this week. Recently the comics of Nathan W. Pyle have taken the internet by storm. Using aliens and fancy words, he portrays everyday situations that humans take for granted in a new light, humorously exposing how weird they actually are. As an Aspie, I've known my entire life that human society is weird and frequently stupid and that most social norms are arbitrary if not flat-out stupid, but until I found a like-minded community on the internet I was always told that "that's the way it is" and I'm the one who's wrong for thinking differently. The Aspie-alien connection is very real. One of if not the largest online autism community isn't called "Wrong Planet" for nothing. I have to say that never being able to fully integrate or feel comfortable in society is a worthwhile price to pay for the ability to see through its crap. And this comic sort of validates. But then... this happened. Or rather, this happened some time ago and then some intrepid researcher brought it to light just the other day. Naturally, I am horrified to discover that Nathan W. Pyle appears to share the pro-life Christian views of tens of millions of other Americans. His gratitude that his girlfriend's life was not cut short in infancy obviously makes him a terrible excuse for a human being who wants women to be forced incubators. I cannot in good conscience follow him or read his comics any more. Oh wait, no. That's literally one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. And I only wish it were a straw man, instead of the accurate representation of mindless pro-abortion outrage that it actually is, up to and including the asinine phrase "forced incubators". So now Nathan W. Pyle is forced to defend himself for holding a viewpoint that some of his former fans don't think is acceptable. As if that weren't stupid enough already, notice that the majority of pro-life Christian sentiment is actually contained in the tweet that he retweeted, which was written by a woman. But none of the hate is directed at the woman. Because if it was, the haters would be forced to recognize how stupid they sound telling a woman that she wants women to be forced incubators. But of course, men aren't allowed to have an opinion on the sanctity of life because something something logical fallacy. Except pro-choice men, who are exempt from the logical fallacy because reasons. This particular man is just agreeing with a woman, but that's not okay either because pro-life women are officially supposed to not exist. Look, obviously you have no obligation to like or follow social media channels devoted to the promulgation of ideas that you disagree with. However, when you go to the trouble of culling friends or public figures for simply holding those ideas, your social media feeds become little more than monuments to your own narcissism. Even more so than they already are by default, I mean. The internet becomes a fantasy world where all good, honest, right-minded people think, believe, and vote exactly like you do. Over time this literally makes you stupider as you forget how to process anything that isn't what you want to hear. It also makes you a jerk to anyone who does manage to break through your echo chamber with cogent reasoning. And in cases like this, where Nathan W. Pyle was doing little or nothing to promote his personal views through the artwork that everyone came to his page to see, it's just a total waste of shunning. It would be like if I stopped listening to Sheryl Crow or watching movies with Harrison Ford because I don't agree with every detail of their politics. Stupid, right? Yeah, some people take positions so morally repugnant that you can't stand to be associated with them. That's fair. But if you think being pro-life is one of those positions, then no offense, but you're kind of stupid. If you can't grasp any good or honest reasons why a person acting in good faith would reach the conclusion that taking the life of a human organism in its early stages of development is wrong, but instead insist on making up stupid crap about how they're just masking their burning desire for women to be forced incubators, you're no better or smarter than someone who thinks you want to murder every baby in the world. It's also worth noting that there are tens of millions of pro-lifers in the United States and their numbers increase every year, so looking down on them as if they're some laughably outnumbered deviation from acceptable ways of thinking is not only arrogant, but delusional. I would even go so far as to guess that more of Nathan W. Pyle's fans support him for this tweet than otherwise. But it ultimately should have zero relevance to his alien comics. Now, if there were any actual evidence of Nathan W. Pyle, say, screaming at pregnant women outside abortion clinics, shooting abortionists, or blowing up abortion clinics - stuff that for some reason is often represented as the norm while pro-choice violence, harassment, and rape threats go blissfully ignored - then he would be a piece of scum and losing his social media following should be the least of his consequences. However, I'm unaware of any evidence that anyone's life has been negatively impacted in any way by his gratitude that his girlfriend lived to adulthood. But because people are idiots, he had to take to Twitter again to run damage control after they ate him alive for it. I'm sure the Christianity aspect (which, again, originated with the woman that he retweeted) has nothing to do with the outrage against Nathan W. Pyle, because Christians have a persecution complex and are not actually mistreated or stigmatized in the United States at all. Still, his claim to believe in separation of church and state is dubious in light of this scandal. From what I've been able to gather in my observations, separation of church and state means that religious people aren't supposed to have political opinions or express their beliefs outside of a church building. And if, God forbid, churches themselves want to get involved in politics, then they should start paying taxes because holding them to a different standard than literally all other non-profit organizations makes sense. It seems to me that Nathan W. Pyle already violated separation of church and state with his infamous retweet, which forced his beliefs on people by acknowledging them in a place where people could read them. But I'll let it slide this once because we all make mistakes. I agree wholeheartedly with his closing sentence, yet find it laughable that he thinks the Democrats are any better. But I'll let that slide too because, oh yeah, I almost forgot, I like his comics. His votes can go toward the Pansexual Vegan Anarcho-Communist Party for all I care. "I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend." - Thomas Jefferson to William Hamilton, April 22, 1800 Now, it would be remiss of me not to mention some considerably happier news even if just for the two of you who haven't heard already. Behold: I must admit this teaser comes nowhere close to recapturing the excitement I felt as an almost-12 year old seeing the "Revenge of the Sith" teaser, probably because this time I know there will be future Star Wars movies of varying quality until well after I die, but the bit at the end definitely got my attention. I can only describe it as
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I set a goal to publish a blog post every week, and this de facto ended up being on the weekends, and that format means that sometimes I'm really late to the party discussing current events. But while this storm may have mostly blown itself out, it hasn't ceased to be an issue, and even if it had it would deserve to be recapped in detail so that we could, theoretically, learn from our stupidity. So sorry not sorry for bringing this up after all the cool people have stopped talking about it. Wanting to be the bigger person and forgive their occasional lapses of integrity (like their refusal to cover Kermit Gosnell), I initially trusted the media accounts of the so-called incident at the March for Life (which for some reason doesn't merit media coverage unless an incident happens or it disrupts traffic). I had no reason to doubt the claims that a group of white teenagers wearing "Make America Great Again" hats surrounded elderly Native American Vietnam War veteran Nathan Phillips and taunted him with chants of "Build the Wall". There was nothing particularly implausible about such a story. Trump's rhetoric and actions have created a climate where droves of formerly ostracized white supremacists are comfortable being loud and proud about their white supremacy, and that the vast majority of said white supremacists, not coincidentally, voted for him and continue to support him. Nick Sandmann in particular, appearing to be the ringleader, went viral for having the racist audacity to smile at Phillips. If "smiling while white" isn't officially classified as a hate crime, it should be. Naturally, many liberals throughout the country demonstrated their moral superiority by threatening to harm and/or murder him and his family, just like Martin Luther King would have wanted. But don't worry, they had plenty of hatred left over for the other students involved, so much that Covington Catholic High School had to close for safety concerns. This one, though probably meant to be funny somehow, is my favorite because the total lack of consequences really shows where Disney's priorities are (besides murdering the second biggest franchise of all time, of course). Since I detest Donald Trump and consider it a patriotic duty to speak out against him, this story was convenient for me in a certain sick sense, as it was for many others who believed it. I didn't become consumed with rage or make any threats, but I passed the information along in the naive hope of weakening Trump's influence among decent people in some small way. If I were the average American voter, I would have tried to persist in believing said information when it turned out to be an SJW fairy tale. But unfortunately I have this peculiar, un-American mental disorder that I like to call "being honest enough to change my opinions when I know they're wrong". So instead I redirected my former anger toward the ones who actually deserve it, and I apologize for sharing the lie, and I would apologize far more profusely if I thought I'd actually influenced literally anybody. Because, as everyone should be aware by now, there turned out to be many more minutes of footage than the one we got worked up over. Nathan Phillips' account of events falls apart even before the students share their side of the story which actually matches the video. Yet I'm still seeing people trying to pretend his account is accurate and he's some kind of hero or victim. The actual facts (remember those things?), which naturally didn't go as viral by a long shot as the original mindless outrage, turned out to be that: *Prior to this encounter, a group of black protesters was yelling racially charged insults and threats at the students. Of course this wasn't newsworthy or outrageworthy because racism against white people is okay. *The students, with permission from their chaperone, started chanting school spirit chants to drown out the aforementioned racism they were being bombarded with. Instead of, I don't know, retaliating in any way. *The students did not approach or "surround" Phillips. He walked into the spot where they had been standing for some time and played his drum in Nick Sandmann's face for no adequately explained reason. *Literally nobody during this encounter chanted "Build the Wall". Literally. Nobody. You. Lying. Sacks. Of. Crap. One of Phillips' Native American protesters did yell at the students to "go back to Europe", though. *Phillips is not a Vietnam War veteran. He never set foot in Vietnam. He was a refrigerator mechanic who only served in the US, was frequently AWOL, and never got promoted past Private in four years. CNN, to their credit, published a statement by the one smiling student who's received most of the American Left's special brand of tolerance. He seems to have more maturity in his pinky finger than all his haters possess together. Twitter, to their credit, suspended the fake account that posted the original deceptively edited (remember that phrase?) video. But this account can hardly shoulder the blame for everyone who believed the story or continues to do so. Yes, I was one of the many who believed it, because I had these crazy notions that Nathan Phillips was an decent honest guy and mainstream news outlets were reasonably trustworthy sources, but since I never got involved in the unwarranted vitriol toward these students and have since changed my mind in response to additional information, I have a clean conscience. I posted a thing about the original false account, and when I realized I was wrong I posted a thing about the truth, and one of my liberal friends went ballistic about how the truth doesn't matter because these teenagers are still unforgivably bad people for not moving aside when an old man walked into them. And that obviously still warrants viral news coverage and death threats. A couple days later - I'm not making this up - she shared a derogatory post about how sensitive white males on the internet are. There's also this unsurprising little irony: I don't remember perfectly, but I do know for a fact that I could count the number of social media posts I saw about the torture on one hand, all of them from conservative sources complaining about the lack of coverage from liberal sources. The attack wasn't very newsworthy or outrageworthy for a couple reasons: because it was black-on-white, and because the black men and women said things like "F--- Trump" while they were torturing the white boy. Awkward. In fairness, CNN did give the story a bit of coverage that failed to go viral, during which Don Lemon refused to denounce the torture as "evil" because "I think these are young people, and I think they have bad home training." I mean, every single one of the black torturers was a legal adult and older than the white students that liberals thought deserved to die for literally no reason, but nobody asked me. In fairness, with the trivial exception of grossly misrepresenting his military record and allowing others to do so, maybe Nathan Phillips isn't actually the belligerent lying scumbag he appears to be. Maybe this was all a big misunderstanding, and he's a decent honest guy who was simply mistaken about the boys' intentions and somehow got every verifiable detail of the encounter wrong. But since he followed up the next day by loudly trying to barge into a Catholic Mass with a group of his activists, which I don't need to tell you isn't newsworthy or outrageworthy because reasons, I doubt it very much. Why is it that the people who are obsessed with shaming other people are incapable of feeling shame themselves when they should? The worst of the haters are either still defending Phillips and bashing the students, or trying to quietly move on as if nothing happened and they didn't just screw up innocent people's lives with their stupid witch hunt. Delusion or cowardice, respectively. What if we all had the humility of Dr. Robert P. George, one of the few prominent conservative figures I still respect, who wrote: And (like me) he wasn't a part of the irresponsible media or the liberal hate machine, so he doesn't even have that much to apologize for. Guess who does?
But then the real problem, according to some other nobody on Twitter, is that these boys "were in D.C. for the sole purpose of promoting male control of women's bodies", having been "bussed in to demand adult women be subjected to forced childbearing". Okay, I grant that would be pretty bad and would definitely warrant death threats for teenagers and their families if it were true instead of being the stupid straw man (no pun intended) that it actually is. Somebody would need to mansplain to all the poor stupid women who participated in the March for Life that they've been duped by men into promoting male control of their bodies, but nobody could because that would be sexist, so it's a good thing that isn't necessary. This damnable post-truth fake outrage society I'm forced to live in makes me yearn for an early death. (Insert your own quip about also yearning for my early death here.) And pardon the cliche, but if the American Left is really serious about combating bigotry, it needs to take a long look in the mirror. First, a completely out of character uplifting story. This week I tried to pay the utility bill online (ouch) and I forgot to put my credit card back in my wallet and it fell in the couch. I discovered this last night when I got to the register at Panda Express. Yes, I was eating somewhere fancy and expensive even though I'll probably regret it later because it's fall break and I wanted to do something special like everyone else, dang it. Feeling just slightly embarrassed, I asked if they could hold onto my food while I went and got my card, which would have taken at least forty minutes but was my only option. And the guy behind me in line whom I had never met before was like, "Nah, I'll just pay for it." And I was like, "Are you sure?" And that was a stupid thing to say, because what was he going to say, "On second thought, no"? But you know, you have to say something like that in these situations. So he did, and his little act of kindness made me not care that Russians are getting arrested for meddling in our elections. Normally I'd be outraged, because only Americans are allowed to meddle with other countries' governments, but I'm focusing on the positive now. Now, on to what the title promised: Gosnell MovieTo recap: serial killer abortionist Kermit Gosnell violated several laws, operated in disgusting conditions, murdered babies that were born alive, and wasn't investigated by the authorities for nearly two decades despite multiple complaints. And everyone, regardless of their views on abortion, hates him. Yet for some reason most of the media refused to cover his trial until they were called out on it by this thing called "the internet" that they apparently didn't count on, and many people tried to stop this movie from getting made or released, and now most of the media is refusing to review it despite it doing reasonably well at the box office and Facebook is literally blocking its ads for some bullcrap reason. I don't know why. I guess Kermit Gosnell just makes abortion look bad. I'm not able to see this movie because it's not playing anywhere near me, but I support its mission to get the truth out. Jane & EmmaI did manage to see this one. Weird story. So I'm in this Facebook group "Black Latter-day Saints" despite not being black, and someone there said to text this number for free tickets to this movie, and I did, and I only asked for one, but this happened: So on my sixth try, I found someone willing and able to go with me on such short notice. After I kicked a couple seats in front of me until they took a hint and turned off their obnoxiously bright phones (Pro tip: if you can't go without looking at your phone for an hour and a half, something's wrong with you), I was able to enjoy the movie. It's not really my type of movie and the chronology was a little confusing at first, but it was decent. The movie, of course, is about the sisterhood between LDS prophet Joseph Smith's first wife Emma and black LDS convert Jane Manning James, a sisterhood far ahead of its time. This movie has been praised for "having a public conversation everyone else should be having". As someone with more than a passing interest in black Latter-day Saint history, of course I had to see it and I'm glad I did.
Tomorrow: another post because I missed a week somewhere I neglected to mention last time that as of the day after Labor Day, I have now worked at Jenson Online for a year. It went by faster than my less than four months at the call center. My worst day here (Valentine's Day, when none of my equipment was working right and there was a new quality control guy who was stupidly strict and I felt like I was being eaten alive all day) was better than most days there. I can't say all days there because I did enjoy doing surveys for the Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals, and near Independence Day we had a picnic. But mostly it sucked so I always try to remember and be grateful for what I have now. I feel that it's like a marriage. You start out all excited and happy and in love, but as the months and years go by the novelty wears off and the more mundane realities of life set in and take over, and you need to make a proactive effort to remember how blessed you are and how wonderful your spouse is. But I'm not married so I wouldn't know that for a fact. There's a Facebook page called USU Memes that doesn't really do anything anymore, but during my freshman year when I discovered it, around the same time I discovered what memes are, it posted a lot of stuff. I made a few of my own and shared them to the page, and now I feel like sharing them again because what else am I supposed to do here? I couldn't find them, so I recreated them from memory. If there were more I've forgotten about them. Like, every other week it was broken again. One time there was a note that said: "Seriously guys? If the elevator won't go down, you do not jump on the floor to make it go down. This is why we can't have nice things." That was the first time I'd heard the expression "This is why we can't have nice things" and I thought he was being original. But this story has a happy ending! After I stood there silently for a couple minutes, she noticed her mistake. Christian Thrapp was his name. He became USUSA president. I wish he were USA president too, because I'm 99% sure he'd be more qualified than our current tool. This was by far my most popular contribution and Christian himself was quite pleased with it. Here is my take on the wedding cake thing that everybody, by which I mean nobody, was asking for. First of all, it's quite annoying that people keep misrepresenting what the issue actually is, claiming that the businesses in question are "refusing to serve gay people". As if they make prospective customers fill out a survey on their sexual orientation and then refuse to sell any goods or services to the gay ones. In reality, they are merely declining to provide goods and services for a specific ceremony that violate their religious beliefs. To my knowledge, every one of them is perfectly willing to serve these same customers under any other circumstances, and has done so. Now from a fairness point of view, both sides have a compelling argument. But from a legal point of view, it appears to me that the businesses have it hands down. The First Amendment protects their religious practice as well as belief. It doesn't include a caveat that says "only in church" or "unless you own a business" or "unless your beliefs are deemed to be discriminatory". The Fourteenth Amendment that many people have fallaciously cited refers only to the State, and says literally not one word about citizens or privately owned businesses. Many people who have never looked at the Constitution don't seem to realize that it actually tells the government what it can and can't do, not the citizens. I'm not sure why a constitutional right that actually exists (practicing your religion) is now considered to be trumped by one that doesn't (getting cake/flowers/whatever from whichever business you want). Myself, I would have no problem serving a same-sex wedding because I really couldn't care less, just like I would provide birth control for employees, and of course this is all very hypothetical because I don't anticipate ever owning a business or being able to bake a cake. But I don't believe the government has any right to coerce anyone else to if it violates their conscience. Just like it has no right to force anyone to buy there. If you think they're being discriminatory, take your business elsewhere. Why would you want to give money to people you hate anyway? Also, this is a thing that happened: a teenager with Down syndrome confronted German chancellor Angela Merkel over the fact that nine of ten German babies with Down syndrome are aborted. I thought Germany was super paranoid about not letting anything resembling Nazi stuff happen ever again, but here it is embracing eugenics again. Herpa derp derp. FiredanceMy family used to have a VHS tape (ask your parents what that is) of Riverdance that my sister watched all the time. I made fun of her for watching it all the time but secretly liked it. Shhhh. This was my favorite part and it still is. The good bit starts about 1:49, but it isn't the same without the buildup. Then about 3:22 (SPOILER ALERT) Michael Flatley comes along like "A powerful, independent woman? I must put her in her place." And then he's like, "You can twirl around? That's cute. I literally have the fastest feet in the world." As a kid this part where they stare each other down made me think of taming a tiger. Unfortunately, this video omits the bit at the end where he kisses her on the cheek and they walk off stage with their arms around each other. That's how every mixed-sex battle for supremacy should end. |
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- Amelia Whitlock "I don't know how well you know Christopher Randall Nicholson, but... he's trolling. You should read his blog. It's delightful." - David Young About the AuthorC. Randall Nicholson is a white cisgender Christian male, so you can hate him without guilt, but he's also autistic and asexual, so you can't, unless you're an anti-vaxxer, in which case the feeling is mutual. This blog is where he periodically rants about life, the universe, and/or everything. Archives
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