Tag: Pathogens
-
If Books Scare You, Actual Ideas Must Be Nightmares
Ever notice how it’s never progressives banning books? True fact: being progressive means book banning is anathema to you. Instead, progressives ban hate speech because hate speech undermines a diverse, democratic society. It is a literal assault upon others. Conservatives by contrast ban books because they hate what’s inside them – ideas and ways of…
-
Know Who Loves The Unvaxxed? Pathogens!
Listening to an anti-vaxxer insist they can’t trust science because they know better can make your head explode. More often than not, these aren’t dumb people; many are highly educated and, really, very well meaning. But anti-vaxxism has gotten under their skin like a religion. Or a cult. They embrace this mania with every fiber…
-
Rugged Individualists Are An American Myth
We Americans love tall tales. In a sense, our whole country IS a tall tale. It’s a story about dreams coming true. One tall tale we tell ourselves is the story of the rugged individualist. You know him – he’s the white guy with a big idea. Give him ample freedom? He’ll deliver! Who will…
-
What Polio Did To My Dad
Polio has returned to America. I agree with the Washington Post: that’s a tragedy. Anti-vax mania literally is going to begin killing people. In droves. Where polio’s concerned, the past is prolog. 70% of people will survive polio just fine; they’ll experience minor symptoms if anything. But, 30% of us won’t get off so lightly.…
-
Democracy Is “Use It Or Lose It”
Winston Churchill famously said “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried”. He said that after being voted out of office at the end of World War Two. Despite his cynicism (born of losing an election), he was right. Democracy is damned hard to pull off.…
-
What White Guys Really Mean By “Replacement Theory” Is “We Can’t Compete”
I have to admit that when white supremacist Nazi sympathizer marched through Charlottesville back in 2017 chanting “Jews will not replace us”, I was baffled. As Jonathan Sarna (scholar of American Jewish history, modern Judaism and Israel studies at Brandeis University) points out, “Jews are barely replacing themselves, let alone the white population as a…
-
Republicans & The Best Stateroom On The Titanic
Sane people can never quite grok how someone will always show up to place a million to one bet on something preposterous on the pure hope that “it could happen”. Those bets never pay off and are never going to. Republicans keep betting that the Titanic – having already hit the iceberg and begun taking…
-
Why Does The Republican Party Always Stand On The Wrong Side Of Everything?
Imagine rooting for a pathogen to win because more dead people — even if they’re you — equals “winning” though “winning what” isn’t exactly clear. Why does “owning the libs” mean so much to right wingers, conservatives and Trumpanistas? Why does it mean more than life itself? Is being a raging asshole really that satisfying…
-
Would America Breaking Into Two Americas – Red V Blue – Really Be Such A Bad Thing?
America is what happens when you let sleeping dogs lie and one of those dogs is racism. America has always had a jones for mythologizing itself. That’s because we have no common, longstanding history to stand on as people from every other country did when they came here. Aside from the Native Americans (wiped out…