BUTWHATABOUT????

I have had enough whataboutism. I'm chock fucking full of it. Every time another man in a powerful  position is accused of some sort of sexual impropriety, the what about machine kicks into high gear, with the inevitable conclusion of some conservative throwing Bill Clinton's name out. 

As of Bill Clinton getting a blowie from a White House intern, or banging a campaign staffer or any other of his supposed "victims", (all of whom had reached maturity), is comparable to Roy Moore trying to bang teen agers. It's a bull shit comparison, and it has to stop. In fact, all of these damned comparisons have to stop.

Sexual assault / harassment and all variations there of SHOULD be about the behavior itself and holding each individual accountable for their actions regardless of what anybody else has done. But like everything in else in politics these, we've made this a zero sum game in which a winner has to be declared. It took these women courage to come forward, regardless of time passed, and tell their stories. We shouldn't be discounting them by pointing at other instances and yelling BUTWHATABOUT.

Well, the floodgates are open, and the accusations of sexual harassment / abuse of women and girls by men in powerful positions are coming at us on an almost daily basis. Hell, if they get any more frequent, they'll be almost as prevalent as mass shootings.

And we have seen a spectrum of reactions from the accused.

Donald Trump and Roy Moore flat out denied any wrong doing, threatened to sue the outlets that broke their stories, and called their accusers liars that are pawns of the liberal elite engaged in a smear campaign against them and christian conservatism in general. This despite the fact that several women came forth similar stories in both cases.

Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey checked into rehab, because well, when you abuse women or young boys in liberal world, it's a sickness, not a crime, and spending a month and a half in quiet meditation, group therapy and rehabilative exercise at a high dollar facility in the Arizona desert is enough to completely cure the illness within a couple of sick fucks that repeatedly foisted their selves sexually upon people that were unwilling to participate in whatever lechery floated their boat. No really. Those two will never abuse again after the shock treatment that they are receiving at La Boheme, or what ever the hell the name of the place is.

The only guy that I can say has handled his shit with any grace at all is Louis CK. Louis actually stood up and stated to the world that his accusers were absolutely correct, that he did exactly what they accused him of, and that he deserved what ever was coming to him. In this day and age, that is almost unheard of.

It's always "a sickness", or "a conspiracy against me".  Taking responsibility for your own shit is almost unheard of. Especially in the party of personal responsibility and family values. Deny, deny, and then deny some more. While in denial, point fingers at as many people and entities as possible and state repeatedly that they are out to stop you and whatever righteous cause that you represent. Don't forget that something will come along in the next couple of days and the news cycle will forget about you. Just keep denying and pointing.

But the funny thing has been watching the right wing echo chambers commentary on the whole thing.

Harvey Weinstein is just one of those coastal elite liberals that finally got his comeuppance, and he should be damned to hell for his lecherous behavior, and God bless those poor women.

Roy Moore, on the other hand is falsely accused and the whole thing is a political smear campaign, (oh, the irony), and the women making these damnably outrageous accusations should be prosecuted for libeling a great man. And we can't forget to throw Bill Clinton's name out there every few minutes.

It's almost ludicrous.

Tribalism - noun

1. the customs and beliefs of tribal life and society.
2. strong loyalty to one's own tribe, party, or group.

Which brings me to Roy Moore. 

This is a guy who has been kicked off of the Alabama supreme court twice...once for refusing to take down a monument to the 10 commandments, and the other for refusing to enforce SCOTUS rulings. A guy who has stated that the muslims should not be able to hold political office. A guy who bought fully into the Obama birther horse shit. A guy who believes that there are American communities living under Sharia law. A guy who intimated that the 9/11 attacks were a result of America falling out of favor with God. A guy who has claimed that consensual adult homosexuality is tantamount to child abuse. A guy who has publicly stated that the constitution is about preserving CHRISTIAN rights, and not so much those of folks from other religions. And now this is a guy that has been accused of having a proclivity for sex with girls as young as 14...by the people that endured his amorous attentions.

Doesn't sound like the type of person that you'd want to elect to public office does it? Especially not to the highest legislative body in the land. Surely common sense and cooler heads would prevail if this man were presented as a candidate for any position higher than jizz mopper at the local porn outlet.

You would think.

But that's when that tribalism thing kicks in.

You see, we're not a society of cool heads and common sense these days. We're a mob that is easily swayed by emotion. We are individuals desperately protective of our own opinions and those who share those opinions. In this country, critical thinking and sound judgement have been replaced by howling red eyed anger and rhetoric. We are tribes, and we are at war with each other.

Nowhere is that more evident than in our political discourse. Our politics have become the very definition of tribalism. 

So, when the accusations against Moore were published by the Washington Post, the right wing echo chamber, and conservatives at large swung into to action to circle the wagons and defend one their own.

They have attacked the Washington Post as being part of the biased liberal media. They have questioned whether it is really all that bad for Moore to have pursued teen aged girls when he was at least a dozen years older than they were. They have stated that only one of Moores relationships with these young girls relationship was “problematic.” Sean Hannity, that arbiter of non partisan commentary, suggested that Moore’s sexual interactions with a 14-year-old were “consensual.” Rush Limbaugh attacked one of the accusers as a “wacky,” “self-admitted mess of a woman.” Hell, an Alabama state auditor claimed the relationships were tantamount to the biblical relationship between Joseph and Mary.

You get the idea.

They are going to back this guy regardless of anything.

Even if he himself can't keep his damn story straight.

During an interview with Hannity, Moore stated unequivicollay that the had never met the 14 year old in question, then followed that up with the statement that he did not remember if he dated any girls in their teens back then, but he never dated any young girls without their mothers permission.

Think about that.

Moore is damn sure that he never met that 14 year old girl.
But he doesn't remember if he actually dated teen agers back then.

But the kicker is that a man in his 30's was asking multiple mothers for permission to date their daughters.

Who the hell does that?

Maybe guys who actively seek relations with teen age girls? 

We have become so damn divided, so ensconced in our own bull shit that some of us cannot even seem to accept the notion that they may very well be getting ready to elect a dyed in the wool edged ass hole to legislate at the highest level. And in truth, it really does't matter to many of those that will vote for Moore, as long as they stick it to the democrats, the liberals, the elites, and the snowflakes. 

Maybe it's time to stop playing at politics as if it were a zero sum game where there are winners and losers. 

When the Roy Moore's of this country, and those of his ilk, rise to positions of great power, we all lose.

Want proof?

Just look at the Oval Office.

Perspective

 It wasn't too long ago...In fact, as I recall it was sometime in the year 2000 and 11 that folks were up in arms about the legality of the president killing American citizens. Remember that? remember how for the first time in history conservatives were squalling about the legality of killing an American, ( I find this amusing because conservatives agitate for less and less regulation of anything and everything constantly, which when enacted, inevitably leads us to shit like Flint Michigan's water supply, which has poisoned an untold number of Americans).

But I digress, in 2011 the conservatives were harping about the legality of killing an American with a drone. Now keep in mind that this was an American that had renounced his citizenship, and was actively perpetrating acts of war against the US and her allies on foreign soil...and conservatives made this buffoon their poster child for yet another smear campaign against Obama. Then a year or two later when Bo Bergdahl came back, with no trace of irony what so ever, conservatives were calling for the execution of an American soldier for desertion? Do you remember this crap? Do you also remember that because it was a diametrically opposed liberal narrative, liberals were squalling that Obama had acted within his authority by killing al-Awlaki with a drone, and then later that Bergdahl had done nothing wrong?

 I know, I know, that was 37 mass shootings, 6 Benghazi investigations, two unconstitutional rulings by the supreme court and a second unlawful election of a foreign born, America destroyin' gun snatchin' oversteppin' pretender ago. We've had other things on our minds. Hell, we've had two armed federal stand offs with members of one family, abortion videos, and Ebola since then. Damn it, we even had Obama try to take over Texas, round up all the guns and then make decent folks live under Wal-Marts and get gay married to ISIS jihadists. And through it all, we've been doing anything and everything to put Hillary Clinton in jail before she can continue leadin' this God fearin', Christian values nation down the road of destruction that we've been set upon by that heathen that currently occupies the residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. By God, we've had a full plate!!! We can't dawdle over the fact that one guy out of several that was killed with a drone may or may not have been an American, or whether that lily livered SOB was consortin' with the enemy or not.

I know that I used examples of conservative outrage in the previous paragraph, but don't get me wrong, liberals are just as bat shit crazy as conservatives are these days. Seriously, any damn ideology that supports an idiot high school drop out, who flips burgers making more money that his counter part, who took up arms in service to this country has also gone off of the freaking rails. It's just that conservatives take themselves so much more seriously while they are slinging bull shit. Just look at Ted Cruz or Louie Gohmert. 

That my friends is the point of this blog. It's about time that someone stopped and took a look at what we as a nation have become. I may be wrong, but from where I sit, the answer to the question of what we have become is that we've become a bunch of whining, self centered jack asses that spend entire days doing nothing more productive than being at at each others digital throats. Seriously, I, for the most part, quit posting politically charged material on my Facebook page, due to the fact that ensuing arguments with people that I have known for years became epic. I would literally look up and four hours had passed in which I'd done nothing but piss an old buddy off...and vice versa for him. We have become so divided politically that it would seem that compromise and intelligent discourse on relevant issues is bound to become a thing of the past. A legend. Something that our ancestors were able to do, but we will never able to emulate.  

I blame this phenomenon on two things. First, the fact that social media has become prevalent. Something that was designed to bring us closer together has in fact done just the opposite. It has created a universe in which bias affirmation is right at ones finger tips. All we have to do is type "conservative opinion" into that search box, and BOOOOOM, we are presented with all the opinions that we could possibly need to confirm our own opinions. Yup, there ARE people out there that think along the same lines as I do. I knew it all along. The problem with this is that after a while, in our minds, those opinions become facts. Hell, if everyone else believes it, it must be true. Look at all the references that I have!!!

The second factor in the division of this nation has been the rise of alternative "news" sources on the internet. You know the ones that I'm talking about: Occupy Democrats, Beitbart, The Raw Story, Conservative Tribune, Addicting Information, Infowars...the list goes on and on. The problem with these sources is that they are completely agenda driven. There are no journalistic ethics applied to anything that these sites put out. Yet, every day, I open my FB page, and lo and behold, someone has linked an article from Conservative Tribune telling me that this time it is real. No shit! Obama is REALLY starting the weapons confiscations. It begins tomorrow at midnight! Or I see an article from Addicting Info talking me how Elizabeth Warren has blown up everything that conservatives believe simply by pointing at them and yelling JIZZ MOPPERS! These sites are run by people who wear tin foil hats, folks. These are the same people that would, back in the day, leave their "newsletter" on your car when you were in the mall, and when you came out, you cursed the bastard for leaving shit on your windshield, and if you did read any of it, you wondered what kind of moron / lunatic could possibly believe this drivel. The difference now is that these people have a slick web site, so they look official, and because, due to the advent of social media, they are able to connect with other denizens of Mom's basement, who buy into their crap, so it makes it look like a legitimate movement.

The sad part about it is that I don't think that folks read half of what they repost. They see that headline that confirms their belief that in some way, shape, or form that Hillary and the pretender could have prevented Benghazi by simply ordering more of something to do something, something or maybe something else, and so presto...with the click of a button, it becomes known to all that THIS is how they think. It's bumper sticker politics of the worst sort.

So, with that in mind, every now and then, I am going to write about something that happened in recent history, (post turn of the century), just to remind everyone of how the outrage machine works in this country, and how it distorts our individual perspectives.  Hopefully people will share it, and folks will in retrospect, begin to realize how damnably ridiculous that we have become. Of course in order for that to happen, I'll have to gin up a slick looking web site and pepper it with click bait head lines...