I’m Nobody’s Victim

http://jezebel.com/allowing-guns-on-college-campuses-will-not-save-women-f-1686548679

The above linked article really pushed a lot of buttons for me. In fact it infuriated me so brace yourselves.

"... first, the idea that carrying guns makes your surroundings safer ..."

I don't think many people believe guns make your surroundings safer anymore than more cops on the street make a neighborhood safer. Both carrying a gun and police presence come into play after the fact: when a woman is attacked, if she carries a gun, she can shoot the mother fucker and, depending on the situation, keep him from raping and killing her or keep him from doing it again. Cops cannot and do not prevent crime, they merely clean up the mess. If a cop is around, most criminals including rapists won't commit their crime THEN. He/she/they will wait until the cops leave or go somewhere else to commit their crimes.

"... second, the idea that the onus is on rape victims—rather than their rapists—to prevent their rapes."

You know I get pissed as hell whenever someone says something like this. As if a victim or potential victim is absolved of all personal responsibility for their safety. As I said, the police cannot prevent a crime because Knuckle-dragger #42 isn't going to attack anyone while their around but, aside from hiring a 24/7 personal bodyguard, every female will be at risk sometime. I'm not apologizing for the sick freaks who prey on women or children nor am I blaming the victim but, dammit, a little foresight goes a long way to keep anyone safER. Not safe, because no one is safe all the time - or any time in my estimation. Nothing will prevent a would-be rapist from attacking someone somewhere.

The idea that a woman is not or cannot be responsible for her own safety is the rankest form of paternalism to come down the pike. This mentality keeps a woman from feeling or becoming able to care for herself without someone - usually a male - to "take care of her". It keeps women weak and needy and under the thumb of someone else - again, usually a male. But what happens if that male is not around when #42 spots a possible victim. She sure as hell can't take care of herself, prevent or minimize the damage inflicted by #42 or one of his spiritual brothers. Anyone who doesn't teach their children, male or female, how to take care of themselves, how to recognize a potentially dangerous situation, how to extricate themselves from that situation with the minimum of damage to themselves is a neglectful parent and an accessory before the fact.

Furthermore, if a woman doesn't take steps to prevent her own victimization nobody will. I am absolutely certain that, if the onus to prevent rapes is on the rapist, no rapist is going to prevent their raping someone. To suggest such a thing is patently absurd.

"Gun use can obviously be responsible in the individual instance, but in the aggregate, it's not ..." 

First of all, I don't care about the aggregate, I care about one individual walking alone in the dark on campus. If I or someone I care about is carrying a gun, I know that I or they are properly trained in it's use. If faced with a situation in which I or those I love cannot avoid or get away from then I want to be absolutely sure we have the maximum chance of survival.

Second, when they are talking about "the aggregate" what are the parameters of the study? Are we talking about an 18 year old who has never been away from home, a 26 year old single mom who's never fired a weapon, a 46 year old who has been educated and educated herself in self-defense up to and including firing a gun or a 52 year old veteran with hand-to-hand combat and weapons training? Does their aggregate include prior victims of assault, domestic assault or sexual assault? An aggregate is as useful or useless as the parameters used to develop it.

"... having firearms within reach makes men four times more likely to commit suicide than in situations when the guns are not accessible ..."

In this case, I don't care about possible suicides and including it in this discussion does nothing more than cloud the issue under discussion which is the safety of WOMEN. Also, anyone truly bent on suicide will find a way to kill themselves.

" ... and it makes women three times more likely to become homicide victims."

As for women being more likely to be homicide victims; says who? PERHAPS this is true but, again, what woman are we talking about and who owns the gun? Are we talking about one of the ladies I mentioned above? Is she at home, in her car, walking down the street or on her way to the campus library? Is it her gun? Has she been trained to use it? Who is the her killer? IS this a domestic violence situation? Because if it is the dynamic changes drastically.

Show me the research instrument and methodology before you make such sweeping statements. Is the statement based upon a survey instrument? If so how was it administered? What population data is it based on; urban, suburban or rural? How big is your sample? Does it include college students in the sample? What's your error rate?

In reality none of that matters because I don't care about "women" in general or as an aggregate. I care about exactly one at a time. It might be me or my roomie or one of her daughters or her granddaughter and I guaran-damn-tee that all of the above are not shrinking violets. We might still be raped but it's not going to easy and the rapist is not going to get away without some damage. The mere possibility that we will be murdered because we have a weapon has nothing to do with the probability that we will be raped.

"... that college campuses are already unstable in a regulatory sense—and consequently, that the introduction of guns into an environment marked by drugs, drinking, and other forms of constant, experimental (if often mild) illegality would be a literal death sentence to many people involved."

If it's that fucking "unstable" then that's a whole other issue. If a campus is that unstable - which is hard to tell since most university boards of directors and administrators would rather be skinned alive than admit they have a violence and/or sexual assault problem let alone publish actual numbers of assaults or attempted assaults. That very instability is why these women need to be educated in protecting themselves and being able to carry a gun is an OPTION they should have.

"Since empirical data suggest that most victims of homicide know their assailants, the higher risk for women strongly indicates domestic violence."

Says who? Show me the numbers on THAT and you'd better be able to back them up with hard data.  Again, this may be true but the author, Jia Tolentino, herself admits that it's merely an extrapolation of data that was not gathered and evaluated for that subject. The data originated from a study about rape on college campuses not domestic violence. The proper research instrument could be, should be and would be VERY different.

"So: guns make domestic violence more deadly for women."

Depends on who's holding that gun and whether she knows how to use it.

"Rape on college campuses (as well as in general) happens in situations that mirror very closely the dynamic of domestic violence—the introduction of coercion and sexual assault under the cover of relationships and interactions that seem outwardly acceptable. And yet the weird abstraction of rape, the displacement of it from within the community—the idea that sexual violence is committed by people jumping out of bushes, instead of three-quarters of it being committed by people the victims know—"

So it's only date rape that occurs on college campuses? And "in general" rape off campuses are also date rape? Better pony up with some hard, verifiable facts on that before I will even consider that to be a valid statement. And, IF rape is an acquaintance-based crime, how distant does the relationship have to be for a rape to NOT "mirror very closely the dynamic of domestic violence"? What is it when someone "jumps out of the bushes"? "Three-quarters of it"? Really? Prove it. And even if you can, again, how close or distant does the relationship - the degree of "knowing" - have to be to fall into either category?

"... this rhetoric invokes the safety of potential rape victims as a reason to allow guns on campus, which is a situation—due to the power differential that underlies sexual assault—that would dramatically decrease whatever safety these potential rape victims have."

I absolutely disagree with this. The power differential is at least situational and at most nonexistent when a properly trained, armed woman is the potential victim. A rape victim, potential or otherwise, has no safety thus it cannot be decreased. Ask a rape survivor and find out if SHE thought she was safer not having a gun.

"The sponsor... Michele Fiore, said in a telephone interview: "If these young, hot little girls on campus have a firearm, I wonder how many men will want to assault them. The sexual assaults that are occurring would go down once these sexual predators get a bullet in their head."

This is absolutely true. A dead rapist will rape no more; therefore the number of subsequent assaults would automatically drop every time one of these brutal bastards bites it.

"As for how many of "these young, hot little girls" would agree, the answer is 14 percent. According to the Times, 86 percent of women and 67 percent of men are in opposition to gun carry on campus, as are a "vast majority" of college administrators and faculty."

That's fine but what about that 14 percent? Why shouldn't they at least have the OPTION of trying to protect themselves? And, personally, I don't really think men deserve a vote on this subject, unless one considers them to viable targets for sexual assault. That's possible but, again, that's another story. Neither do administrators and faculty get a vote other than as potential victims. Their position in the college hierarchy doesn't make them disinterested parties. If they're honest they should admit that at least part of the reason for their opposition to carry permits on campus is to lessen the college's potential liability in a lawsuit.

"Those in favor, I'll venture to say, are either getting paid or deluding themselves: longitudinal studies have shown that a 1 percent increase in gun ownership leads to "a 1.1 percent increase in the firearm homicide rate and a 0.7 percent increase in the total homicide rate."

Who, pray tell, is paying them? Self-delusion is in the eye of the beholder. Which longitudinal studies? Who did them? When? Why? Who PAID for them? Again, show me the research models. If an increase in gun ownership causes a 1.1 percent increase in the firearm homicide rate - and I'm saying IF because I haven't seen the numbers - then should not the increase in the total homicide rate also be 1.1 percent?

Also, "homicide" is the act of a human being killing another human being. Lots of things including death through military action, lawful execution and getting shot by accident are considered homicide. The real question lies in the MANNER of death; was the homicide murder, accidental or self-defense? In other words, was it a justifiable homicide? So, yes, if a victim is armed and kills her attacker in self-defense it is indeed classed as a homicide. However, it is a justifiable homicide in self-defense. The cause of death is homicide, the manner of death is self-defense. Such a situation would indeed cause the homicide rate to increase but NOT the murder rate.

"It's sickening to imagine what guns on campus would do in terms of rape."

Not to me. What is "sickening" to me is that someone else gets a vote on how I defend myself. Personally, I'm all for increasing the homicide rate among rapists.

'nuff said

 



Is Bipartisanship A Myth?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/11/hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-george-w-bush_n_3906150.html

This was originally an online conversation, in the form of individual posts and replies, regarding an article in The Huffington Post. The link above will take you to the article.

ycplum

There was a time when politics was just a difference of opinion on the best route for America to take, not a dogmatic religion that cannot suffer the existence of others.

Well said.

Politics is a business just like anything else; your competition of one day may be your ally the next. Moreover, politics is also theatre and in a world overwhelmingly populated by lawyers whose world is also theatre, partisanship and bipartisanship, have all the stability of the sands of Araby.

ycplum
There was a time when politicians on both sides of the aisle recognized that their differences were really about degrees so they negotiated a compromise that was acceptable.  Now, there are no degrees, but black or white. Both sides demand all or nothing. Our government was not designed for this and cannot survive if this continues for very long.

No, it can't but that's not where change has to start.

After WWII, America changed. An individually self-supporting, self-reliant public saw the good times roll and decided they always would. And should. Who'd keep them rolling? Why, the government of course. We could afford it, individually and nationally. We'd won the war; we'd saved the world; we were ENTITLED to it.

As we rolled, we exported that sense of entitlement when the US started rebuilding and "helping" the rest of the world. Whether we should have or not is a subject for another day. What is important here is that we and the rest of the world came to expect it and WE ALLOWED IT!

Then along came Civil Rights, Women's Rights, Environmental Rights, LGBT Rights, Criminal's Rights, Children's Rights and Victim's Rights, which combines them all into one great entitled horde of "VICTIMS".

With all those Rights, which I'm not attacking so leave me alone, ethnicity crept in. I'm proud to be Irish/Norwegian. Yep, that's me, born to pillage. However, I was raised to be proud of being American FIRST, last and always.

Now everybody has Rights but nobody has responsibility ... except the GOVERNMENT. Let THEM drive the bus, let THEM burp the baby. While every group scrambles for their RIGHTS.

Separately.

Now it's the National Separatist Victim's Rights Movement. Our politicians resisted the trend longer than almost anyone else, longer than I thought they could or would.

Freedoms are never really taken, they're GIVEN AWAY. I'm a Rational Anarchist; I don't believe that we need any laws other than the Golden Rule and a loaded gun in every pot. However, like it or not, we're stuck with government, so cut the politicians some slack. Venal and self-serving they may be but they're still a cut or two above their constituencies.

For bipartisanship to return to government, we must return it to our lives.

 



 

GO AHEAD. EVERYONE ELSE DOES: 

A Long-winded Rant of Self-pity  

 

This started as an e-mail but by watering it with tears of self-pity, self-righteous anger and bureaucratic frustration it bloomed into a veritable bouquet of assorted bitches, moans and complaints. I decided it was so nice that I would put it in a pretty vase and set it on a table in the window and share it with others. So, in these days of cyber-sharing of every bump, scrape and boo-boo in our lives, THIS is my window.

 

"Will write more later, some stuff is just betwixt OUR family. It’s been a crappy day and I’ve been up all night again."

The crappy day was actually a crappy night. Last Thursday night (09-05-13) I was the emergent social butterfly of the season; all kinds of visitors in cool vehicles and pretty lights. While watching TV, I had suddenly started sweating, feeling dizzy, nauseous and then I had trouble breathing. 

Normally, these symptoms wouldn't bother me too much but I am 50 now. Sweating is nothing new, I keep hoping it's menopause but no such luck. I’ve had random vertigo for years, I don’t know why. I’ve asked my VA docs but get no answers; it is the VA after all it's not like they're supposed to actually help me but I've got meds for it. I got my mum's nervous tummy; trouble breathing is rare now but for years my heart didn’t hold a rhythm, so for 13 years, the VA medicated me for a heart condition which I didn’t have. Once I was properly evaluated, diagnosed, medicated, treated and got a ticket on the Looney Express the cardiac problems vanished. Until now I’ve had no real problems since.

 

However, having the first 3 hitting all at once, rapidly followed by breathing problems was a new and "exciting" phenomenon. See, my dad had his first heart attack when I was 6 and he was 48 and my mum's first was when I was 9 and she was 50. I grew up knowing the signs and what to do; we ultimately developed a family policy of if you ask the question, "Should I go to the hospital?" out loud, you call the meat wagon and go.

So when I queried the universe as to "should I or shouldn't I?" I already knew what I had to do. Even though, I have no doubt that the VA will fuck me over again on the bills. They’ve done it TWICE, once when, after a noctural trip to the ER, a VA doc agreed that my gall bladder had reached critical mass and was eventually jerked out. I don't know how I’m going to pay for it but I wasn’t about to risk a heart attack for a steaming pile of bureaucratic bullshit. 

 

I may be a 100% totally and permanently disabled veteran, but I had the temerity to object when they fucked me and fucked me over. You see, I fought back when they flat-out discriminated against me for being a nutter. Instead of being slavishly, but silently, grateful that they even deigned to notice my miserable existence and bestow their largesse upon my inferior self. The Department of Justice (DOJ) investigated and determined that they had indeed discriminated against me because of my disability, specifically, my mental illness. So, when Mr. Barry Bahl, director of the Saint Cloud Veterans Administration Medical Center (SCVAMC) takes the time to pass judgment on and deny payment of a little ER bill from the Saint Cloud Hospital it's pretty obvious even to a loon like me that I’ve been deemed beyond the pale and have been blacklisted. 

 

Several people who work there have said that it's most certainly NOT normal for him to pay attention to such minutia. In this case, I'm not just being paranoid, other people see it too; my name is flagged so that anything pertaining to me finds it's way to his desk. It's so obvious that a blind man with no teeth can see that.

None of them would admit of their statements or put them in writing but I can't blame them for that. All the VA can do to me is kill me with institutionalized incompetence and obstructionism; VA employees have to support their families and they need jobs for that. For my part, unless I’m on fire or bleeding from the eyes, I don't go near the place. Both Moon and I know that I will never again get anything more than the bare minimum of whatever care or treatment I might need. SCVAMC is my drug pusher and that's all I want from them.

 

So, I went downstairs to ask Moon to take me to the civilian hospital ER, the VA in it's infinite lack of wisdom, does not have an ER or it's own. However, having become fully vertical it became apparent that if I didn't sit down, I was going to fall down. So I told her to call 911, I wasn't fucking around with going into full-arrest in a car. And I wasn't going to do that to my girl Moon.

 

I never actually passed out, was able to give my personal/family medical history, gave them my meds case and told them about losing Igraine. Grief and/or belfry issues being what they are, what did I know? My dad always had pain but no nausea; mum always had the nausea but no pain. Heart attack or anxiety and panic due to stress? Then I edged closer to shock as I got dizzier and started shivering like Obama facing a sodium amytal session.

 

They kept me most of the night while they ran tests and such. They doped me up some and I dozed a bit, Moon went home to get some rest until they sprung me. Sprang me? Whatever. The ER folks and staff were great. They took good care of me and did everything they could to find out what the hell was wrong with me. The only bitch I had was that as they moved me around and tested me (I hadn't studied either) one person or another would highjack my blankies. I’ve have GOT to get me one of those blanket warmer thingies. Along with the bidet, it is one of the acme's of civilization.

 

Anyway, the long and short of it was no heart attack and, since it wasn't VA docs making that determination, I’m willing to take their word for it. Felt like hammered shit, slept all day Friday, then went into insomnia mode.
 

Emotionally, it’s been up and down, understandably but it's not that gods-awful, disemboweling, paralyzing agony that I went thru when I had to put Grace down. Then the guilt almost killed me but the idea of Rain leaving was in the back of my mind from the moment I saw her outside on the ground. I didn't speak of it because I was willing to do whatever I had to in order to help my baby. In the end, letting her go was the last and only thing I could do to help my girl.
 

I miss her and it hurts and I cry but it's like it is a "gentler" pain; mostly anyway. Those 3 weeks that I had her after her injury were a bona - fucking - fide GIFT! For which I am endlessly grateful. You, my darling Deb, and you, Mama Jeanne; oh, stop looking over your shoulders; yes, YOU two, you gave me another bona - fucking - fide GIFT! If you hadn’t nagged me into taking those videos of her, I think I might finally have ended up in-patient and I’m not sure I would've come out again. 
 

I watch all the videos at least once every day and always before I go to sleep. I see my girl when she was healthy and strong and HAPPIEST. Outside, in the snowy wastes, rompling with me with that goofy lunatic grin of hers. I’m able to watch the pure, clear joy she got from running around like a psychotic with ADHD on meth, rolling around in 3 feet of snow with me and dancing with me on the deck. Those videos tell me that I made the right call. Regardless of what might've been done for her, she would never again have been my adored, "abdominommal snow beastie".

 

Most importantly, I know I couldn’t let her be in pain at all, let alone constant pain. I promised her from the beginning of our love affair, that I would take care of her and NEVER let her hurt. Pain or no pain, seeing those images, I know my rainy day doggie would've never understood why she would never again be able to romple with me in the only way she ever learned how to play. If I was out of her sight longer than acceptable she would use her hind legs to push herself along and crawl on her belly and her elbows without making a sound of pain until she got to the bottom of the stairs to wait for me when she knew I was up here without her. It was MY job to keep her from hurting and from hurting herself.

 

It makes me cry when I watch them but the tears rolling down my face meet the smile coming up. I thank you for that, Sweet Deb. I thank you for that, Gentle Jeanne. I’m so incredibly lucky to have been able to teach her fun and love and JOY. Having her was overwhelmingly worth losing her.

 

Now, more of a downer; I don't know if I ever told you guys just where we were when Igraine decided to go empirical test the law of gravity. We were at the Social Security office to make an appointment to start a new claim. Moon went with me to that appointment last Friday (09-09-13). I was told that, having had a hearing with an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) where that  fucktard made an imbecilic ruling and despite the fact that my well-dressed, expensive attorney was lazy AND in - fucking - competent, I can no longer even APPLY for SSDI. 

 

According to the documents I got from my lawyer (I know I should have looked at them sooner but life and crazy happened) the slimy, scuzz-sucking, maggot made my claim as "back and neck pain". NOT that I’m a toothless, incontinent, twitching, seizing, dangerous, half-blind, half-deaf, half-crippled, ALL-crazy basket case with no sense of time, can't remember what day it is or be allowed out without a keeper, a leash and a prong collar. No, no, NO; I’ve got back owwies. I do but for now I’m way crazier than I am broken and the side effects of my meds are getting pretty grisly. Well, the lawyer got his cut, so I suppose it wasn't a total loss. I got what was left of my settlement money only AFTER I dropped my appeal. If that seems like extortion that's because it was. I didn't want to but we were so broke it was that sell my blood like a wino or a street junky.

 

MOTHER FUCK ON TOAST!

 

What the fuck did I do in a previous life that this is my karmic retribution?
GODSDAMMIT, WHAT? Did I wash my hands? Was I Hitler? Or did I do something truly horrible; like invent polyester?

 

I swear to dogs (Rain, Zeus and Grace to be precise), I went in determined to be nice and I was. Really! You can ask Moon. However, I didn't stay that way. I asked reasonable questions, although in an increasingly loud voice snarl. I told him that even though I’ve been hosed on all sides and no longer qualified for SSDI; I was sure that "all of the dozen or so towelheads in the waiting room would more than qualify".

 

Yep, I played the racist card and I don’t fucking care. There is a very large Somali community here that not only doesn’t have to pay any taxes for 5 to 7 years; they are also given grants of various shapes and sizes so they can start their own tax-free businesses. In most public and/or educational facilities they request and GET special rooms dedicated to only their religious needs; I guess godless infidel cooties would contaminate their holiest of holies. It is NOT a stereotype that some of them actually demanded and received special facilities for foot washing so they wouldn't have to use the toilets anymore.

 

Oh, while I was still being "nice," he did say that when I’m 65 or whatever, that I would qualify for SSI. To which I replied "if it still exists".

So, that errand to set up the appointment was all for naught. Had we not gone, there would have been no time or reason for Rain to take flight and bung herself up. Thus does my screwed up brain find a way to logically blame the government for killing my dog. Even I don't usually go that far but a + b does equal c.

Gods! I am so tired. How did it all go so wrong? I don't go away from home much and I don't want to. All I wanted was to live with my odd but loving little family of 2 -, 4 -, and no feets and my baby girl dog. Now she's been taken from me and the country that my father and others fought and bled for says I don't count. The normies as well as the very people and agencies that are supposed to help me have unanimously shit on me and made it clear that I should gratefully accept the crumbs from their table but have the decency to be neither seen nor heard.
 

As much as I’ve fought it and beat it for months, I cut again last night. A lot. The shrinks say that it’s a maladaptive coping mechanism that I’ve developed to deal with traumas. Yeah, so? There are a helluva lot of far more damaging or dangerous maladaptive coping mechanisms. This one only hurts me.

I don't know, maybe it's my teeth.

I’ve got a news flash for you superior but gutless, government hacks and clueless normals; you can continue to treat your armed forces, veterans and their families like turds in a punch bowl but sooner or later you might just hear them say; “Take our your own fucking garbage, Jack.”

So, I’ll end this epic the way it began, with a shitty day.

 

Well, DUH!


And now for something completely stupid.

I was channel surfing and hit The Documentary Channel at just the right moment. The show was "The Heretics," released in 2009; the show's description blurb said "The second wave of the Women's Movement". So, the tide had changed on the first one? Who'da thunk it?

All of my adult life I have lived, worked and played in what could be called (but not by me) "a mans world;" first in the Navy, in construction, as a security specialist, bartender and bouncer and even as a biker for a combined total of more than 35 years. Now, I don't generally foam at the mouth in the first place but I tend to take care of any such "issues" myself though it hasn't been necessary much.

Of course, I don't see the mere existence of men as oppression, a threat or an affront to my position as a strong,  empowered and fully-actualized "womyn" and "humyn being".

Blech!
 
Still, the topic is mildly interesting to me so I paused in my rather forlorn search for something not completely stultifying to watch/listen to while on the 'puter. Lo and behold, I heard perhaps the most inane utterance in the history of television. A documentarian (and member of the Lesbian Mafia or, at the very least, the East Coast chapter of The Foaming Feminists Sensitivity Circle AND their all "womyn" orchestra) was bemoaning how much the world has NOT changed. 
 

"She speaks yet she says nothing; what of that?" so sayeth Saint William The Literate.
 

Brace yourselves, folks: the flannel queen spake the immortal words, "Women are still looked at different than* men are."

Gee, ya think?

I just had to share this with my roomie about it; the first thing she said was exactly the same thing that I yelled at the TV; "We ARE different from* men!"
 

I figure the few minutes I was exposed to this shit made me lose at least a dozen or so brain cells.

 

And now, you did too.
 
 

Toodles, kids.
 
 
 

 

*  We're both grammar nazi's and this is one of our least favorite semi-illiterate screw ups.