Recently in Friends Category

Here's a story concerning the concept of unfriending people on Facebook.

I've got to be completely honest, I have done a certain bit of this lately. Some folks think it is hilarious to make racist jokes. Others are making completely angry and virulent political jokes. These folks are increasingly quit to exit my friends list. I doubt they even notice. I really, really doubt they even care.

A few I am going to keep friended. They really have no clue how angry and stupid they truly sound. Plus, they rarely vent so and it gives me a view into the world of conservative angry bigot fucks so at least I know what the lay of the land without being completely mired in it.

Basically, it lets me know whether I should be more wary of Ryder trucks near my kid's daycare and the like. Yes, Timothy McVeigh was a Republican, folks. And his successor are fuming on Sean Hannity's forum right now.

I don't know where I'm going with this. Just that it is once again nice to see someone putting words to the things I am feeling.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this. That said, I know a fair enough amount of Republicans and don't have this problem with them.

Some vote for conservative economic purposes and I'm sorry to say that neither major party represents them.

Some are driven by fear. Fear of people thinking for themselves, fear of "others": be that Spanish-speaking immigrants, gay people, or just folks who don't behave like them. I don't like it, but I can sympathize with a fear of the unknown.

And then there are the hatemongers, the fearbaiters, the racists and bigots. The asshats who want to start a war everywhere but get someone else to fight it. Those who hate government but keep making it bigger so we can spy and torture the "others" the previous group fears.

The allies of these folks are the Talibangelicals, too scared of Muslim extremists taking over a foreign government that they work real hard to do ESSENTIALLY, THE. SAME. THING. HERE. As I've said before, cramming your narrow-minded zealotry down a nation's throats isn't moral. Neither is letting polygamists have sex with 13 year olds down the street from you and calling it a privacy issue. But that's "okay" because you won't let two consenting same sex adults marry. Idiots.

My point here, and I do have one, is that I rarely interact with those who laugh at those less fortunate, who hate the "other", who find sick humor in debasing their fellow man. In fact, I strive to avoid this particular band of cretin.

So imagine my surprise, disgust, and disappointment to read the following "joke" from a long lost friend on Facebook. And yeah, I don't friend just everyone, it ain't Pokemon. I know farm-raised Illinois folk are often conservative, but usually I believe them to be raised with a sense of decency. I still believe that, but obviously I was critically wrong about this one acquaintance and his sister.

Anyway, the "joke":

How to make a republican Saturday, September 20, 2008 at 6:56am

I was talking to a friend of mine's little girl the other day. I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up and she replied, 'I want to be President!' Both of her parents are huge liberal Democrats and were standing there. So then I asked her, 'If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?'

She replied, 'I'd give houses to all the homeless people.'

'Wow - what a worthy goal.' I told her, 'You don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guys hang out, and you can give them the $50 to use toward a new house.'

Since she is only 6, she thought that over for a few seconds. While her Mom glared at me, she looked me straight in the eye and asked, 'Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?'

And I said, 'Welcome to the Republican Party.'

Her folks still aren't talking to me.

The assumption here, of course, is that all homeless people are lazy. And yeah, I'm sure some of them are. But all of them? Some are probably addicts who can't function in society. Some are probably mentally ill and non-functional as well.

Ha! Ha! Ha! What decrepit dregs of society. Let's make fun of them.

Some are kids kicked out of their homes, or military vets with a wide variety of issues.

Those people exist. The numbers bear it out. Lazy? Not even a large minority of them.

I've seen the tent cities begin to emerge in the Imperial Valley. Families who has lost their homes, who just couldn't quite keep it all together. Are THEY lazy? Are THEY failures? Are THEY worth mocking?

I don't think so, but apparently my "friend" does.

It is easy to laugh when you aren't confronted with the problem. It is easy to make light of what you don't understand.

I get it. I'm probably overreacting a bit.

But then again, what if I'm not? I was VERY close to being driftless and homeless for a time myself. If I didn't have my family and friends to help me out, and a co-worker who took a chance on me renting a small house for $150 a month, I probably would have been living in a car or something.

I made it through. I've been poor, and I've been to the point where you start making decisions on what bills you *have* to pay if you want to eat at all. And I really, as a father, have to start thinking of what kind of lessons I want to pass on to my kid. I guarantee you, someone pulls that crap on MY child, I will excise their presence from my life. Intolerance is intolerable in this home. What's next? Telling racial jokes because the "others" aren't in the room? It isn't that far of a stretch.

But hell, it's all a big laugh to some "friends" of mine.

Or as his sister says: "LOL that is a HYSTERICAL joke!"

Lindstrom has a new band, 99 Souls. Yes, I linked a MySpace page. Get over it.

They've got a couple songs up, but just quick demos by what Jason has told me. Once they get some dates, go support the guys. And yes, BarCode is just like that. It can't be helped.

It occurs to me that I need to spend some time on the domain. Let me know what you'd like fixed/completed. Also, help me fix any links I have wrong for any of you.

(Stacy, why oh why do I need a LiveJournal account now?)

Incidentally, going to mix around my plug-ins and maybe lighten up on the comment security so you all don't have to sign up for a TypePad account.