the following is an email I just sent to the vice president. if I get disappeared in the near future, avenge my death.
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there was no option for “gun control” under policy.
something strange happened to me tonight. I was arguing with a conservative, on the internet of all places, and we actually came to a good compromise in regards to the gun control issue. he was a reasonable conservative, and I took the liberal stance.
banning particular weapons because they “look” dangerous was agreed to be a bad idea. you cannot banish a specific caliber ammunition (ie, .223), but it also makes no sense to ban specific weapons (ie, AR-15). the caliber or aesthetics of a firearm shouldn’t matter. what matters is how fast someone can shoot. focus on that, not the looks of a gun.
there is no legitimate excuse for high capacity magazines. the only purpose of shooting 30+ bullets without a reload is to kill as many people as possible. they’re useless in hunting, and not necessary for self defense. and gun owners will admit themselves that changing a magazine only takes a few seconds. that is a minor inconvenience at the range, but precious seconds for someone trying to escape a shooting gallery.
we agreed that the number priority for new gun control legislation is closing the “private sale” loophole. too many criminals can bypass the background checks through private sales and gun shows.
second, limit all future firearms to factory ammunition capacities. no extended mags, nothing that would jut out from the gun.
we also discussed the NRA suggestion of police officers at every school. we were both in support of it, but neither of us could figure out how to pay for that plan of action.
wait, that’s all wrong. today, a woman I barely know on twitter contemplated suicide but didn’t actually go through with it. yet.
the digital age is a weird thing. for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been using twitter to vent. this has mostly taken the form of trolling the religious folk, because I’m a bad man that likes weak prey when I’m looking for a fight. why would I choose a fair fight? I might lose!
in my trolling, I’ve found numerous other like minded individuals. I don’t know if “friends” is the right word for them, but we talk a bit back and forth, laugh at each others jokes, etc. we’ll likely never meet. the woman in question is very private, I don’t even know her name. but we get along well online. she’s damaged in a lot of the same ways I’m damaged. she’s smart, she’s sarcastic, she’s outspoken, she loves cats, she’s got a vocabulary that would make a syphilitic sailor blush. y’know, a lot of things I look for in my interpersonal relationships. she’s also dealing with severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. I haven’t asked why, because it’s really none of my business. this is essentially a total stranger on the internet with whom I share some hobbies and character traits. I’m just willing to accept she has issues. we all do.
today, it seems she reached her limit. she was done, and wanted off the ride. she has a kitten and was worried about its well being, so her long term plans have been put on hold pending finding a new home for him. but I don’t doubt that she’ll be gone by this weekend.
this saddens me, because I enjoy talking to her. but I’ve also caused quite the shitstorm on the twitters because I accept her decision. I honestly hope she doesn’t go through with it, but I understand why she wants to. from the sounds of it, she has hit quite the streak of bad circumstances, and feels there’s not enough left in the world to root her to it.
perhaps its my depression, but I’ve never had a problem with suicide. I figure as long as you don’t hurt anyone else and you try to minimize the trauma for those you leave behind, it’s ultimately your own call. from the sounds of it, she doesn’t have family (aside from the cat) and has already lost everyone that she was close to in the real world. if she pops some pills and dons an exit bag in an anonymous hotel room under an assumed name, the damage will be relatively limited. the chambermaid will be in for a nasty surprise when they finally wonder why she hasn’t checked out of the hotel, and there will likely be some cleanup to do (that’s a LOT of febreeze), but it’s not like she’s taking out anyone with her. she’s not planning to jump in front of a bus and ruin some poor bus driver’s life by leaving him wracked with guilt. she’s not going to splatter herself on the pavement in front of a building, causing a scene. she’s not even going to paint the walls with her gray matter and a gun. she just wants a peaceful exit from a world she doesn’t want to partake of anymore.
I get it. I hope she doesn’t go through with it, because I’m selfish and want to talk to her. I hope she ties up any loose ends with any estranged family she may have, so they’re not left wondering. but ultimately, if she’s gone she won’t care anymore, because she’ll be dead.
a lot of the responses she got when she posted her intentions were the cliched variety. she’s looking for attention. she’s not going to do it. she should be talked out of it. someone needs to call the police or an ambulance. she’s hurting herself. I don’t see it that way. first of all, it definitely did not read like a cry for attention. to me, it seemed like a bitter and broken person lashing out at the world for possibly the last time. the fact that she was so desperate to find a home for her cat, the one thing holding her to this world, tells me she’s serious. she didn’t want to leave the cat in the room with her dead body, or just turn him loose to whatever fate he would meet in the desert.
I don’t know where she is. all I know is she’s in the california desert, recently lost her home (and nearly everything else) and checked into a hotel with the intention of never checking out. I don’t even know her name, just an alias she went by in a former life, and a generic twitter handle. it doesn’t matter. she’s a real person, and there’s real pain in her writing.
I hope she doesn’t do it, but I also hope she can find peace. and I would hate for someone to take that right away from her, because that would mean they could take it away from me as well. I don’t know what the future brings, but I do know I want to control my own destiny. if that means death with dignity instead of terminal cancer or just wandering off into a lake because I’m tired of this world, I want that option available. I will likely never use it, but it’s comforting to know it’s there.
whatever she decides to do, I’ll support her. because I’m her friend.
bill maher, a comedian, calls sarah palin, a VERY public figure, a cunt, in a standup comedy routine.
rush limbaugh, a political talking head and unofficial voice of the republican party, spends a week trashing a private citizen, sandra fluke, over her testimony on the availability of insurance coverage for birth control on behalf of a friend who needed it for non-sexual reasons. he called her a slut, a whore, and demanded she film herself having sex so taxpayers could watch, as they were subsidizing her sex life. rush limbaugh has since lost 140+ advertisers and may finally be done as a political commentator.
the republican party is currently waging war on the reproductive rights and freedoms of women. the religious right and the GOP are trying to cut off access to birth control, have introduced legislation that would exempt health care providers from being required to provide birth control, would allow employers to terminate women for using birth control, have added draconian measures to make abortions as uncomfortable and shameful as possible, including required ultrasounds, publishing names of those having abortions, and even allowing doctors to flat out LIE to women about the viability of their fetus if they think the mother would be likely to terminate the pregnancy faced with a disabled or special needs child. rick santorum has even gone on record as to say women who get pregnant via rape should just look at that fetus as a blessing, to remind them of that magical rape for the rest of their lives.
but no, because a super-PAC obama doesn’t even control took money from a liberal stand-up comic who has been dismissive of the qualifications, intelligence and personality traits of conservative women (and really, you can drop the “women” from that sentence and it still holds true), obama is waging war on women.
is there a double standard for women? definitely. no woman should have to tolerate that sort of shit. but there is a huge difference between what rush limbaugh did (and the GOP masses supported), and what bill maher did. and that’s completely disregarding the ACTUAL war on women the republican party is engaged in right now.
I hate the human race.
in other news, we have always been at war with eastasia.
even the dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?
if I mention my belief that a zombie apocalypse is a real possibility, however slight, people scoff. I don’t mean a full on walking undead sort of deal, but more along the lines of the rage virus from 28 days later. or hell, even just the end of society as we know it. considering the concept of having to defend myself in a lawless and brutal world doesn’t seem impossible, yet people think I’m a kook.
many of them are the same people who think sparkly vampires could exist. or ghosts. or bigfoot. or werewolves. or any other manner of ridiculous horror or pseudoscience genre.
the end of humanity very well could end up looking like something out of a romero flick, but probably more by way of a mad max/tank girl type scenario. more likely, it’ll be at the hands of sentient machines, a la skynet or the matrix, but I won’t even go there. wouldn’t want to be labeled a nutter.
