I used the capital L version of Libertarians so people know that I am specifically referencing the bizarre American definition of the term.
By non-American definitions, I might be considered a (civil) libertarian.
Anyhow, here’s the vid :
I’m pretty happy with my little speech. I am sure that there’s things I meant to say that I never got around to saying but that’s standard for when I make videos now.
It almost makes me want to start taking notes. Ha ha ha. Not really.
Not even I can keep up with the sheer volume of thoughts I produce. There has to be some kind of winnowing process.
I have been wanting to pull that little trick with the warning at the beginning for a very long time. Everything I say in that intro is absolutely true. I spoke in blunt, plain, direct terms and it all came straight from my honest and forthright heart.
I’m just exploiting the fact that right wingers have somehow deluded themselves into thinking that kind of thing belongs to them.
They will go on ad infinitum about the plain truth, and no trigger warnings, and being too “real” for the libs, and not worrying about being offended, and all that crap.
But what they’re really saying is, “I don’t think this is going to offend ME, and I really hope it offends YOU so I can feel smugly superior without having to do anything. ”
What they really don’t expect is for what comes next not simply to offend them but to attack them directly.
This is a vulnerability I am overjoyed to exploit.
And the true genius of it is that it sets them up because if they now get angry and offended at what I said, I can just say, “Aww, were you triggered, snowflake? Do you need a safe space? Did I hurt your precious little feefees?”
After all, I warned them.
They just took my warning to mean something I in no way said.
Mua ha ha ha.
Of course, I would love for this little video of mine to stir up a massive shitstorm. It would be a happy day indeed if I came back to the computer to find hundreds of incoherently enraged and badly spelled attacks on me, along with the usual threats of personal violence and whatnot.
Because it’s not like I wasn’t trying to piss them off.
But not just for the sheer joy of trolling. I never piss people off without a purpose in mind. And in this case, my purpose is to wake them up to what they have become and remind them of what they really believe by directly challenging their hypocrisy.
I am hoping to piss them off enough for them to rise up to defend themselves and prove me wrong about them by going after Trump like they should have been doing all along.
The hauteur I display in the video is quite real. I am angry and upset with these people for turning into statist stooges the moment the opportunity arose. I might not have agreed with them on much but I at least thought we were on the same side in that.
Nope. Turns out they never believed a single thing they were saying. Oppression and tyranny are super OK with them as long as they feel the right people are getting hurt.
Revenge by proxy, more or less. Against people who have never done a damned thing to them but who their masters have told them it’s okay to hate as much as they want and that’s good enough for them.
After all, if it was people who could actually hurt them, they’d be way too scared to attack them. Real power terrifies them.
But then again, what doesn’t?
No, they prefer made up imaginary targets because they can be imagined to be whatever makes hating them the most fun and to hell with truth or reality.
Imaginary monsters can’t fight back.
That makes them perfect for cowards.
More after the break.
Running for safety
Today’s old bone to gnaw on : the flight and freeze responses.
I’ve talked before in this space about how the urge to flee situations can absolutely wreck your life if it becomes too habitual.
Once that flight response kicks in, nature assumes it’s a life or death situation and that therefore whatever you have to get away THAT INSTANT is justified.
And that’s great if a sabertooth is chasing you. But if like me you have an anxiety disorder, that fear based adrenaline response can be trigger by situations where not only are you perfectly safe, cutting your losses and fleeing will do great harm to you and your best interests.
An example would be that you’re on a date with someone to whom you are quite attracted and it’s going well but your anxiety starts creeping up and eventually causes you to mumble an incoherent excuse and flee back to your apartment.
And of course, eventually you will hate yourself for doing that.
But first, you will feel so much better.
That moment when you escape the situation will be one of incredible relief because you are going from a state of high tension to no tension all at once. You have successfully escaped the sabertooth and your ancient animal instincts are celebrating.
And it’s this intense reward that keeps you fleeing. It doesn’t matter to your instincts that there was no danger and you just wrecked your chance with someone you’re very attracted to for no reason.
You escaped the “danger”. Hooray.
I’m still not sure what to do with one’s anxiety. Besides Xanax, obviously. But pharmacology aside, as far as I can tell, once that flight response is triggered you’re pretty much screwed.
No matter what you do to calm yourself, the urge to flee will just get more and more intense until you finally GTFO.
Maybe if I practiced mindfulness and learned to center myself and let the anxiety wash over me unopposed, I could stop an attack after its started.
But probably not. You kind of have to already be calm for any of that shit to work.
So my choices are : brutally suppress the embers of anxiety before they can start a fire, or learn to ignore the screams of every cell of my body to run away.
Or, ya know. Xanax.
Being crazy is so damned hard.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.