France and stuff

Three things that I'm proud of lately:

1. My fluffy hair

2. My driving skills

3. My ability to always come up with a third thing when making lists 

So France bombed the shit out of an ISIS stronghold today. I'm not really into promoting violence, but that knowledge still makes me fill a bit warmer inside. You've got to hand it to ISIS, they've been handy in uniting people. It's been a while since there was such a black and white case of good vs bad. While I don't wish to rank atrocities, I think we can agree that the overall shittiness of ISIS rivals the Nazi regime. It doesn't matter if you a bleeding heart liberal or a die hard conservative, it appears as though everyone who matters/has a brain stem opposes them. 

Which does make me fear a bit for the moderate Muslims throughout the world. So many individuals seem to be attributing the actions of few to well over a billion people. It is worth noting that even if just 1% of Muslims are of extremist nature, we're still talking about a million crazy, murderous people. The figure that strikes me as frightening is the number of Islamic people who are somewhat supportive of ISIS, and what is likely pushing them in that direction. 

Scroll through damn near any facebook feed and the hate is appalling. Eradicating Islam is a fucking sickening idea. Has anyone posting that sort of garbage considered how that kind of thought process ends up contributing to growing support of ISIS? Consider a moderate, peaceful Muslim family who moves to a country in search of an improved standard of living. Then they are verbally assaulted regularly, despite having done nothing wrong, blamed for atrocities which they did not support, and then we wonder why they don't all love America. Lack of education and blind hatred will be an issue the coming years in the sense that moderate Muslims may be driven away from supporting the US because they've never felt a shred of support themselves.  

With the recent attacks in Paris came the option on facebook to change your display photo to include an overlay of the French flag. The way people react to this sort of thing is always so amusing to me. I haven't personally done so, but I think it's a nice and simple way to show support. And I believe that that is the point of doing so, to show support. No one updated their facebook profile to include the French flag in hopes of bringing back those murdered in Paris back to life. So when I see posts about "wow guise you changd you're picture that doesn't help at all i hope u no that" I get a bit frustrated. Apparently we should all arm ourselves, jetpack over to the Middle East, and open fire. Anything less is useless, according to some.

Then there's the opposite end of the spectrum. I've seen people complain that not everyone has changed their photo in support of France :"this is why the terrorists are winning!" Really? I can't even address that, and I hope no one finds it necessary for me to do so.  

If you don't believe the photo feature helps, how can you possibly be under the impression that complaining about it is any different? These people who decry small things like this have no intention of helping anything, they only hope to put others down. 

I truly desire a raise in the level of casual political discourse in this country. If about three turns into a conversation your argument turns to "fucking liberals," you are part of the problem. My opinions change regularly when I'm confronted with new information.  If you believe that I'm astray in my political views, the proper way to address it is a discussion, not an attack on my character. 

Why can't we ever have a rational discussion about guns? I fucking love guns. But I can't grasp why a large percentage of the country is so radically opposed to any sort of legislature designed to reduce gun violence. I am not in favor of taking away firearms, or making it more difficult for citizens to defend themselves. I am in favor of research into how we can reduce the number of deaths associated with firearms in this country. 

Right there, a few people stopped reading and wrote me off. Again, you're part of the problem. 

When I find myself in a political discussion, the point I wish to drive home more than any other is that unless you are a political scholar, you probably don't have all the information relevant to your beliefs. There is almost always some factor that lays unconsidered, and unfortunately the natural human instinct to information which conflicts with what we already know is to deny it and defend your prior knowledge. I do not wish at all to convey that I, on the other hand, do know everything. I don't. But I am interested in expanding what I do know. 

I realize this deviates a bit from my usual blogging style. I don't think I'll get political very often. Writing with the intention of not offending people on either side of the spectrum is rather exhausting.