Shit that Pissed me Off this Week – 3/8

Video Showing Income Disparity in America

I don’t talk a lot about income disparity and tax structure in America because frankly the argument bores me.  There seems to be this idea that we all have a right to get rich and therefore the system is fair and us liberals should shut up about it.

But look, the system is not fair.  It is designed to ensure that people with money will have an amazingly easy time making more of it while people without money will have a nearly impossible time doing the same.  Hard work alone does not get you “ahead.”

Not only that, we need janitors and teachers and police officers and firefighters and none of those people are getting paid well.  And they never will.  The people with the wealth are not the people doing the jobs that absolutely have to get done.  I’m tired of the idea that anyone can get ahead in this country.

I’ll wager that this guy is not actually one of the top 1%

The solution is not as simple as just taxing the 1% that controls the vast majority of the wealth in this country because they will still control the vast majority of the wealth in this country.  I’m not saying I know the solution.

But I can sure as fuck recognize a problem.

Some other Atheist Assumes they Know what I think

There are memes like this online every day.  I could do a new weekly blog entitled “memes that pissed me off” if I wanted to.

The first week would be devoted to the Harlem Shake.

What bugs me about other atheists (or religious people) is when they decide they know enough about what I believe to speak for me.  Take this, for instance.

Wow!  Is that really what I think of religious people? I had no idea!  I sound like kind of a dick!

By painting all religious people with the same brush, this meme does something very dangerous – it paints all atheists with the same brush as well.  Whoever made this doesn’t speak for me.  They speak for themselves.

And I’m pretty annoyed they presume to think they know how I view theists.

Christian School Fires a Teacher for Fornication and then Tries to Hire the Guy she had Sex with

The whole “no sex outside of marriage” rule bugs me in the first place but they are a Christian school and that means they can create morality rules  that their teachers have to follow.  They aren’t publicly funded through a voucher program yet so they can totally fire someone for having an active sex life in violation of a law that they ascribe to being created by god instead of a tribal society that needed to ensure solid family units existed to raise their young.

But I digress.

Really at issue here is the fact that the school had a problem with a woman fornicating but they didn’t have a problem with a man engaging in the same behavior.

She was pregnant, so the result of the fornication was far more obvious in her case but seeing as the two of them were engaged, it seems likely an assumption could have been made that he was engaging in the same behavior.  Is there some sort of don’t ask/don’t tell policy in place?

Or is it just worse for women to have sex outside of marriage?

Quick aside: the way some of these untra-right Christians use the word “fornicate” makes it sound dirtier than the word “fuck.”

I think that is ironic.

Arkansas Passes Toughest Abortion Law in the Country

The law in Arkansas states that you cannot get an abortion if the fetus is over 12 weeks old.  Of course some women might not know that they are pregnant until after that but ignorance of the law is no excuse!

It also requires testing to see if the fetus has a heartbeat because there seems to be a real issue in this country with making sure women who want to have a voluntary medical procedure must have an involuntary one first.

Rats also have heartbeats. I’m sure if we had to listen to their heartbeat first, we’d stop setting traps for them, right?

The Governor of Arkansas vetoed the bill but (un)fortunately, the house and senate were able to override that veto and now they are excited about facing a court challenge that will, undoubtedly, find its way to the Supreme Court.  Because defending lawsuits in the best way to spend taxpayer dollars.

You know, I understand the anti-abortion stance.  I really do.  I think it is wrong because it is sexist as all hell to tell half of our population that the state gets to decide what they can do with their bodies the moment that there is a fertilized egg in it, but I understand it.

I continue to believe, however, that there are questions of morality that must be up to the individual and not society.

Speaking of Stupid Legislation, How about a Bill That Makes it Legal for Psychologists to do a Shitty Job?

Before they voted to make sure that graduate students wouldn’t have to counsel gay kids against their will, legislators in Tennessee made sure they had some experts come in and give the facts.  The experts pointed out that a therapist ought to do their job and council someone regardless of their personal opinions.

The legislators, who clearly felt that since they weren’t qualified to write laws, they must be qualified to tell psychologists how to do their jobs, disagreed.  In fact, they made sure to tell the psychologists how wrong they were and suggest things like change therapy because, you know, gay people are broken and if psychologists don’t fix them, who will?

Nice to know that while we are trying to give gay people the right to marry in Minnesota, in Tennessee, they are still trying to make sure homophobes have legal protection.

We aren’t done yet.

Florist Snubs Gay Customers Because of her Relationship with Jesus

The proprietor of Arlene’s Flowers refused to do flower arrangements for longtime customers because of her relationship with Jesus.

You know, the same Jesus who had relationships with sinners all over the place?  Yeah.  That guy.  Apparently it was OK for him to hang out with those kinds of people but not anyone who has a relationship with him.

What do you mean we can’t throw stones? Fine. Whatever. Can we at least refuse to sell them flowers?

Now I know that the bible never specifically indicates that Jesus hung out with gay people so there might be an exploitable loophole for folks who are involved in a relationship with Jesus.  And she’s technically not casting a stone.  Heck, she even says she loves gay people.

She just doesn’t love them enough to do business with them.