or, "Why even just that journal title makes me sound like some lame ass libertarian."

To those who have followed my exploits for awhile, you might be surprised to learn that I think things are dumb. Lots of things. Things and especially people. And it is my general philosophy that no person or thing is exempt from the divine truth that everything is dumb.

Now, this encounters a bit of a conflict when it comes to people who, in general, I agree with on social and political issues. A lot of people see my overall presence and assume I'm some kind of hard-left hammer and sickle type. That's not really true. You'll notice I don't spend so much time championing liberal/progressive/leftist/ causes as much as championing the idea of shooting every Nazi in the head, and sterilizing their children. In general, I'm a left-leaning individual, believing in science, equal rights, and economic equity for everyone but I'm also pragmatic, and a realist - results matter to me more than ideas.

Because frankly, lefties - a lot of your ideas and rhetoric are fucking stupid. And so are many of you.

This becomes a problem because thanks to the dramatic rise of Nazism in such a short amount of time, nobody really wants to be caught with a slightly nuanced opinion and risk being lumped in with the absolute worst of the subhumans among us. Make no mistake, these nuanced opinions are nothing like "Well I think blacks should just comply" or 'trans kids shouldn't do sports." It's generally a situation where I agree with the general idea but disagree with the framing, or disagree with the absolutionism - you have to be flexible to make progress in a world hellbent on avoiding it - but I hate to put that out there. It's not just politics. Could be the ideas surrounding arts and entertainment.

The other day my sister warned me about publicly hating the art style of Steven Universe. And boy, do I hate it.

Here's a pretty good example of what I'm talking about: Some time ago a game came out, dating simulator, I think it was called Dungeon Boyfriend or something like that, correct me if I'm wrong. The game was immediately noted for its copious amount of trigger warnings. Some more obvious than others. The "people might not take no for an answer" warning seems sensible I suppose. The "The game refers to a character as Mom which you can turn off in case you had to kill yours in order to escape your childhood murder dungeon" warning was a bit new to me. Okay so fine, whatever. But since it had so many warnings already, it kind of emboldened the TW-Enthusiasts Club to demand even more obscure trigger warnings, some of whom angrily accosted the devs online for not including them to begin with. Every single thing that could posisbly remind somebody of an unpleasant experience in their life had to be formally dinged. Later I saw a tweet from somebody who said something to the effect of "these people won't be happy until all art is castrated of any of its meaning." And I agreed with that tweet - or did I? See, before I could formally agree with it, I had to check the feed of the person who wrote it. Were they a level-headed individual expressing dismay at a budding culture which seeks to rob art of its ability to make the viewer uncomfortable, as is often the goal of art at least in part? Or was this a rightwing shithead launching some paper-thin tirade about how unfair it is that you can't say 'retard' anymore? Checked the feed. Seemed okay. Quote-tweeted the reply to express my agreement but added that I had to first make sure the intent behind it was sound.

And that's what I mean. I myself am loaded with opinions just like that, I too believe that an artist is not under an obligation to undermine their own creation just to ensure everybody who might possibly view it is as comfortable as possible. Which, out of context, would trigger flags in people who are trained to be constantly vigilant for the worst kinds of people, and it's created a situation where the only way to avoid judgment is to adhere to a by-the-book set of assigned opinions on a given topic. And hell, even saying that makes you sound like one of those idiots on twitter with a Pepe icon describing themselves as a 'free thinker' when they really just mean "I want to fuck my 14-year-old girlfriend."

You see the problem!

There are things out there that I completely support, movements that have my unyielding allyship for whatever it's worth, at the ballot box or where ever else, and that absolutely does not mean that I don't think those movements and its people can be and are super flawed. Everything is flawed. Nobody is exempt, even if you're on the right side of history. Nobody gets it completely right, and nobody completely agrees. But while I'm willing to share some of these nuanced opinions, others I keep pretty close to my chest, only sharing them with friends and family when I'm confident they'll understand where I am - and perhaps most importantly, am not - coming from. It makes it hard for a guy like me to interact because I'm constantly being irritated by shit I think is fucking dumb but I'm unable to express this. Dumb doesn't have to mean bad, evil, or disgusting, it can just mean dumb, nothing ever just means 'dumb' anymore. It's easier to just say nothing, as much as I'd love to inform some of these people and movements about things I think they could do to heighten their own legitimacy in the eyes of the uninitiated, because being right doesn't matter, and has never mattered; it's being palatable to an uncaring majority that you need to figure out.

This journal is not an invitation for so-called 'centrists' to forge an understanding with me. In an age where the current debate is nothing more complicated than "we want to kill blacks, gays, women, trans kids, and everyone else" vs. "we think you're assholes," there's a right side, and a wrong side, and refusing to pick one defaults you to the wrong side, and you too can be shot in the head as far as I'm concerned. Rather, this is about the difficulty of interacting within the legitimate spectrum of debate, which has been forced to cram instead into an absolutionist corner to order to create as much distance as possible from the other end, which isn't even worthy of legitimate consideration.

I think the best way to sum this up is to remind ourselves of that eons old advice we've all heard since we were kids: nobody's perfect. We seem to forget that these days. And I think it's important to differentiate between 'imperfect' and 'actual asshole.' What makes it easy is that you only have to look for the assholes, because everyone is imperfect.

Yes, even you.