From: Jasmine Sailing (jsailing@netonecom.net) Wed May 7 10:55:20 EDT 1997
Amidst a schizophrenic delusion of grandeur, cmorris@mcp.com swore:
* Jasmine said
* Trying to stir up the hornet's nest, are we? Hmmm. Well, if
* you're looking for opinions, here goes:
Always...
* It seems to me that you're talking about a) everybody's inalienable
* right to worship whoever/however they choose and b)
* everybody's inalienable right to defend unpopular opinions to
* the death. These are both very noble things, and
Actually I'm moreso defending the right of being a real person who doesn't deserve to be purged from the gene pool due to having nutty beliefs and a self-destructive nature. The other two run along the side of that though. A lot of people would argue that it's more noble to argue for the deaths of the deranged because that would be in the best interest of everyone else. That's if it's status quo. I don't think so... I think everyone is flipping out in some way and society just gets more and more intense as it gets more crammed together. People will continue to snap at faster rates, and it'll be every type of person who does. I've watched too many intelligent and wonderful people go down this path because they fell apart.
On the religion angle, though, about the only thing I want there is for people to accept that Heaven's Gate is no weirder of a religion than Christianity is. There's seriously nothing more wacky to waiting for a UFO to take you to Heaven than to waiting for angels and the dead son of God to do it. Everyone can laugh like hell as long as they realize this one simple thing. As for killing... Christians have an extremely murderous history. And then there's the cannibalism. =)
These Gaters killed themselves. Now, granted, society considers it a lot more healthy to be murderous than suicidal. Personally, though, if there seriously was a gene that caused people to keep to their own selves and kill their own selves religiously... I would be for purging it INTO the gene pool rather than out of it. We need a little more of that in this happy world.
* nothing to trifle with (no doubt). But perhaps what you're missing
* is c) everybody's inalienable right to have a good laugh at
* someone else's expense.
Nope. I can hardly stop people from laughing. I can hardly say I haven't had some sniggers at Heaven's Gate. I CAN say that saying their beliefs render them idiots deserving of being purged from the gene pool is taking it well into the realms of bad taste. No, I'm not keen on religious genocide. I don't think it's funny that it's happened. I don't think it's funny that people want it to keep happening. I don't get very amused that freaks on the gene pool removal list are going to sit here laughing until it's no longer a joke. They can do that though. And, while it's their right to do that, it's my right to express my distaste about it.
It's human tradition to feel better about yourself by laughing at everyone else who is getting stomped on. I don't think that will ever change. It'd be nice, though, if people would put more thought into what they're laughing at. Yeah, I grew up with that mentality. All of the keeping up with the Joneses, snubbing friends, laughing at gays, laughing at anyone who wasn't quite PC WOP. Whatever. Of course the laughter over gays quietened down a bit when I got fed up and admitted to being bisexual... People suddenly lose their humour when they realize it involves someone close to them.
* Now, admittedly (c) above is far less noble than (a) or (b), but I
* think it's also nothing to get offended at. It seems to me that the
* Darwins are just having some fun (albeit politically incorrect
* fun), and though their taste may be off-center, their heart's in the
* right place.
I disagree. I think they were having that non PC fun when they just did awards for the most stupid accidental death. What they are doing with this is trying to get mainstream appeal. They admitted to that themselves. They know the majority of people out there will have a lot more fun chuckling at weirdos than chuckling at the accidental misfortune of idiots. And they are quite right. They're going to get the result they want with this. They have the right to go for trendy appeal. I'm bummed that they went from something I considered fun to something that strikes me as this trite and typical. I don't see how going for mainstream appeal is being un-PC with your heart in the right place. The PCers are gonna LOVE this because it's ok to make fun of kooks, but it's not ok to make fun of unfortunate stupid people. With any luck, they'll combine it and get the PCers laughing more openly at stupid people. Of course Koresh's Davidians, then everyone who got shot in the back of the head at the Jim Jones shebang, and the Heaven's Gate people, will be right up on top as the most stupid people around. I can see where people would think HG is stupid for being suicidal. It is not okay to be suicidal and anyone who is is worthless trash needing to be purged anyway. Feeble in the brain. I don't see how that quite equates to getting murdered by the government or shot in the back of the head though. I'd seriously thought it was more or less common knowledge by now that overzealous feds did the most killing in the Koresh situation. So that renders everyone there stupid enough to warrant genetic extinction because they got it in their silly little heads that they could stand up to the government. This is how most people feel... you buck up, get a good job, watch tons of hypno-ray, and keep your jaw slack. Anyone who does otherwise is just an upstart moron behaving like a child. Ok. So if you're dumb enough to be an upstart and get killed over it, that's good because you obviously needed to be purged from the gene pool anyway. Ha ha ha.
Kinda surprised no one has mentioned Koresh since that's the one I've bellowed about the most.
* particular would have a problem defending (a) and (b) above, but
* if that means I can't make fun of The Cult of People Who
* Worship Jelly Donuts (or whatever), then -I'm- being stifled,
* and -my- rights are (in my opinion) being infringed. Said
* Darwins are guilty of bad taste, yes, but bad taste is something
* that should never be legislated, or doctrinated, against.
For one thing, I never said anything about legislation. I would NEVER want legislation on it. I would NEVER try to stop the Darwin awards from going for the Yuppie appeal they want. What people seem to be having a hard time realizing here is that I'm stating my opinion. People can say "Hey, you're right". People can say "You're an upstart idiot, you need to be purged from the gene pool". People can laugh. People can do whatever the hell they want. I'm saying how I feel about this, and obviously I'm very far down in the minority. If it makes people uncomfortable that I have bad things to say about this, then they probably have a few things to think about. Good. I love it when people think. That's all I ask, no matter which conclusions are reached in the end. I don't think I'm going to sway anyone. I think if anyone agrees with me it'll be because they did before I even started talking. Like Bruce. I don't think I'm defying any rights by speaking my mind on this. If I am, well, then we're all a lot more fucked than even cynical lil' me thought.
* It's just an opinion, and as William Burroughs once said, "Others
* disagree."
Yeah. Each angle is an opinion of it. I want to get a collection of thoughts together on this for the web site. If you don't mind yours being seen and want them used, let me know. I'd like to have every angle of this covered.
Ok. Now, for the record, I know I'm every bit as much of a kook as the HG people, the Koresh people, etc. I have weird religious beliefs that I don't tell ANYONE and that's probably for the best as I have a slight aversion to padded cells. I have hostile views toward the government. And, for the worst of it, I have self-destructive tendencies. In general I shouldn't get touchy about precedents saying it's quite funny that I should get purged from the gene pool because I'm a worthless excuse of human life. The fact that it really is like this in the world makes it a little more difficult for me to not give a damn though. I know I'm a good parent, I know I deserve to have kids. I know I just spent the past 1.5 years doing my damndest to act like the most pure and good WOP yuppie around because that was the only way I could keep my kids. I also know I've been under a lot of pressure to get sterilized since I was 18 because there's nothing worse than poor weirdos having kids.
Ok. So, even with HG, what do we have here... We have people who were very screwed up with sexual trauma and shame. I know that feeling. I know what it can do to you. When I was 16 I was so full of shame that I couldn't even say no. Didn't think I had the right. If someone had told me to join a self-mutilatory cult for sex deviants right then... well, my spirit would be off in a UFO somewhere right now. ={ The irony is that people might perceive the HG leader as the one with the healthier ways of dealing with it. After all, he got the control and got people to follow him so they could do the more destructing. It's ironic that in rape trauma groups self-mutilation is considered a normal, and often healthy, thing. It's a way of coping. Take that out into the rest of the world though... 2 Novembers ago I was getting too self-destructive again due to the situations around me. I was pregnant and not handling things so well. I didn't want to risk the baby so I admitted to self-mutilation and asked for help. I'd asked for help several times over the years, never got any and kept giving up. This time I was going to march in, yack it all out, and get some good work done on my head. Instead I didn't get to say anything and got shoved out the door with a couple of prescriptions. The pills just screwed me up more. And then the baby was born and the shrink who wouldn't talk to me called social services to let them know a complete nut who actually cut herself (!!!!) was in possession of a baby. They came and nabbed her at the hospital. Then I rectified it and proceeded to be a good yuppie so I could keep my kids. I was dumb enough to try, other times, to talk about the problems but each time I pretty much just got written off as being deranged.
Get sterilized, give up the kids, get on medication. Problems? Oh, the meds will take care of that. Story of my life...
I've watched a lot of people kill themselves because they couldn't get help. I've stopped people from killing themselves and given them some help.
I think everyone in the world is going to just keep laughing. But if one little pipsqueak wants to pop up and suggest that, perhaps, sometimes it might be nice if screwed up people could get a little more help and a little less ridicule... I've made an entire lifestyle out of trying to help unstable people. I wouldn't be doing a good job of that if I didn't try to defend them at the same time. These people didn't deserve to die. They don't deserve to be purged from the gene pool for stupidity. They weren't stupid, they were just screwed up. If people could at least think about that while they sit there laughing, then I think that would be a good thing.
We aren't going to get legislation saying you can't laugh at people like this. Eventually we probably will have legislation for the eugenics of people like this. It is already standard operation to ENCOURAGE it. How long is it going to take to enforce it?
I liked the Darwins as a celebration of death via idiotic accidents that the person should've known to avoid. Avoiding becoming a self-destructive wreck who can't get real help and goes wherever the support is isn't quite as cut and dry though. Celebrating the purging of people like that scares me. Why? Because that seriously is how people feel, whether they represent it with humour or fact. I've gotten the brunt of that feeling in far too many ways in my life.
So I'll sit here yodelling about it and no one will pay much attention to me, unless they want to laugh and throw eggs over what I'm saying (which would be rather typical, good thing I'm used to it), and life will go on, and eventually we'll all be purged from the gene pool for being unsavoury and everyone will be happy.
* Don't know if that's the sort of opinion you were looking for, but
* there ya have it.
I'm looking for every sort of opinion. =) Let me know if I can use yours with the rest of the cluster...
Jasmine Sailing %%%% Cyber-Psychos AOD %%%% jsailing@netonecom.net
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% http://www.netonecom.net/~jsailing %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Cyber-Psycho originates from the Greek roots khyber (governor) and
psyche (soul). In this world only the crazy are sane. We are the
crazy who seek to be our own governors, we regulate and correct the
evolution of our own souls. Trust no one who doesn't laugh.