As for whether he forgives Morrissey, Carroll said: “I guess I would have to say yes in the spirit of forgiveness, reluctantly. But if I had to be a smartass, I’d say her apology holds about as much water as my canvas bag.”
Republicans are all bullies. The people that worship them think they are bullies too but they constantly get beaten up for their money (donations) and still get fucked by them in the end.
They aren't getting beaten up for their money. They are gleefully handing it over to the bully for protection from the real bullies...trans women playing highschool basketball.
This is the important part. People are often shocked when I say I'm not a patriot, and mostly don't respect what our country stands for.
I WOULD be patriotic if our country could live up to the ideals it CLAIMS to stand for.
A melting pot for all kinds, all cultures, all backgrounds, to come and mix, and feel safe in a country that doesn't persecute them for their beliefs.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
This is the poem, engraved on a plaque. It sits upon the base of the statue of liberty. This is the land I was taught exists growing up. I was taught tolerance, and acceptance growing up. Well now I'm 40. I've had plenty of time to see that this is nothing more than a bullshit fantasy we use as international propaganda.
How many times have we seen someone say to another in this country "GO BACK TO (insert country most assosiated with the other persons race)"? How many times have you seen our government propose, and in some cases approve laws that disproportionally hinder people of specific backgrounds? Reagans effects are STILL being affected.
While you can't force people to believe something, and doing so would be counterproductive to this concept, you can start at the government level. You can promote a culture of what our flag stands for. Celebrating the flag SHOULD BE a celebration of all peoples.
Instead it never has been this. Right from the start of the countries formation. All men are created equal??? This is what the forefathers wrote. Then explain why you get done with your daily work writing the constitution, and go home to rule over your legally owned slaves that everyone knows about. George Washington wasn't a tactical military expert. He got his ass handed to him until the literal entire country of citizens armed themselves, AND THE FRENCH SAVED OUR ASSES. George Washington wasn't some great civil leader either. He's one among many founding fathers who owned slaves. He was nothing more then a popular frat boy of his time. Going out, getting drunk, and everybody loving him. But they all justified it as black people being 3/5ths of a man.
Then a few decades later they start having issues with native Americans. We can't get their side of the history, because they're all dead.
My long rambling point is this. At no point have we been the actual good guys of history that people want to assume we are. I'm supposed to salute a flag that send tens of thousands of American citizens to their death in Vietnam, and then ignored the lifelong health issues brought back by survivors as a result of fighting a war as teenagers they didn't want to be in, all so Johnson wouldn't "appear weak" in the upcoming election.
I'm supposed to take off my hat as the national anthem is played to salute a flag that wouldn't give 9/11 firefighters and volunteers the healthcare needed until a comedian from comedy central did the governments job for them and demamded healthcare for them in a very public way.
And now this. Certainly not the biggest offense. It won't be remembered by history. It's not that important in the grand scheme of things.
But maybe it SHOULD be remembered. Not for the individual series of petty acts that it is, but rather as a symbol of where we are as a people right now.
The straw that broke the camels back as it were. Just the idea that the issues on our state represenitives think about are harassing and bullying other Americans whom are in competition with them career wise.
How can the government POSSIBLY try to preach inclusiveness, and tolerance for all kinds, when THIS is what's important to them???
They can't.
So why would I salute a flag that stands for hypocracy, racism, and hate? Not just "in the begining". It started in the begining, and continues to this day. That's what that flag stands for. That's why I'm not a patriot.
I always thought it was funny the inspiring poem engraved on one of our most treasured national monuments was made by and sent by the French. We can't even fake it on our own 🙄
Isn't there a requirement for mental sanity among elected officials? (in the medical sense) Because can't this easily be constructed as a sure sign that she suffers from dementia? Or well, her colleagues do?
“I guess I would have to say yes in the spirit of forgiveness, reluctantly. But if I had to be a smartass, I’d say her apology holds about as much water as my canvas bag.”
She and Carroll both represent the city of Bennington, about 25 miles outside of Manchester. Morrissey has served 13 terms in the Vermont legislature while Carroll has served two.
Carroll told the Guardian that Morrissey had poured cups of water into his bag since January.
Carroll says he first suspected Morrissey as she had been “nasty” to him for several months despite the two knowing each other since childhood and even attending the same church.
Jesus, is every single Republican lawmaker a complete piece of shit these days? I've often felt like the party that is all about tax cuts for the rich and making sure no one gets a handout attracts a disproportionate number of terrible human beings, but once upon a time I felt like a lot of them were decent, wrong-headed people. Now I'm not sure I can name a single Republican who seems like a decent human being. Maybe Liz Chaney is mostly there? So many are like cartoon villains.
At their core, many are just bullies and it nicely appeals to the emotionally stunted desires of their base.
I recently watched a Nazi documentary on Netflix, and the parallels beyond concerning. If Trump is elected, you should expect Brown Shirt like violence.
For those who think my statement is alarmist, it takes time for fascist propaganda to build inertia, and we're somewhere in the middle of the progression. If you're paying attention, you can see and hear the rhetoric getting more violent. They are following a similar playbook to the Nazis by stimulating the rural communities with more and more nationalist rhetoric.
That is very on par for republican behaviour. They're bullies that never grew up.
So they're doing the right thing and banning her from public office ever again right? We don't need petty insane bullies dictating policies. Though if that were the case, there would be no republicans left.
One of my good friends was raised Republican and actually worked for the California Republican Party until he finally got so fed up with their shit he finally rejected politics overall and started homesteading. (I.e. when he broke ties with his freakshow parents.)
From his time there he would describe the insane shit he experienced. Like the local party leader had an unwritten rule for all meetings: the water pitcher on his table always had to be the most full out of anyone else in the room.
they are just a panoply of mean, nasty people who are either religiously deluded into ignorance or avariciously salivating over class oppression or some combination thereof
gaslighting a colleague is no different than what all republicans do to transgenders every single day. i hope they all live long enough for tribunals to round these republicans up and try them for their crimes against transgenders after the constitution is changed to allow ex post facto laws for the limited purpose of fucking these assholes over for all the shit they are doing now to the trans community. the same hate they have towards transgenders we should all have towards these shitheads and ultimately, we the people write the laws and have a living constitution and should fuck these people over as hard as possible in the most lawful way possible about 20 years from now when the religious senior citizens who protect them with their religious delusions die off.
the only beneficent quality of republicans is supporting the NRA, which really should be a non-partisan issue since citizens need to be armed in case of tyranny
in the french revolution, moronic greedy oppressors were efficiently removed from power after the lower classes were pushed more and more into misery. luckily, unlike in france back then, we can vote greedy vile idiots out of office
unfortunately, we're going to have to wait for the deluded religious morons to naturally reduce in numbers by dying off to get rid of these fucks, since older people are more religious and easily deceived into voting for terrible politicians
Small nomenclature heads up "Transgenders" is a common conservative dogwhistle. In correct use trans and cis or transgender and cisgender are adjectives , it's always paired with a noun. For example "Transgender people" , "trans woman" , "trans man". It's like the rules for the racial term "black". Drcently cool to use as an adjective but when you hear someone nounify it to "the blacks" it leaves a certain impression.
The space between the words is actually important as well. In the UK changing the adjective into a noun by removing the space is used by TERF groups when they operate in more public discourse to signal to each other they imply that they aren't talking about a specific type of man or woman but a distinct second category. As in "That's not a man, That's a transman™.
It's not a huge deal, nobody's offended or anything, the post body is obviously trans supportive so nobody is gunna think you are repping the anti-trans agenda or anything but I figure it's something you'd probably want to know? I am not intending to be pedantic just sorta handily educational.
I also hate cultural conservatives enough that if they want to make homosexual or transgenders pejorative, I want to use those words with positive connotations. I am aware of the negative connotations of certain words about the LGBT community (and other words that have turned pejorative that originally weren't) and am really against changing the words society uses because a word that denotes something starts to have a connotation because of idiots. The problem with changing to a different phrase is the new phrase is going to eventually get the same connotations by the same idiots.
As someone who has literally been fucked over by members of the transgender community more than once, why do I have to let religious right-wing republicans make words into bad things or apologize for using words in a way that is literal?
I feel like instead of objecting to nuances of dog whistle language, we need to be more direct in calling out delusional religious fuckwads for their absence of logic and advocate to find ways to inflict severe economic pain and other types of societally-permissable pain on them instead of trying to reach understanding or change people's views. Eventually, since more people have access to knowledge through the Internet, the religious generations of yore will die and most new generations will stop believing religious bullshit since they have access to actual information that isn't total garbage.
the only beneficent quality of republicans is supporting the NRA,
Look, I like guns far, far more than most people, but I draw the line at the NRA, and Wayne LaPierre's suit-fetish. Most people that work on 2A issues at a local level will tell you that the NRA will swoop in after a deal has already been made, and fuck everything up. If you look at the history of Heller v. D.C., you'll find that the NRA tried to kill the suit before it even got off the ground, because they were afraid it would hurt their funding.
If you want to support 2A causes, the Firearms Policy Coalition is on of the few right now that's both effective, and appears to avoid other 'culture wars' (e.g., "anti-wokeism") nonsense. At a non-policy level, the various John Brown Gun Clubs are doing good work, the Liberal Gun Club is helping create a space for people that are both pro-gun and generally identify as left of center, and the SRA is pretty okay once you get past the tankies.
there's a war on guns with anti-gun zealots trying to take away rights little by little by little...
it is a slippery slope to the hell of tyranny
you should be grateful for the hard work the supporters and members of the NRA that are only trying to prevent the US from descending into a totalitarian monstrosity in which people's only choice is how low to bow
On the one hand, if the people are armed, the government should theoretically fear the people and want to keep them happy.
But even with millions of armed citizens, nobody is even close to putting up a fight against the US. And they know that. And they keep shitting on you because they know you ain't doing shit about it.
And then you look at the countries that are more democratically reflective of the will of the people... and they have strong gun regulations. It's almost like maybe governments that at least work even a little don't need the fear of popular revolution to keep them in check.
Imagine how barren and bland the inner lives of these people must be.
It works like a cautionary tale. One of them "there but for the grace of God go I" type of deals.
Man, I had a nickel for every time my mom told me "When a member of the Vermont House of Representatives picks on you, that means she likes you", I'd have, like, all these nickels.
He keeps discovering moisture in his bag, he’s gonna go looking for causes. No causes seem to make any sense, so then he starts thinking maybe bags are always moist and he never noticed before. Maybe not exactly this path, but it will be some escalating set of irrationalities developing as he tries to reconcile what he’s seeing.
Even when a person knows they’re being gaslit, unless they manage to escape the situation with concrete action, it will still degrade their sanity.
In this case, he was lucky enough that she was doing something that could be caught on film easily, and he was fortunate that he actually took the steps to figure out how it was happening.
In other words, he trusted his gut that it wasn’t accidental, and then he gathered evidence to resolve the ambiguity. He handled this correctly, and successfully escaped the damage that gaslighting normally causes.