On softness, with sidebars

I unfriended someone on FB last night.

I don't do this lightly. Yes, FB uses the word "friend" in a way that doesn't jibe with the way it's generally used, but I take FB friendships seriously and regard FB friends as friends. It takes a lot to change that.

This friend posted a graphic in which a man described the unpleasant experience of firing an AR-15, to which was appended a picture of a grinning armed woman captioned "How does it feel to be that weak?" and ended her comment with (quoting from memory, obviously) "No human being should be allowed to be that soft."

I am that soft. I've never fired a gun, never will, never want to. Clearly this makes me less than human in this person's eyes, so I'm out of there. I cherish my softness. I rejoice in it, I celebrate it, I see it as a sign of human progress, and I look forward to the day when we can all, every one of us, choose to be that soft. I do not say that less soft people are not human, or that they should not be allowed to differ from me, and I do not mock them from my position of relative safety. That's the difference.

(Incidentally, another man commented on the post to the effect that anyone that soft must have a vagina, which given the gender of the poster seems to me both stupid and dangerous, but that's none of my business now.)

So I fired up the iPad this morning, which was still on FB, and saw an intriguing post about Fox News being outraged because the Pope said another true thing, so when I got downstairs I went looking for it.

(Sidebar: the Pope said that given that many people nowadays, entering upon sacramental marriage, cheerfully say "till death us do part" when what they mean is "till I get bored" or "till she starts looking saggy" or "till I catch him screwing the secretary" or "till we have an argument I can't win" or whatever, they are actually making a false promise and therefore a number of sacramental marriages (he said "the majority" which was later modified to "a portion") are null and void. This is perfectly true in the terms of church marriages, was predicted by GKC eighty odd years ago, and should not surprise anyone, and if you don't think you can sustain marriage till death you shouldn't be doing it in a church anyway. But Fox News was outraged and is calling for his resignation, presumably in favour of a Pope who doesn't pay so much attention to what words mean.)

EDIT: gosh, that sounds awfully hard-line, doesn't it? Sorry. There is a case that could be made, I suppose, for churches offering a range of marriage services: from the Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time, through the While We're Both Young And Pretty, the conventional Till The Kids Have Grown Up, and the Till I've Spent All My Father's Money, to the classic No Honestly We Really Mean It This Time. For the moment, though, a church wedding is a contract in the sight of the Christian God and the wording is quite clear and specific, and while there will always be good and valid reasons to end a marriage contracted in good faith, it should not be something you can do just because you want to. That's what this non-believer thinks anyway.

(Further sidebar: Fox also let slip that the Pope has said that Donald Trump is not a Christian. BBC confirms it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-35607597 . Pay attention, my atheist friends. Next time you want to say "why don't Christian leaders condemn the hatred and bigotry of their fellow Christians, eh eh eh? Come on, answer me that, you can't can you, ah ha ha ha..." or words to that effect, here it is. A Christian leader, possibly the top Christian leader, affirms that someone who wants to build a wall around his country to keep out the brown people is not a true Christian. And never mind "oh but what about this other thing he said, or this thing he didn't say, or this thing that happened before he was born." And never mind "oh he's only one, what about all the rest, he doesn't count for whatever non-reason." It's there. Black and white. You can no longer legitimately deny that it happens. Thank you.)

I didn't find the post I was looking for. What I found was Leslie Fish on the Orlando shooting, saying all the usual things as though she was the only one who had thought of them: why weren't the police tracking a suspected Jihadist (answer: because he wasn't one) and why wasn't everyone else in the place armed (because that would have really helped, a crowded room full of panicked people all letting off pop guns willy nilly). It's depressing to see someone you respect thinking so unclearly.

So I'm out of FB for today as well. I may post here again later, when I've cheered up a bit.

Leaders and followers

There is, I believe, a saying in the BDSM community to the effect that if you are a good submissive you will also be a good dominant. Correct me (um, verbally, for preference) if I'm wrong.

I was told recently, in the course of my discussions on liberals/progressives/lefties thinking they're the smartest people in the room, that very smart people don't make good followers. This is I think one of those stealth-pride things: we're not good at taking orders because, you know, the orders are always stupid, and we have much better ideas, and we're just so brilliant we shouldn't be regimented, and so on. We don't go in for authoritarianism because we know we should be the authorities. Etc.

Perhaps, if you can't be a good follower, you're likely to be a pretty rubbish leader as well. This--perhaps--is what sergeants are for. In politics, of course, you don't have sergeants. (Well, John, of course, but hasn't he taken to ballroom dancing lately?)

Perhaps this is why liberals tend to lose so much of the time. We just can't dial back our massive brains to the point where we understand what it is to be someone who takes orders, so we assume that if you need someone to tell you what to do it must be because you can't think for yourselves, and that must be why you keep voting for the other guy despite the fact that we keep telling you to vote for us, you clods.

Liberals have many defining virtues, and I'm proud to be one. Excessive intelligence, however, is not necessarily one of them. As witness the fact that I am one. :)