Raistlin

A couple of instances of mind-numbing stupidity that have been on my mind lately.

Obama and his adoring fans: The other day, Obama announced that he supports same-sex marriage, at least according to the mainstream media and many liberals. My Facebook has been full of posts regarding this "monumental" occasion where a US President endorses gay marriage rights. Except... he didn't. Spurred on by Vice-President Biden's unqualified support for gay marriage, Obama tentatively mentioned that he had recently come to personally support gay marriage, though he still believes that states could continue discriminating against gays by banning same-sex marriage. Which means, in fact, that he is against gay marriage rights. Most ridiculously, Dick Cheney (no friend of gay rights activists) endorsed the exact same position back in 2004, which only earned him justified scorn from the left. But Obama adopting the same mild nod towards gay people while still opposing gay rights earns him cheers (but hey, he has a "D" next to his name!).

I'm not sure what is more mind-bogglingly stupid: Obama's pathetic, cowardly and/or bigoted position, or how his mindless, adoring fans keep cheering on his every nice-sounding word. At least this gave The Onion some fodder to absolutely nail another story.

War on Painkillers: An equally depressing but less publicized subset of the War on Drugs is the War on Painkillers -- and speaking of Obama's dismal actions, his administration's conduct with regards with pain meds has been appalling. The DoJ now demands that not only doctors, but pharmacies and suppliers must be extremely skeptical of all pain medication prescriptions -- and if you aren't skeptical enough, your business could be shut down. That story involved the DEA raiding and shutting down certain pharmacies for doing their jobs by filling prescriptions. The DEA also sought to shut down the wholesaler for supplying the drugs to the pharmacy, which would have prevented or interfered with thousands of patients getting the medications they desperately need. But who cares if people are in pain as long as nobody is getting high, right?

Bush's and now Obama's DoJ has instilled such a culture of fear among doctors and pharmacists that one pharmacy recently reported one woman's prescription of a heavy-duty narcotic to the police. The woman arrived on crutches, in severe pain, and was arrested without the police bothering to check with the doctor first. I'm just relieved that this dangerous criminal was taken off the street!

Gender roles for kids: Yeah, I'm a little late to the game on this one, but last week pastor Sean Harris told parents that if their sons were acting too effeminate, those little kids needed to be punched until they manned up. Many people were justifiably appalled at Harris's words, but how many of those people would buy a boy toddler blue things and action figures and dinosaur toys but buy a girl toddler pink things and dolls? If they would, then they're part of the problem that allows these bigots to exist.

There are certain, complex and subtle influences that genetics have on our personalities, but the distinct gender stereotypes between male and female conduct and personalities are culturally driven. Girls are indoctrinated from a certain age to like certain "girl" things and behave in certain "feminine" ways, and boys are indoctrinated to like boy things and behave in "masculine" ways. But it's all entirely bulltit that allows even worse bulltit by the likes of Sean Harris, where kids that don't behave within accepted gender norms are shamed, abused, and ostracized. At the very least, the propagation of these gender norms makes the kids that don't follow them stand out all the more.