Neanderpundit

Little by little. Roof on the house should be coming around mid next month. yesterday I finally got someone to come out and clean up the backyard, so it’s no longer a bunch of downed trees. Daughter’s car within striking distance, I hope. And the insurance and 401k at work about to kick in.

Never been busier. Surrounded by a few people who really know their jobs, and a lot of kids that are playing engineer for the first time in their lives. Oy. Deliver me from fools.

A mesa is a flat piece of land surrounded by gulleys. Mesa means “Table”, and they look like that, like big stone and dirt tables. In some areas of the American southwest the flat spot on top of the mesa is good grazing land, and it’s not uncommon to find a herd of sheep grazing away.

Nearby is a similar mesa, with goats on it. There are also wolves, and the wolves sometimes kill and eat a goat. The goats will at least try to defend themselves, if cornered, and many a wolf retains cracked ribs as a result of a goat encounter.

A bridge is built between these mesas. it’s all good, right? the goats will come eat the weeds where the sheep graze, and the sheep will come and graze on the grass the goats leave behind (Lots of goats prefer weeds and brush to grass)

Also, the wolves cross over.

“What’s the big deal? The wolves eat goats now. it’s already bad if a wolf eats a sheep, the bridge didn’t make it more bad”

Predators are going to be predators. Why would we facilitate predation?

The most recent silliness involving cakes can be found here. Seems a gay pastor wasn’t being victimized himself enough,so he had to invent some victimization so he could sue someone as well.

And that is really at the base of all this bullshit. Like the bullshit about who uses what bathroom. Men who look like women have been using women’s restrooms for many many years; they go in and do their business in a stall. Women who look like men, same same. It’s already happening, so what’s the big deal? The big deal is some Charlotte lawmakers decided to be “Progressive” and instead of leaving well enough alone, codified some stupidity. Nobody will say anything about this legislation, only about the statewide effort to put a stop to the stupider parts of it. There’s a reason they codified that stupidity, and nobody puts it more eloquently than Ms Juliette. Read the whole thing. Like the Crusades were a direct response to the Muslims encroachment, the State of NC acted in response to local ordinances which it considered inappropriate.

The reason that the LBGT community has worked so hard to push this through has zero to do with being treated as equals, or even being treated with respect. As everyone with half a brain understands, respect is earned, not legislated. No, this is, as Ms Juliette states, clearly to do with creating chaos, with the end game of normalizing the abnormal. There is no other reason to set aside the desires of the 99% to accommodate the 1%.

Everyone on this planet understands that if you want to be treated kindly and with respect you have to treat others kindly and with respect. Getting all up in my grill to enforce your desires on me is not going to have the effect you desire, either way. It’s not going to make me respect you, and it’s not going to make me lose it, and stick a knife in your neck, no matter how much you truly deserve it.

So: You alter a cake, to make it look like someone is being “mean” to you? You’re being a jerk. Stop it. Likewise, if you go past four cake shops that would be tickled to make you a cake, just to harass the person whose mores you disapprove of? You’re being a jerk. Stop it.

You force a law to allow you to use the “Wrong sex” bathroom, which if you’re respectful and discreet you can do anyway? You’re being a jerk, stop it.

Posting pictures of very feminine looking men and very masculine looking women because it supports your argument about who can be allowed to use which bathroom, when you absolutely know this is not the problem? You’re being a jerk, stop it.

Anxious to cast aspersions on the faithful because you’re smart enough not to believe in any “Sky god who collects souls”? You’re being a jerk, stop it. Decide you want to jump in and yap about how some moron her or there said X or did Y and that gives you an excuse to bitch? You’re being a jerk, stop it. I am not the westboro baptist church, I am not the Pope, I am not Joel Osteen.

I could go on about forever. And I am not without my jerkiness that I need to stop either, I could devote novels to it.

here’s the thing. For love to really win, divisiveness has to stop. For love to win, love has to be in the game, and right now, it’s not.

There was a time when I would encounter people who needed to get their minds right on something, and I was always only too happy to be of assistance. These days, my knuckles are beginning to be arthritic from all the minds I’ve used them to change.

I can’t ever think of a reason not to be polite. I can disagree with someone and get along with them just fine. The only time this is an issue is when they decide they are at war with me.

So my new plan is to just try to be nice to people, and hope they get it through their heads that respect is earned, and courtesy is better than confrontation.

Yes, I know it won’t work. Never let it be said that I didn’t try. Because the alternative is just knifing everyone in the neck, and I have to pray hard for the strength not to do that.