Messages

[snooping is acceptable so long as what's found outweighs the crime of snooping.]

I hate snoopers. They generally are repeat offenders, and depending on how AWESOME the person is, I guess I would allow it to happen twice before dropping them. Once is a fuckup, twice is a pattern.

Dan Savage says snooping is acceptable so long as what's found outweighs the crime of snooping. So, rarely ever. I just think trust is important, if you can't trust the one you're with enough to leave their damned phone alone, why torture yourself staying with them?

So the ends justify the means? That makes about as much sense as the men who justify crippling my independence as long as it keeps me from leaving them.

I love that he asked the children to step out AFTER the "anal licking" segment of the talk.

A week ago, I would have said yes. My tablet was stolen and my kid has a video game addiction I'm addressing so neither of us will be playing for awhile.

OK, PD, I need a head-check.

ECHGF 2.0 snooped my phone. Now, I haven't been hiding anything from her or doing anything I wouldn't want her to know about. There's no reason for her to have any suspicions that would even come CLOSE to justifying that sort of thing, if indeed anything ever justifies that sort of thing. Her stated reason for feeling suspicious and insecure enough to snoop my phone is that I'm still friends with my ex-GF and talk to her alot, which is true depending on your definition of "alot", in that we exchange texts a few times a week. I have never kept that hidden or a secret. I explained to her right from the start that if I liked someone enough to spend 7 years with them, even if things didn't work out romantically I'm still going to want to be friends with that person. None of our conversations veer into anything inappropriate or threatening to my current relationship. Not to mention that my ex lives 200 miles away. I've seen her once in the last 7 months, when I stopped by to pick up a load of my stuff.

Now, with regards to the current GF, this is the first time she's ever done anything that's actually UPSET me (not talking about normal everyday annoyances) and the first time she's ever shown any hint of maybe having a touch of the crazy. She is, by and large, a very sweet and intelligent woman who makes me laugh alot and enjoys enough of the things I enjoy that we don't drive each other nuts with our quirks.

And yet....SHE SNOOPED MY MOTHERFUCKING PHONE. THAT IS NOT EVEN A TINY BIT OK. And trusting people is very difficult for me and being able to trust someone is pretty much my number one prerequisite for wanting to be in a serious romantic relationship with them. So I ask you, PD, if I decide that this is a deal-breaker for me, am I overreacting? 

This may be a deal-breaker for me.

No. You are not.

I can tell you from experience that if you allow this to slip by "unreacted about," the natural progression of things leads to you becoming their property and your shit being their right to search.

It's possible this has been done to her and she doesn't know what big line this is. If that's the case, you can have a serious talk and explain that this must never happen again, then let it go but if she does it again, it probably means she can't help herself and it's never going to stop. Be glad it reared its ugly head before you ended up stuck with her somehow.

That's his argument. It had to do with an argument I made for marriage equality and he said the GLBT community should take the path of least resistance and let the religious keep their marriage and just accept civil union. I replied that a "tiered" system of inequality was still unequal and encouraged society to return to a "separate but equal" attitude about people different from themselves which was NOT COOL in my book.

He then brought up eliminating state-recognition of unions ALTOGETHER because it's unconstitutional and unfair and suggested people should be allowed to just contract themselves to whomever, whenever, however, privately and without intervention. At some point, he challenged me to come up with one thing a marriage or civil union could allow partners to do that a contract could not and I replied with the survivor benefits thing. He insisted a contract or Will could take care of that too.

So, appealing to his obv libertarian side, I told him theoretically, that's a great idea but realistically, it'll lead to fraud and a whole lot of worse messes as private contracts CAN be challenged in court by surviving birth relatives and marriage can NOT as easily be challenged. I mentioned that in such instance, we really *would* have people doing fraudulent things like contracting themselves to their pets and stuff on paper and a host of issues due to improperly or unwitnessed contracts. and the like. I postulated that there would be MORE infringing government intervention as the courts became bogged down trying to sort out which of these contracts constituted intent to bind together in union two (or more) adults, which were unlawful, which were jokes, etc. (I didn't even really get INTO matters with children or access to medical and financial access type stuff).

Then he said something like "Well what's wrong with unwitnessed contracts? The government has no business, yadda yadda. And why CAN'T I will my dog to receive survivor benefits after I go? I pay too. It isn't fair."

So after the ice cream headache subsided a bit from THAT, I explained to him that those benefits are a safety net for partners suffering from the loss of the other team member who shared burdens and obligations with them. They are not a windfall, not intended for pets and they aren't there so that he can Will his best friend in Colorado a new car, just because he croaked.
That if he wanted his dog cared for when he bit the big one, he was welcome to buy separate insurance for that but that we all pay into a system that's there to ensure widows are still able to provide for the children if daddy dies and 80 year old grandmas don't have to eat cat food.


Then, before I had a chance to make a double-post, delving into what a bad idea it is allowing unwitnessed contracts with no regulation that no governing body is allowed to enforce or deny and ask him how that system would prevent breech of contract and someone cleaning out everything and leaving the other partner with nothing, he accused me of wanting to legislate morality and infringe on his rights as a single man who intends not to marry by not granting him the same rights and benefits as people who are married, he went off again, whining about how unfair it is to him and that I don't really stand for EQUALITY, I wanted to assign rights to my favorites. That I was all about equality until it comes to HIM. (He's white, male and well-heeled. Did I mention that?)

I almost lost it.

"Wow. Yeah, because you're so oppressed," I said.

To which he replied:
"Never said I was oppressed. Just not treated as an equal. I love it though. Rather than shoot for the right thing and get our government out of our lives, you'd like to solve problems like this with more government.

...and yes, I guess I am sort of oppressed. I won't get to enjoy the same benefits and rights as the rest of you and all because I don't want to get married in order to have those rights and benefits. You've got a lovely double standard there. Keep it up." and:

"...but I do enjoy how you turn to sarcasm when you've got nuthin'."

So I said:
"MORE GOVERNMENT? Are you serious? It's creating more government to keep religious people from infringing GLBT right to marry? Wow. And they used to call ME a Libertarian nutter..." And:

"And I don't understand. Using your logic, I'm being oppressed too because I'm not needy and therefore, can't collect food stamps. Saying you're entitled to widower benefits even though you never intend to be a widow makes about as much sense."

His response:
"Keep typing. All I see is equality for everyone. ...except you and you and...

Using my logic, there would be no inequality for anyone. ANYONE. We would all be given the same rights, benefits, etc.

Using your logic, I would continue to lose defense contracts because I'm not a minority run business. I understand why they USED to call you a libertarian. A true libertarian is against government intrusion except where it is absolutely necessary."

(RIGHT, BECAUSE I SAID MINORITY GROUPS COME BEFORE WHITES WHEN IT COMES TIME TO ASSIGN DEFENSE CONTRACTS!!! GRRR!!!)

And then he flounced with:
"I'm out. It's clear to me that you don't want to treat EVERYONE equally.

Sorry for blowing up your post Cedric. I sincerely hope that someday soon you'll be treated as an absolute equal with all the accorded rights and benefits that we ALL deserve."

Exactly which motorcycle is..? Where..? What the..?

I was just accused of oppressing a well-heeled, American white male for suggesting survivor benefits should go to widows and children of the deceased and that a self-declared eternal-bachelor should NOT be allowed to sign a contract naming his DOG a beneficiary of survivor benefits, just because HE paid into the system too.

The running theme is you have to do something to fix what you broke.

Death row is filled with remorseful child-rapists who killed their victims by tearing up their internal organs in their zeal. Forgiving George Wallace because he's sick and sowee is akin to racism and classim and is further enablement of white, rich men in suits doing whatever the hell they want to people because they can always hire a PR guy later and apologize.

Fuck that.

Get off your ass and go help all the people of Alabama you fucked over. I can show you some pictures of people still living in cardboard shacks around the formerly-all-black College that is now Bishop State, if you need a place to start.

Otherwise, GTFO. Damage is done, you racist fuck.

I don't even want to think about that right now

The reason I'm more optimistic about this idea than warp speed is that the boffins seem to know how to do the whole thing but duracell currently doesn't make a big enough power cell.

The way this thing sounds is that massive plugs of energy isn't the stumbling block, it's an engineering issue. My question is, basically, how does their timescale sound? Comedy-unfeasible or realistic enough?

50 metric tons of exotic matter.

I'm not massive but a navkat weighs more than you'd think. Like lead!

Just let me know when you're ready for me to burp into the accelerator.

Sweet. This is gonna get tasty.

Herpaderp Correction System:

Won't help.

The problem is DESIGN, not ADJUSTMENT.

Yes, but if you ACT NOW, they'll send two for the price of one. Just pay $19.95 S+H

Bless me, Rev.

Shark-Licking Erectile Spasm of Tomorrow's Hot Date

You know me so well.

I am merely a conduit.

Herpaderp Correction System:

Bless me, Rev.

Shark-Licking Erectile Spasm of Tomorrow's Hot Date

You know me so well.

I also suspect it's exactly why the healthcare system is so borked and yet we can't get off our asses and fix it. You're fine, fine, a little under the weather but fine, sick but fine, OMG You're dead!

There is this really bizarre notion in American academia (only there, it seems) that discrimination only exists within a power relationship between groups.

Therefore, so long as white straight men have more power than everyone else, no comment or act against straight white men can be discriminatory.  Or, if they are, it doesn't matter because of said power disparity.

Needless to say, this is retarded.  It mistakes the very problems of institutional racism as all acts of racism, that institutional sexism as all acts of sexism etc.  I won't deny that institutional discrimination is the greater evil.  That's the point of power, you can do stuff with it, and therefore when power and discrimination are married together, it is pretty awful.  But does that mean, for example, a young Asian male in the UK who sets fire to a synagogue because he believes Jews perpetuate the suffering of the Ummah, is not being a bigot? 

Power springs from the barrel of a gun.  Or from a box of matches and access to petrol.  It's crude power, but a very real sort.  To focus on the insitutional problems obscures the different varieties of bigotry and discrimination that exist, all of which inflict pain and suffering based on a person's skin colour, or gender, or sexual orientation/gender affiliation.

The US is a nation of extreme everything; extreme stimulus, extreme reactions. The converse is that it's like we sort of dissociate and trivialize whenever someone isn't covered in their own vomit, bleeding their eyeballs out in the streets. I mean, not to RWHN the thread but that's why we fail to see things like drug addiction as an illness: we skip right over it. We go straight from "You're fine, everything is normal" to "OH MY BLOODY GOD, THROW HIS ASS IN JAIL."

I suspect the trivialization of bottom-up bigotry is a function of that.