Hi guys, welcome to Orygyn!
Once again, I have monumentally failed to produce Orygyn content on a consistent basis. I'm hoping the revival of my Twitter account, in response to YouTube doing away with video responses, will remedy that situation. I plan to be more engaged with what remains of the community I participated in. Maybe this was YouTube's master plan: do away with responses so that people mobilise to become more connected with their friends. Who knows.
In this post, I'll chime in on all sorts of things that have happened since I was last active, assigning an appropriate amount of weight to each issue.
Healthyaddict's assault:
I can say with total honesty that I've never been more disgusted with the majority response to anything we've talked about than I have over the response to this issue. I've seen numerous people in comments and videos attempt to prove to us and themselves that they are "skeptics" by openly telling her that they don't believe her because there's "no evidence". I don't see skepticism here, I see psychopathy: people showing a complete and total lack of empathy towards Ashley. Yes, we can't be ABSOLUTELY sure it happened, and, in a legal setting, it would be entirely appropriate for her to give as much evidence as she is able to give to rule out the possibility of her trying to get an innocent person incarcerated, but this isn't a court of law. What any non-psychopathic skeptic should do in that situation is either say nothing, or say something comforting, not coldly deny all of it and ask for "evidence". I have to ask, what kind of evidence could you possibly accept here? I can't think of anything that would pass for decent evidence here. The assault may not have caused any bruising (and no this wouldn't mean that it's not a serious assault), and even if it did, I would have bet money on people claiming that she either self-inflicted those bruises or got them through other means. Face it, there is NOTHING she could have done to prove to these "skeptics" that she was assaulted. I got this idea instead, and feel free to call me crazy, that thunderf00t fanboys, riled up from his constant attacks on feminists and opposition to conference policies aimed at reducing assaults reacted first, and hid behind the "skeptic" label when confronted. Choosing your side and then finding a defence for it is not good skepticism. But maybe I'm wrong. I hope I am. I am, after all, a skeptic.
Miley
What I saw offended me. Kids watch this stuff. If I was a dad, I couldn't in good conscience let my kids sit in front of that TV watching those disgusting images and letting them think that was music. Couldn't they just have got 1 note in tune? Couldn't they just have a basic musical understanding of their own songs? But, unlike many others, I didn't spend the minute or so before the performance tumbling through a wormhole after having just fallen from the Mayflower.
Syria
This is by far the most important issue and I will treat it as such. First off, I have to cringe that for nearly 3 years, we've watched the country tear itself apart paying only lip service during that time while we helped out the Libyan rebels. But now, because a different kind of weapon has been used, "we cannot let these atrocities continue"! I admire your commitment to human decency, kind sirs! Torture during imprisonment, millions of refugees, hundreds of thousands dead, we can let that slide, but chemical attacks? That's too far! The argument is that this is to deter further use of chemical weapons. My advice: stick to that argument. Don't pretend to care now, it's too late. And no, I'm no better. I've never said anything about these conflicts. But my poker face isn't up to the task of saying something that enormously hypocritical.
But as for the burning question, should we act militarily, diplomatically, or not at all? That's not an easy one. There are tons of strong opinions that will probably attempt to persuade me otherwise, but it's not as simple as I've been seeing. I'm ambivalent to the response I've seen. Everyone has Iraq on the brain. "That must not happen again". Governments have surprised me with their sensitivity to public feeling on this matter. However, one thought crossed my mind recently and I haven't been able to shake it. Are we carefully weighing the situation here, or is this mostly a knee-jerk reaction to Iraq? Let's face it, Iraq was the extension of a knee-jerk reaction to 9/11. There should be more to it than "not Iraq again", and I hope there is.
Here's where I'm at, and it's not a place of being very informed, I should make that clear. First, how could this be diplomatically resolved? The Syrian people aren't going to give up, and I'd find it difficult to accept any argument otherwise given how much they've lost and that, nearly 3 years later, they're still going. The leadership has to change. Is there any way to persuade Assad out of power? I doubt it. Sanctions haven't worked as they weren't universally enforced. As far as Assad is concerned, this war was started by other countries: Syria's "enemies". Realistically, this war will only end with the government being overthrown. Should we help them? I don't know. I need to do more research. Yes, I did just say that. However, it needs to be said, and people who are also in my situation need to admit it. That's the take away message from this: don't just blindly react, think.
Let's see how long I last this time before I take the next months-long siesta from the blogosphere.
8<{D-
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