This came across my feed today, from three different people. As some of you may have guessed, many of my friends and acquaintances are Left leaning to some degree. I see this thing come up every election season, basically. Today, I spent 20 minutes staring at it, trying to decide whether to reply. I eventually decided it wasn’t worth it, and moved on. Then I went back, snagged the image, and came here.

Let’s see. I personally have my human right to exist challenged fairly regularly. As someone who is pansexual (which is the new bisexual), for years I was put down by straight people as “just needing to find the right man,” and by gay people as, “just confused and unwilling to come out of the closet.” When you’re bi, everyone hates you. That challenge happens daily, for the most part, not just at election time. I wonder if some of the people who posted this have considered that.

As to watching people vote against my right to exist, well yes… it happens every election season. It happens on BOTH sides of the great aisle we’ve created. I see the Left voting down my right to free speech (their hatred of hate speech). I see the Left voting down my right to carry (second amendment). Both the Left and Right are guilty of raping the fourth amendment (that’d be the right to be secure in my person and against unwarranted and unreasonable searches and seizures, something both sides have eroded in their own ways). The fifth amendment is a mess, because (again for different reasons) Left and Right have decided some things are okay to “hold someone to answer for” without Grand Juries, and due process is a joke these days. The right to a speedy trial is not possible most of the time because of the ultimate mess of our legal system, so that’s the sixth down, though I don’t know that the gutting of the sixth is due to Left or Right… it’s just people in general. Excessive fines and cruel punishment seems to be the darling of the Right.

And the ninth… I don’t think anyone at all even remembers that one anymore. There are hundreds, thousands of rights. Not all of them are written down in the Constitution. Our Framers chose to highlight and protect certain rights because they were That Important, and yes, I recognize and appreciate that. But it doesn’t mean they granted me a right. No one grants me a right. If it’s something you were granted, then it’s a privileged, and it can be taken away. Women didn’t “win” the right to vote, they fought to have an already-present right recognized by a recalcitrant populace. Rights simply are. They exist because WE exist. No one can take them away, though if we don’t guard them, tyrants can restrict them and stop you from practicing them. But they don’t go away.

And on and on. Yes, I know the fear of my rights disappearing, not from the Right, not from the Left, but from both sides. From all sides! The pandering and downright bullshit mind twisting you have to do to think that only one side or group is guilty is mind boggling. I can’t even.

And as an aside, someone in commentary said they wondered why I said “sx” and “abse” instead of sex and abuse. That’s because on some social media, which I also write for, if you use those words you become censored, and can lose accounts. I sometimes forget that this is one of the places I can say things out loud. I won’t apologize for it, and you’ll probably see it again, if only because I will forget. But I do appreciate that here, at least, it is recognized that I have a right to free speech.

Hagar,
who’s angry today.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8MbFH9U/

It’s funny because it’s true…

Interestingly enough, today’s article got caught in my feed for who knows why, but I found it interesting. It touches on the relationship between weather and climate change. I found it interesting because it is not a part of the usual media frenzy about all things climate related, AND the person they talk about in the article is Steven Koonin, who was an energy tzar under Obama, of all people. When the Left starts saying that climate change and weather are not as fragile as the media says, we might be making headway.

I am a firm believer in the idea that we should not shit in our own nests. This means we ought to stop tossing garbage everywhere, and we should continue to find new and better ways to package stuff that doesn’t leave behind a floating garbage patch the size of Texas in our oceans. We should stop putting microbeads of plastic into facial cleansers, because we’re starting to find them in commerical fish. We should be considering what’s going on with Splenda, if only because it seems to be entering our waterways in much the same way it entered us, which means we’re peeing it out in the same formulation it went in.

There is a lot of stuff we can all agree on is Bad. The garbage patch in the ocean. Overfishing or overhunting to the point where we no longer get to enjoy our foods. Working on eliminating food deserts. We ought to be focusing on the things everyone (or the vast majority) agrees on, and that we can make progress on. The Left can argue until it’s blue in the face that oceans are warming, and there will be people who deny it, others who support it, and a group in the middle who are confused over why it matters. Whatever the facts are, that argument is going nowhere, so let’s walk away from it and actually get something done.

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Look, there IS still a use for them! 😉

Promised AWA I’d share that one. 😉 Enjoy.

They Blamed a Child

So, this Ohio dad found out his eleven year old daughter was being groomed by a dude on the internet, and manipulated into creating and sending sexual images of herself to the perp. He did what any of us would do (provided we didn’t have an address for the perp… lots of options when you know that… but I digress): he called the police.

Watch the video. I cannot EVEN. The cops say, and I quote, “I mean, she could probably get charged with child p*rn.”

I’m sorry, the ELEVEN YEAR OLD?

First, under the age of consent in a state (generally around 16, tho a bit higher and lower in various places), a child cannot consent. Therefore, they can’t be involved in sexual things by choice. Second, the unknown male perp should be getting charged with something, that’s for sure, and those cops should have been asking questions about him! Third, I don’t know that I’d have had the calm that father did, in just shutting the door and walking away. Good f’ing grief.

For those who may not know, CSAM means Child S*xual Abuse Material, and it’s a term used to differentiate between porn (which is legal and done between consenting adults) and child abuse (which cannot be consented to).

When Roe vs. Wade was struck down, the Right cheered, the libertarians nodded thoughtfully, and the Left went into a full on panic.

The Right said that abortions were originally meant to be safe, but infrequent. The exception and never the rule. An abortion takes a life, even if it is a “potential” life, and that should be thought through very seriously before going forward. With the advent of “abortion on demand,” things got out of control and there was so much push that we had some people advocating for “post birth abortions.”

The Left said that abortions belonged to all women, that it should never be questioned, and that a woman is not a walking incubator. Abortion gives power to a woman, so she can’t be trapped in a relationship, can’t be forced into child care that she’s either unable or unwilling to provide. When and how abortions are done should be the discussion of women, and men ought be excluded.

I’m left enough to say that I believe it’s important to have a certain level of abortion available to women. There are simply too many situations where pregnancy is used as a cudgel to beat women down, even today, that I’m unwilling to even contemplate taking it away entirely. There are also just too many times when extenuating circumstances get in the way.

Today, I learned about a group of court cases challenging the abortion laws in Idaho, Tennessee, and Oklahoma. I’ll let you read the legalese yourself; I know you’re all capable of that. I’ll provide the “feels” for you.

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