What Makes a Brother a Brother?

What makes a brother a brother?

for Brian 'B2' Mackdaddy
Brother from beginning to end


I'm not being sexist in choosing to use the word 'brother;' I view my dearest female friends in the same light, and they are absolutely the pillars of my world. Sisters, brothers, they are of course the same. But since this was inspired by, and I am writing it for, Brian, who is not a female, I will ask it thus: What makes a brother a brother?

When I ask what the criteria are for being someone's sibling, the first answer I often get is along the lines of, 'being expelled from the same uterus,' but often phrased in much more boring ways. But this is not a prerequisite or a criteria - it is optional and often not true. My biological mother's other son is not my brother - he is an abusive, sick alcoholic drowning in his own toxic miasma of bullshit. And he disowned me, threw me out of his home at the pointy end of night shift police's attitudes at 3am, into the winter night with barely the clothes on my back. He is worse than Walder Frey, because at least Walder had motive for his gross betrayal of the sanctity of hospitality (the Red Wedding, in Game of Thrones book/season III). The alcoholic nonsibling is just histrionically twisted and drunk.

So if coinciding originating women's parts aren't relevant, what is? To answer this we must look at what it means to be a human being.

Humans are constantly learning and improving. We are mostly unpleasant and immature, with occasional moments of approaching something tolerable. But it is in the words of the great William Blake (the poet, not the serial killer), "He who suffers you to impose on him, knows you." Everybody we keep around us is a choice, and we choose to keep them around because, yes, we like them, but deeper than that, because we know them. More often than we would like to admit, we are an imposition on other people. Everyone is. But choosing to keep somebody in your life means that you choose to value their noble qualities more than you are annoyed by the other 90% of them.

Brothers are one small step more noble, one giant leap towards something truly beautiful indeed. Brothers are the only people who we hit with the full force of our ugliness. There's a few old sayings along the lines of 'Why do we only hurt the people we love?' Why, indeed?

Why do we unleash our inner darkness and violence on our brothers? Surely they are the least deserving of such. The reason we do it is because when we are at our darkest, our most lonely, most afraid, our brothers are the only ones left. The only ones who love us so much as to still be there when we need them the most. To share our pain, to forgive us when we attack or project onto them, to put up with our shit and respond to it with 'thank you sir may I have another?' until all the hurt is bled out of us. Then they offer their arms and hearths and liquor cabinets, to pick us up or keep us standing tall. They don't expect or demand an apology for the things we say and do in our dark moments, but they receive them anyway, eventually, and saying 'sorry' is tremendously important. Especially to our brothers. They are the least deserving of the darkness of our hearts, and this is the reason why they see it at all, and also why they weather it until we're back to questioning their parentage and sexual integrity.

Brothers don't just share a beer with us, they share our ugliness and our beauty, our trials and triumphs, our falls and our jokes. I am loved and appreciated by my brothers and sisters. I am loved and appreciated by my family, the family I chose. They are the only family I have ever known. And I love and appreciate them.

Thanks Brian for being my brother.

Nobody else will do it for you

A moment of something can create a lifetime of everything - or of nothing. Choice in that moment is therefore of unimaginable power and importance, and why it is the master of fate and save existence itself is the greatest of the divine gifts.

So respect it. Love it. Trust it. For it is who you are and all that you may become. Nobody else will do it for you. Choose what is right, because nobody will do that for you, either.

Excitement is the compass of the soul. Pay close attention to its bearings and in appropriate time and proportion, take action on those urgings under the kingly governing discipline of your quietly strong mind. You are wiser than you know. But please, take action. This is what your soul, mind and body are for, in that order. In the immortal words of William Blake, whoever desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence, and you should sooner stab an infant to death while it sleeps, than nurse unacted desires.

There is positive and negative energy contained in this, the harmonic communion with yourself. There is such in everything. But in order to tip the scales in your favour, you have to accept, trust, and love yourself. Then you will be able to draw out your inner voice of truth, out from the cacophany of others that keep you awake at night. This voice is the most beautiful, volatile, and strong, yet the hardest to find. So it must needs be disciplined when you manage to find it.

On the other end of this sacred scale is the negative, the dark whispers from the past, from fear and our shadows. These too, are but a part of who you are. They must be understood, known, accepted and, in time, with love and a lighthearted patience and, perhaps, a mild, healthy disrespect for what they were yesterday, be integrated into the self.

So, give generously of your time and effort to knowing, accepting, trusting and loving yourself. For this is the only way you can truly, richly, live.

Nobody else will do it for you.

What's wrong with (Radical) Feminism: Susan Wilson Edition.

Multi-millionaire mother throws her children, gender issues, and anyone dumb enough to not fight back, under the bus, for money. 

Manipulative child-abusing scamming jack-snake, how did she get away with it?

1200 backers willing to give $23k to a millionaire because she tricked them into supporting the girl's side in a fabricated gender war between her own children? Absolute genius, absolute evil. Charity fraud by a millionaire.

Wait what? Allow me to explain:

Susan Wilson, Founder and CEO of debt collection agency the Judgement Group, created a fundraising campaign on kickstarter.com in order to collect $829 for her daughter to '' to cover the cost'' of sending her to a game programming camp so that she can compete with her game making brother.

Sadly for society, sadly for the world, this multi-millionaire friend of Warren Buffet (http://i.imgur.com/UyxHYFV.jpg) committing charity fraud for $829 is the preservative in the icing on the cake.

I showed the writing on the fundraising page itself
(http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/susanwilson/9-year-old-building-an-rpg-to-prove-her-brothers-w/) to a few of my colleagues. We work with very difficult children all day, every day, and were at least mildly horrified, at most seething with fury, at the obvious fakeness and the abhorrent sexism. It's most definitely NOT written by Mackenzie, and most definitely fabricated by the mother just to score a few free 'girls can't do anything on our own' bucks. It's actually quite deliberately and cleverly crafted, the pace, the jabs at the brothers, the unfolding saga of 'poor Mackenzie.' I find it whimsical that this calibre of feminist cries oppression and inequity ad nauseum, but the only one playing the 'girls are inferior' card is the feminist herself, because she knows, like Susan Wilson knows, that people will throw money and good intentions at you. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the moral yardstick of feminism.

Apparently her style of parenting and/or scamming hit a lucrative nerve: promising the brother to deliver a personal apology to those who pledge to donate over $10.000 dollars. And her supporters do not leave it at words, they are showering her with gold (do you see what I didthere?).

Committing disgraceful and alarming child abuse on all three of her children, she is making her sons look like bastards and her daughter incompetent and inept, reliant on society to do everything for her. She even names her children and puts photos to the names! On the internet, as often and in as many places as she can! This humiliates and demonises them to the entire world. Those two boys will now have to live with that indelible black mark on their persons for the rest of their life. Or rather they would, if the people who funded the project weren't stupid, and if the rest of us were so callous and ignorant as to hold a grudge against the boys for the evil of their mother.

Ms. Wilson is capitalising on the current gender war and raking in the money. She is exploiting and undermining her daughter, and throwing her sons along with all men, under the bus, whilst laughing all the way to the bank. Or worse - she is not laughing. Maybe she thinks what she is doing is right and good, and she's screwing her family, and all of you, as though it's perfectly moral. Maybe she sleeps better tonight knowing your hundred bucks, your dignity, and your right to encourage all people to not exploit people and social insecurities to cheat others, have all been tidily swept into her purile arms.

Are we actually letting her get away with this?

A website devoted to this case (https://kickstarterscam.jottit.com/) shows the embarrasing examples of how Susan Wilson tries to impersonate her daughter. It also shows how she tries to appeal to the feminist croud by focusing on the gender issue in order to fund her.

This story demonstrates greed, and the dark truth of feminism, in its most sickeningly pure form.

Links:

A summary of the entire slimy fiasco:
http://bit.ly/13nMpqH

This is the actual kickstarter itself:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/susanwilson/9-year-old-building-an-rpg-to-prove-her-brothers-w

And an article that demonstrates who this she-snake is:
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/fortune/0912/gallery.most_powerful_women_entrepreneurs.fortune/8.html


Some other handy links:
https://kickstarterscam.jottit.com/
http://i.imgur.com/UyxHYFV.jpg
http://tinypic.com/r/20jr4md/6
http://oi50.tinypic.com/6qfyx1.jpg
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=528903

What Came First, the Sexism or the Biology? Genetics vs Memetics at its Finest.

This was intended to be a reply to a Facebook post made by a friend of mine. It evolved into this over the course of the train ride to work.

The Facebook post itself was well put: it was about the passage from the book of Exodus, where the law regarding female cleanliness after childbirth and of male circumcision are laid out.

All the people who are horrified at how women were treated, should please settle down. I agree that this God is a sexist douche but under any system, there are always going to be abused and abuser, as well as decent human beings who love and care for one another. And there are still a lot of women who desire nothing more than to be protected and provided for by their man, just as the blueprints of biology designed her.

Ironically if I marry, then I hope to be the housewife in the team. I'd be better at that than working a career 12 hours a day. So I am definitely NOT lumping all women into the same basket with my previous paragraph - all I am saying is, it's about time that we understood a very simple, very important, very undeniable fact that brooks no argument: Biological, evolutionary construction has lumped MOST women into that basket. If you have a problem with what I have said so far, then take it up with your genetics, not me. This is not misogyny, this is fact. Fact derived from unchangeable biological reality. Let's start accepting truth instead of rebelling against it. Rebellion is a symptom of ideology.

Do remember that we are talking about a time in history when men needed all their strength to protect women and women needed all the protecting they could get. People did not have the luxury of sitting around and arguing about misogyny or pitting men and women into competition with each other...they were too busy trying to survive and perpetuate the species using all the tools that they evolved biologically to possess. This dynamic dominated the entirety of human existence and pre-existence - and still governs many of us and indeed many animals - until the last 150-odd years of the western world. Memetically, I would dare to suggest that we are changing at a rate too fast for our genetic evolution to keep up. Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution versus a couple of generations of oil-gorged opulence. You wonder why people are collectively and individually imploding, this might point to why.

That said, the priest caste was a different story, as it was a cultural (memetic) evolution, supported by the rest of the people's hard work, living off the grain stockpiles that enabled not only them but cities themselves to exist. It was in their best interest to reinforce a system that worked for them. That's what's happening here.

Writing developed as a necessary communication revolution to manage the new energy regime of hydro-agricultural society, and it in turn continued to shape the society that ultimately evolved - under the guiding hand of the priestly parasites of course. So we can see that scripture is essentially propaganda to idealise and perpetuate the system by which the elite classes of those days stayed that way. And both memes and genes evolve.

The current doctrines that props today's elites up are consumerism, ideological minefields and willful ignorance. And the system is democratic capitalism. Churchill said it was the worst system we'd yet tried, save all of the others. Communications revolutions are necessary, and the memetic and genetic evolution that occurs is par for the course. There are positive and negative traits to any revolution, but every time history repeats itself the price goes up. We're running out of reserves to ravage, and the planet itself is fracturing and collapsing around us.

I think it's time we agree that the semi-regular institutionalised discrimination against women that the scripture-makers initiated is a non-issue. After all, we have the priests of post-post-modern, consumerist, ignorant occupiers of wall street, campus whiner feminists and climate change crusaders beating us about the head with their own zealously pseudo-moralistic ideological lead pipes. When I put it like that, it shouldn't matter what their actual agenda is. You should first be urgently interested in removing yourself from the impact arc of the ideological lead pipe...and checking to see if there's one in your own hand.

What is Happening to People?

Taken from my notebook, dated 14th January 2013

Walking along the beach, for lack of a better, my brother imposed an SMS debate on me as to the colour of General Douglas MacArthur's liver. We agreed that he was, in my brother's words, a 'real bell end,' and then - I forget the segue - my brother quoted a line from HBO's 'Rome;' "What a dreadful noise plebs make when they're happy.'

Then I started paying attention to the people around me. My tranquil repose, basking in the beauty of the beach and the crisp sea air, views of landscape and beach bodies...all of this ended rather pleasantly as my mind re-engaged. Hey, I'm used to it by now, it's a relentless thing, but it's the only one I've got. Being glad to see it switch on was a most agreeable occurence. I must try to capture this lightning in a bottle more often.

Plebs are supposed to be noisy when they're happy. And yet it was all quiet out here, at one of the most expensive and coveted beach camp sites in the country. Filled to capacity with tired, shuffling campers. Even the children were subdued, the teenagers sullen. Oh, all the behaviours one would look for, whenever one has occasion to assess the health of a teenager, were still there. Those with bodies and $120 boardshorts and/or bikinis flaunted, even as they snarled behind clouded eyes and sneering lips. They snarled at everything, but even the snarl didn't have teeth. Only one of over a dozen even bothered to be vain, as I saw her gaze flitting everywhere to see who was perving on her. That was the most animated thing I saw anyone being all day.

I felt like bounding urgently to them, and shaking them...especially the one girl who still looked somewhat alive. Asked her 'What are you doing, here?' Then I realised that no matter when, or where I crossed her path, whatever the circumstances, the same question would occur to me. The same answer would meet it: a disaffected, post-twitter/instagram/i-Phone/entitlement shrug of bare, white shoulders and of dark eyes. Eyes that would have been beautiful but for their sullen, defiant emptiness.

Education, you had ONE job, just ONE JOB!

The Melbourne Declaration (http://www.mceecdya.edu.au/verve/_resources/national_declaration_on_the_educational_goals_for_young_australians.pdf) is a Neil Armstrong-esque, one small step in the right direction, and light years better than the US first attempt at a 21st Century curriculum. But the declaration is, on its own, wishful thinking. There exist more glaring problems with the education system, its role in society, and in society itself, than the National Curriculum and the Melbourne Declaration have thus far addressed. I want to be a teacher (turning down at least two other lucrative career paths) for three reasons: first, because I will be a brilliant teacher, and the world needs as many of those as they can get. Second, because I want to inspire as many children and young people as I possibly can to think critically, have confidence in themselves, and to know who they are. Third, so I can help facilitate the changes to society and its institutions (including education) that need to happen. In short, I am what J Abner Peddiwell called in his timeless essay on education “The Sabre Tooth Curriculum,” a 'radical.' And we live in a radical time.

Whether you're a realist like me or something else, the world is becoming more globalised, diverse, and sociably and upwardly mobile. It's inescapable; like John Henry vs. the machine, you cannot stop progress. It remains to be seen whether these changes will deliver the stated, and desirable, outcomes of producing 'healthy, productive and rewarding futures' for Australian school leavers. There are some good common-sense and relatively simple-to-implement points in the declaration, such as the focus on becoming 'Asia literate' (remembering that not so long ago our own Prime Minister Paul Keating said that Asia is 'just a place you fly over to get to Europe')(p.4). The ideas of creating an environment free of discrimination, and reducing effects of socio-economic disadvantage (p.7) are a little harder to implement, mostly because these are in large part symptoms of the current system anyway. In a sense, what the Declaration espouses is using the disease that produced these symptoms to cure them. By far the most positive aspect of the Declaration is the (albeit small) recognition it draws to the diversity of individual intelligences, and the necessity of 'a range of pathways to meet the diverse needs and aspirations of all young Australians.' (p.8) This is still coming from within the old framework though, which is why it's wishful thinking. For now.

The problem with the current changes to the education system is that they are reformations, not transformations; the system was built to meet the needs of the socio-cultural, technological and communications revolution of industrialism in the 1800's (Rifkin 2009; Robinson 2006), and is predicated on the idea of a certain, very narrow, kind of academic ability, and the demonstrated capacity for it (ibid). It was designed to create obedient workers who, in the words of George Carlin, are:

'Just smart enough to run the machines and do all the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept the increasingly shittier jobs and pay schemes. (The people who crafted it) aren't interested in creating a nation of people smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard...years ago...they just want obedient workers.'

Or we could take a look at H. L Mencken's (1924) damning words:

“The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardised citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is the aim...whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues, and other such mountebanks...in the United States and everywhere else.”

Like it or not, it is the truth. Which is precisely what they're getting, more often than not, and with all the changes the Melbourne Declaration rightly identifies to be taking place in the world, I hope you can see why reformation (as opposed to transformation) isn't going to cut the mustard, and I am in this to change the system from the inside.

I have always had a passion for history, storytelling, original and 'maverick' thinking, and inspiring humankind. A friend once told me in all seriousness that I would make a very good cult leader. Perhaps I am destined to lead the cult of properly educating humanity.

 I fervently agree with the sentiments of great historians, historiographers, and historical figures such as Jared Diamond, Edward Carr, Bill Bryson, Jeremy Rifkin, and Ronald Wright, with the idea that facts and rote learning do not matter. What matters is the search for the causal relationships between social and chronological events, and to find them, so one can understand them. To cast, as it were, a long look back in order to cast a short look forward (Christian 2005). Even fewer teachers – or people in general – seem to see why this kind of thinking is important, or why empathy, and appreciating their students for who they really are is the most important (Rifkin 2009). The reasons why fall outside the scope of this particular discussion, but the consequences of not doing it are very real, and probably deadly.

References

Carlin, G., (2008), It's Bad for Ya! (Stand-Up Comedy Recording), HBO.

Christian, D., (2005), Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History, University of California Press.

Mencken, H. L. (1924), in The American Mercury.

Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, (2008), Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, retrieved <http://www.mceetya.edu.au/verve/_resources/National_Declaration_on_the_Educational_Goals_for_Young_Australians.pdf >

Rifkin, J., (2009), The Empathic Civilisation: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis, Tarcher-Penguin, London.

Robinson, K., (2006), The Element: How Finding your Passion Changes Everything.

Guy on the Bus

On the bus home tonight I saw a fellow in a wheelchair covered from head to heel in compression bandages, with only his face uncovered. What little I could see of his face was a mess of 3rd degree burns, as, probably, was his entire body. He was gaunt and trembling; his fingers and toes kept curling and twitching, as if eternally reliving whatever it was that immolated them, and him. But this man spoke to his two companions with the kind of quiet, earnest and lovely emphasis that could only teach me one simple thing.

I was sitting on that very same bus, directly opposite this man. And I was fretting about my living situation, the ancillary strains attached to the best relationship I think I've ever had, my back pains that have been getting worse since the chiropractor started to fix them, my boss yelling at me today, and my assignment being late due to my post traumatic stress disorder acting up. I was fixated so negatively on all of this...while this beautiful man, this magnificent bastard, was just grateful to be alive.

I can't compare my life's trials to his, because they are individual. You are you, the burned man is the burned man, and I am me. Nobody can compare their life to another's. There is one thing that he and I, and you, too, have in common, however - and indeed, everyone else who has ever lived in this world. And that is the attitude we choose towards our lives.

This begged of me one question: if this welcome stranger on the bus can so eloquently, so silently, demonstrate such a singlemindedly gentle and inspiring joy of living that brought tears to my eyes, then what excuse do I have to bitch and cry?

My living situation is a minor thing compared to the prospect of being burned from head to toe. The relationship really is wonderful, what kind of moron would undermine it with such negativity? My back pains are being healed, it has to get worse before it gets better - but it *is,* for the first time in six years, *getting better!* My boss yells at everyone, but is a sterling and kindly gent underneath the grumpy old man syndrome, and nobody else takes his temper to heart - mostly they laugh about it. Why don't I? I do at times struggle with the residual impact of the traumatic life I've had, but I've made such progress that inspires literally everybody who knows my story - and I'm succeeding in my studies and everything that's important to me. So why the hell am I stressing?

The greatest power - such as that wielded by this burned man - requires the lightest touch. This is why God is all but invisible. And this is why the burned man didn't know or care what influence he had on me; he was just going about his business, blissful to be alive and blissfully unaware of the beauty of his spirit, and the lessons he'll no doubt teach, unconsciously, to anyone that crosses his path in life, so long as their hearts and eyes are open.

Sarkeesian's Grammar.

Well I'm in an ESL teaching class right now and all I can hear in my head is freaking Anita Sarkeesian screeching about her 'subject/object paradox,' which rule she stole from the grammar one we're talking about today; Sarkeesian is a thief of grammar rules, of money, and of the integrity of society and both male and female sexuality, and as you guys say, a lunatic. The problem is - other than I can't get her valley-girl voice out of my head - that all too many people take her seriously.

Traditional Grammar is the whole <subject> <verb> <object> rule; for example, Michael ate lunch. Sarah wrote a book. Functional Grammar is an extended concept that nuances this, giving dozens of delicate, specific and useful language and tools to describe different types of sentences, actions and so on. It's pretty much needlessly and painfully complicated ESL theory without much practical use.

So why was it invented?

Possibly to deal with feminists like Anita Sarkeesian hijacking the fundamental rules of Traditional Grammar and applying them to the fictional relationships she thinks exist between the sexes.

Sarkeesian actually thinks and teaches that grammatical subjects acting on objects = men oppressing women. I know it's also an ancient philosophical topic, the subject/object problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject%E2%80%93object_problem) but it seems to me to be a reflection on the very nature of existence. It has nothing to do with Sarkeesian's brand of petty yet deadly feminism, and for her to hijack either the grammar rule, the philosophical staple, or both, is

How does a grammar rule even translate/apply to her gender war? I really don't see the morality, the logic or the point. Unless of course she's created a patriarchy, a conspiracy made up of every single man, woman and child who disagrees with her, whose sole goal in life and in everything they do is to oppress her.

When I talk about Radical Feminism, this is what I mean!

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about what I mean when I say things like "Radical feminism is evil." To explain the problem these people who misunderstand me have, I'll borrow from my good friend James Walsh, who said it perfectly thus:


            "A lot of misunderstanding comes from the whole 'if you are not with us you must be against us'  mentality people have on topics with a lot of emotion, of which this tends to be one.

The moment you challenge almost any aspect of feminism you are going against political correctness, in which most people will make a hell of a lot of assumptions about your position that you've never said/do not hold.

As I've said before, it never seems to matter what you actually say, it matters what people hear. Unfortunately these two things can differ substantially."

Contrary to what almost everyone will admit to you out loud, women hold literally all the power; the entirety of the hundreds and thousands of years of successful evolution, and existence, of the human species and civilisation itself is fundamentally founded on the biological imperative that men do things for women, and women respond accordingly. This relational 'glue' is the progenitor of all other social, political, and relational paradigm. And every woman alive knows exactly how much power she has. This is a good thing, a very very good thing, except when women exploiting and abusing it.

If a man weaponises his innate sexuality to exploit and abuse others, for his own selfish gain, we call him a rapist and give him a jail sentence. If a woman does the same thing, we laud her as being strong, independent, and successful - usually a 'radical feminist,' and give her a pat on the back and welfare money.

It's usually perfectly wonderful and respectable women - almost always friends of mine - and white knights - almost never friends of mine - who will argue with me about this concept before they think about it. It is these people to whom I write this article. You seriously need to understand the kind of women you're defending when you tell me things like 'all the science disagrees with you,' and 'you're misinformed about (radical) feminism.'

My hope is that anyone who reads this will think twice before a) falling into the trap eloquently described above by James, and b) defending these thunderously detestable anti-human bitches that I am defining as radical feminists.

To the best of my knowledge all of these stories are true - and if they are not, they are indicative of what happens relentlessly and increasingly, worldwide. I've provided simple facebook and other screencaps only in this post, for the purposes of making my point clear and accessible.

The signs in the image above depict what you won't ever find painted on a radical feminist's banner.

 

Of the two examples here, which one do you think I fully support? Not the slut-walkers on the right. They are self-entitled, sawn-off shits who can only become more frivolous, self-absorbed, and militant with time.

 

Affirmative action and 'women's only' benefits, payments, welfare, societies, etc. are just like this - because they all must begin with the implicit premise that women are weak and need the help. In fact I know the opposite to be true...this couldn't just be fraud or manipulation of the system, could it?

 

...this one perhaps more than any other captures mortifying abuse of several men and several children, and these despicable people are using the legal system to do it, for their own personal gain. 

This picture says a thousand words, and so do the bullet points under it. So the only word I have to add to it here is - Bravo!

 

Yes...depressingly, people like this actually exist.

And this...

And yes, even like this, too.

Is it possible that any sane and decent person could defend or condone this behaviour?

The reason I think feminism is misguided is another topic for another day, but the short version is that it instills a sense of entitlement and other profoundly detrimental traits that pave the highway for the kind of behaviour and people seen in the pictures I have shared here. It is these that I label radical feminists. It is these that I hate. And if you still defend them, or are one yourself, then you should feel deeply ashamed.

Why pickets, petitions, charity mugging, and militant activism is *so* 20th century

Right up until the present day, all the great suffrages, protests, political and activist movements over the last 150 years, have all fought hard to end discrimination and create equality and opportunity for empowerment for women, persons with disabilities, the LBGTQI (did I get all the letters? In the right order?) community, and so on. The myth of equality and empowerment for all, however, has become derailed in most cases in the present day, and may not have been a sustainable idea to begin with.

They generally boil down to rights without responsibilities; senseless notions of entitlement, crusader mentalities gone wrong; natural selection turned on its head, to the peril of the entire human race. Why? Because there do exist hard-coded biological and temporal restrictions on what people can and can't do. This is a discussion for another time. But the point I want to make here is simple: In the past, activists have had to fight, be militant, dangerous, courageous, and noisy, in order to generate heat, from which came the light required to shine upon the injustice of their plight, in order to have made the wrong right. Notice I use past tenses there; I do so deliberately, as the time for being noisy and militant, for edgy polemic, the activist's zeal and the campus protest warrior, is past. Such people do two things successfully: the first is secure priority treatment for themselves at the expense of whoever they blame for 'oppressing' them, thus reversing the pendulum in a most hypocritical manner. The second is, they don't create light, just friction, thus annoying everybody, which would not bother me so much if they didn't turn good and/or intelligent people off the causes they are misrepresenting so depressingly.

All groups, to my mind, follow the same pattern, making the specific cause they represent mostly irrelevant. We will take a look at some of these causes and communities in turn, and hope to unpack the pattern along the way. I hope my point will become clear, both to myself and to you, dear reader. Thus far, my point is simple: that if you refuse to, don't know when to, put up your sword, then all you do is piss the world off and damage your cause.