A friend of mine recently wrote an article discussing sexism in the gaming community. This lead to an individual messaging her on her personal Tumblr, asking why she cares what her gender is. (While I could go off on the stupidity of his comment that men experience sexism equally to that of women, that’s not what this post is about.) The poster’s implication is that equality can only be achieved through the removal of labels.

I’ve seen others, including those I consider friends, adhere to his ideology that labels are a bad thing. I don’t think these individuals are very aware of humanity, however. To suggest that labels are inherently bad, or work against the idea of equality, is arrogant at worst, ignorant at best.

I personally identify as a lot of things. I call myself an Ohioan, Cincinnatian, Columbusite, American, classical liberal, bisexual, nerd, geek, bisexual, genderqueer, gamer, and a comic book nerd. I have other labels such as Gater (fan of Stargate), Scaper (fan of Farscape), Browncoat (fan of Firefly), a Whovian (fan of Doctor Who) and Trekkie (do I need to explain this?). I call myself a non-theist for reasons, though I do believe in gods. And the gods be kind, one day I may be able to call myself a transwoman.

All of those labels, to me, are extremely positive. They are how I identify with others, connect with others. They set me apart from some, but give me a connection to others. Without labels, I’m just a person. A human being. I’m not unique, I’m not different, I just exist.

I don’t want to be just like everyone else. I don’t want to live without my labels. They give me life and purpose, they give me my very humanity. Just because someone might look down upon me and call me a “fag,” because of my identity, does not mean that removing labels will help bring equality to the world.

People seem to forget the very nature of humanity. Living without labels is not going to solve issues. People aren’t going to stop being racist because the person with dark skin no longer labels their self as “black.” A woman that only dates other women will still continue to be hated by bigots, even though she doesn’t identify as lesbian.

Using the example above, Alanah could stop calling herself a woman tomorrow, and that’s not going to stop her from being ridiculed for what she does. As shown in her article, she was told she only got to where she is because she has breasts.  Just because a woman no longer calls herself a woman, but simply a “person,” doesn’t mean she’s going to be treated with equality.

It certainly doesn’t mean she’ll stop being treated as a walking pair of breasts.

“I prefer not knowing if someone is gay because it basically is a difference in sexual practices/preferences, and I don’t want to know what anyone does with anyone else.”

I know a lot of people will look at that and think, “what’s wrong with what they’re saying?” The comment is horrible, and a failed attempt at subtlety. There’s a more blunt comment from a poster saying, ”I don’t care what you do in your bedroom, that is your business.”

The issue here is, homophobic individuals are making the idea of being gay all about sex. It also shelters people. Being gay to me isn’t a big deal, after all, I’m not straight. Our society, however, being gay is a huge deal. It destroys families, ruins careers, and so forth.

This idea that people shouldn’t mention their sexuality is troublesome on multiple ends as well. When I’m hanging out with the few male friends I have, it makes the situation awkward if I mention my attraction to a certain male. However, the situation doesn’t become awkward in the slightest around these same individuals if I comment on the attractiveness of a female.

While all of my male friends know that I’m bisexual, they probably often forget because I don’t mention my male attraction around them. I bottle myself up and don’t portray who I really am, so that they remain comfortable. The commentors above want people to bottle up who they are and never mention it.

The commentors above say they don’t want to know you’re gay, because they don’t care what you do in your bedroom. Does that mean they don’t want to know you’re straight? Of course not. People with that mindset aren’t going to bat an eye if a straight male mentions hanging out with his girlfriend. I’m sure we all know that the reaction to a male mentioning hanging out with his boyfriend will garner negative attention with the same attitude, “I don’t need to know that!” Or perhaps, “oh, I didn’t know you’re gay!”

This becomes a lose-lose situation. You can’t mention you’re gay, because they’ll think about you having sex with a male. You can’t mention hanging out with your boyfriend at the mall (if you’re male), because they’ll imagine you having sex with a male.

These same individuals will claim they aren’t the slightest bigoted or homophobic, they just don’t want you to tell them you’re gay. They don’t want to know you are in a gay relationship. They don’t want you to mention your gay or lesbian lover. They want you to be silent. They want you to bottle up who you are. They want you to pretend you’re a “normal” straight person.

But more importantly than anything else, they don’t want you to call them out on their bigotry.

I’m not just talking about Fox News, but of CNN, MSNBC, and the Associate Press among others. It’s obvious that the actions of the government are no longer truly questioned, and the Fourth Estate has failed us entirely. Anyone that does bring us news and facts, like Anonymous or Bradley Manning, are treated with animosity and hatred by the government, establishment, and the media. In the case of both, they are treated as criminals. The stories that the media runs and presents are presented as journalism, while true journalism done by other outlets is seen as a crime.

Then then there’s the celebrity aspect of it all. Recently President Obama went golfing with Tiger Woods, but made it clear that it was going to be more private and blocked the White House press corps from the gathering. The media went up in flames, crying and complaining that Obama claimed to be “transparent.”

Where were they when Obama was dropping bombs on children, and his administration said there were no civilian deaths? Where were they when Obama signed the NDAA? Where were they when Obama resigned the PATRIOT Act? Where were they when Obama allowed Bradley Manning to be tortured by our government? Where were they when a drone killed a 16 year old American citizen?

It’s obvious where they were. Up the ass of the establishment. The media is a network of clowns and buffoons that have done more than fail themselves, but committed outright treason.

That of course, isn’t enough for our anti-American friends in the Republican party. It’s not enough that Republicans don’t want Black people to vote, now they want to ensure that Republicans have as much of an unfair advantage in the Senate as they possibly can.

See, there’s this thing called the 17th Amendment. It’s most definitely a safeguard against corruption in politics, and so of course, Republicans are against it. If you don’t care to follow the link, I’ll summarize the 17th Amendment for you. It basically is what allows us as citizens to vote for our senators. Prior to the 17th Amendment, Americans didn’t necessarily get to pick their Senators.

The State legislature of a State would nominate and approve senators themselves. If Republicans were somehow successful in spreading enough propaganda to get rid of the 17th Amendment (which is astronomically likely to fail), the American people would no longer be going to the polls to elect their Senators.

Some people might think, “that doesn’t sound too bad. I mean, we elected the people that elected them, right?” But you’re forgetting how State politics works.

Look at my home State of Ohio. Two years in a row we elected President Obama. Our system here is split down the middle, but the liberal voting population are in small clusters. Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo, Cleveland, and Dayton are our major cities. Those cities all favored Obama, and old the brunt of our population. Those ares of the State typically elect Democrats. But there are large swaths of the State territory that vote Republican. If you looked at a map of our State legislature, it’d look like Ohio was a very conservative State.

That isn’t the case, but how the district maps are drawn up. If the population was spread out through the State more evenly, you wouldn’t see so much red in the State. These means that, despite the State not leaning towards Republicans or Democrats, our legislature is stacked towards Republicans.

If the 17th Amendment would be repealed, that means that swing States like Ohio would lose it’s Democratic Senate seats, stacking the United States Senate unfairly with Republicans.

The 17th Amendment’s purpose was to help eliminate corruption, and bring more representation to American citizens. Republicans are falsely calling this a “States’ rights” issue. But isn’t the 17th Amendment itself a symbol of symbol of States rights? It gives the power of the people in a State to elect their representative in the Senate.

Let’s not fall for the lies of the Republican party as they seek to undermine and destroy our election process.

The “zombie title” is a cruel and twisted thing that the banks can do, and have done to thousands already. If you fall behind on your payment, a bank can of course foreclose on you. They’ll give you a notice and tell you to be on your way out the door. Millions of houses have been foreclosed upon since the crash, many of these foreclosures being fraud committed by banking institutions.

You’d think that it really couldn’t get worse, but zombie titles are a whole new breed of disgusting. A bank can give a family a foreclosure notice, but then decide to rescind on this notice, and they’ve done this in the past. At first glance, that sounds great for the home owners, but really it’s not.

See, the banks don’t need to tell you they’ve rescinded the foreclosure. You’re expected to know, or to find out, and no responsibility is thrust upon the financial institution to inform you of their change.

Joseph Keller found that out the hard way when Chase foreclosed upon his home, only to change their mind. Suddenly he found himself being harassed by the city for his run down home, Chase debt collectors for not paying his mortgage, and tax collectors for not paying taxes on his home.

Unfortunately for Mr. Keller and his family, the government nor Chase care about what happened. The government believes its Mr. Keller’s responsibility to know whether he owns a house or not. Chase, of course, expected Mr. Keller to read the tea leaves and speak to otherworldly spirits to know that he still owned the house they told him he didn’t.

It doesn’t matter how outraged or disgusted by this practice the American people are, however. It’s an unfortunate case of plutocracy infesting our political and economic system.  The government and corporations working together to screw over the little guy. This unbridled, unrestrained capitalism is quite literally going to kill Joseph Keller.

He is terminally ill, and needs government help. It’s quite possible that he could live, if he had the proper treatment. But thanks to our government punishing Mr. Keller while rewarding Chase on their skeevy business tactics, Mr. Keller is likely to die.

To Chase’s credit, they did offer to settle. You might be thinking, “oh wow, they’re going to help him out for screwing him over?” No. Out of the cruelness goodness of their heart, they’re willing to let Mr. Keller pay $25,000 (not including he owes $11,000 to the government for this Chase fuck-up) to settle the dispute.

That’s right, after knowing he’s ill and in dire need of medical assistance, they’re willing to “help him out” by making him pay for their own mistake. Why isn’t this illegal? It all comes down to money, and how it’s integrated into and poisoned our political system.

JPMorgan Chase, like every other corporation and Wall Street company, is heavily involved in lobbying. A shady business that is ill received by the majority of Americans, it becomes obvious as to why no liability is put onto Chase for this zombie title scheme. Many politicians work closely with corporations and Wall Street, becoming lobbyists themselves when they leave government.

Very few politicians are willing to stick their necks out for American citizens and go after corporations and banks for committing obvious fraud. A recent poll shows that congress is held with more disdain than cockroaches and Nickelback, but more popular than lobbyists. Despite this utter hatred for congress and lobbyists, Americans turn a blind eye from the faults of our vastly underregulated economic system.

This blog post is not about how much capitalism sucks, nor how much I hate capitalism. I enjoy capitalism, but there is line. We have crossed the line of sensible and entered into the insane. Corporations and banks essentially run our government, and while we vote for politicians, they don’t in turn vote based on our wants and needs.

We need regulation. We need a government that protects and fights for its people against corporate entities. We need to stop treating corporations as people, while these corporations treat our people like insects to be squashed. The cruel nature of JPMorgan Chase should not go unnoticed or unpunished. The should be prosecuted for their crimes against American citizens.

No corporation, bank, or politician should ever come before an American citizen. When a wrong is committed against an American, the people and its government should stand against that wrong. What JPMorgan Chase and other banks are doing here is wrong. What the government is doing, ignoring these crimes, is worse.

Don’t let more Mr. Keller’s die. Fight.

See, the clowns at WBC are just attention-philes, and have little, if any, power. They aren’t lobbyists or multi-million dollar organizations. They’re just a pathetic group of individuals that have nothing better to do than cause a stir in the public eye. If no one paid attention to the Westboro Baptist Church, they’d fade away into nothingness. If people didn’t (like I’m doing right now) write articles about them, give them spots on their talk shows, or attack them at protests, they’d fade into obscurity.

Instead we parade them about as the “people that bring atheists and Christians together,” and other nonsense like that. We put them on this pedestal of hate that gives them the power over our society that they desire to have so much.

What makes One Million Moms different? They’re an organization with money and power (granted to them by their parent organization the American Family Association). They have the power and ability to lobby the government to redefine and limit our First Amendment with their attacks on homosexuals in media.

Westboro Baptist Church is a group of lunatics that look and sound like lunatics, berated and hated by the extreme left and the extreme right in this nation. One Million Moms comes off as a civil organization looking out for “family and Christian values.”

To me, One Million Moms is far more dangerous to our civil liberties and our freedoms than WBC could ever hope to be. One Million Moms has power and money in ways that the Phelps family and their cultists will likely never reach. When someone from One Million Moms appears on a television program, they’re treated as serious guests giving serious commentary. The Westboro nuts are put on there to get a ratings boost and for the host to show how awesome he or she is by mocking and attacking the WBC loons on their ideology.

This post is not about my own personal vindication, in hopes to reconcile what I believe to be my own hypocrisy. This post is to call everyone to attention at what is really happening. Organizations like the AFA and OMM benefit when you turn attention away from them to focus on the outrageous antics of a bunch of childish buffoons like the Phelps family. I believe that we all need to come together, Christians, atheists, and so forth, and go after the real threat.

The real threat to our liberty are organizations such as One Million Moms. They seek to undermine our First Amendment with their fundamentalist ideology, using the power of money and the ability to look “civil.”

This is a call to arms. Not physical arms, but for everyone to arm themselves with words. Arm themselves with the Constitution. To fight back the true evil in our society. The Westboro Baptist Church only has the power we give them. Yet, through corruption, bribery, lobbying, the American Family Association undermines our constitutional rights.

Do not let them win.

“To conquer a nation, first disarm its citizens.”
- Something Adolf Hitler maybe, possibly said but there’s no real evidence to suggest he actually said it.

I was initially planning on making this post a satirical mocking of conservative, right-wing talking points on guns and gun rights. But you know, I’m really just fucking tired of it at this point. I’m exhausted and worn out by the pathetic nature that conservatives and other gun nuts fight to hold onto their guns, in a way that is almost sickening. People are afraid that the government is going to try and take over, and that we need the Second Amendment to protect us from the villainous government.

This isn’t 1776. The English monarchy had the same weapons as the militia and citizens of the colonies. There weren’t nukes or missiles or planes and so forth. They actually stood a chance. The battlefield, war, all of it are on a greater scale than it ever was. If the United States government tried to take over tomorrow, they’d have little to no trouble, even if you armed every citizen in the country with pistols and shotguns.

I believe that citizens should be able to have guns, but I believe that they should have background checks and licenses and training. But remember that the Second Amendment says “well regulated militia.” A well regulated militia isn’t Joe and Bob down the street. A well regulated militia is the military, police, and National Guard.

I know my history well enough to know that our Second Amendment died decades ago when the FBI was established, and the federal government essentially took control of local law enforcement, and then when the military took control of each States’ National Guard. 

I believe that local law enforcement should have less influence and control from the federal government, and each States’ National Guard should be independent of the American military entirely, but given the same access to training and technology as the American military.

The government has no intention of taking your guns away. Remember that gun control != gun banning. I’m not calling for that, conservatives aren’t calling for that, and liberals aren’t calling for that. People want sensible gun control. Not this bullshit where you can fail a background check, then go to a gun show and get one without a background check. Did you know about the gunshow loophole? Don’t need a background check to get it.

Did you know that, if you’re on the terrorist watch list, you can’t get on a plane but you can buy a gun? Did you know there are laws in Arizona that don’t punish or even stop people from giving guns to drug cartels?

I’d rather make my country stronger and safer by making it harder for criminals to get weapons, while ensuring that law abiding citizens (like myself) are still able to obtain, own, and use the weapons we have.

Everyone knows their name. Everyone is familiar with what they do and where they’re from. We know their stories and the names of the family members. Now, because of Anonymous, we know their emails, phone numbers, home addresses and more.

But I implore you, all of you, forget them. Ignore them. Pretend they don’t exist. If you see them on the street, do your best to not look at them. If you must, laugh at them and shake your head dismissively or otherwise belittle them. But do it in silence and without vulgarity. Don’t give them the attention they want.

Call upon your local media organizations, as well as mass media, to stop talking about them. Don’t let them get interviews or airtime. It’s what they want. When you call for the government to call them a hate group, you don’t hurt them. You empower them.

It’s time we cut the head off the snake and let it die by no longer giving this group of crazy people the attention the want and don’t deserve. By focusing attention on them, you don’t harm them or make them silent. Their power over you only grows.

Though I’m discussing them right now, I refuse to utter their name. I want you to do the same. Don’t remember who they are. If someone talks to you about them, pretend you don’t know who they are. These people want fame and recognition.

The greatest insult you can offer them is by pretending they aren’t there. They don’t exist. The greatest insult you can thrust upon them is not by degrading them with actions or words, but by treating them as nobodies.

Forget their names.

The game, if you’re unfamiliar with it, puts you into the pilot seat of a mech, or “giant robot.” You play as a pilot, on a team against other pilots. At the start of my joining the Open Beta, the matches were 8v8. You had enemy bases that could be captured by standing in the are of the base, or the game could be won with the destruction of the enemy team.

The game gives you a choice of a wide variety of mechs, all of which can be customized to an great deal. Weapons, armor type, armor colors, and so forth are at your finger tips to change around. There are limits, of course. You can’t have a small light mech with a massive cannon or tons of missiles. Each class of mech typically has its own role.

Before you get your own mech, you can use one of the four trial mechs. Each trial mech gives you a taste of each mech class (light, medium, heavy, and assault). This isn’t your typical class-based first-person shooters, however. A light mech will typically be used to scout ahead and spot enemy mechs so the heavy and assault mechs can “snipe” them. However, a light mech can play a support role in combat as well and often hold its own with a great pilot at the helm.

For me, I’ve been using two different Jenner (a light mech) and a Centurion (a medium mech). These are my own personal mechs that I purchased, and I couldn’t be happier. The Jenner gives me the speed I sometimes want, but the Centurion gives me greater firepower and armor. With all three of my mechs, I typically play a “support role.”

Instead of using my Jenner to scout, I tend to stay close to the heavy and assault mechs. These bigger mechs shouldn’t be wasting their time on lights or mediums, and as such, the light and medium mechs will pester the heavier enemies. Instead of letting this happen, I stick close by them and become the flyswatter of my heavier buddy. This allows the heavier mech to keep focusing on distant enemies, or I can push the enemy mech far enough away that my assault buddy can destroy it with a volley of rockets.

The community is fantastic as well. I’ve played quite a few MMOs, and a number of Open Betas, and haven’t seen a community this welcoming and generous. I created a topic with the discussion focusing on being the support role. Fellow players gave me suggestions and builds for my Jenners and Centurions. I took a lot of that in mind, and then posted my own build with a lot of the suggestions, but tweaks for my own personal flare.

Having played other MMOs, I expected people to deride it. Apparently with this community, I was too much of a pessimist. The replies (including from the people that gave me the builds to use), were “that’s cool, I think that will work out well for you.” Even, “that’s a good build, and I can understand wanting to have a mech that is ‘yours.’” They didn’t say, “I wouldn’t do that,” or “you’re underpowered,” or anything of the such. They complimented and supported the build.

Seriously, what other gaming community does that?

Think about it folks, there are children starving in this country and others. There are men, women, and children being raped and abused and used as slaves. There are wars going on, and on the east coast of the United States, people are trying to get their lives back together after their homes and livelihoods were obliterated by a storm.

Yet this miscreants, these so-called “Christians” are worried about a television show? They’re acting like this is the worst thing in the world to occur, a television show about the devil and other “dark things.” Instead of spending money helping people, they are spending money to try and stop a television show to air.

It’s not even to protect children, since the show will be airing at 9pm. 9! Not 7, not 8. Not on a Saturday morning. At 9! It’s absolutely despicable that these people are focusing on a television show instead of helping their fellow man overcome the destruction of natural disasters and true human evils.

The best part of it is, in their title, they put a hyphen instead of the middle “6.” They are that superstitious, that childish, that they listed it as “6-6 Park Avenue.” Who honestly believes that 666 is some Satanic number anymore? These people are living in such a fairytale land it’s beyond sad.

One Million Moms really needs to grow up.