(no subject)

[trinityvixen]

gakked from droidguy1119: THE CONTROVERSIAL SURVEY

Otherwise known as Trinity tells you what you already knew from reading her rants, only this time in convenient, Q+A format with shorter answers! Win!

The Controversial Survey!
01. Do you have the guts to answer these questions and re-post as the Controversial Survey?
Sure, whatever floats your boat, anonymous interwebs meme!

02. Would you do meth if it was legalized?
I believe you mean "if it were legalized." And the answer is Fuck. No. If I'm going to shoot my brain through with holes, I better have the zombie virus and be doing the only right thing to do when that happens.

03. Abortion: for or against it?
Ah, what a great way to frame that. No one is for abortion. I'm for it being legal, but I'd prefer it only ever had to happen because of completely understandable fuck-ups with contraception or to save lives/health.

04. Do you think the world would fail with a female president?
Her sex is irrelevant. If she's good at her job, then no. If she's Sarah Palin, then yes.

05. Do you believe in the death penalty?
Yes. I wish I could say no, but there are some people who just aren't ever going to be worth saving. Mass murderers, serial killers, et al. are determined, repeat offenders, so why should we waste tax dollars on keeping them alive. Lethal injection is more human than anything they've ever doled out. That's good enough for me. Doesn't mean I support it being used more than infrequently.

06. Do you wish marijuana would be legalized already?
No. It should remain illegal mostly so that usage is kept to a minimum, but no one should go to jail for using. Selling, maybe.

07. Are you for or against premarital sex?
I'm for letting everyone have the right to choose for themselves without being made to feel guilty for it, one way or another. No more slut/prude dynamic, please.

08. Do you believe in God?
In my weaker moments, maybe. I did used to. Nowadays, I'm pretty sure I don't. I'd like to think there was a God, but I don't have the capacity for self-delusion enough to say with any certainty there is one.

09. Do you think same sex marriage should be legalized?
Fuck yes. Let the gays spend money on getting married and get some goddamned tax breaks. They, as much as anyone, need it in this economy.

10. Do you think it's wrong that so many Hispanics are illegally moving to the USA?
Don't you know that it's the bloody Irish we need to be worrying about? Oh, no wait, the Chinamen! Point is, Hispanics are only this century's immigrant bogeyman. Back off, racists. They tend to stay out of trouble and are better tax payers than a lot of citizens. I have no problem with those people.

11. A twelve year old girl has a baby, should she keep it?
That's her decision. She probably can't, legally, supervise it entirely on her own, but if she wants to raise it, that's her choice. This sounds like a "gotcha" question, but it's personal. I have a close relation who had a baby at thirteen. This shit happens.

12. Should the alcohol age be lowered to eighteen?
What, and deny serious drinkers beverages aged 18+? Ugh, these questions and their phrasing. Should the legal age at which one may purchase alcohol be lowered to 18? I don't see why not. The draft age should have to go up, though. No way anyone should be taken to fight and die without the chance to legally get drunk and screw. And maybe the full driver's license should be restricted to 21+, just to avoid the confluence of boozing and driving at 18. (Conditional licenses/permits would cover the intervening years--and maybe encourage mass transit, which is good for the planet.)

13. Should the war in Iraq be called off?
Car! Game on! The war in Iraq should never have been started. It needs to end as soon as it is possible to do so without throwing the country into utter chaos. (A little chaos would still be better than a lot of what we've let happen.)

14. Assisted suicide is illegal: do you agree?
I do agree that it is illegal; I disagree that it should be. (Stupid wordings!) As long as people are capable of proving they request euthanasia of their own will and are in sound mind, they get to make the call. We need to get over the fear of death in this country and start accepting that quality of life is more important.

15. Do you believe in spanking your children?
I couldn't. I've seen too many people smack their children in public and it doesn't do a lick of good that I've seen. Plus, I'm not gentle enough to know my own strength. I'd be terrified of hurting the child accidentally. Also, omfg never having children.

16. Would you burn an American flag for a million dollars?
Yes. We've been pretty good about chopping it up and feeding it to whoever has the money to pay us to do it, so why not just burn it and cut out the subservience to the rich and make some money off it?

17. Who do you think would make a better president? McCain or Obama?
Obama.

18. Are you afraid others will judge you from reading some of your answers?
I worry about offending people because I have strong convictions and don't apologize for how I let them loose on the world. But no, I'm not afraid of anyone judging me from it. They should: these are my honest answers and they reflect truthfully on my character. Of course, I can now never run for public office, what with the flag-burning and the non-believing, but that was true before I answered this, so no harm there either.

No surprises there, I think.

Comments

[neo-leviathan.livejournal.com]

I laugh so much at this meme, the person who wrote it really does have horrid grammar, and is very dodgy at best.
Plus, things like "04. Do you think the world would fail with a female president?" - Wow, you really do have an overinflated opinion of the effect of America on the rest of the world. =)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The idea is not to sink to their level, I suppose, not that we "need" them. But I don't really feel that doing the world a favor and removing certain people is sinking to the level of rapist/murderer/genocidal fuckholes. Just as there is a quality of life, there's also a quality of death. I don't really believe one state-sanctioned murder invalidates the system. Especially not when it's someone like Bin Laden or, closer to home, a Timothy McVeigh-type.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Plus, things like "04. Do you think the world would fail with a female president?" - Wow, you really do have an overinflated opinion of the effect of America on the rest of the world. =)

The fact that no country is referenced could either be an attempt at globalizing this meme--lots of countries have presidents. What it really is is someone's American bias being so strong they a) think being President of the US is something that can make or break the entire world, and b) that you don't need to be told what country this prospective president is from.

[neo-leviathan.livejournal.com]

Both possible, and both simply reveal that the person who wrote it should be sterilised so that they cannot pass on their genes.

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

No one is for abortion. I'm for it being legal

Ugh, I know, it's so stupid how people think that being pro-choice means being pro-abortion. It's about the choice to do either, even if that is to keep the baby.

This quiz is so stupid. "Controversial"? It's clearly written by a right-wing person wanting to get validation from people they know.

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

here are some people who just aren't ever going to be worth saving. Mass murderers, serial killers, et al. are determined, repeat offenders, so why should we waste tax dollars on keeping them alive.

That's interesting, considering you love Dexter. XD ;)


Can you really not run for public office if you admit to atheism and flag burning? That really is fucked up. So much for the "freedom" of the USA...

[equustel.livejournal.com]

I'd like to think there was a God, but I don't have the capacity for self-delusion enough to say with any certainty there is one.

Aw, must belief in God coincide with capacity for self-delusion? I tend to think it's a good deal more rational than most people assume. ;) But I know that's an entirely new can of worms; not intending to open it, just wanted to defend us folk who tend toward theism because we believe it really does make sense, not because we're prone to wishful thinking.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I would have suggested that for the crimes against coherent sentences in the first place.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The world is better off without monsters. I know how it feels, too--an eye for an eye feels like it gives in to all the petty smallness of which we are capable. But that doesn't mean the desire for revenge and justice aren't sometimes similarly realized.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It's definitely looking to liberal bait, but it could just as easily bait conservatives who aren't careful with their framing. Never forget that framing the argument in the right way wins the point regardless of evidence. (Hence the anti-choicers and their bullshit "right to life" parties.)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

See, Dexter is a personification of the death penalty. His appeal is that he kills only bad people, but when we look too close at what he does or think about it too hard, we're appalled. That's really no different than the death penalty--either way, our reactions as audience or citizens who allow this violence to happen and do not condemn it authorize that violence. That's the common argument against capital punishment--that murder of murderers is still murder, is still wrong. With Dexter, you really see that that is true. Doesn't stop you from liking it when he takes out some of the people he does.

As for the US, you can run if you're religious enough--you don't have to be attending, but you pretty much have to have faith somewhere. It also tends to have to be the right kind of faith, besides, hence all the scare rumors about Obama, a demonstrable Christian, being a Muslim. Is it written down? No, that's unconstitutional. Is it a fact? Most places, yes. The flag burning is a sensitive issue and long-standing bugaboo. The right to free speech covers flag burning, yet both parties have, at one time or another, voted to criminalize it. (It has never passed.) Because there's free speech and there's destroying a symbol of national pride, etc. etc. We have to take the good with the bad with free speech, but that doesn't mean there aren't people who'd like to stop it being that free. I mean, I'd love to prevent the KKK from spewing their hate bullshit, but once you start defining what speech is okay and what isn't, you end up in a clusterfuck.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Forgive my cynical side. I was raised with faith, and I do understand its importance to people. I still occasionally make comments to the effect of praying for people, still defend some things I was raised with as holy although I have drifted from that. I don't begrudge people finding anything from religion or theism, so long as it stays personal and doesn't become evangelical. (No recrimination meant, I didn't interpret your comment that way.)

When I speak of self-delusions and a confusion about God, I mostly mean that I'm a realist. I look at the whole of human history, and the bias is against the atheists. People everywhere, in all societies, have believed in god or in gods. The proof of god is in the ability of so many, so many rational people to choose to believe.

However, I also see that people choose to believe--and believe fervently--in lesser, more easily disproved things, and I find that belief and faith are equally represented as delusions about reality as they are personal choices to uphold something supernatural as an unproven fact. I also know that my own faith is horribly scarred. I never felt that faith some people do. Maybe there is a god, fine, but there isn't a single human religion that I ever felt was worthy of putting that fledgling uncertainty-leaning-towards-theist inclination into. I just don't have the passion for faith that others do. As a consequence, I'm less likely to believe the tenets of faith--that there is a god not least of all.

So "delusions" applies only to myself. I cannot fool myself into having faith, cannot convince myself into it. Attempts to believe feel hollow. Hold out hope, vaguely imagine there is something in the universe that made it? Sure, okay, in theory. Beyond that, I cannot commit because it feels like a hypocrisy. But I apply that only to me. Other people feel differently. I don't think they're wrong just because I don't agree.

[avram]

"I dunno. Did the world fail in 1980?"

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

Yeah it's true. one friend once played devil's advocate to me about whether or not religious homophobes have a right to their beliefs, but I got angry and said not if those beliefs hurt other people. She said something like well they believe that homosexuality is harmful to people. So yeah I guess you can't just start saying who does have a right to beliefs and who doesn't.

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

Also, to do with faith, I dislike those books that say "religion is the root of all evil, it spoils everything" etc, almost as much as I dislike religious evangelism. Because I know that faith can be very helpful to some people, when it isn't being used as a weapon against others.

Also, is it true that Obama wants to invade Pakistan to root out terrorists, or is the person who told me that just spouting bullshit?

[equustel.livejournal.com]

Entirely understood, and thanks for the clarification - I actually really enjoy this type of discussion, even though I realize it's not most people's cup of tea. I like finding out why people believe what they believe, since I think faith and reason are not only compatible, but best when used together - it's that age-old adage... divorce the mind from the heart and they'll both deceive you.

Religion, IMHO, is a sketch people make when trying to discern the spiritual. Some religions have a more comprehensive "sketch" of the world and of human nature than others - but if you ever mistake that scribbled impression for the truth you are trying to discern... that's when you're deluding yourself. When religion becomes an end instead of a means: therein lies the fallacy. It's like language: words are helpful when it comes to articulating ourselves, but to say that our words are all there is to us is silly.

[kokoinai.livejournal.com]

Pretty much true. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080101233.html. Obama's just as hawkish as any of our other mainstream politicians (sigh), he's just somewhat more realistic about what armed force can achieve.

[kokoinai.livejournal.com]

Although I oppose the death penalty for moral reasons, as a practical matter the death penalty does not save taxpayer money: it costs more to keep someone on death row and execute them than to imprison them for life. This is mostly due to the extra court work that is mandated must be gone through to put someone to death.

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

Ugh, why isn't there a normal, intelligent liberal presidential candidate? Is that too much to ask?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Which is funny because some countries do prosecute people who use hateful speech if it damages the group at whom it is directed. I have no idea how they manage to define that.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I love that analogy with religion, really love it.

I wish I could combine faith and reason. I think part of why I've had a hard time of it of late is due to the fact that I see a lot of people in this country acting on their gut instead of their reason and masking it all with religion. (Religion, not faith.) Normally, I would consider myself hopeful about humanity--I have faith in people mostly doing the right thing--but it hasn't been the case for a while that I think, in general or in specific, people have been making reasonable choices. So my faith, while never being very religiously strong, but being more humanist, has been sorely tried recently, and it's making me cynical. This is my doubting moment, like Thomas, like Luther. We'll see if humanity restores it.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

See, this is true but, as Stephen Colbert would say, it lacks the truthiness of the matter. As we're learning with the financial crisis, there are some things we think it's okay to throw money after, and some things it's not. I would prefer to use taxpayer money to put truly irredeemable people out of the world than use it to keep them alive, even if that's the more expensive option.

I realize that this is a hatefully vengeful sort of thing to admit, but that's why we still have the death penalty in this country. Were we all perfectly capable of making moral black-and-white lines out of the issue, it wouldn't factor in. But personal feelings of mistrust and danger do factor in. It is barbaric, I don't disagree, and I certainly don't like it and don't advocate the death penalty by any means, but that doesn't change the sense I have that some people are just not saveable and are better off gone.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Because in the wake of terrorism, the country lurched to prove it could be strong. It's a very common response to being victimized--you need to reclaim that which was taken from you (namely, security). Part of that is a need to prove physical/military strength, and if an otherwise moderate liberal wants to win, he can't deny people that chance.

It's bullshit, and I wish we had a stronger, more radical liberal base that got shit done like the fundamentalists can, but it's happened yet.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Framing the argument also puts the other party on the defensive. It's easier to "win" when they're playing on your terms. Heck, if you frame it right, you can get them to argue a strawman of their actual position, or at least make it look like they are.

Politics is a game of dishonesty; "fair play" is immaterial, winning is the only important thing.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Well, there's libel and slander, which is the first and foremost. Accusing someone of eating babies when it's pretty clear that they don't is and should be illegal. From there, you can define "damages the group" as things that cause monetary damage ("Those dirty Jews always rip you off") or incite others to cause physical harm or property damage.

It comes down to the "your rights end where mine begin" bit. Anyone can believe anything they want. They can live their lives according to those beliefs, up to the point where they harm other people by enacting them. The cannot, at any point, force those beliefs onto others. A KKK member is totally within his rights to think I'm an inferior being and should be avoided or ignored. The minute he tries to hurt me or tries to get someone else to hurt me, then he's infringing my rights, and the government can stop him.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I was more commenting on the fact that we protect the right to offend and incite, unlike some other countries. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/us/12hate.html)

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Hey, at least he's talking about targeting the right group of people. Better than can be said for Bush or John "100 years in Iraq" McCain.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

There's a big difference between faith and religion. I have nothing against people's personal faiths or beliefs. It's religious groups and institutions that drive me nutty, and that I think are destructive.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

Yep, I'll be disagreeing about the death penalty forever with TV. And yes, it's more expensive than life in prison thanks to appeals costs. It also does not positively affect crime rates or act as a deterrent (last I saw, a study showed that most criminals that actually planned heinous things never for an instant thought they'd get caught--this is different for crimes of passion).

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

Democracy's epitaph.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

Hrm... the anti-death-penalty arguments that I've found most convincing have to do with the (alarmingly high) false-positive rates in the criminal justice system, coupled with the systemic bias in how the laws get applied to rich vs. poor, White vs. Other-Especially-Black.

I mean, if murder of murderers is still wrong, if you're going to be a moral absolutist about it, then fighting World War II was still *wrong*...