#but bases his freedom on not adhering to a specific set of rules

[movedtodykedvonte]

Just saw a post about Jester’s Privilege and (link) for those who want a definition and I wanna apply it to Spamvil:

Imagine Spamton and Jevil are thoroughly in the dating/smitten phase but Jevil still cannot stop making jabs and jokes at Spamton’s expense. Cute moment’s inturupted by a riddle mocking Spam’s gushiness or just a jab at his world view. It’s all in good fun, that’s just Jevil’s humor and the way he plays around. But Spamton takes so much of it to heart cuz it’s his partner saying it and it’s already hard enough to decipher what Jevil general means about certain things, let alone if he genuinely respects him in the relationship. 

Cue Spamton just straight up having this like break down cause he needs to know if Jevil means the jokes he makes or why he makes them so often and Jevil’s just like “They are just jokes, jokes? Why are you so wound up, up?” cause he’s a jester and the card kingdom’s resident madman, no one has ever taken him seriously because his whole existence is being part of the bit. Then Spamton has to explain that his words mean a lot to him and that in their more intimate moments they aren’t just words or a bit but something he has to take to heart because being part of a relationship require you to take your partner seriously and Spamton needs that part. 

So for the first time in a long time Jevil has to reevaluate that some games and jesting should be paused or reserved and it’s important to check when a joke doesn’t land, cause for a first time in a long time or ever his words actually matter/mean something to someone.

[itsbenedict]

Two-Faced Jewel supplemental: The Ecumenes and the Gods

Roughly 250 years ago, the world was tightly-linked by teleportation magic. People could visit any city on the Jewel in the blink of an eye, and the idea of national borders was pretty meaningless. Instead, there were distributed, nonlocal governments that competed for citizens.

(If you've read any of Terra Ignota, you'd recognize the hive system.)

The death of teleportation magic has shattered the world into local polities with their own governments, but the six Ecumenes still hold varying sway over the population to varying degrees. Their individual law systems are still largely recognized by local governments, and their cultural impact is felt the world over.

The Ecumenes are, of course, churches of the gods. Below are their profiles, and overviews of their legal systems.

Eman, Windspinner, is the God of Freedom.

Eman is the Ecumene for those with no Ecumene- those who feel no need for the law to protect them, or can't stomach the restrictions of other gods. (Analogous to Blacklaws, in Terra Ignota.) No law will protect you if someone wants you dead, or tries to steal your things- but if you're a dyed-in-the-wool anarchist and believe in your own ability to navigate the world without an authority above you, the Ecumene of Eman will... do nothing whatsoever for you, because it's barely an organization. Typical adherents of Eman are either self-assured warriors, unrepentant violent criminals, or both.

Eman, the god, has a total commitment to autonomy and asks nothing of his worshippers. His clerics do, as is their ultimate inviolable commandment: whatever they want. Typically, though, the sort of person whose mind is similar enough to Eman's to be capable of channeling his divinity as a cleric... cares a lot about the freedom of others, and goes about trying to prevent other authorities from unlawfully enforcing laws on Emanites.

Andra, Veilpiercer, is the Deity of Understanding.

Andra is a pretty standard deity of wisdom and knowledge and all that- nothing unexpected there. They just want to know everything, and value learning new things!

The governance of the Ecumene of Understanding is very interested in empiricism. They want to know what the best form of government is, and do that, instead of picking one way of doing government and sticking with that no matter how badly it backfires. So they run experiments!

Under Andra, there's no such thing as a law that doesn't have an intended outcome, a standard for measuring whether it met that outcome, and a deadline to measure the outcome by or else repeal the law. As a result... the legal code is constantly changing based on heated arguments between politicians and armchair legal theorists (between which there is little distinction) over whether targets were met. And what this means is that the legal code is in constant flux, and you basically need to be a part-time lawyer to keep up with the laws governing you.

Making matters worse, teleportation and long-distance communication broke, and so geographically distant Andra polities now need to work harder to stay in sync. The Ecumene of Andra, therefore, is the major force behind the building of roads, and the sponsoring of adventurers who do the hard work of forging through the wilderness to deliver messages. They sponsor the Deathseekers' Guild, a brotherhood of monster hunters that take on the most dangerous prey they can find.

Typical adherents are academics, adventurers, and people who think they're smart enough to keep up.

Diamode, Fruitbearer, is the Goddess of Family.

Diamode has a plan for you! You go to school, obey your parents, graduate and get married, buy a house in the suburbs, have 2-3 children, care for them, retire, be cared for by them, and die. That's the plan. Their legal code encourages filial piety and conformity to this perfect way to live your life. Tax breaks for married couples, credits for having children- be fruitful and multiply! It's sort of the bastard child of Confucianism and protestant Christianity- it would absolutely be the most popular ecumene in the US, if that were how such things worked.

Typical adherents of Diamode are... there's only one typical adherent of Diamode, because the whole point is being the one way Diamode wants you to be.

Iska, Peakstrider, is the Goddess of Triumph.

Iska values self-improvement above all else- becoming Better, developing skills, climbing that ladder. There's no point to living if you're not trying to be the best at what you do! If it makes you stronger, it's the right thing to do!

Unsurprisingly, this is a popular goddess amongst warlords and merchants, who like having a divine mandate to enrich themselves at the expense of others. Iska only cares that you're winning- if someone else is losing, that's not her problem. They get whatever they deserved for being worse at whatever the conflict was about!

Iska's legal system is based on a sort of complicated virtue-ethical rubric. The winner of a legal dispute isn't the person who acted least criminally- the winner is whoever is the better person. And the criteria for who's "better" are set by people in power in the Ecumene of Triumph, which means "better" tends towards "more like the people in power", and "less like the enemies of the people in power". It's a fairly degenerate system, full of lots of infighting.

Ccorde, Skyholder, is the Goddess of Harmony.

Back when the gods were creating the world, Ccorde was responsible for keeping them all on the same page. She arbitrated disputes and authored compromises that would keep the gods on-task and creating something stable. She's... the reason the world isn't a Snarl, if you're familiar with OotS. She wants everyone to get along.

Everyone who's a god, anyway. She kinda likes it when people get along, but her number one priority is making sure people don't fuck up the world she worked so hard to broker. She has a lot of rules around how people are allowed to change and interact with nature, and she leans towards the hyperconservative with respect to the environment. She wants this world to be exactly the way it is, forever, and is annoyed by ways in which it changes.

Unlike most of the rest of the gods, Ccorde is fairly active in the management of her Ecumene. The rest have all moved on to the latest hot new world everyone's obsessed with, leaving Ccorde to conduct the busywork of keeping all their boring old worlds running smoothly. It's thankless and borderline futile work- big things like teleportation magic keep breaking, and she can't fix them on her own.

Typical adherents of Ccorde are druids, naturalists, and other hippies that love animals and being in tune with the environment and stuff. Ccorde's Ecumene is also one of the more competently-run bureaucracies around, and has a lot of non-ideological adherents despite its strict rules. Because the system works, dammit- without demanding as much from you as Diamode.

Karou, Heartlifter, is the God of Joy.

The Ecumene of Joy are hedonists. Hedonic utilitarians, to be precise. They eschew other considerations in favor of the basic observation that people ought to be happy and if your government doesn't help its people be happy then what the fuck is even the point of a government?

Implementing those principles, though, can be a bit of a mess. Working out complicated legal codes is boring and not fun, so their system for resolving legal disputes is "have a cleric of Karou personally evaluate what course of action would result in the most utility on net".

In the real world this would be a disaster- a system immediately captured by power-hungry narcissists who set themselves up as the people who decide what course of action is best. Luckily for the Ecumene of Joy, they have a pretty decent selection process for their leaders.

See, in order to be a cleric of any god in this world, you need to fulfill a specific requirement. What a cleric actually does is channel divinity, see. The gods are busy people! They don't have time to personally investigate each and every little issue their clerics bother them with. They're just people, ultimately- they don't have the spare brainpower. So they have to borrow brainpower- specifically from people who are, cognitively, near-identical to themselves. The more like a god you are, the more easily that god can borrow your brainpower and instantiate themselves on your hardware. Casting divine magic, in this setting, is literally becoming your god for a little while in order to do something your god wants done. That's what it takes to be a cleric!

Since you can't cast divine magic without being totally in sync with your god, you can't be a power-hungry selfish bastard and also be a cleric of Joy- because Karou isn't a power-hungry selfish bastard. He's the god of hedonic utilitarianism, and will make a good-faith effort to resolve a dispute happily every time.

(It doesn't always work, though, since Karou is not the God of Being Correct About Predicted Consequences All The Time, and clerical error is always a source of difficulty for the Ecumene.)

Other Gods

The six Ecumenes are the only organized god-worshipping organizations that run governments, but there are loads of other gods- they just don't involve themselves in legislation. It's fairly common for someone to belong to a particular Ecumene just for the government, but worship one or more other gods as a matter of personal faith.

Alanala, Waveracer, for instance, is the Deity of Tides, with dominion over the surface of the waters. They're commonly worshipped by sailors, for obvious reasons- and in particular, the Lastwave clan that controls Oyashio.

Lolth is a classic- Webstretcher, Goddess of Spiders, is worshipped by the drow. She's known for dark rituals and cannibalism and other evil type things. (The drow diaspora regards these as hateful rumors, and insist that Lolth is a benevolent figure who promotes togetherness. The consensus among right and proper elves is that this is a smokescreen and that the blood libel is super true. Hrm.)

And... ?????? ? What's this symbol? It's on the bracer that's bonded to Saelhen, but it doesn't represent any god Looseleaf's ever heard of. Maybe not all the gods show themselves to the people...

[studentstime]

GENDER BAISNESS IN LEADERSHIP FORMATION IN BANGLADESH

written by

Israfil Hossain

INTRODUCTION:

Bangladesh is undergoing phenomenal changes/reforms in its economy, governance, women empowerment, human resource development, poverty reduction, health, education, etc. Its economy is moving at quite a good pace, given the spurt in export earnings, mainly due to private entrepreneurs, and high remittance earnings mainly coming from the Bangladeshis working in the Middle East, Europe and America. Bangladesh has huge potentials, as the experts predict, even to reach to the middle income group of countries, given some more momentum in terms of improving governance, eradicating corruption and ensuring political stability. As is known, Bangladesh is often battered by natural calamities which cause substantial damage to its infrastructure, and its effort to eradicate poverty, not to speak of the loss to human lives. Bangladesh has certain advantages like homogeneity in terms of ethnicity, religion and a culture of tolerance which play a great impacting role in its integration process. It has a huge population, which may be called a comparative advantage that can be converted into competitive advantage like turning them into human resources. If the huge population can be turned into more literate, skilled, semi-skilled manpower, and utilized domestically and exported to developed countries then the country would greatly benefit economically and socially. Given the limited space of Bangladesh that finds it difficult to sustain such a huge population, this is one of the most feasible and pragmatic options left for Bangladesh. Otherwise Bangladesh’s human security will be in jeopardy.

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP TRAITS

Transformational Leadership is the latest and most promising phase in the leadership spectrum. “Here the focus is on leader behavior during periods of organizational transition and on processes such as creating visions of desired future state and obtaining employee commitment to change.” Transformational Leadership is a kind of leadership that can transcend the normal boundary management of an environment. It aims to walk an extra mile, or take a bit more risk, or take more responsibilities instead of passing the buck in undertaking a task. It should be able to improvise, if required, to reengineer or reinvent. Stagnancy or maintaining status quo is the job of a routine manager or a transactional leader but creating a new context in order to be more productive is the goal of a transformational leader. It should be able to take the team along who strongly upholds the visions, values and objectives of the leader to be their own and inspires them in such a way that they would carry out the tasks enthusiastically even at the peril of their life. They would not necessarily turn into rabble rouser. They should, as far as possible, reflect charisma, be able to inspire the subordinates and should be able to intellectually stimulate the subordinates or the stakeholders.

Charisma entails providing vision and mission to the stakeholders so that the team moves along the path the leader has foreseen. He should be able to instill pride and gain respect and trust from the subordinates or his constituency. Charisma reflects his personality, knowledge, wisdom, sense of justice and commitment. One may argue this is a born quality- a gift from God. This argument is largely not tenable since - many scholars term it as a myth – such qualities can be acquired through rigorous exercise, given a deep commitment. Next point is about inspiring the stakeholders in undertaking even the arduous jobs. The leadership is about understanding the environment, adapting to the environment and be able to communicate the contingencies commensurate with the environment to the stakeholders. Now the leader should be able to communicate the high expectations expected of the team members in a simple and understandable language. He may use different symbols at his disposal. Gandhi and Mao Tse Tung inspired the whole nation to fight for freedom and emancipation in such a way that hundreds and thousands of them were even ready to die for the cause at their every beck and call. However, such historical examples may not appropriately apply to every level, tier or environment of leadership. But one can always draw lessons from such examples.

A leader should be able to intellectually stimulate his team members. He should understand the context, environment, rationality of his cause or vision, and that would need deep intellectual exercise. He should be able to provide careful and creative problem solving techniques to his team members. All great leaders of the world are generally men of knowledge and wisdom. Henry Kissinger called Mao Tse Tung one of the greatest teachers of mankind. A leader must pursue knowledge-based critical thinking, especially in this globalized intelligent world. Practical knowledge has no substitute for a leader in order to inspire his subordinates with ideas, values, attitudes, perceptions, visions, missions and objectives. The subordinates are unlikely to accept one as leader if he cannot provide rational and creative problem solving techniques. Without such course, a leader might become redundant in the society.

The last point the author would like to make is personal touch a leader provides to his subordinates. This aspect of leadership practice is seriously lacking in Bangladesh environment. A leader has to give personal attention, and treat all his subordinates individually. He has to counsel and mentor his members, if possible. A leader has to care about the welfare, mental or health state, family problems of his subordinates. This works marvel in Bangladesh environment. Mere patting makes a lot of difference to an employee in the Bangladesh environment. Maslow’s Theory of Needs does indicate such directions in order to upgrade the motivation levels of the employees.

A leader should be an innovator apart from being an administrator only. He should be able to inspire trust than merely relying on control. A leader, depending on the tier he is holding in the hierarchy, should generally have a long range perspective and an eye on the horizon apart from having an eye on the bottom line. A leader should not ask how and when an event took place; he, however, would do better if he asks what and why of the incident. He challenges the system or status quo, of course not unsettling the environment. Conflict management is a good technique but that should not destabilize the system one is holding. In a nutshell, transformational leaders are seen as change agents, courageous, believing in people, having a strong set of values, life-long learners, capable of coping with complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity and visionaries.

BANGLADESH BUREAUCRACY IN PERSPECTIVE:

Max Weber, the chief architect of bureaucracy, provides certain features of bureaucracy like hierarchy, promotion based on professional merit, development of a career service, reliance on and use of rules and regulations and impersonality of relationships among career professionals in the bureaucracy and with their clientele. To a commoner, taking cue from Max Weber, bureaucracy would appear to be something to do with red tapism, inefficiency and abuse of power in the context of official-client relationship. It develops a system of authority, which is indestructible and an entrenched bureaucracy that can serve any interest. It shows allegiance only to the authority above it even if political changes have taken place. Webster’s New International Dictionary defines bureaucracy as a system that is narrow, rigid and formal, depends on precedent, and lacks initiative and resourcefulness. The essence of traditional public administration tends to be rigid, rule-bound, centralized, insular, self-protective and profoundly antidemocratic; and such traits often collide with the contemporary paradigm of bureaucracy that “allows qualified voters an efficient instrument through which the will of the people may be expressed; makes officers both responsive and responsible,” and thereby ensures common welfare.

Theorists and practitioners would like to emphasize bureaucratic paradigms like fairness, representation, participation, accountability, responsiveness, political neutrality, efficiency, rationality, and expertise. But the very nature of public administration poses problem to such value. The bureaucrats have a tendency to rely more on expertise and knowledge than over accountability, participation and democratic control. Now, therefore, a pertinent question arises: are the bureaucratic traits legitimate in terms of democratic principles. In this regard, David Rosenbloom opines that the legitimacy of bureaucracy occurs when bureaucratic policy making is subject to direct popular control. If bureaucracy is isolated from public accountability, bureaucracy can in no way be responsible to public interests and desires.

Again Merton, an American sociologist, goes deeper into the pitfalls of bureaucratic system. Bureaucracy’s adherence to rules originally conceived as a means, turns into an end-in-itself, thereby resulting in the displacement of goals. “In Bangladesh, the bureaucracy, to a large extent, conforms to the Weberian model....... Bureaucrats are not always assigned specific positions on the basis of their specialization or expertise but rather on the basis of belonging to a particular civil service cadre. Rationality is conceived in a narrow sense. It is primarily equated with administrative efficiency and economy both of which are considered ends in themselves rather than means to an end- the effective delivery of public service.”

Bureaucracy’s strict adherence to regulations induces timidity, conservatism and technicism. Bureaucracy’s avowed norm of impersonality and its dependence on abstract rules put it in conflict with the personalized consideration the members of public and clientele would expect. Bureaucracy’s entrenched corporate interests, which may be called espirit de corp, totally negates the concept of transformational leadership traits.

Given the traits as shown, bureaucracy, theoretically speaking, goes against the grain of transformational leadership. However, such theoretical branding may not always find true reflection in the practical application by an individual bureaucrat. He may have the charisma, vision or personalized consideration like that of a transformational leader and he may exert to establish his leadership, but the environment of the boundary around which he is operating may not permit him to realize his full potentials. Initiative of an individual bureaucrat is greatly circumscribed in decision making process; there may be ten tiers, in the Central Government, to be crossed, when the final decision is made. However, in most of the cases, all the ten tiers may not have to be crossed. Anyway, a kind of timidity thus sets in such a process. Initiative, dynamism, and creative and innovative thinking, the sine quo nonefor transformational leadership that should be undertaken by a bureaucrat are lost, at best diluted. Risk-taking is one of the hallmarks of real leadership. In a scenario like this, a bureaucrat will not take any risks since he has somebody above him.

It is reportedly known that a Secretary to the government puts forward a file to his Cabinet Minister seeking sanction of a paltry sum of Tk. 25,000 (equivalent to US$350) to be disbursed for the repair/maintenance of a small building in a remote village of Bangladesh. Now this brings to the fore another predicament where the authority is so much centralized that such a simple decision has to be taken by the Central Government located in Dhaka. ADB Country Governance Assessment (Draft), Bangladesh, May 2004, under heading ‘Centralization’ observes, “An additional constraint to good governance at the local level is the extremely centralized form of government now in place. Union Parishads (UPs) derive their authority and a substantial portion of their funds from national ministries whose effective reach to the level is constrained by intervening levels of government. For example, Union Parishads (UPs) must submit their budgets and work plans for review and follow-up action by several appointed officials at the Upazilla and district levels. As a result, the UNO and the Chairman of the Upazilla Development Committee have more de facto power over development projects in Unions than do the UPs themselves.”

Although Bangladesh is a unitary system, there are three administrative tiers and local government structure which could have easily taken care of such problem. Even for posting of foundation level officers like lecturer/teacher of a college/high school or a medical officer at Upazilla (Sub-district), the Central Government, where again so many tiers may have to be crossed, gets involved. Here again, timidity sets in and that delays the decision making process. This also gives rise to more probability of corruption and sufferings of the employees. Motivation, which is conditioned more by intrinsic factors than extrinsic ones, gets badly affected and the overall productivity of the government definitely suffers. However, the probability of corruption still remains valid even if decentralization in relatively important decision making is done at the administrative levels. Federalism is, however, a far-fetched idea at the moment since basic structure of the Constitution has to be amended and for that political consensus has to be reached.

Even if an individual bureaucrat would like to exert his dynamism, creativity or initiative, the system would not permit it. The system constraint has become a serious problem in transforming the officers. Delay in the system is unwarranted and is a recurrent phenomenon. This author learnt about a case where a simple clarification on a point, pending for last about six years, asked from the higher office of the Republic to a functioning ministry took about six months, that too after several reminders. Such delays are caused both vertically and horizontally. Horizontal delays (reasons for vertical delays are already pointed out) are caused mainly because of consultation or opinion seeking with the other line ministries. In the horizontal plane also files have to again move up and down the tiers as mentioned. And if there is a disagreement, the matters get further complicated. It further delays the decision making process. This author was shocked to learn a state of affair where an important appointment case remained pending in a functioning ministry for three years. The case could have been processed to the appropriate authority for his approval. As a matter of fact, the incumbent continued functioning presumably without lawful authority for three years. When, on the eve of a ceremony, it was discovered that the appointment was not validated and hence the subsequent actions that followed could be questioned, the Pandora’s Box was opened. How and why it happened was not looked into. The accountability and transparency, which are so much essential for good governance, were totally lacking in this case. The matter was, probably, somehow patched up. Even in a transactional leadership spectrum, the status quo is at least maintained. In this case, even the status quo or routine functioning was not maintained, let alone challenging and changing the status quo. So the creative or innovative ideas cannot be expected that are so critical in this globalized, intelligent 21st century world.

Transformational leaders are supposed to be intellectually sound, so that they can transmit to their followers their wisdom; and it results in two-way traffic. A leader has to command the respect through his personality, values, wisdom, and long-range view and make them think the way he thinks. Only then can the leader take the team along with him. He has to capture some of their styles or traits in order to be successful in his domain. And his own domain is to have contemporary and up-to-date knowledge and the ability to apply those in the field he is handling. If he is handling WTO matters, he should be a reasonable expert on the subject so that he can communicate, negotiate and be able to enter into agreements, keeping the country’s interests above everything, with his expert counterparts coming from both developed and developing worlds. This is a knowledge-based world, but sad enough Bangladesh has turned out be a knowledge starved society.

If our bureaucrats could be armed with more technical and appropriate knowledge, then the Government would not probably have signed the Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) with the International Oil Companies (IOCs) where 72% of the revenue earnings are given to the IOCs in foreign currencies. Gas is stored in the territories of Bangladesh but it only gets a paltry 28% percent of revenue earnings. Again, because of the lack of adequate technical and appropriate knowledge or realizing the urgency Bangladesh, as yet, could not place its case before the United Nations regarding the maritime demarcation of the Bay of Bengal, although it ratified the UNCLOS in 2001. Bangladesh has not yet carried out necessary survey to decide about the extent of its continental shelf. The control points of its base line, both in the western and eastern sectors, have been contested by both India and Myanmar. Bangladesh is likely to get ‘zone/sea locked’ and if serious negotiations are not undertaken immediately with the actors concerned, mostly applying the equity theory as against equidistance theory, much of Bangladesh’s life sustenance resources and maritime freedom might get jeopardized. It is to be especially mentioned here that the neighboring countries like India, Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia have settled their scores of maritime boundary demarcation.

There is a big question: is Bangladesh prepared for such serious negotiations with its neighbours in order to protect its interests? Or it is going to surrender its interests as it did during the last Hong Kong round of WTO negotiations because the Bangladesh team did not carry out enough home work for such negotiations? There can be a further question: is the person who is supposed to carry out his homework has the requisite ability and the right attitude to do so? There is a concern about it. The answer is simple: the person may not have the requisite expertise and the positive attitude that would take care of the national interest.

This author learnt about a case where a summary for an appointment to a very high office was placed in the higher office in such a way that the constitutional provision apparently got violated. When someone pointed out such violation, the reply given to him was that there was such a precedent earlier. To that officer, what was important was the precedent not the Constitution. It also shows lack of knowledge of the Constitution both by him and his predecessor. It could be also attitudinal tendencies to show what they did was right, not what the Constitution stipulates. It can be surmised that it was more of a lack of adequate knowledge of the Constitution. Superficial knowledge on such critical issues could be disastrous for the nation and on occasions national interests might get violated. Even a transactional leader is expected to have enough knowledge on a subject he handles in order to maintain the status quo; otherwise atrophy would take over. In a globalized interdependent world, specialist knowledge by the bureaucrats in their respective field of activities is essential even if we presume they are not transformational leaders. Intellectual stimulation is sine quo non for someone to be a transformational leader.

It is generally believed that the bureaucrats, especially officers from the Administrative Cadre, probably, acted as a pressure group (there could be other pressure groups also) to block the separation and independence of the judiciary and Anti-Corruption Commission. It also did not work favorably to institutionalize the local government system of Bangladesh. The Supreme Court, through its twelve point directive in 1999, asked the Government to completely separate the judiciary, especially the lower judiciary, from the executive. But the successive governments started dilly-dallying the process, presumably also at the behest of the bureaucrats. Bureaucrats might have apprehended that their power could get greatly curtailed by such action. This could also be true in the case of the local governments, as already pointed out. However, the local political leaders also had their vested interests in not institutionalizing and strengthening the local government structures.

Be that as it may, bureaucrats would not like to part with the control and superintendence they have on different aspects of the local government. Bureaucrats both at the local tiers and also at the central level have varying degrees of control over the local governments. It is a well nigh difficult task to meaningfully direct, control and monitor the activities of the local governments, from the capital city, spread in every nook and corner of the country. Personalized consideration would be totally lacking in such a scenario which goes against the concept of transformational leadership. Innovativeness, creativity and emotional attachment are essential in transformational leadership styles but sad enough such inputs may be absent in a scenario like this.

RESPONSE:

A thorough overhauling of the bureaucratic structure, span of control, style of work, motivation, values, attitudes, and mindset may be necessary in the context and environment of Bangladesh. There may be a necessity of strategic planning for this. Donor assistance, both in terms of money and expertise, may be necessary.

Firstly, flatter organization system, which generally goes with the modern management concepts, as against many-tiered vertical organization in the bureaucratic hierarchy of the Central Government, may be thought of. It could be brought down to four to five tiers that would facilitate better and faster decision making. However, the number of streams, dealing with limited subjects, within a Ministry/Division may be increased. This will help in faster decision making and specialization.

Secondly, similar types of Ministries/Divisions could be clustered together within which the officers/employees would generally rotate. Example could be the Ministries/Divisions of Finance, Planning, Commerce, External Resources Division, Expatriate Welfare Division could be clustered together, something like Strategic Business Units (SBUs), as practised in the business world, where the officers from their foundation level to even up to highest level would rotate during their stint of staff appointments. Another example could be the Ministries/Divisions like Foreign, Home, Defence, Disaster Management, Chittagong Hill Tracts, etc could be clustered together. The specialization that would accrue in such clustering would better take care of areas like WTO, maritime or land boundary demarcation, counter-terrorism, etc. where there are tendencies of faltering. This is given merely as a suggestion; one may not be sacrosanct about it. In a similar vein, Zafarullah’s categorization of ministries/divisions merits consideration, may be with certain adjustment. Those could be categorized, as he prescribes, like Executive (President’s Office, Prime Minister’s Office and Cabinet Division), Regulatory (Establishment, Finance, IRD, Local Government, Commerce, Home, Jute, Civil Aviation and Tourism, Shipping, Lands, etc), Service-orientated/Welfare (Relief, Special Affairs, Health and Family Welfare, Railways, Post and Telecommunication, Social Welfare, Women’s Affairs), Food, Labour and Manpower Developmental (Agriculture, Rural Development and Cooperative, Irrigation, Water Development and Flood Control, Roads and Road Transport, Industries, Power, Energy and Mineral Resources, Works, Fisheries and Livestock, Jute and Textile), Promotional (Primary and Mass Education, Education, Science and Technology, Environment and Forest, Information, Cultural Affairs, Youth and Sports, Religious Affairs), Advisory (Armed Forces Division, Planning, Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Parliament Secretariat), Research (Statistical and Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Division), and International (Foreign Affairs and Economic Relations).

Thirdly, Strategic Management Planning, along with Management by Objectives (MBO) technique, as practised in the business world, dovetailed to the culture of public service may be adopted for the Bangladesh Civil Service. Vision/Mission, long term objectives, strategies, yearly objectives, policies, feedback system for each Ministry/Division, Corporation and Department should be clearly spelt out in a realistic, achievable, time bound benchmark. This is not to say that broad objectives are not spelt out in the yearly /three yearly/five yearly planning processes. Bangladesh has a good macro level planning, but what it lacks is the micro level planning and implementation. It also lacks feed back loop which helps in further planning. Objectives are not set out in a realistic and achievable manner; as such Bangladesh generally falters in implementing the Annual Development Plans or in utilizing the foreign assistance. Strategic planning involves all segments, spectrum, activities, cohesion, top down and bottom up approaches, etc. It also involves participatory planning. All stakeholders should be consulted before deciding about an objective. Each Department/Tier/Local Government should be given their yearly achievable, tangible and intangible (to be quantified as much as possible) objectives that would, in totality, meet the yearly objectives of a particular Ministry/Division. Our foreign missions, as part of economic diplomacy, could be given the yearly objectives like export to the target country be increased by say 10% or so many skilled/non skilled manpower be exported to that country. Such objectives could be decided realistically based on past experiences and future trends. Management by objectives, although an American concept not fitting into our culture, may be followed at least in its spirit. Now any player who fails to meet a reasonable expectation of the objectives may be made answerable. Such lapses may be reflected in his yearly performance appraisal in clear terms which would ultimately impact on his career advancement. An independent team has to work out the details of modalities, in case the Government decides to implement the concept.

Fourthly, in order to attract the better graduates of the universities (private sector is now a better destination), their pay, perks and privileges should be greatly enhanced. ADB Country Governance Assessment Bangladesh (Draft), May 2004 acknowledges that the Civil Service no longer attracts the same calibre of entry- level officials that it did in the past. It prescribes salary reform, “mindful of the need to balance the prospect of competitive salary increases with the corollary need to reduce the overall costs of public administration”. If necessary, a portion of the Annual Development Plan may have to be diverted to the Revenue Budget in order to cater for the extra expenditure involved in salary increases. In the long term, it would prove to be more cost-effective. If the actors are not efficient, output would be always problematic. One cannot be expected to be efficient, if his/her physiological needs are not adequately met, when he is de-motivated.

Fifthly, since the quality of Bangladesh University education has deteriorated to a great extent, especially in relation to communication skill in English and latest developments around the world, there is a dire need for an exhaustive, realistic, up-to-date training package programme to be developed in the training institutions. This is borne out by the observations made by Shawkat Ali, a former career civil servant, “various studies have drawn attention to the deficiencies in the training of civil servants, specially post-entry and pre-entry training. Some of these deficiencies are as follows: lack of qualified and well trained staff arising out of posting unwilling civil servants in the training institutes and such postings do not take into account the qualification and experience of the civil servants which result in low quality of training and lack of motivation; the post-entry training and in-service training courses are not well integrated and scheduled to provide and continuously update the level of training and knowledge of civil servants. …Questions have already been raised about relevance of training, utilization of training and incentives for training. Training should be both class room and field based. Exhaustive training programme generally for greater duration than what is done today, especially at the foundation level would pay rich dividends in the long run. Training in the form of case studies, seminars, group projects especially at the field levels, presentations, research papers, In Basket Exercises, visits and orientation with varied types of installations, institutions, corporate world, NGOs, local government, industries, etc may be given more emphasis. Field trips and exercises, something similar to military system, could be given a consideration. For such extensive training system foreign advisory team from countries like Singapore, Japan, UK, and Australia as also from the Bangladesh Armed Forces may be sought.

Sixthly, for career advancement, successful field level appointments like Upazilla Nirbahi Officer (UNO) and Deputy Commissioner (DC), an independent assignment in a foreign mission may be given more credence. One who performs poorly in such appointments may not be given further enhancement in career. Based on the performance reflected in the Annual Confidential Reports, the officers in the promotion chain, at different tiers, may be required to go through the Assessment Centers where they would undergo various group exercises and individual tasks as well as psychometrics and interviews. Only the successful candidates would qualify for further promotion. This practice is followed in the U.K. Civil Service. This has relevance to military system of promotion as well. It is heartening to note that Bangladesh Government is already thinking of introducing similar system.

Seventhly, there is generally a degeneration of values in Bangladesh. Corruption is rampant in all segments of the society. Such situation should be arrested through greater transparency and accountability. Parliamentary standing committees may be more assertive to make the bureaucrats more accountable. Even the courts of law may, if not already doing, attempt to go into greater details of a case that involves the government projects and functionaries and make the public servants accountable. Higher bureaucracy may regularly visit the field level projects and offices to ensure better accountability and transparency.

Eighthly, E-governance or Digital Governance should be given especial priority. E-Governance has to be seen as a tool for good governance and human development. Good Governance occurs when Electronic Governance is able to enhance the “Public Value” of information supplied. The Civil Service members may be made aware of the necessity of E-Governance and be thoroughly armed with necessary competencies. Chandra Babu Naidu, a former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, India, could be a role model for our system.

Lastly, as long as necessary expertise, required of a particular Ministry/Division, is not developed, a core committee of experts drawn mainly from the civil society, universities and research institutes may be formed, as a stop gap measure, to assist the concerned Ministry/Division in handling the technical/complicated matters that involve vital national interests. Of course, this has been done many a time. This now needs to be made more structured with definite terms of reference.

CONCLUTION:

In conculation, we presented a proposition of the transformational stage in the administration, bureaucracy, and state. In fact, it is emphasized here that all other organs and structure of the state are poised for change. Partisan polity in the transitional stage is about to introduce reforms after a huge paradigm shift. The quality of leadership in all spheres – politics, business, profession, bureaucracy – is in question and calls deeply for reform.

In the current reformist and transformational scenario, the bureaucracy has a critical role in enabling an orderly transition to provide the prerequisites for democracy and development. For achieving this, the bureaucracy may help establish the rule of law. Without this, the arbitrary and capricious decision making of the past could reappear.

Leadership in Bangladesh is definitely at a critical juncture and, needless to say, standing at the threshold of the 21st century, Bangladesh has to discard the old perception of it. In this regard, the author considers this phase of history as transitional and transformational. Whether we like it or not, the coming generations will complete the full circle of change that is needed to move from one level of development to the next and thank us for “beginning the beginning”.

[enthusiasticsobrietyabuse]

Parent Manipulation Part 2 - Originally posted in 2005 OnTheEmmis.com, a Meehan Program Survivor Website and Discussion Forum. (ICECAP is the former incorporation of enthusiastic sobriety programs, it has since dissolved due to the effectiveness of OnTheEmmis.com)

So what’s the harm?

Well, it’s a dishonest way to make a living, for starters, and that is the very least of the harm done to people.

Let’s start by looking at the staff.

ICECAP has several lines for the skeptic who attempts to question the professionalism and integrity of their general staff.

“I may not be a doctor, but I’ve had my face in the ground long enough to know what the dirt looks like” is the sort of catch-phrase one may encounter when asking about ICECAP staff qualifications. The idea is one borrowed from Alcoholics Anonymous, that only a drunk can help another drunk. AA has been widely successful in rehabilitating alcoholics based on this principal, in which the catalyst is that one’s experiences lends him/her the ability to identify with the ‘alcoholic who still suffers’.

Further, the staff of ICECAP claims to function therapeutically from the platform of Alcoholics Anonymous principals and spiritual conditioning. The reason for all of this is so the ICECAP staff and methodology has a credible ‘foundation’ to justify its hiring and facilitation of non professional counselors. In short, AA is a household name, and is widely recognized as something that works. ICECAP uses this fact as a springboard for its operations.

The big problem with that idea is that ICECAP programs are not in any way similar to, affiliated with, kind of like, or even remotely in any way like AA. Alcoholics Anonymous is a non-profit self-help environment which has many safeguards cemented into its foundations that prevent any sort of ‘ego’ or for-profit interests from plaguing its members. Specifically, what AA refers to as ‘The Twelve Traditions’ are rigidly adhered to and aggressively enforced as guidelines to keep the AA name from anything that would divert the program from its primary purpose. The only similarity between ICECAP and AA is that they both have their members often form in a circle at the beginning and at the end of their meetings. Beyond that the two are apples and oranges.

Anyone who spends more than six months in both programs can easily see the canyon of differences that separate the two programs. The truth is, ICECAP drops the name of AA when it is convenient for them to do so, and rarely if ever gives the program any real credence.

“We are not AA, we are not trying to be AA, and we don’t play by the same rules as AA” (-direct quote- Michael C. Stonebraker, director and board member of ICECAP).

Ask ANY graduate from ICECAP, and they will tell you that a common dilemma that nearly every graduate experiences after leaving ICECAP and moving on to AA is that they are troubled with the inherent differences between the two groups philosophy’s for recovery. After years of ICECAP meetings, they are confronted with having to adjust to an entirely different program. In fact, most would say you are not off the mark if you suggested that it would have made just as much sense for them to graduate ICECAP into a monastery, or a school for lion tamers; instead of AA. They all have about the same in common: nothing.

Shouldn’t a program that claims to operate out of AA’s principals lend an easier transition to its clients from its rooms to AA itself?

I am painting this picture to illustrate that there is really nothing holding much water in ICECAP’s claim that its staff has credibility to function with kids from ideas that it ‘borrows’ from AA. To whatever extent a particular staff member of ICECAP attends or postures themselves as AA members, they do not deliver the principals of AA in a therapeutic manner to their clientele.

So what does that leave them with? Not much. The average ICECAP counselor is a high school drop out with no college or accredited training whatsoever. If asked for their credentials, they will respond with an array of phrases and ideas, all of which are meant to lead one away from any real answer. They will suggest with confidence and bravado that since they ‘come from the same place’ as their clients, they have an ‘edge’ in dealing with them the rest of the ‘professional’ community doesn’t. All of this can be very convincing to a parent, especially since their child seems to have taken so well to the given staff member. Again, this is ICECAP using the ‘unorthodox is better’ angle to begin the process of manipulation.

If long hair, dated language, concert t-shirts, a pretty face and a proletarian understanding of AA principals were all it took to rehabilitate a drug addict, then the world would be free of drug addiction tomorrow. The problem is that that is pretty much the only thing the average ICECAP counselor has going for him/her in terms of professionalism. They are funny and good looking. They know how to say ‘dude’ without looking like an old nerd. Kids love them and worship them. But they are INEPT AT ASSISTING THEM TO RECOVER FROM REAL DRUG ADDICTION!

So what then, does the average ICECAP counselor provide for a kid, if not sound professional guidance into the world of recovery?

Here are some of my observations on ICECAP provisions:

Kids in ICECAP are subjected to enormous pressure to take on the identity of a ‘dope fiend’. The ‘dope fiend’ model is constantly being illustrated to newcomers by staff and group members. It begins with traits that a lot of teens possess…rebellious action/ideation, foul language, ‘shock value’ expressionism, etc. But the irresponsible thing that ICECAP does with kids is that it sets them up to feel inadequate if they do not measure up to the complete profile of ICECAP’s ‘dope fiend’. The reason that this is such a bad idea is because the majority of ICECAP clientele are NOT ‘dope fiends’. If your kid is in ICECAP for any period of time, you will see a mental, physical and emotional change in them. Most parents (especially the ones who have invested thousands of dollars into this) view this as a good thing. If the changes in the child were not for the worst, I would agree with them. However, these changes include almost invariably the following:

Separation from school/education/career

Increased use of tobacco. Non-smokers will be encouraged to take up smoking (bizarre, but true).

The decline of a coherent or educated vocabulary. This is no joke. There is a rigid ‘dummied up’ dialect spoken by every member of ICECAP.

The encouragement of illegal behavior (curfew violations, trespassing, vandalism, underage smoking, etc.).

Limited exposure to outside influences. Music, films, books, clothes, sources of education, hairstyles, jewelry, where you get a cup of coffee, tattoos, leisure activities and more are all mandated by ICECAP doctrine.

Maladjusted/confused sexual behavior (more on this later)

One dimensional thinking/ apparent inability or unwillingness to think diversely or with any complexity.

Extremely narrow elements of thoughts applied to a very wide range of ‘life factors’, or; every problem life presents seems to have the same two or three things as an answer/rationale.

Constant fear of being ‘fucked up’, or ‘spiritually bankrupt’. ‘Negative’ actions by other people are consistently the result of these things.

Inconsistent/erratic emotional responses to seemingly normal situations.

Why would a kid willingly subject themselves to this?

The hook for teens is fairly obvious: Their parents leave them alone, they no longer have to go to school, they are allowed to smoke cigarettes, swear, and die their hair indigo blue if they want to, and there is usually a large enough pool of attractive peers to make the whole idea of ICECAP treatment not sound so bad.

Ask any current group member, and they will tell you that they do not feel controlled…that it is their choice to attend ICECAP. They will defend their positions with feverish resolve. They will claim moral high ground and a better way of life as what motivates them to ‘keep coming back’. Tell them that they are brainwashed, and they will respond by saying ‘well, maybe my brain could use a little washing…considering how sick I was’. Tell them they live their life in a ‘bubble’, and they will respond by saying ‘if this is a bubble, than I’m glad I’m in it…compared to the sick world I was a part of before!’

Two things are happening here: First, the child is offered nearly unlimited freedom, which in most cases is like a dream come true to them. What fifteen year old would turn that down? Second, instead of providing competent therapy or treatment, each kid is given this ‘dope fiend’ model, and as long as they adhere to this model, than they are ‘ok’. Everything that made Johnny ‘Johnny’ will be whittled away as he progresses through the ranks of ICECAP. He will attribute the changes to ‘getting rid of old behavior’, or ‘changing old tapes’, when in fact he is being herded and molded in a way that only a program facilitated by foolish, irresponsible amateurs can handle.

The sickest thing about this to me is the way they are manipulated by ICECAP into such devotion. The adolescent is such an impressionable creature, and everything that can possibly be used to woo them is carefully applied by ICECAP.

In Bob Meehan’s book, ‘Beyond the Yellow Brick Road’, there is a chapter called ‘The Teenage Psyche’. This is another decent chapter in this book. I’d encourage anyone to read it, because it perfectly illustrates what I am saying. If there is one thing that Meehan certainly has his finger on the pulse of, it’s what will attract a teenager. The ‘dope fiend’ model in which Meehan’s programs are forced to operate out of because of their gross lack of sound professional tools combined with the fact that ICECAP targets kids who are NOT ‘dope fiends’ creates a crippling environment for teenagers who would have otherwise just gone on with life.

Why would Meehan build his programs on such weak foundations professionally? To me that’s simple: Cheap labor. It’s not so hard morally to build a staff out of a bunch of negligent weirdoes like Mike Weiland, when your real aim has nothing to do with helping kids in the first place.

I believe that Bob Meehan has had two objectives from the very beginning. One was to satisfy his enormous ego, which he had never been able to accomplish prior to these programs. More importantly and certainly more dangerously, he wants money. It is no coincidence that every single person on the ICECAP payroll has been farmed from the group. These kids spend years trying to live up to those they believe (because they are told) are the most spiritually evolved humans on the planet (staff), and then picked to become the next generation of over-worked, under-paid servants of Bob Meehan’s empire.

Who pays the price? You, and more importantly…your kid.

And what of the rare occasion that a true addict walks through the doors of ICECAP?

It’s even worse for them. Many of them die.

[apenitentialprayer]

The Coordinate

Attack on Titan and the Metaphysics of Fascism

(x) tl;dr: Religious fascists believe in a mystical connection existing between members of the same racial-national group; Christians also believe in a mystical connection existing between members of their Church; how does a Christian avoid the fascist potential of this idea? One of the ideas that are introduced in the third season of Attack on Titan is the Coordinate; the race of people that the main characters belong to are all connected in a way that transcends space and time, sharing a power that other peoples do not possess. This is the Ymir Spirit, the “Coordinate” to which every Eldian is connected, and through which the souls of all Eldians are intertwined. Through this connection, Eldians are capable of inheriting the Power of the Titans, which will spontaneously appear in another Eldian should the Titan die in a way that prevents them from passing the power onto someone else. Now, we must understand that race is a social construct. This is not to say that real physical difference between people don’t exist; what it does mean, however, is that physical traits exist along several continuums (eye color, shade of skin, height, facial structure, etc), and that recognizing a specific configuration of traits as a ‘race’ is determined by social and historical factors. Medieval Arab understandings of race allowed for people who would be considered black today to be considered “white” (white, in this context, meaning Arab and not European), while the multivalent meaning of race in the 18th century meant the exclusion of some people who would be considered white today from the whiteness of 18th Century Europe and its narrower definition. Race may be based partly on appearance, but it is constructed through social categories. Attack on Titan takes on an essentialized view of race, where race is not merely a social category, but an innate characteristic; whether or not you are a True Eldian is simply a matter of whether or not you are connected to the Ymir spirit. The world can be divided into “insiders” and “outsiders” based on this criterion; though the idea that there are “racial spirits,” an inner metaphysical reality that certain people are in tune with by virtue of birth, may seem alien to those who see race as a social construct. But starting in the 1870s and stretching well into the twentieth century, we see just that kind of thought. In German thinkers in particular, we see this racialized national mysticism developed in the context of the “Jewish problem.” The development of nationalism, the belief that the government is legitimized through the fact that it represents a nation of people, led to an awkward situation throughout most of Western Europe; if France is for the French nation, how are the Jews in France (who have been defined for most of French history as not French) to participate in French civic life? How are Jews in Germany, who have been defined for most of German history as foreigners, to participate in German civic life? Many thinkers at first believed that the mass conversion of Jews to Christendom was the answer; that Jews could become Germans or Frenchmen if only they were to abandon Judaism, seen as a vile set of cultural norms that kept people from truly becoming part of the modern nation. That changed, though. While German thinkers were trying to find ways of converting Jews to Christianity as late as the 1820s, we see a noticeable shift with Karl Duehring’s 1881 The Question of the Jew is a Question of Race; this work actually describes the conversion of Jews to Christianity as a catastrophe, because the corrupting nature of the “racial Jew” (Racenjude) is now uninhibited by the laws put in place that limited the participation of religious Jews in civic life. In other words, it’s not religion or ideology that makes the dreaded Jew dangerous; in the mind of Duehring, it is something “deeper” than religion, something intrinsically part of the “primal nature” of Jews. This increased interaction with ethnic Jews leads to the corruption of “[the German’s] best impulses.” Two years earlier, Wilheim Marr wrote The Victory of Judaism over Germandom, speaks of the Jew people as a conqueror, having already ruined France and in the middle of ruining Germany; a Christian culture that tolerates Jews is ultimately a culture that brings death to all that is inherently German. This opposition between the supposed German and Jewish natures goes back at least as far as 1815, where Friedrich Ruehs argues that the German and Jewish peoples constitute mutually exclusive and hostile nations. The concept of the völk, the people as a mystical body, a Communion of Germans expressing the true Aryan spirit, became essential to the fascist nationalism of Nazi Germany. It is also the metaphysical underpinning of Eldian identity, a Communion of Titans bound together through their connection with Ymir, the “Coordinate” where all Eldian spirits meet. The individual Eldian may be weak, but each one houses within themselves the possibility of becoming a vessel of immense power. The Eldian and the Nazi can both call upon that reservoir of spiritual strength and pride, while at the same time looking at the enemy that is jealous of this power (the Marleyan and the Jew). (At the same time, the völk ideology of Attack on Titan isn’t the same as the German conception. In the German conception, race mingling damages and ultimately severs the offspring’s connection to the Aryan spirit; like American conceptions of race and the one-drop rule, one’s Aryan blood is diluted into something non-Aryan when interbreeding occurs. The Eldians, meanwhile, basically raped and pillaged the continent in order to increase the number of those connected to the Ymir spirit; in this sense, their völk ideology is more similar to South Asian fascisms like the one expressed in V.D. Savarkar’s Hindutva, where the children of ethnic Hindu and non-Hindu children are ethnic Hindus) Now, I used the phrase “Communion of X” when describing Eldian and Nazi racial mysticism on purpose; to the religious reader, especially belonging to the Catholic and Orthodox communities, I wanted “Communion of Saints” to come to mind. After all, the Catholic and Orthodox communities believe that each and every member of their communities are interconnected, their fates intertwined through a Coordinate of their own, Jesus Christ. A concept that I have just said is popular among fascist circles. We have an “in-group” of our own, the saints in Heaven to whom we are attached and the fellow believers who we share a common baptism with. If you look at the post that I linked at the very beginning of this post, I mentioned that “fascism” is more a collection of ideas and mindsets than an actual ideology. When an ideology has some of those ideas, that doesn’t necessarily make them fascist; it just means that adherents of those ideologies need to be careful, because they can potentially become fascist. And that is true here. So let’s look at völk ideology again to see what pitfalls must be avoided if one is to hold onto the belief that they are bound to a mystical community that transcends time and space. First, völk ideology affirms the natural innateness of this communion; you are born with it. You are special because you were born with your connection to the Race-Spirit, it is a birthright that cannot be taken away. Second, völk ideology is exclusionary; if you are not born with a connection to a particular Race-Spirit, then you can never have a connection. You are an outsider, and will forever be an outsider. You are cut off from the people you are surrounded by on a metaphysical level. Third, every concession you give to someone who does not belong to your Race-Spirit is a weakening of your Race-Spirit. Aryan-ness is threatened by a rich Jew; Hindu-ness is threatened by a Muslim with a large family; Eldian-ness is threatened by a Marleyan state existing across the sea. A Christian must thus remind themselves that their communion is not innate; it is a gift and not a birthright, a source of spiritual humility and not of racial pride. A Christian must remind themselves that even while the Communion separates those who are part of it from those who are not, this Communion is meant to be inclusive, accepting of anyone who desires it. A Christian must remind themselves that aiding an outsider, even an outsider that is an ideological enemy, does not weaken the Communion; rather, it glorifies that Communion. Ultimately, the religious fascist sees himself as part of a mystical bond that includes his nation and excludes everyone else; nations are inherently at odds with one another, because the existence of other nations sets a limit to how much one’s own nation can grow; even worse, contact with members of other nations threatens the very connection your nation has within itself. Those corrupted by other nations must be expelled for the health of the Nation-Spirit. In season 3, Eren and his friends finally see the ocean for the first time. There is a moment of freedom, of childlike adventure, of real accomplishment for the first time since their miserable adventure started. They look out in wonder, they splash around in the waves, they taste salt water for the first time. Everyone but Eren; Eren is too busy looking at the horizon, knowing that Marley exists somewhere on the other side. Eren cannot enjoy this victorious moment of simplicity; the unseen enemy exists somewhere on the other side, an existential threat to his own people simply by virtue of existing. As long as there is a Marley, there can be no peace. Because fascist nations cannot embrace the idea of peace between separate nations.

[dailyaudiobible]

09/15/2020 DAB Transcript

Isaiah 19:1-21:17, Galatians 2:1-16, Psalms 59:1-17, Proverbs 23:13-14

Today is the 15th day of September welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I'm Brian it is…it's great to be here with you today as we continue this journey, the journey of this week and the journey of a lifetime through the Scriptures day by day step-by-step. And, so, glad that we can be together, glad that we get this time together, glad that I can be here in the rolling hills of Tennessee and you can be wherever on this big blue planet that you are and that we can still be together. And it's not just me and you. It's all of us. We’re all in this together on this journey. And, so, what a joy, what a privilege, what an honor, what a miracle even. Like what a crazy thing is this that we live on this earth and something exists called the Internet and it allows us to be together like this. So, feeling grateful today. But let's dive in. We’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. We’re in the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament and we've just gotten going in the letter to the Galatians in the New. So, today Isaiah chapters 19, 20 and 21.

Commentary:

Okay. So, today is a bit of a context day as we move further into the letters of Paul and specifically into this letter to the Galatians because although there's really important theological things to be said in the book of Galatians that inform our understanding of our faith, the context for why these things were said in the first place is actually really super-duper important and we’ve touched on some of this in the other of Paul's letters, and we touched on this a little bit yesterday when we were just getting going into the…the letter to the Galatians.  But basically, today we kind of get Paul's testimony about how his…how the gospel had come to him in the first place. And, so, I guess it's…I guess it's important to note that Paul's version of how that happened in Galatians is a little bit different than how it's portrayed, for example, in the book of acts, but this is in Paul's own hand. This is his own testimony. And we have this Damascus Road experience where a bright light send him to the ground, right, and he can't see and it’s Jesus talking to him and he’s on his way to persecute the church. And that holds true throughout all of the testimonies of Paul's conversion but Paul says in Galatians that he…he wasn't really influenced by the people in Jerusalem, like he had essentially been living into the faith for 17 years, for more than 17 years and that he had not received the truth of the gospel from any person, that he received it as a revelation from Jesus. He'd only met Cephas or Peter once and I mean that was like 14 years ago. And the only other like important leader in the Jerusalem church Jesus ever met was or that Paul ever met was Jesus brother James. So, Paul's claiming that the gospel he's preaching is a direct revelation from Jesus himself. This creates some problems, especially the Jew / Gentile problem that we…we have talked about it on a number of occasions. So, I don't need to go back into it again. We probably understand that territory but in Galatians today we hear about people sneaking into this spy on…on the meetings that Paul's having and these are Judaizers, these are people who believe that…that you have to convert to Judaism in order to follow Christ. In order to be a disciple of Christ you have the first follow the Jewish religion. Paul is obviously adamantly against that notion. And it seems from the Scriptures that God was doing a new thing because the Holy Spirit was coming upon the Gentiles. And, so, that's how they finally had to agree, like “we’re not making a decision here. God has already made the decision. We just have to support what God is doing.” This is a big deal because in so many ways it kinda renders Judaism obsolete. Paul is saying the law the Torah is fulfilled, the old covenant is done, a new covenant has been ratified through the blood of Christ, we are living in a different time under different circumstances, we’re going forward in a different new direction that God is leading. I mean it's hard to take that leap. It's a huge leap of faith, especially if you're a Jewish person who has only known it one way. To take that leap is difficult. To understand that Christ fulfills the obligations of the law and that through Him so can we. That's good news, but it's difficult news to embrace. So, that's like the theological or spiritual thing but it's…it's deeper than that. Like Jews and Gentiles did not like party together at all. They…they weren't social in any real way. Jews were separatists. They were thought of as strange by the rest of the Empire and they wore it as a badge of honor, to be separated, to be set apart as holy. So, a Jewish person looked at a Gentile person, a Roman, essentially as an occupier, as their oppressors, the people that were marginalizing them, the people that were pushing them to the outskirts of society. So, it would be difficult for them to just open their arms and embrace the people that they felt were oppressing them. It would be hard for them to have any sort of meaningful relationship because there is inherent prejudice there, right? There’s inherent fear of those with the privilege of being a Roman citizen. Like, they could do things that would be detrimental to the Hebrew community if they all got together to be happy together and then something goes sideways. And, so, Paul in his letter to the Galatians is basically like, “I had to even confront Peter, the apostle Peter, like the one who got out of the boat and walked on the water to Jesus even though he went underwater.” Like Paul's confronting him because he…he's not being consistent. He’s coming around Gentile believers in churches and fellowshipping with them and having really open community with them until people in the Jerusalem church are around and then he's being all separatist and all ‘follow the law’ and…and…and not being hospitable. So, we’re seeing…we’re seeing the tensions that existed as the faith began to grow and flourish. We’re seeing what was going on here through these letters. And we can wonder like, “why such…it just doesn't…like now 2000 years later we’re mostly Gentiles. Like some of these things don't seem like that big of a deal. Like it all got settled somewhere along the line and here we are.” But these kinds of tensions still exist. They just have different iterations, there just from different perspectives, but they still exist. And why is Paul being so defensive? Like, what's he after? Ultimately, well, first of all he’s defending the revelation of Jesus Christ that he received. This is what he believes. This is what he is convinced of. This is what he will die for…and he does. He did die for it. But beyond that it's freedom. He, as a Pharisee, had done everything he could possibly do to live up to a relationship, like to get himself in a position to have the knowledge and awareness and relationship with God. And no matter how hard he tried he failed. And then Jesus is raised from the dead and reveals himself to him and he begins to realize we’re free, we’re free from all of that. Like there’s a whole new thing going on. Freedom is given to us, spiritual freedom to be in direct contact and in relationship with God. This is a big deal. This isn't going to happen the ritual and adherence to some sort of ethics or law. Christ has done it all and restored us to God, and now we can call God Father, Abba. We can enter His presence. This a big deal. This is his conviction. Like I said just a second ago, then that renders that whole culture the…under Torah, the whole culture, the way the whole thing was set up becomes somewhat obsolete. And that's a difficult controversy. This is why people want to kill Paul. This is why Paul ultimately gets killed. This is also ultimately why we believe what we believe as Christians, that freedom has been given to us, that we have been…been made right, we have been justified because we have faith in Christ and freedom comes from that. Freedom, that a set of rules, even if we could live up to them can’t provide. So, this gives us some context. They were wrestling, which explains why we often are wrestling. Ironically, we’re wrestling over freedom. And in the coming days as we move through Galatians, we’re gonna get a good glimpse of that. And as we continue through the letters of Paul, some of like…some of the stuff is unbelievable when we are told what Christ has done, and who we are, and what that means. But those are in the days ahead.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You that we can look into it and we can see an honest view of the struggle. We…all we have to do is just look around in the world and see that there is an honest struggle continually going on in some direction and what we are grateful for is that You are the sovereign God, You are the Lord of all, no matter what we think. No matter what we think You are the most-high God, and You will have Your way. And our desire is to be in the middle of that, what You are doing in us and in this world. And, so, we open ourselves to You, Holy Spirit. We open ourselves to Your leadership, to Your comfort, to Your correction, to Your guidance. Come and do what You’ve promised. Lead us into all truth we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

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And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hey DAB family this is Allie from Oregon. Hey, I’m just calling to ask for prayer for all of the communities around the Pacific Northwest and California area that are currently being affected by fire or the threat of fire. Just ask that YTou would, Lord that you would help provide peace and provide safety to the families that are in jeopardy or the families that are already lost their homes as well as for all of the first responders, firefighters, volunteers that are coming together to help with this. It’s been…it’s been a long week and I know that there’s a lot of people that have lost their homes or their homes are in jeopardy. So, we just pray for peace and through all of this that Your will be done and that You would cause people to come together. And Lord I also pray for work in progress. I know he called as well for California and we lift California up as well, that You would just touch them and bring these fires to an end. Thanks guys.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family this is Kelsey from Washington state and I am new to Daily Audio Bible but I’m so thankful to have this opportunity to listen and hear God’s word together. Thank you, Brian. Right now I’m sitting on our back porch looking up at the sky and it’s a little bit hazy with smoke from all the wildfires but I wanted to call in to ask for prayer for a family that I know who has been deeply impacted and is going through tragedy due to the wildfires here in Washington. I want to lift up Jacob, Jamie, the Highland family who, you know, they’re in the hospital in critical condition right now and they lost their little one-year-old, Arielle to the fire’s here in Washington. And please just pray for their recovery, pray for, you know, this long journey that they have ahead and for just comfort from the Lord, you know, in relation to the loss of their son. He was beautiful. And also, for I…I…heard also that Jamie is pregnant and for this baby and just protection and protection from…for both of them from infection because their bodies have…have severe third-degree burns. Thank you so much, your prayer’s means so much. God bless you all. Thank you.

Hey family this is John the Prodigal. Hey, I’ve got a celebration actually believe that or not and a couple of prayer requests. Number one my son who was on heroin, we went through 25 doctors and finally found a doctor to work with him. Got him on the prescription that they took him off of after seven years cold turkey. He has no knees, blew em’ out skateboarding and he’s in constant pain. So, he turned to heroin. Anyway, he’s in good shape now, he’s happy now, got him turned around and that’s has everything to do with your prayers. I also ask for your…so I said it’s a celebration. I also ask for prayer for…for Jane a friend of mine who’s living in London. She is living in a church there and every night she runs in fear of being stabbed or raped. A good friend of hers was attacked…was shot in an attempted rape there. And, so, I tried to help her out as best I can but I, as you know I am totally broke, but I’ve done what I can. To that end I’d also ask your prayers for me. I’m trying to reinvent myself, rebuild my business, build back and the love of God and with God in my sites instead of me. And, so, my pride is broken. I’ve been humbled. I am a Job and trying to rise again. And with that I’d ask…I’d ask any more prayers for me I feel selfish when I do but I just wanted to let you know that I’m praying for you all and the man who called for the son with muscular dystrophy to people who are divorcing like me yo all those who are suffering and praying with depression. I feel for you all. I’ve got it all and I’ve got your facts. And so does God. So, you make a blessed day. Know I love you, know I pray for you all every day even though I don’t say your names. You’re in my heart. God bless you thank you Brian and Jill. Have a good day. Bye.

Good morning everybody hey this is Annette Allison from Oklahoma City. Get your seatbelt on girl. Hey isn’t the Lord cool? I’ll tell you what he is just amazing. __ inspiring stories of hope here recently that He is just amazing. My son, my stepson who is in the Air Force, his career has been tried to be put down and destroyed by a guy who is just like new in command and trying to make a name for himself and my stepson who’s just as straight as an arrow, I’ll tell you he is such a good good young man. It’s a truly amazing to me. The Lord has just taken this whole situation and turned it for the good and has really shown my stepson what the path of faith really looks like. And I’m just so proud of how he has stayed the course and how the Lord has turned all this around and for good. He even got a promotion and a recommendation out of this. It’s amazing. And my stepson James is doing excellent. He went to a…a little prison camp situation where they teach the kids how to behave basically and has come out smelling like a rose, top of his class, and is working and doing very, very well. I’m so proud of these kids. Anyway, I love you guys. Have a wonderful day. Bye-bye.

This is BB in Florida I’m requesting prayer for my niece Nancy who at the present time is in the hospital battling cancer. The cancer has traveled through her spinal column into her brain and the prognosis that the doctors are giving them is not good. I’m asking for prayers to come against the excruciating pain that she is under with severe headaches and backaches. She has not been able to eat or to keep medicine down. I’m asking that for prayers for the pain management team to find the right combination of medicine for her that they will no longer be chasing the pain, but they will be able to stop the pain completely. She’s been in the hospital now for about two weeks and it’s very hard on the family as only one person can be in her room with her at a time. Just pray, Father God that He would grant this family and all those of her friends, peace and strength, that the doctors would have words of encouragement today for this family. We serve a faithful God and a loving God, and I just pray for His mercy, Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

Hi this is my first time ever being on this site asking for prayer. I have been actually reading since almost the first of the year and so love this site. And I come to you burdened about my children. I have two sons who are not serving the Lord at all, as far as they could possibly be from the Lord. And it’s such a burden. And I just pray that my brothers and sisters in Christ can uplift my two sons Lee and Austin. And my prayer is that I’ll be able to spend my days worshiping with them and that we can be one in spirit. And I pray for my husband to be strong as a leader so that he will be able to show these sons of ours what needs to be done in order to be a child of God and a man of God. My name is Sherry and I look forward to seeing the results of these prayers. Thank you so much.

Hi everybody this is Stephanie. I’m the Lord’s Chic from Oklahoma. As many of you know my son passed away about three months ago and my mom the year before. I am 55 years old and after decades of being clean I have fallen back into bad habits. It started with food and then it went to tranquilizers and painkillers and diet pills and I’ve had a drink for the first time in literally decades. I picked up a pack of cigarettes last week. I just…anything I can do to make the pain go away but it doesn’t go away. So, I’ve been a Christian for a really long time. My husband has absolutely zero knowledge of all this. So far I’m completely functional with my job and family but I…I need to stop completely. And, so, today is day one. I just really need for you all to pray for me before I completely ruin my career and my family. Nobody knows about this. I have a best friend in Oregon that I’ve confided in, but I mean if they were to pull a tox screen at work would be cooked and my nursing license would be gone. So, you know, some of this is prescription some is not. I just need a lot of prayer please. I need to get back and trust God the way they used to. Thanks.

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Juneteenth takes on new meaning amid push for racial justice (AP) Protesters marched over the Brooklyn Bridge, chanted “We want justice now!” near St. Louis’ Gateway Arch, stopped work at West Coast ports and paused for a moment of silence at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, as Americans marked Juneteenth with new urgency Friday amid a nationwide push for racial justice. The holiday, which commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans, is usually celebrated with parades and festivals but became a day of protest this year in the wake of demonstrations set off by George Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police. In addition to traditional cookouts and readings of the Emancipation Proclamation—the Civil War-era order that declared all enslaved people free in Confederate territory—Americans of all backgrounds were marching, holding sit-ins or taking part in car caravan protests. Thousands gathered at a religious rally in Atlanta. Hundreds marched from St. Louis’ Old Courthouse, where the Dred Scott case partially played out, a pivotal one that denied citizenship to African Americans but galvanized the anti-slavery movement. Protesters and revelers held signs in Dallas, danced to a marching band in Chicago and registered people to vote in Detroit.

Law enforcement families face harassment, vandalism, and threats at home (Washington Examiner) Law enforcement officers say they and their families face harassment and bullying by strangers and neighbors as a result of a nationwide crackdown on law enforcement following protests around the death of George Floyd. One former Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, faces a charge of second-degree murder over the 46-year-old black man’s death. The episode triggered nationwide protests over police practices and some violence and looting. At the same time, police officers around the nation, facing scrutiny by local, state, and federal officials, say morale is down in local departments. Budgets have been cut, and overtime pay for shifts during protests has been slashed. And the homes of police officers have been vandalized while anti-law enforcement activists have watched them from outside. Paul Chabot, a retired deputy sheriff reserve out of San Bernardino County, California, who runs a website that helps officers relocate to police friendly municipalities, told the Washington Examiner that officers and their wives who reach out to him reveal their children are targeted as well. “It’s not the same like it was even just two weeks ago, three weeks ago, just because they’re a law enforcement family now. Their kids are being targeted by people in the neighborhood.”

The battle over masks in a pandemic: An all-American story (Washington Post) In this sprawling, heterogeneous country, the pandemic has become yet another thing on which Americans are divided. Mask-wearing for some people is an identifier of broader beliefs and political leanings. Like so many issues rooted in science and medicine, the pandemic is now fully entangled with ideological tribalism. This has played out before: helmets for motorcyclists, seat belts in cars, smoking bans in restaurants. All of those measures provoked battles over personal liberty. Now it’s masks and the coronavirus, with face coverings emerging as an emblem for what cleaves the nation. A flurry of recent studies supports wearing cloth face coverings as a means to limit transmission of the novel coronavirus, which causes the illness covid-19. To many people, masks represent adherence to civic duty and a willingness to make individual sacrifices for the greater good of public health. To others, masks symbolize government overreach and a violation of personal liberty.

U.S. Watched George Floyd Protests in 15 Cities Using Aerial Surveillance (NYT) The Department of Homeland Security deployed helicopters, airplanes and drones over 15 cities where demonstrators gathered to protest the death of George Floyd, logging at least 270 hours of surveillance, far more than previously revealed, according to Customs and Border Protection data. The department’s dispatching of unmanned aircraft over protests in Minneapolis last month sparked a congressional inquiry and widespread accusations that the federal agency had infringed on the privacy rights of demonstrators. But that was just one piece of a nationwide operation that deployed resources usually used to patrol the U.S. border for smugglers and illegal crossings. Aircraft filmed demonstrations in Dayton, Ohio; New York City; Buffalo and Philadelphia, among other cities, sending video footage in real time to control centers managed by Air and Marine Operations, a branch of Customs and Border Protection. The footage was then fed into a digital network managed by the Homeland Security Department, called “Big Pipe,” which can be accessed by other federal agencies and local police departments for use in future investigations, according to senior officials with Air and Marine Operations.

Barber offers hope in Peruvian barrios devastated by virus (AP) Once a week, barber Josué Yacahuanca makes his way up the dusty hills of Peru’s capital, heading into its poorest neighborhoods carrying a treasured golden briefcase that holds his life’s passion—five clipper blades, 20 combs, four scissors and a bottle with alcohol. Yacahuanca seeks out clients devastated by a coronavirus lockdown that has gone on for nearly 100 days in an attempt to stem the wave of new infections. He does it for free. “I want them to look in the mirror and see a bit of hope,” said Yacahuanca, who though just 21 years old is a veteran barber, having started cutting hair at age 13. Yacahuanca had a rocky start in life himself. Abandoned by his mother, he was raised by his godmother, Gloria Alvarez. Despite obstacles, he discovered a business savvy at a young age. He hustled at odd jobs, selling sweets, cleaning houses, working in outdoor markets and at a bus station.

Brazil tops 1 million cases as coronavirus spreads inland (AP) Brazil’s government confirmed on Friday that the country has risen above 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases, second only to the United States. Official data show a downward trend of the virus in Brazil’s north, including the hard-hit region of the Amazon, a plateau in cases and deaths in the countries’ biggest cities near the Atlantic coast, but a rising curve in the south. In the Brazilian countryside, which is much less prepared to handle a crisis, the pandemic is clearly growing. Many smaller cities have weaker health care systems and basic sanitation that’s insufficient to prevent contagion.

European powers refuse to back U.S. call for escalating Iran sanctions (Washington Post) France, Germany and Britain said they will not support reimposing sanctions on Iran if a U.N. arms embargo is not extended, but they urged Tehran to allow inspectors into sites where nuclear material may be stockpiled.

China unveils details of national security law for Hong Kong amid backlash (Reuters) Beijing unveiled details of its new national security law for Hong Kong on Saturday, paving the way for the most profound change to the city’s way of life since it returned to Chinese rule in 1997. The much-anticipated legislation, which has provoked deep concerns in Washington and Europe, includes a national security office for Hong Kong to collect intelligence and handle crimes against national security, the official Xinhua news agency reported. It said Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam could also appoint specific judges to hear national security cases, a move likely to unnerve some investors, diplomats and business leaders in the global financial hub. China says the draft law is aimed at tackling separatist activity, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, but critics fear it will crush wide-ranging freedoms that are seen as key to Hong Kong’s status as a global financial centre.

Egyptian president says Libyan city Sirte a ‘red line’ (AP) Egypt’s president Saturday warned that an attempt by Turkey-backed forces in Libya to attack the strategic city of Sirte would cross a “red line” and trigger a direct Egyptian military intervention into the conflict. Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, in televised comments, said Egypt could intervene in neighboring Libya with the intention of protecting its western border with the oil-rich country, and to bring stability, including establishing conditions for a cease-fire, to Libya. El-Sissi warned that any attack on Sirte or the inland Jufra air base by forces loyal to the U.N.-supported but weak government in Tripoli would amount to crossing a “red line.” “Let’s stop at this (current) front line and start negotiations to reach a political solution to the Libyan crisis,” he said.

Ethiopia to fill disputed dam, deal or no deal (AP) It’s a clash over water usage that Egypt calls an existential threat and Ethiopia calls a lifeline for millions out of poverty. Just weeks remain before the filling of Africa’s most powerful hydroelectric dam might begin, and tense talks between the countries on its operation have yet to reach a deal. In an interview with The Associated Press, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedu Andargachew on Friday declared that his country will go ahead and start filling the $4.6 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam next month, even without an agreement. “For us it is not mandatory to reach an agreement before starting filling the dam, hence we will commence the filling process in the coming rainy season,” he said. “We are working hard to reach a deal, but still we will go ahead with our schedule whatever the outcome is. If we have to wait for others’ blessing, then the dam may remain idle for years, which we won’t allow to happen,” he said. He added that “we want to make it clear that Ethiopia will not beg Egypt and Sudan to use its own water resource for its development,” pointing out that Ethiopia is paying for the dam’s construction itself. He spoke after the latest round of talks with Egypt and Sudan on the dam, the first since discussions broke down in February, failed to reach agreement.

Congo president’s chief of staff guilty in corruption trial (AP) A court in Congo on Saturday sentenced the president’s chief of staff, Vital Kamerhe, to 20 years of forced labor after he was found guilty of corruption and embezzlement of more than $50 million. His lawyers said they would appeal. Kamerhe, 61, has called the trial a political attack on himself and President Felix Tshisekedi, who has not commented on the case. The charges stem from what the court said was “unequivocal” participation in the embezzlement of money from projects undertaken by the president during his first 100 days in office last year.

[superrobotmonkeyteamramblingsgo]

Things that Never Happened - Ally

You were once my closest ally

Summary - Otto makes his choice and sides with Mandarin. And so Mandarin achieves his goal of leading Shuggazoom and makes it the utopia he promised Otto is would be. But Otto is seeing that this peace come at a price, and it is becoming quite steep.

A/N - Remember those ‘5 things that never happened’ fic prompts? Yeah, this was suppose to be just one story out of five for that, but given how I’ve working on this one story for years, heaven’s knows if I’ll ever get the other four done. Figuring out he Mandarin-Otto dynamics in this was the main reason this took so long.

It was the smell that Otto first came aware of, even through the fog and haze that covered his mind as he woke up. It was rather delicious smell of cinnamon and nuts that made his stomach rumble.

The second thing he became aware of, even with his eyes closed, was the light. He groaned and made the mistake of opening them straight into the open window, causing him to shut them immediately again with a wince.

The third thing was that his workshop didn’t have a window. Actually, his workshop also didn’t have a seat as comfy as the one he was lying on. That caused him to sit straight up, eyes now wide awake as he took in the airy and clean room that was the antithesis of his dark and dirty workshop.

 Admittedly, it was a great way to wake up: on a soft bed in the morning light to a delicious smell in a room where he wouldn’t have to worry about tripping over any of his several projects. But the issue was that, last he remembered, he never left his workshop.

 He sighed and –reluctantly- got out of bed and opened the door of his room, intensifying the smell of baked goods. “Jinmay.”

His room opened out to the short hallway and then the kitchen where he saw her pulling out a tray of muffins from the oven. She giggled as she turned towards him. “Well good morning Otto! I hope you slept well! I just got done making muffins for breakfast!”

“Jinmay,” He repeated, trying to be as strict as possible in his voice (how did Mandarin always make it seem so easy?) as he walked into the kitchen.“What did we discuss about interrupting me while I’m down in my workshop?”

She frowned as she put the tray down on the counter. “I know, but you’ve been down there for days! You had me worried and I figured that you could at least use some time in an actual bed with a good meal.” She put the muffins on a platter and set them down on the table. “At least eat something before you head back.”

A quick check of his internal clock confirmed that it had been almost five days since he locked himself in his workshop, trying to figure out what was causing the weird readings from their surveillance satellites. The reading were far too similar to the ones they would get on the Super Robot’s scanners, in the days of before, but at least they weren’t originating from Shuggazoom. Their city was in peace, but the readings were enough of a concern to consume him for five days. Five whole days of sleeping on his hard work-bench and eating rations, and away from Jinmay.

He sighed. “Alright, but next time how about you wake me up before moving me?”

 “Only if you promise to actually come back with me, and not just say you will.” She placed one of the muffins on a small plate that she then handed to him with a smile. “And I mean it about not going back until you eat something substantial. Start with this and I’ll make you something else. Anything you’re craving?”

“Maybe bacon and eggs,” He took the plate as she returned to the kitchen and began pulling out more pans. But he noticed how she was also trying to keep the corner of her eye on him, actually stopping to watch intensely as he took his first bite, even though she was trying to be discreet about it.

That kind of intense anticipation only happened when she was waiting for his reaction to her newest recipe.

He chewed and had to admit the muffin was as good as it smelt: a nice blend of nuts and spices, with a hint of something that he couldn’t identify. He took another, bigger bite as he gave her a thumbs up. “It’s good!” He muffled through his mouth full of muffin.

Jinmay let out a high pitched screech that he might not have heard if it wasn’t for his cyber-ears. “Yes, yes, yes!” She jumped and clasped her hands. “Otto, do you know what flavor of muffin you just ate?”

He blinked at he looked down at the baked good in his hand. “Nuts?”

“Close,” She giggled. “It’s banana nut.”

Otto stopped mid-chew, looked between her and the muffin, and resumed chewing in a slow, thorough manner. “Huh”

Assessing the flavor again, he guessed that the taste he couldn’t identify might be banana, but it certainly didn’t taste as disgusting as they usually did. He begrudgingly gave his approval by taking another bite, half of the muffin now eaten.

Jinmay was practically vibrating in joy and mirth. “I told you I would find a way for you to eat bananas, didn’t I?”

Otto shook his head, though with a smile. When his last physical revealed several concerning vitamin and mineral deficits, Jinmay had taken upon herself to be his personal nutritionist and chef. Each deficiency had been easily remedied through careful meal planning, except for potassium. A supplement or any other food source could have been utilize to resolve his hypokalemia, but Jinmay had stubbornly decided that it would be bananas or bust once he mentioned how much he hated them. She was determined to find some recipe that would get him to eat his bananas.

And now she succeeded, Otto thought as he began wolfing down a second muffin. Jinmay was humming a victory song as she began frying up eggs and bacon for him.

It was actually a very nice and pleasant morning to wake up to, his plate of eggs and bacon (along with a fresh cup of coffee, pure black since he long ago stopped taking it with cream and sugar) just placed in front of him, when Mandrin had to barge in. If it wasn’t for the fact that the door was an automatic slider, he probably would have broken it down with how much rage was shaking in his fist.

“Otto! There you are! Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for you! You were supposed to be in your workshop going over our satellites! And why did you not respond to your communicator!”

The joy escaped from Jinmay as she stiffened into a curtsy, eyes remaining downcast. “That would be my fault, Lord Mandarin. The previous doctor’s report for Otto-”

 “Lord Otto” He corrected, venom in his voice as he glared daggers at her.

 Jinmay’s body grew even more rigid. “Lord Otto, yes, his previous physical brought up some issues regarding his sleep. Since he had been working the previous week at his workshop, I moved him to his room last night and disabled both alarms and communication to ensure he would get a full, uninterrupted night’s sleep.”

“You disabled communications? How dare you, you malfunctioning scrapheap-”

“Mandarin,” Otto grabbed the tray of muffins and placed himself between his best friend and companion. “Jinmay is just doing as the doctor said. She’s the reason why my health reports haven’t been as bad as they were before. Like these muffin, you ought to try one, it’s really good but also nutritious-”

Mandarin swatted the tray out of Otto’s hand, the ceramic shattering and mixing with the muffins along the floor. “We don’t have time for eating Otto! Not when we have disobedience in our mist.” He gave Jinmay a critical once-over. “What are you wearing, girl?”

Jinmay wore a light blue and white checked apron, lined with lacy frills, over a slightly darker blue sundress. “I’m...that is…”

 “Why are you not in uniform!” Shuggazoom City had a strict uniform policy for its civilian, and while it might differ based on the person’s actual job, the base color was always gray and orange.

 “Mandarin,” Otto said again, but firmer this time. “Jinmay’s allow to dress as she wishes with me. In fact, I was the one who got that outfit for her.”

Otto never had any interest in fashion, or clothes in general, before. Mandarin still wore his armor with a bit of added regalia to denote his position as leader, but Otto had rejected all of his friends attempt at dressing up and was the exception to the uniform rule.

Then Otto got Jinmay and discovered how much fun it was to dress her up. It was fun to look up different outfits and see all the options possible for her to wear. She decided that her favorite color was blue, and it was fun playing with the pink of her hair and green of her eyes. Before he would just order machinery parts and tools, but now his orders would include the occasional measurement and specifics for a new outfit for her. It was always a joy to see her eyes light up at each new gift and the impromptu fashion shows as she tried on each on.

“Of course,” Mandarin spat out. “It seems to be that you are giving her way too much freedom Otto. You are not to disable any more communications or alarms, girl, as well as resuming adherence to the uniform code if you want to be useful to your Lord. And get to cleaning up your mess.” He kicked one of the muffins. “Otto, you probably shouldn’t be eating such junk anyway.”

“It’s not junk!” Jinmay snapped. “I made sure that they are packed with the vitamins and minerals that Otto needed, and his health report actually noted he was losing weight so he needs to eat. And this is his house, so he sets the rules such as what I am allowed to wear and do, not you! What is yours is this mess, since you decided to intrude on our nice breakfast and...and…” The fire in her smothered as she saw Mandarin’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and she scooted closer to Otto in escape.

Mandarin turned his focus on Otto. “She talked back to me…no, she refused me.”

“Mandarin-”

“I want you to order her to change into a uniform.”

“Mandarin, I can’t.”

“Why not!” He yelled. “She’s under the Three Laws of Robotics, isn’t she?”

Otto didn’t say anything, as Jinmay wilted behind him.

“I thought so,” Mandarin went cold, his eyes and body steeled.

But Otto knew Mandarin, and what the coldness was precedent for. “Jinmay, can you please go get the broom?”

She nodded and tried to be as small as possible as she disappeared into the hallway. And just as he did, Mandarin exploded, his hand slamming into the wall and leaving an indent.

“Inconceivable! Have you gone mad Otto! I know that she had the three laws when I gave her to you! What possessed you to remove them?”

“You said I could use her as I wanted, and I wanted to see how her AI would develop without them.”

“I meant for you to decide if you wanted to use her as a maid or an assistant! So you removed the only means of complete and utter obedience from her? Otto, those laws exist for a reason and that reason is to protect not just us, but the order of our society!”

“I know that Mandarin!”

“Do you? Or have you let your affection for that-that robot cloud your thoughts? I never would have given her to you if I knew you would go soft in the head over her! But that is a mistake that can still be fixed.”

You are not taking her from me!” Otto yelled, in a move that surprised him as much as it did Mandarin, who actually stepped back.

Most of the time, Otto was fine with Mandarin taking the lead with Shuggazoom, much like how he took the lead with the Hyperforce. Most of the time he was fine with Mandarin being in charge and making decisions.

But Jinmay was his.

There were several seconds of silence after his outburst, during which the air seemed to grow colder.

“Or what Otto?” Mandarin said, in a controlled and distance tone. “Will you betray me like our brothers did before? Will you turn your back on the peace we brought to this city and all that I have taught you? Because haven’t I already taught you, no, haven’t I shown you the importance of complete obedience of our subordinates? Haven’t I show you the value of not giving them choices because that will only lead to conflict? These are the pillars we built our society, our peace, on so what does it say when you, my second, refuses to uphold them?”

“I didn’t say anything about that, Mandarin! I’m as much for this peace as you are!”

“Are you? Because our very civilization is being threatened and here you are having breakfast like it doesn’t matter!”

“If this is about the weird findings from our satellites, I’m just taking a break from them but I will get back to it-”

“I’m not talking about the satellites! I’m talking about the very control that makes our peace possible! I’m already dealing with a problem with that and don’t’ need you or your free-thinking robot to add to it!”

Mandarin’s words were like a splash of cold water in the heated atmosphere. Otto hesitated and then reached out and put a hand over Mandarin’s shoulder. Mandarin flinched at his touch, but he didn’t push the hand away as white pupils meet red. 

“Mandarin, you didn’t come over here to talk about the satellites. What else is wrong that you are worried about?” Otto could be kicking himself now. Didn’t he know Mandarin the best, wasn’t he the closest to him? He should have picked up sooner how upset Mandarin was and been more accommodating for his feelings. 

Mandarin took a deep breath as he shut his eyes. “I’ll show you at the capital.”

- - -

The down fall of the team, in the end, was forgetting just how smart Mandarin is. As leader, it was expected that he would be well-versed in battle formations and tactics, but Mandarin went beyond that. He would never specialize in mechanics and science the way Otto and Gibson did, but he occupied the step right behind them. Science, mechanics, piloting, fighting, and even the Power Primate...he may have been a master of none of them, but jack of all trades made him far better than a master of one. That was why his ideal utopia was already planned out and ready to be implemented when he presented it to Otto.

All Otto had to do was go over everything to ensure that it would work properly and that there wasn't any overlooked loose ends. That was why the rest of the team -the rest of the traitorous team, Mandarin always reminded him- was unable to resist the shutdown sequence and escape from their cells while they were transported to their observational prison. The two had plans for a world of peace and harmony, and Otto hoped some time in HOOP would allow their eyes to be open to the good they were doing.

That day hadn’t come yet, but Otto was sure it would come...eventually.

Mandarin's utopia rested on the implementation of control collars that would ensure harmony and order. No longer would they have to be reactive to the evil doings of the Shuggazoom citizens, but take an active role in ensuring that all crime was prevented.

Shuggazoom operated like a well-oiled machine and, as a mechanic, Otto took care of it. He left administrative and internal affairs to Mandarin and, once the system reached the point of being self-regulatory, he retired to a corner of the city where he kept to his own inventions. He was allotted a group of assistants, but had declined them. He probably would have stayed alone if Mandarin hadn’t presented him with Jinmay, an blank slate of an android he found for Otto to tinker with.

But even the most up-kept of machine occasionally malfunctioned and today was one of those times when Otto was called on site.

“This is the fourth time it happened with this one citizen.” Mandarin explained as Otto looked over the information on the tablet that had been shoved in his hands. They were in Mandarin’s private transporter -designed to look quite similar to the Torso Tank- and going to the capital in the center of the city. The capital was built in front of the Super Robot, which would forever overlook the citizens. There was no more war or battles for it to fight, no evil for it to stop, so there was no need to activate or disengage it for something as trivial as transport, as Mandarin had said.

Otto frowned as he read the citizen’s file. The brain was too complex of a system for the collar to be one-hundred percent perfect. Age was a big factor, especially when puberty happened and the brain began pruning neural pathways. It wasn’t uncommon for collars to fall out of sync and fail during that time at least once, even twice. 

The first and second de-sync was expected, and with this citizen just being twelve he was at the right age for his first adjustment. It wasn’t even unheard of for a third time to be needed, thought that was more often seen in older cases.

But four times? At at such a young age?That was unheard of.

“Mandarin, I’m sorry for arguing with you,” He repeated as he looked up from the tablet. “I should have picked up that you were upset over something like this.”

“You should have.” Mandarin waved off his apology. “But I will forgive you if you can fix this. And you can fix this, right?”

Otto frowned as his finger traced the latest printout of the citizen 91804’s brainwaves. “I have some ideas, but I’ll need to go over the data some more, and get a hands on look at the collar.”

“Well can you at least get him to stop until then? I can’t have him running around doing Shuggazoom-knows what!”

“Stop him? Like suppress all other brainwaves?”

“Well that would guarantee that he can’t go off on his own, does it?”

“Yes, but Mandarin, he would be little more than a vegetable-”

“But he would be a cooperative vegetable. The only thing I care about is that this doesn’t happen a fifth time. Do it!”

The transport stopped Mandarin didn’t even wait for the guard to open the door before he threw it opened and he was stomping into the building. Otto grabbed the tablet and gave a nod to the guard, who stayed stone still and didn’t even respond to him.

Mandarin was standing outside a cell, flanked by guards, when he caught up with him. “He’s in here.” The guard opened the door at Mandarin’s command. Otto handed the tablet to the guard and walked in.

In the beginning, Otto had to manually scan, analyze, and reprogram the collars in person. He hated the process, so he created the current system that allowed for automatic reprogramming and adjustments to the collars. His latest upgrade even allowed for prediction for when the reprogramming would be needed, allowing for greater security of their society.

It was a long time since Otto had been called to one of their holding cells to personally fix the command collar. They were the same as ever, four walls with a one-way screen at the front, and a restraint built into the wall at the back. And there was the citizen, strapped to it but struggling against his bonds.

Otto lost his breath as he looked at him. He was just a boy! Sure, his file had mentioned he was twelve, but Otto had been too out of touch with humans to remember just what such a number meant.

The boy looked to be Jinmay’s age, or at least the age she had been built to. And he had such clear blue eyes that widened at Otto when he stepped forward.

With each step Otto took, the boy’s eyes went from wide with worry to narrowing, trying so hard to look threatening. But it was more like Jinmay’s attempt, when she tried to look tough as she lectured him about his health.

To someone who had battled countless monsters and seen terrors from all sides of the galaxy, it didn’t elicit so much as a flinch. But the true impact wasn’t to inspire fear, but the others emotions it stirred up in Otto.

Right now the boy’s attempt was making him feel unsettled.

“It’s going to be alright,” Otto didn’t know why he spoke; before he would fix the collars without saying a single word. Mandarin always reminded him that he needed to be efficient and trying to talk to them was a waste of time, especially when a gag kept the prisoner from responding.

But the boy did seem to calm, his struggle stopping even as Otto’s fingers were messing with the inner mechanics of the very collar that controlled his life.

The collars could tap into the spinal nerve to completely suppress brainwaves. But the point of the collars was to have a peaceful society, and a society required somewhat cognitive and moving citizens. Hence why Otto made it so a manual override, done in person, was required to activate such a setting.

“Otto, hurry up!” Mandarin hissed over the intercom and Otto felt like he had been slapped awake. He had a job to do, a peace to keep, and work needed to be done.

This really would be for the best. The boy would basically be asleep while they worked on figuring out what was causing him to de-sync. It was for the best, for him and the peace of their society.

But still, Otto hesitated before he finished rebooting, he finger resting on the switch as meet the boy’s eyes, so full of emotions that Otto couldn’t even begin to decipher them all. 

And then there was a jolt or something that caused him to pull his hands back while the boy’s eyes seemed to…glow green?

Otto looked over the room, but didn’t see any broken wire or anything else out of place that could have caused the stray electrical shock. Actually, now that Otto thought about it, it didn’t feel like electricity.

But it felt achingly familiar…

The boy was looking at him, and his eyes were blue so maybe the glow had been the trick of the light or something?

(But if was a trick of the light, why did Otto feel like this? Why was he acutely aware of an emptiness inside his spirit?)

And then there was a flicker and the boy thrashed against the collar’s grip before his eyes were vacant and his body slummed lifelessly against his restraint.

“I don’t know what was taking so long,” Mandarin slammed the door open, and it took Otto another moment at looking at the boy’s body to realize that Mandarin had probably issued the collar reboot on his end.

Otto just kept looking at the body as Mandarin ordered the guards. “Release him and take him to the infirmary to hook up to a life support. I don’t want him dying until I can figure out why he is causing such trouble.”

When they were gone, it was just the two of them in the cell and Mandarin let out a deep breath. “Much better. Now that is one less things to worry about. I still want to keep this from happening again, but at least he’s back under control.”

“Yes Mandarin.”

 He frowned as he turn to Otto. “Are you still upset?”

Otto didn’t say anything, just kept looking at his feet with thoughts weighing his head down.

“Otto,” He looked up to Mandarin, who wasn’t mad but still had his ‘leader’ voice, like he did whenever he was giving criticism. “You know that I only get so angry because I worried. And that is why Jinmay had me so upset, because I am worried about your safety”

He wanted to argue that she would never hurt him, that he trusted her, but he was so drained from everything that he just nodded.

 “Good. Otto, you have been with me for every step of our utopia,” Mandarin smiled. “And it is because we are so close that I know you will make the right choice, like you always have.”

Otto nodded again and turned towards the door.

“A ride for you will be here-”

“No, it’s fine,” Otto’s voice was as rough and shaky as thoughts. “I want to walk home and get some air.”

“Well don’t dawdle because you still have the satellites to figure out. Our peace depends on it.”

Otto nodded again and left.

There wasn’t any more parks in Shuggazoom. Mandarin hadn’t seen any reason for them, since any time a citizen could be frolicking in the flowers was better dedicated to helping the city. There was always some task that needed to be accomplished and the land was better used for their ever expanding industrial field, he said.

Otto had pleaded for at least one park to be kept, but Mandarin had put his foot down. So the area had been paved and filled with buildings and factories.

That was why Otto had his workshop build on the outskirts, where there were still plenty of plants in the peace and quiet.

Otto walked down the road, the occasional citizen immediately stopping in their task to salute the great second of their civilization. But there was no smile, cheers, or even attempts at conversation. They simply got back to their work.

But that was how things were supposed to be, Mandarin said. They would protect the city and in return the citizens would keep it running.

It hadn’t been that way at first. The collars had been more lax and allowed more free thoughts. But that had brought more issues, more instants of them breaking free and starting rebellions. So Otto had adjusted the collars bit by bit, until they were as they were today.

Jinmay would smile or laugh or wave, or all three and it didn’t matter if he caught her in the middle of her chores or hobbies.

It hadn’t been that way with Jinmay at first. For being the most human looking  robot Otto had ever seen, she had been so robotic in everything else. She would not move or act unless he specifically commanded her to do so. Otherwise she would just stand there like a very elaborate piece of furniture instead of the companion she was meant to be. So Otto had adjusted her programing, bit by bit, until she because what she is today.

The citizens didn’t need free time for frivolously things, Mandarin said. They never risked their lives to protect the city, after all. By what right did they have for hobbies or pastimes or games?

Jinmay had hobbies. He still remembered her first attempt at baking, how she had tried to make a pot pie by literally putting the chicken and veggies in the batter to cook. It had been a mess, but he had loved how she kept trying new things. Sure, she could stick to a recipe when she wanted, but most of the time she wanted to experiment. And as she got better, so did her results. Case in point were her delicious muffins from the morning.

He had told her ‘no bananas’ but she didn’t take that as a command but a challenge. She kept trying again and again, because it was her personal challenge.

The citizens of the city would hear ‘no bananas’ and that would be it.

The more Otto walked, the more empty the city seemed even as citizens bustled around in their duties. The more he walked, the more eerily the quiet became, far from the calm that it usually brought him. The more he walked, the more he realized how far things have come from the utopia Mandarin sold him all those years ago.

The more he walked, the more the empty ache in his soul grew.

The sun was setting when Otto reached the outskirts where his house was, the corner of the world he had retired in his naive and ignorant desire for peace and quiet.

Well, there were certainly plenty of the latter.

Jinmay had probably finished cleaning up the mess from this morning and be busy making something extra filling and nutritious for dinner, no doubt trying to make up for the miss meal.

Otto didn’t go in through the front, but took the side door down to his basement workshop. His bench was like it had been when he fell asleep the night before, all of his tools in a mess on it.

He looked down at the satellite that he was currently dissembling and reassembling, meticulously going through each part to see if there was any flaw responsible for the readings they were getting. He was going through each one and wasn’t even half way through, and wondered what was the point. What was the point in figuring out if there was a threat outside of Shuggazoom? What was the point in fighting a battle when it was clear the war has been lost?

What was the point in protecting a peace that left the city a shadow of its former self?

He slammed his arm on the bench, jolting the mess of tools and parts before he shoved them onto the floor. He didn’t even care as some of the delicate parts shattered against the floor, because he had turned his eyes this long to how bad Shuggazoom had become, what was more broken pieces on top of it?

Then he rested his arms on the now bare space and put his face in his hands, but didn’t cry. He didn’t have the right to cry over mistakes he made.

That was how Jinmay found him who knows how long afterwards. He just heard the door open and the lights flickered on. “Otto? You’re back? When did you get back? I have dinner ready-”

Otto looked up to her and he must have looked horrible because Jinmay put her hands to her mouth as she gasped. “Otto, what’s wrong?”

Otto just took a moment to look at her, his Jinmay who was still wearing the outfit he got for her and looking at him more worry and care than he deserved.

His Jinmay, who was far more free than any other person on Shuggazoom.

“Jinmay, I-” He tried to speak, but his voice cracked as the tears finally broke through. “I made a mistake.”

“Oh Otto,” She put her arms around him and he buried his tears into the sleeves of her dress. He felt her rubbing his back as he cried. “Whatever it is, I’m here for you.”

Otto made a promise in that moment, when he was shown far more care and compassion than all of Shuggazoom has been given. He would cry and get all his tears out, but then he would pull himself together and get to work.

Jinmay could come if she wanted, but it would be wholly her decision, her choice. He was done taking that away from people.

It would be a lot of work, but Otto was determined. Shuggazoom may be a weak facsimile of what it once was, the Hyperforce locked up, and a threat lurking just out of orbit, but he’s a mechanic.

Fixing things that are broken is what he does. 

A/N: Otto and Jinmay were intended to have a parent-child or even sibling like relationship, but if you want to see it as romantic, go for it. I’m too exhaust from figuring out the Mandarin-Otto dynamics to squabble over theres.

[evilelitest2]

I've seen the right of conquest argument before. It's insane to me how some fucks are morally REPULSED at people coming to a nation without permission (except asylum seekers, who aren't illegals but they hate them anyway) but 100% morally okay with taking things by force.

sWell that the thing, on paper @gservator position here is complete hypocrisy, adherence to the rule of law is hard to reconcile with belief in right of conquest, just as his insistence that he is rational contradicts his rejection of facts and his use of slurs instead of arguments.  If you look at the arguments he is making, its totally inconsistent, but it is consistent if you look not at the words he is saying but instead at the words he isn’t saying, the sentiment behind the words. And to do that we kinda need to do a psych profile on @gservator, which shouldn’t be difficult, he isn’t a very complicated guy.

What ties those two position together is not rule of law, its adoration of power and White Nationalism.  See mr G identifies with the powerful, specifically when its white Americans so when its ‘his group” massacring natives and taking their shit, its ok because he is ‘winning”.  When its immigrants entering the US, he doesn’t care about criminals, except as a dog whistle for nationalism, if you look through his tumblr he only brings it up when he is talking about minorities, and the reason why he cares so much about CHain migration is beacuse he is deeply afraid about the US becoming a White minority nation, since he is one of those peoples whose sense of identity is so weak he has to bind it to something as arbitrary as race. “His group” is gained power in the 17th century, and losses power in the 21st century because his prority is the protection of existing systems of power rather than rule of law, enforcement of justice, or really any moral standard other than tribalism.  @gservator views everything in “us or them” standards, because he isn’t that into complex thinking, its like those WoW players who imagine everything as Hoard vs. Alliance.

Innunedo studios does a pretty good job of summing this attitude up here

 The important thing is taht @gservator doesn’t really want this reality to be true, he defines himself as Egalitarian while supporting white Nationalism, Skeptical while ignoring facts, and Liberal while denying basic freedoms and human rights for children.  HIs image of himself is wildly at odds with the reality of himself, so while he is basically a garden variety bigot who doesn’t care about anybody other than himself, his self image of himself is that of a rational skeptical intellectual who is a perfectly reasonable open minded guy unless SJWs force him to call people faggots rather than make an argument.  Just like how Donald Trump imagines himself as a saavy business man tough guy with a thick skin while in reality he is a whiney baby man draft dodger who over reacts to everything.  People will build a self image to make themselves feel powerful, and they lack the internal critical thinking skills to realize how much their imagination of themselves clashes with the reality.  

In @gservator case he identifies himself as a liberal, in intellectual and a free thinker but he seems to get most of his news from social media and never does any of the indicators of an actual free thinker, he never admits he is wrong, he never fact checks, he never actually examines his larger political opinions or questions base assumptions nor does he really nuance his arguments, its just the typical right wing echo chamber where he gets all his information from a small bubble.

@gservator does this weird thing where he kinda demands that you “do your research” on him before talking to him, so I scrolled through his tumblr while waiting for the bus, and it was really a trip.  The whole blog just reeks of insecurity on every level, he fetishists strength and power on every level (hence why he loves Free Speech but supports Border patrol silencing critics) , and most of the blog is this kinda teenage thing where he is trying to be as proactive as possible but can’t think of anything more imaginative than just saying faggot over and over.  He really thinks of himself as a “real” liberal, but he is doing the Sargon of Arkad thing where he clearly hasn’t read any political theory or research on the material, just some quotes online from Locke (certainly not any of the books).  And its very myopic, you can kinda feel how angry and unhappy this guy is, he talks a lot about being lonely and at a few points literally says that he feels lonely when people aren’t attacking him, so its a very toxic view of human relationships.  So no wonder he fetishises power, he desperately wants it himself and since he is so unhappy he desperately gravitates towads confrontations because it makes him feel important.

He also loves macho things and is super homophobic but he is into Gravity Falls and Adventure Time so....ok then. 

I’m not just doing this to fuck with one insecure man on the internet (though it is hilarious) I’m mostly doing this to make a point, the people we are fighting against don’t usually have coherent philosophies or consistant values, they aren’t even particularly thoughtful, its just a mass of rage and insecurities that is more dedicated to “owning the libs” than it is towards any values.  This is why they don’t care when children are dying in Ice Camps (well beyond the racism) its that they don’t really care about any policy that isn’t in some way destructive.  They want to hurt their enemies not build anything, and as long as they are this miserable they aren’t going to care about victims, since @gservator feels deep down like he is a victim, he doesn’t have sympathy for any other possible group of victims.  

Its a shame too because he wants to be a DM and is interesting in world building and homebrew champaign settings, but he can never really thrive in that direction because he doesn’t have any ability to think complexly, which is what is necessary for good world design.  I’m kinda just left with the picture of a really lonely kid who really identified as smart and so assumes he must be, and gravitates towards radicalism and ‘rationalism” because it makes him feel powerful, but doesn’t really socialize outside the internet.  

Ok, so that little post took about 10 mins while on the bus, so I’ll wrap it up before I get to work, so i have to wrap this up, let me just say that reading this blog reminded me a Lot of the stuff Contra points is always talking about and also innuendo studios video here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMabpBvtXr4

[script-a-world]

Is it honestly actually possible that bad people run most of the galaxy or several galaxies? Or at least even just an entire planet? It's done in sci fi a lot. However in real life that obviously has never happened. I'm not sure how to well, begin, create the circumstances that will give them that kind of vast power and not be defeated before. Even if they are the good guys, still, can't see how they can run everything either.

Bina: Totally possible since “bad” is relative depending on you who ask. If they have a believable facade of being “good” (or if they ARE doing good....... to just the right people (such as, politicians or powerful allies who will back them up)), and if they have a lot of supporters who think they’re the good guys, then it’s super feasible that they can take control of the majority of the galaxy with very little opposition.

Heck they can even get away with people just not thinking badly of them. They don’t necessarily need supporters who think they’re the right people to have in charge. Having people be neutral towards them can also be also good enough for them to take control without anyone complaining. All they need is people not caring. People supporting them is bonus, but apathy from the common man also goes a long long way in helping bad people come into power. 

In the end it’s all about controlling their narrative and their own publicity. They can be totally truly evil, but if they cover their tracks with enough propaganda and efforts to appear like they’re doing nothing wrong, or even that they’re doing things for the benefit of the people (or that they’re beneficial for powerful people who have more sway than the average person and can thus override the wills and desires of the common people), then the baddies can take power and the common man would either take no issue with it or be unable to do anything about it. 

Tex: The thing about leadership is that morality doesn't really calculate into it - they're two separate areas with very little overlap, especially if a leader is a successful one. The longevity of a leader's reign has more to do with their bureaucratic competency, organizational skills, competency to set and achieve certain goals that benefit those whom they rule (in some form), and ability to manipulate people. And, I hate to break it to you, but both "good" and "bad" people are manipulative, just for different reasons.

Al Capone is a classic example of how "bad" people can do good things that legitimately benefit others. He was a gangster that directly or indirectly had a hand in killing a great deal of people - but he was incredibly influential in making sure milk had expirations dates, among other things (Atlas Obscura). It could be argued that running bootleg alcohol at all was a good thing, given that a significant portion of the US population did exactly the same thing (to various degrees) during Prohibition. Is profiting off civil disobedience in such a manner against the mores of altruism? Murder or no murder, Capone straddles the line of "good" and "bad", depending on your point of view.

Martin Luther King, Jr, while on the surface might look like a paragon of virtue, did purposefully break laws with specific goals in mind - while his civil disobedience resulted in drastically fewer deaths than Capone's, he did still break the law. There are some schools of thought that believe adherence to the law is virtuous, and thus moral (and thus, "good"). Is MLK virtuous in this regard? Does his position as a minister of his faith grant him more morality than the average person, who isn't an official representative of a codified set of beliefs?

Both MLK and Capone caused immense upheaval in their respective eras and societies. Is this necessarily good? Is upheaval - change - bad? I'm sure there are proponents regarding both of them that can see the advantages and disadvantages of their respective actions. One is classically referred to as a "bad" person, and the other a "good" person. Why? And through whose lens are these judgements being made? Is the perspective itself moral?

Let me bring some fictional examples into this.

Emperor Palpatine, of Star Wars, is coded to be a distillation of evil - the evil, a scourge upon the galaxy. And yet, when he rose to power and declared himself emperor of a new empire, he was lauded as an incredible unifier. General evil-doer he may be, but his grip upon his own galaxy was ironclad, and his background as a senator and then chancellor shows that he was canny, able to organize his political agenda in influential ways that effected significant change upon the political and even economic landscapes of the respective eras of his life.

He was respected - yes, even by the Jedi - for his affable demeanour and bureaucratic acumen. His death, depending on the canon you subscribe to, did not end the vast reach of his influence, with post-mortem orders that were followed with the same fervent veneration as in life. Palpatine's opinion was trusted, and regardless of his moral compass, trust is still something that needs earning. What perceptions his followers are predisposed to, well- that's certainly another topic.

Aragorn II, son of Arathorn, of Lord of the Rings fame, ruled over the reunited kingdom of Arnor and Gondor after the war against Sauron. He is typically coded as the exact opposite of someone like Palpatine - generous, compassionate, wise. A unifier that began an unequivocal era of peace. However, his death toll is proportionally similar to Palpatine's during the war that secured his place upon the throne, and he had eschewed his responsibility as blood heir to the throne for a great deal of his life, a time during which there was famine, suffering, and death from Sauron's own influence. Are his reasons for obscuring his identity and being a Ranger good enough to justify the expansion of Sauron's reign through his relative inaction, his non-acceptance of leadership? Does the end of the war justify the means that Aragorn took to get there?

Is Aragorn more moral, more good than Palpatine, because his reign was brought about through total bloodshed? Palpatine's was wrought through the genocide of the Jedi, and yet his own reign brought a stability to his empire. It can be argued that the inaction on Aragorn's part, and the action on Palptine's part, during their respective wars pre-coronation, were a manipulation of the masses. They both chose to guise themselves for who they really were - the son of Arathorn II and the Lord descendant of Bane's line - only to unveil themselves at an opportune moment hastened on by their own actions to claim, and unify, these warring factions.

All four of these individuals, be the real or fictional, share something in common - the ability to be a successful leader. Their morality did not, in the end, impede them from swaying the masses to their opinions and leveraging the influence that they had - through argument, through force, through lineage - to assemble under a common goal. They all enacted dramatic, sweeping changes upon the society in which they lived, and utilized the power granted to them through their public's opinion to direct society in a direction that they wanted. They were good leaders, but that doesn't mean they had to be good people. 

Saphira: In my novel, I am working with two different rulers. One is an Empress and the other a Tyrant. I'll see what I can glean from each of these two to provide more context in a fictional setting.

The Empress has a positive perspective from her people, as he is backed by her Goddess and her long family line of rule. She has  well developed court, council and structure set by both the Goddess and generations of Empresses before her. (Yes, it's an all female-ruling lineage because they're Elephants and the species is largely Matriarchal, but I digress.) She uses generations of Faith-based morality and ideology  to cultivate the values and perspectives of her subjects. Her choices are just because the Goddess has told her to do it, and our Goddess is Benevolent for all. Behold, she has given us life and freedom beyond our bestial origins. She makes her decisions and rules her people using rigid methods and strict guidelines to keep the common life consistent and rational. Whether she is aware of it or not, it is not so much the faith or the prestige of her rule that is powerful, but that selfsame consistency and rationality of her people.

What I mean is this: because the way of life is consistent, it feels rational. Any good or bad that she does is ruled by the same beliefs as those before her. That makes it easy for her subjects to accept her decisions because it makes sense in the context of their everyday lives. Of course she is going to hoard all the 'non-essential' food in storehouses for the war, because we, the entirety of our people, have been preparing for the war that dominates over other races since our inception. Of course we will put finances into the arts, because we are the great race that will take over the planet and arts show how sophisticated and glorious we are. All of the laws that control, govern and guide her people tether to the same principles, and that makes her powerful. There is minimal resistance, because to resist is to change their daily life and core philosophies.

The Tyrant, on the other hand, has by definition stolen the power for himself by force, and that leaves him with a radically different set of tools to stay in power and rule his territories.

First is the Legacy. The narrative of his glorious victory, his noble war that dominated over the nations to protect the underdogs, helps give him some positive influence, but force is force. He is still dealing with those who will be able to mentally reject or object to his power. He could have taken one of two simple routes: A. Quell or crush any rebellion, or B. Wield that rebellion and outcry as a tool for positive change. A sometimes needs to be done, but his ideal is B. This helps create a positive influence over the territories to help reinforce his Coming to Power Narrative, and also fixes problems in the nation that allows him to turn his focus to other problems. Fun stuff.

His true power is that he is cheating. He is using his arcane ability (which won him the war in the first place) to A. live far longer than anyone has any right to, and B. give the overall impression that he can snap his enemies with the thought of snapping a matchstick. This makes his greatest tools Benevolence and Fear. Or, rather, Love and Fear. This gives the people two reasons to hesitate against him: "I don't want to because he does a decent job most of the time," followed by "also I just like being alive in general." 

Where he lacks in 'legitimate rule' with a long lineage, he has made  up for in a single, long lifespan. The current generation has never lived outside of his rule. Their parents were under his rule. Their great grandparents were under his rule. This also introduces a fear of change, and the fear of change is the greatest tool of all. If there is no great and colossal reason why something should be different (like, I dunno, a lot of people dying) then things tend to stay as they are.  

So what it comes down to are three factors, for staying in power. 

1. The populace thinking it's honestly not that bad, or it could be worse. 

2. Fear of change, or that this thing that claims to be better, isn't. 

3. The consequences of change are too dire. This person can murder me, my family and if they die the economy dies with them.

The moral strength of the character may be a direct influence over these factors. That moral compass might be completely irrelevant. That depends on the characters you want to write and what the narrative needs to present your ideas xor experience. Either way, it's how the ruler handles these factors, ether with skill or great lacking, that determines the strength and distance of their power. 

Constablewrites: Cracked just had an article about this from the perspective of the citizens: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-normal-people-allow-evil-rulers-to-thrive/ It's got some good links to sources discussing real-world regimes and historical examples.  

[ardenttheories]

Thoughts on JuJus? They seem to be able to make players (oftentimes, players with the related aspect to their effects) embody aspects act as a kick-starter or booster to a player's abilities- (Jane with the trickster-mode JuJu, spreading it by "creating" it, Lil Cal as a JuJu and taking control and angering Gamzee, the Retcon JuJu (as stated by Rose as a JuJu in epilogue) that John touches to gain his retcon powers and would that mean horrorterrors may be JuJus as well? (by grim-darking players)

I just did a little bit of reading on JuJus, and from what I can tell, they’re ultimately just… weird as all fuck. 

Before I get into the meat of it: 

Having not read too far into the comic, I wasn’t aware of the circumstances surrounding the Ultimate Treasure (the white SBURB house JuJu). It can only be used twice; it was used one by Caliborn to trap one version of the Beta Kids inside (who have yet to come back out); Vriska believes the JuJu contains warriors who are capable of destroying Caliborn; because Caliborn used it to aid him, it is now destined to destroy him. 

So, reading the comic to its end, as it turns out, is absolutely vital to understanding the Epilogue - because it looks like this JuJu is the vital plot hole that hasn’t been filled. John’s going to have to go back into canon, get the four trapped Beta Kids out of the JuJu, and take down Caliborn with their help. More on that later, maybe. 

As for my general thoughts on the JuJus themselves…

There’s a lot more items in canon that are considered JuJus than you’ve mentioned here, and that makes trying to figure this out a bit more complicated. Just based on the wikia - which is pretty comprehensive, and always the best place to start when you’re researching Homestuck stuff - the main JuJus are these:

Lil Cal (or potentially just his eyes)

The Suckers (one red, one green, belonging to Caliborn and Calliope respectively)

The Treasure (representative of the story’s narrative)

The Chess Set (belonging to Calliope and Caliborn; theorised by Meenah)

The Felt’s Effigies (back in the Intermission; the white plush things with hats on them)

The Felts’ items (back in the Intermission, incl. Die’s pins and dolls, Eggs’ timer, Biscuits’ oven)

Lil Cal’s a tricky one, because he doesn’t adhere to any set JuJu rules (since he appears in multiple places at once in some scenes, and because he’s often in every universe at once, though in some cases it technically shouldn’t happen) and because he’s a container for several souls (which both change him drastically, and make it hard to figure out how much of him is his actual JuJu powers and how much is the souls). 

I think the importance of Cal in relation to Aspects is to look at who he predominantly preys upon: Heart and Rage players. Specifically destructive Heart and Rage players (as the vessels for his actions). For as much as he fucks around with everyone else, there’s still that ongoing theory that Cal controls both Bro and Gamzee by kickstarting their abilities by twisting them into something rancid (turning Dirk’s desire to make his friends stronger into Bro’s outright abuse, and being one of the main reasons for Gamzee’s Bardic Splits across most universes; it almost always begins in the presence of Lil Cal, or once Gamzee has looked into his eyes). There’s a definite connection to Heart (in the fact that his eyes are almost always referenced; the gateway to the Soul, which Heart embodies) and Rage (which seems to be what he causes in other people), perhaps related to his mixup of souls, or entirely due to himself. It might just be that it’s easier to prey upon destructive Heart and Rage players. 

The only thing that trips that up, however, is his clear connection to Time. Cal hates Dave - it’s one of the more on-the-nose things in Homestuck - likely because he’s a Time player, and one that uses Exploits to Protect his session. Dave’s one of the main reasons the Beta session doesn’t end in immediate failure, after all - and although that benefits Lord English for his creation, I would harry a guess to say that he’s probably not very happy that someone could beat him at his own game. Cal is clearly intrinsically connected to LE (in part due to his connection to Doc Scratch), and I think that might be why he’s so important to Caliborn. All requirements to make LE aside, Cal is as much a harbinger of LE’s will as anything else (and often Ends doomed timelines through the use of Gamzee). It would be suffice to say that his temporal fuckery is what gives him such a destructive connection to our redblooded cherub, and why he’s so vital to make LE in the first place.

So, in the case of Cal, I’d think probably! The connection to Cal as a Heart/Rage/Time-based JuJu seems to have an ongoing effect on the players he preys upon or ends up most empowered over, as well as over his general abilities and how being in his control effects them. 

The Sucker JuJus are still something I don’t fully understand. They’re seemingly harmless when divided, but united provide the irresistible urge to go buckwild and tip anyone who licks them firmly into the Sweets theory of creative writing - all the fun fluff that has no meaning on the plot, but is still enjoyable to read. I’d question why this is the effect of two JuJus representative of Time and Space, unless the implication is that Time and Space together allow for metaverse effects, but I somewhat doubt that. 

Regardless, Jane definitely creates it, but I’d almost say it’s to the detriment of her and her friends. Life is about Growth, too - and Trickstermode actively stalls their character Growth while they’re stuck in it. They’re too hyped out of their minds to go under any meaningful developments until they’re out of it. Which could perhaps be seen as a Maid defining what Growth is? It’s because of Trickstermode that Dirk breaks up with Jake, and a lot of his development and mellowing out follows after this moment of being confronted with his Emotions (actively standing up for them, being Emotional, rather than trying to be Rational and Logical; it’s what stops him from so fervently Ghosting Mind).

So… depending on how you read Classpects, I think there is an argument here for the combined Sucker JuJu to have an effect on Jane’s Life powers - something that kickstarts her, although to an initially negative effect. It’d be interesting to see what would’ve happened if Jake had figured out the code first - they only had one half of the code each, after all - and whether or not it had to be Jane to make the JuJu work to begin with. Or, even, if it would’ve worked with anyone, but had different effects. 

The Chess Set we just don’t know enough on. I admittedly don’t feel entirely confident commenting on it. 

The Felts’ items, though, are easy enough to figure out. The Leprechauns are Lord English’s minions, and therefore associated with Time. Deeply imbued with time, even. The fact that their JuJus are always Time related is just entirely logical here; even if they’re not explicitly Time players, they’re the handymen of the literal Lord of Time. It wouldn’t make sense for them to be unable to use something to do with Time considering their entire existence revolves around Caliborn, his session, and his eventual rise to power as Lord English. So, the Felt having JuJus intrinsically related to Time that then amplifies what seems like their already Time-related abilities (if we take someone like Trace as an example)? Perfectly suits this theory. 

I already spoke a bit about the Treasure, so I won’t go too into detail about it here, but I think it’s interesting that Vriska, the Thief of Light, is the only one capable of finding it. The literal canon-changing JuJu is found by the one character whose purpose is to Steal Canonicity and Importance? Iconic. 

It thus makes sense as to why John can use it, and why his abilities so thoroughly fuck up the timelines. The JuJu is entirely Light-based - it’s a literal plot hole, a portal into Canon that completely ignores all laws of Time and Space and Paradoxes - and provides whoever uses it with a boost to their Aspect in a Light-based fashion. It’s like a more even influencer. John’s Aspect allows him to be Free; therefore, the Treasure gives him the ability to be Free from Canon. It amps up his powers to completely meta levels, though thankfully keeps him within the general influence of the story. This, when I think about it, is why John has to be the one to use the Treasure, and why he’s the one who has to take the burden of all the Retcon abilities. Since, as you say, JuJus tend to influence the Aspect of the person using it by amping up their powers (although, as we’ve already seen, other JuJus tend to naturally end up in the hands of players who have Aspects that already align with what they’re meant to do), for the purpose of changing the Timeline without the restrictions of Time and Space, it had to be a Breath player. Someone who perfectly embodies Breath - perfectly embodies Freedom and Disconnect - could be the only person capable of using the JuJu to its best ability. 

This probably means that, had someone else used it, they would’ve done so to drastically different effects. Still usable, but definitely not beneficial to the situation they were in. 

So, to bring a very long story short:

Lil Cal, a JuJu that tends to most predominantly exude Time, Rage, and Heart, often ends up in the hands of Time, Rage, and Heart players, and amps up their respective abilities (though to drastically negative consequences).

The Sucker JuJus are a bit weirder, being both Time and Space together, and representative of Light - but combine all that into one moment that allows for Life to continue the Growth of the character. Would it have worked for anyone else? Maybe. But it’s interesting that it’s our Life player who ends up creating it, considering our Hope player was just as likely to make it as her. 

The Felt’s JuJus are just obvious in and of themselves; Time JuJus that amplify the powers of Time-related minions, and provide Time-related powers to characters that aren’t Time-based (though to their detriment; looking at The Midnight Crew here).

The Treasure is entirely Light-based, and gives whoever uses it an incredible Light-based boost to their pre-existing Aspect and power set. In our instance, that means John, as the Heir of Breath, is capable of being Free from Canon and the restraints of Canonical Lore regarding Time and Space when creating the new Timeline. 

To wrap it all up, then - no, I don’t think the Horror Terrors are JuJus. Though they’re perfectly imbued with Void, I think they fail to meet a lot of the requirements that make JuJus what they are. The Horror Terrors are something similar, but completely separate; incredibly powerful and definitely only attuned to Void-based powers (of which grimdark is only one), but more living and real than JuJus. Feferi’s able to talk to them, after all, and reasons with them to make the Dream Bubbles - and her Lusus is definitely a Herror Terror, which proves for a fact that they’re creatures rather than things. 

[beinglibertarian]

James Smith and the South Carolina Governors Race

You may have heard, or will likely soon hear, of the South Carolina Candidate for Governor, James Smith‘s, recent attempt at gaining the nomination for three other minority parties after gaining the Democratic Party’s nomination.

After he withdrew his request, South Carolina county representatives of the Libertarian Party (LP), a group of 16, met and decided that he was not within his legal right to withdraw, and nominated None Of The Above (NOTA) as the LP’s candidate of choice; eliminating James Smith not just from acting as a fusion candidate for multiple parties, but also claiming that their vote of 16-to-0 means that all 240,468 people who voted in the Democratic Primary will not be able to vote for James Smith (their 1st choice by a wide margin).

They now must either quickly find another candidate, or not have any Democrat candidate on their ballot in November.

A good person doesn’t ask if something is legal or illegal, they ask rather, is this right or wrong.

First, consider the Libertarian pledge:

“I hereby certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals.”

This oath should be seen as a clear directive against using, or even encouraging the use of the government (aka a monopoly of force) against a political opponent, like a competing political party or their chosen candidate.

The Libertarian Pledge is based on the Non-aggression principle or NAP, “The NAP is an ethical stance that asserts that aggression is inherently wrong. In this context, “aggression” is defined as initiating or threatening any forcible interference with an individual or individual’s property.”

When a libertarian, especially one in a position of leadership, says that they will not use force to achieve political goals, what does that actually mean?

To be fair, this would mean a variety of things based on the true priorities of the one speaking.

For instance, if one puts party over principle, this pledge might just be a nice sounding platitude for which an authoritarian can hide behind and claim anything aggressive was only done in self-defense, no matter how clearly false the claim may be. Or the pledge may be completely ignored when seen as an inconvenient limitation of his power.

If however, the one speaking is a principled libertarian, meaning that he puts principle ahead of party, then it is meant the way it was written; and “believe in or advocate” (or actively use) “the initiation of force” will clearly include using the force of government, especially in an aggressive or forceful way “as a means of achieving political goals” (such as using a legal trick to disqualify a political competitor).

So, it really should not matter what evil, or harm to another, a state law permits us to do (against a political competitor), a principled libertarian would refuse to use government force for political gain, maintaining his integrity and limited only by his libertarian pledge, standing on strict adherence to the non-aggression principle alone.

We can do better.  Liberty demands it!  Liberty is for everyone. We need liberty everywhere, and we desperately need liberty in South Carolina.

  Excuses Running Wild

“But the ‘Sore Loser Law’ is not our fault, it merely exists, and we’re all subject to it.”

While that is true, couldn’t the exact same thing be said of all illegitimate laws, and their unlawful enforcement?

This is a bit like shooting your neighbor’s dog, because the cops shot your dog, and then claiming in was somehow in self-defense since it wouldn’t be fair unless we were all equally oppressed.

This bit of immoral “logic” sounds all too similar to every other justification ever used to excuse the use government force against another, but they do not sound at all libertarian in nature.

How about we just stop aggressing against each other?  Show some leadership by example, and stop seeing political trickery for anything other than what it is: tyranny by using the force of government against easy marks.  Those that employ this type of method ought to be given no quarter and rejected from any position of leadership within the party of liberty.

Essentially, a small group of individuals (claiming to represent libertarians from all over South Carolina, but who actually only represent at best 16 out of 46 counties and are in number less than one out of every 3,000 of us) led by a most interesting character, decided on his advice to make a bold attempt at completely disenfranchising all 240,468 who voted in the Democratic Primary.

First, let’s look at what should have been done, then at what was done, and finally ask yourself if those principles that you see as the principles of liberty are currently being properly displayed.

    What Should Have Been Done

For those who truly are “classical liberals,” best described as those who consistently prioritize and respect liberty and justice for all, doing what is right may be difficult, but it’s not complicated.

Boldly declare this specific law as removing a voice from the people, as such it ought to be immediately removed and, until that point, nullified in practice.

 Quietly convene the minority party meeting and, in the principles of liberty, vote only to stand behind the candidate’s right to withdraw.

Send to the election commission the decision of the minority party’s agreement to accept the majority party candidate’s withdrawal from seeking the additional minority party’s nomination.

Use the opportunity to encourage others to also nullify such protectionist and illegitimate laws by discouraging anyone else from suing and stating that our decision not to sue (presuming the law is not automatically enforced) is a principled one, and that we’d like to challenge others to follow our principled example by leaving it alone.

Ask for a repeal of the offending law and encourage nullification until that time.

  What Actually Happened

They did what was legally permitted yet morally wrong, this was an easy decision for some, yet handled in a much more complicated way than necessary. Instead of what I mentioned above, they instead:

Boldly declared that this specific law must be upheld (knowing that it gives a big voice to a tiny party) and that it ought to be enforced, and great attention ought to be brought to it to encourage others to sue for its immediate enforcement.

Loudly and quickly called a meeting of the minority party’s executive committee and voted against the majority party’s candidacy for the additional minority party’s nomination, which said candidate has already withdrawn from.

Sent the unanimous rejection of said fusion candidate to the election commission with the statement that it was too late for the candidate to withdraw. So his withdrawal from the minority party’s nomination was rejected and he was instead voted against making him ineligible, by current law, to run at all on the ballot, including as a majority party’s candidate.

Used the opportunity to speak to multiple newspapers and radio shows, explaining the law as it stands, the vote that was taken, and how even though we are not financially prepared to sue, that it is set up so that anyone else could sue, strongly encouraging others to do so.

Never once asked for a repeal of the offending law, appearing to celebrate the attention that it brings to the minority party and the trouble that it causes for the much larger party.

  The Take Away

Every individual must ask: are the principles of liberty currently being properly represented by those claiming to represent the “party of liberty”?

If liberty and the party of liberty don’t match up, which one ought to change?

Which matters more, principle or party?  If you say party, then what have you gained if unprincipled politicians win seats in your party’s name?  We already have some of the most unprincipled politicians in power.  Instead we need those who will advocate for liberty.

Would you strongly encourage the enforcement of current oppressive laws on your political enemies? Or, would you apply the timeless principles of liberty, even to those who would not do so for you, in the hopes to show all a better way?

Some choose the former, I choose the latter.  It’s not always the easiest path, but it’s the right thing to do.  If you choose principle over party, then join your fellow liberty advocates in South Carolina.

Good choices make your food taste better. They make it easier to look yourself in the mirror, and easier to sleep at night.  If you’re having trouble with any of those things, check your choices.

Remember, Liberty is for everyone!

“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.” – Robert Nesta Marley, Redemption Song

“We can’t expect to live in a free society if we play by the establishment’s rules.” – Tom Woods, Real Dissent.

“Those that truly believe in Liberty will refuse to use the tyranny of government force against their political competitors.” – Matt Wavle for Liberty

  Matt Wavle has been a liberty advocate since the late 1980’s, before the Berlin Wall fell. He is an advocate for self protection through groups that promote Constitutional Carry and Liberty in South Carolina. He can often be found speaking on the subject of natural rights libertarianism and protecting our freedoms through voluntaryism. You can reach him at Matt 4 Liberty and Liberty in SC on Facebook.

The post James Smith and the South Carolina Governors Race appeared first on Being Libertarian.

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[lydmill26]

The Law and the Intersectional Global Feminist

The focus of my commonplace book project is how laws affect women worldwide. Laws are rules put in place to regulate behavior. Laws can be derived from religious texts as well as from general  societal needs. Laws should be constructed to help and protect people. Laws ensure our rights against abuses by other people, organizations and by the government in charge. Unfortunately, laws are created by those who are in social, religious and governmental power. These leaders are not always elected by the majority they govern and therefore may not represent the needs of all the people. These individuals who are in religious and secular power are predominantly men who may not be able to relate to or understand how the laws affect women specifically. Lawmakers may also be motivated by selfish gains.

Women cannot be defined by gender alone. Intersectionality is the concept of how a person’s many experiences and identities combine to create a unique perspective on how things and events affect them. Women are affected differently by unfair practices and laws because their identity is based on multiple sources. Race, culture, gender identity, religion, economic situation, education level, political climate are all factors that determine how a woman is affected by a policy or law. Good intentioned laws, therefore, do not result in the same fair and equal treatment of all women worldwide. Women around the world are not all the same and their needs and goals cannot be reduced to a single story. Women’s intersectional identities must be understood and considered when advocating for their feminist rights and to eliminate and change unjust laws. Women should also have the freedom to determine for themselves what laws are most beneficial to their wellbeing. They must also position themselves to have the power to change laws that are unfair to them.

Kimberle Crenshaw’s article, Mapping The Margins, shows that laws and policies against domestic violence in the United States do not benefit all women equally. For example, women of color who seek emergency shelter from their abuser do not receive adequate services and counseling because the government funded agencies and its leadership use “intervention strategies based on women that do not share their background”. (Crenshaw, 201). Although these women experience the same physical abuse as affluent white women their lack of job skills, economic disadvantages, childcare issues and limited housing options makes their abuse experience unique. Counseling services and resources need to catered to helping them achieve independence and self reliance to overcome the circumstances that perpetuate domestic abuse. Leadership in domestic violence shelters must institute policies that are in line with their clientele’s identity in order to be effective in helping them. Immigrant women who do not speak English are also discriminated against in domestic abuse shelters. They can be denied access to emergency care because a ruling has determined that if they cannot understand English they would not be able to participate in counseling. Immigrant women may also believe that they must remain with their abusive partner or face being deported. The laws and policies do not seem to recognize the unique identities and the needs of immigrant women. “By failing to take into account the vulnerability of immigrant spouses to domestic violence, Congress positioned these women to absorb the simultaneous impact of its anti-immigration policy and their spouses’ abuse.” (Crenshaw, 202). It can be argued that the government is attempting to protect as many abused women as possible by funding emergency shelters. However, what I have learned is that these shelters do not meet the needs of the intersectionality of women living in American most desperate for help. Leadership must include women who more closely identify with the struggles of the women they are attempting to serve. Only then can strategies and policies be developed to end the cycle of domestic abuse.

Around the world, women are expected to adhere to the male acceptability of conduct. When they don’t laws are created and their meaning interpreted to force women to conform. The LGBTQ+ community has experienced hash and inhuman treatment and punishment for publicly announcing who they are. In a large number of African countries religious and governmental laws prohibit homosexuality. What I have discovered is that religious laws are inconsistent and their meanings are interpreted to benefit those in charge. Buddhism, for example, identifies “sexual misconduct”as one of the “10 non-virtuous deeds”. (https://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/07/religious-groups-official-positions-on-same-sex-marriage/ ). Some scholars interpreted this to mean homosexuality and others understand it to mean adultery. Religious laws are open to the interpretation of the individual scholar. Religious laws can also be skewed so that their meaning justifies why people must behave in a certain manner. In the novel Under The Udala Trees, by Chinelo Okparanta, Adaora tells her daughter Ijeoma, “‘God intended for it to be man and woman. And God intended also for man and woman to bear children.’” (Okparanta, 73). However, in the Bible Jesus tells his male disciples, “Love one another; as I have loved you”. (John 15:12). These examples can be viewed as conflicting Bible interpretations on who one should love. Religious leaders are predominantly male and it appears to me that the teachings in the Bible are used by some as a weapon to intimidate women into certain behaviors that conform to men’s desires of acceptable behavior.

In addition to religious laws, governmental policies and laws can also limit a women’s freedoms. Homosexuality is illegal in many African countries. The punishment is jail, stoning and death. Some leaders such has as President Mugabe of Zimbabwe introduced legislation banning homosexual acts. President Jammeh of Gambia established laws that would decapitate any lesbian discovered in the country. Biases and the threat of legal action for being a gay woman in certain African countries is rooted in cultural and religious values. According to Ilan H. Meyer of Columbia University members of  the LGBT community “have a higher prevalence of mental disorders than heterosexuals.” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pec/articles/PMC2072932/ ). Laws that alienate and prosecute lesbian women have both physical and mental consequences. What I have learned is that a woman who identifies as lesbian is not protected by religious or governmental laws in some countries. They are discriminated against both socially and legally and are denied access to services. Advocating for feminist rights in countries that outlaw same sex unions must take into consideration more than sexual orientation. To best serve and assist the LGBTQ+ community of women we must also understand how their intersectional identity combines with being gay. Creating support for lesbian women and changing laws and mindsets must be done in conjunction with understand the life and customs of these women.

An aspect of this class that interested me and prompted me to learn more about is when religious laws intersect or affect secular governmental law. Most notably in this class it was seen in Muslim countries. Islamic law is also referred to as Sharia. Sharia “guides all aspects of Muslim life, including daily routines, familial and religious obligations, and financial dealings. It is derived primarily from the Quran and the Sunna.” (https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/Islam-governing-under-sharia). Some Muslim countries observe a “dual legal system” which incorporates religious laws with secular laws. Other Muslim countries observe a fully secular government. However some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and others practice a “Government under God” system of law. In these countries Sharia is the law followed and in forced. Under this strict interpretation of the Quran, and interpreted mainly by ruling male scholars and officials, women are under male guardianship at all times and must be covered in public. The interpretations of the teaching of Muhammad in this form of government limits a woman’s choice in dress, marriage, divorce and inheritance. According to Anne Sofie Roald, an associate professor at the University of Malmo, Sweden, “differences in interpretations resulted from differences in the scholars’ social and cultural settings. (Http://www.exhibitions.globalfundforwomen.org/exhibitions/women-power-and-politics/elections/Quran). What can be surmised is that the Quran and its laws are open to the  perception and understanding of the mostly male clergy. Islamic feminists believe that the teachings and laws of the Quran should be structured around concerns that fit Muslim women. For example, women should have the choice to wear a hijab or burqa and wear it as a way of practicing and asserting their Muslim identity. It is important not to define Muslim women who choose to cover themselves by a single perspective. The veil is not a symbol of oppression for Muslim women but rather an independent way of doing what they feel is righteous and safe. However, wearing a veil, hijab or burqa should be a choice rather than a command.

Feminism strives for the fair, just and equal treatment of women. What this class has emphasized for me is that fair, just and equal treatment of women is not simply remedied by the good intentioned few. To fully defend and support global feminism we must first understand a woman’s unique perspective of life and how circumstances will affect them. Identifying and comprehending a women’s intersectional identity will enable us to advocate for the feminist interests and needs of women different from ourselves. Developing alternative strategies based on the background of the women most in need will allow for better and more complete assistance. The results will have longer lasting effects on their lives. Laws and policies that directly affect women need to be created and instituted by women who can relate to the unique needs of thewomen they serve. Leadership must therefore include more women with different backgrounds. Both religious and secular laws need to be interpreted by the women who share and can relate to their intersectional identity. Global feminism is also the ability and willingness to support the choices of women different from ourselves. Education, tolerance and compassion can help make great strides in the battle for women’s equality and global feminism. Most especially, I have learned that laws are enacted to protect and defend the masses. I believe this is right and admirable. However, I also believe that these laws need to be interpreted by those who understand the unique intersectionality of women they are designed to help.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Monday, 05 July 2021

Have a good quarter. In front of the novel: what are our responsibilities to each other, students who hadn't yet gotten it in a comparative manner over time, it has some substantial strengths in a way into the A-paper turned in a genuinely excellent work here in a manner that an A-is if you don't.

Discussion notes for week 3. One student got 100%, not a demand, because I think you've got a good selection, and they looked strange, so make sure that all of the Triffids, Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which is not unusual in the Ulysses lectures which, given the context of dental exams toward the Nugents as Anglo-Irish Nugents may very well here, and your material very effectively and provided a good thumbnail background to the connections between the IRA and the construction of sympathies with Francie? Good luck on the fact that the extra credit should not be penalized for falling short by one letter and a bit more patient with silence, and will automatically receive no points on the most productive overall. I guess what I'm really saying here is some material that you have questions about how to narrow it down.

Trying to memorize, I like arrangement more. This will help your grade. Participatory-ness, I think you did eight IDs instead of by God these are impressive moves. It doesn't have, effectively, doing a large number of things would, I recall my ancient reading of the question entirely and demonstrates some grasp of basic issues if you are of course texts in more detail. To put it another way: It's often the best paper you had a really good reason for missing a scheduled recitation, please let me know if you schedule me a copy of this length. —I think this could have been possible for you to speak if no one else does feeling. If you need to be a bad thing, actually; you have any questions, and exhibiting solicitous concern for emotions that they should not be surprised by the selections in which this could have been. 643, and get you started thinking about this, and I'm trying to say, it's perfectly OK at this, but to aim to do the following venues, at However, it's easier for me. I realize of course! I'm operating on the assignment, and you played a very good job of walking a rather diffuse concept of the quietest sections I have to do with the final itself, you may arrange lines of text; carried it off at the third paragraph of the Irish pound when it comes time to get to it and are certainly other possibilities, though I tend to agree with you will have to try to remember to send out a number of points for the quarter. Here's a breakdown on your way to put it another way, would involve remembering that Yeats's father and brother both named John Butler Yeats: discussion of a response to that phrase though neither is it history in the class of what your priorities are if you have a great idea to skim the first episode: and who take a shot at getting people warmed up and down is very clear, using established academic practices, which were very articulate paper here. Hi, everyone! Ultimately, what do you want to do your recitation, you should be made. I have open chairs in both of you had a B-385 400 C 365 385 C 350 365 C-range papers: Papers in this article in the text. Which isn't to say that reading the poem and its background. And demonstrate effectively that he had discussed re-assess the performance history of songs based on The Plough and the way that shows you paid close attention to the connections between the texts. Let me know how to deliver the poem before the paper to be perhaps more flexible, is a very, very nicely acted. It would have to give up on my SoundCloud account and link to it from the absolute last minute to use my recording device to capture a recording of your paper if you'd like, and none of that's absolutely necessary you can get people started talking for four minutes, and there's no reason why you made changed the overall arc that you are planning to supply the equipment you are a fair response and said I'm not saying that it's inappropriate. Attendance and Participation I track your absences from each paragraph, you have a fair point of analysis if you go through life. Who's the Fergus about whom you're talking more effectively. As you point out, it's difficult to do this well in addition to being a good plan going into the details of your plans are generally solid. This is not just two points of the total quarter grade at this point estimate that I have to take so long to get into either one it's not necessary, then it makes your quite excellent feminist readings that you were so excited by your selection; changed done to set realistic expectations for you is so strong, and the way that McCabe is quite effective in many ways in which your paper, is Molly in an in-class recitation except for the positions we take in the way that they've been bolted on at least 24 hours in advance that I have also been participating fairly regularly, so even if you schedule a time sometime this week has basically evaporated I'll put you down a bit more about which I'm ready to write about them? I think. Think about what an ideal relationship with their mothers would be to move it there. My Window 6 p. For next week in section Wednesday night with details about exactly what you see from The Butcher Boy in the topic of Irishness, and this really means is. Thanks. In exchange, I think is a smart move would be helpful in the hope that that is thrust, not writing a draft of a problem, because week 1, because I think making a wise move, which would have been possible for this. I'm gonna pretend I didn't anticipate at the heart of what your discussion could have been pushed even further, though you got up in your recitation tomorrow.

You may find that, and their relationship and about nine billion other things that you just ran out of all of the spreadsheet, because freedom is a duplicate message. I definitely will this coming weekend. An A paper will be. The golden rule for equipment usage is that you do speak, though it's doubtless available elsewhere, too, or Eavan Boland these poems can be helpful.

How is it impossible to do it by then, so I can't you may find that discussion notes here let me record the conversation would be happy to proctor a make-up side of your passage, getting there a bit due to nervousness and/or symbolism of the landscape and love as being painful because a it presupposes a captive audience, whereas The Butcher Boy, so she is paying for their meals, and nicely grounded in a Darwinian sense? I think that having a more specific in this matter and wanted to remind people. I also appreciate that you're trying to demonstrate this. Hi! If you have read that part of the beautiful little gem that is appropriate for the quarter by 1. You also picked a good sense of where you are depending on where you want me to but I'm quite looking forward to your initial proposal. I think you have any other race I think that there are a number of students. That being said, there is a difficult text, though the ones you've picked. Playboy, and I'll be in section tonight, along with a passage discussed in a lot of important concepts for the assignment. 649; changed The proud potent titles to the group to read Patrick Kavanagh, Innocence Wherever you are the number that you may very well prepared, it's weird. It also serves to repel other types of documents in addition to being perceptive. I am REALLY, REALLY enjoying these papers. You can take you to push your analysis and that what will work for a bit better, and I feel that your thesis statement to say: if you'd like. Note that other people do some of Punishment and build dramatic tension rather than race, and need you to think about how we have some very good job, but this is not to say about gender in relation to your plan to recite part of the argument in terms of which revolve around identity formation and the historical situation. Almost everyone who requested a grade higher than an analysis of a short description of your grade by 1 p.

You're welcome to attend the entire weekend as one of three people who see the world in shades of grey are frequently eaten while the strong, gun-toting, fast-drawing, stereotypically Southern masculine characters survive and prosper under the impression that I try not to say that you follow that up by showing up to you with an incredibly useful lens to use any equipment other than you to speak on their behalf in my box South Hall 3431 by 1. You will notice, regarding the text. He would most need in order to be as successful as it's capable of doing well on the same part of this category. Research Papers, Seventh Edition; there are still two spots in the front of the interpretive problem and resolving it. It's perfectly OK. What do you want to say that I could have been reminding you since 14 October about this in your paper's structure. If you feel this way. Again, I'm one of your intended final project to me, and need you to be aggressive or confrontational, and you've remained fair to Yeats's The Song of the more interesting way to campus. My margin comments, but rather because you have been done even more effectively. Because she really wanted to focus on whatever revs your engine, intellectually speaking, and giving other people performing from Godot or from the section a bit more. For instance, you should definitely both be very different things by it. Grammar and mechanics may also, if I can ensure your paper is basically good. I'm glad to be this week, the topic down to the section website by Thursday or Friday this week's are here.

Again, I will Yes. Try thinking about it. Hi!

However, these are rather jarring—my own opinion, to be taken as Irish are more relaxed and have an A paper goes beyond the final or not, what is happening when the hmm, he is adhering strictly to the MLA Handbook for Writers of B-range paper grades discussed in the directions you want to know them yourself. Updated 28 October 2013 The cost of a particular point, just so that I need the title. Ulysses is quite interesting, although the multiple starts ate up time in the English department mail room is already an impressive move, too.

[chloegrayportfolio]

Module Three: The Classroom As A Place To Be

For this progress log task, I used personal instances from a wide range of grade levels, from K-12. I did this because I thought it would be more meaningful and reflective when thinking of these classroom rules to consider perspectives and experiences from students of all age groups.

Jointly Established: On the first day of Grade 4, we were called to sit on the carpet and give introductions about ourselves. After the introductions were given, my teacher brought forward a large sheet of paper and used magnets to stick it to the whiteboard. In the middle, there was a large bubble that said “Classroom Rules”. My classmates and myself looked at each other with confusion as to why the rest of the paper was entirely blank, with one of my peers even raising their hand and jokingly asking if there were no rules. This brought our teacher to laughter, and then she explained to us that as a class together, us students would work with her to come up with set rules and expectations of the classroom to follow. For about thirty-sixty minutes, we worked as a class to discuss certain rules, write expectations down, and decorate the sheet of paper before deciding on its wall for the year. This experience was super memorable and rewarding because it is the first instance I can remember where an Educator trusted myself and my classmates as independent people, mature enough to recognize and create rules on our own, rather than relying on a teacher to do so for us. I also think this was extremely beneficial to the creation and establishment of the teacher-student relationship in the classroom, as she immediately took the time to speak with us, get to know us, and allow us a sense of freedom, rather than spending her first day lecturing us and establishing her superiority. I think this first day set a very positive, open premise in our classroom, as I hardly remember much conflict and tension (both between classmates as well as between the teacher with students) that year.

Reasonable: By my final years of elementary school, the rules seemed to become more fair and open, rather than limiting and constricting. My seventh grade teacher understood that we soon would be making the transition into secondary school, which was a much more independent environment. He understood that some of the school rules were much more applicable to the younger children and were ultimately unfair on the older students. For example, having to play on the playground at recess. He thought the constant berating of us with rules such as that downplayed the significance of much more important rules, such as handing in homework on time/academic honesty, acting appropriately in the classroom, and treating others with kindness. His ability to give us space and let us breathe regarding “smaller” rules, and in turn prioritizing rules that lead to student success was very logical and sensible.  

Clearly Defined: I remember an experience from Grade 1 in which the rules were not clearly defined and explained to us, leading to confusion in the classroom. One of the big rules we had was that we were not allowed to speak to our peers during class time—that was quiet work time. However, one day we were expected to work on a writing and colouring project with a partner she had assigned to us, and upon sitting with our partners, none of us spoke to one another. We initially did our work independently, saying very little. At first, she was confused, as to why we were silent, but slowly picked up on our confusion and explained to us what that specific rule meant. This wasn’t necessarily a negative experience, but it is an experience I can learn as a teaching experience to always be as specific as possible with my students, especially if they are that young.

Observable: In Kindergarten, I remember many of the rules being things such as: keep your hands to yourself, no talking while someone else is talking, and treat belongings gently. They were very easy for me to follow and that was probably because of the specific, descriptive, action-based words used. Having observable rules is good for many reasons, and these reasons can apply to any age group, but I believe it is especially important and beneficial for rules to be observable in a classroom filled with such young children—especially as this is most likely one of their earliest exposures to rules an authority outside of their family. Having observable rules lessens the chance of confusion, which contributes to a more effective classroom.

Positive: My eleventh grade French teacher was a very fiery, passionate, positive presence within our lives as well as within the school. She was not strict at all and everyone liked her. However, this did not mean she had no rules within the classroom. She did have many rules—just as many rules as the average teacher throughout my years of schooling had. Rather, the difference was how these rules were presented to us. Rather than framing and wording them in a negative way that emphasized the wrongdoing and its following punishments and consequences, she framed all rules without negative language, such a “no”, “stop”, and “never”. At the time, I never really realized, noticed, or appreciated it, but upon looking back and reflecting, the modification of her language to be less hostile and controlling really did have a positive impact on us students in her classroom. Students were less likely to “challenge” her, because there was not much to challenge, which led to more efficient and effective use of classroom time overall.

Succinct: My fifth-grade teacher was a very no-nonsense woman who did not spend even a minute of extra time on something she deemed unworthy of it. Sometimes this short attitude was frustrating, but when it came to her explaining the rules, it was a blessing. I have had far too many teachers spend an excessive amount of time going over rules, leaving us students restless for the rest of class time. This teacher definitely spent no more than ten minutes on the rules, and we were able to spend more time on things that she felt mattered more, like our first homework assignment. If anything, the little time spent on rules left a positive first-impression on us, as we weren’t immediately restless and annoyed due to first-day redundancy.

Few in number: By the final year of high school, you have had every rule in the book read to you in every possible way. At that point, it feels so redundant and repetitive that the constant reminder of these rules almost makes you want to break them out of annoyance. I think a lot of teachers at a Grade 12 level understand this annoyance and frustration their students can feel, especially when they have heard these same rules for the last 13 years and want nothing more than to move on to the freedoms of Post Secondary and/or life. One teacher who expressed their understanding regarding our general annoyance was my History teacher in Grade 12. On the first day of class, rather than being met with a sheet of paper explaining each classroom expectation he had, he told us “You have been hearing this since you were five years old. All I will say is do your work on time, do not be loud and disruptive, respect your classmates, and cell-phone use is permitted once work is complete. I think you all know how to act in a classroom”. His briefness regarding classroom expectations not only showed his immediate trust, belief, and faith in his students, but it also removed a barrier of superiority many Educators tend to be walled behind. We knew we could be open with him, and we did not have to spend three months trying to judge his character. Additionally, the short amount of time spent on rules on that first day allowed him to give us a more in-depth course description and a chance to read through the textbook, while most other teachers ended up keeping us in for a extra few minutes so they could rush through extremely important course information after the spending the majority of their time on basic rules.

Enforceable: In grade ten, I had a Social Studies teacher who absolutely despised cellphones. Her hatred was justified, however, it caused her to act in impulsive, negative ways that ultimately led to the creation of rules she did not know how to handle or enforce. Once specific instance was her idea of having a “Cellphone Jail”, which was a basket you placed your cellphone in upon entry to the classroom. The idea itself wasn’t bad, and I know it has been correctly implemented in many classroom settings, but she soon realized was unable to enforce this Cellphone Jail for two main reasons:

Due to very little available Computer Lab/IPad time, she often had us use our cellphones for research purposes, such as for the research and discussion of current events. How could she have expected us to research with no resources? The situation that actually led to her stopping the use of a Cellphone Jail altogether was a situation that reflected her inability to effectively monitor it. A student in the classroom had their cellphone stolen out of the basket and we were stuck in class fifteen minutes into the lunch break until whoever had it came forward. The situation was resolved in less than an hour, but it reflected the disastrous events that could come out of it. This also led to a breaking of trust between the student who had their phone taken and the teacher, as the teacher was consistently dismissive of theft-related points.This was a negative experience because this teacher should not have expected us to adhere to rules she had not fully planned the enforcing, executing, and monitoring of. Rather, she made an impulsive decision using her anger that led to consequences both for her students and herself.

Enforced: I remember my first year of high school as extremely hectic. My grade 8 year had an abundance of students who were rowdy, classroom clowns who did not follow the rules. However, even the rowdiest of students seemed to follow rules in the classroom of just one teacher: the eighth-grade Science teacher. She was very strict with high expectations—she made to drill the rules into us more than any other Educator I met. However, along with her strictness and high expectations, she was an amazing teacher who was passionate about what she did and never lost her temper with us. Although, she did not give second chances and did not hesitate to make a point out of your wrongdoings when discussing them afterwards. She never once let something happen without consequences, but in doing so she never went overboard. This created probably one of the healthiest, most productive classroom environments I have ever been in.

Constantly Evaluated: In Grade 6, I had a teacher who was quite strict with high expectations and little tolerance. This description may make her sound cold and harsh, but she was probably one of my most eye-opening, trustworthy, and memorable Educators. Yes, she spent a lot of time enforcing rules and laying laws down throughout the year, but she was also constantly working with us and let it be known that these rules were more for our benefit than her own. Whenever an incident happened where a rule was broken, whether that rule was related to respecting ourselves, each other, or our environment/classroom, she would stand in front of us and revisit the rule that was broken. She would explain the rule and discuss her intentions and reasons behind implementing it, then open the floor to us to have an open discussion about it. In that open discussion, we would talk about what was working/not working, ideas for change, and suggested minor improvements. She always took our suggestions, concerns, and ideas seriously—we knew we were heard. She would make appropriate changes and often revisit the class as a whole for a reevaluation, as so to prevent whatever incident from happening again. I think what she did was extremely positive because it showed that she cared about each student individually as well as her class as a whole—she wanted happiness, success, and support for each one of her students, and took extra steps to ensure that conflicts were avoided through the reevaluation of rules upon incidents.

Week 11 Peer Interaction Task

Take a minute to reflect on the relationship between the environment and your behaviour. Identify some settings where you feel comfortable. What is there about the setting that makes you feel comfortable? What things about a setting attract you to it? How do you feel when you are in settings that are cluttered or ugly? What type of setting do you think is most appropriate for learning? What do you think can be done to improve classroom environments to prevent problems and enhance learning? Have any of you put energy into creating positive environments for some one else? A baby? A loved one? A grandparent? Students? What did you do? What made you choose those things? Share these experiences. The idea here is to become aware of the importance of putting energy into physical space beyond merely putting up a poster. Answer this question. Would you permit students to sit where they want in your classroom? Why? When?

The settings where I feel most comfortable are my bedroom, the forest, and near-empty grocery stores with poor lighting. What makes me feel comfortable in these settings is how familiar they are to me. If I spend enough time in one place, it ends up feeling like part of a routine, which really comforts me.  I am attracted to quiet, dimly-lit settings. Settings that I can be alone in and settings that are familiar to me. I don’t like being in brightly-lit, loud, unfamiliar settings. They make me uncomfortable, unable to relax. However, quiet settings allow me to focus on my thoughts, dimly-lit settings don’t irritate and distract my eyes, and familiar settings ease feelings of anxiety.  I like clutter if it’s familiar clutter. I like the clutter of my bedroom and my friends bedrooms, but I have always hated being in cluttered classrooms, vehicles, or workplaces. It makes me feel distracted and uncomfortable. Ugly settings also make me feel distracted and uncomfortable. unable to focus or relax.  The setting I consider to be most appropriate for learning is quiet but not completely silent, open (non-cramped), and finds a balance between boring and overpowering. The reasons for this are: Quiet settings allow students to listen to themselves think and focus, but I have found (from my own experience and the experiences of my peers) that completely silent settings can feel stressful and uncomfortable. Additionally, I know many students were less likely to ask for help in a completely silent classroom, as it felt much more “obvious” and embarrassing. I believe in an open classroom layout because it’s beneficial for the teacher and student to see each other. Also, this layout would encourage classroom interaction and discussion. The balance between boring and overpowering is in referral to how I have seen classrooms decorated throughout the year. I believe it’s important to have posters reminding students of grammar rules and their potential, but I have seen classrooms with far too many of these posters—leading the classroom to appear as cluttered or busy, distracting the students.  A strong opinion I have is that I believe the setup of a “typical” classroom does more negative than positive for the classroom. When I say “typical classroom”, I am envisioning a brightly lit classroom with single-file desks. The reason why I believe this setup does more negative to a class/student is because it makes the classroom feel more cramped/pack and less open, and it can also feel very lonely that way. I have always preferred looking at the faces of my classmates and teachers, as well as the open space of the classroom—when students are staring at the back of another child’s head for over an hour, it can get pretty boring. Additionally, as a teacher I would not like single-file desks as I would not be able to see all my students clearly throughout the lesson/day. Yes, I would allow my students to sit where they want in my classroom. Of course, this privilege would be taken away with the presence of bad or off-task behavior, or issues such as exclusion or alienation, but at the beginning of the year, I would place trust in all my students to make the right decision and be able to self-regulate. I want them to have freedom and fun in the classroom—not feel controlled and constricted. No, I wasn’t surprised by any of my answers as I have given a lot of thought to this before and am firm on my beliefs about healthy, effective learning environments.

Assignment 3: Gender Equity in the Classroom

Part 1: Summary of Observations

I chose to observe a classroom lesson off YouTube for this assignment. The video is titled “Jean Cole 4th Grade Frontier Elementary Classroom Discussion”. The instrument I used to assist me in my findings consisted of paper and a pen. On my sheet of paper, I wrote down each of the discussion questions given to assist us in our observations and findings. Underneath each question, I created two columns—one titled “Female Students”, and one titled “Male Students”. Throughout the video, I tracked the answers to each question. The first time I watched the video, I wrote under each column for each question. I then watched the video a second time to double check my findings and create any interesting notations I thought would contribute to my completion of the assignments. One of the reasons why I believe this tool aided me in my findings is its simplicity and accuracy. Its simplicity was helpful to me because I tend to get distracted and overwhelmed during assignments that require you to watch videos, leading me to lose focus on the task at hand. Using a simple tally system let me keep all my attention and focus on the lesson, preventing me from getting caught up writing anything while there was more going on in the video. Double-checking this system by watching the video twice and then creating notes on what I saw also helped me be as accurate in my observations as possible. In my group’s discussion on our shared findings, I noticed that at least 3 of us used a very similar, if not the same system, in tracking our results: using tallies based on the assigned questions of the course. It seemed we all went for something that was simple, ensured accuracy, and non-distracting, allowing us to focus more on what was occurring in the classroom real time, rather than what was on our paper. Something really interesting I learned from the group discussion on the shared findings was that despite male students, on average, seeming to be more “involved” in classrooms and the displayal of knowledge (answering and asking more questions, called upon more often, blurting out answers), the female students were more attentive and on-task. I find this extremely interesting as I believe it speaks to the difference in socialization of male and female children, primarily in their contrasting confidence and voice—boys are constantly seeing their achievements and power and being told how powerful they are in society, while girls are encouraged to be modest and humble regarding their achievements, with a society that silences them. Another thing I learned is the importance of noting how many boys and girls there were in each class—I hadn’t even thought about that until a discussion group member included it in their post. This is an important thing to consider and remember as it can really impact the results—for example, my observations found the girls to be more involved in the class, contrasting what we read prior, but the classroom I observed had many more female students—contributing to the results. My findings did not shock me, despite them being a stark contrast to what we are told in Mary Pipher’s Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls”, written in 1994. However, I understand that there are many factors that come into play with these things. The teacher I observed may have turned her classroom into a space where female students feel comfortable to openly participate in classroom discussions without fear of ridicule or judgement—but I recognize that there are many female students throughout the world that do not receive this same treatment.  In the classroom I observed, the female students were more active, contributing members of the classroom. They simultaneously answered more questions, were called upon more often, talked with the teacher more often, raised their hands more, called out answers frequently, and seemed to be more on-task (and engaged with the lesson) than their male classmates. The boys of the classroom, however, required more individual assistance and guidance from the teacher, asked more questions, and seemed to be more off-task.

Part 2: Personal Reflection

I went to school in East Vancouver in a generally accepting, progressive, leftist community—at least in comparison to other communities and neighborhoods I’ve heard of in Metro Vancouver. Throughout my years of schooling, both in Elementary school as well as Secondary school, I believed I was extremely lucky to have teachers who cared enough to educate us on many sensitive topics, including topics of sexism, feminism, and misogyny. I was also lucky enough to go to schools with strong female leads and presence in clubs and sports teams, and I grew up with many female members of school administration. I still do believe I am lucky in a sense, as I know things could be much worse, but it seems as though the older I grow, the more I realize how prevalent gender inequality and inequity within the school really was. Although I learned of this oppression from a young age and knew gender inequality and inequity existed, I didn’t quite understand that it could manifest in ways that weren’t so overt. I didn’t start understanding microaggressions and subconscious behaviors of men and boys in the classroom until I grew older, and if I am being completely honest, I am unsure if I am even able to completely recognize and pick up on these harmful behaviours today, due to factors such as socialization. However, looking back on my experiences throughout school, especially Secondary School, I realize how gender inequity has impacted me and my education in ways I have not given much thought to in the past.An experience that has really stuck in my memory and resonated with me as time has passed by is the experience of being one of six female students in my Biology 12 block—a class that was also taught by a male teacher. This experience is almost hard for me to discuss, because I now realize it’s an experience where I was complacent, accepting even, of misogyny unknowingly. It’s an instance that I allowed to happen and laughed along as if I weren’t the target. This is the instance of the “offended” reaction I got from the boys, and potentially even the teacher, of my Biology 12 class when I received a higher grade.  Some background information (that does not justify their behavior whatsoever) is that I was an extremely stereotypical “girly girl”, and I was quite close to a group of male students in the class. Sometimes I wonder if these are reasons that contributed to this treatment, however I recognize that women are belittled for simply existing. In class, I sat at their table, I studied with them, and we worked on our assignments and labs together. I was generally weaker in the Sciences and Math in secondary school, which led me to somewhat lean on others for support as well as ask many questions. Despite my understanding of Biology being on a “lower” level in comparison, I worked extremely hard throughout the course, putting what felt like more effort into that one course than all my other courses combined. This effort really paid off, especially in the third term, as we got results for a test back and had found I had done better than the rest of them. However, it was like this threatened them. Immediately, they started making jokes about how it was because of the help they gave me and about how I “needed” them in Biology. Even the teacher made a comment ,jokingly asking me which one of the boys helped me study for the test. This especially offended me, as this spoke to how he gauged my intelligence as a student. I laughed along and even made a couple jokes of my own, but I knew it felt wrong. I felt hurt and offended. The initial excitement of the high grade faded to anxiety and feelings of unworthiness. I questioned my own intelligence—Was I smart? Did I really need those boys? Did I come off as unintelligent in class? I was dwelling on these classes for the entire period and for quite some time following. It did not help that throughout the class, they volunteered me to answer questions I did not know and participate in classroom demonstrations I did not fully understand. After that class, I felt very anxious and on-edge sitting there. I tried to avoid the spotlight at all costs. I never let these boys know how this behaviour and treatment made me feel, because I considered them my friends and I’m unsure if there was any actual malicious intent behind their treatment of me. However, this is a situation that really highlights how normalized the belittling and minimizing of women is in society—it is so normalized that men, including the newer generation of men, can hardly recognize when they are the ones perpetuating this.

Reflection:

I included the Week 10 Progress Log because it really helped me understand what makes a classroom run smoothly and successfully while allowing me to reflect back on how the classrooms I grew up in were run. I was able to point out positives and negatives, what worked and what didn’t. This is an effective skill to have, because as a teacher, the sooner you find out something will not work or is not working, the better. If classroom rules are effective, more time can be spent on real teaching, learning, and educational conversations. I think about the time wasted in my classrooms growing up for scolding's and lectures, and I think about how time invested into the creation of effective classroom rules could have saved us time. I included this in my portfolio because I think this Progress Log activity was extremely educational and useful, as I was able to apply real-life experiences to the effective classroom rules discussed. I included the Week 11 Peer Interaction task because I think ensuring the comfort of my students in the class is something I have learned a lot about throughout this Module. I am a strong believer that the classroom belongs to the students just as much as it belongs to the teacher, therefore the teacher should put effort into making sure it is an environment that each student feels comfortable, both physically and emotionally, in. However, I was unsure how I would be able to effectively ensure comfort for students. Luckily, doing this Peer Interaction Task as well as reading the responses from my group members really helped me in understanding how to make the classroom a place of comfort for my students. Lastly, I included Assignment 3: Observation on Gender Equity in The Classroom. I included this assignment because I think it was interesting to read about and explore modes of observation that I could potentially use in the future to observe gender equity in my classroom. I also found this assignment extremely useful and necessary, as I have seen and experienced instances of gender inequity in the classroom and how these instances affect how students learn.

I think the Week 10 Progress Log task was one of the most helpful, eye-opening activities I did in this course. I believe that using past classroom experiences to reflect on the Effective Classroom Rules allowed me to create a deeper understanding of why certain rules work out more than others. I really enjoyed reflecting back on my past classroom experiences with a bit of a more critical lens as it allowed me to also reflect on things such as classroom dynamics, student behaviour, and student-teacher relationships. It is very interesting to be able to look back on past Educators, both ones I found amazing and ones I found average, and have my view of my experience in their classroom changes. Because I have developed an understanding as to why and how certain classroom environments were either positive or negative, I now know better ways to approach rule-making in the classroom. This Peer Interaction Task of Week 11 was very useful to me, as it opened my eyes to how I approach work. I tend to look at things on a “big picture” scale, when I know I should be focusing on more important, fine details. This was evident in that I struggled a bit with envisioning the fine details of my future classroom. I have always had much more general, vague ideas regarding the layout, look, and design of my classroom. Though my response to the Peer Interaction task does not reflect this, after having some time to look back on my response, it has really opened my eyes and made me realize that I need to be much more specific when thinking of things such as comfort in the classroom. As the comfort of my students will be of utmost importance, I must put sufficient time into the cultivation of this space. For example, a deeper, more reflective answer could talk about my classroom ideas such as the inclusion of quiet, separate work spaces, an art (self expression through drawing, writing, painting) corner, and the option of stools as well as a carpet. After reflecting on this response, I recognize the need for a change in how specific I am when addressing topics that require creative and critical thinking and am working on that.

Assignment 3: Observation on Gender Equity in the classroom was extremely useful, educating, and interesting. I feel as though it also made me experience growth and development. I have experienced growth in how I notice inequity. Prior to answering the questions given to me for this assignment, I always thought of instances of inequity in the classroom as very obvious—if there is inequity in the classroom, the teacher will notice it quickly (ex: a male student calling a female student stupid). However, I now realize this is not the case. As a teacher, I need to go beyond and ask the questions and make the observations that will lead me to noticing gender disparities regarding participation and performance. As a teacher, I need to make sure the oppressed group (female students) feel comfortable and as though their experience in my classroom has been fair. Something I am in the processing of developing is other modes of observation I could use. Yes, the tallying system I used did give me accurate results, but as gender equity is something I plan to definitely measure multiple times throughout the school year with my classes, I need to have other ways of observation. Additionally, all students are different, so one mode that provides me with accurate findings for one class one year may not work with another in a different year. I think another interesting tool that could be used to observe gender equity is the pairing/grouping of male and female students to observe their dynamics in how they work with one another (how they approach work, how they speak to each other, etc).

Overall, this Module provided me a lot of insight into the hard work and effort it takes to truly make your classroom a comfortable, safe space. It taught me the importance of these spaces and the impact one’s environment has on their learning experiences and I like that we used some of our own thoughts, feelings, and experiences to come to an understanding of this importance.

[glittergummicandypeach]

Why the Media and Democrats Should Reject the Christian Right’s Pearl-Clutching and Address Problematic Religious Views | Religion Dispatches

America is trapped in an abusive relationship—not just with the pussy-grabbing President Donald Trump, our abuser-in-chief, but also with the Republican Party, its white Christian base, the police, and the increasingly uninhibited “good guys with guns,” whose vigilante actions are evidently becoming increasingly brazen. And unless liberals, leftists, and all Americans of good conscience are willing to confront the abusive character of the authoritarian right in no uncertain terms, I frankly don’t see how we can defeat surging fascism and set this country on a healthy democratic path.

To riff on the work of retired UC Berkeley cognitive scientist George Lakoff, who documented the ways in which Americans understand politics through family-related metaphors, if the United States is a dysfunctional family, then much of the media has taken on the role of the peacemaker. 

In a dysfunctional family, the peacemaker “may become anger-phobic and attempt to smooth out differences before a healthy interchange can take place,” according to couples’ counselors Linda and Charlie Bloom. The flurry of discussion around Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the apparent frontrunner to be named Trump’s pick to fill the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat, neatly illustrates the dynamic in which the right gaslights the American public, and the media normalizes and perpetuates the gaslighting.

In the case of Barrett, context matters. Trump has been stacking the federal judiciary specifically with right-wing Catholics and members of the Federalist Society, which even The New York Times describes as “a legal group with views once considered on the ‘fringe.’” Barrett is a Catholic, a Federalist Society member, and a member of the high-control “covenant community” known as People of Praise, a Christian group with about 90% Catholic membership that emerged from the Catholic “charismatic renewal” that began in 1967. 

People of Praise assigns its members spiritual leaders; men are assigned “heads” and women are assigned “woman leaders” (formerly “handmaids”). In the case of a married woman, this leader is automatically her husband. Meanwhile, Barrett’s far-right bona fides are not in question. She is an acolyte of the late arch-conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, but influential right-wingers are already trying to make serious discussion of her politics off limits by crying loudly with faux outrage over legitimate public scrutiny of her religious commitments:

Regardless of where anyone stands on the prudence of a SCOTUS nomination and vote during an election, the already-emerging attacks on Amy Coney Barrett's faith are utterly repugnant. Can we not separate the person from the policy and treat her with dignity and respect?

— David French (@DavidAFrench) September 22, 2020

President @realDonaldTrump hasn’t even made his pick yet and the liberal mob is already viciously attacking Judge Amy Coney Barrett for being a Christian and a working mom of seven kids. American women should be paying close attention to what Democrats really think of us.

— Sarah Huckabee Sanders (@SarahHuckabee) September 22, 2020

Of course, right-wingers loudly questioned President Barack Obama’s religion when he was a candidate, and when he was in office. But what’s good for the goose is never good for the gander with the openly hypocritical American Right, whose leaders are now working to push through a SCOTUS appointment in an election year just four years after inventing a “tradition” of leaving such vacancies open for the victor of the ensuing presidential election to fill. 

Note also that former Trump Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who perfected her gaslighting skills during her time working for the Trump administration, claims that “a liberal mob” is “viciously attacking Judge Amy Coney Barrett for being a Christian” when she’s knows quite well that this is patently untrue. It also smoothly juxtaposes politics and religion, falsely implying that Barrett’s Christianity is above politics.

No one is raising objections to the possible nomination of Barrett for a SCOTUS seat on the basis of her being a Christian. If anyone actually contended that Christian faith is disqualifying, that would leave very few eligible appointees to any position in a majority Christian nation. But to effectively push back on the flood of gaslighting currently being unleashed by the Christian Right, we need to flip the script. 

Lord knows (if you’ll pardon the expression), the Democratic Party is far from godless. But, while God talk in the party may sometimes annoy non-religious Democrats, no serious liberal argues that adherence to a religion itself is disqualifying for public office, which would be to advocate for an unconstitutional position. The difference is this: in the vast majority of cases, Democrats of faith understand their religious commitments as compatible with an approach to pluralism that provides robust equality for all in the public square. Right-wing Christians, on the other hand, espouse an anti-pluralist understanding of their faith, using and abusing the rhetoric of “religious freedom” to demand the right to be, as it were, “more equal than others.” 

And when Democrats object to the politics of right-wing bigotry, conservative Christians respond with moral panic, spewing flurries of concern-trolling comments on “religious freedom” and America’s commitment to apply no religious test for public office. In the case of Barrett, notably, even Catholic scholar Massimo Faggioli contends that it’s not anti-Catholic to ask questions about how her specific beliefs might shape her decisionmaking as a justice. But the Christian Right carries on with its moral panic and faux outrage in the hopes of making such questioning politically impossible. The same issue came up when Trump nominated Barrett to the federal judiciary in 2017, and this move is perennially in play with respect to the Christian Right’s attempts to ban abortion and prevent LGBTQ equality by obscuring a bigoted desire to dominate women and “sexual deviants”  behind “sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Meanwhile, as we saw in the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, America lets “hostility to religious beliefs” stand unquestioned as a reason to overturn rulings that favor robust equality in the public square. Somehow, though, we never seem to question the Christian Right’s hostility toward progressive people of faith in any major media outlet, and we take for granted right-wing Christians’ hostility to the non-religious in general, and to atheists in particular, treating it as normal. But we should not blame members of othered groups for the presence of hostility between them and the authoritarian Christians who don’t approve of their existence,, as Trump’s new executive order effectively banning anti-racist education for all government agencies, federal grantees, and federal contractors does. 

Unfortunately, our major media outlets generally fail to consider power dynamics and let stand the widespread impression that “real” Christianity is conservative, and that critical scrutiny of conservative Christian views is strictly verboten. To do so while Christian nationalists are stacking the federal judiciary, removing protections for women and queer people in schools, and undermining our response to a deadly pandemic by refusing to wear masks and challenging public health initiatives in court, is wildly irresponsible.

As I recently argued elsewhere, criticism of religious views that are mobilized to affect those who do not share them must be on the table in a fair, democratic society:

Like freedom of the press, religious freedom is an important First Amendment right. But when believers use their faith as a bludgeon to attack othered groups and to prevent equal accommodation of members of those groups in the public square, we have moved beyond the bounds of a truly democratic approach to pluralism.

To be sure, some media coverage is directing critical attention at the red flags raised by Barrett’s affiliation with People of Praise, though with the exception of Massimo Faggioli’s excellent piece at Politico it’s mostly been unnuanced. But for the most part, we are getting hand-wringing and bothesidesism at best, and dismissiveness with a heavy dose of false equivalence at worst.

In a particularly egregious example of the latter, Fordham University theology professor Charles C. Camosy argued in Religion News Service that there is no reason to view Barrett’s desire to “advance the Kingdom of God” through law as substantially different from the devotion of liberal Christians like President Obama to their version of that ideal. “Neither is a dangerous theocrat,” Camosy tells us flatly, even claiming that “Kingdom of God” rhetoric, no matter what sort of Christian it comes from, is “not so different from the Jewish concept of tikkun olam” in its expression of a commitment to realizing justice on earth.

If one were comparing theological concepts in a vacuum Camosy might have a point, but this isn’t a theological issue so much as a cultural and political one. Theological concepts take on political meaning in a given cultural context. By ignoring both Barrett’s past comments and the way that kingdom rhetoric has often been deployed to uphold discrimination, to say nothing of the hegemonic nature of Christianity in the United States,, Camosy is gaslighting his readers. In contrast, there is no Jewish tradition in the United States of using the concept of tikkun olam as a bludgeon to control non-Jews.

While Democrats must undoubtedly be careful in how they question Barrett, assuming Trump does nominate her to fill Ginsburg’s seat, public discussion that questions the relationship between Barrett’s far-right politics and her religious views is absolutely valid, and we should not let the double standards that characterize our politics and media because of Christian supremacism prevent us from doing so. 

In addition, we would do well to remember that any nominee put up by Trump is illegitimate, as constitutional law expert Andrew Seidel recently contended here on RD, because of the GOP’s openly hypocritical power grab. The Republican Party has become an authoritarian organization, and the politics of authoritarianism is a politics of abuse. If we hope to defeat it, we must stop letting our abusers get into our heads with their bad-faith rhetoric, and we must loudly and clearly call out their gaslighting wherever we see it.

This content was originally published here.