The photo is of the Ingomar club. It was built by one of the timber barons in the late 1800’s and is the most distinctive building in my little corner of the universe. It always reminds me of the Winchester Mystery House, the gun makers widow haunted by the spirits of dead Indians thought she would live as long as they never stopped building on the home. What does this have to do with elitists you might ask? Well the difference between being elite and elitist is in the details and a story I am working on for you guys from a trip to South Dakota put me in mind of dead natives.
I am not of the elite, it took me 18 years to finish a BA for Christ sake not exactly Rhodes Scholar material. That being said I am a liberal latte sipping pinko bleeding heart elitist and proud of it. Well I really don’t like lattes that much but the phrase is so evocative I couldn’t resist. Allow me to elaborate.
I live in America. I was born here and it is a pretty nice place to live. I have had the chance to visit a few other countries and some of them are pretty nice as well. In my time in the good ole USAF I also got to meet lots of folks from other lands, Asian dependent wives, middle eastern pilot trainees and central American refugees serving to become citizens to name a few. I point out these facts only to show that my position is not one of ignorance of other cultures but from my own sense of morality.
The term elitist is probably inaccurate to some extent, it might be better to say that the upcoming rant is more cultural imperialism but the world will be a better place when we adjust cultural diversity to exclude nonsense and barbarism.
I want the guy in charge to be smarter than me. If you are a legacy to a school that isn’t exactly noted for academic brilliance and finish at the bottom of your class you are not really qualified to run the worlds largest military. I think the last legacy guy proved that point. Oh I forgot evidence isn’t important only faith.
If your religion thinks that mutilating genitals of children is acceptable then your religion is not period no exceptions All religion is a problem in my opinion but that is just an opinion and we already established that as an ass I have one but your right in a free society to think whatever nonsense you like stops when you start cutting the fun bits off other people especially children that have no say.
If your culture treats ½ the worlds population like second class humans than screw your culture. It is inferior not the woman get over it and join the civilized world. No honor killings, rape is not a right that comes with a marriage license, nobody has to wear a sack over their head because you can’t keep it in your pants. You do not have the right to tell one person they must die rather than remove your DNA from their womb. These points are not negotiable either All humans are equal and endowed with inalienable rights or none of us are.
My anti theism does not negate Jefferson’s assertion that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator ….” the fact that the creator was a pool of primordial ooze and the creation took several billion years doesn’t alter the fact that human rights are given to us all by virtue of being human. I have mixed feelings about Thomas, a brilliant thinker as well as slave holding rapist. How did he reconcile these dichotomies in his own mind. Sort of the same way that so many in our culture believe that separate but equal is horrible for blacks but just fine for the gays and lesbians among us.
Many of the worlds great thinkers held some rather strange beliefs so I guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised I should just be thankful that Newton didn’t let his religion interfere with his mechanics and that Darwin didn’t either.
My culture is full of its own viral memes, rampant commercialism, the elevation of private property over the environment and the most destructive of all Manifest Destiny. I freely admit that this glass house rock thrower is far from perfect and invite corrections from all quarters. After all as an over privileged white male I am way past due for a little comeuppance.
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