Tag Archives: Donald Trump

July 3, 2017 · 10:02 am

Politics, Safety, And The Impossible Paradox

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As I’ve said before, I really don’t like talking about politics. I’ve learned over the course of my life, often the hard way, that nothing makes people less comfortable, less horny, and more insufferable than politics. It couldn’t have less sex appeal without involving a clogged toilet, a dead rabbit, and Sean Hannity.

For the most part, I try not to get too political on this blog. I’d much rather be talking about comic books, sex robots, and Leslie Knope. However, there are times when I feel compelled to say something about a particular issue. I often do that with gender issues like feminism because that indirectly ties to the sexier topics I talk about. I try not to take too strong a position. More than anything else, I try to give perspective.

That’s what I did with my post about the health care debate. I tried to be fair to both sides. I tried to frame the issue in a way that both Michael Moore and Ted Nugent could appreciate. I didn’t offer any easy fixes. I didn’t try to denigrate one political ideology over the other. I just tried to point out the inherent flaws in the issue itself.

In the course of writing about that particular debate, I wanted to apply it to a few other issues. However, I quickly realized that there was no way I could do so in a single article and remain concise. When I write on this blog, I tend to assume that part of the audience is drunk, horny, or some combination of the two. That means I can’t drone on for too long, even though I have a habit of doing that when it comes to comics.

Health care is just one issue. Granted, it’s an exceedingly complex issue, but it’s still one issue. The underlying argument I made was that, beyond the complexity, both sides of the political spectrum have the same goal. The problem is that what they want isn’t just logistically difficult. It’s physically impossible.

It’s another hard truth, one that I’d argue is even harder than the truth surrounding O.J. Simpson. Sometimes, even when the politics involved have a noble goal, the particulars of an issue are just beyond our capabilities as humans to produce. We humans can do all sorts of amazing things, from the Great Pyramids to solar-powered vibrators. However, we are a species of many limits, many of which we often fail to acknowledge.

This leads directly to an even bigger picture, of sorts. It also involves something that’s currently impossible in a world without superheros, super-powers, or computers that can’t be hacked for hilariously stupid reasons. Until we start enhancing ourselves, it’ll remain impossible for the foreseeable future.

I call it the impossibility paradox because most people, regardless of their political persuasion, act as though the impossible aspects aren’t there. They’re often smart, driven people who are every bit as driven as their ideological opponents. They work so hard to accomplish something that’s physically impossible. Then, they’re surprised when they come up short.

On top of that, the people they claim to represent or help get upset with them because they didn’t accomplish what they promised. Never mind that what they promised was never possible to begin with. Human beings just aren’t that reasonable, even if they like to pretend that they are. Everybody is still subject to the constraints of reality and, like a moody dominatrix, it doesn’t mind telling us who’s dominant.

Now, apply that dynamic to what might be an even bigger issue than health care for some people. Whether you’re gun-toting conservative or a pot-smoking liberal, most agree that a central function of any government entity is to keep citizens safe.

No state, kingdom, or Dungeons and Dragons guild can survive without providing some level of safety. People, society, and the economy can’t function unless there’s some level of safety. Nobody wants to make iPhones and exchange brownie recipes if there are barbarian hordes just a few miles away, ready to raze your home to the ground.

Since the dawn of civilization, every functioning society has had to provide some measure of safety and protection to its citizens. In exchange, citizens pay taxes to the state so that it can have the resources to perform these duties. Ideally, they’ll use those taxes carefully in accomplishing this goal. In the real world, however, nobody will ever say with a straight face that all taxpayer money is spent wisely.

However, this is where even the anti-government, Ron Swansons of the world have to face another cold, hard fact of reality. It’s every bit as inescapable as the health care debate. Even if, however unlikely, a government spent every penny of taxpayer money wisely and dedicated every resource into ensuring safety and security, it still wouldn’t be enough. That’s because of one simple truth.

“Nobody knows ALL the facts and nobody CAN know all the facts.”

If that sounds a bit too similar to the advice I recently gave on making sense of the world, then bear with me. There’s a reason for that. It’s similar, but not the same because the scope of the issue is different. Every issue takes on twisted, often frustrating new dimensions when politics enter the picture. Just ask Major League Baseball.

When it comes to safety, though, there’s an inescapable complication that has plagued every government entity that ever existed and will continue to plague governments until our robot overlords take over. To provide safety, you need to know everything about a situation and have the resources to deal with it. Unfortunately, or fortunately for privacy-minded folks, nobody can know everything about a given situation.

Nobody can know for sure when and where a terrorist attack will occur.

Nobody can know for sure whether or not a rival nation is plotting against them.

Nobody can know for sure whether a handful of countries are colluding to undermine them.

Nobody can know for sure whether that weird-looking guy walking down the street is about to go on a shooting spree or just skipped laundry day.

There are just so many unknowns in the world of geopolitics. There are a lot of unknowns for individuals as well. Hell, we still can’t figure out just how useful or useless pubic hair is. How are we supposed to know everything about the threats to our safety and sovereignty as people?

That’s just it, though. We can’t know. It’s physically impossible for any one human or group of humans to know everything about a certain situation, individual, or threat. Sure, the CIA could bug your phone and hack your browser history. That may even give them plenty of reason to believe that you’re conspiring with a hidden network of BDSM enthusiasts to take over the entire state of Montana.

At the end of the day, though, even the CIA can’t know for sure and that has proven costly throughout history. No agency, no matter what they call themselves or what sort of fancy acronyms they use, can know everything about a situation. I’m sure they’d like to know. If you’re of the mind of Alex Jones, you might even believe they’re working with aliens to remedy that.

Even if they did have some way to read all our thoughts, there’s still the matter of sifting through random daydreams and outright plots. Honestly, who hasn’t contemplated whipping out a can of lighter fluid and setting a coffee shop on fire because they got your order wrong? The difference between those thoughts and real action, though, is huge.

I’m not saying that governments and police forces should give up trying to keep people safe. We still need some measure of safety in order to function as a society. The problem is that because of this safety paradox, we end up in these brutal cycles that only make us more fearful. It goes like this.

  • Some strange, complex, dire threat is out there and the media blows it up to scare people

  • The people demand action from their politicians and authority figures

  • Those politicians and authority figures try to respond, if only to maintain their hold on power

  • Those politicians and authority figures fail to provide perfect safety because doing so is impossible

  • The public gets upset with the existing people in power and looks for alternatives

  • Some new power-seeking people enter the picture, making impossible promises to fix impossible situations’

  • The citizens, desperate to fix the impossible problem, put these people into power because anything seems like an improvement over the status quo

  • The people who made the impossible promises, predictably, fail to deliver and generate another round of disillusion

  • The cycle starts all over again

This is part of why congress’ approval rating is so low. It’s also why western countries keep cycling through political parties, constantly voting new people into office in hopes that they’ll find a way to solve impossible problems. In every case, they are unable to deliver. Most people don’t see the impossible logistics, though, so they just look to the next power-broker who can deliver.

For now, we’re very much at the mercy of impossible situations and the people who claim they can solve them. Some of these situations will become less impossible as we develop better tools. Until then, though, let’s be mindful of the impossible demands we make on those we entrust with our safety. It’s often when we have impossible standards that we doom ourselves to unlimited disappointment.

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June 28, 2017 · 7:02 am

Health Care, Politics, And The Impossible Paradox

As a general rule, it’s my policy to ignore major political issues until after the protests have died down and people have stopped trying to strangle each other through computer screens. Politics is rarely sexy, unless it involves Monica Lewinsky and whoever John F. Kennedy was screwing. In my experience, nothing kills the mood faster than a heated political debate.

I know I’ve spoken on certain hot-button issues before. I did a quick response to the Women’s March earlier this year and the March for Life that quickly followed it. Those weren’t debates, though. Those were protests with simple, clear messages that were easy to break down. Debates aren’t just a little trickier. They’re downright infuriating.

There was a time when I used to enjoy engaging in such debates. I would even go out of my way to find people who disagreed with me, try to understand their position, and then try to argue my own. It was a good mental exercise, but that’s all it ever was.

At no point did I ever change anyone’s mind about anything. At no point did anyone change my mind either. Like debating creationists, they might as well have just been glorified shouting matches. They weren’t meant to actually persuade the other person. The debate was just a spectacle and nothing more.

The fact remains that people don’t like to change their minds about anything. I’ve mentioned time and again how rigid and stubborn the human brain is. Changing an opinion about something is a last resort. Before that happens, people will do the kinds of mental gymnastics that would make a Russian gymnast cringe to justify their opinion.

That brings me to the ongoing health care debate in the United States. I know everybody has an opinion on it and they want to shout that opinion from the highest hill over a bullhorn while Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty give them a back massage. It’s one of those issues that a lot of people are sick of, which is kind of ironic when you think about it.

It’s a frustrating debate to have in the first place because most other industrialized countries have resolved it. The United States of America, despite all the flexing it does of its patriotic nuts, is one of the only industrialized countries that doesn’t have universal health care.

It’s been argued over endlessly by politicians and presidential candidates. Every now and then, one will even build a platform around it. There have been any number of initiatives and policies, some of which do result in meaningful legislation. However, the debate still continues and so does the whining.

Now, I’m not going to take a position in that debate. That’s not the purpose of this post. I’m writing this because someone needs to point something out in this debate that nobody seems to recognize. It’s something that both sides of the debate need to understand, if only to maintain a sense of perspective.

It’s not a thought experiment. It’s not an opinion. It’s not even an argument or a policy idea. It’s a cold, unambiguous fact that is at the heart of the health care debate and others like it. This is a hard truth so whether you’re a card-carrying liberal or a die-hard conservative, you might want to brace yourself.

What we’re trying to accomplish with our health care system is physically IMPOSSIBLE.

Let that sink in for a moment. I don’t usually write in all caps, but this is something that’s worth shouting. If you’re reading this out loud, please read it over again and shout it as loud as you want because it needs to be belabored.

Health care, be it universal or reserved for rich people with decent insurance, is an impossible endeavor that tries to account for infinite possibilities with finite resources. There are over seven billion people on this planet. There are hundreds upon hundreds of diseases that afflict the human body. Treating every person to the utmost just requires too many resources with too few people qualified to administer them.

That’s why the answer to the health care debate isn’t as simple as adopting the same universal health care policies as Europe. Contrary to what Bernie Sanders fans might believe, health care in Europe faces some pretty huge challenges for the exact same reasons. There are too many people who need health care, but there just aren’t enough resources to go around.

Go to any country with any type of health care system you can think of. Don’t be like Michael Moore and focus narrowly on one particular part of a system. No matter where you go and no matter what system you encounter, be it universal or administered by wizards, you’ll always find cases of people not getting the care they need.

Within those cases, you’ll find plenty of unusual cases, such as people who resort to do-it-yourself dental care. You’ll also find plenty of tragedy about people suffering horribly due to their inability to get the care they need. So long as demand outstrips supply, they’ll always happen. That’s just basic economics and dispassionate logic.

In the end, whatever health care policy or reforms get enacted, it won’t be enough. There will still be people who suffer because of it. There will also be people who end up paying more for both their care and that of others. There’s just no way around it. Health care requires resources and people. When there aren’t enough of both, you’re going to get people who get screwed over.

It doesn’t help that many countries, including the United States, face a shortage of qualified doctors. Despite the generous salaries and sexy nurse fantasies, the actual process of becoming a doctor is extremely costly and very difficult. No matter how sexy Hugh Laurie makes it look, becoming a doctor is hard and laborious.

It also doesn’t help that pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies are for-profit companies whose incentives aren’t always in line with providing the best of care. There are people in this world who will risk doing real harm to sick people in order to turn a profit. These people aren’t super-villains or sociopaths, for the most part. They’re just working within a system with flawed parts.

This is not to say that the health care debate is hopeless. For the moment, the situation is impossible. There really isn’t a way to provide adequate care to everybody. However, there are some rays of hope that should keep everyone’s panties from getting too dry.

To combat the doctor shortage, companies like IBM are using Watson, their Jeopardy champion, to help diagnose disease and research treatments. Major biotech companies are using tools like CRISPR, which I’ve talked about before, to alleviate diseases that were once fatal and expensive.

Further into the future, advances in technology like smart blood or brain implants will improve overall efficiency in determining appropriate care. However, there will still be a cost. There will still be a bureaucracy, which both sides of the political spectrum find inherently unsexy. So long as that process is determined by humans and for humans, there will be flaws.

Remember this the next time someone debates health care. No matter what side they’re on, the issues they’re highlighting are literally impossible. It’s still a debate worth having. We should still strive to give the most amount of quality care to the most amount of people. That’s good for society, the economy, and even politicians.

Let’s just remember that there’s a difference between a solvable problem and an impossible situation. Health care, at the moment, is an impossible situation. We shouldn’t lose sight of that, no matter how the debate unfolds moving forward.

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February 1, 2017 · 6:40 am

Appealing To The Masses: The Simpson Filter

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I was going to make this part of my last post where I gave some tips and advice to the people behind the Women’s March. I am serious about being on their side on most major issues. I want them to succeed in protesting the current regime in Washington DC. I think it’s good for freedom and democracy when there’s a healthy opposition to established power structures.

At the moment, though, I don’t think their message is getting through. I also think their approach needs refinement. The tips I offered in my last post were fairly basic. This tip requires a bit more explanation because it applies a mix of caveman logic, sales techniques, and good old fashioned cunning. It’s basically the same technique people use to sell time shares and get laid. If it works for that, then it works for politics as well.

I’ve even given this bit of advice a name, one that I hope is easy to remember. I call it “The Simpson Filter.” It’s not quite as original as “Caveman Logic” and not just because it deals with something that is heavily trademarked and protected by an army of Fox’s lawyers. I promise there is a legitimate reason behind this label and I hope to make that reason abundantly clear by the end of this post.

So what exactly is the Simpson Filter? Well first off, in order to understand it, you need to know who the Simpsons are. If you’ve been near a TV it all in the past 30 years, that should be the easy part.

Most everybody on each side of the political spectrum knows who the Simpsons are. For the purposes of this tip, I’m going to focus on what they represent. By and large, the Simpsons are not the Waltons. They’re not happy, wholesome, and functional. They’re not the Bundy’s either. There is a sense love, sincerity, and family. On the spectrum of cartoon families, the Simpsons are somewhere in the middle.

Why is this important? Well, despite being fictional and full of exaggerated dysfunction, the Simpsons perfectly embody the sentiment of the average American. In fact, the show itself even acknowledged this in Season 2, Episode 16, “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” where Homer’s brother, Herb, wants him to design a car for the average American.

Yes, Homer Simpson fails miserably in that effort, but that only further highlights what makes him the perfect archetype for the average guy. He’s not an expert in a given field. He’s not smart enough to understand the complexities of big issues, be they social, political, or economic. Unless it involves beer and donuts, it’s not going to be a priority for Homer Simpson.

The same applies to Marge Simpson, the more thoughtful and less obnoxious part of the family. Marge also embodies an important component of the average American in that she’s focused primarily on keeping her family intact and semi-functional.

Given the various antics of her family, this is a herculean task, even on a good day. Her uncanny ability to manage her family often shows when she’s not around. This is best shown in Season 3, Episode 14, “Homer Alone,” in which Marge decides to go on a vacation and her family struggles mightily in her absence.

In that sense, Marge embodies the side of American society who struggle daily to keep their family intact and functioning for another day. It’s not that big issues involving the economy, politics, or social issues don’t interest her. It’s that she doesn’t have the time or resources to prioritize them. She can only focus on her more immediate concerns, namely preventing Homer from freaking out about the boogeyman.

Given this context, we can create the particulars of the “Simpson Filter.” If we’re going to use this fictional, animated, overtly dysfunctional family as a model, then any message we craft has to resonate with them. If it’s too much for Homer and Marge Simpson to handle, then it’s too much for most Americans.

For the Women’s March, this is vital. They don’t need to appeal to affluent, college-educated people living in cities and earning more than the median wage. They need to appeal to the vast swaths of less-affluent, less-educated people that occupy the non-urban parts of the country. In short, they need to cater their message to many Springfields of this Country and the Simpson families who live in them.

To appeal to them, it’s not enough to just shout anger and outrage at major protests. It’s not enough to hold large public lectures to inform these people either. Homer Simpson doesn’t do lectures and Marge is too worried about her family to even show up at one.

For any message to work on Homer or Marge Simpson, it can’t just have hard facts about the harsh realities of the world. It’s not enough to list, detail by detail, why the principles and policies they favor are worth supporting.

Homer Simpson doesn’t care for details. Marge can only care so much, given her many other concerns. So for every message about every issue, the contents need to go through a filter to make sure they’ll resonate. That filter includes the following provisions:

  • Get the attention of the Homer and Marge Simpsons of the world, but do it in a way that doesn’t shame or denigrate them for not supporting the message in the first place

  • Don’t assume that the Homer and Marge Simpsons of the world are racist, ignorant, or misogynistic and presume, by default, that they are decent people who just want to get by

  • Keep the message incredibly simple in that if it can’t fit into a commercial between a football game, then Homer and Marge aren’t going to care enough about it

  • Craft the message in a way that appeals to the feelings of Homer and Marge as appealing to emotions is the primary method of generating interest

  • Keep the facts secondary, but never let them be tertiary because in the long run, substance will help strengthen the emotions

  • Make sure the simple, emotional message inspires hope because Homer and Marge are more likely to support something that makes them feel hopeful

  • Link the more complex issues in your message with the simpler issues that affect Homer and Marge directly, ensuring they can associate these issues with their own lives

  • Avoid using language and rhetoric that Homer and Marge don’t understand or makes them feel alienated from those you want them to support

  • The message shouldn’t require that Homer and Marge change who they are, but it should make them want to be better

There are probably many more components to this filter that I haven’t articulated yet. Like Caveman Logic, I hope to refine it in future posts. In following the events of the Women’s March and the issues that will likely be more prominent over the next four years, the Simpson Filter will be a good way of revealing how successful or how flawed a message is.

At the end of the day, how right or valid your message is can only ever be secondary. If it fails to resonate or convince anyone, then it has as much impact as a history lecture by Ben Stein.

It’s an unfortunate, but unavoidable aspect of the human species. It’s not enough to be right or moral. You still have to communicate that message in a way that gets flawed, uninformed, and sometimes misguided humans on your side. If you can’t get Homer and Marge Simpson on your side, then your message has no chance.

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January 31, 2017 · 6:27 am

My Advice To The Women’s March

As a general rule, I try to avoid giving advice on things I know I’m not qualified to explain. You want advice on writing erotica/romance? Sure, I’ll help, even though I’ve yet to achieve much success in that endeavor. You want advice on comics and superheroes? Hell, I’m your guy. I should be the first person you call.

In terms of complex sociopolitical issues, though, I’m as qualified to explain those topics as I am to perform brain surgery while blindfolded. I am not an expert. I’m not even in the same hemisphere as an expert. Then again, it’s not like experts have a perfect track record of explaining these issues either so it’s not like their voices are somehow more pure. At the end of the day, their farts stink as much as mine.

I establish this context because I’m going to make an exception to that general rule I mentioned earlier. I’m going to offer some advice to a group that I think needs all the help they can get. Specifically, I’m talking about the fine citizens of the United States who organized the Women’s March.

I’ve already given my reaction to this mark. I hope I made clear that I mostly agree with their policy positions at every level. They stand for principles that I don’t believe the current regime in Washington is going to protect. I support them in their efforts, even if I think their approach is lacking in substance. That’s exactly why I’d like to lend whatever help an aspiring erotica/romance writer can offer, however limited that might be.

What follows is a list of simple tips that I hope will help the people behind the Women’s March. What they seek is admirable and respectable. However, I worry that they will undermine their message by using a flawed, misguided approach in pursuing their goals. I hope with these tips, they’ll be better able to achieve those goals.

Tip #1: Acknowledge The Breadth Of The Audience You Seek To Influence

You see that map above? That’s a picture of how every county in the United States voted in the 2016 election. Notice anything unique about it, other than how it looks like a jigsaw puzzle designed by a brain-damaged orangutan? There’s a lot of red and only a few spots of blue. Why is that?

Well, the blue parts are the ones containing America’s largest cities. The red are largely rural, low-density areas full of small towns, tight-nit communities, and exceedingly few vegan restaurants. These areas make up a good chunk of the land, but less than half the population. That’s because the cities, which contain the urban crowds, draw in more people with more diverse economic opportunities.

Why does this matter? That’s because it’s these rural, under-developed areas are the ones who gravitate towards the conservative side of the political spectrum. They do this because their way of life is dying. It’s dying and the conservative crowd knows how to appeal to them, selling them false hope while the other side basically ignores them.

The Women’s March deals with issues that affect everybody, but they basically overlook this part of the country entirely. These are people whose lives are devoid of hope and issues like LGBT rights, speech codes on college campuses, and soda taxes aren’t going to affect their lives.

These are people who the Women’s March largely ignores, but they still vote. They still have hopes, dreams, and aspirations. Without acknowledging them or reaching out to them, they’re basically ignoring a huge part of the Country that desperately needs hlep and hope.

Tip #2: Abandon Political Correctness, Kill It, And Bury It In The Deepest Hole

I cannot stress this enough. It needs to be belabored, reinforced, and beaten down with a two-ton anvil. In order for the Women’s March to make their message resonate on the widest scale possible, those involved must abandon, kill, and disavow political correctness in all its forms.

I cannot be polite or funny about this. Jerry Seinfeld has tried, but even he can’t find the humor in it. That should tell you everything you need to know. If someone like Jerry Seinfeld can’t find humor in it, then nobody can.

By political correctness, I mean everything from speech codes to gender identity politics to people protesting the name of a football team. A big reason why the current regime is in power is because the vast majority of the population has heard the rhetoric of the politically correct and they hate it with a vitriol that rivals every Mortal Kombat character ever made.

If you really want to appeal to more people, you need to ditch the excessive PC bullshit that has alienated an entire generations from an entire end of the political spectrum. Either abandon it or watch as the new regime coaxes its way through election after election.

Tip #3: Focus on Justice For Everybody And Not Just For A Select Few

This seems obvious and most in the Women’s March probably agree with this sentiment. However, the problem with their style is that they focus too much on justice for one particular group. They focus on LGBT, women, minorities, and refugees. That’s all well and good. These people need justice too. However, don’t focus so much on them that you forget about everybody else.

Believe it or not, injustice knows no political party. It knows no political ideology. An LGBT person is vulnerable to injustice. A straight white man living in rural Alabama is vulnerable to it as well. If you want both of those individuals on your side, keeping mind that both vote, don’t focus on a few specific trees while ignoring the forest.

By focusing too much on one group or another, you get cases like the Duke Lacrosse case and the UVA false rape case. It also means that groups like radical feminists skew the message, throwing around toxic terms like “patriarchy” and “rape culture.” These terms poison the well and alienate others, all in addition to being mostly bunk.

It may be tempting to focus exclusively on minorities who are vulnerable, and they are, but alienating others in the process helps no one in the long run.

Tip #4: Be Serious (And Ditch The Goofy Hats And Costumes)

This directly address those who wear the goofy vagina costumes to these rallies. Look, I love vaginas as much as the next straight guy. I admire the beauty of vaginas all the time as an erotica/romance writer. However, when you make these costumes and use them in protests, you’re not sending a message of justice and inclusion. You just look like you came back from a Halloween party at the Playboy Mansion.

There’s a time and a place for comedy in politics. Those times should be few and targeted. It also helps to leave them up to the professionals, such as John Oliver and Trevor Noah. These are people who know how to inject humor into an issue for the right reasons. They are also funnier than 99 percent of the population.

Let them handle the humor. For everyone else, leave the goofy costumes at home. When you wear that stuff, people who don’t agree with you aren’t going to be swayed. They’re just going to roll their eyes and think it’s a joke. If you want to reach these people, this is not how you want to get their attention.

The same goes for those goofy pink hats. Those hats aren’t cute or convincing in any way. They just look goofy. If you really want to appeal to everyone, you need to come off as real, honest people. Believe it or not, people respond to others who they can relate to. What a concept, right?

Tip #5: Appeal To Feelings While Avoiding Insults

This may sound dishonest to some because shady car salesmen use the same tactics. They’ll come up to you and make you feel like the most important person in the world while trying to sell you shit on four wheels. It may be dishonest, but it works. There’s a reason why used car salesmen still exist.

If you learn nothing else from last year’s election, then at least learn this. Facts do matter, but they’ll always be secondary to feelings. When it comes to perception versus reality, perception wins 99 times out of 100. I’ve already written about this. I don’t want to belabor it, but I think it needs to be belabored.

This goes back to caveman logic. The human brain is not wired for truth and understanding. It’s wired for survival and reproduction. It doesn’t come to decisions based on facts. First, it has us react to the proverbial lion in the bushes. Then, our brains come up with a reason to justify our reaction. From a scientific perspective, it’s ass backwards. It’s also the only way you can relate to people.

If you can make someone feel like they matter to you, then they’re more likely to help you. That needs to be the first step. For the Women’s March to reach others who don’t already agree with them, they need to tap into those feelings that led them to vote for the other side in the last election. Those feelings are key. If you want to convince them of anything, you must first confront those feelings first.

Tip #6: Focus On Hope Over Outrage

This should be fairly obvious, but it’s one of those issues I think the Women’s March glossed over at times. Hope is a powerful message. Hope is what got Barack Obama elected twice. Hope is the ultimate motivator and rallying cry. That’s what got people off their asses and to the polls during the last election. Naturally, they chose the candidate that gave them the most hope.

Right now, the Women’s March is focused less on hope and more on outrage. That’s completely understandable. There’s plenty to be outraged about and I’m not just talking about grabbing women by the pussy. However, outrage is only slightly more meaningful than whining. It’s too easy for one to turn into the other.

The time for lamenting over losses is over. The election is over. The new regime is in. They’re already at an advantage because they’re going to find out that delivering hope is much harder than actually promising hope. This is where the Women’s March has the advantage. Instead of focusing on the failures of the past, they need to focus on the hope for the future.

What does that future mean? What can they offer that the current regime cannot or will not offer? Give people something to look forward to. Give them something to aspire to. It works for Superman. It works just as well for what the Women’s March seeks to accomplish.

Tip #7: Pick The Right Battles And Choose The Right Allies

This isn’t as important as hope or abandoning political correctness, but make no mistake. A movement will be judged on the allies it chooses. In the last election, the losing party chose poorly. How do I know this? Off the top of your head, who was the most reputable ally they chose?

Can’t think of anyone? I rest my case. You see, in addition to being big on feelings, the human brain is also big on association. If you associate yourself with something good, then that’s going to affect how others perceive you. If you don’t, then you leave yourself vulnerable to wild accusations that some people in the FBI can exploit.

If you want allies, make sure you pick the ones who will also fight your battles. You want someone who will fight for minority rights, religious rights, and the rights of women? Well, those organizations do exist. They’re easy to ally with and they accept donations. They include the likes of the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, and Habitat For Humanity.

Once you have allies like this, then you’re better able to pick the right battles. It’s a losing endeavor trying to shame, scorn, and scold others into accepting your views. By showing support through legitimate legal avenues, it shows you’re serious and people do react when they sense someone is putting in the effort.

Tip #8: Inspire Rather Than Demean

This is more a general rule than advice. Inspiration is every bit as powerful as hope. In the last election, one side inspired an entire population who had grown resentful of uptight, politically correct intellectuals who demeaned and denigrated them for the crime of not being a marginalized group. When you demean entire groups like that, you lose allies and send them running to your enemies.

Those people, however, can be swayed back. Doing so means changing the approach. It means changing the perception, style, and substance behind that approach. The people behind the Women’s March must show the college-educated urban elite and the poor white rural people that they matter. They think they’re good, decent human beings and they want to build a future with them.

All too often, a movement devolves into a classic “us against them” mantra. That may win elections in the short term, but it drives people apart in the long run. The people behind the Women’s March need to think about the long term. They need to think beyond the next election.

There are entire generations who believe that the people behind the Women’s March are only fighting for a few select minorities. They need to show that they will fight for everyone. It’s only when you can appeal to everyone that you can overcome everything. Remember that and you need not fear the outcome of any election.

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January 30, 2017 · 6:32 am

My Thoughts On The Women’s March

As a general rule, I try not react too quickly or too callously to major political events. My years of experiencing in arguing about Wolverine’s love life on comic book message boards have taught me that some subjects just can’t be discussed rationally. Add politics into the mix and you might as well swim naked in a pond full of hungry snakes.

However, I realize that some events are too big to just ignore. Make no mistake. I’m aware of all the upheaval, outrage, and shit storms that have erupted since the apocalypse that was Election Day transpired last year. I’ve chosen to minimize my discussions of it on this blog. I want this blog to make people horny, not hopeless.

That said, I also understand that there’s a difference between avoiding a subject and purposefully sticking your own head up your ass so that the most you’ll ever hear about a topic has to compete with the echoes of your own farts. I don’t want my head in such a dark place.

This brings me to the big event that transpired on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC, a city that’s less than a two-hour drive from my house. It was called the Women’s March on Washington. On the heels of Inauguration Day, it flooded the streets of DC with thousands of men, women, and children protesting the new regime in Washington. Given the kind of people who support this regime, they definitely had plenty to protest.

It was a powerful display, unlike anything we’ve seen that didn’t involve a Super Bowl parade. It’s certainly the largest, most organized protest I’ve seen in the past couple decades. This isn’t some fringe protest of hippies claiming there are shape-shifting lizard people running banks and covering up the truth about UFOs. These are people who are genuinely afraid that their lives are going to be at risk because of this new regime.

I can understand that fear. I certainly sympathize with it. There are people in my immediate family who discussed joining this protest. I certainly support their effort to do so. I think this is worth protesting, much more so than pet issues marijuana or fur coats. Our society works best when we only seek to screw each other in ways we enjoy.

I say all this as a preface of sorts because my overall reaction to it probably won’t win me any awards from hippies, vegans, priests, mullahs, or anyone who voted for Rick Santorum. In my youth, I usually came down fairly hard on one particular side of the political spectrum. Then again, in my youth I thought UFO insurance was a good investment. That should reveal the extent of my political expertise.

With all that in mind, I thought I’d take a moment to just write about my reaction to this protest. It is a big deal. It is something that’s worth paying attention to. Even if I’m just a struggling erotica/romance writer, this is something that can and will affect me, both directly and indirectly. It already has in some respects. So how, in the grand scheme of things, am I supposed to react.

Well, my reaction can best be summed up in one way and I think my friend, Spongebob, says it best.

Please put the pitchforks down and stop for a moment before you start busting my balls. Give me a chance to explain myself because I’m trying to be both honest and helpful here, two concepts that might as well be alien to political discourse these days.

A part of me really was moved by these protests. I even support pretty much all their stated mission, as well as their stated principles. In terms of their values and policies, we are both on the same page. We’re on the same team. That’s beyond dispute. It’s the methods that leave me feeling somewhat underwhelmed.

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a house where whining was about as productive as licking a toilet seat to clean it. Whatever the reason, I just look at these protests and see too much style and not enough substance. Seeing people wearing vagina costumes didn’t help.

Don’t get me wrong. I think those costumes are funny and topical. If someone wore those to a Halloween party, they’d definitely liven things up. In a serious protest though, it just makes me roll my eyes. It gives the impression that the issues at hand aren’t as serious as they should be.

As I’ve already said, these are serious issues. They’re issues worth fighting for and they’re worth protesting. However, there’s a right way to protest something and then there’s a shocking way to protest. More often than not, those methods are mutually exclusive.

If the goal of the Women’s March was to get attention, then they definitely succeeded. In terms of provoking change, that’s a good first step. Remember the technique pitched by this guy, albeit in the most vulgar way possible?

The first step of that process is to get attention. Some argue that’s the most important step and the Women’s March did just that. It’s the other three steps, namely interest, decision, and action where they come up short.

You see, my experience on comic book message boards has wired my brain to process a situation in a backwards sort of way. By that, I mean that when I see a situation like this, the first thing I do is ask, “Okay, how is the other side going to twist this in their favor?”

When you deal with a lot of dogmatic comic book fans, that’s an important question to consider because 99 times out of 100, that’s how discussions go. Someone makes a point and those who don’t agree with it will twist it in a way that makes them feel smart, superior, or whatever other emotion Lex Luthor feels when he wakes up every morning.

What manifests in message boards often manifests in political discourse as well. Some see the Women’s March and they see a huge group of concerned citizens, making their voices heard on issues that matter to them. Others, namely those who are inclined to lump protesters with hippies, see this protest as one giant act of whining. Neither side can be right, but both sides can be wrong.

This is why I can’t help but feel indifferent to these protests. They seek attention. They seek meaningful goals. They have so much style, but not nearly enough substance. For someone like me, who needs both in order to become a successful erotica/romance writer, lacking either really undermines the message.

Now I want the Women’s March to make for meaningful discourse. I want it to provoke real, meaningful change. However, based on what I saw, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Our collective attention span is too short and the powers that be are too callous. I’m not saying the Women’s March was a waste of time, but I don’t think it’s going to change much in the long run.

 

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November 9, 2016 · 6:26 am

Fear, Dread, And Cute Animals

This is a quick message to all my fellow Americans out there. If you’re living in another country with good internet access at the moment, take a break and count your blessings. I think we can all agree that there are a lot of Americans right now who need a hug, a kiss, and maybe a bottle of hard liquor.

These are scary times, I know. The day after an election has never been this scary before. There are people out there who genuinely fear for their lives, their safety, and their livelihoods. I understand that. Some scary things are happening right now and at the risk of belaboring those things, I’m not going to repeat them. I’ll just say this.

Be calm

Be strong

Relax

The human race has endured its share of dark, dire times. We’ve endured horrific catastrophes that sent our species to the brink of extinction. We’ve fought world wars, major economic depressions, and the collapse of civilizations. We, the human race, have found a way to endure. We’re strong. We’re resilient. We also are very good at making love and making babies to make up for our lost numbers.

With all that in mind, I implore you to take a step back, take a deep breath, and look forward. There’s only so much we can control in this world. The best we can do is keep moving forward and contributing in our own way.

I can’t do much other than tell sexy, romantic stories with my novels. I intend to keep doing that for the foreseeable future. I have so many stories to tell and I look forward to sharing them with a world that really needs to get laid more.

Beyond that, I intend to keep moving forward. For those of you who may find that difficult, I give to you the best possible medicine for fear and dread: funny animal videos. Enjoy!

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November 8, 2016 · 6:15 am

Happy Election Day! Now Go Vote!

I go out of my way to avoid politics on this blog. I’ll gladly discuss touchy social issues like feminism, sexual objectification, and religion, but I’ll pump the breaks the nanosecond that discussion gets too political. This isn’t an accident either. I avoid politics for the same reason I avoid hungry grizzly bears on crack. There’s just no way to discuss it rationally.

I used to talk a lot about politics. I even tried creating a few blogs to share my political views. Those blogs are now long gone and if they ever came back, I’d shoot them on sight because I’ve from experience that they’re a waste of time. Discussing politics on the internet is like trying to hammer a nail with a feather duster. It’s an unfit medium and an unfit tool for an ugly, unsexy topic.

All that said, politics is still a big part of our lives. It affects us whether we like it or not. In fact, you could argue that it affects those who don’t like it far more than those who do. Politics is like the dirty diapers of civilization. They’re ugly, they stink, and they need to be frequently changed. That’s exactly why citizens of democratic societies, like the United States, need to get out there and vote.

Today is Election Day. Today is the day where we elect the leaders who will guide the political discourse for the near-future. Say what you will about how unsavory politicians are. Make all the jokes you want about how they lie, cheat, and steal. Here, I’ll even post one.

Laugh all you want. It’s good to have a sense of humor during difficult times, but there’s a time for dirty jokes about virgin prostitutes and there’s a time for civic duty. I’m usually more intrigued by the former, but the latter is far more important on a day like this.

I’m not going to take a position on who you should vote for or what party you should vote for. I’m not even going to mention the names of any candidates. That’s just giving them more attention that they deserve and far more than they need at this point. You know their names. You know which party they belong to. You don’t need an erotica/romance writer adding to the chaos.

So please, my fellow Americans, go out there and vote! It may not be in my best interest to say this, but take a break from the sexier issues of life and do your civic duty. When all is said and done, reward yourself for participating in such an important process.

For me, after I vote, I intend to go home, take off all my clothes, turn up the heat, and read comics for the rest of the day while drinking hot chocolate. That’s as good a reward as I can give myself without getting a beautiful woman involved. Whatever reward you deem most fitting, use that as motivation. Use whatever you can to get out there and vote!

Say what you will about the inefficiencies of our government and our civilization as a whole. It only works if the people involved give enough of a crap to participate. This is your chance to show that you matter. Go for it and then reward yourself with something sexy afterwards. You’ll have earned it!

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