Entertainment

   Something has been bothering me, people have told me when I’ve been looking for work that I should find what I love and do that. I tell people that I love to write and they tell me that it’s more of a hobby something I can’t or shouldn’t be able to make a living off of. It’s something that sounds so insane to me, like where do you think most written works come from? I always wonder if people who make such statements realize how insulting they are being.

   Nowadays it’s so incredibly easy to get your work out there and to get paid. You can get patrons on Patreon or donations through Paypal or get self-publishing through many different services or through Amazon directly. That makes it not only possible but also effective for someone to make a living for their written work. With the rise of social media, it’s easier than ever to reach your audience and spread your work far. People around the world can read your work within seconds of its completion, or with a Google Doc, they can see it as you’re writing it.

   I’ve never understood someone calling somebody else's occupation as hobbyist or unrealistic. When I was growing up there’s always been a stigma around someone wanting to be a game designer. Like it was unrealistic or childish fancy, like the games they played weren’t made by people who spent time, money and passion into their projects. More recently the same criticisms are usually directed at Youtubers and Streamers.

   People seem to feel that creators of entertainment aren’t allowed to do so as their occupation, but only as a hobby which is absurd. Why is it so often that the entertainment based occupations are seen as not real work? Like the effort of creating such things only take the same effort as someone would take to appreciate it.

   It takes years of practice and learning to create an entertainment project, yet I often see it judged based on the time investment on the single project. “Why do I have to pay $100 dollars for an image that took you less than an hour?” It’s a common question you’d get if you’ve ever done commissioned artwork. Why does the consumer owe the artist so much for so little time? Well, partly because of the fact that you’re paying them for their work, not someone else, not work anyone could do, but work only they could. They spent years learning how to do something, the amount of time it took them to produce a quality piece of that thing is mostly irrelevant. What matters is the skill and effort invested into the piece, not the time it took them to apply such things.

   Here’s a thought that I never seem to understand why so many people seem to have trouble understanding, people deserve to be compensated for their time and effort. If someone invests their time into a project and you receive enjoyment from that does that not make you feel that person deserves compensation for that? But what about art for art’s sake? That old adage, that you should be happy people appreciate your work, and somehow that should be enough. I’m sorry to break it to you, but you can’t buy food with appreciation. It took much of someone’s life to learn how to be an artist or an author. Just like it took much of someone’s life to learn to be a doctor or lawyer.

   Not only do I feel people should be compensated, but I don’t think like we should be contributing to the social stigma that someone’s creativity should be stifled in order for them to make a living. I honestly believe that people should be encouraged, not dissuaded, to pursue their chosen career path. Not every great work, has been imagined, not every great game has been created. There is a future for people seeking to do these things. People insist that such things are unrealistic, that not everyone will succeed. While it is true that many people do not succeed, A strong confidence in your ability and talent can take you much further than just ability and talent can on their own.

   If we encourage people that want to be president, a lawyer, a doctor, a scientist, why not encourage people who want to be professional gamers, authors, artists, Youtube personalities? So go out there find someone you know who wants to pursue a creative career and encourage them. These fields are competitive and hard to break into so the least you can do is support and help them, the last thing they need is their own family and friends to pressure them to get a “Real Job.” In any other competitive field you’d tell them they need drive and passion, but in a competitive creative career, people are told they’ll never make it, how dare they think they can be the next Stephen King, the next Shakespeare. How dare they try to be more than those that came before. So I reiterate if you know someone who dreams of working in a creative field, who puts their heart and soul into it in spite of how competitive is encourage them and support them. Tell them you believe in them.

   Now where does that leave me, the writer of this blog, do I not deserve compensation for my work? Well maybe, but that’s for you to decide. I’m not going to demand payment, and at this current moment, ads don’t even run on my site. Currently there is no way for anyone in my audience to support my work, and as a result, my work is erratic and inconsistent with months of constant updates followed by months of silence because something came up. For the blog this doesn’t really bother me, the blog is a hobby, a thing I do to spend time, but the stories are different. They are a work and commitment I’ve made to myself to produce. When in the flow of a story I can shut out most of the world and it’s problem as I work, I can lose myself in the writing.

   I’ve thought of a few ways for people who enjoy my writing to support me, a Patreon where my patrons are charged when I publish a new story on my website, a PayPal donation button for people to support me directly, or even publishing my short stories on Amazon for a small fee.

   While I know I could always just place ads all over my site, and I did try with some Amazon ads back at the start of my blogging days, I didn’t really like how it looked. The ads bothered me a bit, and well, it didn’t really work out, they weren’t really giving me any return investment for the time I spent adding them to every post. Sure much of that could probably be attributed to programs like ad-block. I can’t really blame people for using it though since I also use ad-block given that some websites are so ad heavy that they literally bog down your CPU even trying to read them. So, I don’t think I ever really want to go back down that road. I might if I find a less intrusive way that doesn’t bother me as much like maybe Amazon links to books or movies I talk about in my fictional rants section.

   Whatever method I decide for my readers to support me will come one day later down the road, I’ll probably set up a support page where people can easily find whatever method I decide without too much trouble. Under no circumstances will I ever charge people to read my site or block people from reading it who use ad-block or similar programs. That is not something I ever think I can feel comfortable with.

   For now, the only way to support my work is to like, subscribe and share it on social media.

My thoughts on the election

    I don’t really like Hillary Clinton, but I cannot even begin to pretend why anyone would vote for Donald Trump short of denying reality. So I’m going to present a few arguments here that that Hillary isn’t more corrupt than many other politicians, presidential candidates, or even previous presidents. Most importantly I’m going to ask Trump supporters to stop using conspiracy theories and lies to defame Hillary rather than sticking to the legitimate complaints they could have. If your belief that Trump would be more fit for office than Clinton, you should be willing to get there by criticizing Trump when he uses conspiracy theories and lies instead of clinging to them and attacking people by claiming they are delusional/paid off by Clinton when they point out the falseness of Trump’s claim. Doing so invalidates your ability to debate as you are refusing to accept the other party and believe something false with ignorant fervor. It makes you intellectually dishonest, especially since Trump lies over 60% of the time. 

    So, let’s start with the big shit storm that is her deleted e-mails. 33,000 e-mails were deleted from Hillary’s private server, by an aide working for her prior to turning it over to the FBI. Hillary admitted to using the same server for classified and non-classified e-mails. There’s no evidence she was aware this had happened prior to it happening, and the investigation ended with the head of the FBI saying no reasonable person would prosecute her. But even if we assume she did know it happened and even ordered it to happen. That still doesn’t look as bad when you remember the Bush presidency deleted 22 million e-mails from a private server, that the Bush administration assures you, was not used for non-personal e-mails when the FBI went to investigate whether or not they were using the server for government use. So Hillary isn’t more corrupt than Bush and Cheney in this instance as she admitted to using a private server for governmental e-mails, when Bush and Cheney denied it and deleted all e-mails that contradicted them.

    So let’s move on to Benghazi, do I really need to go over this one? She admitted more could have been done and claimed responsibility for the failure. Let’s go back to the Bush administration, you remember Katrina? The fact that Bush was repeatedly told the levees would not hold, and did nothing. People lost their lives and livelihood. It’s almost like republican’s and Trump supporters want to pretend the Bush administration never happened. Like the corruption of that time never happened and that Hillary is somehow worse than Bush.

    So let’s move on to her wall street speech that was leaked recently, where she said you need a public and private stance on politics, which is actually something I’ve told people for over a decade, but a politician saying it is suddenly a horrible thing, my biggest problem with Hillary saying this was when asked during the debate she didn’t own it and tried to instead claim she was talking about Lincoln and how he managed to get things done, which arguably was part of the speech, but it was separate from the 'needing a public/private political stance' statements. Now do people remember Romney’s wall street speech from 2012? No? Of course not, because to do that would make Hillary’s speech feel mild and possibly meaningless.

    So let’s move right along to the Hillary intimidated Bill’s sexual assault victims. I am under no circumstance going to claim that Bill did not attack these women. That being said I find the idea that Hillary knew about it and threatened them hard to believe. "Why?" you might ask. Well, let’s just post a link to the Wikipedia page and come back to it after you’ve read that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_sexual_misconduct_allegations

    So here’s my problem with the idea that Hillary knew about it and intimidated these women. You may have noticed that they only claimed to have been intimidated by Hillary this year, even though they made the claim Bill attacked them over a decade or two earlier. Meaning they had no reason to conceal the fact that Hillary intimidated them into silence since they had already broken that silence. Yet they said nothing about the involvement of Hillary until she is the presidential nominee for a major party. That makes the claim that Hillary knew about incredibly suspicious to me. Why wait over a decade to claim that Hillary knew the whole time and threatened you to keep you silent if you already broke that silence? There’s no reason to do that unless the threat was fake unless you were just trying to get back at the Clintons by attacking their credibility or grab a moment of fame now that Hillary is a big name again.

    So if you read my last blog post you know that the claims about Hillary assassinating people who stood in her way politically originate from a website that has no credibility. This didn’t stop Trump supporters from clinging to it, though it really should have. But here’s the thing, the logical fallacy I mentioned last week, if Hillary actually did kill all those people and get away with it, why didn’t she get rid of a single one of Bill’s sexual assault victims? It can’t have been suspicion because the people she’s credited with killing are people that websites claim were going to testify against her. It can’t have been fear of getting caught because being able to assassinate someone who’s going to testify against you and not getting caught means you could have done it without getting caught. There’s no way logically that those two things can be true at the same time, so if you believe that Bill honestly assaulted those women then you cannot logically believe she is responsible for those deaths without some insane mental gymnastics.

    So Trump said on a video that he doesn’t even wait, he just starts kissing them, that when you’re a star you can do whatever you want, “grab them by the pussy.” So many Trump supporters seem to have the misunderstood belief that “Grab them by the pussy” is the part many people find offensive about this comment, calling it “locker room talk.” News flash, no one gives a shit about the vulgarity of that phrase, what everyone is upset about is what precedes it, the “I don’t even wait,” The “when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything.” those two phrases make what he is saying bragging about sexual assault. Which is the rape culture feminists are up in arms about. If you wonder why feminists don’t support Trump, that’s why. He literally bragged about sexually assaulting women, and the response that was given was, "it’s just words," just “locker room talk.” That statement, and the empty apology he gave, afterward, are the very representation of rape culture in the U.S.

    I heard a youtube video where someone said what Trump claimed wasn’t that bad, that as a billionaire Trump might have women come on to him all the time. That he might not be able to tell the difference between that and women who don’t want to have sex with him, that he might unknowingly commit sexual assault. Except his statement shows he clearly did know that he was aware they were not into him, but ignoring that. They wouldn’t even imagine extending Bill the same courtesy. Bill Clinton, a man with far more charisma than Donald Trump, a man who was in a much more powerful position, a man who did have consensual sex with multiple women during his marriage to Hillary. Bill would be far more likely to, from his perspective, confuse consent, where Trump by his own statement did not. I will, again and again, state that I don’t see that as an excuse, but if you’re going to claim Trump could confuse it when he makes it clear he didn’t, and in fact brags about ignoring consent, then you logically would have to claim that maybe Bill, who doesn’t brag about it, is either unaware and doesn’t feel he did assault those women or possibly feels ashamed that the women he was with felt he did.

    Again, I don’t feel like that’s an excuse for Bill’s behavior, just like I feel using it as an excuse for Trump is lazy and offensive. Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women, that’s the long and short of it. If you believe he didn’t or that it’s just “locker room talk,” then you’re misunderstanding what people are upset about.

    Hillary is better than Trump. Sure, she’s about as corrupt as Bush, and I wouldn’t necessarily vote for another Bush. However, I’d vote Bush again in a second before I’d ever vote for Trump. So my vote will go to Hillary because there’s no one in this election who is anywhere near as qualified. Trump is a racist, homophobic, xenophobic, bigot. He inspires hate at his rallies and encourages violence against his opponents and protesters. He, in a not so veiled way, suggested that someone might want to assassinate Clinton if she gets elected. At the second debate, Trump said he would hire a special prosecutor to look into her case and have her arrested, which is exactly what tyrannical dictators do. He cannot accept the idea that he would lose unless the election was rigged against him. He’s a coward and incredibly unfit for office. Hell, he can’t even follow the simple rules of a debate or answer a question without ranting about something completely irrelevant, then throw a tantrum like a child when the moderators try to get an answer from him.

    Hillary might not be the best president, but of our choices this election, she’s by far the best choice we have.

Why believe something false when it's so easy to verify it.

    Something I will never understand is people’s complete and utter willingness to accept fictions portrayed as fact without so much as a question. There are people in this country who believe that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are comparably bad options for president. The reality is Trump is factually worse. Some people willingly ignore Trump’s bad points and believe the flagrant and bogus lies told about Clinton. Now I’m going to start this by saying something that some of you reading those first two sentences are going to immediately doubt, I don’t endorse Hillary for president, but since my only other option is Trump it’s literally a no brainer choice. Hilary is better for the country.

    Trumps multiple bankruptcies, failed business ventures and the misuse of charitable donations to the Trump Foundation prove he’s irresponsible with people’s money and pretty terrible at negotiated profitable business deals. He claimed his temperament was his best asset when he goes on twitter rants at 3 A.M.. Even with all these clear displays of his lack of ability to be president people still believe Clinton is not only equal but in some cases worse.

    Why is that what could Clinton have done that make people look so down on her, well turns out most of it is either, not nearly as bad as it looks or completely, or mostly false. So most the not nearly as bad as they look I will post a link to the segment in last week tonight where John Oliver perfectly sums up the difference between the two’s public scandals.

    The parts of the Clinton hate I want to focus on here is the fiction or mostly fictitious parts that people seem to believe with at best circumstantial evidence. Sometimes completely fictitious evidence.

    So let’s start with one people seem to believe with no evidence, The man who leaked Hillary’s secret medical history found dead. Which if you head over to Snopes, a site that posts sources not baseless comments without evidence, you’d see that’s false, I’ll just post the link here so you don’t have to search it yourself. Yes, I will post a Snopes link for everything they have on Clinton that people believe which is totally false.

http://www.snopes.com/person-who-leaked-hillary-clintons-medical-records-found-dead/

    So let’s move on to another one, this one actually came up in a discussion with a Trump supporter I had over the previous week, that Clinton had Seth Rich murdered because he was going to testify against Clinton. I, of course, told him that was fiction, which it is, he conceded that there wasn’t proof she murdered him, but that he was going to testify against her and he is dead, and then I pointed out, that no, the testifying against her part was fiction. In case you were wondering yes, you can google this and find the Snopes article where they post the facts about the incident. But you don’t have to I’ve got you covered with the link.

http://www.snopes.com/seth-conrad-rich/

    The hacker known as ‘Guccifer’ was found missing from his cell when the FBI went to question him about the Clinton E-mail scandal. This is complete fiction as The hacker known as Guccifer is still in prison and is not missing.

http://www.snopes.com/guccifer-missing-from-jail-cell/

    Then, of course, the death of a U.N. official that is somehow Clinton’s fault, because, as some would believe, he was going to testify against her, but of course that’s not true.

http://www.snopes.com/un-official-john-ashe-killed-the-day-before-he-was-to-testify-against-hillary-clinton/

    So if you’ve read these Snopes posts you’ve learned that they all seem to stem from a website called whatdoesitmean.com whose author is described by rationalwiki as "Sorcha Faal is the alleged author of an ongoing series of "reports" published at WhatDoesItMean.com, whose work is of such quality that even other conspiracy nutters don't think much of it. .” not exactly a trusted news source. But people still believe them. Another source of bizarre Clinton theories is Alex Jones and his site and youtube channel, infowars. Alex Jones is described by rational wiki as " a radio entertainer and comedian who specializes in making up conspiracy theories to entertain his audience.  " Taken from the description of his website, "The only time something with any relative truth appears on Infowars is when they post articles from the mainstream media that is supposedly in on the whole conspiracy Alex pushes, so much that any episode of Infowars is not complete without a take-down of the 'lamestream media'." Donal Trump had said “Your reputation is amazing.” to Alex Jones. That's right, Donald Trump touted the reputation of a man whose website is so full of conspiracy theories that his advertisement links are to more conspiracy theories. A man who on his show called Barak Obama the literal Devil. 

    The Clinton freed a child rapist claim, people believe this, I saw a Trump supporter post a youtube video the other day about it, presenting the “facts” about it. But, of course, it was not the facts it was fictitious evidence. As you can see from the Snopes article, where I must once again point out the fact that Snopes posts sources and doesn’t just make up wild claims, is not really the truth of the matter.

http://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-freed-child-rapist-laughed-about-it/

    All people have to do is make a simple google search a simple look into the internet, where people require their staff to post facts supported by sources. That’s all it takes to look into the face of fiction, to see that many of the claims trump supporters claim are fiction. Snopes isn’t the only source of this information, I mean they had to get it from somewhere, but it was an easy and efficient source. Something easy to be understood, and simple to find without too much effort. A perfect example of how easy it is to find out the truth of a matter.

    This election is not republican versus democrat, This isn’t a whoever you pick is fine election. Trump is less fit to be president than Hillary, that is a simple fact. They’re not even close on the level of scandals and yet people still see Clinton as less trustworthy. People still see her as being worse for silly or fictitious reasons.

    It's gotten so bad that if you show facts that a Clinton scandal isn't as bad as they assume, they immediately think that the website or TV personality, like John Oliver, is paid by Clinton to say these things. A woman claimed to have had multiple people killed without evidence in her rise to power but somehow is simultaneously so incompetent as to not eliminate any of Bill Sexual assault victims. Two things that cannot logically be true at the same time. 

    People are so polarized this election, not because of party lines, but because of people who adhere to party lines when their candidate is not only worse than their opponent, and it’s not a matter of opinion, Trump being worse for the country than Clinton is a fact.  

   It’s fine if you don’t instantly believe me, I don’t mind any of that, what I mind is if you continue to adhere to that position in the face of facts that you could easily look up yourself, or a refusal to back down from a position that is rather clearly based on nothing substantial.

Different worlds

    It’s so weird for me, every year I’m reminded that we all live in different worlds. Worlds so antagonistically different that I feel they can’t possibly exist at the same time, yet they do. So often it makes the world feel mad. I live in a world where the Dota 2 international, is the most important event for me every year, but at the same time, we live in a world where Donald Trump has a real chance at becoming president.

    Throughout the year the teams travel the world to compete in the Majors, Starladder, Dreamhack, and many other tournaments, all for a chance at an invite to the biggest tournament of them all, The International.

    The Dota international is a celebration of camaraderie. Teams of multiple nationalities, ethnicities, and religions compete against each other to prove who is the best team in the world, with fans from all over the world coming to witness it. Dota fans get a chance to meet their favorite players, the makers of their favorite items, or even their favorite shout casters, and over the last couple years a rare chance to get to play on stage in the All-Star match. At the event fans from all over the world make new friends brought together by a common interest in Dota.

    This year was full of upsets, newly formed teams beating tested veterans. Teams seeming to have returned to form getting taken out on the first day of the main event. Shouts and cheers clearly audible behind the casters calls. Cheers not just for a specific team or player, but cheers from good plays cheers for good Dota. Fans found teams, they never would have cheered for, suddenly becoming their favorites to win.

    In the grand final this year, the Chinese underdog Wings battled it out against the multinational team of Digital Chaos.

    DC quickly became a fan favorite as the battled through the lower bracket and took out teams no one ever thought they stood a chance against. Their player, David “Moo” Hull, captured the hearts of many when shots of his proud mother seated behind his booth deep in the crowd were shown on the main stage.

    Wings took down the American Juggernaut team of Evil Geniuses in the winner’s bracket final, after a seemly mad run through the upper bracket taking down teams with hero picks that to the outsiders would appear completely random. Quickly winning over new fans with their wide variety of playstyles and broad hero pool.

    DC took game one in a convincing fashion, the crowd chanting “Moo” as the players walked off the stage as they prepared for game two. Game two was a frenzy, engagements, and disengagements all over, leading into one teamfight where Wings took down too many DC heroes, and suddenly Wings sweep into victory. The crowd chants and cheers “Wings” as the players walk off the stage for game three. When fights break out at the start of game three they start being even but slowly Wings gets the advantage and DC was on the back foot. DC took some great fights in the middle, but ultimately Wings took game three. DC looked like they had the upper hand in game four, many strong early fights, but ultimately Thing turned around and wings crushed DC at the end and were crowned The International 6 champions.

The crowd was on their feet, everyone cheering, good Dota was played all around and to many that was all that mattered. Humorously, there was someone in the crowd with a sign, reading “Single” followed by a phone number.

    Yet even with this celebration of Dota and good sportsmanship, we live in a world where Trump has a chance to be president. A man running on a platform of hatred and general ignorance has a chance of being president of the United States. In a world where Dota championships exist and dismantling imaginary boundaries through common interest, a man has shown how much hatred and bigotry there still is in the United States. A team of “Reject” players could band together and see that there was a dream they all shared much bigger than their differences. They placed second in the tournament, they went further than many other teams.

    So what we’ve learned is that people can do incredible things when they are united behind a common goal. It shows that that goal doesn’t have to positive, and in the case of Trump I would argue is incredibly negative. I can’t think of a single positive reason to vote for that man. To quote Larry Wilmore, “At this point, if you vote for Trump you’re just a dick.” The man literally not so subtly hinted that if Hillary gets to pick the Supreme court judges and you don’t like them, maybe you should assassinate her.

His campaign makes me remember how much hatred there is still in the U.S., how much ignorance there is in the U.S. It makes me sad to think about our future when a man like Trump can win the nomination of a major political party. It only shows how out of touch many of the members of that party are with reality.

    It saddens me mostly because I see the Dota international as a wonderful expression of our similarities, and then here we have a political campaign trying to force us apart based on our differences and to hate those differences. Those two realities feel so different they can’t possibly be in the same universe. How can the Dota international, or any other sporting event for that matter, bring so many people together, while we see a man who might actually gain political power trying his damnedest to drive us all apart gains traction?

    It feels completely mad to me, when we are more similar, why try and force us apart based on imagined differences?

    I was angry on Friday, angry without direction, angry at the world. It’s hard for me to find the words for my anger or even try to hone it into a direction, but I’m going to try. I’m going to work through each thing that makes me angry and see if I can’t find some way to understand.

    The first target of my anger is probably obvious, as it is likely the same for almost everyone who responds with anger to such things. I’m angry at the organizations behind such monstrous attacks. Often times you hear people blame the whole group, but many of those groups are just ignorant, uneducated people roped in with nationalist or spiritual propaganda. Many of the ‘soldiers’ that make up the groups have little to understand what they're actually doing and often can’t even think about things the way we do. It’s impossible for them to even see what they are doing as wrong when they have it so ingrained in them that it is right, and aren’t given even a portion of the education needed to question it, and told over and over again, that questioning it is wrong.

    How many Nazis must have lost the ability to tell the similarities between the average German and the average German Jew? The leaders of the party made up fictional reasons to justify the atrocities committed, fictional characteristics that only applies to Jews, and the average soldier so manipulated that they began to see these characteristics though they were never there. Another example would be Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in the movie Django Unchained, Calvin Candie, who stated African-Americans were predisposed to servitude and slavery. We know these things aren’t true, but that wouldn’t have stopped the average Nazi soldier, or slave owner from telling you otherwise, they wouldn’t know any better.

    All that said I can’t find it in me to be angry at the average ‘soldier,’ I pity them. I wish there was a way to free them from their way of thinking. Educating the people would help, but it would require so much time and patience. So much effort, willingness and want on the side of the people to be educated.

    The leaders, however, the horrible evil bastard who run such organizations, There is a rage in my heart for them. A fury I cannot put into words. Sending people to die to cause countless deaths. The senseless violence of it all just makes me feel mad. How can anyone condone such rampant murder, for what? For God? I’m sorry maybe it’s just the Atheist in me but, if your god is all powerful, then he sure as fuck is able to fight his own fucking battles. I mean, you have a fucking holy book loaded with stories of him doing exactly that.

    They need to meet the same fate as Osama Bin Laden, to be hunted down, and buried at sea, don’t give their followers a martyr with a grave to worship or a death location they can look to. Let them fade into history with a push to educate the people. Of course, they don’t need to be educated by The United States, hell I wouldn’t even blame them for refusing to let us help; we don’t exactly score the highest for our education, and forty-something percent of the U.S. population believe a fairy tale as fact.

    These things give us a path to peace, a path that makes me hopeful for the future. I can only dream that we’ll make it there one day, where people don’t cling to petty hatreds and enforce division rather than embracing similarities.

    The next thing that angers me is the western media double-standard, that we see the Paris attacks and react, but the attacks elsewhere in the world are barely even acknowledged. Often the Islamic State group’s targets are in the middle east, and more often than not, its victims are Muslim. These attacks happen often, and yet, here in the west we either rarely hear about them, take them as business as usual for the region, or frankly don’t care. That upsets me, it angers me that I have to sift through the news to find anything going on in the non-U.S./western Europe part of the world. It’s maddening, lucky for me I’ve got Facebook friends from outside that group so it’s not always difficult for me to hear anything. Doesn’t stop the double-standard of western media from angering me, because I see so many of my friends ignoring or misrepresenting facts because they heard it from a western news source.

    Another thing to anger me is the adherence so many in the U.S. have to "us versus them" mentality. The belief that the U.S. is flat out good and Islam is the big, scary menace ready to take all your American freedoms away. Most people in the U.S. don’t realize Muslim extremists make up less than 2% of terrorist attacks in the U.S. and Europe.

I’ve seen a video where someone explains the commands given to Muslims from the Qu’ran, and how it is different from the Bible or the Torah. This was used to show how Islam is not a religion of peace because it has violent commands. Yet, all those same commands are in the Torah and Bible. He stated that the Bible and Torah were simply collections of parables and stories not to be taken seriously like Sharia Law, without mentioning that Torah, literally translates from Hebrew as “Law,” and has many statements about law and ethics. Most importantly in case you didn’t know, the Torah is used as the Old Testament, in the bible. So they’re all there as well. So if you thought the Bible, Torah and Qu’ran are drastically different you’d be sorely disappointed if you actually did your homework and realized they are all mostly the same. The only argument that can be made is that many Christians and Jews no longer see their holy book as 100% true. You could say that, but then there are all those Christians pushing that we teach creationism in school alongside evolution as though they are comparable in validity, or Christians opposed to gay marriage. Apparently I’m supposed to accept that a Christian is allowed to follow and enforce biblical law on others, but I’m supposed to be afraid of the idea of a Muslim doing the same with Sharia. Sorry, but I don’t work that way. The first amendment says that both religions are equal, so sorry, I don’t want either of you enforcing your laws on me.

    I also get pissed with "us versus them" because I mean seriously, do Christians really see themselves as that different from Muslims? I mean they believe in the same god, Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet and not the son of God, that like literally the major difference between the two religions. which actually makes them close than Christianity is to Judaism, as the Jewish people believe Jesus is either not a real person or a false prophet. For had Jesus Fulfilled the Jewish prophecy, they wouldn’t still be waiting for it to be fulfilled. Though the Jews and Muslims both believe Jesus was, in no way, the son of God.

    I despise the fact that so many seem to think we should back Israel no matter what. Expected to completely ignore the schools they bomb or the cease-fires they refuse to hold to. The Israeli government is really fucked up in the way they treat Palestine and it pisses me off.

    Something else that makes me mad is the way that so many attack the victims, blaming the Syrian refugees, or in one special case, blaming the french. People who blame the victims always piss me off.

    The refugees from Syria are running from the Islamic State group, they want nothing to do with them and simply want to not be in danger. In case you missed it, there’s a civil war in Syria, and the U.S. is partially responsible for how much of a mess Syria is right now. A lot of the people dying in Syria are people caught in the middle, civilians, people who would, understandably, feel the need to flee. Yet when they do, we try to turn them away, for no more reason than the fact that they come from Syria, where the Islamic State group, has a hold.

    We refuse the refugees because we’re afraid of terrorists, ignoring the fact that fear is the terrorists' goal. If we’re afraid of them, they win. Even if the U.S. defeats the IS group the U.S. isn’t the ones to put Syria back together, that’s the Syrians. Do you really want the Syrians to rebuild their country in the wake of their civil war remembering how the west rejected them, and treated them like criminals?

    We’re all here on this Earth together, and I feel it’s more than past time we started acting like it. There is nowhere else for us to go, we have to start learning to get along and taking responsibility for our actions or one day there won’t be a world left for us anymore.

Random list of things I used:

The double standard in western media.

http://news.yahoo.com/world-mourns-paris-many-mideast-see-double-standard-190640668.html

All Terrorists are not Muslim.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/14/are-all-terrorists-muslims-it-s-not-even-close.html

Christian Terrorist groups you've probably not heard of.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danthropology/2015/04/christian-terrorist-groups-exist-and-we-often-simply-ignore-them/

Why women's health clinic that offer abortions need buffer zones.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/01/15/3163761/abortion-clinics-need-buffer-zones/

And a Pastor blaming France for being French after the attack of Friday.