Both of the Devils Hands

     Anoter midterm election has come and gone in this glorious country of ours, and we seem to be in the midst of the same “my party should have won” temper tantrums that we find ourselves in far too often. The Left is accusing the Right of voter fraud, and the Right is eloquently responding by calling them snowflakes. The Left is saying the country is doomed under this current administration, and the Right is saying that we’ve never been looking towards a more prosperous future. The Left is claiming that the Right is a bunch of racist Neanderthals responsible for the majority of hate crimes in this country, but the Right is saying that they are doing everything they can to keep this country safe while maintaining racial equality. With all of these statements being thrown around, what say you? What does the American citizen that all of these politicians work for have to say? How the fuck do you feel? And I’m not asking how does your party feel or what are they saying? I’m asking you as a rational and developed human being with your own deductive reasoning skills. How do you feel about the direction of your country?

     It’s no secret that in the United States there are two major political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. To put it into the most basic of all definitions, they both exist to serve the people based on what the people vote for, but unfortunately they don’t really live up to that expectation. Instead, they seem to create their own agendas and use smooth talking representatives to convince their supporters that whatever new agenda they are pushing, it is most certainly for the greater good. Some of these representatives are so goddamn good at their jobs that they can coerce people into thinking that the agenda has always been a part of their own personal belief structure, and disagreeing with this ideal is grounds for exclusion from the group, making it easier to gain support for whatever they fucking want. These guys and gals are mental sales reps of epic proportions. They’re basically billionaire telemarketers that are selling you your future via shitty and heavily biased TV commercials. They are the greatest illusionists on the planet. They’ve driven us to believe that we are limited by one side or the other, that we the people are incapable of leading ourselves at all, and most of all they’ve limited our vision to fifty percent, by giving us two methods of American perception.

      Now let me dial it back a smidge real quick. I’m not about to start spitting some crazy “one world order / Illuminati” conspiracy type of fuckery at you. That’s not me, I like to keep my shit firmly planted in the realm of reality. However, what I am going to address from here on out in this article might cause, you the reader, to get very upset at me. And that’s fucking ok! It’s alright to read something that you don’t agree with as long as you learn from it or gain perspective. It’s perfectly fine to step out of your comfort zone and expand your horizons. There will be parts of this piece where I’ll be writing on both parties defense as the Devil’s Advocate, but I sincerely implore you to put logic in front of emotion and read until the end.

     I was raised in a very conservative Christian household, and I’m very grateful for the character traits that my parents instilled upon me by bringing me up with a certain and specific set of rules and beliefs. I’m honest, empathetic, rational, and yet still very flawed, (I had to add that last part because I’m also humble). My parents did an incredible job of raising me with an intrigue to challenge everything and learn for myself. They would encourage me to find my own answers to my own questions and give me the guidance to do so. Except for when it came to politics. Both of my parents were always readily able to give me an exact (and very republican answer) to any political question that I had growing up. Now through my 25 years of life I’ve developed my own world view and my own outlook on politics, but I’m still very conservative in a lot of ways. For example, my hands get clammy and my fists clench anytime I hear people crying about how much we need gun control, and you can kindly kiss my whole ass if you feel offended by that. Also, I fucking love Ted Nugent! And last but not least, just the very sight of Old Glory gives me a rock hard boner that unyieldingly reaffirms my belief and support in the Constitution of the United States! *author takes break and shotguns beer* But on the other hand, I have some other beliefs that are very liberal. I believe that marijuana should be decriminalized, taxed, and sold in licensed shops all over the Fifty Sates to anyone over the age of twenty-one that wants it, because it’s less dangerous than alcohol and you can fight me in the streets if you disagree. I believe that gay marriage being legalized was one the best things we’ve ever done because the government should have little to no role in our love lives anyway. I have certain views on abortion that would probably turn an average bible thumper into a picketing member of the Westborough Baptist Church faster than they could say “Ignorance.” A lot of people get very frustrated with me when I express these views of mine. The most common thing I hear is “You’re contradicting yourself.” But I’m not, I’m contradicting the two political parties, and I’m looking outside and in between my pre-determined limits.

     I’m not dogging on anyone that is either a Conservative or a Democrat, but what I am saying is that if you can only infer your rationale from one of the two parties, while refusing to accept anything that the other has to say regardless of merit, then you need to re-evaluate your mental state. You have a brilliant mind, that which given the proper freedoms for you to explore it, you’ll see that there is so much more to your life than choosing between donkeys and elephants. You can in fact have your cake and eat it too. You don’t have to live your life in the grasps of either of the Devils hands.

Desensitized  

      What a time to be alive, we're right in the middle of tomorrow's history lesson. We are eighteen years deep into the twenty-first century, and what kind of legacy are we leaving for ourselves? We've made technological advancements in my lifetime that my grandparents would have deemed impossible. We've come leaps and bounds in the fields of medicine and science. We've even changed how we view religion in this country. We've come so far in fact, that some people might say this is the New America, or are in strong favor of the idea of a new cornerstone of beliefs, ideals, and principles all together. However, I'm not here to address that hot button topic (at least not in this particular piece). I'm writing this because I feel like all of the advancements we have made will be overshadowed by our current state of self-destruction if we're not careful .

   
     We are a generation raised on MTV and skewed beliefs. We are the product of the highest divorce rate in the world. We were taught out of history books that were biased and shallow to keep us sheltered from the truth. We are overexposed yet desensitized at the same damn time. We are no longer the leaders of tomorrow, it's now our turn in the driver's seat, and so far our trial by fire is not going well. We are at a point of such political, economic, racial, and social unrest that it almost feels like we are a few horseman short of the apocalypse. This is a painful and undeniable truth that we are faced with every time we unlock our phones and look into the vast void of social media and news outlets. We see the problems, we tweet prayers and thoughts, but we sit on our hands when it comes to providing and executing a solution.  

   
     We seem to have seem to have watered down our empathy for one another so much that it just became apathy, from there it became nihilism, and then it erupted into violence when those who felt ignored refused to be silent any longer. When our streets and our homes were on fire or our neighbors and loved ones were caught up in this upheaval, this turmoil, we reached out and loved deeply, for a moment. Then we were forced as we always have been to take sides, and shun any of the middle men. There's no room for mediation when there's money to be made on either side. So we fight, and we fight, my side has a black eye and yours a bloody lip, but neither of our minds are changed, and with stomachs full of vigor we'll return to hash it out again tomorrow. 

    Divided we WILL fall, and believe me, we drift further and further from unity everyday. If we as a generation want to leave anything to our children besides bullshit philosophical ideals, and far-fetched notions of what being free really means, then its time to toughen the fuck up. It's time to look at the world we've inherited deep in its unrighteous and hateful eyes and fix it. No one has ever whined themselves into an effective solution.   

     I'm not here to preach the idea of world peace, because as long as the nature of man remains, then peace will forever be periods in time that are viciously fought for by those who truly yearn for it. I'm not here to say that we need to all come together and sing Kumbaya, for we there will always be people cut from different cloths. What I am here to say, is that it's time to remove the blinders and look out on to this mess we've made. Take a moment and reflect on our trail of beauty and destruction, let the pain of the mistakes we've made and the ideals of acceptance that bread hate touch our souls, then turn around and make it better. 

  

   

                                                              The Earth is Round and Other Lies

   I don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure of being absolutely certain that you are the smartest person in a room, but it’s as self indulgent as it is awesome. However, I was recently afforded the opportunity to be the smartest person out a group of thousands. I’m aware of how much of an asshole that makes me sound like, but it was in fact an enormous burden. The people that I was towering over with such mental prowess were none to be proud of, these people should be feared because they are just as dangerous to our society as they are inept to literally everything around them. These people are a serious threat to our way of life, our gene pool, and any hope for a prosperous future. This group of people that I’m referring to is a horrifying collective known as The Flat Earth Society.



   As any aspiring young journalist would do, I heard of the Society and knew that the world needed to be educated about this atrocity that walks among us. So I decided to infiltrate and become one of them. I felt like Huntrer S. Thompson when he wrote his famous piece about the Hells Angels. I was introduced and inducted into their ranks by an unnamed source who was also trying to gain knowledge about the Flat Earth Society so that we could bring these guys down once and for all. Once I was inside and I had gained their trust, I was lured into a world of such depravity and degradation that I don’t think I’ll ever be the same. I was introduced to a group of knuckle dragging fuck wagons whose mission it is to spread their own Gospel that the Earth we live on is indeed flat and not round, which is quite a prospect for a bunch of people that never finished middle school.

Now obviously the Flat Earth society is not anything that we actually need to fear, I just threw in a little satire to grab your attention, because honestly who in their right minds wants to entertain any notion that the Earth is flat? In all seriousness though, I was added to a group on Facebook called the Flat Earth Society via a friend of mine who was already trolling them, and he invited me so that I could join in on the fun of arguing with people who don’t believe in science and justify their beliefs by nonsense. I was unaware of how much fun I was about to have with these people’s fragile minds. Until, I started reading through the feeds of riveting discussions that these ball sacks were having with each other. Comments such as “What made you believe in flat earth?” Which would ensue a magnitude of responses encompassing everything from Jesus to YouTube, and it was at this time I knew that I was embarking on a journey on which I would be doing the Lord’s work.

  
   Before I knew it I was engulfed into the midsts of some of the most unintentional comedy gold I have ever witnessed. Every question that begged for proof of the Earth being flat was met with a diverse multitude of answers, but there were three major backings to this fairy tale theory. First, we have the “God created the Earth as a flat plane and there’s a missing book to the Bible that can prove it” ass hats. Then, we have the “There is no God but scientists are also just paid liars, so we are just atheists without a cause” Renegade group of fuck sticks. And finally, we have the “I’m a failed product of the public school system, and my parents never paid enough attention to my browser history” knuckle fucking scourge of the Earth group. Thankfully for the contents of this story, each group was as hell bent on denying reason as I can imagine their families are hesitant to invite these walking disappointments anywhere.

  
   So first up, we have the Flat God people. I began my exploration into this sect of this dumb ass cult by explaining that I was introduced to the life changing theory of a flat Earth by none other than Lucifer himself. Minds were not only blown, they were obliterated. I had spilled the brains of many a neck beard with that statement. They came at me with a fury of religious intolerance so fierce, for a brief moment I thought I was an ancient harlot. They shouted messages of shame and disappointment at me from the hilltops (of course by that I mean they typed with a ferocity on their mother’s basement computer so intense, I swear I could smell their Mountain Dew and hot Cheeto breath coming through the ether), and boy did they tell me. They educated me on the book of Enoch, the missing book from the Old Testament that conveniently describes that the Earth is Flat. They told me how wrong I was for believing that God would make us live under the prison of gravity on a globe. And after I learned that these people had never passed Junior High, I decided to see how stupid they really were. I began using phrases such as “frisbee of despair”, “Jesus God made frisbee home”, “The moon is an illusion created by light refraction, Satan, and a lack of faith” amongst many more and these flat Earth disciples were loving me for “spreading the word”. I then took it a step further and began quoting Tupac lyrics as scripture, and low and behold no one fact checked me, they just took it to heart and once again thanked me. That means there are people with poor hygiene skills and a deficit of friends walking around telling people that in Deuteronomy 40:2 Jesus said “So we live like caged beasts, waiting for the day to let the rage free, still me till the kill me, I love when they fear me” and that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. I thought my job was done after trolling the Flat Bible morons, but my work was far from over.

  
   Now enter the atheist conspiracy lunatics. These shit birds deny creationism and science all at the same time, while still remaining just as fucking stupid as that sounds. They’re not sure where we came from but they’re certain the Earth is flat and that Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Elon Musk, or anyone that has a shred of scientific proof against them are liars being paid by the One World Order to keep them down. Now you might ask, “Wouldn’t it be more productive for this angsty bunch to stop circle jerking each other off while reciting Limp Bizket lyrics and find some proof that the Earth is indeed flat?” Well yes it would! But unfortunately, they cannot because the United States Military is guarding all the proof they need, the Firmament. The Firmament is a giant glacier wall that goes around the entire perimeter of the flat Earth, and if found would prove their theory. In case you were unaware, there are currently thousands of US Marines deployed to the Firmament with guidance to kill anyone that even tries to get close. So unfortunately these virgin Boy Scouts aren’t going to be getting their merit badge for exploration anytime soon.



  
   Finally, there were people that were just plain fucking stupid for no good damn reason. So stupid in fact, that I thought they may have been fellow trolls, but upon investigating their profile pictures, I was able to determine (yes, by judging them completely based on their appearance) that sadly they were not trolls. They were just a bunch of people who shouldn’t be allowed to breed, but most of them in fact are, like rabbits I might add, and home schooling their little dumb ass kids based on a “Flat Earth Curriculum”, yep that’s a real thing I didn’t make that up. I didn’t make any of this up! This consumed four days of my life, in which I read and heard some of the most mind numbing garbage, from some of the worlds most readily available labatomy patients, yet there was one comment that infuriated me more than all the others. A man was seeking answers regarding how the sun appears to come up and go down even though we don’t actually revolve around it. His words not mine. I told him that in the book of Leviticus it states that “The sun may rise in the East, at least it’s settled in a final location.” Just in case you’re unaware, that is not scripture, that’s lyrics from Red Hot Chili Peppers “Californication”. A fairly well known song by people that don’t live with their heads firmly inserted in their own asses, but this man was amongst the ass hat community. He had the audacity to respond by saying “I don’t think that’s the Bible, I’m pretty sure that’s the Foo Fighters.” No it certainly is fucking not you genetic mishap.



  
   Eventually, my cover was blown and they blocked me from the Flat Earth Society. The golden age of my trolling empire was over. All in all, it was an eye opening and slightly disheartening experience to how sheepish some people truly are, but it was also fucking hilarious and so worth it. I hope you had as much fun laughing at these dip shits as I did, and I hope you’re not offended by how malicious I was in my descriptions of these turd burglars, but anyone that wants to believe the Earth is flat for any reason whatsoever, can kindly sit and twist on their own ideals and beliefs.