I seem to be going after a lot of cliches lately. First there was the Christian cliches from a few weeks ago, now this.
This pisses me off because I'm a New Yorker, and I know how the world works on this. At least in New York City.
The usual cliche is "Oh, illegals can't come forward on crimes because they might be deported!"
WRONG! When pigs fly. When this is pulled on tv, you know it's crap.
For the past 15 years, New York has been an "asylum" state for any and all undocumented / illegal immigrants. Deportation doesn't happen. Period.
If you want to make the argument "They don't trust cops in their countries, because it's all corrupt where they're from," fine. You can make that argument. It's even a valid argument.
But to suggest that anyone is sending any illegal back anywhere? That's just a joke in most of the country, since the federal government has to ship them back home, and they haven't even thought about it in six years.
But this especially rings false in New York -- which is where you usually see the cliche anyway. Hell, we can't even ship back criminals who enter the country illegally. Some of them make Al Pacino's Scarface look like a documentary. (I prefer Paul Muni, myself)
Also, the good, pure and virtuous illegal? Don't believe it. In the last year, tens of thousands of the undocumented immigrants are members of gangs, like MS-13, who traffic in drugs and people. These are not nice people.
Now, if you want to give me a story of the men and women who come to America, put in the time, energy and effort to become legal citizens? That's a story I will happily read, and happily wallow in. Because that's a story worth reading. And one that's far, far more believable.
I covered this a little bit in the first cliche post, but there are a few other things to cover.
Take, for example, the trite concept that "Oh, gay partners don't have visitation rights in hospitals! Oh, gay partners can't receive life insurance!"
Are you writers stupid? What idiot believes this crap? You know what the solution to all of that is? It's called paperwork. Sign a healthcare proxy, ya moron! And on the insurance form? "I want X person to be the beneficiary of my insurance payout." Done. Period. Stop being a moron.
Seriously, have these writers never seen an insurance form? A legal form of any sort?
Also, the prevalence of homosexuals in media is getting annoying. Heck, DC comics is going a little bit nuts over it -- Batwoman, longtime cop Leslie Thompkins, Renee Montoya (formerly the Question), probably Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, Alan Scott -- are all gay, with the exception of Harley Quinn, who's "just" bi. And these are the ones I know off the top of my head.
Homosexuals are, maybe, 1%-2% of the world's population. I'm sorry, but there are so few human beings on the planet who end up as superheroes, or villains, and so few homosexuals, the overlap has got to be small. Going by these numbers, DC comics must have about 300-600 name heroes and villains on their active roster, otherwise, they are seriously over-represented.
Don't even try to justify it by calling it all deviant behavior, because ... no. Just no.
Heck, The Walking Dead just brought on a gay couple. That's nice ... except there are maybe a few hundred people left on the planet (that have been shown) and a gay couple happens to be two of them?
Excuse me, but let's go back to the Venn diagram. 98%-99% of the planet is straight. Again, homosexuals are, maybe, 1%-2% of the world's population. In The Walking Dead, 99.99% of the planet have been eaten or become zombies, and somehow, they're still 1%-2% of the world's population. My credulity has just been strained to the breaking point. My suspension of disbelief has broken.
And for the record ... Indiana. Indiana passed the same law that's either de facto or de jurie in THIRTY OTHER STATES, in fact, in Illinois, OBAMA PASSED IT, I think the entire conversation is Bullcrap. Seriously. A state that has NO, NONE, ZERO incidents of anti-LGBT bigotry is now going to become rampant because of a law that's already in over half the country? How f-ing stupid do you have to be to figure that?
This was something that was popular in the 90s, and had some bleed-in to the 21st century. Basically, the world was at a point where Islamic terrorists had been done, and who cared? It was really an excuse for writers to have cardboard villains they didn't need to explain. They were anti-gummint, and dangit, that was all that mattered!
In short, this was BS. The "evil Christian militia" was big in the 90s after Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Oklahoma City, and it was a meme that everyone drummed into the heads of the public for nearly a decade. None of these people were ... anything that the public had been told, really. The Branch Davidians of Waco was a cult, and the siege of their compound was a screwup according to every Hostage Rescue Team on the planet. Ruby Ridge was just bizarre. Oklahoma City was lead by a pot-smoking atheist douchebag.
Sadly, there's a bit of a resurgence of this idiocy lately. John Land had these types kicking around his last few novels. There've been a few bad movies and murder mysteries around this sort of thing. Heck, Castle had the whole "evil White veterans were framing innocent Muslims for a terrorist attack."
Really? Really? No. Just no. Period. End sentence. It doesn't work anymore, people. Heck, watching most of the 90s stupidity is almost painful, so one can argue that it never worked.
And now, you've got some villains who are obviously evil because they're caricatures of conservatives. Ooohh, they're RACIST! And Christian! And Tea Partiers! And against illegal immigration! And they like guns!
In short: evil white men. Again. Sigh.
Heck, if you go by the premise that the Tea Party is for smaller government, I could technically count. If you've been tagging along with me for five years now, and you assume that this makes me evil, yeesh, have you got problems.
Oh, and for the record, I never again want to see the evvviillll military trying to overthrow the government. It barely worked in Seven Days in May, and that was only because of Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster.
The closest American fighting men and women come to overthrowing a government is by running for President. You're talking about a military that hasn't ever had a mutiny, that I recall, and there are fiction writers out there who want us to believe that they'd overthrow the entire government? No. This is a concept that needs to be put down like the mindless rabid animal that it is.
ILLEGALS.
 |
| Want to give this alien a work permit? |
The usual cliche is "Oh, illegals can't come forward on crimes because they might be deported!"
WRONG! When pigs fly. When this is pulled on tv, you know it's crap.
For the past 15 years, New York has been an "asylum" state for any and all undocumented / illegal immigrants. Deportation doesn't happen. Period.
If you want to make the argument "They don't trust cops in their countries, because it's all corrupt where they're from," fine. You can make that argument. It's even a valid argument.
But to suggest that anyone is sending any illegal back anywhere? That's just a joke in most of the country, since the federal government has to ship them back home, and they haven't even thought about it in six years.
But this especially rings false in New York -- which is where you usually see the cliche anyway. Hell, we can't even ship back criminals who enter the country illegally. Some of them make Al Pacino's Scarface look like a documentary. (I prefer Paul Muni, myself)
Also, the good, pure and virtuous illegal? Don't believe it. In the last year, tens of thousands of the undocumented immigrants are members of gangs, like MS-13, who traffic in drugs and people. These are not nice people.
Now, if you want to give me a story of the men and women who come to America, put in the time, energy and effort to become legal citizens? That's a story I will happily read, and happily wallow in. Because that's a story worth reading. And one that's far, far more believable.
GAYS
I covered this a little bit in the first cliche post, but there are a few other things to cover.
Take, for example, the trite concept that "Oh, gay partners don't have visitation rights in hospitals! Oh, gay partners can't receive life insurance!"
Are you writers stupid? What idiot believes this crap? You know what the solution to all of that is? It's called paperwork. Sign a healthcare proxy, ya moron! And on the insurance form? "I want X person to be the beneficiary of my insurance payout." Done. Period. Stop being a moron.
Seriously, have these writers never seen an insurance form? A legal form of any sort?
Homosexuals are, maybe, 1%-2% of the world's population. I'm sorry, but there are so few human beings on the planet who end up as superheroes, or villains, and so few homosexuals, the overlap has got to be small. Going by these numbers, DC comics must have about 300-600 name heroes and villains on their active roster, otherwise, they are seriously over-represented.
Don't even try to justify it by calling it all deviant behavior, because ... no. Just no.
Heck, The Walking Dead just brought on a gay couple. That's nice ... except there are maybe a few hundred people left on the planet (that have been shown) and a gay couple happens to be two of them?
Excuse me, but let's go back to the Venn diagram. 98%-99% of the planet is straight. Again, homosexuals are, maybe, 1%-2% of the world's population. In The Walking Dead, 99.99% of the planet have been eaten or become zombies, and somehow, they're still 1%-2% of the world's population. My credulity has just been strained to the breaking point. My suspension of disbelief has broken.
And for the record ... Indiana. Indiana passed the same law that's either de facto or de jurie in THIRTY OTHER STATES, in fact, in Illinois, OBAMA PASSED IT, I think the entire conversation is Bullcrap. Seriously. A state that has NO, NONE, ZERO incidents of anti-LGBT bigotry is now going to become rampant because of a law that's already in over half the country? How f-ing stupid do you have to be to figure that?
MILITIAS
This was something that was popular in the 90s, and had some bleed-in to the 21st century. Basically, the world was at a point where Islamic terrorists had been done, and who cared? It was really an excuse for writers to have cardboard villains they didn't need to explain. They were anti-gummint, and dangit, that was all that mattered!
In short, this was BS. The "evil Christian militia" was big in the 90s after Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Oklahoma City, and it was a meme that everyone drummed into the heads of the public for nearly a decade. None of these people were ... anything that the public had been told, really. The Branch Davidians of Waco was a cult, and the siege of their compound was a screwup according to every Hostage Rescue Team on the planet. Ruby Ridge was just bizarre. Oklahoma City was lead by a pot-smoking atheist douchebag.
Sadly, there's a bit of a resurgence of this idiocy lately. John Land had these types kicking around his last few novels. There've been a few bad movies and murder mysteries around this sort of thing. Heck, Castle had the whole "evil White veterans were framing innocent Muslims for a terrorist attack."
Really? Really? No. Just no. Period. End sentence. It doesn't work anymore, people. Heck, watching most of the 90s stupidity is almost painful, so one can argue that it never worked.
 |
| AND IT DIDN'T WORK WITH CAPTAIN AMERICA IN CIVIL WAR, EITHER! |
In short: evil white men. Again. Sigh.
Heck, if you go by the premise that the Tea Party is for smaller government, I could technically count. If you've been tagging along with me for five years now, and you assume that this makes me evil, yeesh, have you got problems.
Oh, and for the record, I never again want to see the evvviillll military trying to overthrow the government. It barely worked in Seven Days in May, and that was only because of Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster.
The closest American fighting men and women come to overthrowing a government is by running for President. You're talking about a military that hasn't ever had a mutiny, that I recall, and there are fiction writers out there who want us to believe that they'd overthrow the entire government? No. This is a concept that needs to be put down like the mindless rabid animal that it is.
The entire siege at Ruby Ridge was over an 1/8 of an inch on a shotgun barrel.
ReplyDeleteWell, okay, there was one.
ReplyDeleteOne.
In nearly three centuries of existence.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Somers_(1842)
Wow. Nicely caught. That's so little known, I don't even think Herman Wouk knew about it when he wrote The Caine Mutiny (IIRC, the opening of the movie even had a statement that there was never a mutiny in the US Navy). Which is odd, even the Caine Mutiny WIki page references it.
DeleteSo, nicely done.