My Life

As human beings, we are biologically predisposed to avoid accepting blame.  It is uncomfortable.  It's unpleasant.  We have invented many ways of trying to get out of accepting blame.  But the simple fact of the matter is, when something bad happens, someone needs to accept the blame.  Sometimes this blame is placed on supernatural beings such as mischievous gods or devils.  Sometimes it is placed on a random unfortunate target.  But, in many cases, there is a designated person or group of people which is arbitrarily assigned the blame.  This is the definition of a scapegoat. The event that triggered me thinking about this concept is when Donald Trump asserted that immigrants coming from Mexico are rapists, criminals, and drug dealers.  Considering that he is leading the most recent polls , it seems that his message resonates with at least a plurality of conservative voters.  So we must ask ourselves why this is. In defense of his a...

A friend made a comment to me in regards to the Donald Trump backlash .  He said that Trump is an attention-seeker.  In fact, he seems to be pretty good at getting people to pay attention to him.  That attention isn't always positive.  But some people just want attention, whether positive or negative.  (Although, I'm fairly certain he doesn't enjoy all of the abandonment he's been experiencing lately.) That thought is tangentially connected to what I'd like to make the main point of my post, which is people who say or do similarly hateful or ignorant things.  I've been thinking these last few days how incredible it is that I see more posts about hateful things people say about gays coming from my gay friends than from my conservative friends (the few of those who are left).   I have made many posts myself of the nature "Look at how ridiculous this thing is that this person said."  Some pastor says some hateful things about gays.  Pat R...