I must be bad or privileged or something

First, apologies for any typos or other incoherence - sleep is still a dim memory with a one-week old and a two-year old. Maybe that's why I'm also being the way I'm being in this thread.

I want to be clear that I don't particularly care who anyone else votes for who is reading this or that other thread. I don't think the numbers would make any difference. And everyone should vote their conscience. That doesn't mean I won't discuss the relative merits of voting each way, or the consequences of doing so either way. If you can't discuss that, you might as well never talk about politics.

As I've said here many times, I myself have often been disgusted with what the Democrats do (or refuse to do) and would threaten to vote GOP just to spite them and to get them to pay attention (not that it would work). So I can certainly understand not wanting to vote for a candidate you don't think will do you any good, regardless of how bad the other candidate is.

That said, those who seem to think you'll get about equivalent sexism from Obama or McCain I think are smoking something pretty strong (and probably illegal, not that it should be). You have people openly saying that a woman is not qualified to be president as McCain's supporters and then you have Obama, a liberal, who might have said some sexist things (if you get out the decoder ring) on the campaign trail. But I never see anything about actual POLICY. I somehow doubt Obama is going to be creating anti-woman policies. If he has said he will, I wish someone would point them out to me. Thus far, nada, but a few vague statements about tea parties, which to me mean nothing because it is just the campaign noise that I generally ignore as meaningless.

Now, I admit being somewhat obnoxious in the thread at Shakers, probably because I'm so punchy from lack of sleep, but I was thinking about doing a post about some of this before anyway. As I'm sure anyone who has read me a while knows, I think the concept of "privilege" is overblown and used more as a bludgeon to shut people up than it is a useful concept. Not that people can have advantages and disadvantages for various reasons - of course they can. But when someone sees a person post in a thread, for instance, and immediately the response is something about "privilege" rather than addressing the issue at hand, then it is clear that the "privilege" concept in that context is bullshit. If you can address the point at hand, then address it. If all you can do is throw "you're privileged" out, then it just tells me (1) you have nothing substantive to say and (2) you're a world-class asshat. I can be the most "privileged" person in the world and you can be the must underprivileged, pathetic person to walk the planet, and yet still I can be right about a particular point and you can be wrong. "Privilege" means diddly and should not be part of the conversation. And yet on so many "progressive" blogs it is brought up as if it is some sort of "trump" card - when really, it just is an indicator of someone who ought to be kill-filed. Sure, if the discussion is ABOUT privilege, then talk about it, but if it is about something else, yelling "you're privileged" and pointing at one of the participants in the conversation like a little schoolchild tattling doesn't add anything to the conversation and just shows (1) and (2) above. I'm almost to the point now where I want to just ignore everything a person dumb enough to do that says because they've already demonstrated it'd be a waste of my time to read it. Get a clue, people.

And so obviously some of my comments are mocking those who have done exactly that in aforementioned thread - I had to stop myself from laughing out loud when one of the participants said that I deserved to be mocked for what I was saying in the thread - apparently she was too clueless to realize who it was who was being mocked. But then she often seems to think foul language and insults is evidence of wit, and she's not the only one there who thinks that (though most people there are generally pretty reasonable and thoughtful).

Maybe I just have no more patience because of fatigue. That probably is the case. I said in the thread and I repeat it now that I really just want the stupid election to be over so I can see who won.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll feel all apologetic about this once I've gotten some sleep, but right now, I have no patience, I'm very irritable, and so I have a low threshhold for bullshit. That said, I'm still very happy to be a daddy for the second time. I'll happily cop to being "privileged" on that point.