For those who follow me on twitter (and all of you should, I’m fucking hilarious) you may have noticed that every so often, I’ll tweet out a bit of advice and end it with, “You know who you are.”

Those have all been responses to your submissions. They’re usually quick answers that are time sensitive, short answers to questions that you want me to keep private, or random and bizarre questions that I wouldn’t want to become full posts but still feel like answering.

It’s something I like doing, so expect to see more of it, and from now on, I’m just gonna use the hashtag #YouKnowWhoYouAre.

If I tweet out something tagged with #YouKnowWhoYouAre and it answers a question you’ve recently asked, then yeah, you know who you are.

(If I need the extra characters, I might occasionally shorten it to #YKWYA. We’ll see.)

Coquette, I agree with your views on organized religion. My question is, how can we separate our disapproval of the belief system from racism and discrimination against its believers?

It’s as easy as separating the ideas from the people. There’s a huge difference between saying “Fuck Islam” and “Fuck Muslims.”

I’ve had friends who are Egyptian, Turkish, Palestinian, Saudi, and Iranian. Some are royalty, and some are refugees. Some are devout Muslims, and some are proud to be apostates. They all have completely different backgrounds from wildly varying cultures, and all of them to some degree have experienced racism and discrimination here in America. That has nothing to do with Islam. It’s because they’re brown and have accents and America is full of bigoted assholes.

Racism and discrimination are products of in-group favoritism and othering. They’re what happens when willfully ignorant people come at the world with an “us vs them” mentality. That mindset is poisonous, especially when it’s accompanied with an attitude of “superior vs inferior.” Toss irrational fear into the mix and bad shit starts happening.

You can disagree with a person’s belief system all day long. Sometimes it’s even appropriate to call them out on their nonsense, but the second you start treating them as an “other” — as someone apart and less than you — then you’ve crossed the fucking line.

You don’t have to respect everyone’s beliefs, but you do have to respect everyone’s humanity. You have to be fucking decent.

How can you say ISIS practices Islam when they don’t even pray in the right direction? When they go against the laws forbidding violence and forcing people to join Islam? I think you have a very Westernized, myopic view of the religion. Would you say the KKK is the Christian equivalent? Or do you just care less about black people being killed?

I always forget how Islamophobic you are.

If you knew who I was, if you had even the slightest idea of what I’ve been through, you would immediately apologize for coming at me with this punk-ass mealy-mouthed bullshit.

I did not come by my world view lightly. This is not theoretical or academic for me. I have more scars than you have opinions, and I have profoundly earned the right to detest organized religion.

Fuck Islam. Fuck it.

Fuck Christianity. Fuck Judaism. Fuck all that Abrahamic nonsense. Fuck it all, and while we’re at it, fuck you and fuck your delicate sensibilities and fuck all your half-formed positions that you’re parroting from another source, because you clearly don’t understand what you’re even talking about.

I could run circles around your sloppy notion of Islamophobia. I could make you violently dizzy with so much knowledge that you would regret ever being so casual with the meaning of words.

I am not to be messed with on this topic, and I could give two shits whether you think my politics are dainty enough when I criticize the horror men do in the name of their repulsive gods.

I have read all the scriptures, I have stared into the abyss, and I have been swallowed up and spit back out by death itself. The only wisdom I have comes from the constant acknowledgment of my own cosmic ignorance, and still, I have to listen to assholes like you come at me with weak tea and soggy crackers because my philosophy doesn’t pucker up to an imaginary friend in the sky.

Fuck. That. Shit.

I am done with the all right wing racist Christians who treat xenophobia like it’s a virtue. I am done with all the left wing Muslim apologists who make endless excuses for a horrible belief system. I am done with all the incessant pigeonholing and pearl clutching and praying. I have heard every justification for every last bit of irrational nonsense, and I am simply done.

Believe in whatever crazy bullshit you want. If you need a savior, feel free to pick one. If you need a heaven, go ahead and hope. If you need a god to make sense of it all, that’s your fucking business, but I will not let anyone else make it mine.

My church is the church of reason. My religion is common fucking decency. Come at me with anything less and I will teach you a lesson in disrespect, because my patience has ended, and I don’t have to be tolerant of bad ideas.

None of us do.

It really bothers me that while there were simultaneous terrorist attacks in Beirut and Baghdad at the same time as Paris, there is absolutely no publicity and/or support from the international community compared to the outpouring of good wishes for France. There’s the sense that ‘people in Paris are not meant to have their lives taken away in this way’, while when it comes to Baghdad and Beirut, ‘this is such an everyday thing’. Why is it that lives are so much cheaper in the Middle East (or actually, anywhere in the developing world for that matter)?

Lives are cheaper in the Middle East because Western culture values them less. To put it as bluntly as possible, brown people simply aren’t worth as much as white people.

An institutionalized sense of racial and cultural superiority has always been one of the defining characteristics of Western civilization, and let’s be clear, when you say “international community,” what you really mean is Western society viewed through the lens of American mass media.

In the American mind, Paris is where we send newlyweds, and Beirut and Baghdad are where we send troops. Unsophisticated people with no sense of history or geography believe that to be the natural order of things, and of course, mass media caters to their ignorance to such a degree that when ISIS sends suicide bombers into each of those three cities, the response is predictable — shock and horror for the people of Paris and a mere shrug of acknowledgment for the people of Beirut and Baghdad.

It’s a detestable aspect of our culture, but it’s very real.

I think I may already know the answer, but what are your thoughts on the Zola/Jessica story from Twitter?

The tweets themselves are tragically hilarious. Aziah has a strong voice. I’m guessing only about half of her Florida story is true, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining.

I dunno. I’ve known my fair share of Zolas, Jessicas, Jarrets, and Zs, so the larger context of the narrative kind of breaks my heart. There are so many layers of exploitation that you can lose track of them. After a while, the whole thing becomes an exercise in meta-exploitation, especially when you start throwing in potential book and movie deals.

Ultimately, I don’t care whether it’s fiction or non-fiction. It’s compelling either way. Those characters are so vivid for me that I can’t help but look past the outrageous zingers and see all the trauma and dysfunction underneath. That’s why it’s good writing, and that’s why I definitely want to see more stories from Aziah, ones that she hopefully gets paid to write.

I just got home from the worst date I’ve ever been on. The guy was a weird jerk the entire time, told me he believed The Secret was real (what the fuck???), and then at the end of the night told me he thought I was a lesbian for the first few months I knew him. All this after he literally stalked me before he had the guts to ask me out. What the fuck? I’m so pissed off.

Yeah. It was one of those nights for me too. Sometimes I wish I could just turn off my brain and be one of the normal people who orders their fun off the happy hour menu.

I’m so fucking tired of smiling and nodding.

If you support Planned Parenthood, what are your thoughts on late second and third term abortions. All good? If a fetus is able to survive out side the womb (possible at +/- 27 weeks) doesn’t that scream murder to you? Does it make it okay because the doctor doesn’t murder out of malice? Is it okay because the Woman’s life is far more important than the little being?

I understand that prior to viability a fetus is a clump of cells. Many clumps are created that never become people. Do you think that women who choose abortion (for which ever reason they choose) are properly educated as to the process? What about the incriminating videos that have surfaced? I am often in the edge of pro choice/ pro life. I am a new mom, my baby was premature… And it makes me shudder to think that I would have had the option to terminate her a week before she was delivered.

Of the million or so abortions performed in the US each year, only about 1 percent are performed after 20 weeks of gestation. (Fetuses are simply not viable at 20 weeks — 22 weeks is the current technological threshhold for survival outside the womb, but even that requires extraordinary neonatal intensive care.)

Only about 1000 abortions a year are performed in the third trimester — that’s around 0.01 percent — and those are only performed when the mother’s life is at grave risk. You’re asking about a tiny, tiny fraction of abortions, and let’s be clear — you wouldn’t have had the option to terminate your pregnancy a week before delivery. That’s not even a thing, so quit all your stupid shuddering.

Speaking of things that don’t even exist, there are no incriminating videos. None. No evidence of any criminal activity on the part of any Planned Parenthood representative has surfaced. All of that hyped-up nonsense is just wingnut fear-mongering and politically motivated propaganda.

Let’s also step back another level. You’ve framed your entire question about Planned Parenthood around an ethical issue that involves literally 0.01% of all abortions, and abortions only account for 3% of all the critically important reproductive health care services that Planned Parenthood offers.

To be quite honest, I think it’s pretty fucking irresponsible of you to conflate Planned Parenthood with a service they provide less than 0.003% of the time — if at all — to women whose lives are at grave risk due to complications.

Planned Parenthood is SO MUCH MORE than just the place women go to get abortions. Millions of people get reproductive health services from Planned Parenthood every year — breast exams, Pap tests, STI testing and treatment (including HIV testing), plus vital family planning counseling to underprivileged populations. That shit is so important.

So yeah, if you’re on the edge of the pro-choice/anti-abortion debate, please step the fuck off and realize that whatever stupid nonsense makes you shudder as a new mom, it has absolutely no place influencing a national debate over the vital health services that Planned Parenthood provides.

Don’t be selfish about this.

I just read this (all credit to Jay Pinho of Al Jazeera America): “The least analyzed aspect of [Donald Trump’s] foray into politics is one that has taken shape over a much longer time frame: the vanishing distinction between politics and entertainment…Trump’s candidacy has rendered image and reality so interchangeable that some voters have embraced his bid as an exercise in extreme nihilism.” My immediate reaction, following solemn laughter, was to wonder if you agree. It struck me as very Coquettish.

Yes, yes.

Speaking as a Californian, this is nothing new. We’ve already elected Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor. Twice. We put the fucking Terminator in charge of the world’s eighth largest economy without the slightest trace of irony, and then we did it again.

We’ve been vanishing the distinction between politics and entertainment since everyone stopped giving a fuck back in the day and decided it’d be a good idea to let Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan run shit. (As far as I’m concerned, California should never stop apologizing for that guy.) Trump’s candidacy is just the next logical step. He fits neatly into the logarithmic progression from Reagan to Schwarzenegger and on into oblivion.

I’m not suggesting we should embrace him. (Although to do so would indeed require an exercise in extreme nihilism.) We should reject him with every fiber of our being. We should call him out as the racist misogynistic fear-mongering capitalist garbage monster that he is. We should mock his supporters as unthinking legions with flaccid minds and facile lives. We should demand better, even from the toxic dumpster fire that is the Republican Party.

Image and reality are already interchangeable. (Duh. Welcome to postmodernity, Baudrillard.) That’s still no excuse to shrug your shoulders and embrace Donald Trump. Image can supercede reality all day long, that doesn’t mean we have to accept an image of the president an angry orange man with a butthole for lips.

We can do better, even as entertainment.

Noam Chomsky vs Sam Harris. Any thoughts?

I respect Harris for trying to open a dialog, and Chomsky certainly handled the exchange poorly, but the old man is nevertheless correct.

In a nutshell, Harris suggests that intentions matter when assessing the morality of a given geo-political outcome, and that Chomsky unwisely ignores intentions. Chomsky suggests that Harris is naive about “benign” intentions, and that on the world stage, only outcomes matter.

As an example, Chomsky would not make a moral distinction between the US accidentally killing a dozen children in a drone strike and ISIS deliberately killing a dozen children with a car bomb. On the other hand, Harris very much wants to make that moral distinction. That’s his whole point in starting the conversation. He believes that those identical outcomes would not be equal, and that the US would somehow be morally superior because of the intentionality of the deaths.

Harris’s position is attractive. At first glance, it certainly “feels” right, but that’s just a trick in how he frames his position. It’s fine to talk about the moral intentions of individuals, but his argument ultimately fails because the concept of intentionality doesn’t scale-up to the systemic level of state power.

In other words, it’s perfectly legitimate to suggest that President Obama is morally superior to Abu al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, but so what? The US has visited far more atrocity onto the world than ISIS could ever hope to commit, and the fact that the President is a good guy has almost nothing to do with the intention of the US military industrial complex as a whole. Essentially, Harris is trying to make a systems-level “good guys vs bad guys” type argument, and Chomsky has no patience for that kind of bullshit.

To his credit, Harris is right that not all cultures are at the same stage of moral development, but for some reason, he has a blind spot when it comes to the systemic violence inherent to Western state powers, (specifically the US and Israel.) Harris assumes there is a certain benevolence of good intentions with regard to Western state actors, and Chomsky simply refuses to accept his premise.

Put as simply as possible, Chomsky thinks systemically about culture, whereas Harris thinks culturally about systems, and their conversation failed miserably because they got into an academic dick measuring contest.

Oh well.