Chris's Blog of Mediocrity @makototachibangme - Tumblr Blog

For those of you who didn’t know, I left Tumblr for Twitter

I’m @Makotachibangme there. And this is why I left (rant to follow, I’m sure I’ll fucking offend someone. And I won’t be offended if you unfollow me for it):

Well, first of all, there's Tumblrs asinine formatting. Do you have any idea how long it took me to figure out how to add a readmore? Or even turn something into a link? This isn't "better," it's just more complicated.

But really more than anything else, what's driven me away from this site is all the drama. Today's/tonight's jackassery on the part of some number of rinharus has really reignited my disgust with this fandom. I mean, seriously, attacking and harassing someone both here and on twitter because they dared write a narrative analysis of Free! that supports makoharu more than rinharu and because you were offended by that? That writer isn't even that invested in the Free! fandom! What the fuck is wrong with you people? You act as if every little thing is an attack against your ship and get up in arms about it. I know it's just the vocal minority of the rinharu fandom that is assholish like this, but those people are the reason that rinharu became my fucking NOTP. So many asshole rinharus (especially one person who I shall refer to as she-who-shall-not-be-named) deliberately started ship wars, by laying out bait that some makoharu would inevitably take and let the ship war begin.

There's just too god damned much drama in this fandom. People care WAY too much about their ship being canon, and I've heard it's happened more in this fandom than in most others. Get the fuck over yourselves and just let people ship what they like. I'm not trying to say that the makoharu side is all angels - we have bad eggs just like the rinharu side of the fandom does - and lord knows I'm not perfect. But I've never heard of makoharu shippers outright harassing people until they delete their accounts or go private or whatever. I wouldn't be surprised if it has, but these sorts of attacks just seem so fucking common from the rinharu side. So much drama seems to start on that side, too. It's fucking ridiculous. Seriously, the shitty rinharus are the PRECISE reason why rinharu is my NOTP. I used to enjoy it. There's tons of fantastic art out there, and I even have some on my computer, but I can't enjoy it anymore. The entire ship is just associated with the shitty parts of its fandom and everything just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. And you know what? I hate that. I fucking hate that I can't enjoy it anymore because a select few assholes ruined it. Those of you who are the assholes, you probably know who you are. Those of you who aren't? My hate doesn't apply to you, and I feel sorry for the fact that you have to deal with having those shitty people in your fandom.

Now then, to move away from Free!, there's another very big issue: the members of Tumblr are, by and large, fucking toxic as hell. I just don't feel welcome anymore. I have too many unpopular opinions, and having (or god forbid voicing) an unpopular opinion here is a bloody death sentence. To make things even better, I'm a cis, bi, white male, so my opinion doesn't even matter here because of cis/white/male privilege or whatever the fuck. I agree that those privileges do exist, but god have mercy on my soul if I dare to disagree about some particular point there or not understand something. More often than not people like me who want information are just pushed away by assholes who could explain it to us, but prefer to be jackasses and tell us to educate ourselves, leaving us with no good starting point. I'm completely and totally sick of the way tumblr treats "social justice" and I'm not going to put up with it anymore.

And you know what? Here's one really big unpopular opinion of mine, one that will probably get me lynched by the tumblr masses if it's spread around: The Black Lives Matter movement does nothing but fucking hurt itself. And is god damned hypocritical. I agree with the sentiment, but the execution? Fucking awful. I realize it's hard to get a message like that out, but disrespecting those who have not previously disrespected you is no way to gain respect. Plus prominent members of the movement buy into the misinformation cycle so fucking fast. Worse yet, most people I run into who are vocal about the issue refuse to listen to the other side and aren't willing to hold a conversation on the matter - the very thing that is needed to come to a mutual understanding and make progress. Not to say that people they're trying to convince aren't often the same way. People everywhere are too god damned stubborn to make any progress. I also am so fuckdamn sick of this anti-police movement. It suffers most of the same problems that the BLM movement does, and more. People buy into anti-police bullshit mills like Copblock and Policing the Police without a second thought. Some guy is vandalizing (using chalk as a medium for graffiti on a statue) public property and is sentenced to community service cleaning up graffiti? OH WELL OF COURSE THAT'S A FUCKING FREE SPEECH VIOLATION RIGHT THERE! Believe it or not, attitude plays a huge role in how police encounters go down. What they never mention is the fact that these people often do everything they can to provoke an incident during the encounter, including being an asshole (such as verbal abuse of the officer), resisting arrest, and attempting to make the officers use force on them. Don't want trouble? Don't be a dick to a police officer. Be respectful, they are actually figures of authority and have to put up with a lot of bullshit. The system is fucked up, no doubt, but that's not necessarily due to the individual law enforcement officer (abbrv. - LEO), it's due to the lawmakers who make these asinine and draconian laws. More often than not, the sillier ones aren't enforced, but it's a safe bet that you've committed at least one felony today without even knowing it. But you're not going to get in trouble for it unless you give an officer a reason to. Give an officer attitude, and you're probably not going to have a good day. Give an officer respect, and you're much more likely to have a good experience with the police. Please, for the love of god, don't buy into the "sovereign citizen" crap. Trust me, you don't know your rights like the LEOs do. And yes, you are required to comply with lawful orders in most states, including presenting your ID to an officer if asked.

Most people also don't understand the use of force by the police. The use of force works on a scale that is tuned to the actions of the suspect and whether or not an officer believes that said subject will be a threat to themselves, to the police officer, and/or others. Additionally, the process for officers tends to go ask, tell/command, enforcement of the command (typically by force). An example would be: "Please step out of the car." [subject refuses] "Step out of the car now!" [subject still does not comply with the lawful order, LEO removes the non-compliant subject from the car by force, further actions may include immobilizing the subject against the car or on the ground to put them in cuffs and to prevent further escalation]. More importantly, there are levels of force. Verbal force is the first level, then you move up from non-lethal deterrent/compliance tactics (for example, cuffs could be the lowest level, pepper spray/mace would be a higher level, etc. But holding a subject's arms behind their backs in an uncomfortable or painful way is MEANT to be painful - the idea is to make them reconsider whether or not they want to continue resisting) to potentially-lethal (such as tazers, more violent compliance tactics, use of batons), to fully lethal (firearms). Few, if any, officers REALLY want to resort to lethal force. But they have to consider their own safety, and that's a split-second decision.

Do me a favor: watch this video of a guy who got stopped because one of his taillights was out, and ended up shot. But why was he shot? He got belligerent and ended up pulling a gun and firing on the officers at the scene. The actual action happens at around 2:19 if you want to skip ahead.

http://blutube.policeone.com/videos/4356939599001-vegas-police-release-video-of-traffic-stop-that-left-gunman-dead/

He reached under that coat and pulled the gun out in an instant. He even had the gun pointed directly at the contacting officer's face, but the gun failed to fire the first time he pulled the trigger, which is the only reason that officer is alive to tell the tale. The man managed to fire off several more shots, however, and ended up hitting one officer on the scene in the neck. Due to the danger he presented, he was shot and killed. Do you think the officer wanted to do that? No. But that's what he had to do, because the man presented an immediate and extreme danger to others. Those decisions are made in a split second, and can happen at any time. There are far too many stories of traffic stops going horribly wrong and police officers being shot by drivers or passengers. Now tell me if that isn't fucked up. Additionally, many people don't understand the simple concept that "unarmed" is not synonymous with "not dangerous". The body can be a weapon, too.

There's even a simple use-of-force test you can do at home. It's a simulation of what could happen in real life, and is done in some citizens' academies (a public-education class offered by many police departments, as well as the FBI). Have a friend or family member stand 30 feet away from you. They'll be playing the role of an unarmed assailant. Now, an officer in the world wouldn't know who the bad guy is, but you have the luxury of knowing exactly who to watch. If at all possible, have some object that you can treat like a gun - hopefully it will have some weight to it and you can stick it in a pants pocket or something to simulate a holster. At some point in time after you're both ready, the "assailant" will charge you without warning (not having warning is EXTREMELY important) and attempt to put you in a bear hug (they can tackle you if you're on a soft surface in a clear area and are ok with it, as that will allow them to not have to restrict themselves). Your job is to draw your "weapon"and tell them to stop before they reach you. In the citizens' academy that my parents went to where this was demonstrated, not a single member of the class was able to do it successfully. Perhaps then you'll understand why things can escalate so quickly.

For example, once when I was in middle school, my friend and I were stopped by a few police officers for some stupid thing that we shouldn't have been doing (and ultimately the officers thought we had done more than we actually did). Out of nervous (and I was really overreacting to the situation) habit, I put my hands in my pockets. The officers asked me to remove them, and I did, although I unconsciously put them back in there, and they had to tell me to remove them. I did, and apologized. My friend (whose parents had been police officers) informed me after the fact that he had noticed that one of the officers had his hand on his service pistol as I removed my hands from my pockets. Why? Because he had no idea if I was about to pull a knife out of there and try to stab one of them. Did I look like some stereotypical criminal? Nope. I was just some white kid from the suburbs wearing a polo shirt and khakis. But I understand exactly why he did it. He had no idea if I was about to present myself as a danger to myself or others, and he had to prepare for the worst. Do you think he wanted to shoot a kid that day? I highly doubt it. But it's what officers have to do.

Another reason why I'm so pissed off at the anti-cop movement is that so many people have no respect for police anymore. Or any first responders. These are people who often see people at the worst moments of their lives. You're pissed because you got pulled over for texting? Perhaps that officer just finished clearing the scene of a fatal collision that ended the life of somebody just like you who had been texting at the wheel, or worse yet they killed someone else. Upset because your officer wasn't completely polite? Perhaps they just had to watch an infant pulled up from the bottom of a murky pool because the grandmother who was watching it got distracted and lost track of it - then it found its way to the pool and drowned (this is a true story by the way - http://motorcopblog.com/the-screams/). Upset because you were pulled over for going 35 in a 25? Maybe someone had been speeding on the very same road and lost control. They can go from traffic stop to fatal collision to being harassed while getting a cup of coffee to domestic violence to suicide to traffic stop and not be expected to show what kind of shit they're going through. And that goes for all first responders. The mental stress that they're under is enormous. I have a friend who became a paramedic (or EMT, I forget which), and he's been run ragged by shifts before. He's had several patients die on him (by the way, that can really affect their caregivers) in one night on several occasions, but yet he's expected to not show the emotions that come from that. Additionally, the public expects perfection from first responders on every call. That's just plain impossible, they're humans too.

And you know what really grinds my gears? The criminals who are shot by the police are glorified by the public, thanks to people twisting the information to suit their agenda. It's a god damned tragedy that they died, but that doesn't change the fact that they are more often than not at fault for their own deaths. The media and anti-cop organizations love to take the videos from those incidents and cut out all the content leading up to the shooting to suit their anti-police agenda - they remove the context and the reasoning for the use of force. They also will cut up the video to try to hide the actions that got the person shot. Meanwhile, major protests ensue, and then thanks to the mob mentality brought on by such large gatherings, some opportunist assholes will show up and incite violence that turns a peaceful protest into a riot so that they can destroy property, attack other people, and steal with a lower risk of having to face the consequences of doing so. And those people tend to not be from the communities they are destroying. The disgusting icing on the bullshit cake is that the families involved will get huge sums from settlements from wrongful death lawsuits against the police departments because the settlement costs the police department less than going to court for a case that they (the police) would inevitably win. So even if someone commits suicide by cop, their family gets a payday.

And everyone always gets so fucking pissed off about how individual officers involved in a shooting are put on paid administrative leave following the incident. Or as most like to call it, "paid vacation." Guess what? That's not a vacation. The department cannot fire an officer for having been involved in a shooting where they have not been determined to be at fault. However, just in case the officer had shot the person in malice (murder), they need to be removed from the active force of officers. They still need to eat, pay the rent/mortgage, and support their families, though, so they're paid during their mandatory off-duty period. Additionally, they have to deal with the psychological impacts of having killed another human being. That's not easy to deal with, even in the best of situations (such as stopping someone from murdering a bunch of people). Understand? Even when these officers are found to be not guilty, they often are forced to resign or are relieved of duty because of how the public has vilified them.

Police officers are shot and killed by criminals every single day, but nobody says a single word about it. Black lives matter, but there's no uproar when a black police officer is killed by a white criminal. Police are oppressive pigs, but we'll still call on them for help if somebody is aggressive towards our anti-establishment/anti-police protest. The fact of the matter is that while many members of the public show enormous disrespect for the police, they'll still come to your aid, regardless of how you feel about them. If you're wearing a copblock t-shirt and some guy comes at you with a knife, an officer will still try to stop them from hurting you, despite the fact that you hate that "pig."

Grow. The. Fuck. Up.

I realize that this isn't all your fault - many protests are glossed over or ignored by the media unless they see an opportunity to capitalize on it. Media outlets can get much higher ratings by sensationalizing a protest and incident and making a mountain out of a molehill with misinformation than just reporting on peaceful protests. Additionally, a lot of these situations are being used to further some people's political agendas. If you don't think someone is using every single one of these incidents to further their political agenda instead of actually honestly and truly wanting to fix the problem, you're dead wrong.

And for those of you who have stuck around for all of this, thank you. If you disagree with me, feel free to tell me about it. No guarantee I'll even see it, because I'm really not going to be coming back to tumblr much, if at all, but if you're open to discussion, please come to me saying so. The more we let this become a case of us vs them, with no room for cooperation, the weaker we are in being able to stand up to actions put forth by the government. A lot of shit has been going on off to the side while everyone is distracted with this "race war" (which it really shouldn't be). Please, for the love of fuck, encourage discussion over just yelling at and insulting one another. /endrant

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Chris's Blog of Mediocrity