Your Rights as a Parent: You don't have any.

My home state of MO is toying with legislation that would allow parents to pull their children out of public school classes in which they might be exposed to information about sexual orientation or gender identities. There's a lot of support for it on Facebook, with lots of people saying that they have a right to teach their kids what they believe, and to prevent them from learning about other beliefs, or factual information that challenges their beliefs.

Why on Earth would anyone think that?

How arrogant and entitled do you have to be to think that you have the right to prevent someone else from learning things?

Parenting is not a right, it's a privilege, and that privilege comes with responsibilities which are not optional.

If parenting were a fundamental, inalienable right, adoption would work very differently - there'd be no background checks, no steps at all to protect the child's welfare, because the adult's right to be a parent would supersede any of that.

If parenting were a right, any form of child abuse would be fair game, because your freedom to discipline your child how you see fit would override any standards or morals otherwise agreed upon by society.

If parenting were a right, you'd be under no obligation to feed your child or put a roof over his head. You could give her a bowl of dogfood every other day and make her sleep out in the backyard at night, because your decisions as a parent would be subject  to no criticism or oversight.

If it was your right to parent however you wanted, your children would effectively be your property.

But they aren't your property, they're human beings, and you can't choose to do whatever you want to them as their parent (thank God).

You have an obligation to provide for them, to keep them healthy, safe, and nourished, and to prepare them to live independently of you one day. The minor choices are yours to make - do they get chicken nuggets or a hot dog for dinner, do they take violin lessons this summer, do they get a new action figure, do you play the Santa Claus game, etc.

But the big choices are not yours to make. You do not get to decide whether burning your child with a cigarette butt is a reasonable way to teach them good diction, or whether 13 is too young to get married. You do not get to decide whether a breatharian diet would be healthier for them in the long run, or whether blood letting is a reasonable response to chicken pox.

You do not get to do these things, because your children have rights as human beings, and your 'right' to 'parent' however you want does not eclipse society's consensus regarding individual human rights to live free of abuse.

Deliberately keeping your child ignorant is another form of neglect, and lying to them about important things they will need to know to be a healthy adult is a form of abuse.

Your misogynistic or patriarchal beliefs do not entitle you to prevent your child from learning that rape is wrong, or that women should be paid the same as men.

Your racist or white supremacist beliefs do not entitle you to prevent your child from learning about the evils of slavery, segregation, or the holocaust.

Your unswerving faith in Reaganomics does not entitle you to prevent your child from learning about societal problems like poverty, hunger, or homelessness.

Your sincerely held belief that "0" is not a number does not entitle you to deny your child a math education.

And your equally preposterous, indefensible belief that homosexuality, bisexuality, or nonbinary gender identities are 'mental health issues' or 'liberal propaganda' do not give you the 'right' to prevent your child from learning information that challenges or disproves your beliefs.

You have the right to choose to be ignorant;  you do not have the right to force your ignorance on others.

Googling Evil

While both sides of a deep philosophical or moral divide are inclined to label their opposite as "evil", it often feels like one side tends to do it a lot more than the other. Thinking about this, I'm reminded of two exchanges from Star Wars:

Obi-Wan: "Anakin, Chancellor Palpatine is evil!"
Anakin: "From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!
Obi-Wan: "Well, then you are lost!"
...
Anakin: "If you're not with me, then you're my enemy!"
Obi-Wan: "Only a Sith deals in absolutes."

This is either brilliant piece of dialogue highlighting the hypocrisy of the Jedi Order, or an egregious example of a writer spectacularly lacking in self-awareness. Either way, it encourages me to check my own biases.

My predisposition is to perceive individuals on the conservative end of the spectrum as more likely to vilify their opponents than individuals on the left end. This perception is partly based on personal observation, and partly based on the distinct association between the right and evangelical groups which talk like... well, evangelists. As much as liberals focus on climate change, conservatives seem to focus on fire and brimstone, and there's a lot of moral absolutism when you start talking about God and the Devil. 

Is my perception accurate though? As a loose test of my own implicit theory, I tried a number of google searches, and recorded the number of hits, hypothesizing that those on the left end of the spectrum would be renounced as evil more often than those on the right.

First, I searched without quotation marks. This yields all hits where the words appear on a page together. The notable disparity is marked by bold font.

• Evil Republicans = 12,500,000 hits
• Evil Democrats = 22,600,000 hits
• Evil Conservatives = 9,130,000 hits
• Evil Liberals = 8,050,000 hits
• Evil Right-Wing =  66,200,000 hits
• Evil Left-Wing = 59,500,000 hits

This search was consistent with my expectations. However, "Democrat" is nearly twice as likely to appear on a page with the word "evil" than "Republican" is. It's hard to interpret this, though. For the Right/Left and Conservative/Liberal dichotomies, there's little difference in the likelihood of appearing on a page with the word evil, so we lack a consistent trend. Furthermore, searching for just "Democrat" and "Republican" together yields 132 million hits, so there's definitely going to be an overlap between "Democrats" and "Republicans" appearing on a page with the word "evil". Finally, appearing on the page together does not necessarily mean that the word "evil" is being applied to the target. 

So, I repeated each search with quotation marks:

• "Evil Republicans" = 23,800 hits
• "Evil Democrats" = 24,300 hits
• "Evil Conservatives" = 7,680 hits
• "Evil Liberals" = 48,100 hits
• "Evil Right-Wing" = 110,000 hits
• "Evil Left-Wing" = 14,200 hits

As you can see, there's some extreme and puzzling differences here. There's little difference between Republicans and Democrats now, but there are over 6 times as many hits referring to "Evil Liberals" as there are hits referring to "Evil Conservatives", and nearly 8 times as many hits referring to the "Evil Right-Wing" as to the "Evil Left-Wing" (searching for "Evil Leftist" yields only 15,700 hits, so not significantly more than "Evil Left-Wing"). Given the seemingly inconclusive results, I tried another set of searches, altering the grammar to be more broad:

• "Evil Republican" = 75,200 hits
• "Evil Democrat" = 23,000 hits
• "Evil Conservative" = 39,300 hits
• "Evil Liberal" = 27,100 hits
• "Evil Right" = 320,000 hits
• "Evil Left" = 72,200 hits

Again, this bucks my hypothesis. The search for "Evil Right" was greatly inflated by an internet meme referencing Austin Powers' "Dr. Evil" saying the word "Right", with air quotes, but even considering only the Republican/Democrat and Conservative/Liberal pairings, Republicans/Conservatives seem to be subjected to more morally-absolutist rhetoric. This certainly didn't map to my expectations, but it then occurred to me that the two sides of these dichotomies may speak in distinctly different ways, such that the syntax of the statement matters. So I tried repeating the second search with "evil" as a predicate nominative rather than as an adjective.

• "Republicans are evil" = 75,500 hits
• "Democrats are evil" = 81,800 hits
• "Conservatives are evil" = 31,700 hits
• "Liberals are evil" = 579,000 hits
• "Right-Wing is evil" = 7,610 hits
• "Left-Wing is evil" = 5,810 hits

Altering the grammar of the search in this way closed the Republican/Democrat gap. "Evil Democrat" or "Evil Democrats" doesn't show up much on Google, but the phrase "Democrats are evil" appears a lot. The Right/Left difference is minor, but the big shocker is the conservative/liberal dichotomy, with "Liberals are evil" appearing 579,000 times, compared to "Conservatives are evil" appearing only 31,700 times

Ultimately, I leave it to the reader to decide which of these approaches, and the results they yielded, are most valid, However, I would venture one interpretation. Fundamentally, this little diversion was about moral absolutism - the extent to which one side dismisses, even dehumanizes the other side using the word "evil".  I had initially assumed the grammar was only marginally relevant, but in retrospect, there's a big difference here. If I refer to a "black cat", the implication is that not all cats are black, which is quite different from saying "cats are black". Likewise, saying "Liberals are evil" is much more absolute than referring to "evil liberals." From that perspective, the results would seem to support my hypothesis, but only for the liberal/conservative dichotomy. 

Of course, another important point, which is more than I can get into before making lunch, is that the pages generated by these searches seem very different. My general observations from the first pages of each search were that articles about 'evil republicans' or 'evil conservatives' tended to be editorials about the melodramatic demonization of the right (often compared/contrasted to similar rhetoric about 'dumb liberals' or 'stupid democrats'), whereas 'evil liberals' or 'evil democrats' were being discussed on sites like Church Militant (a site which I feel dirty for even clicking on), or in articles directly quoting the President of the United States. Both of which are kind of chilling when you think about it.

Why Horizon should come to Eastern Tennessee

To the fine folks at Turn 10,

I picked up Forza Horizon 3 after my wife became pregnant because I needed a quick pick-up-put-down, clean, nonviolent game. I became addicted to it, so too did she, and our baby was born last summer with a particular affinity for Fitz and the Tantrums' "Handclap" and other songs that play on Horizon Pulse. Since then we've acquired the DLCs, Forza Horizon 4, its DLCs, and I've started to actually make an impression as an in game artist, with over 1,000 downloads! (Which probably isn't really all that much, but it's still more success than I've had self-publishing fiction novels on Amazon KDP, so I take my victories where I can.)

We have talked a couple of times about good locales for future Horizon games. An obvious choice, of course, is Japan, but I would venture another choice: Eastern Tennessee.

We live in Oak Ridge, TN, a small town northwest of Knoxville. Oak Ridge, "The Secret City," was created by the U.S. military in the early forties as part of the Manhattan Project, and continues to host Oak Ridge National Labs. ORNL is involved in a wide range of engineering projects, and is fond of demonstrating new technologies through automotive exhibitionism. In particular, they've taken to 3D printing cars, including reproducing a complete Shelby Cobra. Local Motors also has a factory on the edge of town. 

The neat thing is, depending on the map size, you could range between the thickly forested areas north of Oak Ridge to the Smoky Mountains southeast of Knoxville, with Knoxville sitting between them to provide some urban street racing environments. With Nashville down the highway west of Knoxville and  Bristol down the highway east of us, racing and music are big parts of the local culture - a great fit for a Horizon Festival. The area also provides pretense for some neat gimmicks to keep things fresh - a country or southern rock radio station, developing and testing cars with experimental technology (especially alternative/sustainable energy), story missions that dive into Oak Ridge's history with vintage cars and military vehicles, off road races that tread in mildly radioactive restricted areas, and - of course - monster trucks, demolition derbies, stunt shows, and all sorts of other less civilized motorsports popular in the American Southeast and Midwest.

The reason I felt compelled to write this is because of a story reported by Oak Ridge's local newspaper this morning; for essentially the same reasons I mentioned above, the city is talking about sponsoring the construction of an actual real-life motorsports park that would provide test tracks for the lab, and entertainment for racing fans. And here's the kicker - they're wanting to build it at Oak Ridge's Horizon Center along with an amphitheater for shows and such. So, hypothetically, how awesome would it be to sponsor a real-life Horizon Festival to tie into the release of a future game? Personally, I think it would be pretty cool.

Anyway, just an idea. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

Thanks for making great video games that have kept us sane through the first six months of parenthood,

Best,

James McDonald

(aka, "Caelus Prime")

Sorry, Not Sorry

I have been told that the letter I wrote to my Republican senators and shared online last night was "tepid fear-mongering", "asinine, moronic drivel", and the reason that 'both the right and the left hate' 'dumbass liberals'. The reader in question seems primarily to have been offended by the phrase "Antifa extremists", I assume because the person is an Antifa supporter and does not like to think of himself in those terms.

I think most people would understand that I wrote that letter from the perspective of a jaded voter dressiing-down a conservative reader. Part of doing that was speaking in terms the person I was insulting could understand, couching my talking points within concepts they ordinarily embrace.

To clarify, however, if I believed the Antifa movement was an extremist group, I wouldn't have said "Antifa extremists", I would simply have said "Antifa". There's a reason we say "Islamic extremists" but we don't say "Nazi extremists"; the former requires the qualifier, the latter does not.

My intention in the letter was to convey the arc of escalation our country is on right now. As rule of law erodes, I see the rule of fear and violence inevitably overtaking it. As a left-leaning/liberal American (and yes, I say both, because 99% of Americans use the words interchangeably; get over it), I'd like to think that the authoritarian nationalism that has become intimately tied to political conservativism in America makes disenchanted right-wing Americans the only threat to our future, but that's a biased opinion, and to be completely fair, disenchanted - and increasingly disenfranchised - left-wing Americans have more reason to resort to terroristic violence, even if they innately have less proclivity towards it.

It would be nice to think I'm "fear-mongering" for some sort of personal political gain, but the reality is that right-wing domestic terrorism is already a problem, and it's only natural that the left will eventually spawn individuals who attempt to retaliate. To me, the Antifa movement will be the most likely source of these individuals for multiple reasons.

First, an authoritarian power thrives on having a recognizable and frightening enemy to rail against. I would expect that whatever left-wing counter movement escalates to violence, it will probably be egged-on and quietly supported by right-wing interests. I can think of one conservative media darling, employed by Breitbart, who already has past experience acting as an agent provocateur (his name literally appears on the wiki page for that term), and he has been very (suspiciously) quick to report on Antifas' actions, presenting them in the worst possibly light. I think the seeds are already there.

Second, Antifa have the name-recognition to draw out and empower left-wing individuals with militant views and the online presence to connect them, while also being too decentralized to rein in or take responsibility for their members in any meaningful way. While the Antifa movement may not transform into an organization of violent extremists, it's the most likely body on the left to spawn one.

Third, and finally, while I regret having caused emotional distress to any Antifa members out there who were offended by my use of the phrase "Antifa extremists"... Actually, no, I don't regret offending you. You're pricks, and more than anyone on our end of the political spectrum, you're the ones who make us 'dumbass liberals' look bad.

Antifa aren't the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers showed their faces when they turned out to support their cause - despite being people of color extremely vulnerable to systemic and personal reprisals. They had the dignity, pride, and bravery, to put their lives on the line for their people. Anonymity empowers people by deindividuating them, freeing them from personal accountability or moral responsibility. It's a tool of cowardice, a bullying tactic, and it's toxic.

And does anyone really believe that the black bloc attire that Antifa protesters are notoriously associated with actually conceals a diverse and inclusive body that genuinely represents the underpriveleged Americans they're supposedly advocating for? No, I don't think many of us really believe that - cherry-picked interviewees aside - Antifa is anything more than another excuse for entitled middle-class, white boys to put on costumes, light fires, and frighten people they hate.

And America has had one too many of those for a very long time.