Jake 🇺🇸

Killing Lions
2016-06-09 00:31:54 (UTC)

The media *sigh* (RANT)

This might be a dumb entry but there's just something that's been on the news and it won't go away. News outlets have to just keep blowing it up.

It's about this guy Brok (idk his name), 20 years old who raped a girl. Okay so no big deal, this happens dozens of times every year across college campuses. The caveat is that this guy, a white (because race is somehow all important) ivy league, rich kid only got 6 months in prison. The maximum time was 14 years but the judge decided that this kid had so much potential that he decided to rule for a much shorter time.

I think it's all about injustice.

The news outlets keep blowing this up because it's a hot story. It makes people outraged at the injustices of this world. That's what the news does, it tries to get you angry. Maybe it's in our nature to be angry and if we can't find anything to be mad at we make something up or blow something small up.

So what are people angry about?

Again, it's injustice. People somehow think this has to do with white privilege but that's nonsense. It all has to do with money. This kid had rich, educated parents which most likely played a role in getting the shorter sentence.

Racism (mostly) doesn't exist anymore.

You can look at statistics all you want. Black people get paid less, commit more crime and are probably treated worse than whites. But that doesn't "prove" racism. Maybe the problem is poverty. Maybe the problem is the "black" culture? There is definitely a way to fix this: Education. But that's a whole can of worms.

Anyway, this story kept popping up in reddit, drudge and facebook and so i did watch some videos. Most of them were geared towards getting the reader angry. There was a news article about how the parents thought that "6 months was too much" -- making the reader angry. Or there was an emotional story about the rape victim and how she "was scarred for life" -- again, making the reader angry at the rapist. By the way, never fall for the emotional tricks the media plays on you. Emotion is the most amazing thing we humans have, it drives you to do stuff unimaginably amazing, but it's also one of our biggest weaknesses and hearing a sob story on the news really can affect us and our decision making (part of why Trump is winning; he's a TV star).

Two weeks ago I had the most miserable illness, fever I've ever had. I felt terrible, the worst i think I've ever felt. I ended up sweating in my bed for 3 days. After I realized I wasn't getting better I ended up going to the ER and it turned out I had a pretty bad infection on my balls (yep). The doctors poked and prodded me, I was just like "ugh this sucks" but since I couldn't blame it on anyone, i just felt like the doctors were doing everything they could, I actually felt really relieved even though it was a really miserable process (It's embarrassing so I don't want to go into details). I think the physical process may be similar to that of a rape victim. For a rape victim I don't think the actual pain or procedures are really that bad. The worst part is the emotional pain, knowing that somebody intentionally hurt you, knowing that your body is no longer the same? And even worse, knowing that the rapist got away with it simply because he had money.

We all want to blame someone.

When there's nobody to blame, suddenly it isn't so bad, it just "sucks" and there's nothing you can do about it. It's not like you can sue cancer for ruining your life; it just is there and the only thing you can do is take action and get it fixed as soon as you can. Because of this reason, I think most rape victims overemphasize their experience in order for people to feel bad for them and hate the rapist even more.

So what's the solution?

I think being angry IS important. There are injustices out there that need to be addressed. There's thousands of babies killed via abortion every year! There's a good possibility that the rapist should have been sentenced much longer and we should speak out against this problem. But dragging it out and blaming the rapist isn't where we should start. The problem seems to be (if you're arguing that it's unfair) should be with the justice system. Why did this guy get such a small sentence????? Who are the judges involved? How was money involved?? These are the questions we need to answer, not simply generating hate against the rapist; that won't lead to any progress. I personally think our justice system is completely screwed up (but it's the best thing I can think of).

Well, I'm done with that rant. I wish I could argue intelligently with others about these issues, this is all "off the top of my head" thinking and I may have my logic completely wrong.

Anyway, I guess i should give an update on my life.

Life is good right now, I have friends. Yesterday I had dinner with this girl, we talked about stuff for like 2 hours. She just graduated and now is... moving on. The conversation kinda went south, she started talking about how much she was going to miss the town. She's leaving. Gosh, it's pretty sad, every time I think I make another good friend they leave. I guess that's how life works.

Have you ever met a soulmate? Like, not a romantic love or anything but... somebody who you understood and they understand you. Somebody who you could talk with for hours. Those people are friends you DON'T want to lose. If I was to think about my life, I think I've befriended 4 people like that in my life. The first guy I met in college, we just had so much in common, we would laugh at eachother's jokes we were both super nerds in the same field. I met him in sophomore year. I still message him occasionally today.

Then my senior year I met this other guy. I remember we decided to play disc golf together, we started talking and after awhile stopped paying any attention to the game, i think we got to hole 8 and just completely stopped and just talked while sitting on a fallen tree. We had so much in common, i was interested in him and he was interested in me. We were such good friends. Unfortunately i met him my last semester in undergrad, I did some stuff with him over the summer but it was hard since he was 4 hours away. Gosh, i really miss him.

Who else? My "Freshman" year of grad school (last fall) I met this really cool guy, we also clicked and we basically just hung out together. He was the type of guy who I could really get into deep conversations with. He would always ask me how I was doing spiritually and we would get into long talks. I like that. But he graduated in December with his masters, he doesn't have facebook so I'll probably lose contact, all I have is his number.

Finally there's this other guy. He's a few years older but he's just amazing. We (again) have so much in common. We can talk about stuff for hours. He moved into the area around January and we shared an office together so we got to know eachother really, really well. He was the guy who introduced me to clubbing, irish car bombs, and all that 'crazy' stuff. *sigh* memories. I'll probably go biking with him tomorrow.

I hope in the future I'll be able to make more friends like that easier. But who knows what the future holds? The big elephant in the room for me is my qualifying exam. I MUST PASS IT. I haven't studied as much as I hoped. In fact, I probably should have been studying instead of doing this lol.




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