22 Dec 09 Oh, Christmas Cheer! Things I Absolutely Hate

Christmas is my least favorite holiday. While the memories of gifts and family and friends are very fond to me, the sham religion and years of servitude to a deluded organization leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth (thankfully, not literally, though others can attest it has).

So, I thought to myself, “What better way to celebrate the holiday and prepare for New Year’s than to list all of the things, people and groups I absolutely hate?”

Typically I am rather mild-mannered and wouldn’t mention any of these things in polite company. It’s really only near the holidays, when religion and right-side politics become nearly omnipresent, that I really get upset. So here we go! Merry Christmas! It’s my List of Things, People and Groups I Absolutely Hate. Complete with reasoning.

1. Catholicism. Admittedly, some of the hatreds on this list aren’t predicated upon an entirely reasonable basis. In the interest of full disclosure, I was raised Catholic and spent years working for the Church: Catholic school, mass, youth group, volunteer events, altar boy. I believed the entire religion utterly and never questioned it until I hit my teenage years. When I finally made that one step in the wrong direction–to not get confirmed–both the Church and my family brought the hammer down. I relented, knowing that it meant absolutely nothing to me anymore. The Catholic Church’s continuing cover-ups of child abuse and molestation, their treatment of the poor, their support of dogma and mystical tradition make the Catholic Church my absolute most-hated organization.

2. Dr. Laura Schlesinger. Touting a degree in physiology and a basic marriage counseling license apparently gives you the right to spout bigoted hate speech on AM radio, Monday through Friday, noon to two. Dr. Laura has always been a hard-ass but her recent conversion to Orthodox Judaism has made her a support of anti-gay reparative therapy and become even more strict on cohabitation and intentional single parenthood. My Mom listened to her like the gospel for years–and while I have not, I hear she has  TV show in the works. Boycott!

3. The Anti-Vaccine Movement is one of the most catastrophic ideas of the decade. There is almost certainly no identifiable link between autism rates and vaccination. But why didn’t the federal government have enough swine flu vaccine this fall? Partly because an ingredient called adjuvants were not mixed in. Adjuvants are immune-system boosters, but are claimed by the anti-vaccine movement as ‘causing’ autism. The other typical autism culprit in vaccines is the mercury-based preservative, thimoserol. With the CDC claiming almost 10,000 people dead from swine flu as of last month, you start to see how deadly anti-science really is.

4. The Salvation Army is infamous for its continued discrimination against GLBT persons, its essentially paramilitary activity, and the huge amounts of internal theft and “understandings” that go on at their locations. The Advocate and New York Times exposed a secret arrangement between the Bush administration and Salvo: if Salvo gave their support on Faith-Based Initiatives, the Bush administration would do everything in its power to give Salvo the right to discriminate against gays. Salvo later came out and said they were only looking for ways to prevent gays from becoming ministers or provide benefits for same-sex partners: certainly not discrimination, by any stretch of the word! Lately they’ve threatened to close soup kitchens in cities and states that legalize same-sex marriage. When gay marriage looms, take it out on the poor and needy, clearly a perfected Christian message!

5. Reparative Therapy, often called conversion therapy, is an incredibly harmful practice of trying to modify the behavior and beliefs of GLBT persons. It’s been shown in multiple studies that it only really makes a substantive change in less than 1% of patients, and those patients are, admittedly, very religious and potentially lying. It’s harmful, it’s politically and religiously motivated, vulnerable people who are just coming out are coaxed into it, and it needs to be stopped.

6. Scientology. Wow, what a year for them. Mass defections from their high ranks, allegations of physical abuse and money laundering, and their conviction of organized fraud by the French courts, as well as the Internet-organized Anonymous protests. I hate Scientology because of their completely unreasonable claims about history, philosophy, medicine and psychiatry. They’re essentially a gigantic Ponzi scheme that the government has given legal status to.

7. Glenn Beck…there is no curse in Elvish, Entish or the tongues of men. Need I say more?

8. 9/11 Conspiracy Theories: go away please. The analysis of the Pentagon, the WTC, and the crash site in Pennsylvania have been rigorously and scientifically tested. Composition, DNA, materials, and structural studies show that the official story is what actually happened. Furthermore, hundreds of people would have needed to have been involved with this conspiracy. Who could keep a secret that long, for any amount of money?

9. Chiropractors are in question because of their efficacy, safety, and cost-effectiveness. Support for the actual work by chiropractors is low and, while all of medicine is helped by the placebo effect, chiropractic seems to almost entirely rely upon this effect. Studies that go in-depth on chiropractic work often find that many of their other claims–related to the anti-vaccination movement and the fluoridation of water–are also unsupported.

10. Sarah Palin. God, just writing her names hurt the fingertips. Starting from America’s initial exuberance over the McCain VP candidate, she’s become the laughingstock of the world. Her plasticized image, her conservative politics, her bumbling career, her ethics complaints, and her fictional writing all indicate someone who has been both destabilized by power and living up to the corrupted neo-con lifestyle. While there are many nails in the Palin coffin right now, many of them her own making, the one that’ll really drive it home is if in 2012 she fails to secure a Republican nomination. She’d be forgettable at that point.

11. Rush Limbaugh is hatred incarnate. When the Obama administration spokesperson earlier this year named him as the figurehead and leader of the Republican Party, even the Republican Party denounced him! Seriously, if the biggest douchebag party in the entire United States thinks you’re not worth being a member, what sort of person are you?

12. Ann Coulter, ugh, what a bitch. From her indefensible comments on the 2008 presidential election to the various incidents she has reared her ugly blonde head into, Ann Coulter has become a vast joke for the entire American way of discourse. Some people don’t even believe she is really touting these beliefs, but rather parodying the entire conservative right. If this is true, the parody is too true to be funny. She’s advocated carpet bombing the Middle East, converting all Muslims forcibly to Christianity, imposing vast racially-motivated laws and restrictions, and uses hate speech regularly.

13. In fact, the entire Republican bloc. Yeah, you heard me, I hate all of you. While old-school fiscal-conservative Republicans can be OK in the right circumstances, these neo-conservatives who are more Machiavellian than Machiavelli, and these fundamentalist Christians who make the Inquisition look like a quaint affair are perhaps the most insidious Americans in this entire generation. They are devastating the economy, the society of America, the environment, politics and international relations and the world for decades to come. Short of consistently forcing their hand in politics, trying to break the party apart or simply making them illegal, there are few solutions for a problem as big as Republicans.

14. Israel has become a Zionist, racist and cruel regime that uses Nazi tactics to pursue their agenda in the Middle East. Manipulating American and European politics with adept ease, they attack civilians, turned the Gaza Strip into a massive ghetto, use banned weapons like depleted uranium and white phosphorus, harvest the organs of Palestinians and continue to deliberately settle Palestinian lands. They certainly did “never forget”–indeed, one might say they learned the lessons of their former oppressors all too well.

15. Those people who let their kids die because they do not believe in medicine. Be it because of religion or because you believe modern medicine is a sham, your kids are dying. Who would not try absolutely everything to save their child, even if it meant going against your beliefs?

16. Andrew Schlafly, founder of Conservapedia, is an Americentrist, conservative Christian who seems to have a need to provide conservative revisions of history, religion and even reality itself. His most recent project, the Conservative Bible Project, rewrites the entire Bible to provide the accurate deranged view that Biblical scholars have injected liberal bias into the Christian scripture. Honestly, the only saving grace of the Bible is the New Testament; why would someone want to rewrite it to be like the Old Testament? Absolutely insane, but his cult following on the web gives him a position on my hate list.

17. Mormons. How incredibly ironic that traditional marriage is supported by polygamists!

18. “Birthers”. As readers of the New Mirador will know, my Dad is a dedicated birther, following the citizen grand juries and countless frivolous lawsuits that have sprung up. Their constant reiteration that, even if Barack Obama is a legitimate US citizen, he should not be allowed to be president because of his clear “un-American” bias and “anti-American” conspiracy. These people are grouped in with Tea Partiers and the newly-invigorated rebellious right. How utterly ludicrous, I can think of a million better things to do with my life than sue on a completely unsupported platform for the president’s birth certificate.

19. Homeopathy is something that came into my life last winter, when my aunt recommended colloidal silver for my Dad’s worsening diabetes and poor circulation. Rather than, of course, take insulin like the rest of them, my Dad gulped this stuff down (there’s still a bottle in the medicine cabinet at home). There is no medical or scientific proof that colloidal silver can do anything for the human body. If anything, there are simply reports of toxicity and silver binding with some antibioticsfor lesser effectiveness.

20. HIV/AIDS Denialists. While rare in the United States (exception: this woman), there are many HIV/AIDS denialists in Africa that are affecting social policy to combat and control HIV/AIDS. Consistent claims for mud or some medicinal plants or having sex with virgins being a cure for AIDS is just plain sick.

21. Honorary Hate: Chuck Norris. Being a conservative and supporting the Republican Party is enough, but I mostly hate him for the million-odd jokes about him that are entirely un-funny and have no basis anywhere in years after 2005.

Tags: beck, Christmas, Christmas sucks, coulter, hate, limbaugh, Obama birth certificate, pope, republicans