Of Mice and Minions

You know what's not fair? How evil villain minions are treated. I get that some organizations are not redeemable: If you have the option to be a member of HYDRA or S.H.I.E.L.D and you join HYDRA, you're an asshole. But what about the guy who works for an Evil Overlord; even though the government is evil, its still the government.

Some times being a minion to the bad guy is necessary to make it through life. Imagine this: David Ross works at a company where he started in the mail room but eventually began maintaining the company's proprietary software. He gets married to Loreen from Accounting who has a weak immune system. They have a daughter Janice, but she is born with the same ailment as her mother, and Loreen dies during labor. David is determined to take care of his daughter, but his company goes under. Having a hard time finding work, David is offered a job by an old friend for some quick easy money. All David has to do is stand guard at a warehouse for a few hours over the weekend. Suddenly, Batman jumps out of the shadows and breaks both of his arms and gives him a concussion. Who's going to take care of poor Janice now?

Ironically, she is dreaming of Batman cleaning up the scum in her city.

A lot of times, minions are victims of circumstance. It's easy to say "If you didn't want batons shoved up your anus, you shouldn't be a bad guy in Hell's Kitchen." But what if you aren't a bad guy? As per the Death Star Contractor theory, the Death Star from the 3rd 6th 3rd Star Wars movie was full of contractors. As far as the non-rebel part of the Star Wars universe is concerned, the Empire is in the right. Why would they turn down a government contract?

Ever notice how you don't see any rank and file female minions? They are always in some position of power, but that position of power is always based solely on how they use their vaginas for the forces of evil. Whether it be the sexy femme fatale spy who is inevitably defeated by the female deuteragonist, the butch lieutenant who challenges the protagonist's manhood, or the Big Bad's Assistant/Consort, women are very limited to their roles in evil-dom.

Even when they are the Big Bad, a woman's evil motivation are typically those of a vain or petty jezebel or deadly matriarch figure. Scarlet Overkill just wanted the Queen's Crown, the Alien Queen only wanted to reproduce; even Maleficent, the de-facto greatest Disney Villain of all time, is mad because she wasn't invited to a fucking birthday party. Sea Witch and Diva Extraordinaire Ursula is the only female villain who truly desired power without motivation tied to vanity, fashion or a man.

Also the only Kingdom Hears boss which made me want to eat babies.
Seriously fuck this fight

How actually does one become a minion anyway? Is there like a meet up group or a craigslist posting? I mean how are evil doers able to get word out about open positions without having local authorities come down on them with supreme justice (barring any corruption of course). I mean how did the SHIELD > HYDRA conversion process work in the MCU?

Agent 1: Hey dude you've been here at SHIELD for like a month, how are you liking it so far?
Agent 2 : It's good, the wife is a little concerned after the whole HULK thing.
Agent 1: I feel you. Hey I got a question: Do you like lizards?
Agent 2: What? No not really.
Agent 1: What about Nazis?
Agent 2: Dude what the fuck are you.. blargh!!!
Agent 1: HAIL HYDRA!!!!!!

Is there an evil Human Resources department? What is the work life balance like? Do they get dental? Do their families know? What is advancement at the evil company like? Unless your life is completely shitty and you need the benefits or the pay is astronomical, I don't see the desire to risk having your body blown to smithereens while two 20 somethings shout GO JOE and swoon at each other over your corpse.

Unless of course your boss is Hank Scorpio

Deus ex MURICA

As we touched on earlier Religion is a really big deal in the world, and I think that it is an even bigger problem. In my opinion Religion is a crutch for people who lack critical thinking; "I don't know what I'm supposed to do in this situation. What would my ultra powerful space deity do?" The average person is not going to wantonly stab another person to death. Not out of fear of law, not our of fear of divine retribution, but because that's literally what wanton means. The people who don't run around killing and maiming and raping and robbing, those are the normal people. The idea that people are running around doing that shit out of lack of fear or respect of an ominous presence is ridiculous, and that's pretty much what religion is all about. As an American who is a member of a group who has only recently been oppressed gifted with Christianity, lets talk about that.

I will not lie. There are a great number of positive lessons, acts, and deeds done in the many Bible translations and editions. But you can also find that shit in a Harry Potter book, or Dr. Seuss books. I don't remember Horton needing any omnipotent prescient voice tell him that letting all those Whos die was bad, and absolutely nothing alluded to the fact.

*As Told by Peter, the guy who totally doesn't lie about anything

For every good act done there are countless terrible ones. Terrible things which somehow are glossed over when people go around quoting shit that supposedly makes gay marriage bad. For Example, in Numbers 31, the Midianites (Read: Arabs) got sick. Many of them died. Today, we would call this an epidemic. But remember this is Biblical times where bad things happen to people because God made it so. So what did the Israelites do?

A. Not assist the Midianites because they worshiped a different god
B. Kill all of the surviving men and take all of their livestock
C. Kill all of the non-virgin women and claim the virgins.
D. Take all of their valuables and burn anything else not already on fire
E: All of the above

"I swear to Asherah I'm chaste"
-Famous Last Words

And this is not just some random group of Israelites. This was friggin' Moses. MOSES!! The only thing scarier than blind faith are the things the blindly faithful will do, and the Bible is full of fucks not given. Let's not forget the time Moses talked to a burning bush. Or the time Aaron (/wrists) and his wife clowned on Moses because he married a black girl (bonus points for them questioning his relationship with God for doing so). And my personal favorite, when Abraham was told by a scary voice to take his son and disembowel him on a rock in the middle of nowhere. There's a special place for people who do shit like that.

Don't those all sound strikingly familiar? Kind of like AIDS being a God induced Plague, or that Interracial Marriage is not biblical  and, surprisingly, the guy who tried to sacrifice his son in a cemetery? My question is, did these people read the Bible and build their beliefs off of what they read, or did they acquire these beliefs somehow and then use the bible for confirmation bias? Either way, it shows an extreme lack of critical thinking, and a lack of life experience.

Our laws should not shape our personal morals, just like our personal morals should not shape our laws. If it is legal to murder people, the world is not going to devolve into chaos despite what some people think. Yet Christians feel that Phantom Space Man's Fairy Tales should be the law of the land. And I get why. You are God's custodians and its up to you to spread his message, but if someone does something you don't want them to do and it has absolutely nothing to do with you, you let it go, you don't try to make it a law. I don't know about you all, but I'm not comfortable with letting someone who thinks some dude parted a sea yet doesn't think that toxic gases in air that we breathe is bad decide how the country should be run.

What's even worse is the role of the woman in Christianity. A women's expectation can pretty much be summed up with a chart:

If you follow Creflo Dollar, replace "Go to Church" with "Donate money"

There is so much submission going on you'd think God would do professional MMA instead of begging his believers for 10% of their checks. I like the concept of having a positive outlook when struggling and hoping for the best while working towards the best, but submitting completely to the ebb and flow of the universe hoping that some mystical being(one who you openly claim to be the indirect murderer of his son, might I add) is going to throw you a bone(r) is pretty ridiculous. Chances are Karma is the only thing which is going to come to you, and Karma knows all that shit you've been talking about your co-worker behind his back.