1JGL53
In general I am somewhat ambiguous regarding Bill Maher and his alleged "genius" take on many things.
However, on this issue I think he is pretty much spot on. I.e., Democrats need to stop with the Identity Politics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gb5MalUjvI
Plus, we have this kind of shit.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/planet-fitness-value-plummets-transgender-turm...
This obviously will be translated to the "word on the street" that Democrats support trans-gendered men's right to flash their penises at 12 year old girls in women's public restrooms/changing rooms. I don't think this will attract votes for Democrats.
However, on this issue I think he is pretty much spot on. I.e., Democrats need to stop with the Identity Politics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gb5MalUjvI
Plus, we have this kind of shit.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/planet-fitness-value-plummets-transgender-turm...
This obviously will be translated to the "word on the street" that Democrats support trans-gendered men's right to flash their penises at 12 year old girls in women's public restrooms/changing rooms. I don't think this will attract votes for Democrats.
2kiparsky
I'm sorry, but how does some pervert taking pictures of other people's junk in a restroom look bad for Democrats? Surely this is going to reflect poorly on the pervert community who are spending all their time thinking about - obsessing about! - and trying to get a good look at other people's bits. And now, even taking pictures of other people's bits. Sorry, but there's a problem here and it's that Republicans are people who have bought into an ideology that takes their perfectly natural and understandable desires and turns them into something twisted and dark. This is not a Democrat problem. It's just that Republicans want to get their laughing gear around a sausage, which is fine and normal, but this makes them ashamed and they lash out at other people about it, which is a lot less fine.
3JGL53
> 2
Democrats are going to vote for Biden and republicans, largely, are going to vote for trump. That is a given.
It is the 20-25 per cent of voters who are not ideologically oriented, commonly referred to as independents, who might very well decide the election once again.
When incidents like the one I refer to here are reported in the news - all the various outlets - do you think the reporters - or the voters - are going to focus on the "perverts" who take the pictures? - or focus on the perverts flashing their penises in front of 12 year old girls in designated women's changing rooms?
You think the former. OK. But if you are wrong - and I think you are - then that means that the votes that are sort of up for grabs will shift to the right. And it is all unnecessary.
If a person has a penis then he is a man. He is not a woman. Something in the ninety percentile range of Americans, I believe, know this fact intuitively. Only a small minority disagree.
Democrats will not expand their voter base by appearing to support absurd and crazy ideas. They would be leaving a big opening for republicans to make the case that republicans are indeed the normal, sane, decent sensible people who reject crazed ideas, just like the overwhelming majority of Americans do, and that Democrats (all Democrats) are sex perverts and lunatics.
You disagree? I don't care, except that I will take the time to point out that you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem here.
Democrats are going to vote for Biden and republicans, largely, are going to vote for trump. That is a given.
It is the 20-25 per cent of voters who are not ideologically oriented, commonly referred to as independents, who might very well decide the election once again.
When incidents like the one I refer to here are reported in the news - all the various outlets - do you think the reporters - or the voters - are going to focus on the "perverts" who take the pictures? - or focus on the perverts flashing their penises in front of 12 year old girls in designated women's changing rooms?
You think the former. OK. But if you are wrong - and I think you are - then that means that the votes that are sort of up for grabs will shift to the right. And it is all unnecessary.
If a person has a penis then he is a man. He is not a woman. Something in the ninety percentile range of Americans, I believe, know this fact intuitively. Only a small minority disagree.
Democrats will not expand their voter base by appearing to support absurd and crazy ideas. They would be leaving a big opening for republicans to make the case that republicans are indeed the normal, sane, decent sensible people who reject crazed ideas, just like the overwhelming majority of Americans do, and that Democrats (all Democrats) are sex perverts and lunatics.
You disagree? I don't care, except that I will take the time to point out that you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem here.
4davidgn
>3 JGL53: Just as a friendly heads up, you may want to suspend indefinitely any plans to travel to the United Kingdom. In Scotland, at least, come the first of April, that post will be potentially considered criminal and punishable by up to 7 years in prison. cf. https://www.librarything.com/topic/356936#8480743
5lriley
I don't know why anyone would care all that much about how someone looks at their own sexuality. It's only really a problem if somehow the person is harming someone else which is pretty damn rare. We can always find an exception or two in anything.
6kiparsky
>3 JGL53: If a person has a penis then he is a man. He is not a woman. Something in the ninety percentile range of Americans, I believe, know this fact intuitively. Only a small minority disagree.
I don't know who you're talking to, but while that might be true of people over the age of, say, 70, living in red states, regularly consuming Fox News, and holding membership in the "Nothing Will Ever Change" society, it's clearly not true for people under the age of thirty (who grew up in the post-Madonna era, and have never lived in a world where the "penis means man" theory was anything but a weird idea held by old people), people on the left who fall outside of Phil Ochs' "ten degrees to the left of center in the good times" definition of the liberal, or people who live in states like Massachusetts or California. I don't know what percentage of those communities believe in the "penis theory" of manliness (AKA "the dong makes the dude"), but it's going to be under 50%, and possibly well under.
If you look at changes in public perception of "others", they're generally triggered by two things: personal associations and pop-culture representation. This is basically why they call it "the culture wars": what happens in culture changes what people see and that changes what they understand about the world. People's lived experience and their vicarious experience contend with the old stories that they got from their grandparents, and experience generally wins, unless the person is either phenomenally stupid or clings with an alarming tenacity to the lies of a person who claims license to interpret some holy book. This happened over decades as white people who'd been carefully segregated from Black folks (there's a reason the bigots insisted on segregation!) began to interact with them personally, to read their books, to watch them on screens and to listen to their music, and as a result, found it harder to keep the sick lies of the old racist order in their heads. This happened as people started to see queer folks in popular culture, and simultaneously they started to understand that some of their friends and colleagues and (even more alarmingly) their parents' and grandparents' friends and colleagues were "a little 'that way'", and once it began there was never going to be a way to stop it.
This stuff is well documented, and I'm sure you're well aware of it. What you seem to be unaware of is that we've had about twenty years of this process that has been challenging the "dong theory", and that it's working exactly as you'd expect. People under thirty would find your blithe assertion that the Dong Theory is utterly and simply uncontroversial either evidence that you're a True Believer in that theory or that you're just old and out of touch. Agree or disagree, you're not going to find two people in ten under thirty who think it makes sense to talk as if it's a settled matter. Depending on where you sample and how you ask, you're going to get some percentage of people in that cohort who believe in the Dong Theory, but it's going to be fewer this year than last, and that's the way that's going to continue to go regardless of whether you track that cohort or continue to sample people in that age range and track the stream. Basically, the Dong Theory is aging out, and I don't think it's wise to bet your money or your politics on its longevity.
I don't know who you're talking to, but while that might be true of people over the age of, say, 70, living in red states, regularly consuming Fox News, and holding membership in the "Nothing Will Ever Change" society, it's clearly not true for people under the age of thirty (who grew up in the post-Madonna era, and have never lived in a world where the "penis means man" theory was anything but a weird idea held by old people), people on the left who fall outside of Phil Ochs' "ten degrees to the left of center in the good times" definition of the liberal, or people who live in states like Massachusetts or California. I don't know what percentage of those communities believe in the "penis theory" of manliness (AKA "the dong makes the dude"), but it's going to be under 50%, and possibly well under.
If you look at changes in public perception of "others", they're generally triggered by two things: personal associations and pop-culture representation. This is basically why they call it "the culture wars": what happens in culture changes what people see and that changes what they understand about the world. People's lived experience and their vicarious experience contend with the old stories that they got from their grandparents, and experience generally wins, unless the person is either phenomenally stupid or clings with an alarming tenacity to the lies of a person who claims license to interpret some holy book. This happened over decades as white people who'd been carefully segregated from Black folks (there's a reason the bigots insisted on segregation!) began to interact with them personally, to read their books, to watch them on screens and to listen to their music, and as a result, found it harder to keep the sick lies of the old racist order in their heads. This happened as people started to see queer folks in popular culture, and simultaneously they started to understand that some of their friends and colleagues and (even more alarmingly) their parents' and grandparents' friends and colleagues were "a little 'that way'", and once it began there was never going to be a way to stop it.
This stuff is well documented, and I'm sure you're well aware of it. What you seem to be unaware of is that we've had about twenty years of this process that has been challenging the "dong theory", and that it's working exactly as you'd expect. People under thirty would find your blithe assertion that the Dong Theory is utterly and simply uncontroversial either evidence that you're a True Believer in that theory or that you're just old and out of touch. Agree or disagree, you're not going to find two people in ten under thirty who think it makes sense to talk as if it's a settled matter. Depending on where you sample and how you ask, you're going to get some percentage of people in that cohort who believe in the Dong Theory, but it's going to be fewer this year than last, and that's the way that's going to continue to go regardless of whether you track that cohort or continue to sample people in that age range and track the stream. Basically, the Dong Theory is aging out, and I don't think it's wise to bet your money or your politics on its longevity.
7kiparsky
>5 lriley: I agree that it's damned hard to understand rationally why someone would care about another person's expression of themselves wrt gender. One popular theory holds that it's somehow felt to be threatening - that a man who "rejects masculinity" (weird phrase) is in some way denigrating the investment that the fearful person has put into their own performance of sexuality. I'm not sure I can get my head around that - I certainly can't empathize with it, and I can hardly make sense of it as an attitude at all. But maybe I'm just more comfortable with my penis than Rhonda Santis or the other Sleepies are.
As for harming others, I know of no statistics that suggest that outside of the movies trans folks pose any particular threat to others. There are of course all sorts of drivers of sexual predation, and there are noteworthy cases of queer and I'm sure of trans sexual predation. People can be pretty shit, after all, and that applies to all people, but in general what I've seen in my life suggests to me that the main perpetrators of sexual violence and predation are in general cis men acting out really crappy models of masculinity.
The idea that letting people use the bathroom that corresponds to their identity is going to lead to rashes of assault and abuse seems pretty hysterical to me, but if people are really afraid of this, then it seems like the obvious solution is to simply abolish shared bathrooms. If being in the same restroom as another person is a potential risk, then we shouldn't expose people to that risk, right?
Personally, I don't understand why bathrooms are segregated by gender at all. In a long life of using public restrooms, I can't think of an occasion where I've seen any more of any person than I'd see in ordinary life - engineers and designers have put a lot of work into ensuring that there is never a line of sight to anyone's genitals, and I think we can say that is now a thoroughly solved problem. At least, I can assure any women reading this that if you were to walk into a men's room, even if it were absolutely maxed out at capacity, you would see nothing more than a line of men standing with their back to you, with their eyes carefully elevated to signal their magesterial disregard for any phallus that might be in their vicinity. I can't speak for women's restrooms, since the last time I was in one was when I was in high school, working in a movie theater, and had to clean the ladies' out from time to time, but unless y'all are getting up to some wild stuff in there, I imagine the situation is similar, except you don't even get to look at anyone's back.
As for harming others, I know of no statistics that suggest that outside of the movies trans folks pose any particular threat to others. There are of course all sorts of drivers of sexual predation, and there are noteworthy cases of queer and I'm sure of trans sexual predation. People can be pretty shit, after all, and that applies to all people, but in general what I've seen in my life suggests to me that the main perpetrators of sexual violence and predation are in general cis men acting out really crappy models of masculinity.
The idea that letting people use the bathroom that corresponds to their identity is going to lead to rashes of assault and abuse seems pretty hysterical to me, but if people are really afraid of this, then it seems like the obvious solution is to simply abolish shared bathrooms. If being in the same restroom as another person is a potential risk, then we shouldn't expose people to that risk, right?
Personally, I don't understand why bathrooms are segregated by gender at all. In a long life of using public restrooms, I can't think of an occasion where I've seen any more of any person than I'd see in ordinary life - engineers and designers have put a lot of work into ensuring that there is never a line of sight to anyone's genitals, and I think we can say that is now a thoroughly solved problem. At least, I can assure any women reading this that if you were to walk into a men's room, even if it were absolutely maxed out at capacity, you would see nothing more than a line of men standing with their back to you, with their eyes carefully elevated to signal their magesterial disregard for any phallus that might be in their vicinity. I can't speak for women's restrooms, since the last time I was in one was when I was in high school, working in a movie theater, and had to clean the ladies' out from time to time, but unless y'all are getting up to some wild stuff in there, I imagine the situation is similar, except you don't even get to look at anyone's back.
8JGL53
> 4, 5, 6, 7
Have it your way guys. Attack me all you want. Believe by faith, if you wish, that only non-college-educated people over 70 in red states would be incensed by a defense of the right of an adult male to declare himself a woman, then use public changing rooms, like those in Planet Fitness, and should be free to show his penis to 12 year old girls. And those that object, or "focus" on this, are just behind the times, and bigots, and what not. Fine. You guys are so obviously morally and intellectually superior, in your own eyes, that who could ever doubt you are wrong? lol
Sarcasm aside - by attacking my analysis of the situation by attacking me personally says more about youse guys than it does about me. I personally couldn't give a healthy shit about trans doing whatever the hell they want, where they want, when they want, as long as it does not overtly involve me personally. If they want to use women's changing rooms then fine with me. Hell, if someone who used to be Betty has decided she is a he and is now Ben, and wants to use the men's changing room, I have no problem with that. If I accidentally see a vagina I will just ignore it. I'm assuming.
What you geniuses seem to not understand is that I am just analyzing the situation and am convinced that way too many people are not going to react to these situations in the overly liberal way I would - or youse guys would. Thus, my point remains. A huge portion of voters - of all types from all parts of the country of all sexes and ages and races - are going to react negatively to the "let the women with penises use women's public changing rooms, no problem". And they might thus vote republican if they are exposed to enough instances of what they would view as nutty or insane behavior and beliefs promoted by Democrats/liberals. Too many people of all types DO care about this kind of thing, whether you like it or not, or whether I like it or not. THAT, and ONLY that, was my point.
All of this is really very simple, and should not result in personal attacks.
Have it your way guys. Attack me all you want. Believe by faith, if you wish, that only non-college-educated people over 70 in red states would be incensed by a defense of the right of an adult male to declare himself a woman, then use public changing rooms, like those in Planet Fitness, and should be free to show his penis to 12 year old girls. And those that object, or "focus" on this, are just behind the times, and bigots, and what not. Fine. You guys are so obviously morally and intellectually superior, in your own eyes, that who could ever doubt you are wrong? lol
Sarcasm aside - by attacking my analysis of the situation by attacking me personally says more about youse guys than it does about me. I personally couldn't give a healthy shit about trans doing whatever the hell they want, where they want, when they want, as long as it does not overtly involve me personally. If they want to use women's changing rooms then fine with me. Hell, if someone who used to be Betty has decided she is a he and is now Ben, and wants to use the men's changing room, I have no problem with that. If I accidentally see a vagina I will just ignore it. I'm assuming.
What you geniuses seem to not understand is that I am just analyzing the situation and am convinced that way too many people are not going to react to these situations in the overly liberal way I would - or youse guys would. Thus, my point remains. A huge portion of voters - of all types from all parts of the country of all sexes and ages and races - are going to react negatively to the "let the women with penises use women's public changing rooms, no problem". And they might thus vote republican if they are exposed to enough instances of what they would view as nutty or insane behavior and beliefs promoted by Democrats/liberals. Too many people of all types DO care about this kind of thing, whether you like it or not, or whether I like it or not. THAT, and ONLY that, was my point.
All of this is really very simple, and should not result in personal attacks.
9kiparsky
>8 JGL53: I think that over time, extending basic freedoms to more people has generally been a winning strategy, and the cowardly practice of backing away from freedom in an attempt to curry favor with bigots has generally been a losing one. And that is not a personal attack, it's just what history has shown. Name me someone who argued that slavery was wrong, but shouldn't be ended because it would just make Southerners mad and lose votes. We all know they were out there, but how many of them do you remember? And were they right?
Audacity in the defense of freedom is generally both the right move and the winning strategy.
Now, turning to facts, I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that people are waving around their penises in restrooms, but I believe that indecent exposure is a crime in most states, regardless of whether the penis being put on display is attached to a man or a woman, so if the sort of incident you're worrying about actually does happen then it's already covered by laws on the books. If you run into anyone who has this concern, you can use this argument to calm them down: if someone shows you their genitals and you don't want them to, that's probably a crime already.
All of this is really very simple, and should not result in personal attacks.
I'm sorry if you're feeling like there's personal attacks going on, but, like many people, I'm really sick of people giving credence to the attempts to make trans people over as perverts, pedophiles, and generally weird. How is this nonsense any different from the similar treatment afforded to gay men a couple of generations back, or the outlandish claims about Black men's proclivity to rape which was used as a killing libel in response to the threat of Black freedom? Let's just be clear about this: just as with the made-up lies about Hispanic migrants being rapists and criminals, the suggestion that trans people (trans men or trans women) are in general sexual predators simply cannot be supported and should not be repeated.
So yes, I'm pushing back on this because it's a load of horseradish and I'm sick of hearing it taken seriously, particularly by people who should know better. That is not an attack on you, it's an attack on a lie that you happen to have repeated.
A huge portion of voters - of all types from all parts of the country of all sexes and ages and races - are going to react negatively to the "let the women with penises use women's public changing rooms, no problem".
Now we come to the politics part. Do we win by accepting the lies advanced by the sleepy perverts who spend their days fantasizing about weird sexual violence and who might be perpetrating it, or do we take seriously the idea that reality is actually a thing?
I'm for the reality strategy: take them on, and win. If someone asserts that letting trans people use the correct restrooms means that they'll do some sort of unspeakable things in those restrooms, that's easy enough to deal with. Start with the jab in the face: "Why, is that what you do when you're in a restroom? No? Then what makes you think someone else would?"
While they're trying to dig themselves out of that they will assert something amounting to the claim that trans people are prone to committing sexual assaults. When they do, ask them to cite their sources. They won't have any, but they'll spend a while sputtering about it, which will be fun.
And when they've finished spluttering on that, you can end the whole thing by asking them why they think someone who was bent on committing a sexual assault would be deterred by a rule about what restroom they're allowed to be in. Obviously, there is no answer to that, and anything they say following that will be purely for your entertainment, and you can take any potshots you like, just for fun.
Honestly, these people really do not think all that much. We do not need to run from arguments with them, because we win all of the arguments. Why is that? Because conservatives have no positions to defend. Anyone who believes the crap they believe is a brain-dead imbecile and you can kick the rhetorical shit out of them any time you want. They have no facts, they have no arguments, they have no principles, and America hates them. The only way that can win is if we run - and winning is more fun than running away.
Audacity in the defense of freedom is generally both the right move and the winning strategy.
Now, turning to facts, I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that people are waving around their penises in restrooms, but I believe that indecent exposure is a crime in most states, regardless of whether the penis being put on display is attached to a man or a woman, so if the sort of incident you're worrying about actually does happen then it's already covered by laws on the books. If you run into anyone who has this concern, you can use this argument to calm them down: if someone shows you their genitals and you don't want them to, that's probably a crime already.
All of this is really very simple, and should not result in personal attacks.
I'm sorry if you're feeling like there's personal attacks going on, but, like many people, I'm really sick of people giving credence to the attempts to make trans people over as perverts, pedophiles, and generally weird. How is this nonsense any different from the similar treatment afforded to gay men a couple of generations back, or the outlandish claims about Black men's proclivity to rape which was used as a killing libel in response to the threat of Black freedom? Let's just be clear about this: just as with the made-up lies about Hispanic migrants being rapists and criminals, the suggestion that trans people (trans men or trans women) are in general sexual predators simply cannot be supported and should not be repeated.
So yes, I'm pushing back on this because it's a load of horseradish and I'm sick of hearing it taken seriously, particularly by people who should know better. That is not an attack on you, it's an attack on a lie that you happen to have repeated.
A huge portion of voters - of all types from all parts of the country of all sexes and ages and races - are going to react negatively to the "let the women with penises use women's public changing rooms, no problem".
Now we come to the politics part. Do we win by accepting the lies advanced by the sleepy perverts who spend their days fantasizing about weird sexual violence and who might be perpetrating it, or do we take seriously the idea that reality is actually a thing?
I'm for the reality strategy: take them on, and win. If someone asserts that letting trans people use the correct restrooms means that they'll do some sort of unspeakable things in those restrooms, that's easy enough to deal with. Start with the jab in the face: "Why, is that what you do when you're in a restroom? No? Then what makes you think someone else would?"
While they're trying to dig themselves out of that they will assert something amounting to the claim that trans people are prone to committing sexual assaults. When they do, ask them to cite their sources. They won't have any, but they'll spend a while sputtering about it, which will be fun.
And when they've finished spluttering on that, you can end the whole thing by asking them why they think someone who was bent on committing a sexual assault would be deterred by a rule about what restroom they're allowed to be in. Obviously, there is no answer to that, and anything they say following that will be purely for your entertainment, and you can take any potshots you like, just for fun.
Honestly, these people really do not think all that much. We do not need to run from arguments with them, because we win all of the arguments. Why is that? Because conservatives have no positions to defend. Anyone who believes the crap they believe is a brain-dead imbecile and you can kick the rhetorical shit out of them any time you want. They have no facts, they have no arguments, they have no principles, and America hates them. The only way that can win is if we run - and winning is more fun than running away.
10lriley
>8 JGL53: FWIW I don't have a college education at all. Definitely a boomer too. Yeah a lot of conservative oldsters don't want to hear it but so what? They're wrong and I won't even put an IMO on it. And I don't care whether it costs votes for one side or the other. They're still wrong. And all that said this is no longer really their world. They should be getting ready for the next one if there is one. The people who will have to live with their bs feelings are the generations coming after them. To say it again as long as they are not harming others people should have the right to their own personal happiness.
Also I'm not attacking you. Just saying why you're wrong and as you say you can easily find people (particularly of my age group or older) who will agree with you and I wouldn't say they were attacking me because I don't agree with them. Again to the voters when we preemptively attacked Iraq because of the Bush administration's lies about things like WMD a good two thirds of the voting population (if not more) thought it was a good idea and it's older people who are most always concerned with our military right to decide for others.....and when things go awry and after all the bs unravels it's 'who me? I never wanted that!' from a good many of them.
I'll also say I hate it when minority populations are targeted. For me there is something really obscene about that. This piling on just because one side has the numbers. We should be better than that.
Also I'm not attacking you. Just saying why you're wrong and as you say you can easily find people (particularly of my age group or older) who will agree with you and I wouldn't say they were attacking me because I don't agree with them. Again to the voters when we preemptively attacked Iraq because of the Bush administration's lies about things like WMD a good two thirds of the voting population (if not more) thought it was a good idea and it's older people who are most always concerned with our military right to decide for others.....and when things go awry and after all the bs unravels it's 'who me? I never wanted that!' from a good many of them.
I'll also say I hate it when minority populations are targeted. For me there is something really obscene about that. This piling on just because one side has the numbers. We should be better than that.
11JGL53
> 9
Equating, or analogizing, the horror of hundreds of years of slavery with the "suppression" of the right of trans to show their penises to 12 year old girls in women's public bathrooms is stupid.
So much for you.
> 10
You'd rather be right and morally upstanding to the nth degree, no matter what the consequences. OK. I am a whole lot more pragmatic than that. Defeating tRump and all down-ballot republicans in Nov. is priority number one for me, not to mention millions upon million of other voters. Being morally correct or morally superior at this point comes in a distant second to me at this juncture. I am unwavering on this so debate is useless.
It's not only this trans incidence that might be detrimental to Democrats winning in November, it is all that was mentioned in the Bill Maher reference in my OP. The latest "politically correct" fiasco is the container barge that wrecked the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore.
Some of your idiot extremist leftist and highly "sensitive" buddies have used this incidence to raise the issue of the actual Francis Scott Key's racism statements, back in the day (240 years ago when nearly all white people in the colonies were racists). The right wing media is now having fun pointing out to the public what ridiculous assholes all Democrats are for being politically correct assholes. Even though I think people like you are a minority of liberals nevertheless this just gives right-wingers the opening to paint all liberals as ridiculous assholes.
There is politically dumb and there is politically smart. I want Biden and all Democrats to win in November. They just might not if repubs can win over the necessary number of independents who could possibly vote against Democrats if they are convinced they are ridiculous assholes and the Republicans are the adults in the room.
That is all I am saying. To be overtly honest, I actually believe the political correctness of people like youse guys will not be relevant in the final analysis. I certainly hope so.
But I have been wrong before. For the sake of our country, not to mention the continuation of western civilization, I certainly hope I am not wrong this time, i.e., this coming November 5.
Equating, or analogizing, the horror of hundreds of years of slavery with the "suppression" of the right of trans to show their penises to 12 year old girls in women's public bathrooms is stupid.
So much for you.
> 10
You'd rather be right and morally upstanding to the nth degree, no matter what the consequences. OK. I am a whole lot more pragmatic than that. Defeating tRump and all down-ballot republicans in Nov. is priority number one for me, not to mention millions upon million of other voters. Being morally correct or morally superior at this point comes in a distant second to me at this juncture. I am unwavering on this so debate is useless.
It's not only this trans incidence that might be detrimental to Democrats winning in November, it is all that was mentioned in the Bill Maher reference in my OP. The latest "politically correct" fiasco is the container barge that wrecked the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore.
Some of your idiot extremist leftist and highly "sensitive" buddies have used this incidence to raise the issue of the actual Francis Scott Key's racism statements, back in the day (240 years ago when nearly all white people in the colonies were racists). The right wing media is now having fun pointing out to the public what ridiculous assholes all Democrats are for being politically correct assholes. Even though I think people like you are a minority of liberals nevertheless this just gives right-wingers the opening to paint all liberals as ridiculous assholes.
There is politically dumb and there is politically smart. I want Biden and all Democrats to win in November. They just might not if repubs can win over the necessary number of independents who could possibly vote against Democrats if they are convinced they are ridiculous assholes and the Republicans are the adults in the room.
That is all I am saying. To be overtly honest, I actually believe the political correctness of people like youse guys will not be relevant in the final analysis. I certainly hope so.
But I have been wrong before. For the sake of our country, not to mention the continuation of western civilization, I certainly hope I am not wrong this time, i.e., this coming November 5.
12lriley
>11 JGL53: 'Some of your idiot extremist leftist and highly 'sensitive' buddies'-------? That one makes me laugh. When you've gone to Ivory Tower land as some people think I have done you pretty much leave all 'buddies' behind.....or didn't you know that? I don't feel the need for all that much support from others and am not looking necessarily to make friends with my ideas on politics. A friend of mine and there's really not that many describes himself as an economic socialist and a social anarchist. For me I would add anti-war to that but the rest of it is good. How many other people that you know think of themselves in those terms? Any? I don't know many either. Still if that's what you that's what you think.
Speaking of the holier than thou Ivory Tower crowd though no one I know epitomizes it more than Mr. Bill Maher who is for my money just about the lousiest comedian and also social commentator on the planet. Mr. Maher has a need to denigrate any number of straw men for his fawning audience. I mean c'mon you can do better than that.
Speaking of the holier than thou Ivory Tower crowd though no one I know epitomizes it more than Mr. Bill Maher who is for my money just about the lousiest comedian and also social commentator on the planet. Mr. Maher has a need to denigrate any number of straw men for his fawning audience. I mean c'mon you can do better than that.
13kiparsky
>11 JGL53: Equating, or analogizing, the horror of hundreds of years of slavery with the "suppression" of the right of trans to show their penises to 12 year old girls in women's public bathrooms is stupid.
And believing the Fox fantasies about "the right of trans to show their penises" isn't stupid? Come on, try a little harder. Make a case, if you've got one. Stand up for yourself, if only for the practice - if you can't make an argument when you're talking to someone who agrees with you on most things, how are you ever going to handle yourself when you meet someone who disagrees with you?
The point of the comparison should have been pretty clear, and I actually think it was pretty clear, but just to be even clearer: throwing people under the bus for political benefit is not popular in the political moment and it's not remembered well by history. Standing up for marginalized people might feel like it's a dangerous move, but I think history shows that it's the winning move more often than not, and that the win is a durable one. If you think I'm wrong on that, maybe you could do us a favor and cite some incidents when you think throwing marginalized people under the bus has worked out well? (either in the political moment or as a long bet, your choice)
There is politically dumb and there is politically smart.
That's true. Conceding political ground that you don't need to concede is not, in my view, politically smart. If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. In fact, if someone running for a national office starts talking about this, you should probably ask them why they're wasting time talking about local administrative policies that they will have no say on as a senator, representative, or president - and you might sharpen the question by asking what it is they're trying to avoid talking about by bringing up this myth. Maybe they're hoping that by killing time on this story, they won't have to talk about why pedophiles like Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz are still representing the Republican Party, and helping it live up to its age-old nickname, the Gang of Pedophiles. Or maybe they're hoping that they won't be asked for their opinions on Supreme Court nominees, and in particular, whether they think, unlike most Republicans, that sexual predators don't belong on the highest court of law in the USA. Or maybe they're Donald Trump and they're hoping to distract people from the epic judgement against him in his rape case.
All of that, of course, is the sort of stuff which forms the actual reason for making up the weird perverted fantasy about trans people. It's just there to get you talking about their fantasy so you won't talk about reality, because reality is really unkind to Republicans.
But to advise Democrats to try to embrace the Republican fantasy is not what anyone would call "politically smart". A Democrat trying to pretend to be a Republican is going to lose, because they're not going to grab any Republican votes but they will certainly lose Democratic voters.
And believing the Fox fantasies about "the right of trans to show their penises" isn't stupid? Come on, try a little harder. Make a case, if you've got one. Stand up for yourself, if only for the practice - if you can't make an argument when you're talking to someone who agrees with you on most things, how are you ever going to handle yourself when you meet someone who disagrees with you?
The point of the comparison should have been pretty clear, and I actually think it was pretty clear, but just to be even clearer: throwing people under the bus for political benefit is not popular in the political moment and it's not remembered well by history. Standing up for marginalized people might feel like it's a dangerous move, but I think history shows that it's the winning move more often than not, and that the win is a durable one. If you think I'm wrong on that, maybe you could do us a favor and cite some incidents when you think throwing marginalized people under the bus has worked out well? (either in the political moment or as a long bet, your choice)
There is politically dumb and there is politically smart.
That's true. Conceding political ground that you don't need to concede is not, in my view, politically smart. If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. In fact, if someone running for a national office starts talking about this, you should probably ask them why they're wasting time talking about local administrative policies that they will have no say on as a senator, representative, or president - and you might sharpen the question by asking what it is they're trying to avoid talking about by bringing up this myth. Maybe they're hoping that by killing time on this story, they won't have to talk about why pedophiles like Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz are still representing the Republican Party, and helping it live up to its age-old nickname, the Gang of Pedophiles. Or maybe they're hoping that they won't be asked for their opinions on Supreme Court nominees, and in particular, whether they think, unlike most Republicans, that sexual predators don't belong on the highest court of law in the USA. Or maybe they're Donald Trump and they're hoping to distract people from the epic judgement against him in his rape case.
All of that, of course, is the sort of stuff which forms the actual reason for making up the weird perverted fantasy about trans people. It's just there to get you talking about their fantasy so you won't talk about reality, because reality is really unkind to Republicans.
But to advise Democrats to try to embrace the Republican fantasy is not what anyone would call "politically smart". A Democrat trying to pretend to be a Republican is going to lose, because they're not going to grab any Republican votes but they will certainly lose Democratic voters.
14JGL53
>12 lriley:, 13
Yadda,yadda,yadda. It all means that youse guys believe trans men have the right to use women's changing rooms in gyms, and if they expose their penises to 12 year old girls, either advertently or inadvertently, then that if just life in the fast lane and perfectly fine. If the girls' mothers protest then they are anti-trans bigots.
I still do not believe that that sells in about 90 per cent of the country. It is detrimental to a political party's chances at the polls if that party sees things youse guys' way.
In fact, most people, I'd imagine, would think youse guys mad to advocate such.
But youse guys just go ahead on and enjoy the delights of the imaginary world you've created for yourselves.
Have I wasted enough of my precious time with youse guys now? That's rhetorical but I'll answer it myself. Yes. Yes I have.
Yadda,yadda,yadda. It all means that youse guys believe trans men have the right to use women's changing rooms in gyms, and if they expose their penises to 12 year old girls, either advertently or inadvertently, then that if just life in the fast lane and perfectly fine. If the girls' mothers protest then they are anti-trans bigots.
I still do not believe that that sells in about 90 per cent of the country. It is detrimental to a political party's chances at the polls if that party sees things youse guys' way.
In fact, most people, I'd imagine, would think youse guys mad to advocate such.
But youse guys just go ahead on and enjoy the delights of the imaginary world you've created for yourselves.
Have I wasted enough of my precious time with youse guys now? That's rhetorical but I'll answer it myself. Yes. Yes I have.
15kiparsky
>14 JGL53: Once again, indecent exposure is already a crime. If someone thinks that an indecent exposure has occurred, there are laws covering that situation and they should pursue the offender under those laws. This has the advantage over the solution you're pursuing in that it applies anywhere, and regardless of the gender identity of the offender. Under the rule you're asking us to get behind, you could only have recourse if the offender was trans-gender and it occurred in a changing room or other gender-restricted space - so what you're saying is you want to add a new law making something illegal that's already illegal, but also prohibiting people from using the correct facilities for their gender. So the only new thing you'd have us add is "people shouldn't use the bathrooms, locker rooms, or other facilities appropriate to their gender". The other part of your law is "and if they do, and they commit an act that is already a crime, that act is still a crime."
Read that back a time or two, and see if your proposal still makes sense to you.
Read that back a time or two, and see if your proposal still makes sense to you.
16John5918
As is often the case, I think you're both right - and wrong.
On the one hand, there is a very clear case not only for tactical voting to ensure that the least bad of two bad candidates is elected, but also in choosing which particular battles to fight at this particular time, a step by step approach recognising that you have to get elected in order to implement worthy reforms. This is particularly serious as many would argue that this is no ordinary election but an existential one. Will democracy still exist in the USA if Trump is elected? Whereas if Biden is elected, for all his very obvious flaws and the fact that he might one day face a war crimes tribunal, at least the basic institutions of democracy will still function and one can begin working to improve the situation. One of those improvements would be to reform your entire democratic system so that you don't find yourself in a similar position every four years. Far from being seen as the bastion of democracy which the USA apparently imagines itself to be, it has become a laughing stock in the eyes of most of the democratic western world.
On the other hand, JGL is right that a particular narrative is being sold to a large part of the population, not only by the right wing media but also on social media. It's not by chance, and it's a cleverly manipulated and well-funded propaganda campaign rather than a popular groundswell, but nevertheless it's potentially capable of swaying enough swing voters to influence the election. So while people's human rights should never be compromised, there needs to be awareness of what is happening, and the moderate and progressive forces should avoid playing into the hands of the extreme right wing "culture warriors" and propagandists by unnecessarily giving them more ammunition. As kiparsky says, indecent exposure is already a crime, and this should be emphasised, rather than going down the incendiary rabbit hole of "trans men flashing their dicks at 12 year old girls", which is just what the culture warriors would like us to focus on.
On the one hand, there is a very clear case not only for tactical voting to ensure that the least bad of two bad candidates is elected, but also in choosing which particular battles to fight at this particular time, a step by step approach recognising that you have to get elected in order to implement worthy reforms. This is particularly serious as many would argue that this is no ordinary election but an existential one. Will democracy still exist in the USA if Trump is elected? Whereas if Biden is elected, for all his very obvious flaws and the fact that he might one day face a war crimes tribunal, at least the basic institutions of democracy will still function and one can begin working to improve the situation. One of those improvements would be to reform your entire democratic system so that you don't find yourself in a similar position every four years. Far from being seen as the bastion of democracy which the USA apparently imagines itself to be, it has become a laughing stock in the eyes of most of the democratic western world.
On the other hand, JGL is right that a particular narrative is being sold to a large part of the population, not only by the right wing media but also on social media. It's not by chance, and it's a cleverly manipulated and well-funded propaganda campaign rather than a popular groundswell, but nevertheless it's potentially capable of swaying enough swing voters to influence the election. So while people's human rights should never be compromised, there needs to be awareness of what is happening, and the moderate and progressive forces should avoid playing into the hands of the extreme right wing "culture warriors" and propagandists by unnecessarily giving them more ammunition. As kiparsky says, indecent exposure is already a crime, and this should be emphasised, rather than going down the incendiary rabbit hole of "trans men flashing their dicks at 12 year old girls", which is just what the culture warriors would like us to focus on.
17lriley
#16--To be honest I don't even think it's a very interesting conversation to be having. It's really just another game of whack-a-mole that the right wing likes to bring up and if it's not trans men it will be gay people in general or Asians or Muslims or undocumented immigrants (who the democrats are currently throwing under the bus) etc. etc. To them all of the above are evil....whether they're corrupting our children, committing terrorist acts, taking away good paying jobs (that no one wants) from honest flag waving citizens or replacing white people in their grander scheme of things per the great replacement theory. So you're wrong too John.....there's any number of minority groups that are targeted out of convenience in the moment for this or for that and I don't see good reason for throwing one group after another under the bus....you either are ready to stand up for people who want to see you as their hope or you don't. The Republicans for sure do think they can break off a chunk of Democratic voters by demonizing this group or that or they wouldn't continue to give these anti-this/that movements air. The Democrats also think at the same time they can break off a bunch of Republican voters by appealing to whatever is left of their moderates. That's why the middle of the road rightward trend of their national political agenda. It's also just the panic politics we see here that's the current mess of American politics.
18John5918
>17 lriley:
Thanks, Larry. I'm happy to accept that I am also wrong. Note that I did say clearly that "human rights should never be compromised" - it's more about the tactics one uses to promote human rights.
Thanks, Larry. I'm happy to accept that I am also wrong. Note that I did say clearly that "human rights should never be compromised" - it's more about the tactics one uses to promote human rights.
