#Legislative Debate

[tmarshconnors]

Assisted Dying is Murder

This Friday, the House of Commons will debate one of the most contentious issues of our time: assisted dying. The proposed bill seeks to legalize physician-assisted suicide under certain circumstances, purportedly offering terminally ill patients the right to end their lives with medical assistance. Advocates argue it’s about dignity, autonomy, and relieving suffering. But let’s not mince words—this is state-sanctioned murder disguised in a cloak of compassion.

As MPs prepare to vote, they face not just a political choice but a moral reckoning. Legalizing assisted dying is not a slippery slope; it’s a moral cliff edge, and stepping over it would fundamentally change how we value human life.

The Sanctity of Life

At the heart of this debate lies the sanctity of life—a principle that has underpinned our civilization for centuries. Life is sacred not because of its quality but because of its inherent value. Allowing assisted dying shifts the cultural narrative: life becomes conditional, and its worth is measured against suffering, convenience, or perceived "burdens." This is not just a danger to the terminally ill; it risks redefining our collective ethics.

Once we legalize the idea that some lives are not worth living, where do we stop? It won’t take long before subtle pressures arise—financial, emotional, societal—on vulnerable individuals to consider ending their lives to ease the burden on others. That’s not autonomy; it’s coercion wrapped in faux liberty.

The Role of the State

The government’s primary role is to protect life, not to facilitate its destruction. Enacting a law that permits assisted dying would cross an ethical boundary that no legislature should breach. The moment we allow the state to sanction killing, even under tightly controlled conditions, we open the door to future expansions. History teaches us that such boundaries rarely remain static.

Consider the experience of countries like Canada, where medical assistance in dying (MAID) has led to a widening scope of eligibility. Initially intended for terminally ill adults, the law now includes those with chronic illnesses and, in some cases, mental health conditions. This mission creep demonstrates how quickly safeguards erode when human life is reduced to a question of utility.

The False Promise of Safeguards

Proponents of assisted dying assure us that strict safeguards will prevent abuse. But no safeguard is foolproof, especially when it comes to subjective judgments about suffering or consent. How do we ensure someone isn’t being subtly pressured by family members, caregivers, or even their own feelings of guilt about being a burden? Vulnerable people—elderly, disabled, or financially strapped—could easily feel obligated to choose death.

Moreover, once the principle of assisted dying is established, it will inevitably be applied more broadly. After all, if it’s compassionate to help a terminally ill patient die, why not someone with chronic pain? Or severe mental illness? These "logical" extensions lead to a world where the most vulnerable are encouraged, even subtly, to end their lives rather than live with dignity and care.

Real Compassion

True compassion isn’t about helping people die; it’s about helping people live, even in the face of suffering. Palliative care, mental health support, and community resources are where we should focus our efforts. We can alleviate pain and provide emotional and spiritual solace without resorting to lethal injections.

The argument for assisted dying often stems from a place of fear: fear of pain, fear of dependence, fear of loss of autonomy. But instead of addressing those fears with care and support, this bill offers a permanent, irreversible solution to what are often temporary or manageable problems. That’s not compassion; it’s surrender.

A Call to MPs

On Friday, MPs must confront a fundamental question: will we remain a society that values every life, no matter how fragile, or will we take the first step toward normalizing state-assisted death? Assisted dying may seem like an easy answer to a difficult problem, but it is a betrayal of our moral responsibility to the most vulnerable.

Assisted dying isn’t about choice—it’s about abandoning those in need. It’s murder under the guise of mercy. MPs must reject this bill and reaffirm our commitment to life, dignity, and genuine compassion.

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

if i tell you you are not ready for this interview.

my translation. my commentary is highlighted.

interviewee: ilan stephani who has her own website describing her as a “best selling author”. she worked as a prostitute for 2 years in a brothel and successfully finished her college education. she is a “body coach” now.

„Men are doing terrible sexually”

Ilan Stephani worked in a Berlin brothel for two years. She describes her experiences in her new book.

Miss Stephani, you walked to the prostitution organization Hydra with some friends for a consultation: You wanted to become a prostitute. What did you hope for with this profession?

IS: I didn’t want to become a boring college student. I wanted intense contact. I didn’t have good experiences: My first boyfriend cheated on me with such self-confidence it made me feel the question of power in sex. I wanted to gain social and sexual sovereignty. As a daughter from a good home, I learned how to fluently deal with different people. Those are qualities that were suddenly honored in prostitution. That totally flashed me.

she was emotionally traumatized from her cheating ex-partner and thought prostitution was a fun new adventure. this gave her some wicked sense of control. you can hear the classism from this privileged and educated woman when she calls herself a “daughter from a good home”. off to a good start.

Is that a hunger for life?

IS: Yes. And this is the thing for all men who go to a brothel: I’m hungry for life. And they think a man needs sex for that, which is of course bullshit. Men just learn that they have to experience life like this now. But contact with a smiling person is what enlivens us.

yes girl im sure these men come to you for your smile and because they are “hungry for life” and not because they want to get off in a woman. be for real.

Even though it’s a paid and fake smile?

IS: Yes, people can ignore that really easily.

she admits here that sex buyers know any joy and enthusiasm is fake and simply ignore it to proceed with sex acts. and yet she feels sorry for them.

And that you have sex with men who you don’t desire at all, that didn’t make you hesitate?

IS: It did. But you often have sex in a loving relationship without loving or wanting the other in that moment. That’s more about a feeling of obligation. There is a smaller difference to prostitution than you think. I’ve been working as a body therapist with women for seven years, and they all basically did for free what I was paid for. I had already experimented with anonymous sex. I went to a swinger club and already knew this normalcy and openness. And I was excited for this new social challenge.

so the two options for women are to have sex out of obligation or for payment? girl. also you are generally attracted to your partner, just don't want sex sometimes. in a healthy relationship you would not feel obligated. this was an experiment to her – she is making a mockery out of women who are in prostitution out of financial necessity. i wish she had just stuck to anonymous sex in swinger clubs.

What social challenge do you mean?

IS: All this performance art: For example, you take the money very discreetly, so nobody realizes that a payment has been made. I play that I have to moan exactly now and at the same time I take care that the towel doesn’t move from underneath me. And randomly, after half an hour, our wonderful encounter takes a natural end – and maybe the people also told me some secrets. They talk to prostitutes as if we signed a non-disclosure agreement. I had control the whole time. And usually, the world does not wait for little female students. But these men waited for me.

very normal for a supposed service to pay secretly to keep up an illusion of not actually being a service. it’s true, playing sexual pleasure is a challenge. not something that should be expected of women but okay i guess we’re admitting that prostitution is reproducing misogyny. the last two sentences make it very obvious that her self-esteem is completely dependent on men. another thing i noticed is that she says “people” when in the rest she talks about men. this is a common tactic to obfuscate the reality that prostitution is mostly women serving men.

You worked in a small, female-led brothel, with excellent working conditions. Still: You told the boys they are amazing at satisfying women, even when many can’t really. If I’m being strict here, you supported phallic culture.

calling sex buyers “boys”. nice infantilization to make them seem harmless. otherwise good question that makes it clear that prostitution is inherently anti-feminist.

IS: Yes. Prostitution stabilizes this culture. But as a prostitute, I don’t participate in the patriarchal elevation of the erection. Men fail in phallic culture, that is their problem. They are supposed to have an erect penis, and then it’s flaccid. What do you think, how nervous they often are, when they think they have to bring it now. I hear: “Please release me from the pressure to have to meet these standards.” And I say: “It doesn’t matter whether you have an erection or not. It’s not important. You are alright.” But of course in the end you are right: Women have always validated men under patriarchy and made them feel good.

“yes prostitution supports the patriarchy but -” not interested in what you have to say. take the L. the way she extends so much empathy to sex buyers. i guarantee you they don’t give a fuck and don't think about women and especially prostituted women any further than how fuckable we are. way to reproduce traditional gender roles: the woman as caring, empathetic, taking men’s feelings into account and defending them whatever they do. women telling men they are good enough when they really aren’t. women putting their own desires aside to help and teach men. and yet they will go home and still not know how to satisfy a woman because they pay you to lie to them. but hey she is sooooo self-aware.

That didn’t bother you?

IS: Little. I felt sorry for them. Men are doing terrible sexually in this society. Worse than women, because unlike women they don’t know what they lack. If cumming in women who pretend for them is the highlight of their sex life – how sad is that? The brothel is just one symptom of this poor sex we have.

men are doing so terribly sexually that they can legally buy sex. what is this woman on. this is almost bordering on men’s rights activism. poor men who have orgasms all the time while women have to pretend. maybe the sex wouldn’t be “poor” if men didn’t see women as a means to an end, their own orgasm. but sure you can frame it like her i guess.

What is poor sex – and what is rich sex?

IS: The poverty is that we desperately yearn to touch each other and make each other happy. And we don’t succeed. Women fake orgasms, that is not just a funny topic for the boulevard press. That is a failed communication every time. And men say: The things you like are so boring they make me fall asleep, I need something better. There are so many false expectations. The penis has to enter the vagina, that is such a strict idea about sexuality. And all this in a romantic relationship between two people. Hollywood and the porn industry have commercialized this. And these false pictures cause sexual abuse, sexual trauma for women. And that’s all the fault of the sex we have.

wow, they managed to talk about poverty – but not the impoverished women who are the majority in prostitution and don’t have the privilege to make intellectual considerations about poor little sex buyer meow meows because they have to deal with the abuse. men yearn to make women happy? i have to laugh. and prostitution is helping here how? by teaching men healthy boundaries and communication? again, i have to laugh. she extends no empathy to women or these men’s partners, only to the men who probably cheated on them with her – most sex buyers are not single. and “the penis has to enter the vagina” is literally 90% of prostitution. again, what is she on. so hollywood and the porn industry are evil but prostitution is not? god, please let brains fall from the sky. some people need them.

Now you could say: Kismet [destiny], our sex has become like this, now we have to work through it. You think something else is possible. What would that be?

IS: Good sex has to be freed from definitions that stress us. Thoughts like “sex is only good with an erection”, that’s stressful. We don’t know how to protect our sexuality from these definitions. For example, I discovered slow sex. We laid together for hours, a relaxed and unerected penis in a relaxed vagina. Nothing happened for a long time – except my leg went numb and my boyfriend’s back hurt. But after a few tries, something happened, and it was better than anything we ever experienced. We sensitized our genitalia again. I had my first vaginal orgasm. Yes, dear previous sex partners, the first!

not her talking about “protecting our sexuality”. i don’t even know what to say anymore. prostitution is all about penetration and defining sex to make it a service. she experiments with her partner but sex buyers can’t do that? and she proudly proclaims that none of her sexual partners had made her cum before (at least vaginally). this is such a mess. and now this banger:

Was that the point where you exited prostitution?

IS: Yes. I got bored before that though. And then I went to a workshop, where a group of women was supposed to find our G spot. I was pretty numb vaginally. At first it was funny because we were fingering around in each other with latex gloves, at some point your fingers start to cramp. Well, in the end we found it, and it was such a fluent and ecstatic experience! After that I stayed in the brothel for three weeks. And then I opened my eyes one day and thought: I’m not going there anymore. I was finished with it.

she never even experienced an orgasm before entering prostitution... literally completely unexperienced. and when she realized she could actually feel pleasure and wasn’t merely there to satisfy men she used her privilege to exit prostitution. and because she got “bored”. again, this is a fucking mess. and now she is some sort of body therapist for other women and profits from having been prostituted because everyone fucking loves these stories no matter what the background is. these narratives are extremely harmful to marginalized women in prostitution and play right into men’s hands. why are we not talking more about how a vaginally numb and sexually repressed woman whose partners never bothered enough to make her orgasm entered prostitution and how this is not a good thing? i fucking hate this newspaper because they are so uncritical.

Your bad experiences did not play a role?

IS: Not directly. I only realized later on that prostitution traumatized me. I had one customer who violently had sex with me. He was a smart sadist. A polite, friendly man. But then suddenly he just did what he wanted, touched me brutally and fucked me violently. He didn’t want consent. It was rape, even though it was not rape legally, because I did not say no. He showed me how I’m not able to set boundaries, because I was not prepared for something like this. I think that no woman is prepared for that because we are raised to be these smiling, nice girls.

how is she so aware but so wilfully ignorant at the same time. the cognitive dissonance is insane.

The infamous “she didn’t defend herself”.

IS: Yes. I work a lot with women who say: No, that was not rape, it was in my relationship and I didn’t say no. And I know exactly why she didn’t say no.

Why?

IS: Because we are the smiling girls. Because we are cuter when we cry silently than when we are angry. Our instinct that could prevent traumatization is repressed. The protective instinct: Set boundaries, say no, defend your boundaries. And there is no Yes if you are not able to say No. If we taught girls to say no, before we teach them to wear G-strings, we would reach sexual paradise. Because men would have to progress.

no words.

Don’t we try already?

Do we? I see women who are extremely scared. They’re scared that they won’t have sex anymore if they say no. That the man leaves. And they think, their only turn-on is to be “fucked hard”, to be a vessel. Women don’t know their own strength. Women’s bodies are not inferior to men’s bodies. That is a patriarchal lie. I’m pro sexual feminism. And that’s why I don’t work in prostitution anymore. I can do a lot better things with my sexual power than to say: “I’m your vessel today”.

the only thing that i can get behind in this whole mess. she is not even wrong about some things but the way she frames everything completely releases men from any accountability and she doesn't attack the system prostitution at all, she says the brothel is a symptom of boring sex and not like, woman-hate. and these are the voices that are the loudest in the german debate on prostitution.

[harriswalz4usabybr]

Monday, September 9, 2024 - Kamala Harris & Tim Walz

Today in the campaign brought together both Vice President Harris and Governor Walz in Philadelphia. Tomorrow is the Presidential Debate between VP Harris and Former President Donald Trump, so today was spent doing the final prep. VP Harris is feeling confident in her abilities after the rigorous review of Donald Trump's prior debates. Additionally, she has had many mock debates with various campaign surrogates and staffers as well as Former US Representative Liz Cheney.

While the campaign Staff, the VP, and Governor did the prep. Doug Emhoff and Gwen Walz spent the morning volunteering at a local homeless shelter, Philly House. This was an important event for the Second Gentleman and the First Lady of Minnesota as the two plan to work closely together on various issues, if the campaign is successful.

~BR~

[raziraphale]

seeing the news whine about canada post losing so much money is so frustrating bc if it were always an option I would have canada post deliver literally everything to me. I actually would pay extra for a unionized employee to put my parcel in a community box for me to access at my leisure rather than coordinate my life around the estimated delivery window of some poor underpaid courier forced to deliver my package personally to my door like I'm the emperor.

[not-poignant]

Looking forward to the new chapter of UtB! Also I learn a lot hearing your thoughts on fandom culture, and I was wondering why you think puritanism is getting stronger? Lately I’ve experienced it a lot both online and irl.

Hi anon,

I could write like a 10,000 word essay on why I think moral puritanism is getting stronger in the world, and how that intersects with increased moral panic, and 'anti' or fancop behaviour among fandom.

But I think there's more than one reason, and that at the centre of it, is the radicalisation of political extremes alongside the disdain for human life and education in the USA specifically. In non English-speaking cultures, antis are often considered a uniquely American phenomenon, for example. (They're not, but I do think some of the problems start there).

And from there it's necessary to look at:

The high presence of evangelist religion and their millions in USA politics in particular, and the influence this has on the news and government systems from the top down, affecting legislation, what we see on the media, what gets censored, who gets impacted (SESTA/FOSTA etc.) and so on. When companies like Paypal or similar say they won't support certain sites because they don't support sex workers or explicit artwork, we see extremist perspectives being normalised into the mainstream. Puritanism becomes baked into the system, and accepted as normal. And it has a domino effect, taking one thing away usually means to another thing being taken away, and by 'one thing' I usually mean like... equality, access to basic human rights, and more.

The presence of certain billionaire TERFs in UK politics actively working to destroy legislation over there gives a platform to hateful, bigoted extremists of all kinds, including Nazis (as seen in Australia recently, during a TERF event where Nazis turned up in open support). Also, I'd like to add that a lot of anti/fancop thinking is generally SWERF, anti-kink and eventually TERF in nature, and often homophobic and transphobic even when it's perpetuated by queer folk.

A long-term attack (we're talking over several decades now) on education (especially the humanities and any area that teaches critical thinking) including gutting the funding to libraries, colleges, high schools, primary schools and not increasing the pay of teachers, decreasing the general intelligence of US citizens in IQ tests across multiple metrics (except spatial reasoning). This, combined with the lack of emphasis on teaching nuance and critical thinking, means you get people primed to make didactic, black-or-white decisions and often are prone to radicalisation and black-or-white thinking. There's an increasing lack of ability to understand complex or even reasonably moderately complex thinking tasks. A great example of this was re: anti-vaxxers who said 'if masking works so well, why do you need vaccines' because there was a complete inability to understand that just because something works well, doesn't mean it works 100% of the time. There was a consistent inability too, to grok things like the swiss cheese model. That's not the only reason people are anti-vaxxers and there are some extremely smart people who are anti-vaxxers, but among broader populations, a lack of basic appreciation of nuance and risk mitigation in health was a huge issue. (And it's fairly easy to see this happening in many fandom discussions when we discuss how racism in fiction is generally not great, but that rape in fiction does not cause rape in reality.)

I know the above paragraph is long and unwieldy but it doesn't actually come close to capturing a lot of my thoughts on this so slafkjdsa it'll have to do though. The tl;dr is 'the government said philosophy and critical thinking isn't worth money, so a lot of people don't know how to do it, and anyone who can do it is often attacked or viewed with suspicion' (see also: The increasing suspicion and hostility towards experts in their field x.x). (Oh see also: A lot of people thinking YouTube videos count as 'valid research' for their viewpoints, and a lot of folks just...not ever learning how to research in general).

Something something social media privileging inflammatory and provocative takes as well as clickbait etc. encouraging people to often say things in the worst or least nuanced way possible.

The systemic attacks on democratic processes in the USA (and the UK and Australia and many other places).

The loudest and most obnoxious voices are often the people saying the stupidest shit. As in: It will feel like puritans are everywhere (and there's definitely more of them), but they're also just louder and getting more attention than they used to. It's misleading. Anti-vaxxers are actually a tiny minority for example, and antis are a minority in fandom, they're just...the loudest and the most willing to try and murder real people to defend the rights of fictional characters.

Er so. That's some of it anyway. There's more, absolutely, because I could talk about the presence of puritanism in a lot of levels of our experience/s, whether you're religious or not.

It's frustrating writing about this because I fall into the same trap of knowing that I can't talk about this in as nuanced a way as I want to, even if I get to do it in 1000 words instead of like, a miserable amount of characters on Twitter. Anyone thinking 'but it's not always like that!' or 'but not in every situation!' like trust me, I know. But if I sat here caveating everything that deserves a good caveat this post would blow out even more.

Basically if you try to stop educating your people as much, don't teach them how to research, debate or learn (yes, you have to learn how to learn), and don't give them access to basic needs, and gut your democracy/s, and the people at the top believe a fictional being cares if they're virgins or not or have abortions or not, and you don't care if people commit genocide against the children of your nation because that's not as important as the right to kill them in a moment of anger..., and you create a world where the children of your nation are primed to develop PTSD due to the fear of being gunned down while learning, you create a really great environment for radicalisation, extremism, the safety and comfort of puritanism (i.e. following very strict rules in the hope of fixing what's wrong with the world) while people look for a solution to why they feel so empty and hopeless in their lives.

[doggozila]

Dog Controversies in our Communities 

[ttpd-chair]

Kinda crazy that young people are asking for laws and policies that ensure that we won’t die in a horrific or violent way and the response of the Republican party is to essentially give us the middle finger and say we shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

[clairikine]

Liebe es vom deutschen Verkehrsminister zu erfahren, dass Streiks nicht nur Auswirkungen auf das bestreikte Unternehmen haben, sondern auch auf die Bürger*innen und auf die Wirtschaft. Brand-new information für mich als französische Person

[thedreadvampy]

not very related but every time I think about LGBTQ progress I think about the equal marriage act (the most high profile legal change since I've been politically aware)

and then I think about sitting with my housemate (later girlfriend. later ex) on her bed in 2012 watching and livetweeting the equal marriage debates in parliament.

and then I think about the person who tweeted, in response to a point being made about the diversity of opinions on the matter in the Christian faith and specifically the firm pro-equality stances taken by the Quakers and the Unitarian Church; "Unitarians aren't real Christians and Quakerism is witchcraft"

"Quakerism is witchcraft" has lived rent-free in my mind for over a decade. my two favourite callbacks to make with friends about my religion are "Quakers ritually bathe in oats" and "Quakerism is witchcraft."

[garden-ghoul]

a brawl has started at the theological debate between the minorite monks and the cardinal's delegation from avignon

[currentlyonstandbi]

Australian Greens senator describing Posie Parker and her fellow terf supporters:

[harriswalz4usabybr]

Tuesday, October 1, 2024 - Tim Walz

Governor Walz spent the day bumping around New York City with his wife, Gwen, relaxing before the debate. The debate was hosted by CBS and we are believe our performance was strong tonight. We are hopeful that this debate performance will encourage Donald Trump's team to have him join us for CNN's proposed debate.

If you missed the debate please see below.

~BR~

[acornered]

God once again pride month has become "queer infighting month" with this year's special: should we support mainstream companies carrying pride merch- and don't worry, we won't debate this with any good faith or nuance! Shut Up!!!

[corvideon]

people love to try and make a coding AI make art, or an art AI write a script, and when it fails they go “haha! see? AI isn’t coming for your jobs!” and the fact of the matter is that they are stupid

[joe-england]

Jon Stewart BREAKS THE INTERNET demolishing Republican TO HIS FACE