#i. not to sound like a republican but literally what is the point of anything if this is how we have to live and its not even helping

[macgyvermedical]

(about the project 2025 post).

what does project 2025 mean for LGBTQIA+ people, birth control, fandom media, and immigrants who aren’t from south or Central American countries?

So, like, the point of the document is to "return" the US to an insular Christian Nation.

This is not new, in fact, documents like this from the Heritage Foundation have accompanied every republican president since the Regan administration. Presidents typically accomplish about 60% of what is listed in the document, so each time there is a republican in office, there is policy put in place to incrementally guide the US in that direction.

This sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it's not like the Heritage Foundation is trying to hide their work. You can read the whole 900-page document as a pdf by googling "Project 2025 PDF". It's literally the first result.

The problem we have now is that the republicans have a majority in all three branches of government- the presidency, house, senate, and supreme court. While this is not new (it happened last time Trump was in the White House too), the administration is a lot more organized than it was last time.

Oh, it's also important to know that Trump's own ideas don't really matter in the eyes of the Heritage Foundation. The Foundation is running the show. Trump was just the idiot they could get in power who would do what they told him in exchange for getting to be the president again. So assume that everything Trump says is at best his own fantasy and at worst a distraction.

The LGBTQIA+ and fandom media are the same as far as the project goes- it's all porn. See, a family is defined as a man, a woman, and their children- porn is any depiction that falls outside that. For the purposes of the project, porn includes what we think of as porn, but also any information about the existence of anyone LGBTQIA+ or a depiction (even in fiction) of someone living differently than straight and cisgender.

In the project, the distribution of porn by an individual is a crime, distribution of porn to children by a teacher or librarian is a crime worthy of being listed as a sex offender, and any telecommunications company that facilitates the distribution of porn needs to be shut down. That means that if a librarian checks out a book with a gay protagonist to a minor, they could become a registered sex offender. Or if an archive of fanfiction contains even a single gay kiss, it could be shut down entirely.

As far as birth control, all forms of birth control and the morning-after pill would not need to be covered by insurance. This seems tame by project 2025 standards, but insurance companies aren't going to pay for anything they don't have to. This is part of a larger rollback of the ACA.

There is a LOT about immigration in the document, but it essentially boils down to "let fewer people in ("enforce immigration law"<- they say this a LOT), and punish those that are here by reducing funding for assistance." I really don't know what else to say about it, but they talk about it literally the entire document.

[pocketsizedquasar-3]

you know. white liberals would be far less annoying (still deeply annoying) and far less difficult to take seriously (still deeply difficult) if they stopped lying to themselves and everyone else about what they were doing. ‘cause y’all either sound completely stupid and removed from reality at best or violently callous at worst.

(and before anyone fails their reading comprehension here, i am not telling anyone to vote or not vote or who to vote or not vote for. get off my dick.)

but no, you’re not doing “real leftism” by voting for kamala (something i have actually seen countless people say. “real leftists” would vote for kamala!!1!!1!! if you don’t vote for her ur not a “real leftist!!!!”). that’s not what that is. words mean things. you’re actually engaging in pretty textbook liberalism. it’s not “real leftism” to vote for a genocidal fascist who is actively employing genocidal fascistic policies both overseas and domestically, and who has pledged gladly to continue doing so. (again, bc this is the bad reading comprehension website, i’m not telling you if you vote for kkkamala ur not a “real leftist” (mostly because that’s meaningless); i’m saying that that act itself is not a """leftist""" action). if you feel the need to justify what you’re doing to yourself by pretending you’re doing ~real leftism~, stop.

you're not “stopping fascism” or “saving democracy” or whatever else. you’re not “stopping fascism” by voting for a fascist. you’re not “saving democracy” by voting for a fascist. if you genuinely can’t see in this current moment that kamala harris & the democrats are fascists, you are deliberately ignoring and excusing fascism as long as it’s happening to nonwhite people. it is willful, deliberate ignorance at this point and it is violent. you genuinely do not see victims of fascism unless it happens to white people.

you’re not “protecting palestinians” by voting for kamala. you’re not making their chances better or being better for them or improving their conditions. you’re not “more likely” to sway kamala on palestine; you can’t even threaten to withhold your support for her because of her wanton slaughtering of palestinians. 13 months of ongoing genocide and ongoing mass protest movements and multiple polls showing that she would literally guarantee the win in key swing states if she would just call for an arms embargo / ceasefire as part of her platform have not swayed her. she constantly, constantly reaffirms her willful, enthusiastic support of this genocide. she has said over and over again that she will not end her support for israel, that she would not have done anything differently than biden, that she has no intentions to stop sending israel arms and money so they can keep slaughtering palestinians and now lebanese. you are not “protecting” or helping palestinians by voting for her. keep their names out of your mouths.

you’re not protecting """minorities""" or """poc""" either. not when the candidate is a cop whose administration has already funneled billions of dollars into the police and the military, who is priding herself on wanting to create the most lethal military, on being tougher on the border&immigration than trump, who is happily continuing to perpetuate racist atrocity propaganda to justify the mass slaughter of palestinians, who continues to reaffirm and support the escalation of imperialism and war even elsewhere in the so-called middle east, who is gladly seeking (and securing) endorsements by racist white supremacist republicans (like dick fucking cheney. come on), whose administration has been for four years enthusiastically accelerating the climate crisis, whose campaign has been littered with examples of both their supporters and the politicians themselves being virulently racist. you’re not protecting us. you’re not helping us.

your candidate wants us dead. your candidate wants me dead. your candidate wants my people in iran dead. your candidate wants my sister peoples in palestine and in lebanon dead. your candidate is actively orchestrating their slaughter.

kamala might be better for you, white liberal american. fine. vote for her if you wish. no one is stopping you. but stop white knighting about it. stop pretending you’re doing this for anyone but yourself. stop lying to yourself and everyone else about what you’re doing. stop speaking over us the with fucking audacity that you’re somehow doing us a favor, and stop talking down to us, palestinians especially, like they are children who need to be ~explained~ the right way to save them. stick your white savior complex up your ass.

vote however you want, but stop lying about what you’re doing and who you’re protecting.

and if you want my vote too? fucking earn it.

[netflixonyourcouch]

So much has been made of the Halsey response

Thank you Halsey, first and foremost, for an amazing album. I don't want that point to get lost by discussing what is admittedly the NOISE surrounding this album.

The main culprits: Pitchfork and Fantano. The long and short of it, for those who are unaware: both Pitchfork and Fantano cruelly and unfairly attacked Halsey's intentions, accusing her of essentially milking their illness for the album and exhibiting "main character syndrome" or some shit. There is no way around it, these were personal attacks, and designed to shock and make a statement against her instead of engage with the project in good faith.

So many people have come out on both sides to either support Halsey or defend Pitchfork/Fantano's right to criticism.

Let me tell you something. You white-washed, hipster ass, elitist ass motherfuckers who think indie music is so superior to pop music (and liking Charli's BRAT doesn't count, you bandwagon bitches) need to get a life. All of you. You're NOT the smartest in the room, you're not smarter than Halsey fans, you're not more cultured, more correct, or even more logical. You pride yourselves on that because you've already made up your mind about pop music and refuse to bend, and I'm here to tear down that smug sense of superiority.

You fucking chumps have the gall to say, "What? People aren't allowed to criticize music anymore" Blah blah blah. Stop going to one end of the extreme every fucking time someone wants to put your bullshit "criticism" in its place. You all sound like fucking Republicans lmfao, ignorant as fuck. Republicans cry about "free speech being cancelled" because they can't say racist shit anymore. Yall cry about criticism being "dead" because you can't openly denigrate pop stars anymore.

You can't say ignorant, close-minded, sexist, rockist bullshit and act like nobody is allowed to call it out. Genuine criticism ISN'T THE ISSUE. Petty, personal and short-sighted attacks on Halsey's character IS THE ISSUE. Until you stop at the stop sign and ACKNOWLEDGE THIS FACT, I don't wanna hear anything else about defending the "right to criticize." Present criticism in good faith and then we'll talk.

I can talk about this shit BECAUSE I'VE BEEN THERE. I used to run in the same little cliques as yall. I'm so glad I'm no longer like you fucking pricks anymore because you are all insufferable people. I feel frankly embarrassed that I was ever that pretentious and condescending and I pray that all of you wake up and understand the error of your ways. THERE IS STILL TIME, the irony is that your refusal to keep an open mind about pop music means that you're NOT the so-called "music experts" that you think you are. If you were true music experts you'd be experts about ALL MUSIC not just white people with guitars. Again, CHARLI DOESN'T COUNT. CARLY RAE JEPSEN DOESN'T COUNT, YOU SOUND LIKE THE WHITE PEOPLE THAT SAY THAT SAY THEY CAN'T BE RACIST BECAUSE THEY HAVE 2 BLACK FRIENDS. It's the joke about being US sports teams calling themselves "World Champions" when they are only playing in an American league. You're not an expert on "music" while simultaneously ACTIVELY IGNORING A BIG CHUNK OF MUSIC.

You're also attempting to outsmart all the backlash by saying "Just because Halsey talks about their sickness doesn't make it a great album!!!" Let me address that claim and then I'm done with your faux-intellectual fucks, who again I'd like to remind, are not as smart as yall think. Some of you cobbled a few more brain cells together, I'll give you that, and think that this is the ultimate "gotcha" but it's not. Let's start with the elephant in the room: 1. Many of you who are saying all this shit against Halsey HAVEN'T EVEN HEARD THE ALBUM YET. So until you listen to it, I'm not even entertaining any of your fucking arguments because it's coming from a place of literal ignorance. You don't even know what the album sounds like!! 2. If you DID listen to it, it's a strong chance you didn't digest it. NO I'm not saying it's this ultra challenging piece of work that's difficult to understand, I'm instead arguing you skimmed it, didn't listen closely enough or went in with a strong bias to where you're not even in the position to hear its greatness.

Yes, it's a technically right statement that simply talking about a deep or emotional topic doesn't automatically make a work of art great. The reason why that doesn't apply here is that she DID make a great album. I like her last album more but there's no denying that this is right behind it, and in some parts even better. Not every song is my favorite, but there's no way around it, there are some PHENOMENAL songs on here: I Believe in Magic, The Arsonist, The End, Dog Years, Ego, Darwinism, and Lonely is the Muse are all better than your standard indie singer-songwriter stuff.

Finally, I've seen this over and over again: People like to overapply the rules to artists they don't like. I've seen it with Taylor too, who I admittedly don't like, but people tend to be super uncharitable toward her too. You'd NEVER disparage Sufjan for talking about his struggles with Guillain-Barre or try to say, "Just because he talks about Guillain-Barre doesn't make it a great album!" It simply wouldn't happen. So stop this rules-for-thee-but-not-for-me hypocrisy bullshit and try to get a fucking clue, please.

In short. I won't sit silently anymore as people in the indie community try to self-assure themselves that Halsey fans are the crazy ones for calling out cheap, personal attacks under the guise of "criticism." Yes, I'm sure you all are assuring yourselves that "stan twitter" is the problem and "people can't criticize music anymore" but I need all of you to wake up and get a clue, THERE IS STILL TIME, if you love music try actually opening your mind for a change and LOVE MUSIC instead of parading around your indie music bias as if it's the only correct take there can be. Try to get some more pop music in your diet before you criticize pop music. I wouldn't expect someone who likes two hip-hop artists to give good constructive criticism on hip-hop any more than I'd be able to give good constructive criticism on a jazz album just because I like Thundercat and Flying Lotus.

This was long-winded and aggressive but I'm sorry, I'm tired of pretending it's okay that hipster motherfuckers do this shit. I can't do it anymore.

[solarbird]

I mentioned that I’d left something out of Saturday’s article on Republicans vs. critical thinking; I actually left out a couple. So today, let’s talk about one of those parts left out: the mechanics of their self-radicalisation.

I should remind you of a few of their core tenants first, however:

There is God, and there is Satan. God is real, Satan is real, and there’s nothing else.

God is definitionally both the source of all good and of all truth. Whatever God Says is both. Anything else is … not. Or, at best, a reduced form of each.

If you are an opponent of what God Says – what they want, in real terms – then you are in opposition to God. That’s bad.

They absolutely mean all of these, on a deep level.

Hwaet. As the American fundamentalist movement moved from being supporters of the Republican party to being structural members of the Republican party – filling the rank and file of the organisation – they started focusing really heavily in their political discussions on one particular bible verse. This verse was Revelation 3:15-16:

Be either hot or cold in my mouth, for if you are lukewarm, I will spit you out.

They really went all-in on this in their political propaganda, particularly on the radio shows. These shows were very important for political organisation. Since they weren’t popular in any larger sense, and since they weren’t “Right-wing Talk Radio” but “Religious programming,” they were mostly ignored by the mainstream political media.

However, these stations were followed very closely by their base, their real core of followers, who would listen all or much of the day.

So they knew when on the air that they were talking pretty much exclusively to their own, and they felt they could speak freely. Mask off, as it were. They could say what they actually thought.

(For the most part, they were correct in that, too. But only for the most part. They didn’t know they were also being monitored by… me, and a couple of other people like me, who were collecting counter-intelligence. That mistake cost them.)

Regardless, they applied this verse heavily to politics and political action. However fervent you are, it’s not enough. If at any point you are merely lukeworm in your faith – or your politics – Jesus will spit you out and you will be condemned to Hell.

As you might expect, this goalpost kept moving. The longer they worked this – and it was over a period of several years – the more explicit and extreme it got.

At first, it was used largely to ask for more out of their followers. Later, it was used to profess the idea that there is no such thing as a legitimate middle-ground, that there was no such thing as neutrality at all. If you weren’t fervent enough in your politics, you were insufficiently infused with the holy spirit, which functionally meant you were with the opposition…

…which, as above, meant you were quite literally with literal Satan.

You can see how this is a problem in real world politics. You can also see from the results how little they care about that.

They got to this degree of extremism exactly as they were taking over the Republican Party from the inside. So if this attitude sounds strangely familiar to your experience with Republicans, well, it should. But now you know how it got there: this became evangelical political culture, they brought their political culture into the GOP with them, and it took over the entire party even if the religion itself did not. At least not right away.

Now, if you combine this with their definition of truth, which we talked about yesterday, something very interesting happens.

But it’s late, and I must to bed, so this will have to be all for now.

We’ll pick this up again soon.

71 days remain.

[comparativelysuperlative]

What was the book? With the Definitely Real Banishment

Spoilers (obviously) but it's the Lightbringer series. That villain was pretty good! The word-by-word writing is fine! The plot is, for several books' worth, aimed at being Very Generic Fantasy (for reasons that will make sense later). Incoming long post about its philosophy, with even more spoilers.

It's not often that I read a book and immediately go "I can tell you what kind of middle school this author went to." In this case, it was drawing on the author's experience of exactly the theology I grew up with, which was almost eerie.

(I read book one years and years ago, and didn't retain much other than "cool magic system." Probably everything in this post is true about book one as well, but I wouldn't know.)

Google will tell you that the series gets gradually very Christian, to the point where the climax of the last book contains a sermon. But it's more specific than that. These books scream "Protestant, American, classically educated, does not travel internationally very often, male, straight, probably white, the kind of person who would vote straight-ticket Republican until that meant Trump at which point all bets are off." I did not bother confirming most of those. They're just obvious.

The loudest part--to me at least--was the "classically educated." (If you're not familiar, it's this thing.) The series would mention quotes from fantasy medieval Catholics or fantasy ancient Greeks or whatever, and I'd recognize the quotes or the names because they'd be real people I ran across in school. Sure enough, author went to Hillsdale.

Lightbringer is interesting for having an actual vision of a conservative society, not just about hating the right/wrong people. Not being on that team anymore I don't actually like this vision very much, but compared to current conservatives, credit for having one at all.

Differences between people obviously don't affect your value as a person, they just might make it easier or harder or mean you have to specialize differently to accomplish as much For The Group.

(That opinion makes perfect sense for characters in an elite military unit/training for that unit. But that context is mostly specific to book two, and the philosophy really isn't.)

This applies to everything. Physical condition, including strength/weight/gender. Color-blindness. Superpowers. Being straight. (I'm genuinely not sure if that part was intentional. Characters kept getting distracted at terrible times, and the narration outside their head sounded exactly the same as when someone can't run a mile without Trying Very Hard.)

It does not matter whether your mental illness turns out to be literally demons in your head. Either way you've still got to either work through it or specialize around it.

Tradition matters, even when we don't understand the reason behind it.

If you happen to be in a fantasy book and have access to magic, consorting with demons is evil but fancy physics is fine. You can just BET this author got into fights with other Christians about whether Harry Potter was anti-Jesus.

"Irredeemably bad" isn't really a thing. "Not in fact going to be redeemed" is, but it's worth trying to show mercy if you have the chance. If you don't have the chance, kill 'em. Don't enjoy it, though.

Forgiving people for actually-bad things is hard, can't just go "idk, they're good guys now," but it's also important. (I do think this is underrepresented in secular fiction, where it's either depicted as "how could you work with THEM" or "come on, get over it already and team up against the whatever.")

One of the big reveals at the end is "the Christian God is real." The answer to the problem of evil is indeed the popular answer in the denominations I grew up with. Human choices something something mumble free will.

Very incrementalist. You do as much good as you can as fast as you can, but obviously without overthrowing the entire order or anything. Only evil opportunists would want to do that. Yes, even if the existing order is corrupt all the way through.

Speaking of which, you know that organization/political entity claiming to represent God? Corrupt all the way through. God is more personal than that. Protestantism!

Personal morality matters. Your leaders absolutely must be good people, or at least trying to be, or you're screwed.

Personal morality matters. It is safe to assume you'll end up as exactly what your peers expect of you, so pick good peers.

A man should be faithful to one (1) wife. Viewpoint characters speedrun figuring out the philosophy behind this.

(IMO monogamy was a legitimate human rights win by early Christianity, relative to what came before, and I think something similar applies in this setting. But since the real-life alternatives today are so much better than women being property, giving this a lot of screen time sounded like the book is fishing very hard for things historical Christianity did right.)

Also, once you are married you Are Married. It's not that changing that would be unthinkable, just that if you do treat it as an option you're obviously doing it wrong.

Gay people don't exist. Any variety of non-straight, really. Nobody says that it should be that way. It just doesn't come up. Characters are written in enough detail that I can tell you how they'd react if you asked them, and it's mostly the "not my business" + "prefer not to think about it" kind of low-grade homophobia. A few would be explicitly okay with it. But it does not come up. If there were a gay relationship depicted, I'd expect it to be "coincidentally" problematic in some other way.

(I guess there's that one slaver-antagonist whose sexuality is just "sadist." Yeah, one might call that problematic.)

Practically dripping with Great Man Theory of History. There's a scene where the protagonist has a self-affirming/emotional moment about not relying on his family name and meritoriously earning his first kingdom. This is played completely straight.

Don't worry, he uses it for good. At least as much good as he can without overthrowing the existing order etc.

If there are end times prophecies, they might well be true but you can't trust any specific interpretation so it's wiser to just do your best without reference to the prophecy. (This is an interesting take! And not heresy but also not common! I bet the author's reacting against some interesting strains of fundamentalism there.)

A cool idea where angels and demons can be anywhere in any world at any time in history, but are very reluctant to actually do that because they can't pick the same time twice. You can just tell it's the author's Christianity headcanon.

You win by doing your best and having faith in God. The villains are very much a sideshow.

(I think if everyone followed this book's philosophy more it would be a mostly bad thing. Let's not do that.)

(But wow, I wish modern conservatives were only this bad.)

It probably sounds like I didn't like this series. But I did read five doorstoppers' worth. This post is just about the opinions, and the opinions sucked.

Anyway. This has to be on purpose, right, and 10 or 15 years ago I was pretty much the target audience for this. Guess I'm old.

I used to explicitly think "I'm Christian, but atheist fiction is more interesting," and this book is the kind of thing that...tries...to counter that. Fails, because resolving major conflicts with divine intervention is tricky to make interesting. But you'll see why it's going for Every Other Book, But Christian. (Also, the amount of sex in these books is much higher than you might think, given everything. I wish I knew less about what body types the author is attracted to.)

Anyway, I can't really say I would recommend it. But if you're interested in what would happen if Card or Sanderson tried to be Evangelical Lewis for adults, Lightbringer isn't bad.

[vang0bus]

ok nevermind I saw the arguments youre having with people. how come with anyone brings up genuinely thoughtful points you get offended and brush em off. sure your ideology sounds good at face value but the one sided conversations you’re having with people make you sound shallow. going blue isn’t going to solve any problems if the red/blue system IS the problem and you can’t act like siding with democrats because they’re the “better option” is going to change what’s really wrong. again, there’s corruption on both ends, and what we need is a genuinely neutral party, or a candidate with values aiming to protect the United States and its people?? you’re focusing on far left/far right too much. please engage in healthy discourse and political debates because always arguing like this, staying diehard with your own point and avoiding expanding your worldview is literally what’s dividing this country 😭

1. im not american stop talking to me like i am 2. i dont think voting blue will solve anything i just dont want a republican government in the usa because that would have consequences for the whole world and it makes me angry that people ignore their responsibility to vote. yes i think the whole system needs to change and its awful that there are only two parties that are Bad and Worse but that change isnt going to happen overnight and its not going to happen before the 2024 election so you still need to vote. thats all

[junebugwriter]

I guess I never had much of a chance.

I just started watching Jessie Gender on Youtube's essay about masculinity and... it hit like a goddamn truck. So much of what she talks about in her past so closely mirrors my own, it's downright eerie. Down to the fact that I was an Eagle Scout. Although, to be fair, it sounds like she had a much better time in it than I did, considering I never really made many friends in my boy scout troop, and I never worked any of the camps.

But to the point... I really did echo a lot of her experience. I tried my hardest to be a man. To live up to the ideals of masculinity that society enforces. But I was never going to be anything close to that. I was always too fat, too sensitive, too emotional, and too unathletic to ever be anything close to Western Masculinity (tm).

I did try though. I was desperate to be seen as something close to approaching masculine, but it came out in such strange ways.

For those who don't know me in person, I grew up in the United Methodist Church, quite literally. My dad was a pastor all his life, and that's the only life I knew growing up. As such, we lived life "in a fishbowl," as we'd call it. That means we were supposed to be the Model Family. Above all reproach, under all scrutiny. If any of us stepped out of line, we were going to be reprimanded for it. Do you folks on here have any idea what that does to a kid? My parents loved me, to be sure, and I bear them little ill will. They did their best under the circumstances. But we were a religious family in Texas. There's very little non-conformity afforded to us. My mother, God bless her, she already bucked tradition. She wasn't exactly feminine, mostly. Sure, she wore dresses, wore makeup, even went square dancing with my dad. But she had little time for the trappings of femininity, and only wore them under obligation. She did not enjoy being a pastor's spouse, for the most part. She endured it, for my Dad's sake, but she made no secret that she wasn't going to pretend to be some Stepford Wife bizarro Tammy Faye Bakker. Not her.

So I grew up with my dad, a uniquely anxious person, stressed about how me and my brother were going to make it. My dad was a pretty old-school guy, but at heart he was a bleeding heart liberal, as much as one could be in Texas in the 80's and 90's in religious circles. There's not a single Democratic president he didn't vote for. He was Democrat til he dies. Yet... that could never be public knowledge. Not in the church. Not in Texas. So already, we became bearers of secrets. Mom isn't a pastor's wife. Dad isn't a Republican. And so we were taught to bear our own secrets.

I'm neurodivergent. I have ADHD. And I am almost entirely incapable of telling a lie. (Ask my partner, she knows!) But little secrets... that was a matter of survival. Little secrets, for the benefit of the Image. Everyone has them, I learned. But God help you if your secrets ever got out.

So I learned, and learned, and learned some more. I'd ask questions, and to their credit my parents answered most of them truthfully, if they could. But there were some things you do not question.

One of them was gender. But I did not know that word.

How could I?

Not in that environment. Not in the fishbowl. Not in Texas. Not in the church.

Girls did x, boys did y, and that's that. Girls were x, boys were y, and that's it. End of discussion. Black and white.

There were signs I did not conform. I loved the show Barney and Friends... until I overheard kids at school call it a show for girls and little babies. Not a show for boys.

Overnight I stopped watching.

I used to sleep with a blanket every night. I loved, adored that little blanket. I found solace in Linus from Peanuts, and his little blue blanket. But my father chafed at its ever-presence. He never said anything against it, but he didn't have to. I could tell. So my mother, God bless her, she stitched me and my brother some pillows with fun animal designs on them. They substituted for the blanket. Father approved, as they had things like tigers and killer whales on them, which were Boy Approved (tm) things to like.

But then there was the ladybug puppet. It was a cute little stuffed ladybug that fit on my hand, and it even had an extra leg so as to be anatomically accurate. I slept with that every night.

Until my mother told me that dad didn't want me to do it anymore. He was worried it was too "feminine." And she said it in a very sing-song voice, a teasing tone I grew all too familiar with.

So into the closet the puppet went. And me with it.

I became hyper-vigilant about what could be perceived as "feminine" from there on out. I watched what I did like a hawk, trying never to ever raise the annoyance or ire of my dad or my peers. But it was never enough. As anyone who has ever had to play that game of gender chess, there was never going to be any chance for someone who is a trans girl to ever be anything but, even if they didn't know that was what they were.

I didn't hear the word "transgender" until I was in grad school. By then, I had already felt a call to ministry. By then, I had long ago locked up all gender nonconformity in a closet back when I was in grade school. I had lost an entire childhood, teenhood, early young adulthood. And by then, I felt like they described what being trans was like, as if it was for someone else. Glad I didn't deal with that issue!

But I did. I simply did not allow myself to question things. Did not allow myself to break the box I was put in as a child. Because I was a white guy, going to be a pastor. I figured I would just be that all my life.

Life has changed about three times since then. I only allowed myself to ask myself the hard gender questions in October of last year. I was 35. I'm turning 36 this next month.

I'm starting my life over again, a fourth time. But I'm actually looking forward to the future, for the first time in my entire life.

Because now it actually exists.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

So I understand that I have a tendency to politics and rage post quite a bit and while I'm scrolling through my feed I like to go through and kind of mix things up with cute videos of animals and just wholesome things.

But the reason things have been picking up with me posting in general is because I have a bit too much free time recently and my work is a delivery job currently. Now as to what I'm about to talk about it is going to be me bitching. And it's because there is a demographic in the country that I can't tell whether or not they are just stupid, ignorant, or malicious. Though there is a possibility that it's a Venn diagram and that there's overlap or potentially a perfect circle.

Now the video that I'm about to share before I get into this topic is going to feature a person that I am aware that a lot of people don't like for a variety of different reasons. Having said that however I find man on the street videos pretty optimal for testing the general climate of people in general. Having said that here is the video.

Now if you decide to not watch the full video that's completely fine because my response is mainly only to the first and third person that are interviewed. And this is a broader conversation about Democrat voters in general. So I am going to put a read more tag under this because it will probably be long but if you end up giving it a read I appreciate it.

I don't know if it's because of mainstream Media or pundits or talking heads but Democrat voters in the United States seem to be heavily uninformed to a point of sheer ignorance or just general stupidity. And if you are honestly asking me I can't tell if it's again, ignorance, stupidity or maliciousness. But the first guy in this interview basically literally talked about forming a totalitarian government even if he's not implicit about it that's what he wants. Because he very much said that he didn't want to stack the supreme Court and then said that yes he actually wants to have full power of the house the Senate and the presidency so that they could stack the court and then prevent Republicans from ever getting that kind of majority so that they could keep power.

Because even if all of that wasn't explicit he very much made that clear in what he implied. And between him and the third guy who both claimed that people are misinformed the irony is palpable.

As to the third guy I don't think that he's malicious I think that he's ignorant and bordering on stupid and I don't say that to be crude. I actually say that because I believe it to be the case in this instance because of how he talks. This seems like a guy who un-ironically watches CNN and MSNBC religiously. And then literally only repeats the things that he hears. Because he talks about a stalemate when it came to the border bill. A border bill in which didn't actually do much of anything. The bill itself allows 4000 illegal immigrants in throughout the day and after the 4,000 mark they are supposed to halt illegals from coming in. Part of the bill was also an aid package to Ukraine. Now if you look at it from both of those angles it sounds pretty clear to me that it really doesn't do anything about the border. Actually if anything it codifies illegal immigration into our country.

Then there is the supposedly banned books. The actual definition of a book being banned is an instance in which societally and often governmentally a book is removed from circulation from all means. In other words society and the government say you can't publish this book anymore owning this book is literally forbidden and we will imprison you or file charges against you if it is found in your possession or if you are found to be distributing it. That is the actual definition of what banning a book looks like. Meanwhile what was actually taking place in a lot of instances where that a number of books were being looked over for their potentially inappropriate content in regards to children. And they were not being banned. They were being removed from elementary and intermediate schools and an instances some high schools. Why? Because a number of them have explicit sexual content in them. And the only reason that they were functionally allowed was because the only sexual content that Neo progressives want in schools is LGBT sexual content. If you asked quite a number of them if they thought that Playboy or any other number of publications that do dirty smut stories featuring straight people they would freak out at the prospect in some cases.

And so I'm sorry to tell you Mr number three but yes if you have literally no issue with LGBT sexually explicit content in schools just say it. But in all likelihood he doesn't know. He just heard some talking head at the New York times or MSNBC or CNN telling them that the stories were just about LGBT people and did not actually feature anything bad. Despite the fact that one of said books actually features essentially a how-to on giving a blowjob and it's depicted in a picture, and another of the books teaches you how to use Grindr but it is not locked behind a hint hint, wink wink, of if you are under the age of 18 don't read this next part. Yes because a person who buys a book is not going to read everything in it if they bought it with the intention to read it regardless of their age. What's more there are a lot of people who will still argue to this day that drag queens are not explicitly sexual. To which I respond with 99% of all forms of drag performance have historically been sexual in nature in some way shape or form. But it asks a broader question of why is it only that drag queens want to read in front of children and literally no other groups? You never hear about drag queen story hour for old people you never hear about drag queen story hour for you know community viewing. It's always intentionally aimed at children often small children. So I would say yes there is very much an agenda there. And the agenda is to normalize sexual depictions of people in explicitness as well as degeneracy.

Now understand something. Functionally speaking most of the people I know are filthy degenerates. But most of them know where to draw the line. Societally speaking most people do not. And that's part of the issue. Because most instances of drag queens are explicitly sexual and drag shows themselves are often if not always explicitly sexual. You would not be stripping at a drag show and dancing in a sexually provocative way if it wasn't meant to be sexual. Performative or not it is meant to be sexual. And for a lot of drag queens it is a sexual fetish. Because they get sexual gratification from it.

Which leads me interestingly to a point that I did not think I was going to talk about but seeing as this is kind of a rant I'm going off script. People need to understand that kinks and fetishes are fundamentally sexual in nature. And the reason that I say that is because you don't call your likes of something a kink or a fetish unless the implication is that it is for sexual gratification. And there is a very specific reason why. I do not call my love of seafood a kink or a fetish. I don't call my love of anime a kink or a fetish. I don't call the fact that I enjoy going on Long scenic drives a kink or a fetish. And the reason is because they aren't. I've had a lot of people recently try to draw this weird distinction between sex and sexual stuff and also can kink and fetishes. And most of you seem to be ill informed so as somebody who has experience with those specific communities let me weigh in with age old wisdom. If you like something then it is a like if you like something and it gives you sexual gratification it is a kink or a fetish. And it is probably about time that we stop pretending those things aren't related to sexual gratification.

Having moved that out of the way however, I can kind of get back to what I was saying having made that statement. When you see amen on the back of a truck strapped to a sex cross being flogged in public while nearly completely naked that is a form of actual degeneracy. And the specific reason as to why is because it is intentional public showing of things of an explicit sexual nature. Mind you I don't know if this was last year or the year before but that very instance was featured at a pride parade.

But back to the video because it is important the third man interviewed seems to be wildly actually misinformed when it comes to what is going on in the world. No the economy is not good. Any look at prices of restaurant food or store-bought food would very much showcase that is fact. Gas prices would actually be almost $4 if not north of $4 even in places like Texas if not for the fact that Biden is literally emptying out our reserves right now to artificially lower costs. And then you have groups and communities who are very much upset with the current state of illegal immigration into our country because it is very much taking its toll on not just our economy but also culturally.

It's weird because when you talk to Democrats, and yes this goes both ways but it's not nearly as bad, they have this stereotype in their head of what someone on the right or who is Republican is. Which is a dumb redneck who sits on his ass does nothing but watch sports drink beer while literally plugging his brain into Fox News and then going dig ditches or something. While making Facebook posts about how he wants to bring the KKK back and how he wants to hunt down all the gays.

99.99% of people who would vote Republican do not even remotely embody that stereotype. Then again extremes on every side in every culture in every faith in every political party will always exist. Because extreme people will always exist. But when it comes to voters who are Democrats I am unable to truly process how there are so many things that they don't know. It literally makes no sense to me. And what's more interesting is the fact that black voters are starting to actually realize that the Democrats don't actually give a damn about them. Which I'm excited to see. Because it was funny watching Texas and Florida and other states, send illegals to New York Illinois New Jersey and other places. Because prior to now a lot of those people had never truly understood what border states deal with on The daily basis.

Me personally? I live in texas. And I have steadily seen the population of Latino people grow exponentially over my time growing up. But unchecked Mass migration has gotten so ridiculous over the years there are areas in North Central Texas around Dallas where there are 10 to 15 mosques within 10 to 15 miles. Which is absurd. Now I don't have any problem with mosques existing in any cities or states. But I will say one thing specifically. When you are seeing mosques overtake churches in the United States and you have enough of a population of a different culture(s) that you need 10 to 15 mosques in that range? It's pretty much safe to say that you are functionally being replaced. And you don't even have to take my word for that. Cuz if you listen to a lot of the people in the Bronx and other areas like Chicago and what not where there are currently illegal immigrants taking over hotels and homeless shelters, as if their rights are that of free things provided by taxpayers in this country. You are seeing a lot of them talk about the fact that they are being replaced. And I actually believe that they are. Because people Mass imported into this country will be added to the census. And if the Biden administration has anything to say about it he will get them identifications and voter IDs before the election comes around. Because recently over a million new registrations of voters have come out of Texas tens of thousands of whom have been dead. We had a similar phenomenon in Missouri I believe. And the way that this was found out, was through a program that is specifically meant to be used for new voter registration not in fact to clean voter rolls. Never you mind the fact that Biden has been selling us out to other countries by moving all of our stuff over to other countries. And the only positive thing that he has done was something that Trump had already been planning to do in the first place. Which was the chips act. More or less to start producing silicon here because it is better that we bring a lot of our manufacturing back to the United States. Especially when we are perpetually at economic war with China.

Democrats in my opinion feel incredibly uneducated. And for some God forsaken reason they think the going to school magically grant them an education. But then you listen to them talk and it is clear they have absolutely no clue what is going on with the world around them. They literally just repeat things that they've heard. Which honestly doesn't shock me. However it doesn't make it any less sad if you consider the fact that they're allowed to vote while literally not knowing anything about what's going on in this country.

Never you mind the charisma scandal with Joe Biden and Hunter biden. Never you mind the fact that Joe Biden used his position as vice president to protect a company that his son was working for that belonged to a foreign nation. Never you mind the Joe Biden used his power as vice president to get his son, or try to get his son lucrative deals in the energy sector in China. We have found out so many things that the Democrats lied about. The inflation reduction act which actually increased inflation. And had more to do with the green New deal then literally anything to do with reducing inflation. Then there was the LIE of the don't say gay bill. Which convinced a lot of people you could no longer say gay in schools or some people believe that you could no longer say the word gay in the state at all. Despite the fact that the bill was called the parental rights in education act, and it's entire goal was that teachers were required by law to tell parents when issues were arising with their kids. And that they could not have extracurricular discussions about LGBT topics in schools. But see here's the fun caveat. the law The Way it was written also prevented them from talking about cisgendered topics. In other words it barred teachers from using class time to explicitly discuss sexuality or gender identity. As teachers jobs is quite literally to teach academics in particular subjects related to what they've been briefed to teach. So if you are a math teacher, your job is to teach math. Not to talk about how your wife is Polly lesbian Ace and how she just got a train ran on her at a fetish community event that was pro LGBT. (No I did not hear about this being an actual thing that happened but it is an extreme case of what was happening. IE: teachers talking about their romantic and sex lives openly to their students and prompting class time discussions about LGBT topics that had nothing to do with what they were allowed to teach in the first place).

The fact of the matter is so much of the things that the Democrats have put out via the news and other sources have been bald-faced lies. And most of that can be proven generally. But the problem is the news are not going to tell on themselves. Which makes things frustrating because when cnn, msnbc, the New York times, abc, the guardian, the daily beast, and many other outlets outright lie they all align democrat. And so they are not going to tell on themselves or tell on each other unless there is absolutely no choice but to do so. We saw a member of Congress intentionally set off a exit/fire alarm in order to delay proceedings. But guess what he had a D in front of his name so he got away with it. Hillary Clinton destroyed evidence of malfeasance, gross negligence and possibly maliciousness, by having her staffers destroy cell phones with hammers and use bleach bit software on servers to remove the fact that she had sent dozens if not hundreds of classified documents to foreign entities. Never once prosecuted because of course she has a D in front of her name Rachel maddow almost cried on live TV whenever they said that no Trump was not in fact linked to Russia. And that Russian gate was a hoax as a whole.

Moderates left of center people and people on the right seem to have a far better idea of what is going on in this country rather than run of the mill liberals. And they certainly know significantly more about what's going on in this country then neoliberals. Under Trump the economy was good. We had no new wars. There was an actual attempt to bring our soldiers home had many generals not lied about how many soldiers we had in foreign countries. Remain in Mexico was great policy for mitigating immigration. And the easiest way to understand why the media hated Trump is one very specific instance. The one time that Trump specifically opted to use military force explicitly in a very specific drone strike. Many of the dem aligned media opted to call that particular act presidential. Even though technically what they said was finally Donald Trump starting to act like a president. Donald Trump fired Bolton. Yes a little too late, but the fact remains that he did. So if I were to take a wild guess as to why the media hated him it wasn't because he was a fascist. It wasn't because he was a dictator. It wasn't because he was going to form gay hunting parties. And it wasn't because he was trying to reform the kkk. It was because he was a threat to their power. And while certainly there were more powers granted to the deep State under trump, we had significantly more victories generally speaking as a country because of trump. Specifically the Abraham accords. The fact that under Trump no new wars did start. The fact that Donald Trump without security walked into North Korea as a symbol of good faith. Something no other president has ever done. Trump held up an LGBT flag that said gays for Trump in front of the rnc. And the RNC clapped for him. I grew up around Republicans, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that The stereotype that constantly gets put on to Republicans is functionally false in most cases.

Meanwhile the Democrats consistently claim that they want to help minorities and that they are trying to protect democracy. Except one, we don't live in a democracy. We live in a constitutional republic. And two, Democrats are literally the party of the KKK. And contrary to Democrat messaging and several Neo progressives messaging no there was no broad party switch. Almost every form of legislation passed by democrats has negatively affected minorities in some way shape or form. It is consistent. And it is frequent. Democrats as they are and have been for the past 20 plus years are in my opinion a malicious organization of evil autocrats. Or more accurately a group that seeks to be autocrats. No having said that I will say one thing. This is a post specifically about democrats. However I will concede to the fact that there are Republicans who very much are no better. But I think the scales are functionally different. And imagine the scale like this. You have one scale with 30 lb on one side and 5 lb on the other side 30 lb is the evil rot of the Democrat party and specifically The crazies. Be 5 lb are the same people. Where as Republicans you are looking at a 30 lb weight on where as Republicans you are looking at a 15 lb weight on one side and a 10 lb weight on the other side. The 15 lb is the neocons and the actual unit party assholes. The 10 lb are the decent Republicans regardless of whether I disagree with how they do things. And you might think by me saying this that I am a republican. Except no I'm not even conservative. Mind you, it is my obligation to tear the party that supposedly is supposed to support me to shreds because they are malicious snake oil salesmen who do not actually care about this country. And are frequently doing everything that they can to bankrupt the American people, flood this country with people that they can buy off, and sell us out infrastructure and all to foreign entities specifically China.

Speaking of which. Let me just mention one thing because it's insulting to me. China is currently in the midst of genociding Uhygur muslims. Which includes forced sterilization. Forcing them into labor camps. And having Han Chinese men rape the Uhygur Muslim women. And based on the reports multiple times daily. I have seen more people harass random Jewish people and any company that could theoretically be linked to Israel then I have seen any backlash against China whatsoever. The reason this is so extraordinary to me is because I have seen vtubers and celebrities get literally harassed and dog piled because they wanted to buy something from Starbucks but because something something Israel all of a sudden Starbucks is on this "evil blacklist of companies controlled by the evil Jewish state". Meanwhile I have heard zero pushback or boycott for any extended period of time against China whatsoever. You arrogant f**** are all still using tick tock. You're still buying stuff off temu, which is actually worse because guess where your products are made from that website? Oh yeah right Uhygur Muslim labor camps. A video on that here-

So. I have gone completely off script at this point. And I understand that this is long and effectively a rant. But it boggles my mind that even when confronted with actual reality people will continue to vote for Democrats because they've literally bought into the lie that they are the party of love and tolerance. When they have done so much more damage to varying communities including minority ones. Fun fact about things like affirmative action. All they actually do is make other people hate you for getting a job based on your skin color. And nothing anyone can say will prevent anyone from viewing it that way. Because you have quotas to meet under affirmative action saying you have to have X number of insert demographic here. Which means that if you only have 50 spots that you have to hire for you are legally obligated to save positions for people based on the color of their skin. Rather than first come first serve. Then you have DEI bullshit. In which even people who thought that DEI had a different definition soon realized that it was actually making people more racist. Which honestly shouldn't shock anyone. And then you have the welfare state. And which you can survive pretty decently off of welfare up to and including social Security and food stamps. And it is actually easier to survive off welfare then it is off of a job paying between nine and twelve dollars an hour depending on where you live. What's more they make these benefits particularly lucrative for certain demographics of people. Meanwhile other people get the shaft. Because a group depended on the government will always bow to the government. And those in power are very much aware of this. And if you really need any more actual proof look no further than california. Where it is been a constant that they have been trying to "fix" homelessness and clean up the city in general. Only for people like Gavin newsom and others to say that it was impossible to do in a short period of time and likely would not improve. Only for Gavin newsom's communist hero Xi decided to come to a conference and he got the city very clean very quickly and kept it such until the man left. Not to mention has forwarded several different forms of legislation that have made life worse for people in california. That $20 minimum wage that you thought would be so great? Yeah 10,000 people lost their jobs over it. Color me shocked. Oh except for the fact that Panera bread didn't have to abide by this because they donated a s*** ton of money to Gavin. So it was never about helping the people. It was literally just placation. Or maybe you could look back at the legislation where he tried to repeal the part of the California Constitution that says you can't discriminate based off of XYZ protected classes. Which means he wanted to allow discrimination based off of those things. Or there is the ever so present fact that it is no longer a crime much less a felony to intentionally and knowingly give your partner HIV.

Are there uni party republicans? Absolutely. There are also RINOs. As well as warhawks. But almost all of them fall right in line with the Democrat establishment. Because for all of them it is war money and power. Now I'm going to wrap this up a little bit by saying this. There are quite a few decent Republicans that get a bad rap because of mainstream media who exceedingly have a Democrat bias. And yes there are a few although not many Democrat politicians who are not evil assholes. But that shortlist is in fact a very short list.

*Rant Finished

[emptymanuscript]

For some reason Youtube is making it difficult for me to share my comfort video :/ so... I'll try this way.

Because, quite honestly, the first 10 minutes or so of this was what I kind of desperately needed after last night. She is so damn right it hurts in a good healing-a-wound way.

Because, yeah, full depressive anxiety response, check. And, yeah, both Biden and Trump could literally drop dead simultaneously and have their people puppet them around the next 4 years like it’s Weekend at Bernie’s AND Biden would still be the better candidate.

And, yes, he really did have a bad night. BUT one bad night is not the end of the world. And it was only a bad night if you ignore the content of what was said in favor of the expected appearance.

This isn’t a horse race between two horses that we’re judging based on their physical fitness. This is a political decision about whether you want democracy or not represented in the governing political positions of the two representative leaders. Biden being Pro Liberal Democracy, with all its benefits and flaws.Trump being Pro Right Wing Authoritarinism, with all its benefits and flaws. Neither is all good or all bad. They each have advantages and disadvantages depending on your point of view. Yes, Right Wing Authoritarianism does have distinct advantages, it’s simply the question of whether it is worth the trade off. Same way that Democracy has distinct disadvantages and the question is whether it is worth it.

So, yeah, which do you want?

Do I wish Democracy had sounded more appealing last night? Yes. Does it make me wish we had a more ideal world. Yes but I want that anyway, regardless of last night. I’d rather not have my pro-democracy choice come with as much willingness to throw Palestine under the bus and support for Netanyahu’s regime, even understanding the political context of the stance. I don’t get that choice. The only move I’m given in our election “game” is how I vote based on the choices I’m given. So, yeah, I have to take the bad with the good and the better. Does anything from last night change my position on the actual choices at hand?

No. Again, if the choice was between anything to the left of the democracy/republic divide versus Trump, I would vote for anything. Even a literal pile of shit. Quite honestly, if it had somehow come down to Chris Christie or Mitt Romney or several other Republicans versus Trump I would have voted for them in spite of disagreeing with them on nearly everything and thinking they’re pieces of shit, at least they are Pro-Democracy and value election results. So, it could be worse.

It just makes me feel like I don’t know how to use last night to my advantage at the same time as I see a thousand ways to use it against Biden. Which gives me a pure shot of fear inducing, doom & gloom, catastrophization.

Which is an emotional mind response. Sigh. So... it’s just getting out of that. Ignoring the allure of logical mind’s bullshit that will explain whatever answer I want it to. And picking wise mind back up. Ugh. Mental health is difficult. Bleh.

I don’t actually know why I find ECM (Elizabeth Cronise Mclaughlin) so comforting. She speaks “my language” I guess. But I really am watching her for comfort at this point. So... if you find “buck up soldier, it’s not that bad. All we gotta do is fight harder and smarter” comforting, I recommend her.

Though I'm also not sure she isn't right that I may need to simply disengage for my health. But that is REALLY hard. For all the same reasons. It FEELS (pesky emotional mind) like turning my back on the face eating leopard.

[steviesbicrisis]

"if we don't like it, we make it gay" that isn't the point, though. so many other people have said this more eloquently than i can, but you can't claim "death to the author" when the author is alive and actively lobbying for the genocide of trans people in the uk and influencing (and funding, iirc) republican politicians in the states to do the same thing. if you say "fuck terfs" but then continue to engage with the franchise and ignore the multitudes of jewish and lgbt+ people telling you the reasons why you shouldn't, the reasons why this franchise is literally killing us, your trans and jewish friends/followers are going to be cautious of you. *i'm* cautious of you, now. you're not only supporting a terf by giving her engagement, but jkr is a fascist. i can't assume your response to this, and this isn't sent out of malice, but i hope you can ask yourself if a book series and nostalgia are more important than the real people being affected by the political career of its creator.

I'm going to answer this as best as possible, but please be mindful that English isn't my first language, so I might not be as eloquent or exhaustive as I could've been in my native language.

Leaving this premise aside, I say this with no malice nor desire to sound bitter/defensive: please take a step back and stop assuming stuff about me.

I don't even know where half of the things you said come from, I genuinely thought you sent this ask to the wrong person until I read the "fuck terfs" part.

"continue to engage with the franchise" how am I doing this? I have 1 word associated with it, that's it. Do you see me promoting the books or the movies? do I reblog stuff about the franchise? Do I go around showing anything related to this? I've stopped giving money to that author the moment I found out what she stands for. I have one post related to the franchise before I knew how big of a deal it was to make fan-related content (I thought it was okay to still go on with stuff she doesn't get money from), which I decided to not continue writing it the moment I understood it might've been hurtful to someone.

You also assume I don't listen to fellow friends/followers. The thing is, you don't know me, this is Tumblr, I do not show everything about me in my blog. I have lgbtq sources I go to inform myself on how to approach topics that interest the community but not me personally because I wanna be supportive. You also have to understand that I get my information mainly from Italian resources and the approach on the topic might be different. This is not me speaking for the Italian trans community, obviously, but they seem to not really care if you engage with fanmade content, while I see in the "internet world" trans creators who don't accept fanmade as well and some do. I simply don't know where I stand but in the meantime, I'm not engaging even with fanmade stuff just to be safe.

All of this to say, I have no problem admitting that I don't know what I should do about fan-made related content because I tried to understand but with the mixed up opinions I simply don't know. Me not knowing translates to me engaging with any content until I understand better.

I'm trying really hard to not see malice in your words to be honest, since you've been assuming so much stuff about me. Everything else you touched upon it doesn't apply to me (like having nostalgia about the books, I never once said anything like that).

All of this being said, I am sorry to know that people are cautious about me. I hope you can understand that this blog is supposed to be a happy place to talk about Stranger Things and have a nice break from chaotic everyday life and I'm really saddened to know that it isn't as lighthearted as I thought.

To the people who were disappointed/had hard feelings after reading my bio, I am sorry. I mean it, I would never write something anywhere with the intention of hurting everyone.

To anyone who reads this, I hope you don't see me in a bad light after what this anon wrote and my response, I'm trying to handle this situation the best I can and be mindful of everyone's feelings. I am far from perfect but I am trying.

(I'm leaving the bio as it is if people wanna check it out after reading this but I'm going to change it after a little while.)

[wizardpink]

Something that has been on my mind is the way that this website is full of people who want to oppose TERFs more than they want to defend trans people and we are never gonna succeed by applying this method.

So many people have taken the stance that all TERFs are wrong about every belief they hold, that anything they say is one slippery slope into Nazism, and that is a fundamental misunderstanding of why TERFs are able to draw people to their side and how it is they operate.

TERFs are dangerous because they will tell you 99 truths to make you believe one lie.

TERFs appeal to potential converts by holding a LOT of the same beliefs and convictions that most of us who fall on the political left and who support social justice movements do.

So when a stealth TERF says something like "makeup bloggers, shady self-care gurus, and tiktok influencers getting plastic surgery who all appeal to one white western beauty standard isn't good for impressionable teens to be consuming constantly," and your response is to reactionarily oppose what they're saying because they're a TERF ala "fuck off, makeup rules and plastic surgery is great," you've fallen for their trap.

Because they've said something relatively sane sounding, and you've made yourself look like the unhinged one with shitty politics. And the person who hasn't been exposed to these TERF talking points and stealth missions, who also feels like maybe being bombarded by shallow looks-obsessed media isn't good for young girls' self-image, has one of two choices: believe what they see right in front of them, or take your word for it that OP is the secret villain and somehow you, who appear to hold the same values as a Fox News host, are right.

Like, some of the takes I have seen people on tumblr promote JUST to oppose a radfem are literally like something straight out of a Republican dude-bro's MAGA reddit channel. Telling women concerned about sexual assault and rape they're being sexist against men. That ANY discussion about patriarchy is transphobic and should be shut down. That all concerns about sexualizing women without their consent, or the role of violence in the porn industry, are just prudish anti-sex propaganda.

We are losing ground by ignoring what WE stand for in favor of only paying attention to what radfems stand for and opposing it. This is the exact tactic we mock Republicans and Democrats for doing, running a campaign based solely on what your opponent is doing wrong without offering any solutions or positions on issues. "TERF bad!" is not an ideology! "Trans people are human beings who deserve the same rights as their cisgender peers," is an ideology.

One thing I love to see is someone finding a good post by a radfem and refusing to engage with it, and potentially spreading OP's blog to more people, and instead making a whole new post with the same point that ISN'T going to potentially lead people down the radfem pipeline. Hell you can even leave a link to the new post in the replies of the original. I know saying "OP is right about this topic but they're a radfem so block them" probably doesn't feel as good as just leaving "die radfem scum" but when the topic is "women should be able to walk alone at night without being afraid" are you really doing a service to our cause by looking like you disagree with that? TERFs WANT to spread the message that trans people and their allies hate cis women and are a danger to them. Don't do their work for them...

It fucking SUCKS playing their game. It feels like being baited into a no-win situation. But making yourself look like a traditional misogynist isn't an L you have to take. There are other approaches.

[thisaintascenereviews]

Skillet - Revolution

If there’s one band that hasn’t really been in the spotlight for the last decade, it’s Skillet. There are a couple of reasons why, but there’s one huge elephant in the room that should be addressed before anything else — vocalist John Cooper has come out as a religious nutjob the last few years, maybe even longer than that. He’s joined the ranks of Kid Rock, Trapt, Ted Nugent, and whatever other bands and artists have turned to the MAGA cult. Just like with a lot of those aforementioned artists, they got dropped from their labels, so they’ve been independently releasing music, which they have a big enough fanbase that they can sustain it. I’m surprised Skillet has, though, because who really cares about this band?

I’d say “no disrespect,” but I’ve never liked them, so I don’t get why they have the fans they do. They make some of the most bland and forgettable rock music I’ve ever heard, and their new album, Revolution, is no exception. I would say this is one of the worst albums of the year, but not “the” worst. That distinction goes to a few others, but Skillet’s Revolution is pretty rough to sit through. This album has a lot of problems, but it also has a couple of things that are slightly going for it. I say “slightly,” because it’s not much. The only thing I’d say I really “like,” or at least some semblance of it, is the sound.

Their sound isn’t outright bad, and it’s still really bland, but there are some somewhat solid riffs and solos throughout this thing. I wouldn’t give it too much credit, because of reasons I’ll get into shortly, but this album is at least short and to the point. It isn’t overly long, boring, and overstuffed, as it’s only 35 minutes, but there are a lot of things to dislike still. As decent as the sound is, especially at certain points, they rely on the same formula in almost every track; each song sounds about the same, almost to the point of being AI-generated, and it just starts to blend together. At least it’s short, but all but one song sounds the same, and the song that doesn’t is the token ballad of the album (which isn’t very good).

It’s the vocals and lyrics that kill this album for me, or at least make it more than just bland and forgettable but inoffensive at best. No, the MAGA-rock is in full force, at least on a few tracks. “Unpopular” is all about how it’s so unpopular to be a Republican, I guess, and that’s cool for him, but the album’s crux is on “All That Matters,” where Cooper says that all that matters to him is “faith, family, and freedom.” I suppose this album isn’t as bad as something like Aaron Lewis’ latest, because they aren’t really punching down on people for not believing in those things, but come on. This is music for youth groups, and it’s so painfully bland, the lyrics aren’t bad or outrageous enough to bypass that.

Most of the lyrics and imagery on this record are vaguely related to “revolutions,” “rising up,” “being free,” and other very ominous and vague language that you heard a decade ago in hard-rock from the same few bands and artists. It was bland back then, but it has another meaning these days. It just doesn’t sit well when the MAGA cult tried to literally overthrow and “rise up” against the government when their guy lost the 2020 election, so saying that you want a revolution now after all that just feels weird. You can take those lyrics at face value, too, but they’re still really bland and forgettable, because they aren’t actually saying anything.

The one song with some emotional heft is “Happy Wedding Day (Alex’s Song)” about his daughter that’s one of those songs that a dad writes for his daughter on her wedding day, and I will say that I’m glad he doesn’t do that thing that some of these songs do where they out God first, or they say something about giving the daughter away, but the song is really bland and forgettable. It’s just about how she was young and she isn’t now, so what’s the point? I don’t know, I didn’t feel any emotional weight listening to this, and it just felt like a generic ballad.

This album frustrates me, because it isn’t technically that bad, at least from an instrumental perspective. The songs are competent enough, and they’re performed fine. Cooper isn’t a great vocalist, and I love drummer Jen Ledger’s vocals that pop up from time to time, because she can actually sing wonderfully, but she isn’t given any time to shine. The lyrics are trite nonsense about rising up, revolutions, and a whole lot of nothing, which you can easily just forget, but the album does go into some Christian territory, albeit slightly. You can read into the subtext of what he says, but it’s not as bad as other albums I’ve heard this year. This album sucks, don’t get me wrong, but it’s more so for how it feels like it came out a decade too late. It just has no need to exist, and the lyrics that do veer into Christian stuff are pretty cringy, all things considered, so I just don’t like this thing one bit.

[solarbird]

First: Kamala Harris is doing an interview on Fox News today. That’s important. Every Republican not deep, deep, deep into the cult has given other Republicans permission to vote for her. Watch for how it goes. Early votes are skewing real hard Democratic; we can only hope this starts an avalanche.

Now, back to the shitgibbon:

This wtfery happened a few days ago. Repeatedly. They’re all here. Watch his markov chain generator malfunction.

This 39-minute-long what-is-even-happening happened Monday. He stopped his town hall and decided just to hang out on stage and listen to music for half an hour. (More video.) Most of the time he just stood there, then occasionally he’d dance a little.

Even the Russian propagandists made fun of it. They normally puff him up as serious and important and this was too much even for them. It felt very much like a “look at this clown we’ve put into power. Look at him. Isn’t it hilarious?” victory lap.

He didn’t do much better yesterday, cancelling an interview with CNBC before keeping his appointment with Bloomberg News and the Economic Club of Chicago, where amidst his many lies he also said everyone in the world ever is and has been totally wrong about tariffs being bad for the economy (Smoot-Hartley turning the Panic of ’29 into the Great Depression be damned) and also that children could do the jobs of auto workers.

Get out on the assembly line, kids. Build some more gas cars. Maybe we’ll buy you an ice cream before the ocean floods the coastline some more.

Where, oh where, are the New York Times’s “too old” people now? Where is the drilldown? Where is the baited breath, watching for the stutterer to stutter a little again and declare him senile, broken down, and infirm? Ah, but they want him in office – so why would they do that?

People on TikTok were mostly “he is so high.” I think they might’ve messed up his dosage.

The argument that the real plan is to get him into office and then immediately trigger the 25th Amendment in favour of Couchfuker Vance still doesn’t quite hold up to me – they’ll Weekend-at-Bernie’s this motherfucker until he literally falls over dead, since he’s the God Emperor, and also since that gets Vance a de facto third term without changing or ignoring the Constitution. And he’s not continually breaking down, he’s okay enough a lot of the time. Not all of it, maybe. But enough.

But I have to admit, the Vance idea sounds less unreasonable every day.

The problem of course is that when he’s not having a McConnell-esque stall-out, he’s promising to us the armed forces against his political enemies and making it illegal to say things he doesn’t like, all while his fascist friend Mike Flynn keeps rhapsodising about executing anyone who opposes him.

That’s the hard, ugly reality. They don’t even need him to do that, or really, any of the work of Project 2025. He’s never given a single fuck about policy, just about power and hurting people, and they’ll deliver that for him in spades, all while they end secular government in the United States.

That is Vance’s agenda, after all. And that of his backers. All they need from Trump is the occasional scribbled signature.

He’s signed a lot of autographs. It’s all muscle memory at this point. He’ll do that just fine.

And that’s absolutely all they need.

So. I’ve already given you all the arguments I have to reach anyone who might be reachable. People on the fringes of the cult, people who “don’t like politics” and “think politics is boring” so refuse to pay attention. Trump here himself is destroying the idea that he’s the “vote for my wallet,” given what tariffs will do to prices and the economy, but here’s a bit from Rachael Maddow with more thoughts on that whole nonsense. Maybe you’ll find some good arguments in there.

We’re very much in the home stretch, team. Don’t hold anything back, because as I keep saying, this one is for all of the marbles. Bring everything you’ve got and leave it all out there on the field…

…’cause we’re gonna need it.

20 days remain.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

This punk tried to leave this in the comments.

Literally none of this is true. First and foremost Trump didn't actually like Epstein. He was also one of the first people to more or less cut ties with the man when he banned him from his country club. Meanwhile we have a NUMBER of Dems who not just met with him often, but went to his island according to a number of flight logs and accounts.

No the republicans are NOT trying to lower labor laws so that kids as young as 13 can work. That's bald faced lie. And how exactly would lowering the age of labor allow them to impregnate kids? That's a dumb notion and has zero correlation. 16 y/o can work and are not considered adults.

Unless we are talking uniparty establishment Reps, or RINO's which even then, I can't fathom what ass you pulled the, "Tring to bring back Jim Crow". Kindly inform me what law it is you claim to be referring to. Also, if they WERE trying to pass it it would not get the support it needed. UNLESS OF COURSE Dems made up for the 10+ Reps that would NEVER vote for it under threat of death (I have no love for the republican party, but the Dem party currently supports segregation and discrimination based on race).

All of this crap literally sounds like some fear mongering, "How many hot button topics can I bring up with zero evidence to my claims and somehow claim that dems are the good guys". New flash. The dems hate you almost as much as the establishment reps do. The only difference is that the Dems have you sucking their dick by pretending it's made of candy. And you just mindlessly believe them because they told you so. They are the MOST talented liars on the planet and have done NONE of the stuff they claimed they would to help anyone. Why? Because people like you will continue to believe them if those problems never get solved.

And if you want to bring up Epstein's list of associates, you better start mentioning EVERY SINGLE PERSON that votes Dem or has done so a number of times in the past. Like Clinton. Gates. The Ex-CIA director. Goldman Sachs leadership.

Fact of the matter is in the article they don't go into any kind of breakdown of, "Republican leaders" or anything of the sort. THEY DO however mention teachers. Which is something that has been touched on by a lot of the people discussing this topic. What's more, A lot of people are mentioning, "Oh look no drag queen" as if Drag queens are always in drag. They aren't. It's a fucking costume. Literally any of these people could be drag queens. Any of them could be gay. Any of them could be trans identifying. Any of them could vote democrat.

The reason I HAVE to bring that all up is because people see the words, "Christian, Republican, Church" or otherwise and go, "OH OH OH OH OH SEE SEE SEE SEE! It's your side that's the bad guys"

No you idiot. Predators exist on all sides, in likely every profession, and in every corner of the world. There are BILLIONS of people globally. And in some cultures they marry off preteens to adult men. What you need to realize is that just because people are saying, "HEY there are some people trying to sexualize kids, maybe you should start pointing it out." Instead what you do is go, "Oh well these are the people we perceive are hated by the other side. Therefore we will defend them even if they do diddle kids. Because god forbid we are wrong. Kids? We don't care about them. Drag rights before kids rights." < That is how your side comes off.

And I'm not even right wing. Half the time I'm ashamed to say, "Yes I'm left of center" because you PSYCHOS have turned left into, this deranged, drag/trans/race obsessed clown show where so long as it's in the protection of those groups you will allow them to do anything. JUST SO LONG as it does not immediately affect you.

Yes. Some pastors are predators. Just the way some drag queens are. Just the way some straight men are. Just the way some lesbians are. Just the way some trans people are. Just the way some muslims are. And I could go on. Predators seek out positions of power. They always have and they always will. And I SAW that list of people. I know for a fact that if 99% had been white EVERY SINGLE COMMENT from leftists would be pointing that out. You don't care about predators. You don't care about kids. You care about nothing but, "Owning the cons" or whatever else.

How about we call out ALL predators and all pedophiles on all sides from all walks of life. Stop pretending this issue doesn't happen on your side. IT DOES!

I’m going to leave this right here

[anarcho-sexual]

Always about breaking the law until it comes to suckin Isn treal off

I do enjoy a good crime. My apologies for not answering this sooner. I do despise Israel though. If you want to know—actually it doesn’t matter if you want to or not. When you try to tell me what my stances are I’m going to make them more clear.

Israel is a giant drum of echidna cum left out in the desert sun for 70ish years. I’d rather take a sip of that than stand in the presence of someone who supports Israel. I lied, that’s fucking disgusting. But it’s my belief that the only people who can support Israel at this point must be Evil™️. I don’t think it’s possible that they aren’t. Unless they’re just extremely stupid & don’t ever question a single thing they’re ever told, which is its own lighter kind of badness.

You very much sound like one of those chronically online leftists & frankly it’s embarrassing knowing that the conservatives of my country group me together with people like you who seem to operate first & foremost on emotions rather than critical thought & the like. I’m also chronically online & yet somehow I was able to retain a concept we humans have called “nuance”. The world isn’t black & white. Hamas can be lame at the same time Israel is genocidal. Hamas wanting to kill all Jews, or any Jews for that matter, is unacceptable. They can kill Israeli state agents who happen to be Jewish. But when you specifically seek out or claim you want to kill Jews, you’re a murderous antisemite. Yes, Israel is worse. No, the group that says they want to specifically kill Jewish people is not automatically good because of Israel. Can Hamas do good deeds? Absolutely. Everyone is capable of that, even a literal SS guard at Auschwitz. Just read about one of them. He was still a disgusting piece of trash at the end of the day. No, I’m not comparing Hamas to Nazis, I’m referencing something I read earlier that relates to bad people doing good deeds.

Finally, I’m sorry to be rude when I know I don’t have to, but you sound childish & stupid as fuck saying Isn’tReal. Is the state illegitimate? For sure. Should it be destroyed? Hell yeah! Is it real? Yes, that’s one of the main reasons why Palestinians have been getting killed & subjugated for the last 70 or so years. You make leftists look stupid when you say that kind of stuff. Sounds just like American conservatives & their dumb nicknames like “demoncrats” & that shit. I also find it silly to ask this anonymously but that’s not remotely important. Sorry this answer was so long, but I’m not sure how or where to shorten it.

If by chance I’m wrong about Hamas, I’ll always accept that. But I haven’t seen anything that says so. If you care about this that much & I’m wrong, feel free to correct me & include links to your sources. I’m a fairly reasonable person, but when you come in with insults before someone confirms they’re unwilling to accept facts & truth you sound like a Republican caricature of “liberals”. Try actually articulating your point first, even if you lack sources, at least do that for crying out loud.

[emptymanuscript]

So, I am reading this quote by Jonathan Turley:

“It calls for something that’s difficult. It calls for solemnity and clarity for members. We have become a nation addicted to rage, and we can fuel that. This body is a powerful teacher, as Brandeis said. And you can teach that or you can teach a respect for this process. It begins here and now. We can disagree with each other without hating each other.”

And my knee jerk reaction is to agree. This feels like wisdom.

But my second thought is, why is it so often the call for both sides to be calm and understanding of each other when the endeavor is pursuing Republican goals. This isn’t the call made when a Republican President is at the point of a potential impeachment process. It’s only the call made when a Democratic President is the potential.

My third thought is that this is an extension of the thought process that “both sides are bad,” which automatically favors the worse of the sides by putting them on the same level.

And I think this is what Republicans pay for with all their think tanks. This creation and use of language and rhetoric to sound so reasonable and convincing when their behavior is anything but. There is an immense amount of intellectual power aimed at convincing our country to pursue certain partisan goals that we would probably oppose without that sheer amount of work to accomplish the argument.

It takes a serious amount of well done propaganda to convince people that black is white and partisan fascist craziness is reasonable discussion. And they do that work. This is it, right here. That sounds completely reasonable and admirable - when what he’s talking about is partisan bullshit that has never had any merit beyond the dog whistle that the Left is evil and needs to be stopped at any cost.

The danger is that it’s propaganda designed to appeal to us on the Left. It’s the language of our goals: a return to sanity and reason in our governance. That’s what we want. But how are we going to get that by pursuing the opposite in action? How does us trying our best to be non-partisan, reasonable, and open minded while the other side does its best to be crazy, partisan, and get everything it possibly can to destroy us result in a finally reasonable outcome?

It can’t.

It’s going to inevitably lead to what’s happening in the house right now as whoever is saner and calmer slips and slides toward functionally obeying the desires of the lunatics who just want it all to break.

The fundamental issue is that in any process where one set of groups does their best to follow the rules and expectations and another set does their best to break the rules and ignore expectations, the group willing to break the most rules and ignore the most expectations will always have the greatest advantage if there’s no penalty for their incorrect behavior. Because they will simply have less barriers and more tools.

Cheating is incentivized if there’s no penalty for cheating. Always. That’s why there has to be a decision to obey the rules BEFORE the game is played.

This is, instead, talking about how we should all obey the rules in this second to last round. Ignoring all the misbehavior that happened in all the previous rounds. Which can only benefit the people who misbehaved and wouldn’t have scored as well had the rules been followed from the beginning.

This is even WHY we have the concept of mistrials in our legal system. Imagine a murder case where the police simply lied about the evidence and how it was collected and handled. That was found out but then the court said, ok, let’s all obey the rules from here on out. And everyone nods. And the trial continues, the decision still being made on the bad evidence of the case. The process would naturally favor the prosecution because it isn’t dealing with the fact that the case is now based on a terrible foundation.

That is literally what is happening here. The call for everyone to be reasonable and follow the rules is the call for everyone to ignore all the previous missteps and misbehavior that led us here. Which can only benefit the misbehaving. Even if it isn’t enough to make them win, it is necessarily an elevation of misbehavior to normal behavior that puts groups who have performed significantly differently on the same field when they wouldn’t otherwise be comparable.

So: no.

This call should not be embraced as appealing as it sounds.