#libertarian ideology

[sugary-sheep]

[contagious-watermelon]

Why do I keep seeing transmascs and trans men insisting or implying that all trans men are "female socialized," or "understand the female experience," or "navigated the world as a woman." Because yeah, sure, that can be true for some people. especially if you weren't gnc at all as a kid and didn't crack your egg until well into adulthood, it makes sense.

But they don't stop at saying they had that experience. It always comes with an addendum that trans men, as a group, all can relate to this experience. I don't know about the entirety of my demographic, but I never got even a little bit of what some of them talk about. I didn't even believe that women were scared of going out at night until I kept consistently seeing them say it, online or wherever, for years. I never realized catcalling was a thing until I saw some women complaining about it on reddit.

But they posit it as some sort of, you're safer than cis men, right? You know what it's like? Which, on top of being patently, demonstrably false in the case of myself and many other trans men, holds some unpleasant and often outright hostile implications about trans women. And they always deny it, but if you can't even conceptualize someone like me who grew up gnc, and never got the bulk (or any?) of whatever we consider to be 'female socialization,' what does that say about what you think trans girls went through, growing up? I don't want to speak for them, as I've never experienced that firsthand, but I can guarantee that (if you're even a little bit obviously trans) people don't treat you like a cis kid of the opposite gender. By and large, they don't get treated like cis boys.

It just makes me mad that we're taking this inaccurate framework that (ever so conveniently) puts trans people into the box of our assumed birth gender, and trying to fancy it up and use it with a faux-progressive veneer; never mind the way that transphobes use it to bar trans women from being athletes, or using the bathroom, or having access to any gendered resources they need. It would be bad enough to try and dust it off and use it even if it were largely accurate, due to the aforementioned connections to outright transphobia, but it literally is patently false. Not in all cases, obviously, but why are we trying to revamp this untrue, inaccurate generalization and pretend that we can make it 'trans-inclusive?'

[captainjonnitkessler]

I think I've identified the reason I get so worked up about anarchism in relation to labor rights and safety in particular.

Three years ago I watched my coworker almost die when a piece of machinery we were moving unsafely fell on him. It missed his head by an inch and snapped his leg in half instead. It took months of recovery and multiple surgeries for him to walk again and he will be disabled for the rest of his life. And it didn't happen because of Capitalism or profit motive or because our evil bosses were forcing us to work unsafely. It happened because he'd done similar things a hundred times before and it had always been fine, and because I didn't know enough to clock just how dangerous what we were doing was, and just because of some plain shitty luck. Mentally it fucked me up for months in ways I didn't recognize until well after the fact.

And the thing is, almost every construction worker can tell you about the time they saw a fatal or near-fatal accident. An apprentice younger than me had a heart attack and was out of work for over a year after shocking himself on a live circuit. The woman who runs our apprenticeship program has a husband who had his arm blown off in an arc flash incident. One of my teachers had a coworker die after getting hung up on a live circuit and he wasn't found until the end of the day.

Construction is one of the single most dangerous industries to work in, and I believe this is why rates of drug and alcohol abuse and suicide are sky-high in the industry. I think many construction workers are low-key traumatized by knowing constantly that they could die or be permanently disabled due to a very simple mistake or oversight. It is simply inherently unsafe when you are working with live electricity, power tools, heights, thousands of pounds of machinery, cranes, etc. And so yes, I do believe that safety protocols and the ability to enforce them are absolutely necessary to preventing a massive amount of death. The number of worker deaths in the US has been slashed by 60% since OSHA was instated.

And so to get online and have someone who has never set foot on a jobsite in their life condescendingly explain to me that actually, we don't need OSHA or the ability to enforce safety standards because in a perfect world everyone will just suddenly start working perfectly safely, and I'm just too stupid or brainwashed to realize that The Real Villain Is Capitalism, and if we just get rid of that it will somehow also get rid of the inherent safety issues involved in the entire construction industry - well it turns out it pisses me off a little bit!

[lesbiancosimaniehaus]

So many of you absolute numbskulls misuse and misinterpret sociological terms such as socialization and intersectionality, and it’s not even a little bit funny. Socialization is a lifelong process. It’s a dynamic process. Females receive “female” socialization by virtue of being female. An individual is either more receptive to it, or less receptive to it, or the input is more or less intense. The most masculine woman still “receives” female socialization. Socialization simply refers to the process be which an agent is exposed to and by which it receives social information such as norms and rules and mores. It’s basically the way people react to culture. I can’t stand all these feminist-ish “critical thinking” women using the term and not even having a basic sociological definition to work with. Same with “social construct”. Same with “intersectionality”. Yashar Mounk (sp?) had a very interesting conversation on the unspeakable podcast about how absolute idiots butchered the idea of “intersectionality” to an extent that Kimberle Crenshaw couldn’t even trace the prevailing use to what she’d originally written on the subject.

[elbiotipo]

It's funny because I spent my teenage years while learning English in the most libertarian places of the internet (science fiction forums) and even back then I knew libertarianism was stupid, unworkable and a joke ideology.

So I really can't understand Milei's wave with young people. Maybe we truly live in the century of pelotudez.

[imsosocold]

WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT OI OI OI HOLD UP A SWEET FUCKING HOT POCKET SECOND. King’s father’s whole “oh Belos is just evil and has always been ig” shtick. Isn’t that logic the same as BELOS’S?!! That’s why he does everything? Cause he thinks witches and demons are the creations of Satan (or something like that ig who needs properly explained motivations in fiction anyway)? And that by their mere existences witches and demons cause misery and suffering? And that the only way humanity can be safe and freed from their potential influence is through all their collective deaths?!! DANA AND CO YOU HAVE TO BE SHITTING ME-

[canichangemyblogname]

The political compass isn’t a perfect measure of political alignment, but it did help my father finally conceptualize where he sits relative to the people he used to vote for (Republicans).

Years ago, I came home from college for break and had all my family take the political compass quiz. The quiz frustrated my very anxious and wildly neurodivergent father who either wanted to answer “it depends” on every-other question or throw his hands in the air and shout, “No one would honestly pick these other answers! They’re immoral!” Neither of those were actual options, tho.

When we all got done taking the test, my father and I were the furthest left on the compass, situated firmly in the bottom left of the box. He was shocked to see how close he was to me in his results, as I had nearly given him a heart attack a year earlier after telling him I was a communist at just a semester into college. So he asked me where Joe and Trump sat on the compass. And I explained how they would both sit firmly at the top of the top right quadrant.

He was genuinely shocked. He was shocked that his politics were so dramatically different than the people he was voting for. And he was shocked that, despite how dramatic the differences between his politics and ideology and my own, we were closer to each other in our alignment than he was to the president at the time, Trump.

He hasn’t looked at politics and his political alignment the same since.

[wolf-tail]

Libertarians are so goddamn dumb. They will deepthroat a boot so hard it's coming out of their ass bc there's a 0.0000000000001% chance, and I'm being generous, that they could be wearing it someday. They also will justify anti-homeless architecture when they are living paycheck to paycheck.

[omegaphilosophia]

Types of Conservatism

Conservatism, like liberalism, encompasses a broad range of ideologies and perspectives. These types vary significantly across regions and historical contexts but generally emphasize tradition, social order, and skepticism toward rapid change. Here are some primary types of conservatism:

1. Traditional Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Traditional conservatism values established customs, institutions, and social hierarchies. It stresses the importance of cultural continuity, the wisdom of past generations, and a gradual approach to social change.

Historical Figures: Edmund Burke, Michael Oakeshott.

Key Elements: Respect for tradition, social stability, authority, and moral order.

2. Social Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Social conservatism emphasizes the preservation of traditional family structures, religious values, and moral standards. It often involves resistance to cultural changes seen as undermining societal cohesion or moral integrity.

Key Elements: Pro-family policies, emphasis on moral education, opposition to liberal social policies, and preservation of traditional gender roles.

3. Fiscal Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Fiscal conservatism prioritizes limited government spending, low taxes, and free-market capitalism. Fiscal conservatives advocate for reducing the national debt, minimizing public welfare programs, and maintaining a balanced budget.

Key Elements: Limited government intervention in the economy, support for a free-market system, privatization, and reduction in government spending.

4. Libertarian Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Libertarian conservatism combines a conservative approach to social issues with a strong emphasis on individual freedom and minimal government interference in personal and economic affairs.

Historical Figures: Barry Goldwater, Ron Paul.

Key Elements: Individual freedom, limited government, economic libertarianism, and personal responsibility.

5. Neoconservatism

Core Beliefs: Neoconservatism originally emerged from liberal roots, focusing on an assertive foreign policy to promote democracy and defend national interests. It combines conservative domestic values with an interventionist foreign policy.

Historical Figures: Irving Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz.

Key Elements: Promotion of democracy abroad, support for military strength, a strong national defense, and foreign policy interventionism.

6. Paleoconservatism

Core Beliefs: Paleoconservatism emphasizes nativism, cultural preservation, and limited international involvement. It is skeptical of globalization and often advocates for a return to traditional values, strong borders, and limited immigration.

Historical Figures: Patrick Buchanan, Russell Kirk.

Key Elements: Nationalism, cultural preservation, isolationism, and opposition to globalism.

7. Religious Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Religious conservatism focuses on integrating religious principles, often rooted in Christianity, into public policy and society. This type of conservatism seeks to uphold religiously based moral standards in areas such as marriage, education, and bioethics.

Key Elements: Influence of religious values on politics, pro-life policies, advocacy for prayer in schools, and opposition to secularism.

8. Cultural Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Cultural conservatism emphasizes the preservation of a shared national or cultural identity. It supports policies and values that maintain cultural heritage and resist influences that could dilute or change traditional norms and practices.

Key Elements: Cultural nationalism, preservation of heritage and customs, and resistance to multiculturalism.

9. National Conservatism

Core Beliefs: National conservatism focuses on the importance of national sovereignty, patriotism, and a strong, centralized state to protect national interests. It often advocates for immigration control and protectionist economic policies.

Key Elements: National sovereignty, patriotism, economic protectionism, and restrictions on immigration.

10. One-Nation Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Originating in Britain, one-nation conservatism advocates for a balance between free markets and social welfare policies, aiming to unite different social classes under a shared national identity. It emphasizes social cohesion, support for public institutions, and moderate reforms to reduce inequality.

Historical Figures: Benjamin Disraeli.

Key Elements: Social welfare, unity across classes, economic moderation, and gradual reform to prevent class divisions.

11. Green Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Green conservatism emphasizes environmental conservation and stewardship within a conservative framework. It advocates for protecting natural resources through personal responsibility, market solutions, and sometimes government regulations that align with conservative values.

Key Elements: Environmental conservation, sustainable development, market-based ecological solutions, and conservation ethics.

12. Populist Conservatism

Core Beliefs: Populist conservatism appeals to ordinary citizens, often positioning itself against elite or establishment institutions. It is skeptical of big government, promotes nationalism, and typically advocates for policies that reflect the interests of "the common people."

Key Elements: Anti-elitism, populist rhetoric, economic protectionism, and skepticism toward establishment institutions.

Each form of conservatism addresses different aspects of society, from fiscal and economic policies to cultural preservation, environmental issues, and religious values. While united by a preference for tradition, stability, and a cautious approach to change, these conservative strands reflect a diverse array of beliefs on the role of government, culture, and social structure.

[chemicalarospec]

my dad invited me and my brother to watch Firefly with him and it's actually really good??? (idk why I expected it not to be-- probably because the last time I tried one of his old Spaceship Shows (the one with the puppets) it was too sexist and too slow to get through.) First of all it should have been ILLEGAL for them to not have a single Chinese character in this show, but as a Chinese person I do like the aesthetics of the show and how they mashed up traditional Western and Chinese styles. The pronunciation is hilariously bad (IF ONLY THEY HAD A CHINESE ACTOR, HUH), but I like it because it's funny. (Me and my brother do laugh out loud every time.)

But the characters are actually so good?? First of all we got THREE FOUR (I didn't count right lmao) female main characters, no smurfette principal here! One of them doesn't even have any implied romance so far okay technically River doesn't but I was thinking of Kaylee and she has a crush on Simon lol. Kaylee, my favorite -- I LOVE how her appreciation of girly feminine stuff is portrayed as something that should NOT be mocked and does not negate her more "masculine" role as the mechanic and that she can nerd out WHILE being feminine. There's also how Mal, the main character, and Zoe, his first mate, have a longstanding and deep connection that's entirely platonic! Men and women CAN just be friends! Do note, Zoe (who is awesome btw) is married to another man, the pilot who is honestly so far the most boring character, and Mal is interested in Inara. Who, speaking of, I also love how so far Inara's profession as a (unionized it seems!) sex worker is treated with respect. River is the most ~okay~ in terms of sexist writing as a weak and mysterious and mentally unwell but sexy woman, but since she's not the only woman it doesn't feel like a big deal. (I feel like she's going to become more grounded, at least I hope so because I want to see more of her personality!) Misogynistic comments are challenged when made! Of course the writing isn't perfect but it's a LOT better than what I expected (and if a modern show didn't do the things I'm praising here I would be offended btw).

Also River's brother Simon is a complete dandy (I think it would be stereotyping for me to call him gay lmao), I love that for him. Episode one he bleeds from his mouth like a dying c-drama boy-- I just had a Vision of the resemblance and now I can't get it out of my head, all he needs to do his open his eyes super wide and then he'd be a dying c-drama boy. He cares for his sister so much, it's super sweet even though he REALLY sucks at dealing with psychosis(? would that be the term to describe her episodes?). Book is an instant icon of course, he's just there forcibly being the moral compass lol. Christianity in space smh. Despite being mr sexism I also love Jayne's character - he's funny (love a guy who's always trying to kill) and the question of his loyalty is intriguing. Mal is a kind of a Generic Protagonist Man but his backstory is solid enough that means his brooding attitude actually makes sense. The "Badger" side character is funny/interesting too, and my bro says he looks like Captian Sparklez haha. (Wash (Zoe's husband) is there. Sometimes he's funny.)

Going back to the design, I am partial to Victorian or whatever aesthetics, so I love how they threw that in along with the cowboy thing, and there's a lot of individual pieces merging Chinese aesthetics with that that I think do a great job. It speaks to my mixed heart <3. The costuming is actually so fun (mostly speaking to crowd scenes), so many characters get to wear distinctive outfits . Also kind of Killjoys vibes because they say "shiny" haha. I respect how space shots have no environment noise, only cowboy music lollll. Visual effects are interesting; you can always Tell but it does seem to me the best they could do at the time.

Wow this post turned out longer than I expected. So a recommendation for Firefly I guess! Forewarning, the parts with the "Reavers" are pretty dark/grotesque -- actually, there's significant violence throughout the show, the Reavers are just the worst.

[eternal-echoes]

“Similarly, some individuals experience species dysphoria and identify as transspecies. Take, for example, a man in the United Kingdom named Ted, who identifies as a parrot. To become like them, he not only tattooed feathers onto his skin, but had the whites of his eyes tattooed. He surgically removed his ears, transformed his house into a birdcage, and lives off the same food as the pets. He explained, "You just can't trust people like you can trust parrots."(10)

…

 A libertarian reaction might be to endorse their right to augment their bodies according to their personal wishes. But does anyone believe that the deepest truth about these individuals is that they are transracial or transspecies? Such an identification does not bring them closer to the truth of who they are, but further away from it.

In a similar way, when a person identifies as transgender, although this might provide them with a term that they feel helps them to talk about a complicated experience and communicate that to others, an important question must be asked: Does this title enable them to be their authentic self, or to reject the deepest truth of their identity? Put differently, does it affirm the person... or the dysphoria?”

-Jason Evert, Male, Female, or Other: A Catholic Guide to Understanding Gender

—

Work cited:

10) "This Man Will Do Anything to Become More Like a Parrot!, Ripley's Believe It or Not,"

—

For more recommended resources on gender dysphoria, click here.

[depressionstudies]

they have been misled, but, remember, the ones you support are only a little better

[pixlime]

"God I miss when games weren't POLITICAL 🙄🙄🙄" "Like Fallout New Vegas and Dishonored and Bioshock and-"

Like I know what that kind of person means when they say "not political" ("I could ignore the gay stuff if it exists and the points about racism/antisemitism/etc. flew over my head because they don't apply to me") but they have to know what they're doing at some point, right?

[scratching92]

Okay I'm having more thoughts about Andor episode 7.

During this episode Mon Mothma makes reference in a conversation with an old friend that she's been attending Separatist Coalition meetings. Was Mon Mothma a Separatist? Palpatine's entire rise to power was precipitated upon the Separatist Crisis and the resulting Clone Wars, but from the way it sounds, it doesn't seem like the Separatist Coalition was an illegal organization so much as an organization to be infiltrated and monitored.

I'm fascinated by this. I've always been intrigued by Separatist ideology in Star Wars and curious about its roots and development (beyond Dooku's speeches). Maybe there were separate (ha!) schools of Separatist thought, and Dooku's was merely the largest and most influential. I'm curious if we'll get more on this in the rest of the episodes (especially since we already have the... weirdness of the Separatist-ship-that's-actually-a-Republic-ship in Cassian's backstory in the first three episodes).

[straightlightyagami]

don’t think my dad would be ok if i was queer but he is weirdly ok with my political beliefs and jokes about me being a commie and such without expressing any wish to kill me or whatever

[tepehkwi]

btw when are 'leftist' anarchists going to wake up from their utopian fantasy world daydream and realize that the rest of us aren't going to fucking take them seriously because they have more in common with "we want small government" conservative libertarians than they do with actual leftists?

like what exactly are your plans for disabled people? do you accept that you might actually have to come up with laws? laws to guarantee that disabled people aren't going to fucking get left behind and trampled over in your stupid cottagecore ass commune idealized version of the future? what are you going to do for indigenous people to make sure we aren't steamrolled over? you think we're all going to be living in lawless utopia autonomous zones? have you considered whose land you're still occupying in conjuring up those anarchist fantasies? and how about doctors? does your anarchist vision of the future still have the infrastructure in place to make sure the person i'm seeing for my chronic illness is licensed? and are you also willing to accept that you might have to come up with laws that don't even exist yet, laws that prevent doctors from abusing and over-extending their power over intersex and disabled and trans people and women and people of color and our bodily autonomy? do anarchists actually know what it means to protect the vulnerable?