That he turns to rant just shows that he long ran out of arguments. I hope the court will draw the right conclusions and revoke his bail for threatening the presiding judge.
Must be rough being a fancy lad born into extreme wealth originally derived from racist opportunist parentage, always getting your way, always having and taking license to hurt others for your own gratification because you can just hide behind a team of attorneys to protect you from the consequences of your own actions.
If I pulled this shit on a judge, my bond would be revoked immediately and the bailiff ordered to remand me to custody in a concrete and steel box to await the trial’s completion.
Fuck me, I had a judge threaten to revoke bond because I had the temerity to inquire about a public defender. Last month a judge sentenced (deferred) my ex to 10-days for fucking me on spring break visitation. And she had the fucking sense to STFU for the whole trial! Trump acts like these judges are his personal peons talking back at him.
And yes, I get it. The justice system has to be more than fair in these cases. You have to admit, it’s a wild historical precedent and we must step carefully when throwing a President of the US in jail (yes, I believe he still gets that title). And I’m OK with that! But we can’t get a solid gag order on this animal?!
(Not sure he’s out of bail for this one. FFS, I literally can’t keep up with the charges, courts, etc.)
I wish a judge would just throw the book at him for something minor. Sure it might create some controversy and he will weasel out but the court has every right too and if the only thing stopping them is the presidency… fuck it.
But we can’t get a solid gag order on this animal?!
How? Trump doesn’t listen to reason and he has been getting away his whole life with stuff less rich and powerful people would have been thrown into jail a long time ago. That’s the only thing he has ever learned. And as long as he keeps getting away with it he will keep doing so.
If we want him to keep his mouth shut and stop interfering into the justice process, he would need to be locked up with no access to any internet.
She was charged with manslaughter. I’m not sure of the degree though. Manslaughter basically means you didn’t intend to kill someone but you did someone something reckless that resulted in someone’s death. Premeditated murder is a completely different, and much more serious, charge.
I’d argue this should have been the immediate response to Mitch McConnell blocking nominees half a term away from an election, but if the court can’t uphold the rule of law, it should be fixed (and expansion seems like the obvious solution) or replaced.
The procedural question on this one is whether he could shrink the court to boot say… Thomas, then expand it again to replace him with someone less obviously corrupt. Republicans fail to confirm a replacement? We’ll shrink the court a little more. Obviously, this won’t happen, but I’m interested to know if it’s possible.
I’d argue this should have been the immediate response to Mitch McConnell blocking nominees half a term away from an election
Honestly I feel like that needed a civil war level response, that really should not have been allowed/normalized, regardless of which party initiated the block.
whether he could shrink the court to boot say… Thomas, then expand it again to replace him
I couldn’t agree to that, that’s way too manipulative and dishonors the previous selections from previous presidents.
I would expect him to just expand the court by two seats, if he was going to try to do something along these lines.
dishonors the previous selections from previous presidents.
To what degree should prior selections be honored/respected if the presidents in question won under questionable circumstances, e.g. George W. Bush’s election in 2000 and the stopping of the Florida recount, or Donald J. Trump’s election in 2016 after his call for foreign interference, alongside James Comey reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton just before the election?
To what degree should prior selections be honored/respected if the presidents in question won under questionable circumstances
It would depend on the circumstances, but it would have to be very unique and extreme circumstances. The goal would be to avoid a Tit for Tat downward spiral to Civil War.
George W. Bush’s election in 2000 and the stopping of the Florida recount,
I believe that the mob that raided the office should not have allowed the vote counting to have been stopped. IMO it gave a green light to whomever set that up to go forward and do something along the lines of January 6th.
Having said that, no I wouldn’t for this situation. Almost, but no.
or Donald J. Trump’s election in 2016 after his call for foreign interference, alongside James Comey reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton just before the election?
No. Simple political interference wouldn’t be enough, we’re talking about extreme circumstances only.
Don’t forget Reagan/Carter. Reagan manufactured the October Surprise, making a deal with terrorists to prolonging a hostage situation in Iran, just to tank Carter in the polls.
My preference would be to simply enlarge the court by a few seats, nominate some additional candidates that exceed the number of available seats by 2 or 3, and then hold some sort of Survivor-like competition to see who captures the seats. I would also accept a Hunger Games style competition for this first new court session.
High-level politics should involve physical challenges. Put the judge chairs up a tall ladder and across a balance beam and we won’t see so many justices dying on the bench. At least from old age rather than balance-beam accidents.
Shrinking it (through established legal channels) is impeachment and removal which has a high bar. Enlarging it is just passing a law, which is only hard because the senate has a policy (not a law) to effectively not pass laws without supermajorities. The latter could be done with a simple majority of politicians with a spine.
To correct for the explicitly political gain one team is solely interested in for their own authoritarian redefinition of established precedent that also had their nominees lie their way into their SC positions at the expense of the Constitution and our freedoms. That’s the argument.
The problem is that we’re at a point where Republicans are not hesitating to lie, cheat, and steal their way to power. They have demonstrated quite clearly that they no longer have an interest in playing fair.
We need Democrats who aren’t afraid to fight back or we’ll lose our Democracy in America and eventually fall to fascism.
There may not be a good ending here, but it’s time to draw a line in the sand.
It’s a sad state when people actually believe one party has a better moral compass than the other. The reality is one party lies better than the other, but it’s two sides of the same coin. I blame gullible people that can’t do anything but parrot what the media tells them to. Sadly, that’s the majority of society.
Dude… both sides are absolutely not the same. Just look at the policies each side is trying to implement. On one hand, you’ve got Democrats trying to do things like forgive student debt and raise the minimum wage. On the other, you’ve got Republicans focusing almost solely on a culture war they’ve started just because they hate people who are different than they are.
I could go on and on with examples here. While it’s true that people parrot things they’re told to believe by the media (like pretty much everyone who watches Fox and actually believes it’s real news).
Our current Republican party has zero plans to actually help anyone they supposedly represent. It’s insane to me that anyone could look at what they’re doing and think it’s somehow beneficial to society…but I guess that’s because I don’t think of hurting people as a way to make my own life better.
There’s the problem. You think one party is inherently bad and one is inherently good. That’s completely an idiotic take. But you’re too stupid to see that.
You don’t have to believe that to believe that the parties are not the same. “Inherent good” is a philosophical construct that isn’t present in the real world- adopting a fatal nihilism in the face of that is the true idiocy.
That’s my entire point. It isn’t a party issue. The whole system needs flipped on its head. You’ve formed a rebuttal without even understanding the argument. Why?
One party is objectively and cumulatively ‘bad’ in almost any comparative context by a reasonable observer, and you projected your own views onto others by making assumptions about how they define one party bad on party good. Your point was to dilute the issue so you can prop up the ‘both sides’ delusion while hurling personal insults at the op. Yeah, the whole system could use a reboot, but playing to that point as gotcha drive-by comments without solutions is just spewing word salad for the sake of typing more words. You are trolling.
The argument seems entirely ost on you in the first place. You don’t understand how your assumptions and insults are the problem rather than ‘the point’. Why?
Dude, your entire comment is based off assumptions. You think I don’t understand the argument yet here you are completely clueless. You don’t even know what ‘the point’ is. You’re just mad because how dare someone criticize your favorite party. You’ve got one party full of bullshit and the other full of incompetence. If you support either one, you’re an idiot.
Only children and idiots take the ‘50%’ approach to arguments and disagreement.
You’re a complete moron if you genuinely believe that it’s a give and take with idiots. No. If they’re stupid and corrupt, then they don’t have as much to offer as those who aren’t.
Sad this needs to be spelled out for you, but I got a feeling you’re taken advantage of a lot by right-wing rhetoric so you feel they have something valuable to offer.
What options are there to fix this active extremist right wing slow motion coup that is trying to overthrow our Constitution by destroying established legal precedent?
This is not a one side versus the other political sport contest, this is far beyond any such sophomoric simpleton bullshit.
Probably a “good Christian”, since the fundamentalist are militantly (in a literal sense) against any sort of tolerance, acknowledgement, or compassion being expressed towards people who don’t completely conform to their heteronormative worldview.
Yes! That’s exactly what you should say to Christians when they start spouting off on their racist, homophobic, or otherwise prejudiced beliefs. You’re a great role model.
What? You mean in America, the country ruled by Christians who impose Christianity on children in schools, where the majority religion is Christianity, where Christian organizations get preferential treatment by the government, where Christianity is the overwhelming majority religion of politicians, and where there is an active political movement to literally enforce state Christianity on the population, and where Christian moral doctrine is being widely used to restrict the bodily autonomy of women?? Ah yes so much Christian hate
Please point out the hate speech in the comment you replied to. Telling you to shut the fuck up isn’t hate speech, and everything else is literally a straightforward fact about Christianity in America. Zero hate speech.
Gotta play the persecution game though, am I right?
Those first two lines were intentionally sarcastic exaggeration. Was I supposed to include a /s for the cheap seats? It seemed pretty obvious from here.
They pretty well lost me when they told me to “shut the fuck up”. I certainly wasn’t going to waste my time on a clearly worded response to someone who likely wouldn’t read it anyways.
Not sure who you think is getting persecuted, I doubt many Christians would hang out in a place like this. Even those that push for the bodily autonomy of women would feel unwelcome with so many people openly hostile to their faiths.
I doubt many Christians would hang out in a place like this.
If they’re offended by people acknowledging the impact of Christians on LGBT people in the US, good. Leave. I don’t have time for straight Christians who want to hand wring and whinge about others acknowledging the historical and current negative impact Christianity has had on LGBT people.
Do you know how many fucking anti-LGBT bills have been put forward just this year in the US? This isn’t rhetorical, a real number is attached to it. Don’t google it, think of a number.
There is nothing wrong with calling people out when they try to suppress your rights. The problem is pretending all Christians are the same on this issue and using that as a justification to attack them all.
I live in BFE Texas and there are ten Affirming Churches in the area; five of them are within about 45 minutes of me. As a comparison there are only two Cowboy Churches in the same area. Every major City I checked had several Affirming Churches.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans are Christian and they are not just going to give that up because you do not like their religion. These are people that need to be convinced of either the rightness of your cause or at least your right to live the way you want. Right now, all they are hearing is “They’re trying to turn your little boys into girls” or “Fuck the Christians”. Neither of these messages are helpful, and both make them feel the same way as you do when you look at that list. The difference is they have a lot more political influence.
When every asshole that wants to accuse a random Christian of murder, without a single piece of evidence, gets overwhelmingly upvoted it makes that fight harder.
My man, I think a lot of evidence has been presented just in this thread.
I get the point, you don't easily turn people to your cause with hateful rhetoric, but at a certain point, patience is lost when it feels like people are just ignoring reality and continuing to not just participate in, but support institutions that have created a lot of harm for people.
Not sure why this 2 day old comment just showed up in my inbox, but have a response anyways.
Also an upvote for a well-worded response.
but at a certain point, patience is lost when it feels like people are just ignoring reality and continuing to not just participate in, but support institutions that have created a lot of harm for people.
I can appreciate their frustrations. I have certainly felt plenty of my own and dropped a slur or two particularly at politicians.
Some of my issue is directly related to how they express those frustrations in a public forum, but what really tweaks my tail is how overwhelming the support is for those responses.
I ignored them at first, but at some point I need to either address them or drop Lemmy, which at this point means dropping the last bit of social media that I am using. Places like Lemmy and Reddit help me stay informed, so I figured I would try pointing it out some before dropping social media again for a couple more years.
Right now, all they are hearing is “They’re trying to turn your little boys into girls”
Gee, I wonder who’s doing that? I wonder what religion they claim tells them to do it? I wonder how many Christians think that’s closer to the truth than trans kids knowing who they are? How many of them do you think would even listen to the trans religious leaders you use as a shield, who themselves are pointing out how fucked modern Christianity is?
Have you expended 1/10th as much energy arguing with those people as you have whining in this thread about how a comment made on an obscure forum online is the reason so many Christians think trans people are the devil?
tl;dr Maybe. It mostly depends on your wording and actions. Christians are not one group or thing anymore than Europeans or LGBT people are. They are a collection of highly varied peoples that can’t even agree on the number of books in the bible or whether Jesus was man, god, or both.
If someone says or implies “all Christians” are this or that negative thing it moves closer to yes rather than maybe. If someone is accuses a person of being something for no other reason than a group they belong to, then the accuser is probably a bigot.
,
,
This wall of text is an eyesore, so I added bold to your words and Italics to other quotes to help with readability. My words have neither.
would you say I’m a bigot?
If you personally dislike them, but you don’t let it affect the way you treat them, I really wouldn’t care one way or another.
As far as I am concerned, fear and hatred of the unknown and different are as human and natural as love and lust. It is what people do with those emotions that matter.
If someone’s lust encourages them to date and eventually spend their life with someone they are attracted to that is a good expression. If someone’s lust encourages them to violet the privacy of or assault someone then that is a bad expression.
Fear of the unknown and different is similar. If it encourages someone to learn more about different peoples, foods, or animals, then it is a good expression. If it encourages them to disparage or commit acts of violence against them then that is a bad expression.
I’m curious what you consider hate speed or bigotry against christians.
a person who is intolerant or hateful toward people whose race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc., is different from the person’s own.
hate speech, speech or expression that denigrates a person or persons on the basis of (alleged) membership in a social group identified by attributes such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, physical or mental disability, and others.
I see bigotry and hate speech as more words and actions than opinions. What does an opinion matter if it is not expressed through word or deed? Is someone really intolerant if they tolerate someone in all areas except their own mind?
Mostly it comes down to treating any group, Christians in this case, as if they are the same and are each responsible for the acts of all the others.
If I dislike all christians that follow the bible/their gods commands and believe in their gods benevolence,
Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodoxy don’t even agree on the number of books in the bible. If you haven’t run into the idea of the Apocrypha you may find it interesting.
Various numbers below (formatting edited for readability):
The canon of
the Protestant Bible totals 66 books—39 Old Testament (OT) and 27 New Testament (NT);
the Catholic Bible numbers 73 books (46 OT, 27 NT),
Lest you think that it is only the old testament that is debated here is info about the New testament in Martin Luther’s Bible:
Though he included the Letter to the Hebrews, the letters of James and Jude and Revelation in his Bible translation, he put them into a separate grouping and questioned their legitimacy.
As an atheist (i do not believe in an intelligent creator, or othewise deity), the more time i invest in being moral and wise the more friends i make with pastors. Most people cannot tell from the surface that i am not religious, the more i ask myself if i am religious or not the more meaningless that question starts appearing.
I don’t identify with any particular religion, but it would be challenging to prove i’m not religious despite the fact that i do not believe in any god.
A lot of agnostic and atheistic people have spent a lot of time considering their own moral and ethical values; I know I have. While my own version started with an ethics class I took while at a bible school, I still needed to spend plenty of time once I left that life considering what morals and ethical values I thought were relevant.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that an unbiased observer thought I was religious until they got to know me better.
You can be a wise, moral and ethical person without religion
I fully agree.
Edit: That in no way discounts the idea that there is a lot of wisdom in religion. Even if some of it is outdated.
That is not really what I was referring to Edit: when I said I doubt we are beyond the need for religion. There is a (debated) theory that religion was important in moving from tribalism towards modern civilization. Specifically, the belief that a god or gods would punish your neighbor if he was doing evil behind your back may have been a necessary concept in our development. Even in modern times, the idea that our fellow citizens may be doing evil without recourse is a serious consideration. It may be adding to our current societal stresses.
Of course, that could be all horse shit, but I am leaned slightly towards that opinion at present.
There’s no paradox - there’s acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior. If anyone, displays only acceptable behavior, you tolerate them - full stop. If anyone goes out of bounds, you respond appropriately to correct the behavior - full stop.
The paradox is literally what’s happening with you in this thread, genius. the Christian church has been out of bounds for centuries, and now that people are finally responding appropriately, you kick and scream saying “not like that! you can only respond appropriately if you follow all the rules laid out by the people who oppress you! you need to tolerate our intolerance because our imaginary friend says we need to hate you to stop the end of the world”
There were “good” people who identify as Nazis. should we let that ideology thrive because a minority of its population put flowers on the graves their compatriots created?
I get that you just want to hold hands and sing kumbaya, but I have trouble holding the hands that are covered with the blood of my brothers, sisters, and allies.
The “paradox of tolerance” is people justifying attacking people. This myth does nothing but ensure there’s no way back for people who have drifted out of bounds - it’s a recipe for radicalizing people.
The vast majority of Christians have spent your entire life moving more towards the middle. Yet, all you see is the ground that hasn’t been covered yet. When you push them (not me) back and pretend that they should be judged by the actions of their ancestors instead of their own actions, you make it that much more challenging to have them stay in-bounds, or move back in if they have gone astray.
When you compare the Christian Religion that two-thirds of the US shares, to the secular Nazi Ideology, and claim they have blood on their hands, you push them towards radicalization.
When people that support your stance go out-of-bounds themselves, and aren’t called on it they make it that much harder to show the way back in-bounds to the opposition that have strayed.
The vast majority of Christians have spent your entire life moving more towards the middle.
Huh, dang I guess you’re right. I mean, it certainly would be pretty wild for you to say that if the majority of Christians that I’ve personally met and the ones controlling my government had been organizing and campaigning to take away the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, women, and any racial minority since before my parents ever met. It’d be downright dishonest of you if, instead of moving more towards the middle, christians have spent the last 40 years sprinting to the far right as fast as they possibly could, to the point where a comparison to the Nazis doesn’t seem so far-fetched. Do you honestly think the women’s rights, LGBTQ+ acceptance, or the civil rights movement was championed by the Christian majority and they weren’t the primary opposition to those ideas?
It’d also be insane if the “secular Nazi ideology” was actually heavily Christian and the Catholic Church spent centuries laying the groundwork for Jewish Genocide, helped the Nazis seize power, and continued to protect them long after their atrocities were well known. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany
I guess if you are part of the oppressors, they’re probably quite nice to you. Sorry if my words are what push you to finally be honest with yourself about what you believe. Didn’t mean to radicalize you
You probably should have just stopped that first paragraph right there.
There was no reason to make crazy ass claims that only a fart-for-brains would believe, then spend the time smacking them down. If you really don’t think the opinion of the average Christian has changed towards LGBT folks, then you haven’t been paying attention. Please feel free to check any numbers anywhere and see that roughly half of US Christians are fine with homosexuality now. Compared to 30, 40, 50, 100 years ago, this is a huge shift.
It’d also be insane if the “secular Nazi ideology” was actually heavily Christian
If you wanted to claim that a lot of Christians joined the Nazis, that is one thing, but the ideology itself is incompatible with Christianity.
From the same wikipedia article that you linked:
Nazi ideology could not accept an autonomous establishment whose legitimacy did not spring from the government. It desired the subordination of the church to the state.[38] Although the broader membership of the Nazi Party after 1933 came to include many Catholics and Protestants, aggressive anti-Church radicals like Joseph Goebbels, Alfred Rosenberg, Martin Bormann, and Heinrich Himmler saw the Kirchenkampf campaign against the Churches as a priority concern, and anti-Church and anticlerical sentiments were strong among grassroots party activists.[39]
Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, saw an “insoluble opposition” between the Christian and Nazi world views.[39] The Führer angered the churches by appointing Alfred Rosenberg as official Nazi ideologist in 1934.[40] Heinrich Himmler saw the main task of his SS organization to be that of acting as the vanguard in overcoming Christianity and restoring a “Germanic” way of living.[41] Hitler’s chosen deputy, Martin Bormann, advised Nazi officials in 1941 that “National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable.”[40]
It is true that the Nazi regime was hostile to the Christian church - because they recognized the power the church held and knew they needed to be the one and only source of truth. Nazism needed to be above god (that’s the “fundamentally incompatible” part of your argument, since the church argues nothing is above god), but never sought to eradicate the belief in Him. When 95% of the regime identifies as Christian, and uses Christian ideology to suppress and genocide members of every other religion, that is a fundamentally Christian ideology, even if they fought for power directly with the Vatican. With many Nazi leaders wanting to treat Nazism itself like a religion - complete with divine rule - I’d even go so far as to argue that Nazism is a particularly embarrassing Christian sect.
Some Nazis, such as Hans Kerrl, who served as Hitler’s Minister for Church Affairs, advocated “Positive Christianity”, a uniquely Nazi form of Christianity which rejected Christianity’s Jewish origins and the Old Testament, and portrayed “true” Christianity as a fight against Jews, with Jesus depicted as an Aryan.[14]
Look Ma, I can cherry pick wikipedia too!
Under the Gleichschaltung (Nazification) process, Hitler attempted to create a unified Protestant Reich Church from Germany’s 28 existing Protestant churches. The plan failed, and was resisted by the Confessing Church. Persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany followed the Nazi takeover. Hitler moved quickly to eliminate political Catholicism. Amid harassment of the Church, the Reich concordat treaty with the Vatican was signed in 1933, and promised to respect Church autonomy. Hitler routinely disregarded the Concordat, closing all Catholic institutions whose functions were not strictly religious.
Seems like Hitler had more of an issue with the political power of the church instead of their beliefs and even tried making his own Protestant sect.
But you seem to enjoy taking Nazis at their word (surely they wouldn’t lie, would they?) so sure, they were totally a secular organization that definitely treated Jewish people nicely. They were even socialist!
roughly half of US Christians are fine with homosexuality now.
And yet, when you ask about trans identity, they’ll show what they really believe. given the chance, even those who are “fine with it” would rather see us eradicated to please their special guy than for us to live peacefully by their side. Since I know how the Nazi comparison tickles you so much: if you asked the 1930s German population what they thought of Jewish people, more than “roughly half” would’ve said they were “fine” with them.
The shift in Christian attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community is the direct result of opposition to the church - which was considered to be “out of bounds” and “pushing Christians to be radicalized” at the time. The church changed their stance because they seek power and control over any principles they pretend to have. The shift happened in spite of religion, not because of it. I see you didn’t even try to respond to how Christians were the main opposition to any and every single push for civil rights. If we sat back and placated them like you believe we should, only white landowning men would be able to vote or have rights.
If Christians are so progressive, why is it always Christian groups that oppose progress? wait, I can answer this one for you: “Those groups don’t represent ‘real’ Christianity”. Surely there’s nothing fundamental to the religion that makes oppression intrinsic.
Seems like Hitler had more of an issue with the political power of the church instead of their beliefs and even tried making his own Protestant sect.
I fully concede this point. I had only read the bit about Nazis being secular recently while looking up something and clearly did not do enough supporting research before repeating it.
The shift happened in spite of religion, not because of it.
No objection here.
I see you didn’t even try to respond to how Christians were the main opposition to any and every single push for civil rights.
You seem to be stuck on this idea that I think Christians are the real progressives or something. I have not in any way said or tried to imply any such thing. Just that the majority have been moving toward the middle nearly your entire lifetime.
If we sat back and placated them like you believe we should
You should definitely stick to things I actually said, not easy to win stances that I do not hold.
I have made it pretty clear from the beginning that we should stand up to bigoted hateful speech regardless where it comes from. Since you seem to have missed it: That includes Christians, but it also includes LGBT members, and anyone in-between or outside of them.
Pretending that a third of the world all believes the same thing because of certain groups among them is a problem. Treating them all like shit, for something other members of their faith believe, is a reflection on the person treating another human like shit not on their target.
And yet, when you ask about trans identity, they’ll show what they really believe.
Trans identity is a complex issue. One that affects more than just trans people. Surely it will shift in some way over time, though I would not want to even try to guess in what direction at this point. People go nucking futs when it comes to their kids, and in my opinion the Trans community lost some PR ground when it came out that schools were intentionally hiding students who were transitioning gender identities from their parents. Edit in Italics
If you want to make progress on trans issues, I would suggest that the LGBT community take a transitional stance and then move again in the future, rather than losing their minds because they cannot force the whole population to share their views all at once.
This is a tried and true tactic when it comes to gay rights. When Clinton passed, “Don’t ask, don’t tell” it was a highly controversial pro-gay stance. If he had tried to push the military to where we are today there is no telling how the US would have reacted, but it would not have been good.
My problem with your stance is that you seem very quick to jump at “bigoted hate speech from LGBTQ+ people” and to defend the so-called progress that religious people have made. You don’t seem interested in calling out Christians for the documented facts that they are championing the call to eradicate minority populations they disagree with, or the legislation they are passing in increasing numbers to strip rights away from women, LGBTQ+, and racial minorities.
Firstly, while it may look like “both sides” are hateful and bigoted, it’s extremely important to understand that both sides are not saying anything close to the same things. On one hand, you have a population of people who have been directly and consistently harmed for their fundamental identity that they cannot change by people who identify with certain beliefs and their - admittedly, but understandably, quite vitriolic - responses to that trauma. On the other hand, you have a population of people who have not been attacked or harmed directly falsely claiming that the other population is raping their children and destroying the country. This fear mongering is reinforced every single Sunday when they go to their church and get told these things directly by their leadership that claims they are the literal mouth of God. A belief system is much more mutable than intrinsic characteristics like gender identity, skin color, and sexuality - as demonstrated by the shift towards the LG and B parts of the LGBTQ+ community. The oppressed only cry out about injustices they’ve experienced and plead for equal treatment, which is then equivocated to the calls for the wholesale eradication of their population.
Secondly, you seemed more concerned with the optics of justice than justice itself. Who does trans identity affect other than the trans person? that’s a genuine question because I cannot think of a single person except for the trans person’s doctor who should ever be concerned with that.
the Trans community lost some PR ground when it came out that schools were intentionally hiding gender transitions from parents.
This is just blatant propaganda that reveals your bias. I’ll take the time out of my day to break it down for you. Starting with “gender transitions”, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you simply misspoke and meant “gender identity”. How would a minor begin gender transition without their parents knowledge or consent? are they taking school busses to underground, unregulated doctors that prescribe hormone blockers? and that brings me to the next point: there are literally no children that are receiving any irreversible treatments to aid in their gender expression. In some cases, minors below 16 may be prescribed puberty blockers, which have been used to treat various conditions for nearly half a century, are completely reversible, and demonstrably lower suicide rates in trans youth. Once a trans kid has hit 16 and has spent literal years with doctors and therapists, they may be prescribed hormones that help their body develop in a more comfortable way for their gender identity. These treatments are also decades old and again have demonstrably proved to be the most effective way to ensure trans people live long and healthy lives.
Is “PR” (that’s actually just more lies and deception from the Christian right that purposely warps perceptions to demonize and vilify the LGBTQ+ community) more important than the literal lives of children? That question will remain relevant as I move onto my final point: if a child is having questions about their gender expression and their parents are vehemently opposed to that, to the point where it would put the child in imminent danger, often times lethal, if the parents were to find out, is it still morally correct to tell the parents based only on the inherently Christian idea that your parents are the sole deciders in the welfare of their children? to give a less politically charged example, let’s look at left-handedness. it was a hugely popular belief that left handed people were of the Devil and evil not too long ago. an extremely dogmatic religious couple who already verbally abuse and accost left handed people have a child who teachers discover is left handed. should the teachers be required to tell the parents about their child’s left-handedness, which will almost certainly lead to verbal and statistically likely physical abuse of that child? it isn’t like the teachers are secretly part of a left handed cabal set to destroy the world with their evil left handed demons.
If you want to make progress on trans issues, I would suggest that the LGBT community take a transitional stance and then move again in the future, rather than losing their minds because they cannot force the whole population to share their views all at once.
this is literally a call to sit back and placate the Christian right. what’s the transitional stance between “trans rights are human rights” and “we need to eradicate gender ideology from the public world”? should we only genocide half the trans community? that still wouldn’t satisfy the right and there would be less people fighting for justice. “don’t ask, don’t tell” was implemented after years of riots and demonstrations drawing attention to the rampant assault in the US military. it is not like clinton just woke up one morning and decided that the gays have been quiet long enough so maybe we should give them some rights. the only tried and true tactic when it comes to gay rights is violence and standing up for ourselves and people like us in direct opposition to Christians.
My problem with your stance is that you seem very quick to jump at “bigoted hate speech from LGBTQ+ people”
Show me a Christian or conservative acting like a bigot in this post, community, or even instance and I will gladly call them out. I am sure a few are hiding somewhere around here but they are few and far between. I do understand that there are instances where it is more common from them, but I do not regularly visit those places.
admittedly, but understandably, quite vitriolic - responses to that trauma.
This is my main issue right here. None of this conversation would be happening u/I_Fart_Glitter had just acknowledged that u/gravitas_deficiency had spit out some vitriolic bigotry instead of defending. Their opinions may be understandable to you, but a public News forum is the wrong place to be spewing that kind of bigotry. If they gravitas has unresolved issues they need to get off their chest, there are plenty of appropriate forums for it.
This fear mongering is reinforced every single Sunday when they go to their church and get told these things directly by their leadership
This may be true for many Christians, but there are millions of American Christians that believe quite the opposite and would never tolerate that in a church.
I live in BFE Texas and there are ten Affirming Churches in the area; five of them are within about 45 minutes of me. As a comparison there are only two Cowboy Churches in the same area. Every major City I checked had several Affirming Churches.
A belief system is much more mutable than intrinsic characteristics like gender identity, skin color, and sexuality
Belief is as fundamental to a person as sexuality or gender identity. Some people’s beliefs, gender identity, and sexuality change several times through their lives, others stick with the one assumed at birth, and anywhere in between.
assume you simply misspoke and meant “gender identity”.
You are right, I meant transitioning gender identity, not “gender transition”
based only on the inherently Christian idea that your parents are the sole deciders in the welfare of their children
What? I am sure there are cultures and religions where something different would be the norm, but do any of them represent a significant chunk of the world’s population? I did a bit of web-searching but can’t seem to find anything remotely related to this. I am getting swamped with references to child welfare laws and related court cases.
what’s the transitional stance between “trans rights are human rights” and “we need to eradicate gender ideology from the public world”?
This is the first time I have gotten this deep into trans topics in a loooong time, but off the top of my head, I see two middle grounds between those stances.
“If you want to live your life as a different sex than you were assigned at birth, that is fine but don’t expect everyone else to agree with or support that choice.”
“Let adults live their lives as the sex they choose, but kids need to wait until they are out of high school if their parents refuse to accept it.”
I am sure there are other middle grounds between those stances even if both sides are offended by them.
How might it impact them? That brings me to your direct question.
Who does trans identity affect other than the trans person?
Really? Is this just a setup to call me a bigot instead? Fine, I will express the opinions I have seen or heard from women who could probably be described as TERFs even if they don’t see themselves as such, but only with a spoiler tag and a few caveats.
Trigger warning. These are not my personal feelings. If someone taking oppositional stances or undercutting your self-identity will hurt you, please do not click this.Caveat: I am neither a woman nor trans, nor do I have daughters or sisters, nor have I ever had any close trans friends or family, only regular acquaintances, nor am I strongly opinionated about whether trans-women are actually women. I really do not have a leg to stand on when taking a stance around this issue. Another caveat: These are areas where the belief of what a trans person actually is controls the perspective. If you think a trans-woman is a woman, full stop, then this doesn’t make any sense at all. If you believe that a trans-woman is a man that prefers to live as a woman then it does, so in an effort to answer your question, I am going to frame it from that perspective. A final caveat, from my admittedly limited perspective these particular issues only typically apply to trans-women and not usually trans-men. Though I am sure there are some exceptions to that. First, the first woman X. I happened to have a conversation with a relatively young lady that went on a rant about Biden naming Rachel Levine as the first woman 4 star general of the Public Health Services Human Corps. She made quite the impassioned rant that it was undercutting women everywhere to call a “biological male” the first woman anything. Second, women’s sports. The Riley Gaines and Lia Thomas thing last year was hard to miss. The main point of women’s sports seems to be related to fields where men absolutely dominate the standings. Though there are definitely some women’s leagues for certain things where I can’t see how it would matter. As I understand it, many men’s leagues around the world have no rule against women, it is just exceptionally rare that a woman is selected for them. The NHL for example has had exactly one female player and it was for an exhibition game back in the 90s. Should leagues be based off of physical size like boxing? Or should there be a testosterone check? No idea, but some people assigned female at birth definitely think it affects them. Third, the old bathroom example. Men are feared in our society. Every one of us is viewed as a potential rapist. Women feel exceptionally uncomfortable in certain situations where a man is present or might be. It isn’t right, but it is the way things are. As long as bathrooms exist in their current form, some women, and some parents of young girls, are not going to be okay with people they see as men using the one for ladies.
Trans community lost some PR ground when it came out that schools were intentionally hiding gender transitions from parents.
Probably because they want to avoid the children getting abused at home, or worse
If you want to make progress on trans issues, I would suggest that the LGBT community take a transitional stance and then move again in the future, rather than losing their minds because they cannot force the whole population to share their views all at once.
Hmm, I wonder what would happen in we’d apply this to past social issues…
“If you want to make progress on civil rights issues, I would suggest that the african-american community take a transitional stance and then move again in the future, rather than losing their minds because they cannot force the whole population to share their views all at once.”
“If you want to make progress on suffrage issues, I would suggest that women take a transitional stance and then move again in the future, rather than losing their minds because they cannot force the whole population to share their views all at once.”
Probably because they want to avoid the children getting abused at home, or worse
Most abusers do not wait for some specific reason to start abusing. I would be interested to see data how many abused LGBT kids were never abused before they came out to their parents.
Edited in all of the above.
Hmm, I wonder what would happen in we’d apply this to past social issues…
This might be splitting hairs a bit, but it basically is what happened.
Edits in italics: For US women’s suffrage they gained the right to vote in a number of cities, territories, and states then eventually gained the right to vote nationally.
Also when slaves were freed, they certainly did not become equal members of society the next day. It has however gotten significantly better over time.
If you want to push in a certain direction, you take a few steps forward, show people that the world did not burn down, and then take a few more steps forward.
Most abusers do not wait for some specific reason to start abusing. I would be interested to see data how many abused LGBT kids were never abused before they came out to their parents.
Are you claiming children haven’t been abused because their parents found out they were LGBTQ?
This might be splitting hairs a bit, but it basically is what happened.
Oh yeah, I remember when MLK said “While we wanted equal rights, me must acquiesce that we shouldn’t get all the rights white people have in order to appease those against us.”
Are you claiming children haven’t been abused because their parents found out they were LGBTQ?
Of course not, that would be nonsense.
I was just avoiding attributing anything like reason to the abusers. The choices of abuse victims are not typically the cause of abuse. The pieces of shit willing to abuse children don’t need a particular reason to do it, and I am not interested in claiming something the victim did was the cause. Even if the abuse ramped up after coming out, it still sounds a bit like victim blaming any way I word it. Which in turn makes me wonder how many of them were already being abused.
There is a difference between attacking someone who chooses a disgusting belief system and bigotry. Any adult who remains a Christian knows exactly what the religion with the highest kill count stands for. They decide to ignore that because they get the warm fuzzies once a week for an hour.
Now go restore Roe v. Wade or you are useless to me.
There is a difference between attacking someone who chooses a disgusting belief system and bigotry.
Bigotry is thinking, what I believe is right and everyone who believes differently is wrong.
To point at all varieties of Christianity and say, “you are bad,” is being bigoted.
Now go restore Roe v. Wade or you are useless to me.
If you want someone useful here are some people that agree with you and will help you fight, assuming you can manage to not call their belief system disgusting to their faces:
Rev. Angela Williams, a Presbyterian pastor and the lead organizer of SACReD: Spiritual Alliance of Communities for Reproductive Dignity, told Healthline that faith leaders and religious groups that support abortion rights have been preparing for this moment for a long time.
Members of the Episcopal Church (79%) and the United Church of Christ (72%) are especially likely to support legal abortion, while most members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the mainline Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (65%) also take this position.
Bigotry is thinking, what I believe is right and everyone who believes differently is wrong.
No. That is just being human.
To point at all varieties of Christianity and say, “you are bad,” is being bigoted.
Ok? It isnt some weird charm argument winner. You can call me any nasty thing you want and that won’t raise from the dead a single Iraqi or stop a single 14 year old girl having to induce an at home abortion because her uncle raped her.
If you want someone useful here are some people that agree with you and will help you fight, assuming you can manage to not call their belief system disgusting to their faces:
Not good enough. I want to hear a Christian shaman to say that anyone who opposes their religion on the rest of us is no longer a Christian. Disown or own. I like hot beverages and cold ones but not lukewarm ones.
No. That is just being arrogant. You can be human and acknowledge that your stance is an opinion and that there are other just as valid opinions. Yours just fits you better.
You can call me any nasty thing you want
To the best of my memory, I haven’t called you anything. I was pointing out OC’s bigoted statement.
I want to hear a Christian shaman to say that anyone who opposes their religion on the rest of us is no longer a Christian.
Ever heard of a Schism? Virtually every denomination in America thinks the others aren’t doing it right. Half of them won’t acknowledge each other as real Christians.
In fact, there are major schisms forming right now over LGBT issues. Methodists have been constantly in the news regarding their LGBT schism for the last year or two.
But the United Methodist Church is also the latest of several mainline Protestant denominations in America to begin fracturing, just as Episcopal, Lutheran and Presbyterian denominations lost significant minorities of churches and members this century amid debates over sexuality and theology.
Please do a little research before making such ridiculous statements. You do not have to believe in a god to believe a man named Jesus existed. There is likely more evidence for the existence of a man named Jesus than there is for the existence of your own great-great-grandmother.
Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed. The contrary perspective, that Jesus was mythical, is regarded as a fringe theory.
Excommunicate Christians who vote religion into government and spend every single tithe on restoring Roe v. Wade.
If this is where you set the bar for treating Christians like anyone should treat another human then there really isn’t anywhere to go in this conversation.
Not that it really matters but I am not a Christian. I am just someone that believes all humans should be treated with a bit of respect until they prove they are not worthy of it by their own personal words and actions.
Please do a little research before making such ridiculous statements. You do not have to believe in a god to believe a man named Jesus existed. There is likely more evidence for the existence of a man named Jesus than there is for the existence of your own great-great-grandmother.
Zero. Zero. Zero. Contemporary evidence the man existed. All we have is hearsay by known liars decades later. As for my great-great grandmother I have seen her Elis Island file and my grandmother had a photo of her from turn of last century. In case you are curious one of my great great grandfather was a dean at an certain major university.
I am sure if I made an effort I could also get her marriage certificate and census record.
Yet your Jesus left nothing behind, pretty sus.
Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed.
Ding ding ding argument from authority! Gotcha. Basic logical fallacy. Ding ding ding ding. Guess they don’t teach basic logic and research methods in your weekly pretend time.
Not that it really matters but I am not a Christian.
What type of sky-daddyism do you follow? Let me know so I can point out how wrong it is. Is it cliche agnostic but not really or mall yoga Hinduism or Buddha was a pot smoker?
I am just someone that believes all humans should be treated with a bit of respect until they prove they are not worthy of it by their own personal words and actions.
That’s what afraid_of_zombies has been saying all this time.
That’s what afraid_of_zombies has been saying all this time.
Then they have a funny way of expressing it. It sounds a lot more like they were defending a bigoted statement by saying someone can’t be bigoted against people from religions they find disgusting.
There is a difference between attacking someone who chooses a disgusting belief system and bigotry.
Episcopalians are less than 2% of the US population. Jewish people and LGBT people are a bigger voting bloc. Using one of the most liberal and one of the smallest Christian denominations as evidence for what Christianity in the US is like is intentionally misleading, when more than 10x as many Americans consider themselves Evangelicals (about 1/4th).
as evidence for what Christianity in the US is like is intentionally misleading
If I was trying to claim that is that standard view, then it would be misleading. Since I was actually claiming that there are a wide variety of beliefs among Christians, some even aligning with your values, it is pretty spot on representation. Treating them all the same is prejudicial behavior.
A fair-minded person would give an individual a chance to act like an asshole before treating them like trash.
A fair minded person would see that the predominant effect that all sects of Christianity has on the US these days is negative, and that’s largely due to the evangelical/Nationalist Christian wing. And sure; they might not be the numerical majority of “all Christians in the US”, but they are having a disproportionately large impact on the rest of Christianity in the country, as well as the country as a whole.
So sure: you can sit here and whinge all you want about how it’s unfair that people are becoming more and more hostile towards Christians because a subset of them are giving all the others a bad name (huh… where have we seen this dynamic before? Perhaps sometime in the early 2000s, in the context of a related but distinct Abrahamic monotheistic religion…?), but when an extremist sect does evil shit and the rest of the denomination does pretty much fuck-all to stop it, people are going to take an increasingly dim view of the religion as a whole. People don’t like it when you do shitty things to them. That’s just humans being humans.
Put another way: I’ll stop pre-judging Christians in America as hypocrites of the highest caliber once they can get their own fucking house in order, because right now it looks a distressingly large proportion of them are doing their level best to tear the fucking country apart in some nihilistic pursuit of hastening the end times so they can get raptured to heaven or some shit like that.
once they can get their own fucking house in order
This is the fundamental problem right here. There is no house. There are neighborhoods worth of houses. Some of them not even next to each other. Some of them share outdated morale codes. Some of them have moral codes you and I could both respect. They are no more in control of each other than we are of them.
It is one of the definite weaknesses of all the separate denominations. If there was only one Christian group, we could try to talk with the Pope and the other Patriarchs and potentially have them all heard the group in the same direction.
Just think of the Westboro Baptists, so shameful that even the KKK denounced them on their home page a few years back.
Well hey maybe religious people should stop consistently hurting other humans and society in general because they think their imaginary friend would be down with it.
I’m saying that religion has a richly documented history of intolerance and repression, up to and including the present day. I am simultaneously saying that I am intolerant of intolerance.
I feel like you should read up on this if you’re still struggling to wrap your head around the nuance of what pretty much everyone else in this comment tree besides yourself is expressing.
I have read that multiple times. I just think it is a shite theory.
I eventually need to put it in my own words, but /u/[email protected]’s post is pretty good for now: (emphasis added)
There’s no paradox in tolerance. Tolerance means you accept everyone existing within the societal contract - period. Doesn’t matter if they’re Republican, a racist, or anything else
Behavior out of bounds should be fought appropriately. If someone uses words to express racism, call them a disgusting asshole. If a bunch of neonazis organize for an act of violence, confront it with violence. Respond appropriately.
Conversely, if a racist can be around people of other races without acting racist, accept them in the group to reinforce their rehabilitation. If someone with braindead opinions bites their tongue and keeps it to themselves, tolerate them.
There’s no paradox - there’s acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior. If anyone, displays only acceptable behavior, you tolerate them - full stop. If anyone goes out of bounds, you respond appropriately to correct the behavior - full stop.
The “paradox of tolerance” is people justifying attacking people. This myth does nothing but ensure there’s no way back for people who have drifted out of bounds - it’s a recipe for radicalizing people.
I’m genuinely convinced the “paradox of tolerance” is a psyops designed to fracture society by breeding extremists… If there’s no tolerance when they behave and no way back, what do you think is going to happen? Either their beliefs that they’re under attack get constantly reinforced and they get further pushed out of bounds, or we kill them all before they destroy our society
There has to be a way back, or the only way forward is ideological purges
If you keep advocating in this fashion you are going to start feeling very backed up against a wall very quickly. When people are routinely hurt by an institution the unambiguous defense of the people within institution as a whole claiming a similar victimhood plays on a part of human nature. What people want of you is to accept that the numbers of people claiming Christiandom to then go on to harm someone means that as someone who claims to be Christian that you should be the first voice to start criticizing your own.
Instead because you cannot separate yourself from your Christian label or other people’s frustration and pain caused by other people who do so under the flag of being “Proud Christians” your advocacy appears shallow and self serving. You and all the good Christians you defend become literary “the good man who does nothing” If facing people in your audience who have experienced trauma at the hands of your group what they want to see is that you accept that people like you harmed them and that you are different than them by being able to recognize their pain and shelve your agenda and listen unambiguously. What they are asking is for you to show you care about them and are strong enough to weather and differentiate the criticism they aren’t directing at you.
It’s a similar effect to how a lot of systemic issues around racism get held up on the feelings of the people in institutions about being implied to be racist. Oftentimes the issues never get dealt with because the conversation has to stop become all about the feelings of the person and how they aren’t a bad person. While they may not intend it that person’s feelings become the obstacle that throws up the roadblocks on people who are fighting desperately to have less roadblocks. Once this happens often enough people start to figure that that person’s feelings DO make them a bad person because regardless of their personal merits they are still in the way and having to sway every individual roadblock by taking them offside and coddling them telling them, it’s okay we know YOU aren’t a bad person becomes way too much. Thus people start getting more frustrated with the people who demand this treatment and take up their energy and they start getting more strident.
When you place yourself in that spot it’s easy to see people’s frustration as hate but it is different. They want you to be better.
I appreciate the well-thought out and verbose response. Have an upvote!
Now to the meat of it. I am not a Christian, I am someone who is tired of some bigots getting a pass and some bigots getting their whole instances defederated. Since there is clearly a disinterest in heavy-handed moderation to get rid of the one-sided bigotry then the best recourse is open discussion.
I have no doubt that the people here who are heavily prejudiced against religion have their reasons, but that does not mean that their words are good or acceptable in an open forum. When people express their ideas in socially unacceptable ways they should be called out and down-voted, but currently they they are mostly receiving positive responses. This is wrong. It is a mark against the communities and instances they are posting those statements in.
It does not matter why someone feels justified for spewing hate, they should be called-out or at least shunned. If you want to help someone work through their hate, that is great. I just want to stop being embarrassed by it. Despite being a great concept, I literally cannot recommend Lemmy to anyone because the top comment is so often some trash about how “all conservatives are fascists” or a gay activist died “it must be a Christian.”
Lemmy is kind of unapologetically leftist and there is a lot of dissatisfaction by a number of groups that all coelece around the use of religion or “traditional values” a euphemism for Christian, more specifically the Pauline chapters, norms that reject LGBTQIA identities and a flattening of the rights of women to be autonomous. When you look at the “bigotry” you’ll find “Christianity” does not always often mean the same thing when people use it from poster to poster. In many ways it closer to a shorthand for the Evengelical movements which are growing more like consolidated political parties. If someone claims to be Christian the belief in Christ itself is not always the cause for the vitriol (not saying the angry atheists do not prowl). Rather it is how they weild it against other communities.
Moderation is never truly neutral. To some extent all places are tailored to be safer to someone. Leftist spaces are often tailored to be more sympathetic with people to whom conservative values trend on the whole to be hostile towards. Importantanly however it is important to look at how that frustration is being utilized. On the whole people here’s main gripe is an overreach of control at the expense of safety and health of other people. The desired outcome is not a banishment from society but a ceasefire.
Once again, thank you for the well-reasoned comment.
I have to say, much of this sounds very similar to something I might have said while trying to convince someone that there is some nuance to the Christian Right. The rest of if though is still worth thinking over some more for sure. Especially the bit about how this space is a bit tailored towards leftist view points. Maybe I am expecting too much in a place where people should be able to throw an off the cuff “goddam repubtards” without being called on it.
Still, I think some of the comments really do push that boundary; including OC’s immediate accusation of some generic Christian being the murder.
My experience mostly comes from moderating queer friendly communities with a low amount of anonymity. If you have a community with a high instance of trauma surrounding being cast out of your family, abused directly or placed in the abusive situation of conversion therapy then let someone use that space to proselytize Christianity positivly it tends to make that place unsafe because you can actually cause flashbacks in the standing community and eventually in the interest of protecting the right of one person to say whatever they the rest of the community stops being able to speak freely without having to explain themselves and have to tiptoe around the one person who makes any instance of them venting their reasonble frustrations with their situation about how "not every Christian… ". People sometimes need places to let off steam.
Often people in threatened minorities need protected spaces where they don’t need to follow the rules that are more universally applied where they don’t feel they have to appease the sensibilities that are enforced on them the minute they step outside. Very few spaces are actually welcome to everyone and the ones that use an anything goes moderation policy usually find themselves hosting some damn near criminal elements who drive off others and rot the place.
Since conservative spaces tend to be somewhat hegemonic people from those spaces often hold feelings that if they are not welcome to say whatever they want anywhere they choose that any request to modify their behaviour with respect to the needs of others in the space is intolerable oppression. Every space has to chose on a sliding scale how much they are willing to put up with if one participant starts causing everyone to enjoy the space less though the decision in my experience is often a matter of long debate per individual about how willing to learn and accept that the value lies with the more vulnerable audience who have fewer venues to not have to deal with being spammed with rhetoric that paints them as deviant, dangerous, mentally ill or inferior.
Halfway spaces in our forums are made available for people who cannot be trusted to play by the stricter ruleset of conscientious behaviour where one can expect to be more rough and tumble but a lot of the time that becomes a space to debunk a lot of the bullshit and places the burden on our queer membership to be educators as oftentimes people who can’t be trusted use the dedicated spaces to whine and complain about how they should have the all access pass and when they inferred everyone in the space was a pedophile they didn’t actually know what they were doing so it wasn’t like they were trying to hurt everyone etc etc etc…
Much of it seems to be a matter of what we think Lemmy and the communities are for.
In my mind, c/News and c/Politics should be group spaces where people of all stripes can express view points in well-reasoned, civil, ways. I have no problem with little corners of the federation that cater to the hurt and angry, my issue is when it spills out into the more public spaces. I will readily acknowledge some of that opinion comes from a stance that does not seem all that popular on Lemmy.
When I first heard about the fediverse, I was excited that the echo chambers would be broken open. I thought everyone could have their radical little corners, but that there would be open communities that we could all meet in and discuss issues in a reasonable way.
When I joined an instance with a “democratic” experiment going on, I quickly realized that my view that it was awesome to federate with everyone was a relative minority; many people there thought it was more awesome to be able to defederate from those whose opinions they never wanted to see. Fortunately, their community found something of a middle ground, but it was still quite the disappointment to me.
It's true that bigotry can work both ways, but you have to admit the right has given us a lot of reason to feel bigoted towards them, especially in light of incidents like this where progressive and smart people are being killed for being better humans than other humans. Christianity has one main tenet - love they neighbor as thyself. There is no other principle to Christianity, only this one. And yet right wingers seem to think they don't have to obey it but can still call themselves "christians," which is a complete lie and slap in the face to god and everyone on earth.
Yeah just like how you should excuse people for being racist when they’ve been repeatedly victimized by black people. You can NOT blame them as that is human nature, and you should be the first to speak out on behalf against those doing the victimization
Just be sure you’ve taken a moment to understand who you’re speaking with and what you’re speaking with them about. Because in this case, any issue of bigotry has absolutely nothing to do with this drug related domestic dispute murder.
Commenters here are arguing with each other over something that has nothing to do with this case. So, it’s not that you care about the victim, you care about virtue signaling.
FWIW, the victim regularly attended an Episcopalian church. So, I’m not so sure he’d be cool with people using religion as a cudgel beneath his obituary.
Thank you for the link. The article from that comment was far superior.
I am sorry to hear that Josh lost his life like that. Seems like Philly lost a good guy.
Hopefully it wasn’t actually the domestic option. It is a hard thought to think that someone he helped out by letting them live there would come back to kill him.
Also, I am glad to hear that his friends are looking into rehoming his rescued cat friend.
Nope, my pointed disdain for backwards, illogical, regressive, exclusionary, predatory cults is showing. I don’t have a problem with religious people as long as they don’t force their shit onto others. Nationalist Christians are trying to force their bullshit theocracy onto the whole country, and that’s very fucking far from ok.
For the record, I was raised catholic, and I noped the fuck out of that bullshit once I got old enough to ask incisive questions. Maybe you should too.
It took going to a Bible College for me to break it down. That doesn’t mean that I have forgotten all of the good-hearted, well-meaning Christians that I met along the way. I haven’t forgotten all of the assholes either.
Yes I know, there are plenty of busybody assholes that identify as Christians, just like there are plenty of busybody assholes that identify themselves as atheist, gay, straight, athlete or gamer. Some people just feel the need to tell others how to live their lives even when they don’t really understand them. It doesn’t mean that we should act like everyone in that group is the same.
That sort of prejudicial reductionism is the real enemy. It is the thing reasonable, free-thinkers should be fighting against, not turning around for our own use.
Your point seems to be that people should not generalise an opinion on a large group of people. But you fail to ask the question of when passivism becomes guilty by failing to act. Germany was held accountable for the atrocities of the holocaust. They moved on. They educate in schools in an attempt to prevent this from reoccurring. What is happening in the US with republicans can only persist if people support them, and polling suggests there is support there.
Your point seems to be that people should not generalise an opinion on a large group of people.
That is indeed my exact point.
But you fail to ask the question of when passivism becomes guilty by failing to act.
That is actually one of my main concerns with the direction lemmy is heading. At some point when the bias becomes extreme enough we need to start calling out those that are crossing the line. If it seems like I am not pointing enough at the extremes of the republican side, it is only because their voices are few and far-between on Lemmy. Typically when I find them, they are already buried in down-votes and comments. I usually a downvote to the pile, upvote a few other comments, and then move on.
Germany was held accountable for the atrocities of the holocaust. They moved on. They educate in schools in an attempt to prevent this from reoccurring.
In principle, I agree with this, but in practice it seems to be having questionable long-term results. The rise of the extreme right seems as prevalent there as it is in the US. Though some of that may just be overreporting because of the general interest in Germany when it comes to right-wing extremism.
What is happening in the US with republicans can only persist if people support them, and polling suggests there is support there.
I think this issue is a bit more complex than that. I think it has to do as much or more with people being forced to support the side they feel less negative towards even if they don’t really agree with that side. Here is an interesting if imperfect analogy I read relating to it:
Since the main topic is apparently too hot of a take, I’ll take pineapple on a pizza for example (Perhaps I’m getting into even hotter waters). Free of external influence (i.e. memes), I think most people will eat it without much thought. Some might like it, some might not, and I doubt it’s all that controversial–likely less than anchovies. If you don’t like it, you just don’t have to eat it.
But if one extreme said we must ban pineapples from all pizzas, and the other end of the extreme said we must put pineapple on all pizzas, we have a very different scenario. I myself enjoy Hawaiian pizza and find pineapples to be a fine topping. But I certainly don’t want to eat only pineapple pizzas all the time. So, I’d look at both extremes and side with no pineapples ever. That seems better of the two options. I can no longer be a centrist because the idea of having only pineapple pizza seems horrible. But I don’t really eat whole pizzas by myself, I eat it with others. And if others are such great lovers of pineapple pizza, I’d be influenced to side with the other extreme of always having pineapple due to peers.
I want to highlight that both of these extremes are authoritarian. One forces you to eat pineapple. The other forces you to not eat pineapple. Neither are true libertarian choices. They are forced viewpoints one forces on the other. That’s what forces people to have such strong negative emotion towards it. No one wants to be forced into things. This is important and I’ll come back to this later.
My point was not about authoritarian. It is about the lies that are being told to the masses to convince them that being turkeys for Christmas is actually good for them. The lies have gone from extreme into the ridiculous. I watched Trump tell a crowd that climate change is not true and that he can sort out the forest fires tomorrow. He wants to make use of the wasted overflow pipes in cities. Where do you start on that one? Trump has caused murders literally; people died in the insurrection. He is affirmed as being a rapist in judicial hearing. In the UK we call this out as being a nonce. There were republican candidates who said they would follow Trump if he was elected while in prison. Worse still, this is only a minor take on the whole story. Boebert committing sex acts in front of kids. The open gerrymandering in states across the US. The attacks on the judicial system and civil employees. The way they used public servant wages as blackmail instead of using democratic leeway.
How far down the rabbit hole do you have to go before thinking that there is something wrong here, and I have to use my position to prevent more of it?
Apologies, my intention wasn’t to imply you meant Authoritarianism is the main problem, but rather that I thought polarization was. Guess that is what I get for using part of someone else’s comment instead of writing my own.
I see your point. Trump is a lying, liar, who lies. The problem is America has mostly shifted from voting for someone to voting against someone. Trump vs Clinton was an unpopularity contest that America lost, and maybe the world too.
There are undeniably die hard trump supporters out there, but many people that voted for him in the last two elections, and who will likely vote for him again, aren’t really supporters of his, they are more against Biden and Democrats.
Between their hatred for the Democrats and the fact that “we got him this time” was turned into a meme four years ago, there are a good portion of Republicans that have started to treat anything negative about Trump as another attack to be dismissed. Even when they see a video of his own words, it is dismissed as taken out of context, a misquote, a deep fake, whatever works for them. However anything seemingly positive is laid at his feet.
The biggest problem at this point is attack ads and court cases just further convince the die hard supporters that he really is trying to “drain the swamp” and all the attacks are the response of the swamp. The individual issues that ridiculously pile up for a neutral observer are all just proof of his righteousness in their minds.
Have you seen a version of this article where anti-trump conservatives had to stop running ads against Trump because they were helping him or doing nothing? www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/…/ar-AA1hsIwq
Trump is definitely a problem, but he’s also a symptom of the larger problem of polarization. In the past, moderates were able to keep things in balance, but right now being a moderate is nearly a crime to both wings. Republicans tend to call them “RINOs” and Democrats tend to call them “basically Republicans”.
I think even if we eliminate Trump, someone will quickly follow in his steps, and I am not convinced that it will necessarily be a Republican. Too many power-hungry people from across the spectrum have now seen that America is ripe for the taking by a certain kind of charismatic figure.
The only way to slow this down in my mind is to begin building a bridge between the two sides. As a start we need to first and foremost stop forcing centrists to choose a side. Then we need to find a few things we still agree on, before moving on to more challenging issues. If we cannot even find a few issues we agree with the other side, then we at least need to find some issues where the extremes agree with the moderates and build from there. If we cannot even do that then it probably about time to figure out whether we are going for French style political purges or a Roman style first princeps.
If we are throwing out the rule of law anyways them I am voting for the Governator! I am mostly kidding.
and I have to use my position to prevent more of it?
I lost you here. What position? Prevent more of what?
Also, sorry if this turned out a bit on the rambling side, I should have waited until morning to write this.
I agree with a lot of what you say. I don’t think polarisation is a bad thing. Everyone has a different perception of where the priorities should be, sometimes that is just pure greed, sometimes it is genuine need. The biggest issue in the US (and the UK) imo, is the voting system. FPTP system are too easy to corrupt. Voters recognise that a vote for an independent can lead to what you really don’t want into power. This encourages tribal voting instincts. In my own area, I know I am going to have to pinch my nose and vote Labour. I will do this knowing full well that the person I am voting for has shown to be nothing but a grifter for over 10 years.
A FPTP system only requires attention in the swing areas. The rest is largely ignored. A PR voting system has been gaining more and more popularity in the UK. A lot are recognising that FPTP has some very real dangers.
Truth and media accountability has become a conduit for celebrity voting. They even used the same model that was used on Trump with Johnson in the UK. We got lucky because we got the idiot who was much easier to spot. Trump also recognised that by throwing out crumbs, people would see him as doing something. Johnson actively did as little as possible. Neither of these would have been voted into power with the media backing they got. I am hoping that our next PM sorts the media out in some way. Leveson Inquiry 2.0 is another item to be looked into, imo.
We, in the UK, need a return to independent oversight. Johnson annexed what was previously independent bodies into government control. He then used them to justify government choices. Johnson was very close to gaining absolute power in the UK. Trump will do exactly this, if he ever gets in. Trump will mimic Erdogan, he will use his current predicament to justify doing even more extreme moves once in power. There is a fair to good chance you will not remove Trump and his family if they return.
Independent oversight seems to be a thing that is greatly missed in the US. There does not seem to be any trusted bodies where people can turn to for an honest opinion on truth. The problem seems to stem from the power of the ruling class of the time having the complete control of who gets which job. Having individual politicians plant the highest power in the legal system into place is always going to cause an imbalance. We have exactly the same problem with the house of Lords. I like the idea of cross party review bodies being used to adjudicate key positions of influence, but a lot of ultimate power positions like SCOTUS need a much wider oversight committee.
The biggest problem of all politics though has to be corruption. Politicians should not be able to earn money from secondary sources.
I lost you here. What position? Prevent more of what?
Not all republicans are bad. But the longer the good ones wait to take the bull by the horns, the harder it will be.
I definitely agree that FPTP is a weak voting system, though I think the US is a lot further away from it than the UK. There are a few places that have rank choice, but it doesn’t seem to be gaining much popularity nationally.
There does not seem to be any trusted bodies where people can turn to for an honest opinion on truth.
This is definitely a huge problem. There used to be some non-partisan bodies that could be trusted like the Congressional Budget Office, but the ones I am aware of have lost most or all relevance over the last 15-20 years. Independent oversight might be nice, but I suspect that there will be a constant battle of infiltration against those entities.
a lot of ultimate power positions like SCOTUS need a much wider oversight committee.
I agree that SCOTUS is a problem, though I am not sure oversight is the right answer. I think a constitutional amendment or two is in order regarding them; probably further limiting when or how they take court cases, and more importantly not allowing new precedents to be set when the court cannot even agree with itself. At the very least a 6-3 vote should be required for precedent but even better would be 9-0. If they cannot even agree amongst themselves whether something is constitutional at the time of a specific case, then setting new “constitutional” rules or rights anyways is foolishness. They could continue to take and decide cases by 5-4 majorities on an individual basis but those resolutions should be specific to those cases and make no declaration of being more.
In my mind, SCOTUS has always has been a problem. When I look at history, it seems to me, as often as not, SCOTUS has inserted itself into highly contentious issues and driven a legalistic wedge through the nation by picking sides in issues where there is no clear popular opinion.
Also, the thing that people see as SCOTUS’ prime responsibility, judicial review, is not actually mentioned in the constitution, it was co-opted by them shortly after our current constitution was signed. In the same case that they declared the constitution was not just a statement of ideals, but in fact a legal document, they also ignored that legal document and declared their right to unilaterally strike down the nation’s laws. Marbury v Madison In my mind, it is disgusting that the same body that functions as the interpreter of the constitution felt free to disregard it when it suited them, from its very beginning.
Besides its overwhelming impact on US history, the reason for the Marbury v Madison itself is an interesting insight into how contentious US politics has always been.
The biggest problem of all politics though has to be corruption. Politicians should not be able to earn money from secondary sources.
I could not agree with this more if I tried. It is absolutely disgusting to see how many US politicians become rich while in office.
Not all republicans are bad. But the longer the good ones wait to take the bull by the horns, the harder it will be.
Thank you for the clarification.
We have exactly the same problem with the house of Lords.
As a side note, I have always found the House of Lord’s to be an interesting if problematic institution.
Leveson Inquiry 2.0
I tried to read through the wiki about this, but I suspect that my own free press bias was getting in the way of what I was actually reading. I will need to sit down sometime and look more into when I have time to process it all.
Besides its overwhelming impact on US history, the reason for the Marbury v Madison itself is an interesting insight into how contentious US politics has always been.
Thanks, I read the wiki and watched a lecture from the Uni of Virginia. There is obviously a lot more history around the outcomes of the case, but it asked the question which always seemed blaringly obvious to me and the SCOTUS. How does a non elected body get such power? I will look into it more. I find the diversion between UK law and US law interesting. I have to own up to be an bit of a history geek.
I find the diversion between UK law and US law interesting.
Same here. I occasionally dive into something random about UK law and am blown away.
I have to own up to be an bit of a history geek.
If I had some better history teachers at a young age, I think I would have been also.
I found the History of Rome podcast by Mike Duncan a few years back and binged the entire thing twice, as well as his Revolutions podcast. Been having a hard time finding other things that engaged me as much. I do like most anything by Dan Carlin but there is a lot less depth to it.
Fair warning, History of Rome was his first podcast and it took some episodes to get rolling. I would say the first 10-15 are slower and of a bit lower quality. It starts getting better as he gets more experience and better equipment.
History for granite is similar in as much the second one shows how much the guy has looked into it.
I have watched a ton on history. With vloggers I generally watch for the bits I didn’t already know now. Vloggers tend to focus on the same stuff. What artists would consider pot boilers. It is great when you find someone with the different angle.
American politics is a new fad of mine. I have been following Trump closely, along with the legal break downs that come with that. I strongly dislike the scum that are the Conservatives in the UK. The UK Conservative party is very much aligned with the US Republicans. They share the same think groups. The parallels with tactics are very stark.
Maybury and Madison was brand new to me and filled in a fair few hours. I tend to read the fine print and follow the explanation links. My wife was not impressed when I told her that equal rights for women had not been ratified in the US as part of the constitution. More so when I told that Virginia had rejected another vote on it in 2019. It is the little things in life that make you smile. Education can be a dangerous thing, I will be inspecting my food for a few days.
The Equal Rights Amendment is definitely another one of those real oddities of American politics.
Supported by the GOP and Southern Democrats until the 80s, opposed by Northern Democrats and Labor Unions for most of the same time period. Now generally supported by Democrats and opposed by Republicans. Both supported and opposed by various feminist groups at the same and different times.
The UK Conservative party is very much aligned with the US Republicans. They share the same think groups. The parallels with tactics are very stark.
Is this a relatively new thing? I was under the impression that the UK conservative party was fairly different than US conservatives. I had heard that Johnson was a bit of a johnson himself, but assumed things went back to “normal” with his ousting.
It is the little things in life that make you smile. Education can be a dangerous thing, I will be inspecting my food for a few days.
It seems that you are a man of not just culture but wisdom as well.
Is this a relatively new thing? I was under the impression that the UK conservative party was fairly different than US conservatives. I had heard that Johnson was a bit of a johnson himself, but assumed things went back to “normal” with his ousting.
I really don’t know when it infiltrated the Tories. Thatcher from the 80’s for all she was hated because of the way she attacked unions was certainly not of that ilk. Part of Thatcher’s persona was honesty and integrity.
Major who followed her did not seem that way. I listened to him giving an interview on TRIP, he seemed extremely genuine. He was also a major feature of Thatcher’s government.
I think the rot started when the Tories took a major arse kicking in 2005. I have no real evidence or insider information to back that up.
There was a lot of talk within the party regarding reform so they could get back on track. There was a very disturbing report written up from a group within the party. It was based around manipulation and where the party should aim for. One particular notable part pointed out that educating the poor was not good for Tory votes. People from poorer back grounds who gained degrees were less likely to vote Tory than any other group. DIRECT DEMOCRACY: An Agenda for a New Model Party. Page 12
The decline in Conservative support has been particularly marked among the most educated. This is not always obvious since more education is associated with higher income, and higher income is still (just) associated with stronger Conservative support. However, other factors being held constant, the more educationally qualified someone is, the less likely he or she is to support the Conservatives. This is a problem to the extent that the more educated are likelier to vote, and are often influential in leading the opinion of others. It is also, of course, a problem in a country where nearly half of young people are now going to university.
There is a conspiracy theory thrown around from time to time that defunding education in poor areas is done by design to increase the vote share. Something that is hard for a Tory to argue against in the UK, especially when you show the stats on funding.
If you read the report in entirety you will see republicans are mentioned many times over.
The first Tory PM in power after this was Cameron with Osborne as chancellor. I listened to Osborne on TRIP and was not impressed. I am going to say imo here, I CBA to dig up more details, it really annoyed me to listen to him. He told lies on his figures, he ducked and dodged with inuendo. It just felt massively different to Major talking. I have seen people quote stats on things that were wrong under Cameron and Osborne. This was not the view I had on them at the time, but that has since changed in hindsight.
Teressa May who followed them seemed genuine to me. She also did an interview on TRIP. I felt at the time she got a bad deal from the Tory MPs and the infighting. That view has not changed.
The rest is as they say history. Johnson, Truss and Sunak, all I can say is shithouses. And that is unkind to the toilet.
Both parties are known for gerrymandering now, the Tories are changing the boundaries across the UK. Both are recognised for hiding information through obfuscation. Both have shown designs to bully influential depts (judicial system, elections control, police etc). Both have shown a prevalence for gaslighting and talking nonsense to fog over issues. Both are reputed to have Russian influence running through them. I would guess the Republicans are known for selling government contracts to donors, something the Tories are going to loose the next election over.
This was a really interesting read, thank you for laying it out.
Are PDFs like that Direct Democracy common releases from the UK parties? It really spells things out, at least as far as I made it through before getting distracted.
There did seem to be a couple sections that I read that the data didn’t seem to match what was being claimed. Particularly the section on the Broken Pendulum (Pages 8,9). The authors seem to claim that in 2001 and 2005 were unique in that the opposition party wasn’t able to gain from losses in the government. If however you look at 1964 and 1983 they seem to be even more stark examples of the same. Seems like the pendulum was a general trend at best.
I believe it was a report that was sold at the 2005 conference. The PDF was available for purchase on Amazon last time I looked. It made a few pounds in 2012 when Jeremy Hunt (the main author) was promoted.
As for the discrepancies, they were trying to sell an idea. Truth was not at the top of their agenda.
Tangentially, my go-to aphorism when some American Christian starts whinging about how “persecuted” they are:
get off the cross, we need the wood.
And to be clear: any Christian in the US claiming “persecution” should be viewed with the same seriousness as white, upper-middle class people claiming everyone racist against white property… because both of those claims are categorically bullshit. Nobody in the US wants to or cares about persecuting white people or Christians. We just want all the Nationalist Christians to get the fuck out of our politics and stop trying to push theocratically-derived laws on the rest of us, because just like we don’t want to live under a Sharia legal system, we similarly don’t want to live under a biblical (or Torah-derived, or any-other-religious-text-derived) law system.
I stole this from another poster, but it does indicate that it was probably his ex boyfriend, or drug related, and not a “good Christian” as you imply.
Here’s some excerpts from the local paper.
Detectives believe Kruger’s death may have been the result of a domestic dispute or may have been drug-related, according to three law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case. The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said police investigators recovered troubling text messages between Kruger and a former partner. Investigators also recovered methamphetamine inside Kruger’s bedroom, the sources said.
In recent months, he’d written on social media about a variety of alarming incidents at his home.
In April, he posted that an ex-partner had broken into his home. “The door was locked, so he had somehow obtained a copy of my keys,” he wrote. He had allowed the man, whom he’d known for years “before his troubles,” to stay at his house briefly after being released from jail. He said he was able to deescalate the situation and the man eventually left, and he changed his locks.
In August, someone threw a rock through his home window, he said. Then, about two weeks ago, he wrote on Facebook that someone came to his house searching for their boyfriend — “a man I’ve never met once in my entire life.” The person called themselves “Lady Diabla, the She-Devil of the Streets” and threatened him, he wrote.
It’s Philly, this is nothing new (Edit: since people love twisting words, I meant violence in general not the specific targeting of an activist journalist for Christ sake). I grew up in South Jersey (half way in between Philly and Atlantic City, NJ) and there’s always a headline on the nightly news about “X people were killed in a shootout today in West/South/North Philly today”, most people don’t see it though since Philly is overshadowed by NYC (anyone from Central Jersey and North gets NYC news). Everything but Center City has always been a shit hole for the most part.
Edit: I live in NYC for 5 years, it of course has shitty areas all over too. Everyone is trying to act like major cities are perfect, crime free areas. Did people forget that the Italian and Irish mobs ran NYC and Philly for decades?!
No, it’s more like people are twisting my words. I simply meant violence and murder is nothing new in Philly. If you read the rest of what I wrote I clearly state that. Whose the one with selective reading?
If you were halfway between Philly and Atlantic City, you were too far away from Philly to pretend to be an expert. But keep using that weak anecdotal “evidence” to continue your ignorant views on urban areas.
Saying “Everything but Center City has always been a shit hole” gives you away. You have no fucking clue. Probably been at least a decade since you’ve driven within 30 miles of the city.
So apparently the ABC nightly news is “anecdotal evidence”. My aunt lives in Philly, my brother’s works there frequently, I’m pretty aware of how Philly is.
I mean, shootings in bad parts of Philly and Camden aren’t new, but they’re gang-related. This sort of crime detailed in the article is not common, even in Philly. This guy was targeted. Someone he likely knew was in his home, because no one had to break in (I highly doubt he didn’t lock his door), and 7 shots is overkill. Journalists aren’t being targeted like this on the regular.
Source: grew up 20 minutes outside of Philly in South Jersey
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