Revoking Transgender Civil Rights

[Nick Danger]

Cognitive dissonance again, Nick. Here you are telling us about the importance of respecting society's rules, yet you seem to have forgotten that you are supporting Donald Trump, the ultimate self-centred individual who cares nothing about society's standards of behaviour. What sort of society do you imagine we would have if everyone behaved like Trump? You can't have it both ways.

You know when everyone behaved like Trump? The 1970's.

But I apologize, Flighty, I forgot that you're a Millennial. In the 70's, men used to pat women on the butt, leer at them as they sashayed down the hallway, call them "Honey," and quite often take No for Yes and Yes for Anal. People had a lot of sex. I mean, a LOT of sex. It was awful.

[filghy2]

Why oh why do you waste time on RUBBISH like this Nick? Check your PM box & hopefully we can suffocate these two fucking lunatics

Wtf? This is only a bunch of people who enjoy debating politics on the internet. Get a grip before you disappear down the rabbit hole completely.

For all that I disagree with him, Nick probably does have a core of decency and common sense. He has spotted you as a nutter and he's not going be your special friend and join your secret society.

If it's so tedious, why do you keep coming here to read these posts? Why not just ignore it like a normal person would do? But if get some kind of meaning out of cheering all of Nick's posts and thumbing down all of mine then feel free.

[filghy2]

Lol you might want to turn off cnn and msnbc. Get out more often you’ll see the world isn’t as scary as you make it out to be.

Sorry, but I can't take seriously a man who literally presents himself as a dick. Or who thinks that putting 'Lol' in front of everything is the last word in devastating comebacks.

[filghy2]

But that goes back to something I said to you a few posts ago about Optimized Self-Interest - not everyone has it. And those who don't have it hold the rest of us back. So there's always going to be pressure to improve on those who are not putting in the effort. The pressure is both social and institutional, and it will never go away, it's intrinsic to capitalism.

There is something completely missing from your worldview, Nick. That is that successful societies and economies depend on a substantial level of trust and goodwill. We need to trust that the people we deal with are not generally trying to deceive and cheat us. We need to trust that the authorities with power over us are constrained by laws that are generally applied predictably and impartially. We need to accept that we can't always get our way, there have to be compromises, and other people are not evil just because they have different views. Even Adam Smith recognised that capitalism wasn't just about self-interest. https://www.adamsmith.org/the-theory...ral-sentiments

Trumpism is the antithesis of this, as it would lead to a breakdown of trust and goodwill, with laws applied in a partisan fashion and a country divided into two warring tribes. If you think that you will be okay as long as you have lower taxes and less regulation then you are a fool.

This is not just naive liberal idealism. Economic studies show that countries perform poorly when they lack good institutions; ie accepted rules and conventions that are enforced impartially. They also perform poorly when the rich and powerful are allowed to grab whatever they can and inequality becomes too great. That is the main reason why most countries in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East are failures.

I actually agree with the idea that rights need to be balanced by responsibilities, and I think the earnest Professor goes too far in emphasising only the former. However, you have a curious blind spot where you say that ordinary schmucks must accept responsibilities while you admire rich and powerful people like Trump who prosper by ignoring any social responsibilities.

How about attempting a considered response, rather than just glib dismissals and silly claims that all problems are caused by liberals?

[Stavros]

Why oh why do you waste time on RUBBISH like this Nick? Check your PM box & hopefully we can suffocate these two fucking lunatics

Peejaye, you know from our exchanges in P&R on the EU that I am not a liberal, but that aside, I would rather you posted your opinion on the Original Post that Evelyn used to encourage debate on the issue: should the US government re-define gender to consist of only two categories: Male and Female. As someone with an active interest in people, many of whom do not subscribe to a binary definition of gender, but many who do, what is your position on this policy? Do you agree Rights should be taken away, or that US citizens who have been given the right to self-identify should retain this right?

[Stavros]

T-girls are my favorite girls. I'm hoping some of them will realize that there are more important things than which bathroom they use, or whether they're welcome to join the Army they never wanted to join in the first place. The prosperity of the USA affects everyone here much more than minor considerations about civil rights.

I like Stavros and Flighty. They will NEVER admit that they are wrong about something, and I respect that, I really do. In this very thread, I had to straighten out Stavros for calling me a liar about Obama increasing troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Showed him the articles and everything. He weaseled out of the call-out by fudging the meaning of my original statement a bit, and yeah I could have called him out again.

a) there are more important things than which bathroom they use, or whether they're welcome to join the Army they never wanted to join in the first place
-Bathroom issues can cause a lot of anxiety for all sorts of people, I personally avoid public rest-rooms as often as I can for reasons I won't go into, but you cannot assume that Transgendered people are self-confident when many in the early stages of transitioning are permanently anxious, about the way they look, the way they walk and talk and these are real issues that can determine if they even leave their house or apartment. You also must accept that on the other side of the argument there are people who are so hostile to anyone that doesn't look like them, that they will not just object to them using rest-rooms but even react violently. And yet in the UK there are plenty of coffee shops that offer their customers only one rest-room all and anyone can use, so what is the problem?

As for the military, I don't think it is for you to decide if people do or don't want to serve their country. I assume a lot of people after 9/11 decided to 'do something' that had never occurred to them before, and that joining the military was one of them.

b) If you have the patience or are truly bored, you can trawl through my posts and find the occasions when I have admitted that I was wrong, because it happens.
You made the claim that Obama increased the troop presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, but neglected to put it in the context it deserved and that is where you went wrong: Obama intended to reduce the presence in Iraq as per the agreement Bush made with al-Maliki in 2008 and because he wanted to do so as part of his own policy -and yes, during his tenure there was spike in the presence of service personnel: but, and this is the key point I was making: by the end of his tenure Obama did preside over a net decrease in the military presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan: not spin, not fake news, but facts. If I did not refer to the spike during the Obama Presidency it was because it was not the relevant point of my argument.

My analysis of a country I don't live in will always miss some of the details, but I don't consider civil rights to be a minor issue anywhere, least of a country that went through so much mental and physical agony from Selma to Washington to extend to all Americans in law a moral right they have had since 1776.

You cannot say that the early settlers were Conformists when you know full well it was because they refused to conform that led them to leave Europe. And while I do not doubt that within Christian communities families were expected to conform to community values -as I assume continues to be the case with the Amish and Mennonite communities today- the Non-Conformist ethos that was brought to America has in fact been a signal feature of the political culture of the USA that informed the Men who wrote your Constitution that -in spite of their personal religious convictions- made explicit the need to separate the State from Religion, something which, until the violent anti-clericalism of the French Revolution, would have been unthinkable across Europe, and which remained a part of European identity for a long time after 1776 and which, for example, remains true today in the UK where the Head of State -Queen Elizabeth II- is also Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
The endless torture over taxation is perhaps the most obvious example of an issue that dates back to the Non-Conformists who arrived in the Americas to build a life on different principles from what they had experienced in Europe. It remains the dream of those Libertarians and Sociaists who want to abolish the State, though one believes in the fantasy of free markets, while the other dreams of a society without money where people share what they make and need.
The First Amendment is another example that has given Americans the Free Speech denied to billions in other countires -and guess who wants to change it?

Today's Non-Conformists are the true inheritors of the original mission: and they are Transgendered, or refuse to conform the jaded and faded notion that a person can only be Male and Female, two categories which, far from being fixed, are in fact irrelevant.

What does it matter to you if the Desk Clerk in the Marriott is non-binary? Are you threatened with disease or death if the waitress or your dentist is a Transgendered Lesbian?

Is the 'Fed' taking dollars out of your earnings to pay someone to be polyamorous or intersexed? If not, then why should people who identify themselves this way or anyway be denied the rights you have?

[filghy2]

I think we have a new contender for the over the top purple prose award, though my money is still on this early classic from Nick Danger:
"But as time goes on and the country continues to prosper under President Trump's leadership - as your insults and piebald interpretations of complex issues begin to ring more and more hollow until they're just a willowy echo in the distance like the cry of the flightless cormorant - I certainly hope you will pay attention to what you are learning, which will be that pragmatism always triumphs over idealism.

[peejaye]

Wtf? This is only a bunch of people who enjoy debating politics on the internet. Get a grip before you disappear down the rabbit hole completely.

For all that I disagree with him, Nick probably does have a core of decency and common sense. He has spotted you as a nutter and he's not going be your special friend and join your secret society.

If it's so tedious, why do you keep coming here to read these posts? Why not just ignore it like a normal person would do? But if get some kind of meaning out of cheering all of Nick's posts and thumbing down all of mine then feel free.

You've just demonstrated why a single figure amount of people visit this section regularly with your usual charm & panache.
60+K postings in this section as against a million & a half postings relating to transgirls!
There must be loads of Liberal "do-gooding" websites you can ponce about on, why don't you go & ply your trade on them with other like minded individuals? You may find more than one person who shares your interests there unlike on this site?

[filghy2]

You've just demonstrated why a single figure amount of people visit this section regularly with your usual charm & panache.
60+K postings in this section as against a million & a half postings relating to transgirls!
There must be loads of Liberal "do-gooding" websites you can ponce about on, why don't you go & ply your trade on them with other like minded individuals? You may find more than one person who shares your interests there unlike on this site?

Is this an example of charm and panache?

Why oh why do you waste time on RUBBISH like this Nick? Check your PM box & hopefully we can suffocate these two fucking lunatics

Or maybe the sort of thing that got you banned a few months ago?
"Fuck me, for a moment I actually thought this cunt had posted something on here relating to trans-girls.....just the usual though!"

Eight thumbs down in the past couple of days. You have been a busy boy. Careful you don't get a blister.

It's funny that a few months ago you were accusing Stavros and me of being 'far right'. http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/sho...tvinenko/page9
You also said you didn't like Trump and weren't interested in US politics. Ain't politics confusing.

[Nick Danger]

How about attempting a considered response, rather than just glib dismissals and silly claims that all problems are caused by liberals?

Okay, Flighty, you've endured my walls of texts long enough to get my full world-view in as small a nutshell as I can squeeze it.

Foremost I believe in personal responsibility. I've been on both ends of the personal responsibility spectrum. As a young buck I had no view of the future, so I understand why people fall off the path. There are a million ways off the path but very few back on. I get it, because I've been there. I was able to turn it around when I finally grew up.

But as life goes on and you make the sacrifices required to live responsibly and be self-reliant, you begin to take a different view of the people around you who don't live likewise. It's almost impossible, unless you are extremely charitable in your world view, not to begin to see the struggling masses around you as people who just...don't...get it. Because once you do it yourself - figure out a way to make money, put in the work, secure your future - you realize how fucking easy it was all along. And you have very little pity for those who can't match at least YOUR paltry efforts.

So what you perceive from me as condescension sometimes is condescension, Flighty. I don't have much patience for the other side of the argument, because I've lived both sides. Maybe you remember the story I told you a while back about waking up out of a drunken stupor, jumping half-cocked off a tugboat right before it headed out to sea and swimming to shore, leaving my wallet and most of my stuff behind. You don't find yourself in that position if you're living responsibly, so that version of me is kinda how I picture most liberals. And I want to grab them by the ears and get nose-to-nose with them and say, calmly but firmly, "Wrong. You are doing it...wrong." At that point I would probably release the ears but I just might give them a slight tug as I do so to drive home the point.

Pretty much all my political views stem from the fact that I have very little sympathy for people. I know what it takes to be a bum, and I know what it takes to win the rat race. It's always a question of motivation. If you're not motivated to improve your own situation, why should I feel sorry for you? The tools are all right there at your disposal.

That's why I place a high value on winning, Flighty. You have to be motivated to win. Like it or not, the truth is that everyone plays by the exact same rules, rich or poor. The caveat is, the rich get to MAKE the rules, and of course they make rules that give them tremendous advantages over the poor. So as a poor disadvantaged person, what to do? The only thing you can do - get rich.

You get rich in this country by staying on course for all the educational opportunities that WILL be made available to you, making smart choices about following the law, choosing your optimum career path, and living responsibly, i.e., saving money. That's not a lot to remember. If you're a worker, a few years of that will put you in a position to invest. Invest smartly, and then, check you out.

Republicans are greedy sons of bitches, Flighty. They don't care about the environment. They don't care about transgender rights. They don't care about minorities or gun violence. They only care about making money.

So the way things have worked out in the modern political era, the back and forth between Democrats and Republicans has proven to be the perfect paradigm for world domination. Democrats have adopted all the social issues on behalf of the huddled masses. Meanwhile the Republicans take care of business.

Right now, behind Obama, we need 8 years of Republicanism. To balance the books, get our dick out there a little more in world affairs, rustle some jimmies. Then, when we're firmly back at the head of the pack, we can let the Democrats have a few years to tickle the other side of the pickle for a while.

And that's my full world view, Flighty. The balance is the thing. It's not time for transgender rights at the moment. Soon enough it will be.