Current Affairs General US politics (ie, not POTUS related)

[Lobster Johnson]

Well this isnt terrifying at all. The man who will control twitter has gone down the Qanon, Extreme Right wing rabbit hole. How long before he accuses Dems of satan worshiping peadophilia

That Elon Musk has ever achieved anything is a mystery to me. The walking embodiment of all that dude-bro, bio-hacking, I'm-just-asking-questions, joe rogan crap and I bet he does keto and talks about NFTs

 

[neil999]

Little kids?

Sex talk and gender identity are two completely different things. For what it's worth , sexuality should be a normalised thing for kids in terms of being gay etc. If they are gay at 16 then they are gay at 6/7 surely? They just don't realise it at that age , because, well they are little kids. So an environment where it makes someone homosexual come to terms with it easier growing up is a positive thing.

Except in this case it's not who they are, it's who they want to be.

Gender identity leads to gender realignment at a later age, which in these circles there is calls for the age of it to come down.

So let me ask you this. If you support teaching young kids about gender identity before homosexuality , how is that beneficial to them? How does a young child distinguish being homosexual to being transgender?

If it was solely sexuality then I agree, no problem at all. But at an age where kids pretend to be superheros and princesses and dress up and make believe , you want to tell them they can be a different gender?

'taught' is the question here, but gender shouldbt be off limits for discussion at any age

 

[Ghost Rider]

How about we teach them about both at the same time. My own parents were very open with me about stuff like that. I got an honest answer to every question.

As to your second weird point, it's not like people just walk in off the street aged 5 and get gender reassignment surgery. Nobody enters into that process on a whim. Dressing up as *shock!* somebody of the opposite sex doesn't mean that you will automatically be transexual. When my own mother asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up age 6 I said I wanted to be Moira Stewart, cos she was great. Strangely I grew up to be a white male with a wife and kids.

By the same token, why shouldn't I tell my children they can be a different gender if they want? It's true. Trans kids are multiple times more likely to self harm and commit suicide because they don't feel they can be open about who they are and because they are bullied by people uneducated about what they're going through.

It really doesn't make a difference what I say in all honesty.

If this was a simple teaching young kids the existence of it then it would be here nor there. The fact that there is plenty of content from young like-minded (presumably liberal) teachers in American schools documenting how they actively encourage gender indentity with young kids. It's hard to look past that element. There is working examples of what this bill actually is trying to prevent in young Americans.

 

[Lobster Johnson]

It really doesn't make a difference what I say in all honesty.

If this was a simple teaching young kids the existence of it then it would be here nor there. The fact that there is plenty of content from young like-minded (presumably liberal) teachers in American schools documenting how they actively encourage gender indentity with young kids. It's hard to look past that element. There is working examples of what this bill actually is trying to prevent in young Americans.

Well then you'll have no problem pointing to a concrete example, will you?

 

[LostLegend]

How does a young child distinguish being homosexual to being transgender?

Is that a genuine question? Because, Jesus christ…

 

[davmaher]

Nice country you had there...

Supreme court voted to overturn Roe v Wade abortion law, leaked draft opinion reportedly shows

In an unprecedented revelation, a document written by Justice Samuel Alito says ‘Roe was egregiously wrong from the start’

www.theguardian.com

America really does seem to be heading into Handmaids Tale territory now and I can only see it getting worse. By the time of the next presidential election a strongly right wing Republican party is likely to have majorities in both houses and within the Supreme Court. Assuming Trump or equivalent becomes president they will have a clear run at dismantling as many of the democratic protections within the system as they want. I think there are very worrying signs ahead and democracy in the country will be significntly at risk.

 

[LostLegend]

America really does seem to be heading into Handmaids Tale territory now and I can only see it getting worse. By the time of the next presidential election a strongly right wing Republican party is likely to have majorities in both houses and within the Supreme Court. Assuming Trump or equivalent becomes president they will have a clear run at dismantling as many of the democratic protections within the system as they want. I think there are very worrying signs ahead and democracy in the country will be significntly at risk.

It’s what happens when the hypocritical Christian Nationalists are allowed to start digging their claws into legislation.

The very people that will scream about ‘Freedom’ when it come to the freedom to shout bigoted crap without consequence or the freedom to carry assault weapons around the streets while trying to restrict the freedom of a woman’s freedom to choose, a gay persons freedom to marry or a trans persons freedom to exist.

Utter hypocrites.

 

[Martin Alvito]

My money is on it being just another manufactured controversy. The majority court leaked it to generate "outrage" among the media/legal types while giving the political fallout several more months to simmer down before the midterms - giving time for another "outrage" to be generated for those with a short attention span.

It's possible, but it would be an incredibly short-sighted approach that would doom the career of the culprit.

The problem with the leak is that it destroys collegiality. The way the Court has always done things in the past has been hidden from public view. This permits open and frank discussion of what people actually think (via draft opinion circulation), before a final product makes it out into the world for consumption. Often times, the final opinion has been heavily revised in order to keep votes on board, and at times the majority opinion writer functionally changes (usually via concurrences, but occasionally through reassignment).

Once the first draft opinion leaks, that's no longer possible because everyone has to take into the account the possibility of a future leak. People have to start voting and writing draft opinions tactically, for fear of a leak which affects the political process outside the Court in undesirable ways.

The only rational reason to burn all of that would be if someone had cause to believe that Kavanaugh is wishy-washy, and can be moved from voting with Alito to a concurrence if there's a firestorm of public criticism. The way you get to him is through his love of having hot young female law clerks around, and making him realize that the flow of those is going to dry up if he supports this draft. My guess is that somebody in the chambers of either the three liberal justices or Roberts' chambers talked to somebody in Kavanaugh's chambers, and realized that Kavanaugh doesn't understand what's at stake for him.

We can figure out the culprit through what happens when Roberts investigates. If it gets blamed on one of the liberal justice's clerks or staffers, they're probably to blame. If it gets blamed on a hack, this came out of Roberts' chambers and he decided that broad-based public perception of the court's legitimacy was more important than collegiality. The former has always been his priority #1.

 

[BlueTX]

It's possible, but it would be an incredibly short-sighted approach that would doom the career of the culprit.

The problem with the leak is that it destroys collegiality. The way the Court has always done things in the past has been hidden from public view. This permits open and frank discussion of what people actually think (via draft opinion circulation), before a final product makes it out into the world for consumption. Often times, the final opinion has been heavily revised in order to keep votes on board, and at times the majority opinion writer functionally changes (usually via concurrences, but occasionally through reassignment).

Once the first draft opinion leaks, that's no longer possible because everyone has to take into the account the possibility of a future leak. People have to start voting and writing draft opinions tactically, for fear of a leak which affects the political process outside the Court in undesirable ways.

The only rational reason to burn all of that would be if someone had cause to believe that Kavanaugh is wishy-washy, and can be moved from voting with Alito to a concurrence if there's a firestorm of public criticism. The way you get to him is through his love of having hot young female law clerks around, and making him realize that the flow of those is going to dry up if he supports this draft. My guess is that somebody in the chambers of either the three liberal justices or Roberts' chambers talked to somebody in Kavanaugh's chambers, and realized that Kavanaugh doesn't understand what's at stake for him.

We can figure out the culprit through what happens when Roberts investigates. If it gets blamed on one of the liberal justice's clerks or staffers, they're probably to blame. If it gets blamed on a hack, this came out of Roberts' chambers and he decided that broad-based public perception of the court's legitimacy was more important than collegiality. The former has always been his priority #1.

The person behind the leak will be protected just as the person who leaked the original Roe decision was protected.

The Court has been delegitimized by its own action/inaction as well as the naked power-grabbing by the GOP Senate. A friend recently described them as now being the American House of Lords. Not sure if that is entirely correct but it sure sounded good.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Well this isnt terrifying at all. The man who will control twitter has gone down the Qanon, Extreme Right wing rabbit hole. How long before he accuses Dems of satan worshiping peadophilia

Right, so we're talking about someone who believes in absolute freedom of speech in the Hugo Black sense (no law means *slaps desk* NO LAW!), up to and including tossing out protections against inciting a riot and permitting foreign interference in elections.

At some point, we're going to have to come to grips with those issues if we want to continue to have a democracy. On the one hand, the definition of hate speech is as fuzzy as that of pornography (see: Stewart, Potter). On the other hand, we don't want people in power requesting the removal of turbulent priests, having somebody act on that suggestion, and then seeing that somebody shielded by power.

I've said for some time that if the distribution of current political ideology in this country were North/South rather than urban/rural, the shooting war would have started a long time ago.

 

[Lobster Johnson]

Right, so we're talking about someone who believes in absolute freedom of speech in the Hugo Black sense (no law means *slaps desk* NO LAW!), up to and including tossing out protections against inciting a riot and permitting foreign interference in elections.

At some point, we're going to have to come to grips with those issues if we want to continue to have a democracy. On the one hand, the definition of hate speech is as fuzzy as that of pornography (see: Stewart, Potter). On the other hand, we don't want people in power requesting the removal of turbulent priests, having somebody act on that suggestion, and then seeing that somebody shielded by power.

I've said for some time that if the distribution of current political ideology in this country were North/South rather than urban/rural, the shooting war would have started a long time ago.

He doesn't believe in freedom of speech. He believes in freedom of consequences which only ever protects, brace yourself, rich white people.

 

[Martin Alvito]

The person behind the leak will be protected just as the person who leaked the original Roe decision was protected.

The Court has been delegitimized by its own action/inaction as well as the naked power-grabbing by the GOP Senate. A friend recently described them as now being the American House of Lords. Not sure if that is entirely correct but it sure sounded good.

I wasn't aware of the leaks in the original decision. I fished my copy of Woodward and Armstrong off the shelf, and confirmed that there's nary a peep about it. This just confirmed to me that the take of the press cannot be trusted when it comes to the issue of the leaking of confidential documents.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all in favor of people like Daniel Ellsberg and Jeffrey Wigand being protected. I just think that the nature of what is being leaked matters, and that leaks which involve private discussions of the issues rather than deception of the public at large are ultimately corrosive to democracy. If people can't have open and honest discussions about what they really want behind the scenes, bargaining breaks down and everything becomes political posturing. I would be against Assange and his views of transparency (eg: diplomatic cables) and pro-Snowden as a consequence.

I would agree that the Court's legitimacy has largely been stripped away by the actions of the GOP, and the case of Merrick Garland in particular. The two most influential justices of the Warren Court (Warren and Brennan) were appointed by Eisenhower. This is totally different. I wouldn't characterize the Court as out of touch to the degree of the House of Lords - there are some outstanding people on the Court right now - but the current conservative coalition is wildly out of step with America as a whole.

One does not summon the FBI to conduct an investigation unless one is serious about bringing some legitimacy to whatever sanctions are handed down, and the findings. I think Roberts is either as furious as Burger reportedly was, or plans to use them to legitimize deception that he conducts by controlling the flow of information to them.

 

[Martin Alvito]

He doesn't believe in freedom of speech. He believes in freedom of consequences which only ever protects, brace yourself, rich white people.

That isn't about race. It's about whoever happens to possess power at the time. I don't think that Idi Amin much believed in consequences either.

 

[Mikey_Fitzgerald]

Isn't this related to new legislation which prohibits teachers mentioning gays, trans etc in case it "damages the children".
Guns are ok though. We'll allow them, but mentioning that gay people exist - nope, can't have that.

Gots to have the guns as they stop the government from taking away your rights, such as the rights to have an abortion

Hang on, wait

 

[Lobster Johnson]

That isn't about race. It's about whoever happens to possess power at the time. I don't think that Idi Amin much believed in consequences either.

I don't think there's any denying the role race plays in power dynamics in America.

Idi Amin was notorioulsy brutal to Christian tribes in Uganda during his time as well.