Emerald

That's a totally different scenario! He is staying true to the truth at his own expense... and for the purpose of the greater good. His expression of allegiance to the truth is the opposite of corruption. And it is far more akin to my principled stance around accepting others and not conceding to the right-wing bigoted framing... than it is towards whatever the heck you think you're doing. For you, it's just about maintaining an identity of being committed to truth at the expense of unlimited amounts of human death and suffering... EXCEPT for when that suffering impacts yourself.

If a left-winger who's fighting for things that save people from their demise learns to wield the powers that the right wing effortlessly wields because they have no such identity of goodness that prevents them from using their strength, that person would be doing the lord's work. You will find corruption where polarization exists. The right winger has an identity polarization into strength and away from weakness. And the left winger has an identity polarization into goodness and away from badness. (This is you... Mister I'm so good that I'd let people suffer and die to tell the truth... whilst also lying about your allegiance to truth because you know it's bullshit when you're on the chopping blocks.) And it is precisely the left-winger's identity of goodness that makes them throw away their power and to allow the forces of corruption to proliferate. This is the whole plot of the The Dark Crystal... and it shows the dangers of polarization. And right now, you're so polarized into an identity of goodness around the allegiance to truth that you don't even recognize that you're lying to yourself... and you have build a sociopathic value system. You've polarized so much into goodness... that your viewpoint has become both spineless and evil.

Imagine a scenario where you let your child die. And then, when people ask you why, you say "Don't worry. There are no others. I let my child die to show my allegiance to the truth and to avoid corruption." Do you not see the issue with defining corruption this way? Is it not far more corrupt to let the child die?

You should watch The Dark Crystal... as it demonstrates the importance of embracing Yin and Yang. Right now, you have a polarization towards truth (with a lowercase t)... and it holds you back from integrating illusion and realizing Truth (with a capital t). You needlessly and egoicly lie to yourself that your value is truth, when you know it isn't. You're too obsessed with maintaining an identity that's locked in a lower expression of polarized goodness to realize a higher goodness.

There is a parable, I'd like to share that I heard many years ago. There was a master sitting underneath a tree in the woods. And he had just gotten done instructing his students on the value of truth and how one should always be truthful. Then, a frightened man ran up to him and said "There are men chasing me through the woods. And if they find me, they will kill me. I'm going to climb up this tree. Please don't tell them that I'm up there." And the man climbed up the tree. Several minutes later, 3 or 4 men with weapons came barreling through the woods looking around. And they happened upon the master and asked the master "Did you see a man come by here?" And the master said plainly and without hesitation said, "No."

Whose definition of corruption is that? If you'd let all the world burn just to stay truthful... then it's all about you maintaining your worldview and identity of goodness. Be honest with yourself and humble yourself... all this truth stuff you claim is just a way to build a superior ego. And if you had to lie and cheat and steal to avoid the chopping block... you would. Perhaps you wouldn't' do it for others because you care more about your identity of truthfulness than you care about human life. But your allegiance to the truth would crumble as soon as it's you rotting away in a concentration camp.

Pure corruption and devilry!

Right wingers shove trans issues in people's faces all the time. It's all they focus on. But Democrats scarcely mention trans people... yet still get accused of shoving trans issues in people's faces. That's not something we can control. That's going to happen no matter what. And the only way to fight against that is to reframe it as a general policy of accepting people and being anti-authoritarian... and saying "We're not obsessed with trans people like right wingers are. We just life and let live and focus all of our attention on bread and butter issues." You're not going to get anywhere with a "Don't worry. We normal and hate the transes too."

The anti-DEI stuff and anti-trans stuff is just two flavors of the same thing. It's important not to make these divisions because it just divides the left-wing base... just like Leo's doing with his nitpicks about wokeness. United we stand... divided we fall. And all of these narratives of distancing from wokeness, DEI, and trans rights are just working class dividers to keep us weak.

If you had to be a left-wing Tucker Carlson to save the people you care about from suffering and ruin, would you? I don't think you'd be selfless enough to do that. You're too attached to your identity of goodness to be effective in that way. And you'd allow all of the people in the world to suffer and die in concentration camp before you budge from your pedestal of convenient self-serving ethics.

Again... it's you who is sniffing out the things that most people would find odd. And it is I who is actually thinking wisely about how to reframe it to minimize the damage you're doing. I wish the right wingers were as politically unsavvy as you're being... as it would move a lot more people to the left. Imagine if Tucker Carlson spent the majority of his rhetorical power trying to distance himself from the right wingers who want to take away women's right to vote to ensure that he doesn't come across as extreme. He would weaken himself considerably.... and he would divide his party. Instead, he pretends this more extreme views don't exist in any serious way and frames his arguments as normal... and he inches people more and more towards his viewpoint. And he even serves as a pipeline to more extreme views like "women shouldn't have the right to vote" Get a bit more savvy!

As someone who grew up in a conservative redneck town, I can tell you that that's just not true. Mind your own business is a sentiment that's very popular in the hearts and minds of the majority of the American people. And polling even shows that most people are indifferent to trans people and really don't care. It's only about 25%-30% of people who have a trans hate boner... and a great deal of that is because they're fed a steady diet of right wing propaganda that claims that trans people are trying to trans your kids. And the reality is the right wingers focus on trans issues WAY more than left wingers do. You can see this by the sheer volume of anti-trans bills and laws that are penned and passed. So, you can frame it as "Right wing politicians have no serious solutions that help people and are just looking to cut taxes on the wealthy and gut social security, while obsessing about trans people all the time to scare a certain vocal component of their base." (which is actually true) And left wingers don't get hung up on people's personal choices because we're pro-freedom and mind our own business, and we focus on an actual economic populist vision that puts food on the table.

And the right wing propaganda writes itself in the mouths of economic leftists who go out of their way to make the right wing's anti-social-freedom case for them. The way to respond to these criticisms is, who tf cares if tampons are required to be stocked in public restrooms? It's not causing any harm, and it's better to have those resources available than to not.

There's nothing unrealistic about my framing suggestion... as it was already normalized and mainstreamed until the right wing propaganda machine took root on the internet and de-normalized my framing. My framing is just accept that there are people who are different from you in the world and mind your own business. And it's a bit neurotic and obsessive if you care so much what trans people are doing.

Are you claiming that the leftist party lost because of some random bathroom-related policy? What are they doing in those Canadian bathrooms?!?!?!

Whatever is happening in Canadian restrooms must not be weird enough to scare people off. The liberal party candidate won.

Recall... policy is codified law... not niche ideas posed by random people on the internet. Name a Democrat and/or progressive mainstream politician who has done anything remotely similar to what you're claiming. You will find no such instances. Now, look and see how much they still get tarred and feathered with the "goofy woke" label because well-meaning people fall for and proliferate false narratives like "Republicans are the serious ones who focus on the economy... while Democrats only focus on goofy things like getting funding for sex reassignment surgery for toddlers." It's all lies and exaggerations of course. But you can always find random people on the internet with ungrounded ideas and show them as an example. So, people fall for it. And when you assert that it's true that Tim Walz was focused on putting tampons in boy's bathrooms (when it was a total right wing contrivance), you just fed the beast of your own political side's demise.

In terms of abortion rights, my argument is purely a bodily sovereignty argument. I don't believe the government should control what you do with your own body, even if another body happens to exist within it. I see people as the sole sovereign governors of their own body. And as long as the fetus is before viability (at 22 weeks), you should be allowed to abort because the baby requires your body to exist... and you are in control of your body. Once the fetus is beyond 22 weeks when the baby can survive outside of the womb, you should be allowed to induce delivery and put the baby up for adoption. Now, the vast majority of abortions happen in the first 6-8 weeks. And late term abortions tend to be for serious medical reasons that threaten the mother or baby's life... or both. It would be exceedingly rare for a woman to take the pregnancy to 22 weeks and beyond and decide she wanted to end it voluntarily. But even beyond this bodily sovereignty argument, the reality is that when restrictive abortion laws are on the books... more women die because doctors fear being prosecuted for performing a life-saving abortion in the case of serious pregnancy complications. No woman is safe to get pregnant in a state with strict abortion laws. My advice to women who want to have children is to try to relocate to a state with more lenient laws around abortion, just in case there's a life-threatening emergency.

And the only way to solve this is by seizing the power of normalization and saying "Yes, we're the normal moderate people who mind our own business and focus on real economic issues, instead of obsessively hating on trans people. You cannot avoid being stereotyped as someone who accepts trans people on the left. You will not outrun that stereotype, nor should you try to. You'll have to come to a point of acceptance that trans acceptance and the embrace of social freedoms is just part of the left wing movement. You can either run away from the accusation that you're pro-trans and cede to the right wing framing that accepting trans people is weird. Or you can own it and make it clear that the weird thing is being a busy-body and obsessing about trans people.

It's always the same pattern of women, ethnic/racial/religious minorities, people who don't conform to gender norms, and culture heretics in general existing or asking for basic rights... and then people obsessively hating on them for existing and wanting basic rights. But the 20-25% of people who feel that way need a way to get normies on board with their hate. And they use narratives like "God, this is a culture war that divides us all." or "Did you know that teachers are putting litter boxes in middle school classrooms for kids who identify as furries?" or "Did you know that Tim Walz' put tampons in the boys bathroom because of the goofy trans stuff?" But it's the same stuff that's always been. It's just that trans people are last hired, first fired. So, trans folks are usually the first targeted in these anti-freedom authoritarian hate movements. But if trans hate is normalized... it will go back to the attempt to normalize gay hate in the eyes of normies and mainstream society and to get rid of their rights. And if gay hate is normalized... it will go back to the attempt to normalize immigrant hate in the eyes of normies and mainstream society and to get rid of their rights. And if immigrant hate is normalized... it will go back to the attempt to normalize racial hate in the eyes of normies and mainstream society and to get rid of their rights. And if racial hate is normalized... it will go back to the attempt to normalize woman hate in the eyes of normies and mainstream society and to get rid of their rights. And if all that is normalized... anyone with a heretical viewpoint will be targeted and silenced. Don't' fall for it... and don't normalize it, as it's only a matter of time before you're on the same chopping block for possessing a heretical viewpoint.

It's just the reality of it. The culture war is and has always been about an ideological opposition to the existence of certain people. So, there's just gay and trans people just existing. And then a bunch of obsessive busy-bodies get pressed and neurotic about that fact and want to stop them from existing (or at the very least to stop existing in their vicinity). It's the same thing as it used to be with black people in the 60s and before. Black people were just existing. And then a bunch of obsessive busy-bodies got pressed and neurotic about that fact and wanted black people to stop existing (or at the very least to stop existing in their vicinity). But when black people wanted equality... instead of calling it a "culture war", we aptly named it "The Civil Rights Movement." And it's a good thing too, or black civil rights would have been framed as a 'frivolous goofy culture war that leftists have to leave behind if their economic movement is going to succeed.' It's the same situation now. The only difference is that the groups targeted are different. (thought we can always lose the ground we've gained if we keep ceding to the right on social issues) And being neurotic about the existence of people who are different from you should not be mainstreamed or viewed as normal in the eyes of the Overton Window. Here's ye olde "culture war"...

There is no such thing as the culture war, as the culture war is just a right wing narrative used to invalidate people they don't like. The reality is that there are people with differences who happen to exist... and neurotic people taking issue with the fact that people exist that they would prefer not to exist.

It isn't my point that there aren't any insane leftists. There are crazies from all walks of life. My point is that you keep adding more fuel to the right wing fire by conceding to their framing and spreading their anti-woke lies and propaganda for them... and you keep framing YOUR OWN SIDE as goofy and reinforcing lies that right wingers have used to smear middle of the road Democrats. And all it does is divide the left and weaken your own cause... while you believe that you're strengthening it by trying to get the extremist stench off of you. But in so doing, you are reaffirming to the world that there is a stench and that what you support isn't normal... but that right wing authoritarian control over people's personal choices and obsession with trans people is normal. How many times have I heard, "If only Kamala didn't do identity politics and focus on trans issues, she would have won." But she very deliberately didn't do that. It's just that anyone left of the far right is going to get hit with lies and propaganda that paint them out as unserious out of touch wokies. And lefties will keep getting tarred and feathered that way until they actually own their pro-freedom and pro-acceptance position and full-throatedly normalize it in the way that the average person can understand. The only acceptable position is, "I accept people and mind my own business because I'm not a weird neurotic busy-body who's obsessed with trans people and what's in their pants." If you try to cower away from the accusations of being "goofy woke lefties", the right wing is going to continue to win the propaganda war... and middle of the road Democrats will continue to be labeled as goofy woke lefties who only care about whether or not trans people get to compete in sports (when they haven't even said dick about it.) And this issue is that you believe this is a winning strategy, believing that you're strengthening the leftist economic message by running away from these pro-freedom and pro-acceptance stances relative to people's personal choices. But the reality is that the left is associated with social freedoms and acceptance of diversity. And there is no chance of getting away from it... as we are the pro-freedom party. And we don't get hung up about weird psycho-sexual obsessions like the right wing does. So, I hope that I'm making myself clear that you are buying into made-up anti-woke narratives that the right wing used to smear Kamala and Tim Walz... and that it's the proliferation of this kind of narrative that weakens our movement. Own it... we're pro-freedom and pro-acceptance... and we mind our own business. And anyone who isn't, is obsessive and weird about things that are none of their business.

Which sounds goofier to you... - People should mind their own business and accept people's differences. OR - The trans people are coming to trans your kids and sneaking into women's bathrooms! Trans people are a sign of the decline of Western Civilization!!!!! It all depends on how you're framing it. And so far, there's a lot of guys in this comment section (including Leo) who keep conceding to the right wing framing that poses basic social freedoms as goofy. And you guys keep stating that Democrats are too focused on trans issues... when they very much are not. But it doesn't matter how much Kamala Harris or Joe Biden didn't talk about trans people, they keep getting tarred and feathered as unserious people who are trying to put litterboxes in classroom. And you can't win by distancing yourself from trans people, because it just concedes to the right wing framing on the issue. Instead, you have to be the adult in the room and be like "Yes, we accept people who are different from us. And we mind our business. AND we respect people's personal freedoms to do whatever they feel is right as long as it doesn't harm others... unlike the other side that wants to control you."

But the point is that NO ONE is putting tampon dispensers in men's bathrooms. That was a lie that the right wing created to smear Tim Walz. And now, you're doing their propagandizing for them like a fool! Stop conceding to right wing talking points and framing! Instead, stick with a common sense approach and be like "Stop being obsessed with trans people. Just let people live their lives."