Emerald

You're once again trying to move the goal posts to a different argument to try to get me on weaker footing... because you know you've already lost the argument we're actually having. If you were actually honest, you'd recognize that your approach of nitpicking the left about accepting trans people will do NOTHING to achieve the economic vision you'd like see. Instead, if you want to achieve that economic vision, then we have to stop conceding to the right wing framing on social issues and personal freedom... as it weakens us and strengthens them. But you've already conceded that the right wing is the direction you want to go for freedom... the freedom to conform to conservative social norms or be prosecuted or thrown into some concentration camp. There's no greater incarceration than the right wing conceptualization of freedom.

A razor sharp way of speaking does not a truth-teller make. But I was just being funny because seeing Leo as having a genuine allegiance to truth here is just because you like Leo... and you're not recognizing the glaring flaws of his "No bs" approach.

You're moving the goal posts. I said nothing about Socialism. I was talking about winning and losing rhetoric and how your rhetorical strategy is a loser, when it comes to advocating for a progressive economic Populist vision.

Fixed it for you.

That's laughably untrue.... and that should be obvious. First off, there is no freedom without equality under the law. You may not realize this yet because you are a rich white man... and you don't understand what it is to have your personal rights and freedoms on the chopping block. And you don't understand what freedom is or the value of freedom is because you've never actually had your liberty threatened in any kind of meaningful way. Secondly, the right wing is HYPER authoritarian and wants to ban and eradicate all people and expressions that deviate from its sense of what's normal. This is observable.. even if you're not personally affected by it

Leo the ego is human... and is not operating from God consciousness... nor can Leo ever operate from God consciousness. If your ego dissolved, you would recognize the wisdom of embracing death as well as life... and mercy as well as suffering... and truth as well as illusion. And you would have no such polarization towards truth and away from illusion... as you would recognize that you were the creator of both of those poles in the dichotomy. And you would recognize your existence as Truth in a way that transcends and includes your notions of both truth and illusion from the finite perspective. All these dichotomies that Leo currently polarizes along as an ego would collapse... and you would recognize the intelligence of the holistic picture as the "video game designer". And the wisdom of that is to recognize the existence of Bowser is necessary to make the Mario games complete. And the Mario games are only GOOD because Bowser is in them. But Leo is and will forever be just an avatar. And because Leo the avatar has confused himself into thinking he's operating from the paradigm of the video game coder... he forgets that he must defeat Bowser to win the game. And he is a Mario that allows the Koopas to run amok.... thinking himself wiser for losing the game.

Once again, we're talking about what is rhetorically effective.... and why your strategy of nitpicking the left isn't effective and my framing is. And you can only be rhetorically effective if you have simple concepts and slogans that the average person understands and resonates with. You can't get super wonky or in the weeds about things. But when you frame yourself as pro-freedom and pro-acceptance... you can clarify a bit that it means freedom over personal decisions that don't impede upon others' freedom. And that acceptance means acceptance of all the different folkways we have. It's not hard to communicate that... especially if you say it as a rebuttal when a right-winger or foolish left-winger who has fallen into the traps set by the right wing propaganda machine (like you) starts to press you on accepting trans people. Then, you answer... "Yes, I accept people because I am pro freedom. And I mind my own business because whatever trans people are doing isn't effecting my life. Do you believe that the government should be controlling people's personal life and squelching our freedoms?"

100% His whole argument is lacking in real heart wisdom. And if he was being honest with himself, I hope he would see that he doesn't even agree with himself when the rubber meets the road. His identity is just too wrapped up in the notion of truth being the highest good and him being the type of person that always sticks to the truth, even if the entire world burns. But it's all just ego... and defending his own ideological leanings under the guise of defending truth.

So holding to a principled stance on acceptance and freedom are corrupt to you? It's clear to me that you care more about nitpicking the left to death when they deviate from your ideology than you do about harm prevention, truth, and justice.... and stopping the forces of corruption from proliferating.

It's not about following a leftist ideology to win elections. In fact, if you're too ideological and wonky, you'll lose people. It's about strategically framing acceptance and freedom as the normal "duh" positions. And the cost of not doing that is TONS of human suffering... and the forces of corruption proliferating because there is no force keeping it in check. You can chalk a lot of the current sufferings up to the fact that the left neurotically tosses away power and the right neurotically hoards it. In the tree of life, there are two polarities that roughly translate to "mercy" and "severity". And if you polarize into severity, the forces of severity proliferate. But if you polarize into mercy and integrate no severity, the forces of severity also proliferate because there is nothing keeping the forces of severity in check. And it's precisely because people on the left are too high and mighty and smelling their own farts about "being good" to wield something as gauche as power, that there is nothing to check the forces of corruption.

So, you will be the person that sticks to the truth and tells the Nazis "There are Jews hiding in the basement." It tells me a lot about you.

I only want to fight, bitch, and defend people who will get hurt if no one speaks up for them. It's corruption to do anything less.

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.