Emerald

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."

Thank you for recommending my videos!

Of course if you frame it as "Our policy position is drag shows for kids." people aren't going to moved towards supporting politicians who run on that platform... nor is any politician actually doing so. That's just another right wing talking point that's like "Kamala and Joe Biden support drag shows for kids." and you're proliferating it and doing their propaganda job for them. So, that's not what I'm talking about or disagreeing with. I'm disagreeing with you conceding to the rightwing framing with regards to social issues and framing those as "woke goofy stuff", when it's actually about asserting the values of freedom and acceptance... and a rejection of authoritarian control over social issues and personal choices. All that does is weaken the left and strengthen the right when you cede this ground to them and put an arbitrary dividing line between protecting social freedoms and economic populism... because you can't really have one without the other. It's like Neo-Nazi women who complain about misogyny in right wing spaces. Don't expect gender equality in your ethnostate, lady! Similarly, don't expect normalized transphobia in your anti-corruption Social Democracy movement of the people.

The way to have political influence is to be able to create and put out simple narratives and visions that people can understand and get on board with... and to assert your paradigm onto the world in a way that dovetails off of how people already think. And nothing needs to be nefarious or untrue about the narratives. They just need to be simple and give people a sense that they belong within that story and that that story is leading them to deeper levels of connection and movement towards a vision. Right wingers understand power a lot more than left wingers do. And they have a very well-funded apparatus for influencing people. So, they tend to be better at these things and less ideologically opposed to them. But the only way to avoid ceding power to the right and adding to their propaganda is to avoid conceding to their ideological framing... and to assert the normalcy of our own frame.

That mindset is just a way of submitting to the right wing and losing by default before you've actually lost. First off, you're not trying to get dyed in the wool conservatives who strongly hold onto some principled traditional values. That's a minority group anyway. You're trying to get the majority of people who are deeply influenceable and are changing their views based off of what is considered normal and moderate in the eyes of society. And if you go conceding that being anti-trans is the normal thing, those "moderate" people will moderate themselves right into the clutches of the far right. Remember that the Nazis were moderate and "normal" for their era and location... as whatever is normalized will be considered normal. Plus, the tides are always shifting... and the time is ripe for people to start getting increasingly agitated at the right wing status quo, especially with the upcoming economic recession that's about to happen. People are on the look out for the "other side" of the binary to propose something very different and better than what is now.

This again, negates the power that we have to work together to impose a political narrative and paradigm... including what the political camps actually are and how we understand them. We get too locked into working with and around what is and making concessions where we shouldn't be making concessions... that we forget that we also have influence to assume the dominant frame and redefine the whole game. Have you not seen the right wing do just that over the past 10 years?

When you have a very sophisticated and well-funded propaganda machine at your disposal, you can change people's views very quickly.

It all depends on how your frame things. If you frame things as woke socialist crap, they'll run away. And the more you call the lefty position woke socialist crap, the more you scare people away and they go to the right (who you've already foolishly conceded are more normal for being anti-woke and ceded power to). But if you frame it as freedom, the Golden Rule, and mind your own business... and let's work together for a more economically fair system, they'll eat it up. The same thing is true that people will run away if you come right out the gate wearing Swastika armbands. But if you drip feed people false but believable ideas like "more immigration equals more crime" then you can get the normies on board. And in a few short years, they'll be goose-stepping with the worst of 'em.

That's just not correct. The current right-wing narrative became so dominant because there is a billionaire-funded and multi-layered right-wing propaganda machine tasked with creating slogans and narratives and normalizing increasingly more and more extreme viewpoints. And because social media has become a lot more sophisticated in the past decade, it's been the perfect conduit for this well-funded propaganda machine to have more and more influence. People will get mad at who and what they're conditioned to get mad at. I've seen this in people that I know who were very accepting of gay people 10 years ago... but now believe that gay people are groomers who want to abuse children because they've been conditioned to think that way. And I've heard people's values get brainwashed out of them in favor of rote right wing narratives. If there were no such apparatus of power, we would not be in this position.

I never said that you could talk a person out of their level of development. People are where they are. But people are VERY influenceable and malleable. You can get a Stage Green person to join the Nazis... and you can get a Stage Blue person to get on board with Social Democracy if you know how to influence people. And you can utilize your awareness of their level of development to loop them into your movement... not by conceding the content of your paradigm, but by framing the content of your paradigm within the structure of their paradigm. You're not going to get anywhere with conceding to the right wing framing that accepting trans people is weird. Instead, you have to make it clear that their lack of acceptance and desire to control is weird... and you must not concede as it just add more normalcy and power to their POV when it's anything but normal. Consider this... As a child, I was a very absolutist thinker that had a Stage Blue mentality. I can recognize that I was in this phase until I was about 13 or 14 or so when I started to become aware of social constructs. But I was taught as a Stage Blue child to be against racism and prejudice by parents, teachers, and pop culture. And I believed it as an absolute in a very Stage Blue dogmatic kind of way, where there was an absolute value of "Those with lighter skin shouldn't be mean to those with darker skin." It was the content of Stage Green views framed in the structure of a Stage Blue absolute dogma. And I believed it like someone believes a scripture of a holy book. And I didn't perfectly understand why the rule only applied in one direction (only from white to black... and not from black to white)... and I didn't even question that until I entered Stage Orange as a teenager. And I didn't even understand the answer to that question until I opened up to a more Stage Green perspective in my early 20s. So, you can load the content of any stage into the structure of any stage if you frame it the way that that stage thinks of things. The Left unnecessarily ties its hands and accepts the right wing framing so often. And it's one of the major reasons why we have such little power compared to the right wing.

That's an incorrect assumption. And it's a total misunderstanding of how power and influence works. You can always shape and form people's viewpoints regardless of where they are Spiral Dynamics-wise. People don't need to be on the same level of development as a political movement to get on board with a political movement. You just need to frame things in a way that normies will respond to and inch them closer to your position over time. It's just like how the far right has gotten a lot of Stage Green hippie folks to go Fascist by posing the right wing as the rebellious contrarian anti-establishment position and the left wing as the establishment position. Of course Fascists aren't Stage Green. But the creators of the propaganda machine that's tasked with normalizing Fascism understands Stage Green enough to know how to rope them into their movement. So, you just have to use language that fits within the prevailing paradigm of society and that will resonate with most normies (which is mostly Orange with a bit of Blue)... and you can get people on board with just about anything. And this should be obvious at this point... given all the outlandish extreme stuff that's been normalized over the past decade. Now, most people won't resonate with a deeper Green message about where trans identities come from and bla bla bla. But that wasn't going to carry any rhetorical weight anyway, as it's too complex. The narratives and slogans themselves have to avoid being too complex, ideological, or wonky. Instead, you have to appeal to the value of freedom... and to the idea of minding your own business... which are already normalized in society and are situated smack in the middle of the Overton Window. And you have to frame people who get hung up about trans people as weird and neurotic and anti-freedom... because they genuinely are weird and neurotic and anti-freedom. You have to make it a taboo where people will try to avoid having that social stench on them because it's associated with creepy guys who never bathe or go outside and who post on 4-chan everyday. And you do it just the same way as the right wing did with blue-haired SJWs back in 2015-2016. They took a mainstream viewpoint of "accept people's differences"... and they found a group of screeching weirdos that held that viewpoint. And they used these same images of screeching weirdos to stigmatize the idea "accept people's differences" to the point where some would want to run away from association with that value because they didn't want to be seen as belonging to the group of screeching weirdos. The left needs to learn to do our own version of that to re-normalize the "accept people's difference" viewpoint after 10 years of heavy right wing propagandizing and re-affirm it as the norm. We on the left may be developed enough to understand Green values. But we need to be smart enough to figure out how to wield power well enough to re-normalize this value through the current societal lens. And you need to show crazy creepy weirdos obsessing about trans people and transvestigating everyone in the same light as those blue-haired SJWs... and put it out there as a popular meme. Then, have the progressive politicians be like "Duh. In our party we're pro-freedom and we mind our own business... and we focus on the real issues (insert economic populist vision here) instead of getting hung up on neurotically fearing people like the other side does."

Because slavery had to do with the economic interests of the rich and powerful... and the rich and powerful were using their power to impose their own "narratives of normal" onto society. And they had created many narratives for why slavery was normal, right, good, and justified that the populace bought into despite very few white people having enough money to have slaves. To appeal to liberal types of the time, they basically said that black people couldn't govern themselves properly because they were inferior and uncivilized and needed their white masters to take care of them. To appeal to traditional conservative types, they needed to emphasize the superiority of their culture and people over the enslaved people's culture and people. And they could always appeal to poor white people who wanted to feel like they weren't on the very bottom of the social hierarchy... who could imagine that the power of the white ruling elite would rub off onto them. And I'm sure that abolitionists were framed as a bunch of screeching abnormal Quaker SJWs whose anti-slavery views were so extreme that it would be political suicide for any serious politician at the time. But you don't make any changes like this by conceding to the framing of slave owners and normalizing these viewpoints. You remain steadfast until the only acceptable and serious position in society is that "Slavery is bad" and that anyone who doesn't agree is a crazy stupid racist weirdo who's probably just bitter because they smell bad and women are creeped out by them. That's how you wield power. You don't play defense... and you don't meet weirdos and crazies in the middle. Instead, you give them a disgusted look like you're smelling something bad and say, "You don't ACTUALLY think that way. Do you?" And if they say yes, you laugh at them like you're suprised and you believe they're joking and like they can't possibly be serious. Then, when they say they're serious, you press them... and you make them have to defend the indefensible. You make them play defense and you pose your point of view as the "duh" position.

The concept of moderate and normal are very malleable for people and highly contingent upon the narratives that are mimetically imposed and framed as normal and moderate. If the prevailing narrative is that it's normal to hate trans people and be Nazis... people will hate trans people and be Nazis. And you can notice how so much extreme outlandish stuff has been normalized just because the right keeps insisting all the extreme outlandish stuff is normal. But if the prevailing narrative is that it's normal to live and let live and mind your own business... and that only weird people are hung up on what's in other people's pants... then people will avoid getting caught up in these neurotic anti-trans panic movements.

I know that OCD is involved, so this might not be that reassuring. But there is nothing wrong with being attracted to breasts and at the initial appearance of a woman. All heterosexual men have that as a part of their sexuality, and it's just a normal neutral thing. It's not inherently negative, gross, or bad. And women generally like the fact that men have this component of their sexuality as it makes the sexual dynamic fun because men get really excited about the woman and the woman feels desired. And sex wouldn't really be that exciting for women if men didn't have this component of their sexuality. The problem arises when a man only values women that way... and if he has a paradigm and behaviors that are objectifying... and he directs that tendency towards women who aren't interested in him. There are plenty of men who relate to these components of their sexuality in a gross way. But that's not about their sexuality itself.... it's about their relationship to their sexuality. But I have a friend of mine who had a similar aversion to these components of his own sexuality. And before I met him, he was with a really controlling jealous partner who would always accuse him of ogling other women in public when he wasn't... so that exacerbated the dynamic. She even made him look at the ground when they'd go out grocery shopping together so he wouldn't look at women. And he was so self-conscious about simply noticing when a woman is physically attractive that he would oblige her. He even stopped watching movies with attractive women in them at her request (when most movies have attractive women in them). So, needless to say, this relationship made him feel even more negatively about his maleness and his sexuality. And he was always trying to think of himself as "not like the other guys"... and to try to get rid of his tendency to notice and be attracted to women's' appearances. He was thinking it was a problem that he even noticed when a woman is attractive and he was trying to train himself to not recognize attractiveness in women. But of course, even the straightest of straight girls can notice when a woman is attractive. So, it didn't work. But he eventually came to a point of acceptance and appreciation of this element of his sexuality... and he was glad to have that component of his sexuality. He realized that he'd rather have it than not have it. That's what will likely have to happen for you to come to a sense of peace with your sexuality and maleness.

Again... you're focusing on conforming to old-school values from the 40s as opposed to influencing others with your own values. And it's a show in unsavvy weakness and submissiveness to the conservative paradigm. That's the difference between someone who asserts their power and wins... and those who conforms to the other side's framing and reasserts the normalcy of the other side, even as the other side is certifiably cuckoo crazy.

The bold above is exactly where you assert your position and the normalcy of your position. And then, you put your opponent on defense and having to defend their own neuroticism. The whole game is to put the opposite side on defense.... and you do this by going on offense and press people about "Why are you so obsessed with trans people?". NEVER play defense. It's a losing strategy.

100% People on the Left forget that we have that power too... and they act like everyone's mindset is already set in stone. But people are so malleable and prone of the forces of normalization regardless of where it's coming from or what their starting point is. And Right wingers are the only ones actually molding the clay... while Left wingers are like 'the clay is set in stone' and we have to work around it and avoid imposing our will at all costs.

At least that walk she's going to take will only take an hour.