NiV, absolutely! The quality of discourse and thought from intelligent men makes me proud to be a fellow Y-chromosome haver.
Following the twitter rabbit hole also promptly bought me into contact with tweets from Shane Lal, the Young New Zealander of the Year 2023. I understand he got his award for fighting against conversion therapy, but digging a bit deeper it looks like his campaign was against trans “conversion therapy”. Anyway, his display on twitter relating to the granny in Auckland who had her skull cracked by a TRA at the Let Women Speak event was really something. Homophobia, misogyny, and the name calling expected of a dull nine year old bully. It did not make me proud of New Zealand, and from the replies to him I think more than 98% of the people who viewed the tweets felt the same.
I mourn for the man I thought he was. Like other atheist bloggers from heady days of the 20oughts, I thought we were friends, but he like Ed’s brother DuWayne found it easy to accuse gender skeptics of bigotry rather than check into why we questioned it.
Well that’s sorted, then. When in doubt, reach for a label. Once applied, the label renders further dialogue completely unnecessary.
I am sure that Plato and his Athenian contemporaries understood that. After all, they had all those slaves to do the work, so they could just sit around and philosophise till the cows came home. Which mainly consisted of rooting around in their label bags for the ones they judged most fit for purpose in the dialogue, monologue, polylogue or whatever, of the moment. Then… (drum roll please…!) End of story.
It made me wonder what I’m supposed to do. I can’t believe the dogma even if I try, so what do I do? (What do all of us do?) Just lie? Just pretend to believe it? But if that’s the answer where does it stop? Should we all pretend to believe in a god? Which one? And why are people who are so adamant that we shouldn’t be forced or social pressured into pretending to believe in a god so equally adamant that we’re a fucking TERF if we don’t believe men can be women?
Keep fighting against misogyny and sexism, as always — protecting and defending women is a worthy cause, and keep fighting against indoctrination — protecting and defending the truth is also worthy cause.
Protecting and defending children against those who’s ideology would cause them irreparable harm is also a worthy cause.
Some members of my family were ‘fundamentalist’ Christians, who believed that the whole of the Bible was literally true and the actual Word of God. They thought of themselves as people who had a special relationship with God; in order, as they saw it, to maintain that relationship, and also to remain within the circle of like-minded ‘believers’, they had trained themselves to ignore the inconsistencies within and between the various books of the Bible, as well, of course, as believing other impossible things.
Those otherwise intelligent people who cling to transgenderist nonsense remind me of them: their need to be among the righteous, their need to testify, fear of falling into heresy, above all, I suspect, fear of rejection by the group.
soogeeoh, my father-in-law had a phrase he used (always for people on the left): bearded wonder. He had no intention of paying attention to bearded wonders, who only wanted to give his money away to people who wouldn’t work.
I’m sure he would have been happy to recycle the phrase for this.
Just to make it clear, that definition of wanting to give his money away to people who wouldn’t work is his formulation, not mine. In his world, I would probably qualify as a bearded wonder, even though I have no beard. He didn’t live long enough to get to know me well enough to apply the epithet.
Whatever happened to not being disagreeable when disagreeing? It’s part and parcel of being “woke” these days though. Of course many on the right are just as obnoxious.
Do you identify as a bigot? And if you don’t, then which attributes can we have regardless of how we identify?
Ya gotta be awestruck by the erudition on display, though, right?
NiV, absolutely! The quality of discourse and thought from intelligent men makes me proud to be a fellow Y-chromosome haver.
Following the twitter rabbit hole also promptly bought me into contact with tweets from Shane Lal, the Young New Zealander of the Year 2023. I understand he got his award for fighting against conversion therapy, but digging a bit deeper it looks like his campaign was against trans “conversion therapy”. Anyway, his display on twitter relating to the granny in Auckland who had her skull cracked by a TRA at the Let Women Speak event was really something. Homophobia, misogyny, and the name calling expected of a dull nine year old bully. It did not make me proud of New Zealand, and from the replies to him I think more than 98% of the people who viewed the tweets felt the same.
I mourn for the man I thought he was. Like other atheist bloggers from heady days of the 20oughts, I thought we were friends, but he like Ed’s brother DuWayne found it easy to accuse gender skeptics of bigotry rather than check into why we questioned it.
For those wondering, there should be a virtual /s after ‘…haver.’
Science has not established that men are women.
Atheism does not accept belief as evidence.
Feminism is not about men’s rights.
Words have meaning.
How is it “progressive” to deny of any of these facts?
Are all twitter bio’s irreproachable, or can we take Kristjan’s with a grain of salt?
Ignorance identifying as self-righteousness should be more fun. Where’s your sense of humor? :P
Well that’s sorted, then. When in doubt, reach for a label. Once applied, the label renders further dialogue completely unnecessary.
I am sure that Plato and his Athenian contemporaries understood that. After all, they had all those slaves to do the work, so they could just sit around and philosophise till the cows came home. Which mainly consisted of rooting around in their label bags for the ones they judged most fit for purpose in the dialogue, monologue, polylogue or whatever, of the moment. Then… (drum roll please…!) End of story.
hm, that “beard” thing of Glinner’s (Twitter search: beard (from:Glinner))
it applies, does it not?
It made me wonder what I’m supposed to do. I can’t believe the dogma even if I try, so what do I do? (What do all of us do?) Just lie? Just pretend to believe it? But if that’s the answer where does it stop? Should we all pretend to believe in a god? Which one? And why are people who are so adamant that we shouldn’t be forced or social pressured into pretending to believe in a god so equally adamant that we’re a fucking TERF if we don’t believe men can be women?
I knew I recognised the name from somewhere but couldn’t place it.
Keep fighting against misogyny and sexism, as always — protecting and defending women is a worthy cause, and keep fighting against indoctrination — protecting and defending the truth is also worthy cause.
Protecting and defending children against those who’s ideology would cause them irreparable harm is also a worthy cause.
Lest we lose all perspective.
Some members of my family were ‘fundamentalist’ Christians, who believed that the whole of the Bible was literally true and the actual Word of God. They thought of themselves as people who had a special relationship with God; in order, as they saw it, to maintain that relationship, and also to remain within the circle of like-minded ‘believers’, they had trained themselves to ignore the inconsistencies within and between the various books of the Bible, as well, of course, as believing other impossible things.
Those otherwise intelligent people who cling to transgenderist nonsense remind me of them: their need to be among the righteous, their need to testify, fear of falling into heresy, above all, I suspect, fear of rejection by the group.
soogeeoh, my father-in-law had a phrase he used (always for people on the left): bearded wonder. He had no intention of paying attention to bearded wonders, who only wanted to give his money away to people who wouldn’t work.
I’m sure he would have been happy to recycle the phrase for this.
Just to make it clear, that definition of wanting to give his money away to people who wouldn’t work is his formulation, not mine. In his world, I would probably qualify as a bearded wonder, even though I have no beard. He didn’t live long enough to get to know me well enough to apply the epithet.
Whatever happened to not being disagreeable when disagreeing? It’s part and parcel of being “woke” these days though. Of course many on the right are just as obnoxious.