Guest post: Just some apocalyptic thoughts

Dec 28th, 2024 3:58 am | By

Originally a comment by Francis Boyle on If they hold a certificate.

What does gender identity have to do with strip-searches?

Because trans ideology is a fundamentally moral enterprise and as such has minimal concerns for any facts or indeed any actual human reality. And as a moral enterprise it is fundamentally social and thus ultimately always resolves its conflicts not by reference to actual human needs (even if it sometimes claims to do so) but by deference to (some understanding of) social status. And men in dresses, however much they are identified as women, and as having always been women, retain their male status. (Apparently a male infant gets an irrevocable certificate of male status at some point that mysterious ceremony at birth during which they are are assigned male. The actual birth certificate, however, can be altered. This certificate, like a bad tattoo on the soul, is forever)

And why is such a blatant absurdity not ignored but rather celebrated and indeed elevated to the status of some sort of divine truth?

Well, from my admittedly heretical point of view it’s because we have taken something that was created during the enlightenment, and out of the trauma following the continent-wide devastation of the Thirty Years War, and made it our model of “morality”, that is, of soft social control. That thing is, of course, the idea of the sovereignty of individual conscience.

I want to be clear here, that I am not, of course, claiming that morality didn’t exist prior to the invention of conscience. Morality has always existed, but for most of human history it was religious or the religion itself – the mandate of heaven in all its forms. What needs to be explained is how a fundamentally religious concept can persist in the minds of thoroughly secular or even irreligious people. And to my mind, understanding the (false) idea of the sovereignty of individual conscience is the key.

In this model the individual obtains a certain status by subscribing to one of the available religious doctrines. Obviously atheism wasn’t available as an option, which I mention only as an illustration of the fundamental limitations of this approach. But once the doctrine is accepted and the status established, the actual way it is applied in a person’s life is entirely a matter of an individual’s conscience. (There are limits, of course. Anyone who pisses off too many people who themselves possess status, or just one person of great status, will quickly find themself out of the club on their arse.)

Now, that might work well in a religious setting where, after all, everything is just made up, but it’s a horrible model for everything else. Remember, the whole purpose of elevating the individual conscience was to get it out of the realm of politics. But here we have a model where a person gains social status, which has a strong, but complex and perilous, relationship to social power and by gaining that status correctly understands that they are authorised to act on behalf of society and in the world (that is to punish, which is to say, harm other people). “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, or the offices of the Guardian, as the case may be.” And that’s not supposed to be a problem? So we have people acting under a societal mandate but when challenged they will claim the privilege of individual conscience. Or rather they will claim both the mandate of society and individual conscience, seeing no conflict in serving two masters. And morality like religion has developed complex mechanisms for simultaneously legitimating and concealing contradictions,so they may well be entirely sincere in their protestations of innocence.

In that it’s a lot like the problem of cranks and conspiracy theorists that plagues the online world. Perhaps it’s the same problem. Doing your own research, thinking for yourself, will get you exactly nowhere. Because nothing we have made was created by individual effort. When The Creature finally comes into the world, it will not be the creation of a lone scientist working in a remote castle but a product of The Frankenstein Company (sole proprietor, the estate of Elon Musk). And that’s the problem. We cannot confront 21st-century problems, let alone those of the twenty-second century (only three quarters of a century away, remember) using social mechanisms created in the 17th and 18th centuries and with their roots firmly planted in the long and oppressive history of religious thought.

Just some apocalyptic thoughts to take you into the new year.



Is it 2015 again?

Dec 27th, 2024 5:26 pm | By

Ructions.

Freethought Now, the blog or online magazine of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, posted an article last month by someone named Kat Grant titled “What is a woman?”

The content, I’m sorry to say, is tediously predictable and indeed already familiar, not to say stale. Usual stuff. Vagina can’t be the answer because trans women can have them, missionaries and colonizers, blah blah. Mind you there is one quite startling lie:

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists, also known as TERFs, claim that transgender women are rapists who are attempting to take away opportunities from “real” women.

The hell we do. Claim that all “transgender women” are rapists? I don’t know of any gender critic who has ever said that, let alone all of us. We do point out that being a trans woman doesn’t rule out being also a rapist, but that’s not even close to saying what Grant claims we say. (Grant is a they. It’s not clear what sex “they” is.)

What’s the point of having freedom from religion if you’re still imprisoned by this kind of bullshit?

So. Jerry Coyne stepped up.

So here’s the story. I’m not only a member  and supporter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, but am also on its Honorary Board.  Thus I was doubly distressed when I saw the post below on their website Freethought Now!, a post that completely ignores the widely-accepted biological definition of a woman—one based on the possession of a reproductive apparatus evolved to produce large immobile gametes—in favor of a definition based on self-identification. (Kat Grant identifies as non-binary.)

He quotes from it and points out what’s wrong with it. Then:

Perhaps you won’t be as distressed as I was when you read it, but as someone who, as an Honorary Director, supposedly gets to weigh in on the direction of the FFRF, I felt I had to say something. Recently-confected and ideological definitions of “woman” not only offend me as a biologist, but they have nothing to do with the mission of the FFRF.  So I asked if I could make these points in a response at the same site. Mirabile dictu, the FFRF let me, for which I’m grateful. You can read what I said by clicking below or going here:

NOTE: My article seems to have disappeared but one copy has been archived in two places,

here:  https://web.archive.org/web/20241227095242/https://freethoughtnow.org/biology-is-not-bigotry/

and herehttps://archive.ph/psT4I

In other words they told him he could reply and then they removed his reply – apparently without telling him so or saying why, let alone apologizing. How very Freethought Blogs.

Read his post: it’s full and detailed and very worth studying.

He concludes with:

Mission creep has begun to erode other once-respected organizations like the ACLU and SPLC, and I would be distressed if this happened to the FFRF.

After a bit of back and forth with the bosses of the FFRF, they accepted this version, which of course will get me in deep trouble with many who favor “progressive” ideology over the biological truth (see below).

But when they published my piece, the FFRF told me this:

We have decided to publish every blog with a disclaimer going forward so don’t feel picked on.

And so they put their very first disclaimer atop my article:

Disclaimer: FFRF Honorary Board Member Jerry A. Coyne requested that this column be written as a guest blog. The views in this column are of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Make of this disclaimer what you will, but I find it a remarkable coincidence that the appearance of disclaimers just happens to accompany the publication of an article discussing the definition of “woman”. 

Right. Don’t feel picked on, but here for the first time ever is a disclaimer at the top of your article.

It’s so very Freethought Blogs.

Massive h/t to Peter N



Let’s make a goaway

Dec 27th, 2024 3:54 pm | By

Speaking of plagues and anti-vaxxers and doom

Pertussis, also known as whooping cough, is making a comeback that no one asked for. Recent federal data shows that cases of the vaccine-preventable disease this year have reached the highest levels in a decade.

As of December 14, there have been 32,085 cases of pertussis reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this year. That’s a fivefold increase from the tally recorded in 2023, which only saw around 6,500 cases. There are several factors to blame for the surge, experts say, including declining vaccination rates.

Well great. We’re stupid and getting stupider.

Since 2000, the U.S. had tens of thousands of annually reported pertussis cases. But as with many infectious diseases, the covid-19 pandemic indirectly reduced the spread of pertussis, thanks in part to people practicing social distancing. With the world and people’s social habits having largely returned to normal, the incidence of these diseases has climbed back up as well. So at least part of this year’s spike in cases could simply be a return to pre-pandemic trends, according to the CDC.

That said, this year’s tally is unusually high for modern times. It’s the highest number of cases seen since 2014, when there were 32,971 cases. And in some states, experts and health officials have blamed lowering vaccination rates among residents and their children for the rise.

And all too soon we’ll be adding Idiot Kennedy to the mix.



The pathogen poses a serious pandemic threat

Dec 27th, 2024 3:38 pm | By

The director of the Center for Epidemic Response and Innovation in South Africa in the NY Times last month:

The World Is Watching the U.S. Deal With Bird Flu, and It’s Scary

As a virus scientist in South Africa, I’ve been watching with dread as H5N1 bird flu spreads among animals in the United States. The pathogen poses a serious pandemic threat and has been detected in over 500 dairy herds in 15 states — which is probably an undercount. And yet the U.S. response appears inadequate and slow, with too few genomic sequences of H5N1 cases in farm animals made publicly available for scientific review.

Failure to control H5N1 among American livestock could have global consequences, and this demands urgent attention. The United States has done little to reassure the world that it has the outbreak contained.

And this is under Biden. Just think how exciting it will get when Junior Kennedy takes over the Department of Health and Human Services.

The recent infection of a pig at a farm in Oregon is especially concerning, as pigs are known to be mixing bowls for influenza viruses. Pigs can be infected by both avian and human influenza viruses, creating a risk for the viruses to exchange genetic material and potentially speed up adaptation for human transmission. The H1N1 pandemic in 2009 was created and spread initially by pigs.

Beyond the risks to its citizens (there are over 45 cases of people in the United States getting the virus in 2024), the United States should remember that the country where a pandemic emerges can be accused of not doing enough to control it. We still hear how China did not do enough to stop the Covid-19 pandemic. None of us would want a new pathogen labeled “the American virus,” as this could be very damaging for the United States’ reputation and economy.

We’re doomed.

H/t Blood Knight



An American culture that venerates mediocrity?

Dec 27th, 2024 11:24 am | By

How sad, they’re fighting already.

A multi-day firestorm has erupted over comments made by two incoming advisers to President-elect Donald Trump about H-1B temporary worker visas, a carve-out for high-skilled workers that some in MAGA world say are taking American jobs.  

It’s so sad when racism and nativism can’t get along with greed and self-dealing.

Vivek Ramaswamy, in a post on X, criticized an American culture that he said “venerated mediocrity over excellence,” attributing this as one reason for the influx of foreign tech workers. Ramaswamy, who is Indian American, went on to say he hopes Trump’s presidency can start an American culture that prioritizes “hard work over laziness.” Tech executives have called for greater access to the widely used immigration visa, arguing that it is necessary to fill high-skilled tech and other specialized jobs.

Trump adviser Elon Musk, with whom Ramaswamy is a co-leader of Trump’s incoming Department of Government Efficiency, had posted yesterday on X in response to a tweet about a shortage of skilled workers in Silicon Valley that “the number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low.” Musk, who was born in South Africa and is a naturalized American citizen, urged people to “[t]hink of this like a pro sports team: if you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That enables the whole TEAM to win.”

The posts generated backlash among ardent MAGA supporters who want a hardline approach to all forms of immigration and exposed a chasm in the relationship with a right-wing faction of some of Trump’s closest allies and advisers from the tech sector.

You mean some Trump fans are racist and ethnocentric? Really??? Well knock me down with a feather.

Some attempted to broker agreement between the factions, with venture capitalist Shaun Maguire defending Krishnan and writing that “the tech community should also hear MAGA’s points,” namely that immigrants “should be skilled AND aligned w/ American values” and fully assimilate.

Which American values? The ones that got Trump elected for instance? Greed, corruption, criminality, bullying, lying, cheating, stealing, boasting?

Should make for some entertainment at least.



Worry about this

Dec 27th, 2024 9:03 am | By

Bird flu is turning up in zoos.

Dozens of rare animals including tigers, lions, and cheetahs are dying as bird flu infiltrates zoos, with potentially “grave implications” for endangered species, researchers have warned.

As a growing number of zoos report animal deaths, scientists are concerned that infected wild birds landing in enclosures could be spreading it among captive animals. In the US, a cheetah, mountain lion, Indian goose, and kookaburra were among the animals that died in Wildlife World Zoo near Phoenix, according to local media reports last week. San Francisco Zoo temporarily closed its aviaries after a wild red-shouldered hawk was found dead on its grounds, and later tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAIV). A rare red-breasted goose died at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, causing aviaries to close and penguin feeding for visitors to be suspended in November. 

Researchers have warned for decades that this variant of bird flu could kill primates, rodents, pigs, and rabbits, with reports of Bengal tigers and clouded leopards also being killed. Infections in zoos were not unexpected, said virologist Dr Ed Hutchinson from Glasgow University. Visitors to zoos in the UK in recent years may have noticed bird enclosures being temporarily closed off or netted when the risks of infection by the H5N1 bird flu variant from wild birds were known to be high, he said. “When zoos care for animals from endangered species, taking measures to reduce the risk those animals face from H5N1, such as limiting access of wild birds to enclosures, is particularly important.”

Bird flu viruses can be passed among a wide variety of animals. In 2020, a variant spread across the world, finally reaching the Antarctic in late 2023, causing millions of wild animals to die across Eurasia, Africa, North America, and South America on its route. In the US, it fully adapted to cattle, increasing the risk of human infections.

I did not know that. It’s not drag, so it didn’t make the headlines.

H/t Blood Knight



Bradford news

Dec 27th, 2024 6:12 am | By

Oh yay, the BBC has another story about drag. BBC News should rename itself BBC Drag News.

An Australian drag queen may not be the obvious choice to be one of the stars of a Christmas panto in Bradford.

But for Shane Jenek, who is currently playing Blue Faerie in the Alhambra’s Pinocchio, it makes perfect sense.

The 42-year-old burst into living rooms down under in 2003 when his alter ego Courtney Act successfully auditioned for Australian Idol (the day after Jenek was rejected) and landed a record deal. Courtney went on to be a runner-up on RuPaul’s Drag Race US in 2014 and won Celebrity Big Brother UK in 2018.

And so on, for 24 more enthralling paragraphs.

Your license fees, paying for daily mockery of women.



Pseudo all the way down

Dec 26th, 2024 5:44 pm | By

Oh dear, I found him – the “transphilogyny” guy. It’s a sort of TED talk but not really. His name is Pella Felton.

Here’s all 16 minutes 46 seconds.

Here’s his pseudo-intellectual drivel in writing, with a couple of paragraph breaks added:

Transphilogyny refers to the affirmation and normalization of transfemininity as womanhood. Coined as an analogue to trans scholar Julie Serrano’s transmisogyny, I devised transphilogyny as a counter to the rise in structural, political and physical violence towards trans women . Rather than looking at such violence as inevitable, I envision transphilogyny as a collection of utopian practices through which we can imagine and enact a different reality through which human women become legible and valued beyond the gendered and often racialialized norms.

In this talk, I envision transphilogyny as epistemology, performance, and phenomenon, inviting the audience to imagine what it would feel like to experience transfeminity as womanhood and how that practice could change their reality. Drawing on the research of queer feminist scholars such as mecha Cardenas, Jill Dolan, and Sarah Ahmed, this presentation asks the audience to discover the political potential of trans womanhood as a means of disrupting the cultural algorithms which force us into increasingly narrowing and divisive experiences of our lives, cultures, and bodies.

Pella is an actor, poet, filmmaker, podcaster, and activist Charleston WV. Her research centers on archival sound performances as cultural phenomena and the world-building potential of digital audio in creating “utopian vibrations” or extensions of performance which reshape our cultural experiences of identity, space and time. Pella has presented her research at the Pacific Ancient Modern Language Association and Great Lake Sound Studies Association. In addition to research Pella also has over 20 years of performance experience as an actor, comedian, poet, and sometimes theologian. Pella is pursuing her PhD In the Department of Theatre and Film at BGSU. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

In short it’s not actually a TED talk, it just identifies as a TED talk.



Can you say “appropriation”?

Dec 26th, 2024 5:11 pm | By

Dude screams that he gets to define what hatred of women is, “patriarchy be damned.”

He also says “philogyny” when he means “misogyny.” Twice. The second time he calls it “philogyny nwar” – meaning, misogynoir, a portmanteau word for, of course, hatred of black women.

Dude is white and male as well as large and loud. He’s not the progressive he thinks he is.



If they hold a certificate

Dec 26th, 2024 4:42 pm | By

Sometimes it just looks like sheer unadulterated sadism. For the sake of it.

Male officers identifying as female are allowed to intimately search women if they hold a gender recognition certificate

Women’s rights campaigners are suing the British Transport Police (BTP) over guidance that allows [male] transgender officers to strip-search women.

Why would they do that? Why would the higher ups lean back in their chairs and blow cigar smoke at the ceiling and decide yes indeed, we will allow men who pretend to be women to strip-search women? Other than sadism?

The policy, revealed by The Telegraph, allows male staff identifying as female to intimately search women so long as they have a gender recognition certificate (GRC).

A certificate doesn’t matter. A certificate doesn’t make a man a woman. Male staff could have a billion certificates per officer and it wouldn’t change anything. What sex you are isn’t a matter of what piece of paper you have, it’s a matter of what kind of body you have. Certificates are just plain beside the point.

The most a certificate can do is certify that this fella here really strongly feels that he feels like a woman. That’s nowhere near enough to make it ok for him to stick his hand up a woman.

Campaigners wrote to Chief Constable Lucy D’Orsi last month calling for the advice to be removed on the basis that it breaches human rights.

But the force refused and now faces a lengthy legal battle with activists who say the guidance means women risk being subjected to “undignified and humiliating treatment”.

Apparently that’s what the higher-ups want.

Sex Matters penned a letter before claim, also known as a letter before action, as opposition mounted over the BTP policy.

But the force doubled down, rejecting the claim that the guidance “exposes women to a particular risk of behaviour”.

The force wrote: “As has been outlined previously, Parliament has imposed stringent safeguards in respect of the ability of an individual to obtain a GRC. It is not enough simply that a man identifies themselves as a female to obtain one.”

Ugh god. I am so sick of this shit. A certificate does not change a penis into a rose or a kitten or a fluffy sweater. There are no “safeguards” that make it okie doke for a man to force a woman to let him shove a hand up her for non-medical purposes.



Guest post: A brief experiment

Dec 26th, 2024 11:29 am | By

Originally a comment by Rev David Brindley on Check the label.

“Liberal democracy” was a short lived experiment, between circa 1946 and 1986. It grew to be too much of a threat to the autocratic kleptocracy it briefly rose above, and has been slowly wound back ever since.

The Middle Class in which many of us grew up or aspired to join was a pleasant result of that short experiment, but the autocratic kleptocrats could not accept that so many people were suddenly joining in the common wealth and began a relentless campaign to turn worker against worker, to teach those outside the middle class to scorn them, and thus began the class war that would only ever result in one victor, the kleptocrats.

Workers were told they now had the best of all possible worlds, that Unions were only there to take their money, and as people dropped out of Unions, Unions became weaker and either folded or merged. That set off a massive ‘land grab” by employers as wages and conditions were wound back, as people were sacked from full time jobs and replaced with part time, casual, or contract workers. Another few years and we will see all work return to the “pick up” system that once ruled the wharves where men seeking work would gather outside stevedore’s offices and wait to be called and given a back breaking job at bank breaking wages. The only Australian workers whose wages have kept pace with or exceeded inflation in the past decade are those in the few industries with strong and fearless union leadership.

What is happening in Germany is no different to elsewhere in Europe with Turkey and Hungary setting the tone while Italy, France, the UK et al fall into line.

things as banal as retweeting a meme that takes the piss out of a government minister is likely to have that minister personally file a complaint with the police under the law of “impeding a public officer in his duties”, which will get your house searched by the cops and see you with a hefty fine backed with the threat of jail time.

Same here in Oz. Right now we have imprisoned a man who exposed how Australia’s ASIS (external security agency) bugged the East Timor cabinet rooms in aid of a corporation, Woodside getting a greater share of East Timor’s Oil, another for exposing malfeasance in the Australian Taxation Office, and a former military lawyer who blew the whistle on war crimes in Afghanistan. All of these men are heroes and should have been feted as such.

And only moments after the government took the kudos for finally repatriating Julian Assange and saving him from America’s wrath for telling the truth, they have rolled over for a tummy tickle from Uncle Sam and are handing over a man whose only crime is to teach flying to the Chinese. Our entire economy is underpinned by China’s purchase of coal and iron ore and every year our Universities earn billions of dollars educating Chinese students, but apparently engineering, medicine, architecture, law, economics, and arts are all AOK, but not flying.

Liberal democracy? Don’t make me laugh.



There’s a step missing

Dec 26th, 2024 11:17 am | By

How does anyone manage to believe this? The Washington Post:

NEW CASTLE, Pennsylvania — Lori Mosura goes to the grocery store on a bicycle because she can’t afford to fix her Ford F-150 truck.

The single mother and her 17-year-old son live in an apartment that is so small she sleeps in the dining room. They receive $1,200 each month in food stamps and Social Security benefits but still come up short. Mosura said she often must decide whether to buy milk or toilet paper.

It was all that penny-pinching that drove the part-time tax consultant to abandon the Democratic Party this fall and vote for Donald Trump.

“He is more attuned to the needs of everyone instead of just the rich,” Mosura, 55, said on a recent afternoon. “I think he knows it’s the poor people that got him elected, so I think Trump is going to do more to help us.”

???????

What on earth could possibly lead anyone to think that?

He’s not attuned to anyone’s needs, and he’s sure as hell not attuned to the needs of poor people.

I can’t figure out what chain of reasoning could get anyone there.

He was never a landlord attuned to the needs of poor people, nor an employer attuned to the needs of poor people, nor a private citizen attuned to the needs of poor people, nor a tv star attuned to the needs of poor people.

Now, low-income Americans who voted for Trump say they are counting on him to keep their benefits intact even while his Cabinet picks and Republican lawmakers call on him to reduce federal spending.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy — whom Trump has chosen to lead a new nongovernmental advisory panel, the “Department of Government Efficiency” — have said they want to trim $2 trillion from the government’s annual budget, a cut that some experts say could be accomplished only by slashing entitlement programs. Trump’s pick for White House budget director was a key architect of Project 2025, a plan drawn up by conservatives to guide his second term that calls for steep cuts to programs such as food stamps. And GOP leaders in Congress and Trump advisers are considering significant changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other federal aid.

That’s because they’re so attuned to the needs of poor people.



Let nothing go unspoiled

Dec 26th, 2024 3:23 am | By

The Associated Press had a contest to name Female Athlete of the Year. You know what comes next.

A group of 74 sports journalists from The Associated Press and its members voted on the award.

Clark received 35 votes, Olympic gymnast Simone Biles was second with 25.

But Olympic gold medalist boxer Imane Khelif was third, getting four votes.

Naturally. If you have an item for women – an event, a list, a contest – it’s important to add men, because women must not be allowed to have anything all to themselves.



Boldly to go

Dec 26th, 2024 3:08 am | By

The BBC’s obsession with drag queens continues.

Strictly to feature first drag queen competitor

Notice the weird chummy insiderism of the title. Wtf does it even mean? It looks like an uncompleted thought rather than a title. It’s a cozy reference to a tv program that everyone who matters knows all about so no need to spell out the program’s actual title; it’s so much cuter to use just the first word of the title, and let everyone who isn’t in on the joke puzzle over the meaning.

Does the Beeb always do that, or only when the subject is drag queens? Does it refer to “Call” instead of “Call the Midwife”?

No. The BBC doesn’t do that.

Strictly’s Christmas Special will see the show mark another first in its 20th year – its first drag queen competitor.

Ooooooh really? Let’s all piss ourselves with excitement. A drag queen!!! Eeeek!!!

And next week, a blackface minstrel will read the 9 o’clock news, right? And the BBC will squee about a minstrel reading the 9? Yes?

Tayce said she was proud to be the first drag artist to take part on the series and was taking a stand against those who might criticise the move.

Oh good. What a noble cause. Let’s have more and more and more men mocking women on the BBC so that we can have more and more cozy insidery BBC stories about them.

Tayce said: “It’s such an honour and a privilege to be pushing the boundaries as the first drag queen on the show because it’s been on for so many years.

Yeah push those boundaries that indicate let’s not mock the underlings. MOCK ALL THE UNDERLINGS. Well not all. Not absolutely all. Not immigrants or people of color or “queer” people, but women, hell yes, women exist to be mocked.



Guest post: The world’s first “defensive democracy”

Dec 25th, 2024 5:26 pm | By

Originally a comment by Der Durchwanderer on Check the label.

Liberal democracy does not depend on silly lies about who can do what in the way of magic personal changes.

Aye, but there’s the rub. Germany is slowly (actually not-so-slowly) ceasing to recognise itself as a liberal democracy as you might understand that term; it sees itself, rather, as the world’s first “defensive democracy”. Its politicians regularly tar any opinions, statements, or policies which disagree with the ruling coalition as “anti-democratic”, regardless of how soundly those opinions, statements, and policies are founded in the principals of liberalism nor how widely they are to be found amongst the demos itself.

Anything that does not fit onto the tip of the spear of progressive thought as interpreted by the youth wings of the Greens and the SPD is classified as “right-wing extremism”, and things as banal as retweeting a meme that takes the piss out of a government minister are likely to have that minister personally file a complaint with the police under the law of “impeding a public officer in his duties”, which will get your house searched by the cops and see you with a hefty fine backed with the threat of jail time.

Now it appears that the German agency charged with “protecting the constitution” may well consider any public utterances in support of the “gender binary” to be statements against the German constitutional order, perhaps classifying them in the recently-invented category of “delegitimation of the state relevant to constitutional protection”, wherein the constitutional protectors give themselves the right to spy on German citizens who make suspect-but-not-illegal statements against the government until they find something they can prosecute for. (This extralegal category was invented in April 2021, largely in response to mass protests against anti-COVID measures, many of which were themselves unconstitutional and of dubious efficacy…but though the pandemic is over, the tools forged during it remain, and will take much longer to dismantle.)



There’s more than one way to bully

Dec 25th, 2024 3:01 pm | By

So kids in school can be compelled, by the school, to use wrong, counter-intuitive, fantasy-based “pronouns” in conversation.

A federal appeals court decided on Friday to revisit its recent decision to uphold a central Ohio school district’s right to enforce policies against the bullying of transgender students, which had been challenged by a conservative parents group.

That’s very misleading. Of course schools should have and enforce policies against bullying, but failing or even refusing to join someone else’s fantasy isn’t bullying. Arguably the demand to be called anything non-intuitive is itself a bullying move. If you’re ordered to call people by the counter-intuitive pronouns, you’re going to have to work hard to remember to do it and avoid being tripped up by the deeply entrenched habit of knowing who is a she and who is a he. You have to override your own instincts instead of having an ordinary relaxed conversation.

There’s also the small matter of endorsing a lie, which schools really shouldn’t be forcing students to do.

I get that the whole thing can be a setup for deliberate bullying, but that’s part of the problem with the whole stupid fad for luxury pronouns. Kids in school shouldn’t be making luxury demands of that kind, it just gums up the works.

Olentangy, located near Columbus, sought to prohibit the “misgendering” of transgender students, including by failing to address them by their preferred pronouns.

See, that’s not fair. It’s not reasonable. It’s not what school is for. What if there are no “transgender students”? What if they’re just students who have fallen for a dopy fad? What if there are not even any students who genuinely feel “trapped in the wrong body” or similar? What if all this heavy breathing about misgendering is a silly nothingburger that needs to go away so that we can pay attention to important things?

The case is one of many around the country addressing the rights of transgender students.

For the millionth time: there’s no such thing as a right to force other people to call you what you’re not. That’s not a right. It bears little resemblance to a right.



Vast empty land mass

Dec 25th, 2024 2:18 pm | By

Denmark has a nice dry wit.

https://twitter.com/joncoopertweets/status/1871992982767038872


Check the label

Dec 25th, 2024 11:29 am | By

From Reduxx:

The German federal government was responsible for funding a research project labeling “organized transphobia” a threat to democracy. The project, which was made in collaboration with a trans-identified male known for threatening violence against women he disagrees with, classifies those opposed to Germany’s radical gender self-identification laws as “enemies” of society.

Hm. Man who threatens violence against women labels disobedient women “a threat to democracy.” So democracy=men forcing women to lie about who is a woman? Weird definition.

Days ago, the Institute for Democracy and Civil Society (IDZ Jenapublished a brochure reporting the outcome of a research project it had undertaken on “Organized Transphobia: Concepts, Actors, Narratives, and Counter-Strategies.” In the 92-page release, it concluded that transphobia poses a danger to democratic co-existence and outlines strategies to tackle radical feminists who define biological sex as binary.

Reminds me of The Church. “Non-adherence to our belief system=danger to the communniny & scary radical badness.”

And while we’re on the subject, let’s pause for a second to ponder the danger to democratic co-existence that is trans ideology. Bullying, lying, manipulating, extorting, punishing – none of that is a boon to democratic co-existence.

The research project, published in collaboration with the Federal Association for Transgender People (BVT), was funded by the German government through the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, which provided it a total of 228,833 Euros.

The project portrays feminists critical of gender ideology as enemies of the state who, together with right-wing extremists, pursue a political agenda to maintain an “endo-cis-binary gender system” – something that is deemed incompatible with the “principles of liberal democracy.”

I don’t know what the “endo” means there, it may be a mistranslation of the German, but other than that the meaning is clear enough: knowing there are two sexes that can’t swap is incompatible with the principles of liberal democracy.

I beg to differ. Liberal democracy does not depend on silly lies about who can do what in the way of magic personal changes. People can’t think themselves into being leopards or houses or Brazil or Mars, and that fact does no harm to liberal democracy.



Trademark violation

Dec 25th, 2024 10:12 am | By

So dignified.

Gibson, the maker of famous electric guitars, has issued a cease and desist order to the company behind a range of “Trump Guitars” endorsed by the US president-elect.

Gibson told Guitar World, which first reported the story, it took action because the design of the instruments being sold as Trump Guitars “infringes upon Gibson’s exclusive trademarks, particularly the iconic Les Paul body shape”.

Named for the American musician the Guardian once said “basically invented the electric guitar”, Gibson Les Pauls have been sold since 1952 and played by countless rock legends, among them the Edge of U2, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Slash of Guns N’ Roses.

Trump Guitars were announced last week, as the latest in a line of merchandise including Biblessneakerswatches and even digital trading cards.

Well of course; all incoming heads of state do that.

Or do they? Am I wrong?

Last week Trump posted to his social media platform a picture of him holding a guitar emblazoned with a US flag and a bald eagle, with the message: “Coming Soon! The Limited Edition ‘45’ Guitar. Only 1,300 of each Acoustic and Electric Guitars MADE – Some personally signed!”

Sure. Remember when Obama promoted basketballs with his name on them? No? Ok what about dog collars with his name on them? No? Erm…coffee mugs? Picnic baskets? Cameras? Cars? There must have been something.

On Wednesday, a website for Trump Guitars featured a picture of the president-elect signing an instrument. Two models were marked sold out: American Eagle electric guitars (priced $1,500) and autographed American Eagle electric guitars ($11,500).

Unsigned ($1,250) and signed ($10,250) acoustic guitars were also offered, each featuring Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again”, on its fretboard. The website also offered a Presidential Series guitar, in the Les Paul shape and with Trump’s name on the fretboard, and God Bless the USA acoustic guitars displaying that message, the title of a song by the country singer Lee Greenwood that is also affixed to Trump’s endorsed Bible.

You getcher Trump endorsed bible and your Trump-endorsed gun and you are set for life.



The real issues

Dec 25th, 2024 9:56 am | By

UK Women’s March has a statement about itself.

*Our Statement*

With Donald Trump set to return as US president in January 2025 and Nigel Farage picking up the anti-abortion mantle here in the UK, it’s time to make our voices heard.

We are marching because violence against women and girls in the UK has increased by 37% since 2018 and has now been declared a national emergency.

We are marching because abortion in England and Wales, if not carried out according to the strict requirements of the Abortion Act 1967, is technically still a criminal offence carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

We are marching because reproductive rights are being removed state by state in the US making it increasingly more difficult to access safe abortions, and where vital healthcare is needed to save a woman’s life.

Big yes to transatlantic solidarity.

But then

We are marching because discrimination and violence against trans women and girls has increased around the world. Anti-trans rhetoric prevents women from addressing the real issues they encounter by reinforcing the gender stereotypes that have oppressed women for centuries.

No. It’s not a “gender stereotype” that men are not women. It’s not “anti-trans rhetoric” to point out that men are not women. Men helping themselves to everything that belongs to us, including even feminism, is what prevents women from addressing the real issues we encounter.

We are marching because women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule have been effectively silenced by being banned from speaking in public. They are no longer allowed to access education or work and are prevented from freedom of expression.

Indeed, and you know what? Those women are the real thing. The Taliban doesn’t bully and stifle and kill men who call themselves women, the Taliban bullies and stifles and kills women, real women, the kind that can get pregnant.

*Our feminism is intersectional*

Inclusivity is at the core of UK Women’s March. We acknowledge how race, gender, class, sexuality, and disability intersect. Women are exposed to racism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia, not just sexism and misogyny. This means we must acknowledge how these differences interlock for feminism to work. 

Wrong. If you include men in feminism then it doesn’t work.