What does anger and hatred get us?

I read the following in a Facebook post the other day, and it is just as valid now as when it was originally posted:

Feminist News

The question was posed, "Why do people continue supporting Trump no matter what he does?" A lady named Bev answered it this way:

“You all don't get it. I live in Trump country, in the Ozarks in southern Missouri, one of the last places where the KKK still has a relatively strong established presence. They don't give a shit what he does. He's just something to rally around and hate liberals, that's it, period. He absolutely realizes that and plays it up. They love it. He knows they love it. The fact that people act like it's anything other than that proves to them that liberals are idiots, all the more reason for high fives all around.

If you keep getting caught up in "why do they not realize this problem" and "how can they still back Trump after this scandal," then you do not understand what the underlying motivating factor of his support is. It's fuck liberals, that's pretty much it.

Have you noticed he can do pretty much anything imaginable, and they'll explain some way that rationalizes it that makes zero logical sense? Because they're not even keeping track of any coherent narrative, it's irrelevant. Fuck liberals is the only relevant thing.

Trust me; I know firsthand what I'm talking about.

That's why they just laugh at it all because you all don't even realize they truly don't give a fuck about whatever the conversation is about. It's just a side mission story that doesn't matter anyway. That's all just trivial details - the economy, health care, whatever.

Fuck liberals.

Look at the issue with not wearing the masks. I can tell you what that's about. It's about exposing fear. They're playing chicken with nature, and whoever flinches just moved down their internal pecking order, one step closer to being a liberal.
You've got to understand the one core value that they hold above all others is hatred for what they consider weakness because that's what they believe strength is, hatred of weakness. And I mean passionate, sadistic hatred. And I'm not exaggerating. Believe me. Sadistic, passionate hatred, and that's what proves they're strong, their passionate hatred for weakness. Sometimes they will lump vulnerability in with weakness. They do that because people tend to start humbling themselves when they're in some compromising or overwhelming circumstance, and to them, that's an obvious sign of weakness.

Kindness = weakness. Honesty = weakness. Compromise = weakness.

They consider their very existence to be superior in every way to anyone who doesn't hate weakness as much as they do. They consider liberals to be weak people that are inferior, almost a different species, and the fact that liberals are so weak is why they have to unite in large numbers, which they find disgusting, but it's that disgust that is a true expression of their natural superiority.

Go ahead and try to have a logical, rational conversation with them. Just keep in mind what I said here and be forewarned.”

So, what does this mean for the rest of us?  Do we give in to our hatred and anger and become just like these losers?  Or, do we find ways of disconnecting ourselves from them in all ways and let them stew by themselves in their own anger?  I feel sorry for these cult members, but I won't forgive them.  They have choices they can make, and they keep making bad ones.  The best I can do is to put myself in positions where they can do as little harm to me as possible, for as long as possible.  But what do I suggest for civilized people as a whole?

I suggest total disengagement.  Advocate policies that protect our communities from their hatred, even if it hurts them in the long run.  Let them destroy their states as long as we can protect ourselves from them and their politicians.  Boycott their states, as the Canadians are boycotting America.  If it's easy to avoid doing business with firms such as Hobby Lobby and Chick Fil A, do so.  But this will not always be possible.  Many of the biggest firms are managed by people who benefit from targeting the weakest in our society.  So do business with them as little as possible.  

Right now, I have friends in Texas who I will not visit until their state recovers its sanity.  Since that isn't happening soon, all I can do is meet with them over a Zoom link.  It's not good, but it's better than visiting them as an unauthentic self to avoid persecution in that state.

 

 

Why do transgender people skew towards being Liberal?

 

Why do transgender people skew towards being Liberal?

This is a question that has a simple and logical answer.  Liberals put a greater priority on the rights of the individual than they do for the community's need for individuals to surrender their rights to the collective for its preservation.  For example, who do we value more?  Do we value the contentious objector to a war fought for questionable reasons, such as Vietnam?  Or, do we value the drafted soldier who may give up his life fighting in the same war where our nation's goals were not achieved?  Whose rights matter more, the individual or the community?

Historically, gender was viewed as a binary in Western culture. Either one was born male or female, and then slotted into the roles assigned to the associated gender.  Household and community tasks were assigned to the genders, and rarely did things not match accepted Western cultural norms. Reproduction was a higher priority than it is today, as both a large number of women died in childbirth, and many children died before they were adults. Homosexuality was discouraged, and being transgender was totally out of the question. As you can guess, people who did not meet these norms had to hide their true selves in order to survive.  

The 20th century brought us great change.  We had 2 world wars.  We entered the computer age. And Christine Jorgensen made news with her sex change (now called gender confirmation/correction surgery). Things people took for granted as unchangeable could now be changed.  Gender may be the first attribute assigned to identify a person, and traditionally has been based on a person's visible genitalia for good reason. This can scare people with weak self identities. These people tend to cling to traditional ways of identifying people, and reject transgender people as freaks - simply because they don't understand the emotional pains of people born with a brain that develops with the characteristics of one gender, while the body develops with the characteristics of the other. In short, those that reject transgenders as being weird are simply looking to conserve traditional ways of understanding the world.

When people are rejected by a collective group of people, they gravitate to others that will accept them. Liberals tend to be much more diverse in views and expressions, as they accept non-traditional ways of defining the world.  This is why transgenders tend to associate with liberals - we are accepted for who we are, and not being forced to comply with others' ways of looking at the world.

Yet, there will always be some transgender people who identify with others that hold "conservative" values - even when those others reject them because of being transgender.  I'll never understand why some people keep trying to belong to groups that would reject them. But then, humans are a tribal species, and none of us enjoys being rejected by our peers.  One trans person I've met moved to a "conservative" region of my state and decided to go to the local church - and was rejected because she was transgender.  I don't know what happened to this trans woman since then, but I know the rejection must have hurt her very much.

So I have to ask, have you noticed how political conservatives are using the "fear of the other" to control the masses?  Look at Trump's lie, saying that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH are stealing dogs and cats, then eating them.  This has "given permission" to crazy people to terrorize the residents of this city, and has forced schools, offices, and public events to be shut down for public safety. Contrast Trump's lies with objective reality - the Haitians have been a net benefit to Springfield, law abiding people who have helped in the rebirth of the city.  No wonder why transgenders skew towards being liberal - we have suffered like most of the groups that have been defined as "the other".

So, what do you believe and why do you believe it?

 

Sometimes I have nothing to say, so I go away from things related to being transgender

 

Today, I posted something that got no one's attention.  And I can't blame people for looking elsewhere for something interesting to read.  However, one of the problems with being confident in one's ability to interact with the world as a transgender female is that there is often nothing to say about the experience. Most of us transgender people are able to go out and about in our worlds with only minor complaints from the peanut galleries.

The first post I made today was triggered by something that bothers me: The plethora of computer wire interface standards, and having to have cables for every type of device I own.  Obviously, few people are concerned about all the extra cables which need to be carried when one goes away on a trip.  I guess most people take this for granted these days.

Just because I had nothing to say didn't mean that my concerns about life have gone away.  I still see the power grab from the fundamentalist and authoritarian right wing to be a major threat to me and civil society.  But there's only so much I can say about this before I get sick to my stomach.  People like our former president, the governor of Florida, and the governing majority of several state legislatures  are a existential threat to all of us.  

In the past, I've said that Liberals aren't much of a threat to society, as they focus on the needs of the individual.  Individuals tend to have a harder time imposing their will on groups made up of other individualistic personalities, as they are not as prone to need authority figures to authorize their behaviors.  This serves as a check and balance on Liberals' ability to impose extreme positions on others lives.  However, I have grown to believe that radical conservatism is a grave threat to society, as power hungry individuals find conservatives easy to manipulate because they need authority figures to both authorize and choose the actions conservative people will take.  They follow a "primitive brain" need to follow leaders who have achieved "top dog" status by the use of some sort of power.  They follow these leaders out of fear, and adjust their beliefs to fit stories told by those leaders.

There will always be a tension between the needs of the individual and the needs of society.  The 2023 debt limit debate has been used as a tool to bludgeon the liberals to give up supporting individuals in need.  At the time I'm writing this entry, I have no idea how this political issue will be resolved. But I know one thing - the lunatics are now in charge of the US House of Representatives, and they pose the greatest risk to us all, both conservative and liberal alike.

Not so sure of what to talk about today.

 

The above cover is one of my favorites from the Lampoon.  It's wonderfully political, politically incorrect, and funny as heck.  We had much thicker skins when this magazine was published.  One could drop the "N-Word" and use it humorously, as Mel Brooks did in Blazing Saddles.  

I miss the humor magazines of my youth.  Both Mad Magazine and the National Lampoon are long gone, or exist only to recycle old articles.  Both magazines were influential in their own ways.  Mad taught young people to think of current events in a different way than most people might think.  And the Lampoon taught young adults that good humor was rarely politically correct.  Mad would spoof Star Trek's opening ("To go where no man has gone before"), by having the male crew exit to the ladies room. The Lampoon would attack minorities with an "Unwanted Foreigners" issue, and attack these same groups with racist descriptions of these groups - all meant to generate laughs, and not to be taken seriously.

Yet, I miss something even more.  When I was young, TV could afford to provoke thought. Could you imagine "All in the Family" being a popular TV series?  Too many people would get upset at the Archie Bunker character's use of politically incorrect language.  And yet, it was considered acceptable way back when, as the show illustrated how both Archie and "Meathead" were just as prejudiced - just from different directions.

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Today, many "conservatives" want to "Own the Libs".  In the process of doing so, they often act like children, calling Liberals names I won't repeat here.  But many Liberals are just as bad in their own way.  They ignore how and why many Conservatives became radicalized, and have no interest in the concerns of people from the other side of the aisle.

As a TG member of society, I would be among those groups at risk if the Conservatives gained absolute social power.  Luckily, it will take a lot to get the NYC region to flip.  But history has shown this can and does happen when enough people are alienated from the political system AND begin to put their faith in a bombastic populist leader.

So, what are we to do?  For one thing, we should celebrate and publicize the successes of TG people like Amy Schneider (of Jeopardy fame). If we can convince enough people that we are safe to be around, we might just be left alone when political winds change.  Yet, we will only be left alone in more progressive areas.  Most of us can not go stealth if needed.  It is in our interest to fight for the interests of our tribes while we can - and we must do so now....