All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!(Part II)

[Kirby101]

Maybe because what the GOP has become under Trump is indefensable.

As Stephen Colbert said. The Truth has a liberal bias.

[InformationGeek]

Not really surprising.The thread's has a majority left wing view point.Any conservative viewpoint on here is going to be shouted down.

Well, have you seen conservatives? Of course they're being shouted down. The Republican Party have lost their mind and supported some of the most horrendous, ugliest, racist, homophobic, Islamophobia, sexist, extremist things I have ever seen. No one has made a good argument for why the right should be respected or even listened too.

You say we're shouting down the right... hard to feel bad about given what the right is and what they stand for.

[Kevinroc]

If you're referring to make America great again, that's not about caste systems. Hell, the Oratio Alger stories are part of the mythology of what they want to return to.

You literally do not know what the Republican Party stands for these days (and what it has stood for for a long time).

[Adam Allen]

We might be arguing past one another. I fully acknowledge that doctors can and have been mistaken about determinations of sex. From my understanding, this is not an issue addressed by the Times article. The term "intersex" does not appear in it.

When I said sex is determined by biology, I'm talking about biological features such as chromosomes and genatalia someone is born with. This is in the context of the distinction between sex and gender/ gender identity.

Hm. Okay, are you saying that "biological sex" can be determined at birth, based on features like chromosomes and genitalia?

Because that's what Trump is on about, according to the article...

The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a governmentwide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law.

A series of decisions by the Obama administration loosened the legal concept of gender in federal programs, including in education and health care, recognizing gender largely as an individual’s choice and not determined by the sex assigned at birth. The policy prompted fights over bathrooms, dormitories, single-sex programs and other arenas where gender was once seen as a simple concept. Conservatives, especially evangelical Christians, were incensed.

Now the Department of Health and Human Services is spearheading an effort to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans gender discrimination in education programs that receive government financial assistance, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times.

The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.” The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.

The thing is, to be "grounded in science," we have to acknowledge you cannot determine if someone is male or female at birth, based on genitalia, chromosomes, or anything else.

Scientifically speaking, you can usually say what genitalia there may be, you can say what chromosomes ... you can't say what sex or gender, because "male" or "female" can't be so simply determined. That is the scientific fact. Chromosomes don't determine sex. Genitalia do not. They are a part of it, but it's complicated calculation ... and wanting to make it simple doesn't alter that reality.

And, I'm not trying to shout anyone down. Just speaking on a topic that's important to me.

[zinderel]

If the Republican party didn't support monstrous policies, maybe we wouldn't call them monstrous people?

Some things the Republican party supports:

- defining marriage as between one man and one woman, thereby invalidating all marriages and relationships not fitting this metric.
- enshrining discrimination into the Constitution in the form of DOMA and like minded policies pushed by their Religious Right zealot base.
- conversion therapy, aka the religiously-motivated torture of LGBT+ children.
- multiple sexual deviants who prey on underage girls and women, but who luckily had a (R) by their name.
- Nazis have a right to assemble, but Antifa are the enemy.
- the media is the enemy of the people.
- any attempt to hold a white man accountable is reverse racism and liberal mobs out for blood.
- cops shouldn't be questioned when they murder unarmed black men and children.
- 'chain migration' is fine for white relatives of the president's former mistress and current third wife, but they'll do their level best to fight every attempt to provide the same privilege to anyone brown.
- Letting women die in back alleys and in their own homes in order to appease fundamentalist Christian zealots and their hatred of legal, safe abortion.
- forcing trans people to live in the wrong bodies because the primitive mouthbreathers in the party base don't understand the concept of fluidity and how it applies to the human experience.
- denying climate change and man's effects on it.
- promoting a jingoistic, imperialistic version of America that alienates our allies and appeasing international 'villains' like Putin, Saudi Arabia's royalty, Kim Jong Un, and so on.
- forcible separation and incarceration of children from parents with no plan on ever reuniting them with their family.
- raiding Medicare and Medicaid in order to enrich their donors and themselves with tax cuts.
- cutting food and housing support for the underprivileged, in order to further enrich their donors and themselves with more tax cuts.
- cutting health care in order to...enrich their donors and themselves with more tax cuts...
- perpetual warfare to benefit their military industrial complex donors. (This is something Democrats share some blame in, by the way.)

I don't need to point to specific policies because literally all you have to do is pay attention to the words coming out of their mouth all the time, any time they have a microphone on near them. These are the things the Republicans support, though they occasionally try to frame them in less stark terms.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Well, have you seen conservatives? Of course they're being shouted down. The Republican Party have lost their mind and supported some of the most horrendous, ugliest, racist, homophobic, Islamophobia, sexist, extremist things I have ever seen. No one has made a good argument for why the right should be respected or even listened too.

You say we're shouting down the right... hard to feel bad about given what the right is and what they stand for.

No but this thread is a bit of an echo chamber and a lot of arguments I've seen have come down to appeals for emotion because when you have so many like minded individuals those tend to work. So the Mets **** just gets annoying because he has a completely different point of view and a lot of the arguing against him either turns into a silly game of "gotcha" or trying to make an appeal to emotional sensibilities that aren't going to work with someone who is coming at it from a different place. And that's fine if that's the MO, but it's really not good for actual debate. I think there are salient arguments against Mets pov but it often gets drowned out because this place is so used to most people agreeing that it doesn't have to often try.

It's why this thread often turns into liberals arguing with each other because it's really the only one to one debate that gets any actual traction that doesn't turn into a total sideshow because nearly the entire thread agrees.

[Mister Mets]

Hm. Okay, are you saying that "biological sex" can be determined at birth, based on features like chromosomes and genitalia?

Because that's what Trump is on about, according to the article...



The thing is, to be "grounded in science," we have to acknowledge you cannot determine if someone is male or female at birth, based on genitalia, chromosomes, or anything else.

Scientifically speaking, you can usually say what genitalia there may be, you can say what chromosomes ... you can't say what sex or gender, because "male" or "female" can't be so simply determined. That is the scientific fact. Chromosomes don't determine sex. Genitalia do not. They are a part of it, but it's complicated calculation ... and wanting to make it simple doesn't alter that reality.

And, I'm not trying to shout anyone down. Just speaking on a topic that's important to me.

Since you're responding to me, I'll note the shouted down comments came from someone else.

From my understanding, sex can be determined at birth. It is sometimes misdiagnosed due to various abnormalities. Gender/ gender identity are distinct from sex. These differences in terminology can be meaningful when discussing medical issues.

This distinction becomes relevant to this topic because the controversy is about the Trump administration's internal discussions about codifying a definition of sex in Title IX.

You literally do not know what the Republican Party stands for these days (and what it has stood for for a long time).

I probably disagree with your unstated caricature of the GOP. I can't be sure, because you actually haven't stated the argument yet.

[Panfoot]

You asked about positive purpose, and whether there's any good to it beyond making the lives of around 1.4 million people harder. Responding to that doesn't require demonstrating there are greater benefits, just that there are any benefits.

I've also noted there are other benefits than clarity, including the reduction of regulations, and going closer to the original purpose of a 1972 law.

If we want better federal protections for transgender individuals, we could advocate for Congress to make new laws. Should there be pushback, this can be made into an election issue, and resolved democratically.

Oh well that makes perfect sense, reducing some regulations at the low cost of just a over a couple million peoples civil rights. It's laughable that you bring up ways for better protetions when arguing for something that does the exact opposite. I truly hope you don't have any LGBT members in you family, knowing a family member doesn't even think you deserve the same rights as them can really hurt.

[Kevinroc]

I probably disagree with your unstated caricature of the GOP. I can't be sure, because you actually haven't stated the argument yet.

Republicans stand for throwing young children in cages. Republicans stand for stripping health insurance from millions of people and lying about this. Republicans stand for denying the very existence of trans people. Republicans stand for denying climate change is even happening as we are already beginning to see its effects on our world. Republicans stand for stripping voting rights from people (mainly minorities) who might vote against them. Republicans stand for selling out this country and its people to foreign powers.

(One need only look at how the Trump administration has reacted to Khashoggi's murder.)

Edit: Republicans stand for cutting taxes on the rich at the expanse of the lower classes. Republicans stand for cheering when a reporter is physically attacked. Republicans stand for the disastrous response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

Republicans stand for Donald Trump. And Donald Trump stands for Republican ideals.

[Adam Allen]

From my understanding, sex can be determined at birth. It is sometimes misdiagnosed due to various abnormalities. Gender/ gender identity are distinct from sex. These differences in terminology can be meaningful when discussing medical issues.

This distinction becomes relevant to this topic because the controversy is about the Trump administration's internal discussions about codifying a definition of sex in Title IX.

How??

How can you determine sex?

Explain that in a way that doesn't dehumanize the "various abnormalities"?

[Starter Set]

From my understanding, sex can be determined at birth

Works fine for 99% of the population. To be honest i always found those talks about "gender identity" rather amusing. How you feel about what you are doesn't change what you biologically are.

[Iron Maiden]

Republicans stand for throwing young children in cages. Republicans stand for stripping health insurance from millions of people and lying about this. Republicans stand for denying the very existence of trans people. Republicans stand for denying climate change is even happening as we are already beginning to see its effects on our world. Republicans stand for stripping voting rights from people (mainly minorities) who might vote against them. Republicans stand for selling out this country and its people to foreign powers.

(One need only look at how the Trump administration has reacted to Khashoggi's murder.)

Edit: Republicans stand for cutting taxes on the rich at the expanse of the lower classes. Republicans stand for cheering when a reporter is physically attacked. Republicans stand for the disastrous response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

Republicans stand for Donald Trump. And Donald Trump stands for Republican ideals.

The fact that the GOP has lost prominent members and analysts should speak volumes. Maybe we should distinguish between those who are conservatives in their views and the Party of Trump, formerly known as the GOP or Republicans


George Will: Probably the most prominent conservative voice in the press. Left the party in 2016 and says he will vote against GOP candidates in the midterms
Steven Schmidt: Has worked on GOP presidential campaigns and renounced his membership earlier this year
Joe Scarborough: TV commentator and former GOP Congressman from Florida, considers himself an independent
Colin Powell: Not sure if he's truly a Republican these days. He's admitted he voted for Obama and Hillary. He's still a never Trumper at least and severely criticized Trump's conduct recently as POTUS

There are many less prominent who've made public statements or written columns about their rejection of Trump.

The GOP should be called the CCC....Cabal of Craven Cowards who are body and soul for a corrupt, imbecile of a man who has forsworn his pledge to uphold the Constitution.

[aja_christopher]

Should there be pushback, this can be made into an election issue, and resolved democratically.

So long as your party feels that it is not only okay but also necessary to cheat to win by repeatedly disenfranchising a large number of -- primarily black and latino -- voters you can't make any serious argument that your "party" wants to resolve things democratically.



Mets, you support a lying, cheating, climate-change denying, record-deficit raising, blatantly racist, sexist, and homophobic white supremacist party and while this is your "democratic" right, as I've pointed out before, people might accept that choice but there's nothing that says we have to accept the lies and hypocrisy behind said choice.

For someone who acts so concerned about "unintended consequences" of certain legislation, you constantly turn a blind eye when said legislation harms anyone outside of your "circle" -- at this point I don't expect better of you, but I likewise refuse to let you dodge the obvious.

You support a party that is actively seeking to prevent people like me from voting, Mets -- maybe in your world that's fine, but in mine it just makes you someone who routinely votes to deprive me of my rights to be treated equally as an American citizen.

-----
"The current campaign against the VRA is the result of three key factors: a whiter, more Southern, more conservative GOP that has responded to demographic change by trying to suppress an increasingly diverse electorate; a twenty-five-year effort to gut the VRA by conservative intellectuals, who in recent years have received millions of dollars from top right-wing funders, including Charles Koch; and a reactionary Supreme Court that does not support remedies to racial discrimination.

The push by conservatives to repeal Section 5 comes on the heels of what NAACP president Benjamin Jealous has called “the greatest attacks on voting rights since segregation.” After the 2010 election, GOP officials approved laws in more than a dozen states to restrict the right to vote by requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, shutting down voter registration drives, curtailing early voting, disenfranchising ex-felons and mandating government-issued photo IDs to cast a ballot — all of which disproportionately target communities of color..."

In Alabama, for example, Republicans targeted nearly every white Democrat in the state legislature for extinction but preserved the twenty-seven majority-minority districts in the House (even adding one more) as well as eight in the Senate in order to clear the maps with the feds. (At the time, the head of the Senate Rules Committee, Republican Scott Beason, referred to blacks as “aborigines.”)

“If there’s no Section 5 [of the Voting Rights Act] all those majority-black districts are now vulnerable,” says Jim Blacksher, a longtime voting rights lawyer in Birmingham. “And there is no question in anybody’s mind what will happen next.”

He calls Section 5 “the most important sea anchor against the ongoing, uninterrupted, virulent white-supremacy culture that still dominates this state.”

https://www.thenation.com/article/wh...ng-rights-act/

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Democrats Expected To Re-Open Russia Probe If They Win The House

Here’s a look at what Democrats are likely to investigate if they take the House majority. No wonder the GOP is bending over backwards to cheat and disenfranchise Democrat voters. Meanwhile....

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Paul Krugman Warns Trump Is Poised To Disregard Democratic House Victory

The president’s complaints about “voter fraud” could be used to deny legitimacy of Democratic victory in the midterm election. This is damn worrisome.

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Saudi Official Provides New Version Of Jamal Khashoggi’s Death

This narrative is the latest Saudi account that has changed multiple times. Makes me wonder what tomorrow's version will be.

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New Report Shows Racist, Anti-Muslim Candidates Are Losing Their Elections

A new report from the group Muslim Advocates shows that candidates who ran Islamophobic campaigns faced backlash and eventually lost their elections. As well they should, and I hope that keeps happening.

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Beto O’Rourke Declines To Answer Trump Attacks With ‘Bitterness,’ ‘Name-Calling’

“You can add more to it or you can stay focused on the future,” said the Texas Democratic Senate nominee. Admirable to say the least.

[Tami]

Beto O’Rourke Declines To Answer Trump Attacks With ‘Bitterness,’ ‘Name-Calling’

“You can add more to it or you can stay focused on the future,” said the Texas Democratic Senate nominee. Admirable to say the least.

Even in Politics, it's best Not to Feed the Trolls. Especially the Troll in Chief.