All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Mister Mets]

I will note that when it comes to educating kids so they won't be bigoted to LGBT your go to comparisons are Disease, Abortion, and Sexual Deviance. Some voters would like to get them to hate [SLURS] instead of letting schools teach them not to hate people who are different. I don't think that should be encouraged by making the subject forbidden so that continued prejudice can be formed. Do you think the parents who scream Groomer aren't going to try and teach their kids who and what to avoid using specific descriptions? Can you remember how short a time ago saying "That's Gay" was the accepted slang term for "This is bad and should be mocked"?

Do you think with how things are going RIGHT NOW that we're not coming back to this?

I'm looking at issues that parents would deal with sensitively. Those tend to be taboo in many circles. As long as it between consenting adults, what is wrong with sexual deviance?

Kids who identify as LGBT will use "that's gay" as an insult in a winking and ironic matter, so that's still an issue.

With any point about how short a time ago things occurred, we should consider whether the issue is settled, and the implications. What do lawmakers, and candidates who wish to become lawmakers in the midterms, intend to do? That is a question for the voters.

I asked you to provide some republicans you had voted for because of just this argument you've made, and you only provided a democrat. I just wanted to see if the kind of republican you support is the kind you are: Anti-Trump, Pro-Civility, and Pro-Education.

As a Republican, I tend to vote against Republicans when they do bad things. I'll go for Democrats when they're decent and the Republican candidate is terrible, as was the case with Biden.

I've been pretty clear that a focus on morality typically comes with the argument that one party is so much better than another than even if you disagree with the first party, you should vote for them. As I said in a response to an earlier post of yours, "One of the arguments is that the GOP is so much worse that it's important for people who disagree with Democrats and the left to support them. Anyone making that argument does insist that Democrats be held to a high standard."

Lying = Lying = Lying IMO. And I look forward to seeing your posts, whether you bring the individuals up or not.

I'm not a fan of liars in politics. See my votes against Trump.

I do still think it's worse for a politician to lie about real people.

You provided a biased story as I pointed out, and when I asked about the ACHA study that I couldn't find you posted one (Reposted above) about the UK when we were discussing US kids, schools, and policies (As I pointed out when you posted it). I genuinely thank you for providing it! However I can't devote as much time to this right now so I'll be looking at it later tonight/tomorrow.

I posted an overview from a source that seems to abide by decent journalistic standards (The Week) and another link.

The question of biased sources is a bit complicated. It seems to me that this is a sensitive topic that the left is less willing to explore, which means they're less likely to engage in some basic factual questions like how many people identify as trans, and whether there are any demographic shifts. As a result, there will be less reports in a way that makes progressives happy, as the people who would publish that work are less likely to touch that topic with a ten foot pole.

This may be something that benefits the likes of JK Rowling and Abigail Shrier. The people liberals think will decimate them in an argument don't want to give them that platform.

And you are still advocating their view, which they don't clarify like you do. When enough people do that they think people are agreeing with them, whether they actually do or not. This has been pointed out before.

I said that conservatives have a variety of views (as do progressives.) By definition, I cannot advocate for all the views as there will be disagreements. There will be people to my right, and to wherever on the political spectrum the lady who wanted Beloved banned because it traumatized her kid would fall.

I got autocorrected I guess, as this is from the post you were replying to which I was trying to correct you on:


So, no disagreement on graduating, just on governing. It's the legislators that need to be able to represent everyone in their constituency, and thus not force their beliefs on others.

Got it.

That's up to the voters, and I'm okay with that. Granted, you'll still have some conservatives winning who don't believe in evolution, either in red districts, or in good years for the Republican party.

[Username taken]

The specific bar on CRT is a low one, met as pretty much every teacher receives some material at some point influenced by CRT.

Teachers are often sent to the same professional development events, so I would figure that most Physical Education or foreign language teachers have been sent to the generic professional development others go to, and get some exposure to stuff that has been influenced by CRT. As I said, how often this occurs or whether it's a bad thing are different questions.

One wrinkle may be what we mean by something to be influenced by CRT. Critical Race Theory was an academic concept that had been around for decades, an offshoot of the Critical Legal Studies movement, about how racism is embedded in legal systems and policies that must be reversed. It has influenced activists in education, some of whom are to the left of the median voter in any swing state. That's my frame of reference here.

This whole CRT debate doesn't make sense. Except the academic curriculum has changed radically, this stuff (just like the whole sex and sexuality thing) isn't really being taught to kids.

What's happening is that history teaching is being shunned because it makes reference to the US racist past. To be clear, there's absolutely nothing wrong with letting kids know about the injustices that have been and are still being handed out to minorities. The earlier people are made to understand the sooner they can challenge the racist status quo that a lot of people are trying to maintain.

I now live in Canada and I was surprised and impressed that they are already teaching kids as young as 6 about the indigenous people and how they lost their land in Canada. It's extremely important that young people know about this injustice as far as I'm concerned.

What should be up for debate is how the message is communicated to the younger audience and not for it to be excluded entirely from schools.

[Username taken]

In the important news, (), Johnny Depp is blaming his "burn Amber or drown her" texts with The Vision on....Monty Python! The bit in question was from Holy Grail of course, but blaming his own comments on a movie decades earlier, when his was about a specific, real, or rather fairly realish person like Mera, not a comedy bit. Wonder BTW if that's why Bettany is busy not being Vision any more? They sure could have written him around again really, in either of his MCU roles if they wanted to. But Disney did fire Depp when that editorial came out from Heard.

Never mind Ukraine, Twitter, the economy, crime....no, it's the Depp/Heard case that's the really important thing.

The Depp/Heard thing is such as mess. They are both horrible, nasty people.

I'll be curious to see if this affects Heard's career at all. She still seems to be getting work whereas Depp has been railroaded into oblivion when apparently they were both fairly violent towards each other. And Heard has been violent towards her ex-partners.

[Username taken]

One last thing about Twitter, the whole "digital town square" thing is just nonsense. Twitter hasn't served that function for long and contrary to a lot of belief there are a lot of loud conservative voices still there.

The only people that are really complaining about "free speech" are the "rich, privileged, assholes" that simply want to say all sorts of crap without consequence. Elon Musk himself is one of them considering how much nonsense he's spewed professionally and personally in recent times. I really don't care much for Elon Musk, to be honest, this is a man whose father was so rich that he struggled to lock their personal safe because of how much cash they had.

All his attacks on "wokeness" and "pronouns" are just tone deaf and I find it hard to get motivated by men that have never understood what it is to genuinely lack economically.

[Mister Mets]

The only study I can find that uses the '1 in 20' number is this one:



That's 3% for *all* manner of trans and gender non-conforming. Once you break down that supposedly 'alarming' statistic, it comes down to the usual set of numbers. As has been pointed out to Mets *many* times now, there is *no* scientifically proven 'spike' in trans masc children.

https://metro.co.uk/2018/02/05/one-2...ender-7289302/

The 2018 University of Minnesota study is not the study the American College Health Association mentioned in the Week piece from October 2021.

I found it pretty easily by googling "American College Health Association" "trans" "survey"

https://www.acha.org/documents/ncha/...ATA_REPORT.pdf

Their comments on the matter.

The number of TGNC students in our samples has been increasing over the years. Between 2008 and 2015, the number of students identifying as TGNC was very small (less than 0.05%). We’ve learned over the years that gender identity is complex and fluid. To better capture this complexity, we began asking separate questions about sex at birth and gender identity in Fall 2015. Now TGNC students tend to represent 3‐4% of the overall sample.

4.2% of respondents identified as trans man, trans woman, genderqueer, genderfluid or nonbinary. Incidentally, two out of 32,000 respondents identified as intersex.

This whole CRT debate doesn't make sense. Except the academic curriculum has changed radically, this stuff (just like the whole sex and sexuality thing) isn't really being taught to kids.

What's happening is that history teaching is being shunned because it makes reference to the US racist past. To be clear, there's absolutely nothing wrong with letting kids know about the injustices that have been and are still being handed out to minorities. The earlier people are made to understand the sooner they can challenge the racist status quo that a lot of people are trying to maintain.

I now live in Canada and I was surprised and impressed that they are already teaching kids as young as 6 about the indigenous people and how they lost their land in Canada. It's extremely important that young people know about this injustice as far as I'm concerned.

What should be up for debate is how the message is communicated to the younger audience and not for it to be excluded entirely from schools.

This seems to be a deliberately messy and confusing fight, with multiple sides failing to articulate their policy preferences, and making up shit about the other sides.

Critical Race Theory spins off of some concepts in critical legal theory, which was an approach about how the law shouldn't try to be objective. It influences multiple approaches to education. So it's not that kids are taught about some left-wing academic, but that the left-wing academic's interpretation of how kids should become activists influences someone coming up with a curriculum or elements of lessons.

The problem isn't just about learning from the nation's racist past. Sometimes, the people trying to do the teaching have extreme understandings. I will agree that there are ridiculous views on the right, with some parents demanding that children be taught that Confederate State ancestors were the good guys or whatever other nonsense. This is dumb. But you also have ridiculous views on the left. Two years ago, a Smithsonian (from the National Museum of African American History & Culture) exhibit on whiteness & white culture suggested that married parents, delayed gratification, the emphasis on the scientific method, planning for the future, and valuing intent in legal matters are uniquely white. This reflected the attitudes of higher-ups at the Smithsonian (the people who wrote it, and everyone up the chain of command who agreed with it) who are presumably well-educated and carefully selected for their jobs. If this can happen at a major institution like Smithsonian, parents will think it can happen at their local school district.

[Tendrin]

The 2018 University of Minnesota study is not the study the American College Health Association mentioned in the Week piece from October 2021.

I found it pretty easily by googling "American College Health Association" "trans" "survey"

https://www.acha.org/documents/ncha/...ATA_REPORT.pdf

Thank you for finally linking it. The change to the nature of the question and the inclusion of gender non-conformance explains much. This was pointed out last time.

Here's the actual breakdown.

7C) Which term do you use to describe your gender identity?
Trans/Gender
Cis Men Cis Women Non-conforming Total
Freq. Pct. Freq. Pct. Freq. Pct. Freq. Pct.
1 Woman or female 56.5
2 Man or male 39.4
3 Trans woman 0.2
4 Trans man 0.3
5 Genderqueer 0.5
6 My identity is not listed 0.5
7 Agender 0.3
8 Genderfluid 0.5
9 Non-binary 1.9
10 Intersex 0.0
Valid responses = 12

In other words, once again, the statistics do not bear out the breathless fear of conservatives who want us to protect white womanhood. That's what this is really about, after all.

[AnakinFlair]

In the important news, (), Johnny Depp is blaming his "burn Amber or drown her" texts with The Vision on....Monty Python! The bit in question was from Holy Grail of course, but blaming his own comments on a movie decades earlier, when his was about a specific, real, or rather fairly realish person like Mera, not a comedy bit. Wonder BTW if that's why Bettany is busy not being Vision any more? They sure could have written him around again really, in either of his MCU roles if they wanted to. But Disney did fire Depp when that editorial came out from Heard.

Not sure where you got that from. Vision was killed in Infinity War, then brought back TWICE in WandaVision, with the second time establishing Bettany as a brand new version of the character. Odds are he'll be back sooner rather than later.

The Depp/Heard thing is such as mess. They are both horrible, nasty people.

I'll be curious to see if this affects Heard's career at all. She still seems to be getting work whereas Depp has been railroaded into oblivion when apparently they were both fairly violent towards each other. And Heard has been violent towards her ex-partners.

I read something recently that they almost decided not to bring her back as Mera due to chemistry issues with Momoa, but I haven't heard anything about this situation affecting her career. Then again, what has she done recently other then Mera?

And for all the anger of the fans over Johnny being removed from Fantastic Beasts, he still got paid the full amount of his contract for the one scene he filmed. And judging by the box office returns of the latest installment, he probably managed to get off a sinking ship at the exact right time.

[Wildling]

One last thing about Twitter, the whole "digital town square" thing is just nonsense. Twitter hasn't served that function for long and contrary to a lot of belief there are a lot of loud conservative voices still there.

The only people that are really complaining about "free speech" are the "rich, privileged, assholes" that simply want to say all sorts of crap without consequence. Elon Musk himself is one of them considering how much nonsense he's spewed professionally and personally in recent times. I really don't care much for Elon Musk, to be honest, this is a man whose father was so rich that he struggled to lock their personal safe because of how much cash they had.

All his attacks on "wokeness" and "pronouns" are just tone deaf and I find it hard to get motivated by men that have never understood what it is to genuinely lack economically.

He just looked like another obnoxious rich dude to me, and I thought the coverage of him riding to space, like animals did decades before, was annoying as well.

Mads Mikkelsen should play him in SNL.

In other words, once again, the statistics do not bear out the breathless fear of conservatives who want us to protect white womanhood.

Republicans are an ideology first, objective reality second lot.

[Tendrin]

Republicans are an ideology first, objective reality second lot.

Attempts to present transgederism as a 'peer contagion' and teachers educating kids about transgender identity as 'groomers' is just the same old anti-gay smear, that just the very presence or existence of openly gay or trans people will 'convert' the youth around them. It's back because it never really went away, and the radical right, lead by guys like Rufo, will push this smear for as long as they can, and it will lead to suicides, murders, and drastically impaired mental health amongst trans youth.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

I agree with the sentiment that Heard & Depp are both terrible. If one is being blacklisted the both should be. The rush to make one a hero is failing badly given whats came out abuse wise.

The wildest move was a NY Post article a week or 2 ago where the writer tried to paint it all as Depp acting. That he was trying to put on a performance etc and the attempt was to dismiss his abuse claims.

It was as terrible as it sounds. Its like how some dismiss women if they are abused or assaulted. In this case it was....Depps a man and an actor...so its fake.

Hollywood needs to make both be blacklisted now.

[WAKANDA FOREVER!]

CNN, of course, got their hands on 2,300 texts from Mark Meadows around Jan. 6th.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/25/polit...319/index.html
Yes, members of Congress knew the Big Lie was exactly that, and were still helping the Trump White House plot his supporters marching on the Capitol. The whole coup was planned, and there are multiple members of the House, like Gosar, Biggs, Jordan, Gaetz, Gohmert, and more involved.

And, not for nothing, but the texts also reveal Fox News' Sean Hannity was far from a neutral observer, either, both advising the White House on public strategy, and taking orders from White House staff on what to say on TV.

Bruh.

https://thehill.com/news/house/34631...itol-on-jan-6/

[Panfoot]

Attempts to present transgederism as a 'peer contagion' and teachers educating kids about transgender identity as 'groomers' is just the same old anti-gay smear, that just the very presence or existence of openly gay or trans people will 'convert' the youth around them. It's back because it never really went away, and the radical right, lead by guys like Rufo, will push this smear for as long as they can, and it will lead to suicides, murders, and drastically impaired mental health amongst trans youth.

As always, the cruelty is the point.

[Tendrin]

As always, the cruelty is the point.

Same as it ever was.

If a lady teacher can say 'my husband', but not 'my wife', then you're teaching bigotry by inherently presenting one as socially acceptable to talk about and the other as not.

[numberthirty]

"I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH," Trump told Fox News. "I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on TRUTH."

Not that I trust him to keep his word but this will hopefully make Twitter users breathe a little easier, at least for now.

You could almost smell the "Sour Puss..." hating all the way in Illinois.

First?

Trump is salty because he doesn't have that kind of "Actually Tall..." paper.

Second?

Trump is salty because buddy done stole his "Truth..." social-whatever thunder.

[numberthirty]

I agree with the sentiment that Heard & Depp are both terrible. If one is being blacklisted the both should be. The rush to make one a hero is failing badly given whats came out abuse wise.

The wildest move was a NY Post article a week or 2 ago where the writer tried to paint it all as Depp acting. That he was trying to put on a performance etc and the attempt was to dismiss his abuse claims.

It was as terrible as it sounds. Its like how some dismiss women if they are abused or assaulted. In this case it was....Depps a man and an actor...so its fake.

Hollywood needs to make both be blacklisted now.

CNN+ going out like Casey Becker is more of a story than that nonsense.