What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Jacob]

I think they've found Trans people to be a very effective target for their five minutes of hate, helping to focus their support.

[Jacob]

In other Trumpian news, it appears Trump intends to sell F35s to India:

"Starting this year, we'll be increasing military sales to India by many billions of dollars. We're also paving the way to ultimately provide India with the F-35 stealth fighters," Trump told a joint news conference with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

https://www.barrons.com/news/trump-says-us-to-sell-state-of-art-f-35-jets-to-india-9b5e95ee

This certainly increases the chance that Russia will get their hands on F35 technologies.

[Barrister]

I think they've found Trans people to be a very effective target for their five minutes of hate, helping to focus their support.

I always argued there were some specific elements of the "trans agenda" that were not good or healthy. You know the debates.

But I believe fundamentally you're right - MAGA loves it when people are cruel to trans people.  No matter the issue.

[Grey Fox]

I think they hate trans because they think it's a vector for man to rape and for homosexuality.

[viper37]

Federal prosecutors in New York and Washington resign after refusing to drop Adams charges

At least six prosecutors, including the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, have stepped down over the DOJ order to dismiss corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.

[Razgovory]

I think they hate trans because they think it's a vector for man to rape and for homosexuality.

I think that trans people are such easy targets because trans require you positively affirm their reality through the use of pronouns regardless of what you personally believe.  This demand is backed with the threat of ostracism, possibly the loss of livelihood. Imagine if to be tolerant of Christians you had to greet them by saying "Christ is King", or to be kind to Muslims you would need to recite the Takbir every time you meet one and failure to do so could result in you losing your job.  When religious people do demand you accept their reality over your own, such as demanding creationism is taught in schools, they also engender resentment.

[Jacob]

Seriously Raz?

[Razgovory]

Seriously Raz?

I am open to suggestions why what I said was flawed.

[Valmy]

Seriously Raz?

I am open to suggestions why what I said was flawed.

If I constantly referred to you with female pronouns that would probably annoy you. It would be sort of rude. Maybe you might think I was making some sort emasculating statement about you. But I don't think you would demand I be socially ostracized or lose my job. It probably would not a great move to be friends with you, I don't know.

I get that the stakes are a little higher for trans folks but I don't know if them simply being personally hurt would lead them to demand I be socially ostracized or I lose my job. The later seems especially unlikely me being a State of Texas Employee. Hell I would probably be promoted. So what? Are you saying all trans people are vindictive monsters? They are all psychopaths?

Especially as being misgendered intentionally is something they face every day.

Though I guess to some extent I also have a demand that I be treated with dignity and respect and if you deny me that, I probably will not talk to you. Because I have some amount of self-worth. I don't like subjecting myself to cruelty and bullshit. But I probably won't go out of my way to ostracize that asshole from society or lose their job. I will just not associate with that person anymore. I am pretty sure most trans people operate the same way. Or at least the ones I have associated with.

[Razgovory]

No, I'm not saying that all trans people are vindictive monsters.  What I'm saying is that trans people (should trans be capitalized?), have a belief that gender is a social construct and is independent of biological sex.  This is a philosophical belief, and that demanding you use certain pronouns is explicit demand that others endorse that belief.  Failure to do so will get you labeled as a hateful bigot.  Some people have in fact been fired for refusing to use someone's preferred pronouns.  

[garbon]

No, I'm not saying that all trans people are vindictive monsters.  What I'm saying is that trans people (should trans be capitalized?), have a belief that gender is a social construct and is independent of biological sex.  This is a philosophical belief, and that demanding you use certain pronouns is explicit demand that others endorse that belief.  Failure to do so will get you labeled as a hateful bigot.  Some people have in fact been fired for refusing to use someone's preferred pronouns. 

And we wonder why we have become primarily just a group of aging, straight, white guys.

Fuck you, Raz.

[HVC]

I mean, to be fair, we started off as primarily just a group of young, straight, white guys.

[Valmy]

No, I'm not saying that all trans people are vindictive monsters.  What I'm saying is that trans people (should trans be capitalized?), have a belief that gender is a social construct and is independent of biological sex.  This is a philosophical belief, and that demanding you use certain pronouns is explicit demand that others endorse that belief.  Failure to do so will get you labeled as a hateful bigot.  Some people have in fact been fired for refusing to use someone's preferred pronouns. 

I don't think it is a belief. It is just a fact that we have had these people with us forever. Why they exist I have no idea. They just do. I don't know if 400 years ago that philosophy existed but trans people sure did.

I think the philosophy came around to take into account that reality.

So you can be rude to them or be kind to them. Trying to stomp them out hasn't really worked. But I guess the Federal Government is going to give it a shot...again.

As far as being called something, I mean if you say something that pisses somebody off they might say something mean to you.

People get fired for all sorts of reasons. Some very arbitrary. I don't know the specifics of the pronoun firings or how many there were. Some might have made some sense, others might not have. But here in Texas if you are worker you don't have that much protection from the arbitrary whims of your boss. But hey right now we have entire companies and government departments being put out of business for being woke. So maybe using their preferred pronouns could get you fired as well. Hard to please everybody these days.

[dist]

For the risk to derail the conversation to an older topic.

They promised because they wanted to do it and meant to do it.  They failed because they are democracies with real legislatures.

So they disagreed with dist.

Not really.

I conceded that Yurostates should be doing more now, since the threat has become more palpable. Unfortunately some democracies take time to react and there are enormous political tensions in (some) European countries at the moment. I have also come to wonder if some of the European leaders haven't been in denial and cannot accept that we are living through the end of the post-Cold war order, thus perhaps their lack of decisive actions--looking at you Germany. But as far as I know, efforts have been ramping up across the continent, so your framing appears disingenuous.

So describing the current situation as "free riding" is a bit much in my opinion. I'm not sure it's done willingly, with the idea that the US will foot the human bill of a war, but rather a mix of reasons: slowness, denial.

There obviously always has been a differential in spending between the US and the Yurostates, but these spendings reflects different geopolitical and ideological perspectives which are a reflection of the superpower competition that existed at the time and still exist today. I would also remind you that the US profited from a stable and satelicized Europe and its larger spending in the military.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locations=EU

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/united-states/military-spending-defense-budget

I think we could debate a long time without one of us bulging on this, but I find rather "shocking" (for lack of a better word) how transactional you see this relationship and how short-termist your perspective seems to be. It obfuscates the situation that existed during the Cold War, its realities and reasons, as well as the reasons for the collapse of European military spending post USSR collapse.

There could be a lot said of European dithering on defense since 2014 and more importantly 2022, but I don't know if we could classify Yurostates action as "free riding", at least for most countries. I still reserve judgment on Austria's positioning, which seems totally out of bound with reality. Its supposed neutrality won't mean anything if Russia decides to invade a member of the EU.

But I would be happy to better understand your "free riding" argument.

[garbon]

For the risk to derail the conversation to an older topic.

They promised because they wanted to do it and meant to do it.  They failed because they are democracies with real legislatures.

So they disagreed with dist.

Not really.

I conceded that Yurostates should be doing more now, since the threat has become more palpable. Unfortunately some democracies take time to react and there are enormous political tensions in (some) European countries at the moment. I have also come to wonder if some of the European leaders haven't been in denial and cannot accept that we are living through the end of the post-Cold war order, thus perhaps their lack of decisive actions--looking at you Germany. But as far as I know, efforts have been ramping up across the continent, so your framing appears disingenuous.

So describing the current situation as "free riding" is a bit much in my opinion. I'm not sure it's done willingly, with the idea that the US will foot the human bill of a war, but rather a mix of reasons: slowness, denial.

There obviously always has been a differential in spending between the US and the Yurostates, but these spendings reflects different geopolitical and ideological perspectives which are a reflection of the superpower competition that existed at the time and still exist today. I would also remind you that the US profited from a stable and satelicized Europe and its larger spending in the military.

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/united-states/military-spending-defense-budget

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/united-states/military-spending-defense-budget

I think we could debate a long time without one of us bulging on this, but I find rather "shocking" (for lack of a better word) how transactional you see this relationship and how short-termist your perspective seems to be. It obfuscates the situation that existed during the Cold War, its realities and reasons, as well as the reasons for the collapse of European military spending post USSR collapse.

There could be a lot said of European dithering on defense since 2014 and more importantly 2022, but I don't know if we could classify Yurostates action as "free riding", at least for most countries. I still reserve judgment on Austria's positioning, which seems totally out of bound with reality. Its supposed neutrality won't mean anything if Russia decides to invade a member of the EU.

But I would be happy to better understand your "free riding" argument.

Those just sound like excuses. Understandable excuses but that's still not really a defense against Yi's claim.