LBGTQ

[SamsCorner 395]

43 minutes ago, 'stache said:

"Never back down" as he's literally backing down, taking his ball and going home. Pussy ass bitch.

Go Pokes!

https://kfor.com/news/local/upset-audience-brings-ryan-walters-speaking-event-to-abrupt-end/

‘Never back down to a woke mob!’ Upset audience brings Ryan Walters speaking event to abrupt end

STILLWATER, Okla. (KFOR) — A town hall event with State Superintendent Ryan Walters, hosted on OSU’s campus by a campus conservative organization, only lasted about 15 minutes Wednesday after some in the audience incessantly shouted at Walters.

Walters began the event telling the audience to “never back down to a woke mob.” 12 minutes later, organizers ushered Walters out of the room.

The event was put on by the OSU chapter of national conservative Group Turning Point USA (TPUSA).

TPUSA billed the event as a “town hall” with Walters on flyers it posted around campus.

Walters has only participated in Q&A style events with the general public a handful of times since taking office in January 2023.

The event attracted well over 100 students and community members to a lecture hall inside OSU’s engineering building, some of whom told News 4 they supported Walters, and others who said they did not.

But they all did have one thing in common: they came to the event, because it was a rare opportunity to hear from Walters, and ask him questions.

“I just kind of wanted to see, honestly what he had to say,” OSU student Ryann Sadler told News 4.

“OSU has a very big queer community, and we want to make sure we show up for them,“ said OSU student John Johnson, who helped lead a protest outside the lecture hall hosting the event before it began. “We have people inside who are going to ask them some very hard questions.”

“Even myself, who considers myself a Democrat, I still think it’s very important to hear what he has to say,” OSU student Victoria Anton said.

“I was happy to hear what he had to say,” OSU student Ryan Williamson said.

But hearing what Walters had to say proved easier in theory than in practice.

Walters entered the lecture hall greeted by a mix of roughly 40 percent cheers, 60 percent boos.

Soon, many who opted for the latter greeting began shouting at Walters from the audience.

“You’re a murderer!”

“Nex Benedict’s blood is on your hands!”

“You’re the one that’s scared!”

“55 percent of Oklahomans want you impeached!”

—Are just some of the many things they shouted.

At first, Walters persisted.

“They’re gonna yell, they’re gonna scream, they’re gonna say outrageous things,” Walters said of the hecklers. “There’s a few of them that are crying right now.”

Walters then turned, and addressed the shouters directly.

“I don’t care about your feelings,” he told them.

They responded with more shouts, laughs and eye rolls.

“Where are the grants!”

“Where’s your budget Mr. Walters!”

—They loudly questioned.

Walters responded back.

“There’s two genders,” he told the crowd.

The back and forth between Walters and the crowd continued over, and over, and over again.

“If you back down to a mob, they will get their way,” Walters declared at one point.

“Answer our questions!” someone shouted back.

“Let’s talk about a woke mob,” Walters later said.

“Let’s talk about facts!” several audience members shouted back.

Later, Walters repeated one of his earlier points.

“Never, never back down to a woke mob,” he told the audience.

A few minutes in, TPUSA leaders handed a microphone to students they’d chosen to ask Walters questions.

“I asked him what advice he had for someone looking to enter the field of politics,” Sadler said.

“I asked him how he responded to leftist media and activists,” Williamson said.

Of course, the shouting continued throughout all of this, and Walters chose to not use a microphone when responding to their questions.

News 4 was unable to hear Walters’ answers to their questions from the back of the lecture hall.

Then came more shouting.

The abruptness left students from both groups in the audience, yearning for more.

“I wish that I would have heard more of what he had to say because you know, that’s why I came,” Sadler said.

“It just felt like I wanted to hear more,” Anton said.

 

I can't find anyone who likes this guy.  Now only 3 of 10 I ask know who he is, but of those three none like him.

[troph 24781]

We bought a used receiver and plugged it and some speakers we’ve had sitting around for a while for the kids TV in the den. Stretched its legs with some Spotify through the TV app. Got to a Brandi Carlile song and she popped up on the 70 inch TV… 

 

 

omg she is sooooo hot in this pic.  

Edited April 21 by troph

[safe sex 11698]

@troph have you seen Love Lies Bleeding?

[mchookem 16322]

i got a big girl crush on her. i don't even swing that way. 

[NameAlreadyInUse 5111]

On 4/21/2024 at 9:05 AM, troph said:

We bought a used receiver and plugged it and some speakers we’ve had sitting around for a while for the kids TV in the den. Stretched its legs with some Spotify through the TV app. Got to a Brandi Carlile song and she popped up on the 70 inch TV… 

 

 

omg she is sooooo hot in this pic.  

Yeah she's gorgeous.  If I were going to make an exception, she'd be pretty much top of the list. 

[troph 24781]

[Brisketexan 105078]

17 minutes ago, troph said:

Man, I dig the crowd.  But that whole "Bramily" vibe totally dominates anywhere it's found.  We went to the Allison Russel show a few months back (discovered her at Willie's picnic a coupla years ago, we really like her).  Small venue, maybe 400 people for the show.  And it was 90% Bramily, wearing their Brandi shirts, etc. (Allison got a big break touring with Brandi, so respect to Brandi, who I also dig).  But man....that's a possessive and needy bunch.  They were all over the stage, and gave a vibe of "Allison is ours, but I guess we'll let y'all be here too."  

I get it.  An excluded group gets something that is truly theirs, and they want to be as possessive as they can be, having been pushed out of plenty of other places.  It just kinda dulled the enjoyment of the whole thing.

[troph 24781]

I hate when people are exclusionary. Don’t really care the circumstances. 

[Macanudo 12975]

I like lesbians. 

[Willfully Horn 8002]

6 hours ago, Macanudo said:

I like lesbians. 

Two women together in a sexual situation is absolutely erotic. But, I’m going to stir the pot, because no one likes scorched gumbo.

Certainly, there are women who are wired to be attracted to women. But, there are women who are attracted to individuals, and who are unconcerned about the gender of their attraction. Also certainly, there are men who similarly are attracted to individuals, with gender not being a factor in their affection.

I am compelled to make this post after understanding the experience of Marina Navratilova, and deciding she wasn’t treated fairly by those unwilling to agree with my second paragraph.

[atomheartbevo 89629]

https://www.kxan.com/news/texas-politics/abbott-calls-for-ban-on-gender-non-conforming-teachers-lgbtq-educators-respond/
 

Quote

At the Young Conservatives of Texas’ April 19 convention in Dallas, Texas Governor Greg Abbott called for an “end” to gender non-conforming behavior by teachers, according to audio released to KXAN by Texas Observer reporter Steven Monacelli.

During Abbott’s keynote speech, the Governor brought up a Lewisville ISD teacher who went viral online after wearing a pink dress as a “Spirit Day” costume. “In Lewisville, Texas… just a month ago, they had a high school teacher, who is a man, who would go to school dressed as a woman in a dress, high heels and makeup,” said Abbott at the conference. “The person… is trying to normalize that this behavior is ok! It’s not ok!”

Quote

He added that “this behavior” is what he wants to “end in the state of Texas,” and said that he feels it would be distracting for students.

According to reporting by KXAS, Hebron High School students had asked their teacher to wear the costume for a February spirit day event. In a statement, the teacher said he resigned to remove attention from the school after “hateful comments” online. Lewisville ISD told KXAS that the teacher didn’t violate any school policies.  Abbott did not define that behavior — attire that doesn’t meet the Governor’s opinions about gender, or more broadly LGBTQ+ teachers. KXAN asked the Governor’s Office for clarification, but has not yet received a response.

[WhatTheBuck 28775]

11 hours ago, Macanudo said:

I like lesbians. 

Everybody likes lesbians. 

[safe sex 11698]

Ladies, we gotta quit wearing pants to teach I guess

[Sawbonz 27542]

No you can still wear pants

 

[troph 24781]

So I’m confused…. Do I have to wear make up or not? Am I allowed to fish and what not? Can I keep my truck? Am I allowed to wear lacey underthings for my wife? How am I supposed to throw a ball? Governor Abbott please do tell…  

[troph 24781]

10 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

Two women together in a sexual situation is absolutely erotic. But, I’m going to stir the pot, because no one likes scorched gumbo.

Certainly, there are women who are wired to be attracted to women. But, there are women who are attracted to individuals, and who are unconcerned about the gender of their attraction. Also certainly, there are men who similarly are attracted to individuals, with gender not being a factor in their affection.

I am compelled to make this post after understanding the experience of Marina Navratilova, and deciding she wasn’t treated fairly by those unwilling to agree with my second paragraph.

I’m honestly not sure what you’re trying to communicate about her? Might you further explain? 

[Captainant 27638]

7 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

https://www.kxan.com/news/texas-politics/abbott-calls-for-ban-on-gender-non-conforming-teachers-lgbtq-educators-respond/
 

Hey @DixonHur this is another step along the path of fascism. Just since you seem to be fuckin oblivious to it

[YGIFS 19449]

So a man wearing lots of makeup, fake hair, and ill-fitting pants and a ladies sports watch will confuse and endanger children?  Has Abbott even met Donald Trump? 

[troph 24781]

11 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Hey @DixonHur this is another step along the path of fascism. Just since you seem to be fuckin oblivious to it

Can’t allow trans folk to be mainstream it’s ok. As long as we keep it to ourselves it’s fine. And drag seems like it’s just a show so there’s no reason to allow it. 

[safe sex 11698]

31 minutes ago, troph said:

As long as we keep it to ourselves it’s fine.

Not true anymore 😔

[troph 24781]

4 minutes ago, safe sex said:

Not true anymore 😔

I’m parroting his position basically. 

[safe sex 11698]

Oh duh! Need more caffeine. I was def like "wtf troph?"

[Bozo_Casanova 26437]

On 4/21/2024 at 10:05 AM, troph said:

We bought a used receiver and plugged it and some speakers we’ve had sitting around for a while for the kids TV in the den. Stretched its legs with some Spotify through the TV app. Got to a Brandi Carlile song and she popped up on the 70 inch TV… 

 

 

omg she is sooooo hot in this pic.  

Love her. She does great covers, too. She’s one of those singers who can basically sing anything and make it hers, like Kelly Clarkson or Tom Jones. 

58 minutes ago, troph said:

I’m honestly not sure what you’re trying to communicate about her? Might you further explain? 

I would just let it pass, it seemed like working some things out in public to me. 

Edited April 27 by Bozo_Casanova

[Sawbonz 27542]

39 minutes ago, troph said:

Can’t allow trans folk to be mainstream it’s ok. As long as we keep it to ourselves it’s fine. And drag seems like it’s just a show so there’s no reason to allow it. 

This is the problem with @DixonHur’s philosophy of taking the path of least resistance. These people are zealots. They will never be satisfied until the have complete control. And then once the marginalized are eliminated they come after the appeasers (who will be shocked at this turn of events no doubt). Then when those are gone or have conformed they start in on each other 

 

For someone who claims to be a student of history he really hasn’t learned much

[SubliminalHorn 6786]

Started watching this a while back. Haven’t finished it but it’s really good. This how fascism takes over and erases queerness 

 

Eldorado, Everything the Nazis Hate

[safe sex 11698]

9 minutes ago, SubliminalHorn said:

Started watching this a while back. Haven’t finished it but it’s really good. This how fascism takes over and erases queerness 

 

Eldorado, Everything the Nazis Hate

Excellent doc. Highly recommend. 

Can't remember if they bring it up or not, but it's worth noting that like with all fascists, the top ranks of the early Nazi party had a notable number of hypocritical closeted sadists, much like the modern Republican party

[SubliminalHorn 6786]

Just now, safe sex said:

Excellent doc. Highly recommend. 

Can't remember if they bring it up or not, but it's worth noting that like with all fascists, the top ranks of the early Nazi party had a notable number of hypocritical closeted sadists, much like the modern Republican party

Oh they definitely mention it. They discus Ernst Rohm and how he frequented those clubs. It’s really good and has some very chilling parallels to what’s happening today. 

['stache 21798]

19 hours ago, troph said:

Universal truth.

[safe sex 11698]

Afaik, the only recent controversies with Navratilova are that she's speaking out against the WTA being involved with the Saudis (a with fight), and she waffles about trans women competing in sports with cis women. Tho it looks like her views on that have unfortunately calcified about that recently. 

Ho hum. 

[Willfully Horn 8002]

4 hours ago, troph said:

I’m honestly not sure what you’re trying to communicate about her? Might you further explain? 

Apologies for the delay in responding. I have spent not a little bit of time trying to find the interview I heard, or an article that mentions that interview. In the process, I have learned she has made other controversial remarks, and they dominate search results.

My memory is that, when she was discussing participating in Dancing with the Stars, she was nonplussed about folks being surprised she was being paired with a male dance partner. She went on to say that she is gay because she fell in love with a woman. I remember her stating she thought it possible that she might have fallen in love with a man, but that never happened, because she had already fallen in love with a woman.

One quote of hers I did find sort of explains her thinking about sexuality:

”"People (the straight ones) often ask: Why are people gay? I say, well, why are people straight? There is no straight answer here, so to speak. Human sexuality is multi-faceted, complex and quite fluid; genes play a part as well. How much? Who knows? But that's not really the point anyway."

 

The interview mentioned that she upset people who felt she was saying being gay is a choice. Which I thought was an unfair characterization of her words.  She did say folks who are certain that sexuality is a choice might have had feelings for both genders, and then made a choice about which gender they will love. 
 

She fell in love with a person, not a gender. 
 

https://www.advocate.com/news/daily-news/2012/01/27/martina-asks-whether-margaret-court-suppressing-her-own-lesbianism

[YGIFS 19449]

5 hours ago, SubliminalHorn said:

Oh they definitely mention it. They discus Ernst Rohm and how he frequented those clubs. It’s really good and has some very chilling parallels to what’s happening today. 

What the stupids never understand is the first to be purged aren't the 'enemies of the state.'  Before the trains, before the kangaroo court trials, before the camps.  We always request the loyalists to demonstrate it by turning in those relatives and friends and neighbors of undesirable backgrounds.  Mixed blood, religious minorities, immigrants, homosexuals, transgenders, addicts, the disabled, the elderly, et. al.  Certainly a few are allowed to operate freely while they serve a purpose to the cause, but in the end---if I can get you to sell out your family or your friends out of fealty to the cause........well then getting you to help round up total strangers in the same categories is breeze after that point.  

Self-proclaimed "students of history" always think it's the dehumanizing of "different" populations" that allows for evacuation.  But that's almost always the second part.  That takes time and resources.  When I offer you station or agency in the government or economy by selling out your gay nephew, your handicapped aunt, your elderly great-grandparent, your brown in-law, your work Visa'd coworker.  If I can get you to do that, having you help liquidate a hundred strangers is like drawing your next breath.  People won't sell one another out after the anonymous have been dealt with because they'll know the fate all too well.  You work it the other way around.  We have done this a thousand times.  Like burning books, once we strip away your sense of independence.................the mass graves are the fucking easy part.  

[South Austin 52456]

7 hours ago, safe sex said:

Ladies, we gotta quit wearing pants to teach I guess

Have you ever considered a run for the presidency of America?

[Welshy 907]

9 hours ago, safe sex said:

Excellent doc. Highly recommend. 

Can't remember if they bring it up or not, but it's worth noting that like with all fascists, the top ranks of the early Nazi party had a notable number of hypocritical closeted sadists, much like the modern Republican party

Just watched. Amazing in some really subtle ways.

I cannot fathom being a Trans Jew in Nazi Germany. The first 3 Trans operations in 19 fucking 30 something blows my mind. Not that it happened, but that Trans people were so desperate to reconcile who they were that they would undergo what I have to assume was the most experimental, ham-fisted, life altering surgeries blows my mind. 100 fucking years ago. Jesus. 

It gave me a real moment of understanding for Trans issues. Or my lack of understanding of Trans issues. I paused the documentary to process why I was more appalled by that part than some of the other appalling shit being depicted. My conclusion is I'm mentally comfortable with Gay, but have been subliminally skeptical of Trans. Seeing that level of desperation tells me I just don't understand. 

Any other recommendations? 

 

[troph 24781]

20 hours ago, Welshy said:

Just watched. Amazing in some really subtle ways.

I cannot fathom being a Trans Jew in Nazi Germany. The first 3 Trans operations in 19 fucking 30 something blows my mind. Not that it happened, but that Trans people were so desperate to reconcile who they were that they would undergo what I have to assume was the most experimental, ham-fisted, life altering surgeries blows my mind. 100 fucking years ago. Jesus. 

It gave me a real moment of understanding for Trans issues. Or my lack of understanding of Trans issues. I paused the documentary to process why I was more appalled by that part than some of the other appalling shit being depicted. My conclusion is I'm mentally comfortable with Gay, but have been subliminally skeptical of Trans. Seeing that level of desperation tells me I just don't understand. 

Any other recommendations? 

 

Berlin was waaaay ahead of its time pre-Hitler. Vibrant scene, queer and trans. Stunning really. I don’t have have any recs to offer but I do appreciate your honest and I’m glad something resonated with you. The thing is, the more things change the more they stay the same. Facts and circumstances vary from culture to culture, society to society, person to person and generation to generation but in the west we trans folk still risk an inordinate amount in our lives - an amount cisgender, white, straight folk likely cannot fathom - just to have a chance at quieting the unrelenting sound of gender dissonance in our heads.  Relationships, money, career, opportunity, shit man if I went into the opportunities I’ve lost because of transition, not to mention the people I’ve lost, you’d be at risk of swallowing flies. Jaw dropping losses, and here’s the thing devastating loss is the rule for our people not the exception. And yet we are still adamant we must do it because the alternative is death sometimes by suicide, sometimes by slow declines like alcoholism and sometimes by a life felt as a complete and utter waste of inauthenticity. 

Edited April 28 by troph

[SubliminalHorn 6786]

22 hours ago, Welshy said:

Just watched. Amazing in some really subtle ways.

I cannot fathom being a Trans Jew in Nazi Germany. The first 3 Trans operations in 19 fucking 30 something blows my mind. Not that it happened, but that Trans people were so desperate to reconcile who they were that they would undergo what I have to assume was the most experimental, ham-fisted, life altering surgeries blows my mind. 100 fucking years ago. Jesus. 

It gave me a real moment of understanding for Trans issues. Or my lack of understanding of Trans issues. I paused the documentary to process why I was more appalled by that part than some of the other appalling shit being depicted. My conclusion is I'm mentally comfortable with Gay, but have been subliminally skeptical of Trans. Seeing that level of desperation tells me I just don't understand. 

Any other recommendations? 

 

I’m glad you took the time to watch and have the open mind to realize you have a lot to learn. So do I. I know that I love being a man. No doubts in my mind. I don’t understand being trans. But you know what? It’s not for me to understand. Just accept and mind my own business.  

[Captainant 27638]

Our criminal justice systems failure to put Kpax away is going to be like leaving a fucking tumor in the body 

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/04/texas-sues-biden-administration-for-right-to-discriminate-against-lgbtq-students/

Quote

Paxton’s lawsuit claims that Biden misinterpreted Title IX, saying that the Supreme Court’s Bostock ruling was based on the phrase “because of sex” in Title VII, whereas Title IX is completely different because it bans discrimination “on the basis of sex.”

“Bostock holds only that Title VII’s prohibition on ‘sex’ discrimination prohibits employers from firing or refusing to hire individuals ‘for being homosexual or transgender,'” Paxton argues in his filing. He argues that discrimination against bisexuals is allowed under Bostock as long as an entity discriminates against both bi men and bi women equally. Bisexual people are not mentioned in that ruling. This bizarre legal argument was used in a lawsuit filed by a Christian conservative businessman in Texas in 2021.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) ordered the Texas Education Agency today to ignore the new Title IX rules, something that at least four other states — Louisiana, Florida, Oklahoma, and South Carolina — have done or announced that they would do.

On X, he argued that protecting transgender students takes away from protections for women.

 

[Satchel 6934]

United Methodists overwhelmingly vote to repeal longstanding ban on LGBTQ clergy

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/united-methodists-lgbtq-clergy-ban-repeal-vote/

This means that all of the UMC closeted clergy who faithfully serve the church are no longer compelled to hide who they are. Not so for the Baptists. 

[DixonHur 11295]

On 4/27/2024 at 8:37 AM, Captainant said:

Hey @DixonHur this is another step along the path of fascism. Just since you seem to be fuckin oblivious to it

Lol, not sure what this has to do with me since I have a long history as an LGBTQ ally, but you do you.

I do, however, look forward to the day you find out what Fascism is instead of throwing it against the wall hoping it will stick.  

This is authoritarianism, which I am completely against...to be clear I'm against Fascism too, and while Abbott may indeed be a Fascist, this is just garden variety authoritarian behavior...which exists on (gasp) both sides.

Maybe this article from The Atlantic will help you.  Spoilered below in case you don't have a subscription.

Quote

Intriguingly, the researchers found some common traits between left-wing and right-wing authoritarians, including a “preference for social uniformity, prejudice towards different others, willingness to wield group authority to coerce behavior, cognitive rigidity, aggression and punitiveness towards perceived enemies, outsized concern for hierarchy, and moral absolutism.”

 

Spoiler

Donald trump’s rise to power generated a flood of media coverage and academic research on authoritarianism—or at least the kind of authoritarianism that exists on the political right. Over the past several years, some researchers have theorized that Trump couldn’t have won in 2016 without support from Americans who deplore political compromise and want leaders to rule with a strong hand. Although right-wing authoritarianism is well documented, social psychologists do not all agree that a leftist version even exists. In February 2020, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology held a symposium called “Is Left-Wing Authoritarianism Real? Evidence on Both Sides of the Debate.”

An ambitious new study on the subject by the Emory University researcher Thomas H. Costello and five colleagues should settle the question. It proposes a rigorous new measure of antidemocratic attitudes on the left. And, by drawing on a survey of 7,258 adults, Costello’s team firmly establishes that such attitudes exist on both sides of the American electorate. (One co-author on the paper, I should note, was Costello’s adviser, the late Scott Lilienfeld—with whom I wrote a 2013 book and numerous articles.) Intriguingly, the researchers found some common traits between left-wing and right-wing authoritarians, including a “preference for social uniformity, prejudice towards different others, willingness to wield group authority to coerce behavior, cognitive rigidity, aggression and punitiveness towards perceived enemies, outsized concern for hierarchy, and moral absolutism.”

Published last month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Costello team’s paper is persuasive, to the point that you have to wonder: How could past researchers have overlooked left-wing authoritarianism for so long? “For 70 years, the lore in the social sciences has been that authoritarianism was to be found exclusively on the political right,” the Rutgers University social psychologist Lee Jussim, who wasn’t involved in the new study, told me in an email. In the 1950 book The Authoritarian Personality, an inquiry into the psychological makeup of people strongly drawn to autocratic rule and repressive politics, the German-born scholar Theodor W. Adorno and three other psychologists measured people along dimensions such as conformity to societal norms, rigid thinking, and sexual repression. And they concluded that “the authoritarian type of human”— the kind of person whose enthusiastic support allows someone like Hitler to exercise power—was found only among conservatives. In the mid-1990s, the influential Canadian psychologist Bob Altemeyer described left-wing authoritarianism as “the Loch Ness Monster of political psychology—an occasional shadow, but no monster. ” Subsequently, other psychologists reached the same conclusion.

The Trump era likely deepened psychology’s conventional wisdom that authoritarians are almost always conservatives; the insurrection at the Capitol earlier this year showed the urgency of understanding the phenomenon. And yet calls to de-platform controversial speakers and online campaigns to get people fired for heterodox views suggest that a commitment to open democratic norms is eroding, at least in some quarters, on the left. Much further along the authoritarian continuum, people purporting to be antiracist or antifascist protesters have set fires and committed other acts of violence since the summer of 2020. These acts stop short of, say, the 1970s bombing campaign by the far-left Weather Underground, but surely call the prevailing wisdom into doubt. (Supporters of revolutionary regimes overseas have demonstrated even more clearly that some people on the left try to get their way through intimidation and force.)

But one reason left-wing authoritarianism barely shows up in social-psychology research is that most academic experts in the field are based at institutions where prevailing attitudes are far to the left of society as a whole. Scholars who personally support the left’s social vision—such as redistributing income, countering racism, and more—may simply be slow to identify authoritarianism among people with similar goals.

One doesn’t need to believe that left-wing authoritarians are as numerous or as threatening as their right-wing counterparts to grasp that both phenomena are a problem. While liberals—both inside and outside of academia—may derive some comfort from believing that left-wing authoritarianism doesn’t exist, that fiction ignores a significant source of instability and polarization in our politics and society.

In the research that led to The Authoritarian Personality, Adorno and his colleagues developed an “F-scale” to measure fascist attitudes; Altemeyer later drew on that research to create a scale measuring right-wing authoritarianism by assessing certain personality traits—including feelings of aggression, willingness to submit to authority, and a quality that he called “conventionalism”—not strictly related to a subject’s political conservatism. Altemeyer’s right-wing authoritarian (RWA) scale remains “the gold standard for conceptualizing and evaluating all kinds of authoritarianism,” Costello told me. But when Altemeyer later turned his attention to left-wing authoritarianism (LWA), he erroneously assumed it would be identical to the right-wing variety. His LWA scale barely identified any subjects. He either had set the threshold too high or was measuring the wrong attitudes.

Costello and his colleagues started fresh. They developed what eventually became a list of 39 statements capturing sentiments such as “We need to replace the established order by any means necessary” and “I should have the right not to be exposed to offensive views.” Subjects were asked to score the statements on a scale of 1 to 7. They showed a trait that the researchers described as “anti-hierarchical aggression” by agreeing strongly that “If I could remake society, I would put people who currently have the most privilege at the bottom.” By agreeing with statements such as “Getting rid of inequality is more important than protecting the so-called ‘right’ to free speech,” they showed an attitude called “top-down censorship.” And they showed what the research team called “anti-conventionalism” by endorsing statements such as “I cannot imagine myself becoming friends with a political conservative.”

Costello and his colleagues administered their new LWA index and Altemeyer’s original RWA scale. Some differences emerged between left-wing and right-wing authoritarians; the former were more open to new experiences and more receptive to science than the latter, for example. Yet the new research documents a large overlap in authoritarian structure—a “shared psychological core,” as the authors put it—between high scorers on their new LWA index and Altemeyer’s original RWA scale, which they also administered. The authoritarian mentality, whether on the far left or far right, the authors conclude, exerts “powerful pressures to maintain discipline among members, advocate aggressive and censorious means of stifling opposition, [and] believe in top-down absolutist leadership.”

Perhaps the most compelling insight emerged from trying to separate subjects’ political ideology from authoritarianism. They found that your ideology—whether you’re a progressive or a Trumpist—is a secondary matter. Whether your values and beliefs are authoritarian or not is more fundamental. “Psychologically speaking, authoritarianism comes first,” Costello told me.

I asked Costello whether left-wing and right-wing authoritarians exist in equal proportions. “It is hard to know the ratio,” he said, making clear that a subject’s receptivity to authoritarianism falls on a continuum, like other personality characteristics or even height, so using hard-and-fast categories (authoritarian versus nonauthoritarian) can be tricky. “Still, some preliminary work shows the ratio is about the same if you average across the globe,” he said. In the U.S., though, Costello hypothesizes that right-wing authoritarians outnumber left-wing ones by roughly three to one. Other researchers have concluded that the number of strident conservatives in the U.S. far exceeds the number of strident progressives and that American conservatives express more authoritarian attitudes than their counterparts in Britain, Australia, or Canada.

That psychologists have been slow to acknowledge the existence of left-wing authoritarians at all is “puzzling,” Costello and his colleagues write. But here, I would argue, is where the pronounced leftward orientation of researchers in social psychology comes in. “Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years,” according to a comprehensive 2014 review. Universities have long tilted to the left, but that tendency has deepened as education has become ever more highly correlated with political ideology. Whatever its origin, this political imbalance makes truth-seeking harder. Studies have repeatedly shown that investigators’ sociopolitical views influence the questions they ask. What’s more, ideologically concordant reviewers are more likely to rate abstracts and papers highly if the findings comport with their own beliefs, all else being equal.

Ideological blind spots can indeed affect researchers with a strongly conservative or merely right-of-center outlook, but there just aren’t enough of them to matter. If academic psychology had more viewpoint diversity, the political biases that distort researchers’ work would all counterbalance one another. In American universities today, those biases generally point in the same direction. In psychology, the belief that only conservatives can be authoritarians, and that therefore only conservative authoritarians warrant serious study, has proved self-reinforcing over the course of decades.

As both left- and right-wing autocracies metastasize around the globe—a “pandemic of global authoritarianism” that has “persisted and deepened” over the past 15 years, in the words of the Stanford sociologist Larry Diamond—and as the speed of radicalization of recruits has hastened, the modest cadre of researchers interested in the subject will likely grow. By recasting left-wing authoritarianism in more specific terms—anti-hierarchical aggression, top-down censorship, and anti-conventionalism—Costello and his colleagues offer other researchers and the general public a new vocabulary for discussing antidemocratic attitudes on that side of the political spectrum.

The other virtue of the Costello team’s work is its status as a sobering demonstration of how social psychology’s dominant ideological orientation has constrained the scope of inquiry. “The dominant view of RWA as the ‘gold standard’ of authoritarianism writ large is not merely an influential theoretical framework or a historical quirk,” the authors write. “It limits the questions we ask as scientists [and] the types of theories we use to interpret our results.” For many years, what was perfectly obvious to many outside the field—that extremist mindsets exist on both ends of the political spectrum—was at best downplayed by the majority of social psychologists. An ideological monoculture within the discipline has damaged our collective understanding of political psychology—and, by extension, American politics.

Sally Satel is a psychiatrist, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and the co-author of Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience. She is a visiting professor at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University.

 

[DixonHur 11295]

On 4/27/2024 at 9:34 AM, Sawbonz said:

This is the problem with @DixonHur’s philosophy of taking the path of least resistance. These people are zealots. They will never be satisfied until the have complete control. And then once the marginalized are eliminated they come after the appeasers (who will be shocked at this turn of events no doubt). Then when those are gone or have conformed they start in on each other 

 

For someone who claims to be a student of history he really hasn’t learned much

Do tell.  What have I not learned from history?  

I'm currently rereading Cicero, and that shit was written 2,500 years ago, but, aside from attitudes towards homosexuality, it could have been written today.  

History = Same shit different day.  

Path of least resistance isn't about giving up.  It's about small changes and doing things that actually make a difference, as opposed to protesting, destroying property, and bitching on message boards.  Fucking VOTE and convince others to VOTE.  Volunteer for or donate to causes you care about.  Engage in local / grassroots politics. 

[Captainant 27638]

21 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

Lol, not sure what this has to do with me since I have a long history as an LGBTQ ally, but you do you.

I do, however, look forward to the day you find out what Fascism is instead of throwing it against the wall hoping it will stick.  

This is authoritarianism, which I am completely against...to be clear I'm against Fascism too, and while Abbott may indeed be a Fascist, this is just garden variety authoritarian behavior...which exists on (gasp) both sides.

Maybe this article from The Atlantic will help you.  Spoilered below in case you don't have a subscription.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Donald trump’s rise to power generated a flood of media coverage and academic research on authoritarianism—or at least the kind of authoritarianism that exists on the political right. Over the past several years, some researchers have theorized that Trump couldn’t have won in 2016 without support from Americans who deplore political compromise and want leaders to rule with a strong hand. Although right-wing authoritarianism is well documented, social psychologists do not all agree that a leftist version even exists. In February 2020, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology held a symposium called “Is Left-Wing Authoritarianism Real? Evidence on Both Sides of the Debate.”

An ambitious new study on the subject by the Emory University researcher Thomas H. Costello and five colleagues should settle the question. It proposes a rigorous new measure of antidemocratic attitudes on the left. And, by drawing on a survey of 7,258 adults, Costello’s team firmly establishes that such attitudes exist on both sides of the American electorate. (One co-author on the paper, I should note, was Costello’s adviser, the late Scott Lilienfeld—with whom I wrote a 2013 book and numerous articles.) Intriguingly, the researchers found some common traits between left-wing and right-wing authoritarians, including a “preference for social uniformity, prejudice towards different others, willingness to wield group authority to coerce behavior, cognitive rigidity, aggression and punitiveness towards perceived enemies, outsized concern for hierarchy, and moral absolutism.”

Published last month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Costello team’s paper is persuasive, to the point that you have to wonder: How could past researchers have overlooked left-wing authoritarianism for so long? “For 70 years, the lore in the social sciences has been that authoritarianism was to be found exclusively on the political right,” the Rutgers University social psychologist Lee Jussim, who wasn’t involved in the new study, told me in an email. In the 1950 book The Authoritarian Personality, an inquiry into the psychological makeup of people strongly drawn to autocratic rule and repressive politics, the German-born scholar Theodor W. Adorno and three other psychologists measured people along dimensions such as conformity to societal norms, rigid thinking, and sexual repression. And they concluded that “the authoritarian type of human”— the kind of person whose enthusiastic support allows someone like Hitler to exercise power—was found only among conservatives. In the mid-1990s, the influential Canadian psychologist Bob Altemeyer described left-wing authoritarianism as “the Loch Ness Monster of political psychology—an occasional shadow, but no monster. ” Subsequently, other psychologists reached the same conclusion.

The Trump era likely deepened psychology’s conventional wisdom that authoritarians are almost always conservatives; the insurrection at the Capitol earlier this year showed the urgency of understanding the phenomenon. And yet calls to de-platform controversial speakers and online campaigns to get people fired for heterodox views suggest that a commitment to open democratic norms is eroding, at least in some quarters, on the left. Much further along the authoritarian continuum, people purporting to be antiracist or antifascist protesters have set fires and committed other acts of violence since the summer of 2020. These acts stop short of, say, the 1970s bombing campaign by the far-left Weather Underground, but surely call the prevailing wisdom into doubt. (Supporters of revolutionary regimes overseas have demonstrated even more clearly that some people on the left try to get their way through intimidation and force.)

But one reason left-wing authoritarianism barely shows up in social-psychology research is that most academic experts in the field are based at institutions where prevailing attitudes are far to the left of society as a whole. Scholars who personally support the left’s social vision—such as redistributing income, countering racism, and more—may simply be slow to identify authoritarianism among people with similar goals.

One doesn’t need to believe that left-wing authoritarians are as numerous or as threatening as their right-wing counterparts to grasp that both phenomena are a problem. While liberals—both inside and outside of academia—may derive some comfort from believing that left-wing authoritarianism doesn’t exist, that fiction ignores a significant source of instability and polarization in our politics and society.

In the research that led to The Authoritarian Personality, Adorno and his colleagues developed an “F-scale” to measure fascist attitudes; Altemeyer later drew on that research to create a scale measuring right-wing authoritarianism by assessing certain personality traits—including feelings of aggression, willingness to submit to authority, and a quality that he called “conventionalism”—not strictly related to a subject’s political conservatism. Altemeyer’s right-wing authoritarian (RWA) scale remains “the gold standard for conceptualizing and evaluating all kinds of authoritarianism,” Costello told me. But when Altemeyer later turned his attention to left-wing authoritarianism (LWA), he erroneously assumed it would be identical to the right-wing variety. His LWA scale barely identified any subjects. He either had set the threshold too high or was measuring the wrong attitudes.

Costello and his colleagues started fresh. They developed what eventually became a list of 39 statements capturing sentiments such as “We need to replace the established order by any means necessary” and “I should have the right not to be exposed to offensive views.” Subjects were asked to score the statements on a scale of 1 to 7. They showed a trait that the researchers described as “anti-hierarchical aggression” by agreeing strongly that “If I could remake society, I would put people who currently have the most privilege at the bottom.” By agreeing with statements such as “Getting rid of inequality is more important than protecting the so-called ‘right’ to free speech,” they showed an attitude called “top-down censorship.” And they showed what the research team called “anti-conventionalism” by endorsing statements such as “I cannot imagine myself becoming friends with a political conservative.”

Costello and his colleagues administered their new LWA index and Altemeyer’s original RWA scale. Some differences emerged between left-wing and right-wing authoritarians; the former were more open to new experiences and more receptive to science than the latter, for example. Yet the new research documents a large overlap in authoritarian structure—a “shared psychological core,” as the authors put it—between high scorers on their new LWA index and Altemeyer’s original RWA scale, which they also administered. The authoritarian mentality, whether on the far left or far right, the authors conclude, exerts “powerful pressures to maintain discipline among members, advocate aggressive and censorious means of stifling opposition, [and] believe in top-down absolutist leadership.”

Perhaps the most compelling insight emerged from trying to separate subjects’ political ideology from authoritarianism. They found that your ideology—whether you’re a progressive or a Trumpist—is a secondary matter. Whether your values and beliefs are authoritarian or not is more fundamental. “Psychologically speaking, authoritarianism comes first,” Costello told me.

I asked Costello whether left-wing and right-wing authoritarians exist in equal proportions. “It is hard to know the ratio,” he said, making clear that a subject’s receptivity to authoritarianism falls on a continuum, like other personality characteristics or even height, so using hard-and-fast categories (authoritarian versus nonauthoritarian) can be tricky. “Still, some preliminary work shows the ratio is about the same if you average across the globe,” he said. In the U.S., though, Costello hypothesizes that right-wing authoritarians outnumber left-wing ones by roughly three to one. Other researchers have concluded that the number of strident conservatives in the U.S. far exceeds the number of strident progressives and that American conservatives express more authoritarian attitudes than their counterparts in Britain, Australia, or Canada.

That psychologists have been slow to acknowledge the existence of left-wing authoritarians at all is “puzzling,” Costello and his colleagues write. But here, I would argue, is where the pronounced leftward orientation of researchers in social psychology comes in. “Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years,” according to a comprehensive 2014 review. Universities have long tilted to the left, but that tendency has deepened as education has become ever more highly correlated with political ideology. Whatever its origin, this political imbalance makes truth-seeking harder. Studies have repeatedly shown that investigators’ sociopolitical views influence the questions they ask. What’s more, ideologically concordant reviewers are more likely to rate abstracts and papers highly if the findings comport with their own beliefs, all else being equal.

Ideological blind spots can indeed affect researchers with a strongly conservative or merely right-of-center outlook, but there just aren’t enough of them to matter. If academic psychology had more viewpoint diversity, the political biases that distort researchers’ work would all counterbalance one another. In American universities today, those biases generally point in the same direction. In psychology, the belief that only conservatives can be authoritarians, and that therefore only conservative authoritarians warrant serious study, has proved self-reinforcing over the course of decades.

As both left- and right-wing autocracies metastasize around the globe—a “pandemic of global authoritarianism” that has “persisted and deepened” over the past 15 years, in the words of the Stanford sociologist Larry Diamond—and as the speed of radicalization of recruits has hastened, the modest cadre of researchers interested in the subject will likely grow. By recasting left-wing authoritarianism in more specific terms—anti-hierarchical aggression, top-down censorship, and anti-conventionalism—Costello and his colleagues offer other researchers and the general public a new vocabulary for discussing antidemocratic attitudes on that side of the political spectrum.

The other virtue of the Costello team’s work is its status as a sobering demonstration of how social psychology’s dominant ideological orientation has constrained the scope of inquiry. “The dominant view of RWA as the ‘gold standard’ of authoritarianism writ large is not merely an influential theoretical framework or a historical quirk,” the authors write. “It limits the questions we ask as scientists [and] the types of theories we use to interpret our results.” For many years, what was perfectly obvious to many outside the field—that extremist mindsets exist on both ends of the political spectrum—was at best downplayed by the majority of social psychologists. An ideological monoculture within the discipline has damaged our collective understanding of political psychology—and, by extension, American politics.

Sally Satel is a psychiatrist, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and the co-author of Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience. She is a visiting professor at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University.

 

Abbott's rule means firing teachers who are or present as gay or non CIS. That is othering and social exclusion, and forcing hardship on people simply because they do not comply with the cultural norm. These people are trying to make it such that you cannot exist in Texas as anything but a cisgender heterosexual person, or else face criminal or civil sanction. 

You are blind if you cannot connect those dots. 

7 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

Path of least resistance isn't about giving up.  It's about small changes and doing things that actually make a difference, as opposed to protesting, destroying property, and bitching on message boards.  Fucking VOTE and convince others to VOTE.  Volunteer for or donate to causes you care about.  Engage in local / grassroots politics. 

You saying this to someone who's already doing those things is why you're getting the heat you are. I vote, volunteer for local causes, donate to local races on occasion, and have even walked around and knocked on doors for a candidate for days on end. 

Problem is, I don't have enough money speech to compete with the Texas oil oligarchs that are trying to make my home state into a shit hole. The """pAtH oF LeAsT rEsIsTaNcE""" is you choosing to accept the framing and dance to the tune of those rich oligarchs that want to take away voting and civil rights. For fucks sake, I feel like you wouldn't anything short of Auschwitz "fascism". Do you need me to share Umberto Eco's helpful guide for identifying and characterizing them?

[DixonHur 11295]

10 minutes ago, Captainant said:

You saying this to someone who's already doing those things is why you're getting the heat you are.

Good for you...I'm legit glad you're doing something constructive.  But, I'm getting the "heat", as you call it, because my opinion on the Pro-Palestine protestors at UT diverged from the group, which is exactly what that Atlantic article quote was about.

It is also exactly why the CR has the bad reputation it does.  Once upon a time differing opinions were welcome on the UT message boards (Hornfans, Shaggy, and early Surly), but now if you have an opinion that doesn't conform to "the group" you get negged into oblivion.

I actually really enjoy honest debates on the issues, and am willing to move my opinions based on reasoned debate...but that shit isn't welcome here anymore.

For example, if we met up, I'd bet you and I, and most other people here, would agree on 80+% of things, but in today's highly charged political climate that's not good enough, and that's a real shame IMO.

Edited May 1 by DixonHur

[DixonHur 11295]

11 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Problem is, I don't have enough money speech to compete with the Texas oil oligarchs that are trying to make my home state into a shit hole. The """pAtH oF LeAsT rEsIsTaNcE""" is you choosing to accept the framing and dance to the tune of those rich oligarchs that want to take away voting and civil rights. For fucks sake, I feel like you wouldn't anything short of Auschwitz "fascism". Do you need me to share Umberto Eco's helpful guide for identifying and characterizing them?

Voting is the only actual recourse we have, that's why it's frustrating that people don't use it.  I'm headed to the gym now, so I can't look it up, but what % of eligible voters actually vote?

You're also misunderstanding facsism, or at leat how I use it.  Again, I don't have a ton of time before I have to go, but I skimmed this and think this is a good primary on how I view fascism vs authoritarianism.

Link

And yes, I would love you to post "Umberto Eco's helpful guide for identifying and characterizing them?"

[safe sex 11698]

53 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

It is also exactly why the CR has the bad reputation it does.  Once upon a time differing opinions were welcome on the UT message boards (Hornfans, Shaggy, and early Surly), but now if you have an opinion that doesn't conform to "the group" you get negged into oblivion.

I actually really enjoy honest debates on the issues, and am willing to move my opinions based on reasoned debate...but that shit isn't welcome here anymore.

A quick skim of the last two pages reveals no negs given out to you, despite your opinions that don't conform to "the group." It's possible that I missed one because I'm essentially blind without my glasses, but regardless, I hardly think it would qualify as "negged to oblivion."

Perhaps it's less opinions that are being negged in CR and more trolling, bigotry, and fascism (not your definition, clearly)

[Foosters 17842]

44 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

 

It is also exactly why the CR has the bad reputation it does.  Once upon a time differing opinions were welcome on the UT message boards (Hornfans, Shaggy, and early Surly), but now if you have an opinion that doesn't conform to "the group" you get negged into oblivion.

 

This is patently untrue. The problem, as it has been discussed ad nauseum, is that one of our major political parties peddles untruths, conspiracy theories, and racist/anti-Semitic narratives. Exclusively. Can you provide an example of a contemporary GOP principal that does NOT demonize or villify a group?

-The media is the enemy of the people

-Immigrants "poison the blood of our country"

-Democrats are the party of pedophiles

-Gay people want to groom our kids. they are also pedophiles

-Trans people want to groom our kids. They are also pedophiles.

-Leftists want to indoctrinate children. They are also pedophiles.

-College Professors are leftist agitators trying to indoctrinate students.

-The 2020 election was stolen by Democrats!

-Joe Biden is an illegal president. He should be imprisoned or executed.

-Women should be imprisoned or executed if they have an abortion. Even if its to save their own life.

-Muslims should not be allowed to enter the country.

-Russia is a good, Christian nation and they are only defending themselves from Ukrainian Nazis.

-Vaccines are dangerous. 

-Climate change is a hoax perpetuated by Democrats to push their green narrative.

The above are not just positions you see in conspiracy theory chat rooms. They are the mainstream, national political positions of the GOP, echoed by the leader of the GOP and his minions on a regular basis. So, if you are a member or ally to ANY of the above groups, and someone tells you that "yes, Muslims should not be able to enter our country," or "hey, you're probably ok, but I don't trust the Trans community and see no problem with people exercising their 2nd amendment rights outside gatherings of Trans individuals," or "gay people probably shouldn't be telling their students that they're gay" then its hard to see how its anything but a direct attack on you and your way of life. 

Gone are the days where we sit around arguing about marginal tax rates, military spending, and the role of the government at large. 

What does constructive dialogue look like between a member of a targeted group and someone seeking their removal or erasure? 

 

[safe sex 11698]

Fuckin' T E S T I F Y

[DixonHur 11295]

1 hour ago, safe sex said:

A quick skim of the last two pages reveals no negs given out to you, despite your opinions that don't conform to "the group." It's possible that I missed one because I'm essentially blind without my glasses, but regardless, I hardly think it would qualify as "negged to oblivion."

Perhaps it's less opinions that are being negged in CR and more trolling, bigotry, and fascism (not your definition, clearly)

Not on this thread.

Until today, I hadn't posted on this thread.  I just happened to read it today, and @Captainant brought me into the discussion as a carry over from the UT protest thread where I was negged once by @Beau Vine and @Felix negged every one of my posts.

Oh, and as a PS, I wasn't really talking about me being negged.  I've talked to others offline who have had a similar experience and have ceased posting in the CR.  I still try.

Edited May 1 by DixonHur

[safe sex 11698]

2 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

Oh, and as a PS, I wasn't really talking about me being negged.  I've talked to others offline who have had a similar experience and have ceased posting in the CR.  I still try.

I'm sure we were just being toxic jerks and their posts were in good faith

[Sawbonz 27542]

1 hour ago, Foosters said:

College Professors are leftist agitators trying to indoctrinate students.

***they are also pedophiles

 

3 hours ago, DixonHur said:

Path of least resistance isn't about giving up. 

Quote

an option avoiding difficulty or unpleasantness; the easiest course of action.

 

Agree to disagree. What you’re describing in the rest of your post I would call “picking your battles.” But I don’t get the sense from the other posts of yours I have read that that is what you are doing here. 
 

 

 

eta I agree with your position that not all authoritarianism is fascism. The current problem here in the US is that the people in power who are trying to implement authoritarian policies check most if not all the fascism boxes 

Edited May 1 by Sawbonz

[DixonHur 11295]

1 hour ago, Foosters said:

Can you provide an example of a contemporary GOP principal that does NOT demonize or villify a group?

It's not a road I want to go down, but I'm sure there are some.  To be clear, I am not a GOP supporter.  As posted before, I considered myself a conservative in my teens and early 20's...mostly because my parents were Reagan Rebulicans, but I didn't really understand what the GOP was about at the time. For me it was never about social issues.  In fact, I was a bit of a club kid, so I had lots of gay friends (very few who were fully out sadly) and it never bothered me.  Oh, and my best friend was a black kid who everyone thought was gay, and that we were an item, even though neither of us actually were gay.  Probably didn't help that I had an earring in the 80's.  I can't even count the number of times some random guy would scream "fag" as I walked by...which later morphed into my gay friends referring to me as a "Fag Stag" because I hung out with so many gay people...note to the straight crowd...if you haven't hung out with gay people I suggest you do...they are way more fun.  

Anyway, the point is that I still have some conservative leanings, but racism and anti-LGBTQ aren't among them. 

1 hour ago, Foosters said:

-The media is the enemy of the people - To some extent I think this is true.  I think the 24-hour news channels really fucked this up...thanks CNN...because there wasn't enough actual news to fill 24-hours so it became opinion and tabloid news.  There are still a few I trust, like BBC, NPR, and oddly sometimes Al-Jazeera when they cover the US.

-Immigrants "poison the blood of our country" - I think mass immigration is bad.  I've explained why before, but if asked I can rehash it.  But, it's not very salacious.  

-Democrats are the party of pedophiles - Yep, totally stupid.

-Gay people want to groom our kids. they are also pedophiles - also asinine.  If this were true, I would have "turned" gay long ago.

-Trans people want to groom our kids. They are also pedophiles. - see above

-Leftists want to indoctrinate children. They are also pedophiles. - leftists do want to indoctrinate...all political (and religious) entities want to indoctrinate, but that doesn't mean they are pedos.

-College Professors are leftist agitators trying to indoctrinate students. - Yeah, don't agree, I had literal...IE my definition...fascist teachers.  My Italian professor was open about it.  

-The 2020 election was stolen by Democrats! - Obviously false

-Joe Biden is an illegal president. He should be imprisoned or executed. - Again, false

-Women should be imprisoned or executed if they have an abortion. Even if its to save their own life. - Nor are we who support a woman's choice "pro-abortion"...nobody gets pregnant so they can have an abortion.  

-Muslims should not be allowed to enter the country. - Broken record, but no, I don't agree with that position, although, in general, I am pretty anti-religion. 

-Russia is a good, Christian nation and they are only defending themselves from Ukrainian Nazis. - Obviously weird considering when I was growing up conservatives hated Russia, so I still haven't wrapped my head around the change in attitude.

-Vaccines are dangerous. - Vaccines save lives

-Climate change is a hoax perpetuated by Democrats to push their green narrative. - I trust the scientists, but would be open to the possibility that the reason behind climate change isn't just human caused...because we have had climate changes before humans existed.  

My responses in-line above...

[Sawbonz 27542]

5 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

country" - I think mass immigration is bad.  I've explained why before, but if asked I can rehash it.  But, it's not very salacious.  

Both sides agree mass immigration is great. One side wants it to be legal and above board. The other side wants to keep it illegal for campaign scare tactics and an inexhaustible supply of cheap labor

 

you can fix illegal immigration tomorrow by making it a 10 year penitentiary crime for the CEO of any company caught employing undocumented labor. I wonder why that never gets proposed?