Tarnstellung
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User ID: 553
Tarnstellung
1mo ago
I was not trying to create any kind of general debate about the history of the conflict. I was only making a very narrow point: that "remote Middle-Eastern squabbles" have been causing political controversy in the UK since long before any significant Muslim immigration.
Tarnstellung
1mo ago
The fate of the newly liberated Arab lands after World War I was most certainly a political issue in the UK. There was much debate both among politicians and in the public. The British public was apparently very sympathetic due to the Arabs' contribution to the victory so official British support for Zionism was in fact very controversial, as was the Anglo-French partition and occupation. All this with the number of Muslims actually living in the UK being a rounding error.
Tarnstellung
1mo ago
As a final note, in a sane society these remote Middle-Eastern squabbles should not have been a major issue in the domestic politics of various Western countries. But we are now well past that point in Europe.
The UK chose to get involved in this particular conflict a hundred years ago. Don't blame this on Muslim immigrants.
Tarnstellung
2mo ago
Birthright citizenship shall be granted only to children where at least one biological parent is a citizen or resident having legally remained in the country continuously for a period of at least 3 years. Children may have no greater than two biological parents.
So even the children of citizens would be subject to a residence requirement? I don't think any other country does this and it's an easy way to get thousands of stateless people.
Tarnstellung
2mo ago
The standard response to "modern music sucks" is that it's all survivorship bias, i.e., the music from the 60s that sucked was forgotten about. This could just as easily apply to political philosophy and everything else. Have you considered this possibility?
Tarnstellung
2mo ago
The effects of the radiation etc. are perhaps somewhat exaggerated, but nuclear weapons are still incredibly destructive. A single nuke can drop on more heads than a thousand conventional artillery shells, bombs or missiles.
Tarnstellung
3mo ago
In fact I can't think of any instance of a nation being in favour of getting rid of a minority along with the territory they occupy, no matter how vexatious; being big and relevant is evidently one hell of a drug.
Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia due to ethnic tensions.
Also the South African Bantustans, but that was half-assed and no other country recognized them so they ultimately gave up.
Tarnstellung
5mo ago
Are Iranians white? Are they Aryan? What about North Indians? Pashtuns?
I'm trying to understand your racial taxonomy.
Tarnstellung
7mo ago
If dystopian sci-fi has taught me anything, his "imprisonment" involved working on a similar program at some kind of black site. Show us you can cooperate, and someday you'll be able to go back to your normal life. Or, maybe not.
Tarnstellung
8mo ago
This incident "happened in a private bathroom at a residence". Bathroom bills don't cover private homes and could not have prevented this.
Addressed here.
Having posted this I have to admit I sadly don't trust the media to report on this topic in good faith.
Certainly not the NYT or WaPo, but there are plenty of media organizations with an anti-trans editorial stance. They would surely publicize any such cases.
Tarnstellung
8mo ago
Again, not relevant, the whole point is any dude can put on a dress and go into female toilets.
I would expect the dude to at least have to declare that he is trans before being allowed.
To be fair, the thing being pre-arrenged means it's not an example of what people were worried about, but I don't understand your fixation of the victim being random. If someone targets a friend or a co-worker and abuses the trans-policy to get access, then suddenly everything is fine?
No, of course that changes nothing. The point is that the perpetrator didn't specifically select the bathroom. The debate is focused on bathrooms because they're enclosed spaces where a victim may be alone, which makes them uniquely dangerous.
The other issue is that other people gave you examples that fit better, and your response was only to nitpick further. Another attacker who did identify as trans also doesn't count according to you, because they didn't take hormones or get surgeries, even though the entire point of critics was that anyone can say they identify as anything.
I assume you are referring to the 2014 California case. In another comment, I said that:
The article notes that the perpetrator had not yet transitioned at the time of the crime, so he would not have been allowed in the bathroom anyway.
The point was not that he hadn't taken hormones or had surgeries, but that he didn't even identify as trans when he committed the crime. He only started identifying as trans afterwards. Therefore the case is completely irrelevant.
And you didn't even respond to the Oklahoma one.
I hadn't responded because it hadn't been posted yet when I was responding to the others. I have now addressed it here.
Admittedly I have no access to a parallel universe where different policies are in place, but the fact that the school was trying to cover the story up, indicates they are feeling guilty about it somehow.
They obviously have a strong incentive to cover up or downplay the occurrence of such a serious crime at their school regardless of the specific circumstances and regardless of whether it pertains to a current national political controversy.
I suppose it's possible he was showing up in a skirt for a completely unrelated reason, but come on, at the very least it screams "dude trying to take advantage of a loophole", no?
Maybe he just liked wearing a skirt? It's a thing.
I guess that's exactly the thing under dispute. Aren't all these women protesting precisely because they feel they're being made worse off?
What protests are you referring to specifically?
Yeah, I agree. Look, if we went from self-ID to medical-gatekeeping, that would definitely be better, but I don't like how all my concerns with self-ID were dismissed with "it will never happen", and after it did happen people like you are still trying to dismiss my concerns, after taking a step back to a minimally defensible position.
You say it would be better, but presumably it still wouldn't be ideal? If so, why not? Using this as an argument in favour of the position that "trans people should not be allowed into opposite-sex facilities" (under any circumstances) proves too much.
Tarnstellung
8mo ago
This technically qualifies as "a trans woman assaulting a woman in a women's bathroom", but it is nothing like the hypothetical situation anti-trans activists warned about. For one, it was not a sexual assault. My comment said "assaulting" rather than "sexually assaulting", but the claim has always been that women would be sexually assaulted, by a pervert who is or claims to be trans.
More importantly, the fact that it happened in a bathroom isn't relevant because it had none of the characteristics of the stereotypical bathroom assault. The debate is focused on bathrooms because they're enclosed spaces where a victim may be alone, which makes them uniquely dangerous. The typical hypothetical bathroom assault scenario involves a woman, usually understood to be a random woman unknown to the assailant, who is alone in the bathroom with the assailant, who has followed her in or was waiting for her. This is dangerous because she can be cornered with no way to escape and no way to call for help.
But this case is nothing like that. The victim was with a group of friends who saw the entire thing. The fight was presumably stopped as soon as possible (apparently the friends tried to intervene but were unable to stop the fight; presumably they called someone who could). The perpetrator and the victim already knew each other, and the incident started as a verbal altercation when the perpetrator approached the victim and escalated into a fight. This exact scenario could have played out anywhere. It had nothing to do with the reasons why bathrooms are claimed to be uniquely dangerous and why bathroom bills are claimed to be necessary.
Tarnstellung
8mo ago
"Any dude will be able to claim they're trans and walk into female toilets" is pretty much exactly what anti-trans activists said would happen. All the other details you mentioned are not relevant. Toilets are sex-separated, among other things, to help school staff to prevent horny teenagers from hooking up in them.
- The dude in question did not claim he was trans.
- He did not just walk into a women's bathroom and find a random victim, which is what anti-trans activists claimed would happen. The meeting was pre-arranged with the victim.
- How do you know trans-related policies are why school staff didn't prevent them from hooking up? Again, he didn't even claim he was trans, and "the school district’s trans-inclusive bathroom policies were approved only in August, more than two months after the assault". Given all that, a more banal explanation, for example that they just didn't notice, seems more likely.
You're playing language games. No one says that they're not trans, just that being trans doesn't change your sex, and that some facilities need to be sex seperated.
I tried to phrase that so as to avoid language games. That some facilities need to be sex-segregated, and that people identifying as trans should not be allowed to use such facilities under any circumstances, is what I meant by "all claims of being trans are illegitimate" and "none of their claims should be taken seriously".
It would make men feel better if they were put in female prisons too, why is happiness from affirmation more important here?
I tried to phrase that so as to imply that it is the typical argument, which means you have most likely already seen it and it is unlikely to change your mind, and I am therefore not putting much weight into it. Anyway, the specific claim is that it would make them feel better without making anyone else worse off.
There's also a case to be made that a trans woman will be a danger in a female prison.
A trans woman who has spent several years on HRT, or has had surgery, and is therefore unable to even get an erection? Again, I support having certain standards for trans people. All the cases of assault by trans women in women's prisons seem to be from prisoners who only realized they were trans after they went into prison and were promptly placed in the facilities meant for their claimed gender. This is a system that is very easy to abuse.
Has anyone asked them? I'd bet most women would be more comfortable around a trans man than a trans woman, provided they knew for a fact it's a trans man and not a cis man.
Well, I would bet that most women would be more comfortable around a passing trans woman than a passing trans man. But I admit I have no polling data on this.
Tarnstellung
8mo ago
Is it really? It's people having consistent principles. Which, I can agree is strange, but on TheMotte I don't think is that strange.
My point is that it is entirely possible to have consistent principles that result in treating trans people as their preferred gender in most cases, but not when it comes to women's sports. An example of such principles would be the basic liberal/libertarian maxim "let people do what they want as long as they're not harming anyone".
It's a standard mistake to say "this never happens", because it's happened quite a lot. For example, this case.
The article notes that the perpetrator had not yet transitioned at the time of the crime, so he would not have been allowed in the bathroom anyway. So no, this doesn't count.
Any sources that it was consensual?
I was referring to this case:
Two inmates serving time in New Jersey’s only state prison for women became pregnant after they had sex with a transgender inmate, according to a report Wednesday.
The unidentified jailbirds became pregnant at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility after engaging in “consensual sexual relationships with another incarcerated person,” the state Department of Corrections told NJ.com.
Tarnstellung
8mo ago
Off the top of my head there was the Loudoun County affair. Of course the trans activists went on to declare that the rapist wasn't really trans, it was just a guy in a dress... which I guess they didn't really think through.
Apparently the rapist didn't identify as trans. I think it's fair to say that someone who identifies with their gender at birth is not trans. I don't think this is a no-true-Scotsman, as @jkf claims (I assume you are both referring to the same case).
More importantly, however, he didn't enter the bathroom to find a random person to assault – he already knew the victim and had had consensual sex with her in that bathroom previously, and the meeting that resulted in the assault was also pre-arranged:
But this week, during a juvenile court hearing, a fuller picture of Smith’s daughter’s ordeal emerged. She suffered something atrocious. It had nothing at all to do, however, with trans bathroom policies. Instead, like many women and girls, she was a victim of relationship violence.
Smith’s daughter testified that she’d previously had two consensual sexual encounters with her attacker in the school bathroom. On the day of her assault, they’d agreed to meet up again. “The evidence was that the girl chose that bathroom, but her intent was to talk to him, not to engage in sexual relations,” Biberaj, whose office prosecuted the case, told me. The boy, however, expected sex and refused to accept the girl’s refusal. As the The Washington Post reported, she testified, “He flipped me over. I was on the ground and couldn’t move and he sexually assaulted me.”
The boy was indeed wearing a skirt, but that skirt didn’t authorize him to use the girls’ bathroom. As Amanda Terkel reported in HuffPost, the school district’s trans-inclusive bathroom policies were approved only in August, more than two months after the assault. This was not, said Biberaj, someone “identifying as transgender and going into the girls’ bathroom under the guise of that.”
So this is nothing like what anti-trans activists claimed would happen.
That already sets you against the current batch of trans activists, which demand self-ID.
Yes, but it also sets me against the current batch of anti-trans activists, who claim all trans people are just perverts and none of their claims should be taken seriously. I think there should be some standards to prevent people identifying as trans in bad faith, but no one on the anti-trans side is arguing this. They're all saying that all claims of being trans are illegitimate.
That said, there hasn't been a valid argument provided for putting trans people in the opposite-sex facilities.
If I understand correctly, you're asking why trans women should be put in women's prisons and trans men in men's prisons. Beyond the arguments that it makes them feel better when their gender is affirmed, there's a case to be made that a trans woman who passes well is in real danger in a men's prison. A passing trans man in a women's prison is not as endangered, but the women there would probably be uncomfortable with his presence.
Tarnstellung
8mo ago
For example, the inclusion of trans athletes in women's sports, or the inclusion of trans people in women's bathrooms, or the inclusion of trans people in women's prisons. (...) And then when those externalities do happen, and a male-born trans person wins against a female athlete (inherently, unfairly), or a trans person assaults a woman in the bathroom, or a trans prisoner impregnates a woman, those objections are at best handwaved away and dismissed as outliers or discredited, or at worst labeled "transphobic" and censored.
- I don't deny that trans women can have an advantage and that it may be reasonable to exclude them from participating in a women-only sport. But it is strange that people's views on this particular question seem to align perfectly with their views on trans people in general. In principle, it should be possible for someone to support treating trans people as their preferred gender when there are no externalities, but to exclude them from women's sports. The entire argument about women's sports is self-contained and irrelevant to the broader debate about trans people.
- I am not aware of a single case of a trans woman assaulting a woman in a women's bathroom. This is purely hypothetical as far as I know. If it happened, I expect the anti-trans side would publicize it heavily.
- The one case I am aware of where a trans prisoner was placed in a women's prison and impregnated a woman involved consensual sex. The safety of other prisoners was not endangered. It may still be desirable to prevent that kind of thing, but it is very different from sexual assault. And if preventing that is your goal, it doesn't follow that trans women should be excluded from women's prisons. A few years of HRT, or an orchiectomy/sex reassignment surgery, will suffice.
Tarnstellung
8mo ago
Intellectual dishonesty?
Tarnstellung
8mo ago
Social status is highly heritable, and test scores are a noisy measure of phenotypic social status (there's more to life than taking tests).
Test scores are not meant to be a measure of social status. They're meant to be a measure of academic aptitude.
I, and probably most other people, believe universities should admit students based on academic aptitude, not social status. Rule by an entrenched hereditary aristocracy is generally considered to be a bad thing.
Tarnstellung
8mo ago
The view, bluntly stated, is that expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.
He was right that it would turn Russia against the West; he was wrong that it would be "the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era". He was expecting a new Cold War that might possibly escalate into WW3, while the US has barely been affected by the current war. Kennan, having spent most of his career with Russia as a peer of the US, could not conceive how much Russia would degenerate and how little of a threat it would pose.
Tarnstellung
9mo ago
That said, now that Chuck Schumer is sponsoring legislation that boils down to "show me the aliens!" it's getting harder for me to believe that this is all down to a small band of committed UFO nuts taking everybody (themselves included) for a ride.
No one here seems to have mentioned the possibility that Greenstreet's explanation is correct and Schumer just fell for it, as many other people apparently have.
Tarnstellung
9mo ago
Is filing for habeas corpus after your client has been arrested because he criticized the president a technicality?
Yes, there is a lot of rent seeking in the American legal profession, but "all" is a strong word.
Tarnstellung
9mo ago
So they were all secretly pro-paedophilia but kept it a secret for 30 years? You would think with such an enormous conspiracy there'd be a whistleblower at some point. Surely there are people in LGBT circles who are high-ranking enough that they would be in on it but who don't actually support paedophilia.
Tarnstellung
9mo ago
There are clear genetic differences between Germans and Italians, yet both have been successfully integrated into American society.
Surely that should be "far right"?
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