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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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This could shape to be peak toxoplasma. A lot of things are still unknown so my thoughts are pure speculation.

28-year-old woman kills 3 students and 3 adults at private Christian school in Nashville, police say

An armed 28-year-old woman fatally shot three students and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville before she was shot and killed by police, authorities said, in the deadliest school shooting in nearly a year.

The shooter, who was not identified, entered the Covenant School via a side door and was armed with at least two assault-style rifles and a handgun, said Metro Nashville Police spokesperson Don Aaron. She fired multiple shots on the first and second floors of the school, he said.

A five-member team of police officers heard the gunfire, went to the second floor and fatally shot the woman, Aaron said. The first call about the shooting came in at 10:13 a.m. and the shooter was dead 14 minutes later, he said.

Police initially said the shooter appeared to be in her teens but later said she is a 28-year-old White woman who lives in Nashville. Police Chief John Drake said his initial findings showed she was at one point a student at the school. A vehicle was located nearby and gave clues as to the suspect’s identity, he added.

  • The police seemed to have actually acted adequately. It was not Uvalde - so the only thing resembling a good thing in the situation.

  • This is the first mass school shooting by a woman that I know. Probably the first mass shooting I hear at all committed by a woman.

  • The police released the race and age of the shooter, but not name or picture. There was a macabre joke that if the picture is not shown - the shooter is black. She is unidentified so far - which decreases slightly the chances the shooter was far right.

  • Two AR-15 and a handgun ... probably a loadout a bit high unless you are Caleb. (if you get the Blood reference - sorry buddy - you are officially in the risk cohort for covid by age)

  • Low body count - unexperienced shooter.

So I have the suspicion that either the shooter is trans or someone radicalized over Roe v Wade overturn. Also some last minute news outlets started saying female instead of woman. So I guess trans. Anyway CW-wise - will be toxic as hell.

Edit: NBCNews and NYPOST openly call it transgender woman. Not clear if MtF or FtM. And there seems to be manifesto.

The revealed preference here is glaring.

People aren’t using the preferred pronouns if a child killer, because they don’t care about the preferences of a child killer.

But what that reveals as that even among the most woke, there are no true gender ideology believers. They still know that what they’re doing is a courtesy, not a reflection of reality.

And when they don’t like the person, the courtesy is dropped and the reality is revealed.

Speaking of woke people and their revealed preferences, perhaps the worst take came from David Pakman, who took the opportunity to make fun of the dead children being dead, suggesting it was because they didn’t pray hard enough:

https://twitter.com/dpakman/status/1640666981593382913

He deleted the tweet, but it is archived: https://archive.ph/6Tp4c

When people had the nerve to respond negatively to this, he of course pointed out to them that requesting he not dance on the graves of dead children is anti semitic.

I for one believe the shooter should not be misgendered. Misgendering is disrespectful to all trans people. I guess I am a true believer.

There was a Reddit thread, a few months ago maybe, discussing a crime committed by a trans person. It was a murder or something similarly universally condemned. Some of the commenters were misgendering the perpetrator, others were criticizing the misgenderers.

One of the arguments brought up by the latter group was that you wouldn't call a Black person a "nigger", even if they have committed a vile crime. Using the word "nigger" is offensive to all Black people. It implies that being Black is bad in and of itself. Likewise with misgendering.

This is, of course, addressed to those who believe that misgendering trans people is not otherwise acceptable. Whether it is acceptable to misgender trans people in general, whether trans people really are their identified gender, etc., is a separate discussion.

I for one believe the shooter should not be misgendered. Misgendering is disrespectful to all trans people.

Nope. Actual trans people are already pushing it, when they demand that the entire society changes their language for their sake. I can see an argument for why good manners demand accommodating people acting in good faith, but criminals have no right to such accommodations. Let alone child murderers, or rapists.

If someone shoots up a school, there's a non-zero chance I'm gonna call them a bad name because I disapprove of their actions. I really don't think it matters if kids are dead and someone gets misgendered or called a "nigger."

NB I don't think it matters in any case, because I was raised that 'sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.' But I especially don't care about their feelings if they shot up a school

This is not about the shooter's feelings. Calling a Black criminal "nigger" is offensive to all Black people because it denigrates the Black criminal for being Black, not for being a criminal. Likewise, misgendering a transgender criminal is offensive to all trans people because it denigrates the trans criminal for being trans, not for being a criminal.

Not really. "Nigger" refers to a subset of black people. If you disagree, it's because you have no idea how people use that word in the real world.

I don't see how this analogy works. The 1st part seems right to me; calling a black person "nigger" in a derogatory way necessarily implies something negative about all black people, due to the history and connotations of that word. But misgendering a trans person doesn't denigrate all trans people; it just says that you don't consider that specific trans person as belonging to the gender they're claiming to. This doesn't denigrate them for being trans; at worst, it says that respecting their identified gender is conditional on that person not being a criminal. Which means not submitting to the "self-ID is definitionally correct" standard, but that's not denigrating the criminal for being trans.

I'm confused by your argument. A person's gender identity is orthogonal to their criminality. I agree that there are some people who are being knowingly deceitful when they claim to be trans but they aren't, and I don't really feel bad about someone "misgendering" or "deadnaming" Karen White, who is obviously a bad actor exploiting a poorly-designed policy.

But I don't understand the argument "I thought you were a legitimate trans person, but then you committed a crime, which proves that you were malingering all along!" The two things don't have anything to do with one another. "Legitimate" trans people (i.e. people diagnosed with gender dysphoria by a qualified mental health professional, and receiving medical treatment for that condition) commit crimes all the time. Committing a crime isn't a rule-out diagnostic criterion for gender dysphoria.

Maybe Audrey/Aiden Hale was suffering from gender dysphoria, maybe they weren't. If they were, the fact that they committed a horrific school shooting doesn't change that. If they weren't, likewise. It's just a completely irrelevant fact, like what colour shoes they were wearing at the time. Committing a crime doesn't stop a person from being authentically trans - this almost strikes me as a no true Scotsthey argument.

But I don't understand the argument "I thought you were a legitimate trans person, but then you committed a crime, which proves that you were malingering all along!" The two things don't have anything to do with one another.

That's not the argument, though. Charitably, the argument would be more like, "My choice to respect your preferred pronouns as a trans person is contingent on you not committing a crime (implied: of certain severity)." And that's also not my argument, and I don't subscribe to it myself. My argument is that somebody who does subscribe to that argument is not denigrating all trans people by subscribing to and living out such an argument, certainly not in a way similar to denigrating all black people by calling a particular black person "nigger."

The problem is, "not submitting to the 'self-ID is definitionally correct' standard" necessarily implies that some fraction of the time, self-ID may be overcome by an outside judgment, and this fatally undermines the activist position that self-ID is definitive. Admitting the existence of bad actors casts a shadow over every trans person's self-assessment of his own identity as the exclusive and inviolate basis of her social persona.

Right, so it's offensive to a certain subset (admittedly a very large and mainstream subset) of trans activists. And such trans activists are not shy about trying to conflate their own opinions with that of trans people in general. But such conflation has no real basis, and offending those activists doesn't imply offending trans people in general.

Right, so it's offensive to a certain subset (admittedly a very large and mainstream subset) of trans activists.

It's not merely the dominant position among alternatives; it won. There used to be a debate, but alternative positions like "trans identity is based on gender dysphoria" are no longer positions that you may hold publicly in the trans activist space.

And such trans activists are not shy about trying to conflate their own opinions with that of trans people in general.

Certainly true, and further, trans activists are frequently "allies," rather than trans themselves.

But such conflation has no real basis, and offending those activists doesn't imply offending trans people in general.

The first part is not true. The basis of the conflation is that the activists are the public face of the community--whether or not they are even members!--and get to define the community, including socially policing dissenters. "Offending trans people in general" simply does not matter; it's the opinions of the activists that carry social consequences for those who challenge self-ID uber alles.

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Causing offense does not cause me any alarm compared to causing death. In fact, some level of offense is inevitable in a world where people only have control over their own feelings, no?

One of the arguments brought up by the latter group was that you wouldn't call a Black person a "nigger", even if they have committed a vile crime. Using the word "nigger" is offensive to all Black people. It implies that being Black is bad in and of itself. Likewise with misgendering.

This is, of course, addressed to those who believe that misgendering trans people is not otherwise acceptable.

Understanding this is a necessary prerequisite to understanding firmamenti's revealed preferences argument isn't it?

Misgendering an alleged trans person is not the same as calling a black person "nigger". It's more like saying "if you do X, you ain't black". Calling an alleged trans person "tranny" or "troon" would be an appropriate analogy.

I find that progressives do deny that people they dislike belong yo the protected group, but they will almost never use protected group slurs.