Frankly the whole bathroom thing is a combination of pure dictator power & stupid over reaction from ignorant fools. The over reaction is probably the reason for the over reach on gender bending bathroom rules.
In other words with little effort King Barry got a lot of idiots to look like mean idiots.
The danger to your children in public bathrooms is not from teens with screwed up sex issues. It's from pervert adults who should be burried alive when caught.
In other words don't fear the confused and the hurt so bad they're messed up. Fear the predators.
My observation is a substantial percentage of lesbians were sexually abused. Not all. But a scary amount.
It would be an interesting study to look into the roots of these multiple "alternative" life choices. The study would be condemned no matter what it concluded.
People are freaking weird. And very hung up about it.
I don't think I can emphasize enough that the culture wars are fought on appearance.
My Mother who is desperately certain anything said about the Sainted Hillary is a Republican Plot, has a built in bias from the days Hillary was the quietly suffering wife of a cheating husband. Never mind that Bill would have been imprisoned as a sexual predator if he had a R after his name. Never mind that out of the public eye Hillary is a vindictive hellspawn who has zero morals and worships power over all else.
IF you have already pegged Hillary as the Wronged Woman, the constant harping by the R's over her minor felonies and revenges seems petty & unfair.
The Clinton Way of defusing their crimes by trickling out tiny minor offences to cover for the treason & total corruption that are worth prosecution and impeachment magnify the illusion that they are being bullied. When in fact they are the bullies leaving a trail of minions sent to prison instead of them & dead witnesses to their crimes.
The incompetence of the R leadership in controlling the pubic image means most people believe Bill was persecuted unfairly when he was impeached, that he wasn't actually impeached, and that the refusal of his Party in power in Congress to try him for his crimes means those crimes are forgotten. And everyone thinks he was unsuccessfully impeached for having an affair.
In some ways Obama's minions/handlers are smarter & better than the Clintons. More aggressive at controlling the narrative, they literally feed & shape the mantra of the day and use unearned moral superiority to shield them from the results of their actions.
This bathroom businesses was wonderful as a tool to make rational people seem mean spirited and sexually repressed. Once they make any voice of reason into the inquisition, they win.
Learn from this. Your enemy has no morals. Lies are their standard operating procedures. Feels are their weapon against reason.
You can't debate someone who has no reason to keep their lies consistent since the moderator of the debate ( the press ) will never call them on it or allow you to point out their lies.
"The PURPOSE of Political Correctness is to silence the opposition."
Not as I see it. To the extent it is even a real thing (doubtful), it is about equalizing discourse where there is a cultural history of discrimination and inequality.
Unfortunately political hacks like to seize upon things they can manipulate to their advantage and they push these onto the public as some "issue". My poor party would be wise to avoid these simplistic appeals to momentary self-perceived wrongful slights.
A successful party dumps these useless talking points and builds on solid policies that build and strengthen the nation. I want to vote for a party that believes in limited government, fiscal responsibility and courageously admitting mistakes and getting it right the next time. A party that believes in a rational approach to the challenges of the future and not a wistful lament about an imagined sanguine past.
Trump was right to say that GW Bush totally screwed up in Iraq. He was courageous to voice what most of us Republicans already know. But we wasted so much energy on useless issues we seem to lack the strength to honestly face an unpleasant and tragic truth. And we can't get healthy and strong and wise until we do what any winning party needs to do and that is get the important things as perfect as we can and ignore the useless issues some hack decides we should care about so they can keep getting a check.
These useless voices weaken the party and then act like they have the best plan forward. They have only one asset and that is a loud mouth full of excuses and so called insights.
And get rid of ALL these useless and juvenile "pledges". Why can't a Republican just say my pledge is my VOTE. (Again Trump was the only one to call BS on the silly support the winner "pledge".
We need excellence in governance badly. Get the right budgets in place. Clean up our crazy tax plan just a little. Pay for what you do. I will happily pay more in taxes for a competent government if it is necessary because sometimes it costs more to get what you need. Plan for the future in a rational way. Doesn't have to be optimistic but it has to work or get fixed along the way.
Do this and a bit more and the Republican party will thrive and grow. Obsess on goofy issues and backward glances and the few republicans left will spend their time expounding on how they were wronged by history.
Nothing personnel Aesquire just annoyed of seeing a perfectly good party being led down the rosy path.
Rosy path? As far as I'm concerned 80%+ of the Party can go screw themselves. The R's in Congress are so used to being the losing party that when they win the House they refuse to do anything to even slow the rate of debt accumulation.
And I'm NOT a conservative. Olde School Liberal all the way.
Registered D this year to vote against Hillary, btw. Next year? who knows?
And you have Political Correct completely wrong. It's a Soviet Invention to suppress any wrong think.
Shouting down any speaker at a campus who doesn't toe the Party line, screaming about needing psychiatric care when exposed to ideas not "Correct" by the Leftist Mantras, and insisting that it's racist to not have Egyptian 3rd Dynasty Lesbian Studies programs.
That's Political Correctness. to not let other views be heard.
Read the freaking Bible of the American Communist Revolutionary movement for Satan's sake! "Rules For Radicals" by Saul Alinsky.
Obama's mentors were Alinsky's peers. Hillary's senior thesis was on Alinsky. ( and it's well written. evil, sure, but well written ) Want the link to read her thesis your self?
That said, I would indeed be DELIGHTED if the Republican Party grew a pair and became a Party of the working Americans.
The way I see it Trump is good for the R Party in that he is part of it's destruction as an establishment of "let's get along to stay in power" rich hacks.
I suspect that, subject by subject we could agree on what the R Party needs to do.
Myself, I would prefer a much more libertarian approach to what Government should be allowed to tell you to do.
An actual Budget would be nice. One that doesn't crank the debt up would be wonderful.
The R party has allowed Obama to double the debt without any budgets at all. Just a series of emergency resolutions that gave him everything he told them he wanted... or he'd blame them, again.....
Ok, insisting on Egyptian 3rd dynasty Lesbian studies isn't Political Correctness, it's just lazy students wanting easy courses that make them seem "hip" and "with it".
Just like in my youth joining the "peace movement" in large part was a desire to get laid by Hippie chicks.
I really suspect the whole "bathroom" debacle is a deliberate ploy to make normal people look crazy.
I also think he's was misled because before The Donald almost no politicians talked about PC. Since Donald is a game show host, he isn't following the script.
Politicians don't like to talk about the Soviet Propaganda and Spin Control technique that IS Politically Correct. ( because they might want to use it themselves )
Politically Correct is what a politician or an "activist" calls an idea, or an argument, they agree with. If they don't agree, that idea is Not Politically Correct.
Note that the truth of an argument, the facts, the actual outcomes of a policy, have ZERO to do with if something is politically correct. PC is an OVERLAY that blocks truth, reason, facts, and results.
It's a technique used by an ideology, and NOT a ideology. It can, and has, been used by politicians of any party or leaning, they just need the lack of honesty to use it.
Since the Alinsky Way to Power By Lies is the Foundation of modern leftism, and the technique was invented by the Soviets, PC is most often used by the left.
But occasionally you will see "right wing" types use it, in such different ways as pushing a narrow form of "family values" or advocating for a certain foreign policy.
No matter who is using the PC technique, the signs are the same. It's a combination of massive self righteousness and condemnation of the opposing viewpoint, with the intent to shut them up, and a fingers in the ears "lalalalalal!!" refusal to hear any view that isn't the pre-programmed one.
As to Alchemy's ideas, I hope he's right on most of them. I'm well past cynical on the subject, and not a Donald fan, but, I have been wrong before, and I'd be delighted to be wrong about what good Donald can do.
I have a certain perspective on mass events, having spent over 20 years working volunteer security and first aid at a roughly 10k person annual event. The SCA's "Pennsic War".
First, to make this kind of thing happen takes an enormous amount of work by unpaid people. Dedicated, smart, patient, stubborn and diplomatic people.
The Porta-john considerations alone are worthy of Field Grade Military consideration. Keeping the Plagues at bay is a serious issue.
A free form Hippie event like Burning Man? It was inevitable that it would turn into a Cultural Event, and that the rich would flock to it as a symbol of how "with it" they are.
The Airfield feeding the event is a phenomena all it's own. Run by...volunteers, of course.
I've also watched, and giggled, as the phenomena of "glamping" grew into an industry. Luxury super tents, with solar charging stations for your Ipads, and a Sat phone so you can make stock trades when your camp neighbor tells you a bit of juicy gossip over cocktails.
With quite a bit of Irony on my part since I myself camp in a 16' medieval pavilion, and much prefer a shower in camp so I can climb into bed clean & sweat free ( not a cot ) after a hot days activity.
That I'm used to hauling half a ton of spring water into camp every few days to make that happen, doesn't mean I don't enjoy the shower.
Still, I've always considered my hobby to be more like a Civil War reenactor and not a rich yuppie scum thing...
That takes me back to 5th grade. I never knew there was a music video for this song, seems kinda fruity now but hey it was 1995, and Christian music was never as "with it" as secular music.
I grew out of DC talk, but when I go back and listen to their music, they had it figured out, and their music is still good 20 years later.
I will have the joy of seeing many of my friends that I grew up with during this next week. . . . my 7th and final week of wandering the country.
I came from a very diverse city, Topeka, KS . . . known primarily, by many, for it's association with the Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education.
Additionally, Topeka was the home to the Santa Fe Shops, located in the Oakland area of the city, where many of the Santa Fe rail cars came for repairs. The was a very large Mexican (we'd say "Hispanic" now I think) population.
Topeka also had, as a product of it's physical proximity to a number of Indian Tribes, mostly the Pottawatomie, a large population of Indians . . . I was chastised, while in the rain forest adjacent to the Quinault Reservation 3 days ago, for using the term "Indian" and told the correct nomenclature is "People of the First Nation". I'll be in Lawrence, KS, the scene of the Pottawatomie Massacre this Thursday and am eager to share that information with my friends at Haskell Indian Nations University.
Fact is that even when 2 black persons drove past me and shot me 3 times with a Remington 1100 12ga shotgun . . . hitting my sister in the center of the face from 25 yards and putting her in a coma for 3 days . . . that I didn't see it as "black on white" violence . . . Terry was a ••••••• nut and even when he shot the cop with the .308 at 13 years old . . . it was the result of being a psychopath. not race.
I served in the United States Marine Corps and with The White House Advance detail with about as diverse a group as you will ever encounter. One thing I learned from the USMC is that when the shit hits the fan, concerns about race are the last thing on your mind. Private Ransom was as black as a person could be and I'd trust him to have my back anytime, anywhere in the world.
We've come to impute simple respect for our fellow men and women from words rather than deeds. What you call a person no more reflects their character than calling the Grand Canyon a "divot".
People don't choose the color of their skin . . . you didn't, I didn't . . . and holding talking them to task or meting out privilege based on skin color has, throughout history, proved the learned stupidity of mankind.
We are good people. We are capable of learning and respecting people for who we are, not what we look like.
Shame that something that appears so obvious is so hard, for so many, to grasp.
Hoot, the Science Babe has fake food illness as a major theme.
It's not just a fad.
It's stealing virtue.
For those few people who are actually ill with a horrible disease it's raising prejudice against them to have healthy spoiled brats jump on the bandwagon.
I've had this conversation with the gluten free pizza parlor up the street. After defending his restaurant against my imagined criticism he had to admit the four people in town who actually need his products are far outnumbered by the idiots who don't.
That was only after I stood firm and convinced him I was not at all mocking him for providing a desired service for fee.
I always order "extra gluten" on my pizza & wings.
A good friend's wife went on a Gluten Free Diet because her Chiropractor told her to.
Weekly cleansing with very expensive food. ( which is hilarious, because "cleansing" means giving yourself some diarrhea to empty the system of toxins that don't actually exist )
And every time she "cheated" and had a cinnamon roll she had "a reaction".
Well, guilt will make you feel bad.
Talking to her about it just induced rage.
Lucky for her, after a year of tripling the food costs and repeated "bad reactions", she at last went to a real doctor and found out that she is actually allergic. To Dogwoods. That grow in her yard.
She still "cleanses" on a regular basis, but I'm not going to argue with a buddy's wife about her butt. I'm also too polite to mock her to her face. And I've learned to politely nod when her husband rants about it.
I won't get into my personal opinions on Chiropractors. If it makes you hurt less, great. Chronic pain sucks.
As a further note Mae West swore by daily enemas as a way to keep young and healthy.
I have no argument with that. She also liked to have sex every day... to feel young and healthy. I have total agreement with that.
I seldom point out it's the same thing. For some people.
