https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/i-did-your-mom-2
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
19-07-2016: distracted by debates with enemy ancaps and show reviews but the new inri009 is started
tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/i-did-your-mom-2
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/i-did-your-mom-2
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1
Consultation: Proposed Amendments to Regulations Affecting Trusted Traveller Programs / Consultation : Modifications au règlement régissant les programmes des voyageurs dignes de confiance
the canada border services agency
English Version *** La version française suit ***
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is conducting a public consultation regarding proposed amendments to Regulations under the Customs Act governing Trusted Traveller Programs (TTPs). The amendments will clarify the eligibility criteria that will replace the good character provision, the conditions of the authorizations, and the circumstances leading to suspension and cancellation of membership.
The CBSA website provides detailed information on the changes, as well as the rationale behind them.
As a valued stakeholder, you can provide your feedback on these changes by replying to this email no later than 11:59 p.m. (EDT) on August 19, 2016.
Regards,
Program and Policy Management Division
Traveller Programs Directorate
Programs Branch
Canada Border Services Agency
*****************************************
Version française *** The English version precedes ***
L’Agence des services frontaliers du Canada (ASFC) mène une consultation publique concernant des modifications proposées au règlement en vertu de la Loi sur les douanes régissant les programmes des voyageurs fiables. Les modifications indiqueront clairement les critères d’admissibilité qui vont remplacer la disposition de bonne réputation, les conditions d’autorisations et les circonstances qui mènent à la suspension ou à l’annulation de l’adhésion.
Le site Web de l'ASFC fournit des renseignements détaillés sur les changements ainsi que le raisonnement qui les justifient.
En tant qu’intervenant important, vous pouvez nous faire parvenir vos impressions sur ces changements en répondant à ce courriel d’ici le 19 août 2016 à 23 h 59 (HAE).
Salutations,
Division de la gestion des programmes et des politiques
Direction des programmes pour les voyageurs
Direction générale des programmes
Agence des services frontaliers du Canada
jessica
if you want some consultation, my view is that cross-border travel is a right and not a privilege and that upcoming legislation should reflect that in reducing red tape for cross-border travel, not erecting further walls and barriers. the border should not be a barrier to movement in any kind of way. i was hoping that the change of government in canada would lead to less hassle at the border. so, the general crux of this movement seems disappointing.
the canada border services agency
The Canada Border Services Agency thanks you for your comments regarding the proposed changes to the Presentation of Persons (2003) Regulations. Comments received will be addressed in the Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement published in the Canada Gazette following the completion of the public consultation period.
Thank you.
Program and Policy Management Division
Traveller Programs Directorate
Programs Branch
Canada Border Services Agency
English Version *** La version française suit ***
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is conducting a public consultation regarding proposed amendments to Regulations under the Customs Act governing Trusted Traveller Programs (TTPs). The amendments will clarify the eligibility criteria that will replace the good character provision, the conditions of the authorizations, and the circumstances leading to suspension and cancellation of membership.
The CBSA website provides detailed information on the changes, as well as the rationale behind them.
As a valued stakeholder, you can provide your feedback on these changes by replying to this email no later than 11:59 p.m. (EDT) on August 19, 2016.
Regards,
Program and Policy Management Division
Traveller Programs Directorate
Programs Branch
Canada Border Services Agency
*****************************************
Version française *** The English version precedes ***
L’Agence des services frontaliers du Canada (ASFC) mène une consultation publique concernant des modifications proposées au règlement en vertu de la Loi sur les douanes régissant les programmes des voyageurs fiables. Les modifications indiqueront clairement les critères d’admissibilité qui vont remplacer la disposition de bonne réputation, les conditions d’autorisations et les circonstances qui mènent à la suspension ou à l’annulation de l’adhésion.
Le site Web de l'ASFC fournit des renseignements détaillés sur les changements ainsi que le raisonnement qui les justifient.
En tant qu’intervenant important, vous pouvez nous faire parvenir vos impressions sur ces changements en répondant à ce courriel d’ici le 19 août 2016 à 23 h 59 (HAE).
Salutations,
Division de la gestion des programmes et des politiques
Direction des programmes pour les voyageurs
Direction générale des programmes
Agence des services frontaliers du Canada
jessica
if you want some consultation, my view is that cross-border travel is a right and not a privilege and that upcoming legislation should reflect that in reducing red tape for cross-border travel, not erecting further walls and barriers. the border should not be a barrier to movement in any kind of way. i was hoping that the change of government in canada would lead to less hassle at the border. so, the general crux of this movement seems disappointing.
the canada border services agency
The Canada Border Services Agency thanks you for your comments regarding the proposed changes to the Presentation of Persons (2003) Regulations. Comments received will be addressed in the Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement published in the Canada Gazette following the completion of the public consultation period.
Thank you.
Program and Policy Management Division
Traveller Programs Directorate
Programs Branch
Canada Border Services Agency
how about this- they're the same damned thing.
paul jay's a smart guy, and i get what he's saying. he's roughly twice her age. and, it kind of does show here at points. if we rewind back eight years, paul jay was loudly making the argument that obama would be better on iran than mccain. bomb bomb iran, right. that was a clear and present danger. and, was he right? well, i think he kind of lost the plot on iran, actually. he got lost in the western propaganda narrative of the issue being about hegemony, rather than about competition. and, i've yet to see him really address the whole "russia-is-stacking-iran-with-anti-aircraft-systems" thing - which was kind of key in inking something now, or losing the leverage of the sanctions forever. so, kinda.
i'm not convinced that mccain would have actually bombed iran.
likewise, is hillary less belligerent than trump? hillary's a true believer. we're not really sure what is driving trump, besides ego. i reject the narrative that trump is in control: i think he's being handled, and making very few of the decisions in the campaign. as such, i think the reagan comparison is historically useful: he's a figurehead. the party is operating behind his back and over his head. so, this argument - which is coming directly from the clinton campaign - that trump has a bad temperament is largely moot. he can throw things at the wall and stomp his feet all day, that doesn't mean he's going to get his way.
i think the same thing is basically true of hillary. look at the email scandal, for example. she avoided indictment because she had no oversight over her staff. so, you look at the issue in libya - for example - and you have to wonder how much influence she really had. there's been enough information released to conclude that she at most had an executive role. that is, she basically signed off on things that were brought to her. that's the only reason she's not going to jail.
so, if trump wins, the party will be operating behind his back. if clinton wins, the party will be operating behind her back, too. in the end, she may take a little bit greater interest in being briefed than he will. but, i think there would be very little difference.
fwiw, on the gore invading iraq issue? check out some of gore's statements while it was happening. he left very little up to imagination: he all but stated that he would have invaded iraq. further, he called for more troops repeatedly. that's right out of his own mouth. i've looked this up a dozen times already, i don't really feel like doing it again. the idea that he would have behaved differently is not grounded in the facts.
i don't think hillary likes golf. so, it's not clear what she'll be doing when she's on vacation for ten months a year.
paul jay's a smart guy, and i get what he's saying. he's roughly twice her age. and, it kind of does show here at points. if we rewind back eight years, paul jay was loudly making the argument that obama would be better on iran than mccain. bomb bomb iran, right. that was a clear and present danger. and, was he right? well, i think he kind of lost the plot on iran, actually. he got lost in the western propaganda narrative of the issue being about hegemony, rather than about competition. and, i've yet to see him really address the whole "russia-is-stacking-iran-with-anti-aircraft-systems" thing - which was kind of key in inking something now, or losing the leverage of the sanctions forever. so, kinda.
i'm not convinced that mccain would have actually bombed iran.
likewise, is hillary less belligerent than trump? hillary's a true believer. we're not really sure what is driving trump, besides ego. i reject the narrative that trump is in control: i think he's being handled, and making very few of the decisions in the campaign. as such, i think the reagan comparison is historically useful: he's a figurehead. the party is operating behind his back and over his head. so, this argument - which is coming directly from the clinton campaign - that trump has a bad temperament is largely moot. he can throw things at the wall and stomp his feet all day, that doesn't mean he's going to get his way.
i think the same thing is basically true of hillary. look at the email scandal, for example. she avoided indictment because she had no oversight over her staff. so, you look at the issue in libya - for example - and you have to wonder how much influence she really had. there's been enough information released to conclude that she at most had an executive role. that is, she basically signed off on things that were brought to her. that's the only reason she's not going to jail.
so, if trump wins, the party will be operating behind his back. if clinton wins, the party will be operating behind her back, too. in the end, she may take a little bit greater interest in being briefed than he will. but, i think there would be very little difference.
fwiw, on the gore invading iraq issue? check out some of gore's statements while it was happening. he left very little up to imagination: he all but stated that he would have invaded iraq. further, he called for more troops repeatedly. that's right out of his own mouth. i've looked this up a dozen times already, i don't really feel like doing it again. the idea that he would have behaved differently is not grounded in the facts.
i don't think hillary likes golf. so, it's not clear what she'll be doing when she's on vacation for ten months a year.
social media is free media.
trump had a real advantage, as his tactic needed to be to moderate - which is what he would have been expected to do anyways. all he needed to do was pick a kasich-type moderate and he'd instantly rebuild the base. clinton, on the other hand, had to find some way to balance the centre with the left.
by picking pence, he is grabbing the ball and running out of bounds. he just gave up the entire centre. that was his advantage. moderate republicans are going to flock to clinton, now.
i don't think those numbers mean anything. i suspect that they reflect ignorance more than anything else. kneejerking. or, maybe clinton's team was right all along - that a substantial amount of bernie's supporters were just frustrated men.
i'm leaning more towards kneejerking, right now.
i think it will ease up.
but, i mean, keep in mind that you're talking about small percentages, too. 2%. 3%. would i find it surprising that 2-3% of sanders supporters were just flat out, open misogynists? not really.
---
if you vote for johnson as a protest vote, it sends the message that you want more tea party policies. so, why not just write in charles koch? or ted cruz?
---
AS Deckard
There is no 'Libertarian left.' Libertarians fall on the right of the American spectrum, as we're generally more focused on the economy than social issues.
Daisy Chains
Actually, the Libertarian Party represents mostly right-wing Libertarians... Left-Libertarians, Green Libertarians, Anarchist Capitalists/Voluntaryists etc are going to vote for Jill Stein.
jessica
no libertarian left, huh. lol. bakunin? proudhon? kropotkin? malatesta? dawkins? chomsky?
thomas paine?
godwin? wollstonecraft?
(deleted)
see, i think tyt are right-wing assholes pretending to be liberals :P
the language used in american political discourse is not just confused, it's actually deeply orwellian. you can barely make sense of it. it's not some accident.
the term libertarian comes out of the french revolution and means something like anarcho-communist. libertarians completely reject the concept of market theory, and for good reason - markets are the absolute anti-thesis of any coherent concept of freedom.
the way americans use the term "libertarian" maps politically to the concept of "classical liberalism" virtually everywhere else in the english-speaking world.
the democrats and republicans are both conservative parties. they're just different variants on it.
i think the only real liberal party left standing in the anglosphere is the liberal party of canada.
---
(deleted)
"Anyone who embraces libertarian economic policies isn't liberal."
a statement like this needs to be translated for non-americans. what the poster meant to type was:
"Anyone who embraces liberal economic policies isn't a socialist."
which is true enough. but, again: the language is not confused by accident.
---
millionfish animation
What are Johnson's policies?
Just a Channel
Libertarian basics: "can we solve this problem with more freedoms? If so, we go that route". Look up Penn from Penn & Teller on YouTube describing him being a Libertarian. He covers it very well.
jessica
all you need to survive is a gun and a bunker full of canned food. get off my lawn!
it's clown-car stuff; you can't take even really take him seriously.
---
Peter Perfect
Johnson is a loon! He wants to abolish social security, medicare, medicaid and all entitlements.
jessica
or we could cut military spending, instead?
RocketmanRockyMatrix
No entitlement mentality.
jessica
yeah. and, that is very frustrating after sanders' campaign, which really reduced to an articulation of the universal declaration of universal rights. we were making progress. and then this.
i am entitled to human rights, and fuck you if you disagree.
----
Chris Teal
i support johnson because of his social issues...i care not of economics.
jessica
i think it's really hard to make that argument regarding johnson and specifically in the context of it being an american election, because his economic policies have such dramatic negative social consequences. it's not something trivial like a debate over deficit spending. it's either disingenuous or poorly thought through.
i mean, i cringed pretty hard when hillary supporters started accusing sanders of privilege. but, it kind of rings accurate when applied to johnson. you can only make that argument if you're pretty wealthy to start off.
Trent Richards
I get the feeling that issues that you call social aren't social at all. Government services are a fiscal matter, not a social one. Social matters are things like Gay Rights, Affirmative Action, and The War on Drugs. Fiscal matters are things like Taxation, Government Spending and Trade Regulation. Government services all fall under the government spending section. It would be a rare thing for someone to oppose universal health care for instance if money wasn't involved. The fiscal aspect of these services are all that ever gets debated. That is why these are called fiscal matters.
jessica
the term "socio-economic" has meaning for a reason. the point i'm making is that you can't coherently argue that you support his social positions, but oppose his fiscal opinions - unless you haven't thought through the social implications of his fiscal policy.
i may have been overheard some time last fall arguing that i didn't care about fiscal issues, but that was in the context of an election where the canadian social system was not in any serious jeopardy and the issue was really nothing more important than deficit spending. what i meant was that i don't care if the government runs a deficit or not.
that's very different than voting for legalized marijuana and shrugging off the abolition of corporate taxation. you'd have to have smoked yourself stupid...
RocketmanRockyMatrix
Libertarians are for human rights.
jessica
libertarians tend to uphold orwellian concepts of human rights, as brought to you by anti-humanist liberals like rawls. the "free market", when applied to labour particularly, is completely inconsistent with any concept of human rights. you can't tell somebody to work or starve, then tell them they have rights. rather, what you do instead is come up with these ridiculous mental gymnastics that give people the right to starve.
----
Pallas AnitaSarkeesian
Feel the Johnson and end the FED. Gary Johnson 2016!
jessica
i don't think that ending the fed would be such a good idea, actually. you'd have big bankers manipulating currency rates at a whim. the markets would crash. you wouldn't know how much bread costs on a daily basis.
i'm all for a revolution, but i don't think you guys need to make the same mistakes made during perestroika.
Sonyaliloquy
'Feel the Johnson'? Might wanna try for a different slogan.
jessica
i think it's great: vote gary johnson to get fucked over.
---
Joeybrah
His economics are pretty simple, lower taxes. I think everyone can relate...
ApesAmongUs
Relate that it's stupid? Yea, I've seen a lot of stupid in my life.
jessica
well, once they implement self-regulation over academic accreditation, it should at least lower tuition. is mom smart enough to start a university? let the market decide!
home-schooling for the win!
---
Nakas Dougen
The libertarian ideas are the exact opposite of democratic socialism, it's beyond me why he has appeal with the Bernie crowd and the tyt audience
Wmarshal
Think he means his ideas on war, the handling of the middle east in general, and over all freedoms.I disagree with him on alot of things, but his thoughts on war is what won me.
Kevin Lai
he doesn't. if the a 3rd party candidate who leans republicans can take away some of would-be trump supporters, that opens the door for a 3rd party candidate for democratic-leaning 3rd party candidate (ie, jill stein)
Natalie Brown
The exact opposite of democratic socialism is fascism. Libertarian ideas intersect with liberal ideas on a social level. I'm a Liberal with Libertarian tendencies so the jump from Bernie to Gary seems quite natural to me...
Nakas Dougen
I believe from philosophical grounds that the most important thing for a human to be truly free is to secure their material conditions first.
It is not freedom neither liberty when a mother has to choose which of their 3 children they can afford to go to college.
It is not freedom or liberty when you have to 'choose' between health and disease based on your income.
It is not liberty when you can go bankrupt for getting cancer, you could not possibly know that.
Sure the world is a non Euclidean space but at the heart of everything lies class struggle, the struggle of the dispossessed be it traditional proletariat, underprivileged race or gender. The free market does not fix any of that and this is why all other western countries embraced free healthcare and a lot of them free higher education.
Libertarians would reverse labour law and make life much much harder for the average worker because he/she would lose much of what they gained through centuries of protest and fight.
I assume you are not working class, you do not work minimum wage. I know America confuses classic liberalism (based on the idea of protection of private property from state, kings etc and tolerance ) with traditional leftistsm (Stems from dialectical materialism and class struggle).
Philosophically speaking Social Democracies were created as a compensation between the capitalists (including conservatives and 'libertanians' or neoliberals) and Marxist socialism.
On almost every issue social democracy and libertanians fundamentally disagree. Non interventionism and protection of personal liberty are not necessarily features of social democracy, they just happen to coincide in American context.
Natalie Brown
Well we are in the American context, aren't we? We are also talking about people in a political race. Not philosophies and ideologies. While, yes, these 2 factors play in important role in who people decide to vote for for some people, for the majority this is not the case. Gary Johnson supports the ending of the war on drugs and allowing for recreational marijuana use, right for women to choose whether or not to have an abortion, protection of the environment, maintain the freedom of the internet, immigration reform (not just building a wall), and cutting military spending. In the modern American context these are all liberal ideas. All of these ideas i have heard get support from Bernie supporters. The jump is not as absurd as you make it seem.
jessica
i'm in agreement with you. but, i just want to point out that you're assuming certain things that right-libertarians would contest. so, you're right to point out that they would abolish minimum wage laws. but, they have this convoluted argument that, at the end, allows them to conclude that abolishing the minimum wage law will increase wages. remember the laffer curve? these are people that will stand up and look you in the eye and argue that decreasing corporate taxes will increase tax revenue. they'll come prepared with charts, too.
on the one hand, they're obviously wrong and not particularly hard to disprove. on the other hand, their voters and supporters and donors and social media advocates actually believe this stuff.
you need jobs before you can have unions to smash.
i'm not in favour of union-busting. but, america is post-industrial, and this language is anachronistic. unions are no longer a meaningful political force in the united states, because the percentage of the workforce that is unionized is insignificant.
a ubi is in fact a better answer, moving forward. we're moving into a reality where goods are made by robots, and there are very few jobs available servicing them. it's communism. ironically.
it's just that his dismantling of the financial system is going to make his ubi proposals impossible to implement. you need very strong controls on inflation for that to work. it's often promoted as a free market policy, but it can't work in an actual market. the rentiers would just steal everything.
(deleted)
jessica
again: you're talking about such a small percentage (2-3%), that there is no reason to build a theory. #berniebrosforgaryjohnson is good enough.
Chris Teal
because they are only thinking of economics...Johnson get my vote on social issues...seperation of church and state...check...end drug war...check..forgien policy...check i dont care about economics...there are rich and poor..always have..always will be
jessica
again: you can't separate these things, unless you're operating from a position of privilege.
consider abortion, for example. he wants to leave it to the states, and he wants to cut federal funding. so, you're going to end up with a decrease in access to social services as a consequence of his economic policies. you could say the same thing about his health care policies.
if you're wealthy anyways, you're not going to care. but, the vast majority of people will be far better off under hillary than johnson. and, trust me, i'm no fan of hillary - i think she should be convicted of war crimes and publicly executed. the libertarian economic/social policies are just that bad. it's barbarism.
if the choice is between corruption and barbarism, i'll pick corruption.
---
shazil888
Can't see Sanders supporters bleeding over to a Libertarian candidate. They either don't know the difference between a Progressive and a Libertarian, or they are easily swayed.
EarthianLifeForm
Because they still agree with Libertarians on 65% to 80% of the Libertarian platform and like Bernie Sanders, Libertarians are genuine, sincere, and not corrupt. Just like how Sanders is genuine, sincere, and not corrupt.
shazil888
Libertarians are Libertarians first and foremost because of their stance on limited government. That completely contradicts every major task that Sanders is trying to accomplish. Minimum Wage, Education, Healthcare, Regulation, Income Inequality.
I only see agreement on social issues, foreign policy (and that too is debatable), and drugs. In reality, that boils down to more like 15% to 30% agreement.
jessica
there is going to be some percentage of sanders supporters that are driven by conscious or unconscious misogyny, and will not support stein for the same reason they won't support clinton. an obscure minority, but it will exist. the numbers i've seen suggest that the bleed is roughly consistent with a reasonable estimate of the size of that group.
----
Twostones00
Gary Johnson won't protect the environment. Jill will. Jill has more attention than people think. Jill is a progressive much like Bernie.
TheJuranomo
We the people should protect the environment
jessica
this is another one of those twisted points, as libertarians will argue that the way to benefit the environment is not through regulation but through the enforcement of property rights. they forget to mention that this is also a license to pollute. but, hey. why should the gummamint tell me what to do on my property? it's almost like they have allodial title or something. the gummamint shouldn't have control over my fiefdom! isn't that why it's a fiefdom? wait? what?
see, if you cut the river up into pieces and sell it off then people will protect their parts of the river. because you always step into the same river, every time. it's your property, after all.
it's the same thing with the air. if you own the air over your property, then you have the right to keep the pollution out of it. because pascal's law is modifiable by an act of parliament.
we can always fine the particles, if they refuse to self-regulate.
Joe person
Yes he will, he's a huge supporter of the EPA
jessica
see, over here on the actual left, we consider the epa to be the perfect example of a captured agency. saying you support the epa as "good government" is equivalent to arguing that you're in favour of corporations buying off agencies in order to eliminate oversight - which is exactly how the epa actually operates.
so, it's kind of a trick. i know that the right hates the epa for land expropriation reasons, and that's "whatever". but, to cite the epa as an example of good functioning government is to argue in favour of open corruption and big money in politics, not to argue in favour of environmental oversight.
---
Zone gaming
For all those liberals who love Bernie, Gary Johnson is in favor of UBI something that even Bernie didn't really talk about. The fair tax is something that can easily be UBI.
jessica
but, his policies are starkly inflationary. how's $50/year sound?
trump had a real advantage, as his tactic needed to be to moderate - which is what he would have been expected to do anyways. all he needed to do was pick a kasich-type moderate and he'd instantly rebuild the base. clinton, on the other hand, had to find some way to balance the centre with the left.
by picking pence, he is grabbing the ball and running out of bounds. he just gave up the entire centre. that was his advantage. moderate republicans are going to flock to clinton, now.
i don't think those numbers mean anything. i suspect that they reflect ignorance more than anything else. kneejerking. or, maybe clinton's team was right all along - that a substantial amount of bernie's supporters were just frustrated men.
i'm leaning more towards kneejerking, right now.
i think it will ease up.
but, i mean, keep in mind that you're talking about small percentages, too. 2%. 3%. would i find it surprising that 2-3% of sanders supporters were just flat out, open misogynists? not really.
---
if you vote for johnson as a protest vote, it sends the message that you want more tea party policies. so, why not just write in charles koch? or ted cruz?
---
AS Deckard
There is no 'Libertarian left.' Libertarians fall on the right of the American spectrum, as we're generally more focused on the economy than social issues.
Daisy Chains
Actually, the Libertarian Party represents mostly right-wing Libertarians... Left-Libertarians, Green Libertarians, Anarchist Capitalists/Voluntaryists etc are going to vote for Jill Stein.
jessica
no libertarian left, huh. lol. bakunin? proudhon? kropotkin? malatesta? dawkins? chomsky?
thomas paine?
godwin? wollstonecraft?
(deleted)
see, i think tyt are right-wing assholes pretending to be liberals :P
the language used in american political discourse is not just confused, it's actually deeply orwellian. you can barely make sense of it. it's not some accident.
the term libertarian comes out of the french revolution and means something like anarcho-communist. libertarians completely reject the concept of market theory, and for good reason - markets are the absolute anti-thesis of any coherent concept of freedom.
the way americans use the term "libertarian" maps politically to the concept of "classical liberalism" virtually everywhere else in the english-speaking world.
the democrats and republicans are both conservative parties. they're just different variants on it.
i think the only real liberal party left standing in the anglosphere is the liberal party of canada.
---
(deleted)
"Anyone who embraces libertarian economic policies isn't liberal."
a statement like this needs to be translated for non-americans. what the poster meant to type was:
"Anyone who embraces liberal economic policies isn't a socialist."
which is true enough. but, again: the language is not confused by accident.
---
millionfish animation
What are Johnson's policies?
Just a Channel
Libertarian basics: "can we solve this problem with more freedoms? If so, we go that route". Look up Penn from Penn & Teller on YouTube describing him being a Libertarian. He covers it very well.
jessica
all you need to survive is a gun and a bunker full of canned food. get off my lawn!
it's clown-car stuff; you can't take even really take him seriously.
---
Peter Perfect
Johnson is a loon! He wants to abolish social security, medicare, medicaid and all entitlements.
jessica
or we could cut military spending, instead?
RocketmanRockyMatrix
No entitlement mentality.
jessica
yeah. and, that is very frustrating after sanders' campaign, which really reduced to an articulation of the universal declaration of universal rights. we were making progress. and then this.
i am entitled to human rights, and fuck you if you disagree.
----
Chris Teal
i support johnson because of his social issues...i care not of economics.
jessica
i think it's really hard to make that argument regarding johnson and specifically in the context of it being an american election, because his economic policies have such dramatic negative social consequences. it's not something trivial like a debate over deficit spending. it's either disingenuous or poorly thought through.
i mean, i cringed pretty hard when hillary supporters started accusing sanders of privilege. but, it kind of rings accurate when applied to johnson. you can only make that argument if you're pretty wealthy to start off.
Trent Richards
I get the feeling that issues that you call social aren't social at all. Government services are a fiscal matter, not a social one. Social matters are things like Gay Rights, Affirmative Action, and The War on Drugs. Fiscal matters are things like Taxation, Government Spending and Trade Regulation. Government services all fall under the government spending section. It would be a rare thing for someone to oppose universal health care for instance if money wasn't involved. The fiscal aspect of these services are all that ever gets debated. That is why these are called fiscal matters.
jessica
the term "socio-economic" has meaning for a reason. the point i'm making is that you can't coherently argue that you support his social positions, but oppose his fiscal opinions - unless you haven't thought through the social implications of his fiscal policy.
i may have been overheard some time last fall arguing that i didn't care about fiscal issues, but that was in the context of an election where the canadian social system was not in any serious jeopardy and the issue was really nothing more important than deficit spending. what i meant was that i don't care if the government runs a deficit or not.
that's very different than voting for legalized marijuana and shrugging off the abolition of corporate taxation. you'd have to have smoked yourself stupid...
RocketmanRockyMatrix
Libertarians are for human rights.
jessica
libertarians tend to uphold orwellian concepts of human rights, as brought to you by anti-humanist liberals like rawls. the "free market", when applied to labour particularly, is completely inconsistent with any concept of human rights. you can't tell somebody to work or starve, then tell them they have rights. rather, what you do instead is come up with these ridiculous mental gymnastics that give people the right to starve.
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Pallas AnitaSarkeesian
Feel the Johnson and end the FED. Gary Johnson 2016!
jessica
i don't think that ending the fed would be such a good idea, actually. you'd have big bankers manipulating currency rates at a whim. the markets would crash. you wouldn't know how much bread costs on a daily basis.
i'm all for a revolution, but i don't think you guys need to make the same mistakes made during perestroika.
Sonyaliloquy
'Feel the Johnson'? Might wanna try for a different slogan.
jessica
i think it's great: vote gary johnson to get fucked over.
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Joeybrah
His economics are pretty simple, lower taxes. I think everyone can relate...
ApesAmongUs
Relate that it's stupid? Yea, I've seen a lot of stupid in my life.
jessica
well, once they implement self-regulation over academic accreditation, it should at least lower tuition. is mom smart enough to start a university? let the market decide!
home-schooling for the win!
---
Nakas Dougen
The libertarian ideas are the exact opposite of democratic socialism, it's beyond me why he has appeal with the Bernie crowd and the tyt audience
Wmarshal
Think he means his ideas on war, the handling of the middle east in general, and over all freedoms.I disagree with him on alot of things, but his thoughts on war is what won me.
Kevin Lai
he doesn't. if the a 3rd party candidate who leans republicans can take away some of would-be trump supporters, that opens the door for a 3rd party candidate for democratic-leaning 3rd party candidate (ie, jill stein)
Natalie Brown
The exact opposite of democratic socialism is fascism. Libertarian ideas intersect with liberal ideas on a social level. I'm a Liberal with Libertarian tendencies so the jump from Bernie to Gary seems quite natural to me...
Nakas Dougen
I believe from philosophical grounds that the most important thing for a human to be truly free is to secure their material conditions first.
It is not freedom neither liberty when a mother has to choose which of their 3 children they can afford to go to college.
It is not freedom or liberty when you have to 'choose' between health and disease based on your income.
It is not liberty when you can go bankrupt for getting cancer, you could not possibly know that.
Sure the world is a non Euclidean space but at the heart of everything lies class struggle, the struggle of the dispossessed be it traditional proletariat, underprivileged race or gender. The free market does not fix any of that and this is why all other western countries embraced free healthcare and a lot of them free higher education.
Libertarians would reverse labour law and make life much much harder for the average worker because he/she would lose much of what they gained through centuries of protest and fight.
I assume you are not working class, you do not work minimum wage. I know America confuses classic liberalism (based on the idea of protection of private property from state, kings etc and tolerance ) with traditional leftistsm (Stems from dialectical materialism and class struggle).
Philosophically speaking Social Democracies were created as a compensation between the capitalists (including conservatives and 'libertanians' or neoliberals) and Marxist socialism.
On almost every issue social democracy and libertanians fundamentally disagree. Non interventionism and protection of personal liberty are not necessarily features of social democracy, they just happen to coincide in American context.
Natalie Brown
Well we are in the American context, aren't we? We are also talking about people in a political race. Not philosophies and ideologies. While, yes, these 2 factors play in important role in who people decide to vote for for some people, for the majority this is not the case. Gary Johnson supports the ending of the war on drugs and allowing for recreational marijuana use, right for women to choose whether or not to have an abortion, protection of the environment, maintain the freedom of the internet, immigration reform (not just building a wall), and cutting military spending. In the modern American context these are all liberal ideas. All of these ideas i have heard get support from Bernie supporters. The jump is not as absurd as you make it seem.
jessica
i'm in agreement with you. but, i just want to point out that you're assuming certain things that right-libertarians would contest. so, you're right to point out that they would abolish minimum wage laws. but, they have this convoluted argument that, at the end, allows them to conclude that abolishing the minimum wage law will increase wages. remember the laffer curve? these are people that will stand up and look you in the eye and argue that decreasing corporate taxes will increase tax revenue. they'll come prepared with charts, too.
on the one hand, they're obviously wrong and not particularly hard to disprove. on the other hand, their voters and supporters and donors and social media advocates actually believe this stuff.
you need jobs before you can have unions to smash.
i'm not in favour of union-busting. but, america is post-industrial, and this language is anachronistic. unions are no longer a meaningful political force in the united states, because the percentage of the workforce that is unionized is insignificant.
a ubi is in fact a better answer, moving forward. we're moving into a reality where goods are made by robots, and there are very few jobs available servicing them. it's communism. ironically.
it's just that his dismantling of the financial system is going to make his ubi proposals impossible to implement. you need very strong controls on inflation for that to work. it's often promoted as a free market policy, but it can't work in an actual market. the rentiers would just steal everything.
(deleted)
jessica
again: you're talking about such a small percentage (2-3%), that there is no reason to build a theory. #berniebrosforgaryjohnson is good enough.
Chris Teal
because they are only thinking of economics...Johnson get my vote on social issues...seperation of church and state...check...end drug war...check..forgien policy...check i dont care about economics...there are rich and poor..always have..always will be
jessica
again: you can't separate these things, unless you're operating from a position of privilege.
consider abortion, for example. he wants to leave it to the states, and he wants to cut federal funding. so, you're going to end up with a decrease in access to social services as a consequence of his economic policies. you could say the same thing about his health care policies.
if you're wealthy anyways, you're not going to care. but, the vast majority of people will be far better off under hillary than johnson. and, trust me, i'm no fan of hillary - i think she should be convicted of war crimes and publicly executed. the libertarian economic/social policies are just that bad. it's barbarism.
if the choice is between corruption and barbarism, i'll pick corruption.
---
shazil888
Can't see Sanders supporters bleeding over to a Libertarian candidate. They either don't know the difference between a Progressive and a Libertarian, or they are easily swayed.
EarthianLifeForm
Because they still agree with Libertarians on 65% to 80% of the Libertarian platform and like Bernie Sanders, Libertarians are genuine, sincere, and not corrupt. Just like how Sanders is genuine, sincere, and not corrupt.
shazil888
Libertarians are Libertarians first and foremost because of their stance on limited government. That completely contradicts every major task that Sanders is trying to accomplish. Minimum Wage, Education, Healthcare, Regulation, Income Inequality.
I only see agreement on social issues, foreign policy (and that too is debatable), and drugs. In reality, that boils down to more like 15% to 30% agreement.
jessica
there is going to be some percentage of sanders supporters that are driven by conscious or unconscious misogyny, and will not support stein for the same reason they won't support clinton. an obscure minority, but it will exist. the numbers i've seen suggest that the bleed is roughly consistent with a reasonable estimate of the size of that group.
----
Twostones00
Gary Johnson won't protect the environment. Jill will. Jill has more attention than people think. Jill is a progressive much like Bernie.
TheJuranomo
We the people should protect the environment
jessica
this is another one of those twisted points, as libertarians will argue that the way to benefit the environment is not through regulation but through the enforcement of property rights. they forget to mention that this is also a license to pollute. but, hey. why should the gummamint tell me what to do on my property? it's almost like they have allodial title or something. the gummamint shouldn't have control over my fiefdom! isn't that why it's a fiefdom? wait? what?
see, if you cut the river up into pieces and sell it off then people will protect their parts of the river. because you always step into the same river, every time. it's your property, after all.
it's the same thing with the air. if you own the air over your property, then you have the right to keep the pollution out of it. because pascal's law is modifiable by an act of parliament.
we can always fine the particles, if they refuse to self-regulate.
Joe person
Yes he will, he's a huge supporter of the EPA
jessica
see, over here on the actual left, we consider the epa to be the perfect example of a captured agency. saying you support the epa as "good government" is equivalent to arguing that you're in favour of corporations buying off agencies in order to eliminate oversight - which is exactly how the epa actually operates.
so, it's kind of a trick. i know that the right hates the epa for land expropriation reasons, and that's "whatever". but, to cite the epa as an example of good functioning government is to argue in favour of open corruption and big money in politics, not to argue in favour of environmental oversight.
---
Zone gaming
For all those liberals who love Bernie, Gary Johnson is in favor of UBI something that even Bernie didn't really talk about. The fair tax is something that can easily be UBI.
jessica
but, his policies are starkly inflationary. how's $50/year sound?
j reacts to blocking highways as a political tactic
in all seriousness, coming from somebody that is in solidarity with their core message, this is a flat out stupid tactic. not because it upsets people - fuck you, i don't care what you think. what this does is provide the cops with an excuse for excessive force, and they'll absolutely use it. if you start seeing riot cops walking around, you can thank blm for it.
the left has completely lost the plot. strike action is supposed to be about finding ways to put leverage on the system. it's a way to meet power with power. this has been co-opted by religious nonsense and converted into a means to enforce the moral majority. power is supposed to understand that it's morally wrong and adjust. it's a message that is as air-headed as the people articulating it.
if they want to "stop production", the way to do that is to send moles into the police force and organize police strikes. it can be about pay to start, so long as the goal is eventually to get cops to reject their training in racial profiling. we need to collectively find ways to get cops to reject their command structure. that is the tactic that will be successful.
--
Chris Healy
Get out of the road. Some people actually have jobs to go to.
jessica
fuck your job.
Atheistic Luciferian
Fuck you, welfare queen.
jessica
i'm sorry? get back to work, you fucking slave.
dingusmungus
Enjoy the disability checks leech...
neatpete
Hey disability is probably considered a raise for those on welfare. Hes going out for dinner tonight
jessica
i produce more of value on disability than you ever will in your wage/slave labour.
what have you ever created to justify your existence, besides profit for your owners?
so, again: fuck your job. go run around in circles in a field, instead. it's just as useful.
Sheryl Goolsbee
People's job's are paying the taxes so that people can live in subsidized/HUD housing, receive medicaid, bridge card benefits, pay for the better school's that all kid's can attend, WIC, abortion clinics, county run hospital's that are widely used by the indigent, family planning centers (birth control centers), methadone clinics, county psych services, etc. People work to pay for all of these services offered in most communities.
jessica
right. because government couldn't work without taxes. derp. have you ever considered the idea of abolishing money altogether?
The Daily Digest
People may be forced to contribute to a lot of socialist, government programs. None of which are Constitutional.
That is what we are trying to change.
jessica
in fact, i don't really support taxation. with the current system, i don't think you should pay taxes unless you're very wealthy - but that if you are very wealthy, you should pay almost all your income in taxes. so, somebody making $100,000/yr should really only have to pay consumption taxes. but, somebody making $10,000,000/yr should fork over 70%+ in taxes. and, the corporate tax rate should be over 50%. i'm perfectly happy with printing whatever else.
so, chances are pretty high that i don't think you should pay taxes at all.
but, in the long run, as an anarcho-communist, i would prefer to abolish the concept of exchange in favour of the concept of need.
The Daily Digest
That's one way to completely break the economic system. Punish the creators and business owners and you take away any incentive. Just do a mediocre job, and don't be too successful. Worked great for the Soviet Union, eh?
Taxing does one thing - enables a huge government to steal more and more. If you like where our system is now, then you must love big (criminal) government.
Punishing success does not, and never will, work. Too many collapsed governing systems, that include your communism.
You give over your power to a government that is sure to screw its people. I think I'll stick with working on Capitalism.
jessica
i'm not going to have this debate with you because we have to start from a more basic point than you're conceding. i don't agree with your definition of terms like "success", "creators" and "punish". if we were to have this debate, i would be constantly pulling the rug out from under you - much as i just did with that tax argument.
but, i don't think america comes across very well when compared economically to the soviet union. your levels of inequality are deplorable. the vast majority of americans live in abject poverty. you have third world child mortality levels. and, your policies have led to rapid deindustrialization. whatever you want to say about the soviet union, america is anything but an economic success story.
The Daily Digest
There really is no debate. Communism requires relying on a central power - whether it starts that way or ends up that way. Central powers are always corrupt. Socialism, Fascism, and Communism have historically been abysmal failures. I've lived through each and know this to be.
As these three systems make their way into a system based on Capitalism, they corrupt it and eventually it fails. An example is our system in the U.S. today. We started allowing Fascism to take over our system back in 1913 (really before) when our monetary system was signed over to the banking cartels. Fascism, historically, will fail. Same with Communism.
Our levels of inequality are based on each person's willingness to participate. The reason we have a third-world anything in this country, is because of government intervention and controls. These take away the right of each person to decide for themselves, and allows government, with all the inherent corruption, to make the rules.
Communism, Fascism, and Socialism are all bound to fail. Unfortunately Capitalism ends up being co opted by these corrupt systems.
jessica
you don't know what any of those words mean.
but, let me ask you this question: why do you think it's so important to let foreign interests manipulate the exchange rate?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjLy71Y34r8
the left has completely lost the plot. strike action is supposed to be about finding ways to put leverage on the system. it's a way to meet power with power. this has been co-opted by religious nonsense and converted into a means to enforce the moral majority. power is supposed to understand that it's morally wrong and adjust. it's a message that is as air-headed as the people articulating it.
if they want to "stop production", the way to do that is to send moles into the police force and organize police strikes. it can be about pay to start, so long as the goal is eventually to get cops to reject their training in racial profiling. we need to collectively find ways to get cops to reject their command structure. that is the tactic that will be successful.
--
Chris Healy
Get out of the road. Some people actually have jobs to go to.
jessica
fuck your job.
Atheistic Luciferian
Fuck you, welfare queen.
jessica
i'm sorry? get back to work, you fucking slave.
dingusmungus
Enjoy the disability checks leech...
neatpete
Hey disability is probably considered a raise for those on welfare. Hes going out for dinner tonight
jessica
i produce more of value on disability than you ever will in your wage/slave labour.
what have you ever created to justify your existence, besides profit for your owners?
so, again: fuck your job. go run around in circles in a field, instead. it's just as useful.
Sheryl Goolsbee
People's job's are paying the taxes so that people can live in subsidized/HUD housing, receive medicaid, bridge card benefits, pay for the better school's that all kid's can attend, WIC, abortion clinics, county run hospital's that are widely used by the indigent, family planning centers (birth control centers), methadone clinics, county psych services, etc. People work to pay for all of these services offered in most communities.
jessica
right. because government couldn't work without taxes. derp. have you ever considered the idea of abolishing money altogether?
The Daily Digest
People may be forced to contribute to a lot of socialist, government programs. None of which are Constitutional.
That is what we are trying to change.
jessica
in fact, i don't really support taxation. with the current system, i don't think you should pay taxes unless you're very wealthy - but that if you are very wealthy, you should pay almost all your income in taxes. so, somebody making $100,000/yr should really only have to pay consumption taxes. but, somebody making $10,000,000/yr should fork over 70%+ in taxes. and, the corporate tax rate should be over 50%. i'm perfectly happy with printing whatever else.
so, chances are pretty high that i don't think you should pay taxes at all.
but, in the long run, as an anarcho-communist, i would prefer to abolish the concept of exchange in favour of the concept of need.
The Daily Digest
That's one way to completely break the economic system. Punish the creators and business owners and you take away any incentive. Just do a mediocre job, and don't be too successful. Worked great for the Soviet Union, eh?
Taxing does one thing - enables a huge government to steal more and more. If you like where our system is now, then you must love big (criminal) government.
Punishing success does not, and never will, work. Too many collapsed governing systems, that include your communism.
You give over your power to a government that is sure to screw its people. I think I'll stick with working on Capitalism.
jessica
i'm not going to have this debate with you because we have to start from a more basic point than you're conceding. i don't agree with your definition of terms like "success", "creators" and "punish". if we were to have this debate, i would be constantly pulling the rug out from under you - much as i just did with that tax argument.
but, i don't think america comes across very well when compared economically to the soviet union. your levels of inequality are deplorable. the vast majority of americans live in abject poverty. you have third world child mortality levels. and, your policies have led to rapid deindustrialization. whatever you want to say about the soviet union, america is anything but an economic success story.
The Daily Digest
There really is no debate. Communism requires relying on a central power - whether it starts that way or ends up that way. Central powers are always corrupt. Socialism, Fascism, and Communism have historically been abysmal failures. I've lived through each and know this to be.
As these three systems make their way into a system based on Capitalism, they corrupt it and eventually it fails. An example is our system in the U.S. today. We started allowing Fascism to take over our system back in 1913 (really before) when our monetary system was signed over to the banking cartels. Fascism, historically, will fail. Same with Communism.
Our levels of inequality are based on each person's willingness to participate. The reason we have a third-world anything in this country, is because of government intervention and controls. These take away the right of each person to decide for themselves, and allows government, with all the inherent corruption, to make the rules.
Communism, Fascism, and Socialism are all bound to fail. Unfortunately Capitalism ends up being co opted by these corrupt systems.
jessica
you don't know what any of those words mean.
but, let me ask you this question: why do you think it's so important to let foreign interests manipulate the exchange rate?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjLy71Y34r8
j reacts to a longstanding recurring dream (thirty years....)
i just woke up from a recurring dream that i've been having for a
really, really long time. thirty years? it's not every night or
anything, but i definitely recognize it when i have it. i'm not going to
add this to the liner notes for confused because it's kind of
tangential, but it's a good example of the kind of thing that will end
up on the aleph-disc. i've also had this discussion quite a bit over
various fora, so it should be familiar to secret admirers.
despite what certain christian apologists may argue, this genetic v. environment debate is largely rejected altogether by science. christian apologists? well, this you-don't-have-a-choice nonsense is not science but a "progressive" opinion coming out of the religious fundamentalism of everybody following "god's plan". if you paid close attention in sunday school, this denial of agency in gender roles should be entirely logical to you. yet, it's truly hard to make sense of it, otherwise.
remember: i'm not a christian progressive. i'm an anarchist. so, i have a strong attachment to the idea of a tabula rasa. my politics make no sense if we're all genetically determined. if that were true, i'd have to concede to some conservative concept of "human nature" and fall into the standard hobbesian apologism for deep totalitarianism. i readily concede that humans are assholes, but i blame capitalism and not biology. that's the point of being an anarchist: that abolishing capitalism will abolish this right-wing concept of "human nature" and allow us the freedom to decide how and what we want to be. if we have no way out of this, we're stuck with the police state - and the most violent forms of repression and surveillance become justified. i don't have any patience for this middle-of-the-road liberal nonsense: we can either transcend capitalism or we can't.
and, i believe that we can. but, we need to be able to change. the technically correct statement comes from chomsky: we don't yet understand humans well enough to know if we have a nature or not. yeah, well you probably fell for a strawman. your source probably sucks, and that's your epiphany, there. the term is currently meaningless. but, the way it's thrown around has to essentially be right-wing propaganda. otherwise, just give me a gun and get the fuck off my lawn.
so, because i'm an anarchist and not a christian progressive, my biases are towards tabula rasa rather than genetic predetermination. and, because i don't get my science from left-wing political rallies, i've run into quite a bit of push back on my refusal to uphold certain types of loaded sloganeering. let's be clear on that point.
real scientists will tell you that there's no evidence for a genetic basis for gender nonconformity. in fact, it's not even considered to be a psychological condition, let alone a genetic one. think of it like this: suppose your daughter wants to wear pants. nobody even cares anymore. you might even buy your daughter pants without even thinking about it. but, suppose your son wants to wear a dress. well, that's seen as some kind of mental illness. the only mental illness here is repressed misogyny in the parents! yet, i'll acknowledge that it's an empirical question. sort of. what do the studies say?
the truth is that they're all terrible. one of the studies you see thrown around to argue it's genetic relies on the reversal of flawed notes. so, the doctor that did the study has acknowledged that he falsified data and even sexually assaulted the participants. such a study ought to be completely discarded. instead, advocates of the genetic theory just negate all of the notes. this is their core argument. see, the staunch truth is that this is the best they can do in terms of presenting evidence in favour of a genetic basis for gender non-conformity. they may also throw some studies about twins at you, but if you look at the data closely it invariably actually contradicts their argument.
what i can't make sense of is why any scientifically literate person would consider it to be a valid hypothesis in the first place. it's behavioural. genes don't code for behaviours. that's religious thinking. but, in the sense that it remains an empirical question, i need to see a properly designed study. unfortunately, such a study would no doubt be unethical.
i can accept some concept of hormonal imbalance as a complicating factor, but i remain convinced that the issue is primarily environmental. so, we have another straw man: i'm arguing it's a choice and that conversion therapy should be attempted. which is completely ridiculous...
the argument that we are shaped by our environment is not in any way the same as the argument that we have a choice in our sexual orientation or sexual identification. that should not need to be stated. i often have a difficult time arguing this point, because i can't even make sense of the implication. the reason, again, is that i'm not a christian progressive. i'm an anarchist. the only reason you would come up with such a ridiculous assertion is if you're framing the issue in terms of a religious debate. so, these christians come at you with this idea that it's a choice and you're evil or something (i don't even know...), and your response is "no. it's genetic.". so, if i'm rejecting the idea that it's genetic, i'm taking the side of the christians you're arguing with.
i've made this argument about nihilism. i've been accused of nihilism, because i'm so openly atheist. but, an atheist cannot even make sense of nihilism, because it's framed in religious terms. likewise, i cannot make sense of these arguments from progressives because they are framed in religious terms.
so, no i don't think it's a choice. not exactly. i think it's a consequence of the stochastic processes of the universe. see, that's another atheist thing: i believe in chaos and randomness. your life is not determined by some supernatural force. you were not "programmed" by anything or anyone. you are a consequence of chance, and may have come out entirely differently had certain events in your life been different.
so, when i think back to being a girly boy at the age of four or five, i think it's obvious that the reason is that i spent all of my time with girls. i had a mother, a grandmother, two aunts, a sister, a female cousin and little girls living in the houses around me. dad was around, but kind of distant. that's not genetic, and it's not a choice. it's just a function of chance. if i had an uncle or a boy cousin or there was a little boy across the path, things may have been different.
but, that doesn't mean it's a good idea to enforce an arbitrary gender binary, either. remember: not a christian progressive. an anarchist. i reject the nuclear family, too.
the recurring dream places me in a field with a baseball glove. it was t-ball, technically, not baseball. i'm very young - 4. 5. i'm supposed to be paying attention, waiting for a ball from the sky, but i don't really care. i'm more interested in picking flowers. well, i'm in a field. that's what i usually do when i'm in a field with my grandmother. a ball rolls by me, and i choose not to respond to it. my dad whirls in in a rage, scoops me up and brings me to the car. he's ashamed. that's the dream: remembering his shame.
it's a quiet drive back to my mom's.
when we get home, he takes me out of the car, walks me to the door and promises he'll never make me stand in a field by myself ever again.
--
my parents were both libertarians, although they wouldn't have identified that way. my mom was a poorly educated white person, and had political perspectives (or lack thereof) that would be stereotypically associated with a poorly educated white person - support for social services and redistribution, peppered with a lot of xenophobia and social exclusion. not so much into the gays. but, my grandmother was far more liberal (small and big l - card carrying, in fact) and had a bigger effect on me. my mom struggled with addictions and would disappear for weeks at a time. i have almost no recollection of the elder trudeau, other than that my grandmother loved him and my mother hated him.
my dad wasn't really white, but he was more of the typical canadian - "fiscally conservative and socially liberal". he was, for a time, this strange canadian political animal: a progressive conservative. not an old tory. a pc, meaning he had strong support for progressive social policies but demanded that they be paid for through responsible taxation. you could maybe call him a tax and spend liberal, except to point out that he demanded the tax as much as the spend, which is usually a straw man when applied to liberals (who don't actually care about deficits). he was the only person i've ever met that was in support of the gst in the 90s - because he didn't want to see spending cuts. he voted for kim campbell, and defended it until the day he died. yet, he was also in the group that was highly critical of the reform party and never dropped his opposition to harper, instead opting for the right-leaning side of the liberal party. his perspective on social issues was always staunchly libertarian, whether he ever really realized it or not. the gays never bothered him, so he didn't bother them. the chinese never bothered him, so he didn't bother them. the blacks....well, maybe they bothered him a couple of times, but it's better to just get out of their way.
the point is that they were both into hands-off parenting. i had huge free rein from a very young age. this is another reason why i'm decidedly gen x: they were both very opposed to helicopter parenting and very much into letting me develop "naturally". i've grown up as an advocate of free range parenting, as well (i am an anarchist, after all). but, i think that this perspective is important to point out in the environment v genetics debate.
the reason is that the assumption was always that i'd grow out of it - which is genetic determinism. after all, i have male chromosomes, so my inner male tendencies should eventually over power and i'll in the end grow into a man. i'm just being a kid.
what i was trying to get across in my liner notes is that this is a type of naturalistic fallacy. in the end, i would not just magically become a boy in the absence of any instruction due to genetic determinism. but, it leaves open the question: if there was stronger instruction, might i have?
i don't know. i really don't.
what i do think that i can state with a lot of certainty is that the segregation was a bad idea, and i reacted pretty strongly to it. my parents never did this, but the school system did. the more that the teachers told me i wasn't allowed to be a girl, the more i insisted upon it. but, if you understand kids, you know that's how kids are - they want what they can't have, and the more you say "no" the more they push back.
i would propose that the error in approach was less in telling me what i can't be and more in failing to teach me what i "ought" to be. "you can't have this candy" is one thing. "have this apple instead" is another. the kid can't just magically fill in the blank that it should have an apple instead of the candy, it just dwells on not having the candy. the apple has to be presented as an option before it can be accepted.
of course, the apple can also be rejected. might i have rejected the apple and insisted on the candy? see, if you take my position on this, you have to realize that this is not pre-determined. the choices i would have made would not have been in a vacuum - they would have depended on the people around me. i can't consequently know if i would have rejected the apple had it been presented to me. i can just point out that it was never really presented. i was just told i can't have the candy.
and, yes i do think this is the right way to think about gender roles in kids.
so, i'm left with a complicated set of alternate outcomes:
1) had the system not tried to beat the girl out of me,
a) i might very well have grown out of it on my own.
b) or, i might have grown into it younger.
that would have depended on the environment around me. but, at least i wouldn't have internalized it and it wouldn't have become this thing i struggled with.
2) on the other hand, had the system more rigorously enforced maleness in addition to penalizing femaleness,
a) i may have been more effectively masculinized.
b) or the internalization may have been that much worse.
i think the key thing is in rejecting 2a) as some kind of ideal. this "ought" ought not be an ought. randomness is what it is. shit happens. but, kids need positive reinforcement one way or the other, and the ability to make these choices in a way that is free of shame or coercion.
so, i can't say what choices i would have made in the absence of coercion. i can only point out how the presence of coercion affected the choices i did make.
despite what certain christian apologists may argue, this genetic v. environment debate is largely rejected altogether by science. christian apologists? well, this you-don't-have-a-choice nonsense is not science but a "progressive" opinion coming out of the religious fundamentalism of everybody following "god's plan". if you paid close attention in sunday school, this denial of agency in gender roles should be entirely logical to you. yet, it's truly hard to make sense of it, otherwise.
remember: i'm not a christian progressive. i'm an anarchist. so, i have a strong attachment to the idea of a tabula rasa. my politics make no sense if we're all genetically determined. if that were true, i'd have to concede to some conservative concept of "human nature" and fall into the standard hobbesian apologism for deep totalitarianism. i readily concede that humans are assholes, but i blame capitalism and not biology. that's the point of being an anarchist: that abolishing capitalism will abolish this right-wing concept of "human nature" and allow us the freedom to decide how and what we want to be. if we have no way out of this, we're stuck with the police state - and the most violent forms of repression and surveillance become justified. i don't have any patience for this middle-of-the-road liberal nonsense: we can either transcend capitalism or we can't.
and, i believe that we can. but, we need to be able to change. the technically correct statement comes from chomsky: we don't yet understand humans well enough to know if we have a nature or not. yeah, well you probably fell for a strawman. your source probably sucks, and that's your epiphany, there. the term is currently meaningless. but, the way it's thrown around has to essentially be right-wing propaganda. otherwise, just give me a gun and get the fuck off my lawn.
so, because i'm an anarchist and not a christian progressive, my biases are towards tabula rasa rather than genetic predetermination. and, because i don't get my science from left-wing political rallies, i've run into quite a bit of push back on my refusal to uphold certain types of loaded sloganeering. let's be clear on that point.
real scientists will tell you that there's no evidence for a genetic basis for gender nonconformity. in fact, it's not even considered to be a psychological condition, let alone a genetic one. think of it like this: suppose your daughter wants to wear pants. nobody even cares anymore. you might even buy your daughter pants without even thinking about it. but, suppose your son wants to wear a dress. well, that's seen as some kind of mental illness. the only mental illness here is repressed misogyny in the parents! yet, i'll acknowledge that it's an empirical question. sort of. what do the studies say?
the truth is that they're all terrible. one of the studies you see thrown around to argue it's genetic relies on the reversal of flawed notes. so, the doctor that did the study has acknowledged that he falsified data and even sexually assaulted the participants. such a study ought to be completely discarded. instead, advocates of the genetic theory just negate all of the notes. this is their core argument. see, the staunch truth is that this is the best they can do in terms of presenting evidence in favour of a genetic basis for gender non-conformity. they may also throw some studies about twins at you, but if you look at the data closely it invariably actually contradicts their argument.
what i can't make sense of is why any scientifically literate person would consider it to be a valid hypothesis in the first place. it's behavioural. genes don't code for behaviours. that's religious thinking. but, in the sense that it remains an empirical question, i need to see a properly designed study. unfortunately, such a study would no doubt be unethical.
i can accept some concept of hormonal imbalance as a complicating factor, but i remain convinced that the issue is primarily environmental. so, we have another straw man: i'm arguing it's a choice and that conversion therapy should be attempted. which is completely ridiculous...
the argument that we are shaped by our environment is not in any way the same as the argument that we have a choice in our sexual orientation or sexual identification. that should not need to be stated. i often have a difficult time arguing this point, because i can't even make sense of the implication. the reason, again, is that i'm not a christian progressive. i'm an anarchist. the only reason you would come up with such a ridiculous assertion is if you're framing the issue in terms of a religious debate. so, these christians come at you with this idea that it's a choice and you're evil or something (i don't even know...), and your response is "no. it's genetic.". so, if i'm rejecting the idea that it's genetic, i'm taking the side of the christians you're arguing with.
i've made this argument about nihilism. i've been accused of nihilism, because i'm so openly atheist. but, an atheist cannot even make sense of nihilism, because it's framed in religious terms. likewise, i cannot make sense of these arguments from progressives because they are framed in religious terms.
so, no i don't think it's a choice. not exactly. i think it's a consequence of the stochastic processes of the universe. see, that's another atheist thing: i believe in chaos and randomness. your life is not determined by some supernatural force. you were not "programmed" by anything or anyone. you are a consequence of chance, and may have come out entirely differently had certain events in your life been different.
so, when i think back to being a girly boy at the age of four or five, i think it's obvious that the reason is that i spent all of my time with girls. i had a mother, a grandmother, two aunts, a sister, a female cousin and little girls living in the houses around me. dad was around, but kind of distant. that's not genetic, and it's not a choice. it's just a function of chance. if i had an uncle or a boy cousin or there was a little boy across the path, things may have been different.
but, that doesn't mean it's a good idea to enforce an arbitrary gender binary, either. remember: not a christian progressive. an anarchist. i reject the nuclear family, too.
the recurring dream places me in a field with a baseball glove. it was t-ball, technically, not baseball. i'm very young - 4. 5. i'm supposed to be paying attention, waiting for a ball from the sky, but i don't really care. i'm more interested in picking flowers. well, i'm in a field. that's what i usually do when i'm in a field with my grandmother. a ball rolls by me, and i choose not to respond to it. my dad whirls in in a rage, scoops me up and brings me to the car. he's ashamed. that's the dream: remembering his shame.
it's a quiet drive back to my mom's.
when we get home, he takes me out of the car, walks me to the door and promises he'll never make me stand in a field by myself ever again.
--
my parents were both libertarians, although they wouldn't have identified that way. my mom was a poorly educated white person, and had political perspectives (or lack thereof) that would be stereotypically associated with a poorly educated white person - support for social services and redistribution, peppered with a lot of xenophobia and social exclusion. not so much into the gays. but, my grandmother was far more liberal (small and big l - card carrying, in fact) and had a bigger effect on me. my mom struggled with addictions and would disappear for weeks at a time. i have almost no recollection of the elder trudeau, other than that my grandmother loved him and my mother hated him.
my dad wasn't really white, but he was more of the typical canadian - "fiscally conservative and socially liberal". he was, for a time, this strange canadian political animal: a progressive conservative. not an old tory. a pc, meaning he had strong support for progressive social policies but demanded that they be paid for through responsible taxation. you could maybe call him a tax and spend liberal, except to point out that he demanded the tax as much as the spend, which is usually a straw man when applied to liberals (who don't actually care about deficits). he was the only person i've ever met that was in support of the gst in the 90s - because he didn't want to see spending cuts. he voted for kim campbell, and defended it until the day he died. yet, he was also in the group that was highly critical of the reform party and never dropped his opposition to harper, instead opting for the right-leaning side of the liberal party. his perspective on social issues was always staunchly libertarian, whether he ever really realized it or not. the gays never bothered him, so he didn't bother them. the chinese never bothered him, so he didn't bother them. the blacks....well, maybe they bothered him a couple of times, but it's better to just get out of their way.
the point is that they were both into hands-off parenting. i had huge free rein from a very young age. this is another reason why i'm decidedly gen x: they were both very opposed to helicopter parenting and very much into letting me develop "naturally". i've grown up as an advocate of free range parenting, as well (i am an anarchist, after all). but, i think that this perspective is important to point out in the environment v genetics debate.
the reason is that the assumption was always that i'd grow out of it - which is genetic determinism. after all, i have male chromosomes, so my inner male tendencies should eventually over power and i'll in the end grow into a man. i'm just being a kid.
what i was trying to get across in my liner notes is that this is a type of naturalistic fallacy. in the end, i would not just magically become a boy in the absence of any instruction due to genetic determinism. but, it leaves open the question: if there was stronger instruction, might i have?
i don't know. i really don't.
what i do think that i can state with a lot of certainty is that the segregation was a bad idea, and i reacted pretty strongly to it. my parents never did this, but the school system did. the more that the teachers told me i wasn't allowed to be a girl, the more i insisted upon it. but, if you understand kids, you know that's how kids are - they want what they can't have, and the more you say "no" the more they push back.
i would propose that the error in approach was less in telling me what i can't be and more in failing to teach me what i "ought" to be. "you can't have this candy" is one thing. "have this apple instead" is another. the kid can't just magically fill in the blank that it should have an apple instead of the candy, it just dwells on not having the candy. the apple has to be presented as an option before it can be accepted.
of course, the apple can also be rejected. might i have rejected the apple and insisted on the candy? see, if you take my position on this, you have to realize that this is not pre-determined. the choices i would have made would not have been in a vacuum - they would have depended on the people around me. i can't consequently know if i would have rejected the apple had it been presented to me. i can just point out that it was never really presented. i was just told i can't have the candy.
and, yes i do think this is the right way to think about gender roles in kids.
so, i'm left with a complicated set of alternate outcomes:
1) had the system not tried to beat the girl out of me,
a) i might very well have grown out of it on my own.
b) or, i might have grown into it younger.
that would have depended on the environment around me. but, at least i wouldn't have internalized it and it wouldn't have become this thing i struggled with.
2) on the other hand, had the system more rigorously enforced maleness in addition to penalizing femaleness,
a) i may have been more effectively masculinized.
b) or the internalization may have been that much worse.
i think the key thing is in rejecting 2a) as some kind of ideal. this "ought" ought not be an ought. randomness is what it is. shit happens. but, kids need positive reinforcement one way or the other, and the ability to make these choices in a way that is free of shame or coercion.
so, i can't say what choices i would have made in the absence of coercion. i can only point out how the presence of coercion affected the choices i did make.
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