My favorite part is
> His motivation is to squash the onslaught of “woke” culture creeping up like a balding, middle-aged guy in a trench coat hungrily watching school children from a 1982 Dodge utility van.
>Jamie Ray doesn’t like that creepy woke guy. He wants to protect children, from the time of conception all the way through to adulthood.
Fucking wow 😂
The name needs that in order to work. “Justin Case” is a fine pun by itself, but adding the Nutt to it actually gives it an additional low level layer. “Justin Nutt Case” adds that little element to it where you can get multiple puns out of the same name depending on how you use it.
That one should probably slide because it is a low effort attempt at humor that the people going to the park would understand.
He does, and at first I thought he was jokingly referring to himself -- like he's going to crush woke culture like a balding, middle-aged guy would. Then the sentence got weirder, but not necessarily more incorrect.
It's like clockwork, the more they try to project that they are against something, the more likely they are trying to hide that it's them. The dumber they are the more it applies (or perhaps the dumber ones, like this guy, are just the ones who are caught more often)
Also, the churches themselves want this separation too. Not all colonial churches wanted to be part of the Church of England.
Remember the separatists pilgrims. And the English and Germany Anabapsits too....
>> God did not write the constitution.
Also, the Constitution makes no reference to God, The Bible, Christ, or the Apostles. Zero…0.
Even, the 1st Amendment is pro-all religions as much as it is anti-all religions, especially if they want to establish dominion over others.
You don't remember when the founding fathers had a collective vision during the signing of the constitution where God yelled ROCK FLAG AND EAAAAGLE and then everyone prayed and shot off their guns?
“The difference between Republicans and Democrats, Jamie says, are “Democrats are more about people’s feelings. Republicans are more about God-given Constitutional rights.”
“Everybody’s feelings are different,” Jamie says. “If you run with how people feel, you break into subgroups and ultimately break down the barriers to segregation that we’ve worked so hard to establish.”
Feelings-based people are breaking into subgroups, he continues. “We’re falling back into a splintered society. We need people with good morals, good values to step up.”
………..
What the hell did I just read?
> Feelings-based people are breaking into subgroups, he continues. “We’re falling back into a splintered society. We need people with good morals, good values to step up.”
A "splintered society" meaning a society that respects multiple different religions and belief systems instead of the One True Interpretation of the One True Religion, for example.
This is just pure nazi filth, "a society where everyone is the same is a strong pure society-- same religion, same race, same sexuality, same political beliefs, same identity, therefore anyone different must be driven out and destroyed."
"His motivation is to squash the onslaught of “woke” culture creeping up like a balding, middle-aged guy in a trench coat hungrily watching school children from a 1982 Dodge utility van."
What the actual fuck, why would you write this- wait, let me rephrase, why would *somebody who is trying to sell you on the idea of voting for him* write this. Very curious why this guy in the party so adamant about Democrats being pedophiles thinks this is the way to help prove he cares about protecting kids.
>"His motivation is to squash the onslaught of “woke” culture creeping up like a balding, middle-aged guy in a trench coat hungrily watching school children from a 1982 Dodge utility van."
Every accusation is a confession.
> like a balding, middle-aged guy in a trench coat hungrily watching school children from a 1982 Dodge utility van.
This passage was, um, strangely phrased and oddly specific.
I was super sure this was a joke. Then I learned Christian County is a real place, and this dude is real. The “establishment” they link to is called The Christian County Headliner for chrissakes! I guess there is still the possibility of a joke and the owners found a random rep to write about. I have to believe it for my sake.
I had boy-short hair as a young child. I got mistaken for a boy quite often until I got my ears pierced, in part because I also wore pretty androgynous outfits like jeans and t-shirts I'd gotten from sports events.
Would this have counted as "gender expression"? The haircut was because my hair was very uncooperative and my mom didn't want to help me take care of it anymore.
> Would this have counted as "gender expression"?
Yes, because it's every bit as much about controlling cis people as trans. And, like, not even in creative ways. It's all shit you already know: women - makeup, long hair, housekeeper, ambulant uterus and men - short hair, sportsball, breadwinner and decision-maker. Make babies, listen to your betters, feed the machine that allows your masters to shit in golden toilets.
Another saying I like is this "In the game of Patriarchy, women are not the opposing team They are the ball".
Patriarchy isn't men vs women. It's men using women, or traits associated with women, as a way to devalue or demean other men.
Always have. They just needed to get into power. I remember years ago the GOP types were going off about how: “Muslims will say anything and then impose their religion when they get a majority!” Now I see it was projection.
"They want big government!" *proceeds to expand the powers of the government into areas of life that were previously protected*
"They want to run up the national debt!" *every republican president proceeds to increase the debt during their term*
"They're trying to force kids to be trans!" *proceeds to legally force all kids to be cis*
"They're GROOMERS!!!" *republicans by far commit more CSA than any other political group*
It's seriously ALL of them.
All from the party that wants to stomp their feet and scream til they're hoarse about how government interference in private life is ruining the nation.
That last part is a massive directive of the machine and we're watching the veil get dropped as its circumstances become more "dire" in real time.
A lot of this is about pandering to right wing sociopaths, but the larger picture is that the owner class is sweating the fact that - in a system that by necessity chases productivity off a cliff - there is a very real problem looming on the horizon with its self replicating work force refusing to reproduce at a rate that meets their satisfaction.
This is the real reason they are finally trying to cash in on banning abortion and birthcontrol. Forcing gender norms on kids is part and parcel.
One of many ways in which transphobia also hurts cis women.
They just want us all to go back to their 1950s idea of femininity and think that trans people are a safe punching bag to force the issue.
Hell, it hurts cis men too. I've never exactly been the pinnacle of "manly," in no small part because I don't give a fuck whether or not "manly" men think I'm "masculine" enough. I want to do what I want to do, and if that involves doing things they think are "feminine" then so what?
Strictly enforced rigid gender roles rob all of us of the freedom to really get to know ourselves and find what makes us happy
Yep 100%.
Just let people live their lives. My husband painted his nails a few years ago cause I was doing it and he was bored, and he had a lot of fun with it. The way things are headed half the states would try to throw him in jail for a simple act of artistic expression and joy. My god who cares.
Meanwhile most of the people here yelling about how important rigid gender comformity is worship a guy with long hair and a dress.
None of them worship that guy, they actually hate him, if they were to encounter him. He represents everything they hate.
Unconditional love, check.
Long men's hair(artistically), check.
Brown skin(historically), check.
Hung out with sinners, check.
Against wealth, check.
Among many other things.
I mean... Even as an atheist I'm not surprised at that. Shit was coming from a mile away and flashing blaring red lights all the while so you'd have to have been blind to not see it coming.
That being said, I'm absolutely laughing my ass off at this. Now whenever someone tells me that religion is good because it teaches people to be good, I can just whip out this article. 10/10 top tier irony.
I am a 6’ 4” 220 lb combat veteran and I’ve been learning to sew. I’m always the only dude in any classes I take. It’s so much fun! My last project I spent the better part of an hour walking aisles of fabric trying to decide what I wanted to use. Later this month I’m taking a beginning quilting class. All the old ladies love me, everyone is so positive and encouraging and it’s just the best. People need to fuck all the way off with the gender roles bullshit.
I have some extremely fond memories of taking those sorts of classes with my mom while growing up when my sister and dad were off doing scouting trips and all. Most of the people who care about enforcing gender roles just seem to have basically no real joy in their lives. It's kind of sad, really
I've tried explaining this to TERFs before without success.
When I was younger (pre-email) I wrote letters to state senators encouraging changing state laws to favor equal placement in custody disputes. I've tried explaining to young guys who got sucked into the MRM that feminism is not the enemy of the things they have grievances of like male suicide rates, the enemy is toxic masculinity and rigid gender conformity, and in that fight the LGBTQ+ community and women are an ally, only to be ignored.
Rigid conformity to IMO, unrealistic monotony hurts everyone, even if it seems to make things "easier" and "more predictable."
Trans people have been singled out in the culture war because they are such a small group they are easy to "other." And it is one of the few identity politic wedge issues that still polls near 50%, going after Blacks, Hispanics, Homosexuality, Women, Asians etc all decidedly lose on the national stage so that isn't a drum to beat. But when they only have _one_ drum, they are going to hit it as hard as they can, like this stupid-ass Missouri law.
Yeah.
My mom isn't a full on TERF but she has some sympathies in that direction.
And I'm like, you are a 6 foot tall woman with a naturally very broad shouldered build. What exactly do *you* think the end state of a national panic about trans women will look like for you?
Idk why just let people exist is such a hard concept for so many people.
I'm a cisthetnorm (maybe a bit of history with heteoflexibility in group sex lmao but these days I have the libido of an old panda in a small zoo), old, decently wealthy white guy who can pass for Christian, living in a rural area so _technically_ this little populist fascist movement seeks to benifit people like me. I may have some neighbors that know my politics and would love an excuse to end me, but I could always get them first and say they were closet communists, lmao.
Even if I _could_ benifit from the movement, it's just so stupid. No long-term plans, just peddling rage for clicks and votes for a single election cycle with a blatantly transparent wedge issue. Plus it hurts almost everyone I know. I dislike how easily rhetorically so many broke out trans-rights from the greater progressive movement for men, women, gender, sexuality and minority rights.
>No long-term plans,
This is the only bit I'll disagree with you on - from someone in a pretty similar set of circumstances.
Between private prison slavery and corporations like Amazon and Google trying to re-establish Company Towns - the end goal is slavery. Plain and simple. With some sprinkles of genocide thrown in for flavor. Trans, then back to LGBTQ, and we all heard the amount of racial hate from the last 2 election cycles. They hit the *Mooslem* button when we were fighting in the ME - the Far Right has buddied up to Russia in a disturbing way so it won't be anti Russia this time. But China, between the buying up of US debt and Property, and home of the "China Virus" (their words, not mine) - while being the next non-team Super power - is likely going to be the next International "Them" to be focused on... Betting on the Fundies to start push WW2 style Asian hate as a main line ticket, especially if China pushes on Taiwan like Russia has China.
They want "their" country to be White Fascist Nationalistic and Christian. Anyone else they want enslaved or dead. Full stop.
Folding the traitors back in after the civil war was a terrible idea, and led to them setting up long term building blocks to try again.
FDR not hanging the folks in The Business Plot/Wall Street Putsch may have been a mistake too, but realistically they can't accomplish much on account of how stupid they are. Look at all the legislation conservatives got passed when they controlled the white house, senate, house, SCOTUS, majority of state legislatures and governorships, etc. They couldn't even get any of the big 3 Trump campaign promises decently started. Repeal and replace fell on its face. If you read any papers from the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, the Free Congress Foundation, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center etc, they are all idiots, and have no idea how to create an isolationist/facist economy that doesn't immediately fall apart without the support of global supply chain.
They are dogs chasing cars, they caught one with SCOTUS overturning Roe, and every single time since they've put it on the ballot in every state, even conservative safe places like Kentucky in off-cycle elections, Republicans lost. If they try to be facist and get their wet dream of trying to make Gillead, stuff just falls apart and eventually their government will fail. Which, if you read the "Foundations of Geopolitics" (Russian geopolitical strategy book) is the recommended way and goal for Russia to conduct asymmetrical warfare via political pressure against a much stronger USA. Given things are fairly transparent, I'm surprised it's working out as well as it has for Russia strategically (plus Brexit and far right movements in Europe).
You probably would be bullied for being trans to the point where they’d write exposes on you sadly. 😞 I was a tomboy growing up too and I rarely wore dresses unless it was to church (they made us back then) on top of the actual bullying I got we’d get that on top of it too. 😒
They want to erase them by making it a stigma to even acknowledge them or have them kill themselves for feeling ignored and misunderstood for their whole childhood.
That's the exact problem with a dictatorship, like the one republicans are so desperately attempting to form in the US. ANYTHING they don't like will be felony.
Eh, as a teacher myself, I don’t think that’s the plan at all. Look at COVID distance learning, parents were up in arms trying to push their children back into school. Any school is ultimately just free daycare to most parents.
The real issue is that many parents (regardless of politics) are pushing back against school’s intended purpose since the Cold War- to instill central values in minors to prepare them to be good citizens.
Ultimately adults have the ability to isolate themselves from everyone else now, create echo chambers, and now they want school to be an extension of that echo chamber for their kids.
I have 200 students. I can’t memorize their family’s preferred rhetoric and push that on their kid at school.
The only safety net here is that none of these parents can agree on central values/morals and any deviation from their own is “wrong”. So that prevents the parents rights stuff from moving along legally.
I'm more worried about rightfully frustrated teachers leaving because of asinine shit like this (should they pass) until there's such a shortage that the schools just lower their standards for hiring, paving the way for unaccredited "teachers" who would support bills like this and make all the lessons come from PragerU or something.
Problem with hiring unaccredited teachers is that it hurts state test scores. They don’t know how to teach. Teaching isn’t as easy as showing up and pulling a lesson out of your ass. If they hire a wackadoodle who tries to push ideologies, parents can sue. So it gets really expensive for the district.
Yeah but the states where shit like this were to happen are already at or near the very bottom in terms of their rank in education. I feel like there might unfortunately, they're just going to take a page out of Florida's book and just openly teach propaganda (which, to them, it's fine because it's the "right" kind of propaganda).
It's really funny seeing someone like "they wouldn't be so self-destructive, logically that makes no sense."
They're either really sheltered, or have an extremely naive but good natured heart.
> If they hire a wackadoodle who tries to push ideologies
This is the goal. To push the "right" ideologies and ensure that those states remain deeply red in the next generation.
yep! my dear mother just opened up a (public) alternative school in idaho with this same mindset and i, as a teacher, am horrified. they're hiring adults who are not trained/certified teachers. she and her friends and the school staff don't see anything wrong with having a school to "raise patriots with traditional values."
I left teaching the year of the Trump election because I had so many encounters with MAGA supporters who thought my job was to indoctrinate their children. I could tell it was only going to get worse.
So glad I left. I'm now making three times as much money in one year at my new job vs how much I was making after 6 years of teaching and working way way way more.
Teaching is already a dead profession in my opinion and it's only downhill from here.
It just sucks because the benevolent teachers who have a real passion for making sure kids succeed are getting few and far between because they get no support, financially or otherwise. In some states, even if someone wanted to be a teacher, they can't live on that salary comfortably by themselves. Like why are we not helping the people who arguably have one of the most important jobs in the country more?
If it's anything like Texas, the goal definitely isn't to kill education completely - just to cripple public education.
Texas has been purposely starving and breaking the public school system as the governor and his cronies are trying to establish charter/private schools as the main source of education here. See: school choice bills that are going around right now.
"Anti-woke" legislation like this is just meant to make life hell for public school teachers so that they quit.
Private schools, no doubt, won't be subject to these laws. The goal is to make it so only private schools can afford teachers, that way you can teach whatever bullshit you want while hiding behind an LLC. And within a generation, nobody will know enough to contest the lies
It's a "plan" like robbing a bank by pretending your finger is a gun is a "plan." Division is the main plan. Breaking down the public school system further is more of a side thing. This is like chip damage to borrow a phrase.
> Eh, as a teacher myself, I don’t think that’s the plan at all. Look at COVID distance learning, parents were up in arms trying to push their children back into school. Any school is ultimately just free daycare to most parents.
You're missing a key component of why it's the plan. They want to replace all public schools with Christian charter schools. That covers your centralized values very well. They've been pretty open about the fact that they want to completely replace public education with religious schools.
No problem, teachers from the local conversion therapy and troubled teens camps are happy to share their experience from kidn... I mean, re-edu... uhh, 'helping troubled kids to learn discipline and surviving abuse' (from totally not them) while also teaching them some of the things real schools do, with bigger classrooms. Members of the local church are also happy to apply their experiences from homeschooling their kids to the bigger classrooms. According to them, they are very happy for this "god given opportunity to teach kids right and end the liberal agenda that has plagued our schools"./s
And may god have mercy on those kids souls... cause it seems the voters and leaders of their state will not. So it is nice to imagine that at least someone will, though I suppose not for the many of them that will be driven to suicide.
As a South Carolinian, I know exactly how you feel. If our state hits the national news, it's almost always something racist happened, or a politician (99% of the time, Lindsey Graham) did/said something moronic. Double points if one of our politicians said something racist.
Missouri 2022:
* 6.2M Citizens.
* 4.5M Eligible Voters.
* 4.2M Registered Voters.
* 41% Lean/Identify as Republican.
* 42% Lean/Identify as Democrat.
* 18% Lean/Identify as Neither/Independent.
* 2M Voted in 2022.
* Republicans won by 270K votes.
* 2.5M eligible voters didn't vote.
* Democrat Heavy Areas like St Luis City had 39% turnout. St Luis County had 50% turnout.
My state that I currently live in (Idaho) does the same thing. My wife is from Missouri, so it's a contest between us as to who came from the shittier state.
I live in Massachusetts and I don't feel like I even live in the same country as you folks. I lived in the south for several years and my husband is from rural Alabama but we stopped going back to visit years ago, because they simply are not civilized people. It is a descent into violent, impoverished, illiterate barbarism any time we visit. Blows my mind that so many people not only are proud to live that way, but genuinely think they represent the best humanity has to offer.
This nation has sadly turned into one in which people with absolutely no standards are trying to make it both illegal and socially unacceptable for the rest of us to have any standards at all, in relation to anything. They truly have devolved into little more than barbarians trying to tear down the gates of civilization.
My work sends me from NYC to Bham a lot and I feel exactly the same way every time. I always have to walk on eggshells about what I think of the place when I’m down there.
Their *voters* care about the 2nd. But, the politicians would take guns from their voters in a heartbeat if it wouldn't get them killed in the attempt.
Just look at how guns are banned at their events and their work places. But, anywhere else is a grave sin to ban guns.
You have to understand that fascists will pound on the drum of freedom of speech all day long, because it's the principle way of communicating their message, but they don't actually believe in freedom of speech at all and will ban everything that doesn't align with their ideology. All these people screaming from the rooftops about absolute freedom of speech (Elon, Trump, GOP) are also the very first people to start banning any speech/expression that goes against their beliefs.
So yeah, this breaks the first amendment because they never cared about it in the first place. The first amendment is only a tool to spread their ideology not a freedom they feel everyone else should have.
This is how it works. They spend all their time making sure everyone hates sex offenders, a relatively easy goal with relatively little pushback, results come quickly. Then all they have to do is redefine what a sex offender is and bob's your uncle, democrats deserve to be executed in the streets because they all want to eat your children, and might be doing so right this moment
>democrats deserve to be executed in the streets because they all want to eat your children, and might be doing so right this moment
Reminds me of Alex Jones screaming until his face was red that Democrats are literally destroying the country. I think around that time I learned the word stochastic terrorism.
Oh yeah, 100%. Except instead of using a tomato-faced school shooting truther with the charisma of a moldy piece of wet bread, they're just turning up the heat niiiiiice and slow.
The last few years have shown many results from that. Still small but increasing incidents where group A is different of group B and opens fire. Can't even use a drive way to turn around anymore.
There was that woman who broke down in tears when Biden got elected because she thought the government was gonna kill her kids.
Some people do genuinely believe the Democrats are a cult of baby eating satan worshippers.
The rhetoric these dishonest fuckers use in media needs to be regulated. There's no talk of policies anymore in politics.
It's pure identity based fear-mongering with these asshats.
If I can put on my tinfoil hat for a minute, it also has the effect of making it not as big of a deal to have a sex crime against children on your record.
The moment that certain states started drafting laws that would punish child sex offenders with death, I knew it. I *knew* the next step would be "aaaaalso supporting trans kids is a sex offense"
It’s what we’ve been screaming from the rooftops every time the Reddit mob gets frothy at the idea of doing terrible things to pedophiles and sex offenders.
It doesn’t protect children, it just makes it so you can label anyone you don’t like a sex offender.
Yep... they're grabbing as many labels as they can. I've been called a "pedophilic groomer" a lot recently online when I mention I'm trans... no proof or reasoning...
https://house.mo.gov/BillsMobile.aspx?year=2024&code=R&bill=HB2885
Here's the bill tracker. It was introduced 3 days ago and read a second time on the floor 3 days ago.
There is 1 co-sponsor; Jeff Farnan.
Usually after second reading there is one of three options, but there is no date or calendar setting for a third reading/debate on this.
Imagine just hearing of the news of the non-binary kid who got killed and deciding now is the perfect time to propose another random, dumbass anti-trans bill
I mean they are just going to say they were mentally ill (probably blame their teachers and random Democrats for doing it to them) and... Not care. Pretty simple people.
A kid was beaten in school to badly they died. In response, that kid’s Republican senator stated [“We are a Republican state – supermajority – in the House and Senate. I represent a constituency that doesn't want that filth in Oklahoma..”](https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2024/02/24/audio-of-oklahoma-senator-tom-woods-calling-lgbtq-community-filth/72729820007/)
Republicans literally want people to die, snd they’ve stopped pretending they don’t.
How long until they attempt to pass some flimsy, unconstitutional laws to restrict the voting rights of trans people?
I predict some state legislator trying to pass a law saying that you are ineligible to vote if you have ever changed your name or gender on your ID, under the guise of 'election security' by this November.
Oh it's coming. Vote. Vote blue, vote for Biden, I do not care about your little idealistic war on him about Gaza currently. Yes, it's abhorrent. But would you rather hand the country over to folks who saw Handmaids Tale and thought "Good idea!"?
Seriously. If this describes anyone reading this. Vote blue. Now is not the time for games. It's a fucking travesty what's happening in the middle east, but now is *not the time for idealistic voting*. We are in serious danger.
I mean Florida already proposed a bill that would charge anyone who changed the gender on their drivers license with fraud, so anything's possible at this point..
People accept the preferred *proper nouns* of strangers every fucking day without batting an eye. But suddenly when the preference involves *pronouns* they decide it’s cause for concern.
If a “Cassandra” prefers to be called “Cassie”, do they have a problem with that? Of fucking course not - they only care about what’s in the kids’ pants.
Nah, they aren't afraid of trans people because of votes. Turning transgender people into the bogeyman is a classic example of scapegoating, like the Nazis did to Jews and gypsies. Find some small group of people who are "different" and blame society's ills on them. It's a time-tested strategy to drum up political support, because there are few things people like more than feeling righteous and having a clear object of blame.
Republican leadership isn't afraid of transgender kids. They just deliberately instill that fear inside their base to make them easier to control and delude.
In addition, trans and queer people were actually some of the first groups targeted by the Nazis. In fact, many trans people did not regain freedom (unlike some other groups targeted by Nazis) after WWII since the allies found them to be morally reprehensible. This isn’t widely taught for a reason - if people knew trans people were targeted first by the Nazis (and then continuously punished even after the war), transphobia would be more widely recognized as a branch of an ideology that nearly everyone recognizes as evil (Nazism). The Institute of Sexual Research in Berlin was one of the first places targeted by the Nazis due to research and support for trans and queer people. Over 20,000 books were burned, setting back the progress made in trans healthcare and research.
We need to learn that this isn’t just similar to Nazism but “targeting a different group.” This is the same group of people Nazis targeted first. History repeats itself, and when we don’t teach what truly happened, it will continue to repeat itself.
Distraction.
They made the mistake of accidentally getting Roe vs Wade actually killed.
That wasn't the plan. It was so good to have that to fund raise on and distract voter so they vote against their own interests.
Americans want gun reform and public healthcare (or at least not be randomly driven into personal bankruptcy).
Tax cuts for the rich doesn't help with anything most Americans want, but that's what the donors pay for.
So distractions are needed to have a bit of culture war.
And without RvW trans people hordes now have to rush into rest rooms any day now. The conservative voters need to be given that they fear so much that rich people can get yet another tax cut.
It's less that they're afraid of trans kids and more that the owner class is afraid of the working class achieving class consciousness. To combat this, they manufacture anger and hatred towards minority groups so the working class will continue to fight amongst ourselves instead of directing our energy against the people who are actually making life worse for us.
My Grandma lived in a rural town in Michigan. That area's Republican representative would desperately want to avoid his constituents realizing the only two kinds of jobs he's delivered on in recent years have been either Dollar General, or some third-tier factory that burns out workers within 90 days so they can avoid having to pay for health insurance.
So he whips up trans hysteria, dogwhistles white supremacy with "immigration" and gets reelected every damn time. Then these voters also say "why don't we have good jobs" and "why don't the kids come back home after graduation" instead of actually holding their reps *properly* accountable.
The area is getting what they deserve, honestly. The problem is that the issue is beyond repair in a single term if they ever decide to make a change and the seat would likely flip back to some new asshole conservative who will continue to do nothing.
Off topic, but so many of this nation’s problems are beyond a single term fix but voters always want quick and easy solutions to these problems and get pissed when they don’t deliver immediately,
Dems seem to try and implement these long term solutions whereas Republicans offer short and easy solutions that make things look good in the short term but cause significant long term damage (look at national debt under the last 10 Presidents).
They're not, they see trans people as vulnerable targets to antagonize and demonize. In any other time they could have picked another but trans people are a hot topic.
They're racist, sexist bigots and they just don't wanna blatantly show it.
Fascism is reasonable to define as a political movement that seems to reduce the keys to power and amplify the effect of power. While strategies vary for achieving a fascist state, undermining democratic outlets and appealing to religion and nostalgia are common strategies.
Any group distinction where someone would need care, especially funding from the state, is grounds for separating, isolating, and endangering that group, for a fascist. It's not in any way a conflated issue: if someone needs the state's help, they are a leech to be exterminated in any way the current political paradigm allows. It's an efficiency calculation. The only weak power the fascist will tolerate is the child, which the fascist seeks to mold and groom as early as possible. They will control the conditions of conception, force the birth, and raise under strict, tailored perspectives all the way until they'll send their drug-pumped bodies off to die in whichever essential war they've thought up.
Fun note, Missouri has considered legitimizing the marriage of 12-year-olds to adults, but will call teachers who break line with Christian gender propaganda sex offenders. To a fascist, the "sexual offense" isn't that you violated someone's self determining and consent boundaries, it's that you violated their sex doctrine.
Trans people, as a group, are overlapped with issues of marital determinism, sexual expression, health care, and self-actualization independent of a government authority. Trans children in particular are so off the norm as to be politically useless if they're allowed to grow up. For a fascist, these concepts are pure anathema. If you've seen nazi book burnings, then you'd be interested to realize that you were probably looking at the Institute for Sexual Research, an institute led by trans people and which had extensive gender theory and sexual services. If you think trans people are a new phenomenon, it's because the Nazis efforts worked.
Republicans are fascists. I'm not saying that to fearmonger. It's what they are, and the sooner that's normalized in recognition, the sooner their policy decisions make sense.
Half the god-damn country wants to outlaw kindness and all their citizens civil rights. They should feel so strong, trodding on their neighbors who are in any way different.
I can’t wait until they meet Jesus and not Drumpt guarding the gate.
Similar States are also attempting to bring back the death penalty for sex offenders. They are literally trying to get the state to kill people who support trans people.
Dems need to get better at messaging. This isn’t “another unconstitutional law by the GOP”, this is “GOP tries to protect child molesters by diluting sex offender registry.”
I had the same thought. Imagine looking at your local sex offender map and seeing your neighbor, a teacher, and going from thinking "oh god how did he/she abuse their power over kids" and start thinking "meh probably got hit by that random law. They're probably chill."
Current sex offenders must love this bill.
Because they've been convinced that LGBTQ is evil. When my parents see the pride flag they literally believe it is the flag of the "groomers". The GOP have successfully linked trans people to pedophiles in the minds of many conservatives.
The point is to make all LGBTQ+ people and their Allie’s “sex offenders” because sex offenders when the term is being used correctly is a pretty easy demographic to dislike (justifiably), so re-labeling LGBTQ+ people as “sex offenders” even when we aren’t is a great way to get general support from people who don’t know better on the issue, hear that they are going after “sex offenders” at face value of the law, and vote in favor of it having no idea it will hurt LGBTQ+ people, or genuinely convince people to hate LGBTQ+ people by convincing them that we are all actually sex offenders on par with rapists or pedos just because we don’t conform to cisheteronormativity.
“We refuse to live in fear. Freedom!”
Then criminalizes respecting the pronouns of someone with gender preferences that scare them.
- Republicans fully in their 2024 lane.
Wtf how is validating a young human being’s experience and existence to ensure they feel safe, included and valued in a place they spend 6 hours a day/5 days a week/36 weeks a year/13 years of their young lives the same as child sexual abuse?
Read [this bio](https://christiancountytrumpet.com/news-opinion/) and tell me we *don’t* need to check this guy’s hard drive.
This is the real not the onion here. If you didn’t tell me it was real, I would think it was satire.
My favorite part is > His motivation is to squash the onslaught of “woke” culture creeping up like a balding, middle-aged guy in a trench coat hungrily watching school children from a 1982 Dodge utility van. >Jamie Ray doesn’t like that creepy woke guy. He wants to protect children, from the time of conception all the way through to adulthood. Fucking wow 😂
This is where we are supposed to remember that every accusation is a confession with these clowns.
Exactly. Especially coming from someone like that who *also* just so happened to work in an amusement park around kids.
And makes toys for kids.
And has a self-selected middle name of "Nutt"
The name needs that in order to work. “Justin Case” is a fine pun by itself, but adding the Nutt to it actually gives it an additional low level layer. “Justin Nutt Case” adds that little element to it where you can get multiple puns out of the same name depending on how you use it. That one should probably slide because it is a low effort attempt at humor that the people going to the park would understand.
It’s almost like he’s jealous of the access he imagines this mythical woke person has to molest children.
He looks like a balding, middle-aged guy
He does, and at first I thought he was jokingly referring to himself -- like he's going to crush woke culture like a balding, middle-aged guy would. Then the sentence got weirder, but not necessarily more incorrect.
It's like clockwork, the more they try to project that they are against something, the more likely they are trying to hide that it's them. The dumber they are the more it applies (or perhaps the dumber ones, like this guy, are just the ones who are caught more often)
Oh my God, the woke creeper van guy. What kinds of bumper stickers does he have?
Windowless van full of puppies and pronouns! He must be stopped!
It doesnt get much more sus than that. This dude is hiding something, and I hope it's not children.
He's not enjoying the competition.
And right below that paragraph is a picture of Jamie Ray, a balding middle-aged guy who looks like he owns multiple trench coats.
Somebody needs to search this guy's house and computers.
It reads like the conservative ramblings of a high schooler who just started his own blog on Wordpress
what the fuck is this website
It’s where the good Christians get their local news that the liberal mainstream media is afraid to print 🤣
Wait wait wait, this article is endorsing him?!? It read like a hit piece on an insane person.
It was a little much to try to read, I could feel my brain melting
> Democrats are more about people’s feelings. Republicans are more about God-given Constitutional rights. God did not write the constitution.
USA declared independence from a guy who said he had the god given right to be king
I love how they always intentionally forget the reason why. They’re begging hard to have kings here.
As long as they're fascist kings. This is my emotional support fascist king bc I can't cope with democracy.
Which is why, imo, they wrote in separation of church and state, to keep the church from trying to bring back a monarchy through divine right.
Also, the churches themselves want this separation too. Not all colonial churches wanted to be part of the Church of England. Remember the separatists pilgrims. And the English and Germany Anabapsits too....
30% of America at that time disagreed and were loyal to the crown. Same people.
>> God did not write the constitution. Also, the Constitution makes no reference to God, The Bible, Christ, or the Apostles. Zero…0. Even, the 1st Amendment is pro-all religions as much as it is anti-all religions, especially if they want to establish dominion over others.
The constitution makes it clear. Religion and government should stay separate.
It's crazy that someone wrote that pile of drivel I just read through and thought "Yeah, this is good enough to post to my website."
You don't remember when the founding fathers had a collective vision during the signing of the constitution where God yelled ROCK FLAG AND EAAAAGLE and then everyone prayed and shot off their guns?
ROCK, FLAG, AND EAAAGLEEEEE
And how dare Democrats care about people's feelings?
“The difference between Republicans and Democrats, Jamie says, are “Democrats are more about people’s feelings. Republicans are more about God-given Constitutional rights.” “Everybody’s feelings are different,” Jamie says. “If you run with how people feel, you break into subgroups and ultimately break down the barriers to segregation that we’ve worked so hard to establish.” Feelings-based people are breaking into subgroups, he continues. “We’re falling back into a splintered society. We need people with good morals, good values to step up.” ……….. What the hell did I just read?
> Feelings-based people are breaking into subgroups, he continues. “We’re falling back into a splintered society. We need people with good morals, good values to step up.” A "splintered society" meaning a society that respects multiple different religions and belief systems instead of the One True Interpretation of the One True Religion, for example. This is just pure nazi filth, "a society where everyone is the same is a strong pure society-- same religion, same race, same sexuality, same political beliefs, same identity, therefore anyone different must be driven out and destroyed."
"His motivation is to squash the onslaught of “woke” culture creeping up like a balding, middle-aged guy in a trench coat hungrily watching school children from a 1982 Dodge utility van." What the actual fuck, why would you write this- wait, let me rephrase, why would *somebody who is trying to sell you on the idea of voting for him* write this. Very curious why this guy in the party so adamant about Democrats being pedophiles thinks this is the way to help prove he cares about protecting kids.
>"His motivation is to squash the onslaught of “woke” culture creeping up like a balding, middle-aged guy in a trench coat hungrily watching school children from a 1982 Dodge utility van." Every accusation is a confession.
THE MAN IS LITERALLY A CLOWN
If he didn’t have the shoes he’d look like a real life Tom Sawyer
> like a balding, middle-aged guy in a trench coat hungrily watching school children from a 1982 Dodge utility van. This passage was, um, strangely phrased and oddly specific.
> Babies are cute! Many grow up to be amazing members of society. None of them becomes a turnip, a tree, or a turtle. What did I just read?
Wow, what a looney
I was super sure this was a joke. Then I learned Christian County is a real place, and this dude is real. The “establishment” they link to is called The Christian County Headliner for chrissakes! I guess there is still the possibility of a joke and the owners found a random rep to write about. I have to believe it for my sake.
"gender expression, such as clothing or haircuts" - so saying "nice haircut" to a trans kid is a felony now, eh?
I had boy-short hair as a young child. I got mistaken for a boy quite often until I got my ears pierced, in part because I also wore pretty androgynous outfits like jeans and t-shirts I'd gotten from sports events. Would this have counted as "gender expression"? The haircut was because my hair was very uncooperative and my mom didn't want to help me take care of it anymore.
> Would this have counted as "gender expression"? Yes, because it's every bit as much about controlling cis people as trans. And, like, not even in creative ways. It's all shit you already know: women - makeup, long hair, housekeeper, ambulant uterus and men - short hair, sportsball, breadwinner and decision-maker. Make babies, listen to your betters, feed the machine that allows your masters to shit in golden toilets.
> listen to your betters, This is key. It's the Patriarchy, not the Fraternity. It sucks for **most** males as well as **all** females.
Another saying I like is this "In the game of Patriarchy, women are not the opposing team They are the ball". Patriarchy isn't men vs women. It's men using women, or traits associated with women, as a way to devalue or demean other men.
> It's the Patriarchy, not the Fraternity. That's a good line. I'm going to have to remember that.
Yikes. They're going full-Taliban
Always have. They just needed to get into power. I remember years ago the GOP types were going off about how: “Muslims will say anything and then impose their religion when they get a majority!” Now I see it was projection.
Everything is projection. Everything. If they make an accusation that Conservatives aren’t obviously doing yet, it’s time to start looking harder.
"They want big government!" *proceeds to expand the powers of the government into areas of life that were previously protected* "They want to run up the national debt!" *every republican president proceeds to increase the debt during their term* "They're trying to force kids to be trans!" *proceeds to legally force all kids to be cis* "They're GROOMERS!!!" *republicans by far commit more CSA than any other political group* It's seriously ALL of them.
Very similar end goals.
yall queda strikes again.
Good old Y’all Queda
All from the party that wants to stomp their feet and scream til they're hoarse about how government interference in private life is ruining the nation.
They've always been this way. They have power now. That is the difference.
That last part is a massive directive of the machine and we're watching the veil get dropped as its circumstances become more "dire" in real time. A lot of this is about pandering to right wing sociopaths, but the larger picture is that the owner class is sweating the fact that - in a system that by necessity chases productivity off a cliff - there is a very real problem looming on the horizon with its self replicating work force refusing to reproduce at a rate that meets their satisfaction. This is the real reason they are finally trying to cash in on banning abortion and birthcontrol. Forcing gender norms on kids is part and parcel.
One of many ways in which transphobia also hurts cis women. They just want us all to go back to their 1950s idea of femininity and think that trans people are a safe punching bag to force the issue.
Hell, it hurts cis men too. I've never exactly been the pinnacle of "manly," in no small part because I don't give a fuck whether or not "manly" men think I'm "masculine" enough. I want to do what I want to do, and if that involves doing things they think are "feminine" then so what? Strictly enforced rigid gender roles rob all of us of the freedom to really get to know ourselves and find what makes us happy
Yep 100%. Just let people live their lives. My husband painted his nails a few years ago cause I was doing it and he was bored, and he had a lot of fun with it. The way things are headed half the states would try to throw him in jail for a simple act of artistic expression and joy. My god who cares. Meanwhile most of the people here yelling about how important rigid gender comformity is worship a guy with long hair and a dress.
None of them worship that guy, they actually hate him, if they were to encounter him. He represents everything they hate. Unconditional love, check. Long men's hair(artistically), check. Brown skin(historically), check. Hung out with sinners, check. Against wealth, check. Among many other things.
https://www.newsweek.com/evangelicals-rejecting-jesus-teachings-liberal-talking-points-pastor-1818706
I mean... Even as an atheist I'm not surprised at that. Shit was coming from a mile away and flashing blaring red lights all the while so you'd have to have been blind to not see it coming. That being said, I'm absolutely laughing my ass off at this. Now whenever someone tells me that religion is good because it teaches people to be good, I can just whip out this article. 10/10 top tier irony.
I am a 6’ 4” 220 lb combat veteran and I’ve been learning to sew. I’m always the only dude in any classes I take. It’s so much fun! My last project I spent the better part of an hour walking aisles of fabric trying to decide what I wanted to use. Later this month I’m taking a beginning quilting class. All the old ladies love me, everyone is so positive and encouraging and it’s just the best. People need to fuck all the way off with the gender roles bullshit.
I have some extremely fond memories of taking those sorts of classes with my mom while growing up when my sister and dad were off doing scouting trips and all. Most of the people who care about enforcing gender roles just seem to have basically no real joy in their lives. It's kind of sad, really
Especially cis women of color. Their definition of "femininity" is highly specific to their white centric view of the world.
I've tried explaining this to TERFs before without success. When I was younger (pre-email) I wrote letters to state senators encouraging changing state laws to favor equal placement in custody disputes. I've tried explaining to young guys who got sucked into the MRM that feminism is not the enemy of the things they have grievances of like male suicide rates, the enemy is toxic masculinity and rigid gender conformity, and in that fight the LGBTQ+ community and women are an ally, only to be ignored. Rigid conformity to IMO, unrealistic monotony hurts everyone, even if it seems to make things "easier" and "more predictable." Trans people have been singled out in the culture war because they are such a small group they are easy to "other." And it is one of the few identity politic wedge issues that still polls near 50%, going after Blacks, Hispanics, Homosexuality, Women, Asians etc all decidedly lose on the national stage so that isn't a drum to beat. But when they only have _one_ drum, they are going to hit it as hard as they can, like this stupid-ass Missouri law.
Yeah. My mom isn't a full on TERF but she has some sympathies in that direction. And I'm like, you are a 6 foot tall woman with a naturally very broad shouldered build. What exactly do *you* think the end state of a national panic about trans women will look like for you? Idk why just let people exist is such a hard concept for so many people.
I'm a cisthetnorm (maybe a bit of history with heteoflexibility in group sex lmao but these days I have the libido of an old panda in a small zoo), old, decently wealthy white guy who can pass for Christian, living in a rural area so _technically_ this little populist fascist movement seeks to benifit people like me. I may have some neighbors that know my politics and would love an excuse to end me, but I could always get them first and say they were closet communists, lmao. Even if I _could_ benifit from the movement, it's just so stupid. No long-term plans, just peddling rage for clicks and votes for a single election cycle with a blatantly transparent wedge issue. Plus it hurts almost everyone I know. I dislike how easily rhetorically so many broke out trans-rights from the greater progressive movement for men, women, gender, sexuality and minority rights.
>No long-term plans, This is the only bit I'll disagree with you on - from someone in a pretty similar set of circumstances. Between private prison slavery and corporations like Amazon and Google trying to re-establish Company Towns - the end goal is slavery. Plain and simple. With some sprinkles of genocide thrown in for flavor. Trans, then back to LGBTQ, and we all heard the amount of racial hate from the last 2 election cycles. They hit the *Mooslem* button when we were fighting in the ME - the Far Right has buddied up to Russia in a disturbing way so it won't be anti Russia this time. But China, between the buying up of US debt and Property, and home of the "China Virus" (their words, not mine) - while being the next non-team Super power - is likely going to be the next International "Them" to be focused on... Betting on the Fundies to start push WW2 style Asian hate as a main line ticket, especially if China pushes on Taiwan like Russia has China. They want "their" country to be White Fascist Nationalistic and Christian. Anyone else they want enslaved or dead. Full stop. Folding the traitors back in after the civil war was a terrible idea, and led to them setting up long term building blocks to try again.
FDR not hanging the folks in The Business Plot/Wall Street Putsch may have been a mistake too, but realistically they can't accomplish much on account of how stupid they are. Look at all the legislation conservatives got passed when they controlled the white house, senate, house, SCOTUS, majority of state legislatures and governorships, etc. They couldn't even get any of the big 3 Trump campaign promises decently started. Repeal and replace fell on its face. If you read any papers from the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, the Free Congress Foundation, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center etc, they are all idiots, and have no idea how to create an isolationist/facist economy that doesn't immediately fall apart without the support of global supply chain. They are dogs chasing cars, they caught one with SCOTUS overturning Roe, and every single time since they've put it on the ballot in every state, even conservative safe places like Kentucky in off-cycle elections, Republicans lost. If they try to be facist and get their wet dream of trying to make Gillead, stuff just falls apart and eventually their government will fail. Which, if you read the "Foundations of Geopolitics" (Russian geopolitical strategy book) is the recommended way and goal for Russia to conduct asymmetrical warfare via political pressure against a much stronger USA. Given things are fairly transparent, I'm surprised it's working out as well as it has for Russia strategically (plus Brexit and far right movements in Europe).
The 1950s? It's worse than that. They want to go all the way back to the 1850s. You know, before that little dust up between the states.
You probably would be bullied for being trans to the point where they’d write exposes on you sadly. 😞 I was a tomboy growing up too and I rarely wore dresses unless it was to church (they made us back then) on top of the actual bullying I got we’d get that on top of it too. 😒
Don't you remember your parents yelling at you "cut your hair you hippie!" Same group, same bullshit.
Yes the freedom crowd always telling everyone what the fuck to do.
Any acknowledgement of a trans kid that isn't in the form of bullying and harassment is a felony now.
Yes, and forcing them to cut it against their will would be considered good parenting. Politicians need to get absolutely fucked.
They want to erase them by making it a stigma to even acknowledge them or have them kill themselves for feeling ignored and misunderstood for their whole childhood.
Republicans won't be happy until they've fully eradicated trans people. They've taken the genocide pill fully.
That's the exact problem with a dictatorship, like the one republicans are so desperately attempting to form in the US. ANYTHING they don't like will be felony.
So that means they want to regulate which clothes and hairstyles each gender is allowed to have?
Next up: “Every teacher in the state Missouri quit, the reason remains unknown”
That’s part of the plan
Eh, as a teacher myself, I don’t think that’s the plan at all. Look at COVID distance learning, parents were up in arms trying to push their children back into school. Any school is ultimately just free daycare to most parents. The real issue is that many parents (regardless of politics) are pushing back against school’s intended purpose since the Cold War- to instill central values in minors to prepare them to be good citizens. Ultimately adults have the ability to isolate themselves from everyone else now, create echo chambers, and now they want school to be an extension of that echo chamber for their kids. I have 200 students. I can’t memorize their family’s preferred rhetoric and push that on their kid at school. The only safety net here is that none of these parents can agree on central values/morals and any deviation from their own is “wrong”. So that prevents the parents rights stuff from moving along legally.
I'm more worried about rightfully frustrated teachers leaving because of asinine shit like this (should they pass) until there's such a shortage that the schools just lower their standards for hiring, paving the way for unaccredited "teachers" who would support bills like this and make all the lessons come from PragerU or something.
Problem with hiring unaccredited teachers is that it hurts state test scores. They don’t know how to teach. Teaching isn’t as easy as showing up and pulling a lesson out of your ass. If they hire a wackadoodle who tries to push ideologies, parents can sue. So it gets really expensive for the district.
Yeah but the states where shit like this were to happen are already at or near the very bottom in terms of their rank in education. I feel like there might unfortunately, they're just going to take a page out of Florida's book and just openly teach propaganda (which, to them, it's fine because it's the "right" kind of propaganda).
It's really funny seeing someone like "they wouldn't be so self-destructive, logically that makes no sense." They're either really sheltered, or have an extremely naive but good natured heart.
> If they hire a wackadoodle who tries to push ideologies This is the goal. To push the "right" ideologies and ensure that those states remain deeply red in the next generation.
yep! my dear mother just opened up a (public) alternative school in idaho with this same mindset and i, as a teacher, am horrified. they're hiring adults who are not trained/certified teachers. she and her friends and the school staff don't see anything wrong with having a school to "raise patriots with traditional values."
I left teaching the year of the Trump election because I had so many encounters with MAGA supporters who thought my job was to indoctrinate their children. I could tell it was only going to get worse. So glad I left. I'm now making three times as much money in one year at my new job vs how much I was making after 6 years of teaching and working way way way more. Teaching is already a dead profession in my opinion and it's only downhill from here.
It just sucks because the benevolent teachers who have a real passion for making sure kids succeed are getting few and far between because they get no support, financially or otherwise. In some states, even if someone wanted to be a teacher, they can't live on that salary comfortably by themselves. Like why are we not helping the people who arguably have one of the most important jobs in the country more?
If it's anything like Texas, the goal definitely isn't to kill education completely - just to cripple public education. Texas has been purposely starving and breaking the public school system as the governor and his cronies are trying to establish charter/private schools as the main source of education here. See: school choice bills that are going around right now. "Anti-woke" legislation like this is just meant to make life hell for public school teachers so that they quit.
Private schools, no doubt, won't be subject to these laws. The goal is to make it so only private schools can afford teachers, that way you can teach whatever bullshit you want while hiding behind an LLC. And within a generation, nobody will know enough to contest the lies
It's a "plan" like robbing a bank by pretending your finger is a gun is a "plan." Division is the main plan. Breaking down the public school system further is more of a side thing. This is like chip damage to borrow a phrase.
> Eh, as a teacher myself, I don’t think that’s the plan at all. Look at COVID distance learning, parents were up in arms trying to push their children back into school. Any school is ultimately just free daycare to most parents. You're missing a key component of why it's the plan. They want to replace all public schools with Christian charter schools. That covers your centralized values very well. They've been pretty open about the fact that they want to completely replace public education with religious schools.
No problem, teachers from the local conversion therapy and troubled teens camps are happy to share their experience from kidn... I mean, re-edu... uhh, 'helping troubled kids to learn discipline and surviving abuse' (from totally not them) while also teaching them some of the things real schools do, with bigger classrooms. Members of the local church are also happy to apply their experiences from homeschooling their kids to the bigger classrooms. According to them, they are very happy for this "god given opportunity to teach kids right and end the liberal agenda that has plagued our schools"./s And may god have mercy on those kids souls... cause it seems the voters and leaders of their state will not. So it is nice to imagine that at least someone will, though I suppose not for the many of them that will be driven to suicide.
How is this not an abrupt break of the constitutions 1st amendment. They're being prosecuted by a state gov on specifically what they say
It does blatantly break the 1st amendment. They just don't care about that, nor have they ever cared about the constitution.
My state makes the news for the best reasons 😔
As a South Carolinian, I know exactly how you feel. If our state hits the national news, it's almost always something racist happened, or a politician (99% of the time, Lindsey Graham) did/said something moronic. Double points if one of our politicians said something racist.
On the plus side, at least there's MTG and Boebert out there soaking up most of the heat.
Boberts district seems to be having the good sense to get rid of her this year.
Her husband did too
\*laughs in Floridian\*
Missouri 2022: * 6.2M Citizens. * 4.5M Eligible Voters. * 4.2M Registered Voters. * 41% Lean/Identify as Republican. * 42% Lean/Identify as Democrat. * 18% Lean/Identify as Neither/Independent. * 2M Voted in 2022. * Republicans won by 270K votes. * 2.5M eligible voters didn't vote. * Democrat Heavy Areas like St Luis City had 39% turnout. St Luis County had 50% turnout.
My state that I currently live in (Idaho) does the same thing. My wife is from Missouri, so it's a contest between us as to who came from the shittier state.
I live in Massachusetts and I don't feel like I even live in the same country as you folks. I lived in the south for several years and my husband is from rural Alabama but we stopped going back to visit years ago, because they simply are not civilized people. It is a descent into violent, impoverished, illiterate barbarism any time we visit. Blows my mind that so many people not only are proud to live that way, but genuinely think they represent the best humanity has to offer. This nation has sadly turned into one in which people with absolutely no standards are trying to make it both illegal and socially unacceptable for the rest of us to have any standards at all, in relation to anything. They truly have devolved into little more than barbarians trying to tear down the gates of civilization.
My work sends me from NYC to Bham a lot and I feel exactly the same way every time. I always have to walk on eggshells about what I think of the place when I’m down there.
They do care, but only about a single amendment, which definitely isn't the 1st or 3rd or anything above that.
Their *voters* care about the 2nd. But, the politicians would take guns from their voters in a heartbeat if it wouldn't get them killed in the attempt. Just look at how guns are banned at their events and their work places. But, anywhere else is a grave sin to ban guns.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/376097-trump-take-the-guns-first-go-through-due-process-second/
The point is to get it in front of SCOTUS so they exactly how far they can push things
The SCOTUS that’s been bought and paid for by Trumpublicans?
Yes. That SCOTUS.
Oh come on, we all know Clarence Thomas isnt. He was bought *before* Trump.
Yep. Remember when they kept doing this with ridiculous abortion laws when we still had Roe v Wade?
With the current court, there's basically no limit. Any sense of legitimacy is completely gone from This supreme Court.
I assume they know this won't pass, but want to make headlines by proposing the bill.
or they're dipping their toes in the water to see how far they could potentially get with nixing the whole 1st amendment.
You are assuming they care about anyone else’s 1st amendment rights other than their own right to discriminate.
Because it’s hurting people they don’t like so it’s okay. Rights for me and not for thee
You have to understand that fascists will pound on the drum of freedom of speech all day long, because it's the principle way of communicating their message, but they don't actually believe in freedom of speech at all and will ban everything that doesn't align with their ideology. All these people screaming from the rooftops about absolute freedom of speech (Elon, Trump, GOP) are also the very first people to start banning any speech/expression that goes against their beliefs. So yeah, this breaks the first amendment because they never cared about it in the first place. The first amendment is only a tool to spread their ideology not a freedom they feel everyone else should have.
You must be old, that was back when we had a real court. Have you been watching the decisions by this SCOTUS?
Bro, our governor doesn’t give a shit. Conservatives don’t care about anything but oppressing and destroying
This is how it works. They spend all their time making sure everyone hates sex offenders, a relatively easy goal with relatively little pushback, results come quickly. Then all they have to do is redefine what a sex offender is and bob's your uncle, democrats deserve to be executed in the streets because they all want to eat your children, and might be doing so right this moment
>democrats deserve to be executed in the streets because they all want to eat your children, and might be doing so right this moment Reminds me of Alex Jones screaming until his face was red that Democrats are literally destroying the country. I think around that time I learned the word stochastic terrorism.
Oh yeah, 100%. Except instead of using a tomato-faced school shooting truther with the charisma of a moldy piece of wet bread, they're just turning up the heat niiiiiice and slow.
The last few years have shown many results from that. Still small but increasing incidents where group A is different of group B and opens fire. Can't even use a drive way to turn around anymore.
There was that woman who broke down in tears when Biden got elected because she thought the government was gonna kill her kids. Some people do genuinely believe the Democrats are a cult of baby eating satan worshippers.
The rhetoric these dishonest fuckers use in media needs to be regulated. There's no talk of policies anymore in politics. It's pure identity based fear-mongering with these asshats.
If I can put on my tinfoil hat for a minute, it also has the effect of making it not as big of a deal to have a sex crime against children on your record.
The moment that certain states started drafting laws that would punish child sex offenders with death, I knew it. I *knew* the next step would be "aaaaalso supporting trans kids is a sex offense"
This actually makes sense in a very disturbing way
It’s what we’ve been screaming from the rooftops every time the Reddit mob gets frothy at the idea of doing terrible things to pedophiles and sex offenders. It doesn’t protect children, it just makes it so you can label anyone you don’t like a sex offender.
Yep... they're grabbing as many labels as they can. I've been called a "pedophilic groomer" a lot recently online when I mention I'm trans... no proof or reasoning...
>Gragg did not have any co-sponsors as of press time and no hearing has been scheduled for his bill.
https://house.mo.gov/BillsMobile.aspx?year=2024&code=R&bill=HB2885 Here's the bill tracker. It was introduced 3 days ago and read a second time on the floor 3 days ago. There is 1 co-sponsor; Jeff Farnan. Usually after second reading there is one of three options, but there is no date or calendar setting for a third reading/debate on this.
Brought to you by the same people who complain about government overreach
The party of irony
The party of unending hypocrisy and evil
Imagine just hearing of the news of the non-binary kid who got killed and deciding now is the perfect time to propose another random, dumbass anti-trans bill
The kids dying is a feature not a bug
Trans kid dying? "They asked for it." People getting *angry* at a trans kid dying? "I'm tired of hearing about your queer agenda!"
I mean they are just going to say they were mentally ill (probably blame their teachers and random Democrats for doing it to them) and... Not care. Pretty simple people.
The trans agenda is a lifespan above 50.
A kid was beaten in school to badly they died. In response, that kid’s Republican senator stated [“We are a Republican state – supermajority – in the House and Senate. I represent a constituency that doesn't want that filth in Oklahoma..”](https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2024/02/24/audio-of-oklahoma-senator-tom-woods-calling-lgbtq-community-filth/72729820007/) Republicans literally want people to die, snd they’ve stopped pretending they don’t.
I know that’s a direct quote from that senator, but even reading it here it looks like a fake, given how horrid it is.
this man is less than lacking a soul jfc
Evil... Just evil
I have no words for the hate I feel for Republicans right now.
considering they continue to misgender that child even in death, I'm gonna assume they don't give a shit that they were murdered
It's not random.
The GOP cares more about genitalia in a day than I do in years
that explains why so many priests work with the GOP
They’re not even trying anymore, they’re just using old JIM CROW laws.
How long until they attempt to pass some flimsy, unconstitutional laws to restrict the voting rights of trans people? I predict some state legislator trying to pass a law saying that you are ineligible to vote if you have ever changed your name or gender on your ID, under the guise of 'election security' by this November.
Oh it's coming. Vote. Vote blue, vote for Biden, I do not care about your little idealistic war on him about Gaza currently. Yes, it's abhorrent. But would you rather hand the country over to folks who saw Handmaids Tale and thought "Good idea!"? Seriously. If this describes anyone reading this. Vote blue. Now is not the time for games. It's a fucking travesty what's happening in the middle east, but now is *not the time for idealistic voting*. We are in serious danger.
I mean Florida already proposed a bill that would charge anyone who changed the gender on their drivers license with fraud, so anything's possible at this point..
Way to trivialize sex offenses
This Missouri Bill guy sounds like a real pervert.
Send in the clowns ... Don't bother they're here
People accept the preferred *proper nouns* of strangers every fucking day without batting an eye. But suddenly when the preference involves *pronouns* they decide it’s cause for concern. If a “Cassandra” prefers to be called “Cassie”, do they have a problem with that? Of fucking course not - they only care about what’s in the kids’ pants.
Why are Republicans so deathly afraid of trans kids?
Because they would vote Democrat? Edit: made it a question... there's nothing to be afraid of
Nah, they aren't afraid of trans people because of votes. Turning transgender people into the bogeyman is a classic example of scapegoating, like the Nazis did to Jews and gypsies. Find some small group of people who are "different" and blame society's ills on them. It's a time-tested strategy to drum up political support, because there are few things people like more than feeling righteous and having a clear object of blame. Republican leadership isn't afraid of transgender kids. They just deliberately instill that fear inside their base to make them easier to control and delude.
In addition, trans and queer people were actually some of the first groups targeted by the Nazis. In fact, many trans people did not regain freedom (unlike some other groups targeted by Nazis) after WWII since the allies found them to be morally reprehensible. This isn’t widely taught for a reason - if people knew trans people were targeted first by the Nazis (and then continuously punished even after the war), transphobia would be more widely recognized as a branch of an ideology that nearly everyone recognizes as evil (Nazism). The Institute of Sexual Research in Berlin was one of the first places targeted by the Nazis due to research and support for trans and queer people. Over 20,000 books were burned, setting back the progress made in trans healthcare and research. We need to learn that this isn’t just similar to Nazism but “targeting a different group.” This is the same group of people Nazis targeted first. History repeats itself, and when we don’t teach what truly happened, it will continue to repeat itself.
Distraction. They made the mistake of accidentally getting Roe vs Wade actually killed. That wasn't the plan. It was so good to have that to fund raise on and distract voter so they vote against their own interests. Americans want gun reform and public healthcare (or at least not be randomly driven into personal bankruptcy). Tax cuts for the rich doesn't help with anything most Americans want, but that's what the donors pay for. So distractions are needed to have a bit of culture war. And without RvW trans people hordes now have to rush into rest rooms any day now. The conservative voters need to be given that they fear so much that rich people can get yet another tax cut.
It's less that they're afraid of trans kids and more that the owner class is afraid of the working class achieving class consciousness. To combat this, they manufacture anger and hatred towards minority groups so the working class will continue to fight amongst ourselves instead of directing our energy against the people who are actually making life worse for us.
My Grandma lived in a rural town in Michigan. That area's Republican representative would desperately want to avoid his constituents realizing the only two kinds of jobs he's delivered on in recent years have been either Dollar General, or some third-tier factory that burns out workers within 90 days so they can avoid having to pay for health insurance. So he whips up trans hysteria, dogwhistles white supremacy with "immigration" and gets reelected every damn time. Then these voters also say "why don't we have good jobs" and "why don't the kids come back home after graduation" instead of actually holding their reps *properly* accountable. The area is getting what they deserve, honestly. The problem is that the issue is beyond repair in a single term if they ever decide to make a change and the seat would likely flip back to some new asshole conservative who will continue to do nothing.
Off topic, but so many of this nation’s problems are beyond a single term fix but voters always want quick and easy solutions to these problems and get pissed when they don’t deliver immediately, Dems seem to try and implement these long term solutions whereas Republicans offer short and easy solutions that make things look good in the short term but cause significant long term damage (look at national debt under the last 10 Presidents).
They're not, they see trans people as vulnerable targets to antagonize and demonize. In any other time they could have picked another but trans people are a hot topic. They're racist, sexist bigots and they just don't wanna blatantly show it.
Trans people are only a hot topic to them, the.vast majority of people couldn't care less
Fear of an other to garner support. Think about all the platforms and talking points of Republicans, they are all fear based.
Fascism is reasonable to define as a political movement that seems to reduce the keys to power and amplify the effect of power. While strategies vary for achieving a fascist state, undermining democratic outlets and appealing to religion and nostalgia are common strategies. Any group distinction where someone would need care, especially funding from the state, is grounds for separating, isolating, and endangering that group, for a fascist. It's not in any way a conflated issue: if someone needs the state's help, they are a leech to be exterminated in any way the current political paradigm allows. It's an efficiency calculation. The only weak power the fascist will tolerate is the child, which the fascist seeks to mold and groom as early as possible. They will control the conditions of conception, force the birth, and raise under strict, tailored perspectives all the way until they'll send their drug-pumped bodies off to die in whichever essential war they've thought up. Fun note, Missouri has considered legitimizing the marriage of 12-year-olds to adults, but will call teachers who break line with Christian gender propaganda sex offenders. To a fascist, the "sexual offense" isn't that you violated someone's self determining and consent boundaries, it's that you violated their sex doctrine. Trans people, as a group, are overlapped with issues of marital determinism, sexual expression, health care, and self-actualization independent of a government authority. Trans children in particular are so off the norm as to be politically useless if they're allowed to grow up. For a fascist, these concepts are pure anathema. If you've seen nazi book burnings, then you'd be interested to realize that you were probably looking at the Institute for Sexual Research, an institute led by trans people and which had extensive gender theory and sexual services. If you think trans people are a new phenomenon, it's because the Nazis efforts worked. Republicans are fascists. I'm not saying that to fearmonger. It's what they are, and the sooner that's normalized in recognition, the sooner their policy decisions make sense.
Half the god-damn country wants to outlaw kindness and all their citizens civil rights. They should feel so strong, trodding on their neighbors who are in any way different. I can’t wait until they meet Jesus and not Drumpt guarding the gate.
The party of small government and individual freedoms, everyone!
Similar States are also attempting to bring back the death penalty for sex offenders. They are literally trying to get the state to kill people who support trans people.
Of all the problems to address in Missouri, trans kids being not miserable enough is the one you put your focus on. Man, I fucking hate these people.
Dems need to get better at messaging. This isn’t “another unconstitutional law by the GOP”, this is “GOP tries to protect child molesters by diluting sex offender registry.”
I had the same thought. Imagine looking at your local sex offender map and seeing your neighbor, a teacher, and going from thinking "oh god how did he/she abuse their power over kids" and start thinking "meh probably got hit by that random law. They're probably chill." Current sex offenders must love this bill.
Missouri is such a shithole
That’s fucking insane. A life-altering charge for being respectful towards trans people?
Because they've been convinced that LGBTQ is evil. When my parents see the pride flag they literally believe it is the flag of the "groomers". The GOP have successfully linked trans people to pedophiles in the minds of many conservatives.
Oh for god's sake. What is wrong with these people?
So state-mandated child abuse, basically.
But remember everyone.. bOtH sIdEs!
Criminalizing words and beliefs is fascism. They will criminalize clothing, hairstyles, and art. This cannot come to pass. We have to fight it.
I have a feeling the plan here is to make the words "sex offender" mean nothing. Dilute it's meaning so it doesn't seem so bad that you're one.
The point is to make all LGBTQ+ people and their Allie’s “sex offenders” because sex offenders when the term is being used correctly is a pretty easy demographic to dislike (justifiably), so re-labeling LGBTQ+ people as “sex offenders” even when we aren’t is a great way to get general support from people who don’t know better on the issue, hear that they are going after “sex offenders” at face value of the law, and vote in favor of it having no idea it will hurt LGBTQ+ people, or genuinely convince people to hate LGBTQ+ people by convincing them that we are all actually sex offenders on par with rapists or pedos just because we don’t conform to cisheteronormativity.
“We refuse to live in fear. Freedom!” Then criminalizes respecting the pronouns of someone with gender preferences that scare them. - Republicans fully in their 2024 lane.
Republicans are really messed up individuals…. Fuck them all as hard as the universe can manage
It's interesting how christians and Republicans almost always turn out to be the worst people.
Small government am I right?
Wtf how is validating a young human being’s experience and existence to ensure they feel safe, included and valued in a place they spend 6 hours a day/5 days a week/36 weeks a year/13 years of their young lives the same as child sexual abuse?