4 ms·

Back when I did real estate, the rural areas surrounding our city were just eaten-up with meth. People cooking meth. People taking meth. Houses burning down,

Back when I did real estate, the rural areas surrounding our city were just eaten-up with meth. People cooking meth. People taking meth. Houses burning down, etc. Coexisting with this meth epidemic were a bunch of loyal old-timers who knew the place in better times. Consider how those old-timers must feel as they watch the mainstream Democratic party make transgender-bathrooms priority #1 while their own hometowns are turning into shit...

legodt 10y ago
You say that like the two platforms can't co-exist. I agree with what you are saying overall, the American democratic party has abandoned a lot of people, but with the transgender bathroom issue, that came up because these people were under attack and threat of violence just for existing publically. This is why the issue felt so large and was such a rush priority since empowered socially regressive states were rushing legislation to allow discrimination and implicitly support attacks on these groups. I just want to state this for clarity and posterity, not detract from your overall point which I very much agree with.
- jstewartmobile 10y ago
  There are only so many hours in the day, and only so many resources available for the cause. You've got to pick your battles. Their bathroom struggle is noise compared to the mayhem we are causing at home and abroad. Just a few examples: > Spending nearly a trillion dollars every year to expand the police state and robot bomb innocent people in countries that have done nothing to us. > Locking people up for minor offenses and not giving them an adequate defense or a speedy trial. > A healthcare system that costs almost double that of its western european counterpart, but with spotty coverage and poorer outcomes--effect being that common injuries and illnesses can be financially devastating, even to the insured. > Once vibrant manufacuring towns up and down the Mississippi that have been gutted by free trade with China, soon to be buried by AI. To the average guy in flyover country, the luxury of having your biggest worry in life be which bathroom you get to use seems every bit as out-of-touch as some guy like Donald Trump flying around in his 747 eating caviar.
  - legodt 10y ago
    I agree with most of the bulleted points on your list (automation, not free trade killed most jobs), but for transgendered Americans, using the bathroom is far from a luxury. It's a constant threat, it's fear of being beaten to a pulp or murdered. Calling the ability to safely use a public restroom without threat of violence is extremely privileged on your part and it costs a lot less to protect these people than fix those HUGE problems you listed. There is no good reason to ignore helping these people just because there are larger, systemic problems to address, kind of a false dichotomy you set up there. I don't want to throw around an accusation that you are being cryptotransphobic with this, but please do re-examine your privilige and ask yourself why you are conflating basic safety for transgendered people and "urban elitism," ESPECIALLY because trans members of our society are most likely on the fringes or in the lower class. There is also another way to look at this that doesn't involve social justice and privilege examination. The problems you listed require ACTIVE solutions. Big, active solutions. The kind of solutions the Democratic party, and this really pains me to say, is too much of a clusterfuck right now to deal with given their internal struggles and, yknow, the entirely red government. Now, this red government on local levels as been aggressively targeting LGBTQ communities and trying to dehumanize them and strip them of their rights and safeties. The republicans are taking first swing at this, so all the Dems have to do is create REACTIVE solutions, which is a helluva lot faster and easier to do. Trans people under attack in public? REACT with legislation to protect them and fight to repeal legislation meant to attack them. These are solutions that the party is able to do, so it is what they are publicizing and what is being covered and discussed. Now that Republicans control all of government, there really isn't much for the left to do at all on the federal level, so the most they can fight for during the next four years is protecting civil liberties under an openly homophobic and LGBTQ hostile government.
    - jstewartmobile 10y ago
      I'm all for the LGBTQs. I know there are outliers, but most people have to reach adolescence before they realize they might be L, G, B, T, or Q. For the past two administrations, we have been dropping bombs on innocent people. Both presidents could have stopped or curtailed this, saving billions of dollars in the process, with a simple "no." Some of those innocent people were small children who didn't quite make it to the gender-identity stage. I will examine my gender privilege if you will examine your western privilege.
mcguire 10y ago
Pardon me, but wasn't it the Republican party that made transgender bathrooms a priority, by introducing and passing legislation? That played very well with their religious-right core, as well as the rural old-timers who might otherwise prefer Democratic policies. That is, however, one of the greatest failings of the Democratic party over the last 15 (20? 25?) years: letting the Republicans choose the battlefields.
- jstewartmobile 10y ago
  From the past two Democratic administrations, it looks more like surrender than failure. Obama at least got the ACA through, even though a lot of the awfulness of the Bush administration survived. Clinton was more like total surrender with banking dereg of 1999 and welfare reform. As the Republican-lite party, it is entirely their fault that the Republicans set their agenda.
commentzorro 10y ago
Get outa here. These are red states in red districts. They've been controlled by right wing agenda for years now. If change is going to happen it's going to happen at the local and state level, not at the national level. If nothing's been done it because the republicans choose to do nothing.
- jstewartmobile 10y ago
  It's that mentality that lost the election. A lot of these "red" districts used to be blue not that long ago, especially in the north and midwest. The modern Democratic party caters so exclusively to urban elites that these people are mostly unrepresented, so they stay home on election day. It's not so much that they voted for Trump (his numbers were worse than those of Romney and McCain even though the population is larger now), it's that they didn't vote for Clinton.
mcphage 10y ago
> Consider how those old-timers must feel as they watch the mainstream Democratic party make transgender-bathrooms priority #1 while their own hometowns are turning into shit... What country were you living in that transgender bathroom access was priority #1?

legodt 10y ago

You say that like the two platforms can't co-exist. I agree with what you are saying overall, the American democratic party has abandoned a lot of people, but with the transgender bathroom issue, that came up because these people were under attack and threat of violence just for existing publically. This is why the issue felt so large and was such a rush priority since empowered socially regressive states were rushing legislation to allow discrimination and implicitly support attacks on these groups. I just want to state this for clarity and posterity, not detract from your overall point which I very much agree with.

jstewartmobile 10y ago
There are only so many hours in the day, and only so many resources available for the cause. You've got to pick your battles. Their bathroom struggle is noise compared to the mayhem we are causing at home and abroad. Just a few examples: > Spending nearly a trillion dollars every year to expand the police state and robot bomb innocent people in countries that have done nothing to us. > Locking people up for minor offenses and not giving them an adequate defense or a speedy trial. > A healthcare system that costs almost double that of its western european counterpart, but with spotty coverage and poorer outcomes--effect being that common injuries and illnesses can be financially devastating, even to the insured. > Once vibrant manufacuring towns up and down the Mississippi that have been gutted by free trade with China, soon to be buried by AI. To the average guy in flyover country, the luxury of having your biggest worry in life be which bathroom you get to use seems every bit as out-of-touch as some guy like Donald Trump flying around in his 747 eating caviar.
- legodt 10y ago
  I agree with most of the bulleted points on your list (automation, not free trade killed most jobs), but for transgendered Americans, using the bathroom is far from a luxury. It's a constant threat, it's fear of being beaten to a pulp or murdered. Calling the ability to safely use a public restroom without threat of violence is extremely privileged on your part and it costs a lot less to protect these people than fix those HUGE problems you listed. There is no good reason to ignore helping these people just because there are larger, systemic problems to address, kind of a false dichotomy you set up there. I don't want to throw around an accusation that you are being cryptotransphobic with this, but please do re-examine your privilige and ask yourself why you are conflating basic safety for transgendered people and "urban elitism," ESPECIALLY because trans members of our society are most likely on the fringes or in the lower class. There is also another way to look at this that doesn't involve social justice and privilege examination. The problems you listed require ACTIVE solutions. Big, active solutions. The kind of solutions the Democratic party, and this really pains me to say, is too much of a clusterfuck right now to deal with given their internal struggles and, yknow, the entirely red government. Now, this red government on local levels as been aggressively targeting LGBTQ communities and trying to dehumanize them and strip them of their rights and safeties. The republicans are taking first swing at this, so all the Dems have to do is create REACTIVE solutions, which is a helluva lot faster and easier to do. Trans people under attack in public? REACT with legislation to protect them and fight to repeal legislation meant to attack them. These are solutions that the party is able to do, so it is what they are publicizing and what is being covered and discussed. Now that Republicans control all of government, there really isn't much for the left to do at all on the federal level, so the most they can fight for during the next four years is protecting civil liberties under an openly homophobic and LGBTQ hostile government.
  - jstewartmobile 10y ago
    I'm all for the LGBTQs. I know there are outliers, but most people have to reach adolescence before they realize they might be L, G, B, T, or Q. For the past two administrations, we have been dropping bombs on innocent people. Both presidents could have stopped or curtailed this, saving billions of dollars in the process, with a simple "no." Some of those innocent people were small children who didn't quite make it to the gender-identity stage. I will examine my gender privilege if you will examine your western privilege.

mcguire 10y ago

Pardon me, but wasn't it the Republican party that made transgender bathrooms a priority, by introducing and passing legislation? That played very well with their religious-right core, as well as the rural old-timers who might otherwise prefer Democratic policies. That is, however, one of the greatest failings of the Democratic party over the last 15 (20? 25?) years: letting the Republicans choose the battlefields.

jstewartmobile 10y ago
From the past two Democratic administrations, it looks more like surrender than failure. Obama at least got the ACA through, even though a lot of the awfulness of the Bush administration survived. Clinton was more like total surrender with banking dereg of 1999 and welfare reform. As the Republican-lite party, it is entirely their fault that the Republicans set their agenda.

commentzorro 10y ago

Get outa here. These are red states in red districts. They've been controlled by right wing agenda for years now. If change is going to happen it's going to happen at the local and state level, not at the national level. If nothing's been done it because the republicans choose to do nothing.

jstewartmobile 10y ago
It's that mentality that lost the election. A lot of these "red" districts used to be blue not that long ago, especially in the north and midwest. The modern Democratic party caters so exclusively to urban elites that these people are mostly unrepresented, so they stay home on election day. It's not so much that they voted for Trump (his numbers were worse than those of Romney and McCain even though the population is larger now), it's that they didn't vote for Clinton.

mcphage 10y ago

> Consider how those old-timers must feel as they watch the mainstream Democratic party make transgender-bathrooms priority #1 while their own hometowns are turning into shit... What country were you living in that transgender bathroom access was priority #1?