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> how dangerous an empire is to the rest of the world Exactly! We should never have built an empire in the first place. Are you saying that empire-building was

> how dangerous an empire is to the rest of the world Exactly! We should never have built an empire in the first place. Are you saying that empire-building was unavoidable and that no other path could have been taken? It seems that you agree that there's no easy way to back away from empire now extant. I'm not aware of any way to change small minds; they lack the capacity for change. You can substitute race for something else but people who can only keep a small number of things in their head will always focus on the simple ones. Identity politics bears this out. > Do we believe, in hindsight, it was wise for them to do so given where we are now? Aye, I do. It was the individualistic spirit of that action that would have kept those very nazis in the margins. That spirit being so diminished is what has given fuel to the fires of extremism. If you leave people alone (and they have enough to eat), they tend not to gather in large groups and cause trouble. It's when they feel pressured, even if it's only in their heads, that bad things start to happen. This is exactly why I'm suggesting we don't pressure people to accept ideas they're not willing to accept freely. It's safer. Forcing (via education policy) ideologically opposed communities to "accept" trans people exacerbates anti-trans sentiment. It's actually counterproductive to the goal of trans people's wellbeing. Further fuel is added to the fire when policies have absurdist outcomes like Lia Thomas or Isla Bryson, and no reasonable debate is accommodated by their advocates. None of this is good for the average trans person just trying to live their life. Educating young children should be done in as worldview-neutral a position as possible. It should be about the things the Iowan, soccer player, jazz musician, Irish immigrant, and trans person, can all agree on, using simple dictionary words and definitions.

shadowgovt 4y ago
It's a bit irrelevant to me what other path than empire could have been taken, because I wasn't around in the 1840s to suggest that Manifest Destiny was maybe a terrible idea for a nation with a cultural mythology wrapped in small-community independence. I'm interested in what we can do now that we're a country of over 300 million people that spans a continent and won two world wars. And I'm ill-convinced that fascists are kept at the margins by individualism. Fascists appeal to and weaponize national mythological ideologies; the "self-made man" is every bit as weaponizable as the übermensch, especially if, say, failure of collectivist-minded policy in the face of an adherence to a "you are paid the money you deserve the money" mythology has allowed the delta between the extremes and the averages in society to grow to such a level that those who believe they should be the inheritors of the self-made-man mantle bust their asses for 40+ hours a day and can't afford rent. It is then the fascist comes to them and says "You would be as great as destiny says you should be, but for..." and makes up an enemy, always one with not enough power to fight back (so rarely, for example, the people who have all the money). > Forcing (via education policy) ideologically opposed communities to "accept" trans people ... is every bit the same as forcing them to accept the Irish and the black person and the Christian, or to learn state capitols, or to recite the Constitution; no more and no less. They live in America they get with the program. The program is their neighbors are their neighbors and that which they do that harms no-one is of no concern.

shadowgovt 4y ago

It's a bit irrelevant to me what other path than empire could have been taken, because I wasn't around in the 1840s to suggest that Manifest Destiny was maybe a terrible idea for a nation with a cultural mythology wrapped in small-community independence. I'm interested in what we can do now that we're a country of over 300 million people that spans a continent and won two world wars. And I'm ill-convinced that fascists are kept at the margins by individualism. Fascists appeal to and weaponize national mythological ideologies; the "self-made man" is every bit as weaponizable as the übermensch, especially if, say, failure of collectivist-minded policy in the face of an adherence to a "you are paid the money you deserve the money" mythology has allowed the delta between the extremes and the averages in society to grow to such a level that those who believe they should be the inheritors of the self-made-man mantle bust their asses for 40+ hours a day and can't afford rent. It is then the fascist comes to them and says "You would be as great as destiny says you should be, but for..." and makes up an enemy, always one with not enough power to fight back (so rarely, for example, the people who have all the money). > Forcing (via education policy) ideologically opposed communities to "accept" trans people ... is every bit the same as forcing them to accept the Irish and the black person and the Christian, or to learn state capitols, or to recite the Constitution; no more and no less. They live in America they get with the program. The program is their neighbors are their neighbors and that which they do that harms no-one is of no concern.