Marianne Williamson Is Running For President

[Leo Gura]

50 minutes ago, Tobia said:

@Leo Gura interesting way of looking at things and defining "dangerous"

While definitely authoritarian and sometimes brutal on internal issues, on foreign policy he has actually shown decent restraint and patience in comparison with US right wingers.

Dude, what are you smoking? Putin literally killed tens of thousands of his own boys within a period of 1 year. By the time that war is over he will probably have killed 100,000 Russian men. And that is not counting all the Ukrainian civilians.

What Putin is doing is way worse than Iraq. And he is not interested in helping Ukraine rebuild, the way the US did. It's way worse! The US was not shelling Iraqi apartment buildings and hositpals. Putin is doing war crimes like crazy.

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To say that right wingers in the US are less dangerous when they recently killed one million people in Iraq, is debatable.

For sure America is dangerous when it goes to war because the military power is so massive.

I was not talking about America as a government, I was talking about individual politicians. Putin orders assassintions of journalists and the like. The worst US politicians cannot compare.

47 minutes ago, Vrubel said:

@Leo Gura Would you have said this before the war?

He is vicious but also reasonably competent.

He is extremly competent. Putin is a genius. American politicians are fools next to him. But Putin is too ruthless for his own good.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Guest Tobia]

@Vrubel  you are filtering events through a limited lens and bias.

The only purpose of the limited initial operation (190k men, basically nothing) was to show the US that he was not bluffing and to demand serious negotiations for a neutral Ukraine and safety for russian speakers in the Donbass. Negotiations that had been rejected for many years by the US.

Once the war started, negotiations indeed happened mediated by Turkey and Israel.
However, as Israeli prime minister said clearly, once the possibility of a deal was emerging, the United States and Britain conviced Ukraine to continue the war and to not compromise.
Ending the war so early with a neutral Ukraine would have crushed US interests.
The United States needed the war to continue and, most importantly, for nordstream 2 to end.
I give Biden a 10/10 in terms of geo-strategic achievement, the results of this war will benefit the US economy for decades.

But, of course, this comes at huge cost for Ukraine because this means that Putin has no choice. He must go all the way because now it is a full on war.

And no, Putin is not losing the war, he will win the war because he has no other choice. He has great approval at home as most russians understand the necessity and inevitability of this action.

 

[Vrubel]

10 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Putin literally killed tens of thousands of his own boys within a period of 1 year.

Very sad, the Ukraine war veterans and widows will have a lasting imprint on Russian culture.  

[Vrubel]

3 minutes ago, Tobia said:

@Vrubel 

The only purpose of the limited initial operation (190k men, basically nothing) was to show the US that he was not bluffing and to demand serious negotiations

No. Before the war, everybody thought the Russians could take on Ukraine easily including Putin. I personally even thought that Russia could hypothetically take on all of Europe's army combined. Now I feel stupid for saying this.
 

[Guest Tobia]

20 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Dude, what are you smoking? Putin literally killed tens of thousands of his own boys within a period of 1 year. By the time that war is over he will probably have killed 100,000 Russian men. And that is not counting all the Ukrainian civilians.

Dude, Ukraine was an EXISTENTIAL crisis for the stability of the russian state, not just for Putin.

Of course Russian men die for it.

Most russians approve

 

 

[Leo Gura]

A hallmark of Russian institutions is that they are deeply incompetent due to all the corruption. Americans cannot comprehend such levels of incompetence.

But the big advantage that Russia has is that Russians are tough. They are not pussies like Americans. They can kill 1,000,000 of their own to achieve a goal.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Guest Tobia]

@Vrubel "everybody thought that" = western media told you that.

Any rational person would understand that 190k men could have never occupied Ukraine, it was not the initial purpose. Now it is.

Conquering whole of Europe is pure propaganda, absurd american nonsense

 

[Hardkill]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

A hallmark of Russian institutions is that they are deeply incompetent due to all the corruption. Americans cannot comprehend such levels of incompetence.

But the big advantage that Russia has is that Russians are tough. They are not pussies like Americans. They can kill 1,000,000 of their own to achieve a goal.

But how much of Russia's economy and people is he really willing sacrifice to win this war?

[Vrubel]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

But the big advantage that Russia has is that Russians are tough. They are not pussies like Americans. They can kill 1,000,000 of their own to achieve a goal.

Yes and no. There is a lot of stereotyping here. The Russians were fully justified in their dogged tactics in WW2 due to the existential nature of the fight against such evil as the nazis. But in the cold-war era, the soviets demonstrated the reasonable effectiveness of their modern army in Afghanistan. Seemingly on par with America's in Vietnam. Though yeah with a bit more of the characteristic cruelty and the occasional wiping of villages off the map but still a decently effective modern army. It was only natural to assume that Russia has dropped the cannon fodder strategies of ww2. They only fell back to it because they don't want to retreat with their tails between their legs. Tactically sound cannon fodder strategies are a cold but effective way of capitalizing on your numerical superiority, It's exactly how The Union army turned around the civil war. 

They don't have some superhuman toughness, people that are miserable with no future and have nothing to lose are willing to risk and sacrifice more. You see this a lot in the middle east. Also unlike in the middle east, Russian mothers usually have only a few children if not just one, so they tend to be very anti-war and definitely not willing to sacrifice. How do you explain Russian women being so much more feminine than western women? in a sense they are weaker but not saying they aren't also tough in their own right. 

Edited March 16, 2023 by Vrubel

[Emerald]

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

That's very anecdotal. You cannot deny that SJW activists want their agenda injected into school curriculum.

Removing books with gay characters is hardly authoritarianism. Yes, it's a bit stringent. But it's not like these kids cannot go to Amazon and buy whatever books they want. Portraying this as leading to death camps is silly.

You conveniently left out the part about charging teachers with felonies if they unknowingly have a book in their classroom that happens to have a gay character in it.

And you left it out because you know on some level that it’s authoritarian, and it doesn’t suit your argument well to address it in your reply. 

And so you reframe it in more innocuous terms because the reality doesn’t fit well with your framework that this is just Conservatives being Conservatives.

So, to protect that idea the DeSantis is just a run of the mill Conservative, you take the things I’m telling you about DeSantis defang them and make them look more harmless than they are.

And to protect that idea, you view me through the lens of being some progressive that doesn’t understand the Conservative point of view and its function in society.

The reality is that DeSantis is attempting to alter k-12 and college level schools’ curriculum.

And when politicians are going through great lengths to mess with academia, the goal is to mold young impressionable minds in the direction of their own ideological agendas.

It appears to me that you wouldn’t recognize authoritarianism if it smacked you on the ass.

[Emerald]

Brilliant Marianne Williamson interview on abc News…

 

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, Emerald said:

You conveniently left out the part about charging teachers with felonies if they unknowingly have a book in their classroom that happens to have a gay character in it.

That is def bad policy.

However you conveniently left out points I made about kids being taught gender fluidity and how much that can screw them up. That is the real crux of the issue here. Sure, if you totally dismiss that then what DeSantis is doing seems insane. Or, you could consider the possibility that DeSantis is actually trying to protect kids. But that doesn't fit the progressive narrative. There is no way a right-winger could actually care about protecting kids.

I don't take the felony stuff too seriously because I sorta doubt people will be seriously charged and convicted over it. But yes, it does have a chilling effect on teachers. And if hundreds of teachers start to be put in prison for having a gay book in the classroom, I will speak out against that. But I think progressives are fearmongering about that too much. I don't see that happening in practice. I'm not even sure how constitutional that would be. I basically trust our strong institutions to keep far right-wing policy in check. There would be a lot of legal challenges to such laws. Many of the things Trump passed were simply struck down or never enforced because they were silly too silly.

Jordan Peterson made a giant stink about how he will be put in jail if he doesn't use certain gender pronouns in Canada. But in practice none of that happened. So you have to look at the practical consequences of legislation.

I don't like how both sides exaggerate and demonize each other. Progressives are certainly guily of this. DeSantis is not the end of the world. Yes he passes some bad policies.

It's like you are forcing people to have your demonized view of DeSantis, or else they are wrong. And what I'm saying it that that's a self-deception.

Edited March 17, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Emerald]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That is def bad policy.

However you conveniently left out points I made about kids being taught gender fluidity and how much that can screw them up.

I don't take the felony stuff too seriously because I sorta doubt people will be seriously charged and convicted over it. But yes, it does have a chilling effect on teachers. And if hundreds of teachers start to be put in prison for having a gay book in the classroom, I will speak out against that. But I think progressives are fearmongering about that too much.

When there’s a policy on the books where a teacher could get a felony for having the wrong book in their classroom, this is going to make most teachers weed the books out completely… even if no one ever gets charged.

And this sets DeSantis up with all the power to create a state sanctioned book list, which is what teachers will have to pick from to fill their shelves safely. And this gives DeSantis quite a bit of power to shape young minds towards any agenda he wants to push.

And they could even selectively apply the law to whichever situations they wanted to, given how vague the law is.

Not saying that he will do those things. But it’s important to recognize that these are potential next steps in his overall political dance.

Authoritarianism is like a 10 step dance and (historically speaking) he’s done a couple of the early steps of it. That doesn’t mean he’s going to go all the way to 10. But doing the first couple steps should be enough to prick up people’s ears. And it isn’t pricking up people’s ears… which is troubling to me.

We’ve gotten too used to outrageous political behavior in recent years. So, everyone’s become somewhat desensitized to it.

But I think about authoritarianism like this…

Think of it like a meteorologist looking at swirling weather patterns in the Atlantic Ocean during hurricane season. They mark weather patterns that might potentially become hurricanes with an x.  And some of them become full blown  hurricanes and other fizzle out.

This is how I view authoritarian behavior in politicians. It’s currently the right economic and political atmosphere for authoritarianism to arise. So, it’s “authoritarianism season”.

I see the patterns in DeSantis, and I mark it with an x in my mind. He might fizzle out into a typical politician or he might escalate in his authoritarianism.

Only time will tell.

But it’s important to point out when a politician starts showing the patterns that have historically led to authoritarianism.

And I’d rather run the risk of over-reacting than under-reacting.

But to your other point, I suppose that I just have my doubts that kids are being taught that much about gender fluidity in schools. It seems like a ginned up threat that’s not actually happening in a substantial way.

I heard some random school district in California was doing some minor version of it with some unicorn worksheet thing they were making available to students.

But I would suspect that this is rare… and probably non-existent in elementary school.

But honestly, kids these days already know about there being different gender identities from simply existing in the year 2023. It can’t be hidden from them.

And it doesn’t really seem to trip them up much from what I’ve noticed in my kids and the kids that I’ve taught.

A couple years ago, when my daughter was 9, she went through a whole phase where she was really interested in knowing all the different genders and sexualities and all the flags that correspond.

It was with a very similar energy to when she was really into learning Japanese. Or right now, she really likes this game with singing monsters.

It’s just one of dozens of phases that she’s gone through.

And honestly, having a broader language and vocabulary to figure yourself out, probably illuminates things more than it muddles them

To give an analogy…

Most places only have a few words to describe snow. But in the Inuit language (the native Alaskans), there are 30 words for snow to describe all the different nuances.

It makes more sense to me that adding more language around gender and sexuality would be more illuminating and help young people figure themselves out.

[puporing]

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

Brilliant Marianne Williamson interview on abc News…

 

@Emerald Saw this one too the other day, enjoyed the extended version.

 

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

When there’s a policy on the books where a teacher could get a felony for having the wrong book in their classroom, this is going to make most teachers weed the books out completely… even if no one ever gets charged.

And this sets DeSantis up with all the power to create a state sanctioned book list, which is what teachers will have to pick from to fill their shelves safely. And this gives DeSantis quite a bit of power to shape young minds towards any agenda he wants to push.

All school curriculum is heavily moderated and decided on by the state.

I hardly even remember a time in my school days where I just walked up to a bookshelf and got some random book to read. Mostly what we read in school are textbooks -- which are super-curated, written specifically for children -- or some classic fiction books like Hamlet or the like -- which are also selected carefully. I'm not sure why you need gay books on school bookshelves. It's just not a very serious issue to me. It's shallow stuff even if it is heavy-handed from DeSantis. It's culture war stuff, not serious policy that really matters. Access to books or information is not really an issue in America.

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Authoritarianism is like a 10 step dance and (historically speaking) he’s done a couple of the early steps of it. That doesn’t mean he’s going to go all the way to 10. But doing the first couple steps should be enough to prick up people’s ears. And it isn’t pricking up people’s ears… which is troubling to me.

We’ve gotten too used to outrageous political behavior in recent years. So, everyone’s become somewhat desensitized to it.

But I think about authoritarianism like this…

Think of it like a meteorologist looking at swirling weather patterns in the Atlantic Ocean during hurricane season. They mark weather patterns that might potentially become hurricanes with an x.  And some of them become full blown  hurricanes and other fizzle out.

This precisely the logic that right-wingers use to demonize the left as socialists. This is exactly what Jordan Peterson does when he talks about the left.

This is known as the slippery slope fallacy. Anything you disagree with can be rationalized as one step on a slippery slope to Hell. And therefore it becomes impossible to compromise, because to give even one inch might mean we end up in Hell.

Quote

But to your other point, I suppose that I just have my doubts that kids are being taught that much about gender fluidity in schools. It seems like a ginned up threat that’s not actually happening in a substantial way.

I heard some random school district in California was doing some minor version of it with some unicorn worksheet thing they were making available to students.

But I would suspect that this is rare… and probably non-existent in elementary school.

I think you're underestimating that. This is precisely the point of disagreement in your worldview and that of conservatives. Conservatives take this issue seriously whereas you don't. I'm not fully sure who's right. But I don't see the conservative position here to be as crazy as it is portrayed by progressives. Progressives simply refuse to seriously consider the possibility that gender fluid teachings could cause problems for children. To me this is an open question, worthy of serious discussion and empirical testing. It is not right to just dismiss it as transphobia.

Edited March 17, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Emerald]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

All school curriculum is heavily moderated and decided on by the state.

I hardly even remember a time in my school days where I just walked up to a bookshelf and got some random book to read. Mostly what we read in school are textbooks -- which are super-curated, written specifically for children -- or some class fiction books like Hamlet or the like. I'm not sure why you need gay books on school bookshelves. It's just not a very serious issue to me. It's very shallow stuff even if it is heavy-handed from DeSantis.

This precisely the logic that right-wingers use to demonize the left as socialists.

I think you're underestimating that. This is precisely the point of disagreement in your worldview and that of conservatives. Conservatives take this issue seriously whereas you don't. I'm not fully sure who's right. But I don't see the conservative position here to be as crazy as it is portrayed by progressives. Progressives simply refuse to seriously consider the possibility that gender fluid teachings could cause problems for children.

Once I see evidence that it causes issues for kids, I’d be willing to change my mind.

So, I would need to see some studies on the impacts of how knowing about gender identities and sexualities impact kids.

Otherwise, all I have to go off of is personal anecdotes.

Given my experiences with my own children and with other people’s children in my time as a teacher and substitute teacher… in comparison with my childhood… the younger generation seems to be in a somewhat healthier place relative to the topic of gender and sexuality.

And the social contagion fear just isn’t actually playing out. Kids are about the same as they’ve always been. Only now, instead of a school only having one trans kid, a school has like 3 trans kids.

But with regard to what you said about books… in the school district that my kids go to school in and that I used to work in, all elementary classrooms have a shelf or two full of books for kids to read. And in language arts classes in middle and high school (and some electives) there are also shelves full of books.

Also, these laws would also apply to the school library and the media specialists that work in the library. So, lots of libraries have also been gutted because of the same law.

And these books were always meant to be freely chosen and were already being curated by the media specialists.

And for many children, this is their only access to books.

So, don’t frame my argument as “OMG! We need gay books!” That’s not my argument.

My argument is that this law is purposefully vague and authoritarian… and is being used to influence public education to set up a situation where it’s easier to mold impressionable minds in the direction of certain political ends.

[Michal__]

A gay character in a book has nothing to do with teaching gender fluidity.

Banning that is just weird. Come on, this kind of bitching about "the gay" should be done only by middle schoolers or people with slow ego development. Not by a serious politician.

Yeah, some progressives go too far and try to tell children that they can just choose their gender like they'd choose a shirt but that's not the majority.

Edited March 17, 2023 by Michal__

[Emerald]

26 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

This precisely the logic that right-wingers use to demonize the left as socialists.

I can see the similarities there in how they’re seeing a smaller left-leaning pattern and extrapolating it out to historical instances of left-wing authoritarianism.

And if the left actually had substantial institutional power, they’d be correct to sound the alarm when lefty politicians over-stepped or started doing the authoritarian dance.

And I’d criticize a left-wing politician just the same if they were banning books and creating laws that charge teachers with felonies for having books that had ideologically divergent material in it.

But the reality is that there is no governmentally entrenched left-wing authoritarianism in America.

America is fundamentally corporatist. And left-wing politicians and policies would be a huge threat to the status quo. 

So, when right wingers sound the alarm about left-wing authoritarianism, it’s usually some kid with pink hair that has very little political power.

Or its them calling Biden a Communist dictator when he is definitely a Capitalist and never actually does anything particularly authoritarian.

But the far right has actually gained a pretty significant foothold in the American government over the past 7 years.

So, it isn’t far-fetched at all to be concerned about right-wing authoritarianism.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

Once I see evidence that it causes issues for kids, I’d be willing to change my mind.

1) You can search for videos of interviews of people who have transitioned, regretted it, and de-transitioned. These are not insignificant cases. When a child cannot access a gay book in the classroom, that is not going to ruin anyone's life. It is effectively irrelevant. But when a teen is deluded into transitioning and being gender fluid, that is potentially a life-destroying thing. There is no comparison between those two. How many regretful de-transitioned cases do you require before you take it as a serious concern?

2) Once the evidence is overwhelming enough for you to admit it and change your worldview, that will already be too late, as 1000s of teen's lives would be destroyed. And there could be subtle effects from this gender fluidity stuff that you will not even connect with it, such as creating an entire generation of incels, even worse than now. Once that happens and you acknowledge it, it will already be too late to fix. And these incels will not just sit back quietly, they will start shooting up schools worse than today. You really have to consider the full long-range secondary consequence of all this gender ideology. It is not obvious what it will lead to.

Edited March 17, 2023 by Leo Gura

[mr_engineer]

There is one thing that religious people and conservatives get right. It is that if there are societal norms/trends, kids should be educated about them. Science takes it one step too far and turns it into dogma. But, if being cis-hetero is the norm and if that's the reason families have the structure they do, kids should know about this. And this is more important than LGBT-awareness, quite frankly, from collective perspective. Meaning, if we had to choose between the two, the option that's for your culture/collective is the one that educates children about the fact that being cis-hetero is the norm. I know, it sucks to be LGBT in a heteronormative environment, but that's the hand you're dealt. 

I think that if the progressives acknowledge and admit to this much, right-wingers will give them whatever they want.