09-18-2022, 06:47 PM
(09-18-2022, 02:44 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: On another forum, I had reason to review the Texas to Martha's Vineyard via Florida stunt. I concluded that the red hate, or the more deplorable among them. They want to give immigrants, minorities, blue states and liberals a pain. On the other hand, most of the sanctuary cities are blue. They want to help immigrants. Martha's Vineyard may not be the original, but they have a long history of helping and bringing in outsiders. In many ways that is the difference.
Of course. It is a sick, cruel, provocative stunt. I can just imagine what they would do during the winter. Sure, it's nearly 90F in some parts of Michigan, but it won't be that way for long.
Quote:This is not a clear DeSantis win. Sure, he may gratify his urge to cause pain and get giggles and applause from the like mind. Ultimately his hope is to gain voting support. But some will remember when they or their family were immigrants themselves. They will not be amused, and not be generous with the votes. Quite the opposite.
DeSantis has followed the Trump script -- take the most extreme, dehumanizing position and fault those who oppose it for opposing it. They are the ones who literally send the Papists' children to their American friend in Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. Their American "friend" is a literal cannibal.
I suggest that descendants of Italian and Polish Americans look back to the time when their Missionary and Lost ancestors came to America, mostly in poverty, and mostly remained in poverty until the Second World War. Their ancestors were looked down upon much like many Latin-Americans are today, in part for being "Papists". Those Latin-Americans are doing much the same things as their Polish and Italian (or second-generation kids) did -- taking crappy jobs and promoting formal education and skills. What they are not doing as well is in joining labor unions, as America has never been more hostile to labor unions since the 1930's. I will discuss that shortly.
Quote:Of late Boston Children's Hospital was the target of a misinformation and hate conspiracy. Bomb threats. It seems one department helps children confused by gender issues adopt, and the conservatives took exception, attacking doctors who helped children. Teachers were next. Election workers came before. Hate. Anyone will do, apparently.
They hope to get ahead by hate?
Hate is easier to formulate than is a viable program to improve the lives of others. The misinformation is deliberate lying, which we have seen all too often by base people in high offices in recent years; it ultimately fails even if it comes to dominate the political decision-making. I'm tempted to use the f-word before discussing bomb threats, but that is simply too soft and cheap to express what I think of bomb threats, let alone any successful bombing.
Children confused about their gender identity need help, especially if teenagers, for that is when they are most vulnerable. Even the least-confusing issue of gender identity, homosexuality, merits kindness. Not long ago it was reported that of males under the age of twenty committing suicide, roughly a third were gay. There has been improvement in the legal position of homosexuality, but I can only imagine how common the family rejection of LGBT youth is. (A hint to those who call themselves pro-life; if they want to prove themselves truly "pro-life", then they had better support LGBT rights and commit themselves to support for homosexual youth in a difficult stage of life!) It is not easy, as it takes trained people in medicine, social work, and teaching to deal with something which which most people are incompetent to deal. No, you cannot "pray away the gay", and conversion therapy is cruel and of dubious effectiveness.
I'm on the autistic spectrum, with the least problematic conditions on the DMS-V. My personal life is badly messed up. I could use a solid family life. Surely I would be far better than the spouse-beaters, child abusers, and sexual predators all too common as a husband. If I must fake empathy I can at least adopt some good habits that look like empathy and avoid bad ones that seem cold or cruel. I have worked with a therapist -- and I wish I had worked with one much earlier, when still young instead of when sixty years old. There are plenty of conditions far worse than Asperger's syndrome, and there are suitable careers for people with it. I am in no way delusional or crazy, I have no chemical dependency (one good thing about autistic people: we are the lightest users of drugs and alcohol except for members of religious groups that condemn them; I proudly proclaimed recently to a cardiologist that I have "Mormon lungs" and a "Mormon liver". I do not do the bad things that people with borderline, narcissistic, sociopathic, or psychopathic personalities do. I'm the sort of person that one can trust with assets, children, spouses, employees, or vehicles. I know of things to do that can keep me from being a crashing bore.
If I could not be cured, then I needed to get away with the condition. That is how I see ethnic and religious differences and homosexuality.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.