Personal opinion time. I have a special dislike for men that think that just because they’re able to donate sperm means they are supposed to be the unquestioned head of the family and dictate how the mother acts, especially when by the time you get that many kids you mostly hand the little ones off to be raised by the big ones, who you monitor for the sake of making sure they stay indoctrinated.
It’s why I hated ___ kids and counting_ long before the molestation came out. The show was 'Papa dugger builds a cult where he is its head and has an audience and pulpit all after they had a fucking compound built for them courtesy of ABC’s ‘let’s give people a theme house.’ No you are not wise or good or even remotely moral to my eyes. You sir are a controlling possessive assbag that are the reason the rest of us men have to work our asses off to prove we’re not all like you.
Christ, what an asshole does not even begin to cover it.
I suggest reasonable and rational people should try to teach the ignorant and fearful there is nothing to fear and that people they assume are strange and dangerous are not.It is hard to do. But nearly everything that is worthwhile in this world takes perseverance and hard work.
I believe that living well, and being kind, despite hateful public tirades is possible, is noteworthy, and is persuasive. I don’t assume I will convince them all, but there may well be some among them who will learn. This work is the work of MLK, Gandhi and it is admirable.
We should be careful of rushing to judge people like this lest we become bigots ourselves. We could write them off and say they are irredeemable, unteachable and so forth but isn’t that just what they are saying about us?
What’s the alternative? We see her behaving like an ass and we do likewise? Surely not. We do owe every other human being our honest attempt to understand. If they don’t respond to that perhaps someone in their periphery will see the honesty and effort made and respond. This is how social change and acceptance occurs. In my lifetime I have seen “Gay issues” go from unspeakable otherness to mundane commonplaces. How did that happen? By degrees, through courage and by fine examples of humanity simply being gay and teaching the straight world that gay is not other at all. We have met the enemy and he is us, and there really isn’t any enemy, to paraphrase Walt Kelly. Trans-people are just the new target as a reaction to Gay Marriage being judged constitutional by the SCOTUS.
Stay classy. This is bogus. Trans-folk have been in the appropriate bathrooms for decades. All this stirring up the fearful about trans issues is by design.It’s how the powerful keep people at each other’s throats instead of after the ones who are really causing injustices. If there is an enemy it’s the ones who started up all this legislation at about the same time all focused on trans-people and the bathrooms. They are the culprits who wind up people like the woman i the video. They do it to sow discord.
Admirable and worthwhile as a goal. However there’s a guns n roses quote that fits this situation.
“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach, so you get what we had here last week which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. And I don’t like it any more than you men.”
I don’t say we shouldn’t try, contrary to it. However having lived with the type it is one of the hardest thing in the world to try changing their opinion or winning hearts and minds when they believe it is a god given mandate to hate. They will see a challenge, especially on grounds of Faith as further reason to close themselves off. ‘Closed minds do not allow harmful thoughts to come in.’
All parents do this to some degree and our society recognizes it and responds to it for good and for ill, or if you prefer, for your ideology, and mine, and thiers, and theirs, and theirs.
It is a valid justification of the speaker in our society, and if the speaker’s views are not palatable it can work as much against as it would for as it becomes in the ears a justification of the view and not the speaker, but it isn’t.
Whatever follows that lede is no indictment of her use of it as justification of her person or of her being a mother of x. If you ridicule her for her reproductive choices because you don’t like what she says, you’re still only ridiculing her for her reproductive choices.
The response you are looking for is, “You are wrong.” And when those children are shaken in your face again, “You are still wrong.” Or couch your criticism of her views within your criticism of her justification as a speaker, or vice-versa, or all you’re doing is ridiculing her for her reproductive choices.
It does not go without saying that ridiculing her for her reproductive choices alone is something you can do.
This is all I meant. As part of a general belief that all humans are owed respect and compassion from other humans, I agree with your point. I was just saying the same thing as @chgoliz - that often marginalized people are treated as if that responsibility runs only in one direction and they have to be grownups while privileged people have tantrums. So I’m a little sensitive about the wording, but I thought this was what you meant, and you are right.
I seriously hear what you are saying. But at some point, you’re banging your head against the wall.
What if we were talking about someone you knew that insisted that the Earth was flat and the Moon was made of cheese? No matter the evidence and science you presented to them. At some point, you have to throw your hands up.
Although evidently, the woman in this video and/or others who share her views have not, or will not. Last summer, Target quit labeling their toy aisles with “boys’ toys” or “girls’ toys.” There was much gnashing of teeth, wringing of hands, etc. and, based on what I’ had read here and there, the offended would never set foot in Target again. And yet, they’re back.
Perhaps “throw your hands up” as in give up is a bad choice of words, as one has to keep fighting for what’s right.
But when dealing with people like this lady and those that follow her - folks that have the mental age of grade school children at best - you can only take it so far.
They have dangerous combinations of stupidity, anger and religion.
I used to work with this guy that was super religious, though thankfully really nice and not the kind to waltz around Target yelling about bathrooms.
The problem was that you could never just have a conversation with him about anything. “Hey, what about that ball game last night?” “Did you catch Game Of Thrones?” “Man, I just downloaded this great album this weekend”, etc… You would start there, and then all roads led to Jesus as my lord and savior. I had to kind of stop talking to him as it becomes extremely tiresome.
Well, I did both. I worked damn near full time from 18 on. And still do, of course.
If I HAVE to work past 59 1/2, (decade to go) I told my wife I’ll jump off whatever building I’m in.
She’s said she wants to retire around the same time as me yet she’s 7 years younger. I said no way, sister, you gotta help support me for a while!
