LGBTQ

The Hazards Associated With Hate Speech

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

A recent back-and-forth with an old friend led me to believe that some clarification on the topic of Hate Speech might be in order. I like to think that other people might also benefit from this.

First of all, there is no clear or concise definition as far as what constitutes Hate Speech…but it’s most often understood to be speech that is disparaging, dehumanizing, and derogatory toward a group of people based on Inherent and Immutable characteristics such as Ethnicity, Nationality, Disability Status, Gender/Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation.

Many people claim it should apply to Political Affiliation and Religion, but to define either of those things as “Inherent or Immutable” is a huge stretch, since both of those two things are choices (no matter how difficult it may be for people to separate themselves from the Politics or Religion of their upbringing and environment). I was raised as a Catholic, but am not Catholic. I was raised in a deeply Conservative environment (South Dakota), but I am not Conservative. The same applies to many of you who are reading this.

Thus, I personally do NOT extend the definition of Hate Speech to cover things that are choices made by individuals. It is precisely the choices and behaviors of people that are the things we can (and I dare say, SHOULD) judge people by. The choices we make and the actions arising from those choices are the things we uniformly agree upon as conditions upon which we can be convicted, in court and otherwise. It’s judging people by things that are simply part of who they are, unchangeable and permanent, where the problem arises. So, regardless of how off-base and idiotic I find a lot of the rhetoric being tossed around with respect to Political Opposition, I do not consider that Hate Speech. It can be just as harmful and toxic, but hating people over Political Ideology is not the same as hating someone over characteristics that are intrinsically part of who they are.

Sure, some people have so thoroughly immersed themselves in their Political Ideology that there’s little identity left once that is stripped away, but that was nevertheless a choice they made. That is the downside regarding Identity Politics (and especially what that term has come to mean in recent years), in that it becomes all too easy to lose oneself along the way. And, like many things, Identity Politics is something that’s been co-opted by non-marginalized people. And, of course, it’s been corrupted in the process, especially in America.

It originated as a way for people of marginalized groups to come together, advocating for one another, and rallying against shared experiences of systemic oppression, exploitation, and neglect. Where one person’s voice could be easily drowned out, a collective movement could effect structural change and draw attention to systems built on platforms of injustice and prejudice. Unfortunately, as could easily be predicted, those who had benefited from said systems were less than accommodating when it came to opening the doors and embracing equity and equality. It took almost no time at all for White Supremacists to manipulate the dialogue and distort everything to make reasonable demands for a seat at the table sound like threats to the table itself and those who had historically taken all of the seats.

And that’s where we still are, with even otherwise reasonable people so caught up in this fictional narrative that they can’t see the threads they’d need to tug at to unravel the tapestry of lies they’ve been conditioned to believe. They’re so scared of one boogeyman after another that they can’t recognize how flimsy and silly the imaginary threats happen to be, until they’re jumping at shadows around every corner.

Now, as far as what I wanted to clarify. There is a huge difference between your racist uncle or some dude at the bar expressing bigotry and someone using a national (or international) platform that reaches thousands or tens of thousands of people at a time.

“Talk shit, get hit,” applies to the racist uncle or random dude at the bar or on the street, if one is so inclined. It’s toxic and upsetting, but that kind of Hate Speech can be dismissed by most people, including the marginalized group being targeted by said bigotry. It’s terrible and ignorant, but it’s also white noise.

There is a huge Qualitative and Quantitative difference between that and the same Hate Speech being expressed by Public Figures with wide-reaching influence. That’s when Hate Speech truly becomes dangerous and a cause for valid concern. Politicians, Television Personalities, successful Podcasters and Influencers, and Public Speakers should have both a greater responsibility to uphold the Social Contract and a greater set of standards to which they are held. This is precisely because they have the historically proven capacity to influence the nature and quality of public discourse.

We’ve seen the results of Hate Speech being legitimized by platforming it and treating it as nothing more than the Free Expression of a different opinion. It produces a Discriminatory Environment for individuals within the targeted marginalized groups, and can easily become a case of Incitement to violence. Both of which, I might add, are conditions that are not covered under Freedom of Speech.

We can look at it this way, if need be. A random person muttering “theater” to himself in a crowded fire isn’t likely to get much attention. But if we put someone front and center for the whole conflagration with a megaphone in their hands so that they can shout, “Theater,” everyone in that inferno is going to be singing, “Let’s All Go To the Lobby” in no time at all. It’s a matter of magnitude and amplification. It’s the scale that makes all the difference, and that one person can overwhelm the voices of hundreds or even thousands of people shouting in unison.

Some would surely insist that, regardless of how loud and how far-reaching, those are still just words. Some will insist that words can’t be violence, that only physical violence is violence. To those people who need to better understand that there are more forms of violence than the fist, the bullet, and the bomb, I’ve already spent some time exploring the topic here. For everyone else (including those who require further simplification), I can only hope this next bit sinks in.

You’re already most of the way to the finish line if you’re capable of recognizing that threatening, insulting, humiliating, and intimidating behavior within the framework of a relationship (romantic, parental, or other) constitutes abuse. That is acknowledgment that words can be (and are) violent when the conditions are appropriate. Even if you, for some reason, don’t think Emotional or Psychological Abuse qualifies as violence, the legal system definitely does treat Coercive Control as a crime in more than a dozen states. And for marginalized people, bigotry has always been a form of Coercive Control, at the societal level.

I want you to step back, set aside your preconceived notions for just a moment, and perform a little thought experiment with me. We’ll make these examples personal because some people require that someone they personally care about be impacted before they can rationalize these things. I don’t even want to begin unpacking what that says about them.

If you have a daughter or a sister, I want you to ask yourself something. What message does it convey when so many people openly insist that Hillary Clinton (or any other woman) shouldn’t be President because women are too emotional? Especially in light of how emotionally unstable Donald Trump has proven himself to be on several occasions, what does that say about your perspective regarding the women in your life? When public figures plastered social media, television, and other public forums with claims that Kamala Harris only achieved anything she’s accomplished because she slept with people to get to the top, what message does that pass along to your daughters, sisters, and other women in your life? These aren’t things you’d say about male candidates. This isn’t to say I’m particularly fond of Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris, but to pretend that either of them was somehow less qualified to serve as President than Donald Trump is something that requires far more imagination than I’m capable of mustering.

Assuming you know any Black people, how do you think it feels for them (throughout their whole lives) to have people vocally expressing the opinion that any successful Black person only achieved their success at the expense of a more qualified white person? First, it was Affirmative Action, then it was Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policies, that explained how they enrolled in college, rose up the corporate ladder, and established themselves in their careers. Unless we’re talking about specific athletic fields, particular musical genres (god forbid a Black man or woman encroaches on the sacrosanct Country Music genre), or a couple of other isolated career paths, there’s no way for people to avoid having their accomplishments denigrated and dismissed as handouts. As a white man, I can guarantee I’ve heard that kind of talk from people my whole damn life: from random imbeciles, radio and television personalities, podcasters, public speakers, and politicians (right up to Donald J. Trump, himself).

This idiocy was never clearer than when Barack Obama was elected President. His devout Christianity has been called into question from before he was nominated to the present. His sexual orientation was questioned (by people who somehow still believe that certain sexual orientations diminish someone’s value), and prolific Conservative voices spread rumors of him trading homosexual favors for drugs while he was in college. His status as an American was a topic of debate at the highest levels of Conservative Politics, despite being categorically absurd and based on nothing more than the petty machinations of the man who is currently sitting in the White House. Obama’s birth certificate was a matter of public record in 2008, as was the birth announcement in a Hawaiian newspaper. Yet Donald Trump continued questioning Obama’s place of birth for several years. Of course, none of that matters at all because Obama’s mother was an American citizen, born in Kansas, as were both of her parents. He could have been born on the lunar surface, and he’d have still been an American citizen, because his mother was a native-born American. Even the color of the suit he wore was a point of contention. And, to make all of this more absurd, people took it seriously. Imagine, for just a moment, how it had to feel for a Black child to see and hear these ridiculous lies and accusations parroted wherever they looked, knowing that it was only happening because a Black man dared to become President. What’s worse is that it wasn’t even exclusively the Conservatives, because he had to fight against his own party in Congress far more than any other President in my lifetime.

Of course, it didn’t end with Barack, because Michelle was repeatedly denigrated. She was repeatedly accused of being a man (by people who believe accusing someone of being Transgender is the best insult ever). Her platform, as the First Lady, to provide our kids with healthier meals in school, was derided, but when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. proposed something similar, it was praised as an example of his brilliance. Their daughters were mocked and derided over their appearances, their intellectual capabilities, and anything else pundits could throw at them on national television. Of course, they did the same awful shit to Chelsea Clinton, so it tracks that they’d be doubly harsh when it was a couple of Black girls in their sights.

This is the environment America has cultivated for marginalized people of all kinds. I may have focused solely on women and Black people in these examples, but the systemic hostility and disenfranchisement have been impacting Indigenous people, Latin Americans, members of the LGBTQ+ community, Muslims, and virtually anyone else you can think of who isn’t a cisgender, straight, white Christian for longer than I’ve been alive. And being a Christian isn’t even that important, judging by how far people can suspend disbelief where it concerns Donald Trump’s performative Christianity.

This is abusive. The way America has treated marginalized people has been categorically abusive. It’s not a Democrat vs. Republican thing because both parties have played their parts in the systemic oppression and cruelty. But there’s no group more firmly caught up in maintaining an abusive, White Supremacist hegemony than Conservatives today.

It needs to stop.

The Nazi Narratives Helping Conservatives Sleep At Night

/ MeltdownMessiah / 1 Comment

Conservatives sure do have a knack for claiming (accurate) accusations of Nazi parallels in their policies are hyperbolic while distorting historical facts to make (flimsy) accusations of Nazi comparisons with their opponents. What’s truly impressive is that they also do an excellent job of turning an aggressively blind eye to blatant Nazi corollaries.

The Weimar Republic, before 1933, was exceptionally progressive in many ways, even by today’s standards. Germany had been a global example of what we would consider LGBTQ+ inclusion. It was where, in the 1920s, the first Transgender magazine was published, and where some of the world’s first medical transitions were performed. These, and other factors, led to Berlin becoming a beacon for the global LGBTQ+ community.

All of that changed as Nazi control spread and ultimately dominated the political realm in Germany. Suddenly, Transgender women’s gender identities were denied, and they were treated as men acting out some perverse impulse or displaying some manner of mental illness. Additionally, homosexuality was treated as a crime, and the punishments were frequently more severe for those who engaged in what was categorized (at the time) as transvestitism.

While there were distinct differences in how Gay and Transgender people of persecuted ethnic/cultural groups were treated when compared to Gay and Transgender Aryans, there remained an overarching atmosphere of suppression and repression throughout the regions where the Nazis assumed control. Gay men and Transgender women were met with bigotry, intolerance, and hostility (regardless of Aryan status). But those who fit the narrow, White Nationalist aesthetic were often afforded certain leeway, as long as they kept their indiscretions quiet and hidden.

This, of course, did not mean that they were safe. There was ample State-Sanctioned hostility and violence directed toward those marginalized groups, and in particular, those who remained open about who they were by engaging in relationships or gathering in public. And, while Aryan Gays and Transgender people weren’t immediately sent to Concentration Camps, the imprisonment they experienced was far from humane, and the legal rights they were afforded often seemed more performative and conditional than legitimate.

The Nazi State’s assessment of Transgender individuals was neatly summed up in 1938 with the following sentiment: “Their asocial mindset, which is often paired with criminal activity, justifies draconian measures by the state.”

This was a massive departure from the previous German Government, which had allowed Transgender people to legally change their names, form their own organizations, and even receive gender-affirming medical treatments. Those changes came quickly. In 1933, Officials in Hamburg passed along the following dictate: “Police officials are requested to observe the transvestites, in particular, and as required to send them to concentration camps.”

Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science was quickly dismantled, and Hirschfeld himself was sent into hiding. And that was emblematic of those times for anyone who was part of what we recognize as being LGBTQ+ today. They were forced to hide who they were or face State-Sanctioned persecution.

Naturally, now that an ostensibly Transgender person perpetrated a school shooting, there’s talk at the highest levels of American Government of restricting access to firearms for individuals who don’t identify as the gender they were assigned at birth. Never mind that the vast majority of these crimes are committed by straight, white, cisgender males.

Of course, any time Democrats seriously propose firearm legislation (which never involves disarming gun owners), disingenuous Conservatives start claiming any efforts tangentially related to gun control are evidence that “The Left” is behaving like Nazis, who they insist had disarmed the German population before taking over. But as is true every time we hear Conservatives talking about the past, their arguments are ahistorical at best.

They’re right in saying that the Nazi Party implemented rigid gun control measures, but where they’re entirely incorrect is that the gun control was selective and that there were established regulations already in place.

Following WWI, the Weimar Republic had originally attempted to ban firearms altogether, in large part to comply with the Treaty of Versailles. But that legislation had been both massively unpopular and poorly enforced, and those restrictions had been relaxed by 1928, when permitting and registration took the place of the attempted ban.

But by 1935, the Nazis had largely succeeded in using those registration records in an effort to remove from (and restrict firearms for) Jewish people and members of opposing political parties. Of course, this only included the guns that had been registered, and there were many (purchased both before and since WWI) that had never been. Regardless of this, even if every citizen in Germany had been a proud gun owner, there would have been no chance of standing up against the might of the State by the time the Nazis seized control.

By 1938, the Nazi Party relaxed or outright removed firearms restrictions for Party Members, Government Workers, and those with Hunting Permits. Of course, all of those people had one thing in common, in that they were not the kinds of people the Nazis were targeting. In fact, they went so far as to outlaw the ownership of any weapons by Jewish people (and not just firearms). They were already systematically raiding the homes and businesses of Jews and Political Opponents, confiscating weapons from those people.

The Nazis utilized existing firearm registration records in Hungary, Poland, and France as a means of strategically confiscating guns from undesirables as they advanced into those nations as well.

It should perhaps come as no surprise that the Nazi Party wasn’t particularly fond of homeless people. Like Gay and Transgender individuals, homeless people were branded as “asocial,” and were afforded the same lack of liberty as others branded as such. The Nazi solution to homelessness went into effect almost immediately, and in 1933, the mass arrests started. This process was accelerated as the 1936 Berlin Olympics approached, because the Nazis wanted to present a clean facade for the visitors from other nations.

Soon enough, it wasn’t just homeless people, but anyone unemployed or begging, prostitutes, as well as drug addicts. Anyone deemed to be unsavory in the public eye was summarily rounded up. Persecution, sterilization, and one-way trips to Concentration Camps awaited anyone unfortunate enough to fall outside of the strict social norms imposed by the Nazi Party.

To maintain that social order, armed and uniformed political and military forces patrolled the streets wherever the Nazis were in control, not only in the territory taken through conflict, but in the cities of Germany as well. These police actions served to intimidate the population, suppress political opposition, and all but eradicate civil unrest of any kind. I suspect it’s unsurprising that Party Leadership was thrilled to proclaim the low crime rates they’d achieved.

It took until 1935 for the Nuremberg Laws to go into effect, at which point all Jewish and Roma people were stripped of their German citizenship. Before Kristallnacht, the Nazis focused on the forced deportation of Jewish people, but by 1941, those avenues of escape were officially blocked. The Roma people were classified as enemies of the State and treated as criminals as soon as the Nuremberg Laws went into effect.

If this doesn’t sound familiar to you, then you haven’t been paying attention. And if it sounds familiar, and you agree with any of it, maybe you should just accept that you might have been a Nazi as well. My recommendation is that you own it. Wear that title proudly, because they certainly did. Plus, as a bonus, it will make it easier to round you up when the next iteration of the Nuremberg Trials comes about.

You may notice that, aside from some pretty awful policies the Liberals have employed regarding homeless people, and the abhorrent treatment of Indigenous people, none of these things run parallel to any Liberal Administration within our lifetimes. I suppose it makes sense that members of the KKK and NeoNazi groups have been showing up at rallies for Conservative Candidates, because they’re not thrown out of those gatherings.

Transgender Transference…and Why You Should Know Better

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

Several aspects of the anti-trans stance are deeply upsetting and demonstrably harmful, while being based on a misunderstanding of biology, psychology, and sociology. I take exception with many of them, but perhaps what bothers me most in anti-trans arguments is when people bring up the fear of predatory men taking advantage of transgender access to their gender-appropriate restrooms. What they’re talking about in these scenarios isn’t even a transgender issue.

None of what they’re expressing a fear of is at all the responsibility of the transgender people in question. The people they’re talking about are predatory men taking advantage of social and legal systems to prey on the vulnerable. How do the people expressing these fears not recognize that they’re not describing a fear of trans-feminine people, but of cis-male rapists? It’s a poorly constructed argument in the first place, but it becomes even more so when we take a moment to think about what’s actually being protested.

But for a moment, let’s take the argument at face value and pretend that it is transgender people who are the basis for this fear. We’re going to make believe that they’re describing actual transgender people, because I would love to know why they aren’t equally vocal about protesting several other things that are certainly more common.

Do these same people want to bar individuals from becoming clergy, or to keep their children from attending church services, because there are so many documented members of the clergy who similarly take advantage of the social and legal structures in place to prey on vulnerable people? It’s a well-documented problem in the Catholic Church, where billions of dollars have been paid out in settlements to thousands of victims, in America alone. They might respond by telling us that they’re not Catholic, so it’s not relevant to them. Well, there were hundreds of Southern Baptist clergy, church leaders, and volunteers who faced accusations of sexual misconduct in just the last few decades. Tens of millions of dollars have been paid out to victims of sexual abuse within the Lutheran Church as well. Tens of thousands of victims all around the globe have come forward within the Jehovah’s Witnesses as well, though most get ignored within the church because of the “Two Witness Rule” in place. The same is true for essentially every other religious organization in the world. Yet I don’t hear the same vocal anti-clergy arguments to protect children who might venture into a church. Even as the Department of Justice insists that Priests can’t be compelled to violate the sanctity of confession to report people who are abusing children, there’s no swell of populist cries of injustice.

Where are the people demanding that no one be allowed to become a Scout Master? All the way back in 1994, nearly 2,000 child molesters were documented within the Boy Scouts. These were retrieved from files maintained by the organization itself. Why are these individuals who have used that organization’s hierarchy to prey on children not considered a threat? Is it perhaps because these are all boys who are being molested? If that’s the case, I sincerely question the morality of anyone taking that stance. But, that’s okay, there are documented instances of Girl Scouts being sexually assaulted as well.

What about all of the documented instances of law enforcement being caught up in child pornography and sexual assault cases? Where’s the outrage concerning those predators? There’s a fairly horrific study from 2022, delving into 669 cases of police sexual violence. Of course, being that it’s law enforcement perpetrating these crimes, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever have a suitable estimate of just how frequent those infractions are. Where are the demands that people be barred from pursuing careers in law enforcement because some people have taken advantage of those positions of authority?

According to the National Institutes of Health, transgender people are no more likely than the general population to commit acts of sexual violence; they may actually be less likely to do so. However, they are more likely than cisgender people to be VICTIMS of sexual assault.

So, if any of this is about protecting children, there should be far more coherent arguments leveled against those aforementioned occupational transgressions than against transgender people. Being allowed to live their lives and exist in the spaces that are comfortable and appropriate for them isn’t hurting anyone, and there has never been a shred of evidence that it has. But, again, the men sneaking into women’s restrooms aren’t transgender in the first place. They’re, as usual, cis-male predators who are exploiting whatever structures they can to prey on those they choose to prey on.

By that standard, should we be persecuting police because a man dressed as a police officer committed political assassinations in Minnesota just a short while ago? It’s precisely the same logic, and just as flawed.

But, assuming the worst, let’s say that transfeminine predators are hoping to use public restrooms as hunting grounds. They are a small fraction of a percentage of an already small percentage of the population. Even the most liberal estimates indicate a maximum of about 1% of the U.S. population identifies as transgender, and not all of them are transfemme. So, we’d be looking at a fraction of a single percent of the U.S. population that identifies as transfeminine, and then a fraction of that fraction that might also be inclined to perform acts of sexual violence. Statistically, you’re far more likely to have a cis-female predator in the same restroom.

Seriously, all one needs to do is think for a second before they let their biases and prejudices make them sound like more of a fool than they already do. Transgender men and women are not inherently predatory, violent, or perverse. We need to stop marginalizing them further.

This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances by Eric LaRocca, Narrated by Andre Santana, Natalie Naudus, Michael Crouch, & Steven Crossley

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

It seems appropriate that the first title I’m reviewing in June of 2024 is a title by a recently prolific and extremely talented LGBTQ+ author. This Skin Was Once Mine: and Other Disturbances is a collection of four unconnected stories that nevertheless work well together because of the common themes of relationships, secrets, and revelations that emerge as the tales are told. The title, also the title of the first of the stories, is emblematic of Eric LaRocca’s work, substantially longer than one expects a title to be, but so thoroughly captivating that it’s impossible to ignore.

In the titular tale, we are introduced to Jillian Finch, who returns to her childhood home following her father’s death, only to discover that many of the things she thought she knew about her family and her former life are not quite how she recalls them. As hideous secrets are revealed to us, her traumatized psychology shifts her focus to things that are seemingly trivial by comparison. As she reflexively ignores the horrible things she endured and survived, we witness the residual effects of childhood trauma and the devastating ripples they have.

The next story in this collection, Seedling, also deals with grief and mourning, as a son returns home to an emotionally distant father when his mother passes away. He discovers the wounds we carry with us, passed down from generation to generation, as hurt is revisited. And even as he and his father come to understand one another better than they ever have, it seems that the seeds germinating early in life have grown into cancerous wounds that might be impossible to heal.

All the Parts of You That Won’t Easily Burn introduces Enoch Leadbetter as he attempts to find the perfect knife to satisfy his husband’s needs for an upcoming dinner party. Instead, he finds a secret and shameful obsession that consumes him, as he loses touch with who and what he was with startling consequences.

In the final story, Prickle, we meet two elderly gentlemen as they come together for the first time in a long while. Worried that time may be limited, they play a cruel, sadistic game they once enjoyed. But as the challenges grow increasingly perverse, we’re forced to witness a shocking loss of humanity and decency.

Each of these stories is spectacularly well-written and deeply immersive, which is truly the most insidious aspect of LaRocca’s storytelling. They remain with you long after you’ve stepped away, and you’re forced to move forward, knowing that there’s no sense in worrying about the innocence you lost along the way. Like the snake shedding its skin, there’s no reason to look back or to think, “This skin was once mine.”

The narrations provided by Natalie Naudus, Andre Santana Michael Crouch, and Steven Crossley were spot-on. The perfect narrator was selected for each story, in my opinion. They made the tales feel more authentic and poignant. I don’t know how long it took to choose who would narrate the individual stories, but if it was a drawn-out process, it was worth every second of deliberation.

https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/this-skin-was-once-mine-and-other-disturbances/755321

https://www.audible.com/pd/This-Skin-Was-Once-Mine-Audiobook/B0CVJDMZK9?action_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp

The Substrate Of My Beliefs

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

I like to think that most of my decisions in politics and life are informed by defensible positions and beliefs.

I believe that LGBTQ people are, first and foremost, well…people. I believe that the love between two people is fundamentally no different, regardless of the sexual organs and gender expression. I’m not always great with using the right words, but I also grew up when referring to friends as “gay” as a term of endearment was commonplace. I still try to get things right, most of the time.
I believe that there is literally mountains of scientific and sociological data supporting the argument that gender is a sociological construct that varies dramatically from culture to culture and that the biological/chromosomal nature of “sex” is nowhere near the binary thing a lot of people cling to out of stubborn resistance to waking up and embracing new knowledge that transforms our earlier assumptions. I like the use of binary in those terms, though…because 1 and 0 could be seen as phallic and vaginal, respectively.
I believe that Black People and other minority groups are arrested, incarcerated, and killed at an improportionate rate because of a series of systems that are geared for inequity and inequality. In other words, I do believe that systemic racism is a very real, life threatening issue in America.
I believe that women are no less capable and valuable within our society, and that there are numerous hurdles and double-standards in place that make things more challenging for women than for men in almost every arena that matters.
I disagree with regime-changing conflicts that aren’t specifically and intentionally for the purpose of mitigating actual human suffering and torture.
I believe that we already spend altogether too much on military and defense, and that we could easily scale things back and do a better job of repairing failing infrastructure at home.
I believe that, aside from the indigenous people, every single person here in America is here because of immigration over less than a thousand years…and that we don’t get to simply say, “no more immigrants,” because they aren’t the right color of skin or believers in the right form of superstition. Most of our ancestors came here with little to nothing, but the dream of a different life. There have always been a small number of bad people who slip through, but the majority of immigrants all along have simply been people who want better for themselves and their loved ones.

I have plenty of other beliefs that are more debatable and more a matter of my personal outlook on things…but the ones I laid out here are the core of what I base my judgments upon.

As to my less concrete beliefs and influencing perspectives:

My views on climate change (I do believe we have had a negative impact that we can–and should–work to remedy) are open to disagreement. I’m no fucking climate scientist, but I’m inclined to trust those who are.

My pro-choice perspective is one based on the fact that it is not up to me to impose my own morality onto others or to have them impose their morality onto me. Additionally, the thought experiment is a solid one. If a fertility clinic were about to explode and I could either save a five-year-old child or a tank containing hundreds of viable, frozen, embryos…I would choose the child 10 times out of 10…unless they were particularly annoying. That, to me, showcases a very real distinction between which is a child and which is not.

I believe healthcare is a right and that no one should go bankrupt or have their lives destroyed because of the skyrocketing costs of healthcare in America.

That list could go on and on…but I would change those assumptions if I were supplied with logically consistent, rational, and well-informed arguments to the contrary.
The ones in the main post…those aren’t going to be changing.