US Political Discussion: Biden/Harris Edition (Rules in OP)

[USMarine75]

- Desantis won re-election with 59.4% of the vote in a “purple” state. What he is doing must be resonating with a lot of people.
-Background checks are mandatory in Florida to purchase a firearm from an FFL. There is not a single FFL dealer that will let you walk out without the ATF form
- Desantis is not pro-life. He thinks it’s ok to kill babies younger than 15 weeks

I just used background checks as my example. And I wasn't referring to only Florida. There is popular support for gun regulation en masse nationwide - background checks, close gun show loophole, limiting mag capacity, mandatory waiting periods, etc.

Also, I couldn't find current favorability polling for Ron as a governor, but as a presidential candidate his numbers tanked. He is wildly unfavorable amongst Republicans nationwide even now. He's currently averaging -14.7 (49.4 unfavorable / 34.7 favorable).

(And FWIW, FL has several bills up for vote that would repeal most of those gun laws that were enacted since the MSD HS and Orlando shootings.)

 

[TheBlackBard]

- Desantis won re-election with 59.4% of the vote in a “purple” state. What he is doing must be resonating with a lot of people.
-Background checks are mandatory in Florida to purchase a firearm from an FFL. There is not a single FFL dealer that will let you walk out without the ATF form
- Desantis is not pro-life. He thinks it’s ok to kill babies younger than 15 weeks

You're not pro-life either, you're pro-birth.

 

[brector]

- Desantis is not pro-life. He thinks it’s ok to kill babies younger than 15 weeks

You spelled fetus wrong

 

[zappatton2]

I know this was a couple pages back, but as someone born in a Catholic household in '76, I'd like to counter this message. No doubt some people did fine without information. But a lot did not. A lot made bad choices, a lot didn't understand concepts around consent, concepts around sexual safety, and a lot of people my age live with some lifelong regrets. Some with serious health issues. All of which could have been avoided with decent access to information and better public sexual education at a young age.

The sex info thing is another thing altogether. You grew up with the internet and social media. Most of my generation did not and we did just fine without it. There are other ways to get info. The positive side of this is that children will not have access to pornography.

 

[Drew]

I know this was a couple pages back, but as someone born in a Catholic household in '76, I'd like to counter this message. No doubt some people did fine without information. But a lot did not. A lot made bad choices, a lot didn't understand concepts around consent, concepts around sexual safety, and a lot of people my age live with some lifelong regrets. Some with serious health issues. All of which could have been avoided with decent access to information and better public sexual education at a young age.

I mean, to state the obvious, at some point decision makers somewhere decided kids would be better off with sex ed than without it, so we made it part of the curriculum.

And, in response, teen birth rates fell.

 

[Xaios]

And, in response, teen birth rates fell.

This angered conservative men, who could now only pop their monocles instead of their boners.

 

[TedEH]

Lots of conservatives / republicans already have declared sex-ed to be harmful.

Kinda following this theme, I had a family member come by today, and while he was here, he somehow got onto the subject of the "woke" and "unscientific" things his kids are learning in school. His comment was that schools should be teaching useful things like how to do taxes, instead of - as he put it - that it's immoral to put sex on birth certificates because they can be grow up to be cats if they want to. He refused to accept that this isn't literally what's happening. He cited this as a reason that he supports Poilievre (a vocally anti-trans conservative member of parliament, for those who don't speak Canadian), despite this being exactly the kind of guy who would do things like ban sex-ed or block porn. He's explicitly said that he plans on doing so (the porn ban), and has said implicitly the sex-ed ban part ("schools [should] stick to teaching math, reading and writing. The basics. Isn't that what schools are supposed to be teaching anyway?")

A lot of people are very susceptible to this kind of messaging. It "sounds reasonable" to say things like we should trust parents to take care of this, and it "sounds reasonable" to protect children from "indoctrination" - but what you're left with is someone who, in his 30s, does not, himself, understand the concepts being taught in grade school sex-ed and refuses to accept social sciences, being now given the complete responsibility for making sure his little girls understand the nuances of these subjects, while he completely buys the stories that schools are trying to deliberately promote and convert kids into being gay and trans. And he's ready and willing to vote on this basis, despite claiming that it's not the reason he's voting that way (he's not politically informed enough to have any other meaningful motivation - he just says "the economy" without being able to elaborate).

So I don't know how we can say that nobody is trying deliberately to take deliberately take sex and gender information away from kids, or that there's no real-world consequences to this.

 

[narad]

So I don't know how we can say that nobody is trying deliberately to take deliberately take sex and gender information away from kids, or that there's no real-world consequences to this.

No one is trying to say that nobody is deliberately trying to stop kids from learning about sex. The question is really whether there are real-world consequences when they have to do so through a system that doesn't cater to the whims of such people. Even if such a bill was in regard to state school board policy, that's reasonable -- there's a lot of power for a small number of of people to dictate what is taught in schools at the state level. Totally different thing talking about internet access outside of a government system.

Remember when Florida passed a bill making pedophilia punishable by death, and then immediately tried to pass a bill classifying trans people as pedophiles?

There's always the "innocent" step you just can't argue with, followed by the malicious use case. If this were somewhere more moderate I can see the debate, but not Florida in 2024 unless you're deliberately ignoring their past actions.

Well and how many trans people were arrested as pedophiles and put to death under that law?

And I'm pretty comfortable laying money on the fact that Florida is now going to try to do exactly what everyone in this thread is telling you they will, immediately decide that sex ed IS within the purview of this law. Are you still comfortable taking the bet you'd offered?

Yes -- I am wagering $1000 that young people (13-14) in Florida will continue to have access to websites, such as wikipedia, which contain basic sexual education content, and content regarding what is/is not abuse. That is the bet, i.e., vs. things change from where they are now, and children do not have access to such resources.

 

[TheBlackBard]

I'd sincerely hope that people wouldn't forget that their ultimate goal rarely happens overnight. It's step by step. It's the fact that these people are actively TRYING to get trans people killed, TRYING to limit information and even if they don't succeed now, it's the little steps they're taking that still matter, and a lot of these "little" steps are blatant moves, and they don't even give a shit about the branding of it anymore. Maybe step out of Japan once in awhile and recover some perspective.

 

[TedEH]

I continue to believe that it "doesn't matter" right up until it matters a whole lot. There are always potential consequences to setting up the groundwork for when conditions change. "Maybe it won't work" isn't a very reassuring reason to dismiss the attempt.

 

[narad]

It's America. There's always going to be some people filled with hate trying to push hateful agendas. So some random neo nazi runs for president. Yea, we don't care. It's not going to happen. "It's not going to happen, until it happens" is an argument that can be applied to anything, that makes us consider any unrealistic outcome. I will put up real money that this is much ado about nothing, mainly because this sort of extreme reactionary far leftist thought is exactly the thinking that makes the left look silly and then polarizes the more reasonable conservatives further to their right. You want to move the country back towards some form of civil discussion on common ground? You can't sample that common ground from the tiniest fraction of likely outcomes.

It doesn't make it a good bill! But you can't follow things out to extremely unrealistic outcomes of the bill, and then say that these directly follow, i.e., that this bill's purpose is these things, when the bills stated purpose is exactly what the right wants to begin with. And again, if you think this is not an unrealistic outcome, I say we hit up one of those third party betting websites. I'm pretty confident in my perspective.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

So some random neo nazi runs for president. Yea, we don't care. It's not going to happen.

Eh, ten years ago this would probably have been a better point.

 

[TheBlackBard]

Eh, ten years ago this would probably have been a better point.

Beat me to it.

You know, I wonder what other situations in history were fine until they weren't...

 

[narad]

You know, I wonder what other situations in history were fine until they weren't...

Literally all of them. Which is why it's not a good argument.

 

[TedEH]

I don't imagine I'll be able to change anyone's minds about it, but I don't think it's an extreme take or an unrealistic outcome at all. Like it's not even subtext, it's just the text. We're in an era of politics where conservatives just say outright that they want things like theocracy and the removal of sex-ed and banning porn and killing minorities they disagree with - and people are still voting for them because the populist and anti-woke rhetoric works wonders. I think it's a mistake to not believe them when they say it out loud.

 

[narad]

Well I mean, you might not think it's an unrealistic outcome, but where's your conviction to wager on it? I don't know who you're talking about with these examples, but have a look at the appeals court ruling on DeSantis's last attempt at attacking left views, which is already narrower in scope than what you're currently suggesting could happen.

 

[TheBlackBard]

Literally all of them. Which is why it's not a good argument.

That's not the argument you think it is. As a matter of fact, all of those situations are exactly why we should be taking these attempts at these laws seriously. I mean, you don't have to, you're in Japan, so you don't have to give a fuck really. Meanwhile, the rest of us are over here trying to have some empathy and care. Keep saying, "it won't happen." I'm sure that's what a lot of other people said before they got led to a gas chamber.

 

[narad]

That's not the argument you think it is. As a matter of fact, all of those situations are exactly why we should be taking these attempts at these laws seriously. I mean, you don't have to, you're in Japan, so you don't have to give a fuck really. Meanwhile, the rest of us are over here trying to have some empathy and care. Keep saying, "it won't happen." I'm sure that's what a lot of other people said before they got led to a gas chamber.

And we got the full holocaust reference -- that's a bingo for me!

 

[TheBlackBard]

And we got the full holocaust reference -- that's a bingo for me!

You're a fucking dick, you know that? Go fuck yourself, you non-empathetic asshole. As long as you get to make your little quips and treat human rights with flippancy it's all sunshine and rainbows to you. So yeah, fuck yourself.

 

[narad]

You're a fucking dick, you know that? Go fuck yourself, you non-empathetic asshole. As long as you get to make your little quips and treat human rights with flippancy it's all sunshine and rainbows to you. So yeah, fuck yourself.

The thought that this has anything to do with empathy or that somehow being in Japan is important to this argument is stupid. Half the people you're siding with aren't in your country, and more to the point, aren't even American. Did you think about that? Or did it slip your mind because you agree with them?

You again miss that this isn't even about human rights. No one is defending the bill. It is simply a matter of what the larger political process encompasses and what the bill actually changes. And this behavior on your part is exactly the type of irrational overreaction that the right rallies against. So you know, good job giving them an enemy that is as easy for them to pile up on as it is for the left to people who behave like glades or drewh.