The New Culture Wars
Understanding hate and where it comes from is paramount. In each case there is of perceived progress, a backlash occurred in polite society. In the 1970s that was a backlash against the sexual and political freedom people were seeking. Women were seeking more rights and the children were experimenting with mind altering drugs. The hatred of this from many was understandable.
Society and civilizations are complex things. Many are still fighting that fight while others have moved on to other lifestyle choices. Certainly, racial discrimination has always been in the background of these cultural wars. However, the local and state governments seem to have found a new bogeyman to fight over. This bogeyman is the specter of transgender kids.
Hatred comes from fear. Yoda taught us that one. So, when we watch Dan Patrick and his merry band of idiots peacock their way around Austin it is instructive to ask what they are afraid of. They clearly hate. No one dehumanizes anyone to that degree without feeling hatred. Why do they hate so much? What has the transgender community done to deserve this?
The answer is fairly simple. It is the same as the drug argument and the whole sexual revolution as well. For people who have a deep belief in God, the idea of questioning God’s creation is the most serious of sins. God doesn’t make mistakes, so how could someone feel as if their sexual identity is a mistake? The question comes down to how we can reconcile what God in fact created. Did God create a man or a woman or did God create a person? Furthermore, if God creates everyone and everyone is created in God’s image then what does that say about God?
These are deep questions that inspire introspection, prayer, and deep thought and reflection. It also presents a conundrum they can’t solve. If someone is a child of God then what does it say about us and our religion when we dehumanize them? Of course, this is something they can’t answer whether it be women, people of color, immigrants, and members of the LGTBQ+ community that they dehumanize.
What we can say is that these draconian methods are meant to do one thing. They are meant to discourage people from seeking their true identities. Somewhere in their small minds there are kids wanting to go in the opposite bathroom or boys that want to throw on a dress and dominate women’s sports. We need to protect them. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen. We need to make sure this unholy practice doesn’t spread. Then comes the question of who exactly we are protecting and who we are hurting.
When you look back on any culture shift you can see people fighting that same fight throughout time. It has been there in the drug war. It was there during the women’s liberation movement. It was there during the civil rights era. If was there during Prohibition. It was there when the abolitionists were trying to free the slaves. Every fight for cultural change and progress has had people on the other side pushing against this change.
The logic always breaks down. The logic is that if we let former boys play girls sports then the floodgates will burst forth with boys playing girls sports as new girls. It isn’t even so much that this flies in the face of common sense. Common sense rarely enters into these discussions. It is the fact that it flies in the face of history.
Each one of these social movements had members of the movement, but the radical nature didn’t spread like wildfire. Sure, there were long-term and pervasive changes to society, but it’s not like LSD was being dropped in every bedroom in America. We didn’t see a sudden rash of gender roles switching and we certainly haven’t seen the kind of radical change to racist attitudes we thought we would see. We saw gradual changes and each movement had a logical end.
We aren’t going to see millions of boys become girls and millions of girls become boys. The UIL and other sports leagues aren’t going to suddenly mix the genders in some kind new age new fangled league of equality. It won’t happen because these things never happen. So, what we get is to solve a problem that never existed and never will exist. We get to dehumanize a few in order to make the majority feel better about themselves. We get to crush the very souls that our benevolent God created. This is the hate that many of us voted for. May God have mercy on our souls.
Except, man invents gods. Do you think you worship the one true god? Do you think you understand what this one true god wants? People aren’t resistant to change because they believe their god opposes it. Their god opposes it because they are resistant to change. People need tribal membership. There are rules about who gets to be a member. Violate those rules, and you are cast out. That is their fear. So, they go along. Don’t rock the boat. And drag your gods along with you.
1Thanks for this, Nick. I have a trans son, and he doesn’t play sports these days but as a girl, he was an excellent athlete. All his energy these days goes into supporting and counseling families of trans kids as they navigate their daily lives. And, under the radar, I can tell you people (and groups) are reaching out for this help in every state of the union, including Texas.
2Also, “Dan Patrick and his merry band of idiots” et. al. are a good reminder that separation of church and state is a goal that is continually under attack. People who want a theocracy in which they, naturally, are effectively priests ruling in the name of God can’t tolerate a “live and let live” perspective.
3“God doesn’t make mistakes”
um, sorry, going to disagree with this statement, using Biblical support. in the OT, Yahweh (God), spends an awful lot of time smiting some of His human (made in His image even) creations. he also urges some of His human creations to, themselves, smite still others of His human creations.
one can argue that this isn’t an admission, by Him, of having made some mistakes in production, and getting rid of them, before they cause real harm to the rest of His creations. but, how else to explain Yahweh’s (God’s) actions? does he not really love all of His creations, as it says in the book, so He’s ok with killing some, out-of-hand, to move the plot along?
alternatively, if He does love all His creations, well, His mistakes are still His creations after all, so He should love them as well, and not want to see them harmed. it is so confusing, the mystery of it all.
the harsh reality is, those books/stories, were originally produced, by the slightly smarter humans, to explain to their nearly pre-verbal peers, how their world came to be, and provide them some hope that it actually had some order, and wasn’t just the seemingly randomly violent place they were stuck in.
4Nick, please send me your address so I can mail you a can of paragraph breaks.
5Eh. Cancel that. For some reason when this page loaded it was all one long strip of text. Now the paragraph breaks showed up. Good to know you can inhale properly.
Didn’t find anything to disagree with, regardless.
6Cpiva and Keith,
Much of that is written from the perspective people like Patrick bring to the conversation. Whether God is a human construct or not is certainly debatable, but the NATURE of God is almost certainly a human construct. Specifically, the Old Testament reflects our understanding of God and not necessarily the nature of God himself/herself. So, the smiting and what not is a way to justify horrific acts or natural events that couldn’t be explained or rationalized.
My point was that even if you buy into the Patrick construct of theology you still have an issue when you belittle and dehumanize one of God’s creations.
7Alan,
Occasionally, paragraph breaks do not show up even though they are inserted on the master page. I went back and fixed it as soon as I saw it.
8And intersecting all of this god-botherer, sexual dumbfuckery, RWNJ, cancel-culture cultist, gun-worshipping whackery is a Moonie [Unification Church] splinter congregation led by one of [now deceased] Rev. Sun Moon’s sons.
AK-15s etc., are an integral part of their rites.
One of Sun Moon’s other sons founded and runs a prominent arms company, Kahr Arms [which also owns other major gun companies, Thompson [machgun] and Magnum Research].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyung_Jin_Moon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_Church
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahr_Arms
These nutcases [below] are far beyond insane, but would seem to be the –ultimate expression– of all our Texass lunacy, from Abbott, Paxton, Patrick, on down to your local ISD boards.
If you should live near their newly acquired HQ, near Thornton, TX, near Waco, I’d be getting a bit worried.
Gun Church That Worships With AR-15s Bought a 40-Acre Compound in Texas for Its ‘Patriots’:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3dp8j/gun-church-that-worships-with-ar-15s-bought-a-40-acre-compound-in-texas-for-its-patriots
“A religious sect known for worshipping with AR-15s and its MAGA politics has purchased a sprawling, 40-acre compound in central Texas, which it hopes will offer a safe-haven for “patriots” from what they believe is an imminent war brought by the “deep state,” VICE News has learned.
The property, located in the small community of Thornton, 40 miles from Waco, was listed at just under $1 million. It’s been dubbed “Liberty Rock” by its new owners, the Sanctuary Church aka Rod of Iron Ministries, led by Pastor Hyung Jin “Sean” Moon. Members of the congregation often refer to him as “King.” …”
Praise da Lawd and pass da ammunition, babee…
9https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/5/27/2032468/-Militant-gun-church-just-bought-a-40-acre-compound-in-Texas-What-could-possibly-go-wrong
10About the argument that boys will transition to play girls sports:
1) Girls sports are historically way underfunded compared with boys sports and they get less publicity and fewer fans than the same sport when played by boys. Why would anyone go through a transition in order to get the inferior equipment and less recognition?
2) Why don’t we hear about how they’re opposed to girls transitioning to boys to play boys sports? The flip side of the argument is never articulated; it’s totally missing from the discussion.
Given 1) and 2) and all the scrutiny over what girls and women can and can’t do with their bodies, I think the answer is simple: these people hate and fear women!
11One way to deal with the “God doesn’t make mistakes” is to agree with them and then introduce the reality of hermaphroditism, namely, human beings born with both male and female sexual organs. These are God’s creatures as well. I have friends whose daughter was born with tissues of both ovaries and gonads. They made the decision, with their physicians, to remove the gonadal tissue and keep the ovaries. God doesn’t make mistakes but God does enjoy keeping humans confused.
12I don’t think it’s about trans kids anymore than it was about gay kids or rock and roll for that matter. The fear is losing your tribal membership. To maintain your membership you need to profess the cultural beliefs of your tribe. A critical step in creating and maintaining a tribe is to decide who ISN’T in. Today’s target is trans kids. Yesterday it was gays. Always it is POC. They don’t hate these groups for any reason other than to prove their fealty to their tribe. Maybe we need offer them membership in less destructive tribes.
13@Malarkey,
I was going to point out that if these “conservatives” truly cared about the “equality” of female sports, they would fund them equally, but they don’t. They just use trans girls as a nice wedge issue to keep their base nice and frothy.
14Thanks Nick!
Conservative political propaganda specialists Fox ‘Hate’ News has been promoting, supporting and encouraging right wing Hate for many, many years and we are now seeing the violent results of a whole generation growing up on right wing ‘Hate’.
Feel the fear …
Liberals will steal your guns and your Bible.
Gays will steal your man/womanhood
Blacks will steal your women and tax money.
Hispanics will steal your jobs.
Muslims will steal your life.
etc. etc. etc.
Bigotry – Fear/hate of anyone who does not look, think, act or believe like you do. Racial, moral, political, social, and religious Bigotry are just some of the many symptoms of this harmful and deadly disease.
It’s a contagious soul sickness who’s core issues can be traced back to one’s unchecked self centered fears of ‘Fear of losing what we have’ and ‘Fear of not getting what we want’.
Cure’s for bigotry are Love, compassion, sympathy, education, right human relations, understanding, and acceptance, etc.
15I’m no longer a religious person (for the last 55+ years), but I do try to do the right things (most of the time, I hope). It makes my skin crawl when politicians like Patrick try to force their religious beliefs into governing. The line between church and state is under attack in many (if not most) red states. (Pence as president would have probably made me crazy)
16I agree with pretty much everything that has been said above. Being different as a human is not part of the repugnantican party, and therefore is discriminated against. And as far as females in sports, let’s face it, they see the proper place is making babies and taking care of the man and his castle. I guess that’s what their god says.
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17This type of thing has always gone on. When I was a girl, I was a tomboy – in elementary school I wanted to play kickball, baseball etc, but we had to be lady like. In high school, they gave occupational tests and “someone” determined I should be a telephone operator. In college, business professors weren’t used to women in class, and the other woman an I were called on in every class – it was a pop quiz for us each class. I became a CPA, but it was hard working my way up, because the men either thought I was just supplementing my husbands pay (divorced, two kids, no child support) or they didn’t like the thought that there are smart women out there. I’m now retired, but it’s always been two steps forward and one back for women my age. Now it’s transgender kids turn, it’s not right but they will overcome the narrow mindedness of the Texas Lege and some of their neighbors. Mainly don’t give up!
18Grandma Ada,
19That’s my life story. I didn’t want to BE a boy, I just wanted to be able to DO all the things boys could do- play sports, take shop class, study physics without being weird. In college physics “recitation” I sat in the back of 24 men, hoping I wouldn’t be noticed in my plaid shirt. As an engineer I was told they hoped if they ever got another woman engineer they hoped she didn’t love her husband so much- like I’d have anything to do with those old toads. I’m retired now too, and pleased to see so many women role models for my granddaughters. Progress is slow, but maybe in the right direction.
Don’t have any religious, social or sprts objections, bit I DO object to the fads that encourage self-mutilation amon preteens.
Try reading “Irreversible Damage” for the woke-free version.
20Seems to me if these people really believed in an infallible god they would accept that god created a trans person and they would support and love this person as they would all god’s creations. Seems to me then these people do not have the courage of their convictions and are using god as an excuse for their own fearful and hateful purposes. Sad. Very, very sad.
21Dan Patrick and his merry band of idiots only care about God as long as God looks like them and gives them status and power. They’re bashing trans people because bashing the rest of the LGBs, etc. has lost its force and they think there are too few trans people to fight back. They need enemies for their culture war because they have no political goals other than remaining in power.
22Like cynical bigots before them, however, they forgot to consider the families and friends of trans people, who will help them fight back.
I’m a cisgender old lady who in her youth made bitchin’ Halloween costumes. When I was eight, I went out trick-or-treating as half man, half woman. Even at eight, I knew the right side was the male, the left the female. I wish I had photos; it was a great costume.
Trans people have enough problems to deal with; Dan Patrick and his ilk should leave them the eff alone to live their lives as they see fit.
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