The Phantom Menace
Two types of people typically read these. Both groups could be labeled somewhere on the liberal to progressive spectrum. Occasionally, someone else might stumble in here and this is really more meant for them than the regular readers. I honestly don’t know what to call myself. Some people might say liberal. Others might say progressive. There might be others that go with leftist. The rest would say none of those things. Simply put, none of us quite fit the orthodoxy completely for any of those terms. We might be out of lockstep with the base on an isolated issue or two. Then again, the whole point is that labels have ruined our politics.
At the heart of it all is a battle over the term “woke”. Wikipedia says it means “an adjective from African-American vernacular English meaning alert to racial prejudice and discrimination.” However, it is probably the expansion of this to women, other ethnic minorities, and the LGTBQ+ community that has flummoxed people on every side of the ideological divide. In short, it is one thing to support and dignify individuals born into groups that they can’t control. It is another to support and bolster individuals that may or may not choose a group they were not necessarily born into.
When I was coming of age back in the 1980s, it was explained to me back then what it meant to be gay or lesbian. We also had bisexuals at the time, but transgender was not really a thing. Crossdressing certainly was. Obviously it was all a thing but some people were still forced to live in the closet. The debate back then was whether it was an inherited trait or whether it was a learned trait. It seems we have not quite gotten past this point.
Half Empty’s piece got me thinking. In particular, the part where the government official asks why they wanted to celebrate a pedophile. The official was speaking of Harvey Milk. Who or what someone is attracted to really isn’t a choice. The decision to act on said attraction is a choice. Gay and lesbian people are attracted to men and women. Pedophiles are attracted to children. Most pedophiles publicly identify as heterosexual. Certainly, if we look to our politics we will notice that the rates of sexual abusers is higher in the Republican party than in the Democratic party.
Ultimately, we can argue about whether any of these conditions are learned or natural. On top of that, one can choose to accept or not accept someone’s lifestyle choice if it is indeed a choice. A Wikipedia study showed that 7.1 percent of the population identify somewhere on the LGTBQ+ spectrum. An estimated 0.6% identify as transgender. Naturally, that jives with everything I have said. What is interesting is that when MAGA people have been polled on this point they seem to think that 20 percent of the population is transgender. Thus, we get to the heart of the matter. It is ignorance. If I believe that one in five people are transgender when that wasn’t true before then I also believe that something must be causing people to become transgender (or gay, lesbian, or bisexual).
Yet, when we look at the obvious facts on the demographics, we see the demographics absolutely have not changed. Two things immediately become true. First, no one is trying to convert people to be something they are not and even if there were, no one could convert you to be something that you are not. Secondly, this is yet another situation where proportionality gets the best of us. We are told about all of these people doing this or that and they are mere phantoms. They are figments of our imagination. So, we can choose to accept the seven percent or not. What we can’t do is treat them as any less of a human being than what anyone else is. One can tolerate anyone and still not agree with their choices. That has not changed and never should change. So, I say let them fight over pronouns, skunky beer, and chicken sandwiches all they want. The rest of us can live our lives and be the best humans we can possibly be.
And yet a presidential campaign is being run on these false narratives. Even sadder, people believe him, support him, send him money and will vote for him. Maybe he’ll be the #1 candidate in his party with the current #1 indicted in two cases and maybe more. Sad state of our politics.
1Nick, If you were to extrapolate the actual very small numbers [0.6%, 7%] of the minority groups that you cite, out to match what the MAGAots truly believe are the ‘actual’ numbers [20%, ?%], you have around 800% of the total population itself. Clearly an impossibility.
2So there is not now, nor ever, any point in engaging with them.
It’s a total waste of time and effort.
It’s impossible to break through the decades of RWNJ propaganda insanity that they have made into their very core being.
This is all very true, but I think the narrative on that end is breaking through the veneer. Ultimately, you have people at either extreme ready to do battle and then people caught in between that just don’t know what all the fuss is about. The trouble here is that if enough pressure is applied to them from the wrong sources then they could vote with the “anti-woke” block and thus vote against their interests.
I have long argued here and other places that we are dealing in tiny percentage points. Maybe five percent is in this group of people that are caught in the crossfire of stupidity and intolerance. They can go either way. This five percent controls the soul of America. Both parties are going to garner at least 40-45 percent of the vote depending on whether major third party candidates are running. The remainder is the group that decides which party gets to rule. Think of even the Cruz senatorial election. Swing five percent and Beto O’Rourke is our senator. Naturally, here locally we have the specter of voter suppression and other chicanery that could be fudging those numbers as well.
3Since I am in fact a fat old white guy I could be very well be over simplifying, but it seems like woke (like politically correct before it) basically means “don’t be a jackass.” Still, that doesn’t really help the people who really are jackasses, many of whom get pretty exercised when people call them on it.
4How do you know most pedophiles identify as heterosexual?
I’d love to see the protocol for the study that determined that.
There was a report (which I did not bother to read for reasons that will become apparent) that a survey across several nations found rates of transgenderism of 4% to 18%.
Yeah, right.
Back in he ’60s, a friend pointed out that, in those dear dead days, the homosexual lobby was busily finding evidence that every famous person in history was gay.
(Not being a classicist, he did not know that 1,,00 or 1,600 years ago, Christian lobbyists were discovering that all the great thinkers of the past were really Christians at heart.)
Then, in the ’70s, there was a period when famous figures of the past were discovered to all have been women.
Best to ignore all this nonsense.
5Nick, I agree that a fairly small percentage of folks might be swayed one way or another and decide elections. And as much as I hate the idea of getting into semantics, if we’re gonna talk about influencing the influencable (I mighta just invented a word) we need to admit that some of our own language has been influenced by years of right wing framing.
6Tolerance is a word I’ve used a lot myself over the years.
When I should’ve used the word acceptance.
I now realize that tolerance implies that I have the moral authority to judge someone.
Hell, tolerate’s synonyms are purty instructive.
And if that’s true, the only thing stopping me from acting on any intolerance is personal restraint or the legal system.
Acceptance is just that. Accepting.
None of my business as long as someone isn’t hurting me or someone I care about.
But the right would have everyone believe that accepting is the same as embracing.
Can’t have that.
https://www.thoughtco.com/gibe-jibe-and-jive-1689398.
Sometimes my inner grammar police just has to come out.
7I love that Nick has the words and thoughts to relate ideas that are intelligent, sane, balanced and creative 🙂 sometimes. I enjoy reading his missives on events, politics, news, school, and sometimes even religious happenings.
8As a person that appreciates your well thought out and informative opinions and editorials please no that this in no way is in disagreement with your points as they are well taken.
A friend once told me that 45% of statistics were made up on the spot. This was after I quoted a statistic that I had just read and was passing on the information. I said, “What do you mean, I just read that?” He said that 40% of statistics were made up on the spot. I got it the third time he repeated his statistic facts. They can be weighted, skewed and misrepresented by any and all. But damn don’t they make a good read.
Apologies, I do know the difference between noing something and knowing something…auto correct however doesn’t.
9And forgive my leaving sports out of Nick’s repertoire. I’m sure there are other subjects that he’s written on also that I do like reading. I suffer from CRS and O.L.D.
Thank you for the kind words Cathy. Don’t worry about autocorrect. It happens to all of us. I dabble in statistics quite often but tend to agree that they can muddy the waters a bit. The biggest thing I’ve noticed is that what I looked up verified my experience and obviously proved the musings of those on the right to be way out of whack. It kind of fits a narrative that when one assumes things that are no way close to reality that their general opinion on the matter will also be way off base.
10I’ve always wondered why some people are so worried about how OTHER people are having sex with OTHER people?
If the entertainment doesn’t include you, it’s none of your business. Unless it’s with children, which is totally not cool.
I once told a Born-Again guy that there were five sexual states, and I thought he was going to swallow his tongue.
(Boy-girl, girl-girl, boy-boy, Bisexual, Non-sexual)
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