Sociopolitical Post: On Bathroom Bills

[browngirl]

Or, to put it much more accurately:

The real issues behind this attack on Transgender rights by Sasha Fox.

"The conversation about this has been mostly centered around bathrooms. This is done for two reasons; One, it makes the issue seem smaller and less significant; people can wave it off and say “Just use the bathroom somewhere else” or “Just use the bathroom that doesn’t correspond with your gender identity” making it seem like it’s a big kerfuffle over a minor issue. Two, it allows them to establish a rule saying that transgender people are not the gender we identify as, without having to explicitly say it." This article cogently explains why this push has been revived, who benefits from it, and how broadly this stands to affect everyone's freedom.

With thanks to cmcmck for the link.

Comments

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Well, those tactics have won them control of the federal government, and a lot of state houses. They pay no price for it; and it lets them, as Rove reputedly said, "make their own reality".

And it's like, in rural, poor areas, nothing is going to happen to help the working class. The Republicans sure aren't going to do anything; and the Democrats have this problem with reality - they talk about it, with, you know, facts, and stuff - so they can't get up in front of a crowd and say "we'll bring back coal jobs! We'll bring back steel jobs! We'll build this big beautiful wall and make another sovereign nation pay for it because, hey, I'm a blowhard and a bullshitter, and you poor suckers will eat up whatever I say!"

So the Republicans keep saying that the Democrats are stealing people's bread, and the Republicans keep providing their circus, and unless they get badly hurt for it (in the electoral sense), they'll keep doing it.

Really, it's not much different from defending a murderer or rapist who you know is guilty - you know that what you're doing isn't "good" in some fundamental sense, but, you know, you're working the system. And part of the system (both in the courtroom and in electoral politics) is telling the right sort of lies to make your side look good, while hoping that the finders of fact (be they jurors or voters) don't see through the crap.

(The above is a bit more cynical than my usual. I do think that an individual Republican who believes s/he - hah, let's be honest, 85-95% "he" - has good ideas has every right to fight a hard political campaign. And yes, that includes seizing on false information that will help you. But there are lines to cross. I feel the Republicans crossed those lines, erased them and drew new ones, crossed those, painted a big red line, and said "but this one, this one, we won't... oh, sorry," crossed that and then drew one more with "here be dragons. And disaster. Hell, maybe even nuclear war" and tried to draw a line around it, then said "fuck it" and obliterated the ground on which it had been drawn. )

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

I do feel that it takes a special kind of person to be a good lawyer... and I understand the need for a lawyer to push back against all of the evidence. Dusty used to point out that a lot of times, even when the facts aren't in dispute, the case is ("yeah, I shot him, but it was self defense!").

I feel that the attitude that lets a person push back against the tearful testimony of a five year old, and to try to convince the jury that children make mistakes and are easily manipulated (a serious question that really does need to be examined) is also the attitude that, unchecked, leads to really ugly manipulation of the truth (like deliberately trying to push the emotions of the child in a way that the a defense psychologist suggests will work).

And I think that's how it is in political campaigns today. Taken in isolation, it was right to bring up Clinton's use of an e-mail server her family already had set up as a question of judgment, even though it was a made-up nothingburger. And there was a time when it would have been appropriate to check the legal ramifications, and kick up a fuss about how she's being investigated for improper use of classified information. But to continue to push the possibility of criminal charges, including by prosecutors, who knew it was a nothingburger, is what went far, far past the line.

So, it's like, sure, the e-mail server was a reasonable thing to do - it's not good, and it's bad for our nation when trivialities determine an election, but "see, I know Clinton's innocent, but I'll make a better President" is the kind of attitude a politician needs to succeed. And pushing an advantage you've got is reasonable even if untruthful, because elections are rarely, if ever, decided "fairly".

But it's not in isolation. There's a long, concentrated effort to vilify not just one opponent, but all opponents.

That's bad but eventually, the need for ever-continuing "scandals" means the need for ever more ridiculous trivialities. Eventually, they've been pushing the ridiculous lies to the point that they can't back away and confess they've been lying, *and* people are starting to believe them.

Really, this may, and I hope it will, someday be a lesson taught in civics classes. "So, in the early 90s, when it was no longer a winning strategy to say you're helping the rich so they'll create more jobs, the Republicans started lying about their opponents. Eventually, they manufactured so many crises based on lies that they collapsed, horribly and utterly."

Long story short: I don't think all of them are taking lies to heart over the truth - but they're in one of those situations, like, running on a treadmill that's going too fast, you have to keep running and praying you get a chance to get off before it flings you back.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Yes. If you don't want to slip up, you have to kind-of lock your thinking into the pattern, to the point that it takes conscious, careful, effort to unwind.

But more: it's been twenty five years of this. People who were born when this started are now 25 years old. People who were 18 when this started are in their 40s - presumably the time a politician who started in local elections in their 20s are moving to the national stage. For some people, this isn't a tactic that was surprisingly effective during the Clinton years... it's How Life Is.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Getting off on a tangent here, but ...

One of the reasons to vigorously defend someone you know is guilty of murder is to make sure that the police have played by the rules in gathering their evidence and arresting the person they believe is guilty. The outcome of this process is hopefully that the police don't harass, arrest, and search the houses and belongings of innocent people who are just minding their own business. Sometimes the police make innocent mistakes. Sometimes the police go overboard in trying to nail someone who they think is a dirtbag who should be in jail. And sometimes somebody just manages to piss off the wrong person and attract negative attention from a corrupt law officer or from an entire department.

Because of that, everyone deserves a vigorous and effective criminal defense. It's part of the premise that "Better a thousand guilty people go free than one innocent person is wrongfully jailed."

Hell, even confessions can be complete BS. False confessions are often extracted via rubber hose, or under threat of avoiding the death penalty. Based on such a confession, it's possible to "know" that someone is incontrovertibly guilty of murder. (Example: Brendan Dassey from Making a Murderer)

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Confessions don't even have to be extracted by rubber hoses or waterboarding (which was common previously - "the water treatment" was the euphemism used). Keep a person awake and scared and hungry long enough, and tell them, "come on, tell us you did it and you can go home," and a person might feel so doomed that they go ahead and do it, especially with the cops saying stuff like "this is your last chance to make a deal - you don't want them sticking a needle in your arm and poisoning you to death, do you?"

(NB: cops can't make a deal. Period. Any time a cop says anything about a deal, the proper response is "okay, yeah, get me a lawyer to negotiate that deal.")

But yes: the state should be tasked with having to prove each element of the case, with someone casting doubt at every step of the way, and all reasonable doubts should be highlighted, not for the protection of vicious murderers and rapists and such, but for the protection of everyone.