Trump cheats at golf - the ONE and ONLY politics thread

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Yes. But I'm not sure I'd had to have in order to have the opinion I do.

It's postmodernism - to which the full embrace of transgenderism firmly adheres - that argues that I'd had to have had a personal experience in order to have some validity in my thinking. This comes, IMO, from a pretty good place - the place we reject a kind of disembodied modernist "authority" that is aloof from and judgmental toward the wide expanse of real human experience - but, generally, the conceit goes too far. Your first question, really, is do you know what the hell you're talking about? but you view that prism of in order for you know to what you're talking you'd had to have experienced this, or talked with someone who has, otherwise it's inauthentic. And, being the irritating Christian I am, I generally reject this thinking, the triumph of personal experience. I understand that you may find that arrogant and impolite, but there you have it. It doesn't mean I'd treat a transgendered person with a lack of grace, because I don't. A table is for eating and drinking, not trying to figure out every mystery in the cosmos. My table's wide open, unless, you know, you don't eat food.

And I freely co-opt the confusion I'd attribute to the transgendered child. As a Christian, the shit I understand about me pales in comparison to what God does. I stand comfortably in confusion because it's often a state I comfortably inhabit. (To argue otherwise is I dunno, not true, but, on top of that, just kind of not humble.)

This is a variation of the first question with the additional push of do you realize what an asshole you're being, considering the trauma you're hypothetically willing to induce? To which I respond: Whether anyone - me, you, Jimmy, Sue - is causing offense or trauma (a code word for what typically amounts to frustration, sadness and confusion, a code word used to put the person potentially suffering this trauma in a kind of protected state) may or may not be the most important thing in a given matter. It's possible - and quite often true - that hurting a person's feelings can be avoided while also addressing legitimate concerns about one's identity, but it also gives a kind of emotional tyranny to the most aggreived in a given situation. A 27-year-old, 5-foot-5 anorexic, for example, could absolutely insist on being overweight at 91 pounds, and there could be considerable trauma associated to firmly saying it wasn't true. There could be additional trauma in committing such a person to the hospital and putting them on a IV. The question becomes, of course: Is the value of not feeling that trauma outweigh said person's life, or the emotions of any other person potentially affected?

A similar question can be posed in the transgendered child conversation. First of all, if we're just assuming trauma based on even broaching the idea of confusion, that's interesting; if such a basic question triggers trauma - the real thing, not just the postmodern fashioning of it for debate purposes - well then I would wonder: Is there something bigger at play here than a person's gender identity? Is there a (modernist term coming) instability in the person that suggest we perhaps shouldn't grant said aggrieved transgendered child full intellectual and moral clearance?

These are additional trauma questions, but I want to add: Your certitude on science boils down to...what? My understanding of transgendered science boils down to brains looking a little a different but there being zero certainty on whether nature or nurture - that is, years of habitual practice - shaped said brain. Neuroscience, in and of itself can be tough to pin down, but even in this field, there's little clarity. For example:

The Science of Transgender

"Trying to identify causes, whether they be genetic, hormonal, or something else entirely, those studies are underway," says Olson. "The question is, what contributes to the formation of gender identity? It's really complex."

One study cited is:

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-01-transgender-kids-gender-identity.html

For example, one of the implicit measures, based on the commonly used Implicit Association Test (IAT), assessed the speed with which they associated gender—male and female—with descriptors related to the concepts of "me" and "not me." The test is based on the theory that people are faster to respond to pairings that are more strongly associated in memory. The IAT has been used in many studies to investigate implicit attitudes related to various attributes, including gender and race, and brief versions of the IAT that use pictures instead of words have been validated for use with children.

As fascinating as an Implicit Association Test might be with children who were being fully supported in their gender journey, it is, nevertheless, grounding explosive research in something called an Implicit Association Test.

There are equally in-depth studies -- though less is at stake socially -- on the anorexic brain. Because our culture doesn't hold up extreme weight, high or low, the way we do a full exploration of gender identity, the research does not come with built in with a hope for a desired conclusion.

Beyond that, even if we concede the brain is different, the gender is...what the gender is. So we then have to ask whether this identification is inapt and, well, worthy of therapy, or, because we exalt sexuality in our culture, that it has to be upheld as valid - and stamped into our culture as a moral, acommodated right - despite sexual organs to the contrary.

I'm pretty confident none of that moves you much from where you're at, which is fine by me. It's fine, too, if you label me cruel, hurtful and a whole host of other things. I mean, as a Christian, the things that I think are "true" - if I merely say some of them out loud - it's going to hurt some people. It doesn't matter how lovingly I say it things like "if you don't accept Jesus as the only way to an eternal life, I believe you're condemned to eternal death." Some will exist in a state of hurt based on that alone.

For those people, there's a guy like Rob Bell, and "Love Wins." Rob has made many people feel better about themselves temporally at what I believe is the expense of their souls, but, of course, Rob would disagree that he's full of shit.

Beyond all that, I just think it's very, very unwise to make federal government mandates based on perceived concerns over accumulated trauma in local school districts because you are inevitably going to get what has already happened, which is local districts that had been handling these matters just fine being told to do a certain thing.

I'll end with this: I'm not sure true Christianity is the culprit here. It gets a big part of the rap, but the question becomes: Is that because the faith synced up so cozily with modernism, or because it's fundamentally so cold? The one advantage Christianity has over a lot of things is: It asks you to die to self-identity and put on a lifelong concern and love for others. You're more than the gender sorting hat, in other words.

I'd posit there is a great existential danger is prioritizing sexual identity in children for the sake of better feelings. It interests me not, that university doctors made good use of their degrees at the expense of studying said children.

 

You're not a true conservative. You support Trump.

Your true conservative friends are fantasizing about stopping Trump with a third party candidate and throwing the election to the House.

 

True conservatives don't pass terrible, bloated budgets.

 

That's an incredibly stupid reading of what I wrote. Can't say I'm surprised.

 

It is an accurate reading of what you posted. You don't like it and can't properly refute it, so you attack the poster. It's okay, tony. We are all used to your lack of integrity on such matters.

 

#OOPBot

 

Knocks out Reagan then, right?

 

I didn't say good, bloated budgets!

 

Trump on Warren: 'You mean Pocahontas?'

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is not reining in his attacks against Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

When New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd asked Trump if “he had been chided by any Republicans” for his Twitter war with the Democratic senator, the presumptive nominee said, “You mean Pocahontas?”

Trump on Warren: 'You mean Pocahontas?'

 

YF to the rescue! I thought of saying you should have the sense to leave tony to sink on his own just as many of the board Democrats do with Baron and Starman, but then I remembered who I was dealing with and realized the inherent flaw in that suggestion. So I'll just wish you a nice night.

 

She's really getting desperate. All of a sudden, Bill's going to be in charge of revitalizing the economy?

If he's going to be so involved (two for the price of one), then we really can't pretend that his history of sexual assault and harassment isn't relevant, can we?

 

You pay enough hookers, the economy starts to roll. Simple math, dude.