CAPTAIN'S BLOG
We Hope To Live Long Enough To See Our Heros DieSo I got into an argument with my favourite teacher from my second stint in college a few weeks ago. Among other things, his main point seems to be that trans people are being excessively authoritative by demanding that our rights be respected. They also think TERF is a slur. Hilarious! It's all pretty self explanatory, and his logical inconsistencies are demonstrated quite well I think. Let me know what you think. To view these pictures in an Imgur album, click here.
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An Ex-Conservative's Take On The Invalid Rational and Logical Basis of Modern Conservatism3/19/2017 In a word: Modern American Conservatism is garbage. It is an embarrassment to the political process, constantly betrays the principles it is thought to uphold, is fueled by ignorance, isolationism, paranoia, the worst parts of religion, and willful ignorance. I say this having grown up as a young Conservative in a relatively Conservative household. I appreciate some of the basic facts of Conservatism - an efficient government, a government generally uninvolved in the day to day lives of the people, and an economic system based upon Capitalism and a free market. The values espoused by those who claim to have read Atlas Shrugged seem flipped on their heads: I see wealthy cronies using their power and social influence to get people to do things that doesn't help anyone but themselves, going for zero-sum games when mutually-beneficial ones exist. My Conservatism died with the invention of fact checking via The Internet. To wit, I reject the notion that Wikipedia is an automatically invalid and biased source, and besides, I check my citations. First, we'll start with the basics. First off, I believe in small government too. A small government does not care which bathroom I use. A small government does not care if a woman has an abortion. A small government does not prevent scientists from reporting their discoveries A small government does not prevent scientific research for moral reasons A small government does not invest more in their military than any other nation. A small government does not care about my gender, or the gender of who I marry. A small government does not imprison people for behaviour like drug use or prostitution. A small government does not care if felons can vote. A small government does not imprison more people than any other nation in the world. A small government does not gerrymander districts. I also believe in an individual's right to be free. The pursuit of happiness. You are not free if you are one missed day of work away from losing your home. You are not free if you are one unplanned pregnancy away from losing your home or job. You are not free if you are unable to get a job because where you live, no one hardly ever sees a person of colour, or a queer person. You are not free if someone's irrational beliefs, religious or not, can curb your rights. You are not free if you are not making a Living Wage. You are not free if you have no time or energy to live your life. You are not free if you struggle to maintain employment because of your brain. You are not free if you struggle to maintain employment. I also believe in an efficiently run, not-wasteful government. It is more efficient and costs less to provide people with publicly funded healthcare. It is more efficient and costs less to provide people with education for free. It is more efficient and costs less to tax progressively - the more you earn, the larger percent you pay. It is more efficient and costs less to spend our money on science and technology than on war and defence. It is more efficient and costs less to reduce our CO2 emissions now rather than later. It is more efficient and costs less to leave LGBTQ people alone. It is more efficient and costs less to not punish drug use. It is more efficient and costs less to rehabilitate than to imprison. It is more efficient and costs less to provide Universal Basic Income than to provide Welfare and Employment Insurance. What Is Conservatism? How is it opposed to Liberalism?I asked my Father, the key conservative in my politically formative years, this question often.
Eventually we came to a foundational dichotomy that made some sense to me: Conservatism is about the preservation of the a culture and state as it currently is. Liberalism is about changing that culture and state to fit some new ideal. Both entail enforcement of some sort of moral principle - either it is morally right to prevent progress at the expense of the oppressed or it is morally right to expedite progress at the expense of the oppressors. A visual representation of these concepts (with much more detail) is available from the great Information Is Beautiful, in their piece "Left Vs Right". The joke when I was younger was that Liberals are wont to impulsively go for all of the things that they want without adequately considering the financial or moral or otherwise unexpected consequences. This has, indeed, become the joke of the Modern Conservative Movement - both in practice, and in their impressive ability to project their own prejudices and biases onto their political opponents with a blindness that takes one's breath away. The idea that Liberals are the ones who have their head in the clouds of dangerously wishful thinking while Conservatives stick to the practical and the "stick to what you know" and "common sense" thinking paradigms became hilarious the moment Trump was elected President - but it's funny for a while before that. He is the master of lying like an 8 year old - the narcissistic ideal of being right, and a grim reminder in how illusory free will can be to the truly malfunctioning. The simple fact of the matter is that we have reached the extent of what common sense can do for us. The very big and the very small and the very interconnected all behave in ways that do not make common sense. We've also been crippled by Conservatism's constant undermining of education - including the very foundations of public education as established by an old fashioned, heavily-capitalist society. Read On for more reflections on the failures of Modern Conservatism. We start with the rather bleak history of Conservatism, from the rejection of Climate Science to the rejection of the American Revolution. As some of you may know, CBS recently changed their rules for transwomen who donated blood.
I've previously been denied access to blood donation because of my trans identity, even though I only had one sexual partner at the time. Because - and despite of - the fact that she was a post-op transfemale, they still considered our relationship "Male on Male" and thus denied me access to donation services, as male on male sex is at high risk for transmission of HIV, and the transfemale population apparently has a higher than average HIV infection rate. These sound legitimate reasons to change the way we handle transwomen who want to donate blood, but certainly not at all in the way that CBS has done lately, which appears to be searching for irrelevant information to care about. Now, transpeople are evaluated based on their surgery status, and are once again placed into "Male on Male" or "Male on Female" boxes based on their sexual organs. This reliance on gendered terms, for one thing, is inherently offensive because it is so misleading. The blood donation community should not be so afraid of asking someone if they receive or give unprotected or protected anal sex, vaginal sex, non-penetrative sex, or whatever. I am not certain of the medical veracity of relying on anal sex to be a predictor of HIV - vaginas transmit HIV at about the same likelihood as assholes do. It doesn't make any sense to have unprotected vaginal sex instead of anal sex in an effort to prevent the transmission of HIV. It also doesn't make sense to differentiate between people who have anal sex and those who don't. I'm also very disappointed that the CBS is sticking with their argument that /because/ transwomen are at high risk for HIV they need to be treated fundamentally differently. We are extremely good at detecting infections in harvested blood, so frankly I just don't think the level of concern is entirely worthwhile. All incoming blood must be screened. All outgoing blood also needs to be screened before it's given to anyone. Maybe we should run tests again once it's been in storage for a bit. Given that we test the blood so often, filtering out large numbers of people who seem like they are at risk but aren't - even if 25% of transwomen in Canada have HIV, 75% do not - seems a little unnecessary. At the very least, if we are to deny or restrict transwomen as a class of people from donating blood, it shouldn't have anything to do with our surgical status. Sexual history is a relevant predictor for people with infections, so denying us based on that is allright - but now we're denying 'some person' from donating blood because of their sexual history, not because of their surgical status. These new rules are an embarrassment to Canadian Blood Services, and to Canadians as a whole. We are proud of our inclusiveness and secular reasoning, and the world has recognized us for our friendliness, understanding, and willingness to accommodate. We also have a pretty badass military history. And ended slavery without a war. And legalized gay marriage without much fuss. Now all we need to do is figure out what to do with transpeople (hint: listen to what we say instead of making decisions for and without us) and marijuana (hint: Legalize it, including unregulated home growing for personal use.) and we'll deserve a little bit more of the respect so many in the world have for us. |
AuthorChristina Hitchens is a trans female writer living in BC, Canada. She loves computers, animals, and a good argument. Archives
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