Openly mocking trans people, saying their desire to be referred to by pronouns that match their gender is a "woke mind virus" that will "destroy society" (this from a guy who named his child "X Æ A-12" mind you), amplifying the current LGBTQ == pedophile/groomer propaganda push, retweeting conspiracy bullshit about Paul Pelosi's sexuality, blaming him for his own assault while the man was still in the hospital... if these seem middle of the road to you, then perhaps it is the perception you have of your own views that is skewed.
Your delusional insistence that trans people support adults having sexual contact with children is part and parcel of the extremism I'm talking about. One of my oldest childhood friends is a trans man and I have accordingly interacted with many trans individuals. Not a single one has expressed anything but revulsion at that idea, and if you believe that's false then I'm sorry but you're buying into a political narrative whose purpose is to erase people like my friend. And the kicker: you'd seek to make a law forcing my friend to use the women's facilities, and then freak out if you saw them following that law. Because guess what! They look like a man - certainly more traditionally masculine than a few of the pundits pushing these vile narratives that I could name.
Despite your insistence to the contrary, nobody I'd associate with wants anyone to be getting sexual gratification by leering at others in dressing rooms. Because believe it or not, we're good people who don't tolerate sex pests. That has nothing at all to do with gender or sexual orientation and everything to do with not being a shitty person.
Sadly, it's beyond obvious that the right's performative outrage over men in women's dressing rooms never really had anything to do with protecting women, and everything to do with ostracizing trans folks. I'll leave you with a quote from a guy recently welcomed back to Twitter by Musk himself:
"I’ll go backstage before a show, and everyone’s getting dressed and ready and everything else. And you know, no men are anywhere. I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant. And, therefore, I’m inspecting it. I’m inspecting it. I want to make sure everything is good."
He went on, as if he was in the dressing room, "'Is everyone okay?' You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. And you see these incredible looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that."
The procipal bringing dildos and butt plugs for kids to play with literally happened last week. Before you call someone delusional do some basic research.
> It was quite clear from your uninsightful previous comment that you don't give a shit about women's rights, there's no need to further affirm this via such a cringeworthy effort at sarcasm.
I appreciate your gentle feedback on my relationship to women's rights, as well as your your heartfelt stand against bullying. Although I struggle to see how my uninsightful previous comment had anything to do with that topic, I can only assume you've identified something in me to which I've been blinded by my unfortunate grandfathered affection for a living, breathing trans human being.
My tragic lack of self-awareness is perhaps because I personally witnessed years of merciless bullying during our shared childhood in one of the most conservative areas of Texas. You see, when I compare my memory of that poorly fitted kid to the successful, kind, and well-loved person they are today, when I consider their deeply personal, hard-fought struggle towards self-acceptance that I myself witnessed, it is easy to miss just how insidiously they are, in fact, perverting our society to its certain doom. So subtle is this agenda of destruction that one might be forgiven for thinking it doesn't even exist at all.
Going forward I will do my best to defend women's rights by demanding that my friend accept upon h̶i̶m̶s̶e̶l̶f̶ herself the mantle of traditional femininity, no matter what h̶e̶ she may think about that or how cruelly it will be received by the sort of people who tormented h̶i̶m̶ her in our formative years. You've truly made a difference today.
But that's going to be the narrative. The actual reality doesn't matter, just like the endless gloating these days about the so-called "Russia hoax" - where there was a bunch of shady goings-on between the Trump campaign and the RU gov't who was quite explicit in their desire to work with and assist his campaign. But because it didn't achieve the nigh-impossible feat of a successful impeachment vote by his own party, they act as if the whole thing was a ridiculous put-on when in fact they'd be frothing at the mouth if it was Joe Biden and the CCP.
Narrative is the only thing that matters, especially to these folks, and unfortunately that's why our society is fucked. Because they are definitely going to win that battle. They're already claiming that Biden, as a private citizen, was an agent of the "deep state" violating the 1st amendment with his shadowy cabal and it's just going to go downhill from here.
This started with the 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' and it hasn't stopped since because it wasn't smacked down hard. Smear campaigns work, the question is if you let them or not and the US seems to firmly believe that smear campaigns (and lots of money) are legal means of achieving political dominance.
> They're already claiming that Biden, as a private citizen, was an agent of the "deep state" violating the 1st amendment with his shadowy cabal and it's just going to go downhill from here.
I certainly didn't claim that and I have thousands of comments on HN under my real name that you can verify that with. I'd appreciate it if you didn't group me in with whatever "folks" you think I'm affiliated with. For context, the twitter thread said both political parties made requests to remove tweets and ban accounts that were acted upon. And in my own comment I made no reference to specific political parties. Nor am I registered or affiliated with either one.
That's because you're a right wing troll, no? You're exactly the target demographic Musk is rolling out the red carpet for, so it stands to reason you're having a great time with it. This clearly doesn't refute the OP though.
Will certainly be interesting to see if there are enough of y'all willing to shell out $8/mo to have your speech boosted above the free variety to make up for the lost ad spend of the Pinochet-helicopter-meme-adverse.
I am an independent libertarian that strongly believes in free expression, beyond the idea that only governments can censor people.
>>speech boosted above the free variety to make up for the lost ad spend
I think the reduced ad spend is temporary and in some ways unrelated to Musk whom they have used as an excuse to virtue signal for something they were already going to do in the first place
Also I think the plans are to expand twitters revenue model beyond Blue and ads so it will be more interesting what Elon plans to expand twitter into
You quite literally stated that Political Twitter was isolated to "Extreme left authoritarian political opinions" prior to Musk's takeover. Which is of course both demonstratively false and a ridiculous claim on its face.
If anything, the person responding to you gave you the benefit of the doubt, presuming you may have meant that views outside the "extreme authoritarian left" were systematically de-emphasized by the recommendation algorithm. Which is also false but at least not a mindbogglingly stupid thing to actually believe.
Someone interested in an actual discussion might have taken the opportunity to clarify their initial statement. But abrasiveness and the "read what I meant, not what I wrote" approach also works I guess.
