- You recall DiFi’s insane and impossible encryption bill? Well, the second draft is out and it’s gotten even worse. These loons actually believe if you simply order someone to do the impossible, it must be done.
- Being so right and so wrong at the same time. Yes, it’s getting scary out there. Yes, it’s amazing how fast it’s happening. But no, it’s not caused by the mysterious collapse of Francis Fukuyama-style “liberalism” nor is it because the ordinary processes of civilization are too commonplace and boring.
- Legalization is back on the ballot in Maine.
- Two interesting takes on the transgender bathroom wars: why the wars matter by Heather Wilhelm and why maybe not so much by Nicki Kenyon.
- In news of the weird: The CIA’s venture capital outfit is funding a skin-care product. (H/T MJR)
- In news of the perhaps even weirder: Oblivious couple takes condition white to a ridiculous extreme.
- And speaking of ridiculous extremes: Your houseplants can now have tiny treehouses of their very own.
Oh my gosh! Tiny houseplant tree houses! I LOVE them. Sure wish I was both talented and had the fine motor skills to be able to make such a thing. I have more than 50 houseplants of all kinds and can think of all sorts of marvelous ideas for them… just can’t manipulate tiny things anymore with my fumble fingers. I’m lucky I can still type.
But my youngest son and grandson would likely love this sort of thing. I’m going to send him the link and some pictures of the plants I think might lend themselves to such art. My big Norfolk Island pine tree is likely the best candidate to start with. I think it has enough room in the branches for a small town. 🙂
Hope you’re now feeling better, Claire.
In re. bathrooms, I fully understand the conservative reaction, but I also agree with Nicki, particularly in re. the Libertarian solution. And that works just fine when we’re dealing with private property. Of course, there’s that old joke about “what public property?” But what’s missing here, as in a whole lot of the current discourse on PC issues, is that of simple consideration.
For at least some of us, what the lawgivers decide just doesn’t matter. Nothing at all prevents me from making statically linked versions of my various crypto programs, so that I’ll always have the capabilities I currently have. And there are other ways to accomplish the same functional capability. Anyone who thinks TPTB can prevent this is delusional. I’m now thinking of the PGP code printed on a t-shirt. In the unlikely event that Congress actually passes such a mess, and it gets signed into law, I wonder what the various Linux developers will do. (I hope it’s unlikely, but these days, who knows?)
The tiny treehouses may be rented in San Francisco for $2500 per month with kitchen privileges and on-street parking.
So re-label all the restrooms. Those with urinals are for people (with whichever identity) who have a penis. Those with more toilets are for people with vaginas.
I suppose that’s too simple.
All our houseplants have cemeteries.
There’s a great mondo blog post in me about why I view Liberty as a direction rather than a destination, and why I think there will be rough seas on that journey from where we are now, but that’s for another time.
I find I have to take the position on the bathroom wars that the historical practice should remain unchanged. I can see Nikki’s point that she doesn’t care who is in the next stall, and I don’t, either, but neither of us are representative. Many people are uncomfortable partly or fully disrobing in the presence of the opposite sex, strangers or otherwise, and their preferences are no less important than the preferences of the transgendered. Unfortunately, this is a zero-sum issue. In multi-user bathrooms or showers, accommodating the transgendered means violating the privacy preferences of the other group, and vice versa. Another difficult issue is children. Pace the people who will say that the onus is on parents to guard their children, I can’t do that at school, and adolescents object to being escorted even when they aren’t much less vulnerable. As a parent of teens, I’ll withdraw my objection to boys using my daughter’s locker room when the school posts full-time security there. I have been a teen boy, I would not trust me with that freedom.
This is a messy issue with no simple and elegant solution barring single-user unisex facilities, which I understand the LGBT activists reject. I feel that discretion is probably the better part of valor here, and if change is to come, let it happen in its own time.
I used to hide plastic army men in my mom’s jade plant forest. Never built them a tree fort tho.
The bathroom wars are attempting to accommodate a very small minority at the expense of a much larger majority. I say keep the labels as they are now. If you appear male, or have male plumbing, you may use the men’s room, always waiting for a stall if you do not have male plumbing. If you appear female, or have female plumbing, you may use the ladies room. Yes, there will still be edge cases, but this handles most of them.
[quote] If you appear male, or have male plumbing, you may use the men’s room, always waiting for a stall if you do not have male plumbing. If you appear female, or have female plumbing, you may use the ladies room. [/quote]
This is precisely the approach which HB2 bans. It requires people to use the loo which corresponds to their birth-certificate “sex,” regardless of their presentation. Persons who present as Female, live as Female, sure as hell -look- Female, and perhaps even posses feminine genitals are required to use the Mens Room. Likewise people who present as male, etc etc…required to use the Womens Room.
This section of HB2 is a transparent attempt to accomplish two things:
1: To force transgender individuals to CONFORM, DAMN YOU! and present as their birth sex; failing that:
2: To force transgender individuals to ghettoise themselves where possible and simply never move in daylight where not; failing that:
3: To get as many transgendered individuals as possible assaulted, raped, and murdered.
It is utterly transparent that #3 is the Most Desired Outcome for an awful lot of people; for many it is the entire reason for their support of HB2. They want a license to murder transgenders, throw up a “trans panic defense” and walk away free. I’ve encountered numerous people planning just that (thankfully not in person, and people will say anything online, but the desire is certainly there).
[quote]I have been a teen boy, I would not trust me with that freedom.[/quote]
I love how so much support for this law comes down to “Well gosh-darnit, if it hadn’t been illegal, -I- would have been a sex criminal!”
That’s what this argument is- that absent the law, -you- would have violated the privacy and sexual integrity of other people. Only the law restrained you- not your decency, your morals, or your training in basic manners- only the law. Only main force or the threat thereof. And that, since only force kept -you- from undertaking the sexual violation of others, it must be the case that others are themselves only restrained by force. It’s the same crap line the Hoplophobes peddle; “Nobody should have guns! If I had a gun, I’d have shot my neighbor by now, and I’m a Nice Person! If -I- would shoot my neighbor, so would everyone else! Nobody should have guns!” They project their own lack of self-control and inability to tolerate others onto their neighbors, about whom they know nothing, and go from there.
How about, instead of setting up a system which is designed to get people killed, people take care of their own business and leave everyone else to theirs. Teach your kids to defend themselves, even if it’s just by screaming for help, if needed. Teach your kids not to violate other people’s bodies or privacy. If somebody who looks like a lady-type walks into a women’s loo, leave her be until and unless somebody raises a stink. If someone manly-looking walks into the Mens, likewise. How’s anybody going to know one way or another, with the stall doors closed?
…oh, that’s right. HB2 has a $2500 bounty provision. That’s how they’ll know- violent homophobic shitbrains will kill somebody and then expect to be paid for it.
E. Garrett Perry: Lighten up, Francis. You’ve pegged the hyperbole meter and moved into the realm of nightmare fantasy. When you’re ready to converse without screaming, we’ll be here.
E. Garrett Perry – May I respectfully ask, “What does a “lady-type” look like? Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner doesn’t look like any lady I’ve seen. Jenner looks like what he is: a parady of a woman and – depending on what’s been done to him physiologically – he might even be labeled a non-gender at this point. But looking at him does not tell me if he is transgender or transvestite.
I agree with RustyGunner re: the “bathroom thing” (as Nicki Kenyon calls it).
I agree with Nicki as to the freedom and equal respect that every person is entitled to. But it takes no freedom from a transgender to insist that he or she use a bathroom according to their birth sex.
The purpose of insisting on letting transgenders into bathrooms of the converted sex is simply to force others to “tolerate” what they, the transgenders, want to take place. But force – by law or by shame (being labeled prejudiced, e.g.) – should be against any libertarian’s value system. And since when did libertarians succumb to political correctness anyway?
I reject the idea that accepting the Bathroom Thing is libertarian – in principle or in practice – and not accepting it makes one biased, ignorant, or old-fashioned. The safety, privacy, and “conventional wisdom” of a given society is the first consideration. 21st Century America is not a free and safe society – for kids or for adults. “The Probability Broach,” or any free society, does not exist here. (If it did, I would confidently walk into any public bathroom.) And we certainly have no responsibility to transgenders or any group we take issue with, to accept their self-serving demands.
I have an idea… What if all the “public restrooms” were private property? Then the owner of that property would set the rules that worked for him, and his customers could decide whether or not they worked for them and patronize those places.
As for things like government buildings, I’d like to know who is going to stand outside restrooms and check birth certificates, or do strip searches to look at sexual organs… For pity sake, how stupid.
This isn’t about sex (or “gender”) at all. It’s about control. Far too many people have gone completely bonkers trying to control everyone else.
In 70 years I’ve never seen a “transexual” in a rest room… probably because they don’t flaunt it and maintain their privacy as most of us do. I’ve never seen anyone assault someone else in a restroom either. I’m sure it happens somewhere on occasion, but the intended victim (or their guardian) has full responsibility for their own safety. No “law” is ever going to change that.
We used to mind our own business a lot better than seems to be the case today. Wouldn’t that be a much better policy overall?
Hear, hear, but the personal is the political.