Comment by AnimalMuppet | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AnimalMuppet | Hacker News Reader

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But also, more recently, there are very loud voices labeling everything left of "far right" as "extreme radical leftist".

And, yeah, I'm with your second paragraph. I think much of the country thinks that illegal immigration is a problem, and also thinks that Trump's enforcement of it has been unreasonably brutal and cruel. And a bunch of them think that trans people don't belong on womens' sports teams and that kids shouldn't transition, and also think that trans people don't deserve to be beaten and killed for being trans. And a bunch of them think that wealth inequality is a real problem, and also are deeply skeptical of the proposed solutions. And so on.

Many people are not really sold on the entirety of either party's platform. Unfortunately, all they get to do is vote every two years. One bit of feedback every two years. So Trump thinks he's got a mandate for everything he wants to do, but what he really has is a vote that the country wasn't happy with the way things were going under Biden.

(Now, true, there are also lots of people who are completely bought in to one side or the other. But since such people tend to be more vocal than the not-really-sold-on-either-side types, it makes it easy to overestimate how many people are zealots.

Re: Illegal immigration - republicans voted against their own reforms.

But also this is insane “both sides…”ing. One side is “Trans people should be able to do xyz” and the other side… deploys troops into American cities? Takes citizens out of their homes and trashes them? Like “We want this transperson to play soccer” vs “We gotta get rid of democrats”.

Be real please.

Where "do xyz" means "gain access to opposite-sex spaces without consent of those for whom these spaces are intended". This is an important issue for women and girls in particular, as female spaces are necessary for privacy, dignity and safety - and in the case of competitive sports (e.g. "play soccer"), fairness.

If we're being real, telling males they can use women's and girls' spaces is very unpopular policy.

Sure I see that. But if you think this issue, which was manufactured (https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/no-link-between-tran..., https://www.thepinknews.com/2018/12/07/anti-trans-group-bath...) and not particularly thought out (you want a dude with a beard walking into the women’s bathrooms instead?) but if you are like “I care so much about this minor social issue that affects basically no one that has been going on for decades with zero incidents that I will turn a blind eye to a military force getting more funding than the NIH to roll around in masks, unmarked and take American citizens without due process and deport them illegally just as the one of many easily shown crimes (even before the gross Epstein stuff) then yeah sorry, you are on the wrong side of this. There is nothing to debate there. Like I don’t like a lot of democrat policies but I dislike authoritarian governments more and it boggles the mind that people equate the two. But then you remember how minority groups have been used forever to give governments the ability to control people through fear and prejudice and it all makes sense again. Pick the weakest group and make them the target. The most banal of playbooks.

Women prisoners have been sexually assaulted, raped and impregnated by males who were transferred in to the female prison estate as a direct result of gender identity policies introduced by Democrats. These are some of the most vulnerable women in society and they've been sacrificed on the altar of authoritatian trans absurdity. They are a minority group that Democrat politicians happily discard and abuse and ignore.

This might just feel a minor social issue to you, but many people - including ones who usually vote Democrat - are looking at outcomes like this and wondering why on earth they should trust this party with anything.

That's not to say the Republicans are any better. There are two wrong sides here.

> Women prisoners have been sexually assaulted, raped and impregnated by males who were transferred in to the female prison estate

Those occurrences are terrible, no doubt about it.

When designing policy, we need to look at both directions: How many trans people get raped because they don't get transferred? So far all the data I have seen indicates that trans people are far more likely to be assaulted than to assault.

It seems to me that we should choose the option that results in the fewest assaults.

The option that results in the fewest incidents of violence is segregation within the male prison estate. Which is already done for protection of vulnerable male prisoners incarcerated there. Pedophiles, ex-cops, gang informants, etc.

Democrat policy that enabled males to voluntarily transfer into women's prisons wasn't driven by analyzing data on male-on-male violence, but from the absurd belief that if a man says he's a woman then he is a woman.

That implementing this belief might have horrendous outcomes for female prisoners wasn't even a consideration. Even though this was pointed out to them many times over, by feminist groups and others. They just did it regardless.

Yep - I think you and I (and a lot of other middle of the road folks) agree generally.

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