Megan McArdle, the lone sane non-grifter at the Washington Post, joining the effort to save the Democrats from going completely insane while commenting on that ridiculous Senate farce.
In even tones, Bridges replied that while many cisgender women have the capacity for pregnancy, many don’t, while some trans men and nonbinary people do. But after a little back-and-forth, she gave up. “So, I want to recognize that your line of questioning is transphobic,” she said with an exasperated laugh, “and it opens up trans people to violence.”
Do better!
Why, then, did so many articles and tweets cheer the way she “SHUT DOWN” Hawley?
Because there is one place that snickering, eye-rolling and so forth are very effective: within an insular group, where they help delineate the lines of acceptable belief. A sufficiently incredulous “Are you suggesting … ?” effectively signals a silent corollary: “… because if you are, we’ll shun you.” It tells people that this topic is not up for discussion.
Within progressive institutions, “that’s transphobic” is another such signal, and it works … within progressive institutions. In fact, it works too well; it leaves them unprepared to argue with outsiders.
McArdle argues that lefty cancel culture also creates an artificial echo chamber that creates a false sense of numerical superiority while leaving them unready to debate.
They were, however, a fearfully silent majority, which meant Thomas’s supporters never had to come up with good arguments. Instead, many of my questions got essentially the same answer as the one Bridges ultimately gave to Hawley: Even asking the question is transphobic and dangerous. Within a narrow set of media and academic circles, this was a devastatingly effective tactic that made it impossible for opponents to organize an effective response. Outside those circles, however, it failed utterly
Gorbachev was no doubt surprised to find that most Russians didn’t want to be Communists.
Cancel culture is a prop for emotionally weak and intellectually lazy minds. It helps maintain the manufactured consensus that what was once a crazy position is now the view of the majority. Meanwhile the only way lefties seem to be able to win arguments is to silence the opposition. Gorby could have told them how that would work out.
Frank Anderson says
Debate is merely another word for negotiation. There are several basic rules and requirements for any negotiation to start. They can be found in many great and inexpensive books on the subject; six of which I bought and read 43 years ago. What is the point of debating fools who have no understanding of the science involved in the discussion? What is the point of debating liars who create their own facts out of thin air? What is the point of debating when there is nothing to compromise? Like negotiating with Iran over its commitment to having and using nuclear weapons to bring back the 12th Imam, debate with “woke” counterparts is a futile waste of time, energy and intellect. The only purposes served are to line the pockets of the debaters and give time for the enemy to slit out throats. Watch the opening 20 or 30 minutes of the movie 1776 to see one illustrative example.
CogitoErgoSum says
Questioning whether men can become pregnant opens up trans people to violence? She means that it may cause trans people to commit violence upon themselves by committing suicide. Threating suicide if another person does not do what you want is emotional blackmail. Suicide is also the result of mental illness and people who are in danger of committing suicide need more help than just doing whatever they say. In fact, giving in to people who make threats of suicide only encourages them to make more threats or to even try suicide (with the hope that they will fail but gain more sympathy for themselves). If they do succeed at suicide they will have taken the easy way out. Staying sane in an insane world that rewards insanity is definitely no easy job.
libertyORdeath says
I think you make a good point about our opponents. We cannot really advance if we don’t realize what is underpinning their positions. In this case that is mental illness, indoctrination and cultism. There is no hope for true debate with the mentally ill, the indoctrinated, or the members of the leftist cult.
No major issue today is debated by leftists using facts, evidence or logic. You can’t debate with someone who believes that men can be women or get pregnant. You can’t debate someone who believes the world is going to end due to “climate change”. You can’t debate someone who thinks traditional American values are comparable to fascism. You can’t debate someone who thinks that murdering babies is a better option than abstaining from unprotected sex. I guess you could, but we’ve already seen how pointless it is.
But if you start to realize that you are dealing with either the mentally ill, the brainwashed, or members of a cult, then I think we might be able to make progress. If we keep treating this like their outlandish positions are worthy of serious debate between logical adults then we have already fallen into the trap. No more debating the obvious…the time has come to FIGHT!
Infidel says
Actually, the suicide rate is high among trannies, but not for the reasons that Khiara Bridges insinuated. It’s b’cos after being tricked into going through irreversable surgeries, the trannies who regret their move and wanna go back to being what they are find that route cut off, since nobody was allowed to warn them of the consequences, and in despair, they end up taking their own lives. It’s not so much b’cos of their inability to get pregnant as a “trans-woman”, as much as the realization that they will never become a complete _____ (the opposite gender) to what they were at birth
I know the CDC has been hijacked, but can some medical organization of whatever residual reputation there is, explain to the public that every cell in the human body has those sex chromosome pairings – XX or XY. As a result, it’s impossible to completely change for the simple reason that no amount of surgery can replace every cell in one’s body w/o killing the person
somehistory says
I listened to Josh Hawley question the idiot. She didn’t ‘crush’ him or even come close. She didn’t ‘humiliate’ him and she certainly didn’t win the argument.
If two people are discussing something one of them does not wish to discuss, and says, “I’m not going to talk about this any more,” they have lost the argument.
for a “person” to get pregnant, they must have the proper equipment. One can’t fly to the moon by flapping their arms, even if their arms are flabby with “wings of skin’ hanging. if a “person” becomes pregnant, that one has the equipment that makes pregnancy possible and men just are not equipped.
The entire “cis” thing is garbage. they’ve gotten away with all of this stupid word-balderdash and it just keeps on getting worse. But, they didn’t like it when the anti-abortionist said the ten year old didn’t have one because her life was at risk. all heck broke loose when she made the claim that it was not the *a* word. they can dish it, but they can’t take it and there is much garbage they leave that needs to be cleaned up.
Sen Hawley made his case.
Infidel says
The entire “trans” things is garbage. The “cis” thing is what we all are by default in nature, if left alone i.e. our sex/genders do not change, no matter how much we try & mutilate it
somehistory says
I’ve lived a long time, and until the last year or two, had never heard or read of “cis” gender. and when I began to hear it, the word was said with such disgust, I thought it was made up by some perverted group intent on making normal people feel insulted and to influence the young.
Kepha says
Aaaaahhhhh! The Party of SCIENCE!!! (hush, hush, genuflect). They now deny elementary biology.
Kepha says
As an old guy, I admit that I once thought an era could not get more ridiculous and foolish than the Silly ‘Sixties and Sillier ‘Seventies.
Keith O says
No Kepha, they are denying the truth.
These nut jobs are using the old Goebbels principle, whereby if you tell a lie often enough and with enough voracity, it will become the truth.
In the case of lefties, they just babble what the voices tell them to and heaven help anyone who points out that they are wrong.
Infidel says
It has never failed to amaze me how the left regards Meteorology – a science heavily weighed by probabilities and some 43 parameters to make it a highly random and unpredictable science – as an exact science, but somehow regards biology as being as subjective as literature
Keith O says
HAHAHAHAH
That has got to be the best analogy I have heard in a long time.
Thanks for that little gem.
Hoi Polloi says
That is a good one. I’m often amazed at the amount of anti-science drivel on daily weather presentations.
gregbeetham says
I suspect we are in this mess because we are too indulgent, many of the examples I see seem to have the emotional responses of children so we have to ask ourselves how these people got into an adult body with the mind of a child? The world has to be run by adults not children.
Keith O says
Adults like the ones in the white house?
gregbeetham says
I think that is more like elder abuse, hmmm although in the case of the VP I think my comment stands up quite well.
somehistory says
No real training and discipline. and I’m not meaning with stick or a spoon, but with words and by example…in morality, ethics, “do unto others,” learn common decency and common sense.
Many parents took the easy road…let the kid do as they wanted because it was easier than making them sit down and listen and then do as they were instructed, or they didn’t get movies, television, comics, etc. It was easier just to let them go and raise themselves. when they got into trouble, it was a “bad crowd.” without ever asking ‘how did this bad crowd come to be’? Drinking and having affairs and lying…taught the kids that morals and ethics are up to each person and no one can decide another person’s “truth.” there’s no Universal Truth for them.
that recent shooting by the police, where the guy was running from the cops, shots were fired out of the car window, he bailed and ran, while reaching for his waistband…he had left his weapon in the car, but probably forgot that as his adrenaline was pumping.
His family can’t stop talking about what a great guy he was.
and the thug in ferguson years ago, fighting the officer for his gun, described as a “gentle giant,”…a.k.a. good guy. Just two of the wonderful people held up for America to see their “heroes.” Like pelosi ‘praying’ to g floyd…the drug-user, thug who fought the police to his detriment…murals to his memory…
None of the families want to admit they raised bad guys. with one exception in the recent news; a woman killed her three-year old and the child’s grandmother, mother of the murderer said, “She’s a monster. I raised a monster.”
Kids learn most by example. Bad examples produce bad results.
gregbeetham says
I think the impetus for this indulgence probably came from inadequacy, much of which you outlined, parents not adequately up to the task and a dim realization that bringing up children with the values that we were brought up with renders them at a disadvantage in the dog eat dog world we designed mostly by accident rather than by design.
But where does this leave us now in this day and age? We have demanding entitled adults with the emotional/intellectual responses of children getting into positions where they are well out of their depth while blaming everyone else for their own shortcomings, and it appears to be socially institutionalized by bad educational standards.
I read a short SF story once where it proposed that one day the sane people will be locked up for their protection and all the nutters will be roaming free because there will be so many of them.
somehistory says
There is a Proverb that says when ‘the bad rule, the righteous suffer.”
the logs are so far down stream, whoever tries to stop them, gets run over. Everything has an end…it’s just taking a long time for us to see it.
And, yes, when people don’t know how to do something, they can make a big mess of. trying And raising kids is one of the most difficult jobs on planet Earth. No two kids are the same, even in a family. Many people are ill-equipped to deal with the complexities. and they allow such ones as greta thunburg to set the standard…applauding her criticisms when she is an inept child.
Inept children raising inept children and making them feel as if they are the present Edison or Einstein.
And it does seem as if there are more of the insane than sane people. Every day, I read where another parent has either left their kid in a hot car to die, or they deliberately murder the kid(s). I spend my days stressed to the maximum.
tgusa says
The left has already begun flinging poo at any leftist that steps even one inch outside the leftist cult of hyper insanity. Any leftist debate should have an apology time period after every topic debated. Leftist debaters get one minute to state their position, one minute to respond to that position and 10 minutes to apologize for any transgression, real or perceived, it really doesn’t matter. One thing that really bugs me regarding the left is, they are all so boring. Sitting in the audience you may find yourself contemplating suicide as an escape route.
Infidel says
I’m hoping they all do that: they are really now an insufferable cult, and give muslims stiff competition for the stupidest ideology on this planet
tgusa says
I’m hoping too. Insufferable. You are right on target there.
Rick Cox says
Reminds me of that MTV video Land of Confusion.