So I said... #27

I haven’t done one of these since July, not because I shut up and haven’t commented (indeed, that’s about all I’ve contributed even assuming that they were contributions) but because, well I haven’t. Posting them all from then to now made for an absurdly long post and I wanted to cut it to no more than about 10-12 minutes of read time.

So what follows is comments from July 21 to October 9 that seemed at least worthy of mention. Maybe not. We’ll see.

Remember that comments that are responses to different posts are separated by == while those separated by — are a thread. Needed context is in [ ]. In most cases I remembered to note just where my comment was posted and included a link here.

So we start.

2026-07-21
For context, I’m cis, straight, and white.

I confess that the term “queer” still gives me a twitch because I remember too clearly how it served as an all-purpose demeaning slur in the era in which I grew up.

But that’s my shortcoming and despite it I still get hope out of seeing what had been a slur being defanged by being embraced as a joyful cry of self-affirmation.

And, I admit, a smile remembering how folks of my generation did the same thing to the word “freak.” ‘Cause after all, as a ‘60s slogan had it, “Why be normal?”

==

2026-07-30
[An interviewer rejected guest’s they/them pronouns because “I use correct grammar.”]

“Is it disrespectful?” Yes. Because it is knowing and deliberate. Period.

And it is not incorrect grammar, you ignorant bitch. “They” has been used as a singular third-person pronoun since the 14th century. Although it is more commonly used in cases of groups or people of unknown sex/gender, over the past few decades it has become common enough for self-description to be accepted by grammarians - except by benighted tight-ass ones like you.

And your inability to deal with either change or complexity is not their fault.

==

2026-08-06
I was posting a comment on a post when I suddenly realized the date.

August 6.

Hiroshima.

Yes, dammit, it was now 81 years ago. Before, old as I am, I was born. A long time ago. Just history.

Except it’s not. And it can’t be. We can’t let it be.

Because the weapons still exist. There are nine nations that possess a total of over 12,000 nuclear weapons, with five of those nations together having 4,000 of them deployed - that is, locked and loaded, available to be fired.

Over the next decade 2025-2034, the US will spend about $95 billion per year on maintaining and “modernizing” its nuclear arsenal.

The weapons exist. The programs exist. The threat continues.

Remember.

==

2026-08-11
Something for the LGB folks to consider is that the first thing the Heritage Foundation did after SCOTUS said states can discriminate against trans women in sports was to argue that women aren’t made to be competitive and women’s school sports should be abandoned.

Stop being useful idiots.

==

2026-08-19
[The director of a food bank noted that people were reluctant to take as much as they needed.]

“I don’t want to take more than my share.”

The concept of empathy wrapped up in a single sentence.

==

2026-08-26
[Responding to a JKR post]

No one ever said “sex does not exist.” That is simply stupid and either she knows that and is a liar or doesn’t and is an utter fool. (Note this does not prevent her being both.)

What people have said is that your sex does not define you - which, oddly enough, is what the women’s movement used to say until, apparently, its own reactionary elements decided it really does so long as they get the write the definition to benefit their own bigotry.

You are far more defined by your gender - your psychological, your very personal, sense of self, of who you are, ultimately of how you interact with the world and society around you on a day to day, indeed moment to moment, basis - than your sex ever could or will.

Seems to me our friend Louie, although he didn’t use just these words, has nailed it: The problem with transphobes is that, just as it was (and still is) with the anti-gay/lesbian/bi bigots and was (and still is) with the anti-same-sex marriage bigots and was (and still is) with a whole variety of other bigotries, they simply have not matured enough to deal with complexity.

==

2026-09-09
[“What is the end game for the ultra-rich?”]

There is no end game. It’s all a now game, the game of being able to feel powerful, superior, above the masses, just generally better than everyone else; the ability to reflect on your own assumed genius and gaze with serene satisfaction on what “you” built even though that “you” was crammed to the brim with people whose labor you exploited and whose ideas you either bought or stole.

It’s a game of “I’m richer than you so I’m better than you and I’m richer than I was so I’m better than I was” in a world where wealth and income are their only measures of self-worth.

==

2026-09-19
[Sebastian Gorka says “the Muslim god can approve of murder but our Christian god can’t.]

Has this doofus even read his own Bible?

“But leave alive nothing that breathes in the cities of the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. Completely destroy these people: the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded.” (Deuteronomy 20:15-17)

“Our” god cannot only approve murder, he can command it! On a mass scale!

==

2026-09-19
[The American Principles Project warned GOPpers that anti-trans rhetoric “may not be sufficient” to win fall elections.]

The whole thing has been a deliberately created and maintained social panic drawing on our too-common discomfort with anything even tangentially related to sex.

But social panics, even this one despite the conscious attempts to keep it going, eventually burn themselves out and people wind up either pretty much forgetting it even happened (for example, the day care panic) or wondering what the heck all the fuss was about (rock’roll, for example).

Let’s hope that what we’re seeing is the reactionaries’ acknowledgement that we’ve entered the burning out phase.

==

2026-09-24
[Equality PAC, an arm of the Congressional LGBTQ Caucus, endorsed Marcy Kaptur despite her anti-trans rights ads.]

I have the experience of having run for Congress to challenge a generally liberal Democratic incumbent and feeling the sting of seeing them endorsed by a group whose director told me in so many words that I would be their ideal candidate but “political practicality” ruled otherwise.

So I can understand, having dealt with, the political calculation made by Equality PAC.

But in the immortal words of Mr. Spock, “I understand. I do not approve.”

I can’t expect the Dems to disinherit Marcy Kaptur - but I damn well can expect them not to endorse her.

Her comments were a particular disgrace because she not only offered up unhappily common boilerplate about “men in women’s sports,” she went out of her way to emphasize just how anti-trans she is now insisting she is.

Equality PAC piling an endorsement on top of that disgrace makes me extremely glad that at a time of threats to not only trans rights but to all our human rights, including the very existence of our democracy, I do not live in her district and so am not be forced to make the soul-twisting decision to vote for her - which I would have to do, as I joked in a previous equally nauseating case, with my tongue because I’d be covering my eyes with one hand and holding my nose with the other.

The difference here is that I would also have to be well dosed in advance with antacids.

==

2026-09-25
[“If you had to pick one issue to work on, what would it be?”]

I don’t know that I could pick out one - wait, I know I can’t.

So I’ll offer this instead:

Biggest long term threat: global warming aka climate change, with the ever-present threat of nuclear war second. The difference there is if we keep doing what we’re doing with nuclear war - just don’t push the button! - we’ll manage to avoid it but if we keep doing what we’re doing with the climate, we’re screwed.

Biggest short term threat: loss of democracy and related freedoms. I’ve held for some time that there is a flaw in the center of our system, the assumption that everyone will operate on more or less the same rules. I’ve long wondered what would happen if someone just said “The heck with the rules. I’m just going to do what I want. You’ll have to actively stop me.” We still are discovering if we can deal with that.

But if I had to pick one, I would choose the one that resonates the most with me, moves me those most emotionally, if you asked me why I couldn’t tell you, but trusting that others will focus on all the others, that issue would be transgender rights.

==

2026-09-25
[The Ohio Democratic Party suppressed its Pride Caucus’s objections to Marcy Kaptur’s anti-trans ad.]

The questions I have for Marcy Kaptur and the entire Ohio Democratic Party:

When has giving in to a bully ever satisfied them?

Do you really imagine that after abandoning trans folks to the cruelty of the right wing, effectively legitimizing their attacks, the GOPpers won’t attack you on that front anyway?

Do you really think that capitulation shows strength?

Are you really that foolish?

==

2026-09-26
[Re The Orange Overlord’s “Media Offenders” list]

Coming from the generation of the “Enemies List” of the Nixon regime, I can say this is nothing new, but just as is usual for The Orange Overlord, louder and more bellicose.

Nixon was more subtle and more organized - but remember how good that worked out for him in the end and keep on keepin’ on.

==

2026-09-28
[“Would you walk away from smart phones and social media to go back to the 1970s?”]

Yes. Now to be clear, there was a lot to dislike about the ‘70s and there are certainly ways in which today is much better - but the question addressed technology, not the broader question that would involve social, economic, political, etc., factors, and I’m answering it in that understanding.

We as a society seem to have gotten along quite well with the level of technology available in the ‘70s and I would be quite willing to abandon smart phones and social media to also abandon the social poison they have injected into our lives.

==

2026-10-02
The thing we should realize is that people such as [reactionary Xian nationalist preacher Doug] Wilson and the rest want to, need to, feel that they’re persecuted because that tells them they are right there with God and among the “elect” who are on their way to paradise. As a result, they are prone to manufacture “persecution” out of nothing.

A couple of related passages (all from the King James version, which is my favorite because I like the Shakespeare-era flow of the language):

Jesus taught “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” - Matt. 5:10

There was also “And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.” - Matt. 10:22

Paul wrote “[W]e also glory in our sufferings.” - Romans 5:3

The Epistle of James says “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.” - James 1:2

Their psyches have been so twisted by the ever-looming threat of eternal damnation that was pounded into their heads (”For many are called, but few are chosen.” - Matt. 22:14) that feeling persecuted becomes an emotional security blanket against that fear.

If it weren’t for the political power they hold and strive to expand, they would be pathetic, people to be pitied. But they are not. They are an existential threat to political, social, scientific, and academic freedom.

==

2026-10-02
Off-topic but what the hey. I can accept that the “carpenter-turned-rabbi” existed. The whole God thing, though, that is quite a different story.

-

2026-10-02
[There were lots of messianic types wandering about Judea; was the New Testament a pastiche of the stories knitted together?]

That’s part of the reason I can easily accept Jesus was a real person. Even the Bible makes reference to “magicians” and “prophets” true and “false” so yeah there were a whole lotta preachers and prophets running around. He would not have been out of place or time.

The New Testament is indeed put together from multiple sources; the thing is, those original sources, as far back as they can be traced, still point to sayings and teachings of some dude named Jesus. (Not even counting the multiple other sources that never became canonical.)

And the verified epistles of Paul, dated 50-60 CE, show at least six communities spaced across the Near East, Turkey, and Rome devoted to the teachings of Jesus.

So: Jesus the wandering rabbi? Yes. Jesus the God? No. And they are different questions.

And having gone into this WAY more than I intended, I’ll shut up.

==

2026-10-02
The next time someone in your presence says anything about “mutilation,” ask them how they feel about circumcision. About surgery on intersex infants to make sure they sufficiently look like one sex or the other so they can be classified for life. About breast reduction surgery for cis boys suffering with gynecomastia. See if the answers don’t boil down to “I approve = good” and “I disapprove = mutilation.”

And if it comes down, as it likely will, to “mutilation” meaning “gender affirming genital surgery on minors,” ask them how often that happens. See if they have any idea. If they say “One is too many,” they’re admitting they don’t have a clue and you might consider asking how many suicides arising from lack of care would be acceptable to justify disallowing the one.

I am so effing sick of this crap, so tired of this manufactured social panic with a core of fire-breathing fanatics wrapped in multiple layers of ghouls and grifters who actually don’‘t give a flying damn one way or the other but exploit the moment to advance their own greed and power.

Tomorrow is another day and I know I won’t/can’t walk away from those who deserve my support, but right now, right at this moment, I am very tired.

==

2026-10-04
Just a head’s up about the post-election season.

If people like Amy Acton and Marcy Kaptur win, the institutional Democratic Party*, facing increasing challenges from progressives, may well take it less as proof that anti-trans ads have less and less impact than as proof that the Newsom/Acton/Kaptur brand of defensive, duck-and-cover triangulation is the best way of dealing with the issue and should be more widely adopted. So be prepared for that.

*The institutional Democratic Party is here understood to include senior Congressional leadership (right now, Schumer and Jeffries), the DNC and the coterie of consultants surrounding it, and some “seasoned hands” of the why-are-we-still-listening-to-these-people class such as James Carville.

==

2026-10-07
[”God is a man.”]

First, know that I am an atheist and so have no dog in this fight. Rather, I try to address it like an anthropologist or historian, looking from the outside.

That said, the God of the Bible, our Judeo-Christian God, is not a man.

Several different names are used to refer to God and not all are masculine. For example, in Biblical Hebrew, the first mention of God (Genesis 1:1) uses the term Elohim, the gender for which is variously described as feminine and unisex.

English translations default to the male because of cultural dictates, not the text, and I suspect also because the translators thought referring to God as “He” in one verse and “She” in another according to the term used would be too confusing or culturally shocking.

==

2026-10-08
What do you think are the chances that in the event of the Dems winning the Senate in the midterms that Alito will immediately retire and the GOPpers will try to rush through a candidate during the lame duck session?

I don’t know if that will happen, but I do think it’s a scenario we can’t dismiss.