It's a start. I remember a few years ago when some more conservative friends of mine asked me, their token liberal friend about the Trans thing, just getting going. My thoughts were and I answered, "it's going to make a few people happy and a lot of people unhappy". I've known since forever how easy it is to manipulate the human mind into believing absurdities. For example, the invisible man in the sky; money is something real; the nation state is real; the rule of law is real and so on but I have to admit that the speed that the Trans agenda has taken over with the dramatic language changes like "assigned" gender? Like the Olympic executive saying.."everyone knows that Trans women are women"? I don't think so. The cancel culture; the self flagellation being imposed on the population like it was/is on the Germans. The fear pervading the workplace and on and on. I didn't believe that in the 21century with all the information available to everyone that this propaganda, indoctrination could take over so fast. I thought it would have to start with the children but no, it started in the bloody ivory tower, breathtaking.
What I find interesting is that trans people seem to have succumbed to the "gender role" thing that they argue shouldn't exist. For example, why would a male even think that he is a female in a woman's body? Because of the gender thing our culture has created, he doesn't perceive himself as masculine as defined by our culture even though he is biologically male.
In my opinion, trans people are making their own problems in not rejecting outright gender, masculine and feminine, assignments and living their lives as the person that they are. It isn't their sex, they are either male, they have testicles, or female, they have ovaries, or in rare circumstances, both, but they are still male or female or both. Everybody's system produces both hormones estrogen and testosterone and so everyone will have different natures due to their specific biology and arguing against gender roles while acting to fit into them makes no sense to me.
People can "believe " just about anything and trans people are no different. The real trans believing people are -0.5% of the population but you'd never know it by the influence of the movement. I understand why the ruling classes want this diversion and the authoritarian bent to it is like the authoritarian churches when they split power and money with the ruling classes and people believed so much they thought they'd go to hell and burn forever if they crossed the bosses or the churches. Most people don't know that the inquisition didn't just kill you and make it entertaining; they took your property and split it with the king because the king provided the soldiers. Money, rule of law, and most everything else is as fraudulent as men becoming women and it reinforces the acceptance of the 0.1% ruling over the 99.9%. Indoctrination is so much cheaper than military and police to control populations but they still retain the iron fist when necessary. What I don't understand is the feminists, straight and lesbian supporting this and the educated one's being the worst. Then again, education equals Indoctrination and more education equals more Indoctrination. Just one more magical thinking scam, western world wide.
The only deity mentioned by the founders was the Creator. The Creator was not the Deity of the Abrahamic religions he was the Deity of the Enlightenment who created and then moved on. In one of our more modern myths he was Biggus Bangus. Today he is more Mobius Stripius with no beginning and no end just a long endless journey. I think of my history and Moses leading the trip to the promised land and being denied entry.
Today science tells us there is no such thing as gender it is like Utopia a place that does not exist. Our local university is in charge of our health education and welfare it tells us gender, race and religion are not real they are the products of our myths and legends. Our local University is a world leader in brain research and cognition and its leaders are professional ethical philosophers in our employ to decide what is ethical and moral and the right thing to do in a secular humanist liberal democracy.
You do know Humanism was the religion of the enlightenment and America's founding fathers.
It's not science that tells you that there's no such thing as gender. It's irrational people in the ivory tower. Humanism, atheism etc. are the absence of religion. Other primates and other social animals, dog's for instance, have many of our social qualities. We are the irrational, rationalizing, story believing animal. Rational and irrational in one package. Some lean one way more and some learn the other way more.
Science gives us only theory and probability while religion gives exactly what? Humanism is understanding that our society is what we make it and that serving our fellow man rather than ancient myth are the center of healthy societies. Seventeen 1776 was the culmination of the Enlightenment and America was the first nation of the Enlightenment. America understood Voltaire and wrote its preamble to how they wanted America to evolve. They were were scientists, they were humourists, they were satirists, they were legal scholars, they were philosophers and they were writers but they were all humanists.
Actually it was my choice; I surrendered my Green card more than a dozen years ago. Not because I was unhappy in the USA, the converse, I enjoyed my time in country and my experience with the people was very positive. The " founding fathers" were deeply flawed individuals even by the standards of the time's and don't deserve the hero worship IMHO.
My father surrendered his Green card because his sister needed New York more than he desired New York It is a joyous day here my nephew called to tell us he's pregnant or least his compliment is expecting. I had another wonderful talk with my sister. In 1992 John Ralston Saul was not the writer he is now but Voltaire's Bastards (The dictatorship of reason in the west) pulled open the curtain on the banality of our managerial class.
In 1992 John Ralston Saul was an Oxford educated Western Historian and former COO of Canada publicly owned oil giant PetroCanada. The CEO of Petro Canada was Maurice Strong a leading Pioneer in the environmental movement. 1992 the language was still evolving to exclude the citizens from the discussion of what their democracy should look like.
In 1992 we couldn't just say Hannah Arendt, The Roots of Authorianism banality of evil and find your audience. Now days you can google Hannah Arendt and spend your life understanding the Banality of Evil.
We function in our own lingua franca it is French but the culture and ethics are our own. Democracy means power is at the bottom and controls what happens in the penthouse.
We don't jail our villains we just hold our noses in their presence. We turned out one of the most successful governments in human history because the smell of corruption entered the room and our press is free and independent. Our loyal opposition is a partner not a foe and democracy died in darkness close to where I live.
Human Biology tells us that biological sex is not only real but that it is binary for 99.98% of humanity. That is a reality based on fact and reality IS real, regardless of what you choose to make of it. "Humanism" is not an excuse to deny the truths derived from fact based science and just make shit up without real world consequences.
Might I suggest this is not a scientific question it is a philosophical question and here in Quebec justice is not served answering what is clearly outside the bounds of science.
Gender is a perception 99.98% is a crock. It was a crock in the past, it is a crock now and it will always be a crock. It is religion not science.
We have vertebrates that change their sex throughout their life cycle.
XX and XY may indicate a predisposition but predisposition is not science.
I am neither a geneticist nor an ethical philosopher but if someone said we can turn human males into females and human females into males I would ask to see the evidence and would be open to discovery.
For over a decade in a completely meritocratic university system 70% of new doctors have been XX, is medical expertise a female characteristic?
In a secular humanist liberal democracy even the philosophers and even ethical philosophers need the advice of the citizens they serve. That is one of the reasons we have the freest press and media in the Americas because as the Washington Post masthead proclaims Democracy dies in Darkness while America says who gives a damn turn on the effing lights.
The free? press, like WaPo and the other MSM cost billions, not really free. They used to control the minds of the lumpenproletariat by deciding what to include and what to exclude. Just a part of the indoctrination machine. The good part of that was a common belief system based on the world view of the ruling classes but at least it was common. Now and really since ~ 2012 when you could click and share, society is fragmeted, gen Z is the first to grow up in this giant social experiment. Of course, TV and especially the helicopter parenting did there part in social destruction. A house divided cannot stand; we live in interesting unprecedented times and no one knows where the Zeitgeist will lead us.
Now you're talking my language it is a truth we share. What we don't share is a common country. I live in a healthy democracy. I trust our local media because I pay taxes to support independent journalism and I subscribe to the media my taxes support. None of my ideas are original I am standing on the shoulders of giants. (Please forgive my absence of citations)
My fellow citizens are secure, satisfied and optimistic or at least 80% of them say they are.
Those are Empirical observations. I am currently far from being the recluse I once was. I am socially aggressive to compensate for pathological shyness.
The world is one giant social experiment ; it has always been one giant social experiment. We call it the Darwinian theory and it will never be the Darwin fact although the probability approaches 100% it will never be 100% we might be living inside some test tube in some laboratory in some other dimension.
As America fractures it might be the time to understand that the Boston Patriots were not terrorists or freedom fights or tea spillers they were paid propagandists with journalists like Benjamin Franklin and Photo Shop experts like Paul Revere who turned a drunken mob into innocent women and children. Sometimes when you fail to acknowledge the truth it jumps up and bites you where it really hurts.
The Corporations fled 50 years ago the church has completely collapsed we educated the working class so they are now our management and we are shareholders it is all about our all being in this together.
Strange that you would pay to subscribe to Taibbi's posts, seeing as how you're so very satisfied and comfortable in this perfect world you discovered after fleeing ours. Pray tell, EXACTLY where is this nirvana you speak of located? Does it even exist outside of your mind?
The story of Pandora was part of our common Western Heritage.
It is the story of a gift from the Gods for Pandora when she was sent to live among us.
In her gift box were all of our travails and salvations and Pandora was forbidden to open her gift. All we have left in that gift box is hope and without hope for a better future we have nothing.
My fellow citizens have the hope for a better Quebec I once had for America.
I love America and I cannot look away as she dies.
When your leaders need to pull you together they keep pulling you apart while you applaud, applaud and applaud.
There is no Nirvana but there is a Province of Canada that is French Speaking and where both the Federal and Provincial governments enjoy 70% approval. WE have paid family leave, guaranteed affordable childcare, a basic floor, guaranteed affordable education, Medicare for all, a booming economy, a long term worker shortage and a population looking at a better future. It ain't perfect but it is better than the states we border of Maine , New Hampshire, Vermont and New York and better than the Province of Ontario which is our longest border.
I subscribe to our local daily, La Tribune, as well as the Toronto Star, The Guardian, The Washington Post, New York Times , Haaretz, Breaking Points and The New Yorker print edition.
Taibbi is a very good writer and a top notch journalist and has been a good writer for more than two decades.
My father read many newspapers in many languages and I suspect as soon as I like the way I am writing I will do a lot less reading.
What is strange?
My father read many newspapers, I read many newspapers and my grandchildren read many newspapers as did my grandfather according to family history.
The world I live in doesn't require much fixing. We will no longer be dependent on carbon fuels after 2030 as we have already mandated that we will no longer be able to burn gasoline or natural gas and we will heat and drive with electricity derived from falling water. We are risking our booming economy and will only use renewable energy in the next nine years despite our neighbours talking more cars, more trucks, more planes and more fossil fuel. We will drive in electric vehicles and even are aluminum mills run on electricity and we grow year round in greenhouse run with excess heat from the smelters. If you have orchids they were grown hundreds of miles north of here in our greenhouses.
Our largest city is Montreal and our Capital is Quebec City; come up for a visit. Before Covid the Clintons spent a summer 30 minutes from here and before your uncivil war your plantation families came here to escape the oppressive heat of summer. We are five hours north of the Long Island ferry stop in Connecticut. Poutine was developed about an hour North and we produce a lot of Maple Syrup.
Our food is healthy, nutritious, as toxin free as practical and abundant and we are educating all our children. Our society is humanist and rejected religion and banned its promotion in our public spaces and our society is both inclusive and dedicated to moral and ethical behaviour.
And of course our democracy controls our private sector. The private sector does not control our government. Our electrical utility contributes 4 billion dollars into our general welfare fund and employs 20,000 citizens and is growing every year.
WE are a healthy democracy and our greatest fear is what is outside our borders and we know our families are our future.
I spend too much time in front of the computer as my eyesight is compromised, l lived most of my 73 years in English speaking Canada and the USA. My wife is American and I owe Canada and the USA more than I could ever repay. I am Jewish and believe in trying to repair as much as I can in this frightened and pessimistic world which right now is far more of a task than I can do alone and there are many who are doing a lot more.
And we have tamed Covid . We got it early and we got it bad. We got it a day before or day after NYC and it devastated our private long term care facilities. We tamed it early with Public Health in charge and mask and vaccine mandates but America took control of the vaccine we had purchased and said on this like everything else we are the first pigs to trough. We are still under mandates but our 8.5 million people suffer less than a death a day and our hospitals have around 200 covid patients.
Oh before I forget one of our research hospitals under leadership of one of our public universities developed the technology that allowed early vaccines to be developed before Covid 19.
We all stand on the shoulders of giants and are the better for it. Frankly, I wish it was more recognized and their imperfections made them human, just as ours do. Funny how some people's personal flaws don't stop them from casting the first stone. Read a biography of Thomas Jefferson and one on Benjamin Franklin. IMHO, Franklin didn't get credit commensurate with his contributions to the success of the revolution. They did take risks few would these days. We need to recognize our warts more and the warts of the giants less; we'd be the better for it!
That is because Franklin had the audacity to free his slaves and become an abolitionist. He helped found the Montreal Gazette his stagecoach stopped here often as he made his way way from Boston to Montreal. He wasn't called Bonhomme Richard for nothing he was bilingual and Montreal and Paris read his Almanac. British North America just like the rest of the European Empires only the Bourgeois read. When I went to school the translation of bourgeois was middle class.
Some things never change without slavery America had no economy even as Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin made slavery an option not a necessity.
What made Jefferson a flawed human being was not that he owned slaves but that he knew of the the Cotton Gin and still justified what he knew to be unjustifiable. That is the theme one hundred years later when Mark Twain wrote The United States of Lyncherdom and tried to stop it from ever being published. We are all moral cowards in fear of the mob except for a few crazies like Old Man Franklin.
I've studied Franklin he is my American founding father. He wasn't perfect, in certain areas he was rather Clintonesque but you know power corrupts.
I am living just north of the Vermont border and this seems otherworldly. There is no such thing as trans because there is no such thing as gender. Our local university which provides health, education and welfare in our Canton does not recognize gender, race or religion as identities. We are forbidden to promote any religious (nonempirical) beliefs in our public spaces.
We are thereby a target of liberal North America where the United States of America were once dedicated to what are our virtues. I was taught the preamble explained intent and how the constitution should be interpreted. I know Scalia's interpretation was self evidently bullshit.
I find self evident truths to be indeed self evident.
In Quebec our great taboo is language and we even laugh at language jokes.
We have a comedy festival and can't even find a place to draw a line.
Two of the greatest essays in the English language were A Modest Proposal and the United States of Lyncherdom written by the two greatest satirists in the English language were deemed by their creators unfit for human consumption because the truth is far too painful.
Of course we have a free and independent press where we subscribe to and support with tax dollars. Freedom isn't free. You can sell it to the highest bidder or support it as a democracy.
The social contract of democracy is I am part of society and the society is a part of me. It is my government and your government and we hire it to build the society that we want built.
Its true Quebec is the only province that has fought off the CRT and Trans activists.. The press in the rest of the country has bought into this nonsense. Don't let them get a foothold.
That is why we support Bill 21. In Quebec all the multinationals fled in the 1970s and the power of the Church collapsed and now the churches themselves need the last rites.
At present the vast majority believe Canada is good for Quebec and Quebec is good for Canada. The minute that Quebec's secular humanist liberal democracy is in jeopardy everyone knows the ---- will hit the proverbial fan. The LGBT community have been brothers and sisters for decades from our elite elite to our lowest of the low and it is who we are.
It grows the same way all societies grow except here there is a very high wall between church and state and there is no such thing as holy matrimony. Notaries write civil contracts for consenting adults as to how they will live together and what constitutes their chosen path. If they choose to procreate there are responsibilities for all parties and because all citizens are equal before the law the contracts are written for individual citizens like in other sane democracies.
I hope that answers your question. Not only are marriage contracts written to accommodate the signers they are written to protect the society and any future citizens whose welfare is part of the contract.
As a person who just went through a marriage license process, this is extremely interesting to me. Does Quebec inquire as to who your parents were to assure you aren't marrying family? That was one prominent question on the application we had to fill out. I found it odd however I guess not everyone knows?
Fifty years ago we lived under the Quebec Act 1774 and only only in 2019 did Bill 21 put an end to promoting any cult except secular humanism in public places. In reading the preamble to your constitution which is the key to constitutional interpretation secular humanism was to be the law of your land. Of course the legal profession knew the key to its success was owning the constitution and has you ignore the preamble which is the instruction manual for American society.
I have lived in a number of aboriginal groups. If I may clear up a number of unwarranted stereotypes.There are tribes who speak few words and there are tribes that spend their time talking philosophy from the moment the snow starts to fall There are some who regard food as sustenance and some who enjoy talking about the origin of their foods for hours on end. There are Joe Fridays and Donald Trumps even among our many varied First Nations.
Hannah Arendt and John Ralston Saul are Socratics and brevity is not their claim to fame.
Some truths lend themselves to brevity others like the truths of Yuval Noah Harari take 70,000 years of preamble.
Sometimes we are lucky like when America wrote the preamble to the constitution in a few paragraphs to tell us the metaphysics of a new nation.
Sometimes we suffer because lawyers and politicians write libraries to try and destroy simple self evident truths.
Marcus I am an old man. You have no idea of who I am and where I spend my time or even why I write my comments. I live in a real democracy. We are part of the discussions lead by men like Charles Taylor. That is the meaning of democracy. That is the preamble to the country we call America. This is too important to be left even to our greatest philosophers. It is time to read the instruction manual to what America is supposed to be. You let lawyers interpret law when the framers issued instruction on interpretation.
Well, old man, you once again have completely failed to grasp what is arguably the most central issue our American democracy is facing today. What I am talking about is the American people’s complete inability to engage in anything that even begins to resemble a reasonable discussion about the real issues that are tearing apart our society.
You have the nerve to lecture strangers about the meaning of American democracy, using another man’s ideas and words, and your point wasn’t even relevant to what she was trying to express. After providing a very thoughtful explanation to you’re snarky comment, you respond to moe with ANOTHER snarky comment. While I’m glad you found some article that echoes whatever belief you prescribe to, your entire outburst was irrelevant and not at all helpful to anyone.
Democracy is a discussion, sir. If you do not have anything constructive to add to the discussion, that’s fine. But if your just going to antagonize people and tell them how wrong they are, do all of America a favor and just please stop. You think because your grandson got you a computer it’s your duty to educate the masses on their ignorance, but I got some fucking news for you buddy, you often might be the most ignorant person in the room. As a 26 year old American, I’m trying to hear from people that really might have opinions that can further the discussions plaguing our society, and YOU ARE NOT HELPING.
oh and by the way, this idea that “American democracy” is this isolated idea that is special and unique to all the other democracies is just fucking insane. Yeah we wrote the fucking book on it and we have always been a shinning example of a democratic government, but countries that have followed in our footsteps (and in some ways made arguable improvements) have influence on our brand of democracy just like we have influence on theirs. There are certain trends that have spread through democratic countries since their creation, and this goes both ways. You should learn more about democracy before lecturing others.
One of the things Huxley got correct is a technology that could grow fertilized eggs in vitro. Procreation is about sperm and eggs and soon we won't even need sperm and we've already cloned to produce Dolly.
Right now we know how and it is up to ethical philosophers to decide if.
That is the metaphysics now comes democracy and we don't even understand the meaning of democracy.
I have no doubt as to why America and society has gone mad the technology is fifty years ahead of our understanding. If you don't understand what is being talked about you listen to the interpreters tell you what they wish to tell you.
Civil contracts rather than holy matrimony was the law of the land decades before Bill 21. The Creator of your Preamble took no interest in the affairs of men he created and then moved on. No Heaven no Hell and life was what we made it.
Excellent writing and reporting. Amazing how the truth can sound so elegantly put. Dave is a king in his field. A truthful look is his true comedy genius like so many great comedians. Bring back the humor!! Thanks Matt and Jared.
I watched his show and didn't see anything to whine about. There are two issues here, a) the function of comedians as social commentators and (b) "marginalized" groups who want to be on a pedestal. Do we really have to accept the world view of others as "truth" without question? No. Chappelle did his job as social commentator and those who don't like it need to actually listen to him before they start whining.
It's a start. I remember a few years ago when some more conservative friends of mine asked me, their token liberal friend about the Trans thing, just getting going. My thoughts were and I answered, "it's going to make a few people happy and a lot of people unhappy". I've known since forever how easy it is to manipulate the human mind into believing absurdities. For example, the invisible man in the sky; money is something real; the nation state is real; the rule of law is real and so on but I have to admit that the speed that the Trans agenda has taken over with the dramatic language changes like "assigned" gender? Like the Olympic executive saying.."everyone knows that Trans women are women"? I don't think so. The cancel culture; the self flagellation being imposed on the population like it was/is on the Germans. The fear pervading the workplace and on and on. I didn't believe that in the 21century with all the information available to everyone that this propaganda, indoctrination could take over so fast. I thought it would have to start with the children but no, it started in the bloody ivory tower, breathtaking.
What I find interesting is that trans people seem to have succumbed to the "gender role" thing that they argue shouldn't exist. For example, why would a male even think that he is a female in a woman's body? Because of the gender thing our culture has created, he doesn't perceive himself as masculine as defined by our culture even though he is biologically male.
In my opinion, trans people are making their own problems in not rejecting outright gender, masculine and feminine, assignments and living their lives as the person that they are. It isn't their sex, they are either male, they have testicles, or female, they have ovaries, or in rare circumstances, both, but they are still male or female or both. Everybody's system produces both hormones estrogen and testosterone and so everyone will have different natures due to their specific biology and arguing against gender roles while acting to fit into them makes no sense to me.
People can "believe " just about anything and trans people are no different. The real trans believing people are -0.5% of the population but you'd never know it by the influence of the movement. I understand why the ruling classes want this diversion and the authoritarian bent to it is like the authoritarian churches when they split power and money with the ruling classes and people believed so much they thought they'd go to hell and burn forever if they crossed the bosses or the churches. Most people don't know that the inquisition didn't just kill you and make it entertaining; they took your property and split it with the king because the king provided the soldiers. Money, rule of law, and most everything else is as fraudulent as men becoming women and it reinforces the acceptance of the 0.1% ruling over the 99.9%. Indoctrination is so much cheaper than military and police to control populations but they still retain the iron fist when necessary. What I don't understand is the feminists, straight and lesbian supporting this and the educated one's being the worst. Then again, education equals Indoctrination and more education equals more Indoctrination. Just one more magical thinking scam, western world wide.
The only deity mentioned by the founders was the Creator. The Creator was not the Deity of the Abrahamic religions he was the Deity of the Enlightenment who created and then moved on. In one of our more modern myths he was Biggus Bangus. Today he is more Mobius Stripius with no beginning and no end just a long endless journey. I think of my history and Moses leading the trip to the promised land and being denied entry.
Today science tells us there is no such thing as gender it is like Utopia a place that does not exist. Our local university is in charge of our health education and welfare it tells us gender, race and religion are not real they are the products of our myths and legends. Our local University is a world leader in brain research and cognition and its leaders are professional ethical philosophers in our employ to decide what is ethical and moral and the right thing to do in a secular humanist liberal democracy.
You do know Humanism was the religion of the enlightenment and America's founding fathers.
It's not science that tells you that there's no such thing as gender. It's irrational people in the ivory tower. Humanism, atheism etc. are the absence of religion. Other primates and other social animals, dog's for instance, have many of our social qualities. We are the irrational, rationalizing, story believing animal. Rational and irrational in one package. Some lean one way more and some learn the other way more.
Science gives us only theory and probability while religion gives exactly what? Humanism is understanding that our society is what we make it and that serving our fellow man rather than ancient myth are the center of healthy societies. Seventeen 1776 was the culmination of the Enlightenment and America was the first nation of the Enlightenment. America understood Voltaire and wrote its preamble to how they wanted America to evolve. They were were scientists, they were humourists, they were satirists, they were legal scholars, they were philosophers and they were writers but they were all humanists.
https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/about-educational-outreach/activity-resources/us
I am not an American but that was not my choice. You are not American but I must assume that is your choice.
Actually it was my choice; I surrendered my Green card more than a dozen years ago. Not because I was unhappy in the USA, the converse, I enjoyed my time in country and my experience with the people was very positive. The " founding fathers" were deeply flawed individuals even by the standards of the time's and don't deserve the hero worship IMHO.
My father surrendered his Green card because his sister needed New York more than he desired New York It is a joyous day here my nephew called to tell us he's pregnant or least his compliment is expecting. I had another wonderful talk with my sister. In 1992 John Ralston Saul was not the writer he is now but Voltaire's Bastards (The dictatorship of reason in the west) pulled open the curtain on the banality of our managerial class.
In 1992 John Ralston Saul was an Oxford educated Western Historian and former COO of Canada publicly owned oil giant PetroCanada. The CEO of Petro Canada was Maurice Strong a leading Pioneer in the environmental movement. 1992 the language was still evolving to exclude the citizens from the discussion of what their democracy should look like.
In 1992 we couldn't just say Hannah Arendt, The Roots of Authorianism banality of evil and find your audience. Now days you can google Hannah Arendt and spend your life understanding the Banality of Evil.
We function in our own lingua franca it is French but the culture and ethics are our own. Democracy means power is at the bottom and controls what happens in the penthouse.
We don't jail our villains we just hold our noses in their presence. We turned out one of the most successful governments in human history because the smell of corruption entered the room and our press is free and independent. Our loyal opposition is a partner not a foe and democracy died in darkness close to where I live.
Human Biology tells us that biological sex is not only real but that it is binary for 99.98% of humanity. That is a reality based on fact and reality IS real, regardless of what you choose to make of it. "Humanism" is not an excuse to deny the truths derived from fact based science and just make shit up without real world consequences.
Thank you News,
Might I suggest this is not a scientific question it is a philosophical question and here in Quebec justice is not served answering what is clearly outside the bounds of science.
Gender is a perception 99.98% is a crock. It was a crock in the past, it is a crock now and it will always be a crock. It is religion not science.
We have vertebrates that change their sex throughout their life cycle.
XX and XY may indicate a predisposition but predisposition is not science.
I am neither a geneticist nor an ethical philosopher but if someone said we can turn human males into females and human females into males I would ask to see the evidence and would be open to discovery.
For over a decade in a completely meritocratic university system 70% of new doctors have been XX, is medical expertise a female characteristic?
In a secular humanist liberal democracy even the philosophers and even ethical philosophers need the advice of the citizens they serve. That is one of the reasons we have the freest press and media in the Americas because as the Washington Post masthead proclaims Democracy dies in Darkness while America says who gives a damn turn on the effing lights.
The free? press, like WaPo and the other MSM cost billions, not really free. They used to control the minds of the lumpenproletariat by deciding what to include and what to exclude. Just a part of the indoctrination machine. The good part of that was a common belief system based on the world view of the ruling classes but at least it was common. Now and really since ~ 2012 when you could click and share, society is fragmeted, gen Z is the first to grow up in this giant social experiment. Of course, TV and especially the helicopter parenting did there part in social destruction. A house divided cannot stand; we live in interesting unprecedented times and no one knows where the Zeitgeist will lead us.
Now you're talking my language it is a truth we share. What we don't share is a common country. I live in a healthy democracy. I trust our local media because I pay taxes to support independent journalism and I subscribe to the media my taxes support. None of my ideas are original I am standing on the shoulders of giants. (Please forgive my absence of citations)
My fellow citizens are secure, satisfied and optimistic or at least 80% of them say they are.
Those are Empirical observations. I am currently far from being the recluse I once was. I am socially aggressive to compensate for pathological shyness.
The world is one giant social experiment ; it has always been one giant social experiment. We call it the Darwinian theory and it will never be the Darwin fact although the probability approaches 100% it will never be 100% we might be living inside some test tube in some laboratory in some other dimension.
As America fractures it might be the time to understand that the Boston Patriots were not terrorists or freedom fights or tea spillers they were paid propagandists with journalists like Benjamin Franklin and Photo Shop experts like Paul Revere who turned a drunken mob into innocent women and children. Sometimes when you fail to acknowledge the truth it jumps up and bites you where it really hurts.
The Corporations fled 50 years ago the church has completely collapsed we educated the working class so they are now our management and we are shareholders it is all about our all being in this together.
I remember when truth was not something we shared. It just was.
Thank you for your comment.
The truth was never something we shared most of us relied on the authorities to tell us the truth.
Plato told us the world hates truth tellers.
The truths we were told were the lies told us by those in the employ of the authorities to explain why so many had to suffer.
"May the lights in the land of plenty shine on the truth someday." Leonard Cohen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nBtisLH8Ds
Strange that you would pay to subscribe to Taibbi's posts, seeing as how you're so very satisfied and comfortable in this perfect world you discovered after fleeing ours. Pray tell, EXACTLY where is this nirvana you speak of located? Does it even exist outside of your mind?
The story of Pandora was part of our common Western Heritage.
It is the story of a gift from the Gods for Pandora when she was sent to live among us.
In her gift box were all of our travails and salvations and Pandora was forbidden to open her gift. All we have left in that gift box is hope and without hope for a better future we have nothing.
My fellow citizens have the hope for a better Quebec I once had for America.
I love America and I cannot look away as she dies.
When your leaders need to pull you together they keep pulling you apart while you applaud, applaud and applaud.
There is no Nirvana but there is a Province of Canada that is French Speaking and where both the Federal and Provincial governments enjoy 70% approval. WE have paid family leave, guaranteed affordable childcare, a basic floor, guaranteed affordable education, Medicare for all, a booming economy, a long term worker shortage and a population looking at a better future. It ain't perfect but it is better than the states we border of Maine , New Hampshire, Vermont and New York and better than the Province of Ontario which is our longest border.
I subscribe to our local daily, La Tribune, as well as the Toronto Star, The Guardian, The Washington Post, New York Times , Haaretz, Breaking Points and The New Yorker print edition.
Taibbi is a very good writer and a top notch journalist and has been a good writer for more than two decades.
My father read many newspapers in many languages and I suspect as soon as I like the way I am writing I will do a lot less reading.
What is strange?
My father read many newspapers, I read many newspapers and my grandchildren read many newspapers as did my grandfather according to family history.
The world I live in doesn't require much fixing. We will no longer be dependent on carbon fuels after 2030 as we have already mandated that we will no longer be able to burn gasoline or natural gas and we will heat and drive with electricity derived from falling water. We are risking our booming economy and will only use renewable energy in the next nine years despite our neighbours talking more cars, more trucks, more planes and more fossil fuel. We will drive in electric vehicles and even are aluminum mills run on electricity and we grow year round in greenhouse run with excess heat from the smelters. If you have orchids they were grown hundreds of miles north of here in our greenhouses.
Our largest city is Montreal and our Capital is Quebec City; come up for a visit. Before Covid the Clintons spent a summer 30 minutes from here and before your uncivil war your plantation families came here to escape the oppressive heat of summer. We are five hours north of the Long Island ferry stop in Connecticut. Poutine was developed about an hour North and we produce a lot of Maple Syrup.
Our food is healthy, nutritious, as toxin free as practical and abundant and we are educating all our children. Our society is humanist and rejected religion and banned its promotion in our public spaces and our society is both inclusive and dedicated to moral and ethical behaviour.
And of course our democracy controls our private sector. The private sector does not control our government. Our electrical utility contributes 4 billion dollars into our general welfare fund and employs 20,000 citizens and is growing every year.
WE are a healthy democracy and our greatest fear is what is outside our borders and we know our families are our future.
I spend too much time in front of the computer as my eyesight is compromised, l lived most of my 73 years in English speaking Canada and the USA. My wife is American and I owe Canada and the USA more than I could ever repay. I am Jewish and believe in trying to repair as much as I can in this frightened and pessimistic world which right now is far more of a task than I can do alone and there are many who are doing a lot more.
And we have tamed Covid . We got it early and we got it bad. We got it a day before or day after NYC and it devastated our private long term care facilities. We tamed it early with Public Health in charge and mask and vaccine mandates but America took control of the vaccine we had purchased and said on this like everything else we are the first pigs to trough. We are still under mandates but our 8.5 million people suffer less than a death a day and our hospitals have around 200 covid patients.
Oh before I forget one of our research hospitals under leadership of one of our public universities developed the technology that allowed early vaccines to be developed before Covid 19.
We all stand on the shoulders of giants and are the better for it. Frankly, I wish it was more recognized and their imperfections made them human, just as ours do. Funny how some people's personal flaws don't stop them from casting the first stone. Read a biography of Thomas Jefferson and one on Benjamin Franklin. IMHO, Franklin didn't get credit commensurate with his contributions to the success of the revolution. They did take risks few would these days. We need to recognize our warts more and the warts of the giants less; we'd be the better for it!
That is because Franklin had the audacity to free his slaves and become an abolitionist. He helped found the Montreal Gazette his stagecoach stopped here often as he made his way way from Boston to Montreal. He wasn't called Bonhomme Richard for nothing he was bilingual and Montreal and Paris read his Almanac. British North America just like the rest of the European Empires only the Bourgeois read. When I went to school the translation of bourgeois was middle class.
Some things never change without slavery America had no economy even as Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin made slavery an option not a necessity.
What made Jefferson a flawed human being was not that he owned slaves but that he knew of the the Cotton Gin and still justified what he knew to be unjustifiable. That is the theme one hundred years later when Mark Twain wrote The United States of Lyncherdom and tried to stop it from ever being published. We are all moral cowards in fear of the mob except for a few crazies like Old Man Franklin.
I've studied Franklin he is my American founding father. He wasn't perfect, in certain areas he was rather Clintonesque but you know power corrupts.
Boy did you really not understand what he was saying. Your garbage mouth rant proves that.
Get a life
He seems fairly kind to me, especially after listening to him on Joe Rogan.
I am living just north of the Vermont border and this seems otherworldly. There is no such thing as trans because there is no such thing as gender. Our local university which provides health, education and welfare in our Canton does not recognize gender, race or religion as identities. We are forbidden to promote any religious (nonempirical) beliefs in our public spaces.
We are thereby a target of liberal North America where the United States of America were once dedicated to what are our virtues. I was taught the preamble explained intent and how the constitution should be interpreted. I know Scalia's interpretation was self evidently bullshit.
I find self evident truths to be indeed self evident.
In Quebec our great taboo is language and we even laugh at language jokes.
We have a comedy festival and can't even find a place to draw a line.
Two of the greatest essays in the English language were A Modest Proposal and the United States of Lyncherdom written by the two greatest satirists in the English language were deemed by their creators unfit for human consumption because the truth is far too painful.
Of course we have a free and independent press where we subscribe to and support with tax dollars. Freedom isn't free. You can sell it to the highest bidder or support it as a democracy.
The social contract of democracy is I am part of society and the society is a part of me. It is my government and your government and we hire it to build the society that we want built.
Its true Quebec is the only province that has fought off the CRT and Trans activists.. The press in the rest of the country has bought into this nonsense. Don't let them get a foothold.
That is why we support Bill 21. In Quebec all the multinationals fled in the 1970s and the power of the Church collapsed and now the churches themselves need the last rites.
At present the vast majority believe Canada is good for Quebec and Quebec is good for Canada. The minute that Quebec's secular humanist liberal democracy is in jeopardy everyone knows the ---- will hit the proverbial fan. The LGBT community have been brothers and sisters for decades from our elite elite to our lowest of the low and it is who we are.
There are no genders in Canada? That is other worldly. How does population grow, exactly?
It grows the same way all societies grow except here there is a very high wall between church and state and there is no such thing as holy matrimony. Notaries write civil contracts for consenting adults as to how they will live together and what constitutes their chosen path. If they choose to procreate there are responsibilities for all parties and because all citizens are equal before the law the contracts are written for individual citizens like in other sane democracies.
I hope that answers your question. Not only are marriage contracts written to accommodate the signers they are written to protect the society and any future citizens whose welfare is part of the contract.
As a person who just went through a marriage license process, this is extremely interesting to me. Does Quebec inquire as to who your parents were to assure you aren't marrying family? That was one prominent question on the application we had to fill out. I found it odd however I guess not everyone knows?
Fifty years ago we lived under the Quebec Act 1774 and only only in 2019 did Bill 21 put an end to promoting any cult except secular humanism in public places. In reading the preamble to your constitution which is the key to constitutional interpretation secular humanism was to be the law of your land. Of course the legal profession knew the key to its success was owning the constitution and has you ignore the preamble which is the instruction manual for American society.
https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/about-educational-outreach/activity-resources/us
Procreation without genders? Interesting.
Throwing cheap jabs when there are actually people out there trying to discuss these complex issues?
Not addressing any of the well thought out points clearly explained to you and then insisting on further instigating?
Not interesting at all… go back to Twitter buddy.
It takes few words to tell the truth.
-- Chief Joseph
I have lived in a number of aboriginal groups. If I may clear up a number of unwarranted stereotypes.There are tribes who speak few words and there are tribes that spend their time talking philosophy from the moment the snow starts to fall There are some who regard food as sustenance and some who enjoy talking about the origin of their foods for hours on end. There are Joe Fridays and Donald Trumps even among our many varied First Nations.
Hannah Arendt and John Ralston Saul are Socratics and brevity is not their claim to fame.
Some truths lend themselves to brevity others like the truths of Yuval Noah Harari take 70,000 years of preamble.
Sometimes we are lucky like when America wrote the preamble to the constitution in a few paragraphs to tell us the metaphysics of a new nation.
Sometimes we suffer because lawyers and politicians write libraries to try and destroy simple self evident truths.
Marcus I am an old man. You have no idea of who I am and where I spend my time or even why I write my comments. I live in a real democracy. We are part of the discussions lead by men like Charles Taylor. That is the meaning of democracy. That is the preamble to the country we call America. This is too important to be left even to our greatest philosophers. It is time to read the instruction manual to what America is supposed to be. You let lawyers interpret law when the framers issued instruction on interpretation.
https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/about-educational-outreach/activity-resources/us
Well, old man, you once again have completely failed to grasp what is arguably the most central issue our American democracy is facing today. What I am talking about is the American people’s complete inability to engage in anything that even begins to resemble a reasonable discussion about the real issues that are tearing apart our society.
You have the nerve to lecture strangers about the meaning of American democracy, using another man’s ideas and words, and your point wasn’t even relevant to what she was trying to express. After providing a very thoughtful explanation to you’re snarky comment, you respond to moe with ANOTHER snarky comment. While I’m glad you found some article that echoes whatever belief you prescribe to, your entire outburst was irrelevant and not at all helpful to anyone.
Democracy is a discussion, sir. If you do not have anything constructive to add to the discussion, that’s fine. But if your just going to antagonize people and tell them how wrong they are, do all of America a favor and just please stop. You think because your grandson got you a computer it’s your duty to educate the masses on their ignorance, but I got some fucking news for you buddy, you often might be the most ignorant person in the room. As a 26 year old American, I’m trying to hear from people that really might have opinions that can further the discussions plaguing our society, and YOU ARE NOT HELPING.
oh and by the way, this idea that “American democracy” is this isolated idea that is special and unique to all the other democracies is just fucking insane. Yeah we wrote the fucking book on it and we have always been a shinning example of a democratic government, but countries that have followed in our footsteps (and in some ways made arguable improvements) have influence on our brand of democracy just like we have influence on theirs. There are certain trends that have spread through democratic countries since their creation, and this goes both ways. You should learn more about democracy before lecturing others.
One of the things Huxley got correct is a technology that could grow fertilized eggs in vitro. Procreation is about sperm and eggs and soon we won't even need sperm and we've already cloned to produce Dolly.
Right now we know how and it is up to ethical philosophers to decide if.
That is the metaphysics now comes democracy and we don't even understand the meaning of democracy.
I have no doubt as to why America and society has gone mad the technology is fifty years ahead of our understanding. If you don't understand what is being talked about you listen to the interpreters tell you what they wish to tell you.
Civil contracts rather than holy matrimony was the law of the land decades before Bill 21. The Creator of your Preamble took no interest in the affairs of men he created and then moved on. No Heaven no Hell and life was what we made it.
I am grateful for Chapelle for shining the light on this war as a cancel culture free speech issue more that a transgender question.
That being said, parents should have some autonomy over their childrens important medical decisions. Period.
Excellent writing and reporting. Amazing how the truth can sound so elegantly put. Dave is a king in his field. A truthful look is his true comedy genius like so many great comedians. Bring back the humor!! Thanks Matt and Jared.
OK, what is the "Big L"?
I watched his show and didn't see anything to whine about. There are two issues here, a) the function of comedians as social commentators and (b) "marginalized" groups who want to be on a pedestal. Do we really have to accept the world view of others as "truth" without question? No. Chappelle did his job as social commentator and those who don't like it need to actually listen to him before they start whining.
Funniest part was when he talked about himself has the goat.
Matt when do we get some TK News merch? A hat or shirt would be cool…