Vort

Then we should take that ordinance a great deal more seriously than we do. Which, I suppose, is true in any case.

I don't know how many more ways I can tell you that this is not the case In this particular case, the fault is mine. My apologies. I missed the second "that" in the following: That was careless of me. Shame on me for not going over what I had read, spotting my error, and removing the false accusations. Yeah, that actually changes the tenor of the first part of your argument quite a bit. I think what I wrote later (and not on that particular topic of your wording) is still valid, but I freely concede I messed up in that initial thing, which really taints the whole response. It was a sheer misreading of what you wrote. Again, I am sorry about that. I'm usually a pretty close reader. Not this time.

This is pretty hilarious. Here you are, unable and now (apparently) unwilling literally even to define what a woman is after your ridiculous attempt was called out as circular and thus meaningless. Yet you call me "childish" because I use your exact same technique of simply asserting the meaning of words. Well, deal with it. For the purposes of this discussion, I am LGBTQ+++-*/ and BIPOC and lots of other letters. I am because I said I am, and you have no standing to dispute the central eternal truth (within this particular discussion) of what I said. I have proven you wrong through my very obvious use of your debate strategies. No coming back from this one, PP. You can't have it both ways. I literally told you what I believed and you distilled it down to the above inaccuracy. But what you believe, as you yourself testify above, is that the rights of men who like to put their genitals in other men's rectums (which defines or at least exemplifies homosexuality) are more important (your words are "matter more") than mine. Think about that. If a man decides he wants to put his penis into another man's rectum, that desire makes that man's rights more important than mine. The mere desire to orally stimulate the genitals of someone of the same sex makes your rights more important than those of someone who lacks such desire. Please don't try to backtrack or claim that is not what you said. That is inescapably exactly what you said. Fortunately for me and despite my lack of homosexual desire as outlined above, for the purposes of this thread I am LGBTQ (because I said so), so therefore my rights are more important than yours. Thus everything you write can easily be waved away as the ignorant rantings of an unimportant cis-het whose opinions are worth less than the dog crap I scraped off the bottom of my shoe. Using your own logic and prioritization. Amazing. Wouldn't you agree that yours is actually a stupid and evil way of assigning the importance of rights? Your side laments the ignorance that drives vast swaths of people to vote, in your words, against their own interest, yet you think it interesting that I think the same of you? Interesting. Except it very clearly does, else why would you assert that LGBTQ rights supersede my own? Were there no zero-sum situation, you would never make such an assertion. The very idea would never even arise. This is false. No one has been harassed for using a public restroom. Men are free to use the men's public restroom, and women are free to use the women's. When men call themselves women and then try to use the women's restroom, that's the issue. Which is not at all the problem that you claim. PP, you are shameless. Your utter mischaracterization of the issue would be laughable if it weren't so widely shared among your type. No one is being chased out of public restrooms because of how they look, though that might well be the clue. People are chased out of public restrooms for using the wrong gender restroom. Are you serious? Yes, I, an old white man, have been denied promotion or seniority or a position for which I was better qualified, because the decision was made the hire the less-qualified person who was not an old white man. The "old" part has only become an issue in the last maybe ten years, but the "white man" part has been with me since at least graduate school. I expect you to take me exactly as seriously as you expect me to take you. You are a man who openly tells me that the rights of people with homosexual proclivities matter more than mine. And you are apparently not joking. How seriously should I take you? They want the privilege of using a public restroom designed and set apart for use by the opposite sex. I neither enjoy nor want that right. I am sure some have called me much worse behind my back, and certainly have to my face. Some people are jerks. When their actions have risen to the level of harassment, I have complained. I have never yet gone looking for legislation designed to bolster others' acceptance of my delusions. Wow. Unbelievably, PP actually got it right for once. It clashes with the accepted historical meaning of words. If I redefine "murderers" to include homosexuals, then I can claim that homosexuals are murderers and must be treated as such under law. Jail for 25 years to life? Death penalty? Hey, what can I say? They're murderers. Yes, I object to redefinition of words as a method of promotion of ugly societal change. You can call that "religious" if you want, but you would think the same if someone were trying to redefine your principles out of existence. What are you talking about? You are openly and intentionally misstating what you implicitly assign as my position. That is dishonest, not too far from open lying. Your first statement above is bizarre, completely out of left field, context free, like saying, "If pigs had wings, we'd pick buckshot out of our bacon." The second statement is just another bloviating absurdity. You ought to move past the earnest middle-schooler stage and actually analyze what you write before sending it out for all to see. And your point? We already agree that patent law is highly imperfect and that evil actors do unethical and sometimes malicious things for the purpose of getting money. So, what is it again that you're trying to establish? Still waiting for your evidence that the last 150 years of technological progress would have occurred (or perhaps been even better) without IP law. And for that non-circular definition of what a woman is.

Believe it or not, I don't like price-gouging any more than you do, and I have great contempt for those who would put their personal profit above the lives of their fellow beings. But I also realize that our concept of property ownership extends to intellectual property, and in the end the idea of patenting ideas makes us all a lot richer and better off in the long run. Since patents are 20 years long, that means that those who patent a technology or idea get almost a full human generation to profit from it before it goes into the public domain. Now, if you convince me that the last 150 years of technological advancement would have taken place even if patents had not existed, I will gladly rethink my devotion to IP law. The idea of IP makes sense only if it is a net positive for humanity. I believe it is, which is why I support IP. But that means that someone who patents a better, cheaper method to create insulin gets to jack up the price to whatever the market will support. Of course, when the patent expires, competitors can create far cheaper insulin, and the masses will benefit. If instead you take away the right to profit from one's inventions, what makes you think anyone will possibly go to the expense of figuring out how to mass-produce insulin? Who in his right mind will spend five billion dollars to create a new technology with no guarantee that his legally protected ability to make his research/development money back will even exist? There is a much better alternative. That alternative is called Zion, where the pure in heart love each other as they do themselves and gladly spend their lives and time in service of each other. But we're not there yet, and I don't see us ever being there in this life on this sphere. So the profit motive rules in earthly mortal transactions. tl;dr—If Trump has signed an EO to allow greedy pharmeceutical companies to rake in profits from the patents they secured through their own research and development, well, good for Trump. That means that we, the hoi polloi, will always be one generation behind what the rich folks get. But it also guarantees that in a generation, my grandchildren will have inexpensive access to what my own children couldn't get because my wife and I were too poor to afford it. So we step our way up, which may be frustrating and unfair, but is far better than the alternative of not moving up at all. I swear that the curse of the green-eyed monster is a greater evil even than the curse of the selfish, soulless rich man.

My rights matter more than theirs because I am LGBTQ and BIPOC. I can attach more letters to make it more convincing, if needed. Interesting, though. Why do you suppose that their rights matter more than mine? Because you clearly don't believe I'm LGBTQ or BIPOC, and you're fighting against me. What have I ever done to you? (Besides make snarky and sometimes unkind comments on a discussion board.) Here's an item I can't see that you've ever considered: There is no such thing as homosexual rights, or women's rights, or black rights, or trans rights, or animal rights, or asteroid rights, or protozoa rights. These things are meaningless. Rights, in the sense we are talking about, apply only to human beings. Only. All humans have a given right, or else it is not a right. We may proscribe certain rights in certain circumstances, but the fundamental idea of a "right" is not some mutable thing that attaches only to certain classes. Is there a freedom that applies to a human? Then it's a right, and it applies to all humans. Sex, height, race, preferred sexual perversion, or state of dental hygiene simply does not apply. Example: Freedom of religious belief and practice is a human right. The next question is: Under what circumstances do we proscribe rights? Which is a fascinating area, one I don't pretend to be informed enough on to write an essay at the moment. But it should be kept front and center in our minds that the various _________ Right movements, where the blank is replaced with some word, generally makes sense only when the word is "human". And when the rights of two people appear to be at odds, we stack rank the rights and adjudicate the higher-ranked right as more fundamental in that particular case, and thus more in need of protection. This is why elective-abortion-on-demand is such a contentious topic: One side insists that the protection of innocent life is the more fundamental right, while the other insists that absolute self-determination, even undoing a freely chosen path at the cost of an innocent life, is actually the more fundamental right. (Or the second party avoids the argument by disputing the term "life" as applied to the unborn, which magically makes the argument *poof* go away.) Example: Honor killing your daughter because that's part of your religion is not a human right, because your daughter's right to life in this case is much more fundamental than your right to practice your religion by exercising the behavior that would kill her. As long as you maintain the attitude that a "right" is whatever anyone says it is, and that your role is to hear both sides proclaim why their "rights" are more important than someone else's "rights" and then decide who you find more convincing, the issue can never be settled in a reasonable way, long-term or even short-term. If "backlash" means that people like yourself get sour expressions on their faces and perhaps even call us nasty names, then I agree. If "backlash" means people seek my employment or try to expose me publically to mob action, then your anarchic roots are showing all too clearly and illustrate why people consider anarchism to be the hideous monster it is. Note also that the basic function of government is to defend rights, that is, to secure the rights. The function of government is never to provide the rights. This is fundamentally why the people who annoyingly proclaim "Health care is a RIGHT!" are ignored by most conservatives. Engaging in exchange, whether educational, social, or financial, is indeed a right, so the possibility to offer or secure health care is protected by right. But to have health care given to you? That's no more a right than sitting in your house and insisting that food be brought to you. There is no such thing as a right to make someone else your slave.

I'm glad to hear that you will fight for my rights on *my* terms, not yours. Because for the purposes of this discussion, I am in fact LGBTQ and BIPOC. I'll let you know what the terms are for which you will be fighting, regardless of your opinion on those terms. Great to have an ally!

Even cis men can do basic logic. ??? "What is a woman?" "None of your business!" Really? So...an appendectomy? Tonsillectomy? Mole removal? Or does it have to be on the genitalia? If a man is circumcised, does he get to claim legal status as a woman? This is not just a parlor game. We have laws that apply specifically to/for women. We have deeply ingrained societal customs, taboos, and courtesies. If you legally do away with all societal concerns, you emasculate (there's that pesky sex reference) society's ability to reign in less refined impulses, which after all is the whole duty of society. This is open social engineering on a draconic scale—exactly what all those heretofore tagged as "conspiracy nuts" have been claiming for almost two generations. Are you actually openly conceding their point? Because that's what it sounds like. Cool. You trust my instincts about my own body, which I assume includes my instincts about my own race. Thus, you will never object, publically or privately, that I call myself African-American (and Cherokee, and Latino/a/x, and Polynesian, etc.) when applying for race-based scholarships or assistance or literally anything else. If I am to be sentenced to prison for a sex-related crime, I can insist that I am a woman and must be housed with other women. I can insist that I am only seven years old, and that therefore I cannot be charged with a felony. Better yet, I can insist that I am seventeen, so whatever punishment you may give me has to be lifted by my next birthday (which, by rights, I also get to choose). This is your vision for a perfect society, or at least the logical extension of your trust in my instincts to define every aspect of what I "am", including such heretofore immutable traits such as sex or race. Right? If not, please carefully explain which things I listed are wrong, why they are wrong, and how that accords with your statement about how you trust people's instincts about their own bodies.

No. The text under the grid gives a "hint" without which I think I would not have solved the puzzle.

What exactly is "the process of becoming a woman", if a woman has only otherwise been defined (as you do above) as "born female"? Because I know of no "process" by which a man can become "born female". You can't define a woman as "someone who has become a woman". That's circular, and thus not meaningful. Also, who determines whether the erstwhile male has truly become a woman, so that we know for sure whether the man who attempted the as-yet-undefined transition to womanhood succeeded? Or does the "can also be" mean something other than I have assumed? No need for the histrionics. I gave perfectly reasonable examples, and not all of them tilted against "your side". Or did you just happen to blink at the wrong time and miss the "fornicators" part? In any case, what I stated was obviously saddled with emotionally laden judgmental wording intentionally, to make the contrast as stark as possible. (And for the record, I was seeking to make a stark contrast, not to bad-mouth "your side". I realize my wording together with some incidents in my past responses to you might have suggested otherwise, so I'm clearing the air here. I included at least one parody of "my side" as well as of "your side", and at least one example that was not "sided" at all.) I notice you didn't answer the implicit question: How does your example make or reinforce or in any way even touch on your "case"? That really was all I was trying to ask. Absolutely. That is the point. I am not sure what the world's continued spin has to do with how we judge these things. Yet you offer the fact of the world's unrelenting rotational inertia as some sort of evidence of the validity of your argument. I'm hoping you'll enlighten us as to how your statement buttresses your position. FTR, that feeling about Trump exists among his supporters as well as his detractors. Many Trump supporters laud him as a far better leader than the alternative offered, while holding no delusion as to his standing as a religious man or an example of sexual probity.

https://downloads.newyorker.com/projects/2024/cartoons-and-puzzles-2024/brume-the-supper-soiree.pdf

If the Russian novel has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that men (and women) will often seek after misery and ensconce themselves therein, comfortably nestled in its lap.

Nor do you need to prove it, unless you want to impose that belief on someone else. Want to call your boyfriend "she" and pretend he's having a period? I mean, you do you. Want to pass legislation to normalize that sort of belief? Yeah, no. That's a no-go. You want to pass such a law, you must convince most of the rest of us that you're not just spouting worthless (or much worse than worthless) nonsense. On a strictly societal level, no one cares about either your tender feelings or your preferred perversions. Believe what you will. But don't impose your stupidities on the rest of us. That's the social contract that we maniacal, starry-eyed theists live under, and you get to join us there.

Men who forcibly rape their daughers have always existed, and the world has kept spinning. Attempts at genocide have always existed, and the world has kept spinning. Condemnation of fornicators (defined as those who engage in illegitimate sexual relations) has always existed, and the world has kept spinning. Vivisecting innocent animals for the fun of watching them suffer to death has always existed, and the world has kept spinning. Hatred of those stinking bleeding-heart liberal fools has always existed, and the world has kept spinning. People who act like antisocial jerks have always existed, and the world has kept spinning. Somehow, your case just isn't very strong. Or else I don't understand what your case is, which I grant is a distinct possibility.

Sure there was. You just didn't like our answer. Help me out. What was your answer?

Fun fact: Cracklin' Rose is a song about a man and a bottle of cheap wine.

So did they win?

If you had been an Asian mother, I'm sure they would have heard, "Why did you make only three balls? Are my children not smart enough to make four balls? You are lazy!"

That's a four-ball snowman. Your children are overachievers.

They built a northern Italian snowman.

It's been cold in eastern Washington, but no snow yet this season. I'm a tad disappointed. Ah, well. We still have February.

This looks similar to a gesture that my now-missionary son used to do with his gym bros, so maybe it's the rage among the kids. But it looks Nazi. While I don't particularly care what whiny, thin-skinned leftists think, I do care about overall appearances. However much he might have been trying to be edgy, Musk is a highly intelligent man, and knew full well that this looked like a Nazi salute. Anyone care to give some context to explain away what this clearly looks like to any 21st-century adult Westerner?

If they do this, it darn well had better be more than eyewash. Banning Bud LIght from government functions won't fill the bill.

Do my eyes deceive me? Is that Jeff standing there next to (almost next to) Elon? And is that Mark under Trump's arm? Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!

That's just cold.

I think you meant: https://comicskingdom.com/curtis/2025-01-19 The question is, in essence: What is the nature of our consciousness and perception, especially our proprioception (used in a generalized way)? This may seem spitballing or eighth-grade level philosophy to some, but I don't think so. We Latter-day Saints believe that we lived as conscious individuals before our mortal birth (and not merely in our fetal state). Yet we have no good idea about or even solid models for what that "pre-existence" may have looked like. Honestly, it may well have looked very much like our mortal life today. I suspect it bore more resemblance to our mortal experience than we realize. I also suspect that "it", our premortal experience, was experience in separable and perhaps discrete phases, such that our mortal life might possibly be considered as another phase in that process. As for the actual question posed, I suspect that each "phase" of our eternal lives is well-marked, and we are not left with any questions about whether we are here or there. But that's my own philosophy, so who knows? Maybe some people die and it takes them hours or years to figure it out.