Jesus, Mary and Joseph that's a lotta shit to shovel. OK. Where to begin?
I am guessing you didn't read the article on intersexuality. It's something people have from birth. In many of the cases where (for example) a child is born with both sets of genitalia, doctors make a decision about which gender to assign to the baby and operate to 'fix' the abnormality. You'll hear trans* people sometimes use the phrase "Assigned Male At Birth" - because this is literally what happens, the doctors make a call based on primary sexual charecteristics. And sometimes they'll remove a penis from a baby they've designated female, or close a vulva on a baby they've designated male. So, your original statement:
"If one is born with a penis, they're male.
If one is born with a vagina, they're female."
Is incorrect. It is the foundational statement of your side of this argument. And it was wrong.
*** I did read the article actually. And as you said yourself "...the abnormality." That's just it, it's an abnormality, a developmental defect. And here's where you and I are looking at this glass from two different sides. There was a point were the wires got crossed from what was intended to what actually happened, but there was that moment of "intention" and it is in that moment, the sex was decided and anything after that intention is were the defect or "abnormality" took hold. But that doesn't set aside the intentional aspect of creation. I hear everything you're saying and I respect your position, but this is my position and that isn't going to change.
Some parents in an effort to NOT be whatever raise a child neither male or female, they say, "we'll let it decide what it wants to be." That is the most fucking stupid thing I've ever heard. And quite frankly adults with that mind set should never have children, and yet they do. So yes, be pissed at me that I made that statement, but I stand behind it fully.
As far as the defect goes. What exactly is your suggested remedy? Which fix is less mentally problematic for a baby born with such problems? Seems to me a doctor who chooses male and then they grow up with OBVIOUS female characteristics chose wrong, or vice versa. That choice at may or may not cause mental challenges in the person affected. If they choose female and that person grows up with OBVIOUS female characteristics one would say they choose correctly. So in an effort to NOT choose wrong, what is the absolute guaranteed direction? *****
I get stuff wrong a bunch. It's a human thing to dol. And when I get things wrong, I like to take some time and re-evaluate my beliefs as well as the sources I'm relying on. Sometimes this means accepting hard truths about the universe, but I don't want to live anywhere else but the real world - even if parts of it are strange and frightening. Are you the same? Or do you prefer living in denial?
****Yes,we all make mistakes throughout our life, I've made more than I can remember and probably more than I made right, who knows? We should all strive to learn from them and I do. You mention sources you rely on. What if you're sources were wrong? What if the whole time you were relying on them, they were knowingly or even unknowingly putting forth bad information? What then? What if? And this isn't about living in denial. I admit that people are born with defects, but again, taking it back to very essence of creation, that baby wasn't intentionally created to have TWO sexes, there was suppose to be ONLY a single sex, but something went wrong and if we could look into the intention at the moment of creation the decision of the doctor at that critical moment would be easy, but we can't do that, so again, what's the fix? The REAL fix back to the point of creation?****
"As far as the black race goes. Let me ask you, who's responsible for their own actions? Oneself or someone else?"
This is a fascinating question! I'm not sure what triggered it in this dialogue but I happen to know the answer. In studies when people watch the behaviours of others, they tend to attribute the actions they observe to the individual's personality or character traits rather than the circumstances they are in. Yet hundreds upon hundreds of experiments - entire branches of economics and psychology, amongst others - have shown that this assumption is almost always wrong. In fact it's such a common and well recognised cognitive bias that it has a name - 'the fundamental attribution error'.
People (black or white, rich or poor, queer, straight or however you define yourself) are primarily products of their circumstances. This is not to say there is no such thing as character, but affects outcomes at the margins. Most of your life will be dictated by things happening to you and stuff outside of your control, including but not limited to the behaviour of others. We're culturally excited by stories of individuals who persevered 'despite it all', self-made scrappers who started with nothing and became billionaires. Yet these stories, even when they turn out to be true, are absurd outliers compared to the overall picture: An individual has very little power to change their world; the world has an incredible amount of power to shape an individual. So the only logical moral answer to this question is one of collective responsibilities.
****YES, their circumstances almost always dictate their actions. Perfect example, Chicago has a MASSIVE problem with gun violence, drugs, etc. in its black community. Why is this? Because from the moment that child hits the ground they are surrounded by it, day after day. They see it and hear it over and over again. So it becomes quite natural that they too fall into the same trap. Countless of births out of wedlock. No father involved. And as hard as a mother might try to raise their child without that influence it's truly not possible and so they fall into it.
However, there is one thing that needs to be taken into consideration. Conscience thought and decision. Who's at fault for creating the environment that exists there, or anywhere for that matter? That young man and young woman in a desire to satisfy the flesh made that conscience decision to have sex without regard to consequence. So while the resulting baby is a product of its circumstances, his or her parents made a conscience decision to facilitate the outcome.
People call it "white privilege" which is such a cop out bullshit statement used to fuel racial divide, which will lead me to my final point below in a moment. But I was raised in a home by two people who were committed to each other, loved each other, were married for decades to each other. They raised me to be a responsible adult. To not lie, steal, cheat, break the law, take drugs, etc. My children were raised the same way. Me, they, YOU are products of our circumstances, but to call me "white privilege"...fuck that, I have worked hard for everything I have in this world. No one gave it to me, in fact no one cared whether I do good or bad at all once I became an adult. That was MY consciences choice.****
I'm guessing from what you've written about the 'liberal rag' you identify with conservative values. I didn't know about those LBJ quotes, it was an interesting read. That guy was a huge prick in a bunch of ways - Vietnam being the one he'll be remembered for. I admit I lost faith in the article a bit when it floated a JFK conspiracy theory, and so I did a bit of digging. It turns out the quote for that source is an air force one pilot, who actually supplied a lot of quotes for the book that acts as the source for "
The Relentless Conservative"s article. It's kind of weak as historical sources go. I'd like to read more though - my plan is to read the whole history of the United States from Oxford Press, but I've only just gotten to the war of 1812! What I do know is that the Democrats were the party of racism for nearly a hundred years prior to the civil rights act. Then, thanks to Nixon's southern strategy, that changed. The Democrats (as LBJ allegedly predicted) picked up most of the black vote on account of, you know, turning America into a fully functioning democracy for the first time, and the Republicans picked up the racist vote because... well, Nixon would do anything for power. Now there's a man who liked using the N word! And with him, there are actually tapes!
****I touched on this the other day, and this won't be so long either. The democrat party is the humanity party of hate. They always have been. It's well documented. If anyone for even a minute thinks that fucking POS Hillary Clinton gives one rats ass about anything or anyone but herself is delusional at best and just plain fucking mental at worse. The democrat party and its players have never done one single thing to help the very people that keep voting them into office. And crazy enough, some of their worst violators are black. They get on the stumps and talk about how republicans are about corporate greed, profit, "white privilege," guns, etc. and how they "CARE FOR THE PEOPLE" it's all political bullshit!
Remember "Obama Phones" for the people? Or in GA 2020 senate run off elections "$2,000 for your vote." The democrat party is so fucking full of themselves that they demote, demoralize, and marginalize the very people that vote for them by offering them a "trinket." No, they aren't about to help change someone's circumstances, but hey, here's a phone or some $$ for you, if you vote for me. LBJ supposedly said (and quite frankly that worthless fuck probably did) "...we'll have those niggers voting democrat for the next 200 years." That was 60 years ago so I guess there's another 140 to go, when will people wake up?
And just so you don't think I'm all republican and shit. As bad as all those fucking democrats are, the republicans have been just as bad, but in a different way. Those fuckers and especially the Bush ******...WAR and CONTROL. Fuck them too.
And yes, I voted for Trump, TWICE. And yes, that election was rigged all the way down. When ever I have spoken to anyone who is/was anti Trump my only question to them was this "What has Trump done that made YOUR life worse than it is/was?" And to this day (and I've asked that question to literally hundreds of people) I have never gotten a single answer, not one. Most of the time they attempt to redirect to "oh he grabs women by the pussy" or something like that, which is just stupid. The left talks about how great Obama was, all the while he was fucking them straight up the ass and they didn't even know it.
Anyway, that's it. As I said the other day, I like you. You have spunk and an open mind, and that's admirable. I guess I went longer than I intended.****
I'll be interested to hear your thoughts when you've got time.
You're spunky, you don't back down, you obviously have a head on your shoulders and that speaks volumes to me...Yep, I like you.
