Today's Battles

First, over at TruthDig, "Pregnant Man Puts the Trans in Gender" where reasonable people can disagree without getting their underwear into topologically complex configurations. I may not have persuaded anyone, but they should be, if not wiser, at least better informed.

Over at Hoax Forum, a sceptical look at Terry Wright's situation, where he's feminising for no apparent reason. There's the expected jokes about it at the start, but when confronted with credible evidence that it does happen sometimes, they're not just reasonable, but compassionate. I find that true of many sceptical people. It's only those committed to The One True Way, that won't be swayed by evidence, that tend to be heartless. Even there there are exceptions, of course. I wish there were more though.

In contrast, over at the Boston Herald, "Undercover ‘john’ takes on niggers trannies, pimps", detailing the heroic (s)exploits of a fine, upstanding Vice Cop cleaning up the seamier side of Boston.

Which leads to such fine, upstanding comments as

ByteRider
Transsexuals... the scourge of society's moral compass. Thank you Det. Fong for ridding us of these disgusting circus freaks.

#321771 - Jul 7, 2008 5:53 PM EDT

Needless to say, I have certain issues with that. It does remind me of the old joke though, one I've seen with several variations.

In 1936 an elderly Jew was walking down a lonely street in Berlin. Suddenly he was accosted by three Nazi Stormtoopers. One demanded angrily: "Isn't it true, old man, that the Jews are the cause of all the problems we now have in Germany?"

The old man replied, "Aber Natuerlich, Mein Herr. Of course they are. The Jews.... and the circus bicycle riders."

The SA-mann looked puzzled and asked "Why the circus bicycle riders?"

The old man shrugged and replied: "Why the Jews?"

The trouble is, some people see it as their duty to rid the world of "disgusting circus freaks", often by shooting them. Words such as these, while hurtful, are not harmful: but if allowed to remain unchallenged, if "journalism" such as this remains acceptable without demur, then a climate is created which positively encourages some fine upstanding citizens to give vent to their bottled-up hatred, secure in the knowledge of social approval of what would otherwise be seen as a sociopathic act. A sociopathic act with a 38 special.

And meanwhile over at Montgomery County, Maryland, there are those who are so anxious to exclude "disgusting circus freaks" from being allowed to enter theatres, or even use drinking fountains, that they see it their duty to sign false statements.

In the recent petition there, every page must be signed by the petitioner to say they have personally witnessed each signature on the page. Each entry must have the voter's full name, then a signature underneath, and each page must have a signature of the petitioner attesting to its validity. Well, as you can see from the petition sheet, not only are some signatures missing entirely, but several names are in the same handwriting. This is not a one-off, there are dozens of fraudulent pages like this.

Now you'd think this would be caught during checking. But as you can see from the next image, even blank lines have been certified as "OK", valid names an signatures, by those given the responsibility for verifying the petition is above board.

The election officials claim that their only responsibility is to check the names and addresses match up with actual residents of the county, not to be "handwriting experts". But it doesn't take a "handwriting expert" to see the massive scale of the fraud by "fine upstanding citizens" here. And OKing a blank line goes well beyond the pale.

This is the kind of thing we have to fight against. Hatred. Bigotry. Mendacity. Ignorance. They go together, don't they?