Why, specifically, does Taylor Swift prefer Joe Biden to Donald Trump?
While there is not a tremendous amounts of documentation over specifics, there are two issues that she has spoken out on.
Taylor Swift is a strong proponent of what is called the Equality Act.
If you read the text, it looks like the act was penned as a response to court rulings that supported business owner's right to not provide services to people whose moral decisions offend them.
For example, the Christian or Muslim baker who refuses to accept an order to bake a cake for a "gay wedding" would be required under this Act to accept the order and bake that cake.
Another example that give proponents of the Equality Act the vapors is the case of an owner of a duplex who refuses to rent the other half to a minor-attracted person or a gay-or-lesbian family. The law makes no exceptions for families who have children. The Act specifically mentions "housing" as one of the public accommodations it covers and a sympathetic venue would entertain "minor attraction" as falling within the set "sexual-orientation".
The Equality Act would enshrine in Federal Law language that can be interpreted as requiring that trans-genders must be allowed to compete in events depending on how they identified on game-day.
So conservatives dislike this Act because it infringes on Private Property and Religious Rights (the baker), Parental Rights (the duplex example) and the right for biological women to have protections under Title IX.
Taylor Swift, who has no kids and probably never competed in athletics, is fine with all that. In fact, she financially supports this bill and politicians who promise to vote for it and uses her bully-pulpit to influence her fans to support this bill.
Second Amendment
Taylor Swift is anti-gun. In a way, it is understandable. She is a public figure (like Jody Foster). For various reasons she elicits strong emotions in many people. While I can understand her desire to reduce risk to personal harm, it IS a natural consequence of being famous. It is a package deal.
Of course, Swift can and does hire armed body-guards. That is not an option to a poor single-woman living in a rough neighborhood. But Swift does not have any empathy for that woman.
It's to her incentive to be publicly Leftist - young women (her core audience) are overwhelmingly stupid, er, Leftist.
ReplyDeleteI can certainly relate to cases that involve a balance between anti-discrimination laws and individual freedoms such as religious beliefs on wedding cakes and I can understand the argument of transgenders in sports. I get that. But it really wasn’t that long ago that discrimination protections for individuals for employment, housing, education, medication, freedom of assembly, voting, etc., regardless of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and other characteristics was somewhat of a given.
ReplyDeleteI’m no expert on gender dysphoria, intersex, or other disorders but as a child, I did know of a farmer who had a 200 pound goat who had both a vagina and a penis. The elder farmers hypothesized that the large weight was nature’s way of protecting it from being killed by the other goats.
I’ve wondered over the years if there was a time some doctor had to look up at a new mother and ask: “whadda ya want me to do, snip or stitch ?”. And of course, raising the child who lost the coin flip of the snip or stitch would make for some awkward teenage years for both the child and the parents. Granted, such occurrences would be extremely rare but I’m sure there are multiple levels of the seriousness of conditions.
Just seems to me that rather than this orchestrated political attack on .5 percent of Americans dealing with such handicaps, for no other reason than to pump oxygen into the “war on woke” to rile and anger their base or to muddy the waters of public and political discourse and feed the echo chamber of sympathetic right-wing media in order to prey on naive and unsuspecting constituents, this issue would be better left to these parents, medical profession, and their God rather than politicians intruding in their lives.
I think your presupposing that the motive for opposing transgenders in-principle is an effort to inflame passions is one-dimensional.
DeleteI oppose transgender "medical affirming care" because a grossly disproportionate percentage of the minors who are given that treatment have been diagnosed with other mental illnesses like autism. My mental picture is that the child was convinced by the medical doctors (who stand to profit by cutting off bits and pieces) that they will be happy and "normal" after the procedures.
How can somebody "know" they would be happier in a body of the other gender when they have never been the other gender? Are you saying men cannot be gentle or like soft things of flowers or be verbal? Are you saying it is impossible for women to be tough and kinetic and like coarse jokes? That seems pretty limiting and cliche.
Not crapping on what you wrote. Just sharing where I am coming from.
I appreciate the refreshingly civil discussion and I respect your opinions and concerns.
DeleteI’ll concede my point on the motive of the widely recent red state legislation on transgenders as that is another argument.
Again, my expertise on individual sexual wiring falls short (I’ll be married to 1 woman for 40 years this spring and have never had gays, as GWB often said, “threatened (my) traditional marriage”). What I would argue is that this isn’t some binary problem with some binary fix. Autism doesn’t equate to gender dysphoria, intersex, or other disorders. It is true that some studies suggest an increased prevalence of gender dysphoria among individuals with autism but correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation. If I may, generalizing a "grossly disproportionate percentage" may oversimplify a complex issue. Robust research and nuanced discussions are crucial when exploring the intersection of gender identity, mental health, and neurodiversity.
I don’t disagree that the medical profession is about making money. But what’s been going on with legislation on medical care of gender dysphoria, intersex, or other disorders raises the question of at what point does Big Brother Government needs to stand down and leave such medical decisions up to the parents, their medical professionals, and their religious faith.
It would be much easier for me to agree with you if the hormone treatments and surgery was not permanent.
DeleteIn "sexual harassment" training, there are different standards for between peers and when there is a power-disparity between the two parties. There is no power-disparity larger than what exists between the parent and the child. What if the doctor and the parent are convinced that irreversible therapies are the right answer? Be honest with me...do you know of any kids who were railroaded into participating in activities against their will because their parent was sure they would be a great basketball or saxophone player? Why do these medical decisions have to be made before the child reaches the age of their majority? What is the rush?
There are more than a few mental-health professions who now contend that young people, especially young men, do not reach their full maturity until age 26.
One of my female friends is 60 and active in her church youth group. One of the autistic girls started dressing in boys clothes and then asked to be called by a boys name. My friend asked her what was going on. The bottom line is, that as an autistic person who never received positive attention in school, when she started to dress like a boy, all the teachers stood up and applauded. When she said she was trans, they told her she was so brave and made a huge fuss over her. She wasn't trans. She didn't have gender dysphoria. She was starved for positive attention. Luckily covid hit and the girl was no longer being groomed by teachers with their own agenda. She went back to wearing pink. She loves dresses, and last I heard, she had a boyfriend.
DeleteIf covid had not hit, the trans groomers would have sterilized one more innocent kid and would have completely destroyed her life.
But, you're 100% correct. If they had successfully transitioned her, it would be no skin off my nose. I don't know her. The again, if she blew her brains out, it would also be no skin off my nose either. I guess I should not care. I should just leave it to the "professionals". As long as they don't go after me or mine, I shouldn't care.
I really have no dog in the fight on this subject as all 4 of my children, my grandchildren, friends and their love ones (to my knowledge) are not impacted by these laws. I personally don’t know anyone who is.
DeleteI have no doubts there are isolated incidents of misinterpretations or medical malpractice with transgender treatment just as there are in most any field of medicine. Using that argument, perhaps banning pain medicine would be a bigger fish to fry considering the permanent damage of the opioid crises?
When you look at legislation banning trans treatment that’s swept Republican controlled states, what you don’t find is input from the medical profession. You don’t find studies or statistics. You don’t find testimony from individuals or from families. In some cases, opposition to the bill wasn’t even allowed. What you do find is state after state following what appears to be the same playbook using questionable if not misleading and debunked talking points.
If you take an honest look at the culture wars or the “war on woke”, it goes back about 8 years ago when the Supreme Court said gay marriage was a constitutional right. This was politically huge because of the Evangelical vote. Right wing think tanks went to work. Terry Schilling, the president of American Principles Project said: “We knew we needed to find an issue that the candidates were comfortable talking about. And we threw everything at the wall.”
What has stuck was the issue of transgender identity, particularly among young people. This is the ticket to gain that vote. It allows politicians to pull away from talking about abortion. It also brings a rather unhinged QAnon conspiracy theory that Biden and Democrats are running a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking ring to be a bit more main stream.
And if you look across the country, this strategy has worked well as more conservatives have taken school board seats, public library board seats, and other areas to promote their agenda solely on the transgender issue.
Perhaps you disagree but my argument is, what I believe to be true is, that DeSantis, Abbot, Huckabee, et al had no interest in the well being of these people whatsoever. It does more harm to them than good. They are merely political pawns.
Anonymous says: “Luckily covid hit and the girl was no longer being groomed by teachers with their own agenda”. I’m not sure if you know it but you got in two powerful talking points from the propaganda think tanks. One is that there is an orchestrated attempt to lure people into a transgender lifestyle or such. To be clear, there is none. The other is the evils of the teacher teaching an evil agenda to the students. The conservative think tanks has a war on teachers as well. When it comes to grooming, no one does a better job than they do.
It looks you are the one to jump to talking points -- not me. The teachers (and I did not state there was a national conspiracy of groomers -- that was your concept) that were specifically grooming a specific child were no longer able to groom her.
DeleteYou clearly like to dismiss information that runs counter to your world view. And as a leftist, that is pretty easy to do since so much of of the media is more than willing to bury information contrary to your world view.
I know I have zero chance of convincing you of the harm that is being done to children -- since you're content to dismiss that harm as being "talking points." I sincerely hope that a demented teacher with an agenda to push doesn't sink their hooks into one of your grandchildren.
RJW wrote: "...there are isolated incidents of misinterpretations or medical malpractice with transgender treatment..."
DeleteAccording to this article (https://www.npr.org/2023/01/15/1149318664/transgender-and-non-binary-people-are-up-to-six-times-more-likely-to-have-autism) from that bastion of conservative thought, NPR, victims of transgender "medical affirmation" are three to six times more likely to be autistic than the general population.
Hardly "isolated incidents".
Troll much, RJW?
You seem to be implying that children with autism are misdiagnosed as transgender but what your link points out is that: “Transgender and nonbinary people are up to six times more likely to ALSO have autism”.
DeleteThe problem I have, or why I “dismiss” your argument is because not only does it parrot a national conspiracy theme, but it offers an isolated “he said-she said” that cannot be verified or confirmed nor can it be investigated for full clarity. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting you’re wrong or made it up but it falls short of justifying this national medical ban and discriminatory movement of half a percent of American citizens.
It also gives a whiff of the repeated false claims that LGBTQ+ people as well as public school teachers are “pedophiles” who are “grooming” children in order to abuse and/or transform them. Perhaps you didn’t explicitly make that claim but it’s precisely what the right wing think tanks and the Murdoch Media wants their listeners to do.
ERJ, I suspect that Miss Swift will, in 30 or 40 years, be the Madonna of her generation: physically re-done, a nostalgia figure in the minds of many, realizing that many of the recommendations and decisions of her life led nowhere.
ReplyDeleteTaylor $wift. Follow the $. Folly beyond that. Pay no mind to false idols.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile the potato bin is near empty, the hay is running short, and the meat on the hoof is needing Spring pastures.
Pay attention to what’s important.
Time is precious…
FFSake Joe. Steer your audience back to Cumberland Blues…
Deletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M4p3832SsIU&pp=ygUeY3VtYmVybGFuZCBibHVlcyBncmF0ZWZ1bCBkZWFk
Deletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xosZDm01ffc&pp=ygUeY3VtYmVybGFuZCBibHVlcyBncmF0ZWZ1bCBkZWFk
DeleteSwift doesn't support Pedo Joe. She supports the left. He just happens to be the current face of the left. Most leftists are TOO STUPID to differentiate the difference. Virtually ALL leftists function on emotion, not on reason, fact or logic. Add in the fact that she has NEVER had to live in the real world and you have the recipe for an idiot with a following. Her mentor, the man who discovered her, signed her to a recording contract and gave her the chance to become wealthy and famous died less than a week ago. She has YET to publicly acknowledge his death or her debt to him. That man was Toby Keith. She just a typical short sighted, selfish, egocentric poorly educated moron who FELL into power and money through sheer luck. She isn't even all that talented.
ReplyDeleteLike suicide, it appears that in an un knowable fraction of cases, gender reassignment is a permanent solution to a transient problem.
ReplyDeletePerhaps children are incapable of making that sort of decision?
I figure that entertainers, like actors and musicians, are in a business where the empathy to understand others is a job requirement. That makes them lean more democrat than republican.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet studies show that Democrats are less likely to give to charity than Republicans are.
DeleteLet's be honest, terrorism conducted by BLM and Antifa (sic) works. If I was a public figure or a public company, I would probably pay the blackmail versus have them burn my business to the ground. Conservatives don't riot, loot, and burn. That's the job of leftist and Democrats.
"Conservatives don't riot, loot, and burn. That's the job of leftist and Democrats."
DeleteLOL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_the_United_States
Thank you Joe, and Anon, and RJW for an interesting and (mostly) polite discussion! So refreshing to act like an intellectual over the internet as opposed to throwing a child's tantrum and resorting to ad hominem attacks and name calling!
ReplyDeleteI find the discussion interesting on its surface. The entire paradigm is what this one person is thinking, how they reached that conclusion, and how it benefits them.
The debate swirls around how and why this position benefits the person.
What if the decision wasn't theirs to make? What if they are just a cog in a larger machine? What if I make you an offer you cannot refuse? What if they are really just a puppet on strings? Who is manipulating the strings?