Thank you.
Upon review, you were actually posting here quite a while before you got onto politics.
Dude, I've been posting here (with a break for a few years) for nearly 25 years. This interaction with you is an example of the way in which you tend to make baseless assertions as if they're fact, especially when doing so paints your interlocutor in a bad light and lets you feel justified in maligning them.
If you actually think hard about it, and go back in time... there have been a LOT of things you and I have agreed on.
Such as the above correction, which I note that you have accepted with little grace...
I accepted it with some grace. I would certainly have been happier had I not needed to challenge your ad hominem in the first place. I would very much prefer to NOT face vitriol and hostility when interacting with you.
There are always some things on which we will disagree, and historically have done so. But this tendency of you to paint me as some sort of hard-right bigot is an entirely new invention unevidenced by history.
I don't think you are a "hard right bigot". I am well aware that you
consider yourself a liberal Democrat feminist, and believe that the things you type about transgendered people and cis men among others are factual, unbiased, and reasonable. Kind and compassionate even. You are, more than you would ever fully acknowledge, a classic Democratic voter.
I would argue that me considering myself a classical liberal and a classical feminist (never a democrat, always independent) is fairly defensible, and that an objective third party would agree upon assessment of the views I actually hold.
I do think that the things I type about transgender people and men are factual and reasonable; but I absolutely have a bias - I'm a female human who is impacted by this in a way that you and other males are not affected. I freely admit that I am biased in favor of retaining safety, dignity, privacy, and equal access to society
for women.
Although I generally try to avoid being intentionally derogatory, I don't necessarily attempt to "be kind and compassionate" on this topic. I do strive to be rational, but sometimes I'm simply going to cut to the heart of it - and I know full well that at least some people are going to see that as "unkind". Many of those people appear to demand an entirely different level of "kindness" from women than they do from men.
Try to remember that my views have been pretty stable for two dozen years or so, with relatively minor shifts... and perhaps consider whether or not it's your position that has drifted?
Having "relatively" unchanging views for 24 years, even as the world around you has changed, is not the brag you think it is. At least not if you ask me. The world has changed greatly in that time. I disagree that the right-wing talking points you now parrot on certain issues like trans people and immigrants were always your perspective, though. Many of those tropes hadn't even been invented yet, in 2000.
You're bogged down in terminology, Poli. Plus, I believe I'm older than you. My principles and my values are stable and consistent, and have been for some time. New specific topics come up, sure, but the stances that I take on each topic is part and parcel of my principles. For example, I've consistently been a proponent of equal
opportunity, and I've been skeptical and distrustful of those who argue for equal
outcomes. Specific topics might shift, but if you understand that I will evaluate it from a consistent perspective, my opinions should rarely be a surprise.
Myself, I was sixteen and just starting college, two dozen years ago, and I am proud to have changed quite a few of my views since then. Most of them, really. Life has taught me a great deal, and my schooling even more. If I have "drifted" during that time, I find no reason at all to feel ashamed that I have done so.
The difference between 16 and 27 is fairly significant. If your views didn't evolve in that span, I think it would be quite unusual.
