Well, if anyone had wanted to change the laws, they had 70 years to do it. COINTELPRO started in 1956 and nobody has put any kind of brakes on surveillance or even torture.

I’m not 70 years old, so I have not had 70 years to try and change the laws.

Of course they are. Who doubted they would?

I’ve always assumed they were profiling protesters. I go to to protests head-to-toe in full costume because of it.

They can try to profile me, but they’re just going to get a costume that millions of people own.

Also going to protests is kind of silly because they don’t do anything. No use getting on some government hit list for holding some sign making fun of Trump or ice.

making fun of protests is exactly the kind of stuff that lands us in voter apathy

Protests don’t do anything… which is also why they are completely forbidden in Russia and you’ll get arrested for one person protests with blank signs. Coming soon to the US as well.

Generally, that’s true.

But there’s one example where protests have made a ton of change recently: Flock has lost 400 contracts since June. But that’s because the protests have morphed into people actually going to city council meetings.

Yeah… that’s how protests work. They change the narrative and get people that won’t go to protests to go to city council meetings or to email or call their government officials.

In theory.

But thankfully in this one instance it actually worked.

I’ve heard it as; “it shows like-minded people that there are also others who care about a cause.”

Anti-abortion laws might get passed and you may think “wow, I can’t believe everyone thinks that way” and then a protest happens with thousands of people in attendance and you realise your view isn’t irrelevant. This can lead to people moving for change.

Unfortunately, this also works for bigoted protests, like anti-immigration protests bringing all the dickheads together to a shared cause.

They have another company. They are just playing us.

Except it literally gathers groups of like minded individuals. Individual we’re weak but together we become strong.

At this point I feel people are galvanized already to their beliefs. You have those for this, and those against this, there’s little to no room for those calling for both sides to come to an agreement.

Right: I want to kill trans people

Left: I want me and friends to be left alone

You: can’t we come to some sort of compromise?

I’m not calling for agreement or moderation, pointing out people have taken sides and there’s less of the enlightened centrists calling for compromise between genocide and just wanting to live.

Left: I want my trans daughter to dunk on your bio daughter.

At least be honest. And I am on the left but don’t act like the case is literally just let us live our lives vs trans extinction.

The issue with this argument is HRT in trans women after 2 years reduces muscle and bone density down to the levels within the average ranges of cis women… Removing the “biological advantage”. This is widely studied and recognised in science, and it’s not even new science…

It’s the constant intake of the higher testosterone levels that causes the increased baseline strength which lowers as the hormone does. HRT for Trans Women includes both Androgen blockers (blocks testosterone) and estrogen to fill its place. Hence “hormone replacement therapy”

I’d say it’s less “being honest” and more than most people are ignorant (accidentally or maliciously) to just how much HRT affects the body and how it affects the body… Just like how trans men significantly gain baseline strength over 1-2 years into HRT

Which is exactly why sports organisations like the Olympics (before Trump pressured them to drop trans people) required a set amount of time of HRT medical history and blood tests to check hormone levels are in average cis women ranges to allow trans people to take part.

But if you believe the people on the right demanding the erasure of trans people, you’d assume it’s just “men with the biological advantages dunking on women” while ignoring all effects the body undergoes. Which then allows the constant attacking of trans people for simply existing (even though majority trans people aren’t even trying to get into professional sports… But that doesn’t make for a “good” news story or political point scoring when fighting to demonise trans people…)

It’s not really a professional sports thing it’s an amateur sports thing. We really just need to allow PEDs in sports at this point. People should be free to put whatever they want in their own bodies to enhance their performance and it would get rid of this whole argument overnight. That and having gendered sports classes is a bit sexist in its own right since gender is only a social construct.

The argument is that people are allowed to make fun of each other. That’s freedom of speech and they can suck on that.

But we’re not talking about “making fun of people” - which also isn’t the same as the active demonisation, villanisation and sometimes even dehumanisation of trans people, especially from the media and in politics, rather the topic is about laws actively being made against an entire demographic of people.

And freedom of speech is protection against being arrested for your speech. It’s not relevant since no one here has suggested anyone be arrested for it.

yout last comments before this were saying that a girl in a comic explicitly about rape wasnt being raped bro shut the fuck up with the trans panic agenda nazi troll

The problem is no one cares when your daughter gets dunked on by someone else’s cis-daughter. CIS-on-cis injuries in women’s sports are ubiquitous. If youre XX and still built like a brick wall, (the same mold as our women firefighters) then you’re just a ringer.

No, they’re worried about trans athletes and their potential for harm, even though there’s about ten such athletes throughout the US, and the instances involving injuries are about a handful.

And similarly no one cares about the severe (life-changing) TBI machine that is full-contact gridiron football, varsity, college and professional. Then we revel in the blood and profits.

The trans issue is pure right wing propaganda, and essentially just a means for MAGAs to signal their presence to their fellow cultists.

Yeah if your argument is Americans have an unhealthy connection with sports for sure I agree.

It’s not unique to Americans. Many countries have an unhealthy relationship with FIFA, although gridiron football is only slightly short of gladiatorial blood sports. (It doesn’t kill participants, only reduces them to a shell of their former selves.) German football hooliganism is notorious.

I can’t speak for rugby or hockey, which also look dangerous but don’t have leagues as powerful as NFL.

Also the US has boxing and mixed-martial-arts cage matches. I don’t know if those have near-equivalents outside America.

lol that’s all you got? Isn’t your word for crying about being made fun of “snowflake”? Fuck off.

I personally and explicitly do not want my trans daughter anywhere near you or your family. Regardless of if you are ‘on the left’ or not.

The tolerant left. I hope you and your trans daughter have a great and fulfilling life.

‘The tolerant left’ has only ever been a right wing slogan.

He’s only operating at 5% because of all the data center losses, it’s almost pitiful/s

It’s a social contract which you’re breaking right now, so deserve none of its protection you transphobe.

At some point in your attempt to defend rapists and attack trans people, you are going to have to reckon with the fact that you are not a leftist or anywhere leaning left.

I’m not defending any rapists or attacking any trans people.

We can see your comments.

As can everyone else living in reality.

Guys go easy on him, his AI is down right now so he’s typing this from memory.

Let us not base policy choices on feels, be open to learning proven ways, and use Sagan’s baloney detection kit to understand what really helps people do better. People get indoctrinated and brainwashed into unhealthy ideas, tribalism, and use excuse that they don’t want to risk their benefits of belonging by questioning them or their feels. They can choose to leave unhealthy ways and meet better people. Maybe thinking is too hard and they don’t have time, due to artificial scarcity of these bad policies, or numb with mindless algorithms, so they do what their crowd does, what the media brainwashes them to fear. Critical thinking and doing the right things, actual courage is too hard.

The US has regressed in healthcare and other quality of life, due to the swings back to maga, and people unaware how long it takes to rebuild the destruction they cause each time. Dems rarely have enough majority with the lopsided system, and too many voters don’t understand all this and choose to flip back due to feels, and the world is worse off for it… again.

Actually, they serve two purposes.

One is visibility. They let the public and the state know there is a strong public objection to what is going on. It lets quieter objectors know they are not alone.

And two is provocation. All the state needs to do is work around the protest, and manage it as gently as possible, but too often they give into temptation to send in riot control and bust heads. Fascists are totally into the power trip.

When they do put down protests brutally, it rallies onlookers to the cause. Bystanders become sympathists. Sympathists become activists. Activists become militants. This is standard COIN theory and has been for a very long time.

The US should have learned this lesson during the International War on Terror, during the 2014 Ferguson unrest, during the 2020 George Floyd protests. But this regime is not big on learning things.

Put a pebble in one shoe to remind you to step weird, otherwise they can analyze your gait

People are still protesting?

They are.

And in fact, people just doing good old fashioned protesting and testifying are accomplishing great things, like getting almost 400 Flock contracts killed since June. I made a video about it.

You might imagine that billionaires aren’t much inclined to report on such things, and they own all of the major news outlets.

It’s giving

Yes

ALTNo Kings 4 Oct. 17

its probably much worse.

ICE was raiding specific buildings because they needed to be cleared out for development by the kushners. I’m sure Trumps secret police is capable of anything.

I’d love a news article about it.

It affirms that ICE is just a paramilitary agency that is loyal to the regime, and has nothing to do with law enforcement or national security. The police and enforcement assertions are just color.

I don’t remember all the details but this is what I could find

This was the building that was raided that his investment firm had ties to: abc7chicago.com/post/…/19107787/

I did find that some building shares were sold after an unrelated scandal, but I think it was this firm that had ties to the building in Chicago that was blitzed. rawstory.com/…/jared-kushners-family-selling-chic…

I wish I had thae article Im thinking of on hand, but i read it shortly after the raid occurred, so it was about a year ago. I remember reading how this blitz style raid traced back to shady dealings and an investment in real estate by kushner.

Oh that raid! I remember the event of the raid, specifically but didn’t know it was a Kushner building. Wow!

These bad trees keep bearing bad fruit, makes sense, they always bear poison.

Fascists love that kind of stuff. They always do lists of the people they would like to kill.

Saving up names for houses to raid and disappear people later.

Americans are in genuine danger from their government and this is only going to get worse. If the midterms fail to affect change through the democratic system, you all are going to have to make a choice between complete capitulation to a group of child raping tyrants, or actually fighting back together. I hate this timeline.

I guaran-fuckin-tee ya, Americans will choose capitulation. There’s a very special “The Voice” coming up.

After the 9/11 attacks suspected terrorists were put on the no fly list and the Interpol Terrorism Watch List, and we said nothing because they were, well, terrorists.

Except they weren’t. Any agent of numerous departments could put anyone on these lists. Soon random Americans with Arabic names discovered they couldn’t board their plane. Journalists and protesters found themselves subject to extra search protocols and harassment by law enforcement.

Americans discovered they could be deprived of civil liberties by any officer of the law, who could add them to a list. No justifying reason. No due process. Just, fuck you, civilian.

Eventually existence of these lists became public. At first courts had to compell DHS to allow people to check if they were on the list, and then more suits were necessary to create a process for someone to petition to be taken off the list.

Before Trump 1.0, the process was still labyrinthine and a heavy administrative burden to submit such a petition. I don’t know what happened after Trump.

it’s entirely in the character of this SCOTUS to decide law enforcement and national security agencies can make lists of enemies of state as they see fit, and deny people on the list equal protection under law.

And now we have super database engines like Palantir, so of course, Ice has a little list / has a little list. It’ll be more interesting to see how the courts respond. Due process isn’t what it used to be.

I still fantasize that NGOs should create a database of ICE employees so they can be tracked and brought to justice. Dunno if that’s actually happening.

Mask up, don’t bring your phone.