Blocked on social media

I got blocked by another social media page. It started with what should have been a civil discussion about whether refusal to date trans individuals because of their genitalia was transphobic. For the record, I’m married, so I won’t be dating anyone but my wife for the foreseeable future. If I were single, I would have no problem dating trans women. I’ve seen photos of some who are truly beautiful.

When it comes to sexual contact, I don’t want to mess with a penis. I guess that is my hangup. If a trans woman has had ‘bottom surgery’, I would have no problem being sexually intimate with her, assuming she is someone who I have some sort of physical attraction toward and emotional connection with, but that is also true of cisgender women. Based on their logic, if I chose not to date a male, that would make me homophobic.

There are pansexual people who do not care whether a lover is male presenting or female presenting, and are unconcerned about what genitalia the person has. More power to them. I would not deny them the right to be with whomever they wish. Not all of us are quite so open about our sexual interests. Many of us have a more limited palate, so to speak.

I support trans rights, and am appalled by those who attack and even kill trans individuals because they feel they have been ‘tricked’. I don’t ever expect it to happen but if I were getting intimate with a date, only to find she had a penis, I’d stop and say that I was sorry, but I didn’t think I was comfortable proceeding. No accusations, no threats, no violence necessary.

I had this argument with another extreme trans activist. I pointed out that Janet Mock, who is a trans woman and a prominent trans activist, has said she is heteronormative. By that I assume she is sexually interested in males, presumably with a penis. I said that by their standard, Janet Mock would be transphobic. The other person said that was correct, and that she was.

After the person told me that essentially even trans individuals and trans activists were transphobic for having genital preferences, I realized there was no chance of a sane conversation with them. I think I got blocked by that page as well. Of course I’ve gotten blocked by other pages run by TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) who objected to my support for the trans community.

In the latest incident, I asked if a person who did not date black people was racist. Several people made it clear that they felt it was. I said it was not, because racism, unlike prejudice, includes the power to oppress. That is why black people who dislike whites may be prejudiced, but are not racist. Stokely Carmichael said, “Racism is not a question of attitude; it’s a question of power.” I was told to shut up and listen.

For the record, during the time when I was dating, I did not ever date a black woman. Generally I am more attracted to Caucasian features. Now I did not meet her until after we were both married, but I met one black woman who was smart and charming, and who I’d gladly have dated. Even now, were I single and were she interested, I know one black woman who I’d happily date.

It bothers me that society seems to be getting pushed to extremes. At one end we have the far right who hate LGBT, blacks, Muslims, Jews, people born in other countries, people who speak languages other than their own. At the other end, we have extreme activists who label any personal preferences, even those which do not deny rights to others, as being hateful. Can we not just dial everything down a few notches?

If you block me because I disagree with you, and do it in a civil manner, then what does that say about you? A functioning civil society is built on open discussion and on compromise. If we lose the ability to compromise or to discuss our differences, then our society itself is in serious trouble.

Life With Linda - Holiday Edition

For those of you who know Linda, this will be no surprise. Linda had a holiday cruise planned with a couple of her friends - just a three day cruise to the Bahamas. Pretty straightforward, for most people. Departure today, from Port Canaveral, which is roughly a 3 hour drive from us. Her travel companions wanted to leave at 10am to allow ample time to get there even with traffic snags.

Linda, of course could not pack beforehand. We went to a holiday party yesterday and got home around 7:30pm, but Linda decided she could not pack last night, and of course had nothing packed previously. She decided to get up at 7am today to pack - this from the woman who commonly sleeps until 10am. She did get up around 7am, and of course is almost frantic in her packing. Surprisingly by 10am, she was packed and ready to leave our apartment - overpacked, but still packed. She had two full carry-on size suitcases plus other bags for a three day trip.

We still had to get to Tampa to meet up with her friends, but we were there by about 10:30 - not bad for Linda. So, as I said, a 3 hour drive over to Port Canaveral. About 2pm, I get a phone call, in her haste to pack, instead of grabbing her passport, she grabbed mine. She was at the check-in with no valid passport - for herself, anyway. Now boarding was till about 4:30 and I still had something I had to do in Tampa, so there was no way for me to drive her passport to her in time.

The customs official said they could not accept a photo of her passport, but needed a photo of her birth certificate. I never remembered even seeing her birth certificate. She told me to look in a 2 drawer file for a folder marked 'important papers' or something similar. I was on the phone with her while looking at each folder there, and nada. She then suggested looking in the drawer where we normally have our passports. I spent five minutes going through things there before finally finding a copy of her birth certificate.

I then had to shoot a photo on my phone, and text the photo to Linda's phone. Simple, at that point. I did, and later got a call from one of her companions that they were safely boarded. I was wondering if I'd have to drive to Port Canaveral to pick her up and bring her home. Her companions didn't want to go without her, so the vacations of three people would have been screwed up if I hadn't found the document. Just a part of life with Linda.

Toward a New War on Poverty

Some fifty years ago, Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty. We have made some progress since then, mostly in reducing the percentage of families living in poverty. We have stalled, however, and if we are to make any additional progress, we must rethink how we go about this.

Simply providing income supplements and the like will not suffice to do this. First there are too many people who mistakenly believe that people receiving help are lazy and unwilling to work. For that reason, they not only do not want to expand assistance, they want to reduce or eliminate it. Second, most recipients don’t want a handout, they want a hand up.

How then can we help? It requires a multi-pronged approach. We must make sure these people have jobs, even if government must provide those jobs. We have striking infrastructure needs in the United States. We have roads and bridges that need repair. We also need expansion of roads and bridges, among other things. This requires not only the laborers to do the work but many support people behind them.

The greatest expansion of the American economy in modern times occurred when we committed as a nation to building more and better roads and bridges. I’m sure there are those who would choose to call this a government boondoggle, but the work desperately needs to be done in the near future. This puts people in paying jobs, rather than leaving them on the dole, so to speak.

It improves transportation in this country, and puts money in the hands of the poorest residents. Those people will spend the money they receive, in addition to paying taxes on it, which will increase demand and boost the economy as a whole. It gives low income people more self respect and undercuts the notion that these people are ‘unwilling to work’.

We must make sure the jobs we create pay a living wage. Minimum wage as it stands is a starvation wage. It is impossible to support a family on a full time minimum wage job. These jobs also need to include benefits, especially health insurance. Far too many private employers try to sidestep providing benefits, and those with very low incomes cannot afford health insurance.

Beyond that, it puts pressure on private employers to match this. If the government will guarantee a job with full time hours at a living wage and health insurance, other employers will be compelled by the job market to do likewise. There must also be free or subsidized child care provided for low income parents. In some instances, there may also be the need for transportation assistance most likely in the form of effective and efficient public transit. Child care and public transit can provide additional jobs, to boot.

That begins, but will not complete the process of eliminating poverty. There are additional steps needed. We need more educated workers for the economy of the future. We must invest in better public education. We need better funding for K-12 education, along with more support for community colleges and state universities. Too many people complete a college education with tens of thousands of dollars of student debt. This is unacceptable and discourages too many people from pursuing higher education.

We need job training for those people for whom college education is not the best solution. This may be young people who are more suited to other types of work, along with older workers whose jobs may have been eliminated due to changes in the economy. We need to make these people employable, and education is the most effective solution.

We need to have free or heavily subsidized birth control available for women of all ages. Far too many young women are unable to afford birth control, resulting in unplanned pregnancies and becoming single mothers. This often disrupts their education and makes it harder for them to find and keep employment. It also results in abortions that would be quite unnecessary if inexpensive birth control were available.

Finally, we have too many people who have been made unemployable by having been convicted of drug crimes, particularly marijuana. We need to legalize or at the very least decriminalize marijuana and fully pardon those convicted of non-violent drug crimes. The current criminal record makes employers hesitate to hire them, in many cases forcing them into either poverty or a life of crime. Beyond that, we spend billions of dollars pursuing and jailing people for these non-violent crimes.

I suppose some would say this sounds prohibitively expensive, but I suspect it would cost but a fraction of what we currently spend on weapons for the military, some of which the military does not even want, but which are purchased to benefit corporations in the districts of key members of Congress. In the long run, making these people productive members of society will benefit us far more than the monetary cost.