Christmas

Pronouns

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That Trump did the crime is not in doubt. The jury, all vetted by the defence, were unanimous. One juror said their only source of news was Truth Social, so that is meaningful. Few, if any, conservatives are saying that Trump did not do the crime. Few, if any, are suggesting that the encounter with Stormy Daniels didn’t happen, even though it is a he said, she said situation. That is because it is so befitting the character of Trump.

What is at issue, the division is around whether this should have gone to court at all.

Republicans – it was a witch-hunt, the crime was trivial, the judge and prosecutors were motivated by politics, and Biden was ultimately behind it all.
Democrats – nobody is above the law, the crime was not trivial, it was an attempt to illegally affect the election

Guess what? Both sides are totally correct, except for Biden being involved.

Trump has been a shady, shifty character his entire life, and once he became president in 2016, he was on the radar of many prosecutors. Republican prosecutors of course were no interesting in pursuing anything, which means the remainder are Democrats. Democrats who found him so detestable, and such a compulsive liar, that they wanted to take him down. The problem of course is having politics in the US legal system – other countries avoid such craziness.

Trump is clearly guilty in all the cases he is facing. The lesson here is that if you want to be a politician, and stay out of legal trouble, don’t let your crimes be so blatant and public. For example, we literally saw the case of the boxes in Mar-A-Lago, Florida, unfold in the media, and he is clearly guilty. He said the boxes weren’t there, but they were. There is a phone call where he asks for more votes… The plot to overturn the election.

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A Republican politician, Senator Tuberville, was consequently interviewed where he said he supported the ruling because we need more children, which of course makes no sense. Trump and other leading Republicans then said they support IVF.

So which is it?

Conservatives have got themselves in a pickle because they are trying to find a binary answer to a complicated question. They have tried saying that life begins at conception, but now that does or doesn’t apply to frozen embryos, like a Schrödinger’s Cat policy. In different states, and according to different politicians, abortion is okay as long as it is early enough – yet that number of weeks varies greatly, meanwhile life begins at conception.

Tuberville actually got it right, if he only he (and other such politicians) had the decency to tell us that this was all about religion, and they want their followers to have as many children as possible, and so the binary solution is to never kill an embryo. Which would be admitting that, just like the Catholic Church forbidding abortion (and contraception), this is just a numbers game and not about the souls of unborn children at all.

Choices in fertility and pregnancy are too complicated for binary laws. The only fair and decent solution is individual choice, not enforcing a religious numbers game onto non-believers and non-adherents.

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When it comes to politics and issues, we conveniently call them right and left, progressive or conservative. But those words mask what the true nature is – it is about whether you care about yourself or others.

I don’t know what causes people to think one way or the other, but it is as if as a society we are grappling with how best to balance our selfish needs with the greater good. How much personal reward do we get for our deeds, and how much goes to others who are in need?

The world would be easier to navigate if we owned up to what is really going on, and instead of being labeled left and right, we said we belonged to the Caring Tribe or the Selfish Tribe.

The caring tribe respects the right of others to choose who they love, their reproduction choices, their heritage, and that they shouldn’t suffer if most of society is doing well.

The selfish tribe wants what they can get for themselves, even if it comes at a cost for others. And they will disguise this selfishness byh declaring they want things to be “equal”, in a world where needs are unequal.

In Australia, our version of Thanksgiving is called Australia Day. Seen by many as being a celebration of Europeans stealing the country from Aboriginals, there are differing opinions on the date and if anything should be celebrated. The caring tribe feels for the 2% of our population who were stolen from. The selfish tribe want to drink beer and have a BBQ and do everything they can to not think about the disenfranchised, in case that brings up thoughts they don’t know what to do with. And some are simply racists.

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Aspects of libertarianism and anarchy can have a place in society. But there adherents are like radical vegans, they want the whole enchilada, which is why they are disliked.

Argentina’s new president Javier Milei will be interesting to watch, their political system allows him to enact his libertarian policies. Argentina could become the next Venezuela, all radical and fun to begin with, and then disaster, because politics has its ways for a reason. Checks and balances and people scared of not being re-elected.

The same week we have had trials around the Binance and FTX disasters. These are a result of the sort of recklessness, cheating and fraud that our labyrinthine laws are designed to protect us from. The solution will be more regulation and oversight.

Biden is trying to end junk fees, which means new regulations that almost every American will welcome. Big business is fighting back, of course, because it is the easiest money they have ever made. A libertarian would say that people can choose who to give their business to, and regulations are not needed. Clearly they are wrong on that.

Meanwhile we have, especially in America, needing to get a license to cut someone’s hair, or sell eggs to a neighbour, or even harvest rainwater.

Ending all regulation is not the answer – regulations have evolved to protect us AND because the majority of use like the majority of regulations existing.

We simply need to put great effort into removing onerous and stupid restrictions, and scrutinising big business, finance, and business cheating and corruption more.

More AND less regulation. Not OR.

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Russia/Ukraine
Israel/Gaza

Wars are of course horrible and terrible, and it is human nature to try and rationsalise them.

• Poor Russia was feeling boxed in by NATO
  The Gaza folk lived in a prison camp and were being murdered

The Israel “problem” has been there forever, and maybe it is just that I am more political now, or maybe it is the rise of social media, but this time it feels like more people, many more people, have an opinion, and are rooting for one side or the other, internationally.

• The poor Jews, picked on for Millenia, have a right to defend themselves, or even payback
• The poor Palestinians, of course they fought back, they are impoverished and effectively in prison.

It is clear and obvious that the MAGA right-wing nut-jobs are cheering on Israel and Russia. They like aggression, they like to back the powerful. Meanwhile lefties tend to back the underdogs. The “losers”.

My question is this: is there a middle ground?

I would estimate that 90% of people are rooting for one side or the other, and have a convenient sentence or two that explains their choice. I would estimate that almost nobody has considered that both sides are right and both are wrong. I suggest that these wars are created by a very few or even one person, and they are more about someone’s delusions and insecurities than anything else.

It doesn’t help that wars require money, and the modern way is “proxy wars”. Iran supports Hamas, while the US supports Israel. Consequently, politicians take sides (overtly or subtly) and that flows down to the general public. I stand with Ukraine!

It is of course as a spectrum. We need more people to acknowledge that.

• Ukraine does have Nazis, and they are tolerated. Most Ukrainians are not Nazis.
• Hamas are terrorists. They are not the elected representatives.

We need to allow ourselves to say that Israel and Hamas are both wrong. “Sitting on the fence” sounds weak, but choosing sides when both are in the wrong, that lacks imagination. Ideally a few leaders/politicians/influencers (Arnold Schwarzenegger is a great example) give us a sentence or two that makes fence sitting okay.

• This is a religious war, and it is sad that both sides hate each other so much, given that they have the same god and both admire Jesus.
• Putin is killing 100,000 people because he has psychological issues and wants to leave a legacy, AND Ukraine has some Nazis.

It is strong to not take sides. It takes thought and intelligence and care to get there.

War is wrong.

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• Health – preventative
• Health – in response to ill health
• Taste – don’t like the taste or texture of meat – especially after shunning it for a long time
• Morals – eating animals is wrong
• Ethics – an animal suffering because of you is wrong
• Fashion – yes, absolutely, people do it to be cool
• Religion – for example Jains
• Climate change – less meat could save us all

In each of the above, being in the direction of veganism is better than not. Eating 10% less beef than before is a win. So is 50%.

Few people will cite more than one reason.

Also, according to studies, few people are actually 100% vegan, no matter how much they want to be. Late-night drunken lapses are one of the common reasons.

Also, despite high vigilance, you probably accidentally use or consume something animal-sourced sometimes.

So, it definitely is not a binary choice, and everyone has their own story and levels of compliance. Militant vegans have little understanding or respect for that, and their hardline attitudes do more harm than good.

Most of those reasons have no scientific or logical basis. You are not more likely to get into heaven or be reincarnated. There is little proof that vegetarian diets are better than simply healthy omnivore diets.

Animals suffering is also debatable. Yes, at the time of death, in some contexts, there might be suffering. But how do you measure that? Is 1 second 10x worse than 0.1 of a second? Is all suffering, no matter how minuscule, unacceptable? Doesn’t life itself involve suffering?

Plants, we hear, can feel pain and communicate it. But a vegan can’t dare go there, or else they will starve.

Rarely mentioned is what happens to cows and sheep and goats and chickens if all of humanity goes vegan? There are a hundred kept in some special farm to save them from extinction? That brings up one final angle – is the life of a sheep, who is ultimately killed for food – better than never existing at all? Who decides?

My thought – there is no absolute answer. A good person is someone who considers all the angles and makes a considered decision. A vegan, if they arrived there by choice, is more likely to be a good person, because many meat-eaters simply don’t even question that choice.

Me personally, I am trending towards veganism. I eat less meat than ever before, and substantially less beef and lamb. I’m enjoying roast cauliflower! I buy organic and sow-stall free and cage-free whenever possible. I wear vegan shoes by Cariuma, but I won’t throw out a perfectly good leather belt.

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Let’s start with gender, seeing as it has taken the word binary hostage. Let’s start with transgenderism.

For most of the educated western world, most worldly and intelligent people don’t give it much thought. If someone needs to transition, good on them. How they look can be a bit out of the ordinary, but we will cope and adapt. Next topic.

In the US, opinions have been split left and right, with both taking extreme views. I am generalizing here, of course, for that makes this easier, in short form.

The right consider transgenderism an abomination, because it is new and different and scary and confusing. And because the Bible probably forbids it.

The left think it is wonderful, the more woke types are happy for it to be discussed and for transformations to even begin at young ages.

Yet transgenderism is a very individual, nuanced, complicated, emotional and weighty topic, and neither the left or right treat it with the respect and concern it deserves.

Here are some points worth considering:

• Teens are highly impressionable and latch onto fads. Some children will transition because it is cool.
• Parents opinions do matter, as with the rest of parenting. Not letting a child have candy even if they identify as immune to sugar, is good parenting
• Knowing at a younger age about transgenderism, that it exists and is an option, could be a life saver for some kids.
• Some children are arbitrarily assigned gender at birth. This is rarely discussed
• In a for-profit health system, advice could be biased.
• In religious communities, advice could be biased.
• It is not a switch. It is years of drugs and surgery and therapy and battling for acceptance and ridicule and discrimination and all the rest.
• It can both save/improve lives and end/destroy them.

It is very much not black and white and how dare anyone, especially those who chose filtered sources of information, how dare they reduce it to binary, single sentence, frigid opinions. 

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