hopelesslyInvo
Posts: 522
Joined: 2/10/2008
From: the future
Status: offline
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quote:
I told you I wasn't going to argue theology here and directed you to a source that could educate you on the particulars of the "God does NOT hate fags" argument. Going into such detail about the subject, issuing challenges, all the while accusing me of derailing the thread , is quite odd.
i'm more than happy to avoid and continue avoiding arguing theology as well, but directing me to propaganda which will contain nothing but more of the same heartfelt but logic-lacking disinformation i've encountered for years is not exactly "helpful" to either side. loosely i use the term side as i doubt either of us really care and are more or less arguing beliefs we do not believe.
if you wish however to have me proved wrong, you are the one who will have to do it. i'm not arguing in order to bolster my ego and feel like i've won a fight, and i find that the knowledge of why a step you took was wrong is greater in learning than taking a right step but not knowing why. i'm not on here to feel self important, seek instant gratification, or feel hunky dory about my post count; the only reason these boards have been of any use to me for the 2 years i've been on them is because of what i learn from reading, and especially what i learn from writing in response to things i may never have held opinion on or questioned prior. or in this case, learning the extent homosexual marriage cares to push, and how hard it is to argue one sided.
you're probably under some different impression, but i'd love to have you prove me wrong, i'd also love for our debate to consist of more than me being the one to provide information, and you simply saying "no, you're wrong". points don't make themselves, and more than anything else; i'd really love for you to come down off the high horse you contently gallop along on as you simply make or deny claims, but to instead put some substance in your words if you're going to bother writing them at all.
while i wouldn't conceive of denying playing just as heavily in the continuation of this; you chose to argue on subjects i used merely for exemplification purposes to further the original debate at hand. things which were not pertinent in and of themselves in any way to the thread or topic except to understand in comparison, the point i'm trying to make pertaining to the topic; hence "exemplification". even if you missed my prior mention that i wanted to avoid people assuming my examples to be true or false sentiments i myself might have held, you chose to argue and seek to 'correct' my way of thinking on subjects irrelevant to the current; thus deviating from it.
it's not an accusation; it's a simple truth.
it would be very convenient and less annoying for me (if not yourself as well) to not have an understanding of the subject, so as to not have any grounds to refute your claims, but knowing and having experienced the things i have, when i see you make one wild claim or worse yet, to watch you make even wilder ones about me personally... well, i can't very well just ignore that; even if it has meant me personally apologizing to angelika for continuing to defend myself.
let me explain further into common courtesy and etiquette on not just these forums, but forums in general. if i said something that raised your interest to start another debate, that's generally exactly the best way to handle it; start another thread. if in such a new thread you said "in another thread i saw this and wanted to see what the views of others were", i'd have come in, told you it's an example i used of no concrete significance, left my real 2 cents and been gone. if you made a new thread simply saying what you said in your reply here, we'd be in exactly the same spot, but i don't see many threads starting out that way.
no matter what way you rotate this picture though, this thread is derailed, but it's at a point where being derailed in some measure is just a part of what it is anymore. we'll finish this eventually, i'll apologize to angelika again, and all will be merry in cm'ville. introductions aside, lets get to the points here, which ironically happen to be about 90% feminism related at least.
quote:
It's a fucking bathroom.
for... whom?
now i know i've joked about you being blind before... more than once... but as it just so happens, the sign on the door is also written in braille; you don't need me to spell this one out.
you can argue that a person should be able to enter the men's or the women's restrooms, but it's still being allowed to enter the men's and women's restrooms (and other public facilities) regardless if you're a man or a woman. it's not the men's and everyone else's restrooms, so i think when someone who is not a woman is allowed to enter it, it seems reasonable to me to not hold the opinion of one female advocate as substantial input for the 600,000+ women actually living there.
neither here nor there... the neat thing about bathrooms; especially in the case of women, is how often they go to that room when it's not to use the toilet, and how much time they spend in it not actually "using it". bathrooms have often been a place people go to in order to temporarily get away from something else; and often times that 'something' includes getting away from men, if only for a little "girl time talk". women will grab one of their 'girl-friends' and say "come on, i've got to go to the bathroom, lets go" very often, if they aren't already prompted to go in groups as soon as one of them stands up. men as well excuse themselves simply to get away, be alone, or feel they're able to be in some place private for some measure of time, though they tend not to travel in groups. it's still the same basic theory, public bathrooms for humans is not equivalent to car washes for automobiles.
people go in there quite often to get away from something because there's an unspoken sort of rule they hold onto that what they're getting away from, can't simply follow them in. i don't know a single person who hasn't used bathrooms in this manner, myself included. pretend as you like; the ability for anyone to follow anyone else into either bathroom is not a concept people are likely to be fond of or want to get used to.
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If... a public bathroom is their sanctuary, then the outside world needs a lot of fixing.
not exactly demonstrating a lot of logic, but yes the world does need a lot of fresh 2x4's and nails; perhaps you've forgotten... but that's part of your own diagnosis and justification for trying to impart equality and liberty to all races, genders, and orientations is it not as you said is it not?
the condition of the outside world however doesn't change the fact that "the facilities" are a place people go to and consider "private", which they will often enter in order to collect themselves in various degrees and/or/otherwise circumstances simply in addition to powdering their noses and "using" the facilities.
the idea that people are machines and just require a place to maintain fluid levels is non sequitur. you cannot argue that it's a place of tremendous importance to trassexuals in terms of who will be in there, how comfortable or safe they feel about it, how they are able to function while they are there, and how they are interact with people during that time; yet not take under consideration that the same is true for everyone else. the bigger part of the problem is not that transsexuals need a place to tinkle, the problem is that entering that entering the male door as you say provides them the very opposite effect of being in a sanctuary of sorts that the rest of us are basically always entitled to. the bathroom does not feel safe to them, that's the problem.
you "can" reach equality by giving something to one that you've taken away from another until they balance out. that's able to achieve equality sure, but you need to use other words such as "compromise" or "loss" for one and "gain" for the other, but the fun thing about the word compromise is no one wants anything to do with it. if women are 50, and men are 100; the point of feminism is not to bring both genders to 75, it's to get both at 100. likewise it's not to remove everything and take them both to 50, or 0, because gaining the word equality comes at the price of losing the word "liberty". not to mention special treatment is not synonymous with equal treatment.
idealistic nonsense of "who cares who has to compromise, or in what degree so long as one group of people are made happy" does not follow the principle idea of equality, it's a complete contradiction to argue for equality and liberty at the "cost" of anything.
one thing that is obvious when arguing with you is that you use words such as equality that sound good, but the definitions that come with those words belong to other formations of english characters. far and large, the tolerance and equality is only running one way, it always runs one way. one of the biggest things i try to address is that the uprising of one thing often comes at the cost of snuffing out something else because it's next to never people "fighting for equality" it's people fighting to be "king of the hill".
our 'politically correct' society and public opinion is one that tolerates abnormality but punishes normality. how many people go through "diversity training" at work and are taught they need to get along and not be judgmental towards traditional value christians rather than every other ethnicity than white, every religion but christianity, and every orientation but straight? you're likely to get fired if someone was to find that you do not approve of homosexuals, but someone who does not approve of christianity is treated as they should be, "entitled to their own opinion". look how far the fight against racism has come, people are at least able to recognize at this point that "its" fight often comes down to someone who is racist condemning someone who is not racist; the positions have merely shifted. where's the love an equality there? i don't want to see similar points with homosexuals and christians, or men and women after we've "supposedly" made progress. idealistic nonsense such as "christians hate homosexuals" just because they don't distort the bible to say "whatever sounds nice" is the same kind of nonsense as thinking "white people are the only one's racist", and "men are the only one's that discriminate based on gender". an "intellectually honest" approach would be that changing who wears a leash is not "freedom" from leashes.
these are the last two paragraphs that i really want to address such things.
the premise that christians who teach against homosexuality today is doing the same thing of the prior misuses of abusing the bible to justify slavery, racism, antisemitism, or sexism still needs proof rather than finger pointing; and proof doesn't come by taking scripture out of context or twisting it around to sound "nice to them" on either side.
you say god is love, i say the bible isn't a tool of hate even when it is kept in context, and i say that being against homosexuality on this premise isn't a lack of love either. is it love for someone to lie to you rather than telling you the truth of the bible? in a case i've heard before... is it love or hate for me to tell you a bridge is out on the highway when you're speeding in the direction of certain death? is it love for me to pretend "everything is fine" with what you're doing while letting you go down that road? or hate if i don't try to warn them? being against homosexuality is not the same as "hating fags" or being "homophobic". the only reason they wouldn't have a problem with my lifestyle is because they're not aware of it behind closed doors, on the surface it's a man with a woman where the things they would find detestable exists in the shadows.
if i did want to get married to a woman in a way that celebrates or hints at my lifestyle, (note that all ways of homosexual marriage celebrates their lifestyle) i wouldn't want, let alone seek to legally force the cooperation of people to photograph or rent land to me if they wouldn't approve. i'd be very much an asshole for doing so; and that's MY point. the concept of live and let live isn't something for selective use.
plainly put, i believe in the separation of religion and state; that means get religion the hell out of our politics just as much as politics the hell out of religion.
a common problem in mankind is that they generally only like to solve problems, but rarely prevent them. constantly there is a shift in harmony giving favor to one thing and creating problems for the other, only to double back and give favor to something else which changes the situation again for those two causing them to need to be addressed again. it is exactly the point i am making when when i address the stupidity of the bill that got signed into law. fixing a leak by putting a mop bucket under it instead of mending the roof only causes people to complain about dirty floors instead of wet ones.
quote:
I just don't buy that the CO law will embolden sexual predators to hang out in the ladies' room. Perhaps you've got some numbers suggesting a contrary conclusion. ...can we at least see some numbers to back up your assumption?
i feel silly everytime i am called to back things up when you so very rarely back up a single word of your own; nearly everything you state is your opinion being treated as fact with no room for wavering possibilities. coupled by the fact that your only interest in me providing anything is so you can shoot down the source or its contents and ignore anything i, or they present, it's fairly worthless for me to invest time adding in a debate when all you do is plug your ears and say "you're wrong lalalalala i can't hear you" rather than add to it yourself.
unfortunately, it can't be helped; and "your example" is no reason for me to excuse my own effort to provide information.
while i would love to provide such information, it's nearly impossible to find, and if there was such information there would be nothing to argue anyway. (i hope you understand the reason for argument in that regard)
if i was any more skeptical though, i would almost exclusively believe you ask for things based on how hard they are to find rather than how important it is to have found it. after all, the lack of presenting proof just offers you another moment to say "haha told you so i'm right you're wrong nanana~".
under no conceived notion am i obligated to prove in every case "one thing" or "the other", let alone "everything"; some things will inherently be my burden to prove or disprove, other times it will be yours. i've been bearing the burden exclusively this entire argument, but i've been too kind to point out that i could just as easily ask you to prove that it did not affect women's comfort when using their own public facilities, or prove the amount of sexual crimes are not swayed, or prove that it significantly helped transsexuals feel more at ease rather than the possibility of having women be the ones giving them grief when they need to pee rather than it being the men giving them grief; and upon being unable to do so, i could be just as childish by presenting an eagerness to say "haha you're wrong lolz". not to mention my ability to have done so on prior arguments. my only hope would be that you would for once be decent and intellectually honest enough to not show utter disregard for what i do provide when i'm the only one really "providing" in the argument. i'd have requested such courtesty, but hoping to expect such decency from you is enough of a stretch.
i trust you can put two and two together though, especially if once again i'm the one going through the trouble to explain how we get to four; the bill was signed halfway through 2008, but 2009 has not yet ended for statistics to even be generated, let alone be compared by "experts" or handed out to the public. since 2008 will be a year that shows compromised statistics to this law and we need 2009's to see an effect, but growth alone isn't to say it's getting worse. so you would have to look at years 2006-2007 to calculate growth unaffected by this bill, then 2008 to see what anomalies it brought by only being introduced half way through to see what the normal rate of growth might be in order to discern whether there is an increase in 2009 that could be related to actions in 2008, when to have a real idea, we would also need to see 2010 to compare consecutive years no longer in the midst of change, being between 06-07 and 09-10.
i'm sorry to say colorado doesn't want to give that info out easily; even when we're living in the appropriate time period to seek it out. i'm not sure if you want to send me on wild goose chases in the hopes you can pretend to be the "victor", or you are unable to come to the obvious realization that it doesn't exist on your own, but either way you know now. unless of course you're just going to say "lolz your wrong" some more.
anyway, here's some numbers straight from colorado's bureau of investigation none the less.
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Original: The CBI
- Less than 30 percent of sex crimes are reported.
- Young victims who know or are related to the offender are least likely to report the crime.
- There are currently 10,096-registered sex offenders in Colorado, as of June 2, 2008.
- 1 in 150 women in Colorado have experienced a completed or attempted sexual assault in the past 12 months.
- 1 in 4 women in Colorado have experienced a completed or attempted sexual assault in their lifetime (Colorado Department of Health, 1998).
- Approximately 16% of these assaults were reported to police.
16%? not only is it amazing that i'm tasked with finding a concise % increase (or possibly decrease) in sexual offenses within a period of time by obtaining info harder to get a hold of than an anorexic's grocery list, but as it turns out; the data i'm supposed to find 'concrete' answers from in order to appease the high horse rider with is inconclusive to begin with. not to mention other things like all those dots we looked at before is likely to be less than even 16% of what we'd see if there was some magic way to expose them, seeing how they only show up when caught and then released, and don't always go on the board to begin with, and do have windows of time that they are displayed at all.
let's look at some more fun numbers, like that 1 in 4 bit we saw. just to spell it out and make it super easy to digest, that says 25% of women in colorado have been the victim of a sexual offender.
assuming the people at the CBI are good at their jobs, that means that the recorded population for colorado in 2008 being 4,939,456 citizens, and 49.6% being female leaving us with a population of 2,449,970 women, a total of 612,493 of those women have already been the victim of a sexual assault.
six hundred and twelve thousand, four hundred and ninety-three women...
you are so right, i've been over reacting to think sexual predators should be a concern; we're only talking a little more than half a million. pffft, might as well be non-existent; how could i be so foolish as to bring that into the equation?
that's accordingly only 16,341 sexual assaults in colorado this last year, 1362 in the last month, 45 in the last day, and just under 2 in the last hour.
you just can't get more insignificant of a concern than 2 attempted rapes every 70 or so minutes.
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Not numbers of predators. An increase in the number of sexual assaults in women's rooms since enactment of the law. Even that needs to pass the "correlation does not equal causation" test.
oh, ohhhhhh. so all the the things i would have attempted and possibly found out had they existed would be worthless in the first place if the 16% of reported cases didn't involve sitting the guys down once they've had their rights read and been booked, and asking them a series of questions off a questionnaire and expecting them to answer 'honestly' throughout, especially when you get to #63 which asks: "did the enactment of sb200 impact, influence, or play part in your incidence of ignoring another human being's will when you decided it was rape time?". then to sit down with the victim and run them through a questionnaire asking things like "has this person ever monitored your bathroom activities or entered while you were in it on the day you were assaulted or any day prior?" and expect honest answers or even guaranteed awareness? the problem women have is tied into being honest, that's why that number is 16% and the other 84% fall down stairs and had to spend an extra hour at the store, and other excuses. in case i need to point this out as well, sexual offenses are rarely "stopped by officers", and so these "reports" generally involve being reported very significant amounts of time afterwards, and the bathroom might just be one of many details that gets left out, if they even honestly say anything.
you're dense if you think that information is provided or exists at all; impossibly dense if you take "public services designated for women" to mean "just bathrooms" rather than bathrooms merely being what is simply the most obvious and most common example, and ultra dense if you think having buffalo bill in your bathroom asking if you'd help him move his couch is the only issue at hand in such a case.
but you're right, i should be the one doing all the footwork and providing all the answers; even when it's nonexistent. i should at least see what i can come up with, so lets give it a try and see if we can't exemplify how to back up words, stances, and beliefs by using logic and reasoning in order to make a point; even though you like to say "that's not exactly what i asked for, so it doesn't hold water regardless of what it is inclusive of" and all that sort of selective reasoning.
almost exactly 1 year after sb200 went into effect, the colorado government felt need to write 2 new bills (bill 09-1132 and 09-1163) in order to address the necessity to increase protection against sex offenders. done so by the method of relying on the typical deterrents by increasing severity of punishment, and the realm of possibilities to be convicted. if you're intent on looking up to see the details so you can discard the notion that it has any possible relevance, let me save you some time. none of the new laws have anything to do with public facilities aside from the connection of harassment or stalking.
now that might prompt you to want to type in a bunch of nonsense like "they didn't make it so men can't enter bathrooms, so obviously it has nothing to do with a possibility of being connected".
well slow your spiteful fingers down and quell your urge to say anything for a little longer and let your eyes do some more work.
as of july 2009 it was reported that colorado's overall crime rate dropped last year for the 3rd significant time since 2005 though it has been dropping continuously throughout. that sounds nice doesn't it? the numbers showed a decrease in crimes reported by 6.1%, and crime rate down by 8%. auto theft even plummeted by 22%, and while they suffered an increase of 1 more death than in the year before it, death toll decreased by 3% because population was increased.
but while all this crime decreasing sounds like a field of roses, one thing does not look so pretty. while all other crimes have been dropping, sex crimes have not only not dropped, they've been increasing steadily raising by 4%, and forcible rapes increasing by 1.7% from last year, and these are just "reported" offenses (the 16%). these increases also come with an unusual amount of reported "stranger" rapes, called this because most of the time the assailants know the attackers unlike popular depictions in the movies, but here we have the state of colorado exclaiming surprise by rape of the rare "impluse" nature; though the only case they cited as an example was a woman gang-raped by four men while walking home, again not presumably a case able to be made on bathrooms, but not a case that could either be discredited based on only being provided with the details of 1 out of several thousand reported (16%) sexual assaults.
much like it's impossible to say one way or another what effect sb200 might play in the curious reaction of sex crimes being on the rise while all other crimes continue to decrease. colorado itself says the possible explanations and factors for increasing crime despite are uncertain despite more severe penalties being implemented over the last 15 years, but one thing is for sure; no one knows why. if the CBI don't know why, you can't expect me to, and neither of us can logically use words even bordering the line of "likely", let alone "definitely" when the experts themselves won't use them either. "could" is about all we can use, i can say it "could cause problem", as i have, and you are limited in saying it "could affect nothing at all" rather than "isn't, doesn't, won't". well... that's if you are to start taking an intellectually honest approach anyway.
anyway, there's some fun numbers for you to ignore like all the rest of the logic you shy right the hell away from. but i don't mind; after all i'm a fun loving guy, and i wouldn't keep them coming if i didn't think you weren't enjoying playing dodge-ball with logic.
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At a certain point, reality needs to trump "feelings." Where is the evidence that there is this flood of predators eager to exploit this law? All those dots on the map, how many of them involve men jumping women in the ladies' room? From what I know about predators, it strikes me as highly unlikely.
i'm sorry, but when you say something this nonsensical it sounds to me like you've just said sex offenders only cause "offense" by tackling people to the ground in full sprint. i'm going to get into something here that you don't even need to use logic with so feel free to leave it on its extended vacation some more, instead you can get by on this case by just using some "imagination". not to mention the dots you saw, if you've already forgot, are not dots in the state of colorado where this law exists, it's merely an example of what you can expect the minimum of dottiness in a state to look like, considering indiana sits around the threshold of "average" in this category, it was also an example i could easily get ahold of, not just because it's my state, but because i already make use of it. i'll let you put two and two together as to why.
anyway, you want reality to trump some things here? well hold off on the imagination for a bit... how about reality trumping the idiotic notion that there's nothing to fear in the world. how about reality trumping your ideas of "being familiar with the ways of the sexual predators" when your only justification for this so far is in being a woman and being an expert because your gender is most likely to be targeted; which in reality is equivalent to me saying "obviously i'm also familiar in the ways of sexual predators because i'm the gender more likely to commit the crimes". lets let reality trump the entire idea you are familiar with the ways of sexual predators when your "familiarity in their ways" consists of randomly spotting a woman you want to rape and approaching her like you would a quarterback in order to commit the offense. how about some reality trumping the notion that sexual offense is limited to rape; how about it trumping the mistaken belief that there is such a thing as a "typical" sex offender, or that transsexuals would never be among them.
but enough of reality trumping things, lets get back to using our imaginations, lets say using our imagination, we set the rule that the only thing we can't imagine here is someone tackling a woman in the bathroom.
lets have some fun and bring up an old saying that more than adequately explains the nature of the situation; "getting caught with your pants down". now that's almost a concept that comes with its own bit of humor and lightheartedness, but it explains pretty nicely how well women are able to handle a situation should one occur. now making a physical advance of any sort in this situation might constitute what you consider jumping for you, so lets stay away from that despite it being a possibility. there's a paparazzi tactic you may or may not be aware of, where do to the nature of stalls, women are always able to be caught with their pants down, and it is capitalized in ways such as reaching under a stall door with a camera or in some cases being able to open the door and giving them a face full of camera lens while you have them "caught with their pants down".
it's easy for you to say "oh please, harmless kicks" like you regarded as the case before, which truly is easy for "you" to say, if you don't care personally that it's you in front of the camera. in which case you could also have some nonsensical belief that other women should feel the same way you would in that situation. what happens though when you take 'you' and 'other women' out of the (no pun intended) picture, and instead you have 13 year old girl? (which happens to be roundabout the age that females are at greatest risk) what about younger? 7 or 8 perhaps? possibly too young to even be guaranteed to realize the full effect of the situation or how bad it is. harmless kicks you call this? people aren't victims of their own environments you say? most sex offenders were previously victims themselves you say?
you can scoff at that and act like it's impossibly unlikely, but hell the paparazzi do it alllll the time, and they aren't even protected by law to enter the bathroom, or having that level of ill intent, or doing so in a "sexual predator" way. they're doing it just for money, but then, so too could a child pornographer.
lets use our imagination in another case; maybe the guy walks into the bathroom and washes his hands... then leaves. maybe he makes no effort to disguise himself, maybe he does. either way, all he does is wash his hands, (if that) then walks right back out. well where's the offense in that? what harm did that do you ask?
simple; now he knows exactly how many people are in there, what ages they might be, he's accurately sized up the difficulty of scenarios, and he can waltz right back out as casual as he came without drawing nearly as much attention to himself as he would by staring at the bathroom door like a creep and becoming alert every time the door opens or closes to let someone in. imagine having the knowledge that not only is there just one woman in there, but she's distracted and talking on her cell phone while disclosing all sorts of personal details like where she's going next and what time she intends to come home. in the entire situation the guy could play the innocent saying he's walked into the wrong bathroom by mistake due to being in a rush to get something cleaned off his hands, and while that might fly even without the law, with the law being an accepted way of life... seeing a man in the ladies room might only prompt the response "oh god, another one.", rather than "what the hell is he doing here?" and doesn't draw the same attention/suspicion it would in utah.
well, i don't know about you, but i can't stand being without logic for too long and it was coming out even when i tried to ignore it, so i'm ready to bring it back full swing.
most victims of sexual offense know the people who assault them, your comprehension that they just run up and "jump" women when they get the urge to rape speaks volumes about "knowing their ways". CBI puts the statistics at 80-95% and of the cases they know, the offender assaulted someone they were at the "very least" acquaintances with, and most anyone else would put numbers around that height as well. so how big of a deal is a person expected to make when an "acquaintance or friend" enters a place their allowed to enter by law? as deceptive and manipulative as they tend to be, how is "playing a joke", or "who cares if people find out" not an easy enough excuse to use for it, if they question such behavior after getting used to their legal new-found lack of privacy? they might still be angry, but they might be likely to have the same view you hold that they're "just getting harmless kicks".
i'm sure if you keep a hold of logic, but don't let go of your imagination either, you'll see just how many real possibilities there are outside the realm of randomly barging in to tackle-rape women while they're fixing their make-up.
as for "Where is the evidence that there is this flood of predators eager to exploit this law?", where is evidence to suggest they won't, where was the evidence to suggest impersonating a cop yielded such dastardly results as it has? where's the logic in saying "one isn't too many", why does it have to be flood gates being lifted to reveal and army ravenous tackle-raping sexual offenders foaming at the mouth to invade lavatories? afterall, if you can condone putting this law into effect in order to benefit the very few x's, can't someone condemn it for the possibility that a very few y's might put a whoooollle lotta z's at risk? that's a rhetorical question, i know you'll say no to any question not convenient to answer yes to, and disagree with any statement not beneficial to support your position.
it may be highly unlikely, but i've seen "highly unlikely" things too often to disregard them. i've seen my girlfriend get fired from target when a customer sexually assaulted her at a cash register; spending days waiting for them to review security tapes before deciding to let her keep her job or know if there would be a complaint of discrimination because the guy was hispanic. i've seen guys follow women around in more places that they're unwelcome than just the bathroom.
i don't hold as much faith that the world is a merry happy place as you seem to, at all really; i see depravity and decadence when i look around. i definitely see more "love" crimes towards women than i see "hate" crimes towards transsexuals, it's not without reason that i may show priority of concern to one over the other based on emotions, but statistically and logically i could come to the same priority. a different person in a different walk of life will show the reverse emotional priority, but statistically have an impossible time proving it and have to resort to "numbers don't equate shit" arguments. it doesn't mean anyone necessarily neglects things altogether, it's a simple concept that you take care of your own lawn before offering to mow your neighbors. you can't complain about your own problems when they aren't the problems you're trying to fix. and it's retarded to leave such obvious holes in a law and not stop potential problems before they happen rather than rashly making choices and correcting them IF problem arises.
process of elimination is not a good way to approach law and affecting lives.
it's understandable that as a woman you think it's ridiculous that i hold a particular level of concern for your gender over other issues, but that's simply not something you need to understand yet is more than explained in my opinion by the mention that i'm a feminist. your beliefs of what's important to uphold have left you in some fairly unusual places to find yourself in as well no doubt?
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LMAO for including the feelings of fathers.
now admittedly i didn't include or emphasize that point because it was of dire necessity to bring up though it does make a strong point. i wanted to learn your opinion on parents being concerned even if women "aren't supposed to be concerned about themselves", and couple it with pointing out an interesting way in which men have just as much call to be "concerned" as anyone else, without actually asking the question to you and yielding a safe and pc statement from you such as "parents have the right to be concerned about their children in all ways, but predators don't go into the bathrooms because that wouldn't be very nice of them". the possibilities were endless in how you might react, if at all, and among them was the curiosity if you would might be inclined to make a connection to whether or not i was speaking from a father's standpoint, rather than the standpoint of general concern a person is entitled to.
you did brilliantly, you've spoken volumes here and presented me with another fallacy in your haste to make me look stupid rather than to be smart; but that's the kind of stuff that happens when you try to 'win a fight' rather than 'make your case' in a debate.
you have ridiculed the idea that fathers; (and by reasonable association parents of either gender) even homosexual parents who have adopted a child which might consist of 2 fathers, have no call to be concerned over the potential or literal risks of their children, which by reasonable association carries with it, a showing of your own dis-concern for children. i get into arguments often enough; usually being able to get somewhere is based on the strength of my own argument, not the inability for my partners argument to stand on its heels due to lack of logic or things like this.
you've shown that you find the idea completely laughable which again speaks volumes not just in this issue alone, or for you, but your entire argument; which in turn reveals another fallacy and double standard to which you apply things to in your arguments of equality and fair treatment for "everyone", by ridiculing someone else. if the feelings of transsexuals are not laughable, if the feelings of women are not laughable, then the fathers who have daughters feelings are certainly not laughable, and since you do laugh and mock them you flip yet another light-switch to shine on how hollow all of your words potentially are, especially one's like "equality and liberty for both genders and orientations".
according to the unquestionable principles of equality and so forth, ya know... the ones you "exude" and defend vehemently? well with saying the feelings of fathers is laughable and making mockery of parents' right to be concerned for their children, it is "equality" to then find everyone's feelings laughable...
mother's feelings are laughable
daughter's feelings are laughable
son's feelings are laughable
homosexual's feelings are laughable
lesbian's feelings are laughable
bisexual's feelings are laughable
your feelings are laughable
transsexual feelings are laughable
feminist's feelings are laughable
my feelings are laughable (naturally)
using logic, which i love to do, not only am i free to think these things (as i always was), but if you are to continue using words like equality and liberty for all, then you have to agree that every last person's feelings or right to have concern are as laughable as they are for fathers. the problem is it creates a very big hole for you to say things like "It's recognizing our fellow humanity and the right to simply be", or "the more important point that trans individuals regularly suffer violence just because they're trans", or "more important to me than some random hypothetical pervert looking to make a point about anti-discrimination laws", or "the core issue of feminism is respecting the autonomy and humanity of individuals."...
...and definitely very hard to say shit about not being full circle with "how hateful some of your comments have been.", after saying something as retarded as "people's feelings are laughable" and making a mockery of "fathers". it's stupid shit like that which punches holes all over your superficial double-standard arguments; that my work of putting forth all the effort in reasoning and providing proof is nearly balanced out by how poor your views for the situations of people is after mistakenly assuming me to do it. i don't have to punch holes in your argument when you do it for me.
something like that coming from the same person advocating the exact opposite is normally rebutted simply by saying "that's all i needed to hear". you've shown your selective tolerance, your selective respect, your selective concerns, and now your selective view on who is entitled to feel certain ways or have emotions or not have them mocked.
i suppose that should be all i need to hear, but why not listen to you tell me how this isn't the case by punching even more holes in your "argument". i look forward to seeing some manner of trying to explain ridiculing and making a mockery of parents, especially fathers "feelings" towards their children, especially in regards to their daughters.
if it's possible, it's certainly not going to be by saying i'm misconstruing something or making it to be something it isn't, or taking it out of context. you didn't exactly leave any room for interpretation there.
you didn't just say "i don't think the feelings of men should be left out", you said "LMAO for including the feelings of fathers.", you laughed that fathers would have any right to feel a way and be justified in opposing it when they have a daughter affected by it, which doesn't say much for men who would oppose it just for the sake of women in general (feminists). in both cases i could make very strong counter points, the difference is one doesn't see relevancy in it, while the other ridicules the very concept that men should have any say or be inclusive with this issue. you can't get away with saying "i don't laugh at the 'feelings themselves' of fathers or men" when you're laughing in my own.
you couldn't otherwise use general statements of the feelings of men, since earlier the argument consists of "the feelings of men (who don't feel like men but feel more like women)" is the reason that "other men were feeling that a law needed to be passed protecting other men's feelings", and that you think "other men should not have negative feelings towards those people".
anything short of admitting that your "argument" here is just to be a horse's ass to me, and rather try to defend your ridicule with the idea as it having validity and being filled with the virtues you claim to back will only punch more holes in your own argument, even if it lies on me to point them out to you.
you recklessly use relativity in your absolutes, that's your biggest problem in this argument regardless of "whose side is right". with you, insults are not insulting, offenses are not offensive, feelings are not important, unless you deem it so. you can't say something that spitefully cold and it not be hurtful, yet consider my defending a person's unoffensive but un-accepting viewpoint hurtful.
i'm sure there are plenty of cases you could cite me saying something an pinning the "hurtful" statement to it, but before you jump to do so, lets learn a little lesson in the paragraphs below.
quote:
Earlier, you spoke of "predators/transsexuals." May I suggest that believing in any significant overlap between the two groups is perfectly absurd?
you may absolutely suggest it's absurd. i may absolutely refute it.
i'm not going to however, instead... what i'd like to suggest myself is to not pull things out of context in an attempt to conveniently twist things around to benefit your argument, which is something i do find 'absurd'. the very reason you and me are arguing is because you took me out of context, and told me i was wrong by parading around the ideas of other people who routinely take things out of context as your basis for the claim.
maybe you didn't think i would read yet another attempt by you to take my words and misrepresent them to other people and go "well gosh, i must have been a real goof to have said that, rather than go "what the fuck, i didn't say or imply that". but... since i'm not one to be confused as to what i wrote or what i meant when i did, i'm going to look at those words and think "oh hey, i don't remember writing that i suggested there was an overlap between predators/transsexuals or saying i believed it", and then i'm going to point out that once again, you're making stupid calls and looking for cheap shots or anything else of the nature rather than actually "making a point" to validate your claims, especially since it's routine for you to do.
lets look at a little thing i like to call "context, and keeping things it in it".
roll that beautiful bean footage~
quote:
compare the amount of women vs the amount of transsexuals; i don't even have to think who outweighs in other in numbers for that case unlike with predators/transsexuals.
so i didn't say "predators/transsexuals" in a way that groups them into being similar people, but instead was saying something else entirely distant from that idea and you only made it sound that way by taking it out of context? well, by gosh, there might just be something to this whole keeping stuff in context thing huh?
that just paints an entirely different picture when you look at what i'm "actually" saying now doesn't it. it turns out that regardless what the overlap might be or who believes what, i was never concerned or professing beliefs about such implications in the first place; i was just comparing how many people are sexual offenders, to how many people are transsexuals in an earlier statement, and then lumping the two words together later in terms of "number of individuals" so that i could make a point completely unrelated to any of the wild and imaginative anti homosexual/transsexual claims you can't resist making over and over again.
comparing... exemplifying... this whole conversation and debate concept suuuure is confusing johnny, people can say the grass isn't red by saying it's green, and say the sky is blue without saying it isn't black.
who'd have thunk it?
at least with your display for imagining what the truth is about me or anything else, i'm now know that you are able to use your imagination after all; so even if the logic is still on vacation, at least i know you were able to follow at least a couple of my earlier paragraphs.
quote:
Those slashes cover a lot of territory.
yes, a lot of territory that is summed up by the term "sexual offender", and it's not an exhaustive list of what that term entails either, but i didn't want to be slashing all day.
quote:
As the possessor of a vagina, I suspect I'm far more sensitive to and aware of the vulnerabilities of women than you are. I'm not trying to make you feel ridiculous.
while i appreciate hearing that sentiment despite it being harder to believe than the earth is flat, we're stuck right in the middle of another fallacy of yours. i'm liking the term fallacy more than assumption, because assumption only states that your reasoning is possibly baseless and bias. fallacy states there is a very big hole in the logic you used to come by itself, so i apologize that with your arguments, i'm getting to the point of overusing the term fallacy, but fallacies are just all over the place.
as the possessor of a penis who is quite fond of possessors of vaginas, i suspect the logic that a potential rape victim is more knowledgeable than a potential rapist in the subject of rape is completely illogical. while i can't argue that you may be more sensitive, though i could still bring sensitivity back into play by mentioning the (albeit in your terms laughable) father, i'll let sensitivity slide. to think that people have increased or decreased awareness of the vulnerabilities to exploit in women based solely on genitalia rather than actual... "awareness" is as foolish as me saying i have an increased awareness of my impervious ways to overcome your awareness of your own vulnerabilities by finding ways to exploit them nonetheless or by attacking you in ways you've left wide open in your efforts to cover your weak spots.
we're not in the realm of fiction, being bitten by radioactive spiders doesn't give one super powers; being female doesn't make you more aware of what a man will do to you just because they "do it" to women.
it's nonsense. if you're indeed more aware, it's because you have greater knowledge. while you may have seeked out or been offered this knowledge because you're at a greater risk than me, it is not inherently possessed merely because you're at greater risk. if nothing else, it's easy enough for me to have such narrow logic and say "as the possessor of a penis, i think i'm far more sensitive and aware of what vulnerabilties if any i will choose to strike upon or exploit". not to mention to the warfare rule, if a vulnerability doesn't exist, you can always create one~
it doesn't do any good to assume the vulnerabilities you concern yourself with, no matter how well you know them, are the means by which you would become under threat by than it does to ignore the fact that a possible attack is just as if not more than likely to be based rather on his strengths than your weaknesses, which are not guaranteed to be physical or inherent to gender.
the common and obvious thing being ignored here is that in probably 9 out of 10 cases where people resist, simply overpowering tends to be the weapon of choice, and tends to be something no amount fujitsu training can be expected to counter. the most capable combatant on planet earth is just as susceptible to falling to ambush and surprise when you have no time to react as anyone else, experience in fighting is not equivalent to knowing how to fight. people don't tend to warn you of their intentions and give you time copious amounts of time to stop them.
in other cases, someone might know vulnerabilities you personally have and hold threats against you, they might often use types of leverage which could include things such as threats about your/their daughter, but oh wait i keep forgetting who i'm talking to.
"ROFL parents caring about their daughter"...
all things aside, your assumptions that you know sexual predators better than the predator is a dangerous thing to suspect, it's as dangerous as blindly trusting someone's words to not be a lie based on their scholarly credentials rather than having your own. you might as well suspect a guy with glasses is intellectual, or that he isn't a predator because he's a snazzy dresser and a fun person to talk to. the only way people become aware is by learning, and unfortunately men and women start on even playing fields of knowledge, and have the same capacity to learn.
oh, and i could probably find a slew of cases where someone used a child as leverage, so the idea of this form of manipulation not being a factor to be concerned about really has no argument and you laughing at is as well is fairly foolish. if anything i could just get testimony from several of the women i know. but i know, you also would like to say 'not a valid point unless a stranger is dangling your baby from the air before tackling you in the bathroom'. there's no helping it.
quote:
I'm trying to make a fair assessment of the threat level. Strange men assaulting women in public restrooms is not what drives the sexual assault numbers. There are practical reasons that predators don't choose that forum.
absolutely correct. well maybe not absolutely, but from what information we are able to "absolutely go by", there's nothing to suggest the numbers we see are derived from the common use of the bathroom.
the main reason is because of the practicality that "if you were born with a penis, you don't go in there", that's the idea of practicality you're still holding right now for predators to stay out, while allowing others in. you find absurdity in the idea that they would because your view of bathrooms is "men go here, women go there"... you're failing to see what happens when the concept "adhering the sign on the door" is shattered, and the concept of the bathroom is no longer "practical". what happens when anyone goes anywhere, especially when people become accustomed to it and stop raising eyebrows. by now i'm sure plenty of people have busted into the wrong bathroom going "hey guys look at me, i'm transsexual" in jests of crude humor, if you doubt it then you have more faith in people not to be embarrassingly stupid at public outings with their friends than i do.
you are forgetting though, that while a man that looks like me can already argue a legal standing to go in there, imagine what a good shave and a wig can accomplish when people stop raising eyebrows to "burly women" in the women's room and just carry on their normal day. even if they do acknowledge me rather than spacing out in the concerns of their own world, with just so much as a wig on they are forced to assume "he's a transsexual" or any other term they want to use. they almost have to ignore me because i'm simply the "new norm".
as doubtful as it is, and as imaginative as i admit to it being, a wig could hypothetically become as customary in sexual offenses and invasions of privacy as gloves are to homicide.
but... you couple the scenarios i've mentioned with things like this and let your own mind wander... i'm sure you can think of all sorts of clever ways to abuse this law that i guarantee have already run in the heads of the same people who decide to to use any other means to lure victims into either an immediate trap or a net they've yet to close. that law got publicized and the guy that signed it in gets regularly gets publicized for seemingly obvious bad laws like this all the time. if anything the media's coverage of it and exposing its exploits are probably largely in part both to blame for people thinking of predators coming along with it and being aware of it, and to thank... as their putting the idea of it being exploited into everyone's minds and making them leery of it happening would cause worry in a predators mind that it might currently be too obvious since people had reason to sex offenders to act on it.
on the downside, and i'm sure you can agree with me for once that this is a downside.
due to there being such a hole in the law, and the people's/women's awareness of the hole especially due to scary situations regarding rapists that have been used by the media leading people to believe that someone in the women's room that isn't a "possessor of a vagina" could be sexual predators rather than someone just minding their own business while taking care of their "business". when these people already tend to believe transsexuals are abhorrent sexual deviants, (if only from your own argument that they're victims to discrimination and hate crimes) making women further leery that people in the women's restroom who weren't born female are possible sexual predators only causes transsexuals more grief in the end, making them more outcast by a society that already outcasts and is judgmental about them. it's not exactly an upgrade to overall well being compared to how it was prior.
i think you are more than able to agree to that, but you might simply say "that's totally not the case" as if you actually knew such things. you yourself talked about such similar circumstances and effects due to the things in prop. 8.
though in comparing the two situations, please note the legitimacy of such claims is not the point, the point is the effect the information has on people. assuredly this law stirred plenty debate, enough for me to find out fairly easily about it all the way in indiana from jokes for "new colorado bathroom signs" on someone's blog.
you say there are "practical reasons" that predators don't often use this venue in their actions, i say the "practical reason" got blown to hell. the only way it could get made worse in my view is by making "just one bathroom for all people". you see those bathrooms already, but they don't let more than one person in at a time to and only have 1 toilet 1 sink and have a lock on the door.
it's like deterring people by saying it's harshly punishable, but inviting them to try their hand by being more lax about how easy it is to try your hand. it's not a very great deterrent when people "don't intend to get caught".
you've got to understand that regardless of how you or i may view transsexuals, to the normal average joe/jane, they're simply men dressed inappropriately and viewed to be "homosexual" more often than not, though they may only be attracted to women, though that's arguable that is homosexual still in another view. joe and jane just got told that men can enter women's restrooms and vice-versa, even if they're NOT predators. it's only natural for them or anyone else to say "that sounds like bullshit".
to be honest, i'm surprised they even had to pass a law, or that transsexuals were going into the mens room, i've never seen or heard of such occurrences, but most of the times i would ever have in the first place is in government run buildings so i could see a possibility that "that" had plenty to do with it. i didn't hear anyone say i was mistaken in hearing that in order to receive any medications or medical augmentations to make transition of any sort that a psychiatrist or something of the sort had to "certify" by some means that they were indeed what they say they are; so it makes all the more sense to me to have some type of similarity in how this law allowed a person of the wrong gender to enter the wrong bathroom.
saying "transsexuals are allowed to enter the women's bathroom" is still saying "it's not their bathroom". the way the law is written leaves it at the sole discretion of a person to decide which bathroom they feel like going in. even if you were to convince me or anyone else, let alone the impossibility you face in "proving" that this doesn't encourage or change anything in terms of predators, it doesn't convince or prove that this law doesn't still have a very big problem.
men are allowed to enter the women's restroom.
take cross-dressers or sissies for example, and being on this site i trust you know how damn many of those there are. should those people be allowed in the womens restroom in order to help get their rocks off, cause that's all it is in their case. do you not have a problem with people taking their private life and forcing it upon the public? do you condone people forcing involvement of the public to personal fetish? most of the people on this board tend to agree that it is wrong for a guy to go into victoria's secret and subject the people that work there to your kink by using their public facilities like fitting rooms. do you not agree? do you think a men should be able to go into the women's restroom and subject them to the same crap, even if they're not a sexual offender? is that a viable compromise and good judgment/logic to use when addressing the discrimination transsexuals suffer?
i know you say you aren't bothered by the idea of "perverts", but i'm saying you're expecting and assuming too much out of people to think other people won't be bothered and don't have good reason to be bothered by (un-hypothetical) perverts. but i know your one way thinking of tolerance/acceptance/sympathy probably leads that curiosity of mine right back into you equality views of "i don't care who it bothers, so long as _______ isn't bothered".
quote:
Scary hypotheticals do not equal probabilities.
hypothetical and probability...
a presumption of possibilities without proof vs a proposition of chance without proof; great comparison...
probability deals a bit too much with "defined and absolute outcomes" like what side a coin will land on to deal with the fickle nature of humanity and our incapability to understand the scope of unlimited creativity for new possibilities in current scenarios, let alone untested ones for me to use the word "probabilty" in terms of "human behavior" and "free will" too often for my own personal taste. but suit yourself if you wish to take things that are not absolute and see how many times the spinner lands on a piece of the pie that no one could conceivably know for sure how big to draw in comparison to the other pieces except from "hypothetical" and logical reasoning.
hypothetically speaking, what's the probability that you figure out the word probability itself doesn't allude to what it's talking about as being in fact... "probable"? i hope it's not a hypothetical probability of zero.
point is, probability can't account for much, when the "possibility" of results outside all "probable" odds exists; we call that the theory of uncertainty. the more you can know about one thing, the less you can know of something else.
when people use the probability of something happening based on previous (and guaranteed to be) inconclusive data, (crime rates from last year by different people in different circumstances) those people always retain the belief that something as hypothetical as crashing planes into the world trade centers to not have been improbable, but to their left sided and calculating brain it was previously perceived as "impossible".
i trust you see how much the laws changed in how we fly planes based on what could "hypothetically" happen again, even when the "probability" of it ever occurring was always in fact "constant" in possibility but "uncertain" and "unimaginable".
illogical claims do not equal true accounts, logical ones can't even claim that, but it gets you much closer to the "possibility" of truth.
< Message edited by hopelesslyInvo -- 11/21/2009 2:26:13 PM >
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