US Politics

[TheMightyEthan]

Let me play devil's advocate here:  So, you pay less in state income tax. What have you done with that extra money, or what will you do with that extra money?

 

Stuck it in an investment account.  Diversified primarily between US stocks, foreign stocks, and bonds.  The Kansas economy isn't seeing any of that money (or perhaps is seeing a tiny, tiny fraction that comes into Kansas by pure coincidence).

[Mal]

Surely you'll spend that investment 10-20 or even 30 years from now directly in Kansas. So it's all fine.

[Mr. GOH!]

I'm always astounded that folks think a sales tax is more fair than an income tax since it disproportionately burdens the poor.

 

Further more, it's just not good economic policy. Income taxes disincentivze hoarding and thus promote spending, increasing the amount of cash active in the economy, while sales taxes disincentivize spending, which reduces the amount of cash available at large.  Money that's sitting in a bank account, or in foreign investments doesn't do the economy any real good. It's only in the weird world of conservative nonsense that sales taxes make sense over income taxes.

[deanb]

Heh, our treasurer is a history student and even he knew to stick VAT down to stimulate spending (and then not long after put it up higher than it was before :/ admittedly the maths is a bit easier now it's 20%)

[Mister Jack]

Ethan, you're a cool guy and all, but if there's ever a vote on whether or not to turn Kansas into scorched earth I'm going to have to vote yes.  I hope you understand.

[TheMightyEthan]

Don't worry, I'll vote yes too.

 

Ideally Colorado could annex us, since they're the only neighboring state with any goddamned sense.  Or Iowa, I guess.

[Mr. GOH!]

Iowa's gotten worse since I left in 2000. I mean, they elected the clown Joni Ernst to the Senate. At least in CO you'd have legalized recreational marijuana.

[TheMightyEthan]

So there's a bill that got through the state Senate (not the House yet) that does basically what I outlined above.  This is new information to me though:  among the groups that would have to start paying sales tax that did not have to previously (such as non-profits, which I already knew about) is the state itself.  How does that make any goddamned sense?

 

"I know, we can close the budget deficit by just paying ourselves.  Brilliant!"

[Thursday Next]

Makes sense, I mean they get all the money. It's only sensible that they share that by giving some to the state. It'll then trickle down to the state and everyone wins.

[Mister Jack]

Okay I'm sure at least some of you have heard about this Rachel Dolezal thing, right?  You guys have any thoughts?  I'm a pretty open minded guy but I'm sorry, this "transracial" shit is where I draw the fucking line.

[TheMightyEthan]

That was my gut reaction, but when I actually started thinking about it I can't come up with a single non-arbitrary-seeming distinction between being transsexual and transracial. I mean, I do feel like what she was doing was dishonest, but if you stop looking at her specifically I can't find a real reason why it's different.

[Mister Jack]

 

I can think of a few reasons. 

[TheMightyEthan]

Idiots being idiots isn't a difference between being transracial and transsexual.

[FredEffinChopin]

Pretty much what Ethan said, though I did eventually manage to nail down some distinctions while discussing it with a friend. Whether or not they're sufficient to justify the expectation to be treated as a "race" other than one's own being treated differently than the expectation of being treated as a member of the opposite gender is anyone's question. My answer is that it is different. 

 

The driving motivation behind wanting to live and be treated as the opposite sex, and even to get surgery to make the transformation as thorough as humanly possible, is one that involves one of the most significant driving forces that guides us as a species: our sexuality. There isn't any evidence I've ever encountered that supports the idea of any mundane notions such as sympathy, respect, affection, love, or anything else being significant determiners of sexuality. Whatever drives it in any given direction is a much deeper, unshakable compulsion. That's not to say that there can't be fluidity to it, but that it's probably less driven by any external factors than the idea of being transracial could ever be. Many if not most transgendered individuals, as I understand it (and as makes perfect sense), actually come to terms with it in a really uncomfortable and even reluctant way. It's not something that's easy to embrace given existing social stigma, not to mention any number of other implications that an individual might draw or have imposed upon them.

 

The idea of transracialism seems like it's impossible to result of anything but social factors, and only deals with relatively superficial notions of identity. We don't have many examples to draw on, but it's seems safe to say that Dolezal embraces her African-American identity, and I imagine that anyone else with a similar sense of identity would either have identify in some way with the culture/ethnicity/race that they're seeking to identify themselves as, or have been brought up so surrounded by it that it's a part of their personality, regardless of what they might think of their community. 

 

That's all I've got. It's a new and fascinating discussion though, and I'm open to more ideas on it. I feel somewhat settled now, but who knows what hasn't occurred to me yet. I honestly haven't read to much discussion about it, and probably should just to see what's being kicked around out there.

[TheMightyEthan]

I agree that sexuality is one of the very most core driving sources of most biological organisms, humans included, but we're also hardwired to internalize cultural things extremely strongly as well, and someone's cultural identity can be incredibly important to their sense of self. I can see your point, but it still seems kind of arbitrary to me, to try and determine how core the idea is to someone's self perception and whether it's basic enough.

[FredEffinChopin]

I was going to edit, but I'll just throw it in here now since there is more to say. On the same point, but a little more succinctly:

 

Within an isolated culture, you will never find anyone with any sort of cultural identity uncertainty. You sure a shit will find one with gender identity confusion. 

 

While a valid response to that point is that you're isolating them in one case and not the other, I think that the fact that you couldn't have a society without gender diversity speaks to the huge significance of that element of our identity, as opposed to anything society has to offer that. Cultural identity is certainly important, and in that some peoples' sexuality are more muted than others, cultural identity is surely even more important to some individuals more than sexual identity. I don't think it's difficult to draw the lines between what's basic and what isn't though. Eating, reproducing, and protecting ourselves from harm are what I would call a base of core instincts that guide us. Those were going on before we developed language, community, and all of the creations that we've come to know as culture. They're pretty much all that's necessary to continue our species. 

[TheMightyEthan]

But what I mean is that deciding it based on whether it's necessary to continue the species seems arbitrary to me. To me the more important thing would be the psychological importance to the person.

 

*Edit - I guess what I'm getting at is that the reason to respect any kind of trans status is empathy for the trans person, and respect for their feelings, and so the biological basis of those feelings is irrelevant.

[Thursday Next]

I think where it breaks down for me is that your gender is determined on a coin toss. Parents will give birth to a boy or a girl. Pre-conception you can't determine whether it will be one or the other. But you know that (certain genetic issues aside) it'll be a boy or a girl. Race on the other hand is determined pre-conception. You'll definitely be black, white, asian, mixed race, etc. if your parents are. No amount of genetic dice rolling is going to chuck in some asian genes to a baby born to a couple that only have black and white ancestry.

 

Transgender, to me is moving away from something you are not. You know you are not female, so you change to male gender. Transracialism doesn't feel the same. It seems like this person is moving towards something you prefer, rather than moving away from white culture because she knows that is not what she is, she's moving toward black culture for, reasons.

 

In essence, if you had a transgender person in a box with only people of the same genetic gender, they would say "I am not the same gender as these people", if you put a transracial person in a box with only people of their genetic race, I don't think they would say the same.

[deanb]

I'd seen something on this crop up on Twitter other day but didn't really follow up.

I'm not really sure I know enough about this but from what I'm reading up it seems more of a kind of "to make a point in a discrimination case", but I might be missing something? (Or Beeb are at least).

It seems to me like if I claimed to be Geordie. As parents have stated there's no black roots in her ancestry, just a bit of native american though she's claiming otherwise which is maybe a bit of a sticky issue (I think over here it'd be fraud if you incorrectly filled out the census on anything but religion questions). Given at the end of the day there shouldn't be any discrimination based on race it shouldn't matter what race she biologically is*, so it's largely claiming to be culturally black in the way I'd claim to be a geek. (But I know Race is a whole other ballcourt in US, so to be "transracial" would likely be upsetting some status quos)

 

*apart from on a medical standpoint, which can lead to some differences in how you respond to certain drugs and such.

[Thursday Next]

Now I think more about this, I've got Turkish Cypriot, Italian, English and Candian grandparents (one of each). I tick the "White (British)" box rather than the "White (European)" or "White (Other)". Not sure if this makes me transracial or not.

[deanb]

Oh I apparently didn't add in the:

"If she was younger I might pencil it in as "special snowflake syndrome" that seems quite prevalent on parts of Tumblr, as Mister Jack has sort of exampled. Which is pretty shitty as it sort of...belittles(not the right word but best my brain can dig out) actual gender dysphoria and transgender. Poes Law doesn't help things."

 

I'd say there's a deeper issue if she feels the need to "identify as black" to head a black equality group. You don't have to be gay to head a LGBT group but it helps.

[TheMightyEthan]

Well, and that's why I've specifically tried to get away from talking about this lady specifically.  This lady apparently routinely lies about all sorts of weird things, claiming to have been born in South Africa (not true, born in the US), and hunted with bows and arrows for food growing up (not true, she grew up in the US), and that her adopted brother (who actually is genetically black) is her biological son, even though even he knows it's not true, etc etc.  She clearly has some kind of personality disorder.

 

@TN: at that point you're just speculating about how someone really feels about something.  And I think the "dice roll" thing is arbitrary too: both characteristics are something determined by your genes, which you have no control over.  The fact that one is predetermined by your parents' genes and the other is fairly randomly determined I don't think is a meaningful difference.

[Thursday Next]

Just realised that life is parodying South Park.

 

[Thursday Next]

In response to Ethan's point, yeah I'm speculating on motives, but that's exactly what happens when someone goes for a gender reassignment. They are carefully assessed to determine if (in someone else's opinion) they want the operation/drugs for the right reasons.

 

As for the difference being arbitrary / meaningless. Yeah, it probably is. I'd argue that whether you identify as black or white is similarly arbitrary and meaningless as it won't change anything. If you are white you will continue to benefit from the privilege that goes with it and if you identify as black you will be given short shrift by that community.

 

The whole thing comes across as a bit... Ali G.

 

[TheMightyEthan]

I just feel like this is the kind of thing that in 50 years will sound like "Of course black people should be able to vote, but I still don't want my daughter dating one."