Mediaboss Marketing

Incredibly, there is a new effort afoot to allow more child labor in the U.S. The Economic Policy Institute reported earlier this month that violations of child labor laws and proposals to roll back child labor protections are on the rise across the country, including bills under consideration to allow young teenagers to work in meatpacking plants. The Biden administration is belatedly promising to step up enforcement, as it has become clear that employers violate child labor laws with impunity, and children now are working hazardous jobs in every state and across industries, taking jobs in slaughterhouses, construction sites and commercial bakeriespositions that have long been off-limits to American children for nearly a century.

But, as Tyler Walicek notes at Truthout, the problem is not just that the laws are being flouted, because plenty of exploitative child labor is already legal, and enormous numbers of minors, many of them migrant children, are legally employed on U.S. farms, thanks to an underage-labor exemption unique to agriculture. The Atlantic ran a disturbing expose several years ago on children as young as 10 or 11 who work in Americas tobacco fields. The New York Times recently reported that in many parts of the country, middle and high school teachers in English-language learner programs say it is now common for nearly all their students to rush off to long shifts after their classes end.

One would have assumed the debate about child labor to be long since settled. Children deserve to focus on playing, learning, and developing. They shouldnt be sent down mines and into meatpacking plants! But astonishingly, there are still those who justify sending children to work. The libertarian Foundation for Economic Education even published an article called Let The Kids Work, claiming (quite seriously) that working down a mine is an exciting life that children will like because they enjoy danger, and its more interesting than sitting at a desk. The libertarian economist Bryan Caplan makes a similar argument in The Case Against Education, arguing that school sucks so much that for many kids, a job would be better. (I co-authored a review of the book in Current Affairs, and pointed out that this is an argument for making school better, not for sending children to work in Amazon warehouses.)

Some libertarians dont see any philosophical problem with sending kids to work generally. (Although note that its not clear they would send their own children to work in meatpacking plants, and usually what were talking about in practice is whether poor children will be sent to work.) But today, there is an additional justification offered for relaxing the child labor laws, which is that we have something referred to as a labor shortage in the United States: there just arent enough people to work certain jobs. Axios reports that the bills are largely in response to the current hot jobs market, with employers posting an elevated number of openings but struggling to fill positions.

Now, you should always beware of the term labor shortage, because its a kind of propaganda concept. When we say that there arent enough workers to fill certain positions, what were really saying is that there arent enough people willing to accept the terms on which employers are offering jobs. For instance, in Ohio, the state restaurant association has said that most restaurant operators in the state are still short between ten and 20% of the staff and teens could help fill that gap. But an important question is: what would that gap look like if you doubled the wages being offered? Of course, the restaurant association would balk, and claim that such an insane idea would bankrupt them (they always say this when you propose raising wages). But if youre willing to offer better terms, you can get more workers. Its a labor market. If youre not able to buy what you want in it (labor), its not because there arent enough people, its because youre not offering the market rate. Ive written about this before in the context of alleged teacher shortages. The shortage exists in part because the job conditions are shitty and not enough people want to accept them.

TIME reported that one of the companies recently found to have committed serious breaches of child labor laws was employing children in hazardous jobs cleaning equipment like skull splitters, brisket saws, and bone cutters. The company also paid investors a $297 million dividend in 2020, which TIME noted dwarfs the cost of the fine they received for violating the law, making employing child laborers the economically rational thing to do (Milton Friedman might argue it was actually the corporations obligation to maximize shareholder value by exploiting kids.) The company might well argue that they have a hard time getting people other than kids to take dangerous underpaid work. But the response should be: tough. If you want workers to do a job, you have to offer them terms they will accept. If you cant get the workers, its your job as an employer to change the terms. Here at Current Affairs, I wouldnt whine about a worker shortage if I couldnt find anyone to write for ten cents an article. Id realize that I wasnt paying enough. The shortage is a shortage at the given terms, meaning that the very concept has a status quo bias that accepts employers insistences that they have a right to get workers at the rates they prefer.

The worker shortage argument becomes even more absurd when we remember something called the border, and the fact that even as people are complaining that there arent enough workers, were simultaneously deploying physical violence to keep workers out of the country. Earlier this year, Joe Biden expanded a program allowing the administration to quickly expel people from Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti who illegally cross into the country from Mexico. Biden has even recently made the (both immoral and irrational) decision to deport Russians fleeing conscription by Vladimir Putin. (Immoral because it could be sending them to their deaths, and irrational because its literally handing over new recruits for Russias war machine.)

This supposed need for workers comes at a time when we are literally physically expelling workers. Why would you deport people who want nothing more than to stay in this country and make a livelihood here? The situation in the contemporary U.S. is pure insanity: people are trying to send children to work, while handcuffing and shipping out adults who are looking for jobs. Just open the border! Let people in! Its incredible the kind of double cruelty here. Its cruel to ruin a childhood with immiserating labor, and its cruel to ruin an adults life by tearing them away from their family. (There was much outrage at Donald Trump for his family separation policy, but too many liberals forgetor dont carethat all immigration enforcement involves family separation.)

U.S. immigration policy has deadly consequences. The Biden administration has infamously followed Trump in refusing to allow asylum-seekers to cross into the U.S. to apply for asylum, thus forcing them to stay in dangerous Mexican border towns where they can be targets of a vicious criminal business that kidnaps them and can torture them for weeks, extorting thousands of dollars of ransom from their relatives over the phone. Just this week, dozens of migrants in a crowded Mexican detention center suffocated and burned to death in a fire, after guards refused to let them out to escape. Earlier this week, frustrated by the U.S. governments useless scheduling app for asylum application appointments, hundreds of Venezuelans tried to cross the border and were turned back by force. Reuters quoted 18-year-old Camila Paz, who was sobbing heavily and pleaded: Please, we just want to get in so we can help our familiesSo I can have a future and help my family. We could give Camila that future at zero cost. Supposedly there is a labor shortage. And yet instead we use brutal force to send her and many others like her back to face poverty and violence.

Now, we should be careful about arguing that immigrants should be allowed to plug the shortage, because as I explained, the shortage presumes keeping the jobs shitty. In desperate refugees, we might easily find a population that (like children) does not have the ability to bargain for better conditions, and would therefore gladly take whatever was on offer. Really, many of the positions that would only be accepted by undocumented people or children should not exist; they should be safer and better-paid. Sometimes, those arguing for fewer restrictions on immigration make the (misguided, in my view) argument that undocumented peoples jobs are jobs Americans wont do. Well, if they wont do them, its probably because theyre inhumane, and citizens have more of an ability to walk away and demand something that meets certain basic conditions.

So, no, we shouldnt just fix our shortage through unrestricted immigration. We should open the borders and raise the minimum wage. And we should keep child labor prohibited. All of this is possible. There are plenty of people who want to work, and God knows employers make enough money to where they can share it fairly with workersremember, profits havent been this high in 70 years. We need to understand that when people claim theres a shortage of workers that needs to be fixed through exploiting kids, theyre not only advocating something hideously cruel, but theyre trying to get us to accept the propagandistic framing that shitty jobs must inevitably be shitty. Its not true. Employers have a choice, but its clear that they will offer the worst and most exploitative conditions they can, unless they are forced to do otherwise.

I debunk pro-child labor arguments at greater length in my new book Responding to the Right: Brief Replies to 25 Conservative Arguments.

Original post:
US Companies Complain of Worker Shortages While the US ... - Current Affairs

Countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East have all avoided taking sides on Russia's invasion of Ukraine -- but India's size and power make it the most influential nation to remain neutral, a year into the war.

The world's second-largest country and sixth-largest economy will continue to maintain ties to both Russia and the West with a posture of "strategic ambivalence," experts say, resisting a U.S. push to directly oppose Moscow while calling for "peace" and cooperation on what "common ground" there is.

Indian officials echoed that at this year's Group of 20 foreign ministers' meeting in New Delhi, which ended earlier this month.

"The G20 has the capacity to build consensus and deliver concrete results. We should not allow issues that we cannot resolve together to come in the way of those we can," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a video message at the gathering. "As you meet in the land of Gandhi and the Buddha, I pray that you will draw inspiration from India's civilizational ethos -- to focus not on what divides us, but on what unites us."

Later, India's external affairs minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, alluded to the divisions over the war.

"There were issues and I think the issues, I would say, very frankly, concerned the Ukraine conflict on which there were divergences," Jaishankar said.

Western leaders have been disappointed in India's reluctance to condemn Russian aggression, but they know India's reliance on Russian energy and weapons, paired with past problems with the U.S., present the country with a tempting option for neutrality, said Sahar Khan, a research fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute's Defense and Foreign Policy Department.

At the same time, India is working to diversify its military supply, which is one of its major links to Russia, and has been sending humanitarian aid to Kyiv.

Rick Russow, a senior adviser and chair in U.S.-India policy studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank, said that India is one of the only countries amid the war in Ukraine that is able to "pick up the phone and talk to leadership in both the United States and Russia on the same day."

India currently holds the rotating presidency of the G20 and so hosts an annual slate of events with some of the key nations from around the world, where they focus on economic issues and international relations, emphasizing cooperation.

Western officials have been looking to India to explicitly condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin through this global platform, but they have been met with disappointment.

India has long signaled its ambivalence -- decrying the fighting but, for example, declining to participate in U.N. resolutions against Russia.

Jaishankar said in October that "we have been very clearly against the conflict in Ukraine. We believe that this conflict does not serve the interests of anybody. Neither the participants nor indeed of the international community."

At the G20 foreign ministers' meeting this month, Prime Minister Modi's message also conveyed his government's insistence on highlighting domestic issues -- and India's top priorities -- pertaining to the Global South, a category of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America with similar socioeconomic characteristics.

The multi-day meeting included sessions on food security, development cooperation and terrorism, among other topics.

But the topic of Ukraine was unavoidable. Russia and China were the only states who refused to condemn the war, and India maintained its call for a peaceful solution without backing a specific country.

Even before it was selected to host the G20, India had positioned itself as an impartial party to the war.

In September, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said that India was supportive of the territorial integrity of both Ukraine and Russia.

"India has repeatedly emphasized on the immediate cessation of hostilities and the need to resolve the ongoing conflict through dialogue and diplomacy. India's position has also been clear and consistent in so far as respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of the countries concerned," Bagchi said then.

Since Russia's attack on Ukraine began, the U.S has put pressure on India to take a stance, with President Joe Biden acknowledging early in the conflict that India's position on joining anti-Russia efforts was "shaky." And in May, Biden appeared to reference the countries' split on Ukraine during a meeting with Modi and others when he said, "This is more than just a European issue. It's a global issue."

Despite that lack of alignment, the U.S. and India have still maintained a solid partnership in matters of commerce, technology, security and education.

While India seems impartial to the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, especially in its reluctance to condemn Putin, it is acting on a history of reliance on Russia and past sidelining by the West, according to Harsh Pant, vice president of studies and foreign policy at the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian think tank.

In 1998, in response to a series of nuclear weapons tests India conducted near neighboring Pakistan, countries including the U.S. imposed sanctions, leaving India unable to trade in high-end technology or, in the view of Indian officials, defend themselves against Pakistan -- with whom there is a history of sectarian conflict.

Instead, at the time, India found defensive support from post-Cold War Russia, based on a relationship that stretched back to the Soviet Union.

Pant said that much of India's weaponry has for years been manufactured by the Russians, who have also supplied India with energy.

"If you look at India's big platforms like aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, they are all of Soviet vintage, because the Soviet Union was willing to share technology with India," he said.

Russia remains a major supplier of weapons to India and Russian equipment still makes up a large portion of the Indian Armed Forces' force, experts said. And India's dependence on Russian defense materials have been crucial for the country amid a protracted border dispute with China.

But recently, India has attempted to diversify its supply of weapons and develop its own defense industry, resulting in declining Russian arms deliveries to India.

Pant said India previously acquired approximately 80% of its weapons from Russia. That number has dropped down to about 55%.

"It's quite a serious decline in the share of Russian equipment, as it gets diversified to the West," Pant said, noting India has started to buy defense weaponry from the U.S. and Australia, two other countries in the so-called "Quad" that also includes Japan.

That has led to some distance in India and Russia's relationship. Such relationships "don't really change overnight," Pant said. Rather, multiple factors can add up to major changes.

"India and Russia have been drifting apart gradually and that is something that I think needs to be brought out: With or without the Ukraine war, India-Russia relations have been going in a negative direction," Pant said.

The country is updating its defense industry, making it less manpower-heavy and more technology-heavy. Against the backdrop of China-India tensions, Russia's position as China's emerging partner has also made it harder for Russia to preserve its partnership with India.

"China is already threatening India from multiple sides. If Russia also joins the bandwagon, then I think there is a problem. There is going to be a big issue for India, given its defense relationship, given its security environment and given the mismatch between Indians' and Chinese military capabilities," Pant said.

Russow, with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, also said that though India is definitely more involved with Russia, the country believes its future lies closer to Western powers.

"Things are working out for India," said Khan, at the Cato Institute. "They're getting some criticism, but they're fine."

Original post:
What's behind India's strategic neutrality on Russia's invasion of Ukraine - ABC News

Self-described libertarian, Kentucky Senator, and messy yard dispute loser Rand Paul has broken with fellow Republicans and become possibly the sole GOP voice opposing a national TikTok ban. In his view, banning TikTok would violate Americans right to free speech and would make vindictive US lawmakers no different from their Chinese counterparts whove moved to ban US social media firms like Facebook and YouTube. Pauls recent statements come just days after House lawmakers from both parties laid into TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew in a grueling five-hour hearing.

Mourning the Loss of Addison Raes Debut Album | The Meme Machine

Paul made his case in a Wednesday Courier-Journal op-ed where he said he would oppose attempts to ban the app, even those coming from his own party, because doing so would impinge on users freedom of expression. Republicans, particularly those in the House, have made opposing perceived censorship one of their primary talking points this year. Paul said a TikTok ban would essentially amount to the exact same type of censorship these lawmakers claim to so vociferously oppose. For those averse to TikTok or other social media companies data collection policies, Rand had a simple response: Dont use them.

I hope saner minds will reflect on which is more dangerous: videos of teenagers dancing or the precedent of the U.S. government banning speech, Paul wrote. For me, its an easy answer, I will defend the Bill of Rights against all comers, even, if need be, from members of my own party.

Paul pushed back against accusations that TikTok is doing the bidding of the Chinese government by pointing to a wide variety of content on the app critical of the government. The senator went on to warn that banning TikTok could lead to a slippery slope where other US tech firms could potentially be subject to similar retaliation.

Paul calls the attempts to ban TikTok a, national strategy to permanently lose elections for a generation.

Politically, Paul said a TikTok ban would be a disaster for Republicans and would all but guarantee they lose the votes of younger voters whove grown accustomed to the app. Even though support for a ban is growing amongst Democrats, Paul said the blame and backlash for a ban will stick to Republicans more.

As of now, Paul looks like the sole voice on his side of the aisle who opposes a ban. Numerous Republican lawmakers, including Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, have introduced legislation that would effectively ban TikTok nationally. Last week, newly minted Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy added his name to the ban brigade and revealed he would support legislation banning the app in the House of Representatives.

Though Democrats were quick to oppose bans when they were being orchestrated by the Trump administration several years ago, few of those same voices appear compelled to stand up for the company now. A handful of Democratic representatives, including outspoken supporter New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman, joined a group of around 30 TikTok content creators to protest a possible ban last week. It was later learned by Gizmodo and others that those creators had their travel expenses paid by TikTok. One of Browns aides similarly told The New York Times TikTok helped orchestrate a meeting between the lawmaker and the influencer protestors.

My question is: Why the hysteria and the panic and the targeting of TikTok? Bowman, who has his own TikTok account with around 177,000 followers, said during the rally. As we know, Republicans, in particular, have been sounding the alarm, creating a red scare around China.

But Bowman isnt the only Democrat opposing the ban. This week, fellow New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez threw her hat in the ring, proclaiming her bold support for TikTok in, you guessed it, a TikTok video.

I think its important to discuss how unprecedented of a move this would be, Ocasio-Cortez said in her first-ever TikTok video. The United States has never before banned a social media company from existence, from operating in our borders. And this is an app that has over 150 million Americans on it

The 33-year-old representative, who propelled herself to the House in 2019 thanks in no small part to savvy social media skills, said many of these data privacy issues attributed to TikTok also applied to US tech firms like Meta. The solution, therefore, isnt a ban, but rather a push for meaningful federal data privacy laws.

The general US public, meanwhile, increasingly appears split over TikToks fate. A recent Washington Post poll shows 41% of US adults say they support a federal ban on the app. A slightly higher portion (49%) of adults in a recent SocialSphere poll similarly said they support a ban.

The bottom line is, whether its justified or not, the constant drumbeat of TikTok alarmism coming from D.C. appears to be having its desired effect of swaying public opinion. Paul, AOC, and others are hoping Tikok really is simply too important to users and essentially too big to ban.

See the article here:
Rand Paul Says a TikTok Ban Would Be Politically Disastrous - Gizmodo

Thanks to Scleroderma walk sponsors

On behalf of the Amherst Womans Club, Sweet Briar College and the National Scleroderma Foundation, we would like to say thank you to all the sponsors, walk participants and businesses that donated to our Stepping Out to Cure Scleroderma Walk held March 4, 2023, at Sweet Briar College.

Thanks to the generosity of many, we were able to raise over $16,000.00, which was designated for research for a cure for Scleroderma.

Thank you to the following Sponsors:

Greif, Inc.; Equis Financial, Amherst Rotary Club; Hermle, North America; Tru Vantage Solutions, Inc.; Amherst Womans Club, Sweet Briar College, National Scleroderma Foundation, Amherst County Lions Club, Cobb Dermatology, Ascension Church Mens Breakfast Group, Glad, Emmanuel United Methodist Church; Hickey Plumbing, Electric and Air, the Jordan Team Realty One Group Leading Team, Family of Laurie Babcock, Amherst Baptist Church, Amherst Order of the Eastern Star, Amherst County High School Theater Group, BonFire, Acorn Hill, Amherst County High School Athletic Dept., Main Street Settlement, Inc.; Edward Jones, Genevieve Fadool Senior Benefits, Ins.; Christians Backhoe Service, Rehab Associates of Central VA, Sardis United Methodist Church, Blue Ridge Group of Keller Williams, Family of Emily Burke Wood Daughtery, Staples, Melissa Floral Designs, Randolph Memorial Baptist Church, Yolan and Tyler Williams, Steve Martin Paint and Body Shop and Thirsty Dog Resort AirBNB.

People are also reading

MARGARET ANN WHITE, SUZANNE RAINE

Xi, Putin up to no good

Chinas leader Xi and Russian President Putin failed to find a suitable road to peace in Ukraine? None was expected. Xis trip to Russia was solely for Chinas benefit; Xi cares not one wit about peace in Ukraine. He went for and got more Russian fossil fuels and showed just how damaging Putins war has been for Russia. What was especially telling was Xis statement that both China and Russia have similar aims. While Russia wants to eliminate neighbor Ukraine, China wants to do the same with neighbor Taiwan.

China has yet to make the mistake of actually going to war and we can only hope that Xi is smarter than Putin by recognizing just how much he has to lose by taking that step. Putin has shown amazing stupidity strategically. His country was reaping billions by selling off its natural resources at good prices while its politics and economy were ignored by his customers, the West.

No American or European posed a danger to his gigantic fiefdom. Nobody cared; the oil and gas kept flowing. Trump almost removed the US from NATO, labeling it a relic of the past. Putin could have maintained that situation till his dying day but threw it all away by starting the war with Ukraine. Presently, with every passing day Russia becomes more a country to avoid than a country to include.

If Putin ends the war today how many decades will pass before the West again ignores the Russian barbarians? I expect to see China export some weapons to Russia as that will extend the war and further weaken Russia. I also expect China to one day occupy much or all of Eastern Siberia as it realizes that expanding northwards is doable and useful. Russia should recognize that no Western nation is presently pursuing imperialistic policies but China is. Thats where Russias danger lies.

Here in the US, the failure of a single bank in California almost threw the economy of the US into chaos and required a government bailout to restore order, yet the Republicans are planning on defaulting the entire US government unless they get their way. Folks, that is insanity, plain and simple. One can detonate a ton of explosives in a building but what does one have when the dust settles, a pile of rubble. Thats what the Republican plan will make of your lives and your country.

A familiar story

To paraphrase Mike Tysons famous aphorism Everybody has a plan until they get hit in the face; everybody is a libertarian until they have to be bailed out. Many of the heroes of the tech world loudly proclaimed their libertarianism. No government interference into our business, thank you very much. Musk even presumes to tell us who to vote for. But now with the failure of Silicon Valley Bank they need a government bailout.

Each time this happens the conventional wisdom is each time is different and this time it is. In 2008, many banks had bought into the housing mortgage market and when it went south. Forty hundred and sixty-five banks failed between 2008 and 2012, close to 9 million lost their jobs, $19 trillion of household wealth was destroyed.

Nobody thinks this is happening now but still the Fed and Wall Street are worried. The market is this giant organism; in fact, some say it is the only thing that exists. There are two things about the market that are very frightening; one it exists because of everybodys confidence in it and doubt can spread very fast, and two when something goes wrong in one place it can spread to the whole organism. So, every couple of decades or so the market collapses and people lose their jobs, their homes, their wealth.

There are a number of things we can say about this time with some assurance, and one is the era of cheap money is over for the time being, the wealthy will come out alright, and profit belongs to the bankers, and loses belong to the taxpayers and for us little folks you can finally earn some money with a savings account.

A good friend says in six months we wont be talking about the banks. Its what we will be talking about that worries me.

Get opinion pieces, letters and editorials sent directly to your inbox weekly!

Continue reading here:
Letters to the editor for March 30 - Lynchburg News and Advance

A California-based transgender rights group, the Trans Radical Action Network, is planning a Trans Day of Vengeance protest outside the Supreme Court on Saturday, just days after a transgender person killed three children and three adults at a Christian school in Nashville.

Despite the terrible optics and uproar over the rally, the group appears to be moving forward with the planned event. In a press release on the Trans Radical Action Network website, the group says while they are horrified at the acts of violence committed at the Covenant school, they also reject any connection between that horrific event and ours.

The Trans/Non-Binary/Gender Non-Conforming/Intersex communities are facing astronomical amounts of hate from the world, the groups website states. Vengeance means fighting back with vehemence.

The right isnt buying it, and neither is Twitter, which has designated the Trans Day of Vengeance poster a violation of its community standards. On Tuesday, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene posted screenshots saying her official congressional Twitter account had been suspended for tweeting about the event.

My official Congressional account was banned for 7 days, Ms. Greene tweeted. In the wake of a transgender shooter targeting a Christian school and murdering kids, every American should know the threat of Antifa driven trans-terrorism. Twitter should not whitewash the incitement of politically motivated violence.

There is no overt connection between Antifa and the Trans Radical Action Network, though the groups Twitter and other social media accounts were made private amid the controversy, making that determination difficult. The Sun reached out to TRANs co-founder, Noah Buchanan, via Instagram but did not get a response.

We do not support tweets that incite violence irrespective of who posts them, head of Twitter Trust & Safety, Ella Irwin, tweeted, saying the platform had removed more than 5,000 tweets about the protest. Vengeance does not imply peaceful protest.

The disclosure that the 28-year-old shooter born female identified as transgender is sparking heightened rhetoric on both sides of the aisle. The shooter left a manifesto, according to police, but it has yet to be released to the public, so the motivation for the shooting remains unclear. The shooter was a former student of the Christian school.

In the wake of the tragedy, President Biden and the left are calling for an assault weapons ban. The left is also warning that the shooters identity could instigate violence against transgender persons.

Extremists are exploiting the Nashville shooting tragedy to continue dangerous campaigns against transgender people, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) tells the Sun in a statement. If extremist politicians cared about children at all, theyd stop the lying and start banning assault weapons.

Regardless of the perpetrators identity, it is important to understand that one persons actions do not reflect an entire community, a spokesperson for the National Center for Transgender Equality, Ash Orr, tells the Sun. The organization is also calling for gun control measures.

Some in the press have also insinuated that there may be a connection between the shooters motives and two recently passed laws in Tennessee. One restricts drag performances, and the other prohibits gender-affirming care for minors. Until the manifesto is released, this is all conjecture.

The temperature, though, in this cold cultural civil war is getting hotter. A press secretary for Arizonas Governor Hobbs, Josselyn Berry, tweeted a screenshot of a woman aiming two pistols with the tagline, Us when we see transphobes. She has since resigned.

The right is blaming what it sees as an increasingly militant transgender rights movement. Yesterdays massacre did not happen because of lax gun laws, Tucker Carlson said on Fox News, pointing to other recent shootings, including at Club Q in Colorado, that were committed by LGBTQ persons. Yesterdays massacre happened because of a deranged and demonic ideology that is infecting this country with the encouragement of people like Joe Biden.

Several provocative images of transgender rights activists are being shared on social media to stoke fear of an armed trans rebellion. One shows transgender activists wearing t-shirts with images of long guns and the phrase trans rights or else.

In another, a transgender male in a bulletproof vest and pink face mask is standing in front of a transgender pride flag while holding a semi-automatic rifle, with several other guns in holsters at his waist. Kill christcucks. Behead christcucks, the tweet, a vulgar reference to Christians, says.

A Libertarian candidate for Senate from Georgia in 2022, Chase Oliver, who forced the Warnock-Walker runoff and is openly gay, Christian, and a staunch defender of Second Amendment rights, tells the Sun he thinks the reaction to these armed transgender memes is overblown. He says conservatives and libertarians wear t-shirts with guns and provocative sayings on them all the time. Its not a threat, its an acclamation of our right to defend ourselves, he says.

The vast majority of trans people are non-violent and non-aggressive. And I would say the same thing about the vast majority of gun owners too, Mr. Oliver says. He says he conceal carries and that the best way to fight oppression is to be armed, as long as it is for self-defense purposes only. I do believe sincerely that if you are armed, its harder for people to oppress or attack you, he says.

The right, though, is framing this as a war between transgender activists and Christians. Representatives Mary Miller and Marjorie Taylor Greene sent a letter to the FBI Tuesday pressing the bureau to investigate the Nashville shooting as an act of domestic terrorism.

Our politics in general are getting more aggressive and more militant, and that isnt exclusive to trans people or people fighting for trans rights, Mr. Oliver says. We need to have a cultural ceasefire.

Go here to see the original:
Activists Plan 'Trans Day of Vengeance' at Washington Days After ... - The New York Sun