<img attachment="see_nothing,_say_nothing.jpeg" align="right">It's pretty tedious to watch so many people trying as hard as they can to censor expression of which they don't approve, all the while screaming at the top of their lungs that they are being censored by others. They see censorship of their own speech as beyond the pale because their opinions are <i>correct</i> whereas those they are trying to censor should <i>of course not</i> be able to speak out because they are promulgating <i>hate speech</i>. It's all so very tiresome. Good people end up fooling themselves---or allowing themselves to be fooled into---wasting their time with this. They have their hearts in the right place, but they are, in the end, hypocrites. They can't empathize with their enemy. They can't bring themselves to see that some people view banning discussion of "queer stuff" in schools as just as moral a cause as others view banning Nazis from Twitter. Are Nazis worse than queers? Duh. But don't forget that queers can be Nazis. Also, most people aren't Nazis. They're just small-minded, racist morons<fn> with tattoos that they don't understand. Even given all of that, nobody should be banning or censoring anybody. Except for stuff that's already illegal. Look, if we've put the time in to push it through legislation, then we have to abide by that. We live in a society. If we don't like it, then we have to put the work in to <i>unban</i> it. We can't add a layer of quasi-legal banning and censoring on top of it. That's just lazy. And undemocratic. As with most issues, people's opinions differ not in principle, but in degree. Those that argue that queerness shouldn't be taught in school are arguing for a minimum age limit before which the state should not be involved in teaching certain topics. That's not what they're saying, necessarily---because they're usually morons---but that's the kernel that you could extract from their viewpoint. It's a legitimate one, I think. I don't think most people would be delighted to see their four-year-old playing with lifelike dildos<fn>, especially because of the discussion that could ensue. There's a time and place for everything and it's legitimate for the actual parents of a child to have a say in when some things happen, within reason. I don't think that's controversial. I think, again, people differ in degree, but not in principle. Also, I know that a lot of parents have "checked out" or "are not doing their jobs", but we do ourselves and everyone else a disservice when we start to assume that parents with whom we disagree are de-facto "not adequate parents." While this is super-convenient, it's not honest. Do the work. Parents legitimately delay "the talk" for a while because it involves a lot of issues and cultural decisions that have been taken that don't really make logical sense---they just are. You usually have to reach a certain age to even be capable of processing a discussion that involves that kind of complexity. Most people aren't capable of explaining it in a sane way because those same cultural idiosyncrasies have instilled in them a deep shame in even talking about them. Hell, a lot of people fuck only in absolute darkness. How are they going to talk about what's happening with "queer stuff"? Not that "queer stuff" <i>equates</i> in any way with sex, but it is <i>adjacent</i> and that's the sticking point<fn> for many. I know that some parents are against the <i>idea</i> of queerness, not just the <i>mechanics</i> of it, but cut me some slack here. I'm talking to figure out how to avoid offending potential allies, not people who are so different in opinion that the Venn diagram looks like two oranges. Anyway, at what age do you expose kids to the richness of human culture and diversity? Do you leave that up to the parents? Or does the school get involved so we can finally break the cycle of horrific discrimination and twisted thought that dominate public discourse? To what degree are we confident that teachers and/or the state will be capable of teaching this kind of stuff "correctly"? And there's the rub, no? How do you teach it "correctly"? That's where people's opinions differ. As usual, you can dismiss the most rabid on either end. But there's a lot of room in the middle where there's a legitimate difference of opinion on how to proceed. The problem seems very much to be that people are utterly incapable of introspection or empathy. The point of knowing that your opinions are influenced strongly by your upbringing and how society has treated you is so that you can be alert to when you might just be parroting something that you're expected to believe. This happens to everyone. It happens all the time. The point is to realize what you're saying and to acknowledge that people with other perspectives might have a point that makes sense from their own perspective<fn>, even if it doesn't make any sense for you. Yet. To take an example from a completely different area, China made the one-child policy not because they're evil communists but because they saw it as a solution to endemic poverty, malnutrition, and starvation. They ended up having been justified in thinking that poverty would be reduced with fewer people, but it's definitely debatable whether they could achieved a similar result, but by giving up less. The results---a massive decrease in crushing poverty---speak for that solution, though. They lost something along the way, it affected---and continues to affect---generations, but they at least got something out of it. We should always be aware of what our society is doing in our name, and how it would appear to someone who'd not been raised in our own propaganda soup. Is what we think justified just because of our context? Or is there an absolute justification that makes sense for others? Is what we're losing because of how we do things worth it? If we give up a freedom, what have we gained for it? Was it worth it? Until you start to see your own system from an external viewpoint, you won't be able to ask, to say nothing of <i>answer</i>, those questions. <hr> <ft>Pardon the redundancy.</ft> <ft>Although that would be kind of funny.</ft> <ft>Pardon the pun.</ft>