Queer Theory has co-opted pregnancy

I read this article today, and I was very irritated at the use of "pregnant people", instead of "pregnant women".

Queer Theory has Invaded NPR - Pregnant People

The feminist in me is absolutely fucking infuriated! Seriously? We can't call them WOMEN anymore? Look, if you have the ability to host a fetus and carry it to live birth, YOU'RE A WOMAN! I don't give a fuck what you "identify as". You can identify as a kumquat for all I care, but I'm fucking LIVID at this attempted queering of the fact of WOMANHOOD.

This nonsense is why the left loses elections. It really annoys people. When we fought for marriage equality, we were seeking to join an institution, and enjoy the benefits that everyone else took for granted. We weren't trying to redefine anything. My ability to visit my partner in the hospital and receive tax-free health insurance through his work have absolutely nothing to do with the ability of a straight couple to get married in a church, temple, or synagogue. What these people are doing is trying to undermine the very existence of men and women as identities. In post-modernist thinking, this is a concept called "queering", and it's a fucking disgrace.

Oh, and by the way, most Latinos and Latinas don't accept the label of "Latinx". I think most of them see the proponents of this nonsense as youthful naivety. They don't see what it is: an attempt at queering their identities.

My thoughts on those who oppose gentrification

Woke people complain bitterly about the achievement gap, wealth disparities, and the fact that Black People were historically redlined out of certain neighborhoods. They are right to point out these historical injustices, and their impact on Black People today. 

However, they seem to have a blind spot when they complain about "gentrification". They complain bitterly about "those people" moving into "their neighborhoods" and driving up property values, which pushes the poorest people out of the neighborhood. They're pushing for quotas, limits of non-Black people who can live in those neighborhoods. Do they not see that a policy like that will only serve to drive down property values, and starve the schools of much-needed revenue from property taxes? Do they not see that their animosity toward "those people" is not unlike the racism their ancestors were subjected to? It's essentially reverse redlining!

When I point this out, most woke people switch tactics to mandating affordable housing for any new construction. That's fine, but do they not realize that such a cost would be passed along to the buyers of the property, thereby increasing the property values and driving poor people out of the area? 

But what about the affordable housing? Most urban and suburban areas having waiting lists that are years long to get on affordable housing. Also, it is not guaranteed that local people will get that affordable housing unless they receive preferential treatment on the waiting list. But that amounts to basing rental applications on the race of the applicant! Not only is that a violation of many laws, but it's the very thing we fought against as a society, and still fight against it to this very day!

As you can see, most of the woke policy prescriptions result in racist discrimination against anyone who isn't Black. That violates the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to the constitution. You know, one of the amendments that laid out "equality before the law" as the law of the land.

Ibrahim X. Kendi is an outspoken proponent of the idea of retaliatory discrimination. In his steaming pile book, How to Be An Anti-Racist", he explicitly lays out discrimination against White people as a preferred policy. "The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination", is a direct quote from his "how to" book. I sold the copy that was blind-mailed to our house after reading it, so I can't give a specific chapter or page. Sorry.

Keep in mind, this guy admits to previously believing that White People are extraterrestrials, as in aliens from outer-space. I applaud him for admitting that, but moving from extraterrestrials to "different breed of human" isn't much of an improvement. He does stand against the notion that Black people can't be racist. So, hopefully he is smart enough to eventually see the problems with his policy prescriptions.

Ultimately, I believe the anti-gentrification nonsense is yet another socialist hairbrained theory that is doomed to failure. Unfortunately, I think it will do a lot of damage to race relations, and probably end up costing Black People a lot in the long run.

Tried to Reason with Leftist Podcasters on Critical Race Theory - It didn't go well

I made a mistake. I honestly expected two leftist podcasters, who claim to be rationalists and to support science, to listen to my arguments against Critical Race Theory. I tried to do it privately over the patreon messaging system. This is how it went down:

Me: "Yeah, I know that really pissed off ("comedian" podcaster's name), which just goes to demonstrate my point. I get the same response from my Mormon step-father when I quote Brigham Young condemning to death any White person who "mixes their seed" with Black people.  I'm going to change my screen name weekly to highlight different vile aspect of the wokeness cult. This week's is a gem. "The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination". That comes directly from Mr. Kendi's book "How to be an Anti-Racist". My partner's work mailed the book to our house. I'm sympathetic to the struggles of Black people, so I sat down and read it. I was absolutely horrified."

Leftist Podcasters: "How offended someone gets when you say something isn't, in fact, a sign that what you're saying is true. Wokeness is not a cult, and yes, there are no colorblind ways to fix structural racism. That is an obviously correct point from Kendi."

Did you notice how he never refuted my actual argument, that Mr. Kendi is promoting the idea that discrimination against White People is the only remedy for past discrimination against Black People? Instead of dealing with my actual argument, he latched on to my "mormons getting upset" analogy. Fairly typical for someone who is disingenuous. As for his claim that there is no color-blind way to "fix structural racism", all I can say is the very idea of "structural racism" is part of the post-modernist, intersectional, cult of wokeness. It's a made up thing to give woke idiots political cover for being racist against White People. Continuing on...

Me: "Let me ask you a question. Is it wrong to let someone sit in jail because they cannot afford bail?"

Me: "The reason I ask is, the Northwest Community Bail Fund is "prioritizing marginalized people", and they explicitly ask for the "race or perceived race" of the person in jail. When pressed for an answer on what qualifies someone as "marginalized", they say that poverty alone is not sufficient. They won't come right out and say they're discriminating based on race, but that's the implication. I used to donate to them, a lot. When I found this out, I stopped my monthly contributions. This racist behavior is a direct result of critical race theory / wokeness. Discriminating against White people isn't going to help Black people. It will only serve to inflame racial tensions.

Me: "I grew up in a poor family, and I watched loved ones sit in jail because we were too poor to pay for their bail or a lawyer. I'm offended by the idea that my father, who was arrested and assaulted by the police while having a schizophrenic episode, would have been denied help by this organization because of his "perceived race".

Me: "I have nothing against Black people. When we lived in Atlanta, I scoured the court records looking for people who were left rotting in jail after their sentences had expired. I found dozens of them, all Black, and reported their cases to the Georgia ACLU, and I stood outside the DeKalb County Recorder's Court protesting the illegal detentions. When I was a kid, my friend Chrystal was slapped by a teacher and called the n-word in class. I walked out of class, marched to the principal's office, called my mom at work to tell her what was about to go down, and I barged into the principal's office and demanded the teacher be fired. I got suspended, but my mom said she was proud of me. When we lived in Rochester, MN, I worked for a company that had zero Black employees, and I overheard some of the customer service people complaining about the "colored UPS guy". When it came time to start up a marketing department, I made sure to find qualified some Black candidates and hired them as part of an integrated team. When my assistant left the company, I hired Janie, only to have the owner display his racism by telling me to "keep that n-word off the phones with my customers". When I was interviewing for jobs in Atlanta, I was interviewing for an accounting position at a firm that did a fair amount of business with Delta Airlines. During the interview, the owner of the company praised me for my Mormon heritage, and said he'd never hire an n-word in his administrative offices, and certainly not in accounting. I left that interview, declined the job offer, and called a friend who works at Delta to let her know the guy was a racist asshole. When all these videos started to surface showing Black people being brutalized and killed by police, I stood on an overpass here in Seattle with a big banner that says "Stop Killing Black People", and I began donating to the Northwest Community Bail Fund.

Me: "I'm not a bigot. I'm worried that the ideas of "critical race theory", will set race relations back by causing a backlash. Racial justice cannot contain discrimination. If it does, it is just another side of the same racist coin.

Me: "Either way, I still respect both of you, even though I disagree with the extremes of the wokeness movement. Hopefully something good will come of it.

Leftist Podcasters: "Thanks for the respect & support even if we disagree. We need more of that these days :)"

After that lip-service to "respect & support", one of the hosts said on-air something to the effect of "why doesn't that guy just take his donation and leave". I changed my patreon screen name to "Read Cynical Theories by Helen Pluckrose", and the same host said "don't do that, it's a horrible book".

So, I've decided to switch my patreon support away from these leftist nutbags, and shift half of it to Coleman Hughes, and give the rest to Hopelink (the local food bank and homeless services charity).

If anyone has any podcasts about the law that aren't run by blind leftist tw@ts, please let me know.

Drive-through COVID-19 Testing in Renton, WA - My Experience

I woke up yesterday with a lump in my throat and chills. I'm prone to ear infections this time of year, but I couldn't be too cavalier with my in-laws (in their 70s) in the house.

I went online and requested an appointment. Renton Drive Through COVID-19 Testing

I selected that I had symptoms, and it came up with an appointment the same day. I arrived 20 minutes BEFORE my appointment.

This is what was required:

• Driver License or state issued ID
• Insurance Card - not sure what happens if you don't have insurance
• The email confirmation of showing the appointment
• Face mask or covering

The site previously served as some kind of mechanic shop with 4 bays. There was also a large tent with two more bays. Each bay served as a drive through. It is behind a car dealership, and the GPS tried to take me through the dealership. Realizing the dealership probably wouldn't allow hundreds of cars through their lot daily, I continued down the road. On the corner was a small sign saying "covid testing this way". I followed the signs, all of which are small, to the testing site.

I waited in line, and was eventually met by a friendly lady who asked to see the email confirmation for my appointment. I saw many people being turned away without that confirmation email. You can print it out if you don't have a cell phone. However, the test result notification is sent via text/sms, so you really should have a cell phone number you can give them to receive the result notification.

After I showed the lady the email, she directed me to one of 3 lanes of cars waiting for testing. After a few minutes of waiting, I made my way to another lady who asked my name and asked to see my ID and insurance card, both of which I held up for her to inspect. She typed some information in her pad and told me to continue waiting in my lane. Once I reached the front of the lane, another lady directed me to one of the 5 bays using finger signals for the bay number she wanted me to go into.

I pulled into the designated bay and waited. Eventually, a lady came up to my car door and asked me to roll the window up most of the way. Then she asked for my ID and Insurance card again. She asked me questions about my symptoms. She went away and came back with a piece of paper with a QR code, which she slipped into the small opening in the window. She directed me to wait until the car in front of me finished, and to pull forward. She also put a sticker on my window.

When I pulled forward, the next lady in the bay asked for my name and date of birth. She explained that this would be a self-administered swab, explained how I would perform the swab, and handed me the swab. She asked me to roll the window up, pull my mask off, swab around deep inside each nostril, and hand it back to her.

She took the swab, put it in a plastic container, pulled the sticker off my window and put it on the plastic container. She thanked me for coming and directed me out the front.

All-in-all, it was a good experience. I think the signage directing traffic to the testing site wasn't great, but it worked. As I pulled up for the swab, the lady actually ran in front of my car. She seemed panicked about something. I slammed on the brakes, and she gestured an apology. I also find it strange that this was the only drive-through testing site on the east side, if you can call Renton the east side. The only other option was Sea Mar clinic in Bellevue, but you have to see their doctor before they give you the test, and that requires two different appointments. Sea Mar's first appointment was a week out, and that was just to see the doctor. Remember that when the woke brigade complains about "rich white people" using SCAN home delivery.

Edit: 12/7/2020 at 9:47 AM

I received a text message early this morning saying my test results were ready. This was less than a day turn around. I clicked the link and typed in the code from the piece of paper they provided at the testing site. It required me to download a pdf to view the results (not ideal for mobile phones). I viewed the pdf, and saw the result: negative. The paperwork said if I had been positive, I would receive a call to follow up. I'm usually quite skeptical of government, as the road to hell is paved with good intentions. However, King County seems to have done a good job building a robust testing system. The next time we have to write out the property tax checks, I won't be quite so irritated.