You dipshits and your inconsistent theories on free speech.

sigh, I must be getting you pretty angry at this point. So now I'm not only less intelligent than 75 percent of the population, I'm as you put it, a dipshit. The 25th percentile is around an IQ of 85. Dipshit is a combination of Dippy and shit, probably originating in the 1960's. Anything else?

So you agree that the teachers being fired for not using preferred pronouns had their first amendment rights violated.

Oh my dear Damn Oregonian, where on earth did you get the idea that I would claim such a thing is "no problemo". It is a problem. It is just a different group and different restrictions on speech. You are definitely barking up the wrong tree.

While I am heterosexual, I have long championed gay rights, which I simply define as human rights. Even way back in high school, the hoods knew better than to mess with the gay kids, if I heard about it, I'd pay them a visit. Same with anyone getting bullied. I have great issues with bullies, either the traditional kind, or the modern crybullies.

I'm a supporter of trans people as well, although I do think some of the people leading the trans rights movement have gone overboard, which has led to pushback. Today, many in the Trans community have turned against the Lesbian and Gay communities, and vice versa. That has nothing to do with individuals however.

I fear you are having arguments with me in your head Damn Oregonian. People who do that always win their head arguments.

If I might be so blunt, your inability to frame a discussion without pointless profanity, name calling, invalid and specious claims, and insults, makes for a person to determine that your style of discourse is not terribly impressive. But you do you, homie. We just decide who has the high ground.

I think perhaps you need the translation of the latin phrase. It translates as "it does not follow." Do you disagree?

In modern usage it is an argumentative fallacy that it is a statement that does not follow logically from, or is not clearly related to anything previously said.

You make a specious claim that somehow not calling a student zhe, or whatever they demand to be called is the exact same thing as going into your employers office and swearing at him (you also assumed the bosses gender - you shouldn't do that) is the same thing.

I would even say if you are a teacher and you called a child a twat, it might be grounds for dismissal. Certainly rude level 1000.

The two are not even the same thing.

Compelled speech refers to a situation where the government requires an individual or group to express a specific message or opinion, which they may not agree with. This concept is often associated with First Amendment rights, protecting individuals from being forced to speak against their beliefs.

So sorry, no, just no. Firing a person because they have an opinion that they are required by law or employment to have, when they do not have that opinion, is compelling them to the point where they are required to lie. Old Uncle Joe Stalin approves!

Firing a person because they were swearing and insulting and rude is something completely different.

Ah yes, the personal attack. I expect nothing less from you. Game on! Let's have fun! Anyhow, the courts have ruled that a teacher who was fired for not using a student's personal pronouns was indeed not compelled to use them, and 575 thousand dollars and court costs says he didn't have to. https://apnews.com/article/vir...

The offending teacher one Peter Vlaming is the presumed bad guy if you like compelled speech. Vlaming claimed in his lawsuit that he tried to accommodate a transgender student in his class by using his name but avoided the use of pronouns. The student, his parents and the school told him he was required to use the student’s male pronouns. Vlaming said he could not use the student’s pronouns because of his “sincerely held religious and philosophical” beliefs “that each person’s sex is biologically fixed and cannot be changed.” Vlaming also said he would be lying if he used the student’s pronouns.

So if that is the far left demanding compelled speech, I do not know what is. The teacher was a religious person, and believed gender was biological, and not a social construct. So he not only had freedom of speech (as opposed to compelled speech) and an infringement on his religious beliefs. Double whammy.

You are not that dense to make a non sequitur like that, are you?

If I go into my bosses office and call him a twat, (in seriousness) I damn well deserve to be fired. You. appear to be confused about the difference between civil discourse and demanding that I use only language you consider appropriate.

You seriously want to say that some random person, can demand my words, lest I be fired - well then There is no point in arguing with a person who cannot understand what compelled speech is. So anyhow, I suspect you can either use appropriate social discourse, or if you feel compelled to make shit up, you can have the last word, as I've been around enough people like you to know that the last word is very very important to you.

Except that few people have any problem with names. Even archenemy of the left, Jordan Peterson who took issue with Canada's attempt to make not using the person's preferred pronouns a crime, when asked how he would refer to a TQ+ person, he simply noted, "I would call them by their name."

And that is exactly what I do. I call people by their names. I don't care if a man wears a dress, if a person prefers to have sex with others that have the same genitalia. I don't care if a person desires to amputate their genitals or breasts, as long as they are an adult who can make informed decisions. It's personal, much more so than made up pronouns.

Now on to how people might like to be referred to. Here is a Youtube Video of a young woman with schizophrenia named Cecilia. This is a video of her being interviewed early on in her treatment https://www.youtube.com/watch?.... At the 4:04 mark, she is asked how she would like to be referred to as. Watch it.

I do recommend watching the entire video - it is pretty poignant. The good news is she's been pretty successful in returning to normal life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?....

Just in case you think I'm some sort of unfeeling monster.

Signed up for Reddit some time ago. It was pretty obvious that it was a true shithole, with the worst of the worst in control there.

As long as people put up with that, it will continue. It's been maybe 2 years since I polluted my computer with it. Sounds like a way to let the idiots among us to have their own neighborhood to defile.

What they want is the freedom to post whatever bullshit they want, and that no one is allowed to do anything about it.We see this in so many cases, where someone posts something incendiary, and then bitch and moan when there is a reaction to it and consequences.

Free speech in there USA is well defined:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

So it doesn't mean that you or I can defame someone or threaten to murder someone, or incite panic that is likely to result in injury. I recall some prominent far right celebrities that threatened a president, they were paid a visit. Not arrested in the end. Consequences.

Or on the other side, in a curious twist - teachers who refused to use preferred pronouns in Virginia were fired. The schools were demanding compelled speech https://thehill.com/homenews/l.... Fortunately, the courts decided that firing was not proper. At present, another case is ongoing, with a teacher fired for not using preferred pronouns https://www.wpr.org/news/wisco...

Kind of an Uno Reverso of forced speech that is now losing in the courts. But part of the same spectrum.

Well, in an ideal world, the doctors are all wonderful people. When the SO hit 50, they had her try out an antidepressant. The weird part was she wasn't depressed, the Saint doctor said it would augment some pain killers. The results damn near ended our marriage. I'll just leave it at that, the details are pretty nasty.

Sorry, my. friend, we are being drugged out our ass, so much addicted to meds that we demand more, and the goal is to get everyone on maintenance meds, because profit.

Granted, I am a sample size of one, but I look about 15 years younger than my contemporaries, who are all on their second set of pills organizers they must take every day. But if it makes you feel good, gobble as directed, and don't forget the maintenance drugs to counter the side effects, and whatever teh side effects for the new side effects that result.

I forgot to add - that was terrifying! No! Jeebuz K.Ryste No!

Semi related. In high school, I had a friend who was a normal guy, as hedonistic as the rest of us. Suddenly he became depressed. He was in my electronic classes. He told us that he liked getting shocked, and he did it fairly often. We all just thought it was kind of odd. Then he turned into an alcoholic, and eventually drank himself to death, around 30 YO.

I was just a kid, and we were concerned about his crazy amounts of drinking. After learning more about his issues, I'm certain now that he was schizophrenic. Why none of the smart people around didn't figure that out and get him some real help, pisses me off. Alcohol can help some schizophrenics, but the amounts they consume to tamp their minds down brings a whole new set of problems.

I sure as hell wouldn't take that crap, but seems most people are so into drug culture that if a drug is out there, they'll gobble it like candy.

It is inconsistent as hell as well. Smoking and alcohol are widely derided as sure death, yet taking prescribed drugs that can damage or kill us is somehow good.

That part is already here. SO watches a lot of Hallmark TV, and the commercials are now hawking antipsychotics, mostly for women. But of course, few people want to be suggested that they need to be on an antipsychotic - so they are told they are bipolar.

So we get antipsychotics like Rexulti, supposedly for bipolar, with commercials where sad women become so very happy happy and go out to eat lunch with other people and meet the man of their dreams.

Then later in the day, we see commercials to use Rexulti for Grandma's dementia related psychosis.

This is horrifying on so many levels. That people are so conditioned to look at powerful drugs with terrible side effects as a normal thing. The weasel words that get people who aren't psychotic to be put on those drugs - yes, they will deal with your bad moods, but at the price of being chemically straitjacketed? Don't worry though, when you get Tardive dyskinesia, they have another drug for that.

I even get lectures from friends, relatives, and the wife because I don't take meds for anything but really important stuff, like an antibiotic for Lyme I contracted a few years back. Even the doctor who looked at me... "Wait - you're telling me you take nothing?" I saw a meme the other day - the pharmaceutical company's main job is not to cure disease, but to create customers. That's not incorrect.

Dear Rei - Your idea that I am bad at social interaction is most amusing. Nono, dear Rei - I am quite social. You simply mistake that because I treat you like you deserve to be treated. I don't suffer fools gladly, indeed I treat them as I treat you. I judge. You deserve every bit of assholery I send your way.

That it annoys the bejabbers out of you, is grist for my mill.

You make these claims about me, apparently not understanding you are looking at your reflection in a mirror. And dear Rei, I hold that mirror.

I do troll - especially with those who richly deserve it.

Now gimmee a hug you dear lad, I think you need one!

Normally I'd trim the quotes, but this is delicious.

My troll game is working well on you. I can say many things, you hit your rage button, and then entertain me. Thanks - it's appreciated bigly.

Please now, claim you aren't enraged, and maybe I can put out a trifecta - That is, if I don't get bored with you. Your turn, cultist! Do not disappoint, because I'm not the only person in here who enjoys trolling the Muskovites.

Whoosh! If you know me, I love to troll the cult of Musk.

And I'm not the one who used return as the major metric.

I even like the Falcons, though not so much the rocket which will transport the million people to Mars by 2050. However, since you and he seem to think that Returning the Rocket - I take it you believe the Apollo program shouldn't have happened - I mean those wasteful assets didn't return anything but that little capsule, so we never should have went.

Next up - since return is paramount - are you in agreement that only launch envelopes that allow return hold be allowed? As a smart person who understands orbit mechanics, you do know that only very specific launch envelopes allow return. If a falcon 9 or heavy needs to go to a different orbit, it has to be abandoned, violating the most important thing in rocketry, which is return to base, or the barge. These rocketry posts are much fun however, as they upset the cult. And I'm the bastard that continues the trolling. I have to admit that since Elon invented rockets, we owe him a debt of gratitude.

She usually is. She introduced me to your mom.Your mom's nice too.