(Source)

• What does the Paris Agreement do? 
  

Remember this just a kind of a “draft” of a fuller deal that will be adopted by 2020. It basically creates a binding process by which countries individually pledge to change course from “business as usual” on greenhouse gases and deforestation. I won’t get into too much details, as I found the infographic posted below that summarizes the key points pretty well, and a lot of other media outlets have covered it.

This deal firmly suggests that all countries cut down their emissions to limit GW to 2C above pre-industrial levels. But we all know that we are already on track to go past that based on the emissions that have already been emitted. So what’s the point of that language if it’s too late? Well, if we have that as a goal, at least countries can shame one another in bilateral negotiations or peer-pressure each other into reaching that target. 

This agreement finally acknowledges that we can’t solve this the way we thought we could. This was the first time that there was so much diplomacy and commitment to basic science and development, with countries finally admitting that well… they don’t know how to fix this, and that they need to all work together. I think the sole fact that 195 countries AGREED on something is mind-blowing and that in itself is a success.

(Source: Agence France Press)

• Why is the language so vague when it comes to GHG emissions?
  

One of the biggest complaints was that the deal doesn’t really give a number to aim for to reduce GHG emissions. It just says to pretty much make a change “as soon as possible.” 

The main reasons this Agreement isn’t legally binding and doesn’t give us that number we were all looking for is because of the climate deniers within the Republican party. The US contingent got everyone to agree to change the word “shall” to “should” in the text. If “shall” had remained and thus required accountability, it would have had to go through Congress and realistically, would have gotten killed there by the Republicans. These climate deniers do yield a disproportionate influence over global and international climate change policy. 

Many European heads of delegations present in Paris fully admitted that the reason why rich countries aren’t required cuts to emissions is literally because of Congress, the Senate and the Republican party. The specter of the Republican party was all over these talks, and reaches way beyond the American borders.

• Climate change coverage in the USA
  

I was really disappointed by the lack of media coverage of the COP21 here in the United States. Many media outlets brush climate change to the side because it doesn’t have this “immediate” threat that other issues present and many view it as a boring topic, but it is so short-sighted to ignore climate change altogether. 

Climate change is such a touchy issue in the USA. There is such amessed up debate in this country with one half of the conversation trying to cope with reality, and the other side with its head buried in the sand and pretending nothing is wrong. I mean come on! California is essentially out of water, the Northeast faced its harshest winter ever last year while this year it was in the mid 60s on Christmas day, there have been terrible floods in the South, we just had the strongest hurricane ever recorded, and South Florida is slowly going underwater every time there is a high tide because of sea level rise.

Climate change will affect (and is already affecting) the economies of the world, geopolitical strategies, and will likely engender wars over water and resources in the future. Themigrant crisis will only become more exacerbated as our planet warms up. Nevertheless, as long as people don’t see it as a direct threat to national security, I am afraid it still won’t get the attention it needs. We don’t have anymore time to debate on people’s opinions of climate change and ask whether they believe it or not. It’s a scientific fact, it’s already happening.

I think that if we want something big to happen to fight climate change and for politicians to actually do something, it will have to come from us, from grassroots organizations and NGOs. It will have to come from us pressuring the people we elected to make changes and to listen to our voices. This video was done before the COP21, but this segment at the end pretty much sums it up:

the-bakuhoe:

This is just my strong opinion based on my experiences. When I was in highschool, there was this girl that I bullied and she stood up against me. A year after that, we became friends, she saw me at my worst and I saw her at her best, and we will experience more of what we are. We’re best friends for 8 years now. I don’t condone bullying, as a past bully and bullied, I can safely say that once we move past it we will gain and improve ourselves and we will see the beauty of who we are and who the people that surrounds us. —- Once, I saw this video of a bully kicking and punching someone. The one taking the video seems to be with the bully, but I’m pretty sure the people seen in the background are not. Society is so against bullying but the moment they see someone getting beaten up, they just stand there and watch (I’m not saying all but most). Then, I saw the comments on the video, everyone is bashing the bully, when they learned his address they continue to send threats and even beaten up the bully’s brother. Everyone thought they took revenge disregarding that they themselves became a bully. To those that bully, learn to forgive yourself and ask for forgiveness to the people that you cause hurt. Open yourself to them and learn to see who they are. Maybe you can be best friends like my bestie and I. To those that are being bullied, talk to someone that will offer real help and learn to forgive your bullies and the circumstances that hurted you. Forgiveness is stronger than any physical revenge that you may want. Violence never resolve anything it just causes a cycle of a never ending hurt. Forgiveness on the other hand may be hard to swallow but it will build you up as a person.

So i watched Crimson Peak today. It was visually stunning, creepy and an interesting little story. the ghosts were creepy but also beautiful. I only skipped two scenes that got a bit too intense for me. It was a pretty good movie. Bobby Singer was the dad.

Remember ladies and gentlemen this generation loves performative activism without actually doing anything themselves or for others.

In a world where so many injustices and problems are happening, it is quite curious to see individuals who care too much about “likes”, “links” and “IG stories”. In a privileged world like today’s, in which social networks are and should always be, a help tool based on consciousness and friendly coexistence, it is incomprehensible that one still thinks that this or that person, famous or not, acted wrongly because he/she does not “like” a blog post. The same can be said about those who shouts against one that preferred posting temporary “stories” on IG rather than a permanent picture or such.

We live in a world where everyone is responsible for what is said or done… And If someone uses his/her own words, or if this person chooses to use other’s quotes to express a feeling and casually forgets to, literally, link it to a campaign, everything seems lost and this person becomes a target. If you want to donate or simply express yourself for a cause, do not wait for your favourite celebrities to do so. This is not solidarity, this is imitation, copy-paste. If you want a fairer world for everyone, regardless of skin colour, gender or religion, do not attack people in a vile, immature and stupid way, just because someone did not act the way you wanted or expected to.

At a time when we should all come together to end the injustices that plague our homes, there is no room for gratuitous and meaningless hatred. Do you want to change the world? Do it, in public or in private, be kind and treat everyone equally. “Life is but a breath” and, for almost four hundred thousand people it already ended up because of one of the smallest living organisms ever. For George Floyd, life ended because of human stupidity and hatred.

Wake up and stop spreading this feeling. Live your life share happiness and sadness with everyone you want to. Defend values that can make our world a better place in such hard circumstances like these. But remember: some people will not speak out for the same cause and they are on their right and you should respect them. Stop thinking that you all can change or rule someone’s life and decisions only because you think this person is a role model to you.  A fan supports, a fanatic hates. Evolve for good, not for bad. The History proofs that worse things happened in the humanity past, we do not need those facts to be repeated, again, again, and again.

 Educate yourself.

I ship Elsanna, Like heavily. Yes I am aware they’re sisters and please don’t tell me that.

If you dislike the fact I ship them that’s fine, if you want to unfollow me that’s fine too. I don’t care.

I do not see them as sisters, I see them as soulmates, two people who love each other so dearly they’d willingly die for the other. I’m not saying family won’t die for you but I’m also saying there love seems different compared to that of a family’s love. 

I don’t see them as sisters I am saying this as often as possible because I know there will be that one person who says. “You know they’re sisters right?” like it’s some kind of revelation I was unaware of. If the movies are anything to go by and if you literally took the fact of them being sisters out of it I can almost guarantee a huge chunk of Tumblr would ship the hell out of them if they don’t already. 

I don’t ship two sisters, I ship two people who love each other so much, I ship two people who always want to put the other first. I’d ask you to watch it without seeing the fact that they’re sisters. Ignore that one word and tell me that you don’t see it.

If you don’t ship it, that’s fine. If you think I’m disgusting for enjoying it then that’s fine too. I stopped caring about what others thought of me along time ago, caring about what people thought is exactly what leads to anxieties and worries and stress. I don't need that. These two are pure and love one another if you want to see it as sisters or familial love that’s fine.

I do not. 

Unpopular opinion. I don’t like it. I just don’t, to me it doesn’t look good on her and no amount of screenshots, fanart or anything else will make me change my mind. 

It’s fine if you all like it but I just don’t think it suits her. There are plenty of characters who look great with short hair but to me Zelda isn’t one of em. 

Waktu pertama kali aku dengerin lagunya Epik High yang judulnya “Bleed” sama “Munbae-dong” yang dinyanyiin bareng Crush, aku cuma suka lagunya karena melodinya enak didengerin. Tapi kemudian aku penasaran sama isi lirik lagu-lagu itu. Aku terus cek translate liriknya dan ternyata emang isinya menarik juga.

“Bleed” lebih fokus dengan curhatan mereka yang kagum bahwa meski mereka pernah ketiban masalah, ternyata masih ada banyak fans yang mendukung mereka. Lagunya kedengeran edgy sih, tapi cocok sama lirik yang mereka bawain. Untuk “Munbae-dong” awalnya aku ngga paham dengan apa yang mereka coba sampaikan, tapi setelah nonton salah satu video di YouTube di mana mereka kolaborasi sama genie official, aku rasa mereka bercerita soal tempat-tempat di mana kenangan mereka berada (kayak warung mie beras yang dulu pernah mereka datangin) yang sekarang udah ngga ada dan diganti sama bangunan salah satu perusahaan elektronik terbesar di Korea Selatan. Aku rasa mereka sedih karena ngga bisa bernostalgia lagi.

Emang Epik High itu legendaris ya, lagu-lagu mereka punya feels yang beda dari rapper / penyanyi hip-hop lain, dan liriknya pun ngga kalah menarik.

Man I really love rap and hip-hop songs. Although I know that not everyone are fond of this genre but sometimes as a youngster I am surprised that in the past all the songs of this genre received a lot of prohibition from the public and some even banned their broadcast. If this still happens right now I don’t know what I’ll do. Rap and hip-hop are literally have been a part of my life, even if I can’t sing them.

Besides that, I love Epik High, Jay Park and iKON. For those of you who also know them, let’s support them together! And of course the same goes to all the rappers you love and all the legends out there!

Ngl I really fucking hate st. Patrick’s day because of the stupid pinching someone if they aren’t wearing green because I and I’m sure plenty of other people out there don’t like to be touched, let alone pinched simply because we didn’t wear a specific color on a specific day. I don’t even celebrate it yet I can’t count how many times as a kid other students would pinch me between classes simply becausei didn’t wear green(mind you i never got bothered in school unless it was st. Patty’s day).

I don’t even know why this day exists in the first place which only makes me confused as to how this dumb tradition started in the first place.

I’ve always hated the Divergent series and for far too long the only real argument I had was that it was too cliche and too derivative. The violence was gratuitous and almost purely for shock value, the main character was simple and embodied almost every character in a badly-written fanfic (cliche part two technically) and the love interest was just as euch. The story felt weak and the ending was worse. (and then the last book that came out was a literal cash-grab) But this managed to properly turn all of my problems into a proper set of arguments and I just need to throw it around everywhere so I’m sorry and thank you :P

After one of my fav team (Chelsea) won the championship and expecting my other fav team (Barca) to do the same with spanish league and UWCL …. I cant help thinking that my hapiness wont last for ever when a specific Arsenal player will join my team and Jenni’s uncertain future.

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Earlier today, I served as the “young woman’s voice” in a panel of local experts at a Girl Scouts speaking event. One question for the panel was something to the effect of, “Should parents read their daughter’s texts or monitor her online activity for bad language and inappropriate content?”

I was surprised when the first panelist answered the question as if it were about cyberbullying. The adult audience nodded sagely as she spoke about the importance of protecting children online.

I reached for the microphone next. I said, “As far as reading your child’s texts or logging into their social media profiles, I would say 99.9% of the time, do not do that.”

Looks of total shock answered me. I actually saw heads jerk back in surprise. Even some of my fellow panelists blinked.

Everyone stared as I explained that going behind a child’s back in such a way severs the bond of trust with the parent. When I said, “This is the most effective way to ensure that your child never tells you anything,” it was like I’d delivered a revelation.

It’s easy to talk about the disconnect between the old and the young, but I don’t think I’d ever been so slapped in the face by the reality of it. It was clear that for most of the parents I spoke to, the idea of such actions as a violation had never occurred to them at all.

It alarms me how quickly adults forget that children are people.

Apparently people are rediscovering this post somehow and I think that’s pretty cool! Having experienced similar violations of trust in my youth, this is an important issue to me, so I want to add my personal story:

Around age 13, I tried to express to my mother that I thought I might have clinical depression, and she snapped at me “not to joke about things like that.” I stopped telling my mother when I felt depressed.

Around age 15, I caught my mother reading my diary. She confessed that any time she saw me write in my diary, she would sneak into my room and read it, because I only wrote when I was upset. I stopped keeping a diary.

Around age 18, I had an emotional breakdown while on vacation because I didn’t want to go to college. I ended up seeing a therapist for - surprise surprise - depression.

Around age 21, I spoke on this panel with my mother in the audience, and afterwards I mentioned the diary incident to her with respect to this particular Q&A. Her eyes welled up, and she said, “You know I read those because I was worried you were depressed and going to hurt yourself, right?”

TL;DR: When you invade your child’s privacy, you communicate three things:

1. You do not respect their rights as an individual.
2. You do not trust them to navigate problems or seek help on their own.
3. You probably haven’t been listening to them.

Information about almost every issue that you think you have to snoop for can probably be obtained by communicating with and listening to your child.

Part of me is really excited to see that the original post got 200 notes because holy crap 200 notes, and part of me is really saddened that something so negative has resonated with so many people.

I really worry for some of you. Like yeah I grew up knowing about internet safety and I was the youngest child in a family of 5 girls with a single mom. (My dad died when I was 3. My mother worked full time and never dated until I was in my late 20’s)

But even with my own daughter. She is 12 and has had her own cellphone for over a year. I allow her to have Tiktok and YouTube with the rules that she can not show her face (Until she is 13) or ever give out personal information. I don’t ask for access to her DMs or check without her consent. I tell her if people get nasty or say anything that makes her feel uncomfortable to please let me know so we can block and report them.

My kid also has been going to a therapist since she was 6. She has ADHD and Autisum. I don’t make her take any medication unless she agrees to it. I don’t want my child to be a zombie. She is free to be as creative and outgoing as she wishes.

However!!! My child has manners. She was never a brat growing up. She never threw a tantrum in public, she never screamed or demanded toys from other children or people. She did and still does have a thing for not understanding personal space but it’s something her therapist and myself are working on with her. You don’t need to control your child to make sure they are safe. She knows she can tell me anything and there is never a danger of getting punished for being honest.

So, I finally watched Hibike Euphonium Chikai no final, and I wanted to do a “quick” review about it. I know this is going to be a bit subjective because I am obviously biased, but I am gonna try to be as objective as I can.

Also little disclaimer, but I am going to spoil so I can really give my arguments about the movie without holding myself.

For my general opinion if people wanna know without reading everything, I would give this movie a 4/10 at most. I had a huge problem with the pacing, with some directing decisions and with some scenes. I know I have to take the movie as an individual work and not comparing it to the novel (because a lot of important scenes have been cut from the novel), but I would say that if we compare Chikai No Final to Liz To Aoi tori… For a music anime, Chikai barely has any music, and most of the OST is truly forgetable.

For the in-depth part review…

I will start with the positive points.

- Most of the side characters (and by that, I mean… All the characters who aren’t Kumiko, for this movie) are really amazing. But this isn’t much of a surprise: they already were in the past. The new ones are really lovable too, but I am keeping something for the “bad part”.
I am giving a point to Reina alone, but it’s because I love her with all my heart.

- The aesthetic is as beautiful as ever. But once again, it was to be expected from a Kyoani movie. The background is amazing, the colours are lively and give a true paw to the work, not mentioning that it gives a life to the movie.

There was one moment I also found really great in term of directing. During the Kantai competition, when they are playing Liz and the blue bird… During Mizore Oboe and Nozomi Flute “talking” to each other, the oboe part focus on Kumiko (implying that she is the blue bird) and the flute answer focus on Reina (implying that she is Liz). And that part was really well done.

Aaaaand that’s pretty much already it. Now I will go for everything I consider as negative.

-The pacing. Truly, this movie is going wayyyyy too fast. I know it’s only a movie to summarize two whole novels covering both Liz to aoi Tori and Chikai no final, but they cut a lot of character development and important matters due to the pacing.

First of all, Kumiko… Seems to have absolutely no idea about what she is doing in this movie. She is… here. Sometimes she makes cute Kumiko noise and she is being her usual self.
But I can’t find the impact this girl had on me during the two seasons. How relatable she was, how emotional she could make me feel. And due to that, there were a lot of important scenes that were supposed to have a high impact… And ended up like a flop to me. I think, for example, about the scene with Kanade.
Surely, Kumiko is shining and helpful with Kanade. And she has grown, which is really nice to see. But sometimes, she is just… Smiling, for no reason, and not reacting the way I have been used to see Kumiko reacting whenever she is serious.

Speaking of Kanade, I said I wouldn’t compare with the novel, but… She is mostly being cute and hinting a small part of her personality in the movie… But clearly doesn’t show all her potential. The movie clearly overlook her relationship with Natsuki, only quickly showing it during… One scene (when it’s totally built up in the novel).
Kanade is supposed to be really close of Ririka, and… I don’t even think we see them interacting in the movie. Like, at all. 

I am doing another paragraph for this one, because it counts for Kanade, but also for all the other characters: due to the pacing, we don’t see them playing individually, and we don’t really hear them in the group (because there aren’t many performances, in fact.)
So… When, for example, Natsuki mentions that Kanade’s euphonium is way better than hers… Yes, nice. But we didn’t hear it. We have no real idea if it’s really the case beside hearing the characters talking about it.
Same for Mirei and Sasuki. When they have their issue, it’s hard to really believe what they say considering we barely saw them playing together.

Also yes, Nozomi and Mizore got their own movie with Liz… But here, they don’t talk at all. I think we can easily count the frames where they appear during the 1h40. A lot of other characters (like, Natsuki) don’t have many lines or appearance either.

- The continuity. And along the continuity, I am also going to talk about the relationship between Shuuichi and Kumiko.

This movie is supposed to continue Hibike after the second season. And that gives me a huge issue with the way Ishihara threated ShuMiko relationship.

I am going to compare it with both the novel, but also with Tamako Market (because I saw a lot of people comparing it with the way Tamako love story was created).

In the novel, there’s a build up to their relationship. Shuuichi has way more scenes than in the anime, some parts actually can make sense to give credit to their relationship, and Shuuichi’s confession take place during second season of Hibike. But it doesn’t come out of nowhere. There was something clearly established. And then, during the second year novel, Kumiko doubt about her feelings. They are clearly more acting like friends than a couple, and when the break up scene happen after all the doubts and also everything that happened during the novel, it also makes complete sense.

In Hibike season 1 and 2, Shuuichi is inexistant. He barely appear, and when he does, Kumiko doesn’t show any interest into him. Like, at all. Their relationship looked completely like a brotp with one sided love from Shuuichi side.

And when Shuuichi confess literally during the first minute of the movie… Not only it seems wrong, but it’s totally coming out of nowhere in the continuity of the previous seasons. They sell it like a kind of Tamako Love Story scene, but…

The reason why it worked in Tamako Love story was because Tamako had actually quite some scenes with Mochisu during the anime season. Surely, she was completely oblivious about his feelings for her, but they had some nice scenes together, Tamako never blocked Mochisu, and the build up was there. Then, they had an entire movie LITERALLY building up their relationship. It doesn’t happen in the first minutes of the movie, but mostly at the very end.

In this case, the whole Shuuichi Kumiko relationship just come out of somewhere ???

And something that really annoyed me was the fact they added some pointless drama (that wasn’t even a drama) about Shuuichi and a random first year… And then added a lot to the Agata festival scene (because basically, in the novel, Kumiko didn’t plan to go with him. She just spends a bit of time with him before they just part way without doing anything because Kumiko planned to join Reina at her place, and Shuuichi is too scared of Reina to even walk Kumiko to her place - not mentioning she refused, anyway -)

And since they cut so many scenes mentioning Kumiko’s doubt about her feelings for him that were in the novel, when they actually break up in the movie… It’s also totally out of nowhere. Kumiko mentions that she is busy, but… In Chikai, we don’t actually see her being busy. (Which join the problem of pacing I mentioned earlier).

-Some scenes are completely out of character. And I am thinking about one scene in particular that I absolutely hated when it should have been one of my favorite (on a very subjective side).

During the Agata festival, when Kumiko joins Reina atop Mt Daikichi, they have a similar discussion to what they have in the novel… Except that it doesn’t happen the same way and the discussion cut in the middle of nowhere when Kumiko asks for Reina to play for her.

As I already mentioned, they can totally change some scenes. As long as it still make sense and have the same meaning, it’s perfectly fine to do so. I didn’t expect them to adapt 100% of the novel scene.

In the novel, Kumiko and Reina were way more intimate during this scene. Kumiko mostly lays with her head against Reina’s laps, and when she asks Reina to play for her… She simply enjoy the music and wish they could stay this way and that nothing would change between them (because they were talking about their future, like in the anime… Except that the exchange was more powerful).

What I REALLY hated in the anime because it’s a huge finger raised to everyone, and totally out of character from Kumiko’s part… Kumiko asked Reina to play. Reina is playing her trumpet for Kumiko, and Kumiko… Text Shuuichi during the performance.
Just. No.

Kumiko loves music, and she loves Reina’s sound. When Reina is playing, she would NEVER do anything else but listening to her performance… And it made me wanna bang my head against a wall (which is also an Ishihara addition, just like a lot of parts of the Reina arc in season 2… And I really dislike some of his choices.)

- Some scenes aesthetic.

Showing a few scenes through a phone could be a nice and interesting idea… Not when it’s every x minutes, and when it shows mostly characters we have never heard about, and we won’t see anymore for the remaining of the movie. The two first scenes made me low key smile. The 25 other made me wanna facepalm.

We are quite far from the impeccable aesthetic of Liz and the blue bird, and the animation between the scenes always on point. I can also understand why he decided to show the lamps during the kantai competiton… But nope, it doesn’t work in this case and just seems a bit “what the…?”

And I would say that’s pretty much it for the review… I wasn’t really expecting anything after the pictures I saw and the various spoilers I read, and I am still disappointed… I really believe they should have made a whole season to cover Kumiko’s second year. It would have been way better, and they wouldn’t have overlooked a lot of important scenes.

I know Kumiko’s third year is gonna be covered in one movie as well… At least, that’s what they were talking about. I kind of hope they are gonna do a season instead. I don’t know what to expect from it, but I am kinda sad I ended up disliking a movie in one of my favorite franchise (if not my favorite). So I do hope third year movie, whenever it’s out, is going to make me dream the way Hibike always did.

lone wanderer; most powerful and most lonely man with misfortune in the series

Let me tell you something about all this “overscore” thing: it’s a dance sport. It’s not objective and maybe will never be. I was disappointed about my score so often, when one day after comp my mum said to me: “ you either have to deal with the fact that it will never be fair, or quit.” There is no need in discussing 101 times if someone was over / underscored the place will not changed. The judges already made their decision. Of course you can get angry and disappointed, but I can’t stand these discussions anymore. After every competition. Yes, the team or gymnast you like most did not score well and worked hard to reach their goal. ALL of these girls worked hard to reach their goal! ALL of them!

If there should be some changes made in the future it’s only the gymnastics federations who can complain with facts that proofs there was a over / underscoring (maybe)

Confession

I like the Chinese rhythmic gymnasts. They always have an interesting choice of music and their expression is on point. Also their arabesque pivots are awesome. And they finally stoped using these too wide skirts for their leos :)

kisamesfacioplegia:

Smug Europeans who think they’re much better than Americans without understanding basic stuff about American politics or the state of their own actual countries vs Americans who think the world belongs to them and every culture differing from theirs is wrong and silly because it isn’t tailored to American tastes, fight

I think it’s ultimately important to recognize within a discussion that we all hold slightly differing perspectives based upon our upbringings and cultural surroundings. In addition, there’s no such thing as a perfect political, economic, or social system, and there probably will never be one, because humans are inherently flawed. No matter how well meaning we may be, there are always those out there who will take advantage of their power over others, or those who will decide that some “smaller” injustices are alright so long as a larger goal can be achieved. We should take to heart the phrase, “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions” as no leader initially sets out to commit only atrocities. Humans are complex, and the situations that lead one down a road of violence and destruction are often multifaceted incidences of convenient timing. 

Humans have and will likely always search for an optimal structure of governance, trade, and interpersonal relations, but all we can ever do is hope to find one that best suits those living and operating within it. And, what works for one group of people with a certain cultural understanding and upbringing might not be the perfect solution for another group. 

[Read on for a few specific examples of cultural elements concerning America]

For example, guns are a pretty contentious issue, and many Europeans don’t see a purpose to have one in the home at all. For Americans, guns are kind of interwoven into our national/cultural identity as a nation that was born of, essentially, a bunch of disillusioned colonists who rebelled through the use of their personal arms. It was then furthered as pioneers began to settle the land and had to go out into the wilderness, keeping a firearm to feed and protect themselves. (Whether or not they were justified to push off the native inhabitants of said land, etc. is of course, a separate conversation entirely, but the past is in the past and it can’t exactly be undone at this point). 

Another important thing for Americans to reflect upon is that we’ve been fairly fortunate in that the vast majority of the armed conflicts that our nation has become engaged in have taken place far away from our mainland. This is why 9/11 was so terrifying to American citizens - we hadn’t really had a mainland act of war perpetrated against us for more than a century (notice I said “mainland” and thus am excluding Pearl Harbor, because - while horrific and deadly - it took place relatively “out of sight, out of mind” as most combat does for Americans, and it took place before Hawaii was officially a US state). 

As a nation, we are very privileged to not have situations like in certain European countries where World War II bombs are still present underground, literal time bombs that can wipe out city blocks. We have not had to experience rebuilding entire towns or cities as a result of bombing attacks. We have very much benefited from essentially being positioned as we are geographically, and for a long time we have lived under this sort of subconscious sense of security. This is why the threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union was so frightening, and why 9/11 shook Americans to their core. This is also why we as a populace tend to have a very different view of war (which is also then taken advantage of by propaganda and the military-industrial complex).

All in all, these sorts of cultural differences of perspective must be carefully considered and often must be learned through actual discussion with people from different countries, different regions, and different backgrounds. It is very easy to make some sassy, one-sentence twitter blurb, but to actually fully understand the depth of real issues, one must take the time to truly attempt to comprehend not only what others are saying, but why.

If your entire gender identity is built around creating concepts that are so abstract or specific that you can’t explain it to someone without engaging in a 20 minute long monologue of your gender “journey,” then you might just be in it for the attention.

It’s one thing to explain what it means to be trans and how you came to that conclusion. It’s another thing entirely when you have to attempt to deconstruct the entirety of societal gender constructs and human sexual dimorphism just to explain why you are an afab female-presenting individual who uses he/him pronouns.

Not trying to start shit, but I gotta say that some of these gender critical/terf types kind of remind me of the pastors who spend all their time going into great, explicit detail about how wrong and disgusting homosexuality is.

Like, dude, if you don’t want to fuck men, just say no and move on with your life instead of agonizing over how much acute internal conflict the presence of gay people in society causes you.

In the same vein, if you don’t want to fuck trans people, just say no and get on with your lives. Stop digging up pictures of trans people, pointing out all the ~obvious red flags~ like a bunch of transpiracists, and spending all your time screeching about how much you don’t want to date a trans person and how much you feel they are crazy people living lies.