#womenbetrayed

The Pope can’t be progressive or a good ally.  He’s required to be socially conservative and Catholic-centric.

That’s kind of his job and the tenets of the religion he’s the head of.  The occasional fiscal liberalism comes from the whole “not worldly” thing, and is about the only exception.  The pope’s always going to be a conservative dude elected by all the other most senior conservative dudes in the Catholic church, and occasionally you’ll get one who’s marginally less awful on what he thinks Good Things are/more devoted to actually trying to be good than be in power, but don’t ever think that Pope Francis or any other pope is going to be more progressive than the bulk of existing Church doctrine.  Stop celebrating his minor concessions.

–Golbat

Vaccines are safe and don’t cause autism.  Get your flu shot so your germs don’t kill people.

Unless you have an egg allergy (eggs are used to culture vaccines) or are immunosuppressed, get vaccinated.

Also, autism isn’t a bad thing.  I prefer being autistic to being dead, or killing someone who’s on chemo because I gave them a bad case of something.

–Golbat

If you only care about Palestine/Syria/etc. because some of the people there are Christians, you don’t actually care.

That’s either just horrifically self-centered and callous or a displaced and factually inaccurate persecution complex.

–Golbat

Equality Golbat: “It’s awful that attacking Planned Parenthood shuts down the 97% that is non-abortion services, and the loss of abortion-related services is also a tragedy.”

The defunding of Planned Parenthood isn’t a tragedy just because referrals for abortions aren’t the only things Planned Parenthood does. It’s a tragedy because of all the things Planned Parenthood does including informing people about the option of abortion, which is an important and necessary part of a modern healthcare system.

–Nidoqueen

Most people agree with the actual provisions of Obamacare when it’s referred to as its real name, the Affordable Care Act.

And, yeah, a lot of that is because of deliberate conservative propaganda, but it makes you think that a lot of people and especially the ones who made the executive decision to hype that propaganda back in 2009-10 and thereabouts simply hate Obama…for some reason other than his (admittedly often less than stellar) politics…gee I wonder what it could be.

–Golbat

Never having had your humanity and rights questioned as part of a class discussion is a privilege.

The ability to simply disagree with bigoted things instead of feeling directly attacked by them is a privilege.

The ability to find conservatives hilarious instead of terrifying is a privilege.

Additionally, there is nothing more jarring than being in a minivan full of supposedly liberal straight cis white boys who are all acting like Donald Trump being elected would be simply funny and a little embarrassing rather than “I and a significant number of my friends would suffer material hardship and possibly be directly injured or killed if that happens.”  (Though honestly, simply being in a minivan full of cis straight white boys is scary enough on its own, even if they’re all related to you.)

–Golbat

Your favorite children’s book is probably racist and sexist.

Or, if it’s not, the author probably also wrote things for adults which will extremely disappoint you.  (Yes, this is mostly about my thesis reading.)

–Golbat

If hate rhetoric conflates two categories, then the hate is about both categories and no amount of hairsplitting is going to change that.

Or, it might even really just be about the actually not-bad category.  When someone calls all Arabs terrorists, they don’t really hate terrorists, they’re justifying hating Arabs.  When someone calls all gay people pedophiles, they hate gay people more than pedophiles.  When someone condemns feminists for being socialist lesbians, it’s a pretty good chance that they just hate women, as well as socialists and gay people.  Bigots noticeably don’t care about or even at times glorify white terrorists and straight pedophiles, so it’s pretty easy to tell what they’re actually talking about; and it’s not simply misconceptions, it’s deliberate.  Hairsplitting instead of pointing out hateful attribution is derailing.

–Golbat

Yes, not all Muslims are Arabs.  No, you can’t act like islamophobia isn’t a race issue.

The rhetoric of islamophobia is heavily racialized and islamophobia is used primarily to excuse racism; therefore islamophobia is a race issue.

–Golbat

Vaccines are easy mode for your immune system, not the nightmare mode version of “regular” pathogens.

Actually, vaccines aren’t just easy mode, they’re literally the tutorial at the beginning of the game that’s like one enemy coming very slowly and the display is “this is how you shoot things.”  That is the entire point of vaccines: making your body able to recognize and defeat specific pathogens without you having to actually get sick first.

–Golbat

If your immune system can fight off pathogens, imagine how easily it can deal with vaccines.

Vaccines are weakened or dead germs.  They can’t fight back against your immune system the way normal germs can.  If you’re willing to take the chance that your immune system could beat measles or w/e, then logically you should be more willing to have it deal with the vaccine because it’s less risk.  Also, not being sick and having to miss school/work is a good thing.

–Golbat