You know, the Germans had a word for people that voted for Hitler for economic reasons. It was Nazi. It doesn’t matter if you support people that want to forcibly de-transition people because they have a better economic policy.

In the end, if you don’t support human rights, you’re a bad person, and there are so many better people out there to be friends with who won’t disappoint you. And the logic that stems from this thinking is: If someone votes for people who will take away others’ rights… What will they do to me? If they won’t protect others, they won’t protect me. Regardless of if that is true, we can only judge people by their words and actions, and it’s a really easy way to judge.

It isn’t anyone’s duty to be these people’s friends. You can do it, but it’s really obvious why most people wouldn’t. It literally is a privilege to not be angry and threatened by these people. That wasn’t a dismissal of your argument, but a point for you to reflect on.

Once again, do not play the privilege card. Not on me, not on anyone. It’s not a convincing argument, and it has not a real base. And it’s somehow discriminatory towards particular groups that you do not consider “unprivileged enough”.

That is a really weird and illogical argument.

What happens if she ends up being right and in 2 years that party goes into power and do not do anything to hurt me? And I have to live my life knowing I cut a good relationship because something I was wrong about.

That is a really weird and illogical hypothetical. Best answered with, “But what if they kill you instead?”. We ALL have a line in the sand where if someone supports a thing, they cannot be our friend anymore. Like, if my friend started saying Nazi things, but was a “good guy” otherwise, they wouldn’t be a good guy at all. I would give them a chance to not be a Nazi, and then we would either not be friends or they wouldn’t be a Nazi. Everyone has that, regardless of what you say or think, and it is disgustingly easy to prove. I can prove it, if you’d like, but I feel like you have already lost this argument by ignoring the Amanda party.

Don’t play the privilege card on my.

I absolutely will. Because you are ignoring yours. Being a part of a disadvantaged group doesn’t mean you don’t have privilege elsewhere. In fact, sometimes, that is the reason why you might ignore your privilege.

You are able to be calm with your friend because you do not see there is a danger. People like your friend haven’t hurt you. But would everyone else do the same? Your friend supports people that will hurt people like you, but do they think they can stop those people from hurting you?

I would rather lose a friend who didn’t want me hurt but supported people who would hurt me because that is not a logical view, no matter how calmly it is spoken.

it’s not a central theme for either of us, but even when we talk about it we have never argue, just talk differences calmly and with respect, we never insulted each other because politics.

This is a privilege you have that others do not.

If, for whatever reason, you were under the threat of violence every day, do you think you could be calm and rational? If that threatened violence against you hanging over your head was perpetuated by members of a political party, would you be calm and rational about that party? If this was because of something you couldn’t change about yourself, like being queer or black or a woman, would you be calm and rational? Do you think everyone could? Do you think a child could?

I know I couldn’t. I see these people breakdown over and over again. For something they did not choose. Sometimes for not being calm or rational.

It is silly to expect people to act calm and rational in the face of overwhelming prejudice, in the face of threats to your self, family, and friends, in the face of adversity–or worse, ennui–to your situation.

Let me steal an argument from a video I saw. Pretend you are having a party, and someone comes up to you and says that your friend Amanda should be kicked out of the party, that she doesn’t deserve to be here, that she is drinking too much of your beer, and that if she goes, everyone can have more beer. You like Amanda because she is your friend and you know she is kind and funny. Let’s say you calmly and rationally debate this guy, but he adamantly repeats these things, over and over again. Do you think Amanda feels good at this party? Should you keep debating this loser? Or would you kick him out of the party, by force if necessary, because Amanda did nothing wrong? Now imagine this person says this about ALL Amandas. Do you think this changes the situation? What if someone else told you that this guy just really hates Amandas but he’s cool otherwise, even though he really harps on how Amandas are ruining this party. Do you think Amanda likes that second guy? Should Amanda be calm and rational to either of those two people?

Don’t hide behind the shitty half-assed news reports, you coward. Just name the actual Democrat that fired their vaccine board, so we can end this. Just name the actual Democrat that banned abortion federally, instead of posting fifteen useless articles. Just name the Democrat that kept child marriage protected because it’s easier. Just name the Democrat that deported my neighbor, specifically, since you seemed to have known him. Just name the Democrat that implemented a voting suppression measure, assuming you can find one within the last 25 years, instead of you saying that’s the same thing as ranked choice, which have been challenged by Republicans in every single instance (and this is the only instance you found for Democrats, if you could call it that, lol). Just name the Democrat that called queer people slurs openly and wants them tried for child sex crimes.

It should be so easy, right? If they’re the same, just fucking name them.

I don’t remember when the Democrats deported my neighbor or when they called self-proclaimed Nazis good guys or when they wanted to take away food stamps from single mothers or when they wanted to make voting harder or when they didn’t want to ban child marriage or when they wanted to take away the only source of food and housing for children, people with disabilities, and the elderly or when they wanted to ban vaccines or when they wanted to ban abortion or when they wanted to make being queer a child sex crime or when they ignored all of science, but I guess they were just too smart to do any of that.

I always get extra disappointed by the Outer Worlds, because I always confuse it with the Outer Wilds and would rather play that game.

The saying “you can’t butter a fly” is an idiom expressing that someone or something is too difficult to influence or manipulate. It’s rooted in the idea that butterflies, with their delicate nature, are virtually impossible to convince to do anything against their will, let alone “butter” them in a literal sense.

By your logic, when they freed the slaves, they really should’ve done it slowly instead of all at once, because look how many racists it made!

Or was civil rights too fast as well?

Same argument that was made for gay people sharing locker rooms, bigots never get new material. If you’re not comfortable sharing a bathroom with someone, then, ya know, you don’t have to use it.

Why is it queer people have to suffer for bigotry? Why not just be less of a bigot?

Not sure what you’re arguing about, but you do you, man.

Okay, buddy

I rather think that would answer the question for most people. Were you confused on how he doesn’t want to look like a weirdo so that his fascist beliefs are normalized?

He doesn’t want to look weird. That’s all. He wants people to think he’s normal, and by proxy, that all of his insane fascist beliefs are normal.

Because the only things that actual bother him are being called a fucking loser and weirdo. The actually shitty things he does, he would do a million times and feel nothing.

And what you say can’t be true, or the millions of lies he told would matter more.

Should’ve cut to an insurance agent denying coverage based on the actuarial table.

Eh, fair enough. I was a bit rude there, but the intent is that while I agree this isn’t a super complex piece of art, I don’t think it needs to be. I would even argue that by making the message as simple as possible, it does what it sets out to do quite well, which is to physically represent the emotions of the author. Maybe they don’t match yours, but that is the subjectivity of it. I know that I would be quite dismissive of other webcomics, but I would likely dismiss it for the subject matter, and not the quality. Webcomics tend to be a fairly simple medium, so I let a lot of things pass for it.

I think you actually don’t like the message of the comic, because if you didn’t like it or thought it was lazy, you would probably move on.

For me, this comic represents my lived experience. I have had people in my life literally say “It’s just politics” and call trans people sexually deviant pedophiles at the same time. And if you haven’t had that happen to you, good for you. But I like the comic because it is simple, short, and pretty good at conveying that feeling.

Sorry if that feels lazy to you, art is subjective, but I think the message of this is pretty fucking obvious because of its simplicity.

That’s a fair point. I suppose that does put onus on people to prove their existence and experience. I can see that as frustrating, and I didn’t intend on making that statement.

The issue at hand, however, is how the OP can determine that trans people even exist, and using the existence of studies is one that is easily acceptable to most people. If your argument is that there should be no need to prove identities so long as no one is harmed, then I believe you are arguing with the wrong person, since that same sentiment was already expressed in my original reply.

Taking your stance is fine to anyone that accepts that these identities harm no one, but that in itself is obviously in contention with too many people. I will argue the easier logic until that is fixed.

I think you misunderstood, but I’m not presupposing otherkin isn’t a thing. I am saying it doesn’t have the same type of intellectual backing as transgender experience does, so it isn’t treated the same. I think that is unfortunate, even if there are studies done as well as expressed experiences, especially within indigenous peoples (and you could argue that is part of the reason fewer studies are done on it.)

I’m not really here to debate whether fish exist because I know fish exist and I can drive to most lakes and find fish in them and I can go to a few museums and see fish remains and I can go to pet stores and find fish for sale and I can go to a grocery store and find fish to eat. Doing that same thing with people and their personal experiences is much harder since it’s more of a personal experience and not, you know, a visible phenomenon, and so it’s going to be harder to convince people a personal experience is real if it’s not their experience and especially if it’s not a common one.