Page 6 | Smegg Wallace

FinallyPeakedNow · 2023-06-17T12:40:37+00:00

So I have been quietly considering all the trans stuff for years. Trying to see both sides. Acknowledging that my best friend's policing of my use of her trans kid's pronouns is just how the world is these days, and that my feeling that it is a devastating tragedy that they have removed their breasts and taken hormones that have made their voice break and hair fall out is simply the WRONG feeling and borderline transphobic. It's been a struggle. I have always hated drag, couldn't put my finger on why. And then Masterchef reveals that they are featuring a drag act called Cheryl Hole and it happened. I peaked. I felt myself resist the instinct to feel that this name is deeply misogynistic, that if I was Cheryl Fernandez-Versini I would be forced to pretend I found it flattering, even if it's essentially being reduced to a hole so that people can laugh at the fact that women have holes. I nearly peaked when I read that stupid university definition of lesbians as 'non-men attracted to non-men,' but I couldn't have had enough time to think about it then. I just want it to stop now, please. I hate that left wing comedians I admire are all team trans. I hate that admitting I'm a terf puts me in the same box as a bunch of awful right-wingers, but also, terfs are my people. This is it now. So, to my question: WOULD THE BBC's MASTERCHEF PUT ON A MALE DRAG ACT CALLED SMEGG WALLACE? I am going to get a baldy head cap and paint a dick on it and see if they bite. Who's with me? I might write a letter of complaint to the BBC I'm that annoyed

NotHavingIt · 19/06/2023 15:58

OldCrone · 19/06/2023 15:48

What do you mean by a left wing message and left wing causes?

Show quote history

I used to live on a Peace Camp, or two actually, in the 1980's - and many Christians used to come along to support the camp and were involved in various left wing/peace movement/animal rights type demonstrations.

NotHavingIt · 19/06/2023 15:59

I know animal rights transcend party politics, but being a vegetarian and against vivisection is/was common in leftist circles.

NotHavingIt · 19/06/2023 16:01

NotHavingIt · 19/06/2023 15:59

I know animal rights transcend party politics, but being a vegetarian and against vivisection is/was common in leftist circles.

Christ said he came for the poor and the marginalised, and he thought that childen were the closest to heaven. He preached a kind of equality, and a giving up of riches.

NotHavingIt · 19/06/2023 16:03

A life of material poverty is often seen to offer more of a chance to be closer to God - which is why nuns and monks take vows of poverty. By poverty, I don't necessarily mean destitution and starvation - but a life of modesty and simple pleasures - not dependent on wealth.

OldGardinia · 19/06/2023 19:19

This sudden turn to religious discussion reminds me of this some will enjoy:

Farmageddon · 19/06/2023 19:22

OldGardinia · 19/06/2023 19:19

This sudden turn to religious discussion reminds me of this some will enjoy:

😂

BaronMunchausen · 19/06/2023 20:11

NotHavingIt · 19/06/2023 15:37

I don't think Christ ever damned anyone to hell.

His were the original hellfire sermons. Eternal, unquenchable fire etc. Matthew and Mark refer in particular.

OldCrone · 19/06/2023 20:53

NotHavingIt · 19/06/2023 15:58

I used to live on a Peace Camp, or two actually, in the 1980's - and many Christians used to come along to support the camp and were involved in various left wing/peace movement/animal rights type demonstrations.

Show quote history

Thanks for the reply, but I can't agree that the peace movement is something which left-wing people and Christians all agree with. I was involved with CND in the 80s, and the main religious groups which I remember being involved were Quakers (an Anglican priest once told me that Quakers aren't Christians, but the Quakers I know disagree). There was also Bruce Kent, of course. But the main reason for the existence of CND was the threat from Soviet Russia. If peace was an essential part of left wing belief, there would be no threat at all from Communists.

I also know Christians who are miltary or ex-military people - many Christians are not pacifists.

porridgeisbae · 20/06/2023 01:00

People think they know what Jesus said but their opinion of it often differs from what he actually said in the Bible. There are a lot of misleading cultural assumptions about Him being all nicey-nicey.

He did say that quite a lot of people would end up in hell. We have to believe in Him (and arguably act accordingly) or we go to Hell basically. 'Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.' (Matthew 7 13-14.)

A lot of people are going there, even many who think they work miracles/prophesy in his name. (Matthew 7:22.)

There are loads of references. He was quite into his fire and brimstone preaching really sometimes.

Of course, the caveat is that we can always repent and change course, if we do so genuinely.

porridgeisbae · 20/06/2023 01:02

@OldGardinia Lol! Something on which more of us can agree.

porridgeisbae · 20/06/2023 01:09

an Anglican priest once told me that Quakers aren't Christians, but the Quakers I know disagree

@OldCrone My mum's a Quaker, like many of them she doesn't believe in God, she and her friends are self-avowedly pretty much humanists. Quakers are split down the middle between atheists and the somewhat-religious, at least in the UK. Probably some local groups are more religious than others. In the States they're probably more religious/puritanical.

Christians are encouraged to be peacemakers but there are such things as righteous causes for anger, and self-defence is also ok.

ifIwerenotanandroid · 20/06/2023 01:12

Hagosaurus · 17/06/2023 22:30

Welcome to the club - and I think it’s worth reiterating that the only people who equate terfy women with right wing despots are TRA’s. Gender identity supports individuals to colonise and devalue community assets, to the detriment of roughly half the population - it is much more hard right-wing than left. I’m consistently surprised by politician’s inability to grasp this.

This is brilliant way of explaining what's going on & why it's wrong.

DemiColon · 20/06/2023 02:08

OldCrone · 19/06/2023 11:21

@OldGardinia
A specific persons choice doesn't matter in itself - that would just be freedom of expression. The issue is the social enforcement of their choice on others. You must respect their pronouns, you must give them access to your space, you must not be critical of this group as a group, and so forth. A specific person's desire to wear a dress is neither a Right Wing nor a Left Wing thing. What is Left Wing is when the State steps in to control how that is handled. Again, simplification but Large State, present in all aspects of our lives is at one end, Individualist 'I look after me and mine, society is managed through voluntary individual action' is at the other end.

I agree with most of this, but you seem to be equating left wing with authoritarian and right wing with libertarian. Left wing doesn't have to mean authoritarian. Left and Right wing are normally used to refer to economic policies. People who agree with high taxation and generous welfare payments may have a whole range of views on other issues. So there are at least 3 strands to this - economically right/left wing, socially conservative/liberal and authoritarian/libertarian.

I agree that a man putting on a dress and saying his name is Sheila isn't a right or left wing thing. It's what happens next that's important.

If 'Sheila' is able to walk around the streets and go about his daily life as he wishes, this is due to society being socially liberal and allowing freedom of expression. This isn't a right or left wing thing. Social conservatives might have a problem with this, but they might be anyone from the religious right (in the US) to sexist people (who could be of any class or political allegiance) who think men should be real men and a man in a dress is someone to be mocked. Many working class people who vote Labour are socially conservative in this way.

'Sheila' now wants to join the women's swimming group and use the women's changing rooms. Social conservatives may obviously object, but I would also expect socially liberal people to consider the impact of 'Sheila's' freedom of expression on others. It's the old 'your right to swing your arm ends at my face' argument. This is what seems to be missing from the socially liberal view at the moment. People are equating the right of someone like 'Sheila' to walk down the street without being shouted at or assaulted with his right to impose his self-described identity in other situations where women and girls are negatively affected by it because they don't want to see Sheila's penis or for a man to see them in a state of undress.

Balancing of rights like this isn't a left or right wing thing, but the left seem to have forgotten about it altogether. In their haste to 'accept diversity' they seem to have forgotten that women and children also have rights.

Taking it one step further, we get to the enforcement of Sheila's right to be viewed as a woman and this is where the state steps in. In the UK both the GRA and the EA were brought in under Labour, but all the social enforcement that has occurred since 2010, like pronouns, has happened under the Tories. They've done nothing to stop this.

The way I view it is that the government is just allowing social changes to happen (which is a libertarian attitude), because they believe this has nothing to do with the state. The problem with this is that it is allowing a sort of non-government driven authoritarianism to flourish. A social media and Stonewall-driven authoritarianism. As though what is happening socially has nothing to do with them. Their libertarianism is resulting in another sort of totalitarianism.

An important element here though is that Sheila's claim to be treated in a particular way is based on being part of group which is given special status because they have been labeled as marginalized. It's a kind of hierarchy of class, just not economic class.

This class hierarchy takes very little notice of particular of the actual circumstances of individuals, which vary hugely.

DemiColon · 20/06/2023 02:19

This is why it sometimes gets called cultural marxism, because it's a kind of variation of a class hierarchy but build around cultural status rather than economics.

So if you think about some of the antiracism movements ideas about privilege and "whiteness", they appear in that system in such a concrete and inflexible way because they are seen as being fixed relations in the same way economic classes are fixed relations. Just like being a capitalist has a certain inherent, functional relationship to the members of the proletariat, those who participate in whiteness has a kind of inherent fixed relation to the non-white, and its an exploitative thing whether or not people are actually involved in exploitative action.

NotHavingIt · 20/06/2023 08:41

porridgeisbae · 20/06/2023 01:00

People think they know what Jesus said but their opinion of it often differs from what he actually said in the Bible. There are a lot of misleading cultural assumptions about Him being all nicey-nicey.

He did say that quite a lot of people would end up in hell. We have to believe in Him (and arguably act accordingly) or we go to Hell basically. 'Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.' (Matthew 7 13-14.)

A lot of people are going there, even many who think they work miracles/prophesy in his name. (Matthew 7:22.)

There are loads of references. He was quite into his fire and brimstone preaching really sometimes.

Of course, the caveat is that we can always repent and change course, if we do so genuinely.

I certainly don't think he is represented as just " nicey, nicey". He is also presented as deeply passionate and driven; full of despair at times., and full of anger.......It is the sublimation and transformation of thsse energies that is most important, I think. That is what being nailed to the cross ( of material reality) is all about. Sacrifice and surrender.

For me the experinece of Christ has nothing to do with the bible or with religious sermons in church- but to do with an intimate personal relationship - which like all relationships goes through ups and downs, troughs and peaks, and times of alienation. It is the relationship that sustains Christians - because without it they have nothing.Just following rules and doing as you are told by your pastor or priest is not really what is is about - although, for many ( as I discovered) the group and social conformity is indeed more important than personal integrity.

For me Christ was essentially a loner - not a pack creature.

NotHavingIt · 20/06/2023 09:03

OldCrone · 19/06/2023 20:53

Thanks for the reply, but I can't agree that the peace movement is something which left-wing people and Christians all agree with. I was involved with CND in the 80s, and the main religious groups which I remember being involved were Quakers (an Anglican priest once told me that Quakers aren't Christians, but the Quakers I know disagree). There was also Bruce Kent, of course. But the main reason for the existence of CND was the threat from Soviet Russia. If peace was an essential part of left wing belief, there would be no threat at all from Communists.

I also know Christians who are miltary or ex-military people - many Christians are not pacifists.

Show quote history

Yes, lots of Quakers, too. In fact we had a couple of Quakers who lived at the camp ( Daws Hill in High Wycombe, and later Falsane in Helensburgh). and one of them, Clive, certainly used to pray and to read his bible.

The threat from nuclear weapons has never receded, in fact Putin is moving tactical warheads into place in Belarus at present and has made clear he wouldn't hesitate to use in the event of a direct threat to Russian sovereignity.

OldGardinia · 20/06/2023 13:57

NotHavingIt · 20/06/2023 09:03

Yes, lots of Quakers, too. In fact we had a couple of Quakers who lived at the camp ( Daws Hill in High Wycombe, and later Falsane in Helensburgh). and one of them, Clive, certainly used to pray and to read his bible.

The threat from nuclear weapons has never receded, in fact Putin is moving tactical warheads into place in Belarus at present and has made clear he wouldn't hesitate to use in the event of a direct threat to Russian sovereignity.

Show quote history

Given how high tensions are right now, I'm really okay with not threatening Russia's sovereignty. And whilst I agree with you that the threat of nuclear war is actually rising (and imo, real), if there's an implication Russia's position is atypical it's actually the position of every nuclear armed state including ours to say that our nuclear weapons are on the table if we face an existential threat. The USA has been pursuing a policy of nuclear primacy for decades.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2006-03-01/rise-us-nuclear-primacy (And Foreign Affairs is a pro-American journal)

We (as in the world) have been backsliding on nuclear weapons for a while now.

The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy

For four decades, relations among the major nuclear powers have been shaped by their common vulnerability, a condition known as mutual assured destruction. But with the U.S. arsenal growing rapidly while Russia's decays and China's stays small, the era...

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2006-03-01/rise-us-nuclear-primacy

Abhannmor · 20/06/2023 15:17

The Americans were discussing the use of tactical nuclear weapons back in the 80s. They would have the advantage of not breaking Strategic Arms Limitation treaties.

But if their sovereignty was ever under threat they wouldn't bother pussyfooting around. They'd drop the big one and let us handle the literal fallout.

Back on topic - sort of - I remember meeting Christians at Upper Heyford albeit outnumbered by us lefties.