.
It is not what Pride celebrates that scares me, since the late 1970s I have found the legal and social discrimination against the gays and their brethren utterly evil and idiotic. I am old enough to remember the Anita Bryant kerfuffle and recognized even then just how wrong and hateful her campaign was no matter how many times they repeated the delusional incantation, ‘love the sinner hate the sin.’ No, Pride represents the beginning of the real fight for freedom and equality and for aspect of our nation is it as important as the 4th of July.
What terrifies me is the poisonous atmosphere of 2023 with its escalating number of mass shootings along with the rising tide of Family Values Fascism.
Mass shootings are a social contagion, with each instance acting like a chemical catalyst lowering the activation energy of the process, accelerating the reaction brings more shootings and more death. As reported by the BBC there have been more than 200 hundred mass shootings in 2023. The contagion is running unchecked.
The political environment is particularly dire. An entire political party in our two-party system is succumbing to an anti-democratic dogma that can best be described as neo-fascist. Abandoning the rule of law and democratic norms they have embraced hatred and scapegoating as tools to seize power. Still bitter over marriage equality, but recognizing that the tide had turned against them, they targeted another sexual minority for their hatred, lies, and venom, the transsexual community. Empowered by their reactionary fury they stoke fear, anger, and hatred in a base already inclined to violence.
These twin lethal cultural currents are what terrifies me about Pride 2023. It is my most sincere hope we can get to the 4th of July without any deadly violence at Pride events but there will be no shock or surprise if we do not.
Should Pride events be canceled during this terrifying time?
No.
The danger must be recognized and dealt with, but it must not be appeased. That only empowers it more. Pride must go on.
I am terrified but I am also hopeful. These are the dying spasms of an older ideology and generation, survive these and better days are ahead.
Disingenuous? You can gaslight yourself, but don’t think you can gaslight me on a subject like this.
How fair was the ATF process when the vast majority of the public (including those now under legal threat) didn’t even know it was taking place? Did you? I fanatically follow news of this type, and this development almost slipped under my radar. I’d be surprised if more than half of the pistol-brace owners currently know the legal threat they are now under.
One irony is, a goodly percentage of those people who are blind to the danger may even have voted for Biden!
This issue has got nothing to do with the questionable “Chevron” doctrine, either. The ATF “rulemaking” was de-facto law making. The new rule not only contradicts the written law, it even directly contradicts the ATF’s own prior ruling on the exact same subject of “pistol-braces”. Which is why millions are in the hands of the public in the first place, because the ATF said they were legal almost a decade ago. But now, presto-change-o, abracadabra! Illegal!
The new rule is wildly arbitrary and capricious. Even worse, the same twisted logic could be exploited by the ATF in a future “rulemaking”; to mass ban all current self-loading firearms owned by the public by reclassifying them as illegal machine-guns. Abracadabra, part 2. Maybe that happens after Biden is re-elected?
In addition, I have to correct some dangerous misinformation you put out regarding the ATF rule. Since mere removal of a pistol-brace from a handgun is NOT a legal protection from possible prosecution, as the ATF requirements go way beyond that. The ATF outlines here the only acceptable measures for compliance with the law.
https://www.atf.gov/rules-and-regulations/docs/undefined/stabilizingbracefinalrule-sec508-v2pdf/download
Meanwhile, of course, Hunter Biden goes unprosecuted for his own obvious and flagrant multiple violations of the Federal Gun Control Act of 1968. Five counts, some with a maximum penalty of 15 years imprisonment. Two counts illegal purchase by a prohibited person of a pistol and ammunition, two counts illegal possession by a prohibited person of a pistol and ammunition, one count perjury for the #4473 form firearm paperwork.
Justice isn’t so blind when it comes to Democrats, eh? One rule for thee and another for me. Is that the Democratic Party way?
This is so disingenuous. “Instantly” “Poof, like magic” while eliding right past that the proposed rule was promoted for a year, subject to public comment, as all administratice rules are, and once published people with the pistol braces had 120 days to register them with the taxes waived. (Far longer than the GOp would give a woman to get an abortion.) or they could removes the brace from the pistols, or they could turn the firearms in to the ATF, or they could destory the weapons. None of this sounds like ‘instantly becoming criminals.’ I do think you are right when you say the courts will overturn this rule not because it is so plainly unconstitutional but rather this SCOTUS has been degrading ‘Chevron’ and will likely deestroy that precident to get at the aboration medication. Congress granted the power tomake these rules with the force of law to the regualting agencies but this court will destory that to get at their preferred policy outcome, going after abortion.
Let’s see — violently attempting to overthrow the results of a legitimate election, turning the people attempting that coup I not martyrs, scapegoating a minority, suppressing books in libraries, and the leading fucking candidate for the party has advocated suspending the constitution to be president again. So yeah, I stand fucking by calling them Fascists.
Who should fear who? Who is shooting at whom? Why is information important to public discourse being suppressed?
https://www.newsweek.com/audrey-hale-manifesto-release-raises-major-concerns-among-lgbtq-groups-1790938
This specific June 1st of 2023, marked another notable event besides another Pride Month.
It was the date that a million or more, possibly millions of Americans, instantly became criminals under Federal Law; all due to executive action by the Biden Administration, in furthering of Democratic Party Gun Control policy preferences.
Poof! Like magic! “Criminals” instantly created from nothing. Over a victimless “crime”. Probably without most of these new “criminals” even realizing the Feds have declared them “criminals”. What a blindside ambush those Americans now face. Violation of the Federal National Firearms Act of 1934, with up to ten years imprisonment for each violation.
Not only is the Biden Administration action dumb and capricious social policy, it was de-facto law making without any new law being passed by Congress, despite the drastic legal consequences now confronting so many peaceful American citizens. Odd are this Biden gun policy will not survive challenge in the Federal Courts, since it is so flagrantly in violation of the Constitution. But that litigation process takes time, possibly even years to conclude. In the meantime, the threat of prosecution looms over millions of Americans.
So tell me more about Republican “Fascism”.
https://thereload.com/atf-says-a-quarter-million-guns-registered-under-pistol-brace-rule/