Parents Who 'Do Their Own Research'

Parents doing their own research -- by which they mean watching YouTube and Instagram videos -- are killing their children.

We know about the refusal to get the measles vaccine, which led to three deaths last year and thousands of cases of sick kids. See also chicken pox, whooping cough, and mumps, among others. Now parents are refusing Vitamin K shots for their newborns, which has led to a least a dozen preventable deaths, and probably many more.

Why are parents refusing the Vitamin K shot? They 'did their own research.'

The parents explained that they had declined the shot for a number of reasons: a concern, based on long-debunked claims, that the shot could cause leukemia; a belief that the shot wasn’t necessary; and a desire to reduce their baby’s exposure to “toxins.”

Also, of course, there's the "natural" fallacy. Why, for thousands and thousands of years, babies did without Vitamin K shots, or vaccines, so obviously.... 

What about the fifty percent child mortality rate we used to have? (That's fifty percent of all infant dying before age five.) Malnutrition, these parents claim. Bad hygiene. Their children play outside and eat right, so obviously....

Much of it is due to Trump and the way he and the GOP party in general handled COVID. It couldn't be that Trump mishandled the epidemic (due to a very real ignorance and lack of experience on his part), so it must be that the CDC and physicians and experts in general are lying to everyone. Why? Well, vaccines are how they make the big bucks, clearly. Also all that profit on Vitamin K shots.

Look, I'm all for kids playing outside and eating well. But to believe that MAGA and Trump are telling you the truth, and everyone in the medical system worldwide is lying to you -- to make a profit -- is just ridiculous. 

To let your infants and children die from things that could be prevented with inexpensive (indeed, sometimes free at the point of service) vaccines and vitamin shots is worse than ridiculous. It's child sacrifice. 

RFK Junior was asked to make a statement saying Vitamin K shots were safe and necessary, by the way. He refused.

“I’ve never said, literally never said, anything about it,” Kennedy said.

“That’s exactly the point,” responded Schrier, who [made the request and] is a doctor. “You don’t say anything about it, but the doubt you’ve created about all of medicine and science is causing parents to make dangerous decisions.”

Performing Gender

I have been idly wondering for some time why so many MAGA women have that face -- fat cheeks, small plump eyes, narrow nose, giant lips -- and the long flowing overly styled hair. If you've seen Charlie Kirk's wife out monetizing her dead husband, you've seen the face. It goes with the tiny body and tight clothing.

Kristi Noem has it, too, as do most Fox News anchors. Our governor, Sarah Huckster Sanders, tries for it, but she just doesn't have the body or the bone structure. She also may not have the money.

Turns out that face, also known as Mar-a-Lago face, is a deliberate choice. The hyperwealthy in the GOP camp are buying plastic surgery that makes them look like the MAGA notion of a desirable woman. (The men are also getting plastic surgery -- to make them look like "real men," with a specific jawline, eyes, forehead, and lips; but this isn't about that trend.) Here's an interesting video essay about the phenomenon.

And here's Erika Kirk, before and after:

According to the video essay, this is a thing fascist governments do with their women. It separates them from progressive/non-fascist women by highlighting the "correct" way to look, which is hyperfeminine in a specific sort of way. (That look differs from culture to culture, obviously.) It's a uniform, which women must wear to prove that they are one of the group.

As such, it's also a form of control. I'm thinking also about the way women in the Christian Quiverfull movement were compelled to look -- with that long, over-permed hair and dowdy dresses; with that tiny high "girl" voice, and constant smile. Quiverfull women were not allowed to express any emotion except enraptured devotion. "Keeping sweet," they called it.

Trump women have to look and act a certain way also. It's a rigid gender performance, and it's there to ensure MAGA men that women exist to perform for them.

Here are more MAGA women. It's a little disturbing, and very creepy.

In a Desperate Bid to Boost his Approval Ratings

I don't think the guy with the guns at the Whitehouse Correspondents Dinner was staged, but I do think Trump's party is going to play it for all its worth. Hey, it got his approval ratings up last time, yeah?

That's not what I wanted to write about here.

Here, I want to talk about a different attempt to boost his ratings: an attempt to keep birth control out of the hands of Americans.

This is never going to happen, I was promised by endless people when Roe v Wade was overturned. Birth control is too popular! Yeah, well, so is abortion. Most people want it to be available; one in three women have had an abortion. I had one after my miscarriage, though when I say that people start shrieking that that is not "really" an abortion.

Yes, it fucking is. I needed it, too, because otherwise the fetal remains might have stayed in my uterus, causing sepsis, and damaging my future fertility.

How did the "conservatives" convince people abortion was evil?

(Except for their abortions, which like mine are not "really" abortions. I know people who are absolutely opposed to abortion until their sixteen year old needs one, and then it's "different," or until someone they know needs an abortion for medical reasons, and then that's not "really" an abortion.)

They pushed propaganda in their "conservative" Christian schools and their churches and their publications. They did this for 40 years. Even then, most people still want abortions to be legal.

Over the past two decades, these Christians have been spreading the lie that birth control is an abortifacient, that it "kills babies," and that a fertilized zygote is a baby. Facebook and TikTok and Instagram are filled with "health" advocates explaining how birth control damages women's health. 

Now Trump wants "to curb contraception."

His DHHS has released new guidelines, "prioritizing childbirth over contraception," and trying to convince people to use "natural family planning," instead of contraception. ('Natural family planning' is how we spell parenthood, by the way.)

Why? You know why.

The unwieldy political coalition that sent Trump back to the White House in 2024 is clamoring for action. For different reasons, an alliance of MAHA adherents, social conservatives and pronatalists are eager to go after birth control. With Trump sinking in the polls and his coalition fracturing, he may want to deliver for his core supporters. 

I'd say this was a terrible idea, but the past decade has proved to me that today's Trump supporters will literally do anything their ugly tin god tells them to do, and believe anything he tells them to believe. If it contradicts the reality, well, why should they believe in reality? That's what liberals do.

 

It's True

Conservatives aren't opposed to immigration. They're opposed to certain kinds of people immigrating. Namely, brown people, black people, poor people. Thus, white "refugees" from South Africa? Perfectly fine. White guys who can bribe Trump sufficiently? Fast-track that citizenship!

Conservatives aren't opposed to education. They're opposed to certain people getting an education. Poor kids. Middle-class kids. Brown kids. Public schools are evil not because they teach kids that trans people exist. They've evil because they teach kids whose parents can't send them to private schools.

Conservatives aren't against abortions. Conservatives get (and pay for) abortions all the time. They're opposed to those people getting abortions. You know. Poor people. Young people. Working people. Brown people. Those people should be raising a raft of future low-wage workers, or future prison fodder who can be used as slave labor. Also those parents should be working two or three jobs to feed those children they didn't want and can't afford. If they really can't afford them, why, their children should be seized and given to deserving (white, Christian, wealthy) parents. Or else funneled into the prison pipeline, see above re slave labor.

Conservatives aren't against government-funded healthcare. For example, in our grate state of Arkansas, Sarah Huckster Sanders is having her Ozempic paid for by our tax payers. And when Conservatives retire, they're entitled to their Medicare and social security checks. No, what they're opposed to is those people getting "free" healthcare. (Poor people, brown people, disabled people.)

And so on. Conservatives believe the law exists to control and punish other people. Not them. 

It's why they get so upset when other conservatives define them as part of the class of "those people." Wait, they cry. Our law was supposed to hurt those people. Not me!

From here, where the comments are great.

Why Trump Supporters Still Support Him

The fact is, they think they're immune from the actions taken by the Trump regime. They think the hyenas aren't going to eat their faces.

Think about what that means. 

It means they're fine if these things happen to us. If my kid is arrested or assaulted for doing something like pissing in the wrong bathroom, that is fine with them. If my kid's professor or friend or neighbor is deported because they're Hispanic or Muslim, that's fine with them. If you or your spouse or your friend gets fired for being "woke," that's fine too. 

That's what they want to happen. 

If your neighbor or you, for that matter, if you're arrested because you supported the wrong person in the latest election, or if your business collapses because people can't afford to buy things, that's great! If your disabled child can't get the help they need because Trump's regime cut funding to your public school, as far as they're concerned, that's wonderful. If your kid dies because you can't afford the health care they need, hey, shouldn't have been born poor or "weak," should they?

When it happens to them, you might ask, will they be sorry? Well, they'll be sorry for themselves. But they're still going to say fuck you, because you had it coming. 

You Knew I was a Scorpion

How are all y'all?

I'm just sitting here watching people piously call for "civility" after Trump has -- for months -- mocked those taking this pandemic seriously; after he deliberately downplayed the pandemic, leading to the deaths of more than 200,000 Americans; after he went to a rally knowing he had Covid-19; and while he is doing everything he can to strip away the civil rights and health care from those we love.

Oh, we have to be NICE, see, because if we say mean things about Trump while he's sick, why, we're no better than they are!

What's that you say? They brag about running over protesters, and shooting protesters? They celebrated Kyle Rittenhouse, who gunned down protesters? They danced in the streets when RBG died and gloated about how fast they could replace her? They're still doing that last?

But we have to be nice. Otherwise we're no better than they are.

Oh, Trump is getting excellent medical care at Walter Reed, while most of us cannot afford to seek medical care when we get sick, because of the for-profit thievery that is the US healthcare system?

What's that? Trump is doing his best to destroy ACA, leaving most of us even more helpless in the grip of the insurance companies and for-profit healthcare providers? 

He's doing everything he can to strip rights away from women, trans people, minorities, and immigrants, leaving us all vulnerable when we need medical care, and in the workplace?

But we shouldn't complain! We should be civil. Otherwise we're NO BETTER THAN THEY ARE.

Listen, we need to get rid of Trump and kick every single member of the GOP out of office -- for good. If we could do that being "civil" I would. 

And I don't think any of us are "celebrating" Trump's illness. What we're feeling is more like hope, mixed with tentative relief. Our rights and the rights of those we love have been under assault since he took office. We have felt threatened and at risk since he took office. More than a few of us have died because he's playing politics with American lives.

Wanting that to stop is not "celebrating." It's desperation. We're not happy he's sick. We're feeling hope for the first time since November 2016. 

When we go high, they stab us in the back. When we play fair, they lie and cheat.

I think Biden & his campaign managers should read the tale of the scorpion & the frog, and reconsider their generous but misplaced gallantry. https://t.co/5FmwpQrKOd

— Athena Andreadis, PhD (@AthenaHelivoy) October 3, 2020

This is a complicated question, since I have long been a supporter of Plato's notion that we can't make the world better by doing harm to people. If we harm someone, Plato explains, we make him worse. Since he is part of our world, then by making him worse, we are making the world worse. We must act to make him better -- we must treat him well.

Plato also said he was a citizen of the world. So everyone was his neighbor, a member of his world, and he must be seeking to do good for all.

On the other hand, Plato clearly approved of war. (See the Republic.) In war, not only do we harm people, we desire to kill them, and to kill their culture. We do this, clearly, in order to preserve our own culture, and what is good in that culture.

So it would seem that on some occasions, it is not only desirable but necessary to do harm to select groups of people. Who might those people be? Clearly, people who are dangerous to what is good in our culture.

Bad ethics drive out good. I'd love to have a decent world. But a world in which we act with civility is a world where Donald Trump and his ilk destroy everything that is good in our country in order to fill their own pockets and feed their own egos.

That's not a compromise I'm willing to make.

See also this:

ETA: Yes, this:

Day Thirteen

Last night my temperature was 99.8, but it's been normal so far all day today.

I still feel a bit wobbly, but my other symptoms have cleared off. I'm making a concerted effort to eat more -- difficult with no appetite, not to mention the terrible state of the country.

I've banned myself from both FB and Twitter for a few days, anxiety and depression making nothing any better.

Been able to work a few hours each morning. That's helping some.

Yep

The venn diagram of "zygotes have rights" people and "fuck your grandma, she's gonna die anyway" people is one big sociopathic circle

— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) May 6, 2020

I mean, we always knew that "pro-life" people had absolutely no interest in "saving babies." They were always in this in order to create more low-wage workers and keep women disempowered.

There's been some bitter satisfaction in watching them reveal this truth to the entire world, though.

The Conservative Response to Covid-19

Spreading the virus to own the libs:

I just went to a crowded Red Robin and I'm 30.

It was delicious, and I took my sweet time eating my meal. Because this is America. And I'll do what I want.

— Katie Williams (@realkatiejow) March 14, 2020

Covid-19 and the Conservative Response

So did y'all watch Trump's speech last night?

I liked David Litt's response: "As a former Presidential speechwriter, my careful rhetorical analysis is that he's going to get us all killed."

The racism and xenophobia was also nice, but my favorite part was when he promised a $50 billion dollar federal spending plan -- but not for low-wage workers. For businesses!

Then we're just going to trust the businesses to pass that money on to their workers.

Gimme a minute to laugh about that.

This is a plan to put more money in the pockets of the .01%, which, after all, is why Trump is in office -- to loot the country.

Other responses I'm seeing from the Right match Trump's response almost exactly: xenophobic and racist ranting, mixed with one of two approaches. Either the virus is going to KILL US ALL!1! and it's the liberals fault (see Rod Dreher's pant's-wetting screeching for an example of this); or the virus is NO BIG DEAL, and the liberals are lying about it to attack Trump (see Fox news for an example of this).

Meanwhile, the grift goes on.

Links

This is interesting

The damage done 

I mean, no one is really expecting anything else

Just a little list

Might be the problem

America -- SO GREAT


Your typical TERF -- and, sadly, more and more often your typical "Christian."

How cool is this? (Probably only really cool if you're an English professor)

Brookings on the SOTU speech (The Brookings Institution is a non-partisan think tank -- well worth following: they put out succinct but data-filled papers on crucial issues of the nation.)

See also this

Irrational Hatred Makes One Irrational

This is about Rod Dreher again, but it's really about, oh, a third of the country.

A third of the country has been convinced, by talk radio, by Fox News, by various other propaganda sources, that immigrants, black people, trans people, and "leftists" (as if we even had any actual leftists in this country), are criminals, fanatics, monsters who are bent on destroying them -- them, personally -- and their children, and their jobs, and everything good about their lives.

Nothing could be further from the truth. As the closest thing to a leftist most of these cowering dupes will ever meet, I can tell you I spent about ten seconds a week thinking about them -- usually just after I have checked Rod Dreher's page in a fit of boredom.

But Rod, like the rest of them, is constantly encouraged in his quivering terror by steady infusions of lies and propaganda. Here, he has been fed a pack of lies by (as he puts it) a "former" "Soviet-bloc" scientist.

This "scientist" agrees with Rod that American liberals are just like Nazis. Also, he agrees with the disinformation -- the propaganda -- being pushed by Murdoch-owned newspapers, claiming that the fires in Australia aren't, in fact, caused by Global Warming, but by the ignorant laws passed by Leftists.

So what does it have to do with the Australia fires, you ask?

Contrary to the popular belief that a fraction of a degree temperature increase set the place ablaze, there is another explanation. For millennia the Aborigines have been practicing ritual bush burning. A while ago the practice was banned because of ecology concerns, environmental protection; to save some odd shrew from being upset. Dead wood accumulated. The whole place burned to the ground. (you can google for it.

We did the same thing to the culture. We banned ritual control burns. We allowed dead wood to accumulate. A single spark and the whole place will be ablaze. We will burn.

First off, his claim is wrong. That's not what caused the fires in Australia, despite what Fox-News outlets claim. Failing to rake leaves in the forests of California is not what has caused the huge fires there, either. Global climate change, by drying out the landscape, is causing these fires.

Second, pay attention to the conclusion this "scientist" draws. The culture, he says, has banned "ritual control burns," allowing "dead wood" to accumulate. And now we will burn?

What do you suppose he means by that, this "scientist"?

And why do you suppose Rod gave him a national platform to voice such an appalling point of view?

This is the real danger of ignorance combined with a steady infusion of propaganda. That such people don't understand, or willfully refuse to understand, the cause and effect of every day events, is a problem, though not a huge one, since most of them have no real influence in the world.

No, the big problem is that ideas such as this one -- that people not like them are "dead wood" to be "ritually burned" in order to protect "us" -- gain currency among the willfully ignorant who have gorged on lies and propaganda.

And that is a real danger.

Making America GREAT

God help us:

Boy howdy this was a conversation. pic.twitter.com/45V02Tp2n7

— Robert Evans (The Only Robert Evans) (@IwriteOK) January 20, 2020

Dystopian USA

If we read about this happening in some other country, we'd be appalled. But hey, we can buy seventy different types of sugared breakfast cereal, so yay capitalism!

Windowless underground sleeping pods could rent from $1K/month https://t.co/SGYGN8StIB pic.twitter.com/Cyg5SxP3nO

— New York Post (@nypost) January 16, 2020

Links

"Pro-life" crusaders claim to want to stop abortion, yet eliminate access to birth control -- which, as we know, increases the number of abortions

More on this

And more

TYWKIWDBI shares a nice 5-minute informational video on what the USA is doing wrong with the minimum wage

I was posting awhile back about how atrocity stories are used to inflame populations -- buried in this story is such an atrocity story, used to justify stealing infants from the Chinese. I remember many such stories from that era.

What's wrong with sharing these stories?

About those rallies

Long, but worth watching (true of most of Philosophy Guy's work)

Written by my colleagues (in one case, now a former colleague)

Here's a pretty good reading list

Despite the lies Trump keeps screeching at us

The kids are okay; old white Americans? Not so much. (Frankly, this video is just really sad.)

Does everything look alright you dumb fucker? I want that Truck off my lawn. Thor's retirement is not going well. 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/RDBNJ9drs7

— Eugene W (@NOW1SOLAR) August 19, 2019

are you telling me that the guy who ran a scam university and a scam charity and a scam magazine and a scam airline and sold scam mortgages and scam steaks and scam vodka and scam fucking water for fuck's sake, has been running a scam economy? fuck me, I did not see that coming

— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) August 18, 2019

My father is a die hard Fox News watching Trump voter. Let me tell you: it is not a good use of time to try to flip Trump voters. No amount of logic or humanizing or anything else works. Just move on and mobilize and stop voter suppression.

— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) August 18, 2019

Heh:

quillette, the other white nationalism

— ᴀsᴄʜ 'demonic ink' ᴄᴏɴꜰᴏʀᴍɪᴛʏ 🍈🍮🥀⚗️🦠 (@AschConformity_) February 27, 2019

Eventually, you know, you gotta ask yourself if we're the baddies:

Wascally Wabbits

So I was having this discussion with a buddy of mine about this commercial which has populated the childhood of American children for the past 60 years:

The catch-line is always "Trix are for kids!"

So my friend and I were talking about the weirdness of this commercial, which relies on children frustrating the desires of another, and mocking and tormenting another, into order to fulfill their own desire -- and their own desires for something both unnecessary and unhealthy, let's not forget. An early commercial makes this even more explicit:

The discussion sparked a memory of how, when I was a young media-saturated toddler delagar, shopping with my parents on Sunday morning at Schwegmann's

I'd always pester my father for Trix, just as the TV had told me I should. "I want Trix!" I would say. "Can we get Trix?"

"Trix are for kids," he would say cheerily, walking on past.

Far from annoying me, this would puzzle me. "But I am a kid," I would say, as if this were some information he was lacking.

"Trix are for kids," he would repeat, continuing on down the aisle.

"But Daddy," I would say, running after him, "But Daddy, I am a kid! So can I have some?"

"Trix are for kids!"

I was just convinced, when I was five years old, he was simply missing the facts. Like if I could get him to understand the data -- that I was a kid -- he would smack himself in the head and say, Oh, right! do a 180 in the aisle and buy me the cereal.

It occurs to me now that this is the fundamental error we are making when we try to hold a reasoned debate with MAGA Americans. We think they are just missing the facts. We think if we just supply them with the data, they will say, oh, right! Now I see, do a 180, and begin acting like decent human beings.

But they aren't missing the data. Like my father, they are perfectly aware of the facts. They know that climate change is real. They know that the USA has kids in cages. They know that Trump is looting the country, and that he changed the tax laws to put more money in the pockets of the 1%. They know that Trump is gutting the EPA to allow corporations to make more money, while destroying our water, air, wetlands, and our national parks. They know socialized medicine is the only system that works. They know antifa is not a terrorist organization, and that Proud Boys is. They know that police violence is a problem.

They know all this. We can repeat this information all we like, we can present all the evidence we want, under the delusion they're just missing the facts, and that if we give it to them, they'll say, oh right, and do a 180.

But that's not going to happen, because they don't care about evidence. They care about power and about wealth. They care about hegemony.  They care about their privilege, and keeping that privilege. If they have to mock and torment people to keep it, well, they'll do that. If they have to exploit people to keep it, they'll do that too. If they have to destroy the planet, well, they're Good Christians, aren't they? They know this is not the only world.

In conclusion: Vote every single member of the GOP out in 2020.

Trans People and Civil Rights

An actual argument I have seen persist among Evangelicals and Trump supporters is this one: Trans people are only .01% of the population (or .03% or whatever number they've been given by Fox News that morning), so why should the rest of us have to accommodate them?

It's an argument I can't believe anyone thinks is legitimate, but let's say you do.

What percentage of the population does a given group have to reach before you'll agree they should have civil rights? The deaf are only .38% of the population. Jews are less than 1%. Filipinos are less than 2%. Do we strip away their civil rights as well?

The USA doesn't base civil rights on how big a group is. Or at least we didn't used to do so.

My Kid and also a link

You should stop by this post at Nicole and Maggie's blog for two reasons.

One, their excellent links on what you can do (this is a frequent feature at their blog -- just saying). We often feel, or at least I often feel, helpless in the face of this much corruption and evil, and N&M give us do-able things we can do to help stop the destruction.

Two, the tweet from Merriam-Webster about the word genderqueer.

Here's a self-portrait from my genderqueer Kid to go with: