The Most Active Threads Since Friday

The most active thread over the weekend was titled, "Bill Maher explains the Middle East to Gen Z: Can anyone really dispute the facts?" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to a segment of "Real Time with Bill Maher" in which Maher directly addressed singer Chappell Roan, and by extension the entire Gen-Z, and provided what Maher and the original poster apparently believe to be an accurate history lesson about the Israel-Palestine conflict. According to both Maher and the original poster, Gen-Z is wildly uninformed about Israel due to relying on TikTok for information. The original poster finds Maher's version of history to be indisputable. I was an active participant in this thread and found several fundamental errors in Maher's version of history. One issue is less about historical fact and more about interpretations. Maher argues that Israeli Jews cannot be colonizers because Jews have a historic connection to the land of Israel. This ignores that the Jews who created Israel largely came from Europe which had been their home for hundreds, if not thousands of years. There is a legitimate debate over what rights are really construed by such a tenuous connection, especially when Palestinians with much more recent claims on the land are denied any similar rights. Maher also claimed that for 2,000 years, nobody was interested in the land that is today's Israel. This is so fundamentally wrong that it really undermines everything else Maher has to say. Multiple crusades were fought over the land. That hardly signifies a lack of interest. Moreover, Maher erases the thriving Palestinian cities, towns, and villages that existed there for hundreds of years. Maher implied that Zionism was a reaction to the Holocaust and Jews didn't begin migrating to today's Israel until after World War II. Factually, Zionism had its roots in the late 1800s and Jews were emigrating as early as 1882, the time of the First Aliyah. Maher also suggested that anyone opposed to Israel's killing of Palestinian civilians is a supporter of Hamas or Hezbollah. This is a logical fallacy often employed to delegitimize critics of Israel's policies. The irony of Maher's version of history and the original poster's praise for it is that Maher's rendition is more fundamentally flawed that any TikTok video could hope to be. Maher is really in no position to be criticizing anyone else's knowledge given his own apparent ignorance. As several posters pointed out, those like Maher and the original poster criticize young folks for allegedly relying on biased sources of information but Maher and the original poster also have generally only been exposed to equally biased sources. In the Middle East, history is more often used to obscure facts than to clarify them. When people say that the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is complicated, they generally mean that they are confused by history. But history really has little meaning to the current conflict. Jews and Arabs have not been fighting for thousands of years as many would have it. Instead, the conflict is relatively new and quite simple. Two different groups want to live on the same land. It is really not any more complicated than that. Maher's resort to distorted history is really an acknowledgement that Gen-Z is closer to the truth than he would like.

The next most active thread over the weekend was also posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. This thread was titled, "Answer to ‘Why Is This Race Close?’". The original poster argues that the reason that this presidential election is close is due to misogyny. She says that while former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was a woman, she was also White and benefitted from the respect that is unconsciously given to White people. She argues that while former President Barack Obama was Black, he was also male and benefitted from the respect unconsciously given to males. Vice President Kamala Harris, on the other hand, is a woman of color and receives none of those benefits. While I don't disagree with the original poster that misogyny is playing a role in this election, I think that she is too quick to shrug off the role of race. While it is true that Obama, a Black man, was elected, I would argue that the racial landscape was actually worse post Obama than prior to his election. Having Obama in the White House provoked many racists to become more vocal and provided opportunities to generate increased resentment among White men. As a result, I believe that there is greater knee-jerk opposition to a person of color now than when Obama first ran. Similarly, I would question why the original poster doesn't see more of a role for misogyny in Clinton's defeat. Clinton may have had an advantage due to her race, but she still lost. I think that it is clear that both race and misogyny are playing a role in the opposition to Harris. One need only look at the attacks being used against her. She is being called a "DEI" candidate who slept her way to the top. These attacks are based on both racism and misogyny, suggesting that Harris, as a woman of color, could not possibly be qualified for her role. The most common argument that misogyny is not playing a role is the claim that Harris is hurt, not by being a woman, but by being a poor candidate. Posters claim that she had advantages that helped her career and that she has no record of accomplishments. If anything, in my mind this argument actually highlights the role of misogyny. Compare Harris to former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. Does anyone believe that Trump would have achieved anything close to his current status if he had not been helped out by millions of dollars from his father? Similarly, how likely is it that Harris, given the same amount of money, would not have also been succesful? As for accomplishments, what accomplishments does Trump have? Multiple bankruptcies, multiple failed marriages, multiple personal scandals, and a record of near constant lying. His one accomplishment as president was tax cuts for the rich. It is absolutely without question that Harris is being measured on a completely different scale than Trump. Take almost any criticism of Harris and compare that to Trump's record and this will be obvious. For instance, one poster in this thread argued that Harris did poorly in her first run for President. However, in Trump's first run for President he was a candidate in the Reform Party primary but, like Harris, dropped out. Why then is Harris' first run for President considered a mark against her while Trump's first campaign is not a blemish on his record? This is a minor example, but we can go criticism by criticism and repeatedly demonstrate that Harris is held to a higher standard.

The next two most active threads were ones that I've already discussed, taking me to a thread titled, "Women (or men too I guess) did you change your last name after marriage?" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster says that she did not change her last name after getting married and now when she receives items that are marked as coming from her friend's married name rather than her friend's maiden name, it strikes her as "a little creepy stepford". I have discussed threads on this topic before and there is really nothing new in this one. For the most part, responders in this thread, regardless of their own choice, don't really care what choices others may have made. A few, like the original poster, do have a negative reaction to those who made different choices, but that is a definite minority of those responding. Some posters say they could have easily made the opposite choice. Generally the incentive for women to change their names are tradition and a desire to have the same last name as their children. However, the importance of tradition is decreasing somewhat and those who kept their maiden names don't report any problems as a result. Several posters report they took their husbands' names simply because they liked them better. A common argument among those who took their husband's names was that this is part of becoming a family. After they got married, they were no longer the single person they had been but part of a family and their new name reflected this change. Women who kept their names frequently said it was because they had professional accomplishments for which they were known by their maiden names. A few stressed that they intentionally kept their names because they wanted to keep their own identity, or as one said, she is not her husband's property. A couple kept their maiden names as an act of resistance to the "patriarchy". Some women kept their name because they believed it was unique or because they had some other special attachment to it. Those that kept their names disputed that not changing their name had any significance regarding their commitment to marriage with one poster pointing out that she was still married after 36 years with her own name while many of her divorced friends now had the last name of someone they despised. Some of the posters who kept their name are frustrated that mail is often wrongly addressed to them using their husbands' names, but others don't really care about it. Several posters expressed concern about complications, especially with international travel, caused by having a different last name than their children. Those who kept their name said that there are no additional complications. Some posters argued that it is actually more complicated to change your name. But that too, was disputed, with one poster saying that getting married is the easiest opportunity for a person to change her name and another saying that name changes are easy in any case.

The final thread that I will discuss today was another one posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Republicans; how do you make peace with the volume of lies?", the original poster says that she is an independent who has previously voted for both Democratic and Republican candidates. The original poster is also a former journalist who in the course of her career has fact-checked candidates from both parties. She is astonished by the number of lies that former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump constantly spews. She believes that this makes Trump unfit to govern and she doesn't understand why others don't feel the same way. Very few posters who support Trump actually reply in a substantive manner. The most common responses are that all politicians lie, which may be true but Trump goes way beyond others. Several posters say that they know Trump is a liar and they dislike him for multiple reasons, but they think that he is better on policy issues. In some cases, Trump is seen as the lesser of two evils. More common in this thread are posters who are not Trump supporters trying to explain why Trump supporters ignore his lies. While a number of these responses are glib and don't add much to the conversation, some are thoughtful and substantive. One suggestion is that many Trump supporters don't follow the news closely or know much about politics. They are distrustful of the mainstream media and rely on alternative media sources. As such, they are not aware that Trump is lying as often as he does. Rather than tolerating his lying, they believe that he is telling the truth and that anyone suggesting otherwise is wrong. A couple posters in this thread do argue that Trump is telling the truth, at least as often as any other politician. There are a number of issues that have become so disputed that it is hard to know what is true without considerable research. This is part of the "two realities" about which I have frequently written. There are a litany of issues about which MAGAs believe one thing and others believe the complete opposite. Probably the most common reason for tolerating Trump's lies that is either explicitly stated or at least implied in this thread is a version of "the ends justifies the means". Posters have one or more issues that they view as especially important and they believe that Trump will be better on that issue. They are not only willing to put up with Trump being worse than Vice President Harris on other issues, they will put up with his lies as well. In some cases, entire groups makes this same judgement. As more than one poster pointed out, very religious Christian groups obviously recognize that Trump is not only a liar, but not a religious person and hardly someone who represents Christian values. However, they support him because they believe he will implement their agenda. The conclusion that one gets from reading this thread is that lying doesn't matter. Those who think that Trump's lying is disqualifying probably have a number of other reasons for not voting for him. Even if he was constantly truthful, they still probably wouldn't vote for him. For those who will vote for him, Trump's lying has obviously not been an obstacle. I am not sure that Trump has lost a single vote solely due to lying. Trump believes that he can get away with lying and he appears to be correct.