There is a difference between someone wearing women's clothes to deceive someone into thinking they are female and someone wearing feminine clothes to conform or not conform. — Andrew4Handel

They seek no gain from making you believe they're a woman. Unless they wish to date you, they can dress as they want, or does just the thought of their dress piss
you off?

A woman is a biological immutable reality with a womb, ovaries and in whom we all grew as babies, not a societal trend. A woman is not a cervix haver or people carrier. It is not an imposition to state biological reality. — Andrew4Handel

But appearances are changeable, and so a man that wants to look like a woman can do that and she can call herself "she" and her friends can do that as well, and you can cross your arms and refuse, and they can call you a dick and you can say "fine," and they can say "fine" back. That's where this goes. I'm just wondering why that's your preference.

I went bald in my mid twenties and have never attempted to rectify that. I was born with undescended testes and then I discovered I only actually had one testicle and that has since went back up inside my body leaving me with an empty scrotum. (I Don't no whether I am infertile). I mainly hung around with girls in primary school/kindergarten and I don't like sport and mechanics or guns. I am hardly a male stereotype or rampant conformist. — Andrew4Handel

Thanks for telling me about your nads. Mine are bold and made of brass. A true sight to behold.

So allowing a man to beat women in swimming is no longer a harm because it increases the overall good feeling in a trans persons brain. It is insane and it is being forced on us. I grew up in a religious cult I am well versed in brainwashing and psychological manipulation. — Andrew4Handel

You are aware it's possible to be supportive of the trans community without supporting trans MtF competing in biological female sports?

And sorry about your cult experience. I'm getting a lot of side info here in not sure what to do with. Maybe harness those feelings of being an outsider and empathize with others who feel ostracized. I'm just asking you appreciate you're attacking not some massive political force trying to command your thoughts, but what you're actually doing is beating up on our most vulnerable and fragile.

Reread the articles and links to the extreme distress people face after having genital mutilation. I can provide loads more links and don't ask me to accept this. Fistulas, adhesions, UTI's arterial bleeds etc — Andrew4Handel

You've read the horror stories and have decided you wouldn't have this surgery done regardless of how you identify. That's a fair call, but not everyone is like you and others choose otherwise. Why do you get to choose for them?

This the only ideology where people are allowed to try and force people into sharing someone else's mental states. — Andrew4Handel

Surely you're not this dense though and you realize that your mental state is not formed a priori. What that means is that there is no pre-societal norm for what constitutes male versus female behavior. That you cut your hair a particular way, wear particular clothes, engage in certain societal roles, and do whatever it is that you think is male oriented behavior is not something that exists outside societal dictates. It is not inherently morally right or wrong to act like a red, white, and blue American girl or boy. It's just a social norm for the here and now.

What this means is that if I live in a society where the social norm is for men to wear pants and not skirts, then that ideology is forced upon me. I am forced to share the mental state of that community. You can't claim a trans person is imposing her beliefs on you anymore than you are trying to force your beliefs on her. All you can say is that the two of you have different world views, neither of which are more moral than the other.

The big difference however between you and the trans person is that your norms dominate society and you've never been asked to consider any views other than your own. Well, today is a new day and your norms are no longer implicitly accepted.

What a happy world it was when everyone thought and acted just like you. The good old days, right?

I think we can draw a distinction between the question of whether transsexuals should be fully respected and embraced in our community and whether the current surgical procedures available to them are efficacious. I would consider rejection of transsexuals based upon moral grounds inappropriate. They, sort of like everyone else here, are people too.

So, the question then seems to hinge upon whether the surgery does what the doctors say it will and whether the recipients are satisfied with their decision. To the extent someone undergoes gender reassignment surgery fully aware of the risks and rewards and they are satisfied with the results, I can't see how anyone would have standing to object.

If you scoff at a man in a mini-skirt and find the visual absurd and laughable, just admit to that bias and stop with the talk about whether this or that cosmetic procedure is or isn't reasonable. The truth is that the acceptability of women in mini-skirts and men not is a social custom of no ethical consequence. The fact that a woman can wear men's slacks and that not be considered degrading, humiliating, or sexually deviant is all social construct and has nothing to do with nature or morality.

This is all to say that unless you have a real moral reason why men must act as traditional men and women as traditional women and all you wish to do is remind us of your adherence to traditional Western mores, then what else do you have to add to this conversation other than telling us of the obvious complications that accompany various surgical procedures?

That would seem to make them "holy" not because of what they are, but because of how they came to be interpreted centuries after they were written by people in different circumstances under different influence. — Ciceronianus

From what I gather, the term "holy" is incoherent to you in any other sense though.

That is, if holy only means that which is consecrated by God, and you reject such a thing can occur, then we must define the term how we use it.

I'm actually an admirer of the Rebbe and the Lubavitch movement, especially their positivity doctrines (tracht gut vet zein gut!). For a hasidic sect, they are vey welcoming, which is a very different case with some others. I do think it's unfortunate that a small number within that community have gone down that path and declared the Rebbe the Messiah. It detracts from the real message, but this is a thread about Jesus, so I won't annoy anyone here with the teachings of the good Rebbe, but I do think it is in his spirit to portray events in their most positive light.

I think it is an open question if when Maimonides denied the physicality of God and interpreted all physical aspects of the divine, whether this elevated the status of the "holy" or whether something primitive and fundamental was lost. That as a result we became something less human. That in the process we literally lost touch. What it meant to be made in God's image made us strangers to both what it means to be human and to be a god. The sacred was diminished when the tangible and immediate experience of being alive were downplayed in favor of an imagined transcendence. — Fooloso4

I think the evolution of the religion required a move towards the incorporeal. There are just too many theological problems with positing an actual location of God. Interestingly though, the Mormons believe in a corporeal anthropomorphic god, so if you actually do think there was a loss with this theological change, there are still religions out there for you.

Critical to religion holding value is personal acceptance of the tenants and I don't think many of the modern mindset could actually actually accept the ancient perspectives of God.

The problem is that the more one disregards them, or interprets them, or treat them as metaphorical, the less "holy" they seem to be. — Ciceronianus

But what you say hasn't been borne out. What has happened is the opposite, which is that the more they've been interpreted, the more they've been venerated. Jewish interpretation of the Torah has been imaginative for thousands of years and it continues to define a culture.

Take a look at the midrash, if you're interested: https://jewishcurrents.org/midrash-the-stories-we-tell/

It's a lawyer's nightmare to be sure, where documents that talk about snakes and gardens are later learned to actually be foretelling of the rising of Christ thousands of years later. What cures this problem is that the interpreters are a select group and what they say perseveres. It's not terribly different from Constitutional analysis and how we treat that document as sacred, but we've long passed worrying about only the words in that document.

We say what we say and then we link it back to a divine command from some sacred ancient past writing for a mark of legitimacy. I don't find that troubling. Anchors keep us from drifting out at sea.

The emperor wears no clothes, but the truth is there was never such an actual naked emperor, so even that time honored saying isn't rooted in reality.

This thread seems to have taken on a life of its own, and I think the theme you mention has become a part of it. But when I commenced it, I was noting what I felt to be the fact that sophisticated Christian apologists, theologians, or philosophers, though they include Jesus in their thought and work, do so in a way which I think ignores or is sometimes contrary to the Jesus depicted in Scripture--what he supposedly did and said. I wondered why, in that case, they included him in their work, and by implication whether their philosophy or theology should be considered "Christian," or whether it really isn't Christian at all, or only nominally so. — Ciceronianus

If one takes a minimalist approach to the historical accuracy of scripture, believing the aim of the work is predominately theological, then the details of the literature become of less relevance. That is, if one admits (and many do) that the facts and details of the works are only mechanisms to make points, then objections as to historical or factual inconsistency become irrelevant.

By way of example, the books of Judges following Deuteronomy tell of all sorts of historical details, describing Saul, David, and Solomon and all sorts of wars they engaged in. What is attributed to those extremely failed characters is inconsistent with who they appear on the pages, but from a thematic perspective you can summarize their tales as examples of divine justice being imposed on the sinners and success being bestowed on the believers. It's a theological book about justice and divine intervention onto the world, not a historical work of any significance, clearly spun to present a desired narrative.

So, if you're looking for factual truth in the Scripture, or even of a search for factual truth among the apologists and theologians, you're looking for something the religiously motivated are not looking for. They are looking only for the themes and theology and they too are spinning those narratives in a way that makes them applicable to today's world.

Why they chose the Bible as their mechanism for such mental gymnastics likely has a historical basis, but I'd argue their odd enterprise has been successful in finding meaning in the world.

It's frequently referred to as the Jesus cult.
— frank

What are your sources of religious scholarship that inform what you imagine to be your superior knowledge? — Fooloso4

Just to be sure you guys aren't talking around each other, there are two meanings of the term "cult" in the religious context. The first is one where we talk about an overly abusive religious leader who takes advantage of his adherents like a Charles Manson or David Koresh.

The second occurs in the context of religious scholarship and it is not pejorative. It refers to the rituals, prayers, sacrifices, and construction of monuments within a religious context. The cult of Yahweh for the ancient Jews would include their method of prayer, sacrifice, and building of temples.

This is the type of assumption I’m critiquing. It just doesn’t make sense. — Noble Dust

Read this: https://jergames.blogspot.com/2008/07/four-assumptions-created-bible-lecture.html

Modern day literalism is very much a product of our scientific mindset. We record data accurately and it makes no difference whether there is any underlying meaning to what we report. If we were artists, we'd be realists. Our ancient ancestors were not such realists. They were overwhelmed creatures trying to figure out how the world worked.

Taking folklore literally is the great failing of fundamentalism, which is a modern invention. Only in today's world where ancient folklore gets confused for modern science would people actually go out and look for the remnants of Noah's Ark.

Speaking of which, how could the authors of the ancient texts have taken the text literally when it is entirely inconsistent, consisting of two entirely separate stories?

The BBC host for this story was very excited that "a man could bear a child." — Bitter Crank

How did the baby navigate the penile canal?

What does this mean? This is the kind of thing I'm talking about in this thread. — Noble Dust

There are different perspectives one can assume when interpreting these stories. I'm not as well versed in the NT as the OT, but take the Adam and Eve story. To the traditionalist (a believer in the holiness of the text), it tells us (if Christian) all sorts of hidden truths and even contains the need for Jesus, who will die for our original sin and find us a path to heaven. To the modern religious scholar, he likely sees a patchwork of texts sewn together from an ancient culture that says nothing about Jesus, The Fall of Man, or many of the other things we've read into the story. You then have this odd breed of fundamentalists, a modern group likely reacting to scientific progress, who insist that the story is about literal snakes and magic apples that existed at a certain spot on the planet and they go out looking for evidence of it. They refuse to yield the floor to science and double down on their literal claims.

I think the best interpretation of Genesis is that it was understood by the ancients as etiological folklore, offering an explanation for where the world came from, why men paired up with women, why snakes had no feet, why people have to work so damn hard and things like that.

I think the worst way to interpret it is as if to pretend it were written today and then impose our views on it. The written word back then and all the stories they told were doubtfully for the same reasons we use them today, which is to accurately document and archive information for the public record. These folks were trying to figure out how their world worked and they came up with all sorts of fantistical tales, none of which they really took literally. If they meant for them to be taken literally, they wouldn't have had multiple different stories describing the same events.

Man. Wtf? I felt awkward reading this. It was a damn strange post. — dimosthenis9

Tnx!

How about just posting the solution at this point so that we can see if the solution provided is truly the only answer entailed by the question?

I've refused to solve it, so I've solved it, just like everyone else who hasn't participated.

I've typed no characters to solve this, there are therefore zero characters I've type in response to it, and there wasn't a first character in my non-response.

To those who say my refusal to respond is a response, I say I'm not responding, but I'm just talking about stuff that I'm thinking about and not trying to solve this puzzle.

Mine is a good response, but not the response anyone was looking for, so there's that problem of course.

But the inference of Purpose is a debatable opinion. Simple erratic causation, like billiard balls bouncing around due to an earthquake is clearly accidental. But when those balls go straight into pockets, we may reasonably look around to see where the impetus came from. In the game of pool, the Prime Cause of that progression is obvious : the man with a stick, and a smile or frown on his face. — Gnomon

And what does this mundane pool analogy tell of the eternal? It tells us God is of limited intellect, he too was created, and he engages in meaningless play, doing those things he chooses to pass the day away.

The telological argument can at best tell us that those complex events around us were created by something, but it says nothing about the origins of existence, omniscient creators, or of the purpose of our existence.

Our creator could just be an average dude hitting balls into pockets for no deeper reason than he's bored, passing the time waiting for his father to pick him up for soccer practice.

Schizophrenics have real delusions so are you going to affirm a paranoid schizophrenics delusion that they are being hunted by the mafia because it is a firmly held belief? — Andrew4Handel

Since I have never been deluded into thinking that MtF transsexuals believe they were born with vaginas and that they are actually biological females, helplessly wondering why others don't share their delusion, I can't respond to any of your nonsense.

They view gender as a mental designation. That you use the term differently is obvious, but your attempt to impose your usage on them and then to suggest they must mean what you mean when you use the term is an absurd equivocation fallacy.

If I call dogs "cats," that doesn't mean I think dogs meow. The question becomes what the user of the word wishes to convey with its usage.

Go, Dog. Go!

If the black woman nominee isn't confirmed, has Biden lived up to his pledge or must he continue presenting only black women to the Senate? Would there be any point where a supporter of the diversity pledge might balk and say enough is enough or does the applicant pool remain as previously promised until one is approved?

There is a certain absurdity here, but I'm used to it. A couple things I do know: just because you're a black woman doesn't make you a liberal and the appointment of a black woman isn't going to remedy a whole lot of anything.

What the left needs is someone consistently left if they want to counter those consistently right.

Not just a "male" thing to talk about but one that screams lacking game. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

But I respect the man who realizes his limitations and builds himself his own special lady out of odds and ends around the garage.

I wonder if women sit around and think about androids satisfying their basic emotional and sexual needs. It sure feels like a male thing to talk about.

I’m a gay male. Plenty of men tried to teach me to throw like a guy. I spent hours trying to teach myself. I was desperate to get rid of such ‘feminine’ traits but it worked out about as well as that John Wayne scene from La Cage Aux Folles. — Joshs

I'm not going to insist you have some hidden throwing talent, and I'll accept you are a particularly terrible athlete, but I did have the task of coaching little league, and we used the (1) Point, (2) Step, (3) Throw method to some success. I also watched the girls play softball, and they definitely could throw.

At any rate, let give this one more go.

So stand up and let's do this. Assuming you're right handed, put a crumpled up piece of paper in your right hand. Square your shoulders with your feet squared underneath with your arms hanging by your side. Now, extend your left arm as if pointing forward directly at the wall with your left index finger pointed forward at the wall. Now step very far forward with your left foot forward, stepping so far that your left knee bends and your right leg is dragged forward and your right shoulder is angled back.

You're now going to spring forward and unravel that tightly spun up manly body of yours and use that pent up energy to propel the ball crushing through the wall.

Now take your right hand and bring it in a circular motion back and then make it pass just above your ear. This part is important! Move it above your ear. If you come in low, you're going to flip your elbow and look, well, like a girl.

Release the paper when the right arm is almost fully extended. Release too early and the paper is going to arc up toward the ceiling, and you'll look like, well, a girl. Release too late and it'll go straight to the ground, and you'll look, well, like a girl.

And this part is important, when you release the paper, growl like an angry tiger, look at the damage you did to the room, and then do a victory pirouette.

Please refer to me as King Andrew now or just your majesty because that is how I prefer to be referred to. I also am a real monarch because that is what my brain is telling me. I can't be wrong about my own intuitions. — Andrew4Handel

This is an equivocation fallacy.

The reason I won't call you "king" is that you don't think yourself a king. Transsexuals are not confused as to what their biology is or in what distinguishes them from other people. There is no delusionary thinking and there is no confusion. They are simply using a word to designate themselves with a full understanding of who they actually are.

So, when a biologically born male who is now presenting as a female uses the pronoun "she," she is not then saying she was born a female. She is using the term for one thing and you for another and then you attempt to use your term on her, thus the equivocation fallacy I've pointed out. Her pronoun use doesn't have ontological impact.

That is, if you called yourself "king" because you used that term to describe being the first born in your family, I could not declare you a liar because you aren't a monarch. You never intended the term to be used that way and didn't try to trick anyone into thinking you were actually a king.

Logic schmlogic though. You have a bone to pick with the transsexuals, so go forth and ridicule them and tell them you must be a sheepdog because you feel it in your heart and soul and so you demand to be called Fido.

Let’s say he would list these behaviors as including speaking with a lisp, walking and growing a ball like a girl, playing with dolls instead of toy soldiers and guns. — Joshs

Girls throw like girls because no one ever taught them to step with the opposite leg as the throwing arm. It's a simple correction they teach all little boys in little league. I would doubt it's a mistake any girl who played softball would ever make. The whole stepping and twisting motion that goes into a throw is something that is taught, but not something in the gene pool.

It's also something I notice in many Europeans how poorly many of them throw, constantly trying to use their feet to knock down balls as if playing soccer.

He said himself he was fine before he went on puberty blockers. Jazz has also said he thinks he'll never have an orgasm and he knows the surgeries have prevented him from creating children. — Andrew4Handel

Does she say she's fine now and that she wishes she would have never gone down the road she chose? That seems to be the real question, not whether you regret her decisions for her.

By the way it is a lie to call a biological male a woman. Pronouns are intended to reflect some semblance of reality. — Andrew4Handel

The proper referent to a pronoun is however people use it. That's how language works. I use "her" to denote people who wish to be recognized as female. You use "him" as a bludgeon to remind men who wish to present as women that they're full of shit. Different strokes for different folks I guess. I like my way, but you be you.

I mentioned Jazz Jennings earlier whose penis was shrunk by puberty blockers and they needed to do several surgeries with lots of complications to try and turn it into a pseudo vagina because they usually do the surgery on fully developed males — Andrew4Handel

So, all things considered, you wouldn't have done as Jazz did because she's had complications from her surgery that you consider worse than the advantages she gained from the surgery. Why is your assessment of any value to Jazz? If she believes all the surgeries she's been through are worth it and she's happier as the result, why should your concerns be her concerns?

Arguably, this shared privacy is important to many people for a general sense of safety. — baker

But there are gay people who I am sure would love to jump on top of me and have their way with me while I'm standing at the urinal, but I have no way of distinguishing the gay from the straight, so I stand there vulnerable, hoping to have uneventful toilet experience.

Whatever will they do for me?

The general trend has been to create bathrooms only with stalls or to provide a separate bathroom that can be accessed only one person at a time. That seems a reasonable accommodation. It's pretty rare in any event for rapes and sexual assaults to take place between transsexuals and CIS males in public restrooms. Maybe it's a thing where you live I don't know.

My point here is that all the concerns for safety and whatever other issues you wish to throw out seem pretextual, meaning I really don't think you have these concerns as much as you have a desire not to accommodate people who you believe are irrational and cuckoo.

Female genital mutilation is considered a a horror when it happens in Africa but in the west it is now seen as gender reaffirming surgery and the version in the west causes a woman to be come infertile, have an increased of dementia and heartache, lead to complications such as fistulas, adhesions, arterial bleeds. I think people like you in history will be see on the wrong side and accomplices to grievous harm for reasons only you can fathom. — Andrew4Handel

The question is one of consent, with children being unable to consent to having their genitals removed and adults being able to consent. The distinction between consent and no consent is not subtle, but it is what distinguishes rape from a loving interaction as one example.

Another critical part of consent in the medical context is the information you have available to you, which is why it is often referred to as informed consent. As long as the person understands the various risks you've presented, the decision is then up to him or her to decide how to act. It does seem ethically improper to have you at their decision making table.

More complicated questions arise in the female genital mutilation among adult women to the extent that occurs at a later age. The question that needs to be addressed in those cases is whether the decision is truly with consent or whether it is being forced upon them. It is also important that the woman accurately be informed of the consequences and that she be provided accurate information regarding whether the surgery truly makes one more pure, or whatever its goal is.

To the extent you are arguing that no rational person could ever choose sexual reassignment surgery and that it is per se evidence of mental illness and lack of capacity, I think you have an uphill battle. You'll need to show something more than that you personally find it nuts.

I'm curious why even the most "philosophical" of Christian theologians (e.g. Teilhard de Chardin, Barth) include Jesus in their theology. The Jesus they refer to is some nebulous kind of love or spirit or force necessary in some sense to creation and humanity and the universe, and is something that just doesn't seem to be the Jesus described in the Gospels, the Acts, or even by Paul at his most mystic and mysterious. — Ciceronianus

There are at least two ways to interpret Scripture. (1) The traditional way of the theists or (2) the contextualized way of the university professor or modern biblical scholar.

The traditional method makes certain assumptions:

1. The texts are cryptic and symbolic
2. The texts are prophetic and homiletic
3. The texts are consistent
4. The texts are divinely inspired/given

All of this is from Kugel's "How to Read the Bible."

https://jergames.blogspot.com/2008/07/four-assumptions-created-bible-lecture.html

So, the reason a traditional theistic reader obtains such unusual results from scripture (whether it be through the midrashim of the Jew or the exegesis of the Christian) is because their fundamental assumptions vary greatly from your own.

There's this judge where I live who was up for re-election and a gay man was running against him, so the judge held a press conference, with his arm around his wife and his two children by his side, and announced he was bisexual. Perhaps that was to keep the gay man from having a bloc of voters to challenge him so as to divide the vote. I do believe him though that he is actually bisexual.

My thoughts were that I didn't like the timing, as it seemed to be for political reasons, but I was also a bit confused by the monogamy issues that were challenged by the announcement before the wife and the children being a part of dad declaring how he enjoys sex.

I also don't think of bisexuality as an identity issue, but more just something you prefer, although maybe I'm wrong to view it this way. I compare it to a woman proclaiming how much more she enjoys the touch of a vibrator over a man, which likely does describe some women, but it's not really something I need to know and not really something I think affects someone's identity.

A part of it to me is that I don't think how you perform sex acts or who you perform them with is so integral to the person that it ought be who we think that person is. Unless I'm going to be having sex that person, it seems pretty irrelevant whether the person is gay, straight, or anywhere else on the spectrum.

Saying that the Holocaust was not about racism, but man's inhumanity to man, is a relatively 'weak' statement, but not false. — Bitter Crank

A better worded statement from her would have been to say the Holocaust was not only about race, but it was also about man's inhumanity to man and a warning to all who might one day find themselves in the crosshairs.

But that isn't what she said, and so the fallout. It was about race and it is also about many other things.

My own opinion is that I will continue my de facto boycott of The View that has been going strong ever since the show first aired.

I'm guessing you're in one of the safest areas on Atlanta's crime map? — Down The Rabbit Hole

It's just that there a whole lot of gun related deaths in fairly small pockets, so dividing by counties, city limits, ZIP codes, or whatever arbitrary method is only going to reveal statistics for the generalized area, but residents of those communities are aware of the actual areas where those crimes are occurring.

In terms of correlating gun ownership to murder, I don't know if the data will bear that out because of the large gun ownership in more rural communities where the murder rate is low. That is, you won't necessarily see murder increase where gun ownership increases. It's an obvious statement to say that if we eliminate guns, we'll eliminate gun related deaths, but it doesn't necessarily follow that if we reduce gun ownership, we'll reduce gun related deaths. There are and always will be plenty of guns to go around for those intent on murdering. Stricter gun laws are a feel good way of addressing the problem, and it serves also for the left to piss off the right, but, as a matter of effective policy, it's not terribly effective.

Thanks. I'll take a look. — T Clark

As in, you'll look at the book, but not necessarily read it. Instead of saying, "I didn't read the book, I saw the movie," you're saying, "I saw the book, not the movie."

Besides being insightful, by which I mean he see's things in a way similar to me, the book also fulfills my primary requirement for a philosophical work - it's short. — T Clark

The book you're referencing is 350 pages, so it's not exactly short. There is a book on Amazon claiming to be Collingwood's "The Principles of Art," but it's actually a 20 or so page abridged version.

You've still got 330 pages to go.

I'd say - the stats for Atlanta show 20.2 murders per 100,000 people (more than 12 times that of London). Guns were used in 82% of the homicides. — Down The Rabbit Hole

And yet no one I know has ever known a person who was murdered, much less who was shot. What do you make of that? 55 years in this crime ridden city, and never even been pickpocketed.

The gun laws are the same, or essentially the same, throughout the United States? — Down The Rabbit Hole

They are essentially the same throughout, some with more stringent rules than others, but all limited by the same Constitution as to how they may be regulated.. In my comment, though, I wasn't even leaving my specific jurisdiction. The murder rate among those I associate with (or have associated with) is zero. There are those within my state and my county that have had drastically different experiences though. I really can't recall seeing anyone openly carrying a firearm in a public place ever (other than a police officer). I do know that in certain more rural communities that may occur, but not so much around me.

And it's not that I live in walled community or among the rich and famous. I live in middle class suburban Atlanta.

Believe it or not, but I live in the US among many gun fanatics, and I have never known a person who was murdered. We can divide cultures and societies in many arbitrary ways. One of those are by political systems, which the OP does, by asking why things are the way they are in the US as a whole. If you divided it in other ways , as in those who I associate with, the murder rate is zero.

The question then is why is the murder rate where I reside is as low as Sweden's, but not too far from me, it's very different, despite the fact that we live in the same country under the same laws? I'm not the first to point out that there are two Americas, but it's probably like 5 or 6 or maybe more.

Don't misread anything I've said here to be some fucked up comment about violence being caused by race. It's not. My comments relate to class and the causes of the classist system.

Are you free to act against your own will? — Banno

This wording implicates a dualism even too dualistic for me.

"You" and "your will" are identical.

And no, I didn't read your article. I chose not to. My will chose not to. It's all the same. Can my will do other than it did? Yes, unless it's not a free will.

It seems simple enough to me, but maybe I gloss over some details. Putin wishes to weaken American influence on former Soviet states because he believes them to be rightly under Russian control and he blames US policy on the destruction of the formerly great Soviet superpower. Any suggestion that the US will tighten its grip on the Ukraine, especially by protecting it under NATO, therefore would be further insult to Russia.

The more the US asserts control, the more Russia must assert control. Neither want war, but that's where the tug of war ends up without some diplomatic solution. The Ukraine has been staring down the barrel of the Russian gun long before today.

It doesn't help that Biden is facing a credibility crisis of his own and that his party is floundering, so he must find a way to look bold and maybe do something desperate.

Who performs those FGM procedures? Who arranges for everything pertaining to it? Mostly men, or mostly women? — baker

Who asks questions they know the answers to?