We want LI to be one of the friendliest places on the internet, where lawyers and law students help each other with their career related queries and occasionally discuss other stuff that might affect their lives too. In other words:
1. Be kind, respectful and helpful to each other.
2. Be bona fide, truthful, genuine and curious.
3. Assume the best intention of others.
Therefore, in using the site, you must agree to do your best to uphold these community guidelines.
Note that what you find here is written and moderated by anonymous people on the internet.
Therefore everything you read here is very likely unverified, rumour, speculation and/or downright false.
In continuing to read anything here, you must therefore agree not to take anything you read here as factual and that you will exercise due caution, diligence and common sense before acting on any information you may come across here.
You also agree to report any inaccurate or malicious comments with the buttons. Moderators take action within 24 hours, as required and appropriate under law.
Our full terms and conditions apply too.
Do you solemnly agree to all of the above?
Note: Hope it increases moreπ
Needs to be banned
Coming from liberals who are supposedly for free speech and they are the sole arbiters of what speech is protected.
This is why Fox News, Piers Morgan, Andrew Tate and the rest thrive. They refuse to kowtow to the mob left that has taken over most aspects of our daily lives, media, schools, colleges and work places.
This is what college students dont get- its not left or right. most people will have a range of views on different policies and will change their minds over their lives. The real contest is the authoritarian extremists and the centrist liberals.
Consider for a second that if you disagree with the leftist rhetoric on israel palestine- maybe its a sign that the right wing folks arent all evil. And maybe you dont actually know what they think about economic or social issues and should open your ears a little bit before apriori deciding they must be hateful.
Economics is different, but on social issues RWers are unquestionably evil.
On social issues, I actually changed my mind on a lot of stuff. I'm still a leftist- but I think the left has blindspots and we tend to buy into a lot of beliefs en masse without engaging with the other side.
I used to think RWers were unquestionably evil. Abortion for example- Left wing rhetoric tells us that all abortion without limitations has to be legal. That a womans right to choose should trump a childs right to life. That in fact a foetus is not a baby at all until it is "born". Its just not logically consistent. I think foetuses are babies when women want the babies. I think all abortion should be legal but there should be strong moral and social proscriptions. It is unquestionably murder. I think some murder is okay. Murder in self defence is okay. When the health care choices are- either the mother lives or the baby does- I think its okay for any person to choose their own life. Abortion should be safe, legal, and in any good society- rare. Thats a very moderate position that I came to when I stopped assuming conservatives are awful evil people who hate women. And I am a woman- just putting that out there.
I dont think RWers are evil for questioning trans stuff. Its easy to dismiss them as "transphobic". But I just dont think many people labelled "transphobic" actually are. Actual research that seeks to help trans identified people shows that dysphoria is real, but it is very uncommon, there is recently a social contagion among young women and kids. There is actually scientific evidence that most dysphoria- when left alone- resolves itself. That when you treat other mental illnesses these people have- the dysphoria goes away. Its often a symptom of other mental illnesses. Even if it doesnt, I dont think having dysphoria means you are actually "born in the wrong body" any more than having anorexia would mean you are actually too fat.
I dont think it is possible for a male bodied person to ever know what it is to be a female bodied person. Men think they know- because they have stereotypes and caricatures of women- the virgin, the whore, the madonna, the mother- but none of that actually encompasses the female experience. And I dont think liking dresses or wanting to be seen as pretty and soft makes you a woman any more than liking maths and being a critical thinker makes you a man. Women and men both are allowed to have personalities that are not typically feminine or masculine- that does not actually change their sex. Gender really is just a shorthand for gendered roles and behaviors and stereotypes- I think all of that is socially made up nonsense that we should do away with. If a male bodied person wants to wear a dress and high heels and call himself helen- fine- free country.
But I do have an issue when they come for womens sex segregated spaces, when schools and universities take the womens bathroom and make it gender neutral it puts women at risk. When Lia thomas gets to win medals in womens competitions- that sets back a womans rights movement that fought to have specific womens competitions. When trans people want to be included within reserved quotas for women- thats not okay with me. When they want to be centred in all conversations about womens struggles- that is not okay with me. Women have the right to be their own political movement and dressing up and pretending to be one for therapeutic reasons doesnt actually mean everyone else has to accept you. And I actually dont think womens interests and interests of trans activists are even aligned. Gender neutral laws about rape and about domestic violence will harm women. Undoubtedly.
When we encourage children to question their "gender identity"- we tell them that their souls have a gender even when their souls dont have any other immutable characteristics- not race not height not weight nothing. Gender identity is a made up religious nonsense which is unfalsifiable. And when we push children to get on puberty blockers and hormone replacement and surgery- we do irreparable harm to these kids. Research actually shows that even social transition- pronouns and such- push children further in with what is a mental disorder. Many kids who may make claims about "actually being" the other sex turn out to be gay later in life- by medicalising them we are sterilising gay kids.
Sex is real, sex matters for how women are treated in society. And nothing- not clownfish or intersex conditions or "enlightened" college goers changing their pronouns to "they" will actually change that. What will change the second bit - how much sex matters- is considering the material reality of womens oppression and tackling that.
I dont think people like vikramaditya sahai should be in charge of making policy for school children. First because this person is undoubtedly extremist, and ill, and amoral in his behavior. Second because if you read the actual policies he proposed- they wreak all manner of misery on young kids in order to validate "transwomen" as an identity group. I dont necessarily think RWers made a very moral case against him a few years ago- they basically tried to shame the man for his very public kinks. ( And maybe men with very public kinks who post vulgar photos of themselves on social media arent the best people to make school policy). But there was a moral impulse there- they saw something that wasnt right even if they didnt articulate it in palatable language for me personally.
Religious stuff- I dont think we should demolish mosques or build more temples. But I do think its worth asking if the reason the muslim community is so left behind economically is because they chain half their population to the home as a matter of culture. If they wont let their kids go to school without wearing a hijab- why is that respectable to anyone in a secular society. That kind of religious dogmatism would be wildly offensive when Hindus do it no? It is to me at least, offensive regardless of which particular religion is doing the oppressing. Why is a uniform civil code a bad idea exactly? Sure we would all like to live in a world where the muslim community reformed itself and enacted fair rules for inheritance and marriage and divorce and maintenance and child custody for its women. But its been a while since independence. How much longer do Muslim women have to suffer under the indignity of unequal laws because the state and larger society is too cowardly to confront the bigotry of middle class muslim imams? The leftist position boils down to- " we take care of our women and they take care of theirs". I thought women were equal citizens and not beholden to their religious group for their rights no? There is clearly a religious extremism problem among both Hindus and Muslims- but it seems to me the left doesnt want to speak about the latter at all. Which is a disservice to groups like women and gay and lesbian people who do need a left to work for them.
Sure- it would be a wonderful thing to wait for kashmir to fully enter the union by their own volition. But again- is that even possible in a state where any opposition party could encourage secessionist tendencies to gain power? And if Shehla Rashid of all people tells me that Kashmir has improved since the abrogation of 370- do I really know enough to disagree with her?
Its easy to assume that people who disagree with you are evil. i used to. But it might just be the case that they have a different moral framework than you do and theyre looking at things in your blindspot- not all of them, but certainly some of them. If you go in assuming theyre evil instead of asking questions- you might not be acting in a rational manner- only in an emotional one. If you want there to be more centrists on college campuses- it might help to try and challenge your own assumptions and engage in good faith conversation that doesnt boil down to " You said a taboo thing so you are evil".
Lefties: but if you think differently you must be unquestionably evil! I wont listen and I will censor you!
Lefties: But where is freedom of speech? Where did civil debate go??
main point being, bad conditions lead to anger. anger needs direction. leaders show that anger a target to be mad at. thus radicalization happens.