In a little stable, not far from Jerusalem a baby boy was born on the eve of midwinter to the family of a humble carpenter. The parents of the newborn boy headed for the border of Egypt to seek sanctuary and shelter, because in those days many, many children were killed by the soldiers of Israel, at the behest of their ruler. The escape attempt, however, came to no avail, for the border was closed. As were all other routs, that would have saved the little family. There they remained at the mercy of a raging enemy, who were so indiscriminate in their vengefull killing spree to destroy a vile enemy, that they even killed their own unarmed civillians who had been held hostage by their enemies.
Unlike most of their neighbours, this family of our story was Christian, but did the Christians of the world come to their aid? No, most of them were all too busy building fences to stop anyone in need of help from getting into their countries, because that was what Jesus really meant, when he told his followers to sell all their property and give the money to the poor.
For years this family had suffered abuse and exploitation, as their grandparent’s olive trees were cut down by a bunch of squatters and their house was raised to ground. Now in the rubble of their home town, that had first been turned into a ghetto and a prison, it was finally over. God had given the ancestral land of this small family, to some chosen people who had been promised it thousands of years ago in a book.
Have a nice yule tide, happy hanukkah, merry christmas, saturnalia, joyous bobunk, quanza, or what ever!
The Dutch have a saying, that translates to something like; it was the Finns again. Well, the “immigration critical” Dutch do. What they mean, is that as news of disturbance, or crime rarely tells us the ethnicity of purpetrators, they think it is a good guess they were not of “white” European descendant and Finns have been selected to be the model of these sort of unharmfull foreigners, as opposed to foreigners who one can recognize from among ethnic locals in the Netherlands as per the perplexion. This is an attempt to be sarcastic, but it fails totally, because they assume – as is typical for racists – that the Finns, based on their skin colour, are strangers to crime and disturbance.
The reason why Swedish “immigration criticals” have not adopted this Dutch catch phrace is, that it is not very good sarcasm at all, because it was actually used in Sweden in racistc context just few decades ago on the headlines of newspapers. “En Finne Igen!” Or “A Finn Once Again!” It messes up the narrative of one being able to recognize evildoers by the colour of their skin. Wich is about the most stupid – altough freightfully common – assumption.
The Finns were cheap labour immigrants for decades in the late 20th century Sweden. Many were lonely young men, who carried knives, as a continuation of the range roaming culture of their home and as protection from the locals angry at them for taking their jobs, women, benefits, or simply being an outsider and seemingly vulnerable (as there are always people who get satisfaction from attacking easy targets). The Finns often had limited language skills and a culture of heavy drinking (inherited from their fathers who had no other means of medicating their generational war traumas). These men did not move to Sweden because they really wanted, but because farming all the smallest farmsteads in Finland was slowly becoming economically impossible and because of both the post war baby boom and increased healthcare created far too many candidates to inherit the farms. In addition Finland had lost a major part of arable land in the war, so even as it is a scarcely populated country, there was over population, while Sweden had survived WWII virtually untouched. On the contrary, they had profited by selling steel to the Nazi warmachine. They had no idea what was wrong with the Finns and simply thought it was the fact that they are Finns and then expanded from a few misdeeds, that all Finns are dangerous knife weilding drunkards. It seemed like an obvious conclusion, because at point there were more Finns in Swedish prisons, than there were Swedes. This sort of storytelling appeals to people because it satisfies all fears and prejudices of strangers and offers a sensation of safety in a method of recognizing threats. It also paints a picture of the target group to be morally inferior, wich not only makes some people feel better about themselves, but excuses any exploitation towards the other group of people in the labour markets. The blame of increased crime can also be assigned to the origin of the newcomers instead of recognizing the real reasons, like increased economical division and outright poverty within society, or segragation of the immigrants to make them feel as outsiders for even generations to come.
Finns have been racially judged before. The USA had immigration policy, that was meant to favour “white” protestants. These were seen as better people, than anybody from the rest of the world. Finns, of course fit both of these definitions perfectly. However, they had many faulties in the eyes of the people, who had made up these preferances. Many Finnish immigrants to North-America were, once again the sort of lonely men as described abowe. When not, they were eager to organize workers unions. Wich was nothing short of Communism for their employers, wich after the Finnish civil war lost by Communists in 1918 was also true, as many on the losing side immigrated all over the world. So, to get rid of these troublesome people a reason was needed and of course it had to be their origin, thus they were deemed not “white”. It seems ridiculous, as Finns in general are tall blonds with blue eyes, but they were defined as mongols. The “evidence” for this racialition was found among things, like Finnish craniums being generally wider than those of the Germanic languages speaking nations. Not unlike the Nazies found Communism to be Jewish, when they needed to tell each other what was wrong with one or the other Communists had the fault of being Jews and Jews had the fault of being Communists, never mind the reality. The mind of the racist is increadibly flexible to fit the reality to that one fantasy they have.
Even in Canada there were signs outside bars, that banned entry from “Indians and Finns”. Initially the Nazies defined Finns among the indiginous or “Turan” peoples of Europe, that meant they were not “Aryan” conquerors, but “untermench”, subhuman. When the Finns fought hard in the Winter War against the Soviets and the Nazies needed allies on their “Manifest Destiny” of the conquest of Soviet Union, suddenly their view on Finns changed to fit that ridiculous aim. Now the Finns were seen as a mixed race of both Germanic and Turanian origin, but being led by Germanic Swedish speaking Finns. The Finns played along. Beaty contests were held and athletes sent to international sports events to prove that the Finns were, if not exactly Aryan, at least worthy of them. But they could not get rid of the too high cheek bones and wide craniums.
As the WWII drew to an end Finns could not stand the pressure of the Red Army and the German “superhuman” military was all but spent, the Finns turned coats and backstabbed their erstwhile helpers. After the war it became open for all to see what the logical consequences of racism are, as the concentration camps were revealed in the Nazi occupied territories. Further more, the lie about the Germanic super-race was inflated. The Colonial powers and their racist systems of exploitation became under suspect, as they could not be defended by other arguments, as those the Germans had used to justify their conquest of other countries. But even if civil liberties movement won great victories in the USA and the Colonial Empires crumbled, racism did not die out…
Even today it raises it’s ugly head, as it appeals to the stupid and morally challenged. It promises these, who have nothing to show for themselves, but who have grown up in a competetive culture, how they are supposedly more deserving, than some others, conviniently by fiat of being born to some particular group of people. As this is appealing to the downtrotten nitwit and to the priviledged nincompoop alike, it is an opportunity too good not to be exploited by the populist politician. Who then either flirts with it, or goes head on with it and in both cases moves the goal posts of the society just a little bit further towards Fascism. In reality this benefits nobody. Because, even if the populist politician gains power and their followers feel their prejudices becoming somehow more justified, what they have created is a less egalitarian and by far less safe society and they have released a value base in wich anyone may become the subject of racist violence. Just as the Finns could be defined lesser and not “white” enough, so could you.
The Finnish capital Helsinki has recieved a display of a Russian destroyed tank on one of the central squares. It is said to be one of the T-72 tanks stopped by the Ukranians last year during the early days of the Russian “special operation” near Kiev. RIA Novosti, the official Russian goverment endorced news channel has reported, that Finns are spontaneously placing flowers and candles at the wreckage to commemorate the Russian soldiers who died inside. The spokesperson of the Friends of Ukraine society, that brought the wreck from Estonian capital Tallin, to remind the Finns of the ongoing war, said the Russian speaking social media in Finland has been telling people to bring flowers to the tank, but that the society and Ukrainan refugees have been busy cleaning them away. Russian goverment gave a diplomatic note to the Finnish government for allowing this hatefull display.
Likely the Finnish government had nothing to do with the incident. It is the city officials who allowed this. I am guessing because they were affraid of the potential bad publicity and rage in social media, if they had disallowed it, or simply because the descision was over their capabilities to evaluate reprecussions. In free countries public displays and demonstrations are generally allowed, if they do not cause exessive disturbance, or have an illegal hatefull message. So, it is possible there was nothing anybody could do to stop the tank being set up. Possibly everybody involved thought, that the message it sends is important and fair.
When I served in the Finnish military our pool of main battle tanks consisted of the T-72 tanks. I rode one of them myself on occasion and I knew some of the boys who rode those magnificent beasts. Now, if they had died in combat within their chariot and their death trap was put on display in some city square, I would find that enormously hurtfull, but not at all discouraging of fighting the people who did that. On the contrary, it would anger me.
We do not know, if the Russian soldiers who died inside the tank were willing participants in the criminal attack. Most likely they did not even know they were going to join such an atack before their orders came through. They were propably just serving their country in good faith and they were betrayed by their leaders. They are to be counted among the victims of this mad war and the victims of Putin, the real criminal behind this atrocity. The display of their tank is not far removed from dragging their bodies through a city for the mob to vent anger and fear on them. It is barbaric.
I support Ukraine in their struggle and I think our government should do more, even if it meant depleting some of our stored artillery ammo, despite the fact, that we are a nation bordering Russia. Russian army is busy and has it’s hands full in Ukraine – and we should keep it that way, for our own sakes, for the sake of Ukraine and for the sake of democracy and peace everywhere. Better yet, we should give the Ukrainean forces a fighting chance to beat our common enemy, because Fascism and attacks on other sovereign nations must be repelled, or the greedy evil of this world will see no end to their ambitions to further their interrests at the cost of the freedom of others. That said, I do not think it was ever the Finns, or the Estonians, of all nations that needed to be reminded about the war. We have been living in the shadow of Mordor for generations. To me the tank wreckage was not only an unnecessary and distasteful presentation, but potentially a harmfull display of hate and bitterness. The Russian government building their propaganda image of the West, Estonia and Finland as the enemies of Russia and Russian people are the only winners in this macabre display.
The newly appointed minister of interior Mari Rantanen here in Finland told, that the “moral posing” is going to stop now that our annual refugees quota of 1000 asylum seekers is about to be halved down to 500. I wonder what she meant? The concept seems to be thrown around these days and it is like the people using it have not understood themselves what they are on about. For example our minister here, if she thought her predesessors were merely posing at virtue by allowing a 1000 asylum seekers – as was implied in the rest of her speech – then how does halving the number end the posing? Posing alludes to those predesessors being not at all interrested in helping anyone, merely playacting a virtuous behaviour. How could she possibly know the inner motivations of them? On the other hand, if she really thinks the 1000 people were not really helped, only used for posing, then how are the 500 going to be helped? It is more like the 1000 were taken – from a genuine enough – will to help, while the 500 are going to be taken in just for posing purposes and not out of any will to help. So, “moral posing” is not about to stop, rather begin.
Perhaps she got mixed up in her words – new as she is to her position? I must admit, I doubt that. I think it more likely, she just parroted a clever sounding concept to her voters, who have gotten used to such hatefull messages within their right-wing social circles (where people are not seen as equal, but the rich are seen as “deserving” more, and the asulym seekers as troublemakers and somehow the ignoramuses impressed by such jargon feel entiteled by loath being spewn at immigrants, gays, or whomever). In those social circless where these populist leaders are never challenged, as they serve fear, hate and biases to the stupid and ignorant of the land, who would not know morals, if it kicked them in the butt. Now she is a minister and the media should not let her off as easily, yet we already know how that plays out. If she is ever held accountable for her words, she may play the victim and complain, that the “mainstream media” is harassing her.
It is interresting how this sort of terminology has hit the mark in politics. Apparently there is a voter base who are annoyed by other people and politicians especially presenting any sort of moral behaviour and find it easier to simply label it as “posing”. Is it out of some sort of inferiority complex from not really being able to know what exactly is moral? Such comments and use of terminology as by the brand new minister are, however quite revealing. If you have doubts, for not having heard the entire speech (for I do not intend to translate such garbage), consider the fact, that she also singled out Christians from Syria and said they are still wellcome. I wellcome them also, but to me it appears as some sort of moralist posing to say people are wellcome, while at the same time making it harder for them.
Is “moral posing” not what we used to call setting an example? Certainly it appears like that in most, if not all, cases when people have been accused of it.
I probably should not talk about this because I am a middle-aged, flesh-eating, white male, but I have an opinion.
One thing, that we need to get clear first, is that nobody – absolutely nobody – is advocating for more abortions. The real issue here is, how to reduce them. Wether you think human rights should be appointed at the point of conception, or at birth the fact, that in societies where abortion is illegal more abortions do take place and they are often more dangerous to the woman, especially if they are poor, than in societies where abortion is legal. It should therefore be obvious, that simply banning them is not a good way to reduce them.
Nowhere is this discussion as heated as in the USA. I guess it is because no other country with secular constitution has as much religiously minded voters. Their sincerely held religious beliefs have been turned into a populist political tool dangled before them to provoke emotional, rather than rational reaction. It is an effective way to sway, misdirect and abuse voters in that it involves the sanctity of life, innocent and helpless subject to violence, the identity of the religious person as part of the group from wich they get their values and a problem that in real life there are no easy answers to, but to the ignorant and emotionally involved one can be seemingly presented.
The Supreme Court of USA decided a while ago to overturn the Roe vs. Wade descision in order to let the states to decide wether or not abortion should be legal. My opinion is, that thus the US Supreme Court has acted in contempt of their own constitution by enabling the states to impose the religious beliefs of some on others.
The idea that the soul begins at the moment of conception – true or false – is a religiously held belief. There is no evidence, that can back it up. Infact, there is no evidence of a soul existing at all. There is no organ, that holds this magical essence of a human being. Exept perhaps the brain, where other such imaginary things reside. One can use the word to poetically describe the persona of an individual, but let us not be hypocritical and claim that is the way state legistlators and their voters who wish to ban abortion see the issue. They are motivated precisely by superstition & their religious moralist beliefs, not by anything else. Hardly anything demonstrates this better, than the fact, that in this day and age of easy access to information, these legistlative bodies have decided to ignore all the research and facts about the issue. Facts, like the one that abortions are not actually much reduced by bans. They simply become more unhealthy and down right dangerous. Facts, like that abortions are reduced by sex education and easy access to free contraception. These matter not, as if the goal was not to reduce abortions, but simply punish the women who need one. They all need it to ask for one. Nobody, absolutely nobody has an abortion just because it is such a thrill. If anyone ever did, they would actually need it more than any other, as it would indicate them as even more unprepared for parenthood, than all the others who feel they need to go through it.
You simply can not make people to become more able parents by punishing them for having had sex. If you are under such a blatant misunderstanding, perhaps it would be best for the sake of any possible kids, you would reconsider becoming a parent your self?
Both the religious moralist motivation and the demand that a woman should sacrifice her body to sustain the developing embryo, claimed to supposedly hold same rights as a fully developed human individual – even if that were true and equal – are against everything the US constitution stands for.
The USA s just a nother country, albeit a fairly big one. I fear for the rest of the world. The USA has shown an example of the success of liberal policies. If this emotional and divisive issue continues to divert political power to other fascist agenda there, it may yet again become an issue in the rest of the world and good willing people all over the globe may become vessels for this stupidity. We have already seen it happen in the heart of Europe, in Poland. The attitudes of the world population stand in danger of hardening in so many issues, not just this. There are, of course, many roads that lead to the demands of controll of the lives of others and eventually Fascism, but this one is especially devious, because it sels itself as a means to protect the innocent and defenseless children, while it actually can not provide any protection to anyone. On the contrary, it sets the living, breathing women in danger, while the amount of abortion and especially late term abortions is likely to grow.
This appears as the alltime low point in Russian military history, especially when compared to the strategic and tactical skill seen in WWII. Yet, there is a precedence.
I guess president Putin never read about the Winter War between Finland and Soviet Union. Or perhaps he did not see the significance. It is significant to us Finns, however and it should be to everyone. Here it is often misintrpreted to signify how special we Finns are. As every piece of history is a lesson, this lesson is not about how brave the Finns are as some sort of birthright. It is a lesson on how the mighty should not assume they can push around the others easy though it may seem.
It is somewhat disturbing how similar the conflict between Finland and Soviet Union, and the “special operation” by Russia in Ukraine have been. How the Russian attack based on poor intelligence, how they once again had totally unrealistic expectations based on assumed superiority, how their wanton bombing of civillian targets rather unified the nation under attack, than terrorized it into submission on and even that the formations crossing the border were better equipped for a parade, than war. Even the way how the attacker advanced as long mechanized columns hugging the roads and affraid to leave the protection of their tanks, to protect the tanks, appears very similar and in both cases speaks of poor training and motivation.
Similar are also how in both cases, the defender was ill prepared for war. Finland had just spent a fortune on two mighty warships, that did absolutely nothing in the war exept presented two expensive targets, while the troops were missing uniforms and ammunition. In both cases the attacker was seen as unimaginably strong before the war and incredibly weak during the fighting.
One distinct similarity is how the attacker thought the nation under attack would be divided and how a significant part of their population would wellcome the invaders. The idea in both cases was based on actual dissidents and an existing division, but ignored the unifying effects of outside threat and decisive charismatic leadership and the outrage a terror attack on defenceless civillian population arouses. The coward is always ready to terrorize others, because he thinks others are as easily succumbed by fear as he himmself. Brave people may despair, but spreading fear is not their goal, rather they are ready to fight even against impossible odds to defend what they think is just. The Finnish Socialists did not support the Soviet invasion, especially after the bombing of Helsinki during the first days of the invasion, but joined the defence of Finland with equal determination. Not unlike many Ukranian Russians.
One more similarity is that both of these wars had long processes of conflict behind them. Finnish soldiers had conducted operations called the “Tribal Wars” deep in Russian territory of Carelia, because nationalist Finns thought that the Carelians living there, despite having a language of their own and separated by different culture and religion for centuries, were Finns in need of becoming more Finnish. Such interventions had stopped with the Russian civil war, but many who had participated held high ranks in Finnish military and their expansionist nationalist ideals persisted. This is where the differences start to become apparent. Ukraine has had absolutely no interrest in Russian territory, but Russia sees Ukraine as a “natural” part of Russia, because the Russian state and nation were born in Kiev. Subsequently, they have interfered in Ukrainan politics and invaded part of the country years ago.
It is easy to see the similarities between the two wars and ignore the differences. In the Winter War, the Finns surprized everyone by fighting for over a hundred days, but had to give up eventually after running out of ammunition and heavy concentration of overwhelming Soviet forces. Despite all the sympathy for the Finns and condemnation of the Soviet aggression, not much help came, other than some volunteers, most significantly 6000 well equipped troops from Sweden. Altough it may sound a large number and the fact, that it was help much needed, in scale of divisions being annihilated in matter of days, and for soldiers being killed at a devastating rate of nearly 2000 per day, it was not much. The Winter War lasted only 105 days, and the Finnish losses were counted at circa 26 000 (+ civillians in killed in Soviet bombing raids, but who’s counting), while the Soviets lost 167 000 soldiers (almost ironically mostly Ukranians). The death toll in in the present conflict has not yet reached the same peaks, altough – or perhaps because – the fighting there has lasted almost a year.
A significant difference is also that at the time of the Winter War the Soviet Union was an empire of over 200 000 000 people, but there were only 3 000 000 people in Finland, while the attacking Russia is only three times bigger, than Ukraine. Now the differences are easier to see, as the Rm
Russia has always been a corrupt country. Regardless of economic, or political system, it seems like given, that a lot of people try to suck the system for personal benefit shamelessly. It is a phenomenon appearing in all human cultures and by no means is a small problem in Ukraine, but looking at the present Russian military, it has run rampant during the Putin administration. There are reports of how the Russian equipment has widely been revealed to be in a bad shape. Apparently the troops have been given rations, that expired years ago. Their plastic explosives may be wooden bocks, active armour on their tanks may be just empty cans and their bullet proof vests filled with cardboard instead of ceramite. Beware of the propaganda though, some of the rumours of their poor equipment are highly exxaggerated. The fact that a Russian, or pro-Russian sniper has been observed with an old Mosin-Nagant rifle, does not mean the Russians are running out of guns, just that it is a bloody good sniper rifle. The strange Russian helmets cosisting of three compressed steel plates combined with fabric, are not some funny makeshift headgear, but infact an ingenious innovation and one of the most protective helmet types on the market today. The makeshift grilles on top of Russian tanks were not a panic reaction to modern anti-tank missiles, like the NLAW, but an extra protection for the roof of the tank against traditional RPG launched from rooftops in a cityfight, based on Russian experiences in Chechenya. Propaganda based on Finnish victories during the Winter War was so succesfull, that when the Finns finally negotiated peace and surrendered a major portion of the country to the Soviets, it came as a surprize to most of the Finnish civillian population. The result was called “shame peace” and this was one of the reasons, why Finland joined Nazi-Germany in their invasion of the Soviet Union.
The Winter War had longstanding and unpredicted consequences and implications. The Soviets became aware of the weaknesses of their military and instigated hasty repairs. They had forced Finland, despite bitter resistance, to give up territory and encouraged by this victory moved against Poland in wake of the Nazies. The apparent weakness of their military prompted the German invasion as the Winter War had strenghtened the ideological preconceptions and biases the Nazi leaders had about the Soviet system and of Slavs in general. But the Soviets had learned a thing or two from the Finns and had a few cards of their own still left in their sleeve too. When the Finns joined the Nazies in operation Barbarossa, to conquer Soviet union, they in turn were blinded by their bitter hatred, a thirst for revenge and will to take back what was ours, but also by very succesfull propaganda, that had exaggerated every Finnish victory, every Soviet weakness and vilified the enemy – as if that was even necessary. Much like the Russian leadership of today has fallen prey to their own propaganda.
The main lessons, in my opinion at this stage are, that after the beast of war has been released predictions become hard, despite material and manpower. That even a smaller nation, even if ill prepared, may fight extremely hard, when it faces extinction. Wich the Russians should have known from their many such experiences – not excluding when they themselves defended against the Nazi invasion. Yet, the most important lesson is, that Ukraine MUST not be left without help. Otherwise the lesson will become, that a bigger country is rewarded for brutal infriction of a nother sovereign nation by control of their geopolitical area and natural resources and the populist politician behind the aggression is rewarded for gambling with human lives and instigating a war on bogus claims (such as unfounded stories of WMDs) by victories, increasing popular support, a place in history as a succesful wartime leader and perhaps even personal profit, more or less, under the table.
There is a new law on gender transition going through the final stages in Finland. The new law is to replace the previous one, that is 20 years old. The old law required that the person wanting to transit from one gender to a nother went through psychological evaluation, complex medical process and had to be sterile. The new law requires none of these things. It simply makes the entire thing into a self proclatory event.
The new gender will be changed to all official documents that mention gender and that’s it. Only adults may make the change for themselves.
Rather surprisingly the opposition to this new law from Conservative parliamentary representatives has been pointed at two very specific points in the law:
1. That young men might transition just to avoid mandatory military service.
2. That men might transition just to get to peek at public saunas on the womens side.
As you can see these issues are very Finnish in nature – and extremely stupid (wich is less surprising, considering what values their suggesters hold).
If a youth wishes to avoid military service, all they need to do is either serve in civil service duties, such as in a library, hospital, in the firedepartment, kindergarten, or old folks home, OR they can go total and refuse to serve at all in wich case they have to have a tribunal and carry a locator collar around their ankle for a year and stay at their home community for that period. They could also join Jehowas Wittnesses, who enjoy a special discompensation not to serve. Far easier options, than a change of their gender, with all included implications, I’m sure. Besides, if any person would be willing to use this as an evasion of military training, how effective combatant would they make anyway? This kind of stupidity, that the representatives have showed, reveals the malice in their nature. They do not seem to see military, or civic service as a communal thing done out of responsibility towards the common good, but as some sort of a punishment for having been born an able bodied man.
It is essentially of the same nature, as when some Conservatives demand pregnant women not to have an abortion because they need to be punished for having sex. As a punishment having been born a woman. As if punishment was the driving force of society.
The sauna issue is just as alien to reality. There are separate compartments for men and women in a lot of public saunas, but it is also not uncommon at all, that the Finns go to sauna totally naked together regardless of gender. By far most families do so. Groups of friends do so. Working buddies do so. University fraternies do so and so on and so on. Lots of people learn to know each other in sauna. If anyone missbehaves they are thrown out and are never wellcome again. We can not set laws based on every potential weirdo and imaginable perversion, to limit our lives. If anyone misbehaves in a public sauna, there are employees there to remove and ban them. If the misbehaviour is severe there are the police and judical systems to deal with such individuals. If a person does not want to be seen naked by anyone, or someone that might have sexual desire towards them, they have the option of not attending a public sauna. There are no laws to restrict lesbians attending female only saunas and any such would be impossible to enforce. What people feel inside their heads, what desires they have, are private matters, while how they behave can be restricted and limited.
You may think your particular god disaproves transgenderism and you may even find some confirmation to this from your holy scriptures (though I doubt it), but in a secular society nobody gets to make laws, that restrict your behaviour according to what they think your, or their own god disapproves. If you find it very important to live in a country, where this sort of thing is forbidden and the weather is mostly cold, like in Finland, you might want to consider moving to Russia.
Now, you may point out, as your opinion, that transgenderism is not natural, but we do not evaluate what is moral, or indeed set laws according to what is percieved “natural”, or not, but according to a harm vs. benefit analysis. As a phenomenon in human culture it is as ancient as gender roles are. We have record of stone age cultures, such as some Native American hunter gatherer groups, having had people transitioning from gender related roles. So, airline traffic, or driving a car are far less “natural” human behaviour. Do you want to forbid those?
You might claim transgenderism is harmfull, because it causes emotional trauma and that plastic surgery should not be used to repair mental problems. Be that as it may, I would call you out on hypocricy, if you were not demanding abolition of all plastic surgery, based on the same line of argumentation. In any case, the mental trauma driving some people to transition has already happened and we have no other treatment, than to let them be how they see and feel themselves. It is their private matter and if it affects others, so be it. If others get anxiety from the change in those individuals, then the problem is in the head of the person feeling anxiety and repairable by a change. Nobody is demanding anybody else transitions from their percieved gender. Ultimately this new law diminishes the pressure transitioning people may feel to take the step to have surgery, as it emphasises less of the physical gender and focuses on the emotional perception people have about themselves.
The entire phenomenon seems to stem from strict perceptions of gender roles. Stereotypes of behaviour indoctrinated to us from a very early age onwards. Pre-expectations on an individual based on nothing, but genital organs. As if those ultimately defined us, what and who we can be. In reality by far most differences percieved between the genders are cultural concepts. The differences that do exist are mostly averages. The biggest difference is, that no man can give birth and no woman can impregnate, but not all women give birth and not all men impregnate. In both groups you have plenty of people who could not, even if they would. Our masculinity and femininity are not defined by even these biggest of nominating differences, so in my opinion we should grow up about this issue and stop defining each other by such arbitrary ways of grouping people. These roles and expectations clearly cause harm and anxiety to a lot of people and not much good has come out of them yet. However, because the vast majority of us thinks the roles are important to them and provide a sense of identity to them, as if they had nothing more personal to build their identity on, the least we can do is to release others from superimposed roles they do not feel comfortable in.
In my opinion the gender identification in any official documents is pointless. Here in Finland we could just get rid of it and make military/civic service mandatory to all citizens.
An educated nation, that has been practicing democratic processes for over a hundred years and now look at them. The Duma of the tzar may not have been the most democratic system of governance, but it was a clear step forward in comparrison to the preceeding Feodalism. The Soviet Union was seen as an opposite to democracy in the West, but at it’s very core was an ideology of democracy. Communism is all about equality, but there can be no equality without equal right to descision making. The word “soviet” in the name of the country gives us a hint about the intention and practice of the revolutionaries, who founded the state. It refers to the local elected councils to whom the political power derived from the will of the people was supposed to come to. In reality though Russia remained a centrally governed empire, with well known results.
When the Soviet Union fell, there was surprizingly little violence. This was because it was dissolved by the people who led it. Not so much an uprising of the people. Sure there were demonstrations and even riots, but those were more about late salaries and general shortages of consumer goods. They were not suppressed with outright violence. Only in some fringe areas, like the Baltic states, was any of it about the indipendence and in that sense democracy. The dictatorial machine of violence had been gradually reduced since the death of Stalin and altough the time of Brezhnev saw little change in any direction, for he was the panultimate Conservative, when the changes finally came with the idealistic Gorbatshov, they merely opened the door for opportunistic populist Yeltsin.
I served in the Finnish military when the attempted coup against Yeltsin dissolved in violence. We were wary of what would follow. Everybody was relieved when a sort of stability was established relatively soon after the “piss-poor insurrection. Yet, what was established then to resolve the crisis was a nother centralization of power to one man.
Only a few years later the Communists were winning the elections. They stood long way a head of any competition according to all gallups. The West saw Yeltsin as representing democracy and decided to dabble in the elections to ensure a continuation of democracy. Yeltsin got massive loans for his campaign. In addition the Russian state supported his campaign with astronomical amounts of money. This money was cumulated by handing shares of state owned companies to private banks against loans. In effect, the banks loaned the funds of the government owned companies to the government and got paid by owning those companies hence forth. Such is the process of “privatization”. That is how the oligarchs of Russia emerged. In the West we call ours more politely just Capitalists. Yeltsin – a seriously ill man, whose condition was kept a secret – won, and increased the presidential powers.
Putin came out of nowhere. He was an opportunist and a populist, like Yeltsin before him. He was also a nationalist. Large number of Russians had risen economically since the fall of the Soviet Union, but even more had fallen. The populist promised to put the rampant oligarchs into order and he did. He made one of them into an example, a warning to the others, while the others were put to his service. This increased his popularity and made it more acceptable to ever increase his personal power. Like any good nationalist populist, Putin has promised to protect the society from corruption of values. He has made a league with the church and insured any rival religious groups are seen almost as enemies of the people, or Western agents – not such an alien role to some of these during the Cold War. At the same time the very real financial corruption, ever present in Russian society, has reached unpresidented heights. As is evident from the state of the Russian military. Capitalistic self interrest has been the top most value for the last thirty years.
Russians have for generations learned to fear a change, as it has brought them mainly insecurity. This insecurity begets Conservatism, with wich comes Authoritarianism, since it is based on the traditional values of Patriarchy, loyalty and obidience. Their democratic choises have brought turmoil, while their authoritarian leaders have offered stability – stability of misery to many, but relative wellbeing to others.
Are there nations, that are simply too immature to decide for themselves, to weild that power and end up giving it to some self centered authoritarian leaders, or is it, that democracy is fragile everywhere and we need to protect it ever from threats of authoritarianism, totalitarianism, oligarchy and ignorance?
Has Democracy failed the Russians, or have they failed it, like they appear very much failed at Socialism and Communism?
I have recently run into several people, who tell me they do not trust the media. By what they mean big media companies, networks and newspapers. It appears many of them have lost faith in these institutions over a course of fairly short time span. One of them expressed, that the young do not believe everything they are fed by the media, but I do not think this is an age related issue, as such.
Many people who come from countries, where authoritarian governments controll the media, by persecuting and even killing journalists not abiding to the official “truth” have a somewhat justified mistrust in the major media. Many such people live in exile in countries where they do not understand the language to follow local or even international news. To some of them the customs and majority values are so alien, that despite of having a safe haven in their adopted country, they find hard to fit in and trust all what the surrounding culture has to offer. For such people news often come from social media, or other rumours in their immideate family, friends and compatriots in exile.
Today, however, there are plenty of people who have grown up in western democracies, where freedom of speech and freedom of press have been long held in high esteem. Why have people in such conditions lost their trust in media houses, that boast long tradition of journalistic integrity? Is it because of the modern digital format of news, that they are so rushed, that the fact checking is at times poor before publishing? Could it be, that in commercial interrests competition has led to a point where some news providers are more interrested in providing people with a perspective to news items a certain major consumer segment would like to hear, as opposed, or at least regardless, of the facts? It is easy to provide people angles to news items, that fulfil their expectations, preconceptions, fears and biases. The world is changing rapidly and nowhere is this more evident, than in the news. Especially to people who hold values simply assumed from parents and never dared, or having had tools to test them, is this constant change a frightenin thing. For as our understanding grows as we learn new things, it affects the facts we know, knew, or thought we knew and thus our values.
Where do the people who have lost their trust to “the mainstream media” get their newsfeed then? Entertainment tangles a lot in everyday news events. It is often produced with commercial interrest, or a value based political interrest and paints a very specific picture of events and public figures. As far as I can tell to many their newsfeed comes from all sorts of politically inclined small time media, whose commitment to factual reporting and resources to actually achieve any are limited, or unknown, but replaced with all the more political fervour. Some of their news appear to come from the social media rumours and as the digital platform offers a chance for any opinionated moron – myself included – to spout out their version of the “truth”, these two sources get mixed up.
Not just the people who identify as an atheist – absolutely everyone is an atheist. You, me, everybody.
The Jew is an atheist about every other god exept the god of Abraham. The Christian is an atheist about Allah and the Muslim about Jesus. Even the most liberal minded polytheist, who accepts as gods gods they have never even heard of and thinks that all the gods in the world are mere manifestations of the same divinity, is an atheist about the versions of monotheistic gods, that demand they are the one and only god there is. Simply because the polytheist does not believe in that sort of god. Most people do not even believe in most versions of the gods they profess to believe in, exept perhaps on the most vague terms. When people get into specifics about the gods they do believe in, that is when the suspension of disbelief starts to crumble in the mind of the other person. Does this make the term atheist irrelevant? It does not.
We use the word atheist to describe a person who does not believe in any gods. However, it should be noticed, that it is our shared disbelief in all sorts of gods, that is the unifying factor between all of us and thus the right to not believe in the other man’s god is important to all of us. As such, it should also remind us that for the same reason laws must not be passed based on the alledged opinion, or authority of any gods, but based on the ethical evaluation of secular reasoning for harm and benefit of action, or inaction. If the gods are reasonable, they agree with such secular morals, if not, then to hell with them.
World's Pain 