The Kentucky General Assembly recently passed SB 150, one of the most extreme anti-trans bills in the nation. The governor quickly vetoed the bill but with a Republican supermajority in the General Assembly that wasn't the end of things.
On Wednesday the General Assembly returned from a recess to overturn that veto. That morning hundreds of people descended on the Capitol in Frankfort for a rally, kids coming from all over the state to make one last effort to convince lawmakers not to do hateful things in their name.
It's as if we're living out some sick, vicious joke. In this country the leading cause of death for children is firearms, and these lawmakers are worried about . . . children's genitalia.
To add insult to injury, they're hellbent on outlawing the very things that have been proven to reduce the absurdly high suicide rate for trans kids.
In the off chance that these lawmakers cared about anything other than the sound of their own voice, a die-in was staged during the rally to illustrate the kids that would die if lawmakers overrode the veto.
Even after the rally was officially over, young people continued to come up to the microphone and speak, reading poems and addressing their peers and the lawmakers hiding nearby.
A handful of counterprotesters showed up but they seemed to be afraid to even show their face.
Once the General Assembly was actually in session we took the protest inside the Capitol.
The Senate took up the veto override first. They wouldn't let us inside the chamber so we got as close as we could and chanted loud enough they could hear us clearly inside.
Had a couple skeezy types join us but they had their hands full.
They may have been able to hear us in the Senate but it didn't measurably change the outcome, they still voted to override the veto. From there the action shifted to the House of Representatives at the other end of the building and we followed close behind.
A small group of protesters managed to get into the House gallery where they locked arms and chanted, shutting things down for about thirty minutes, until the state police dragged them out in zip ties. Their chants and ours from outside the chamber were insufficient to sway the outcome and the House ultimately voted to overturn the veto as well.
This is some bullshit. We knew what the outcome was likely to be going into the day but that doesn't make it any easier to watch hate and petty viciousness become law. If there's a silver lining to be found, it's that much if not all of this will most likely be thrown out in court, reducing it to little more than an exercise in spite and messaging.
We're all human beings stuck on this rock together. Until that changes, can we at least agree to not be deliberately cruel to one another?
Be safe out there y'all.
Instead of recognizing that the State is always a territorial monopoly in violence and rejecting it outright, they play tug-of-war to use it against one another. Even the battle over library books is a microcosm of the greater problem. People rightly outraged at complaints against Laura Ingalls Wilder and Dr. Seuss a couple years ago are now demanding we ban anything some Karen on Facebook says is "pornographic."
It's so absurd. Instead of pushing critical thinking and teaching people how to analyze and think for themselves we're still stuck on suppression.
Your both-sides-ism suffers from a major disparity in scale but the critique itself is still valid. Are you familiar with the story of Ruth Brown? It feels like we've swapped out which marginalized group is being targeted but otherwise we're living out a rerun.
Differences in degree are not my point. The hypocrisy in using the same kind of tactics and pressure is. And the left bears the most blame for the ongoing COVID authoritarianism, too. We could go back and forth for hours on who abuses state power the most and whether any given issue is more partisan than the other, but the root problem of state power remains regardless.
Right, I suspect we assign blame/culpability rather differently but we agree on the root cause of the problem.
I got a question for you: In an anarchist society, by what mechanism(s) do you preclude/counter the tyranny of the majority? And how do you prevent that mechanism from itself becoming a tool of oppression?
(not a gotcha question, it's one I wrestle with regularly and have yet to come up with a satisfactory answer)
I am not persuaded it is a problem in the first place. Democracy, not the absence of government, promotes tyranny of the majority, or at least the political class pandering to the prejudices of the majority while setting minority groups against one another in a civide-and-conquer process. We don't "have a voice" in the election process.
Similarly, "wouldn't the corporations take over?" Not really a concern when you realize how dependent they are on subsidies, bailouts, regulatory capture, IP laws, etc.
Really now? While the term tyranny of the majority may be inextricably linked to democracy, the problem of majorities oppressing minorities has been with us far longer than democracy has. Divide and conquer may be one of the political class' favorite tactics but the dynamics upon which it is based exist independent of them. Removing the political class doesn't remove humanity's knack for othering, infighting, and petty cruelty. How do you stop someone from exploiting the same things the political class do for their own nefarious purposes? So what exactly separates your idea of anarchism from Hobbes' state of nature?
Similarly, have you forgotten the robber barons? Corporations are more than capable of running roughshod over anything in their way if insufficiently checked.
I haven't forgotten the robber barons. They arose out of a market heavily influenced by political intervention, not free market mechanisms. The minority might be oppressed without the state, but I'd like to see what scenario you imagine. Meanwhile.... points to everything today done by the state
I'm not pretending a free society will be free of problems, but government always inevitably magnifies those problems. Free people find ways to solve problems. Jim Crow was enforced by the State. Slavery was protected by the Fugitive Slave Act. Today, the tug-of-war for power over nonsense like marriage licenses and state monopoly schools is the root cause of conflict with the LGBTQ community. The War on Drugs, tax laws, license mandates, and welfare programs fuel nationalistic fear of "illegal" hispanic immigrants.
Corporations are creations of the State. It is a legal privilege granted by political power.
Hobbes was wrong about human nature. Society predates the State. This alone demonstrates that humans can cooperate and coordinate peacefully at a grassroots level, organically and without political authority.
Oh, and one more addendum about the "robber barons" might be in order... The railroads and iron magnates and the like who did not have special monopoly powers tended to drive prices down and wages up despite the corruption. They weren't all equally bad, and the outcome of their enterprises was not entirely bad.
And lastly, while I'm not a massive Ayn Rand fan, she was right when she said the smallest minority is always the individual. Skin color and culture are really just lazy ways to collectivize others conceptually. victims of coercion and aggression are always individuals first and foremost, as are the perpetrators of injustice.
Your photos speak without words. You managed to capture the moment for sure. Excellent job!
Thank you!
I think this is just like the idea of what is happening in my country at the moment. It is not about trans kids but about the unfavorable laws that government officials make and they affect us so badly.
Exactly. The trans kids are just a convenient target, used to rile people up and distract them from all problems and issues the politicians are doing their damndest not to address. History is nothing but a long record of politicians and leaders doing that, the targeted group changes from time to time but the strategy and motivations don't change.
You guys are actually doing well and I love what you guys are doing
Thank you!
Sorry to hear that fam. The only thing we can do is to continue supporting and helping youth as we have always done. The fact that there is a law doesn't mean that we are going to give up, as long as we are there giving them our love and support, their hate will never be able to defeat us.
It was a sad day but this fight is far from over. Right, we take care of us. In that vein, one of our chants inside the capitol was 'This is what community looks like!' The turnout for the rally apparently exceeded the organizers wildest expectations which I take to be a promising sign, we're just going to have to keep building on that.
Exactly. Nothing to do but keep going!
Exactly, and I have a bit of faith in the new generations because I see that they support each other, or well that is what I see in social media, so I hope they continue like this and realize that they have the power to generate change, they just have to choose people who align with their values