I WAS stunned by Gerry Hassan’s piece in the Sunday National on August 27. It was a stream of consciousness chock full of very dubious assertions and a fundamental misunderstanding of how “woke” policies can do no other than reduce the rights of citizens to choose a different path – something which any state, or part thereof, that calls itself a democracy cannot afford to tolerate. Essentially, it is less about the policies themselves than the means by which they are being foisted on the population.
“Woke” is undoubtedly a word used far too loosely and inaccurately by many, having strayed far from its origins in black American post-slavery/pre-civil rights history, and your definition, Mr Hassan, is accurate. In the UK, it has come to symbolise, in one sense, a certain awakening to the perils to which our planet is subject, taken to an extreme of well-meaning but shrill and hectoring advocacy, but it also means now the extreme self-righteous virtue-bagging to be claimed from support of the “trans” issue.
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This virtue-bagging offers, fallaciously, “equality of outcome” as opposed to “equality of opportunity”, the latter being eminently sensible and achievable, the former being an impossibility in most if not all circumstances, human beings being individuals with differing levels of ability in different areas. The rights of one person, or group, must always, in a civilised society, balance those of another individual or group, and rights must always be balanced against responsibilities. That, essentially, is how human societies work.
“Equality of outcome” in physical sports is impossible for female people because of their biology: no female top-class athlete can hope to beat a top-class male athlete, for example, or even a mediocre one most of the time; and indeed even males as a class cannot have “equality of outcome” either because of their differing strengths and abilities, and depending largely on which social class they were born into for reasons that are obvious. It may well be a very desirable aim for many, but it would be impossible to achieve, let alone maintain.
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Those who insist that “equality of outcome” is far preferable to “equality of opportunity” fall, by dint of their belief, into authoritarianism/totalitarianism because they must compel others to accept their view of social conditions and possibilities.
Many middle-aged and older women, as well as some young ones, are “woke” now, in the original sense, albeit they have rights that black Americans did not have. Those rights are in danger of being negated completely if self-ID becomes law, contrary to the claims about “administrative” changes only. The GRR Bill introduced by the SNP/Greens seeks to allow self-ID at a younger age (from 18 down to 16), a stark reduction in the time required to “live as a woman”, as the phrase is used, and removal of all medical aspects, such as a “gender dysphoria” diagnosis. Anyone positing seriously, and in light of the Bryson and Dolatowski cases, that such a step will not have a powerful, adverse impact on existing female rights has to be deluded, utterly disingenuous or “captured” by the “trans” ideology. Even a cursory glance at the 2010 Equality Act should dispel any notion of fair play towards females having any part in the effort to push through the GRR Bill.
Very few people these days are not “green” to some extent, Mr Hassan,
and those who deny that we are undergoing climate change are as scarce as hen’s teeth or flat-earthers, but unless all industrial processes are brought to a sudden halt, resulting in widespread economic and social cataclysm, “greening” has to be managed and balanced against present-day needs to keep people alive and not allow them to starve or die of cold. It is not reactionary and right-wing to wish to preserve civil rights that avoid casting people, and society, into the abyss; neither is it reactionary and right-wing for females to wish to maintain their safety, dignity and privacy, required on account of their biology.
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What most people object to is being told what to think and to accept unreality and untruth as reality and truth. It is simply not possible, except under extreme duress, to achieve that aim because people will not be forced in the longer-term to lie about what their eyes tell them they see. No disadvantaged group in society has ever before been prepared to acquiesce in compelled obedience or to view the world in which we live as the opposite of what we know it, empirically, to be.
To expect females to meekly hand over their rights, spaces, jobs, opportunities, services, etc, that all rest on their biology – a biology that no man can ever have or understand – is entirely inconsistent and counter-intuitive in the realm of civil and human rights. If the SNP/Greens are so sure that their policies are popular with the general public, let them arrange plebiscites on all of them, as the Swiss do. That would be real democracy in action, would it not, Mr Hassan?
Lorncal
via email
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