Conservatism

lol. lmao.
Netflix’s six-part series on Alexander the Great – Alexander: The Making of a God – is already drawing criticism from the right for depicting the ancient Greek king as having had sexual relationships with men.

“Netflix made a new documentary about Alexander The Great. Within the first 8 minutes, they turned him gay,” complained the influential rightwing account End Wokeness on X. End Wokeness has over two million followers.

Historians know that Alexander had sexual and romantic relationships with both men and women, including with his general and bodyguard Hephaestion, according to the University of Cambridge Museums & Botanic Garden website. Alexander was described as devastated when Hephaestion died and “lay weeping on his comrade for a day & night before being pried away.” He cut his hair in pouring.

End Wokeness was mocked for apparently not knowing that same-sex relationships weren’t stigmatized in many parts of the ancient world the way they are today and even one of their supportive followers tried to point that out.

“I hate wokeness, but hear me out,” wrote X user Jessica O’Donnell. “There’s a good chance he was at least bisexual because, well, that was kind of the Greek thing to do.”

“It’s still unproven speculation and should definitely not be shoved into the first 8 minutes,” End Wokeness shot back.

Others on the platform were less charitable in their responses.

But many conservatives took End Wokeness’s side, insisting that Alexander’s same-sex relationships shouldn’t have been mentioned even if they were real. Others insisted that the docuseries is proof that Netflix is “woke.”

This is far from the first time that depictions of Alexander’s sexuality have come under attack from conservatives. In 2004, a coalition of Greek lawyers threatened to sue director Oliver Stone and Warner Bros. for depicting Alexander as bisexual. They claimed that Stone’s film Alexander, starring Colin Farrell, was defamatory.

“We are not saying that we are against gays but we are saying that the production company should make it clear to the audience that this film is pure fiction and not a true depiction of the life of Alexander,” said attorney Yannis Varnakos at the time. “We have not seen the film, but from the information we have already there are references to his alleged homosexuality, a fact that is in no historical document or archive on Alexander.”

Farrell, though, said at the time that “in an ideal world” there would have been even more depictions of same-sex action in the film but that filmmakers shied away from it because they didn’t want to scare away homophobic audiences.
Why are conservatives such prissy bitches?
 
Seems on par for conservatives. Teach history, but leave out the bits they don't like. Don't tell people how ancient societies were gay/bi, don't tell people just how bad black Americans were treated in this country, etc. etc.
 
I think the distinction was more like citizen vs non-citizen rather than the gay or straight you get in presentism but sure, they were all at it. Alexander the Great shagged blokes. Build a bridge and get over it.
 
Last edited:
Legislation to outline new rules and standards for surrogacy in Michigan, as well as repeal the state’s criminalization of paid surrogacy contracts, cleared the Democratic-led Legislature Tuesday with vocal disapproval from Republican lawmakers.

The nine-bill package is on its way to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is expected to sign it.

Michigan is understood to be the only state that wages criminal penalties against those who engage in paid surrogacy contracts to the tune of a misdemeanor charge, punishable by up to one year in jail and a $10,000 fine. The penalties are higher for those who organize or assist in creating the contract. They can be charged with a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $50,000 fine.

Proponents for the bills have argued that Michigan’s current laws pertaining to surrogacy are outdated and too limited, not properly protecting parents or surrogates as families in Michigan attempt to grow their families.

“If anybody has another option, if they can avoid using Michigan somehow, I send them out of Michigan all the time,” assisted reproduction lawyer Melissa Neckers said after the votes. “It happens weekly, if not daily, that I warn people as to how hard it is going to be in Michigan. And now I don’t have to do that … It will absolutely keep people in Michigan.”

The Advance spoke in November to one of Necker’s clients, Grand Rapids resident Tammy Myers, about her nearly two-year legal battle to adopt her biological twin children, after they were born via a surrogate in 2021. She told lawmakers in a House committee that because her children were born premature, her pre-birth order to establish custody through the courts hadn’t been cleared. And although custody was eventually established, Myers said after the Senate’s vote Tuesday that she will never forget the trauma of what her family went through.

“Being here today, just shaking. I’m speechless. Just really, really grateful for the legislation,” Myers said. “It never felt behind me. There was no closure, because this was still weighing so heavy on our family, just knowing that it could happen to so many other families was huge for us.”

The package aims to specify the process for parents who utilize surrogacy to establish parentage, outline requirements to qualify to be a surrogate and create mandatory provisions for establishing legal contracts amongst other measures.

The bills passed on almost-partisan lines, with state Sens. Mark Huizenga (R-Walker) and Jon Bumstead (R-Newaygo) voting with Democrats to approve the package.

The main bill, HB 5207, outlines that to enter into an agreement to act as a surrogate a person must be at least 21, have given birth to at least one child prior, been given a medical and mental health evaluation and have independent legal representation from the other parties in the agreement. The intended parents would be subject to the same requirements, with the exception of the medical evaluation.

A few Republicans voiced their concerns for allowing paid surrogacy in the state and offered several amendments which were all shot down. Republicans said the legislation can put vulnerable women in a position to be exploited and sets a bad precedent for children in the state’s ever-changing reproductive health care sphere.

Other states with more permissive surrogacy laws have become destinations for the wealthy to partake in “commercial surrogacy” to “purchase a surrogate,” Sen. John DaMoose (R-Harbor Springs) said during his no vote explanation.

“How often would any of us imagine that a wealthy woman would serve as a paid surrogate for a poor family? Never. So why are we allowing those who struggle financially to be virtually rented. … These are the very people who deserve our protection from such indecent proposals,” DaMoose said.

Sen. Thomas Albert (R-Lowell) spoke for more than 20 minutes, urging his colleagues to vote no on the bill package that puts “vulnerable women at risk of exploitation” and “fundamentally redefines family.”

“These bills create … paths to parenthood for virtually anyone else. It doesn’t matter what their relationship is or if they have one at all. Effectively, the order of the child-parent relationship that has existed since the dawn of mankind is rewritten,” Albert said, pointing out that the new laws don’t specify the relationship between the intended parents. He further said the legislation “seems only aimed at providing a path to joint parentage outside of marriage.”

Rep. Samantha Steckloff (D-Farmington Hills) who led the legislation through the process, has been open with her colleagues about her own fertility journey. She was diagnosed with cancer in her early 30s, which now is impacting her options for growing her own family. In a statement after the Senate’s votes, she applauded stakeholders who got the bills to the finish line.

“Now our laws are set to protect people’s right to decide when and how to grow their family — an achievement made possible by the hard work and dedication of all those who supported this effort,” Steckloff said. “These laws will not only protect the rights of patients and medical professionals, but also pave the way for countless families who rely on IVF as their path to parenthood. As we celebrate this victory, let’s continue to advocate for reproductive autonomy and ensure fertility treatments are accessible to all who need them.”
Why do conservatives hate others' individual sovereignty?
 

Why do conservatives hate others' individual sovereignty?
Conservatives: "More babies!"
Also conservatives: "Not like that!!"

I presume the Michigander opposition to this is at least partially religion-based?
 
Last edited:
Conservatives: "More babies!"
Also conservatives: "Not like that!!"

I presume the Michigander opposition to this is at least partially religion-based?
I expect so. It's certainly ideological.

"Sen. Thomas Albert (R-Lowell) spoke for more than 20 minutes, urging his colleagues to vote no on the bill package that...'fundamentally redefines family.'"
 
I expect so. It's certainly ideological.

"Sen. Thomas Albert (R-Lowell) spoke for more than 20 minutes, urging his colleagues to vote no on the bill package that...'fundamentally redefines family.'"
Of course it's the other forty-nine states that are redefining family... Elsewhere in the article he complains because the legislation makes no provision for whether the parents are married or not.

bio_albert.png


I'd direct you to his website at senatorthomasalbert.com but...

IMG_20240321_201622.jpg
 
CNN's Shimon Prokupecz confronts GOP North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction nominee Michelle Morrow over her comments that Obama should be executed.

 
Last edited:
Two days. Two Michigan Republican politicians saying asinine bull 🤬. I can't wait to see what comes out tomorrow.
 
Hmm...

Screenshot-20240330-132007-Samsung-Internet.jpg


Ah, right. Obviously.

Screenshot-20240330-132334-Samsung-Internet.jpg

Such Christian. Very sanctity of life. Wow.
To be fair, that is one way to end the conflict, atleast briefly... Though it is pretty funny how a supposed "life absolutist" has zero regard for lives - fetuses likely included - in Gaza. So much for being a pro-lifer I guess ¯\(ツ)
 
Two days. Two Michigan Republican politicians saying asinine bull 🤬. I can't wait to see what comes out tomorrow.
I mean they do tend to be Christians and tomorrow's Easter so they could be reverential. Then again Christianity, and especially American Evangelical Christianity, is frequently performative and given to virtue signaling, so there's great potential for something truly unhinged.
 
So some conservatives in the US are jumping on the bandwagon that Monday's eclipse means the rapture is starting, and it's being pushed by a Texas pastor named Troy Brewer.

Here's a pretty good breakdown of what's being said and why it's ridiculous:

Some excerpts:
“Why would we call it the Great American Eclipse?” Brewer asks. “Because it was the first time since 1776 that an eclipse had only touched America.” Then he adds, “Can anybody think of what happened in 1776? Oh, I know. It was the birth of our nation. So this was definitely an American word. And it was a word about the nation of America.”

“One of those parts is this crazy thing that it actually happens on April 8. You know what April 8 is. It’s 4/8. Like, OK, 4/8? That’s what it is? Why’s that a big deal? Because Exodus 4:8 is where God Almighty told Moses, ‘If they will not hear you and believe you for the first sign, they will for the second.’ That’s extraordinary to me. … That is a 4:8 Scripture friends, and this actually happens on 4/8.”

“Here in the great free state of Texas, we actually put up and we said, ‘Hey, all these people are breaking in right here.’ And we said, ‘No.’ Then our federal government came in and said our state does not have the right to protect itself. And there was a big controversy over it. And then people started talking about the threat of civil war, that there is this threat about states’ rights and federal rights, and that we need to understand how all that’s supposed to work. And sadly, a lot of us are just blissfully ignorant.”

InfoWars is pushing it too and believes that Biden is working to hijack the eclipse.

The InfoWars video warns, “Confronted by a New World Order and a U.S. president that is carrying out their silent war, we are living in a time of reckoning.”

The narrator asks, “Why has Homeland Security been preparing to hijack this biblical event?”

Then a witness says: “The sheriff called me yesterday. And after he got done telling me everything inside this meeting that was happening, I pretty much was nerve rattled after what I heard. Who was this meeting with? It was with Homeland Security.”

A sheriff appears, warning: “People want to do us harm, use an event like this where a lot of people are gathered to do some type of terror event.”

Then the witness adds, “He said during the solar eclipse while people are all out there looking, they’re planning, the intel that they’ve got, is a possible biological attack on people while the solar eclipse is freaking happening.”

The video concludes: “Like Jonah, despite our reluctance, we all must be prepared for repentance, even the repentance of our oppressors. We must also be prepared to respond to whatever the New World Order has up its sleeve. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness. And let us put on the armor of light.”

I thought this might be InfoWars being InfoWars, but looking through Xitter and Reddit, there are a decent number of conservatives jumping on board with this. Never mind that there are at least 2 eclipses a year (but no more than 5), and the world hasn't ended yet. But if the world is going to end on Monday, I'm going to pissed if happens at the end of the day instead of the beginning because that means I'll have had to have worked all day.

But ya, it really does boil down to God is going to end the world because of migrants crossing the border into Texas. I certainly did not have that on my bingo card.
 
It seems that American exceptionalism knows not even any earthly boundaries but any celestial boundaries.
 
So, conservatives have forgotten about the eclipse and are now focused on Caitlin Clark, which is going crazy this morning since Iowa won last night. Apparently, women can't be good at basketball, and Clark doesn't look "conventionally attractive," so therefore, she must be a man. Surpisingly (but not really) this has been a thing for a while now:

1712405843204.png


It's all over Xitter and CCPTock too.

I think my friend from Iowa who's a massive Hawkeye fan put it best saying "she's Iowa pretty."
 
So, conservatives have forgotten about the eclipse and are now focused on Caitlin Clark, which is going crazy this morning since Iowa won last night. Apparently, women can't be good at basketball, and Clark doesn't look "conventionally attractive," so therefore, she must be a man. Surpisingly (but not really) this has been a thing for a while now:

View attachment 1343964

It's all over Xitter and CCPTock too.

I think my friend from Iowa who's a massive Hawkeye fan put it best saying "she's Iowa pretty."
It’s sad how social media has allowed the stupidest people to think they’re the smartest people.
 
Last edited:
So, conservatives have forgotten about the eclipse and are now focused on Caitlin Clark, which is going crazy this morning since Iowa won last night. Apparently, women can't be good at basketball, and Clark doesn't look "conventionally attractive," so therefore, she must be a man. Surpisingly (but not really) this has been a thing for a while now:

View attachment 1343964

It's all over Xitter and CCPTock too.

I think my friend from Iowa who's a massive Hawkeye fan put it best saying "she's Iowa pretty."
Trade these ****ing losers for 50 Palestinian children. Give them something to actually worry about in life than attacking an innocent girl.
 
Back