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edwardsvirginity · 5 years

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Can you imagine your life without twilight? Describe what it would be?

so when twilight came out when i was in middle school i was kinda in a “not like other girls” phase, and i honestly wasn’t that into the fandom. i liked the books well enough, but they weren’t my favorite by far. i saw the first 2 movies in theatres but that was pretty much it. i would pretend to be more into the books than i actually was to make friends/connect with new people. and then 2010-ish i was eyerolling and scoffing at twilight.

however, i was really, really, really into twilight fanfiction. unhealthily, obsessively into the fic. mostly all human AUs that are now published as original works. and twilight fanfiction was.... transformative. it was really tied into my feminist awakening, my sense of self, my understanding of the world. i grew up in a super conservative household (i wasn’t actually allowed to read twilight and i snuck read it lol) so twilight fanfiction was like... this huge revelation about how other ppl lived. a lot of it was unfortunately pretty dedicated to gender stereotypes and girlhate, but if you looked past that, the fic also really centered women’s narratives and pleasure. which was, and is, revolutionary. it also exposed me to a lot of new ideas and people, like gay people, poly relationships, sexual liberation, unconventional relationships, what a healthy and positive relationship looks like, what standards you should have for an S/O and how they treat you. additionally, adulthood always seemed really horrifying and dull to me and twilight fic was the first time i understood that adulthood could be fun and it was just about what you made of it. my parents were really strict abt media (no hp, nothing with magic/supernatural, nothing with kissing, nothing with monsters or violence, nothing with liberal undertones, nothing PG or higher [when i was 14], so really innocuous stuff like the powerpuff girls, digimon, that’s so raven, superheroes, most kids cartoons, etc, were banned) so twilight fanfiction was a way for me to engage with ideas my parents wouldn’t let me near. twilight fanfiction was also literally my sex education, and my basis for understanding relationships. (which was at times questionable, seeing as how i read 50 Shades when i was 12 back when it was Master of The Universe. I had read enough fic to know it was abusive tho-- I knew what a healthy BDSM relationship looked like by 12, and it was Not That)

so, if i hadn’t had twilight, and therefore never got into twilight fanfiction.... there’s a possibility i would be a trump supporter. i like to think i would have had some other significant wake up call, and i’ve definitely always been on a feminist, leftist trajectory even before i understood either of those ideas, buuutttttt.... without twilight fic i would have been a lot shittier a lot longer, and could have ended up with some really absurd views (even if i weren’t a full-out trump supporter).

i would also have, most definitely, made some significantly more questionable interpersonal relationship decisions. and more questionable decisions generally-- i never felt the need to do drugs or sleep with ppl in middle school bc i could more easily live vicariously thru edbella.

and then even when i moved on from twilight fic early in high school, in college, i ended up bonding with my roommate (who was at the time a complete stranger) over our shared childhood obsession with twilight fic. it was a really significant connection for us, and i think one of the moments we both realized Oh Shit She’s Like Me. (we decided to live together bc we knew each other from class and were both studying abroad, but didn’t want to go apartment hunting in a foreign city on our own. we’d both had bad experiences with roommates prior so were pretty wary of living with someone we barely knew, but the convenience outweighed the hesitation). twilight then became a really significant part of our relationship-- she forced me to watch the final 3 movies i had never seen (all in a row) and then suddenly we were doing regular movie nights. even after we no longer lived together, we would still rewatch twilight all the time. obviously it’s no longer the basis of our relationship, but we’re now really close friends, and a lot of that was because of that shared twilight nostalgia. she’s actually the one who convinced me to start a twilight blog!

lastly, i’ve made some really incredible friends within the twilight renaissance who have been so awesome to have around while i’ve been going through a rough patch in my life. i think i would have gone crazy in january without them, they’ve been a really significant source of happiness for the past few months.

tldr; my life without twilight would be... Worse. there’s a nonzero chance i would be a trump supporter and a 100% chance i would have fewer incredible& significant friendships.

#asks #sorry i'm just now answering i've been working a ton #anon #thanks for the insightful question!#sorry abt the rant #twilight plays a significant role in my life in weird and unexpected ways #Anonymous

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jscottscales · 6 years

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Failure to repeal Obamacare is the albatross Republicans must cast away to keep the House

Failure to repeal Obamacare is the albatross Republicans must cast away to keep the House

Maintaining a Senate majority is looking more and more likely, but Republicans in the House are in trouble. Democrats are throwing a threat of repealing Obamacare back in the faces of Republicans who failed to do as promised. Sentiment has shifted and suddenly a majority want to keep Obamacare where it is. It could cost them the House.

For the record, I was against the repeal and replacement plan the GOP put forward because it replaced government-run healthcare with… government-run healthcare. Had they been bold and simply repealed it, then spent real time and energy coming up with solutions for those in the most need, they’d be in much better position today. Instead, we’re stuck with Obamacare and the House is in jeopardy because of it.

Voters are fickle. They were for Obamacare before they were against it before they were for it again. The window of opportunity to repeal and replace it closed and they’re going into the midterm elections without a plan to to take another shot at it next year.

It was the promise to repeal Obamacare that got them the House in 2010, the Senate in 2014, and the White House in 2016. Failing to do what they promised when they had the opportunity is the albatross about their necks right now. The very thing that won for them is quite possibly what will make them lose.

Now, they’re trying a new strategy: hang Bernie Sanders’ $32 trillion universal health care proposal on every Democrats’ neck regardless of whether they support the plan or not. It’s a dishonest ploy with ads running against Democrats who have publicly denounced the plan. If the Republicans aren’t careful, they’re going to get accused of treating the people like fools who won’t do their own research (which is true for most, but it’s still not a play that’s wise to make this close to the election).

As a conservative and a Federalist, I have no horse in these races. If I were forced to choose, I’d vote against Democrats. But I’m not forced to choose (this is still America) so the advice I’m about to give is not out of appreciation for the Republicans’ plight but out of fear of the Democrats being in power.

GOP, stop playing the fear game and put forth a plan

Republicans know the general public no longer wants them to repeal Obamacare. Polls are very clear. So, they’ve decided to take the side of the status quo (keep Obamacare as-is) and push the Democrats further to the left (all embracing Bernie’s plan). This is a bad plan that won’t work, but even if it did work it shouldn’t be done because it’s disingenuous. Leave that line of campaigning to the left. Take the higher road.

Republicans already have the framework for a repeal and replacement plan that would pass IF they get more control of the Senate and retain control of the House. Roll it out. Now. Democrats have already made healthcare one of the defining issues of this election. Double down on them and lay out a plan. Then, let the plan win the elections for you.

Democrats will attack it, but you have something in your favor. You have Lisa Murkowski. I know what everyone’s thinking. She’s the lone traitor who almost cost Brett Kavanaugh his confirmation. That makes her bad, right? Well, yes, but as one who voted against the repeal and replacement plans, it gives her credibility to endorse the new plan that you roll out next week…

…if you were smart and rolled out a plan next week. Which you’re not. So you won’t.

But hypothetically, if you rolled out the Republican Affordable Care Act Phase One Fix, you could start dismantling Obamacare. Perhaps more importantly, you would catch Democrats (and the press) off guard and have nearly four weeks to demonstrate why you’re not the bad guys who will pull the rug out from under people. You’re trying to fix healthcare. That’s potentially a winning message. If you put forth a plan that Murkowski (and possibly a few Democrats) could endorse, it’s a a sure thing.

Instead, you’re probably going to keep doing what you’re doing, accusing moderate Democrats of being far-left Bernie socialists. Yes, some are, but the ads are going after pretty much all of them. You’re relying on the naivety of voters instead of putting forth solutions and educating people on why they’ll work.

By restarting the process to fulfill your promise to repeal and replace Obamacare, the GOP will have the winning narrative. Drop this propaganda push and do what you said you were going to do.

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Trump’s Medicare policy the next step in his march toward socialized healthcare

After squeezing all the political life he could out of the Kavanaugh confirmation circus, Trump went to work this week on other ways to fire up his uninspired base ahead of next month’s election.

In an obvious attempt to buy votes in November and lay the groundwork for the 2020 Iowa caucuses, Trump announced that he would be ; free market and the environment be damned.

Trump’s fake op-ed is nothing more than the latest round of the politics of distraction where the GOP attempts to shift voter attention away from the past two years of lies and broken promises. In Trump’s case, however, the op-ed is also hypocritical because he supports single-payer healthcare, and his policies pretty much guarantee that socialized medicine will be here sooner rather than later.

, Trump often sang the praises of socialized medicine and single-payer healthcare, and he reinforced his support during the 2016 campaign when he promised to have the government pay for universal healthcare for everyone.

During his campaign, Trump also made the promise repeatedly broken by the GOP to repeal Obamacare, which and was when Trump and the GOP completely funded it with the he signed into law in September.

In his op-ed, Trump also renewed his commitment to save Medicare from being used as the mechanism for delivering single-payer healthcare. It’s a politically convenient move, but in reality, Medicare is already the , so his Medicare policies are guaranteeing socialized medicine, not preventing it.

When you look at the complete package — lifetime support of socialized medicine, not repealing Obamacare, and letting Medicare grow out of control — Trump is accomplishing everything Barack Obama and the Democrats wanted concerning socialized medicine.

I guess I see now why we had to keep Hillary from winning and advancing Obama’s agenda . . . Trump wanted to be the one to do that.

David Leach is the owner of The Strident Conservative. His daily radio commentary is distributed by the and is heard on stations across America.

Harley Rouda claims he never said he’d expand MediCal to adult illegal immigrants. This is a lie.

Orange County, California, has an interesting choice to make. One of the hottest Congressional races in the nation pits incumbent Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) against Democrat Harley Rouda. Orange County has been one of the only Republican strongholds in the liberal state, but a district that voted for Hillary Clinton may also switch to have a Democrat representing them on Capitol Hill.

The problem with Rouda is that his version of the truth doesn’t always match the actual truth. A glaring example of this is how he handled two questions regarding providing health care to adult illegal immigrants.

When vying for the Democratic nomination, he appealed to the leftist view that “Medicare for all” should be expanded to “for all residents of the United States” regardless if they’re citizens or here illegally.

Now that the primary is over and he’s on to the general election, he’s denying that he ever said that.

Harley Rouda Supported Medicaid for Illegal Immigrants but Now Denies It

“Rohrabacher has said that you want to give MediCal to undocumented immigrants and that this goes against what the district wants,” editors from the publication said. “How would you respond to this idea that you don’t know what the district wants?”

MediCal is California’s Medicaid program for low income individuals and families.

“I’ve never said that,” Rouda responded. “The fact is, you could argue the United States has already paid for universal health care in the least efficient way possible—in the emergency room instead of through preventive care. We need to have basic levels of medical services available to all. Addressing undocumented immigrants in our country shouldn’t be done by withholding life-saving medication or healthcare services.”

Will one of the last bastions for rational conservative ideologies in California fall for a man who says one thing to his Democrats but change his story when speaking to a broader audience? Orange County needs Dana Rohrabacher to keep his seat.

Making abortions less accessible increases birth rates despite progressive narrative

One of the most horrifying arguments made by pro-abortion progressives is that the vast majority of women who want an abortion will get an abortion one way or another. This simply isn’t true, but it’s a scare-tactic narrative that is often repeated. At least one progressive thought-leader acknowledges it as true and urges other progressives to change their talking point.

Diana Greene Foster doesn’t just want pro-abortion activists to stop denying criminalizing abortion or making it less accessible will increase birth. She wants them to embrace the notion to demonstrate how unwanted pregnancies are forced to go full term and that’s a bad thing.

The argument centers around quality of life. Women who are forced to have unwanted pregnancies must contend with more challenges than they would have had they been granted the abortion they wanted. This is true, as is the rest of the article, though I take the opposite perspective on the news as it’s revealed:

Stop Saying That Making Abortion Illegal Won’t Stop People From Having Them

Research in the United States and abroad shows that when women are denied legal abortions, many carry their unwanted pregnancies to term and give birth. In the University of California San Francisco study I lead of women who tried to get abortions but were turned away from facilities across the country (the Turnaway Study), more than two-thirds of women who were denied abortions because they were too late in pregnancy carried their unwanted pregnancies to term. Scientists in other countries where abortion is legal—Bangladesh, Nepal, South Africa, and Tunisia—have found that among women who are denied legal abortion, about half get an abortion somewhere else and half carry the unwanted pregnancy to term.

My Take

Foster takes great care in presenting the appropriate narrative for pro-choice activists to use. It’s much more honest than toting around coat hangers and pretending like abortions happen whether a doctor does it or not.

This is one of the few pro-abortion articles I agree with in large part. The big difference is I view it as a positive that fewer abortions happen when access to legal abortions are constrained. Fewer pre-born babies are murdered when restrictions are in place. Foster views it as a negative and while I disagree, I can at least respect her beliefs because they’re based on truths rather than the common lies repeated by pro-choicers.

Progressives don’t want people to know restricting abortion access reduces the number of abortions because it fits the Pro-Life argument in favor of more restrictions. Kudos to Foster for demanding the truth from people on her side of the abortion fence.

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Source

http://noqreport.com/2018/10/10/failure-repeal-obamacare-albatross-republicans-must-cast-away-keep-house/

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