Binary Complications...

I'm really bugged right now by this conflicting narrative that happens.

The dueling arguments of yes/no simplistic arguing contrasted with the (in a lot of cases same people) super complicated conspiracy theories.

So right now we have a leaked memo that the Trump administration wants to do a gender lock at birth. Doctor looks between the legs, this is your gender, it goes in to a registry and that's that. A little more restrictive than we have now where gender is recorded on the birth certificate but (depending where you live) can be changed later. It's a male/female that's it dynamic. Simplistic. It's an attack on trans* rights. Which is what it's designed for, and even more than that, it's a voter encouragement issue.

I say even more than that not because I think attacking trans* rights isn't more serious, it's because this was a leaked memo that was (I believe) leaked just for the purpose of riling up the Trump base. They cannot stand the idea of trans* rights. Just can't. The number of times I've seen people make the gender binary argument is well in to the who the fuck are you people who don't ever read scientific studies numbers.

Because gender isn't a one or the other thing. It's just not.

But that's their argument. If this then that.

Gun control. Same thing. If I say I'm for gun control you want to start screaming about confiscation. I never said that. I think we can have a lot of really good laws and practices in place that don't take all the guns away. I have friends and family that hunt. I have friends and family that live out in the wilderness (or at least not within a quick response zone from the police) I have friends and family who are incredibly well trained and safe with their firearms. I don't have any urge to take their guns away. It's not a if this then only that argument. I've made it a lot. I believe in the well regulated part of the second amendment.

Policing. Same thing. If I post about a bad cop doing something bad I'm not anti-police. I'm pro-police. I like that there are police out there serving and protecting. I get that they do a really important and extremely hard job. But I don't think they are perfect and I do believe that circling the wagons and drawing a blue line around them when one screws up doesn't do any good. The same way I want a doctor who has committed malpractice removed from the hospital, I want bad cops removed from the force. It's not a simple yes cop/no cop issue.

Border security, if you're not in favor of an expensive and ridiculous wall you are obviously open borders. Well, no. We need to be smarter about immigration, that doesn't mean building a massive wall that won't work and will do other damage and it doesn't mean throwing the whole system open and giving up. It means we need to look at all of the issues and find solutions, or at least try and find solutions. It's not a wall us in or tear it all down binary. And it never has been.

This simplistic thinking gets us in trouble. Nuance is important. Finding common ground is important and yet, we can't seem to get there.

Then we flip the scripts and we have conspiracy theories.

The Clintons kill everyone who is a threat to them, well except for the people who have actually caused them problems. Somehow they were skipped, but still read this three page document of all of the people that have DIED that they KNEW!

False flags! Mass shooting happens and it didn't really happen it's all about stealing your guns. Except when a mass shooting happens what we do is buy more guns so really if there was a false flag wouldn't it be the gun manufacturers and sellers that benefit from it? So...

Right now we have the guy who sent bombs in the mail. We don't know what was going on there. Not yet. But it's already out that the super conservative bumper stickers that plastered his van are "too new" to have been on there for any time. By sending them to Democrats it's obviously a Democrat plot to scare Democrats. To do what? To vote? Democrats are already highly motivated, bombs would scare them away not to the polls right?

The caravan coming from Central America. Supposedly the Democrats set it all up to influence the midterm elections. But border security is a Republican issue for getting votes. Why would Democrats start a massive migration caravan right before midterms when they know that scaremongering around immigration gets Republicans to turn out in massive numbers?

And that's always the problem with conspiracy theories. They don't hold up. They are too complicated, too many things have to be disregarded to make them work, too many things that have nothing to do with the issue have to be added to it to make it work.

So I'm bugged right now.

I'm bugged by people who ignore Occam's Razor and bugged by people who want to overly simplify things. Which seems kind of contradictory. But it's really not.

The simple explanation for an event is usually the correct one.

Not everything is a yes/no if/then proposition.

Basically I just need people to stop bugging me.