April 1, 2023

"Highly anticipated cases have made the [Wisconsin] Supreme Court race the most expensive in the nation’s history."

"Top issues include abortion and redistricting — not transgender rights. But American Principles Project (APP) is part of a national, far-right movement to demonize transgender people and undermine their rights."


I haven't looked at the ad yet, but I find it hard to believe that what it does is "demonize transgender people." I'm going to guess that the "demonizing" — to the extent that there is any — is aimed at the providers of treatments who have transgender persons as patients and to those who would regulate speech in schools and places of business.

Oh! I thought I'd be able to watch the ad at the news article, but I'm just seeing a screen shot from the ad. It displays a headline about parents suing a school over "transgender policy." I think this is the ad.

It's consistent with my guess, above. There is a case premised on parental rights that attacks what schools are doing. Voters may have preferences about how that case comes out and reason that the 2 judicial candidates will skew in different directions. If it instills fear, it's a fear that can motivate both sides to vote to avert the result they dread.

We're told the videos contain "transphobia" and "disinformation," and the article does go on at some length describing the video and identifying mistakes. I do think the article makes its own severe mistake, saying that there is "demonizing" of transgender people. This is a debate about the balance of power between schools and parents, where both the schools and the parents may very well believe that they are doing what is best for the children. 

The question for voters is which judicial candidate will do a better job of sorting out the legal questions presented in these cases. It's a shame that the ads — and the commentary on the ads — aren't more rational and scrupulously fact-based.

29 comments:

JaimeRoberto said...

There's very little honest commentary on various complaints about transgenderism. Laws that require people to compete with their biological sex are framed as "banning transgenders from sports". Barring minors from drag shows is framed as banning drag shows. Barring minors from getting surgery is framed as an attack on transgender youth. It's dishonest but the media is pretty monolithic in it's framing.

Gahrie said...

This is a debate about the balance of power between schools and parents, where both the schools and the parents may very well believe that they are doing what is best for the children.

Who gives a shit about what the "schools" believe (schools can't think, we're really talking about what Leftwing activists believe), the parents have absolute power over their children unless the police can prove abuse. The job of teachers is to teach what and how the school boards mandates, and the school board's job is to run the schools the way the parents want.

The time for absolute school choice is now. Let the parents who don't give a shit send their kids to the public schools that have become concrete jungles and let the parents who do care send their kids to schools with rules, standards and discipline.

If I had the time, money and energy I would start a charter school promising to go back to education as it existed in the 1960's with rote memorization, drill and kill and serious discipline enforcement. I bet I'd be turning kids away because I have no more room after the first year.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Both sides think they’re doing what’s best? One side won’t even acknowledge that their “treatment” is doing harm. Certainly a parent should get the presumption of innocence and respect for their interest in “what is best” for their own children. Even if they are mistaken the child can wait until they are 18 or petition a court to emancipate. It’s not like our existing system needed schools to take a creepy obsession with talking about sex and use it to demand secret autonomous control over other people’s children. We have laws in place to protect them. Are these judges going to follow the law or the fad?

Sella Turcica said...

This is a debate about the balance of power between schools and parents, where both the schools and the parents may very well believe that they are doing what is best for the children.

In medicine, informed consent must be obtained from a parent or guardian before a child can be subjected to a procedure. There is no “balance” of power. Despite their expertise, doctors have to accede to the wishes of the parent, who is assumed to be acting in the best interest of the child.

In very rare instances the courts get involved.

Dave Begley said...

The Left constantly lies. That TV ad is accurate. I hate liars.

Dave Begley said...

I see where Janet is a Marquette alum. How embarrassing.

Dave Begley said...

I take back my comment about Marquette. It has become a liberal cesspool. Marquette tried to fire a conservative Professor for his conservative writings. Now, that’s embarrassing.

I met the chairwoman of the Iowa Democrat party at the victory tour/farewell event for Fr. John Schlegel. She told me she arrived at Creighton as a Republican and left as a Democrat. Given the nature of the event and my manners, I didn’t respond.

Michael K said...

The propaganda is getting deep and smelly. Be sure to wear your boots if you go out.

Jersey Fled said...

Wow. The Caps Times is supposed to be a NEWS paper?

rcocean said...

I've been reading MSM newspapers for 40 years. Everything and everyone that doesn't follow the Liberal/left party line is labeled "Far right" or "extreme Right". Even when the "extreme right" is in favor things liberals/leftists esposed 10 years ago.

Very little is ever labeled "far left" or "extreme Left". Even AOC. Or "trans-rights".

No doubt before I die, I'll see the MSM headline "Far-Right opposes sending 200,000 to Gulag - thinks 100,000 is enough"

rehajm said...

Holy shit- how much money did Big Transgender get from those multi-trillion dollar slush funds government voted for themselves? I suspect it’s quite a bit more than they ‘needed’…

deepelemblues said...

I reflexively assume that media descriptions of Republican arguments as misinformation and inaccurate are themselves inaccurate and misinformation. I have yet to be incorrect.

Original Mike said...

"Wow. The Caps Times is supposed to be a NEWS paper?"

The Capital Times doesn't even try to be a NEWS paper. It has been an organ of the left since I was a child. I am now 67 years old.

Inga said...

Looks like Politician Kelly is expecting Protaciewicz to not be political, while he is spending millions doing just that. Hypocrite, but most Wisconsinites know what he’s all about. He needs to play on the fears of Republicans to get a few more votes.

n.n said...

Anti-transgender? Politically congruent ("="). Misogynistic, misandristic, transhumane, too.

n.n said...

those multi-trillion dollar slush funds government voted for themselves

Medical Industrial Complex (MIC), including: Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacares, shots and jabs, planned parenthood, planned parent/hood, and transgender conversion therapy through medical, surgical, and psychiatric corruption/mutilation.

narciso said...

if you mutilate children, based on some heretofor unknown practice, that's normality,

n.n said...

Normalization, tolerance, or rejection? The trans- activists are not offering full disclosure to the public, let alone to their subjects, instead relying on empathetic apologies and coercion to force a consensus.

wildswan said...

I hear that you get $250 for contacting a friend on behalf of Judge Proto-save-itch. So I'll just mention that I have gotten messages on my phone in the name of Diane, and Raymond and other names, all urging me to vote for XXXitch. I kind of think that opportunists have gotten lists from the dark web or the Democrats; that they are sending out messages; and that they are then collecting without giving me a cut. So now I'm upset. Because these other "I's" have different pronouns than my own and theirs were violated. Don't I have standing to bring a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of my other identities whose rights have been abused by wrong pronouning? And then the abusers collected cash for the abuse!! I certainly know my other "I's" pronouns better than anyone else. Raymond, I'm thinking of you: she, her. I stand for your pronouns, Raymond. If not me, then who?

Yancey Ward said...

The outcome is certain- Kelly is going to be buried in mail-in-votes from Milwaukee and Madison.

Lurker21 said...

The target audience, though, just thinks that people who disagree with its opinions are bad people, and that target audience is more likely to vote than the rest of the state is. Parents may become indignant about what schools are telling their kids, but progressives are indignant about something all the time and ready to vote and haul other voters (or just ballots) to the polling places.

Sebastian said...

"I do think the article makes its own severe mistake, saying that there is "demonizing" of transgender people."

How so? Progs like it, believe it, and act on it. It's not a mistake, it's a deliberate maneuver.

"It's a shame that the ads — and the commentary on the ads — aren't more rational and scrupulously fact-based."

It's a shame. It's also a little late for it's a shame, considering decades of shameless behavior by the usual suspects. Which prog politician or judge or MSM flunky would you consider "rational and scrupulously fact-based"?

Big Mike said...

From where I sit the transgender people — the activists, anyway — are doing their damnedest (yes. I chose the word deliberately) to demonize themselves.

MikeD said...

As an outsider with no skin in the game and a cursory knowledge of the race, it seems the most destructive desire of the prog/lib is a return to forced unionization in WI.

Gahrie said...

Above all we must protect the transgendered, especially from having to tolerate those who disagree with them.

rwnutjob said...

The real danger is in voting changes that the left wants. You or should I say we will never have another legitimate election.

MadisonMan said...

Does anyone really pay attention to the messages in the onslaught of ads?

Tina Trent said...

The American Principles Project, run by Princeton Professor Robert George, is a collegial, welcoming, socially conservative organization. Its intellectual roots run unusually deep for an activist group, though any association with it now would prevent someone from being able to pursue a career at any but a handful of colleges and universities.

And that's the real fascism.

n.n said...

Above all we must protect the transgendered, especially from having to tolerate those who disagree with them.

From the clear and present progressive risk to transgender (e.g. homosexual) boys and girls, posed by gender-affirming mutilation executed by clinicians suffering from psychiatric dysphoria, Levine's follies of personal affirmation, with hopes and dreams of renewable Greenbacks.