Nick Anderson for May 10, 2016

Small Govt? My butt!

Says the guy looking under the stall door to see what you got.

The discussion is about public toilets with privacy stalls, not public showers with nudity. What’s the big deal?

I think our politicians are insane. No matter how you cut this one, it is the height of intrusion and stupidity. If you try to ban somebody, you then need the bathroom police inspecting all entrants. Transgender people are probably something like a tenth of a percent of the population, most of them just want to be left alone. This problem pales in comparison to the 30000 a year we kill with guns and another 30000 in traffic accidents. Then there are the federal, state and local budgets that are going under and the infrastructure that is collapsing and falling apart. The “common sense” voters are insane to keep allowing all the real problems to be ignored and obsess about these non-problems.

There’s an add on Canadian TV recently (I don’t know if it’s on US TV), I don’t remember what product it’s promoting, but it shows a young woman waiting in a long line to use a public ladies’ room, and she cuts out of line and goes into the men’s bathroom. I think it’s supposed to show that she’s cool and hip and not bound by convention and thus the kind of person who would use the product. whatever it is. I guess in North Carolina that young woman would be arrested.

The US and North Carolina are tangling over transgender rights. The Justice Dept filing a civil rights lawsuit over the state’s so-called “bathroom bill” and state officials have defiantly filed suits against the federal directive to stop the implementation of the controversial legislation. The state’s public university system has defied the governor and legislature and told the Justice Dept it will act in compliance with federal law and not the bigoted state law. The act puts in place a statewide policy that bans individuals from using public bathrooms that do not correspond to their biological sex and stops cities from passing anti-discrimination ordinances that protect gay and transgender identity. The power is reserved for the state under the new law. The ideological extremity and utter unworkability of the state law and the defense of the pro-discriminatory practices are astonishing. That in the 21st century we would expect people to be open and kind to each other, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, color or religion. It is time to pull ourselves out of the past and stop attempting to rewrite laws and policies that bypass the intent of these great United States that we are all created equal.

NC GOP are hoping this issue will enrage conservative voters across the nation and bring more people out to vote for conservatives despite a largely unappealing POTUS candidate. I have no doubts transgender ppl have been using public, gender specific bathrooms for decades, but because they were dressed as the gender with which they identified, and because they went into a stall and closed the door, no one knew, cared, or thought about it.If a person was born one gender and had a sex change operation changing the biological equipment with which they USE a bathroom, this law still demands they go to the bathroom corresponding with their birth sex. I have to believe few ppl convincingly dress as the opposite sex do so in order to hit on innocent bystanders, and those who have surgery are even less likely to do so for predatory reasons.I have seen so many ppl cry out in defense of woman who may be accosted in public bathrooms by transgenders, but there is still too much silence regarding women and girls who are sexually molested and assaulted in public schools as well as private schools, colleges, offices, and the military. Protect our women from transgender perverts.. but not from the ‘normal’ guys? Does anyone else see the hypocrisy of this attitude?Respectfully,C.

This wins ironic strip of the day.

Just a thought, when will states and the Feds make jail time for actually filming child porn and abusing kids, actually exceed the time folks get for merely viewing it on their computers? There’s room for “conservatives” to make a little more progress on this. Classic was a case a year or so ago that the guy watching got 20 years to life, and the guy that actually filmed the porn and abused the kid, got six months!! Believe the video was also from one of the “Bible Belt” states.

drewk79 why not make up a bigger number? yes government should stay out of my decision i want your big screen tv

I’ve never stopped to use a public restroom in NC, but after all this discussion I’m picturing that some of them are like this:

dear drewk79 the population of the USA is over 323 million so having a law against me taking your tv is even less need according to your " logic"