Kate retweeted
There was a time when many conservatives, who are not all ideologically opposed to govt helping the needy, might have been more amenable. Know what killed that? The hysterical Dem reaction to DOGE. Told us everything we needed to know about concern for “the kids” vs concern for political jobs and campaign coffers. The kids are merely the handy vehicle for the latter, and DOGE made that crystal clear.
I have a roomate. And my children are hungry. So I hand her $100 and she swears she’ll go get groceries so the kids can eat. Comes home with one loaf of bread and high as a kite. This happens 20 times. The “reflexive hostility” isn’t to the idea of feeding kids - it’s to the idea of handing a methhead more grocery money.
Kate retweeted
The CBO has scored Medicare for All, and it's worth looking at their results:
They compared five systems with various assumptions about provider payments & patient cost sharing. One of the five increased total annual healthcare spending.
What's even more notable is that they explicitly warn of "increased congestion in the health care system, including delays and forgone care."
That's why M4A will end up costing more.
Americans are not going to sit by with "delays and forgone care." They're going to pay out of pocket for a system that elminates those delays and forgone care.
The average American will no longer have an insurance premium. Their taxes have gone up.
Then they encounter delays and forgone care. They see their friends waiting months for cancer treatment, a year for a knee replacement, 40 hours in an ER for a burst appendix.
They say, "I don't want that." They purchase a private insurance plan. Now they're back paying an insurance premium on top of their increased taxes.
So M4A has created a two-tier system that ultimately costs Americans more.
If you have private insurance now, you’re not going to like Medicare for All.
Your taxes will go up to pay for it.
“That’s fine, because I won’t have to pay my private insurance premiums any more!” You might say.
But since we already spend too much on Medicare, even with the tax increases, we won’t be able to fund ample high-quality access for all.
Low-value utilization will go up. We have two very strong studies that show this. So you’ll be waiting even longer for doctor appointments than you do now. You find out you need cataract surgery or a hip replacement and are told the wait is 6 months to a year. The appointments will be even shorter, the doctors more burned out. It’ll take three visits with an NP before you even get to see a doctor.
So you buy private insurance, if you have enough disposable income after the extra taxes. Except now the insurance premium isn’t tax advantaged, so it costs you more than it did previously.
In the end, with the increased taxes and higher priced private insurance, you’re paying more for the same care you have now.
Kate retweeted
Federal healthcare spending exceeds $2T annually now, will exceed $3T in the next 5 years and $4T in the next 10 years.
That's for 124M covered lives. The private market covers over 220M people and does so far more efficiently (admin costs notwithstanding).
Total healthcare costs presently exceed $6T and account for 18% of GDP. It has more than doubled since the passage of the ACA.
90% of hospitals reimbursed at Medicare rates LOSE money and operate in the red. (100% of hospitals run negative margins at Medicaid rates). Many hositals will go out of business - best estimates are 1 of 3 hospitals won't sustain operations and require (wait for it) ADDITIONAL federal money to stay afloat because the federal payer model doesn't begin to cover OPEX much less CAPEX. All that gets funded by debt - of which we presently spend over $1.05T annually just on interest payments.
The US military spends $1T presently and this is forecast to grow to $1.2T in the next 5 years. China, by comparison, is spending over $1.9 on its military in 2026, and this is forecast to double in the next ten years.
You could cut the entire military budget and still have a healthcare budget shortfall because we have zero accountability for how/what/where spending occurs. This problem only compounds with an open border.
All of that spending doesn't magically create more healthcare supply, so you can plan on access issues in spite of the "guarantee" of coverage. (This is exactly what has played out in Canada and GBR btw.)
The idea that you can magically improve healthcare coverage, reduce costs and improve outcomes by having the military run bake sales to fund unmanned drone and space based missile defense sounds cartoonishly naive when looking at the hard numbers.
Kate retweeted
China is hiring the dumbest kids you knew in high school to sabotage American tech infrastructure by telling them data centers are stealing water from dehydrated African children.
~60% of data centers are air-cooled/closed loop systems. Meaning they waste no water. 95% of new data centers being built use these same cooling methods. The remaining data centers that do “waste” water are aging and require renovation/replacement. So when you stop the construction of a new waterless data center, you are actually the one causing data centers to “waste” water unnecessarily.
It’s incredible how many people are anti-data-center for reasons a quick grok search can easily debunk.
Fun fact: The woman pictured here credited the viral success of her campaign to the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a China proxy organization operating here in the United States.
PSL is the political arm of the Shanghai-based Neville Roy Singham, an avowed Marxist multimillionaire who has bankrolled anti-American, pro-CCP nonprofits to the tune of $278 million.
Singham’s political foot soldiers have been boots on the ground in dozens of anti-data center fights across the country. But striking down the $5 billion data center campus in Landover, MD, was by far their biggest scalp.
In the ongoing campaign against American AI, cui bono?
More than anyone, it’s our chief political adversary.
Kate retweeted
Alright, I'm just going to call this what it is.
You want reading and all forms of entertainment to be used as brainwashing to force people to treat you the way you think you deserve to be treated.
Nothing more, nothing less.
You don't care about "dire consequences for women" - you care about forcing men into some subservient position because in your mind to "empathize" means to give the person who has the most hurt feelings everything they want.
So many books out in the world - books older than you, written by crusty old dudes - include deep and abiding respect and love for women that men used to appreciate.
The problem was, those women had to actually preform their role in the book as well. They had to be women who behaved in ways that earned respect, women who took accountability.
And GOD knows far too many women today think that any form of "accountability" ruins their freedom.
You and your ilk are exactly why storytelling is the in shitter, especially around women.
I AM SO FUCKING TIRED OF IT AND I'M NOT EVEN A MAN.
I want women who inspire other women to be better, to be the type of woman a man wants to go to the ends of the world for.
The type of woman a man would go to war with God for because he knows when he comes home, she will have held her place. Keeping his tiny corner of the world safe while he brings down the very heavens to keep the world safe for her.
But no, instead people like you want to encourage the ridiculous drivel that pumps out Mary Sue's that NEVER do anything wrong - they're perfect, and if something happened, it's because they were wronged.
I can't even begin to describe how angry what people like you have done to my entertainment.
Yet another cowardly pussy who gets abusive then blocks because he knows he has no actual argument, just his abusive nature.
18
Kate retweeted
Trump is right. It’s hard to deport someone who has worked hard for 15 years and broken no laws beyond entering the country illegally.
I spent over a decade teaching in a community with many illegal immigrants and their children. I knew genuinely good people, wonderful families, and incredible kids. They weren't abstractions to me. They were people I cared about and wanted to see succeed.
I understand the emotional difficulty of enforcing immigration law. I've experienced it firsthand.
But there's a fundamental difference between judging an individual through the lens of personal experience and governing a nation through the rule of law.
It's easy to make exceptions when we're confronted with a sympathetic story. We see a hardworking father, a devoted mother, or an innocent child, and naturally want to spare them hardship.
But my personal feelings about those individuals cannot determine whether the law applies to them. Nor can anyone else's.
And with immigration, the consequences extend far beyond any individual case. We're deciding who may enter our country, remain here, and become part of our national community. If those decisions are ultimately determined by who manages to get here and whose story moves us most, the consent of the governed becomes increasingly meaningless.
The hardest cases are precisely when our principles matter most, because the entire purpose of having laws is to establish rules that transcend our individual sympathies, prejudices, and emotions.
If enforcing the law depends on our sympathy for those who break it, we no longer have the rule of law. We have a collection of suggestions subject to the whims of our emotions.
Kate retweeted
Would you cut taxpayer-funded salaries for unnecessary school administrators if it meant every kid in public school got free breakfast and lunch, no matter how much their parents make?
Kate retweeted
There’s a strange type of man in America today.
He has soft hands and sharp words. He talks endlessly of peace, but fantasizes about violence. He rails against masculinity, yet wants to wield power. He despises weapons, but dreams of using the state as a gun. He calls himself educated, but speaks like a zealot. He waves foreign flags, hates his own countrymen, and believes men can be women and women can be men.
You’ve seen him. You’ve argued with him. And right after he hurls his insults, he blocks you. Because deep down, even he knows he cannot back it up.
He is the child of a civilization in decline. Raised without God. Taught that strength is violence, masculinity is toxic, and truth is subjective. He’s been fed purpose through ideology, and fear through propaganda.
He doesn’t worship a higher power, he worships power itself.
And he wants the state to do what he never could: silence you, disarm you, erase you. But here's the fatal flaw in their fantasy:
They don’t run the state.
They don’t hold the rifles.
They don’t know violence.
They only post about it.
So what happens when the Leviathan they helped build doesn’t come to their rescue? What happens when the men they mocked and threatened are the ones holding the line?
This is how a nation comes apart. Not through civil war, but through a spiritual collapse. By elevating the weak and shaming the strong. By crowning confusion and exiling clarity. By teaching sons to hate their fathers, and citizens to hate their flag.
So to those soft handed radicals who dream of revolution but tremble at recoil: If you’ve exiled God, disarmed yourself, and put your faith in a state you don’t control…
What exactly is your plan?
Because the ones you despise... the ones with calloused hands, faith in their chests, and weapons slung across their backs.....
They’re still here.
And they’re not confused.
Again, what is your plan? You’ve already chosen submission. Spiritually, physically, morally. All that’s left is for someone to tell you when to kneel. And I am here to tell you exactly that. You should thank me. Because refusing this truth won’t end well for you. Not because I said so… but because history always does.
Kate retweeted
Translation:
Produce and buy me a house, feed me, and provide my healthcare at the expense of your time, effort, money, and choices, or you're selfish.
I shouldn't have to pay for anything, but you should have to pay for me.
And somehow, I'm the one who isn't greedy.
Everyone is freaking out about this now. Just wait till they figure out they voted for it to get much worse.
The 🇺🇸 IRS just released the new tax brackets for 2027
Single filers (2026 in parentheses):
10%: $12,800 or less ($12,400)
12%: over $12,800 ($12,400)
22%: over $52,025 ($50,400)
24%: over $109,125 ($105,700)
32%: over $208,325 ($201,775)
35%: over $264,550 ($256,225)
37%: over $661,375 ($640,600)
Married filing jointly (2026 in parentheses):
10%: $25,600 or less ($24,800)
12%: over $25,600 ($24,800)
22%: over $104,050 ($100,800)
24%: over $218,250 ($211,400)
32%: over $416,650 ($403,550)
35%: over $529,100 ($512,450)
37%: over $793,650 ($768,700)
43
Kate retweeted
It's a vicious cycle. Central planning creates problems, central planners scapegoat everyone but themselves, and voters demand even more central planning to fix the consequences.
Meanwhile, the politicians gain more power, their favored interests gain more privileges, and the public becomes increasingly dependent on the very people promising to rescue them from being taken advantage of.
That didn’t take long. What was it, last week, it was only Billionaires who were going to have to pay more.
Certain Democrats might lose their minds over this, but we must recognize that people earning over $500,000 a year are wealthy. People earning over $200,000 a year are wealthy. If we want to have normal-rich-country social policies (e.g., low-cost or free child care, universal health care), we need these people to pay a little extra. The middle-class probably need to contribute a little more as well, but they will definitely come out ahead when the improved health system and public services are accounted for.
31
Kate retweeted
This might cost me in more ways than one, but: Epstein is fake. The whole memeplex around it is fake. It is the closest thing to the Ring of Power that exists in politics. Both sides have wielded this ephemeral boogeyman against the other, and it’s always a disaster because once you obtain power you get to see the files and you realize there’s nothing there, which means you have no meat to feed the rabid dogs you rallied to your cause, and they eat you instead. It’s a mass hysteria akin to witch panics, but on an information-age scale.
I guess what I’m saying is Michael Tracey is Frodo.
Kate retweeted
Yeah we all remember that and I also remember not being stupid enough to think the government could fix it all for me. I remember having four roommates while I was a young Navy SEAL and saving money on my first deployment to Iraq to buy my first home. I remember when people didn’t believe that someone else should pay for some make-believe lifestyle we thought we deserved…because we believed we had to figure it out ourselves. I also remember when Republicans were honest enough to tell people the truth and fight for policy that would have long term benefits even if unpopular in the short term. If anyone thinks the lesson about “affordability” in this election is just becoming more populist and more liberal, then go join the Democrat party. They’ll be happy to have you, bribing voters with promises of free crap.
Or…do a better job making the economic case for what you know is right.
I’m still team Trump. Why? Because his policies are grounded in the long term, not the convenient short term. GOOD. Double down on the agenda.
Who cares if we lost the midterms? Nothing changes. We already had a deadlocked Congress anyway.
And how about you supposed “conservative commentators” tell the truth about issues like affordability? Republicans made sure the average family of 4 didn’t see a $10,000 increase in taxes last year. *Money that Democrats voted to take from you.* Republicans push for permitting reform and deregulation. Supply side policies that decrease inflation long term. Tariffs suck in the short term but in the long term will bring manufacturing here. Biden and his Democrats caused 9% inflation. The high prices you see now? Guess what, 76% of that higher price is from the Biden years. The rest is gas prices which admittedly is caused by the actions in Iran. GOOD. All I have to pay is 30% higher gas and I get to make sure Iran can’t point a nuke at me?? GOOD.
By the way, lots of other consumer goods are cheaper. Prescription drugs are 4.5% LOWER. The biggest cost increases are housing and healthcare. Why? Because Obamacare wrecked the healthcare market and blue states make it impossible to permit new home building. But who cares about the facts, right? Good job, Texas! Say goodbye to your low cost of living and pro-business reputation. And thank the braindead right wing populists that threw their votes away in protest (also thank Paxton for running the worst campaign ever….).
Republicans need to stop running away from good policy and principles just because it MIGHT win an election. Thats the Democrat way. Fuck that. Stick to principle. And LEARN HOW TO ACTUALLY EXPLAIN GOOD POLICY TO VOTERS. The moronic consultant class told the GOP to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on transgender ads instead of the economy.
Incredibly stupid.
Let’s learn some lessons, but for God’s sake learn the RIGHT lessons.
I remember making 40k with a wife and two babies and having nothing left at the end of the month after rent and groceries, and I think about it still every day. If you’re struggling to make ends meet and keep your family fed with a roof over their heads, that struggle is simply the most pressing and urgent matter in your life and nothing else really comes close. This is something that many Republican politicians and conservative “thought leaders” still do not understand and maybe never will.
Kate retweeted
We're in a new era of communication, and only one side seems to be living in it. The old guard consultant class is about to be relegated to the dustbin of history.
If you think that high prices lost the election for the right, you don't understand marketing. Humans have no problem paying a premium for a good quality brand. Notice the word "brand", not "product". Are Nikes better than New Balance? Nope. But the brand is better. And notice what happened when they tinkered with the brand and screwed their core narrative? Nike stock fell through the basement. Did the product change? Nope. The brand did.
It's not the product, it's the brand. Results don't sell the product, the storytelling does. Will these newly-elected commies lower prices? Of course not. Are they gonna get you free healthcare? No, your insurance is gonna get even worse, just like it did the last time they tried socialized medicine. They're not going to do anything they've sold you, but...like Saul Goodman said: if you're committed enough, you can make any story work.
The committed storytelling of a couple insane podcasters was enough to fracture an entire political coalition from their own side in less than 2 years...they have zero power, zero credibility, they've never actually governed anything nor produced any results, but...they're good storytellers, and that's all that matters. Are they telling a good story? No, it's atrocious, but they're telling their atrocious story effectively and compellingly.
It is 100% true that everything's too damn expensive, and we all know that inflated prices are always sticky. Does anyone know that it's entirely the result of shutting down the global economy over the flu and (both naive republicans and democrats) printing infinity dollars for several years? Nope...because nobody has effectively told that story, and it's an unsexy story to tell. "Free stuff!" is a VERY easy story to tell, and when everyone's gotta take out a second mortgage just to pay their insurance premiums, "free healthcare" is an unbeatable story. It doesn't matter that "free healthcare" doesn't exist and socialized medicine is a terrible product...it's not the product, it's the brand. And "FREE!" is a great brand.
You can't get mad at people for having the financial literacy of a 9 year old. I mean, you can, but they outnumber you a million to one, so it's not going to be productive. You need to figure out how to make an unsexy story sexy, or else the "free stuff!" crowd is going to eat your lunch every time. If you give people a choice between earning a six pack on a treadmill or taking Ozempic, they're gonna choose Ozempic...they don't care about the side effects. If you give people a choice between fiscal discipline or free stuff...guess what they'll pick? They don't care about the side effects.
With projected growth of 5%, the economy right now is stronger than it's been in generations. Is that the story you hear? Nope. Is that the vibe you feel? Absolutely not, especially when every time you fill up your gas tank, it feels like a diesel enema.
It's not the product, it's the brand. A great product can fall into oblivion with bad messaging...a single bad review from one effective storyteller can tank a restaurant. The "influencer economy" is lucrative for a reason; everybody inherently understands the importance of effective storytelling...except the right. Zohran Mamdani gets it...he has an army of influencers on staff. In a perfect metaphor of this transitional phase of old guard vs new wave political messaging, Zohran nuked the Vice President into oblivion with maybe the biggest ratio in the history of the internet. By simply posting the subway assistant meme, Mamdani got 2 MILLION likes, quoting a post from the VP that had only 10K likes. If you're reading that sentence thinking "this is fucking ridiculous, you're talking about social media likes as political analysis now?"...you are the problem.
Yes, this stuff matters. Rizz matters. The President did a masterful job of this kind of retail politics in his historic 2024 campaign...you can be angry that this is what politics has been reduced to, but you can either adapt or die.
"No the problem is, you didn't deliver enough for the American people!" Are you a moron? Since when does anybody care about that? What have democrats delivered for Californians in the last 20 years? Unmitigated wildfires, homeless drug zombies everywhere, roads that look like Fallujah in 2004...people don't care about results. They think they care about results. That want you to believe they care about results, just as Nike wants you to believe their shoes are better than New Balance...but at the end of the day, all people really care about is the swoosh.
Adapt or die.
Guys, I hate to break it to you, but most political advisors are so bafflingly incompetent, it would make your head spin. All the talented communicators go work in Hollywood or at Saatchi and Saatchi, and these political bros never tap these agencies for help...I've connected several campaigns with literally the best marketing geniuses in the game, got them discounted rates, even...and they just never even bothered calling. It truly feels like a lot of consultants and candidates just want to lose.
You ever wonder how my ads went so massively viral, but there's not been a single candidate who's come close to it? It's their dumbass advisors. I didn't go with any political advisors, and they were SO mad about it. I partnered with a filmmaker and marketing wizard, instead of political grifters. Why? Because I wanted our messaging to be effective. Political ads suck. Nobody watches them. I wanted people to want to watch my ads. The fact that nobody else understands this is...I honestly don't know how to explain it, other than they want to lose.
There are a bunch of candidates who love it when their party loses power. It takes all the heat off them, because then they can't be expected to pass legislation when they're in the minority, plus they can fundraise way better off of the rage when the opposition is running roughshod over the country. Baffling to watch.
Kate retweeted
>be cell biology postdoc at UCLA, 1986
>job: purify vesicles from rat liver
>ez
>purify the vesicles
>something else in the tube
>weird little barrels, way bigger than a ribosome
>fkisdis
>purify the barrels instead
>mostly protein, tiny bit of RNA
>not related to vesicles at all
>new organelle just dropped?
>lab holds a naming contest
>"vaults" "sure, "great name" "
>write it up, publish
>conclusion section: "function: unknown"
>surely we'll figure it out in a couple years
>reviewers: "are you sure this isn't just a virus"
>prove it isn't a virus
>apply for grants to study it
>first question on every call: "what does it do"
>"we're working on it"
>be early 90s
>vaults hang around the nucleus
>"they must plug the nuclear pores"
>they do not
>be different scientist, Netherlands, 1995
>chasing LRP, mystery protein that shows up in chemo-resistant tumors
>clone it
>~88% identical to rat vault protein
>it was vaults the whole time
>whole cancer field piles on
>a decade of papers on vaults and drug resistance
>nobody ever proves vaults cause it
>back at UCLA
>one of the vault proteins binds telomerase
>"guys what if this is the fountain of youth"
>knock it out in mice
>telomeres fine, aging fine, mice fine
>2002
>knock out the main vault protein
>mice: perfectly healthy
>knock out all three vault proteins
>completely vaultless mice
>mice: basically fine, some subtle immune stuff
>mfw something in every cell since the dawn of eukaryotes does nothing obvious
>"just test it in yeast"
>yeast don't have vaults
>"worms then"
>no vaults
>"fruit flies"
>no vaults
>mfw every easy model organism dropped them
>try making recombinant vaults in insect cells
>expecting to get some loose protein at best
>get fully assembled vaults
>can't find a single free copy of the protein anywhere
>turns out ribosomes 3D-print the barrel straight off the mRNA
>lolwut
>still no function
>be structural biologists
>spend years modeling it as 96 proteins with 8-fold symmetry
>2009 X-ray structure
>it's 78 proteins, 39-fold
>caps still blurry
>2025: caps are closed, 13-fold, tiny hole in the middle
>still no function
>NIH funds vault research for 15 years
>NIH: "so what does it do"
>"...we're working on it"
>NIH stops returning calls
>if we can't figure out what it does, we'll make it do something
>stuff a cancer-fighting chemokine inside the barrel
>inject into mouse lung tumors
>immune cells swarm in, tumors shrink
>2011: "human trials within three years"
>2024: "human trials next year"
>2025 database: preclinical
>start a YouTube channel explaining vaults to anyone who'll listen
>be different scientist, Broad Institute
>want to record what genes a cell turned on over time
>try tethering mRNA to a bacterial protein
>doesn't work
>stumble onto a YouTube channel about some obscure barrel organelle
>engineer vaults to grab mRNA
>RNA half-life goes from ~17 hours to ~132 hours
>publish in Science, 2026
>use it to catch drug-resistance genes in lung cancer cells before the drug even hits
>the vault guy is thrilled
>still nobody knows what vaults are for
>be epigeneticists
>screen the whole genome for methylation set at random in the early embryo
>separately study kids conceived in different seasons in rural Gambia
>both screens independently point at the same gene
>it's the goddam vault RNA gene
>its methylation depends on conditions around conception, locked in for life
>linked to cancer outcomes, blood sugar, cleft palate
>mfw the mystery barrel has a mystery RNA that remembers when you were conceived
>40 years later
>one of the most abundant structures in your cells
>still not in a single textbook cell diagram
>we use it anyway because yolo
>function: unknown
>be CNRS scientist in montpellier
>dig through institut curie's chemical library looking for an HIV cure
>find a quinoline that blocks rev from exporting viral RNA
>somehow involved in splicing
>start a company called splicos based on this
>4 years later, company gets merged into abivax
>molecule is now ABX464
>run two phase 2a HIV trials
>it shrinks the viral reservoir a bit
>mfw "a bit" does not cure HIV
>but the bloodwork is weird
>random microRNA miR-124 is cranked tf up
>mfw miR-124 is a major chill pill for inflammation
>turns out the drug grabs the cap-binding complex and splices exactly one random lncRNA
>that lncRNA becomes miR-124
>why that one? lol idk
>HIV attacks GI tract, so maybe give it to colitic mice?
>guts heal lmao
>let's yolo this for ulcerative colitis
>2018 phase 2a works
>let's try with rheumatoid arthritis while we're at this
>2020 covid hits
>"what if it stops cytokine storms"
>yeah let's cure ARDS too lol
>french gov makes it a national research priority
>500 patients in
>2021 trial stopped, does nothing
>stock eats dirt
>ceo: "covid was hyper-acute, chronic inflammation is different, trust me"
>quietly drop rheumatoid arthritis
>go all in on UC
>phase 2b works
>2025 phase 3 induction hits
>stock goes vertical
>2026 maintenance trial: half get remission on drug vs 10 % on placebo
>placebo rate is the lowest ever seen in a trial like this
>NDA to FDA planned late 2026
>mfw a failed HIV drug, a failed covid drug, and a lucky lncRNA might become a blockbuster UC pill
>mfw it took 18 years
Kate retweeted
I do strangulation exams as part of my job. I have taken extensive training in strangulation and am qualified to testify as an expert in strangulation cases. The general public has no idea how bad this epidemic has become, how many women and girls this is happening to, or how dangerous this is.
I share facts about it sometimes like men who strangle women are twice as likely to be involved in a mass shooting or to kill a cop. Women who are strangled by their partners are 750% more likely to be killed by that partner.
I tell people that death by strangulation can occur in just minutes, under a minute if you hit the right nerve bundles that lead to certain arrhythmias. I also tell them that a woman can die from a strangulation event up to one year after the event and that a pregnant woman who has been strangled is at high risk of pregnancy loss for weeks after the strangulation event. Strangulation can lead to brain damage, physical disability, stroke, pregnancy loss, and death.
I tell people that there is no safe way to strangle and that nobody has the ability to consent to being murdered, and consent is not an excuse for murder, if someone were to consent to this it is incumbent on the would be murderer to use self discipline and restraint, because a person’s “consent” to being murdered is not going to be recognized by any court as a legitimate excuse. Nobody can consent to being killed.
When I tell people these things, a very few are appreciative, mostly women, some are interested, men and women, and some attack me for being stupid and not knowing what I am talking about, apparently days of professional training and hundreds of exams performed mean nothing to the “experts” of X. Those that attack are mostly men. Some argue with me about dumb things, like my insistence to call strangulation what it is. Strangulation is not choking, choking is not strangulation, these are two different types of ways to block an airway but they are not the same. That is what people argue with me about the most. They insist on using incorrect language and then provide me with a weak google link picture of a choke hold to try to prove it’s the same.
So then it becomes me explaining that a choke hold is called a chokehold but it is not choking it is strangulation and that blows their minds and I am met with silence or swears.
This is an incredibly important issue that needs to be discussed but it is very contentious and the defenders of strangulation can turn into rabid dogs very quickly.
Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I really appreciate the effort you are taking here, that you are raising awareness and that you are using accurate language and data. It’s really important that we change the narrative around this subject.
I would like to share this resource with you, I’m not sure if you are aware of them or not, but this was the group that did my training on strangulation. They go all over the US teaching medical professionals and law enforcement about strangulation and they have a ton of information and resources on their website. You might find them useful.
Thank you for talking about this.
strangulationtraininginstitu…