It's Spreading

No, not the virus but the hate.

If you look through out history you find that in times of economic stress people look for scapegoats and the low hanging fruit this time is us. LGBTQ+ people we are the target of their hate, the former Soviet block countries have attacked LGBTQ+ people ever since the break up of the Soviet Union.

In Chechnya they started concentration camps for us, in Poland they have started “Gay Free Zones” and in Russia itself they made it illegal to “promote LGBTQ.” The latest country to  join the hate is Hungary.

Hungary’s far-right leader Viktor Orban immediately moves to strip away trans rights after being granted absolute power
Pink NewsUK
By Emma Powys Maurice
April 1, 2020

Hungary’s far-right prime minister Viktor Orban has moved to strip away trans rights as one of his very first acts after his pandemic power grab.

On Monday, the Hungarian parliament agreed to extend Orban’s already strong powers by granting him the right to rule by decree indefinitely, meaning he no longer needs to consult other lawmakers before making decisions.
[...]
The effect of this [new law]] is that Hungarian citizens will be unable to change their gender legally, a significant rollback of rights in the eastern European country.

Since data in official documents such as ID cards, driving licenses and passports are taken from the civil registry, the change would affect these as well.

It can’t happen here!

Oh, you think so…

COVID-19, Bill Barr and the American authoritarian tradition
The Hill
By Patrick G. Eddington
March 26, 2020

National crises—real or manufactured—often bring out the worst in government officials. It was reported on Saturday that the Justice Department requested from Congress the ability to ask chief judges to indefinitely detain people without trial during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This penchant of federal officials to attempt or actually suspend the Bill of Rights dates from the first decade of the American republic to the present day. Now, Attorney General Bill Barr is seeking to revive the use of at least some of those past tools of political repression in the name of combatting a microscopic, and all-to-frequently lethal virus.
[…]
Exactly how would suspending court proceedings prevent the spread of the virus? Given where we are in this pandemic, eliminating in-person court proceedings might be prudent from a public health standpoint, but much of the American justice system can operate utilizing existing telecommunications technology.

As I said in time of socioeconomic strife many dictators have come to power. Even in our time we have seen it; during the “Arab Spring” when the people rose up, there were other groups waiting in the wing usurped the revolutionaries.

Barr’s power play for essentially open-ended suspensions of criminal proceedings and related matters has nothing to do with stopping the spread of COVID-19. Barr’s proposals, at least so far as we know from public reporting thus far, involve giving judges the power to suspend court proceedings “whenever the district court is fully or partially closed by virtue of any natural disaster, civil disobedience, or other emergency situation.” The only reason to suspend court proceedings would be if no judges, court recorders, or other court personnel were available to deal with cases. That’s not the case now and is highly unlikely ever to be the case. Our legal system can absolutely continue to operate in the digital age, as my own experience and that of many others demonstrates.

Beware!

This is the time when hate spreads… the way Trump uses xenophobic words for COVID-19 has stirred up hate and violence against the Asian community, look at the words that Trump uses against democratically elected officials, look at the way he uses need medical supplies as a weapon against governors who don’t kowtow to him. Watch out for secret sweetheart deals with the “Captains of Industry” where the details of contracts are kept out of the public eyes.

As the pandemic spreads keep an eye out for “Emergency Powers” coming from the power hungry in Washington.