Wichita Lineman Was A Song I Once Heard

Solitude defined by internet use is a blight on our mental stability.

Having succumbed, I know that only introspection and self-control can recover a stable equilibrium.

Speaking of which, the SNP need an intervention. They have forgotten that their purpose, and why they win elections, is to deliver independence. It is almost nine years since the referendum and the opportunities of Brexit and inept Tory rule have been squandered. Given that context, waiting for them to remember and act now feels increasingly futile. It’s a chore on a par with sitting through any adaptation of Waiting for Godot.

Irritatingly, the only constitutional skirmish the SNP have sought centers around their Gender Recognition Reform bill. In doing so they’ve aligned with social media’s most barmy tribe, mouth frothing trans-rights activists.

Westminster had to veto this bill given how utterly batshit crazy and incoherent elements of this legislation were. I’d love to believe passing a law, most of the public did not want, or were, at best, very unsure about, making it even easier for men to opt into women’s spaces and compete in women’s sports, was all a means to an end. That the bill’s failure was by design, to show that devolution was a half-measure and sham. Enticing the Tories to block the Gender Recognition Reform bill would have been an excellent piece of political strategy if it was followed by the SNP electing to dissolve the Scottish parliament and using the snap election as a defacto referendum on independence.

But the response was predictably tepid, all talk and no action, from Nicola Sturgeon’s tasteless and inaccurate generalizations to its opposition (how can opposing something that erases single sex spaces for women be misogynistic?), to the incoherent justifications for the bill from the SNP and Greens MPs and MSPs. For those of us who crave independence (or just another chance at it) their stupidity in showing more passion for a mis-conceived bill is a double offence. Independence would actually give them genuine power to implement gender reform, among other things.

This is partly our fault for continuing to indulge the SNP with mandates despite their independence inertia. It’s made them so secure that they can behave with a form of Corbynistic decadence. It’s about maintaining their deified celebrity status among a small whiny clique who claim to speak for a “persecuted” minority and making their devotees feel good, that their utopian vision of an independent Scotland is supported by the leadership and results come second to being on the right side of history.

Thankfully the absolutism of silencing dissent against self-ID, the attempts to normalise the esoteric and bizarre fetishes that have infiltrated the trans-rights fringe, and the Orwellian attempts to control language is starting to be resisted.

Try as the trans-rights nutters might to deny the limitations biology imposes on us all, the SNP seem unable to comprehend that support for independence isn’t likely to increase through focusing on a brand of contentious social justice. Sure, on the surface, supporting trans-rights appears to be the right choice, morally, ethically, even politically. But descend down a trans related rabbit hole and you’ll come across something that makes you recoil. For instance, I discovered that a Eunuch, a proposed recognised gender identity, is essentially a nonce who fantasizes about genital mutilation and believes paedophilia should be legal (even Jimmy Saville would call them wrong’uns). There’s Furries, most just get dressed in large cartoonish animal costumes, harmless enough. Some have sex while dressed as their Furry persona (to each their own), others take it further, they want to have sex with dogs or other non-human mammals (it’s unclear, and will remain so, if they Furry up during the act or how the dogs feel about this). And then there’s sissy porn, Jame Gumb was into this sort of stuff – and you thought watching any film by Uwe Boll, the eye socket scene in A Serbian Film or browsing 4Chan and having a quick gander at Hentai porn was edgy.

Such peculiarities can be amusing, from a distance. The pious tone, disingenuous mental gymnastics and linguistic sleights employed by the trans-righters and the social justice enablers, and the cynical denial of scientific and biological reality that’s necessary to support their arguments, isn’t so funny.

For some acknowledging the infinite number of bespoke and esoteric gender identities and pronouns isn’t enough. Emboldened, now they’re on a power trip, pushing for rights simply because they can. How else do you explain advocating allowing eight-year-olds the right to legally change their assigned sex, to suggest that sex isn’t binary, or worse yet, expanding the trans coterie to normalize the sinister sexual proclivities of some very sketchy people. If anything, the latter encourages humiliation of actual trans people, who benefit from gender reassignment surgery and not just indulging in a bit of cosplaying. Where does this lunacy of eroding the rights of women and removing child safe-guarding, to always affirm first, and leave the questions, data, evidence and social and medical consequences to later, end? What’s next? My pet is trans?

After nine years of faffing about and phony statements of intent, my suspicion is that the SNP are what they appear to be. They’re not captured on the trans issue but just drunk on the power of their own popularity and principles, getting paid to do nothing and never being held accountable.

Convincing most Scots of independence is certainly achievable, and those outside of this trans-rights and self-ID debate bubble, which is still the majority, are far more interested in Scotland’s constitutional future, than how to fairly and reasonably to integrate legitimate forms of gender expression alongside the existing sex-based laws we have. That the SNP should be entrusted to form Scotland’s first government is now a harder sell and independence is clearly an existential risk to the cushy status-quo.

If you want things to change, forcing other people to act as you think they should and believe what you want them to is not a viable strategy. It’s just dishonesty. Remember, Godot never does make an appearance.