Two links, two books to demand that your local library stock if it doesn't already...
Politics, Domestic
There's no way around it. Conservatives just have to stop bashing "feminism" and embrace young women's goals and ambitions. After all, it's not that young women really want to live in fleabag flats and never have any control over their own lives. It's that they want reassurance that fiscally conservative policies offer them something better than that--which happens to be true. They need to know that fiscally conservative women are entrepreneurs and artists, not the stereotypes they call "Stepford Wives." They need to know that mindfully choosing not to make babies before marriage gives a girl more, not less, control over her body and more, not less, probability of enjoying it if and when she does choose to have a baby. They need to know that real conservative men respect women.
Little boys who have not learned respect for women, who really are undatable, need to know that they have no place in any part of adult society, although they're most likely to get away with failing to grow up if they hide their real selfishness behind weaselly left-wing words. Believing that the half of humankind whose IQ scores decline measurably when they can see a bosom, such that they think war is a solution to anything, are "more logical" than the half whose primary display of stupidity consists of marrying the bonehead half? That is outdated, resting as it does on the ravings of a suicidal atheist and the "studies" of a confirmed data manipulator, but it's not "conservative." It is merely stupid. And if Rs appealed to the superior mental processes of mature women to check the irrationality of some men in that party, they might be able to shake their reputation for being a party that starts wars.
Politics, Personal
For what it's worth, given that young men are about as interested in dating fifty-year-old aunts as the aunts are in dating them--which is to say, most people in both categories would expect to have more fun at a dental appointment--I personally would consider dating either a Republican or a Democrat, but I'd have higher expectations of the R. Rs have more to say about their higher standards, so they should show that they have those standards.
I'm not going to ask what a new acquaintance's income is, but if I'm talking to a man who wants to loll around in the slow death they call retirement, that's not a date, it's a job interview. I see "retired" men as patients. Dating is for people who are still living, working, getting things done. Friends with whom I can work synergistically in the daytime are the only people with whom I'd be interested in trying anything that depends even more on synergy at night. Second or third career men interest me. Retired men are just plain depressing.
Obviously I don't care all that much about height. All else being equal, 5'9" or 5'10" would be the ideal height. Considering the probability that I'm going to have to lift or carry any other Partner for Life I ever have, I think shorter might be preferable to taller. But I don't care about the body so much as about the person living in it.
But yes, six-pack abs...Some men have more muscle definition than others. Too much muscle definition is not necessarily such a good thing. "Steroidal' is not a term of praise. But a man's abs should define a nice firm straight flat manly body shape, overall. Curves are a female thing.
Politics, International
Senator Tillis was tactless, but he's right. About some things we know more than our elected officials do. About other things, we're paying them to know more than we do.
Psychology
Logical arguments from people who've not done the research: Last night on Rumble Scott Adams said what people who've not done the research always say about these homicide-suicides. "If most of the people who do these awful things are on drugs, is it not probable that they had mental illnesses before they used the drugs?"
SA is smart enough that, if he's still saying that, other intelligent people are likely to be saying or thinking it too. So I'll say this again--not a link, but a reference to actual books. Read Peter Breggin's Talking Back to Prozac. Read Joseph Glenmullen's Prozac Backlash. As both of those books made clear, twenty years ago when they were new, it's not really fair that the syndrome has the nickname "Prozac Dementia" when other antidepressants are at least equally likely to cause it...but, yes, there is a well documented syndrome. Antidepressants are usually given to people who weren't violent before; a small percentage of those people become violent in response to a very specific drug reaction pattern, and other patients who have the same reaction are sensible enough to call their doctors and change their medication before they become violent. While Lilly has bribed newspapers to suppress reports on the role of antidepressants in homicide-suicides, reality is that more awareness of the danger of antidepressants actually reduces the risk of homicide-suicide since patients like Lauren Slater may be able to recognize their drug reactions and resist any violent impulses associated with those. Everyone needs to know that antidepressants can cause otherwise nonviolent people to become obsessed with taking revenge for violent crimes that were never committed.
People with "untreated depression" have been known to commit suicide, especially if it turns out that their "depression" was an early warning sign of AIDS, cancer, or multiple sclerosis. They are rarely violent toward others, though likely to alienate others by passive-aggressive behavior or just having a dragging effect on others. They do not form pseudomemories with a tendency to obsession with violent acts of sodomy. (Prozac Dementia pseudomemories have such an obsession, probably because in the majority of patients who report neuromuscular spasms but not dementia, the drugs seem to concentrate painful cramps around the base of the spine.) They do not rave about killing groups of people who they claim participated in or at least allowed the crimes that were never really committed, nor about protecting children from what they imagine was done to cause the kind of pain the drugs induce.
Some drugs are just known to have a specific pattern of effects on the brain. LSD produced a lot of different kinds of "trips" but there were marked tendencies to hallucinate in specific colors and to hallucinate about "the Devil." Tegretol, the antispasmodic, often produces an obsession with suicide--if the patient has religious beliefs that forbid planning per own suicide, the drug can produce an interest in suicide as a topic, the Kevorkian trials, Canada's Medical Assistance In Dying scheme, etc. And those antidepressants that seem to work so wonderfully for some people produce a very specific kind of violent insanity in other people. Closer observation of people using these drugs would probably solve the problem of homicide-suicide.
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