Tulsi in military fatigues

I felt compelled to write this because this guy seems to have an unhealthy negative fixation against Tulsi. He has a YouTube channel reaching 1+ Million subscribers, and by reading the comments, it seems many people take him seriously.

Many people who I trust, watched the video below saying that every candidate should be vetted, and that the video was “Fair”.

I like to think of myself as someone open minded, and despite the many tweets this “person” published, I chose to listen to him.

YouTube video by Amazing Atheist

To be fair, I could not listen to the whole thing, but the first half will give you an impression as to why I disagree with this individual.

2:00–2:47 He plays the victim card.

3:07–5:21 Talking about his comment: “Some people only like her because she is hot and she should be doing porn”, and goes complaining about the backlash. Yes, people are drawn to pretty things, but specially in this day and age of politics. Ideas matter. How do I know? Sanders won’t be selected as the sexiest man alive anytime soon, and he is the most popular politician by many metrics.

5:27–9:00 Tulsi used to be homophobic. Yes people change, and that past makes her a much more effective champion for LGBTQ+ rights because she can talk about her own evolution, and can invite people to change too. Do you know what strategy does not work? People don’t stop being homophobic if you keep telling them they are, and you would never trust them. They will just double down. He is talking in behalf of the LGBTQ+ community. He would be surprised to find that a very large percentage of Tulsi supporters belong to the LGBTQ community. So if it is not a problem for them, why is it a problem for him?

Here is a small sample:

https://medium.com/@andrewrniquette/table-for-two-reservations-about-tulsi-gabbard-addressed-910a1edc624a https://www.facebook.com/LGBTQplus4TG/ https://twitter.com/antiwarmisfit

etc…

He says her change is because the “polling” about this issue started to change. Tulsi has been very honest as to what prompted her to change. It was at the time she was deployed and interacted with the world. When she met people of the LGBTQ community and entrusted her life, and others entrusted their lives to her. That kind of kinship is difficult for anyone outside the military to understand.

To assume that she “only changed” because of “polls” is absolutely disingenuous and a slap on the face to the LGBTQ service-people. He wonders if Tulsi’s evolution was a “political” calculation. She was next in line and being groomed as the next “Hillary” by the DNC, and she threw all that away to support Sanders. She knew about it, she was warned about it, and she did the right thing.

Anybody paying attention to what Tulsi says and does, quickly would realize, it goes beyond “political calculation”. She does the RIGHT thing every single time.

Examples:

a) She wanted Obama to properly described the enemy as Muslim Extremists. Why? because it is the only way to create a strategy to defeat them. It cannot be done solely with war, but ideologically.

b) She protested in congress and on-site in Standing Rock, for the construction of the pipe-line when other politicians were silent.

c) She called on Trump’s ties with Saudi Arabia and Israel. Countries dictating our foreign policy.

d) She called on her own senator Hirono, when Hirono was weaponizing religion (She wanted a nominee to stop being part of the knights of Columbus, as a requisite to occupy a federal post) a catholic organization.

e) She was the first to defend the right of Venezuelans to dictate their own future.

f) She has called on pardoning Assange, Manning, and Snowden, and define a process to allow whistle blowers to keep an eye on bad government actions.

g) Visited Syria to make sure that we were getting proper intelligence of what was going on the ground.

The list goes on and on, every single step doing the right thing, despite the political cost. So why would her transition to LGBTQ+ champion be the exception? I honestly can’t finish the video. The bias, and the lack of understanding of timelines is just appalling.