bmdrocks21

Ok, so now public opinion doesn't matter? I'm confused, you said that I shouldn't pass my laws because they were unpopular. Now, you can't pass a law even if it is popular? So, you are now going with the principle of the bill rather than public opinion, which brings us right back to where we started. Let's not waste time with diversions. That is like the people who say "what about rape", even though they support abortion for any reason.

So, if I am a politician, then slavery becomes my business. So, if I am a male politician, abortion laws also become my business, yes?

I don't understand how you think that child-beating is a valid moral framework, but we can have that discussion another time. Let's stay on point.

Well, the father also created that fetus, yet the father never gets considered in this decision. Sure, he doesn't have to carry it, but that is also his kid. If it is any one person's right to decide, it would hypothetically be the mother. However, I don't think that any person should be given the ability to kill the child/fetus.

That fetus did absolutely nothing wrong. It didn't have any say in being born. It is human as much as anyone else(all the DNA and genetic information). It is 100% alive and growing. The only differences are age/stage of development and location. Those don't justify a killing.

But don't you want people to have good-paying jobs? Is it better if they just live off the taxpayer rather than bolstering their resume and making a living? They were giving Amazon a tax credit. That means they were forgoing some future tax revenue, not offering them money.

Ok, and the majority of people oppose third-trimester abortions. Do you support banning that? Even considering all of your 'women's autonomy' arguments?

So then what is your point on making the distinction between what is and isn't my business? Since it would be good for me to make a law against slavery, despite it not being my business, why should it matter whose business it is?

No moral correctness? So child-beating psychos are equally right in what they do as Mother Theresa? Got it. They both think they are right, after all...

So now you shift the right to determine personhood to the mother. So, whether or not the child is wanted gives them value? How is that a valid social framework? Something as frivilous and subjective as that determining who can be killed.

How can anyone except a pure ideologue think that forcing Amazon jobs out of your district is a good idea?

They will be sure to crop out that last line :P

That, and his Spanish is certainly not above a third-grade level. 

Additionally, he is well-known in the Spanish community, so the piñata sales will be quite substantial.

Turtle Shells: 1

Squid Shells: 0

All you need to know.

Obviously that elephant photo was photo shopped.

Any elephant would get wiped out by the might of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Also, are there more turtles or elephants in the world? Obviously the better evolved species.

>:)

"Us". Says you are Canadian.

And what elephant superhero is there?

Turtles are superior.

You are also not basing this on any facts. The Shell Size Index lists turtles as the superior species.   

But this concept of lesser moral value is meaningless. You are asserting this solely based on popular opinion. I'm sure a majority of Muslims have certain opinions on women that you would find repugnant. The majority of them think that is the right perception, but that certainly doesn't make it true.

I don't see how it isn't my business. If some moral injustice is occurring, you can't argue that it isn't my business to correct it. It was the business of Abraham Lincoln that slavery was occurring. For a more modern example, would you say that white people cannot protest an instance of police brutality against a minority? Is their opinion meaningless because it isn't their business? Or is it the business of every decent citizen to fight injustice?

Society doesn't dictate whether something is correct or not. They dictate what they perceive as correct. That means they can be wrong. I don't understand where this distinction is coming from. Are you saying that the difference between disrespect and correctness is whether or not it is legal? 

And the state gets to determine personhood? That worked out so well in Nazi Germany....

Even if the attitude has been that fetuses don't have the same moral value as children or adults, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be given that same respect.

Ok, but I would argue that slavery and infanticide are both my business. Just because I am not directly affected doesn't mean it isn't my business. Body parts have nothing to do with my ability to add valid input.

Ok, if I said that people shouldn't be able to urinate in public, I am dictating what they can and cannot do. Same story about murdering people. Is there anything wrong about me telling these people they cannot do these things? I doubt you would say that I am disrespecting the murderer or the publicly indecent person, would you?

But why aren't they equal organisms? You keep saying they aren't and mentioning current public attitudes. What is your rationale behind them not being equal?

Well of course, you don't treat a child like an adult. However, adults, children, and fetus are all humans. Humans have rights. You don't kill a kid because it is a kid, nor do you with an adult because they are an adult. So, why is it okay for a fetus?

I can't have an opinion on women's issues because I am not a woman? Can I not have an opinion on slavery because I was never a slave? Or, can I say that both abortion and slavery are bad?

Well, I was showing how the only consistent position with respecting life is to not allow abortion. It is the main arguments I know of, just explaining why they aren't consistent and can be dangerous philosophies.

I think that the right to life trumps all other rights. No other right really matters if you are dead. Wouldn't you agree?

You are robbing the fetus of value that it should have. There is no consistent application of value except for conception. Anything other logic, say development, could be used to justify killing a toddler, but not killing an adult in their prime. Either human life matters absolutely or the state has full power in determining what lives matter or which don't. I find the latter to be quite troublesome, as you can imagine.

Viability is different based on wealth of parents and quality of local hospitals. Also, until you're a teenager, you couldn't survive on your own, so you could also be considered "non viable".

Brain waves is completely different from brain dead individuals, as brain dead individuals have no life ahead of them, but the fetus/child has their entire life ahead of them.

Heartbeat... pacemakers...

Again, only consistent stance is: is it human? If so, then it has value.

If you say so. Take care.

There is no sidestepping here. Sure, the mother's well-being should be considered...on things of equal value: life vs life. But economic concerns vs life is not equal. You're saying the slightest concern under the umbrella term of "well-being" constitutes the ending of a life without question. That seems rather problematic.

Ok, and that is when I ask the question: why is that fetus there? In 99.5% of cases, the sex was consensual. They decided to enter into risky activity, and created that life. So, I also believe that should be considered because the child had no choice in being conceived. Now, they are being punished/killed/terminated for something they had no say in it.

And comparing an entire life that is ahead of the kid to a temporary condition is also a bit skewed towards the child/fetus. Albeit that condition sucks, but unless the pregnancy would either kill the mother or some severe permanent damage, I am in favor of the child/fetus' rights.

This being said, I wouldn't personally make any pushes for legislation on abortion until we reform the foster care system. I would say, however, that decisions on the legality should be up to the states, not the federal government.

I have yet to see someone of the Pro-Choice persuasion use evidence for why the fetal, human life is worthless. Normally they bring up arbitrary things like viability or brain waves to make the position palatable, but never explain the significance of either position.

I think of this like a crime, determining which motives would allow an abortion. Things like the mother dying(self-defense). Financial status or not thinking you are ready to have a child don't seem particularly convincing to me. Apply that to a toddler. 

Woah woah woah. Your position is up until birth for abortion? 

And I don't care for the semantic argument. You can call it a child or fetus, whatever you name it is completely arbitrary. What exactly makes the life completely worthless before birth but invaluable after birth? What changes that causes this drastic shift in value?

I know you hate politics and all, but if you had one issue that was most important to you, what would it be? You don't even need to say your position because of the ensuing 'flame war'.

Also, what is your opinion on turtles? I must know!

I am beginning to think that your goal is not to have a dialogue. I was saying that if you put equal weight on a minor conservation program and super important, partisan issues, then there is nothing else I can say to you. A presidential promise is something that would strain a party's unity. The hundreds of minor, insignificant bills do not matter as much. Again, if you think they do, this conversation cannot really go much further.

You, sir, pivoted. You told me to give you poll data on the wall. I did. Then you moved the goal post to every single conceivable issue that ever goes through Congress.

You didn't answer my question, can't say I am surprised. It is likely because you simply cannot rebut what I said. 

And now, you put words in my mouth. I said the party wasn't unified, I never once said that the majority of the party consistently disagrees with Trump, which is what you are implying. If you could provide quotes from me that led you to believe that, perhaps I forgot that I did. I did, however, show that in the case of the wall, the majority of Republicans did disagree with him.

So you would give equal weight to conserving land in Colorado as you would about a campaign promise of the president? Ok.

You Democrats pretty consistently disagree with Trump. Is that proof that you guys stick together in your disagreement with Trump? That you guys are also collectivists?

We did some cleaning up after Midterms on our side.

Not sure this proves exactly what you want, though. If you look at the top, it says the last vote was about 400,000 acres of land getting preserved in Colorado. That isn't really a partisan thing, both parties have supported similar policies in the past.

However, I would argue that the tough, partisan bills would be a better test of party unity than small, non-partisan bills like that. 

Isn't utilitarianism usually invoked to persecute minority groups (such as wealthy people) in order to raise up everyone else?

Kind of inherently an infringement on personal liberty.

In September 2017:

69 out of 292 Republicans supported Trump's funding plan for building the wall. So, around 24%. The president, a Republican, really wanted it. That is a fairly sizable disagreement.

Keep an eye out for the Fallout games. They are older, and you can usually get all DLC with the game for around ~$10 during Black Friday and Christmas. (I believe for you Canadians, it is Boxing Day).

If you have an Xbox One, they are backwards compatible.

Skyrim and Oblivion are other good similar games if you have a month to spare. In my unpopular opinion, they are inferior. But whatever you do, never buy Fallout 4(I unfortunately did) or Fallout 76(I wisely did not).

I'll try to think of other great story-based games.

If you are a bit masochistic, the Dark Souls series is phenomenal.

I am pretty sure that you are against capital punishment and drone strikes and think they are morally wrong. Why are you using them as an argument?

Not trying to get into another abortion debate, they never go anywhere. Just teasing ;)

If you want a great story-driven game, try Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. Don't be alarmed that Bethesda made it, this was back in their golden age. Obsidian made New Vegas. Probably both top 5 games I ever played.

I also enjoyed Mike Tython's Punchout ;)

I have yet to see how it will outweigh the costs. Perhaps if you dictate what majors can and cannot be taken. However, letting them choose whatever tickles their fancy is not a policy I could ever support. That is why I prefer grants, you can be more discretionary about that. Then, with whatever type of loan, they are taking the risk onto themselves if they want something not covered by grants. We should probably expand grants.

I don't have an NYT subscription :/

Could you link me to whatever study they reference?

Sounds super familiar. I think I read an excerpt from that book in one of my high school English classes.

Honestly, that would be the only way to ensure any type of equality. Even children from the same parents have different IQs, make fairly significant incomes, etc.

If two kids from the exact same parents, raised in the same neighborhoods, went to the same schools and everything cannot be equal, why should anyone be batting an eye when a black kid from Detroit makes less than an Asian kid from New York? It is completely nonsensical. And then harming successful people to make up for the failures of the less talented is just pitiful and incredibly immoral.

Because some pushed for it and some didn't. They had the ability to do something, but they just argued back and forth and didn't get it done. Their lack of cooperation is proof of their disunity. Democrats, when they had a majority, got Obama Care pushed through.

They had the majority of both houses and didn't pass it. Is that not evidence enough of disunity?

So in other words, they don't permit dissidence?

Make sense, considering they are the ones trying to ban speech they disagree with, protest speakers on campus to try to keep them from speaking, attack conservatives at rallies, etc.

It is number one on a list of ten campaign promises. I don't know if that is sufficient from what you are asking. You were rather vague.

Because getting rid of the trap imposes severe costs on everyone else.

In terms of how immigration works, it typically helps high earners and medium income earners, while shafting low-skill, low-income workers. https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-labour-market-effects-of-immigration/ If the immigrants are complements to our workforce, they can be beneficial. If they are substitutes, it clearly does hurt the wages of those they compete with.

That really depends on if you want them "expanding the market." 51% of immigrants are on at least one welfare program, compared to 30% of natives. I don't see that as being helpful. It means we have to tax hard workers more to subsidize this immigration. Groceries stores pay taxes just to end up giving the items to these immigrants through SNAP. https://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2017/aug/14/david-perdue/sen-david-perdue-half-immigrant-households-benefit/

Well, I pulled up a statistic for HistoryBuff. 44% of people aged 22 to 27 with college degrees have jobs that don't require college degrees. The case is likely that they picked a major with few job prospects. It doesn't necessarily have to be a joke major or anything. Even if they got a nursing degree, I would consider it useless if there was little demand for nurses and little projection for future demand. That sort of thing.

Namely, securing funding for building a wall, which was the main campaign promise of the Republican president.

It could be the case that, culturally speaking, you guys care to go for useful majors. But, even though your country's system doesn't have any large problems with that, I don't know if it is as efficient as it could be. What country is it?

The Right isn't as united as you may think. From our perspective, you guys are the collectivists who stick together. Like when one of your people says something controversial, you back them up. When one of ours does, we throw them to the wolves, unfortunately. When we had a Republican president and majorities in both the Senate and House, we hardly got anything done. We also really hate Neo Cons/RINOs, which could be considered our version of your socialists. Trying to take our party down a bad path.

If a kid can't learn to read, they likely have a sever mental disability. Should we keep sending a kid to school that will never learn anything using taxpayer funds? No. So, let me get this straight: under your system, you would be perfectly fine sending people with really bad autism and downs syndrome to college, even though they will never pass? I wouldn't.

Yeah, but rights are more based on what others can't do to you, rather than what you can force others to do for you. I have a right to make you not kill me. I don't have the right to make you defend me if I am getting attacked. I can't make you save me if I am drowning, but I have the right for you not to drown me.

I don't care about what it sounds like. I am saying that you are hurting people who made sacrifices and took opportunity costs to make it through college by reducing their salary. And by flooding the market with people with similar degrees, they will at some point be competing with you for a job. This really isn't my primary argument. Just mentioning how the law of supply and demand works and how you will be rewarding people who incur tons of debt that they refused to pay off while shafting those who actually did pay it off(referring to canceling student debt) as well.

I actually got this idea from watching John Stossel, who is a libertarian. So, it might be more popular than you think. I'd rather reform my own party than jump in your boat and embrace socialist policies. Sick of that slippery slope bs you guys pull. At first, abortion was "safe, legal, and rare". Now it is abortion on demand. No, gay marriage won't affect businesses that don't want to sell to gay couples. Oh really?

My plan is already being used in a few colleges lol. It isn't "almost impossible to implement". And you don't think that people getting degrees for jobs that they will never find is a problem? About 44% of people ages 22 to 27 with college degrees have jobs that don't require college degrees. https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2017/07/13/new-york-fed-highlights-underemployment-among-college-graduates/#3a75ee5d40d8

So, should I pay thousands more in taxes for people to get a gender studies degree or some other bullshit degree that they will never get a job with? Hell no. Of course people "following their dreams" is a problem. Get a useful degree or don't get one at all, unless YOU want to pay for it. But when you don't find an underwater basket weaving job and are stuck with $50k in loans, don't come bitching to me. That is more or less my stance. Under this plan, they would have very strict percentage requirements and longer terms, which will deter these degrees from being pursued.

That sounds like a pretty good system. Although, I have to ask: does the threshold change based on which major you choose? Because some majors are less likely to pay it back quickly if at all.

Supply-side theory is all about privatization, deregulation, tax cuts, and competition. An increase of supply will decrease prices, which accomplishes the same thing as demand side: it allows consumers to buy it. However, the difference is that it creates jobs, rather than destroying them. Instead of the government taking companies out of the market with excessive taxation and regulatory compliance, they will only go out of business if competing firms push them out. That is how you get better products and prices. 

It is really stupid that we have common core, and that the government doesn't discern between smart and dumb kids. They should get separate teaching so they reach their potential. I didn't talk about the intelligence of the people in my post, so I don't know why you brought it up. 

You see, I don't follow. The right to life is... well, a right. You have no right to an education. Education is an investment by the state so that you can grow up and pay taxes. We should stop paying for those dumb majors that don't result in people getting productive jobs. Sure, education is important. But it is an investment and should be managed as such.

You're not addressing what I am saying. Ending torture of someone helps them. Do you acknowledge that a large influx of people with marketing degrees will drive down the salaries of people who already had marketing degrees? Yes or no.

You would have a lot of people getting unnecessary graduate degrees. That will drive costs way up. They might tag on some extra minors. When you aren't paying for it, why care what the costs are? And I don't know, your party offers free government housing and SNAP, so I doubt they would need to worry about all of that. And you forget, I am fighting to eliminate debt. I am just the only one who still would like to apply personal responsibility.

Question: how do you plan on keeping people from making poor decisions for majors? My plan has clear parameters to solve that issue. 

Yeah, and I can guarantee you that most people shopping in that market are going to have criminal intent. Law-abiding people are the ones who will be left unarmed. I don't see that solving any problems, not do I see giving criminals a potentially larger stream of revenue helping, either.

Woah, my dude. You are falling for a trap there.

Trickle down economics isn't something that conservatives actually believe. It is a mischaracterization of our believes by the Left.

What we actually believe is supply side economics. It is the idea that money is better kept in the hands of entrepreneurs than being redistributed to consumers. These entrepreneurs make new goods and services that benefit everyone else. This creates jobs, drives down prices, etc. Super simplified version of it, but that is a brief summary.

As you can see, they are along the same lines, but there is a big difference there. It pretends that as businesses make more money that they will just start paying their employees higher. Not necessarily true. Their goal is to make a profit for the shareholders, which means they will not raise costs unless they have to.

Never defend "Trickle Down Economics". It is a charged term, and you will lose every time. 

Well, some departments have a really good system. If you need an airlift out of the forest, they will actually send you a bill afterwards because people are draining police resources by acting carelessly. 

Whether or not I should have to pay for something should be based on if it is an investment for me, the taxpayer. If that person will pay back more in taxes than I put in, then I could support it. However, the government doesn't discern between majors in college. So, we have plenty of bums that get degrees in art, music, gender studies, etc. Something completely worthless that I will have to pay for. If the government was run intelligently, and they paid for mainly business, economic, and STEM degrees, then we can talk.

Ok, but there is a clear distinction between police/firemen and college. You can opt out of taking college. You can't opt out of police saving you. One is a choice. Unless, you are opting to get mugged somehow, I don't see how this applies.

No, you are punishing people who were responsible. You are going to drive their wages down by devaluing their degree. Will you pay them back for putting themselves through college? Or should people learn that you shouldn't take initiative and wait around until the government buys things for you?

You need to understand the inherent inefficiency of government. When you don't charge people based on their actions, they won't act responsibly. If you made all food free, would people eat more than they should? Yes. So, don't make all food free. Will people get inefficient and excessive education when you make it free? Yes, so guide their actions with income share agreements and grants that steer their behavior towards efficient outcomes.

You know they won't let mature, level-headed guys into politics ;)

I'm sorry for not wasting my time responding to your gish gallop.

How are all of the hot robberies over there in the UK? Not well, I presume.

Well, we both want a lot of people going to college. Neither of us want people to suffer with debt. So that is a good starting point.

However, I believe that the costs should be attributed to the people going to college. Under the system of universal education, should people who don't go to college pay for people that did? Should people that already went to college and paid off all of their debt have to take on the burden of everyone else? If people make bad choices in majors, I'll be paying for their education and their welfare. I don't find that quite fair.

And it is especially unfair for people who already went to college. They are subsidizing their competition. Even though they already paid for everything and gave up a lot to do so, they are training people that they will have to compete with for jobs. That devalues the diploma they already received.

Excuses.