Total posts: 2,082
Posted in:
Odd, maybe it was your district or location, because my parents (mom, dad, step mom) were public educators for a combined total of 110 years and never mentioned any fads in skinducation. Maybe it's new.
Can you detail what these were a little more? Like what are your certificates for? And, unrelated, why haven't you cleaned your car since 2015?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Greyparrot
This CRT craze...
Are you referring to the craze about it on the right?
I think it'll blow over eventually when some other manufactured outrage shows up. Isn't it about time to take up arms in the war on Christmas, anyway?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Greyparrot
So you would have no problem with Holocaust denial theory being promoted in schools?How about flat earth science and chemtrails? It's just theories after all!How about the theory that the election was stolen in 2020, would that theory be ok to teach in schools?
Yes, you've got the wrong usage of the word 'theory' here. This usage of the word theory is not synonymous with "idea" or "hypothesis."
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Double_R
It's also not some fourth grade teacher saying "Ok, class, today we're going to concentrate on the economic impact of 200 years of slavery on the black community today" or "Today let's talk about how all police are racist pigs!" or "Today's topic, what's wrong with your white parents and why you should feel bad every day." As I believe oromagi accurately described, it is exactly like feminist theory or queer theory, it's just a LENS through which you can examine something. Not "Let's be critical of the white race idea."
Why is it so hard to grasp what the word THEORY means? It doesn't always mean "One guy's guess at how things work."
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Wylted
What about the argument "we cant stop all gun violence, so why bother stopping any at all?"
We can trade strawmen all day.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Athias
This is the entirety of my OP:
Just strikes me as strange, it's like we don't even care. I heard someone say "it was only three kids," which is disheartening as a parent. What's the deal, are we just indifferent, or do we not want to discuss it?
but rather than invite discussion on the matter, you levied an accusation which would naturally provoke a defensive response. And rather than confront your issue with this presumed complacency you accuse the members here of indulging as it concerns school mass-shootings, you placed the onus on the members here to demonstrate to you that they care.
Where's the accusation levied in those two sentences, explicitly? Where's me placing the onus on anyone to demonstrate that they care?
In a discussion centered on emotions, here's a bit of advice: you can't control how people feel, much less, "how" they feel it. [It's protocol in any debate venue, at least as far as I'm concerned, to avoid discussions over emotions.]
Cool, thanks for the unsolicited advice. Can I offer some in return? Suck my dick.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Athias
What's the deal, are we just indifferent, or do we not want to discuss it?
That's the original question. You've answered it from your perspective: you're not indifferent but since this topic doesn't directly do anything for the victims, what's the point, you've said whatever you have to say in some other topic.
Got it, you think this is a suitably substantive discussion of the topic, it's just not something you find useful. Next time I'll wade through all the pages of topics to find out what everyone thinks about school shootings, there's probably going to be another one next week, so that'll come in handy.
what do you believe the national response to these unfortunate murders should be?
Outrage, but that's just my opinion, and I'd settle for not forgetting about it after a few days.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Athias
What are or were you expecting the members here to state or do?
Discuss it, if it's a topic that interests them. As no one including you seems to be interested in discussing it, I conclude it's not that interesting a topic, which is another way to say "no one here cares about this." Maybe I should have posted in current events.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Athias
what is it about this incident that separates it from the prevailing discussion over firearms?
What's the prevailing discussion over firearms, where is it, I'll look at it and tell you what's different. The concern I have is four children were sent to school and will never come home again, and the reaction seems to be a collective "Well, it happens." Is that the prevailing discussion over firearms?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Athias
So the lack of submitted/expressed opinions is what led you to characterize the response as indifferent?
Yes.
Polytheist-Witch was responding to Greyparrot
Not in post #2.
Pretty sure you can go to any topic on guns and address the issue there's at least 17 I'm sure in this section.
This I read as inured to the topic at hand.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Athias
This is a discussion board, so in this context, I would have expected people to express an opinion on the matter in some fashion. It seems from the lack of opinions expressed, as well as opinions like Polytheist Witch's, that indeed people here are in fact indifferent enough to not bother discussing it. Or to discuss the lack of discussion on a national scale, because I guess not enough kids died. When I'm indifferent toward a topic, I don't post in it.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Athias
what is caring? What is not being indifferent as it pertains to this subject?
I know you're smart enough not to need me to define "caring" or "not being indifferent".
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Athias
I don't intend them to take away anything from school shootings, I don't do school shootings.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Polytheist-Witch
That's another way of saying "it's just another school shooting."
Created:
-->
@cristo71
I asked what you based your guesstimate on, and you linked me to something that says "progressive left" (which doesn't seem the same as 'left wing' as I understand the term), representative of less than 1 in 10 people in a population, are largely democrats and they like various politicians they seem to think identify with their same goals. Your guesstimate was twice this number and based on 'personal experience.' Your data doesn't come from that research, because it doesn't match. I don't have any problem with you saying "because I feel like those numbers don't reflect what I've experienced," but that's your feeling, not a number. Not data.
Created:
Posted in:
Just strikes me as strange, it's like we don't even care. I heard someone say "it was only three kids," which is disheartening as a parent. What's the deal, are we just indifferent, or do we not want to discuss it?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Tarik
@Double_R
So then the answer to:
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that torturing infants for fun is objectively, necessarily immoral.Does God have the capability of issuing the command to torture infants for fun? Yes or No?Yes, but under that pretense it wouldn’t be immoral.
...is actually NO, not yes. Torturing infants for fun would not be immoral...
Because God commanded it.
Created:
-->
@cristo71
It sounds like how you feel is what you're basing your estimate on, I was kind of hoping for data we could agree on as a baseline. Like "Bernie Sanders Popularity," how are you even gauging that, for example. "Certain schoolboards," are those the ones that you read about in your newsfeed? Far left schoolboards? I'm almost there on the 'over enrollment in social studies versus STEM careers,' can you show the numbers and tell me why you think the balance is unusual or a problem?
If it's just how you feel the world is, then we don't have a basis for discussion at all.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Tarik
Ok, so God CANNOT in fact command something that is immoral, because if he commands it, it's now moral. Is that a fair way to understand your statement?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Tarik
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that torturing infants for fun is objectively, necessarily immoral.Does God have the capability of issuing the command to torture infants for fun? Yes or No?Yes, but under that pretense it wouldn’t be immoral.
Why would it not be immoral?
Created:
-->
@cristo71
I would guesstimate about 20% of the left is far left.
What's that guesstimate based on?
Created:
-->
@Greyparrot
I don't get how Biden is responsible. We have (or had) the solutions to this problem, and because people didn't utilize them, evolution of the virus occurred (as scientists predicted) and resulted in variants that are harder to control (also as scientists, or really anyone with even a cursory understanding of evolution via natural selection, predicted). Just on a rough timeline of the pandemic:
INITIALLY: "Social distance, work from home, avoid contact with others. Best thing to do is stay home and stop the virus from spreading." Government leadership initially resisted making any move at all, the president himself said we'd have zero cases soon. So some people complied, some took their cue from leaders saying "This is just the flu" and "It'll be over soon" and "WHY CAN'T I GO SING IN CHURCH!" and decided against it. That works FOR the virus, not against it, contirbuting to rapid spread in states where spread would have been much more difficult due to population density. Who then is responsible for the people not following these easy instructions? Joe Biden?
AFTER EASTER WASN'T NORMAL: wear masks. Indoors, outdoors, wherever there are people whose virus status you cannot be certain of. I hate to say it but it's republicans who started assigning a stigma to wearing a mask for the protection of others, and for yourself. Mask mandates were reviled. State capitols are stormed by assholes who don't understand why they can't go shopping like normal. People get into huge arguments in stores over MASKS. If everyone had followed directoins, spread is much more difficult. "UNMASK OUR KIDS" is probably the dumbest thing there is, as it always focused on the idea that kids "don't really get sick, so they shouldn't be subject to these nazi solcialist marcist communist unconstitutional laws!" When in fact the problem ISN'T kids not getting sick, it's that they get the virus, don't show symptoms, then spread it to more vulnerable populations. Masks work, they've always worked, and still to this day, governors are making it illegal to mandate their use temporarily. Why? For no good reason. If everyone had followed this instruction, AND social distanced, spread (another word for reproduction) would have been more difficult. Who is responsible for the governors making mask mandates an issue? Joe Biden? Who's responsible for people not wearing them still? Joe Biden?
AFTER A VACCINE IS AVAILABLE: "I'm not taking that, I don't trust it," again largely along party lines, which is odd, because you'd think republicans would want credit for the vaccine's development. THe data shows hesitancy again in largely red states and populations. I'm not into mandating medical treatment, but I'm certainly not against workplaces wanting to keep their workers safe and saying "If you want to work here, get vaccinated." I don't have any objection to having an enjoyable evening at a restaurant with my wife, provided I can show proof of vaccination...if I didn't want to show proof, I can cook at home. But people seem to want to have their cake (not getting vaccinated) and eat it too (endangering all citizens because they want their chicken wings at a bar dammit). Who is responsible for people not taking a vaccine that isn't federally, or locally, mandated by law? The vaccine is widely available. It is free. It is safe. It works (look at the charts). People don't want to take it, but there's no effort to educate those people from their elected leaders, instead it's shoulder shrugs at best, anti-vax rhetoric at worst, which again, odd, because it's their voters who will pay a disproportionate price. How is Joe Biden responsible for this in your view?
Created:
-->
@cristo71
Can you tell me in your estimation, how many "left of center" people qualify as "far left", by percentage? Trying to understand how you see the scale of the issue at hand.
Created:
-->
@Greyparrot
Can a private business employer force me to get sterilized?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Tarik
OK, so how then does a god decide what's moral or immoral?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Tarik
Because such a standard is 'subject' to his choosing. Presumably there's more than one option for him to choose from, right?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@bmdrocks21
If there is another possibility I didn’t consider, be sure to let me know
That the law is written in such a way so as to allow what happened to have no criminal liability attached.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Tradesecret
Well, that is the point - you can't prove it. You must rely upon testimony. And at the end of the day - even if you prove it to yourself by going somewhere - to prove it to me requires what? Your testimony. Unless you are going to pay for me to travel to a place - you think is called the Solomon Islands. This is the point. It is a ridiculous standard.
Wait, so the only standard of evidence you'd accept on the existence of anything is first hand experience? So the countless pieces of evidence pointing to the existence of the Solomon Islands, like pictures of it, accounts of others about their travels there, location on a map, numerous independently verifiable evidence, none of those convince you? I don't need to go to Wyoming to know it exists. Do you? Just trying to understand your position here.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@949havoc
Do you talk like a pretentious douche too, or is that just how you write? For someone who claims to be a writer, you have a really, really off putting way with words.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@949havoc
You are currently leading the race for "person I least want to sit next to on a long flight".
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@secularmerlin
For me, both actually exist but exactly as you described. If no one ever had the brainwave that put ink to paper and wrote the first Batman story, he'd not exist, but here we are.
Existence can only be sensibly defined as occupying space for an interval of time. In order to occupy space, you have to have physical properties. I've yet to encounter anyone who has a materially different explanation, and saying "that's true of all things but this" without demonstrating it is obviously special pleading.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@secularmerlin
Would you say brainwaves "exist"? Or would those qualify as sort of 'effects' of a physical cause (electrochemical brain activity we have figured out how to measure and display)? The other example might be Batman or Indiana Jones: they exist in our minds as pop culture icons, but they do NOT exist in the 'real' world.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Discipulus_Didicit
@949havoc
Can any of it be demonstrated conclusively?
From what I understand of The Bible knowing Jesus is only a requirement for salvation, salvation is only required for humans because Adam fucked up. So that second concern shouldn't be a problem in Christianity.
So what's Jesus saving, then? Souls, right? So if animals have souls, and they don't require Jesus because they didn't F up in the garden, then all animals are in heaven. That would leave the 'do anima's have souls' as the question. Catholic dogma taught they didn't have souls.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Fruit_Inspector
Because you don't offer any proof or compelling evidence outside a storybook from 2000 years ago.
Created:
Posted in:
To clarify what I'm dealing with here, do you not believe in any limitations? Should murderers be able to vote (either during their sentence or after it)? Should we no longer require people to sign up for the draft? Should we automatically enroll everyone for voting when they turn 18?
Are murderers American citizens over 18 once they're done serving their time? You should be automatically enrolled for the draft when you are automatically registered to vote when you turn 18 provided you are an American citizen.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Greyparrot
That misses the point of the estate tax in the first place: to prevent the creation of a nobility class. It's not about jealousy. It's about an age old conservative value: making something of yourself. Instead of just being lucky to be born into circumstance. And the system I'm proposing doesn't even fully prevent that, it just sets a cap on the amount of capital you can bequeath, providing FURTHER advantage to people who are already advantaged (from having grown up with vast wealth, they'd have gone to better schools, etc.). I'm just demonstrating what you can do with their money once they're gone.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@949havoc
Between the two theories, I prefer the one that acknowledges intelligence and avoids savagery.
There you have it: argument from personal preference. WTF the rest of that gish gallop is is entirely irrelevant, you're simply more comfortable thinking that you have free will, and cannot possibly imagine that everything you're doing is merely a result of events over which you had no control, it's the illusion that keeps you comfortable. You're also misrepresenting the case as usual: no one thinks the universe is actively "guiding" or "controlling" any decisions you make. Rather that it was simply set in motion and you act according to non-mysterious physical laws, and we all feel like we have choice in doing so. The universe, or the big bang more accurately, is what drops the ping pong balls.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Greyparrot
You understand the tax is not for ME personally to use the money, right? Calling it the 'jealousy tax' or making it like I am pro 'stealing someone's money' is a misrepresentation, it implies that you give people a cut of a person's estate to use at their own discretion, like I'm using it to allay my envy of their yacht or whatever.
In reality, what I'm for is taking some portion of what we can call VAST wealth (not 1M dollars, that's not vast wealth, 1B dollars is vast wealth), and having the government use it to do things like fix roads, build schools, etc. Building a school has nothing to do with jealousy. The concept is that their family has already benefited from the life of vast wealth AND have been bequeathed vast wealth as a result (again going with a cap, pick you r number, but yes, this is INCOME and should be subject to tax too), the community at large now benefits from the success that the individual and their family enjoyed, presumably FROM the community. It's not jealousy, it's altruism and it's FOR EVERYONE. And again it doesn't have to be schools or hospitals or whatever else conservatives apparently hate, especially if the person's will endows a fund for abuse victims, builds cost free homes for disaster victims... Not so I can buy a playstation.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@SpringerHeather
I'm so sorry you lost your guinea pig, but you have to forgive yourself one of these days.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Greyparrot
Are you ever going to define "thugs" for the sake of this discussion?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@bmdrocks21
Tell me how letting people who don't understand anything about policies (not only that, but those who can't even read the policies of whoever they vote for) wielding that power is, at least in theory, a good idea.
It's better than the alternative because it ensures all people have a say in how they're governed, I'm not sure it's much more complicated than that. What level of "understanding of policies" would you need to demonstrate in order to be considered eligible to vote? Who would determine it? People already in power, by default. Who would then determine what "understanding" even means? Same people, who'd make sure you 'understood' policies the same way they did, otherwise, you just don't understand it enough, so sorry, you're not eligible to vote. Can't read the policies in any meaningful way because it's a 475 page bill full of legalese and you're a workaday plumber with little time to do so? Whoops, too bad, I guess you can't vote then. I guess your alternative is you can read this one sheet I put out purporting to explain the policy, at least according to how I understand it, so you can read that, agree that you understand it and vote accordingly...since you aren't going to read the whole bill for yourself, you have to take my word for it.
Get it yet? Voter eligibility has to be controlled by SOMEONE, and that someone is ALWAYS someone that about half the country, sometimes more, didn't vote for and don't agree with. ETA making it as simple as "You are 18 and a US Citizen, therefore you can vote" is the fairest way to do it.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@thett3
What I mean isn’t that it’s a good thing for Elon Musks children to inherit $50 billion tax free. Rather that it’s good for a worker who saved and invested his entire life to be able to leave behind a sizable estate of one or two million dollars without the government coming in and taking a bite.
I think we've found common ground. I don't even think two million dollars is high enough, to be honest, but it's encouraging to at least see we can agree on stuff.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@bmdrocks21
You know that literally makes you in favor of Jim Crow laws, and against the Civil Rights act? I guess if you're okay with that, I respect you saying so so explicitly.
Voting is fine..... but letting illiterate people do it? No bueno
What is the danger so inherent you'd like to abridge constitutional guaranteed civil rights? Why are these people worth less than the people who are literate?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Polytheist-Witch
@Greyparrot
Nobody ever brings up Bill Gates when people talk about people having more money than they freaking ever need. Or Nancy Pelosi or the Clintons or Joe Biden or anybody in Hollywood or any athletes. It's always businessmen or conservatives. That's why I don't buy your bull crap.
I'm happy to include Bill Gates, the name doesn't matter to me, it's more about the number. How much are Pelosi and the Clintons or Joe Biden worth? Tens of billions seems like a bit of an overestimation. And actors and athletes are by vast, vast, vast percentage not billionaires.
f there was truth in naming, the Death tax would be called the jealous tax.
Or the anti-nobility tax.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@zedvictor4
Campaigning is certainly inviting bias; requiring a test to vote is codifying it.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Greyparrot
I wish Americans could learn the social value of eliminating jealousy from their lives like Norway has.
So no one in Norway is jealous of each other?!? Truly a paradise, except for the part where it's Hoth by climate and chock full of socialized welfare programs!
Knocking down people has never created prosperity for anyone, just a wasteland of thieves and looters.
Is this how you see America? A wasteland of thieves and looters?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Polytheist-Witch
I get so sick of people feeling like because someone has a certain amount of money they should have to give it to someone else especially the f****** government.
Don't you get sick of people being born on third base and thinking they hit a triple, though? Why should your parents or grandparents success automatically be YOUR success? This is sort of the other side of the looking glass argument. You don't have to give your money to anyone at all, you can literally just die and have it divided by the courts, but once you're dead, it's no longer YOUR MONEY, as you no longer exist.
In theory, knowing you have a hefty estate tax where you will have no control (because you're dead) with what happens to your money, then you'd do a better job of spending it in this lifetime on things that you support, or projects you find important. Knowing that you can only leave 5% of your 50B dollars to your family would mean, to some, that maybe you can take 1B and I don't know, build and fund a hospital somewhere there isn't adequate healthcare, and name it after yourself. Maybe you decide you want to set up a grant for struggling farmers with 1B. Why not? You can't take it with you, and your kids can't have it, so rather than give it to the tax man after you're gone, spend it on non-assets and give back to the country that you succeeded so wildly in.
Created:
Posted in:
Having not considered the issue very much, my initial response is "Why not cap what you can inherit at some number?" Let's say I'm Jeff BEzos or someone like that, with literally more money than you'd ever be able to spend on yourself, and I have two children. What's a fair number to cap their inheritance at? If I'm worth 25B, is capping it at 5% per named person in the will of my total worth (125M, inclusive of both liquidity and assets) too low somehow? So my wife and both kids get $125M each after I'm gone. To me, that seems like enough of an advantage to give them for all my hard work, $125M. That would leave 24.25B in assets that would either get cut up by the government, or I'd bequeath to various organizations. Are we really going to cry because the scion of some billionaire, who has lived an EXTREMELY privileged life up to the point where his dad died, ONLY gets $125M in cash and assets to start out his adult life? Maybe it's too low, maybe you'd have to have brackets (i.e. if you're worth $500M at your death, you can leave 15% per, and your assets don't count against it like homes, etc.), but there has to be something agreeable in there somewhere. It's not fair to imagine taking ALL of a person's wealth at their death, but there's really no good reason someone can't scrape out a life on a pittance like $300M.
Again, I'm just throwing out numbers, but a cap on personal inheritance seems right at first blush, and lord knows there'd be plenty of workarounds that savvy people would just take advantage of, but in the end, it's important to accomplish what the estate tax nominally sets out to do: prevent or curtail the creation and propagation of a permanent landed gentry class in the US. We don't have nobles, and that's the way I like it.
Created: