Sunday, May 19, 2013
Weiner: The Supreme Court Judge and the Curt Flood Case reenactment
(www.examiner.com)
Shades of Hairspray!...“It was a time of tradition, a time of values, and a time…to shake things up.”
Read More...For a journalist, chance encounters at a restaurant or a hair salon can become a major opportunity for advancing a story and in some instances the journalist is in the right place at the right time because he was with his wife. I had a very chance encounter with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Saturday afternoon in lower Manhattan because my wife happened to have an appointment at a ...
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Page 21 of 42 pages
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I'd opt out of social security and Medicare tomorrow if they'd let me. I expect my benefits to be "means tested" to nothing by the time I retire anyway.
I'm just pointing out an inconvenient fact for those who support an expansive welfare state, but don't think anyone should bother to raise the next generation.
I care about the children's rights, but even if you don't, you have selfish reasons to want more children born and raised well.
In any case, nice try to divert the discussion to a throw away line of mine, rather than your illogical defense of deadbeats. I'm not playing along with that anymore.
I've already stipulated a robust child safety net to support children who have parent(s) of little means. That cost should be socialized as a general tax, if the welfare of 'the children' is a general social good. It should not be farmed out uniquely or exclusively to the unwitting DNA donor.
unwitting DNA donor.
WTF kind of DNA donor is "unwitting"? Ah, you mean overall, I guess, not specifically in regards to the actual donation. Probably?
I'm all for amnesty, actually.
OK, and all those young immigrants are going to be thrilled to support our old asses in luxury while they toil at increasingly depressed wages.
You get, you give. It's the circle of life. Somebody break out a bongo.
The entire debacle of this debate is about men who unwittingly have their extra DNA donation turned into a long term child care commitment against their wishes.
The entire debacle of this debate is about men who unwittingly have their extra DNA donation turned into a long term child care commitment against their wishes.
No, I get this, I just imagined someone being really unwitting as far as the actual donation. Which was entertaining.
Penis-in-vagina sex-er. We're mocking Vlad.
Ralph Wiggum: "My pee pee feels funny."
He may have started it, but it wasn't just him using it, as I recall. A number of people on his side were ringing this bell.
Lucky too, since otherwise I'd have thought babies came from oral sex.
Only talkative babies.
Only anal or oral though. Can't risk the PIVS.
Hey, how are they better than "tough titty?"
I don't hear it a lot either, but I have heard it
for a New Yorker you seem curiously socially isolated Ray, you should get out of the office and have a few drinks sometime
I love this statement it is so Ray. My argument rests on a couple premises.
1) The rights of children to be cared for count more than the rights of the parents (specifically in the most common formulation here over the rights of the father to dodge supporting said child).
2) Since #1 is true, then we need to determine who is responsible for taking care of (supporting) the child.
3) The first line of support is the parents of this child. They both contributed to the making of the child and they should support the child. Ideally parents and not a "faceless system" should care for children.
4) If the parents can't or won't, the welfare of the child is important enough that society should step in, but only once both parents relinquish their rights over the child. Otherwise society ends up with a bunch of freeloaders.
This has not really changed from the start (I keep restating it because people keep asking about abortion rights, adoption rights and other things that are irrelevant to the rights of the child). So in one sense the argument is exhausted, but since the folks on "your side" keep ignoring (or giving very short shrift the my four points above) and in any event have not contested directly and effectively any of them, then no not really.
Well I got crap for expressing sympathy, so it is hardly surprising not many are willing to do that and instead suggest you man up. I find it odd you don't want sympathy, don't want to be told to man up, and don't want to be responsible for your actions.
They're not "your actions"; they're hers. You don't get decisionmaking authority at the intervening moment which controls the entire outcome, remember? So you have nothing to be "responsible" for.
If you (i.e., society) want to take the abortion option out of her hands and force her to carry the baby to term, then fine, it's his problem also.
Or if you want to give him the decisionmaking authority at the intervening moment which controls the entire outcome, then fine, he is the one who is responsible.
But this 'she can have her cake; and eat it too' business is nonsense.
No action of the mother can abrogate the rights of the child. It is the rights of the child that are causing the need for child support from its biological parents. The parents who choose to have sex, and now there is a child with genetic material from two people.
Sure, as long as it's recognized that women can be deadbeats.
Interesting for you to say that, since that's exactly what I've been saying all along---the man should be forced to pay for child support only when he's financially able to do so more than the woman. Only when I've said this, you say that I'm trying to give women "special privileges". Make up your mind.
When I worked for child support enforcement, "deadbeat moms" were the toughest to track and collect from. There were few of them, but if they didn't want to pay, they had no trouble finding ways to avoid detection, even moreso than the deadbeat dads.
Statistically speaking, as a group men pay a higher percentage of the child support they owe than do women who owe child support. I suspect that has a lot to do with what situation mothers have to be in to not get primary custody of the child, though.
Edit: The percentages are pretty low. Men were in the low 60's and women in the high 50's as I recall. As Devil noted earlier, most of the money owed is owed by a pretty small percentage of the people that actually owe child support.
I just read the last 200 or so posts and Bitter Mouse is the only person here making any sense.
This thread, more than anything stats-related, makes me think that a lot of guys here need to get out of their mother's basements and interact with other human beings (especially those of the opposite sex) more often.
If a man doesn't want to get a woman pregnant it is very easy for him to make sure that doesn't happen by not having sex. If he wants to have sex, then depending on what other precautions he takes he faces various levels of risk that he will impregnate a woman and have a child who he bears some financial responsibility for. That is how life in the U.S. currently works, and every man should be aware of that and make his decisions accordingly.
The fact that, upon pregnancy, the woman has an additional decision point not available to the man doesn't change any of what I just wrote. You may think it's unfair and yes, to that I would say, "tough titty" or "them's the breaks". Biology is such that perfect fairness isn't an option here.
This paragraph is hilarious because it presumes that whether sex happens is all up to the man and the woman's consent is irrelevant.
Well, yeah, but "that is how life works" is not a justification for *why* life should work that way.
I can just see these validations through history:
- Can't get married to a member of another race? That is how life works.
- Can't get married to a same-sex partner? That is how life works.
- Can't have an abortion? That is how life works.
- Can't vote? That is how life works.
- Can't leave the plantation? That is how life works.
- Tough titty, tough titty, tough titty.
And here the justifications are:
- Yes, it's unfair.
- Tough titty.
- Them's the breaks.
- Biology, man. Biology.
Thank you, Dave. Your post was a perfect summation of the bad arguments from the PIVSers.
This paragraph is hilarious because it presumes that whether sex happens is all up to the man and the woman's consent is irrelevant.
No, it states that both parties (including the man, but not exclusively the man) have a choice whether or not to have sex.
- Yes, it's unfair.
- Tough titty.
- Them's the breaks.
- Biology, man. Biology.
Thank you, Dave. Your post was a perfect summation of the bad arguments from the PIVSers.
Those are not justifications or arguments, but statements. Now go cry about it if you want to.
My argument is that there is not a better and fairer alternative. Certainly not one that has been proposed in this thread.
And we're back to purient Puriatanism.
What aspect of #1029 do you disagree with, Sam?
I will add that one to the list.
Sure there has been. If the decision is the woman's, so too is the responsibility for said decision. Nothing could be fairer.
Sure there has been. If the decision is the woman's, so too is the responsibility for said decision. Nothing could be fairer.
That is not fair to, and certainly not better for, the child.
At the point in the decision tree we are speaking of, there is no child.
Now, if you want to discuss a later point in time where there is a child, then it brings us back to the idea that at the point in the decision tree we are speaking of, we can change it up and give the man the decisionmaking authority instead of the woman. But for argument's sake let's keep everything else the same: If the man decides that the pregnancy will continue, then both man and woman will be responsible for the child.
In this scenario, the child that you so desperately care about, that is driving your viewpoint on this, is just as protected as he was before.
So why won't you agree to this?
Answer: Because it's not all about the child, contrary to what you say above. It's all about the woman and not the man.
And we're back to tough titty.
As I've said repeatedly, the operative question isn't the decision to have sex. Sex is recreation. The decision to have sex is tangential.
The operative decision is whether to carry an accidental impregnation resulting from casual sex to term. That isn't a result of the sex. It's a result of a complex decision making process after sex, that is given in total to only one member of the sex-having team. As a moral law - a moral *law* mind you - a person can not be held culpable or responsible for the results of an action or decision to which s/he has no input.
The guy had sex. The girl had sex. The sex part of the equation is over. People go home. Call me, maybe.
The girl realizes that sex has resulted in a pregnancy. The girl then has full and total control of the decision to either 1) terminate or 2) carry to term. If the decision to terminate is made, the guy has a duty, as a party to the creation of the pregnancy, to assist in the material cost of termination. If the decision to carry to term is made, the guy can either opt in or opt out. If he opts out, his duty is no greater than the material cost of termination. The decision to carry to term and create a 20+ year commitment to another life on the planet rest solely with the woman. Thus the new life on the planet is hers to deal with.
(1) Before conception
(2) Before abortion is no longer an option
(3) After the child is born
Once you have reached point (3), the best and fairest thing for the child is for both parents to be responsible for providing for the child. The child's rights outweigh those of the parents at that point, and I don't subscribe to the idea that those rights can be taken away from the child at point (2) even if it might be more convenient for the mother or the father to do so. So no, I don't think your proposal is good or fair.
And we're back to tough titty.
By George, I think he's got it.
Why? There's no evidence of this.
And, as I have said before, no child support and nothing to complain about. The child support and the child are linked. When the child becomes a person with rights, then those rights take precedence and both parents take a back seat.
Once (earlier in the decision tree) the woman makes the choice to keep the child then she does have a responsibility to there after see after the child. She is not escaping any responsibility. If she decides not to keep the "non-person" then hey both parties are free and clear (including the male, bonus).
However her decision to have the child, to keep the responsibility, does not somehow remove the rights of the child, rights which tie to BOTH parents. That's why both parents have to agree to adoption. That is why both parents have to support the child.
Restricting the supporters of the child to only one parent is restricting the child's rights, which the mother has no authority to do. Her decision does not impact the child's rights at all.
When a guy and a girl have sex, they know that the asymmetrical outcome you describe might be the result. (There are other asymmetrical parts of this outcome, of course, that are "unfair" towards the woman rather than the man, such as the giving birth or obtaining an abortion part.) That's not Puritanical, it just is. If they want to avoid that, they don't have to have sex, or they can have sex in ways that completely or almost completely eliminate that risk.
The girl realizes that sex has resulted in a pregnancy. The girl then has full and total control of the decision to either 1) terminate or 2) carry to term. If the decision to terminate is made, the guy has a duty, as a party to the creation of the pregnancy, to assist in the material cost of termination. If the decision to carry to term is made, the guy can either opt in or opt out. If he opts out, his duty is no greater than the material cost of termination. The decision to carry to term and create a 20+ year commitment to another life on the planet rest solely with the woman. Thus the new life on the planet is hers to deal with.
As I said, this is not fair or good for the child.
There is no operative decision which can or should impact the child's right. the rest is just a distraction.
Yes, McCain. We must always think about the chil'ren. The CHIL'REN!
Again, the best support of children is to 1) reduce to as close to elimination unplanned and unwanted pregnancies, 2) disincent the carrying to term of pregnancies that will result in disadvantage children, and 3) creating a robust support state for children who are born into disadvantage.
None of this requires dragooning a man into fealty to a hookup who decided to carrying the accidental pregnancy to term.
Women know they can't vote or have money of their own. That's not Puritanical. It just is.
But the point is, there is no reason to "reach point (3)" using the flowchart you subscribe to, where the woman gets to make the choice at point (2) instead of the man. When you're driving down the road and there is a pedestrian in front of you, you stop _before_ you hit the pedestrian.
So what is the justification for leaving (2) solely up to the woman?
Once more: I advocated taking nothing away from the child at point (2). My exercise was for you to explain why leaving the decision up to the man (for argument's sake) and making the woman share the responsibility if he wants the child is not JUST AS GOOD FOR THE CHILD as leaving that decision up to the woman instead.
I do, yes. So why do you say above in 1030: "Those are not justifications or arguments, but statements." You are using them as justifications.
Except, of course, that it isn't. And when it was the case, there were better and fairer policy alternatives than not allowing women to vote or have money of their own. Such as allowing women to vote and have money of their own.
So what is the justification for leaving (2) solely up to the woman?
Because it is her body. As a libertarian are you suggesting that women should not have control over their own person?
What evidence would you accept? Someone has to take care of the child. The resources come from somewhere. Resources from two people is better than just one. Having both parents support their progeny is something that is rooted in pretty much every society on earth through all of history and across many other species.
Caring for ones genetic offspring is a genetic and societal advantage. If the young are not taken care obviously the future of the genes/society pretty bleak. But that is the past you say, that doesn't relates to morals.
OK, support for those who cannot take care of themselves is a pillar of most ethical systems, and this especially applies to children (again throughout all of history). And since it is so, as I said the resources need to come from somewhere. Society could choose to just "pay out the general fund for all children", but then there is a huge freeloading problem. So society looks to those most proximate to satisfy the right of the child, and that would be the parents.
I have no problem with #1. #2 is much too close to social engineering/eugenics/other meddling that I am not comfortable with Government doing. I think people get to choose things, certainly as personal as childbirth. Of course a bunch depends on the incentives/disincentives. #3, well we have that, but why should the state allow the parents who don't want to pay to freeload? If they can't pay, or both parent remove themselves, then the government backstops things. So the biological parents plus safety net to pick up what the parents can't or won't do satisfies #3.
You may not like society being unwilling to let some parents freeload, but it is not unethical or immoral.
I do, yes. So why do you say above in 1030: "Those are not justifications or arguments, but statements." You are using them as justifications.
No, I'm not. I'm just having some fun with you.
But seriously, libertarians are usually happy to point out that the best policy may not be perfectly fair, and that in fact perfect fairness of outcomes is often not attainable. I would say that it's strange to see some of those same libertarians lining up to whine about that fact here, but it isn't. Sad is more like it.
Page 21 of 42 pages
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