TONY RANDAZZO NO MISTER ROCK AND ROLL, MR. COMMISSIONER.
Read More...Major League Baseball should immediately adopt reforms to the umpiring system. MLB is now a $7 billion dollar industry awash in cash so the costs of these changes can hardly be the reason to defer making them.
1. MLB should buy the umpire schools and take over the training and development of all umpires in professional baseball. The recruitment, training and compensation of minor league and major league umpires should be controlled ...
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Says the disingenuous jackass who weighed in out of nowhere with 'Gasp! You pervert!!', then invented an offensive analogy, then kept backing himself into corners. You started this, for no particular reason. You thought it would be fun to get a punch in, or something?
In any case, you're being an infant. You want the first shot, and the last. That isn't going to happen. We can stop any time, as I keep saying. The problem is, you don't want to.
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Joe, you should take something for that :-)
I want to see this. Badly.
Is there a contingent of people who think proponents of public education think of public education in anything other than these terms? Of course public education is the lowest common denominator of the market, which can be bought out of by luxury and access. What else would it be?
Do you think at all about what you write?
Yes, I do, and better than you do. You can check, but this is what I wrote in post #123 that pissed you off so much: I chose my words specifically, because what I didn't want to say was "a guy who frequently touts dating women two to three decades younger than himself", which is something different. Therefore I did not say it. Looking at it, I can understand the confusion, for which I am sorry; but it is written properly. When I retracted my apology, it was based on you having understood the syntax of what I wrote.
When you write it is incorrect. The adverb is in front of a different verb in yours. What you think I said is not at all something that I said, and is something I specifically made a point not to say. If you demand answers from me for something I did not say, I will have nothing to say.
Overall, I stand by my point. I do not at all agree with your stance on sexual politics and rape reporting. More specifically, I think based on numerous posts on this topic over the months as well as stories you have made a point to tell about yourself I find your lectures on the topic in posts like #102 to be worth questioning.
Joe, you should take something for that :-)
Got any?
Beyond belief.
I'm the problem on this thread? Sweet Jesus.
___________
The only point worthy of comment is your last 'graf. You persist in doing everything but troubling yourself to be direct about what it is wrt to my 'stance on sexual politics and rape reporting' that you find disagreeable; instead, I've gotten snotty inneundo from you, including your disgusting and completely off-target attempt at parody in post 103,
That was your 'questioning'? Talk about offensive bad taste. Talk about a digusting, low blow that has nothing to do with anything I've ever said. It was utterly contemptible, but a little vague, a little cowardly in its vagueness, so I pretty much let it go. But I'll note here, that you're a contemptible, sniveling, sneaky little rat who for want of real intelligence resorts to creepy innuendo to try to score points.
And, since you brought it up, again, and in the unlikely event you want an honest conversation, I firmly believe that it is in everyone's best interests, and especially in women's best interests, that rape statistics be reported accurately.
You disagree with that?
As for my 'sexual politics', I doubt you have any clear sense of what they are, but I recall you taking some typically personal shots when I posted that in an age of safe and legal abortion, a woman choosing to have a child by bringing a fetus to term, even knowing the man in question did not, does not, and will not want to have a child with her, should not automatically be entitled to child support...
Because...
It's no longer child support. It is instead support for a woman's decision to bring a fetus to term.
Do you disagree with that? If so, why?
I mention it specifically because I can't recall any other position I've taken here that isn't comfortably within the center left to far left position wrt "sexual politics", women's rights, gay rights, individual rights, human rights, and so forth.
I think there most definitely are some people who want to persuade us that public education is in perfectly good shape; especially among pols who either want no increase in funding, or to actually cut funding for public education.
YMMV, of course, but I do think this is rather different than outing a gay pol, since it involves freely available public information. I think it's fair to ask Senator X,
"X, in voting against increased funding for the state's public schools, you've said they're in good shape, and need no increase. Yet, for all that, you send your own children to private schools. What is it you find lacking in the public education system compared to where you send your own children, and why do you not think that all children are entitled to the level of education you want for your own children?"
I'd put it on a par with pointing out that Senators vote against increased funding for Medicare while enjoying excellent health insurance themselves, on the public dime.
THIS.
The fun starts around 0:38.
.
I admit you are a good liberal soldier, which I honestly appreciate.
when I posted that in an age of safe and legal abortion, a woman choosing to have a child by bringing a fetus to term, even knowing the man in question did not, does not, and will not want to have a child with her, should not automatically be entitled to child support...
Because...
It's no longer child support. It is instead support for a woman's decision to bring a fetus to term.
Do you disagree with that? If so, why?
I do disagree with it. Because if he did not, does not, and will not want to have a child with her, he should not have engaged in unprotected sexual intercourse to the completion where pregnancy was a high probably outcome. Or even a low probably outcome. He's has created a life, and he had as much responsibility in the creation of that life as she did. On the other side of that, if someone by now can't accept or understand the biological reality that a woman is the one who gets to decide about the life or death of a fetus growing in her body, one shouldn't be in a position to get someone pregnant.
There are outliers such as condom breakage, but I'm going to put that at a rather low percentage of unwanted pregnancy.
This is the rub, of course. Carelessness may introduce a very different issue. For the purposes of discussion, then, it can be useful to divide things into four parts (assuming genders as a binary):
a) proper care was taken by both parties;
b) proper care was exercised by the woman;
c) proper care was exercised by the man:
d) abundant carelessness was exercised by both parties.
Having thus divided it, I'll take the extreme position--and not only for the sake of argument--that in all four cases, we're still at the stage, let's say, where the woman, three weeks in, does an EPT and discovers she's pregnant. She is now the only member of the group of two who has any say in whether she proceeds with the pregnancy (as it should be--there's simply no workable alternative).
That's where I arrive at my position, and that this is the critical point of the discussion. There's no child, yet (snapper, notwithstanding). No child to support. Support here and ever after is not support for a child, but support for a woman's decision to go ahead, in the full knowledge the man does not want this, and have a child.
I'm also very discomfitted by the idea that once a pregnancy does occur that the man is responsible, because that's not the decision point. The man obviously is not responsible for support if the woman chooses to abort. He's only responsible for support once the woman chooses to go to term. By putting the focus back where I think it belongs, on the woman's decision (and not treating awareness of conception as commensurate with the birth of a child), I get to the position where she should be responsible for the consequences of what is entirely her decision.
Finally, we do not (and should not) any longer tell women that just because they become pregnant that they are responsible for bringing a child into the world. Similarly, I think we should not tell men, that just because they conceive, that they are responsible for supporting the decision of someone else to bring a child into the world.
Fair enough, so to clean up the discussion at the margins, perhaps we should have two discussions, including one where both parties agree measures where taken, yet the condom failed.
My claim, though, is that at the decision point, there is no kid. There is only the woman's decision to have a kid.
I'm reluctant to make the leap all the way from moment of conception to viola!, our bundle of joy, without taking into account a rather key moment in the matter, the woman's free decision to go to term.
Another way I look at it is, the woman, who can have a safe and legal abortion (or simply take a pill, as might be the case), calls Fred, and tells her she's (say) three days pregnant. Fred says, "I don't want to have a baby with you. You know that."
How is that different than if Mary--this time not yet pregnant--calls up Fred and says, "Do you want to have a baby with me, and support it until it's 21?" Fred says, "I do not".
True enough but I believe Jack is arguing that the parents had a choice before the kid existed and thus a person who chose to opt out while the other chose to keep on shouldn't have to pay. I happen to agree with that.
I don't know whether to reply,
Well stated, and I think this is one of the key (many) points where the discussion can break down.
OR
Sure. The kid is owed a responsible mother able to support that kid without dragooning the plasmid donor into a situation he's known not to want to be a party to for the next 21 years.
Both seem reasonable, imo.
As a practical matter, if we disregard everything that comes before birth, then mandating child support from the plasmid donor works, sort of. That it sort of works doesn't make it right, though. It's important to me to distinguish between what's effective and what's ethical.
There's a real cost, though, to asserting 'the kid is owed something'. Child support, unwillingly given, is enough to hinder or forbid the creation of families voluntarily, never mind the full range of other life choices. 17% of ones gross, which is standard for one child, is more than many people can pay without giving up on creating the family of their choosing. We would also see a rise in abortions of unwanted children, if it was known in advance the mother would not have access to support from the birth father.*** I also wonder, how many of those forced father-child relationships are plusses rather than minuses; to the child and to the father.
***To me, anyway, whether support is paid, and whether it's enough, are distinct questions not relevant to the issue at hand.
Once again, McCoy says in a hundred words what took me a thousand.
Having said that, I also hope reliable male birth control (akin to the pill) emerges sooner than later.
The opting part is irrelevant to the responsibility part.
The opting part is irrelevant to the responsibility part.
No, it is the starting line of responsibility. If a woman can opt out of a pregnancy then so should a man.
You're conflating two different types of events.
Well, it could be thought of as a great bargain, since the state has resources that swamp any but the richest private foundations. In three educated generations of my leftish family, only my father (two years of Catholic college) and I (three years of Friends middle school and four of graduate school, and at that I was on a state grant at a private grad school) spent any time outside of the public system – my son never went to private school at all except for three college credits. We could have scraped together funds for private options at several junctures, but the power of the public option was pretty awesome for the price in all our cases. All of us went to public elementary and high schools.
And the state is responsible for an amount of students so great and so spread out it would swamp any but the richest private foundations.
It is not an inherent responsibility but a responsibility we as a society have decided to place upon a man and we can change that if we want to. If two consenting adults decide to have sex and it results in pregnancy it should be to each individual to decide whether or not they want the child or will care for the child.
But this is no different from the argument that a women must bear a child if she becomes pregnant, that that's the risk she takes when she has sex, and if she isn't willing to accept that risk and its consequences, she is most certainly welcome to put an aspirin between her knees.
We no longer consider that a credible stance.
Further in that vein, the converse leaves us at a standstill: Why isn't it the case, that if a woman is not willing and able to care for her child completely, unaided, that she should refrain from having sex? Why is what's fine for the goose in your book not at all acceptable for the gander?
i believe that every gay man has a responsibility to stand up as an advocate for gay rights and while i understand the desire to just say that "my personal life is noone else's business", anyone who believes that needs to understand that they owe a debt to the people who have come before them, the people who have made it possible for them to live their life, privately or otherwise, without being persecuted.
the debt that they owe is to make this world better for the next generation, maybe not in the same way, but at least in the same vein, as their lives have been made easier because of the sacrifices that were made for them.
and i'm not just talking about the alex rodriguezes and john travoltas of the world, i believe this is a debt that every gay man owes, be they a millionaire athlete or just a 9-to-5 office worker. just simply by living as an openly gay man, at work, at home, at school, at the gym, you make this world a safer place for the next generation because the dirty little secret about homophobia is that a lot of it is driven by a fear of the unknown and that fear becomes much less pervasive when a person can put a face on the issue, rather than just think about it as an abstract concept.
with all of the talk about bullying, and the effect that it has on gay youths, i believe that the reason why its effect is so harsh is less because of the physical pain, or even the mental trauma, but because of the isolation that the victims feel. people talk about how the fight for gay rights cannot be compared to the fight to end segregation, but that difference is at the root of why gay teens are so at risk. a black kid has a black mother and a black father and black brothers and black sisters, but a gay kid has two straight parents, straight siblings, straight uncles, straight cousins, and when he looks at his family and wonders why he is bullied and they are not, it's very easy to come to the wrongful conclusion that there is something wrong with him and when you pile religious bigotry and cultural homophobia on top of that, you get a suicide rate among gay teens that is 6-10 times higher than the national average.
player X coming out as gay is not going to change all of that, but it helps, and it's necessary. whether he's willing or not.
*edit* oh, and he also has two illegitimate children for every word in this post. including this one. and this one. and this one.
In the event that they decide not to care for the child, what do you propose? Actions have consequences.
It is not the same argument. As I'm lead to believe that you understand, given your escapades detailed above, men and women are biologically different, and have correspondingly different roles in the childbirth process. Since the child grows inside the woman, and not the man, the woman and man should be afforded different decision opportunities.
Who is "we?"
By "should," do you actually mean "should," or do you mean "must?" If the former, then I would say, "probably so." But nobody ever asks me for advice on these things, and I am generally loathe to give it away unsolicited, especially if it pertains to a specific situation about which I know nothing. If you really meant "must," then no. I wouldn't support any such regulation.
If both sides decide not to care for the child then it is either an adoption or an abortion. If a female decides to keep the child and the male doesn't wish to have it then she is on her own in terms of raising it. If the man wants the child and the female doesn't then the man has to raise the child and compensate the female for the pregnancy. If she didn't want it, well, that is the risk you take when you have sex.
Since the child grows inside the woman, and not the man, the woman and man should be afforded different decision opportunities.
Which means what exactly?
If a man rapes a woman, does he still get to opt out of parental obligations? What if he uses a condom?
Abortion is relevant to pregnancy, which is a burden that falls on one party only. Men do not have pregnancy obligations.
In the year 2013, it's immature to think that intercourse is consequence free. Men are not free from the burden of choosing sex partners wisely. There is always the possibility of something going wrong in the relationship, or of someone who seemed trustworthy beyond a reasonable doubt but was not, or of a partner simply dying young and leaving the caregiving to the other party. But what can I say, in my life I did expect to bear the consequences in the worst case scenario. Being risk averse, this eliminated casual sex.
Why does there need to be an incentive? What is the incentive for an unattached female to have a child?
Abortion. My complaint about self, legal, and rare is the last descriptor, not the second one.
As far as I'm concerned, if the woman wishes to go ahead with the pregnancy and the man doesn't, the woman is agreeing to be the sole ward of the future child. If the man wishes to go ahead with the pregnancy and the woman doesn't, then the man ought to be able to attempt to negotiate a surrogacy price with the woman, at the conclusion of which he would be the sole ward of the minor child (and if negotiations fail, the woman is free to terminate the pregnancy.
Obviously, if both the man and woman agree to either complete the pregnancy or to terminate the pregnancy pre-viability, there's no real conflict.
Hey Jay,
It's clear you're still the same useless fucking idiot you were last time this topic came up. And since ad hominems appear to be the order of the day for you, from here on out I'll be referring to you as the "Pro-rape Jay Z", 'kay?
And yes, the next time you rape a woman, without a condom, you will nonetheless be allowed to pursue visitation. Apparently in 33 states. Is that what you wanted reassurance on?
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False reasoning. Jack and the others have the right of this. One of the functional requirements of moving the decision to carry pregnancies to term to the woman - as opposed to societal mandates that pregnancies *must* be carried to term - is the shifting of parental responsibility from the couple equally onto the woman who owns the decision itself. You can't argue on the one hand "the woman has the final decision in whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term" and then in the same breadth argue that "the man has full parental responsibility for the decades long fall out of the woman's decision to carry a pregnancy to term."
1. Dinner and a movie, after dinner drinks.
2. Would you like to come up?
3. Brown chicken brown cow.
4. Had a blast! Call me maybe.
5. Four weeks later, "um, yeah; we should talk."
At this point, by every modernist reading of the facts, including those that underpin Roe v Wade, there is no "child" present. There is a pregnancy, a zygote-fetus, and a possibility. But there is no child. That's *why abortion is still an option for the woman to choose.*
If at this point there is a disagreement between the two parties of the hookup, then the party that chooses to carry the pregnancy to term must carry the responsibility for that DECISION. Her body, her decision, her RESPONSIBILITY. If the guy is clear on the "I was just in it for a night's fun, and I want no part of this," then his responsibility ends there - prior to the fetus becoming a child. As such, it's disingenuous to demand that he commit the next 30 years of his life to supporting a child he explicitly did not want, just because someone else decided she did want it.
You are wanting to have it both ways. You want the woman to have full right to terminate the pregnancy if she doesn't want to carry to term, but you don't want her to have full responsibility for carrying the pregnancy to term. That's a no-go. With great power comes great responsibility.
"Paying child support" indicates that a party was involved in having the child. The current construct of women's rights/abortion rights is that NO CHILD EXISTS prior to the second or third trimester. As such, any man who wishes to opt out prior to the magical "viability" moment has no compelling reason to pay "child support." Only an equivalent share of the cost to abort. If the woman decides to carry the pregnancy to term, then the existence of the child is her responsibility. You can't demand all of the right to choose but then want to farm out the responsibility for your personal, sole-discretion choice.
This. I know this-ing is kind of lame, but I don't get to do it often with Sam, and without any reservation.
No doubt, someone (though not many) will protest that this would lead to more abortions. To that, I would say, "so?" It's a routine medical procedure. Hopefully, it would lead to an increase in the percentage of completed pregnancies that take place in a situation in which the child can be properly taken care of.
Yep. You can't argue "abortion is just a medical procedure if the woman wants to terminate the pregnancy" but then argue "abortion is a terrible thing and you'd have too many of them if you required the woman who chooses to carry the responsibility for the child she chose to have."
When you find your ideal utopialand of someone other than the female carrying a pregnancy to full term, get back to me.
And for the use of Stan Lee I award you no points.
Looking at it another way, if Man A and Woman B have sex producing Child C who, once born, performs actions against D that require a tort. So D sues A and B for producing C. (Not how the law works, I know.) Again A took the positive action. He can't renounce ownership just because it's inconvenient.
In the male rights world I don't know that the man is even required to use a condom. Sure he released his sperm very near the egg, but he didn't want the woman to get pregnant, why are the sperm his responsibility? Or that a married man would even be responsible for a child conceived in the marriage, if he didn't want to be. That's how ridiculous this position is.
Tim, responsibility for a decision lies with the person who made the decision. If the woman is the sole decision maker in the process of converting a fetus to a "child," then by necessity she is the sole responsible party. Welcome to the consequences of sexual liberation.
Which brings me to another issue. A man could not want a child and still have to pay for the child while a woman can have a child and say "holy cow, this is hard" and give the baby up for adoption and never have to pay a dime again for that child.
You are confusing "getting pregnant" with "carrying a pregnancy to term." You are confusing impregnation with "baby." In the world of pro-choice activism, those things are simply not identical. If a woman is carrying a "child" at the moment she gets pregnant, the abortion rights must be limited, due to the rights of the "child," and all of the pro-choice movement has to be reconsidered. (Of course, no good liberal wants to think that way, because it reduces the freedom/option of the woman post sexual interlude.)
In the modern reading of the facts, "releasing his sperm" does not create a child. It creates a pregnancy. The pregnancy can be aborted at any point for some 4-5 month following the O-face. The sole owner of the decision as to whether to terminate the pregnancy or carry it to term is the woman. As such, the responsibility of converting an impregnation to a "child" rests solely on the woman who made the sole decision to do so.
I find this neither moral nor ethical nor based in reality. Again, if you want a biological world other than the one we have, get to work in the lab.
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