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edit: I see in 1564 that Morty brings up a number of interesting counters.
No rush, but when you do, note that I replied to Morty's #1564 in #1566.
And I'd be interested in any reaction from anyone to the pair of excellent articles I linked to in # 1568. The light to heat ratio in both of them is very impressive.
Not reliable enough to advocate vasectomy as a temporary means of contraception.
Anabolic steroids, on the other hand, work pretty well.
The NYTimes needs to put some thinkers on the payroll.
1597 is shockingly reasonable.
Little idea what's in the Dem platform, but I imagine on the subject of taxes and income it's extremely weak. I'll go with an effective top rate around where it was when every man was king: say, 51%, to remind the rich where there money comes from; a tax on financial transactions that goes into a distinct account towards the next bailout (in part to remind everyone where the money goes), treating corporate income no differently than personal income, and a national living wage law
Oh, and single payer health insurance for everyone, removing the cap on the payroll tax, and a partridge in a pear tree.
I have a very tough time with hate-crime legislation. It's one of those things where maybe the only thing worse than no hate-crime legislation is hate-crime legislation. Oh, and an end to the war on drugs. Decriminalize pretty much everything. While pot is easy to imagine profitably taxing, I like the government to stay out of the people's business as much as possible. I don't know yet whether I favor not taxing it, or taxing it the way we tax something like... say... toilet paper, and monitor it the way the FDA does anything that's largely harmless, but can contain toxins. Maybe treat it like corn, or wheat, rather than tobacco. That is, keep it simple and ordinary.
And bravo for Joe's stance on gay marriage and the estate tax (which is probably the least philosophically justifiable of all the public policy positions I favor).
Minimum wage is mostly paid to the very young, the very new to a low skilled job, and or the absolutely no skill is required type jobs. We've had this discussion before but very very few jobs get paid at minimum wage levels.
I remember asking the question before, but I don't recall the lefties rattling off many major disagreements with the progressive agenda.
IOW, you don't disagree with Republicans on that issue.
Unless you were just using my comment as a jumping-off point, you're preaching to the choir.
***
I never claimed otherwise. You're the one who brought up the minimum wage.
1. Gun control (I don’t want less, but I think we have enough)
2. Protectionism (not actually in dem platform, but comes up a lot more on that side)
3. “Vice" taxes (cigarettes, alcohol, etc)
Those are three where I’m closer to the GOP than the Democrats; there’s about a hundred things I’m left of the Dems on. For example, I’m in favor of not just nationalized (actually nationalized) health care, but also a guaranteed minimum income. That would, of course, require higher taxes, but it would also eliminate the need for almost every other safety net program. If it was small, but enough to sustain oneself - $10k per capita, maybe - I seriously doubt it would have a large adverse impact on willingness to work (Americans aren’t as lazy as the GOP likes to pretend they are). It would also fix the problem that Kristof is talking about, where working more leads to loss of benefits. Everybody would get this benefit, from a homeless guy to Warren Buffet.
Yes, I’m aware this would cost $3 trillion - minus nearly every penny spent on social security. And I’d want extensive study done beforehand to make sure I’m not wrong about the disincentive. But for Chrissakes, Nixon was pushing this in the 70s. It wasn’t always wild-eyed leftism. I’d also have no problem with a flat tax starting on dollar zero of non-governmental income.
EDIT: And come on, gay marriage isn’t a “major issue”. It’s a stupid wedge that the GOP uses cynically and is quickly falling off the radar as people wise up. And it’s easy to say you want higher wages for the working class when you don’t plan to do anything about it.
Without refreshing my memory of the details of that platform, I think Obama's "school reform" is largely a gimmick; his regulatory agency appointees (and Clinton's before his) are too cozy with the companies they're supposed to be regulating; and he's far too unwilling to stand up for his judicial choices when faced with Republican intransigence. Hopefully some of this will change this time around.
And though I'm not sure how the platform deals with the issue, in general I'm far more inclined to believe in the importance of the nuclear family than many of the liberals I know. Too many liberals often conflate this support with gay bashing or single mother bashing, but just because conservatives often join these arguments together doesn't mean that liberals** should want to throw the wedding rings out with the wash. Poverty and broken families are far more correlated than many liberals often like to admit.
**And in this case I'm most definitely NOT talking about Obama, who believes in and acts on "family values" far more than the typical Republican.
Why isn't the solution a very simple one--get rid of the destructive aspect of these programs by not penalizing the recipients for making ordinary, obvious decisions? If SSI payments decrease after the recipient's household makes, say, $85 a month in separate income, instead of taking half of those dollars, as I believe SSI currently does, take a very small fraction and do so on an ascending curve, thus incentivizing work.***
If the household limit for a program is 15k for the recipient, why not increase the limit by something like 15k plus the average of a new spouse's income over the last three years? That means if she marries a guy steadily making 30k, the new household limit is 45k.
The result is no penalty for marrying, isn't it?
I think a lot of these issues are very, very simple to solve. I won't say they're easy to solve, because of the politics that distorts them, but they do seem simple enough to fix; it's simple enough to take the deleterious effects out of them.
I do have a buddy on SSI, which is where I got the $85 limit from. He really does have little incentive to work. If he was able to work at Walmart for $8 an hour, 25 hours a week, his paycheck would be $860 a month. If it drops to $688 after taxes, he ends up losing half of 688 - 85 = 603 divided by 2 = $302.
That translates to something like $387 for 100 hours of work. That's a grotesque wage for anyone, let alone anyone whose typical week includes as much pain as most people experience in a year. Further, by disincentivizing work at the start, we discourage those people whose problems are tractable from starting careers that will lead over time to self-sufficiency.
***I realize there's a problem here. If I'm on SSI and also work, I might be racking up the $800 a month or so plus the proceeds of my minimum wage job. Maybe we disallow some tax breaks in those cases, or knock down the SSI benefits over time rather than all at once... My point is I think there are real ways out of this, and that programs cause problems not because the problems are inherent in the programs, but because the programs are badly designed.
That's not what I mean. You claimed that "wanting to see higher wages for working class people" was at odds with the mainstream Republican ideals. I doubt the Republican platform has any plank that opposes higher wages for working class people, aside from possibly an increase in the minimum wage. Thus, my point being that unless you are for an increase in minimum wage*, I'm not going to count your support for higher wages for the working class as one of your three items where you break with the Republicans.
*or some other mechanism which raises working class wages which is at odds with Republican ideals. Being opposed to illegal and low skill legal immigration doesn't count.
I'm willing to bet if the show had a 12 episode season instead of a 22 it would have been much better.
A Moynihan Democrat! I thought those were extinct.
I'll let this slide because of the honesty of the first quote above.
Curious. Why is it shocking?
Gay marriage isn't a major issue? And until this year, hadn't it lost on every state ballot on which it had appeared, including very liberal places like California?
Despite the usual media narrative, it wasn't just some conservatives blocking gay marriage. Before this year, blacks and Latinos — two core Dem constituencies — opposed gay marriage in higher numbers than whites.
That Joe asked what seemed like a reasonable question not obviously intended to tee up something he could flame over.
This is odd. I thought it was considered gospel among lefties that the GOP was anti-worker and/or in favor of cheap labor.
So it was Joe's question which was shockingly reasonable, not my response in 1597. Or am I still missing something?
It's not really a major issue for Joe Kehoskie the BBTF commenter but if he wanted to become Joe Kehoskie the elected representative it could be a very big deal in a Republican primary. The country as a whole is quickly moving in the right direction on the issue but it's still more than enough for Republican candidates to get viciously attacked from within their party.
Such as?
Give an example of a specific policy you favor which would both raise working class wages and would be at odds with republican ideals. I know it's not union support, and you've said it's not minimum wage increase. So what is it? Do you want tariffs? penalties for shipping jobs overseas? A higher EITC?
But I've learned my lesson. Calling Joe reasonable only begets uncertainty and tension. :)
I don't understand what you're asking.
So, when you say three ways you differ from the Republican platform, you mean two. Good trick.
Cooks, for instance in the food industry.
No, he means he's opposed to Liberal caricatures of Republican positions. To wit:
In which case, my 3rd would be I'm opposed to taxing white male income over $50,000 at 100% in order to buy luxury apartments on the upper west side for single mom crack whores.
If there are millions and millions of these jobs then you should be able to list off jobs that have a bunch of people that are getting paid at an inconsequential level above minimum wage.
Illegal immigration creates workers who work for below minimum wage, despite them having some learned skill that would make them competitive(skill wise) with other legal skilled workers.
Cooks, for instance in the food industry.
I have never ever met a cook who got paid the minimum wage outside of jobs they did so for reasons besides money. In otherwords they chose the minimum wage job over a job that would have paid more.
That'll keep you from paying child support, too
Jack Carter does make a fair point though. I am ok with a bit of pro women bias here.
I never mentioned minimum wage, so what is this alleged "trick" to which you are referring?
To its great detriment, the GOP has hardly been the champion of the working man (and woman) in recent years. (And there are plenty of ways to help low-income workers that don't involve the minimum wage.)
Your analogy continues to be terrible.
You presume that the woman is at fault for not deciding to have an abortion, thereby forcing child support on the father. You presume here that the father has to bear $250,000 in costs while the woman ... what? Doesn't bear costs of her own, monetary and physical?
But hey, he just had sex with her, he didn't want anything else.
You seem much smarter than that nonsense. But I've got work in the morning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States
has good data. I'm not interested just in high school kids making the minimum, but also the 8.4 million people making 17.5k-19.99k, and the 10.9m making 20k-22.49k
When you say that only a small percentage of jobs pay the minimum, it seems to me like you believe that's an important distinction (Right? I mean, otherwise, why mention it?). But if on top of the, say, 3 million jobs that pay the minimum, 8.5 million more pay 50 cents to $2 more than the minimum because of pay bumps after some time has passed--and peak within a couple of years, it's misleading to say 'only 3 million people make the minimum wage, therefore it's not a problem'. When 87 million people bring in $19,999 or less, and when 20 million people are within 20% of the minimum wage, that's a whole hell of a lot of people suffering from a ridiculously low minimum wage which, of course, affects more than just the people making exactly the minimum.
By the way,Wiki points out that the US has a higher percentage of households we can classify as 'working poor' than other countries. 11% of the total are working poor households, while another 6% are considered nonworking poor.
That's a problem that's related to the minimum wage.
Thanks, I guess. Where I fault you is your claim that I'm finding fault with the woman. Fault has nothing to do with it, nor am I suggesting that, by gum, she should abort. That's her decision, just as it's her decision to give birth. As you point out, it's her 'physical costs', but it's also entirely her decision to bear those physical costs. No one is forcing the woman to bear those costs. The man doesn't want her to. Society in general doesn't want her to. As far as I can tell, she's the only one who wants to, so she (and you) doesn't get to play the 'physical costs', suffering card in this kind of discussion.
What I AM saying is that with the prevalence of safe, legal abortion, the conversation must shift. Child support is no longer a case of the sperm donor supporting the child, but rather that child support is now the sperm donor subsidizing the decision of the woman to have a child.
It's unfortunate that there's still a 'he should pay for his fun' morality injected into the discussion. It has no more place than does telling women, 'hey, if you didn't want to have a kid, you shouldn't have had sex'.
Raising the minimum wage puts upward pressure on wages in general. If minimum wage is raised $10.00, then people who were making $10.00 before the jump want an increase in their compensation as well.
Raising the minimum wage has significant positive effects throughout the rest of the economy. The previous POV, that it causes higher unemployment, has been shown to not be true. Australia, for example, has high employment and extremely high minimum wages.
It's not the rancor. It's the ignorance you display regarding abortion. You are extremely cavalier about it as a decision. That is very revealing. You equate "safe and legal" with "inconsequential." A display of supreme ignorance.
Sorry I didn't pass your right wing political correctness test (people think I'm joking when I use that phrase, but this is a good example of it) on this one.
Not that your rancor warrants a serious reply, and not that you want to do anything other than barf invective, but when I used the phrase "legitimate objection" I meant "legitimate" in the sense of honestly held, instead of conjuring up an objection where she really had none for the sake of compelling support for her decision to bring a fetus.
By the way, speaking of your last paragraph, can we assume it means you endorse my position as long as the man used contraception? Or, does it mean you stand outside Planned Parenthood clinics with a sign declaring, "If you don't want a baby, you shoulda kept your legs crossed" ?
Oh, and, nyah nyahnyah nyah nyah.
Once again, mr. shipman is more compact and erudite than I.
It puts me in mind of the various claims that high upper marginal rates murder recovery in its crib, when simple graphs showing top rates and unemployment in the US show that increasing the top rates corresponds to lower unemployment.
I'll look for a reputable study (one not done by, say, the Chamber of Commerce) on the relationship between raising the minimum wage and employment. There will be a point of decreasing returns. Penetrating the politics on all side to find where that point is, is the problem.
My take is that you and Perino place too high a percentage of the responsibility of domestic violence on the victims of domestic violence. Based on the last few pages of this topic, I have no interest in discussing the matter further.
I never mentioned minimum wage, so what is this alleged "trick" to which you are referring?
As I didn't either, I have no idea why you would bring it up in response to what I said.
Moving on to what I did say, cutting down on illegal and legal immigration is a staple of the Republican platform. To cite that as an example of how you differ from the Republican platform makes no sense.
1) abducted at knifepoint on the way from her office to her car, taken to a remote location, beaten, raped
2) goes drinking with a long time male friend, she gets very drunk, they have sex after she mumbles something along the lines of "i don't want to", in the morning she doesn't really remember clearly what happened when and the guy just says he couldn't hear her.
3) goes to a frat party, does seven shots in seven minutes, takes her top off and does a dance, takes a drink offered up by one of the brothers, wakes up in the morning with two guys, none of the three of them remember anything from the night before.
I've heard all three of these described as rape. I'd place exactly zero blame on the woman in 1. A little in 2, though note that she was with a "friend" who had always treated her well, so she clearly felt safer than the girl in 3 should have. And a whole hell of a lot of blame on the girl in 3. That isn't to excuse the guys in 3, but if a girl puts themselves in that situation, bad things will usually happen and it isn't exactly a secret. I speak to college age girls pretty often in my job and when the topic comes up, I try my best to tell them drinking that much around strangers - especially teenage male strangers - is a terrible idea. Again, this isn't to excuse the guys. A sober guy who takes advantage in that situation is committing an immoral act. But many (most?) would. So, it isn't #3's "fault" but a reasonable change in her behavior would have altered the outcome.
The same is true in domestic violence, I think. A woman beaten by a previously loving and gentle mate takes no blame. A woman who keeps going back to an abuser does. Again, that doesn't change the fact that the guy is an abuser and a bad man. But the serial reconcilliations have to put some blame on the woman.
If we aren't going to hold any women responsibile for their behavior, ever, then we are pretty much saying that they're inferior to men. Always only blaming the men doesn't make any more sense than always blaming the woman. I don't think women are asking for it or getting what they deserve, but they also aren't getting anything that should come as a surprise in many situations.
Another factor WRT immigration, legal or illegal, is that language is a central skill. There are still quite a lot of immigrants with reasonably white-collar training but without American certification, and too little English to obtain it. (Many Vietnamese immigrants fit that pattern, stereotypically but also in some very real ways.) If they're working as cooks, they may not have the luxury of skipping along to the next four-star restaurant.
Note #1: I have not actually read the darn thing, so I am including extras incase I accidentlally am agreed with by said document
Note #2: Not snark, but I really wanted to find things I agree with the GOP on, but honestly could not find much. Their social policy is laothsome in large part, their good economic ideas have been coopted by the Democrats, and they are not (at this point) a party of ideas that is in favor much of anything that appeals to me. Back in the 80s and 90s there was plenty I agreed with them though.
* Military spending I want much less.
* Foreign policy, much too warlike and sucking up to bad actors rather than doing what is right
* Taxing non-profits, I am in favor
* Term limits for SC, Not in favor of lifetime appointments for judges - think thatis just dumb
* Drug policy, this policy is really terrible
* Internet and privacy, in favor of net nuetrality and a strong opt out privacy policy (more like Europe)
* IP, the current laws and trend are terrible. Example software should not be patentable and seriously the Mouse needs to be in public domain already.
* Favor of carbon tax (Might be in platform - too lazy to look)
* Single Payer health care (Might be in platform - too lazy to look)
* Financial transaction tax (Might be in platform - too lazy to look)
* Ethanol is a crock and should be eliminated (Edit: Subsides for should be eliminated - in fact most farm subsidies should be killed)
That isn't to excuse the guys in 3, but if a girl puts themselves in that situation, bad things will usually happen and it isn't exactly a secret.
I honestly don't think this would be the reaction if a similar number of straight, pretty frat boys started waking up confused and sore in the beds of gay gym rats.
Why the need to blame the women? They are already feeling the brunt of their decisions. Something bad happened to them. There is zero need to pile on and cast blame at them.
The discussion should start with 'sexual assault is wrong'. Have a healthy dose in the middle of 'sexual assault is wrong'. And it should end with 'sexual assault is wrong'. Why? Because sexual assault is wrong.
I am raising my boys and they know that they are responsible for themselves. Even when life is not fair they know that they are responsible for their lives. And if they were sexually assaulted (men get assaulted too, but not nearly as often) I would spend 0% of my time deciding what their level of responsibility was and blaming them.
First of all victims tend to blame themselves way out of proportion to their culpability. Second the person who broke the law is the person who ... wait for it ... broke the law - they are to blame. Third they already suffered the consequence, they will have to live with what happened, they would be living with responsibility - they certainly would not need me to cast blame and explain all the things that they did wrong.
And none of that means I would not work with them on how to avoid troublesome situations, but blaming the victim is loathsome, even indirectly or by inference.
Note: The reason this whole bit is a strawman is liberals do believe in personal responsibility. Pretending they don't is classic. However liberals don't believe in meanspirited punishment and castigation for irresponsibility, which to some is the same as not accepting individual responsibility.
Maybe not from everyone, but it would from me. Drinking (doing drugs) to the point of incoherence invites trouble. If your goal is to get blotto, you are turning over control of your person to others. Obviously, if the drug is involuntarily consumed, it's a different story.
I think we've been down this road before and I've always thought "blame" is the wrong word. I'm not sure what the right word is but my general point is, sober, people have control over their bodies and actions. Surely, a weaker person may lose that control involuntarily to a stronger person and an unarmed person to an armed person. But if the loss of control is voluntary - and it is in many cases - the fact that others take advantage should not come as a shock and, in some sense, blame follows. In my mind this isn't legal blame - I wouldn't send someone to jail for blacking out. But, yeah, I feel worse for woman 1 in my example than woman 3.
As to sexual assault being wrong and agaist the law, yes, of course. I'm not saying (though I recognize a lot of folks might) that the guys in these stories shouldn't go to jail (or at least be investigated). But I expect proof. If two people have sex and no one remembers what happened, what is your proof? Is it an automatic rape if the woman says so?
Again, if you can prove a crime occured, by all means, punish the offender. But the "responsibility" angle, while not liberal or conservative, in my opinion, is absolutely real. We have a university (maybe more general but that is my experience) that expects women to get blitzed with a bunch of guys who are also, generally, blitzed. I don't know who is to blame for that culture but it exists and it leads to trouble. That's all cool if the woman doesn't care where she ends up or with who (which is often the case), but if a woman does care about such things, getting blitzed is a bad idea. Just as it is for men. Men just seem less prone to regret in these situations.
Speaking of regret, I regret not making clear that just as I tell young women all this when I hear them planning their 48 hour binges (yes, I hear this pretty frequently), I tell guys the same thing. I tell women, worst case they get raped. I tell men, worst case they become a monster and go to jail for 20 years. I'm sort of a buzzkill. Which is the point I guess. I'd feel a lot better if the 10 minutes before class starts was filled with talk of the latest chemistry breakthroughs or some cool piece of literature. But it is most often party planning.
I definitely understood this, and my wording was poor and best and simply wrong at worst in regards to you personally. The position you hold as written is not particularly unique, though, so I did mean the general reaction, if not yours specifically.
As with Ray and domestic violence, the issue is not "all", but "more". The disagreement and discussion is about the where and why of the line.
This is true. Any discussion which begins with talk of sexual assault and personal responsibility though has a definite cast to it though, especially when we are talking about specific instances where no one here is close enough to really have an informed opinion.
In abstract determining what is and is not sexual assault is crazy hard after the fact for other people, but super simple when there - seek consent, no really does mean no, and when in doubt don't do it.
I am amused (disgusted really) that some folks talk about the woman's personal responsibility and how she should know better, but no one talks about the personal responsibility of the man. "Hey in today's world you better know for sure everything is OK or you might end up accused of rape when you did nothing. But you put yourself in that position and you know, or should know, what it is like out there and what the risks are, just like women who drink, date certain guys, or dress 'that way' should know better."
For some folks sauce for the goose is much different than sauce for the gander - personal responsibility only gets applied to some (gender specific) folks I guess.
They're all correct.
Well, except Progressives. ;-)
As I say above, I do tell guys this and think it is true. Drunk sex carries risk to both sides. I simply object to the idea that a woman should be able to change her mind or be vague in her refusal. "When in doubt don't" is fine but I think a woman also has a responsibility to be very clear and to leave no doubt as to her intent. Two drunk people (well, two sober people, even, but especially blotto folks) may very well interpret statements and actions differently and be reasonable doing so.
For some folks sauce for the goose is much different than sauce for the gander - personal responsibility only gets applied to some (gender specific) folks I guess.
Right. Some (mostly men) seem to think any woman who isn't wearing a chastity belt is fair game. Others (mostly women) think most sex is a result of coercion. It's clearly somewhere in the wide chasm in between. But sex is (for most of us anyway) a mutual endeavor with responsibilities on both sides. I think what often happens in these discussions is someone states a position, someone else reacts to that, then others (who, just for example, didn't read the previous page before weighing in) react to the reaction.
If this is aimed at me, I did read the previous page. I was not directly speaking to what you said so much as what others had said. However in most of what you said, I do agree with your post in 1653, but there are some definite hot button issues here and reflexive talking points on both sides.
I presume you mean "change her mind after the fact" which is - of course - annoying. Changing one's mind before or even during is allowed. Perhaps disappointing, but too bad. Vague in refusal, I don't know what that means I guess, anything negative in nature means no - full stop. In practice it is simple, though I admit perhaps simpler for me because I don't drink or do drugs.
It isn't just the changing of mind after the fact, it's the whole culture that prevails of deferring to one sex's version under opprobrium of "blaming the victim." This mindset presumes to be true that which is to be proved, and that is just plain awful. Some crimes are so dire, so special we are tikd, that requiring evidence is in the nature of an insult. In fact, the harder it is to prove those crimes, the lower the requirement level if proof.
Going back to 1965 the average revision is 1.7 points of GDP. Note, that doesn't mean 1.7%, that's 1.7 raw points. The standard error of the initial estimate of GDP is 3.4%.
Basically because of time constraints parts of the initial numbers are little more than educated guesses.
Reading it now. Enjoying it though it's a bit hit and miss. It's a great resource thanks to the footnotes. You can find the source papers on whatever topic he's discussing.
WYour culminating line is nothing more than a naked assertion. You can say that. But that's all it is: you saying that. The question still remains: Why not? If people insist on toying with tigers and lions, should they have a cognizable right to expect society to be at a loss for explanations when they are eaten. And can they expect society to expend vast resources to validate that right to engage in that predictably risky behavior by futilely trying to insure that the wholly expected doesn't happen. Maybe we should because it may be a necessary falsehood that we have to all agree to in order for social organization to come about and even work, such as it does, but that (and the issue of the extent we have free will, if we have it at all) is another, but essential, issue.
That's right. Of course there is no certainty. (When is there?) We make assumptions. But we can, and should, question why they are made where they are, and what the repercussions are of making them there, and society has an interest in seeing that they are made in fair and even-handed way. Are they? Are the reciprocal rights and obligations of these two classes the same? No. Why not?
And it's the dominant product precisely because of the bloated hunk of junk that was Word Perfect 6.0. The Word Perfect 5 family was the dominant product on the market and the users were mostly pretty happy with it.
6.0 came along. It filled most hard disks of the day. It was so slow and buggy. I had the pleasure of being screamed at by customers demanding that it be removed and replaced with something that actually worked. And what worked (since it was hard to get the old version of Word Perfect) was Word.
I had to read this several times, and I still may not being actually understanding it but here goes ...
How common is unreported rape? What are the reasons for this? Is rape that is dismissed out of hand more common than false accusations of rape? What are the rates? How common is "after the fact mind change" accusations? What is the conviction percent on rape (by various types of accusations)?
I suspect various groups have much different ideas on the answers to these questions and so arrive at much different "solutions". Some folks want to defund welfare because there exists a welfare queen driving a cadillac or watching a big screen TV, others suggest even questioning welfare at all is racist. Dwelling on either of those positions is counterproductive, but makes for internet fodder I suppose (and yet racism is more than a bit more common than extravegant welfare fraud, so the positions are in fact not interchangable in lunacy).
Maybe it's a product of being in academia too long, but non-fiction books without footnotes drive me crazy. They save so much time digging around trying to find the source material (which presumably you're interested in if you're reading the book!)
It's not you. Trust me.
Still, it's mostly a book on how to think about complex problems. What works and what doesn't. It also has the first decent discussion of overfitting (mistaking noise for signal) that I've ever seen outside of a text book.
First, I want it made clear that I was talking about domestic violence, not sexual assault/rape. The discussion immediately moved to the latter and I don't have time to opine on the latter.
As to the former, I wouldn't use the word "blame"; I am talking about the decisionmaking on the part of women and why they too often put themselves/stay in relationships that are clearly harmful to them.
Yes, I understand Hollywood did a movie dealing with this important topic. And when they did, they had Michael Douglas being sexually assaulted by a hot Demi Moore. That is about the level of seriousness that the viewpoint "Hey, men get sexually assaulted by women too!" deserves.
So why does this scenario assume that she did not consent, but that the men did? Why are they held strictly responsible for their conduct while at this level of drunkeness, but she is not?
What if the scenariop is that she was a former girlfriend who had cheated on him. He has stayed away from her and dislikes her intensely. They meet at a party where they are both drunk, him extremely. They wake up the next morning, her happy and him horrified. Does our analysis change? Why or why not?
This is the problem I have with Bill Simmons's writing. Too many damned footnotes that interrupt the flow of what he's talking about - and the main text he writes is quite good and interesting and can stand on its own. (At least for the subjects he knows about.)
The Posnanski style of rambling in the main text insted of footnoting the tangents works better, but is still a mess. Just do a new column/chapter on it if it is worthy of being discussed.
Someone like Rob Neyer or Joe Sheehan's style of writing is far better.
It's complicated, and one should not pontificate without serious study, but I will say that you can't address the problems of welfare and SSI without addressing Medicaid. For many of those people, it isn't the checks, it's the Medicaid medical benefits that come with them. You lose your entitlemen to SSI, you lose your Medicaid in most cases.
How common is unreported theft? I mean, it's unreported, so how would you know. Just take the word of the guy makes the sub rosa claim that he was the victim of stealing? What's that worth?
Are people falsely accused of theft? What are the rates? Etc.
That's right, and society and its institutions and processes are how we mediate those different views and solutions. You don't just as a matter of course assume one side must be always right--or our social apparatuses should always assume they are. Much is about assumptions and presumptions--you get those, you win.
Ray, men can and do get sexually assaulted by men. And it can be serious and is very underreported and deserves more attention. I am not surprised you are both clueless about and insensitive to this.
Yes, I've said this in this discussion in many ways. Where is the reciprocity? She can be too drunk to consent, even if her actions belie this, and the drunken guy is held to a standard of being able to know this, but he can claim the defense, hey, I was drunk, too. I didn't she didn't know she wouldn't really want to do it tomorrow. The system is so weighted against one class here that it amuonts to absurdity on the level of Catch 22.
Tom Price, apparently -- or so the rumors have it.
Remember, too -- there were several 'conservatives' who have been complaining that there were ousted from plum committee assignments... supposedly because they went rogue too often on vote wrangling.
It's interesting to compare caucus management between Boehner and Pelosi --
Boehner, I think, has been a lot more 'democratic' (small d) in getting things to the floor and getting votes on legislation than Pelosi.
However, legislatively speaking - it's hard for me to see how this has worked out well for the GOP (electorally, let's set aside).
Pelosi, OTOH, did rule her caucus as leader much more authoritatively -- she certainly hails from the progressive wing of the party, but when push came to shove and she had to wrangle the votes for watered down senate versions of bills (be it the stimulus bill or ACA) -- she always got the votes and always got them with limited drama. In effect, when the 'compromise' writing was on the wall - she was quite good at getting the progressive caucus to STFU and give her the votes she needed.
Part of this difference, of course, is caucus composition -- the blue dog power in the Democratic party has been waning for 3 or 4 cycles now (the lion's share of Democratic losses in 2010 were blue dogs), so there just hasn't been much there for the Hoyers/Schulers to hang their hats on (indeed, Schuler retired last cycle).
However - I do think there's a marked difference in caucus leadership between Pelosi and Boehner... and from most accounts, it would seem that Boehner is tacking more towards Pelosi.
I'm not saying either approach is better -- just saying we have seen two different styles and by most accounts, Boehner is trending towards Pelosi' style.
My bet is that Boehner survives - and it's not really even close... it might be a bit messier, louder, and closer than when Schuler challenged Pelosi for caucus leadership - but I suspect that's mainly because Hoyer was a better/more loyal #2 than Cantor is for Boehner.
Until well into the'60s and beyond, homosexual sexual assault in most jurisdictions was a misdemeanor. That meant that a victim couldn't defend himself with ultimate force. That's what society thought of men's sensitivity.
That's not necessarily indicative of "unreported" theft. It could be (and likely is) indicative of fraud. It could be (and definitely is) indicative of some people losing stuff and assuming someone must have stolen it. More to your point, it could be a theft, but the victim is unsure if it was stolen or just misplaced, and wouldn't report it because they don't want to accuse falsely.
Pelosi is a very good caucus leader. I will miss her when she is gone, and I hope she has many more elections and years left in her.
I'm not sure why Hoyer is seen as the moderate since his voting record is just about as liberal as Pelosi. But that is how he is seen, and I'm sure you'd get both an internal and external push against him if he went for the top. It took Pelosi a while to realize it but having a #2 who is seen as from the weaker wing of the party is the perfect vest for her.
the speaker's committee purges were pre-emptive moves at some backbenchers to send a louder message to play nice or pay the price
He spends too much time talking about grand compromises that cut entitlements. His rhetoric is often "very serious Washington talking head" focused which is not appreciated by the liberal activists. That's my semi-educated opinion about him anyway.
Aside: Andrew Cuomo has surpassed him and pretty much everyone else as the Democrat that the liberal activist base really doesn't like. Not sure how justified it is honestly, but if he runs for President in 16 we will see how important that class of liberal is.
If you can judge a person by the mental level of her most vocal enemies, Pelosi's stature is high indeed. She's a blue blood blue collar daughter of a Baltimore pol, and it shows in the effectiveness of her leadership. Her role in the ACA passage alone ensures her legacy.
Favorite part of the article:
Though
and
are pretty good. I especially like the part about Norwegian peace protesters.
I don't see the problem. If one drunk driver hits and kills another drunk driver, it's the one who did the killing that gets run up for aggravated manslaughter. That's because one act (i.e. commiting sexual assault) is a crime, another (being sexually assaulted) isn't. In general, "I was too drunk to know better!" is not a defense for committing a crime.
On the other hand, it's difficult to determine to what extent those problems were inevitable due to how crazy some of those guys are.
Clearly, he's been less effective than Pelosi or Tom DeLay, and probably less effective than Gingrich. If he is ousted after a two year term with a roughly 30 seat majority, he will go down as one of the least effective speakers of the modern era.
i have been telling folks here for several weeks that there is a subset of gop members who do not want to be associated in any way shape or form with a tax increase.
so they will strongly consider any option that sabotages a deal that includes an increase.
they would prefer to have all rates go up and then vote for a decrease in early 2013.
no previous speakers were dealing with a signiicant population of members who refuse to compromise under any circumstances
mostly because mosts do not understand the ramifications of their decisions (or lack of decisions)
Well, the Republican party can't have it both ways. If you want to blame Obama for a lack of leadership when discussing the country's economy, you can't very well cop out and say that poor John Boehner has unique challenges. Since Boehner has directly criticized Obama for a lack of leadership, I think it's fair to criticize him for being unable to make his caucus fall in line.
I don't know how another speaker would have done in his place, but I do know that he's the least effective Speaker in a long time. Mitch McConnell, despite having similar amounts of loonies, keeps his group voting how he wants them to.
Footnotes for continuing the discussion of tangents can be useful as well, but can be tricky to pull off.
Price's office just issued a statement saying unequivocally that he will NOT be running for speaker...
that's an unfair comparison. the senate has always been the place for calmer heads and where deals get done. it's built that way. that has been its history. senator mcconnell has his own challenges but dealing with people who are built, geared and instructed to be bomb throwers is not one of them.
note i am not stating the speaker has been great or even good. just that your framework for assessment is not one that holds up.
i am also not saying you cannot criticize the speaker. i am merely acknowledging that he has a somewhat unique context
No, it was mostly aimed at me, who hadn't read the previous page. What? You think I read all of these threads?
I simply object to the idea that a woman should be able to change her mind or be vague in her refusal.
I presume you mean "change her mind after the fact" which is - of course - annoying.
Definitely meant after the fact. It's more than annoying. It should be criminal in the same way calling 911 is if there is no emergency.
It's why I tossed the big caveat about caucus composition into 1677...
That said, though - Boehner very much did specifically say when took over the leadership role that he did want to run the chamber differently than Pelosi; that, in effect, he wanted things to work more by consensus than negotiate/done negotiating/now get in line.
This is probably where the rubber meets the road -- like I said, I'm not saying either style was better -- obviously, there's a lot to like about a smallish legislative body where consensus is built from the bottom up than top down... but - it seems like given the caucus composition Boehner faces, he'd have been better off running with a firmer hand.
Of course -- remember that Boehner took over GOP House leadership well before the 2010 midterms -- he was briefly majority leader for the lame duck 2006 congress (post-election), then minority leader, before returning to the gavel.
I still remember that leadership fight -- it produced one of the more memorable lines I've ever heard in politics... After the GOP lost the House in the 2006 midterms -- it was (I think... the line is memorable, the person not so much) John Shadegg who argued that for his leadership candidacy by saying "I'm the least tainted of any of these guys".
So if you call 911 because you're convinced there's an emergency you are a criminal if - in an exteme circumstance - you were wrong?
Is it really clear that the Democrats would rather have Boehner than Cantor? Cantor seems pretty easy to pigeonhole as an extremist, while Boehner's seeming double-gin and golfcourse affect at least makes him appear to be harmless. Since Boehner can't control the caucus, the Democrats don't get anything out of keeping him in office, no?
...and that's even before we get into the fact that -- good luck finding enough cooperative Democrats to save Boehner's job, given that -- again -- Pelosi runs her caucus with something of an iron fist. For that to work, you don't need X number of Democrats - you just need one... and you'd be negotiating with her for goodies to provide x number of votes.
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