And I wonder how libertarians would feel if the way national service worked is that you had to work a month for each million dollars you inherited. (I mean, if the premise is that you have to pay for the world that was handed to you…)
I was about to post a correction, saying, to make it fair, let's say 'Every million dollars not earned'. So, yes, people on welfare and whatnot would have to do national also...for like a week, once.
But I realized 'not earned' is a bit silly to start with, and easy to game (Instead of my kid inheriting my money, I will pay him a million dollars an hour to carry my golf clubs!) so my new proposal is:
Everyone has to work a month (Or, rather, 160 hours) at national service for every million dollars of income they gain via _any_ means. Income, tax rebates, welfare, anything. (Need some way to exempt things that just 'borrowed' their money and gave it back, like unemployment insurance, but whatever)
They can do this in advance, or, if they have not, the money is withheld by the government until they do so. (It does, however, end up in their estate no matter what.) And, a system is set up where almost all high school students give a month each year (after-school programs, volunteer days, a week or two over the summer), for a total of four months, so that more than covers anyone who makes less than median pay. And colleges also do the same sort of thing for high-paying college majors to add a few more months in there.
Taxes aren’t great, but they are less of an affront to liberty than demanding a forced specific performance.
This is why I find it almost surreal when libertarians seem in favor of national service, considering how many of them seem to regard taxes as some horrible thing.
I wonder if this is some sort of weird Heinlein crossover, considering how many libertarians seem to think Heinlein was a libertarian and thus something he wrote about must be a good idea. (1)
In my opinion, people have a requirement to fund the system they were born in in an amount proportional to their ability to fund it. I.e., you don't get to be the _last_ generation born into this wealth.
But as for whether or not the government can make you work, I have to say yes...in _exceptional_ circumstances. Very exceptional. Like the country is being invaded, or there's a meteor about to wipe out the planet and we need someone to pound nails into the launch tower for the rocket to blow it up. Existentially-risky circumstances. Beyond that, no.
And I find it surreal that so many libertarians think otherwise to the second thing, while so many other libertarians don't even agree with me about the _first_ thing.
And at a certain point, an unpleasant fact enters me mind, that _the poor_ can do national service, but can't pay more taxes in money (As they have no money). Likewise, everyone has to do the _same_ national service....during which, of course, rich people could continue to earn other money (via investments and whatnot) whereas poor people could not.
And I suddenly realize that libertarians have glommed onto the idea of national service because it is the _most regressive tax_ imaginable. And I wonder how libertarians would feel if the way national service worked is that you had to work a month for each million dollars you inherited. (I mean, if the premise is that you have to pay for the world that was handed to you...)
Now, I do understand why liberals like it, I do understand the appeal of making people of different socio-economic levels 'mingle' for a year, but surely there are actually other ways we could do that. I can't think of any at this exact moment, but I'm sure there are.
1) Heinlein was not actually a libertarian, and really just liked coming up with different political, and social, systems and seeing how they worked. And, hilarious, the closest thing to a libertarian world he created is a libertarian world under 'The Covenant' (Basically, you can do anything you want as long as you don't hurt others. Even things explicitly illegal, as long as you can prove they didn't hurt anyone.) and a guy who think he's not free enough there and will be better off without any rules at all...and learns he's is an idiot. I.e., his most 'libertarian' world exists to show that...libertarians are being silly and there will always be people loudly demanding freedom even if they have near absolute freedom already. So, uh, yeah.
I will be okay with the draft the minute we have a constitutional requirement for the nation as a whole to vote it in. A country does, in fact, have the 'right' to send its citizens off to war...but by 'a country', I mean 'the actual majority of people in the country'. It's way too important for the representatives we normally let decide things to be able to decide.
(In fact, I think we shouldn't be able to go to war _at all_ without a nation-wide vote, period. All armed conflicts should be limited to fighting off invasions of US soil until a vote of the population is taken. The Founding Fathers, I suspect, agreed with me, and hence their assignment of creating an army theoretically resting on the House, the closest to direct democracy we had back then. This system has entirely broken down.)
More seriously, I always thought it would be funny to do a puzzle of this form:
You come across a fork in the road with a sign saying 'One person here lies, and the other tells the truth. You may ask exactly one of them one question, and that is all.'
And, sure enough, two people stand there. How do you figure out which way to go?
The traditional answer is to ask one of them which direction the other would say, and then pick the opposite.
However, in _my_ puzzle, both of the people tell the truth, and the _sign_ is lying about that fact. (It might even by lying about only one question, who knows?) So everyone who tries to logic it ends up going the wrong way.
Also, there's something else wrong with the puzzle as I stated it.
Whenever I hear one of those questions, I have to immediately ask:
How do I know _you're_ telling the truth?
Seriously, this story is about some people who lie, and some tell the truth. All the time.
This seems rather implausibly. Seriously, how would the liars buy food? Or do anything else. And how the hell do you handle Opposite Day?
So, by Occam's razor, I am forced to assume that it it _you_ who are lying. (Probably not all the time, just this once.) There are no people who tell the truth all the time, there are no people who lie all the time. In fact, there _might not even be any island at all_.
Scalia's comment was astonishing. He basically said: If we strike down DOMA on the basis of the fact it has absolutely no purpose whatsoever except to harm gay people, than states might have their laws challenged under the same logic.
And everyone waited and waited for him to actually finish that thought with '. however, that logic would be wrong' or ', however, unlike DOMA, state laws do have some purpose' or ', however, under some convoluted states right argument, states do have the right to randomly hurt people for no reason' or _something_. We expected some explanation of why that logic would be _wrong_.
And he _didn't_ give any. No reason at all.
In other words, a Supreme Court justice stood there, in front of everyone, and said 'We shouldn't grant civil rights in this case, to get rid of an unjust law, because it trivially would lead to people getting rid of _other_ unjust laws. Unjust laws that I don't want us to get rid of.'
It's akin to saying 'If we give black people the ability to vote they supposedly have constitutionally, they'll vote to undo segregation!' Uh...okay? Good point?
Everyone seems to be talking about Card's 'opinions'. The reason I will not be seeing Ender's Game is not because of Card's opinions. It's really amazing how people keep yammering about his 'opinions', just like they decided the Chick-Fil-A boycott was over 'opinions'.
There is a difference between an 'opinion' and _actively attempting to deny rights to people_.
No one care what Card thinks, anymore than they care what Dan T. Cathy thinks. They care about those people's active efforts to support _horrible_ organizations like National Organization for Marriage (Which Card is a board member of.) and Exodus International (Which Cathy's charity donates to. Well, donate_d_ to.).
Card's _opinions_ are utterly moot. Card's _organization_ is the problem.
TL;DR: If Card wishes to state his opinions, I will call him wrong and state mine back, and stop there. But if Card wishes to organize in a like-minded group to lobby for laws that cause harm to a group of people, I will organize in a like-minded group to...not give him any of my money at all. (That still seems a little unbalanced, considering he doesn't _have_ a right to my money in the first place, whereas people do have a right to get married. But we are still writing the 'people named Orson Scott Card are not allowed to get married' legislation.)
I can't tell if you're making some joke or serious, but, sex work, if legal, should not be subject to various anti-discrimination rules, exactly because it _is_ a performing art.
Yes, it's generally an _amateurly-done_ performing arts, but, for example, the fact that a lot of amateurs dance doesn't mean dance isn't a performing art. Neither does the fact it's done between one professional and one amateur mean it isn't an art...that's just called 'audience participation'.
In fact, I would argue that 'sex' is literally is a form of 'dance', by most accepted definitions of the term 'dance'. It's audience participation dance. Definitions of dance often explicitly mention 'social mores' as being the limit of what dance is, precisely so sex _isn't_ in that category. But just attempting to define it out of 'dance' doesn't mean it actually isn't dance. It really really is.
And, of course, there's also porn, which is representing one form of art (sex, aka dance) in another form (video narrative).
So, anyway, in conclusion, in a version of the US where prostitution was legal, anti-discrimination laws do not apply as it's a performing art, and hence it is entirely legal to refuse to hire a sex worker on the basis of their race or sex.(1) Just like it's legal for a TV show to only consider a white man for the certain part. (They couldn't discriminant against the Irish, though...just people who had an Irish accent they couldn't get rid of.)
1) Technically, you can probably discriminate on the basis of 'sex' anyway, as having the correct genitalia would be a legitimate requirement for many jobs. You couldn't refuse to hire someone one the grounds they were a woman or a man, but you could refuse to hire them if they lacked a penis or vagina...I think. Actually, come to think of it, you might have to make accommodations, considering how easy that would be.
There are multiple private roads within 5 miles of here.
I obviously meant private toll roads...roads that people have constructed for others to travel on, supported by charging them for it.
FedEx, UPS, and others carry mail. Just because 1st class mail carrying is illegal doesn’t mean others don’t do parcel post.
No. Parcel post actually means 'parcels sent via the post', so by definition FedEx and UPS don't do that. In fact, 'Parcel Post' is actually what the Post Office _calls_ that, or did until very recently.
And, yes, private _mail_ carriers are illegal. Neither FedEx or UPS carry 'mail'. They carry only 'packages' or 'parcels', depending on what you want to call them.
mail=letters and envelopes. These are 'mailed'.
parcels=boxes and whatnot. These are 'shipped'.
The confusion arises because 'mail' is not only 'letters and envelopes', but what many people call anything travelling via the post office 'mail'. Including parcels. So you can, indeed, 'mail' a parcel via the post office in common parlance. (The word that they probably should be using is 'post', but 'post' and 'mail' are very confused terms in English. An argument can be made for either 'post' or 'mail'.)
The fact there is some verb confusion about 'mail' does not mean packages sent that way are _actually_ 'mail', although that also is debatable. However, it's certainly not 'mail' when carried by some random company instead of the post office.
OTOH, private _mail_ isn't illegal. Plenty of corporations have internal private mail, and it's obviously legal for people to personally deliver letters to each other. What is illegal is a third party charging to do so, except for the specific exception of 'couriers' for time sensitive information.
For someone with health insurance, failing to maintain their own body does not directly cost them money. (At least, once you subtract the actual effort of maintaining it.) When their body fails, they do not pay for it.
For someone with car insurance, failing to maintain their own car costs them money, period. When their car fails, they _do_ pay for it. No one is going to cover any of that.
It might also conceivably cost the insurance company money also, but that's a fairly uncommon circumstance.
Which is what insurance is supposed to be *for*.
The really odd thing is, you're exactly right. Insurance is only supposed to be things people can't plan for.
Which is why having insurance for _health care_ is an incredibly fucking stupid system.
You see, _everyone_ has medical expenses, period. This isn't like car insurance, where you can go your entire life without costing the insurance company money.(1)
If we actually want to cover everyone's medical expenses, let's just fucking cover them and stop screwing around. Have the government set cost-of-living adjusted prices, and hospitals just bill them. This current setup is complete nonsense.
Let’s see your tax recepit for donations to the local charity hospital, then. Oh hey, you don’t have one? Looks like you don’t care about people dying because they don’t have enough money.
Uh, I actually _have_ done the equivalent of donating to charity.
I don't have any insurance because they won't sell it to me, and I pay for the goddamn absurdly inflated prices they charged me.
Over my lifetime, I have, in fact, probably given over $30,000 in this form of 'charity' over-inflated bills, directly benefiting poor people who cannot pay for their health care. (And also helping asshats who are allowed to have health insurance that negotiates their hospital bills as low as possible, and yet feel like it's _my_ fucking job to donate to charity.) Please note that's not pretend '$30,000' medical bills that insurance 'pays' by sending $1700, that is actually _two year's income after taxes_.
I'm the only person in this entire goddamn system who not only is paying for my own health care, but half of everyone else's. (Oh, and before you talk about how healthy people pay a lot in insurance...yeah, and you're paying to _insurance companies_ so they can swim naked in a money pit. I'm paying it to _hospitals_ so they can charge other people less.)
More importantly, I didn't say _I_ cared about people dying because they don't have enough money. I said _society_ cared. Society has, in fact, passed laws to stop this.
And, oddly, I am getting a premonition here. This is the point in conversation where the person I am talking to commonly makes a statement. A statement about whether or not society _should_ care people dying because they are too poor to heave health care.
You could respond either way, I honestly don't know. Really, I don't know, so don't be offended if you're about to say the opposite, the odds are about 50/50. But let me let me preemptively respond if you state society should not care about poor people dying:
Congratulations. I entirely understand your position. There is no need to discuss it. in fact, what you need to start doing is tell people that _in advance_ so that people can just skip the entire boring discussion. Tell them, right off the bat, what you think should happen with people who cannot pay their medical bills.
1) Incidentally, _car insurance_ shouldn't exist, either. At least, not collision. Mandated insurance is the stupidest model of covering the costs of something that ever existed. If we want that setup we should just put large fines on traffic violations and use that funding to cover the costs of repair to non-at-fault drivers. (And, of course, people could get comprehensive insurance to cover those fines and repair costs when at fault.)
Healthcare is an area where socialism really does work.
I agree with the entirely of your post except this sentence. Mainly because the word 'socialism' doesn't really apply here.
Socialism is when the government owns or operates the means of production.
Firstly, the US government does not own healthcare, even under the ACA. The only thing they're actually owning is an exchange to buy health care on, which is basically the equivalent of owning the 'market square' where sellers set up stalls each morning to sell goods. That is certainly not 'socialism'.
However, let's pretend we're in England, where the government does own the hospitals and clinics. Or that we're talking about the VA. It's still not socialism.
The thing is...the UK government is _not_ selling health care. Yes, they have a specific tax for it, but it's a mandatory tax, not a 'purchase'.
The government providing health care _for free_ is no more socialism than the government providing police service for free is socialism. The government _selling_ health care would be 'socialism'.
Socialism is when the government owns a business, or operates as business, and buys and sells things. Or even if private individuals technically own a corporation, but the government is so much in control that it functionally owns it.
'Socialism' is not a word meaning 'The government has decided to add a service that it provides the people for free'.
Granted, provide _enough_ services, and goods, for free, and that's _communism_. But socialism isn't 'communism-lite'. It's a specific form of economy activity, where the government is participating in the private economy. Not when an entire section of the economy is removed from private hands which is just...normal government behavior. (How many private roads are there, a dozen in the entire country? And private mail carriers are just outright illegal.)
The exact same thing can be said about automobile maintenance. And yet not every state requires regular inspections; and even the ones that do require automobile owners to pay for it themselves, and go to private service providers for the inspection.
Except _you're not paying for the cost of your health care_.
You do grasp that neither the state nor car insurance companies fixes people's cars when they drive them into the ground, right? Car insurance is a very specific kind of insurance that covers damages by external forces, not idiots who don't change their oil. (And the state doesn't pay for it _at all_. They don't even provide free car 'corpse removal service', unlike with human corpses. You have to pay to remove your non-working car!)
Whereas health insurance _does_ pay for the cost of people who are idiots who do not 'change their oil'. There is no form of health insurance that only covers other people punching you in the face and breaking your nose, or poisoning you, or accidentally driving over your foot, or whatever.
Additionally, we as society have no problems with cars failing to work, or with someone deciding a car is too expensive to repair.
And we, as society, have _massive_ problems with people dying because people do not have enough money to pay to 'repair' them. Not because of the 'cost to society', but because they are _human beings_.
Skipping oil changes and basic maintenance leads to higher costs down the line as well.
Yes, but car insurance doesn't pay for that _either_. Car insurance just pays for when a car is damaged by outside forces, not if the engine blows up if you never change the oil.
A car warranty, OTOH, does cover that result...which is exactly why oil changes _do_ tend to be covered under them. (And it's also why you can't get, like, a ten year full warranty.)
Health insurance is rather like warrantying a random car that someone has owned for decades. Frankly, I'm amazed more of them don't _mandate_ you send in evidence you do change the oil.
It is stupid for someone to set up a system where upon major problems are covered, but minor problems which, when uncorrected, lead to major problems, are not.
Catastrophic care coverage does exist, but it tends to have exceptions and high costs and exactly the sorts of things you'd expect. They're not that great an insurance policy, simply because it's a poor way to structure insurance.
Objective rules are great. The problem is that the zero tolerance punishments are really, really, really stupid.
There is an objective standard of whether or not I stopped at a stop sign (Forward motion must cease), and an objective punishment. This objective punishment, somehow, is _not_ 2 years in jail, which is what it would be under zero tolerance logic. The ZT rule would be 'driving offenses' get you two years in jail, where 'driving offenses' are everything from driving through a mall to parallel parking with your bumper over the parking space divider line. (And you didn't even do that...someone else's car pushed yours over the line after you parked...but ZT doesn't care about stuff like 'Who did what?')
It's certainly better than 'The cop just punishes you however he wants'...in theory. I guess.
People sorta miss the fact that ZT rules are often hilarious _under_punishment for serious behaviors, also. Draw a gun at school? Three days suspension. Bring a gun to school and shoot ten people? Three days suspension. (And it's also illegal and results in jail time, but the point is, under ZT, those are _exactly the same offense_ and require exactly the same punishment.)
1.) Not all zero tolerance policies are wrong. There are some things for which we should have zero tolerance.
Yes. The problem isn't zero tolerance polices. The problem is zero tolerance policies against things that shouldn't even be against the rules, and certainly shouldn't result in suspensions.
Another obvious obvious example, besides the one here, is students possessing medication it is entirely legal for them to purchase at drug stores. Not even prescription medication, but stuff they can literally walk into a drug store and purchase, without adults at all. (And most prescription medication would be fine, also, although that probably should have to be cleared first...students walking around with antibiotics is fine, but they probably shouldn't be able to walk around with their amphetamine ADD medication.)
Another obvious problem is _pretending_ they are unable to figure out who is starting fights. Because, apparently, none of those cameras actually work, and it's impossible to question witnesses or just ask the teachers, who damn well know who is running around starting fights. And it would be impossible to say after a fight 'Both of you claim the other started it, so we will not punish either of you. And you two have a restraining order against each other...if you interact _in any way_ and a fight results, we will assume the person who walked up to the other person started it.'
Zero-tolerance is _supposed_ to stop bias in punishment. Instead, it turns the entire thing into a farce.
If asshat administrators are biased when punishing, give students a damn _court_. Not a full-fledged court, but just a _single_ adult who is willing to stand there and argue _their_ point, and produce evidence, instead of not only having no one on their side, but often being not even _allowed_ to respond to accusations.
Some assert that this would make enforcement of the rules too much work. I have to ask why there are so many damn rules. (And, uh, suspending students is a lot of work also.)
Given how completely the GOP controls several state legislatures (You know, those entities actually in charge of schools), it's also fairly absurd hypocrisy.
This would be an entirely reasonable thing for state GOPs to do. Somehow, they aren't.
Oh, no. People don't inherit the crimes of their parents. You're looking at it the wrong way.
You know who's still around from that time? The Federal government, and the states.
It really seems to be that all descendants of slaves have _one hell of_ a class action lawsuit against the US. And especially against slave states.
Especially since Libertarians seem to be so enamored of lawsuits solving all ills. Well, here's the lawsuit to end all lawsuits.
And then there's a whole different class action lawsuit for the next century for black people, from 1865 to 1965 or so. (Because Libertarians apparently think it's fine for private citizens to discriminate, that's not part of this...but there is a hell of a lot of government behavior here. Start with the criminal justice system in the south in the late 1800s.)
All this can obviously be avoided with some sort of settlement, aka, reparations.
That would a completely stupid way to 'correct' things, but Libertarians always do what is right, even when it's completely stupid, right?
Of course, you can only sue the government with the government's permission, but I suspect _in any other circumstances_, Libertarians would be the first arguing against needing permission to sue.
Double-standards for the level of civilization we can expect from one group versus the other, discussions of how Israel is acting as a Country while individual Palestinian extremists are acting as individuals and this should not reflect on the Palestinian people as a whole,
Wow, nice way to pretend an example is symmetrical when it's not.
Israel is acting as a country when it uses military force.
Palestine terror cells that do things are operating as terrorist cells. (Duh)
_Neither_ of them reflect on the Israeli or Palestinian people as a whole.
I love how the people who criticize Israel are asserted to be criticizing Israeli as a whole (And thus Jews as a whole), but it's those people who attack Israel's critics that are actually the ones generalizing from the behavior of to a few to the behavior of all. (For both Israelis and Palestinians.)
Criticizing a terror cell is not criticizing the country that cell works out of, or the people of that country a whole. (Although it's certainly reasonable to criticizing the country for allowing it...although in this case I don't actually think Palestine can stop them.)
Likewise, criticizing a country for a military decision is not criticizing the people of that country as a whole. (Although if said country is a democracy, the people can be criticized for electing leaders that choose to do that thing. But it's a rather indirect level of criticism.)
Saying 'I don't like what just happened' is not code for some sort of bigoted moral judgement of an entire set of people, like people who think this is some sort of moral judging content between Palestinians and Israelis and the winner gets to, I dunno, get a record deal. (And they look at critics of Israel in amazement, because don't they know that being bigoted against Jews is passe and it's now time to be bigoted against Muslims?)
No. It's saying I DON'T LIKE WHAT JUST HAPPENED. It's saying that that thing, which just happened, is not acceptable.
And 'that thing', which makes peace less likely, may be a terrorist attack that no one in the US can actually do anything about, or it could be Israel deciding to built some more illegal settlements...which we (Aka, the US) _could_ do something about with the tiniest amount of pressure, but chooses not to.
and that stupid ambulance bomb belt smuggling argument that practically played out again.
Ah, yes, the bomb smuggling argument, which you brought up apparently hoping someone would, I dunno, say it's acceptable for people to smuggle bombs in ambulance. When it's obviously not. It's terrorism, and it manages to be even worse than _normal_ terrorism by violating additional laws of war, which requires some sort of congratulation of the terrorists, I guess.
So, of course, the only response you got was 'Why the fuck does Palestine not have hospitals?'
Why the fuck _doesn't_ Palestine have hospitals, jaybird?
I know the answer to this one. Let's see if you do.
Even if slavery was a moral atrocity, it still doesn’t excuse Lincoln not allowing the Southern States to secede!
And thus you're saying that...Israel is not letting Palestine secede? Cause, you know, just outright _stating_ Israel is in violation of international law by refusing to Palestine (an occupied territory) leave is, uh, not that clever for a defender of Israel. That would actually be a war crime.
And Palestine's moral equivalency to slavery is? That they _might_ have a non-progressive government when given the chance?
What _exactly_ do you imagine you're saying there?
I cannot understand the people who, when given a choice between the governments of Israel and the governments of Fatah or Hamas, would choose Fatah or Hamas.
Why am I tempted to find some of your opinions about Bush's torture program, and ask why you, when given the choice between Afghanistan and the US, pick Afghanistan?
A country can be a better country than some other country (Although being a better 'country' than Palestine isn't that impressive.) and _still do shitty things they need to be called out on_.
I honestly fail to see the substantive difference between indentured servitude (or outright slavery) and certain categories of immigrants to America. What does that do to your moral requirement?
It...makes my moral requirement still be necessary?
I am confused by your question. What exactly are you asking? Are you assuming that my requirement was an empty boast, that I was threatening to kill slavers because I didn't know there were any more? No, I know they still exist.
I am also a little confused by what sort of immigrants you're talking about. If you're talking about H1-B visas, no, they are not slavery.
The bullshit that has happened on the Northern Mariana Islands, OTOH, _is_ slavery. As are plenty of 'immigration' scams of chinese workers and whatnot, where they are crated and smuggled in secretly.
Are you actually threatening to kill anyone right now? Because there damn well are corporations in this world that revolve around (sex, to be technical) slavery.
There's a difference between threatening 'I'll kill them if I run across them and think I actually can manage it without getting killed myself, and can either make a good legal case or not get caught afterwards' and hunting them down.
I didn't say people had a moral obligation to _actually_ kill slavers. That would be fairly hard to do. I said a moral obligation to _threaten_ to kill them. They belong in the moral class of people that do not deserve to live, and should not be interacted with in any civil manner whatsoever, unless it is to trick them as a prelude to killing them.
I don't think you actually read what Lee said. KatherineMW said 'Ah yes, because that always happens when somebody becomes willing to criticize the actions of Israel.'
So he responded with: Yeah, maybe if the Anti-Zionists would stop resorting to obviously anti-Semtic troops when criticizing Israel
In other words, he called _everyone_ who criticized Israel an 'Anti-Zionist' (_Some_ of which are anti-Semites. Presumably, he also thinks some of them are not, but neither of those are relevant here.)
a) He calls everyone who criticizes Israel an anti-Zionist.
Do you agree with this interpretation of what he said or not?
I then asked him the hell what an anti-Zionist was, to to keep from making assumptions, asking if he meant people who thought Israel should be conquered, or possibly just someone who thinks they should vote themselves out of existence and he responded with:
In large swathes of the world, its actual a popular political position. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian regime, and numerous other organizations are open in saying that the only just solution to the Israel-Palestine crisis is the destruction of Israel or the Zionist entity to them.
Their allies in the West tend to over look this or actively endorse this and imagine a future where Israel disappears and is replaced by a “secular, democratic Palestine”, which is something that the Palestinians don’t even want.
b) and by Anti-Zionist he means people actively endorse the idea that Israel disappears, having been destroyed by force (Although he's nice enough to assert they might not _think_ much about it)
Do you agree with this interpretation of what he said or not? Remember, this was a response to a _specific question_ as to what he meant by calling people 'anti-Zionist'.
So, Lee said, and this is as well documented as I can possibly make it and I even asked questions to clarify:
a+b=c) Everyone who criticizes Israel wishes Israel was destroyed by force, even if they're glossing over exactly what that means in their own mind.
Please state _exactly_ how this interpretation of what he said is incorrect.
Or, better yet, let's ask _him_ to explain if it's incorrect.
Abolitionists were “functionally terrorists.” Double face palm.
I didn't say that 'abolitionists' were fundamentally terrorists, I said there were 'abolitionists who were functionally terrorists'.
There _were_. (And a lot more that were not terrorists, but they were not the ones invading slave-holding states.)
The free states were, at that point in US history, refusing to enforce US law, and deliberately looking the other way while people based in those states were, technically, committing lawless border incursions, attacking people and stealing stuff.
That is a _technically correct_ description of events. And is the reason the states that seceded from the Union were angry.
Now, the laws the southern states were trying to enforce were immoral, and, at this point, actually considered a violation of basic international law. As I pointed out.
You appear to be assuming that 'terrorism' is some sort of moral judgement. No. If you fucking own slaves, or live somewhere that's acceptable, you _should_ live in terror. 'Change the politics of your country or I will stab you in the face' is the very definition of terrorism.
And it's _completely morally fine_ to threaten slaveownerss in such a way. In fact, I assert it is a moral _requirement_ to threaten to kill slaveowners, at all times, in all circumstances.
So what were the Southerner’s who went to northern states to recover “lost property” than?
Technically? As those slaves were, under US law, still their property, they were basically vigilantes enforcing the law and recovering lost property when the government refused to do so.
So they were breaking the law, but just barely. It's like breaking into someone's house to steal back a stereo they stole from you. It's breaking and entering, but it's not theft.
Please do not confuse their _technical_ status with their moral status.
What were those Southerners who took freed blacks who never been slaves to the South to be slaves?
They were either kidnappers or thieves, depending on how you want to look at the law.
However, there were not political parties and open encouragement of such practice among Southern states, as far as I'm aware of. (Which was, ironically, due to the fact that the lawmakers either were, or were controlled by, the slaveowners, and the less slaves there were, the more valuable they were. Letting people just go _collect_ them diluted their value.)
Jaybird Without getting into how Palestinians seriously need to be held to a lower standard, I’ll just say that this is another trick that I saw a lot of.
I didn't say Palestinian should be held to a lower standard. I said _individuals_ should.
People are held to lower standard than nations, yes. Or rather, if a person in another country commits a crime, we judge that of less important than if another country commits a crime itself.
As an American, I have no power to enforce the law anywhere else in the world. But as an American, I have the power to get my government to put pressure on other nations.
And then you point to the bomb belts that have been found… and the response is “only a handful!” (The ambulance argument is one that I have had, for the record.)
If Israel wishes to stop people from using ambulances to smuggle stuff, perhaps they could, you know, actually let the Palestinians have a _hospital_ or two. Seriously. Why the fuck are Palestinian patients having to cross into Israel for medical care?
And it's not just emergency 'This part of Palestine happens to be closest to an Israeli hospital' trips. It's for shit like dialysis. Apparently, there's nowhere in Palestine you can get that.
The entire setup of Palestinians having to cross in and out Israel (And thus able to attack Israel) is because both parts of Palestine are shitholes without any sort of proper economic base or medical facilities or anything, which is a problem that _Israel_ made.
Hell, not only do the Israelis not do that, they don't even let in outsiders to do that. They don't let in relief ships bringing fucking medical supplies and concrete.
How on earth could Israel solve the problem that it has caused itself by denying Palestine any sort of medical facilities?! If only it had the ability to construct buildings, or allow others to construct buildings, in Palestine! If only it controlled Palestine's borders and thus could let medical supplies in!
All of this pretty much indicates that there is a conspiracy afoot, people are acquiring bomb belts, smuggling them, then distributing them… and when someone blows up in a University Library, people say “It was just one person!”
Uh, yeah, and I didn't say it was just one person. It is a criminal conspiracy.
Now, exactly who do we write to attempt to dissuade criminal conspiracies from operating? Well, not us specifically...but perhaps we could write out government asking them to threaten to withhold aid to that criminal conspiracy...no, wait, that doesn't make any sense either.
Israel is a _country_. It needs to behave like a _country_, or, like any country that is misbehaving, the US needs to criticize it and eventually threaten to withhold things from it. I (along with all other citizens) am the boss of the US, and I wish to make the US do that.
Random Palestines are _not_ a country. There is functionally nothing I think my government should, or even _can_ do, to change their behavior.
Strategic blundering from beginning to end on the part of the South.
The South was just very very stupid, driven by rhetoric.
To be fair, they had a 'right' to be pissed, in that the North was turning a blind eye and letting abolitionists who were functionally terrorists pass back and forth, killing people and stealing their property.
Seriously, imagine if raiders from the next state over keep showing up, shooting random people, setting fire to things (And in those days, fires were much bigger deals.) and stealing all your valuables. And the next state not only refused to do anything about it, they _encouraged_ it.
People in the modern day just don't understand that premise because the people they were killing were slaveowners (People that, under international law, it is now legal to _shoot on sight_.), and the 'property' they were stealing was _people_.
If you remove 'slavery is completely unethical and should be stopped at all costs' from the moral equation, the South had a point. They could not functionally be part of a nation where half of it is harboring 'terrorists' that are attacking the other half. And the fact they attacked it after they left, the stupidest move ever, is understandable when you think about just _how_ pissed they were.
Of course, you _can't_ remove that from the equation and keep any other sort of moral high ground, which is where the entire defense falls apart.
But perhaps there is no ultimately successful strategy when you are defending the undefendable?
I dunno, I think there actually were possibly outcomes where the Confederacy _could_ have left peacefully, or at least had a few uneasy years while the US insisted they were in it, and they insisted they weren't. And while Lincoln rejected the _first_ peace overtures from the Confederacy, he did make the concession that Fort Sumter was to only be supplied with provisions, not weapons, and it's _possible_ that the US could have slowly disintegrated, with US military bases in the Confederacy being slowly abandoned over time.
But no, the Confederacy had to get US troops out _right the fuck now_ for no obvious reason, giving Lincoln the excuse to raise troops. If they hadn't done anything, if they'd just started mostly ignoring Federal law, and passively blockading supplies to US military bases, and stopped sending congressman to the US...Lincoln would have been completely screwed, without a real casus belli to keep start a war.
At a certain point, the remaining US states simply wouldn't care about it...in fact, they'd now be happy in that they could make new western territories non-slaveholding, without all those slave-holding states holding them back.
Lincoln wouldn't have liked it, but he wouldn't be president forever. And the 1864 election would have been _really_ interesting, especially if the seceded states made the point: Either you accept we left the Union, or we still have the right to vote in your election. We'll be sending a bunch of electors...either you set a precedent that we're no longer in this Union by refusing their vote, or you let us screw around with your election.
That said, a neighborhood making conscious decisions is different from a government imposing such on others with no functioning recourse.
Moreover, I'm not sure that non-Natives Americans that live on Navajo land actually are denied any real rights. Non-Native Americans on tribal land may not be able to vote for tribal leaders, but as we've all recently learned thanks to the Violence Against Women Act example, they _also aren't subject to tribal law_. (Which is completely screwed up, but whatever.)
So, basically, they're just living in the state they're living in, subject to that state's laws, while another 'state', the Navajo nation, is sorta going on around them occupying the same location. There might be a _few_ ways they are denied rights, such as the inability to buy real estate, but that seems to be about it. (And that's assuming that real estate on reservations even works the same way, which I'm not entirely sure.)
Whereas, with Israel, there is a real question of how the heck they remain a Jewish state if they _don't_ agree to a two state solution soon, because at a certain point non-Jewish people in Israel and Palestine will outnumber them, at which point it's in Palestine's best interests to fold as a nation, demand that Israel take them over, demand citizenship for everyone, and simply vote Israel into something else.
Which is a fairly hilarious concept applied to the other example...the US giving up and joining the Navajo nation and demanding voting rights in the Navajo tribe. Of course, the Navajo nation did not ever conquer and occupy(1) any of the US (I think?), and does not still occupy the US if they ever did, and thus would have no responsibilities to the former US.
I wonder if any occupied country every tried to petition to join the US while occupied by the US?
1) By which I mean legal occupation under the laws of war. Obvious, the Navajo nation(2) did occupy the same physical location as parts of the US, and still does.
2) Am I the only person who thinks there should a better term than 'the Navajo nation'? States (By which I mean political entities, not just US states.) are supposed to have names, so we don't have to call them 'the People state'. We don't talk about 'the Californian state' or 'the French nation'. Is there really not a word like 'Navajon' or 'Nava' or something? Can we ask them to invent one? Or even just start using 'Navajo' to refer to the political entity?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “In Service To The State”
And I wonder how libertarians would feel if the way national service worked is that you had to work a month for each million dollars you inherited. (I mean, if the premise is that you have to pay for the world that was handed to you…)
I was about to post a correction, saying, to make it fair, let's say 'Every million dollars not earned'. So, yes, people on welfare and whatnot would have to do national also...for like a week, once.
But I realized 'not earned' is a bit silly to start with, and easy to game (Instead of my kid inheriting my money, I will pay him a million dollars an hour to carry my golf clubs!) so my new proposal is:
Everyone has to work a month (Or, rather, 160 hours) at national service for every million dollars of income they gain via _any_ means. Income, tax rebates, welfare, anything. (Need some way to exempt things that just 'borrowed' their money and gave it back, like unemployment insurance, but whatever)
They can do this in advance, or, if they have not, the money is withheld by the government until they do so. (It does, however, end up in their estate no matter what.) And, a system is set up where almost all high school students give a month each year (after-school programs, volunteer days, a week or two over the summer), for a total of four months, so that more than covers anyone who makes less than median pay. And colleges also do the same sort of thing for high-paying college majors to add a few more months in there.
How do you feel about that one, libertarians?
"
Taxes aren’t great, but they are less of an affront to liberty than demanding a forced specific performance.
This is why I find it almost surreal when libertarians seem in favor of national service, considering how many of them seem to regard taxes as some horrible thing.
I wonder if this is some sort of weird Heinlein crossover, considering how many libertarians seem to think Heinlein was a libertarian and thus something he wrote about must be a good idea. (1)
In my opinion, people have a requirement to fund the system they were born in in an amount proportional to their ability to fund it. I.e., you don't get to be the _last_ generation born into this wealth.
But as for whether or not the government can make you work, I have to say yes...in _exceptional_ circumstances. Very exceptional. Like the country is being invaded, or there's a meteor about to wipe out the planet and we need someone to pound nails into the launch tower for the rocket to blow it up. Existentially-risky circumstances. Beyond that, no.
And I find it surreal that so many libertarians think otherwise to the second thing, while so many other libertarians don't even agree with me about the _first_ thing.
And at a certain point, an unpleasant fact enters me mind, that _the poor_ can do national service, but can't pay more taxes in money (As they have no money). Likewise, everyone has to do the _same_ national service....during which, of course, rich people could continue to earn other money (via investments and whatnot) whereas poor people could not.
And I suddenly realize that libertarians have glommed onto the idea of national service because it is the _most regressive tax_ imaginable. And I wonder how libertarians would feel if the way national service worked is that you had to work a month for each million dollars you inherited. (I mean, if the premise is that you have to pay for the world that was handed to you...)
Now, I do understand why liberals like it, I do understand the appeal of making people of different socio-economic levels 'mingle' for a year, but surely there are actually other ways we could do that. I can't think of any at this exact moment, but I'm sure there are.
1) Heinlein was not actually a libertarian, and really just liked coming up with different political, and social, systems and seeing how they worked. And, hilarious, the closest thing to a libertarian world he created is a libertarian world under 'The Covenant' (Basically, you can do anything you want as long as you don't hurt others. Even things explicitly illegal, as long as you can prove they didn't hurt anyone.) and a guy who think he's not free enough there and will be better off without any rules at all...and learns he's is an idiot. I.e., his most 'libertarian' world exists to show that...libertarians are being silly and there will always be people loudly demanding freedom even if they have near absolute freedom already. So, uh, yeah.
"
I will be okay with the draft the minute we have a constitutional requirement for the nation as a whole to vote it in. A country does, in fact, have the 'right' to send its citizens off to war...but by 'a country', I mean 'the actual majority of people in the country'. It's way too important for the representatives we normally let decide things to be able to decide.
(In fact, I think we shouldn't be able to go to war _at all_ without a nation-wide vote, period. All armed conflicts should be limited to fighting off invasions of US soil until a vote of the population is taken. The Founding Fathers, I suspect, agreed with me, and hence their assignment of creating an army theoretically resting on the House, the closest to direct democracy we had back then. This system has entirely broken down.)
On “Logic!”
More seriously, I always thought it would be funny to do a puzzle of this form:
You come across a fork in the road with a sign saying 'One person here lies, and the other tells the truth. You may ask exactly one of them one question, and that is all.'
And, sure enough, two people stand there. How do you figure out which way to go?
The traditional answer is to ask one of them which direction the other would say, and then pick the opposite.
However, in _my_ puzzle, both of the people tell the truth, and the _sign_ is lying about that fact. (It might even by lying about only one question, who knows?) So everyone who tries to logic it ends up going the wrong way.
Also, there's something else wrong with the puzzle as I stated it.
"
Whenever I hear one of those questions, I have to immediately ask:
How do I know _you're_ telling the truth?
Seriously, this story is about some people who lie, and some tell the truth. All the time.
This seems rather implausibly. Seriously, how would the liars buy food? Or do anything else. And how the hell do you handle Opposite Day?
So, by Occam's razor, I am forced to assume that it it _you_ who are lying. (Probably not all the time, just this once.) There are no people who tell the truth all the time, there are no people who lie all the time. In fact, there _might not even be any island at all_.
On “Justice Scalia Is Vindicated, Fortunately”
Scalia's comment was astonishing. He basically said: If we strike down DOMA on the basis of the fact it has absolutely no purpose whatsoever except to harm gay people, than states might have their laws challenged under the same logic.
And everyone waited and waited for him to actually finish that thought with '. however, that logic would be wrong' or ', however, unlike DOMA, state laws do have some purpose' or ', however, under some convoluted states right argument, states do have the right to randomly hurt people for no reason' or _something_. We expected some explanation of why that logic would be _wrong_.
And he _didn't_ give any. No reason at all.
In other words, a Supreme Court justice stood there, in front of everyone, and said 'We shouldn't grant civil rights in this case, to get rid of an unjust law, because it trivially would lead to people getting rid of _other_ unjust laws. Unjust laws that I don't want us to get rid of.'
It's akin to saying 'If we give black people the ability to vote they supposedly have constitutionally, they'll vote to undo segregation!' Uh...okay? Good point?
How is this asshole on the Supreme Court?
On “Orson Scott Card and how the personal is too political”
Everyone seems to be talking about Card's 'opinions'. The reason I will not be seeing Ender's Game is not because of Card's opinions. It's really amazing how people keep yammering about his 'opinions', just like they decided the Chick-Fil-A boycott was over 'opinions'.
There is a difference between an 'opinion' and _actively attempting to deny rights to people_.
No one care what Card thinks, anymore than they care what Dan T. Cathy thinks. They care about those people's active efforts to support _horrible_ organizations like National Organization for Marriage (Which Card is a board member of.) and Exodus International (Which Cathy's charity donates to. Well, donate_d_ to.).
Card's _opinions_ are utterly moot. Card's _organization_ is the problem.
TL;DR: If Card wishes to state his opinions, I will call him wrong and state mine back, and stop there. But if Card wishes to organize in a like-minded group to lobby for laws that cause harm to a group of people, I will organize in a like-minded group to...not give him any of my money at all. (That still seems a little unbalanced, considering he doesn't _have_ a right to my money in the first place, whereas people do have a right to get married. But we are still writing the 'people named Orson Scott Card are not allowed to get married' legislation.)
On “Sex and Contracts”
I can't tell if you're making some joke or serious, but, sex work, if legal, should not be subject to various anti-discrimination rules, exactly because it _is_ a performing art.
Yes, it's generally an _amateurly-done_ performing arts, but, for example, the fact that a lot of amateurs dance doesn't mean dance isn't a performing art. Neither does the fact it's done between one professional and one amateur mean it isn't an art...that's just called 'audience participation'.
In fact, I would argue that 'sex' is literally is a form of 'dance', by most accepted definitions of the term 'dance'. It's audience participation dance. Definitions of dance often explicitly mention 'social mores' as being the limit of what dance is, precisely so sex _isn't_ in that category. But just attempting to define it out of 'dance' doesn't mean it actually isn't dance. It really really is.
And, of course, there's also porn, which is representing one form of art (sex, aka dance) in another form (video narrative).
So, anyway, in conclusion, in a version of the US where prostitution was legal, anti-discrimination laws do not apply as it's a performing art, and hence it is entirely legal to refuse to hire a sex worker on the basis of their race or sex.(1) Just like it's legal for a TV show to only consider a white man for the certain part. (They couldn't discriminant against the Irish, though...just people who had an Irish accent they couldn't get rid of.)
1) Technically, you can probably discriminate on the basis of 'sex' anyway, as having the correct genitalia would be a legitimate requirement for many jobs. You couldn't refuse to hire someone one the grounds they were a woman or a man, but you could refuse to hire them if they lacked a penis or vagina...I think. Actually, come to think of it, you might have to make accommodations, considering how easy that would be.
On “Health Insurance Changes”
There are multiple private roads within 5 miles of here.
I obviously meant private toll roads...roads that people have constructed for others to travel on, supported by charging them for it.
FedEx, UPS, and others carry mail. Just because 1st class mail carrying is illegal doesn’t mean others don’t do parcel post.
No. Parcel post actually means 'parcels sent via the post', so by definition FedEx and UPS don't do that. In fact, 'Parcel Post' is actually what the Post Office _calls_ that, or did until very recently.
And, yes, private _mail_ carriers are illegal. Neither FedEx or UPS carry 'mail'. They carry only 'packages' or 'parcels', depending on what you want to call them.
mail=letters and envelopes. These are 'mailed'.
parcels=boxes and whatnot. These are 'shipped'.
The confusion arises because 'mail' is not only 'letters and envelopes', but what many people call anything travelling via the post office 'mail'. Including parcels. So you can, indeed, 'mail' a parcel via the post office in common parlance. (The word that they probably should be using is 'post', but 'post' and 'mail' are very confused terms in English. An argument can be made for either 'post' or 'mail'.)
The fact there is some verb confusion about 'mail' does not mean packages sent that way are _actually_ 'mail', although that also is debatable. However, it's certainly not 'mail' when carried by some random company instead of the post office.
OTOH, private _mail_ isn't illegal. Plenty of corporations have internal private mail, and it's obviously legal for people to personally deliver letters to each other. What is illegal is a third party charging to do so, except for the specific exception of 'couriers' for time sensitive information.
"
They pay far, far *beyond* it.
Except, of course, that wasn't my point at all.
For someone with health insurance, failing to maintain their own body does not directly cost them money. (At least, once you subtract the actual effort of maintaining it.) When their body fails, they do not pay for it.
For someone with car insurance, failing to maintain their own car costs them money, period. When their car fails, they _do_ pay for it. No one is going to cover any of that.
It might also conceivably cost the insurance company money also, but that's a fairly uncommon circumstance.
Which is what insurance is supposed to be *for*.
The really odd thing is, you're exactly right. Insurance is only supposed to be things people can't plan for.
Which is why having insurance for _health care_ is an incredibly fucking stupid system.
You see, _everyone_ has medical expenses, period. This isn't like car insurance, where you can go your entire life without costing the insurance company money.(1)
If we actually want to cover everyone's medical expenses, let's just fucking cover them and stop screwing around. Have the government set cost-of-living adjusted prices, and hospitals just bill them. This current setup is complete nonsense.
Let’s see your tax recepit for donations to the local charity hospital, then. Oh hey, you don’t have one? Looks like you don’t care about people dying because they don’t have enough money.
Uh, I actually _have_ done the equivalent of donating to charity.
I don't have any insurance because they won't sell it to me, and I pay for the goddamn absurdly inflated prices they charged me.
Over my lifetime, I have, in fact, probably given over $30,000 in this form of 'charity' over-inflated bills, directly benefiting poor people who cannot pay for their health care. (And also helping asshats who are allowed to have health insurance that negotiates their hospital bills as low as possible, and yet feel like it's _my_ fucking job to donate to charity.) Please note that's not pretend '$30,000' medical bills that insurance 'pays' by sending $1700, that is actually _two year's income after taxes_.
I'm the only person in this entire goddamn system who not only is paying for my own health care, but half of everyone else's. (Oh, and before you talk about how healthy people pay a lot in insurance...yeah, and you're paying to _insurance companies_ so they can swim naked in a money pit. I'm paying it to _hospitals_ so they can charge other people less.)
More importantly, I didn't say _I_ cared about people dying because they don't have enough money. I said _society_ cared. Society has, in fact, passed laws to stop this.
And, oddly, I am getting a premonition here. This is the point in conversation where the person I am talking to commonly makes a statement. A statement about whether or not society _should_ care people dying because they are too poor to heave health care.
You could respond either way, I honestly don't know. Really, I don't know, so don't be offended if you're about to say the opposite, the odds are about 50/50. But let me let me preemptively respond if you state society should not care about poor people dying:
Congratulations. I entirely understand your position. There is no need to discuss it. in fact, what you need to start doing is tell people that _in advance_ so that people can just skip the entire boring discussion. Tell them, right off the bat, what you think should happen with people who cannot pay their medical bills.
1) Incidentally, _car insurance_ shouldn't exist, either. At least, not collision. Mandated insurance is the stupidest model of covering the costs of something that ever existed. If we want that setup we should just put large fines on traffic violations and use that funding to cover the costs of repair to non-at-fault drivers. (And, of course, people could get comprehensive insurance to cover those fines and repair costs when at fault.)
"
I think you missed the analog part of that. I'm sure before they warranty a used car you have to have all sorts of records.
My point was, considering providing health insurance is exactly like that, I'm surprised they don't require it for _that_.
"
Healthcare is an area where socialism really does work.
I agree with the entirely of your post except this sentence. Mainly because the word 'socialism' doesn't really apply here.
Socialism is when the government owns or operates the means of production.
Firstly, the US government does not own healthcare, even under the ACA. The only thing they're actually owning is an exchange to buy health care on, which is basically the equivalent of owning the 'market square' where sellers set up stalls each morning to sell goods. That is certainly not 'socialism'.
However, let's pretend we're in England, where the government does own the hospitals and clinics. Or that we're talking about the VA. It's still not socialism.
The thing is...the UK government is _not_ selling health care. Yes, they have a specific tax for it, but it's a mandatory tax, not a 'purchase'.
The government providing health care _for free_ is no more socialism than the government providing police service for free is socialism. The government _selling_ health care would be 'socialism'.
Socialism is when the government owns a business, or operates as business, and buys and sells things. Or even if private individuals technically own a corporation, but the government is so much in control that it functionally owns it.
'Socialism' is not a word meaning 'The government has decided to add a service that it provides the people for free'.
Granted, provide _enough_ services, and goods, for free, and that's _communism_. But socialism isn't 'communism-lite'. It's a specific form of economy activity, where the government is participating in the private economy. Not when an entire section of the economy is removed from private hands which is just...normal government behavior. (How many private roads are there, a dozen in the entire country? And private mail carriers are just outright illegal.)
"
The exact same thing can be said about automobile maintenance. And yet not every state requires regular inspections; and even the ones that do require automobile owners to pay for it themselves, and go to private service providers for the inspection.
Except _you're not paying for the cost of your health care_.
You do grasp that neither the state nor car insurance companies fixes people's cars when they drive them into the ground, right? Car insurance is a very specific kind of insurance that covers damages by external forces, not idiots who don't change their oil. (And the state doesn't pay for it _at all_. They don't even provide free car 'corpse removal service', unlike with human corpses. You have to pay to remove your non-working car!)
Whereas health insurance _does_ pay for the cost of people who are idiots who do not 'change their oil'. There is no form of health insurance that only covers other people punching you in the face and breaking your nose, or poisoning you, or accidentally driving over your foot, or whatever.
Additionally, we as society have no problems with cars failing to work, or with someone deciding a car is too expensive to repair.
And we, as society, have _massive_ problems with people dying because people do not have enough money to pay to 'repair' them. Not because of the 'cost to society', but because they are _human beings_.
"
Skipping oil changes and basic maintenance leads to higher costs down the line as well.
Yes, but car insurance doesn't pay for that _either_. Car insurance just pays for when a car is damaged by outside forces, not if the engine blows up if you never change the oil.
A car warranty, OTOH, does cover that result...which is exactly why oil changes _do_ tend to be covered under them. (And it's also why you can't get, like, a ten year full warranty.)
Health insurance is rather like warrantying a random car that someone has owned for decades. Frankly, I'm amazed more of them don't _mandate_ you send in evidence you do change the oil.
It is stupid for someone to set up a system where upon major problems are covered, but minor problems which, when uncorrected, lead to major problems, are not.
Catastrophic care coverage does exist, but it tends to have exceptions and high costs and exactly the sorts of things you'd expect. They're not that great an insurance policy, simply because it's a poor way to structure insurance.
On “Walking Through the Flogging Door*”
Objective rules are great. The problem is that the zero tolerance punishments are really, really, really stupid.
There is an objective standard of whether or not I stopped at a stop sign (Forward motion must cease), and an objective punishment. This objective punishment, somehow, is _not_ 2 years in jail, which is what it would be under zero tolerance logic. The ZT rule would be 'driving offenses' get you two years in jail, where 'driving offenses' are everything from driving through a mall to parallel parking with your bumper over the parking space divider line. (And you didn't even do that...someone else's car pushed yours over the line after you parked...but ZT doesn't care about stuff like 'Who did what?')
It's certainly better than 'The cop just punishes you however he wants'...in theory. I guess.
People sorta miss the fact that ZT rules are often hilarious _under_punishment for serious behaviors, also. Draw a gun at school? Three days suspension. Bring a gun to school and shoot ten people? Three days suspension. (And it's also illegal and results in jail time, but the point is, under ZT, those are _exactly the same offense_ and require exactly the same punishment.)
"
1.) Not all zero tolerance policies are wrong. There are some things for which we should have zero tolerance.
Yes. The problem isn't zero tolerance polices. The problem is zero tolerance policies against things that shouldn't even be against the rules, and certainly shouldn't result in suspensions.
Another obvious obvious example, besides the one here, is students possessing medication it is entirely legal for them to purchase at drug stores. Not even prescription medication, but stuff they can literally walk into a drug store and purchase, without adults at all. (And most prescription medication would be fine, also, although that probably should have to be cleared first...students walking around with antibiotics is fine, but they probably shouldn't be able to walk around with their amphetamine ADD medication.)
Another obvious problem is _pretending_ they are unable to figure out who is starting fights. Because, apparently, none of those cameras actually work, and it's impossible to question witnesses or just ask the teachers, who damn well know who is running around starting fights. And it would be impossible to say after a fight 'Both of you claim the other started it, so we will not punish either of you. And you two have a restraining order against each other...if you interact _in any way_ and a fight results, we will assume the person who walked up to the other person started it.'
Zero-tolerance is _supposed_ to stop bias in punishment. Instead, it turns the entire thing into a farce.
If asshat administrators are biased when punishing, give students a damn _court_. Not a full-fledged court, but just a _single_ adult who is willing to stand there and argue _their_ point, and produce evidence, instead of not only having no one on their side, but often being not even _allowed_ to respond to accusations.
Some assert that this would make enforcement of the rules too much work. I have to ask why there are so many damn rules. (And, uh, suspending students is a lot of work also.)
"
Given how completely the GOP controls several state legislatures (You know, those entities actually in charge of schools), it's also fairly absurd hypocrisy.
This would be an entirely reasonable thing for state GOPs to do. Somehow, they aren't.
On “Rand Paul, the Confederacy, and Liberty”
Oh, no. People don't inherit the crimes of their parents. You're looking at it the wrong way.
You know who's still around from that time? The Federal government, and the states.
It really seems to be that all descendants of slaves have _one hell of_ a class action lawsuit against the US. And especially against slave states.
Especially since Libertarians seem to be so enamored of lawsuits solving all ills. Well, here's the lawsuit to end all lawsuits.
And then there's a whole different class action lawsuit for the next century for black people, from 1865 to 1965 or so. (Because Libertarians apparently think it's fine for private citizens to discriminate, that's not part of this...but there is a hell of a lot of government behavior here. Start with the criminal justice system in the south in the late 1800s.)
All this can obviously be avoided with some sort of settlement, aka, reparations.
That would a completely stupid way to 'correct' things, but Libertarians always do what is right, even when it's completely stupid, right?
Of course, you can only sue the government with the government's permission, but I suspect _in any other circumstances_, Libertarians would be the first arguing against needing permission to sue.
"
Double-standards for the level of civilization we can expect from one group versus the other, discussions of how Israel is acting as a Country while individual Palestinian extremists are acting as individuals and this should not reflect on the Palestinian people as a whole,
Wow, nice way to pretend an example is symmetrical when it's not.
Israel is acting as a country when it uses military force.
Palestine terror cells that do things are operating as terrorist cells. (Duh)
_Neither_ of them reflect on the Israeli or Palestinian people as a whole.
I love how the people who criticize Israel are asserted to be criticizing Israeli as a whole (And thus Jews as a whole), but it's those people who attack Israel's critics that are actually the ones generalizing from the behavior of to a few to the behavior of all. (For both Israelis and Palestinians.)
Criticizing a terror cell is not criticizing the country that cell works out of, or the people of that country a whole. (Although it's certainly reasonable to criticizing the country for allowing it...although in this case I don't actually think Palestine can stop them.)
Likewise, criticizing a country for a military decision is not criticizing the people of that country as a whole. (Although if said country is a democracy, the people can be criticized for electing leaders that choose to do that thing. But it's a rather indirect level of criticism.)
Saying 'I don't like what just happened' is not code for some sort of bigoted moral judgement of an entire set of people, like people who think this is some sort of moral judging content between Palestinians and Israelis and the winner gets to, I dunno, get a record deal. (And they look at critics of Israel in amazement, because don't they know that being bigoted against Jews is passe and it's now time to be bigoted against Muslims?)
No. It's saying I DON'T LIKE WHAT JUST HAPPENED. It's saying that that thing, which just happened, is not acceptable.
And 'that thing', which makes peace less likely, may be a terrorist attack that no one in the US can actually do anything about, or it could be Israel deciding to built some more illegal settlements...which we (Aka, the US) _could_ do something about with the tiniest amount of pressure, but chooses not to.
and that stupid ambulance bomb belt smuggling argument that practically played out again.
Ah, yes, the bomb smuggling argument, which you brought up apparently hoping someone would, I dunno, say it's acceptable for people to smuggle bombs in ambulance. When it's obviously not. It's terrorism, and it manages to be even worse than _normal_ terrorism by violating additional laws of war, which requires some sort of congratulation of the terrorists, I guess.
So, of course, the only response you got was 'Why the fuck does Palestine not have hospitals?'
Why the fuck _doesn't_ Palestine have hospitals, jaybird?
I know the answer to this one. Let's see if you do.
Even if slavery was a moral atrocity, it still doesn’t excuse Lincoln not allowing the Southern States to secede!
And thus you're saying that...Israel is not letting Palestine secede? Cause, you know, just outright _stating_ Israel is in violation of international law by refusing to Palestine (an occupied territory) leave is, uh, not that clever for a defender of Israel. That would actually be a war crime.
And Palestine's moral equivalency to slavery is? That they _might_ have a non-progressive government when given the chance?
What _exactly_ do you imagine you're saying there?
I cannot understand the people who, when given a choice between the governments of Israel and the governments of Fatah or Hamas, would choose Fatah or Hamas.
Why am I tempted to find some of your opinions about Bush's torture program, and ask why you, when given the choice between Afghanistan and the US, pick Afghanistan?
A country can be a better country than some other country (Although being a better 'country' than Palestine isn't that impressive.) and _still do shitty things they need to be called out on_.
"
I honestly fail to see the substantive difference between indentured servitude (or outright slavery) and certain categories of immigrants to America. What does that do to your moral requirement?
It...makes my moral requirement still be necessary?
I am confused by your question. What exactly are you asking? Are you assuming that my requirement was an empty boast, that I was threatening to kill slavers because I didn't know there were any more? No, I know they still exist.
I am also a little confused by what sort of immigrants you're talking about. If you're talking about H1-B visas, no, they are not slavery.
The bullshit that has happened on the Northern Mariana Islands, OTOH, _is_ slavery. As are plenty of 'immigration' scams of chinese workers and whatnot, where they are crated and smuggled in secretly.
Are you actually threatening to kill anyone right now? Because there damn well are corporations in this world that revolve around (sex, to be technical) slavery.
There's a difference between threatening 'I'll kill them if I run across them and think I actually can manage it without getting killed myself, and can either make a good legal case or not get caught afterwards' and hunting them down.
I didn't say people had a moral obligation to _actually_ kill slavers. That would be fairly hard to do. I said a moral obligation to _threaten_ to kill them. They belong in the moral class of people that do not deserve to live, and should not be interacted with in any civil manner whatsoever, unless it is to trick them as a prelude to killing them.
"
I don't think you actually read what Lee said. KatherineMW said 'Ah yes, because that always happens when somebody becomes willing to criticize the actions of Israel.'
So he responded with: Yeah, maybe if the Anti-Zionists would stop resorting to obviously anti-Semtic troops when criticizing Israel
In other words, he called _everyone_ who criticized Israel an 'Anti-Zionist' (_Some_ of which are anti-Semites. Presumably, he also thinks some of them are not, but neither of those are relevant here.)
a) He calls everyone who criticizes Israel an anti-Zionist.
Do you agree with this interpretation of what he said or not?
I then asked him the hell what an anti-Zionist was, to to keep from making assumptions, asking if he meant people who thought Israel should be conquered, or possibly just someone who thinks they should vote themselves out of existence and he responded with:
In large swathes of the world, its actual a popular political position. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian regime, and numerous other organizations are open in saying that the only just solution to the Israel-Palestine crisis is the destruction of Israel or the Zionist entity to them.
Their allies in the West tend to over look this or actively endorse this and imagine a future where Israel disappears and is replaced by a “secular, democratic Palestine”, which is something that the Palestinians don’t even want.
b) and by Anti-Zionist he means people actively endorse the idea that Israel disappears, having been destroyed by force (Although he's nice enough to assert they might not _think_ much about it)
Do you agree with this interpretation of what he said or not? Remember, this was a response to a _specific question_ as to what he meant by calling people 'anti-Zionist'.
So, Lee said, and this is as well documented as I can possibly make it and I even asked questions to clarify:
a+b=c) Everyone who criticizes Israel wishes Israel was destroyed by force, even if they're glossing over exactly what that means in their own mind.
Please state _exactly_ how this interpretation of what he said is incorrect.
Or, better yet, let's ask _him_ to explain if it's incorrect.
"
Abolitionists were “functionally terrorists.” Double face palm.
I didn't say that 'abolitionists' were fundamentally terrorists, I said there were 'abolitionists who were functionally terrorists'.
There _were_. (And a lot more that were not terrorists, but they were not the ones invading slave-holding states.)
The free states were, at that point in US history, refusing to enforce US law, and deliberately looking the other way while people based in those states were, technically, committing lawless border incursions, attacking people and stealing stuff.
That is a _technically correct_ description of events. And is the reason the states that seceded from the Union were angry.
Now, the laws the southern states were trying to enforce were immoral, and, at this point, actually considered a violation of basic international law. As I pointed out.
You appear to be assuming that 'terrorism' is some sort of moral judgement. No. If you fucking own slaves, or live somewhere that's acceptable, you _should_ live in terror. 'Change the politics of your country or I will stab you in the face' is the very definition of terrorism.
And it's _completely morally fine_ to threaten slaveownerss in such a way. In fact, I assert it is a moral _requirement_ to threaten to kill slaveowners, at all times, in all circumstances.
So what were the Southerner’s who went to northern states to recover “lost property” than?
Technically? As those slaves were, under US law, still their property, they were basically vigilantes enforcing the law and recovering lost property when the government refused to do so.
So they were breaking the law, but just barely. It's like breaking into someone's house to steal back a stereo they stole from you. It's breaking and entering, but it's not theft.
Please do not confuse their _technical_ status with their moral status.
What were those Southerners who took freed blacks who never been slaves to the South to be slaves?
They were either kidnappers or thieves, depending on how you want to look at the law.
However, there were not political parties and open encouragement of such practice among Southern states, as far as I'm aware of. (Which was, ironically, due to the fact that the lawmakers either were, or were controlled by, the slaveowners, and the less slaves there were, the more valuable they were. Letting people just go _collect_ them diluted their value.)
"
Jaybird
Without getting into how Palestinians seriously need to be held to a lower standard, I’ll just say that this is another trick that I saw a lot of.
I didn't say Palestinian should be held to a lower standard. I said _individuals_ should.
People are held to lower standard than nations, yes. Or rather, if a person in another country commits a crime, we judge that of less important than if another country commits a crime itself.
As an American, I have no power to enforce the law anywhere else in the world. But as an American, I have the power to get my government to put pressure on other nations.
And then you point to the bomb belts that have been found… and the response is “only a handful!” (The ambulance argument is one that I have had, for the record.)
If Israel wishes to stop people from using ambulances to smuggle stuff, perhaps they could, you know, actually let the Palestinians have a _hospital_ or two. Seriously. Why the fuck are Palestinian patients having to cross into Israel for medical care?
And it's not just emergency 'This part of Palestine happens to be closest to an Israeli hospital' trips. It's for shit like dialysis. Apparently, there's nowhere in Palestine you can get that.
The entire setup of Palestinians having to cross in and out Israel (And thus able to attack Israel) is because both parts of Palestine are shitholes without any sort of proper economic base or medical facilities or anything, which is a problem that _Israel_ made.
Hell, not only do the Israelis not do that, they don't even let in outsiders to do that. They don't let in relief ships bringing fucking medical supplies and concrete.
How on earth could Israel solve the problem that it has caused itself by denying Palestine any sort of medical facilities?! If only it had the ability to construct buildings, or allow others to construct buildings, in Palestine! If only it controlled Palestine's borders and thus could let medical supplies in!
All of this pretty much indicates that there is a conspiracy afoot, people are acquiring bomb belts, smuggling them, then distributing them… and when someone blows up in a University Library, people say “It was just one person!”
Uh, yeah, and I didn't say it was just one person. It is a criminal conspiracy.
Now, exactly who do we write to attempt to dissuade criminal conspiracies from operating? Well, not us specifically...but perhaps we could write out government asking them to threaten to withhold aid to that criminal conspiracy...no, wait, that doesn't make any sense either.
Israel is a _country_. It needs to behave like a _country_, or, like any country that is misbehaving, the US needs to criticize it and eventually threaten to withhold things from it. I (along with all other citizens) am the boss of the US, and I wish to make the US do that.
Random Palestines are _not_ a country. There is functionally nothing I think my government should, or even _can_ do, to change their behavior.
"
Strategic blundering from beginning to end on the part of the South.
The South was just very very stupid, driven by rhetoric.
To be fair, they had a 'right' to be pissed, in that the North was turning a blind eye and letting abolitionists who were functionally terrorists pass back and forth, killing people and stealing their property.
Seriously, imagine if raiders from the next state over keep showing up, shooting random people, setting fire to things (And in those days, fires were much bigger deals.) and stealing all your valuables. And the next state not only refused to do anything about it, they _encouraged_ it.
People in the modern day just don't understand that premise because the people they were killing were slaveowners (People that, under international law, it is now legal to _shoot on sight_.), and the 'property' they were stealing was _people_.
If you remove 'slavery is completely unethical and should be stopped at all costs' from the moral equation, the South had a point. They could not functionally be part of a nation where half of it is harboring 'terrorists' that are attacking the other half. And the fact they attacked it after they left, the stupidest move ever, is understandable when you think about just _how_ pissed they were.
Of course, you _can't_ remove that from the equation and keep any other sort of moral high ground, which is where the entire defense falls apart.
But perhaps there is no ultimately successful strategy when you are defending the undefendable?
I dunno, I think there actually were possibly outcomes where the Confederacy _could_ have left peacefully, or at least had a few uneasy years while the US insisted they were in it, and they insisted they weren't. And while Lincoln rejected the _first_ peace overtures from the Confederacy, he did make the concession that Fort Sumter was to only be supplied with provisions, not weapons, and it's _possible_ that the US could have slowly disintegrated, with US military bases in the Confederacy being slowly abandoned over time.
But no, the Confederacy had to get US troops out _right the fuck now_ for no obvious reason, giving Lincoln the excuse to raise troops. If they hadn't done anything, if they'd just started mostly ignoring Federal law, and passively blockading supplies to US military bases, and stopped sending congressman to the US...Lincoln would have been completely screwed, without a real casus belli to keep start a war.
At a certain point, the remaining US states simply wouldn't care about it...in fact, they'd now be happy in that they could make new western territories non-slaveholding, without all those slave-holding states holding them back.
Lincoln wouldn't have liked it, but he wouldn't be president forever. And the 1864 election would have been _really_ interesting, especially if the seceded states made the point: Either you accept we left the Union, or we still have the right to vote in your election. We'll be sending a bunch of electors...either you set a precedent that we're no longer in this Union by refusing their vote, or you let us screw around with your election.
"
That said, a neighborhood making conscious decisions is different from a government imposing such on others with no functioning recourse.
Moreover, I'm not sure that non-Natives Americans that live on Navajo land actually are denied any real rights. Non-Native Americans on tribal land may not be able to vote for tribal leaders, but as we've all recently learned thanks to the Violence Against Women Act example, they _also aren't subject to tribal law_. (Which is completely screwed up, but whatever.)
So, basically, they're just living in the state they're living in, subject to that state's laws, while another 'state', the Navajo nation, is sorta going on around them occupying the same location. There might be a _few_ ways they are denied rights, such as the inability to buy real estate, but that seems to be about it. (And that's assuming that real estate on reservations even works the same way, which I'm not entirely sure.)
Whereas, with Israel, there is a real question of how the heck they remain a Jewish state if they _don't_ agree to a two state solution soon, because at a certain point non-Jewish people in Israel and Palestine will outnumber them, at which point it's in Palestine's best interests to fold as a nation, demand that Israel take them over, demand citizenship for everyone, and simply vote Israel into something else.
Which is a fairly hilarious concept applied to the other example...the US giving up and joining the Navajo nation and demanding voting rights in the Navajo tribe. Of course, the Navajo nation did not ever conquer and occupy(1) any of the US (I think?), and does not still occupy the US if they ever did, and thus would have no responsibilities to the former US.
I wonder if any occupied country every tried to petition to join the US while occupied by the US?
1) By which I mean legal occupation under the laws of war. Obvious, the Navajo nation(2) did occupy the same physical location as parts of the US, and still does.
2) Am I the only person who thinks there should a better term than 'the Navajo nation'? States (By which I mean political entities, not just US states.) are supposed to have names, so we don't have to call them 'the People state'. We don't talk about 'the Californian state' or 'the French nation'. Is there really not a word like 'Navajon' or 'Nava' or something? Can we ask them to invent one? Or even just start using 'Navajo' to refer to the political entity?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.