I'd say vouchers should be off the table because a lot of those vouchers are going to spent on some very religious schools. Besides the violation of the First Amendment problem, those schools are not going to provide a quality education.
I just find it incredibly rich that Putin is using Snowden to score propaganda points and that people who should know better are falling hook, line, and sinker. Its like the intellectuals who appear on RT even though its obviously a propaganda network for the Russian government and used as such.
This. A middle-class lifestyle is about more than material possessions and income. It's also involves embracing a certain mentality and actions. Things like delayed gratification and all that.
I think this is more true for Western countries besides the United States. In other Western countries, the welfare state is still much more vigorous than the American one for better or worse. Issues that exist in the United States like lack of access to housing and healthcare are not prevelant in other Western countries.
The photograph provides a pretty good illustration of the goal of the early and mid-20th century liberals. The billboard represents their ideal, a society composed of relatively prosperous families.
More seriously, I think that any liberal romanticization of poverty comes from contamination from the Far Left than anything else. The early and mid-20th century liberals generally wanted to create a broadly middle-class society. They probably thought that eliminating poverty is an impossibility but their vision basically to make the middle-class lifestyle as broadly enjoyed as possible. I think that this vision can best be summed up in FDR's Four Freedoms and Second Bill of Rights.
A lot of people on the Far Left did have some legitimate criticism of this vision, mainly how much it embraces the stereotypical nuclear family at the expense of people that can't fit within this structure. However, they also had many illegitimate criticism of the vision relating to their hatred of capitalism, consumer society, and popular culture. Poverty was embraced because it was seen as anti-capitalist and anti-bourgeosie. Many liberal unfortunately embraced this rather than keeping to the original goal of making as many people as bourgeosie as possible.
We can have the General Assembly of the United Nations pass a non-binding resolution that states that we have eliminated poverty. If we just want a domestic solution, the GOP controlled House can pass a bill that says that poverty is un-American and therefore nobody in America lives in poverty. The Senate will pass the bill to and Barak would sign it into law as an act of bipartisanship.
Will, I'd disagree that a formal education isn't needed for a career in the arts and entertainment. A formal education can't impart creativity on a person not inclined towards it. However, if you have a person inclined towards using their imagination than a formal education could give them the tools they need by teaching them how to write grammatical, paint, sculpt, or do a bunch of other things.
I'd actually disagree with this. We made our country so incredibly car-centric that we have basically made driving into a right or at least a privilege that should be enjoyed as broadly as possible. If we had a better public transportation system and more walkable communities than we could be stricter with the requirements for driving because we know that denying people the right or privilege of driving won't make them a principle in their own home. At this time, at best only NYC has a public transportation system and walkable neighborhoods like this.
And reading Damon further, I find his version of society to be entirely selfish and based only on the fulfillment of his personal desires. There lots of things I want to, that doesn't mean that I'm going to say its a good idea to deny people healthcare simply because I couldn't afford that nice fur-lined parka I saw during the winter. One thing doesn't have anything to do with another. Its just such a cartoonish libertarianism that it resembles what leftist sights say about libertarianism.
MRS, I did not know that thank you. Its kind of silly to mandate seat belts but not require car manufacturers to put them in their cars. A car is a dangerous thing. Requiring that they have some safety features, especially in our very car-focused system, is just common sense.
Will, Chris,and Jay; I don't really think that responsibility towards society should really be given the force of law. I'm just really ticked off at Damon's flippant response to basic and not that onerous safety requirements. I find this sort of rampant individualism just as annoying and dangerous as the rampant communalism of the more totalitarian philosophies. The later wrongly requires people to give up all their own desires and wishes. The former is just everybody for himself and that is poor basis for any functioning society even if you don't enshrine these things in law.
Even if you straight up just name him Dipshit I think its still bad. I'm sure that the parents of the girl in the New Zealand story really loved their daughter. They might have been awesome, doting parents who thought they gave their kid a really cool name. It does not change the fact that their daughter hated the name so much that she never revealed her true name to other kids and never had friends come to her house because she was deeply afraid of her friends learning her real name. If a kid dreads somebody calling them by name, its a form of abuse.
The problem is that for most of human history was "those that don't work, don't eat to paraphrase the NT. Even the most passionate anti-capitalist like Vladimir Lenin believed in it. We are rapidly approaching a situation where we really don't need most people's labor. Maybe we are just going through a painful readjustment phase like all other periods of technological advancement but I doubt it. What we need to do is reconsider how we view "those that don't work, don't eat".
Reducing the work week is one way to increase employment but that only works if prices for goods and services are really low or wages increase to.
Awhile ago there was an article in the Atlantic that said that one potential solution to the problem of income inequality was to make sure that everybody owns at least a bit of capital.
I actually agree with the judge in this case. Giving your kid an unusual or uncommoname is fine. Giving your kid a name that they are too embarrassed to mention isn't.
I love hard chocolate-covered pretzels. Its the perfect mix of salt and sweet. My opinion is that the best snacks and deserts are the ones that masterfully combine saltiness and sweetness.
Asian immgirants tend to go for unsual English language names for their children or give their kids the demunitive form rather than the full form of their name. I read recently that African-Americans and Asian-Americans tend towards more creative names than White and Hispanic Americans.
Kazzy, no. Before the law required cars to have seat belts and other safety features cars lacked them. The only reason cars have these features is because the government ordered them to have them. Likewise, a lot of people would choose not to wear them for some dumb reason or another if the law did not mandate it. It might seem odd but there is a reason why these types of laws are passed in the first place. A lot of people find taking safety steps as an infringement of their rights and simply won't do it unless told to even if they happen to be the parents of small children.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Poverty Sucks. Let’s Get Rid of It.”
I'd say vouchers should be off the table because a lot of those vouchers are going to spent on some very religious schools. Besides the violation of the First Amendment problem, those schools are not going to provide a quality education.
"
I just find it incredibly rich that Putin is using Snowden to score propaganda points and that people who should know better are falling hook, line, and sinker. Its like the intellectuals who appear on RT even though its obviously a propaganda network for the Russian government and used as such.
"
Chris, didn't Russia kind of perfect the national security state? They are kind of the fathers of it.
"
This. A middle-class lifestyle is about more than material possessions and income. It's also involves embracing a certain mentality and actions. Things like delayed gratification and all that.
"
I think this is more true for Western countries besides the United States. In other Western countries, the welfare state is still much more vigorous than the American one for better or worse. Issues that exist in the United States like lack of access to housing and healthcare are not prevelant in other Western countries.
"
The photograph provides a pretty good illustration of the goal of the early and mid-20th century liberals. The billboard represents their ideal, a society composed of relatively prosperous families.
"
More seriously, I think that any liberal romanticization of poverty comes from contamination from the Far Left than anything else. The early and mid-20th century liberals generally wanted to create a broadly middle-class society. They probably thought that eliminating poverty is an impossibility but their vision basically to make the middle-class lifestyle as broadly enjoyed as possible. I think that this vision can best be summed up in FDR's Four Freedoms and Second Bill of Rights.
A lot of people on the Far Left did have some legitimate criticism of this vision, mainly how much it embraces the stereotypical nuclear family at the expense of people that can't fit within this structure. However, they also had many illegitimate criticism of the vision relating to their hatred of capitalism, consumer society, and popular culture. Poverty was embraced because it was seen as anti-capitalist and anti-bourgeosie. Many liberal unfortunately embraced this rather than keeping to the original goal of making as many people as bourgeosie as possible.
"
We can have the General Assembly of the United Nations pass a non-binding resolution that states that we have eliminated poverty. If we just want a domestic solution, the GOP controlled House can pass a bill that says that poverty is un-American and therefore nobody in America lives in poverty. The Senate will pass the bill to and Barak would sign it into law as an act of bipartisanship.
On “Collegiate Return on Investment”
Will, I'd disagree that a formal education isn't needed for a career in the arts and entertainment. A formal education can't impart creativity on a person not inclined towards it. However, if you have a person inclined towards using their imagination than a formal education could give them the tools they need by teaching them how to write grammatical, paint, sculpt, or do a bunch of other things.
On “A Freedom Lost”
I'd actually disagree with this. We made our country so incredibly car-centric that we have basically made driving into a right or at least a privilege that should be enjoyed as broadly as possible. If we had a better public transportation system and more walkable communities than we could be stricter with the requirements for driving because we know that denying people the right or privilege of driving won't make them a principle in their own home. At this time, at best only NYC has a public transportation system and walkable neighborhoods like this.
"
And reading Damon further, I find his version of society to be entirely selfish and based only on the fulfillment of his personal desires. There lots of things I want to, that doesn't mean that I'm going to say its a good idea to deny people healthcare simply because I couldn't afford that nice fur-lined parka I saw during the winter. One thing doesn't have anything to do with another. Its just such a cartoonish libertarianism that it resembles what leftist sights say about libertarianism.
"
MRS, I did not know that thank you. Its kind of silly to mandate seat belts but not require car manufacturers to put them in their cars. A car is a dangerous thing. Requiring that they have some safety features, especially in our very car-focused system, is just common sense.
"
Will, Chris,and Jay; I don't really think that responsibility towards society should really be given the force of law. I'm just really ticked off at Damon's flippant response to basic and not that onerous safety requirements. I find this sort of rampant individualism just as annoying and dangerous as the rampant communalism of the more totalitarian philosophies. The later wrongly requires people to give up all their own desires and wishes. The former is just everybody for himself and that is poor basis for any functioning society even if you don't enshrine these things in law.
On “Naming Rights”
Even if you straight up just name him Dipshit I think its still bad. I'm sure that the parents of the girl in the New Zealand story really loved their daughter. They might have been awesome, doting parents who thought they gave their kid a really cool name. It does not change the fact that their daughter hated the name so much that she never revealed her true name to other kids and never had friends come to her house because she was deeply afraid of her friends learning her real name. If a kid dreads somebody calling them by name, its a form of abuse.
On “In Praise of Leisure and the Pitfalls of Unions”
The problem is that for most of human history was "those that don't work, don't eat to paraphrase the NT. Even the most passionate anti-capitalist like Vladimir Lenin believed in it. We are rapidly approaching a situation where we really don't need most people's labor. Maybe we are just going through a painful readjustment phase like all other periods of technological advancement but I doubt it. What we need to do is reconsider how we view "those that don't work, don't eat".
Reducing the work week is one way to increase employment but that only works if prices for goods and services are really low or wages increase to.
"
Awhile ago there was an article in the Atlantic that said that one potential solution to the problem of income inequality was to make sure that everybody owns at least a bit of capital.
On “A Freedom Lost”
Do you have any sense of responsibility towards people who aren't yourself or people close to you?
On “Naming Rights”
Check out George's link for an example of names as child abuse.
"
I think that Solomon is a fine name for a boy. Not so sure about Grundy.
If I ever have children, I like Alice as a girl's name or Jonathan or Akiva for boys.
"
I actually agree with the judge in this case. Giving your kid an unusual or uncommoname is fine. Giving your kid a name that they are too embarrassed to mention isn't.
"
Jaybird, I agree with you. SPQR would be an awesome name base.
On “Attack!”
Salt is just really important in cooking.
"
I love hard chocolate-covered pretzels. Its the perfect mix of salt and sweet. My opinion is that the best snacks and deserts are the ones that masterfully combine saltiness and sweetness.
On “Naming Rights”
Asian immgirants tend to go for unsual English language names for their children or give their kids the demunitive form rather than the full form of their name. I read recently that African-Americans and Asian-Americans tend towards more creative names than White and Hispanic Americans.
On “A Freedom Lost”
Kazzy, no. Before the law required cars to have seat belts and other safety features cars lacked them. The only reason cars have these features is because the government ordered them to have them. Likewise, a lot of people would choose not to wear them for some dumb reason or another if the law did not mandate it. It might seem odd but there is a reason why these types of laws are passed in the first place. A lot of people find taking safety steps as an infringement of their rights and simply won't do it unless told to even if they happen to be the parents of small children.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.