Muda69

Too many other forms of entertainment vying for consumers time and treasure. And please explain how reduced viewership and/or participation in organized athletics is weakening America?

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/j-r-r-tolkien-vs-the-euphemistic-state/ We might have guessed this much given nothing to go by but the text of The Lord of The Rings. The psychedelic California radicals of the 1960s, for whom Tolkien’s work was a cultural touchstone, certainly wouldn’t have been surprised to read these words from the author. They might have been surprised to learn that the same man insisted upon belting out the Roman mass in the original Latin during every liturgy in defiance of that most wretched and accursed modernizer: Pope John XXIII. The former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has described Tolkien’s great friend C.S. Lewis as a “Tory Anarchist”: someone who combines a fervent devotion to authority, tradition, and moral conservatism with unrelenting hostility towards the encroachment of state power. Tolkien belongs very much in the same camp, and he brings his philological genius to bear by offering a Tory Anarchist diagnosis of political language and its perils: According to Tolkien, the main malady afflicting political language is euphemism. Orwell made a similar point in “Politics and The English Language,” but he didn’t fasten onto the issue of names the way Tolkien does. “Government” is nothing more or less than a huge apparatus built to threaten and inflict violence upon people within a given locality. In democracies, we elect the people who threaten and inflict this violence upon us, but it’s still violence all the same. Tolkien is making the point that our thinking about politics would be a lot clearer if it reflected this fact; that government is, at bottom, a process whereby certain individuals wield coercive power over others. Euphemisms such as “the state,” “the government,” “public spending,” and “public services” mask this fact by drawing a veil of impersonal and lofty neutrality over the state that obscures what it actually does. That’s why getting “back to personal names” is so important. If, instead of saying “I’m filing my tax returns,” Americans were in the habit of saying “I’m forfeiting my property to Donald, Nancy, and Mitch at gunpoint,” we might start to think about taxation, and government in general, a lot differently. Agreed.

Interesting theory. Who is this "someone" exactly?

I tend to agree. This forum has a definite central Indiana/Marion county and surrounding doughnut counties bias. But again, that is where the most concentrated population centers and most of the wealth are.

What? I thought all high school football games had meaning? At least that is what I have been told repeatedly here on the GID.

Comparing tackle football to wrestling is apples to oranges.

Trump Tweets 'Repeal Section 230,' Something He Couldn't Do if Section 230 Were Repealed: https://reason.com/2020/10/06/donald-trump-repeal-section-230-twitter/ It's an ironic statement since, without the existence of Section 230, Trump very well might not be able to tweet it. If Congress were to remove social media platforms' liability protection, then companies like Twitter and Facebook would have no choice but to remove users' ability to post content at-will. Instead, moderators would have to vet and approve content to make sure that it wasn't potentially libelous. This would exacerbate the very problem that many conservatives have with social media—namely, that Twitter (and to a lesser extent, Facebook) sometimes takes aggressive action against provocative right-wing speech, by labeling the content as misleading or removing it outright. In some cases, the platforms' treatment of right-wing users does seem overly harsh, or selective in nature—though it is by no means the case that conservatives are the only ones to suffer from harsh and thoughtless moderation. Repealing Section 230, though, is not a solution, unless the goal is to prevent Twitter and Facebook from functioning at all. Conservatives—and anyone whose views and statements fall outside a narrow window of mainstream respectability—should think long and hard about whether they really want to go down that road. The demise of social media would limit the ability of people to express themselves on the internet, a venue where right-leaning speech has actually flourished: Facebook posts by Ben Shapiro, Fox News, Breitbart, and others are routinely the most-read content on the site. It is Trump's great enemy, the mainstream media, which would benefit most directly from the collapse of these spaces for disseminating information. Given this, it's no surprise that former Vice President Joe Biden also wants to repeal Section 230. This makes perfect sense: Biden and his allies correctly realize that forcing social media to adopt more guardrails would result in wider moderation of conservative speech. Regulating the internet more aggressively is a straightforwardly beneficial plan for mainstream media–friendly Biden-ism. That Trump is seemingly on board with this plan shows that the president either hasn't thought about this issue very hard or doesn't actually care about expanding the opportunities for conservative speech online. Or perhaps both. Most likely both.

The VP Debate Is Mike Pence’s Final Audition for 2024 https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/vice-presidential-debate-mike-pence-final-audition-for-2024/ I may watch this debate. There shouldn't be the foolishness that occurred in last week's Presidential debate. And I wonder should Mr. Trump lose in November what will Mr. Pence do for the next four years? Campaign?

(Note: link is behind a paywall) https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/college/indiana/2020/10/06/indiana-football-2020-mr-football-charlie-spegal-hopes-impress-walk-on-hoosiers/5896660002/ Good luck to young Mr. Spegal.

Bingo.

Guitar rock legend Eddie Van Halen dies of cancer at 65: https://apnews.com/article/michael-jackson-eddie-van-halen-archive-ad6e71e78b0b5d7e87a72eef1ceaaf26 RIP Mr. Van Halen. Truly an American Icon. He will be missed.

Being an American and a Democrat are two different things. You "point" makes little sense. Have you been a Democrat your entire life?

https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/2020/10/06/robert-tonyan-jr-indiana-state-qb-before-playing-te-packers/3635844001/ Go Trees.

There are numerous government, parochial, and private schools in this state that don't have a football program and are doing just fine. Are you going to tell those communities that they "need" football?

https://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/fiscal-policy-report-card-americas-governors-2020 Yes, the government-imposed costs of owning and driving a motor vehicle in this state is insane. Has to be a big profit center for the state's coffers.

Ok, take your ball and go home. Makes it easier to discount the rest of your statement if you can't defend even part of it.

Hmm, "stolen" and "steal" are fairly serious accusations, especially in the environment of Indiana government school open enrollment legislation. What verifiable evidence to you have to support such an accusation?

Voter fraud is rare. 2 Indiana cases demonstrate how unusual it is. https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/06/voter-fraud-indiana-cases-show-rarity-voter-fraud/3586956001/

Mine would be, starting with football, to institute a true system of promotion/relegation and completely dump the enrollment based classification system.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/letter-calls-for-withdrawal-of-1619-project-pulitzer/ Yes, the should. Then entire "1619 Project" was politically motivated, not academically. And it's contents should never see the light of day in a K-12 classroom, especially a government school classroom.

Trump, still infectious, back at White House — without mask: https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-donald-trump-infectious-diseases-michael-pence-a037f5cf6d6f14f90313a3aa7cd58043

Yep. IMHO "triggered" is a BS word that simply attempts to deflect blame back on an individual while making the one being "triggered" seem morally superior.

The Legal Response to Breonna Taylor's Death Shows How Drug Prohibition Transforms Murder Into Self-Defense https://reason.com/2020/09/24/the-legal-response-to-breonna-taylors-death-shows-how-drug-prohibition-transforms-murder-into-self-defense/

‘I hope he dies:’ West Lafayette council member apologizes for tweet aimed at Trump, COVID-19 diagnosis https://www.jconline.com/story/news/2020/10/05/i-hope-he-dies-wl-council-member-apologizes-tweet-aimed-trump-covid-19-diagnosis/3633143001/

Yet the IHSAA board had ultimately approve such competitive balances reforms, did they not? So the end result is the same, no matter what the IHSAA by-laws state. If anything such by-laws become nothing more than CYA jargon for the IHSAA to hide behind should things go south; "Our by-laws say we don't recommend/advocate these kind of changes, but our membership insisted on it so if really isn't our fault."