-
Posts
10,552 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
53
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Gallery
Store
Articles
Events
Everything posted by Muda69
-
New Donald Trump thread
Muda69 replied to Muda69's topic in Gridiron Out of Bounds's Out of Bound Forum
Yep, children on both sides of the uni-party isle. -
Area 51 expert on social media campaign to 'storm' top-secret site: Military won't let anyone get close: https://www.foxnews.com/science/area-51-expert-storm-facebook-military I read Ms. Jacobsen's book several years ago, a recommended read. That said I believe she and the military spokesperson discounts the power of Naruto running..........................
-
Abolish the Dept. of Homeland Security? Yes, Please.: https://mises.org/power-market/abolish-dept-homeland-security-yes-please Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is usually wrong about pretty much everything. But on this she's accidentally correct: abolishing the DHS would be a net good for America. It was never necessary, and is mostly a channel for violating the rights of Americans through a de facto standing army of federal agencies and local cops pumped up on federal dollars and military equipment. Politicians in Washington DC would hate to see it go. But the taxpayers would likely benefit were it to disappear forever. This is something I support.
-
The New Normal, round 2
Muda69 replied to Muda69's topic in Gridiron Out of Bounds's Out of Bound Forum
The NBA’s PC Move Away from the Word ‘Owner’: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/nba-move-away-from-word-owner-politically-correct/ Now, I’m not sure about crack specifically, but I am sure that Stephen A. Smith is right to think that this is unbelievably stupid. In fact, what struck me the most about the controversy was that I remembered that I had actually used the concept of people becoming offended at the word “owner” as a joke in an NRO column I wrote two years ago. The column was about how a college, Rice University, had decided to stop using the word “master” to describe the heads of its residential colleges because the word is associated with slavery. As a way of arguing against this decision, I stated in a tongue-in-cheek way that having a problem with the word “master” for this reason would be like having a problem with the word “owner:” Let me be clear: I thought, at the time, that my example was perfect for showing just how ridiculous and nonsensical the “master” controversy was. Little did I know that, according to Silver, there already was a group (the NBA) that, in all seriousness, had an actual problem with “owner.” It’s mind-blowing, but it’s true: We have now entered an era of political correctness when parody has become almost impossible. I always wondered when a joke I’d made in my column about oversensitivity would turn out to come true — and it seems that the day has finally (unfortunately) come. Yes — people owned slaves, and yes, that is an unspeakable horror. But the thing is, people have owned, and continue to own, lots of things. For example, I (not to brag) own a toothbrush. Is it offensive to say I’m a toothbrush owner? If I own a home someday, can I call myself a “homeowner”? Or do I have to call it something else? I guess I could say “person who has a home,” but I don’t know if even that would work. Other than it being stupidly wordy, wouldn’t the word “has” be offensive too, according to the NBA logic about the word “owner”? After all, there can be all sorts of horrific things that a person “has” — like cancer, for example. If “owner” is offensive because there have been people who owned slaves, wouldn’t “has” be offensive because there have been people who “have had” (and continue to “have”) things like cancer? Words can mean different things to different people at different times, and as long as you’re not using them in an offensive way, you shouldn’t have any problem using them. In any case, I am truly terrified to see how stupid this could get. After all, just when I think it couldn’t possibly get any more stupid, I’m usually proven wrong. All I can do is hope that no one reads my parody-like example about the word “has” and decides that this word actually is offensive. But, after what happened with my 2017 example of using the word “owner,” it wouldn’t be the first time that what I thought was parody turned out to be reality. -
School Choice is Good For America; round 3
Muda69 replied to Muda69's topic in Gridiron Out of Bounds's Out of Bound Forum
School Choice Could Have Stopped Battle Over Holocaust-Denial at a Florida High School: https://reason.com/2019/07/11/school-choice-could-have-stopped-battle-over-holocaust-denial-at-a-florida-high-school/ And so began a running battle that culminated, just days ago, in Latson's reassignment to a school district position that allows the professional educator to apply his slippery grasp of history and eccentric punctuation in a less public way. The debate over what to teach kids at Spanish River High School echoes similar controversies around the country over lessons about events past and present. It varies from other such incidents primarily in that it represents a mushy failure to take any position rather than the triumph of one ideological approach or interpretation over another. "Americans are diverse—ethnically, religiously, ideologically—but all must pay for public schools. The intention is good: to bring people together and foster social harmony," the Cato Institute notes on its Public Schooling Battle Map, which tracks education disagreements nationwide. "But rather than build bridges, public schooling often forces people into wrenching conflict." In Michigan over the past year, conservatives and liberals squabbled over whether the U.S. is a "republic" or a "democracy"—and that's just where the disagreement begins. Lessons over the Alamo, the causes of the Civil War, and states rights set off similar fights in Texas. Curriculum battles have been common in government-run schools, since they offer an opportunity for victors to "correctly" teach children while suppressing the alleged errors of the opposition. But modern curriculum battles occur in a country where intolerance of disagreement is widespread and on the rise (82 percent of polled likely voters said last year that they think Americans are less tolerant of each other's opinions). Education doesn't help, either: Better educated people are less understanding of opponents' beliefs. That makes conflicts more intractable than ever. How do public school administrators and teachers keep their "customers" happy when tweaking lesson plans to please one faction means alienating another? Almost certainly, they can't. In this environment, William Latson very likely tried and failed to walk an unwalkable line by refusing to commit to fundamental historical facts so he wouldn't anger anybody. And Latson didn't confine his bureaucratic slipperiness to this one issue—it seems to be his guiding philosophy. "I do the same with information about slavery," Latson told the mother in an email. "I don't take a position but allow for the information to be presented and parents to be parents and educate their students accordingly." "The mother, who asked not to be named to protect her child's identity, said in an interview that she did not believe Latson was anti-Semitic but worried that he feared confronting parents who deny the Holocaust's reality," reported The Palm Beach Post. Ultimately, refusing to take a position in a futile bid at inoffensiveness bred as big a controversy as the sort of curriculum battle Latson hoped to avoid. Ironically, Florida is actually pretty good when it comes to educational choice, offering charter schools, scholarships, relatively easy homeschooling, and virtual schools. But traditional public schools remain the default choice for most students. Certainly, the families that currently use Spanish River High School should more thoroughly consider their education options and look for something better; voting with your feet now must be an improvement over waiting a year-plus for a bad administrator to be replaced. At the very least, they might consider charters, which have a good track record in Florida, don't charge tuition, and offer a variety of educational approaches. Improving access to education options and encouraging people to choose schools that work for them would replace curriculum battles with self-selection toward people's preferred offerings. In doing so, it could enhance the "social harmony" that public schools try and fail to generate. Graduating adults might even get along better if more families chose their kids' educations. "Greater exposure to private schooling is not associated with any more or less political tolerance" than sending kids to public schools, wrote Albert Cheng of the University of Arkansas's Department of Education Reform in a 2014 paper published in the Journal of School Choice. Even more interesting, "students with greater exposure to homeschooling tend to be more politically tolerant—a finding contrary to the claims of many political theorists." That makes sense, given that the public schools that are supposed to bring Americans together have done so only in the sense that the Colosseum brought together Christians and lions. Sure, it's a shared experience—but not necessarily a positive one. Ultimately, curriculum battles are inevitable in schools that people are forced to fund with their taxes and which many children have to attend because of government restrictions on alternatives, including regulation of private education. Even for families with means, that can leave little from which to choose. So, we can continue our endless battles over what our kids are taught, or we could enhance social harmony by replacing struggles for control of shared institutions with choices that prevent conflicts from occurring. There are choices to be made either way; either we make them for ourselves, or they'll be made for us. -
Cathedral, Brebeuf teachers targeted by archdiocese are married to each other, lawyer says: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2019/07/10/cathedral-teacher-fired-same-sex-marriage-sues-indianapolis-archdiocese-identifies-himself/1694669001/ Any speculation on what will happen with this lawsuit?
-
New Donald Trump thread
Muda69 replied to Muda69's topic in Gridiron Out of Bounds's Out of Bound Forum
Trump Administration Threatens Veto Over Defense Bill That Only Spends $733 Billion: https://reason.com/2019/07/10/trump-administration-threatens-veto-over-defense-bill-that-only-spends-733-billion/ The United States of America cannot be the world's cop. We cannot afford it. -
Lincoln and Trump: Two of a Kind?
Muda69 replied to Muda69's topic in Gridiron Out of Bounds's Out of Bound Forum
http://www.quebecoislibre.org/08/080815-2.htm -
Lincoln and Trump: Two of a Kind?
Muda69 replied to Muda69's topic in Gridiron Out of Bounds's Out of Bound Forum
I like the way you think. -
Lincoln and Trump: Two of a Kind?
Muda69 replied to Muda69's topic in Gridiron Out of Bounds's Out of Bound Forum
No, the uni-party not so much. -
Lincoln and Trump: Two of a Kind?
Muda69 replied to Muda69's topic in Gridiron Out of Bounds's Out of Bound Forum
Sorry for the typo. Thanks for finding it TD. -
Lincoln and Trump: Two of a Kind?
Muda69 replied to Muda69's topic in Gridiron Out of Bounds's Out of Bound Forum
So freeing millions of slaves, while surely a virtuous and just act, automatically covers Mr. Lincoln's other anti-freedom actions and policies. Got it. Can you please post a picture of your coloring book Lincoln? Surely your mother preserved something so precious created by his little boy. -
The New Normal, round 2
Muda69 replied to Muda69's topic in Gridiron Out of Bounds's Out of Bound Forum
The free market in action. For almost any product/service there is a willing buyer. -
Lincoln and Trump: Two of a Kind?
Muda69 replied to Muda69's topic in Gridiron Out of Bounds's Out of Bound Forum
So you agree that the late Mr. Lincoln was no saint, and disagree with the defacto deification of him in most American government school history texts?
