Wabash82

We will have to agree to disagree on this one. I think there are lots of people in politics who are interested in fixing this problem, but just like you see in this forum, they have deep disagreements about what is the "right" way to do that. And as you also see from the discussions on this topic in this forum, those disagreements are often based on people's feelings about gut level stuff like "fairness" or "following the rules", so it is very hard to change minds or to get people to compromise (because who would compromise on "fairness"?) So just like on this forum, the arguments go round and round and get pretty passionate sometimes, but no faction has the ability to impose its position on the other factions.

Your original comment was specifically addressed to current members of Congress, so I was responding to what the current situation is. Historically, the policy differences that continue to skewer immigration reform today were more intra-party policy differences, so having even a veto proof majority in both houses didn't matter in terms of the ability to actually get something passed.

Maybe I misunderstood your original post, but I thought you were suggesting (based on the one example of the guy who drowned with his daughter) that the increased numbers of folks coming to the border from the Northern Triangle countries are not mostly legitimate refugees, fleeing violence, but are instead folks trying to immigrate here for economic reasons. Obviously, if people are legitimate refugees, our laws (and international law under treaties we have signed) require that they be treated differently -- stand in a different line -- than immigrants motivated solely by economics. Whether we keep them on our side of the border or the Mexican side while we consider their asylum claims, we are cutting our own nose off to spite our face when we pullback on foreign aid to those countries, which could be used to improve the conditions there that have, in the last two years, caused so many more people to flee from them to the U.S.

Muda, you've been played. The voucher program is not creating new competition for Indiana public schools. The vast majority of the schools getting voucher payments are, as you noted, Catholic and other Christian-sponsored schools that were already existing "competitors" to their local public schools. And the students using vouchers at those schools mostly kids whose parents very likely would have sent them to that school anyway. Accordingly, the principal beneficiaries of the voucher program have been Indiana's Catholic dioceses (is that the plural?) and the Protestant churches/denominations that sponsor schools. In the past they had to subsidize tuition costs for many of their schools' students out of their collection plates. Now, the State of Indiana subsidizes their students' tuition costs for them - to the tune of $30+ million a year just for the Indianapolis archdiocese alone, per Irishman's report. That's millions freed up to pay for proselytizing to heathens like you, to buy more gold chalices (or a private jet for pastor in the case of the Protestant schools), or fund the settlement of pedophile cases, etc.

You will need to amend the State Constitution, obviously, for that to happen. It is weird to me that you favor this government subsidizing of religious organizations with your tax dollars, but, hey, you have said before that you are not consistent in you supposed principles....

There has been lots of proposed legislation written to address these issues over the past 30 years. The problem is that there are fundamental policy differences between the two parties that make that an exercise in futility -- writing legislation that has no chance of even getting out of committee because Nancy or Mitch don't like it, or the President has already promised he will veto it, is a waste of time. That leaves the option of trying to nibble around the edges and figure out which hole in the dike to put a pinkie in. It think the idea that DACA plays a significant role here is dubious. DACA was initally implemented back in 2012. There was an uptick in border apprehension rates after 2012, but it was comparatively modest. The "crisis" level numbers (i.e., consistent historical monthly highs not seen for decades) have come since mid-2017, which is post-Trump's scale back of DACA. As I have noted before, I tend to believe that obvious, simple explanations are usually the correct ones. The current "crisis" is due to a massive increase in asylum seekers and migrants from the three Northern Triangle countries. Political conditions in those countries have deteriorated significantly in the last couple of years. (Read about the situation in Guatemala, post it's 2016-17 elections, including the rollback of a previously-successful, internationally-supported program to fight government corruption.) The deterioration of civil institutions in those countries has led to murder and violent crime rates there that rival levels of violence in countries at war. And as we have seen with Syria, etc., families flee from those levels of violence.

Article 8 of the Indiana Constitution requires the State to establish a system of Common Schools [aka, a public school system] that's tuition free. It does not guarantee a taxpayer-funded education if someone chooses to have their children attend a (tuition-charging) privately-established school, in lieu of a state-established (no-tuition) Common School.

Lots to address in an internet forum. Slavery was not lawful in the sense I am talking about AT ANY TIME. King George III was the "lawful" ruler of the American colonists in 1776 under English law, but he was not the lawful ruler of them under natural law, the law that creates the "inalienable rights" to which Thomas Jefferson referred in the Declaration of Independence. The mere fact that many human beings for thousands of years thought it was okay to deprive fellow humans of their liberty and property based on their skin color, and promulgated human laws to allow that, did not render those things lawful under natural law (or God's law, or however you wish to characterize it). The fact that duly-elected representatives of the German people in the 1930s passed laws allowing handicapped children to be euthanized by the State didn't somehow deprive those children of their (human) right to life and make the State's killing of them "lawful" in any meaningful sense. Perhaps you believe that your right to life, right to liberty, right to self-defense, right to own property, right to pursue your own happiness all exist only because a human government has by law "created" them for you -- and therefore, by the jot of a pen, can also lawfully take them away from you. But I doubt very many other Americans believe that is the true source of those rights. Those rights have existed under law that has existed from the begining of time. So in regard to deprivation of human rights we are talking about here, no, this is not imposing today's laws on prior generations. It is acknowledging that we now understand that prior generations of Americans, (whether in ignorance or even misguided good intent) used the power of government to deprive certain of their fellow men of the natural law rights that our nation's founders had readily acknowledged in the Declaration of Independence. As for the taxpayer thing -- you and other current taxpayers fund all sorts of federal government obligations that were incurred by our nation's government long before you were born, by virtue the actions and decisions of prior generations. This is not about "punishing" you or holding you accountable for your personal ancestor's deeds; it is about the U.S. government taking responsibility for addressing injuries that the United States government inflicted in the past. Again, I think this focus on the accountability of particular individual's ancestors, instead of the accountability of the nation, is odd. The other situations you mention -- women and voting; drinkers and prohibition; military draftees; gays and marriage -- do not in my mind necessarily involve deprivation of basic human rights, and I think the "damages" argument could be tougher to make. I'd still certainly look at a couple of them. But I don't see how the possibility of other comparable situations existing affects the validity of this one? The four issues you list are what the hearings are designed to explore. It seems to me that logical answers would include: 1) folks who are the ancestors of slaves. 2) the U.S. government. 3) Needs analysis -- the actual damages are probably too high to realistically consider paying -- the present value of the labor that was taken without compensation for over 300 years? The overall wealth gap between African Americans and white Americans? Maybe the present value of the 40 acres and a mule promised in 1865? (That's facetious.) 4) It could do many things, but the main thing it would do, like a posthumous pardon of a wrongfully convicted man, is do justice. 5) all ready addressed.

If the federal government had seized your father's house that you were legally entitled to inherit, and many years later paid you the value of the house that you would have inherited, but for the government unlawfully taking it from your father, would you consider that payment "free stuff"?

Effective in what sense? In a personal injury or property damage lawsuit, for example, valid evidence may be presented to explain how the proposed damages relate to the injury -- e.g., evidence about future earnings a person killed in an accident reasonably could have earned, or comparable valuations for the property of the type that was taken or destroyed. Such damages are "effective" in the sense that theu provide reasonable economic reimbursement for ascertainable economic loss. But I doubt they are "effective" in soothing the heartache of losing a loved one, or the anger and frustration of being deprived of some important thing that rightfully belonged to you. In what sense are you asking about?

If someone puts together the evidence to establish the cause and effect relationship, I personally would consider it. I'm not sure how to have a discussion if you are so defensive. Why do you feel like this idea (reparations) is some sort of personal reflection on you? Is it somehow a novel notion to you that some of the things your federal taxes fund are programs that don't benefit you directly? Or that there may be federal programs that benefit you that other people who don't benefit from tjose programs pay taxes to help fund them? Why in this particular case is that concept any more offensive?

In every discussion I have heard, the reparations would be paid by the U.S. federal government, not by any specific individuals of any certain race (or who live in any certain area of the country, etc.). The federal government would be paying compensation to surviving relatives of people the U.S. government victimized by systematically denying them basic human rights, like the right to liberty, self-determination, etc. I am puzzled how anyone could intepret that as "racist" toward white Americans? Can you help me understand your logic in suggesting that?

This whole thing is such a cluster. The Archbishop's decision to make this particular issue a deal-breaker for Catholic schools strikes me as very cynically calculated. Just as a matter of statistical probability, the likelihood that there are or will be any significant number of teachers in archdiocesen schools who are in same sex marriages would be small relative to the likely number of teachers in the schools who have had multiple different-sex marriages without obtaining annulments, or who are engaging in pre-marital sex and/or "living in sin" with a different sex partner/significant other. The fact that he has chosen to focus on this particular, fairly rare example of "immoral conduct" instead of the (presumably) much more common ones mentioned above suggests to me he didn't have the balls to challenge "immoral" behavior among teachers of the sort that he knows many, many students' parents and alums of Catholic schools also have engaged in or are now engaging in. He went after a fringe group to minimize (he hoped) the backlash. The Archbishop's calculation appears to be correct for the most part, since for reasons noted in the Board's letter, Cathedral's situation was akin to Roncalli's in terms of the strong leverage the archdiocese holds over it. That made this pretty much a, "Is this a hill I am willing to die defending?" decision for the Board of Directors. Not exactly a "Profiles in Courage" moment on either side. But the reaction among Cathedral alums I am seeing online -- "I won't send my kids there; they won't get anymore money from me!" -- ignores the plain fact that Cathedral (like Roncalli) didn't have the luxury to say no, like Brebeuf did, and still stay open and essentially continue to operate as it has up to now, without archdiocesan support. If they truly want to put their money where their mouths are, Cathedral's wealthy alums, instead of threatening to withdraw their financial support, should step up and offer to fund the cost to buy the school the flexibility it needs to pursue a third option: surviving for a year or two simply as a non-denominational "private school" until they can gain sponsorship from a Catholic order independent of the archdiocese, ala the situation with Brebeuf.

Well, perhaps folks in the past were better at wrapping their motivations in loftier-sounding words, but don't you think that most folks, from the dawn of whenever "voting" became a meaningful thing, have cast their votes based on their own self-interests? People convince themselves that they aren't just voting of out self(ish)-interest, but because what's good for them is for the "greater good". I guess I don't see Americans voting based on their perceived self-interest -- or politicians pandering to that impulse -- as a particularly new thing.

I kinda doubt this guy would want your pickup truck, either....

I can't decide if Howard's bro crush, cult-of-personality shtick is creepy, or just funny.

Strictly for entertainment value, I'd much rather see The Donald in action over Senator Warren.

I think most people would consider "eugenics" to refer to government-compelled application of genetic "purity" theories, such as the forced sterilization of people deemed by the State to be "mentally defective." Characterizing an individual person's choice not to give birth to a child with certain genetic characteristics as "eugenics" seems very odd: would Justice Thomas consider a black woman's choice to have her tubes tied so she won't produce any "racially undesireable" black children to be eugenics? His linkage of abortion rates among black women to the specter of eugenics is weird not just because it implies black women are aborting their babies specifically because the babies are black (and not for all the other reasons listed in the stats previously furnished by TD, such as their financial situation), but also because black Americans still have a higher fertility rate than white Americans. So is the apparent choice of white people in America to have fewer white babies evidence of eugenics?

My disability application just hit the mail: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/27/health/who-burnout-disease-trnd/index.html

As noted, viability -- having a substantial probability of being able to live outside of the womb -- does not align with the presence of a heartbeat, at least under current medical technology. Strictly from a medical ethics standpoint, it would seem like development of brain wave activity not associated with just automatic nerve function would be a more logical point to draw the line, since the inverse of that is essentially the standard ("brain dead") we apply at the other end to decide that a human life has ceased to exist. That aligns roughly with week 24 of a pregnancy.

I am now at that fatness/age ratio where the exertion of showering makes me sweat. I need to shower after I shower....

No law. Voluntary human interactions.

I'd use the word "reduction" instead of "restriction": 1. Personal interaction with and support of women who may be contemplating an abortion to see if they may have interest in some alternative course of action that is viable for them. 2. Prayer.

No. No, from a legal perspective. From a moral perspective, I can't say for sure. It seems very unlikely to me, but is not inconceivable that there could be some doctors with psychopathic personalities traits, who willingly perform "on demand" abortions when they personally consider the fetus a human life. I don't normally go around judging people's action from the premise that they are a psychopath, however.