Wabash82

16 minutes ago, Impartial_Observer said:

More to my point, NO one has any interest in dealing with it. Past, present, or future. 20 years from now this conversation will still be going. 

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.

13 hours ago, Impartial_Observer said:

Clinton had two years of D control and nothing. Bush had two years of R control and nothing, in fact he took a pass twice when it could have been addressed. BHO had two years of D control and nothing. Trump had two years of R control and nothing. You can wax on ever so eloquently, but the bottom line is NEITHER PARTY  has any interest in dealing with this issue. Both see it as a political chip. 

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.

3 hours ago, swordfish said:

OK - Again - come to the front door, knock and wait in line.......Sorry for your luck in coming when the rush is on......

Mexico is finally doing more to help ease the tensions on their side of the border, but this takes a lot of time to get this done.  The US didn't tell you to swim across the river to get here......

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.    

32 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Hence the wailing and gnashing of teeth from pro-government education zealots like Irishman who hate having those taxpayers funds actually "follow the child" to a non-Common school.  The end result is the same; actual competition for government schools that hopefully will one day end with their closing altogether.

 

 

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. 

7 hours ago, Muda69 said:

Again Irishman, is a taxpayer funded education part of the Indiana State Constitution or is it not?   And yes, I am ok with educational entities that receive tax dollars having discriminating practices in their employment policies as well as what customers they accept, since this may help to bring us that much closer to the abolition of government owned and managed school corporations altogether.   Government out of the education business entirely is a policy that I believe I have been consistent on during my time here on the GID.

 

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.  

2 hours ago, Impartial_Observer said:

In an earlier post you mentioned the federal government denying people basic human rights, the right to liberty and self determination, etc. So we are in fact retroactively making today's laws apply to yesteryear. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, etc., regardless of how wrong they were, were in fact the law of the land at the time. Again, as I posted earlier how am I today, in 2019, along with every other tax payer to be held responsible for legal actions that our ancestors may or may not have committed 50-100-150 years ago? You specifically mention in your post the government "unlawfully" taking your father's house. Unlawful by what litmus test? The law at the time of the seizure or the law today?

What about women who couldn't vote? What about people who were denied alcohol during prohibition? What about all the drafted military who didn't make it home? What about the Native Americans? What about the gays who were denied marriage until four years ago?

Earlier in this thread I posted this below, no one has addressed any of these points:

1 How do you determine who gets reparations?

2 Who is on the hook for the bill? 

3 What is the price to right this wrong? How is it determined?

4 How do reparations move this country forward? Does it end racism? Does it put enough money in the economy that entire country becomes prosperous?

5 I don't understand how a US citizen of 2019 can be fined for the legal actions of their forefathers 150 years ago.

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.

16 hours ago, Muda69 said:

No, it is not a novel notion.  Wealth redistribution seems to now be one of the primary functions of the federal government, something I don't recall being enumerated in the U.S. Constitution.   And why is this particular case more offensive?  Because it is basically yet another political stunt designed to give some class of people "free stuff" in exchange for their votes.

 

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"? 

20 hours ago, TrojanDad said:

Do you have evidence with consensus that reparations are indeed effective?

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?

1 hour ago, swordfish said:

 

BTW - So if this is not about race......Are you advocating reparations for LGBTQ citizens as well......?

If someone puts together the evidence to establish the cause and effect relationship, I personally would consider it.

1 hour ago, swordfish said:

Simple racist answer from an apparently racist poster (SF) to the question posed by Raiderx2......

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? 

1 hour ago, Muda69 said:

And how exactly at the end of the day is the majority of U.S. federal government spending funded?   I guess those receiving reparation payments would in effect getting part of their paid federal income taxes back,  assuming they had taxable income.     "Free" money!  And why should the descendants of citizens from non-slave owning states be forced to pay for reparations via their federal income taxes? 

 

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? 

1 hour ago, swordfish said:

Nothing geographical about it......If you are white.........You are white......

Not that "reverse" racism can ever exist however.......at least according to the academics on the GID......

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. 

On 6/20/2019 at 4:18 PM, Impartial_Observer said:

I understand the argument. However, AOC is now a congressman, Bernie Sanders has been in congress for nearly 30 years, Joe Biden save the last two years has been in the federal level of government for almost 45 years, the whole lot of them that are railing against corporate taxes are the ones who created the system by which these corporations don't pay taxes. It's the system they built. And now they want to bitch because corporations don't pay any taxes. They're all long on soundbites for the folks, but they're short on actions to back it up. Case in point AOC just this week with her concentration camp vid. She's a member of congress, perhaps she could point us to the legislation she's drafted to solve the problem at the border? 

The bottom line is R and D alike have no interest in solving any problems. Look at the posts on this forum, it's ping pong. More to your point I think we've reached a point in our society where the perception is, I'll vote for you based on the promise of what you'll give me. That's a scary proposition in my opinion. 

 

 

 

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.  

2 hours ago, TrojanDad said:

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

22 hours ago, Howe said:

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. 

19 hours ago, swordfish said:

Notes in Red.....

The comments of Justice Thomas I don't think are "fear-mongering" but simply addressing a topic that he thinks will eventually become the elephant in the room.  Eugenic Manipulation based solely on sex, race or disability..... 

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

20 hours ago, swordfish said:

SF has always felt the heartbeat would be a fairer point at which to establish viability than the point of conception.  Point of conception is the start of the "mass of cells", heartbeat means "life".

2 hours ago, BARRYOSAMA said:

The heartbeat can start as early as 5 weeks.  Certainly not viable at that point.

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. 

23 minutes ago, Howe said:

Unlike Trump, crooked Hillary actually committed several crimes. There was no real investigation. There was no way the Great Hussein would allow her to point the finger back at him.

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

9 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

So a law requiring women contemplating an abortion to visit a "crisis pregnancy center" or equivalent facility before they schedule an appointment with an abortion clinic?

No law. Voluntary human interactions. 

39 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

So what abortion restriction tactics do you personally approve of and support?

 

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. 

36 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

So you support the tactic of restricting access to an abortion by criminalizing the medical procedure?  

 

 

No.

36 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Do you believe medical professionals who currently perform abortion procedures are murderers?

 

 

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.