I will be brief on this topic. Since it is so glaringly obvious that hypocrisy is the nectar of politicians. Therefore, how can we criticize one over another.
Well, let me just say we can criticize their actions because they are always on the holiest of stumps when attacking their opponents. So what goes around comes around. Karma is an awful mistress, and all those other sayings that apply.
The best part of the Biden document scandal is how it has exposed the biased behavior of certain Federal agencies and the media ………… ONCE AGAIN! How long before we realize just how corrupted these institutions have become and begin the serious job of remaking them?
Black Flag®
commonman55
d13thecolonel
gman
Just A Citizen
Life of Illusion
Jon Smith
USWeapon
Stand Up For America 
S.K. Moved this over for further discussion.
Just A Citizen says:
January 15, 2023 at 12:16 pm (Edit)
S.K.
I don’t understand what you are including as “Eternal Law”.
It appears that maybe you use this to describe what you see as “Divine Law”, as those rules provided by God. Yes or No?
Reply
Moved TRay video link because of the Great Content
What an arrogant asshole.
ROTFLMAO
Is that a self description?
Of you? Probably. 🙂
Let this man run in 2024 … Santos/Devolder and Trump in 2024!
Again: My son in Minnesota quoting MLK: “”I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic. And yet I am not so opposed to capitalism that I have failed to see its relative merits. It started out with a noble and high motive, viz, to block the trade monopolies of nobles, but like most human systems, it falls victim to the very thing it was revolting against. So today capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It has brought about a system that takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes.” Martin Luther King Jr.
I’d say he nailed it. The inevitability of capitalism outliving its usefulness has been etched in stone. Once power is horded in the form of wealth there’s no return without mass mobilization and/or revolution. Capitalism can no longer be controlled in America. The unfortunate fact is that ALL the levers of power within the government are OWNED … the wealthy, whether individually or as corporations, make the rules protecting themselves and their wealth … when corporate lawyers write legislation (and they do), it is rubber stamped by politicians corporations OWN, and it will NEVER be for our (we the people’s) benefit. FACT.
And again, it displays an absolute ignorance about economics and its interface with politics.
You need to work on that ignorance and its interface with politics, JAC. Come on, you can do it. 🙂
And to be fair, the following piece, heaping accolades on Capitalism, is also filled with ignorance of what Capitalism really is. It also misses the key factors which led to all those wonderful developments.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/01/what_is_capitalism_even_conservatives_cant_explain_it.html
Yes, “fill the room with your intelligence,” JAC (Paper Chase quote). Tell us how and why (via rational thought) corporations and wealthy individuals contribute to politicians via lobbying and PAC money and why those politicians ALWAYS vote with legislation that benefits the wealthy individuals and corporations (and/or) why corporate lawyers write legislation?
Explain how the legalization of bribery (Citizens United) doesn’t really affect legislation. Explain how and why the accumulation of wealth works so well for the ever shrinking working class and poor. Why tax breaks for the wealthy (used for stock buybacks) haven’t floated all boats?
Keep dreaming while you’re at it.
Funny, I did not get that out of the article…
Capitalism creates wealth. Of that, there is no doubt. Politicians create laws. Of that, there is no doubt. Politicians, in the pockets of the wealth, create laws to protect the pockets of the wealth. In that, there is no doubt. Lobbyists with powerful money creates corruption and buys influence. Of that, there is no doubt. Monopolies are controlling and operate, with in the laws, created by politicians that are bought. Of that, there is no doubt. Politicians through the POTUS, create policies and procedures to protect their donors so they can buy another term and have somewhere to go after their stint. Of that, there is no doubt.
So, herein, Charlie, I think that we all agree. You lambast capitalism but you offer not one alternative. If you have, I have missed it because I am totally unaware of any economic system out there today that does not protect its own through dictatorship or laws where the poor are not affected.
So, we have a horse race to determine which economic policy is best because the one you espouse does not exist. You want revolution? But where and how is it conducted and can you assure the same thing will not happen again?
I LOVE it when you’re reasonable, Colonel (and you often are).
So, herein, Charlie, I think that we all agree. You lambast capitalism but you offer not one alternative. If you have, I have missed it because I am totally unaware of any economic system out there today that does not protect its own through dictatorship or laws where the poor are not affected.
It’s too late for any other system to help the working class and poor, Colonel. I’d go with socialism but it can’t happen here. The wealth in this country would much rather see a nuclear war than relinquish its power. So, let’s forget about the alternative. As regards countries that treat their citizens a LOT better than we do ours, never forget (pay attention JAC & T-man) that the US&A will NEVER allow a socialist state to exist without interfering (whether through economic sanctions, director or indirect military interventions/coups). That’s just a FACT of wealth protecting itself.
So, we have a horse race to determine which economic policy is best because the one you espouse does not exist. You want revolution? But where and how is it conducted and can you assure the same thing will not happen again?
Again, it’s too late for anything to work … and likely worldwide. Capitalism will collapse on itself here in the US&A and elsewhere … it will come in more dramatic forms than it already has … the bailouts will continue until they no longer can, leading to End of Empire … but you better believe those with the most wealth will scatter into the wind like the cowards they are, setting up shop where they can get away with it for as long as it takes to collapse again. We could have done it here back in the 30’s before socialists and communists were propagandized out of relevancy, but that’s most 100 years ago. It’s over. They won. We the people are nothing but victims … and following the so-called “freedom caucus” down their road to hell will only expedite the inevitable.
We’re ALL (here) fortunate to have been randomly born in the US&A and all it’s glory, wealth and evil. We’re no different than someone born in Ethiopia or Somalia … we’re lucky is all we are. Geographically (between two oceans) and otherwise lucky. The American myth is exactly that, a myth. It works for fewer and fewer people as the income gap widens. Nothing to do about it. It’s a fact of life in the US&A. Populist movements will always be hushed (from the right and the left). There’s no bucking this system anymore.
charlie
I have written many comments at SUFA as to the WHY people try to influence Congress specifically and politicians in general.
The minute you establish an institution which can control society is the same minute you create the demand for someone to try and control that institution. Either to protect themselves or gain favor.
If you are going to have such an institution the only way to protect said society is via strong Cultural Norms of MORALITY. A moral code which limits the institutions power over its citizens and/or limits the willingness of citizens to game the system for their own advantage.
One more time for the record, since you can’t handle the truth, “legalized bribery” existed long before Citizens United. You can thank your own Democratic Party and Progressives of the early 20th century for that.
Also brought this forward so everyone could see it.
T-Ray says:
January 16, 2023 at 12:36 am (Edit)
https://justthenews.com/nation/economy/federal-revenue-continues-soar-trump-tax-cuts-cbo-report-shows
Reply
Just A Citizen says:
January 16, 2023 at 1:07 pm (Edit)
Very Key poiint. All the howling about the Tax bill was over a 2.5 TRILLION dollar ERROR made by the Congressional Committee whose job it is to estimate the cost/benefit of the legislation.
“Federal revenues are now up about $1.5 trillion, or roughly 40%, since the Trump tax cuts went into effect at the beginning of 2018. By comparison, the cuts were initially estimated to cost the government $1 trillion, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.”
Not a million or billion or two. But 2.5 TRILLION!
Reply
Not exactly on the topic’s sweet spot, but surely related the family group. A relative of hypocrites and charlatans.
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2023/01/16/trump-campaign-and-save-america-pac-cross-a-bright-red-line-with-desantis-email-n689353
Just finished watching a special on the corruption and lying about Covid. They posted all kinds of data showing where Covid related deaths (Actual people that died of Covid) are in the 300,000 range and not 1.1 million…no worse than the flu. This same expose” was fair in that the deaths over the 300,000 range, were people who died of a myriad of other things but had Covid and those deaths were listed as Covid deaths. It was a fairly in depth report of how calling it a Covid death was a windfall to the hospitals. So, if they had Covid and died of a heart attack, the cause was listed as Covid.
Very interesting. Now, I wonder where all the supporters of Fauci are?
Processing his big fat retirement checks.
I wonder how long it will take CNN to silence this doctor/
CNN medical analyst and Washington Post columnist Dr. Leana Wen admitted in a column, Friday, that the medical community is “overcounting” the amount of “COVID deaths and hospitalizations.”
Wen, who writes an occasional Washington Post column providing her observations on the pandemic, masking and other COVID-related subjects, cited sources claiming that most “patients diagnosed with COVID are actually in the hospital for some other illness.”
She spoke to two Infectious-disease experts, who told her they believed “the number of deaths attributed to COVID is far greater than the actual number of people dying from COVID.” “Robin Dretler, an attending physician at Emory Decatur Hospital and the former president of Georgia’s chapter of Infectious Diseases Society of America, estimates that at his hospital, 90 percent of patients diagnosed with COVID are actually in the hospital for some other illness.””Since every hospitalized patient gets tested for COVID many are incidentally positive.” Wen noted how people with gunshot wounds or other serious illnesses often test positive for the virus, and wrote, “If these patients die, COVID might get added to their death certificate along with the other diagnoses. But the coronavirus was not the primary contributor to their death and often played no role at all.”
Epidemiologist Dr. Tracy Høeg responded to Wen’s piece, stating, “Spring 2021 [USA] had good evidence >40% of child COVID admissions were incidental. 2021 Denmark announced they’d distinguish with vs from COVID hosp. COVID+ deaths in [Denmark] in 2022 [were] 60-70% incidental.”The doctor added, “Amazing how long it has taken the U.S. to accept this is a problem.””The Australian” journalist Adam Creighton tweeted, “People saying this a year ago were booted off social media.”Brownstone Institute president Jeffrey Tucker tweeted, “This is not just recently true. It’s been true for three years! We truly do not know how many actually died from COVID, which means that not even the CFR is accurate.”
She’s not our friend, Colonel. You posted about her before, and I remembered this clip, but never tracked it down at the time. I think I have this prompted correctly, but if not, start at 1:10. She talks about vaccine mandates, herd immunity and using the mandate as a gateway to pre pandemic freedom.
I never said she was our friend. I have always known this but the issue is not what ideological stance she takes…..she is from CNN. She is very liberal in her thinking… I get that. But we often talk about cracks in the dam.
In Fort Worth, I know of two hospitals that classified things as Covid when Covid did not do them. Having Covid is much different than dying from Covid. Having a heart attack while you have Covid does not mean Covid killed you. Yet, the stats are beginning to show this. Covid strains, while bad, is just another flu. It was jumped on and a crises created when one was not necessary. The CDC has now admitted that their numbers are higher on Covid than they should be.
My own accountant that I have used for years went into the hospital with pneumonia. He was diagnosed as pneumonia….but saw his discharge papers that said he had Covid. The hospital changed it without his knowledge and he called them on it. It was an honest mistake, they said, and he knows it was deliberate. The hospital got more money for Covid. It is as simple as that.
I am of the firm belief that this is common and this pandemic was nothing more than a dodge. Fauci was and is a joke and always has been. I think you will see more cracks forming from previously liberal pundits and news media, partly because they do not want Biden, but they are about to get caught in the backlash of furthering a pandemic when one did not exist.
Please, let’s all be clear.
We had a PANDEMIC. Period, end of quote.
Debating the severity and intensity as well as the response is fair game. Not to mention it’s origin.
But making statements that a Pandemic was not real does not help finding the truth. It only gives the “others” free ammunition.
Sorry, my friend, anything can be a pandemic…..it was a bad flu. I have had it twice, now. Survived it and not vaxed nor am I getting vaxed. Solved it first time with monoclonal antibodies, in three days, and solved it second time with ivermectin.
We all know the origin….and it was not from “wet market”…. I think we all know that it was lab grown and it got out. And I think we all know that we funded part of it. But…….
Sent from my iPad
>
Get it clean…….you do good work.
No visitor logs exist for Biden’s Wilmington home, site of classified doc discovery, WH Counsel’s Office says.
Of course not.
Should you always put in a two weeks’ notice before quitting your job?
Gen Z TikTokers are raising that debate with their latest viral trend which is making some people question whether it is ethical to suddenly resign and leave your workplace hanging.
“The problem is, with social media like Instagram and TikTok, when things like this go viral, it just snowballs and more and more people are encouraged to do it,” Campus Reform correspondent Kale Ogunbor said Sunday on “Fox & Friends Weekend.”
“One of the most interesting phenomenons of my generation is that everything needs to be posted,” she said. “This is going to be one of those trends that comes to bite an entire generation in the back given just a few years… a lot of bosses and HRs check social media.”
=================
Well, a lot of us bosses have a unique way of finding out about potential employees. In the background check, we always ask one main question.
Is this employee eligible for rehire If the answer is no……then you know there is a problem.
I hope the whacky GOP doesn’t lose sight of the bigger prize while dicking around with Biden’s doc problem (of course they should investigate) … Hunter, his laptop and that job and all that money for doing nothing. Just another example of politicians OWNED by those with power and wealth. Same for Trump and his moronic offspring. They’re all dirty.
Just placed my order for F-15’s. Don’t want to be under equipped when they come for my guns. Thanks Uncle Joe for giving me the heads up.
You and your guns. Win any revolutions lately? 🙂
Why yes, yes I have. A small victory but still a victory.
One has to start someplace.
Ooops, there goes another MAGA King nut … 🙂
Hey, he missed over and over. I thought you lunatics were good with guns. 🙂
That just proves he’s a radical leftist antifa cuck false-flag plant.
If he were a real ‘Merican Conservative, he would never have missed.
🙂
Last name is Pena…….that says it all.
Ouch, Colonel. I’m ashamed for you.
Maybe DeSantis can ship them up to New York … I mean, in a capitalist society, they no longer work and nobody has any use for them, right?
Oh, well, I tried. It’s about senior citizens in Florida who can no longer pay their rent, etc. Total loss of dignity because … most of them white! E-gads! White people?
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,…………………….
Times apparently have changed. My first patent for one employer was compensated. The compensation was the consideration of $1. I got the consideration. They made $1.25M off the patent.
JAC…..in exile yet again.
JAC,
I must have missed your response to this part of my comment from last week…
Mathius
Sorry, I did not see that question last week. Now right off the bat, I thought about blowing this off due to your obvious attempt to find a similarity between this and abortion. This does not fit and neither do any of your other comparisons. But I will address both the legal and moral aspects of your question anyway.
If Charlie is already in my home “visiting” when the storm hits then I would almost certainly ask him to stay. He is free to leave and take his chances. Asking him to stay in the face of obvious risk would be the “right” thing to do. And once someone enters my home I have a responsibility for that person. That is not absolute but it does exist as long as the guest reciprocates.
Now what happens if Charlie starts, well being Charlie? After a few days I would probably ask him to leave. He is free to leave but not free to stay. He is in my igloo with my permission. Which is freely given until the guest becomes obnoxious to the point of being disruptive to our lives.
In response to Charlie’s cries of inadequate clothing, I would provide him with clothes needed to survive in the stormy weather. I might even offer to drive him in the sleigh to the nearest wagon train station. Or, if he chooses, to the local “homeless shelter”. It is just a wall tent but does have a good stove. If he refuses my offers of aid and strikes out on his own, well then the consequences are on him.
Just kicking him out in severe weather without providing clothing or offering transport would be immoral in my world. But then that depends on just how obnoxious he was. If he became a threat to my family, actual threat that is, then I have the right to toss him out on his ear. I would probably toss a coat out with him. The point is that my action is one of self defense at that point. Both moral and legal. Likewise, if he was a threat and refused to leave, I could shoot him dead and then toss him out. I would bury him in the spring once the ground thawed. This would also be both morally right and legal in my world.
As for our backwoods laws here in the free state of North Idaho, I am not sure if I would be charged with murder should he freeze to death. I think it would go like this. Tossing him out in a storm, for no good reason, in his shorts and Hawaiian shirt would probably get me charged with “negligent homicide”. Maybe even Murder in the Second Degree. Because there would be a “reasonable” expectation he would die when I tossed him out, and he was not posing a threat. If I could show I had cause to toss him out and offered other assistance but he chose not to take it, then his death would be ruled a “suicide.”
Obnoxious? Moi? 🙂
Well, I mean.. duh.
So, for example, if you had a guest in your err… ‘home’… and that guest is doing things that mess with your hormones, cause irreversible changes to your biology, cause extensive and prolonged physical discomfort, alter your appearance, or otherwise prevent you from living the life you would like.. for nine months… would that qualify as “obnoxious” enough to justify kicking them out?
Point of clarification: does this apparent duty to let him stay stem from a natural Right (big R)? That is, do you have an obligation and/or does he have a Right to stay in your home until some arbitrary metric of “obnoxiousness” is met that would justify you kicking him out?
It’s great that you’ve given him permission, but the whole point of my question is what happens when he’s there WITHOUT your permission.
Perhaps. But do you have the Right to do it anyway?
I’m unclear how you’re using the term “immoral” within this context. Are you saying that it’s wrong in the same way it’s wrong to be rude, just more so? Are you saying that, in having admitted him, you’ve created some Right on his part to stay until he violates some unspecified terms of a politeness-contract? Can you clarify?
What you “would” do and what you have the Right to do are two entirely separate categories. I am asking whether you have the Right to eject him into the storm, not whether you’d be a jackass for doing so.
To extrapolate this into the framework I use, this hits to the distinction between “eviction” and “murder.”
That is, if you kick him out and he dies, well… that’s nature. But if he’s willing/able to leave and you chop him up and shove him down the garbage disposal, that’s not your right to do. Consequently, that’s just murder.
To make it plain, though I don’t think you need it: evicting a fetus (or anything else) from her body is the right of the woman whose body it is. Because it’s her body (igloo). If the thing she evicts, whether human or tapeworm or Charlie or alien parasite, dies in the process or as result is immaterial to the fundamental question of whether she has the right to say “get out of my body.”
Conversely, and again, just to be clear, once a fetus is viable, actions which result in its unnecessary and avoidable death are simply murder. Like chopping Charlie up on his way to the door, your Rights end at saying “you have to leave,” not “you have to die.” If the fetus can be removed safely, the obligation is to do so. If you choose a path that unnecessarily causes its death, that’s a CHOICE to kill someone outside of the exercise of your own Rights*. So a “late-term abortion” is just a complicated way of committing murder.
*for clarity, you can kill someone in Self Defense – an exercise in your Rights – and that is not murder. Likewise, you can Evict – another exercise in your Right to bodily autonomy – and that is not murder. But if you act in such a way as to deliberately cause an unnecessary and avoidable death under the guise of either,** that’s not an exercise in your Rights, that’s a pretext.
** eg, if you tell a trespasser to leave and shoot them as they’re leaving, that’s not an exercise in your property rights or self defense… it’s just murder with a pretext.
Interesting… but again, my question here isn’t about “Law.” Law is, as you know, an imperfect analog for discussions of Rights.
If we accepted the Law as our guide, then we would conclude that you have to all kinds of weirde restrictions on your Rights.
To maybe boil this down a bit…
You either own your igloo or you do not own your igloo.
If you do own your igloo, then it is yours to do with as you will. You may allow people in, or kick them out as you – the owner and sole arbiter of such matters – see fit. Because it is your property.* And therefore it is your Right (big R) to allow others to use it.
The only context where you do not have the Right (big R) to exercise your property Rights (big R) would be where you either (1) do not have such a property Right or (2) where the guest has some kind of overriding Right to be in your igloo without your permission.
So which is it? (1) or (2)?
Is it not your home (her body)? Or does Charlie (the fetus) have some special Right to deprive you of the exercise of your property Rights based on his need / circumstances?
———-
* See also:
Mathius 20:15err.. Matthew 20:15, KJV: Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?It seems to me the permission of entry (except in rare cases) was given before the fact of conception.
I just knew that was going to pop up in this discussion. 🙂 🙂
Does the fact that you invited Charlie into your igloo mean that you are unable to evict him when you want him to leave?
Conversely, if someone opened the door to your igloo* without consent, shoved Charlie in, and slammed the door – a completely hypothetical situation – what does that mean in terms of your Right to evict him?
—–
*assuming your igloo is one of those fancy ones with doors.
Remember: In this situation, as in reality, Charlie is functionally brain-dead. He cannot fend for himself and is entirely dependent on being inside your igloo and being fed off your supply of canned food to continue living. If you kick him out, he will freeze to death or, baring that, drown in a puddle of his own drool.
On average, there are 463,634 victims (age 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault each year in the United States.
That doesn’t count the Ooops factor. Does Ooops preclude a woman from CHOOSING an abortion? You right wing lunatics can’t stand losing power over others. YOUS are the real tyrants … and sometimes as enlightening as a bag of hammers.
But, Charlie.. surely you misunderstand….
🙂
Mathus
I am certainly not a Biblical scholar, or even laymen. But given your citation, once the human is created, via combination of sperm and ova, is not that “child” a “child of God” per the same rule book? Thus the unborn child is “not your own”.
But if you use this then you also have to address what “mine own” means. A fetus is NOT your own. While your body is your own. But due to nature your body happens to carry that of another. Using right to replace “lawful” per the quote you are claiming that a woman has a right to her body (life). True. But that because of that fact, she has the “right” to kill an innocent human. Yet that human, as a condition of being a human, has a right to its body (life) as well.
You persist in imagining that I am asserting some right to kill when it is, in fact, quite the opposite.
The right is not – and has never been – to “kill.”
People who think you have a “right to kill” a fetus are morons and should be treated as morons and called morons to their faces.
The Right is to evict [foreign object] from your body.
If you assert that the Right to Evict does not exist or is abrogated, then either (1) something has overridden your Rights and I would like to know how you’re envisaging that, or (2) you do not own your body.
You argue that you do not have a right to kill but you have a right to shoot someone in the head.
I argue exactly the opposite.
That you have NO RIGHT to harm someone.
But you do have the Right to Evict a trespasser. And if harm comes to them (note the passive voice), well, that’s how it goes sometimes.
I can’t live in your igloo and eat your canned whale meat without your permission. You have the Right to tell me to gtfo. That I’ll die without it is sad but, withholding the use of your property from me is, ultimately, not a violation of my Rights.
I have a right to life. This means you have a moral obligation to NOT kill me.
Either I have a Right to harm others or I do not. There is no such animal as a “No Right”, which seems to be your claim. With my Right comes restrictions, such as my Right to harm you depends on various conditions. Like when you violate your moral obligation to not kill me. My Right to life then supports my right to kill you in self defense.
But let’s take your claim as a premise. “You (I) have NO RIGHT to harm someone.” Under such a principle your argument in defense of abortion fails before it got loaded in the chute. Since the mother, and everyone else, has NO RIGHT to harm the unborn child.
I am tired, so forgive me if I’m misreading you…
But given this logic, it would seem that you have no right to do anything, at all, ever, in any scenario, if it could result in harm to another person.
By this logic, except where the explicit conditions such as “self defense” are met, you must take no action without the perfect knowledge that doing so will not harm (or cause harm.to befall) another. Even by second- or tenth-order consequences.
Can you drive to work? No – because you might harm someone.
Can you breathe? No – because you might exhale a germ that will sicken someone.
Absurdity aside, I think you’re conflating the action and the consequence in a way that is more akin to utilitarianism than any kind of Rights-based heuristic. If you cannot do [thing] because of [consequence], then it is [consequence] that controls rather than the “Right” to do the [thing]. That is the tail wagging the dog.
Mathius
Starting a new thread below:
Mathius
First, I mentioned “laws” because you asked if I would be guilty of “murder.” That is a term used in law so I thought you were drawing distinction between moral vs. legal. Guess I missed on that one.
Second, your question did not deal with “rights” you asked about morality. Now that both are on the table I will try to explain some. Morality is a code of behavior, which identifies what is right and wrong, good vs. evil, etc. Rights deal with “actions”. In my view “R” rights are fundamentals and can be primary to “morals”. For example, as a human I have a Right to exist as best I can within the environment I find myself. Somewhere I have a better version of that written down, but you get the gist. So this “right” to exist and pursue my existence (Metaphysical-Right), leads to a set of foundational Moral principles. First of which is the Moral obligation to exist and pursue life. As an example of tiering, if I have the Right then so does every other human. If I attack others for my own benefit, then I give them the moral authority to do the same. So if I want to fulfil my Right I need a moral code which states that I should NOT initiate violence on innocent people. Now if someone arbitrarily attacks me I have a secondary Right to defend my existence. I in fact have a Moral Obligation to do so. Now my Moral code about not attacking innocent is pretty foundational, but in my thinking is subordinate but linked to the primary Moral standard of protecting myself and pursuing life.
I understand that most people do not subscribe to the notion that there are Metaphysically identifiable Rights or even Morals. Answering this question has been a very long pursuit of mine. Because I think of these a little differently it is harder to communicate with those that don’t. But if there are such things as “inalienable” Rights then it seems to me they must be Metaphysical. Or as BF once said, they all exist, it just takes us time to discover them. If we cannot identify a “right” or even a moral standard at the primary level, then they become part of the “created” category. Subject to all the machinations of human thought and desires. This is how you could get a moral code which allows murder for your own advantage.
Now to your example. I see little to be gained by going farther until and when you can wrap your mind around the notion that “my house” is NOT THE SAME as “my womb”. That having a guest in your house is not the same as having a baby in your uterus. One is a condition of your own ethics, morality, and human cultural norms, etc. The other is a condition of our evolutionary nature as Humans. We happen to be sexual animals who reproduce in this manner. Our existence as a fetus is just as essential as our existence as a teenager. Living in both conditions is essential to our existence. One leads to another. And whether nature or God, we have been given this hand to play. So deliberately killing an innocent has nothing to do with where that innocent is located. And just because a woman must carry the child does not give her special “Rights”, in my view. and then the rightness or wrongness of willingly killing innocent people, especially one as dependent on us for survival as an unborn baby.
By the way, a few weeks back I read an article which included the “Jewish” religious defense of abortion in cases where the mother’s life is at stake. It centered on the argument of self defense. It was very interesting and you should try to find it if you have time.
Now that you have read all that and probably typed responses as you read along, let me propose we retreat a bit. Start at the beginning.
How do you define Morals? How do you define Rights? Do you see either as having different levels of primacy or application? In other words, which rights depend on either other rights or on higher order morals?
Porque?
Is your hand your own? What about your foot? Your brain?
I fail to see why not.
Error: Logical fallacy
Misplayed logical fallacy Flag.
Either you exist in nature or somebody or something made you separately from nature. That is a primary principle Man qua Man.
An appeal to nature would be to defend something that was on the same grounds. Such as claiming abortion is wrong because abortion is not natural. And that is not my argument.
Mathius
And that you cannot see the difference is the problem. Apples and Oranges.
I told you long ago I do NOT subscribe to the Libertarian view that my body (me) is property. I am me, body and soul. My appendages are part of me. It just happens that they are also part of me. In short, a toe is not a unique living entity. It is a body part.
A fetus is not a body part. It is a separate body, which again thanks to nature or God, is dependent upon the mother for its first nine months of life.
A fetus is a Human Being. Not something else you wish to assign to it.
As the father of a 7- and 10-year-old, I find this “first nine months” estimate to be laughably low…. just sayin’…. 🙂
Yes, I am aware.
I do not – nor have I ever – contended otherwise.
I feel as though we’re running in circles, but maybe I need to step back from an assumption I’ve been making about your position….
(1) If you are a donor match and I need a kidney, do you have to give it to me, or can you say no? That is, do I have a Right to use (a piece of) your body, or do you have a Right to withhold it?
(2) If you wake up with that damned unconscious violinist tethered to you by an IV that is sustaining his life (through no fault of his own), can you pull it out, even though you know he will die without your transfusion? That is, again, does he have a Right to use (a piece of) your body, or do you have a Right to withhold it?
(3) Upon your death, can your organs be harvested without permission (or even against your wishes)? Or do you have the Right to have them thrown in the woodchipper per the directions in your will, even though they could have saved a dozen lives?
Mathius
“I feel as though we’re running in circles, but maybe I need to step back from an assumption I’ve been making about your position….” Fair enough. Ask other questions as needed to gain clarity.
But let me try before you ask. The base tenant of my “position” is that the unborn child is a Human Being. As such all moral standards, rights, etc. should apply to the unborn child just as with the born child, or any other person.
Now we can debate “when” a Human Being first arrives. The proper answer is “conception.” However, I have been willing to consider your criteria in the past, when it comes to the unborn’s rights vs. those of the mother. You offered that is when the brain become measurably active. I can justify this by doing a little Kabuki Dance on the head of the Moral Pin. That is splitting the difference between “human” and “human being”. A human zygote is human. But a fetus with a functioning brain is a “human being.” I don’t like this distinction but at least it has some rational merit. I find it much more palatable than the notion of “personhood”, which is really a definition developed for purposes of deciding when certain “laws” apply to each of us.
Now please note. In this context I am not sure that injecting terms like Rights and Moral standards etc. are even helpful. Not without first agreeing on how these things come to exist and what their hierarchy looks like. A daunting task in itself.
(reply in spam)
I find the use of the word spam to be intrusive and racially insensitive. Please choose another.
(2nd attempt… ironically, I went to spam)
I love Monty Python…..
So do my daughters – I guess I did at least one thing right. 🙂
” If the thing she evicts, whether human or tapeworm or Charlie or alien parasite …”
Hey, can we lay off killing Charlie already? Besides, I have super power and would probably shove his rifle up his ass. 🙂
But of course…
George Santos is SPARTACUS! Any new thoughts of voter fraud? 🙂
Yes, two thoughts. If voter fraud exists……either have them “kiss the gunners Daughter” or put them away.
Yes, Colonel … we’ll certainly need a trial before judging this clown. NOT.
OK, one more time for Biden and Geraldo Rivera………..AR 15 does not stand for Assault weapon,,,,,,it does not stand for Automatic rifle,,,,,,,the AR stands for Armalite, the maker of the rifle. It is a RIFLE. You can use it for hunting. It is not automatic. It is semi automatic. This means that a round is fired each time you pull the trigger. The same as a semi automatic shotgun or a .22 rifle. The same as a semi automatic paintball gun. The same as an semi automatic cap gun.
Repeat after me, you dumb shit of a POTUS. Quit reading your script. AR stands for Armalite. GOT IT? It is not an assault weapon any more than a slingshot. And it is NOT NOT NOT an automatic weapon……GOT IT?
Kind of like my semi-automatic hand grenades. Each time I throw one it blows up.
Now, Mr. (almost a President) Biden……a hammer wielded to hit someone in the head……is an assault weapon. A Bazooka aimed at your head is an assault weapon. A knife drawn and cutting you is an assault weapon. Each time they draw their arm back to stab you makes it a semi automatic assault weapon*….
Throwing a bottle at a player in a football game, is an assault weapon.
Do you get it now? probably not, but I had to try..
* using the definition of each time you pull the trigger….each time you draw back.
Mathius
I am tired, so forgive me if I’m misreading you…
“With my Right comes restrictions, such as my Right to harm you depends on various conditions. Like when you violate your moral obligation to not kill me. My Right to life then supports my right to kill you in self defense”.
But given this logic, it would seem that you have no right to do anything, at all, ever, in any scenario, if it could result in harm to another person. Well that is a million dollar question. Some believe this true. But what I am getting at is hierarchies of rights and moral principles. Thus one can lead to another. We may use the term “right” for both but they are not really equal.
By this logic, except where the explicit conditions such as “self defense” are met, you must take no action without the perfect knowledge that doing so will not harm (or cause harm.to befall) another. Even by second- or tenth-order consequences. No! What it says is an obligation to not act against. Not might, or could or some remote chance. I am not going to interfere. Deliberate action is implied. If I should impede your “right” by accident, you tell me, I apologize and we move on.
Can you drive to work? No – because you might harm someone.
Can you breathe? No – because you might exhale a germ that will sicken someone.
Absurdity aside, I think you’re conflating the action and the consequence in a way that is more akin to utilitarianism than any kind of Rights-based heuristic. If you cannot do [thing] because of [consequence], then it is [consequence] that controls rather than the “Right” to do the [thing]. That is the tail wagging the dog. I don’t think I am making that argument but will consider your comment more. I was using an old meaning of Rights relative to their actual utility. So in that since I guess “utilitarian”, don’t know. But I am using a meaning taken from The Maakula Center for Ethics, which is as follows:
What is a right? A right is a justified claim on others. For example, if I have a right to freedom, then I have a justified claim to be left alone by others. Turned around, I can say that others have a duty or responsibility to leave me alone. If I have a right to an education, then I have a justified claim to be provided with an education by society.
Do you two lunatics (Mathius and JAC) think you’re accomplishing something here with this “rational discussion” that will lead to nowhere? Try pulling either argument in a court room. The jury will nod out. It’s pretty much common sense, fellas. Woman’s body, woman’s choice. FULL STOP.
Having rational discussions is the point of this blog. But okay, Intentional Murder, FUll STOP!
I appreciate that you feel strongly, with a high level of conviction.
Can you appreciate that others, like myself, might feel equally strongly with equal conviction in the opposite result?
Honest people, with good intentions, looking at the same data as you, have reached differing conclusions.
A fiat declaration that it’s “intentional murder, FULL STOP!” is akin to announcing “[my religion] is the right one, FULL STOP!” in the face of a sincere believer of a different faith. He has the same honesty, intellect, intent, and information as you, but has reached an alternate conclusion – yet you would pronounce him not only wrong by simple declaration, but a bad actor besides.
JAC and I do not see eye to eye on this topic (or, many topic, to be honest). I think, sometimes, we struggle to speak the same language. But we are attempting to find the right answer and, also, to keep ourselves intellectually honest. That is why we expend our energy on quixotic debates such as these.
I’ve been talking to you about abortion for years. So I think you already know the answers to these questions. I was responding to Charlie, he wanted no rational discussion, so that’s what I gave him. But you explain something to me. How can abortion be evicting a foreign object, from a woman’s womb, not be murder, when the form of eviction is death. Not the possibility of death, not defending against the death of the mother, but the intentional killing of the fetus.
You ask an excellent (and uncomfortable) question.
The answer is this: in concept, there are two pieces to an abortion: the extraction (the “aborted” pregnancy) and the death of the fetus (the “termination”).
Consider if abortions were performed like this: extract fetus, attempt to keep it alive, it dies anyway.
In this version, we can clearly see the separation. The woman exercises her Right to bodily autonomy by removing a foreign entity (the fetus) and denying it the use of her body just as we see in that overused Unconcious Violinist thought experiment. The extracted
fetuschild has the same kind of right to life (right not to be harmed) as everyone else and, consequently, all efforts are made to save it but, because it’s too early and non-viable, it tragically dies anyway.Given that the end result – the death of the fetus/child is inevitable, the election to have a quick and (hopefully painless) death seems an act of mercy. Euthanasia. An avoidance of unnecessary suffering.
Consequently, in practice, the pieces are performed together:
terminate-and-extract. (This has the added effect of making the procedure safer for the woman from a physical perspective, though that doesn’t really have much bearing on the questions of morality involved.)
The part of me that perseverates over rights and Rights and RIGHTS and morals and ethical theories agonizes over this distinction. On the one hand, they kill a person, but on the other hand, that person will be dead of a (likely slower and more painful) death soon anyway. Is this evil? Is this better? Is this rightfully the decision of the mother? Of the parents jointly? I just… I don’t have a clean answer.
To belabor my Charlie-as-unwanted-houseguest metaphor, it’d be as though Charlie had eaten all the food in the house and was now too fat to fit out the doorway. Since he’s going to – 100% – die slowly and painfully in the storm anyway, does JAC need to damage his doorways or can he just chop Charlie up now and save a bit of time and damage? I mean, put that way, the answer seems clear.. but is it? (for this scenario to work, we must also assume that Charlie is braindead or comatose and unable to convey his wishes and that, by some weird soap opera twist, JAC is also his next of kin)
If you wanted to make the argument that abortions must only remove the fetus and every attempt to save the fetus must be made (regardless of viability), well… I wouldn’t necessarily “agree” but I wouldn’t necessarily “disagree” either. (just so long as you didn’t push this as a way of functionally banning all abortions by making them too difficult to get (eg, like those laws requiring hospital admitting rights or double-wideness hallways or surgical-level OR standards, etc))
Generally, where I cannot offer a high-conviction answer, I do not foist my opinions on others. To whit: it is not my place to tell others what to do.
————–
With all that said, you’ll see the obvious corollary – one which I have not been shy about stating – which is that the “termination” of a viable fetus is not an abortion.
That’s like kicking Charlie out when he can survive. Then, rather than letting him leave, you kill him and then throw his corpse out for the polar bears to eat. That’s not an exercise of your Rights in any scenario. That’s just weird murder.
So, to put it bluntly, I see no rational argument wherein a “late term” or “partial birth” “abortion” is a justifiable exercise of any Right of the parent. Rather, this is just murder with extra steps.
I am open to arguments, but have not seen a convincing one yet.
“He’s a garbage collector.”
“No, he is a sanitary engineer.”
“He’s a garbage collector.”
“No, he is a sanitary engineer.”
“He’s a garbage collector.”
“No, he is a sanitary engineer.”
“He’s a garbage collector.”
“No, he is a sanitary engineer.”
….
Mathius
Proposition: There is only one step in an abortion and killing is part of the process, not separate. Just as cutting someone’s head off is not separate from them dying.
I’ll accept for Mathius. It’s killing. Still a woman’s choice and NOT yours.
No need to put words in my mouth. I’ll answer for myself.
Before [human mind] develops (conservatively set at 5 weeks), it’s “killing,” but not killing of a “Person” (big P). Personhood is not just “homo sapiens and alive.” Human DNA does not a Person make. A lump of cells is not a Person just because it might, eventually, develop sentience.* We can unplug grandpa from life support when he’s braindead as “Grandpa” isn’t home, so there’s no “person” to kill, just a pilotless bag of meat. (As I sometimes put it, “my grandfather died a decade before his body.”)
From the development of a [human mind] through viability, it’s a woman’s right to evict foreign objects (or People) from her body. That it will die is tragic, but ultimately her unilateral decision as the person whose body is being utilized and altered and whose resources are being consumed, etc.
From viability through birth, it’s a Person (big P). One could argue that she retains the right to prematurely evict even at 6/7/8 months, but at no point here does she have the right to “kill.” Thus the bifurcation. She can have the fetus removed but must do so without intentionally causing it harm.
———
For good order, I also reject the apparent GOP position on the matter: “life begins at conception and ends at childbirth.” I think, if the government is going to be in the business of forcing women to carry pregnancies and give birth, then the government also has to be in the business of providing support for those children. But that’s a different fight, I suppose.
———-
* Preemptively, because I get this all the time, this is not an endorsement of eugenical arguments. The mentally disabled, etc, are still People and have the same Rights as everyone else. I set my bar as a handful of brain cells to be so artificially low a bar specifically because I don’t want to be in the business of saying “you’re too stupid to have rights” **. I’m talking about brain dead or no brain at all***. The Person is the Mind. No Mind, no Person. No Person, no Rights.****
** I mean.. well, maybe I do want to be in that business…..
*** You know, like Lauren Bobert.
**** Because of this, we can extrapolate that a sentient alien would have Rights. Same with a self-aware AI. Or a particularly clever Labradoodle. Which makes sense. Cogitant, ergo sunt. Conversely, non cogitant, ergo non sunt.
(2nd attempt)
No need to put words in my mouth. I’ll answer for myself.
Before [human mind] develops (conservatively set at 5 weeks), it’s “killing,” but not killing of a “Person” (big P). Personhood is not just “homo sapiens and alive.” Human DNA does not a Person make. A lump of cells is not a Person just because it might, eventually, develop sentience.* We can unplug grandpa from life support when he’s braindead as “Grandpa” isn’t home, so there’s no “person” to kill, just a pilotless bag of meat. (As I sometimes put it, “my grandfather died a decade before his body.”)
From the development of a [human mind] through viability, it’s a woman’s right to evict foreign objects (or People) from her body. That it will die is tragic, but ultimately her unilateral decision as the person whose body is being utilized and altered and whose resources are being consumed, etc.
From viability through birth, it’s a Person (big P). One could argue that she retains the right to prematurely evict even at 6/7/8 months, but at no point here does she have the right to “kill.” Thus the bifurcation. She can have the fetus removed but must do so without intentionally causing it harm.
———
For good order, I also reject the apparent GOP position on the matter: “life begins at conception and ends at childbirth.” I think, if the government is going to be in the business of forcing women to carry pregnancies and give birth, then the government also has to be in the business of providing support for those children. But that’s a different fight, I suppose.
———-
* Preemptively, because I get this all the time, this is not an endorsement of eugenical arguments. The mentally disabled, etc, are still People and have the same Rights as everyone else. I set my bar as a handful of brain cells to be so artificially low a bar specifically because I don’t want to be in the business of saying “you’re too stupid to have rights” **. I’m talking about brain dead or no brain at all***. The Person is the Mind. No Mind, no Person. No Person, no Rights.****
** I mean.. well, maybe I do want to be in that business…..
*** You know, like Lauren Bobert.
**** Because of this, we can extrapolate that a sentient alien would have Rights. Same with a self-aware AI. Or a particularly clever Labradoodle. Which makes sense. Cogitant, ergo sunt. Conversely, non cogitant, ergo non sunt.
I find your words are a convoluted mess in my mind. So I am left with more questions or random thoughts, then any answers.
First your original arguments with Jac, didn’t seem to fit your stance on abortion, they fit more with Charlie’s argument, woman’s body ,woman’s choice.
Then you argue that kicking babies out when they might be able to survive is murder but kicking them out when they have no chance of survival is okay.
You present abortion in away that is not how babies are aborted and then try to justify intentionally killing the fetus by calling it merciful.
Maybe you should try to figure out why you think abortion is so vital that it makes killing of the innocent okay. I know that sentence sounds a little accusatory but that is not my intention.
I find Charlie’s belief, as I understand it, abhorrent. He seems to believe in a right to kill which is fundamentally at odds with what I’ve been trying to say.
Charlie’s belief, I find quite vile,
He thinks taking life is quite worthwhile.
It’s fundamentally wrong,
To kill all day long,
Our beliefs are miles apart, meanwhile.
Noooo…..?
I argue that KILLING babies that could survive is murder. Because there is no right to kill.
If a fetus is viable and you KILL it, then you have exercised the (non) right to kill another Person. The right is to remove it. You can evict Charlie from your home, you don’t get to stab him with an icepick.
A fetus that’s viable, don’t kill,
For that’s not a right, it’s just cruel.
Remove it with care,
For it’s not yet out there,
And you don’t get to use force at will.
If the fetus cannot survive, then it cannot survive. If I deny you the use of my blood for a life-saving transfusion and you die, I’m a rat-bastard, but I haven’t killed you.
If a fetus cannot survive,
Then let it pass, let it thrive,
Denying a blood transfusion,
Is not a killing intrusion,
No murderer, just asshole, you jive?
It only works, Mathius, if you’re willing to admit that life begins at Conception, which I do believe. And I do believe a woman has the right to terminate/kill that life. You can couch the wording any way you like, but it’s no more “abhorrent” than dropping bombs from drones under the guise of national security on people who never did a thing to any of us. In body or out, if you believe as I do, that life begins at conception, that “ejection” theory smells of disguise.
Life begins at conception.
Personhood begins when you’re a Person.
A clump of cells, whether tumor or brain-dead-grandpa or zygote, cannot have Personhood.
It is the Mind – sentience – which confers Personhood.
No Personhood, no Rights.
Just because a thing is alive does not mean it has Rights. The gnat I squished a minute ago was alive, too. The cancerous lump I had carved out of my face was also alive – and had a unique homo sapien genome, distinct from my own – yet I feel no remorse about killing it, either.
Life ≠ Personhood.
Thus why I call your views abhorrent.
…
No offense.
I don’t believe we have the right to drop bombs on innocent people either, if that helps.
But, no, it’s not “disguise.”
It’s simple, and I’m not sure why I’m having so much trouble getting the notion across. The fetus is an entity unto itself.
Consider it this way, Charlie… suppose we gestated outside the womb.. just an umbilical and the fetus sort of drags along the floor behind the mother for nine months, making a sort of squelching sound and leaving a viscous trail. (you’re welcome for that mental image)
Now ask yourself: (and remember, we agree that it’s a distinct living entity!) does she have the right to go over and stab it to death? –OR– does she only have the right to cut the cord and let the chips fall where they may for the fetus?
I have to say, you changed my mind. I did have to look up “Personhood” because I’d never heard it used before. So, Big Ups, brother.
I amend my claim according to Mathius’ explanation … so, all you right wing lunatics still lose. 🙂
Mathius
You are getting your argument across. It is just that I, and I think V.H., do not buy your argument. I have seen no good explanation or defense of it.
What I see is you simply declaring it true.
Like I sort of asked earlier. What is the basis of your claim?
Like I sort of asked earlier. What is the basis of your claim?
The BASIS of my claim is that I – “I” being the sentience of my mind – am the one true sovereign of my own body and own it absolutely.
Likewise, from this stems the notion that you own your own body as well.
And, similarly, a fetus-with-Personhood owns its own body.
——
As you have no right to harm my body and I have no right to harm your body,, likewise, neither of us have any right to harm the fetus…….. excepting in self-defense.
That you would take the blood from my body, inject me with an array of hormones, and impair my ability to use my body as I see fit surely constitutes a violation of my Right to my body. I would be fully justified in using any necessary force to repel you.
Likewise, I could do no such thing to you without your permission. And no fetus may either.
That the fetus would do a woman such harm – even though devoid of intent – does not nullify her right to defend herself from harm, from the theft and abrogation of her resources.
She is free to prevent the abuse of her body from a fetus in the same way that she is free to repel a mugger from stealing her purse or a vampire her blood. It is hers, and she may use force to defend it.
——
That you would take my very lifeblood against my will would surely justify the use of up-to-lethal force to prevent you.
That I would demand you carry me on your back for nine months would surely justify the use of up-to-lethal force to prevent me.
Likewise, no fetus may make similar claims on another without their permission.
If a fetus makes such a demand on a woman against her will, then she may defend her claim to her body by any means necessary. If this can be non-lethal (eviction) then it should. If it need be lethal, then so be it.
——————–
Perhaps you might answer the question I asked Charlie earlier:
Well personally, I find your first argument a distinction without a difference. Whether you say evict or remove instead of killing, matters not, the end result is the same ,a dead baby.
Your other argument, you’re trying to compare pregnancy to other situations that in reality, aren’t comparable. Pregnancy is a unique situation. I can’t think of any others that are really comparable.
I appreciate that the distinction can be vanishingly subtle, but I think it’s also very important.
Lots of things result in [bad outcome]. I can, as I keep pointing out, withhold the use of my warm house from Charlie in the midst of a storm and he will die.
The outcome is not what makes things a matter of Right and Wrong unless you stand behind a purely utilitarian worldview.
You’re right outcome doesn’t always determine right or wrong. But intent normally does.
It certainly matters to the law, and to how people are viewed.. I’m not sure it matters to JAC’s Fundamental Rights…
Nonetheless, I’d ask you.. do you think the INTENT of people who get abortions is to commit murder? Even if you’re right and the fetus is a child with personhood, the women getting abortions (by and large) don’t think so… so if they don’t think it’s a child in the first place, then how can their intent be to murder that child?
If I see your phone on the desk and think it’s mine, then I take it, have I STOLEN it? Or was I just “wrong”? What is my “INTENT”?
I think there intent is to kill.
I think that’s an unkind interpretation.
It sounds harsh, no doubt. I am aware that society has done all it can do to convince mothers that it’s A okay. But the reality is that the whole purpose of abortion, except for a couple exceptions, is to kill a developing baby in the mother’s womb.
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion on the matter.
I’ll just remind you that I lost a fetus that I had hoped for due to an ectopic pregnancy (along with one of my wife’s ovaries) and another that was non-viable (which stood no chance of surviving to birth). Both of which we desperately wanted and both of which were reluctantly aborted.
I wanted those to be my children. One was a boy – a son I have never, and never will have. And it will haunt me to the day I die that I lost them, and that there was nothing I could do, and that it still feels like I should have done something. And my wife, I know, feels the same way.
I hope you consider that the women who choose abortions are human beings with hearts and feelings and things going on in their lives that you do not – and never will – see. I would strongly assert that the vast overwhelming majority do not think it’s “a-okay,” but rather a terrible and difficult and tragic decision.
I remember seeing some time back a survey of pro-life women who had had abortions. They said by enormous margins that their abortions had been justified, necessary, or medically unavoidable. Yet, at the same time, they said that the abortions of others were wanton, callous, elective, and arbitrary. I am paraphrasing – it has been a long time. But I think the general point stands. It’s easy to see “them” as thinking it’s a-okay… because you haven’t set foot in their shoes. But the women you know (or maybe you, yourself), you can see their hardship, their desperation, their loss, and the difficult decision they’re making, so you understand that it’s note “a-okay.”
——–
But, yes, there are also some absolutely unfathomably stupid people out there who think nothing of having dozens of abortions. But even there, do I think they’re evil? Callously committing murder? Even then, my view is that they’re not malintentioned, just catastrophically stupid.
Mathius, I’ve been trying to decide if I should respond to this post tonight or just let things lie for awhile, I’ve decided to, let things lie.
Charlie doesn’t mind rational discussion … he doesn’t understand why the back and forth that will lead NOWHERE (i.e., both sides talking to a wall as far as resolution) goes on and on. Remember, I believe life begins at conception, so if you “need” to call me (and the woman getting an abortion) killers, that works fine. I will assume killing those fetuses is the choice of the mother. Killing is your buzzword. It makes you feel good to use it. I don’t mind it. I think you’re all nuts and hypocrites anyway (especially regarding killing–land mines, toe poppers, etc.). It’s a woman’s right to KILL HER fetus/baby/child while still in the womb. Again, FULL STOP. 🙂
It is true that you are not alone in your view of philosophical debates and the resulting role of moral discovery. Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot just to name a few.
What makes the Presidents of the United States any different when 94% of our existence has been at war. You have some selective “rational thought” there, buddy.
Could you prove this 94% figure?
I don’t know if this includes what we’ve been doing since 911 (bombing the shit via drones out of Muslim countries that NEVER did a thing to us but …https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/595752-the-us-has-been-at-war-225-out-of-243-years-since-1776
Not all all selective. Your lack of philosophy is similar to that of the tyrants I listed. They wantonly and deliberately killed millions of innocent people for noting but convenience and/or keeping power. And it is justified in the world you create with the argument that it was their people, and none of our business.
Deaths during war are not the same. There is, however, a moral principle or two which would govern war. And some of our wars do not qualify. There is no doubt about it.
Your argument supports a world without morality. Thus murder runs rampant.
Mine includes morality, thus murder occurs in violation of the code, and is thus punishable.
“Deaths during war are not the same.”
I guess illegal wars don’t count, eh?
“Wantonly killed …” Everyone knows bombs create collateral damage. Isn’t that “wanton” killing? If you know you’re going to kill everyone at a wedding/school/in a hospital, etc. (things we’ve done repeatedly), you don’t get to call it collateral damage to a specific target. It’s murder, end of story. And there goes your morality.
I have rarely found people changing their minds during a discussion. If it happens, it is more likely to occur after the discussion. As people think about and process the new ideas of information.
“That is why we expend our energy on quixotic debates such as these.”
Which, like analytics, are pretty much pointless. That said, knock yourselves out. It’s good to exercise the noggin … even if it’s pointless. I do it with my sons over football every day. 🙂
JAC,
Now, this is a separate topic, aside from the question of the Right to Evict.
If we were to stipulate – as I emphatically do not – that a fetus is not a “person” until birth, then terminating a fetus would be morally neutral right up until birth. Thus the Right of Eviction would be wholly irrelevant.
However, and just to be clear, my position is that the “measurable / detectable brain” litmus test is (almost certainly) faaar too early, but is, in any event, a comfortably safe margin of error as we should always want to err on the side of not killing people. That said, my personal opinion on this matter – that is, on where such a line should be drawn – is just that: a personal opinion. And as such, it is not something that I would be comfortable exporting into law and imposing on others.
Ok. with that out of the way, a simple question: why can you unplug braindead grandpa from life support? Why is that not murder?
A second, and less simple question: supposing a (peaceful/harmless) sentient alien – say a visitor from Pluto – can you kill it? Is that murder?
Mathius
Proposition: There is NO foundational basis for a Right to Evict, thus such a right does not exist.
I just spent the last ~2 hours fighting with a cable company, so I’m out of energy for fights with y’all.
All I’ll say is that if you don’t have the right to kick something out of your body, you don’t “own” your body. Read another way, someone else has more rights to your body than you do.
Not exactly true. You have created that confusion with your definitions alone.
In the case of pregnancy there are two people with equal “rights”.
In the case of slivers and other such “objects” the person can remove the object or not, but the object has no rights and the person has no rights relative to the object. Because “rights” deal with human interactions.
And, you do NOT own your body. Your body is simply you. This is a root difference in our discussions.
Yes.
You have the right to YOUR body.
The Fetus has the right to ITS body.
The distinction is pretty easy to make. There might be some gray area in the placenta or umbilical but I suppose that if you’re in doubt, you can take a DNA test of any specific area – if it’s the mother’s DNA, it’s her body. If it’s the fetus’ DNA, it’s the fetus’ body.
This isn’t rocket surgery.
This is moot because the Person on the other side of the equation, the fetus, is using another Person’s body without their permission.
Whether that body is property as I say, or the person themself as you say, it makes no difference. A 2nd party does not get to adhere itself to you and demand sustenance for the better part of a year while making drastic permanent changes to your body and causing significant physical discomfort.
That the 2nd party needs you, or will die without your aid, does not obligate your to give it your very lifeblood in literally any other circumstance anywhere ever at any time in any moral philosophy I can think of. Yet here, you carve out some special needs-based right. What of the Unconscious Violinist?
I reject this and will continue to do so.
I – such that “I” am – is the mind with which you are interacting and with which I cogito, ergo sum.
My brain is just the hardware upon which it runs.
My nervous system is just the communications system by which is pilots the bag of meat that is my body.
My body is just the means by I accomplish things in the physical world, many of which are necessary to the continued existence of my mind.
If my mind were uploaded to a robot, the upload would still be me even if if my old physical body were destroyed. I would be intact.
I am the confluence of my thoughts and memories and feelings.. the id, ego, and superego, as it were. All else is hardware.
This is moot because the Person on the other side of the equation, the fetus, is using another Person’s body without their permission.
“without permission,” au contraire, in the vast majority of the cases, it was with permission.
But there is no question – moral or otherwise – about women who willingly are carrying a fetus to term. That’s their choice to share their body and their resources, to make that sacrifice.
There’s no “question” about the Right of a fetus to use the body of a woman who wants to let it. Even if that accounts for 99.999%, who cares? It’s the other ones that are a moral quagmire.
Your “au contraire” is like saying “why should we be concerned with rape when the vast majority of sex is consensual?” Can you see how baffling that reasoning is? The consensual kind has no conflict.
Rape and incest are a different categories and should be handled separately. For the majority of the cases that you are arguing, abortion is a voluntary action after the act which WAS consensual. You often argue that two wrongs don’t make a right. If you do not want to get pregnant, do not have sex, period.
Consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy.
If you want to look at it through the lens of consent, then you have to think of it a bit like contract law, which I know you’re well versed in.
Consent to sex is an agreement between Party 1 (male) and Party 2 (female) to engage in actions that could, err… conceivably… result in a pregnancy.
They do so and Party 2 gets pregnant with Party 3.
You assert this confers some kind of consent to a squatter’s “Right” on behalf of Party 3 to to lay claim to her womb in open and hostile possession until it is good and ready to move out based on the notion that it will die if it is forced to vacate prematurely.
That is, this somehow generated a contract between Party 2 and Party 3: “Party 2 yanked Party 3 out of the void of non-existence, and in exchange, Party 2 guarantees room and board in her uterus for there (3) trimesters.” Signed by both parties and notarized by a notary public recognized in the state of conception. Party 1 is a witness. (This, despite the added fact that, also, Party 3 doesn’t have a brain, so is unable to consent to any kind of contract, .)
Now… explain to me another instance of a contract where an agreement between Party 1 and Party 2 can create a specific performance right against Party 2 by a third party that didn’t even exist at the time of the contract and couldn’t have consented even if it had.
This is like saying “I had a party and invited a girl to, err.. come. Some black-out-drunk dude showed up (which we knew was a possibility when we left the door open and played loud music) and now he gets to sleep on the couch for the next nine months. And it doesn’t matter how much he trashes the joint, either. We had a party knowing he could show up, so now he has some kind of inviolate right to squat in my living room.”
” If you do not want to get pregnant, do not have sex, period.”
That probably (not) works great wherever you live, T-Man … but the real world doesn’t have a stick up its ass regarding sex. Get with the times, my brother. Sex, it’s a beautiful thing.
Even abstinence isn’t 100% effective.
You are spinning in the mud. Still trying to claim a fetus is the same as some independent entity living outside the body.
A fetus is a human being which develops within another human being. That is a REALITY my friend. Now due to the nature of humans, maybe that will change. If it does that is a Paradigm shift, a Black Swan event. But that has not happened. So a fetus and a mother are two humans living in codependent and symbiotic relationship to each other. But of the two, it is the fetus who depends upon the mother for its life, as nature dictates it to be.
Your argument looks like a rationalization of a pre-determined position. I know you have thought hard on this subject so it is probably more likely the result of incomplete reflection and analysis. But if I did not know you, that is what I would conclude from your argument.
Now if you are right, what is the meaningful difference between our positions? I see none, because you cannot exercise this “right of eviction” without killing the “innocent visitor”.
Mathius
Just had a brain flash re: Artificial Intelligence.
If everyone’s soal/brain functions is downloaded and we no longer reproduce, then there is no NEW sources of information and intellect. The AI is limited to the data base it received at first. It has no way to reproduce new humans or human intellect to expand. It will stagnate. And without a solid moral foundation will conclude going on is just to awful to experience, and it will kill itself.
The First Law of Robotics says ‘no’.
Mathius
Plug in and get yourself rejuvenated.
Some say I have always been that way! 🙂
Then under a Capitalist system you are FREE to pursue enjoying your life.
The mistake of the Marxist meme generators is they want to override nature. In short, the reality of the human condition. In this case insinuating that Capitalism is to blame for not enjoying life, when in reality it is just the situation the person finds themself.
I lost my phone in November. So I went to buy another one at my local at&t store. Explained what I wanted, asked what the phone cost, they did whatever they do to turn off my old phone and turn on the new one. Signed their computer screen to verify the sale. Paid. Left. Then a few days ago I received my new bill. It had doubled. Figured out why it doubled, I was not happy.
Went to discuss this situation. Did you know, at least per the woman who helped me. You cannot buy a phone at at&t and pay the full price. This is their policy. This is their policy so they can rip people off. I had been put on a 36 month installment plan to pay off the remainder of the phone. I was also charged for an insurance plan. When I signed their computer screen, I agreed to these things. Now I accept responsibility for not reading the thing, I allowed them to con me. But the policy is a con, so they can charge you for extra crap, there is no reasonable reason to not allow people to pay for the phone in full. Before you even get to the part were their employees lie
to you about the actual cost of the phone, by not explaining their policy. They further cheated me by charging me for insurance that I didn’t have in have even on an installment plan. So beware. 😁
“This is their policy. This is their policy so they can rip people off.”
Das Kapital … 🙂
Yes…..In the future, buy whatever phone you want at Best Buy, then add it to your existing plan. At least that is how we do it here. I do not buy ATT phones. Once you add it to your plane, then disconnect your old one. Best Buy will do it for you and your plan with ATT does not change. It gets more complicated with IPhones but I use androids. Samsung android.
Not only that, but your phone is “locked’ such that you cannot take it to another carrier until it’s paid off.
If you want to leave AT&T, you have to pay off the rest of your phone before you can switch. Because these are installments, people often get more expensive phones than they might otherwise afford outright. For people who cannot afford thousand-dollar payoffs, this means that they literally cannot change carriers. They HAVE to stay with AT&T.
———-
Meanwhile, I bought my phone at Best Buy. It was a colossal pain in the ass. Even there, you can’t just “buy a phone” anymore (at least, not the latest iPhone). I had to register it with my account during the checkout process even though I was paying full price.And, since it was an upgrade that was being given as a gift, I had to add it to a new line and then switch it back later.
Then they bring me out the box. They had sharpied on the side in big sloppy letters the model/color/size. I get why they did this – to prevent accidentally giving anyone the wrong phone (and probably theft prevention). But surely there were other ways than scrawling on the side of my packaging. It looked awful. Just such a stupid un-forced way to take some of the shine off a big purchase. Like buying a brand new car that comes covered in bird shit.
What is the issue with I phone, I wonder. I have friends that had the same experience that you did. With the Samsung, ONCE I got to the tech, it was a 10 minute procedure and that included them transferring all data.
Now, admittedly, I do not use a phone as my business. That is probably why I do not own an I phone, besides the cost. I do not take pictures and I do not store documents. That is why the tech laughed when my data switched in 2 minutes. He told me that some people have so much on their phones, even with a fire wire, it could take up to 45 minutes to transfer data. Especially pictures.
I use the phone for talking and text. I do not even have the internet turned on. But, I have seen how many people use their phones for everything….a portable computer. They play games, on social media….etc. Not my style. Besides, I know how easy it is to get into people’s phones and most people think their phone is secure would be shocked that it is not. That is why the Cartel uses burner phones. Bit we can trace them with voice print, even then.
That said, my contract with ATT has been expired for years. Even when I changed to 5G on my new Samsung, I did not have to enter into a new contract, unless you wish to change the terms. Now, what I did run into, was that when I went to an ATT store, I was told that I could not purchase a phone outright. I had to purchase it through ATT and when I did, a new contract had to be signed. The gentleman behind the counter is the one who told me to go to Best Buy, get the phone, add it to the system and disconnect the old one and there would be no charge except $15 one time charge to add the phone.
Sigh…………………in exile yet again, JAC. Come on, your west coast beat my team, ok? Damn, sam, RELEASE ME (using my best Independence Day alien voice).
OMG….the PC police are at it again……………you are no longer “homeless”…you are an “unhoused member of the community.”
What next?
It has been my experience that any term used to describe an out-group (or group viewed negatively or viewed as somehow inferior) generally migrates in the vernacular into a derogatory term or slur.
A classic example might be the word “retard” which began its life as a clinical term and came to be used as just a ham-fisted way of calling someone stupid.. and, of late, there has been a trend in migrating it out of use as a slur. I have seen people write it as “the R-word.” I have seen bots that trawl through online comments and leave notes that this is offensive and should be reconsidered.
Other examples might include “negro” or “queer” or “tranny” or “oriental.” Even “redneck.” Each, in its early usage, was not necessarily connotatively negative. But, over time, and with semantic drift, they became pejorative.
We see it over and over again. What you are balking at is the end-stage of this process; where we see the inherent dehumanizing nature of the term-as-currently-used, the widely accepted connotative meaning, and we step back from it.
It’s never a 100% “organic” shift. It’s always some advocate of the demographic in question pushing the shift, followed by that era’s 𝔀𝓸𝓴𝓮 people piling on. It builds up cultural momentum and then, eventually, just becomes another antiquated term that we, as a society, have put behind us.(see: n****r, kyke, jap, chink, etc).
The last to adopt are always conservative old timers who lament “we’ve been saying [term] since I was in diapers! I don’t mean nuthin’ by it! Why these damned 𝔀𝓸𝓴𝓮 bastards’ gotta force their changes on me?!”
But think back, Mr. The Colonel, were there ever words in your long life that you’ve thought to yourself “people need to stop using that term”? Maybe some even older old-timer refused to stop using certain racist terms for black people, insisting it wasn’t racist to him? Or who called the waitress ‘toots’ and thought slapping her on the backside was a “compliment”? Did you ever push back on such a person? If so, then YOU were the 𝔀𝓸𝓴𝓮of that time. I’m guessing you have been in this position. Because the times, they always are a-changin’… and so it there might be a parallel you could draw between ‘then’ and ‘now.’
Maybe, eventually, social opprobrium forces the holdouts to adapt, kicking and screaming. Maybe they just get old and die off. But the world moves on one way or another. Dread it, run from it, destiny still arrives.
Nice diatribe, my friend. Yes, I have seen many words changed and many words undergo metamorphosis in my lifetime. It is the “splitting of the hairs” that makes me laugh. A great example in my time waaaay back before you were even an after thought…..is the word queer. It simply means odd. It does not mean homosexual but has under gone a metamorphosis to mean……homosexual…..so goes the word gay…..it has somehow changed into the word homosexual. And, just because someone considers the use of the word queer or gay to reference homosexuals, that you are not supposed to use the word in its original context? I know you were never raised to use words like nigger or slapping a waitress on the butt. You were never raised to use derogatory terms against any individual. You were never raised to shy away from someone because they were another color……..neither was I and I grew up in the 50s and 60s. But I also grew up in an era that you took care of things yourself. You did not have “safe places” where to run because your feelings got hurt. You, and your children, are growing up in an age where Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner are now considered violent and removed from TV. Where they are taking old movies and revamping them to remove words considered inappropriate in some minds. They (whoever they are) is trying to change history. You cannot change history…only re-live it.
Yes, there is change out there, and from this old timers point of view, does not mean that I have to like it and not ridicule something that is….well…insignificant. I was taught by parents what is appropriate and I have taught my children what is appropriate. But I have never grown up or taught my children to run scared of what they say. They know what is right or wrong. I do not care nor am I offended by the use of the term honky….or gringo….or round eye. I could care less and it does not make me a lesser person to be called that. It is a noun designed to elicit a response. Nothing more.
But, today words and phrases are being changed to mean something else solely on the basis of sensitivity. We have a lot more problems to deal with and I know I have to do like my dad and sit back and just shake my head.
I’m sorry, what?
Have you hit your head or something?
You’ve known me for well over a decade and you call that a diatribe?
My old (very, very old) friend.. That’s not a diatribe. That’s barely a warmup.
I’ve written screeds that have cause men to bleed from their eyes.
I’ve written tomes that even Black Flag refused to refute.
“Diatribe”… BAH!
Answer the question, or I demote you to LTC.
Have you – personally – ever found yourself in a position where someone else was using a term and you thought “people need to stop saying that”?
Did you ever push back, however, mildly, on another person and suggest something like “you really ought to stop saying that”?
Maybe you and yours were raised not to behave a certain way, but you grew up in the 50’s and 60’s, so I know damned well that you encountered others who were raised otherwise.
It’s not about safe spaces or being self-advocating or changing history. The question before you is this: have you ever been, however modestly, a part of the process wherein a word that has become a pejorative has been migrated out of use?
Sigh…you know me much better as well, you whipper snapper.
Have you – personally – ever found yourself in a position where someone else was using a term and you thought “people need to stop saying that”? Did you ever push back, however, mildly, on another person and suggest something like “you really ought to stop saying that”?
Of course, and I still do to this day if it is meant in a bad way. Always have. So do my children.
have you ever been, however modestly, a part of the process wherein a word that has become a pejorative has been migrated out of use?
Sort of, yes. I still use the word queer to mean odd and out of place. I still use the word gay meaning frivolity. I had a “gay old time”,,,I do not shy away from terminology or speak in hushed tones because it might offend some new version.
J’ACCUSE!
A speaker at the World Economic Forum (WEF) called on one billion people to “stop eating meat” to combat climate change.
“If a billion people stop eating meat, I tell you, it has a big impact. Not only does it have a big impact on the current food system, but it will also inspire innovation of food systems,” Siemens AG Chairman Jim Hagemann told the WEF crowd in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday.
Yeah, right. What a waste of time in Davos….
I mean.. he’s not wrong.
The amount of resources that go into a pound of meat is dramatically greater than what goes into a pound of salad. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how much food, space, and fresh water it takes to make a cheeseburger versus, say, tofu.
Even setting aside the “cow farts” climate change issues and animal-cruelty issues, there’s a very real and very practical reality that the world would be better off if we all just ate less meat. There are 8 billion people on this rock, so we simply have to start getting more efficient about how we produce food and utilize resources. Less meat is a very realistic way to address this. (note “less,” not “none”)
I’m told that it is possible to live without meat. I wouldn’t want to risk it myself, but I’m told it is possible. I’d almost certainly be healthier, albeit unhappy about it.
I wouldn’t (necessarily) advocate for any kind of top-down policy here. But just, you know… in principle.. he ain’t wrong.
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Side note: The wife made these sloppy Joe sliders on toasted Hawaiian buns last night…. oh man…. with some Mule Sauce… unbelievable… I must have eaten a dozen.
Side side note: She gave me a bottle of Blue Label for Hanukkah, and I am pleased to note that it paired very nicely..
While we do feed a lot of grain to farm animals to fatten them for market, for most of their lives they live off of vegetation that we cannot eat such as grass and alfalfa. Hogs can eat table scraps that would otherwise be land filled. Chickens (free range ones) eat a lot of bugs, slugs and other critters as well as seeds. Goats eat almost anything that grows. So raising farm animals is a way of making land produce where it would normally set idle due to bad terrain or poor soil quality.
Improperly grazed animals can lead to desertification, but properly herded and moved, they can actually reverse this trend. Buffalo migration is a good example of this.
Farm animals are also a good source of natural fertilizer. One thing I lament is that around 1960, farming practices changed in the Midwest. Prior to that nearly every farm had some cattle, hogs and chickens. After that, farmers specialized going to grain only or increasing herd sizes. Thus efficiency was increased since specialized equipment could be purchased and installed. What this did was concentrate the waste in smaller areas where it had been evenly spread out prior.
I’m certainly no farmer.
Could we agree that – in general – “less” is probably a good thing, along with “better practices,” etc?
In 1779, Gen. Sullivan took and army up the Susquehanna River into the Finger Lakes region to wipe out the villages of the Seneca Indians who had been devastating the Mohawk Valley. They got a late start due to lack of provisions so moved out of Wilkes-Barre in late summer. When they reached the Indian villages they found huge gardens of corn, squash, beans…, orchards of apple, peaches… They harvested some but burned most of it. They supplemented this diet with game and whatever salt pork they carried along. As a result, this army was one of the healthiest, best fed of the Revolution.
In 1804, Lewis and Clark set out on their expedition. This expedition mostly lived off the land although they did bring flour and other staples. For the most part, they ate wild game. The hunters had to bring in 10 lbs of meat for every man per day to satisfy the needs of the men. This was required due to the physical labor of poling/dragging their big boat up the Missouri.
Man is an omnivore. We were meant to eat meat as well as greens and other vegetables.
That….. did not address my question.
I’m not advocating “everyone becomes a vegan.” I’m not even really “advocating” anything.
The question is just – in general – topline:
(1) Wouldn’t we, as a society be healthier consuming “less” meat
(2) Doesn’t meat production consume a lot of resources that, in a world of 8 billion people, may be unsustainable? Or, put another way, to feed so many people, might it be more feasible if people were to choose (not be forced. choose) to consume more produce and less meat?
(3) Doesn’t meat production come with certain ethically troublesome questions about animal treatment?
(4) Just for the hell of it, what are your thoughts for when (not “if”) we finally figure out how to do lab-grown meat that doesn’t require harvesting cow fetus hormones and that tastes as good (or better) than real meat?
Speaking of veggies, They’re coming for my salads now. $2.15 for a head a iceburg the size of a bocce ball. Come on! I’ve decided to start buying salads from a deli on my ride to work. For $7 I can get a chef salad tray that feeds 5 easily, made fresh daily. That’s less than I could make five salads for these days. I hate it because I’d much rather chop my own, but why bother it cost more for the fixins than a whole salad. And no, I’m not talking bag salad quality, I’m talking home made quality. Bag salads suck. End rant.
Mathius
Well since I do have some experience in the area, allow me a few responses. I will also address your later questions here to avoid the all over the place thing we usually do.
1. It is not “obvious” that eating less meat is a “good thing.” There are places where grazing cattle has had a negative impact but removing them may not necessarily reduce total meat consumption. Not all grazing lands are filled to capacity.
1. No. It is not obvious that we would be healthier if we reduced meat consumption. Reducing High Fructose Corn Syrup and other high sugar processed foods would be far more effective at improving health.
2. The most harmful thing possible to the environment is paving over paradise, or literally tearing down the mountain. The next worse is FARMING. Food Crops. There are new, rediscovered old, practices which can reduce this impact but even that is far more impactive that grazing livestock.
As T-Ray noted, much of the land where livestock graze are not suited to “farming”. Something that is never discussed in the “environmental” arguments. Because that is really not their agenda. They have convinced themselves that cows are a problem and they want them gone. They want to restore rangelands to their “natural” state. Ironically, this would involve massive herds of buffalo over grazing the rangelands as they migrate.
The problems with grazing, as a destructive agent, is primarily in the rain forests or other areas were conversion to grass depletes the soils. And of course, removes the forest, which cannot grow back because the soils are depleted. This problem has been studied for years, by the way. Some progress has been made at restoring productivity and replanting forests.
3. No. No truly serious ethical questions arise. That is large scale problems. They are animals and we kill them for food. Just as plants are plants, and we kill them for food. The irony of raising the “ethical” issue over raising animals is that most of the examples are where improvements in productivity have been used, such as caged chickens, which in turn reduce food prices.
I am not addressing food quality in this ethical topic. But there is an issue relative to the relationship between raising animals in high density, factory like settings, and quality of the product. This is a human health issue, not an ethical treatment of animals issue.
4. I doubt very much this will ever happen. That is relative to taste and nutritional content. But there is once again another irony involved. Those that push this idea over “ethical” or “environmental” issues don’t look to the eventual outcome. Which will be cheaper meat and thus increased carrying capacity of humans.
BONUS ROUND:
Here is something you can take to the bank my friend. The Earth and its systems, which includes humans, are far to complex to understand completely. Let alone manipulate to achieve some predetermined outcome. We constantly fail to see ALL that is connected, resulting in unintended consequences. Some good, but many bad.
So, from a rancher that actually understands.
First…Ranchers are stewards of the land. We understand the land, its uses, how to care for it; what is needed to keep the land productive, and how to preserve it.
Second, we also understand that all forms of animal and plant life depend on the land and its reproductive uses. We know how to care for it without contaminating the water tables and the above ground rivers and streams.
Third, we know the grasses and the best grasses for grazing cattle in the environment where they abide. Grasses on ranch land in Oklahoma is different than the grasses on ranch land in Texas.
Fourth, we know how to manage herds where there is no over grazing, thereby, rendering a pasture devoid of grass or damaged to the point that it could take three years to redevelop a single pasture.
Fifth, we know how to rotate pastures on a consistent basis to prevent long term damage greater than 6 months to where the very pasture you moved from is ready again after 6 months.
Sixth, most ranch land (most of it, especially Texas), is not suitable for anything else except ranching. You cannot grow food stuffs on most cattle grazing ranches.
Seventh, ranchers know how to maintain proper herd size to the number of acres that you have. We have a small place…only 30,000 acres and we are a cow calf operation of 5,000 head. Five thousand of our acres are for growing alfalfa and with proper rains, we can get three to four cuttings which will sustain this herd size through a winter. There is no need to grain or supplements to have a cow/calf operation.
Eighth, cattle poops and it farts. So do humans. Ever been to a septic field or a sewer operation in your own home town? Ever been to a real ranch to see what happens to a “cow paddy” after 72 hours? Ever walked into a 5,000 acre pasture where cattle are and never smell a thing unless you are like the folks that stand right behind a farting or pooping cow with a device for measuring methane gas? The same people that do not take the reading 10 feet away which turns out to be negative?
Ranchers are very responsible people when it comes to the stewardship of the land. Their survival depends upon it. The people who develop these reports about 30% of the methane gas in the world is produced by cattle…..do not even know what one looks like and they draw up reports with skewed information, never having set foot on a ranch or even behind a cow. I tell you what…send them to our ranch and I will put them in a pasture with cows and bulls….let them measure away. Going to a feed lot where cattle are concentrated and taking measurements is not a proper use of data.
As to taste, I have reported here before, at auction our cattle are the first to g because on one thing. They are range fed. They are not salted to make them drink water to gain weight. They have the correct amount of marble without steroids and treated grain…..and we get top price.
So, these so called pseudo-scientists that “THINK” they know what they are talking about……………..BITE ME. You do not know “come here” from “Sic ’em” .
Watched a little mini-doc last night from a dairy farm. The very attractive young farmerette, pointed out that she used soy husks to feed her animals which she buys from a factory that produces soy oil. The remainder would have gone into the landfill had she not bought them. As T points out, hogs and chickens will eat anything, including humans.
The Biden administration has staked out an early position that the debt ceiling must be raised without any conditions. That follows the pattern Democrats have taken for years, which is that any default by the U.S. government would be an economic disaster and that the debt ceiling must be raised without delay or any discussion about new commitments to changing the way the government spends money.
This week, the White House made it clear several times that it doesn’t believe there is anything to negotiate.
“As President Biden has made clear, Congress must deal with the debt limit and must do so without conditions,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday.
“We’re not going to work our way around this; we’re not going to negotiate on this,” she said. “We are not going to be negotiating over the debt ceiling.”
————————————————-
Well, That about says it.
Ah, my always claiming to be neutral friend, the Colonel … “That follows the pattern Democrats have taken for years,” … do you have a clue how much over the top spending while reducing taxes for the wealthy occurred during the Orange Man’s horrific years in office? Please.
Charlie, My Plutonian friend…….just because I posted a “word for word” statement from an expose’, and the word Biden and Democrat was in it just means it is a sign of the times…..MANY, MANY Times I have posted “Bush never met a spending bill he did not like.”
I am posting this to point out nothing more that there is going to be no negotiations…that spending us into oblivion is a sign of the times. It matters not whom is in charge….spending is a problem and the art of negotiations is now a relic….a thing of the past.
Apparently you did not read my link on the impact of Trump’s tax cuts. The cuts impacted all tax payers with (percentage wise) the most benefits to middle income people. Tax revenues are up as a result of the cuts by $1.5T. The CBO predicted a decline of $1T in revenue. So even though we cut the rates, we collected more money. Sounds counter intuitive until you consider that taxes depend a lot on the health of the economy. Excessive taxation can suppress the economy. But then none of this fits your socialist miseducation.
See also: Art Laffer
Hmmm, I’ve been sitting here thinking about this. I can’t think of a time that I’ve ever heard democrats talk about cutting spending or taxes. Surely they have, serious question, has anyone else heard them?
Never? Really? Watch the first few minutes of this video … you’ll here the zombie president yelling for cuts in “everything in the government” … he’s as Republican as it gets. 🙂
Democrats want to cut spending on things they don’t like. Like ICE, like farm subsidies to Red States. They also (while pretending otherwise) want to cut taxes on their donors.
But by and large, it boils down to this:
Democrats: Big Government tax-and-spend statists.
Republicans: Big Government spend-but-don’t-tax statists in denial.
Yes…..actually when democrats were statesmen ( yes, I used the term statesmen). Many times I have seen Dems and Repubs get together and compromise. I have seen many Dems that were fiscal conservatives.
Colonel
I am having a little chuckle over your comment. Not directly but due to an indirect link. While reviewing many articles on the concepts of Rights, in support of my discussions with Mathius, I found a couple of articles about past Icons who felt Rights were ridiculous and even damaging to Society.
The reason was the Government and politics in Society requires compromise. And the concept of Rights draws lines in the sand that can be used to stop said compromise.
Now I emphatically do not agree with this conclusion. But I can see that Rights can be used and are used to STOP Govt action. But that is usually when it goes to far.
Just thought I would share this with the audience.
” The cuts impacted all tax payers with (percentage wise) the most benefits to middle income people.”
That’s as hilarious as most of your posts. Not to mention the government revenue lost …
https://www.propublica.org/article/secret-irs-files-reveal-how-much-the-ultrawealthy-gained-by-shaping-trumps-big-beautiful-tax-cut
Now we have secret IRS files? Do you not see something wrong with this?
With any tax legislation, there will always be individual winners and losers that can be cherry picked for political goals.
Yep. The weaponization of the IRS has been going on forever.
Typical. When your broader argument is destroyed, resort to showing a specific example you think is “unfair.” Yet your argument remains destroyed.
Sometimes, JAC, I think you’re just out of your mind. 🙂
The Biden administration on Thursday announced a new pilot program to allow groups of Americans to sponsor refugees directly, a move the State Department described as “the boldest innovation in refugee resettlement in four decades.”
The State Department program, Welcome Corps, will allow groups of private American citizens to sponsor refugees through the Refugee Resettlement Program if they raise enough money, pass background checks and come up with a plan on how to support them.
The pilot program which will require groups of at least five people to raise a minimum of $2,275 in cash and in-kind contributions per refugee to secure their initial needs before they can gain employment. The commitment will be to provide “friendship, guidance and financial support” for the initial 90 days of a refugee’s resettlement in the U.S.
======================================
NEW? Where the hell have they been. There is a sponsorship program already in place. Why not follow it?
Can we sponsor refugees looking to escape from living in Texas?
You can if you wish…….there is a plethora.
Wow.. that’s a lot less of a “kids’ movie” than I remember…..
Great movie though………….funny.
You would be better off dealing with dogs, however. There are thousands of abandoned dogs on the border. Rescue is doing the best they can but the dogs are now running in packs, inbreeding with coyotes (4 legged kind), starving and raiding trash cans and hurting people and children. A unintended consequence, I am sure but never the less a fact. Since most countries do not require vacs and medicines on animals, there is a quarantine at the border.
We have orders to shoot strays with no collars. The ranchers shoot on sight any dog on their property. It really has become a major problem that did not used to be here. And what is worse, a domesticated dog turned wild is a particular problem because they are not afraid of humans. They will roam around instead of run….stand their ground, so to speak. it is becoming a big problem. They used to shoot them with tranquilizers and rescue them but the rescue organizations are over-whelmed.
So, if you wish to do something for “your kind”….get your ass down here. But, be sure to wear a collar.
Had a long talk yesterday about the Ukraine with someone who knows a bit about it, certainly more than we do. The US propaganda mill is in full swing. Ukrainian casualties are roughly six times (military) of the Russkies. the Russkies, historically famous for their artillery are getting their act together. Germany as a supplier will be worse than useless (they could probably be a great supplier of beer and pretzels though) . Britain is stripping its forces of artillery and nobody’s ammo fits anyone else’s big guns. Russian tank production is through the roof as are upgrades on the old models. Never heard it before but the mighty Abrams tanks are useless without air superiority since their turbine engines produce an outstanding heat signature. Seems the Brits and Germans have gone back to diesel for this reason. The media focuses on Russians leaving Russia to avoid call ups but are silent on Ukrainians doing the same.
Glad to see the US is willing to fight to the last Ukrainian. When we lose, NATO will be toast.
Regarding the Germans again. I remember a few years back comments from US officers in Afghanistan about their German allies who were big on bratwurst but not much interested in going outside the wire.
The “sanctions” have been ineffective in every way EXCEPT demonstrating to places like China that we have an empty bag of tricks at our disposal. During the Yom Kippur war the US redirected all its anti-tank weapons and artillery ammunition away from Viet-nam to help the Israelis. Those shortages were never made up hastening the fall of Saigon. If I were China, with our limited reserve munitions heading East, I think I might just think of heading East myself.
“The only thing more dangerous than believing the enemies propaganda, is believing your own”.
Dr. Josef Goebbels.
That man was pure evil, but damn did he understand the human condition and propaganda…
Mathius
It seems that history is riddled with these geniuses. Wondering if their pathology is what leads them to study human nature more closely so they can utilize it to satisfy their pathology. I see similarities with modern serial killers for example.
Note: There is only a shadow of separation between them and the modern “advertising industry” or the “internet social media companies”.
The colonel and I are Trekkies, there’s something there that may have bearing on the matter.
On the bridge of the Enterprise A, they had a largely human cast.. plus the non-human Vulcan, Spock.
On the bridge of the Enterprise D, they had a largely human cast, plus the non-human android, Data, and Klingon, Worf.
On the bridge of the Enterprise(NX-01), they had a largely human cast.. plus the non-human Vulcan, T’pol.
On the bridge of Voyager, they had a largely human cast, plus the non-human, Tuvok and the human-Borg, 7-of-9.
I could go on… there’s 56-ish years of history spread across an even dozen (and counting) series. But I think you get the gist.
The purpose of having one or two aliens amidst the largely human cast of main characters is twofold: (1) it’s expensive and time consuming to do too many alien characters, so they just don’t and (2) more importantly, the alien character is there to hold up a mirror to humanity.
The point of having an alien or sentient hologram or neurodivergent-standin or whatever is to have someone who can look at and remark on “what it means to be human,” but from the outside. Vulcans and Data in particular with their cold emotionless logic, have to analyze what it means to think and feel as humans do, to try to understand the irrationality that makes us tick. To see the strengths and weaknesses of the human condition.
This often leads to piercing insights that aren’t so apparent when viewed from the human-looking-at-humans perspective.
——-
I think when you’re talking about men like Goebbels, maybe they’re something to that.
Maybe men like this have a worldview, a mindset, so divorced from the “typical” human experience that they can see things we miss. The forest for the trees, as it were.
It’s easy to miss the oddities and “that’s just how things are”-ness of humanity when you fit in the mold… but maybe when you don’t, you start to notice the mold.
I don’t know.. just a thought…
Yes, as a matter of record, Goebbels was required reading…..not for his tactics but for his understanding of human behavior. The man was evil, without a doubt….pure evil…..but smart.
Sorry, did not finish the statement Goebbels was required reading in war college…..
SK
I am pretty sure you do not approve of any US involvement in Ukraine. That despite Russia’s invasion we should sit this out. Partly because you believe we somehow caused the overthrow of the Russian puppet leader. Now that is what I think you think. But …..
If the Nations of the world, including the USA, have decided that one nation invading another is NOT OK, which they did following WW I and then again after WW II. Then why shouldn’t the US take action against Russia.
And if we do not what is the long term message to all other countries who would like to do the same thing? Once you allow the bully to win are you not encouraging that bully and others?
I am not stating that we should act. I am asking that given everything we have learned since 1900 why wouldn’t we act?
My big complaint is this. IF we feel we should act. Then ACT and get if over with in order to get on with living. Maybe it ends with WW III or just a Russia vs. the World kind of war. But so be it. If it is so important to oppose one Nation invading another, then PUT A STOP TO IT. And yes, I am fully aware where that might lead. Again, SO BE IT.
My other complaint with this administration is they felt it important to act. But they did not prepare for war. They simply starting engaging and then adding and adding and adding. No comprehensive plan of what they wanted or how to get there. Reactionary.
Stumbling into a war is never a good idea. We stumbled into this one and the Ukrainians are the ones paying, in blood for it. I do not have a solution that makes any sense at all and I admit it readily.
What I do see is that it is our fault. It is our fault going back to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Missing from almost every discussion is the issue of Russian History. A semi-oriental people with no history of democratic government, they do things that make no sense to us but make sense to them. Paranoid to an extent we cannot even comprehend because their history is NOT our history. It’s not even “western” history.
The one voice I miss is that of the late Professor Stephen Cohen of NYU. he perhaps had the best understanding of Russia of anyone I have heard. Of course, he was vilified and ignored because his message on how to have avoided all this is the same as mine. Had we held out our hand to the post Soviet Russia things would have gone one hell of a lot better.
What you do not do is surround Russia with satellites of the west. Then urge them to join the impotent NATO probably for no better reason than to give NATO a raison d’etre. You then do NOT topple a corrupt government and replace it with an even more inept and corrupt government most especially when there is and has always been an historic link between that government and Russia.
Theodore Roosevelt, President of a country soon to be arguably the most powerful in the world stepped in to settle the war between Russia and Japan. Would that there be some unaligned but strong nation out there who could tell everybody else to go to hell and negotiate a settlement between Russia and Ukraine. Perhaps India. I can think of no other solution short of a war that will bring everyone to their knees.
SK
I have seen you say before we did not reach out a helping hand to Russia after the iron curtain fell. This is demonstrably FALSE.
I had friends in both Govt. and the private sector who immediately went to Russia to provide assistance in dealing with the collapse. Setting up infrastructure, manufacturing and even a National Fire Fighting and Management structure, along with satellite information that could be used.
All of them found the same thing. Nobody anticipated the Corruption of the elites in Govt. and then the “oligarchs” that developed, from these same people. One of my friends had to leave because he inadvertently ticked off some Oligarch who then put a contract out on him. His crime? His secretary did not process a check fast enough. By the way, this friend needed equipment to help get a sawmill up and running. The Oligarch he upset took him on a tour of the equipment store so he could pick out what he wanted. It was all underground in Weapons caverns and Tunnels. These people had stolen the equipment from their own people, then stored it, and then sold it at black market prices back to the people, govt.
So from my experience it is not that we didn’t try. And I think NATO had little to do with it then. It was a failed system and our CIA FAILED to understand that. This is what gave Putin the edge in taking over. CLEANING OUT THE CORRUMPTION got him elected. And it only took once, he never had any intention of leaving after that.
Poor planning on our part. Though complaints I have heard from the Russian émigré side are that we tried to “control” them and in some cases dealt with them as if they were a backward third world nation . I am sure there is a great deal of truth on both sides.
They made me read “The Ugly American” in Freshman Year of High School. I remember it well.
Changing course for a moment. The topic ………… PAYWALLS.
This new move by many websites is irritating to me. The supposed reasons for it seem phony. Red State made this move a couple years back. Here is their latest article filled with excuse.
https://redstate.com/tladuke/2023/01/19/the-steven-crowder-daily-wire-story-has-me-thinking-about-this-larger-angle-n690720
Here is my complaint. They did not change platforms. So if Word Press was going to censor them, or if Facebook or Twitter would not allow links to their Word Press stories, then how the heck does a paywall prevent this?
They are STILL on Word Press. Just that now you have to pay money to read the content. Was “paying money” really necessary to achieve this “buffer zone” to censorship? I DON”T THING SO.
Every site that has done this claimed it was in response to the platform, like Word Press. So did Word Press push this idea of “paywalls”? Could it be that the platforms are rewarded financially when site users are behind said “pay wall”? I am guessing yes.
Now for the record. I have no issue with these content providers monetizing their sites. But just admit what you are doing. As for the platforms, well they are becoming slimier and lower than lawyers or politicians.
Boy would I like to see this hide hung on a fence. Notice how her “measures” are all aimed at Federal Employees, who just happen to comprise a large voting block Next up will be other old folks and retirees, cause they scream the loudest. This is nothing but the Treasury Secretary playing power politics on behalf of the President and her Political Party.
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/3819480-treasury-resorts-to-extraordinary-measures-to-keep-the-us-from-debt-default/
Fact is we have seen this before and the failure to extend the limit was addressed via measures that did not damage retirement funds or Soc. Sec payments. For those who don’t know, part of this issue is Cash Flow. For example, they can hit the limit in Jan-May and then be far below the limit in June-Dec, with the total for the year being below the limit.
Then there is of course the option to peel back some of the spending authorized for this fiscal year in order to stay under the limit.
Mathius
I have a question for you about “Jews.” We know from historical review that “Jews” were not an original distinct people. That what became the “Jews” and the religion of Judaism was an amalgamation of various nomadic tribes in the region.
Now you have mentioned in the past some “genetic” trait that is linked in someway to the Jews and which contributes to high IQ.
Question: Do you know if this genetic trait is related in anyway to inbreeding? Not within families. But within a closed Tribe of people that developed a few thousand years ago. Do you have any other information on this genetic trait?
I have no evidence (for or against) the notion that this is present in non-Ashkenazi Jews. So I will be silent to that aspect..
Studies have shown that the Ashkenazi Jews – that is the Jews of European descent – have IQs shifted one full sigma higher than the average for non-Ashkenazi Europeans.
Insofar as this is a general shift of the whole bell-curve, even persistent in the secularized and integrated populations, (translated: it’s not because of “religion” or “culture”), it’s hard to interpret this as anything other than a genetic drift associated with a fitness payoff.
Jews of Europe have long been insular – both by choice/culture and from ostracism of the goyim. Significant evolutionary pressures of this sort don’t generally accumulate in groups that are freely interbreeding, so “inbreeding” as you put it, seems a probable cause. Especially since there is no evidence of a particular population bottleneck.
Of particular note is the comparison to another long-standing insular population: the Amish.
What’s interesting in this comparison is that the Amish have developed a host of population-specific genetic diseases. These are spread throughout their bodies more or less at random. The Ashkenazi, likewise, have developed a host of genetic diseases… however these cluster around brain and nervous system.
I don’t think it’s an enormous leap of logic to look at the two groups and say that undirected insular ‘inbreeding’ of a population generates cumulative – but random – defects. Wheveras directed (that is, driven by evolutionary pressure) insular ‘inbreeding’ of a population generates cumulative – but NON random – defects.
Does this address your question?
So, THAT is what Charlie’s problem is……
The “History of the Jews” book I am reading is interesting in that early on, without meaning to it gives an excellent tip off to the difference of Jews from all the others around them. The Jewish People, since their inception, have always stressed education. Initially it was to make the Torah understandable to everyone rich or poor. There were never any “secrets” to be kept from the people. Literacy in an illiterate world bred education throughout the population whether they lived in pre-Christian Spain, Turkey, Syria or North Africa.
Funny but there was a treasure trove of documents uncovered in an Egyptian synagogue back in the early 20th century containing letters and scrolls from Jews all over the world. Back then, in the early part of the first millennium, thee are actually letters from Mothers bragging about their sons the doctors or accountants. Matt would probably tell you that nothing along that line has ever changed.
The hooples over there at Davos have the answer to all the world’s current problems at their fingertips. Educate the unwashed. As soon as they get out of sustenance living, you will see the world population shrink. I had a discussion with my son last week on the shrinking population in China. Doing away with the one child policy and now encouraging two or even three children, they are failing. Why? Well as soon as you achieve the “good life” you start thinking beyond the need to have 14 children to guarantee someone plows the south 40 or takes care of you when you are old.
Correct.
There’s also an aspect to this that you need to have 14 children when twelve of them are going to die in infancy.
It’s also true that having them work the fields, as you say, requires less childrearing resources – you don’t have to educate them for 20+ years, for example, and they contribute financially, so they’re ‘lower cost’. By comparison, having a child in a developed society is exorbitantly extensive, time-consuming, and resource intensive. Having 14 children would bankrupt me.
As wealth increases, child mortality decreases, the cost of raising a child increases, and so birthrates stabilize.
(Well, birthrates stabilize on a lag. The culture still has a preference for ‘large families,’ but this adjusts down over time. For this reason, estimates tend to cluster around the idea that human population will stabilize around 13 billion.. that is, around that time, most of humanity will have reached a point where they have an average of around 2 children per couple)
Another way to frame this – and I think you’ll appreciate this view – is that societies shift from r-type to K-type reproductive strategies.
In an r-type, the evolutionary pressure and consequent reproductive strategy is to have as many offspring as possible, early on, put less care/effort/resources into them, get them independent early on, and just hope that some percentage survives. This is the strategy of most of nature deploys.
For example, fish or insects rely on the “have enough offspring, and some will make it to maturity” approach. But also many mammals, such as rabbits, who put some effort into rearing offspring, but substantially rely on quantity. Here the approach can be best summed up as “quantity over quality.”
in a K-type, the strategy is reversed. Have very few offspring, put a ton of effort and resources into them, nurture them for a long time, etc. Humans are the undisputed kings of the K-type strategy, but there are plenty of other examples: whales and elephants for example. Here, the strategy is more “put all your eggs into fewer baskets… and do everything you can to ensure they’re the best eggs possible.”
It is, of course, a sliding scale. And even the most r-type of human societies are far and away more K-type than any other species. But the existence of high infant mortality rates and low availability of resources exerts a pressure to be more r- and less K – to have more ‘low-cost’ offspring than fewer ‘high-cost’ offspring. Change the pressure and the strategy shifts accordingly.
The birth rate in “developed” western countries and the trends in China argue against a Paul Erlich, “Population Bomb”, type of future. The proof as they say is in the pudding. Japan also comes to mind.
So, we can all support education worldwide and bring about the shrinkage sooner rather than later. I am a deliberate aberration. I have four. A conscious decision based on my sister and her husband’s desire for the “good” childless life. We helped replace them.
To quote my old friend Don Siegel, a Chief supervisor in the old Department of Social Services in NYC who despite his educated, conservative Jewish background also had four, “Somebody has to produce the folks who will be the caseworkers of the future”.
There were 10 births in my Dad’s family, 14 in Mom’s with 7 and 10 respectively surviving to late childhood. ONLY one of those children, my uncle John, produced 3 kids. 5 had none, the rest split fairly evenly between 1 and 2 and that was the “greatest generation”.
EDUCATION!
If this is true, it is very troubling:
https://www.westernjournal.com/covid-whistleblower-military-vet-suggests-really-behind-food-plant-fires/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=patriottribune&utm_campaign=dailypm&utm_content=libertyalliance
You can add power transformer and relay stations to the equation. You get the same answer.
One of the youtube channels I’m subscribed to had an interesting video on this… one second… yes.. worth a watch..
Yes, very interesting but a target for the military. For example, the world over, we know the exact locations of main power lines. We can plunge any country into complete blackout within 2 minutes. The same can happen to us. Add to this, the sabotage of transfer stations and substations…..are regular targets.
Nothing new. The U tube video, however, shows you how vulnerable the power grid is and there is nothing you can do about it. You can bury it, but that does not solve the problem.
I can take the Pirate and position him on the coast of Texas with a simple 9 pounder and wreak havoc. I can then take a squad of gunmen into a wind farm and in mere minutes, can render those high powered fans useless with one shot per tower. I can take the same squad into the most elaborate display of solar panels and it 5 minutes, render 50 acres of solar panels inoperative. You can’t escape it. All you can do is be prepared in the event you lose power.
With all the weather we have in Texas, tornadoes and such, and losing power a lot, most of us have backup generators that run on gasoline or propane. I have a Generac Generator** that runs the entire house for 7 days on a full 500 gallon propane tank. I also have to Honda generators that I can daisy chain, if necessary, and 50 gallons of gasoline in storage that will run the necessities* of the house for another two weeks. But that still does not solve the problem,,, back up power will run out eventually. So, be prepared.
* necessities are fridge, septic, and well and some lights.
** Generac will run the entire house, including heat and air (220v) for one week at full throttle…longer if you are judicious in your power needs.
Side note: I think most people have lost the understanding of how dependent they are upon government (local and state) to provide them with things that are taken for granted. Ever stop to think what you would do for water if your city water supply were targeted? What would you do if all of you suddenly were without internet or Tv or your Latte’s…..what would Mathius do without his churros and what would the Pirate do without his grog?
It is amazing how dependent people are….amazing.
No… churros….????
As for the rest of it, I produce more solar than I consume. It goes into a battery bank that could, conceivably, power me indefinitely. I also have a whole-house pull-start generator connected to a 330 tank, good for, say, a few days. Water is well based.
The lone weak spot is heat. My next project is to switch to geothermal heat humps. At that point, not only will my power consumption drop, but I can keep the heat on indefinitely through a power outage.
No internet seems fine.. I’ve got a pile of to-read books large enough to sustain me through any apocalypse. (and, no, I don’t wear glasses).
Friendly reminder, though, that gasoline needs stabilizer if you’re just leaving it in “storage.”
——–
I think you should put an oil pump on your property and build a mini refinery.. then when the time comes, you be really self-sufficient and even sell to your neighbors.
Where, pray tell, would you tap into geothermal?
Right… here.
Basically, they drill a well in your yard, line it with cement and plastic liner and yada yada yada to ensure it doesn’t leak / leach-out. Then they insert a bunch of coils of tubes containing a water/anti-freeze mix.
Just a few feet below ground, it’s always around 55 degrees. Middle of winter or height of summer.. 55 degrees.
So, in the summer, the loops bring heat from inside your house into the ground.. there, they cool off, and come back in nice and cool.. To enhance this, the system will add pressure. So the fluid will be under pressure which raises its temperature, this is cooled down to 55, then the fluid will be decompressed resulting a temperature much lower than 55. (just like how a fridge works – only instead of pumping into the ambient air, it’s using a stable 55 degree ambient ground).
This is exactly how your normal A/C unit works, but with the distinction that your normal AC is trying to dump heat from your house into the already hot external air. This means it has to work a lot harder, use more energy, and is less efficient. When it’s 100 out, you need to put a lot more work in to get the compression high enough to get the fludit hotter than ambient so that the heat will bleed into the ambient air. If you were to run your AC on a cool day, you’d find it works far more efficiently.. only that’s when you need it the least. But since the ground is always a cool 55 degrees, the temperature gradient makes this vastly more efficient. (because of all this, AC is least efficient when you need it most.. but geo is constantly using an efficiently high-gradient).
Come winter, the process is reversed. Instead of taking heat from your house, it takes heat from the ground, pressurizes the tube to make it hot, then lets it bleed off that heat in your home, and returns the now-cooler fluid back to the ground to heat up again.
Just heat moving back-and-forth between your house and the ground based on when you need it.
VASTLY more energy efficient.
Note that, because this system just MOVES heat, rather than PRODUCES heat (eg a furnace), you can get much more heat than units-of-energy. A KWH or BTU will only produce [amount] of heat in your home.. but when it’s just moving heat, it can produce multiples of x.
And all that means, in addition, no boiler(s) to maintain, longer / lower-maintenace system life, greener (if you care about that kind of thing).. and no dependence on oil deliveries during the apocalypse.
—————
(they are not cheap (depending on the size of your house), but there are big federal incentives and breakevens hover around 7-10 years)
(if you decide to get a system installed, let me know – I get a $500 referral credit)
Also, great Twilight Zone episode…
I do like the one……”you are obsolete.”
I’m still partial to “There… something… on… the wing…!!”
No one chews the scenery like Shatner.
How about that pipeline in the North Sea? Russians sure as hell didn’t do it.
Have we entered the Twilight Zone?
No, just a bad James Bond movie!
We have many major problems that we face today. We also have a number of issues that I will call diversions. The intent of the diversions is to draw our attention away from the major issues and to divide the electorate.
Major Problems:
Covid pandemic released from Chinese Lab but funded by USA
Deliberately poor Covid response by CDC & NIH
Vaccines that are not vaccines
Vaccines that kill people
50% depleted oil strategic reserves
Shut down of the Keystone Pipeline which should have been finished by now.
Domestic oil production down due to delayed permits, bans on federal lands
Fires in food plants
Problems of sabotage in power stations
Depleted arms inventory with inventory being shipped to Ukraine
Depleted military ranks due to Covid policy and woke agenda
War in Ukraine
Threatened war in Taiwan
Invasion at our southern border
Dollar unstable
Economy unstable
Inflation not under control
Huge national debt
War on fossil fuels
Government that lies
Corrupt politicians potentially owned by foreign governments
FAA problems grounding planes (domestically and internationally)
Vulnerable electric grid
Chinese theft of US intellectual property
Fragile, unreliable electric grid
MSM that lies constantly
Supply chain problems
Shortages of pharmaceuticals, too much reliance on imports
Rampant and obvious election fraud
Freedom of speech violations by government workers
Political bias in government agencies, DOJ, FBI, IRS, etc.
Potential food shortages due to wars and environmental agenda
Diversions:
Increasing reliance on short range, long charging time electric vehicles
Increasing push for green energy (intermittent and relies on foreign rare earth materials)
Pushing CRT on kids
Pushing LBGQ agenda on kids
Arguing over abortion
BLM
J6
Climate change, climate change, climate change
Attack on NG
Disputes over tax rates
Improperly stored confidential documents.
I am sure I missed several items in both lists. We need to stop debating the diversions and start asking questions about the major issues. As I see it, as a country, we are failing fast. The political parties never solve problems because the make money off the conflicts. Most of these issues are easily solvable if one has the general good of the country in mind.
I missed the fentanyl crisis.
The “Fair Tax” is going to get a floor vote.
Hooooo boy……
I really like the part where the bill sunsets if the 16th Amendment (which allows for income tax) isn’t repealed within 7 years. So it disbands the IRS, repeals the entire tax code, adds (incredibly regressive) 30% sales tax to everything and then… when 16A fails to be repealed, the 30% tax goes away, too, leaving… no taxes at all?
BRILLIANT!
I mean.. this would be a MASSIVE boon to me, personally.. you know, right until the economy collapsed and guillotines come out.
Ever hear of the Value Added Tax?
You do understand how regressive this tax regime would be, right?
Though, of course, as I frequently argue, this is just another one in the same category as the 1-page ACA repeals and the “Path to Prosperity.” It’s not meant to become law. It’s meant to utilize the Republican playbook from the last ~20-ish years.
Pass* pie-in-the-sky fantasy legislation, let it die in the Senate or get vetoed by the President. Then assert a fantasy outcome to your base that no one can empirically disprove, blame the left for the fact that your utopic fantasy didn’t come to pass, and use it as an argument to rally the base for more votes / donations by claiming that if you had more power, you would totally definitely give them the fantasy outcome.
Trying and failing is such good politics.
I like to imagine the Democrats abstaining and it lands on Biden’s desk, and McCarthy has to call up Biden and beg him to veto it.
I guess it’ll be fun to watch the ads that result.
* or fail to – this won’t even get out of the House. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t even get out of committee.
It is actually good politics, IF (big if) reported on properly. Just what percentage of the American populace now, pays any tax at all? To put it another way, who has skin in the game?
AOC’s last tax return as a bartender showed a $ 26,000 annual income. C’mon, I’ve been to bars and known bartenders who tell me the hotties can pull in $ 500 a night! I have a barber, my age, who has a paid off house, a corvette, a shore house and takes his extended family to Italy every summer. His brother owns a shop and does exactly the same thing.
Lower income tenants of mine, at least low income on the books used to come into my office and have me help them with the “free money” they would get from the “earned Income Tax Credit” a really wonderful boondoggle.
The proposed across the board sales tax always excludes necessities like food and clothing below a certain value but you pay on the Hershey bar and the Dodge Charger. I am against it because it is just a matter of time until they add another “income tax” due to overspending and shortfalls. What, me trust those bastards? It’s like “lottery money goes to education” or there is a “lock box” for Social Security. Potential tax money is like free sex to politicians. More, More More.
Study the growth of sales taxes and their original rationale in places like NY and NJ. Lying Mo Fo’s all! Jersey in particular was supposed to have a sales tax so we would never have an income tax! Joke!
https://www.thebalancemoney.com/what-is-the-fair-tax-plan-pros-cons-effect-3305765
There are arguments to be made pro and con. The current income tax just invites meddling for whatever political reason you can think of. It has more loop holes than Carter has Little Liver Pills. Personally, I think both the 16th and 17th amendments and the creation of the Fed. Res. were huge mistakes.
The current tax system is too expensive and overly complex. It is used for political purposes and social engineering. The first rule when implementing any new tax code is that it should be for raising necessary money only with no special interests, social engineering or any other goals. It be as even and fair across the board and impact all citizens identically. If it is to remain an income tax, then all income should be treated equally. The one caveat I would make is that capital gains would be indexed to inflation over the life of the investment. Inflation is just another tax.
Our current system of corporate taxation penalizes domestic manufacturing since foreign produced goods are not subject to US income taxes. Thus, I would eliminate corporate income taxes and institute a federal sales tax to make up the shortfall. This imported goods are taxed exactly the same as domestically made goods. We already have a sales tax collection system in place in most states, so the cost of implementation should be minimal. Corporations could eliminate much accounting and use the funds for expansion or pay out bigger dividends (which go to people who pay income tax).
If we choose to keep the income tax, it should be a flat tax on all net income (both earned and unearned with the inflation provision noted above). Everybody should have skin in the game. The current system encourages vote buying.
Sales taxes are inflation proof. So any increase in a sales tax is in fact a real increase in government confiscation. The only way to tame the government beast is to starve it.
What? Me worry? …………….you and I both know this is like going to Glamour shots…..it will never pass the house nor the Senate. It is a great ploy to the masses to try to vote on something like this, knowing full well that the Dems are exactly like the Repubs when it comes to money, and they will not “poop on their own mattress.”
The Dems lack the resolve, no different than the Repubs, to call the bluff. And that is all this is a big assed bluff. The Repubs know good an well this goes nowhere but it is good press. They learned this tactic from the Dems long ago.
I am a firm believer in that everyone should have skin in the game. No free rides, no free housing, no free meals…..earn your way. You always hear about this ‘Fair Share” but who gets to determine what a fair share is. I am an advocate of a flat tax. Everyone pays the same percentage on what they earn. I think it is immoral to make someone pay more just because they have more. If you make $1 dollar and the tax is, say,, 10% with no deductions, then the one dollar owes 10 cents. I you make one million then the millionaire owes 100k. But we all know that will not fly either and I am NOT a believer in the VAT nor a luxury tax. The progressive tax, with the tax code as it is, also does not work very well. I think I pay way too much in taxes but that is the name of the game, right now. I think that paying a dividend tax higher than your personal rate is archaic and unfair. But, the law is the law.
This will go nowhere, Sir Mathius…..you and I both know this.
Of course it won’t.
But that’s my point.
The whole POINT of doing this is to fail.
They WANT to fail.
They want to virtue signal, yes, but that’s only half the equation. Saying “look, we’re doing what [base] wants, please keep voting/donating” is part of it.
But the REAL meat and potatoes are in the failure.
They can sit there, comfortably knowing that it has less than a snowball’s chance in hell (see also: the ACA-repeals and “Path to Prosperity”). And, because it will never become reality, they can make up whatever horseshit fantasy outcome they like and no one can prove that it’s wrong.
And their base will eat it up.
And anything and everything bad (including normal taxation, in this case) can be pinned on the Democrats. “Oh, I’m sorry you don’t like your taxes, blame the Democrats – we tried to change it, but they didn’t let us!!1!” Meanwhile, they are comfortably ignoring the non-existent 30% sale’s tax (because that pain is never real, so never experienced) – no one gets worked up about a pain they didn’t experience. (and in the fantasy world where this passed, the Republicans claim, everyone has so much money from the deletion of all other taxes that the 30% is virtually painless anyway!!)
Et voila! All bad belongs to the Democrats who didn’t support the fantasy. All imagined good belongs to the Republicans who did support the fantasy. Win-win.
And then they can say “oh, but if you just give us more money, more votes, more power, we’ll surely give you a utopia this time.
But just like the 1-page ACA repeals and the “Path to Prosperity,” when they have the power to actually do the thing, they never would. Because then, they’d be responsible for all the ensuing reality. They wouldn’t be able to blame the left for those realized regressive 30% sales taxes, they’d be on the hook for them.
No, succeeding is far too dangerous, which is why they would never let it happen. Failing is winning.
That is correct….and it works both ways.
A “Flat Tax” is NOT regressive, by DEFINITION.
Stop with the political propaganda please.
What definition is that?
Since we were so concerned with our health yesterday, why don’t we pass a tax based on weight.
Your tax rate is linked to the percentage your weight exceeds some “healthy” average for your age and size. Really skinny people will pay less than really heavy people.
A “reasonable” Flat Tax on ALL INCOME is the way to go. But has no chance in this country due to the welfare mentality (Marxist radical ideology).
“The political parties never solve problems because the make money off the conflicts.”
Corporations make the money, T. The parties are their tools.
You need to broaden your scope, Charlie…..it is not just the corporations. Do not over look the greed of the politicians. Have you checked out AOC’s net worth now that she has been in office….from bartender to multi millionaire?
Colonel, the pols are owned by the corporations, unless, of course, they are part of one themselves (Manchin crime family) … the pols get the kickbacks (legally since Citizens United) in the forms of contributions and jobs awaiting their leaving political positions. Same thing.
While there may be a grain of truth in that it is primarily just cynical.
Nobody wants to consider the reality that legislation requires Compromise. And when issues are really not that big, as in serious to the Nation, or are linked to ideology it is ever harder to reach compromise.
You cry out for a system that cannot exist without driving most of us into poverty.
“You cry out for a system that cannot exist without driving most of us into poverty.”
You already have it, JAC. It’s called Capitalism. 🙂
Charlie cries out for a system that may not be possible, where no one is driven to poverty because poverty does not exist.
I’m making it official. Mathius is on retainer. I’ll send him one of my shitty books as a retainer. I’m done with divorces, so it’s an easy ride.
Now, I’ll accept the fact there will always be those who seek power and/or wealth, and I won’t mind that to a point, but nobody should be left behind … at the very least, the working class should never slip into poverty and those living in poverty should have the basic human needs we want for ourselves. If you want to horde wealth, knock yourself out, but don’t think it’ll be so much wealth you can start the capitalist ball rolling all over again. At some point, there’s only one person left on the board (Monopoly, right?) … in America it’s the 1% … or more accurately, the .01%. That dog won’t hunt because it’ll be on my lap getting a belly rub.
No, I don’t think this will ever happen in America. I think America is too far down the mountainside to collapsing to reverse itself now. Besides, who is going to reverse the course? Not the lunatics on this page. Not the sellouts in government. And certainly not the .01% or 1% … chances are, the next 19% won’t want to see their fellow human beings living with dignity either (because it might cost them a few coin they can spare but don’t want to in taxes).
Capitalism requires the exploitation of workers … and now it’s so far out of hand, just 10% of the labor force is unionized and most of the 90% that aren’t are too f’ing stupid to realize it’s for their benefit. We lost … BIGLY … all I want until they burn my fat ass and need a dump truck to haul the ashes away is to enjoy poking fun at and laughing my ass off at the day-to-day government of the US&A. Santos/Trump 2024. That’s what I really want to see.
Capitalism requires NOTHING but Liberty.
Since you don’t know anything about the topic it no wonder your blather makes no sense.
Convince yourself, JAC. You’re an echo chamber CLOWN … and a perfect candidate for MAGA … deny FACTS because, well, they’re inconvenient. Hang on to that act. It never fails to amuse.
JAC…what he hell, man? In Exile again……..please let me out or I shall taunt you a second time.
I have no idea. I did notice that it is the first posts of the day that seem to get locked in the meat locker. Yesterday there was you, TRay and Mathius all in there.
Well, at least it gave T Ray and I some time to work on Mathius…..but, it did not take.
Charlie, you asked about social security awhile back. I do not mind sharing. I just got my 1099 from Social Security. My total receipts were 38,379. My Medicare Part B deduction was $6, 939.
I don’t know if this helps you but there it is. So, calculating, 18% of my SS goes to medical and this does not include prescriptions nor the co-pay. Medicare only pays 80% of the “APPROVED” bill.
So, here is how I look at it. The Government takes 18% of my SSN which only covers 80%. Then I pay a supplemental insurance premium to pay for the remaining 20%. This cost is $2,288 per year. I get my meds through the VA and last years cost to me was $800. So, 27.16 percent of my social security went to medical.
Here’s the problem I have with our system, Colonel. 100,000,000 Americans saddled with medical debt. That’s insane. And the way middlemen get to profit from the system (insurance companies) makes it even more criminal.
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/16/americans-medical-debt/
I understand and I get it. I just do not know the answer.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania adopted flat tax systems in 1994 and 1995, making them the first modern countries to adopt flat tax structures. They subsequently experienced unprecedented economic growth, shocking the world as they emerged as “Baltic Tigers” at the turn of the century.
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A flat tax would treat people equally. A wealthy taxpayer with 1,000 times the taxable income of another taxpayer would pay 1,000 times more in taxes. No longer would the tax code penalize success and discriminate against citizens on the basis of income.
——————————————————————————————————
A regressive tax imposes a higher tax burden on those with lower incomes than those at higher incomes. Therefore, it creates a downwards pressure on the number of local income households can save. They are forced into paying a higher percentage of their incomes in tax, thereby leaving less for them to save. Scandinavian countries like Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands, and Sweden follow a regressive tax system.
Abortion:
The abortion issue is a diversion from tackling the real existential problems of our failing nation. SCOTUS got the decision correct; it is a 10th amendment issue best left to the states. Congress should have no say in the issue.
Let me try to frame the debate and draw some conclusions.
We have the absolutists on both ends, zero abortions to abortions on the delivery table. Both are wrong.
We have the euphemism game where the fetus is just a clump of cells rather than a unique human with a unique human DNA structure. Science supports the later.
You have the body snatcher argument where the fetus is an invasive species to the host. But this denies all mammalian reproduction. It is nature and how we reproduce as a species. The fetus is not an alien invader.
You have the uninvited guest argument, but unless rape or force is involved, the invitation was given a priori. So, except in rare cases, the invitation was given with the known possible consequence.
It is argued that abortion should be generally legal because of the possibility of rape or incest. These are rare cases and by all rights the result of illegal activities, hence should be handled separately in the law.
It is argued that banning abortion would interfere with medically necessary procedures to correct problems with the pregnancy. Such procedures often have a separate DSM code and should be separate issues as should all cases where the pregnancy could impact the health or life of the mother. One other exception I would grant is for drug addicted mothers.
The vast majority of abortions are conducted for reasons of economics, to avoid embarrassment, to enhance a career, for personal convenience or because the baby is the wrong sex. All poor reasons to take the life of another human especially a helpless one.
In some states killing a pregnant mother is double homicide. If this is the case, then killing a viable fetus (6+ months) is also homicide. Contradictions like this should not be allowed in the law.
Many states determine the end of legal life as lacking of a detectable heartbeat. This is also a good definition of the beginning of a legal life. Abortion after this period should be only for the noted exceptions of rape, incest, or health of the mother (including hardcore drug addiction).
Mathius, you play the euphemism game often. You also cry about your family’s lost pregnancies. Sorry, but you are not the only one to lose children pre-term. We lost two as well. It is heart wrenching but it is also part of life. I believe you have conceded the late term issue. The majority of the country believes in reasonable exceptions. So, the issue is really between the detection of a heartbeat and viability, about a 4 month window. My preference is to do no harm to either the mother or the baby. What is yours?
Agreed.
I may not like it, but I’ve long argued that this (and Obergefell) are decided incorrectly. The Court decided the outcome they wanted and then invented a right that simply does not exist in the Constitution in order to back into the conclusion they’re seeking.
Alito is still a fuckwad, though.
Agreed.
Note that both positions are vanishingly rare (except as held by the exceptionally stupid and/or panderers).
Agreed.
Mostly.
A fetus is – 100% absolutely incontrovertibly alive, human, unique (except if twins), etc.
I quibble only in that there is a very important distinction between “alive” and “has Personhood.” See again, the notion that you can unplug grandpa when he’s braindead.. the mind is the true “person”… no mind, no Personhood.
A fertilized egg is a Person in exactly the same way my face-tumor is. Just a clump of cells with unique human DNA. That it would, if left to its devices, and allowed to continue consuming resources in open and hostile opposition to its host turn into a person rather than just a bigger and more lethal tumor is a matter for the future… at the present in this question, the two are morally equivalent.
That said, again, to repeat myself, once a brain develops, Personhood attaches and, with it, human rights.
I don’t know what your appeal to nature is arguing here.
Mammal or alien, it’s still a 3rd party attaching itself to a human being and siphoning off resources and making huge permanent biological changes against the person’s will. What does it matter who or what is doing that? The person has the right to defend herself.
I, yet again, reject this notion.
Much as I hate to agree with some of the horrendous people who have made such arguments, I.. unfortunately.. have to agree with them.
I fail to see what about the circumstances that created the pregnancy affect the rights of the fetus. In no conceivable scenario dd the fetus do anything wrong. And it is, in both cases “a unique human being with Personhood and Rights” or in both cases it is not.
If it is wrong to “murder” it in one scenario, then it is wrong in both.
If it is not wrong to “evict” it in one scenario, then it is not wrong in either.
Context: As mentioned to VH above, my wife had two abortions – both non-viable, one of which was ectopic and cost an ovary.
You seem to be arguing here that the woman does have a right to “defend” herself.. but only where self defense meets your standards.
That is, she can “murder the fetus” so long as the fetus poses a serious / life-threatening danger to her life. This, I think, is hardly a contentious position. Pretty much everyone agrees with this.
But when we think of the right to self defense, it seems that most conservatives are of the mindset that “I’ll decide for myself when and how much force is merited in self defense.” They’ll break out stand your ground laws and castle doctrines. The colonel will quarter anyone who looks at his cows wrong.
But when it’s a pregnant woman, the notion that a person has latched onto her biologically, is draining her resources, injecting her with hormones, and causing life-long irreversible changes and months of discomfort.. somehow that doesn’t rise to the left that merits self-defense.
Citation needed.
Even if true, however, (and what the fuck does “personal convenience even mean in this context?), it doesn’t change that it’s their Right to do so.
That Unconscious Violinist might be depending on me, but disconnecting him is still my Right. I might be a colossal asshole for deciding to do so. And you might rightfully call me one and judge me accordingly. But it’s still my body and my blood and I don’t have to give him a drop if I don’t want.
This might be some alternate version of “Lawful but Awful”….. “Rightful but Terrible,” perhaps?
Internationally, this is true – especially in China and India. It is horrific and tragic.
I’ve been constraining my discussion of the topic largely to the US, but for the avoidance of doubt, while my overall position hasn’t change (that is, that it’s their right to do it), I absolutely condemn the decision, the doctors who facilitate it, and the culture that condones and encourages it.
That seems reasonable to me.
Assuming the fetus is mature enough to have had Personhood attack to it, then why would killing it (when not done in self-defense) not be a homicide?
If an intruder dies while you’re kicking him out of your house, that’s not murder. But if you have a houseguest and someone else barges in and stabs them with an ice pick, then yes, that’s murder. And it should be charged as such.
If this is the case, then killing a viable fetus (6+ months) is also homicide. Contradictions like this should not be allowed in the law.
Agreed.
I would be perfectly happy to sign this into law.
Disclaimers:
1. I’d want to add the word “avoidable” before killing. It could be the case that, to save the mother’s life, there is some unavoidable version of events where the fetus dies or has to be prematurely extracted and dies… under the banner of “shit happens,” we should recognize that, well, shit happens, and write the law accordingly.
2. I’d want to write that “6+ months” as just viable. As tech gets better and better, and as every fetus is unique, I wouldn’t want to be wrong on that. In a few years, it might be 5 months or 4. In a few decades, it might be a few weeks and then it’s raised in an artificial womb.
3. Replace “homicide” with “murder in the first degree.” (mens rea requires intent to kill)
4. Add that failure to provide sufficient life-saving care (if medically possible) is, at best, negligent homicide and, at the least, revokes the medical licenses of everyone in the room.
For the avoidance of doubt, I have no objection, again assuming the willful murder of a viable fetus/child, to arresting the (non) mother and sending her to jail as soon as medically feasible.
Many determine it as lacking brain activity, too. The later seems more logical to me.
Abortion after this period should be only for the noted exceptions of rape, incest, or health of the mother (including hardcore drug addiction).
I think you’ve got your thought process in the right vein.. but there’s nothing special about a heartbeat. My rabbits have heartbeats. The stink bugs I am constantly squashing have hearts. What they don’t have is a human mind.
The thing that makes us special as a species, alone amongst all of known creation, is our magnificent minds.
If there is anything that is unique to humanity that would confer upon us rights different to the rest of nature, that’s it.
Consequently, I set MY personal standard on “detectable brain” which, even then, is surely far too early… but better safe than wrong.
I am sorry to hear about your losses.
Please understand that I offer my own losses not to claim some special moral position or to argue from a position of emotional blackmail, but to push back on the notion that people getting abortions are just a bunch of capricious wanton murders who think nothing of killing their “unborn children.”
The point I’m making – other than “I’ve been there” – is that it’s a serious thing, taken seriously, by the vast majority of women who get them. That doesn’t really change any moral or “Rights” aspect of my position. I just feel it’s important to recognize the humanity and lack of evil-intent by “the other side.”
I “concede” nothing.
I AGREE.
I’d have to look at the numbers again, but I believe this is correct. There are still a lot of people in Charlie’s “free-for-all” camp, too.
[note: I say ‘brain’, not ‘heartbeat’… and between them, the brain is actually earlier, around 5 weeks]
[note 2: I actually have complicated feelings about the Right to Evict after viability, too… In brief, I think that if you fail to take action in a ‘reasonable’ amount of time, that’s tacit consent to an agreement to host the fetus to term. To wait until, say, 7 months and then evict might still be “Rightful,” I suppose, maybe, technically, but in the current state of medical technology, it guarantees the ensuing child will be premature and likely to have a host of lifelong medical issues. Taken together, I hold a more restrictive view of the Right to Evict after viability.]
So, to restate my view:
(A) Conception through brain-detection: Lump of cells, zero rights.
(B) Brain-detection through viability: Has Personhood, but still Evictable. Death is tragic and even (situationally dependent) condemnable, but is a consequence of the woman acting within her rights. No criminal aspect.
(C) Viability through birth: Personhood and tacit agreement to womb-tenancy, thus non-Evictable (except for medically necessary / safety / etc). Actions taken to kill the fetus at this point (where medically avoidable) are murder.
Note, however, that this is my personal view. With the exception of the position that willfully killing a viable fetus is murder, I am uncomfortable foisting my beliefs and opinions on others or making them a matter of law.
“Congress should have no say in the issue.”
Men should have no say.
You know, Charlie… I think we can all find some common ground here…
See it shouldn’t be a federal issue – I think we all agree on that.
I mean, the entire POINT of states vs federal is that one size doesn’t fit all, and that different political regions need different rules that suit them.
So could take it to the states. After all, that is the whole point, that one size doesn’t fit all… But why stop there?
We can get a bit more granular, maybe it a local issue. That way, each community can make the choice that’s right for that particular community.
You know what? Now that I think of it, why stop there?
Maybe each block should decide.. I mean, I have neighbors with wildly different politics and one size doesn’t fit all.. so maybe not a block, but each house should make up its own rules.
Come to think of it, even within houses, there are differing politics. Just like neighboring states, you know, it’s not right to take a one size fits all approach here.
I have it! Let’s let each woman make the relevant laws for their own uterus.
There, now, the left is happy, and the right should be happy, too, because no Big Gov’ment is forcing its one-size-fits-all laws down good god-fearing Christians’ throats. Everybody wins!
So I have decided to no long pay taxes. And I will not submit to the evil govt. and get a drivers license or register my vehicles any longer.
I am the Sovereign after all.
We are, certainly, welcome to give that a shot..
Mr. The Colonel,
Question: How much harm (or risk of harm) (to yourself or to property) do you need to be exposed to in order to justify the use of lethal force?
Assume for this question that your only options are (1) do nothing and (2) napalm the other person.
—-
Notes:
(1) The question is not “what would you do” or “what is legal” or “how would you judge someone.” Likewise, the question is not “what would you put up with because you don’t want it on your conscience that you killed someone over a paperclip.” The question is only “when do you have the ‘Right’ to drop the napalm?
(2) For the avoidance of doubt, in this scenario, the other person will die if you napalm them. There is zero chance of survival. You cannot use “just enough napalm to scare them off.” It’s an excessive amount of napalm.
(3) Please do not consider any 3rd parties in this question. Eg, “sending a message to his friends” or “my friends will support me” or “I don’t want to deal with EPA-mandated remediation.” Likewise, you do not care about the cost of napalm or collateral damage or the fumes, etc.
Test
Likewise, the question is not “what would you put up with because you don’t want it on your conscience that you killed someone over a
paperclip.”
Depends…..I might like that paperclip.
==============================
Question: How much harm (or risk of harm) (to yourself or to property) do you need to be exposed to in order to justify the use of lethal force?
It is less about harm already done than it is about the immediate risk of harm. I will answer this in two parts because property was mentioned.
First…using deadly or lethal force is not something that is to be taken lightly. I respond this way because taking life, like in war, carries with it unintended consequence. You never EVER forget. Now, THAT said.
As an individual walking with my spousal unit, I would have to feel threatened to respond with lethal force. Please do not confuse threatening language as being threatened. If someone is in argument with me over (pick the subject) and is a mouthy ass….I let it go. However, if mouthy ass makes a move towards me, I consider that a threat and I will respond with deadly force. I do not subscribe to the theory of using only that force that is necessary to stop the problem. A burglary attempt. for example, in my home will get a lethal response…immediate and swift. I will not retreat nor will I fire a warning shot. You are in my home uninvited, you are dead. If accosted on the street, I do not have a duty to retreat or defuse the issue. I defuse it with a warning shot straight through the head. And, I will admit, I profile.
Property is another thing. If my property is posted properly, and you cross my fence or you cut my fence and you trespass on my property, I have every right and authority in Texas to shoot you on sight. You would have a very hard time convincing me that you did not see the fence when you have wire cutters in your back pocket. I most likely would, as I have done in the past, hold you prisoner with zip cuffs, at gun point, and wait for the Sheriff to come and get you and charge you with trespass. However, If you cross my fence and try to break into my house or steal livestock, do not run away, you will just die tired. I would not hesitate to shoot. So, I guess I am saying, it depends upon the how I am being provoked. We have trouble with poachers because I do not lease our property out to hunters. Our property is known for record setting Boone and Crockett trophy deer. Our fences are properly posted and our boundaries are properly marked with blue paint. ( A painted fence post every 100 yards and that is a lot of fence posts on 30k acres. ) My cowboys will shoot you. Full stop. Last year, we shot 1…..through the knees. It sends a signal. A 30.06 through the knee is attention getting and you live with it the rest of your life. We have also shot down an ultra light flying across the property. He landed, poached a deer, and was trying to get away. He did not make it. A well placed .264 magnum rifle bullet in the engine brought him down rather unceremoniously. After he healed, he spent 3 years in the county jail. So, I guess, again, it depends on the level of threat. The poachers did not draw down on us, so discretion was used. The law says we could have killed…but we did not. I guess that means it would have to be a clear and present danger threat.
The Texas ranchers that are having the problem on the border are not teasing now. They are not running a bluff and I feel for the persons that cross their fence or steal their stock or break into homes and cars. They have had enough. The word is out on the other side of the border that in our area, you will probably die. But, as I told you before, we do not deal with the migrant families very much in my area. We deal with young men, dressed in camos, with back packs full of drugs and they are ALWAYS without hesitation, armed. So we shoot first and ask questions later. We know that they will open fire on us. Migrants looking for work, do not wear camos and move at night. We do not say HALT….we shoot. Del Rio proper deals with the immigrants on a much larger scale. I don’t think we have any ranchers that will gun down a family. I would not like to think that….but they, the ranchers, live day to day with the prospect of being shot themselves.
Did this help any?
So… basically, that boils down to: any threat to physical safety or personal property justifies lethal force.
———-
Scenario A(1)
So, now, to the point (you knew I’d get there eventually). Supposing Charlie shows up at your ranch uninvited, barges in, and makes himself at home. He turns out to be a terrible houseguest or, just, someone you don’t want in your home.
Suppose you find yourself with Charlie living in your house, eating your food, and making a mess of the place…. and refusing to leave. Can you shoot him?
Scenario A(2)
Save, but , supposing you invited him. But, during his stay, something about your situation changes and you can no longer host him. Or he’s just a terrible houseguest and you decide to kick him out.
———-
Scenario B(1)
Supposing there is a major storm outside (in Texas, I gather this means temps below ’60). Charlie will surely freeze to death if you kick him out. Are you obligated to let him stay?
Scenario B(2)
Same as B1, except that Charlie didn’t do anything wrong. A random stranger showed up, kicked in your door, dropped him off (unconscious) and fled. Can you shove him outside to freeze to death in the sub-60 temperature?
———-
Yes, any threat to me…..end of sentence. I am justified if that is my decision. Any threat to properly….stealing it…yes, I am justified. Destroying it, yes, I am justified. Saying your going to destroy it…..I would not do anything until a definable move was made….say, a baseball bat to my windshield.
…………..
Scenario A1…..barging in is where it would stop. Bang. He would not have a chance to be a guest.
Scenario A2…..He becomes a guest when invited. But he wears out his welcome…..I ask him to leave and he doesn’t. I tell him to leave or I call authorities to have him removed for trespassing. If, in the meantime, Charlie makes any threatening move….bang. If he physically tries to keep me from using the phone…bang. Once I made the decision to where he is not invited any longer and refuses to leave, that now becomes trespass.
…………….
Scenario B1…..No, there is no obligation on my part. It then becomes a moral issue for myself. But, there is no legal obligation.
Scenario B2…..assuming the stranger did not die after kicking my door in and Charlie is unconscious from having his head explode from TDS…..could I throw him out? Yes sir. Would I? No, I would bundle his ass in the car and dump him at a hospital or call proper authorities to come pick him up. That is the moral thing to do. But, I am under no obligation to care for him.
……….
On another note, weather (bad weather) occurs in all temps….Texas, for some reason, has a “plethora” of bad weather.
That sounds like you’re pro-choice, then. 🙂
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie … 🙂
For the record, I’d let all of you stay at my joint … just to make fun of yous. Wingnuts are the ultimate in entertainment 🙂
Well, shit, test did not work…………………PAGING JAC…….RELEASE ME>
…
Smells like victory.
You would be surprised at how many people thought that was what Vietnam was really like……
No I wouldn’t.
Because Americans should NEVER know their history … unless whitey is providing it. 🙂
The average warrior saw 40 days of combat during World War II and 240 days during the Vietnam War…………..no wonder my brain is scrambled.
It would be interesting to see a figure for the CW. One of my gg-grandfathers fought at Shiloh and was wounded prior to the Battle of Corinth. He later rejoined his regiment and followed Sherman to Atlanta and beyond. I do not know if he marched in Sherman’s victory parade in DC but it would be interesting to know. He was in the 55th IL Reg. that saved Grant’s left flank at Shiloh.
Just found a note that said the 55th IL did march in the Grand Review in DC. He was discharged in Little Rock, AK in 8/65.
I had a couple of other GGG-uncles at Shiloh.
Col., can you please comment on this:
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/authorization-military-force-against-mexican-cartels-fueling-fentanyl-crisis
We’ve done it before. Seems to me there was this Pershing guy who went looking for ONE solitary Bandito who only killed 16 not 116,000. Under a PROGRESSIVE President no less!
Weird. Why are you so proud of a guy who helped kill native Americans? Oh, right, it’s you, SK. 🙂
I’m just gonna quote my old man when he told me at 15, “Ya know something Kenny? If you actually Knew anything, you’d be dangerous.”
Actually Blackjack, known by that moniker because he commanded Black Troops in the 10th Cavalry (should have been a career ender) is most famous for killing Filipino insurgents and then doing a number on the Boche.
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/john-j-pershing
“General John Joseph “Black Jack” Pershing began his rise through the ranks … against the Apache and Sioux Native Americans in New Mexico, …”
Yep, should’ve listened to your dad.
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/john-j-pershing
I did! You should heed his advice and try and learn something.
While you are at it ask the Colonel about the Comanche. Fine upstanding people they.
Worse than Apaches…….but, as noted, right or wrong, we did push them off their land. However, the Comanches used other tribes as slaves. The Apaches (Mescalero) raided into Comanche territory one time….that was a mistake. The Mescaleros lost 70 percent of their number…….wicked Tribe, the Comanches.
I always ask, off “whose” land, the one they stole?
I believe that there were three main Asian migrations to the VACANT New World during various Ice Ages. In each case, the new arrivals pushed the existing tribes further South until I guess they got near (but not to) Terra del Fuego.
Having grown up watching “the Searchers” as often as TV ran it, the Commanch always fascinated me. When I found out Fehrenbach wrote a book about them I read it. He had written a great one volume history of the Korean War, “This Kind of War” and I knew anything he wrote would be easy to read and enjoy. “Lone Star” is tougher.
Now Chuck is the kind of guy who would watch “The Searchers” and see Wayne’s character Ethan Edwards as a racist. I see him as some kind of Kurosawa avenging Samuri. Edwards repeatedly shows he understands the Indians, admires them but it is their time to exit the stage. We call that “the next phase”. Some might say, the US is undergoing that particular phenomena right now. Hell, how bloody long do you think English will be our language, maybe one more generation?
Yep….Indian lands changed hands a lot. They had slaves as well. Whoever was the toughest….survived.
Great movie, The Searchers.
I am a great movie watcher. The Searchers and Casablanca are tied for # 1. certainly the very best western ever made. Dad took me to see it when I was 10. I walked out of the Uptown Theater knowing it was something very special. made all my kids watch it. Joe got me the soundtrack album a couple of years back. Lorena is haunting. That movie should have been Wayne’s Academy Award. Every time I watch it I get something new. Long about the 8th or 9th time I realized that there was something going on between Ethan and his brothers wife. Leads one to wonder who was Debbie’s Dad?
“I always ask, off “whose” land, the one they stole?”
You’re a lunatic, SK … but I still love ‘ya! 🙂
” the Comanches used other tribes as slaves.”
I wonder who else did that? Bottom line: Their land.
So it is OK, their land? So it’s Ok the Comanch drove out Apache, Navajo and Arapaho? The Comanche “land” was anywhere they rode regardless of who was currently squatting on it. That’s from Montana to Mexico.
Go read the book. As a matter of fact go read several books. What happened was simply what was going to happen, a NEW tribe displaced an older tribe who had displaced a yet older tribe and guess what, the same “means” were used ie: “any means necessary”.
Again, survival of the fittest.
Yes sir, and as usual, the msm dos not write the article properly. Texas and New Mexico have already declared state emergencies invoking war powers because the US government is not enforcing existing laws. This is allowed under the US Constitution. Hence, the Texas National Guard has been mobilized and the funds distributed to be moved to the border. No one wants the Federal Troops to be sent to the border. We can handle it ourselves but in order to get funding, then a bill needs to be passed. Right now, the Biden Administration will not send military assets to the border. We want assets…not troops. We want the border closed so we can deal with the cartels from using immigrants as a diversion. We want the assets such as ground surveillance radar and interdiction tech to help us on the border. But the Biden administration will not release Federal assets such as equipment and technology. We have some of our own but we do not have the quantity needed. That is all we need…at least for Texas and New Mexico because we have an agreement with the New Mexico Democratic Governor to patrol their borders as well. It is much easier in New Mexico because the White Sands Missile range encompasses so much of the southern border. The main corridor in New Mexico runs from El Paso to Las Cruces and one other corridor to Carlsbad.
If we can stop the migrants at the border, then we can deal with the Cartel on our own and they know this. So, some Senators and House folks in Washington want the Feds to be able to give assets to the States to protect their own borders. We do not want nor need Federal Troops just hard assets so we can do the US Governments work for them. It is a war zone down here and will get worse until the border is closed.
All this reference to Pershing is just clap trap..it is in the past. Nothing can change Pershing and the Mexican/American War. Nothing. However, I can see the clear and present danger of the cartels along the border and it is, in my opinion, justifiable to run incursions to wipe out cartel strong holds. We know exactly where they are, who is in them, where a lot of their funding is coming from and we do nothing. Mexico does nothing. So, it is up to the States to do something. We get the brunt of all the crap and everyone else sits back and feels sorry for immigrants and such. This administration, in my opinion, is guilty of murder, rape, drug violations, burglaries and I wish there was something we could do to prosecute because of lack of action. But, every single administration that does not bother to address the situation at the borders is guilty of the same thing. We can stop it..but it takes guts and it takes determination. And we are led by gutless wonders.
JAC, I have an answer to T Ray……..in exile.
Done.. Sorry, but I was building shop cabinets since early this AM. Hard to believe that all day and only one post went to the locker room.
I apologize for my Beloved New York State Buffalo Bills … pretenders as it turns out. I’ve been screaming at them for 5 years to develop a running game and defense … but they are the Joe Bidens of the NFL. “Nothing will fundamentally change.” From here in, I root for the Bengals. Great game going on now. 9-6 at the half. My kind of football.
What was up with the body double Hamlin?
I know refer to my beloved New York State Buffalo Bills as the Buffalo Bidens (see my FB page) … why? Because instead of cleaning house (GM and entire coaching staff) … “Nothing will fundamentally change.”
*now
Yep….Jerry Jones and Cowboys 2.0.
We can accuse Jerry of lots of dumbass moves, but firing head coaches isn’t one of them. 🙂 His problem is him. 🙂
Regarding the Colonel’s comments on “time in combat” Viet-nam vs. WW 2. Being the resident WW 1 scholar, I cannot ever imaging what it must have been like for French, British, and German troops in WW 1. 1914-1918, if you survived.
A whole lot of what is going on in society today, be it religious or political can be traced to the malaise experienced by that “Lost Generation” of the 1920’s. People whose lives were forever broken by their experiences from the Great War be they civilians or soldiers. A certain societal cynicism started then only exacerbated by 1939-45. Reading pre-WW1 literature and biography take TR for example extolling the “manly” virtues seems incredibly naïve and yet it was common. The grandson is working on a TR presentation for 3rd grade and we have been watching biographies on disk. the death at 60 of TR was caused in part by a guy running at 220MPH his whole life but can also be attributed to the death, in combat, of his youngest son, the one as his wife said was “most like him”. Perfectly willing to die himself in “glorious combat” he was broken when he realized that the glorious death was not quite as glorious when two Mauser bullets struck the head of someone he cared about more than himself.
One of the easiest ways to understand the post war malaise is reading Vera Brittian’s book, “Testament of Youth”. Or see the 2015 movie, it’s good. A young woman unusual for her age who attended Oxford and lost her brother, her lover and just about every male friend she had in those trenches. Serving herself as a nurse on the Western Front, she turned into an interwar anti-war activist and called out the lie of “dulce et decorum est”.
Not only trench warfare…..but the chemical warfare as well….I wonder what the average time in combat was for those in the trenches in Ww1. Being shot at by something, mainly artillery, constantly.
Brits were one week in the trenches and two out except when there was a “push” on. 1,600,000 arty rounds fired by the Brits alone on the 1st day of the Somme 1 July 1916. 19,900 dead, that is DEAD Brits on that day, another 60,000 WIA. Then again Gallipoli was full time for nine or so months. Ditto with the Iraq campaign which almost no one came back from.
Calling all racists! Calling all racists! The GOP now has a racist candidate to replace the older Orange one.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/23/desantis-banning-african-american-studies-00079027?fbclid=IwAR3L32v0SzN889T7sqw2_iUevlhhe7V7-iiAZjzQhgofM4JOV4ORi0dOpg0
LIAR
BLIND PARTISANSHIP.
Me or Charlie?
‘Cause accusing the ref of bias is liable to get you a red card.. (See: Exhibit A and Exhibit B)
JAC,
I don’t actually care too-too much about this issue, but
(A) it seems to me that this is not something the governor should be doing and
(B) he is only doing it for political grandstanding anti-woke cred and
(C) other regional / ethnic studies are permitted (eg middle easter / asian) and
(D) accusations of racism are unsupported
(E) The Biden administration should butt the hell out instead of trying to make hay out of a state issue
(F) Any politician who vetos / bans / etc something on an argument that “it didn’t meet the standards,” etc, should be legally mandated to disclose what, exactly, about it failed to meet standards and what, exactly, those standards are. Texas banned some textbooks (including math textbooks) a while back claiming CRT but never disclosed what was offensive about them, too. This should be a flogging offense.
“(D) accusations of racism are unsupported”
Only if you don’t want to see them.
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie… my nominal and erratic ally…..
I see an effort to pander to the base by allegedly fighting “𝔀𝓸𝓴𝓮𝓷𝓮𝓼𝓼.”
I have no evidence that – in banning this course – he has any motive other than appearing to be anti-𝔀𝓸𝓴𝓮.
Anti-𝔀𝓸𝓴𝓮, as you know, is a completely meaningless position of simply tilting at imaginary windmills.
To be seen in action fighting against 𝔀𝓸𝓴𝓮𝓷𝓮𝓼𝓼, he must actually, you know, occasionally do something. What that is is wholly irrelevant and immaterial. He just has to pick [thing], accuse it of being 𝔀𝓸𝓴𝓮 or 𝓒𝓡𝓣, and then position himself as the hero of his base, valiantly opposing [thing].
The only important factor in choosing the target of his anti-𝔀𝓸𝓴𝓮 crusade de jure is to ensure that he doesn’t alienate his base. Best to choose a tiny minority (eg trans) or demographic that is already aligned with the left (eg. African Americans). It’s “win” with his base vs “nothing to lose” with his enemies.
He isn’t racist because he doesn’t actually care about race. If black people voted for him, he’d be bending over backward to include African America Studies. No, the problem is that he’s a nihilistic fuckwad who is happy to USE racial / discriminatory / race-bating tactics as cudgels to further his own political ends.
I’m wondering why all the secrecy about the curriculum? Post it so that people actually know what they’re arguing about. They’re playing it to a pilot group now, who, also, is secret. Why?
Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will:
https://www.theflstandard.com/content/files/2023/01/AP-African-American-Studies-Coursework.pdf (Framwork is on p.12 – 27)
I skimmed, but nothing really popped out… it’s just a lot of, you know, history.
Feel free to read it all and tell me what’s so offensive that it merits the governor personally getting involved to ban it for being too 𝔀𝓸𝓴𝓮.
I agree, the framework looks harmless enough. Supposedly, the beef stems from the writings of authors from whom the rest of the course is outlined. Authors well written in Marxist and Black Liberation Theology. An example would be the founder of the Black Panther Party. The words fundamental transformation of America were also used when used in describing one of the authors. I don’t think we need to beat that dead horse any more.
So, as this course dances with and around the edges of CRT, it goes against DeSantis order of nixing teaching CRT based curriculum. Its been suggested to revise the curriculum and it could be reviewed again.
I’m wondering why this has to be a high school or college course. American History encompasses African American history, so I don’t see a need for it This could just as well be designed as a conversation at the community center or your local democratic club.
Some would argue that the fact that you don’t see the need is exactly why the need is so great.
This is a huge swath of overlooked relevant history. I don’t know about half the stuff they’re talking about in here and, honestly, only have a passing familiarity with most of the rest. There are only a few sections where I consider myself even “somewhat” reasonably informed.
This sure as hell wasn’t taught when I was a kid. The extent of that education was basically limited to the slave trade, underground railroad, civil war (which 99% about slavery, not ‘states’ rights’), Lincoln, and Civil Rights (no mention of Malcolm X, etc). MLK was after a color-blind society, nothing radical, and certainly no mention of his socialism, or that he was a divisive figure.
Sure, I’ve educated myself since then, but not nearly to the level I should have. Yet, somehow, I got out of school knowing orders of magnitude more about white and European history. We learned about European royalty, the Revolutionary War, WWI and WWII (overwhelmingly from the European perspective, with the Asian theater as barely a footnote). We learned all about the Founding Fathers (though not that they owned slaves), the French Revolution, and so forth. We read Shakespeare and Whitman and Longfellow and Frost.. but no Angelou.
And I had a pretty robust education. Truly an excellent, world-class (very, very expensive) education on virtually every front except ones that abut 𝔀𝓸𝓴𝓮𝓷𝓮𝓼𝓼 and black-history. I consider this a glaring hole and would be pleased to find that students at least have the option of filling in the missing piece.
~14% of the country is African American. It seems perfectly reasonable to offer a course – just one stinkin’ course – high school or college – that explores their history so that students don’t come out as ignorant as I was/am.
Anita,
I don’t think it’s reasonable for a governor to ban curricula without justifying why in clear detail.
I don’t think it’s reasonable for us to be sitting here and wondering what the actual offensive material is. “Supposedly” is just another way of saying “we guess.”
He should have to say: “In [Item #], the material directs students to read [work] which includes [specific material] that is inappropriate for high school students because [specific reason].”
Just throwing crap at the wall and screaming 𝓦𝓞𝓚𝓔 at the top of your lungs isn’t a justification. I think everyone (who is reasonable) can see the importance of the subject matter and its relevance to modern American life. At least as important as it was for me to learn about Mary Queen of Scots. So I don’t think, really, anyone is making an objection that “African American Studies” shouldn’t be taught (at least as an AP elective)… it’s just about HOW it’s taught and what, specifically, it is exposing children to.
Just saying “no, it’s 𝓦𝓞𝓚𝓔” isn’t conducive to fixing the problem and getting this education into schools (in an acceptable manner) – it’s just grandstanding and obstructionism.
Matthius, Matthius, Matthius … my caught in the SUFA abortion of rational thought nonsense … “No, the problem is that he’s a nihilistic fuckwad who is happy to USE racial / discriminatory / race-bating tactics as cudgels to further his own political ends.” … Yes, and to ignore the race baiting on this is to do the same with Trump and every other GOP candidate who KNOWS that their base is petrified of another fuckwad, Tucker Carlson’s, “replacement theory” … it is a direct appeal to a white population that is equally petrified of losing their grip on the levers of power. If he’s happy to USE “racial / discriminatory / race-bating tactics as cudgels to further his own political ends” … then he is, in fact, calling all racists. What other possible reason would they be so petrified? It’s more than obvious that when the GOP embraces an African-American (like Herschel Walker, et al) it is because they’re just white enough (Uncle Toms) to accept in “their wonderful world of Disney” … so, yes, he’s calling to the darker angels of his base’s fears for his own political gains. He’s probably decent enough to the Mexicans or Blacks who groom his hedges, I’m “almost” sure …
I left out “comrade” … and the Dems are no better.
Charlie, comrade, please address the following:
Do you agree or disagree?
————
If I walked up to DeSantis and offered him a hundred dollars to stab a hundred hobos, he would gleefully accept, and then go out and stab the hobos.
You and I would look at this and call him all kinds of duly-deserved names.
However, if it turns out that the hobos he found and stabbed are black instead of white, would we be correct in adding a racism charge?
————
I think, if a man will gleefully victimize anyone for his own benefit, then looking at his choice of victim as racially-motivated rather than opportunistic is projective.
No, because there aren’t enough blacks in Florida who vote to offset the white vote. That PLUS he’s looking to the national state now and there are far more whites to blow than blacks. The amazing thing about all politicians, to my mind, is how easily they adjust to the sizes of the cocks they’ll suck (the GOP likely takes bigger issue with muff diving (at least to their wives) … but the overall issue is they are directly appealing to their white base, which they prefer fears their “replacement” … like I said earlier, and it likely applies to some (or many) in here, they only blacks they can co-exist with are those willing to be the house blacks (see Malcom X for the rest of the definition).
this “(C) other regional / ethnic studies are permitted (eg middle easter / asian) and” contradicts (D) … come on, man!
If those were brought up today, I’m sure he’d ban them as well.
—————-
I just spent some time digging through the approved AP courses in Florida. The closest I see to anything that might be labeled “𝔀𝓸𝓴𝓮 ” is US History which touches on Manifest Destiny, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights movement.
(If this is anything like when I took AP US History, it’s a memorization of “this thing happened” far more than any kind of exploration of the deeper meanings and lasting consequences of these events.)
I don’t see anything else that comes close enough to “𝔀𝓸𝓴𝓮 ” that it could plausibly be trigger the right’s allergic reaction to 𝔀𝓸𝓴𝓮𝓷𝓮𝓼𝓼 and get banned. (though, of course, they have absolutely no problem with just making shit up, so this isn’t a guarantee of any kind).
AP Psych does have one sub-unit on Gender and Sexual Orientation. But even there, that’s constrained to “Describe how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development.” That is extraordinarily innocuous. Seems almost purpose-written to avoid triggering the anti-𝔀𝓸𝓴𝓮 snowflakes.
I took a look at those other cultural APs and they have a lot of language, art, and so forth. But, for example, the Spanish one doesn’t mention the Inquisition. The German and Japanese ones don’t mention WWII (this is, covered in World History: Modern).
So, in essence, I have to withdraw Item (C). There are other regional / ethnic studies, but these are not analogous to African American Studies.
—————
DeSantis is still as ass-hat, however.
You need to read more…..it is pretty much banned in Texas but through the school districts and not the governor….
teaching facts is perfectly fine. Where everything gets off track is “teaching” that all whites are bigots, teaching that white supremacy exists in mathematics, reading, spelling, testing, and employment, when you teach that whites are responsible for slavery and that only white REPUBLICANS owned slaves……and that there is a definitive white supremacy designed to keep all blacks in “chains” even today……is when you get people fighting back.
Just the fact that Charlie’s use of a racist term, “Uncle Tom” when describing black Republicans makes him more racist than DeSantis, actually and it really defeats the purpose of racist arguments. I read the passages of what DeSantis was against and it is exactly the same thing I mentioned……he has no problem with black history and facts but you do not get to rewrite history to your liking. I have seen the books that say the KKK were all white Republicans…of the South. Nothing is further from the truth. I have read the rewriting of the books depicting “whites” as slave holders….none of them depicting that the largest slave owners were blacks in the northern states….the origin of black African slavery in the 14th and 15th century of blacks selling blacks to slave traders of the English and Dutch are suspiciously absent. The books that I have seen has rewritten a lot of history under the disguise that whites wrote the history, and therefore, perpetuates white supremacy…….
No sir, most of this falls on deaf ears. I challenge anyone to prove that the right, or conservatives, support racism. We do not. Now, you know, I am not far right. I grew up in Texas, born in 1948…..saw some racism….saw white and black diners and drinking fountains, saw the riding in the back of the bus, saw blacks giving way to whites…..a bad time in history. But it does not exist today and not one of you can say it does. There are no separate Dr king fountains, standing in the back….etc. as a matter of fact, allowing reverse discrimination makes one no less a racist, does it not. Reparations and amending rules to favor any race, is discrimination is it not. Want to teach culture, no problem but teach culture and not rewrite it to fit a scenario. Portraying and teaching victim hood is wrong.
You are the ass hat. De Santis has his head on straight.
Don’t make me give you another yellow card.
Your Yellow Card is another Lie in and unto itself. Worse, it encourages the Liar to keep up his BS. You are enabling and cheering on the very garbage you complain about.
Yellow Card!
You have been banned from SUFA for 5 minutes. Please report to the penalty box.
Misdirection and misinformation!
Sure it is. The FACTS sure do upset you loons. 🙂
SUFA friends….I’ve been laying low now for several months. I’d been having to make choices as to my living accommodations. The owners of the house I’ve rented for years have decided to sell. They’re capitalizing on the exploding real estate market here. Even if they decided to keep renting to me, the rents could legitimately increase $500-$1000 per month. A mortgage was less expensive but then I’d own any problems, not them. At 70 a mortgage is the last thing I wanted to get into. Rents here are really expensive unless you move into really nasty places.
I started looking further afield into areas I used to live. Prices there had increased 2-3 times in the last year and a half. Winters are not to my liking and at heating costs today theyd push living costs into regions I dont want to be any way near. So as time went by and I was eliminating options, I asked my old Sicilian girlfriend if she’d ever consider moving back to Sicily. Not with me, she’s happily married. She started sending me real estate ads. If I chose the buying route, housing for the most part was significantly cheaper for the average human being. I started looking at rentals. I could get a stand alone villa really modern designs, fully furnished. That’s everything. Linen, silverware, furniture, overlooking the Mediterranean €600/month. Just step back into village above the big city lights and prices dropped off a cliff. Even in the city where everything is at your fingertips was better than here.
I had decided to emigrate. I’d spend two years in a province and explore it in detail
Move to another province and do that one, repeat.
I was relating my decision to a lady friend of mine, and she offered her sailboat to me. It’s a bluewater capable sailboat. So in one week, I’ll be moving it to a new full service modern marina. Still within New Bern. So all my banking, medical, friends, favorite restaurants stay as is. By March 1st I’ll move aboard. My immediate monthly living costs drop from $1400 on average to $325. By fall I’ll be banking $2000 per month.
The deal we worked out is that she still can go sailing with me, she wanted to keep learning the mechanics of a boat. And in around 2 years I’ll offer her the boat back if she wants it. I can go anywhere with it. Even cross the Atlantic, if I so dared. But for now I’ll limit myself to here and the east coast northward. A friend of hers was telling us the other day that he and his wife cruised to Newfoundland last summer. One of the most beautiful sceneries. Fiords etc.
In two or so years I’ll move onto a bigger boat and more than likely still move to Sicily for the remainder of my years.
I’ve had it until I can choke on the sheer divisiveness in this country. Literally for all the reasons listed in JAC’s article and in reading the link posted along with it.
I have an old family friend who as a youngster escaped from Austria just before Hitler moved in. The trouble is, she and her family had no problem with Hitler’s agenda except one. That is the extermination of jews. They were jewish. The other night she tried convincing me that Biden is the cats whisker and a fine decent man. Forgetting he’s never told the truth. They are totally anti corporation except their business was a corporation. They owned an apartment building in Brooklyn the city almost condemned. This is where her husbands mother lived. She started railing against the Koch’s as a evil Republican corporate donors, while ignoring they (one now dead) are way down the list of political donors. Never thought a fig about Zuckerberg, Dorsey, Bloomberg, Bezos, Soros, Streyer, that FTX guy just to name a few all big time corporate weinies donating obscene millions to Democrats all more than the Koch’s dreamed of. She obviously has no problem with the suppression of free speech especially speech she disagrees with. The clear violation of the constitution by Twitter and FB and Google being unveiled by Musk on Twitter.
So I’ll be around reorganizing.
Dale thanks for the update. Very nice to hear from you again. Keep trucking.
You have an exciting and adventurous game plan ahead. Pretty cool. Since I have zero interest in traveling abroad, my escape is going to have to come from just ignoring things, walk away from most things politics, and just live life as it comes. My goal of roadtripping through retirement is looking grim between electric vehicles, inflation and 15 minute cities. At this rate, I may as well settle into a hollar in Tenn and cruise around on an electric bike, until that becomes an electric trike. Happy trails, Dale and I hope you will continue to check in with tales from your adventures.
I’ve been involved with boats in one way or another since 1964. Ranging from military frigates and destroyers, square riggers, crew on an 134 foot 1898 sailboat. Restoration of the oldest iron sailing ship still able to go out. Delivered boats in the early 80’s.
I have no common ground with the neighborhood I live in. All young families with young kids. Where in the marina everyone older and of common interest. I met the elderly gentleman in the neighboring slip yesterday. He’s a long distance sailor and hasnt let losing one leg stop him.
After throughly going over all the systems and buying a few items that are important here, like an awning that extends from the mast all the way to the stern. Enables you to enjoy being in the cockpit while its pouring rain or the sun beating you to death. I’ll make rearranging cooking a priority. Less space. I’ll probably make it up into the Chesapeake this summer.
Yesterday old habits of testing your brakes long before you actually need to stop, so an escape is possible if they fail. Friday I drove to Raleigh no problems. Yesterday AM drove through New Bern no problems during rush hour heading to a doctors appointment in Greenville. Now rush hour is really going. The first red light I tested the brakes and the pedal went to the floor. Luckily I religiously keep the prescribed safe distances. That gave me just enough time to avoid rear ending the car ahead. Got into a BP quick stop, asked the manager if he knew a close mechanic who could make the repairs immediately. There was one right around the corner. The put me ahead and I was back on the road in two hours.
If that happened in Raleigh all those plans I had made would have been TOAST.
Sounds like a nice change, a new adventure. Hope you love it!
To further elaborate I decided “Stuff” was controlling me.
I’ve had opportunities to move into the freedom of sailing the oceans before. Usually what happens is people, friends, family give you so much grief about doing that lifestyle. Its dangerous, something could happen etc etc. My usual answer was I could die in front of the TV. I could get killed going to the store by someone running at high speed through red lights, or like yesterday…that fickle finger of fate can strike at anytime. I’d much rather exit this world enjoying the great outdoors and traveling to new destinations at the same time. Like a snail, I’m taking my home with me.
From the boxes in the garage next to the Vette?
Yea… same box I found this in:
While you were out walking your Canine? That’s a long walk.
Interesting thought the other day, The West, particularly Britain brought down China with the “Opium Wars” numbing generations of Chinese into submission. One asks, regarding fentanyl, did the Chinese learn something from it?
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Opium-Wars
Everything is a conspiracy with you, SK. Consider joining your friend Dale before the Chinese get you. 🙂
Are you incapable of addition too? 2 + 2 always equal four. By the way did you read about the Opium wars? did you bother to dig deeper? Certainly if our British friends were able to come up with the idea, successfully implement it, stands to reason others would/could follow. Not to mention the “payback is a bitch” point of view.
Coincidentally, I watched a news piece on the fentanyl epidemic on NBC the other night. Since we are bombarded with stories of people accidentally overdosing and yet are told there are literally thousands of pounds coming over the border when a few micrograms would kill ,makes no sense.. So, you constantly are bombarded with DEA stats telling you that they confiscated enough to kill every man, woman and child on the West coast or East coast or the whole country!
Now, that certainly does confuse. but, the newsclip went on to point out that hard core junkies are now switching to fentanyl, exclusively. I suspect they have built up a tolerance. The piece went on further to explain it produces a super high at a dirt cheap price. In fact it is driving heroin off the market. So, dirt cheap plus smaller quantities with a bigger bang equals more usage.
“Now, that certainly does confuse. but, the newsclip went on to point out that hard core junkies are now switching to fentanyl, exclusively. I suspect they have built up a tolerance. The piece went on further to explain it produces a super high at a dirt cheap price. In fact it is driving heroin off the market. So, dirt cheap plus smaller quantities with a bigger bang equals more usage.”
Isn’t the free market great! 🙂
Sometimes I have a hard time not calling you an ——-!
🙂 you know you love me, SK.
Its been an interesting week or so following the Stephen Crowder vs Daily Wire story unfolding. The first I heard about it was from Crowder. It just popped up in my YouTube feed. His point was BigCon is not friendly when they follow the orders of BigTech, who they are supposedly in business to fight against. Everyone piled on Crowder – from Daily wire execs, who Crowder never originally named, to Candace Owens’ rant on Tim Pool’s podcast, to other conservative bloggers, ending back up with Crowder on TimCast last night. At this point, I’m team Crowder, surprising even myself because while I’ve seen many of his Change my Mind on the street debates, I’d never had the patience to follow him more closely. He’s standing with his principle point about about BigCon being the controlled opposition of BigTech.
I’m disappointed in Candace Owens who I have followed a little more closely than Crowder and have pretty much agreed with her until now. I have noticed her being more aggressive in her arguments lately and also that she has been attacking people instead of arguing positions or topics. Watching her the other night suddenly realizing in real time that she probably signed a bad deal with DailyWire herself…it was just something to watch happen. All the while she was mean spirited and basically called Crowder a little bitch on the air.
Then I saw another video where a conservative comedienne named Nicole Abour told her story of Candace harassing her for quite some time while she, Candace, also exposed the names of several people who have been publicly stalking and harassing her for over four years. This has become a pattern for Candace. Not cool, especially since one of her beefs with Crowder is that he recorded a phone call with his “friend ” from Daily Wire about the contract negotiations, calling that a bitch move, when Candace did basically the same thing to Nicole Arbour, by proxy, through her show’s producers. As Nicole describes it, as she was on Candace’ show, the producer was filming Nicole at the show and used that film (cell phone video) as black mail to send to Nicole’s stalkers to show where she was in real time. If she didn’t tow the line and allow Candace her on air rant, they would shoot the video to the stalkers.. Talk about bitch moves!
i dunno man. it seems like even conservatives are sellouts these days. Its exhausting and depressing. Side note: Noticing many many more podcasts popping up on Rumble vs YouTube now. Maybe we are starting to dent the armor of Big Tech somewhat.
Anita
Good morning my dear. Many parasites attached themselves to the Tea Party movement. Some were easy to identify but others not so much. They figured out how to say the right things that would gain them attention and fortune.
It sometimes takes a little time for them to expose their true nature. Meanwhile, they cause great damage as it makes us more cynical and untrusting of our fellow travelers.
Yup. Like him or not, Alex Jones has been preaching for years that there is a war for our minds. Where’s GMan for the AMEN?!
Anita, my love … Alex Jones? Good grief.
Relax, my man. Just gave him credit for coining the phrase.
Whew! 🙂
JAC…….in exile again.
Where ye belong, varmit!
The walls are closing in … any day now … any day (sarcasm intended) … but if they do charge him under RICO, yours truly insisted they do so 2 years ago.
Lol……if they get him in RICO……then you need to lock up the entire Senate, House, and every hedge fund manager out there.
Don’t threaten me with a good time.
Not to worry, it’s spectacle, exhibitionism, democratic propaganda. 🙂
Colonel, we agree! 🙂
Exactly as this truck is about to run into a bollard.
Well Old Joe has caved and new production Abrams tanks are being shipped to Ukraine for Russian target practice.
From a 1990 report on the Abrams.
“Again, while the M1 has very advanced armor protection, and a low profile, so do other modern tanks. The M1 is unique, however, in suffering from an enormous heat signature. The heat signature (ability of the tank to be seen with infrared devices) of the M1 comes from the hot exhaust of its turbine engine. While the Soviets have reduced their tanks’ thermal signature by roughly 24% in recent models8, we have increased our heat signatures dramatically by adopting the turbine engine for the M1. The M1’s exhaust is so hot that it can burn the paint off a car should it follow the tank too closely. The operator’s manual repeatedly warns that the exhaust if “very hot and can burn personnel.”9 This means that the M1 is not only easily spotted, but is also positively identifiable at extremely long ranges with infared equipment – being the only tank in the world with such a heat signature.”
So, as long as you have total air superiority you’re fine.
So, I wonder how many of these problems have been fixed in the past 30 years. Comments Colonel?
https://www.pogo.org/report/1990/01/armys-m1-tank-has-it-lived-up-to-expectations
I commanded a battalion of M1 in Desert Storm…..great tank and out shot and outran the Russian made T72 and T82…..of course we had air superiority. We feared nothing from above except friendly fire but that was reduced by IFF.
I was then a Brigade Commander stateside and the heat signature on the M1 was reduced by 40 percent. I do not know right now but will inquire.
I commanded a battalion of M1 in Desert Storm
Yea, but I bet you never caught a shell with your bare hands and threw it back at the enemy!
No…..no sir……we engaged Russian tanks at 2000 meters….the Russian tanks fell 500 meters short….we never had a chance to catch them.
I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means. Could you translate it to Freedom Units?
Lol…..I could but you already know the Imperial measurements.
SK, nobody cares about the soldiers in this fiasco. Neither do they care about the Ukrainian people. This is pure capitalism for the Military Industrial Complex. We’ll just keep selling more and more to a country that will have no way of paying us back and the mess it creates in the meantime means nothing to those making the decisions.
Yes and no. I agree with you on the war profiteers. They always make out well. The politicians however are in it for the power it gives them over peoples lives. Their people or our people it is no matter to them. If you read “the Rifle” about the AK-47 and its derivatives you will see your Commie brothers did the same thing.
We are fielding a new rifle and squad machine gun to replace the M-16/M-4 line. See, for the last war, Afghanistan and Iraq, we needed a longer range rifle. So now we will replace our shorter range, for close in jungle and woodland fighting weapons. We will then send them all to the crusher. Then when we have the bigger heavier weapons, we will find ourselves embroiled in jungles and woodlands again so a whole new design will be needed. Everybody, except people like us will instantly forget we had the old ones which worked fine.
Rather than pull out the older Abrams that we have in desert storage, we will provide Ukraine with brand new, off the assembly line models for the Russians to take out.
Funny as hell. Putin announced today that he is buying up what we left in Afghanistan to use in the Ukraine fight! Probably pay a dime on the dollar. Too bad Biden didn’t think of buying it back isn’t it?
Yes….our old M1A1s are still much better than the new Soviet T 82a…….
Test
Just saw some pictures of down town Chicago with 25% of the store fronts on the “miracle mile” are now vacant and the base stores are not renewing their leases. It is estimated that 50% of the retail stores in downtown will be vacant by December. With the non prosecution of thieves under 1,000 bucks, it will not stop. So, here is my question……when there is nothing left to steal down town, I guess the suburbs are next. There was an interview with the President of CVS pharmacy, he said it is not worth it…as the leases run out, so do we.
And nothing but crickets from Mayor Lightfoot nor Biden.
Mainstreet is dying. Has been for years. The internet killed it.
Blame Biden all you want, but the trend is inevitable.
Not blaming Biden…..just that nothing has been said about the non prosecution of shop lifters. The store owners are not blaming the internet…they are blaming shoplifters. The police can do nothing….and shop lifters are brazen enough to bring calculators into the stores adding up their booty keeping it under 1000 bucks and walking out. Unless you shoot them on the spot, it will not stop. Not the internet…..it is theft.
Fun Fact #1: https://tcworkerscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Wage-Theft-vs-Other-Theft-1024×730.jpg
Fun Fact #2: Target operates one of the highest-tech crime labs on the planet. They keep tabs on shoplifters and have been known to cross-match shoplifters from multiple stores, (allegedly) waiting until they reach felony levels before pressing charges.
Footage of one of those brazen shoplifters…
I guess that the problem with the middle class is information overload. So deluged with information via their hand held devices, they cannot see the forest for the trees. Last month we had two major smash and grabs in Paramus NJ at the Ski Barn shop. The hooligans drove into the parking lot, had scoped out the store before, and then grabbed all the $ 1,000 plus skiwear off the racks and took off. The second time they were caught. Must have used a different driver who left them in the lurch. I understand it was funny as hell to see the three running up Route 17 north with armfuls of ski jackets before the cops caught up.
ALL the bad stuff you see in the cities and on the border is coming, sooner rather than later, to your nice suburban neighborhood. Saw a piece in the “Rifleman” quoting a Chicago official that ALL the shootings can more or less be traced back to 200 key individuals.
Like focusing on shoplifting instead of wage theft and the overall societal factors leading to people being so desperate that they turn to shoplifting?
[PAGING CHARLIE]
Question……for Sir Mathius……does the number of fentanyl deaths bother you? Are you still of the opinion that if you legalize all drugs that it will stop?
Deaths always bother me.
I am also bothered by suicides, cop shootings, school shootings, wars, “police actions,” drone-based-assassinations, polonium poisonings, car crashes, and anti-vax winners of the Herman Cain Award.
My policy is – and always has been – that a person owns their own body and has a right to do with it what they will.
I may not like it. I may want them to stop.
But it is not my place, nor my right, to use the power of government to stop them unless or until their actions violate the rights of non-participatory third parties.
If you want to drive drunk on your land, go for it. I wish you wouldn’t, but it’s your life and your choice to make. But when you do it on a public road where you can hurt someone else, THEN the state gets a say.
So, in brief: Yes I’m bothered, no I don’t have a right to stop them.
(for clarification, I am undecided on legalizing all drugs. I am in favor of decriminalizing all (non-violent) drug use / possession. I am also undecided wtih regards to legalizing/decriminalizing drug selling/production, though things like ‘selling to minors’ or anything violent would of course remain illegal)
Anyway…
Stop, no.
Decrease, yes.*
* but this is also reliant on an overhaul of the way we treat drug addiction in this country. Just
legalizingdecriminalizing isn’t enough – we need more affordable drug addiction treatment services, more mental health treatments, etc. See, for example, Norway.The Recreational Marijuana dispensaries have already failed because they are too expensive as will be any “legal” regulated drug sites.
Drug legalization is one of those libertarian things I have struggled with for 55 years or so. While I often think that we should just allow all the addicts to overdose and be rid of them, this will not stop the continuing problem as new potential addicts come along.
I love it when the almighty rulers dictate that IT WILL BE ILLEGAL TO SELL TO KIDS! OK, just how will you stop that? What’s kids, 18 or 21 or 27? These are the potential new customers and as they can find booze and tobacco they can damn well find any drug they want to and there will be someone willing to sell it to them. .
With the de-criminalization of possession, illegal smoke shops are opening up all over New York. The penalty, if caught, a fine. Big deal!
Taking the “Opium War” analogy a step further, Let us assume for a moment that the Chinese intellegencia is well educated and has a solid historical foundation. Certainly they know how that British Policy destroyed the remnants of Imperial China, correct? Then, I ask, is their current domestic policy on drug use sale and possession not based on a very real understanding of what unrestricted use can lead to rather than some antiquated “moral” notion?
Riddle me that one grasshopper.
I mean.. they clearly aren’t failed.. they’re everywhere where they’re legal.
But setting that aside, even if we accept your assertion, the problem is that they’re taxed to the point of failure. It’s hard to see the logic in “[thing] ws taxed until it failed, therefore we know [thing] cannot work.”
It’s a tough subject.
What I’ll say is that, while kids can still get cigarettes, no convenience store clerk is going to sell to a minor. The flow is a trickle by comparison.. you need to know a kid who had an arangement with an 18 y/o, and even then, you’d get bilked on pricing. (I know this, because I used to sell cigarettes to other kids when I was ~15 and made a boatload).
But the same is true of alcohol.. there are no street corner peddlers going “psst.. hey kid.. wanna buy some White Claw?”
Basically, legalization means that legitimate stores can sell it. And if they can, they will (generally, by-and-large) follow the rules and restrictions against selling to minors.
18, probably? I wouldn’t scream about it being 21.
Meanwhile, in Australia and New Zealand, one just made cigarettes illegal for anyone born after a certain date (so new buyers will never enter the legal market) and the other put in place a full-ban for mid-decade. No idea if either of these will work or be counterproductive… my money would be them working for a while until a black market establishes itself and things get worse.. but what do I know? (see also: Prohibition)
Doesn’t Govt have the authority over product safety in your world?
Indeed it does.
I have no objection to clear labeling, purity standards, yada yada yada.
But, just like I think you should be able to eat Kinder Eggs regardless of the choking hazard, and just like I think you should be allowed to eat that double-bacon-bbq-cheeseburger despite the risk of heart attack, and just like yada yada yada.
The buyer should be made well aware of what they are buying, what the risks are, etc. They have a right to know, when they buy [thing], that [thing] is what they are getting.
And, yes, the government does put its thumb on the scale by putting things behind the counter or adding big warning labels, etc. And they also do things like prohibit visibly drunk people from buying alcohol.
But at the end of the day – if I want to poison myself, it’s MY body and I should be able to make the informed decision to do so.
I should be able to buy Fentanyl. Maybe behind the counter, probably labeled with a skull and crossbones and a dozen warnings from the surgeon general… but when I do buy it, it should be Fentanyl, not cut with heroine or whatever, and it should be a consistent quality etc. So that I, the consumer, can make an informed choice for what to do with MY body.
How many drug deaths, do you imagine, occur because drugs are cut with other stuff and there’s no transparency on how strong/pure any given drug is.. etc. How many people think “well I needed X amount last time” only to find that, this time, X is an overdose-dosage?
And when your “right” to destroy your life with drugs becomes a welfare demand on the State, then who has to pay for your “right”?
If you saw what I wrote above about Fentanyl and what I have seen on TV with the walking Zombies in the cities, this is one very different drug. We are getting a lot of hype over it but I fear very few facts as to its capabilities vs. Heroin. The stuff that is filtering through the media coverage seems to indicate that beside price (cheap) and potency (strong) it is becoming the drug of choice. That would lead me to believe that contrary to the claptrap the media and government is hyping, the dosage can be controlled by the addicted not to kill but to give a much greater “high” much cheaper. Next question, how addictive is it vs. heroin or morphine? .
I was not kidding above when I likened it to the Opium Wars the British used to destroy China in the 19th Century. Asians have a very long memory and while it was not the US that led the way we helped in our own way in the dismantlement of Imperial China.
I had some fentanyl after my surgery… good stuff… But I preferred Morphine, personally.. now that stuff was niiiicccccceeeeee..
—————
Anyway.. I’m certainly not an expert on the subject, but I can offer you the following thoughts:
(1) China got rid of opium by summarily executing everyone even tangentially involved. Short of those kinds of draconian measures, there is no way to stop a free market demand for drugs.
(2) Criminalizing drug use has not worked, will never work. If it were going to work, it would have worked by now. Not only is it cost-ineffective for society, but it destroys the user’s long-term earning potential, making them dramatically more likely to turn to crime and drugs in the future.
(3) A huge amount of the current epidemics stem from opioid addiction and self-medication. Maybe, if something relatively harmless like pot was more available, fewer people would fall down the slippery slope of harder drugs..? Just a thought…
In short: the current method seems to be “put out the fire with gasoline.” Maybe it’s time we tried something else?
First of all, from what I have read, it is not as harmless as it once was. Scientific farming apparently works with THC too.
One has to deal with the addictive personality which I honestly believe is in most if not all of us. With some, it is collecting stamps and coins even to the detriment of financial security, others porn, others booze, others gambling, others drugs.
The folks who would be headed in the drug direction would certainly have MJ as a jumping off point. Some could hold there but most? I wonder.
My 1980’s legalization fantasy was a wheelbarrow full of cocaine brought to every streetcorner in the City every morning with free straws. Then a sanitation crew every night to remove the bodies. Remember that 1960’s university experiment with cocaine, food and monkeys?
You, I think MISS my point, I hope not deliberately on the Chinese. Their draconian measures are based on EXPERIENCE. The Saudi’s may well cut off your head for dealing drugs but that is based on a moral/religious view of the law. The Chinese saw their country actually destroyed by the West encouraging and making common the use of drugs. It would indeed be interesting to have a discussion with Chinese legal and criminology types on the wherefore and why of their drug laws.
I gather this is true, as well.. there’s legacy lines, then new lines, then condescened THC oils and all kinds of stuff.
Agreed again… but what right does one person have to tell another that he cannot collect his stamps? Just because you or I might think it’s gone too far gives us no rights over him.
The “gateway drug” argument has been a long standing question. I believe that the consensus is generally against, but I wouldn’t stake my life on it.
That said, two things:
1. MJ is vastly safer and less addictive than alcohol, yet the latter is fully legal (over 21) and even has its own Constitutional Amendment.
2. Even if it is a gateway drug, that changes nothing about the market forces that make it available, nor the fact that, again, I have no right to tell people what they can do with their own bodies.
Ah, the ol’ “let Darwin solve the problem” approach.
But, no, I don’t remember the free coke experiment…?
I’m not weighing in on the moral or political aspects here.
All I’m saying is that “to stop the market forces of drug sales, you need to be far more draconian than the US government can be.”
Consequently, the “tough on drugs” approach has the worst of both worlds in (A) all the problems of readily available drugs and (B) all the problems of a hugely punitive criminal state-run apparatus.
Ultimately, the US government needs to commit to the “War on Drugs” (which would terrible and probably impossible) or admit defeat and find a more productive way forward.
Monkeys were placed in an environment where they could hit a button and receive cocaine or food. They starved to death. I remember the film clip well from my experimental psych class. That, was before Cocaine became as big as it did.
Your investment is in fine company along with the former Speaker of the House. Boehner.
With the Chinese model I am simply pointing out where addiction can go. The “malaise” affecting so many young in our society who seem lost and rudderless would seem a fine jump off place for getting lost in the “pipe” dream. One cannot say it cannot happen because it has. Even the ancients saw its potential ie: Lotus eaters. Hell, those of us who have studied the decline and fall of Rome could see it in the “bread and circus” days which just became more and more outrageous as the Empire declined.
Working with “youth” these past years, middle class youth in particular, I see an absence of interest in anything beyond the moment. I once asked the kids, 12-16 who were their heroes? I gut a bunch of dumb stares in return. They apparently cannot even understand the concept.
Ahh.. I remember that experiment.. though I seem to recall mice…? Same point either way, I suppose.
—-
Here’s something to ponder: do you think that there might be societal problems that contribute to making “many young in our society” feel as you say?
For example, the younger generations are the most pessimistic about the future of any generation ever polled on such questions. They are the most indebted, yet the least likely to secure good high-paying jobs. You have an entire generation that was promised “go to college and you’ll get a good job and life will be good” only to follow that advice, wind up in decades of debt, and working for poverty wages.
Speaking only for myself, since graduating high school, I’ve seen 9/11, two interminable wars, countless mass shootings, a global pandemic, and multiple “once in a lifetime” economic collapses. Also Trump. I’ve lost a half dozen jobs due to layoffs or company closures, and quit another two because compensation was so stagnant.
You may not agree, but Gens X, M, and Z all believe in climate change and see our futures blighted by it. As I look outside on this 44 degree day with no snow on the ground at the end of January, I know that it’s just one data point, but my whole generation feels like we are the ones who are going to pay the price of climate change.
Homes are prohibitively too expensive for most of them – coupled with jobs paying unlivable wages (and the minimum wage being unchanged since 2009). Even rent is crippling, and more than half of millennials say the prospect of affording children has stopped them from having children.
You can quibble with any or all of these points individually, but collectively, it is what they believe and how they feel. It seems impossible, in this environment, to expect them NOT to feel malaise and turn to anything that alleviates their emotional states.
Asking the question, as you do, is tantamount to looking at a region with abnormally high rates of cancer and asking “why are these cancer-ridden people dying” rather than “why are all these people cancer-ridden in the first place?”
You can go in and try to fight the problem with the best oncology and treatments and surgery in the world. But, at some point, you should probably look around and say “you know… maybe we’re better off treating the upstream cause than the downstream effects.”
Regarding Climate, Buffalo. Betcha you are happy you are NOT there. I can remember bad and good winters from the 1950’s. It happens. Thinking we can do something about the climate is hubris to teh extreme without basically returning China and India to poverty status. Unless you are willing to commit to nuke power, do NOT give me bullshit about “all electric”. The climate ramifications of battery power, windmills and swaths of countryside covered with solar panels have not even begun to be discussed. The one big advantage I can see with windmills at sea is that, unless the “buzzzzzz” kills off the whales, they will provide excellent extra avian nutrition for fish.
I am onboard with the lack of a future and that is because of the policies of exporting our future to various third and not so third world countries. On the other hand, we seem interested in teaching depression to our children in the media and in school. I wonder, do you teach your children that life is hopeless? Seems to me a lot allow that to be taught.
On one hand you decry that lack of jobs and wages but where are you on importing lower wages over a laughable border? One must scream loud and hard at that contradiction. Argue with me over my old thoughts that the only reason WE have crime and poverty is because WE import it. Make labor dear, and you will see every frigging company in the US bust their ass to train formerly unemployable people. Even the effing unions have failed us on that one.
There are mountains to be climbed, diseases to be conquered, masterpieces to be written, Inventions to be invented, problems of all sorts to be solved but who is challenging the children of this country to do that? I see them being told, GIVE UP! instead, off yourself via drugs or a rope, it makes no difference!
And US interdiction in other countries in a failed attempt to dry up supply.
That, too!
Hang them!
Will not completely solve the problem but will help dramatically. Betcha there are dealers all over places like China and Singapore but they are FEW and far between.
People selling DEATH should not be dealt with any different than the ones shooting up playgrounds.
As my local NYC police sector sergeant told me back in the ’80’s. “look at those lampposts up and down the block, if we really had a war on drugs, the dealers would be hanging from them”.
SKT,
Disclaimer: I hold a not-insignificant amount of (private) stock in one of the largest marijuana distribution companies in the US.
Dale asked me to post this map of places he has been. he apologizes for the scale. Lots and lots of push pins!
https://www.facebook.com/messenger_media/?attachment_id=1130061514334862&message_id=mid.%24cAABa-mOtmImMFwz6pGF5celrjlz2&thread_id=100030483983939
(you must log in)
OK
ROTFLMAO
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/republican-national-committee-expensive-hotel-winter-meeting_n_63d1c61be4b07c0c7e0124b3
I swear to god… every politician, celebrity, and professional athlete needs to hire a 10 year old to vet all their actions.
——-
RNC: I want to book a $1,200 / night resort for the “focus on working class” meeting.
10-year-old: have you considered the Best Western?
ROTFLMAO #2 IRONY can make you laugh.
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2023/01/26/adam-schiff-makes-unbelievable-tiktok-video-after-getting-kicked-off-the-intel-committee-n694081
Dammit… where did I put that tiny violin…
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1095979144/mini-violin-miniature-wooden-musical?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=micro+violin&ref=sc_gallery-1-1&bes=1&sts=1&plkey=fb7df3e64490d18cdab91d784ee756a911a2607c%3A1095979144
From the book of Revelations.
I find it so frustrating that people seem shocked by these revelations when the information has been available for over two years. Despite the fact the media didn’t allow it to be circulated.
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/07/23/deborah-birx-openly-admits-to-lying-about-the-covid-vaccines-to-manipulate-the-american-people-n600381
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