We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Trust me, you folks around the world who want to sneak into the USA. We are an evil, Capitalist, heartless, war-mongering, carbon-spewing, gun-shooting, drug-abusing, poverty-ridden, sex-obsessed, Big Gulp-drinking, obese, poorly-educated, sexist, racist and zenophobic country that nobody would want to be a part of. There are no jobs here, and the place is crawling with Jesus Freaks, drunk cowboys with guns, communists, weird transgender people and weird mass-murderers armed with AK-47s and bombs. Don't believe the marketing hype about freedom and opportunity, because they are disappearing fast.
Just ask any American college professor how bad we are, and how unfair and harsh life is here. They will tell you the truth. Most Americans, I am sure, would leave if they could only find a way to get away to a better, kinder, and more peace-loving country. You would hate it here. Try China or India instead, or Mexico, Scotland, Russia, Iceland, Costa Rica, Lithuania, Italy, or maybe Australia.
I have no idea. I prefer Bach to Beyonce. In fact, never listened to the latter despite being a hip youngish New Yorker. Here's the argument: Can Republicans Close the Pop Culture Gap?
Just curious, but how does Obama have so much time to watch TV and to listen to tunes? I find no time for TV. Not that that bothers me very much but I spose it would matter if I were running for office.
To understand the now-antique Liberal/Progressive mind set in America, we must go back at least to the turn of the last century. Around 1910, Walter Weyl was all the rage - the new, new Coke.
At the time, the Western world was excited by utopian ideas about everything being run by brilliant, virtuous, and omniscient overseers who aspired to unburden us common folk of freedom, risk, and excessive responsibilities.
“We are beginning to see that we can moralize, we can socialize the trusts, and can build more widely upon the economic tendencies of the age…the end of it all must be production on the largest scale compatible with efficiency, but a production so regulated as to ownership, stock issues, dividends, prices, wages, and profits as to safeguard the whole community. Unless we are to take the saltum mortale [dangerous undertaking] of a complete and immediate governmental ownership and operation of all large industries, we must work out a more perfect system of corporation control in the interest of society.”
As most Maggie's readers know, individual freedom is not about "the greater good," nor is it about the State. It's about individual sovereignty.
Nice conservative people have no idea of what an institutionalized, ruthless, partially-corrupt apparatus they are up against. It's the big leagues. Voters do not study the Constitution before they go to the polls.
Bailey argues that it's because of moral presumptions, biases really. I'd agree that that is a factor, but he doesn't consider peoples' healthy skepticism about the Truth du Jour. Science offers theories, not facts. Educated people know that Science is not a religion, and few scientists claim Truth.
Few things that were believed to be "scientific truths" 50 years ago are believed today, and the same will apply 50 years from today.
Holy mackerel. They do color-blind, gender-blind admissions. Readers know that I do not think that we should categorize people in those ways anyway. Character and capability only.
It is a mystery as to why Planned Parenthood seems so much in favor of single teens raising children. Seems obvious to me that the "root cause" is kids having sex and not going to Planned Parenthood. One quote from MacDonald:
Even were it the case that poverty indeed causes teen pregnancy, crime, or any of the other destructive behaviors that the advocates claim are economically determined, surely it is better to tell children and teens that they have the power to determine their own fate through hard work and self-control, rather than sending the message that society expects them to fail.
“Do you think if you raised people so that you make a school counselor to available to them in cased they’ve been traumatized by someone who was nibbled a Pop Tart into the shape of a gun — do you think if they’re ever called upon to get out those ships and the storm the beaches of Normandy, do you think they’re going to be up to that? ‘Oh no look, the Germans, they’re all holding Pop Tarts! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!’ No society can survive this level of stupidity. These small things are not small. They tell you a lot about the institutionalized stupidity of our institutions.”
Pop tarts worry me because you never know what they might be loaded with. Strawberry jam is dangerous.
Are kids supposed to be eachothers' social workers now? I am all for civilized behavior, but this nursery-school sort of moonbattery, attempting to insulate kids from the rough and tumble of real life, seems insane to me (not to mention unconstitutional):
We all enjoy supportive environments. However, that is not necessarily what we need. For supportive environments, we have home. For annoying jerks and bullies we have ostracism, gossip, and fists as handy tools.
How they disarmed our British cousins.
To understand the now-antique Liberal/Progressive mind set in America, we must go back at least to the turn of the last century. Around 1910, Walter Weyl was all the rage - the new, new Coke.