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Silver2195
Apr 4, 2012

Strudel Man posted:

Well, this guy says it's due to a combination of an increase in the number of police, an increase in imprisonment, the decline of the crack epidemic and the legalization of abortion. Some or all of those factors could be considered controversial, however.

I lean towards the decrease in lead poisoning theory myself.

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Xyven
Jun 4, 2005

Check to induce a ban

Walter posted:

I refuse to believe that Harry Binswanger is not a troll.

There's no way that (or his other editorials) can possibly be real. Is there?

He literally has an article defending insider trading :psyduck:

Walter
Jul 3, 2003

We think they're great. In a grand, mystical, neopolitical sense, these guys have a real message in their music. They don't, however, have neat names like me and Bono.

Xyven posted:

He literally has an article defending insider trading :psyduck:

This is a guy who, 284 years ago, would not have understood that Jonathan Swift was a satirist.

MaxxBot
Oct 6, 2003

you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!
While on the topic of "articles that are indistinguishable from satire," this steaming pile of poo poo from today seems to fit the bill perfectly. At least I can take some solace in the fact that this line of thinking has declined dramatically in popularity from a decade ago, but I'm sure it will come back eventually once everyone forgets about Iraq.

quote:

Yes, We Are the World's Policeman
Dennis Prager

In his speech to the nation on Syria last week, the president twice emphasized that America is not the "world's policeman." According to polls, most Americans agree.

Unfortunately, however, relinquishing this role assures catastrophe, both for the world and for America.

This is easy to demonstrate. Imagine that because of the great financial and human price the mayors and city councils of some major American cities decide that they no longer want to police their cities. Individuals simply have to protect themselves.

We all know what would happen: The worst human beings would terrorize these cities, and the loss of life would be far greater than before. But chaos would not long reign. The strongest thugs and their organizations would take over the cities.

That is what will happen to the world if the United States decides -- because of the financial expense and the loss of American troops -- not to be the "world's policeman." (I put the term in quotes because America never policed the whole world, nor is it feasible to do so. But America's strength and willingness to use it has been the greatest force in history for liberty and world stability.)

This will be followed by the violent death of more and more innocent people around the world, economic disruption and social chaos. Eventually the strongest -- meaning the most vile individuals and groups -- will dominate within countries and over entire regions.

There are two reasons why this would happen.

First, the world needs a policeman. The world in no way differs from cities needing police. Those who oppose America being the world's policeman need at least to acknowledge that the world needs one.

Which leads to the second reason: If that policeman is not the United States, who or what will be?

At the present moment, these are the only possible alternatives to the United States:

a) No one

b) Russia

c) China

d) Iran

e) The United Nations

The first alternative would lead, as noted, to what having no police in an American city would lead to. Since at this time no country can do what America has done in policing the world, the world would likely divide into regions controlled in each case by tyrannical regimes or groups. China would dominate Asia; Russia would re-dominate the countries that were part of the former Soviet Union and the East European countries; Russia and a nuclear Iran would dominate the Middle East; and anti-American dictators would take over many Latin American countries.

In other words, a) would lead to b), c) and d).

Would that disturb those Americans -- from the left to the libertarian right -- who want America to stop being the "world's policeman"?

Note well that Europe is not on the list. Europeans are preoccupied with one thing: being taken care of by the state.

As for e), the United Nations, it is difficult to imagine anyone arguing that the United Nations would or could substitute for the United States in maintaining peace or liberty anywhere. The U.N. is only what the General Assembly, which is dominated by the Islamic nations, and the Security Council, which is morally paralyzed by Chinese and Russian vetoes, want it to be.

Americans are retreating into isolationism largely because of what they perceive as wasted American lives and treasure in Iraq and Afghanistan. But this conclusion is unwarranted.

It is --leaving-- not fighting in -- Iraq and Afghanistan that will lead to failures in those countries.

Had we left Japan, what would have happened in that country and in Asia? Had we left South Korea, would it be the vibrant democracy and economic power that it is today -- or would it have become like the northern half of the Korean peninsula, the world's largest concentration camp? Had we left Germany by 1950, what would have happened to Europe during the Cold War? We did leave Vietnam, and communists imposed a reign of terror there and committed genocide in Cambodia.

American troops around the globe are the greatest preservers of liberty and peace in the world.

To return to our original analogy of cities without police: Thinking that we can retreat from the world and avoid its subsequent violence and tyranny is like thinking that if the police go on strike in Chicago, the suburbs will remain peaceful and unaffected.

We have no choice but to be the world's policeman. And we will eventually realize this -- but only after we, and the world, pay a terrible price.

In the meantime, the American defeat by Russia, Syria and Iran last week means that the country that has been, for one hundred years, the greatest force for good, is perilously close to abandoning that role.

Entropic
Feb 21, 2007

patriarchy sucks
So my local paper is awful.

Though I'm somewhat encouraged that in the follow-up letters to the editor they published a bunch of well-reasoned responses and the only letters agreeing with the editorial they could find to publish were two semi-literate half-paragraphs.

Frog Act
Feb 10, 2012



"At Lakehead University here in Thunder Bay there are now washrooms designated for men, women and LGBT, which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. Presumably, LU acknowledges that transgender persons entering either of the other washrooms is not acceptable. Presumably, too, transgender students accept that with the right to protection from discrimination comes the responsibility to avoid pushing the bounds of acceptance too far.
There comes a point in all matters where a line is reached. That line was crossed when the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission penalized a storeowner for acting reasonably and understandably to protect her livelihood and her customers from unreasonable and ultimately selfish behaviour."

This is the most bullshit non-argument I can think of. "Pushing the bounds of acceptance too far" is just a nice euphemism for "at least we're not threatening you with death", and that is absolutely abhorrent. Furthermore, it's bullshit that they would designate a bathroom for LGBT individuals specifically as opposed to just allow transpersons to use the bathroom that aligns with their identity.

JDM3
Jun 26, 2013

Best $10 bux I ever spent on a total stranger.. who happens to be a fucking douchetube.
Honestly, the answer is to have ONE bathroom with individual stalls. The fact that a huge percentage of adults are not really adult enough to deal with this is why it will never happen, but...

FilthyImp
Sep 30, 2002

Anime Deviant

JDM3 posted:

Honestly, the answer is to have ONE bathroom with individual stalls. The fact that a huge percentage of adults are not really adult enough to deal with this is why it will never happen, but...

Keep the urinals in a corner, though. All I ever hear about is how terrible lines in the women's restroom are.

We can do without the trough -- that poo poo's inhumane.

Anyway, wasn't the Monolav one of the mythic reasons the ERA floundered?

Entropic
Feb 21, 2007

patriarchy sucks

Fandyien posted:

"At Lakehead University here in Thunder Bay there are now washrooms designated for men, women and LGBT"
Incidentally, I'm pretty sure LU doesn't actually do that.

OwlBot 2000
Jun 1, 2009

7c Nickel posted:

Fried Chicken wasn't sure where this should go, but I am.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswanger/2013/09/17/give-back-yes-its-time-for-the-99-to-give-back-to-the-1/

Wow, how is this not a parody?

Binswanger posted:

It’s time to gore another collectivist sacred cow. This time it’s the popular idea that the successful are obliged to “give back to the community.” That oft-heard claim assumes that the wealth of high-earners is taken away from “the community.” And beneath that lies the perverted Marxist notion that wealth is accumulated by “exploiting” people, not by creating value–as if Henry Ford was not necessary for Fords to roll off the (non-existent) assembly lines and Steve Jobs was not necessary for iPhones and iPads to spring into existence.

Henry Ford was extremely valuable as an innovator and as a manager, but it doesn't follow that his legal ownership of Ford Motor Company was necessary. Making your money through your inventions and management skills is fine, the problem comes in when you and your children make money from other peoples' work in perpetuity, just because you own the equipment and the workers don't. After things had been established and gotten off the ground, Model T's could have been produced without Henry Ford -- but they could not have produced them without the workers.

And the people who make iPods and iPhones are exploited, even under a vulgar bourgeois definition of exploitation. Of course, the parasite Binswanger praises later in the piece is a far cry from either of these talented, creative men.

Binswanger posted:

All proper human interactions are win-win; that’s why the parties decide to engage in them. It’s not the Henry Fords and Steve Jobs who exploit people. It’s the Al Capones and Bernie Madoffs. Voluntary trade, without force or fraud, is the exchange of value for value, to mutual benefit. In trade, both parties gain.

Each particular individual in the community who contributed to a man’s rise to wealth was paid at the time–either materially or, as in the case of parents and friends, spiritually. There is no debt to discharge. There is nothing to give back, because there was nothing taken away.

This completely ignores how certain people came to be in a position of owning the capital, and others didn't, and the leverage that gives them over workers. The owners can pay unorganized workers as little as the law will allow, because what other option do they have? Starve, or go without housing and medicine? Believe me, the children making Binswanger's clothing are just as "forced" by WalMart as anyone was ever forced by Al Capone, and much more than anyone was coerced by Madoff.

Binswanger posted:

Or if the moral praise showered on Mother Teresa went to someone like Lloyd Blankfein, who, in guiding Goldman Sachs toward billions in profits, has done infinitely more for mankind. (Since profit is the market value of the product minus the market value of factors used, profit represents the value created.)

Hahaha. Firstly, profit is also equal to the value created by workers, plus the amount by which workers are underpaid. But what else has Goldman Sachs done? It was in large part responsible for the financial crisis, causing the loss of millions of jobs and retirement funds PLUS trillions of dollars worth of wealth, and it received a ten billion dollar bailout. Tell me again how that leech Blankfein "has done infinitely more for mankind"?

Binswanger posted:

An end must be put to the inhuman practice of draining the productive to subsidize the unproductive.

Oh, I agree completely, you're just 100% wrong about who is who. People who just happen to own the means of production are not "productive" by being owners, and cannot be productive except as managerial workers. Investors who simply buy the right to profit off of someone else's work are not productive. It's so laughable that he considers the people who tanked the global economy are "wealth-creators". I wish I had a Forbes account so I could post some of this.

OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Sep 18, 2013

cafel
Mar 29, 2010

This post is hurting the economy!
Man, today I was reading up on DARPA and ARPAnet. I wonder how the internet plays into Apples products or Goldman Sachs trading models? Probably not much I guess.

Asbestos Fresh
Nov 4, 2009

Okay, take a deep breath, then look up Jonathon Swift's "a modest proposal". That should clear things up.

OwlBot 2000
Jun 1, 2009
That's what came to mind, but then I saw he was a fellow at the "Ayn Rand Institute" and her personal acquaintance of hers. I think it might be serious :(

Laphroaig
Feb 6, 2004

Drinking Smoke
Dinosaur Gum

OwlBot 2000 posted:

That's what came to mind, but then I saw he was a fellow at the "Ayn Rand Institute" and her personal acquaintance of hers. I think it might be serious :(

Article by the same guy:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswanger/2013/06/04/dont-be-silly-the-entitlement-state-wont-allow-bitcoin/

Yes, the reason why Bitcoin is a big joke is the intractability of the Entitlement State, how did I not realize this before. Thank you Objectivism.

VideoTapir
Oct 18, 2005

He'll tire eventually.

Walter posted:

This is a guy who, 284 years ago, would not have understood that Jonathan Swift was a satirist.

There is no longer any such thing as satire.

LorneReams
Jun 27, 2003
I'm bizarre

JDM3 posted:

Honestly, the answer is to have ONE bathroom with individual stalls. The fact that a huge percentage of adults are not really adult enough to deal with this is why it will never happen, but...

My college was all girl a few years before I went and they said gently caress it and did exactly that with everything. Bathrooms and showers were all co-ed and no one really gave a gently caress. The only people who freaked out were people who WEREN'T going to the school and it was always telling who would get offeneded by the practice.

Bel_Canto
Apr 23, 2007

"Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo."

VideoTapir posted:

There is no longer any such thing as satire.

Tom Lehrer did once quip that "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."

boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich

quote:

Had we left Japan, what would have happened in that country and in Asia? Had we left South Korea, would it be the vibrant democracy and economic power that it is today -- or would it have become like the northern half of the Korean peninsula, the world's largest concentration camp? Had we left Germany by 1950, what would have happened to Europe during the Cold War? We did leave Vietnam, and communists imposed a reign of terror there and committed genocide in Cambodia.

Uh, what? Is there any way this argument works without assuming the existince of a Communist Hivemind? Because I'm pretty sure the Khmer Rouge existed in large part because of the American presence in Vietnam. They never would have gotten the support they needed to sieze power without China shoveling large quantities of arms at anyone who opposed Western militaries, and if we had left earlier the Vietnamese probably would have deposed the Khmer Rouge earlier?

boner confessor fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Sep 18, 2013

Frog Act
Feb 10, 2012



Also if we hadn't stealth-bombed the absolute poo poo out of Cambodia they would've been a lot less open to the machinations of the Khmer Rouge. Beyond that, Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia is sometimes regarded as one of the few largely humanitarian military interventions in modern history. I can't source that all of the sudden, and I know there were a lot of geopolitical factors beyond that, but even the Vietnamese government and Pathet Lao looked at the Khmer Rouge and went "holy poo poo that's uncool."

JDM3
Jun 26, 2013

Best $10 bux I ever spent on a total stranger.. who happens to be a fucking douchetube.

FilthyImp posted:

Keep the urinals in a corner, though. All I ever hear about is how terrible lines in the women's restroom are.

We can do without the trough -- that poo poo's inhumane.

Is it ever...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQthwyF2LqY

Laphroaig
Feb 6, 2004

Drinking Smoke
Dinosaur Gum

Popular Thug Drink posted:

Uh, what? Is there any way this argument works without assuming the existince of a Communist Hivemind? Because I'm pretty sure the Khmer Rouge existed in large part because of the American presence in Vietnam. They never would have gotten the support they needed to sieze power without China shoveling large quantities of arms at anyone who opposed Western militaries, and if we had left earlier the Vietnamese probably would have deposed the Khmer Rouge earlier?

Going to preface all of this by agreeing that the article in question was terrible. But the Vietnamese army helped INSTALL the Khmer Rouge, before later realizing what a monster it was. Its not Black vs White, with clear good guys and bad guys. There was a lot going on, and frankly the Khmer Rouge is a historical abomination, but no one at the time realized just how hosed in the head Pol Pot was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Kampuchea

Check out the "Rise to Power" section and the relevant links from historians. The truth is more complicated than that, and you have your timeline confused. The sides also shifted repeatedly, with the Vietnamese supporting Pol Pot in 1968 before invading in 1979.

The Soviet Union backed the Vietnamese, and the following PRK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_Kampuchea)

China's involvement had less to do with opposing Western interests and more to do with entrenching Chinese ones; following the establishment of Democratic Kampuchea under Pol Pot (the Khmer Rouge), China saw it as a client party. When Vietnam invaded in 1979, China launched an attack on Vietnam that killed some 60,000 people.

Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia did more for the rise of the Khmer Rouge than anything else. William Shawncross, the largest proponent of the US carpet bombing as being influential in destabilizing Cambodia, agrees that Vietnamese intervention was the biggest influence in the ability of the Khmer Rouge to seize power.

Basically, check the history and the scholarship on the subject, its fascinating and frankly everyone in common discussion gets it wrong, because they are always too focused on America and Vietnam; way more was happening, locally and geopoliticaly, than just the Vietnam War.

Edit: Read this for a good primer on a lot of the things going in the background, courtesy of the Soviet archives - https://www.yale.edu/gsp/publications/Mosyakov.doc

Basically, the Cambodian Civil War between 1970 and 1975, is generally considered to be part of the Vietnam War (or the American War if you live in Vietnam) and the North Vietnamese invaded, and eventually helped defeat, the Khmer Republic - at the request of Nuon Chea.

quote:

A great chance for Pol Pot and Khmer communists came in March, 1970. Their long-term enemy - Cambodian leader prince Sihanouk - was overthrown in the military coup d’etat of March 18, 1970. He had to enter into a military-political union with the communists to get back to power. It became a turning point for the communists: in the eyes of thousands of peasants, they turned from enemies of Sihanouk into his protectors. The revolutionary army started growing as on yeast, and the mass base of the communists considerably increased. In this case the goals of purely communist reorganization obviously were set aside for the moment, and the slogans of protection of the legal chief of state and of national independence came to the fore.

In April-May 1970, significant North-Vietnamese forces entered Cambodia in response to the call for help addressed to Vietnam not by Pol Pot, but by his deputy Nuon Chea. Nguyen Co Thach recalls: “Nuon Chea has asked for help and we have liberated five provinces of Cambodia in ten days.” (RSAMH, Fund 5, inventory 75, file 1062. Information on the conversation of the German comrades with the deputy minister of foreign affairs of the SRV Nguyen Co Thach, who stayed on a rest in the GDR from the 1st to the 6th of August, 1978. August 17, 1978, p. 70). In 1970, in fact, Vietnamese forces occupied almost a quarter of the territory of Cambodia, and the zone of communist control grew several times, as power in the so-called liberated regions was given to the CPK. At that time relations between Pol Pot and the North Vietnamese leaders were especially warm, though one could not tell that the Vietnamese aroused obvious hostility among the communist Cambodian leadership by their frank “elder brother” policy towards the Khmers.

The Vietnamese leadership did not even hide the fact that the Cambodian Communist Party, in assocation with the Vietnamese Workers Party (VWP), was given the role of the “younger brother”, obliged to follow the directions of the “elder brother”. The secretary of the VWP Central Committee, Hoang Anh, for instance, in his speech on the twentieth VWP Central Committee plenary meeting held in January, 1971, declared: “We should strengthen the revolutionary base in Cambodia and guide this country along the path of socialism. Here is the policy of our party” (RSAMH, Fund 89, list 54, document 3, p. 21). Moreover, Soviet diplomats working in Hanoi noted: “Vietnamese comrades last year carefully raised one of the clauses of the former Indochina Communist Party program concerning creation of the socialist Federation of Indochina” (RSAMH, Fund 89, list 54, document 10. About VWP policy in determination of Indochinese problems and our goals implying from the decisions of the ХХIV Congress of the C.P.S.U. (political letter) May 21, 1971, p. 14.)

The sense of this federation formation was in the unification of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in one state after the victory of the Indochinese revolution under the direction of Vietnamese communists as "the elder brothers". It is natural that all these plans of Hanoi leaders were well known in Cambodia and could not help raising certain animosity and mistrust among Khmer communists not taking into consideration their views on Cambodia’s future. Soviet representatives in Vietnam were well aware of the wary and even hostile attitude of Khmer and Lao communists to Hanoi’s plans on restriction of the independence of Laos and Cambodia and a new reorganization of the former territory of French Indochina. In the 1971 political letter, they noted that a “too narrow national approach of Vietnamese comrades towards the resolution of Indochinese problems, [and] noticeable attempts of submission of Laos and Cambodia problems to the interests of Vietnam, caused latent complaint of Lao and Cambodian friends” (RSAMH, Fund 89, list 54, document 10 (political letter) p.5).

Laphroaig fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Sep 18, 2013

Orange Devil
Oct 1, 2010

Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

Popular Thug Drink posted:

Uh, what? Is there any way this argument works without assuming the existince of a Communist Hivemind? Because I'm pretty sure the Khmer Rouge existed in large part because of the American presence in Vietnam. They never would have gotten the support they needed to sieze power without China shoveling large quantities of arms at anyone who opposed Western militaries, and if we had left earlier the Vietnamese probably would have deposed the Khmer Rouge earlier?

Hey, guess which country invaded Cambodia to remove the evil Khmer Rouge from power? Was it the United States, world police and general Doer of Good? No. It was communist Vietnam, recently bombed to all gently caress by said United States.

Nathilus
Apr 4, 2002

I alone can see through the media bias.

I'm also stupid on a scale that can only be measured in Reddits.

Bel_Canto posted:

Tom Lehrer did once quip that "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."

Satire still exists, it's just that when the crazies are running the asylum, you cease being able to tell who REALLY wants to eat children. Stick around SA enough and similar things will happen to your sarcasm detection, in my experience.

get that OUT of my face
Feb 10, 2007

Oh man, Binswanger teaches at the college right by my nearest NYC subway stop (Hunter College, part of CUNY). I'm tempted to take a poo poo in a paper bag and see if I can put it in front of his office.

OwlBot 2000
Jun 1, 2009

Y-Hat posted:

Oh man, Binswanger teaches at the college right by my nearest NYC subway stop (Hunter College, part of CUNY).

Isn't that a public university? Tax-payer funded, mostly?

Edit: I bet he rides the subway, too. And likes it.

OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Sep 18, 2013

get that OUT of my face
Feb 10, 2007

OwlBot 2000 posted:

Isn't that a public university? Tax-payer funded, mostly? Oh, the irony.
Yep, and the CUNY system was free for city residents until the 1970s.

Walter
Jul 3, 2003

We think they're great. In a grand, mystical, neopolitical sense, these guys have a real message in their music. They don't, however, have neat names like me and Bono.

Bel_Canto posted:

Tom Lehrer did once quip that "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."

I've heard it said before, and I said it myself once, that the reason I stopped reading the Onion was because the joke headlines started to bleed into the actual news cycle.

I still haven't gone back to the Onion for that reason.

Then again, I think *everyone* at pretty much every time period has made a similar complaint about political satire, so...

Venusian Weasel
Nov 18, 2011

These days I think satire is a form of political cover. If people don't thoroughly mock it, then it must be a good policy option!

VideoTapir
Oct 18, 2005

He'll tire eventually.

MaxxBot posted:

While on the topic of "articles that are indistinguishable from satire," this steaming pile of poo poo from today seems to fit the bill perfectly. At least I can take some solace in the fact that this line of thinking has declined dramatically in popularity from a decade ago, but I'm sure it will come back eventually once everyone forgets about Iraq.

Liberty and stability are code words for "American interests" which is code for the ability of (sufficiently) American companies to exploit local resources and populations.

Pirate Radar
Apr 18, 2008

You're not my Ruthie!
You're not my Debbie!
You're not my Sherry!

Popular Thug Drink posted:

Uh, what? Is there any way this argument works without assuming the existince of a Communist Hivemind? Because I'm pretty sure the Khmer Rouge existed in large part because of the American presence in Vietnam. They never would have gotten the support they needed to sieze power without China shoveling large quantities of arms at anyone who opposed Western militaries, and if we had left earlier the Vietnamese probably would have deposed the Khmer Rouge earlier?

American foreign policy 1945-1991 was based on the assumption of a Communist Hivemind. Some people long for the days of such simplicity.

JDM3
Jun 26, 2013

Best $10 bux I ever spent on a total stranger.. who happens to be a fucking douchetube.

Laphroaig posted:

:words:
Its not Black vs White, with clear good guys and bad guys.
:words:
The truth is more complicated than that
:words:

It's really hard to construct a straw man that I can topple with a clever bumper-sticker bon mot if I acknowledge this, so please, for the love of God, will you shut the gently caress up you liberal piece of poo poo?

goodog
Nov 3, 2007

Popular Thug Drink posted:

Uh, what? Is there any way this argument works without assuming the existince of a Communist Hivemind? Because I'm pretty sure the Khmer Rouge existed in large part because of the American presence in Vietnam. They never would have gotten the support they needed to sieze power without China shoveling large quantities of arms at anyone who opposed Western militaries, and if we had left earlier the Vietnamese probably would have deposed the Khmer Rouge earlier?

Plus after Pol Pot was exiled the US gave the Khmer Rouge $85 million in funding as well as $12 million worth of food. The British SAS also trained the remaining Khmer Rouge guerillas for close to a decade.

Mischitary
Oct 9, 2007

Fandyien posted:

This is the most bullshit non-argument I can think of. "Pushing the bounds of acceptance too far" is just a nice euphemism for "at least we're not threatening you with death", and that is absolutely abhorrent. Furthermore, it's bullshit that they would designate a bathroom for LGBT individuals specifically as opposed to just allow transpersons to use the bathroom that aligns with their identity.

To be honest the more I think about it the more I come to realize that keeping transgender people out of the bathroom that pertains to their own gender identity really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The most "convincing" arguments seem to fall down to this weird notion that men will pretend like they're transgender in order to go into women's restrooms and harass women. But we already live in a world where if a man wants to walk into a women's restroom and just sit right down in a stall and hang out there's nothing really stopping him. What I guess I'm saying is that creeps will be creeps.

Rogue0071
Dec 8, 2009

Grey Hunter's next target.

Walter posted:

I've heard it said before, and I said it myself once, that the reason I stopped reading the Onion was because the joke headlines started to bleed into the actual news cycle.

I still haven't gone back to the Onion for that reason.

Then again, I think *everyone* at pretty much every time period has made a similar complaint about political satire, so...

Trotsky, Pacifism as the servant of imperialism (1917)

quote:

Our epoch lacks the indignant satire of a Juvenal. In any case, even the most potential satirical weapons are in danger of being proved powerless and illusory in comparison with triumphant infamy and grovelling stupidity; which two elements were unfettered by the war.

Rogue0071 fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Sep 20, 2013

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

OwlBot 2000 posted:

People who just happen to own the means of production are not "productive" by being owners, and cannot be productive except as managerial workers. Investors who simply buy the right to profit off of someone else's work are not productive. It's so laughable that he considers the people who tanked the global economy are "wealth-creators". I wish I had a Forbes account so I could post some of this.
I would really like to read the best progressive/socialist/Marxist takedowns of the canard that society is indebted to people at the highest level of their professions, from whose invisible hands civilization springs, if you can direct me.

boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich

Mischitary posted:

To be honest the more I think about it the more I come to realize that keeping transgender people out of the bathroom that pertains to their own gender identity really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The most "convincing" arguments seem to fall down to this weird notion that men will pretend like they're transgender in order to go into women's restrooms and harass women. But we already live in a world where if a man wants to walk into a women's restroom and just sit right down in a stall and hang out there's nothing really stopping him. What I guess I'm saying is that creeps will be creeps.

I think it has more to do with people being afraid that they might have to accept what they feel is creepy behavior because society is too drat politically correct and won't listen to common sense, etc. This is why people feel like the Homosexual Agenda exists - it's not about gay rights, it's about those drat gays forcing themselves upon society where they aren't wanted and good honest Americans aren't allowed to speak their minds (because these people are generally incapable of speaking their mind in a respectful and tolerant fashion).

Guilty Spork
Feb 26, 2011

Thunder rolled. It rolled a six.

Mischitary posted:

To be honest the more I think about it the more I come to realize that keeping transgender people out of the bathroom that pertains to their own gender identity really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The most "convincing" arguments seem to fall down to this weird notion that men will pretend like they're transgender in order to go into women's restrooms and harass women. But we already live in a world where if a man wants to walk into a women's restroom and just sit right down in a stall and hang out there's nothing really stopping him. What I guess I'm saying is that creeps will be creeps.
Also, not unlike the homophobes who seem like deeply repressed gay guys, when someone's whole argument against trans* people existing has to do with women's restrooms, I can't help but think that the speaker may be saying more about themselves than they realize.

JDM3
Jun 26, 2013

Best $10 bux I ever spent on a total stranger.. who happens to be a fucking douchetube.

Guilty Spork posted:

Also, not unlike the homophobes who seem like deeply repressed gay guys, when someone's whole argument against trans* people existing has to do with women's restrooms, I can't help but think that the speaker may be saying more about themselves than they realize.

"What's to stop me - er, I mean someone - from dressing up in women's clothing and hanging out in a women's restroom?"

Dr. Tough
Oct 22, 2007

Forbes has some genuinely bad writers.

quote:

Republicans Will Win The Government Shutdown PR Battle If They Promise Voters Private Jets

Assuming a federal government shutdown come October, there’s a surefire way for the Republicans to win the ensuing war of words. Without a hint of hyperbole, they should promise voters a future of widespread private jet ownership.

The above proclamation is easy to laugh at, many surely will, but when Karl Friedrich Benz created the first gasoline powered car in 1885, it was exponentially crazier to contend then that cars would be a middle class good within 25 years. But by the 2nd decade of the 20th century the once inconceivable to own luxury that was the automobile had become rather commonplace. Thanks to Henry Ford’s aggressive investment and reinvestment of profits into perfecting mass production of the auto, gasoline-powered cars rather quickly became ubiquitous.

Just the same, if someone had said in 1903 (when the Wright brothers first took flight) that flying would within the 20th century become a pedestrian and often bothersome necessity, that person too would have been laughed out of the room. But with government on all levels consuming exponentially less capital in the early part of the 20th century, huge technological leaps were taking place thanks to extra capital in the private sector funding all manner of commercial experimentation. To deny the correlation between small government and big private sector advances is to ignore basic economics.

More on private flying in a little bit, but first it should be said that the Republicans, even though Obamacare is dying before our eyes of its own myriad contradictions, must stand firm on defunding it anyway. They must do this even if it means a shutdown of the federal government.

Wise political minds have made very apparent their view that a GOP-authored shutdown would amount to political suicide, but it seems the thinkers inside the Establishment have misread the electorate. Put plainly, a Republican Party that deserved rebuke after the George W. Bush economic disaster was given a very probationary second chance in 2010.

The second chance was rooted in voter discomfort not just with the growing size and scope of government, but also in fear of Obamacare’s implications for the quality and cost of healthcare. If voters had desired the status quo, they would have left the Democrats in control.

To be blunt, if the Republicans aren’t willing to do everything in their power to defund, delay, or repeal Obamacare, what’s the point of voting them majority status to begin with? Just the same, if the cost of government is going to continue to grow no matter the Party in control of the purse strings, why vote Republican at all?

The allegedly wise thinkers of the GOP Establishment will respond that a ‘defund, shutdown and shrink’ strategy will just make things worse for those who want smaller government, and who similarly want freedom over their healthcare choices. The thinking seems to be that absent the Republicans, full-throated national healthcare and expansive government are just around the corner. It’s an argument that has merit on its face, but it’s also one that is no longer credible.

Indeed, going back to 1994 the Republican base was sold a similar line about GOP parsimony with the money of others. To see how well that worked out, readers might compare federal spending in ’94 to 2000, not to mention spending in 2000 vs. 2006 when a disgusted base finally – and very correctly – helped return the Republican Party to much-deserved minority status. To state the obvious, Republicans have historically talked a good game about limited, less expensive government, but the expense of it always seems to grow on their watch.

They probably don’t deserve it, but Republicans have been given yet another chance to match policy with their bold rhetoric. Even better, and contrary to some of the more established consensus, good policy will in this case be good politics for the Republicans. The House of Representatives is where spending originates, and Republicans were handed control to delay, defund or repeal Obamacare in concert with serious shrinkage of the size of the federal government itself. Assuming what’s likely true, that President Obama and the Senate won’t go along with GOP plans, a Republican House in control of spending will get to starve Obama’s signature legislation, and then with a government shutdown that decidedly does not mean a shutdown of the federal government (Social Security checks will go out, the military will be funded, the IRS will for good or bad remain functional), it will force a happy realization on the citizenry that life goes on rather swimmingly without Leviathan running on all cylinders.

Assuming the opposite, as in assuming that voters make Republicans pay for a ‘defund, shutdown and shrink’ strategy in 2014 and beyond, well, that must be a risk the Party’s leaders are willing to take. That’s the case because in addition to talking a good game about limited government, Republicans almost to a man talk big about the dangers wrought by lifelong politicians, not to mention how ‘alien’ to them is the ‘corrupt’ Washington culture. Since they do, they should be very eager to give up their privileged perches in Washington in order to ‘stand athwart’ an ever expanding federal government. Furthermore, for a Party that talks a lot about the very real horrors of dependency, why should its political leadership in Congress expect the base to sacrifice their principles in order to save the cushy jobs of GOP Congressmen?

Further on with the alleged political risks, since GOP voters decidedly did not send the Republicans to Washington in order to do that which would get them re-elected, it’s fair to contend that the presumed risks associated with ‘defund, shutdown and shrink’ are well overdone. Indeed, wouldn’t it be more risky for the Republicans’ electoral chances if Obamacare were in full flower and the cost of government even greater come November 2014?

It’s worth mentioning that in pursuing ‘defund, shutdown and shrink,’ the Republicans needn’t do this in angry fashion. Obamacare is inimical to quality healthcare outcomes given its focus on non-market cost controls, so Republicans should talk about the heart, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and ACL cures that will more quickly reach all of us if the government’s role in healthcare is substantially reduced.

And then rather than talk about deficits, Greece, entitlements, and how the size of government is unsustainable, Republicans should go the optimistic route; talking about how the federal government’s loss is the private sector’s certain gain. Indeed, they should talk about how much more we’ll have, including many more Microsofts, Intels, and Apple products that will make the iPad seem dated, if the size and cost of government shrinks. They should talk about how Henry Ford’s quite speedy ability to mass produce the once unimaginable luxury that was the automobile was directly related to his being able to retain Ford Motor Company’s profits in order to re-invest in the perfection of car manufacture. They should talk about how Jeff Bezos, Fred Smith and Warren Buffett are much better allocators of capital than are John Boehner, Harry Reid and Barack Obama.

To state what’s obvious, Republicans should talk about how much better our lives will be, how much more we’ll earn, and how much more often we’ll be blown away by staggering technological innovations if the federal government is consuming much less of our hard-earned money. In short, Republicans should talk about the private jets we’ll all eventually own if the economy-suffocating growth of government is reversed by the Republican Party.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntam...artner=yahootix

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Guilty Spork
Feb 26, 2011

Thunder rolled. It rolled a six.
Man, that editorial is just a giant wad of Republican Assumptions. Also:

quote:

To be blunt, if the Republicans aren’t willing to do everything in their power to defund, delay, or repeal Obamacare, what’s the point of voting them majority status to begin with? Just the same, if the cost of government is going to continue to grow no matter the Party in control of the purse strings, why vote Republican at all?
One would hope (perhaps in vain) that the GOP might actually be interested in governing and generally get around to doing some things that don't involve the ACA in some way. It must suck to be a Republican and actually care about something besides Obamacare getting dealt with.

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