Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Wild Hoss]

Well, Hoss, so you can't name any assumption you object to. Then how am I telling folks what to think? I perceive myself to be stating what I believe, informed by experience and study.

I'll tell you the assumption that I think you like the least. That is my assumption, taken from The Road to Serfdom and the Bible that men, at their core, are fallen and corruptible. Power corrupts. It is inevitable, but it flies in the face of what we are told every day, being, that things can be made better by giving a certain politician, or corporation, or religion the right to order our affairs. I've come, over a lot of years, to view this as folly and conceit. I believe the best we can do is to limit the accumulation of power in every area of human endeavor.

I'm not telling you what to believe. I'm just telling you that I once believed as you do, and I found that when "enlightened" people or beliefs were put in place, not much changed. A relatively free marketplace for both production and for ideas seems to me to be the best way to disburse power. I don't want to grant anyone unnecessary power to control what I do or how I think.

I believe that one's view of the nature of man as either good or evil (in the philosophical sense) is the underlying assumption of virtually all we come to believe. I believe man is evil, but I've asked you to prove me wrong.

I will take this babble as your concession.

[Wild Hoss]

Its scary to see how powerful that explosion was, seeing how that building was constructed. The cement columns, the steel substructure. So much of that just disintegrated by the blast. That was no cracker box. It was a well-built building.

The Omaha Royals were in town to play a baseball game that day, and staying in a hotel that was somewhere in the neighborhood of a mile away. The World Herald reported that the shockwave from the explosion blew open the front doors to the lobby while they were checking in.

[Dr. Strangelove]

If anyone ever journeys to Oklahoma City it is very much worth the time to visit the Memorial. The street you see in that picture is now permanently part of it.

[Wild Hoss]

I went by it maybe a year afterwards, when I was visiting a friend stationed at Tinker. People were still bringing flowers and pictures and such. Sad, sad, place.

[hack]

OK. Going back to income tax deductions, I'm saying that it is an inherent right of government (and such a right inevitably entails using force if necessary) to tax citizens for the operation of government. But the government, through the political system in some cases, has decided to subsidize charity, or home ownership, or oil exploration, or growing timber through the tax code in order to accomplish what at first may be legitimate societal goals. Eventually, these code sections become the vehicle with which entities engage in rent seeking.

I never heard anyone analyze the IRS "targeting" in terms of the Tea Party entities seeking recognition as a 501(c)(4). Maybe someone has heard that, but I have not. I say that the core problem in the IRS matter was not the nature of the political beliefs involved, but the blanket subsidy given to entities under section 501(C). I believe it would be more transparent if the government simply cut a check to a homeowner if they wanted to subsidize home ownership, or to a charity if they wanted to subsidize its function. Cutting a check is vastly more transparent than subsections of the code and accomplishes the same thing. But how do you think paying the oil companies or the corporate farmers would go down with citizens in the bright light of day?

I don't believe this in pie-in-the-sky. It is basically what Steve Forbes or Ted Cruz has proposed, and it is what obtains in Estonia.

I still don't understand what you mean by subletting power. I recall this argument you've made, and you've made it well, but I'm not sure how it's a core solution to any problem of centralized power or the power-corrupts problem. I think the bottom line is to keep it simple, avoid graft opportunities, rule out things rather than embrace complexity and assume the civil servants can handle that (Canadian banks are a fine, fine example), and keep everything out in the sunshine so that bad behavior can be exposed and heads can roll as much as possible.

[Hannibal]

Trump should win big next week too, with the 5 states, might even sweep.

There's no "might" about it. The only question about next week is whether Trump will get up to 50% in RI and CT, which will trigger those states to become "winner take all". If I had to guess, I'd say that he gets at least one of them.

In DE, PA, and MD, he already has an insurmountable lead.

[entropy]

Aside from the NY primary, yesterday also saw a 4th Circuit panel rule that a school violated Title IX's prohibition on discrimination based on sex by failing to allow a girl who identifies as a boy to use the men's room. The school allowed her to use the women's room or one of the "unisex" single stall restrooms the school had created to accommodate transgender students. The 4th Circuit was unimpressed. The court ruled that discrimination on the basis of gender identity is discrimination on the basis of sex, and that Title IX ?requires schools to provide transgender students access to restrooms congruent with their gender identity.?

The decision was 2-1 with a strenuous dissent based on, you know, commonsense and the obvious meaning of the statute. The 4th Circuit will almost surely take this issue up en banc and then perhaps it will filter its way up to the SCt.

if this is upheld by the SCt, I see abuse in the future. How do you stop a guy from walking into a women's bathroom on the basis that he claims he feels like a woman on the inside? Once a case hits national news of someone abusing this, common sense will set in... and we will see more family or private bathrooms around the country to accommodate.

[Hannibal]

The abuse is probably manageable. A much bigger problem is that it normalizes insanity and codifies "feelings over facts".

[entropy]

The abuse is probably manageable. A much bigger problem is that it normalizes insanity and codifies "feelings over facts".

maybe I'm being to optimistic, but I think the common sense will happen only after some abuse. Fixing everyone's feelings will be replace by reasonable accommodations and this period will be viewed by history rather poorly.

I could be wrong too.. and we devolve into a society that never talks or interacts for fear of hurting peoples feelings.

I'm in an extremist mood today... =)

[Hannibal]

There are many, many people who, for some reason, "identify" as the opposite sex. It is a legitimate mental illness called gender dysphoria. So I don't think that the main driving force behind this is perverted sightseeing. However, just because you "identify" as something doesn't mean that anyone else but you should be forced to "identify" you that way too. Anorexics "identify" themselves as being too fat. We don't indulge them by prescribing them diet pills. We put them into hospitals, force them to eat, and treat them as if they are mentally ill. Your feelings are not other people's reality.

This is a growing problem that is only going to get worse. George Orwell was right.

[Hannibal]

"If you cannot accept me, you are a heliphobe"

[youtube]WPMDCJrRpT8[/youtube]

[iam416]

Another progressive cause leading to predictable outcomes: http://city-journal.org/html/back-bedlam-14403.html

Hanni:

I hope you had an opportunity to watch that OSU video. I realized it's but a finger plugging a failed dike (I'm not sure I can use that word w/o being labeled anti-LGBT for the homonym). But, eh...it's something.

[hack]

LOL! That guy is awesome.

Intuitively I agree, but then again homosexuality was once considered a mental illness. So were a lot of other poorly understood things. I think what bothers me most about this is a tiny group insisting that an entire nationwide system adjust to it. But, that said, things evolve. What is normal to you isn't to me, and what is normal to me isn't to someone else. This wouldn't at all be the first time changes came despite potential consequences. One thing for sure is that having these people in bathrooms isn't a big deal. It looks to me like the new version of ``gay teachers are going to turn our kids into commie gays''. More fear to sell. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this particular issue, I hope it isn't yet another distraction from truly important matters that have a great impact.

[Hannibal]

LOL! That guy is awesome.

Intuitively I agree, but then again homosexuality was once considered a mental illness. .

Homesexuality is a different cause and it's unfortunate to me that the two have been lumped together. Tolerance for homosexuality doesn't require me to accept an alternative reality. For all we know, homosexuality could still be a mental illness but just a benign and untreatable one. But it doesn't matter, because if you say that you prefer same sex partners, there is no science telling me otherwise, and you aren't a danger to me or yourself by being homosexual.

Likewise, if you "identify" as a female, then there is no reason for me to want to stop you from wearing a dress and makeup. But the moment that you force me to accept your alternate reality, I've got a big problem with that.

[iam416]

Trans stuff is a big deal to people on both sides. Apparently delineating restroom privileges by sex is anti-LGBT, hence the multitude of progressives boycotting NC.

Personally, I don't want my son or daughter sharing restrooms with the opposite sex. Period. End of story. When my children were younger, my wife took my daughter to public restrooms and I took my son -- or we used a "family" restroom.

In any event, restrooms are the beachhead. That's why this matters. If it's illegal to discriminate based on "gender identity" then you've created the potential for a litigation mess. A lot of that could be curtailed by Courts willing to set forth a clear framework, so it remains a mere possibility. But it will certainly add another layer of HR cost.

More trivially, you're going to see men competing in women's sports....that one is already percolating...Texas said NFW last year and it raised a minor stink. Again, it's a baby step from bathrooms to this.

Anyway, tolerance is important. I get that and embrace it. However, that doesn't mean ignoring reality.