Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

Hmmm, that's an interesting way to look at it. Thanks.

[Da Geezer]

Can anyone name for me an elected national Republican who has not condemned the riot in the capitol?

Can anyone name for me an elected national Democrat who condemned the ANTIFA and BLM riots in the last 8 months or so?
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As for actual approaches that might help the situation, I'd suggest making Harvard and Yale into all-black institutions in terms of students. We desperately need a black intellectual class that performs on merit, and that starts with education.

We also need some way to stop the unionization in the public sector. 1/3 of all delegates to the Dem convention were "educators". I'd suggest banning any form of tenure or other job "security" in education and the federal government.

Rather than forgiving college debt, we should make colleges and universities co-sign for the repayment of the debt.

Better counseling. The college has an interest in the student getting a job when they leave school. Is repayment more likely for a major in Black studies or STEM degrees?
Low marginal cost. It really doesn't cost very much for the college to educate one additional student.
Lower tuition because of competition.
Colleges may choose not to guaranty for victimology degrees or any degree based on critical theory.
Make students pay by publishing the names of those that the college has to refund the government for.
Cancel degrees for non-payment. We live in an age where credentials are so important. That is what colleges are selling.

[froot loops]

I got to give credit to Da Geezer for consistency, he can always make it about the blacks.

[AlabamAlum]

Thank you AA, I appreciate the POV. My personal concern is not that dissent will/could be outlawed, I don't think that will ever happen. I'm concerned about when willingly consumed empirically provable lies reach a point where the Capitol is stormed during a Constitutionally mandated activity aimed at overturning an election. The warning signs were flashing brightly. Is this sort of nonsense what we should accept as an acceptable form of dissent, knowing that lives will likely be lost? A riot every four years by the party that lost, based on clear fabrications?

Empirical evidence of what you talk about is impossible. Empirically prove that ballots weren’t manufactured and sent to polling places. It’s just not possible. So, you end up with lesser shades. But fine, adopt a less stringent method of determining such things and put someone in charge of deciding what is truth and disseminating it to the masses and punishing those who disagree with or reject it or espouse things counter to the newly Approved Truth. Now, who is the final arbiter of these “truths”? The president? Would you be willing to give that power to Donald Trump? Of course not.

The removal of the freedom to reject the government-issued accepted truth is FAR more dangerous than a relatively small group of fringe idiots storming the Capitol. The solution to curtail such future idiocy can be found with Mike (shoot the motherfuckers as they begin to scale the wall).

[lineygoblue]

Tell me Liney, how would you end this madness without curtailing freedom of speech?

I didn't see the original question that Talent refers to. Mrs. Liney had me doing some chores, so I had to leave the computer for a couple hours.

Jon, you and I are good friends. I couldn't get past this sentence in your response. I have a hard time believing that you, a man that I have great respect for, could sit across from me at the Tim Horton's in Fenton, over a coffee and doughnut, and say this to me. This statement says to me that you believe that free speech must be curtailed in order to get things corrected.

Am I wrong?

When has curtailing constitutional freedoms been the answer to anything? If curtailing freedom of speech must be allowed to get things "back under control", who determines when things are "back under control"? Who determines what "control" is? Joe Biden? Kamala Harris? Nancy Pelosi? Bill Gates?

Who?

If curtailing freedom of speech doesn't work, what do you go after next? Freedom of the press? Force all news outlets to pass a "truth" litmus test? We've already had prominent Democrat/Liberals suggest that. All news should be subject to "fact checking".

So when that doesn't work, what's next? Freedom of religion? Force pastors to be nationally licensed and approved by the government?

Does the Democratic party get to decide which opposition is 'honorable' and which is not?

[CGVT]

I got to give credit to Da Geezer for consistency, he can always make it about the blacks.

I'm sure Da Geezer is happy to have Betsy DeVos back from her ill fated attempt to destroy public education nationally home to fuck up public education in Michigan again.

Baby steps...

[lineygoblue]

I'm sure Da Geezer is happy to have Betsy DeVos back from her ill fated attempt to destroy public education nationally home to fuck up public education in Michigan again.

As long as Gretch and Nessie are ruling Lansing, DeVos isn't going to be doing anything except admiring her family's savings account balance. The Party controls Michigan too.

[Da Geezer]

I got to give credit to Da Geezer for consistency, he can always make it about the blacks.

Froot:

Can anyone name for me an elected national Republican who has not condemned the riot in the capitol?

Can anyone name for me an elected national Democrat who condemned the ANTIFA and BLM riots in the last 8 months or so?

Instead of focusing on black/white, how about dealing with my question. I just ask it to show the vast difference there is between the parties.

My great hope for this country is that the SC finally rules (to adopt Chief Justice Roberts' formulation) that " ...the way to stop discrimination is to stop discriminating."

[Da Geezer]

I'm sure Da Geezer is happy to have Betsy DeVos back from her ill-fated attempt to destroy public education nationally home to fuck up public education in Michigan again.

There is a lot about government education that needs fixing. When I was running a charter school, we were given 63% of the state grant that the State gives to the government district school. So, roughly, if the state grant is $ 12,000 in the district school we would get about 8k from the state. With that money, we had to pay teachers, health ins., pension, administration, provision of our own privately-owned building, and provision of our own privately-owned busses. At the end of the year, there was a profit, too. In my opinion, the government school system is the largest scam that has gone on in my lifetime. Joe Biden has promised to eliminate all charter schools, as does the Democrat platform. We'll see.

[Da Geezer]

Can anyone tell me why making colleges co-sign for the repayment of college-related student loans wouldn't work? I'd really appreciate some criticism, Biden is talking about forgiving at least 25k per in student debt. That is a massive wealth transfer to the rich. It won't be the full $ 1700 Billion, but why give it primarily to the rich? Why not make the educators have some skin in the game?

[Da Geezer]

as a matter of interest, here are the recent WHO statistics for health. Johns Hopkins says there have been 1.8 million deaths from Covid this year.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I just want to stress this one more time ....... "The Party" isn't going to "control everything." This morning I wrote that "socialism" isn't coming to America. I also wrote that a few ideas that spring from those holding what we might call liberal views, Democratic party members, might just be good ideas, like fix US health care delivery, fix immigration policy and the untenable situation it has created in the US, especially the southern boarder states.

This posturing over "The Party" taking over America and destroying the freedoms we cherish is silly.

Discussions over free speech and the potential of technocrats becoming miny governments with the power to silence dissent is a huge deal though. I can tolerate ranting about that.

BTW, Talent, after your rebuke of my position on social media platforms being regulated by the FTC - more specifically your view that I misapplied the decisions of SCOTUS in the two cases I sited - was fair. The solutions to not encroaching on 1A that arise in the context of social media platforms has more to do with regulating the size and reach of them than it does with curtailing the posting of lies and misinformation by a "board" of thought police. The discussions that followed set me straight on the risks of over-regulation of social media platforms potentially through legal liability if Section 230 were to be revoked or modified in any substantial way. OTH, I can see my way through ways to increase a platform's liability for certain well proscribed content.

This article appeared in my Sunday NYT's news feed. In typical NYT's fashion it does more to describe the immense power to influence political thought and actions social media platforms and their controlling boards wield using Donald Trump's rise to power and the events in DC last week as a precautionary example of the dangers than it does to offer reasonable solutions to avoid these dangers. It also fails to address 1A issues when it implies government ought to be doing something about this. No, it probably shouldn't.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/technology/trump-twitter-ban.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210110&instance_id=25857&nl=the-morning&regi_id=66290138&segment_id=48890&te=1&user_id=eb3770cd26926d6908b2da6e075b25bf

I also want to thank AlabamAlum for dropping back into ancient Rome and Greece to bring to our attention the absolute necessity to avoid at all costs curtailing any manner of lawful dissent. As I read the law on these matters, it pretty much covers that and gives rise to the duty and necessity of elected officials and police to enforce such laws - something missing this summer in Portland and Chicago and what now appears to be a woefully unprepared LE plan to stop what went down in DC last week. Jon, I get your point, but I think you missed the boat on that important aspect of democracy that AA made.

[froot loops]

Da Geezer - The MAGA warriors storming the Capitol for your personal savior Donald Trump were storming it so they can discriminate. That's what it is all about, it's their country and not somebody else's! They were showing their strength and DT implored them to. They wanted to hang Mike Pence because he wasn't strong enough.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Froot...did you eat paint chips as a child?

[Hannibal]

I did. They were delicious.