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I'm wondering when we'll start hearing about the "decision to become gay." Wendy P.

We can only be individuals. Like that kid picking up starfish on the beach. Wendy P.

No, I try to evaluate and treat them as individuals -- and it all depends on how they treat me when we're talking relationship. If we're talking consulting, they still have to treat me with a modicum of respect -- would you go to a doctor who ignored your questions? Or a mechanic who said "trust me, little lady?" (yes, that really happens).They might be hyper-competent, but how exactly would I know if they won't actually talk to me and treat me as though I'm a sentient human being? Wendy P.

Arrogance combined with a lack of self-examination is a lot easier when you've always been on top. You kind of think you deserve it. Look at nearly every rich kid who goes to a great high school, has tutoring help, and gets into a name college because daddy and/or mommy can largely pay for it. They ALL think they earned it. Some of them did, but few of us see behind the scenes at others' homes, where their parents were depressed because they were working shit jobs (or being a housewife because it's all that was available -- and no, not all women want that), left their kids' schooling entirely up to the kids (no tutoring, no making sure there was enrichment going on), and told the kid "you can only apply to three colleges because we can't afford the application fee," while the kid is largely dependent on the public school guidance counselor to advise as to college. Equal opportunity? It's easier to get to home plate when you start out on third than on first, and even easier than when they make you buy the bat and pay for admission to the game. Wendy P.

I'm sure there are some. Everyone can be an asshole, everyone can be incompetent. But sometimes it's hard to see the truth when incompetence or assholeness is described differently based on gender or color ("she's just a bitch" is generally far more damning than "he's an asshole." You can admire an asshole, no one admires a bitch) ("he got there because of DEI" rather than "he got there because he was marginally ready at the right time, and his boss likes him"). Subtle, but in each case, the white man is an individual, and the woman/minority is an exemplar of their entire class of person. So why shouldn't I, therefore, assume that all white men are (whatever the most negative thing that's happened) Wendy P.

Fine. You don't discriminate. Except against any Democrats, women with funny laughs, anyone who tries to be aware of discrimination, or any victimhood besides your own in having to work with and interact with substandard humans. But those are all real issues, as opposed to the silly ones like people thinking that anything but their essential inadequacy affects their careers. Bullshit. Wendy P.

So in other words the democrats, no matter who they offer (because there’s always something wrong with them), are worse than Hitler Dang Wendy P.

Low likelihood, but entirely possible. Note that we get a lot of electricity from Quebec; we're next. And I even speak French! Wendy P.

O sol - masculine

Some animals LIKE being more equal than others. Wendy P.

It's so nice to have you as the final arbiter of what's reasonable. Pity you're wrong, but that's probably an unacceptable andwer. Wendy P.

So I'm assuming that "oder das" is everyone who has an actual physical condition that indicates that gender isn't exactly binary across every.single.human. Can you clarify? And does one therefore just ram them into the social categories? Wendy P.

Why yes. Has it ever occurred to you that people's feelings impact their compliance with actual equality? Actual quotes: "The law says I have to interview them, but it sure doesn't say I have to hire them." Yeah, that's an equal opportunity "I can't hire you because It'd affect the camaraderie while folding newspapers." "Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men." So if there's a perception, widely held, that men and white people are generally more likely to be competent, does that actually mean they're more competent? I rather doubt it. Wendy P.

When you consider the well-documented fact that placement in a “laughing academy” has been used as a weapon against people with nonconforming views of many kinds (including whom they were supposed to marry), I think it’s a pretty apt analogy for determining what truth is. And as long as gender has both social and biological components, and some of the biological components can be murky, it’s pretty clear that you, and the current administration, are trying to impose a viewpoint that doesn’t reflect what some people are seeing. But I guess you’re happy with people being shoehorned into roles that match what you think is appropriate. Which year of women’s rights do you support? How about minority rights? After all, the “gold standard” for those has most emphatically evolved over time. Generally with the sacrifice, whether intellectual, social, reputational, or literal, of many competent women and minorities Wendy P.

I have a feeling that Columbia needs all that money for the same reason that the US needs all that staffing, and nearly everyone in American thinks they need all the money they have/earn. Because they're used to it, they operate that way, and changing is hard and potentially destructive. Just sayin' Wendy P.

Interesting how you are one of few conservative posters (generally the kool-aid drinkers) who doesn’t post endless narrative videos for our edutainment. Nobody watches them, and I completely understand why you’d ignore this one. That said, do you know how “useless” is being defined? And useless to whom? Because, well, there are plenty of services I pay taxes for that I don’t use directly; drug rehab, prescription benefits, wars (what exactly was Iraq supposed to protect us from?), voter ID. But I’m not so short-sighted as to think that I have to personally benefit from today’s efforts of each and every functionary. If I were in charge, I’d start with Medicare for all, no more school vouchers, and a top-down and bottom-up AI analysis of overlapping laws and regulations, with a view to identifying redundancies, conflicts, and anachronisms. Also the ones with extremely low applicability (although in a country of hundreds of millions, there can be hundreds of thousands of “one in a thousand” cases. But it’s a start. The medical motto is “first, do no harm, not “shoot first and ask questions later.” I happen to believe that as a rule, curing isn’t as good as preventing Wendy P.

How do you define effectively? Wendy P.

Do you think government is a business? Wendy P.

What did you like about it? Wendy P.

My brother’s been saying the same thing since the inauguration. Wendy P.

That was sure my first thought. Wendy P.

When I was working, and involved with DEI, our mantra was we interviewed at a wide variety of places (including HBCU job fairs), and then picked according to our needs. People pick not only according to pure “qualifications,” but they also use more subjective criteria, like fitting with the team, and whether they dressed like white people How do I know? I was in the discussions, and my manager was the only one who even interviewed the young man from the HBCU with a straight A average with a math degree and a minor in computer science. He hired him, and subsequently did, in fact, counsel him on dressing a little less hiphop. His job performance was just fine; he was a fresh grad of barely 21, so he had some maturing to do, but who doesn’t at 21? Could I find fault? Sure. But there are faults in nearly every employee; it’s all a matter of which ones you accept, and why. Wendy P.

I'm curious -- which is it you're against -- diversity, equity, or inclusion? Because I knew a manager at the NASA contractor I worked at who would hire Texas Aggies over everyone else if given the option. Yeah, he'd had good luck with them, but good luck with getting any breadth of ideas on solving a problem. Other managers had equal or better work quality with far more diverse workers (just of university, never mind gender and ethnicity). Just because it works in a narrow context doesn't make it the right answer. As far as a national language -- enact it. It would need to be a law, not just a decree. Or is it OK for the president simply to decree things now that it's Trump? As far as the rest? Well, while I'm with you on the need to cut government, I agree with Jerry that a chainsaw isn't exactly the way to go. Just as amputating a leg isn't the best way to lose weight. The military's job isn't the same as it was 80 years ago in WW2, because war isn't the same as it was in WW2. Hand-to-hand combat is a much smaller piece of the pie, and with the increased amount of weight that soldiers now wear with body armor included (average Marine carried 60-120 lbs in Afghanistan and Iraq, over the 50-lb maximum recommended by the Army in 2001), it would seem that individual evaluation would be necessary anyway, not just "male good, female bad." But that's just me; I probably should smile more, huh. I'm not going to go point-by-point, because most of the issues are more nuanced than a one-sentence approach will provide. But it's always more fun simply to give the "easy, obvious" answer to complicated problems, forgetting that it's the very complicated nature that makes them problems. Wendy P.

But he's your guy anyway. Because there is nothing he could do that would cause you to re-think your support of him, and risk potentially having been wrong. I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. I'm assuming that means that your humanity has a price, and so does everyone else's. Wendy P.