redlegphi

Ah. I apologize for implying that you were a racist then. We need a damn sarcasm tag.

4 days on, and still no reasonable answer to this question posed. Crime, drugs, milking the welfare system and now they want us to APOLOGIZE for something that happened so long ago? As I've said several times already, slavery didn't end that long ago. The 1940s would be a conservative estimate of when it had mostly come to an end. And, of course, the civil rights movement didn't really start to achieve results until the 1960s. Beyond all that, the effects of slavery and the post-war treatment of African-Americans continue to this day. So yeah, some in the African-American community would probably appreciate an apology from the US for fucking up generations of their families. Also, painting the African-American community as a bunch of criminals, drug addicts, and welfare queens is probably more than a little racist.

They're built about 20 miles off shore, so the change to the view from the California coast would be negligible.

Her mother immigrated from Mexico, and her father immigrated from Croatia. It probably sounded just fine to their non-Anglo ears. That's ok. My first thought was "what is she, a six?" But I thought that would be harder for most of the folks here to understand. You don't think a bunch of people posting to an internet forum would get a BSG reference? Really?

So because the Emancipation Proclamation wasn't perfect, it's worthless? Didn't it free a whole bunch of slaves? In words, it freed a whole bunch of slaves. And certainly many slaves did gain some form of freedom. However, following the Civil War, many slaves were still working the same plantation, unable to leave without the permission of the plantation owner, and were being "paid" with food and housing while continuing to be treated poorly. And those were the lucky neo-slaves. The unlucky ones got arrested for "vagrancy" by corrupt local sheriffs and then sold to corporations where they were often worked to death in less than a year. As I said, just because the government says "Hey slaves! You're free now." doesn't mean that's what happened. And to bring this conversation back around to what started it, while those posting here may not feel that there's anything to be gained by the United States apologizing for condoning slavery, the descendants of those slaves and even some of the slaves themselves might consider it differently. I'd also point out that it's a lot easier for us, as a nation, to condemn the actions of others and claim the moral high ground once we've taken moral and ethical responsibility for our own poor actions from the past.

I guess the Emancipation Proclamation wasn't good enough."And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God." - Abraham Lincoln Since forms of slavery continued in the United States until well into the 20th century, no, it wasn't good enough. It turns out that you can proclaim laws all you want, but if you don't do shit to make sure people are actually following the laws, then they don't amount to much. If you'd like to know more about what I'm talking about, check out the book "Slavery by Another Name", by Douglas Blackmon. It's available on Amazon.

Here here. And I was also wondering, 360,000 Union soldiers killed and 275,000 wounded - is that meaningless? Since forms of race-based slavery continued in the United States well past the midpoint of the 20th century, it would appear that the deaths of all of those Soldiers did not accomplish the mission of ending slavery in the US. Of course, we could argue if ending slavery had anything to do with the mission they were given til the cows come home, but that doesn't change the point that the United States: 1) Officially allowed race-based slavery in at least parts of its territory for the better part of a century 2) Allowed unofficial race-based slavery in parts of its territory for over a century beyond the end of the civil war If those don't seem like things you think a nation should apologize for, so be it.

He's probably also noticed that, historically, any time the US chastises Iran for something or an American political group decides to start singing "Bomb Iran" songs, it gives ammunition to the hardliners in Iran. All they have to do at that point is say "See! The Americans are on the side of the reformists. They're once again trying to meddle in the affairs of the Iranian people!" This gives lots of Iranians flashbacks to the days of the Shah as well as appeals to their Iranian sense of patriotism/nationalism, leading to most of them falling back in line behind the government. So the best thing for us to do is to remember that this proto-revolution isn't about us and that we need to let the Iranian people determine their own fate.

"Can become" and "is" are two very different states of being.

So does every cell in my body (other than the sperm cells, which only have half). So does a tumor. By your logic, if I get a tumor removed I'm committing murder because I've just killed something that has the DNA of a human.

Oh I don't even think we're really disagreeing. I'm just trying to reinforce the point that the woman seeking the man's opinion in this matter is a "great if it happens" as opposed to a "should always happen" and that what's being offered is an opinion, not a vote.

I don't think both sides of this thread are too far apart. I think the conservatives would mostly admit that it's a good idea to try to keep guns out of the hands of people who are likely to commit terrorist acts. And I think the liberals would mostly admit that you can't give the government the power to revoke people's rights willy-nilly. I agree with jcd that the language of the bill seems to parallel his analogy of getting arrested by the police and then getting your due process afterwards. However, I think the language of the bill needs to get cleaned up so that it states more clearly how personnel affected by this bill will be notified why they were denied and what the specific process for challenging that denial is. As for the terrorist list, I'm pretty sure that project was initiated by the Bush administration and was just recently completed and published by the Obama administration, so I don't think it's a case of the evil liberals trying to smear people on the right as terrorists. Also, if I recall correctly, military veterans were mentioned as being targeted for recruitment by these groups because of the skills they picked up in the military, not because they're any more or less likely to join such groups. Finally, while ruchmc didn't specifically call anybody a troll, he did accuse somebody of trolling. Claiming that that's not calling somebody a troll is like saying "I didn't call him a child molester. I just said he molests children."

As I said, one would expect a couple in love to discuss this first. If the woman is doing what you're suggesting in either of those two scenarios, the relationship is probably fucked already. If the relationship's that fucked already, then it doesn't really matter what the man's opinion is. As for the child support payments, if you don't want to pay child support, don't stick your ding dong in a woman's hoo-hah. As you pointed out, condoms do occasionally break or get used incorrectly. If you gamble on a condom and you lose, be prepared to cough up the cash for your kid if the woman decides she wants to keep it, regardless of what your opinion on the matter is. The man's only actual vote occurs in the bedroom. After that, it's up to the woman if she wants to seek his opinion or not.

Exactly! Because once a man puts his sperm inside a woman, he owns her! [/sarcasm] WTF is up with the sarcasm? I think Dark was talking about pregnancies which are not the result of rape in the second half of their post. That means the father gets a say too - though the will of the woman outweighs the will of the man. Her body, her final decision. But to just disregard the father's feelings is just.. Whatever. "Once a man puts his sperm inside a woman, he shares the responsibility for any resulting pregnancy." The man gets to vote when he decides whether or not to have sex with a woman and whether or not to wear a condom. Beyond that, it's up to the woman. Yes, if they're a loving couple, she should ask his opinion before making her final decision. But ultimately, it's her decision, not his.

Exactly! Because once a man puts his sperm inside a woman, he owns her! [/sarcasm]

The Loving case that finally killed all laws banning interracial marriage was in 1967, so it's more like 40 years. And the point of my bringing it up is that if a similar question was asked at a pageant in the 1960s, some would have answered similarly to Miss California did about homosexuals. So at that point in time, would you have been on the side of interracial marriage or would you be yelling about how the bigot beauty queen has a right to her opinion. Bringing up Holocaust denial was to point out that there are clearly opinions that people can hold that should be shouted down when they're expressed. A person can deny the Holocaust all they want, but they should expect to be shunned by most normal people if they choose to do so. Similarly, Miss California expressed her opinion that a group of Americans shouldn't have the same rights that all other Americans hold. To me and many others, that's a disgusting comment to make, so yes, she can expect flak, even if it is just a beauty pageant.

No gay guy in his right mind would have made that comment either. So if he isn't straight and isn't gay, what is he?

A political question, and one which had only one "acceptable" answer. She could either answer truthfully and set off a firestorm, or give some politically correct answer. Looks to me like she was kind of set up there. If he had asked "Do you believe in interracial marriage?" and she had given a similar response, would you still be claiming she was set up? Would people still be yelling about her right to express her opinion if she had come out as a Holocaust denier? Just because we have a right to express our opinions doesn't mean we won't be held accountable for them.

Assuming they have the cash reserves to take up the slack, they might. I suspect, though, that they don't have those reserves, which is why they're working with the government. It's not like the government isn't benefiting from this as well. They're getting somebody off of the welfare dole and getting them to work, creating a potential future source of tax dollars and adding another consumer family to the economy.

I'd be curious to see if you have any data on rates of charitable donation comparing progressives to conservatives.

they are all sins in most religions Well, if your religion is teaching you that homosexuality is on par with rape and murder (and you are buying it), then that's pretty sad. If it's a Judeo-Christian religion, then it is teaching that homosexuality is on par with rape, murder, and eating a shrimp cocktail. And yet, nobody is arguing for a ban on Red Lobster Amendment. Odd.

The problem is you're asking us to approve or disapprove of a non-existent program that is left up to our own imaginations to create. It'd be a lot easier to answer the question if you suggested a program for us to judge. For example, if you said "Do you think we should give everybody on welfare a yacht?", I'd say no. The program that was talked about in the post that started this thread makes sense to me, so I'd say yes to that one.

I'd like to point out that, as long as the people receiving the car can stay employed, the program pays for itself since it stops the welfare payments to the family. So, since 80% of the people on the program stay employed, the actual cost of the program would appear to be something closer to $86,000.

+1 Rage over this reminds me of the rage conservatives had when they saw a picture of a homeless guy at a shelter with a cell phone. You want to yell at them for being on welfare but then you don't want them to have any of the tools required to work in a modern society.

Pumping a herd of pigs in close proximity to each other full of antibiotics for no good reason will result in antibiotic resistant bacteria developing faster in that herd. Those bacteria will then follow the exact same path that the swine flu virus has to the human population. So yes, the antibiotics aren't part of the swine flu problem, but they'll be causing similar issues down the road.