Lord Ratner

Obviously the definition of life is not the appropriate framing for the conversation, especially within the context of a single celled organism on mars. I'm sure you would also concede that a spider, a mosquito, a cow, and aging family pet, or a mouse would be considered "life." We do not debate these intentional life-endings with nearly the same furor. Ironically, if you were to correlate political ideologies, the people who are against the murder of non-human-animal "life' are equally for the protection of abortion. But that's because the environmental movement is more anti-human than it is pro-earth. Tangent. Each side of the abortion debate is trying to frame it using precisely chosen words to bolster their argument. Every single person knows exactly what the debate is about. Killing a fetus. It doesn't matter what we would do on Mars with a single cell. It also doesn't matter that a fetus can't function on its own. Debate the issue, not the semantics. And in case it seems like I'm waffling, I'm personally against all abortions that aren't for rape or health concerns for the mother or child. However I concede, as an atheist, that my views are based on a personal analysis of humanity and not some magical graybeard in the sky telling me what to do. In such instances where the population is clearly split, the tie goes to the citizen. So I would make abortion legal up the the point of viability (currently hovering around 22 weeks, so let's call it 25 for now). After viability only serious risk to the mother or child would be ground for an abortion. A middle ground solution to a deeply divided issue. But like so many conversations in American politics today, we now spend more time talking about the semantics of the issues than the issue itself.

Take the pay cut. Live like many Americans have to for their whole lives, and in a couple years you're golden. It's worth it. You are choosing between doing something that makes you miserable and living a median lifestyle. You may be surprised how easy it is to be very happy making very little. And in a few years, you'll be making a ton.

You literally wrote "religion" In your second sentence. Can an infant be an individual if it is wholly reliant on another person for existence?

They all agree huh? I'm anti-abortion, but to act as though it's a settled topic is pretty obtuse. Using your words, define "person."

Oppression olympics. Both sides seems equally susceptible. Even the term mainstream media is rapidly losing its relevance. I suppose we could use the term "legacy media," which would represent the longest running news sources, which have always been and are still overwhelmingly liberal. The difference is that sometime in the 90s those sources decided it was no longer their responsibility to hide their bias. Fast forward 30 years, and the result is that a number of equally ideological conservative news sites have formed, many of which are dominating the legacy Media at their own game. My point is that we have a tendency as humans to operate on feelings we had a long time ago, even when a dispassionate review of the present landscape would suggest the source of those emotions has been remedied. Just look at how many race warriors are complaining about imbalances that haven't existed in America for decades. They use present-day anecdotes as example of a systemic problem. If you remove the content of their argument, it sounds similar to conservatives complaining that the media landscape hasn't changed. In both cases they are wrong.

There is no intellectual basis for the policies of the progressive left anymore. Even the marxist part of the party is at odds with the critical race theory nonsense. "Reason" implies that there are such things as right answers. Debate is a form of multi-party reasoning, so if you're entire ideology is based on falsehoods, debate is a threat. The only logical thing the left does these days is stifle debate. Reminds me of the conservatives when they were nonstop railing against gay marriage. A bunch of small-government warriors demanding the federal government protect their religious ceremony from copy cats. Funny seeing the parties completely switch which one gets to be insane over 20 years.

No, it was the government jumping in front of the parade. If you think the very famous incident you are citing was at the beginning, rather than the end of the process that led to the civil rights of black people being recognized and enforced in America, you are mistaken. Where does government get it's power from? How well does it work when the government does something that the majority opposes? Were all the civil rights advocates voted out of office during the next election cycle? The government could have stepped in 50 years earlier, why didn't it? Remember that Jim Crow laws were *governments* forcing private citizens to segregate their business. Those laws were passed because citizens were desegregating on their own.

Exactly. And when the federal government steps it it's usually well after the tide has shifted. Gay rights, civil rights, the legalization of weed, women voting, prohibition, unprohibition... All driven by the lower levels of society with national politicians jumping in front of the parade at the finish line to pretend like they were leading it the whole time.

Shack. It's absolutely insane that Amazon can hold a nationwide contest for which city can provide it the most tax breaks while any one of us would be laughed out of the room for asking for similar treatment of we started a small business. As long as conservatives keep reflexively defending the globalization of American jobs and the asymmetrical treatment of immensely powerful corporations, millennials and Gen Zers will continue flocking to the bankrupt and dangerous philosophies of Marx/Bernie/progressives.

Net neutrality had zero to do with the threats we are dealing with from tech companies. But then most NN supporters didn't know any more about it than a few reddit memes.

I spent hours looking at what was presented in the Chauvin trial. If not a single juror could find reasonable doubt to any of the charges brought against Chauvin, we have a real problem with media influence. I was in the "lock him up" group until recently. Now I can't help but wonder if the media is intentionally focusing on cases that are "questionable" in order to further divide the population. Michael Brown, George Zimmerman, and now Floyd. Either outright fabrications or very difficult to parse, but never clearly racist murders. Those cases seem to just fade into the noise. This man had 3 times the fatal dose of fentanyl in his system. Plus meth. He was foaming from the mouth, a clear symptom of Fentanyl overdose. "I ate too many drugs." Saliva covered pills in the back of the police cruiser. The prosecution witnesses were almost comically irrelevant in the first couple days, yet they were permitted to take the stand. The MMA "effort" witness was a joke. The prosecution's own witnesses confirmed the validity of the restraint method used by Chauvin. The paramedics had to drive three blocks away before administering first aid because of the angry crowd. The video showing Floyd fight his way out of the cop car, already screaming that he couldn't breath (also a symptom of Fentanyl and meth overdose). Innocent? Who knows. But not a single reasonable doubt? Between holding the trial in Minneapolis, a sitting congresswoman calling for increased confrontation, the mayor saying the police are at fault regardless of the verdict, and the judge failing to sequester the jury until the end, I hope his appeal judges have more courage than the jury did. I don't suspect this is going to do any favors to the rapidly rising murder rate in America.

Super impressive

🎯 The fed's attempt to control the economy with near zero interest rates has created a reality where the only place to make money is real estate and equities. But that's only for the ones that have any retirement at all... https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/baby-boomer-retirees-positive-about-retirement-savings-2020-10#:~:text=According to data from the,use the cash before retirement. According to this the boomers own half of all equities, but very concentrated at the top. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/17/older-americans-are-selling-the-stock-market-slowly-but-ceaselessly-to-junior-generations.html What I can't tell from that article is whether or not that accounts for pension funds. I'm far more worried about the state and municipal pension funds all across the country that have their money tied up in equities, because they're underfunded and can't grow the funds anywhere else. But it reinforces the problem of retirement savings... The wealthy have all the stocks. We'll see. Just seems... Implausible that this ride continues forever

I'm not crazy about the parallels between 1990s Japan and 2020's USA, but at least we are still the strongest economy in the world. The number of people investing is stocks and crypto without a clue as to what either one is scares me a bit too. The only philosophy behind the current trajectory is "stocks always go up." That didn't work great in 99 for stocks or 08 for houses. But I'm not sure the millennials can sustain the trading volume required at these prices to keep the prices high, especially when the boomers start selling for retirement income... Uncle Sam can keep buying, but for how long? A millennial buying 5 shares of amazon at $2000 will not cover dozens of boomers who bought it at $100 selling to pay the mortgage on their homes... It has the makings of a cascade, but bubbles always go longer than you expect.

You are mistaking the liberals with the marxists. The marxists are being quite consistent in their actions and advocacy, as well as in their tendency to hijack other political groups when they align on one or two issues.

Probably? What military are you in? Your interactions with flightline SF are regularly negative to the point that you think most are only *probably* decent people? Perspective takes effort. It's very easy use negative anecdotes to characterize entire systems in direct conflict with reality. We're seeing that with Americans' perception of policing now. But if an educated officer will let one stupid interaction that only impacted a training sortie drive his perception to the "probably" standard, what hope does the rest of America have when the news is now completely saturated with carefully filtered anecdotal cases of police malfeasance?

Source? That sounds like an interesting case to read.

You imply that there were options that weren't disgusting.

You missed this gem: "The point I’ve made through all of those experiences is that anti-Asian racism has the same source as anti-Black racism: white supremacy. So when a Black person attacks an Asian person, the encounter is fueled perhaps by racism, but very specifically by white supremacy. White supremacy does not require a white person to perpetuate it."

Joe represented a return to a pre-Trump world. Politically moderate and not addicting to twitter bombs. What people didn't foresee, including myself, is that Joe would become *more* rather than less progressive after the primary. Usually it's the other way around. Personally, I believe that's due to a combination of two things: heavily relying on ex-Obama staffers, and his own cognitive decline reducing his ability to steer the agenda.

While I appreciate the bold idea that OAN and Newsmax are somehow equivalent to WaPo and CNN, I know you don't believe that. What's next, you going to tell us Hollywood is politically balanced because Kelsey Grammar and Melissa Joan Hart are Republicans? There's definitely a change coming, and the conservative outlets are making progress, but to imply "media" is balanced in 2021 is silly. Ironically, the outlets you cite are doing well specifically because of the wild imbalance in political leaning in the news media.

Yes? I think the latter causes the former, not the other way around. So, they're related, but not in the manner presented. And in this case we specifically referring to "gangster" culture, not all forms of hedonism.

The glorification of crime in poor black communities and the refusal of the media/political class to acknowledge such acts based on a racism narrative has nothing to do with Satan shoes. Further, blaming the hedonistic entertainment is misguided. As Walsh points out, it's the lack of a functional family unit, lack of community, lack of education, and lack of role models that causes this. If these criminal children are screaming "hail Satan" then maybe I'd give the shoes more attention. But I played a lot of video games where I massacred civilians and listened to "satanic" music, and I never committed a felony as a child.

Wait, do people really think Satan shoes are... Anything? How is that important?

I agree completely. Massive, massive deflationary forces from unfathomable progress on automation and exploiting foreign labor have made the inflation from runaway government spending invisible. But the geniuses at the Fed haven't put that together. Problem is, there aren't many places left in the world to get nearly-free labor. If we can't keep dropping the prices on TVs and t-shirts, the stagnation in wage growth for the past couple decades and the aforementioned spending spree is going to kick us in the teeth. And the Fed has nowhere to go with rates at zero. Get ready...