I agree that we could do better at practicing what we preach, but I want to point out that social mobility is not the same as economic inequality.
Imagine a society in which everyone earned the same wage, but had a rigid caste system: if your father was a toilet-scrubber, you'd be a toilet-scrubber for the rest of your days. Now imagine a society in which half the nation was penniless, while the other half were billionaires, but anyone who worked hard was guaranteed entry into the upper class, regardless of their father's position.
True social mobility is difficult to measure demographically, because you need to track the social trajectory of individuals and families over time. And yeah, Americans aren't as socially mobile as they'd like to think, but the Gini index measures something completely different.
*Sigh*. It's gotten to the point where whenever an American speaks, everyone *assumes* we're being chauvinistic isolationist assholes even when we intend nothing of the sort.
Of *course* the values I listed are not uniquely American. But I'm an American speaking to a mostly American audience, about how America should interact with the world. If I talk about the beautiful New England snowfall we had here yesterday, am I claiming that no other place on Earth has snow?
And of *course* America doesn't always live up to those values. That's why they're values and not universal truths. But we still believe in them, and while we may be have slipped a bit lately in upholding them, our deviations are the exception, not the rule. Unfortunately, the countless successful acts of liberty, democracy, and social mobility occurring daily in the US don't make headlines. That doesn't excuse our failures, but to say we mainly honor our values in the breach is going too far.
We did a lot of that during the cold war, when we were foolish enough to believe that socialism was scarier than dictatorship. But even then, it was a "lesser of two evils" thing. But since the end of the cold war, we haven't overthrown a single democracy, though we've kept a few of our existing dictatorships propped up.
Yes, I realize this is a bit like a drunkard bragging that he hasn't beaten his children in two whole days, but it's a start.
Mohammad ElBaradei is one seriously awesome dude. Seriously. He's a little late to the ol' revolution party (he was slumming it in Vienna when it kicked off), but the Egyptians could do far worse than to pick him as a leader.
Fear for your job safety. Fear for your career prospects. The stress of endless fights with your superiors. Even if that's not an issue, the sheer grueling exhaustion of fighting the same battle with students' parents, year in and year out, forever.
I applaud your idealism and enthusiasm, but fighting for what you believe in gets *exhausting* as the years drag on.
60% teach both evolution and ID and do not make claims as to their validity.
Not true. The 60% are those who are neither ardent evolutionists nor committed creationists. Not all of these people teach both: the study says that strategies for avoiding the issue are "varied": some teach both, some teach nothing at all, some claim to teach evolution because the state requires it, some teach microevolution but not macroevolution (as if there was a difference).
If you think fighting both your school board and your students' parents, battling to keep your job and instill some knowledge in kids who don't give a shit what you're trying to teach them, while working for a peanuts is easy, you're welcome to try it.
No, seriously, the U.S. needs bright, motivated people like you to become teachers. Go for it.
But until you do, you have no right to call these teachers pussies.
As I've posted elsewhere, I understand how hard this subject can be to teach in some communities. But comparing it to teaching abortion in the schools is a false analogy.
Grade schools exist to teach students facts, skills, and deductive reasoning.
Abortion is a moral issue about which I have strong beliefs, but which I understand are not universally held. My views on abortion are not facts, and deductive reasoning does not lead to a logical conclusion on the subject. Evolution *is* a fact -- or as damn near a fact as one can get without doubting one's senses and powers of deduction -- and the process that led Darwin to the idea is a great demonstration of deductive reasoning. Thus, evolution belongs in schools, abortion does not.
Yes, yes, you're very enlightened, we Americans recognize the innate superiority of the European educational system, have a lollipop. (I think I'm justified in assuming that's where you're from).
Now, would you cut out the snide smugness and come HELP US fight these religious fundamentalist zealots? I dunno, donate some Euros to Teach for America, encourage exchange programs between your country and Texas, anything.
If this really bothers you, quit making wisecracks and do something about it.
Heightening the tension, the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest organized opposition group in the country, announced Thursday that it would take part in the protest.... “Tomorrow is going to be the day of the intifada,” said a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood...
That quote implicates Lieberman and the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Lieberman is the "security-crazed congressman" I referred to earlier. It says nothing about the *president's* involvement in this bill.
I googled up a storm when you first posted this, and while there are plenty of articles on the "kill switch" that have Obama's name in the headline, I can't find one in which he has any comment on it.
Still pretty stupid. If they really do manage a million person demonstration, there's no need to advertise its location. It will be EVERYWHERE. As for video sharing, just store it on your PC or phone and upload it later. Unless Egypt plans to keep the Internet off indefinitely, in which case they're totally screwed.
Who said it was? Where in my post did I even utter the words "free market"?
Whoops, okay I did. Mea culpa. But the focus of my post was on communications systems that allow free speech, and cultural products that emphasize liberty, equality, and self-determination. I do think a free market helps with the self-determination thing.
You don't believe in links, do you? I tried to figure out what you were referring to, and came across this claim that the FCC is trying to regulate the Internet, specifically regarding Net Neutrality, using a 1930s rule. But right or wrong, authority to regulate is not the same as the power to disconnect. After all, the US government regulates the interstate highway system, but has no power to shut it down in peacetime.
I consider myself progressive. I know a lot of 'em: heck I work in academia. I know exactly two who could be considered true socialists, and they have a much different system in mind than the Soviets did.
When we progressives say we want to add a government social service or two, that's not just our foot in the door, with an eventual goal of discarding capitalism for full-on Five-Year Plan statist lunacy. We really do just want an extra government social service or two. To call socialism and communism "the religions that progressives worship" is about as fair as saying all conservatives worship Byzantium-style theocracy.
If these uprisings lead to a flowering of democracy in the Middle East, I'd say you couldn't ask for any better.
Right now, on a ranch in Texas, a former president is saying, "See! It worked!"
I am absolutely confident that we made the right decision. And not only that, I'm absolutely confident that the actions we took in Iraq are influencing reformers and freedom lovers in the greater Middle East. And I believe that you're going to see the rise of democracy in many countries in the broader Middle East, which will lay the foundation for peace.
The USA, and others have to take the side of the people, for once. Joe Biden was on TV and said that Mubarak should not be referred to as a dictator! This will hurt US interests in the long run. Obama supported the people of Tunisia in one of his speeches, and should do the same for Egypt. Or at least ask Biden to shut his hole for some time.
Count me in as an American who agrees with this 100%. The more we try to support Mubarak, the more likely Egypt is to follow Iran rather than Turkey. But getting Biden to shut his hole is easier said than done.
Funny you mention Iran... it too had a fundamentalist minority and an educated secular majority: the fundamentalists were able to capitalize on the general hatred of the Shah and ended up riding the tiger to total control of the government. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
I agree that an Egyptian populist revolution could lead to a new Turkey, but it could also lead to a new Iran. And the thing we in the U.S. have to realize is, the more we try to keep it as it is now, looking like the Shah's Iran, the more likely it is to follow Iran's path.
I think Winston Churchlll has something to say about that. Democracy allows people to vote their rights away, but makes it difficult for them to be taken by force. I think that's a fair trade.
There's no question Bush had an impact on how the U.S. is perceived by the world. But if you're going to judge the U.S. entirely by his administration's actions, and say that anything we've done before or after "doesn't count", we may as well go on acting like thugs.
A lot of people voted for Barack Obama for a lot of reasons. One reason *I* voted for him was because I hoped to show the world that the U.S. is not just 300 million George Bushes. And his foreign policy actions have borne that out, in small ways, if anyone were listening.
I think he wasn't referring specifically to Egypt, but to a whole spectrum of states with varying degrees of lack of liberty. We all understand that Egypt is quite a ways up from Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, especially regarding women.
What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?
The one you created, Mr. Jefferson! It's now been 146 years since open rebellion or serious armed resistance took place in the U.S. Great work! But if you've created a country where armed revolt hasn't been necessary for a century and a half, something you considered impossible, maybe it's time to rethink the second part of your quote:
Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that we could do better at practicing what we preach, but I want to point out that social mobility is not the same as economic inequality.
Imagine a society in which everyone earned the same wage, but had a rigid caste system: if your father was a toilet-scrubber, you'd be a toilet-scrubber for the rest of your days. Now imagine a society in which half the nation was penniless, while the other half were billionaires, but anyone who worked hard was guaranteed entry into the upper class, regardless of their father's position.
True social mobility is difficult to measure demographically, because you need to track the social trajectory of individuals and families over time. And yeah, Americans aren't as socially mobile as they'd like to think, but the Gini index measures something completely different.
*Sigh*. It's gotten to the point where whenever an American speaks, everyone *assumes* we're being chauvinistic isolationist assholes even when we intend nothing of the sort.
Of *course* the values I listed are not uniquely American. But I'm an American speaking to a mostly American audience, about how America should interact with the world. If I talk about the beautiful New England snowfall we had here yesterday, am I claiming that no other place on Earth has snow?
And of *course* America doesn't always live up to those values. That's why they're values and not universal truths. But we still believe in them, and while we may be have slipped a bit lately in upholding them, our deviations are the exception, not the rule. Unfortunately, the countless successful acts of liberty, democracy, and social mobility occurring daily in the US don't make headlines. That doesn't excuse our failures, but to say we mainly honor our values in the breach is going too far.
We did a lot of that during the cold war, when we were foolish enough to believe that socialism was scarier than dictatorship. But even then, it was a "lesser of two evils" thing. But since the end of the cold war, we haven't overthrown a single democracy, though we've kept a few of our existing dictatorships propped up.
Yes, I realize this is a bit like a drunkard bragging that he hasn't beaten his children in two whole days, but it's a start.
Mohammad ElBaradei is one seriously awesome dude. Seriously. He's a little late to the ol' revolution party (he was slumming it in Vienna when it kicked off), but the Egyptians could do far worse than to pick him as a leader.
Hasn't passed yet. Write your congressman!
Fear for your job safety. Fear for your career prospects. The stress of endless fights with your superiors. Even if that's not an issue, the sheer grueling exhaustion of fighting the same battle with students' parents, year in and year out, forever.
I applaud your idealism and enthusiasm, but fighting for what you believe in gets *exhausting* as the years drag on.
Not true. The 60% are those who are neither ardent evolutionists nor committed creationists. Not all of these people teach both: the study says that strategies for avoiding the issue are "varied": some teach both, some teach nothing at all, some claim to teach evolution because the state requires it, some teach microevolution but not macroevolution (as if there was a difference).
If you think fighting both your school board and your students' parents, battling to keep your job and instill some knowledge in kids who don't give a shit what you're trying to teach them, while working for a peanuts is easy, you're welcome to try it.
No, seriously, the U.S. needs bright, motivated people like you to become teachers. Go for it.
But until you do, you have no right to call these teachers pussies.
As I've posted elsewhere, I understand how hard this subject can be to teach in some communities. But comparing it to teaching abortion in the schools is a false analogy.
Grade schools exist to teach students facts, skills, and deductive reasoning.
Abortion is a moral issue about which I have strong beliefs, but which I understand are not universally held. My views on abortion are not facts, and deductive reasoning does not lead to a logical conclusion on the subject. Evolution *is* a fact -- or as damn near a fact as one can get without doubting one's senses and powers of deduction -- and the process that led Darwin to the idea is a great demonstration of deductive reasoning. Thus, evolution belongs in schools, abortion does not.
Unless you're a teacher yourself, you have no idea just how much balls it takes to fight this battle.
Yes, yes, you're very enlightened, we Americans recognize the innate superiority of the European educational system, have a lollipop. (I think I'm justified in assuming that's where you're from).
Now, would you cut out the snide smugness and come HELP US fight these religious fundamentalist zealots? I dunno, donate some Euros to Teach for America, encourage exchange programs between your country and Texas, anything.
If this really bothers you, quit making wisecracks and do something about it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/world/middleeast/28alexandria.html?hp
That quote implicates Lieberman and the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Lieberman is the "security-crazed congressman" I referred to earlier. It says nothing about the *president's* involvement in this bill.
I googled up a storm when you first posted this, and while there are plenty of articles on the "kill switch" that have Obama's name in the headline, I can't find one in which he has any comment on it.
Still pretty stupid. If they really do manage a million person demonstration, there's no need to advertise its location. It will be EVERYWHERE. As for video sharing, just store it on your PC or phone and upload it later. Unless Egypt plans to keep the Internet off indefinitely, in which case they're totally screwed.
Who said it was? Where in my post did I even utter the words "free market"?
Whoops, okay I did. Mea culpa. But the focus of my post was on communications systems that allow free speech, and cultural products that emphasize liberty, equality, and self-determination. I do think a free market helps with the self-determination thing.
You damn younguns with your Civilization IV and your "cultural victory". Back in my day, there was only one way to win civilization:
Build the Pyramids
Get democracy
Buy lots and lots of tanks
Hey, wait a second, Egypt's coming along nicely now that I think about it.
You don't believe in links, do you? I tried to figure out what you were referring to, and came across this claim that the FCC is trying to regulate the Internet, specifically regarding Net Neutrality, using a 1930s rule. But right or wrong, authority to regulate is not the same as the power to disconnect. After all, the US government regulates the interstate highway system, but has no power to shut it down in peacetime.
I consider myself progressive. I know a lot of 'em: heck I work in academia. I know exactly two who could be considered true socialists, and they have a much different system in mind than the Soviets did.
When we progressives say we want to add a government social service or two, that's not just our foot in the door, with an eventual goal of discarding capitalism for full-on Five-Year Plan statist lunacy. We really do just want an extra government social service or two. To call socialism and communism "the religions that progressives worship" is about as fair as saying all conservatives worship Byzantium-style theocracy.
Right now, on a ranch in Texas, a former president is saying, "See! It worked!"
Count me in as an American who agrees with this 100%. The more we try to support Mubarak, the more likely Egypt is to follow Iran rather than Turkey. But getting Biden to shut his hole is easier said than done.
Funny you mention Iran... it too had a fundamentalist minority and an educated secular majority: the fundamentalists were able to capitalize on the general hatred of the Shah and ended up riding the tiger to total control of the government. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
I agree that an Egyptian populist revolution could lead to a new Turkey, but it could also lead to a new Iran. And the thing we in the U.S. have to realize is, the more we try to keep it as it is now, looking like the Shah's Iran, the more likely it is to follow Iran's path.
I think Winston Churchlll has something to say about that. Democracy allows people to vote their rights away, but makes it difficult for them to be taken by force. I think that's a fair trade.
There's no question Bush had an impact on how the U.S. is perceived by the world. But if you're going to judge the U.S. entirely by his administration's actions, and say that anything we've done before or after "doesn't count", we may as well go on acting like thugs.
A lot of people voted for Barack Obama for a lot of reasons. One reason *I* voted for him was because I hoped to show the world that the U.S. is not just 300 million George Bushes. And his foreign policy actions have borne that out, in small ways, if anyone were listening.
I think he wasn't referring specifically to Egypt, but to a whole spectrum of states with varying degrees of lack of liberty. We all understand that Egypt is quite a ways up from Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, especially regarding women.
What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?
The one you created, Mr. Jefferson! It's now been 146 years since open rebellion or serious armed resistance took place in the U.S. Great work! But if you've created a country where armed revolt hasn't been necessary for a century and a half, something you considered impossible, maybe it's time to rethink the second part of your quote:
Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?