You are wrong about 17 being underage. 16 is the age of consent in Britain,
Okay that's a fair point, except that Nicole Sherzinger is American, therefore I'm judging her actions from an American perspective. It's actually the law here that if an American is overseas, they are still bound by American law. It's specifically illegal to have sex with people who are under 18 REGARDLESS of the local age of consent -- it's considered child sex tourism: http://www.justice.gov/criminal/ceos/subjectareas/child-sex-tourism.html
I *still* think if one of the male judges said that about a 17 or 18 year old girl, in Britain, there would be an outcry. If not, bravo for their society, but as an American that idea is so incredibly unlikely that I can't believe it until I see it.
Okay let me try to reason this out... the right of Europe is like the left of America, according to you. So if "the right in Europe called for those measures" that means they must have called for what the Democrats called for here -- "saving main street" by spending tons of money "helping homeowners" and "getting people to buy new cars", stimulating the construction industry, passing tax breaks to already-underfunded programs like Social Security to encourage the creation of new jobs, nationalizing failing companies like GM then donating ownership to unions even in other countries (Canada), passing the Troubled Asset Relief Program to buy toxic assets from banks, etc?
That's what you think the European right called for in response to the financial crisis? Massive new spending and solidarity throughout the EU to encourage new growth?
The right in the U.S. capitulating to the far right gave a big wad of cash to the bankers.
If you recall, the Tea Party was the biggest party of austerity in the US during the financial crisis. They are generally considered by Democrats to be the far right. So how does that fit into your left/right view? The far right in the US is like the left in Europe because they both wanted austerity (remember, above you said the right in Europe wanted to spend their way out of the financial crisis like the Democrats did here)?
Well since Democrats are "the right" in Europe, and the Tea Party is really far right of the Democrats, by your argument the Tea Party is the ultra-far-right of Europe since (remember) every group is on the same left/right scale. And therefore Europe's economic policy is ultra-far-right wing, not left wing. That's... inaccurate.
You can plainly see how your attempt to fully order political groups around the world based on a one-dimensional left/right doesn't work, because it keeps leading to ridiculous comparisons and inconsistencies.
Okay so in terms of the economy... the Democrats and Republicans here called for massive top-down government spending to address the financial crisis. Basically a big government intervention. Companies were bailed out, unions were bailed out, some companies were even nationalized. Money was pumped to individuals (homeowner mortgage relief, new homeowner tax credit, cash for clunkers program, etc) to try to stimulate the economy. All that came from Big Government.
In Europe they said "Well maybe we should try austerity. Hey Greece, you're gonna have to cut a lot of social services and get your unions in line. We're not going to just print money to help you."
Now you're saying the American Democrats are economically to the right of the people who are backing austerity and fiscal responsibility?
Your analogy of calling an apple and a traffic light green doesn't make sense and isn't at all parallel to your own argument. Greenness, as an objective and measurable property of matter, is indeed comparable between different things. Subjective things like "left" are not. I mean your whole argument is that the American left is not like the European left, it's like the European right. So obviously "left" != "left" unlike "green" == "green". It's more like if you made an analogy that said the apple's green isn't the traffic light's green, it's the traffic light's red. It doesn't make sense.
Anyway, a lot of people are like you and refer to the American left wing as "right" and the American right wing as far-right. It's a rhetorical device to attempt to make normal right-wing people feel like there's something wrong with them if "most other countries" consider them extreme right. It doesn't work on people like me who know the European left and right are different from our own and comparing them on a universal left/right scale doesn't make sense.
If that wasn't your intention, I apologize for making that assumption but at the same time I suggest you reevaluate your use of relative left/right labels when comparing different political systems for the reasons I have stated.
That's my point, when you use simple labels like left vs right to compare completely different political systems, you lose too much accuracy and it's "confusing" (if that's how you want to put it.. I'd just call it wrong). And it's not just social vs economic.. as an example, you have the "left" European parties who often act more financially responsible than the left or the right in America. In France, Hollande (a socialist) is talking about pension reform and asking workers to pay more, angering the unions. Or hearken back a few years and recall the "economically right-wing" (according to your view) Obama criticizing those crazy leftists in Europe for austerity instead of printing money.
On the contrary, GP nailed it. When you start extending and composing and declaring too much, you lose the impressive and straightforward readability of GGP's example and end up with write-only code like Perl (to many people who are less capable than you).
If you're smart, functional programming is quite fun. If you have to work with someone who is, um, less smart but still forced to write functional code in your shared project, God help you man.
tldr; we don't all work in the upper echelons of the programming world
It's true that there's a distinction between a free market and unregulated prices and drugs are certainly a less-free market than, say, books, due to all the restrictions on who can buy and sell them. That's the more important thing, not patent protection... books have copyright protection which lasts even longer than patent protection, but who would say books IN GENERAL aren't a free market? Anybody can write a book, anybody can sell a book, anybody can buy a book, etc.
On the other hand, anybody can develop a drug. Most drugs aren't developed by the big pharmaceuticals but by small companies or researchers affiliated with a university who spin it off to a separate small company. The big pharmas then buy up the drug portfolio of the small company and take it to market.
So we have AT LEAST "anybody can make a drug." And it's a pretty successful model. We are NOT lacking for drugs in this country or anywhere else in the world. There are drugs to treat sooo many conditions, even ones that have relatively small markets. That system is working, and as you said, for many drugs out of patent protection the price becomes very cheap due to generics.
Compare that to the labor market in health care. There was a story on Slashdot, I believe, or maybe it was just my local paper, about a "dietician" who had a blog and was sued by the state of North Carolina for dispensing medical advice without a license.
So you do not have "anybody can make health care services." Not even close.
That's a huge difference between drugs and medical equipment vs doctors in this country, and the reason that doctor/hospital salaries make up the biggest portion of health care spending. To go buy $4 in generics, I first need to go through a gatekeeper who charges me $120 for 15 minutes of his time and a small post-it note authorizing me to buy the generic. What a joke!
And it's not about consumer protection because there are the very low quotas for foreign doctors, who are just as qualified (or more so) than home-grown doctors. Yeah I'd rather have the guy from India in the 98th percentile than the American doctor in the 50th. (Referencing the old joke.. what do you call the guy who graduated medical school with the lowest GPA? Doctor!)
It's possible that you're right, but Miley Cyrus (and other entertainment stars) vs Bill Clinton isn't a very good comparison.
First of all, Bill Clinton is a former President of the United States. That *does* make him more important than Miley Cyrus in terms of public perception, accomplishments, nuance, etc.
Second, there is more than just male/female dichotomy in your comparison. Bill Clinton, as a major Democratic politician, enjoyed a very different relationship to the media than Miley Cyrus. The tabloids don't cover the President (or at least, aren't listened to seriously), whereas they are a prime source of information for the entertainment industry. Why is that important? Well there was huge outrage among Republicans. You may recall that Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives! (Certainly more legal trouble than Miley got in.) But because of Bill's relationship to the mass media which is more favorable to Democrats than Republicans, his overall public perception was pretty well controlled.
If we look JUST at politicians or JUST at the entertainment industry I think it's more equitable. I don't know anybody who hopes their son grows up to be R Kelly. He's to this day mocked, e.g. Macklemore's "Thrift Shop." Can you think of a mainstream popular song that actually mocks a female celebrity over a sex scandal?
No and you raise an excellent point -- mixed trading systems don't work very well in a globalized world.
We have free market prices for drugs. Europe doesn't. Europe gets the exact same drugs as us... manufactured by the same companies.. some European, some American, some Indian, whatever. Doesn't matter who's doing it, they charge more in America than elsewhere. For the same product. Not because of different market forces (e.g. charging cheap prices in countries with low incomes) but because of laws.
Well of course as an American I feel completely fucked over by this system. Obviously American money is helping to finance the European health care industry since the same companies operate in both markets but charge more here.
And then the places where it would help us get stopped. For instance, doctors have much less debt after medical school in other countries, often because they don't do a separate 4 year undergrad degree, and school is cheaper anyway. But there are pretty tight quotas on immigration here. So there are thousands and thousands of doctors from India, Pakistan, China, who knows where else, who could move here and start practicing and charge much lower prices... but they aren't allowed!
So we have a free market segment that is used to subsidize the rest of the world, and a heavily regulated segment that is used to block cheap labor. It fucking sucks. BUT it's incorrect to say the free market is the cause of the problems... it's the incompatible mixture of free market and regulation around the world.
I don't think it's meaningful to compare "left" and "right" in different political systems. You claim Democrats are "on the right" which means Republicans are like "crazy right wing fringe" or something.
Well how does the Netherlands have "integration laws" for immigrants? How does France have a ban on burkas? These are conservative ideologies for maintaining and preserving traditional culture within the country. That's rather right wing territory, at least in this country. Now you're claiming Democrats are right-wing for Europe, so find one of these so-called right-wing Democrats in California who says Mexicans should be required to learn English within 3 years OR BE DEPORTED.
doesn't matter if you already had your cock inside her before she changed her mind. Simple as that.
This is the problem people have with crazy feminists (and self-identified mainstream feminists if that's what you think you are). That kind of stuff makes you sound so unbelievably disconnected from reality.
Now granted this isn't an issue that I imagine happens much, if ever, but the mere fact that you would actually say that discredits you immensely and paints you as a radical.
Besides which, who decides what are "incorrect signals"? You?
By "incorrect signals" I meant signals that are interpreted differently than the woman intended. It happens when different people have different expectations or understandings. One person doesn't decide it, I think it's a self-evident thing. If a signal is interpreted differently than intended, it was incorrect, regardless of which person thinks it was incorrect.
As an example, maybe there's a woman who thinks "stripper rules" apply everywhere... she can grind against you, but if you touch her with your hand that's a violation of her dignity or some crap. Well obviously since most people don't know that rule outside of a strip club, they are going to read her signals differently than she intends. They're most likely going to take her dancing style as an invitation to touch her more than she wants. And to me, they are not in the wrong. We don't live in the fantasy world where every single contact requires a verbal request and consent.
Convincing someone to sleep with you under false pretences is rape. I'm not sure why you find that strange.
That's strange to me because it's not rape. Here's what Wikipedia says -- "Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or against a person who is incapable of valid consent, such as one who is unconscious, incapacitated, or below the legal age of consent."
So in this case, the guy lies to get a girl to sleep with him.. there's no assault, there is consent to the sexual act, there's no physical force, there's no coercion, no abuse of authority, and the person is capable of valid consent. Clearly it's not rape. If a woman is sooooo degraded by sleeping with a Muslim that she considers it rape to do so, then it's her responsibility to more thoroughly vet her partners. Simple as that.
It's sad to me that feminists have diluted the concept of rape to this point. Rape to me is a very horrible thing that I would support the death penalty for, though I have grudgingly mixed feelings because of the argument that the death penalty for rape produces more rape-murders. But now I have to say I do not support the death penalty for rape because so much "rape" has to potential to be BS.
That isn't what feminists are saying though, merely that even if there is some blame on one party's side it isn't justification for rape.
That's exactly what I'm saying too, tempered by my different interpretation of what counts as rape. Victims shouldn't be blamed for rape, but victims can be criticized for choices that we want to discourage other women from making, like getting drunk every night and letting strangers take you home and assuming they will tuck you into bed and leave. That is stupid and should be called stupid.
I think you'll find the mainstream feminist leadership disagrees with you on the issue of blame -- they'll say there's no blame on the victim full stop. That's been my impression anyway. IF that's true would you consider it a radical position?
Okay if you were talking about being roofied and gang-raped when you said "and should have the right to be treated with respect regardless of what they're wearing" -- I can accept that, but that was very poorly communicated because most people think of gang-rape as a more fundamental and serious violation than "not treating someone with respect."
Anyway, it's a pretty minor issue and it seems clear that you agree with me that the right to respect regardless of dress in scenarios like the workplace, formal dances, movie theaters, Walmart, daycare centers, etc does not actually exist today in a way that is different between men and women. You show up to work in speedos and you'll take as much crap as a woman in a bikini.
Since you're a mainstream feminist I'm curious if you perceive a difference between what the mainstream feminist adherent thinks vs. the mainstream feminist leaders. I mean maybe you don't know or care about Title IX (since you didn't reply to it at all), but do you know that it's a pretty big issue for feminist leaders? It's on the NOW issues list for instance -- http://www.now.org/issues/title_ix/index.html
But please consider this fine point: if a condition is negative, and affects one sex to a greater extent because of the frequency and/or intensity of that condition, would you then consider it sexist?
Not necessarily but it may be on a case by case basis. As an example, I've heard what I think is a mainstream feminist belief that the fields women go into and dominate become undervalued by society compared to male-dominated fields. An example would be teachers vs. engineers. (You'll often hear this argument when a man asks "Why is there so much emphasis on achieving female equality in male-dominated fields, but no desire for male equality in female-dominated fields?")
That's a negative condition that affects women more than men but I wouldn't call it sexism. I think there are too many other factors (like basic economics.. supply of labor etc) to attribute it to the entire society being sexist.
Making a list of things that objectifies both genders dis't really proving anything.
It's proving what I said, that women aren't objectified in more ways than men. It's just that modern society is more sensitive to female objectification.
Look at Car sales, technology, military command, police force, etc... women are treated worse then the men in those fields. It's pretty well documented.
Not sure what you mean by "treated worse" -- I think that's going a bit further than mere objectification and that's really outside the scope of what I'm talking about.
Purely in terms of objectification, the "man in uniform" (which addresses military and police force as you mentioned) is more prevalent than "woman in uniform" in my experience.
For every anecdote like this you can find one showing how women were treated unfairly. Claims of rape being dismissed,
If a claim of rape is dismissed, how do you know that's unfair? That's an awfully serious charge to just take at face value and assume is true without knowing ANY details about the case, and then say the dismissal MUST be unfair.
Let's look at the opposite statistic. How many times do men get charged with rape when it didn't really happen, and how many times do women get charged with rape when it didn't really happen? I don't have the numbers, do you? If not, what's your honest gut instinct about it?
Even this is an example is taken to the extreme just so you can rail against it.
I agree that it's extreme, but of course you'll note I didn't propose it, in fact I said it doesn't exist.
What most feminists are actually arguing for is the acknowledgement that dressing a certain way is not an invitation to rape someone.
Some guys may use that as an excuse to rape someone, and it's also possible that a woman gives off incorrect signals and invites someone to rape her.
Some people argue that if someone goes out dressed provocatively and gets drunk they are basically offering themselves up to whoever they end up unconscious in bed with, man or woman, gay or straight.
Now that's an extreme example (unconscious) but how about the much more common example of simply drunk? There is a fairly widespread notion that having sex with a drunk girl is rape if the girl later decides it was rape, because she couldn't give consent while drunk. (And of course for some reason it doesn't matter if the guy is drunk as well and thus not in control of his actions, just like the girl.) What's your view on that? To me, if you dress a certain way, get drunk, and end up in bed with someone, and then we say that by definition having sex with someone who is drunk is rape since they couldn't give informed consent, then that's just stupid.
Or here's another example... I recall a few years ago reading a story about a Muslim guy in Israel being arrested for rape after having sex with a Jewish girl, and not revealing that he was Muslim until afterwards. Basically obtaining sex under deceptive pretenses or something like that.
There are some extremely extreme views on rape in the feminist community, and even the mainstream view is pretty extreme. I mean if you say that rape is NEVER the girl's fault in ANY way, you're an extremist. Because in reality it is sometimes the girl's fault to a degree, just like a guy can verbally pick a fight that ends in him getting beaten up physically... there IS a connection, even if it didn't JUSTIFY the conclusion.
So don't pick the most radical fringe of self-declared feminism and argue that all feminists are like that.
I didn't say all feminists were like that, and I didn't mean it either. I know the feminists who think we should switch to "womyn" are a minority. But there are a host of similar issues. I notice you didn't address the patriarchy comment.. do you think that's also a tiny, extremist minority of feminists? I think that's pretty close to mainstream if not mainstream. Now maybe not among, erm, the laity or whatever, but among feminist leaders I think the "extremist" issues are more common.
Okay another example of a feminist issue I think is really dumb would be Title IX, the thing about equal funding for men's and women's sports in school. I think equal pay for equal work is a higher principle than equal funding, so since the men in sports work more and earn more, they should get more. That's fair. I know women who hold many feminist beliefs (like the mainstream ones you listed) who ALSO agree with me about Title IX. And yet I know that Title IX is considered a major victory for feminism and it's pretty much a plank of the feminist platform.
"Feminism" is such a broad movement affecting every area of life that there's a lot of diversity in ideas. I mean look at the division between "new wave" feminists and traditional feminists. BUT That doesn't mean you get to dismiss every flaw of feminism as an extremist theory held by a minority.. that describes most feminist issues.
Honestly your rhetoric sounds exactly like fundamentalist religious people who are forced to distinguish themselves from slightly crazier fundamentalist religious people who get themselves in the news for doing something really bad.
If it becomes commonplace for a man to be roofied and gang-raped by a bunch of women, and then told by the cops "well, he was asking for it because he was dressed provocatively"
Commonplace? Really?
So you're picking a radical behavior that hardly ever happens and then using it to label the majority of occurrences that are nothing like that.
I mean jeeze, speaking of extreme examples. We went from "the right to be treated with respect regardless of what you wear" to "roofied and gang-raped." Don't you think that's a stretch? How about, you know, the shit that ACTUALLY HAPPENS all the time, like women complaining about not being taken seriously if they wear a sexy skirt or low-cut shirt, which I thought you were referring to? And I would say yeah well if I came to work in a low-cut shirt I would not be respected either as a guy, so that's not sexist.
Two wrongs don't make a right -- the fact that boys and men can be exploited in degrading ways does not somehow make it OK to do that to girls and women, or vice versa.
If a negative condition affects one sex, it's sexist. If it affects both sexes, it's still negative, but it's not sexist. That was my point, not that it makes it "right" somehow.
I mean it's a myth that women are objectified more than men, unless you have a different standard of what counts as objectification. Does porn objectify women? Do fashion mags objectify women? Both are a maybe, I don't know.. I think it's a gray scale and some people are more sensitive than others. BUT if you think fashion mags objectify women, you MUST also acknowledge that fashion mags objectify men, and if you think porn objectifies women, you must acknowledge that porn objectifies men. "Oh look at all these fake women giving false impressions about sex!" is a line you hear a lot. Well of course there's plenty of fantasy/mythology/fakeness about men in porn as well.
Why is a wet T-shirt contest sexist? I mean, perhaps since (generally) only women are allowed to enter it's sexist against men, but I doubt that's what you meant.
Are phenomena like boy-bands sexist against men? It's awfully degrading to men that millions of women are ogling and rubbing themselves off thinking of One Direction or New Kids on the Block right?
Your loss, my friend. Feminists are just people who believe that women should receive equal pay for equal work, should have the right to control their own bodies, and should have the right to be treated with respect regardless of what they're wearing.
You're so naive! If that's all feminists want, they should unify around that message instead of all the garbage about the patriarchy. I mean really, what does the crusade against the word "women" (womyn!!!) have to do with what you said? Don't pretend that type of feminism doesn't also exist.
Also I disagree with the right to be treated with respect regardless of what you wear. That does not exist for either sex.
Well, you're wrong, so that's the end of your line of reasoning.
Case in point, I was watching UK X-Factor this weekend and one of the hosts (Nicole Scherzinger) acted inappropriately when a 17 year old boy began yodeling. She acted overtly flirtatious towards him, started swaying and dancing and touching herself suggestively and commented on his looks (calling him hot, delicious, etc). Her comments and her "female gaze" and the disparity in power (host vs contenstant, age, social status, etc) made the whole thing very objectifying.
As far as I know, nobody has made a big deal of it.
Now if one of the male judges acted the same way towards an underage female contestant, it would be an outrage and accusations of sexism and pedophilia would fly about.
internalising the market externalities around the burning of fossil fuels is the single greatest tool we have to do something about this before it is too late.
I don't think that's even true -- we'd make a lot of progress against CO2 if the government paved the way for cheap nuclear power. One idea would be designated nuclear zones that are immune from lawsuits, environmental impact studies, and all the other red tape. A good start for the zones would be existing nuclear power plants, so adding capacity to an existing site would be massively streamlined. That would cut years off the time to market for a new plant, which would have a huge impact on construction cost (interest on the construction loan accruing while some shitty environmental group files baseless suits that take months to clear up while construction is put on hold), and since that's the largest cost in nuclear power, it would make nuclear far more desirable than coal and natural gas.
Simply raising the cost of carbon production without changing anything else can ONLY result in increased costs for everybody, since the reason carbon production is so popular is that it's cheap. If that's okay with you, then why not just pass a general tax that funds a carbon sequestration project?
The reality is, there are thousands of rebel groups in Syria, most fighting Assad in a respectable way.
Did you do a census or use random sampling to deduce that most of the groups are fighting in a respectable way? I'd love to see your data.
Also, I'm not sure if you did this on purpose, but are you confusing "most of the rebel groups" with "most of the rebels" since many of the groups are very small and a few of the big rebel groups make up the majority of the actual people?
and no funding is being planned anyways.
You are joking right? NO funding? For someone as knowledgeable about the Syrian rebels as yourself, you must know that we are arming and training them. Here are some links to get you started:
Slashdot Mirror
You are wrong about 17 being underage. 16 is the age of consent in Britain,
Okay that's a fair point, except that Nicole Sherzinger is American, therefore I'm judging her actions from an American perspective. It's actually the law here that if an American is overseas, they are still bound by American law. It's specifically illegal to have sex with people who are under 18 REGARDLESS of the local age of consent -- it's considered child sex tourism: http://www.justice.gov/criminal/ceos/subjectareas/child-sex-tourism.html
I *still* think if one of the male judges said that about a 17 or 18 year old girl, in Britain, there would be an outcry. If not, bravo for their society, but as an American that idea is so incredibly unlikely that I can't believe it until I see it.
The right in Europe called for those measures.
Okay let me try to reason this out... the right of Europe is like the left of America, according to you. So if "the right in Europe called for those measures" that means they must have called for what the Democrats called for here -- "saving main street" by spending tons of money "helping homeowners" and "getting people to buy new cars", stimulating the construction industry, passing tax breaks to already-underfunded programs like Social Security to encourage the creation of new jobs, nationalizing failing companies like GM then donating ownership to unions even in other countries (Canada), passing the Troubled Asset Relief Program to buy toxic assets from banks, etc?
That's what you think the European right called for in response to the financial crisis? Massive new spending and solidarity throughout the EU to encourage new growth?
The right in the U.S. capitulating to the far right gave a big wad of cash to the bankers.
If you recall, the Tea Party was the biggest party of austerity in the US during the financial crisis. They are generally considered by Democrats to be the far right. So how does that fit into your left/right view? The far right in the US is like the left in Europe because they both wanted austerity (remember, above you said the right in Europe wanted to spend their way out of the financial crisis like the Democrats did here)?
Well since Democrats are "the right" in Europe, and the Tea Party is really far right of the Democrats, by your argument the Tea Party is the ultra-far-right of Europe since (remember) every group is on the same left/right scale. And therefore Europe's economic policy is ultra-far-right wing, not left wing. That's... inaccurate.
You can plainly see how your attempt to fully order political groups around the world based on a one-dimensional left/right doesn't work, because it keeps leading to ridiculous comparisons and inconsistencies.
Okay so in terms of the economy... the Democrats and Republicans here called for massive top-down government spending to address the financial crisis. Basically a big government intervention. Companies were bailed out, unions were bailed out, some companies were even nationalized. Money was pumped to individuals (homeowner mortgage relief, new homeowner tax credit, cash for clunkers program, etc) to try to stimulate the economy. All that came from Big Government.
In Europe they said "Well maybe we should try austerity. Hey Greece, you're gonna have to cut a lot of social services and get your unions in line. We're not going to just print money to help you."
Now you're saying the American Democrats are economically to the right of the people who are backing austerity and fiscal responsibility?
Your analogy of calling an apple and a traffic light green doesn't make sense and isn't at all parallel to your own argument. Greenness, as an objective and measurable property of matter, is indeed comparable between different things. Subjective things like "left" are not. I mean your whole argument is that the American left is not like the European left, it's like the European right. So obviously "left" != "left" unlike "green" == "green". It's more like if you made an analogy that said the apple's green isn't the traffic light's green, it's the traffic light's red. It doesn't make sense.
Anyway, a lot of people are like you and refer to the American left wing as "right" and the American right wing as far-right. It's a rhetorical device to attempt to make normal right-wing people feel like there's something wrong with them if "most other countries" consider them extreme right. It doesn't work on people like me who know the European left and right are different from our own and comparing them on a universal left/right scale doesn't make sense.
If that wasn't your intention, I apologize for making that assumption but at the same time I suggest you reevaluate your use of relative left/right labels when comparing different political systems for the reasons I have stated.
That's my point, when you use simple labels like left vs right to compare completely different political systems, you lose too much accuracy and it's "confusing" (if that's how you want to put it.. I'd just call it wrong). And it's not just social vs economic.. as an example, you have the "left" European parties who often act more financially responsible than the left or the right in America. In France, Hollande (a socialist) is talking about pension reform and asking workers to pay more, angering the unions. Or hearken back a few years and recall the "economically right-wing" (according to your view) Obama criticizing those crazy leftists in Europe for austerity instead of printing money.
On the contrary, GP nailed it. When you start extending and composing and declaring too much, you lose the impressive and straightforward readability of GGP's example and end up with write-only code like Perl (to many people who are less capable than you).
If you're smart, functional programming is quite fun. If you have to work with someone who is, um, less smart but still forced to write functional code in your shared project, God help you man.
tldr; we don't all work in the upper echelons of the programming world
It's true that there's a distinction between a free market and unregulated prices and drugs are certainly a less-free market than, say, books, due to all the restrictions on who can buy and sell them. That's the more important thing, not patent protection... books have copyright protection which lasts even longer than patent protection, but who would say books IN GENERAL aren't a free market? Anybody can write a book, anybody can sell a book, anybody can buy a book, etc.
On the other hand, anybody can develop a drug. Most drugs aren't developed by the big pharmaceuticals but by small companies or researchers affiliated with a university who spin it off to a separate small company. The big pharmas then buy up the drug portfolio of the small company and take it to market.
So we have AT LEAST "anybody can make a drug." And it's a pretty successful model. We are NOT lacking for drugs in this country or anywhere else in the world. There are drugs to treat sooo many conditions, even ones that have relatively small markets. That system is working, and as you said, for many drugs out of patent protection the price becomes very cheap due to generics.
Compare that to the labor market in health care. There was a story on Slashdot, I believe, or maybe it was just my local paper, about a "dietician" who had a blog and was sued by the state of North Carolina for dispensing medical advice without a license.
So you do not have "anybody can make health care services." Not even close.
That's a huge difference between drugs and medical equipment vs doctors in this country, and the reason that doctor/hospital salaries make up the biggest portion of health care spending. To go buy $4 in generics, I first need to go through a gatekeeper who charges me $120 for 15 minutes of his time and a small post-it note authorizing me to buy the generic. What a joke!
And it's not about consumer protection because there are the very low quotas for foreign doctors, who are just as qualified (or more so) than home-grown doctors. Yeah I'd rather have the guy from India in the 98th percentile than the American doctor in the 50th. (Referencing the old joke.. what do you call the guy who graduated medical school with the lowest GPA? Doctor!)
It's possible that you're right, but Miley Cyrus (and other entertainment stars) vs Bill Clinton isn't a very good comparison.
First of all, Bill Clinton is a former President of the United States. That *does* make him more important than Miley Cyrus in terms of public perception, accomplishments, nuance, etc.
Second, there is more than just male/female dichotomy in your comparison. Bill Clinton, as a major Democratic politician, enjoyed a very different relationship to the media than Miley Cyrus. The tabloids don't cover the President (or at least, aren't listened to seriously), whereas they are a prime source of information for the entertainment industry. Why is that important? Well there was huge outrage among Republicans. You may recall that Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives! (Certainly more legal trouble than Miley got in.) But because of Bill's relationship to the mass media which is more favorable to Democrats than Republicans, his overall public perception was pretty well controlled.
If we look JUST at politicians or JUST at the entertainment industry I think it's more equitable. I don't know anybody who hopes their son grows up to be R Kelly. He's to this day mocked, e.g. Macklemore's "Thrift Shop." Can you think of a mainstream popular song that actually mocks a female celebrity over a sex scandal?
No and you raise an excellent point -- mixed trading systems don't work very well in a globalized world.
We have free market prices for drugs. Europe doesn't. Europe gets the exact same drugs as us... manufactured by the same companies.. some European, some American, some Indian, whatever. Doesn't matter who's doing it, they charge more in America than elsewhere. For the same product. Not because of different market forces (e.g. charging cheap prices in countries with low incomes) but because of laws.
Well of course as an American I feel completely fucked over by this system. Obviously American money is helping to finance the European health care industry since the same companies operate in both markets but charge more here.
And then the places where it would help us get stopped. For instance, doctors have much less debt after medical school in other countries, often because they don't do a separate 4 year undergrad degree, and school is cheaper anyway. But there are pretty tight quotas on immigration here. So there are thousands and thousands of doctors from India, Pakistan, China, who knows where else, who could move here and start practicing and charge much lower prices... but they aren't allowed!
So we have a free market segment that is used to subsidize the rest of the world, and a heavily regulated segment that is used to block cheap labor. It fucking sucks. BUT it's incorrect to say the free market is the cause of the problems... it's the incompatible mixture of free market and regulation around the world.
I don't think it's meaningful to compare "left" and "right" in different political systems. You claim Democrats are "on the right" which means Republicans are like "crazy right wing fringe" or something.
Well how does the Netherlands have "integration laws" for immigrants? How does France have a ban on burkas? These are conservative ideologies for maintaining and preserving traditional culture within the country. That's rather right wing territory, at least in this country. Now you're claiming Democrats are right-wing for Europe, so find one of these so-called right-wing Democrats in California who says Mexicans should be required to learn English within 3 years OR BE DEPORTED.
The Taiwanese also have a large stock of chemical weapons.
Well shit maybe Obama will bomb Taiwan for the Chinese.
doesn't matter if you already had your cock inside her before she changed her mind. Simple as that.
This is the problem people have with crazy feminists (and self-identified mainstream feminists if that's what you think you are). That kind of stuff makes you sound so unbelievably disconnected from reality.
Now granted this isn't an issue that I imagine happens much, if ever, but the mere fact that you would actually say that discredits you immensely and paints you as a radical.
Besides which, who decides what are "incorrect signals"? You?
By "incorrect signals" I meant signals that are interpreted differently than the woman intended. It happens when different people have different expectations or understandings. One person doesn't decide it, I think it's a self-evident thing. If a signal is interpreted differently than intended, it was incorrect, regardless of which person thinks it was incorrect.
As an example, maybe there's a woman who thinks "stripper rules" apply everywhere... she can grind against you, but if you touch her with your hand that's a violation of her dignity or some crap. Well obviously since most people don't know that rule outside of a strip club, they are going to read her signals differently than she intends. They're most likely going to take her dancing style as an invitation to touch her more than she wants. And to me, they are not in the wrong. We don't live in the fantasy world where every single contact requires a verbal request and consent.
Convincing someone to sleep with you under false pretences is rape. I'm not sure why you find that strange.
That's strange to me because it's not rape. Here's what Wikipedia says -- "Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or against a person who is incapable of valid consent, such as one who is unconscious, incapacitated, or below the legal age of consent."
So in this case, the guy lies to get a girl to sleep with him.. there's no assault, there is consent to the sexual act, there's no physical force, there's no coercion, no abuse of authority, and the person is capable of valid consent. Clearly it's not rape. If a woman is sooooo degraded by sleeping with a Muslim that she considers it rape to do so, then it's her responsibility to more thoroughly vet her partners. Simple as that.
It's sad to me that feminists have diluted the concept of rape to this point. Rape to me is a very horrible thing that I would support the death penalty for, though I have grudgingly mixed feelings because of the argument that the death penalty for rape produces more rape-murders. But now I have to say I do not support the death penalty for rape because so much "rape" has to potential to be BS.
That isn't what feminists are saying though, merely that even if there is some blame on one party's side it isn't justification for rape.
That's exactly what I'm saying too, tempered by my different interpretation of what counts as rape. Victims shouldn't be blamed for rape, but victims can be criticized for choices that we want to discourage other women from making, like getting drunk every night and letting strangers take you home and assuming they will tuck you into bed and leave. That is stupid and should be called stupid.
I think you'll find the mainstream feminist leadership disagrees with you on the issue of blame -- they'll say there's no blame on the victim full stop. That's been my impression anyway. IF that's true would you consider it a radical position?
Okay if you were talking about being roofied and gang-raped when you said "and should have the right to be treated with respect regardless of what they're wearing" -- I can accept that, but that was very poorly communicated because most people think of gang-rape as a more fundamental and serious violation than "not treating someone with respect."
Anyway, it's a pretty minor issue and it seems clear that you agree with me that the right to respect regardless of dress in scenarios like the workplace, formal dances, movie theaters, Walmart, daycare centers, etc does not actually exist today in a way that is different between men and women. You show up to work in speedos and you'll take as much crap as a woman in a bikini.
Since you're a mainstream feminist I'm curious if you perceive a difference between what the mainstream feminist adherent thinks vs. the mainstream feminist leaders. I mean maybe you don't know or care about Title IX (since you didn't reply to it at all), but do you know that it's a pretty big issue for feminist leaders? It's on the NOW issues list for instance -- http://www.now.org/issues/title_ix/index.html
But please consider this fine point: if a condition is negative, and affects one sex to a greater extent because of the frequency and/or intensity of that condition, would you then consider it sexist?
Not necessarily but it may be on a case by case basis. As an example, I've heard what I think is a mainstream feminist belief that the fields women go into and dominate become undervalued by society compared to male-dominated fields. An example would be teachers vs. engineers. (You'll often hear this argument when a man asks "Why is there so much emphasis on achieving female equality in male-dominated fields, but no desire for male equality in female-dominated fields?")
That's a negative condition that affects women more than men but I wouldn't call it sexism. I think there are too many other factors (like basic economics.. supply of labor etc) to attribute it to the entire society being sexist.
Sexism is not defined as "judging purely on sexual assets" so I don't see the relevance of your post.
Making a list of things that objectifies both genders dis't really proving anything.
It's proving what I said, that women aren't objectified in more ways than men. It's just that modern society is more sensitive to female objectification.
Look at Car sales, technology, military command, police force, etc... women are treated worse then the men in those fields. It's pretty well documented.
Not sure what you mean by "treated worse" -- I think that's going a bit further than mere objectification and that's really outside the scope of what I'm talking about.
Purely in terms of objectification, the "man in uniform" (which addresses military and police force as you mentioned) is more prevalent than "woman in uniform" in my experience.
For every anecdote like this you can find one showing how women were treated unfairly. Claims of rape being dismissed,
If a claim of rape is dismissed, how do you know that's unfair? That's an awfully serious charge to just take at face value and assume is true without knowing ANY details about the case, and then say the dismissal MUST be unfair.
Let's look at the opposite statistic. How many times do men get charged with rape when it didn't really happen, and how many times do women get charged with rape when it didn't really happen? I don't have the numbers, do you? If not, what's your honest gut instinct about it?
Even this is an example is taken to the extreme just so you can rail against it.
I agree that it's extreme, but of course you'll note I didn't propose it, in fact I said it doesn't exist.
What most feminists are actually arguing for is the acknowledgement that dressing a certain way is not an invitation to rape someone.
Some guys may use that as an excuse to rape someone, and it's also possible that a woman gives off incorrect signals and invites someone to rape her.
Some people argue that if someone goes out dressed provocatively and gets drunk they are basically offering themselves up to whoever they end up unconscious in bed with, man or woman, gay or straight.
Now that's an extreme example (unconscious) but how about the much more common example of simply drunk? There is a fairly widespread notion that having sex with a drunk girl is rape if the girl later decides it was rape, because she couldn't give consent while drunk. (And of course for some reason it doesn't matter if the guy is drunk as well and thus not in control of his actions, just like the girl.) What's your view on that? To me, if you dress a certain way, get drunk, and end up in bed with someone, and then we say that by definition having sex with someone who is drunk is rape since they couldn't give informed consent, then that's just stupid.
Or here's another example... I recall a few years ago reading a story about a Muslim guy in Israel being arrested for rape after having sex with a Jewish girl, and not revealing that he was Muslim until afterwards. Basically obtaining sex under deceptive pretenses or something like that.
There are some extremely extreme views on rape in the feminist community, and even the mainstream view is pretty extreme. I mean if you say that rape is NEVER the girl's fault in ANY way, you're an extremist. Because in reality it is sometimes the girl's fault to a degree, just like a guy can verbally pick a fight that ends in him getting beaten up physically... there IS a connection, even if it didn't JUSTIFY the conclusion.
So don't pick the most radical fringe of self-declared feminism and argue that all feminists are like that.
I didn't say all feminists were like that, and I didn't mean it either. I know the feminists who think we should switch to "womyn" are a minority. But there are a host of similar issues. I notice you didn't address the patriarchy comment.. do you think that's also a tiny, extremist minority of feminists? I think that's pretty close to mainstream if not mainstream. Now maybe not among, erm, the laity or whatever, but among feminist leaders I think the "extremist" issues are more common.
Okay another example of a feminist issue I think is really dumb would be Title IX, the thing about equal funding for men's and women's sports in school. I think equal pay for equal work is a higher principle than equal funding, so since the men in sports work more and earn more, they should get more. That's fair. I know women who hold many feminist beliefs (like the mainstream ones you listed) who ALSO agree with me about Title IX. And yet I know that Title IX is considered a major victory for feminism and it's pretty much a plank of the feminist platform.
"Feminism" is such a broad movement affecting every area of life that there's a lot of diversity in ideas. I mean look at the division between "new wave" feminists and traditional feminists. BUT That doesn't mean you get to dismiss every flaw of feminism as an extremist theory held by a minority.. that describes most feminist issues.
Honestly your rhetoric sounds exactly like fundamentalist religious people who are forced to distinguish themselves from slightly crazier fundamentalist religious people who get themselves in the news for doing something really bad.
If it becomes commonplace for a man to be roofied and gang-raped by a bunch of women, and then told by the cops "well, he was asking for it because he was dressed provocatively"
Commonplace? Really?
So you're picking a radical behavior that hardly ever happens and then using it to label the majority of occurrences that are nothing like that.
I mean jeeze, speaking of extreme examples. We went from "the right to be treated with respect regardless of what you wear" to "roofied and gang-raped." Don't you think that's a stretch? How about, you know, the shit that ACTUALLY HAPPENS all the time, like women complaining about not being taken seriously if they wear a sexy skirt or low-cut shirt, which I thought you were referring to? And I would say yeah well if I came to work in a low-cut shirt I would not be respected either as a guy, so that's not sexist.
Two wrongs don't make a right -- the fact that boys and men can be exploited in degrading ways does not somehow make it OK to do that to girls and women, or vice versa.
If a negative condition affects one sex, it's sexist. If it affects both sexes, it's still negative, but it's not sexist. That was my point, not that it makes it "right" somehow.
I mean it's a myth that women are objectified more than men, unless you have a different standard of what counts as objectification. Does porn objectify women? Do fashion mags objectify women? Both are a maybe, I don't know.. I think it's a gray scale and some people are more sensitive than others. BUT if you think fashion mags objectify women, you MUST also acknowledge that fashion mags objectify men, and if you think porn objectifies women, you must acknowledge that porn objectifies men. "Oh look at all these fake women giving false impressions about sex!" is a line you hear a lot. Well of course there's plenty of fantasy/mythology/fakeness about men in porn as well.
Why is a wet T-shirt contest sexist? I mean, perhaps since (generally) only women are allowed to enter it's sexist against men, but I doubt that's what you meant.
Are phenomena like boy-bands sexist against men? It's awfully degrading to men that millions of women are ogling and rubbing themselves off thinking of One Direction or New Kids on the Block right?
Your loss, my friend. Feminists are just people who believe that women should receive equal pay for equal work, should have the right to control their own bodies, and should have the right to be treated with respect regardless of what they're wearing.
You're so naive! If that's all feminists want, they should unify around that message instead of all the garbage about the patriarchy. I mean really, what does the crusade against the word "women" (womyn!!!) have to do with what you said? Don't pretend that type of feminism doesn't also exist.
Also I disagree with the right to be treated with respect regardless of what you wear. That does not exist for either sex.
So what percentage would you say? Because I saw a huge number of people defending Miley Cyrus and saying that her critics were engaging in "slut shaming" for instance. https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Slutshaming%20miley%20cyrus&mode=relevance&src=typd
Well, you're wrong, so that's the end of your line of reasoning.
Case in point, I was watching UK X-Factor this weekend and one of the hosts (Nicole Scherzinger) acted inappropriately when a 17 year old boy began yodeling. She acted overtly flirtatious towards him, started swaying and dancing and touching herself suggestively and commented on his looks (calling him hot, delicious, etc). Her comments and her "female gaze" and the disparity in power (host vs contenstant, age, social status, etc) made the whole thing very objectifying.
As far as I know, nobody has made a big deal of it.
Now if one of the male judges acted the same way towards an underage female contestant, it would be an outrage and accusations of sexism and pedophilia would fly about.
internalising the market externalities around the burning of fossil fuels is the single greatest tool we have to do something about this before it is too late.
I don't think that's even true -- we'd make a lot of progress against CO2 if the government paved the way for cheap nuclear power. One idea would be designated nuclear zones that are immune from lawsuits, environmental impact studies, and all the other red tape. A good start for the zones would be existing nuclear power plants, so adding capacity to an existing site would be massively streamlined. That would cut years off the time to market for a new plant, which would have a huge impact on construction cost (interest on the construction loan accruing while some shitty environmental group files baseless suits that take months to clear up while construction is put on hold), and since that's the largest cost in nuclear power, it would make nuclear far more desirable than coal and natural gas.
Simply raising the cost of carbon production without changing anything else can ONLY result in increased costs for everybody, since the reason carbon production is so popular is that it's cheap. If that's okay with you, then why not just pass a general tax that funds a carbon sequestration project?
The reality is, there are thousands of rebel groups in Syria, most fighting Assad in a respectable way.
Did you do a census or use random sampling to deduce that most of the groups are fighting in a respectable way? I'd love to see your data.
Also, I'm not sure if you did this on purpose, but are you confusing "most of the rebel groups" with "most of the rebels" since many of the groups are very small and a few of the big rebel groups make up the majority of the actual people?
and no funding is being planned anyways.
You are joking right? NO funding? For someone as knowledgeable about the Syrian rebels as yourself, you must know that we are arming and training them. Here are some links to get you started:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10283758/First-Syria-rebels-armed-and-trained-by-CIA-on-way-to-battlefield.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/us-aid-to-syrian-rebels