I do pay more taxes than most people, and I don't really care if there's some leeches. What I want to know is the overall use of my taxes, and I'd rather pay some cheats than pay more to get the cheats thrown out of the system.
Charity can work pretty well in small and relatively homogeneous communities. It fails in large and heterogeneous communities.
One problem with bureaucracy is that people seem determined that nobody should get any benefits they don't qualify for, and that produces large bureaucracies. With something like a UBI, the administrative costs would be drastically reduced.
I've got a friend who does things with American Indians in South Dakota. By his description, the free health care is extremely limited, and tends to run out before the year is up. The free housing is often FEMA rejects. I don't know what you mean by free education, but typically K-12 is free in the US. I think the reason tribal lands are often so impoverished is not overly generous Federal aid.
Vista wound up being fairly decent. It sure didn't start that way, and 7 was a very definite improvement, but I was reasonably happy with it shortly before moving to 7.
A universal health care system can be cheaper than what the US has now (the most expensive one is a little over two-thirds what we pay overall), and doesn't have to be paid for by employers. Not having to pay medical coverage for employees would generally give businesses a boost.
Meds are cheaper than therapists. Proper mental health treatment tends to take a lot of professional hours, whereas proper physical health treatment generally requires a lot fewer, and treatments are less expensive. If you're trying to run a health system on the cheap, cutting back on talk therapy (which should be used with the meds, for clinical depression) saves a lot of money.
As far as the root cause goes, it would be wonderful to find a treatable root cause, but we don't understand mental illness nearly well enough for that in most cases. Depression, to stick to what I know, is diagnosed as a combination of self-reported symptoms, and progress is measured by self-reporting. There's probably multiple causes, only some of them benefiting from anti-depressants, but it's cheaper to throw a prescription at someone than to understand and heal them.
In order to get psychiatric treatment, you have to be willing to get it. I've run into enough people who thought my depression was a character flaw, and would never admit such in themselves, and my guess is that they tended to vote Trump.
Ask to see their clothing labels (Leviticus forbids mixed fabrics). Make sure they're up-to-date on their animal sacrifices. Heck, read Leviticus and pick out your favorite restriction or obligation. It's not that hard to read.
My guess is that 99%, at least, of the Christians who quote Leviticus about male-on-male sex (it says nothing about hot girl-girl action) are hypocrites.
from what I've seen it was the predominant form of feminism in the 90s and earlier
That's a very odd way of phrasing it, since it implies that the most important goal of feminism in those days was to eliminate pornography. I'd say that most such feminists were anti-pornography, since they saw it as objectification of women. Those feminists found that objectionable, regardless of what it did to the rape statistics.
Guns are physical objects, mostly recognizable at a glance. They're talking about software, and software control laws work considerably less well than gun control laws.
So legalization does not eliminate all sex trafficking. Does it eliminate some? Does it make it easier for a woman who escapes from her captors to get help?
Why do you think legalizing prostitution would increase the STI rate? There might be more sexual activity, but if condoms are legally required I'd expect the amount of unprotected paid-for sex to decrease.
Keeping prostitution illegal may discourage women from going into it, but if you're worried about a woman being a desirable wife (which seems a bit odd to me), you do NOT want her to have a criminal record involving prostitution. Criminalizing behavior to protect the criminal from herself is stupid. If you want to protect prostitutes, making the job legal would give the workers the protections of law.
I'd be interested in knowing about the mental health and drug use of prostitutes where it's legal, since legalization might improve their condition.
The second Freakonomics book has a chapter on the economics of prostitution that suggest there would be more supply if the demand rose., based on observations around the Fourth of July (apparently the demand picks up then in the city studied).
FDR dragged his feet on war with Japan, his actions trailing rather than leading US sentiment. He wanted to get into the war against Germany, and didn't want Pacific distractions. He had us in all-out naval war from September 1941 on, although we really didn't do well against the U-boats until later in the war.
What I find interesting here is that FDR didn't ask for a declaration of war against Germany immediately after Pearl Harbor, only after Germany declared war on the US. I'm not sure why he delayed, and I don't know if anyone else knows. FDR normally had his reasons for things and frequently didn't share them.
My observations of Obama's first election was that certain people's change of blame from Clinton to Obama took place primarily in December 2008. That means that their left-wing counterparts should be changing blame from Bush to Trump sometime around now.
The "right to remain silent" is from the Miranda warning. The Fifth Amendment says "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself", and that has been taken to mean that you cannot be forced to confess to a crime, not that you can't be required to provide specific evidence asked for.
Models are always imperfect. Some are useful. Most can be improved to be more useful.
2015 was the hottest year on record, based on our measurements. Speaking as a math major with a strong background in probability and statistics, this is a significant fact.
Sea levels have risen, which is one thing that made Hurricane Sandy so destructive. Sandy produced a really big storm surge, and the extra 30cm or so of sea level increased its inland reach.
The fact that you are willfully stupid doesn't prove anything about the science.
"Settled science" is science that nobody has good cause to question at the moment. It is necessary to rely on a lot of settled science to make progress. Not every paper on relativity needs its own Michelson-Morley experiment. Obviously, settled science can get unsettled, but it's rare. I'm not aware of the facts involved in settled science being found wrong, only interpretations. When Wegener was talking about continental drift, everyone involved was working from the same set of facts. It turned out that Wegener's interpretation was correct, which was a surprise to many. Applying this to global warming, it would be unprecedented for new scientific theories to conclude that the world hasn't warmed up a lot recently.
I'm almost at retirement age, with resources for a really comfortable retirement. I live close to 200m above sea level. I'm not going to be all that bothered by climate change and global warming. (My son will be, which is the skin I have in the game.) I've been arguing this stuff for a long time, and haven't changed any minds. There are other things I'm working on, so I can understand GP's point.
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I do pay more taxes than most people, and I don't really care if there's some leeches. What I want to know is the overall use of my taxes, and I'd rather pay some cheats than pay more to get the cheats thrown out of the system.
Charity can work pretty well in small and relatively homogeneous communities. It fails in large and heterogeneous communities.
One problem with bureaucracy is that people seem determined that nobody should get any benefits they don't qualify for, and that produces large bureaucracies. With something like a UBI, the administrative costs would be drastically reduced.
I've got a friend who does things with American Indians in South Dakota. By his description, the free health care is extremely limited, and tends to run out before the year is up. The free housing is often FEMA rejects. I don't know what you mean by free education, but typically K-12 is free in the US. I think the reason tribal lands are often so impoverished is not overly generous Federal aid.
Vista wound up being fairly decent. It sure didn't start that way, and 7 was a very definite improvement, but I was reasonably happy with it shortly before moving to 7.
No, the meds don't all have severe side effects. You're way overgeneralizing.
A universal health care system can be cheaper than what the US has now (the most expensive one is a little over two-thirds what we pay overall), and doesn't have to be paid for by employers. Not having to pay medical coverage for employees would generally give businesses a boost.
Meds are cheaper than therapists. Proper mental health treatment tends to take a lot of professional hours, whereas proper physical health treatment generally requires a lot fewer, and treatments are less expensive. If you're trying to run a health system on the cheap, cutting back on talk therapy (which should be used with the meds, for clinical depression) saves a lot of money.
As far as the root cause goes, it would be wonderful to find a treatable root cause, but we don't understand mental illness nearly well enough for that in most cases. Depression, to stick to what I know, is diagnosed as a combination of self-reported symptoms, and progress is measured by self-reporting. There's probably multiple causes, only some of them benefiting from anti-depressants, but it's cheaper to throw a prescription at someone than to understand and heal them.
In order to get psychiatric treatment, you have to be willing to get it. I've run into enough people who thought my depression was a character flaw, and would never admit such in themselves, and my guess is that they tended to vote Trump.
Ask to see their clothing labels (Leviticus forbids mixed fabrics). Make sure they're up-to-date on their animal sacrifices. Heck, read Leviticus and pick out your favorite restriction or obligation. It's not that hard to read.
My guess is that 99%, at least, of the Christians who quote Leviticus about male-on-male sex (it says nothing about hot girl-girl action) are hypocrites.
Children in social services programs are almost certainly troubled to begin with, so it's no surprise that they'd be most of the runaways.
That's a very odd way of phrasing it, since it implies that the most important goal of feminism in those days was to eliminate pornography. I'd say that most such feminists were anti-pornography, since they saw it as objectification of women. Those feminists found that objectionable, regardless of what it did to the rape statistics.
Guns are physical objects, mostly recognizable at a glance. They're talking about software, and software control laws work considerably less well than gun control laws.
Or order one on-line. That's interstate commerce, and South Carolina has no authority over it. They'd have to go after the citizens themselves.
So legalization does not eliminate all sex trafficking. Does it eliminate some? Does it make it easier for a woman who escapes from her captors to get help?
Why do you think legalizing prostitution would increase the STI rate? There might be more sexual activity, but if condoms are legally required I'd expect the amount of unprotected paid-for sex to decrease.
Keeping prostitution illegal may discourage women from going into it, but if you're worried about a woman being a desirable wife (which seems a bit odd to me), you do NOT want her to have a criminal record involving prostitution. Criminalizing behavior to protect the criminal from herself is stupid. If you want to protect prostitutes, making the job legal would give the workers the protections of law.
I'd be interested in knowing about the mental health and drug use of prostitutes where it's legal, since legalization might improve their condition.
The second Freakonomics book has a chapter on the economics of prostitution that suggest there would be more supply if the demand rose., based on observations around the Fourth of July (apparently the demand picks up then in the city studied).
The ACA was held to be constitutional. You can disagree with Supreme Court decisions (I do), but they're the ones who make the decisions.
FDR dragged his feet on war with Japan, his actions trailing rather than leading US sentiment. He wanted to get into the war against Germany, and didn't want Pacific distractions. He had us in all-out naval war from September 1941 on, although we really didn't do well against the U-boats until later in the war.
What I find interesting here is that FDR didn't ask for a declaration of war against Germany immediately after Pearl Harbor, only after Germany declared war on the US. I'm not sure why he delayed, and I don't know if anyone else knows. FDR normally had his reasons for things and frequently didn't share them.
My observations of Obama's first election was that certain people's change of blame from Clinton to Obama took place primarily in December 2008. That means that their left-wing counterparts should be changing blame from Bush to Trump sometime around now.
Correct. Fortunately, I don't care
The "right to remain silent" is from the Miranda warning. The Fifth Amendment says "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself", and that has been taken to mean that you cannot be forced to confess to a crime, not that you can't be required to provide specific evidence asked for.
I bought a Subaru Forester last month that's supposed to prevent me from doing that, and it doesn't talk to other cars.
Models are always imperfect. Some are useful. Most can be improved to be more useful.
2015 was the hottest year on record, based on our measurements. Speaking as a math major with a strong background in probability and statistics, this is a significant fact.
Sea levels have risen, which is one thing that made Hurricane Sandy so destructive. Sandy produced a really big storm surge, and the extra 30cm or so of sea level increased its inland reach.
The fact that you are willfully stupid doesn't prove anything about the science.
"Settled science" is science that nobody has good cause to question at the moment. It is necessary to rely on a lot of settled science to make progress. Not every paper on relativity needs its own Michelson-Morley experiment. Obviously, settled science can get unsettled, but it's rare. I'm not aware of the facts involved in settled science being found wrong, only interpretations. When Wegener was talking about continental drift, everyone involved was working from the same set of facts. It turned out that Wegener's interpretation was correct, which was a surprise to many. Applying this to global warming, it would be unprecedented for new scientific theories to conclude that the world hasn't warmed up a lot recently.
The right will fare no better. A bunch of angry gun owners can cause a lot of crime, but not a successful insurrection.
I'm almost at retirement age, with resources for a really comfortable retirement. I live close to 200m above sea level. I'm not going to be all that bothered by climate change and global warming. (My son will be, which is the skin I have in the game.) I've been arguing this stuff for a long time, and haven't changed any minds. There are other things I'm working on, so I can understand GP's point.