I think you just passed over the basis of our disagreement and went straight to blame.
You contest that gender roles are created and enforced by society. I say they are inherent in our genetics. You said that "it's certainly not because you're a man and she's a woman" - I disagree. That statement is not certain at all, its your preconceived notion.
If you notice, nowhere did I say that I expected my wife to stay home, nor did I say that our arrangement is the best for everyone.
I have none in flesh-and-blood, as I live in a very much predominately white area. That said, there about a dozen friends who are black from college that I have kept up with, and they fall into two camps:
1) They believe that racism is a huge part of America, and seek active measures to advance themselves via legislation.
2) They see that while individuals may have their own bias, racism holds no political or economic sway in today's world.
I note that those in group 1 typically identify themselves as black before any other demographic. Those in group 2, including one guy I'm good friends with who was raised in Nigeria, see themselves as something unrelated to race - as a Republican or Democrat, as an American, or as a male.
Even in the area where I live, which probably has the most entrenched racism and bigotry anywhere in the US, sexism is nothing more than a set of socially unacceptable jokes.
Feminism is at is base a destructive doctrine. It fails to recognize that men and women are not the same. Equal - yes. Equivalent? No!
I'm a 26-year-old male, and my wife and I have a 1-year-old. I'm a typical geek in a lot of ways, and my wife is an excellent graphic designer. She had an excellent job in the field before we had our daughter, but once she arrived, she didn't go back. We sat down before conceiving a child, and discussed our plans. We decided, together, that any children we might have would deserve and need the full attention of one of us.
This decision does not mean that I am more capable of earning a living as a man, or that she is relegated to the role of housewife. What it does mean is that I, as a male, am more fulfilled provided for my family outside the home, while my wife is more fulfilled being present in the home to raise our children.
I truly believe that racism and sexism are essentially dead with my generation. I can honestly say I've never discounted someone's ideas because they were a woman, or because they had a different skin color. Continuing to live as if entire groups of people are being subjugated is nothing but a recipe for unhappy people, seeing racism and sexism where there is none.
My favorite example was the 9/12 march in DC this year. Of the major networks, only Fox covered it at all, and even they really lowballed the numbers - "tens of thousands".
Based on photos of the event, my best guess at the crowd was somewhere between 1 and 1.5 million people. Yet CNN didn't even bother to mention it that I saw.
That's why I included sites in my list like Daily Kos and Freerepublic -- they're incredibly biased, but you can often find raw information there that isn't presented anywhere else.
I disagree wholeheartedly with your assessment. He has not been unique in his efforts to "de-escalate" the conflict. The problem is not one of escalation anyhow, but one of strategy. We made grave mistakes within the first two weeks of the Iraq war, and we are still facing the consequences of them - the foremost of which was disbanding the Iraqi military and police forces.
This is not a discussion of why we are where we are in Iraq, though.
"Strong moves" don't cut it. The Nobel prize is supposed to be about results, not intentions. As for "keeping his generals at bay", the President of the United States is commander in chief - a civilian authority in charge of and responsible for the military. If he doesn't like what his generals are telling him, it is within his authority to tell them to come to heel, and kick them to the curb if they do not.
Barack Obama has no achievements to his credit remotely worthy of a Nobel prize.
23 Senators voted against the resolution allowing war to be declared in Iraq.
Furthermore - HE WASN'T A US SENATOR IN 2002! He served from 2005 to 2009, and one of the biggest criticisms the right had for the guy was that he was inexperienced, as a junior senator.
I get my news from a number of sources, from Al Jezeera and the India Times to the BBC, from CNN to Fox, from Freerepublic to the Daily Kos.
BBC has just as much bias as any other outlet - only their bias is in what stories are chosen, as opposed to the commentary upon them.
Any nerd should understand this - GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. You have to collect news from multiple sources and weigh the actual facts, not the commentary.
I meant to imply contemporary rifles in the style of the weapons i was discussing. Of course there are muzzle-loaders being made today, but they are either niche (in the case of reproductions of classic arms), or designed for hunting.
Also, I'm not aware of any hunting seasons that are open to black-powder weapons as such - if that were the case, I have a nice old.45-70 I'd love to take with me. Seasons are typically divided into archery, muzzle-loading/"primitive weapons", and modern gun. Black power cartridge guns are typically considered modern, regardless of age.
Besides, I'm really not an avid hunter. I might actually hunt once every 3 or 4 years. I collect and shoot firearms for practical, recreational, and political reasons.
The fact is, we lose a large percentage of our knowledge - it doesn't take levitating rocks for this to be true.
For instance - I'm into firearms, and a good friend of mine is quite fond of old English sporting arms. He has an English flintlock that is the absolute most amazing piece of engineering i have ever seen. The barrels are side-by-side and regulated - as in, you can put 2 rounds within 1" of each other at 100 yards with this thing. There are no companies that we know of making contemporary muzzle-loading weapons. Today's newly manufactured flintlocks are generally very touchy and unreliable, but the old ones are incredibly reliable; they had to be.
As a society, we have forgotten how to make quality flintlock rifles, just as we have forgotten how to move gigantic stones by hand.
No, I was being serious - if that scares you, you should probably sit down and do some reading on classical ethics. Its not like I pulled the concept out of the air.
As for it being a "tenet of libertarian philosophy", well, I can't speak for all who identify themselves as libertarian, but I can speak for myself. I have a child, and it is my responsibility to provide for her. That includes food, shelter, transportation, education, and everything else she needs until she is a legal adult. I do not seek to take your money to meet my own commitments.
Schools in America are mandated to a large extent by the federal government. While some funding comes form this source, the vast majority comes from millages levied against the property owners in the area. If you own property, you likely pay property taxes. The concept of paying a tax in order to keep something that you already own is most certainly evil, as it violates the basic premise of property ownership. If I have to pay you to continue to use my own property, you have claimed ownership, and are demanding rent.
A false claim to another's property is a false claim to their time, and their life. It is not acceptable for the state to require that you spend 100 hours every year cleaning school hallway, and it is likewise unacceptable to confiscate the monetary result of your working 100 hours per year to pay someone else to clean the hallways.
I should have known that someone using the phrase "Darwinism" like that meant it in a derogatory manner. I don't mean to "scare" you with my philosophy, but you more than scare me with your evidently firmly-held belief that you have partial ownership of my labor.
It isn't just Darwinistic, it lies in line with my Objectivist/libertarian leanings.
I would take it a step further - eliminate the Dept. of Education and all federal funding for education. If states want public schools, they can fund them. Public schools are not a right, and the way we are funding them now is purely evil.
I've got an older Toughbook (800Mhz Intel CPU, 1G RAM) that I absolutely love. I've literally had it fall out of the back of my truck into a mudpuddle, and it still worked. The keys were a bit sticky, so I sprayed it down with a garden hose.
I got mine at an auction, it came from a local electric company that was closing some offices.
Amen. I've gotten into the habit of structuring the document, outputting the data into readable form, then using CSS and JS to make it look and behave how I want it to.
There are some pages where "no access without javascript" is acceptable - but they are few and far between. For the most part, you should be able to use Lynx and view the content.
Money provides the motivation to do good work. A blacksmith who cares so much about his work he redoes everything 6 or 7 times until it is perfect is a blacksmith who will soon be begging for food.
A programmer who produces shitty code for money was never capable of producing quality code.
Our rights as individuals - life, Liberty, private property, self defense, etc. - are not granted by a government, they are inherent within each person. The US government, as founded, merely recognized those rights. The current government barely gives them lipservice.
The people of the colonies formed regional legislatures on the state level to enact fair laws. Those legislatures in turn gave a portion of their power to a confederation (which failed) and later, to a federal government. Therefore, the power to govern in an attribute of the individual, bestowed upon the state, and delegated to a federal government.
What we have today is a strange, dangerous mutation of that federal government. The time to overthrow it or force it to live within its boundaries is 150 years gone.
The concept of America as a Christian nation isn't misinterpretation, it's one of two things, depending on the person: lack of education, or religious bias.
America is a nation founded by rational men. Some of those men were Christians, some were Deists, and some were Atheist or Agnostic.
Cite your sources, if you don't mind. I'm quite confident that Israel has plenty of nuclear devices - some that the US doesn't have, even - but I'm not confident we "gave" them to them. I thought it was more like theft from an unlocked house, after being told when we'd be going to work.
As for the lost weapons --- you do realize that the US has literally lost nuclear-armed aircraft, complete with crew, over the Med, right?
No, the environmental concerns came after, and they aren't exactly rational. Outdoor shooting ranges can have some issues with lead leeching into groundwater, but it takes decades to get to that point, and its not hard to correct the issue.
I think we can all agree, though, that legislation is not based on rationality.
It doesn't list the calibers used in TFA, so hard to be a judge. I shoot 1/4" steel plates all day with a.223 without much damage to them - though a lot depends on the bullet type. Lead bullets will splash, lead-nose jacketed bullets will shatter, steel-core will damage or penetrate. Step up to a.308 and good ammo, you're going to need 1/2" or more to have a chance of stopping it.
A.50? The only time I've shot steel with a.50 BMG, it penetrated the 3/4" steel plates I had like they were paper.
If I had to guess, they're talking about handgun rounds, though - in which case, it sounds pretty equivalent to Kevlar. Kevlar isn't just a "sheet", though, as a single sheet is easy to penetrate - its more about the way they interlock when layered, causing the bullet to apply its force to a greater surface area before penetrating.
For clarification, Teflon coating of projectiles is designed to reduce barrel wear, and has nothing to do with penetration.
Most ammo manufacturers now use molybdenum coatings - not sure if that is because it is more effective, or because of the dumb "Teflon-coated cop-killing bullets that go through a bullet-proof vest!" bullshit the Brady group shrieked about in the 90s. FWIW, most any rifle bullet will penetrate light armor, and there are several surplus rounds that can even penetrate level IIIa from a pistol - 7.62x25 Tokarev being the most popular, in the CZ-52.
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I think you just passed over the basis of our disagreement and went straight to blame.
You contest that gender roles are created and enforced by society. I say they are inherent in our genetics. You said that "it's certainly not because you're a man and she's a woman" - I disagree. That statement is not certain at all, its your preconceived notion.
If you notice, nowhere did I say that I expected my wife to stay home, nor did I say that our arrangement is the best for everyone.
I have none in flesh-and-blood, as I live in a very much predominately white area. That said, there about a dozen friends who are black from college that I have kept up with, and they fall into two camps:
1) They believe that racism is a huge part of America, and seek active measures to advance themselves via legislation.
2) They see that while individuals may have their own bias, racism holds no political or economic sway in today's world.
I note that those in group 1 typically identify themselves as black before any other demographic. Those in group 2, including one guy I'm good friends with who was raised in Nigeria, see themselves as something unrelated to race - as a Republican or Democrat, as an American, or as a male.
Even in the area where I live, which probably has the most entrenched racism and bigotry anywhere in the US, sexism is nothing more than a set of socially unacceptable jokes.
Feminism is at is base a destructive doctrine. It fails to recognize that men and women are not the same. Equal - yes. Equivalent? No!
I'm a 26-year-old male, and my wife and I have a 1-year-old. I'm a typical geek in a lot of ways, and my wife is an excellent graphic designer. She had an excellent job in the field before we had our daughter, but once she arrived, she didn't go back. We sat down before conceiving a child, and discussed our plans. We decided, together, that any children we might have would deserve and need the full attention of one of us.
This decision does not mean that I am more capable of earning a living as a man, or that she is relegated to the role of housewife. What it does mean is that I, as a male, am more fulfilled provided for my family outside the home, while my wife is more fulfilled being present in the home to raise our children.
I truly believe that racism and sexism are essentially dead with my generation. I can honestly say I've never discounted someone's ideas because they were a woman, or because they had a different skin color. Continuing to live as if entire groups of people are being subjugated is nothing but a recipe for unhappy people, seeing racism and sexism where there is none.
My favorite example was the 9/12 march in DC this year. Of the major networks, only Fox covered it at all, and even they really lowballed the numbers - "tens of thousands".
Based on photos of the event, my best guess at the crowd was somewhere between 1 and 1.5 million people. Yet CNN didn't even bother to mention it that I saw.
That's why I included sites in my list like Daily Kos and Freerepublic -- they're incredibly biased, but you can often find raw information there that isn't presented anywhere else.
I disagree wholeheartedly with your assessment. He has not been unique in his efforts to "de-escalate" the conflict. The problem is not one of escalation anyhow, but one of strategy. We made grave mistakes within the first two weeks of the Iraq war, and we are still facing the consequences of them - the foremost of which was disbanding the Iraqi military and police forces.
This is not a discussion of why we are where we are in Iraq, though.
"Strong moves" don't cut it. The Nobel prize is supposed to be about results, not intentions. As for "keeping his generals at bay", the President of the United States is commander in chief - a civilian authority in charge of and responsible for the military. If he doesn't like what his generals are telling him, it is within his authority to tell them to come to heel, and kick them to the curb if they do not.
Barack Obama has no achievements to his credit remotely worthy of a Nobel prize.
This just makes me sick - it was only 7 years ago, and yet people believe this shit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution
23 Senators voted against the resolution allowing war to be declared in Iraq.
Furthermore - HE WASN'T A US SENATOR IN 2002! He served from 2005 to 2009, and one of the biggest criticisms the right had for the guy was that he was inexperienced, as a junior senator.
I get my news from a number of sources, from Al Jezeera and the India Times to the BBC, from CNN to Fox, from Freerepublic to the Daily Kos.
BBC has just as much bias as any other outlet - only their bias is in what stories are chosen, as opposed to the commentary upon them.
Any nerd should understand this - GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. You have to collect news from multiple sources and weigh the actual facts, not the commentary.
I meant to imply contemporary rifles in the style of the weapons i was discussing. Of course there are muzzle-loaders being made today, but they are either niche (in the case of reproductions of classic arms), or designed for hunting.
Also, I'm not aware of any hunting seasons that are open to black-powder weapons as such - if that were the case, I have a nice old .45-70 I'd love to take with me. Seasons are typically divided into archery, muzzle-loading/"primitive weapons", and modern gun. Black power cartridge guns are typically considered modern, regardless of age.
Besides, I'm really not an avid hunter. I might actually hunt once every 3 or 4 years. I collect and shoot firearms for practical, recreational, and political reasons.
The fact is, we lose a large percentage of our knowledge - it doesn't take levitating rocks for this to be true.
For instance - I'm into firearms, and a good friend of mine is quite fond of old English sporting arms. He has an English flintlock that is the absolute most amazing piece of engineering i have ever seen. The barrels are side-by-side and regulated - as in, you can put 2 rounds within 1" of each other at 100 yards with this thing. There are no companies that we know of making contemporary muzzle-loading weapons. Today's newly manufactured flintlocks are generally very touchy and unreliable, but the old ones are incredibly reliable; they had to be.
As a society, we have forgotten how to make quality flintlock rifles, just as we have forgotten how to move gigantic stones by hand.
No, I was being serious - if that scares you, you should probably sit down and do some reading on classical ethics. Its not like I pulled the concept out of the air.
As for it being a "tenet of libertarian philosophy", well, I can't speak for all who identify themselves as libertarian, but I can speak for myself. I have a child, and it is my responsibility to provide for her. That includes food, shelter, transportation, education, and everything else she needs until she is a legal adult. I do not seek to take your money to meet my own commitments.
Schools in America are mandated to a large extent by the federal government. While some funding comes form this source, the vast majority comes from millages levied against the property owners in the area. If you own property, you likely pay property taxes. The concept of paying a tax in order to keep something that you already own is most certainly evil, as it violates the basic premise of property ownership. If I have to pay you to continue to use my own property, you have claimed ownership, and are demanding rent.
A false claim to another's property is a false claim to their time, and their life. It is not acceptable for the state to require that you spend 100 hours every year cleaning school hallway, and it is likewise unacceptable to confiscate the monetary result of your working 100 hours per year to pay someone else to clean the hallways.
I should have known that someone using the phrase "Darwinism" like that meant it in a derogatory manner. I don't mean to "scare" you with my philosophy, but you more than scare me with your evidently firmly-held belief that you have partial ownership of my labor.
I say do away with the entirely - show me where the US Constitution gives the federal government authority to establish a "department of education".
It isn't just Darwinistic, it lies in line with my Objectivist/libertarian leanings.
I would take it a step further - eliminate the Dept. of Education and all federal funding for education. If states want public schools, they can fund them. Public schools are not a right, and the way we are funding them now is purely evil.
I've got an older Toughbook (800Mhz Intel CPU, 1G RAM) that I absolutely love. I've literally had it fall out of the back of my truck into a mudpuddle, and it still worked. The keys were a bit sticky, so I sprayed it down with a garden hose.
I got mine at an auction, it came from a local electric company that was closing some offices.
Amen. I've gotten into the habit of structuring the document, outputting the data into readable form, then using CSS and JS to make it look and behave how I want it to.
There are some pages where "no access without javascript" is acceptable - but they are few and far between. For the most part, you should be able to use Lynx and view the content.
Money provides the motivation to do good work. A blacksmith who cares so much about his work he redoes everything 6 or 7 times until it is perfect is a blacksmith who will soon be begging for food.
A programmer who produces shitty code for money was never capable of producing quality code.
I think we agree, but you're not being clear.
Our rights as individuals - life, Liberty, private property, self defense, etc. - are not granted by a government, they are inherent within each person. The US government, as founded, merely recognized those rights. The current government barely gives them lipservice.
The people of the colonies formed regional legislatures on the state level to enact fair laws. Those legislatures in turn gave a portion of their power to a confederation (which failed) and later, to a federal government. Therefore, the power to govern in an attribute of the individual, bestowed upon the state, and delegated to a federal government.
What we have today is a strange, dangerous mutation of that federal government. The time to overthrow it or force it to live within its boundaries is 150 years gone.
Natural rights are not necessarily dependent upon religion. To some atheists, they exist because they are apparent, not because the were granted.
The concept of America as a Christian nation isn't misinterpretation, it's one of two things, depending on the person: lack of education, or religious bias.
America is a nation founded by rational men. Some of those men were Christians, some were Deists, and some were Atheist or Agnostic.
Warday is one of my favorite books, ever. I bought a first edition a few months ago, I like it so much :)
Cite your sources, if you don't mind. I'm quite confident that Israel has plenty of nuclear devices - some that the US doesn't have, even - but I'm not confident we "gave" them to them. I thought it was more like theft from an unlocked house, after being told when we'd be going to work.
As for the lost weapons --- you do realize that the US has literally lost nuclear-armed aircraft, complete with crew, over the Med, right?
No, the environmental concerns came after, and they aren't exactly rational. Outdoor shooting ranges can have some issues with lead leeching into groundwater, but it takes decades to get to that point, and its not hard to correct the issue.
I think we can all agree, though, that legislation is not based on rationality.
Also, brass rounds aren't "banned", though there are some odd regulations.
It doesn't list the calibers used in TFA, so hard to be a judge. I shoot 1/4" steel plates all day with a .223 without much damage to them - though a lot depends on the bullet type. Lead bullets will splash, lead-nose jacketed bullets will shatter, steel-core will damage or penetrate. Step up to a .308 and good ammo, you're going to need 1/2" or more to have a chance of stopping it.
A .50? The only time I've shot steel with a .50 BMG, it penetrated the 3/4" steel plates I had like they were paper.
If I had to guess, they're talking about handgun rounds, though - in which case, it sounds pretty equivalent to Kevlar. Kevlar isn't just a "sheet", though, as a single sheet is easy to penetrate - its more about the way they interlock when layered, causing the bullet to apply its force to a greater surface area before penetrating.
For clarification, Teflon coating of projectiles is designed to reduce barrel wear, and has nothing to do with penetration.
Most ammo manufacturers now use molybdenum coatings - not sure if that is because it is more effective, or because of the dumb "Teflon-coated cop-killing bullets that go through a bullet-proof vest!" bullshit the Brady group shrieked about in the 90s. FWIW, most any rifle bullet will penetrate light armor, and there are several surplus rounds that can even penetrate level IIIa from a pistol - 7.62x25 Tokarev being the most popular, in the CZ-52.
Yep - I'm fat and you're a coward. I can go on a diet, though, and lose weight.
You'll never manage to grow some balls, though.