unixknight

No argument form me on that, @Vort. Too right. That said, we're not just talking about people making a decent living and either making bad choices or being unwilling to make sacrifices. I'm talking about people who aren't nearly as blessed when it comes to income. who could probably do more with even less than what you or I have, and still have no option but to be 2 income.

Well, of course you'd pick the worst possible Roth/Van Halen song... How can I come back from that????

If you don't want to go into it I won't press you to, but I haven't seen a convincing debunking of that. Not exactly. You did mention cases in which the parents weren't up to the task due to education, but what about the matters of consistency and programs, such as those I mentioned to @Vort? I don't see an equivalence between a parent working during the day and being apathetic. In fact, I think that statement would be downright insulting to a family who can only make ends meet by being a 2 income household. Mind you, let's keep this in mind: Being busy during the day doesn't necessarily have to mean a professional job. Let's not discount moms who are kept plenty busy by toddlers and babies. Can't you imagine a scenario in which these parents are fully engaged with their kids when they get home? My wife helps my kids with their homework when they get home, but if she worked during the day then either she or I would help them when either of us got home. That doesn't count?

I've been fortunate to have spent time with kids who were homeschooled who were in my D&D group. Remember my thread in the advice section? Yeah, Penny was one of them. Kids' beliefs are much more likely to match their parents than peers, if the parents are engaged. I also observed that these kids tended to be limited to their own social bubble, because homeschool families tend to cluster so that they can have activities and socialization with other kids that they're missing from not being in school. I agree. Though the options are limited outside of school, as things stand right now. Sports, band, clubs, etc. Those things do exist outside of a school context, but they're not as common and can be expensive, which is a problem for many. That's where engaged parents come in. And just a reminder: I'm not claiming public school is perfect. I've already provided one real life example. The question was "is there any good in it?" and my answer is yes. I happen to believe, personally, that parents ought to have a choice on how their kids are educated, and I do have a real problem with laws like the ones recently passed in California that require homeschooled kid to be taught by a credentialed educator... obviously a move to discourage and ultimately eliminate homeschooling. Those kids in my D&D group I mentioned, who were homeschooled... Not a single one of them could spell worth squat. I'm serious. And these are people who have read the entire library of J.R. Tolkien books and the like, so it isn't as if they weren't seeing words properly spelled. I read their character sheets and their characters' backstories and their spelling was at a level at least three or four grades lower than where they were at. Public schools are a long way from perfect, but homeschooling isn't always better. I think that's an oversimplification of the issues. My family has the luxury of living where we do but being able to have my wife stay at home during the day. Around here, we're an exception. Most people just can't afford to do that. Even among the people we go to church with, about half the families have to be 2 income families. (Technically we are as well, but my wife has a part time job and doesn't work during the day.) And it isn't always a simple as a lifestyle change. It would be great if it were that simple, but it just isn't. I will not pass judgement on people who feel like that's their only option.

I'm a heretic who likes both Sammy and David. Just as long as it's Van Halen I'm in.

Socialization, access to programs, consistency and quality (ideally) in areas where parents may not have the knowledge... And the elephant in the room... a lot of households have both parents working and sending the kids off to school is a pretty good method of free daycare. That said, it is essential that parents be involved in the education process. What the kids are taught in school may or may not conform to the truth, and then there are things like teachers making their own political views known by making remarks and comments to students. Just the other day my daughter told me her 5th Grade teacher had told students that Trump shut the Government down because they wouldn't let him build the wall. Of course, most of the kids lapped that up. We live in Maryland which ain't exactly a Trump stronghold. As a parent who is involved, I used that as an opportunity to explain to her not only how the budget process works, but give her a more objective understanding of what happened, within the realm of what a 5th Grader can understand.

General note: Can we save some time by skipping the "Not all x..." arguments? Everybody here is smart enough to know that we aren't talking about homogenous groups and that people vary. I make general statements because generalities save time when making a point. If my intent is to comment on every single member of a group, I'll state it clearly. So what if rural Democrats would oppose it too? Do you see any urban Republicans calling for it? Enough representative voices, including Congressional Democrats, have been making these noises that it's fair to say this is coming out of the left and not the right. Immediately after the election in 2016 they performed a publicity stunt to try to legislate it away, even though that would be nigh impossible. Irrelevant. Who on the right is calling for legislation like "Hate Speech" laws? This argument is irrelevant but I'll address it. I have not observed that to be true. While there are plenty of conservatives who would be prepared to permit abortion in such cases, nobody's defending it with that kind of fervor. Most conservatives I've spoken to (myself included) fail to understand why we have to keep mentioning medical necessity as an exception. Well duh. Does it really need to be said? Rape and incest? Some conservatives don't see those as legitimate exceptions, some do. It isn't clear to me why you'd say they argue for it with fervor. To the point: No matter what one's view may be on this matter, nowhere in the Constitution does it mention abortion. Period. We all understand the Amendment process and the need for it. Understanding the Constitution according to the changing times is one thing. Blatantly distorting its meaning in order to push an agenda is another entirely. It is the latter I'm accusing leftists of.

I'm gonna go with @Mores on this one. Yes, the Left loves the Constitution when they can interpret it their way. You can make the argument that the right is exactly the same, but I'll point out to you that the Left is the side that: Wants to eliminate the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote Claims that the Constitution protects Abortion when there's precisely -zero- language to that effect Is happy to speak out under the blanket of the right to Free Speech while looking for ways to take that right away from others legislatively. (Hate speech laws) Uses the phrase "living document" as a pretext to VERY loosely interpreting the text. The only think I generally agree with the left on is their support for the 4th Amendment. I have argued in the past with Conservatives who use the argument "If you have nothing to hide then you should be fine with.... " And then we'd argue over whether a suspect should be compelled to provide a password to their device or whatever. I've also seen and heard many leftist commentators sneer at the conservative adherence to the Constitution.

I didn't really like Episode I overall either, but I do like it better than 2 and 8. Maybe 7. The lightsaber duel at the end was fun, if shallow... And the remake of the Chariot Race from Ben Hur Pod Race was fun too.

Yep, and it's amazing how used to it we are. It's to the point where even a $5 pack of birth control pills is expected to be covered.

True, but I put the blame on the insurance companies themselves. Go back to the '50s, and insurance was only for huge problems. Regular doctor visits and stuff were inexpensive and easy to afford out of pocket. One day, the insurance companies got the bright idea to reduce their expenditures on emergencies by encouraging people to go to their regular doctor more often. The incentive: Insurance would pay for it! Let that go on for a generation or two and now we have an entire culture that find the notion of simply paying for a doctor visit to be alien to us.

Even if this were a common problem, our healthcare system does need a LOT of work. It's too expensive, people are overly reliant on insurance (because of the expense) and there isn't enough transparency. Solve those problems and the rest will attend to itself.

This is something that really does need to be dealt with. For all the benefits we would see form more nuclear power, it would boost the urgency of solving this issue. There's always... (Always curious to see how many will get a reference like this.)

Indeed. This is definitely a problem. We agree completely on that, but it's not clear to me why the only solution must be socialized healthcare.

This is why I love you guys.

Like my father, I have a long fuse, but once I reach my limit, temper control goes offline. Over time, I've learned to recognize when my fuse is getting short and that's when it's best to extract from the situation entirely.

What people don't understand about Obamacare is that it was designed to fail. Remember how Obama coined the phrase "obscene profits" when referring to insurance companies? And that was the moral imperative that drove people to support and defend it even without knowing what it entailed? Remember all that? Well I looked up the average profit margin that insurance companies were operating at. At that time, health insurance companies were getting a profit margin of just 2.5%. That profit margin ranked health insurance as something like 35th in the list of most profitable industries. Want to know what #1 was? Beer. So one of the features of Obamacare was the idea that insurance companies had to cover pre-existing conditions. So that 2.5% would rapidly go negative. So what did insurance companies do, just to stay alive? They jacked up premiums and deductibles, of course. Suddenly Obamacare, which promised that every single American would get health insurance and it would be cheaper, AND it would allow you to keep your current doctor, turned out to be a hat trick of lies. My health insurance costs more than doubled for my family. Many people lost access to the doctor they were used to, and suddenly EVERYBODY had to buy it whether you could afford it or not. Sustainable? Nope. Those who passed it did so knowing it would fail, and then the plan was to swoop in with a single payer system that would save the day. Obamacare was always designed to maneuver us into a single payer system. By dismantling it, Republicans have been ruining that plan.

I'm always up for tax incentives, for sure. That said, biking isn't for everybody. It would be nice if it were. I also agree that areas of high density should have better public transit, I think we need solutions between cities that are better than what we have. For instance, when working in Baltimore or DC I could take a MARC commuter train, but when I looked into it during my time working at Johns Hopkins, here's what it would have entailed: I'd have to drive (or bus) to the train station which was about 5 miles from where I lived at the time. From there, it would be about a half hour train ride to downtown Baltimore, where I'd get off and then have to take 2 separate buses to get to work for a total trip time of 1.5 - 2 hours. Alternatively, I could go to a different train station that was more like 12 miles away, and take a different MARC train on a different line to a different station in Baltimore, where I would then take the Light Rail to a bus stop for the final leg of the trip, or I could walk the last piece if the weather was nice. Total travel time would be about the same, only that option would mean having limits to my working hours because of the Light Rail schedule. So, lots of room for improvement there.

I'm not sure that's feasible with the long commutes many people have. Within a short range and high population, I think a push for greater use of (and improved) public transit is a good idea... but for longer commutes the problem is this: I live almost exactly at the midpoint between Washington DC and Baltimore. If I commute to work in Baltimore, I may be one of hundreds from my area going up there, but we all have different final destinations. Carpooling is useful if there are others in the same building who happen to live in the same neighborhood, but that tends not to be the case. It didn't seem to be directed at us, no worries. Still, it's never a bad idea to be extra clear about stuff. Thanks!

Be aware that when the cops arrive and are getting both sides of the story, the person to be arrested is most likely the one who's the least beat up, since they may have no way of knowing the real story. My source on that? A probation officer I was chatting with about this stuff. Defend yourself, but only use as much force as it takes, no more. Not that I'm saying you should always run, but I don't know that taking moral cues form Netflix has much value. I've seen a lot of things happen on Netflix that don't really apply to reality. But we are supposed to try to be like Him.

Kinda? The big issue in the U.S. is that when Three Mile Island happened, people went nuts and panic set in even though the actual amount of radiation that leaked out was less than a single medical X-ray, and that's if you were standing right at the fence line of the plant. That didn't stop the media (which was sensationalist even back then) from running stories to scare people and get people to tune in. (Essentially, clickbait before there were clicks.) The other big scare was Chernobyl, though if one knows anything about the way nuclear reactors are designed and the difference between U.S. and Soviet designs, it's easy to see why an accident like that can't really happen here.* I'm not sure parts interchangeability would be the fix, though I don't see that as a bad thing. Also, they can be privatized and regulated. No reason we can't have the best of both worlds. It's also worth noting that because of such tight regulation, nuclear power plants actually result in less radiation release into the atmosphere than coal burning power plants. It's true. Coal plants often burn coal that contains radon gas, which isn't regulated by the EPA or the NRC because the radon is naturally occurring. The coal is burnt in the plant and the radiation is released into the atmosphere. To switch from coal plants to nuclear plants would result in less radiation released into the atmosphere. My source on that? A conversation with a former engineer at a nuclear power plant in my state. It's understandable to be concerned about a hundred nuclear plants in the U.S., but keep in mind that the Navy runs more reactors than that in our warships. Every single submarine in the fleet, whether it's an attack sub or a ballistic missile sub, runs on nuclear power. Our entire fleet of aircraft carriers do as well. According to Wikipedia, we currently have 11 supercarriers, each of which is powered by two reactors, plus 69 nuclear submarines with one reactor apiece. That's a total of 91 in current service, not counting ones under construction. Only one nuclear powered U.S. Navy sub has been lost and that was back in the '60s, and it wasn't due to a reactor problem as far as we know. *The reason Chernobyl happened and why that can't happen here is in the design of the reactor. Soviet reactors were just scaled up versions of the reactors used in their nuclear submarines. One feature of their reactor cores is they use carbon to absorb stray neutrons from the reaction. The Chernobyl power plant was running a safety test with the reactor improperly configured. As a result, the carbon caught fire and the pressure from the heat caused the reactor to blow apart. It was not a nuclear explosion. Carbon burns really really well, and the burning carbon released all the trapped radiation into the atmosphere in a very dirty cloud of smoke. What do we do in the U.S.? Instead of carbon to absorb trapped neutrons, we just use water.

Brother, I feel for you, just as we all do. You make a very convincing case for why our system needs a ton of work. Other have mentioned parts of what's causing the problems and I agree with them. Nobody's saying the system here is perfect. In fact I don't know anyone who says it is. What I'm saying (and I believe what others here are saying also) is that we believe the remedy for the problems is NOT to hand everything over to the Government. Doing so would only be trading one set of problems for another, and the set we'd be getting are worse than what we have already. I'm glad you have the option to get what you need elsewhere. I think that's a good example of the kind of freedom we want to maintain. It's a shame it's too expensive here and that's a problem we need to address. I have my own ideas on why prices for medical care in this country are so high and I've seen some movement in the Government to address that. (Transparency in cost being one example.)

Oh yeah they totally did. And not just oil, but Europe gets most of its natural gas from Russia. (Not a strategic vulnerability for most of the NATO nations to rely on Russia for their energy needs. Nope, nothing to see here, folks.) It's why I giggle inside when somebody starts lecturing me about how much better Europe does everything than the U.S. European energy is a house of cards. The only thing they get right that we don't, is that France relies heavily on nuclear power while here it's nigh impossible to get a new nuclear power plant built.

We also have it pretty good compared to Europe, where gasoline is often two or three times as expensive. The thing is, because the U.S. economy relies so heavily on cars and trucks, a price increase affects us much more than it does to Europeans. The majority of Americans drive to work, while the majority of Europeans use public transit. We have a lot more trucks to move goods over much longer distances. Not to mention railroads, which are almost entirely diesel powered in America while many European rail lines are electric. So we do have cheaper prices, but we're also more sensitive to market fluctuations.

Testify. And it ain't just filmmakers. Remember back in the '80s when domestic automobiles were just the worst? It's because of bumper stickers that said things like "I'd rather push my Chevy than drive a Ford." That's a bumper sticker that literally says the person's brand loyalty is so great that they would prefer to own a non-functioning vehicle with the right brand name than to have a vehicle that works but with a different emblem. Well, that's why you'll be pushing it, Jim-Bob. You just sent a message to the manufacturer that they can go ahead and cut all the corners they want because a legion of suckers will still line up to buy it. Those same people would then sneer at an import because "I ain't drivin' no ricer burner." Well that's why for a while there Japanese cars were a lot better than American cars, chief. The Japanese car companies were in it to compete, and made better cars. So the customers themselves played a hand in the declining quality of American cars for a long time. Eventually things balanced out but that was only because enough people were willing to switch that the manufacturers had no choice. The problem with movies is that yeah, you can watch a movie released by a competing studio, but if you really want Star Wars, there's only one studio making them so you have no choice but to either accept whatever garbage they put out, or avoid it entirely.