Just_A_Guy

I am very much the same way. And my issue extends to furniture—I have a mid century-modern bedroom set that belonged to my grandparents that I don’t particularly like, design-wise; but that I can’t bear to part with because it would be like a little part of them dying all over again. If you find a good therapist, Vort, send me their contact info. 🙂

Some years back, I’m pretty sure we (my family) were on the receiving end of a giving tree—we didn’t ask for anything; the gifts were all selected by whoever ran the activity (and a decent mix of clothes and sensible toys). It was tremendously humbling, and my wife and I were very grateful—but, I’m not gonna lie; it was more than a little humiliating. We weren’t that poor—were we? Is that how people in the ward thought of us?

It may well be that Alma is writing according to his own perception and perspectives. One other approach—and I don’t usually get this hyper-textualist in my scriptural interpretations these days, but I sort of like this one: Alma in verse 14 doesn’t say that God really views such people with indignation and wrath; he only says that such people look for a God who views them in that way. I would suggest that breaking through that feeling of being rejected/despised by God, is a key part of ultimately becoming reconciled to Him. Remember, this is being spoken by a guy who was in Hell for all intents and purposes; but who got forgiveness (and redemption from Hell) literally the moment he thought to ask for it.

It’s been years since I read Roe; but my impression is that it’s less about doctor-patient relationships and more about an individual’s right to consequence-free sex, sex, sexity sex sex sex—err, reproductive freedom; with a bit of Dred Scott-esque “the unborn person has no rights the born person is bound to respect” thrown in for good measure. The idea that Roe or its progeny safeguards a doctor’s right to *not* perform an abortion, is frankly a new one to me. There is certainly a possibility that in the absence of Roe/Casey, some state governments would ban abortions in all cases; even the Church-acknowledged hard cases like rape, incest, and health. This would be a tragedy in its own right. But I’d rather take my chances on that while hoping that SCOTUS might find that a woman’s right to an abortion in such cases is justified as an extension of the common-law right to kill in the name of self-defense; than allow the current Roe-mandated holocaust to continue unabated.

I find myself drawn to that kind of ancient-scripture geekery, but the person of whom you speak—and a couple of others whose ancient scripture scholarship I enjoy and respect—on inspection of their blogs and social media profiles, seem to be bile-filled individuals who reek of outright contempt for those Mormons who (quite frankly) are more devoted to the Gospel and the Church, and more committed to keeping the commandments, than the scholars themselves are. It’s a real gut-check, to find myself drawn to the likes of these folks. Makes me wonder if I ought to re-evaluate my priorities and areas of interest. But—Heaven help me—some of the conservative/orthodox discussion groups are soo baaad—either perseverating on minutiae, or smugly hiding the ball and extolling their own virtues, or flat-out parroting interpretations and theories that are patently incorrect, or over-emphasizing some cherry-picked quotations while ignoring other quotations that provide a more nuanced or even somewhat contradictory approach. The conservatives aren’t edifying, and the progressives aren’t trustworthy; and I find myself retreating into a sort of exegetical nihilism where I do a perfunctory daily scripture reading but focus more on the current GAs and recent conference talks. I’m not sure if that’s a bug or a feature of the current situation.

That’s a potentially fair point as to the elected DA (though I think a prosecutor does have a responsibility to stand up to the mob when he knows the evidence isn’t there, rather than to put a defendant in jeopardy for liberty and (potentially) life just because the prosecutor is hoping the blame for an unpopular-but-just outcome can be deflected to an unelected jury). But when it came to the underlings who actually handled the case—the trial I saw didn’t look like a simple matter of putting forth the evidence and letting the jury do what it will, or even merely trying to put the best possible spin on a largely ambiguous body of evidence. The state’s attorneys lied, they cheated, they withheld evidence. I think that’s more a function of animus towards the defendant and a fundamental desire to win at all costs.

And as parents, we repeat the story because “check your candy for poison” sounds nicer than “daddy tax”.

The irony to me is (speaking as one of 400+ lawyers in my state’s AG’s office)—the vast majority don’t plan to run for public office, most of us are overloaded and just want to get cases off our desk in the most efficient (ethical) way possible, and (at least with my employer) no one really pressures us at the individual level about how many “wins” we rack up. (If anything, when I get bogged down in a hairy case my boss is wont to (very kindly) suggest that maybe I shouldn’t have filed the case in the first place.) It’s easy to blame “the system” for prosecutorial overreach in cases like Rittenhouse; but I think I the truth is that in most such cases the prosecutors are just terrible people working out of either personal animus or a political vendetta.

My only potential quibble might be this part. I think it’s still accurate in 70-80% of cases. But notwithstanding that nearly all cops are stand-up guys, I think we can all guess what the Kenosha DA would have done with any statement Rittenhouse had offered; and the proportion of prosecutors who believe it is your civic duty to let yourself be brutalized whenever a progressive thinks you deserve, it is only going to increase. Be involved in your community, know who your DA is, be aware of their political leanings and ambitions, and get ready to exercise your right to silence.

That’s too easy.

I was in a state employee active-shooter-in-the-workplace training a couple years ago, and one question that came up was: “if we use our personal firearm for self-defense, how do the police (when they get there) know we are the good guys?”. The trainer (a sheriff’s deputy) gave a few tips, but closed by warning that “fundamentally, when you pull out a gun around cops *for any reason*, that’s just a risk you’re taking.”

In fairness to Kyle: My understanding of his testimony is that this was night 3 of the Kenosha riots. He had been out and about in Kenosha on day 2 or 3 and had met the owners of a car lot who had had some property destroyed; they exchanged numbers and he invited them to let him know if he could do anything for them in the future. Later, they called either him or a mutual acquaintance and asked him to come down and help out (primarily with fire suppression, IIRC); he grabbed the gun, not because he intended to fire or even brandish it, but as insurance in case someone attacked his person. (The lot owners denied under oath that they had invited him onto their property, but other witnesses corroborated Kyle’s story.) Now, if I’d learned my kid had gone down there that night with a gun—even if nothing had happened—that gun would absolutely be on eBay first thing in the morning. But, I don’t think it’s fair to suggest he was trying to play the tough guy/vigilante. I think first and foremost he had seen a heartbroken victim of previous rioting/looting, wanted to help out, and didn’t want to get killed in the process of doing it.

I’m inclined to think that most parents would at least ensure that their children could read and do basic arithmetic. Beyond that, I’m not sure how much “education” a critical mass of parents would deem necessary for their children (“necessary”, here, being defined as “important enough to sacrifice/significantly inconvenience themselves for”). Then again, I’m not sure how much of it I deem “necessary” for someone who doesn’t want to go into one of the professions or a STEM-related field.

The other facet to this, of course (and I don’t say it’s right; only that it’s a reality that needs to be confronted) is the long-term costs on broader society that are imposed by a critical mass of uneducated folk in terms of crime, government doles, etc. In a very real sense, educational spending represents a form of “protection money”. Is it better to have a tax man claiming some of my money, than an illiterate gangbanger turning up on my doorstep and demanding all of it? That said: I think in society we’ve sort of lost sight of the difference between getting kids educated versus getting them credentialed; and I’m not sure we have a clear idea about which of the two we want to provide or why we want to provide it.

Indeed. As I type this it occurs to me that it’d would be interesting to run out the numbers. Assuming that my income tax has been static since I bought my home at age 32, and assuming that it remains so until I sell my house and move to an old folks’ home at 80–that’s $6K/year for 48 years, that’s $288, or (since I have 6 kids total, counting the one who’s not in school yet) $48K/kid. In Utah (average K-12 private school cost $11-$12K/year) that gets me about 4-5 years of private school per kid. So even allowing for me paying school tax for the rest of my productive life, the public school system is still a screaming deal for me and my family. Other folks’ mileage of course may vary according to tax rates, number of kids, and so on.

This will probably vary by state, but . . . Most of the money used to educate my kids in the public school system is not, and never was, “my money”. My state income and property taxes amount to slightly less than $6K per year. I have five kids in school, and I don’t think there’s a private school on the continent that would educate my kids for $1200/kid/year. A private-sector service provider that has to pay its bills as it goes, will never be able to truly compete—either in product or in quality of its employee compensation package—with a competitor that is receiving a government subsidy on the scale that public schools receive. (It’ll be more efficient, of necessity; but efficiency is not the only or even the most important way to quantify the “success” of an educational institution.) Sure, you’ll find individual private schools that are competitive either because they are extraordinarily well-funded (attached to a church, for example) or because they are the (inevitably temporary) beneficiaries of a uniquely motivated, plucky staff with a sense of mission that leads them to make extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of their pupils. But, on a more generalized scale: To make a critical mass of private schools truly competitive, in the long term they have to be able to tap into the same sort of revenue stream that public schools have access to. Just giving the parents “their own” tax money back isn’t going to be nearly enough.

One difference between prohibition and Roe, is that Prohibition forced the states to prohibit an activity whereas Roe forced them to permit it. I think @Godless’s point is that Roe didn’t create a black market the way prohibition did. And I sort of agree with @LDSGator’s cynicism here. SCOTUS rarely misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Do you have a specific “mission statement” in mind? Are you thinking of something Deseret Management or Ensign Peak or some similar entity has released? I hope this doesn’t sound dismissive, but . . . are the Church’s corporate entities really required to give freebies worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, to every person they do business with who claims they are responsible for the support a senior citizen on a fixed income? Particularly when another wing of the Church has already provided for the support of that same senior citizen?

Well, there’s The Church’s Corporate Entities, and then there’s The Church. Your aunt works for the former (in a temple, to be sure; but she’s paid by the corporate entity). Going to any employer and saying “hey, I just now after twenty years figured out that I really don’t have my financial future under control, so can you please dig into your budget and find me an extra few hundred thousand dollars above and beyond what I already contractually agreed to accept?”—that’s just not a thing. And frankly, it’s not fair to sucker-punch an employer with that kind of eleventh-hour demand. (Oh, there’s nothing wrong with her asking, I suppose; but I wouldn’t see the Church’s Corporate Entities as morally bound to grant such a request.) Now, the above pertains to The Church’s Corporate Entities; but The Church is another matter. I am confident that The Church would not let your aunt go hungry or naked or homeless or without critical medical care. But those needs would be administered through the standard Church programs that are designed to help anyone in her situation, regardless of who their employer is or has been—and under current Church practice that means The Church’s ward-level welfare program and not a DMBA investment account or pension fund.

I would hazard to guess that a big part of it is that the normal support systems parents (especially stay-at-home moms) have traditionally relied on—grandparents and aunts/uncles, neighbors, church and other social groups—are, to some extent, eroding. Additionally—COVID parenting is just plain harder. Fewer functioning preschools/social activities for kids to go to that give parents a respite for part of the day. Fewer functioning youth programs, restaurants, amusement parks, and other available activities with which parents can incentivize good behavior. I know that at work, I usually handle 3-4 new DCFS child welfare petitions per month. But between yesterday and today alone, I’ll have drafted six. Things are tough out there, and parents are snapping.

“Just one study”? You talk as if this is a lone voice in the wilderness, bucking some presupposed mountain of evidence that suggests that there is a causal link between LDS observance and LGBTQ suicide. But in fact there is no such evidence, as Michael Staley himself has said so (repeatedly). I’d love to agree that “no one is sad about this”; but the fact is that humans have been willing to let other humans die in furtherance of their pet political objectives for literally millennia. For folks who claim to get the sadz when gay Mormon kids off themselves, LGBTQ advocates sure have fine-tuned the art of making those deaths politically useful. The Mama Dragons have even been caught with their hands in the statistical cookie jar—claiming more LGBTQ LDS youth suicides for a given region in a given time frame, than the total youth suicides reported to the legal authorities in those jurisdictions for that same time frame. To use a slightly dated analogy that still light to be recognizable to most of our LGBTQ-“ally” friends: If you’re determined to implement regime change in Iraq, Saddam not having WMDs is a very bad thing; and the number of human lives actually at stake matters not at all.

Story here.

Bah. Give me that old time religion . . .

It does it on my phone, too.

I hope this doesn’t sound flippant, but . . . What’s the point of preserving commercially-purchased meat that you’re going to eat in 2-3 months anyways? I mean, I can understand the rationale for preserving home-grown produce you want to eat out-of-season; but meat? Or is this hamburger you raised/slaughtered/butchered yourself?