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Women have (or should have) the right to end their pregnancies at any time they want, and for any reason. Everyone (adults of sound mind and blah blah blah) has the right to expel anyone or anything from inside their bodies, for any reason, and at any time. Even though I think that late-term abortions are morally wrong if not done to save the life of the mother, I trust women and their doctors to make this judgment and not the government.
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White supremacy was one of the foundations of the USA, and ruled as policy and common practice for nearly two hundred years after its founding. Even after that, white supremacy in lesser forms has been tolerated until only the last few decades. These various policies and practices are entirely responsible for differences in outcomes in things like economic, crime, and academic statistics.
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There are still a very large number of people who hold racist beliefs (such as ‘black people are inherently less intelligent/more dangerous than other races’) in America – perhaps upwards of 30 to 40% (or even more). Most of these folks have no idea they hold racist beliefs. Any statement like ‘I’m not a racist’ makes me suspect that one may hold racist beliefs, because (IMO) it’s impossible to know for sure whether one actually holds racist beliefs or not, and people who mostly understand what racism is understand this. It’s very possible that I hold racist beliefs that I’m not aware of, though I strongly hope I don’t.
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Most people are decent and trustworthy at a micro-level (meaning, one-on-one/personal interaction).
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Through most of the first world, most personal problems can be solved with greater personal discipline. And very few people will ever have the personal discipline required to solve every personal problem; this will result in people with (for example) great social lives and poor professional lives (or the reverse), with great physical health but poor social or professional lives (or the reverse), and few with great achievement and contentment in all areas.
This is one of the more controversial ideas knocking around in sociology. The easiest way to see it is simply look at the crime stats of single parent families vs everybody else. The usual number is about 50%: 50% of all children from single parent families will get into trouble in school, drop out, and commit a crime sometime in their lives. Legal abortion reduced the number of single parent families.
I don’t believe in the lead theory because that would mean crime would be even higher before the 70’s. The 50’s was like the lowest crime era in history of the US (another cool theory about that is “The Greatest Generation” theory) so either they were somehow immune to lead or lead has no affect on crime.
“Broken Window” theory is another controversial one for explaining crime reduction, but it’s so obscure I didn’t refer to it here.
Capital punishment is WRONG, always and everywhere. This is axiomatic and not subject to debate. The assertion needs no justification or defense.
Adam West was the only actor who has ever played the role of Batman in the appropriate style. What I’m saying is that I realize that his TV show portrayed the character in a campy fashion that was not intended by his creators; it’s just that his creators’ vision was flawed, and inferior to that of the people who hired West and Ward. Campy is THE way to go.
The James Bond franchise reached its pinnacle with the release of Casino Royale in 1967. The obliteration of the cast by atomic explosion should have been considered canon by Hollywood, and an extended series of movies based on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang should have supplanted all of the plot holes that followed it.
Major League Baseball, as an expression of all that is good about humanity, does not exist any more, and will not resume existence until the Designated Hitter rule, and regular season interleague play have been abolished and abandoned.
As pointed out upthread dogs are made out of meat. They are NOT, however, made of FOOD.
No one knows anything.
On perusal, I think it unlikely that my last item, although exactly as objectively true as the rest, will garner much opposition.
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The finale of Newhart was terrible, and undermined the entire series. (Though I did like hearing the Darryls talk.)
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OJ Simpson’s son was the murderer. (Comes to mind b/c of the other thread, but it’s something I’ve believed for 20 years.)
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Neil DeGrasse Tyson is a pompous hypocrite.
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The number pi is overrated. Zero and one are much, much cooler.
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Calvin and Hobbes is good, but is extremely overrated.
Timothy Dalton was the best James Bond.
How do you know that?
Obviously written before post #207.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you’re a straight white male.
Isnt this a self-contradicting statement?
I’m not refuting or debating, but I am curious. So, why?
Let’s see:
[ol]
[li]Sharon Osborne is all kinds of tasty hotness. In fact, she’s hotter NOW than when Ozzy met her.[/li][li]Game of Thrones is for people who are too lazy and too stupid to read The Lord of the Rings trilogy.[/li][li]Christoper Nolan is just as terrible a writer as he is a director and Inception was a plothole-riddled mess. He couldn’t even film Ellen Page well enough to make her look good.[/li][li]The Bill of Rights is really unnecessary in a modern American society. The US government will in no manner impinge upon the rights of the American people. If we really need to get rid of one Amendment, then the First or the Second are probably the most likely candidates.[/li][li]Rush is actually slightly worse than Journey, Styx,Motley Crue and perhaps even REO Speedwagon.[/li][/ol]
I think people are misinterpreting the “99.5%” thing.
Women used to be considered children in the eyes of the law.
Black people used to be property.
Gay folks used to be beaten or murdered in an attempt to “cure” them.
We have a far way from that and the little we have left to go looks large to us, but is not large in relation to history. Perhaps 10 years is overoptimistic, but I’m 32 and I expect that type of equality to exist within my lifetime.
I wonder if you could elaborate on this some. Not so much why most Dopers would be likely to disagree with the statement that a Nazi tunesmith was one of the greatest practitioners of his craft, as why you believe it yourself.
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Nate Silver is an intelligent man who writes very well and concisely about statistics–but as for predicting things through data analysis, even the political predictions he’s famous for, he’s actually not very good. Other statisticians, for example Sam Wang of the Princeton Election Consortium, have done a much better job. And when Silver tried to use his stats work on other elections, such as the last UK general election, he failed miserably. Silver has also started to embarrass himself with money-grabbing gimmicks like the revival of the “Burrito Bracket.” As the best-known practitioner of my field, he’s starting to get a little embarrassing. Big Data and stats deserves a better figurehead. (Oh, and Freakonomics isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but I don’t have my copy of it here so I can’t go over my criticisms of it at the moment.)
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College tuition has gone up dramatically, but not for the reasons most people think. The main driver of tuition is…parents. They’re the ones who want nicer and nicer facilities for their precious kids. I’m not that old and I and my high school classmates lived in dorms made of concrete breezeblock, with no A/C, no cable, no internet, intermittently-working heating, etc. That stuff just doesn’t fly today. A lot of dorms are nicer than most apartment buildings. Some of my student interns have told me that their schools have special tours and even three-day “see the campus and professors” retreats. Nothing I went to school with would have passed those inspections, and I was amazed how much students were catered to now when I went on college tours with my oldest son…and other parents were STILL bitching about how “low-rent” some of the facilities were, places that were the equivalent of the Hilton to my old place’s Super 8. All this stuff costs lots and lots of money, and it’s all driven by the parents. IME students don’t really care about it that much.
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Within five years college football as we know it will be pretty much gone. Well maybe five years is a stretch, perhaps ten years. The O’Bannon lawsuit, the growing specter of unionization of college players, and the upcoming lawsuits on concussions and medical insurance for players is going to wreck the financial structure of college football, and the dirty secret of the sport is that many programs are losing money or barely breaking even now. Most people have the opinion that college football pays for all the other sports at a school, but that’s not usually true…usually it’s the student body who pays for them, and sometimes college football, out of student fees. I expect that fully half of FBS schools won’t be able to afford football in five years, and if the big schools proceed with their incredibly selfish “Division IV” idea it’s game over for everyone else anyway.
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Miami is an incredibly overrated city. Yes, I know I’ve only been here for four months. But wow, this city has been a disappointment. I keep trying to find things that I like about this place, but I just can’t. Unless you are massively wealthy, Miami is pretty much 90% suburban sprawl and 10% “I wouldn’t go there if I were you.” And, somewhat surprisingly, it’s not particularly a multicultural place either. It’s not a New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, London, or even Paris in that regard.
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There is no cure for mental illness. It can be contained. But it can’t be cured. And I think the sooner we realize this as a country–heck, as a world–the better off we, and especially the mentally ill population, will be.
1.) Straws are for children. No self-respecting adult should ever drink through a straw!
2.) Jif is the best peanut butter.
3.) Grape jelly is very, very wrong.
4.) Potato salad should not have eggs in it.
5.) Store bought pie is insulting.
People who pursue cosmetic surgery are both vain and insecure and a successful surgery only makes them more so, in a few months. Actresses who use such surgery to extend their thirties and forties deserve what they get, which is to lose roles in their sixties because they look like circus freaks! They get no sympathy from me.
If you helped keep Sopranos or Game of Thrones a hit, or spend time quoting Godfather and Scarface movies, stop pretending you’re not glorifying violence, gun use and bullying.
Let’s stop pretending that bullying is anything other than a behaviour the bully has been exposed to in his home. If we’re ever going to address the problem it’s time someone, somewhere, pointed out that LOTS of parents bully their kids into compliance. Daily.
Your kid should not be eligible for meds unless you can demonstrate there is actually some structure in the home. Family eats together at night, tv off in evenings, homework done, regular bedtime, healthy breakfast. Five simple things to qualify.
Government programs qualify for funding only by demonstrating efficiency targets laid out in advance. Don’t get the job done? No funding for you!
(1) George Lucas is a creative genius and has no obligation to listen to fans.
(2) People who boast about being “happily married” are obviously overcompensating.
(3) Cats are jerks and terrible pets. Your cat’s aloof behavior is not a sign of intelligence.
(4) There’s nothing admirable about shaving with a safety razor.
(5) Global warming is real, but it’s too late to do anything about it.
Can you define boasting?
I don’t go around screaming “I’m happily married!” but if anyone asks (or if it’s relevant to a discussion, as now) that’s what I say. My life is much better since I met my wife, and I am a better person for being with her. Is that a boast?
For that matter, what makes you think people who say they are happily married are overcompensating?