Missed the edit window. Just want to say I’ve learned my lesson about posting before reading.
WRT race I think the issue is more the projecting of specific, inherent behavioral attributes to a “race”. 99% of these conversations (in the end) center around the assumed behavioral characteristics of black “race” vs white “race” people.
Given that the genetic diversity between black Africans separated by a river is often greater than that between the Chinese and Europeans separated by oceans and continents and several millena of homogenous breeding within their groups, it’s hard to make arguments for ‘race’ amoung humans as a real physical “thing” with inherent behavioral determinants stand up straight.
Gender is a both social construct and a biological construct. Who claims gender is "just’ a social construct ? I am genuinely curious.
My personal favourite is the people who release a criminal back into society with a warning that they think this person is extremely likely to re-offend. Yeah, I know, he’s served his sentence, blahblahblah, but practically knowing that someone is going to victimize another person and allowing them to do it just isn’t right.
Very interesting idea.
I wouldn’t necessarily specify “whites,” but I see where you’re going with this. In Canada, we are so concerned with being culturally sensitive and inclusive that we err on the side of making the cultures of immigrants more important than Canadian culture.
Which I doesn’t come easily for me (see below for my reason for editing: it used to be 80-90%)…
With the people I know, they refer to sex as the biological construct and gender as the social construct. You can be of the female sex and the male gender. These are largely young, liberal, college educated females that I hear this from.
Meh. I’ve never known anyone who’s had particularly painful periods–hell, the first person who’d ever complained of it to me was my wife, and that maybe once a year.
One of our experiences is atypical, but you don’t need to get on my shit for acknowledging that.
In fairness, I’d imagine most women don’t go around talking about their periods with men. I can assure you that my boyfriend doesn’t know a single period symptom I have, nor do I plan on telling him (there’s no reason for him to know). Perhaps if I were married, though, my husband would be aware just from being around me.
Yeah, I’ve gotta wonder what would make you think that you’d know what percentage of the women around you suffer from painful periods. Most of us don’t make a habit of announcing it.
Ohh, this was so much fun, I’m gonna do this again.
I think that abortions are essentially bad things, but I think that essentially unlimited access to them is the best possible option, given our current social and technological system. That is to say, I think they are the least bad option available 99% of the time.
I wish that the adoption, orphanage, and foster-care system in this country was developed enough to meet the needs of unwanted children, and I wish that our public outlook on reproduction was enlightened enough to make this possible, and I wish that our standard of birth control technology and publically-available obstetric care was high enough to deal with these problems, but they aren’t, and as such I don’t begrudge any woman in the world the right to an abortion, for any reason at any time.
But I without denying for the slightest moment that the world is this way, I wish it wasn’t.
Sociological differences, apparently–I haven’t had a single girlfriend who DIDN’T inform me of her period status on a fairly regular basis (and at least one who got offended if I wasn’t keeping track myself, and tried to get frisky when it was due.) Add in some female friends who were apparently prone to oversharing, and my sample set is “a couple dozen”.
I don’t believe that anybody has a "right " to anything other than to pursue their lives in any way they choose as long as it doesn’t infringe upon the rights of others to do the same. Does that mean I’m completely anti-government assistance? No. I think there are a lot of people who need help and I’m not against the government helping them get on their feet. But I don’t believe that anyone should be obligated to support anyone who isn’t willing to do what they can to help themselves. Are you ill or disabled and unable to work? That’s fine, no problem. Are you able-bodied and able-minded but simply too lazy to work? Then you’re too lazy to collect a check. I realize this is complicated by the presence of minor children and I know it’s a very complex problem, but on the whole I don’t like deadbeats and I don’t think anyone should be obligated to support them.
Also, I believe there are genuinely “evil” people and the world would be better off if they were removed. Not that many relative to the general populace, but I don’t really give a damn what shaped the views of a person who commits violent rapes or grisly serial killings, directs genocides, etc. Get rid of them, and the world will be a better place. Sucks that you had a rotten childhood or your mommy didn’t give you enough attention, but lots of perfectly solid citizens had shitty lives too.
You’re not alone; I’m also pro-life. I think abortion should be illegal unless the life of the mother is truly in jeopardy. But… I also believe it should be a state issue, not a federal issue. In other words, each state should have its own laws governing abortion. If, for example, New York wants to legalize abortion up to full term, fine - I don’t have to live there. I can move to a state that outlaws it, should I choose.
Serious question - what do you think of a 12 year old who kills her family because they won’t let her hang out with her 23 year old boyfriend? Thanks to Canada’s Young Offender’s Act, she is now living a normal life and going to school in Calgary, with her record of three murders sealed. I can’t post any more information about her on the board due to legalities, but I can pm you her info if you like to see more of the story.
Where was this thread last summer?
Apropos to nothing, I’m just gonna say it:
The romance of “classic rock,” the idolatry of shameless wankers, the patronizing superiority of retired hippies, the rules of rock radio -
- I wanna tear the whole thing down.
Hi everybody!
Good question, and it’s really hard to say without more information. If her family treated her well/normally and didn’t abuse her, then I’d say yeah, she’s got a pretty serious screw loose which may or may not be fixable. I know this isn’t a popular view, but I do think that even some children may just be beyond repair. Not many, and I certainly think that everything reasonable should be done to figure out the problem and fix it, but if it can’t be fixed…these people need to be removed from society. I don’t care if they’re kids. I don’t think they should be locked away and let out when they become adults. I think they should be locked away period.
There are a lot of caveats to this, though. Like I said, I don’t believe that truly “evil” people (that is to say, people so screwed up in the head and prone to violence against others that they can’t be trusted to live among people safely) are that common. But for those who are, I think the protection of innocent people they could potentially harm is more important than preserving their right to live in society and be “helped.”
This will go away when the last Boomer dies. 
I think that many, many people have extreme and honestly held views that are utterly incompatible with reality, and that therefore a significant level of “big government” paternalism is necessary for a properly functioning society.
Nice!
Actually that is a very popular view, and juvenile justice (in the US at least) keeps getting more and more severe. Minors are very frequently prosecuted as adults and I don’t think you’ll find hardly anyone who will say that there’s not one person under age 18 who is beyond help. In most cases I don’t even agree with the trend of treating juveniles as adults, but when it comes to minors who fit every other criteria for antisocial personality disorder except age, and who are violent, then nope, that person will never get better.
Regarding the posts about qualification for child rearing, in which it’s argued that you shouldn’t reproduce if you’re too poor or unfit to be able to do it right, it occurred to me that this arguably contradicts what humans have up until now been selected for. Based on analysis of our genes, it’s thought by some that the human race has survived at least one severe bottleneck in the past 100,000 years, and possibly others. And beyond that, for much of human history people simply didn’t have the luxury of optimal conditions for child rearing. We’re all descended from the people, who were the well-off ones, who managed somehow to spawn and somewhat care for their children. The less fortunate didn’t leave descendents at all. In other words, we’re all descended from the people who were determined to have and raise children no matter how bad things were. If our ancestors had followed the modern pattern of defering reproduction until “things got better”, we probably wouldn’t exist.