You're making the classic mistake (perhaps deliberate) of attributing the budget solely to the president. Sure, Obama has brought down the deficit.. but the only reason we had a sequester and a slowing of government spending was Republican obstruction in the House.

Look at Obama's accomplishments from when Democrats controlled the House and Senate.. Obamacare, huge expansion of Medicaid, massive increases in food stamps (by removing eligibility requirements like having children). We saw a tremendous increase in the national debt from those years.

Republicans spend money for war, but wars end and the money stops flowing. They also like tax cuts, which "cost" more long term, but at least a huge part of the population gets something tangible for it... and let's be honest, it's easy for Democrats to raise taxes again when they regain control, or just let the cuts expire.

Social programs like Medicaid don't end, or even shrink, without intervention. And it's politically difficult to cut them because due to their nature, lots of people become dependent on them once they're in place. Even with Republicans controlling Congress, we're not going to see big changes in social programs.

Racism certainly exists. Look at racist programs like affirmative action in university admissions. Thankfully, popular support for such programs is low and the courts are slowly but surely striking down the more overtly racist programs throughout the country.

That's incredibly vague. You know, there is also an element of black racism in western society and in general black people benefit from it. Also, there is an element of Asian racism in western society and in general Asian people benefit from it. But of course, we can't forget that there is an element of Native American racism in western society and in general Native Americans benefit from it.

Seriously, every group has "an element" of racism that goes to help other members of that group. Not just based on race, but religion, alma mater, sports team allegiance, etc.

The people who talk about "white male supremacy in society" though are not talking about "an element" -- they generally see it as pervasive and responsible for most or all of the problems faced by minorities and women.

Nice citation of actual data.

This is another example where it would be incredibly useful and beneficial to society for everybody to have an understanding of statistics. I really wish it would become a requirement for high school graduation, in place of geometry perhaps if we have to sacrifice another math topic.

I don't think your example is overt enough to be considered discrimination.

http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/syste...

A special "fast track to management" program for newly hired college grads is an example of systemic discrimination because it's restricted (e.g. discriminatory) to something that correlates strongly with age, putting older workers at a disadvantage for promotion to management.

If you changed your example so that ONLY word of mouth was used for hiring, and you COULD NOT be hired without a recommendation from an existing person, that would be systemic.

The whole point of "systemic" discrimination is that there's a system in place to enforce it.

Fair enough, I think there's a varied level of law and order within ISIS. The things you're posting are bad but lawful. But I've also read reports of things like forcing people to convert and then proving they have really converted by doing things like giving their daughters or sisters to fighters.

Regardless, look back at what you said: "As long as you muslims stay oppressed and nomadic, Christians are cool with you. Try to settle down and you'll be run out of town. Try to demand to have the same rights and you'll be called jihadists.

Gotta say, you sure sound a lot like IS."

Now contrast that message with what ISIS is doing (convert, pay tax, or flee/die). Christians were already oppressed in Iraq and Syria. They are not nomadic because that's their culture. They did not demand the same rights as Muslims. They just wanted to be left alone. But ISIS is not "cool with them" over that barebones existence.

And that was in response to "I personally think the Muslim religion is a crock of shit but as long as they go bow toward Mecca and pray to Allah without trying to force me to I'm fine with it. When they start with the jihad crap I'm fine with killing the hell out of them too."

I just don't see how you are reconciling what that person said with what ISIS actually does. They are very far from being fine with things as long as the Christians don't try to impose their religion on them... they are seeking out Christians and putting extreme pressure on them to drop their religion.

Who is doing that to Muslims, either in comments here or in reality?

No, it doesn't, I was just replying to GP's kind of silly point that "Gee whiz, Romney is conservative so everything he does in every situation in his entire life must be part of the conservative identity!"

The most insidious part may be from point 1:

Maybe someone will have to preemptively decide whether the content is legal, including international content I guess. Sounds like a job for the government!

Considering Massachusetts is a liberal state, that should tell you how "conservative" Romneycare was, and why conservatives in actual conservative parts of the country may not like it.

Of course nobody cared that someone was rolling out a liberal health care plan in a liberal state.

What makes you think that? There are things that lots of people support, and the Republicans also support. Less gun control is an example.

I think "suffer" is a bit subjective here. One issue I've seen is short term vs long term. People often say "Republicans oppose welfare and unemployment benefits, and the states that vote Republican use welfare and unemployment benefits disproportionately. What?!?!??!" But someone who uses welfare might also be smart enough to realize that the national debt has to be kept under control, otherwise long term it's going to be more dire than having some cuts in welfare.

You don't have to say "thank you" for it, but you have to weigh your options. Two options are making a new tax treaty with the country involved to get rid of the shielding, and sanctioning the country to prevent Americans and American companies from dealing with them.

But you have to ask yourself, is it worth it? What burden does Amazon really put on the US? When they make more sales in Australia, does that somehow increase their burden in the US? If not, then why require them to pay more than they already do?

Would you want to sanction Luxembourg so that you can squeeze a few more dollars out of Amazon, when in reality the burden imposed by Amazon has nothing to do with those extra dollars?

If you think Amazon already pays enough because of their high paying jobs, property taxes, taxes on investors, etc, then the answer could legitimately be "no" without being a shill for Amazon.

I think that's a really interesting take on things, but I disagree that it means the twilight of capitalism. It sounds more like the end of long work weeks. We'll still need a way to choose economic winners and losers, a way to vote that product A fills our needs at a given price better than product B. That's true even if 100% of the population is on welfare and robots do all the work.

I also think it's a mistake to leave out the service economy. There may well come a time when human labor is entirely worthless, but human conversation is still nice. Won't the most entertaining people still have something worth charging for? Or the prettiest people? Or the most philosophical?

I think your expectations are too high. SJW is not a well-defined term, it's an evolving term, just like civil rights, achievement gaps, and employment figures are evolving. If many different people are calling a person or organization an SJW then that's probably valid. If a few people or one person is calling a person or organization an SJW then you'd compare it to other cases and make a judgment call.

The thing I've noticed is that SJW's, like I said, take up the mantle of the most extreme positions on social justice, where not just equal opportunity but equal outcome are the goal. They rely on things like disparate impact to "prove" that something is discriminatory or racist, because they have lost touch with or outright rejected the dictionary definition of the words. They often in one breath readily admit that overt racism and discrimination are extremely rare, but in another claim that society is racist, institutional racism is rampant, and white male supremacy is woven throughout society and is causing all the problems for minorities and women.

There are many attributes and subtleties, which is why there isn't a clear definition of SJW. It's something you recognize when you see it, but can't define, like love or beauty (only bad).

I think you're the one who hasn't kept up, because while that was the initial message, it changed. Even Christians who paid the tax and tried to stay were eventually threatened with death.

IS also said "If you don't want to pay the tax you can leave." Remember that? Yeah that also changed, and they tried to prevent people from leaving or kill them as they left.

Seriously, it's like you read some press releases about IS initially and then turned off your brain. You really have not kept up.

Sounds like Old Testament stories of barbaric pre-Jesus cultures.

Oh okay, let me remind you. You said, "How about showing you the part where jesus says it all counts and can't be changed?"

I said, "That doesn't matter anyway, and here's why" and explained.

All caught up?

We've already done that, so you're demonstrably wrong. I guess you don't even know the story of how the Bible was created. You're stewing in your own ignorance.

This is so funny. You are a religious extremist! No wonder you think things like "Christianity says to behead people." You're a bag of mixed nuts.