I am not even sure what your argument is anymore as you change it each post. And BTW, I never said students making a political statement is a bad thing, I was simply refuting your statement that these students weren't making one.

Once again, it has nothing to do with just being offended. It is about being hostile to other students. The extent in which schools should help enforce an inclusive learning experience is simply where people like you and me are going to disagree. I am happy in this case most school districts are closer to my side of the argument, but I don't pretend I approve of every decision schools make.

I assume you mean this as a rhetorical question, but the same people who protect the rights we are given are the ones who decide the scope of those rights. How else could it work?

Among people upset enough about immigration to visibly protest it on school grounds, a disdain for anchor babies is quite common. A sizable number of anti-immigration individuals would like to deport anchor babies along with their parents. There are even Congress representatives who have pushed bills to this effect. This is not some extreme opinion. Well it is extreme, just not extreme for the anti-immigration crowd.

IANAL, but almost the only reason this law is a problem is because sexual orientation is not a protected class in Indiana. People are generally allowed to refuse business on any grounds, such as being anti-Nazi or anti-KKK, but not when they are refusing someone because of them being part of a protected class.

At this moment in history, LGBT rights are at the forefront of the civil rights movement (a movement that apparently never ends). In an alternative world where religion isn't being used as a smokescreen for homophobia, this law would be very uncontroversial. But that is not a world we live in.

I find those t-shirts, in the same context, would be similar to yelling fire in a crowded theater, swatting someone, or committing slander. All three of these similar instances could be defended by citing freedom of expression or free speech. All three are expressions I would like our laws to limit. The wearing of t-shirts is far less extreme than any of these three examples, but the reasoning on why freedom of expression should be limited in all four cases is the same.

While adults are not prevented from using hate speech (or any other symbols that promote hate), there are places where they are not allowed. You will probably be asked to leave a courthouse if you start spouting hate speech during a trial, or even when standing in line at the DMV. I am also okay with this, even though both are government buildings.

I see no reason to go to this extreme. Schools generally use the guideline of preventing a hostile learning environment when determining what to allow on campus. I believe having a cohesive learning environment is more important than students giving up a few liberties while at school. I also believe children's property rights should be respected, but would give teachers the ability to confiscate calculators during math tests if necessary.

You are more than likely bright enough to realize the students were making a political statement with those t-shirts. They even freely admit it. And this case in particular has nothing to do with the action being offensive. Being offensive is okay. Creating a hostile learning environment is the heart of the matter, not offensive speech.

Now I have even more despair that someone would mark my comment as trolling. That is more of a lack of reading comprehension though, since I gave no interpretation on what DarkOx said. He openly said it is okay to discriminate since people could just do business elsewhere. I merely stated I am upset people actually think like that.

While I may disagree with punishing those high school students, it is a very poor comparison with the discriminatory law being questioned in this forum.

You may disagree with it, but most people understand free expression should be limited in some cases. Yelling fire in a crowded theater is one example. Not allowing US flags to be worn simply to incite anger on a school campus is another. No one was being offended by the US flag, they were being offended by the context in which they were worn.

A flag is just a symbol. It can be a rallying cry for national pride but it can also be a rallying cry for xenophobia. In the context that these shirts were worn in this case, the American flag was little different than a slogan saying "deport anchor babies."

When people are proponents of laws like these I just hope they simply haven't thought about their opinion thoroughly enough. But here is someone who fully knows the ramifications of this opinion and is actually proud of it. I don't meet people like this often, and it is very chilling.

I simply couldn't imagine someone walking into a store with a "Whites Only" sign on the door and hear him say "Good for them for sticking up for their convictions." But it is clear that DarkOx is such a person. I guess I just have to take solace in the hope that most people don't think like him/her. I'm an upper middle class white male living in a wealthy liberal area, so it is quite likely I am in a bubble where I simply don't see how dark parts of this country still are.

Fair Market Value is whatever an employer can spend to get an equivalent amount of work done anywhere. Everyone needs to ensure they are valuable enough to be worth more than a third-world developer. Most of that extra worth will come from soft skills, not technical skills. Your salary will get capped real quick if you are mostly relying on your technical skills as your value to the company.

Computers aren't the only reason companies are more efficient today. One area (among many others) of improvement has been in knowledge management. 50 years ago companies were often far more reliant on the tacit knowledge of their employees. This could include your lead engineers' knowledge of your product, your senior salesmen's insight into your customers' needs, and so forth. Companies today spend far more effort in disseminating that information and codifying the knowledge so it is saved when an employee moves on or moves into another role. A well run company should be able to weather the loss of any employee with minimal disruption.

When did s.petry say he is still working at a cushy job with a company still living in the past? For all you know he moves companies every 3-5 years as new opportunities present themselves. People who mismanage their careers usually find it impossible to even understand what a well-managed career looks like. I have worked at a failed start-up and a large company which was and still is losing market share because of mismanagement. Neither of these companies sunk my career; in fact both were used as springboards. I learned a lot, gathered contacts, and moved on.

My wife and I are almost as progressive as they come, but that doesn't mean my wife is stupid enough to think we are equals when it comes to physical strength. And we are pretty average for our genders when it comes to physical strength. Even with a knife or baseball bat she would not have much of a chance without a lucky hit early in the fight. She could surely injure me severely (with a weapon that is), but not stop me if I intended to pacify her.

There is plenty of actual misogyny in our culture, there is no need to invent some while making yourself sound stupid.

People need to stop losing their minds every time we have a tragedy. People are going to die in plane crashes from time to time. Sometimes it will be an accident, sometimes it will be negligence, and sometimes it will be terrorism. No one lives forever. Deal with it.

Put things into perspective
There were 3.4 trillion passenger miles flown worldwide in 2012, and 475 aviation deaths.
There were 3.0 trillion passenger miles driven in the US in 2012, and 33,561 traffic deaths.

Maybe it makes sense to add another pilot to flights, but lets not let the amount of press coverage a single incident gets determine policy changes.

I agree that if we want more people to train for STEM jobs, we need to focus on jobs in that sector not in education. We already have an education system qualified enough to produce STEM graduates. We just don't have enough quality jobs for those graduates, so many of our best and brightest go into law, medicine, finance, etc. instead of STEM fields.

Take that $240 million, plus another $240 billion, and put it into research. Go to Mars, invent better batteries, create DNA specific medical treatments ... the sky really is the limit. By doing this we won't care about just creating new jobs because we will be creating new industries.

People smart enough to work in STEM are usually smart enough to go where the money is as well.

Government absolutely force unions in the work place. There are plenty of laws which protect union membership. I'm not arguing that those laws are a good or bad thing, just that to ignore the government's role in supporting unions is ridiculous.

Powerful unions are essentially monopolies that the government won't protect society from. If Ford cars become too expensive I can just buy a car from another company. If Ford was the only option, their only incentive to lower prices would be so people don't keep used cars for too long. That is obviously a horrible situation and the government would step in. If the UAW asks for too much money, however, Ford can't turn to another automotive union with more reasonable rates. And going with non-union workers in an industry dominated by a powerful union also has its problems.

There is also a strong correlation between the time where a significant portion of the population became college educated and stagnant wages. Wages grew substantially when the average worker was becoming far more valuable economically then generations past. This was low hanging fruit solved by increased government funding of higher education and a shift in middle class mindsets that college was necessary for a middle class life. Once a tipping point of the number of college educated employees in the workforce, average wage growth started to stagnate again.

Productivity gains which occurred 40-50 years ago were largely because of a more highly educated work force. Productivity gains today are largely because of increased use of capital. Computer systems, robotics, operational improvements, etc. are responsible for that increased productivity over the past few decades. And just like the 50's and 60's saw the rise of the middle class because of college participation, the 80's through today saw the rise of the upper middle class.

The upper middle class is now responsible for the productivity gains we see today so they are the ones who are reaping the benefits (along with the capital holders of course). When a middle class worker becomes more productive today, it is probably because of a CRM system or robotics assembly created by someone in the upper middle class. And the upper middle class wages have not been stagnant by a long shot over the past 20-30 years. The upper middle class hardly even existed before the 80's.

Labor unions aren't solely responsible for workers rights. The government is our primary tool for enabling worker's rights. The government enacted the 40 day work week, overtime laws, etc (with help from unions), and governments are the ones who enforce these laws today. Unions were a tool which was necessary because in the early 1900's the government simply did not take on the responsibility. That is not the case today.

There are plenty of times where drastic actions are necessary because the government is not doing its job well enough. The US Civil War is such an example. We needed a war to prevent secession, but we don't need perpetual war to stop it from occurring regularly. Just like we needed unions to set reasonable work standards after the industrial revolution, but we don't need them perpetually.

Long standing unions almost always become as big of a problem as the robber baron monopolies they were created to fight against. They drive up consumer costs of any service they have a hand in providing; that is if the industries they taint can't just move overseas. They are especially dangerous when they mix with public services, because tax payers are stuck with bills promised by politicians decades ago who knew they would be out of office long before the bills came due.

The first guy said to give the parents a break because parenting is hard. The second guy said "she took the job", obviously implying you shouldn't have kids unless you are prepared to do a good job at that very hard job. Sounds like he was refuting exactly what the first poster said. Be careful about calling people stupid when you can't understand a very simple argument (regardless of whether or not you agree with it).

There are plenty of very tough jobs in this world. My job is a lot more difficult than raising my daughter is (although not a more important job than being a dad). But I can't just shrug and say my job is tough if I fail at work. I took a job where I knew the responsibilities and challenges were significant, both at home and work, so now it is my duty to do well at both.

That said, even the best of kids can make horrible mistakes, so you would need to know quite a bit about the home dynamic before immediately blaming the parents. From personal experience I would say these kids' parents are more than likely bad parents, but it would be idiotic for me to just assume they are. Even good kids can be convinced to do bad things through peer pressure, for instance.