Comment Re:Obama should just call for elections (Score 1) 1530
Explain this. Note the date on that article.
Explain this. Note the date on that article.
Not much of a reform if costs just keep going up as much as they always have, is it?
That wasn't your point though. You said the legislation itself was responsible for the rate increases, which isn't true. I agree it was bad legislation but get your facts straight.
Sounds like the same old bullshit to me. Compromise to the Republicans is the Democrats doing what they tell them to do.
Maybe not during. The point I was attempting to make is that charitable giving correlates just as well if not better with religion. I wouldn't be surprised to find the disparity in time given is much smaller when you remove non-religious volunteer work. Not that religious charities don't do good work, they just don't differentiate between time and money spent running a soup kitchen and time and money spent evangelizing.
From your link:
The single biggest predictor of someone's altruism, Willett says, is religion. It increasingly correlates with conservative political affiliations because, as Brooks' book says, "the percentage of self-described Democrats who say they have 'no religion' has more than quadrupled since the early 1970s." America is largely divided between religious givers and secular nongivers, and the former are disproportionately conservative. One demonstration that religion is a strong determinant of charitable behavior is that the least charitable cohort is a relatively small one -- secular conservatives.
How much more likely are they to give to non-religious charities (as in not the church they attend)? Most non-religious people don't go hang out somewhere on Sundays where there is a collection plate going around.
Also courts are inferior to legislatures.
They are? You ever heard the phrase "co-equal branch of government"?
Case "law" is inferior to Local law
Local law trumps Supreme court decisions? Tell me another one...
Decisions made by judges are the weakest form. They are akin to advisements, and not much else.
You have a very serious misunderstanding of how the government of this country works.
that there is no way to know (exactly) how many people are eligible to vote as such things are not registered.
Voters are generally required to register in the USA. In the states I have lived in, you cannot vote if you are not registered.
This is, as it seems to be from my point of view, also the reason for the decennial census.
The reason for the census is to determine the population for the purposes of drawing congressional districts.
Unlike prior immigrants, some (many?) have no desire to assimilate.
Cultural assimilation is a lot more complicated than you make it out to be.
which provides up to three consecutive years of bilingual education--and like prior efforts it tends to fail.
Mandating certain education strategies in legislation is always bound to fail. Is it the goal or the method you are against? You can't learn in a classroom surrounded by a language you don't speak.
Surely this subset of people is so much of a minority, that it doesn't justify the costs.
Tell that to these places
Yet every damn government publication is produced in English and Spanish.
Well Puerto Rico is a US territory that has Spanish as its primary language, so for that reason alone you really don't have a point. On a side note, it would definitely put an end this discussion if Puerto Rico became a state.
Isn't that how democracy is supposed to work? It's not like the non-citizens can give themselves the right to vote, and it doesn't affect anything other than local government. Now if they were to give them the right to vote in Federal elections that would obviously be unconstitutional. Should such a constitutional amendment come up I would be against it, however if the residents of Portland want to allow legal resident non-citizens to vote in their local elections it should be up to them to decide.
Where exactly did I mention anything that exuded racism??
Racism probably wasn't the word they were looking for. You made a statement that assumes anyone that doesn't speak English obviously wasn't from here, which is definitely not always the case.
Generally speaking, hard to imagine being born and raised in the US without knowing to speak English...is kind of needed to really succeed and operate in this country.
While it may be true that today almost all people born in the USA will learn English, there are still some older citizens that might have not ever bothered to learn because the largely self sufficient communities they live in don't primarily speak English.
It isn't racist to expect visitors to this country to follow the "when in Rome" type thinking, is it?
Isn't it reasonable to use the best understood language to communicate in? There happens to be a very large minority in this country that speaks Spanish as a primary language even if you find that distasteful. Even if they did speak English well enough to pass the citizenship exam, that doesn't mean that they aren't more comfortable with their native language. I think voting is an act that lends itself to having a complete understanding of the situation.
Having taken propranolol (for migraines, it didn't work btw) I find it interesting it is also used for performance anxiety. I wonder if it actually reduces the anxiety or simply removes the physical effects. A while back there was an Olympic sport shooter that was stripped of his medals for using propranolol, presumably to assist aiming.
They obviously feel that marijuana does affect job performance.
With marijuana screening they test for a non-psychoactive metabolite that stays in the body for much longer than the active form of the drug, or most other illegal drugs for that matter. I find it hard to believe that someone who fails a marijuana screening a week after discontinuing use is still impaired. I would argue that marijuana screening has more to do with its legal status than its actual effects.
I think if people have drinking problems that leads to them coming in with hangovers or coming to work drunk, they SHOULD be fired, or otherwise dealt with.
I agree. But you don't see anyone firing employees simply because they drink alcohol responsibly in their own time.
In most places where I have worked, smokers spent at least 10% and sometimes as much as 35% of their day out smoking.
If you are spending 35% of your time not doing your job, what you were actually doing is irrelevant.
I say, let's first legalize marijuana and then see if it is a problem, rather than pre-emptively passing legislation in anticipation. There is nothing radical or unreasonable about my position.
Marijuana would also be the only legal drug that is widely tested for and discriminated against in hiring/firing decisions without this exemption. I largely agree with you, I just think you are being pedantic. And again, we already have this situation in many states with tobacco, I don't see how this is any different.
Civic democracy depends on clarity of political discourse for efficient functioning. Two separate issues should not be combined into one single proposition, law, statute, or bill, or proposal.
While that may be the case, personally I think the greater harm in this situation is the drug law, not the clarity of the proposition repealing it.
Legalization of tobacco or alcohol is not tied to anti-discrimination laws in any way. Why does there need to be a link for marijuana?
I think that text is in Prop. 19 to address the question of drug testing, specifically the fact that so many companies will not hire someone that does not pass a marijuana screening. What is the point of making it legal if nobody that uses it can get a job? Would you support testing for alcohol and not hiring/firing anyone that failed the screening? I think if a big enough percentage of companies implemented nicotine or alcohol screening we would see the law changed to protect those people as well.
Also, it isn't legal in every state to deny employment based on tobacco use.
From your link:
About half of all states have laws that protect employees from being fired or not hired because they smoke.
"Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch." -- Robert Orben
