Well, it is partly biological, not solely biological, of course. We agree.

I think we are on the same page. If you go to my profile page and read the conversation between ChaosEngine and me, you can see that I also have concerns about the children and see that I believe strongly in keeping religion out of the laws.

I don't think the indoctrination of children IS a separate issue -- I think it is part and parcel of the passionate energy that some atheists bring to the conversation and I believe strongly it needs to be dealt with -- short of removing the kids from the home or going ahead and sterilizing fundies. You are 100% correct, I think -- education, education, education.

The thing about a perfect world also applies to our conversation.

Fundamentalist religious folks think they have the answer. Fundamentalist atheists think they have the answer. I'm just saying -- carve out your territories and stop trying to invade people's minds. Both of these groups need to stop that. It is a losing game. Create a game where you can win -- [edit] religious fundies stay out of the laws and [edit] rational atheists need to put up the billboards. And the internet! Ah, the lovely internet. Saving grace for many an isolated person.

In reply to this comment by Skeeve:
I think you have dug to the heart of our disagreement.

First, you repeatedly state that religion is biological. I think that is partly accurate, but it's not that simple. I think religion itself is memetic, but the need to believe in something is biological. Religion is a symptom of our evolutionary need to believe/explain what we don't understand.

As for not being able to force evolution, we've been doing that - consciously or unconsciously - for thousands of years. While sterilizing the religious and only allowing atheists to breed might be one solution, I think the proper course is education combined with laws separating religion from the government.

While education doesn't work 100% of the time (as your example points out), it is pretty clear that those with more education have less religion. Nations with better education systems have less religious adherence and individuals with higher educations tend to have less religion. And the key words in those sentences are "less religion"; it doesn't mean less belief, it just re-aims that belief from religion to rational thought/science/etc.

Education is to religion as the scalpel is to the appendix - it removes the evolved, no longer useful, but still dangerous, problem.

With regards to it not being right to tell someone not to take comfort in that which comforts them, I partly agree. If it isn't harming anyone else, then I don't care what someone believes and I'm not going to get in their face about it (if they try to convert me though, they have opened the door and are fair game). But the line is drawn when someone's beliefs harm or pose a threat to the well-being of others. In that case, anyone who opposes equal rights (whether for homosexuals, women, non-religious) are fair game.

The issue I struggle with personally is the indoctrination of children. Having experienced that personally, knowing how that limited me (and harmed me, in some ways) I have difficulty allowing the indoctrination of children to go uncontested. But that's a different problem for another discussion ;


>> ^bareboards2:

We'll have to agree to disagree.
I don't think you can force evolution. It isn't a choice. Not unless you start breeding programs.
Want the biological need for the divine to go away? Sterilize all religious folks. I don't think you can talk folks out of it.
I speak from experience. My brother is a retired Air Force pilot with a Master's degree in aerospace engineering. Grew up in a secular household. His need for structure and the divine led him to the Mormon Church. Talk about goofy beliefs!! Good lord! And he voluntarily turned off his reasoning brain to accept all their nonsense as true. You say religion has "served its purpose." So why did he go there, when he wasn't indoctrinated into it growing up?
Not for me to tell him not to take comfort where he takes comfort.
However, it is for me to tell him to back off on gay marriage and not impose his church's beliefs on others. (And to tell him that when the church's membership starts falling, I guarantee his Prophet will suddenly hear from God that it is okay to be gay now.)

>> ^Skeeve:
I think most atheists would agree with you, that religion has served an evolutionary purpose. I don't have "The God Delusion" with me at the moment, but I'm pretty sure Dawkins acknowledges that as well.
But whether or not it serves an evolutionary purpose or not is irrelevant. The appendix served an evolutionary purpose - then we evolved to do without it. The same goes for the wisdom teeth; most people have them removed because they can cause huge problems, but in a world without dental care they are incredibly important.
Most of us atheists believe it is time, at least in the west, to "evolve" beyond the need for an invisible sky-daddy. We have the opportunity to do with religion what evolution did for the appendix.
Belief in a god is irrational. That's not to say it didn't serve a purpose, as evolution is not bound by the rational, only by phenotypic fitness. But, religion has served its purpose and, like the appendix or the wisdom teeth, it's time it was removed from our lives.
>>

I think you have dug to the heart of our disagreement.

First, you repeatedly state that religion is biological. I think that is partly accurate, but it's not that simple. I think religion itself is memetic, but the need to believe in something is biological. Religion is a symptom of our evolutionary need to believe/explain what we don't understand.

As for not being able to force evolution, we've been doing that - consciously or unconsciously - for thousands of years. While sterilizing the religious and only allowing atheists to breed might be one solution, I think the proper course is education combined with laws separating religion from the government.

While education doesn't work 100% of the time (as your example points out), it is pretty clear that those with more education have less religion. Nations with better education systems have less religious adherence and individuals with higher educations tend to have less religion. And the key words in those sentences are "less religion"; it doesn't mean less belief, it just re-aims that belief from religion to rational thought/science/etc.

Education is to religion as the scalpel is to the appendix - it removes the evolved, no longer useful, but still dangerous, problem.

With regards to it not being right to tell someone not to take comfort in that which comforts them, I partly agree. If it isn't harming anyone else, then I don't care what someone believes and I'm not going to get in their face about it (if they try to convert me though, they have opened the door and are fair game). But the line is drawn when someone's beliefs harm or pose a threat to the well-being of others. In that case, anyone who opposes equal rights (whether for homosexuals, women, non-religious) are fair game.

The issue I struggle with personally is the indoctrination of children. Having experienced that personally, knowing how that limited me (and harmed me, in some ways) I have difficulty allowing the indoctrination of children to go uncontested. But that's a different problem for another discussion


>> ^bareboards2:

We'll have to agree to disagree.
I don't think you can force evolution. It isn't a choice. Not unless you start breeding programs.
Want the biological need for the divine to go away? Sterilize all religious folks. I don't think you can talk folks out of it.
I speak from experience. My brother is a retired Air Force pilot with a Master's degree in aerospace engineering. Grew up in a secular household. His need for structure and the divine led him to the Mormon Church. Talk about goofy beliefs!! Good lord! And he voluntarily turned off his reasoning brain to accept all their nonsense as true. You say religion has "served its purpose." So why did he go there, when he wasn't indoctrinated into it growing up?
Not for me to tell him not to take comfort where he takes comfort.
However, it is for me to tell him to back off on gay marriage and not impose his church's beliefs on others. (And to tell him that when the church's membership starts falling, I guarantee his Prophet will suddenly hear from God that it is okay to be gay now.)

>> ^Skeeve:
I think most atheists would agree with you, that religion has served an evolutionary purpose. I don't have "The God Delusion" with me at the moment, but I'm pretty sure Dawkins acknowledges that as well.
But whether or not it serves an evolutionary purpose or not is irrelevant. The appendix served an evolutionary purpose - then we evolved to do without it. The same goes for the wisdom teeth; most people have them removed because they can cause huge problems, but in a world without dental care they are incredibly important.
Most of us atheists believe it is time, at least in the west, to "evolve" beyond the need for an invisible sky-daddy. We have the opportunity to do with religion what evolution did for the appendix.
Belief in a god is irrational. That's not to say it didn't serve a purpose, as evolution is not bound by the rational, only by phenotypic fitness. But, religion has served its purpose and, like the appendix or the wisdom teeth, it's time it was removed from our lives.
>>

@quantumushroom If facts are so important to you, then why is it that you never employ them while making implausible comments like liberalism causes black people to have babies out of wedlock, or that gays don't want equal marriage rights, or that California is broke because of liberalism.

You proudly admit to getting your media from questionable, corporate funded sources that a) carry no credibility outside of hardcore sympathetic ideologues, and b) have been shown to be less effective at keeping you informed than no media at all. This should be a big red flag.

http://www.good.is/post/poll-finds-fox-news-is-worse-than-no-news-at-all/

Beyond all this, you support a political ideology that has been on the wrong side of history, from slavery to women's rights to civil rights, to labor rights, and continuing with campaigns against gays, Muslims and Mexicans, as well as a continuation of the prejudices of old.

Do you ever wonder how regular German citizens got sucked into supporting fascism? Well wonder no more.

Let's take a look at the 14 defining characteristics of fascism and see how you do....

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

CHECK

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

CHECK

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

CHECK

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread
domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

CHECK

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

CHECK

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

CHECK

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

CHECK

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

CHECK

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

CHECK

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

CHECK

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

CHECK

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

CHECK

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

CHECK

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

I've seen nothing to suggest you support fraudulent elections.

13 out of 14. NOT GOOD DUDE. NOT GOOD AT ALL. You are free to dispute which ever ones you like, but you've got years of incriminating comments on this site to back this up.

But of course if you could see it, then the Germans would have been able to see it too, and we wouldn't have had to fight that war.



In reply to this comment by quantumushroom:
My problem is only with intellectual dishonesty, whether it's via curable ignorance or deliberate deception is almost irrelevant.

I've been where you are now politically, only LONG ago. I worked my way UP from liberalism, wiped the slate clean with anarchism, aimed toward libertarianism and am now floating in the undefined, invisible world of 'conservatarianism'. I do not agree with liberal policies based on liberals' good intentions. As a taxpayer and citizen, I demand positive RESULTS, and anyone foisting social experiments on society better be ready to defend them when they fail. Do you know the stats on Black crime and births out of wedlock? "Racism" did not cause a 70% illegitimacy rate in the Black community, LIBERALISM did. Crazy Johnson's "Great Society" garbage. The results of holding Blacks to lower standards--including standards of behavior--is self-evident.

There is even a fair argument for gay marriage, but the gay "lifestyle" generally is a sad one, with rampant promiscuity and diseases. It's not established that most gays even want legal marriage. And though no one else cares to acknowledge it, AIDS is a behaviorally spread disease. Remember that the billions politically steered towards AIDS research could also have been spent on cancer research, and cancer affects FAR more people.

California is broke. It got that way due to liberalism. RESULTS. Not good intentions, RESULTS.

You have a right to your opinions, but no one has the right to their own facts. If I had to judge you, I would say you're highly intelligent but misguided, not because your political views don't mirror mine, but because you refuse to step back and view the entire picture.


>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

The bottom line is that your problem with gays, blacks and other minorities is just that: your problem. It's not their fault that they have ended up on the wrong side of your emotional development. It's something you need to come to terms with on your own.

>> ^rgnjc:

Health insurance is clearly not the same as college. With higher education you volunteer to pay X amount of dollars to get an education per year that is optional. Considering there are literally thousands of options in this country to choose from, CHOOSE ONE THAT WORKS FOR YOUR BUDGET! Consider buying a car, certainly we all don't go out and buy lamborghini's...instead we buy Toyota Corolla's and Ford Focus's...something that is more fiscally realistic. I wouldn't go buy a lamborghini and have the gall to sit here and complain about the price when there are better options.
Health insurance is different, and I don't care to talk about that, that's not the point of this thread.

>> ^Fletch:
>> ^rgnjc:
IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE TUITION DON'T GO THERE! Find another school that fits your fiscal requirements, moron.

THIS! So succinct!
Hey, while I got ya here... It doesn't look like my medical insurance will pay even a third what they payed the first time, should I relapse. I'm not rich and, admittedly, I'm kind of a moron, so what should I do if that happens? Find another insurance company, or find another disease? Two seemingly impossible solutions... should I desire to live, but I just bet you can help me.



Except at some point, writing your degree on a paper napkin probably carries more weight that the low budget degrees. Or, I have 2 grand, my car options would be something that needs a lot of work and additional money invested or an extreme high mileage vehicle that has a good maintenance record but let's face it after some point on mileage maintenance or not something is going to happen...severity dependant. Or I borrow or otherwise go beyond my means in hopes that it will give me a reliable car that will get me to where I want to go but have no warranty, and then the transmission goes out and the dealership wants nearly what the car is worth to fix it. So I face having no car or going even further beyond my means to hopefully continue to keep my reliable car on track and get my invested money back out of it. I think that more accurately represents the school situation for that guy. You can't just go to another school and hope they transfer every credit 1:1....depending on where you are in your degree you might get boned out of many credits you otherwise would have kept had you not switched schools/programs.

And I'd argue the "optional" portion of a higher education when jobs that SHOULDNT require them, do. It's either tradeschool or college unless you like digging ditches, collecting trash or some other unskilled workforce area. And that's not a bash on those jobs, in fact I think most of those unskilled jobs should pay more than a teachers salary...because a lifetime of those utterly destroys your body. Be lucky if you don't need back surgery by 50 if you do hard manual labor from 18 on up.

Wikipedia is your friend.

-----> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_university_system <----->> ^lantern53:

Also no one in gov't has anything to do with the cost of higher education, which has been a sore point for the '99%'. You can blame your multi-million dollar university presidents for that boondoggle.

It was not Republicans pushing the Community Reinvestment Act, it was Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. Even W warned that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in danger of insolvency.

Also no one in gov't has anything to do with the cost of higher education, which has been a sore point for the '99%'. You can blame your multi-million dollar university presidents for that boondoggle.

Health insurance is clearly not the same as college. With higher education you volunteer to pay X amount of dollars to get an education per year that is optional. Considering there are literally thousands of options in this country to choose from, CHOOSE ONE THAT WORKS FOR YOUR BUDGET! Consider buying a car, certainly we all don't go out and buy lamborghini's...instead we buy Toyota Corolla's and Ford Focus's...something that is more fiscally realistic. I wouldn't go buy a lamborghini and have the gall to sit here and complain about the price when there are better options.

Health insurance is different, and I don't care to talk about that, that's not the point of this thread.


>> ^Fletch:

>> ^rgnjc:
IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE TUITION DON'T GO THERE! Find another school that fits your fiscal requirements, moron.

THIS! So succinct!
Hey, while I got ya here... It doesn't look like my medical insurance will pay even a third what they payed the first time, should I relapse. I'm not rich and, admittedly, I'm kind of a moron, so what should I do if that happens? Find another insurance company, or find another disease? Two seemingly impossible solutions... should I desire to live, but I just bet you can help me.

>> ^robbersdog49:

WTF? Was all good until the text at the end. And this is from a person in higher education?


Clearly all their powers of concentration during lectures are going into avoiding sharts and producing farts.

WTF? Was all good until the text at the end. And this is from a person in higher education?

(a) You guys are simultaneously arguing contradictory points, that higher education is (1) a scam and waste of money and (2) required to get a good job. Which one is it? Is higher education worthless or is it the key to high-paying jobs?

I'm sure you will argue that it is both a scam AND a requirement for good jobs because of some widespread corporate conspiracy. But the simple fact is that employers see a lot of value in good degrees. I want my civil engineer and teacher to have good educations with formal certification.

(b) You guys are putting words in my mouth.

"You may want to research the education system a little more deeply before making criticisms of those that decide to pursue academia"

My entire adult life has been spent in academia -- numerous universities both public and private, in multiple different roles. I love academia! i think most students should get higher education. I think there is widespread availability of good, reasonably priced schools.

"The US education system is becoming increasingly privatised, and the corporations making the profits are often underwritten in part by public funding."

Very few schools are for-profit -- only the scum like ITT and U of Phoenix. Those places are evil. But every traditional university in this country is a not-for-profit or state-run organization. Have expenses gotten out of hand? Maybe, but as long as the market will support these prices it won't stop. Is the market only supporting these prices because of student loans? To some degree. But there's a simple solution -- don't take out huge loans and instead go to a great state university or community college. If you were a good student this is even easier as scholarships offers will pour in.

"Even small liberal arts schools with no science departments or interactions with corporations have had sky-rocketing costs."

Yes, I was pointing to this fact as ridiculous. The students getting 200k debt at these schools to major in English literature are definitely the big losers in higher education, but they have everything available to them to make an informed decision before entering such a program. I don't think it's necessarily the school's fault unless they actively misrepresent the outcome of students.

"If it really is a stupid idea to educate yourself in America these days (as Rychan seems to suggest is the case for many people)"

Not sure where I suggested that. I wouldn't go so far as to call higher education a universal right, but if you are a good student in the US then it effectively is.

>> ^chilaxe:

1. Fairness:
How many people do you know who follow the path I described? Even here in Silicon Valley, people like that are rare, so the world is basically just waiting for people like that to come along.
I doubt most people are genetically incapable of following that path, if that's what you're suggesting.

Genetics isn't the only thing you inherit from your parents. You also get citizenship in the country they live in, you get raised and educated in their social and economic class, and you might also be able to take advantage of their network of business contacts. And that's not even mentioning the potential differences in parenting techniques and lessons they impart.

When I say "you think life is fair", I'm mostly saying that you seem to think we all have the same paths in front of us to choose from. We don't.

I had a lot of opportunities available to me that other kids from my neighborhood didn't, not because I'd done anything to earn them, but because my parents were well off.

I had a lot fewer opportunities available to me than my classmates at school, not because I hadn't earned them, but because I wasn't the child of the owner of a multinational corporation.
>> ^chilaxe:
2. Racism:
You could call me an intelligencist if you'd like... I believe immigration slots should be given to that portion of poor people who can, regardless of ethnicity, be statistically shown to have good odds of doing well in the US, both regarding themselves and their children born here.
Remember that it's liberals who believe in institutionalizing racism. Here in California, liberals are fed up with Asians contributing so much to society, so liberals are currently seeking to restore racist discrimination against Asians in universities.
California outlawed such racism in 1996, so schools like UC Berkeley and UC Irvine are almost majority Asian. Personally, I like 21st century societies, so I think Asian studiousness is good.

There's a pretty big difference between having a debate over what the most fair (i.e. non-racist) admissions policy would be -- policies that promote racial diversity, or policies that discount race altogether -- and what you were talking about.

We can accurately predict that billions spent on trying to close the achievement gap will never succeed. We can accurately predict that hyper-liberal Berkeley will always have the highest crime rates in the San Francisco bay area regardless of legislative policy because it's sandwiched between Oakland and Richmond, which have collected genomes that are bad at complex society.

We can know that it was probably a mistake for liberals to import 80 million permanently poor people from other countries between 1970-2010.

In that short little quote you asserted:

1. Some races can't be educated, no matter how much money we spend trying to educate them
   
2. Some races will always commit lots of crimes, and no amount of policy change will stop it
   
3. Some races will be "permanently poor", and no amount of economic opportunity will change that
   

That's more or less the soul of the Jim Crow style of politics. There are good races, for whom higher education spending, and economic opportunity will work, and there are bad races, for whom such things are a waste. Therefore, the logic goes, smart policy would be to reserve that spending and those opportunities only for the good races, since they're the only ones who could ever make use of it.

Oh, and keep an eye on your valuables whenever one of those bad races comes by. You never know about those people.

You sure that all people in that kind of world can determine their ultimate fates, purely through their own individual choices? Hasn't that been disproven by history time and time again?
>> ^chilaxe:
3. Human rights:
Yes. People are free to work for anything they want.


Really, that's the only one? Rather than open that can of worms, I'll just follow through with my original line of thought -- that's a right you think everyone should have, right?

Why? Why not abolish such liberal ideas as "equal rights", and tailor our legal system to the findings of your studies?

>> ^L0cky:

Also applicable to those leaving a late teen/early twenties alcohol and drugs haze, if they chose that over higher education.


Are you looking over my shoulder?

Also applicable to those leaving a late teen/early twenties alcohol and drugs haze, if they chose that over higher education.

Article 1.
* All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2.
* Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3.
* Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4.
* No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5.
* No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6.
* Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7.
* All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8.
* Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9.
* No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10.
* Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11.
* (1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
* (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12.
* No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13.
* (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
* (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14.
* (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
* (2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15.
* (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
* (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16.
* (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
* (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
* (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17.
* (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
* (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18.
* Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19.
* Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20.
* (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
* (2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21.
* (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
* (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
* (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22.
* Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23.
* (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
* (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
* (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
* (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24.
* Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25.
* (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
* (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26.
* (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
* (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
* (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27.
* (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
* (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28.
* Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29.
* (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
* (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
* (3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30.
* Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

- http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

Far too long....

>> ^quantumushroom:
QM:I'm happy to see that you accept the label 'right wing nutjob', that saves us time.
If it makes you happy to believe that, go right ahead. And there is no time being saved here at the sift.


Make me happy? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
It saved me time to waste on other stupidness.


I wonder where you get your 90% figure (or your implication that 100% of teachers unions are democrat)...if true, why don't right wingers believe in education and journalism? No one is stopping them from being teachers or journalists.
"MSNBC.com identified 143 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 16 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.
The pattern of donations, with nearly nine out of 10 giving to Democratic candidates and causes, appears to confirm a leftward tilt in newsrooms."


So, in your small sampling, it's 87%. I somehow think the sampling may have been intentionally skewed, but OK. Note I didn't disagree with your stat, just questioned it's origin, if it was Faux, I would discount it offhand.


You're part right about McCain, I did respect him for the most part (but didn't always agree with him) until he sold his soul and lost his mind in/after 2000 when the 'straight talk express' took a 90 deg right turn into a sewage filled ditch of lies, direction changes, blatant pandering, and BS. It makes me shudder to think what might have been if he had been president during his 'right wing wind sock' days, turning whichever way the right wing wind blew that day.
Yeah, because things are going SO great with the clueless community organizer at the helm. Did you see the Dow drop 500 points today? No confidence in the Obamateur, from Americans or the world.


You seem to assume that because I think McCain is worthless now that Obama must be my preferance, and that I support his policies and actions and think he's leading us strongly. That is an incorrect, and all to often made assumption. Why must you continue to make an ass out of umption, do what you like to yourself.


You have no idea when or how I was raised, so you should refrain from commenting on that subject. Let's just say your statement is wrong, as I'm sure are most of your assumptions about me.
Well, you're not overtly libertarian or conservative. So what's LEFT?


I'm what used to be republican. I'm a social liberal, and fiscal conservative. There is no sane party I can call home today.


The idea that the left is 'running roughshod' over the right is more complete insanity, the left is incapable of being cohesive enough to do much of anything intentionally. The right is cohesive, but their ideas are insane and proven repeatedly to be wrong for the most part. I do give them credit for knowing how to get their agenda furthered, I just disagree with their agenda as enacted.

Obama is on track to spend more than bush, but he has not yet. The reasons for the respective spending sprees and amount of each is another discussion in itself.
Sorry, this is untrue. Obama so far has spent 3 trillion in 3 years, whereas Bush spent close to 5 trillion in eight years, much of it opposed by the Right.


This is why people call you nuts...you are insisting that 3 trillion is more than 5 trillion, and that spending sprees and tax (revenue) cuts under total republican control were against republican (the right's) wishes.


All taxpayers tired of being 'over' taxed are not right wing nutjobs, or even right wingers. That's an utter falicy and insulting BS. It's seemingly easy for you to point at the failings of one underfunded, over administrated program (public schools) and make the leap to the theory that all governmental programs are failures, but that is a gross simplification of a multifaceted problem.
Goverment schools are "underfunded"? On what planet? BTW, there is no direct correlation between school performance and how much money is spent per student. I believe DC spends the most per student and you can see how well that turned out.


Underfunded because of insane administration costs, better? More money doesn't automatically make better schools, but it helps, but not if it's all spent on non-school related administration expenses.


Even so, that theory doesn't hold water. The 'free market' for higher education shows that many, if not all completely 'private' schools provide sub par education (if any at all) while many schools using 'public' funds are among the highest ranked in the nation.
And yet how many liberal politicians send THEIR kids to private schools, even as they need teacher union votes? Competition weeds out crappy private schools while failing government schools keep churning out dummies. Government schooling is a racket, as well as unconstitutional at the federal level.


I'm not sure your arguement here...I'm not a liberal politician, or a true supporter of them, so how does what they do relate to me? I've been to good and bad private and public schools, the ones with money always had a leg up. I really believe if you have children, you should be taxed the cost of a decent education and allowed to spend it at the school you prefer (excluding religious school, that's another issue). Since this doesn't happen, I prefer decent public education be purchased with my tax dollar rather than prison cells and barbed wire. I do see it as an either or situation.


I'm sure you did call the feds attempt at stoping the failed CEO's from looting the failing companies we had just bailed out "obamatrons trying to loot corporations in the name of "social justice" ", so why isn't it 'the far right trying to loot the pensions and paychecks of the teachers' in the name of social justice? What's good for the goose...right? A legal contract is a legal contract, right?
I was never a fan of any bailout. Bush was barely conservative as it was. The left was too busy hating Bush to notice him rubber-stamping most of their spending requests. Stupid Hillary is on record claiming she'd like to seize all of the oil companies' profits. To the best of my knowledge, some states are making some teachers pay a tiny fraction more for their own health insurance and/or pension. Hardly the a$$rape by unnamed "far right" specters you're insinuating.


I'll never understand the arguement that, when confronted with their own abhorrent behavior people answer with 'look, that other guy I always call an a$$hole is doing bad stuff too'.
As I understand it, many states are cutting back on pension payments, or not paying them at all. At the same time they are regulating teachers, denying them union status, and forcing renegotiation of in place pay and work hours/load contracts. Not total a$$ rape, but close, and certainly not fair or acceptable treatment.

I'm not sure if you are ignoring my last statement there or if that's some kind of 1/2 assed, racist response. Either way, TOTAL FAIL.
Knowing me, I probably just didn't give a sh1t. Nothing personal. Youse guys have such thin skins when it comes to these faux-racial matters. What part of 'Kenyanesque Hawaiian' is racist? Odumbo's fadda was Kenyan and he (the son) was purportedly born in Hawaii. Where's the racism? Only in your mind.

I said:Letting right wing nutjobs re-write contracts and negate our obligations was one of our biggest mistakes.

You replied: Fail. The Kenyanesque Hawaiian never met a spending cut he liked. He's overclocked this economy because he wants to cripple it. Here comes the broom to sweep the moonbats out of the belfry.

The ridiculous infactuation with his ancestory (race) is where the racism is. Kenyanesque only applies if he acts Kenyan, and he does not. It is intended to be racially insulting, you know it, we know it. Either give it up or own it.
It's sad that you just don't give a sh!t about your people being so unstable that you can't trust any agreement made with them. That's my issue, not so much their political party, but their actions and trustworthyness. I'm hardpressed to find a politician of either party I wouldn't call fectless and feculant. I call out the right more often because they went bat sh!t crazy and deserted me, leaving me partyless.