@newtboy

“What genitalia you have has no bearing on your performance in sports”

I’m gonna try once to understand this. Are you saying you do not believe that people who are biologically male(By which I mean XY) have an advantage in athletics over people who are biologically female(by which I mean XX)?

If our disagreement is that fundamental there isn’t much sense to further discussion as we are viewing two entirely disjointed versions of reality.

@newtboy,

1. Given how few people are affected, I'd love to see way less coverage of trans-sports as a wedge issue to rally political bases

2. Failing that, isn't it clearly 100% common sense that the Men's and Women's sports divisions are NOT divisions applied based upon gender but instead upon biological sex, and as such should always have been a non-issue.

3. I really can't see the issue, if it must be raised, as anything other than a request for special exemptions to be made. Existing competitive sports are divided based on biological sex and most have requirements around usage of drugs, hormones and other performance enhancing substances. We have existing and established testing for both the biological sex and PED requirements. Applying those equally to everyone IS equality.

/s There, now the debates all settled /s

All true, and all things he hopefully is being tried for and will be found guilty of.

If you look at the nytimes breakdown of the video evidence though, it looks very possible his self defense argument gets him off of murder charges: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/kyle-rittenhouse-kenosha-shooting-video.html

In the first shooting, they document some one else(not rittenhouse) firing a handgun before Rittenhouse fires. As that first shot is fired, someone lunges towards Rittenhouse, who then fires at them.

Now, everything you've pointed out already makes Rittenhouse guilty of putting himself in a bad situation, and already having broken multiple laws. Still, under the circumstances, you have entire crowds of folks all breaking curfew, at least one other random person in the area firing a handgun, and someone lunging at an armed Rittenhouse.

There's a lot of terrible, stupid things all going on at once here. Evidence wise though, it looks like self defense, after breaking many laws and putting himself in harms way, is still factually part of the night.

I hope he gets a lot of jail time for all the laws he did break, but am not holding my breath on an impartial jury rejecting the self defense angle base on the nytimes footage,

@newtboy,

Those have been attacked by extremely tiny, but vocal minorities on the very far left, not main stream leftists nor centrists. Just as all on the right aren’t raving lunatic Trumpists that gladly put orange daddy before reality, country, and democracy, all on the left aren’t as you’ve described them….very few are.

Wow, something we can agree on?

I do hope the aforementioned far/nutty left/right folks are the minority we think. Events like Jan. 6, or censorship, firings to appease fringes show the nutters on both ends holding more power already then I’m comfortable with.

@newtboy,

thanks for clarification.

So in your view, do you see the left objecting to any of the following things that kinda speak to Maher's point, and I think fits to the point of the 'left' being upset with him,

-Defending Chapelle which left would decry invoking their definition of dog whistle, transphobia...
-Pointing out a correlation between violence and Islamic extremism which left would decry as islamophobia
-Believing sports/olympics should divide competitors based on biological sex rather than gender identity == Transphobia
-(Big any famous celebrity accused of sex crimes) and suggesting they deserve a fair trial == failure to believe victims/survivors

Those are all things that have been pretty commonly defended by large groups of the left from what I've been seeing. Am I wrong?

@newtboy,

One of Mayers examples is calling out headlines about SAT's being inherently racist as false. Isn't that something you've told me you felt strongly about? I know we had discussion on including race in college admissions, and you against a race/color blind admission process as that was too pro-white. Seems it's not wrong on at least that point to say Maher's ruffling feathers with the left?

Honest question for everyone really angry at the lady in the video. Is the problem her manner and attitude alone? That is to ask a second question, do you think it is unreasonable for a parent to not want their young daughter seeing naked penises?

Good news and bad news then. ITER isn't really a 'test', science wise it's pretty much assured that it is gonna work. So that's good news. The bad news, this thing is also as small as current known science allows us to make it while still producing usable power. Economically, it's already completely and totally unusable. Thus the hope is to make more new discoveries running this to find ways to make it economically viable.

Apologies, didn't mean to misrepresent you. We've debated things before and you seemed to lean to no cop is a good cop because there are so many bad ones guilt be association and failure to clean things up makes them all bad. You'd also said up thread to fire all active officers.

I'll cease trying to word how you feel on it, I just wanted to demonstrate by counter example that not everybody means 'reform' when they say "defund". At a minimum , the degree of 'reform' varies from change some laws and regulations to fire them and start over from scratch.

My comment of being ruled by our 'betters' was meant as a sarcastic dig on them and their abject failure in letting things rot this far and doing nothing.

Finally, my comment on public opinion on solutions being non-uniform was mostly to emphasize that as just normal, and the current status quo is just so unacceptable that it is unifying people from varied points of view to stand up against it. The most important point being that declaring, see nothing will satisfy the mob because they can't agree what to do is a twisted deception and the truth is people want things to be better than they are, and there is as you pointed out tonnes of common sense ways to go about that,

The cause isn't united either.

Another part of the problem is you have a lot of people like @newtboy who really DO mean defund the police by the dictionary definition. Those folks are mixed in with the protesters who mean 'reform' when they say 'defund'.

That's all to be expected though when you see the systematic failure of the national police force that is out there. When the number of bad actors in the force becomes too many, includes sheriffs and their deputies, and sees various police chiefs and police union leaders(not toe mention Presidents) defending the bad actors, the people that rise up in anger aren't going to be a uniform centrally organized entity.

As Dave Chapelle refers to it, these are the streets speaking for themselves. The public can't be expected to hold a single, uniform and documented solution that they are marching for. It is unfair to the point of dishonesty to try and discredit the protestors as a 'mob' because their calls for reform aren't consistent enough or well messaged enough. The presumably better educated, smarter professionals running the country(from the bottom to the top) are the one's whose job it is to find a good solution. More importantly, it's also their fault for failing to enact solutions to the problem before the public outrage hit the levels it has.

Hate to be that guy again, but I can't help myself.

So, the accusation is that extracting underground water in high enough volume has ruined the water levels in the rivers. The video however, presents multiple anecdotes from locals as 'evidence'. Including even pointing at a high water mark by a bridge/culvert. You know, in a creek that rises and falls heavily between spring melt and fall.

The lack of any meaningful evidence really skews me to classing this as propaganda over documentary. No effort what so ever was made to prove the allegation that Nestle's operations are influencing creek/river water flow.

it behooves us to give a leg up to those trying hard to do it for themselves....no?

I vehemently agree on this. I merely argue that giving the leg up shouldn't be based upon race but upon lack of opportunity. The two fellow black students you mentioned, who were nearly as advantaged as you would have similarly destroyed other black students from crappy inner city schools, but a race based system would give no quarter to the inner city kids in that insistence, still favouring privileged kids over the unprivileged, just so happens these privileged kids would be black.

I agree fully with helping out the disadvantaged. If a race is grossly over represented among the poor, then policies to help the poor will also grossly provide more assistance to that race. I don't consider that discriminatory though, it's just a historical consequence.

In the Canadian model, direct assistance or compensation for past harm is also something I can get behind. Of course, proving and carefully adjudicating what that should mean is a tough nut, but our courts are expressly for that kind of dispute.

I'm less familiar with American demographics, but I agree with the overall principal. Here in Canada we have IMO an even more severe segregation and unequal opportunity for Aboriginal peoples. It's severe enough up here though that not only are communities segregated by living on reserves with their own separate schools, but we have separate school divisions, and even their reporting and funding lines are different from all other schools.

That adds up to an enormous amount of differential treatment. Replacing that with equal opportunity though is much more desirable than 'waiting' till the school system has already failed kids and then 'lowering the bar' in one way or another to help them get into university.

In Canada I think our supreme court has done as at least 1 disservice greater than you guys though in making race a required consideration in sentencing. The appropriate section of sentencing:
"In sentencing an aboriginal offender, the judge must consider: (a) the unique systemic or background factors which may have played a part in bringing the particular aboriginal offender before the courts; and (b) the types of sentencing procedures and sanctions which may be appropriate in the circumstances for the offender because of his or her particular aboriginal heritage or connection."
The goal is to address the over-representation of aboriginal people in prisons. The effect however, is ultimately discriminatory as well. Before you dismiss the discrimination against whites as ok because it balances things out as is the 'goal', that's not the only affect. Another problem in Canada is the over-representation of Aboriginal peoples as the victims of crime, because most violent crime is between parties that are related. So on the whole crimes committed against Aboriginal people will on average be sentenced more leniently...

Failing to address the real underlying unequal opportunity can't corrected by more inequality later to balance the scales. In Canada, our attempt at it are too lesson the sentencing of people with unequal backgrounds, but the expense of victims that also faced those same unequal backgrounds...

And that 'corrective' inequality is also creating similar resentment amongst white people here too. People don't like their kids not getting into a school of choice potentially because of a race based distinction, but they like it even less to see a crime committed against them treated more leniently because of race.

haven't watched the video yet, think I've heard the answer before though so I'm going to weigh in with sharks!!

Your absolutely right that characterising an entire generation as the 'same' is flawed.

However, I also believe there is more to the whole 'entitled millenials' view than just the bias of 'those darned kids again'.

I think the lumping of generational groups is just a miswording and but reading of the problems facing society at different times. Baby-Boomers as a generation were just people, same as millenials, same as anyone else. The thing is, kids born between 1910 and 1930 grew up in a world at war. Baby boomers grew up in a post world war/cold war era. The societal problems that shaped those times and people still existed, so dismissing the problems as just perception or bias isn't necessarily a good idea.

I've been out of high school 20+ years, and the notion of participation ribbons for everyone was already starting then. The notion that losing or winning isn't important, even if you lost because you were lazy, or won because of years of hard work was already starting. The problem of basically denying hard parts of the real world has been building for 20 years, and the current generation has been buried even deeper in it.

For anyone born in Canada or the USA to cry that no amount of hard work, talent or anything else can help them get ahead and that the system must be changed to help them is insidious. When 80-90% of everyone born in Canada or the USA will never know real hunger, never face homelessness, never have a warlord burn and destroy everything they own, complaining about the inherent injustice of being born where you were as a Canadian or American is just wrong.

The ideology that has grown up in the western world over the last 20+ years has the stink of the rich, entitled world we've enjoyed here. We have a society so removed from hardship, that hardship is working 10 hours a day, 5 days a week to lead a life more comfortable than 90% of the world.

It's not millenials, it is however the society that millenials are growing up in(so all of us).