really? do they say that, or is it more nuanced and you have to interpret what you see through your own informed lens.

Because the piece says it's more nuanced:
It's like, the new polite society heard Deen and said, "Hey that's racist". The not quite so fashionable people heard Deen and said "WTF, that's nothing; we know her, she speaks our language and she is not a racist. And if that's what gets you fired from, geez, not only basic cable, but the whole general public? We don't even know where we are any more."

I'll tellya, being from around here, and that means in the big connected metropolitan area (and on the Internet, frankly), Pittsburgh feels 10 years behind when I visit it. I can't imagine what Birmingham is like.

It's not bragging. It's not like Philadelphia is any magically better. The people face the same problems. Because all our polite talk hasn't really solved very much, if one cares to admit it. The ghetto remains the ghetto. The poor remain poor. Empathy is still at a premium. But we sure do like to feel better about *ourselves* for it all.

And aren't the Trump voters, as a bloc, the people we get to feel we're better than? And we the fashionable have a strange way of convincing people, the only way we know is shaming them.

And now, when I see the fashionable people mocking, shaming, getting angry, repeating things over and over, and having nothing else for a topic of conversation, I think, this is going exactly how you want it to go. You actually want this shaming. It is making you feel superior. You LOVE it. There is JOY in your voice and in your words. And with your voice and words you will elect Trump.

But, but, if their contribution is to talking the talk, then it's up to someone else to make walking the walk better now isn't it.

The main complaint about political correctness is that it's a placebo for the masses. It's too easily abused by individuals and groups to inflate their importance by mislabeling differences as intolerance and fear as hate.

Let people say what they want to say within reason so their opinions aren't driven underground with their actions to follow, especially in the political arena. I'll make my own decisions about when lines are crossed.

That's one of the differences between Clinton and Trump: Clinton tries to use political correctness to tell people what to think. Clinton appeals to the human drones. Trump tells people what he thinks and leaves it up to them. Clinton is part of the problem. That doesn't mean Trump is the solution; but, his communication style has gained him traction that even the rest of the GOP doesn't have.

The bottom line is that the less pc there is, the more frank the discussions and the more likely resulting change will be lasting change. That's the pc complaint.

Discussions of PC most often center about race, which is a distraction from both race and PC-ness.
If I see someone in a wheelchair I say they are crippled. Right away someone says, no-no, they are "handicapped", but another jumps in, they're "motion restricted". Whoa stop, they are "locomotion attenuated". By the time everybody settles on an acceptable terminology, everyone is butt hurt and it's way passed bed time. Meanwhile nothing of value has been discussed, and whenever I hear any of those terms I automatically translate to cripple in my head.

If you are bored, and want to kill a lot of time while making a lot of enemies, describe someone retarded. :rolleyes: Recently in an automotive forum, a guy was describing an ignition timing problem, saying it was acting retarded. Right away two people jumped on his shit for using that word. Mindless reaction, no brain involved... retards.

You are right as it is a gut reaction not knowledge of fact. My internalized examples are from Trump folks I presume feel threatened by changing demographics, a 2D cartoon of reality much like the cartoon of the Bernie supporter as a millennial free-rider.

This one is especially fascinating to me because it is still very much a legitimate medical diagnosis. Little known fact, "moron," "idiot," and "imbecile" also used to be medical terms, with specific associated IQ levels. They updated the terminology when those words became common pejoratives, but now the pejorative rejection moves so fast, medicine can't keep up. Your kid has a diagnosis of mental retardation, just don't read his file out loud in public...

When I was in Grad school it was still Mental Retardation but we just said MR because kids do have ears. It changed to Intellectual Disability with the DSM-V following the Fed Gov change over. I serve a teenager with Down's who was being mocked as a "retard" in his high school hallways, of course he calls himself nigga, so turnabout I guess.

Ah, I didn't know that was one of the changes in the DSM-V! Good to know. Pretty sure there's still an American Medical Association diagnosis code for MR, but there are also diagnosis codes for Aspergers and PDD-NOS even though those don't exist in the DSM-V either. Takes awhile for everyone to catch up with each other.

But isn't bunching a variety of different problems with their unique solutions, into one catch all heading, confusing for everyone? Or is this for the insurance companies and paper pushers, but not really affecting doctors?

How does this apply to political correctness? Are you saying this is the result of PC?

The conversation has drifted, tw.

- more like fell off a cliff. Donald Trump probably hates that. He is no long the topic.

That's why my daughter officially got vision therapy for her strabismus, not her autism; and takes anti-inflammatories for her enterocolitis, not her autism; and takes Mucinex for her allergies, not her autism... We don't really understand the overall heading anyway, so it doesn't matter how we group it. Most of the symptoms are already covered by other diseases anyway.

Yeah, every kid is an individual, sometimes the label can actually get in the way of proper treatment other times it helps people change course if they're working the problem wrong.

tdub: A white kid appropriating the "N" word usually runs afoul the pc police but this kid with a disability has his reasons, none of which will likely keep him safe from crossing the wrong group of people.

Yay for bureaucracies and ever changing goalposts. ;)

How do I get Turrets syndrome. Then I can say anything I want.

So, Trump accepts tonight and the talkin' heads are asking (other talkin' heads) 'what do you want to hear him say in his speech?'.

I want to hear...

*that he's gonnna leave me alone
*that's he gonna do his damnedest to restrain Congress and the Supreme Court so they'll leave me alone
*that my failures are mine to suffer alone and my successes are mine to enjoy alone

...then...

I wanna hear him talk about how he's gonna make that happen.

That would be a good start...not holdin' my breath anything he sez tonight will approach that.

I know for a fact nuthin' Clinton sez during her acceptance will come near what I'd like.

Johnson mebbe could say things I wanna hear, but he's got a a snowball's chance of gettin' the Big Chair.

Well henry? What did you think of his speech?

Missed it...got caught up in playin' Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens with the kid...from the snippets and analysis I've heard between then and now it seems I didn't mss much.

Well here it is if you want to watch and report back.
I'd be interested in your feedback.

I'll take a gander later today or tomorrow...bein' hounded by a ten year old right now.

Being stalked by a ten year old? Does he have a gun (real or virtual)?

my half-assed anal-ysis
 

Never got 'round to watchin' the video...the ten-year stalked me like a feral cat, shot me dead with his bb gun, and ate my heart.

The corpse of me read Trump's speech this morning.

Meh, boils down to this: 'This is what's wrong, this is who to blame, me and mine are gonna fix things up all spiffy-like'.

My crystal ball (which I just got back from the shop) sez Clinton's speech (usin' different words, you understand) will be the same.

She'll preach a bit on what a grand success Obama has been, of course, and promise to do an even more bang-up job, but -- mostly -- it'll be 'bad shit caused by bad guys which I'll clean up'.

Nuthin' nowhere from any one promisin' to leave me be.

NOTA 2016!
 

Read the text of Mrs. Clinton's speech this morning.

What I came away with: 'I'm a better Republican than Donald Trump.'

There are always more votes in the middle than at either end. She figures if the Bernie supporter are kicking her to the curb, then maybe she should try to scoop up some in the middle.

Are there really that many middle-of-the road, undecided, folks to harvest?

there are, but they're unlikely to vote. I think there are a LOT of people whose level of engagement and interest/ability for critical thinking are insufficient to impel them to choose, to make the effort to have a preference. But this bar is much lower than actual voting, if you don't give a shit, you're not gonna vote either.

I'm one of those in the middle people and I'm invested enough in voting, but not for either of those two whorish hags the R's and D's have trotted out. I'll be supporting Gary Johnson.
As an aside - - - I'm shocked that no one seems to give a rats ass that the D's basically got caught colluding and fixing an election. What was the penalty for the architect? She got hired by the one who Orchestrated the whole thing. Next up? Perhaps running the Clinton Foundation.
Damn, but all the hypocrites that do nothing but point fingers at the other team are REALLY QUIET about this whole cheating thing.

The thing is, this isn't an election year where you can cry hypocrisy, because no one's even pretending to be fair or balanced. The vast majority of Hillary supporters aren't really supporting Hillary, they're just terrified of Trump. And they recognize (correctly, I suspect) that any scandal against her works against their better interest. In a normal year, they'd quibble, "Ah, it's just Republican spin, it didn't really happen that way." This year, most would say, "Yeah, she totally stole the election. Doesn't matter; don't care."

Honestly, I wasn't terrified of him until he picked Pence. I had been suspecting this whole time that he was really the moderate-to-liberal douchebag he's always been (see: supporting Democrats in the past, blowing off the Evangelicals, calling for legalization of marijuana, etc.) and was waiting on his VP pick to prove that, especially considering that the VP will be running everything if he's elected (Trump admitted as much, though now that it looks bad he denies it, of course.)

With a VP I liked, I honestly would have voted for him, because I have major, major problems with Hillary. Now I'm up shit creek, praying that Hillary magically gets knocked out and Bernie somehow still comes from behind. Bernie's an idealist whose ideas are mostly ridiculous and could never be implemented, but I would expect Congress to prevent any from really passing. And I would hope the same would be true of Trump... but seeing how the Republicans have now fallen in line behind him, I don't think they would. And if Trump would pick Pence as VP, I am scared shitless of the Supreme Court nominations he'd make.

All of which is meaningless philosophical musing, because I live in a die-hard red state. Although with the Hispanic vote growing every year, they say Texas could become a swing state in another generation or so. But for now, my vote means nothing. I'll still do it, but it means nothing.

#FeeltheJohnson... Join Griff and I.
The lesser of two evils is still evil, or in this case a bloviating douchebag.

He seems to be arguing with dead soldiers now. Normally I'd say game over but with Hillary on the other side... This has become the race to suppress your opponents vote totals.

"I'm shocked that no one seems to give a rats ass that the D's basically got caught colluding and fixing an election."

Lots of folks care, I think, but know nuthin' will come of it.

let's try this...
 

http://www.conservapedia.com/Randomocracy

Randomocracy is a theoretical form of government in which members of the government are chosen by random draft, instead of campaigning for office. It is based on Douglas Adams' famous comment that anyone who wants to wield power probably shouldn't be allowed to. It is similar to the system portrayed in "The Lottery in Babylon," by Jorge Luis Borges.

Positive aspects of Randomocracy
It will result in vastly greater representation among lower-class economic castes, as opposed to the current system, where everyone is represented by wealthy white male lawyers and bankers.
Possibly, legislation that is readable by humans will be passed.
Since nobody campaigns for office, the enormous expenditure of effort and money of political campaigns will be obsolete.

Common Criticisms of Randomocracy
With all legislators only serving a single term, accountability for bribery and corruption will be drastically reduced. With no need to campaign for reelection, legislators might accept bribes with both hands, since the primary pressure of accountability via ballots would be eliminated
Members of unpopular beliefs might be installed to office.

Me: not seein' any downside.

You are, generally speaking, an isolationist by nature, Henry--not just politically, but in your personality and day-to-day life. To put it bluntly, I don't think you get out much. Anyone who has spent a fair amount of time dealing with The Public on a large scale would see one big downside to your plan, and that is the preponderance of Dumb Fucking Idiots in this world. And I don't mean people who hold different political beliefs, or people who prioritize things differently than I do. I mean genuine, horrendous, stupid and immoral by any standard, Dumb Fucking Idiots.

Put a basic, basic intelligence assessment as a threshold requirement for Randomocracy eligibility, and maybe I could be swayed. But legislation readable by humans could not be passed by people whose heads happen to be too far up their asses to think reading or writing anything is worthwhile, and there are more people out there like that than you think.

"I don't think you get out much."

Ahem...my work has me out and about every day, in the company of people everyday.

#

"Dumb Fucking Idiots..."

...make up more than 90% of any population you care to name...not seein' how installin' morons by random selection will get us any worse of a result than the way we do it now (installin' morons who win popularity contests).

Laws are written to be precise. Granted, sometimes (often) they are written with maliciously precise loopholes for particular interest groups, but the vast majority of boilerplate legalese that adds pages to laws is there because the shorter, more readable version was misinterpreted in a clever way, and the law needed to be clarified. And, unfortunately, an extreme amount of clarification can become obfuscation.

I can see a downside. I assume many others to too.

Anyone installed by lottery or other such means would likely immediately devolve into a corrupt banana republic legislator, grabbing as much money as they could while the gettin' was good.

The federal government is one giant hog trough full of cash, and anyone who gets access to it will grab as much as they can for themselves, followed by doling some out to the peons they purport to represent, be they the poor, the disabled, the elderly, whomever. Look at any nonreligious charity (and some of those too).

The ones at the top always seem to make six and seven figure salaries, don't they? QED.

I ALMOST feel sorry for Paul Manafort right now...almost.

Here's a current view into Trump campaign headquarters:

"Anyone installed by lottery or other such means would likely immediately devolve into a corrupt banana republic legislator, grabbing as much money as they could while the gettin' was good."

Sure, many would, just as they do now, under the current system.

clever misinterpretation of plain language law
 

The simple solution: adjudication (and initial restraint)

A plain language law might say 'don't shoot guns within the city limits'...certainly some schmuck will come along and test it, looking for, or creating, a loophole...turning one plain sentence into twenty pages of jargon (to clarify the original sentence) is one way to go, but it might be better, where there's dispute, to allow adjudication (folks present their arguments, the arbiter assesses arguments with the law as standard, then he rules).

Certainly, as time goes, any law will accrete interpretations, amendments, qualifiers, etc. but it seems more natural to allow circumstance to to guide that process than trying to cram everything in from the start.

And, of course, hesitancy on the part of law makers to create new law in the first place would be a nice thing. 'Do we really need a law for this?' is a serious question that, it seems, a great many law makers ignore or give only a passing thought to.

The law is created, then adjudicated, then enforced as we know from watching the opening to Law & Order...

So random person can create law, and it starts the loophole arguments over what is a gun, and what is firing; but also, there are a whole set of changes that happen to any previous city laws about guns, as well as what laws are at state, county, federal level and how they interoperate.

If the interpretation of the law is to be part of it, then the body of decisions has to be followed, and things previously ruled upon have to be studied, with repercussions for judges if this doesn't happen.

Pretty soon interpretation is more complicated than the law itself, and you have a battle between law and interpretation of law. Making the law more complicated clears some of the interpretation before it happens, so the law is not immediately rendered meaningless.

I think this is all first-year law student stuff, but I also believe if I send an application to Dickinson Law School, they will sneeze on it and send it back to me. They sneezed on my undergrad app back in the day.

That's what boilerplate is; the natural accumulation of interpretations, amendments, qualifiers, etc, that have proven necessary on old laws, applied to new ones, so we don't have to go through all of that again.

It should never be easy to pass laws, so: 'going through all that again' should be required...startin' from scratch every damn time.

"All that" being a poorly worded law that requires years of additional legislation to bring it to the point we could have started with if we applied the lessons learned to begin with.

Yours is a prescription for more legislation, not less.

Itchin' to nuke someone.*
* Grain of salt level: Scarborough

"All that" being a poorly worded law that requires years of additional legislation to bring it to the point we could have started with if we applied the lessons learned to begin with.

-----

Yeah, that's my mistake: when I say 'all that' I mean each and every bit of legislation ought to start from scratch, 'all that' being the process from start. That is: the cake of law ought to be made from scratch, not bought, ready-made, at the grocery.

So: if law makers had to seriously consider the need of a law (instead of just assuming that need, or being told there's a need), and if law makers had to start from the beginning on every bit of law (instead of assuming precedents [call it zero-based law making]), there would probably be fewer laws passed and those that were passed would probably address legit needs instead of momentary/cultural/special interest whims.

Those are completely orthogonal. Sure, there are laws that shouldn't exist. But once it's been decided that the law should exist, I don't see how it helps things to deliberately leave massive loopholes that centuries of experience have shown us.

Because even if the legislators don't, the bad actors will. All they have to do is look at all the boilerplate that was left off of the new law, and do that. They don't even have to make up new ways around the law.
That being said, if "the grocery" is a special interest think tank that submits ready-made laws with carefully designed loopholes, rather than boilerplate that has naturally grown from years of legislative clerks drafting law (legislators themselves seldom have much to do with the actual drafting), then I agree.

Seems to me, within the American framework, the only boilerplate we need concern ourselves with is the Constitution (itself a concise codification and distillation of 'centuries of experience'). Start there, that's the table (the only one you can use), or mebbe the basic recipe (from which you cannot deviate)...go collect your fixings...make that cake from scratch.

#

"orthogonal"

Nice word...lots of meanings.

If laws were written like the Constitution, then every case would need to be decided by the Supreme Court.

So what?

That's what the courts (local all the way up to the highest) are for: to adjudicate.

Look how much they want to talk about anything other than the reality that their party cheated...

Does that surprise you?

I'm not surprised at all democrat powers -- the folks most strident about the goodness of 'democracy' -- have no faith in the democratic process (no faith in 'the people'), and I'm not surprised -- when those powers are caught monkeyin' around -- they don't wanna talk about it.

Me?!?!?!?!?!

Hell no. They've got nothing and they know it. She is literally indefensible.

So some administrators in the DNC decided to support Hilary. That proves to wacko extremists that the entire DNC and Hilary are evil. "Fuck the facts and details. Only my emotions and wacko extremist rhetoric prove it must be true."

Moderates among us can watch wackos post more cheapshot attacks. Defined is a difference between an adult (who first learns facts) from wackos who are experts because their political emotions (and Cruz, Rush, and Ann Coulter say so) prove it is true.

Let the cheapshot attacks resume. Since that is what these recent posts are about. Emotions blame all as evil because a few somebodies cast support towards their preferred Democrat. Amazing how wackos can disparage all because a few had an opinion.

Wackos are so easily manipulated as to even deny promoted a of massacre of almost 5000 American soldiers when reality was clearly distorted and is know well known to have been 'sexed up'.

Who will be so wacko as to take the bait?

Finally the realization that we have all known for years. Knowing and identifying your problem is the first step. Good for you.


Now fuck off and go back to pretending I don't exist. Its better for EVERYONE.

And one more just for fun ...

If she wasn't running against Trump, those videos might have a point.

Except claiming that being a defense attorney is a bad thing. That's silly.

And the lesbian stuff was pretty unpleasant.

Trump is an ass. He's a problem as well.
I cannot fathom how anyone can really support either one of them on their merit.
I can understand the "We'll he/she is better than her/him." Neither of them are good candidates.