Evan Urquhart did a good job of addressing the transgender/transracial question in his article for Slate. (Despite Slate's reputation for left-wing stridency, this particular article is not a polemic. It treats the question as valid.)
The key line is, "science continues to be done that supports the idea of gender differences within the human brain, while the possibility of such differences existing between races has been roundly rejected." So being born with male genitalia and a typically female brain is an idea that seems to be biologically meaningful, while the notion of being born with white skin and a typically black brain is apparently meaningless.
I believe her crime was welfare fraud to the tune of $9,000. Ok it was wrong but...
It's not even cost efficient to lock her up for a month is it? She's not guilty as of now, what will her trial cost taxpayers? District Attorneys and investigations are not cheap.
What's $9,000 compared to white collar fraud like Wells Fargo creating thousands of fake accounts, or Trump wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars at his golf courses?
Ok what she did was wrong but not the crime of the century.
I believe her crime was welfare fraud to the tune of $9,000. Ok it was wrong but...
It's not even cost efficient to lock her up for a month is it? She's not guilty as of now, what will her trial cost taxpayers? District Attorneys and investigations are not cheap.
What's $9,000 compared to white collar fraud like Wells Fargo creating thousands of fake accounts, or Trump wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars at his golf courses?
Ok what she did was wrong but not the crime of the century.
What seems to have happened is that after her "exposure", she was basically unemployable, thus the only income she had was self-reporting, since she likely wasn't receiving a paycheck from anyone. The article I read states that officials became suspicious after she had a book published, which would certainly raise eyebrows. For those that are wondering, no one working an actual job could ever get away with this, because the state agencies would just be able to go to the employer to prove what that person was making. Being self-employed would be the only real way to actually get away with welfare fraud, though I don't know the rules in Washington state.
That all being said, the maximum penalty here is 15 years in prison, which seems insanely excessive for what amounts to $8500 in food stamps. I'd give her six months to a year in a psychiatric facility and make her pay back the money, and if the defense simply presents the Netflix documentary I mentioned earlier as evidence, the judge would likely agree. Sending her away for a decade and a half does not fit the crime even remotely.
For what it's worth, the punishment isn't always meant to be "equal" to the crime, precisely. A deterrent can be more severe than the original crime--in fact, it has to be somewhat more severe, since most crimes never result in conviction. If I were to pull out some strictly hypothetical numbers, you might pay a $100 fine for something that only costs the public $1, because there's only a 1% chance of getting caught. If it was a $1 fine, it might be cost effective to commit it.
15 years would, of course, be ludicrous for a sum that size. Fortunately, that's a maximum penalty and unlikely to happen.
To clarify: Dolezal has only been charged. She has not yet been tried or convicted. Currently we're still in "allegedly" territory.
I usually refuse to post anything from what will be viewed as overly partisan news sources, but Chris Hayes of MSNBC is simply shining a light on what is happening with this practice of taking children away from their parents at the border, often people simply seeking asylum. I will not hesitate to call this policy flat-out EVIL at this point. If no one wants to watch it because of the source, so be it, but I have a feeling some will be inclined to agree with me if they do. The Trump Administration is basically kidnapping children from migrants, literally ripping children from their mother's arms:
I'm serious about this. This is absolutely heinous. This has nothing to do with protecting this country or illegal immigration. This is abject cruelty masquerading as official government policy:
We are about 1 or 2 steps away from internment camps, and 3 or 4 steps from god knows what else at this point. This is being done in the name of every citizen of this country, and it's a national shame and disgrace.
I was just watching a Simpsons episode from 1994 and I found it strange how old it seemed. See, it was the episode where Homer gets falsely accused of sexually harassing the family's babysitter. Basically, the Simpsons went to a candy convention, Homer stole a gummy bear shaped like the Venus de Milo, the babysitter sits on it by accident, and Homer plucks it off her butt, which she mistakes for a pinch. The rest of the episode is a bunch of people unjustly attacking Homer for sexual harassment.
This episode came out 24 years ago. It's probably the first time I ever heard the phrase "sexual harassment." My introduction to the concept, whenever it was that I first watched the episode.
So, the very same day that Harvey Weinstein is arrested for a string of alleged sexual assaults with 90 women testifying against him, in a time when some of the most prominent and (previously) respected men in the United States are rightly seeing their careers fall apart and countless people turn against them for sexual harassment and sexual assault... I'm watching this old Simpsons episode where the issue looks completely backwards.
Homer is innocent, and eventually is exonerated by video evidence. You're meant to sympathize with him, and you do, because he's a good guy (or at least isn't that kind of bad guy). But the implicit message of the episode sounds discordant in retrospect: (1) everyone automatically believes the false accusations against Homer are true, (2) no one defends him but his family, (3) he's widely castigated by the news media as well as (4) popular culture, and (5) the whole episode is about how much it sucks to be a guy who gets accused of sexually harassing someone. One of his accusers explicitly says that she never even met him, and his TV interview is obviously manipulated to make him look guilty--the accusers are uniformly crazy and unreasonable.
Yet this episode came out in a time when people usually did not believe those kind of accusations were true. A time when all kinds of people would rush to a man's defense in that situation. A time when the news media would ascribe sinister motives to accusers while giving the accused the benefit of the doubt. A time when popular culture poked fun at feminists for complaining about sexual harassment instead of people who committed it. A time when the most important thing was how the accusation hurt the person accused, and not the experience of the victims.
A time before the #MeToo movement.
The episode was mocking people for being too quick to believe accusations of sexual misconduct... when the reality was that it would be more than 20 years before the general public even took the subject the least bit seriously. It would be like seeing a political cartoon from the 1940s saying "Wow, can you believe how many people support desegregation these days? This whole country is crazy, right?" It's portraying a small movement with a righteous cause as a gigantic movement populated by radical lunatics.
I wonder how many of my views in this thread will look backward and hysterical in 2042?
It seems in retrospect that the '90s featured such an explosion of technology that everything else got swept to the side. Hard to imagine, but the internet, something which we literally can't live without anymore, barely existed. Not until '95 did it even remotely begin to take off, but at that time, everyone became enraptured by it. Not to get too blue here, but I vividly remember a bunch of us guys hanging out at my best friend's house on the weekend in the middle of night marveling at the fact that we could very SLOWLY watch pornographic pictures load on a computer screen (this was years before streaming video was even a thought). A few years later, it started to not be uncommon for people to be carrying phones with them everywhere they went.
Outside of Oklahoma City and Columbine, news stories from the '90s seemed almost inconsequential. The economy was good, those visions of the future seemed like they actually had a chance of becoming reality. Even the Gulf War, at the time, seemed like a skirmish, not feeling the actual repercussions til a decade later. It's not surprising sexual harassment wasn't taken seriously. It didn't seem like much was taken seriously at all. Everything was going on an upward trajectory. Culture dominated, and culture was interesting. Grunge, huge blockbuster movies that were also critical successes, mobile technology and the true beginning of the current online world.
In the end, many things were precursors to what would turn into big problems as soon as the decade came to a close. It turned out Clinton's questionable conduct was just the tip of the iceberg in regards to powerful men. Oklahoma City the first time right-wing extremism came into focus. Columbine would become the norm, not a tragic one-off. Our stationing of troops in the Gulf War would lead us on the path to 9/11, and ANOTHER, far more costly war against the same country. With the advent of Napster, the music industry as it had been known (selling records in brick and mortar stores) was in it's death throes, but no one knew at the time. Basically, the '90s were giving us tons of canaries in the coalmine, but no one noticed any of them.
Edit: I suppose I forgot Waco. Though the end result was essentially the same (alot of dead cult members), I don't think the raid on the Branch Dividian compound was some massive government conspiracy (and indeed, this is where alot of the tin-foil hat survivalist-types had their red line crossed). I think it was as simple as the fact that no one was interested in David Koresh becoming the next Jim Jones.
ADDITIONALLY, Trump's man at OPM suggested several ways to screw over federal workers to Congress. Also sucks to be my buddy. They throw money hand over fist at the military but want to cut federal workers. What's up with that? More money for Defense Contractors, not federal employees? Is that the strategy? I don't get it. Still if you are or know a federal employee Republicans are against you. https://federalsoup.com/articles/2018/05/07/opm-lays-out-proposed-changes-to-fed-benefits.aspx
I wonder how many of my views in this thread will look backward and hysterical in 2042?
This post was an interesting juxtaposition with the previous one by @jjstraka34 on the Irish Referendum. I've posted before about how quickly fundamental changes in society can take place and the Irish debate on abortion is another example. It was only in 1983 that the Irish Constitution was changed. At that time pro-life campaigners were concerned about the possibility of abortion rights being extended through the back door, e.g. a Roe vs Wade type of court decision. The change to the constitution was intended to permanently rule out any move away from the toughest anti-abortion position in the world.
The abortion debate in Ireland has always been polarized (as I guess it is in most countries) - this story is about the referendum result, but has links to background stories if anyone is interested. There has though been a big shift in the position of the mass of people in the middle. The 1983 referendum on changing the constitution was supported by 67% of those voting. The final result this time won't be available until later today, but looks like being at least 67% in favor of removing the constitutional bar.
I've posted before about the fact that this referendum came about because of the work of the Citizen's Assembly. That was a group of ordinary people given access to full information about issues and asked to give their views - on abortion they were clearly in favor of repealing the constitutional bar and the referendum has now shown that they were indeed representative of the country as a whole. It would be interesting to know what a similar process in the US would come up with - I suspect that the democratic view on abortion would be rather different from the current legislative one.
One note of caution though about interpreting the Irish result too widely. The Irish position on abortion was extreme and led to some real abuses. For instance one case which helped change many minds was a woman who was refused a termination at a point when doctors had already agreed that a miscarriage was imminent and inevitable - she subsequently died. Some of those who supported removing the constitutional bar do not support the proposed Irish legislation that would allow a general right of abortion until 12 weeks. I think that legislation has a good chance of being passed, but it will be a tough debate.
Examples include women dying because they are unable to get an abortion despite there being no chance for baby's survival.
That's what we are headed for in the US folks in wannabe dictator Trump gets another Supreme Court Justice and we leave Republicans in charge of the government.
I'm sure there's reasonable regulations that could be made but these guys are going all out on pandering to the religious right each one trying to outdo the other in how much like sharia religious law that will go.
Just to note that while sharia law disapproves in principle of abortion it is permitted in the early stages (other than by a few fringe fanatics). In that, Islam is in line with most religions. An exception are Roman Catholics where the church authorities take a particularly strong stand against abortion. That stand is not, however, shared by Catholics in general. Just like in Ireland, there are comfortable majorities in most Catholic countries in favor of allowing abortions in some circumstances and Catholics are just as likely as people generally to have an abortion themselves. As I suggested above I don't think the views on abortion being pushed by legislators at the moment in the US actually represent the country in general and I agree with @smeagolheart that there is a danger of the judicial view getting similarly out of step.
You can access some details about religious views on abortion on the BBC religions pages - this one is for christianity, but there are similar ones for other religions on the same site.
The Korean Peninsula doesn't need the United States to help sort out its problems--Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un just had another meeting where they decided to continue walking down the path of peace and social reunification albeit not a political one (at least not yet--that will take about another decade to happen).
So this was brought to my attention in light of what is going on at the border. Turns out, before the implementation of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978, there was veritable epidemic of removing Native American children from their homes:
ICWA was enacted in 1978 because of the disproportionately high rate of forced removal of Indian children from their traditional homes and essentially from American Indian cultures as a whole. Before enactment, as many as 25 to 35 percent of all Indian children were being forcibly removed, mostly from intact American Indian families, and placed in non-Indian homes, with a deliberate absence of American Indian cultures. In some cases, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) paid the states to remove Indian children and to place them with non-Indian families and religious groups. Testimony in the House Committee for Interior and Insular Affairs showed that in some cases, the per capita rate of Indian children in foster care was nearly 16 times higher than the rate for non-Indians. If Indian children had continued to be removed from Indian homes at this rate, tribal survival would be threatened. It also damaged the emotional lives of many children, as adults having been through the process testified.
So this was brought to my attention in light of what is going on at the border. Turns out, before the implementation of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978, there was veritable epidemic of removing Native American children from their homes:
ICWA was enacted in 1978 because of the disproportionately high rate of forced removal of Indian children from their traditional homes and essentially from American Indian cultures as a whole. Before enactment, as many as 25 to 35 percent of all Indian children were being forcibly removed, mostly from intact American Indian families, and placed in non-Indian homes, with a deliberate absence of American Indian cultures. In some cases, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) paid the states to remove Indian children and to place them with non-Indian families and religious groups. Testimony in the House Committee for Interior and Insular Affairs showed that in some cases, the per capita rate of Indian children in foster care was nearly 16 times higher than the rate for non-Indians. If Indian children had continued to be removed from Indian homes at this rate, tribal survival would be threatened. It also damaged the emotional lives of many children, as adults having been through the process testified.
I don’t know if I mentioned this here yet, but the same thing was happening in Canada.
The government would take them from their tribes and place them in schools run by Catholic Churches to educate them and make them less barbaric. Abuse was abundant, and so was death. It was only recently that the federal government apologized for the practise and slowly started making amends.
The late Gordon Downie from The Tragically Hip released a full album about a child who died attempting to get back home from one of these schools. It, and the documentary is worth a listen: secretpath.ca
So this was brought to my attention in light of what is going on at the border. Turns out, before the implementation of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978, there was veritable epidemic of removing Native American children from their homes:
ICWA was enacted in 1978 because of the disproportionately high rate of forced removal of Indian children from their traditional homes and essentially from American Indian cultures as a whole. Before enactment, as many as 25 to 35 percent of all Indian children were being forcibly removed, mostly from intact American Indian families, and placed in non-Indian homes, with a deliberate absence of American Indian cultures. In some cases, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) paid the states to remove Indian children and to place them with non-Indian families and religious groups. Testimony in the House Committee for Interior and Insular Affairs showed that in some cases, the per capita rate of Indian children in foster care was nearly 16 times higher than the rate for non-Indians. If Indian children had continued to be removed from Indian homes at this rate, tribal survival would be threatened. It also damaged the emotional lives of many children, as adults having been through the process testified.
I don’t know if I mentioned this here yet, but the same thing was happening in Canada.
The government would take them from their tribes and place them in schools run by Catholic Churches to educate them and make them less barbaric. Abuse was abundant, and so was death. It was only recently that the federal government apologized for the practise and slowly started making amends.
The late Gordon Downie from The Tragically Hip released a full album about a child who died attempting to get back home from one of these schools. It, and the documentary is worth a listen: secretpath.ca
I was actually more familiar with the Canadian side of this issue based on a podcast I listened to a few years ago. This seems to have been the exact same motive in the US. To move these children into white, Christian homes and/or schools. Everyone is at least somewhat aware of the very high alcoholism rates among Native Americans. Maybe it's time to look into the idea that the forced removal of their children (meaning their future) has something to do with that.
So this was brought to my attention in light of what is going on at the border. Turns out, before the implementation of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978, there was veritable epidemic of removing Native American children from their homes:
ICWA was enacted in 1978 because of the disproportionately high rate of forced removal of Indian children from their traditional homes and essentially from American Indian cultures as a whole. Before enactment, as many as 25 to 35 percent of all Indian children were being forcibly removed, mostly from intact American Indian families, and placed in non-Indian homes, with a deliberate absence of American Indian cultures. In some cases, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) paid the states to remove Indian children and to place them with non-Indian families and religious groups. Testimony in the House Committee for Interior and Insular Affairs showed that in some cases, the per capita rate of Indian children in foster care was nearly 16 times higher than the rate for non-Indians. If Indian children had continued to be removed from Indian homes at this rate, tribal survival would be threatened. It also damaged the emotional lives of many children, as adults having been through the process testified.
I don’t know if I mentioned this here yet, but the same thing was happening in Canada.
The government would take them from their tribes and place them in schools run by Catholic Churches to educate them and make them less barbaric. Abuse was abundant, and so was death. It was only recently that the federal government apologized for the practise and slowly started making amends.
The late Gordon Downie from The Tragically Hip released a full album about a child who died attempting to get back home from one of these schools. It, and the documentary is worth a listen: secretpath.ca
I was actually more familiar with the Canadian side of this issue based on a podcast I listened to a few years ago. This seems to have been the exact same motive in the US. To move these children into white, Christian homes and/or schools. Everyone is at least somewhat aware of the very high alcoholism rates among Native Americans. Maybe it's time to look into the idea that the forced removal of their children (meaning their future) has something to do with that.
No. And I don’t know if it is easily explained either. There is a sense of hopelessness that breeds in reserves (at least in Canada) and very few forms of entertainment. Drugs and alcohol fill that emptiness that the sense of hopelessness creates leading to addiction.
There is a sense that the Canadian government does not support them or take them seriously (missing women/girls is a huge example of this) leading to trust issues, so even if these individuals want help, they really feel like they have no where to turn to.
Read an article here about how migrant kids were separated from their parents.
In order to dissuade illegal immigration... is it me or I am with stupid? Dissuading immigration by separated kids, often too young to understand what's going on, from their parents?
It's not just extremely dubious, it's outright moronic...
Read an article here about how migrant kids were separated from their parents.
In order to dissuade illegal immigration... is it me or I am with stupid? Dissuading immigration by separated kids, often too young to understand what's going on, from their parents?
It's not just extremely dubious, it's outright moronic...
They're not trying to dissuade the children, but other families back in the country of origin. I think it's undoubtedly true that, for instance, families are less likely to apply for asylum if they know that their children would be taken away as a result. Even if the policy helps to reduce immigration slightly in the short term, however, I doubt if it will be beneficial to the US in the longer term due to the reputational damage caused - and that's of course before you consider whether a country should be doing something so clearly immoral irrespective of the practical consequences.
Australia did something similar removing aborignee and mixed race children from their families in order to make them 'culturally white' whatever that means.
Well my point is that using the children, and hurting them, to dissuade family is downright stupid. They don't understand what's going on and are separated?
Just to clarify, someone applying for asylum claims his/her life is endangered in his country of origin.
If someone applies the demand must be proceeded and analysed.
1. If the investigation concludes the person is under threat in the home country, then she cannot be deported back. 2. If there is no threat, then this is no asylum seeker anymore but a migrant and the case is dismissed for asylum. It's then in the hands of migration.
But taking children away to dissuade application for asylum? It's like trying to be worse (and likely failing) than what these people flee... whatever they claim they're fleeing from.
Just to clarify, someone applying for asylum claims his/her life is endangered in his country of origin.
If someone applies the demand must be proceeded and analysed.
1. If the investigation concludes the person is under threat in the home country, then she cannot be deported back. 2. If there is no threat, then this is no asylum seeker anymore but a migrant and the case is dismissed for asylum. It's then in the hands of migration.
But taking children away to dissuade application for asylum? It's like trying to be worse (and likely failing) than what these people flee... whatever they claim they're fleeing from.
You have to understand that there isn't a more important issue to Trump than his anti-immigration stance, which has transferred not just to illegal immigration, but a desire to curtail legal immigration and asylum seekers/refugees as well. Donald Trump right now is just on the other side of the line from saying that foreign hordes are coming to defile your wife and children. And that is precisely the point. When you dehumanize migrants to the extent that he has, taking a child out of the arms of it's mother doesn't become much different for these agents than taking a newborn pig from a sow. I am quite sure that many of these Border Patrol and ICE agents view these people are little more than nuisances at best, and (in true authoritarian and fascist fashion) vermin at worst. They aren't fully human anymore, at least not to the people in charge. Beyond that, we have a SERIOUS problem with all levels of day to day, on the ground law enforcement in this country. They seem to answer to no one at any level, and are basically fiefdoms unto themselves.
In a story I meant to post at the time but forgot about, ICE agents raided a New York farm without a warrant, not because they probably couldn't have gotten one, but because they couldn't be bothered to do so:
I understand perfectly thank you - which is why I referred to the procedure as immoral. I know applying for asylum is not a crime and therefore I would also have expected that splitting families up in this way would be illegal - and the ACLU are bringing a law suit against ICE about this issue. I think ICE's defense is on the basis that such separation only takes place where necessary to protect the children, so if ACLU can demonstrate that it happens regularly without good reason to believe children are in danger I think they have an excellent chance of winning the case (though that's not likely to happen very quickly).
This lying motherf*****r. This is HIS policy, that he and Jeff Sessions have explicitly enacted. John Kelly has flat-out said they view it as a deterrent. I can barely contain my anger on this one. This man is a sociopathic monster:
Anyone who watched the video I posted last night was able to listen to two immigration attorneys who do this for a living say this is ENTIRELY new and not something that has ever come across their desks before. Trump and his Administration CHOOSE to do this, and he doesn't even have the balls to own up to it. Beyond that, in the 16+ years I have been following politics, I have NEVER seen a political party work so hard to pretend they aren't in complete control of the government. It's absolutely astounding.
This lying motherf*****r. This is HIS policy, that he and Jeff Sessions have explicitly enacted. John Kelly has flat-out said they view it as a deterrent. I can barely contain my anger on this one. This man is a sociopathic monster:
Anyone who watched the video I posted last night was able to listen to two immigration attorneys who do this for a living say this is ENTIRELY new and not something that has ever come across their desks before. Trump and his Administration CHOOSE to do this, and he doesn't even have the balls to own up to it.
Well he isn’t lying per say. If Democrats cave in to his demands of revamping the entire immigration law, then he’ll stop these bullying tactics.
That is his play and that has always been his play.
Comments
The key line is, "science continues to be done that supports the idea of gender differences within the human brain, while the possibility of such differences existing between races has been roundly rejected." So being born with male genitalia and a typically female brain is an idea that seems to be biologically meaningful, while the notion of being born with white skin and a typically black brain is apparently meaningless.
It's not even cost efficient to lock her up for a month is it? She's not guilty as of now, what will her trial cost taxpayers? District Attorneys and investigations are not cheap.
What's $9,000 compared to white collar fraud like Wells Fargo creating thousands of fake accounts, or Trump wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars at his golf courses?
Ok what she did was wrong but not the crime of the century.
That all being said, the maximum penalty here is 15 years in prison, which seems insanely excessive for what amounts to $8500 in food stamps. I'd give her six months to a year in a psychiatric facility and make her pay back the money, and if the defense simply presents the Netflix documentary I mentioned earlier as evidence, the judge would likely agree. Sending her away for a decade and a half does not fit the crime even remotely.
15 years would, of course, be ludicrous for a sum that size. Fortunately, that's a maximum penalty and unlikely to happen.
To clarify: Dolezal has only been charged. She has not yet been tried or convicted. Currently we're still in "allegedly" territory.
https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/trump-administration-separating-parents-and-children-at-border-1242280003606?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ai
I'm serious about this. This is absolutely heinous. This has nothing to do with protecting this country or illegal immigration. This is abject cruelty masquerading as official government policy:
We are about 1 or 2 steps away from internment camps, and 3 or 4 steps from god knows what else at this point. This is being done in the name of every citizen of this country, and it's a national shame and disgrace.
This episode came out 24 years ago. It's probably the first time I ever heard the phrase "sexual harassment." My introduction to the concept, whenever it was that I first watched the episode.
So, the very same day that Harvey Weinstein is arrested for a string of alleged sexual assaults with 90 women testifying against him, in a time when some of the most prominent and (previously) respected men in the United States are rightly seeing their careers fall apart and countless people turn against them for sexual harassment and sexual assault... I'm watching this old Simpsons episode where the issue looks completely backwards.
Homer is innocent, and eventually is exonerated by video evidence. You're meant to sympathize with him, and you do, because he's a good guy (or at least isn't that kind of bad guy). But the implicit message of the episode sounds discordant in retrospect: (1) everyone automatically believes the false accusations against Homer are true, (2) no one defends him but his family, (3) he's widely castigated by the news media as well as (4) popular culture, and (5) the whole episode is about how much it sucks to be a guy who gets accused of sexually harassing someone. One of his accusers explicitly says that she never even met him, and his TV interview is obviously manipulated to make him look guilty--the accusers are uniformly crazy and unreasonable.
Yet this episode came out in a time when people usually did not believe those kind of accusations were true. A time when all kinds of people would rush to a man's defense in that situation. A time when the news media would ascribe sinister motives to accusers while giving the accused the benefit of the doubt. A time when popular culture poked fun at feminists for complaining about sexual harassment instead of people who committed it. A time when the most important thing was how the accusation hurt the person accused, and not the experience of the victims.
A time before the #MeToo movement.
The episode was mocking people for being too quick to believe accusations of sexual misconduct... when the reality was that it would be more than 20 years before the general public even took the subject the least bit seriously. It would be like seeing a political cartoon from the 1940s saying "Wow, can you believe how many people support desegregation these days? This whole country is crazy, right?" It's portraying a small movement with a righteous cause as a gigantic movement populated by radical lunatics.
I wonder how many of my views in this thread will look backward and hysterical in 2042?
Outside of Oklahoma City and Columbine, news stories from the '90s seemed almost inconsequential. The economy was good, those visions of the future seemed like they actually had a chance of becoming reality. Even the Gulf War, at the time, seemed like a skirmish, not feeling the actual repercussions til a decade later. It's not surprising sexual harassment wasn't taken seriously. It didn't seem like much was taken seriously at all. Everything was going on an upward trajectory. Culture dominated, and culture was interesting. Grunge, huge blockbuster movies that were also critical successes, mobile technology and the true beginning of the current online world.
In the end, many things were precursors to what would turn into big problems as soon as the decade came to a close. It turned out Clinton's questionable conduct was just the tip of the iceberg in regards to powerful men. Oklahoma City the first time right-wing extremism came into focus. Columbine would become the norm, not a tragic one-off. Our stationing of troops in the Gulf War would lead us on the path to 9/11, and ANOTHER, far more costly war against the same country. With the advent of Napster, the music industry as it had been known (selling records in brick and mortar stores) was in it's death throes, but no one knew at the time. Basically, the '90s were giving us tons of canaries in the coalmine, but no one noticed any of them.
Edit: I suppose I forgot Waco. Though the end result was essentially the same (alot of dead cult members), I don't think the raid on the Branch Dividian compound was some massive government conspiracy (and indeed, this is where alot of the tin-foil hat survivalist-types had their red line crossed). I think it was as simple as the fact that no one was interested in David Koresh becoming the next Jim Jones.
ADDITIONALLY,
Trump's man at OPM suggested several ways to screw over federal workers to Congress. Also sucks to be my buddy. They throw money hand over fist at the military but want to cut federal workers. What's up with that? More money for Defense Contractors, not federal employees? Is that the strategy? I don't get it. Still if you are or know a federal employee Republicans are against you.
https://federalsoup.com/articles/2018/05/07/opm-lays-out-proposed-changes-to-fed-benefits.aspx
The abortion debate in Ireland has always been polarized (as I guess it is in most countries) - this story is about the referendum result, but has links to background stories if anyone is interested. There has though been a big shift in the position of the mass of people in the middle. The 1983 referendum on changing the constitution was supported by 67% of those voting. The final result this time won't be available until later today, but looks like being at least 67% in favor of removing the constitutional bar.
I've posted before about the fact that this referendum came about because of the work of the Citizen's Assembly. That was a group of ordinary people given access to full information about issues and asked to give their views - on abortion they were clearly in favor of repealing the constitutional bar and the referendum has now shown that they were indeed representative of the country as a whole. It would be interesting to know what a similar process in the US would come up with - I suspect that the democratic view on abortion would be rather different from the current legislative one.
One note of caution though about interpreting the Irish result too widely. The Irish position on abortion was extreme and led to some real abuses. For instance one case which helped change many minds was a woman who was refused a termination at a point when doctors had already agreed that a miscarriage was imminent and inevitable - she subsequently died. Some of those who supported removing the constitutional bar do not support the proposed Irish legislation that would allow a general right of abortion until 12 weeks. I think that legislation has a good chance of being passed, but it will be a tough debate.
Examples include women dying because they are unable to get an abortion despite there being no chance for baby's survival.
That's what we are headed for in the US folks in wannabe dictator Trump gets another Supreme Court Justice and we leave Republicans in charge of the government.
I'm sure there's reasonable regulations that could be made but these guys are going all out on pandering to the religious right each one trying to outdo the other in how much like sharia religious law that will go.
You can access some details about religious views on abortion on the BBC religions pages - this one is for christianity, but there are similar ones for other religions on the same site.
ICWA was enacted in 1978 because of the disproportionately high rate of forced removal of Indian children from their traditional homes and essentially from American Indian cultures as a whole. Before enactment, as many as 25 to 35 percent of all Indian children were being forcibly removed, mostly from intact American Indian families, and placed in non-Indian homes, with a deliberate absence of American Indian cultures. In some cases, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) paid the states to remove Indian children and to place them with non-Indian families and religious groups. Testimony in the House Committee for Interior and Insular Affairs showed that in some cases, the per capita rate of Indian children in foster care was nearly 16 times higher than the rate for non-Indians. If Indian children had continued to be removed from Indian homes at this rate, tribal survival would be threatened. It also damaged the emotional lives of many children, as adults having been through the process testified.
The government would take them from their tribes and place them in schools run by Catholic Churches to educate them and make them less barbaric. Abuse was abundant, and so was death. It was only recently that the federal government apologized for the practise and slowly started making amends.
The late Gordon Downie from The Tragically Hip released a full album about a child who died attempting to get back home from one of these schools. It, and the documentary is worth a listen: secretpath.ca
And I don’t know if it is easily explained either. There is a sense of hopelessness that breeds in reserves (at least in Canada) and very few forms of entertainment. Drugs and alcohol fill that emptiness that the sense of hopelessness creates leading to addiction.
There is a sense that the Canadian government does not support them or take them seriously (missing women/girls is a huge example of this) leading to trust issues, so even if these individuals want help, they really feel like they have no where to turn to.
In order to dissuade illegal immigration... is it me or I am with stupid? Dissuading immigration by separated kids, often too young to understand what's going on, from their parents?
It's not just extremely dubious, it's outright moronic...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations
Do you even understand what you just wrote?
1. Applying for asylum is not a crime.
2. It's just going to push them to immigrate and not to be registered instead.
If someone applies the demand must be proceeded and analysed.
1. If the investigation concludes the person is under threat in the home country, then she cannot be deported back.
2. If there is no threat, then this is no asylum seeker anymore but a migrant and the case is dismissed for asylum. It's then in the hands of migration.
But taking children away to dissuade application for asylum? It's like trying to be worse (and likely failing) than what these people flee... whatever they claim they're fleeing from.
In a story I meant to post at the time but forgot about, ICE agents raided a New York farm without a warrant, not because they probably couldn't have gotten one, but because they couldn't be bothered to do so:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/383894-ny-farmer-says-ice-raided-his-farm-without-warrant-and-cuffed-him
Law enforcement agencies in the US aren't even PRETENDING to care about due process and going through the proper channels of the legal system anymore.
Anyone who watched the video I posted last night was able to listen to two immigration attorneys who do this for a living say this is ENTIRELY new and not something that has ever come across their desks before. Trump and his Administration CHOOSE to do this, and he doesn't even have the balls to own up to it. Beyond that, in the 16+ years I have been following politics, I have NEVER seen a political party work so hard to pretend they aren't in complete control of the government. It's absolutely astounding.
That is his play and that has always been his play.