Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

Religion originally began as a combination of law and psychiatry. You can't have a healthy, successful, thriving society if people murder, steal, covet, and adulter all the time, and if nobody believes in anything bigger than himself. So religion taught people to live a certain way that was healthy for them and good for society as a whole. Because back in biblical times, logic and force weren't enough to get everyone to do what was best for society. But if you threw in religion, that plus logic and force were usually enough to make for an orderly society. The last few who insisted on being deviants could be killed or locked up.

It's very shortsighted to focus only on the killing and oppression that's been done in the name of religion (very often by non-religious, faithless individuals or groups just using religion to control the masses) when so much good has also been done in the name of religion. For every zealous murdering fanatic, there are ten people giving to charity, building homes for the homeless, and living upstanding lives because they're people of faith. But you don't hear about them on the news. As a result, it's become very in fashion to declare religion as something only stupid people do. Smart people know right from wrong without being told that God said so, while stupid people who are religious can be made to do all kinds of crazy things, so all smart people are atheists, right? I don't know about that. It's natural, healthy, and smart to recognize that there are things bigger than we are, that we don't understand. Knowing our place as limited creatures helps put our lives in perspective and keep us psychologically healthy. If there's nothing more important than ourselves in our own bubble, than we're god, and that makes for a crazily unhealthy life.

Do we really need religion today? Maybe not. Most people live decent lives, obey the law, and do the right thing because they don't want to go to jail, don't want people to think bad things about them, just want to look and feel good about themselves. A few might even just plain be good people at heart. We probably don't need the fear of God and God's rules to make most people behave reasonably today. But so many religious people do so much good, solely due to their faith.

At 9/13/12 09:25 PM, Jmayer20 wrote: Isn't it funny how the very people who claim to be pro life are also pro war. In that they are the quickest to want to go to war. I remember this one "pro life" person who would say abortion is evil while also saying we should just kill all Muslims in the middle east. I guess in his eyes a full grown Muslim is worth less then a fetus.

American Dad had a good line about that one. Something along the lines of: "Abortion?! We're Republicans! That's the one kind of killing we don't stand for."

But there's no point muddying the issue and pretending that it's all or nothing when it comes to respecting life. The political right and the religious stand firmly against abortion because (in their eyes) it's an unborn baby that can't defend itself, and that they believe should have rights, not because they love everything about all life. There's a world of difference between what they believe is defenseless baby murder, and war against sentient adults who are pointing guns at you, or administering lethal injection to a ten-time convicted child rapist and murderer.

Honestly, the very religious right are more consistent on the "all or nothing when it comes to life" issue than the political right. Most extremely devout Catholics, for example, follow the Pope's teachings, which strongly condemn war, the death penalty, and euthenasia, in addition to condemning abortion.

Someone told Romney that he had to be very benign, friendly, moderate, and compromising to have a chance of winning the election. That if anybody thought he was just a little bit conserviative about anything, he was sure to lose. His advisors and the majority of the media paint the country (probably wrongly) as 95% liberal, and thus, only a "moderate" conservative has a chance of winning, and only when people are really unhappy with the current president.

That puts him in a bad position. Now, you have the diehard liberals, who are going to vote Democrat no matter what. Then, you have the diehard conservatives, who are going to vote Republican no matter what, even though they don't completely trust Romney. Then, you have everyone else, who's either not going to vote or vote Obama because Romney seems like a benign milktoast wuss who doesn't have much of a position on most issues because he's busy trying to be moderate.

At 9/12/12 02:19 AM, LemonCrush wrote:

At 9/11/12 10:23 PM, kakalxlax wrote:

1) isreal was attacked first

Israel was attacked first?!

Holy shit, people cannot be this ignorant.

More important than the literal history of the tiny, tiny strip of land that is now Israel is the history of its neighbors. Islam has a longstanding history of attacking and ravaging every non-Muslim neighbor within reach for not being Muslim. When they didn't have any non-Muslim neighbors to attack, they killed each other for being the wrong type of Muslim or not being Muslim enough. It's a popular misconception every time we have a Democrat in the president's chair that if only Israel would go away, that region of the world would magically become peaceful.

Somehow, an ignorant segment of the American populace seriously believes that Israel is evil, itching for war, and has unceremoniously dragged the US into its evil and wrongful business. Israel's been making all kinds of unpopular concessions for peace since the day it was formed. And every time they give a chunk of land back to their Muslim neighbors, their friendly neighbors quickly take advantage of the closer vantage point from which to launch ordnance at Israeli non-combatants. Once Israel's gone, the Muslims will just turn on America, Europe, each other, or whatever's convenient.

I know there are moderate, normal Muslims out there, and that they're even the large majority of this group of people. But every time a non-moderate, non-normal Muslim blows something up, the first thing a moderate, normal Muslim says isn't, "Holy shit. That guy is a crazy murdering terrorist, I condemn him, and I sure hope the US government kicks his ass before my people find him, because the things they're going to do him for using our religion as an excuse to kill innocents are going to make Guantanamo look like Disney World." Instead, the first thing a moderalte, normal Muslim says is, "Well, the US really needs to understand how threatened our unfortunate brothers feel and why they think they have no other recourse. If the US would change its ways, they wouldn't be faced with this. Oh, and everyone needs to be sure not to become bigoted against Muslims over this, and the longstanding history our extremist brothers have for killing innocent people."

Rational nations don't launch nuclear weapons because they fear the consequences. Extremist religious nations like Iran aren't rational and don't fear those consequences. Whether or not Iran does or can produce nuclear weapons today, when they do get their hands on something destructive, unlike a more sane nation, they're going to use it.

Nuclear energy and the ablity to make some form of destructive nuclear weapon go hand in hand. Iran's current leadership is fanatically religious and crazy enough to try to blow up other countries, whether they buy, develop, or steal something capable of doing so, or just sneak a radioactive suitcase bomb somewhere populated. Iran's madman in charge genuinely believes, from the bottom of his heart, that Israel and the U.S. are evil, and that it would be totally worth any consequences to do God's righteous work by blowing up a nuke within their boders. He's not completely dumb, though, and would probably just slip whatever he does manage to make, buy, or steal to some terrorist organization, then deny any involvement while making public speeches that while Iran was certainly not involved in the slightest, the U.S. definitely needs to change its policies to avoid this sort of random act of violence that certainly didn't involve Iran at all.

At 9/7/12 12:40 PM, pickdon wrote: excellent point brae but what if we make robots to do the menial labor huh as for the mentally retarded i say we make a colony on the moon and have them live there

So we build a world where robots do absolutely everything, and the humans do absolutely nothing but lounge around and maybe maintain the robots if they break or try to go all Matrix on us? That's the direction we want humanity to go, all for the sake of more peace and less violence?

Bored humans with no gainful work to do are MORE prone to violence, not less. That's why the busy Amish people who have to plow fields and build barns all day aren't murdering each other. They're too darn busy and tired to start wars over ideas. I'm surprised that's not what you suggested, actually. A world where we're all technologically rewound back to the age of sharecropping for feudal lords, while far from eutopian, was a lot less violent than the world today.

There's this school of thought that low taxes and moderate to high spending would be possible if the government would shift to a flat tax. Just take 12% or something from absolutely everybody, rich, poor, whatever -- and from absolutely every source of income, whether investment, capital gains, dividend, trust, coroproate, foreign, inheritance, or just plain regular income from a paycheck. Everybody pays exactly the same portion of every dollar, regardless of the source of that dollar or their total income, so it's "fair," and the government ends up with more money than it can shake a stick at rather than having all of these confusing exemptions, deductions, and alternate places to hide money to pay less taxes when you're rich, or a large poor and lower middle class that doesn't pay or pays very little in taxes due to exemptions, deductions, and a lower tax rate.

But politicians really like the current tax system. Your employer takes money out of your paycheck. You never see it, you never think about it. It's like it never existed. And every year, after the government takes too much money from you and benefits from investing it, spending it, earning interest on it, and ultimately devaluing it, they give you a "refund." And people love getting their refund! The government's giving them a big fat check! Forget that it was their money all along that they've essentially been forced to loan the government, interest free, all year. To most ignorant folks, it's like a big bonus.

If we got rid of the employer withholding system and the income tax refund system, and every regular working joe just wrote a check on April 15th every year, for the 4-5 digit number of dollars he's being taxed, there would be riots when people saw how much they were really paying the government.

At 9/6/12 11:24 PM, pickdon wrote: why cant we all get along why must countries and heads of state and people fight opress people start wars, feuds, arguments? cant we just get along and chill and focus on the good of the people why cant we take a lesson from the 10 commandments the koran the torah the declaration of independance and the us constitutions preamble? so newgrounds why cant we all get along?

What are you, thirteen? Human nature is to want things, to excel, to get more things, and to have power over others. Peace and eutopia don't work because they're contrary to human nature. People don't just want to chill out and be content with their lot in life. If we had a eutopian world, someone would have to farm and grow the crops, someone would have to work as a menial factory guy who builds televisions and computers, someone would have to program software, someone would have to build houses, someone would have to cook, clean, write books, design chemical plants, drill for oil, make clothes, care for the disabled and elderly. We wouldn't be equal. Some people would have harder lives than others and work harder jobs than others. Some people would be too mentally stupid or too physically inept for some tasks and would hate and envy the people with easier lives.

Some people would realize that while they don't have everything they want, they can always beat up a woman at night, take her purse, rape her, and spend the money on booze and drugs. Some people would realize that while they don't have everything they want, they control enough of the system to keep themselves on easy street. Eutopia just plain can't work, because the world needs people to forget they're people and just be automatons that perform their necessary task to further society. Maybe if we genetically bred different castes of people and kept them all in control with euphoria inducing, mind affecting drugs. Didn't I read that somewhere?

Are you absolutely certain that the filthy rich fat cats hoarde huge piles of money, just to have it, in a big money vault they can swim in like Scrooge McDuck? And even though the money is useless to them and is far more than they can spend in a year, they're greedy bastards who just like big numbers, so they refuse to spend the money growing their business and hiring poor people because they want to add a few mil to their net worth? Because growing your business and hiring people is really easy--all you have to do is spend money instead of hoarding it--and there aren't any other important factors involved? Evil rich people are just greedy and won't spend the money hiring people?

At 9/4/12 11:24 AM, Camarohusky wrote: A bunch of single men discussing that for women to rule the world they would need to be more like men...

Women don't need to be like men to rule the world. That's stupid. As they are right now, women have a shitload more power than you guys know. It would be very easy under our current circumstances for women to become the dominant gender. They do not need brute force or aggressiveness to achieve or remain in power.

There are other ways to control people.

The topic is a "female-dominated society," where maladjusted women beat their male spouses, men are discriminated against in the workplace and paid less, etc. Not whether, in general, women have power. I get my ass handed to me by powerful, willful female attorneys regularly, who make more money than I do and work at more prestigeous firms, and command all manner of male underlings at their workplace. But "other wasy to control people" (e.g., pulling strings via intelligent manipulation) isn't something exclusive to women (I dare say many men are better at this), and it's a far cry from a female-dominated society. Men control other men (and women) just as often, if not moreso, and just as easily, if not moreso, than crafty women do.

At 9/4/12 11:38 AM, Camarohusky wrote: The problem with the "lower taxes so the wealthy have enough money to pay their employees" fallacy is how money works.

This dodges the OP's main point. It doesn't matter how much money the rich company owners have, and whether they keep it or try to grow the company. If there isn't demand for their product, the company can't be grown, whether they're greedy bastards or diligent business owners interested in creating jobs and wealth for all. Demand comes from the general populace having the desire for your product, and the money to buy it, not from the company owner being less greedy or paying more in taxes.

Agreed in part, disagreed in part. I don't think any single administration caused the current recession. The economy's been turbulent just about as long as I can remember, and as long as my parents can remember, too. And neither party has the answers, because the government taxing the rich "job creators" then trying use that money to make the world a better place fails, as does letting the rich "job creators" run rampant over the general populace and control the market under the stupid pretense that Joe Regularguy actually has a shot at becoming rich if only he would work harder.

The economy needs to be approached from the other end. Trickle-down fails, because as you've noted, if I'm a company owner and I have more money, but the general populace doesn't, the demand for my product is going to stay the same. I won't hire or expand, but I'll have more money. Go me. To increase the demand for product, the general populace needs to have the money to spend. But that money can't come from taxing or regulating the people who hire the general populace or make the product. They need to have the money to hire and expand.

I wonder a little bit if a "trickle-up" system might work. What if the government just cut everybody's taxes by 500$ a month? Rich, poor, whatever. No bureaucracy or fancy system about it, no governmental programs to collect or distribute or track the money, no governmental programs to analyze people's wealth and determine whether they really need the tax break or not. Just don't collect it. From everyone. Take 500$ less a month from every single person in America. It would probably take a few years for everyone to rebuild their savings and get on the right side of their mortgages again, but after that, I sure would be able to breathe easier about spending money at people's retail stores and restaurants. Right now, I can't afford it, but if I had 500$ more a month, that's money I could spend, which would lead to more jobs for people who make the stuff I'm buying, more jobs for people who sell it, more jobs for people who build and maintain the machines and plants that make the stuff I'm buying, and so on.

In this hypothetical magical world, women would need to produce a lot more testosterone, and a lot less estrogen which would allow them to build more muscle and increase their aggression. And men would need to swap out their hormones as well, or they'd be just as aggressive and resist this world. It's very contrary to natural design, because one dominant woman sleeping with lots of submissive men can only produce about one child every year on the average, while one dominant male can impregnate many women.

A woman with a boatload of testosterone in her system would probably find full contact sports a lot more satisfying than all of those identical crying movies on the Hallmark channel, would be driven to be more career oriented and earn enough to support her family, and so on. There wouldn't be many significant ways this world would be different than the current world, except for the genders just swapping places.

Now, if this hypothetical world were to magically happen tomorrow, rather than assuming humanity had always been reversed like this, things would be a little more interesting. Because the genders wouldn't automatically acquire the other one's skills or preferences. Women who were suddenly more dominant and manly wouldn't stop liking Gray's Anatomy, forget how to cook, start hating their kids, or forget how to change a diaper, nor would they automatically acqure engienering and law degrees and suddenly have jobs or skills that make them empoyable in traditional male roles. And men wouldn't suddenly forget their skills and acquire domestic ones. I think in this second hypothetical world, you'd just have a lot of unhappy people in roles that don't agree with their hormone levels.

At 8/31/12 11:50 PM, Jmayer20 wrote: Interesting idea. However if we are to conquer and take the resources for ourselves then there are 3 logical ways we can do this.

1.) We can do it like the British did with India. Which was recruit the local population then play the different sides against each other. In the case of India they had the Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus fighting each other. When Muslims rebelled they sent Sikh and Hindu solders at them. When Hindus rebelled they sent Muslim and Sikh troops at them. When the Sikhs rebelled they sent Muslim and Hindu troops at them. We could do them same in Iraq only we would use Sunni, Shia, and Kurds.

2.) We could do it like we did it with the Native Americans in that we kill off most of the population and force the rest on reservations. Then we colonize the land with our own people.

3.) We separate the population into 3 groups. The first group being the children will be sent to re-education camps to be indoctrinated into becoming loyal citizens and to follow our way of thinking. Group 2 being the men would be sent to death camps were they all would be killed with gas chamber. Group 3 being the women would be sent to breeding camps were they would be raped by our solders. So as to repopulate the country. When the children are old enough they to will be sent to re-education camps.

All 3 ways would be considered evil by today's standards but that is the ugly truth about conquest. So Brae which of the 3 do you think we should do?

I'm pretty partial to #2. That worked to establish this country.

There's also a fourth option, though: Don't freaking invade a foreign country if we're not prepared to actually take it over. If another country sent an occupying force within our sovereign borders, you know, just to keep the peace, help us establish a better form of government, and make sure we're treating everybody okay, we would not be cool with that. It's mind-numbing that we expect any other country to stand for it, just because we're the US of A. Another country's method of governance and the ways it controls its population are that country's business. It needs to be okay for other countries to suck. We can't just occupy them under the assumption that their general citizenry agrees with us that their country sucks, can't wait to be just like us, and will form a better nation under the guidance of our armed soldiers.

At 8/31/12 04:12 PM, Jmayer20 wrote:

At 8/28/12 09:41 PM, Seatbeltnazi wrote:
BUT, what would have happened if the US was willing to go to the negotiating table with Iraq and the rest of the middle east and solve the issues they had among one another once and for all?

I don't mean to be insulting but I think you are very naive. The middle east is full of religious extremists that are so insane that they believe that strapping a boom on them selves and blowing up a crowd of woman and children will make them go to Heaven and they will get 72 virgins.

Until we get rid of this way of thinking and the people in the middle east become more tolerant of each other there will never be peace.

It's very fashionable nowadays to believe that the US is the greatest evil in the world, that our government is secretly evil and masterminded by megacorporations and impossibly wealthy puppeteers, and that the US intentionally does all kinds of crazy things that cause death, chaos, and destruction worldwide, but keep the masters in charge and make them all fat and happy at the world's expense. There are people who seriously believe that all of the insane, third-world, fanatical dictators aren't actually insane, just misunderstood and misrepresented by the evil US government and the media, and that if the US would just stay out of everything (but keep sending money to other countries), the world would be a beautiful, harmonious place.

If you think about it, the US is pretty insane, too. If you want to occupy a foreign country, you're supposed to bomb the hell out of it, seize all of the resources and wealth, ensalve the people, and draw a risk card. This thing where we send soldiers who stand around and get shot at, and drive back and forth on the same roads every day getting blown up, but don't actually control the land they're supposedly occupying, under this misguided belief that the whole world wants to be like us and will change if we just station a few troops and spend enough money -- that's even more insane than some of the Middle Eastern dictators.

At 8/29/12 08:51 PM, Camarohusky wrote: However, we shouldn't harm those who use the system properly because of the small amount who do not. The GOP sees granny Smith in Florida getting 10 times as many procedures as she needs on Medicare's dime and wants to shut down the entire system, even though for every granny Smith, 10 Grammy Does only use Medicare for legitimate medical needs they would otherwise not afford. The Gop sees Jimmy buying fancy beer with his EBT, so they want to shut down the entire sytem, even though for every Jimmy there are 10 Alexes who are buying food to feed their family.

I'd like to say "I recant. The free food, free healthcare, and free money programs for people in need just need reformation and enforcement against abuse, not elimination, because people really need them," but when you get down to it, it's not Granny Smith or Jimmy, but the principle of the matter. In most other places in the world, you don't get free anything just because you lack it, even if you need it. The government's job is to collect a reasonable amount of taxes, keep the roads paved and the mail going from place to place, keep enough of a military to defend the nation's borders, have a patent system and elections, and everything else the constitution gives it the responsiblity to do. It's not the government's job, nor its place, to establish massive social programs that give things to the poor within its borders, nor is it the right of every citizen to get free money every month if they don't have it, free food if their income is below a certain amount, and free healthcare whenever they show up at the hospital.

But that's where (most of) the haves and (most of) the have nots fundimentally disagree. Many people will tell you that a nation has a very definite duty to take care of its poor and its hungry and its sick, to limit suffering within its borders, and that those who have enough should have no qualms about paying more into the system so the people in need are cared for. Others will tell you that while they bear the people in need no ill will, it's not a government issue to levy enough taxes to save everybody -- that's the job of the thousands of nonprofit charitable orgnaizations established for just such a purpose. People in favor of government programs tend to have a very negative outlook on humanity. They believe, with all of their heart, that people who have what they need, or more, are greedy bastards, that nobody will donate anything to a private charitable organization, that people who have enough make it their life's work to keep others down and stop the have-nots from succeeding, that everybody in need will starve and die if the haves have their way, and only through the government assessing taxes from people who have enough (or "too much") and funding social progams can the greedy people be made to do their fair part to take care of the unlucky ones.

At 8/29/12 12:18 PM, Camarohusky wrote: When you put your plant overseas you starve your customer base. When you pay less taxes, you starve your customer base. When you pay less taxes you starve the organization that keeps your lights on, the ports open, the road in good condition, the roads safe, the building from completely burining down, the public trans that gets your workers to the office, and so on.

Only if the majority of your customer base is American. We're a worldwide economy now. If I'm selling most of my product in Europe or Asia and can build a plant in India affordably, I'm not going to mess with all of the regulations and costs inherent in running a facility in the U.S. I don't care if I'm never going to use the extra money I would have spent funding U.S. social programs and complying with U.S. regulations on what I have to give employees or how much I can pollute. I don't want to involuntarily donate a portion of my income to the poor in America, on principle. Voluntarily? You bet. I'm not rich at all and give to multiple charities. But it sure steams me when a guy at the grocery store in line ahead of me is paying with his food stamp card while talking on a cell phone nicer than mine and buying the brand name beer (yes, with cash since food stamps don't cover beer, but he has the extra cash, while I buy the cheap stuff because I can't afford my mortgage, daycare, and food if I splurge on good beer and fancy cellphones.) I apparently need lessons from America's poor on how to better manage my money and stick to a budget.

But hey, I'm all for abortion. I personally think it's wrong, and a horrible choice to have to make, but it's not my place to make that philosophically gray decision for my neighbor, it's not 51% of the population's place to make that decision for the other 49%, and it's definitely not the government's place to make that decision for anybody. The government needs to stay out of my income, and out of my reproductive decisions.

At 8/29/12 10:45 AM, GuerrilleroHeroico wrote:

At 8/28/12 02:22 PM, Memorize wrote: "We demand everyone be treated equally in race, gender, sexual orientation, ... and maybe religion. But Fuck you if it's Income"

Are you seriously comparing discrimination to higher taxes for the rich?

Asking those who can afford it to help pay for necessities like food stamps isn't discrimination, it just makes sense. It's not like the upper class will be eliminated.

It's not "asking" when income above a certain amount is taxed at a higher rate, and those tax dollas are spent funding social programs that are not used by and provide no benefit to the income earner. If someone asks you to make a voluntary donation to buy food for the poor, that's asking.

If I'm a rich corporation executive and the people running my country tell me I have enough money and can afford to pay more to help fund programs for people who have less than I do, I'm building my next plant overseas. Some other country can have the jobs and income that's actually grateful for it and doesn't penalize me for making "too much" money.

This might be a good topic for a fiction novel, based loosely on the real world, but it takes a real leap of faith to think that our friend Saddam would have been a heroic and inspiring negotiator and peacemaker who would unite the Middle East and get every nation and sect of Islam, as well as Israel, to join hands and forget their differences, and that it was only the evil warmonger George Bush who kept the very bright and peace-minded Saddam from saving the region.

At 8/28/12 01:28 AM, Jmayer20 wrote: WOW you are very naive. I would love to see a video answer questions, or make sure the students are not cheating. Stop kicking your self in the ass. We all know there are things that you can't learn or things you can't do in class with out a teacher. Look if you truly believe in not giving teachers good pay then come up with a logical argument. But stop making these lam ass remarks because we all know including you that what you just said is bullshit.

I'm all for teachers. I'm married to one. But nobody gets into teaching for the awsome compensation. There are two types of people who get into teaching: people who have the calling and want to do it, and people who don't really want to do it but can't get other jobs. There's nobody who gets into teaching because it's a good and lucrative opportunity with great compensation and benefits. Is what teachers do vitally important? Sure. Is it extremely difficult? In some ways, yes. In some ways, not really. Is it worth $200,000 a year to do what teachers do? Definitely not. Would we attract better teachers if we offered better compensation? Maybe. Maybe we'd just attract people seeking the money and prestige. Teachers ought to be paid better (I mean, come on, you need a college degree to do the job, when various undegreed positions are better paid), but let's not over-inflate the profession with undue cheerleading. It's the babysitting and classroom management part of being a teacher that's hard. The acutal educating part is pretty easy. The problem today is that everybody wants to blame teachers and hold them accountable when problem students fail and misbehave. You know whether a student is college-bound by the time they're in second grade. The smart ones pay attention, learn, and succeed practically on their own. The dumb ones fail no matter what you try.

To become a teacher in most states, you need to complete a four-year B.A. degree in education, or an alternate 4-year degree and some kind of extra coursework or exam that qualifies you to be a teacher. Then, all teachers regardless of major need to pass a certification test for the grade level they're teaching. If you're a high school teacher, you also need to pass a subject matter exam for the subject you're teaching. These are really easy tests. Before the economy went completely to hell, there was a sizeable teacher shortage, so you could become a teacher without passing your certification exam as long as you were working toward it. Now that nobody can find work any more, people have flocked to become teachers because it used to be high-security employment where anybody could get hired. It's a lot tougher to find work as a teacher now as a result.

To become a doctor, you need to complete a four-year B.S. degree, take the MCAT (which is a brutal test), get into medical school, pass medical school (and pay for medical school), then if you're going to do something beyond being a general practitioner, go on to do a residency, a fellowship, and get board certified in a medical field. It just plain takes longer and costs more money to become a doctor. To make up for that, doctors make fairly good money. Not great, but good. The million dollar surgeons you hear about on TV are the exception to the rule. Most doctors do fairly well, but aren't as loaded as society would have us believe. Also, nowadays, the inherent costs, risks, and politics of being a doctor make life a lot more difficult. The insurance companies have a lot of power over what doctors can do and what they can charge, as do hospitals, and insurance premiums for doctors are insanely expensive. A general practitioner who sets up an office to see patients does okay if he manages to build up a sizeable patient base (which takes years), but he won't get rich that way. And regular doctors like that are losing business left and right because most people who aren't mortally ill or injured go to their local pharmacy/drug store or supermarket to the minute-clinic, where a PA will take their temperature and prescribe antibiotics. It's not exactly a video over the internet, but you can get general medical treatment and prescription drugs at the supermarket. All those vaccinations you had growing up that you used to have to go to your pediatrician to get, you can get from the clinic at your supermarket. A lot of people use their local supermarket or pharmacy as their regular doctor. We can't get brain surgery there yet, but maybe one day.

The fact is, for doctors, it's life and death, or at least health and sickness. If a doctor screws something up, people die or are physically injured/unhealthy. People want their doctors to be overpaid and competitive. If somebody's cracking open your chest, you want the rich conceited perfectionist ass who got straight As in everything and beat out 100 other people to get his million dollar salary. You don't want some 40,000 a year regular joe who likes helping people and decided being a doctor would be more fun than being a teacher sewing a new valve into your heart.

This whole thread's premise is totally flawed.

Conservative politicians aren't anti-abortion because they want to save the opposing party's chidren from death. They're anti-abortion because they have to be, or their own base will turn on them.

A conservative who stands up and says, "Look, I just care about the economy and the constitution and fixing this country. I don't care about abortions or the gay issue or any of that. Do whatever you guys want with the social issues while I fix the economic and foreign policy issues, okay?" is going to lose. That premise might sound like the best idea ever to computer nerds on the NG forums, but the bulk of America's voting block is moronic, and can't possibly vote for someone who will abide by a single non-party-line ideal.

Incentive-based systems for teachers are horrible due to a false premise. Not all kids are equal. There really is such thing as a dumb kid, and there really is such thing as a gifted kid. If I got a big bonus for all of my kids passing their standardized test, that would lead me to do several things as a teacher:

1. Make sure I get a job in an upper middle class school in a good neighborhood, where the kids are smart and will do well even if I suck at my job, and the parents will pick up my slack at home. And spend a few minutes laughing each day at the hard working teachers who have jobs in inner city schools, where half the class doesn't show up each day because it's not safe to walk to school when the drug dealing gangs are on the streets.

2. Don't waste time teaching my kids useful things they'll need, like reading comprehension and conceptual mathematics. Just teach them what key phrases to look for in word problems so they know what to do on the standardized test, and various shortcuts for making their test easier.

3. Make sure other teachers at my school are on the same page, because if someone in my grade level screws this up and costs me my bonus money, me and the rest of the teachers are going to lynch that poor educator.

At 8/23/12 11:12 PM, Warforger wrote: The thing though is that would be fine, had other countries been experiencing the same success in education. That has not been the case and just the opposite tends to be the fact; other countries surpass the US in education and it's been pretty common knowledge by now.

This is as much due to the breakdown of America as a whole than due to the education system or parents specifically. The American dream used to be all about busting your butt, working hard, starting out at the bottom with nothing, but maybe, just maybe, getting ahead and making a better life for your family if you worked hard. You might not be a millionaire by the time you're done, but your children start out ahead of where you started if you work for it, and if they do the same, their children are better off, and so on. The American dream used to be all about working hard and succeeding.

Today, the American dream is all about working as little as possible but still getting decently paid for it. The ideal isn't starting out as an office flunky and working your way up. The ideal is to land a cush job in a cubicle with minimal supervision, where you can surf the internet all day without getting caught, do no real work, and still make enough to pay your rent, eat, and go drinking with your friends on the weekend. The mentality has shifted; today, people will blame the system, saying that it doesn't matter how hard they work because the good old boy network of rich CEOs keeps them down, and they'll never get promoted or get ahead, big companies stop their smaller business ideas from succeeding, and the government's screwed up the economy. If they don't get everything they want out of life, it's never because they didn't work hard enough. It's because the system screwed them. And anybody else who does get most of what they want out of life didn't earn it. They just got lucky or knew the right people from the right circles. That's the mentality today.

When I was a kid, if I failed a math test, I got spanked and grounded. If I got a B, my parents demanded to know what happened and why I screwed up. If I was actually having a hard time, they met with the teacher and asked what they could do to help further my education at home. Today, if a kid fails a math test, the parents meet with the teacher and demand to know why the teacher failed their kid. Why isn't the teacher teaching their kid effectively? And why the heck does the math test their kid failed have all of those paragraph-long word problems? Their kid shouldn't have to be able to read to pass math. The system is unfair and is screwing their kid.

Everything is a balance of rights. Because none of us live in vacuum. In a black and white universe, any word would just be language. I say a word, you understand what I meant, and we therefore communicated using that word. Nothing would offend anybody, because it's all just alternative ways to communicate.

But we don't live in a black and white unverse. Some people don't want to be exposed to some content. If you don't want to see graphic sexual acts, you don't tune into the playboy channel, and you stick to rated G movies. If you're watching Sesame Street and Big Bird says something society has come to classify as offensive language, you were wronged, because you had a very reasonable expectation that you were in control of the content you received by selecting to view certain classifications of shows and not others.

People have a right to swear, and honestly, it's not that harmful or bad in the grand scheme of things. But people also have a right to choose who and what content they associate themselves with. If something is classified as Rated G and is set out as being one type of content and not another, you watch it, and surprise, someone broadcasting the content decides to exercise his free speech because he thinks that regulations on swearing are stupid and violate his rights, you were wronged. No, you weren't badly hurt, and yes, it's kind of dumb that people make such a big deal out of what would have offended Queen Victoria hundreds of years ago, but on a purely ideological level, it is very understandable that a person's right to choose who and what content he associates himself with would cause other people's rights to free speech to be restricted somewhat.

There are a lot of very important and difficult jobs with low salaries, and a lot of not so important, not so difficult jobs with large salaries. Why are teachers or doctors special? And what determines what a job is "worth?" If I'm an education major and I'm willing to take a job with a local school district for 48 thousand dollars a year, fully knowing what I do is more important than what my salary indicates and that I'm going to have to work harder than the money's worth, I know what I'm getting into. I have a college degree, after all.

At 8/23/12 03:02 PM, Jmayer20 wrote: Let me get this straight. Are you implying that saying a few swear words on TV is just as bad as giving a child a gun? If so then that is ridiculous. We all know that if a child gets a hold of a gun then they might blow off their head. However what is the worst that can happen if a child heard a few swear words and started saying them. Do you think it will be like what that guy in the tuxedo said in the court room in the recess episode that I posted? Oh and if you did not watch the videos I posted then you really should.

Practically, no. But legally/ideologically, yes. A constitutional right is a constitutional right, whether it's the right to free speech or the right to bear arms.

Just because swearing doesn't hurt anybody but improper and irresponsible gun use does doesn't mean that the first amendment shouldn't be subject to any regulation. Yelling fire in a crowded movie theater or yelling bomb in an airport earns you prison time, and very few people dispute that it shouldn't. Swearing regulations are really just an extension of that. Thanks to government regulation, mommy can turn on a TV station and have a legitimate and reasonable expectation of the exclusion of certain content, because the government and the networks regulate and classify broadcast content for that very reason. If somebody violates the regulations, he's in trouble. He hasn't lost his first amendment rights. They're just subject to very reasonable reguations that make society work.

Speech is a right. Broacasting content over federal airwaves is a privilege that can be licensed and regulated. If you want your license to broadcast content over federal airwaves, you agree to the regulations. Just like a liquor license, a driver's license, or a gun license.

Regulation of an activity is not the same as ignoring our rights and tossing them out the window. We have a right to own guns, right? But not if you're six years old. And not without a license. Is it a violation of a six-year-old's right to impose that restriction on him? Is it a violation of an adult's rights to make him register his gun and get a license first?

Likewise, the evil government regulates broadcast content. If you turn on PBS or attend a G-rated movie, you have an expectation that the content will be within a certain range of what's acceptable for that particular rating. You've chosen the content you want to expose you and your family to. The actor wearing the Big Bird costume on Sesame Street has a first amendment right to swear if he wants, but that right is subject to a few very reasonable regulations.

At 3/22/11 01:25 PM, RightWingGamer wrote:

At 3/22/11 10:10 AM, BrainworkInProgress wrote: Futurama beats em both

Extreme win!

As for family guy, a perfect example of how awful the jokes are is this part in the "Star Wars" episode where Peter and Brian find a couch in the trash compactor and try to get it onto the falcon.
THEY LITERALLY SPEND 60 SECONDS OF VALUABLE SCREEN TIME ARGUING ABOUT HOW TO GET THE FUCKING COUCH THROUGH THE FUCKING DOOR! It's the most annoying show on the face of the earth, and the jokes drag on LONG past the point where anyone would consider them funny.

That's part of Family Guy's bit. Every episode (or almost), there's at least one "joke" that the writers intentionally beat to death, going on and on with it for just long enough that even the show's biggest fans get a little uncomfortable with how long the scene's been going and say, "Really?" That part is funny (sometimes) not for its content, but for the absurdity of it, and how the gimmick is done. It seems like it's sort of an inside joke among the writers.

The answer is a pretty simple one.

When you're pissed off at an annoying coworker, and you refrain from murdering him, is this because:

1) You're afraid of going to jail, where you will be brutally beaten and raped on a daily basis by people a lot bigger and meaner than you are; or
2) You're afraid of going to hell 40 years from now when you die of old age.

There's also a less popular option #3: You have an inborn sense of right and wrong and would willingly choose to refrain from evil solely because you're a good person.

Society has probably evolved to a point where religion really isn't necessary to control the masses and keep people on the right path. That doesn't mean there isn't a place for religion -- there's a lot of good being done by organized religion out there -- just that religion isn't the sole force keeping people from committing acts of evil, or even the primary force responsible. You can be plenty moral without religion. To be fair, though, you can't be all that religious and also be immoral. If you're truly devout, you're also probably a pretty moral, upstanding person.

At 1/28/09 12:36 PM, LazyDrunk wrote:

When you grow babies in tubes, are they not treated as property until insemination?

That's correct, and has led to some pretty funny court cases over the years. If you take the mother's body out of the situation and just have two parents' rights to be or not be parents butting heads, and a very negligable state interest in the potential life of an embryo that won't develop if not implanted, it's a lot easier to stomach parental choice. To many, destroying the embryos outside of the mother's body is as much an "abortion" as actually aborting a pregnancy, but the alternative to destruction of the embryos would be forced implantation, or having the government seize the embryos and implant them into willing third parties. A pretty funny situation all around.