Ten oz

The printing press and cotton mill replaced a lot of workers too. A car can do the work of a hiundred horses. Holding onto old technology is not the answer. Processes have been becoming increasingly more automated for a hundred years. It has allowed us to get far more work done while freeing us to do other things. If everything was still built by hand we wouldn't be having this conversation via the internet. The future is always a bit scary. My grandmother was born in rural Nebraska before the great depression. She grew up without running water, electricity, or a phone in her parents home. By the time she passed in 1996 she had cable TV and the internet. Things that were beyond her imagination earlier in life.

No TAR, that is not what I insinuated at all. What is context? We were dicussing the chart in post #21. You said participation should be near the top of the chart. I suggested that perhaps the top was too high. At the top it was 67% and today it's 62.5% a difference on less than 5%. In that context I said duel income isn't worth it for every family. You have extrapolated that out to read as a blanket statement about duel income families overall. Yet I am in one; both my wife and I work. You are intentionally playing with my words to claim some type of double standard. Take yourself down off the cross and respond to content as posted. Ironically throughout history the rape has normally started after the victory.

What give you the right to outright lie about what I have posted? Are your own views so weak that they only make sense even to yourself if you lie? I have summarized how I felt you view an issue before always bothering to say "in my opinion", I think", "I assume",and etc. I would appreciate the same. In this chase you are flat out putting words and concepts out there I have never posted nor agree with.

I addressed that question in post #12 I though Mitt Romney was a competent Republican. Unfortunatley he was forced into dogmatic positions by his party. Hard to be competent when your voting base is demanding incompetent. Romney had a moderate pragmatic record. Just that to win the nomination he was forced to run away from it. John Huntsan was competent and refused to run away from his own record and failed to get any traction. It is sad; it makes me sad. John McCain was viewed as a competent serious vioce in our gevernment. Now, i can't shake the fact they he was going to make Sarah Palin the Vice President. John McCain allowed the idiots in his party to make him incompetent. This year I see known. Trump and Cruz are both beyond incompetent. They are dangerous. Just their rhectoric to this points has caused harm in my opinion. Rubio and Bush appear better by comparison but are both incompetent as well.

The argument was that men pick higher paying career fields but shifted to how much stronger and better able to do low paying labor intensive jobs men are. It is a purely argumentive approach to the discussion that demands increasing amounts of prove while only provided ever evolving arguments.

Was this country better off at the top of that chart? Were the early 00's better than the 40's - 80's? I believe the top of the chart may have been unsustainable which help lead to the huge crash we had. The average family was over extended. Sometimes working isn't worth it. Short story (you like stories); buddy of mine was complaining one day about money. We got to talking about ways he could save money. He was living in an expensive area because it was the mid way point for his and his wife's commute. So we did the math on all the various costs associated. He is in the military so he and his wife move around a lot. As a result his wife picks of what work she can and generally does make a lot of money. By the time we finished the math for rent, gas, parking, tolls, daycare and all the little costs he realized that he would save money if his wife didn't work and just they moved into a more affordable place close to where he worked. Not only did it save him money but saved himself a few commuting hours a week and gets more quality time his family. So his wife, someone who worked during those peak chart years through the late 90's and 00' doesn't work today by choice and it is better for her and her family. I also know a stay at home dad doing it for the same reason. Duel income isn't worth it for every family. Both I and my wife work but we have very short commutes, The same hours, and no kids. As for jobs going to China; innovation and new markets is the key. Holding on to old tech and old industry doesn't get it done. Intellectual property and not labor should be the focus. The jobs that went to China are generally labor heavy factory jobs that rely on old technology. Those jobs are gone. Let's focus on new ones. Btw, unemployment is down. The job market is decent at the moment. We are actually producing record amounts of energy at the Moment. You mention it as if we weren't. Oil is stupid low; what positive impact do you think shale oil will have? I am not sure I undertsand your question? I don't look at political races in terms of what I wish would happen but rather I look at them with regards to what I believe will happen. On the democratic side I like Hilary Clinton easily wins the nomination. if Bernie Sanders wins another 3-4 states total by June I will be shocked. On the Republican side It is very hard to say until March 14th. All the states between now and then are proportional. So Trump, Cruz, Rubio, and Bush will all be collecting delegates. The Media is hyping SC as winner take all but it is actually a hybrid of sorts. The winner gets 29 of the states 40 delegates while the other 21 are awarded by district. I suspect Cruz will be in the delegate lead by March 14th but Rubio, Trump, and Bush will all be in striking distance. I will be in a better place to provide a prediction then.

Absolutely meaningless to a conversation about employment and pay.

Here is a view of the labor force participation rate in this country going back to the 1940's. Please tell me where the bar should be and in you opinion and why it should be there. http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet

We do not need a winner takes all system; just one where is representation is true to the population. For example the Senate is controlled by Republicans 54-46 yet Democratic Senators represent 53% of the population and Republican only 47% of the population. So based on population representation the Senate should be controlled by Democrats. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/05/republican-senate_n_6104926.html And the House is even more screwed up than the Senate: "The result: Even though House Democratic candidates nationally drew 1.4 million more votes than Republicans in 2012, Republicans won 33 more House races." http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/03/us/politics/democrats-make-advances-but-house-still-proves-elusive.html?_r=0

Debates about fair treatment and equality are very hard for people to be honest about. Obviously different treatment leads people to make different choices. Opportunity, support, and treatement are critical to outcomes but statistically we can usually only track outcomes. Opportunity, support, and treatement are subtle and often ambigious. With only the outcome being messured a person can either guess that the opportuinity, support, and treatment are different or guess that the majority of individuals (in this case women) are just different. Of course one of those two guesses is considerably more cynical towards the abilities of women. I have seen overt acts of sexism in my life just as I have seen overt acts of racism. Not just in rare moments but throughout my life. I have seen it in school, at work, in my family, and etc. Yet most times I enter into an "intelligent" conversation on the subject people stake out the position that they have never seen such things and that they do not exist broadly. What I have witnessed broadly throughout the country throughout my life becomes something no one is willing to admit is real. This is done because obviously if the point was conceded from the start than plainly opportunity, support, and treatment are different. The debate would be about to what degree rather than if at all. So the field is dishonestly stretched and the goal post is moved far as possible. People strategically play stupid. This game of lengthening the field to height the bar of proof gets played with everything. Debates over the biology of evolution often get stretched to the point where evidence of the big bang is challange. This conversation doesn't need to be so difficult. Either one believes men and women are equally capable or they don't. If they do believe women are as capable than they will see the different outcome as a result of different opportunity, support, or treatement. If they don't believe women are as capable they will view the different outcomes as a standard result with nothing to be addressed. We know the oucomes are different.The question is WHY; why are the outcomes different. Bothsides of the discussion have ideas that must be supported with evidence. Merely pointing out different choices get is evidence of nothing. It doesn't not expalin WHY. That fall back argument is intellectually dishonest and in my opinion cowardly.

Money isn't evil; but the way it is used can be. That is the dichotomy of your point that so often gets ignored overtone. Profit is not an inherently terrible thing. Problems start when that money is used rig the game. For the sake of easily digestible arguments things often get boiled down to impossibly simple levels. Capitalism and the profit motive is treated as benevolent by Republicnas while anything that may interfere with it (regulations, limits, taxes, etc) needs be treated with the highest levels of suspicion. To prevent monopolies and market manipulation we do need our government to do more than cheerlead capitalism. Perhaps there should not be a profit motive attached to all things. That thought should not read as anti capitalist and yet to some I am sure it does. Yet no one can tell me with a straight face that allowing the profit motive in our prison system hasn't lead to people being incarcerated at levels that do not serve any public good. Or that the profit motive in medicine hasn't resulted in people dying because they could not get care. There are areas where profit doesn't belong or should be limited and rather than acknowledging that point Republicans reference it as collateral damage; can't make an omlet without breaking a few eggs. They falsly remind us that it is the price of freedom and better than the alternative. The FDA catches a company selling tainted food and Republicans argue that it is an example of the system working. Then they work to cut and limit the FDA's authority. The democratic party is not perfect but that isn't the dichotomy we are faced with; perfect vs flawed. The Republican party runs on a platform that openly seeks to destroy the EPA, privatize education, privatize Social Sercurity, and promises private contractor led war & torture. The dichotomy is corporatocracy vs democracy.

The link I provided does explain that history plus outlines the way Newt spun on the issue nurmerous times. I think it is still a good example of how lost the GOP get in their own spin.

During the GOP primary in 2012 Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich made a fairly clear admission that helps explain part of the currently GOP's problem. When linked to having having pushed for a Healthcare manadate, which is one of the main elements of the ACA (Obamacare), Newt basically explained that is was just BS meant to block Bill Clinton's healthcare plan. "It’s now clear that the mandate, I think, is clearly unconstitutional. But, it started as a conservative effort to stop HillaryCare in the 1990s.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/newt-gingrichs-changing-stance-on-health-care-mandates-fact-checker-biography/2011/12/09/gIQAVl0lkO_blog.html I bring that moment up because, in my opinion, it is a prime explain of how many political debates are purely obstructionist. That their most senior members will create and present policy they do not support purely for argument sake. Problem is everyone doesn't follow politics closely; everyone can't separate what is real from what is just obstructionist talking points. As a result much of what was meant of hyperbole to distract voters has become actual platform beliefs. Establishment Republcans currently have a very tough time comminucating what the party standards. Nixon, Reagan, Bush 41 all raised taxes and Eisenhower had some of the highest tax rates this country has ever had. The party has not traditionally been anti any and all taxes. That current position is a distortion that evolved from those who took hyperbole talking point too seriously. We see this on issue after issue. Reagan gave amnesty and Bush 43 pushed for a guest worker program but today building a wall and deporting people is all a huge portion of the party is willing to here. Compentent Republicans are stuck in a terrible place. Run honest on the issues like John Huntsman did and get laughed out of politics or pander to uniformed voters as Mitt Romeny did and lose.

Gun sales spike after every major shooting or when any politician mentions gun control. Clearly gun advocate believe a change is coming. If they didn't believe any of the gun control messures discussed were popular or legal pre the 2nd Admendment they wouldn't respond as they do.They behave as if change is imminent. In my opinion that is an acknowledgement. They scream out against change but clearly releaze the argument for it is strong.

@ rangerx, I grew up as a rather ignorant suburbanite. As a kid I believed that the United States was the only free country in the world. That every country outside of the United States dystopian. I was a stupid kid. As I grew up, traveled, met people, studied, and so on I came to realize that the view of the world I had grown up with simply did not exist. It wasn't that it had been wrong; it had never actually been at all. It was a fiction which collasped under the tinest bit of investigation. Is the United States part of the world or do we lead the world? The delineation use to be absolute in my mind. Today I view the concept as silly. We are part of the world and we lead ourselves. Comparisons to greatness, greatest counrty ever, to an extent ignores any need for improvement. If the ship (USA) is perfect so when anything grows wrong the issue must be with the crew. It is that attitude that allows us to have the world's biggest prison system and police shooting our countrymen dead in the streets. What ails our communities are individual bad people: drug dealers, welfare queens, theives, homeless people, etc. Just clean them up; wipe them from our towns and all will be utopian. We project that outwards to the world. Just rid it of extremists, drug lords, and laziness and all will be fine. I believe many of us in the United States struggle to create any empathy for others in the world because we have cast ourselves as separate. I see Canadians like MigL and Willie71 posting, clearly empathising with U.S. positions, and I am reminded how un-American of them that is. Despite a shared history, geography, language, mutal interests, and etc Canada is foriegn to the average American. With California being foriegn to Texas Canada may as well be somewhere in the Middle East. We do not empathize with the world. It is always the U.S. perspective first and second followed at a distance by everything else. Heck, we struggle to empathize with ourselves. As you pointed out we justify killing each other over our us vs them paranoia. We (USA) can be great without needing to be separate. We can focus on improving without being self hating. We should empathize with others because we are all human and all on this one planet. Is the USA exceptional, YES! Is being exceptional exclusively a trait of the USA, NO! There are many exceptional countries and people in the world.

You don't know how your BS made up already disproven lie is ignored? The reports of people shooting at responders and murdering in the superdome were proven to media driven fantasies long ago. Congress put together a committee and they investigated the while matter. perhaps you should educate yourself on what really happened. From the bypartisan congressional report on Katrina: "The information vacuum in the Superdome was especially dangerous. Cell phones didn’t work, the arena’s public address system wouldn’t run on generator power, and the law enforcement on hand was reduced to talking to the 20,000 evacuees using bullhorns and a lot of legwork. “A lot of them had AM radios, and they would listen to news reports that talked about the dead bodies at the Superdome, and the murders in the bathrooms of the Superdome, and the babies being raped at the Superdome,” Bush [Maj. Ed Bush, public affairs officer for the Louisiana Air National Guard] says, “and it would create terrible panic. I would have to try and convince them that no, it wasn’t happening.” The reports of rampant lawlessness, especially the persistent urban legend of shooting at helicopters, definitely delayed some emergency and law enforcement responses. Reports abounded, from places like Andover, Massachusetts, of localities refusing to send their firefighters because of “people shooting at helicopters.” The National Guard refused to approach the Convention Center until September 2, 100 hours after the hurricane, because “we waited until we had enough force in place to do an overwhelming force,” Lieutenant General H. Steven Blum, Chief of the National Guard Bureau, told reporters on September 3 https://www.uscg.mil/history/katrina/docs/USHouseOfRepKatrina2006MainR1eport.pdf

This is one major philosophical concept about trickle down economics that I reject. They idea that wealth starts at the top and works its way down. You ignorantly state that because an employer pays an employee that they ultimately are paying for everything that employee purchases. TAR, where does the employer get the money to pay the employees and do they pay their employees as a form of charity? Walmart is profits billions a year and employs over 2 million people. Could Walmart make money without employees? Do only wealthiest people shop at Walmart? The top (Walmart's profits) is most often an accumilation of wealth collected from the ground floor (Walmart shoppers). Money does not belong to the top and gets trickled down as a act of compassion and responsibility.

Multiple posters have already gone over the history of the "Southern strategy" (with citation) and the way the Republican Party used it to secure Goerge Wallace's racist supporters. Have you considered that the reason the majority of blacks vote democrat is because most are not comfortable voting shoulder to shoulder with the racist element within the Republican party? That is why all the former leaders of the civil rights movement are democrat today as well. Their radar for bigotry is more finally tuned than your seems to be. When you have high profile mouth pieces like Rush Limbaugh calling Obama "the magic negro" and Glenn Beck saying Obama "hates white people" it really shouldn't be a wonder as to why blacks do not support the Republican Party. To be 100% honest I suspect you do understand why blacks vote Democrat but still posted your nonsense anyway because part of you feels empowered by insulting groups which you aren't part of which is why you have insulted blacks, Muslims, gays, and etc in your various posts. No disagreement here. Who you vote for doesn't make you a bigot TAR. The plainly racist things you post are what make you a bigot. George Wallace was a Democrat!!!! We have been over and over this. The bigot pro segregationists left/revolted from the Democrat party. OMG!!!! Those are equivalents to you? With facts, provide facts that support your conclusions rather than unrelated stories about some nubleous thing you saw while shopping. This is a meaningless statement. You are acting as if all roads lead to the same place or that decisions/choices are consequence fear. Bad policy can hurt the country. You think people drinking lead in Michigan view their situation as a frivolous policy dispute? ]

I honest suspect that Trump is secretly a Clinton supporter and his whole campaign is meant to expose how unserious the modern conservative movement actually is. That and I think he legitimately has a grudge against Jeb Bush for something.

TAR, I showed you respect and provided you a response that address several key issues in the war against ISS. Your post addresses none of it. You simply keep saying the world is black and white and ISIS is evil and we must rid the planet of them. You refuse to confront any of the logistical realities of what it may take to accomplish such. Please review post #694 and provide a response with substance.

Before I address ISIS I must first point out that our most recent exchange on this issue began with you calling Bernie Sanders a pacifist and saying that a pacifist shouldn't be the Commander in Chief. I provided you Sanders positions on war and terrorism. You then complained they are no different than Obama and Hillary but didn't acknowledge being wrong in calling him a pacifist. instead you have just bounced to carrying on about ISIS. Okay, you want us to commit to a large scale boots on the ground mobilzation vs ISIS in Syria which leads to Assad staying in power pending elections. Sound great but you ignore several real world things: Assad - does he want U.S. on the ground in his country? Would he be combative if we went it? Would he allow elections? Russia - how would they feel about us using force on the ground in Syria to both kill ISIS and strong arm Assad? Iran - do they want boots on the ground at their border combating ISIS and Assad? ISIS - will they stand and fight or melt into Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon? Will they just evolve into new terroist groups in those other countries?

@ TAR, you are overlooking one major reality; whomever is elected this year terrorism will still exist in the world when their administration ends. You are speaking in absolues that do not exist in the real world. Your notion that we can "utterly defeat them. Take away completely" is comically absurd. There has always been and will coming to be radicalized groups in the world. The challange of ensuring our security is not a question of war or no war, kill or be killed. It is an ongoing process that changes every few years. Do you remember what a big deal it was when we got Pablo Escobar? Movies have been made, books have been written, and so on about it. Yet it did not end the war on drugs? Did it even slow the volume of drugs on the streets in the United States? Now we just caught Chapo Guzman. Do you suspect putting Guzman in jail will means the war on drugs is over and won? From opioids to crack to meth back to opioids the battle front just keeps moving and transforming. So we can discuss ISIS, Syria, Chad, and whatever else but lets not be unrealistic about what we assume can be accomplished. At this point I believe unifying a response amongst as many countries as we can get to the table is more important than getting on the ground and killing. We must address islamic terror without hurting relationships and creating new enemies.

Bernie seems weak to some because the others are all but promising to use force if elected. Using our military as a last resort in our current political atmosphere is often mistaken for pacifism. You either do not know the definition of pacifist or you are willfully mistating Bernie's position on these matters.

@ TAR, people generally do not consider themselves as unsensible. ISIS members believe they have a sensible view toward Islam. Declaring positive self judgements is useless. Bernie Sanders: "“We live in a difficult and dangerous world, and there are no easy or magical solutions. As President and Commander-in-Chief, I will defend this nation, its people, and America’s vital strategic interests, but I will do it responsibly." "While we must be relentless in combating terrorists who would do us harm, we cannot and should not be policeman of the world, nor bear the burden of fighting terrorism alone. The United States should be part of an international coalition, led and sustained by nations in the region that have the means to protect themselves" What about Sanders and his positions concerns you? From is campaign's web page: Iran: The U.S. must do everything it can to make certain that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon, that a nuclear Iran does not threaten Israel, and to prevent a nuclear arms race in the region. Sen. Sanders supports the agreement between the U.S., Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program, because it has the best chance of limiting Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon, while avoiding yet another war in the region. ISIS: We live in a dangerous world full of serious threats, perhaps none more so than the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al-Qaeda. Senator Sanders is committed to keeping America safe, and pursuing those who would do Americans harm. But we cannot combat international terrorism alone. We must work with our allies to root out terrorist funding networks, provide logistical support in the region, disrupt online radicalization, provide humanitarian relief, and support and defend religious freedom. Moreover, we must begin to address the root causes of radicalization, instead of focusing solely on military responses to those who have already become radicalized. https://berniesanders.com/issues/war-and-peace/

Is that for oneself to determine?