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Productive governance requires compromise in some instances. In order to be able to reach beneficial compromises, though, requires two sides that both have the best interests of the country in mind. If this is the case, even though the parties' ideas for what to do may vary widely, there is a chance for compromise to work. We do not have that situation today. After the midterm election, Mitch McConnell stated that the Republicans' top priority for the next two years is to deny President Obama a second term. There is no real surpise in that, only that he is willing to state it so clearly. It has been quite obvious that this was the Republicans' priority ever since Obama took office. Where one side's interest is solely to deny the other side (and thus the country) any type of success, they should be denied a place at the table whenever possible. Any compromise you make with them will only make things worse.

posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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"What I am saying is that, homosexuality is not a desirable state to be in, not to the same degree as handicap to be sure, but it is absolutely not something to be advocated for in a fourth grade classroom." What nonsense. Homosexuality is not a choice. A minority of the population is sexually attracted only to people of their own sex. There is no "advocating for people to become homosexual." Worrying about having our children exposed to gay people as though they are recruiters, or carriers of a contagious disease, is irrational bigotry. To the extent that "homosexuality is not a desireable state to be in," that is entirely because of the discrimination, bullying and lack of acceptance in society for people who are homosexual. Change that. You can't change them.

posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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Econotechie, your comparison is ridiculous. Saying "I would prefer to marry a man, but it's illegal" is NOT a sexualized statement. Talking about sperm count or erectile dysfunction would be. If a female teacher said "I am getting married next month" would that be inappropriate and sexualized? Also, your "assumption" about what the district did is a huge one. The district has said no such thing, and the evidence is that they did not follow their own prescribed processes for removing a student teacher from a classroom.

posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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I lived 1/2 mile from Sexton Mountain Elementary for seven years. I moved in no small part because I didn't share the right-wing, hate filled values that pervaded the neighborhood. I tried to call in to get on the show with a comment. Seth Stambaugh's comment was entirely contextual and appropriate. What is inappropriate is the homophobic adults who when they think about gay people or are confronted with them, think about them having sex. Mr. Stambaugh didn't say that he wanted to have sex with men. He said he wanted to marry one. Do you think that the fourth grader who heard him immediately thought about him having sex with men? Absolutley not, any more than a fourth grader who heard his female teacher talking about her male husband would think about them having sex. Even Emily Harris fell into this trap. She said at one point that Mr. Stambaugh revealed his "sexual preference" in class. That is projecting our adult sensibilities and prejudices into the minds of fourth graders. It absolutely would have been inappropriate for him to talk about wanting to have sex with men, just as it would be inappropriate for a male teacher to talk about wanting to have sex with women. So he didn't. Finally Marilyn Shannon is a hateful bigot. I am so grateful that Dan Savage came on and called her out for what she is and what she's doing, which is promoting hatred and contributing to an environment that is killing gay kids.

posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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So the "game" you are speaking of is what, exactly? Seems to me that making stuff up that suits what you believe is the game you want to play. Suit yourself.

posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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@ Desolation: your statement is the kind of thing that leads 45% of the US population to believe that we really did find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The science on prayer has repeatedly demonstrated that it DOES NOT heal the sick. E.g.: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1072638.ece "Praying for the health of strangers who have undergone heart surgery has no effect, according to the largest scientific study ever commissioned to calculate the healing power of prayer. In fact, patients who know they are being prayed for suffer a noticeably higher rate of complications, according to the study, which monitored the recovery of 1,800 patients after heart bypass surgery in the US."

posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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Three comments: (1) I am an Atheist and I scored 14 of 15 on the quiz. (@Desolated, I also find it personally disappointing. I missed the one about the preacher involved in the great awakening movement.) I will point out, though, that several of the questions were really US Constitutional law or cultural history questions that happened to touch on religion, rather than questions of theology. (2) @Jacob, your argument is a whole lot of fire and condemnation about a set of definitions that you apparently cooked up. You also fundamentally misunderstand the essence of rational inquiry. Rational people don't require absolute incontrovertible proof in order to believe something. They make the best call they can based on the available evidence and rational deductions from it. I am Atheist because I have looked carefully at the available evidence and I the rational conclusion from it is that no being that the religions of the world would call a god exists. That does not mean that I think that the existence of god has been disproved beyond any shadow of a doubt. If Yahweh or Vishnu or Athena or the Flying Spaghetti Monster suddenly manifested him, her or itself, I would certainly take that evidence into account in determining the existence of god(s). (3) @Bluewater42, I disagree. I think it is very important to study the world's religions, not for the wisdom they contain, but rather because they are such huge and continuing cultural influences. If you care about humanity and understanding why people do what they do, you need to look at religion. Not doing so would be like saying "I'm a geologist, but I don’t know or care anything about tectonic plates.” (Edit: Sorry about the giant paragraph, for some reason, carriage returns will not take in this post.)

posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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Much of the discussion on this thread and in the city over the last few days sheds light only on the preconceived notions of the commenters, rather than the actual incident under discussion.

There are justified and unjustified uses of force by the police, both here in Portland and elsewhere.  It is truly chilling when the police, as the deputized wielders of deadly force on behalf of the citizens, use that force in a cavalier, vengeful or otherwise inappropriate manner.  It is almost as chilling, however, when, with little or no care about the facts, people in the community excoriate a police officer.

The facts we know here are that a large man, wielding a knife and covered in blood, came at a police officer and ignored repeated orders to drop the knife.  I acknowledge that there are many more details we do not know, but the facts we do know lead to the conclusion that this was a fully justified use of force.

The advocates of reform do not advance their important cause by stretching or ignoring the facts in order to induce outrage.

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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Mr. Lund, you are so confused.

The fact that one is skeptical, that one does not believe in what cannot be proved, is the very basis of intellectual honesty.  I do not believe in god.  My nonbelief in god, however, does not equate to an absolute belief in the nonexistence of god.

I do not believe in god because there is not sufficient evidence in my experience for me to conclude that god exists.  Can I prove that god does not exist?  No I cannot.  There is no need for disproof of something for me to not believe it.  Such a position would be logically bizarre. 

For a variety of reasons, I think that the existence of god, at least as described in the texts of popular religions, is highly unlikely.  I see much more likely explanations for the things often attributed to god.  I see that the descriptions of god in the holy texts of many religions served the purposes of those who wrote them down very, very well.

Could I be wrong? Of course I could.  It is absolutely possible that the Christian bible, or the Koran, or the Torah, is literally and absolutely true.  It's possible that a non-corporeal, omniscient and omnipotent being created the universe in seven days a little over 6,000 years ago and then planted countless pieces of evidence in his creation pointing away from this fact.  It's possible that this god then spoke directly and often to certain men several thousand years ago and then chose to forego direct contact with humanity ever since.  I cannot disprove these things.  But my inability to disprove them is IN NO WAY evidence that they are, in fact, true.

My beliefs and nonbeliefs have nothing whatsoever to do with your notion of faith.  Your insistence otherwise is evidence of nothing other than your lack of understanding of basic logic.

posted 3 years, 5 months ago
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Clea,

There are few guarantees in life.  There are certainly no guarantees that a given child of given parents will do anything productive or transformative.

That does not mean we should, collectively, give up.

It's fine for any person to make the individual choice not to have kids.  For those same people, though, to judge others for their decision to have kids ignores the fact that all of us depend on those kids for our futures.

posted 3 years, 7 months ago
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Ms. Brown, you need to learn the difference between discrimination and policy.

Many laws discriminate between people.  Laws against murder discriminate between those who have ended other's lives and those who have not.  The tax code discriminates between people who have children and those who do not.  It also discriminates between those who make $1,000,000 and those who make $10,000.  Simply because a law discriminates between people does not make it bad.

Your objection to the exemption for children is not that it is "discriminatory," it is that you think it is bad policy to subsidize parents' child rearing through offering them a small tax write off for each child that depends on them.

I really object to your equation of child bearing and poetry. Poems, once created, do not cost thousands of dollars to care for.  They do not suffer if mistreated or impoverished.  They do not die if you don't feed them.

posted 3 years, 7 months ago
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There is a huge difference between the individual choice to have or not to have children and our collective responsibility.

The decision to have or not to have children individually is a very personal one.  This is demonstrated very intensely in the comments above from folks who have made that decision.  What right have any of us to tell someone else they are making the "right" or the "wrong" decision?  It is the height of arrogance for any of to think we can get inside someone else's decision and make a better judgment for them.

Collectively, if we assume that the continuation of the species and our civilzation are goals we want to meet, then we have an imperitive to reproduce, and to raise further generations of healthy, productive, well-educated progeny.  This is a responsibility that can only be carried out collectively.  No set of parents, no matter how capable, dedicated and well resourced, can provide for all of the needs - education, health care, etc. that each and every child needs to thrive. 

Like it or not, if our children do not thrive, neither will we.  We are relying upon the next generation to take care of us, and, frankly, to provide the energy, innovation and inspiration to fix a lot of the terrible problems we and previous generations have caused.

posted 3 years, 7 months ago
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remmurf - Those people might not want their names spread around.  In which case, they should not sign the petition.

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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There is no first amendment right to a petition process to get a state law referred to the ballot.  The State of Washington decides whether, and how, to set up such a process.

In this case, the state said "We will have a petition process, but, in order to get a law, duly passed by the elected legislature and signed by the governer, referred to the ballot for vote, we need a certain number of people who are WILLING TO PUT THEIR NAMES ON A PUBLIC PETITION for it."  Being willing to publicly stand up for something is different than stepping into a voting booth and casting an anonymous ballot.  That was expressly part of the policy here.

You can disagree with that as a matter of policy, but it's not a constitutional issue.  The folks who want this on the ballot, but don't want to face the consequences of standing up publicly for their opinions are betraying that they don't really care enough to justify putting their issue on the ballot.

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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Why are there two representatives of "Protect Marriage Washington" on here and none from the gay rights organizations that want to make these names public?

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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That is an absolutely bogus comparison.  A petition drive is not a vote.

The petition originators and signers knew what the law was when they set out to get this law on the ballot.  It is a public process.

The petition process is state law and the state gets to make the rules for it.  The state has said that the names will be public.  That was known up front.

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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Right on.  It is very important that we not get completely drowned out by the anti-reform screamers.

posted 3 years, 9 months ago
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The 100 million you are talking about are primarily on Medicare - therefore over age 65.

It's hardly surprising that those over 65 account for a higher per-capita health expenditure than those who are younger.

The problems are several:

1. Large public commitments to pay for health care in a system without cost controls.  (Canada and most other single payer systems have centralized cost controls in place.)

2. A large population of uninsured people whose primary or only means of getting health care is the emergency room.  They therefore enter the system sicker, and then get care under a very expensive, silent cross subsidy.  The hospitals and doctors who care for all these people who can't pay raise the rates on those who can in order to support their obligation to provide emergency care to all.

3. An incredibly expensive tangle of administration and claims systems.

posted 3 years, 9 months ago
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The profit motive only operates to make companies act in the best interest of their customers if customers MAKE them do so by voting with their dollars.  If custmers buy better, safer, higher quality products and not worse ones, then the system works.

The flow of information and incentives in the health care system is very poorly set up to enable the end customers to do this.  Indeed, health care in general is a very poor candidate for the operation of the "invisible hand," since the nature of health and sickness means that individuals (1) have a very hard time assessing what products and services will make them healthier than others, (2) are often in extremis and not in a position to shop around or make great decisions, and (3) will often pay whatever is necessary for a very small potential improvent in health.

posted 3 years, 9 months ago
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Moralizing about the profits made by insurance companies is beside the point and counterproductive. 

Insurance company profits account for less than 1% of health care costs in the US.  Still a very large amount of money, but hardly the driver of the problem. 

The polemic that insurers (or drug companies, or hospitals, or doctors) "profit from the sickness of others" is sensationalist and not helpful.  The entities and people in the health care system provide services and products needed by people who are sick, or who don't want to get sick.  We might as well say that farmers "profit from the hunger of others."  It's an equally true statement, and equally unhelpful.

The inability of our health care system to provide coverage to so many people, despite the enormous amounts we spend has to do with many structural flaws in the delivery system and incentives in the system.  The problem is not profit.  The problem is that we have created a system that creates profit for participants from the wrong things.  We need to make it more profitable for doctors and health plans to provide preventative care for everyone, rather than specialty, curative care for a select few.

posted 3 years, 9 months ago
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