Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
You WISH a state would outlaw oral. Then you'd have an excuse for your perversions.

*publicly meaning Medicare, Medicaid, I assume.

I'd only stick it where the state legislature said I could.* That's the great thing about federalism. You can get on one side of the state line and get arrested for it on the other.

* Oh, and where God said I could stick it. He's really interested in human sex activities.

[Fugee]

Originally posted by Not Me
I know many people from areas where there aren't many blacks around and their schools are segregated simply because blacks don't live where they live in any large number. Like Maine. But those people aren't racists.

I don't just know people from areas like that, I grew up there. In my community, a "minority" was someone who wasn't Swedish, Norwegian or German. I didn't meet a black person until I was in 7th grade. (Incidentally, everyone but the town kids were "bussed" -- our route was an hour long.) In 7th grade, a black family moved into the school district with a daughter in my grade. Someone painted "Jim Crow" and a swastika on the school wall and the family left after a year.

Fear of the different and unknown is a huge part of racial intolerance. I also think the older one is before personally encountering someone of a different race, the harder it is to break the stereotypical image of that race.

Hello and Not Me, since you are so sure that bussing was the wrong thing to do, what do you think should have been done? Let cities continue with separate and unequal schools until they felt like changing things, meanwhile depriving those children of the same education the white kids were getting? Order cities to start pouring money and resources into the all-black schools to raise the quality of education?

While you're at it, what do you do now? You've got No Child Left Behind not fully funded by the federal government, school districts with budget cuts and inner city schools with a disproportionately high number of kids for whom English is not the primary language. You think you know better than the liberals; fix this.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
So you like anal?

Do junkies like judges?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Do junkies like judges?

Yes?

[ltl/fb]

Administration mulling end to tax deduction for employer-provided health coverage: The Bush Administration is reportedly considering scrapping employers' tax deduction for employee health care coverage costs to pay for a tax reform proposal that would cut or eliminate taxes on savings and investment. While a high-placed Administration source has told a business trade group that the deduction is not in jeopardy, the trade group acknowledges that eliminating the exclusion of employer-provided health coverage from employees' income is recognized as a possibility by some of the people working on the Administration's tax reform proposal.



I wonder if this means we would be taxed on the premium amounts, or the benefits? Who wants to pay taxes on the value of that week the kid spent in ICU? Anyone? Anyone? . . .

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Griswold was '65. Roe was '73.

Granted, the Beatles broke up during those 8 years, but its hardly the "long and winding road" that you suggest.

I am temporarily without access to Westlaw and my Con Law hornbook is at the dry cleaners, but there was an Illinois case dealing with the presumptive rights of a biological father vs. the rights of the mother in an adoption case. There was also the Oklahoma case concerning mandatory sterilization of the mentally retarded.

Sign the retainer letter and I'll get you a brief next week.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Fugee
I don't just know people from areas like that, I grew up there. In my community, a "minority" was someone who wasn't Swedish, Norwegian or German. I didn't meet a black person until I was in 7th grade. (Incidentally, everyone but the town kids were "bussed" -- our route was an hour long.) In 7th grade, a black family moved into the school district with a daughter in my grade. Someone painted "Jim Crow" and a swastika on the school wall and the family left after a year.

Fear of the different and unknown is a huge part of racial intolerance. I also think the older one is before personally encountering someone of a different race, the harder it is to break the stereotypical image of that race.

Hello and Not Me, since you are so sure that bussing was the wrong thing to do, what do you think should have been done? Let cities continue with separate and unequal schools until they felt like changing things, meanwhile depriving those children of the same education the white kids were getting? Order cities to start pouring money and resources into the all-black schools to raise the quality of education?

While you're at it, what do you do now? You've got No Child Left Behind not fully funded by the federal government, school districts with budget cuts and inner city schools with a disproportionately high number of kids for whom English is not the primary language. You think you know better than the liberals; fix this.

A few things.

What do we do? Desegregate housing. Desegregate housing. Desegregate housing. Over 30 or 40 years, this would have been fixed. Of course there would have been problems like your swastika incident. They still happen with voluntary integration efforts (i.e., when a black family voluntarily moves into a white neighborhood), but if it was made inevitable for everybody, everybody would have learned to deal with it.

In the meantime, fund schools equally.

[Fugee]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
People don't like the idea of having a very traumatic and personal decision being the subject of legal prohibition. That sort of simplistic thinking only works for the people of simple backward morals who see everything in black and white.

Deriding people who have a different belief than you as being backwards and simplistic is not actually any better than the pro-lifers who call someone of your views a "baby killer." It may make you feel better to believe it, but not everyone who is pro-life is ignorant, simplistic or backwards; many are quite intelligent and do think about the issue as a whole. In weighing the interests, they come down on a different side than you do.

In the not-so-distant future, science will move the abortion debate to a new level. Ultimately it will be possible for a woman to no longer be pregnant without terminating the life of the fetus -- by an artificial womb or something else. There are now not enough babies available for adoption and people would line up for these "aborted" babies. Legislatures then make it illegal to terminate a pregnancy unless the fetus is thus preserved. The next Jane Roe decides she doesn't want her baby out there somewhere and challenges the law. How does Judge Dangerfield rule? (Yes, I occasionally was the annoying person in law school who came up with rEdiculous hypotheticals.)

[Fugee]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
In other news, apparently two class-action lawsuits have been brought against hospitals in North Carolina by uninsured patients, based on the fact that they are charged significantly more than privately and publicly* insured patients for the same procedures. Should be interesting. Anyone have any insights on this? I didn't feel like going through the registration for Modernhealthcare.com so I haven't read the whole article. I assume it will be reported in more mainstream media soon enough.

If someone brings a suit against dentists here on the same basis, I'm in. I used to have dental insurance through a previous job. I get a 5% discount for paying cash now without insurance but still pay at least 20% more than what they charged when I was insured. It makes me mad because they have less paperwork and I should get that benefit rather than paying more. I need to bring that up next time I go in.

Doctors do the same thing. The insurance companies negotiate big discounts for allowing the doctors to be part of the covered network. If you are paying cash, you pay the rack rate.

[Fugee]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
A few things.

What do we do? Desegregate housing. Desegregate housing. Desegregate housing. Over 30 or 40 years, this would have been fixed. Of course there would have been problems like your swastika incident. They still happen with voluntary integration efforts (i.e., when a black family voluntarily moves into a white neighborhood), but if it was made inevitable for everybody, everybody would have learned to deal with it.

In the meantime, fund schools equally.

So you'd have advocated forcibly moving black families to white neighborhoods and vice versa? That's a little more extreme than bussing. Would you have given government grants to allow poorer black families to buy or rent houses in white neighborhoods? What percent of people would you require to move and how would you have chosen them?

You are either incredibly naive or intentionally provocative.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Fugee
So you'd have advocated forcibly moving black families to white neighborhoods and vice versa? That's a little more extreme than bussing. Would you have given government grants to allow poorer black families to buy or rent houses in white neighborhoods? What percent of people would you require to move and how would you have chosen them?

You are either incredibly naive or intentionally provocative.

Carrot and stick. This is a repeat of something from a few months ago, but basically its something we should still do. If 1 of 100 homes in America are section 8, than make sure they are spread out all over. Make the homes available for "bidding" among eligible recipients, but do not give anyone a choice to live within a block of another section 8 recipient (except in the case of very large apartment complexes where you could have 1 per 100 homes as section 8).

Than tell landlords and communities that they don't have a right to refuse a market-rate offer on this basis (or race, religion....).

And, if a community doesn't have any apartment homes, tell the community that the Federal government will come in and build a few cinderblock bunkers amidst the mansions and distribute free government cheese on the front lawn every other Sunday.

I don't know if 1 per 100 reflects the actual number in America. But basically, don't allow the recipients or landlords to concentrate this, and don't allow landlords or communities to keep it out.

Voila, you have poor people in every school district.

This topic came up after a recent article in the Chicago Suntimes where they reported on a study of section 8 and concentrated poverty. Its heavily, heavily concentrated in only a few neighborhoods, and building a system to do this is building a system to fail. You solve it, you solve a whole lot of other social ills at the same time.

And i like that naive and provocative part. You sit here and watch 50 liberals say "nope, no problem here" and think I'm the one being naive? You fucking people are unbelievable. Keep it up. There will be 60 R Senators in 2008 unless you people change.


Hello

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
You fucking people are unbelievable. Keep it up. There will be 60 R Senators in 2008 unless you people change.

Because Bush, Delay, Frist et al are pushing the expansion of Section 8 along exactly these lines, right?

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
I don't know if 1 per 100 reflects the actual number in America. But basically, don't allow the recipients or landlords to concentrate this, and don't allow landlords or communities to keep it out.

Voila, you have poor people in every school district.

Imagine the surprise in Montana when they hear about the new arrivals from Chicago.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Fugee
So you'd have advocated forcibly moving black families to white neighborhoods and vice versa?

That is silly and nothing I said even remotely could be constured to mean that.

Originally posted by Fugee

Would you have given government grants to allow poorer black families to buy or rent houses in white neighborhoods?

You pass fair housing laws and then enforce them. You tie federal grants for highways and other infrastructure to desegregation results. The communities that achieve desegregation get the federal $$$ and those that don't, don't get the $$$. This provides incentive for state legislatures to get in the game, too, with state law protections and programs.

Originally posted by Fugee
What percent of people would you require to move and how would you have chosen them?

No one would be required to move. That is ridiculous and I don' t even think it is constitutional.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Because Bush, Delay, Frist et al are pushing the expansion of Section 8 along exactly these lines, right?

I'm not sure its really an expansion. More like a restructuring. And yeah, section 8 is being restructured in lots of ways these days. So is public housing. So they've got it half right in admitting that the current system doesn't work. Which is one half more right than the left.