US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9894

On February 14 2018 02:18 Mohdoo wrote:


Which highlights the fact that we let parents have too much dominion over the raising of their children. The vast majority of parents do an exceptionally poor job. Shitty parenting is the reason kids choose chicken nuggets over vegetables.

On February 14 2018 02:23 Plansix wrote:

It is mostly that schools are not allowed to control children’s eating habits. And before people say that is stupid, please understand that it is because teachers and administrators just as capable of abusing power as anyone else. And people LOVE local control of their schools, rather than the State controlling how kids are feed in schools.

On February 14 2018 02:18 Mohdoo wrote:


Which highlights the fact that we let parents have too much dominion over the raising of their children. The vast majority of parents do a very poor job. Shitty parenting is the reason kids choose chicken nuggets over vegetables.

On February 14 2018 02:32 zlefin wrote:

trying to change that, while potentially beneficial, would involve extremely politically unpopular behavior. Implementing cultural change is hard, and even harder without an agreement that it should be done so. Pushing for less parental control over child-raising wouldn't get enough agreement I think.

On February 14 2018 02:29 Mohdoo wrote:


Schools aren't allowed to choose what the kids eat, but parents are responsible for the perspectives on diet children go to school with. Children are not dumb. They can be taught if parents are willing to try. Parents just surrender and decide it is acceptable for their kids to be raised on garbage.

On February 14 2018 02:32 zlefin wrote:

trying to change that, while potentially beneficial, would involve extremely politically unpopular behavior. Implementing cultural change is hard, and even harder without an agreement that it should be done so. Pushing for less parental control over child-raising wouldn't get enough agreement I think.

On February 14 2018 02:29 Mohdoo wrote:


Schools aren't allowed to choose what the kids eat, but parents are responsible for the perspectives on diet children go to school with. Children are not dumb. They can be taught if parents are willing to try. Parents just surrender and decide it is acceptable for their kids to be raised on garbage.

On February 14 2018 02:35 Gorsameth wrote:

I agree its an incredibly difficult topic to tackle.

But look at child obesity rates and it is something that will need to happen before long. One might say it may well already be to late for the coming generation.

Twitter has banned Paul Nehlen, a Republican challenging House Speaker Paul Ryan for a Congressional seat, for a racist tweet targeting American actress Meghan Markle, the fiancée of Prince Harry.

The U.K.'s Natural History museum released images of Cheddar Man, a dark-skinned Mesolithic man believed to be one of the oldest modern humans in Britain, this week. Nehlen posted the couple's official engagement photo with Cheddar Man's face superimposed on Markle's, who is biracial. He captioned the tweet, "Honey does this tie make my face look pale?"

Prince Harry and Markle, set to wed in May, have dealt extensively with online harassment. In 2016, months into their relationship, Prince Harry released an official statement decrying the "racial undertones" of abuse targeted toward Markle.

The tweet is hardly Nehlen's first instance of controversy. The politician has made waves for racist and anti-Semitic tweets in the past, and proclaimed that "Jews control the media" on former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke's podcast last month.

Nehlen "has spent months curating an image of a sometimes ironic, but most certainly sincere, white nationalist willing to say things intended to push populist nationalism into the discourse," writes the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Twitter, which does not normally comment on individual accounts, confirmed to NPR that Nehlen was permanently suspended for repeated violations of its terms of service.

"And as we explained in our blog about world leaders on Twitter: we review Tweets by leaders within the political context that defines them, and enforce our rules accordingly," a Twitter spokesperson told NPR. "No one person's account drives Twitter's growth, or influences these decisions. We work hard to remain unbiased with the public interest in mind."

The company updated its policies late last year in an effort to reduce abusive and violent content.

"For Twitter, reining in abusive content has posed a challenge as the company has touted itself as the ultimate place for free speech and open debate," reported NPR's Alina Selyukh in 2017, noting that the 2016 presidential election cycle was "marked by a flood of sexist, racist, anti-Semitic and threatening commentary."

"We will be filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission in the coming days," the self-avowed "Pro-White" candidate posted on his still-active Facebook account. "These are unprecedented, brazen acts of censorship."

On February 14 2018 02:42 zlefin wrote:

there's certainly some damage already being done; it's just hard to get politicians to do politically unpopular things. And this is far harder to do than it would be in europe, given the american cultural milieu.
Gettin kids to eat well starts with getting parents to eat well; a lot of people just eat poorly, and therefore, so do their kids.

mohdoo, what proposals do you favor for addressing these problems?

On February 14 2018 02:40 Mohdoo wrote:


I suppose I am taking a somewhat GH'esque approach to this discussion by pointing out the larger, much more difficult to correct component of this problem has nothing to do with schools. Parents, like voters, hold all the cards. They make a decision to allow for their children to have unhealthy diets. Choosing to make sure their children are healthy would end child obesity.

It is an example of excess freedom leading to gross inefficiency without a sliver of benefit. In accordance with my ethics, parents should not have nearly the control they do over their children. Children have very, very little protection as individuals.

On February 14 2018 02:53 Mohdoo wrote:


In a general sense, I advocate for child protective services having significantly more power. Parents are given a somewhat executive power when it comes to raising their children. I think that is madness. Checks and balances should ultimately allow the state to play a much more active role in ensuring children are raised to a minimum standard and are given a minimum standard of health.

If I can get even more comfortable explaining my unobtainable positions, I think having children should require a license in the same way we adopt children. We have already decided as a society that adopting a child should not be easy. But we let people just blast kids out their ass so long as they were the ones to create them. It makes no sense.

Overall, we should feel more obligation to children. We should be doing more to make sure humans are given a fair shot at life and are not tragically hindered by shitty parents. Poor parenting is costing us a lottttttttttttt of money every year.

On February 14 2018 02:53 Mohdoo wrote:


In a general sense, I advocate for child protective services having significantly more power. Parents are given a somewhat executive power when it comes to raising their children. I think that is madness. Checks and balances should ultimately allow the state to play a much more active role in ensuring children are raised to a minimum standard and are given a minimum standard of health.

If I can get even more comfortable explaining my unobtainable positions, I think having children should require a license in the same way we adopt children. We have already decided as a society that adopting a child should not be easy. But we let people just blast kids out their ass so long as they were the ones to create them. It makes no sense.

Overall, we should feel more obligation to children. We should be doing more to make sure humans are given a fair shot at life and are not tragically hindered by shitty parents. Poor parenting is costing us a lottttttttttttt of money every year.

The White House’s attempts to explain why it allowed a top aide accused of domestic violence by both of his ex-wives to keep his job took another hit on Tuesday, this time from FBI Director Christopher Wray.

President Donald Trump’s other top aides have been claiming that they did not know about the domestic violence allegations against former staff secretary Rob Porter until recently and that they did not appreciate the full extent of the accusations until photographs of one woman’s injuries were published by news outlets.

But Wray, who was named to that job by Trump, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the FBI had given the White House a preliminary report on Porter nearly a year ago.

“I can’t get into the content of what was briefed,” he said in response to a question from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). “What I can tell you is that the FBI submitted a partial report on the investigation in question in March and then a completed background investigation in late July.”

Wray added that the FBI “soon thereafter” received a request for a follow-up from the White House, which it completed and returned in November.

The FBI closed out its investigation in January, but then received “additional information” in early February, which it passed along as well, Wray said.

On February 14 2018 03:03 Plansix wrote:

This is some dystopian hand maiden’s tale in reverse shit. The key to true reform and durable progress is to not design systems that can easily be abused. If people want to address child abuse, focus on the children, not some misguided system to prevent potential bad parents from having kids.

On February 14 2018 03:06 Mohdoo wrote:


Why should it be easier to have children biologically than to adopt?

On February 14 2018 03:06 Mohdoo wrote:


Why should it be easier to have children biologically than to adopt?