Niels

Fortunately, the sit-ins in the South and the subsequent Civil Rights Acts put an end to this kind of thinking for certain groups of people. The tide is turning for those not covered then as well. You are absolutely correct that it has been a privilege (except during periods of draft, when it was a compulsory activity). However, even things that are privileges cannot be simply curtailed for certain types of people without reasonable justification: Example: Driving is a privilege - yet, the DMV cannot simply deny licenses to African Americans who meet all stated and neutral criteria

It is interesting that (at least in the US), those who are most against the death penalty for mass murderers and terrorists, are strongly in favor of the mass abortion of innocent children. I myself, would prefer the "Escape From New York" concept. Let them loose on an island out in the Pacific... and let them kill each other. We can set up cameras for the ultimate reality show. Then we can actually generate hefty revenue from the advertising, and these pathetic creatures can cease their never ending drain on tax payers. "Limited government" "constitutional conservative" says what now? ... the government can do no wrong and anyone found guilty by a court is absolutely unequivocally at fault? That the 8th amendment is trashable? Yeah, we'll make sure that is remembered next time you think the government should have less power over people's lives and that the constitution should be followed. There have been 337 people exonerated of crimes in the United States by new DNA evidence/analysis alone. Of these, 20 had been on death row. These are people you would have sent to your island. I assume you personally would have happily written 6- and 7-figure checks to their next of kin when they died in your "Escape from New York" reality TV show?

One CANNOT generally discriminate for the following reasons: Race, Religion, Sex, National Origin One CAN generally discriminate for the following reason: Homosexuality 28 US States, mostly run by Republicans, say it is acceptable to fire (or not hire) someone because they are discovered to be gay. (0 states allow the same for someone discovered to be say ... Jewish)18 US States, mostly run by Republicans, extend the above to public sector employment! Maybe you think it is acceptable to not force a private employer to be an equal opportunity employer, but government jobs should not have the same ability given that everyone (even "the gays") pay taxes for the maintenance of those positions28 US States, mostly run by Republicans, say it is acceptable for a landlord to terminate the lease of someone for being gay. (0 states allow the same for someone who was discovered to be say ... in an interracial heterosexual relationship)29 US States, mostly run by Republicans, say it is acceptable to deny public accommodations to gays (e.g. deny a hotel room, refuse to serve in a restaurant). (0 states allow the same for someone who ... looks Chinese and speaks as though English is not their native language)If other groups cannot be discriminated in these ways, but homosexuals can, then yes, they are being denied rights. There is in particular, no defense for those states not having non-discrimination laws for public employment. And, if for some reason you don't think any of the above is a denial of rights enjoyed by other groups, we can still look to the very recent past and note that (1) gays were denied equal rights in marriage and military service, and (2) Republicans supported such measures much more so than Democrats. Even if formal discrimination is deemed over, people will understandably remember that. As an example, let us take the Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, which let gays serve in the military without forcing them to lie about themselves (to recruiter at least, and possible to comrades for years). Although when in the military one has curtailed constitutional freedoms, this particular case was (eventually) determined to be a pointless free speech reduction where a straight soldier discussing his sexual preferences was fine, but a gay one doing the same would have discharge proceedings begin. What was the vote on the repeal of that policy?: Democrats: 55 AYE, 1 abstain Republicans: 8 AYE, 3 abstain, 31 NO Aww shucks ... maybe Republicans will stand for equal treatment under the law and free speech protections next time ... (Source of numbers on states allowing discrimination against gays, but not other groups: New York Times, 6/27/2015)

Nothing. Just posting for everyone. I was curious however about what does Amnesty International want? What should the aforementioned countries do w/ Murderers if not hang them? ... those convicted of murder ... When you give the government the right to execute people, and they accidentally execute someone wrongfully convicted (i.e. innocent), then in some way, you are the murderer (or at least, the accessory to murder). It is interesting that (at least in the US), those who are most skeptical of state power often are in favor of giving the state this irrevocable power. When you are wrongfully convicted and sent to life in prison, an apology and monetary compensation can be given, when you are wrongfully convicted and executed though ...

The comment was based on a hypothetical question about what would happen if abortion became illegal. It was a stupid trap that Trump fell into. He should always decline to answer questions based on any hypothetical, and impossible, situation, but guess what... if abortion is deemed illegal... it's only common sense that punishment is not only appropriate, but required. But everyone knows it will never happen, so it was too stupid to even feed into the obvious gotcha question. I'm done with all of it for a while. We will continue to destroy anyone who is willing to do the job properly, while electing all the wrong ones just because they pissed off the least amount of people. And yet somehow, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, never seemed to mess up so badly on this topic. (They both would seek to punish the doctors involved in the hypothetically illegal abortions.) Maybe, despite Trump's claims, he is not "like, a really smart person."

This rather lengthy Vox piece on authoritarianism elaborates on this point. I've copied some of the relevant text: On the other point, Marco Rubio's win in Puerto Rico today was the first time any Republican candidate received more than 50% of the vote in any contest this cycle.

You're right, they're not comparable: one has produced enough evidence of potential wrongdoing to result in a trial, one has not.

Up to and including defrauding members of the general public, yes? http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/432010/trump-university-scam With all the pixels wasted on how Hillary is "going to be indicted and jailed before the election," the fact that Trump will be forced take the witness stand in a real, actual trial, has apparently been lost.

Most states are still proportional at this point I believe. Which is why Cruz got so many delegates despite only winning three states. The answer is no Trump didn't. Which ties into my point that despite the media obsession the guy really isn't that popular. The states voting yesterday were a mix of proportional and what would be better described as "winner-take-most." More extensive details on the allotment calculations are here: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/super-tuesday-preview-republican-presidential-election-2016/ If you go to the Wikipedia article for the primary now, you can see the aggregate vote totals for each candidate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016 At the moment they are: TRUMP: 3,320,055 (34.25%) CRUZ: 2,710,180 (27.96%) RUBIO: 2,105,918 (21.72%) You're right that Trump has not run away with the vote total - in aggregate he isn't even up to 35%. However, in the upcoming states, which are increasingly winner-take-most, or winner-take-all, a plurality is all that is needed. Cruz and Rubio do not lead in most such states, which is why the mathematics are running against them. For example, in Florida, yes, Trump is only at ~40% in the polls, but that is comfortably ahead of Rubio's 21% and Cruz's 16%.

Trump remains favored to win the Republican nomination, and had a decent night overall, but it was not as good as some had predicted he would have. (1) Lost states other than Texas: Cruz was always expected to win Texas, but Cruz also won Oklahoma (and as of this very moment, is leading in Alaska). Trump also not only lost Minnesota, he came in 3rd behind Rubio and Cruz (his first non-1st or 2nd finish). (2) Had some closer-than-expected finishes: Trump beat Rubio in Virginia by ~3%, and Kasich in Vermont by ~2%. However, as mentioned, Trump is still very much on path to win the nomination. He did 7 contests (and is still in the running for Alaska, which would make 8) out of 11. Importantly, Rubio appears to have missed delegate thresholds in Alabama, Texas, and Vermont (needed 20% in each, got 19, 18, and 19, respectively). This makes the preferred "establishment" candidate's path harder - particularly since Cruz did well (winning one or two more states than expected, depending on how Alaska goes) and will therefore not have impetus to exit the race. This is borne out in the betting markets, where people put actual money on the line: Trump is the safe bet by a large margin for the GOP nomination: Paddy Power Republican Presidential Nomination (bet 7, get 8 if he wins the nomination)Though, looking forward, we see that Clinton is favored to win the eventual general election (though as less of a favorite than Trump is to get the GOP nomination): Paddy Power US Presidential Election 2016 (bet 15, get 23 if she wins the presidency)

Yes, the fact that there was shared responsibility by Clinton, a Republican congress, and general macroeconomic trends is why I called it "the surplus under Clinton" not "the surplus because of Clinton." Okay - so defense spending is a federal responsibility - no argument there. But, does that mean we should spend eleventy-zillion dollars on it? No - because that number (if it were real) would bankrupt the country. So, I will ask once again - are you serious about addressing the federal debt or not? And if it were determined that raising taxes to do so was needed, would you advocate for such? (Or do you not actually care about the debt, and just say you do, while insisting that we need more spending on aircraft carriers, etc.? Fun fact: government spending on armaments is like any government spending - it adds to the debt you sometimes rail against.)

Further, the conditions where there was a surplus under Clinton were three-fold: (1) Decreased government spending, due to welfare reform and lower defense budgets following the end of the cold war. (2) An increase in taxes (top tax bracket rose from 28% under Reagan to 32% on GHWB to 39% under Clinton). (3) Economic boom due to computer and internet based productivity gains. Given that the surplus was small and short-lived (it didn't survive an economic downturn or return with a good economy, but lowered taxes under GWB), it would likely not have occurred without all three components. Now, Lysistrata, if your main concern is the federal debt, how serious are you on actually addressing it? Part 1: You really like decreased government spending, except when you don't. You want more military spending, more spending on veterans, construction of a wall. We'll put you down as not serious about actually decreasing government spending considering you don't want actual across-the-board cuts and favor greater benefits for at least one group of citizens (not that there is anything wrong with caring about veterans). Part 2: You really want decreased taxation. We'll come back to that. Part 3: Well, you don't get control over the boom and bust cycle, so it may be that even with whatever optimal arrangement of tax & spending policy you choose still might not result in surpluses. Lets return to point 2: the level of taxation. I assume you are someone who believes in the Laffer Curve analysis: 1. If the government taxes at 0%, the government collects no money. 2. If the government taxes at 100%, there is no (reported) economic activity, and the government collects no money. 3. Therefore, there is some tax rate that generates the most government revenue, which then can be used to diminish the debt. Your questions then are: What is that optimal tax rate? (Remember, you have to collect money to pay down the debt, you said it was important) How confident are you in this number? If you knew the number accurately, and it was higher than current effective tax rates, would you support raising taxes to that value? We'll then know if you are serious on part (2) of diminishing the federal debt, because you better be, given that you are not actually serious about part (1) with that excess defense and related spending you've advocated for.

I know you were being sarcastic . I just responded by pointing out that you don't need to wait for future mass unemployment you fear to manifest itself - you can go see it right now, and very close by!

I think you're just experiencing regular Nevada, which has managed to maintain a higher unemployment rate than the nation since 3Q2007.

Actually, at 9% Catholic, South Carolina has 1.5x the proportion of Catholics as the least-Catholic state: Alabama (6%). Full list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_the_United_States#Catholicism_by_state Maybe "we Americans" don't like world leaders giving opinions on our domestic stuff, but the Pope is really popular (and Donald Trump is not).

Yeah, this is good. Do you think if I can fit it on a bumper sticker, the Democrats will finally understand that the Federal Government is not responsible for solving every complex problem? I think it's a brilliant idea. Considering your list of Trump Administration goals require that the federal government take action to address supposed problems, I'm not sure what your point is. Going down you list: Under Trump you'll supposedly get: [The Federal Government] will build the wall. [Agents of the Federal Government] will kick out the illegals. [Federal legislative actions (?)] will fix the trade deficit.* [Federal legislative actions (?)] will take back the jobs lost to China and Mexico.* [The Federal Government] will rebuild the military. [The Federal Government] will take care of our veterans. (n.b.: regardless of whether this is direct, via the VA, or indirect, via federal spending to private medical establishments, it is the Federal Government doing something) [The Federal Government] will destroy ISIS. (Unless you know of a competing non-Federal Government Air Force that we can use) [The Federal Government] will balance the budget / bring down the debt. (Again, it has to be some kind of Federal Government action in the form of spending cuts and/or tax increases, though it is hard to imagine how this can be done with the extra military and veterans spending in the previous 3 points) [The Federal Government] will renegotiate all the deals with other countries. (What other party could do it?) Maybe you view the starred legislative actions as "government getting out of the way" and thus not having them solve a complex problem (offshoring of American manufacturing, which has been going on since the 1970s). Other goals (wall construction, military expansion) do however require direct government action: private enterprises don't spontaneously generate walls along national borders or aircraft carriers without prompting in the form of government spending. If Trump was a libertarian, then sure, that might be a good line making use of Mencken's quote, but Trump is no libertarian.

. Easy ways are always the best ways right? . "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." - H. L. Mencken

Certainly possible, but it would be highly unusual for them to "wait it out" for 11 months. Someone on Reddit compiled approximate lengths between presidential justice nominations and completion of the confirmation process: Given that over the past 30 years, the time has been nearly universally 2-3 months, and rejections have been rare (once, Bork, 1987), I'll reiterate that it would be highly unusual for the Republican-led congress to stall for nearly a year (it would also do a disservice to the judiciary since the Supreme Court would likely issue a lot of 4-4 ties, which confirm the lower court's rulings, but don't formally address the constitutional questions). Certainly Obama would need to be sensitive to concerns about balance on the court, and would have to nominate someone with a moderate or moderate-conservative portfolio of judgments. However, assuming he does so, it seems that the nominee should be confirmed. One possibility is that an older moderate-conservative nominee could be made, with the expectation that they would step down in the next 4-8 years. This would preserve the court's functionality but still allow the future president to make a more-permanent replacement. Someone in that vein might be Judge Richard Posner, age 77, appointed to the US Court of Appeals (7th circuit) by Reagan in 1981. His legal opinions have been mostly conservative, but he also has given some more liberal ones in the areas such as abortion and same-sex marriage.

The NBC news story on this had an interesting line: Seems dying while still a justice is unusual. Now, Scalia was 79, which is not terribly old, but he was likely to retire sometime in the next 4-8 years, and would probably have preferred to leave the court with a Republican president. Obama will likely nominate someone to take his place, but I don't know that Congress will confirm anyone this year. Likely there will be a holdout until after the election, which will help to galvanize people on both sides (really, it shouldn't: we all knew ahead of time that there were some older justices like Scalia and Ginsburg that would probably be replaced by the winner of the 2016 election, but people probably will respond more to an actual, rather than theoretical, case of voting on who will choose Supreme Court replacements).

I would suggest LBJ as a more recent example of a social democratic president. For a primer on what his initiatives were, here's the link to the Great Society page on Wikipedia. As mentioned there, parts of the portfolio of programs LBJ initiated have been repealed, whereas others (e.g., Medicare) have become untouchable parts of the American welfare system. These sorts of attempts are reforming the current economic system in a way that is more humane for society as a whole come up from time to time in US history: Theodore Roosevelt's "Square Deal", FDR's "New Deal", Truman's "Fair Deal", and the aforementioned Great Society. --- As for momentum for Bernie Sanders nationally after this win in NH - maybe, but the next several states are not demographically favorable to Sanders based on the groups currently most likely to support him. See this FiveThirtyEight piece for more on that.

Behind the Trump phenomenon, the usual NH trend of voting for the experienced moderate-conservative tried to get through. Hence why Kasich ended up in 2nd place, though with an unimpressive ~16% of the vote.

If you want to give the folks of Dixville Notch any credence as being representative of the NH electorate as a whole (and you shouldn't - there are only 9 of them, but they famously vote at midnight), then we are looking at: GOP: Kasich: 60% (3 votes) Trump: 40% (2 votes) DEM: Sanders: 100% (4 votes) More details: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/campaign-2016-voting-begins-in-new-hampshire-primary/

Could you two elaborate on why you think Cruz will win in New Hampshire? He doesn't appear to hold a lead in any poll, and while yes, Trump's numbers may be difficult to convert into votes (as shown in Iowa), it is still a big lift for Cruz to go from 4th place (RCP poll average) or 5th place (538 forecast) to 1st. Also, NH is a primary, not caucus, state. (Referring to the title of this thread)

So would you agree that the most consequential outcome of the game is that a bunch a nice folks in 3rd world countries will become Panthers "fans" over the next few weeks? (Didn't watch the game, didn't even know who was in it until reading the outcome.)

There is a legitimate beef about this. Ted Cruz took a tweet from Ben Carson about him going home to get a change of clothes and turned it into a big hoax that he was pulling out of the race. This was a lie. This was not the only dirty politics from the Cruz camp... they also sent out "Election Violation" notices out to Iowa Republicans showing all their neighbors their attendance record for caucus, and making them think they were in some kind of trouble. This is dirty politics and I hate it. It's done on purpose, and then after the damage is done they just claim ignorance and apologize. Sorry... that doesn't fly with me, and I expect this crap from Democrats, but not from the Cruz campaign. You may "expect this crap" from Democrats, but you actually got it from a Republican. Apparently, it was not just limited to a tweet, but there was also a series of voicemails sent to potential voters. The governor of Iowa is now saying that there "will be repercussions" for what the Cruz campaign did. I don't know if he is speaking legally, or just in the realm of public opinion.