Meshugger

Ah, purchasing power being the sole purpose and meaning compared to having and living with a family, what a foundation of a thriving culture i would say. No, what i am pontificating is in welcoming the family unit once more to be that which is essential, the cornerstone of society. A radical idea i know, but i am dreamer. After all, house wives doing nothing is very rare and only reserved for the very wealthy historically. When you lived out on the farm or had a small business in town, it was simply a family venture and everyone participated. But again, that's probably something vulgar nowadays compared to getting a six figures student loan in the humanities. Gender roles have little to do with the proletariat, but much to do with equality (or rather tre lack thereof). Why do you account your own position that is based on nothing but tradition and conservatism to be right? It is laughable. You failed to respond as to why your proposal helps the children. I do not consider forced gender roles to be particularly healthy for them. Pure equality is an ideal, hierarchy is a fact. You version of marxism is a thought experiment conjured for chits & giggles when you live in affluence while the nuclear family has been proven to work since civilizations started to occur, it's simply reality. It has happened in cultures who has had no communication with each other and will continue to happen in the future, just as your ideas of breaking them up are (just look at Sparta or Plato's republic). It is rather you who should bring a strong case on why break something that already works and replace it with something else. Point being, the stronger the nuclear family, the better society and by extension the school system will be.

Ah, the usual stuff. Traditional family roles are oppressive systems manifested out of vacuum onto the poor prolitariat and not something that has emerged organically when people have freedom to choose themselves. Carry on, let's all be unique individuals fueled by narcissism and outsource any responsibility or accountabilty to the state or private enterprise where these values are throughly analyzed, automized and optimized to solutions benefitted to someone called "person". Now that's how you build character.

Ben needs to read more Orwell, Vonnegut and Huxley and less of Adorno and Marx. Talk about living in the clouds of abstraction, yikes! As for schools, it is just the sign of the times. Both parents are working, often overtime and has left the education, both didactically and morally, to the schools. When the kids are at home, it is the internet and TV who teaches them what is right of wrong, which nurtures anti-social behaviour. All while the irony is that the parents cannot even trust the teachers or schools to do the parenting job outsourced to them, so it becomes a negative feedback loop of distrust. Since no one trusts each other to know anything, knowledge and the curriculum suffers, quality is diminished, standards are lowered and in order to get a grip of it all, more money is poured in to build teaching centres instead of schools and the curriculum is centralized to people outside the local community, furthering the cycle of individuals who have no real connection to their fellow peers, parents or society. So it is time we admit that we made a mistake and acknowledge that the smallest microcosmos of civilization is the family, not the individual, and welcome women back into the kitchen and as loving mothers of their family instead of having them running a fool's errand of them being necessary in the work force. Children will have a normal loving upbringing which instills basic trust for each other and the school no longer need to act as a surrogate parent. This trust will make sure that the school's administration have to take into account the wishes of families instead of individual whims. This in turn will be reflected on the political process, not only on education, as you now have to take account to the wishes of households and families and no one else. Within 2-3 generations, you will have grownups and children caring about themselves, their families, their extended families and their societies. And that's how you save western civilization.

Alright, i get that but doesn't this all mean that the US was racist and based on fear until recent history? What i am getting at is that will racism dissappear once the identity of a people is no longer tied to a nation/ethnic group but rather to their individual hobbies or self-actuation? gonna disagree. people in the US is as nationalistic today as they were before ww1, but racism and general bigotry towards foreigners is much different today. our grandparents woulda' been mighty perplexed by micro-aggression and triggers. we still got a long way to go before we can say racial bigotry is a thing o' the past, and cultural bigotry will, we suspect, last much longer. ain't gonna get rid o' various kinds o' bigotry by diminishing the identity o' self people already gots. best way to overcome bigotry is simply to foster greater peaceful interactions. is one reason Gromnir is kinda saddened by the trend towards on-line universities. go to a major university and chances are you is gonna have considerable interaction with people who got diverse backgrounds. even if you is from the most homogenous town in rural _______, go to university and have classes and study groups and labs with folks different from self goes a long way towards dispelling basic misunderstandings and fears. is our pov that we need not try and diminish nationalism. get rid o' national identity is gonna be a Long time remote from us, much more remote than the +50 years since we passed the civil rights. have made much progress already w/o diminished nationalism, so... HA! Good Fun! ^This is why i find United States so interesting. It's one big experiment of which no one is really sure on where it goes.

We were just incredibly racist back then. It got a bit better in 1965. the civil rights act of 1964 were kinda the sea change moment, but change didn't happen instantaneous. has been a slow and painful process and more than a few patriotic and earnest americans wish we could turn back the clock to 1964, or 1954, or even 1861. HA! Good Fun! I wasn't talking about civil rights as that was about the people already living there, i was talking about immigration policy. Which according to the arguments at hand, was based around fear until 1965. P.S. I see what you mean about the other years, care to clairfy about what was significant about 1954? civil rights act represented a sea change in the way the country, through their democratic elected representatives, made a choice 'bout how we were no longer gonna tolerate discrimination based 'pon race, creed, or national origin. 1954 one reason we is one o' the few folks willing to call brown v. board of education a failure o' law and policy is 'cause it actual resulted in increased racial tensions, particular in the south. Court did the moral right thing, but they did the wrong way, and they compounded by using fuzzy kinda legal reasoning. states such as mississippi and tennessee actual saw dramatic increases in the number o' segregated schools after brown. keep in mind that, even today, many southerners see the civil war as having mostly been 'bout the north trying to impose its will 'pon the south. when the Court dictated desegregation w/o any kinda democratic process, there were reflexive resistance. is hard to believe, but even in the south, previous to brown, most folks in the US were actual in favor o' desegregation. representatives were a bit slow in changing the culture o' each state, but the change were taking place and the rate o' change were ever increasing. perhaps irrationally, brown actual gave the south an excuse to increase racial animosity and resurrect old hatreds. anyways, 1954 were significant. HA! Good Fun! Alright, i get that but doesn't this all mean that the US was racist and based on fear until recent history? What i am getting at is that will racism dissappear once the identity of a people is no longer tied to a nation/ethnic group but rather to their individual hobbies or self-actuation?

You haven't explained how your "higher principles" aren't just another ideological framework. When i speak of pure ideology, i speak of ideology based on pure intellect instead virtues to transcend to. Hence it harking back to different philosophies already mentioned. If you cannot see the difference then there's little i can help with. Of course with nominalist thinking, virtues are just another imaginary construct, trolol000l.

We were just incredibly racist back then. It got a bit better in 1965. the civil rights act of 1964 were kinda the sea change moment, but change didn't happen instantaneous. has been a slow and painful process and more than a few patriotic and earnest americans wish we could turn back the clock to 1964, or 1954, or even 1861. HA! Good Fun! I wasn't talking about civil rights as that was about the people already living there, i was talking about immigration policy. Which according to the arguments at hand, was based around fear until 1965. P.S. I see what you mean about the other years, care to clairfy about what was significant about 1954?

Was the United States a nation based on fear until 1965? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1965

....and Trump just signed an executive order for a Wall to be built, sanctuary cities being defunded and hiring 5000 more ICE agents.

Of course the communist party supported racial equality. As a death cult, it makes sure that everyone is welcomed and where we will all be truly equal in the end.

Step 1: Make a provocative statement Step 2: Cause a media uproar: "What can change the nature of a fact?" Step 3: Accuse media of being unreasonable about the nature of facts, escalating the issue to an outrage Step 4: Work on stuff that matters like TPP, Keystone, EPA and NAFTA in peace while enjoying the lime light on facts that don't matter Step 5: The few reporters who report on facts that matter are drowned in the sea of those that don't Step 6: Smile

Why are you guys mad at the press and the political power hating each other? It's as it should be.

Also, we should all be happy that, once again, the media and the political power are being at odds with each other, as it should be.

Interesting how stuff that have a much greater impact is brushed to the side (ACA and TPP).

Oh my, that inaguration-speech. He completely shat all over Washington. What a time to be alive.

He was commuted, which is a lowering of the penalty. Pardon means forgiveness. Fair enough. No, but maybe saying he would Assange give himself up had something to do with it. Granted he won't do that because clemency =/= sentence commuted. That's what i am more interested in. Some dealings have to be going on in the background.

Is there any official motivation on why he was pardoned?

His restraint from putting boots on the ground in Libya and Syria. That alone made sure that a bad situation didn't escalate into a catastrophe.

I think that he attempted to do suicide a few times.

From the looks of it, it seems like there's some dealings going on in the background about Snowden and Assange.

Perhaps this is the real reason on why there's always protests against Trump. Those organizing these very protests have suddenly realized all that benevolent power granted to the executive branch for their greater good is now in the hands of someon else.

Oh, i forgot: Malta, unique in every way, but the sun will murder you.

Lake Balaton for party, Budapest for the architecture, rivaling Prague and Vienna. The most beautiful women are found there as well.

Avoid Scandoland between october-april as it is different shades of bleak, snow and grey...unless you want to feel trve, kvlt and frostbitten. I would suggest Hungary, Czech republic and Austria in general. The english is so-so, but if you speak german you will go far there, the food is great and everything is cheap. - Avoid London but see the rest of Britain, especially the midlands and the scottish highlands. - Germany is wonderful in the Bavarian area. Think Neuschwanstein castle. - The Dutch understand english the best, but their food is horrible. - The Italians don't understand english that well, but the food is cheap and wonderful. Rent a car and drive. Fast. - For sun, don't expect anything warm until march. Most europeans flee to the Canary islands during November-February. It's a tourist trap for a reason. - Switzerland is ridiculously clean, everything works and on time, but expensive like hell. - Avoid Brussels, it's the Detroit of Europe. Bruges is nice and the countryside likewise. - Croatia can be recommended after march. - Slovenia is a jem stuck in the mountains, think of lake Bled. - Small countries like Luxembourg, San Marino and Lichenstein have that fairy tale-atmosphere around them, but they are expensive tourist traps. - The baltic states like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are cheap and have nice old buildings from the Hansa time peroid. The younger people speak english, the older.....well not at all. That's all that i can think of for the moment.

I do not think that the author has actually read the books by Dostoyevsky, as the themes contain a critique of rationality and socialism in themselves, not against western europe. I almost get the impression that the author of the article wants Russia to hate the west.