The Political Thread - Browncoat edition... down with the Alliance!

[injurai]

 

He may actually get MAGA super-powers now that he's a victim and survivor of an onslaught of LEFTIST MEDIA™. Maybe we'll see him campaigning opposite of David Hogg one day.

 

Most misreporting here seemed a result of partial information, not necessarily intentional misreporting as Tim suggests. Not that 24/7 news reporting is good, it's usually a travesty of information dissemination. I usually think Tim has pretty good character but he does have a bone to pick with the "culture wars" as he calls it.

 

Anyways, the Black Hebrew Israelites are lunatics, and Trump supporters are idiots. At the end of the day you have a school sending it's students to partake in a political rally against woman's choice to abort.

 

As I said on another forum, it's like the media was tripping all over themselves and each other trying to get the stoiry out before getting the full facts for sure.

 

@sonicmage: You don't even see the flags with a cross on it that they're talking about, and funny linking to RT, a known Communist site, heh.

 

 

That's part of it, the other part is that the full story often never gets told. Either because they've expended people's interests, or people already made up their minds and to present contrary evidence would malign themselves to too many, and we all know they rely on selling advertisements. Follow up are only done if it still fits the narrative of the outlets bias, otherwise errata if published at all is discreetly stashed on some corner of their website. As opposed to being boldly published as a story of its own.

[Guard Dog]

The more I read about that ugly little fracas in DC this weekend the more I think none of the three groups did themselves any credit. Once again we demonstrate an instability to just leave each other alone and just do your own thing. 

[HoonDing]

MAGA kid has earned a pity **** by Laura Ingraham.

[injurai]

MAGA kid has earned a pity **** by Laura Ingraham.

 

Not Tomi Lahren?

[Keyrock]

As all of this identity politics hysteria pushes us further and further into tribalism it becomes more and more unavoidable that this is going to end very badly. Badly for all of us (because there is always collateral damage), but super badly for the extreme far left.

 

The thing is that the extreme far left is not a cohesive unit. It is an uneasy coalition of various idealogue groups, none of which is large or powerful enough to seize power by themselves, but capable of doing so as a collective. I'm speaking of radical 3rd wave feminists, radicalized members of various minority groups, radical gender fluidity proponents, postmodernists, neo-marxists, etc. They have done a terrifyingly good job of infiltrating and taking over college campuses, starting in the 60s, and indoctrinating young malleable minds then sending them out into the real world to spread their ideologies. The issue for them is that this coalition is destined to fall apart as they inevitably canibalize themselves and vie for ultimate power. We've already seen some of this, but it will accelerate as they gain more power.

 

There is a growing response (there always is, this cycle has been repeated ad nauseam throughout human history with various ideologies and political powers) from the extreme far right. Unlike the extreme far left, the extreme far right is a cohesive unit that will not splinter, or at least not nearly as much, once they gain power. Once the extreme far left splinters, and they will, no single one of those groups will have the power to oppose the extreme far right. To make matters worse, guess who owns the majority of the guns (at least in the US)?

[Gfted1]

I was about to debate you but then I looked it up and 69.7% of US kids who graduated high school were enrolled to college. I thought it was a much lower percentage for some reason.

[Keyrock]

I was about to debate you but then I looked it up and 69.7% of US kids who graduated high school were enrolled to college. I thought it was a much lower percentage for some reason.

That's a product of the "College is your only path to success, if you don't go to college you are a failure" fallacy.

[Malcador]

Plenty of ways to carry out terrorism without guns, mind you. 

[Keyrock]

Plenty of ways to carry out terrorism without guns, mind you.

Fair point.

[Gfted1]

That's a product of the "College is your only path to success, if you don't go to college you are a failure" fallacy.

Heh, I was too poor to pay my own way and too stupid to earn a free ride. As a matter of fact, my kid will be the first of my surname to graduate college.

[Keyrock]

To be clear, I'm not arguing that no one should attend college. Higher learning can absolutely be very beneficial and is the right path for some people. My argument is that it is not the right path for all people and is neither a prerequisite for success nor a guarantee of it.

[Gromnir]

I was about to debate you but then I looked it up and 69.7% of US kids who graduated high school were enrolled to college. I thought it was a much lower percentage for some reason.

is disappointing to realize college graduates is significant lower.  only 40% o' usa adults has at least a 2-year degree and the percentage o' folks who do not finish their university/college journey is actual increasing. dropout rates were once the law school and med school boogeyman. look to your left, then look to your right. in 2019, more than 1/3 o' the typical student enrolled in college is gonna dropout permanent, and many others is gonna decrease their goals.  more and more kids is pushed into college in spite o' reality they ain't ready for such.  college ain't any kinda guarantee o' success and there is many jobs which pay well and do not require four or even two year degrees. unfortunate, schools and families is not communicating alternatives.

 

the real value o' the typical liberal arts degree is not 'bout knowledge or experience gleaned in classrooms or university libraries.  get a four-year degree announces to a your potential employer that you is able to achieve long term goals.  more than anything, a degree means an applicant gots either personal willpower or stability o' life to make four-year degree possible.  poli-sci or communications ba is largely useless insofar as skills is concerned, but is nevertheless making a huge difference when one looks at success predictions.  those success numbers is not faked. you will, on average, make far more money if you got a degree.  will be far more likely to own a house and send your own kids to university. in 2019 the degree is still useful, even more than in the past. 

 

the thing is, in the US we seem willing to ignore the increasing large % o' folks who fail to achieve at least the bs/ba threshold.  you don't need the degree, but w/o you are fighting stoopid preconceptions and there is far less folks trying to help you.  we break thousands o' kids each year.  for many kids who graduate high school but aren't prepared or suited for college, we increasing send 'em to college. you fail college? you are, by definition, a failure. what a waste o' human potential.

 

as a unicorn, we nevertheless got much sympathy for those folks who couldn't will themselves to success. yeah, there is loads o' opportunities for kids these days and if they just put forth a little effort...

 

is not so easy.  if we hadn't gotten scholarships, we nevertheless likely woulda' ended up going to college, but we probable go to a local and encheapened school and after graduation head back to the rez and work the family ranch or something similar.  one serious injury in high school woulda' nixed the athletic scholarships.  our mother had cancer when we were in high school and cancer meds back in the 80s were less nice than they are today.  woulda' been so easy for our grades to have slipped.  a couple complete reasonable bad grades while mom is sick?  academic scholarships is gone. a couple bad breaks, and Gromnir is back on the rez, and we were one o' the unicorns who had great test scores and free-ride athletic ability.  

 

in optimal world, opportunities should be enough.  is plenty of opportunities for folks with a little self-motivation to succeed with or without college.  real world is not optimal.  real world has kids believing they is failures, convinced they is failures before they hit age twenty. send off to colleges their high school didn't or couldn't prepare them for and then nod sadly when they fail.

 

am not certain o' solutions. encouraging more kids to start college ain't working particular well. 

 

HA! Good Fun! 

[Gfted1]

We already had a near miss. As a little background, my kid graduated hs 1 year early then immediately attended community college. But after the first semester decided to take the second semester "off". I nearly soiled myself but I kept it on the inside. I try not to apply too much pressure. After a semester off and working various jobs, unprompted, then decided to go back full time this semester. HUZZAH! So there's a few more years to see how it all pans out but Ive got my fingers crossed.

[ktchong]

Okay, this is what need to happen: the airport security and tower control workers - who have been ordered by Trump to continue working WITHOUT PAY - need to walk out of their jobs and go on strike.   Why are they still working when they have not been paid for a month??   They need to to refuse to work until they get paid.  That is when the entire country will be at a standstill, when all flights will be cancelled and grounded, and the economy will tank as a result.   Then we shall see if Trump will continue to go on TV to make unilateral, one-sided demands and calling it a "compromise".

Edited January 22, 2019 by ktchong

[Gorth]

And here I thought all Americans loved Trump and they (except the filthy commies democrats of course, it's a known fact they hate America, guns and freedom and democracy and whatever) would happily sacrifice everything to benefit from the protection of a medieval style wall!

 

Now, if it started to affect his own businesses, then who knows, compromise (actual compromise) might be a possibility?

[injurai]

People are afraid if they strike they will struggle to find work again, especially when it's on record with a federal work record. It's easier when it's a private/public company that you say **** off to. The feds employ a **** load of people and it's often people struggling to find compensation from a profit-minded business owner. I can understand people wanting to wait things out, in theory the shutdown could end any day now... right? Probably not but they don't want to get stuck in a worse situation is my guess.

[Guard Dog]

 

 

in optimal world, opportunities should be enough.  is plenty of opportunities for folks with a little self-motivation to succeed with or without college.  real world is not optimal.  real world has kids believing they is failures, convinced they is failures before they hit age twenty. send off to colleges their high school didn't or couldn't prepare them for and then nod sadly when they fail.

 

am not certain o' solutions. encouraging more kids to start college ain't working particular well. 

 

HA! Good Fun! 

 

This. If a high school kid of average intelligence and academic inclination asked me for career advice I'd tell them to think long and hard before going into serious debt to pay for college. If you have a burning passion for a particular field that is one thing. But if you don't know what you want to do with your life do NOT go to college to try and figure that out. That is not what they do there. Don't put the cart before the horse. 

 

Besides like Grom said a degree itself might be overvalued in terms of the qualifications you get while earning it. Back in the 90's I threw some $60k at FAU for a degree completely irrelevant to my current profession. Granted it wasn't my money mostly... my rich Uncle Sam took care of most of it. But still...

 

You know what is seriously undervalued? Trade schools. HVAC Mechanics will never want for work. I read somewhere once there was over 100 billion square ft of commercial building space in the US. You have to figure times two for homes and other spaces. Almost all of it cooled by HVAC. I had to get mine fixed last spring and the wait was three days. They are that busy even here in the back end of nowhere TN. 

Edited January 22, 2019 by Guard Dog

[Hurlshort]

I tell kids all the time about the importance and financial viability of trade schools. Also I talk up agriculture and the transportation industry. But nobody listens to the Social Science teacher.    

[Amentep]

There's also a deficit of skills trade workers across the nation at the moment.

 

Unfortunately I think schools and colleges are doing a poor job of actually advising students before they ever enroll in a college about their options to meet their goals.  Unfortunately, the general incentives from state funding to college and universities is still enrollment. 

 

One thing that frustrated me when I worked in advising was seeing students on their way out of college, having struggled for some reason or another, and in talking with them finding out their goal was to get two years of classes and a degree and get a job.  The school was 90% two year transfer programs to complete a bs/ba, not 2 year terminal degree programs leading to a job.  The vast majority of students in this situation should have been in a trade school, got the trade degree, got a job and then once their financial situation was stable, decide whether pursuing a further degree was worth it.

 

But instead they're looking at no longer being eligible for financial aid to go to the trade school and some are looking at paying back pricey loans with no way to do it (and often times, it'll take whatever housing they're at with them).

[Guard Dog]

A college or university is a business. An indecisive student that takes a lot of unrelated classes and muddles around for a while is good for business. Why do you think Wal-Mart & Target arranges their stores they way they do? The WANT you walking around and seeing stuff. I was an engineering student. Did I need to take Psycology, American Lit. Creative Writing, etc? No I did not. But I HAD to take, and PAY, for all of them and others. Would you advise someone with no income who didn't know what they wanted or needed to go Target and buy a bunch of things on a credit card?

 

Of course they recoil like Dracula from a cross when you point this out.  I really upset one of my instructors one time. He made a rather glib comment about his role as our professor. I told him he had a fundamental misconception about our relationship. Miami Dade CC offers to teach people things for a price. I paid the price and "hired" them to teach me Calculus. As their employee they assigned him to fulfill their part of the contract. I was not his student, I was his customer. My contract with MDCC is if I pay and show up for class I'll be taught Calculus. That's our "relationship".  He was NOT pleased. But I was right, he was wrong. 

[SonicMage117]

Agreed.

[Malcador]

A college or university is a business. An indecisive student that takes a lot of unrelated classes and muddles around for a while is good for business. Why do you think Wal-Mart & Target arranges their stores they way they do? The WANT you walking around and seeing stuff. I was an engineering student. Did I need to take Psycology, American Lit. Creative Writing, etc? No I did not. But I HAD to take, and PAY, for all of them and others. Would you advise someone with no income who didn't know what they wanted or needed to go Target and buy a bunch of things on a credit card?

 

Sounds like they made you take an elective humanities course to check off "we tried to make engineers well rounded", like they did with us.  Was a nice break from the endless math and abuse to get a relaxed course

[injurai]

As someone who did a computer science degree, it's honestly depressing to see how many low quality "tech schools" and "bootcamps" there are that chew through peoples wallets then hand them the most wage-slavey jobs that the tech industry has to offer. I really have a sense of just how bad the scam is now. Never mind the horrific blobs of technical debt these coders end up creating because they are all too gungho on being a "hyper-productive silicon valley geniuses." In reality they work out of some remote office in the midwest for $36000 of which 20% of that is actually going to the recruiters that got them the **** job in the first place, and often times are more in debt than if they went to a decent community college.

 

As someone that just got through the ringer of the modern state university system, I feel like I ran across an open field in ww1 and managed to get to the tree line with only some flesh wounds. Which is to say I barely navigated that battlefield. It wasn't the difficulty of the courses, it was the whole financial affair just to carve out the opportunity to attend. The amount of people I see permanently ruined for not being on the right professional track is absolutely depressing. These people will not be able to afford anything in life without taking on more debt, and could have been very well off if they worked their current jobs since straight out of high school. What's worst is many of them, have had their bitterness ideological co-opted by their program of studies while in school, and it's apparently not the schools fault in their eyes for getting them into these deep waters. I still think Universities are the best place to learn if you take the programs seriously and stick to the classical subjects and hard skills / sciences, but man are they also used to create a dis-empowered skilled working class.

[Malcador]

When did this 'technical debt' buzzphrase come about ?  My first suspicion that it has come from Agile cultists.

[Gfted1]

Imo, the community college course and book prices are very fair. The five books I just paid for (used mind you) came to ~160.00 and the courses themselves ~1100.00.