The All Things Political Topic - As a Bright Lord bears Beacons of flame.

[BruceVC]

18 minutes ago, Amentep said:

Was there any context provided for this?  I seem to recall this sentiment was strong around, IIRC, the similar conditions at Elmira Prison (24.5% mortality) and Andersonville (28.7% mortality) where only the commandant of Andersonville was tried but that's the only case I recall (unless someone's still hot over Sherman's march to the sea or something).

Wut?

"I woke upon a cold winters day; the whiteness o'er the ground insulating the world in a blanket of snow..."

Yup, totally legit that 'woke' and 'whiteness' aren't "real English words". Also "white fragility" isn't a word, and frankly in the land of free speech, I'm not sure any words should be 'banned'.

These words should be banned in the usage of legislation, not in common use, because you cant create laws or make any serious argument based on a biased, inaccurate " fake " work. Imagine passing  a bill based on " whiteness" ?

Have you ever researched how the study of "whiteness " was created and what its  suppose to mean. Racism is a real word and form of bigotry and anyone can understand hate speech but this deluge of new words we see is not honest or helpful to meaningful debate 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

4 minutes ago, Amentep said:

I remember one of the history books trying to make it about states rights and economics, and everyone in class was like "but...states rights to keep slaves and the fact that the rich people wouldn't make money without free forced labor that slavery gave them!"

That's the same responses it got as well. "State's rights to what?"

5 minutes ago, Amentep said:

Like a lot of insults, its overused to the point of meaninglessness.  And mostly seems to exist to shut down conversation.

That's true, but I'd prefer not to get spammed by a lot of guys telling on themselves so to speak.

[BruceVC]

15 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

With regard to war crimes and war criminals in the US Civil War, there was absolutely no shortage of both on either side. there’s no such thing as a clean war but that one was particularly brutal and nasty by Western standards. That was more so true at the end than it was in the beginning. For a couple of reasons. In the first two years of the war both armies were very well led and disciplined by professional and experienced officers. By the third and fourth year of the war a great many of the professional officers and real leaders in both armies had been killed off or otherwise removed from the battlefield. In the last two years it was clear the south had lost and the desperation of fighting on home soil cranked up the bad acts to an all-time high.  Neither army thought twice about flying the black flag. And yes US army “atrocities “ against southern civilians were both common, documented, and rarely punished. 

Absolutely, especially with Sheridans blitzkrieg  of the Southern states and scorched earth policy. War should never be about targeting civilians 

https://militaryhistorynow.com/2015/02/02/sheridans-scorched-earth-campaign-the-union-armys-forgotten-war-crime/#:~:text=Sheridan’s Scorched Earth Campaign — The Union Army’s,of the Shenandoah Valley. (Sketch by Alfred Waud)

 

[Guard Dog]

I have given a lot of thought so why the “lost cause“ narrative of the confederacy and the Civil War has taken such deep root. Most of the people who believe it are not bad people. They are not racist nor are they discriminatory. Whatever you might think of their voting habits and the political “team“ that they cheer for they are just regular folks. Because of that it’s uncomfortable to reckon with the fact that their ancestors we’re not good people by our standards. 99% of people are not comfortable with the fact that slavery was a thing. And because of that it’s hard to imagine that your ancestors actually took up arms to keep it being a thing. So they look for reasons and explanations that just sugarcoat the actual history. That makes the actions and the heritage of the time easier to bear or even something to be proud of. And that’s actually what makes it so pernicious.

you guys of heard me say this 100 times. Well here’s 101. History should never be buried nor should it be softened. It shouldn’t be explained. It should be presented as a fact. The stories and the narratives that grow up around it to make it more entertaining or easier to deal with should be dismissed. There is a great Internet meme that is misquoting Carl Sagan. But the quote is good so I’m using it here. If something can be destroyed by the truth then it should be.

Edited October 25, 2021 by Guard Dog

[Raithe]

OK Woman Convicted Of Manslaughter After Suffering Miscarriage - Comic Sands

[Gfted1]

You must have "accidentally" missed this part in the second sentence:

...had a miscarriage while using methamphetamine.

[Raithe]

3 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

You must have "accidentally" missed this part in the second sentence:

 

 

I wasn't taking sides on it, merely putting it up for the resulting discussion.

I thought you'd have realised that's my general MO in the politics thread...

[Gfted1]

14 minutes ago, Raithe said:

I thought you'd have realised that's my general MO in the politics thread...

Yes, of course it is. :winkypoo:

[Hurlshort]

1 hour ago, Gfted1 said:

You must have "accidentally" missed this part in the second sentence:

So...is this justice?

It's a tragic story. You have a young woman struggling with drug addiction. She suffers a miscarriage. So an unborn child is not given a chance at life. The mother is then thrown in prison for 4 years. Does that solve the problem? Who does that serve?

Is the idea that she will be an example for other pregnant drug addicts? Or is it that the unborn child deserves justice against their mother? That seems like a slippery slope, given how common miscarriage's are. 

I don't get it. It sounds like taking a terrible tragic situation and making it worse.  

[Gfted1]

I dunno. I guess they should just let her, and any drunks that kill people in automobile accidents, off the hook. Prolly only needs 6-8 weeks in rehab to right the ship.

[Gromnir]

by the same token, if a young and pregnant woman gets in a car accident 'cause she were speeding, how often does the da seek to prosecute her for manslaughter if she miscarries due to the resulting accident? take medication but not according to prescription is illegal. so a woman takes two vicodin post root canal instead o' one as directed.  do you expect manslaughter prosecution if the expectant mother miscarries?

is not a hard and obvious line, and if is being applied selective, then one needs question why some illegal behaviors resulting in loss o' pregnancy is prosecuted and others is not. 

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Darkpriest]

@Hurlshot

I wonder what are your observations on topics such as this

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/how-can-84-chicago-public-schools-students-graduate-when-only-26-11th-graders-are

It really is interesting for someone outside of the system of us education to look at the actions influencing potential of the given area in lets say 10 years of time. 

[Hurlshort]

I am not even going to get into my thoughts as an educator. As a parent of a child with dyslexia, I am very aware of how limited those proficiency tests are at determining intelligence and ability. My daughter works her butt off and will probably never test at grade level proficient.

Ok, as an educator, I will just say that the whole model of trying to sum up the progress a student has made based on a multiple choice test is flawed. Graduating High School should be based on much more than that. But the whole High School model is flawed as well, since we are trying to push everyone towards academics instead of a more trade centric education.

[Amentep]

As a testing professional, I'll add that while proper and timely testing can be very helpful when given with specific goals, a lot of exams aren't given with a targeted purpose and using test scores to the exclusion of other metrics cuts out the fuller picture of the student academically.

As a former Learning Support/Developmental Studies/Remedial Learning professional, I should also point out that according to what I've seen the vast majority of college freshman  (at some points up to 50% of the incoming class) don't test at the college level in writing, math and reading. In most cases, they're still going to be picked up by the generic freshman courses and do okay.

[majestic]

Not entirely on topic, but I feel like stating that I had exactly one multiple choice test in my entire life, and that was the entry exam for my high shool of choice. I can kind of see what the point is, especially for the ease of mass testing. There was no other way they could efficiently sieve through a couple of thousand of applications for the ~200 free spots (ended up being ~220, in the end) in the time they had for the examinations.

They did take grades and averages into account as bonus points though, so if you did well enough at school before - and we never have multiple choice test there, a least, you had a pretty big starting bonus. Although that required you to have teachers that cared. Luckily mine did, at the time. Something that went a good deal worse later on though, but that's neither here nor there. I mean, I was assigned to a remedial course once after getting 100% on three consecutive tests because the teacher hated me thought I needed, ah, help with learning, so... let's better not talk about my experience with teachers, lest it depresses Hurlshot or something.

[Gorth]

8 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

I have given a lot of thought so why the “lost cause“ narrative of the confederacy and the Civil War has taken such deep root. Most of the people who believe it are not bad people. They are not racist nor are they discriminatory. Whatever you might think of their voting habits and the political “team“ that they cheer for they are just regular folks. Because of that it’s uncomfortable to reckon with the fact that their ancestors we’re not good people by our standards. 99% of people are not comfortable with the fact that slavery was a thing. And because of that it’s hard to imagine that your ancestors actually took up arms to keep it being a thing. So they look for reasons and explanations that just sugarcoat the actual history. That makes the actions and the heritage of the time easier to bear or even something to be proud of. And that’s actually what makes it so pernicious.

you guys of heard me say this 100 times. Well here’s 101. History should never be buried nor should it be softened. It shouldn’t be explained. It should be presented as a fact. The stories and the narratives that grow up around it to make it more entertaining or easier to deal with should be dismissed. There is a great Internet meme that is misquoting Carl Sagan. But the quote is good so I’m using it here. If something can be destroyed by the truth then it should be.

I guess that makes the Nordic people part of the 1%... our bronze age ancestors were cannibals and practiced ritual human sacrifice, our iron age ancestors (vikings) were raiders, pillagers and rapists. Our medieval ancestors were feudal lords, effectively slave holders and greedy as ****.  Having turned to Christianity added an extra element of brutality and heartlessness that even our bronze and iron age ancestors didn't know. Our renaissance ancestors were imperialist, land grabbing scum. Just a few centuries ago, German was the de facto language of the nobility, because it was thought of as being sophisticated. Yet, the only thing they all remember these days is that the Swedish sucks...

Edit: Granted, Denmark never had much in the way of prolonged civil wars, leadership disputes were usually settled quite quickly, first with regicides and later with economic blackmail.

[Guard Dog]

11 hours ago, Gorth said:

I guess that makes the Nordic people part of the 1%... our bronze age ancestors were cannibals and practiced ritual human sacrifice, our iron age ancestors (vikings) were raiders, pillagers and rapists. Our medieval ancestors were feudal lords, effectively slave holders and greedy as ****.  Having turned to Christianity added an extra element of brutality and heartlessness that even our bronze and iron age ancestors didn't know. Our renaissance ancestors were imperialist, land grabbing scum. Just a few centuries ago, German was the de facto language of the nobility, because it was thought of as being sophisticated. Yet, the only thing they all remember these days is that the Swedish sucks...

Edit: Granted, Denmark never had much in the way of prolonged civil wars, leadership disputes were usually settled quite quickly, first with regicides and later with economic blackmail.

The US Civil war was a lot more recent. There are people alive today whose parents and grandparents actually KNEW people alive during the war. So the history is not so far removed as the middle ages. 

One other note on atrocities. Very often the acts were retribution for previous acts. The Border War between Kansas & Missouri was the worst outside of Sherman's Army of Tennessee. In Sherman's defense they were fighting militia, armed citizens, and regular army most of the way. The worst acts of the Border War were against civilians. The Lawrence Massacre is a commonly held up example. But what people tend to forget is one of the things that led to that was the death of female civilians held as prisoners of war. The military commander of the Kansas forces ordered the arrest and imprisonment of women who were "aiding" Missouri guerillas. The women they imprisoned were wives/family of suspect guerilla fighters. There are numerous and credible eye witness accounts of rape and other abuse of the prisoners by Ewing's soldiers. Ewing was not a military man and had little real control over his troops. It's widely speculated the collapse of the building where the women were held was deliberate to cover up what had happened. I think that is possible and may be likely. Ewing was a politician and a personal friend of the President. 

There was also Doc Jennison and his "red legs" and their raids into western Missouri. In fact this was depicted in the into to the movie "The Outlaw Josey Wales". And all of that was in response to a three year period where Missouri slave owners tries to "take over" as much of Kansas as possible to prevent it from being admitted as a free state.  Bad act followed bad act. No one one in that war had clean hands. 

[Amentep]

Its funny, other than some information about Quantrill's Raiders, I think most of what I know of Bleeding Kansas I learned after High School.  

[Guard Dog]

5 minutes ago, Amentep said:

Its funny, other than some information about Quantrill's Raiders, I think most of what I know of Bleeding Kansas I learned after High School.  

Me too! Actually that’s true of just about everything I know about the Civil War. Most of what I learned through books are actually visiting historical sites. One of the best books I read about the border war was “three years with Quantrill“. It was an eyewitness account. It’s only telling one side obviously and it’s heavily slanted towards that point of you. Some of the events recounted I am pretty sure it did not happen. But the descriptions of the fighting, conditions, thoughts and motivations of the people make it worth reading.

Edited October 26, 2021 by Guard Dog

[ShadySands]

25 minutes ago, Amentep said:

Quantrill

I know that name but not from a history book or anything but from the civil war episode of Psych

[Raithe]

Oh the juggle of the funny vs politic threads for some things....

What's going on in Minneapolis?

[Gorth]

On 10/26/2021 at 9:43 AM, majestic said:

Not entirely on topic, but I feel like stating that I had exactly one multiple choice test in my entire life, and that was the entry exam for my high shool of choice. I can kind of see what the point is, especially for the ease of mass testing. There was no other way they could efficiently sieve through a couple of thousand of applications for the ~200 free spots (ended up being ~220, in the end) in the time they had for the examinations

The only "important" multiple choice tests I've ever done (4 of them) were Microsoft certifications. Usually of the get 80 out of 100 questions right within 2 hours to pass kind of tests. They were Ok I suppose. They did cover most of the areas you were tested in. Obvious pitfalls and trick questions included for good measure. Also some bugged questions that had no right answers, so that went into the feedback forms before logging off the PC at the test center. I remember it felt odd having this test center employee constantly hovering behind my back, staring at what I was doing, making sure I wasn't sneaking in any notes

(for those tests, you were only allowed to use the information provided by the test software and what's inside your head)

[Zoraptor]

One of the weirdest things to me when I was doing the course admin for some university papers was how keen students were for multiple choice sections. I could kind of understand for the gen-ed 1st year paper since that had people who were fundamentally unfamiliar with the subject matter, but even the 3rd year people wanted them. I always found those multiple choices to be utterly obnoxious at that level because you didn't get the typical 3 wrong answer, one right answer system; you got one wrong answer, 2 partially right answers and the right answer.

[Hurlshort]

Yeah, a lot of my students ask for more multiple choice question tests as well. It's really just a time management thing. Multiple choice is simple to take. You circle or bubble in an option and move on. It is simple to grade as well. It is either right or wrong. Essays and short answer questions require thought and explanation. They take time and there is not typically one simple answer that is correct. 

I usually show them towards the end of the year how much better they all do when asked to explain an answer then when they are just bubbling it in. But honestly, they are 12 years old, they are mostly just trying to survive all the social, societal, parental, and hormonal pressures they have newly been introduced to.

[Amentep]

13 hours ago, Gorth said:

I remember it felt odd having this test center employee constantly hovering behind my back, staring at what I was doing, making sure I wasn't sneaking in any notes  everyone had a fair and equal testing experience.

Fixed that for you.