COVID19 Factors We Should Consider/Current Events

[Nicholas Laureys]

Forgive me if this only loosely fits into our "current events" thread, but I just filled out a homeschooling "notice of intent"form for my daughter and was shocked (but sadly not surprised) to see the following option for sex:
X (unspecified / non-binary)

I additionally read in Montgomery County, MD's FAQs that homeschooled CHILDREN are NOT allowed to participate in after-school activities, like sports.

Thirdly, I read that although schools will be closed (distance education) until next year, free breakfasts and lunches will be handed out at designated points (with mandatory negative CoVid tests, masks, and social distancing?), and the after-school daycare programs (NCLB grant money is STILL out there for $natching, I guess) will soon be reinstated, albeit with mandatory distancing rules.


Today's first discovery made me happy in a haughty way to no longer be $upporting this childish madness, the second point seemed like an unnecessary slap in the face to homeschooling, tax-paying families, and the third seemed to be a real-life embodiment of Some Animals are More Equal than Others.

No hysteria- just dry, impersonal assessment of these three facts that presented themselves to me.

Mark Hurling, Dave Rowe, others- y'all sure our country's policy and cultural problems can be "waited out" or escaped from by just avoiding the cities? I mean that non-binary option for sex, on a State Government form, just felt like grown adults playing make-believe. Is that what our United States are now, grown adults rewriting history and biology to play make-believe?

[Mark Rippetoe]

There are millions more just like me in Toronto, so I can assure you there are millions more like me in large American cities everywhere. We're not all socialist parasites, and suggesting that we don't deserve to vote because we don't own property is some straight up medieval bullshit. Again, I suspect there are others in this thread that are far more serious about the notion than you are, it was just your post that prompted me to speak up against it.

Think about it another way (and this will be a little off topic): Should people who do not pay taxes have a say in how tax money is spent? Specifically, should people who do not pay property taxes have a say in how taxing entities whose primary revenue source is property tax spend the tax money? A corollary: should public-sector unions (whose paychecks are tax money) be allowed to strike, or even collectively bargain?

Is that what our United States are now, grown adults rewriting history and biology to play make-believe?

Obviously it is.

[DylanClarke]

I've been employed in some capacity since I was about 16. I've never applied for Employment Insurance, even though I've been paying into for 17 years. Neither has she, despite working in musical theatre for years. Yikes! About the only publicly funded service I make use of on any kind of regular basis is public transit, and I still pay my fare every time I get on, because despite some government funding it still isn't free. I use it to get to my job, where I teach at a special education school. Don't worry, it's a private school. Hell, I don't even use our socialist health care system as much as I should! I've been lucky enough to avoid any major medical issues thus far, so I've only ever used it for routine checkups, and not even as regularly as I should.

There are millions more just like me in Toronto, so I can assure you there are millions more like me in large American cities everywhere. We're not all socialist parasites, and suggesting that we don't deserve to vote because we don't own property is some straight up medieval bullshit. Again, I suspect there are others in this thread that are far more serious about the notion than you are, it was just your post that prompted me to speak up against it.

You're making a serious mistake here. You're mistaking voting for freedom.

Suppose that you had to give up your right to vote, and so did a lot of people like you, but for every contributing person who lost their vote, 10 parasites who would vote against your interests also lost theirs, wouldn't that be a net gain for you? Personally I don't know whether this would be a good thing or not, but I do know that it's in the interest of those who want power to try and get having a vote on everything to be the standard of freedom, while they chip away at your freedoms of assembly, speech, private property and general self determination.

[Mark Rippetoe]

You're making a serious mistake here. You're mistaking voting for freedom.

Indeed, voting is an excellent mechanism for the removal of freedom.

[Nicholas Laureys]

Whoops, and I misspoke in my post, I actually AM still $upporting point 1, since I still pay property taxes, and that homeschooling form is a State/County creation.
But the "free" breakfast & lunch and NCLB after-school programs are federal (right??), so I have not had to pay for THAT madness for a few years.

And I omitted another incredulous feeling I had about the homeschooling "rules": you ARE ALLOWED to hire a "tutor" who teaches your child and other homeschooled children in a single setting, but these "lessons" must be sporadic and not regularly held, lest your group lessons become an unsanctioned non-profit school.
Pathetic! I am not sure how anyone could get excited about sending their child to public school anymore, and I question whether both spouses out there REALLY earn so much money as to make public-schooling your child more desirable than one of the two teaching their children on their own!

[Mark E. Hurling]

It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry about this.

I've been teaching Jujitsu at the local park district for 3 years now, and no surprise, not now with the onset of the Kung Flu. So today I get an email from the good folks at the park district informing me that one of my students wanted to know when classes would be starting again. A question I emailed to them some weeks ago and had not gotten a response to.

They then said that teaching outdoors would be OK, and would that work for me. Of course, they added, there could be no contact between anyone in the class.

My response was that Jujitsu is a little difficult to teach or perform without contact given the nature of the techniques used.

No further response from the park district on that score so far. I'm slightly amazed that the no contact question even came up.

[Dillon Spencer]

Think about it another way (and this will be a little off topic): Should people who do not pay taxes have a say in how tax money is spent? Specifically, should people who do not pay property taxes have a say in how taxing entities whose primary revenue source is property tax spend the tax money? A corollary: should public-sector unions (whose paychecks are tax money) be allowed to strike, or even collectively bargain?

Rip, this may be a double post because I got signed out while I was writing it. If so, feel free to delete one. Also, thanks for not responding by calling me a socialist parasite

Should people who don't pay taxes have a say in how it's spent? Big question, and one that I think is open to a very, very off topic debate. However, despite not owning property, I pay federal and provincial income tax, some of which goes towards funding services in my city, and absolutely I should have a say in how it's being spent. I'd argue that I also pay property tax, despite not owning my property. The company that owns my building does, and they undoubtedly pass that on to me in a way that still allows them to turn a profit. I may not receive a breakdown of how much of my rent goes to paying the property owners' property tax, but some of itt obviously does. It's not like they're just spotting us the amount out of the goodness of their hearts, right?

I understand that there are some people that earn so little money that they may not actually pay any income or property tax at all, but up here we have a sales tax on damn near everything, so pretty much every single Canadian has at least a little skin in the game. Some people definitely get out more than they put in, but that's where this could get very far off topic very quickly. I will say that, personally, I don't mind paying a little more in taxes even if it's for services I don't personally use. It's not objectively rational from an economic standpoint, but I'm generally okay with. For what it's worth, up here we have more than two parties and I generally vote for the one that's considered the most centrist. I was just trying to point out that there are a whole lot of people between full on libertarians and free market fetishists and card carrying Marxists who are just doing the best we can for ourselves, but are still happy to pay a bit more in taxes to avoid throwing a whole lot of people under all the wheels of the bus.

Your second question is a lot more off topic. I do agree that unions in any sector are often problematic, but I don't think abolishing them is necessarily the answer. I think the history of labour negotiations always boils down to the ones signing the paychecks saying "We want you to do more work, less safely, for less money!" and labour saying "We want to do less work, more safely, for more money!" Ownership has the leverage of the purse strings, labour has the leverage of collective bargaining. I tend to side with either one depending on the particular issue. For example, in Ontario, we've had a couple of very contentious rounds of recent collective bargaining between teachers and the provincial government, and I found myself rolling my eyes about things they were both asking for. As a teacher at a private school, it didn't affect me one bit, so I was pretty impartial I'd like to think. Overall, while I don't think public sector unions are universally awesome, I do think they're somewhat necessary. Would you want your paycheck to be voted upon by the same unwashed masses some are railing against? And that's where we go off topic, because we're getting into the issue of whether or not the government should employ pretty much anyone at all.

You're making a serious mistake here. You're mistaking voting for freedom.

Suppose that you had to give up your right to vote, and so did a lot of people like you, but for every contributing person who lost their vote, 10 parasites who would vote against your interests also lost theirs, wouldn't that be a net gain for you? Personally I don't know whether this would be a good thing or not, but I do know that it's in the interest of those who want power to try and get having a vote on everything to be the standard of freedom, while they chip away at your freedoms of assembly, speech, private property and general self determination.

I'm making a mistake here? You just made up a 10:1 ratio of parasites to people like me, as far as I can tell out of absolutely nowhere. I can't speak to the situation in the situation in every American city, but I think a lot of people tend to underestimate the number of fairly centrist people like me, and overestimate the number of absolute parasites. At least in Canada, there are a whole lot of us who work hard for what we have, but are satisfied to pay a bit more in taxes to ensure that everyone has access to a doctor, as just one example. Is it strictly rational from an economic standpoint? Not necessarily! But we exist, and there are millions of us, and I think we deserve to vote even if we don't own property, as was the point of my original post.

[Brian Harlin]

It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry about this.

I've been teaching Jujitsu at the local park district for 3 years now, and no surprise, not now with the onset of the Kung Flu. So today I get an email from the good folks at the park district informing me that one of my students wanted to know when classes would be starting again. A question I emailed to them some weeks ago and had not gotten a response to.

They then said that teaching outdoors would be OK, and would that work for me. Of course, they added, there could be no contact between anyone in the class.

My response was that Jujitsu is a little difficult to teach or perform without contact given the nature of the techniques used.

No further response from the park district on that score so far. I'm slightly amazed that the no contact question even came up.

You should abandon teaching self defense. They will not allow it. Instead you should teach airborne disease transmission prevention. With the primary focus on pairing people up and having them take turns practicing Covid 19 Transmission prevention techniques incorporating manual removal of their partners ability to aspirate deadly viruses.

[mpalios]

Let's all take a break and join this lady in prayer. (do yourself a favor and watch for 1 minute....)

LORDT COME GET CORONA👀‼️‼️ - YouTube

[Mark Rippetoe]

Also, thanks for not responding by calling me a socialist parasite

I don't use the term lightly. Yours was a thoughtful and reasonable response.