Scarabin Posted December 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 Early in the development of e-mail I had the following experience. I was on the faculty Senate at a university, and the subject matter was the extension of medical benefits to live-in couples, includiong, gasp, same sex couples. This was quite a few years back and the the idea was very controversial. We met on a Thursday, the matter was not settled, there was a special meeting called for the following week. E-mails were flying during the week-end. It was a discussion to rival the Global Warming thread in intensity. A message was sent from a return address of Penguin and the author went on at length about the Campus Cod, a (repeated) typo for Campus Code. I sent a reply to all saying the discussion is getting out of hand, we now have penguins complaining about the cod. I got a very heated response that I was elitist, exclusionary, and God knows what else. He had a right to his opinion yesireee. So you see, I can be as offensive as anyone. Fwiw, I was initially cool to the proposal because of what I saw as legal difficulties in defining when it applied. It seemed like a lawsuit waiting to happen. The proponents were very well prepared and convinced me that this could work, so I supported it. It passed the Senate but the state legislature would have to approve it. Fat chance. That was then. Last November the voters approved same sex marriage. Times change. One argument for the proposal that many then found quite convincing ran like this: Hey guys, you say we can't get married because the law says we can't. Then you say we cannot include our partners on health insurance because we aren't married. Something is wrong here. Quite a few conventional unexciting people found this persuasive. Ken, I do not consider you were at all offensive, and I surely wish all posters would leaven their posts with an occasional flash of humour. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike777 Posted December 29, 2012 Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 One argument for the proposal that many then found quite convincing ran like this: Hey guys, you say we can't get married because the law says we can't. Then you say we cannot include our partners on health insurance because we aren't married. Something is wrong here. Quite a few conventional unexciting people found this persuasive. ---- As a matter of law decades ago...unpersuaive..as a matter of morality ....unpersusaive.....as a matter of politics...the Amercian way....decades ago....a decent start..............I find this an example of what makes America exceptional.....not perfect... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarabin Posted December 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 .........I find this an example of what makes America exceptional.....not perfect... Imo what makes America exceptional is that it is the most successful country in the world and it is run under a constitution which ensures the government is dysfunctional. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike777 Posted December 29, 2012 Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 Imo what makes America exceptional is that it is the most successful country in the world and it is run under a constitution which ensures the government is dysfunctional. ok to follow your logic dysfunctional makes a country great...your logic\my only point is follow your own logic. btw pls quote me in full or not all ty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackshoe Posted December 29, 2012 Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 Not dysfunctional, but of limited power. The current dysfunctionality of Congress and the Administration is not due to the Constitution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackshoe Posted December 29, 2012 Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 When taxes are too high,people go hungry.When the government is too intrusive,people lose their spirit. Act for the people's benefit.Trust them; leave them alone. -- Tao Te Ching, Chapter 75 Our (US) government seems to have strayed from the Way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarabin Posted December 30, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2012 ok to follow your logic dysfunctional makes a country great...your logic\my only point is follow your own logic. btw pls quote me in full or not all ty I used exceptional in its main sense of "unusual, atypical" not its subsense of "exceptionally good". My logic is that it is unusual for a country to be successful while led by a lame-duck government. (Unusual not unique, my own country is in a similar position.) My practise is to quote only the relevant portion of a post, it seems unreasonable to expect readers to wade through a pond of dross for a single nugget of relevance. However I am happy to ignore your posts if you so wish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarabin Posted December 30, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2012 Not dysfunctional, but of limited power. The current dysfunctionality of Congress and the Administration is not due to the Constitution. I bow to your greater knowledge since you live in the country. My thought is that the constitution set up the system of checks and balances which has rendered the US government chronically dysfunctional Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenberg Posted December 30, 2012 Report Share Posted December 30, 2012 As I was growing up, I did not hear a lot of talk about dysfunctionality. We produced an enormous number of tanks, fighters and bombers. General Eisenhower had successfully conducted the re-invasion of Europe, General MacArthur has successfully prosecuted the war in the Pacific. The Manhattan Project had produced a weapon that eliminated the need for landing troops in Japan. The Marshall Plan was instrumental in Europe's recovery, including that of former adversaries. American support played a pivotal role in the creation of the United Nations and in the founding of Israel. The GI Bill sent ex-servicemen to college and helped them buy a home. Times have changed. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our Constitution but in ourselves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackshoe Posted December 30, 2012 Report Share Posted December 30, 2012 Indeed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarabin Posted December 31, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 As I was growing up, I did not hear a lot of talk about dysfunctionality. We produced an enormous number of tanks, fighters and bombers. General Eisenhower had successfully conducted the re-invasion of Europe, General MacArthur has successfully prosecuted the war in the Pacific. The Manhattan Project had produced a weapon that eliminated the need for landing troops in Japan. The Marshall Plan was instrumental in Europe's recovery, including that of former adversaries. American support played a pivotal role in the creation of the United Nations and in the founding of Israel. The GI Bill sent ex-servicemen to college and helped them buy a home. Times have changed.The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our Constitution but in ourselves. I agree America is a great & amazingly generous country, and I have only admiration for its people, (Except in games like soccer & when they accuse successful foreign teams of cheating.) America played a major part in WW2, perhaps the major part, and never had to choose between "guns and butter"; it financed the reconstruction of Europe, and it has since conducted several foreign adventures without seeking to acquire new territory in compensation. That said, you still have a constitution which encourages stalemate (gridiron?) rather than decision. I understand that you yourselves consider that you have had many ineffectual presidents since WW2: e.g Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter, and now I venture to predict Obama. Most progress seems to require breaking the rules/laws, e.g. mandates, or patronage. Perhaps these suggest the fault may lie in the constitution. I am not trying to offend anyone, I thought this is generally agreed among your political historians, not so? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackshoe Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 The US Constitution encourages leaving most things up to the States. The problem is that Federal level politicians and bureaucrats don't see that as a plus. They're wrong. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winstonm Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 The US Constitution encourages leaving most things up to the States. The problem is that Federal level politicians and bureaucrats don't see that as a plus. They're wrong. The purpose of the U.S. Constitution is to provide a legal check on the majority in order to guarantee the rights of the minority. No matter how badly the majority of people in the state of Kansas want to install the King James version of Genesis as the textbook for biology in the public school science classrooms, the Constitution says the one lone atheist in that school is protected from that majority decision. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenberg Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 The purpose of the U.S. Constitution is to provide a legal check on the majority in order to guarantee the rights of the minority. No matter how badly the majority of people in the state of Kansas want to install the King James version of Genesis as the textbook for biology in the public school science classrooms, the Constitution says the one lone atheist in that school is protected from that majority decision. True enough, but I expect most high school students would prefer to be protected from having to learn the quadratic formula. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgoetze Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 True enough, but I expect most high school students would prefer to be protected from having to learn the quadratic formula.I'm in favour of that. Quadratic completion is a vastly superior method. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwnn Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 Finally something interesting in this thread. Why is it vastly superior? Isn't the quadratic formula just the end result from completing the square and going through the maths? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyberyeti Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 Imo what makes America exceptional is that it is the most successful country in the world and it is run under a constitution which ensures the government is dysfunctional.As an aside, I wouldn't say America's constitution guarantees dysfunctional government, Israel's is much closer to guaranteeing that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgoetze Posted December 31, 2012 Report Share Posted December 31, 2012 Sure, but if all you know is the quadratic formula you have to do it the hard way even when it could have been easy. Quadratic completion encourages understanding what you're doing, the quadratic formula encourages learning formulas by rote as if they were magic incantations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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