GasBandit
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Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats
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... people do understand that most community colleges (or at least mine, which is a sister school for OSU and for each all of my classes earn transfer credit towards) have the same standards as 4-year colleges and simply act as a place for someone to get a cheap first two-years of education? That it's actually the norm now for most students to start at a community college and then transfer to a 4-year college ether right before they have earned their associates or right after? And that this is entirely the fault of the 4-year institutions because of the outrageous costs they charge for tuition and living expenses entirely because they can? It's not like University of Phoenix or ITT Tech anymore, where all the schools are degree mills.
I really don't understand what there parents a freaking out about. Am I missing something here?
I really don't understand what there parents a freaking out about. Am I missing something here?
GasBandit
Staff member
First link in your post.
Hence why I was wondering why this was a big deal... beside it being patently untrue because the standards for 2 and 4 year colleges are exactly the same for the associate phase, which is why many community colleges have transfer programs for full credit with leading institutions.
GasBandit
Staff member
Community colleges have a stigma about them. What he's really saying is that the purpose of common core isn't to educate, it's to create an easily managed, thoroughly mediocre populace who doesn't aspire to greatness or rock the boat.
That's how it is in Florida and that's what I did. I figured why should I shell out 2x the money for the same quality when I can work a job and commute from home. I did my AA at a Community college and did my Linguistics degree at University of Florida--full transfer of credits and you could bypass general admission and apply directly to the college you want to get in to.
GasBandit
Staff member
Kind of the opposite, really. Most parents who vocally oppose common core are upset with its propensity to turn children into dull worker drones. It's like the opposite of a gifted/talented program - your child's education will emphasize meeting a bare minimum on the given benchmarks, and that's it. None of that pesky reaching for the stars/thinking for yourself malarkey that makes for malcontents and people who tip over the apple cart.
I think Common Core is just as ridiculous as the program that it takes a queue from "no child left behind".
That's "cue" not "queue"
If they are meeting spaces designated for private use by the Congresspeople, subject to discretionary use with no branch of government being obligated to provide access for purposes of political discourse, then you are correct and one might wonder why this group was provided access whereas some other group wasn't. The statement by the spokesperson in the end does seem to indicate they arrange for meeting spaces also for groups with political ideas that the Speaker himself does not necessarily agree with, however, so this particular instance might fall into that category.
If you agree they shouldn't be stopped from saying what they say due to freedom of speech, then I think we are in agreement. Saying that they are scum is a subjective viewpoint, not an objective fact, and has no bearing on their rights. If they wish to be taken seriously, then they may need to defend what they say, but they don't need to defend saying it.
It's possible, but the thrust of GB's comment was really about the GOP's public statements since the 2012 election (which may not have been part of international news coverage about US politics) that they were looking to re-brand themselves and the issues they stood for.
Many analysts on both sides agreed post-election that the GOP's willingness to veer hard right on social equality issues lost them a substantial portion of the population who are progressive (or at least center-ish) on those issues but otherwise very fiscally conservative on social & government spending (i.e. many libertarians, log cabin republicans, women and racial minorities who may be otherwise fiscally conservative, etc.), and many prominent Repubs were talking about how the GOP needed to be approaching those people.
Even if Boehner's office is doing this out of a sense of impartial fair play and discourse, it looks very bad on the re-branding level for the legislative leader of the GOP to do, assuming that re-branding is still something that the GOP wishes to do.
Young Conservative group at University of Texas-Austin hold campus wide "Catch an illegal immigrant" game. The Same group previously had an "affirmative action bake sale".
They do this in Korea too--except its government sponsored against real people and you get a cash reward for it.
GasBandit
Staff member
Today I learned that Ben Domenech and Dan McLaughlin (who and who?) are "Prominent Conservatives."
GasBandit
Staff member
So everybody probably knows this already from all the hooplah going on in the news channels, but tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of a popular fiscal conservative Democrat President by a Communist.
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GasBandit
Staff member
And in other news, the Democrats sure better hope they retain control of the senate for the rest of eternity, because the nuclear cat is out of the bag, and you can fully expect Republicans to one-better their rule change with yet another that leaves a minority party completely impotent the very instant the pendulum of power swings the other way.
GasBandit
Staff member
Democracy must be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on the dinner menu.
It's entirely likely they'll try to change the rule back if and when it looks like they'll lose power, but yes this is INCREDIBLY shortsighted... even if it's deserved. No president has faced as much resistance from his opposition party as Obama has and it's made it almost impossible to get his appointments in. Something had to give and... well, it looks like we're all kinda fucked now. It's going to be a free for all from now on. Can't wait for Congress to devolve into a House of Lords style shouting match.
GasBandit
Staff member
The tyranny of the majority is not a cliche. California banned gay marriage by a majority vote, if you'll recall. If legislating falls back on simple majority rule in all cases, we will find ourselves just as oppressed as we would have by any king or emperor.
This is the true danger - the precedent has been set. The bell has been rung and the genie is out of the bottle - now the path is clear for republicans, whenever they get put back in power again, to make whatever procedural rule changes they want and point to this rule change as precedence, and you know there are those out there just itching to clamp down on social issues, shoving LGBT rights, Abortion, and whatever else God tells them to into the capitol building's deepest pigeonhole, never to be seen again. At least until when the Democrats regain the majority again, and spend the next election cycle then undoing all that, then it goes back and forth and back and forth and we're still not making any "progress" because each party spends all its time in power undoing what the other party did last cycle.
Heh, even I can guess what this is about. This shit has been coming for a LONG time, and anyone surprised by it hasn't been paying attention. The only thing which surprised me is how long it's taken Reid to figure out Mitch wasn't going to do shit to reign in the insane number of fillibusters. Simply stupid.
I'm fully ok with the next administration, whether Democrat or Republican, to have an easier time appointing cabinet members and judicial posts. If these two parties could have been adult and only blocked the super crazy people, maybe they wouldn't have had to have their toys taken away.
I'm fully ok with the next administration, whether Democrat or Republican, to have an easier time appointing cabinet members and judicial posts. If these two parties could have been adult and only blocked the super crazy people, maybe they wouldn't have had to have their toys taken away.
GasBandit
Staff member
You're a fool if you think it will stop with merely that. Today it's appointments, tomorrow it's bills.
Patches on top of patches on top of patches. When do we get to format and reinstall, so we can set all our prefs perfect again?
FYI I'm not advocating deleting a bunch of Congress, just these crappy rules lawyers. Couldn't stand them in CCGs/RPGs, can't stand 'em grandstandin', either.
--Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
That's what I've been going on about, this last decade-plus I've been haranguing around here.[DOUBLEPOST=1385100756,1385100673][/DOUBLEPOST]
At this point "agree" is impossible. The "fix" is inevitable.
GasBandit
Staff member
US Government publicly backs UN online privacy initiative, while working overtime behind the scenes to kill it.
My favorite thing about this thread is watching GB and Krisken interact even though one can't read the other's posts. I'm trying to decide whether GB counter-blocking Krisken would lead to much less discussion or much much more as both of them try to suss out what the other person is saying without "giving in" and just unblocking them.