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Underhill

Underhill

Well-Known Member
Iti oj said:
@Underhill who do support ?
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I support Sanders but with buckets of reservations. I like some of his ideas but I think they need to be tempered a bit.

As an example. I agree there should be a path to a college education that does not involve massive loans. But I think that path needs to involve service or work. A stint in the military or peace corp, or free school to those in the workforce makes sense to me. But just making it free would devalue education both for those attending and the workplace market.

I think the current climate would be perfect for a leader like Bernie, if he could manage to work with congress (which is doubtful). If republicans worked with him we could see some great compromise legislation involving education and health care.

If Bernie loses the primary, which seems likely, I have no idea. Both Trump and Hillary worry me for different reasons.
 
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S

Smart_Guy

...
Premium Member
Deidre said:
lol Okay, to the following then... @Revoltingest @Sunstone @Carlita @Smart_Guy (do they sell ice cream where you live? jk! :D) @Dionysus @Godobeyer @Sees @Buttercup @Laika @Saint Frankenstein @Mycroft @Mindmaster -- what are your favorite ice cream brands? :blush:
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Oops, forgot to mention my favorite brand. It is Baskin-Robbins:
6d4ac8edc95a62dea87012ee3292906f.jpg


There is also a local brand called Saudia in Arabic or Sadafco in English (dunno how come!) and I'm in love with one of their products:
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01309815526.jpg


Oh boy, now I want ice cream, and my throat hurts :(
 
Iti oj

Iti oj

Global warming is real and we need to act
Premium Member
Underhill said:
I support Sanders but with buckets of reservations. I like some of his ideas but I think they need to be tempered a bit.

As an example. I agree there should be a path to a college education that does not involve massive loans. But I think that path needs to involve service or work. A stint in the military or peace corp, or free school to those in the workforce makes sense to me. But just making it free would devalue education both for those attending and the workplace market.

I think the current climate would be perfect for a leader like Bernie, if he could manage to work with congress (which is doubtful). If republicans worked with him we could see some great compromise legislation involving education and school.

If Bernie loses the primary, which seems likely, I have no idea. Both Trump and Hillary worry me for different reasons.
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Cool i like sanders too and can see the sense in your suggestion
yeah but Cruz and Rubio worry me too. at least with Hillary we can count on supreme court nominations that wont harm people

Thanks!
 
Dionysus

Dionysus

┏(°.°)┛┗(°.°)┓┗(°.°)┛┏(°.°)┓
Ben and Gerry's, Godiva, and Häagen-Dazs are all amazing as well!
 
Underhill

Underhill

Well-Known Member
Iti oj said:
Cool i like sanders too and can see the sense in your suggestion
yeah but Cruz and Rubio worry me too. at least with Hillary we can count on supreme court nominations that wont harm people

Thanks!
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This is true. But if Hillary wins nothing else will happen for her term. Congress will continue their policy of grid lock. So overall, I'm not sure it would be an improvement.
 
Iti oj

Iti oj

Global warming is real and we need to act
Premium Member
Underhill said:
This is true. But if Hillary wins nothing else will happen for her term. Congress will continue their policy of grid lock. So overall, I'm not sure it would be an improvement.
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that would happen to Sanders too. Just as its happened to Obama. and truthfully a republican Congress is a bigger threat to America then a republican president. anyways thats enough off topic politics feel free to pm me.
 
Revoltingest

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Iti oj said:
Cool i like sanders too and can see the sense in your suggestion
yeah but Cruz and Rubio worry me too. at least with Hillary we can count on supreme court nominations that wont harm people
Thanks!
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That would depend upon what one calls "harm".
We should consider what a past Democratic president (Bill Clinton) advocated in USSC cases.
What I see is an agenda of increasing governmental power over us, & modifying the Constitution by fiat toward that end.

Ref....
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-271.html

Erosion of the right to a jury trial.....
The second case involving the jury trial clause was Lewis v. United States (1996). [103] Ray Lewis was a postal employee charged with two counts of obstructing the mail. Each count carried a maximum authorized prison sentence of six months. Lewis requested a jury trial, but federal prosecutors argued that because the crimes with which he was charged were only "petty offenses," he had no constitutional right to trial by jury. The magistrate sided with the prosecutors, and a bench trial was held shortly thereafter. Lewis was found guilty, but he appealed the magistrate's decision denying him a jury trial.

The language of the Sixth Amendment is unambiguous. The accused is guaranteed the right to a jury trial in "all criminal prosecutions." Unfortunately, many years ago government lawyers persuaded a majority of Supreme Court justices that a jury trial was required only for "serious" offenses. According to Supreme Court case law, a "serious" offense is a crime that carries a penalty in excess of six months' imprisonment. Over the years a number of Supreme Court justices have questioned the logic underlying the so-called petty offense doctrine. Justice Hugo Black, for example, found the "petty-serious" distinction to be utterly specious.

The Constitution guarantees a right of trial by jury in two separate places but in neither does it hint of any difference between "petty" offenses and "serious" offenses. . . . Many years ago this Court, without the necessity of amendment pursuant to Article V, decided that "all crimes" did not mean "all crimes" but meant only "all serious crimes." . . . Such constitutional adjudication, whether framed in terms of "fundamental fairness," "balancing," or "shocking the conscience" amounts in every case to little more than judicial mutilation of our written Constitution. [104]

Instead of seizing on Justice Black's clear-eyed analysis of the constitutional text and urging the Supreme Court to correct its past mistake, the Clinton administration defended the petty offense doctrine and asked the Supreme Court to affirm Lewis's conviction. [105]
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Racial preferences & discrimination.....
Most Americans support the propositions that "all persons are created equal" and that individuals ought to be judged according to "the content of their character, not the color of their skin." [120] And those propositions are now a fixture in American law. The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides: "No State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." While it is an unfortunate part of our history that that provision lay dormant for many decades, Congress did pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which brought the promise of equal rights under the law to fruition by giving any victim of state-sponsored discrimination an effective remedy in the federal court system. [121]

Although President Clinton has always campaigned as a moderate Democrat and has expressed opposition to racial quotas and reverse discrimination, his conduct in office tells a different story. The Clinton White House has supported racial preferences in a variety of contexts, including government hiring, contracting, and university admissions.

In September 1994, for example, the Clinton administration raised eyebrows around the country when it switched sides in a discrimination lawsuit that was pending before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals,Piscataway Township Board of Education v. Taxman. [122] Sharon Taxman sued the Piscataway Board of Education for illegal discrimination in 1989 when she was fired for the sake of "racial diversity." Taxman had been teaching a business education course at the Piscataway high school for nine years. Because of declining enrollment, the board was forced to eliminate a teaching position. Under union rules, seniority was to be the primary factor in determining who would stay and who would have to go. The board acknowledged that Taxman and a black colleague "were tied in seniority and all other respects."[123] Although similar situations had been previously resolved by drawing lots, the school board decided to retain the black teacher in order to maintain diversity within the business department.

The Bush administration filed legal briefs in the case, agreeing with Taxman that the action by the Piscataway Board of Education was prohibited by federal civil rights laws. The Clinton administration, however, reversed the position of the U.S. government in federal appellate court. Clinton's legal team defended the school authorities, arguing that a broad ban on race-conscious policies would have a "harmful effect upon the ability of employers to voluntarily adopt and implement affirmative action policies." [124]

The Clinton Justice Department also defends racial preferences in government contracting. In 1989 a Colorado-based highway construction company named Adarand Constructors Inc. submitted a bid on a Department of Transportation construction project. Although Adarand submitted the lowest bid of all the competing construction companies, the contract was awarded to a minority-controlled company. The prime contractor admitted that it would have accepted Adarand's bid had it not been for monetary incentives in federal law that encourage the hiring of businesses controlled by "socially and economically disadvantaged individuals," which were legally presumed to be "black Americans, Hispanic Americans, and other minorities." [125] Adarand sued the Department of Transportation for its racially based contracting practices. The Adarand case ultimately reached the Supreme Court. President Clinton's legal team defended the government's contracting procedures and said Adarand's constitutional right to equal protection of the law had not been violated. [126]

The Clinton administration believes racial preferences in university admissions are appropriate as well. In March 1996 the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the admissions policy of the University of Texas Law School. That policy had been challenged by four white students who were denied admission because of their race. The University of Texas conceded in court papers that its admissions policy was designed to meet an "aspiration" of admitting a class of 10 percent Mexican Americans and 5 percent blacks. The university also conceded that the white students had better academic credentials than some of the minority students who had gained admission but defended the double standard as necessary to attain a desirable racial composition of the student body.

The Fifth Circuit decision jarred the academic world. Many colleges and universities were under the impression that the law permitted racial preferences if the purpose was to enhance diversity. The court, however, unanimously rejected that justification for racial discrimination:
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Kirran

Kirran

ॐ
Premium Member
Sunstone said:
I love your take on that phrase! It's honestly much better in my opinion than Paul Tillich's take on it. As far as I know, the phrase was coined by Tillich, but he created it to express a conclusion he derived from a logical analysis of the notion that God was the Supreme Being. Tillich said that to think of God that way was to make God a creature. It was to raise the question, "Who created God?" In short, Tillich was not expressing an insight into divine nature based on any experience of deity that he'd had, or that anyone else had had, but rather he was expressing a conclusion derived from a mere logical chain of reasoning. I much, much prefer your take on it!
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You're better-informed here than I am (all those years you have on me have got to count for something, right?) - I'm not particularly familiar with Tillich.

It's interesting to consider the relationship between logical inference as the core of a philosophical approach to understanding God with the intellect on the one hand, and the mystical approach of leaving beyond logic and the mind altogether to join in blissful unity. Personally, I think one can do one without the other, but that they can also work very well together in a mature system. In fact, I think for some people they need to - without the logical philosophical approach complementing the surrendering, loving approach I don't think I'd have much of a leg to stand on, as the former provides a needed foundation upon which the latter can be developed. Development ultimately reaches a state, I understand, where you realise you were already there to begin with :)

I'd like to share a quick story in relation to that, which you may have heard before:

A woman had spent the day at a friend's house, and had just got home when she realised she'd left her necklace there. She immediately ran back to her friend's house, only for her friend to point out to her that in fact she was already wearing the necklace, and had been all along.

Begging the question, did she need to have run to her friend's house to find the necklace?

Sunstone said:
@Kirran How do you reconcile the spiritual with the mundane?
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*cracks knuckles*

This is something which I haven't really sat down and articulated before. I'll give it a go, but take the answer with some salt. So for me, spiritual and mundane are more ways of approaching, ways of being with the mind. It's about the attitude you have about things. So what one could say is that 'the spiritual' is the Absolute, reality itself in its true nature as attributeless (we use the pointers Existence-Consciousness-Limitlessness, but they are just that) - intimations at that even within/through the normal state of perceptions are beautiful and freeing to a great degree.

A key thing to this is that the Absolute (I can say God, or Shiva, or whatever) is not two, there is no duality. Whereas in the everyday world of appearances there is certainly duality, there is me and you, there is this jar-standing-in-for-a-mug and drink within it, etc. That could be 'the mundane'.

Reconciling the two therefore has to mean integrating the two - it has to be about subsuming duality within nonduality, the limited within the limitless, by first integrating an awareness of the spiritual within one's dealings with the mundane, and then through the understanding of everything mundane as in fact being the spiritual. So through surrendering to God's will, to Shiva's dance, and recognising all things and events as flowing out from that one indescribable, and then maturing that into a recognition that all is the Absolute, it's a bit hard to articulate, but just a deeper subsuming and loss of the duality by letting it all be only the nondual, and even losing the dichotomy between them.

So a bit fuzzy, but basically reconciliation through integration.
 
Buttercup

Buttercup

Veteran Member
Kirran said:
Reconciling the two therefore has to mean integrating the two - it has to be about subsuming duality within nonduality, the limited within the limitless, by first integrating an awareness of the spiritual within one's dealings with the mundane, and then through the understanding of everything mundane as in fact being the spiritual.
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Brilliant. :)
 
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