themadkat

Right. What I was trying to get at is the difference between a man literally walking out on his partner and children and a man not wanting to be responsible for a child that he did not, but more importantly could not, choose to bring into the world. I think that it's equally wrong for the father or the mother to walk out on an existing family - the reason, I believe, that we tend to focus on the father's "walking away" is that historically it has been much easier for him to do so, usually because of economic opportunity and lack of social restrictions. For the majority of human history, and even to a certain extent now, women seem to be more materially tied to their children than men (obviously not always). To me, forming a household (whether or not it gets the state's rubber-stamp of "marriage") and co-parenting signifies implicit agreement to a parenting role on the part of both parties, and should one parent abandon the situation, they should have to compensate the other parent as well as the children. But this is a different situation of the question of what to do, and how to assign responsibility, before the child is actually born.

Question: Let's say the baby is born, and both the mother and father are taking care of it. Regardless of whatever agreements did or did not exist at the time of sex, they are now both co-parenting in the same household. A few years later, say when the child is 3, the father decides he's had enough and he wants his life back, and he doesn't like being a father and he doesn't value his child or the mother, so he leaves. Would this be morally acceptable behavior? SHOULD (and I mean in a society built on ideal law) this be legally acceptable behavior? I get the feeling that if the answers to the above questions are "no" and "no", a lot of people would relax their objections to the claim that a man has no responsibility simply because a pregnancy has occurred.

I listened to Rush for many years, usually in the car with my dad. I cannot say I have any positive evaluation of him, other than on very rare occasions being entertaining. I'm surprised no one else has called him on being so blatantly anti-intellectual. When he goes on some of his more impressive rants about liberals, especially the "liberal elite", I always took note of what exactly he was criticizing them FOR. And although some of his criticisms were insightful and accurate, sometimes it seemed as though he was attacking them for daring to be EDUCATED, for daring to have a different take on things than "good ol' regular folk with common sense". A lot of it doesn't sound much different from a wink-wink nudge-nudge about who's REALLY smart, the simple common folk, who didn't need to go do all that book-learnin. He found some of the worst ways to be both elitist and populist at the same time. Look, Rush is very successful at what he does, and that's fine, but to take him as some kind of paragon of virtue somewhat mystifies me. And I definitely never got the impression of him as some kind of great guy. This came out especially with his callers. He never actually permits anyone to make a real argument and if they ever make a good point he'll ignore or fail to respond to it. But he'll "me-too" someone who calls for like 20 minutes. And his faux-politeness always masks a thin veneer of derision, as far as I can tell. There are lots of smart people with great ideas out there, who find ways to disseminate them. Why cling on to this guy? I think he does way more harm than good.

Playing devil's advocate for a second, I wouldn't have understood that was a possibility. Especially because, when the terms of your agreement with a credit card change, you are permitted to "opt-out", such as with an interest rate change. All you have to do is stop using the card and let the company know in writing that you opt out of the change of terms (for example an interest-rate hike), and then provided you don't use the card anymore you can continue paying down your existing balance under the previous terms. It is not at all obvious to me that you can lower someone's credit limit below their balance causing them to immediately incur fees, especially without prior notice (I would have a little more understanding if they told them a month in advance or something). For me personally, I don't care. I've never been anywhere near my limit and I've never had a cc company notify me of anything but an increase in credit, ironically far beyond what I could probably pay back. I guess I just have an honest face.

I'll cop. I said no. Being that they are currently the recipients of a gov't bailout, no one should be getting any kind of performance-based bonus, especially not the folks who caused the mess. I understand that there may be contractual obligations, but if this were a proper bankruptcy (which it should have been anyway), the creditors ought to get first priority. Now the biggest creditor is the Feds, and they can pretty much make AIG do whatever they want. Honestly, I hope all these companies getting government bailouts are made as miserable as possible by excessive government control. That should teach them not to come sniveling for bailouts (and yes, I know bailouts were forced on some businesses and that was wrong, but a lot of these organizations were more than complicit with the government). These corporations should have to fully face the consequences of accepting public aid.

Should we really be surprised? And Spitzer, to boot.

Oh. Roger that.

Maybe I'm confused on this point, but I thought Rand felt otherwise (whether or not that opinion was actually part of Oism). She seemed to be saying, or at least some people on this board interpret her as saying, that there was something of an ideal romance. Now, if this is her opinion, I don't agree, as her conceptions of masculinity and femininity seem to be deeply intertwined with the concept of an ideal romance, and I don't experience my sexuality anything like she describes. I still think much of what she has to say about sex and romance is valuable though. I suppose I am more goal-oriented in my outlook on relationships than most people. I look to build something that can survive for the long-haul, or I don't bother. I think there is something to be said for learning who you are and figuring out what you want out of relationships, which could involve some seriality, especially in youth. But other than that, I don't see what the point is in deliberately setting yourself up for a short-term or totally uncommitted endeavor, and I don't think anything good can be said about casual sex. So what do you really get out of opening a relationship? I think other important questions, for me at least, revolve around what a person of self-esteem would do. For example, I can't see a person of self-esteem ever consenting to a relationship where they are "secondary". Relationships are definitely more flexible than most people give them credit for, that's probably true. But I think there are destructive relationship patterns, regardless of the number of people involved, that can be commonly identified and then, hopefully, avoided.

Agreed. I also know of a poly marriage, two and two, that not only blew up spectacularly but did so all over the intarweb since they billed themselves a "model family" with blogging and such. (When I say "know of" I mean I am in the same social circle as 3 of the 4 participants). And I know of a mono marriage that was full of fail for many years and ultimately ended (that would be my parents). So anecdotes will not help, UNLESS we can identify the principles at work that contribute to the success or failure of the relationship. I can say lots of things about what makes mono relationships fail, but I couldn't specifically say what makes poly relationships fail that is distinct from what makes mono relationships fail, if there are such causes.

Haven't seen the movie...can you give me the relevant details? Don't worry about spoilers, I don't plan on seeing it any time soon (I just about never care about movie spoilers anyhow).

The jury may still be out on whether polyamory can "work", but I swear I have never met a single person who actively claims polyamory as a lifestyle who I consider the slightest bit functional or together, and most of them are people for whom I have absolutely no respect. Has anyone around here ever observed a polyamorous relationship that is NOT some kind of dysfunctional train wreck? I'm genuinely curious at this point, because I seriously think this is one of the dumbest ideas in vogue today.

My point was that anyone could use that one. The only time it might be a little incourteous to use it if you don't have a specific reason is if there's a wheelchair-bound person sitting outside or something and it's a handicapped-designated toilet. I'd feel a bit foolish then. But yeah, the point was that anyone who wanted to could use it. Many places, like gas stations, that's the only kind of restroom there is anyway.

But milk is tasty! Seriously, though, you mean to tell me there is no way to raise a dairy cow that is more or less in accordance with their natures? I know many dairy farmers that would disagree.

I picked "female - don't care". Honestly I don't really like being in public restrooms with other people around anyway, even if they are all other women. It just weirds me out. I like to do my thing in peace. I think the best solution may be to have a room-of-stalls/urinals for men, room-of-stalls for women, and a unisex/family/handicapped room with a sink, toilet, and maybe a changing table. I've done a lot of long drives in my day, and a lot of gas stations have just one or two restrooms like the above. This knocks out a lot of issues in one, I think. And if you're trans, or have unusual gender performance, or whatever, such that you'd get weird looks if you went in one of the sex-segregated bathrooms, you can just use the unisex/family/handicapped one. And if you're like me, and don't want to think about three or four strangers in a room with you while you're trying to take care of your business, you can use the unisex/family/handicapped one too LOL

Dude, where are you getting all this? And next time you want to post a random anime pick totally unrelated to your post, try to pick a show that doesn't suck so much.

I feel similarly. I don't particularly view Oism as being "on the right" (although I certainly don't view it on the left either). Honestly, on a day-to-day basis, I get along with your average liberal more than your average conservative, BUT I get along with your average independent/politically apathetic person better than either of them. So it's really all on an individual basis anyway. But yeah, I don't think conservatives are any more ready allies than liberals taken as a group. It's all about individual people. Spending a little bit of time over at secularright.org illustrated that rather quickly. Like leftist atheists, rightist atheists are just as prone to fall back on biological determinism and moral intuitionism rather than figure out a rational, egoistic morality.

Off-topic, what is this nontaxable income of which you speak? I had to pay taxes on my stipend this year and it sucked. What kinds of income fall into the nontaxable category as a student? I thought that anything they give you not related to educational expenses was taxable.

If you're really concerned about helping people, why not try looking closer to home, where not only are your efforts likely to go much farther, you are even more likely to reap satisfaction from it, seeing as you have a bit more invested in your own community. Yes, terrible things are happening in Africa, but unless you want to join the military and go kill the folks violating others' rights there is probably not much you personally can do. But if you want to help people (and it is best to work a bit harder at identifying who exactly you want to help, and why), you don't need to look overseas. Think about it.

That sounds like a mutt mix of conservative intuitionist justification.

I confess that, while I recognize that what the government is forcing these companies to do is morally wrong, I have limited sympathy for the leadership of many of these companies that actively solicited my money, taken from me by force, for them to run their operations, attempted to use the force of government to hedge their competitors, and generally bought into/supported the system that has gotten us to this sorry mess. Those that enthusiastically accepted government money to this point DESERVE to be told what to do, like the nutless wonders they are. There are far more Orren Boyles than Hank Reardens out there.

"Slide" The Goo Goo Dolls "Love Me Like Music (I'll be your song)" Heart And my favorite, "Anywhere" by Evanescence: "Dear my love, haven't you wanted to be with me and Dear my love, haven't you longed to be free I can't keep pretending that I don't even know you and Come sweet night you are my own Take my hand We're leaving here tonight, There's no need to tell anyone, they'll only hold us down So by the morning's light We'll be halfway to anywhere, where love is more than just your name" And because love has a dark side: "Every Breath you Take" The Police "Big Empty" Stone Temple Pilots "Enough of Me" Melissa Etheridge and of course... "All the Same" Sick Puppies "I don't mind where you come from, as long as you come to me But I don't like illusions I can't see them clearly I don't care, though I wouldn't dare to fix the twist in you But you showed me eventually what you'll do I don't mind, I don't care, as long as you're here Go ahead tell me you'll leave again, you'll just come back runnin' Holding your scarred heart in hand, it's all the same And I'll take you for who you are, if you take me for everything Do it all over again, It's all the same"

Me, I get resentful. They want to keep me from doing something, achieving something, that I should be able to do. In the immortal words of Galt, "Get the hell out of my way!"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/24/s...hildrens-brains This is a story about how Facebook may basically turn the next generation into hedonistic social metaphysicians. Freakin' lovely.

I second, I believe it was RB, who said that Facebook is a tool like any other. I've used it to get back in touch with people from the old neighborhood who I value, and that's nice. It's nice to know what some of my more far-flung friends are up to, where they're going to school, etc. Obviously something like Facebook stalking is excessive and not good for you. I've never used Facebook as any more than an extension of real-life relating. I definitely downplay the exhibitionist aspect. My profile reflects who I am but doesn't give every detail of my life. Those who want to know me do...anyone else needs to take the time and do the work. To the OP, it does sound like you need to be more discriminating in those you call friends. Remember that a good friendship is a commitment to another person that you like and respect, and that properly cared for it can last for years. You don't want to surround yourself with a bunch of "friends" who vanish when it becomes inconvenient. Don't worry about not making a lot of friends, especially if you have other going concerns in your life that are important to you. As to the all-important relationship question, my best advice is, women are friends too. if you find a great lady, take it slow, get to know her, and if the attraction develops from there all the better.

Anyone could deny service to people with service dogs, or for any other reason for that matter, but it would be very stupid, and their business would fail.