Once again I’m perplexed by a visual tweet. Doesn’t the name of the crackers already clearly indicate the same thing as “ what a green flag means”? Why is this clever or funny?
Well that explains it. It’s not a word I’ve ever even heard used. I know what it means from books but so out of anything I hear that it never crossed my mind.
Also, many of the founding teams and drivers of NASCAR were moonshine smugglers. They had developed and honed their skills modifying stock cars to haul tanks of moonshine and increase their speed to outrun revenue agents. They were rude, rural folks that were considered hillbillys and crackers by southern elites, just as they had been since the mid-1700's.
My understanding of voting is that you look at the candidates and choose the one who you think lines up with your way of thinking or at the very least wouldn't screw things up. In 2016 for me that wasn't Trump or Hillary. Trump for obvious reasons and HC because of the shadiness in her past. And just a question...would the 3.3% have put HC over the orange idiot?
I’ve always enjoyed the way that people who cry foul about third party candidates always presume that every single person that voted for those candidates would have been destined to vote for the candidate that they personally prefer (read, Democrat) had it not been for the presence of said third party candidates on the ballot. Gary Johnson’s libertarian philosophy almost certainly assured him of more appeal among Republican, not Democratic voters, and so most of the votes that he received would more likely have gone to Trump than to Clinton if his voters were to have opted for one of the major party candidates.
This is from the Sat/Sun Aug 5-6 Wall Street Journal entitled THE FOUNDERS ANTICIPATED THE THREAT OF TRUMP: The allegations in the indictment of Donald Trump for conspiring to overturn the election of 2020 represent the American Founders’ nightmare. A key concern of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton was that demagogues would incite mobs and factions to defy the rule of law, overturn free and fair elections and undermine American democracy. “The only path to subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in 1790. “When a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper...is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity,” Hamilton warned, “he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’”
All of the visual tweets this week could be winners. You might consider spreading the better ones out to upcoming newsletters with Twitter, I mean X, descending into Hell. BTW, I think you bear a strong resemblance to Bill Walton in your high school basketball photo.
Eric - you changed the issue. I totally agree that playing sports in High School is an important part of that experience. I ran on the Cross Country, indoor and outdoor track teams and yes it was an important part of my High School experience.
Lots of kids played on these various sports teams while others had related activities - band, pep club or cheer leading as examples.
Now we get to College, most all people I knew did not play varsity football with/without a football scholarship. Plenty of people played intramural sports including football.
Playing varsity football in College was not part of the typical college experience. While the majority of students were working to graduate (graduation being part of the College experience) a lot of the better College football players were playing for NFL selection Not college graduation.
Adding to Peter's comment... The notion of "student athletes "in division 1 college sports is mostly a fiction. I would not say that it is all about money, because that ignores the reason it makes money in the first place, but if sports were not a big money maker for for NU, I think their reaction to the hazing scandal would have been much different.
While the true "student athletes" are admittedly few and far between (see Stephan Humphries), I've known many many varsity college athletes - including football, but mostly non-rev sport college athletes (scholarship and walk-ons) - who truly DO have a "student-athlete experience": both the camaraderie of being on a team, and the challenges of true college intellectual pursuit. Virtually to a person, they extol the experience. Most became successful in their chosen (non-athletic) fields.
Baffled at early returns for fave visual tweet. “Stick library”? How is that staged pic and absurd analogy (dogs chewing sticks = people reading and trading books?) anywhere near as funny as Uncle Duke’s clever take that works on several levels — linguistic, social, visual — and doesn’t rely on staging? Harrumph I say!
I was fine with the Trib 2016 endorsement. I hated both Clinton and Trump. If I thought there was any chance of Trump winning in Illinois, I would have voted for Clinton. But I voted for Johnson because I did not want Clinton to believe, or be able to claim, that she had any sort of mandate. As it turned out, neither candidate had a majority of votes, nationally. In Illinois, Clinton got 55% and would have had 62% if no one voted for Johnson, Stein, or others. Just another example of the benefit of ranked voting.
I agree about ranked voting. I also wonder how many people are swayed by polls; would people not bother to vote if their candidate is ahead? Do people worry about "wasting" their vote if they choose a third party candidate who doesn't look likely to win? We are so obsessed in this country with being on the winning team that I worry we are not choosing on the basis of issues. And why the rush in the media to be the first to call an election winner?
I voted for myself in 2016. It was no more wasted (in Illinois) because HRC was winning IL regardless. In 2024 I may be with the 3rd party group. To fix the 2 party system it may take a losing election. I think we’ve all made it thru a full term of a guy we didn’t vote for in the past 10 years, and we survived. We’ll survive 4 years of someone next time. Righting the ship will take a couple election cycles. Not voting 3rd party because it will lose this time is admitting that our system will never change.
Don’t say we’ll all survive 4 years of someone next time unless you are a transgender person, especially a transgender person of color. Some of us will not survive the withholding of necessary medical care which is being made law by Republicans in many states, and which Trump has promised to make law federally. We will not all survive another four years of Trump and the Republicans. I’m sorry, but your privilege is showing.
Your point is well taken, but our country keeps bouncing between R and D, indicating the inability of both to attack the other side. We will keep bouncing whether we think that is optimal or not.
Two comments this week that I will post separately. I see from the comments that the primary opposition to a flat tax is that it is seen as regressive and disproportionately hitting lower income people. But what if we had a flat tax with three or four income levels with increasing percentage of tax for higher incomes? This would still be a progressive tax that would hit harder on the wealthy, but would still avoid all of us having to navigate our way through the myriad of rules and regulations in our tax code. Keep in mind that our current tax code is of huge benefit to the accounting industry, as well as politicians continually tinkering with the tax code to insert favorable provisions that work to the benefit of their donor groups.
I commented before that a federal flat tax has no chance, and I stand by it. I also think it is a bad idea from a left, right or center perspective. Allowing various deductions, or some income to be non-taxable all make the tax code non-flat, as much as tiers of increasing tax rates. All of that complexity is there for a reason, and I think much of it is for a good reason.
In 1969 when media reports of there being 6 individuals who made over 1 million in a year paid no tax, there was pressure on congress to make a change. You would think that they would look at the tax code and see how someone can make so much money an pay not tax and then change the tax code accordingly. But they did not do that for good reasons. For example, allowing municipal bonds have tax exempt coupon payments provides municipalities lower borrowing costs. While buyers of those bonds do not pay the IRS they accept a lower return and the issuers of the muni's are the beneficiaries. So the muni bond investors still get their post-tax income reduced even though they did not send checks into the IRS.
This is an example of "federal spending through deductions". Congress did not want to end the tax treatment of muni's, but they wanted to do something. So they created the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is terrible, IMO.
So the question is whether or not we can have a vastly simpler tax code and still be satisfied with what the policy goals that it accomplishments. In the early stages of a primary campaign for a presidential nomination it is easy to say "yes", but if you had to actually come up with one... well...
I understand your points which all have merit. But you are very correct in that people of immense wealth game the system with tax accountants and tax lawyers to end up paying far less than their fair share because of all the complex rules and regulations which they know how to use to their advantage.
Also, I am philosophically opposed to using the tax code to create incentives for certain types of spending or incentives. If the government wants to support purchase of municipal bonds or purchase of electric vehicles, they could very straightforward and honestly do that with specific legislation that could then be examined debated upon its merits and voted up or down. That's why I believe a flat tax with graduated levels of tax responsibility would eliminate the opportunity for people to game the system or to continue funding an entire industry to navigate through this complexity.
2nd comment. PS readership as a group generally occupies the left side of the political spectrum with some closer to the middle and some further left. For that reason, I sincerely would like to hear the liberal take on this.
The visual treat utilizes the word "cracker," and the definition of cracker is that it is a racial slur directed at white people. How is that any different than a racial slur directed at blacks, Hispanics, Asians, etc?? Can anyone explain the rationale for this explicit double standard? I would like to think that we would all be of a common mindset to avoid ALL use of racial or ethnic slurs.
" For those needing a refresher course, here are just a few reasons why "cracker" doesn’t compare to the N-word. Cracker has never been used routinely to:
●Deny a white person a seat at a lunch counter.
●Systematically deny whites the right to vote.
●Deny a white person a seat near the front of a bus.
●Crack the skulls of peaceful white protesters marching for equality.
●Blow up a church and kill four little white girls.
I was not attempting to state an equivalency between the n-word and cracker. ( note how we both use the hyphenated version of the n-word, but felt okay to use cracker. But cracker is undeniably a racial slur directed at a racial group. Are lesser racial slurs against other ethnic groups okay then? Or is someone taking the position that just racial slurs against whites are okay? My point is, why is it okay for anyone to use ANY racial slur?? I'd like to think that we can all be better than that.
It was a white person, Uncle Duke, calling another white person a cracker. You don’t get why that’s okay? It’s like an LGBTQ+ person referring to her community as “the queer community,” or an African-American using the n-word in a song. We can call each other those words because they are not being misused in a power dynamic. I know it’s hard for some cisgender heterosexual white men to accept the fact that they experience privilege, but you do.
Thank you for your reply and for once again generalizing in a very negative way about someone you do not know. You truly are one of the most intolerant people that post here.
I actually have a unique understanding of the cultural privilege accorded cisgender heterosexual white men because I used to be one, or at least I was perceived as one. And I personally experienced the difference in the way so many people in our culture treat cisgender heterosexual white men from other people when I went from ostensibly being a cisgender heterosexual white male to living openly as a transgender lesbian white women. The most obvious difference is that I was interrupted much more frequently by men, especially other lawyers who are men. Police treated me differently. I lost some clients. I began to be openly disrespected by certain people in the MAGA crowd. So don’t try to convince me that when I was perceived as a cisgender heterosexual white man, I didn’t experience cultural privilege. I know better.
You certainly have a predilection for steering discussion on virtually any topic to a discourse about yourself.
But, in a valiant attempt to get back on a discussion on the merits of my original point, I would hope that everyone would agree that we should all refrain from using all racial and ethnic slurs. For some people to rationalize that it is okay to use some racial or ethnic slurs, only makes it much easier for other people to then go further with other racial and ethnic slurs. And that's why I was struck by, and object to, the use of the term "cracker" as a derogatory slur aimed at white people.
I was responding to your comment about privilege and your claim that I generalize about someone I don’t know. I was explaining why I don’t need to know a cisgender heterosexual white man in order to know that he experiences cultural privilege in today’s United States. And unlike you, I don’t see anything wrong with people in a group using slurs directed towards people in their own group. It’s like LGBTQ+ people co-opting the word “queer” to take the sting out of it. Or African-Americans using the n-word in music.
I think we will all agree that you have made it perfectly clear that you do not like white heterosexual men. Got it. But let's please try to stay on topic.
Joanie, I have to ask: if life is as rough as you say it is since transitioning, why wouldn’t you just go back to being a “cisgender heterosexual white chap?” I mean, seriously.
When I was a teenager, I decided that I would go full blown rebel without a cause by growing my hair long and unkempt, not bothering to wash it or brush it, not even visiting a barber to trim or stylize it for years on end. I refused to bathe more than once per week, and refrained from applying deodorant, all whilst wearing torn and tattered jeans, warped and weathered t shirts and flannels, and gym shoes so old and worn that they were held together with duct tape. As a consequence of my new found sense of fashion, I was routinely picked on by other kids at school, harassed by cops for walking down the street, and would always have retail store managers and undercover detectives following me around and calling me into little offices for questioning.
When I would whine to my parents about the unfair treatment I was receiving, they both more or less said to me, “well what do you expect when you go around looking like that?” Although that only made me dig in more at my sense of the injustice of it all, I pretty soon came around to see their point. No one is obligated to grant me respect and I don’t have any special protection against being scorned, derided or besmirched just because I’m a teenager with a chip on his shoulder.
Gradually, I came around to applying what might have been considered some introspective, self directed cognitive behavioral therapy that really awakened me to my own flawed thinking. I came to the conclusion that my anti-social dress and demeanor was a sort of calculation, the calculus being that I was being provocative so that I could provoke, and then air the grievance that the world was unfair because of all these malign forces that refuse to accept me as the scummy, smelly, unkempt wretch that I was. I came to the realization that these were not healthy thinking or habits that I was employing, and gradually began bathing, visiting the barber, applying deodorant, dressing neatly, and gradually coming around to enjoy being an accepted, liked and functioning cog in the social order.
My point is, there are much worse fates in life than having to revert to the doldrums of conformity, particularly when not doing so seems to bring so much misery.
Why do I not go back to being a “chap”? Because I am not male. And your comparison of being a transgender person to being a teenager with poor hygiene is ignorant, absurd, and bigoted. But sort of in character for you.
Accusations of bigotry are kind of rich coming from the person who can scarcely post a comment without making clear her sniveling contempt for “cisgender heterosexual white men”, but sort of in character for you. You remind me of the Theodore Bikel character from the Twilight Zone episode “Four O’ Clock”.
I don't recall any presidential election that offered an unflawed candidate. Those who weren't Democrats or Republicans never explained how they would get anything done without close ties to one or the other of the Big Two parties. That could change if a third party had grown from the trenches of local nd state government to the point that it had enough people in the House and Senate to force Dems and the GOP to negotiate about legislation and appointments with them. That's a third party that could then meaningfully field a presidential candidate. But until that day comes, I'll continue to weigh the pros and cons of the big-party candidates for president and vote for the one who comes closer to my values and my hopes for our country. Both might have more minuses than pluses, but one won't be as bad as the other--true so far, in my experience of presidential races (1972 was my first as a voter). That said, I respect Eric's decision to abstain from this year's mayoral race more than I did when he first wrote about it. If we get a presidential match-up that dismays me as much as the 2023 mayoral runoff dismayed him, I'll refrain from casting a vote for that office.
I wrote in Theo Epstein in 2016. He had just led the Cubs to a World Series victory. Who better to perform miracles? With a 17% margin in Illinois, my vote was not wasted.
I voted third-party in 2016 and don't feel I wasted it. I didn't want Trump and I'd become completely disillusioned by HRC. I've already told my kids if it's a Biden-Trump race in 2024 I'm not voting at all and they're appalled. Well, I'm appalled that that was the choice in 2020 and it might be again.
Also -- Joanie Wimmer, you used the phrase (like 99 percent of people) "gender-affirming care." However, no one actually DEFINES what that care is. Does it involved surgery for people under the age of 18? If it does, I will always want that illegal. If it involves usage of different pronouns, I have no problem with that (but I sure hope we come up with something besides using plural pronouns b/c that's just grammatically wrong). Secrets from parents? Hmmmm, that's how pedophiles and abusers operate. Objecting to "Gender-affirming care" sounds like you wear a tinfoil hat but ... maybe not.
Beth Bales, you write that “no one actually DEFINES what [gender-affirming] care is.” You are incorrect. It has been defined for 44 years in the Standards of Care of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), formerly known as the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association. The current Standards of Care do not recommend surgery for children, but rather recommend that patients reach the age of adulthood to be a candidate for gender affirming surgery. The only gender affirming care recommended for children before puberty is social support, such as allowing a child to choose clothing, hairstyles, or use of a different name that more closely aligns with their gender identity. Different gender-affirming care short of surgery is recommended for adolescents under certain circumstances.
You write, “Secrets from parents? Hmmmm, that's how pedophiles and abusers operate.” These comments of yours seem to align with the current Republican taking point that LGBTQ+ people are pedophiles and abusers, which is on a par with the Nazi blood libel against Jews which falsely stated that Jews used the blood of Christian children for ritualistic purposes. I hope you drop that talking point. It makes you sound like a right wing nut job.
The issue of parents who withhold necessary medical care from their children is serious. I remember in 1979 when I was a law student at the Champaign County Public Defender’s office, working with the court on a protocol for how to deal with the situation where parents who were Jehovah’s witnesses would not authorize a necessary blood transfusion for their child based on the parents’ religious beliefs. It is not uncommon today for conservative parents to withhold necessary gender affirming care for their child suffering from gender dysphoria.
Quite interesting. Thank you for the information. I am going to bet, however, that few people (excerpt maybe doctors and lawyers) would give that definition of gender-affirming care. As a lawyer, you certainly have come across cases of sexual abuse against children. (Or perhaps you've watched "Spotlight," about reporters researching the clergy abuse scandal in Boston in 2000-02, or so.) The abuser frames it as "this is our secret," frequently. That's where my comment comes from -- and sadly, I know of way too many cases of this kind of abuse.
Also -- I agree with David L. Let's dispense with slurs. Why people feel it's just fine to make fun of people b/c of where they live is beyond me. Civil Rights Act was passed in the 60s. It's 60 years later. Blacks aren't denied votes and they're not denied service. I'm sure they face slurs. So do women. So do Southerners. So do Jews. Let's stop it.
Once again I’m perplexed by a visual tweet. Doesn’t the name of the crackers already clearly indicate the same thing as “ what a green flag means”? Why is this clever or funny?
Crackers! Get it?
Well that explains it. It’s not a word I’ve ever even heard used. I know what it means from books but so out of anything I hear that it never crossed my mind.
See cracker definition below. Nascar typically considered to have huge southern white fan base. And hardly any drivers of color.
Also: is especially hilarious if they are high fiber snacks!
Also, many of the founding teams and drivers of NASCAR were moonshine smugglers. They had developed and honed their skills modifying stock cars to haul tanks of moonshine and increase their speed to outrun revenue agents. They were rude, rural folks that were considered hillbillys and crackers by southern elites, just as they had been since the mid-1700's.
My understanding of voting is that you look at the candidates and choose the one who you think lines up with your way of thinking or at the very least wouldn't screw things up. In 2016 for me that wasn't Trump or Hillary. Trump for obvious reasons and HC because of the shadiness in her past. And just a question...would the 3.3% have put HC over the orange idiot?
The Trib's cop-out endorsement in 2016 was almost as bad as someone casting a blank ballot.
(just kidding)
I’ve always enjoyed the way that people who cry foul about third party candidates always presume that every single person that voted for those candidates would have been destined to vote for the candidate that they personally prefer (read, Democrat) had it not been for the presence of said third party candidates on the ballot. Gary Johnson’s libertarian philosophy almost certainly assured him of more appeal among Republican, not Democratic voters, and so most of the votes that he received would more likely have gone to Trump than to Clinton if his voters were to have opted for one of the major party candidates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_(term)#:~:text=Cracker%2C%20sometimes%20white%20cracker%20or,in%20the%20Southern%20United%20States.
This is from the Sat/Sun Aug 5-6 Wall Street Journal entitled THE FOUNDERS ANTICIPATED THE THREAT OF TRUMP: The allegations in the indictment of Donald Trump for conspiring to overturn the election of 2020 represent the American Founders’ nightmare. A key concern of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton was that demagogues would incite mobs and factions to defy the rule of law, overturn free and fair elections and undermine American democracy. “The only path to subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in 1790. “When a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper...is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity,” Hamilton warned, “he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’”
All of the visual tweets this week could be winners. You might consider spreading the better ones out to upcoming newsletters with Twitter, I mean X, descending into Hell. BTW, I think you bear a strong resemblance to Bill Walton in your high school basketball photo.
Eric - you changed the issue. I totally agree that playing sports in High School is an important part of that experience. I ran on the Cross Country, indoor and outdoor track teams and yes it was an important part of my High School experience.
Lots of kids played on these various sports teams while others had related activities - band, pep club or cheer leading as examples.
Now we get to College, most all people I knew did not play varsity football with/without a football scholarship. Plenty of people played intramural sports including football.
Playing varsity football in College was not part of the typical college experience. While the majority of students were working to graduate (graduation being part of the College experience) a lot of the better College football players were playing for NFL selection Not college graduation.
Adding to Peter's comment... The notion of "student athletes "in division 1 college sports is mostly a fiction. I would not say that it is all about money, because that ignores the reason it makes money in the first place, but if sports were not a big money maker for for NU, I think their reaction to the hazing scandal would have been much different.
While the true "student athletes" are admittedly few and far between (see Stephan Humphries), I've known many many varsity college athletes - including football, but mostly non-rev sport college athletes (scholarship and walk-ons) - who truly DO have a "student-athlete experience": both the camaraderie of being on a team, and the challenges of true college intellectual pursuit. Virtually to a person, they extol the experience. Most became successful in their chosen (non-athletic) fields.
Baffled at early returns for fave visual tweet. “Stick library”? How is that staged pic and absurd analogy (dogs chewing sticks = people reading and trading books?) anywhere near as funny as Uncle Duke’s clever take that works on several levels — linguistic, social, visual — and doesn’t rely on staging? Harrumph I say!
I was fine with the Trib 2016 endorsement. I hated both Clinton and Trump. If I thought there was any chance of Trump winning in Illinois, I would have voted for Clinton. But I voted for Johnson because I did not want Clinton to believe, or be able to claim, that she had any sort of mandate. As it turned out, neither candidate had a majority of votes, nationally. In Illinois, Clinton got 55% and would have had 62% if no one voted for Johnson, Stein, or others. Just another example of the benefit of ranked voting.
I agree about ranked voting. I also wonder how many people are swayed by polls; would people not bother to vote if their candidate is ahead? Do people worry about "wasting" their vote if they choose a third party candidate who doesn't look likely to win? We are so obsessed in this country with being on the winning team that I worry we are not choosing on the basis of issues. And why the rush in the media to be the first to call an election winner?
I voted for myself in 2016. It was no more wasted (in Illinois) because HRC was winning IL regardless. In 2024 I may be with the 3rd party group. To fix the 2 party system it may take a losing election. I think we’ve all made it thru a full term of a guy we didn’t vote for in the past 10 years, and we survived. We’ll survive 4 years of someone next time. Righting the ship will take a couple election cycles. Not voting 3rd party because it will lose this time is admitting that our system will never change.
Don’t say we’ll all survive 4 years of someone next time unless you are a transgender person, especially a transgender person of color. Some of us will not survive the withholding of necessary medical care which is being made law by Republicans in many states, and which Trump has promised to make law federally. We will not all survive another four years of Trump and the Republicans. I’m sorry, but your privilege is showing.
Your point is well taken, but our country keeps bouncing between R and D, indicating the inability of both to attack the other side. We will keep bouncing whether we think that is optimal or not.
Loved the visual tweets this week—hard to decide!
Two comments this week that I will post separately. I see from the comments that the primary opposition to a flat tax is that it is seen as regressive and disproportionately hitting lower income people. But what if we had a flat tax with three or four income levels with increasing percentage of tax for higher incomes? This would still be a progressive tax that would hit harder on the wealthy, but would still avoid all of us having to navigate our way through the myriad of rules and regulations in our tax code. Keep in mind that our current tax code is of huge benefit to the accounting industry, as well as politicians continually tinkering with the tax code to insert favorable provisions that work to the benefit of their donor groups.
I commented before that a federal flat tax has no chance, and I stand by it. I also think it is a bad idea from a left, right or center perspective. Allowing various deductions, or some income to be non-taxable all make the tax code non-flat, as much as tiers of increasing tax rates. All of that complexity is there for a reason, and I think much of it is for a good reason.
In 1969 when media reports of there being 6 individuals who made over 1 million in a year paid no tax, there was pressure on congress to make a change. You would think that they would look at the tax code and see how someone can make so much money an pay not tax and then change the tax code accordingly. But they did not do that for good reasons. For example, allowing municipal bonds have tax exempt coupon payments provides municipalities lower borrowing costs. While buyers of those bonds do not pay the IRS they accept a lower return and the issuers of the muni's are the beneficiaries. So the muni bond investors still get their post-tax income reduced even though they did not send checks into the IRS.
This is an example of "federal spending through deductions". Congress did not want to end the tax treatment of muni's, but they wanted to do something. So they created the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is terrible, IMO.
So the question is whether or not we can have a vastly simpler tax code and still be satisfied with what the policy goals that it accomplishments. In the early stages of a primary campaign for a presidential nomination it is easy to say "yes", but if you had to actually come up with one... well...
I understand your points which all have merit. But you are very correct in that people of immense wealth game the system with tax accountants and tax lawyers to end up paying far less than their fair share because of all the complex rules and regulations which they know how to use to their advantage.
Also, I am philosophically opposed to using the tax code to create incentives for certain types of spending or incentives. If the government wants to support purchase of municipal bonds or purchase of electric vehicles, they could very straightforward and honestly do that with specific legislation that could then be examined debated upon its merits and voted up or down. That's why I believe a flat tax with graduated levels of tax responsibility would eliminate the opportunity for people to game the system or to continue funding an entire industry to navigate through this complexity.
2nd comment. PS readership as a group generally occupies the left side of the political spectrum with some closer to the middle and some further left. For that reason, I sincerely would like to hear the liberal take on this.
The visual treat utilizes the word "cracker," and the definition of cracker is that it is a racial slur directed at white people. How is that any different than a racial slur directed at blacks, Hispanics, Asians, etc?? Can anyone explain the rationale for this explicit double standard? I would like to think that we would all be of a common mindset to avoid ALL use of racial or ethnic slurs.
I'll quote Wa Po columnit Kathleen Parker:
" For those needing a refresher course, here are just a few reasons why "cracker" doesn’t compare to the N-word. Cracker has never been used routinely to:
●Deny a white person a seat at a lunch counter.
●Systematically deny whites the right to vote.
●Deny a white person a seat near the front of a bus.
●Crack the skulls of peaceful white protesters marching for equality.
●Blow up a church and kill four little white girls.
Need more? Didn’t think so."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-a-few-reasons-why-cracker-doesnt-compare-to-the-n-word/2013/06/28/93509d72-e024-11e2-963a-72d740e88c12_story.html
I was not attempting to state an equivalency between the n-word and cracker. ( note how we both use the hyphenated version of the n-word, but felt okay to use cracker. But cracker is undeniably a racial slur directed at a racial group. Are lesser racial slurs against other ethnic groups okay then? Or is someone taking the position that just racial slurs against whites are okay? My point is, why is it okay for anyone to use ANY racial slur?? I'd like to think that we can all be better than that.
It was a white person, Uncle Duke, calling another white person a cracker. You don’t get why that’s okay? It’s like an LGBTQ+ person referring to her community as “the queer community,” or an African-American using the n-word in a song. We can call each other those words because they are not being misused in a power dynamic. I know it’s hard for some cisgender heterosexual white men to accept the fact that they experience privilege, but you do.
Thank you for your reply and for once again generalizing in a very negative way about someone you do not know. You truly are one of the most intolerant people that post here.
I actually have a unique understanding of the cultural privilege accorded cisgender heterosexual white men because I used to be one, or at least I was perceived as one. And I personally experienced the difference in the way so many people in our culture treat cisgender heterosexual white men from other people when I went from ostensibly being a cisgender heterosexual white male to living openly as a transgender lesbian white women. The most obvious difference is that I was interrupted much more frequently by men, especially other lawyers who are men. Police treated me differently. I lost some clients. I began to be openly disrespected by certain people in the MAGA crowd. So don’t try to convince me that when I was perceived as a cisgender heterosexual white man, I didn’t experience cultural privilege. I know better.
You certainly have a predilection for steering discussion on virtually any topic to a discourse about yourself.
But, in a valiant attempt to get back on a discussion on the merits of my original point, I would hope that everyone would agree that we should all refrain from using all racial and ethnic slurs. For some people to rationalize that it is okay to use some racial or ethnic slurs, only makes it much easier for other people to then go further with other racial and ethnic slurs. And that's why I was struck by, and object to, the use of the term "cracker" as a derogatory slur aimed at white people.
I was responding to your comment about privilege and your claim that I generalize about someone I don’t know. I was explaining why I don’t need to know a cisgender heterosexual white man in order to know that he experiences cultural privilege in today’s United States. And unlike you, I don’t see anything wrong with people in a group using slurs directed towards people in their own group. It’s like LGBTQ+ people co-opting the word “queer” to take the sting out of it. Or African-Americans using the n-word in music.
I think we will all agree that you have made it perfectly clear that you do not like white heterosexual men. Got it. But let's please try to stay on topic.
What I have a problem with is white people using the n-word, or cisgender heterosexual people calling an LGBTQ+ person queer.
Joanie, I have to ask: if life is as rough as you say it is since transitioning, why wouldn’t you just go back to being a “cisgender heterosexual white chap?” I mean, seriously.
When I was a teenager, I decided that I would go full blown rebel without a cause by growing my hair long and unkempt, not bothering to wash it or brush it, not even visiting a barber to trim or stylize it for years on end. I refused to bathe more than once per week, and refrained from applying deodorant, all whilst wearing torn and tattered jeans, warped and weathered t shirts and flannels, and gym shoes so old and worn that they were held together with duct tape. As a consequence of my new found sense of fashion, I was routinely picked on by other kids at school, harassed by cops for walking down the street, and would always have retail store managers and undercover detectives following me around and calling me into little offices for questioning.
When I would whine to my parents about the unfair treatment I was receiving, they both more or less said to me, “well what do you expect when you go around looking like that?” Although that only made me dig in more at my sense of the injustice of it all, I pretty soon came around to see their point. No one is obligated to grant me respect and I don’t have any special protection against being scorned, derided or besmirched just because I’m a teenager with a chip on his shoulder.
Gradually, I came around to applying what might have been considered some introspective, self directed cognitive behavioral therapy that really awakened me to my own flawed thinking. I came to the conclusion that my anti-social dress and demeanor was a sort of calculation, the calculus being that I was being provocative so that I could provoke, and then air the grievance that the world was unfair because of all these malign forces that refuse to accept me as the scummy, smelly, unkempt wretch that I was. I came to the realization that these were not healthy thinking or habits that I was employing, and gradually began bathing, visiting the barber, applying deodorant, dressing neatly, and gradually coming around to enjoy being an accepted, liked and functioning cog in the social order.
My point is, there are much worse fates in life than having to revert to the doldrums of conformity, particularly when not doing so seems to bring so much misery.
Why do I not go back to being a “chap”? Because I am not male. And your comparison of being a transgender person to being a teenager with poor hygiene is ignorant, absurd, and bigoted. But sort of in character for you.
You forgot to mention “privileged”.
Accusations of bigotry are kind of rich coming from the person who can scarcely post a comment without making clear her sniveling contempt for “cisgender heterosexual white men”, but sort of in character for you. You remind me of the Theodore Bikel character from the Twilight Zone episode “Four O’ Clock”.
I don't recall any presidential election that offered an unflawed candidate. Those who weren't Democrats or Republicans never explained how they would get anything done without close ties to one or the other of the Big Two parties. That could change if a third party had grown from the trenches of local nd state government to the point that it had enough people in the House and Senate to force Dems and the GOP to negotiate about legislation and appointments with them. That's a third party that could then meaningfully field a presidential candidate. But until that day comes, I'll continue to weigh the pros and cons of the big-party candidates for president and vote for the one who comes closer to my values and my hopes for our country. Both might have more minuses than pluses, but one won't be as bad as the other--true so far, in my experience of presidential races (1972 was my first as a voter). That said, I respect Eric's decision to abstain from this year's mayoral race more than I did when he first wrote about it. If we get a presidential match-up that dismays me as much as the 2023 mayoral runoff dismayed him, I'll refrain from casting a vote for that office.
I wrote in Theo Epstein in 2016. He had just led the Cubs to a World Series victory. Who better to perform miracles? With a 17% margin in Illinois, my vote was not wasted.
I voted third-party in 2016 and don't feel I wasted it. I didn't want Trump and I'd become completely disillusioned by HRC. I've already told my kids if it's a Biden-Trump race in 2024 I'm not voting at all and they're appalled. Well, I'm appalled that that was the choice in 2020 and it might be again.
Also -- Joanie Wimmer, you used the phrase (like 99 percent of people) "gender-affirming care." However, no one actually DEFINES what that care is. Does it involved surgery for people under the age of 18? If it does, I will always want that illegal. If it involves usage of different pronouns, I have no problem with that (but I sure hope we come up with something besides using plural pronouns b/c that's just grammatically wrong). Secrets from parents? Hmmmm, that's how pedophiles and abusers operate. Objecting to "Gender-affirming care" sounds like you wear a tinfoil hat but ... maybe not.
Beth Bales, you write that “no one actually DEFINES what [gender-affirming] care is.” You are incorrect. It has been defined for 44 years in the Standards of Care of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), formerly known as the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association. The current Standards of Care do not recommend surgery for children, but rather recommend that patients reach the age of adulthood to be a candidate for gender affirming surgery. The only gender affirming care recommended for children before puberty is social support, such as allowing a child to choose clothing, hairstyles, or use of a different name that more closely aligns with their gender identity. Different gender-affirming care short of surgery is recommended for adolescents under certain circumstances.
You write, “Secrets from parents? Hmmmm, that's how pedophiles and abusers operate.” These comments of yours seem to align with the current Republican taking point that LGBTQ+ people are pedophiles and abusers, which is on a par with the Nazi blood libel against Jews which falsely stated that Jews used the blood of Christian children for ritualistic purposes. I hope you drop that talking point. It makes you sound like a right wing nut job.
The issue of parents who withhold necessary medical care from their children is serious. I remember in 1979 when I was a law student at the Champaign County Public Defender’s office, working with the court on a protocol for how to deal with the situation where parents who were Jehovah’s witnesses would not authorize a necessary blood transfusion for their child based on the parents’ religious beliefs. It is not uncommon today for conservative parents to withhold necessary gender affirming care for their child suffering from gender dysphoria.
https://www.wpath.org/media/cms/Documents/SOC%20v8/SOC-8%20FAQs%20-%20WEBSITE2.pdf
Quite interesting. Thank you for the information. I am going to bet, however, that few people (excerpt maybe doctors and lawyers) would give that definition of gender-affirming care. As a lawyer, you certainly have come across cases of sexual abuse against children. (Or perhaps you've watched "Spotlight," about reporters researching the clergy abuse scandal in Boston in 2000-02, or so.) The abuser frames it as "this is our secret," frequently. That's where my comment comes from -- and sadly, I know of way too many cases of this kind of abuse.
Also -- I agree with David L. Let's dispense with slurs. Why people feel it's just fine to make fun of people b/c of where they live is beyond me. Civil Rights Act was passed in the 60s. It's 60 years later. Blacks aren't denied votes and they're not denied service. I'm sure they face slurs. So do women. So do Southerners. So do Jews. Let's stop it.