Dumb Political Correctness

Discussion in 'West Mall' started by Mr. Deez, Feb 8, 2012.

  1. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    Certainly not all have, but many have. Paul Begala was the most recent example, but I've heard several others. Making Russia/Trump into a monster has taken precedence over criticizing Mitt Romney.
     
  2. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    That's really the point I was trying to make, which is that no one so far has had an answer for North Korea, so the present tone that's trying to set the table for blaming Trump for whatever comes next is pretty transparent.

    There's a more grim reality as well, which is that in a modern civilization where you can't (openly) destroy a regime or a country because of what they MIGHT do later on, there really isn't a lot that anyone can do with a country that doesn't care about its standing in the global community and isn't worried that its people are being hurt by economic sanctions. If he has tech capabilities and can develop a few channels here and there, he's going to build whatever he wants.

    Short of going in and taking out North Korea, this was probably going to happen eventually. We helped pave the way with some naive deals back in the '90s when a less insane person was running that country. But a rogue, unpredictable nation has always been the fear in the nuclear age, and now we have one. So you either take on nthe mantle of "greater good" and take the country out immediately, or you build a really good missile defense system (can we intercept an inbound nuke yet? We might want to get to work on that.), or you decide that a couple of your cities taking one for the team is the price you pay for being "civilized."

    There's a very good chance that Kim believes he can nuke a city without a nuclear reprisal. It's possible he's right.
     
  3. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    They did cite to studies, etc., but like I said earlier, I don't care. Race-based preferences violate very clear language in the Constitution and countless federal and state anti-discrimination statutes, and that should be the end of the analysis.
     
  4. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    Most of your comments are good, but I disagree here. I don't think Kim believes that, and I don't think it's true. Obviously, we try to avoid war on a large scale, and it's easy to keep that up when you're people aren't being killed. However, if a US city actually got nuked and saw hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, I think the gloves would come off. We'd basically destroy North Korea like we destroyed Japan - maybe worse.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  5. Sangre Naranjada

    Sangre Naranjada 10,000+ Posts

    Why bring your penis into this conversation?
     
    • Like Like x 3
  6. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    I knew somebody was gonna go there. Perhaps both are only for archive purposes now.
     
  7. Sangre Naranjada

    Sangre Naranjada 10,000+ Posts

    It's junior high material, but the low hanging fruit was just too good to pass up.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  8. Seattle Husker

    Seattle Husker 10,000+ Posts

    This has been my view on NK and Iran. If you can't stop it the next best goal is to slow it down.

    Where we differ is that I don't think Kim Jong Un is suicidal. Un isn't looking to expand his power beyond NK but rather to ensure he can protect the power he has. You don't protect what you have by launching a nuclear first strike on an enemy that is more powerful than you. The question is does he miscalculate the US resolve like Sadam Hussein did?
     
  9. Seattle Husker

    Seattle Husker 10,000+ Posts

    North Korea would cease to exist in it's current form. I doubt we'd respond with nukes because we don't have to but the armaments that would rain down from land, sea and air would make the Allies bombing of Germany during WWII seem like child's play. China would sit back and watch while we did it.
     
  10. BrntOrngStmpeDe

    BrntOrngStmpeDe 1,000+ Posts

    so effectively you are saying that everything for 36 years has pointed to a logic for increasing minority and women's participation in the workforce
    1. Higher participation rate in college
    2. Studies that "prove" diverse teams are more productive
    3. Social justice policies that put huge pressure on employers to hire minorities and women

    and yet they still aren't there???

    So as a business owner I have more women and minorities to choose from, AND I'll be more productive, AND I'll stay off of the racist/sexist/bigot/homophobe/etc naughty list and yet I still choose to not hire these people,...hmmm...not to mention that at least anecdotally it appears to me that HR staffs across the country are dominated by women and minorities these days (one would presume that they are giving their own sub-group at least a fair shake in the resume queue) ...and yet we are still having to have marches, etc..

    That just doesn't jive. My suspicion is that these studies you mention were so contrived and manipulated to deliver a desired outcome that they don't resemble "real world" teams in the slightest. If companies were truly experiencing higher productivity by being diverse, they would be clawing and scratching to find these force multipliers. I'm not saying that there aren't women and minorities that can stand toe to toe and hold their own in the workplace. There are many, and there are many that are more productive and more capable but the instances (outside of branding/marketing) where a specific sub-group perspective added to the productivity of the group are so few and far between as to be almost non-existent.

    Diversity does not lead to higher productivity. Better, smarter workers (no matter the gender/race/ethnicity) is what leads to higher productivity. If you are the better, smarter worker you should get the job...companies/schools shouldn't hire or even focus their recruiting based on specific sub-groups.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  11. OUBubba

    OUBubba 5,000+ Posts

    Well played good sir.... ;)
     
    • Like Like x 1
  12. nashhorn

    nashhorn 5,000+ Posts

    And that is the question we all have isn't it?
     
  13. 4th_floor

    4th_floor Dude, where's my laptop?

    Re: Paul Begala - I voted for Hank.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  14. OUBubba

    OUBubba 5,000+ Posts

    You guys really are parsing this ish. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was more than 36 years ago.
    The positives come from the different viewpoints and the creativity that those different life experiences bring. I'm worried that I'm going to find that 3.5 "hard disk" and be disappointed in what I find. :)

    I assume we all worked in groups in college. In my experience the most "comfortable" ones were the ones with me, Biff and Chip. The ones that I learned the most from and that I remember things from are those that had the middle aged Greek woman and the Dentist and the future cat lady.
     
  15. Htown77

    Htown77 5,000+ Posts

    That is what I keep thinking about with North Korea. The USSR pulled the nukes out of Cuba and the Castro regime still stands. Iraq continued to pretend they had WMDs or try to get them or both, and they got wiped out. Kim would be smarter not to have them. If he pushes the US too far, the US will strike regardless of the president.

    I am happy to say that other than language classes where "group work" was practicing speaking to one another, I happily never had group work at UT. My friends in the business school did it. Usually one person ended up doing everything and everyone in the group hated one another. All I ever heard about group work from people was "f*** everyone in my group, they do not do any work. F*** them." I am very glad I did not experience the group work frustration of having to do everything for a group in college and never had any group projects.

    I have to say that in my job, I do not do any group work nor have I ever had group work in any job. I do not know what the benefit of it is other than causing random classmates to hate one another as only 1 or 2 people will end up doing the work.
     
  16. Joe Fan

    Joe Fan 10,000+ Posts

  17. Joe Fan

    Joe Fan 10,000+ Posts

    Try telling Sandy baby that
     
    • Like Like x 1
  18. Seattle Husker

    Seattle Husker 10,000+ Posts

    I recently took some Technology MBA courses at UW and would say that school has changed. Everything is group work, even in the engineering schools. In the corporate world, a developer works with the Product Manager, Business Analyst, QA Analyst, Project Manager, etc to deliver their portion of a product. Lawyers may be one of the few professions that doesn't require groupwork. Who wants to work with the lawyers? :p

    Just kidding, I work with them constantly to get software vendor contracts in place and endure their data privacy reviews of our proposed solutions.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  19. Htown77

    Htown77 5,000+ Posts

    Actually, looking back, some people I knew who had no prejudices before group work started greatly disliking everything about the people in their groups that would not work or did bad work and brought the group grade down. One person I know who I had never heard say a mean thing about anyone went on quite the rant about a group member, the group member's name, origin, family, background, etc when they got a bad grade (i do not know what they were doing, something finance) because that group member kept trying to divide by zero in his part of the project and did not turn his part in on time for anyone else to see he was dividing by 0 beforehand. To this day I cannot figure out how someone that thought you could divide by zero passed calculus or any of his finance courses. Anyway, not sure how that helps race relations.
     
  20. Htown77

    Htown77 5,000+ Posts

    I cannot speak to other professions but I can confirm there was no group work in law school and I have not encountered any in my job, and I am okay with that.
     
  21. Htown77

    Htown77 5,000+ Posts

    I guess my thoughts on affirmative action (other than agreeing with Deez that race discrimination is unconstitutional) is "how is it implemented?"

    It probably works when it is used to help qualified candidates. If it is used to help completely unqualified candidates and those candidates are put in group projects where they bring the group down, it just breeds resentment and makes society worse.
     
  22. Phil Elliott

    Phil Elliott 2,500+ Posts

    The problem with group work is that most people in the group think they are doing all the work and everybody else is either goofing off or their work sucks, or both.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  23. BrntOrngStmpeDe

    BrntOrngStmpeDe 1,000+ Posts

    to my ear, that is roughly equivalent to "let's be inclusive" which is a social justice argument and not a productivity argument.
     
  24. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    At Baylor, moot court and Practice Court were mandatory, and we had to work as partners. However, that was only for the courtroom work, and most of the grade was the written exams, which were done in an individual basis and were brutally hard.
     
  25. Htown77

    Htown77 5,000+ Posts

    I decided to go the transactional route after clerking with a litigation firm and a transactional firm my 1L summer. I have avoided anything with "court" in it ever since then. Now that I think about it, I believe my friends who did moot court, etc. did do group work as well. I cannot say I remember any complaining on their end though... probably due to there being fewer slackers in law school than undergrad.
     
  26. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    They beat litigation into you at Baylor by forcing you to spend so much time and effort on it that you don't want it to be wasted by not practicing it. I entered planning to be a tax lawyer. I left as a personal injury trial lawyer - the complete opposite of a tax lawyer.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  27. Htown77

    Htown77 5,000+ Posts

    They may have crushed your tax law dreams and forced you on the litigation path, but I am sure Baylor helped you become a damn good litigator!

    UT is appellate advocacy focused. Going an appellate advocacy route is strongly encouraged but the good news is that they do not force it on anyone.
     
  28. Joe Fan

    Joe Fan 10,000+ Posts

    is this why Trump won?

     
  29. Joe Fan

    Joe Fan 10,000+ Posts

    Seen this woman's videos?
    There is a whole series in her twitter, if interested
    I admit I laughed


     
  30. Joe Fan

    Joe Fan 10,000+ Posts

    Are words needed?

    [​IMG]
     

Share This Page