Zeitgeist

I don’t respect people who try to win arguments through insults rather than strength of argument. You just prove your weakness. There’s nothing you could say to offend me though because I don’t consider you a formidable mind on here. Prove me wrong. I invite it.

I agree but Canadians think their healthcare is something special. It’s not that good.

I agree about the waste in government though the US HMO’s have high admin costs too. Admin costs in healthcare are a problem. Americans actually pay more for healthcare but they have the best stuff and the most options. Here in NYC, where I am now, anyone can get a free PCR test on the street. Also they don’t mandate certain care the way we do.

The state has a role to prevent the bodily harm of people. At what point are we talking about more than one person than the mom? There was a lot of argument on here about the importance of sacrificing individual discretion over vaccination for the well-being of others.

NBA players have an average of 10-15 year long careers. They bank what they can on an intense, competitive work schedule. The multi-mill salaries are exceptional and these players sell tickets for franchises. Still nothing on a Bezos.

Well our highest paid politicians make half that. Our General Practitioner doctors make half that. I think we can find competent people to do hospital admin jobs for a lot less.

Hospital and health administration costs are taking wages from front line workers. No one should be making $600,000 for running a hospital. $300,000 is still too much.

The Spanish did slaughtering under Cortez. In Canada the French allied with the Hurons and the Six Nations allied with the Brits. The Brits even tried to carve out a native country, which the US prevented. Tecumseh was killed in the process. Many people try to take a colonization process that unfolded gradually over hundreds of years and make it sound like the colonial powers charged into Canada and beat the locals into submission. Often the missionaries and drafters of policies were considered the progressives of the time, but the game now is to judge the past by todays standards, as though the first Governor was a failed Gloria Steinem or FN Chief. There was no Indigenous public education system. That came from the colonists. Today’s revolutionary left are largely an ignorant and hypocritical lot, but they’re noisy and dangerous, as no one wants to be accused of being retrograde and cancelled.

At the teaching level or beyond? Anyway I’m not going to give my credentials just to win a pissing contest. I’ll lean on the power of argument as you don’t have one, just insults.

You don’t know what I know about education. Probably best that you don’t.

Good points. I heard the Karzais were pedos.

I’ve already forgotten all the various groups. Pashtuns, etc. It’s a mess of competing interests. The CF were in an especially fun area, Kandahar. Weird lawless mountainous regions. Pakistan bad too.

Yes, following Soviet withdrawal. Mujaheddin are precursors, though not the same.

What? No. The Taliban are bad news, especially back then. They treated women like slaves, not allowing them education or work, not allowing them to leave the house without a male chaperone. The whippings and public executions were horrifying. They provided havens for extremist terrorist training. They had to be dealt with though now they are back. Afghanistan is a strange combination of religious extremism and narco opium state. It was important strategically as a major trade route to the east. It’s a morass basically. Uneducated teen thugs rules the population with fear. It’s still probably better than it was before westerners intervened. Depends on what the Taliban does. The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was actually a relatively progressive period for that country compared to the Taliban that followed. Russia gave up on it eventually and so did the Yanks.

I already know of factual counter-examples. You can’t point to individual rights without confronting the fact of more than one person’s interests. Many states draw the line at first trimester. States can draft any kind of legislation they want for abortion. It’s no longer a federal matter. In Canada it is and there are no legal limitations on gestation period.