It's not only TSA personnel (who are, on the whole, so incompetent I wouldn't hire most of the ones I meet to do ANYTHING), it's policy itself. Security policy in much of the world today is reactive and shortsighted - shoe bomber? take off your shoes, Underwear bomber, let's x-ray everyone, etc. etc. - all just to be able to say they "did something," whether or not is effective or efficient in any way at all.
I remember several years back when the shoe-removal policy has just been relatively new, and I was flying out of Israel. The security personnel there had someone devoted solely to going around telling people NOT to remove their shoes, in order to make sure the lines keep moving.
TSA just could not care less whether people actually make their flights, or whether terrorists get through, as long as they don't get blamed for missing something they should have caught.
Your point may stand in the event of negative interest rates, but generally, it seems like you're assuming that what Americans are doing is finding investing avenues that offer greater returns than prevailing interest rates, which does not appear to be the case. Saving money will, by definition, leave you with more money than spending (not investing) it, even if the ROI is near 0.
Exactly. This is an extreme - and ever more prevalent - illustration of why I don't use air dryers in public restrooms. It also bothers when they says it's done to help the environment. Even if that's true (unlikely, but it saves money and generates good PR), it just makes the environment and those in it dirtier, which probably doesn't help most people.
You can plant more trees. You can't un-burn the coal that spins the motor. (I wonder if there's a way of actually comparing the environmental impact, though).
Planting trees sequesters the CO2 that was emitted from the burning of the coal. Cutting trees down and turning them into paper that easily decomposes hastens the release of the previously sequestered CO2 back into the atmosphere, killing us all.
Every time you use a paper towel, you kill a puppy.
"What is needed, in some ways, is a return to this more flexible, broader way of thinking." Well, if the courts and the White House (as inhabited by Democrats AND Republicans) wouldn't keep moving power from the states to the federal executive, then maybe there would be more flexibility. Instead, what we have is a slow and constant undermining of the idea that states should serve as laboratories of democracy,[1] and a steady disappearance of the federal nature of the system in the U.S.
If state laws that ban municipalities from going against state policies on fracking, affordable housing, marriage, lgbt discrimination, and the like, are anything to go by, states are no better stewards of this kind of power.
True. But there are 50 of them in the United States. While moving to a state with more sensible laws is obviously less liquid than spending your money elsewhere, it's nevertheless a marketplace with 50 participants and they do learn from each others' experiments. Generally, the more decisions that are handed further down the hierarchy the better. If some matters are locked up at the state level, that might be a shame, but we should at least be happy they are not stuck at the federal level.
How exactly does your model propose to fix the issues of, say, states refusing to fill the gap in health care coverage because of their opposition to the entire existence of the federal government?
Some things need to be guaranteed for every American citizen, and that can't simply be left up to the states to "experiment" with. We're talking about government here, not scrum teams.
> Some things need to be guaranteed for every American citizen, and that can't simply be left up to the states to "experiment" with. We're talking about government here, not scrum teams.
There is virtually no way to have a consensus on what precisely needs to be guaranteed. I would personally prefer to move to a state that does not "guarantee" health insurance (I will pay for health insurance myself).
But like I said, moving isn't a liquid matter. There's quite a bit of friction involved. So states are imperfect, yes. But I still prefer 50 imperfect laboratories to 1 imperfect monolith. The potential of moving to a local maximum of ideal-fit with my tastes means a lot to me.
For what it's worth, the same rationale is why I do not believe the United States should adopt any given policy simply because it is done by a majority of other first-world countries. Policies should stand on their merits and should not be adopted simply to be aligned with other countries. I prefer diversity.
> There is virtually no way to have a consensus on what precisely needs to be guaranteed. I would personally prefer to move to a state that does not "guarantee" health insurance (I will pay for health insurance myself).
There was a consensus; we call it the Constitution. The problem is that American lawmakers today aren't able to negotiate a single law let alone a document like that.
States are not really a solution to that problem: large states have gridlock much like the feds, and small states create the patchwork of laws that prevent me from mailing you a beer but ensuring some lawyer at LargeCo will be paid to figure it out. And all states are more vulnerable to corporate capture than the feds are.
Laboratories of democracy work when we have democracies that are worth studying, and when politicians adopt fact-based policies instead of ideological ones. But we do not live in that world, and have not for at least 30 years.
> How exactly does your model propose to fix the issues of, say, states refusing to fill the gap in health care coverage because of their opposition to the entire existence of the federal government?
You ever think that there might be societal benefits to people living near their family? Such as help with child care, for example. Moving isn't that simple. And it requires a significant upfront cost.
This is really just a matter of definition at this point. The entities which actually hold governmental power are by definition 'states'. The individual states which make up the EU are what grant the organization its power. The individual states in the US are what grant the Federal government its power.
Central planners think that there should be one state, the US state, where the individual "states" derive their power from the Fed. And if you think that the states should be small municipalities then that's fine too. But it's not hypocritical that municipalities derive their power from, and are restricted by, the state.
* Drug laws (i.e.: Colorado has "legalized" marijuana but it's still federally illegal and for now the federal government is just ignoring enforcement for now, but there's no reason, e.g. Ted Cruz would continue to do so.) The laws are based on "interstate commerce" which the federal government how power over, yet somehow it still applies to state-grown marijuana.
* A lot of stuff very close to a "war" has been done without states actually voting to go to war.
* Personally, I'd like a state to be able to experiment with a basic income guarantee and corresponding removal of minimum wage, but that wouldn't be possible because of the federal minimum wage law.
* Federal agencies like the FBI, CIA, and NSA have been growing in power lately with their FISA court rubber stamps and attempted use of All Writs.
"out that of America’s 350 major metro areas, the cities with more than three million people have rebounded far better from the financial crisis." I assume the writer means metro areas with over 3 million people, but the lack of clarity is confusing at best. Who knows, maybe some readers will assume there are more than 2-3 cities (i.e., not metro areas) in the U.S. with populations of that size.
Seriously? I'll give you Africa of course, it makes sense. But the Middle East? Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc? All these countries are almost literally wiping their ass with money.
My question got downvoted a lot, but I was quite serious. Why would the US be upheld to "higher standards" (whatever it means)? Are we supposed to believe in some form of American exceptionalism? And are we just talking about Africa or should the US have higher standards than, say, India, Australia, Italy and Argentina?
> Why would the US be upheld to "higher standards" (whatever it means)? Are we supposed to believe in some form of American exceptionalism?
here's an example: i think most people would agree that every country should have a strong, maintained infrastructure to support their country's operations. but it is clearly a different situation for an economically challenged country to have bridges in disrepair, than for a rich country to have the same issue despite it having the resources available to it. "higher standards" doesn't necessarily mean "superior".
that said, i'm not completely clear on what the post you replied to was expressing.
if i were to guess, it was about so-called "social progress". north america/europe generally provides a better opportunity for LGBT peoples to live their lives as they see fit than other regions. MENA (such as Saudi[1] and Qatar[2]) have traditionally been seen as decidedly unwelcoming to LGBT, perhaps even supporting violence against LGBT, but this isn't exactly unique to MENA.
MENA's disinterest/lack of "progress" in this area is rooted in cultural, historical and religious norms. as such, it's perhaps "unfair" to hold them to the same standards (achieving "higher progress") of how they treat LGBT people.
As far as I see, he only really taught some fluff courses on "rights, race and gender." [1] Not quite what comes to the minds of most lawyers and law students when someone says "con law professor."
The article says, "At the school, Mr. Obama taught three courses, ascending to senior lecturer, a title otherwise carried only by a few federal judges. His most traditional course was in the due process and equal protection areas of constitutional law. His voting rights class traced the evolution of election law, from the disenfranchisement of blacks to contemporary debates over districting and campaign finance. Mr. Obama was so interested in the subject that he helped Richard Pildes, a professor at New York University, develop a leading casebook in the field. His most original course, a historical and political seminar as much as a legal one, was on racism and law."
From that description, the equal protection and due process course sounds like a typical con law profesor?
If only because of the massive anti-(cigarette)-smoking campaign of the past several years, combined with the massive pro-marijuana-legalization campaign. Good or bad, that sends a pretty clear message to students that tobacco bad, marijuana good.
Do they realize the joint/spliff they are smoking is filled up with way more tobacco than marijuana ? (or do they smoke fully loaded joint ?)
edit: I don't understand the downvote but to clarify things: in Europe, where I live, I seldom saw fully loaded joint (which would be called the same: joint or blunt).
Some people did, but for the most part growing up in southern california it was just all weed, and usually smoked in a bong or pipe or something else made with glass.
Blunts were popular though, so that might negate some of it.
Yea, except the fact that it does not have the addictive elements of nicotine and those same students do not smoke 20 joints per day. But now you also have edibles and vaporizers too.
> How could they not? Do you realize the difference between drinking milk and soda? Or the smell of an orange vs. the smell of shit?
Eh. If that was true the US wouldn't be the largest consumer market for bottled water in the world.
Just as some people think drinking 2liters of coca-cola a day is normal or some believing the blue cigarette smoke they exhale is impurities from the lungs being cleaned up (or was that the tobacco industry ?). I don't know how the pro-hemp/marijuana campaign plays out day to day and how americans perceive it.
In my teens I used to know people who criticizes tobacco but still went on smoking 5 joints a day with tobacco. That was a minority though.
So the US being the largest consumer of market for bottled water proves that certain people's tastes are so damaged that they can't tell the difference between tobacco and marijuana smoke?
How does that follow and what the hell are you smoking?
I know some people who can't get by without dabs several times a day. Either it is addicting to some people or they are self medicating some other issue?
It's not completely free from addiction potential, it's similar in degree to caffeine[1]. Dabs are very concentrated, and if you hit them several times a day many days in a row, and you are naturally inclined toward addiction, you may find yourself addicted.
AFAIK the withdrawal symptoms aren't unbearable, nothing like stimulants or opiates or benzos. I'm sure that getting high sounds a lot more attractive than sitting through the withdrawal for 36 hours or however long it lasts, and that the withdrawal would impair the user infinitely more than the cannabis.
There's a difference between "can't" and "don't like to", they aren't going to suffer from any severe withdrawal effects from not having it other than simply not liking being sober. Caffeine withdrawal is far worse for example. Of course if they're using it for something like pain relief, or some other medical reason like you said, that doesn't really count as addiction.
I mean, find a substance that people CAN'T be addicted to. However, the physiological addiction is very low. There is no direct dopamine feedback loop, to my understanding.
Well, independent of whether marijuana is minimally addictive or not, it can certainly be habit-forming (which can be just as significant as a "real" addiction).
ha well, as a long-time user i assure you there is addiction, both physical and psychological. if i stop for any length of time i dont sleep as well and i sweat alot more.
Exactly. While this may be true for some - as you said "not having enough money is a good reason not to be happy." Status alone isn't the question - it's what "enough money" means. For some, that may mean enough to lord it over all of your friends - and for many it may mean enough to support your family and not ever worry about putting food on the table (along with a vacation and buying most of what you want, mostly whenever you want) - and for others it means enough money being able to do whatever they want whenever they want to do it, period. But saying it's just status alone is just crap.
I remember several years back when the shoe-removal policy has just been relatively new, and I was flying out of Israel. The security personnel there had someone devoted solely to going around telling people NOT to remove their shoes, in order to make sure the lines keep moving.
TSA just could not care less whether people actually make their flights, or whether terrorists get through, as long as they don't get blamed for missing something they should have caught.