JC said:

A piece from Rob Delaney about his wee boy Henry. Very hard to read, but awesome.

https://medium.com/@robdelaney_50150/note-i-wrote-all-of-this-except-the-last-paragraph-in-april-or-may-of-2017-6b8f5e702533

Bloody hell that was a tough read. I absolutely cannot imagine what it would be like to go through something like that.

No Quarter said:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-left-is-consumed-with-hate-1537723198

Here's the full text of this for anyone interested:

Even before President Trump’s election, hatred had begun to emerge on the American left—counterintuitively, as an assertion of guilelessness and moral superiority. At the Women’s March in Washington the weekend after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the pop star Madonna said, “I have thought an awful lot of blowing up the White House.” Here hatred was a vanity, a braggadocio meant to signal her innocence of the sort of evil that, in her mind, the White House represented. (She later said the comment was “taken wildly out of context.”)

For many on the left a hateful anti-Americanism has become a self-congratulatory lifestyle. “America was never that great,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently said. For radical groups like Black Lives Matter, hatred of America is a theme of identity, a display of racial pride.

For other leftists, hate is a license. Conservative speakers can be shouted down, even assaulted, on university campuses. Republican officials can be harassed in restaurants, in the street, in front of their homes. Certain leaders of the left—Rep. Maxine Waters comes to mind—are self-appointed practitioners of hate, urging their followers to think of hatred as power itself.

How did the American left—conceived to bring more compassion and justice to the world—become so given to hate? It began in the 1960s, when America finally accepted that slavery and segregation were profound moral failings. That acceptance changed America forever. It imposed a new moral imperative: America would have to show itself redeemed of these immoralities in order to stand as a legitimate democracy.

The genius of the left in the ’60s was simply to perceive the new moral imperative, and then to identify itself with it. Thus the labor of redeeming the nation from its immoral past would fall on the left. This is how the left put itself in charge of America’s moral legitimacy. The left, not the right—not conservatism—would set the terms of this legitimacy and deliver America from shame to decency.

This bestowed enormous political and cultural power on the American left, and led to the greatest array of government-sponsored social programs in history—at an expense, by some estimates, of more than $22 trillion. But for the left to wield this power, there had to be a great menace to fight against—a tenacious menace that kept America uncertain of its legitimacy, afraid for its good name.

This amounted to a formula for power: The greater the menace to the nation’s moral legitimacy, the more power redounded to the left. And the ’60s handed the left a laundry list of menaces to be defeated. If racism was necessarily at the top of the list, it was quickly followed by a litany of bigotries ending in “ism” and “phobia.”

The left had important achievements. It did rescue America from an unsustainable moral illegitimacy. It also established the great menace of racism as America’s most intolerable disgrace. But the left’s success has plunged it into its greatest crisis since the ’60s. The Achilles’ heel of the left has been its dependence on menace for power. Think of all the things it can ask for in the name of fighting menaces like “systemic racism” and “structural inequality.” But what happens when the evils that menace us begin to fade, and then keep fading?

It is undeniable that America has achieved since the ’60s one of the greatest moral evolutions ever. That is a profound problem for the left, whose existence is threatened by the diminishment of racial oppression. The left’s unspoken terror is that racism is no longer menacing enough to support its own power. The great crisis for the left today—the source of its angst and hatefulness—is its own encroaching obsolescence. Today the left looks to be slowly dying from lack of racial menace.

A single white-on-black shooting in Ferguson, Mo., four years ago resulted in a prolonged media blitz and the involvement of the president of the United States. In that same four-year period, thousands of black-on-black shootings took place in Chicago, hometown of the then-president, yet they inspired very little media coverage and no serious presidential commentary.

White-on-black shootings evoke America’s history of racism and so carry an iconic payload of menace. Black-on-black shootings carry no such payload, although they are truly menacing to the black community. They evoke only despair. And the left gets power from fighting white evil, not black despair.

Today’s left lacks worthy menaces to fight. It is driven to find a replacement for racism, some sweeping historical wrongdoing that morally empowers those who oppose it. (Climate change?) Failing this, only hatred is left.

Hatred is a transformative power. It can make the innocuous into the menacing. So it has become a weapon of choice. The left has used hate to transform President Trump into a symbol of the new racism, not a flawed president but a systemic evil. And he must be opposed as one opposes racism, with a scorched-earth absolutism.

For Martin Luther King Jr., hatred was not necessary as a means to power. The actual details of oppression were enough. Power came to him because he rejected hate as a method of resisting menace. He called on blacks not to be defined by what menaced them. Today, because menace provides moral empowerment, blacks and their ostensible allies indulge in it. The menace of black victimization becomes the unarguable truth of the black identity. And here we are again, forever victims.

Yet the left is still stalked by obsolescence. There is simply not enough menace to service its demands for power. The voices that speak for the left have never been less convincing. It is hard for people to see the menace that drives millionaire football players to kneel before the flag. And then there is the failure of virtually every program the left has ever espoused—welfare, public housing, school busing, affirmative action, diversity programs, and so on.

For the American left today, the indulgence in hate is a death rattle.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-left-is-consumed-with-hate-1537723198

Another thought on this is that all of the pay gap stuff ignores the family unit. Women actually account for a far larger percentage of spending than men, despite earning less. You'd have a very hard time convincing me that my sons friends mum's are in any way oppressed given the lavish lifestyles they are living.

As I've gotten older I've come to realise how insanely powerful a strong family unit is. There really is no need for any government assistance if you have two people working in partnership with each other to earn enough money while raising a family.

Rancid Schnitzel said:

No Quarter said:

The situation for mothers is interesting, and there's no easy answer either. The structure of society when it comes to the roles of men and women is radically different these days to what it was even 50 years ago.

I think there are massive benefits to having children as early as possible. That way when women do start getting positions of responsibility in their 30s, time off to care for young children is not such an issue.

I don't think that's a great solution though, more a workaround to how thing work at the moment. Ideally, and I was rightfully called out on this in the NZ Pol thread with regards to Jacinda, a woman should not be punished for having children. There is a lot of variation to how companies deal with this - I imagine it would be very hard for a small business to cater for a staff member taking a full year off, whereas some of the larger corporations have really good policies in place to ensure the woman returns to the same role and even paying out lost earnings while on leave should they return and stay.

This is probably a point where I am on board with some of the lefts policies - more financial support for mothers, particularly young mothers - to ensure they are able to have a family with as little impact financially and career wise as possible.

I saw a story on the news recently, TBH I don't remember all the details, but basically a woman that was studying lost her student allowance after having a child which was just so wrong.

In the end it's all about sacrifice. As I see it, men are more willing to sacrifice their free time and time spent with their family for their careers and/or cash. To their credit, not nearly as many women are like that and will therefore not make those kinds of sacrifices. That will of course be reflected in how much the respective sexes earn.

Yeah, for sure. The drive for many women to spend time with their kids instead of working is biological. Now my boy is at school and has made friends we've gotten to know some of the parents - nearly all of the other mums are either part-time or not working, choosing to stay at home. They do this because they can afford too - they and their husbands are/were both high earners so the drive for money pales in comparison to time with their children.

I've seen studies that show the gender pay gap nearly disappears among low earning households (will have to look it up when I have time). Rich people contribute a lot to the pay gap as women who would be earning a lot just stop working altogether in their 30s, whereas in poorer households the woman cannot afford to take the time off.

The situation for mothers is interesting, and there's no easy answer either. The structure of society when it comes to the roles of men and women is radically different these days to what it was even 50 years ago.

I think there are massive benefits to having children as early as possible. That way when women do start getting positions of responsibility in their 30s, time off to care for young children is not such an issue.

I don't think that's a great solution though, more a workaround to how thing work at the moment. Ideally, and I was rightfully called out on this in the NZ Pol thread with regards to Jacinda, a woman should not be punished for having children. There is a lot of variation to how companies deal with this - I imagine it would be very hard for a small business to cater for a staff member taking a full year off, whereas some of the larger corporations have really good policies in place to ensure the woman returns to the same role and even paying out lost earnings while on leave should they return and stay.

This is probably a point where I am on board with some of the lefts policies - more financial support for mothers, particularly young mothers - to ensure they are able to have a family with as little impact financially and career wise as possible.

I saw a story on the news recently, TBH I don't remember all the details, but basically a woman that was studying lost her student allowance after having a child which was just so wrong.

What on earth are they taking a stand on? Their right to wag school? Jesus this stuff makes you despair for humanity.

That is so awesome. Great to see him back competing with and beating the best given the shit he's been through. Dead set legend.

@gt12 not to toot our own horns but what brings us together is a willingness to engage and see things from different POVs, and importantly a willingness to accept evidence and change our views based on that. I honestly think those simple things are becoming more and more rare unfortunately.

The Serena thing is really silly. There are bigger fish to fry than standing up for the top 1% of the top 1%. Stating she is the bully is a hard sell to many on the left as it's a white male vs a black female. If you check the Tennis thread there's a great article from Mark Reason (I know WTF) calling out the blatant misandry that is really poisoning the debate around women's rights in the west.

I think what frustrates me most is when people look at inequality and immediately jump to 1) it being a bad thing (it often isn't) and 2) it being down to nothing but discrimination while ignoring everything else. It makes it basically impossible to even define what problems need solving let alone trying to fix them.

James Damore is a great example of that - he's a very logical thinker as many Devs are. He looked at the evidence, tried to understand the many reasons for a lack of women in Tech, and then made suggestions around how we could make the workplace a more attractive place for women. And he got fucking fired for it. That just really highlighted how toxic the debate has become, particularly in the States.

@jegga was that meant to be aimed at me? I agree with what you are saying anyway, we focus our debates on the West. Women's rights in third world countries are so far behind it's not even funny.

@gt12 for what it's worth, I absolutely accept that sexism plays a role. How bigger role is difficult to judge as there are so many factors at play, but I would not discount it just like I don't discount other very obvious factors that have been discussed on here before.

I just really despise the way so many people, including many mainstream media outlets, push the idea that discrimination is the main factor. It's pretty obvious in NZ that it is not - particularly when we are talking about the reasons for male dominated industries. I also hate politicians like those in government right now justifying awful policies while sighting discrimination without even considering the multitude of other factors at play. They use it to push their really shitty anti-capitalist agenda.

We seem to be in an age where the majority of people just cannot get their heads around a bit of bloody nuance.