FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
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User ID: 1739
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
9mo ago
Yes, true: however, I think the ruling must be having a strong effect because you are not seeing the same street people crises in very left wing cities outside of the 9th Circuit's jurisdiction. The East Coast doesn't have this problem, even though they have quite a few activist DAs.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
9mo ago
It's not just this one ruling, but this ruling is tying the hands of anyone who tries to fix the problem: letting those who prefer not to fix it free reign to make things worse.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
9mo ago
I have lived in King County for the vast majority of my life. I have never lived in Seattle. I can vote for King County Council, and King County Executive, and for State Senator and Representatives, and Governor. And for my entire voting life, and for considerable time before that, every single person in every single one of those positions has been a Democrat.
Perhaps Dino Rossi was our last chance for salvation.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
9mo ago
To be clear, I don’t think that every single person will inevitably believe that god doesn’t exist. I do think, however, that there is sufficient atheism, and scientific thinking and knowledge in our society that significantly many people cannot be convinced to believe or to feign belief.
The stats indicate that the future of the United States has less organized religion, but most people are still likely to believe in the supernatural. Atheists are still only 3% of the population, and in the ever growing category of "Nones" 66% currently claim to believe in a god, 37% believe in Heaven, and 27% believe in Hell. Heck, 23% of the people who explictitly identified as atheists believed in "some kind of higher power." Under Pew's current projections if the historical trends continue then in 2070 Christians will still outnumber Nones 46% to 41%. I see no reason to believe that a majority of those nones will be atheists.
All this to say that while organized religion in the United States is on the decline, atheism will still be a strongly minority position.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
9mo ago
I'm praying the Supreme Court will strike Martin down. If they don't, I see no solution to the problem.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
9mo ago
This is not purely self imposed: there's a reason it's the West Coast cities, and that's because they have to comply with the whims of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2018 the 9th Circuit ruled that enforcing anti-camping ordinances (better known as "rounding up all the bums") was cruel and unusual punishment, unless the city provided some kind of shelter that the homeless could go to. Since then lower courts have expanded the ruling considerably in a wide variety of ways that chalk up to making the homeless unpoliceable. In 2022 the 9th Circuit doubled down, ruling that the homeless can participate in class action lawsuits against cities that impose criminal or civil penalties on homeless.
Have the pro-homeless NGOs made hay out of this situation? Yes. Is there more Seattle and the rest of the west coast could do? Sure. But even in conservative Anchorage, Alaska (where it gets down to -20 F on the coldest winter nights) has a serious homeless problem, and that problem is named the 9th Circuit.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
9mo ago
Faith healing would only be easy to prove if it wasn't a miracle: as in, if it was a natural process that repeats itself given the necessary conditions. But nobody claims it's that: the claim is that God directly intervenes. Think about what would happen if you tried to test it: you watch as a faith healer prays to God to heal someone. If nothing happens the faith healer can always say that God chose not to heal her: and if she gets better, the skeptic can always say that she would have gotten better anyway! There are countless testimonies of miraculous healing out there. Even journal articles backed by medical evidence: but the skeptic can always say that something else must have caused it.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
9mo ago
C. S. Lewis wrote about the relation of Christianity to the liberal idea of political equality in a few places. This passage is from his essay "Membership":
I believe in political equality. But there are two opposite reasons for being a democrat. You may think all men so good that they deserve a share in the government of the commonwealth, and so wise that the commonwealth needs their advice. That is, in my opinion, the false, romantic doctrine of democracy. On the other hand, you may believe fallen men to be so wicked that not one of them can be trusted with any irresponsible power over his fellows.
That I believe to be the true ground of democracy. I do not believe that God created an egalitarian world. I believe the authority of parent over child, husband over wife, learned over simple, to have been as much a part of the original plan as the authority of man over beast. I believe that if we had not fallen Filmer would be right, and patriarchal monarchy would be the sole lawful government. But since we have learned sin, we have found, as Lord Acton says, that “all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The only remedy has been to take away the powers and substitute a legal fiction of equality. The authority of Father and Husband has been rightly abolished on the legal plane, not because this authority is in itself bad (on the contrary, it is, I hold, divine in origin) but because Fathers and Husbands are bad. Theocracy has been rightly abolished not because it is bad that learned priests should govern ignorant laymen, but because priests are wicked men like the rest of us. Even the authority of man over beast has had to be interfered with because it is constantly abused.
...
By treating human persons (in judicious defiance of the observed facts) as if they were all the same kind of thing, we avoid innumerable evils. But it is not on this that we were made to live. It is idle to say that men are of equal value. If value is taken in a worldly sense ― if we mean that all men are equally useful or beautiful or good or entertaining ― then it is nonsense. If it means that all are of equal value as immortal souls then I think it conceals a dangerous error. The infinite value of each human soul is not a Christian doctrine. God did not die for man because of some value He perceived in him. The value of each human soul considered simply in itself, out of relation to God, is zero. As St. Paul writes, to have died for valuable men would have been not divine but merely heroic; but God died for sinners. He loved us not because we were lovable, but because He is Love. It may be that He loves all equally ― He certainly loved all to the death ― and I am not certain what the expression means. If there is equality it is in His love, not in us.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
Markets have proven to be very robust decentralized systems for allocating resources: if it is true that growth was higher before central banks started recession proofing, then there's an argument to be made that natural volatility is more optimal then our current level of volatility.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
This is a fully general argument in favor of greater economic volatility. If you believe that, you shouldn't just be arguing for a gold standard - you should be arguing for the government to artificially create recessions.
That would be the same mistake but in the opposite direction. The argument isn't in favor of economic volatility for volatility's sake, it's in favor of natural volatility. Creating volatility artificially would be as foolish as breaking windows for the purpose of generating demand for glass.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
That doesn't logically follow at all: that's like saying that if poison can be used as a weapon, then the antidote to poison is also a form of poison.
If someone uses their speech to overwhelm someone else's speech (for instance, if someone is giving a lecture and someone else starts screaming on a megaphone so that you can't hear them) then they're engaged is censorship. Their speech itself is not censorship, but the form they are presenting it in is censoring others.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
Skookum: a Chinook jargon word meaning something like "strong", "big", "brave", or "monsterous". See "Skookum House", slang for jail.
Is he from the Pacific Northwest? That's the main place the world would be used in conversation, though the word did get somewhat popularized through the selling of "Skookum Dolls" : these were dolls of Indian characters that sold fairly widely in the first half of the 20th century. They stopped making them in the 60s.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
The devil.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
Silencing others is not speech, it's censorship.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
Yes! You do! Unless it's a place where it's illegal to put up posters, you totally get to do that!
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
You don't get to decide what speech is or is not appropriate! That's the whole point! If you don't like it, put up your own poster: but what is or is not allowed to be said in the public square is not based on your opinions. That's the whole point of the 1st Amendment.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
I don't like ads, but I don't tear them down.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
If the posters are placed illegally, then yeah, you can tear them down. If they're not illegally posted, then tearing them down is suppressing the speech of fellow citizens, and you don't do that. It's un-American.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
If someone put up missing posters of Gazan children buried in rubble, it would still be a pretty awful move for someone to tear them down. You don't tear down other people's posters, and doing so looks especially bad when the posters are raising awareness of dead kids.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
11mo ago
Supernatural forces being more involved than today might make it easier to believe that a miracle had occurred: it wouldn't change the fact that you would understand it to be a miracle. It's not like Joseph thought to himself "Well, I guess sometimes women can have babies without having sex with anyone." He knew just the same as we do that that sort of thing doesn't happen, and that if it does happen it would be a miracle. A virgin birth violates as many assumptions about how the world works back then as it does today: in both cases the only explanation for such a thing occurring would be a miracle (that is to say, a violation of the natural order by an outside force).
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
11mo ago
Why would you say that someone with a contemporary scientific worldview would find it harder to believe in the virgin birth than Joseph did? What have we learned since then that makes it harder to believe? Surely knowing the mechanics of fertilization and early human development doesn't change the fact that people in those days knew just as well as we do that you don't get pregnant without a father involved.
In both cases believing in a miraculous birth is believing in supernatural intervention, violating the natural order. It should be just as easy or difficult to believe in any age. What have we learned since then that would change that?
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
11mo ago
I am a HUGE fan of Total Warhammer in general. Love it. TW3 is fine, but the factions it comes with are a bit advanced. Definitely worth picking gup TW1 to get the "core" factions (Empire, Dwarves, Greenskins, and Vampires [which aren't really "core" but are fun]).
What in particular are you finding confusing? The way the Total Warhammer games "stack" together, TW3 is more like a really big expansion pack then a standalone game mechanics wise, so there is a lot to be confused about if you're just jumping in.
Some general advice:
-ABC: Always Be Conquering. The way the economy works massively rewards conquest and looting, and if you aren't constantly expanding you'll struggle. Even just winning a battle will reward you with gold, so the more you're fighting the more you're earning.
-A huge part of strategy is where you place your armies. The maps are huge (absolutely IMMENSE in the case of the Immoral Empires campaign) and it takes time for your armies to move across them. Enemy armies will show up where you didn't expect, so make sure you have armies positioned so that they can intercept an invading force within 2-3 turns.
-Look at the tooltip descriptions for each unit, they can be very handy. Some of them take some jargon learning to get, but you can hover over most things and an explanation will appear. One useful thing to know is that "Shock Cavalry" is great when charging into the enemy, and for about 20 seconds after the charge, but will not hold up in long term melee combat and will need to retreat and charge again. "Melee Cavalry" on the other hand has the stats needed to do well in prolonged melee combat.
-"Anti-large" units are a must, you need at least a couple of them in each army because even crummy anti-large units do great against monsters and cavalry.
-If a settlement you've conquered isn't in a great environment for your faction, or is in a position where it will be too costly to keep defended, then it's generally better to loot it, and then on the next turn raze it. If somebody settles on it the initial defenses will be very weak, so it's easy to roll back in and burn it back down.
There's way too much more to advise on, but I'd be happy to help with specific questions and confusions.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
11mo ago
I agree diaper changing is no big deal. Waking up in the middle of the night during the newborn stage is just awful. My littlest is two and I still haven't recovered from sleep deprivation.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
That reiterates the 10 words everyone needs to know when dealing with the police:
"I'm not answering any questions, and I want a lawyer."
Then you shut your trap.
See also Nathan Burney's excellent Self-Incrimination Flowchart, which lays out in detail exactly how to avoid incriminating yourself in the US.
New York has 5 times as many homeless people as Washington: even if weather is harsher in NYC, they still have an enormous population of homeless and manage them better than any city in the 9th Circuit's jurisdiction. 39% of the total number of homeless people in America live in the 9th Circuit's jurisdiction, despite those states making up only 19% of the United States by population.
I don't deny that local politics can make the situation much better or much worse despite the 9th Circuit: but it is clear to me that the 9th Circuit has had a powerful effect on making the problem worse.
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