nbmishoid

Grew up an army brat, we shopped at the commissary. I always took the cart back, starting at about 7 years old, as directed by my mom, of course, and I never saw a cart unreturned in those years. And I guess it got into my psyche as “the right thing to do”. My wife, not an army brat, has also always felt the same. If the inconvenience is too much, and it is a tangible amount, then the rest of society’s demands/obligations must be unendurable.

Bainbridge Is seems small at 28000. Almost all rural. If one needs to fetch a 62 Strat, well Seattle is a ferry ride away.

Define progress, please. Seriously, that seems about as hard today as defining “good”.

No kidding. And had to spend all those years with Jackson Brown.

Nah, we talkin just Fattie’s kids’school

Hope Bezos wins the bid, just to fuck with them.

By “well regulated” I thought the joke to the second amendment and 400 million guns would be obvious enough. Well, not so, and not funny. Of course accepting 400 million immigrants was not serious. SL, I fully agree there has not been a society that welcomed all comers. To be more precise, our society could very well handle considerably more. And, secondly, this inborn hate for the other has been tamped down, superficially, in only a few places for some time. It is running rampant everywhere now. It hardly makes the world a better place. It leads to much cruelty. That all this is justified by sovereignty gives sovereignty a bad name. Given climate change, and expanded knowledge in poor societies that they may have options, will greatly increase migrant flow over the coming decades. We have to learn to be better at facing this and dealing with it in a helpful way. It’s a global issue but we have to clearly lead by example. Our most recent example material seems to have shown others how to optimize the hate. Bullneck, Biff, I’m not new here, I’ve been on these boards since 1996 and Austin360. Just back after some personal time. A new handle was required, sadly. Thanks for the reminder of the immigration thread. Cactus, thanks for that video.

Why is this thread still going, Ana nails it. (Clinical evidence joke insert here: 😀)

Twice I believe most of our institutions are largely populated by folks I wouldn’t have to my dinner table. Not a majority, simply reflective of society today. And legislation has this mostly cumulative effect where it is damn hard to reverse or improve any statute once in place. All these desires for good go into the black hole of reality. I appreciate your advice to not reflexively “blame” attorneys. All this suggests the system, the law, the legislative efforts, the enforcements or not, etc, will not get better prior to society getting better. To the ledge, gents.

Gator I know I would be less cruel with fewer demons and my own jet. Not so good for inequality but that’s for another time. Thanks, Gator, for the time you put into these discussions, serious and not.

Mo cruelty

State University of New Jersey. Reflects well.

In today’s NYT, two stories front page. One is about 40,000 or so asylum seekers who are at or have passed thru into Canada, from the US. And plenty of quotes that sound familiar to the “keep them in Mexico” constituency. These are tiny numbers, but the fear juice ratchets up anyway. Second story concerns Tunisia. In response to a severe economic downturn the president made a speech blaming all troubles on the sub -Saharan immigrants, from northern Nigeria, Chad, Mali, etc. He said they were part of a project to turn the country “African”. And the next day people are fired from their job, booted from their homes etc. I have for a while supported Fukuyama’s formula that a democracy needed to have immigration policy reflecting societies’ desires, or it is not a democracy. And so back to the US, we have a stable number of undocumented immigrants at about 10 mm, since the peak at 12 mm in 2008. Same result thru Obama, Trump, and now Biden. Less than 3%. I mean, it is simply obvious that this is not anything like “too much”, if we are talking morally and purely economically. As a liberal the project ought to be reduce cruelty. There us no way the current immigration limitations meet this requirement. Why is my comfort, keeping at 100%, more important than the plight of these asylum seekers? And what about the children, here? They are fat and happy, if not suicidal, and being rendered cognitively injured by our attack on education. Nah, more immigrants has got shit to so with “the children” (ours). So it is just down to our comfort, and the level of fear and hatred in much of society. So, yes, Francis, democratic leaders need to act democratically. But how about morally, as well. Another White Hat conundrum? Does fear and hate get to wear a White Hat? Ok, who here is morally for more asylum granting, and well regulated increased immigration. (If well regulated, we ought to admit 400 million)

Firstly, thanks to you, Gator, and Brisket for the time you took on my very, overly simplified questions. I think it was you who said we can expect no different from the legal profession than the public at large. That hits me as glaringly true, given the tremendous size of the population. Decades ago I read we were graduating in the US 300,000 lawdogs per year, compared to 300 PhD physicists. Even correcting for education, lawyers surely remain a valid sample of the population at large, wrt politics, morals, perfidy, etc. And from this such questions I have asked fall into the black hole of reality. If I read you right. I have to say from my experience o&g professionals, my former homies, are less representative ( a much smaller sample) and definitely rightward leaning. As for sickening, I would refer you to any modern work of history of the US. It is the patterns therein that suggest the fix is in, not the Powell pimple. As for the White Hat (and who is wearing it, who is perceiving it argument) , I’m reminded of Rorty and pragmatism. Yes, at the limit, we can never prove the righteousness of our view, this does not denude us of moral obligations. Even for pragmatism, this ultimately breaks down to being against cruelty. This can help with the white hat question. Not so much in the courtroom, I get it. If the law and the courts can’t help us reduce cruelty, and given that Christianity in the US apparently cannot, how do we proceed? Cheers

Gator You present expertly correct view here. But I don’t over rate fairness. A four year old knows what fairness is ( or used to know) to an actionable degree. Many folks find the term interchangeable with justice. But none us can completely delimit these terms for everyone else. So I’ll used another word. The results are sickening, broadly inhumane, not what society wants. Seriously. So, Gator, what do you and Twice recommend to improve things.

What this lay dog is saying is the results show systematic bias, whatever the intention. Yes, humans cause most of this, and other fields are not great analogues. But the results show bias, full stop. I am interested, Twice, in what you, an expert, would change. Society’s desires about legal result fairness should matter.

Well said. But, again with the intentions. If the car I design and build doesn’t work in the real world, then my intentions are irrelevant. When physicists and engineers look at systems, there is no care in looking at intentions. Sure, they are sometimes latent in the system, but it is how the system really works that matters. Many people here seem to just say the system does not work well enough. Does discussion of intentions get us anywhere? It can help find the bug but just keeping the bug because of intentions looks like not caring, shrouded by sophistication.

I had just wished I were, there for a while, but that’s in the past. You must be an old goat now.

11 years ago, when considering retirement, we looked hard at Austin and Houston. We had lived in Houston the prior four years and grew to enjoy it, but for retirement it wasn’t, uh, a beautiful solution. Austin was too damn expensive for any premium property. Long story short, Seattle was cheaper than Austin. I can highly recommend western WA, for you poor folks trapped there in Texas. It is run by normal, responsible people, and looks to be doing that for some time in the future. That wasn’t among the selection criteria 11 years ago. Now it would be at the top.

In each case we have systems, that deliver some objectionable results. We look to the “owners” of these institutions for redress, improvement, what have you. In these limited cases of professional behavior the institutional owners are the professional members themselves. There are indeed details differing among/between cases. The root question isn’t about these details. It concerns why, oh why, oh why the fuck don’t these member bodies do a better job?

How is this not attempted legislative stochastic murder?

Twice I’m one who confesses that your posts about what one should really expect have been educational. Also frustrating as many have indicated. But the post above bothered me a bit. This whole notion of what is intended is abstract, but the difference in legal results between the rich and poor is not. It is this difference that matters, it’s absolute value, not the relative sub distances from some imaginary centroid in the legal hyperspace. Such a thing cannot be identified. So let’s focus on the difference in these cases when we ask ourselves what is right and what is wrong.

650 Thx for the color ID, and for looking up the serial. Too easy for me to have done. The Seattle guys are Mike and Mike’s Guitar Bar. You really need to ogle their inventory via their website.

650 Could not tell you, I’m not informed enough. Looks much browner than the regular cherry ish sunbursts. The tobacco ones I’ve seen were this slightly variegated light brown. , solid not sunburst. You have 5 of these, right?

And for Martin. Sorry about the dust.