http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/12/18/brown-star-comment-of-the-day Comments On: Brown Star Comment of the Day by Dominic Holden en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Thu, 23 May 2013 22:30:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Nothing about Obama offering up cuts to Social Security in the name of balancing the budget? -- hit a little too close to home?
Posted by PCM]]> Fri, 21 Dec 2012 12:49:26 -0800 The Stranger Posted by reverend dr dj riz]]> Fri, 21 Dec 2012 12:42:15 -0800 The Stranger Posted by reverend dr dj riz]]> Fri, 21 Dec 2012 12:41:24 -0800 The Stranger Posted by dwightmoodyforgetsthings]]> Fri, 21 Dec 2012 12:17:08 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Bonefish]]> Fri, 21 Dec 2012 10:08:48 -0800 The Stranger Posted by MemeGene]]> Fri, 21 Dec 2012 08:07:45 -0800 The Stranger Posted by lolorhone]]> Thu, 20 Dec 2012 22:20:23 -0800 The Stranger Posted by persimmon]]> Thu, 20 Dec 2012 21:23:19 -0800 The Stranger Posted by thelyamhound]]> Thu, 20 Dec 2012 12:27:19 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Wed, 19 Dec 2012 21:52:17 -0800 The Stranger Posted by treacle]]> Wed, 19 Dec 2012 13:53:52 -0800 The Stranger
That said, @63, I think that suggesting Civil Rights or the questioning of traditional and/or religious values "made for a less orderly and less safe society" is a fairly shallow reading (which may be why I ask artists, rather than historians, mathematicians, and other bean-counters the important questions). The nearest equivalent I can think of is those who blame the misbehavior on modern youth on the fact that the belt and the switch have gone out of fashion. Yes, failing to adequately beat the rebellion out of your children might contribute to behavior problems if you replace corporal punishment with nothing at all; that doesn't mean either that corporal punishment is preferable to its absence OR that the absence of corporal punishment is why we have gang activity and school shootings.

Likewise, I think reasonable people can suggest that some or all of our social ills can be attributed to spiritual dysfunction or difficulty in establishing or agreeing upon principles of social cohesion without suggesting that belief in a particular (empirically unverifiable) myth regarding an anthropomorphic deity or adherence to a narrow set of standards regarding the makeup of the family is necessary (or even desirable) to address those ills. In that sense, I can take your point in part while still rejecting it in bulk, and insist that nothing short of a rebuke of Huckabee's thesis in its entirety is in order.
Posted by thelyamhound]]> Wed, 19 Dec 2012 12:50:34 -0800 The Stranger people giving gifts to one another. Anthropologists know that gifting is the social glue of culture. Want a better society? Gift more gifts.
Posted by treacle]]> Wed, 19 Dec 2012 11:26:25 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Rob in Baltimore]]> Wed, 19 Dec 2012 11:23:16 -0800 The Stranger anything to do with mentally unstable 20y'olds in 2012 shooting anyone?
Posted by treacle]]> Wed, 19 Dec 2012 11:22:03 -0800 The Stranger strongly encourage you to read "Debt: The First 5,000 Years" ... there is some very, very interesting anthropological detail regarding how money and debt works in society, and in particular how the post-WWII period - in the face of strong labor unions - a "deal" was struck whereby if labor increased productivity, they would get a cut of the profits. This allowed Detroit car workers to own their own home and raise a family.

Unfortunately, everyone wants in on this deal, and capitalism can't provide it. One can see the civil rights movements of the 60s quite directly as various marginalized groups standing up and saying "hey, that's a good deal, we want it too" ... and really, why shouldn't anyone be able to support their family on an honest days wages?.

But, since capitalism is really based on exploitation and not freely offered labor, it can't support that deal for everyone, and society had to turn around --notably in the 80s - Reagan and Thatcher-- and ensure that everyone knew the deal was off.

And now today we have these nice charts showing that productivity has continued to increase at quite a remarkable rate... yet wages are stagnant and dropping.

Maybe that is part of why the 60s saw crime rates go up? Maybe its also because the mentally damaged soldiers coming back from the European theatre were emotionally abusive to their children, who then grew up pissed off? Perhaps there are reasons of which neither you nor I are aware.
Posted by treacle]]> Wed, 19 Dec 2012 11:11:45 -0800 The Stranger Posted by dwightmoodyforgetsthings]]> Wed, 19 Dec 2012 10:24:57 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Wed, 19 Dec 2012 09:55:51 -0800 The Stranger Posted by sirkowski]]> Wed, 19 Dec 2012 09:49:08 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Wed, 19 Dec 2012 09:22:11 -0800 The Stranger against civil rights increased, but the civil rights in and of themselves had nothing to do with it. Have you not had any American History in your schooling?
Posted by Rob in Baltimore]]> Wed, 19 Dec 2012 08:25:35 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Wed, 19 Dec 2012 07:25:47 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Theodore Gorath]]> Wed, 19 Dec 2012 04:58:25 -0800 The Stranger Posted by floater]]> Tue, 18 Dec 2012 21:59:35 -0800 The Stranger
In fact, I think the gun nuts should have to tell the parents of those 20 kids -- face to face -- that the right to fire off a hundred bullets without reloading trumps the parents' right to see their kids live beyond first grade.

Posted by bigyaz]]> Tue, 18 Dec 2012 21:10:16 -0800 The Stranger