Repeal of the ACA: Confused!

Nope. And cultural attitudes are shifting dramatically on some things that are really important to me. But hey, we’re starting a new law school! The faculty is very diverse. The professors are Scalia, Thomas, and O’Connor. Does that work for you?

Try to turn this around a bit, EyeDentist. Deep down, you know I’m right. wink.

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Seems to me that, if you take the long view re the shifts that have occurred in American cultural attitudes, the direction has been what most would describe as very positive. (Like the man said, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.) I’m not sure which cultural attitudes you’re referring to, but how do you think they’ll be viewed 50 years hence?

If it’ll keep 'em off the SCOTUS, I’ll make a contribution to the school. :stuck_out_tongue:

Yeah, thats what I was going to say!

:astonished:

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In the hard sciences, this really doesn’t come up at all. I’ve been a part of 25+ search committees, and the criteria is set up to find the best scientist. Also, if searches are done correctly, there should be outside committee members (from other departments), a public lecture with feedback from the larger University community, and meetings with Deans.
Now, in hires for adjunct professors, lecturers, etc… (non permanent faculty positions), there is less oversight and smaller search committees. The thought being, of course, that these hires don’t have the long term impact that hiring tenure stream professors will have. But in this case, the hires don’t shape the department and their political views or opinions would be less important (if they were considered important at all).

So, I can say that any search I have been a part of was not swayed by politics or “fit” in terms of opinions and views.

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I have had a similar experience in my 5 years as a tenure-track academic experimental psychologist, and my >10 years as a clinical academic physician.

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I agree with this in part. We would find much common ground on issues like our history of slavery as a tragedy.

Slavery, suffrage, civil rights, equal rights for women–all to the good I think (and assume you would agree). Am I cherry-picking, or is it fair to say that, overall, the arc of American cultural change does indeed bend toward justice?

Oops. Accidentally hit the reply button prematurely. I see your reply as I’m typing.

I’ll try to talk about this in terms of policy issues, rather than party polemics. We’ll understand each other better if we all try to do that.

I’m talking about the things like this. These kinds of things really matter to me.

The disregard by both the Reps and Dems for the STAGGERING debt they are laying at the feet of my children and yours, and the disregard for transfers of wealth from our children to the already more established generations who came before them. Concerns about putting potential hurt feelings over free speech. The idea that laws are now made chiefly by regulatory agencies that “combine in themselves all three powers of government.” The idea that “compliance before the ever increasing regulations replaces law abidingness. This is a fundamental shift in the people as the makers of the law, and the people as those who quail before it.” quoting and pparaphrasing Larry Arnn here. I don’t think people on either side know the difference.

The disregard of personal freedom in search of equality of outcome, which often includes no regard for private property and erodes our freedoms in fundamental ways. The idea that our government should be micro-manager of not only our lives, but managing or fully controlling banks, trade, education, increasingly all the land of our interior, on and on… to a degree that creates elite classes of politicians and crony capitalists, and often makes the graft and corruption situations worse, not better. The idea that our government is swollen beyond recognition, and that many seem to think that this is “progress.” The idea that our children are doing a disservice to the earth by having children of their own, “the earth groans with each new little carbon footprint.” The disregard for the marriage gap and it’s role in poverty, and the incredible disadvantages of children growing up without both parents. Cultural shifts related to more people who are isolated in terms of family and community, and the increasing anxiety, depression, and drug use among our people. Some things about our culture are making us very sick. I think our human mind is more finely tuned toward justice than mercy in many cases, and I think we have a disaster going on regarding incarceration for non-violent criminals and drug users.

Does that give you some idea about some of the cultural shifts that upset me?

edited

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Fixed that for ya.

No, you’re not cherry-picking. It’s a tragedy that the thinkers of the Enlightenment and the founders were not able to apply their ideas equally. Imagine what America could be like if we’d never have experienced slavery alone.

If you imagine that Socrates, Jesus, the thinkers of the Enlightenment, and all the wise and just people who have come before us would be happy with the current state of the Dems or Reps, or that they’d find themselves at home in the Dem party? No. I see much that is authoritarian going on. Much that worries more about the flaws of society than the morality of the individual.

I think we consistently underestimate our ability to always move in a positive direction, or to crush something that while not perfect, has much that is fine and good. When someone… cough… says they want to “fundamentally transform the United States.” I worry about our potential to throw out the baby with the bathwater. We seem to want to move closer to some of the European policies which are currently bearing down so heavily, even crushing those countries. We’ve come a long way, yes. We can do better, yes. I’m hopeful.

Well (and as you mentioned at the outset), they’re not all cultural issues. Most of your first paragraph is policy-related, except perhaps the concern re prioritizing feelings over free speech, which I see as a false issue, as I am aware of no government-based restrictions on speech intended to ameliorate/prevent hurt feelings. (Please correct me if I’m wrong here.)

I’m curious about this one. It suggests to me that regulations are replacing (for lack of a better term) the ‘honor code’ approach to corporate citizenship. Is that fair?

This strikes me more as spin than anything else. That is, people (of any/all stripes) tend to label laws/regulations they disagree with as ‘micro-managing our lives.’ For example, I dare say you’re sympathetic to the notion that the govt can (and perhaps should?) regulate what women can do with their bodies vis a vis abortion. That strikes me as a helluva lot more micro-managerial than anything the govt could do regarding banking.

C’mon, PP. That’s a strawman if ever there was one. Sure, you can find loony-tunes who talk like that, but let’s not pretend they have any sort of influence over the culture writ large, or any political power.

True, but this is not a new or recent development. We are, and probably always will be, a work in progress. I certainly don’t subscribe to the notion that there was a time when our culture was altogether healthy, and that if we were only to return to those halcyon days, we could ‘make America great again.’

Funny, I didn’t think it was broken in the first place…

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/07/having-children-brings-high-carbon-impact/?_r=0

I don’t think that’s so true. I have to go to work and lift, but I’m sure with a little research there is plenty to be found on that.

I didn’t dispute that having children could be construed as increasing one’s carbon footprint/carbon legacy. What I took issue with was the notion that there was a potent cultural and/or political movement afoot to decrease reproductive rates because of this fact.

It looks like repeal of the ACA is picking up steam, and will begin full-force (legislatively speaking) on Wednesday with the opening salvos.

There is talk of replacement plans…but that is most certainly not the Congressional focus at this point.

And so on.

I even found a hypothetical paper published at Williams and St. Mary’s describing a Supreme Court ruling limiting US married couples to two children because of the environment.

http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1550&context=wmborj

Seems the is the foundation being laid for that.

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I respectfully challenge anyone reading this to say that they have sensed social pressure to have fewer children because of climate change, or that they know a single person who has experienced such pressure.

We can’t get most Americans to even admit climate change is real, much less to modify their behavior in any way to ameliorate it, much less get them to countenance having fewer children because of it. A cultural change afoot to have fewer children because of climate change? C’mon, man.

Here’s a group pushing it as their agenda.

Like I said, there are loony-tunes out there pushing such things. But they have no social (much less political) power.

Nah. It’s the cool thing among the level 9000! super vegans and stuff.