Can someone explain to me in simple terms. USA elections

Novack, don't start with the mormons again, will ya?

Well that explains your bending of the truth.

nightlurker are you a Mormon?

You mean when he conveniently dodged the draft for 2 years in France.

It was mandatory to go and serve his country in Vietnam with the other young men but he instead ran off to socialist France. and considering that his father was running for President at the time you'd of thought he would have shown willing to serve his country or stayed to support his father in the election campaign but no, In order to avoid the draft he ran to France

The issue of Romney being a Mormon will not play a part in the election except via underground and very indirect channels. On the surface, it is a non-issue just as the issue of Obama being black is a non-issue on the surface. Religion cannot be used to attack candidates -- it's a sort of unspoken rule. The right to have a religion and to play a part in whatever religion you adhere to is guaranteed in the constitution. There is still a bit of a bad taste left in the mouth after the openly anti-Catholic elements of opposition to JFK. Any criticism of a candidate's views that seem to be based on religion has to be done obliquely. It can be done but not directly.

The closest the campaign got to mentioning Mormonism in a negative light so far was Newt Gingrich's oblique reference to Romney's mandatory Mormon missionary stint when he highlighted his ability to speak French.

'Math WRT "formative sexual experience" You are seeing this from a safeguarding/child protection perspective? We were talking about teens in high school, so I meant the "normal" i.e. not abusive or pathological sexual behaviour between teenagers, or pupils discussing their relationships, being pregnant or suspecting that is the case, and similarly personal issues. If you're thinking of the young child who blabs out something sexual or asks an age-inappropriate question which implies something's the matter at home, then that is a completely different situation. Of course parents may not be told in line with child protection procedures in this case.'

No, I'm not seeing it from a child protection perspective.
'So a Muslim, conservative Catholic, Sikh or Mormon whose son/daughter tells a teacher they are having sex at 15 is prurient for wanting to actually be informed of this, which they see as a major moral issue in keeping with their beliefs?'
I do see it as prurience and I am baffled by it. I see fear there too. Do parents have so little faith in the way they bring up their children that they think the minute they reach sexual maturity they are going to turn around and have sex? If you are a responsible parent of any stripe you will have done your best to inculcate your values in your children. You will have provided your children with a sense of ambition for themselves beyond seeking the status of having a girlfriend or boyfriend or baby, and on the practical side you will have pointed out that the consequences of having a baby before you can afford it are profound and usually borne unequally by the mother.

'in lieu of statutory intervention schools could issue individual guidance that the teachers are not there to be a confidante for the concupiscent youth, particularly when parents don't share those "metropolitan elite liberal" moral standards. I know of one place in this country where 90% of pupils are from Muslim/Hindu/ Charismatic Black church/SDA or other traditionalist families but the deputy principal provides secret support to them on intimate sexual matters and has produced a sex ed policy which doesn't mention marriage, purity, abstinence, or similar concepts ONCE. I said this was an anti-family imposition of a sophisticated white liberal Christian elite woman's morals on children and teens from several tightly knit conservative communities. Surely you can't defend her?'

A teen having sex at 15 or whatever age is so much more than a moral issue.

I think I would trust the judgement of the principal that the listening ear/shoulder to cry on that s/he provides is a service that the students need. I think it is highly unlikely that the principal is advising students to go out and have sex and to heck with the consequences. Marriage, purity, abstinence and similar concepts have clearly not impressed the students even though they come from homes where those ideas are held important if they are seeking out teachers of the principal to confide sexual matters to.

How is it 'sophisticated', 'white' (????), 'liberal', 'Christian', 'elite' or 'women's morals' (or combinations of those adjectives) to recognise reality and provide practical support? If the students felt they could approach their parents with the details of their lives they probably would not be confiding in teachers. In a world where so called honour killing is sometimes carried out I think a principal who left teens to the mercy of their families a teacher has a duty first to the children. Even without 'honour killing' a teacher's duty is to the children imo.

Teachers try their hardest to teach even the children of the Irish Traveller community that whips children out of school at age 11. Should they bother? The girls will never have a job. The role envisaged for them is to be mothers and keepers of the house. Their training starts at 10 or 11. The boys will follow whatever trade their father follows. Some Traveller families place no priority on sending any of their children to school and are constantly in trouble with truancy officers. Should LEAs bother following them up and getting the children enrolled and making sure they go? The Travellers think of school and the culture it represents as a place that is alien to their culture. Should they have to send their children there? Or should government allow them to stay home and never learn to read or write?

If teens in high school feel the need to talk with someone then imo they are welcome to talk. If teens are able to find and form a positive relationship with a teacher they can relate to I see that as a very good thing in a teenager's life. Same goes for neighbours, family, friends, parents of friends, relatives. I like the idea that a community is available and willing to support and influence a teenager. I don't see influence from outside the family or the church as an automatic negative.

Why not 'inflict' the views of Amanda Marcotte on anyone? I know a child who comes out with a lot of the sort of ideas (in childish terms) she has blogged. She and her family are former neighbours of mine. They visit occasionally and hopefully we will return the favour some day. Their DD and my youngest DD were friends from the time they could talk. DD shrugs when her little friend calls Christmas Fishmas. They shrugged when DD tried to teach their DD the Hail Mary. (DD also taught her to read in contravention of their Steiner principles, and there was no putting that particular cat back into the bag.) Children tend to go along with whatever their family believes. The Steiner child mentions gnomes when she talks about her maths class. DD talks about the funny joke Fr. X told when he visited her class. Teens are going to be thinking their own thoughts no matter how much you want to isolate them. I have a sister who is basically a Buddhist at this point in her life, having found over the years beginning in her teens that what she was brought up with wasn't relevant to her.

You can't legislate opinion or relationships. The most you can do is respect the framework that allows everyone to hold whatever opinion they hold and to express it freely and not abuse that freedom by calling those who disagree with you names.

I think that either Ian Paisley is closer to the centre than I thought he was or you are closer to Ian Paisley than you realise on social issues, Extro. Maybe it's the use of language that has people bamboozled as to your feelings -- when you claim to be at the centre yet use the language and hopping angry tone of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk there is a disconnect somewhere.

(I agree CheerfulYank)

No, PigletJohn. I remember our biology teacher discussing it, as a matter of fact. I don't know anyone who believes that.

Yeah, to say "This is a man who is one step down from being his cult's pope" is a profound misunderstanding of the structure of the Church of Latter Day Saints.

Is it generally considered normal to believe in the inheritance of acquired characteristics?

But I am. Born n' bred. :o Pick my brain all you want.

But Extro is not a US citizen or resident, so is of no use as an example in trying to understand the attitudes of those who are (the point of this thread)

Extro would be quite right wing here in Minnesota too, and we're what one thinks of us "right wing country" even though we're really not.

We'll still be a country in 150 years. What kind of country we'll be remains to be seen, of course. :)

I am...well, not pro-life really. I have pro-life leanings and can not think of a situation in which I would have an abortion personally, but I realize that outlawing them is not the answer.

But I will never vote for a politician who says he or she is pro-life, anyway, because most of them are pro-death penalty and anti-social programs and seem to want to go to war at the drop of a hat. Fuck 'em. They don't care about those babies once they're born and I would never ally myself with them.

I mean Darwinian, the other type is pseudoscience. More race-baiting? When will you stop?

When you say you think evolution might be true do you mean Darwinian or Lamarckian.

Many republicans like to say that they agree with evolutionary theory but then it turns out they don't mean the accept darwin as fact but they mean lamarckian evolutionary nonsense which is why they are always start talking about they are the right person to be dong a job becuase their grandfather did this or their great grandfather did that so they are the most experienced candidate for the job.

You see Lamarckian believers, of whom Romney is one believe that you are born with the learned traits of your forefather which is why he keep going on about how his dads did this or his grandad did that because in his mind that means he has inherited their traits (not eye or hair coour, but business accumen and work ethic etc) and can also do the same thing and that his fathers abilities are his.

For those who question why faith should be a question at all. Do not forget that the right have spent the last 5 years painting Obama as a muslim because he has an arabic middle name, Hussein, which simply means handsome. The have used the euphamism, unamerican because he is black.

They right do not want to mention faith now because Romney holds the equivalent position in his cult of a Roman Catholic cardinal. This is a man who is one step down from being his cult's pope and yet he now wants to say that his faith is not important. Does he really expect anyone to believe that he got to that high priest position by standing against their stated beliefs, for not toeing the line perfectly so it is irrelevant.

IdPreferNot- would you consider me a wingnut then? (I hope not given my clear opposition to them, but some people insist on calling me extreme here.)

Math WRT "formative sexual experience" You are seeing this from a safeguarding/child protection perspective? We were talking about teens in high school, so I meant the "normal" i.e. not abusive or pathological sexual behaviour between teenagers, or pupils discussing their relationships, being pregnant or suspecting that is the case, and similarly personal issues. If you're thinking of the young child who blabs out something sexual or asks an age-inappropriate question which implies something's the matter at home, then that is a completely different situation. Of course parents may not be told in line with child protection procedures in this case.

"incredibly prurient" So a Muslim, conservative Catholic, Sikh or Mormon whose son/daughter tells a teacher they are having sex at 15 is prurient for wanting to actually be informed of this, which they see as a major moral issue in keeping with their beliefs? Prurience is reading trashy sex obsessed pulp fiction or minor celebrities' shenanigans in the tabloid newspapers, or so I thought? Wanting to know whether your own child is following the faith and morals you have brought them up with, and not have a professional you have entrusted them to keep secrets for them, fits in that category now? Really?

I am not "fazed" by Marcotte or those with her views on religion and/or sexuality, I am offended and annoyed by them and don't want those views inflicted on children.

"Do you honestly think there is a piece of legislation that could stop children speaking to a trusted teacher, or stop teachers listening and talking to them?" - No, as it would be unenforceable, but in lieu of statutory intervention schools could issue individual guidance that the teachers are not there to be a confidante for the concupiscent youth, particularly when parents don't share those "metropolitan elite liberal" moral standards. I know of one place in this country where 90% of pupils are from Muslim/Hindu/ Charismatic Black church/SDA or other traditionalist families but the deputy principal provides secret support to them on intimate sexual matters and has produced a sex ed policy which doesn't mention marriage, purity, abstinence, or similar concepts ONCE. I said this was an anti-family imposition of a sophisticated white liberal Christian elite woman's morals on children and teens from several tightly knit conservative communities. Surely you can't defend her?

Ian Paisley- I'm not a Catholic-hating gay-bashing five point Calvinist ultrafundie bigot. Don't balk at me calling a group that you happen to like extreme liberal (not even you personally) and then imply I am far-far-far right when I have disavowed that sort of wingnuttery several times in the thread. Did you miss the post that said I'd support a Democrat who was anti-abortion but had moderate positions on other things? Or the one where I attacked Limbaugh and Sean Hannity for their extremist nonsense? The support for the Affordable Care Act? The one where I said "evolution denial" as if evolution might actually be true? And that one about my very in-between position on economics?

I have made it clear I'm not an extremist. @dreamingbohemian- the two coasts and New England, the deep-blue states are much closer to mainstream UK political views, yes. But I was saying for the US as a whole I was a moderate, would be seen as a RINO (Republican in name only) in the south and heartland for not being rightwing enough. Even the California lib stereotype is not true for all of it: the inner parts are conservative and Arnie was a GOP governor. SF/LA and SoCal are probably the most socially liberal parts of the nation though and New England the most fiscally liberal, isn't Vermont going for a NHS style system above and beyond "Obamacare"? I heard that and that it would be seen as a test of whether single-payer could work in the US.

I must admit whenever I hear 'my son is an All American Boy!' It usually means he's white, enjoys the 'appropriate' toys and activities for a young boy and has certain views already developing...It makes me cringe. At least that's the way it's been portrayed in Australia. Again, to me it's just a weird term. Never heard 'All Australian Boy!' 'All English Boy!' 'All Irish Boy!' Well, etc etc. Not necessarily just race, it applies to gender stereotypes as well as political beliefs in a child. At least IME.

'Pro-American' makes me cringe because it's not the same as 'Pro-women/etc'

It almost sounds like a threat to American voters who disagree with whatever politician said it. An American is an American is an American. I just can't understand it if it's not a threat, eg 'you agree with xzy? That goes against the Founding Fathers! You're not a REAAAAAAAAAAAAAL American!' Not race related there but still sounds extremely insulting and threatening to me.

FYI: I'd be disgusted with any Aussie politician (including my brother) who used 'Pro-Australia' as an argument.

Right wing nut. Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, considerable numbers of Fox News commentators, et al. As distinct from someone who is right-wing, or conservative, such as Romney.

what is a Wingnut?

is it usual for right-wingers to be bombastic and intolerant?