Can someone explain to me in simple terms. USA elections

[ihatethecold]

What are the main differences between Obama and romney?
Is Obama like labour and Romney like very right conservative?

Why does Romney say he will get rid of the healthcare bill that Obama brought in.

Did it not work?
why wouldn't you want people without insurance to access healthcare ?
Thanks

"I support people marrying early if they find it too difficult to abstain from sex."

"RE boys' schools. If a pupil at a respectable boys' school started trying to divulge their sexual experiences to a teacher, I expect they'd i)stop them by saying they were not interested/ inappropriate talk/ not my problem etc. and ii)at least consider telling the parents. I don't see schools as institutionally sexist in the way you do, at least on this. It's certain parents who would be more concerned about their daughters than their sons."

"One law for all": there is no law passed in the English Parliament or anywhere else I know of requiring schools to act as super-discreet confidantes for pupils who are sexually impure. Nor is it a "fundamental part of civil society" for parents to be kept out of the loop.

"which it most often is"
So you're saying more 13-15 year olds are being incestuously abused and going to tell a teacher (most incest victims don't report, a major reason for low prosecution/conviction rate) than experimenting sexually with other teenagers or thinking about doing so?

What planet are you living on?

Nice anti-Catholicism, by the way. The main defender of the anti-parent view on this thread IS Catholic...

Tell them to shut up? I would never advocate such brusqueness in that context, but interrupt them possibly, depends whether they are being respectful and what the school rules are. A lot of youth now start using explicit words and descriptions they wouldn't dare to have used outside their peer group once. There isn't a universal right answer to that.

It's not an 'anti parent' view.
It's a view that every individual has a right to confidentiality, and that 'individual' encompasses minors as well as legal adults.

It you see it as an anti parent view then it is pretty clear that you do not support a right to confidentiality of minors.

There is a universal right answer to the sort of (highly unlikely) scenario you keep on harping on about (for unfathomable reasons of your own.) The answer is that a teacher whose first duty is to the child would listen and try to see the big picture.

And you can't pick and choose the areas where you think families' rights can be stomped on and those which are sacrosanct.

Extro, you do understand that if students are going to their teacher about a sexual issue and the teacher tells the parents, that students won't stop having sex, they'll just stop confiding in a teacher?

What on EARTH has that topic got to do with Obama versus Romney?

I thought Michelle's speech was extremely well written - much more intelligent than Anne's

^"which it most often is"
So you're saying more 13-15 year olds are being incestuously abused and going to tell a teacher (most incest victims don't report, a major reason for low prosecution/conviction rate...) ^

I am saying, as I am sure you are aware, that child abuse is seldom committed by a stranger down a dark alley, it is most often perpetrated in the family home.

Piglet you said "if it's something going on within the family (which it most often is)". The context was any discussion about sex, relationships or being pregnant (which is what I originally said parents should be informed of with an exception if the teacher believed they were at risk)

I am aware that most child abuse is perpetrated in the family. Math that's like saying that "raising taxes on millionaires to 75% isn't an anti-wealth position, just a pro-equality position." Even if it's pro-equality it still goes against someone (i.e. the wealthy.)

Telling parents that their children will be able to explore their sexual concerns with professionals at school and they have no way of finding out any information is "anti-parent" AND "pro-confidentiality". It depends whether you believe parents' right to know or the young person's right to privacy is more important. There is no law or absolute rule either way in this country, so schools have discretion without getting into trouble for which way they decide.

If it's a place in Islington or the leafy suburbs of Cambridge where 97% of parents would prefer their DCs had an outside "confidante" it makes sense to not inform them. If it's inner city with majority Muslims or Black Charismatics or anyone else who would want to know if their DC was up to something they considered to be very immoral, better to inform parents.

Still does not require rejecting the "primacy of Western values" you mentioned or ignoring beatings at madrassahs, pupils coming in full of bruises which their parents believe are "justified discipline", FGM, Kindoki, violent "exorcism", forced marriage or other such practices which violate their individual rights as children, British citizens and more than anything as human beings.

Am I not promoting an even-handed moderate position here? The anti-extremist as ever...

No, you're most definitely an extremist.

I was thinking about the Rev Chad Varah yesterday, founder of The Samaritans.

The story is that after qualifying, and going to a new parish as an assistant, he was told to take the funeral service for a young girl who had killed herself.

Her periods had started, she didn't know what it was, but she had heard rumours about venereal diseases, and thought she had one.

So.

A youngster.

Kept in ignorance.

Scared to talk to her parents.

No-one she could confide in.

Varah decided to try to devote his life to prevent other tragedies.

That story was a formative element of my youth.

Bloody hell Piglet!

That brings tears to my eyes. :( And I wonder why she felt she must die because she had a 'venereal disease?'

I love the way that Extro considers a reference to institutionally permitted and concealed child abuse to be a "Nice anti-Catholicism"

It's hard to tell if he intends to draw attention to the shameful record of churches throughout the world, or if he is complaining about it being mentioned instead of brushed under the carpet.

I called it anti Catholicism because you were accusing Catholics of telling people to "piss off and shut up" then linking that to child abuse when it was irrelevant to the context; it is a fair criticism of the church on its own merits. When something like this is just thrown in it makes me suspicious that the real goal is to assault Catholic moral teaching or Christianity as a whole.

Love your paraphrase of sexual experience by the way. I didn't suggest interrupting until the pupil was actually discussing sex and/or using inappropriate explicit language.

and the first person to mention Catholicism was.... Extrospektiv!

PJ mentions "concerns"
"If a pupil at a respectable boys' school started trying to divulge their ...."

....concerns which might relate to something that had happened, and might be of a sexual nature...

what? you want the teacher to tell them to shut up and piss off?

And Extro thinks it says "accusing Catholics of telling people to "piss off and shut up"

Perhaps in the world Extro lives on, all teachers are Catholics. And a question is an accusation.

Why am I saying that you accuse Catholics... because after that disquisition upon shutting up, your very next line is:

used to be popular especially among adherents of a well-known religious organisation, very effective at keeping things swept under the carpet
Which is a direct accusation that Catholics used to frequently use your caricature of the traditional values approach AND implies that such an approach is effective at perpetuating child abuse. A serious claim.

Extro adds the word "Catholic" inside his own head to what I wrote.

Unclear what point he is making about the church oppressing victims and sweeping crime under the carpet for many years.

I'm a devout Catholic (prayer sessions twice daily) but I'm afraid I have to agree with Piglet John. I was very pleased when the Church finally gave an official apology.

Sadly an apology isn't enough. I do hope history will never repeat itself in regards to any religion sweeping child abuse under the carpet. From personal experience, I know that the damage of being dismissed can sometimes outweigh the pain of the abuse.

Disclaimer: yes, I know there are other religions that do what the Church has done in the past, I only specified Catholicism as it had already been mentioned. :)

If someone said "a certain well-known ethnic group engages in violence fuelled by its hip-hop culture", would I be going too far to suggest that it was a reference to blacks and the person saying it may have racial bias?

I added Catholic because it is well-known that is the religious organisation with the highest profile sexual abuse scandal. And yes, they were wrong to oppress victims. Few would argue with that.

I'm feeling puzzled that it should be considered OK to abide by confidentiality in environments where it is apparently OK for children to talk to other trusted people in their lives and there will probably be very little repercussions for them if it did come out that they shared concerns of a sexual nature with a teacher; but totally wrong to do the same where parents may very well react very strongly, causing serious repercussions for the child.

The only conclusion, I can come to is that the 'sexually impure' (WTF) shoudl be punished whenever possible, especially if they are young and vulnerable.

Well fuck that. I want my children and their friends to feel safe if they need to confide in someone. If it's not me well that's sad and has some implications for my parenting, but it is more important that someone is there for them if they are troubled than for me to know what they are doing at all times. Just because they are young doesn't make them my possessions.

Anyway, apart from showing the warped thinking of someone who identifies as a Republican (although not in fact an American voter) I'm not sure this conversation helps anyone to understand the current election.

Math that's like saying that "raising taxes on millionaires to 75% isn't an anti-wealth position, just a pro-equality position." Even if it's pro-equality it still goes against someone (i.e. the wealthy.)

It's not necessarily either anti wealth or pro equality.
It might make sense economically-speaking or it might not. Tax policy is not decided on whims (anti wealth or pro equality for instance).

Don't forget female Nooka. That is usually how it works.

Extro -- how is 'explicit language' inappropriate when discussing sex? Surely clarity is to be encouraged? Do you prefer the nudge nudge wink wink approach?

Extro -- used to be popular especially among adherents of a well-known religious organisation, very effective at keeping things swept under the carpet [PJ]
Which is a direct accusation that Catholics used to frequently use your caricature of the traditional values approach AND implies that such an approach is effective at perpetuating child abuse. A serious claim. '

Sweeping things under the carpet is the most effective way to perpetuate child abuse. See no evil, heal no evil, speak no evil.. If the family is sacrosanct and the individual child has no real rights because the rights of the family trump those of the individual then the child is placed in a very vulnerable position. This is how so many girls and young women ended up being cast into the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland by their own families. It was akin to honour imprisonment and in some cases since the girls died from the tender mercies of the nuns it constituted indirect honour killing.

The sacredness of the family was an argument brought out by the Irish Bishops against the Health Act of 1953 on grounds that the state taking over the privilege of the family. Much of Catholic opposition to measures that would have made a real and positive difference to the lives of the poor in Ireland (vocational education, free comprehensive education, children's allowance, the Mother and Child Scheme for instance) arose because such measures were in conflict with Catholic Social Teaching, which allegedly placed the family first -- in Ireland this was shorthand for 'placed the make head of household first'.

As I said, I go to Mass, etc. -- I don't like to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but there is a heck of a lot of bathwater.

Too true math.

So I see that Clinton made a stirring speech today. Perhaps it is a pity that US presidents can only run for two terms. America really needs a strong effective president right now.

For me this really does sum up the difference between the two ideologies:
""If you want a you're-on-your-own, winner-take-all society, you should support the Republican ticket. If you want a country of shared prosperity and shared responsibility ? a we're-all-in-this-together society ? you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden."

Anne Lamott was talking about Kennedy when she said "we all know he had the moral life of a red-ass baboon, but compared with Bush he's like Desmond Tutu." I think the same could be said for Clinton. :o

I was just remarking to DH that I missed ol' Bill, and here he is speaking truth to power.

I am glad the POTUS can only have 2 terms, though.

Hi Cheerful, I was just coming on to ask you how Bill's speech had gone down! It's interesting that he wasn't allowed to be involved much in Gore's campaign and of course there was the Hillary issue last time - is this the first election in which he will play a real part, do you think?

Most people liked Clinton pretty well; he did a good job of walking the middle road and as a comedian once said, "That sly son of a bitch ran the SHIT out of this country." :)