Pudding First

Heh, good luck. The ‘pile up of unsustainable debt’ would be the least of our problems. In my teaching experience, I have found teenagers to be enthusiastic supporters of the death penalty and extreme punishments for the most menial crimes.

“Lord of the Flies” should be required reading. I highly recommend the movie version.

…in order to further her own socialist vanities is not only farcical, but degenerate.
Speaking of which, and also of voting, and also of infantile thought, pneumatic actresses, how do they become so wise in the way of world politics ?

…not only farcical, but degenerate.
Speaking of which, OT, but as it is 9/11, “airplanes took aim”.

I am amazed that someone at the NYT had the decency to try to memory hole that tweet.

I dunno…As I recall, shortly after the fall of the Commies, Hungary was considering this. But more along the lines of the parents getting a vote for each child. Or perhaps such was how it was expected to play out. IIRC it was those more on the political right who were pushing it. I know if I was given the vote (and/or my parents a proxy vote early on), for the first 18 years of my life it would have cancelled out a few of the stupid left-leaning votes that I made in the following 12 or so years.

Speaking of which, OT, but as it is 9/11, “airplanes took aim”.
It’s a climate thing. They want to ban air travel, right? So if we blame the airplanes…
You do recall the news person who, after the second plane hit the WTC, wondered if something had gone wrong with our air traffic control systems, yes?

Hey, everyone has fully bought into the idea that everyone gets a vote; why not children? Children voting is logically consistent with criminals voting, tax frauds voting, welfare recipients voting, foreign nationals voting, people who collect taxes taking money from their left pocket and putting it in their right to pay taxes voting…
If children voting is a bad idea, then perhaps you are finally willing to to start disenfranchising a whole lot of people. It is the only way to break the power of cities over vast areas of productive agribusiness (California, anyone?).
Although, it would take a lot of thought to come up with a system that would only let people with skin in the game vote, and simultaneously stop the pulling of multiple levers.
rule 1: there are two ways to influence an election: vote, money.
rule 2: you get to pick exactly one
rule3: you get to do neither, if you have no skin in the game (ie. do not pay taxes, or are paid out of tax collections)
Say you belong to a union. The union buys ads pushing Paul, disparaging Peter; I think you have to take the vote away from the entire union membership.
At this point, either let the children vote, or start pushing some serious electoral reform very hard.

Although, it would take a lot of thought to come up with a system that would only let people with skin in the game vote
Yes, a lot of thought. Those would be awkward rules to enforce. Just look at the current state of “campaign finance reform” here in the US. NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, WaPo, NYT, etc. etc. etc. are essentially mouthpieces of the left. Billions (trillions?) of dollars invested in these organizations yet not one cent of it counts as campaign contribution. But if someone tries to buy time on one of those stations to present an opposing point of view, those thousands of dollars are accounted for in CFR. That the people fell for this crap in the first place shows how weak the thinking skills of the average American are and how far we have drifted from any reasonable understanding of our Constitution. And all of this has happened with the rise of publik (and even private) edjumacation. Though there’s a few 20th century constitutional amendments I could call out as well. Which would be every one excepting 20, 24, 25, & 27.

It occurs to me that if you start demanding that small children be allowed to vote in general elections – largely because you assume that their choices, their politics, will tend to mirror your own – then perhaps it’s time to ponder why your own politics correspond with the imagined preferences of children, who are, by definition, unworldly and irresponsible.
It could be well past time to evaluate, David. Given the infantilization of the populace, the shameless rhetoric justifying our unfettered federal grifting, and our general sloth and moral emptiness about our state and condition, it’s debatable if there’s been a responsible voting class of any age in decades.

If children voting is a bad idea, then perhaps you are finally willing to to start disenfranchising a whole lot of people. It is the only way to break the power of cities over vast areas of productive agribusiness (California, anyone?).
These being ostensible democracies, there’s no hope unless the power of the corporation is broken as well. Urbanism may be a net mental cancer, but corporatism is a net collectivist destroyer.
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2019/04/03/abortion-gun-laws-stand-your-ground-model-bills-conservatives-liberal-corporate-influence-lobbyists/3162173002/

If you’ve put your life on the line, you get a vote.
Two years Federal Service. Service guarantees citizenship.

http://www.jimkeefe.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Child_Catcher.jpg

Because draconian patriotism.
And yet it has been a requirement for citizens for thousands of years–since forever, as a matter of fact.

…since forever, as a matter of fact.
Well, it was certainly one of the ways a poor man could gain Roman citizenship which was a definitely a thing worth having. I see nothing wrong with giving voting rights to someone who was willing to die for you.
Based on the criterion of property ownership used, well, up to 1918 in the UK apparently, I’d not have been able to vote until I was about 33. Looking back, I was still a bit green to be honest.

One problem is that younger people don’t vote as often as older people, a pattern that favors conservatives. But there is a solution: mandatory voting, as they have in Australia. Combining this with no age limit might seem problematic, but I’m sure scientists can figure how to record votes from babies.
A second problem is that people often insist on voting for the wrong candidate. That Trump got elected president is ample evidence of that. And again, there’s a solution: make people’s votes public, so that social pressure can be brought against those who vote irresponsibly. Should someone who insists on hurting others by voting incorrectly be allowed to keep their jobs, or enjoy an undisturbed meal in a restaurant? I don’t think so.
With no age limit, compulsory voting, and publicized votes, the results of democratic elections should be improved enormously.

Do elaborate on your conservative bona fides, pst314.
Step away from the bar, boys, and somebody fetch the sheriff ! Looks like somebody’s got a mighty itchy trigger finger on that there measuring ruler in his pocket protector, and is a aimin’ to use it !

somebody fetch the sheriff!
The sheriff is nigh.

pst314
I must confess I posted before reading all the comments. I’m heartened that I’m not the only one to reference Heinlein’s musings on the franchise.
He had others, too. He thought you could do away with the age requirement if you had an educational test – step into booth, random question re: American history & current politics, get a wrong answer and no voting.

there’s a solution: make people’s votes public, so that social pressure can be brought against those who vote irresponsibly. Should someone who insists on hurting others by voting incorrectly be allowed to keep their jobs, or enjoy an undisturbed meal in a restaurant?
I wonder if that isn’t already happening to some degree in the US at least. Your party registration is public knowledge and if you contribute over, I think, $100 to any candidate, that becomes public knowledge. Every so often I see a story where a prominent person is said to have voted for x without directly quoting them and I start to wonder. With all the focus on voting registration rolls and given that more and more people from the conservative side become afraid to answer survey/polling questions, as the preliminary polling starts to differentiate significantly from the actual polls, at some point I expect there will be a call to audit the votes by tying the vote to a person. They’ll swear up and down that your vote will be private to get that camel’s nose under the tent. I truly believe we are headed that way. When that happens is my only real uncertainty. In fact, I have very serious doubts that it hasn’t already happened. What’s my guarantee that the bar code on my ballot isn’t tied directly to my name in some manner already? It certainly can be tracked with mail-in ballots.

Correction: “which would have used Card Check…”

I have the simplest, most elegant, and to my mind the only fair solution: only I have the vote.
I’m good with that, as long as I get to ensure that you voted correctly.

2019 contender for Most Convoluted Headline.

“Crazy person has an opinion”…
Yeah, but he’s not wrong, you know…

Can you formulate a real question, Ten?
Not without it triggering your fallacy generator.
Anyway, turn it off and then you or the ego known as Muldoon kindly fill me in on the state’s mandate on servitude-citizenship, or in his case, the military’s mandate on child discipline.

…fill me in on the state’s mandate on servitude-citizenship…
How about you do something like be less obtuse, or perhaps just less obtunded, and share for us what you consider to be “conservative bona fides”. I am sure you are just chock-a-block with them.

Posted by: Ten | September 11, 2019 at 21:00
That was rather a long winded way of saying, “I got nothin'”.

What do *you* mean by the word “conservative”?
And, therefore, what is your, and also anyone else’s definition of conservative?
The caveats for answering that question are, as usual, cite references and reasoning so that all may assess, may cite in parallel, may refute by also stating specific details.
In giving such a definition, do follow some sort of general pattern of I state that conservatism means X, as defined by Y, where example(s) include Z, Etc . . . . . . . Do tell us why X, Y, or Z is conservative, is an example of being conservative, with examples, so that the examples can be assessed . . . .
Let us see if any of these definitions even resemble each other, or are just a bunch of non conservatives merely frantically reciting some preference of the moment that has nothing at all to do with actually being conservative . . .

Old enough to vote implies old enough to pay taxes, be conscripted and of course, old enough to have sex.

That was rather a long winded way of saying, “I got nothin'”.
Obviously it was a succinct way to avoid having to spell it out for obtunded but self-impressed types, sport: When we’re daft enough to require our own certification, our betters are all too happy to give it to us. Such collectivist authority is still popular among statist rightists, some of whom see it as their moral yardstick. Others, skin in the game, as they like to call it.
Just as obviously the whole free world got that to one degree or another awhile back, although granted, government paycheck types can be easy dupes.

An even longer winded way to say it
So, Ten still has nothing but snark. If someone asks me a civil and coherent question I will answer, but not if all that is thrown at me are insults, innuendo and accusations.

An even longer winded way to say it
Actually it was a way to state the obvious, which you’d asked for: is military discipline constitutionally suitable for private morality among youth, and is citizenship likewise a matter of conscription or any other paid federal servitude?
No answer? Poses like yours eventually turn into tacit confessions.
but I am glad to have taught you a new word you can use in your high school debate club.
In my mom’s basement, no doubt. Frankly, your material is better when you’ve not first decapitated your point, whatever it was.

So, Ten still has nothing but snark.
Obviously untrue. You know where this goes and because of that you’re pretending to not know, which is also a lie. And if you don’t know you shouldn’t have blundered into it.
If someone asks me a civil and coherent question I will answer,
Untrue as well…
but not if all that is thrown at me are insults, innuendo and accusations.
and yet another lie.

…you wouldn’t be related by any chance to Strong Muldoon…
      This is my Muldoon. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Sorry – got distracted there for a moment. If it is a real person, could be, if it a nom-du-blog, probably not.

If it is a real person, could be, if it a nom-du-blog, probably not.
I was making an arch reference to old jokes out of Ireland, and especially to a passage in Heinlein’s Glory Road:
“So let’s speak of other matters. You mentioned the Strong Muldoon—”
“You mentioned him.”
“Well, perhaps I did. I never met Muldoon myself, though I’ve been in that part of Ireland. A fine country and the only really logical people on Earth. Facts won’t sway them in the face of higher truth. An admirable people. I heard of Muldoon from one of my uncles, a truthful man who for many years was a ghostwriter of political speeches. But at this time, due to a mischance while writing speeches for rival candidates, he was enjoying a vacation as a free-lance correspondent for an American syndicate specializing in Sunday feature stories. He heard of the Strong Muldoon and tracked him down, taking train from Dublin, then a local bus, and at last Shank’s Mares. He encountered a man plowing a field with a one-horse plow…but this man was shoving the plow ahead of himself without benefit of horse, turning a neat eight-inch furrow. ‘Aha!’ said my uncle and called out, ‘Mr. Muldoon!’
“The farmer stopped and called back, ‘Bless you for the mistake, friend!’—picked up the plow in one hand, pointed with it and said, ‘You’ll be finding Muldoon that way. Strong, he is.’
“So my uncle thanked him and went on until he found another man setting out fence posts by shoving them into the ground with his bare hand…and in stony soil, it’s true. So again my uncle hailed him as Muldoon.
“The man was so startled he dropped the ten or dozen six-inch posts he had tucked under the other arm. ‘Get along with your blarney, now!’ he called back. You must know that Muldoon lives farther on down this very same road. He’s strong.’
“The next local my uncle saw was building a stone fence. Dry-stone work it was and very neat. This man was trimming the rock without hammer or trowel, splitting them with the edge of his hand and doing the fine trim by pinching off bits with his fingers. So again my uncle addressed a man by that glorious name.
“The man started to speak but his throat was dry from all that stone dust; his voice failed him. So he grabbed up a large rock, squeezed it the way you squeezed Igli—forced water out of it as if it had been a goatskin, drank. Then he said, ‘Not me, my friend. He’s strong, as everyone knows. Why, many is the time that I have seen him….”

jokes out of Ireland
Better than “jokes” would be “entertaining tall tales”.

Two words in reference to the franchise:
Starship Troopers
Don’t blame me, I voted for The Arachnids.

Can we eradicate voting by Vox columnists?
Given the proponents’ disingenuousness – the hope that unworldly children will endorse leftist policies – it’s hardly surprising that the excuses on offer tend to be unconvincing. As when Professor David Runciman claimed that not allowing primary school children to vote amounts to “an inbuilt bias against governments that plan for the future.” As if small children are renowned for their selflessness and conscientious forethought.

Ms Piper might find the outcome of her suggestion less attractive than she anticipates.
Such oversights may be a function of not being entirely honest about one’s motives. And so, we get creaky rationalisations for an absurd idea, because being honest and saying, “We’re counting on the credulity of children” may still sound a tad suspect. At least among much of the general public.

Except that is nowhere in this thread anything I asked for, so I trust you didn’t strain yourself too badly with that reach into the past wherein you reveal you still cannot grasp, apparently rivaling depleted uranium for density, the concept of using non-judicial punishment rather than a ponderous court system as an an example of a technique that could be modified to fit civil society vs. thinking anyone was suggesting actually using the UCMJ on civilians.
In all that I find, ironically and if you don’t mind my borrowing a common complaint, that someone has escaped the point to say little of anything. Apparently one can lip off quite rapidly about something one didn’t analyze – and with that snark upset pst314 immensely – one can interject same into an exchange not involving oneself, and still one cannot defend the constitutionality of one’s preferred form of Orwellian heavy-handedness in the context of simple but fundamental conservative precept.
I find that all a little ponderous and tellingly counterproductive.
Similarly, no one has suggested linking citizenship with conscription or federal service.
Apparently one has and had. I then took this at face value.
You may find this interesting, but one can volunteer for federal service, military or otherwise, and in the US&A has been that way since July of 1973 when the draft went away, so where you pulled “conscription” from, other than your fourth point of contact, is a mystery, probably not only know even to yourself.
One can volunteer to vote for a communist as well, or eat Oreos all day (literally or politically). I pulled conscription from the same place I pulled servitude – and the same place I’ll now pull right as well as legal extortion – and you or anyone else is free to make of that what you will. One thing to make of it would be its offensiveness to the root of conservative, constitutional principle, and the other would be a nice ball of aimless defensiveness, or in another case, lying about things.
What would be truly unique in all your posts in all these pages if for you to offer what you think a solution for a change. In this instance, who get to vote, and why. I am sure we are all eager to see what true, rock-ribbed conservative gems flow from your keyboard.
You and I should be opposed to change, Muldoon, meaning we should be opposed to solutions to a valid status quo. Juveniles and even children voting would be such a change. The solution to it is obvious.
Back to other change and solutions. For example, you’ve proposed a draconian measure to – and get this – counter a legal system that’s itself fallen into gross disrepair in a land of ostensibly conservative tradition, maintenance, and momentum. You’ve then gone on to defend this Medusa, now apparently offering that third parties solve it.
But at least our respective memories aren’t completely shot. I simply have no duty or desire, when someone lobs a slug of statism in, to follow-up, as if that turd was a satisfactory status quo, with my own solution to their structural sloth. Children mustn’t vote and they also mustn’t be subject to federal discipline, discipline that would likely violate a few of the Constitution’s amendments.
I myself don’t make wrongs right (given the state of things apparently precious few do) nearly as much as I expect simple answers to simple questions as to how my fellows, sometimes in deeply left wing-critical settings, have adopted elements of draconian collectivism to tacitly call it conservative. What would be truly unique in all your posts in all these pages is if they’d entertain their writer’s appreciation of his triviality somewhat less and apply to that reason somewhat more.
So that’s the other difference between us. If you have a specific you’d like to complain about, do so, and any next guy shall consider how or whether to defend. When you get one very wrong, you can also consider whether to defend or capitulate. One thing we cannot do with any degree of logic or reason, is present a concept offensive to founding structure and its principles, and in all seriousness, expect to leave it standing there while the rest of the world accommodates it.
We were once about better solutions, to the point we officially encoded them. Rigid structural types may want to themselves consider original rigid structuralism.
Granted, it is not quite as snappy as your “dickheads”, you Oscar Wilde, you.
Punchlines can’t be explained, but you’ll agree that some monikers have more conscious utility than others…

Children mustn’t vote and they also mustn’t be subject to federal discipline, discipline that would likely violate a few of the Constitution’s amendments…For example, you’ve proposed a draconian measure…
You are beyond reason.
No one ever suggested children be subjected to federal discipline. Applying the tenets of non-judicial punishment, punishment without layers of cops, courts, judges, juvenile halls, reform schools, jails, can be applied at any level below federal, it is not throwing the rather hefty book of UCMJ at some damn kid, no matter how much you wish it to be so, so that you think you can, for once, have made a point.
In the olden days, it was not wholly unlike the way it was, Junior got in a fight in school, was hauled before the principal and given some minor punishment, not hauled off by the cops in handcuffs as happens too often today.
How such a simple very much the opposite of draconian concept is beyond your ken, other than your desire to strut while sitting at your keyboard, is baffling.

Regardless, as I said, been a while since I read the book, but I did see the silly movie, and unless I am mistaken, one could, in either version, volunteer, so I remain a bit puzzled about the bugaboo about conscription/citizenship, which brings us to…
That’s right: the idea as presented in both was that there was no conscription but that one could volunteer and after a term of service one could vote and hold office.
I remain puzzled at those who are so certain that Heinlein presented that idea as a firmly held policy recommendation, as in other places and he depicted ideas and comments that would contradict that. It’s always worth remembering that he, like many writers, liked to play with ideas, working out their implications. (Although I believe he clearly stated on more than one occasion that he opposed conscription on libertarian grounds.)
Whether or not service-for-the-vote it is a good policy is debatable; respectable arguments can be made for both sides.
I am curious about what sources Heinlein consciously drew upon when he developed that idea. As I noted very briefly much earlier in this thread, pretty much all human societies have required military service in times of crisis, and those individuals who refused to serve have faced serious consequences of various sorts.

What?
😀 I denounce myself for laughing at your joke.
Not that I don’t have more longstanding “issues” with Ten: He jumped on my single brief comment with a rude misinterpretation of what I meant. And he is, I believe, the individual who, some time back, simultaneously claimed that astronomically expensive audio components do yield audible differences *and* that it was unreasonable to expect him to demonstrate his golden ears in a double-blind test (listen for any length of time to each component, repeated as many times as desired, and then tell us when he’s listening to “A” and when to “B”.) I don’t like being told that I must accept bullshit as caviar.

You are beyond reason.
No one ever suggested children be subjected to federal discipline.
Obviously, I’m not beyond reason; it was reason that finally got you to be more specific. You’re abusing truth to make a public pose.
Applying the tenets of non-judicial punishment, punishment without layers of cops, courts, judges, juvenile halls, reform schools, jails, can be applied at any level below federal, it is not throwing the rather hefty book of UCMJ at some damn kid, no matter how much you wish it to be so, so that you think you can, for once, have made a point.
First, military discipline is by nature federal. That safely out of the way, elaborate. You’re all about solutions; overreach and creep being what they are, is there some prohibition against legal reform in favor of a new system that honors my prior rights and serves your particular discipline? You’re about change and common sense solutions, almost Obama-like. I’m about rights and reform.
In the olden days, it was not wholly unlike the way it was, Junior got in a fight in school, was hauled before the principal and given some minor punishment, not hauled off by the cops in handcuffs as happens too often today.
In the olden days there were no such public venues or institutions either, and no way they or the legal system could be be abused like they have been. But you’ve made a start. Proceed.
How such a simple very much the opposite of draconian concept is beyond your ken, other than your desire to strut while sitting at your keyboard, is baffling.
And I didn’t say the principal’s office was draconian, Seer, nor is any of this strutting. From your first falsehood to this, you’re projecting.

I’m busy compiling ephemera for tomorrow.
For which delights we are grateful.

The downside was that, when I first voted as an adult myself, it was almost boring, and not the rite-of-passage it usually is…
Your introduction to voting sounds remarkably like my introduction to beer. I suspect that in each of our cases, we’ve awakened some mornings with serious misgivings about the previous day’s activities.

First, military discipline is by nature federal.
What part of “can be applied at any level below federal” are you failing to grasp ? Does “template”, “pattern”, or “model” suit your meager ability to grasp abstract concepts better ? You may be surprised to learn that in a private military school, discipline is conducted on a military model, but is not federal in any way.
I’m about rights and reform.
No, all about blowing smoke and offering nothing of substance, yes, but seeing as how you have your panties in a bunch about what you think, but clearly know nothing about, “military discipline” and in particular the UCMJ and NJP is, let me try the Augean task of educating you a bit.
Under the UCMJ one does lose minimal rights, a commissioned officer cannot, for example, make disparaging remarks about certain elected officials in official correspondence or in uniform in public (Article 88). Once again, no one has suggested applying that sort of thing to a civilian. If I repeat this enough, you may one day get it.
However, one thing the UCMJ does that civilian courts do not across the state and federal levels, is lay out exactly what the maximum penalty is for any given offense, that applies to every service member, everywhere. I will eagerly await your learned discourse on how that is an infringement of rights.
Then we get to Nonjudicial Punishment which is, in reality, a marvel of rights. Some muldoon gets hauled before his commander for some infraction, lets say a DUI. Guy is read his rights and charges by his commander, commander reads him the pertinent sections of the UCMJ and punishments and offers the dude the option of taking a Court Martial with lawyers, judge, and jury, or taking NJP, and lists possible punishments under that. Unless the guy is an idiot, he opts for the NJP.
The commander, depending on rank, has several options, restrict the guy to post for X days, take not more than half pay for not more than 2 months, reduce him in rank, give him extra duty, some combination, or just an oral or written reprimand. The icing on the proverbial cake is that the commander can impose any or even the maximum punishment (restriction/rank/pay/extra duty/reprimand), and then suspend it, or file it in his local personnel file so it doesn’t follow him the rest of his life. Yeah, draconian.
Meanwhile, in the civilian world, his buddy has had at a minimum to throw bail, hire a laywer, and go to court, maybe he gets off, maybe not, all depending on where he lives, who got elected DA, and the mood the judge is in.
Now, for those who can’t grasp the abstract, Junior gets caught tagging the Piggly Wiggly. He gets taken to the East Overshoe NJP session where, on the “template” “pattern” “model” he is offered the option of being charged with malicious mischief and possibly sent to the juvenile detention center, or taking the NJP and having to repaint the wall and clean the statue in the town square. Again I eagerly await your discourse on how being given a choice of which punishment route to take is some egregious abuse of rights.
In the olden days there were no such public venues or institutions either, and no way they or the legal system could be be abused like they have been.
What you don’t know, but think you know, could fill entire libraries. Here is a primer for you, the “public venues” and “institutions” of the juvenile justice system has been rife with abuse from the start.
If we keep this up I am going to have to start charging you tuition.

Oddly, however, the words quality care are actually in quotation marks on the sign, as if they might be wryly ironic.
Is this the first manifestation of that particular grammatical error that you have seen in the UK? It’s been increasingly common in the USA for a good while now.

…the sign for which promises “quality care.”
A resident in our neighbourhood announces his offsprings’ unfortunate malady with a sign on his lawn that says, “Slow Children at Play.” I wanted to stop and offer condolences and a gift certificate to Kumon but the other half pooh-poohed the idea.
Friday Ephemera can’t come fast enough to save us all from this thread.

Slow Children at Play.
Reminds me of neon sign I saw years ago, outside an unsavoury-looking takeaway in Nottingham. It flashed words in sequence and presumably should have read “Hot. And. Cold. Food.” However, due to an unfortunate malfunction, the sign actually announced “Hot Food. Cold.”

Even more disturbing: those parking meters known as roadside gods:
My City just got rid of that type of meter last year. Now you buy a ticket from a machine and place it on your car’s dashboard. Thousands have been spared expiration.
The money grubbing b@st@rds at the City make you enter your licence plate number which prints out on the ticket so you can’t share any of your extra time with someone who might arrive while you’re leaving. At least with the old gods time on the meter was time on the meter to be used by whoever occupied the parking spot.