Grading and politics

[ReyMysterioso]

[Seagull]

Boy this thread has left the original topic.

Yeah, I was thinking I might need to split all the discussions about grades and politics into another thread over in the off-topic section.

And I thought another thread that was specifically about course discussions and politics/various theories was going to be like this one. Yeah def we should keep this thread about credit sources only. But the students anger is real if they feel that their assignments are poorly graded because of teachers opposing opinions.

[dfrecore]

The New Left for ya : )  

There really isn't any sort of common ground.

Hey, you can only listen to Rush Limbaugh for so long before you get the idea that maybe Republicans aren't in the mood to compromise.  Hehe.

The best way to be is to be honest about your positions, fight for them and then be prepared to make a deal.  The ability to make the deal is what made Reagan great.  Maximize leverage and then cut the deal.

Note: The ten senators who met with Biden had this kind of situation.  They had a lot of leverage in negotiations with Biden.  Instead of $1.9 trillion, maybe they could have proposed a $1.5 trillion deal and legitimately put some limits on spending.  I think Biden would have taken that.  Instead, they proposed a ridiculous lowball $600 billion package.  That was never going to fly.  They either couldn't make that deal or didn't want to make that deal.

So let's say my husband and I want to buy a house.  We know we're not on the same page when it comes to price.  I want to buy something for $300k. He wants to look at $800k.  We sit down to talk and I say "I think $300k puts us in a better financial position.  A large payment will stress me out."  He says "I think $800k makes it so that we can stay here forever, no need to move later, we can afford it." I say "let's compromise and do $400k." He doesn't agree.

Now, who is right here, and who is wrong?  I'm going to say the answer to that is neither.  We both have valid points.  Was I wrong in choosing $300k?  No, and even though he feels like I'm WAY off base in terms of what we can afford, if he'd said "well, you're just not willing to compromise" I'd have been pretty pissed.  How in the world is ONE side at fault here?

Same with the Republicans thinking we don't need to spend $1.8 TRILLION dollars, and the Democrats thinking $60 BILLION is too low.  It's looking at it from different perspectives, and both sides have their reasons for thinking this way.  Saying that the Republicans just don't want to negotiate is ridiculous.  NEITHER side wanted to negotiate.

[Merlin]

Boy this thread has left the original topic.

Yeah, I was thinking I might need to split all the discussions about grades and politics into another thread over in the off-topic section.

And I thought another thread that was specifically about course discussions and politics/various theories was going to be like this one. Yeah def we should keep this thread about credit sources only. But the students anger is real if they feel that their assignments are poorly graded because of teachers opposing opinions.

Thread split off. The original thread should be back on topic now.

[davewill]

So let's say my husband and I want to buy a house.  We know we're not on the same page when it comes to price.  I want to buy something for $300k. He wants to look at $800k.  We sit down to talk and I say "I think $300k puts us in a better financial position.  A large payment will stress me out."  He says "I think $800k makes it so that we can stay here forever, no need to move later, we can afford it." I say "let's compromise and do $400k." He doesn't agree.

Now, who is right here, and who is wrong?  I'm going to say the answer to that is neither.  We both have valid points.  Was I wrong in choosing $300k?  No, and even though he feels like I'm WAY off base in terms of what we can afford, if he'd said "well, you're just not willing to compromise" I'd have been pretty pissed.  How in the world is ONE side at fault here?
...

Sure, compromise cannot always just be a haggle that lands in the middle. In that example, your husband may rightly feel that if you don't spend close to $800k it won't serve the purpose he intended and you might as well economize at $300k.

In the case of the Republican offer, they either overestimated their leverage, or they never intended to make an offer the Democrats would take seriously. It was obvious that the Democrats would not consider anything even close to their plan for reasons they were very vocal about before the Republican senators walked in the room.

[freeloader]

The New Left for ya : )  

There really isn't any sort of common ground.

Hey, you can only listen to Rush Limbaugh for so long before you get the idea that maybe Republicans aren't in the mood to compromise.  Hehe.

The best way to be is to be honest about your positions, fight for them and then be prepared to make a deal.  The ability to make the deal is what made Reagan great.  Maximize leverage and then cut the deal.

Note: The ten senators who met with Biden had this kind of situation.  They had a lot of leverage in negotiations with Biden.  Instead of $1.9 trillion, maybe they could have proposed a $1.5 trillion deal and legitimately put some limits on spending.  I think Biden would have taken that.  Instead, they proposed a ridiculous lowball $600 billion package.  That was never going to fly.  They either couldn't make that deal or didn't want to make that deal.

So let's say my husband and I want to buy a house.  We know we're not on the same page when it comes to price.  I want to buy something for $300k. He wants to look at $800k.  We sit down to talk and I say "I think $300k puts us in a better financial position.  A large payment will stress me out."  He says "I think $800k makes it so that we can stay here forever, no need to move later, we can afford it." I say "let's compromise and do $400k." He doesn't agree.

Now, who is right here, and who is wrong?  I'm going to say the answer to that is neither.  We both have valid points.  Was I wrong in choosing $300k?  No, and even though he feels like I'm WAY off base in terms of what we can afford, if he'd said "well, you're just not willing to compromise" I'd have been pretty pissed.  How in the world is ONE side at fault here?

Same with the Republicans thinking we don't need to spend $1.8 TRILLION dollars, and the Democrats thinking $60 BILLION is too low.  It's looking at it from different perspectives, and both sides have their reasons for thinking this way.  Saying that the Republicans just don't want to negotiate is ridiculous.  NEITHER side wanted to negotiate.

 That is a reasonable but vastly oversimplified analogy. For your analogy to hold, the partner who wants to spend less money also should be employed by a company which says that if you spend more money on your house, you will be fired (political donors). The partner wanting to spend less money on the house also spends hours each day on the phone with his 2 uncles, we will call them Brush Lambaugh and Bull O’Brilley. Brush and Bull spend most of that time telling one partner that their spouse is Satan, that their spouse spends her spare time murdering babies, that their spouse wants all jobs to move to China, and, on their really good days, that their wife is part of a vast, global conspiracy aimed at raping children and worshiping Satan but that a magical orange baboon with small hands can make it all better if we just give him dictatorial power and allow cousin Vlad to exert near complete control over what the partners do each day when they leave their house. 

The partner who wants to spend less money on the house has a circle of roughly 200 friends. 199 of them are white. One of them is a very light skinned black person who went to Yale undergrad and rowed crew on an 8-man boat before getting an MBA at Stanford and becoming a bank Vice President. The partner who wants to spend less money on the house sees this person, on average, twice per year and speaks to him for 15 minutes. To one partner, this proves he is NOT a racist.  Racists don’t have a black friend. To the other, the fact that the partner who wants to spend less has a vast stockpile of guns to protect the family from angry mobs of black people and “the government” which, despite being composed primarily of white people is somehow a tool for black and brown people to oppress white people, pretty well demonstrates that the partner who wants to spend less is a racist.  

The partner who wants to spend less doesn’t like government interference in his life and doesn’t like taxes and he hates welfare. But he wants the government to pay for his children to go to a Christian school with 200 students. 199 of them are white. But it is not a racist school because they have a black student. Well, they have the banker’s daughter. The banker married a white woman and their daughter doesn’t really look black at all.  She has ruddy blonde hair and green eyes.  But, everybody knows she is black. She has 1 drop of black blood, so that makes her black. And, at the end of the day, isn’t that what really matters?  

Sure, the partners could buy a $600,000 house. They could even buy a $300,000 and a $300,000 beach/lake house.  They could, but they won’t. That would be bad for Brush and Bull and the people who own the company that employs Mr 300k. It would be bad for the orange baboon with small hands. But, above all else, if Mr 300k wakes up and realizes his wife isn’t the enemy at all, it’s the Brushes and the Bulls, and the businesses, and, yes, the Aunt Tiffas and Planet Parenthoods of the world, then how can Mr 300k and Ms 800k be controlled?

[eriehiker]

Haha.

I appreciate the analogy, dfrecore. I am kind of not thinking about this in terms of a right vs. wrong situation. I am thinking about it strategically in terms of achieving objectives or achieving partial objectives. I will use the issue of gay marriage as an example. We started in the 80s and 90s with no gay marriage and those opposed passing state constitutional amendments solidifying the idea of marriage between one man and one woman.

At that point, the possibility of gay civil unions was presented. These gave most of the rights of marriage to gay couples, but didn't call it marriage. Those opposed to gay marriage should have taken that option and ran with it. My guess is if that strategy was pursued, we would not have gay marriage today. That strategy was not pursued and those opposed to gay marriage lost everything as the issue moved. The hard-edged approach was not effective and actually lost ground for those opposed to gay marriage.

I think that Biden is a guy who can and will listen to Republicans if he can. It would have been good in this situation for there to be some limits on the size of the stimulus package. We really can't just keep writing checks. However, the Republicans did lose in the last election cycle and their ability to limit the size of the package was not really great. But I think negotiating for that principle would have been good strategy so that the principle could have been expanded later. Sometimes you negotiate for a very small contract provision so that you can make it bigger later. Now the precedent is that Republicans aren't serious participants in negotiations and it will be harder to make deals later.

[acamp]

The New Left for ya : )  

There really isn't any sort of common ground.

Hey, you can only listen to Rush Limbaugh for so long before you get the idea that maybe Republicans aren't in the mood to compromise.  Hehe.

The best way to be is to be honest about your positions, fight for them and then be prepared to make a deal.  The ability to make the deal is what made Reagan great.  Maximize leverage and then cut the deal.

Note: The ten senators who met with Biden had this kind of situation.  They had a lot of leverage in negotiations with Biden.  Instead of $1.9 trillion, maybe they could have proposed a $1.5 trillion deal and legitimately put some limits on spending.  I think Biden would have taken that.  Instead, they proposed a ridiculous lowball $600 billion package.  That was never going to fly.  They either couldn't make that deal or didn't want to make that deal.

So let's say my husband and I want to buy a house.  We know we're not on the same page when it comes to price.  I want to buy something for $300k. He wants to look at $800k.  We sit down to talk and I say "I think $300k puts us in a better financial position.  A large payment will stress me out."  He says "I think $800k makes it so that we can stay here forever, no need to move later, we can afford it." I say "let's compromise and do $400k." He doesn't agree.

Now, who is right here, and who is wrong?  I'm going to say the answer to that is neither.  We both have valid points.  Was I wrong in choosing $300k?  No, and even though he feels like I'm WAY off base in terms of what we can afford, if he'd said "well, you're just not willing to compromise" I'd have been pretty pissed.  How in the world is ONE side at fault here?

Same with the Republicans thinking we don't need to spend $1.8 TRILLION dollars, and the Democrats thinking $60 BILLION is too low.  It's looking at it from different perspectives, and both sides have their reasons for thinking this way.  Saying that the Republicans just don't want to negotiate is ridiculous.  NEITHER side wanted to negotiate.

 That is a reasonable but vastly oversimplified analogy. For your analogy to hold, the partner who wants to spend less money also should be employed by a company which says that if you spend more money on your house, you will be fired (political donors). The partner wanting to spend less money on the house also spends hours each day on the phone with his 2 uncles, we will call them Brush Lambaugh and Bull O’Brilley. Brush and Bull spend most of that time telling one partner that their spouse is Satan, that their spouse spends her spare time murdering babies, that their spouse wants all jobs to move to China, and, on their really good days, that their wife is part of a vast, global conspiracy aimed at raping children and worshiping Satan but that a magical orange baboon with small hands can make it all better if we just give him dictatorial power and allow cousin Vlad to exert near complete control over what the partners do each day when they leave their house. 

The partner who wants to spend less money on the house has a circle of roughly 200 friends. 199 of them are white. One of them is a very light skinned black person who went to Yale undergrad and rowed crew on an 8-man boat before getting an MBA at Stanford and becoming a bank Vice President. The partner who wants to spend less money on the house sees this person, on average, twice per year and speaks to him for 15 minutes. To one partner, this proves he is NOT a racist.  Racists don’t have a black friend. To the other, the fact that the partner who wants to spend less has a vast stockpile of guns to protect the family from angry mobs of black people and “the government” which, despite being composed primarily of white people is somehow a tool for black and brown people to oppress white people, pretty well demonstrates that the partner who wants to spend less is a racist.  

The partner who wants to spend less doesn’t like government interference in his life and doesn’t like taxes and he hates welfare. But he wants the government to pay for his children to go to a Christian school with 200 students. 199 of them are white. But it is not a racist school because they have a black student. Well, they have the banker’s daughter. The banker married a white woman and their daughter doesn’t really look black at all.  She has ruddy blonde hair and green eyes.  But, everybody knows she is black. She has 1 drop of black blood, so that makes her black. And, at the end of the day, isn’t that what really matters?  

Sure, the partners could buy a $600,000 house. They could even buy a $300,000 and a $300,000 beach/lake house.  They could, but they won’t. That would be bad for Brush and Bull and the people who own the company that employs Mr 300k. It would be bad for the orange baboon with small hands. But, above all else, if Mr 300k wakes up and realizes his wife isn’t the enemy at all, it’s the Brushes and the Bulls, and the businesses, and, yes, the Aunt Tiffas and Planet Parenthoods of the world, then how can Mr 300k and Ms 800k be controlled?

Wow this post/analogy you wrote wasn’t at all one-sided, was it? Unbelievable



Sent from my iPhone using DegreeForum.net

[freeloader]

Of course it was one sided. I have 2 responses to the last comment:

1) The post I was responding to was about how we can’t agree, how we collectively can’t see across the divide. I was merely echoing and amplifying that point. When the party on the other side from me believes that my party is filled with Satanist pedophiles working toward one-world government and that Donald Trump, of all people, is the solution, how, exactly, are we supposed to bridge that divide?

2) I either disagree with or don’t care about all of the major policy positions of the Republican Party. I do believe that the Democrats have, for the last 30 years or so, not been right in their positions on Israel and Taiwan, Republicans have been better IMO. But why, exactly, so I have to defend people who advocate for policy positions that I find repugnant? Sure, they have right to believe what they want and to say what they want. That’s the nature of American democracy. But it’s not my job to defend people who, in my opinion, prioritize the rights of corporations over those of citizens, who prioritize the rights of white people over people of color, who prioritize the rights of men over women, who prioritize short-term business profits over long term ecological and environmental harm, and who would rather ally themselves with anti-democratic dictators than popular democracies.

For roughly 50 years the United States lived with what has been labeled the “New Deal Settlement”. Workers rights, including union rights were protected. Working people were guaranteed a fair wage for their labor. Urban and rural interests were both taken seriously by both major parties. Our nation steered a generally consistent course in foreign policy. Education was cheap and widely available. Healthcare was cheap and widely available. And then Ronald Reagan and the Christian Right happened. A handful of people realized that they could destroy that settlement, giving themselves vast amounts of power and making huge amounts of money for themselves. They realized that they could weaponize religion, turning it from a unifying and calming force into a red-hot poker that they could use to crucify their enemies. They realized that they could use hot button issues like gun rights and abortion to manipulate a vast swath of the electorate. It has worked remarkably well.

But no, I will not defend it. I will not defend people like Donald Trump who is a womanizer, a glutton, and a thief but who is also somehow the champion of Christian virtue. No. I will not defend that. I will not defend people who lie to farmers and say that they are pro-farmer while writing farm bills that have destroyed the small family farmer but have manipulated rural people to vote red because of “Christian values” and guns. No, I will not support people who lie to coal miners and tell them that coal is coming back while also supporting fracking that has totally destroyed the market for bunker coal. No. I will not support those people and I will not post things that make them and their positions look good. To ask me to do that is, frankly, “Unbelievable”.

[acamp]

Of course it was one sided. I have 2 responses to the last comment:

1) The post I was responding to was about how we can’t agree, how we collectively can’t see across the divide. I was merely echoing and amplifying that point. When the party on the other side from me believes that my party is filled with Satanist pedophiles working toward one-world government and that Donald Trump, of all people, is the solution, how, exactly, are we supposed to bridge that divide?

2) I either disagree with or don’t care about all of the major policy positions of the Republican Party. I do believe that the Democrats have, for the last 30 years or so, not been right in their positions on Israel and Taiwan, Republicans have been better IMO. But why, exactly, so I have to defend people who advocate for policy positions that I find repugnant? Sure, they have right to believe what they want and to say what they want. That’s the nature of American democracy. But it’s not my job to defend people who, in my opinion, prioritize the rights of corporations over those of citizens, who prioritize the rights of white people over people of color, who prioritize the rights of men over women, who prioritize short-term business profits over long term ecological and environmental harm, and who would rather ally themselves with anti-democratic dictators than popular democracies.

For roughly 50 years the United States lived with what has been labeled the “New Deal Settlement”. Workers rights, including union rights were protected. Working people were guaranteed a fair wage for their labor. Urban and rural interests were both taken seriously by both major parties. Our nation steered a generally consistent course in foreign policy. Education was cheap and widely available. Healthcare was cheap and widely available. And then Ronald Reagan and the Christian Right happened. A handful of people realized that they could destroy that settlement, giving themselves vast amounts of power and making huge amounts of money for themselves. They realized that they could weaponize religion, turning it from a unifying and calming force into a red-hot poker that they could use to crucify their enemies. They realized that they could use hot button issues like gun rights and abortion to manipulate a vast swath of the electorate. It has worked remarkably well.

But no, I will not defend it. I will not defend people like Donald Trump who is a womanizer, a glutton, and a thief but who is also somehow the champion of Christian virtue. No. I will not defend that. I will not defend people who lie to farmers and say that they are pro-farmer while writing farm bills that have destroyed the small family farmer but have manipulated rural people to vote red because of “Christian values” and guns. No, I will not support people who lie to coal miners and tell them that coal is coming back while also supporting fracking that has totally destroyed the market for bunker coal. No. I will not support those people and I will not post things that make them and their positions look good. To ask me to do that is, frankly, “Unbelievable”.

And Biden is really a poster child, isn’t he?


Sent from my iPhone using DegreeForum.net