Of interest to some... IMHO most of these questions have a valid foundation... but many refuse to even consider looking at them... no. 5 poses a interesting thought... As politics has become more tribal and geared toward demonization instead of debate, it’s amazing how many important questions don’t seem to be asked any more. Instead of discussing issues rationally, people are stuck in little boxes based on where they fall on an issue. Whatever happened to actually assuming that there are two potentially legitimate sides to a debate and hashing them out based upon which one makes more sense? Of course, to do that, you’ve got to get beyond political correctness to ask the basic questions -- questions that are deemed racist, sexist, fascistic, etc., etc., as part of an effort to shut down necessary conversations. At the end of the day, if you want to actually prove someone wrong, you’ve got to engage him on his ideas and make better, more logical points. If you can’t even handle the basic questions so many people have, then maybe you don’t have the best ideas. 1) Are we really doing transsexuals a favor by pretending they can change into another gender and allowing them to mutilate themselves via surgery or are we actually setting them up for failure when we pretend that they’re not mentally ill? 2) Couldn’t you make just as good an argument that America is a matriarchy as a patriarchy? Life expectancy for women is 79 in the United States while it’s 72 for men. Men are expected to pay for everything on dates. Men are required to sign up for the draft; women are not. Divorce courts are notoriously stacked against men. Fifty six percent of college students are female and only 44% are male. In the United States, 78.8% of murder victims are male. In 2015, men suffered 93% of the workplace fatalities. In other words, if you want to claim one gender is at an advantage or disadvantage in the United States, doesn’t it almost entirely depend upon what factors you pay attention to and what factors you ignore? 3) Are the problems black Americans have as a group a result of racism or a result of the sort of culture that Thomas Sowell talks about in “Black Rednecks and White Liberals?” A culture that leads to a significant percentage of black Americans committing more crime, being more anti-intellectual and producing far more children out of wedlock than many other groups? 4) Shouldn’t we roll our eyes at people who come up with new reasons to be gratuitously offended most of the time? Aren’t people who are offended by things that most people just shrug off, the ones with the problem, not the rest of the world? 5) If the government gives money to Planned Parenthood and PBS, why would it be wrong for the government to give money to the NRA or Heritage Foundation? 6) Do we make life better for college students by coddling them, giving them “safe spaces” and encouraging everyone to be incredibly sensitive about what we say in front of them or are we setting them up for failure in a world that only cares what you can deliver, not how you feel about anything? 7) If you’re gay and a Christian doesn’t want to bake you a cake for your wedding, why can’t you just go to another shop? We wouldn’t demand that a black baker make a cake for the KKK, that a Jewish baker make a cake for a Nazi or even that a liberal baker make an “I love Trump” cake. So, why should Christians, whose religious beliefs are protected by the First Amendment, be punished because some gay couple thinks they can turn their persecution of Christians into a payday? 8) If Hillary Clinton and illegal aliens don’t have to obey the law, why should the rest of us respect the law? Why shouldn’t we break the law any time we think we can get away with it? 9) If it takes two to make a child and if a man is quite correctly held financially responsible for a child after he’s born, then why shouldn’t a woman need the permission of the man who impregnated her to end the child’s life? After all, she didn’t make that baby by herself. 10) Given that California is poorly governed, a negative influence on the rest of the country and doomed to go bankrupt, wouldn’t America be better off if California does secede? 11) If we really want to settle the fight between the Israelis and Palestinians, shouldn’t we suggest the same formula that Americans used? We paid the Indians for their land when possible and drove them away militarily when it wasn’t -- until we took the land for ourselves. Why not suggest that the Israelis crush the Palestinians, take their land and let the surrounding nations that claim to love the Palestinians settle them as citizens? 12) If America is geared toward benefitting white Americans, how do you explain the fact that Asians perform better as a group academically and make more per capita income than Caucasians? 13) What if the Parkland kids you see on TV don’t represent the kids who died or even their own classmates? Instead, could it be that they have no moral authority at all because they were just tragedy-adjacent liberal kids who saw a bunch of dead bodies and thought, “Wow, this could be my opportunity to get on TV?” 14) What if frequently racist comments and vicious generalized attacks on white people made by black Americans on TV and social media were treated with the same sort of disdain that we reserve for white supremacists and Nazis? Do you think that would improve or damage race relations? 15) If we can have sanctuary cities and states where our immigration laws aren’t followed, why can’t conservative states refuse to allow abortions or arbitrarily lower the federal tax rates their residents have to pay? 16) Given that women now make up 56% of college students, shouldn’t our focus be shifted away from helping women in colleges and toward helping men? 17) Poll after poll after poll shows that there are a very significant number of radical Muslims out there. In some countries, a majority of Muslims could fairly be labeled as radical Islamists while in many others, only a small percentage would fit that definition. However, since we have no reliable way to tell the moderate Muslims from the blow-up-the-infidels, throw-the-gays-off-the-building, Jews-deserve-to-die Muslims, does it not make sense to take steps to limit Muslim immigration as much as possible since their religion represents a unique threat? Even if you grant the fact that most Muslims are moderates, it does not change the fact that the radicals make Islam the most violent and terrorist-prone religion on the planet. Why shouldn’t we take that into account? 18) Wouldn’t our military be a lot more effective and wouldn’t we lose fewer troops if we were less concerned about civilian casualties? The conquered Japanese didn’t work so well with us after WWII because we never killed their civilians (because we killed large numbers of Japanese civilians); they worked with us because we were stronger than they were and they knew we’d use as much force as necessary to keep them in line. 19) If being racist is such a horrible thing, then isn’t it also horrible to falsely accuse people of being racists without having good evidence? In fact, given the small percentage of Americans who dislike people specifically because of skin color and the large number of people who falsely accuse people of racism, could you not fairly argue that false accusations of racism are a much bigger problem than actual racism? 20) Wouldn’t we be better off as a nation if fewer people voted? For example, if you’re taking in more from the government than you’re paying out, why would we want you to vote? If you’re convicted of a serious criminal charge, how does it benefit our nation to have someone like you voting? If you don’t know who the Vice-President is or which party is against abortion, how does it improve our country to have you give your input? 20 Questions You’re Not Supposed to Ask in 2018 America
I think that's Chicago. I like # 20. If you're not putting into the system , you shouldn't be able to vote on how it's spent.
# 20 - You want to vote the prove by serving this Republic! The only voter ID should be your DD-214 or Retirement statement.
Personally I would like to see voting limited to those of us with DD-214s, People with a Tax Return that show employment and taxes being paid, and Real Estate Owners and those who have retired from a lifetime of being employed. Those who contribute nothing to society or the funding of society (Exluding those with legitimate disabilities that prevent them from any kind of gainful employment.) have no business being one of the most powerful voting blocks in this Country. Very simply if you are living off of the hard work and efforts of others, you don't get to vote and elect officials that will take more and more away from those who do contribute.
IMHO this makes perfect sense... and LBJ created what we have now... thinkin that person truly hated this nation and it's form of gov... so many times I look back at things that IMHO made things worse for us... and I see Lyndon Bains Johnsons name attached... (not sure I speeled it corect but?)
LBJ and FDR are arguably two of the most anti American Presidents to ever serve when it comes to the social or rather socialist direction we have been herded to.
As splendid an example of confirmation bias solicitation as has been copied and pasted in, well, days it would seem. It's not so much a shopping list of right wing, conservative, Christian uber nationalist talking points...but rants, disguised as rhetorical questions, the answers to which are to be explicitly or implicitly found in the text. The article header is dishonest: Those questions can be freely asked, in the public square without hindrance or negative sanction by the government. Whether privately owned media organisations give a platform for the expression and discussion of those 'questions' is a matter for the media organisations themselves. The alt right will repost with alacrity the article cited in the OP...other factions within society might be less inclined to do so....such is the nature of 'free speech' protected by the 1st in the Amendment in the USA. As is often the case with this kind of reposted article...it is riddled with logical fallacies, howlers, and sundry bullsh!t just begging for dissection.
think you may have missed the actual concept here... yes these can be asked but the reaction by most of the MSM... and social networks would be to hammer the person or person askin the questions... and more often then not... no answer would be given... just ridicule and such...in some cases ban hammer...
I actually looked to see if this article was written yesterday as an April Fools joke. I don't even know where to begin. #1 Does the author really believe that the government should have control and decide what we can and cannot do to our bodies? #2 Men are expected to pay for everything on dates. Actually the question is so ridiculous. White males have run this country since the beginning. They are the majority of politicians, police officers and banking, military etc... And men want the status of being disadvantaged? LOL! That is so insane. If someone is to blame for the poor male being disadvantaged it was them that did it to themselves. Commit the crime, do the time. on and on...... Since a few likes #20 have you considered- That means all the retired folks lost their right to vote. All the stay at home mothers do not get to vote either. The author of the article reminds me of one of those extreme liberal that rants and raves about everything. I think that is the spoof of the whole article.
I don't think the point had been missed....if the questions, and the proponents posing them, enumerated in the OP receive a negative reaction by interlocutors in the MSM and social media, it is possibly that the questions posed aren't being asked in good faith, and the persons asking them aren't acting in good faith...that ought be evident from the article that you had copied and pasted. The "basic questions", posed by John Hawkin's in his 'Town Hall' blog article, are more for the benefit of his blog's audience than for those outside of the conservative bubble.... Sure, social conservatives pushing the kind of cheap polemic that Hawkins is peddling are likely to get push-back. How much slagging the person gets for pushing that kind of polemic, depends perhaps upon how the polemicist themselves frame their arguments, and the forum environment that the debate occurs in. Just as telling antisemitic jokes at a bar mitzvah is likely to find an unappreciative audience, social conservatives making crap arguments outside of their own tribal fraternity, are like to find critical audiences, not much willing to indulge such schtick. Far be it for me to hammer the person for merely posing questions....though in some cases that would indeed be a worthy project.... the questions themselves however are definitely worth hammering, if they are poorly reasoned, lack supporting evidence, or suffer from one or more fatal logical fallacies.....my answer remains much the same, concerning the questions posed in the OP...why should the MSM necessarily give that kind of polemic, oxygen? or for that matter, a platform for promotion? As some one who has been occasionally hammered by a number of unsympathetic folk here, for expressing anti religious, and articulating LGBTQI affirming propositions, I can kind of sympathise with those who are hammered for expressing anti-muslim and anti LGBTQI polemics (though criticism in SM is more likely to be (in a certain demographic) that the hammering meted out upon me is probably not severe enough! )...the polemics themselves are of course open to criticism, and where warranted, ridicule...the problem with many conservative snowflakes here, and in other forums, is that hammering the proposition is often perceived as persecution of the proponent. (some über conservatives feel that criticism of their beliefs, is criticism of them personally for holding such beliefs so earnestly.) I think that some of Hawkins's questions are worth answering, not because the questions themselves have any merit, but because teasing out answers to them would be a worthwhile exercise. Having said that....responding to all of the questions in referenced in the OP, requires much more time and effort to do than the minute or so it took for OD11 to copy and paste John Hawkins's bowl of tripe. I'll endeavour to answer each question, in no particular order, as and when I find the time and opportunity...
I was going to answer each question also but then I stopped an thought about the article as a whole plus I read the comments that followed the article. I try to be a live and let live type person. My opinions may not reflect how I personally feel but I realize we are not a group think in this country or in this world. What I find troubling is how extreme peoples stance are getting. The more extreme the left gets, the more extreme the right gets. The amount of people that agreed with that article as a whole was alarming. I am worried that the phrase, "we agree to disagree" is no longer be applicable. I do not want to be labeled as a Supremacist because I am a conservative just like my Aunt does not want to be labeled a snow flake because she is a liberal. I am beginning to think that Extremism is on the rise on both sides of the aisle.
Those questions seem to me to be of the "Do you still beat your wife?" category. None of them are even a good place to start a debate other than deciding how to re-phrase into isolable questions. I'll leave it to those that are interested in pursueing (il)logical branchings for further slicing and dicing. Not supposed to ask? Perhaps it is possibly a waste of time and resources to ask them? "What if they held a war and nobody came?"
There are times when a question is asked not for an answer... it is not actually meant to be answered... the question is posed to create a thought process in the mind of the person questioned... to open a discussion regarding the subject... many of the above seem to be of that nature... thinking about the words and direction of the question... can create even more questions and take you further in thought... then making a statement... this was offered for consideration and thought... some folks wont even give it that... perhaps they are too locked up in their own minds and views... to allow it?
We have already established that the questions listed, are not questions actually inviting an answer; but are rhetorical questions, the biased answers to which had been thoughtfully provided by the question's author, by the way in which the questions had been framed in the first place...ghrit quite rightly identified them as The questions are not neutrally worded, but are framed to favour the ideological stance of the author....an intellectually dishonest stratagem, if one claims to be inviting genuine investigation and discussion. That may possibly be so, if he were using using the Socratic method....Socratic method - Wikipedia but Hawkins doesn't bother with that method of honest enquiry.... the questions are simply asserted (as true) without establishing the actual truth of the assumptions upon which the questions are underpinned. Argument by assertion - RationalWiki A good example of this is question #1 I will develop this further in a subsequent post in this thread. What are we doing in this thread...if not giving the article consideration and thought....some here just blithely accept unchallenged the thrust of Hawkins's polemic and his basic questions' assumptions...others are questioning them and giving reasons for disagreement. Whether or not other MSM media or social media could be bothered expending digital ink on some crappy alt right drivel is up to them to indulge in or not as they wish...there is no compulsion to do so, thankfully...not all questions deserve equal consideration. I'm only bothered engaging with Hawkins's bleat sheet, simply as an intellectual exercise in playing 'spot the logical fallacy'.
