Who are those people who are "qualified" to determine what makes a good parent vs. a bad parent?
Well, I'm certainly no expert in any field, but I'd guess they'd be the psychologists, social workers, sociologists, et. al. who have both the training and the experience to know what skills, experience, and mental profiles are attributed to positive aspects of parenting.
If someone passes these tests, but later change into "bad" parents, what should be done about the children? Should the children be forcefully removed from their parents? Should parents take regular tests, to ensure that they are "good" parents?
Both excellent ideas. Make sure there's an annual recertification, and if the parents fail to recertify, the children become wards of the state, for placement with better parents as they become available. Plus random spot-checks throughout the year by the authorities, or continual monitoring....
*ding*
You have fundamentally misunderstood evolution. Humans are not the end product of evolution.
Thank you for calling.
Nor did I say that we were. There are no 'end products' in evolution. But there are superior and inferior creatures in evolution - specifically, those creatures that can master their environments and adapt to new environments, while surviving in all environments in which they choose to exists, are superior; those that are inferior, die off.
You have jumped to your own conclusions, and assumed something untrue about my state of knowledge.
To play again, please deposit twenty-five cents.
OK, others are "whining". You "propose a system".
And maybe whine a little, too. You're so quick to try to demonize me, that you'll deliberately misquote me - how charming.
I think I said "You seem to".
You must be using a ten-speed; otherwise, you'd have stopped by now.
How do you calculate the probability that someone might commit a crime?
Go ask a criminologist.
It doesn't. It does, however show that you are intent on trying to offend.
Not at all. If I were
trying to offend, I'd have referred to you as an obsessive half-witted Internet viking, raiding the forum to rape and pillage logic and reason while wearing an aluminum Viking cap and waving around a wooden sword yelling Nordic obscenities in a controlled whisper, so as to not offend your momma, whose basement you still live in... or something else similarly silly and moronic. 'Clausy' isn't trying.
***edited to add, no, I'm NOT calling C. any of this. It was an example of what I would do if that were my intent. Since this isn't my intent, this is only an example in the abstract. In spite of our differences of opinion and style, C., I strongly respect you and would never resort to childish attempts to offend. Please take this paragraph with the intent I stated - not as a personal attack.
It isn't "Santa Clause", it is "Santa Claus".
Yes, you're quite right - I blame Disney and that stupid Tim Allen series of movies. Point retracted, amigo.
So, because a name looks like it's spelled wrong to you, you feel entitled to try to mock people by making fun of their names?
Mockery would have a more definitive form to it. Say, if I called you 'Claws' or 'Cwossy' or 'Clawsen'. Or perhaps 'L'Arson'.
But since it bothers you so much, I'll try to restrain the urge to call you 'Clausy'. Now, is it properly (in your case) Claus or Clause? Or can I call you Clay?
Of the whole population. Not the entire population are criminals.
Hmmm... I'm still not entirely sure what you're asking with that question, then. I believe I pointed out the same fact myself.
Safely for both of us. Because unless I or a stranger are engaged in a criminal or irresponsible act, then I have no need to take note of what they are doing. Personal responsibility requires me to make note of their position and situation with regards to my own current set of actions - for example, no driving down sidewalks or using high explosives on playgrounds. Otherwise, they can be safely ignored.
What about those who give money for drugs?
As I mentioned before, the case of those possessing illegal items is one that I find difficult to address. Since the act of providing money to drug dealers promotes the sale of drugs, buying drugs would have to be a crime. I think... and I'm still considering this - those who buy drugs would first be given the appropriate tox-screening to see if they're a user, or just a retailer. If a user, mandatory incarceration in a drug rehabilitation facility, with a full plan to return the person to society in a useful manner once they are fully rehabilitated from their physical and psychological need to buy drugs. Retailer = drug dealer, so death.
It is not up to me to prove you wrong.
Of course not. And I'm allowing that I might be wrong. But if you choose to definitively state that I am wrong, which I already admit may be true, the burden shifts in very subtle fashion to you, as you are now making a definitive claim.
Now, you didn't
actually make said claim - you said 'seems likely'. So the burden of proof lays with me still. But since I'm also allowing that I might be wrong, the burden is a light one.
Who would monitor you? Does this 24/7 surveillance apply to each and every individual in society?
And here we come to the true problem with the Big Brother scenario that people fear will come true - who watches? If 24/7 surveillance were desirable for every person on Earth, then every person on Earth would be employed watching someone, probably in shifts, and probably watching more than one person at a time - which would decrease the chance of noticing what someone they were monitoring was doing. The logistics of such constant monitoring are simply staggering.
However, a more feasible solution - monitoring people who are already suspected of being engaged in some illegal activity - seems far more logistically possible and practical, and certainly acceptable. But there are so many crimes that will go uncaught because so many first-time criminal behaviors will be missed.
Whatever, though - I was simply saying that I wouldn't object to a scenario like that in exchange for reduced criminal activity. I wasn't saying that such a scenario was possible or practical.
The general public. Facing the fascism in Germany and Italy.
Since 'the general public' included many different types of people in many different walks of life, and 'the fascism' itself includes a variety of actions and behaviors, the question itself is too broad and general. I'm not familiar with everything that happened in Italy, except that, apparently, the people were sufficiently upset to execute Mussolini by their own hands. Presumably, some aspect of his fascist government had a deeply negative affect on everyone.
As to Germany, I'm not deeply familiar with the goings-on as they relate to 'the general public'. I know how the minority populations felt, and the fear and suffering that those sympathetic to the minorities experiecned. However, I've also read cases and stories of some Germans who did not suffer, and who were not afraid, under Nazi Germany. Of course, we can always just assume that they were bigotted fascists too, but assumptions can get us into trouble. But as I understand it, as long as you weren't a targetted minority (or sympathetic to them), and as long as you toed the line and obeyed the rules, life in Nazi Germany was certainly safe and relatively pleasant. If we removed the government's hatred of minorities, I think most of the population would have felt safe (except for the fear of the reaction of the rest of the world to the government's policy of aggressive expansionism).
However, this illustrates one glaringly huge problem with any totalitarian regime: the fact that, once control is in place, it's a quick slide to the powers-that-be to begin implementing biased policies against minority groups. While I think racism is slowly dying out, in a nation with total government control, it wouldn't be hard for racism to be reborn and embraced fanatically. Any minority, in fact, becomes a potential target during times of totalitarian rule. Today, it might be the Maori, the smokers, and the vegisexuals standing in line at the death camps for the crime of being arrogant islanders, causing second-hand smoke-related assaults, and being perverters of foodstuffs, in that order. And in a truly totalitarian regime, the minorities have almost no power to defend themselves.
Then, of course, there's the renegades. Every government, no matter how beneficial, or totalitarian, or evil, or permissive, results in groups of renegades causing problems for everyone else. If the government is perceived as evil, the renegades are 'freedom fighters'; if the government is perceived as good, the renegades are 'terrorists'. In a totalitarian government, the renegades are even more likely to be active against government targets, and might well have the support of the disgruntled population, if any segment of that population feels it is being treated unfairly. In turn, this would necessarily result in heavy-handed strong-arm tactics by the government to oppress opposition (necessary, you see, to maintain peace), resulting in turn to public empathy with the renegades (in spite of any attempts at propaganda). Nasty business, that.
So as long as people in power have a tendancy to use that power to promote their personal bigotries and biases (forever), and as long as segments of any society will choose to be renegades (forever), totalitarian governments will never be stable, safe, and successful.
I don't recall who said it, but one comment concerning Communism I've always liked went something like this: Communism would be a great system, except for all the flawed people who run it.
You would breed people for the sole purpose of medical experiments, where a part of them would die?
Yes, I would. Gladly. Especially if the end results of those experiments led to life-saving procedures to spread to the rest of the population. I would also breed essentially brain-dead people for the purpose of maintaining organ banks, too. I'd clone my own body a dozen times in order to have fully compatible organs and limbs to use, with the sole stipulation that brain development would be stunted during the process (only those parts necessary for maintaining bodily health would remain functional).
Of course, the problem there is that when we choose to draw a line so that such bodies are no longer 'people', we also inadvertantly dehumanize those born naturally in similar conditions; and if we simply draw the line at natural versus artificial conception, other existing people become non-people. Maybe at the point that we develop artificial wombs... but it's almost certain such wombs would first be used by regular people before it could be used for medical cloning.
Or we could simply draw the line at intent. If your intent at conception was for the offspring to be used medically, it could cease to be treated as a person. There is already some precedent to this - if your intent was to not conceive, you can abort - sometimes even at the point of birth - and so far we haven't gone so far as to criminalize such abortions. So some precedent seems already to be set to dehumanize offspring.
Terrifying from many points of view, but feasible.
If you support abortion, why wouldn't you support the growth of medical and research subjects? I'm not saying you support abortion, mind you, C., that was a general 'you'.
Do you support abortion? Including late-term abortion?
