Random Politics & Religion #01

Are you denying that there is a "wealth distribution problem" agenda from the democrats/liberals? Hell, that's Sander's major talking point. Clinton too, when it's politically convenient.

Kinda brings into question a lot of the other things you say... I mean if you're getting your information from old tv specials and treating them as fact I mean...

No, I am saying that no one is confused about how wealth is acquired whether its generational or "self-made." Nobody sees it as "binary."

It's a logical fallacy one of many that you will see in P&R threads. I would say which one it is, but the last time I did that we had our biggest offender running around using it incorrectly every chance they could get.

I guess there was a GOP town hall last night, and Ted Cruz flubbed every single foreign policy question. Apparently we are not killing ISIS at all, there is no current campaign against them. I guess that report of us killing their #1 finance guru was false.

I've loved that all of the remaining candidates have bailed on that agreement they signed to support the nominee no matter who it was...

No one on this website. Did anyone here say that the liberals/democrats on this website are the DNC? Because they seem to be the ones confused.

Why is this so hard for you to comprehend?

Which brings us back to...

We have now come full circle!

I'm sorry, I should have said, nobody who isn't highly partisan.

I doubt Savael blames all the ills of the world on democrats/liberals, just the problems associated with them. Like how well they run the economic health of the nation, there handling of social issues, and how they handle foreign affairs.

Which falls under this.

Oh, and I don't either.

Their word means nothing; as demonstrated by their actions.

Got to love the "Us vs. Them" mentality.

The whole "vax causes autism" thing, if I may.

I don't buy into that being the cause, but I do notice something having recently started working at 2 elementary schools. There a lot more kids these days with disabilities in particular autism.

When I was in school I remember we had 3 or 4 special needs kids and a couple kids that were kinda weirdoes but normy enough they stayed in classes with us.

In these schools they have entire hallways full of classrooms of special needs kids to the point where each grade level has a full class. They have so many employees for this that I suddenly understand why there is no money for IT to have a box of spare parts. They have people in a 3 students to 1 aide setup in general and some of the especially challenged kids have 1 to 1.

So, it makes me wonder, if it isn't the vaccines, then what the hell is it because there sure as hell are a lot more of these kids than there used to be.

I only personally know 3 families with special needs kids and I can draw 1 connection to all three but I know... I HOPE this isn't the cause all around... These families are all boozers/druggies, the kind of people who I know for a fact drank and smoked while carrying.

So I dunno, that is what I have seen firsthand. Someone I talked to said it is just that there is more awareness of it now. I can see that to a point, but at the same time if there had been more kids in my grade growing up with issues walking/talking/etc

Would love to hear what other people think or have experienced with regards to autism. Since it is something pretty much all over where I work I feel like I should definitely learn more about it.

Schools are better equipped to assist special needs kids nowadays and they don't need to stay home at all times.

With regard to intra-party candidates it's really a me vs. you mindset.



Blanket statements that attempt to defer blame and absolve the other party of any responsibility for their actions, (like the comment contained two posts up), perpetuate the 'Us vs. Them' mentality.

If one only associates negatives to one party and positives to the other in their perception of the world; politically speaking. Then yes, they gotta love the 'Us vs. Them' mentality since it is only way they word.

Posters who have this binary perception make their black and white views evident through the content of their posts/expression of thought.

At least one GOP senator is doing his job.
First GOP Senator Breaks SCOTUS Blockade
Mark Kirk praises 'one of the most eminent jurists in the country'
Newser

But he's from a fairly blue state.

Others considering it.
8 Republican Senators Break Rank: We SHOULD Consider Obama’s Nominee
Occpuy democrats

More defections on other maters.

Swing-state Republicans break ranks
2016 electoral map complicates life for new Senate majority.
Politico

Grumpy there are many parts to the problem you noticed.

Among them:

Home schooling. Some special needs children are home schooled. Most are not. The vast majority of home schooled kids would be in normal classes.

Charter schools. Charter schools draw kids who would be in the normal classrooms. Mostly they avoid challenging kids like the plague. This includes the too bright as well as special needs BTW.

Over prescribing of psycho active drugs. Turn junior into a zombie and put him in special needs.

Grade inflation. They don't hold kids back if they can't make what passes for As and Bs today. They promote them anyway and put them in special needs.

agreed!

/sitsinthecornerwiththeduncehatfor10minutes

I'm sorry, but what?

Do you have any evidence on this?

Then again, I went to a for-profit private school, so I don't know how charter schools educate their children. But I would assume that charter schools wouldn't be substandard to their public counterparts.

She's using "challenging" as an adjective, not a verb. That's probably the confusion.

Well, if you put it that way, it makes sense.

God damn English Language. Make To-ma-to into To-ma-to and you get salsa!

That makes sense. Back in the day it was a lot easier for schools to say that a kid might be disruptive to others and they didn't want them there and recommend homeschooling. Nowadays a combination of people being more sympathetic to the condition and (just guessing here) some sort of additional funding for the schools with special needs kids might be making it more common to see those kids actually making it to classrooms.

If the number of special needs children dictates funding, then schools will start labeling kids as "special needs" to get more funding. Not helping anyone at all, especially the children. Won't somebody think of the children.jpg!

I see a fraud occurring, and, to be honest, I wouldn't doubt it if it's already happening. Children who's futures are ruined because their school labeled them as "special needs" and cannot (or make it extremely hard to) make it to college because of the substandard education given to them.

Schools don't determine who gets labeled special needs. It's a professional diagnosis.

What, they don't have school-paid psychiatrists? You know, for the disadvantaged students.

Are you saying that schools have no way in influencing these paid psychiatrists?

There's a few things happening here.

-One you might not immediately think about is that people are having children much later in life than was typical in the past. This increases the risk of the child having various disabilities, particularly once you get up around age 40.

-Life expectancy is much better for disabled children now than it was even a few decades ago. If my brother had been born 20-30 years earlier, he likely wouldn't have seen his first birthday. While there are screening programs in place that identify risk of a few potential disabilities (Down's being the most commonly identified) and the couple may opt to abort, they're not fully pervasive, many still carry to term, and most disabilities aren't caught beforehand. So far as I know, there's no prenatal test for autism in particular.

-There's been a lot of research on the spectrum in the past ~20-25 years. Public and scientific perceptions have (mostly, antivax please *** directly off) altered accordingly. Less stigma means it's more common to see many disabilities in public, particularly with moderate to high functioning individuals. Classifications for autism in particular are also broader, but that often won't play a role here. High functioning autism doesn't necessarily result in SPED placement.

-Public schools are, as noted, better equipped to handle these children now. Which is really only to say that they offer the bare minimum required for the most part (that level of staffing is 110% necessary, but there's very little allocated funding once staff is paid out), but many of these children require constant supervision (or at least can't be left on their own) and possibly a trained nurse on staff. I don't know if this is the case everywhere, but where I live they can also stay in the system through age 21. Many families take advantage of this opportunity if their child is unable to live on their own to any extent, then transition them to an "aftercare" program (daycare basically) or residential facility once they turn 22 if they're unable to keep them at home fulltime.

There may also be environmental factors and such raising disability rates in newborns, but that's not an area of research I've kept up with.

I'm gonna take a pass on conspiracy theory ***, thanks.

Edit for the above: IDEA builds in the age 22 thing I mentioned, so that's federal. Not sure if it was nationwide before, but it certainly is now.

Not really, no. The overhead in trying to get funding through that particular channel makes it rather impractical, among other reasons.

School doesn't get to diagnose. The school psychologist helps construct the child's IEP, but that's it.

My school didn't have a psychiatrist, only a psychologist.