BlueTear

How is censoring a TV show by removing parts of the audio and visuals a proper replacement for a parent saying "No Johnny, you can't watch this show, you're not old enough"? (Besides which, censoring a curse word and leaving the imagery can in some movies be described as nothing but laughable)

A zero-racism TV ad a few years back featured a Swedish comedian saying something I've considered food for thought (Roughly translated of course); "I didn't flee Turkey to become Swedish. I fled Turkey so I could continue being a kurd". It's easy enoug to apply to a fair few refugee's from all around the world. That being said, I definitely think it's beneficial for society as a whole to provide language classes in a common language, both to kids and to adult immigrants. I'm just a bit hesitant whether a law involving citizenship is really the best solution.

I always tried to avoid doing schoolwork at home. Not only do I find it easier to concentrate in a library rather than at home, it also means that when I do get home, I know I can relax and just drop everything.

To reuse an old Mark Twain quote; "Lies, damned lies and statistics". First of all, I'd like to point out that over the past decade, reported property related crimes such as theft have decreased by around 20%, while violence related reports have gone up - though the US still manages a higher homocide rate. The article you link to also has a second page, where it is noted that the most likely reason for these differences involve a more effective policing and justice system in the US than elsewhere. Living here, I happen to know our police force is generally considered understaffed, a situation that will deteriorate over the next few years due to retirements, and has steadily been going downhill for years the past few years as well (we had a population "boom" in the '40's and as their retiring we're finding ourselves in all kinds of interesting socio-economic issues) It strikes me that if we only lock up less than a tenth of as many the US does per 100 000 citizens and only manage a crime victimization rate 20% higher, we shouldn't really be complaining. It also means you can't actually find any coorelation between upbringing methods and crime rates, since any difference could easily - and in my opinion more accurately - be attributed to issues with law enforcement. As for the second source... The entire page is nothing but racists propaganda. Even if the numbers are true, it's worth noting that over the past years we've worked hard on making more women press charges as well as refining our laws to include stricter definitions of what constitutes a rape.

I live in a country where corporal punishment as a means to raise a child has been banned since 1979. Since it's a democracy, I'd say it's fair to say that even before that ban, most children did not recieve corporal punishments. Every member of my generation constitutes the result of an upbringing that did not involve corporal punishment. Every friend I have close to my own age, every person I meet close to my own age. All brought up without corporal punishment. So speaking of living examples, I feel my own nation over the past quarter of a century makes a pretty handy one. In my opinion, influenced in large part by living where I live, corporal punishment does not need to be proven ineffective. If it is to be justified, it needs to be proved to be effective. See, it's easy to argue that there's lots and lots of people who have suffered no apparent long-term emotional trauma, as several people in this thread have testified. The answer to the question "Was I hurt by it?" is "No". Wrong question to ask yourself. "Was I helped by it?". Inflicting physical pain - which we outlaw for any other situation - on a child is not, in my opinion, morally acceptable because the child grows up and says "I wasn't hurt by it". If it's going to be morally acceptable, it needs to be (scientifically proven) that the child in question was helped by it. For crying out loud, hurting children is not okay just because the pain, twenty years down the line, did not leave any obvious emotional scars! Ergo, I don't believe the burden of proof lies on proving it to be ineffecient - unless someone intends to argue that punishing a thief by cutting of his right arm is the right thing to do until it's been proven to be "ineffecient" - but on the other way around. Nevertheless, without spending overly large amounts of time thrawling the internet for sources, let's blatantly steal some links from the Wikipedia article on the subject. The American Academy of Pediatrics, "Guidance for effective discipline". Fast forward to section on corporal punishment, and quoting some interesting parts (though to be honest, the whole section is an interesting read) Fancy that. I think we just found the main reason why people keep saying that being sent to their room didn't work. Because even assuming the following is true; 1) Your parents only inflicted physical pain on you when it is, without a doubt, possible to say that you'd earned it because of your own actions, not because of your parents negligence or emotional state at the time (A lack of patience due to a bad day at work soliciting a punishment not on the scale of the behaviour for example) 2) You genuinely learned from the experience, and you recieved no emotional scarring that impaired your development in any way, and I don't just mean apparent issues 3) Other methods of disciplining would not have created similar, the same or better results 4) You do not suffer from a loyalty conflict clouding your assessment of yourself. Your statistical significance remains negligable, compared to the scale of studies on the subject, as well first hand experience in the countries were there exists, and has existed for quite a while, bans on corporal punishment. I refer back to my statement on local legalities. Every child brought up within the past quarter of a century around here has never known it. Neighbouring nations, likewise. With that kind of insight, I'll continue to argue that situations where spankings are the only effective means just won't arise. First of all, I continue to be amazed by the thought that the same idiot child wouldn't come to understand that no matter how much it hurts, pain is temporary (glory is forever) and some actions may very well be worth a spanking. The child is clever enough to outsmart you - an adult - on several fronts at once, to decieve you thoroughly and to manipulate you permanently, yet in the face of some physical pain, he or she cringes in terror and becomes compliant. [cabbage]. Once again, if he or she controls you so thoroughly, no amount of physical pain is going to allow you to reassert control. And speaking of hiding small entertainment electronic's, if you're really paranoid about it, don't buy your child any electronic that cannot be equipped with a BIOS password, or keep it stored in a locked cabinet when not in use, or whatever. The "enemy" is a child of age, what, eight or below? If you can't outsmart that, then you truly are the second-most gulliable person on the planet.

First of all, I fail to see how moral relativism excludes human morality. In fact, I'd say it's more of the opposite; I aknowledge a myriad of moral codes who - objectively - are pretty much the same. I then also aknowledge that the "justness" of each of these individual codes can never be mesured objectively except by an observer completely untainted by moral and ethical codes, which in reality means just about no one. So, I'll cheerfully hug my subjective sets of morals and ethics and I'll call them just, and I'll fight, kill and if neccesary, die to defend them. Even though, biologically, we are animals. Second of all, I'll clarify why I think it's cheap parenting: When is your child old enough to grasp these oh-so-complex questions like... "Don't walk into the road!"? A dog, a smart dog, reaches the intellectual level of a human three year old. What might a three year old do that would warrant a spanking? I'll stick with the whole walk into the road theme cause if I was a parent, it would scare the hell out of _me_. When is the lesson, and by that I mean the ensuing physical pain, not the result of my own neglience as a parent? "Walking into the road will kill you." It is not a complex moral question that an adult, or even an 8 year old, will have trouble grasping. So if the kid still does it, at this age, then obviously I havn't quite managed to explain to the child why I don't want him to do this. Yes, as he grows older, he will undoubtly figure this out for himself. Yes, the older he gets, the easier it will be for him to understand my explanations of it. But isn't it my job to judge when he is ready to do that, as a parent? Shouldn't I judge when my child is able to walk with me next to a road without stepping into it to watch a really cool puddle of water? And is the child stepping into that puddle his fault, or my fault? Don't get me wrong, I do think people - including children - should be held accountable for their actions. But at the same time, I firmly believe that at such a young age, it's up to the parent to create the frames in which these actions can be taken, and to lead by example. If Bobby pushes Jane of a monkey bar so Jane breaks her arm, you - as a parent - already missed something somewhere along the way. I'd say the concept of "sharing" for starters. And quite frankly, I honestly don't think no amount of physical pain is going to make Bobby grasp the concept of "sharing". Yes, it will make him grasp that pushing Jane of the monkey bar was a Bad ThingÃÆââââ¬Ã¾Ãââ, and as he gets older he'll probably be able to figure out the whole sharing thing as well. But is he being punished due to his shortcomings as a kid too young to tie his own shoelaces, or because you - as an adult parent who gets to vote in who rules the country - was unable to teach your child to wait for his turn before exposing him to a situation in which that knowledge was required of him? And that's what makes it cheap. You inflict physical pain on your child. It is temporary, it does not lead you to question your own actions or inactions, it focuses on providing the child with a negative experience to keep him from doing something. As you expressed it yourself, it's a "final solution", something to do when nothing else helps. I do this for two reasons; 1) The repeatedly stated ineffeciency of seinding people to their rooms in this thread. I do not advocate physical pain as a deterent but most of the people who did argued that sending them to their rooms, time-out's and whatnot, were ineffectual. 2) If they are used in combination, how do you know it's the physical pain creating having impact? How do you tell that if you were to remove physical pain from the equation, you wouldn't reach the same, similar or better results? Correct me if I'm wrong, but so far, the only reference to a real psychological study in this entire thread comes from the third poster refering to a psychiatrist speaking against spanking, saying it to be ineffectual in the long-term? Hey, I'm not putting a four year old into a situation where he has to chose whether to eat meat for lunch, even though the meat arguably as a mother who arguably misses her child and the child is definitely - without argument - dead so that little Tommy could have a steak. Nor do I believe most spankings involve failure to comprehened the moral and ethical standards of capital punishment. It is the ethical dilemma's on the scale of "Don't wake your little brother" or "Don't walk into traffic". Both of which you should, as a parent, be quite able to provide your child with an at least sketchy idea of why they are to be avoided. Though the latter might provide some difficulty if you've parked your child infront of the wrong cartoons one time too many. On top of that, there's the question of how you define "too young". When should a child be able to understand for himself that pushing Jane of a monkey bar is a really stupid thing to do? In my sincere opinion; Around the same time your child is old enough to be able to push someone off a monkey bar when you're not close enough to stop him. Someone in this thread said it's "individual" which I just call a nicer way of saying it's a parental judgement call that the parents of Bobby clearly failed to make. Oh, [cabbage]. How on earth would physical pain magically manifest itself into an "aha, so THAT's why I was punished!". It's the lecture, not the pain. And if your kid spends so much energy evading his punishment and actually succeds; 1) You fail. Seriously. You are clearly able to think of all kinds of devious evasive tactics now, but once you become a parent these are suddenly forgotten and you become the second most gulliable person on the planet. ut some actual effort into it - and at this point, I'll once again refer back to what I said about cheap parenting. 2) If he wants to evade it so much he clearly isn't seeing why he deserves it in the first place, which should be your real concern. And quite frankly, if that's the case, I don't think he'll be able to learn something from physical pain either. But hey, once you've inflicted your physical pain on the child, he has been Punished and you need not concern yourself with whether he actually understood why, as opposed to if you send him to his room? I'd continue, but I have bus to catch and unfortunetely, chances are I won't be seeing an internet able computer til next saturday. So if you guys could just keep this alive til then without adding ten pages... =P

I'd like to suggest a new, and clearly completely groundbreaking, idea. Rather than repeatedly stating the ineffeciency of sending kids to their rooms doesn't work, because there's computers, TV's, toys and gameboy's in there that the child can entertain him or herself with, why not, you know, take these things away from your child? Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, just maybe, but it strikes me as exceptionally stupid to say that a punishment is ineffective because "he has a TV". Well, where I live, TV's do not magically materialize out of thing air. Usually, the aquiring, and subsequent placement of said TV in little Timmy's room, requires the active action of a parent. If your little brat of a child can't behave properly, how about *gasp* not letting him watch TV, sit infront of the computer or handle a gameboy? TV is - contrary to what appears to be a popular belief in this thread - not a human right, and the removal of the privilege of watching TV can not possibly be labeled more inhumane than inflicting physical pain. So, let's abandon this whole "sending them to their room's doesn't work, there's all kinds of nifty toys there" idea, because those toys are a privilege you - as a parent - supplied in the first case, and if you're not strong enough to take these privileges away, you ain't gonna un-spoil your child with a smackdown, that's for sure. And please, try to remember; TV is not a human right. In my honest opinion, physical pain as a deterent is 'cheap parenting'. Rather than going out of your way to explain to little Bobby that pushing Jane like that was a friggin stupid thing to do, and why, making him apologize and mean it once he's understood what he's done, removing a few of Bobby's privilege's - which has the added benefit of hopefully convincing him that they are just that, privilege's, not rights - you inflict a temporary discomfort and then decide that he has been sufficiently "punished". And like all animals, he has learned not to perform action A, because it results in response B, which is painful. Thus, we avoid action A. Here's a thought; You help your child develop a moral and ethical standard by actually evoking a sense of empathy, rather than raising him the way you'd raise a dog? Bad dog, don't pee inside! Okay, not gonna pee inside, 'cause it causes discomfort. Clever animals that. They're a bit lacking on morals and ethics, but hey... On top of that, I have to wonder, how long does it take for a child of average intelligence to figure out that some actions are worth temporary discomfort and pain, because hey, said discomfort can then be endured in front of a computer or a TV because you've "already been punished enough"?

You said the discrimination was "neccesary" which I call complete and utter [cabbage]. Go ahead, don't hire the incompetant councelors who can't make their patients talk to them, but that's a different matter. Yes, there might even be a coorelation between individual patients ability to open up to people based on their sex, but what the hell, there's a coorelation between an individual patients ability to open up to people with certain hairstyles, hair colours, voice, mannerism, age, skin colour and what-have-you. This does not mean that the guy isn't the best rape counselor you'll ever meet. It doesn't even mean he isn't going to be a better counselor than a woman.

So a male counselor _able_ to make a female victim open up is less suitable for the job than a female counselor _unable_ to make a female victim open up, is less qualified for the job because he happends to be male? ... how is this not prejudiced discrimination, where your sex is more important than your competence?

So the fact that he can be competant enough to overcome the fact that he due to accident of birth happends to be male isn't even a factor?

So because of that no man should be allowed to practice that particular profession?

I think it has a lot to do with the genre of game. In many turn based strategy games, sequels were they've improved the graphics can ruin the downright ruin the gameplay and controls; For example, although it's prettier, it makes it harder to gain a clear view of what's going on, thus decreasing gameplay. A simpler, uglier, graphical solutation could - and does in some cases - make the game better. In an MMORPG, the concern with scaled up graphics can instead be system requirements. I had to run my graphics with a troubleshooting option enabled to get the graphics down to a level my RAM could handle in SWG. WoW even chose not to go for the all-out graphical improvements - much the same way they did with Warcraft III - in order to improve playability. Allowing control customization via xml also makes the UI of WoW a significant improvement in gameplay. MMORPG's also generally have more "content" than your average game, which means the gameplay is going to be bigger. I've never been a fan of single player RPG's or first person shooters, but in my opinion, graphics in those games are more important than in games with content on a scale of your average commercial MMORPG.

The three Abrahamic (... so I had trouble translating that...) religions originated in the following order; Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Islam did not branch of from Christianity although it shares the basic Abrahamic concepts.

How is not being allowed to chose a given profession because of your sex not sexist?

If pysical pain is such an effective detterant, why not use it to deter crime? Punish a thief with lashes to make sure he or she doesn't do it again?

Meh, it censors the word I wanted use. Assuming I know my crime-TV it's the american legal term for having sex with a minor, which depending on where you live and how old you are, means it is strictly illegal for you to consent to sex of someone of a certain age. I wasn't refering to assault, but rather the free choice who to have intercourse with. So as long as limitations on freedom are limited in time, they're okay? So what decides which time limitations are acceptable then, and which ones are "barbaric"? As a purely theoretical example; Would arranged marriages with a "divorce option" coming into play after, say, three years be barbaric as well? Which is just a fancy way to say that there is no logical reason why alcohol is legal when marijuana isn't. It's a little bit of freedom of choice taken away because someone decades ago had a burst of moral outrage. And today, it persists only due to... cultural traditations? Barbaric, that.

It's a four disc install followed buy, by now, several gig patch download if you have discs. If you're downloading the lot of it.... *shudder*

... did you install the game?

Solely to play devil's advocate: Does laws along the lines of age limits on drinking, prohibitation of certain substances and the legal concept of statuatory rape limit freedom in a way that is detrimental? Does a parents legal gaurdianship of someone underage impede their freedom in a way that is harmful? In other words; Is the loss of this freedom of deciding who to marry without exception a bad thing?

Then they'd hide behind political fronts, like communism, democracy, or downright nationalism ("Give us our country!") or whatever other inspring cause you might find where terrorism is perhaps the only way to actually fight for what you believe in.

Exactly. It is not a political idealogy that can be defeated, it is not a set of culturual moral standards that can be replaced. It's a technique to wage a war, to reach a political goal. In purpose, it has more similarities to a propaganda action than it has to a battle. That's amusingly ambivalent. So what the heck do you call it when it's lawful, whatever that means? Shock and Awe?

So terrorism is an attack against a state?

What is terrorism? Some of the responses in this thread really confuses me on that point, 'cause you or I missed something in what it terrorism really is.

*shrug* Dead is dead, no matter the cause or reason as far as I'm concerned. ÃÆÃâÃâÃ

So... The Iraqi civilians dying to these terrorist attacks that are being redirected from American soil are what exactly?