California Mountain Snake

I remember a presentation I saw in high school one of my classmates gave on Mauritania, in which they declared 1/3 of the population was of Arabic decent, 1/3 Moorish, and another third was "African-American"... "Black" isn't politically incorrect. And neither is Caucasian technically correct (Caucasian = from the Caucasus, an area between the Caspian and the Black sea including Albania, Georgia, Azerbaijan, etc). I just tell people I'm Native American, which most people balk at. But really, my family has been here 4 generations at the low end, and too many generations to count at the high end. I hold no cultural ties to England, Germany, Scotland, etc. I was born here, I am an American, I can't get any more native than that. And believe it or not, many First Nation or "Indian" people find the term Native American offensive, to them we're the Americans, because we destroyed their nations to make America. To some of them, the idea of being called American in any context is offensive and grossly inaccurate. There was no "America" before the Europeans came here. Political correctness has gone way overboard, but to imply it's "completely useless", like most absolute statements, is a bit overboard. The expectation that politicians and our government exercise political correctness is what prevents our government from (overtly) playing off racial tensions and ingrained primordial sentiment, a problem many nations have had that result in ethnic violence (Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Germany) and salient ethnic tension (India, Belgium Canada, lots of others). Political correctness is the part of our freedom, believe it or not, which allows a Muslim to be angry when he is scrutinized at an airport, and allows a black person to be offended when the security officers follow him around in the store. Political correctness takes away some of the ethnic tension in America that, believe it or not, is quite lower than many other nations, even those that we could consider civilized. It's a personal choice. Yes, you're allowed to call mental challenged people "retarded", and your allowed to call homosexuals "queers", this is America and unlike many other countries you're allowed to say (mostly) anything you want. And political correctness is never going to be legally required in this country, so there's really nothing to worry about except the fact that being PC is, in some limited circles, becoming socially expected (there are still much larger circles I believe that are fighting against political correctness). Basically, if you have it good enough to just be able to complain about using good manners to be acceptable (since it's not legally required), you need to stop BAWWWing and put a little perspective on things.

Comparing abortion to slavery is ignorant and completely incorrect. Slavery involves the involuntary subjugation of other people, as does banning gay marriage, and most other civil rights issues. Basically, it involves legally sanctioning one group to have dominance over another group in terms of preventing certain people from making choices available to the rest of us. That's why these people need outsiders to stand up for them, because they are legally stripped of their right to stand up for themselves. Unlike enslaving other people or controlling someone else's actions, abortion is a completely voluntary and personal choice, available universally to all people in this country. You're not trying to tell someone else to live, you're deciding how you want to live. These are completely different dynamics. The OP is correct in saying that it's impossible to argue successfully about this. Whether you disagree or agree with abortion, why should you have the right to tell anyone else how to think about a choice that only affects them? It's simple, you don't have that right, and "arguing" about this point is futile, because everyone is entitled to their own personal opinion on this matter, and it's true that you can never change anyone else's opinion on the matter. You're not enslaving people or hurting other people, so keep your nose out. This isn't a debate about whether debate in general is valid or not, it's about whether debate over personal choices is valid. Don't attempt to simplify it because you're just creating a strawman argument for your own satisfaction. You're not going to see "debates" over one person's choice to belong to certain religion, or critiques on a member who applies dadaism to his everyday life, and neither should people tell others to feel a certain way about abortion. It's simply none of your business.

Fail.

It's not really about whether China wants to or not. The country is still ~60% rural, huge parts of the country don't have electricity access, hundreds of millions of people live off a dollar a day. Despite the prosperity of the coastal regions, the majority of China is still equatable to the third world. It's not just a politics problem. Generalities ftw.

Yes, and according to other models, we could share all our food and make sure no one starves. And also make sure every one is clothed. And logically, there's no reason for wars, so under that model no one would have to suffer from oppression or genocide either. All suffering could end in 10 years if we follow the right model! Mathematical models are very hand for predicting human behavior.