- Salty Ginger Talk Newsletter
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- Salty Ginger Talk Newsletter
Bernie Sanders backs California’s ridiculous wealth tax
Our take: We love all of Bernie Sanders's concepts. They sound awesome and would make the world a great place to live. Unfortunately for him, socialism has been proven to lead to authoritarian rule, poverty, and decline in the quality of life for everyone over the long term. We cannot find a single example of socialism working long term in any society. If you have an example, we are wide open to hearing it and looking into the way it works. The problem always comes when you run out of other people’s money to spend.
Until then, we will continue to use Bernie Sanders' endorsement of economic policy as a canary in the coal mine. Canaries used to be placed in coal mines because they would die and warn miners of lethal, odorless gasses being present so they could evacuate. If we listen to Bernie and then do something other than what he endorses, we will be better off.
That said, we like Bernie Sanders because we think he truly believes what he preaches and largely tries to live by it. Except for that time it was exposed he was paying his staffers below minimum wage while simultaneously pushing to raise the federal minimum wage for all other businesses. That was a bad look for him.
COURTESY: THE HILL
Our take: Note to self. Be very polite when ordering at Waffle House. And maybe skip the hash browns. Methinks this guy’s version of events may be a little different than what actually took place in the restaurant that night. Also, I don’t know that it’s super shocking if you go to a Waffle House and an altercation breaks out. It seems on brand.
COURTESY: THE INDEPENDENT
Plastic surgeon apologizes for failing to speak up to stop body-altering youth trans surgeries at NYC hospital
Our take: This seems pretty straightforward to us, but there are some who disagree and have somehow managed to advance their agenda in the medical field. We should not be performing non-essential (meaning without the procedure, death is imminent because your body needs help to survive) permanently disfiguring surgeries on minors. We include plastic surgery in this, save for some disfiguring situations like cleft palates.
It doesn’t matter if parents consent. We all know parents are many times not able to make rational, fact-based decisions when it comes to their children. I have three children, consider myself a better critical thinker than most, and most certainly fall into this group. When you care about people as much as parents care about children, it can blind your judgement sometimes. Here are a few things we restrict kids from doing regardless of parental consent: smoking, drinking, voting, driving cars, getting tattoos, entering into contracts, and getting married.
Once someone turns 18, you can do whatever you want. We fully support gender altering care for adults if they choose to undertake it. But as a society, we have a responsibility to protect children from themselves. The prefrontal cortex, where your logic and reason happen, doesn’t fully develop in women until around 23. For men it’s 25.
Doctors take an oath to first and foremost do no harm. We fail to see how chopping off healthy genitals of 13-year-olds (yes, it happens—read the article) doesn’t violate this oath.
COURTESY: 930 WFMD
Tip of the day – How to think critically
The key point to keep in mind when devising strategies is that you are engaged in a personal experiment. You are testing ideas in your everyday life. You are integrating them and building on them, in the light of your actual experience. For example, suppose you find the strategy “Redefine the Way You See Things” to be intuitive to you. So you use it to begin. Pretty soon, you find yourself noticing the social definitions that rule many situations in your life. You recognize how your behavior is shaped and controlled by the definitions in use:
“I’m giving a party,” (Everyone therefore knows to act in a “partying” way)
“The funeral is Tuesday.” (There are specific social behaviors expected at a funeral)
“Jack is an acquaintance, not really a friend.” (We behave very differently in the two cases)
You begin to see how important and pervasive social definitions are. You begin to redefine situations in ways that run contrary to some commonly accepted definitions. You notice then how redefining situations (and relationships) enables you to “Get in Touch With Your Emotions.” You recognize that the way you think (that is, define things) generates the emotions you experience. When you think you are threatened (i.e., define a situation as “threatening”), you feel fear. If you define a situation as a “failure,” you may feel depressed. On the other hand, if you define that same situation as a “lesson or opportunity to learn,” you feel empowered to learn. When you recognize this control that you are capable of exercising, the two strategies begin to work together and reinforce each other.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Someone else doesn’t have to be wrong for you to be right.” – John Spence