State of the Discussion

I was just teaching my son who just discovered music about playing on top of the beat vs. behind, etc.
The force is strong with this one!!! An advanced topic for a youngster - does your son play an instrument, or is he just listening?
Not a complaint, but in reality this just isn't possible.
You could be right.
:(

TP: Thanks, and back at you.
russell: a day or two late and therefore considerably out of the pocket so to speak, but I’ve appreciated your insights into Ringo (there was a past conversation I recall). I was just teaching my son who just discovered music about playing on top of the beat vs. behind, etc. He listened because it was on one of “his” songs and he really liked the song and didn’t know why that particular part had such good energy.
I’m listening to “Love” for the first time (came with a bunch of CD’s from an estate sale) on my “new” high-end vintage CD player on a good system. I know it’s probably sacrilegious but I rather like the mix.

Just to be clear, my point wasn't about using cryptocurrency, it was about the fact that a government has to control transactions for a number of reasons that are necessary and working with my student about how the EU is looking at controlling cryptocurrency suggests you are going to have the ways to control that will end up like Chekhov's gun.

I hadn't seen or didn't remember Ian Welch. The information about Hüseyin Doğru (love the diacritics!) is interesting, but I'm working online with a masters student who is researching how cryptocurrency legislation should be handled and Welch is not really thinking why the German government can do what it can. Like Donald, I don't know anything about the case, but I don't think it is realistic to expect nations to simply stay with cash money. One thing I like about Japan is that it is much more a cash economy than what Germany sounds like, but it's not clear to me if he wants Germany to be more like Japan, which I guess he imagines would clear up the problem, or wants the Government to put some guardrails because that will deal with the problem? It's not really clear.
Here's a website where Hüseyin Doğru is discussing it
https://diem25.org/en/author/huseyin-dogru/
But I can't get the page to load.

bc: Lastly, in order to attract conservatives, IMHO, you have to at least want to hear another point of view.
Good to see you again, bc!
Put me down as definitely wanting to hear "another point of view" on any topic at all. Also put me down as willing to challenge any point of view -- time permitting, and if I feel like it.
Is it possible that, unlike you, some conservatives find it frustrating to be challenged when they set forth their "point of view" on ObWi? I mean, "hearing" and "accepting" are different things. Any posted comment is "heard" in a literal(-ish) sense. If it elicits no response, would that be less, or more, frustrating than a bunch of replies "refuting" it?
Hoping you pop up more often, and bring friends with you:)
--TP

From back when HP made quality stuff, not just crappy printers.
Sometime while I was in graduate school (Texas, 1976-78) I went to one of HP's sales pitches for their engineering calculators. At one point the salesman asked if there were any petroleum engineering students in the crowd and got several hands up. "You, my friends, will someday soon be walking along a catwalk and drop your calculator, watch it bounce twice, go over the edge, and fall 20 feet to the ground. What will you have if that's a Texas Instruments calculator? Pieces." Then he wound up and throw the HP calculator hard enough to bounce it off the back wall. "With an HP, you'll just yell down and ask your buddy to pick up your calculator."

...there may be quite a few rotary phone fans waiting for a spiritual home!
You can take my rotary phone after you pull my cold, dead finger out of the dialer!

I do like the idea of a thousand (liberal) churches blooming!
But the point of a church endorsing candidates/parties is that its congregants then vote, as a bloc, as their church tells them to vote.
The Sacred Assembly of the Mechanical Pencil probably doesn't have enough adherents to constitute a voting bloc.
Perhaps a "Sacred Assembly of Really Cool Mechanical Tools No Longer in General Use"? You could get the self-propelling pencil folks, and the people who still love their Texas Instruments calculators, their slide rules, and anyone who still knows what a protractor is, and there may be quite a few rotary phone fans waiting for a spiritual home!

Russell is a lot like Hilzoy
Yikes! Are you sure you have the right (R)russell?
You are very kind, bc. I appreciate this, although I doubt I live up to it.
If this is a suggestion that we should have political shibboleths for commentators, I'm against it.
Pretty much my feeling also. And I think the suggestion of "just don't engage" is also fine. I know there are certain topics that I'm just not interested in discussing.
The folks that we exclude from here tend to be folks (on either - or any - side of the fence) who are rude or offensive, in whatever way. And we generally give folks ample warning before they get bumped - most of the folks that have been banned have shown that they simply refuse to stop doing whatever it is we've asked them (usually repeatedly) to stop doing.
I'm not sure anyone has been banned simply for their opinion, per se.
Conservative lurkers, c'mon in! Just don't be jerks. We'll try not to be, too.

The headline leaves out the even more scandalous part: ONLY churches, not other tax exempt entities. Those still have to obey the rule of either partisan or tax exempt but not both at the same time.
In the other hand, getting yourself officially designated as a church is pretty straightforward. And the requirements are far less than you might imagine. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if most PACs could pull it off -- given some of the organizations I've seen do so in the past. And any kind of charitable organization would be a shoo-in. For sure you don't need to express believe in any kind of diety(s).

It seems to me that it's GftNC's personal filter for whom to bother discussing politics with.
Yes, exactly. I did say "valuable additions to ObWi".
The question is whether they'll listen to reason.
Personally I believe that anyone who still thinks Trump won in 2020 has shown themselves incapable of listening to reason.

If this is a suggestion that we should have political shibboleths for commentators, I'm against it.
I don't mind discussing whether Trump lost the 2020 election - he plainly did, but I see no harm in demonstrating the fact in response to an honest enquiry.

PS to my 09.50:
For the avoidance of doubt, my first 2 questions, in my opinion, establish mainly whether the person responding is living in the real world. The 3rd establishes their approach to the integrity of the legal system.

bc's reasonable comments tactfully omit that one of the (main?) people who gave them a hard time was me (there may well have been others, but naturally I remember my own attempts more clearly).
The first instance I remember (seven years ago) was the Kavanaugh hearings. bc said that Kavanaugh had refuted Christine Blasey-Ford's version of events. In that halcyon and far off time, I still believed that "refute" meant (as it always had) "disprove by evidence or logic", rather than "deny", so since bc had (I think) told us that s/he was a lawyer, I reminded them that it is the duty of an officer of the court to protect the integrity of the court and uphold the integrity of the legal system. bc then disappeared for quite a while, possibly (as s/he says) because they were busy. This was of course before we all learned how deeply flawed the FBI's investigations into Kavanaugh was, along with the evidence of other complainants.
The second time (or I may have the order confused) was when bc referred to Sztrok and Page as "the lovers", a description I had only ever heard Trump use about them. Perhaps unfairly, I took this as confirmation that bc was not just conservative, but at least Trump tolerant, or Trump adjacent. Perhaps I was wrong.
On the gender issue, unfortunately GC feminists have had to get used to being cast in the same team as people with whom they have no other beliefs in common and whose other beliefs they utterly reject, but who sincerely or performatively profess to believe many of the same things on the GC issue.
So, on the question of which kind of conservatives would be valuable additions to ObWi, my own opinion would be any who can answer in the affirmative the following questions:
Do you believe that Trump lost the 2020 election?
Do you believe that Trump's actions on and around January 6th were a) morally wrong, b) potentially criminal and c) insurrectionary?
Do you approve of Trump going after the law firms which in the past represented his opponents (for various values of "opponents")?
Others may think this a grotesquely inappropriate approach to the problem. But it is mine. Obviously, and luckily, I don't make the rules!

My long experience of writing to MPs is that, since word processors came into common use forty-odd years ago, one usually receives in reply a letter relevant to the general subject but not actually addressing one's points. Schumer's reply seems to be of that kind.

Just my two bits on the ObWi diversity question:
The recognition of how one-sided it has become is refreshing. The introspection even more.
For myself, there is are a few barriers to entry on commenting if you are a conservative. You know you your comments will often draw "hostile fire" rather than curiosity. And you are surrounded. It's not just from one direction. Expect to carry a heavy load if you are going to have a complete conversation because you are responding to many people when the opposite is not true. I have a full-time job, I'm married and a kid still at home. And I'm in my late 50's (as CharlesWT likely knows). As much as I (usually) like the conversation, I don't always have the time to read AND comment.
It became all the harder to comment when there were several comments aimed at me that I wasn't completely responding to some of the counterpoint. That was in fact true, due to time. Recently, frex, Donald responded to me with some really good points, noting that my comment appeared to only blame Hamas and not Israel. His comments merited a response. If I only had the time. (Sorry, Donald). And I had a lot to say about the transgender issue and found myself very aligned with GftNC's point of view and would have wanted to wade in, but by the time I could particiapte the conversation had moved on. In the past, some have assumed I had nothing to say and said as much when that simply wasn't true.
So I just read and pop up from time-to-time.
It was easier under the Hilzoy era when I first was drawn here. Hilzoy had a way of interacting that I consider model. She was curious, respectful, and stepped in and politely (and sometimes firmly) called commenters out on both sides. Russell is a lot like Hilzoy; others too. Many not. And that era had several conservatives of many different stripes. While we were in the minority, it was a strong minority.
Lastly, in order to attract conservatives, IMHO, you have to at least want to hear another point of view. That's why I am here. That's why I turn on Urban View and Progressive Talk Radio from time-to-time when I'm on long drives. A recent opinion was voiced that conservatives left ObWi because they couldn't justify their positions and noted that the group here is smart, well-informed and articulate, implying that the conservatives were not. That doesn't help. However, I agree with the assessment of the characteristics of my left-leaning, liberal friends here on Obwi. You are a smart, well-informed and articulate bunch. Overall, I very much enjoy our discussions and hearing your points of view.

My question for Schumer is my now-standard question for anyone advocating for a two-state solution: precisely where to you think the second state will be? And who is going to evict the current owners?

So Schumer or whoever wrote this can’t really be that stupid. And from reading my email he or the actual writer knew I would think any of that was true. We need a better class of liar in DC. Or maybe even honest people.
Assuming that anyone actually read it in any detail and stopped to consider what you were saying. I always assume that emails to representatives go to interns, who are mostly just skimming them for keywords and sending out form responses that are 80% LLM content. These letters aren't so much responses, from what I can tell, as position statements meant to address keywords in your email. They are meant to clarify the representatives position. In this case his position is the equivalent of hope and prayers.
But hey...your email probably did go into the tally on the side of Gaza that he uses to determine how much concern he has to express while refusing to intervene, and how much he has to worry next time he's up for re-election.
I'm starting to think that in the post-Citizens-United era the only way to actually get long time Dems to listen may be to organize (union, interest group, something) and throw support behind Democratic Socialists in primaries until we've picked off the ones with deep donor support.
Their worry with Mamdani shows that this is what they are running most scared from.

On his list of Israeli goals, numbers three and four are fantasy. In theory those are American goals but for Americans the first one was and is the one that mattered more than all others. By far. Keeping civilian deaths low would be nice, but not that important. For Netanyahu, staying out of jail and in power was the number one goal. For some others, the goal is ethnic cleansing.
So Schumer or whoever wrote this can’t really be that stupid. And from reading my email he or the actual writer knew I would think any of that was true. We need a better class of liar in DC. Or maybe even honest people.
The summary of HR 815 regarding Gaza is misleading, But too tired to rant.
On a positive note, I watched the hour long discussion with Brad Lander that Peter Beinart had on July 4. Lander was really impressive, a politician I could support with enthusiasm. Though I like Mamdani a lot, if I were a NYC voter I probably would have put Lander as 1 and Mamdani as 2 based on Lander’s experience. ( On Palestine Landervis a liberal Zionist unlike Mamdani, but Landercreally would be willing to pressure Israel, which is what I care about there. But I am mostly talking about his qualifications for being Mayor and all his other positions, very liberal, maybe a bit closer to achievable than what Mamdani wants. )
And he had a funny anecdote on his arrest. The two guys didn’t really like doing it. One was a Pakistani Muslim and said he would rank Lander and Mamdani as his top choices. The other said his wife wanted him to quit his ICE job because of what they were doing but he didn’t feel he could because he had a mortgage. Lander said it was funny but of course said it was also terrible.
No point linking— I think you have to subscribe to Beinart’s Substack.