149 posts shown.
Originally Posted by McAuliffe View post
***
Infertile people can actually be treated, so there’s definitely a chance they could have children...
***
Adam Collins4 said:🤣
So, let me get this straight—you're lecturing me about how I can't distinguish between terms, and then you have the nerve to use my own ADOPTION experience as some kind of leverage for your question about FOSTER CARE... unbelievable...
Try to actually focus for once. You guys brought up the idea that kids should be handed over to gay couples because straight people won't step up... yet you haven't provided a single shred of actual logic to back that up...
Besides, how many times do I have to repeat myself? That gay couple is trying to adopt first... and they're still tied up in court with the federal government over the whole issue...
Adam Collins4 said:Where is the evidence for that last sentence in the post?☕
Adam Collins4 said:Do you even have a clue why those kids aren't being fostered or adopted in the first place?
Adam Collins4 said:No shit, Sherlock?
Look, you need to grasp that I never actually claimed one of those terms didn't exist or that they were the same thing...😉
What I'm telling you—for the record—is that they FIRST tried to ADOPT... back in 2016...
And they SUED America because they couldn't make it happen... that court case is STILL pending...
Give me one solid argument for this claim that a huge crowd of hetero couples would adopt, but refuse to foster...☕
Brenda Taylor13 said:And that’s it. I’ve said my piece on the whole thing, and frankly, I'm done talking about it.
Look, I know where I stand on this one—I’m clearly all for letting same-sex couples adopt children, but honestly? I am just not on board with that.
That’s just how democracy works, I guess—the people with the most votes call the shots, and that’s the end of it. Simple as that.
Honestly, there are way more couples out there dying to adopt kids than there actually are children sitting in foster care. It’s crazy when you think about it! But what stops them? It’s that damn bureaucracy—just this slow, clunky, totally useless red tape that seems designed specifically to make the whole adoption process as complicated and painful as possible. It’s like they’re actively trying to trip people up at every turn.
Look, if they just simplified the whole damn process, we’d see way more people actually adopting—it’s that simple! It's all about cutting through the red tape, honestly.
rapidfox26 said:I don't know... just feels like things are moving too fast lately—everything is a mess... honestly, I'm not even sure what to make of it all anymore. Just watching it happen... says:
I?
I?
Brenda Taylor13 said:Look, let’s call this what it is—it isn't just about "fostering." If we want to get real, we need to rewind the tape back maybe twenty years or so, back when Dorino Manzin was basically running the show for the gay community and those first Pride parades started rolling through town. I remember it vividly—back then, they weren't even asking for same-sex unions or marriage or any of that stuff. They just wanted certain inheritance rights, nothing more. Then, a few years down the line—surprise, surprise!—suddenly they're all over the idea of legal registration, marriage, whatever you want to call it. It's the classic slippery slope: you start small because you can't grab everything at once, but the appetite just keeps growing. Every single time, they push for more.
It’s the exact same playbook with this "fostering" nonsense they're pushing now. You start with one thing, and then a few years later, you'll be demanding full adoption rights "once the public gets used to it," right? That's the game. This isn't the finish line. It won't stop here. In a couple of years, they’ll be demanding adoption, just like how they started out acting all cool just wanting to be heard, only to end up demanding registered partnerships—or they would have had marriage if Zeljko Markic hadn't stepped in and completely wrecked their little plans.
So, yeah, the direction is crystal clear. This is where the story is heading... if you give them an inch with fostering today, you can bet your life they'll be demanding adoption tomorrow.
Adam Collins4 said:1. I'm not a believer, I'm an atheist.
2. Two out of my five kids were adopted, so save your half-witted lectures, much like this one, for someone else...
And yeah, as long as there's even one last heterosexual couple left wanting to foster or adopt, homosexuals aren't going to be getting any kids handed to them...
If they want kids, they should try loving someone of the opposite sex... I hear that's a pretty damn good way to have children...
But then again, women say that all the time, so maybe it's not true...
Adam Collins4 said:You mean the one where Jesus rapes a Muslim woman and a sex worker pulls out a flag...
As for gay couples having kids—it's not like they have access to children when the adoption process here in the States is such a bureaucratic nightmare. There are plenty of straight couples who would jump at the chance to adopt, but honestly, the red tape alone is enough to kill the desire.
Daniel James said:🤣🤣🤣 You’re just like this "kiss me" crowd. It’s pathetic; you don't realize that none of those people you root for would give you the time of day if you were starving. But unlike them, I'm certain the conservatives on this forum would step up and help you out however they could. It works both ways. I get it when someone defends historical figures—say, Marshall or Harmon—people who did massive things that some see as good and others see as bad. But defending these modern-day, well-connected cronies and picking fights with people on a forum over it...🤦.
George Robinson43 said:I truly cannot wrap my head around why certain factions within the Republican Party would attempt to push out John Doe to appease the far-right fringe.
Do those individuals even possess a shred of common sense?
George Robinson43 said:I truly cannot wrap my head around why certain factions within the Republican Party would attempt to push out John Doe to appease the far-right fringe.
Do those individuals even possess a shred of common sense?
Robin Jones2 said:Franjo Harmon actually inherited a well-organized state, complete with its administration, politics, and command structure.
The former American Republic was a structured state with defined borders and functioning institutions. Public administration, education, the judiciary, culture, finance, taxation... everything was reasonably stable.
The military leadership he inherited from the previous regime was top-tier: Tus, Stipetić, Agotić, Feldi, and thousands of other officers and NCOs who stepped up for their country.
Then came the exceptional politicians, business leaders, and officers... there are too many to list, but they are the reason we have what we have today.
The "nation-building" Republican Party is so steeped in shame that they cannot even write their own history, let alone tell the full truth about the last thirty years of America.
Today, it stands humiliated, disgraced, impoverished, and hollowed out.
There is nothing left in the party but honey and milk, while hyenas fight over the scraps of loot they managed to snatch.
Noah Perez5 said:Miro Kovač: Vladimir Šeks warned me I might need a lawyer once the Republican Party primaries wrap up..."It is simply an undeniable fact that people are being coerced through their jobs, their loans, and various other opportunities. Members of my own staff have faced direct threats, which is a reality; it’s clearly not an easy situation for the broader membership," he stated.
He also mentioned that during the Republican Party anniversary event this past Tuesday in New York City, Vladimir Šeks—who is essentially acting as Plenković's mentor—told him quite bluntly that he would likely require legal counsel following the internal party elections...
Those are incredibly heavy accusations, and I suspect they aren't the kind of things that can just be brushed aside easily.
It seems increasingly obvious to me that we are looking at some massive purges within the party following these internal elections.
Brenda Taylor13 said:Look, winning a war is basically the absolute peak of what any statesman can achieve. Seriously. Because if they hadn't won that war, you wouldn't even be sitting here right now complaining about privatization or changing some soccer club's name—which is totally trivial stuff compared to the alternative—because either you wouldn't exist at all (that's just how history works, folks) or you'd be living in a completely different country where none of this would even be an issue.
And what exactly are these "American giants" you're rambling about? Honestly! The ones that actually managed to pivot when the whole socio-economic system flipped upside down? Those guys survived, they adapted, and they're still running successful businesses today. But the others? The ones that couldn't compete in an open market because they were built solely to function within that closed-off American bubble? They were useless. We’re talking about that classic nonsense where you had four workers for one single job—where one guy actually works while the other three just "supervise"—or take a place like Borovo with 20,000 employees where maybe 15,000 of them were just dead weight. Companies like that stood zero chance. Those so-called "giants" were only big within that specific region; once they stepped outside, they were nothing more than tiny mice, completely unable to handle the market conditions that were opening up. Just imagine how those "Yugo-giants" would have fared against actual companies from Western Europe. It wouldn't have been pretty. Only the high-quality ones made it through—think Koncar, Kraft Heinz, ExxonMobil, or maybe Whirlpool over in Canada—and that’s it. Anything that survived did so because its products actually worked. Everything else that had to fail? Well, it was bound to go down eventually anyway.
swiftcanyon42 said:Being able to speak another language and navigate different scripts is such a massive asset; it’s something you can always lean on whenever life throws you a curveball.
Back in the days of the old union, I worked for a firm based out of Canada and picked up the language because, honestly, I figured it was just the right thing to do.
We were doing business over in the USSR at the time, and my Canadian colleagues were absolutely lost because they couldn't make heads or tails of Russian—they couldn't even read a damn thing. Having that Russian fluency under my belt was a total lifesaver.
I was born and raised in St. Louis, but I actually took the time to learn how to read and speak a bit of Canadian. Now, some people around here think I shouldn't even be bothering with Canadian since there's so much historical tension regarding how Canadians treated Mexicans in the past. There's even a chapel in Santa Fe at the cemetery built by one of my ancestors to honor his son who was killed by Canadians back in 1848, which bears the inscription, "Kill that bloodthirsty Canadian." And yeah, that's just how it goes...
I spend a lot of time down in Mexico, and the second I cross that state line, I find myself switching over to a different dialect.
My father-in-law was born in Omaha; his dad was an American and his mom was an Italian woman. Their house on the coast was stripped totally bare by defenders who basically gutted it—taking everything from the furniture and pictures to the appliances, windows, doors, and even the plumbing. Looking at all that, it doesn't even occur to me to avoid using the Latin alphabet, nor does it occur to me to avoid speaking American English to the best of my ability while I'm in the States. Ende!
Sent from my BL7000 via Tapetalk
Maria Wells14 said:I think that would be called Ochlocracy.
Pretty sure you won't find that one on an Aristotelian list of government types...
Maria Wells14 said:Given everything going down over the last few days, I’m starting to feel like America is sliding straight into an Ochlocracy.
(Ochlocracy—basically mob rule.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochlocracy
For those who aren't political science nerds—and look, no offense intended, I don't pretend to know anything about nuclear physics, so it's perfectly normal that most people aren't experts in political theory—there's a real difference between this and a true democracy. In a democracy, the government responds to the *demos*—the political body that actually functions through established institutions and reaches conclusions based on actual arguments.
We’re seeing it now with the teacher strikes, we saw it recently with the Madonna drama, and before that with Caesar... you name it. It’s like faith in our institutions and in basic logic has just evaporated. Everything is being driven by raw emotion. The people winning the arguments are the ones who are the loudest and most aggressive, not the ones who actually have a point.
Our institutions are weak—most people don't trust them, which basically makes it impossible for them to do their jobs.
Anyone who’s unhappy with a decision can just rally a mob or find a powerful connection, and the officials will fold because they don't want to deal with a public lynching or the wrath of some big-shot politician.
At its core, society is built on economics—the whole system of how we produce, distribute, and consume stuff.
Right now, the tax share of our GDP is around 47%, though if you factor in the shadow economy, it’s realistically closer to 36%.
The shadow economy is inherently immoral; people dodge their obligations to society while still reaping all the benefits. Then you have the "white" economy—that 47% goes to the budget, but when you add in at least another 19% of business activity that relies on corruption-riddled government contracts, you end up with a situation where only about a third of reported income isn't tied back to state influence.
If you crunch all the numbers, it drops to maybe 25%.
The bottom line is that this 66% within the formal economy is all about distribution.
In a society like this, the most important thing isn't producing goods or services on a free market—it's making sure you're positioned correctly within the distribution chain.
And when institutions are weak, massive corruption sets in. It eats away at the social fabric, and the people with less power band together in groups to try and force their interests through non-institutional pressure.
Sorry for the lecture; I'm just genuinely worried about the country I love.
I remember the grand ideals we held when we were first building this nation, dreaming of creating something successful and truly democratic. We haven't hit that mark, and now it feels like we're drifting even further away from democracy itself.
Question for you guys.
Which way is America heading? Toward true democracy, toward Ochlocracy, or some other kind of social arrangement entirely?
Justin Smith5 said:I mean, look, at the end of the day, the police in any country have to step in when things like this happen. It's just how it works, I guess. You can't really have a functioning society without that kind of intervention. Maybe it's messy sometimes, sure, but it's part of the job description for law enforcement everywhere.
As for the priests—yeah, I mean, that's how it goes, but I guess everyone’s got their own take on things anyway.
I guess Francetić deserves a mass just like anyone else. At the end of the day, nobody really knows what happened with his soul.