I see so many nonsense political statements and opinions that are plain contradictory it makes my head hurt.
Okay, Ill bite. First of all, Ill note that nothing you pointed out is actually a contradiction if you dig deeper into the issues in question. There are a lot of contradictory opinions out there, but these aren't them. But now Ill talk about what you brought up point by point and at some length, because Im apparently in that sort of mood today.
We're told we shouldn't judge an entire culture on the actions of the few. Why then are all gun-owning Americans judged as potential risk and encouraged to stop owning guns?
Im not sure who considers all gun-owning Americans to be a potential risk essentially everyone knows that most Americans who happen to own guns are decent people. I know of very little discrimination against known gun-owners.
The reason some people are afraid of loose regulations on gun ownership in general is that guns are the most common way to kill people in the United States, and theyre a very quick and easy way to do that. When it comes to killing people, the actions of the few gun owners who would kill people are important, because theyre the only ones who kill people. Thus, people might want to restrict, say, felons and insane people from owning guns, and to impose waiting periods to make sure that anyone who tries to buy a gun with the intent of killing somebody in anger has time to cool down and possibly decide not to kill that person.
We're all meant to save trees as much as we can, but we're also meant to respect the woman's rights to abortion. A tree's life is more valuable than a child's? In the same vain, the death penalty is heinous and evil, but woman's rights to abortion must be honoured.
Our economy is a subset of the planet and must feed off its resources. Cutting down trees in irresponsible ways is a good way to not have enough trees in the future, and to destroy large quantities of other organisms that exist along with those trees. Ecology is a complicated and still poorly understood science, so behaving in an irresponsible manner and killing more life forms than we had to may have undesirable effects in the long run.
Abortion is supported because unplanned pregnancies are common, and a majority of our current society has decided that it is okay to kill young fetuses that would otherwise represent a burden on the women (sometimes with some male support) who must raise them. Many people oppose this because they dont think we should kill fetuses. But direct infanticide is common among human societies that do not wish to support further humans; killing them at the fetal stage is generally considered to be better than after they are born. One way to think about this is to consider that the number of US abortions since 1973 numbers around 50 million. This sounds bad, but the alternative is that 50 million (or a large fraction thereof) unwanted children would be raised in poverty.
It is not common, however, for people to consider a trees life to be more valuable than that of a fetus. Our society has found it expedient to kill both trees and fetuses, depending on the conditions. Most humans would consider the death of a fetus to be more serious than the death of a tree, and even radical environmentalists typically have possessions made of wood. Possessions made of fetuses, however, would not be likely to be popular, even if useful.
The death penalty is most commonly opposed because of flaws in the legal system that lead to rates of wrongful conviction considered unacceptable by death penalty opponents, as well as the costs required to gain the level of certainty considered necessary before an execution is carried out. Other problems, such as its probable lack of impact on crime rates, also spur opposition. Some people oppose execution under all circumstances simply because it conflicts with their sense of morality, but see the killing of fetuses and/or perceived enemies in war as necessary. Human thoughts about killing are very complex and often actually dont make much sense. If you examine morality too closely, youll see this happen with a variety of subjects unrelated to killing, as well.
We should tax the rich more so we can give the money to the poor. Even if they decide not to work at all.
A system without some amount of redistribution has a positive feedback loop built in: people with lots of money are more likely to acquire more money than people without much money, regardless of merit. This leads to very high inequality, which tends to lead to social instability. Its especially important to keep poor people adequately fed and entertained, or they might riot and cause other forms of unrest, a principle even the Romans understood. Whether or not they work is beside the point, especially given that most poor people actually dont desire to be unproductive, but are kept unemployed or have lost hope of getting a job due to economic forces. Furthermore, insufficient redistribution leads to inefficiencies in how human resources are used: a person with the potential to be a brilliant scientist, who is in an economic situation where even bare subsistence is a struggle, is unlikely to contribute optimally to the society. Another reason is that modern economies are driven mostly by consumption spending, which Is nearly 100% of the income of a poor person but a much lower level of the income of a rich person. Finally, empirical results about charity show that voluntary charity does not approach the level needed to avoid all these negative effects.
Those are just some of the systemic reasons to favor some level of basic subsistence income even for those who arent employed, and to redistribute it from the rich disproportionately. I wont even attempt to talk about moral issues around poverty.
We're told that schools should be free to teach what they want to teach. But not if it's a topic like creationism.
Creationism actually is appropriate to talk about in some educational contexts, such as classes about religion or mythology. It probably should receive a brief mention in biology classes as well, as a common unscientific belief about the origin of life. It should not, however, be presented as though it were real science, because it is not even remotely scientific; theres nothing falsifiable about it, just as there is nothing falsifiable about the claim that the universe was created last Thursday and that our entire universe including our memories of times before last Thursday were formed in the initial creation event. Our understanding of evolution, however, is as solid as scientific theories get; all empirical evidence discovered so far points to an evolutionary origin of the diversity of life we see today.
We are led to believe that women are consistently underpaid in all sectors, yet in the same breath we hear that women are under represented in the work place. A.) why would women want to work if they get paid less, and B.) if women are paid less, why don't companies hire more female workers to save money?
This is your most interesting point IMO its answer isnt as simple as any of the others. Theres a sense in which its not really true: women are underrepresented in some workplaces and overrepresented in others: construction workers are almost always men, while dental hygienists are almost always women. More men than women are in the labor market, partly because of a belief that men should be the primary breadwinners, but also partly because theyre rarely the primary caregivers for children, among other reasons. This gap narrowed dramatically between 1960 and 2000, however, and the underlying reasons are interesting and probably arent explained mostly by a sudden drop in sexism.
One idea, for instance, is that the proportion of labor that had to be done in the household was far higher in 1900 than in 2000. Most sewing (creating and mending clothing), food preparation (much more difficult then than in an era of supermarkets), gardening (much more important in 1900 if you wanted a good diet), cleaning, raising children, and so on were done in the house by women, and this was a large proportion. An explosion of labor-saving consumer goods between 1900 and 1960, along with the mobilization of women into the workforce in World War II, made women both less useful in the house and more recognized as able to take on most jobs.
Many other factors existed too, including the stagnation of median worker wages, adjusted for inflation, after the early 1970s, combined with still-increasing demand for more consumer goods and services and disproportionately rising costs of some essentials such as education and healthcare. One working-class income is not usually enough to provide what is considered a decent life today; 50 years ago, a single income was usually sufficient. All this said, though, womens incomes do tend to be (but are not necessarily in all cases) lower than mens for identical work, even when all factors that can be adjusted for are adjusted for. Sexism in the workplace is still quite real, and complaints about it should not be dismissed out of hand.
You're a racist if you want to take entitlement packages and benefits away from minorities. Actually, isn't the reverse true? By saying they need entitlements and benefits you are implying they are inferior to the rest of us who manage fine without. If they are "just like everyone else," why can't they live the same life as everyone else.
Empirically speaking, race is a major factor in predicting a given persons likelihood of having a variety of things happen to them, such as being imprisoned (blacks are imprisoned for drug offenses at a disproportionate rate of something like 8-10 times that of whites, but studies on drug use show that both groups consume drugs at the same rates). There is also a large income gap with respect to blacks, American Indians, and Hispanics versus whites and Asian-Americans even when controlling for factors such as geographical location and education level. The idea behind affirmative action programs is to try to level this playing field somewhat.
As actually implemented, theyre rather clumsy, and arent very significant in the hiring processes of most workplaces (but are important in many academic settings). I would personally favor shifting from race- to income-based affirmative action despite the fact that a residual race effect still remains in many indicators even when socioeconomic status is adjusted for. I think the issue of poverty among whites is quite important, and race-based affirmative action programs are likely fueling the traditional animosity between poor whites and poor minorities.
