That’s a good idea. I really like the idea of bringing back civics class. Half of the class doesn’t know the preamble to the Constitution anymore. They think Ben Franklin was president once. It’s painful.

I’d love to see what you think reinforcing an educated female population in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan circa 2000 would have looked like. Would we have delivered our chosen activists directly to the soccer stadiums for stoning or still let the authorities round them up for fun?

We could have prevented 9/11 if we’d had a highly educated female population in Afghanistan, sure, but how on earth would that have happened without a military intervention?

Women in Afghanistan were highly educated and very involved in the workforce and government prior to the Taliban takeover.

Problem is, a lot of the so-called moderate Muslims aren’t doing enough to stop the radicals. Not to mention, even the moderates seem to hold pretty regressive views (regarding such things like apostasy, homosexuality, gender equality, etc.) and are pretty vehement about holding on to those views. When I see polls…

Here’s my problem with it:

I live in Ohio, and this concerns me. We are home to the faux rednecks with trucks their fathers bought with the money they didn’t have, and the “country” people who haven’t seen Amish country, let alone stepped foot on a farm or drove a combine. We also have the wanna be hipsters who bought an Arcade Fire vinyl and…

Supporting rival groups almost always comes back to bite us in the ass. I don’t know why this is such a hard lesson for the US to learn, but training and arming guerrilla forces in random backwaters does not make them our allies.

That’s more of a condescending dismissal than a substantial argument against the principle.

Guy was too ashamed to ask for an abortion, but not too ashamed to sexually abuse someone.

reduce us to their level

Can I just say this is the weirdest fucking news story? Being a sex slave is awful. Awfuuuuuuullllllll. But somehow that’s not enough and the nyt (and jez) has to sell it with.... “and sex slaves are forced to take birth control!!!”

There are great statistics on the education of women and better well-being outcomes. All of those scenarios assume a little bit of culturally granted agency. I can’t imagine how education would have helped the these women.

I believe Malala Yusafsai was entirely correct when she told Obama that investing in education for girls would have been far more of an efficient method of combating terrorism than the drone program, or the support of rival fighter groups. Preventative or restorative investments in civil society and infrastructure are…

Yes, that would be interesting. It’s also the whole “physical vs mental” argument. Eighteen year olds are probably more fit than 25 year olds, so there’s the argument for able-bodied men and women in the armed forces. OTOH, I have run into so very few 25+ people (myself most definitely included) who don’t cringe at…

Apparently, the smoking age is being raised to 21 in some places. It was an article here on Gawker Media the other day.

The difference is that in those cases, people just can’t vote because they’re not old enough. In the case of those eligible for the election and not the primary, they’re sort of half-enfranchised, which is problematic.

I don’t think it’s an argument so much as basic math and fairness.

If your birthday is in January, under the old law you could vote in the primaries/caucuses because you’re already 18.

This would actually be a cool piece to read: the determination of adulthood.

Woman here as well. I lived in the Netherlands - it’s legal, sure, it’s also filled with women who were coerced and trafficked and kidnapped into being prosititutes, mostly immigrants. And even for the local Dutch prostitutes who may just be putting themselves through school, it’s generally not something they list on…