The Most Active Threads Since Friday

The two most active threads over the weekend were threads that I've already discussed. Therefore, I will start with the third most active thread which was titled, "Just got yelled at for leaving my kid alone in in the car while I went to the pharmacy" and posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum. The original poster says that she had to run into the pharmacy and her 7-year-old son didn't want to come in, even after the original poster had tried tempting him. Therefore, she left him alone in the car with the car running. When she returned about 10 minutes later, a security guard began yelling at her, saying that she could not leave her child in the car until he is a teenager. The security guard also questioned the original poster's son. The original poster wants to know if it is really a crime to leave her son alone in the car for 10 minutes. Whether or not leaving the child in the car is a crime depends on state and local laws. One responder says that in Maryland children must be at least 8 years old to be left alone in the car. Another poster copy and pasted regulations for DC, MD, and VA. DC law requires children to be 10 years old to be left alone. However, in Virginia it is only illegal to leave children 4 years old or younger alone. Because the original poster said that this happened in Virginia, her actions were apparently legal. Many posters agreed with the original poster that leaving her son alone for 10 minutes was okay, but they were concerned about the car being left running. One fear was of carjackers. That concern is not without merit as a huge number of carjacked cars in the region seem to have kids in them. Other posters worried about the child accidentally doing something to the car that could be dangerous, such as putting it in gear. Those concerns aside, many posters fully supported leaving an unattended child in the car for a brief time. But that opinion was far from universal. Many other posters considered the original poster's actions to have been "lazy" parenting and poor judgement. In addition to the concerns about the running car, these posters had other objections. For instance, the original poster may have been expecting to take only 10 minutes but could have been delayed and taken considerably longer. Several posters acknowledged the dangers of leaving an unattended child alone in a car, but admitted doing so nevertheless. They had found themselves in difficult situations with no good options and decided that briefly leaving their child alone was the least bad choice. Other posters seem to take pride in leaving their kids alone in the car, feeling that any objections were a result of overly-protective parenting. On the other hand, regardless of the wisdom or legality of leaving children alone in the car, some posters were most bothered that the original poster didn't simply tell her son he had to come with her and not allow him a choice. They saw that as her parenting failure.

The weekend's next most active thread was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "What happens to Kamala’s momentum now the DNC is over?", the original poster says that one day after the Democratic National Convention ended, former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump was able to steal Vice President Kamala Harris' thunder by gaining the endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The original poster goes on to question whether the Democrats have anything else up their sleeves in case Harris begins to falter or whether Harris can translate "vibes" into policy. This thread is 25 pages long and I don't have time to read it all. But one thing I noticed from looking through it was a debate about which party is weirder. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, even before being selected as Harris' running mate, had taken to referring to Republicans as "weird". This took off and has become a frequent criticism of Republicans by Democrats. Republicans have had a surprisingly difficult time deflecting this label. One effort was to simply dispute that they were weird, but that hasn't been very successful. Hence, they have more or less settled on the "we're not weird, you're weird" approach. As a result, Republicans throughout this thread post about what they consider to be weird about Democrats. In addition, many of the Republican posters are convinced that Kennedy, by dropping out of the race and endorsing Trump, has changed the momentum of the race in favor of Trump. Democrats, on the other hand, argue that Kennedy may actually hurt Trump. Probably not surprisingly, I am sympathetic to the second view. Kennedy's prominence in the Trump campaign has created an anomaly where Ohio Senator and Trump's running mate J. D. Vance is concerned. Vance has proven to be a surprisingly poor choice for the Vice Presidential nomination. He is historically unpopular and has the charisma of a door knob. While he has been relegated to ordering donuts and speaking to crowds that you might be able to stuff into a Volkswagon Beetle as a college prank, Kennedy has been campaigning with Trump. Trump has even begun referring to the Trump-Kennedy ticket. Not only does this increase the perception that Trump may regret picking Vance, but it associates Trump with Kennedy's eccentric and, dare I say weird, positions. Even before embracing Kennedy, Trump had already promised to withhold federal money from any school that implemented a vaccine mandate. To be clear, that was any vaccine mandate, not just one for COVID vaccines. With the famously anti-vaccine Kennedy probably headed for a cabinet position if Trump wins, Trump is now unquestionably an anti-vaccine candidate. Moreover, Trump, probably more than any other candidate, probably should not associate himself with brain worms. The question about Harris and her policies comes up a lot. I have written before that detailed policies are not important. The only people who read detailed policy papers are those looking to find something to criticize about them. This election is not going to be won or lost based on Harris' policy regarding carried interest or prison sentencing reform. Harris is the pro-reproductive rights, pro-healthcare, pro-democracy, pro-immigration reform, and pro-education candidate who will not support exposing your children to childhood diseases such as polio and the mumps. Trump is the opposite. A 20 page white paper is not necessary to choose between these two candidates.

The next most active thread over the weekend was titled, "First data since Supreme Court Affirmative Action Decison [sic]" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. This thread, which deals with demographic data about the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's freshman class, is on exactly the same topic as one I discussed Wednesday. I eventually locked that thread and didn't notice this thread until now. In fact, a few posts from this thread were reported and I removed them, but I thought it was the previous thread and didn't realize until this morning that it was actually a new thread. The original poster linked to a LinkedIn account in order to show a chart outlining the changes in demographics of the MIT's most recent class which is the first since the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited race from being a factor in admissions. The responses in this thread are also similar to those of the previous thread. Some posters applaud the increase in Asian students which they believe is justified and some warn that this makes the school less attractive. One interesting perspective was provided by parents of a Black students. One poster said that her child had reevaluated her college choices and would now lean toward historically Black colleges and universities because she considered the traditional elite universities to be less receptive to Black students. Another said that her freshman student is eager to transfer after meeting her cohort. When I discussed the other thread I pointed out that without demographic data about MIT's applicants, it is difficult to evaluate the data dealing with those accepted. The conventional wisdom is that the drop in Black acceptances is due to the lack of qualified Black candidates. But, it's possible that there was simply a drop in Black applicants and that some who might have been accepted looked elsewhere. If so, this phenomenon could grow in the future. As the number of Black students on a campus declines, the less willing qualified Black students will likely be to consider the school. A related, but somewhat opposite phenomenon is also noted in this thread. As the Asian percentage of student bodies increases, some members of other groups become apprehensive and less interested in the school. This thread quickly became dominated by this thought pattern that Black students would lose interest in elite schools and Asians would begin to dominate. In that case, White students would feel that their position was precarious. I confess that I didn't read all of this thread, but I don't think that there was much discussion of Hispanics or other groups of students. There were plenty of allegations that other posters were racist. As with the other thread, I ended up locking this one. By that point it had devolved to a discussion of Vice President Harris' ethnicity including allegations that she "pretends" to be Black. Before locking the thread, I removed those posts.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Money and Finances" forum. Titled, "Harris tax plan - raising taxes on high earners", the original poster outlines what is known about Vice President Kamala Harris' plans for taxes if she wins the presidency. The bottom line is that she is proposing increases that will result in a 44.6 percent top marginal tax rate. The original poster says that with state taxes, he would be paying a marginal tax rate that is more than 50% of their income and that would be too much. DCUM has an inordinate number of posters with high incomes and, therefore, a large number of posters who might be impacted by such increases. But, DCUM also has an inordinate number of liberal posters and many of them don't mind paying a bit more in taxes if that will help others out. Toss in the posters who do not have high incomes and the result is a variety of responses. It seems like any thread about taxes is tarnished by the lack of understanding among many posters of marginal tax rates. Even the original poster is a bit unclear, saying he would be "paying a marginal rate of greater than 50% taxes". He really means a top marginal tax rate which only applies to income over $693,751 if he is filing jointly. Amounts earned that are less than that would be taxed at a lower rate. Things are even more confusing and less understood where proposed Medicare tax increases are concerned. Several posters point out that the tax cuts implemented by former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump are set to sunset in 2025 and rates will go up regardless unless a law is passed to prevent it. Two other common objections to taxes that come up in this thread are the state and local tax (SALT) deduction that allows deducting taxes paid in other jurisdictions from federal taxes. Currently there is a limit on how much can be deducted that is far below what many high-earners pay. This will also expire along with the Trump tax cuts. The other concern is that billionairs who often make very little money through income are often taxed at rates lower than the average person. Posters feel that this is simply not fair. Conventional wisdom, which is actually not far off from objective truth, is that Republicans will cut taxes while Democrats will raise them. As a broad generalization, that is correct, but the details matter. Republican plans tend to benefit the wealthy who see their taxes cut while the middle class may actually see increases. Democrats target the wealthy and the very wealthy for their increases. Because this strategy is appealing to most taxpayers, Republicans do their best to mislead about and obfuscate what is proposed. For instance, a Harris plan to tax unrealized capital gains is portrayed by one poster as "a huge tax hike on everyone with an IRA, 401k, or brokerage account." In fact, the proposal is only aimed at those who have over $100 million in wealth and don't already pay a 25% tax rate. The original portrayal was not only an error, but an error of several magnitudes.