USA Politics

[Karl Henning]

There are many reasons for my feelings concerning this issues.  One of them is that I had a close relative who many years ago had an abortion for medical reasons.  It was a very difficult decision for her.  In spite of her circumstances I know that some would be unsympathetic.  In this instance it is very unfair to accuse me of being an ideologue.   

Abortion is a difficult issue and there are no easy answers.  I want to respect the feelings of those who disagree but it is difficult.

Mutual respect as a start helps.

[drogulus]

     

The state places restrictions on other forms of behavior and intervenes all the time. Not a valid argument. Further, if a woman chooses to have the child the father is legally (and morally!) obligated to support the baby. He has no say over "her body" but is on the rap for what comes out if it. Terrible legal double standard there and an intervention by the state. 

 

     What the state does all the time doesn't tell you much about whether they should do it any of the time. In any case one should apply stricter scrutiny for attempts to control reproductive equipment than for less invasive measures.

     I find it noteworthy that you would think men should be compensated for their financial liability for what you've portrayed as a state interest in protecting life. I suspected we'd get to the property argument at some point. Yes, the state interest in protecting life gets a bit warped by the atavistic concern for who owns the goods. These days the property aspect dare not speak its name loudly. Occasionally there's a slip, inshallah.

     

[drogulus]

Mutual respect as a start helps.

     You always have the fallback of mutually assured destruction.

     Sorry, I'm going through a Herman Kahn phase. I just DL'd Dr. Strangelove in 4K.

[drogulus]

Actually, the moderator reads and occasionally posts in this thread. I removed your inappropriate post, at my discretion.

     Don't you love liberty and the Alamo?

     Trump says he wanted coronavirus testing slowed in grievance-filled speech to unfilled arena

In a speech lasting nearly two hours — filled with grievances, falsehoods and misleading claims — Trump said that because more testing means higher numbers of known coronavirus cases, his direction was to curtail it.

     I'd like to think the empty seats reflect a loss of support, which means I don't.

     I wouldn't know what to say to a moderator if I complained. I believe I did once many years ago though I've forgotten everything about it.

That's a non-answer. We've already given up power for the state to intervene in countless ways in our lives. The fruit of the reproductive equipment has intrusive legal and financial consequences. You need a new argument. 

I focused on that aspect because earlier you said facts didn't matter. I took it you were conceding the reality that life begins at conception.

     If you believe state intervention is bad why do you think a more extreme form is OK? And why do you think the moral dilemma of abortion can be resolved by compensating an injured party with a property claim? You're abandoning a defensible position for an anachronism with no general support. Most men don't want the women in their family to have an inferior set of personal freedoms. I consider my relatives of the female persuasion to be as autonomous as I am.

     I don't think when life begins tells you when it's prudent and productive for the state to undertake drastic restraint on citizens over their basic body functions. People shouldn't have abortions in public. I'll go that far.

[JBS]

A tweet from the Tulsa World, the local paper

USGS just confirmed an earthquake at 10:15 p.m. that could be felt in Tulsa. The quake registered 4.2 magnitude and was centered near Perry, which is about two hours west of Tulsa.

[SimonNZ]

     Trump says he wanted coronavirus testing slowed in grievance-filled speech to unfilled arena

In a speech lasting nearly two hours — filled with grievances, falsehoods and misleading claims — Trump said that because more testing means higher numbers of known coronavirus cases, his direction was to curtail it.

     I'd like to think the empty seats reflect a loss of support, which means I don't.

The Fox spin - for that and every other facepalm moment - is that he's a "comedic genius".

[Christabel]

Fox versus every other media outlet in the USA, which is to the Left.  Yep, that's 'fair'.  Were it not for News Corporation it would be daily fake news from the vast media cohort who hate Trump.  Imagine criticizing the ONE outfit which provides an alternative;  that's real fear for you.

I watched the speech today and thought Trump spoke in an unstatesmanlike way;  at times I feared he might divulge state secrets.  But when he said to Boeing about Air Force One costs "it has to have a 3 in front of it" I knew this man knows how to do business and that this is a foreign language to the "Brahmin" caste of self-appointed elites in "the swamp".

I actually fear for the mental well-being of Joe Biden who will be eviscerated in those debates.  Trump is a crocodile;  unstable at times, irrational even but the only one with the chops to slap down the armies of grievance junkies who are destroying the USA.  Biden's family and supporters should be ashamed of themselves for putting him in front of this raptor.  But they don't care;  it's merely collateral damage!!  Biden should be put out to pasture;  the poor man only lost a son a couple of years ago.  I'd like to see that old gargoyle Nancy Pelosi facing off with Trump!

It has to be said:  the USA is a sad and neurotic nation in the 21st century.  Having no external wars to distract them, they're turning on themselves.

[Mandryka]

Here's the man opining on testing for the China virus.

https://uk.reuters.com/video/watch/idOVCJ6K15R

[Christabel]

Trump does this precisely to get a rise out of the Left and you can hear their heads exploding as I write this.  The man is worth his weight in gold for the derision with which he treats the extreme Left in the USA.  And we loved the Kungflu joke today.  Yes people have died, but they die in car accidents and people still joke about bad driving.

We're trying to enjoy this as long as we can because the identitarian Left is waiting in the wings to control, censure, finger-wag, cancel-culture, virtue signal and all up make it impossible for people to conduct business.  At the heart of the Left is deep envy, hatred and resentment and, boy, does it show!!  Dressed up as virtue, of course, just like the Bolsheviks.

[Karl Henning]

     You always have the fallback of mutually assured destruction.

     Sorry, I'm going through a Herman Kahn phase. I just DL'd Dr. Strangelove in 4K.

We must not allow a mineshaft gap!

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Trump does this precisely to get a rise out of the Left and you can hear their heads exploding as I write this.  The man is worth his weight in gold for the derision with which he treats the extreme Left in the USA.  And we loved the Kungflu joke today.  Yes people have died, but they die in car accidents and people still joke about bad driving.

We're trying to enjoy this as long as we can because the identitarian Left is waiting in the wings to control, censure, finger-wag, cancel-culture, virtue signal and all up make it impossible for people to conduct business.  At the heart of the Left is deep envy, hatred and resentment and, boy, does it show!!  Dressed up as virtue, of course, just like the Bolsheviks.

What about those that are not comfortable with this: My Bolshevik vs. your Bolshevik showdown?
What about those who are not content to confront the "control-happy, censure-touting, finger-wagging, cancel-culture identitarian Left" with the basest instincts; with a relinquishing of standards and common decency or even any (conservative) principles?
Only because I don't like one extreme, why ought we embrace or even tolerate another? Why should we think that a narcissistic loon of outrageous proportions is an acceptable alternative to a doddering idiot?

We're witnessing a chase of the lowest common denominators; we cast off any idea of authority -- moral or otherwise; we accept only a world view in which the "others" are the total enemy and "we" the threatened reasonable remainders. And everyone who doesn't commit to either side is equally guilty as the worst of them. Civility and morality be damned, if they don't support our cause.

Well... that's rushing headlong into a _sh*t_ society. And both outer wings are equally to blame.

[Karl Henning]

The look of a loser: Trump rallies in red-state America — and faces a sea of empty blue seats

[Karl Henning]

At least this chap wears a mask and is social distancing

[Karl Henning]

What do the Trumpkins think about their Hero exhorting that testing should be slowed down?

[drogulus]

We're not discussing real estate or intellectual property rights. Whether a human life is even allowed a life or killed for convenience requires more sober terminology.
By denying the right of the father to "choose" you've limited his autonomy. Basically women are given dictatorial powers while obligating that responsibility and costs are shared.

     No, we're discussing a property claim by a man over a woman he impregnates. Male autonomy requires that a woman has none.

     You decided a moral argument wasn't good enough. I don't think so, either, for different reasons. The property argument, though, is bad any way you look at it. A man could force a woman to have an abortion or force her to give birth because all autonomy belongs to him. It's his, yes? He's the man. If she decides for herself he becomes an injured party.

     I also note that this position has nothing to do with the base case of a woman deciding to abort with no man asserting a claim against her.

[drogulus]

     

Trump does this precisely to get a rise out of the Left and you can hear their heads exploding as I write this.  The man is worth his weight in gold for the derision with which he treats the extreme Left in the USA.  And we loved the Kungflu joke today.  Yes people have died, but they die in car accidents and people still joke about bad driving.

We're trying to enjoy this as long as we can because the identitarian Left is waiting in the wings to control, censure, finger-wag, cancel-culture, virtue signal and all up make it impossible for people to conduct business.  At the heart of the Left is deep envy, hatred and resentment and, boy, does it show!!  Dressed up as virtue, of course, just like the Bolsheviks.

     Life is so hard these days. We never used to worry about virtue, signals, wagging fingers, cancellation etc.

     In the days that were old and not that good a different concept of social justice was accepted. Underlings of all kinds knew their place was under.

[Herman]

Trump does this precisely to get a rise out of the Left and you can hear their heads exploding as I write this.  The man is worth his weight in gold for the derision with which he treats the extreme Left in the USA.  And we loved the Kungflu joke today.  Yes people have died, but they die in car accidents and people still joke about bad driving.

There is no "extreme left" in the USA.

What you're talking about is just people who could, 25 years ago, have been Republicans.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

There is no "extreme left" in the USA.

What you're talking about is just people who could, 25 years ago, have been Republicans.

Of course, there is an extreme left in the USA. It might be much smaller and even less influential than its opponents tend to think it is (partly because of media overrepresentation and catchy issues)... but it's there. To suggest otherwise would be as absurd as it would be suggesting there's no extreme right. Only because the needle for the political middle in the US is right-of-center of what it is in many other countries, and only because there's a large conservative wing of the DEMS (fast declining, as both parties tend to scurry to the edges), that doesn't mean there isn't a thoroughly left element to US politics. Perhaps it's no longer as discernible as 'classically left', because the issues have, partly, changed.

The people you are talking about, granted... the "Reagan Democrats", if you will, exist also. And no, those don't constitute the "extreme left".

[drogulus]

Of course, there is an extreme left in the USA. It might be much smaller and even less influential than its opponents tend to think it is (partly because of media overrepresentation and catchy issues)... but it's there.

     The center has changed like it has in the past. If you want to decide what's extreme you have to identify where that center is and work towards the edges. Otherwise you're stuck with definitions that only make sense to a hypothesized decider. All of you to the left of me are extreme. The center is where I am, only I call it the right, or the left or whichever one I want.

     For practical reason I use the same shorthand others do, because that makes communication possible. So public health measures are located on the left because all of them once were, or so the story goes.

[JBS]

     No, we're discussing a property claim by a man over a woman he impregnates. Male autonomy requires that a woman has none.

     You decided a moral argument wasn't good enough. I don't think so, either, for different reasons. The property argument, though, is bad any way you look at it. A man could force a woman to have an abortion or force her to give birth because all autonomy belongs to him. It's his, yes? He's the man. If she decides for herself he becomes an injured party.

     I also note that this position has nothing to do with the base case of a woman deciding to abort with no man asserting a claim against her.

You are pretending there is no third person involved: the unborn child.  Just because it can't speak up for itself does not mean it has a claim here.

The entire pro choice idea is grounded on the idea that the unborn child does not have the status of a human being. Once you understand that's a false idea, there's no reason to accept abortion other than in cases of medical necessity.