All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[Dalak]

I find that people confuse not accepting something about someone with discrimination. They are not the same thing.

I have a gay sister who is married with adopted children and I love her. That said I don’t support homosexuality but that has nothing to do with my love for her. And it’s a non-issue between us because we respect each other.

That's exactly how I'd describe my relationship with strongly devout friends & family, so I understand what you mean here. I wish others I knew were more accepting though since as far as I'm concerned, not going to a pride rally is 'not supporting homosexuality' while going to a protest to the rally is discrimination. In other words: Being asked to bake a cake that says "I'm gay and proud" is one thing, being asked to bake one that says "I'm gay and **** heteros" is quite another.

[TheDarman]

Do you really believe that trash? Seriously I don't mean to be rude but that is some whack crap right there. Drop the conspiracy stuff....punishing women? OMG....just wow.

Here's the thing about what it would take to be pro-life on the moral level that Ben Shapiro, and other conservatives, think we should.

We all agree that we have a fairly negative right to our own property and bodies, in particular. So much so, that even when someone is dying, it is a voluntary act to give up an organ that one might not necessarily need--like a kidney. So, while an individual may have the power to save another person's life with little harm to oneself, we consider it too much of a moral demand to insist that the former give up their bodily autonomy to assist the latter. The latter individual, in this case, is a living human being who just very well might die without that organ. We have prioritized the right to our own bodily autonomy over the right to life of another individual, even insofar as to state that we have this right to bodily autonomy above and beyond the fact that our utility from that individual organ is far below what it would be for the individual dying without a properly functioning one.

Now, let's analyze this in the case of pregnancy. For one thing, a developing fetus has nothing that makes it a human being. Even after a heartbeat is detected, it is still less able to actually survive than a brain dead person in the ICU. But, even independent of that, particularly in cases of sexual assault, the woman is already in a position where she is letting her body be used in a way that she never intended nor wanted nor consented. Given that the fetus isn't even a human being under our casual definitions of the term, we would expect that the woman would be well within her rights of bodily autonomy to terminate that pregnancy. In cases of sexual assault, it is only compounded by the lack of risk-taking behavior on her part (also of note, that while we expect a woman to bring a fetus to term, we largely refuse to acknowledge the responsibility of the male in any case--women should at least be able to sue their rapist for child support but I digress). Even with that risk taking behavior, to insist that the woman has a responsibility to bring the child to term would insist upon a more robust principle that dramatically expands the right to life to not only being a negative one (i.e. no one can take it from you) but to a positive one (i.e. everyone needs to take positive action to assist in even the positive development of a potential human being).

Now, we might argue we have a few positive duties. For example, if a young child is drowning in a pool, even if you are wearing your nicest suit, we would expect that you should assist that drowning child even in spite of your suit getting wet. However, these are duties that are not too terribly demanding. It doesn't even really conflict with a negative right to anything particularly major. Assisting a developing child, though, would require the right to life to come above and assert a positive principle that overrides the right to bodily autonomy. We discussed before how we aren't called on to give up a kidney to assist someone whose kidneys are failing. Essentially, because a non-human has the right to potential life, it would follow that the latter individual would have such a robust right to life that we would be called upon to give up a working kidney. It would require immense property redistribution towards individuals who are impoverished and are struggling to afford decent food from people who are buying their second yacht. After all, these latter individuals aren't getting much utility out of a second yacht but the former individuals would be getting a lot of utility from having food on their table.

Ultimately, yes. Anti-choice conservatives aren't concerned with being pro-life. As I stated, that principle would lead to them supporting policies that I've never heard one conservative support. If they were concerned with being pro-life, their prime objective would be to assist in providing low-cost contraceptives that prevent pregnancy, not stating that they are cheap enough already when government money has been used for Viagra. As shown in the Colorado study, contraceptive access brought abortion rates down. Democrats did that, not Republicans. I don't know for sure whether or not conservatives are trying to control women's bodies. I won't pretend to speak for them. But I can say that they certainly aren't pro-life in their moral sensibilities overall. At the very least, it is deeply inconsistent to be arguing a pro-life position here--having such a robust concern for people's right to potential life--but not anywhere else. So, yeah, at best, it isn't worth it to actually listen to any one of them.

[Ohnooze]

"The Cruelty Is the Point"

"The Museum of African-American History and Culture is in part a catalog of cruelty. Amid all the stories of perseverance, tragedy, and unlikely triumph are the artifacts of inhumanity and barbarism: the child-size slave shackles, the bright red robes of the wizards of the Ku Klux Klan, the recordings of civil-rights protesters being brutalized by police.

The artifacts that persist in my memory, the way a bright flash does when you close your eyes, are the photographs of lynchings. But it’s not the burned, mutilated bodies that stick with me. It’s the faces of the white men in the crowd. There’s the photo of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Indiana in 1930, in which a white man can be seen grinning at the camera as he tenderly holds the hand of his wife or girlfriend. There’s the undated photo from Duluth, Minnesota, in which grinning white men stand next to the mutilated, half-naked bodies of two men lashed to a post in the street—one of the white men is straining to get into the picture, his smile cutting from ear to ear.

There’s the photo of a crowd of white men huddled behind the smoldering corpse of a man burned to death; one of them is wearing a smart suit, a fedora hat, and a bright smile....

Taking joy in that suffering is more human than most would like to admit. Somewhere on the wide spectrum between adolescent teasing and the smiling white men in the lynching photographs are the Trump supporters whose community is built by rejoicing in the anguish of those they see as unlike them, who have found in their shared cruelty an answer to the loneliness and atomization of modern life.

The laughter undergirds the daily spectacle of insincerity, as the president and his aides pledge fealty to bedrock democratic principles they have no intention of respecting. The president who demanded the execution of five black and Latino teenagers for a crime they didn’t commit decrying “false accusations,” when his Supreme Court nominee stands accused; his supporters who fancy themselves champions of free speech meet references to Hillary Clinton or a woman whose only crime was coming forward to offer her own story of abuse with screams of “Lock her up!” The political movement that elected a president who wanted to ban immigration by adherents of an entire religion, who encourages police to brutalize suspects, and who has destroyed thousands of immigrant families for violations of the law less serious than those of which he and his coterie stand accused, now laments the state of due process.

Trump’s only true skill is the con; his only fundamental belief is that the United States is the birthright of straight, white, Christian men, and his only real, authentic pleasure is in cruelty. It is that cruelty, and the delight it brings them, that binds his most ardent supporters to him, in shared scorn for those they hate and fear: immigrants, black voters, feminists, and treasonous white men who empathize with any of those who would steal their birthright. The president’s ability to execute that cruelty through word and deed makes them euphoric. It makes them feel good, it makes them feel proud, it makes them feel happy, it makes them feel united.

And as long as he makes them feel that way, they will let him get away with anything, no matter what it costs them.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...-point/572104/

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"Republican Senator Clyde Chambliss argued that the ban was still fair to victims of rape and incest because those women would still be allowed to get an abortion "until she knows she's pregnant," a statement that garnered a mixture of groans and cackles from the chamber's gallery.

"With liberal states approving radical late-term and post-birth abortions, Roe must be challenged, and I am proud that Alabama is leading the way," Ainsworth tweeted on Tuesday night.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alabama...st-2019-05-14/

You need to stop reading that stuff....it's jacking with your head. The whole evil Christian white man thing is becoming tiresome.

And late term abortion is nothing short of murder. It's evil and sick and I will never understand how anyone with any decency would support the killing of a child that late in pregnancy.

[TheDarman]

And late term abortion is nothing short of murder. It's evil and sick and I will never understand how anyone with any decency would support the killing of a child that late in pregnancy.

What about if the alternative is both the child and the mother die? Because those are the kinds of situations that lead doctors and patients to get that far along in a pregnancy and feel the need to terminate it. If you can find a different example, I would be perfectly happy to see it. But, again, it is usually for those purposes.

[SquirrelMan]

If it wasn't about punishing women, they would treat In Vitro Fertilization embryos the same as embryos inside women, but they don't. The law is specifically designed to sell the idea that life starts at conception, but only when a uterus is involved.

[Ohnooze]

What about if the alternative is both the child and the mother die? Because those are the kinds of situations that lead doctors and patients to get that far along in a pregnancy and feel the need to terminate it. If you can find a different example, I would be perfectly happy to see it. But, again, it is usually for those purposes.

I’m sure those things happen but I’m not familiar enough to speak on that particular situation.

That said a fully developed child is a child regardless if it’s in a woman or in a trash can. You can not justify it no matter how hard you try. In a case where the mother may die if she has it…that’s still a tough call. Though in todays time it’s hard to imagine a situation where the doctors could not save both through surgery. But again I have not really read up on this so it’s hard for me to really say.

[Kusanagi]

And late term abortion is nothing short of murder. It's evil and sick and I will never understand how anyone with any decency would support the killing of a child that late in pregnancy.

Going off a washington post article, assuming you definie Late term as between 21st-24th week, late terms make up about 1% of abortions, and amongst that one percent included instances where the mother's life was in danger, the child suffered some severe abnormality, and those who tried to obtain an abortion earlier but for some reason were denied.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-po...=.a388e8806c05

Even if we lump all of those who were denied it earlier in their pregnancy as convenience, that's about less than a percent of all abortions.

[Ohnooze]

Going off a washington post article, assuming you definie Late term as between 21st-24th week, late terms make up about 1% of abortions, and amongst that one percent included instances where the mother's life was in danger, the child suffered some severe abnormality, and those who tried to obtain an abortion earlier but for some reason were denied.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-po...=.a388e8806c05

Even if we lump all of those who were denied it earlier in their pregnancy as convenience, that's about less than a percent of all abortions.

So about the same % as incest or rape abortions.

if you're in a situation like that I can see why you would look at options but late term for convenience is nothing short of sick.

[The_Greatest_Username]

If it wasn't about punishing women, they would treat In Vitro Fertilization embryos the same as embryos inside women, but they don't. The law is specifically designed to sell the idea that life starts at conception, but only when a uterus is involved.

One could also add that if life begins at conception, women should be allowed to begin collecting child support once they find out they’re pregnant.

These bans on abortion are strictly anti-woman.

[Ohnooze]

One could also add that if life begins at conception, women should be allowed to begin collecting child support once they find out they’re pregnant.

These bans on abortion are strictly anti-woman.

No they are not to attack females. That is not true and that makes no sense at all. They look at abortion as killing a human life. Why is it so hard for people to understand this?

[Kirby101]

No they are not to attack females. That is not true and that makes no sense at all. They look at abortion as killing a human life. Why is it so hard for people to understand this?

So why do the same people fight to prevent birth control. Or plan B - morning after pills which work on a zygote with only couple of dozen cells.

[TheDarman]

No they are not to attack females. That is not true and that makes no sense at all. They look at abortion as killing a human life. Why is it so hard for people to understand this?

As I’ve already stated, we would need to see them accept the consequences of their broadened right to life moral principle in order to not scoff at their inconsistency in that the moral principle is only being applied where both a) they aren’t the ones on the hook for it and b) any thing they can do to lower the rates of abortion, they throw out because of other religious objections. As it is, we can call it whatever we like. But it is a flat inconsistency to expand the right to life principle to a positive one that broad and yet argue against policies to accomplish that broad right to potential life with living humans today. And that is the most generous way to put it.

[Dalak]

So why do the same people fight to prevent birth control. Or plan B - morning after pills which work on a zygote with only couple of dozen cells.

The same people also fight programs to aid poor people those who choose to keep their kids despite their economic status, punish the kids for poor parents in school by giving them substandard lunches, cut the funding for programs to feed and educate the kids without the parents involved, and generally do everything they can to punish those who are poor or choose to have sex when poor. Call them Welfare Queens and vilify thousands for the handful that are guilty of what they claim.

[Ohnooze]

So why do the same people fight to prevent birth control. Or plan B - morning after pills which work on a zygote with only couple of dozen cells.

I think it's just a different world view. No one is think "how can we punish those bitches?". It's just not like that.
I don't know of anyone who struggles with birth control...maybe Catholics? I'm personally fine with the pill...plan B I'm personally not ok with.

[Kusanagi]

So why do the same people fight to prevent birth control. Or plan B - morning after pills which work on a zygote with only couple of dozen cells.

worstblogever already posted an article about this. They managed to reduce abortions in Colorado by 64%, but because zygote's might be in danger (science disagreed) conservatives in the state wanted the legislation ammended or reversed.