All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Gray Lensman]

Worked out pretty well for the South, actually.

That depends on where you were on Family Guy's OK/ Not OK color wheel.

[Farealmer]

Not necessarily.

The people who take global warming most seriously believe it is an existential threat, that if we do not handle it immediately mankind will go extinct from it. If this were the case, anything would have to be on the table, because the alternative is so terrible.

You can believe that a policy will have bad consequences, but that it is worth the tradeoff.

So by this logic restoring segregation would be ok on the table to fix climate change. Leaving complete aside that whatever cons agree to in the US doesn't do anything for greenhouse gases in other countries.

[The Cool Thatguy]

This feels like a Simpsons sketch

"We can have equal rights for women, or address the climate crisis. But not both."

[JB]

Ghislaine Maxwell guilty of sex trafficking a minor
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/ghi...ein/index.html

Here are the 5 counts Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of
Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty on five of six counts related to her role in Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse of minor girls.

Here are the five counts that Maxwell was found guilty of:

Count one: Conspiracy to entice a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Count three: Conspiracy to transport a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Count four: Transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Count five: Conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors, which carries a statutory maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Count six: Sex trafficking of minors, which carries a statutory maximum of 40 years in prison.

[Mister Mets]

Oklahoma bill gives parents the right to have a book removed from a school library



As a librarian, this scares the heck out of me. Just grateful i live in the sane state of NJ, not Oklahoma.

The bill does not appear to have passed. It is proposed by a state legislator. There is a major potential problem with the law in that any parent can complain and demand the removal of a book, so if it's passed it would be pretty easy for progressive parents to demand the removal of books they dislike or claim to dislike. They could force the removal of popular books to get the law overturned in the unlikely event enough legislators and the governor are stupid enough to pass the law.

[thwhtGuardian]

I'll post evidence on the matter later but this isn't necessarily true. Bans on abortion do result in significant declines in abortion rates, even if there are going to be significant drawbacks (medical complications from back- alley abortions, police devoting resources to investigations, unwanted children growing up in poverty.) In Freakonomics the authors suggested an increase in abortion access was one of the causes of the decline in crime in the 1990s.

Likewise drug and alcohol consumption increases with legalization. At the same time the quality and safety improve as it goes from underground to regulated.

Wait, you mean denying access to something means fewer people will do it? Crazy talk I say.

Come on man, even you have to add the addendum that you know there will be significant draw backs so why even pretend it's a defensible idea?

[babyblob]

Ghislaine Maxwell guilty of sex trafficking a minor
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/ghi...ein/index.html

Ive heard some media outlets and some people I know talk about the names of the high profile people she has dirt on and how she is going to reveal it all. I am wondering why she hasnt all ready? Im not doubting she has some names, but why did she not try and cut a deal to reveal them before she was found guilty. What is the benefit of it now?

[worstblogever]

Maybe it's also a good time regarding abortion to stop and look about how banning it went in Ireland.

Within 3 years, they reversed the decision in a 2/3 majority vote, because it was obviously killing women.

Mind you, we're talking about a nation who still has it's conservatives with some level of critical thinking skills.

[Mister Mets]

Wait, you mean denying access to something means fewer people will do it? Crazy talk I say.

Come on man, even you have to add the addendum that you know there will be significant draw backs so why even pretend it's a defensible idea?

I was responding to someone who believed the abortion rate would be the same if it were made illegal.

The evidence does not support this, but it is a commonly expressed misunderstanding.

That is possible - however, can you rely on statistics when the activity is not performed openly? Like with drug abuse, how can you monitor behavior that is inherently hidden? By the number of arrests?

However, the central issue is that though I'm pro-choice, abortion rights are not necessarily the same as women's rights or civil rights. I'm not naive enough to believe that all or even most abortions are a matter of choice. A few years ago, there was a law in Texas, I believe, that required parental consent for minors to get an abortion. The irony was that they discovered the majority of teen abortions were instigated by the young woman's parents. She wasn't pursuing the abortion, they were making her get one.

Historically, even back to ancient times, abortion was not a sign of women's choices, but were imposed or enforced by their parents, husbands or even state agencies. Also, like your point about the 1990's Freakonomics article, obviously abortion affects poor communities far more. Around 40% of women in America are pro-life and just a year or so ago, the polls had over 50% of American women identifying as pro-life.

Both positions seem untenable in that pro-choice will ignore the number of cases where abortion is forced upon the woman either directly or through an absence of social support for a choice to have the child, and pro-life will then abandon the woman and child after the birth. Currently, though, in actual practice, it seems the pro-choice position is much more involved in supporting the women than the pro-life position is toward supporting the children.

There would be several ways to gauge statistics, when comparing how often sometimes happens when it is legal and when it is illegal. You could use polls, which may be unreliable, and indirect measurements, like the percentage of women having children or the percentage of people hospitalized with side effects of particular substances.

For example, we could look at the amount of people dying from cirrhosis of the liver during prohibition compared to before and after. It does appear there was a significant increase.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...g-prohibition/

I'm shocked you've stuck by this position so long, since it's still the most horrible thing I've ever heard in my life. Demanding the right to do whatever you want to whoever you want, or you'll kill the whole world including yourself out of spite.
And Republicans want thanked for it, like an abusive spouse shouting that it's our fault for making you murder the whole world instead of just the parts you wanted. Or like gods on high demanding prayers and sacrifice to stave off their indiscriminate wrath.

As I've noted before (and I provided the link), no Republican officeholder has suggested this deal. It has not been suggested by anyone with any influence over the party. My exact comments were "There's no way in hell anything will come of this. Democrats will never suggest it because they don't want to suggest that their positions on abortion are negotiable. Republicans can't suggest it because it can be interpreted as taking hostages. It's more of a thought experiment testing whether people are honest about their stances on these issues." It would give the left and right a preferred policy outcome on what many on those sides claim to be the most important issue.

The existence of American voters who are pro-life may be horrible to you, but this is a mainstream political position.

So by this logic restoring segregation would be ok on the table to fix climate change. Leaving complete aside that whatever cons agree to in the US doesn't do anything for greenhouse gases in other countries.

There is no serious constituency for the restoration of segregation, so there would be no reason to put it on the table to fix climate change.

I personally believe climate change to be a serious issue, but not one that it is so serious it requires extreme measures to resolve.

It is a fair point that a major source of greenhouse emissions is other countries, especially China and India whose output has increased as quality of life has increased. Legislation could take this into account, perhaps paying those countries to switch to nuclear and renewable energy.

[Gray Lensman]

Maybe it's also a good time regarding abortion to stop and look about how banning it went in Ireland.

Within 3 years, they reversed the decision in a 2/3 majority vote, because it was obviously killing women.

Mind you, we're talking about a nation who still has it's conservatives with some level of critical thinking skills.

On the 'political views less grounded in reality' side of things, some Latin American countries where they banned abortion have also effectively criminalized miscarriages.

[Malvolio]

Worked out pretty well for the South, actually.

For white people in the South anyway. For Black people, not so much.

[JB]

Ive heard some media outlets and some people I know talk about the names of the high profile people she has dirt on and how she is going to reveal it all. I am wondering why she hasnt all ready? Im not doubting she has some names, but why did she not try and cut a deal to reveal them before she was found guilty. What is the benefit of it now?

I truly believe she was arrogant enough to think she would beat the charges. Now it’s very real and she can face up to 65 years in prison. So I think she’ll be naming names and the rumored names I’ve heard are major.

[Malvolio]

The bill does not appear to have passed. It is proposed by a state legislator. There is a major potential problem with the law in that any parent can complain and demand the removal of a book, so if it's passed it would be pretty easy for progressive parents to demand the removal of books they dislike or claim to dislike. They could force the removal of popular books to get the law overturned in the unlikely event enough legislators and the governor are stupid enough to pass the law.

That's right. The bill hasn't passed. It hasn't even been voted on yet. But it is something to be concerned about.

[AnakinFlair]

For white people in the South anyway. For Black people, not so much.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at.

[babyblob]

I truly believe she was arrogant enough to think she would beat the charges. Now it’s very real and she can face up to 65 years in prison. So I think she’ll be naming names and the rumored names I’ve heard are major.

I havnt heard the names. Other then Bill Clinton and of course the Cliche Hunter Biden!