All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[Tendrin]

Speaking of abortion, we have ANOTHER live one for our very own WBE.

A Republican lieutenant governor candidate on Tuesday softened his stance that women who get an abortion should be punished if it is ever criminalized in Idaho, a day after saying the punishment should include the death penalty.
“Prosecutions have always been focused on the abortionist,” said Bob Nonini in a statement. “There is no way a woman would go to jail let alone face the death penalty. The statute alone, the threat of prosecution, would dramatically reduce abortion. That is my goal.”
Nonini first raised eyebrows on the divisive social issue during a Monday candidate forum in Moscow hosted by the conservative Christian podcast CrossPolitic.

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/p...#storylink=cpy

[Mister Mets]

Roe V Wade held that banning abortion is unconstitutional. It is as much a right as owning fire arms. That is why the Christian Right wants an amendment for fetus personhood.
Popular opinion should not dictate constitutional rights. Should the right to free speech or religion or a fair trial be subject to polls? And criminalizing a Constitutional Right as a capital offense is shear fascism.
Mets is way off base with every argument.

Owning firearms is a slightly different matter in that there is a clear right to bear arms in the constitution.

Roe V Wade is the law of the land, and I haven't disputed that. Nor have I suggested it should be dictated in any way by popular opinion. Nor have I even said anything against first trimester abortion, to be honest.

My argument is about whether a position should be discussed openly rather than whether it is correct. The idea that supporting discussion of a concept is tantamount to an endorsement of it worries the hell out of me due to the implications of what it means for someone's understanding of free speech.

It is possible for understandings of the constitution to change. There would be procedural ways to change Roe V Wade, which would be prerequisites for any criminal penalty for abortion, ranging from a new Supreme Court decision to a constitutional amendment. These are unlikely to happen, but it would follow that if something like that were to occur, abortion could later be criminalized. This is similar to how other things that are currently legal could be criminalized in the wake of a new Supreme Court decision. If Citizens United were reversed, something currently viewed as free speech would be criminalized. If there were new supreme court decisions on gun rights, things currently protected by the second amendment would be criminalized. That's kind of the way it goes when advocating for many changes in the law.

[Malvolio]

Public polling on abortion has been relatively consistent over the decades.

http://news.gallup.com/poll/211901/a...-legality.aspx

https://www.vox.com/a/abortion-decis...lling-mistakes

So it seems premature to say that it's equivalent to the gay rights movement.



We've argued about stochastic terrorism in the past, and the accusation has a chilling effect on speech. Should expressing the view that President Trump and congressional Republicans are causing harm to the country be considered the equivalent of consciously or unconsciously daring maniacs to take the law into their own hands? One guy shot up the Republican congressional baseball team.

Posting what I said about it two and a half years ago...



If anything, this can be a bigger problem for the left now since some of the comments about Republicans are more apocalyptic.

The Atlantic also did not reference "stochastic terrorism" as its rationale for firing Williamson.

There's a difference between saying that a President should be impeached or voted out of office and saying a President should be assassinated. The first two are within the scope of the First Amendment. The third gets you investigated by the Secret Service. And while there have been a few instances of that third thing toward Trump, there were a lot more of them toward Obama.

[ZombieHavoc]

To be honest, at this point I really want Trump to lose in 2020 mainly so I can get really petty on Facebook. Like real petty.

[Kevinroc]

The particular critique being discussed was misleading and disingenuous

https://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/...XmG#.stOWdv10v

Does this make you feel better?

“Aren’t most of the people who sell the drugs African American?” - Bernie Sanders, 2015.

[thwhtGuardian]

Owning firearms is a slightly different matter in that there is a clear right to bear arms in the constitution.

Roe V Wade is the law of the land, and I haven't disputed that. Nor have I suggested it should be dictated in any way by popular opinion. Nor have I even said anything against first trimester abortion, to be honest.

My argument is about whether a position should be discussed openly rather than whether it is correct. The idea that supporting discussion of a concept is tantamount to an endorsement of it worries the hell out of me due to the implications of what it means for someone's understanding of free speech.

It is possible for understandings of the constitution to change. There would be procedural ways to change Roe V Wade, which would be prerequisites for any criminal penalty for abortion, ranging from a new Supreme Court decision to a constitutional amendment. These are unlikely to happen, but it would follow that if something like that were to occur, abortion could later be criminalized. This is similar to how other things that are currently legal could be criminalized in the wake of a new Supreme Court decision. If Citizens United were reversed, something currently viewed as free speech would be criminalized. If there were new supreme court decisions on gun rights, things currently protected by the second amendment would be criminalized. That's kind of the way it goes when advocating for many changes in the law.

And there's a big, or as the President is fond of saying, "HUGE!" difference between having an open and free dialogue and someone about their views on abortion and someone discussing that if Roe V. Wade were over turned the punishment should be death.
We can discuss the gray areas of up to when abortions should be allowed and under what circumstances and be civil but the moment someone takes it further and puts forward a policy that death should be the outcome of anyone who gets an abortion if the law of the land changed then that's just a very thinly veiled threat, not a civil conversation. That's a statement that says, "I think you should be killed because I disagree with your stance." and you simply can't hold a conversation with someone who thinks like that. Now I don't think any physical harm should come to those who voice such opinions, or that they should be jailed for voicing them, but there are consequences and in this case the news organization felt that that kind of view damaged their reputation and ability to be seen as balanced and so they divorced themselves from him and I don't see anything wrong with that kind of business decision.

[KOSLOX]

To be honest, at this point I really want Trump to lose in 2020 mainly so I can get really petty on Facebook. Like real petty.

If people didn't put so much stock in dumb #### on Facebook there is a pretty good chance you wouldn't have had to worry about it.

[JackDaw]

To be honest, at this point I really want Trump to lose in 2020 mainly so I can get really petty on Facebook. Like real petty.

Would you be really surprised if he decided not to stand?

I don’t know what the odds are at bookmakers, but I wouldn’t mind a moderate sized bet at evens that he won’t. First it’s not that unlikely that he won’t be able to...i wouldn’t like to be his health insurer, or he may fall to a major scandal.

Second, I’m not sure he’ll want to stand..he really doesn’t seem all that happy in the job, and not sure his ego will allow him to stand when losing will be clear failure. (If he’d lost as a total outsider, he had a ton of excuses...not available if he loses as seating incumbent.)

[ZombieHavoc]

Would you be really surprised if he decided not to stand?

I don’t know what the odds are at bookmakers, but I wouldn’t mind a moderate sized bet at evens that he won’t. First it’s not that unlikely that he won’t be able to...i wouldn’t like to be his health insurer, or he may fall to a major scandal.

Second, I’m not sure he’ll want to stand..he really doesn’t seem all that happy in the job, and not sure his ego will allow him to stand when losing will be clear failure. (If he’d lost as a total outsider, he had a ton of excuses...not available if he loses as seating incumbent.)

I don't know. It partly wouldn't surprise me if he decided not to run, but I mean, he has a ton of things he can and will blame a loss on. Media, deep state, liberals out to get him because they hate America, voter fraud.

Plus, he's already campaigning and raising money for 2020. Although, I am fairly sure a large part that is he does not have the money any more that he claims he does.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

There's a difference between saying that a President should be impeached or voted out of office and saying a President should be assassinated. The first two are within the scope of the First Amendment. The third gets you investigated by the Secret Service. And while there have been a few instances of that third thing toward Trump, there were a lot more of them toward Obama.

While everyone lost their shit over Kathy Griffin and her fake Trump head which all but got her blacklisted in Hollywood, if I had a dollar for every time I saw pictures of Obama being hung or burned in effigy during the eight years he was in office, I could retire.

[PaulBullion]

There is a key distinction here that might not matter for many.

My understanding of his comments was that it was about a policy going forward, with the understanding that this would be unlikely to actually be put into law, rather than an explicit endorsement of ex post facto or extralegal punishment. I don't know how much this matters to anyone, whether there's someone else who thinks the idea that in the future abortion can have the maximum criminal penalty possible is acceptable to discuss, but advocacy of prosecuting anyone for things they did in the past when these were legally and fully protected by the law is going too far.

There are two further problems with the Atlantic's decision.

I think people should be honest about the implications of their views, and the decision encourages a moral cowardice in which people are unwilling to say what they believe, or to openly consider the implications. Late-term abortion is a rather icky procedure, and people who advocate for it should be honest about what they want, rather than sanitizing it. People who want police officers to change their procedures and open fire less should be willing to discuss the downside of what they want (greater risk for police officers which does mean more dead cops) in addition to the upsides (other people get to live; probably resulting in a net gain in terms of lives saved.)

The belief that abortion should be treated as a serious crime is one that is held by a non-trivial percentage of Americans. It's not going to go away if there's a refusal to engage it, and when people who hold these positions are marginalized or realize that they should keep quiet, the main result is that the public and the media are less informed.

I still see no condemnation by you of the idea of hanging women who had an abortion.

[PaulBullion]

But, yeah...

Let's ignore that he gave that lady a position so folks can try to change the tune to the minority staff member that Sanders very clearly had.

Dude, I already said I was wrong and apologized.

Something I don't think you have ever done, so you probably don't know how to handle it.

[PaulBullion]

This, however, seems to be legit:



What's happening now is that Bernie, because he is unable to "lie low" till the next primary, is for the first time truly vetted. And things are coming to light.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/...mz2#.ryy5ooz5p

[Kirby101]

Owning firearms is a slightly different matter in that there is a clear right to bear arms in the constitution.

Roe V Wade is the law of the land, and I haven't disputed that. Nor have I suggested it should be dictated in any way by popular opinion. Nor have I even said anything against first trimester abortion, to be honest.

My argument is about whether a position should be discussed openly rather than whether it is correct. The idea that supporting discussion of a concept is tantamount to an endorsement of it worries the hell out of me due to the implications of what it means for someone's understanding of free speech.

It is possible for understandings of the constitution to change. There would be procedural ways to change Roe V Wade, which would be prerequisites for any criminal penalty for abortion, ranging from a new Supreme Court decision to a constitutional amendment. These are unlikely to happen, but it would follow that if something like that were to occur, abortion could later be criminalized. This is similar to how other things that are currently legal could be criminalized in the wake of a new Supreme Court decision. If Citizens United were reversed, something currently viewed as free speech would be criminalized. If there were new supreme court decisions on gun rights, things currently protected by the second amendment would be criminalized. That's kind of the way it goes when advocating for many changes in the law.

Why do you think the idea of the death penalty for women who have abortions is worthy of discussion? There are ideas that the only reaction should be condemnation. Although your Party's leader has gone a long way to normalize what was once abominable.

[PaulBullion]

Why do you think the idea of the death penalty for women who have abortions is worthy of discussion? There are ideas that the only reaction should be condemnation. Although your Party's leader has gone a long way to normalize what was once abominable.

It's the Overton window once again. They put out those extremist view so that the centrist view becomes "abortion should be illegal."