Political Roundtable Part XXV

[dckingsfan]

There are way too many people who see society as a hierarchy and measure freedom by how well they themselves
are able to make sure those below them in the hierarchy are held in that position of inferior status.

Then you also have all the disillusioned and aggrieved people wondering and concluding in many
cases that those doing better OR NOT(!) got special help that they themselves didn't get and which was undeserved.

Do you feel that this is a result of capitalism or of government or both?

[dobrojim]

combination of all of the above along with what seems to have become human nature...
much easier to point the finger of blame at someone else, particularly without walking a
mile in their shoes, than it is to make the best of what is placed in front of you.

[dobrojim]

bro, nobody is arguing that rapists should be jailed. the argument is what to do after the rape happens and how to create a society that produces less rapists. don't be dumb.

Every time I scroll past that it just reads wrong ie in a way
that I don't think 'cakes intended.

I think almost everyone thinks rapists should be jailed after
they are given due process and convicted.

That said, as a believer in Restorative Justice I do wonder
what that approach would produce in the case of rape which
to my mind, doesn't seem to be entirely satisfactory to those
circumstances.

[pancakes3]

yeah, sorry. i meant to say - "nobody is arguing that rapists *shouldn't* be jailed.

[daoneandonly]

And birth control can sometimes be a false sense of security - how many women thought they were protected but were not.

And this makes an abortion okay? You learn in 5th grade Sex Ed that birth control is not 100% effective, it's a known risk. There's a risk in almost everything in life, driving a car even if you wear a seatbelt, using the cross walk when you have the right of way, eating fast food even though you exercise vigorously. Using birth control does not give you an automated out if you get pregnant to abort your child.

And I truly want to understand all those who keep mentioning putting in place things to help people or prevent ppl from doing drugs or committing crimes? It sounds like you're arguing some incentive for people to just simply do the right thing and be a good person, which makes absolutely no sense.

[dckingsfan]

And I truly want to understand all those who keep mentioning putting in place things to help people or prevent ppl from doing drugs or committing crimes? It sounds like you're arguing some incentive for people to just simply do the right thing and be a good person, which makes absolutely no sense.

No, it is doing the right thing. Don't force a woman to keep a baby that she can't afford. Help her. If not, then you are going to have more abortions. It's really that easy.

The thing is - you want to have a clean way to restrict abortions. Something easy. But there isn't one. Its complicated and hard.

Women don't have abortions because they are lazy and selfish. They have abortions because they are scared and rightfully so...

Death rates for women giving birth are climbing. Costs to have the baby are 8-14K now. Then you have daycare, diapers, food and healthcare. They look at the first year and they are underwater. The estimate to raise a kid is now a cool $250,000 on average.

And having a baby and then giving it away also scares them...

So, yep - I really want to see the abortion rates keep falling. So, yes - I am all for all of the above including providing those very good birth control methods so that the cheap ones don't get used.

I get where you are coming from - but this is why we will never have a crossing of the intersections on this topic. I totally against imprisoning women or disparaging them (list) for having an abortion. Ever.

And we see with the recent rulings where there was no carveout for abortions - that there is no middle ground.

[daoneandonly]

And I truly want to understand all those who keep mentioning putting in place things to help people or prevent ppl from doing drugs or committing crimes? It sounds like you're arguing some incentive for people to just simply do the right thing and be a good person, which makes absolutely no sense.

No, it is doing the right thing. Don't force a woman to keep a baby that she can't afford. Help her. If not, then you are going to have more abortions. It's really that easy.

The thing is - you want to have a clean way to restrict abortions. Something easy. But there isn't one. Its complicated and hard.

Women don't have abortions because they are lazy and selfish. They have abortions because they are scared and rightfully so...

Death rates for women giving birth are climbing. Costs to have the baby are 8-14K now. Then you have daycare, diapers, food and healthcare. They look at the first year and they are underwater. The estimate to raise a kid is now a cool $250,000 on average.

And having a baby and then giving it away also scares them...

So, yep - I really want to see the abortion rates keep falling. So, yes - I am all for all of the above including providing those very good birth control methods so that the cheap ones don't get used.

I get where you are coming from - but this is why we will never have a crossing of the intersections on this topic. I totally against imprisoning women or disparaging them (list) for having an abortion. Ever.

And we see with the recent rulings where there was no carveout for abortions - that there is no middle ground.

I can understand some of where you are coming from, I'll have to respectfully disagree with the bolded however

I don't see how giving a baby away via adoption is more scary or difficult than aborting one.

Numbers like that will never be published or validated, but I truly believe the majority of abortions are due to an unplanned pregnancy where the couple or one side that wins just does not want the responsibility or sacrifice it takes to either be pregnant for 9 months, and/or raise a child. I don't think its as noble as many try to paint as the choice of not bringing a child into a world where they wouldnt have a perfect life, because that life will never ever exist.

[I_Like_Dirt]

But many of the points that I make - for example the tax code - were problems whose roots weren't with the capitalists. For example, carveouts around having employer sponsored healthcare had little influence by capitalists. And yet those policies broke healthcare. And there are many such examples in the tax code.

I'm not so sure I agree with this. I don't think the roots are exclusively with the capitalists but they're the driving force there, absolutely. When someone comes in with a mind to try and contain capitalists a bit, invariably you wind up with attempts to circumvent that legislation as well as lobbying to create legislation that is able to be circumvented in the first place. Yes, a lot of it has to do with naïve or corrupt politicians but lobbying really pushes those boundaries by isolating the views after essentially buying up any potential time to influence to prevent others from doing the same. So yes, I do load a significant portion of the blame onto the capitalists there. The other portion of the blame goes onto the voting public for not caring enough to allow it to happen. It's more realistic to simply legislate the capitalists than it is to do anything about the desire of the voting public to self-inform on any potential issue that might be abused, though.

I also don't think those policies broke health care. Health care is broken around the world. Other developed countries look amazing in terms of costs by comparison but they're still seeing massive portions of their budgets occupied by health care. Those tax write-offs only added fuel to the fire as a means for capitalists to avoid nationalization (as has happened everywhere else to varying degrees) allowing them to continue profiteering.

[I_Like_Dirt]

I can understand some of where you are coming from, I'll have to respectfully disagree with the bolded however

I don't see how giving a baby away via adoption is more scary or difficult than aborting one.

Numbers like that will never be published or validated, but I truly believe the majority of abortions are due to an unplanned pregnancy where the couple or one side that wins just does not want the responsibility or sacrifice it takes to either be pregnant for 9 months, and/or raise a child. I don't think its as noble as many try to paint as the choice of not bringing a child into a world where they wouldnt have a perfect life, because that life will never ever exist.

So basically, you don't believe the stuff is true despite having no evidence yourself and evidence to the contrary but you're going to believe what you believe anyway. At that point there is basically 0 room for compromise. Because you can't give birth, it's not something you think about. Every woman is going to be different but honestly, I can see where they would both be terrifying options. Risking your life to put a child in a rather problematic foster care system...

You don't think it's noble... Great! I don't think any choice here is or isn't noble, either. Everyone is trying to do their best. If society wants to prevent abortions, they need to actually try to create a situation where people who choose not to have them are supported rather than judged, vilified and punished for whatever events transpired. If society isn't interested in preventing abortions and is more interested in judging, vilifying and punishing while trying to gain moral superiority by exerting control, they will carry on as is. Simple as that.

[daoneandonly]

I can understand some of where you are coming from, I'll have to respectfully disagree with the bolded however

I don't see how giving a baby away via adoption is more scary or difficult than aborting one.

Numbers like that will never be published or validated, but I truly believe the majority of abortions are due to an unplanned pregnancy where the couple or one side that wins just does not want the responsibility or sacrifice it takes to either be pregnant for 9 months, and/or raise a child. I don't think its as noble as many try to paint as the choice of not bringing a child into a world where they wouldnt have a perfect life, because that life will never ever exist.

So basically, you don't believe the stuff is true despite having no evidence yourself and evidence to the contrary but you're going to believe what you believe anyway. At that point there is basically 0 room for compromise. Because you can't give birth, it's not something you think about. Every woman is going to be different but honestly, I can see where they would both be terrifying options. Risking your life to put a child in a rather problematic foster care system...

You don't think it's noble... Great! I don't think any choice here is or isn't noble, either. Everyone is trying to do their best. If society wants to prevent abortions, they need to actually try to create a situation where people who choose not to have them are supported rather than judged, vilified and punished for whatever events transpired. If society isn't interested in preventing abortions and is more interested in judging, vilifying and punishing while trying to gain moral superiority by exerting control, they will carry on as is. Simple as that.

What evidence do you have that all these men & women can't afford to raise a child? Like it's some huge significant number. And punishing how? No man or woman is jailed, fined, etc if they have an abortion. Punished by not aborting the child and making them responsible for the baby for 9 months minimum, I guess thats one interpretation of punishment I suppose.

[Ruzious]

It's an assembly line of morons that run HUD. The regional HUD chief Patton... her foul mouth isn't the problem; it's her not giving a damn about the Hatch Act. We can't make this stuff up. How do we find these idiots who don't give a f about the law and are put in positions of power? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-hud-official-says-she-doesnt-care-if-she-broke-the-law/ar-AABZSfY

[gtn130]

Read on Twitter

Tough times for Glenn Greenwald

[dobrojim]

It's an assembly line of morons that run HUD. The regional HUD chief Patton... her foul mouth isn't the problem; it's her not giving a damn about the Hatch Act. We can't make this stuff up. How do we find these idiots who don't give a f about the law and are put in positions of power? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-hud-official-says-she-doesnt-care-if-she-broke-the-law/ar-AABZSfY

One of most striking, breathtaking in fact, aspects of this administration has been the flagrant corruption
all the while the head of the rotting fish gets rabid applause at rallies for 'draining the swamp'.
It's an incredible indictment of the intelligence of the American general public.

[dckingsfan]

And I truly want to understand all those who keep mentioning putting in place things to help people or prevent ppl from doing drugs or committing crimes? It sounds like you're arguing some incentive for people to just simply do the right thing and be a good person, which makes absolutely no sense.

No, it is doing the right thing. Don't force a woman to keep a baby that she can't afford. Help her. If not, then you are going to have more abortions. It's really that easy.

The thing is - you want to have a clean way to restrict abortions. Something easy. But there isn't one. Its complicated and hard.

Women don't have abortions because they are lazy and selfish. They have abortions because they are scared and rightfully so...

Death rates for women giving birth are climbing. Costs to have the baby are 8-14K now. Then you have daycare, diapers, food and healthcare. They look at the first year and they are underwater. The estimate to raise a kid is now a cool $250,000 on average.

And having a baby and then giving it away also scares them...

So, yep - I really want to see the abortion rates keep falling. So, yes - I am all for all of the above including providing those very good birth control methods so that the cheap ones don't get used.

I get where you are coming from - but this is why we will never have a crossing of the intersections on this topic. I totally against imprisoning women or disparaging them (list) for having an abortion. Ever.

And we see with the recent rulings where there was no carveout for abortions - that there is no middle ground.

I can understand some of where you are coming from, I'll have to respectfully disagree with the bolded however

I don't see how giving a baby away via adoption is more scary or difficult than aborting one.

Numbers like that will never be published or validated, but I truly believe the majority of abortions are due to an unplanned pregnancy where the couple or one side that wins just does not want the responsibility or sacrifice it takes to either be pregnant for 9 months, and/or raise a child. I don't think its as noble as many try to paint as the choice of not bringing a child into a world where they wouldnt have a perfect life, because that life will never ever exist.

Okay, then we get to agree to disagree. Abortion $500. Birthing medical bills 8-14,000. Birthing deaths are orders of magnitude greater than abortion deaths. Being afraid of not giving up the baby in the end, $250,000.

And since you don't want to look up the statistics (pretty fascinating):

[dckingsfan]

But many of the points that I make - for example the tax code - were problems whose roots weren't with the capitalists. For example, carveouts around having employer sponsored healthcare had little influence by capitalists. And yet those policies broke healthcare. And there are many such examples in the tax code.

I'm not so sure I agree with this. I don't think the roots are exclusively with the capitalists but they're the driving force there, absolutely. When someone comes in with a mind to try and contain capitalists a bit, invariably you wind up with attempts to circumvent that legislation as well as lobbying to create legislation that is able to be circumvented in the first place. Yes, a lot of it has to do with naïve or corrupt politicians but lobbying really pushes those boundaries by isolating the views after essentially buying up any potential time to influence to prevent others from doing the same. So yes, I do load a significant portion of the blame onto the capitalists there. The other portion of the blame goes onto the voting public for not caring enough to allow it to happen. It's more realistic to simply legislate the capitalists than it is to do anything about the desire of the voting public to self-inform on any potential issue that might be abused, though.

I also don't think those policies broke health care. Health care is broken around the world. Other developed countries look amazing in terms of costs by comparison but they're still seeing massive portions of their budgets occupied by health care. Those tax write-offs only added fuel to the fire as a means for capitalists to avoid nationalization (as has happened everywhere else to varying degrees) allowing them to continue profiteering.

In some cases, big money has definitely influenced our policies in the wrong way. But in many cases there were failed policies that were never fixed. I just gave you one issue where Employer Sponsored Healthcare was a good idea at the time but had unintended consequences - making us the one with the "most" out of whack system. It should be killed immediately. Another was baseline spending for our very valuable social services. These are fine examples where capitalists had little play or influence in crafting the bills.

Examples that you cite are also many. The prison industrial complex jumps to mind. The defense industrial complex being another. Or the constant addition of carveouts to our tax code. Examples where big money is constantly moving the needle.

So, I am half in agreement with you. The outsized influence of big money causes many of our problems. But I am half in disagreement in that government rarely kills bad programs.

[Pointgod]

Read on Twitter

Tough times for Glenn Greenwald

I’ll never get tired of seeing Glenn Greenwald getting owned.

[verbal8]

It's an assembly line of morons that run HUD. The regional HUD chief Patton... her foul mouth isn't the problem; it's her not giving a damn about the Hatch Act. We can't make this stuff up. How do we find these idiots who don't give a f about the law and are put in positions of power? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-hud-official-says-she-doesnt-care-if-she-broke-the-law/ar-AABZSfY

One of most striking, breathtaking in fact, aspects of this administration has been the flagrant corruption
all the while the head of the rotting fish gets rabid applause at rallies for 'draining the swamp'.
It's an incredible indictment of the intelligence of the American general public.

I hope at some point the Democratic nominee trashes Trump's entire cabinet. It really is some straight up garbage, Coats might be the only one who gets a pass:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-trump-administration/the-cabinet/

[daoneandonly]

No, it is doing the right thing. Don't force a woman to keep a baby that she can't afford. Help her. If not, then you are going to have more abortions. It's really that easy.

The thing is - you want to have a clean way to restrict abortions. Something easy. But there isn't one. Its complicated and hard.

Women don't have abortions because they are lazy and selfish. They have abortions because they are scared and rightfully so...

Death rates for women giving birth are climbing. Costs to have the baby are 8-14K now. Then you have daycare, diapers, food and healthcare. They look at the first year and they are underwater. The estimate to raise a kid is now a cool $250,000 on average.

And having a baby and then giving it away also scares them...

So, yep - I really want to see the abortion rates keep falling. So, yes - I am all for all of the above including providing those very good birth control methods so that the cheap ones don't get used.

I get where you are coming from - but this is why we will never have a crossing of the intersections on this topic. I totally against imprisoning women or disparaging them (list) for having an abortion. Ever.

And we see with the recent rulings where there was no carveout for abortions - that there is no middle ground.

I can understand some of where you are coming from, I'll have to respectfully disagree with the bolded however

I don't see how giving a baby away via adoption is more scary or difficult than aborting one.

Numbers like that will never be published or validated, but I truly believe the majority of abortions are due to an unplanned pregnancy where the couple or one side that wins just does not want the responsibility or sacrifice it takes to either be pregnant for 9 months, and/or raise a child. I don't think its as noble as many try to paint as the choice of not bringing a child into a world where they wouldnt have a perfect life, because that life will never ever exist.

Okay, then we get to agree to disagree. Abortion $500. Birthing medical bills 8-14,000. Birthing deaths are orders of magnitude greater than abortion deaths. Being afraid of not giving up the baby in the end, $250,000.

And since you don't want to look up the statistics (pretty fascinating):

What does the top graph prove though? I don't think either graph is necessarily surprising, but the top graph does not seem to support any argument in such a debate

[Pointgod]

It's an assembly line of morons that run HUD. The regional HUD chief Patton... her foul mouth isn't the problem; it's her not giving a damn about the Hatch Act. We can't make this stuff up. How do we find these idiots who don't give a f about the law and are put in positions of power? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-hud-official-says-she-doesnt-care-if-she-broke-the-law/ar-AABZSfY

One of most striking, breathtaking in fact, aspects of this administration has been the flagrant corruption
all the while the head of the rotting fish gets rabid applause at rallies for 'draining the swamp'.
It's an incredible indictment of the intelligence of the American general public.

I hope at some point the Democratic nominee trashes Trump's entire cabinet. It really is some straight up garbage, Coats might be the only one who gets a pass:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-trump-administration/the-cabinet/

I don’t want people to forget that this blatant corruption is fully enabled and supported by Republicans in Congress and is being supported at the state level. I hope everyone remembers when they vote it needs to be straight up and down the ticket. Sweep every Republican out of office down to dog catcher.

[dckingsfan]

What does the top graph prove though? I don't think either graph is necessarily surprising, but the top graph does not seem to support any argument in such a debate

That the vast majority of abortions are from single poor women. That this isn't about selfish women. It is about scared young women that see no path forward. Most can't fathom coming up with $8,000 to have a baby.