pancakes3 wrote:popper wrote:
I'm against "stand your ground" for property crime unless that property crime would likely lead to the death of innocent occupants.
For example someone is ready to throw a Molotov Cocktail into a building. A bystanders knows his child and other children are in the building. Should he use deadly force to save the kids? Seems like that might be the right thing to do. However if he's wrong, and the children have already exited the building, then his use of deadly force should lead to charges.
1) If you carve out an exception for the protection of innocent life, then it's no longer about property crime, it's about saving innocent lives, so why bring up property rights at all? Property can be replaced, and even insured. A law that allows third persons to act in self defense on behalf of someone else is a much cleaner (still poorly written) law than the one proposed by DeSantis.
2) If Person A is allowed to kill person B to save person C, then it's no longer self-defense, it's giving the general public a license to kill. This allows for "good samaritans" to be mistaken in fact and still justified in exercising deadly force against a fellow citizen. It also creates a feedback loop where Person D is justified for shooting A to save Person B. And person E to shoot Person D. And Person F to... etc. This is not how the law should function.
3) Your hypothetical is also not what the bill says, it says protection of property rights, period. And really, this is what ultimately matters. If you vote DeSantis, and this bill gets passed as written, that's the law. A private citizen can legally shoot burglars and looters, even if they're burgling/looting property that doesn't belong to that private citizen. It's providing the death penalty as punishment for a crime against punishment, and without due process.
4) The shooter is then allowed due process, as you said, and "lead to charges" but if he's wrong, that looter's dead. Punished before adjudicated.
5) There's an entire parade of horribles that would result in this unprecedented law of allowing deadly force to protect property. Can I shoot someone in a fit of road rage if someone crashes into my car, or even swerves into my lane, claiming that I'm protecting my car as property? Can I shoot my neighbor for lighting fireworks too close to my house? Can I shoot graffiti artists?
Regarding the LGBTQ bill, is discrimination against gay and LGBTQ covered under the "sexual orientation" text? If not then the bill should most definitely be amended to include those individuals
The transition care bill is beyond my ability to sort through it. If Sweden and Finland were among the first countries to engage in prescribing a broad range of transition-related care for transgender children, and they have severely curtailed it, I would want to learn the details and medical rationale
Desantis's order doesn't include "sexual orientation" and goes out of his way to edit Scott's previous order that included sexual orientation.
And re: "I would want to learn the details and medical rationale" - you already admit that it's beyond your ability to sort through it. The article also states that the DeSantis bill "contradicted guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden, and transgender rights activists and 300 state health care professionals accused Florida of cherry-picking evidence and performing incomplete research."
DeSantis's Surgeon general states: “While some professional organizations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society, recommend these treatments for ‘gender affirming’ care, the scientific evidence supporting these complex medical interventions is extraordinarily weak. The current standards set by numerous professional organizations appear to follow a preferred political ideology instead of the highest level of generally accepted medical science. Florida must do more to protect children from politics-based medicine.”
Which is entirely self-contradictory. He says that there is a level of "generally accepted medical science" but rejects the opinion of the federal HHS and multiple professional organizations. So where else does one obtain "generally accepted medical science?" It seems that there is a standard of generally accepted medical science, and Florida is the one rejecting it because of politics-based medicine.
I'm not a scientist or a doctor, but if there appears to be a scientific consensus, from both government and private practice experts, that seems to be "generally accepted medical science" to me. The same as there's generally accepted medical science re: masks, vaccines, and generally accepted climate science re: global warming and pollutants. I've said it a thousand times on these boards - I have no intrinsic political bias to believe in vaccines or climate change or any number of other highly technical issues. None of us should. These are non-political issues. However, Republicans are always the ones to reject these, and crying foul on Science, saying that it's part of a liberal agenda. It seems pretty obvious to me that Republicans are the ones who are politicizing the issue.
In terms of individual liberty and dignity, what business is it of yours that someone else's kid receives these treatments? You are still free to raise your children however you want. Why can't someone else - if there is consensus in the medical community that it's permissible? And that doesn't even address the non-medical treatments for transitioning, such as name changes, pronoun changes, haircut/clothes changes that Florida's Surgeon General has also come out against - despite those social treatments are decidedly not medical in nature.
Regarding voter suppression, I think a better way to solve this problem is simply to have those voters who need help for any reason, simply sign up in advance with the government for assistance. I agree that every qualified voter that wants to cast a ballot should be able to and I would oppose any process that makes that prohibitively difficult.
The voters are signing up in advance, and the governmental assistance provided is mail-in balloting.
And again, I've said this many times in this thread - if Republicans are really concerned about voter ID, then they need to pass legislation that issues voter ID's. You cannot rely on driver's licenses as a proxy. If the freedom to vote is universal and cannot be infringed upon, AND the government insists on having an ID requirement, then that ID needs to be provided without cost to every eligible voting citizen.
And not to mention gerrymandering.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/02/florida-redistricting-map-court-decision-00036740Regarding state prohibitions against municipalities restricting certain types of energy sources from commercial providers, that's a tricky one. On the one hand I think they should be able to decide, on the other I think it would create a whole different set of issues and problems. So, I'm not sure.
If you can think of any, let me know. The only sets of issues and problems that I can see are those for fossil fuel produces in Florida, specifically natural gas providers. It may lead to higher energy prices, but the voice of the people have agreed that they are willing to pay higher prices, if it means cleaner means of energy production.
Bottom line, when I say "dance around the issues" I don't mean necessarily engaging in debate here on a basketball forum, I mean actual introspection as to what you believe, and how you square that with your vote. If you're willing to concede that these policies facially are bad, maybe reconsider how you vote. If you're willing to concede that you need to do more research to establish your position, maybe do that research.
And like I've said, I have conservative values. I was raised conservative, and identified as conservative for much of my life. I arrived at the decision to become liberal in opening my mind to assess the arguments on both sides in good faith. Republicans have not offered much in terms of substance. Liberals, though frustratingly ineffective, at least have proper arguments and goals that decrease human suffering. The old Republican standby of "we just can't afford it" has proven to be a sham, and the continually widening wealth gap and increasing federal budget/debt, even during Republican rule, exposes that sham. Republican ideals of personal choice and freedom also ring pretty hollow. It has proven to be the more authoritarian of the two parties, not less. People are less able to choose to live their lives how they choose under Republican policies. There are many more instances of censorship, voter suppression, codifying norms and codes of conduct under Republican policies than Democratic ones. Republicans have proven to be much more in the pocket of big business, especially the fossil fuel industry. Republicans reject expertise, and science that do not align with their preconceived ideologies. It is an unyielding, dictatorial party that seeks conformity, order, and preys upon the worst instincts and fears of the voting public to achieve their desired society.
What Democrats offer is a freer society, where people are free to raise their family in whatever way they so choose, allowing for a traditional set of norms, decided on a family-by-family basis, and enables those who are marginalized an opportunity to live the way that they choose. So what if a boy is wearing a skirt. So what if Tampa wants to run off renewable energy? Let them. If they don't like it, they can change accordingly. Those decisions are not the government's decision to make. The government taxes, enforces laws, deals with other sovereign nations, and regulates interstate commerce. It adjudicates disputes between citizens where the freedoms of one person interfere with the freedoms of another. it doesn't make decisions on how people should dress, who they marry, or how they plan their families.
