Roe v Wade is on deck

[Jarhyn]

It may well be that we won’t be able to keep our democracy.

Eh, wouldn’t letting the states - the peoples’ representatives - decide a contentious moral issue be democracy?

No, it wouldn't.

Letting the people - the actual people themselves - decide a contentious issue would be democracy.

And in a representative democracy we do that through our elected representatives.

But you get to choose which level of representation is 'democratic'. Nice.

"I don't like what our federal representatives have decided, therefore it's more democratic to go with the opposite decision as made by our state representatives" is drivel.

Democracy isn't really a characteristic of the USA at any level; Most of your representatives are elected on turnouts that are laughably small, so even before we start in on all of the myriad technical problems and the (both deliberate and accidental) obstacles to genuine representation of public opinion, the claim to be democratic is laughable at every level in your system.

Not that there's anything particularly wonderful about democracy, even if it's well designed to actually reflect the will of the majority. Opinions shouldn't be allowed to override facts, unless you enjoy being miserable.

I would say one of these days I would like to participate in writing a Constitution, even if just in practice or as a hypothetical example to be presented to the world of a "new" constitution.

It would take some group participation, though.

 

[lpetrich]

2. anyone who is actually 'left' in any way will immediately distance themselves from comparisons to US politics because there is no left in US politics.
the democrats are a moderate conservative party, and the republicans are a regressive authoritarian right party.
by any conceivable metric of the term 'left' or 'progressive' in terms of politics, there is no left whatsoever in the US.
not AOC, not sanders, not whatever figure you want to name... none of them are 'left'. some are just slightly less right than the bugfuck theocrats, and that's the best we have in this country.

I think that the likes of Bernie Sanders and The Squad would be considered center-left in much of the world. Here's what I'd consider extreme left-wing: World Socialist Web Site - Marxist analysis, international working class struggles & the fight for socialism

The first hit for "Bernie Sanders" is Bernie Sanders speaks at “Unity Fest” rally in Richmond, Virginia: A trap for Starbucks workers - World Socialist Web Site
Trap???
Another one is Bernie Sanders backs imperialist provocations against Russia - World Socialist Web Site
A horseshoe position: the far left and the far right converging on each other.

 

[Elixir]

I would say one of these days I would like to participate in writing a Constitution

Meanwhile I think I'll work on righting my constitution.

 

[Copernicus]

It may well be that we won’t be able to keep our democracy.

Eh, wouldn’t letting the states - the peoples’ representatives - decide a contentious moral issue be democracy?

No, it wouldn't.

Letting the people - the actual people themselves - decide a contentious issue would be democracy.

And in a representative democracy we do that through our elected representatives.

It's a representative democracy to the extent that our bodies of elected representatives fairly represent the entire population, not one in which those who lose the popular vote end up making policies that the majority consistently oppose. The Supreme Court is not an elective body, and the Senate gives Republicans a huge structural advantage in choosing who gets appointed to it. The result is that the US is moving in the direct of a less perfect union. This decision by the Supreme Court is an example of that result.

 

[Hermit]

It may well be that we won’t be able to keep our democracy.

Eh, wouldn’t letting the states - the peoples’ representatives - decide a contentious moral issue be democracy?

No, it wouldn't.

Letting the people - the actual people themselves - decide a contentious issue would be democracy.

And in a representative democracy we do that through our elected representatives.

That's the theory. In practice elected representatives do not always create laws that represent the will of the vast majority of the people they represent. This is happening right now in Texas and 12 other US states in regard to abortion.

 

[Jarhyn]

I would say one of these days I would like to participate in writing a Constitution

Meanwhile I think I'll work on righting my constitution.

These are not necessarily mutually exclusive exercises.

 

[ZiprHead]

The ‘biblical view’ that’s younger than the Happy Meal

In 1979, McDonald’s introduced the Happy Meal.

Sometime after that, it was decided that the Bible teaches that human life begins at conception.

Ask any American evangelical, today, what the Bible says about abortion and they will insist that this is what it says. (Many don’t actually believe this, but they know it is the only answer that won’t get them in trouble.) They’ll be a little fuzzy on where, exactly, the Bible says this, but they’ll insist that it does.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Imagine not knowing that women’s lives are at stake in the 2nd and 3rd trimester when things go wrong in the pregnancy.

Imagine not knowing that nearly 100% of abortions in those cases are for the life and health of the woman and mostly for very much wanted pregnancies.

Imagine thinking so little of women that you didn’t even know that.

Disagree--a substantial number of second trimester abortions are fetal defects rather than something threatening the woman.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The numbers I heard today as to pro abortio in general, about 30% of republicans and 80% of democrats.

It's not 'pro-abortion' - it's 'pro-choice', 'pro-healthcare', 'pro-safety'.

Really. "pro abortion" is a major tell.

Semantics and euphemisms. Whatever you call it, it amounts to the same thing. You can say abort or terminate a fetus if you are squeamish or you can say kill. A life in the process of development is ended. You can spin it and rationalize it as you please.

I support abortion to a point. I oppose late term abortion.

And that'd really be a red herring as almost no doctor would perform a "late-term" abortion. When they are performed, they are emergency procedures that involve grieving expectant parents.

No--in a third-trimester emergency they'll probably go for a live birth rather than abortion. Third trimester abortions are generally non-viable.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And now this (gifted WashPo)...

It's not just Mississippi.

Arizona candidate wants to attack Griswald

Idaho wants to restrict Plan B

 

[Tigers!]

That's the theory. In practice elected representatives do not always create laws that represent the will of the vast majority of the people they represent. This is happening right now in Texas and 12 other US states in regard to abortion.

Of course the majority is not always right.
The tyranny of the 51% Tyranny of the majority

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It may well be that we won’t be able to keep our democracy.

Eh, wouldn’t letting the states - the peoples’ representatives - decide a contentious moral issue be democracy?

The states are gerrymandered.

Note, also, that in any issue the Republicans are in the minority they want it decided at the state level, but any issue they are in the majority they want decided at a federal level. Whenever they say "states rights!" know that they are in the minority.

 

[Politesse]

The ‘biblical view’ that’s younger than the Happy Meal

In 1979, McDonald’s introduced the Happy Meal.

Sometime after that, it was decided that the Bible teaches that human life begins at conception.

Ask any American evangelical, today, what the Bible says about abortion and they will insist that this is what it says. (Many don’t actually believe this, but they know it is the only answer that won’t get them in trouble.) They’ll be a little fuzzy on where, exactly, the Bible says this, but they’ll insist that it does.

Fred Clark is a blessing. His weekly, well-mannered but firm takedown of the Left Behind novels was one of my favorite internet phenomena of the early 00's.

But engaging in the game of mutual biblical proof-texting is, alas, as pointless as ever. If Evangelicals actually gave a flying crap what Jesus said about almost anything, this world would look quite differen. And even they kind of know it: while they focus on different sins than do their alarmed societal neighbors, every Sunday's sermon overtly points out some of the ways in which they themselves are hypocritically failing to live up to their supposed ideals. But it doesn't crack the armor, because human fallibility and the inevitability of error and sin are baked right into their theology. They need Jesus because they are lying hypocrites, not to cure that tendency as such. Every public humiliation of the faith is further proof that the world is irreparably wrecked and must be destoryed before it can be renewed. There's a defense ready for every criticism, and it doesn't even have to be convincing, because the intellectual framing of the faith is constitutionally a feint to cover the emotional core of their movement, not a serious academic argument about what the Bible does or does not advise.

It is also worth pointing out that the relative youth of pro-abortion sentiment in Evangelical circles is more a measure of their ignorance of church history than a faithful reflection of it; for Catholics, the issue was set in stone in Augustine's time with little chance of the needle moving. Biblically defensible? Maybe not so much, but the RCC considers its own disernement to be guiding and binding unless the Bible directly contradicts them, which it does not clearly do in this case.

 

[Toni]

Given the makeup of the senate, there is no choice but to try to work with Republicans. Unfortunately, the political divide has been monetized and every issue is now a wedge issue.

If it's true that one must always collude with those who desire your destruction in order to thrive in a bipartisan system, why does only one of the two parties believe in this supposed necessity? And why does that party, supposedly the only party to understand this political reality, customarily have a populational majority but seldom meaningful control of the nominatively democratic government? The Republicans do not have a majority in the Senate at all. But you only ever hear about two of their Senators expressing any concern about the necessity of "working across the aisle".... and those two have been publically shamed as traitors to the state and all but expelled from their party for their pains. If it's impossible to do politics the way Republicans do it, how have they prospered so consistently by doing it?

Let me be clear, I'm fine with the parties working together on important issues where they have some common ideological ground or practical need. I am not so fine with the parties working together, whether intentionally or effectively, to strip Americans of their fundamental civil rights. If Republicans desire nothing but the destruction of the Left, by which they mean anyone who does not look or think like themselves, the Left has no reason to meet them halfway in that effort, just to be polite.

Like Joe Biden, I belong to a different generation and well remember bipartisanship abs when parties worked together and comprised Moses and put country above personal gain. I’m not even dignifying it with country over party. The GQP has become an association of monsters who use Jesus as a front to cover their sins and lure in the suckers.

The Dems cannot allow themselves to stoop that low. I do think they must become more ruthless.

I am significantly younger than Biden —and significantly older than you. Please forgive me if I remember further back than the last news cycle.

 

[Hermit]

It may well be that we won’t be able to keep our democracy.

Eh, wouldn’t letting the states - the peoples’ representatives - decide a contentious moral issue be democracy?

No, it wouldn't.

Letting the people - the actual people themselves - decide a contentious issue would be democracy.

And in a representative democracy we do that through our elected representatives.

That's the theory. In practice elected representatives do not always create laws that represent the will of the vast majority of the people they represent. This is happening right now in Texas and 12 other US states in regard to abortion.

Of course the majority is not always right
The tyranny of the 51% Tyranny of the majority

Are you suggesting the tyranny of the minority is preferable?

 

[Politesse]

Given the makeup of the senate, there is no choice but to try to work with Republicans. Unfortunately, the political divide has been monetized and every issue is now a wedge issue.

If it's true that one must always collude with those who desire your destruction in order to thrive in a bipartisan system, why does only one of the two parties believe in this supposed necessity? And why does that party, supposedly the only party to understand this political reality, customarily have a populational majority but seldom meaningful control of the nominatively democratic government? The Republicans do not have a majority in the Senate at all. But you only ever hear about two of their Senators expressing any concern about the necessity of "working across the aisle".... and those two have been publically shamed as traitors to the state and all but expelled from their party for their pains. If it's impossible to do politics the way Republicans do it, how have they prospered so consistently by doing it?

Let me be clear, I'm fine with the parties working together on important issues where they have some common ideological ground or practical need. I am not so fine with the parties working together, whether intentionally or effectively, to strip Americans of their fundamental civil rights. If Republicans desire nothing but the destruction of the Left, by which they mean anyone who does not look or think like themselves, the Left has no reason to meet them halfway in that effort, just to be polite.

Like Joe Biden, I belong to a different generation and well remember bipartisanship abs when parties worked together and comprised Moses and put country above personal gain. I’m not even dignifying it with country over party. The GQP has become an association of monsters who use Jesus as a front to cover their sins and lure in the suckers.

The Dems cannot allow themselves to stoop that low. I do think they must become more ruthless.

I am significantly younger than Biden —and significantly older than you. Please forgive me if I remember further back than the last news cycle.

I do forgive you, but I also grew up in the world that Biden's generation of politics created, and doing so resulted in what I would consider healthy skepticism in my read of history, and what specific kinds of issues the parties were and were not willing to work together on, even before Reagan. Whose cause any party was willing to endorse, at any point you are viewing that history from. I don't think my perspective is irrelevant simply because of my youth. Neither of us were around for the Civil War, but that does not mean neither of us has a right to comment on its ongoing effects, or what it did or should have taught us about the viability of the American political paradigm.

 

[Elixir]

comprised Moses?
Sounds like my phone.

 

[Toni]

Given the makeup of the senate, there is no choice but to try to work with Republicans. Unfortunately, the political divide has been monetized and every issue is now a wedge issue.

If it's true that one must always collude with those who desire your destruction in order to thrive in a bipartisan system, why does only one of the two parties believe in this supposed necessity? And why does that party, supposedly the only party to understand this political reality, customarily have a populational majority but seldom meaningful control of the nominatively democratic government? The Republicans do not have a majority in the Senate at all. But you only ever hear about two of their Senators expressing any concern about the necessity of "working across the aisle".... and those two have been publically shamed as traitors to the state and all but expelled from their party for their pains. If it's impossible to do politics the way Republicans do it, how have they prospered so consistently by doing it?

Let me be clear, I'm fine with the parties working together on important issues where they have some common ideological ground or practical need. I am not so fine with the parties working together, whether intentionally or effectively, to strip Americans of their fundamental civil rights. If Republicans desire nothing but the destruction of the Left, by which they mean anyone who does not look or think like themselves, the Left has no reason to meet them halfway in that effort, just to be polite.

Like Joe Biden, I belong to a different generation and well remember bipartisanship abs when parties worked together and comprised Moses and put country above personal gain. I’m not even dignifying it with country over party. The GQP has become an association of monsters who use Jesus as a front to cover their sins and lure in the suckers.

The Dems cannot allow themselves to stoop that low. I do think they must become more ruthless.

I am significantly younger than Biden —and significantly older than you. Please forgive me if I remember further back than the last news cycle.

I do forgive you, but I also grew up in the world that Biden's generation of politics created, and doing so resulted in what I would consider healthy skepticism in my read of history, and what specific kinds of issues the parties were and were not willing to work together on, even before Reagan. Whose cause any party was willing to endorse, at any point you are viewing that history from. I don't think my perspective is irrelevant simply because of my youth. Neither of us were around for the Civil War, but that does not mean neither of us has a right to comment on its ongoing effects, or what it did or should have taught us about the viability of the American political paradigm.

I’m sorry—I did not mean to imply that I am so much wiser than you because I’m so much older. I always find your posts interesting and well informed.

I just had a similar conversation with one of my kids who could not understand how Biden could talk about Strom Thurmond with anything other than disgust. I brought up my father but the point was lost on him. My father was, in many ways a wonderful person —but his bigotry was very entrenched. At the point in his life when ge was beginning to soften, unfortunately there was the rise of Rush Limbaugh….Basically I cut my teeth going toe to toe with him about a lot of political issues of the day. As much as I detested many of his positions, I also knew he had very good core values —and some planet sized blind spots. I loved abs respected my dad—and disagreed with him
vehemently about a lot of things when expressed as political positions. But the core values of honesty, integrity, hard work, independence, helping neighbors and friends, keeping your word and thinking for yourself —and dozens of other values: we shared those even if we did not practice them the same way.

So I get that idea that we have to work with people whose position is equal to our own (senator to senator) and whose positions are diametrically opposed to our own, abhorrent even.

The other choice is civil war. That , I am convinced fed is what Putin and some others are trying to push and have been for 20 years.

 

[ZiprHead]

Are you suggesting the tyranny of the minority is preferable?

Ninja'd

 

[Tigers!]

It may well be that we won’t be able to keep our democracy.

Eh, wouldn’t letting the states - the peoples’ representatives - decide a contentious moral issue be democracy?

No, it wouldn't.

Letting the people - the actual people themselves - decide a contentious issue would be democracy.

And in a representative democracy we do that through our elected representatives.

That's the theory. In practice elected representatives do not always create laws that represent the will of the vast majority of the people they represent. This is happening right now in Texas and 12 other US states in regard to abortion.

Of course the majority is not always right
The tyranny of the 51% Tyranny of the majority

Are you suggesting the tyranny of the minority is preferable?

Certainly not. It is always a balancing act. The majority is not always right and neither is the minority always right. If we ever work out how to balancing all those competing and sometimes contradictory wishes it will be wonderful.