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Roe v Wade is on deck

For Gorsuch to change to match the consensus would be for Gorsuch to volunteer to become Clarence Thomas to Alito's Scalia. The guy doesn't strike me as wanting to become Clarence Thomas.
Then you are not the best reader of people, in my opinion. It didn't even take all that long; he wrote the dissent on Pavan v Smith exactly two years after Obergefell. Fundamentally, there is only one person Neil Gorsuch trusts to decide for certain what the text of the law or a previous ruling should mean to the common person, and that's Neil Gorsuch. That can be a good thing or bad depending on the situation. But, such men are easily swayed to a new "interpretation" when their interests or advantages change.
 
However, many on the left are very uncomfortable declaring their positions more represent the left. Their position is moderate. People on the left don't like to admit that they are on the left. I don't know why.
two main reasons:
1. being meek and apologetic is baked into the cultural identity of liberalism in the US because of jimmy carter - i don't quite get it, but historically this tracks.
liberals had spines and were aggressive about their values, and then jimmy carter was president, and then every liberal in the US basically just shit themselves to death and turned into a simpering cuck.
maybe it's something about having had a polite fatherly genteel liberal be president that everyone thought was 'bad' and it's just some 40 year old shame stain still on the national consciousness, who knows.

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.
 
Because "pro-abortion" isn't what people like me are for. I'm for a woman being able to make the right decision for herself. I'm either pro-choice or pro-legal access to abortion.
Do you think every workplace should be required to be unionized even if the employees vote against it? I can't believe you're against workers getting a say in the matter. But does this mean you'd doggedly insist that you aren't pro-union? Do you tell people, "No, no. Pro-union isn't what people like me are for. I'm pro-choice about unions. I'm pro-legal access to a union." Nobody says that. It's silly. You're pro-union. So why the heck can't we talk about abortion the same way we talk about unions -- the same way we talk about everything normal?

Nobody is advocating that pregnant women be forced to have abortions, and unions are decided by a majority of the workers. In many unionized companies, it is possible to opt out of being a member of the union, and that typically means that one gets the benefits of a union contract without paying for it or having to stop work when a strike is called. So you've managed to construct a whataboutism
Non sequitur. By that standard, any pointing out of inconsistency whatever counts as a whataboutism. What does any of that have to do with being mealy-mouthed about the thing you favor?

wrapped inside of a straw man.
Now you're just trumping up charges out of hostility. What the bejesus argument am I supposed to have misrepresented?

The term "pro-abortion" can be taken in two different ways--to advocate that an abortion be allowed and to advocate that an abortion take place. That's why those who advocate for it being allowed prefer the term "pro-choice" rather than "pro-abortion". The decision should be made by the pregnant woman, not someone else who favors or opposes the abortion.
:facepalm: Oh for the love of god. The decision of whether you marry a man should be made by you and him, not by somebody else who favors or opposes the marriage. The term "pro-gay-marriage" could be taken in two different ways by somebody with a sufficiently neurotic sense of how English works: to advocate that a gay marriage be allowed or to advocate that a gay marriage take place. And yet people keep saying they're "pro-gay-marriage", not "pro-gay-marriage-choice", and never worry that anyone will take them to be saying you and some other man should have to get married whether you want to or not.

... You're pro-union. So why the heck can't we talk about abortion the same way we talk about unions -- the same way we talk about everything normal?
I'll take "Another <expletive deleted>
Good argument.

Look, if you guys all want to keep handing rhetorical advantage to the other side by acting like we're so ashamed of what we're supporting we can't even bring ourselves to say its name, I can't stop you. But I'm not going to add to the problem, and I'm glad Steve isn't adding to the problem.
 
Look, if you guys all want to keep handing rhetorical advantage to the other side by acting like we're so ashamed of what we're supporting we can't even bring ourselves to say its name, I can't stop you. But I'm not going to add to the problem, and I'm glad Steve isn't adding to the problem.
i'll add to this pile: i am fervently pro-abortion. i am pro-forced-abortion. there is no such thing in this world as enough dead babies.

of course, even as someone with a general disdain for the human race and an opinion that as a species we spawn plenty and there's no shortage of humans being created, i'll concede that for consideration of civilization and what it's trying to accomplish there should be some limits.

i only support abortion until the 36th or 37th trimester, after that it starts to get a little dicey.
 
For Gorsuch to change to match the consensus would be for Gorsuch to volunteer to become Clarence Thomas to Alito's Scalia. The guy doesn't strike me as wanting to become Clarence Thomas.
Then you are not the best reader of people, in my opinion. It didn't even take all that long; he wrote the dissent on Pavan v Smith exactly two years after Obergefell.
:confused: So? Obergefell came before Gorsuch was on the court. In Pavan he wasn't reversing himself.

Fundamentally, there is only one person Neil Gorsuch trusts to decide for certain what the text of the law or a previous ruling should mean to the common person, and that's Neil Gorsuch. That can be a good thing or bad depending on the situation. But, such men are easily swayed to a new "interpretation" when their interests or advantages change.
I don't see how it would be in his interests to cede control of the court to Alito.
 
For Gorsuch to change to match the consensus would be for Gorsuch to volunteer to become Clarence Thomas to Alito's Scalia. The guy doesn't strike me as wanting to become Clarence Thomas.
Then you are not the best reader of people, in my opinion. It didn't even take all that long; he wrote the dissent on Pavan v Smith exactly two years after Obergefell.
:confused: So? Obergefell came before Gorsuch was on the court. In Pavan he wasn't reversing himself.

Fundamentally, there is only one person Neil Gorsuch trusts to decide for certain what the text of the law or a previous ruling should mean to the common person, and that's Neil Gorsuch. That can be a good thing or bad depending on the situation. But, such men are easily swayed to a new "interpretation" when their interests or advantages change.
I don't see how it would be in his interests to cede control of the court to Alito.
They already did in allowing the Texas law to go into effect.
 
Not just the right. "Moderates" on the left will attack anyone on their own team who they see as socialist, every bit as readily. The Democrat party has as its main platform "let's find a way to work with the Republicans", which is funny, because the Republicans don't give a shit, do not appreciate or respond to conciliatory gestures in any way. They never have. They have no plans to. This "news" of the week is not news, the Court is affirming exactly what the right wing has been publically, openly, non-secretly promising its base for the past 48 years of American politics. We're supposed to act surprised that they really meant it; I refuse. They obviously did. They never made any other claim than that they would stuff the Court with their people and "reinterpret" the Constitution to support their theocratic views. And did Democrats take any step, make any motion, to enshrine reproductive rights as actual law before it was too late? Of course they didn't. Their job isn't to protect American lives or rights, but to avoid offending the grindhouse of fascism no matter the human cost of doing so.

They are taking down Roe v Wade this week. They will go for Obergefell v Hodges during the next session, after their party has survived the midterms with roughly similar or slightly improved numbers in the houses of Congress. Then they'll try for Bostock and Lawrence v Texas, either then or the following year. They will do this because they can. Because they are justifiably certain that no one will stand in their way. If the federal government were solely in charge, I would lose the right to marry my partner, then to be employed while with him, then to have sex with him in my own house. Because only the "radical fringe" will attempt any substantive action to prevent them from doing so, and they don't have the numbers to do anything about this and most of them are in "safe states" anyway, so what do they care? Until it is too late, of course. Yes, state government will protect us for a while, but without federal support its power is limited and temporary. "Too late" will come, eventually.

None of this is a surprise. They are using the same tactics and strategies they have been using for more than a century and a half. You know socialism was the actual charge that sent 250,000 Romani people to grisly deaths, right? It was baseless, but they were accused of communism, and that became the legal basis for their extermination by the state. Actual socialism would have to work damn hard to be anywhere near as socially deleterious as anti-Communist paranoia has proven to be in the West. Christopher and His Kind should be required reading for every tepid Liberal. Half-hearted commitment to common decency means nothing, accomplishes nothing, if the people fighting you don't care about propiety or the rules. If intentional offense is their playbook, their public strategy, their recruitment technique. Screeching at them to be more polite, like the Left is polite to them, will do nothing. "When they go low, we go high". And that's how they win every time. It's cheating, but it isn't a secret.

People need to fucking wake up. But that would make them Woke and we can't have that. What would Father say? So they can but they won't.
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.

To be honest and fair, we should be able to reach across the aisle and with those we disagree with to find common ground. But that’s no longer where the money is. Listening today to NPR about Putin running Russia like the mob, there are far too many similarities between Putin and Trump and unfortunately, the entire GQP is embracing the money stream. It’s not even about legitimate political differences—it’s all about the money and the power and grabbing as much as possible. Witness the Correspondent’s Dinner when Trevor Noah correctly pointed out all the members of the GOP who had to provide proof of vaccination to attend but there they were—in the audience, despite their vehement opposition to vaccination and love of misinformation that they peddle to the masses.

It’s disgusting but even more horrifying and frightening.

It may well be that we won’t be able to keep our democracy.
 
...
Nobody is advocating that pregnant women be forced to have abortions, and unions are decided by a majority of the workers. In many unionized companies, it is possible to opt out of being a member of the union, and that typically means that one gets the benefits of a union contract without paying for it or having to stop work when a strike is called. So you've managed to construct a whataboutism
Non sequitur. By that standard, any pointing out of inconsistency whatever counts as a whataboutism. What does any of that have to do with being mealy-mouthed about the thing you favor?

Whataboutism arguments are usually about hypocrisy, which is a simple ad hominem (genetic) fallacy. Why drag unionism into a discussion of abortion? As analogies go, this one was pretty bad.

wrapped inside of a straw man.
Now you're just trumping up charges out of hostility. What the bejesus argument am I supposed to have misrepresented?

You were the one charging Jimmy of an inconsistency regarding pro-unionism, which you inserted into the discussion. And I was addressing your argument, not you personally.

The term "pro-abortion" can be taken in two different ways--to advocate that an abortion be allowed and to advocate that an abortion take place. That's why those who advocate for it being allowed prefer the term "pro-choice" rather than "pro-abortion". The decision should be made by the pregnant woman, not someone else who favors or opposes the abortion.
:facepalm: Oh for the love of god. The decision of whether you marry a man should be made by you and him, not by somebody else who favors or opposes the marriage. The term "pro-gay-marriage" could be taken in two different ways by somebody with a sufficiently neurotic sense of how English works: to advocate that a gay marriage be allowed or to advocate that a gay marriage take place. And yet people keep saying they're "pro-gay-marriage", not "pro-gay-marriage-choice", and never worry that anyone will take them to be saying you and some other man should have to get married whether you want to or not.

I think that Jimmy has the question on shitty analogies. Now it's about gay marriage. :rolleyes:
 
:facepalm: The guy advocated a maximum wage. Of course he's a radical far leftist. Just one who is very, very capable of compromise. If he were running in a different country's upcoming election he would conform his policy recommendations to that country's Overton window instead of to the U.S.'s.
Why would Sanders be a radical far leftist in the US, but conform his policy recommendations to a different country's Overton window if he were running in its upcoming election?
The same reason he conforms his policy recommendations to the U.S.'s Overton window when he's running in a U.S. election: because he wants to win. He'd rather get some of his wish-list enacted than none of it. This isn't rocket science.
So he is a radical far leftist in the US, but would conform his policy recommendations to a different country's Overton window? You are confused about stuff that is not even rocket science.
You evidently think those characteristics contradict each other. How do they contradict each other?
When you conform your policies to a different country's Overton window, presumably meaning you shift your policies in a rightward direction, you are no longer a radical far leftist.
Imagine you were shipped off by the CCP to the University of Chicago to learn how to be an economist, and you came home a hard-core free-market capitalist...
I'd no longer be a radical far leftist.
...and they gave you an economist job in some bureaucracy, while Mao was still alive. Would you talk to the people around you about how they needed to abolish communism and open a stock market and privatize inefficient factories and let just anybody hire employees? Or would you talk to them about how they could increase the food supply if they let peasants work fewer hours on the collective farm and more hours on their private plots?
I'd no longer be a radical far leftist because I am advocating capitalist policy now.
 
What's wrong with pro-abortion? I'm pro-abortion. Abortion isn't wrong and we need to stop talking as though we're embarrassed about it and it's something to be ashamed of. The hell with that. Pro-abortion, pro-abortion, pro-abortion.
Because "pro-abortion" isn't what people like me are for. I'm for a woman being able to make the right decision for herself. I'm either pro-choice or pro-legal access to abortion.
Do you think every workplace should be required to be unionized even if the employees vote against it? I can't believe you're against workers getting a say in the matter. But does this mean you'd doggedly insist that you aren't pro-union? Do you tell people, "No, no. Pro-union isn't what people like me are for. I'm pro-choice about unions. I'm pro-legal access to a union." Nobody says that. It's silly. You're pro-union. So why the heck can't we talk about abortion the same way we talk about unions -- the same way we talk about everything normal?
Because most pro-choice people are anti-abortion.

I am firmly pro-union; I think that the more workers are union members, the better.

I am also firmly anti-abortion; I think that the fewer abortions that occur, the better.

But I am firmly pro-choice; I do not believe that any woman who wants or needs an abortion should be faced with legal obstacles to obtaining one.

In my ideal dream world, every person would have a thorough and accurate understanding of the ways in which pregnancies occur, and the ways in which they can be avioded; and they would have easy access to their preferred method of contraception, so that pregnancies are almost never accidental. Rape would cease to exist, and almost nobody would ever have an abortion, because almost nobody would ever need one.

Even under the most benevolent and supportive conditions, where women know that their families, friends, medical professionals, and the wider society at large do not think badly of them for their choice, and where the procedures themselves are as comfortable, relaxed, and unthreatening as possible, abortion is a traumatic experience. So in an ideal world it should be very uncommon - perhaps in an ideal world, nonexistent.

But nevertheless, unless and until unexpected and unwanted pregnancies are a thing of the past, we have a moral duty to make access to abortion as easy and as comfortable as possible for those who want or need it.

I am anti-house fire too; But I think that making access to firefighters as difficult as possible, in an attempt to encourage people to be more responsible and not have as many house fires, would be batshit insane.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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 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.
 
However, many on the left are very uncomfortable declaring their positions more represent the left. Their position is moderate. People on the left don't like to admit that they are on the left. I don't know why.
two main reasons:
1. being meek and apologetic is baked into the cultural identity of liberalism in the US because of jimmy carter - i don't quite get it, but historically this tracks.
liberals had spines and were aggressive about their values, and then jimmy carter was president, and then every liberal in the US basically just shit themselves to death and turned into a simpering cuck.
maybe it's something about having had a polite fatherly genteel liberal be president that everyone thought was 'bad' and it's just some 40 year old shame stain still on the national consciousness, who knows.
 Cyclical theory (United States history)
and
Cyclic theories of history - Liberapedia

According to Arthurs Schlesinger Sr. and Jr. the US oscillates between liberal and conservative periods, between public-purpose and private-interest periods, between concern with human rights and property rights, between concern with the wrongs of the many and the rights of the few, and between increasing democracy and containing democracy.

The periods:

LIB Revolution Era, CON Federalist, LIB Jeffersonian Era, CON Era of Good Feelings, LIB Jacksonian Era, CON Slaveowner Dominance, LIB Civil-War Era, CON Gilded Age, LIB Progressive Era, CON Roaring Twenties, LIB New Deal Era, CON Fifties Era, LIB Sixties Era, CON Reagan Era / Gilded Age II (we are still in it)

Liberal periods end as a result of society-scale activism burnout - it takes a lot of effort to sustain the amounts of activism that are necessary for major reforms.

Conservative periods end as a result of unsolved problems that provoke the activism needed to solve them. Problems that society's elites do very little about, either because they don't think that they could, or else that they don't want to, or even that they don't think that those problems are real problems. Slave-plantation owners didn't consider slavery a real problem, for instance.
 
Look, if you guys all want to keep handing rhetorical advantage to the other side by acting like we're so ashamed of what we're supporting we can't even bring ourselves to say its name, I can't stop you. But I'm not going to add to the problem, and I'm glad Steve isn't adding to the problem.
i'll add to this pile: i am fervently pro-abortion. i am pro-forced-abortion. there is no such thing in this world as enough dead babies.

of course, even as someone with a general disdain for the human race and an opinion that as a species we spawn plenty and there's no shortage of humans being created, i'll concede that for consideration of civilization and what it's trying to accomplish there should be some limits.

i only support abortion until the 36th or 37th trimester, after that it starts to get a little dicey.
I think I could be convinced to support abortion up until.....how old is trump? :D
 
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