ViperMan
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Posts posted by ViperMan
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Welcome @Random Guy. Might want to collapse some of these posts as it will likely generate a more coherent response.
First and foremost, money is a medium. That is, it is anything that will mediate a transaction between parties. Money is what money does.
11 hours ago, Random Guy said:Alluded to above, the theory most people have been taught about money is false, and after a 40 year fight the central banks are acknowledging this fact. This means that the arguments and assertions most people make are often, unknowingly, incorrect.
You posted a lot of references. Likely none of which (honestly) will be viewed or fully read by the crowd writ large. What is "the theory" that you purport is false? It would help us all if you would just clearly state it and then people can fire away.
11 hours ago, Random Guy said:Let's start by covering some useful facts: most large nation states don't have reserve requirements.
I'm certain this is true from a technical vantage, but any nation that issues currency most certainly has real limits on how much currency can be initiated. Just ask Zimbabwe. "89.7 sextillion percent year-on year..." The United States occupies a highly privileged position because we happen to be the world's current reserve currency, emphasis on current. From the book Exorbitant Privilege:
Quote"...this fact creates an uneasy tension with the peculiar dominance of the dollar.
This dominance is something from which we Americans derive considerable benefit. An American tourist in New Delhi who can pay his cab driver in dollars is spared the inconvenience of having to change money at his hotel."...
"Similarly, a Swiss bank accepting deposits in francs but making foreign loans in dollars, since that’s what its customers want, has to worry about the risk to its profits if the exchange rate moves.That risk can be managed, but doing so is an added cost of business. Our Swiss bank can protect itself by buying a forward contract that converts the receipts on its dollar loan into francs when the loan matures, at a rate agreed when the loan is made. But that additional transaction has an additional cost. American banks that make foreign loans in dollars as well as taking deposits in dollars are spared the expense of having to hedge their foreign currency positions in this way."
Even more critical:
Quote"A more controversial benefit of the dollar’s international-currency status is the real resources that other countries provide the United States in order to obtain our dollars. It costs only a few cents for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to produce a $100 bill, but other countries have to pony up $100 of actual goods and services in order to obtain one. (That difference between what it costs the government to print the note and a foreigner to procure it is known as “seignorage” after the right of the medieval lord, or seigneur, to coin money and keep for himself some of the precious metal from which it was made.) About $500 billion of U.S. currency circulates outside the United States, for which foreigners have had to provide the United States with $500 billion of actual goods and services.
Even more important is that foreign firms and banks hold not just U.S. currency but bills and bonds that are convenient for international transactions and at the same time have the attraction of bearing interest. Foreign central banks hold close to $5 trillion of the bonds of the U.S. treasury and quasi-governmental agencies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They add to them year after year.
And insofar as foreign banks and firms value the convenience of dollar securities, they are willing to pay more to obtain them. Equivalently, the interest rate they require to hold them is less. This effect is substantial: the interest that the United States must pay on its foreign liabilities is two to three percentage points less than the rate of return on its foreign investments. The U.S. can run an external deficit in the amount of this difference, importing more than it exports and consuming more than it produces year after year without becoming more indebted to the rest of the world. Or it can scoop up foreign companies in that amount as the result of the dollar’s singular status as the world’s currency.
This has long been a sore point for foreigners, who see themselves as supporting American living standards and subsidizing American multinationals through the operation of this asymmetric financial system. Charles de Gaulle made the issue a cause célèbre in a series of presidential press conferences in the 1960s. His finance minister, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, referred to it as America’s “exorbitant privilege.”
We get to click 'print' and get an equivalent amount of goods and services. This is enormously important to our status in the world. No one else gets to do that. Consider the implications of that and you'll begin to see the liability we are building in terms of our real contribution to the world, and support we can provide for ourselves, if that status is lost.
4 hours ago, Prozac said:Many people in our country are convinced that the government must act like an individual and “balance its checkbook”. I’m no economist, but I have to ask: why? Sovereign nations do not operate on the life cycle of one human being. You and I enter the workforce, work for thirty to fifty years, retire, and die. Our financial considerations are completely different than those of an entire nation which strives to live on in perpetuity.
If you are interested in the answer, I recommend the book The Coming Generational Storm. It gets to the core of your question, "why does the government need to balance its checkbook like an individual?" In short, the answer is that on the scale of your concern, an individual is like a generation. The concept of inter-generational accounting is introduced to help capture and illuminate those concerns. Along the way, I also learned quite a bit about concepts such as imputed income, along with other interesting facts. Such as how in different circumstances, a lesser-earning spouse is actually paying a 100% marginal tax rate on their earnings due to their rights spouses have to each other's social security benefits. Stuff few people know, but if they did, there would be plenty who would be justified in leaving the workforce altogether.
An important topic, to be sure.
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1 hour ago, HU&W said:
PETER DOOCY: So if it’s pausing because you think the board was mischaracterized, then the disinformation board is being shut down because of disinformation?
Absolute fire 🤣
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2 hours ago, Banzai said:
I fundamentally truly believe that killing a sperm, egg, or using an IUD or birth control to create a prohibitive environment that won’t allow a zygote to adhere to the uterine wall to all be the same outcome as stopping a zygote a few weeks to months later. I do not see why you get to make an arbitrary point that is way too early in the pregnancy the moment life begins (and therefore, the moment you gain control over women’s bodies).
Fair enough. That seems both extreme and clownish, but fair enough. Either way, I'm not the one who is drawing an arbitrary line, you are. I fully accept "early" "elective" abortion because I realize life is messy and people eff up and want an "undo" button. I think that's pretty fucking ugly, but I accept it. That is a pro-"choice" and pro-"woman" position - whatever the hell that means. Hence, I am not asserting control over women's bodies at the moment of conception, though that also seems to be a favored fallback of the left.
Anyway, there are two distinct arguments being made here. The first is when a unique human life exists - that happens at conception, and is scientifically unambiguous. The second, is a value-based argument about when a "human life" exists. You're conflating the scientific argument with the political one. And likening cancer to a human really is a pretty weak tangent. It sounds like something a middling 8th grader would write in a C- position essay, but I digress.
Here is your arbitrary line.
2 hours ago, Banzai said:I will say that my personal cutoff is around 20 weeks when I consider life to exist and the gradient to shift where abortion should not be allowed.
Upon what basis are you considering these (15w vs 20w / 20w vs 15w) qualitatively different? I would like to hear it articulated. Can you even tell which is which? Personally, I can't draw a scientific distinction, and neither can anyone else, frankly. As one steps backwards through this continuum towards conception, it's not possible to draw a clean line until you get all the way back to the discrete event itself. That is all scientific. It has nothing at all to do with your value-based judgements.
On the value side of the argument, personally I would have a hard time hearing an argument as to why these fetuses should be valued differently, but that is at least the proper arena for the argument, and people are free to make value-based judgements and advocate for them within those boundaries. They are not free to make scientific distinctions.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it seems to me that people who are pro-abortion really NEED there to be some sort of scientific distinction present in order to be able to morally justify their position. That's why I think there is so much focus on the use of the term fetus, zygote, the idea of consciousness, the ridiculous red herring of cancer having it's own DNA, etc. As long as you can name it something different, it is something different, right? That which we call a rose...
2 hours ago, Banzai said:Finally, I leave you with this. You posit that a human exists at sperm+egg. Let’s go down the developmental path, I’m happy to do it. Is a sperm+egg human if it doesn’t have eyeballs? Is a sperm+egg human if it doesn’t have a functional brain? Is a sperm+egg human if it doesn’t have lungs? Is a sperm+egg human if it’s in your wife’s uterus, but she has an iud (or some forms of birth control) that makes it impossible for the zygote to adhere to her uterine wall?
The impossibility of drawing a clear scientific difference between a 15-week-old fetus, 9-week-old fetus, and a 20-week-old fetus does not give you the argument, and it's really not even a point. You know as well as I do that having eyeballs or not having eyeballs isn't what endows you with your humanity. See the above.
2 hours ago, Banzai said:You believe there should be almost none for a woman (or a man, to be fair, as we have a say in a relationship) even when potential to develop hasn’t been proven. I believe individuals should be able to make financial, emotional, non-emotional, career, life, and pragmatic future decisions in their best interest if it deals with their body much longer than you.
I don't believe any of that, so let me state it clearly for you:
- I think elective abortion on demand up to the moment of birth, which is what constitutes abortion rights activists' and the "Left's" position (along with a large majority of democrats) in this country, is an unacceptable moral problem and it needs to be resisted and ultimately outlawed.
- Roe v Wade was wrongly decided and needs to be overturned, if for no other reason than to re-establish the supreme court's legal credibility.
- The event called "birth" holds no special status in determining whether or not a human being is present. A "human" is present at some point between conception and birth.
- I am fine with medical "abortions" in all circumstances wherein the mother's life is at stake. That said, the term abortion is misused in these cases and using the word only muddles the water. It's the left intentionally overloading a term in order to get the camel's nose into the tent.
- A fundamental part of the confusion surrounding this issue boils down to word games being played by the pro-abortion side.
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2 hours ago, Banzai said:
What is life exactly? Do you think sperm is alive? It moves on its own, and it can die if not kept in the right conditions. It has a life span. We develop spermicide to kill it. To die, mustn’t it have some degree of life? It also has genetic makeup and dna of its creator. You’ll see your line is actually arbitrary, even if you wanna call people who disagree with you dumb asses.
Hey Socrates.
No one is confused about what life is or if sperm are alive - it's not arbitrary. A sperm is not a human. An egg is not a human. Both are living. Sexually dimorphic species genetic material needs to come together in order to form a unique organism. The line of what constitutes a human is clear and is completely and totally unambiguous. The fact that a zygote doesn't have full human form at all stages of development is not a point in your column of the argument, though it is the fundamental tenet of what all pro-abortion advocates rest their argument upon. The argument is about when elective abortion should be allowed and when it should be disallowed. That's where the disagreement lies. Everything else is an attempt to muddle the other sides' argument.
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1 hour ago, Random Guy said:
Make sense?
No. Framing something like this from such a one-sided perspective (i.e. money is debt) doesn't illuminate very much. You may as well re-write your whole post from the perspective that money is credit - it would be as valid and would make about the same amount of sense.
1 hour ago, Random Guy said:Ultimately, this isn't the thread for this discussion, but... I'll add something here briefly hopefully to redirect energy toward the topic.
Yeah, a post like this in the Russia/Ukraine discussion board is gyro-tumbling, but is seems you knew that??? Make a new thread if you want to discuss monetary theory.
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4 hours ago, ClearedHot said:
Biden's new Ministry of Truth Czar says "Verified" people like her should be able to edit other users tweets. She gets to decided what the truth is...
I know I know...trust the government, chew your cud citizen, all is well.
UFB
LOL the broads wearing masks on a zoom call.🤣
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36 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:
No way. You won't get Gorsuch (who added trans you the civil rights act) or Kavanaugh (who was a Kennedy disciple) to go for that. Buy I'll happily take the bet. I want tequila though 😂🤣
So, "manchester"? Or not?
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Update: No new opinions are circulating within the Supreme Court.
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I've seen so many people here make the claim that the right is attempting to outlaw all abortion - in this thread, I've yet to see anyone make that argument, though there have been plenty of straw men who have had the absolute shit beat out of them. In fact, most folks who come from the right seem to be saying that there are limited circumstances under which they agree abortion should be legal, so I really don't see the hyper focus on this extreme case (i.e. IUDs = abortion = 8-mos-pregnant abortion) as anything but an attempt to muddy the water, create overlap where there is none, and avoid the conversation.
Perhaps it would be best (for the country) if the conversation would distinguish between "medical" abortions and "elective" abortions. Most of us here (I think) tend to agree on what would be considered "medical" abortions. Really, circumstances make them both categorically and morally different - in the same way killing someone in combat is morally different from murder - and this is the point that I think gets lost in all the back and forth. On the left, abortion is sometimes a difficult "choice" - which it certainly is in cases of rape, incest, last night's one night stand, etc. On the right, a normal pregnancy at 8 months, which somehow becomes inconvenient, is most certainly not a choice. Is either of those positions a misrepresentation? There is a qualitative difference between a single celled human and one which has taken on a human form, heart beat, nervous system, has begun dreaming, etc. All fair people recognize this, even if they can't provide a mathematical proof. Obviously life is a continuum, and it is difficult (probably impossible) to draw clean lines anywhere.
The democrats currently in office support elective abortion, in all cases, up to birth. It is their platform. That's a moral problem in our country, and also happens to be wholly unrelated to the state of "tax payer funded paid maternity leave" for mothers. That's where the thrust of the opposition lies - not on disallowing plan B, but on stopping the governor of VA along with other radical organizations who have co-opted previously laudable movements from enacting radical policy positions in order to assert status or maintain grasp of expired political power.
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For those of you who care to hear an analysis of the actual court case that led to our current state, as well as an unpacking of the draft decision, this quick podcast does a good job covering some decent ground quickly and to the point. The two gentlemen are highly regarded law professors. It's focus is on the legal case in and of itself - it generally steers clear of the political issues that surround the case. I even learned some history I didn't know before. It's from a conservative bent, so be forewarned.
https://www.hoover.org/research/law-talk-leak-heard-round-world
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3 hours ago, jazzdude said:
There's a long standing supreme court precedent that abortion is legal...
Yep, I'm tracking the conversation, thanks.
The point is that there are other court cases that govern rights regarding birth control et al, so the argument that all these other derivative rights from the 14th amendment (i.e. non-enumerated rights) will instantly disappear because Roe v Wade is overturned is a void argument. It's pearl clutching.
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22 minutes ago, Prozac said:
Exactly. The rabbit hole is open. Part of the court’s rationale is that there is no specific right to abortion in the constitution. Well, there is no specific right to birth control either. No one should be the least bit surprised when conservative states start banning things like IUDs. And it doesn’t necessarily stop there. There are any number of rights that we currently enjoy that are not specifically enumerated in the constitution. Where does it say you have a right to interstate travel for instance? This ruling and the logic behind it has much further reaching implications than just abortion & has the potential to put many of the rights we enjoy at risk.
This is simply not factual.
Birth control has a long history of legality in the country prior to 1973 - it has nothing at all to do with Roe v. Wade. There is long-standing supreme court precedent ruling that birth control can't be restricted. The FDA has had approved birth control pills since 1960.
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33 minutes ago, Prozac said:
I think some of you are missing the forest through the trees. The question being posed here is: If we are going to argue that a fetus is a human, then why don't all laws/norms then apply to that human? The example given makes sense. If an infant dies in his or her parent's care, it will generally be investigated as to whether the parents were neglectful. If a miscarriage takes place, and we define the fetus as human, why don't we apply the same rules? Shouldn't the mother, at the very least, be forced to to take a blood alcohol test? If she is positive, should she be then charged with murder?
Abortion is currently the law of the land, and you're confused as to why laws protecting human beings don't apply to the unborn...who are currently allowed to be aborted??? You see the problem with that argument, right? 🤔
The example makes no sense. Pooter is equating a natural death with an intentional one. They are categorically different.
If your argument is that *if* Roe is overturned, *then* those things will need to happen for consistencies sake, then that is a different argument, but I've yet to hear that articulated.
6 minutes ago, Pooter said:I'm absolutely arguing in good faith. Im asking if we have considered the full ramifications of considering a 1 week zygote a full human life. Of course I agree miscarriages are usually natural and a part of life, and that they aren't intentional like abortions are.
But if you say it's legally a full blown human, you don't just get to miscarry, say "oh well," and try again next time. A human being just lost their life so we need to figure out what happened and if there was negligence involved. Just like what would happen if you or I died.
That's the problem with putting assertions like "life begins at conception" into law. It takes you to weird places really quickly. It's a nice thing to say to claim moral high ground and use to control people, but there is a fuck ton of baggage that comes along with that belief that hasn't been addressed at all.
It also doesn't hold water when conservatives say "why are liberals so mad, repealing roe just gives the decision back to the states?" If you legit believe any abortion is murder, you shouldn't be okay with potentially legalized murder on a state by state basis.
Ok, you're arguing in good faith, but you felt the need to draft a false equivalency between abortion and miscarriage??? Yeah, I'm confused. If that's your point, I just don't understand the need to do that. But whatever. Either way, it's a weak argument. Not all deaths are investigated as homicide. Even the majority of deaths are not investigated as homicide. And don't you think that if your concern became a real problem, our legislators could simply enact a law that says the presumption is that miscarriages are resultant from natural causes? It's just not the big issue you're making it out to be.
Finally, yes, you're right about the state-by-state murder issue. The "state's issue" trope is inconsistent. Abortion will need to be regulated at the federal level.
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4 hours ago, Pooter said:
For example: it begs the question, why aren't pro lifers also laser focused on miscarriages (which are nearly as prevalent as abortions?) By your own logic that's a fully fledged human being that lost their life, and a miscarriage should warrant an autopsy at least and possible criminal investigation if there was suspected negligence. If we could be saving potentially millions of lives per year, you'd expect them to be dumping money into pre-natal research, paid maternity leave, and free pre-natal healthcare for everyone. But none of that is happening.
I'm having a hard time determining if you're arguing in good faith. Are you serious? Are you honestly confused about the qualitative differences between an abortion and a miscarriage? One is a natural event that will occur from time to time no matter what humanity does. The other requires an intentional intervention by an individual. How are you confused about this or how/why are you equating these two categorically different things?
17 minutes ago, Pooter said:I'm simply asking for some logical consistency. If a zygote is a fully fledged human, then abortion is clearly murder and a miscarriage is at the very least a horrible tragedy and at most manslaughter or murder as well. There are also very easy bipartisan ways to improve pre-natal care to make concrete improvements in miscarriage rates. Stopping both abortions and miscarriages should be important if you truly believe they are a full human life. But If the only child deaths you're concerned about are the ones that let you tell the dirty liberal sexual deviants what to do, maybe you're not actually concerned about child deaths.
Why they're not focused on it is the same reason anti-death penalty folks are not trying to stop all death. "Oh, you're anti-death penalty? Then why aren't you out there trying to develop technology that will extend life indefinitely. How 'bout some consistency bruh."
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11 hours ago, Demonrat said:
It's an emotional argument meant to describe the absurdity behind calling a fertilized egg a person using a whole-of-society point-of-view beyond religion and science. It accounts for laws and norms that help prevent radical Y'all Qaeda/Q-anon/Handmaid's Tale/Authoritarian/Communist/Far-Left Antifa beliefs that aren't compatible with a modern day America rooted in what's in the Constitution. If a zygote, fetus, or whatever inside the womb is a person, then shouldn't they be afforded ALL of the rights a human being gets according to the law? Why are we picking and choosing what rights a human being fetus gets and doesn't get? For your arguments to work, it either has to be all or nothing. It makes NO logical sense to say "a zygote is a human being," but then not afford it EVERY right a human being has.
Just like Bible Thumpers cherry pick the Bible to fit their arguments, pro-life individuals want to cherry pick the rights of what what they call a human being. "Yeah, that fetus is a human being according to science and religion, but it doesn't get afforded all the rights associated with being a human because it's a fetus. How about we call a fetus 3/5ths of a human?" That argument makes zero sense. Either the fetus is a human being and has full protection of the law, or the fetus is not a human being and has no protection of the law. In the second case, the mother is 100% in control of her body and is the entity that has the protection of the law.
50 minutes ago, Demonrat said:You didn’t address my next post that addressed the “wall of irrelevant text”, linking the emotional argument with a logical argument. You cannot call a zygote a human being and not afford it every right a human being has in the eyes of the law. It makes no sense.
Well excuse me! Your argument would be easier to parse if you hadn't attempted to smuggle your point through via a screen play. It was hard to pick through all the actual, literal irrelevant detail in order to figure out what you were communicating.
I think your second post boils down to "a zygote needs to be either a full human being or nothing, in the eyes of the law., lest we be inconsistent." Is that basically right? If so, I think you're hitting on the crux of the issue for most people. I get the "absurdity" of calling a zygote a "human being," I really do. That said, if the political parties in this country make me pick between two extremes and either call a zygote a human being or a 9-mo old baby still in the womb a "clump of cells" or a a "parasite" or a "choice," I'm going with option A, because even though it's "absurd," it's less absurd than all the rest.
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6 hours ago, Demonrat said:
Ok, let's take the scientific viewpoint that is "clear and unequivocal" and see how that plays out in society. A human being is created at fertilization because it creates human specific tissues, DNA, and whatever else. 6 weeks later my one night stand girl shows me the human being creation test and it says "You have a human being in there according to science!" We are both freaking out because once you have a positive human being creation test you have to go to the doctor within 24 hours to confirm the presence of a new human being.
We go to the doctor and he confirms the brand new human because of the scientific definition. At this point we fill out all of the paperwork, name the 6-week old human (age now starts at conception), and make sure we get a social security card. We aren't married, so the human being creation certificate lists me and the mother as unwed. I am now on the hook for child support if I fail to perform my fatherly duties. If the mother does anything to endanger the new human being while he/she is in the womb, she may face murder charges and I may face criminal charges as well. The mother has insurance, but it doesn't fully cover human creation so we are on the hook for thousands of dollars of fees. Too bad the government doesn't provide some form of healthcare even though they require every woman to birth their newly created human beings. Also, once the human being makes it appearance everybody else doesn't give two s about that baby.
We go home after the doctor's appointment and we are both terrified. We don't want to do anything that could affect the new 6-week old human being in the womb. Some weeks go by and the stress of the situation got to the mother. She ended up drinking alcohol with the human being inside. As the father it is my duty to report the woman to human being protective services. I do so, and she is summarily arrested for endangering the life of a human being. She ends up being placed in a facility for unfit mothers, where she is watched 24/7 due to having a human being in her womb. The government has decided the girl's family and father will foot the entire cost of being in this facility because of their responsibility toward the new human being.
If you haven't caught on by now, using the scientific definition is still absolute buffoonery. The "scientific definition argument" is just another red herring argument that doesn't take the whole situation into account. Calling a zygote a human being in the eyes of the law due to the scientific definition is asinine and has negative societal implications way beyond abortion. Women will bear a disproportionate amount of responsibility for the life of this "human being," and their personal freedoms will be severely limited while pregnant. That doesn't sound very American to me, and the enforcers have to be the government. I'm sure @ViperMan wants more government intervention. That's probably his dream come true.
Dude, you just shat out a wall of irrelevant text. Your argument boils down to this: because some bad things might happen in the future to a child, that is my post hoc justification for allowing abortion in order to prevent a bunch of bad things from taking place. In short, your argument is specious, hypothetical, post hoc bull shit.
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@Pooter I wasn't originally responding to you. I was responding to @ClearedHot when he referenced "bible bangers" and "a very draconian ruling based on religion." The other post was in response to @Demonrat who made the same argument.
The bottom line point I was making is that it is a cop out from the left to argue that because a large group of people make a religious argument, the conclusion they reach is false. It's a model example of arguing from false premises. In the form of the argument they made, it's of course valid, but they choose to ignore the actual scientific reality that it is an independent life inside the woman.
The plain matter of fact is that the conclusion they reach is true, but it's easier to dismiss religious arguments than scientific ones.
You are cool with calling it a "woman's choice." To a point, so am I, but only to a point. At some point, it's no longer her choice. At some point, she's bought that merge. But hey, that's life in the city. What I think the world needs to get beyond is this framing that the government is somehow forcing a woman to have a child. That's also a false frame. Nature is forcing her to have the child. The government provides some (limited) outs, but they need to be acted upon early and/or in limited circumstances.
I agree that there is unfair portrayal on both sides as to what the other side believes, but there is no scientific gray area as to when life begins - it's absolutely clear and unequivocal - and that's not a religious viewpoint, it's a scientific one. What constitutes "life" from a philosophical viewpoint, and when it has "value" is a different question where there is gray area. But in that separate context "life", the word, has a different meaning.
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6 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:
Dude, I was making a point. Smarter people than me still have to decide the legality which as well all know often differs from the science. I've heard arguments all over the place from conception to viability to birth. As I mentioned I am only 51% in favor of abortion, I think it is abhorrent, truly HORRIBLE, but I can't make the mental leap to telling a woman what to do with her body. I am religious...I have TWO aunts that are nuns, but I certainly don't agree with everything under the banner and I remove myself from secular arguments.
I 100% agree that at some point there is a human there...100%. I do not support late-term abortion or what the wackos believe like up until birth.
When did I compare miscarriage or a pregnant woman being murdered? I think you have crossed streams/posts (standing by apology.)
It is a messy issue and the Va governor belief is again, absurd.
Again, I 100% agree with you on the timeline and plan B pill. My belief is not perfect or without confliction, but somewhere early on, there is room for a woman to decide what she does with her own body.
Ok, fair enough. Please disregard much of my most recent post then.
Yeah, I'm not very religious, but I see the pro-choice side of this argument paint the other side as religious fanatics and it confines the argument to a place where it frankly doesn't belong.
And yeah, I do respond to multiple posts at once. I was responding to @Demonrat in there somewhere. Anyway
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14 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:
Not a dodge at all and brother and thanks, you just proved my point. When life begins has NOT been settled, certainly not in the court, but you automatically default to it is life and it is aborted out of convenience because that is YOUR moral belief. The only court settled opinion (Stare Decisis), on Abortion was Roe V Wade.
It's a dodge because the left side of this argument paints any pro-lifer as a religious fanatic or zealot (which you did) precisely so they can dismiss religion (which is easy / justified) without having to deal with hard science that shows that there is an independent life inside a pregnant woman. That was the structure of your argument from a couple posts ago. You painted the other side as religious and then you closed the book without ever having to grapple with something scientific. Go re-read your post.
And it is absolutely settled scientifically. It's not settled by our courts because we live in a messy and self-interested society. I agree that it is a messy issue and that there is probably wiggle room on the early side for things like abortion to take place. That said, there is clearly a human at 7, 8, and 9 months of pregnancy. I'm trying to find time to read the whole draft decision, but the first 6-7 pages make some pretty good arguments. And you can't talk about abortion without implicitly talking about life. Here's some words for you:
Abortion (noun) - "the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy."
Pregnant (adjective) - "(of a woman or female animal) having a child or young developing in the uterus."
Finally, to your point about Roe, I don't think you really care what the courts say as far as your argument is concerned, and neither does anyone else on the left. It's an appeal to authority - nothing more. How do I know this? Because they're not all of a sudden going to go away when/if the court comes down with this decision...
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12 hours ago, Demonrat said:
"Assault on the Constitution and the American ideas of freedom and liberty?" Since when did forcing conservative Christian values on the populace as a whole in a nation with freedom of religion count as "the American ideas of freedom of liberty?" If anything, forcing religious ethical and moral opinions on the entire nation is an assault on the Constitution and the American ideas of freedom and liberty.
Christians then take the Bible and basically any passage and warp it with twisted logic to support their claims that the Bible sees life as starting in the womb. You can basically interpret anything in the Bible exactly the way you want to support whatever argument you are making. This leads to a lifestyle where Christian women go get an abortion, then turn around and scream about others who do the same. You see it all the time, and it's quite pathetic.
I always laugh when I see somebody say "we murdered X amount of babies." I truly think nobody really believes that having an abortion is equivalent to killing a 1-month old baby. Show a video of a woman having an abortion, and then show a video of somebody murdering a 1-month old baby. Which is going to garner a stronger reaction across the vast majority of people? You don't truly believe that aborting a fetus is equivalent to murdering a baby who is out of the womb.
If you really believe that a person is made at conception, then put your money where your mouth is. Start supporting research that helps stop miscarraige, because there are nearly 1 million of those every year where "people" end up dying. If you regard abortion as murder, then you would support first degree murder sentences for 1 in 4 American women who end up getting abortions by the age of 45. I hope that's not your wife, your daughter, your grand daughter, or anybody you hold close.
I hope I can start taking out life insurance policies on my newly conceived "person." If you kill a pregnant woman, it better be a double homicide. If you skip out on a woman while she is pregnant? Better start to pay child support while their "person" is in their first trimester. The list goes on and on with the implications of calling a fetus a "person" at conception. If you want all that, then more power to you I guess. That's not the type of society I want to live in.
Dude, forget the Christian argument. Did your life not start in the womb? If not, then where did it start? Outside the womb? Are you Schrodinger's baby? You didn't exist until you passed through the birth canal? And if you passed back through in reverse, would you immediately un-exist again? What about a C-section, at exactly what point during the incision does the baby pop into existence? Or does it ever? The "secular" argument is every bit as ridiculous as the so-called religious argument. At some point prior to the event called birth, there is a human in there. That's irrefutable and scientific.
You equating death from a natural cause (miscarriage) to one requiring intervention (abortion) is gross. I'm not sure where it falls on the moral continuum, but it's gross. And to your point about a pregnant woman being murdered, you better believe that there is precedent for that person to be charged with double murder, which makes our legal system all the more ridiculous.
We all know it's a messy issue. People come down on different ends of what the other party considers extreme. I guess I just admit that aside from all the religious arguments against it and all the "secular" arguments for it, I found the defense of "abortion" by the governor of VA to be outrageous. Yeah, let's go with an abortion when a woman is dilating because it might impair her "mental" health. Yeah, let's allow a child to die that happened to be born because I was performing an abortion, so that makes it ok if that's what the parents originally wanted. The morning after pill doesn't bother me, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9-month abortions do. We all have freedom, none of us - including women - has absolute freedom.
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1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:
So in a country based on freedom we are going to regulate based on YOUR morals and beliefs, not mine, YOURS. It is just too convenient for a woman to control her own body, YOUR morals get to dictate her body and moral choices. Line up everyone and get your mandatory vaccine, I believe it is the morally right thing for YOU to do.
Next it will be against your morals to kill animals and eat meat - everyone gets to be a vegan.
Nice dodge, but as I said, it's a difficult position to stake out morally that someone should be allowed to abort a life because they find it convenient. I invite you to make that case as opposed to avoiding the subject.
And to your point about it being "my" morals or "your" morals being used to regulate society, guess what, you were born into a society and culture that is riddled with rules and laws that came from someone else's moral code. So I find this argument disingenuous on its face. I know you don't agree with every law that is written - neither do I. That's not an argument either for or against abortion.
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9 hours ago, HeloDude said:
This one foot in, one foot out in a majority of the states (due to to Roe) was absurd when you remove the emotions for or against it…not to mention the constant legal challenges at the federal level. This ruling will send it back to the individual states, where it needs to belong.
I think I agree with your general position, but I don't think this current trope of calling it a "state's issue" is consistent. Should murder be a states' issue? Murder is illegal by state law and federally. If people really consider this to be equivalent to murder, then it does require a law at the federal level outlawing it. This ain't a states' issue in just the same way murder isn't.
8 hours ago, ClearedHot said:Really? So many battleground states that will sway by very small majorities and you are telling them to just get out because of a very draconian ruling based on religion. News flash, they won't move, abortions WILL continue even when a state says not in my backyard. I feel sad for a lot of women who will go underground and resort to abortion in the shadows, some will pay with their lives...but hey as long as the bible bangers are happy.
This will also be the demise of the GOP who was poised to sweep the mid-terms, you just lost a LOT of independents. All of the recent appointees refused to answer pointed questions about Roe V Wade but they each sat there and mentioned Stare Decisis and its importance, then they turned around and voted to overturn, disgusting. Now the court has gone the way of the political parties. Truly sad.
Here's the thing. It doesn't matter that abortions will continue if Roe happens to be overturned. Murder happens. Do you think that murder shouldn't be outlawed? Do you think outlawing guns will clean up the streets? Get real. The point of having laws is to collectively state what we-the-people are not going to accept. What we think constitutes "right" and "wrong." What we want our government to enforce on our behalf to make a society that we can all live and thrive in.
And casting proponents of the issue purely in religious terns is a convenient way of avoiding having to grapple with a very contentious issue - regardless of your religion. It's an easy way to paint the target, label it something else, and move on without ever having to lend real support to their position. I'm areligious and against abortions of convenience. It is an easy off ramp from the argument, and people love to take it because arguing that someone should be allowed to abort someone else because it's going to be inconvenient is a pretty hard position to stake out morally - hence the disproportionate focus from the left on incest, rape, danger to the mother, etc - it's a framing tactic. Most abortions are carried out for convenience - not because of one of those (arguably) reasonable exceptions.
Finally (FYI) there is plenty of fantastic precedent for overturning cases. Stare Decisis is important, but it's more important that the court is to be able to correct errors. Do you honestly think the court shouldn't be able to overturn previous decisions? JFC. Seriously. See the following:
1 hour ago, bfargin said:The initial ruling by the court in Roe V. Wade was totally ridiculous. The court used the excuse that science hadn't demonstrated that the fetus was a human person (the word fetus actually means "child" or "offspring") and stated that if science/medicine ever established that, their ruling would and should be reversed as the baby would be protected by the 14th amendment. This was definitely not "activist" and is valid and should have been ruled correctly in 1973. We've murdered 61 million babies in the U.S. since that ruling. The most shameful thing we as a nation have ever done (and we've done plenty of other stuff).
No doubt the left will use this ruling as an excuse to continue their assault on the constitution and the American ideas of freedom and liberty.
This. Have whatever opinion you want to about the abortion issue - no fair reading of the constitution provides some sort of magical privacy that allows for abortion. It's the only right that has been derived from this supposed broad-based privacy which flows from the 14th amendment, and for something that is supposedly so fundamental, it is pretty strange that it doesn't rear its head in any other case law. But maybe I'm the only one that finds that strange.
No doubt this won't be the last of the issue (either way) - what it absolutely does do, however, is begin to re-establish the credibility of the court to enact decisions that actually make sense.
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10 hours ago, Demonrat said:
I’ve been a long time lurker of these forums. I’ve always wanted to post to provide some different points of view from the white conservative Christian background/worldview that dominates these forums and the USAF pilot community as a whole.
However, it seems like it’s an exercise in futility and a massive waste of time. Nobody is going to change their mind on any topic no matter how convincing of an argument one puts forth. Emotional reactions like “it’s the beginning of the end for free speech in America” with zero substance galvanize the majority on this forum with any dissent summarily stamped out. These type of reactions are prevalent in all forms of social media, preventing constructive discourse and garnering reactions like “I can’t believe there are people who support the government deciding what is disinformation or not like in the book 1984 with the Ministry of Truth.”
The fact of the matter is that disinformation is a serious problem in all of society and something needs to be done to combat it, especially from external sources who are looking to cause harm in America. If you can verify the source as a Russian or Chinese internet troll, then the information should cease to exist. This is an extremely limited portion of the disinformation that is out there. Free speech stays free speech within America, but countering misuse of our First Amendment Rights by external governments looking to generate chaos in the US is a national priority.
I definitely share the concerns shown in this forum about government overreach, but I think a balance can be found with the proper authorities in place and a strong legal review of any actions taken by the organization. I think it’s better than doing nothing and letting malign actors slowly rip the fabric of US society apart.
There's an unavoidable and fatal flaw to your approach, i.e. when "operatives" (trolls) promulgate true things. What then? Are you going to ban the actual truth because it's promoted by someone who has been classified as a troll? As soon as you adapt your approach, they'll adapt theirs. They'll sock-puppet the truth and now you're going to be on record suppressing it! Have fun with that. If something is true, it's true - it makes no difference who or what says it.
No, the futile thing is to attempt to control something that is so slippery as speech. If there is misinformation out there, there is information out there that can and will refute it. Sorry, this is a bad idea all the way down.
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2 hours ago, Clayton Bigsby said:
Two holes, like maybe two anti-ship missiles?
So many Ruskov lies...
Two holes? Still about 6-9 less than Putin's mom has.
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Money and Finance
in Squadron Bar
Posted
Don't take my word for it. It's Harvard macro-economist Greg Mankiw who says that money is a medium of exchange. Also, logic. Logic says it's a medium of exchange. People can become indebted to one another, of course, but the primary function of money is not to become indebted to one another. It's to facilitate transaction.
Also, it's cool for the government to run a debt. I didn't say the government needed to run a surplus. I said there are real limits on how much currency can be printed. That's what I said.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salary#First_paid_salary
Salaries were first paid as a means of exchange for labor and work - a medium, dating back to perhaps 10,000 BC.
"...widely circulating but erroneous belief that banks create money out of nothing..." https://voxeu.org/article/banks-do-not-create-money-out-thin-air
Private banks do not get to create money. They can issue loans, but the amount of loans they are able to initiate have real limits. Do you honestly think my local Wells Fargo branch can loan out $50 trillion dollars? Why or why not? How about infinity dollars? Can they loan out infinity dollars? To themselves? It seems like you might be getting wrapped up around technicalities about how money works in our modern day system. It's complicated, sure. M2, etc, are all esoteric concepts to lay people - which is your audience on this message board.
Anyway, I have a feeling this thread will be hard to keep on the rails.