Lord Raven

I feel the same to a certain extent, but I can't actually defend things like meth, heroin or crack, if you know what I mean. I think weed and psychedelics are fine. But yeah the general concept is that your own personal standards and principles may lean much more conservative than what you're willing to defend. I find this happening to me a bunch in a lot of other ways. Nothing wrong with that at all.

Or better yet the user we are actually asking a question to... Can come back and respond to stuff that isn't low hanging fruit to begin with. The entire reason we have this discussion now is because he refused to respond in a genuine manner. This whole thing is pointless since we're all pro-choice anyway. Personhood is a red herring to abortion anyway, that's the only actual point that pro-life positions have to defend it.

The nice thing about thought experiments is that you can make assumptions to factor these things. So if it's 8 fetuses vs 1 child, how much of a difference does it make to the thought experiment if it's 10 vs 1? In fact, just factoring in that level of uncertainty is all the more reason why it works. You're uncertain that even after saving those fetuses they will be viable -- just as you're uncertain of the viability of any pregnancy until birth, essentially.

Yes, but it's not really a disingenuous thought experiment. I don't think he's trying to do a gotcha btw, this is his way of putting his finger on the pulse. What would he do in theory? The issue is that AnonymousSpeed (and a lot of pro-life) only functions in responding in gotchas.

Do you believe in exceptions to receive an abortion? If so, what makes those lives worth less than a standard abortion? That's why I don't buy the morality behind it. I agree life begins at conception, in the same way that when you water a seed and put it in soil, that is also the beginning of life. What I don't agree is that this life deserves priority over that of its host. It is definitely not that simple and if you paid attention to any bit of conversation here, instead of acting like you're smart because you're a contrarian, then you'd understand that instead of saying "it really is that simple". If it were that simple, then you wouldn't have these "pro-life" congressman paying for multiple abortions either. If you want the preservation of life, as well, you'll probably allow more abortions given that a lot of people who do not want these kids will either fuck up these kids' lives, take matters into their own hands and kill themselves too, or maybe the kid will be abandoned. Not everyone views this as a blessing, and the only times you hear about the people who genuinely wanted to make the best of their situation are solely advertised so you guys can keep saying "it really is that simple." In 5-10 years, I don't want my taxes to subsidize these red states who are going to be overpopulated and severely straining their social services, hence we should all suck it the fuck up about abortion regardless of your abstract moral qualms. (and yes, they are ultimately abstract moral qualms. until you can hold a fetus in your arms, feed it, and care for it, it's abstract and i hope you are never in a position to have to make this decision. and many of these states are going for a "no exceptions" clause, which you are not on board with, so keep that in mind). What???? I've met *tons* of people who say this, both Christian and Muslim. Do you live in a bubble? Your literal only argument is "It's because we know that unborn people are people. Sorry guys. It really is that simple." When one tries to expand outside of this argument, you refuse to actually acknowledge those points. It's a thin playbook. You're just playing to emotions. "You believe in murder and your opinions are bad." That is your playbook. That is the right wing playbook. And yet abortions have gone on for a long time, hell around 25% of women in America get an abortion at some point in their life, but you're (presumably) a man sitting here saying it's as simple as "Unborn people are people. It really is that simple." Come on. Give us a lot more. I brought up every single economic related argument and women's autonomy argument, and your only pushback is "they are people." They are not people. They are living, in the same way that the grass you step on outside your house, is living. We all have limits as well based on our personal moral compass (I don't like third trimester unless the woman is in danger, or the fetus is Charlie Kelly), but the literal only thing we agree on is that infanticide is wrong. And based on that, the pro-choice argument is the only one that makes sense. Because it allows people to choose their actions, based on what's best for them and their family unit, since we have complete moral disagreements on what personhood is or isn't. This shit is emotionally charged because the right wing argument playbook is ridiculously thin and also entirely driven by emotion, ignoring the fact that 1/4 of the women around them have opted for it at some point in their lives. You have yet to respond to the idea that places that began educating children on proper sex ed, safe sex, and provided contraceptives have seen their abortion rates decline. You only quoted a dude, didn't even link a source, and told me I was wrong, and I provided the CDC as evidence against you. Tryhard and I's argument both hinge on the fact that they force birth but provide no support for after the baby is born, even having the gall to say to put them into an adoption program (where kids have much worse options and are competing against other kids for adoption, mixed with the fact that most evangelicals adopt kids from outside the country, not inside of it). There are no alternatives proposed for the parents once pregnancy occurs and it removes complete agency from every single life involved in this pregnancy. So what is the purpose of this? Hell, if it's just an opinion where personhood begins, as you claim, why are right wing states threatening extradition towards anyone who provides an abortion to one of their residents. Just to blindly enforce a doctrine on life? Blind adherence to a moral is a downfall to society, and failing to recognize what the actual outcomes of this are is why nobody actually has any good faith towards those that label themselves "pro-life." I don't know why you opt to make one or two line snarky responses to anyone who is pro-choice, over any actually detailed argument. You have great intentions @indigoasis, but people have been telling me this since before the Trump presidency, and now we lost abortion protections, with them threatening gay marriage, anal intercourse, etc, next. Mixed with a Texas pastor saying to thousands of people -- receiving cheers -- because he said that gay people should be pushed against a wall and shot. Debates don't work on the people who need to take a look at their viewpoints, and right wingers just like to dictate their viewpoints instead of argue them, then pretend that's debate. The past 7 years has indicated this, and you can see the entire history of this thread to see even more examples of it.

it's not letting me edit so i'm dumping this post

The lack of a unifying goal is what makes anti-choice decision and legislation even more dangerous. It feels like the anti-choice demographic doesn't excel in second order thinking. These people need to watch It's Always Sunny. If that aborted fetus were Christ, he'd manifest no matter what, and probably as Charlie Kelly. That and they seem like miserable fucks who could use a little humor in their lives. Often times It's Always Sunny teaches life lessons like, being a horrible one track bigot that tries to do shitty things to people will inevitably end in cycles of shitty things happening to you.

Yeah, this is exactly what it is, really. They managed to rile people up and now it's happening, and they're visiting a case to essentially reduce voting rights in states (like I linked earlier). They made it into a culture war and reaped the benefits because these people feel morally spurned against 'murder' without seeing the big picture. It's ugly and scary to them. I detest the state of things where Republican politicians put people on defense with anti-gay, trans, liberal culture war isms and force Democrats to take unpopular opinions defending those at risk. Then point the finger and say "see? They're way more focused on giving black people advantages over you, and those blacks will turn your child GAY and MEXICAN." I genuinely don't think they'll realize how much strain is about to be on every single thing they interact with for 5-10 years. I also said universal childcare, I meant child tax credits. I otherwise agree that the choice of words is semantics -- it's better left to the campaign trail. The entire anti-choice vs pro-life ve pro-forced birth and pro-choice vs pro-abortion. I just cannot wrap my head around the logic aside from being a punishment for sex or something to that effect, because they don't even want contraceptives or sex ed. It reminds me of a few anecdotes I read the other day about teenage suicide attempts due to things like wet dreams and periods because they felt they were sinning and couldn't trust their creepy evangelical environment to do anything but punish them.

I don't see the issue with this. We generate a lot of revenue as is, and if we had better wages and more affordable housing (other issues the US isn't solving due to congressional gridlock) then the amount of our salaries going to tax won't even matter as much. Affordable healthcare and preventative healthcare saves so much money in the long run and eases medical burdens to the extent that we end up with a happier, healthier, and more supported population. Our wages haven't gone up in around 35-40 years. And again, our infrastructure is outdated, and red states have it the worst in this regard. And catastrophe ends up costing so much when it happens (not if). Look at the Texas power grid for a quick example. Of course nobody reasonable is saying we should completely destroy and overhaul everything tomorrow. But the fact is that we have very few living advantages, and many disadvantages, over the average person in a lot of western European countries, which is the key reason why a) the birth rate is going down among whites and b) we have so many non-whites immigrating. If there was a great replacement, there is nobody to blame but the Republican party, who are simultaneously laying the ground work for declining birth rates while saying it is an issue.

Yes, because they've invested in their infrastructure far far more than we have. But we can't even get that.

You didn't. Congrats. I'm sure you can get over it since you didn't. No, I said that's the point where everyone agrees life begins. I never even said that's definitively where life begins. I was talking solely to consensus. I clarified my intended meaning later, so I won't edit anything. No, it's not. Is Thomas Sowell a statistic? No, instead he sounds like a fucking idiot. I never mentioned money. I mentioned support services. Other countries have these; if we had them, maybe white people would want to immigrate to the US, too. If they did want to support life, they'd allow parents much longer paternity/maternity leave and actual affordable childcare. As it stands, 44% of people in the US do not plan to have kids, and a good chunk of that populations gripes are that they simply can't afford it. So in the end, if you want more pregnancy and birth, you do have to throw money at it. Correct. It sounds like you care about it. But no. There would be no demographic shifts if our social services and quality of living were on par with Europe. If we stopped allowing this unfettered crony corporatism to infect our capitalist economics, and actually allowed safety nets. Instead we get immigrants from countries that America has a better QOL than -- countries that your boy Trump called "shithole countries" and surprise surprise, they're predominantly not white. You want to curb replacement theory? Start advocating for better quality of living, social services, etc. Make us fucking competitive with white countries. Stop virtue signaling about where life begins and about premarital sex. This great replacement isn't happening due to some nefarious plot by (((them))) trying to cause white genocide. It's that right wing media has taught people that the solution to your problems is to fuck up your society and find people to look down on. (See: the most recent virulently bigoted transphobic rhetoric among suburbanites) This is making our politics too toxic and ineffective for anyone to want to move here. Maybe come up with some kind of New Deal. Or don't, because I don't think it's a big deal that America is becoming less white. Maybe give white america an incentive to have kids instead of making them one medical emergency away from debt spiraling. Maybe having a kid shouldn't cost you like 300k over the first two years of its life. I made it a point to emphasize evangelical America, and not conservative America, in general. That is definitely a concern, mixed with entitled Americans who have refused to acknowledge the end of the 80s for like 35 years. I believe the pro-forced birth framing should not be banned for the reasons I have explicitly laid out, but I believe that our policy incongruence with, say, Poland (thanks for the assist Tryhard) means that we have no moral grounds to take a pro-life stance in this country. Having all that said, for the same reasons as Tryhard, I feel Mitt Romney has a respectable position on this (he introduced the childcare credits, after all). But I think pro-choice is the option that covers the moral ambiguity of this issue, because the moral aspects of it are so ambiguous and frankly unfalsifiable that we really waste a lot of time discussing it. That's why it's an effective culture war tactic, because the pro-life legislation in red states will actually completely weaken their economy. It's also a fucked up look when SCOTUS expanded gun rights (something we don't need) but reduced abortion rights while stating it's coming for sodomy, gay marriage, etc next. A Republican senator even said interracial marriage should be left to the states, and mysteriously Clarence Thomas didn't mention the potential overturn of interracial marriage. Could it be because his wife is a seditionist?

You misunderstood. And frankly you're cherry picking and didn't acknowledge any other point I made. I'll clarify but choose another hill to die on. Im saying the point after birth, everyone agrees life is happening there. I'm also saying that the disagreements happen during the pregnancy. At which point during the pregnancy do we consider the fetus "life"? A bunch say conception, a bunch think it's completely irrelevant, a bunch think heartbeat. I, personally, don't care or think it is relevant. I'm also saying it's hypocritical to argue this while giving zero support to new parents (like how they voted against baby formula in lockstep) and only one Republican seems to have stood up for universal childcare, and even then Joe Manchin didn't want to renew it. Contraceptive access and sex ed also reduce the number of abortions by a good amount, yet Republican state legislatures and federal politicians want to ban or neuter these things. There is nothing about the pro-life stance as preached by the Republican party makes sense. I hate to say they are "pro-birth" after eclipse specifically warned us not to, but quite frankly I'm not actually sure what their position is because pro-life is not accurate. The real reason is because white birth is decreasing and the future of America is Latino. This scares evangelical America. But I'm sure you know this.

Yeah these are actually a fucking crisis. Texas already can't handle a power grid and it won't be able to handle the influx in children they're about to have to deal with. And that's Texas. Imagine being in Alabama right now.

They aren't made with fetuses. They're tested on human fetuses that were voluntarily given to them. I think the lack of knowledge doesn't make it any bit sound or correct to imply that baby fetuses were key in making them. https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/27/politics/states-abortion-trigger-laws-roe-v-wade-supreme-court/index.html I described the direction many of them are running. South Dakota is doing a full ban, even if the life of the mother is at risk, even in the case of rape. So yes, states have already shown how far they're willing to run -- Texas is literally allowing bounties to people they suspect might be getting an abortion out of state. And these legislators are literally trying to regulate interstate traffic because of abortion. What the hell are you talking about? They've already taken it far.

Someone actually said this overturning was good? lol I'm sorry but this supreme court is full of political hacks. And this is the most frightening one. https://mobile.twitter.com/MikeSacksEsq/status/1542522085993357320?t=l9e1ArA14LVjbHzxiGWU4w&s=19 They want to rule on being able to throw your fucking vote away in presidential elections. If Republicans gain power, we'll have a nationwide abortion ban with a broken filibuster. Then we'll probably reach a level of tension where either the federal government loses all authority and states operate completely on their own, or a lot of local conflicts breaking out. In the meantime, the rich will get richer, and a lot of women will be jailed indefinitely for essentially having the gall to be raped and try to fix their trauma. In fact, their rapists will have lighter sentences than them. Look, I don't give a flying fuck your opinion on where life begins. Everyone universally agrees it's after birth, it's a lot iffier when you get into each stage of pregnancy. 90% of abortions happen in the first trimester, which is something we're all willing to compromise on and what is most universally agreed upon. And in the case of rape (incest too, but this is under rape to me), unviable fetuses, threats to the mother etc you should 100% be allowed to do whatever you want with the fetus. But striking down this law lead to trigger laws that ban abortion absolutely and allow bounties on women. There's even this bullshit where they're definitely doing this to prevent abortions on native land, by removing Native American autonomy to enforce their own laws. And don't forget about these same cunts wanting to prosecute for interstate travel as if it's any of their fucking business why people leave the state. Ultimately, all these rulings do is outlaw safe abortions, and place a lot of women in danger where a) pre-marital sex is explicitly forbidden (so they will take matters into their own hands), b) in a cycle of poverty with a child that was essentially forced on them vs death, or c) in a spot where they have to choose *how* they will die, rather than when. Frankly, allowing people to have kids who don't actually want kids (or are waiting), is bad for the parent and the kid, and is a net negative for society. I would be inclined to take this in a lot better faith if these red states weren't also trying to crack down on contraceptives, too. So even if technically the legislature should be creating a law for this, the legislature will not and has not because the precedent of Roe v Wade was respected. But now there's two Benedict Arnolds and several missteps from the Biden administration. I don't even know what the executive can do, because the rulings today also prevented the EPA from being able to enforce federal regulations. Their goal right now is to turn everything into "states rights" and then win the federal government, and either completely neuter it and turn half the nation into a theocracy, or turn the entire nation into a theocracy to stick it to people like me. Fuck the Republican Party. They infested the court with Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, anti-RBG (I refuse to remember her name right now), and Kavanaugh who are total immoral hacks. The rulings were made on heinous, bad faith grounds. I know for a fact that I will not be abiding by these stupid ass, mean spirited red state laws made by flaccid assholes, and opening my house to anyone who wants to go camping. And this is before we get into the fact that Clarence Thomas' wife is a fucking seditionist.

Please do not comment unless you have watched the hearings. EDIT: Basically, any allegation levied at Trump about attempting to change election results (both violently and non-violently) now have tons of proof behind it. The proof is only mounting. I don't believe in the death penalty, but Trump and anyone who was egging this shit on need to be in prison for life.

I come on SF once every couple months to check out if any crazy shit has been said. I noticed a few things a) Armchair General reads Breitbart as if it's neutral news (it's not: it's a white nationalist rag) b) This Pedro Gonzalez fella, if it's who I found on Twitter is cut from the same hateful cloth and even if he is a talented writer, his style is basically trying to bemoan how bad the Republican Party is at letting the left win. Unless I am missing something. Yeah, laws that the Republican Party does not support right now, unless people are trying to shoot things that aren't partisan towards the Republican Party. What do you think the Jan 6th hearings are about?

Yes. The prosecution chose the wrong way to approach it, completely. Honestly, what a shitshow.

have i mentioned lately that i hate sinema and manchin

They don't, but there's a major difference in upbringing too. Neo-African Americans (I just say African immigrants) are culturally way closer to like south or east asians.

Is it? The guy's british.

Look at the fucking arguments and sources and make a decision. If you can't handle bias, that's on you for garbage critical thinking skills. Or better yet, find a source yourself if you have no arguments. How have you survived being on this forum for like 13 years? Jesus Christ.

no but you've been on this forum for over a decade now and we know you're kind of concern trolling especially since we're aware that leftist messaging is garbage. chicago crime rates have little to do with police funding given that there was a marked decrease in crime in new york when the police reduced proactive policing -- https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proactive-policing-crime-20170925-story.html. nothing to do with police funding so much as there's a lot to it. it's very difficult to take you seriously when your baseline view of this forum's beliefs are "defund the police" and the baseline conversation for the rest of us is "police reform". also because i actually did tell you that you had some shit line of logic earlier in the thread (and even explained it!) and you didn't follow up at all. I also want to point out that people shouting "defund the police" are very likely to believe democrats are right wingers. so no, don't play this card lmao. I don't even care to respond to argue this point, I'm just explaining to bystanders where excellen is coming from

specifically heres a nice spot for it https://www.theatlantic.com/shadowland/