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[wierd]

(puts on the *that guy* hat)

Just because somebody is both vociferous and blunt about how they enjoy beer, does not necessarily make them a "Hot headed drunkard."

Plenty of people are irritating beer snobs, for instance.  A good portion are not alcoholics.



Instead, look at it this way:  This guy barely managed to squeak into his position, despite getting the "fine toothed comb" treatment, with as much mud slinging all around as has been seen in nearly a century. (Thankfully, I am just pleased we hairless apes have graduated to rhetorical mud, instead of the fecal kind of our evolutionary past.)  If this guy is indeed a "hot headed drunk", he wont be able to prevent backslides into that behavior while in office, and he will be getting observed **VERY** carefully, because both sides are going to want to use him as the ramrod to beat down the other.

That may not seem like much consolation, but then again, we as a nation engineered this situation by being increasingly more and more partisan, and as such, more and more eager to elect people that are motivated by party lines instead of doing what is good and proper, and have consequently mandated the kind of mudslinging shit-fest we have just observed, and which has most certainly NOT gone away, despite the guy's successful supreme court appt.


Ever heard the phrase "Nature will make a better idiot" ?? 

Well, the more you try to destroy republicanism, (the modern kind), the more nature will make a superior republican.  Keep that in mind folks.
 

[Trekkin]

But he's in now, and laws defying Roe v. Wade are already being debated through the courts. Its a shame hundreds of thousands will still die before it reaches the Supreme Court, just as millions have died in the decades before, but plantations weren't emancipated nor Auschwitz liberated in a day.

Behold the Daddy Party thought process at work, folks: people will stop killing babies if only we tell them very sternly to stop because it's illegal, just like the War on Drugs stamped out cannabis forever, abstinence-only sex education has eradicated teen pregnancy and LGBT people all decided to go celibate when we wouldn't let them get married.

If abortion were banned nationwide tomorrow, a number of Congressional mistresses would find themselves taking surprisingly sudden business trips abroad and drug smugglers would take a hard look at the logistics of moving RU-486 into the country. The Janes would come back, now with even better tools at their disposal and a whole lot of professionally trained doctors. The best and brightest would make plans to emigrate, either to blue states likely to interfere with the enforcement of the law or out of the country entirely.

And thousands of babies would die just the same, because, like drugs, there are enough places where people just don't care or are actively in favor of abortion to make it effectively impossible to do more than jail minorities and run smarmy youth programs. That's just what you have to work with now.

[wierd]

Shit, at this rate I am gonna have to get the "That guy!" hat stapled to my head...


The thing is, the above argument is very much a consequence of conflicting worldviews and social mores, with people attempting to slam a "one-size-fits-all (GODDAMNIT  YOU PLEBS, FUCKING OBEY!) " solution on top.

You have regions that are so staunchly conservative, that you could roll back standards of living 600+ years and institute literal spanish inquisition purity squads, and they would get all glassy-eyed and think it wasn't HARSH ENOUGH on "immorality."  (just as long as the wealthy can pay for excesses, via such things as indulgences and the like-- like the GOOD OLD DAYS.)

Then, conversely, you have areas that make the free love hippy movement of the 60s seem conservative in how they view "normal relationship" sexuality.

Naturally, you simply CANNOT blanket that in a one-size-fits-all approach, even though BOTH GROUPS want that, OH SO VERY MUCH.  (Because both sides want to FORCE the other into compliance with their own social mores. Very very much so.)

As trite and cliche as the "state rights" angle is, and how maligned it is because of outright abuse by morons, and by endless amounts of bad press by pundits from both sides (since, as stated, BOTH extremes of the divide strongly want to "win!")  this is clearly a case where it can and should be applied.

Strongly "Free love" states can decide to offer outpatient abortions-- even free ones--- as a service to their state populations.

Likewise, the "No, that's baby murder!"  demographic heavy states can decide that "No, We wont allow, nor endorse abortion as an option. Be more chaste, for fuck's sake!"

As long as there is no restriction on a 4 to 5 hour road trip to another state, (or a plane ticket) to get that service done, I would not have a problem with such restrictions.  It is the "GREAT, MIGHTY NEED!!!!" to "WIIN!!!!" that is what is preventing such a thing.  That "need to WIN!!!" that drives the rabid opinions over Roe vs Wade, and the rabid, seething contempt both sides have over it.

I have a neutral opinion on abortion.  There are real medical reasons to get one.  Most abortions do not fall into that class though.  It may seem callous, but for many of the same reasons I find it distasteful to subsidize routine liver replacements for alcoholics, I find it distasteful to subsidize abortions for people that either dont care or cannot come to understand that having a dick go off inside them causes pregnancies, and that pregnancies are no fun.  Yeah-- It's their body.  The alcoholic says the same fucking thing,  (Much like I have no problem with liver transplants for people that need them, I have no problems with abortions for people who need them-- and for the same kinds of reasons why people who need livers need them immediately without bullshit, people who need abortions need them the same way.  It is the "abusive" type 'recurring needs' because of 'lifestyle choices' that I find distasteful.)


To me the thing that needs to go is the "WE MUST WIN, AND BEAT THOSE OTHER FUCKERS!" mentality.  Not so much abortion.

[Trekkin]

As long as there is no restriction on a 4 to 5 hour road trip to another state, (or a plane ticket) to get that service done, I would not have a problem with such restrictions.

Unfortunately that restriction does exist in the sense that going out of state for a medical procedure can be financially infeasible in lost work if not in out-of-pocket costs, but I agree with your larger point: as long as our victory conditions are "no abortions at all" versus "free and easy abortions for everyone", we're operating far outside the consensus political will and it's the kind of problem that resists top-down solutions. As I was responding to Shazbot I framed it in the sense of illicit abortions being almost impossible to stop, but the opposite case also holds: as long as there are people with power, some of them will use that power to limit someone's access to abortion.

There will always be pregnancies terminated, and there will always be unwanted pregnancies carried to term, Kavanaugh or no. It just seemed apropos to recall that.

[Kagus]

I have a friend who got pregnant when she was 16 (through the pill, I might add), and by the time she as a sixteen-year-old girl managed to pull the funds together and get to a doctor who was even willing to discuss the matter (a difficulty as she was living in North Carolina), the doc informed her that the fetus was too far along in development and that the only option left was to carry to term.

So she ended up having to lasso the utter flake of a dad for a shotgun wedding, they dropped their studies, had the kid, and moved in together. Happily ever after.


The kid's pretty cute, and papa has apparently been dutifully putting in his time and energy in a remarkably un-flaky display, but the whole series of events was still just a train wreck.

[scriver]

Jesus Krist Kagsus is there anywhere you haven't lived

[Kagus]

I've actually never even been near NC, I met her online. On Omegle of all places.

Yeah, Omegle... Back before it completely deteriorated into bot sex hell and they added webcam functionality.

[wierd]

There really is not a truly "Good" solution to under-age pregnancy.

Hell, even supposedly established ADULTS have their lives go to fucking shit because they had babies.



Abortion is NOT a magical "Get out of pregnancy free!" card.  It carries long-term health issues, same as a pregnancy does. Every effort to make it safe and effective is made, but that does not make it magically so.


As imperfect as it is, the current "Best" solution is a COMBINATION of birth control, sex education, social pressure to not have sex underage, with abortion for the edge cases, and hope for the best.


Any single one of those alone is just fucking not right. 

[Kagus]

It carries long-term health issues, same as a pregnancy does.

Both physical and mental... Regardless of how "unwanted" a child might be, it's still a very stressful experience to go through.


Also helps if you live in a society that doesn't automatically condemn those who have sex underage/before marriage. Part of the reason she had a hard time getting things in order is because she had to go to the next town over in order to get a pregnancy test, since everyone in her home town knew everyone else, and so the gossip of her buying a pregnancy test would very quickly reach her family's ears and result in a storm of appropriately biblical proportions.

[Starver]

Any single one of those alone is just fucking not right.

Some forms of "Fucking not right" can be a fairly good way to avoid pregnancies, too.

[Rowanas]

On the opposite side of the argument - If you believe that something is good and supports the welfare and happiness of the people, and that another thing causes sadness and misery, it's only reasonable to go full-on crusader on the topic.  If people from Birmingham were kidnapping southerners and torturing them for the rest of their natural lives, I wouldn't be able to go "Ah well, there's no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem, better let them get on with it".  I would absolutely do everything in my power to stop it from happening.

[wierd]

The thing is though, (for the most part, there are some exceptions in the extreme conservative demographic that like to make edge cases, usually revolving around citizenship like it is magic or something) people tend to agree that rounding up people and going vigilante on them is Bad(tm), and "needs to not happen", especially where abduction and torture are involved.

I tend to favor due process, especially due process that requires fair representation of both the alleged and the aggrieved, and where there is no "convenient mishandling" of evidence, or "one-sided plea arrangements, because we can, and we are assholes."  (You know, the kind that is PROMISED.)

Even then, the process inherently accepts that it cannot be a perfect arbiter, and only aims at the "best possible" arbitration, usually at "beyond reasonable doubt" for criminal cases. (It is this nature that tends to make both sides that want <!!JUSTICE!!> so very unhappy, and willing to resort to (and tacitly accept/support) the kind of underhanded bullshit I lamplit above.)

There is this modern trend that society must be hardline "EVERYTHING OR NOTHING!!", when the reality is that "The best we can do is so very far from perfect that you are insane to think perfection is even close to attainable, and you should learn to accept the reasons why that is, and why it is the best we can do."

Unless of course, you find either of these circumstances to be peachy keen:

"A single mother of 3 is let go on her recidivist charges for money laundering, because life is really hard for single mothers-- and think of the children! I mean, probation and community service are all she can really do without endangering the poor dears! All that mountain of evidence that she is connected to the mafia are just superlatives created by people who hate alternatives to the traditional nuclear family-- Not applicable to this case at all!"

*AND*

"Look, I don't care that you have an air-tight defense that you were not even in the country, let alone the state, county, city, neighborhood, or city block where the murder occurred-- You fit our profile, and you are our man-- now accept this plea bargain or else, dirtbag!"


Personally, I find neither of those appropriate.

[Rowanas]

Snip

So because we cannot attain perfection, we shouldn't try to strive for it?

[wierd]

I did not say that.

I said you should know the whys and hows for it being unattainable.  That is the requisite position of knowledge to be able to make reasonable and tractable proposals to improve on the process.

[Rowanas]

I did not say that.

I said you should know the whys and hows for it being unattainable.  That is the requisite position of knowledge to be able to make reasonable and tractable proposals to improve on the process.

That's fine, but doesn't... really relate to what I said.
P.S. It's also why i'm an idealist communist, but a practical socialist. I acknowledge the present impossibility of ideal communism.