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[wierd]

Most people that consider themselves conservative, are not deep into the fundie zone.  They tend to have a big continuum of personal interpretations and beliefs, that loosely aggregate under the christian dogma's views on sex. (Only between man and woman, only in marriage-- Otherwise just fine, but kept in private.)

It is when you get into fundie-ville that you get really scary off the wall shit. 

The fundemental strawman is asserting that all conservatives are fundies.  They are not.

However, the fundies are notoriously "Loud", and so get disproportionate representation in large public matters. (mainly because their over-the-top-ness makes the magnets for the press, which gives them exposure to spread their ideology, and when a group gets enough exposure, it starts to sway the whole demographic. There's science on that kind of thing.) This is why they are the immediate boogey man of the extreme abortion-rights groups, (as you mention), and also appear prominently in topics like this.

I was pre-emptively bringing out that boogey man, outright declaring it a parody that is not truly indicative of the greater proportion of the demographic, and lamplighting this fact, to avoid it being used more seriously--

There was also an undercurrent of acknowledging that there really are batshit people who really do hold such views, and that they are in fact shaping public discourse, and so infecting otherwise sensible people with some level of their extreme ideology. (EG, since the original proposal tried to make it look like women's suffering was straight up at odds with the central dogma, I was being cheeky in pointing out that there is a very real misogynist bent to conservatism, and that the proposal fails to incorporate this, and so it will not get as wide an audience.)

It's a lot less funny when I have to break it down like that though.  Explaining a crude joke always takes all the fun out of it.

[Hanslanda]

That's one hell of a strawman, there.

Yes.  Yes it is.  That's what "Bombastic caricature" means in this context.  Over the top, not true to life, outright a parody.

I'd put "bombastic caricature" at several plausibility steps above "strawman", but I see what you're getting at.


The fact that I've seen lots of people insist in complete seriousness that anybody who opposes abortion in any way up to an including the day before birth automatically thinks exactly that way colored my reaction quite a bit.

I support reproductive rights but I think there should be trimester limits. 1st, no limitations. 2nd must have serious reason e.g. rape baby. 3rd must be absolute medical necessity. But I digress.

[wierd]

It's very hard to justify 3rd trimester abortion.  At that point, you could give a cesarean, even with premature delivery.  Pretty much all major complications of a pregnancy that would be life threatening (uterine tearing, detachment of placenta, excessive bloodclot formation causing stroke or sepsis, et al) would already be HEAVILY manifest. It would be damage control not prevention at that point.

Second trimester gets dicey, as there are unfortunate edge cases (Held prisoner and impregnated against will, thus could not abort sooner, et al), that can collide with modern medical technology to support an extremely premature delivery, (especially in late 2nd trimester.)

First trimester is really when you want to catch a pregnancy if you want to abort it with minimal complications. This is, not ironically, one of the main reasons why ready access to inexpensive OBGYN services for women is very essential.

[Rolan7]

Most people that consider themselves conservative, are not deep into the fundie zone.  They tend to have a big continuum of personal interpretations and beliefs, that loosely aggregate under the christian dogma's views on sex. (Only between man and woman, only in marriage-- Otherwise just fine, but kept in private.)

It is when you get into fundie-ville that you get really scary off the wall shit. 

The fundemental strawman is asserting that all conservatives are fundies.  They are not.

However, the fundies are notoriously "Loud", and so get disproportionate representation in large public matters. (mainly because their over-the-top-ness makes the magnets for the press, which gives them exposure to spread their ideology, and when a group gets enough exposure, it starts to sway the whole demographic. There's science on that kind of thing.) This is why they are the immediate boogey man of the extreme abortion-rights groups, (as you mention), and also appear prominently in topics like this.

I was pre-emptively bringing out that boogey man, outright declaring it a parody that is not truly indicative of the greater proportion of the demographic, and lamplighting this fact, to avoid it being used more seriously--

There was also an undercurrent of acknowledging that there really are batshit people who really do hold such views, and that they are in fact shaping public discourse, and so infecting otherwise sensible people with some level of their extreme ideology. (EG, since the original proposal tried to make it look like women's suffering was straight up at odds with the central dogma, I was being cheeky in pointing out that there is a very real misogynist bent to conservatism, and that the proposal fails to incorporate this, and so it will not get as wide an audience.)

It's a lot less funny when I have to break it down like that though.  Explaining a crude joke always takes all the fun out of it.

I mostly agree with wierd this.  Though I might draw the line in a different place - in my opinion there are a lot of fundies in congress, who at *least* believe that abortion is murder while also wanting to withdraw aid from single mothers and forbid sexual education.

But it's important to acknowledge that's not the majority opinion (anymore) ((hopefully)).

I support reproductive rights but I think there should be trimester limits. 1st, no limitations. 2nd must have serious reason e.g. rape baby. 3rd must be absolute medical necessity. But I digress.

That's pretty much where I stand, too.  And I'd rather help people guard against STI and use methods to only conceive deliberately.  The methods aren't perfect, but they're pretty close with proper education.

[Loud Whispers]

IMMINENT HAPPENING, Saudis admit Khashoggi was killed at embassy

[wierd]

[imagines scene from Moral Orel.]


Sovereign territory? What's that daddy?  Is that the thing keeping the UK out of the Ecuadorian Embassy?

Yes son, that's exactly what it is.

Then why did the saudi government violate it to kill a troublesome journalist, daddy?

Because that journalist was a very bad man, son.

Worse than unicorn-haired sleezebags daddy?

Yes son. Worse than unicorn-haired sleezebags.  It's very important to know where to draw the line.

[Starver]

Speaking of the Ecuadorian Embassy, I see that Assange is getting restless, and may be severely outstaying his welcome.

[Hanslanda]

I support reproductive rights but I think there should be trimester limits. 1st, no limitations. 2nd must have serious reason e.g. rape baby. 3rd must be absolute medical necessity. But I digress.

That's pretty much where I stand, too.  And I'd rather help people guard against STI and use methods to only conceive deliberately.  The methods aren't perfect, but they're pretty close with proper education.

Yeah. Abstinence is bullshit. 15-20 year olds are physiologically predisposed towards sexual experimentation, telling them just don't is fucking stupid.

[Dunamisdeos]

I support reproductive rights but I think there should be trimester limits. 1st, no limitations. 2nd must have serious reason e.g. rape baby. 3rd must be absolute medical necessity. But I digress.

That's pretty much where I stand, too.  And I'd rather help people guard against STI and use methods to only conceive deliberately.  The methods aren't perfect, but they're pretty close with proper education.

Yeah. Abstinence is bullshit. 15-20 year olds are physiologically predisposed towards sexual experimentation, telling them just don't is fucking stupid.

I feel like this maybe isn't what you meant exactly, but I'd like to put forth (pretentiously clarify?) that ABSTINENCE ONLY is bullshit, that the concept of abstinence in and of itself has been successfully practiced, and that I was perfectly able to just choose not to have sex when I was a teenager. I've never slept with anyone but my now-wife. This was absolutely only possible due to proper education, and amounts to a personal choice on my part.

But I guess this is a bit off-topic from politics now. To put it back on topic, politicians that want to remove abortion as an option completely are ignorant and/or paid for. Probably "and". Even everyone here for all of our very different perspectives shy away from that concept.

[smjjames]

Speaking of the Ecuadorian Embassy, I see that Assange is getting restless, and may be severely outstaying his welcome.

They recently told him to take better care of his cat or they're taking it away and giving it to a shelter. Not sure what specifically they were complaining about though. In that same sentence in the article I read, it also said 'avoid hot political topics' and I thought to myself 'is the CAT supposed to avoid those or is ASSANAGE supposed to avoid those? Because the sentence wording sure sounds like the cat is supposed to avoid hot political topics.'

[JoshuaFH]

Speaking of the Ecuadorian Embassy, I see that Assange is getting restless, and may be severely outstaying his welcome.

They recently told him to take better care of his cat or they're taking it away and giving it to a shelter. Not sure what specifically they were complaining about though. In that same sentence in the article I read, it also said 'avoid hot political topics' and I thought to myself 'is the CAT supposed to avoid those or is ASSANAGE supposed to avoid those? Because the sentence wording sure sounds like the cat is supposed to avoid hot political topics.'

"Look, you can teach a cat to go in the litter box, or avoid Un-PC topics, but not BOTH!"

[Starver]

"Look, you can teach a cat to go in the litter box, or avoid Un-PC topics, but not BOTH!"

"And so I'm taking you to court over it!"

("Wait, no, I can't take you to court, but I can tell you to go to court while I keep myself locked up on your territory purely by not walking out of your door...")


You know, I'm rather disappointed with Assange, if he's not managed to get around the wifi block, in one of the many ways that I can think of. And only a handful of them even need a can of pringles!)

[Trekkin]

You know, I'm rather disappointed with Assange, if he's not managed to get around the wifi block, in one of the many ways that I can think of. And only a handful of them even need a can of pringles!)

You're more than welcome to offer him the benefit of your Pringles-based technical skills in helping him make a much-heralded return to the Internet and, having given Ecuador a perfect excuse, being promptly ejected from the embassy if not extradited outright. Somehow I don't think he'll be very keen.

[wobbly]

Seems a bit strange taking the people who's good will your reliant on to court. Even when there is a lack of good will to begin with, just seems a not smart idea.

[Starver]

You're more than welcome to offer him the benefit of your Pringles-based technical skills in helping him make a much-heralded return to the Internet and, having given Ecuador a perfect excuse, being promptly ejected from the embassy if not extradited outright. Somehow I don't think he'll be very keen.

That's rather the point. If he's actually sticking with the "Ecuadorian WiFi or nothing!" then, given how many people are perfectly capable of assisting him in using a work-around, and may well have visited him to discreetly palm him a new SIM or whisper details of an alternate AP they've arranged or discovered, he must be overwhelmingly paranoid and have trusted not one of them enough to even run a VPN/onion-routed connection through them, untracably by his hosts...

Or he doesn't trust any VPN/etc! That's one gapingly wide rabbithole that the Alice of stolen data has created for herself to fall into!

(Also reminds me of Cryptonomicon)

@Wobbly: If we're not more deluded than he is (difficult, but not impossible) I can't see this ever turning out well. Or less-unwell-than-now. Still, could be worse. He could have taken shelter in the Saudi place and then been an embarrassment...

(Also, UK listeners to Radio 4 Extra will probably be at least partially aware of the dry-comedy series Flying The Flag and the "dissidents in the cellar" seeking asylum sub-arc.)