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 whembly wrote:
I don't know why you're in a tizzy.

Because you keep contradicting yourself to make Your Team correct. When you need to prove that the democrats are a left-wing party and not centrist it's voting records that matter, not policy positions. When you need to prove that the republicans aren't a conservative party anymore suddenly your own graph of voting records is no longer relevant and it's policy positions that matter. When you want to argue that there's no center and both parties are off to their respective sides of the scale McCain's position is proof of this, but then when it's convenient McCain is suddenly a centrist and we're supposed to ignore your previous statements.

Do you not think the Democratic party are the progressive wings of American Politics?

Relative to US politics, yes. Relative to an international average of culturally and economically similar countries (IOW, not counting poverty-crippled dictatorships or Islamic theocracies or whatever) the democrats are fairly centrist. Most of their policy positions are centrist versions of what is standard in a lot of other countries, and the party as a whole tends to follow the majority opinion in moving slowly leftwards rather than making a major effort to shift US policy to the left.

Useful charts (one's a giphy):

 jasper76 wrote:
There are hypocrites everywhere. That doesn't mean that life doesn't begin at conception, or that killing that life is a good thing.

You've missed the point. The point isn't hypocrisy, but about what people actually believe. There is a saying in economics - don't look at what people say, look at what they do. For instance, run a survey and ask people how important saving for retirement is, and you'll be 70 to 80% saying it is very, very important. And yet if you look at how people actually spend their surplus money you see vacations and kitchen renovations, not retirement savings. As such we can conclude that no matter what people say, their actions show that retirement savings are not actually that important.

We can do the same with abortion. Because lots of people are happy to say it is a human life, and say they believe it has all the same rights to human life as any other. But if we look at their actions, they are quick to protest and support bills that curtail access to abortion, but in terms of actually doing anything to reduce the total number of abortions? Nothing. They not only do nothing about increasing access to contraception, they don't even talk about it. In terms of real, practical efforts to reduce total abortions there is nothing. As such, we can see that regardless of what they say, their actions are odds with a belief that an abortion is a life lost, and so we must conclude that it isn't their actual belief.

Now, this doesn't mean they are wrong to oppose abortion - even if a foetus isn't equal to a 6 month old baby, that doesn't necessarily mean it shouldn't have the protection of the state. This doesn't decide the debate or anything like that. But it does cast a light on the actual beliefs of abortions, and hint that their political positions are perhaps less about the foetus than they declare.

[qutoe]As for hypocrisy, it's there to be had in the pro-choice movement as well. Many pro-choice people simulatanetously believe that killing innocent humans in utero for convenience is acceptable, but killing murderers and rapists to protect society is unacceptable.

 Peregrine wrote:

Do you not think the Democratic party are the progressive wings of American Politics?

Relative to US politics, yes. Relative to an international average of culturally and economically similar countries (IOW, not counting poverty-crippled dictatorships or Islamic theocracies or whatever) the democrats are fairly centrist. Most of their policy positions are centrist versions of what is standard in a lot of other countries, and the party as a whole tends to follow the majority opinion in moving slowly leftwards rather than making a major effort to shift US policy to the left.

I'm always talking about US politics.

So, when you say 'Democrats are fairly centrist' you need to caveat with that it's compared with the rest of the world.

Steelmage99 wrote:
As far as I know (and I am perfectly willing to be corrected here) IUDs works by preventing the sperm from fertilising the egg, meaning an effect taking place before conception. Unless those people consider the very act of having sex as conception.

My understanding, and I admit my medical knowledge is pretty crappy, is that there are different kinds of IUDs and they work through different methods. One kind prevents the fertilised egg from implanting in the uterus, and I can understand the moral argument against that.

But there are other kinds of IUD that prevent fertilisation, by slowing or killing the sperm.

 sebster wrote:

As for hypocrisy, it's there to be had in the pro-choice movement as well. Many pro-choice people simulatanetously believe that killing innocent humans in utero for convenience is acceptable, but killing murderers and rapists to protect society is unacceptable.

That argument makes zero sense. The pro-choice people don't believe it is a human life. Your argument becomes "people are giving more rights to something they believe to be a human life than they do to something they don't believe to be a human life". Not quite the zinger you were hoping for.

Also, the arguments against killing murderers and rapists is often not about killing rapists and murderers but about the possibility of killing innocent people. And once someone is locked up in prison, their impact and capability to harmfully affect society is greatly diminished to the point that executing them does nothing to protect society that a life sentence doesn't already do and do without the potential of someone being killed for a crime they did not commit.

I mean, Charlie Manson did terrible crimes. Does the fact that he is still alive in prison mean that society is somehow more at risk than if he had been executed?

 sebster wrote:
We can do the same with abortion. Because lots of people are happy to say it is a human life, and say they believe it has all the same rights to human life as any other. But if we look at their actions, they are quick to protest and support bills that curtail access to abortion, but in terms of actually doing anything to reduce the total number of abortions? Nothing. They not only do nothing about increasing access to contraception, they don't even talk about it. In terms of real, practical efforts to reduce total abortions there is nothing. As such, we can see that regardless of what they say, their actions are odds with a belief that an abortion is a life lost, and so we must conclude that it isn't their actual belief.

Additionally, we can note that the pro-life side shows very little interest in doing anything about natural miscarriages, which end more "lives" in the US than all other causes of death combined. If life truly begins at conception then this is the greatest problem in the world, an urgent medical crisis that demands our full attention. And yet miscarriages are still treated as a personal tragedy, something that is sad and unfortunate for the poor mother but not a greater problem for society. The inevitable conclusion here is that the pro-life side doesn't sincerely believe that life begins at conception, they only find it a convenient argument to use against abortion.

 Peregrine wrote:

 sebster wrote:
We can do the same with abortion. Because lots of people are happy to say it is a human life, and say they believe it has all the same rights to human life as any other. But if we look at their actions, they are quick to protest and support bills that curtail access to abortion, but in terms of actually doing anything to reduce the total number of abortions? Nothing. They not only do nothing about increasing access to contraception, they don't even talk about it. In terms of real, practical efforts to reduce total abortions there is nothing. As such, we can see that regardless of what they say, their actions are odds with a belief that an abortion is a life lost, and so we must conclude that it isn't their actual belief.

Additionally, we can note that the pro-life side shows very little interest in doing anything about natural miscarriages, which end more "lives" in the US than all other causes of death combined. If life truly begins at conception then this is the greatest problem in the world, an urgent medical crisis that demands our full attention. And yet miscarriages are still treated as a personal tragedy, something that is sad and unfortunate for the poor mother but not a greater problem for society. The inevitable conclusion here is that the pro-life side doesn't sincerely believe that life begins at conception, they only find it a convenient argument to use against abortion.

No... that's utterly and complete bs.

You want to explain why it is?

 Peregrine wrote:

 sebster wrote:
We can do the same with abortion. Because lots of people are happy to say it is a human life, and say they believe it has all the same rights to human life as any other. But if we look at their actions, they are quick to protest and support bills that curtail access to abortion, but in terms of actually doing anything to reduce the total number of abortions? Nothing. They not only do nothing about increasing access to contraception, they don't even talk about it. In terms of real, practical efforts to reduce total abortions there is nothing. As such, we can see that regardless of what they say, their actions are odds with a belief that an abortion is a life lost, and so we must conclude that it isn't their actual belief.

Additionally, we can note that the pro-life side shows very little interest in doing anything about natural miscarriages, which end more "lives" in the US than all other causes of death combined. If life truly begins at conception then this is the greatest problem in the world, an urgent medical crisis that demands our full attention. And yet miscarriages are still treated as a personal tragedy, something that is sad and unfortunate for the poor mother but not a greater problem for society. The inevitable conclusion here is that the pro-life side doesn't sincerely believe that life begins at conception, they only find it a convenient argument to use against abortion.

What?

This makes utterly no sense at all.

 whembly wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 sebster wrote:
We can do the same with abortion. Because lots of people are happy to say it is a human life, and say they believe it has all the same rights to human life as any other. But if we look at their actions, they are quick to protest and support bills that curtail access to abortion, but in terms of actually doing anything to reduce the total number of abortions? Nothing. They not only do nothing about increasing access to contraception, they don't even talk about it. In terms of real, practical efforts to reduce total abortions there is nothing. As such, we can see that regardless of what they say, their actions are odds with a belief that an abortion is a life lost, and so we must conclude that it isn't their actual belief.

Additionally, we can note that the pro-life side shows very little interest in doing anything about natural miscarriages, which end more "lives" in the US than all other causes of death combined. If life truly begins at conception then this is the greatest problem in the world, an urgent medical crisis that demands our full attention. And yet miscarriages are still treated as a personal tragedy, something that is sad and unfortunate for the poor mother but not a greater problem for society. The inevitable conclusion here is that the pro-life side doesn't sincerely believe that life begins at conception, they only find it a convenient argument to use against abortion.

No... that's utterly and complete bs.

What part? Because 15 to 20% of all known pregnancies end in miscarriage in the USA. Up to 50% of all fertilised eggs die and are lost naturally before the woman even realised that it was fertilised. So if that fertilised egg is a life then up to half of all possible lives are lost before we even get into the issue that of the 50% which survive that, 15% will later die. By what measure is a medical condition having a mortality rate of over 50% not a huge health issue?

A Town Called Malus wrote:Since when did being centre-right mean someone wasn't conservative? How far do you have to be from the centre for "conservative" to be an acceptable description?

Being a republican comes with a lot of extra baggage on top of conservatism so having the party which elected Donald Trump saying you're a RINO is not the same as not being a conservative.

Since someone argued that Clinton was a centrist, not a leftist.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
What part? Because 15 to 20% of all known pregnancies end in miscarriage in the USA. Up to 50% of all fertilised eggs die and are lost naturally before the woman even realised that it was fertilised. So if that fertilised egg is a life then half of all possible lives are lost. By what measure is a natural process having a mortality rate between 15% and 50% not a major health issue?

Exactly. If life begins at conception then death by miscarriage outnumbers all other causes of death combined. If you don't believe that such a vast number of deaths is an important problem then you don't believe that those lives are equal to the lives of people who have been born.

People who are acting with deliberate intent to end the babies lives via abortion procedures, is obviously and categorically different from the medical/biological things that happen in this world.

Prestor Jon wrote:
It's unethical to edit interviews to deliberately misrepresent what people said. I stand by that opinion regardless of the context. Being disingenuous is being disingenuous.

I'm not accusing the Daily Show of doing a crime or something truly heinous, I'm just pointing out that when they selectively edit interviews it's poor form just like it's poor form when anyone else does it. That doesn't make the Daily Show evil it just means that they have the same unethical behaviors of others.

You are treating 'editing' and 'selective editing' as one in the same. The Daily Show edits, because they are a 30 minute show and they only give a third or less of over to the interview. So obviously an interview that ran for more than 10 minutes will get edited. Being opposed to any editing at all is ridiculous - should they run the interview at double time, so all the content is there but everyone has chipmunk voices?

Selective editing is the process of narrowing an interview down to only the bits where 'your side' won, or removing context to make someone's point different to what it was, or chopping up questions and answers so that . It's the latter two methods that have revealed people like James O'Keefe, Ben Stein and the hack behind that Sweden Rape documentary to be dishonest, lying gaks. The Daily Show is often accused by guests often doing one of the above

The difference of course, is that James O'Keefe, Ben Stein and that Sweden Rape documentary guy have all been shown to have selectively edited. It was an accusation that was substantiated. Whereas The Daily Show has been accused, but there's never been an example in which in a guest can say the show misrepresented their point with selective editing. And the full interviews are put on-line, so if this had ever happened the interviewee would have been able to prove it.

Once again, the right wing does it, the left wing is accused of it, and the same group of people conclude 'both sides'.

 whembly wrote:
People who are acting with deliberate intent to end the babies lives via abortion procedures, is obviously and categorically different from the medical/biological things that happen in this world.

So you would approve of a government ban on pregnant women being able to drink alcohol or smoke? Or any strenuous activity which could result in them falling, potentially affecting their pregnancy?

 whembly wrote:
People who are acting with deliberate intent to end the babies lives via abortion procedures, is obviously and categorically different from the medical/biological things that happen in this world

That's not the point. Even if abortion is completely banned, with 100% effectiveness including no illegal abortions, deaths by miscarriage will still outnumber deaths from all other causes combined. If you believe that life begins at conception then you must consider this an urgent crisis that demands every possible effort to fight it, no matter what happens with abortion.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 whembly wrote:
People who are acting with deliberate intent to end the babies lives via abortion procedures, is obviously and categorically different from the medical/biological things that happen in this world.

So you would approve of a government ban on pregnant women being able to drink alcohol or smoke?

This line of discussion has gotten utterly ridiculous.

 djones520 wrote:
This line of discussion has gotten utterly ridiculous.

No, it's just an effective demonstration of the selectively-held "principles" of the pro-life side. It's not my fault that some of you seem to be uncomfortable with the natural consequences of a belief that life begins at conception.

 djones520 wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 whembly wrote:
People who are acting with deliberate intent to end the babies lives via abortion procedures, is obviously and categorically different from the medical/biological things that happen in this world.

So you would approve of a government ban on pregnant women being able to drink alcohol or smoke?

This line of discussion has gotten utterly ridiculous.

Why? Smoking and drinking during pregnancy massively increases the risks to the health and wellbeing of the foetus, including raising the risk of stillbirth, miscarriage, premature birth, health issues such as asthma, learning difficulties etc. If you ban abortion because the foetus is a human life then you should also do the same for tobacco and alcohol because they can have the exact same effect.

We are the idiots for arguing against someone who already admitted that he will make up whatever rules he wants to never admit that his team might be wrong about anything, because that's what Calvinball is.

He admits to being dishonest, so why encourage the trolling?

Miscarriage due to stress happens fairly often. Once a woman is confirmed to be pregnant, should she immediately be given medical leave from work to avoid raising the chances of miscarriage, free neo natal vitamins to assist strengthening the blob of cells as it grows, and food stamps to ensure she stays healthy in order to avoid a possible miscarriage?

(Lol look guys, I managed to link three major political talking points to miscarriage. Maternity leave, healthcare, and welfare)

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Trump's CPAC speech highlight: The president also spent a large part of his keynote address going after another popular target of his: the press. Trump doubled down on his claim that the "FAKE NEWS media" is the "enemy of the American people," this time saying he plans to "do something about it."

The biggest story out of CPAC is the one that's been barely reported - the conservatives assembled there gave enthusiastic support to both Bannon and Trump. Trump has assumed leadership of conservatism and they've cheered him along in taking it.

I remember when people said it was okay that Trump was a lunatic with lunatic ideas, because conservatives and liberals would both fight him. I knew it was ridiculous to think conservatives would fight Trump, but I still underestimated how quickly and tamely they would fall in line.

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Miscarriage due to stress happens fairly often. Once a woman is confirmed to be pregnant, should she immediately be given medical leave from work to avoid raising the chances of miscarriage, free neo natal vitamins to assist strengthening the blob of cells as it grows, and food stamps to ensure she stays healthy in order to avoid a possible miscarriage?

(Lol look guys, I managed to link three major political talking points to miscarriage. Maternity leave, healthcare, and welfare)

And most miscarriages happen before the woman knows she is pregnant. So better throw in mandatory pregnancy testing in addition to that massive research program to solve the causes of miscarriages.

 sebster wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Trump's CPAC speech highlight: The president also spent a large part of his keynote address going after another popular target of his: the press. Trump doubled down on his claim that the "FAKE NEWS media" is the "enemy of the American people," this time saying he plans to "do something about it."

The biggest story out of CPAC is the one that's been barely reported - the conservatives assembled there gave enthusiastic support to both Bannon and Trump. Trump has assumed leadership of conservatism and they've cheered him along in taking it.

I remember when people said it was okay that Trump was a lunatic with lunatic ideas, because conservatives and liberals would both fight him. I knew it was ridiculous to think conservatives would fight Trump, but I still underestimated how quickly and tamely they would fall in line.

Yup. I remember posting in one of the politics threads (one of the ones during the actual election) that if Trump won, his positions and ideals (for want of a better word) would become the new Republican standard because it would demonstrate an ability to win the presidency (and so if people didn't want Trump to become the new standard for Republican politics they should do everything they could to ensure that he didn't win). So far I'm not seeing anything to suggest that isn't happening.

 whembly wrote:
What? Weren't you outraged when Fox News was kicked off for a bit? That administration revoked their press credentials?

That it took the rest of the media walking out to get them back in?

Of course, this isn't what happened. FOX News never had their press credentials revoked, and the rest of the media never rallied around FOX to get them back.

What happened is that FOX ran a story about being denied an interview with Treasury official Kenneth Feinberg. FOX claimed that all other major media sources were granted interviews, and FOX was explicitly denied. FOX ran with this story for a week or so, you and the other true believers bought in and had your outrage story for the week. Then when the truth came out FOX didn't report on it and you and the other true believers didn't give a gak, because it wasn't helping to prove your personal narrative about how evil Obama was. The truth was that FOX didn't get an interview because they didn't ask for one, they screwed up and didn't do their own admin work. When they said did want an interview, they were told by Treasury they screwed up and missed the window, too bad so sad. Now, that wasn't a very constructive position to take, but it was made by Treasury, not the Whitehouse, and it was backed down from almost immediately, long before the story broke in the media, and it never required a mass media walk out.

So, things you got wrong;
Was an interview, not press credentials.
Was with an official, not the president or any of his direct staffers
Was done by Treasury, not Whitehouse
Was due to FOX news screwing up, not due to the politics of anyone involved
The rest of the media didn't walk out

To be fair, you got these things wrong because you were told a deceptive version of this story by FOX news. But then again, you keep listening to the lies put out by FOX news, so maybe it is still your fault.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jmurph wrote:
But yeah, it wasn't cool when Obama did it.

Obama didn't though. That was a fiction.

Once again we have accusations about the left, and actual things done by the right, and people concluding 'both sides'.

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Miscarriage due to stress happens fairly often. Once a woman is confirmed to be pregnant, should she immediately be given medical leave from work to avoid raising the chances of miscarriage, free neo natal vitamins to assist strengthening the blob of cells as it grows, and food stamps to ensure she stays healthy in order to avoid a possible miscarriage?

(Lol look guys, I managed to link three major political talking points to miscarriage. Maternity leave, healthcare, and welfare)

You are assuming that they actually care about the blob of cells and not just controlling people, small gummint

(I do get that you were being sarcastic)

 whembly wrote:
They then decided to have a "gaggle" for a small pool press conference (ie, not the full blown daily press conference).

They planned on having an on-camera gaggle meeting, but canceled the on-camera part this morning.

This small "gaggle" is held in different area (?? why?) and it allows the press sec to choose the attendees.

That's part isn't unusal.

What makes this abnormal, is the number of friendly media types chosen for this small gaggle.

You've gotten some things wrong here as well.

1) A gaggle is by definition an off camera meeting. That is the definition of a gaggle - it is an informal, off camera meeting with the press, that is held to give administrative details (times of future briefings etc), or indicate early administration positions on pressing issues where the exact stance isn't formalised enough for a position to be taken on camera.

2) It is not normal to pick only some media outlets to come to these meetings. It would be absurd to hold a gaggle to give out the next week's briefing & interview timetable, and only invite some of the media.

3) It is ridiculous to say that space was an issue. A gaggle only needs reporters, no sound, camera or lighting people are required. The crowd is halved just because of the lack of technical people needed. The idea that you would struggle to fit half as many people as you normally host is in direct denial of basic maths.

So I'm guessing you got this summary of the event from FOX news?


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 cuda1179 wrote:
I think Trump's largest problem when he sounds stupid is that he improvs too much. He'll go on long tangents that he has barely thought of, let alone practiced. Other Presidents have sounded better, but have, at least in my opinion, relied much to heavily on teleprompters. If you look at many of their addresses, even to the press you can see their eyes moving back and forth reading. Trump would definitely sound more "political" if he at least tried this now and again.

That doesn't make a lot of sense, because as well as giving speeches and using teleprompters, other presidents also took questions and answered them without rehearsal or preparation. They managed this without saying anything as obviously dimwitted as "You know what uranium is, right? It’s this thing called nuclear weapons. And other things. Like lots of things are done with uranium. Including some bad things."

The reason Trump sounds stupid when he speaks off the cuff is either because he is stupid, or alternatively he thinks the people he's talking to are stupid. It could be some combination of the two.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cuda1179 wrote:
I have looked into free IUD programs and heavily support them. I even supported voluntary perminant sterilization programs for women in Africa. For those women surviving child birth and the financial burden is and extreme concern, and desire such services. However for some reason sterilization services have plumeted as it's not "politically correct" when 1st world nations sponson it. Kind of the mirror of the abortion debate.

Thank you for an honest and consistent approach to this topic.

Permanent sterilisation is something of a political hurdle that doesn't need to be taken, though. Temporary, renewable sterilisation from IUDs is a much easier sell, and it probably costs less.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
They then decided to have a "gaggle" for a small pool press conference (ie, not the full blown daily press conference).

They planned on having an on-camera gaggle meeting, but canceled the on-camera part this morning.

This small "gaggle" is held in different area (?? why?) and it allows the press sec to choose the attendees.

That's part isn't unusal.

What makes this abnormal, is the number of friendly media types chosen for this small gaggle.

You've gotten some things wrong here as well.

1) A gaggle is by definition an off camera meeting. That is the definition of a gaggle - it is an informal, off camera meeting with the press, that is held to give administrative details (times of future briefings etc), or indicate early administration positions on pressing issues where the exact stance isn't formalised enough for a position to be taken on camera.

Usually with the White House pool reporters.

2) It is not normal to pick only some media outlets to come to these meetings. It would be absurd to hold a gaggle to give out the next week's briefing & interview timetable, and only invite some of the media.

It's not normal... so what?

3) It is ridiculous to say that space was an issue. A gaggle only needs reporters, no sound, camera or lighting people are required. The crowd is halved just because of the lack of technical people needed. The idea that you would struggle to fit half as many people as you normally host is in direct denial of basic maths.

How would you know? Do you know how many people were invited and the size of Spicier's office?

So I'm guessing you got this summary of the event from FOX news?
.

No. Politico and TheHill.

 cuda1179 wrote:
So, would everyone agree that a one-time ban for a bunch of news outlets is about the same as a permanent ban on one network?

Would everyone agree that Trump actually did exclude news agencies, while Obama was merely accused of such by one dishonest news agency?


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 skyth wrote:
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/eduardo-caraballo-puerto-rico-deportion-94795779.html

US citizen held and threatened to be deported as an illegal even though he showed his birth certificate and ID. Doubt this would have happened if he wasn't brown...

Australian children's author Mem Fox was held and aggressively questioned for two hours. She's a 70 year old white woman.

Many people find the idea of being an donkey-cave for no reason and getting away with it really appealing. It was a big part of Trump's appeal in the first place. Its what attracts some people to jobs like border security.

Put those two things together and you get a whole lot of people getting treated very badly because there is a missing figure on their visa. Racism is almost inevitably going to tied up with that, but it isn't all about racism.

Prestor Jon wrote:
This is bad. Every administration tries to control the narrative and get their message out through favorable media outlets but this kind of behavior goes far beyond that. In the short term I don't think the public really lost out on anything in this particular briefing but it's not good for this kind of hard line stance to be taken this early.

I actually think the story here is less about a threat against free press, and more a story of an increasingly incompetent president. You don't control the narrative by making hostile gestures against the people who will be delivering your message to the public. This is 'the beatings will continue until morale improves' kind of stuff.

It was wrong when the Obama administration banned Fox News but at least there was a lengthy build up to it and a show of solidarity against it.

Seriously, this didn't fething happen. FOX didn't get an interview with a treasury official, because they didn't ask for one. FOX then said 'actually we meant to ask for an interview', and Treasury responded 'well then you shoulda asked for one'. FOX complained, and were granted an interview. FOX then told a big story about how they were banned, and only got access when the rest of the media threatened walk out, which was complete fiction.

Incredibly, in the years after the event instead of the truth slowly being established the story has become more fantastical. It's actually grown so that instead of being about that one time an interview was denied an interview by treasury, it's now become a story about the whole of FOX news being blocked from access to Obama or something.