I didn't say they deserve the same treatment, I said they should be held to the same standard. That means, politicians are going to lie just like everyone else. They are going to change their mind on issues. They are going to be shown a different point of view and maybe adopt that idea instead of something they previously thought. They may have a strong willed belief on how certain aspects of our country work and then when they actually see the behind the curtain nuts and bolts, realize it's far different than they imagined and have to change their policies. This has happened numerous times over the past 100 years spanning every elected office. You using the "has their hands on the nuclear codes" bullshit is so tiring to read. Please drop this from your future posts. I've never once said I dislike liberals. I never said I like conservatives either. I'm not affiliated with any political party or movement. I enjoy the freedom to think logically without needing to tie my anchor to one ideal or another. You however, seemingly want to make sure I fit into some category of person, so you can label me, and dismiss anything I have to say based on who I'm affiliated to. For the record though, yes, some liberal ideas are fucking retarded. A lot of conservative ideas are fucking retarded. You can go down the line, Libertarian, Tea Party, Communist, Socialist, all of them have some REALLY dumb fucking ideas. It doesn't mean there aren't some ideas in each of these groups worth using and worth adopting. Without having a hard stuck affiliation, I have the freedom to think, you know what, that idea in Communism actually has some good practical usage in this situation, and this Socialist idea has some practical use, and this conservative idea melds well with it as well. Trump never said women should be punished for having abortions under current law. He said, if Roe vs Wade was repealed, and women went ahead and got illegal abortions, they should be punished. Well, guess what, that's how the law works. You break one, there has to be a consequence for breaking it. If there's not, why have the law in the first place? Now if you want to debate the effectiveness of making abortions illegal, and the ramifications of doing so, that's a different topic altogether. I'm also going to assume, because of your seemingly liberal stance in this thread, you also agree that gun rights shouldn't be restricted at all and I should have complete and unrestricted access to any firearm I deem worthy. In this case, you can't say a constitutionally protected freedom, being challenged by liberals for the past 40 years, should slowly have their rights chipped away and restricted, but give a free pass to a Supreme Court decision which shouldn't be restricted or further modified. You can't hold two opposite positions to the same argument because one you like and the other you don't. So how about we do this. The 2nd amendment has zero restrictions, anyone can carry, own, shoot, any weapon they want, whenever they want, and we allow women to abort any baby they want, for whatever reason, whenever they want. Deal? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure...Tell that to all of the people who went marching over the weekend when the mid term elections came around during the past 8 years and will come around in the future. It may serve them well to actually care about what was happening in their country outside of when they don't like the guy elected President.
That's not quite accurate. You're right that he didn't advocate punishing women under current law, but what he did advocate was changing the law and punishing women as a result. Chris Matthews was asking him what his general pro-life position meant in specific legal terms. It was a very open ended "what should the law be?" After dodging for about two minutes, he finally conceded that he believed women should be punished for seeking an abortion. The full exchange is here:
He clearly said a few times, I'm pro life, abortion should be illegal except in 3 circumstances (I'm assuming this is rape, incest, and perhaps danger to the mother?), and if someone gets an abortion with it being illegal, they should be punished. Him saying they should be punished is under the assumption abortion is illegal. This is how it should be. IF abortion is against the law, and you go ahead and get one anyway, you should be punished. I don't see how this is murky at all.
No bullshit, this is the best idea ever. As a guns rights guy who is really ambivalent towards abortion to begin with. If this was codified into the constitution via a new amendment and I didn't have to worry about the argument again? Fucking have at it, where do I sign up?
Here's my question: Why do we as a country circle around abortion and reproduction? It's been this way my entire life...abortion, abstinence-first sex ed, and on down the line. Most countries recognize the immediate benefits of reproductive education and family planning. It results in a healthier, happier populace. Whether your beliefs guide your actions or not, abortions are a net positive to society. If you don't think people should get abortions, why in the fuck do you rely on the government to ban them instead of...I dunno, talking to young women about how not to get pregnant or explaining their options for adoption? The issue with Trump is that he can continue down the path of Bush and Obama and gut the mechanics of how things are done. He can't repeal Roe V. Wade, but he can issue executive order after executive order until the mechanism that ensures access is destroyed, and the SC will spend years before the damage gets undone. Our system of checks and balances came unravelled during the "terrorism" years of Bush and Obama wasn't about to give back powers he never should have had to start with. Aside from the obvious problem of a bunch of angry, old, Christian white men making the decision of who or what can be done with one's body, I can't wrap my mind around why this issue has drug on for so long... Until it occurs to me that it gets everyone frothy about it, so that they can sneak past some darker shit. It wouldn't surprise me one bit that Trump tweets about how many abortions he's paid for or how Mike Pence was almost aborted as an 8-year old or some shit, and they plow through a healthcare bill that provides access to hospitals only if you are an indentured servant or a Net Neutrality bill that hands the keys to global communication to Verizon.
So Spicer today had to defend Trump's belief that millions of illegals voted in the last election and that's why he lost the popular vote. This is week 1 folks, it only gets worse form here.
If you think that the 2018 elections haven't been a huge focus of organizing efforts since the day after the election, you haven't been paying attention.
No, I just don't see a lot of diverse representation here. This affects young, Latina women more than any other demographic, and you couldn't be further from that group than Trump/Pence. Along the same lines, fuck em if I want to ingest marijuana or mushrooms, etc. This is the cognitive dissonance: "Keep the government out of our lives". OK, but not with drugs, abortions, etc. Just with minimum wages, environmental standards and healthcare, mkay? Funny how those are things you have a fuck ton of money to gain by gutting regulation...
I'll believe it when I see it. Until then, I'll refer to the apathetic, lowest % turnout in a few decades election cycle that just passed as the starting point for what the mid terms are going to bring.
Or you could, you know, get involved and see what's happening now and do things about it in whichever direction you'd like instead of solely sitting around and complaining online.
They'd better organize, otherwise the Republicans may gain enough power to start passing Constitutional Amendments. And I can't believe the ugly, red-headed step-child of the Serious Thread made it 100 pages.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/obama-promises/ Fascinating, and disheartening at the same time.
And you are assuming I'm not? I've been thoroughly active in my community during the past 3 elections. I go to many of the town hall meetings about the budget for my town. I'm a gold donor and an organizer for the local dog park the town used a state grant to create, I've even considered running for a few of the upcoming positions during the next election term. I've done all of this and still found time to sit around and complain online. What have you done lately besides read some online blogs and march in a parade?
That's not a lie. It's an inescapable conclusion of simple logic. If it was really about "protecting the lives of the unborn" the anti-abortion side would be in favor of free/low-cost birth control, comprehensive sex-education, and support for low-income women, because all those measures will reduce the demand for abortions. However the pro-life movement is against all of these things that reduce abortion demand, so their claim of caring about the rights of the 'unborn' must be called into question. On the other hand all pro-life positions are positions that impose hardships on women, so it logically follows that their ultimate goal is controlling women's sexuality, not preserving fetal life at all costs.
I've been politically active and involved since I was 12, have already been in office, and am a treasurer of a SuperPAC to support first time candidates for 2018, among other things. I'm doing fine. You said you'd believe Democrat organizing when you see it. Since you're already active in other ways, it should be even easier to know what's going on rather than start from scratch. There have been a lot of questions and confusions on this whole topic in this thread that have very obvious answers that are very easy to find with the smallest effort. Putting your head down and doing the actual work is always less flashy and less publicized, but it's not difficult to track down if you actually give a shit.
Let's keep the conversation to relevant political topics and stay away from comparing all our gold stars.
Well, there you go. We are both politically active individuals with interests in seeing our personal beliefs put into action. I said, I'll believe it when I see it to Dems actually coming out to the polls and voting, something they've been notoriously bad at doing. Especially after seeing the turnout numbers in the past presidential election which, according to the after election response, was a pretty big deal. I didn't have any confusion on the topic in this thread in relation to the marches this past weekend. You thought they had a deeper meaning, I thought they were to be taken at face value. We can both be right on this. Perhaps this sparks the liberal leaning people in this country to get more involved in politics and to actually affect change in their communities. Perhaps they remain apathetic and continue to think a once a year march and some angry tweets are good enough. It's why I said, I'll believe it when I see it.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/824080766288228352?ref_src=twsrc^tfw Is he threatening to put an American city under martial law? Or does he just think a half dozen ATF agents will fix all that ails them? edit: oh God he was watching Fox news: https://twitter.com/Walldo/status/824082877503721472/video/1
Martial law is putting the military in charge of the government. What does that have to do with using federal law enforcement in Chicago? Obama took similar action with Baltimore in 2015.