Donald trump. what is your take on him?

[JohnRoberts]

Why is it so hard to just let women make their own choices, free from judgement from others (usually men)?  Why is it necessary to legislate responsibility?

When does life or being begin?

It is hard to invest much sympathy for a one cell zygote, but at some point a viable fetus deserves a level of state protection IMO.

OTOH if parents could kill their kids up to 18 YO without consequence that would moot other issues (like child abuse).

The difficult question is where, as a society, do we draw the line of when does this living organism deserve its own individual rights. (I am not smart enough to answer this)

Oversimplification of this issue one way or the other is typical divisive political manipulation. Political issues are rarely neat and simple. The republic is based on the theme of protecting individual rights and life seems like it qualifies (life, liberty, yadda yadda). There needs to be a reasonable balance between the rights of the mother, and the rights of a viable fetus.

I have long suggested that this is like arguing about the horse several months after it left the barn to run away. Preventing unwanted pregnancy should be the primary focus of our efforts, abortion is a brutal and unpleasant form of way too long after the fact birth control. 

JR

 

[micaddict]

When does life or being begin?

Technically, life begins at conception or fertilization; not when the implantation of an embryo in the womb's lining takes place.

FWIW.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Technically, life begins at conception or fertilization; not when the implantation of an embryo in the womb's lining takes place.

FWIW.

When do legal rights/protection as an individual begin?

JR

 

[micaddict]

When do legal rights/protection as an individual begin?

JR

That of course depends on what society makes of it in a given country and at a given time.

 

[DaveP]

And who gets to decide who is raped, and who was involved in incest?  Does a woman need to get a signed doctor's letter saying her life is in danger, then go before a judge to avoid prosecution?

Wouldn't you think a women would know she had been raped?
Incest, if not wanted, is usually brought to light at sometime, but by then it would be too late if the child had already been produced.  The only situation where it would help is if the victim escaped and reported the fact.

I had a baby last fall and I can't imagine doing it alone - or without adequate financial resources - or without wanting the child.

Congratulations!
Having a baby and watching it mature makes you realize that the potential was all there in place, from a very early state.
Being a father has made me realize that children and life are precious,  I don't have a problem with the morning after pill because it is just a bunch of formless cells, a live viable human being is quite another.

I once asked why there were no disabled children in the part of Africa I was working in.  I was told that imperfect babies were left in the forest to die of exposure as life was hard enough for even the fittest individuals.  After my wife had a miscarriage between our 2nd and 3rd child the doctor told us, that on average, nature aborts about 25% of pregnancies due to imperfect code.  So I am not against abortion per se, I am just against such a brutal act being used instead of contraception, due to lack of responsibility.

I certainly would not judge anyone in the third world because they have to live in conditions of subjugation and tribal pressure.  I think you will appreciate that life is a great deal easier for women in first world countries and the availability of contraception is never an issue and excuses are therefore few and far between.

Although we think that sex is a fun pastime, nature designed it to create life, so a degree of responsibility is required because it's an adult issue like driving a car, it has consequences if you screw up.  A friend of my wife (very well off) had an abortion because it was not convenient to have a child at the time (her words), later on when she wanted one it turned out that the abortion had made her infertile..........consequences.

DaveP

 

[Matador]

The difficult question is where, as a society, do we draw the line of when does this living organism deserve its own individual rights. (I am not smart enough to answer this)

Yes, this is indeed the heart of the matter.  I think sensible lines can be drawn, and that is where we should be starting, but as is typical we are arguing about whether is should be allowed or not at all, in any circumstances.

Trump himself said:

MATTHEWS: Do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no, as a principle?
TRUMP: The answer is there has to be some form of punishment.
MATTHEWS: For the woman?
TRUMP: Yes.
MATTHEWS: 10 cents, 10 years, what?
TRUMP: I don’t know. That I don’t know.

So perhaps this is just another "opening negotiating position". 

I don't have a problem with the morning after pill because it is just a bunch of formless cells, a live viable human being is quite another.

No-place in America was performing late-term abortions (at least not legally):  I know there is this perception that full term babies are ripped from wombs and slaughtered in doctor's office but it just never happened.

So indeed, as above, we are left to define where viability is:  most states abide by he 24-26 week range (or sooner), which seems reasonable to me.  This is a far cry from "On this issue, Trump is right".

 

[iampoor1]

Why is it so hard to just let women make their own choices, free from judgement from others (usually men)?  Why is it necessary to legislate responsibility?

They can make their own choices, without my judgement or interference.

But the moment that I am required to pay for it out of the taxes I pay, then it becomes partially my business.

It is not necessary to legislate responsibility, but dont require me to pay for responsibility (or lack of it!)

I think this is one of the key points that many conservatives find hard to articulate.

 

[JohnRoberts]

This is just another hot button issue to keep us distracted and divided.

Gaining political power is all about mining such wedge issues.  Race, wealth, etc are more such topics. Enjoy the ride to nowhere or just say no.

JR

 

[dmp]

This is just another hot button issue to keep us distracted and divided.

That is a very interesting statement - is it true? I think you posted a couple days ago that the supreme court appt was your top issue.
Pro-life seems to be the Republican litmus test (Trump himself said he would nominate a pro-life justice, but since he was blatantly lying to manipulate people who knows what he will really do).
Do you consider all personal freedom issues this way?
Such as: guns, abortion, speech (ala flag burning / patriotism), etc...

But the moment that I am required to pay for it out of the taxes I pay, then it becomes partially my business.

And I think this gets to the truth of what JR posted - the politicians don't work out a compromise because they want to keep these divisive wedge issues.

 

[dmp]

Congratulations!
Having a baby and watching it mature makes you realize that the potential was all there in place, from a very early state.
Being a father has made me realize that children and life are precious

Thanks - it's been amazing.

 

[Matador]

It is not necessary to legislate responsibility, but dont require me to pay for responsibility (or lack of it!)

There's the rub:  if someone doesn't take care of themselves, should we fund medical care for their heart attack?  If your house burns down, why should I fund the fire department to put it out?  Maybe you shouldn't have been so irresponsible!

JR is right, this is mostly distraction.  All of these issues boils down to a single idea:  does one believe in collective goods, or don't they?  Pretty much all of the arguments: tax policy, abortion, healthcare, etc, boil down to this question.  Do societies serve a collective good, or is it that the point of government is to provide common defense, and get out of the way in all other cases?

Without an answer to this at a national level, the rest becomes picking resistor wattage before you even know the voltages and current.

(See, I can make any problem about electronics).

 

[hodad]

This is the stuff I was predicting: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01/24/usda-science-researchers-ordered-to-stop-publishing-news-releases-other-documents/?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.ae53c6bd2802
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/01/23/trump-administration-tells-epa-to-freeze-all-grants-contracts/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.0d6df7841a25

I would hope that everyone here has a healthy appreciation for science--without science, where would this list be? 

And I think we're seeing a direct assault on any government supported science--especially science that may run counter to the desires of big business.  If the megacorps don't like it, you can forget about it.  The government is now here to serve its corporate masters--the truth and empirical evidence be damned.

 

[mattiasNYC]

Gaining political power is all about mining such wedge issues.  Race, wealth, etc are more such topics. Enjoy the ride to nowhere or just say no.

JR

Euphemistic puns aside, while I agree that there are big issues that need to be solved, I again reiterate that some people don't seem able to put themselves into the shoes of others. Calling the issue of a woman's right to choose, or conversely really the men's right to choose for women whether they get to choose or not, a "wedge issue"; or calling the concern that a person is stopped by the police and searched simply for being black a "wedge issue", should surely be borderline offensive to the affected people.

 

[mattiasNYC]

Although we think that sex is a fun pastime, nature designed it to create life, so a degree of responsibility is required because it's an adult issue like driving a car, it has consequences if you screw up.

It's not as an "adult" issue as people keep pretending it is though. Our species has enjoyed the current "sophistication" in society for a very, very short time. Most of our existence as homo sapiens was different, with not nearly the same complexity as now.

So, it is built into our genome to want to procreate as soon as our bodies are ready, and it's a physical advantage to do so generally speaking sooner than later. So, it's not at all that it's an adult issue only, it's just that we make it so by the complicated societies we've created.

A complication of having a kid at 15-16 is that your education is affected, which affects future earning potentially negatively, which in turn has "adult consequences". But that's the result of the society we've constructed, not of biology. You go back 100,000 years and getting pregnant at that age was 'nothing'. And the consequences were probably not dramatically different from having the child at age 23, whereas that now is before/after college education is done.

So, we can change society, but we can't change our biology (yet). In the words of the average pro-capitalist: We need a system that accounts for human nature. So, therefore we need to have a safety net for when our biology makes us do things we apparently couldn't resist, and it becomes a problem because of the society we've constructed.

 

[mattiasNYC]

it is not their right to say "we couldn't be arsed to take precautions, so please give us an abortion". 

The question was why anybody else would have the right to decide what decisions women can make. The answer to that isn't "women who got raped", that's just pointing the finger elsewhere. Women that have suffered rape having the choice doesn't mean those women are making the decision that other women don't have the right to make the same decision.

In other words; you're just avoiding the issue that you want men to choose what women do to their bodies when it comes to abortion. You don't want women to have that right themselves. It doesn't matter if you say "Oh, but raped women should get to choose", if you support politicians that strip that right from all other women then you're de facto contributing to that decision, not women.

I am sick to death about people bleating on about their rights, rights, rights, with never a whisper about their responsibilities.
Rights are equally as important as Responsibilities , they are opposite sides of the same coin.

DaveP

Plenty of people talk about responsibility. I think a problem though is that when you create a society in which people are "guided" towards certain things, by the processes of that society, by how it functions, then society also bears a responsibility for how people turn out. I think some people are understanding just how this works and want some reciprocity at the very least.

I think that's more than fair.

 

[DaveP]

In other words; you're just avoiding the issue that you want men to choose what women do to their bodies when it comes to abortion.

This is a very tired mantra, women are in government too and most women I know think that abortion is not a suitable method of birth control, when there are so many other methods available.  The Sex in the City series is probably the most influential programme that has influenced young women in the UK and US today, I believe they are responsible for encouraging women to keep a condom in their handbags, good responsible advice from women.  I recognize that Sweden may have a different tradition.

Plenty of people talk about responsibility. I think a problem though is that when you create a society in which people are "guided" towards certain things, by the processes of that society, by how it functions, then society also bears a responsibility for how people turn out. I think some people are understanding just how this works and want some reciprocity at the very least.

I think nearly all public marches and demonstrations are about "rights", how many marches have you seen advocating  personal responsibility?  The only ones that could remotely be called responsibility based are anti-war marches.

There must be some thought given to the rights of the unborn child in any civilized society.  In the UK (I don't know about the US) there is a crime called destruction of an unborn child.  This often occurs when a couple split up and the girl is pregnant, the man punches her stomach to kill his baby, usually to avoid paying maintenance or because he thinks she has been two-timing him.

DaveP

 

[hodad]

Wouldn't you think a women would know she had been raped?
DaveP

Not necessarily.  A friend recently told me a story from her high school days in a small midwestern US town.  One of her friends was dating the star of the high school football team (not soccer--American football).  This girl told her boyfriend she didn't want to have sex, but he forced her into it & got her pregnant.  I call that date rape.  But this girl had an abusive father (who coincidentally was a fundamentalist Christian), so in her head she was at fault somehow.  After all, he was a star athlete, and he said he didn't do anything wrong, so this girl who was used to blaming herself for the misdeeds of her abusive father also blamed herself for the misdeeds of her jackass boyfriend. 

That's how life is, Dave.  Victims aren't all perfect and brave and ready to face whatever slings and arrows might come their way should they go public with such an accusation.  Victims aren't always capable of putting blame for their abuse on those that abuse them as opposed to themselves. 

 

[tands]

The responsible life of scumbag rentiers and their toady.

"The Obama Administration Bails Out Private Equity Landlords at the Expense of the Middle Class: Government Guarantees for Rental Securitization
Posted on January 25, 2017 by Yves Smith

So how much did Blackstone promise to give to the Obama library for this huge grift, um, parting gift?

As regular readers may recall, private equity firms piled into buying foreclosed single family homes on the belief that if the government (in this case, Fannie and Freddie) was selling, they wanted to be buying. And they also convinced themselves that technology would somehow allow them to [rent and] manage geographically dispersed single family homes, which is inherently a hand-on business, more efficiently than mom-and-pop or small scale operators, many of whom had a cost advantage by having some of the principals provide services (as in doing their own plumbing and electrical, so effectively “buying” those services at wholesale prices).

The most disciplined operators did well by getting in early and buying only very discounted properties, so that they had a good cash on cash return on the rentals. It would be attractive for them to hold long term, which would also give them lots of latitude regarding an exit. The lack of time pressure would mean they could sell the homes individually, even through “rent to own” deals with the higher credit quality tenants.

But many of the early entrants kept on buying long after prices were bargain basement, and it was clear due to the press reports of widespread mis-management and tenant abuses that they were cutting corners on maintenance due to having underestimated costs and complexity. Any real estate manager will tell you that running down the asset is foolhardly.

The logical time to start to exit was 2014, but the private equity property owners were whacked by the Bernanke taper tantrum. The most straightforward exit was to turn the properties and the management company into a REIT, but only a couple of deals got done before that window closed. The next strategy was rental securitization, which we regarded as a terrible idea given the awful track record of mortgage servicing, and that a rental securitization involved much more in the way of moving parts that mortgage servicing. Again, a few transactions got out the door, but the market foundered after a Blackstone securitization saw a big drop in rental income in the quarter immediately following the public offering.

So in its waning hours, the Obama Administration gave a completely unjustified bailout to private equity landlords, that Fannie Mae is guaranteeing the income of all but the bottom tranches of Blackstone’s latest rental securitization.

Let us stress that there is absolutely no policy justification for this. The mission of the government sponsored agencies is to promote home ownership, not to give real estate speculators a “get out of losses or underwhelming returns for free” card. Even worse, rather than forcing the private equity industry to take some well-deserved lumps for miscalculation, it will encourage them to continue to compete with lower-income prospective homeowners for purchasing properties. That means it will be even more difficult for young people to buy homes. Lambert has pointed out repeatedly in his stats wrap in Water Cooler that real estate markets are suffering from a shortage of homes. Having private equity continue to be on the prowl for lower priced properties that they know they can unload from an economic perspective means that the pauperization of the middle class is now official policy.

Even though this guarantee clearly had to have been worked out during the Obama Administration, Blackstone did not make it public until it updated its filing with the SEC this week. It looks an awful lot like the timing was designed to make sure that the disclosure came after the new Trump team was in charge, meaning Obama would be unlikely to face the criticism he deserves, and the Trump Administration would be certain to let the deal stand."

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/01/the-obama-administration-bails-out-private-equity-landlords-at-the-expense-of-the-middle-class-government-guarantees-for-rental-securitization.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

 

[JohnRoberts]

Euphemistic puns aside, while I agree that there are big issues that need to be solved, I again reiterate that some people don't seem able to put themselves into the shoes of others. Calling the issue of a woman's right to choose, or conversely really the men's right to choose for women whether they get to choose or not, a "wedge issue"; or calling the concern that a person is stopped by the police and searched simply for being black a "wedge issue", should surely be borderline offensive to the affected people.

No need to put words in my mouth...  I am beyond weary of arguing with you. It is a waste of both our time.

JR

 

[DaveP]

That's how life is, Dave.  Victims aren't all perfect and brave and ready to face whatever slings and arrows might come their way should they go public with such an accusation.  Victims aren't always capable of putting blame for their abuse on those that abuse them as opposed to themselves. 

I take your point Hodad, I am not counselling perfection here.

I just looked up the stats for the USA and there are 3000 abortions a day, I don't think they can all fit into the type of case study you mentioned do you?  I do realise though, that there will be difficult borderline cases to deal with.  I take it that the morning after pill is not available without prescription in some US states?

DaveP