Politics And Current Events

[Willie Kool]

Is it me or does FR continually conflate criticism of conservative politicians and their policies with the work he's doing through private charity and the church?

The point is fairly simple. There's a multitude of logical fallacies being laid forward concerning a certain segment of the population's caring about post-birth children that is couched in a belief that not supporting State, local, and federal governmental agencies handling that work means therefore that neither are the children being cared for nor does those conservative politicians and their supporters want the best for the children.

That idea is just simply false and a terrible argument.

No, they just don't want to give, they also want the opportunity to indoctrinate them...

[Freddy Rumsen]

And the state doesn't have a vested interest in incorporating a particular worldview through its own education system?

[Troy Loney]

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/16/faceboo ... andal.html

Most notably, Facebook saw a sharp increase in students at top universities who are declining the company’s job offers.

Among top schools, such as Stanford, Carnegie Mellon and Ivy League universities, Facebook’s acceptance rate for full-time positions offered to new graduates has fallen from an average of 85% for the 2017-2018 school year to between 35% and 55% as of December, according to former Facebook recruiters. The biggest decline came from Carnegie Mellon University, where the acceptance rate for new recruits dropped to 35%.

[Troy Loney]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -by-bidens

Da hell is Rudi up to here?

Ukraine’s prosecutor general said in an interview that he had no evidence of wrongdoing by U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden or his son, despite a swirl of allegations by President Donald Trump’s lawyer.

NYtimes should have never written up that story.

[Morkle]

It's not gonna stop them from hemming on a conspiracy angle.

[Morkle]

From twitter:

> BREAKING / NBC News: Ret. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn told Special Counsel Mueller's Office about efforts to interfere "both before and after his guilty plea, where either he or his attorneys received communication from persons connected to the Administration or Congress that could have affected both his willingness to cooperate and the completeness of that cooperation.” (2/2)

https://twitter.com/Tom_Winter/status/1 ... 4767764480

**or Congress**!!

Ohhh so let's guess the Congress people. Seems like a major deal.

Transcripts of the recordings have been unsealed/leaked between Trumps counsel and Flynn's .

[Morkle]

I mean how dumb are you leaving a voicemail.

I understand your situation, but let me see if I can’t state it in starker terms.... t wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve gone on to make a deal with ... the government. ... f ... there’s information that implicates the President, then we’ve got a national security issue, ... so, you know, ... we need some kind of heads up. Um, just for the sake of protecting all our interests if we can. ... **[R]emember what we’ve always said about the President and his feelings toward Flynn and, that still remains** ....

[Morkle]

And yes the voicemail was available at the report, things were unsealed today that paints the picture.

[tifosi77]

From twitter:

> BREAKING / NBC News: Ret. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn told Special Counsel Mueller's Office about efforts to interfere "both before and after his guilty plea, where either he or his attorneys received communication from persons connected to the Administration or Congress that could have affected both his willingness to cooperate and the completeness of that cooperation.” (2/2)

https://twitter.com/Tom_Winter/status/1 ... 4767764480

**or Congress**!!

Ohhh so let's guess the Congress people. Seems like a major deal.

Transcripts of the recordings have been unsealed/leaked between Trumps counsel and Flynn's .

Nunes. Had Graham about-faced on Trump by this point?

[Freddy Rumsen]

When the man arrived at the hospital with severe abdominal pains, a nurse didn't consider it an emergency, noting that he was obese and had stopped taking blood pressure medicines. In reality, he was pregnant — a transgender man in labor that was about to end in a stillbirth.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/hea ... 692201002/

[Guinness]

Also, is it true that while abortions are now illegal, nobody signed on to protect and aide these people when they do have these kids? So they're willing to say, you can't get an abortion, but we won't help you when they're born either? Is that true? I've only been quasi following the abortion news.

That's always been the case. They fight tooth and nail when the kid is in the womb, but once it's out it's of no concern to them.

With sincere respect, this is a misrepresentation of the quote-unquote conservative positions on both abortion as well as charity.

Aside, this is in my opinion a result of the sound-bite driven 24/7 "news" complex, which condenses usually honestly adopted and/or well thought out positions on the behalf of "both sides" down to mere caricatures at best.

I'm what you would call "radically pro-life". I believe for reasons which I have considered very thoughtfully and thoroughly that a human life is created at the point of conception. I believe that the female of the human species is remarkably endowed by God or Nature (however you might view it) with the awe inspiring ability to gestate and nurture incipient human life from nearly nothing through self-sufficiency in a way that even our most close biological relatives do not. I consider that a miraculous gift - again from God or Nature - to not just the parents of that human being, but to the endurance of the human species itself.

These are the reasons why I believe that "abortion" is wrong, and should be held as an unacceptable practice by human society. Yet I do respect and understand the concerns that females have with regard to the establishment of laws which prohibit abortion. I cannot imagine yet understand the fear of facing a coercive entity seeking to impose a nameless, faceless will upon my body without knowledge of my circumstances - in fact, regardless of its knowledge, I insist on and fully understand the concept of self-ownership. I can understand the fear of such an entity seeking more and more control over me - indeed my entire political philosophy centers around the fact that human beings own their lives.

The unfortunate but indisputable burden that females bear is that they gestate human life within their bodies; this creates a remarkably unique question to self-ownership - that one human being is borne by another within her own body which is the essence of self-ownership.

I don't think most people who oppose abortion want to "force" women to do anything at all. I certainly do not. I have the utmost respect for the role women play in the sustenance of our species. I think most people who oppose abortion do so out of a reverence of human life, and they do so - rightly, in my view - from the point of conception because it is at that point which we can clearly and objectively determine that a genetically distinct individual human being EXISTS - not a "clump of cells", but a genetically distinct individual human being at a particular point in its development between life and death.

It also happens that many of those who take the above view on the question of "abortion" also oppose "compulsory charity"; it does not follow that those who oppose social programs do not believe in caring for the unfortunate... in my experience moving from radically leftist to full-on anarchist, I've encountered many viewpoints and discussed this topic from many perspectives (and I currently live amongst some of the most politically and religiously conservative people I've ever known)... I've not met anyone who suddenly stops caring about the human life once it comes out of the womb. In fact, among the political/religious conservative people I move around now, I encounter an outsized number who are not only eager and willing but actually do foster and adopt, and engage in very, very robust private charities both here and abroad. For the record again, I do not align myself with conservatives or liberals; I hold things in common with and in opposition to both "sides".

[Willie Kool]

I don't think most people who oppose abortion want to "force" women to do anything at all. I certainly do not.

So you oppose any laws restricting access to abortion?

[Guinness]

I don't think most people who oppose abortion want to "force" women to do anything at all. I certainly do not.

So you oppose any laws restricting access to abortion?

I think abortion is a uniquely challenging question for human society.

Human life begins at conception. I hold that to be so for very good reason - a genetically distinct individual exists at that moment. A heartbeat is not necessary to determine that a human life exists - there are documented cases where a fully developed human being has existed without a heartbeat for 30 minutes in the middle of his/her existence. Sentience does not denote human life. There are countless examples of human life existing without sentience. Viability is not a reliable measure of human life. There are countless examples of human life existing without viability.

I also do not believe in the legitimacy of the State. Human beings are endowed by RIGHT, self-evidently, with self-ownership. As such, one human being does not have the right to murder another human being. Though it is a ponderously complicating issue, that holds true in the case of pregnancy. Ergo, I do not believe that a woman has a RIGHT to an abortion.

ETA: Also, it's disappointingly disingenuous of you to snip just that particular line in a long and complex statement on this question. Just sayin'...

[Willie Kool]

Viability is not a reliable measure of human life. There are countless examples of human life existing without viability.

Definition of viability

: the quality or state of being viable: such as

a(1) : the ability to live, grow, and develop

the viability of seeds under dry conditions

(2) : the capability of a fetus to survive outside the uterus

fetal viability

Examples please, of the countless human lives lived by those who could not survive outside the uterus.

[Guinness]

Viability is not a reliable measure of human life. There are countless examples of human life existing without viability.

Definition of viability

: the quality or state of being viable: such as

a(1) : the ability to live, grow, and develop

the viability of seeds under dry conditions

(2) : the capability of a fetus to survive outside the uterus

fetal viability

Examples please, of the countless human lives lived by those who could not survive outside the uterus.

I would have thought that in context it was clear that I was not specifically referencing pre-birth humans before they could survive outside of the uterus; I intended to refer to born human beings who've survived states of non-viability. For example: resuscitated human beings; human beings in coma; etc.

Regardless and AGAIN - you're taking a snip of the broader point. I mean, what do you think? That you're going to poke a hole in this particular idea - that viability is THE DEFINITION of human life and therefore without viability human life does not exist? Grasp at straws much?

How about respond to the broader point, rather than nipping at heels?

[Willie Kool]

To the broader point, without viability, that genetically distinct individual is truly nothing but a "clump of cells"

And you apparently think women should have no RIGHT to remove a non-viable fetus...

[Guinness]

To the broader point, without viability, that genetically distinct individual is truly nothing but a "clump of cells"

And you apparently think women should have no RIGHT to remove a non-viable fetus...

Hoped for more from this discussion with you... for some reason.

I'd like to point out that I went to lengths to be fair to "the other side" and to thoughtfully lay out the justification for my position. Oh well. Just another "discussion" at FAF I suppose.

Real quick, out of curiosity - in your view does a viable "fetus" have rights?

[Willie Kool]

Real quick, out of curiosity - in your view does a viable "fetus" have rights?

Of course not.

[Guinness]

Real quick, out of curiosity - in your view does a viable "fetus" have rights?

Of course not.

Of course.

Would you be able to substantiate that viewpoint in any kind of logical way?

[dodint]

Some levity; NSFW language:

[Factorial]

Hoped for more from this discussion with you... for some reason.

[count2infinity]

It's tough to have a "real" discussion about this, as people come in with very different, very adamant, and very charged opinions. However unfortunate this may be... it's foolish to think you could have a genuine discussion on a message board about it.

[shmenguin]

Deists and non-deists have a Grand Canyon dividing them as far as what the definition of “human life” is. That’s an insurmountable obstacle to discussion. On the internet or otherwise.

[shafnutz05]

Deists and non-deists have a Grand Canyon dividing them as far as what the definition of “human life” is. That’s an insurmountable obstacle to discussion. On the internet or otherwise.

Yup. It's honestly a waste of time.

[shafnutz05]

https://apnews.com/876d4dd4ce9e44eea0fb0588d7ec684f

A Dallas man previously arrested in the death of an 81-year-old woman has been charged with killing at least 11 more elderly women whose jewelry and other valuables he stole, authorities said Thursday.

Kim Leach, a spokeswoman for the Dallas County district attorney’s office, said 46-year-old Billy Chemirmir was indicted Tuesday on six more counts of capital murder in the deaths of women ranging in age from 76 to 94.

Chemirmir, a Kenyan citizen who was living in the U.S. illegally, also is charged in nearby Collin County with two counts of attempted capital murder for similar attacks there, according to county court records.