Pesident Clinton

[ghosttrain]

It's all about US foreign policy and how it effects other REAL people on this forum, religion, ... AND ... abortion?

It's about the presidential election and has become a discussion about the whole US government. 3 branches of a republican/democratic type government are the executive, legislative and judicial. Executive (includes the president) has a say in who becomes a member in the others in US and legislative/judicial in US create laws. Laws are sets of rules that govern almost every behavior in a society which includes abortion too, so that discussion popping up was just natural.

Discussing about abortion might very well change your opinion on republicans and change who you vote for.

Sadly the democrats and liberals I associate myself with also have mostly been using emotional statements and cherry picking studies and statistics to justify their positions instead of rational critical thinking and science. On top of that lately the so called neofeminists, SJWs and movements like "Black Lives Matter" are nothing remotely close to a liberal like me, to me they are as bad as religious fundamentalist conservatives and use the same tactics and (lack of) logic, they are simply wearing a different colored shirt than the rights.
This is why even though there are several things I disagree with Trump I think I have to make compromises and he is comparably a better option than the democrats which share very little with me.

I've been looking at Bernie's positions and while I still think he's a better option than Hillary I'm still going to go with Trump. Only the facts that he considers stronger border control racism and the president's constitutional right of temporary ban of a certain group of aliens entering to the states racism and any ciritcism of islamism racism makes me conclude that he has very terrible foreign policy and good domestic policy isn't enough for a president in my book.

[planters]

One area where I have a somewhat different take on the abortion argument is how it impacts personal sovereignty.

It will be too cumbersome for me to go down the list of all the different scenarios where abortion is advocated or opposed, ie the health of the mother, the rights of the father, the ability of the fetus to feel pain etc. But, I think that there will be universal consensus that once a healthy baby is wrapped in blankets across the room from the mother that to kill it at that point is murder and murder is illegal (and immoral).

The decision to have an abortion is an act of commission and for a free, adult woman this decision should be entirely hers.

If the fetus is at a stage of development that it cannot survive without THIS mother then if she chooses not to support it (continue the pregnancy), she can choose to have an abortion. But, if the fetus is at a stage of development where it will probably survive independent of this particular mother then the type of abortion performed should be limited to that which will not intentionally harm either party.

This is why even though there are several things I disagree with Trump I think I have to make compromises and he is comparably a better option

I too support some of Sanders positions, but the existing political system has limited our choices. And, I mean our realistic, achievable choices, not what we might ideally want in some theoretical world. One way to think about this is what the global situation will look like 3 years from now in the middle of the next president's term. This is in part what that president's policies will cause and in part what that president's election indicates about the American citizen's power and desires. The same holds for the results of the Brexit and the French and German presidential elections.

[ghosttrain]

If the fetus is at a stage of development that it cannot survive without THIS mother then if she chooses not to support it (continue the pregnancy), she can choose to have an abortion. But, if the fetus is at a stage of development where it will probably survive independent of this particular mother then the type of abortion performed should be limited to that which will not intentionally harm either party.

I hear this position a lot and to be honest it doesn't make sense, it's an arbitrary drawn line not based on deontological nor consequentialist view, but some concept in biology, and I fail to see how any solely biological concept by itself can determine any moral decision, not that this one makes sense to me either way.

[TechJunkie]

What does that have anything to do with the part of my post you quoted?

The same as your reply...naivety.

I just deleted the 4 hour rebuttal to your post I just wrote. I remember being in your place and its not my place to educate you on how the world runs, or how it should run. You'll find out soon enough.

Good luck brother, and all the best to you.

[ghosttrain]

The same as your reply...naivety.

Calling me brother doesn't make you seem on any less of a high horse by implying you are more experienced than me because like you've said you've "been in my place". You don't know where I'm at, don't play that game with me.

I just deleted the 4 hour rebuttal to your post I just wrote.

Sure you did.

Next time maybe don't bother replying at all if you don't want to make an argument. I don't care about statements, make an argument, otherwise you're wasting our time, yours and mine.

[james]

OK. What the hell. Here goes.

You can say a lot of things about Trump, but he's not stupid. I think he's playing a very long game. He is getting exactly what he's after every day of this campaign.

For him it is not a means to an end. It is the end.

He is a TV personality. He knows how to read an audience and get viewers to tune in. He had many years of practice doing just that.

So he is effectively a fictitious character. Everything he says is dialogue. Even when he rambles off the cuff, he's still in-character and he's just ad-libbing the same talking points anyway.

He knows that if he puts out a certain rhetoric he will capture a sizable portion of the people who would vote republican no matter what.

He also knows that he will disenfranchise another portion of the people who would probably vote republican.

He splits the republican voter base.

So he can either get enough of the vote to be the candidate or he can spin-off and form a third party at the last minute and get a lot of the vote that would have otherwise gone to the republican.

He can't win either way.

But he can't lose either!

He's already winning every day!

He's getting all of the attention he can handle.

When he had his own TV reality show he was on one network for one hour once a week and he had to answer to ratings and network executives.

Now he has launched the biggest TV reality show ever!

He's on every network all the time. He has made a mockery of the presidential election process..... and for that I love the guy!

And if you have read this far, then yes, I think there is a real possibility that he is working for Hillary. I think it's very possible that the Clinton's are in on the deal.

Honestly I really don't care who wins the election. I lean toward the liberals, but since the democrats put the first black man in the office the republicans vowed to not let him do anything and they have been pretty effective at that.

Either of the two potential democratic candidates would be another first; a woman or a Jewish man, so chances are, they would run into the same dysfunction.

The other two possibilities are Cruz or Trump and I think they would suck so bad that a lot of people would swing away from the republican party and the dems might get control of the congress once again. Then we could get a dem for president and maybe our government might get unclogged and start working again for a change.

James.

[ghosttrain]

Honestly, if after all the discussion you consider Trump a con man or doing this for attention I don't know what to tell you. Maybe planters can comment but I think I've said enough to put that to rest.

But I can say this: the term liberal has been hijacked and many "liberals" today are simply neofeminists or SJWs and populists who obey them. If you still stick with the current democratic party in my opinion that's just a tribalistic instinct or you haven't thought about it too much.

[james]

I wish the various hot issues weren't glued to either one party or the other.

I am all for civil rights, but I'm also for financial responsibility.

The thing that is concerning to me the most right now is the performance of my portfolio of investments.

It's kinda' sucking right now.

James.

[planters]

I hear this position a lot and to be honest it doesn't make sense, it's an arbitrary drawn line not based on deontological nor consequentialist view, but some concept in biology, and I fail to see how any solely biological concept by itself can determine any moral decision, not that this one makes sense to me either way.

Careful. We are biology and let me help you here. If you try to construct a moral framework, but ignore the consequences of the operation of that framework, then your framework can never be tested. Socialism sounds nice when presented to the naive, with all the loose ends left out. Failure to consider the ramifications of the world's response to that system is one of the reasons it has failed so miserably.

Can a cat be moral? No, it can't no matter how long it lives. Can you murder a cat? No, but you can kill it. The distinction is that murder is reserved for humans; both to commit it and to be its victim. Why? Because killing is not by itself a moral act, but murder which requires a conscious decision by a sovereign entity is a moral act. Can an infant, even a 36 week old neonate be moral? No, but in time it certainly can. Can you murder an infant? Of course you can. We extend the concept of the victim of murder to include an entity that will become moral.

The line I have drawn is not arbitrary, but based on sovereignty. The fetus that absolutely must be a part of another sovereign human being is not sovereign. That fetus cannot command or control the actions of its host. If they can be separated without harming either just as two handcuffed prisoners can be unlocked then they are sovereign.

So, how to select the right path between these two opposing standards? This is where the biological reality tests this framework. You could carry the argument in the second paragraph backwards forever and blame the concerned parent who intervened in the sex life of their teenage daughter as committing murder based on potential. Paragraph three would interfere with all the decisions of an individual based on the needs and "rights" of everyone they ever have any contact with, ever. There has to be balance. There has to be dampening in the universe otherwise resonances would kill us all. There has to be a line. To choose to place that line where biology allows is reasonable.

Honestly, if after all the discussion you consider Trump a con man or doing this for attention I don't know what to tell you. Maybe planters can comment but I think I've said enough to put that to rest.

You have.

Honestly I really don't care who wins the election.

This is where you undermine your position. Firstly, it is hard to believe that anyone engaged in this discussion would then feel this way about who is elected. In addition, after all the criticism of Trump's honesty this simply doesn't mask sense.

I just deleted the 4 hour rebuttal to your post I just wrote. I remember being in your place and its not my place to educate you on how the world runs, or how it should run. You'll find out soon enough.

OK Moses that will not fly. How in the hell do you know his place, I sure don't although I generally agree with him (generally). This comes across as condescending and arrogant and does nothing to convince the other readers about the justification for your position. Remember, it is for these people that we post. Otherwise this could be a PM.

[james]

Why would you say it undermines my position when I go on to explain why I don't care?

In the bigger picture, four years is not very long. The older I get the shorter that seems to be.

A big part of Sanders' campaign is all about campaign finance reform and getting "UGE" money out of politics.

I hope that happens no matter what.

James.