I understand what you said. I was trying to understand why you said it in the context of the conversation as it didnt address the counter point I’d already made. You and I both know this is a common argument put forward by the pro-life movement. But the point I had already made is that Alito’s opinion demonstrates that it’s full of shit. They have just had the opportunity for one of the supposedly best legal minds in the movement to explain why the constitution was misused in Roe and the explanation he has provided in his opinion has been absolutely eviscerated. If there was any substantive basis to this argument Alito wouldn’t have had to lean on such an outlandish justification for his opinion.
So my point is, we can understand what arguments people put forth, but we dont have to continue to keeping them in consideration once they have already been shown to be false. This is not a statement about the merits of being pro-life per se, only on the common intellectual argument supporters of that position have retrofitted to pretend their position is anything other than an emotional one. It is not in itself a bad thing to come to positions based on your emotional response to an issue, but honesty about that is important.
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This is an interesting summary, for anyone who wants to learn more about Alito’s rationale for his opinion, and the way in which the Fourteenth Amendment was used to justify Roe v Wade, which Alito says was wrong.
Since the republicans have destroyed the existing judiciary, the democrats should reform the entire federal court appointment system - for instance: massively increase the pool of justices; cap term lengths and require rolling appointments. Campaign on it. Once they have a majority ram through the changes. Personally I think they should be plotting how to get legislation through right now that allows them to appoint many more supreme court justices this term - to dilute out the idiotic appointments they probably need to appoint another 9 or 14 serious legal scholars across the spectrum (not nut jokes like Scalia). It is interesting comparing the success of the Australian High Court - which also has justices appointed by government but avoids these problems - and consequently, from a jurisprudence perspective, probably being the most respected court across the common law world since the Mason court.
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That’s interesting. I would have thought either California or one of the West Coast states being more liberal would have been the first to have allowed abortion
The chance of the Democrats getting it together to make any major change is miniscule.
They are ineffective and impotent.
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This can be done with a simple act of legislation, but there is no indication that would have the votes necessary to pass it let alone overcome the 60 vote filibuster threshold required to even get it to a vote. Everything related to legislation comes down to the fact that their razor thin margin in the senate (50-50 with the tiebreaking vote) is a faux majority as there are at least 2 members of that caucus who feel their personal incentives are aligned with blocking Democratic party initiatives, so even if we can find a way around the obstruction of the filibuster we still have key votes within that majority who simply don’t want to pass the party’s legislative agenda.
People talk about the party as a whole, but it’s made up of individual people all working based on their own personal incentives. Usually we’re talking about electoral incentives, but with Machin we see how sometimes, astonishingly, it is can be financial. Many people are frustrated saying they were pressured to vote Democrat and this (stretches arms wide) is what that got them, as if it was all pointless, but the realty is the way the system is designed is you need big majorities to actually do meaningful legislation.
I don’t know if anyone’s familiar with this guy , but once again he’s on the money ;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=404lKddM65E&ab_channel=TraeCrowder
(P.S. How the fuck do I embed vids ?)
YouTube blocks embedding by regions. They way to get around this is under the YouTube video is a “share” button.
Click on this and copy the link from there.
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Thanks … but how do I do it ?
Just copy and paste the link
I do that but it just copies the link (as above) without embedding the video. (I used to be able to do it but no longer it seems.)
The problem is YouTube blocks embedding in certain regions.
The way to get around this is under the video is a share button. If you copy the link from there it should work.
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Cheers ! I’ll give it a try the next time.
Don’t use the link button on here (menu button is no no) just copie (copy) the adresse and coller (paste) in the text. I think that’s how I got round this problem but I haven’t posted any music videos for a while.
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We had our midterm primaries this week. This is the bit of voting that determines who will be the party nominations in the elections being held this November. In a show of what the US media have learned from the Trump experience, they showed that he answer is absolutely nothing, by covering the entire thing an exercise of examining the results in terms of who trump endorsed or not.
How dare men decide to have a say in what is essentially a woman’s choice ?
It’s the same as a country posting a referendum on same-sex marriages for example and then the majority deciding on that. Insane, even if the right result was decided at the end.
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Another mass shooting, this time in an elementary school in small town Texas.
Early report looks like 18 young kids dead, three adults too. Might rise.
My initial reaction is a mixture of heartbreak, anger, and despair.
Heartbreak at the senseless loss of so many lives, just starting out. Families devastated. All the kids who witnessed this and were caught up in the carnage.
Anger that the lawmakers haven’t done anything to reduce this sort of thing. Biden left for a quick Japan trip making remarks on a mass shooting at a supermarket. He arrives back to make more remarks on another mass shooting at an Elementary School. I’m angry that the NRA lobbies the politicians and owns too many. Their next convention is in Texas. They will message the shit out of this and turn it all around, so the only solution they propose is more guns. I’m angry that even modest amendments to the law here have not been made, to at least reduce some of this stuff. In this instance the 18 year old man (kid really) was disaffected, making threats on social media, and apparently bought an assault rifle (or two) as soon as he turned 18. Shitshow because it is all so predictable.
Despair. How many times? Enough is enough! My own sensibility would be on gun restrictions the likes of which America just won’t go for. So at least go for things where there is broad agreement - mental health tests, curb illegal sales, beef up background checks. Then go for slightly harder stuff, raise age to buy assault rifles to 21, not 18. Hopefully get rid of them altogether, and much more besides… but start to deliver what can be delivered to improve the situation.
Despair because this has all been said before, and it will all be said again the next time this happens.
