The one thing everyone in America can agree on is that the other party is evil and dedicated to the destruction of everything this country stands for.
If the other party proposes something i this evil and must be opposed at all cost.
It doesn’t matter what party, it doesn’t t matter what idea or how much it contradicts all you parties other ideas.
I guess that’s also my personal view, as I work in a hospital and assist the IVF wing. And so I’ve seen the difficult choices couples have to make more regularly than normal people. In the process of IVF or genetic counselling, some will choose like you said, and nobody can blame the parents who can’t. To have a baby is the choice of two persons. If one is missing, then the person carrying a super heavy biological and socially burden has to decide for herself with full responsibility. It is very hurtful to think getting pregnant, then deciding for an abortion is just reaping consequences, like in your first comment. As you said, you know exactly the grief in making the choice to abort. Many young girls simply don’t have their parents’ support at all and follow with even worse decisions because their parents say it exactly like you did.
No matter what, the life of the mother will outrank the ‘life’ of an unborn baby, because between the two only she can decide (other medical circumstances notwithstanding). We can all agree here that we can not have abortion ban, and I won’t poke around with morality and what not anymore. Peace out.
I think this is mainly a one way street. I remember the uproar when Hilary Clinton called Trump’s supporters “deplorables”. It does not come to anything close to what the Republicans regularly say about anyone within the Democratic party or their supporters but somehow what she said was way, way over the line (and they say the media is owned by the left…). In that vein, Democrats (the ones I know) question themselves to a far higher degree that Republicans seemingly seem to. There is a mirror to this in the UK, where Labour supporters endlessly search for flaws within while the Conservative always have a “we just know” and preach.
When you break it down to voters, is it that people need a ruler rather than a leader?
I think this is also an extension of my previous comment. Another comment where the reaction to it was to something completely different than she actually said. Immediately by the following day everyone was treating it as she was being elitist and refusing to hear that people might have justifiable anger at the way they have been let down, but it was literally the opposite. Her point was that although Trump had elevated a racist fringe into the mainstream (commenting on how racist websites that used to 1o thousands visitors now get 10 million), there is also a very real reason for the feelings of a large group of people who are inclined to support him. While the first group might be unreachable, those in the basket of deplorables, the rest are not, and it to those who we must direct our message to about the plans we do have to address their concerns.
The dumb version of the conversation though was that she said if you support trump you’re deplorable. Political opponents taking a swing at it and hoping it sticks is understandable, but the press, as they did every step of the way, enabled it by jumping on the dumb version of the conversation. You saw way more pieces in main stream publications about how she was wrong to say it because it can be interpreted out of context that you saw people addressing what she actually said. And this isn’t even really an issue of a politician saying something clumsy that you have to squint to understand the point. Her point was clear. And then all the people who criticized her for not campaigning to their traditional blue collar base ignored her actual comments and pushed the deplorable angle.
This isn’t just isolated to Hillary.
EVERYTHING gets boiled down to the lowest common denominator masquerading as what the real point was and gets repeatedly force fed ad nauseum in CNN, MSNBC, and fox.
CNN misguidedly bring on complete nutcases from the right in order to present a “balanced” view on every hit button topic, when in reality many of their guests from the right belong in the lunatic fringe.
And this repetition proceeds to hammer it into peoples psyches.
What social media has done is amplify this divide and animosity, practically shot it full of steroids.
I’ve personally seen homemade billboards while driving between Dallas and Houston openly stating that “Dumbocrats” or “Demrats” should be shot on sight.
You can’t have civil discourse with people like that
Unfortunately I think it’s more simple than that, people (read voters) need something to hate, this seems evident when you hear people suddenly change their opinion on something to take the ‘hate’ side. Also indicated by obcessive posting on an enterty that has many aspects but aligning it to one thing and pretending they are being reasonable. Hate syndrome is dominating us.
Thanks for sharing your perspective of working in the hospital and assisting in the IVF wing.
Just wondering why the life of the unborn baby is said as, ‘life.’
From way back in school days, my understanding has always been that life begins at conception. A brief Google search showed tons of data points, scientific journals, papers, reference points to confirm this.
Sperm and egg (oocyte, ovum) come together, and when fertilization occurs, their chromosomes mingle and form a new life. Biologically it is at a very early stage, it is a one-celled zygote, though by that point, two have become one, and life has begun. Obviously it then develops into an embryo… fetus… baby.
But the actual life begins, scientifically speaking, at conception.
Perhaps because an embryo can’t survive out of the womb? Or perhaps because there’s no neurological system, no sentience, no heartbeat? All these happen later at various stages.
Dems may question themselves more but I know and am related to enough of them that I have heard more than a few rants about how evil and selfish all republicans are - see BLM protests destroying stuff for a level of the anger that I’m pretty sure it’s a two way street.
Indeed, all those things are well known. It isn’t independent life, but the point I’m making is that from the moment of conception it is life. Scientifically speaking.
I’m not sure BLM is a wholly a Democrat thing as it probably crosses party lines… at least it should. But, I defer to your more intimate knowledge as I am more an observer at a distance than someone who currently lives and works there.
This is a fairly reasonable distillation of the party in the 20+ years I have lived in the country though.
There is a point to be made about how all people are subjected to knee jerk over reaction and take sides based on tribalism, but this is still not something that can be described properly with a “both sides” framework. That was true, but a largely resisted position before Trump. I cannot comprehend anyone still viewing things through that framework post-trump
I would say any overlap between BLM and the GOP is trivial. The only thing keeping it being a whole aligned Democratic party movement is the disagreement on whether the Democratic party is a viable vehicle for the change that is being pushed for, similar to the way for a percentage of his support it was Bernie or Bust.
All novels of this kind are inspired by an aspect of already existing reality. The authors then expand that aspect to the extreme in their novel, in order to explore its potential in full.
But yeah, these newest developments are frightening, and the people behind that won’t stop until a majority of people strongly reacts. Because if you let them go ahead, then something similar to the society described in The Handmaid’s Tale will appear.
But maybe that’s what a majority of US citizen wants after all? No fascism, no religious autocracy comes to power without the willing consent of a majority of the population.
Let’s face it: nowadays, Catholicism has become more progressive than large parts of Protestantism, especially in the US. A stunning development.
No I don’t think that’s true - I believe most people are horrified by recent decisions out of the Supreme Court and the election win for Joe Biden shows that more people than ever came out to vote against Trump-style facism. Unfortunately the damage had been done to the Supreme Court by then.
I do, however, believe a lot of people are frustrated by the lack of strong response to anything by the Democrats. In fact, when you have Nancy Pelosi just minutes after the ruling asking for donations to win mid-terms in November then you start to feel like they are complicit in this whole mess. I don’t really know what the average person is supposed to cling on to from these first two years of Biden. The perception, even if it isn’t true, is that he’s done absolute nothing while Democrats in the Senate try their best to stop anything getting through there as well.
Makes you wonder what the point is in actually voting for these people if the best we can get is this. That’s dangerous.
Really good article here:
I think the new younger breed of Democrats - AOC, Omar, Tlaib etc. - will have to rise up and hold sway. It will provide a genuine choice. Abrams, Buttiegieg, others not so far left, but very capable, could assist in the fight.
At the moment the Democrats try to be centrist, and reasonable, but it’s all too bland and they are pilloried as extremists anyway. In addition to being bland, politically speaking, they are also being outmaneuvered by the Republicans in terms of the influence held based on the quantity of votes gained.
The Republicans are the smaller party and don’t have as many votes, but they leverage their people, by fair means and foul, to wield an outsized influence on the nation.
I suspect Ron DeSantis will be the next President, and he will solidify the current Republican position, as he is similar to Trump, only younger, a much better orator, and with brains. (Don’t get me wrong, he’s a bad un, but he knows where his bread is buttered, and he will drum up the culture wars and ride that thing all day long so that many Americans will believe he is giving the country back to them).
I really hope it doesn’t happen, but that’s what I see.
Along they way the likes of Pelosi, who is already 120 years old or so, Biden, Schumer, and many of the old school Democrats, will need to shuffle over for the new breed to organize and try to rise up.
Who knows, I could be wrong in the broad sweep of how I see it, but in the mid terms coming up, usually the incumbent party takes a hit, and there are lots of reasons for people to be disgruntled. However, arguably the Dems could do well themselves on the basis of the extremist Supreme Court, but unfortunately I don’t see the urgency, organization, or outright willingness to fight.
So the next few years, post-Biden, will be Republican dominated. And the Dems will need to sort themselves out to rise up with a new breed to dismantle it, and improve the country.
Ironically, the public are in favor of some of the big ideas on education, climate, health care and so on. So there is hope. But my fear is we are in for a season of Republican gains and influence, before it swings back.
Yeah it’s dangerous indeed. When the belief in democracy vanishes within the population, it effectively opens the door to dictatorship.
For what it’s worth, I suppose that the Biden administration is mainly repairing the damage done by Trump, and as we know, it takes more time to do the repairing work than to play the bull in a china shop. And it’s less spectacular, so very thankless.
But maybe I’m wrong. Biden and the older-style Democrats might simply be useless, I don’t know.
The filibuster rule paralyzes an institution already designed to move slowly. Democrats raging at Biden now forget how ineffective Obama really was from 2010 forward, and Obama didn’t face anything like the challenges that Biden did. Without a supermajority in the Senate, and facing a GOP Senate lacking their historic sense of responsibility, the US is essentially ungovernable.