Politics: A new beginning

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Query: Isn't the far more likely scenario that, in a world where 10% of the populace might or might not be carrying a gun with them while on errands, and convenience store clerks have a 95% likelihood, Snake simply shoots Apu, Moleman, and Shary Bobbins before cleaning out the cash register? Every friggin' time? Won't all street crime simply be reduced to the armed equivalent of cold-cocking the victim and all bystanders? Even if there are a lot of guns out there, crack money doesn't grow on trees, you know.

From what I understand, the studies that have been done on this do not support your conclusion, although it may have been drawn rationally.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Earth to Wolfowitz: You're a moron.

James Baker to Wolfowitz: Word up.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Earth to Wolfowitz: You're a moron.

I posted that story a couple of days ago. Did your various blogs not tell you until now that you should criticize it?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
At the risk of making a Ignoble Trifecta (baiting trolls on guns, abortion, and race),

don't forget marrying outside your race...grand slam and shit

I was thinking yesterday about the sheer rediculousness of the proponents of concealed-carry laws. The argument (as I understand it) is that random street crime will be deterred if a substantial portion of the population is exercising its R2KBA freedoms, and if the criminals don't know exactly which ones are armed. Under this theory, Snake won't hold up the Kwik-E-Mart because he's behind a Rawlsian veil of ignorance over whether Apu is carrying a piece.

Query: Isn't the far more likely scenario that, in a world where 10% of the populace might or might not be carrying a gun with them while on errands, and convenience store clerks have a 95% likelihood, Snake simply shoots Apu, Moleman, and Shary Bobbins before cleaning out the cash register? Every friggin' time? Won't all street crime simply be reduced to the armed equivalent of cold-cocking the victim and all bystanders? Even if there are a lot of guns out there, crack money doesn't grow on trees, you know.

Mostly I'm just posting this because it will be refreshing for Bilmore and I to agree on something. And both know that we agree, that is.

word.
if there was very strict hand gun control bank robbers would still have guns, sure. but the punk 16 year old you happen to walk by in the parking lot late at night who seems strung out? he wouldn't have a pistol.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Yes. I do know about it. I think folic acid is such a wonderful thing that the government should ensure that we all eat more of it, even if that costs us money.

It may even decrease your risk of coronary artery disease by its effects on lowering homocysteine, which appears to be an independent risk factor for atherosclerosis.

[SlaveNoMore]

sgtclub
I posted that story a couple of days ago. Did your various blogs not tell you until now that you should criticize it?

Again, why the fuck should we care what these ingrates think? France has practically declared themselves an enemy of the state.
Their offer at NATO to loan us a "plastic toy helicopter" to use in Afghanistan said it all.

More importantly - Bob Bartley, RIP. You will be sorely missed.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Divisive? Maybe someone oughta write a compelling book about how abortion was 1,000 times more divisive before Roe. Oh, let met guess, that's not what you are even implying with the above quote.

If it were a matter of turning back the clock, you'd have a point. I really don't think we live in the same world, though. Since 1973, women have gotten a lot more uppity about these things. They're also having a lot more premarital sex. (YMMV.) Hippies aside, I think you're going to find that a lot of people who've lived their entire lives with this as a "right" are going to behave differently from women in the 1950s and 1960s.

We also live in a world in which both sides of the debate have mobilized their respective forces to care A LOT about what happens to women/babies they've never met.

How will that happen? The pro-choice and pro-states-rightsers and many, many conservatives will find such a movement to be utterly extreme! Not to get all philosophical on your ass or nuthin, but both you and someone else here seem to take it for granted that (most/all/enough-to-refederalize-abortion) pro-lifers interpret abortion as absolute, 100% murder which they don't want allowed in their communities. Does anyone here want to admit to such a view, or are we a bunch of, ugh, liberals?

Anyone? Anyone?

You're mistaking your beliefs for your average conservative voter's. (This is the "I'm not a wingnut, but 80% of my voting base is" problem for GOP spokespeople.) I have yet to see a bumper sticker that says "Abortion is a matter best left to the individual states, who could go either way on it as a matter of federalism."

You seriously think that voters in Missouri and Virginia who've been whipped into a frenzy about baby-killing --- so much so that the GOP administration has banned abortions in overseas federal hospitals, far away from Missouri and Virginia --- will think that it's okay that American babies are being slaughtered in California, Massachusetts, and New York? Once you define a fetus as a baby, you're really not going to stop at closing the clinics within arm's reach.

And yes, I see constant debates in Congress over conditioning everything from public health money to military bases around whether some states allow abortion or not. Everyone will carry around a little list so they can know who's good and who's evil. Ashcroft has not proven himself a very good federalist when it comes to states that run afoul of Biblical prophecy policy.

I mean, is your argument that abortion is a matter between a woman and her M.D. solely, and that such a matter can't be disturbed by government? What happened to the voters?

What did happen to them? Why were they there in the first place? The other areas of regulation of the medical profession tend to involve things that huge swaths of people agree are wrong, not areas where people legitimately disagree, but 51% can agree on legislation.

Let's look at a state where it's 65% pro-life and 35% pro-choice. Pick a jury in the murder trial of a doctor and a patient. Either you disqualify all prospective jurors who don't believe it's a crime, or you never get a conviction. Get the conviction in front of the right federal judge, and the prosecutor's wasted everybody's time. Even if you eliminate all jury nullification, aren't there some state court judges out there that won't sentence a woman to five, ten, or life over an abortion? Will judges have to run on a hard-abortion/soft-abortion ticket, depending on their jurisdiction (think Research Triangle, N.C.)?

Well, that's okay. Just pull the doctor's ticket, right? But do you pull it for making a referral to an out-of-state clinic? Or advising women this is an available option?

In short, a post-Roe world is a bit messier than abortion opponents are willing to let on.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I posted that story a couple of days ago. Did your various blogs not tell you until now that you should criticize it?

The snotty comment wasn't directed to me, but as I recall you posted the story only late last night. It hit the major wires last night and today.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
More importantly - Bob Bartley, RIP. You will be sorely missed.

I was going to post that today too, but thought it would be lost on most.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Gattigap
The snotty comment wasn't directed to me, but as I recall you posted the story only late last night. It hit the major wires last night and today.

I guess Yahoo is not a major wire.
The comment was not meant to be snotty, just poking fun, so unbunch your panties.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I was going to post that today too, but thought it would be lost on most.

Nothing is lost on those of us with the Amazing Power of Google.

So it would have been gotten by me, Not Me, and 1,400 Penske socks.

Speaking of which, MS would like to thank Penske for helping them reach the 145 million mark. You [guys] are the best!

[Skeks in the city]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch

I was thinking yesterday about the sheer rediculousness of the proponents of concealed-carry laws. The argument (as I understand it) is that random street crime will be deterred if a substantial portion of the population is exercising its R2KBA freedoms, and if the criminals don't know exactly which ones are armed. Under this theory, Snake won't hold up the Kwik-E-Mart because he's behind a Rawlsian veil of ignorance over whether Apu is carrying a piece.

Theory, shmeery. Get your hands dirty with some statistical data: a econemtrician tries to prove that after controlling for (income, age distribution, racial composition, and other variables) crime rates have a strong negative correllation with rates of gun ownership.


More Guns, Less Crime

[Skeks in the city]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop

Earth to Wolfowitz: You're a moron.

James Baker to Wolfowitz: Word up.

Traditionally, if you pay to reconstuct a country, you hire your own companies to rebuild it. And don't look to Bosnia for a counterexample, it cuts my way.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
First of all, this business of hypothesizing a state of nature where there is no government is fantasy.

Second, there are no rights without some kind of government to define and enforce them. The common law -- which both of you seem to conceive of as having existed in some protean way in neolithic times -- was created by government. A lot of white men in robes and wigs. Not the legislature, but government all the same.

By that statement, I take it that you are neither a religious person nor a believer in the "natural law" philosophy. It is entirely possible (though not meaningful on a practical level) to have rights that one can not enforce.

S_A_M

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by bilmore
Main issue to me is, we now have two main invlved camps standing on the opposite sides of a path and screaming at each other, allowing for no deviation amongst themselves, and certainly not allowing that this question of preferenc eis going to have to be characterized by compromise. Neither side seems willing to compromise.

True enough. But your first two posts (As I read them) consisted entirely of you raging at him for raging at the other side, and criticizing him for not including disclaimers acknowledging that the other side fundamentally disagrees with him. (As if that would somehow make the law ok -- it makes the law understandable). Your own position on the issue didn't appear until about your third or fourth post. Not conducive to discussion.

Originally posted by bilmore
Look at how AG characterized this. The MN leg intentionally sought to hurt these 68 women. He spouts this knowing why the statute is written as it is. It's sloganeering at its worst.

Well, I don't think he said that. But, according to your plausible theory:

The Minn legislature knows that there would be some cases just like this. However, the pro-life majority drew up the law as written, and jammed it through because they couldn't trust the other side or find compromise language. They believed that the effort to save soem unknown number of lives by discouraging abortion was more important than whatever suffering is imposed on the women compelled to jump through extra painful hoops when they wish to have an abortion because the child that they desperately desire is severely deformed, or missing a brain, etc.

So -- actually, the Minn. Legislature did make a knowing decision to hurt those women -- they just didn't know their names at the time. Omlettes/Eggs, etc. As for intent -- under the law, one is presumed to intend the natural consequences of one's actions. As for morality - the women were just collateral damage, but that is no comfort to them and their families.

S_A_M