Re: Whoops! The Atlantic Makes Trump Look EPIC In Cover Intended as a Smear

On 10/29/2024 11:02 AM, Paul S Person wrote:

On Mon, 28 Oct 2024 18:16:32 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
 

On 10/26/2024 10:31 AM, Paul S Person wrote:

On Fri, 25 Oct 2024 08:27:59 -0700, Bobbie Sellers
<bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:
>

On 10/25/24 06:45, Chris Buckley wrote:

On 2024-10-25, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2024, The Horny Goat wrote:

I'm from BC (Canada) and had our provincial election Saturday. I voted
in the advance poll at our local recreation center which is about 2-3
miles from home and fairly close to my favorite grocery store. Can't
recall whether I voted first shopped after or vice versa but it was
the same trip away from home. My candidate didn't win but that's not
the point - far better to have voted and lost than not to have voted
at all.
>

I disagree. If there is no candidate that represents my view, I would be
doing democracy a disservice by voting. By not voting, I send a clear
signal that the current politicians are of low quality and/or incompetent,
and that they in no way deserve me participating in the system.

>
I very strongly disagree. Voting is critical; at a minimum we must
distinguish our distaste for current candidates from the apathetic not
caring about the issue. Vote for the candidate you agree with most; if
there actually are none, then write-in "Mickey Mouse" or "Hatsune
Miku" if you're somewhat younger. That sends a clear signal; not
voting sends nothing at all in the US (it does send a signal in those
countries with mandatory voting.) You are not going to find a
candidate that represents your view 100% unless you're the candidate
yourself.
>
This is now the third Presidential election in a row that I can't vote
for either major party candidate - in the previous 40 years it only
happened once. Times are changing. But the need to vote is still there.
>

In additiona, democracy is a violent act, since it represents you, through
the possible force of the majority, imposing your will on others, by the
threat of violence if they do not comply. This is unethical.
>
Pacifists and libertarians can, due to their ethics and political beliefs,
not vote in democratic elections and remain consistent with their moral
positions.

>
D, I would not have thought that you were that much a proponent of
today's cancel culture. The modern notion that if you object strongly
to one belief of a person or group/party you must completely disassociate
yourself from that person or group, is tearing apart our society.  We're
unable to discuss or even recognize the good qualities of that person/group.
>
There's no reason for pacifists and libertarians not to participate in
a democracy despite their disagreement about what some of what a
government should do. That's cancel culture.  Would you really not
vote for someone like Chase Oliver (Libertarian Party candidate)
because of that, D?  Just about the only group who philosophically
should not vote are the anarchists.
>
As they say "Democracy sucks; it just sucks less than the alternatives."
>
Chris
>

>
All American Anarchists should always vote for the most competent
candidate.  We should do that because as bad as
government is it is far better constrained by even imperfect
basic law than by men acting on whims and without information.
We see in nations where Government has collapsed and
anarchy prevales that misery excalates. We see in nations
ruled by dictatorships of the Left or of the Right that misery
ensues. So goverment by the Constitution is better but certain
branches of the Government have resigned their proper functions
and allowed one or more other branches to improperly
execute the duty of other branches. One branch has the duty
of comparing non-basic law to the basic law for conflict
but the so called justices have dragged the common law of
superstitious monarchies into the case. They presume to
place their interpretation of religion against modern science
and in addition prominent members have accepted large gifts
from parties who have interests in the presented cases.

>
An excellent summary of our current situation. Just two quibbles and
an observation:
>
1. Freedom of religion and a prohibition on a State Church (which
would include Science acting as a religion, BTW) /are/ part of the
basic law (the Constitution, as amended).
>
2. The concept that human life begins at conception /is/ modern
science; they are merely drawing the inevitable consequences from this
belief. It is truly amazing that so many anti-modernist Christians
("Evangelicals") have adopted the /scientific/ viewpoint and abandoned
the historical Christian viewpoint (that human life begins when the
child draws breath independently of the mother. And, yes, spending
time on a respirator for a while /does/ count.)
>
3. Abortion has been discouraged for a long long time. The Hippocratic
Oath, from 3 or 4 centuries BC, includes a pledge by doctors not to
provide a drug to induce one. But this was because they believed the
fetus to be a human being (except potentially); it was because they
believed it to be the property of the father. Abortion was regarded as
a form of property theft. Keep in mind that the mother was also,
unless hanky-panky was involved, the property of the father.

>
I am confused.  So are you saying that my wife could have been killed at
birth in 1958 since she was born three weeks late and had hyaline
membrane disease ?  The USA Army doctor in Camp Jama, Japan built a
hodgepodge oxygenated incubator for her in which she lived for six weeks
until her body absorbed the hyaline membrane and was able to breath
normal air.

 This is /exactly/ the sort of response that my statement "And, yes,
spending time on respirator for a while /does/ count" was intended to
prevent. Sorry you found it confusing.
 If you prefer, you can use "live birth" as the criterion.
 I think you will find that Texas uses this criterion to decide when a
human being now exists.
 Most, if not all, States use this criterion and designate a new human
being by issuing a birth certificate, so the criteria for issuing
birth certificates is relevant here, particularly since it often (if
not always) goes back to times that were undeniably part of a
Christian culture and so reflects the traditional Christian viewpoint.
Also, the definition of "citizen" in the Constitution is, in part,
about people /born/ in this country. There is nothing about the as-yet
unborn being citizens.
 My point was, however, that the SC /was/ using scientific criteria.
That is, it accepted the scientific viewpoint that human beings are
just animals and so their lives start at conception and working from
there. Even Roe v Wade used it -- this is why it started with a long
period in which there can be no restrictions on abortion and then
recognizes that the State has a growing interest in the potential
child. This is basically a matter of "rights in conflict" -- but only
if you accept that human beings are just animals.
 It is also why, if a National Abortion Policy is ever adopted, it will
probably look a /lot/ like Roe v Wade. And may even end up in the
Constitution, with perhaps a few additions, just to prevent future
hanky-panky.

What is SC ?  State Church ?  Supreme Court ?
BTW, people get really touchy about babies and live births.  One minute everything is ok in the delivery process, five minutes later the baby is dead.  Been there, done that, got a baby daughter in a cemetery who was born dead due to the umbilical cord wrapped three times around her neck.   Traumatic does not even begin to describe the process.
Lynn