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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Why waste him in a token position? Send him back to his people as an emissary of reality.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Collins went on to invoke his history as a pastor to criticize Warnock, who serves as a minister at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church. "I pastored for over 11 years," he said. "I'm still a United States Air Force reserve chaplain who served in Iraq."
"Let me just touch on a few things. I'm not sure, Kelly, what a pro-choice pastor looks like. I know what it doesn't look like. It doesn't look like what my Bible tells me when it says 'I made you and I knitted you in your mother's womb,'" Collins added.
Remember when Republicans said Democrats were anti-Catholic and people shouldn't question Amy Coney Barrett's faith?
CBS: Colorado Governor Jared Polis has tested positive for COVID.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Trump on Kemp: 'I'm ashamed that I endorsed him'
Trump's remarks came during a Fox News interview on his false claims of rampant voter fraud in Georgia, which Joe Biden captured by less than 13,000 votes. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger certified the vote on Nov. 20, refuting Trump’s claims, and hours later Kemp signed his approval.
"The governor has done nothing," Trump said. "He's done absolutely nothing. I'm ashamed that I endorsed him."
There's a little more. Pregnancy and child-rearing are the punishments for people who sin out of wedlock. Abortion and birth control reduce or eliminate that risk, thus permitting people to have consequence-free sex (relatively speaking of course) and putting the lie to all that effort those sexually repressed people put into avoiding masturbation and dirty thoughts.
Another way of putting it is that these people are terrified beyond wit that any woman might have a life not shackled to her body's demands and that any person can experience pleasure outside of prayer, because if those things are true then they've utterly wasted their lives.
Edited by Fighteer on Nov 29th 2020 at 1:32:03 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Meanwhile, the same group's in favour of a president whose administration has overseen mass sterilisations in concentration camps.
Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Nov 29th 2020 at 7:41:14 PM
We learn from history that we do not learn from historyRemember: your seed is only to be used for procreation, and having fun with it is a perversion of God's will.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I mean, this tracks. Women who have ready access to birth control will end up with lower rates of pregnancy and thusly lower rates of abortion.
It's like how giving proper sex ed to kids lowers teenage pregnancy, while going abstinence-only increases it.
The religious right's policies result in the exact opposite of what they want, it's purely about moral posturing and punishment.
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The thing about the religious right in the US is that you have to consider that the Bible has so much stuff in it, often stuff that wouldn't fly in a normal society, that at some point you have to make a choice: what part of christianity is really important to you at the end of the day? In fact, Obama spoke about this in a speech he gave in 2006
talking about the flaws of seeing the US as a purely christian nation.
What I find so loathsome about the religious right is that they are entirely focused on the negative aspects of their faith, caring only about punishment and cultural supremacy, and none of the positive, humane, edifying aspects like caring for the sick, the poor, and the needy and holding authority and the wealthy to account for their actions. They wouldn't even like the actual Jesus if he was alive today, since he's a jewish, middl-eastern man who stands for everything they claim to hate.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Nov 29th 2020 at 4:07:10 PM
Not all pro-life politicians are economic conservatives; the Catholic Church for example is not. In fact, I suspect the apparent contradiction is more an evangelical thing.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanSpeaking as someone who opposes abortion pretty strongly* (even moreso than most Republicans):
Abortion is one of those "Hypocrisy Mirrors" if you will where both sides see the other as hypocrites. In general, people who oppose abortion see the left as hypocritical for frequently using the pretense of compassion while being ok with abortion.
This sort of thing has caused me to become pretty dismissive of accusations of hypocrisy (specifically "logical hypocrisy", claiming your target holds two contradictory viewpoints), because it usually belies a misunderstanding of the target's philosophy. Plus, it seems to imply that they're right on at least one of those issues, or that you're also a hypocrite for opposing both issues. In addition, even if you don't know how to reconcile two viewpoints, that doesn't actually make either one incorrect.
- For what it's worth, I'm totally in favor of increasing access to birth control in the interests of decreasing abortion (I'm anti-abortion, not pro-birth, not anti-sex), though I do think abortion should carry a legal penalty on top of that. I tend to reject the label of "Pro-Life" for various reasons. Voting Democrat was a massive "Hell has Frozen Over" moment for me. I broke with the GOP in large part because they're incredibly bad at preventing abortions. Well, that and because they're fucking insane fascists selling us and our allies out to the likes of Putin and I just can't ignore that even over this issue. It also helps that Biden is Catholic, so he might get something done. Though I'm also not overly fond of the Catholic Church's opinions on contraception and the like.
I’m pro-life (and I mean that in all respects: opposed to abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia outside of very limited circumstances, and most wars, and believing that ending poverty and providing everyone with the necessities of life is more important than protecting the wealth of the rich). I also support sex ed and readily available birth control, in and of themselves, so that people can make choices about whether to have children in ways that don’t involve ending another person’s life.
But if a person is pro-life in the sense of opposing abortion, I think they should be pro-life in other ways, and at absolute minimum agree that people should not be charged thousands of dollars (or, in fact, any money whatsoever) to give birth, and that there should be financial support for mothers in poverty.
I think it is very important to recognize that people can be pro-life out of the sincere belief that human life is valuable and shouldn’t be ended just for one person's convenience (or, in the case of capital punishment, for vengeance; or, in the case of war, for a nation’s strategic or material gain). It’s very frustrating when pro-choicers insist that the only reason someone can be pro-life is out of the desire to oppress women, because it’s simply untrue.
I just don’t have the luxury of being able to vote on the issue of abortion because the parties that tend to be anti-abortion tend to ALSO to be opposed to practically all my other moral values re: poverty, war, workers’ rights, and a host of other things. It’s nonetheless gratifying when, very occasionally, a progressive politician is willing to recognize that people CAN hold sincere pro-life sentiments rather than deciding to smear every person with that view as trying to create the Republic of Gilead.
Edited by Galadriel on Nov 29th 2020 at 2:23:32 PM
I don't identify with the pro-life position, but I agree it's overly simplistic to assume that all of the millions of people who oppose abortion do so solely on the grounds of controlling women. It's undeniable that this is a part of it when you take a look at the kind of policies most prominent "pro-lifers" in the political sphere support, but that doesn't mean that it's all of it. It only makes sense to assume at least some people oppose it on some kind of broader spiritual or ethical sense.
Again, while I don't agree with the pro-life position, I can at least respect the position of people who are pro-life and care about making people's lives better and support the actual measures that will lead to less abortion.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Nov 29th 2020 at 4:31:43 PM
I can respect a person who genuinely believes that all life is sacred and acts in accordance with that, but not someone who picks and chooses which lives they do and do not care about. I also don't agree that there is anything sacred about life, in as much as I lack any religious or spiritual conviction to base such an opinion on. Consciousness and life experience are valuable things and should be preserved, but not at the expense of all else.
Edited by Fighteer on Nov 29th 2020 at 2:38:21 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I've also never been comfortable with dismissing the idea that someone could just genuinely care about all human life but, yeah, the people we're talking about generally don't fall into that category.
There have been studies showing that a trend in which otherwise "pro-life" people make a tactic distinction between their own abortions of those close to them, and everyone else. That really backs up the punishment narrative.

Token Republican guy.
Inter arma enim silent leges