Abortion in America

Sonics2k

Lyft And Uber Offer To Pay Legal Fees For Drivers Sued Under Texas Abortion Law (forbes.com)

In another fine example of just how insane this new law is, even a taxi driver can be sued if they bring a pregnant woman to a clinic for an abortion. This is absolute madness.

Akrasia

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/03/texas-abortion-republicans-six-states-arkansas-florida-indiana-mississippi-north-south-dakota

Its snowballing already. Biden will have to expand the Supreme Court to protect the US constitution from being walked back to the Middle Ages. Separation of church and state is next on the agenda

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117845569#Comment_117845569

Can he do that? And if he does could a successor Republican president jack it up again?

Tell me how

Let there be no confusion as to my view on this or people who support such disconnected Conservative ideals and the people who behave like this while denouncing anyone interested in the common good as being radical socialists.

Fcuk each and every last one of them.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117846240#Comment_117846240

Yes. Biden can expand the supreme court and nominate as many judges as he likes, And, yes, his successor can do the same, so it could end up being a tit for tat with every time an administration changes hands, the supreme court gets bigger.

The problem is supreme court nominations need senate approval so only presidents that control the senate could pump the SC full of judges and successfully fill those seats.

What the SCOTUS currently have done, is basically tear up the US constitution. Their decision to allow a blatantly unconstitutional law to remain in force pending SCOTUS review of said blatantly unconstitutional law, is akin to saying that states do not have to apply the US constitution when drafting laws. It's a hugely dangerous precedent.

Biden may have no choice but to take the 'Nuclear option' to rebalance the supreme court.

JupiterKid

Texas is an incredibly backward, bigoted state populated by ignorant rednecks and I look forward to when this completely mean-spirited and anti-women law is forcibly revoked via the US Supreme Court, whenever that may be.

Since the Roe vs Wade ruling in 1973 abortion and reproductive rights for women have been a constant battleground in America

Texas is one of the most backward US states on all measures of social well-being - minority rights, employee protections, environmental protection, health indicators, infant mortality, inequality, animal welfare, town planning etc. - the list just goes on and on.

It's also a very salutary reminder that social progress can be reversed, no progress should be taken for granted as just as rights for women can be fought for and won, they can also be taken away by religious nutjobs.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117846973#Comment_117846973

Abortion is the canary in the coal mine for this SCOTUS. The fact that they let this ridiculous law stand means they will likely allow all kinds of other shenanigans from republican controlled states, voter suppression will be green lighted by this SCOTUS giving the next election to the republicans, and then it’s a downward spiral from there

Biden has no choice if he cares about democracy. He has to pull the trigger

As toxic and noxious as American politics can be and I completely understand that we sometimes spend far too much time focused on crazy stuff going on over there, but I think this does have some relevance in Ireland, largely because they are headed to where we were not very many years ago. So, I think we do have a unique perspective on it by most Western European standards.

From what I can see a large part of the USA is rapidly regressing, across a whole load of issues, to some bygone era and is becoming extremely conservative and religious in formation of public policy, much like what you're seeing in parts of Latin America and Eastern Europe.

It's worrying to see trends in the US that are anti-democratic, or delegitimising democratic processes. You've widespread acceptance of gerrymandering and using loopholes and basically abuse of process to force various things through on narrow technical regulation, rather than broad consensus and you've a former president and a large part of the population that does not accept the legitimacy of a election. It's not because of anything having happened, but rather that they just don't like the result.

The US is a full presidential democracy and it's mirrored at state level with the gubernatorial system, and many of its structures haven't really changed all that much since the 1700s. So, it's one of the oldest democratic systems in the world, but that does not imply it's the most functional. From what I can see the US is looking more and more like unstable full presidential democracies in Latin America and Africa, where there's an acceptance of strongman leadership and all that goes with it. You're seeing the same in parts of Eastern Europe too, notably Russia which is kind of not unexpected given it has very little real democratic history, but within the EU, Hungary in particular and Poland are sliding in the same direction.

I think just ignoring what's going on the US is not really an option as it's somewhere that has a lot of relevance here, but what we should probably avoid doing is taking elements of crazy American politics and assuming they apply here, and you see a lot of that in online bubbles.

I could see several American states sliding back to some kind of evangelical version of where we were in the 1960s/70s, applying hardcore religious morality to public policy, but it's actually worse in many ways as they are doing that within a context of the undermining of acceptance of democratic rule too. So it's looking maybe more like it's heading towards Spain in the 1960s.

This kind of thing is also likely to destabilise the US. It's not as if there's a broad universal acceptance of the direction that they're going, rather the concept of finding consensus is gone and it's heading for at the very least a culture war.

Texas is now headed for a situation where they will have two sides pitched against each other, unable to agree on anything and ultimately that just will lead to a state that becomes ungovernable. You can see what happens when a society gets polarised on issues by just looking to Stormont and how many times that assembly has collapsed.

I mean where is the US headed? More government shut downs, an ineffective legislature, state governments at logger heads with themselves, politicised courts? Very poor quality electoral candidates, anyone sensible, pragmatic, moderate or bipartisan is quickly run out of office leaving a vacuum being filled by zealots, religious extremists, conspiracy theorists, showmen and power hungry sociopaths that are increasingly dominating politics and all that leads, understandably towards protests, riots and growing disaffection with democracy ...

It's not a pretty picture.

padd b1975

Good news for the unborn all the same.

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117847674#Comment_117847674

Terrible news for rape victims, women in abusive relationships or 13 year old girls who are victims of incest though.

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117846891#Comment_117846891

What about holding a referendum to enshrine something like Roe v Wade in the Constitution?

Faugheen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117847718#Comment_117847718

Because abortion is something that does not belong in the constitution.

G_R

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117847725#Comment_117847725

Also, the US constitution cannot be changed by a referendum.

It needs to be passed by a 2/3 majority in the House and the Senate, and then needs to be ratified by the state governments of 3/4 of the states.

RobbieTheRobber

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117847674#Comment_117847674

That is a very disturbing view on this.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117847756#Comment_117847756

but not in the least bit surprising.

Roe vs Wade is a very dubious decision anyway. It's based on privacy but who has privacy anyway? The US government is all over your emails, texts and social media. The Police can enter your house at any time based on a warrant based on little or no evidence, see Breona Taylor.

Abortion isn't mentioned in the constitution and the response of that Supreme Court should have been to say it wasn't a court competency. Over time the states would have come into line.

Edit:

Of course there being nothing in the constitution about abortion a federal law could probably have been passed. Maybe infringing on "state's rights" but that phrase is not in good odour.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117847299#Comment_117847299

This is all a bit fantastical. It's likely that Texas will go blue sometime soon. Within the next few generations. The high tide of evangelicalism is dead. Atheism is increasing, protestantism is falling, and a milder South American catholicism is unlikely to be as fanatical.

Of course there are other reasons to fear the US as it transitions, the divide is very real, but both sides are nuts.

In what way?

The recent history has been multiple government shutdowns over petty issues, that literally paralysed the federal government during the Obama administration. Then you'd Donald Trump as president which was one hell of a bizarre few years.

Texas has already now passed these laws, other southern states are already well on their way to doing similar.

The US Supreme Court is absolutely a political tool. There's nothing independent about it and they're not even pretending there is. They just stuff it to suit their agenda.

Meanwhile you've a significant chunk of one of the two political parties who simply do not accept the outcome of a democratic election and are coming up with every conspiracy theory in the book to try to overturn it months after the president has been inaugurated.

You've already had vicious riots on the streets. You've also had the Capital, the federal legislature, stormed by a mob.

Not really sure how any of what I said is 'a bit fantastical'. It's already happening and it's far from how a normal, stable democracy behaves.

Tell me how

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117848280#Comment_117848280

Can you expand a bit on the both sides are nuts? I'm not naive enough to think that everything within the party my values would more closely be aligned with but I think the 'both sides' thing doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.

Aside from the topic which this thread is about and the harm that that will do to people, they offer as a counter point continued efforts to reduce any form of government supported healthcare. I've already pointed out the hyopcrisy of people, on virtually the same day, arguing that bodily autonomy is a valid argument to prevent mask mandates, and that women cannot have bodily autonomy to terminate a pregnancy should they wish to do so.

Look at what the GOP have put their name to over just the last couple of years. Downplaying Covid, downplaying an attempted insurrection, attempting to undermine a valid election, cowtowing to an obviously incompetent President. At a state level they have introduced a raft of legislation to make it more difficult for some people to vote. They have not only been poor on Covid, they have introduced legislation preventing conscientious school boards from attempting to protect their staff and students.

Ted Cruz ran to Cancun when Texas had a snowstorm, AOC collected $5M for Texas support efforts. Mo Brooks is trying to inhibit an investigation in to the attempted insurrection, Cori Bush camped out to draw attention to, and build support for extending the eviction moratorium, which protected tenants from being evicted at this difficult time. (That extension was granted, but has sense been overruled.) Kelly Loeffler attended a Covid briefing in early 2020 and immediately sold millions in stock.

Kevin McCarthy was one of the first significant people to visit Trump in Mar-A-Lago, Bernie Sanders is visiting GOP areas, trying to build support for a 3.5T reconciliation Bill which among other things will expand healthcare.

Madison Cawthorn advocated violence as a response to Republicans losing further elections, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, downplayed the Holocaust, Lauren Boebert ranted against Government financial aid at CPAC, the 4 counties in her state with highest unemployment are all in her district.

Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnel both blamed Trump for the events of Jan 6th, neither of them voted to impeach him.

McConnell refused to let Obama nominate someone to the Supreme Court for the entirety of the last year of his Presidency, saying that it couldn't be done because of the upcoming election, he then allowed Amy Coney Barrett to be nominated and approved within 6 weeks of the Election at the end of Trumps term. The GOP held 11 enquiries in to Benghazi, they refused to support a full enquiry in to the insurrection on Jan 6th. In that insurrection, some Democrat members, were afraid of their lives, some GOP members were communicating directly with the President or were sending coded messages revealing the location of prominent Democrats.

No Republican, House or Senate voted for the pandemic relief bill, when it was passed, several of them campaigned on the back of having secured funding for their districts.

When the Covid vaccine was released, AOC brought a vaccine bus around her district which people could visit to get the vaccine, half the GOP members in the House refuse to say whether or not they themselves have been vaccinated. Last week, as New York suffered from Hurricane Ida, AOC's team texted people in their district asking 'Are you ok, do you need anything and saying if people indicated they needed assistance by responding to the text, someone would then get in touch directly. She also once again advocated for her Green New Deal being an effort to help limit/prevent the escalation of such events, the GOP refuse to acknowledge a link between current economy practices and climate change.

The 3 most indicted Presidents in history are Trump, Nixon and Reagan with 215, 76 and 26 indictments respectively associated with their administration. Three least indicted; Clinton, Carter and Obama with 2, 1 and 0 indictments respectively. Notice any correlation here with the parties both groups were members of?

Trump negotiated with the Taliban, freed 5000 of its soldiers and excluded the Afghan government from talks ahead of the planned departure of the US from the country. Biden actually went ahead and took the US out of there knowing that he was going to get massive stick for doing so. Trump literally refused to take responsibility for the Covid response, Biden said full responsibility for how the US ended up leaving Afghanistan was his, and his alone.

As I said, I know that the Dem's are far from perfect, and Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin are wolves in sheeps clothing. But to say that both sides are equally nuts but on opposite sides of the political spectrum is like saying that flat earthers and astrophysicists are comparable. It doesn't hold any water. At all.

Manic Moran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117846973#Comment_117846973

It is?

So a slew of new laws just entered force this week, varying from the budget to guns, the abortion one is just one of over 650. Some here may dislike the gun laws, but may be interested in the increase in access for medical marijuana. They may dislike the $1bn for border security, but approve of the $8bn on mental health and addiction issues. The new state budget has overall decreased over the previous one, but education funding has increased. There is an increase in eligibility for State support for ovarian cancer screening and mammograms, as against a requirement to play the national anthem at certain sports events. Veterans get enhanced education benefits, but sexual assault victims now must be provided advocates during the investigation process (and the reporting time has been extended). It is now illegal to block an emergency vehicle, and there is now a mechanism for tracking mail-in ballots. We can now buy beer on Sunday mornings, and there is now immunity to prosecution for drug-related offenses for someone calls for help for someone overdosing. Police bodycams now may no longer be switched off during investigations, and it is now possible to obtain emergency insulin from a pharmacist without a doctor's authorization. And so on. The whole lot is here, let me know how many of them you object to as 'backward and bigoted'.

As for some of the specific accusations, CDC says the infant mortality rate is smack in the middle of the US at 22nd best, just worse than Arizona and better than Illinois. According to US News, Racial inequality is indeed high (45th), though gender is pretty much right in the middle (27th), and it's near the top at disability equality (8th. All at same link). The Animal Legal Defense Fund rates Texas as a "Top Tier" state for animal protection, at 11 of 50. When it comes to 'healthiest states', Texas is again in the middle at 25 according to Becker's Hospital Review, which, in fairness, is recent: it was 34th two years ago, and 39th three years ago so apparently it's trending in the right direction. I'm not sure what the 'town planning' criterion relates to, though I will note from observation that there's a hell of a lot more infrastructure improvement happening here in Texas than there was in California when I left three years ago.

What surprised us when we moved here, though, was just how overall generous and supportive folks seem to be. Private organisations, particularly faith-based ones, have provided all sorts of benefits to our kid from swimming lessons through zoo membership. We're not even part of their organisations, it is merely sufficient that we live in their neighborhood. These were not benefits available to us in California as such organisations aren't part of the local fabric.

OK, the abortion thing is very noticeable and controversial. It's not the only thing in Texas, though. It's a damned good place to live, there's a reason this is the most popular destination for Californians leaving the State.

Igotadose

OK, the abortion thing is very noticeable and controversial. It's not the only thing in Texas, though. It's a damned good place to live, there's a reason this is the most popular destination for Californians leaving the State.

Lower minimum wage in Texas vs. Ca. $7.25/hour vs. $14. Employers are leaving the state for that, along with tax incentives. Employees follow, or are screwed.

Most difficult State to vote in per https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article246564983.html

Personally doubt Animal Protection ratings in a state that still has rodeos. (Yeah, even New Jersey has rodeos. Barbaric in my opinion.)

FWIW, I know Californians who left for Texas, and returned. My own parents were there in 1946 on their honeymoon. Dad wanted to stay. Mom thought about it, but they returned to Brooklyn. I occasionally wonder how things might've been had they stayed.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117848481#Comment_117848481

You don't live in America, but obsess about their internal affairs. I don't like either side. The differences are slight. There's no doubt thought that the far left of the US, increasingly affecting Europe, is as poisonous. The spread of extreme ideologies and the incessant culture wars. The colonisation of the European mind.

The main reason to hate the US though is because of its external actions, and leaving Afghanistan is actually a good thing. This kind of thing is what America will be judged on:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/04/yemen-famine-feared-as-starving-children-fight-for-lives-in-hospital

Tell me how

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117848937#Comment_117848937

I do live in America.

I'm equally vocal on threads here about Irish politics and UK politics.

You're like the other guy on here, seemingly trying to quite discussion of particular topics, probably because you know they show conservatives in a bad light.

Manic Moran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117848605#Comment_117848605

Lower cost of living as well. And for employers, lower cost of facilities and operations even before looking at wages. I doubt companies like Oracle pay minimum wage. When my employer shifted from California to Texas, our wages stayed the same. I am a remote employee and thus was not required to move, but we decided we liked the idea of the wife not having to work and she could raise the baby instead. We find it highly unlikely we will return to CA unless major changes occur.

As for rodeos, there's not a State in the union which doesn't have them. San Francisco has a big one, https://www.cowpalace.com/p/grandnational , even Dublin, CA (my old home) has one in the area. https://rowellranchrodeo.com/

Faugheen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117848937#Comment_117848937

TMH does live in the US.

Nice effort to deflect from the effort they went through to highlight how your 'both sides' argument is a load of sh*te by telling them they don't live in the US when they absolutely do.

Also some rubbish about obsessing over internal affairs while trying to take the cop out of 'both sides'.

The Republican Party, for the most part, is genuinely evil in the way so many of their policies pit ordinary working people of the US against one another.

A lot of Democrat policies, whether Republican voters like it or not, actually benefit 'both sides'.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850018#Comment_117850018

I always regret getting involved in these threads because of the sheer colonisation of the minds on here. Both sides in the US are evil. Trump is evil. Obama is evil. Biden is evil. It's an evil empire. It invades countries at a whim. It's born on genocide and slavery. Its actions have destabilised where you actually live, Europe.

To those of you who don't live in the US, in your insane minds the abortion laws in Texas are a big deal. To the sane, not so much. It's a different country. Try and actually work out what is happening in Europe.

To those of you who do want to talk about internal US politics the internet has almost infinite space to discuss what is happening in the US, this is Ireland. A sub forum for Americans and colonised Irish people who think like you that, and itt could be a private group, might end the madnesss.

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850080#Comment_117850080

Or you could just not click on a thread that clearly has America in the title.

I have no interest in golf, model cars or wrestling, guess what I do when I see a thread title that is clearly about those subjects.

I scroll on by, try it, you may surprise yourself and not get triggered so much by subjects that you clearly have no interest in.

Why you feel the need to tell everyone who does have an interest in said subject that they shouldn't be discussing it is quite confusing if I'm honest.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850099#Comment_117850099

or I can come in here and criticise both sides.

This is current affairs, by implication it’s the current affairs of Ireland, Europe, then the world. There are actions that the US takes that affect the rest of the world, Afghanistan for instance, then theres an act by an individual State in the US, which isn’t even federal policy. Not that we get that much about US foreign policy unless unavoidable - no Afghanistan until withdrawal, no Yemen now, Syria drops from the news as the US disengages. And so on.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850239#Comment_117850239

It can still be of interest to plenty of posters. In this case, it's pretty relevant cause it's regressive policies coming into place. Plenty of events in the small towns in France and Poland have become global news. Eg LGBT free zones in certain areas of Poland, weird local anti immigration policies in France.

It may not interest you and that's fine. But often such small events can foreshadow far greater issues at play.

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117848605#Comment_117848605

You’d have been a cowboys fans instead of a jets fan.

Tell me how

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850080#Comment_117850080

Maybe try ringing the Gardai and tell them that you are being forced in to discussions you don't want to take part in.

I specifically wrote a detailed response showing the lack of objective evidence in 'both-sidesing' the assessment of Republicans and Democrats. Please give examples to challenge that, given my post was in response to a post of yours, or discuss other elements of the topic the thread or, you know, stay out of it. It's clearly beyond your capacity to understand why people are interested in discussing current affairs even ones that don't directly/immediately impact them.

Tell me how

The irony of a conservatives looking for a safe-space is just jawdropping.

Actually, know, it isn't, it's another example of their MO of 'accuse others of that which you are guilty'.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850099#Comment_117850099

You don't like wrestling?

How dare you?

The “both sides” argument is patently nonsense and at best is a cop out or just a lazy anti-politics statement that doesn’t want to deal with the reality of it, or (more usually) a way of burying the nastiness of one side into a “they’re all the same” argument.

The simple reality of it is that the GOP has been taken over by an extreme right wing, socially conservative, usually highly religious element, who seem to have a belief that their right to govern or legislate comes from god or a notion of moral superiority, not the people.

So things like human rights, democracy etc is all just an annoyance or an irrelevance to them. They see their constitution as their, often twisted, interpretation of scripture and everything else is secondary to that. If you think they’re likely to compromise you’re kidding yourself. They aren’t going to find some bipartisan moderate centre ground. They’re hardcore fundamentalists and they now dominate the GOP nationally and in certain states.

It comes from an idiotic tactic that pandered to them to get the GOP into power by playing on trigger issues. The old establishment in that party thought they could control and use it, but instead it’s taken over the party, much like Brexit/UKIP consumed the Tories when they brought it in and tried to use it.

To say that that all sides are the same is just utter nonsense though. They’ve completely different world views, attitudes to democracy, human rights, socioeconomic issues etc etc etc.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850239#Comment_117850239

The fragility of the US political system has consequences for everyone around the world. The SCOTUS have signaled that they do not care about the US constitution. When a Supreme Court sanctions blatantly unconstitutional laws then it’s a very serious symptom of a failing state.

nullzero

The notion of people reporting women getting abortions in right wing Texas is ironically ripped straight from the soviet era in East Germany.

Some of the other discussion here is nauseating. Yes this is a bizarre change in Texas state law, what it isn't is an excuse to say "look I told you so" in relation to anything any conservative person has ever said about anything at any point in time. Some of the moral grandstanding here from the usual suspects is anything but surprising but nonsensical nonetheless.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850381#Comment_117850381

Yeah. The Democrats are currently trying to bring in reforms that include free preschool education, improved healthcare, free community college, paid maternity leave, infrastructural improvements etc, and and Biden is withdrawing from Afghanistan and releasing the 9/11 reports that shielded Saudi from their responsibility for the attacks…

Meanwhile the Republicans are doing everything that they can do to prevent these reforms while also introducing laws to prevent minorities from voting and persecuting women and girls by denying them access to abortion and turning the public into vigilante gestappo, empowered to make the lives of anyone who provides reproductive services a living hell

Tell me how

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850509#Comment_117850509

Maybe you'd like to counter it with objective content or just admit you can't do so. This is further evidence of why people want this conversation shut down. It's close to impossible to defend the conservatives on it.

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850542#Comment_117850542

I wasn't attempting to defend the changes to the law in Texas, so I'm confused as to why you're asking me to do so.

My interest in this thread centres on the victory lap the thread has become for some people over anything remotely conservative in any setting.

Other posters have mentioned that both "sides" are equally capable of doing reprehensible things which is demonstrably correct, the holier than thou attitude of some people here in the wake of this discussion is frankly laughable.

The antics of people on both "sides" never seems to amaze me, the notion that the views of the left are in some constant danger of being shut down and silenced is a personal favorite of mine. No such danger exists and there's plenty of left leaning posters who have tried to shut down discussions they haven't liked on this site over the years and that isn't tolerated either.

You all need a reality check to be honest. Time to grow up and accept other viewpoints exist and learn to deal with them like an adult.

Tell me how

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850841#Comment_117850841

Can you please have a look at post 120 and maybe counter that with evidence that saying both sides are the same is demonstrably correct.

We are dealing with this as adults, by pointing out the fallacy in blase, simplistic catchphrases.

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850854#Comment_117850854

It would appear that the accepted logic here is that all conservatives are religious ideologues and that anything that isn't left of centre is based in intolerance. That patently isn't true.

I consider myself centre-ist, I don't have a dog in this fight, but the irony of describing some things as fallacies whilst dealing in your own fallacies seems completely lost on you.

In the last century we have seen extremes of right and left wing political ideologies take hold in different parts of the world and both have resulted in death in a massive scale, those are the extremes but more moderate left and right wing systems have failed in their own ways and continue to do so. There is no magic ideology that works perfectly, I wish there was, but the notion that human rights are only respected by left wing groups is utterly baffling and flies in the face of fact.

Here we have conservative Texas introducing a draconian set of measures surrounding abortion. Go to communism China and although measures have been long in place to stop it, sex selective abortion is rife resulting in a disproportionate number of males in the population.

Two ends of the political spectrum two awful situations, neither side is right, both are wrong.

Tell me how

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850943#Comment_117850943

That's a cop out.

No one is arguing that there aren't extremes on a global scale, particularly when you take historical events in to account, but the post I responded to in post 120 specifically referred to the situation in the US ad the commentary since then has been about that.

I'm seeing your post as an attempt to deflect from acknowledging the issue with conservatism in the US. Your point on the opposition ideologies on the global scale and the extremist examples within could be discussed in detail, but it wasn't being discussed here.

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850966#Comment_117850966

It's a cop out when I expand the discussion to a point where you can't win?

I thought we were all free to discuss things on whatever scale we wish?

Do you believe all American conservatives are religious ideologues? Can you prove it?

Get real TMH, as usual the goalposts are on wheels with you one minute and rooted to the spot the next.

Tell me how

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117850997#Comment_117850997

Lol. You start talking about things going on in China and suggest I am the one who moved the goalposts.

No I don't believe all American conservatives are religious ideologues, but I believe all ideologues are Conservative.

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117851009#Comment_117851009

Talk about copping out.

The reason China is relevant to the discussion is that it is operates a communist system, which is something that is increasingly fetishised by left wing groups in America.

The lessons of history are always worth learning, the democrats at one point were no friends of African Americans for example, things are more fluid than you care to recognize and always will be.

Everything is relative in a discussion once you turn a single issue into an excuse to wag your finger at anyone you feel may be in any way connected to it.

Tell me how

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117851053#Comment_117851053

The reason China is relevant to the discussion is that it is operates a communist system, which is something that is increasingly fetishised by left wing groups in America.

Link please.

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117851104#Comment_117851104

Sure thing... https://www.google.com/

There are plenty of left wing weirdos (and yes right wing weirdos exist as well) advocating the virtues of communism as a way forward for America.

That's the thing about extremists, their views are extreme, but as you are quick to point out when the extremism in question is of the ring wing variety, we should all be alert to it and what it could lead to.

Tell me how

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117851132#Comment_117851132

That's the thing about conservatives. They paint Democratic ideals as the dreaded bogeyman irrespective of the lack of evidence to support it.

And once again, the examples I've given are all sitting or recent members of congress. That's where laws are made and the evidence is that the extremists are on one side of the debate.

Thanks for posting as you have done, you've evidenced my point perfectly. I'm off out.

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117851166#Comment_117851166

Here's a link to a YouTube video showing some wackos lobbying for communism... https://youtu.be/XOkfTxPyEPA

What you've said above can also be applied to either side of the argument.

That's the thing about people with entrenched views, they dehumanise the other side with aplomb and reduce them to caricatures who become their bogeymen of choice.

The thing is my friend, there are oddballs aplenty in the world of all denominations. Just because you align yourself in one way doesn't absolve those you align yourself with of their misdeeds.

Like I said previously, time to grow up and see things for how they really are. Enjoy your day.

I find these arguments utterly facile, yet they seem to be accepted by a lot of people commentating in the USA.

It’s this false equivalency garbage that has been a huge part of allowing this to happen in the first place.

You are looking at a group of primarily religious zealots and extreme social conservatives. They are nothing whatsoever to do with historical platform of liberal economics, small state, moderate centre right or when normal right wing politics as the GOP once was.

The party has been hijacked by nutters basically.

I wouldn’t be a big fan of the kinds of policies the GOP once stood for, but this is basically the opposite of what that party once meant.

It’s gross state interference into people’s personal lives. It’s removing freedom of choice and it’s baking religion into a country that was once proudly secular as one of its core principles and values.

The Republican Party was all about small government and personal freedom. They don’t know what they are anymore. They’re beginning to look more like the governments of Vichy France or Franco’s Spain, or modern Russia or Turkey - deeply conservative, controlling, paternalistic and very open to using the organs of the state to coerce and control. That isn’t American republicanism at all.

The USA operates as a de facto two party system and has evolved into a rather extreme example of that, where 3rd parties are just non entities. One of those two parties going crazy can do immense damage as there isn’t really a viable replacement for it. People keep voting for Red or Blue.

My view of it is that if the GOP can’t rid itself of this crazy, the USA is on a path towards a hell of a lot of instability.