US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7395

On April 25 2017 09:47 Sermokala wrote:
I wish health care could be solved with the department of health operating like the department of education. With the department investigating clinics and hospitals (with some health urban planning for good distribution of clinics trauma centers and general hospitals) and accrediting them as being "good". Penalizing some for overcharging and keeping a general rising standard for the nation as a whole and then naturally expecting health insurance to calm down without anything to differentiate them.

But god the whole system is so fucked up and so needed in every persons life that you can't honestly put logic and reason behind the solution. Just give up and embrace the socialism.

On April 25 2017 10:33 Plansix wrote:
The shut down would be no good for everyone. Especially over something so stupid as the debt ceiling.

On April 24 2017 23:44 KwarK wrote:

I didn't call it a leech or a tick or anything like that. I called it a parasite because it exists in a complete state of dependence upon the mother, a relationship which has significant health costs to the mother and no benefits. You give me a better word for that relationship and I'll use it. But parasite is the best way to describe that relationship. Leech would have been hyperbolic, parasite is simply accurate.

I'm not dismissing that it's human, quite the opposite, I said that even if it were a fully grown human adult, or indeed four human adults, it wouldn't matter and that bodily autonomy would override. You need to reread my argument and try again.

On April 24 2017 16:36 GreenHorizons wrote:


So one is unwilling to concede even this one thing, fine. One can't stop it by force of law, and trying to will only make it worse. One think's abortion is murder, they can't leave this up to women to decide, they insist that men must have the final determination on this, let's at least focus on effective strategies and not political stunts.

On April 25 2017 04:22 Grumbels wrote:

The rich are the problem to begin with, any serious solution to the myriad of problems afflicting the USA involves taking control and wealth from rich people by leveraging populist outrage. That is why Bernie talks about the banks, it is because they are the villains and they need to be defeated, for instance by being criminalized and defunded. You can't deal with the financial industry without revealing them as the villains they are, because otherwise it is too easy for them to sabotage any reform. You can think of this as a simplistic and divisive narrative, but if you look at the facts you can see it is true: banks to a large extent are leeches on the economy with vast power whose employees are mostly deeply corrupt sociopaths.

On April 25 2017 11:12 Falling wrote:

Parasite does not make sense as a universal, objective descriptor of our offspring. I could only see it used metaphorically for whom the reason they give to abort is "that having a child would interfere with a woman's education, work or ability to care for dependents (74%)" Guttmacher Institute 2005. This follows as 80-90% of women who have abortions in pretty much any age bracket are unmarried (CDC, 2013). I suppose these women, who've had the misfortune of becoming involved with a bang and run man, would view the baby as a parasite metaphorically. First I would note that a women's offspring being both 'contents of their body' and a 'parasite' is mutually exclusive though neither need be true. Now granted it is different people giving different defences, but the defence is incoherent except in its bedrock agreement that the offspring is anything, anything at all other than a baby.

However, as you define parasite as being a) complete dependence upon the mother and b) no benefits. While a) is true barring significant medical improvement (and remains true outside of the womb except for modern innovation), b) is false and an absurd claim at that. The second requirement to define life is that the thing has the potential to reproduce at some time. How can the very thing that is required for the survival of our species be considered 'no benefit'. One of the very stages of our life cycle is parasitic and of no benefit? To be consistent, we would have to apply this loose definition to every embryonic animal, calling the essential earliest stage of a living being's life cycle parasitic and 'of no benefit.' Such a definition renders the entire concept of parasite meaningless, dissolving the categories.

But beyond the biological necessity of the embryonic stage, then there's the actual desire to have children that seems to kick in at a certain point. I don't know about you, but I know a decent number of women that express a sort of baby fever, particularly if they are in their late 20's to early 30's, most especially if they are still unmarried. Apparently, it's not just an anecdotal observation either- Brase from Kansas Univerisity observed the effect in both men and women. As I understand it, one of the contributors to the supposed pay gap, at least in Law is that they cannot actually pay their rising star lawyers enough to stay- the women hit their early 30's and really want to start a family and so drop out regardless of the financial incentives. In what sense can something that people generally want at some point in their life be universally and objectively be a "parasite". If people get a sort of craving enough to scale back their career to have it, how can it be of 'no benefit'. No economic benefit, certainly. No career benefit, granted. But if as people so consistently desire and it is required to create the next generation (also nearly universally desired). Beneficial seems the more accurate descriptor than its opposite. Therefore, offspring cannot universally and objectively be considered 'parasite'. Biologically speaking it renders the idea of parasite incoherent. But it isn't an intrinsic property and so inaccurate. So then we are left with those unmarried women, abandoned by men unwilling to support them for whom birth would constitute a major and undesired interrupt to their lives. Subjectively, then and in their view, I suppose their offspring could be considered a parasite. Do you contend that it is a subjective metaphor for the few. Or do you contend that it is an accurate, universal descriptor for all offspring? Are offspring parasitical by very nature?


Look, I really don't know how I was to concede. To make your argument you tried using 'it is murder' as a premise, and I appreciate the attempt to assume another premise. But the conclusion doesn't follow once you use that presupposition. You seem to be coming from a fairly gendered perspective, the problematic patriarchy perhaps? But if you assume murder, the gender perspective falls by the wayside in all other instances of murder and would here as well. Else it then becomes "well the men are murdering lots and for equality sake, we need to allow women to match and surpass male murders. Doesn't that sound absurd? The proper conclusion from that premise should instead go after the other side: men kill too much, let's drop that rate rather than have women match and raise. For your 'men control everything, so just give women this one power' argument to work it has to assume that it isn't murder.

On April 25 2017 11:12 Falling wrote:

Parasite does not make sense as a universal, objective descriptor of our offspring. I could only see it used metaphorically for whom the reason they give to abort is "that having a child would interfere with a woman's education, work or ability to care for dependents (74%)" Guttmacher Institute 2005. This follows as 80-90% of women who have abortions in pretty much any age bracket are unmarried (CDC, 2013). I suppose these women, who've had the misfortune of becoming involved with a bang and run man, would view the baby as a parasite metaphorically. First I would note that a women's offspring being both 'contents of their body' and a 'parasite' is mutually exclusive though neither need be true. Now granted it is different people giving different defences, but the defence is incoherent except in its bedrock agreement that the offspring is anything, anything at all other than a baby.

However, as you define parasite as being a) complete dependence upon the mother and b) no benefits. While a) is true barring significant medical improvement (and remains true outside of the womb except for modern innovation), b) is false and an absurd claim at that. The second requirement to define life is that the thing has the potential to reproduce at some time. How can the very thing that is required for the survival of our species be considered 'no benefit'. One of the very stages of our life cycle is parasitic and of no benefit? To be consistent, we would have to apply this loose definition to every embryonic animal, calling the essential earliest stage of a living being's life cycle parasitic and 'of no benefit.' Such a definition renders the entire concept of parasite meaningless, dissolving the categories.

But beyond the biological necessity of the embryonic stage, then there's the actual desire to have children that seems to kick in at a certain point. I don't know about you, but I know a decent number of women that express a sort of baby fever, particularly if they are in their late 20's to early 30's, most especially if they are still unmarried. Apparently, it's not just an anecdotal observation either- Brase from Kansas Univerisity observed the effect in both men and women. As I understand it, one of the contributors to the supposed pay gap, at least in Law is that they cannot actually pay their rising star lawyers enough to stay- the women hit their early 30's and really want to start a family and so drop out regardless of the financial incentives. In what sense can something that people generally want at some point in their life be universally and objectively be a "parasite". If people get a sort of craving enough to scale back their career to have it, how can it be of 'no benefit'. No economic benefit, certainly. No career benefit, granted. But if as people so consistently desire and it is required to create the next generation (also nearly universally desired). Beneficial seems the more accurate descriptor than its opposite. Therefore, offspring cannot universally and objectively be considered 'parasite'. Biologically speaking it renders the idea of parasite incoherent. But it isn't an intrinsic property and so inaccurate. So then we are left with those unmarried women, abandoned by men unwilling to support them for whom birth would constitute a major and undesired interrupt to their lives. Subjectively, then and in their view, I suppose their offspring could be considered a parasite. Do you contend that it is a subjective metaphor for the few. Or do you contend that it is an accurate, universal descriptor for all offspring? Are offspring parasitical by very nature?


Look, I really don't know how I was to concede. To make your argument you tried using 'it is murder' as a premise, and I appreciate the attempt to assume another premise. But the conclusion doesn't follow once you use that presupposition. You seem to be coming from a fairly gendered perspective, the problematic patriarchy perhaps? But if you assume murder, the gender perspective falls by the wayside in all other instances of murder and would here as well. Else it then becomes "well the men are murdering lots and for equality sake, we need to allow women to match and surpass male murders. Doesn't that sound absurd? The proper conclusion from that premise should instead go after the other side: men kill too much, let's drop that rate rather than have women match and raise. For your 'men control everything, so just give women this one power' argument to work it has to assume that it isn't murder.

On April 25 2017 11:44 ChristianS wrote:
@Falling: not to put words in his mouth, but I think Kwark was using the term parasite in a biological sense, not a moral one. In biological terms the relation is either symbiotic or parasitic, and it's plainly not symbiotic because the fetus doesn't give anything back. It just consumes nutrients and grows. Any hypothetical future value it could have to the person doesn't change the biological classification. Put it this way, if it turned out you could sell a fully grown tapeworm for $100,000 a lot of people might want to grow tape worms in their intestines, but in a biological sense a tape worm would still be classified as a parasite.

The distinction is largely semantic anyway, but it would mean Kwark isn't saying "our offspring are parasites." He'd be saying a fetus is biologically a parasite. Once the child is viable outside the womb then by Kwark's reasoning, it no longer can legally be aborted.

On April 25 2017 11:35 Mercy13 wrote:


... A person should not be compelled by the government to sacrifice their bodily autonomy, even to save the life of another. This is why a person can't be forced to donate a kidney, even though doing so can save dozens of lives.*
...
.

On April 25 2017 12:27 biology]major wrote:
As usual Kwark's bullshit abortion arguments based on the fallacy that babies appear inside a womb out of thin air and then parasitically feed off her. She played no part in that baby appearing there, nope, just straight appeared from random chance. Ofcourse in that insane hypothetical I could see how a woman should be allowed to abort, maybe even late. There is a certain amount of personal responsibility required first before getting to exercise that bodily autonomy.

On April 25 2017 12:39 biology]major wrote:
Why don't you blame god, the creator, or whoever that made women be the ones to carry a baby for 9 months? I'm not saying the fetus's rights are superior to the mom or dad's rights to autonomy. They are competing, and as such both deserve respect and each case needs to be evaluated independently.