Coronavirus thread tangent

Listen the stock market and unemployment rates are great indicators of an economy. That's just basic economics, the article mentions just that! Litterally the lengths Democrats will go to not give Trump a win knows no lengths! 

Second everyone I know besides just one of my friends is in the stock market by way of 401k at a minimum! You are stupid if you aren't putting away at minimum 3% tax free for retirement! You don't even notice that money. Even at minimum wage in Massachusetts, it's like $8 in real money in your paycheck per week

Income inequality is a whole different matter, but it's necessary in Capitalism. Go read some Karl Marx, not a fun read but very informative.

So a once every 100 year pandemic hits the world and you think that proves the economy was flimsy? The Government shut it down to save lifes! The whole world is shutdown, hence no one buying oil because most people aren't leaving there houses. This just isn't the US.

The stock market crash hit in March. Your plan has most likely recovered some of those losses in April.

I don’t want to go down too much of a rabbit hole on a message board as these types of discussions are much more effective in person and things too easily get spun away or the writing on a post is poorly done (usually by me) or is being read thru the wrong lens and gets misunderstood.

A lot of policies get labeled as racist or insert other bad label when they aren’t. They may be a bad solution or a a misdiagnosis of the problem but they aren’t what they are labeled. In some cases, they are just differences or philosophies on the role of government.

The Wall is a good example that’s labeled racist. It’s not racist to build a wall to try and keep people and drugs from flowing into your country. There is a legitimate problem there (which both parties agreed with the problem until Trump started talking about a wall) but a wall is stupid solution on so many levels. I’m old enough to remember when Obama was worried about illegal immigration, in fact I’m pretty sure he deported more people than any other President. I also remember when Obama said people who come to this country should learn to speak English.

I actually don’t know what you are referring to. Can you post a link?

You just posted the link which says the story:
"
Republicans say there’s little reason to shift gears with a lame-duck president in office and hopes running high that they will win the White House.

“It’ll be a slow, steady pace,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas).

Is it payback for Democrats invoking the so-called nuclear option two years ago to get their judges through? “We’re way too busy to think about things like retribution,” Cornyn replied "

That works for me, it's always the situation with lame ducks and it will be with Trump over his last few years and the lower court appointees never have the amount of time devoted by the Senate that the SCOTUS justices do. Can you imagine if they spent as much time as they do for a justice if they did it for every single judge. They don't, it's usually a mass rubber stamp for a group of judges.

It's only been recently that the disasters that Bill Clinton appointed have begun dying off. Like it or not, we're going to finally have constitutionalist Supreme Court judges for a long long time to come since Trump will end up appointing more justices than Clinton did and Trump is selecting relatively young judges. That's his option, he's the President. Appointing judges is probably, in the long term, the most impact a president can have.

Lower down the line, given the current makeup, the judges will remain as a progressively oriented group but in the future (now in fact but not as much as it will be), the top of the chain will be what this country needs, judges that believe in the constitution.

These two things have been brought up a couple times but separately. I usually avoid this topic, but we are in quarantine so what the hell right?

To start, I'm pro-choice so lets get that out of the way first.

The two things I am referencing are abortion and morals.

Calling abortion a women's body or rights issue is bullshit though. I get why it's done though, it's the only way to try to keep the moral high ground on a an immoral issue. It's not about the 9 months of pregnancy it's about the 18 or more years after the pregnancy. The post pregnancy time period is why MOST people have abortions. If this weren't true, then Democrats would have no issues putting some restrictions on abortions. I don't know anyone who doesn't believe that an abortion shouldn't be available when the mother's health is in danger so let's not bring that up. If its just a woman's body issue, then why do we let people abort babies for the sole reason they have Downs Syndrome or some other developmental disorder? Those babies are aborted because the parents don't want to have to care for them. I saw an article a couple years ago bragging how Iceland had almost eradicated downs syndrome. Most women there get prenatal genetic testing then abort the less desirable children. This isn't a women's health issue. It's a quality of life issue. So call it that. We accept abortion as a whole because it increases quality of life of those of us who can make the decisions. Less unwanted children, fewer children born with disabilities that cost more and take more time to care for and a lower population. And yes, I understand that's a relatively low percentage of abortions, but no one is looking to restrict those. These are people who are WILLING to raise a child then find out it's not the child they want so they kill it. That's not a body issue. It is interesting how the narrative has been spun and this is just one of the ways.

If you really care about the Constitution then you should be absolutely appalled at McConnell refusing to do his duty and allow Obama to fill vacant court seats when he still had 10 months left in his term. It's fine that you prioritize abortion above everything else (well, maybe not fine but logically coherent at least), but you're deluding yourself if you think you're on the side of the framers here. 

Hanging in. I credit the people (Map population about 5 million, about the population of Ireland):

Most religious people are likely not in favor of a rape exception. The only exception they have is when the life of the woman is in danger, typically anyways. Obviously, individuals vary.

Ok so your measure is a fetus has no sense of self... What is a sense of self? How do you define that? Does a 1 day old have a sense of self? Do you magically obtain a sense of self once you pass thru the birth canal?


And under your thought process, you're ok with a woman 34 weeks pregnant just deciding she doesn't want to give birth so she can abort that baby. Ok fine, but at that point the baby is fully functional and can survive on it's own. The abortion is just as if not more invasive than the actual birth so why not take a living baby out and let it have a life away from the mother? I understand the later term abortion discussion is not a wide spread issue. Very few actually take place and even fewer of a healthy baby. The discussion is worth having from a moral perspective though on coming to terms with what abortion is actually about. The same people who are prochoice and have had abortions of unwanted babies themselves will show the 12 week ultrasound and gush about their baby and hearing it's heart beat and seeing them flip in the womb. I struggle with people having both views on things. I prefer we just call it what it is. We accept abortion because it's a big convenience we don't want to give up.

Well, Greeks exposed their newborns, so it is a fair question.

I would say once a being begins the process of accumulating experience, it is qualitatively different. It has a rudimentary consciousness. The line is not a hard one, but of course it is also an independent being. A fetus is not, whether it could be or no.

Do I personally see the logic in arbitrarily ending a pregnancy of a full-term baby rather than having it and maybe giving it away? No. But I don’t take the choice from someone else, since it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg, as Jefferson said. Is this a case that happens? Or would happen? I imagine virtually never would a woman at 8 months suddenly say, “aw, hell, I just don’t feel like it.” So it is not an especially realistic case to present as an argument against abortion.