You would be the judge of whether her character is worthy of life?
Yes, I can totally make the judgment between a clean slate and a waste of oxygen. My judgment is meaningless without power, however, and I have no desire to seek that level of power. Therefore my 'judgment' is worth less than a hill of beans...
Edit: There aren't many folks I would put on the 'waste of oxygen' level and most of those would be male and thus excluded from the 'mother' category. Serial killers, serial rapists and human traffickers come to mind.
I think it's a complicated decision with lots of factors. That's why I personally am pro-choice--I do not think I have the intelligence, the judgment, or the information to make that decision for anyone else. I would not want to tell someone they could not have an abortion unless it was a very black-and-white situation--nor would I give anyone advice on the matter unless I knew them personally and understood their situation. I would not make that decision for anyone except for myself (which ends up being nobody since I'm male, but that doesn't really matter).
I don't think we should make assumptions about the hypothetical motives of a fetus if it were sentient and knew what the situation was. As I've said earlier in the thread, if my mother did not want to have me, I would not veto her decision to abort the pregnancy. We can ask how, theoretically, a fetus' rights should be balanced against the mother's, but we don't know the fetus' opinion. All we know is the mother's. It's a mistake to assume that every aborted fetus would have voted against their mother. Not everyone would want to be born if their mother didn't want them. I wouldn't want that.
So, should lawmakers set limits on abortion? What limits should they set? I don't think the restrictions should be very high, because the one person who best understands a woman's situation is the woman herself. We should only restrict the more extreme examples, like an extremely late-term pregnancy and/or a pregnancy that poses no threat to the mother or child (notice the "and/or"). For more "gray" examples, I trust the individual citizen more than I trust the government legislator.
A new Harvard law school study revealed what has long been suspected. Republican-appointed federal judges are harsher to blacks.
“Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to three more months than similar nonblacks and female defendants to two fewer months than similar males compared with Democratic-appointed judges,” the study found, adding, “These differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion.”
The most lasting effect of the Trump regime will be its sickening packing of the courts with these radicalized racist conservative judges.
Most murderers in France are Christians. Do we therefore stereotype Christians as violent or dangerous people? Of course not. That would be silly... and also against the Site Rules.
I'm not even sure if this is true, actually, because French prisons are not majority Christian but majority Muslim. Source?
I just looked it up. Apparently French prisoners are majority Muslim populations, despite the general French population being only 7-9% Muslim compared to over 60% Christian.
I assumed that because the French population was majority Christian, the prison population would match the demographics--an assumption I should have realized was flawed, considering my own country, the U.S., has a racial imbalance in the prison population. This doesn't necessarily mean that more murders in France are committed by Muslims than Christians, but I think that's a more reasonable assumption if the prison demographics are that imbalanced. The interesting thing is, the same source I'm using for the majority Muslim population, the Washington Post, also says that Muslims are a minority in the prison population of several other European countries.
I would still caution against stereotyping people as violent based upon their religion, of course.
A new Harvard law school study revealed what has long been suspected. Republican-appointed federal judges are harsher to blacks.
“Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to three more months than similar nonblacks and female defendants to two fewer months than similar males compared with Democratic-appointed judges,” the study found, adding, “These differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion.”
The most lasting effect of the Trump regime will be its sickening packing of the courts with these radicalized racist conservative judges.
The gender divide is interesting though. On the one hand it suggests a slightly old fashioned chivalric approach to women relative to men, on the other it downplays their responsibility for autonomous acts in a way consistent with curtailing abortion rights. Patriarchal control of reproduction is hardly a new thing culturally... As an aside on the sperm is sacred side of things if one goes back a long way there was an argument that women were merely a vessel for the life of the male seed planted in their wombs, for example in the Oresteia written by Aeschylus.
A new Harvard law school study revealed what has long been suspected. Republican-appointed federal judges are harsher to blacks.
“Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to three more months than similar nonblacks and female defendants to two fewer months than similar males compared with Democratic-appointed judges,” the study found, adding, “These differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion.”
The most lasting effect of the Trump regime will be its sickening packing of the courts with these radicalized racist conservative judges.
Arguing which religion does/did the least evil is truly a pointless exercise.
jainism! I think...
Ironically and hilariously, probably Satanism, as all those satanic panic horror stories of the '80s and '90s were almost universally complete bullshit.
A new Harvard law school study revealed what has long been suspected. Republican-appointed federal judges are harsher to blacks.
“Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to three more months than similar nonblacks and female defendants to two fewer months than similar males compared with Democratic-appointed judges,” the study found, adding, “These differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion.”
The most lasting effect of the Trump regime will be its sickening packing of the courts with these radicalized racist conservative judges.
A new Harvard law school study revealed what has long been suspected. Republican-appointed federal judges are harsher to blacks.
“Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to three more months than similar nonblacks and female defendants to two fewer months than similar males compared with Democratic-appointed judges,” the study found, adding, “These differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion.”
The most lasting effect of the Trump regime will be its sickening packing of the courts with these radicalized racist conservative judges.
As I mentioned last year after the election in Virginia, the massive swing of seats to the Democrats was likely to usher in approval of the Medicaid expansion in the state. Now, it's all but a done deal, as they only needed to flip a few Republicans in the State House and Senate because of the massive gains in 2017. This opens up the program to 400,000 residents of Virginia. I commented at the time that the Medicaid expansion in Virginia was THE biggest takeaway of that election night, and that has in fact come to pass, making Virginia the 33rd State to do so.
I addressed this earlier, and I think the most reliable way to draw a line on human life is to look at the bodies' natural process. Early on, there is a good chance that the incubation and growth of the embryo will fail. Almost 50% of successful inseminations are aborted by the body, due to the growing embryo not being viable. I think its fair, that if the fetus survives past this cut off point, then it should be considered human life. While I view ELECTIVE abortions as straight up murder, if one or both parties ARE goign to die, A choice HAS to be made of who to save. Doing nothing and losing both parent and child is far worse. That choice is up to the family though, and it breaks my heart that it ever happens.
@ThacoBell the problem with this approach is that there is no specific cut-off point. Traditionally the time when it's 'safe' to announce your pregnancy has been regarded as week 12 - by which time the risk of miscarriage was expected to have gone down to 5-10%. However, for healthy women in western societies the risk of miscarriage is significantly below that. This risk calculator is based on various academic studies and suggests the risk is down to below 2% at week 12.
The most common measures used for statistical significance are 95% and 99%. From the above table showing the risk of miscarriage 95% would equate to 8 weeks and 99% to 14 weeks. Would you choose one of those dates or something else?
Whatever the date chosen though it will be arbitrary and it seems odd to me to go from a situation where a fetus has no human rights one day, to full human rights the next.
Arguing which religion does/did the least evil is truly a pointless exercise.
jainism! I think...
Well I said which rather than what to limit the discussion to the Mediterranean death cults. In Asia you have these atheistic religions which seem to be more about self improvement than anything. I agree they are less likely to result in atrocities but I am not familiar with their history in any sense.
Oh, boy. If he wants to build US resentment in Germany there is hardly something worse he could be doing. Well, I guess we might find out how a world without the transatlantic partnership will look like.
She didn't do anything. It's not hard to see what kind of "leader" Trump respects. Look at the way he talks about Duterte, Erdogan, Putin. Then juxtapose that to how he treats and talks about Merkel, Macron, Trudeau and basically anyone who isn't an authoritarian dictator.
As for his ENDLESS feuds with allies over trade, Donald Trump seems to be under the impression that the US has a divine right to dominate every sector of global manufacturing, and if another country is having any success, they are "screwing" us, which of course plays right into his base's #1 emotion, which is their bottomless sense of aggrivement.
A new Harvard law school study revealed what has long been suspected. Republican-appointed federal judges are harsher to blacks.
“Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to three more months than similar nonblacks and female defendants to two fewer months than similar males compared with Democratic-appointed judges,” the study found, adding, “These differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion.”
The most lasting effect of the Trump regime will be its sickening packing of the courts with these radicalized racist conservative judges.
After skimming through it, the paper does not differentiate between murder e.g. or petty crime, just the length of sentencing. Or maybe I skimmed through it too fast.
One thing that did catch my attention was that experienced judges where more likely to dole out longer sentences than their inexperienced colleagues. Wonder why?
A new Harvard law school study revealed what has long been suspected. Republican-appointed federal judges are harsher to blacks.
“Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to three more months than similar nonblacks and female defendants to two fewer months than similar males compared with Democratic-appointed judges,” the study found, adding, “These differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion.”
The most lasting effect of the Trump regime will be its sickening packing of the courts with these radicalized racist conservative judges.
After skimming through it, the paper does not differentiate between murder e.g. or petty crime, just the length of sentencing. Or maybe I skimmed through it too fast.
One thing that did catch my attention was that experienced judges where more likely to dole out longer sentences than their inexperienced colleagues. Wonder why?
How does that account for sentencing black offenders to longer sentences than non-blacks convicted of similar crimes?? 5 months longer on average. There IS no other explanation other than racial bias if the crime is the same.
Of course, this has a LONG history in the US. The drug war was started and remains in place as nothing more than a tool to imprison as many people of color as possible. That was it's intent when it started, and it's purpose now. One only need look at the absurd historical penalty discrepancy in sentences for possessing crack vs. powder cocaine, one of which was mostly used in inner-city urban areas by people of color, the other a drug for upper-class whites. Despite being the EXACT same drug in a different form, the sentencing for crack was MASSIVELY more draconian (only just recently alleviated slightly in the Obama Administration). It would have been like a hypothetical situation in which water was illegal and possessing ice was viewed as worse than liquid in a glass.
A new Harvard law school study revealed what has long been suspected. Republican-appointed federal judges are harsher to blacks.
“Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to three more months than similar nonblacks and female defendants to two fewer months than similar males compared with Democratic-appointed judges,” the study found, adding, “These differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion.”
The most lasting effect of the Trump regime will be its sickening packing of the courts with these radicalized racist conservative judges.
After skimming through it, the paper does not differentiate between murder e.g. or petty crime, just the length of sentencing. Or maybe I skimmed through it too fast.
One thing that did catch my attention was that experienced judges where more likely to dole out longer sentences than their inexperienced colleagues. Wonder why?
They do seem to control for it in a slightly strange way (offenses seem to be put on a numerical scale, depending how bad they are). And one problem is that whether you get convicted for manslaughter or murder is also subject to bias. Regardless of controlling for it or not, since the primary contrast is Democrats vs Republicans in same court, the type of offense should not bias the results, unless the assignment of the cases to the judges is very biased, i.e. the Republican judges getting more severe cases specifically when committed by black offenders.
Experienced judges being more strict is interesting, but it could be just as easily a demographic effect as a function of experienced. I.e. maybe law schools was more in favor of harsh punishment in the past. And in general, earlier generations tend to be more conservative.
Good news. Trump to pardon Dinesh D'Souza. It was crazy that this guy was used as a political prisoner while Rosie ODonnel essentially did the same thing and Hillary and half the DOJ still walks free for trying to throw the election in Hillary's favor.
How does that account for sentencing black offenders to longer sentences than non-blacks convicted of similar crimes?? 5 months longer on average. There IS no other explanation other than racial bias if the crime is the same.
I'm not really arguing against your main point, but there are other possible explanations. For instance it wouldn't surprise me if the average black offender had a longer history of offences than the average white offender (and I realise that if that is the case that may itself be due to racial bias) - and sentencing guidelines often impose heavier sentences for repeat offenders.
She didn't do anything. It's not hard to see what kind of "leader" Trump respects. Look at the way he talks about Duterte, Erdogan, Putin. Then juxtapose that to how he treats and talks about Merkel, Macron, Trudeau and basically anyone who isn't an authoritarian dictator.
As for his ENDLESS feuds with allies over trade, Donald Trump seems to be under the impression that the US has a divine right to dominate every sector of global manufacturing, and if another country is having any success, they are "screwing" us, which of course plays right into his base's #1 emotion, which is their bottomless sense of aggrivement.
This.
Trump has never treated Merkel with respect. She hasn't done anything other than be a woman in a position of power and that alone is unacceptable to Trump.
He regularly gets into fights with strong women. He's so insecure that a strong woman is somehow threatening to him. Remember his hatred for Hillary Clinton, Rosie O'Donnell, Megyn Kelly, and the Mayor of San Juan?
Any woman who doesn't "know her place" and won't pretend like he's more important than they are is going to be attacked by this irrational and deeply insecure wimp. They aren't doing anything wrong, he is just an asshole.
How does that account for sentencing black offenders to longer sentences than non-blacks convicted of similar crimes?? 5 months longer on average. There IS no other explanation other than racial bias if the crime is the same.
I'm not really arguing against your main point, but there are other possible explanations. For instance it wouldn't surprise me if the average black offender had a longer history of offences than the average white offender (and I realise that if that is the case that may itself be due to racial bias) - and sentencing guidelines often impose heavier sentences for repeat offenders.
Good news. Trump to pardon Dinesh D'Souza. It was crazy that this guy was used as a political prisoner while Rosie ODonnel essentially did the same thing and Hillary and half the DOJ still walks free for trying to throw the election in Hillary's favor.
Good job Trump.
Hillary was investigated for years, and none of the many investigations found anything. And if you honestly feel Rosie ODonnell (no idea who that is, to be honest) did the same thing, then the proper thing would be demand her to be punished as well instead of D'Souza.
Given that he supported the party of Trump by his activities, there is only one word for this: corruption.
A new Harvard law school study revealed what has long been suspected. Republican-appointed federal judges are harsher to blacks.
“Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to three more months than similar nonblacks and female defendants to two fewer months than similar males compared with Democratic-appointed judges,” the study found, adding, “These differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion.”
The most lasting effect of the Trump regime will be its sickening packing of the courts with these radicalized racist conservative judges.
After skimming through it, the paper does not differentiate between murder e.g. or petty crime, just the length of sentencing. Or maybe I skimmed through it too fast.
One thing that did catch my attention was that experienced judges where more likely to dole out longer sentences than their inexperienced colleagues. Wonder why?
How does that account for sentencing black offenders to longer sentences than non-blacks convicted of similar crimes?? 5 months longer on average. There IS no other explanation other than racial bias if the crime is the same.
Blacks make up 13% of the population, yet commit 50% of all crimes, yet they still enjoy the least biased system in the world.
Liberal Harvard University Sociologist Orlando Patterson's did a landmark study on racism in post-slavery America (his work detailed in "Slavery and Social Death", and "Freedom In The Making Of Western Culture"). He concluded that, "America is now the least racist white majority society in the world, has a better record of legal protections for minorities than any other society, white or black, and offers more opportunities to a greater number of black persons than any other society, including all of those of Africa".
Good news. Trump to pardon Dinesh D'Souza. It was crazy that this guy was used as a political prisoner while Rosie ODonnel essentially did the same thing and Hillary and half the DOJ still walks free for trying to throw the election in Hillary's favor.
Good job Trump.
God forbid a republican having to do community service. Extremely unfair and against everything the GOP stands for. (Tongue firmly in cheek)
A new Harvard law school study revealed what has long been suspected. Republican-appointed federal judges are harsher to blacks.
“Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to three more months than similar nonblacks and female defendants to two fewer months than similar males compared with Democratic-appointed judges,” the study found, adding, “These differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion.”
The most lasting effect of the Trump regime will be its sickening packing of the courts with these radicalized racist conservative judges.
After skimming through it, the paper does not differentiate between murder e.g. or petty crime, just the length of sentencing. Or maybe I skimmed through it too fast.
One thing that did catch my attention was that experienced judges where more likely to dole out longer sentences than their inexperienced colleagues. Wonder why?
How does that account for sentencing black offenders to longer sentences than non-blacks convicted of similar crimes?? 5 months longer on average. There IS no other explanation other than racial bias if the crime is the same.
Blacks make up 13% of the population, yet commit 50% of all crimes, yet they still enjoy the least biased system in the world.
Liberal Harvard University Sociologist Orlando Patterson's did a landmark study on racism in post-slavery America (his work detailed in "Slavery and Social Death", and "Freedom In The Making Of Western Culture"). He concluded that, "America is now the least racist white majority society in the world, has a better record of legal protections for minorities than any other society, white or black, and offers more opportunities to a greater number of black persons than any other society, including all of those of Africa".
Patterson is a black man.
Can you link that study, cause I honestly think it is flawed as you just have to look North for a least racist society.
Comments
Edit: There aren't many folks I would put on the 'waste of oxygen' level and most of those would be male and thus excluded from the 'mother' category. Serial killers, serial rapists and human traffickers come to mind.
I don't think we should make assumptions about the hypothetical motives of a fetus if it were sentient and knew what the situation was. As I've said earlier in the thread, if my mother did not want to have me, I would not veto her decision to abort the pregnancy. We can ask how, theoretically, a fetus' rights should be balanced against the mother's, but we don't know the fetus' opinion. All we know is the mother's. It's a mistake to assume that every aborted fetus would have voted against their mother. Not everyone would want to be born if their mother didn't want them. I wouldn't want that.
So, should lawmakers set limits on abortion? What limits should they set? I don't think the restrictions should be very high, because the one person who best understands a woman's situation is the woman herself. We should only restrict the more extreme examples, like an extremely late-term pregnancy and/or a pregnancy that poses no threat to the mother or child (notice the "and/or"). For more "gray" examples, I trust the individual citizen more than I trust the government legislator.
“Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to three more months than similar nonblacks and female defendants to two fewer months than similar males compared with Democratic-appointed judges,” the study found, adding, “These differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion.”
The most lasting effect of the Trump regime will be its sickening packing of the courts with these radicalized racist conservative judges.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/us/politics/black-defendants-women-prison-terms-study.html
The most common measures used for statistical significance are 95% and 99%. From the above table showing the risk of miscarriage 95% would equate to 8 weeks and 99% to 14 weeks. Would you choose one of those dates or something else?
Whatever the date chosen though it will be arbitrary and it seems odd to me to go from a situation where a fetus has no human rights one day, to full human rights the next.
Trump now after German cars.
And tariffes on European steel and aluminium to be enforced within a few hours.
I don't know what Merkel did to Trump but she certainly pissed him off.
As for his ENDLESS feuds with allies over trade, Donald Trump seems to be under the impression that the US has a divine right to dominate every sector of global manufacturing, and if another country is having any success, they are "screwing" us, which of course plays right into his base's #1 emotion, which is their bottomless sense of aggrivement.
One thing that did catch my attention was that experienced judges where more likely to dole out longer sentences than their inexperienced colleagues. Wonder why?
Of course, this has a LONG history in the US. The drug war was started and remains in place as nothing more than a tool to imprison as many people of color as possible. That was it's intent when it started, and it's purpose now. One only need look at the absurd historical penalty discrepancy in sentences for possessing crack vs. powder cocaine, one of which was mostly used in inner-city urban areas by people of color, the other a drug for upper-class whites. Despite being the EXACT same drug in a different form, the sentencing for crack was MASSIVELY more draconian (only just recently alleviated slightly in the Obama Administration). It would have been like a hypothetical situation in which water was illegal and possessing ice was viewed as worse than liquid in a glass.
Experienced judges being more strict is interesting, but it could be just as easily a demographic effect as a function of experienced. I.e. maybe law schools was more in favor of harsh punishment in the past. And in general, earlier generations tend to be more conservative.
Good job Trump.
Trump has never treated Merkel with respect. She hasn't done anything other than be a woman in a position of power and that alone is unacceptable to Trump.
He regularly gets into fights with strong women. He's so insecure that a strong woman is somehow threatening to him. Remember his hatred for Hillary Clinton, Rosie O'Donnell, Megyn Kelly, and the Mayor of San Juan?
Any woman who doesn't "know her place" and won't pretend like he's more important than they are is going to be attacked by this irrational and deeply insecure wimp. They aren't doing anything wrong, he is just an asshole.
https://www.indy100.com/article/the-11-worst-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-women-7352406
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/donald-trump-sexism-tracker-every-offensive-comment-in-one-place/
https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/30/opinions/critics-made-by-people-of-color-and-women-trump-bailey-opinion/index.html
Given that he supported the party of Trump by his activities, there is only one word for this: corruption.
Liberal Harvard University Sociologist Orlando Patterson's did a landmark study on racism in post-slavery America (his work detailed in "Slavery and Social Death", and "Freedom In The Making Of Western Culture"). He concluded that, "America is now the least racist white majority society in the world, has a better record of legal protections for minorities than any other society, white or black, and offers more opportunities to a greater number of black persons than any other society, including all of those of Africa".
Patterson is a black man.