« But at least they think they’re doing the right thing. »
Getting to the point where one believes that the D3C’s actions are worse than voting for candidates that will support tearing down the democracy requires quite the mental pretzel. The two thing aren’t even in the same zip code much less neighborhood.
Can anyone explain to me the legal differences in states where they are letting the people vote, actually decide, and where the legislatures are just making the laws without input?
Here in OH, it is the legislature and it is Republican controlled, but, I m not sure of legally, what the difference is...why don't they have to let us vote?
Thank you Kansas! I'm a centrist Democrat who opposes abortion morally but thinks it should be legal, and I've always had a sneaking suspicion many "pro-life" people see it as I do. America is a moderate country. Since the GOP has no interest in being moderate, the Democrats have a golden opportunity here. I hope that they learn from this and tackle all issues as the pro-choice folks in Kansas did.
I’ve always been pro choice. After all, I’m a man and this is a women’s issue. It’s very easy to be neutral when there’s little chance of being personally affected and you don’t spend much thinking thinking about the details.
I understand people’s religious and moral objections and never really bought into the idea that it was about men wanting to control women’s bodies.
Watching the reaction to the Dobbs decision has given me a new perspective on this debate. The politicians who want to jail doctors and woman. The women being forced to maintain ectopic pregnancies because a fetal heartbeat has been detected, being forced to carry babies to term despite the danger to their own lives. The legal danger now faced by women who miscarry. The efforts to prevent women from crossing state lines or even read about abortion on the internet have shown me that this is about a lot more than reproductive rights. There is clearly an element within this movement that wants to control women’s lives.
Stage one of the abortion issue being decided by democracy is Republican overreach. Wanting to take away the exceptions, ban even early term abortion. But next stage will be Democratic overreach. They will demand unfettered right to abortion for 9 months, paid for with tax dollars if one's poor. At the end of the day - shudder - we're going to end up with compromise, likely a ban on first trimester abortion along with the three exceptions. That's not Roe, but it does significantly protection most abortion.
As an attorney, I'd like to point out that Alex Jones attorneys did not "mess up" in providing those text messages. Attorneys can't choose to withhold evidence because it hurts our clients' case or shows he's lying. If those text messages are asked for in discovery (and they were), Jones attorney had to provide them.
A couple of other notes: since even in the pro-life community you will find few people who would argue that abortion isn't justified when the mother's life is in danger, and since there is zero chance that such abortions will ever be illegal, the ad featuring the mother and the abortion that "saved her life" is dishonest at pretty much every level from which it can be examined. The situation it deals with is a red herring.
The pastor, of course, assumes the answers to two of the very questions that are at the heart of the abortion debate: whether abortion is actually health care in the first place, and whether in all but the most extreme cases abortion ought to be seen as any more of a personal decision than the decision to take a third party's life in any other situation. Apparently the self-centeredness of the pro-choice argument appealed to Kansas libertarians and Trumpist conservatives, who are perfectly willing to insist on their "right" to be a public health menace if they want to. But the ad begs the actual question under discussion.
The questionable intellectual honesty of the Catholic grandma who thinks that it's OK or even honest to call oneself a Catholic while rejecting what the Catholic faith teaches has her own set of issues. I'll let the Catholics sort that one out for themselves. But most denominations these days have problems with people who confuse their right to believe whatever they choose with the right to do so while claiming membership in church bodies that define themselves by the opposite belief.
That the strategy used in Kansas was successful is beyond question. Whether it represented an ethical high point either in the area of honesty or of altruism, on the other hand, is debatable.
I've argued for quite a while that the libertarian/sociopath position on mandates, masks and vaccines deprives one of any moral right to call himself or herself "pro-life." The Kansas result confirms it. For the American right, it's all about me. Kansas has managed to create a hybrid of self-centered social ethics that doesn't give a damn about anyone else as long as "muh rights" are protected.
Neither the mask/vaccine/lockdown position nor the "pro-choice" position has anything to do with healthcare. Its all about kneeling down before the Almighty Self.
Kansas tells us that the Supreme Court was right: states can decide for themselves what level of abortion they're willing to have, and, once the emotions of almost fifty years of Roe settle, it's going to be a picture that neither of the extremes are going to like much, but the people will.
In my now-long-past childbearing years I received the care required for both a miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy without realizing that, but for Roe, I might well have met my maker long ago (sure puts in perspective my current worry about outliving my savings....) In any case, from my vantage point in Missouri about a mile from the Kansas border, I'd say Tuesday's result is less about being red or blue or purple and more about normal people trying to make responsible decisions in a world of political opportunism.
So I'll answer the question posed in the headline with this letter to the editor from today's Kansas City Star. I don't know this guy, I'm more center-left-leaning than he expresses, but if there's something to be learned from the vote in Kansas, I think he's spot on:
"I'm a pro-life moderate Republican who voted no on the Kansas abortion amendment, like many moderates did. Lots of moderates voted no not to give women a choice but rather, because as we read the amendment, we realized the real question was, 'Can we trust the Kansas Legislature to do the right thing for every Kansan, in every situation, every time?' Sadly, the answer was no."
He's correct about that. If legislators in Kansas or anywhere else ever demonstrate a genuine interest in valuing (with their legislative and budgetary decisions) the lives of both women and already-born children, they might get a different result. But I suspect I have a better chance of dying with money in my bank account than seeing that in my lifetime.
Anyone who is at all troubled by whom Republicans chose as their candidate for House of Representatives in Michigan's Third District has one way to respond now. Back Hillary Scholten, the Democratic nominee for that seat.
On the Kansas voter initiative. See libs, the democratic republic works just fine. Please extinguish the fire in your hair. We are still a center country and the extremists on either end will always lose when free and fair balloting is used to make the decisions. I am a conservative happy with the outcome.
« But at least they think they’re doing the right thing. »
Getting to the point where one believes that the D3C’s actions are worse than voting for candidates that will support tearing down the democracy requires quite the mental pretzel. The two thing aren’t even in the same zip code much less neighborhood.
Can anyone explain to me the legal differences in states where they are letting the people vote, actually decide, and where the legislatures are just making the laws without input?
Here in OH, it is the legislature and it is Republican controlled, but, I m not sure of legally, what the difference is...why don't they have to let us vote?
Thank you Kansas! I'm a centrist Democrat who opposes abortion morally but thinks it should be legal, and I've always had a sneaking suspicion many "pro-life" people see it as I do. America is a moderate country. Since the GOP has no interest in being moderate, the Democrats have a golden opportunity here. I hope that they learn from this and tackle all issues as the pro-choice folks in Kansas did.
I’ve always been pro choice. After all, I’m a man and this is a women’s issue. It’s very easy to be neutral when there’s little chance of being personally affected and you don’t spend much thinking thinking about the details.
I understand people’s religious and moral objections and never really bought into the idea that it was about men wanting to control women’s bodies.
Watching the reaction to the Dobbs decision has given me a new perspective on this debate. The politicians who want to jail doctors and woman. The women being forced to maintain ectopic pregnancies because a fetal heartbeat has been detected, being forced to carry babies to term despite the danger to their own lives. The legal danger now faced by women who miscarry. The efforts to prevent women from crossing state lines or even read about abortion on the internet have shown me that this is about a lot more than reproductive rights. There is clearly an element within this movement that wants to control women’s lives.
Stage one of the abortion issue being decided by democracy is Republican overreach. Wanting to take away the exceptions, ban even early term abortion. But next stage will be Democratic overreach. They will demand unfettered right to abortion for 9 months, paid for with tax dollars if one's poor. At the end of the day - shudder - we're going to end up with compromise, likely a ban on first trimester abortion along with the three exceptions. That's not Roe, but it does significantly protection most abortion.
As an attorney, I'd like to point out that Alex Jones attorneys did not "mess up" in providing those text messages. Attorneys can't choose to withhold evidence because it hurts our clients' case or shows he's lying. If those text messages are asked for in discovery (and they were), Jones attorney had to provide them.
A couple of other notes: since even in the pro-life community you will find few people who would argue that abortion isn't justified when the mother's life is in danger, and since there is zero chance that such abortions will ever be illegal, the ad featuring the mother and the abortion that "saved her life" is dishonest at pretty much every level from which it can be examined. The situation it deals with is a red herring.
The pastor, of course, assumes the answers to two of the very questions that are at the heart of the abortion debate: whether abortion is actually health care in the first place, and whether in all but the most extreme cases abortion ought to be seen as any more of a personal decision than the decision to take a third party's life in any other situation. Apparently the self-centeredness of the pro-choice argument appealed to Kansas libertarians and Trumpist conservatives, who are perfectly willing to insist on their "right" to be a public health menace if they want to. But the ad begs the actual question under discussion.
The questionable intellectual honesty of the Catholic grandma who thinks that it's OK or even honest to call oneself a Catholic while rejecting what the Catholic faith teaches has her own set of issues. I'll let the Catholics sort that one out for themselves. But most denominations these days have problems with people who confuse their right to believe whatever they choose with the right to do so while claiming membership in church bodies that define themselves by the opposite belief.
That the strategy used in Kansas was successful is beyond question. Whether it represented an ethical high point either in the area of honesty or of altruism, on the other hand, is debatable.
I've argued for quite a while that the libertarian/sociopath position on mandates, masks and vaccines deprives one of any moral right to call himself or herself "pro-life." The Kansas result confirms it. For the American right, it's all about me. Kansas has managed to create a hybrid of self-centered social ethics that doesn't give a damn about anyone else as long as "muh rights" are protected.
Neither the mask/vaccine/lockdown position nor the "pro-choice" position has anything to do with healthcare. Its all about kneeling down before the Almighty Self.
Those DCCC ads allegedly in support of Candidate Gibbs?
Best to look at those as preemptive strikes against him as a candidate.
Because that's what they were.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
Kansas tells us that the Supreme Court was right: states can decide for themselves what level of abortion they're willing to have, and, once the emotions of almost fifty years of Roe settle, it's going to be a picture that neither of the extremes are going to like much, but the people will.
Great stuff, Charlie. Wonderful article by A.B.
In my now-long-past childbearing years I received the care required for both a miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy without realizing that, but for Roe, I might well have met my maker long ago (sure puts in perspective my current worry about outliving my savings....) In any case, from my vantage point in Missouri about a mile from the Kansas border, I'd say Tuesday's result is less about being red or blue or purple and more about normal people trying to make responsible decisions in a world of political opportunism.
So I'll answer the question posed in the headline with this letter to the editor from today's Kansas City Star. I don't know this guy, I'm more center-left-leaning than he expresses, but if there's something to be learned from the vote in Kansas, I think he's spot on:
"I'm a pro-life moderate Republican who voted no on the Kansas abortion amendment, like many moderates did. Lots of moderates voted no not to give women a choice but rather, because as we read the amendment, we realized the real question was, 'Can we trust the Kansas Legislature to do the right thing for every Kansan, in every situation, every time?' Sadly, the answer was no."
He's correct about that. If legislators in Kansas or anywhere else ever demonstrate a genuine interest in valuing (with their legislative and budgetary decisions) the lives of both women and already-born children, they might get a different result. But I suspect I have a better chance of dying with money in my bank account than seeing that in my lifetime.
Anyone who is at all troubled by whom Republicans chose as their candidate for House of Representatives in Michigan's Third District has one way to respond now. Back Hillary Scholten, the Democratic nominee for that seat.
Calling Alex Jones a piece of trash is an insult to all of the useful, recyclable trash in the dumps of the world. He has no redeeming value.
Uggg, can’t we move on from Peter and the dccc? Everything that was needed to be said/written, has been. Can’t we move on?
On the Kansas voter initiative. See libs, the democratic republic works just fine. Please extinguish the fire in your hair. We are still a center country and the extremists on either end will always lose when free and fair balloting is used to make the decisions. I am a conservative happy with the outcome.