2011-07-09, 01:56 | Link #14681 | ||||
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Abstinance doesn't always work, like in the case above. You also mentioned men forcing themselves on women to show their power or manliness (I LOL whenever I think of that as a way to express one's manliness but I digress), and abstinence would be thrown right out the window in such cases. Not everyone knows about protection either, and sometimes, protection downright fails, and if the family can't afford a child, particularly if they end up with one by accident, then abortion becomes rather appealing since it costs much less in the long run. |
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2011-07-09, 05:42 | Link #14682 | |||
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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(And that's not even addressing how insufficient abstinence and birth control have proven themselves.) |
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2011-07-09, 07:16 | Link #14684 | |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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1. Extremely young fetuses are little more then a collection of cells, barely a person. 2. A lot of fetuses die in the womb without any human intervention anyway, this is seldom remarked upon. 3. When does a human get created? Is it at conception? When the brain is first formed? 4. Should we start accounting for fetuses in our death statistics, if fetuses are indeed human? and most of all: 5. In countries where abortion is illegal, it still occurs (and often more frequently due to other birth control being illegal as well), however it is carried out in unsafe manners. Women will always seek out abortions due to a variety of circumstances. Furthermore, shouldn't a woman have a right over her own body? To be pregnant as she pleases? I don't think the state should legislate this. Most of the women who seek out abortions aren't doing it out of convenience, they're doing it because their circumstances don't allow them to raise the child. This is not a matter where there is popular consensus, a significant (~50%) proportion of the population believes this should be allowed. In cases like that, the government should not legislate morality, and should mind it's own business. In other matters of morality (say theft, or murder) there is unanimous agreement on it, so it's right and proper that the government make it illegal. The government's laws should be a reflection of the will of the people, and the people simply don't agree. I personally would like to avoid any woman I know having to get an abortion, and if a future wife of mine got pregnant accidentally, I would probably tell her not to do it. But I think it should ultimately be every woman's choice. |
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2011-07-09, 08:07 | Link #14685 |
I don't give a damn, dude
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In Despair
Age: 37
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Heh, wow. Maybe the mods should reopen the abortion thread, if only so that the anti-abortionists can get their asses handed to them all over again.
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2011-07-09, 08:23 | Link #14686 | |
books-eater youkai
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Betweem wisdom and insanity
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Over 1,400 arrested, tear gas fired in Malaysia protest
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7680B720110709 Quote:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7680ZZ20110709 A good way to show the other countries their capacity...
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2011-07-09, 09:02 | Link #14687 | |
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2006
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There are legitimate reasons for abortion, complicated, but legitimate. Simply banning the procedure will do nothing but create even more issues of unsafe and risky procedures and more stories about finding abandoned (and most likely dead) babies in toilets and dumpsters. You can drastically reduce the need for abortion by working toward a society where rape, incest, teen pregnancy, etc., are diminished or nonexistent, and better medical procedures for mother and fetus health exist. However these topics are rarely on the table in discussions about abortion. People are too focused on if the child should be born or not, and not focused enough on trying to solve the reasons why abortions are needed/wanted and what happens to children after they are born. In regards to the debt ceiling, people really need to understand what the real problem is. It isn't the debt. It's about power and money: who has it, and how to get more of it. It is every bit as much a wedge issue as abortion, designed to distract you with ethical squabbles, poorly cited statistics, and to keep you from paying attention to the increasing frequency of warnings that things are getting worse, not better. Even if you go strictly by figures produced by the IMF and CIA, the US is hardly the only country with a high debt ratio. In fact according to the CIA factbook, nearly every nation on the planet not only is in debt, but in a LOT of debt. Debt itself has become a commodity, traded as if it held value, because people will actually invest in debt hoping for some kind of gain. So what is the real story? Like the official figures about the US unemployment rate (9.2% at the moment), the real numbers are kept quiet for a reason. Despite attempts to regulate information otherwise, China is burning through money fueling a massive economic bubble. The current pace of economic growth they are going through is unsustainable, despite the crowing about now being the second largest economy in the world and how they'll surpass the US soon. Japan, the former number 2, has an absolutely MASSIVE debt ratio. It remains a strong economy despite nearly two decades of relative stagnation after they crashed. The list gets worse from there. Simply put, world debt is due to create a severe crash in the global economy, and what you are witnessing right now is the final gasps of the capitalistic system as it currently exists trying to remain relevant. It isn't just about regulation or deregulation, but about how long it will take for economists and world leaders to understand that the infinite growth paradigm can't exist in a world with finite resources. As for Obama possibly overreaching his political power, this isn't news. Presidents have been increasingly doing this for decades. It is troublesome, but no less troublesome than a two party system that increasingly acts as one party despite the public lip service claiming the contrary. By last count there are almost 250 millionaires in Congress. They all have a reason to protect and improve those fortunes. The "concern" over the debt has nothing to do with preserving or improving the nation as a whole and everything to do with removing what few social safety nets still exist in the country. If you think any cuts from say....Social Security...will actually be used to pay down the debt instead of going right into the pockets of some private party, I want what you're smoking.
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2011-07-09, 10:07 | Link #14688 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2007
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having a hard time because they have too much debt? Well, sometime ago I read an article on New York Times, which argued that why being in the Euro Zone hurts Iceland, Greece etc. because they don't have the financial tool to reduce their debt: if they had their own currency, then they simply let their currency depreciate. This way, salary are lowered not in numbers by in reality, so are the governments' obligations and the debt, and there won't be any need to go through the austerity measures. It did give some precedence about this or that nation did it in what year etc. So there you go, what happens when a nation is too much in debt. By my limited understanding (correct me if I am wrong), it pretty much means that the nation robs taxes every household a big chunk of money, the creditors settle for a partial payment, everything become more expensive, and the jobs pay less in quite a few years to come. As for your example of Japan, one of major difference between Japan and US is that yes, Japan runs huge debt, but mostly to its own people, the US owe a lot to foreign nations, too. Again, I might be wrong on this. But my understanding is that a nation borrows money by issuing bonds, which big banks buy, so for Japan, they are spending the money that's in the system, or in other words, the deposits of their people, where the US are spending other people's money. Last edited by Tom Bombadil; 2011-07-09 at 10:41. |
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2011-07-09, 11:41 | Link #14689 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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I use the metaphor from agriculture a lot... a MONOculture crop may be more "efficient" in terms of usual yield but it is also prone to huge crashes in the ecosystem and more easily made "extinct". A "world-wide currency" or "Euro-wide" currency may be convenient but.... a disease in one part can potentially stress the rest of the system.
Centralization and trans-national corporate globalization really only makes sense if you're one of the very few who are leeching the profits off of it.
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2011-07-09, 11:51 | Link #14690 | |
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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2011-07-09, 11:51 | Link #14691 |
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Indeed. In my line of work, I hear a lot of investors putting money into things like Emerging Market Debt. A lot of it has to do with future projections on what these investments will yield (or what they think will yield). What I think this means is they're basically spending money on debt investments in the hopes of gaining something out of it in the future. It's the same is if you would invest in Equities or Fixed Income, except they have a negative value rather than a positive one. I could be wrong, but I'm sure Saintess would be able to explain this better.
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2011-07-09, 12:50 | Link #14692 | |
Not Enough Sleep
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: R'lyeh
Age: 48
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2011-07-09, 14:16 | Link #14693 | |
The Voice of Reason
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: The Netherlands
Age: 47
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Yeah, but the US has been around longer than the EU. And even the dollar wasn't the currency as we know it today from the get-go. From what I read, it took more than a century to truly set it as the one national currency. The Euro is still relatively new, so it's likely that its current issues are merely a stepping stone to creating a true single and stable currency throughout the EU, like the US dollar.
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2011-07-09, 14:28 | Link #14694 | |
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2011-07-09, 14:33 | Link #14695 | |
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2006
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Here's how central banking and fractional reserve works in America. It isn't too different from how other nations produce money, as far as I'm aware: The important thing to note here is that taxpayer dollars do not fund the government (not directly). They mainly go to two things. One, Social Security and other social safety net programs (chiefly created under FDR's administration). Two, to pay the interest on the national debt. If you cut funding of taxpayer dollars to Social Security, more taxpayer dollars go to interest on the debt. Who holds the debt? Bankers and investors. Why make sure the rich and large corporations pay as low a tax rate as possible? Because it makes the claims of so called "entitlement" programs like Social Security going bankrupt easier to demonstrate through manipulated statistics, and thus make the case easier to remove them, and because the rich and large corporations would rather keep the money they already have, they benefit from double dipping in tax refunds/loopholes and the interest paid from holding Federal Reserve IOUs. Cut taxes across the board to the lowest levels in American history, during the largest Recession ever and what could be a future Depression? You make the deficit problem look much worse than it actually is. Now you see one reason why economists say stimulus, massive stimulus, is more important than austerity during economic contraction. You also see how politicians have manipulated a discussion from stimulus to cuts. Note here that very few people want to get rid of Social Security, they instead advocate making it private. Private means insurance companies, banks, and investors get to control most, if not all, of those programs. Also note that both the IRS and Federal Reserve are about as "Federal" as Federal Express. They're private organizations, and not a branch of the government. The sole reason they exist is to benefit each other. The Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air, and the IRS collects taxpayer money to service the debt. You can pretty much follow this logic to its conclusion. Just a quick edit: In light of this discussion, some might find this article interesting: http://www.cnbc.com/id/42308613/Liby...n_Central_Bank Yes, in the middle of a revolution, Libyan Rebels formed their own central bank. Now consider that Libya is the only "Arab Spring" country that European and American powers directly intervened in. Think real hard about this.
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2011-07-09, 14:52 | Link #14696 | |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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http://rt.com/usa/news/women-shuai-pregnant-life/ Sure, abortion should the last choice... but it should never be off the table and cases like these kind of illuminate the underlying hatred of "uppity women" by factions of social conservatism. They aren't interested in a balanced solution... especially when it comes to ponying up the funds to support the "children of the community".
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2011-07-09, 15:02 | Link #14697 | |
Not Enough Sleep
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: R'lyeh
Age: 48
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Last edited by Xellos-_^; 2011-07-09 at 15:22. |
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2011-07-09, 15:34 | Link #14698 | |
Sensei, aishite imasu
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Hong Kong Shatterdome
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I think your statement needs to be rephrased from "Isn't it already adequate?" to "We need to MAKE this adequate so we don't have to do this other thing" |
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2011-07-09, 16:32 | Link #14699 |
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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It will never be adequate. Even discounting medical abortions, you can tell from how well helmet laws are followed how well people take to government mandated prudence.
I suppose technology could make it possible, some day, to really and conveniently control fertility, but even then you'd need put some kind of implant inside every child before they become able to have children. Which is another kettle of fish. And doesn't cover cases like "the mother changed her mind partway". |
2011-07-09, 19:41 | Link #14700 |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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Countries in Europe with good family planning initiatives, and legal abortion, have some of the lowest abortion rates on earth. I don't have the statistics for it, but I read it in a newspaper a while back. I'd love to get stats, but I know not where to find them.
@Vexx: I'm astounded that women are being prosecuted for that! It feels a bit ... extreme. However it's an interesting issue, should a woman be prosecuted for recklessly endangering her foetus, particularly if it's close to birth? I don't think she should if it's unintentional (or as a result of mental illness in the case of Shuai). However this has never been much of a problem previously. Hopefully these trials will go to juries and they'll all throw it out. |
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