I agree, and I've brought up this issue with many of them. I understand and respect that it's murder from their perspective, and that this is a valid perspective. This seems to be what you are trying to convey, but I'm just adding that it's worthwhile to try to help them understand that other perspectives are also valid. — Relativist

:100: :grin:

Sounds good to me.

Of course, but the establishment clause prohibits laws that force a particular religious view on the rest of us. That's what abortion bans do.

There's more to it, of course, but this aspect is rarely brought up. — Relativist

11% of atheists are pro life. So it's not necessarily a religious view.

No - there's no objectively correct answer. Is a zygote a human being? What establishes that? God implanting a soul? "Human being" is a fuzzy concept. — Relativist

Nevertheless, if a portion of the community is crying "murder," it's your business.

Barrett (remarkable for being someone who spent only a few years practicing law but now sits on the Supreme Court). — Ciceronianus

You're suggesting she isn't qualified (as your eyes glaze over and you fall forward).

So yes: privacy matters here. Abortion as murder can be a privately held idea, and should apply only to the person holding the view. — Bitter Crank

:yikes: It never works that way. Abortion is either murder or it's not. If it is, it's everybody's business.

I agree.

But if their view on this is rooted in their religion, then it shouldn't be the determinant of what is law. — Relativist

We don't screen voters for their justifications. You're a citizen, you get a vote.

Before I accepted the idea that anti-unionism was a prime driver of prohibition, I'd want to read a strong case for that view. But again, the major drive for prohibition came from rural protestants who were not witnessing a whole lot of union organizing. — Bitter Crank

Yes. It was that the connection to the labor movement oiled the tracks for an amendment, not that that was the primary wind behind it.

The list of sins in the churches (temples, mosques, etc.) shouldn't be the basis of secular law. — Bitter Crank

Sure. But if some Americans firmly believe abortion is murder, that matters. Their opinion shouldn't be brushed aside in the name of someone's privacy. No one has a right to privately commit murder.

The 18th Amendment concretized SOME peoples' will to ban liquor — Bitter Crank

Some historian I read said that Prohibition was really about the fact that bars were often the meeting places for organizing labor.

Your statement seems more like a play on words than a serious objection.

Is a fertilized egg, a non-viable fetus, or a near term fetus, a person? Thereby hangs the tale. — Bitter Crank

I would say no. Plenty say it is. When people have a difference of opinion about whether an action is moral, that makes it a public issue.

I've never agreed that abortion is about a woman's right to choose. It's about whether abortion is moral. If you think it is, say so, and elect people who will provide protection through laws.

Defining a fertilized egg or a non-viable / viable fetus as a person seems to be first a religious definition (based on the idea of 'ensoulment') that has been taken up by religious-minded secular legislators. — Bitter Crank

Yes. A lot of Americans are religious. So what?

What I'm enquiring about here is how (if we agree with the process) we might morally justify it. — Isaac

I don't know what you're talking about.

That's what Roe was. Insurance against the possibility that future generations saw fit to deny those rights - not by virtue of them merely disagreeing (that would be opposed to ordinary respect for autonomy), but by virtue of the previous generation having failed to bring them up to be sufficiently moral human beings to have their preferences respected. — Isaac

This is incorrect. Laws and constitutional amendments are the mechanisms for cementing the will of the people.

Roe comes from an era when it was thought that judges should take it upon themselves to make social changes that havent been arrived at democratically. Times have changed.

In a sense, that's the moral ground in which I think anti-democratic, but moral, legislation might stand. — Isaac

Ok. Autocracy usually arises due to crisis. We instinctively know that during a crisis we're better off with a leader who can make quick decisions, whether they're right or wrong.

Democracy doesn't unequivocally equal majority rule. — Baden

I said:

In a democracy, the majority (with temperance provided by various mechanisms) rules. — frank

I think that's about right.

Sure. Do you think that we have responsibility for our effects on the personality and beliefs of others? — Isaac

If you discover that you were born with a genius for manipulating people, I advise that you don't use it at all because if you think you have the wisdom to use it, you are almost certainly wrong. (Although if you find that you've been accidentally using it to calm people down in a healthcare environment, go with it.)

Say, if I, through my God awful parenting, produced an absolute monster, do I just let them loose on society at 18 and wash my hands of them (respect their "Freedom to decide" as you put it)? Or do I have some responsibility to act as some restrainer of their excess? — Isaac

If you're American, you're probably on your own with this. You can contact the police, but they'll probably ignore you. How does it work where you're from?

If I were responsible (evil meddling psychologist that I am) for creating a platoon of ruthless assassins by behavioural programming, Jason Bourne style, do you think I'd have some responsibility for the actions of the resulting unit, and how ought I exercise that responsibility? — Isaac

Could you make this question a little more explicit?

Oh.

1. Probably most fundamentally, democracy fosters a mindset of ownership of the challenges faced by my society. This is our world. We have the ability to shape it according to our vision of what it should be. IOW, democracy inclines us toward the truth.

I believe every society actually is of the people. This fact is just highlighted in a democratic government.

2. It's related to my ideas about how people grow and develop. Freedom to decide is a hallmark of adulthood. A monarchy stalls the development of wisdom in a society by rendering everyone childlike.

I could go on, but I'm not going to if you're just exercising your conflict habituation. We'll see. :confused:

So why (the devotion)? — Isaac

Numerous reasons. That's a historical, cultural, and psychological question. If your point is that it's flawed, sure I agree with that.

The point, such as it is, was that if one advocates democratic rule because they consider it a moral 'good', then there's a conflict when that democracy results in something which they consider a moral 'bad'. Unless, of course, a person has no moral goods other than promoting democracy. — Isaac

That's true. To be truly devoted to democracy means you can allow the people to make mistakes (Donald Trump). You don't abandon the system just because it handed you a defeat, or because someone managed to subvert it.

There's a certain amount of faith in people involved.

Was there a point you were trying to make? Or did you just want a window on my psyche?

No. I'm asking why you think it ought to be? — Isaac

There's no reason they ought to be devoted. They just are at present. That may change in the future.

What I mean is that you think we should follow democratic decisions, yes? Or are you just telling us how democracy works? — Isaac

Generally speaking, Americans have a deep seated devotion to democracy. Are you asking why that is?

But why should they? — Isaac

The "should" comes from a particular community's commitment to democracy. It's not for everyone.

So you don't see a problem with a majority who decide that slavery is acceptable? — Michael

What alternative do you propose?

The majority doesn't have the right to oppress the minority. — Michael

In a democracy, the majority (with temperance provided by various mechanisms) rules.

Should they also get to decide whether or not that act be repealed so that they can decide if they want homosexuals or black people in their communities? — Michael

Of course. It's called democracy.

Should they also get to decide if they want homosexuals or black people in their communities? — Michael

Fair Housing Act

The personal sphere is private and not a proper object of governmental intrusion. — Bitter Crank

If the people judge that murder is taking place in private, then it's most definitely a governmental issue.

Whether they want abortion in their communities.

You have to let people decide, though. If you can't do that, then what?

Tucker Carlson.

I actually see this as a good thing. From what I understand, the legality of Roe v Wade was always a bit sketchy. Even RBG said “the court ventured too far in the change it ordered.”
I’m all for abortion rights but do it the right way.
In my (completely disinterested, it doesn’t affect me) opinion, the legal cut-off should be at the “point of viability.”
If it gets overturned it will be up to the states. What do you think? — Paulm12

Yep.

I wouldn’t propose to restrict anything. — NOS4A2

Then what follows is going to be some state intervention. There's no way around it.

Less than 20% of all women want an outright ban on abortion, and yes - they may get what they wanted- at least in some states. — Relativist

But 42% of the women who voted in 2016 voted for Trump.

I feel kind of apathetic about it. It couldn't have happened without the participation of a lot of women, so they got what they wanted.

I'm nervous and tense about statism, which is both left and right. — NOS4A2

Ok. So to limit state intervention, you'd have to restrict the ability of the people to vote for state intervention. That requires far reaching state power.

I don't think you can get there from here.

There never was any laissez-faire. The state caused much of the poverty, and the state caused all of the wars. — NOS4A2

Everybody has a narrative. Each one is self-serving.

Poverty, overconsumption, monopoly, wealth inequality, seem to me the common objections. Keynes said as much in his essay “The End of laissez-faire”. But all of the above are apparent in all systems, including in those in which Keynes was the architect: capitalism “wisely managed”.

But why should it be managed at all? Why should one serve the interests of the state instead of his own and his neighbors? — NOS4A2

Poverty itself is not the traditional criticism. It's that poverty of the kind created by laissez-faire in the 19th and early 20th Century created volatility that resulted in social upheaval and war all over the globe.

Calming the world down was the motive behind embedded liberalism. As memories of those times fade, we return to conditions that gave rise to that volatility once again.

There's no point in being all tense and nervous about leftism. There is none to contend with.

Yes. Laissez faire is nonsense because "free markets" don't exist and cannot exist. Period. So the very idea is nonsense. So to is trying to separate "economy from state." — Xtrix

"Free market" is a reference to the way prices are set. So there can be quite a bit of government intervention in an economy that still has free markets.

"Free market" would only refer to the kind of markets that existed in medieval times if medieval history was the context. Just a heads up.

:razz:

Which will disproportionately affect the poor, pushing them further into poverty (or death). — Michael

Thanks for the insight. We haven't been thinking about this for years, so we need you to explain it to us.