You can't kill a living human being...

Death Penalty exists...

Abortion will always be a touchy subject, but if you have money to travel, you can get that abortion in places that support them. So what these abortion laws do is punish poor people who can't make that trip. Then those same people are forced to either put the child up for adoption (because we don't have a ton of children that can't be adopted already) or they can raise that child, most likely in the same situation that led to them being poor and not having a proper family unit.

Storytime, and god help me if my wife ever finds out I talked about this.

I was raised in a poor home, with an abusive family. My wife was raised in a poor home with a good family. When we started dating after High School back in 1992, you had two choices for safe sex, condoms or birth control (doctor visit with no insurance and it was Texas in 1992, they weren't just tossing it out like free candy). We had to use condoms because we couldn't afford birth control and because she was scared of using it. If you have ever read the side effects, you might be too, seeing as death can be one of them in rare instances.

So condoms were the watchword. But accidents happen; maybe one just didn't work right, maybe it was the one that broke one time, but we ended up getting pregnant. I told her that I would do whatever she wanted. We planned to marry soon anyway, so I said we could shotgun it if need be. She said she didn't think she wanted a child. So I said that it was HER decision, but I would be there through it.

It isn't easy. Unless you have been in that exact situation, you will never know the fear and uncertainty involved. We were 18 and 20, just starting out with shit jobs, living with parents, and with a 1968 Catalina as our only vehicle. Her parents would have forced her to have it if they knew, because they thought the same way as @bobknight33. We would have been stuck living with them, they already didn't like me because I wasn't deeply religious and not into ranch life. My parents wouldn't have taken us in because my mom didn't like my wife until years later. The stress and anger would have probably split us up, and both of us would have likely remained poor to this day.

Instead, my wife chose to not have the child and got an abortion in the first trimester. We kept it to ourselves, married later, and are still together today. We both fought our way out of being poor people to being on the upper spectrum of middle class. We decided we just didn't want kids and now we spoil our niece. I will swear right now that we would never have made it to where we are today if we had been forced to raise a child because of someone else's deranged idea that every child must be born regardless of the future in store for it.

So, yes, I can speak to what an actual poor person goes through in that situation. We were lucky, because there weren't laws rammed through by religious people who have no clue of the consequences, just a strong delusion that God wants all children born. Funny how those religious people wash their hands of the aftermath of their crusade. Even funnier are the ones that quietly send Mary Lou to California to 'visit an aunt' for a couple of months when they find out their spawn got knocked up.

TL;DR

If you fight against easy abortions, except those where the child has reached the capability to survive if it had to be medically removed from the mother, you and the rest of your ilk can go fuck yourselves.

Its not where you start in life its where you end up.

White privilege is a false statement. Its really middle class privilege. Its about education not skin color. There are plenty of poor whites as much as there are poor blacks.


Those in the back mostly without fathers.
All knowing Newt, What is the fix?

Economic hardship of those kids would be lesson if both parents were present.


Finally JOBS or lack of them are mostly due to government policies ( Fair trade / Free Trade) have decimated job opportunities for All Americans, especially low wage and entry jobs.


Make policies that bring jobs back to America. Passing bills that take tax dollars and make roads or such only create short term jobs.

Trump was right Lower business tax rates to compete on world stage stimulated economy and America started to flourish.

Sadly Biden/ Democrats want to move tax rate up which will slow down growth, if passed.


Learn???
My dad started working at 14, His dad never got passed 8th grade.
My dad went bankrupt, had a chronically ill wife ( died in early 40s due to it) and 4 kids.

He never left. He worked his ass off.

Also he broke his back in 3 places and crushed his right hand. He left the hospital to sign a house mortgage, knowing he might never work again.
With a healing back and crippled hand he drove 50 miles each way in a stick shift car for 3 years like this just to keep a roof over our heads.

I paid my own way through college, Same for my sister.

My dad says If you want it bad enough you will find a way.

So don't tell be about white privilege bull shit.

What about Black lawyers, Drs, and ball players?
They make way more coin than most white people. Do they have white privilege?

The person making minimum wage likes it enough to stay, else he will find a better paying job.


Should fines, penalties be smaller for poor people , yes.

Someone told me you needed a fact check

Here's the information he had available to him at the time

https://downloads.aap.org/AAP/PDF/AAP%20and%20CHA%20-%20Children%20and%20COVID-19%20State%20Data%20Report%207.30.20%20FINAL.pdf


338,982 total child COVID-19 cases (cumulative) have happened
BEFORE he gives this press conference.

Then he explains that kids are "basically immune".


------------------------
------------------------


He made the claim so assertively https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-twitter-trump-video-misinformation-removal-children-immune-coronavirus/ Facebook and Twitter removed it.


So, let's review with a quote from someone who cares about public health.

"Children as a group are clearly less impacted by this virus than adults, but to say they are almost immune does not provide a truthful message," said University of South Florida public health professor Dr. Marissa J. Levine.


"does not provide a truthful message...
"does not provide a truthful message...
"does not provide a truthful message...
"does not provide a truthful message...
"does not provide a truthful message...
"does not provide a truthful message...
"does not provide a truthful message...
"does not provide a truthful message...
"does not provide a truthful message...
"does not provide a truthful message...



Look, a good rule of thumb, just wait for that social media guy to start ranting, if he says "Fake news!" that's probably true.

If he says "Believe me" that's probably false.

Easy.



For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7elKHRjwc
Donald Trump: (00:42)
Our mortality rate is right now at a level that people don’t talk about, but it’s down tenfold, tenfold. So you look at deaths are way down from this horrible China virus,

Donald Trump: (03:52)
There was only one person that died that was under 18 years old in the state of New Jersey, and that was somebody I guess had a problem with perhaps diabetes or something else. But one person out of thousands of people, one person died who was under 18 years old.

Well, he's saying that in July, the problem with that is in June https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020/06/2nd-child-dies-from-coronavirus-in-nj.html

So much for only one eh? but don't worry
Here's the current data

https://downloads.aap.org/AAP/PDF/AAP%20and%20CHA%20-%20Children%20and%20COVID-19%20State%20Data%20Report%204.15.21%20FINAL.pdf


And
Here's how many kids are currently infected as of the most recent data
See? Immune

3,631,189
13.6%




p.s. roughly 1/2 of every-single-class i teach right now has students who

let me be perfectly clear

can
-NOT-
taste
any
more


(yes really)

Good thing they're immune.

You don't want a vaccine? Lovely. We will be canceling your health insurance. Since you've chosen to be a complete cunt, we've chosen not to pay for your utter cuntiness.

I work in health insurance. The three biggest contributors to the price of insurance are:
1: fraud (doctors are notorious for this)
2: general waste (upbilling; unnecessary tests that are only performed to keep the fucking ambulance-chasing lawyers from filing malpractice suits because someone got the shits from an antibiotic)
3: PREVENTABLE HEALTH ISSUES. This includes obesity, smoking, not exercising, not getting annual checkups and atrocious dietary habits as first-order issues. If not corrected, these lead to more expensive and longer term second-order issues: diabetes, heart disease, cancer, vascular disease. These issues start a feedback loop with the second-order effects cause immobility which contributes to increasing first-order effects which amplifies second-order effects -- lather, rinse, repeat.

Now add a good case of Covid to that mix. If you end up on a ventilator for two week, there's a mil-plus in hospital bills: someone has to either pay that (welcome higher insurance rates!) or the hospital has to eat it (welcome even HIGHER insurance rates!) You can bitch all you want about the cost of healthcare in America, but you're paying for every dumb, entitled asshole who spouts shit like MUH FREEDUMS!! when asked to do basic things to protect themselves and others.

tl;dr: your idiot views of what the actual fuck "freedom" is ends at my wallet. Fuck you and get your goddamn vaccine. And put down the Cheetos while you're at it.

I'm regurgitating the numbers Dr Birx used, and comparing our outbreak to other nations that took it seriously like S Korea and New Zealand. If we had used the same serious action S Korea had, our death rate per 100000 would be an astonishing 1/60th of what our death rates were in the first 6 months or so. Just universal mask wearing would have cut our deaths by an estimated >1/4, 130000 fewer deaths, and slowed the rate of new cases significantly, but Trump fought against them.

Here's the link on that data...., granted slightly dated.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/23/how-many-coronavirus-deaths-are-truly-attributable-trump/

Remember, the Whitehouse said 100000-240000 possible deaths, around the same time Trump said deaths would never rise over 20000, using the lower of those numbers and blaming Trump's policies for the excess we are >80% his fault now, using Trump's promised numbers over 96% are blood on his hands.

There's also the fact that after knowing about the uncontrolled epidemic in WuHan Trump let over 40000 people (just not Chinese nationals) back in the country from that region with no tests available and no quarantine except for those obviously extremely sick. An immediate and actual travel lockdown could have made our deaths zero, and definitely would have made them exponentially lower.

Then there's the dismantling of the Global Health Security and Biodefense unit he closed that likely could have identified the outbreak in China much earlier and again, made our numbers zero. It's exactly what they were created to avoid.

I honestly feel 80- 90% was being generous, in fact there's a real possibility that a thoughtful adult president would have made any number of intelligent decisions, any one of which could have avoided the pandemic altogether or minimized infections enormously, even minimizing the Chinese epidemic.

I do agree, Biden is doing much better at taking it seriously and acting like rapid vaccination is important, but still isn't doing enough. I would prefer an enforced national mask mandate, mandatory social distancing, school closings until vaccination saturation, etc until we have herd immunity....not half assed measures like 50% capacity at bars and restaurants, with few business shutdowns and zero enforcement, pretending it's over every time infection rates dip.

You forgot the damage and debauchery....costing upwards of $500000000 so far in repairs and added security costs. I'm sure he missed any reports about that too, too busy being focused on Dr Seuss's family running their business as they see fit and calling it censorship.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by BSR.

TL:DR

Humans have been using drugs since the first person ate the wrong plant and got high instead of dying.

If you look at most drugs in nature, it is almost impossible to OD on them IN THEIR NATURAL FORM.

It's only when we alter that using chemicals, heat, or modifying the plant's genetic code via cross-pollination that we get drugs that destroy people.

Conversely, drugs that have been distilled from natural sources have also saved millions from death or from chemical imbalances in their bodies.

Man made drugs keep me on a (mostly) even keel. Without them my life is hell. Not from addiction, but because my body's chemicals are out of whack.

Yet some man made drugs are poison and should not be used (or extremely rarely). Most opioids fall directly into that category. Still, it is the corporate greed and misuse of these drugs that make them an ignored epidemic.

I could go on, but TL;DR

Natural drugs are a gift to humankind. Man Made drugs are a mixed bag.

Moved this to profile pages, better late than never.

I'll try to be brief....and fail miserably I expect.
I accept the fact that some theories I hold will be wrong, and cause failure. At least theories can be tested and discarded when proven false. Yes, some are so engrained it would take TNT to dislodge them, but they aren't unchangeable, beliefs are immutable.

No morality in that claim. Moral excuses might be 1) I minimize any suffering by buying mostly family farmed meats and 2) those lives only exist for human pleasure and substance. If no one ate cows and pigs, they would be extinct nuisance animals. (And chickens rare) If the animal has a nice, pain and stress free life, but in trade that life ends early, as long as the end is humane I'm not bothered. That's life it otherwise wouldn't enjoy at all.
Factory farms don't meet those requirements.
They're tasty is why I eat meat. It might be snide, but it's honest. Yes, I'm obstinate, I like meat, I'm not claiming it the most moral, ethical, ecological, or empathetic thing to do, but if done thoughtfully it's not the worst either.

My meaning with "it's not the worst t thing people do" was to reply to " I believe (assuming humans survive) humans will look upon this time of killing billions of animals for nothing but human pleasure with disgusting disgrace." with a few other examples of things worse that we will be judged for, not to distract or excuse. I'm not sure how that's a logical falicy. Tens of Billions of animals are killed horrifically for pure greed and not even used as food, that's a disgusting disgrace I could denounce.

I read the WHO study he was referencing and it said no such thing, I told him, showed him, he kept repeating the bullshit lies. I'm not receptive to people who blatantly misrepresent science. I don't rely on any industry produced studies for any decisions, that would be dumb. The study said certain highly processed and preserved red meats had some carcinogens, not any meat at any level is equivalent to two packs a day. My degree is general science, I can read a study.

Oh shit, nutritionfacts.org is Dr Gregor, the one who outright lies about scientific studies, and the one who made the false equivalency between tiny amounts of meat and constant chain smoking, he also loved to misuse "plant based" to mean vegan and claim the studies on plant based (not plant exclusive) diets proved vegan benefits when they really proved a mixed diets benefits. I've been deep down his rabbit hole, and found him incredibly unscientific and dishonest. I don't trust him one bit, sorry.

I've only known a hand full, including the one who introduced me to Dr Gregor, my aunt, uncle, and cousins, and a few here in hippy central where I live. Not one was honest, they acted like it was religion and took statements as gospel with no investigation and were forceful in their insistence that everyone agree.

I once ate fish and thought it was fine. Three years of marine biology cured me of that, so my theories are changed by facts. I promised myself to never learn too much about chicken, pork, or beef because I don't want to know what's in them unless it's broken glass. That's a conscious decision. There is no hell hot enough to scare me away from good bacon. That said, I do care that they have a good life before being harvested.

I'm willing to change behavior and thinking. I previously thought the fda was good at protecting us, I decided I couldn't trust that.

I make some decisions based on MY morality, some on self interest, some on group/global interest, etc. I'm not willing to make any based on someone else's morality, especially if they're pushy.

I have no clue who visits, but this is where I come, so it's where I speak up.

I always make the mistake of thinking people will be logical.

And how is this Trumps Fault?

People not paying their bills is Trumps fault?

Democrats keeping states closed down longer than necessary keeping people out of work is un Constitutional and how is this Trumps fault?

Is a 3% death rate with 1/2 of deaths for those past retirement age and government should keep business closed?


Precondition groups should be told to stay home and receive aid.

Mask Up, Go to to work, Pay your bills.


My brother has a precondition and was told by his Dr. to stay home. He collects more $ from gov cheese.

I've yet to miss a day of work.

Dr Alban vs Haddaway - I love the 90´s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYj2sTWUx5g

I love 84!

I had some friends into exotic cars and we'd take 84 over to the coast now and again, mostly because we had a shit-ton of money and a shit-ton of spare time to kill -- the Dot-Com fucking rocked!

There's a bend in the road just outside La Honda on the coastal side that's a 15mph hairpin with a tree at the apex. It's a lovely goddamn thing, especially when you forget it's there. So here we all come, lane-trading and exercising general assholery in cars that cost what a nice single-family home does.

Oh FUCK, the turn!!

My friend in the 911 does this beautiful trail-brake and swings through the curve. Elise follows suit, complete with smoking tires. Next up is Countach. He BARELY holds it together, but gets through without any real drama.

Now it's my turn.

Did I mention I was driving a '97 Camaro Z-28? Yeah, Camaros of that year are good at exactly one thing: driving very fast in very straight lines. Corners? Yeah, not so much. I realize I'm in trouble and I'm coming into the turn WAY too fast. I grab the shifter and get ready. My plan is that I'm going to slam it into first, let the rev limiter do its thing to save the engine, pull the e-brake and swing the tail, then punch it and swing the ass-end around and launch out of the curve with smoking Z-rated tires and all!

And HERE WE GO -- grab the shifter, yank it all the way down and...

That's when California emissions standards fucked me.

You see, when you buy a Camaro Z-28 in California, you don't actually get first gear. You get what's called a California First, which is actually SECOND gear, because if you were actually able to use FIRST gear, the goddamn car would belch enough emissions to make a farting Brontosaurus blush. And second gear ain't exactly gonna work for my little plan.

tl;dr is that I hit the no-lock brakes hard enough to get my speed down and was able to bring the ass around with the little e-brake trick. I wasn't out of the woods because I over-corrected on the way out and spun. The same God that I spite and don't believe in actually saved my ass and I didn't end up going off the road. Apparently, he loves fools and Z-28 Camaros.

I honestly had more fun in that car than the law allows: sometimes literally, like when I got clocked at 110 coming onto the straight at King City. Good times, man, good times.