>> ^gwiz665:
Late term abortions are not doe frivolously, only if there are big health risks involved to the mother. And the argument from "being able to live" is not a strong one - we can keep brain dead people alive indefinitely, but they still have to be kept alive - same thing with babies, they cannot in any shape or form take care of themselves. I would rather a baby/fetus was aborted at 3 months, than dumped in an alley to freeze to death, for instance. If people has made the choice, they should be able to exercise that choice easily, quickly and safely.
There's not a choice to get an abortion in the last period - if a mother says "i want an abortion" in the eigth month, she won't get it. In those cases there has to be serious reasons.


You compare "being able to live" babies with "brain dead people". Did you miss my comments about brain function? Brain dead people are arguably dead. 5 month preemies are not arguably dead unless care is withheld. Don't confuse yourself.

And no, i'd rather the baby be born and left in the alley where there's a chance that it will be found (however slight) and a chance the mother will be jailed and kept from further reproduction. Do you really think the risk of terrible death is justification for killing a person? Or are you just quibbling over the development stage at which a fetus becomes a person? If the latter, stick to that. Again, don't confuse yourself; you're certainly not gonna confuse me with illogic like that.

And yeah, those "serious reasons" you talk about are the exceptions i spoke about. Did you miss that whole "exceptions" vs "general rule" part? It's kind of important. Oh, and there is still a choice even in such dire situations. No one is going to force a mother who might die without an abortion to get the abortion. Some moms would risk it. Trust me, i know some who would. Personally, if i were a woman in that situation, i think i'd risk it. But that'd be my *personal* philosphy and choice to risk my life for my kid. We'd be cruel and stupid to punish mothers who chose to save their own life in that situation. Of course, the reality is that such situations are *exceedingly* rare given modern medicine. A C-section is usually a totally viable option to get the kid out with a chance and save the mom as well. Such rarities need latitude in the law, but are really not worth the time arguing about.

I'm with Xax. Pro-life personally and politically, and quite consistent about it. If we outlaw one murder, we should outlaw them all: abortion, the regular kind, the death penalty, suicide and absolute lunacies like pre-emptive war. Violence against humans (and imho, the higher animals) is only permissible in sports with safety measures taken and in reactive, clear and restrained self-defense, both personally and militarily.

That's only the general rule, of course. There MUST be room for exceptions, which either void conviction or provide ample latitude for judges when deciding punishments. The typical "mother at risk of dying" example is the clearest exception. Likewise, i currently think it unwise to outlaw abortions performed prior to 8 weeks, as the studies showing brain functions prior to that are not thorough. Similar exceptions should be made for withholding care to persons already born, but lacking brain function. And so on...

But the general rule of "thou shalt not kill" seems like damn good public policy to me. It's hard to see how abortion is justifiable, especially after 5 mos, when many babies can live outside the mother with the amazing preemie care possible these days. How long do you need to make your choice? Even in rape, where there was no choice about birth control, you still have around 2 mos before brain function is detectable (thus far). I'm ok with choice. But i think it is totally irrational and willfully ignorant to advocate giving 9 months for that decision. Maybe that made some sort of sense in the 60s or 70s, when most people had never seen an ultrasound or heard of things EEG, but that's just stupid nowadays. Get out of the dark ages. Don't kill people.

I give upvotes for bigfoot. Love dat sasquatch. Oh, and those are awesome tricks.

In the immortal words of Nelson, "Ha ha!"

>> ^rottenseed:
Right now as it stands, since a lot of drugs are illegal, somebody who were to try marijuana and realize it's not dangerous might assume the same of other drugs. If we were to be honest and classify drugs properly, people might take heed in the government's decision to make certain one's illegal.

I completely agree. Improper classification of drugs by the government (or parents) ultimately promotes distrust of the government and conflict.

I could back a huge bullet tax politically. At least, for handgun bullets. Rifles, meh.

I would be happy to have you as my president, Mr. Ventura.

Sure, Obama is better than Bush, no question. But the political differences between Obama and Bush are far smaller than the differences between either of them and the likes of Jesse Ventura or Ralph Nader. The Dems & GOP are in bed together on most major issues, just quibbling over details.

I have less in common politically with most elected representatives of the Dems & GOP, than i do with most of the third parties out there.

That said, i'm done chasing spending the bulk of my political time and money on candidates. It's an ineffective strategy, that should be secondary. I think the tactics of grassroots groups like DownsizeDC.org and even Mr. Sean Tevins of Kansas are much more effective in the long term.

Yes, time is money (to a degree), but gardening is also outdoor activity. So, every hour spent gardening also means more natural Vitamin D, more exercise and broader immune system exposure. There are psychological benefits as well. Making all of these habitual (even if only seasonally) offers great long term health benefits, which is worth a hell of a lot of money. It's foolish to think that fresh food is the only economic benefit to growing some of your own food.

Again, though, moderation is crucial. If you expend all sorts of energy and cortisol worrying about pesticides and how to afford a more "organic" diet, then you aren't doing yourself a lick of good. Relax, and don't put all your eggs in one basket: grow some food yourself, try to support local farmers often (for cost, health and the local economic boost), but do NOT fret about buying mass-produced food too. Both are very important to having a healthy, secure and efficient food industry in our modern society. We would be unwise to concentrate production too much (as is the current trend), but producing everything local and organic is only efficient and environmentally sound in a few areas of the world.

>> ^Jaace:
And this is why I haven't dropped 10 bucks to go see this movie.


I don't ever drop 10 bucks on a movie. Academy theater down the street blows the big chains out of the water. Reasonable concessions (including pizza from Flying Pie next door, salads, good beer, etc), very comfy chairs, lax policies about bringing your own food, and even reasonably priced babysitting available upstairs (with RSVP). All for a whopping 3.50 per person. Yeah, it's a second run theater, but i can wait a few months for any movie to be able to see it there.

Actually, i know quite a few people who are all for very libertarian *federal* government, while allowing local regions to be as socialist as they want. Most libertarian frustration is at BIG, CENTRALIZED government, not government itself.

Of course, most Americans are too caught up in the national (and binary) political narrative sold by big media and the two parties in power to realize that local politics actually do and/or should have far more importance for their daily lives.

Hah, so TSA, you sure you want to search my bags now?!

Yeah, but first you have to define "wasteful, politically motivated spending". Personally, i think 80% of what the federal goverment does is done wastefully and for political reasons.

The solution is not simply reducing government [spending], but decentralizing it. Downsizing the federal government and especially empowering county goverments (even many states are too big to be centralized).

"One size fits all" is terribly inefficient, has a MUCH higher cost of failure, decreases the value of political involvement by the average individual (thus discouraging it), and increases the motivations for corrupt government. Ultimately, it means the we become a government by and for the lobbyists, rather than the people.

Our nation's founders did a great job of putting in checks and balances. But they did not sufficiently plan for population growth. Add the fact that their primary population adjustment (the House of Reps) was killed off (frozen at 435) about a century ago, and now we our current twisted form of democracy.

If you want real change, we have to fix the scaling problems. This means localizing/decentralizing power (i.e. spending). But no, Obama would never consider that to be a "serious" option. No Democrat ever has, and once in office, few Republicans have either. We need more options.

Fetuses before 20weeks have no brain function, that is the science, they are not people by any reasonable definition.

"No brain function?" My goodness, that's a grossly inaccurate claim. First, my understanding is that 20 weeks is the earliest detected (thus far) activity in the cerebral cortex. That is not the earliest brain "function" detected. Far as i know, the brain stem cells are connecting and responding to stimuli by 8 weeks according to some studies. So, to me, 20 weeks is the very *latest* time frame i would consider reasonable to still permit "choice" as a rule. However, since there has been limited study in this area, especially of late, i believe it would be wiser to move the legislative controls to the 8 or 12 week time frame. Certainly your life prior to the pregnancy plus 2+ months of awareness of the pregnancy is enough time for most people to make such a decision. Obviously, there should be a variety of exceptions for rare, extreme cases, but my beef is that the general rule permits abortion later than it ought.

And please drop the nonsense about miscarriages (which usually happen by 12 weeks anyway) being "manslaughter". That is first class idiocy. Natural processes kill people every second and no one calls it "manslaughter". The very idea is both a laughable straw man and terribly insensitive.

Anyway, despite the limited recent study in the specific area of fetal brain activity, you are grossly exaggerating our ignorance by labeling birth the "least absurd of the arbitrary criteria" available to us. Birth was an absurd criteria even before we had ultrasounds, EEGs and the medical ability to keep a kid born months premature alive and healthy. Societies for *millenia* have called it murder when an unborn child is killed by an act of violence against a pregnant woman, because it is very obvious that the unborn baby is a person well before they are born. I'm guessing that you've never closely walked through a pregnancy with a woman before if you can say something ignorant like that. Go have a kid, watch them on an ultrasound at 8 and 20 weeks, feel them kick and respond to sounds (even recognize mom's voice) in the last trimester. Then come back and tell me again how you think "birth is the least absurd" choice for recognizing a baby's humanity.

Enoch is right. The health insurance industry/lobby is failing and abusing us dramatically. In large part, this is because they fail to acknowledge what "insurance" is. Insurance is supposed to be for when something goes badly wrong. Car insurance companies do not pay for maintenance tune-ups, new wipers, signal lights and brake pads, even though those can all prevent accidents. Why then does health insurance cover those? Answer: it makes them more money. The more they get their dirty fingers into our health care, the more money they make. But that's more money that goes to a middle man and is spent on bureaucracy instead of into doctors' pockets. This is causing rising prices and decreasing numbers of doctors due to higher workload for less pay.

Let's be clear. Insurance is for alleviating the cost of *problems* by spreading risk across a population. Insurance is NOT for checkups, vaccinations and allergy meds. You can try to rationalize that those reduce later costs, but the evidence i'm seeing out there is rising costs and reduced physician availability. The proof is in the pudding.

So, what to do? I'm fine with the government financing health insurance and even regular health care. No issues. I'm not fine with the government running both of those through greedy insurance companies and complicated bureuacracies. I like their compassion for the poor and sick. I despise their need for control. I do believe the free market can do it better. But for that to happen, we have to do a few things:

1) finance it via tax credits (deductions for the rich, rebates for the poor) so that individuals maintain control of spending, but have at least a portion of it ultimately paid by the government. thus we have both freedom AND compassion. oh, and this must include Medicare/Medicaid.

2) ending the employer tax breaks for providing health care. this is sand in the free market gears, as it reduces the number of choices happening.

3) educate people that the "we pay for every little thing" plans are not financially sound. because, they're not, especially if #1 is put in place.

oh, and the whole abortion debate is handled on preposterously unscientific grounds most of the time. it's plain as day that unborn "fetuses" are very much human children long before they are born. my son was born at 24 weeks. would he really have been "just a fetus" that my wife had some "right to kill" for the next 16 weeks were he not premature? Heck, i saw my daughter on ultrasound at 8.5 weeks. She already looked very human (just with an oversized head) and was moving around. Where on earth do we get the idea that human rights should only start at birth? Maybe that seemed sensible 30 years ago, but it's seems scientifically ignorant given all we've learned about life in utero since. I would much rather see the "right to abortion" at least end at a more sensible stage of development, like 8 or maybe 12 weeks. That's plenty of time to make a choice.

We already have half-socialized medicine, with Medicare and Medicaid. The prices and incentives for doctors (esp. primary care physicians) are already totally out of wack. The government created this problem, and ironically are claiming that more government involvement is the solution.

If the government really wants to fund health care, they should do it via tax credits. Make all health care expenses deductible. This makes health care vastly more affordable and yet maintains free market forces on prices. It also greatly reduces bureaucratic overhead dramatically, thereby lightening the workload of physicians and patients alike.