Rhetorical questions. People are seldom willing to die for themselves, even less for others. (Altruistic exceptions, simply verify the previous “rule”)

After a point “negative” advertisement, becomes advertisement. Is it not time yet to impose an “embargo” on the Disaster-in-Chief? Let’s ignore him, the way a wise mother ignores her toddler, when it is appropriate to do so.

While presidency is unique and in a sense powerful, there are other (many more) seats up for electing people in November. Whom or which ideas should we be struggling to vote in?

Let’s go back to the basics. For example, I am interested in your view (if it still holds) about what a tax is (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ru7mYEippY). Can you elaborate how this concept of tax can (or should) differentiate between local, state and federal taxes? Can an economist tell us something quantitative about this concept of taxation? (Any theoretical minima and/or maxima for viability?). How would this taxation concept be applied in the case of a blue-state-coalition? Is it viable for just on (blue) state and are there any financial condition that need to be met? UBI is something to pursue? etc

This pandemic is just another sign on the wall that we are ALL in this TOGETHER: poor and billionaires and the in-between; Jews &Christians & Muslims & Hindus & Buddhists & Sikhists etc including the I-do-not-know-what-to-believers; vegans and meat-eaters; those who like avocado and those who don’t…….

The Republicans have turned the word "Entitlements" into a dirty word. When it means that you are entitled to it because you paid for it.

(springboarding off #s 9-10-11)

Ms. Doorknobs #7:

Well, you answered your own question, which is fine. But to continue down that path of logic, shouldn't the next question be: Why would someone keep the fetus from becoming a viable human being? Answer: Haha, I'm a stallion and don't want to get kicked in the teeth again by the mares for butting into their business, other than to state that the answer is not as simple as the question since the reasons are so complex and varied from one individual to the next. It's also a good bet that if men got pregnant then abortion would have been fully legal with no hidden hurdles a long time ago in every state.

The reasons for or against abortion run the gauntlet from a profound sense of spirituality all the way to the outward issues of physical existence, such as horrible mutation, the mother's health, age, rape, incest, professional career choices, severe poverty, homelessness, no insurance, lack of access to adequate social safety nets, unaffordable child-care infrastructure, underfunded adoptive services, abusive relationships, dysfunctional family life, mental and emotional issues, a psychological inability or unwillingness to take on the burden of a lifelong commitment and responsibility, and countless more justifications, some good, some bad.

But regardless of the reasons, it's the law; like it or lump it. Under the First Amendment, the rest of us are certainly entitled to judge and to comment on other people's public rationalizations as either right or wrong according to our own perspective -- it's an important debate to be had. But my right to speak out and protest should not infringe upon your right to privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment, including the choice of whether to keep an unviable fetus while in the first trimester.

Anyway, both major political parties don't seem to have much influence one way or another on either the rate of abortions or on the ratio to live births, despite all the futile clamoring to change the boilerplate ruling of the Supreme Court. (Ain't gonna happen even with McTurtle ramming right-wing judges through.) Perhaps it's best to separate the debate from politics as much as possible.

Moreover, what's wrong with trying to change people's minds and behavior, or better still, to explore the mysteries of life and death as a joint adventure by focusing the argument on the merits and discussing it the staid, old-fashion way without all the vitriol from the right raining down fire and brimstone? Isn't that what inquiring minds are supposed to do? Why tether the quest for higher truths to the bygone musings of obscure theologians memorialized in dusty old books when the feeling of life is always happening nonstop, before fragmented thought has a chance to catch up, qualify, and then slice and dice everything into nice neat packages that mean nothing?

In actuality, we are always living at the cutting edge of awareness beyond all the endless words and conflicting ideas -- inherently a unique, firsthand experience of ongoing wonderment and inspiration that constantly changes from moment to moment in a timeless state of awe. Life -- the greatest of all mysteries and the first and most critical of our "unalienable Rights" -- defies capture by any description. It is immensely sad and disturbing when a fetus is aborted. That's a profound feeling of loss and conflict -- an outcome that no one in their right mind would "favor" -- but it does not mean that a soul is being aborted. Or does it?

Talking through such intractable positions and difficult subject is a better strategy than always raising the specter (not Doorknobs, but as some radical Christianists tend to do by constantly threatening to rescind Roe v.Wade) of the long arm of the law dragging doctors and nurses and mothers off to jail, or otherwise ruining their lives for failing to comply with the radicalized whims of whatever religious zealots happen to be in power at the moment. To most ears, presumedly, building impossible walls to surmount sure doesn't sound very "pro-life" or consistent with the usual winger rhetoric about "Big Guvmunt" interference in our private lives.

Beyond laws and politics and institutionalized dogma, however, there are more fascinating questions fundamental to the intrinsic human yearning for an understanding of the bigger picture: When does the soul enter the fetus? And if the soul survives death does it precede birth? Would that imply an elegant process of reincarnation linked to evolution? Have fun with those unanswerable esotericisms.

I was raised Catholic and attended a Maryknoll junior seminary for two years back in the day before leaving the Church, mea culpa. (Okay, being a horse I was just hobbled in their pasture.) They taught that life on Earth is a one-off and that the spirit enters this world at the moment of conception. (I dunno, though, that seems rather cruel and counterproductive for God to cram a living soul, a vortex of budding awareness, into a tiny barely-developed fetus trapped in a pitch-dark water balloon for nine long months. What -- asleep, in a coma? Weird.) Several countervailing passages in the Bible indicate that we may enter the corporeal plane when we draw our first breath and exit when we draw our last (hopefully not in an ICU unit infected with the "Trump virus").

Does that mean that a fetus is a mere template in waiting or does our animated lifeforce develop along with the fetus? If we precede birth and our intended fetus is aborted, does God then pick another fetus for us to inhabit, or are we out of luck for the chance at individual sentience and are reabsorbed by a universal consciousness with the amorphous title of "God?"

Who am I to tell The Almighty Boss how to run His little shop of souls? But (if He doesn't mind His humble servant's lowly input ...In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sanctus. Amen.) incubating a soul in a clump of mindless cells in the hope that the host doesn't abort it seems like a haphazard way of doing business and probably generates a lot of extra paperwork for secretary angels, considering the vagaries of a species run by warring tribes of feces-flinging monkey-people hoarding bananas? Why not wait for the right viable birth to come along and for the Doc to slap the slimy little bugger first (or put him/her on a ventilator) to receive that sacred "breath of life" before sentencing some poor bastard to nine months in a dark hole for no good reason?

And hey, God, (as long as I'm bitching and whining, er, "praying") unless there's leftover really bad karma from a previous life and You're still pissed off, could You please try to avoid implanting my, granted, insignificant consciousness into some one-eyed, three-legged freak with scrambled DNA and a shrunken brain that couldn't be aborted for whatever reason? Also, Your little horse joke this time around ain't all that funny either. Just saying...

Amen.

BTW: Thom's argument is not specious because it is based on an abundance of irrefutable evidence, links to which are also provided throughout these various threads by various posters for your convenience to peruse.

And while I respect your contention after the door was opened, you are nevertheless conflating the "termination" of unviable fetuses in their first trimesters with the agony and deaths of viable human souls wrenched from this physical life needlessly and on the cusp of facing eternity (whatever that may mean). That's an apples-to-oranges comparison according to the law, the majority view of both women and men, and numerous other religious sensibilities that are not your own.

Let's be honest: No one on Earth really knows WTF despite all the so-called sacred texts from a quintillion religions down through the ages. Consequently, the Supreme Court essentially compromised on all of these existential questions, which Homo sapiens aren't really equipped to answer, even when claiming to know the mind of a preferred cloud being. Does an ant comprehend a whole city to navigate its tiny section of the sidewalk or to live its life to the fullest within the constraints of its form?

All we can do is ask the questions and hopefully understand at least a sliver of a wider, truly astonishing reality. Some of the most serious injuries within a society occur when arrogant pissants (again, not talking about Doorknobs here) think they know all the key answers and then use them as cudgels against all those evil nonbelievers. Roe v. Wade seems fair enough in my humble opinion even though it has torn our nation apart with yet another unbridgeable political schism. So what's new?

Do Republicans get abortions? I do not. I personally do not feel that it is a mans choice.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/25/a-republican-theme-on-abortions-its-ok-for-me-evil-for-thee

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/otm-when-republicans-wanted-abortion-rights

https://news.gallup.com/poll/246278/abortion-trends-party.aspx

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/05/22/abortion-law-republican-and-conservative-women-dont-all-agree/3749202002/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2134814?seq=1

The government only administers SS.. It is not tax money at all. We paid into that system and the money is ours. But somehow Trump gets away with using it as leverage to screw working people.

The door is never opened by another for conflation or deflection. Worn_out, you opened that door on your own.

Mr Deepspace:

Here's a simple question. Why would someone abort a fetus?

Answer: to keep the fetus from becoming a viable human being.

BTW it's Thom specious argument that President Trump and the Republicans are responsible for the deaths in the pandemic, that opened the door for my argument that Democrats are responsible for 800,000 + deaths annually as a result of abortions.

Thank you! I believe the time of painting Democrats as evil has expired. That's just not gonna work for elections anymore. We see what having GOP in charge has done. This pandemic has opened our eyes and our minds.

Boom -- another lie! Democrats don't "largely favor" aborting a fetus (which is not a viable human being). That painful decision is a very private one for each individual woman, consulting her god, her doctor, and the law of the land. It has nothing to do with someone else's religious, political, or personal opinions.

The big election is just six months away, and Republicans are still advocating against women's rights? Noted.

Yup, I'm staying hunkered down too, fortunately in a valley surrounded by large tracts of state and national forests, including several hundred square miles of designated wilderness areas (more of that evil socialism). Improved campgrounds with toilets are closed of course, due to heavy maintenance requirements, but the roads and trails are still open.

Social distancing is not a problem in these remote areas, and, with a few notable exceptions (teenage parties, uneducated tourists, criminal activity, etc.) most people who enjoy the woods also respect it. That means common-sense fire safety (first and foremost), pack in/pack out (no littering), back-country toilet hygiene, no negative impact on flora and fauna, no vandalism ...basically, no trace of the human-animal ever having passed through a fragile ecosystem. These are things every child should be taught.

I feel bad for our fellow citizens cooped up in the mega-population centers that, in the interests of greedy developers, have not had enough open public land set aside for the little people to spread out and enjoy life more fully. Most cities are designed to pack 'em in like rats, even when they recreate.

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