The Supreme Court discussion thread - Page 4 - Politics and Society -- Two Plus Two Poker Forums

LOL

Abortion is the termination of a viable human life. It's negative by definition.
The problem is you're dealing with two lives so it's a complicated issue.
And guys like you don't do complicated. You do simple minded.

Sanger was a eugenics supporter does not equal the average abortion is based on eugenics. Fail.

Getting rid of a human life because it's convenient, or life improvement, is eugenics. Once again, every discussion has to be based on your interpretation of things, which is almost always half-baked bullshit. You don't agree, so you go right to ad hominems, attempting to explain people's motivations in the least charitable way. That's why your question is stupid. There are obviously two opposing viewpoints, one of which you give no degree of seriousness to, so you make **** up. Abortion is simple, it's either a human life, or it's not. You don't do honesty.

I have no idea why you engage me.

Last edited by itshotinvegas; 06-29-2020 at 04:43 PM.

Quote

06-29-2020 , 04:42 PM

#77

Rococo

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 18,174

Quote:

Originally Posted by itshotinvegas

To a great many, abortion is eugenics

A "great many" people believe a "great many" things that are not true.

Some people get abortions when doctors confirm that the child will have profound disabilities. But I'm not aware of any other systematic practice w/r/t to abortion that could possibly qualify as eugenics.

Quote

06-29-2020 , 04:44 PM

#78

Victor

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 72,232

margaret sanger was a racist therefore the libs 75 years later are hypocrites and abortion should be illegal

Quote

06-29-2020 , 04:44 PM

#79

well named

poorly undertitled

Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 78,077

Quote:

Originally Posted by itshotinvegas

Getting rid of a human life because it's convenient, or life improvement, is eugenics.

This is wrong. Eugenics is about trying to shape the direction of the evolution of human genetics towards a very general goal. It's in the name. An individual choosing to have an abortion for personal reasons is not practicing eugenics. Similarly, a couple choosing to use prophylactic birth control methods to avoid having a third child are also not practicing eugenics.

Quote

06-29-2020 , 04:51 PM

#80

itshotinvegas

banned

Join Date: Jul 2019 Posts: 7,899

Quote:

Originally Posted by well named

This is wrong. Eugenics is about trying to shape the direction of the evolution of human genetics towards a very general goal. It's in the name. An individual choosing to have an abortion for personal reasons is not practicing eugenics. Similarly, a couple choosing to use birth control methods to avoid having a third child is also not practicing eugenics.

I disagree, I very much believe eugenics is practiced at the micro-level (i.e. individual), even if unwittingly. A better life outcome is the entire reason to get an abortion, other than medical necessity. You may not ascribe a better life outcome of the person getting the abortion to not trying to shape the human race, but that ignores the reasons they want a better life outcome, in most cases. Further, any law that would prevent an abortion is not going to be accepted by the left, which opens the door to eugenics being practiced, even if not at scale, and only at the individual level. A person does not have to justify an abortion.

Quote

06-29-2020 , 04:57 PM

#81

itshotinvegas

banned

Join Date: Jul 2019 Posts: 7,899

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rococo

It does not have to be systematic.

Quote

06-29-2020 , 04:58 PM

#82

well named

poorly undertitled

Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 78,077

The problem is that a person making a decision to achieve "a better life outcome" is not eugenics. At the very least, this is not how the term is commonly defined or understood, and by your definition all use of birth control is eugenics. Which I think should be clearly an absurd conclusion. That was the point of my last sentence.

Quote

06-29-2020 , 05:15 PM

#83

SiMor29

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 4,985

So the judiciary in the US, and indeed the supreme court, do seem to be highly political, with decisions generally forming along political lines rather than impartial interpretation on law, the constitution etc. My question, has it always been like that? I thought they were an independent branch?

Quote

06-29-2020 , 05:16 PM

#84

SiMor29

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 4,985

Quote:

Originally Posted by well named

I'm not sure these right wing states are concerned by eugenics much. Did some of them not have laws on their book, or maybe still do, that state you can sterilise women if they are deemed to be ******ed or similar?

Quote

06-29-2020 , 05:19 PM

#85

well named

poorly undertitled

Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 78,077

Quote:

Originally Posted by SiMor29

I don't know if any such laws still exist (I hope not!) but in any case I think I'm just arguing with itshot's use of the term and not much else. Debates about abortion don't tend to be focused on eugenics at all. It's more of a sideline that comes up because of Sanger.

Quote

06-29-2020 , 05:24 PM

#86

goofyballer

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 70,719

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rococo

Dahlia Lithwick disagrees with you (and I agree with her)

Quote:

Still, John Roberts is not a “swing justice” in the manner of a Sandra Day O’Connor or an Anthony Kennedy. Roberts has strategy, while Kennedy had feelings. Roberts is a capable tactician who understands history, public opinion, and how much pressure any one institution can withstand without breaking. He may also be one of the only sitting justices who understands how the modern news cycle works, and he has managed to surf that cycle flawlessly, this term as in prior years. If he has a superpower, it is that he knows how to do consequential things in small ways, at a moment in which everyone else is swinging for the fences.

Quote:

Not only that, he goes further and does essentially what he did in last year’s census case and last week’s challenge to the DACA rescission: He hints that essentially any old pretextual defense of an abortion law will serve; he just doesn’t like when lazy litigants offer up sloppy pretexts.
...
As was the case in the census litigation, and the DACA litigation, the outcome here is correct, but one can easily reverse-engineer the chief justice’s opinion to say, “Come back to me with the right road map and I’m all yours,” and in fact, he actually grabs your pencil, flips over the napkin, and sketches the map out at no extra cost.

As Mark Joseph Stern and I wrote this time last year, “Lie better next time” could easily be the holding of June Medical, and states seeking to restrict abortion rights can now do precisely that, without running afoul of this ruling, so long as they ground the laws in better pretextual arguments about maternal health and fetal life and women’s need to make better choices. Roberts has turned a substantive constitutional right into a paper-thin debate about regulatory justifications.

Quote:

But the drumbeat that fêtes Roberts as a “liberal” or a “moderate” or “evolving” fails to capture what he is. And he is a lifelong conservative, an avowed abortion opponent, and a supporter of capacious religious liberties that will swallow crucial civil liberties who also still cares—mercifully—about appearances, institutions, truth, stability, the appearance of adulthood and competence, and above all, the long game. This decision was a small one, in response to an audacious law that should have been struck down without a hearing. At some point, conservative legal activists, and Justice Department lawyers doing Bill Barr’s crazed bidding, will stop passing audacious new rules that appear to have been written in green crayon on the walls of a playpen. At some point, they will lawyer carefully and effectively again, as John Roberts has been doing since he was a very careful young lawyer himself. When that happens, they will have five votes at the high court, and John Roberts will have shown them how to do the big one.

Quote

06-29-2020 , 05:31 PM

#87

SiMor29

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 4,985

Quote:

Originally Posted by well named

I know, I know, I'm just pointing to the utter rank hypocrisy of it all. I'm a hypocrite myself, but they just take the piss.

Quote

06-29-2020 , 05:42 PM

#88

Rococo

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 18,174

Quote:

Originally Posted by itshotinvegas

Getting rid of a human life because it's convenient, or life improvement, is eugenics.

You are just using your own idiosyncratic definition of eugenics. As a quick google search would confirm, that is not how the overwhelming majority of people would define the term.

Quote

06-29-2020 , 05:48 PM

#89

David Sklansky

Administrator

Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 17,085

Sometimes one gets the feeling that Roberts, before making his decision, contemplates whether that decision will harm people, rather than doing what's right.

Quote

06-29-2020 , 05:50 PM

#90

SiMor29

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 4,985

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rococo

You are just using your own idiosyncratic definition of eugenics. As a quick google search would confirm, that is not how the overwhelming majority of people would define the term.

It's just typical of any pro-life arguments that I've ever heard. Attach nasty words or words with negative connotations to their argument to imply that the person who is pro-choice is by proxy all of those things. It's pretty sleazy, to be honest, if I were to play that game.

Quote

06-29-2020 , 05:51 PM

#91

SiMor29

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 4,985

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Sklansky

Sometimes one gets the feeling that Roberts, before making his decision, contemplates whether that decision will harm people, rather than doing what's right.

Doing what's right for whom?

Quote

06-29-2020 , 05:54 PM

#92

Rococo

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 18,174

Quote:

Originally Posted by goofyballer

Dahlia Lithwick disagrees with you (and I agree with her)

It is not at all clear to me that Dalia Lithwick would disagree with anything that I wrote.

And I never characterized Roberts as a liberal or a swing voter, at all.

Quote

06-29-2020 , 06:01 PM

#93

Rococo

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 18,174

Also, there is a reason that a lot of statutes that restrict abortion (like the Alabama statute) "are written in green crayon on the walls of a playpen." State legislators are trying to write statutes that can be upheld only if the entire Roe/Casey framework is discarded and the cases are overturned. That's the entire point of the statute. And if Roberts wanted to do that, he would take the bait.

Quote

06-29-2020 , 06:05 PM

#94

goofyballer

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 70,719

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rococo

It is not at all clear to me that Dalia Lithwick would disagree with anything that I wrote.

Um, I can find something, maybe you didn't read the whole article (or even my quotations?):

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rococo

You act like he is playing some sort of long game, but that's preposterous.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dahlia Lithwick

And he is a lifelong conservative, an avowed abortion opponent, and a supporter of capacious religious liberties that will swallow crucial civil liberties who also still cares—mercifully—about appearances, institutions, truth, stability, the appearance of adulthood and competence, and above all, the long game.

The entire theme of the article is how this fits into Roberts' long game whose existence you called "preposterous"!

Quote

06-29-2020 , 06:08 PM

#95

RFlushDiamonds

cool

Join Date: Apr 2013 Posts: 5,969

Quote:

Originally Posted by itshotinvegas

So I'll take that as a"No, there is no evidence that abortion is based on eugenics today even though Sanger advocated for it. You called me out on my bullshit and now I'm going to cry and humiliate myself further in this forum."

Quote

06-29-2020 , 06:20 PM

#96

RFlushDiamonds

cool

Join Date: Apr 2013 Posts: 5,969

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rococo

I'll put the question to you. If Roberts wants to overturn Roe, then why hasn't he pushed the court in that direction? He certainly has had opportunities. You act like he is playing some sort of long game, but that's preposterous. If Roberts wanted to overturn Roe, now would be the time. If a Democrat is elected president for the next eight years, you very easily could wind up with a liberal majority on the court.

Roberts is no liberal. But he is concerned with preserving the reputation of the court. He knows that delivering a complete victory on abortion to the religious right would be disastrous for the court.

And as an aside, Roberts probably thinks (correctly) that it would be terrible politics for the GOP. From the GOP's perspective, the chase to eliminate reproductive rights is good politics. But actually capturing the fugitive (reproductive rights) is terrible, terrible politics. If Roe is ever overturned, you pretty much can pencil in a Democrat as the next POTUS. I probably would bet on a Democratic majority in both houses as well.

Well, I see the same playbook being used.

The court's reputation is already gone. Scalia died at the ranch of people who had a case before him as I recall.

Roberts is trying to put perfume on a goat but the goat will soon kick him.
It's what goats do.

The US is basically a third world country and this is the new normal.
Open corruption.

But you know...we have to save the reputation of the court..lol.
Roberts/jerk off.

Quote

06-29-2020 , 07:21 PM

#97

itshotinvegas

banned

Join Date: Jul 2019 Posts: 7,899

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rococo

You are just using your own idiosyncratic definition of eugenics. As a quick google search would confirm, that is not how the overwhelming majority of people would define the term.

You are right, but I was actually being metaphorical. I'm doing precisely what the left is doing to the word racism.

Quote

06-29-2020 , 07:23 PM

#98

itshotinvegas

banned

Join Date: Jul 2019 Posts: 7,899

Quote:

Originally Posted by RFlushDiamonds

This is just dumb. You have no idea what reasons people are using to get abortions, but you somehow know they are killing human life for altruistic reasons.

Once again, you need to stop making things personal. Trust me, I can make you look like the ****ing idiot you are, any time I want. #toxiccult.