TitanTiger

8 minutes ago, Strychnine said:

I feel like he had to have received advice from more than one coach to change positions.  Was playing QB just the hill he wanted to die on?

Apparently.  And I get it.  He's not the first guy to be the stud QB in high school or college to not see they don't have what it takes to play the position at the next level.  Tebow could have been an outstanding TE/H-back in the pros for years, for instance.  But Robby also has had certain people close to him in his ear telling him how amazing he is and that the coaches don't see it or whatever.  No coach has given him a fair shake, no one has really developed him, so on and so on.  And "you can be the star QB" is what he wants to hear so he discounts what everyone else tells him.

They look like cheap knockoffs. Amateur hour.

29 minutes ago, AuCivilEng1 said:

Embrace the drop shadows. 
 

They looked terrible on every team that jumped on that fad.  Not every fashion trend should be recycled.

20 hours ago, AuCivilEng1 said:

Team drop shadow! Gimme the orange facemask on the home jerseys too!

12 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

But where?😉

The shame of it is, the kid is an outstanding athlete.  He's just never been able to be consistently accurate or consistently and calmly stay in the pocket, read a defense, and deliver it to the right person.  He'll show flashes but then revert to bad habits.  And he's now a senior.

I think if he would embrace a move to WR or DB, he could be a serious weapon for an SEC level team.

7 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

Where to now?

The bench.

...backup QB at South Carolina coming out of the spring.  Shane Beamer names redshirt freshman LaNorris Sellers the starter after spring practice.

https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/sports/college/usc/2024/05/07/south-carolina-football-shane-beamer-names-lanorris-sellers-starting-quarterback/73596602007/#:~:text=COLUMBIA — South Carolina football coach,is the Gamecocks' starting quarterback.

He did state that, like all of the positions, Sellers will have to continue to compete with Ashford in the fall to hold on to the starting role.

12 minutes ago, Aufan59 said:

I think this is the underlying point.  There is no comparison.

 

So my point remains, if abortion before viability is not legal, then the person in the womb has extra rights.  The right to use another person’s body, at the detriment of another person’s rights.

No, your point contradicts itself.  The second one person has the right to kill another, the person initiating the killing has more rights.  And while "bodily autonomy" is certainly an important right, rights don't really get more important than the right not to be killed by someone else when you've done nothing to deserve it.

12 minutes ago, Aufan59 said:

I’m not saying that this is wrong.  But it certainly is a new right with no similar cases.  A new right that needs to be established, not just assumed to be true.  It certainly contradicts “all men are created equal”.

We assume the right of the innocent not to be killed.  This doesn't need to be established.  It's a basic bedrock tenet of human dignity.

12 minutes ago, Aufan59 said:

While there are no examples of this extra right being granted anywhere else, there are many examples of the right to bodily autonomy being protected.  Even examples that result in the intentional death of another person.  For example I can kill someone who is actively kidnapping me.  

Someone who is kidnapping you is not innocent and is an active threat to you. Considering what we know of people that kidnap others, there's a high likelihood that they will injure or kill you.  Killing them to escape this situation is not analogous to anything we're discussing.

12 minutes ago, Aufan59 said:

There are countless cases protecting our bodily autonomy, but none protecting a right to another person’s bodily autonomy.

I’m glad to hear more arguments why extra rights should be granted to a certain group of people at the detriment of others.  But for me to be convinced, these rights need solid footing, without arbitrary means of removal, and generally adhere to the concept that all men are created equal.  

It's not "extra rights."  It's a hierarchy of existing rights.  Some rights are of higher importance than others.  The right of the innocent not to be killed outranks the right basically all other rights.  It's a pluperfect of example of a first order right.

13 hours ago, Aufan59 said:

I appreciate the response, and I will respond to your points, but the question still remains, when else, aside from pregnancy, is one person entitled to use another person’s body?

Perhaps nothing.  But that's my point - pregnancy is a unique circumstance that isn't analogous to any of these other examples such as organ transplants.

13 hours ago, Aufan59 said:

A mother can give up all legal obligations to their child, and a person can adopt legal obligations of a stranger child.  The familial relationship is not what determines the legal obligation.  And even so, a familial relationship does not oblige use of the body, I don’t have the rights to my mom’s kidney.

A mother can relinquish the child - via Safe Haven drop-off locations (no questions asked), giving the child up for adoption, etc if they don't want to be a mother or feel unable to properly care for the child.  What they don't get to do is give up their obligations to the child by shooting them in the head, leaving them in the woods for wild animals to take, or letting them starve to death.

As I said, pregnancy is different.

13 hours ago, Aufan59 said:

Consenting to sex is not consenting to third person being able to use your body.  Knowingly and intentionally becoming pregnant and giving birth does not obligate the mother to care for the child, as we’ve already established with adoption and safe haven laws.

Consenting to sex - the one human activity on earth we all know and understand is how one gets pregnant - is consenting to the possibility of pregnancy.  

And as we've already established, the legal ability to give a child up for adoption is not the same thing as the legal ability to kill it.

13 hours ago, Aufan59 said:

But the bigger point is, why does consent of the mother matter?  Or in other words, when does a child of rape gain their rights not to be killed?

I get that this is an interesting side note and we can have another thread about the edge cases and abortion, but let's stick to the subject we've started on.

13 hours ago, Aufan59 said:

I think this is a fair point, but to clarify there is no such thing as a non-terminal person.  Someone’s life isn’t less valuable solely because they are going to die in the future.

I realize we will all die some day.  But the only reason the organ transplant recipient is in this discussion is because they have a terminal condition other than "just living."  A part of their body has ceased to function normally and without intervention they will die.  It wasn't a question of who is more valuable.  It's just to point out that there is nothing medically/physically wrong with the child in this scenario other than a third party doesn't want them.  And that one is a passive non-act toward a stranger who the potential donor has no obligations to while the other is a hostile active move to kill a healthy individual.

13 hours ago, Aufan59 said:

For all intents, actively killing the person in the womb is the same as removing them from them womb and letting them die on their own.  The underlying point is the same, you are denying them use of your body.

It's still an intentional act to kill another human being, which differentiates it from any of your transplant scenarios.

13 hours ago, Aufan59 said:

We agree point 1 and 2 are weak, I don’t care to argue them much further.  Point 3 is interesting to me, but a non-starter as consent for sex or conception seems like a very arbitrary way to decide the rights of a person.

We have all sort of legal precedent for a person being liable and responsible for actions they take that can predictably lead to certain outcomes.  Even if they didn't originally intend for a certain bad end result, they are still responsible and legally liable for it because it was a foreseeable and reasonable possibility.  It's not a non-starter to say the same of choosing to engage in sex knowing that making babies is one of the primary functions of sex in the first place.

13 hours ago, Aufan59 said:

Point 4 is most compelling to me and actually gets to the question I have, what other situation does one person have the rights to use another person’s body?  What gives a person the right to use another person’s body?

Perhaps there aren't any others, but that's the entire point - pregnancy is a completely different animal.

On 4/21/2024 at 2:31 AM, Aufan59 said:

Why not?

Name one other situation where one person is entitled to use another person’s body.

Sorry, we had both our kids home from college over the last week and one of them was dealing with some health issues, so I haven't been as active.  

That said, there are a few differences I can think of.

First, the dying person on the organ transplant list is a stranger to the person who is a match. We don’t have any (legal) obligations towards strangers, especially to perform actions that go above and beyond ordinary courtesy and kindness. However, a child who is growing inside a woman’s uterus is not a stranger. It is the mother's own son or daughter. The analogy fails because it assumes that a woman has no more obligation to her own child than she does to a random stranger. Parents have obligations to their own children that they don’t have towards total strangers and the government demands and enforces these obligations.

Second, an organ transplant involves an unnatural use of body parts, whereas pregnancy involves the natural use of them. A kidney inside your own body is designed to be used for your body. It was not made to be surgically removed and placed into another person’s body. That’s an artificial or unnatural use (and the ongoing doses of immunosuppressant drugs kinda points to this being true), even as good of an end result that the transplant is. This is not the case with being pregnant. When the mother is pregnant, the child growing inside her is in exactly the place where human beings are designed to gestate: a woman's uterus. That organ is the natural and proper organ to gestate another human being. There is nothing unnatural about it. It’s designed to provide physiological support for another human body, unlike your kidney, which is designed to provide physiological support for your body.

Third, in the organ transplant situation, the potential donor has not done anything that places the burden of a stranger’s health in their hands. They has nothing to do with the health crisis this stranger is in. It's a burden that has been imposed on them against their will. That’s not the case with a pregnancy (or at least 99% of them - see below). When a woman becomes pregnant, it is because she has voluntarily engaged in the very act known to cause pregnancy: sex. When you consent to sex, you consent to the possibility of getting pregnant. Obviously rape would be different, but that’s a different discussion altogether and only accounts for less than half a percent of all abortions (according to Planned Parenthood’s own data).

And finally, the organ transplant situation involves refusing to donate body parts to a stranger who has a terminal illness, while abortion is an intentional killing of a woman’s own healthy child. In other words, the former involves passively allowing someone who is terminal to die while the latter (abortion) involves the intentional and physical act of killing through chemical means or physical dismemberment of a healthy, non-terminal, human being. Put another way, though I may have right to refuse to donate my kidney to a dying patient, that doesn’t mean I have the right to shoot them in the head instead. Allowing someone to die is not morally equivalent to intentional killing.

I think all for the reasons above are good enough to point out important differences, though for me personal, #3 and #4 are the strongest ones making that point.

 

6 hours ago, Aufan59 said:

This is a very loose definition of kill.  Have you killed every person that has died on the organ transplant list?

An abortion isn’t analogous to that. 

7 hours ago, Aufan59 said:

To posit that the baby has rights to the mother’s body is to posit they aren’t equal.

To posit that bodily autonomy means that one human being gets to kill another human being for it is to posit that they aren't equal either.  There are hierarchies of rights.  And the right for an innocent person not to be killed is paramount among them.  You're elevating your concept of bodily autonomy above everything.

53 minutes ago, Aufan59 said:

You’re creating straw men and distractions that have nothing to do with the point.  Why introduce an argument about a third party father assaulting a pregnant woman?  Or the mother ingesting illegal drugs that harm another person?  Irrelevant. 
 

bull****. 

You argued about parental duties. I simply  pointed out that these parental duties begin long before the child is born.   passing through a birth canal is not what initiates them. 
 

53 minutes ago, Aufan59 said:

Anyways, let’s distill the argument:

 -we agree that personhood and rights begin at conception

- we agree that a mother can legally forfeit her obligations to the child via adoption and safe haven laws

- we disagree on when the mother can legally forfeit her obligations to the child

Actually, I would say that we don’t disagree so much on when but on how.  A woman can decide very early on she has no intention of being this child’s mother. She can begin the process of having someone adopt her child upon birth right then.

But you can’t decide not to feed the baby because it is a human person that is dependent upon you and/or others to live.  It is the right not to be killed that trumps all others.

53 minutes ago, Aufan59 said:

My argument: a person is never obligated to give up their bodily autonomy for another person.  For example, you aren’t legally obligated to donate a kidney to save your child’s life.  Likewise, you aren’t legally obligated to carry your child until viability.  

However once the baby is viable outside of the womb, abortion is obviously a violation of their rights.

It is as if viability is a great line in the sand to draw to respect individual rights?  If only they decided that like 50 years ago.

And as I said, even outside of the womb, a mother is giving up bodily autonomy. So evidently there are cases where your bodily autonomy is not a greater right than the right for the child not to be killed through your direct action or neglect.  Bodily autonomy is not an absolute right.  

1 hour ago, Aufan59 said:

We agree on adoption!

Well at least that’s one thing. 
 

1 hour ago, Aufan59 said:

There is no legal obligation for a mother to giver up her bodily autonomy for her child.

Unless you give a child up for adoption via Safe Haven or otherwise, you give up your bodily autonomy (as well as other kinds of autonomy) whether the child is in the womb or out of it. You do not get to avoid these responsibilities in either situation and cause the death of another human being as a result. 
 

1 hour ago, Aufan59 said:

Also, none of these examples counter my point that the woman and child are both people with equal rights. 

The problem isn’t the idea  the problem is that you aren’t actually arguing with consistency that both humans have equal rights. 

1 hour ago, Aufan59 said:

I agree that these people should be punished as if the baby in womb was a person.

I’m glad, but the point is that we have parental duties to children even before they are born, not just after. 
 

1 hour ago, Aufan59 said:

I don’t think you aren’t paying attention but my argument is that the baby is a person with equal rights!

I think you might be agreeing with me!

You really aren’t and no I’m not.  

Just now, Aufan59 said:

I don’t think you are familiar with safe haven laws.  Mothers are allowed to legally give up their new borns to the state.

I'm quite familiar.  Perhaps you're not familiar with adoption laws.  Mothers are allowed legally to give up a child they don't want or don't feel able to keep for adoption.

Parental duties start before the child is born.  It's one of the reasons a father who assaults the mother while the child is in the womb and causes a miscarriage is subject to criminal penalties, up to and including murder.  It's why if a mother causes harm to her unborn child by abusing illegal drugs, she is also liable for criminal penalties.  All these duties don't magically come into play because a head pokes out the opening of a vagina.
 

3 minutes ago, Aufan59 said:

My point is that no human should be forced to give up their bodily autonomy for another person.
 

You’re making a false comparison to parental duties, which don’t require giving up bodily autonomy to fulfill. 

I'm really not.  You're forcing me to use my body (that bottle ain't gonna levitate at the baby's mouth, much less mix itself), my time, my energy, and my money to keep another human being alive under threat of law.  

Just now, Aufan59 said:

There are many ways from preventing a baby from starving, including methods that don’t give the baby rights to another person’s body.  Maybe you have heard of baby formula?

Ok, so I can just sit a can of powdered formula next to them and I'm done?  Or are you going to make me mix it with water, put it in a bottle and hold the damn thing for them too?

Just now, Aufan59 said:

Feel free to presume my position, but it is based on all humans having equal rights.  Which is what America was founded on and what Roe v Wade was decided on.\

I'm not presuming.  I'm calling what you claim to be your position illogical.

23 minutes ago, Aufan59 said:

I agree in principle, but we must be careful with how you define “power to kill”.

 

In the case of abortion, the mother is not granting the use of her body to another human.  That human is free to live their life without the mother.

That's quite the linguistic gymnast routine there.  If that logic is true, why do we prosecute parents for allowing a baby to starve to death?  Isn't the infant free to live their life without the mom or dad having to be responsible for feeding them?

Look, if your position is simply that the mother's rights are more important, just say that.  At least that's an honest take even if I disagree with it.  But this other thing is nonsense.

10 minutes ago, Aufan59 said:

Incrementalism is a new concept to me but completely unarguable.  America was founded on individual liberty, in a gigantic, revolutionary, non-incremental step.  It was not founded in “steps that the culture can handle”.  That never would have worked.

There are many examples of this, and Roe v. Wade is a great one.  It did not establish “exceptions where it’s ok to kill innocent human beings”.  It established that a mother and child have perfectly equal rights, and neither one is entitled to the other person’s body.

Culture says that the person inside the womb has more rights than the person with the womb.  But the founding principles of America say they both are equal people.

The second you give one human being the power to kill another innocent human being, you've firmly committed to a paradigm where mother and child do not have perfectly equal rights.

30 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

I think these were our earliest arguments. 😉

I believe you're right.  You saw that whole transformation in real time.  

1 minute ago, TexasTiger said:

A lot of folks and media might call you…progressive.😉

Ha!

At some point I just decided that it was impossible to sign up for the whole slate of policy positions from either party and I was just going to stop trying.  Sometimes Democrats/progressives have the better take on an issue, sometimes conservatives/Republicans do, and other times some position that borrows from both is best.  I also find it impossible to sign on to either party's positions on every issue and follow Jesus.  And that's what I'm striving to filter my politics through now.

14 minutes ago, CoffeeTiger said:

...but I don't want the Democrats to become the type of party that a voter like Titan would be glad to vote for.....because that would mean the Democrats would just be indistinguishable from  the early-mid 2000's Republican party, which isn't what a vast majority of the Democrat base in on board for.

I don't think I'd make many mid-2000s Republicans happy either.  I'm in favor of universal health care, paid parental leave, and closing of tax loopholes that allow millionaires and billionaires to be taxed at lower rates than people who are primarily paid through salary/hourly wages. I'm in favor of incentivizing businesses as well as colleges and universities to have on-site child care or helping people be able to finish their education even if they get pregnant and have children.  In short, I'm pretty economically flexible if I think it's a worthwhile investment in people, furthers a culture of life and such.

I'm also in favor of more restrictions on high powered, rapid-fire rifles such as AR-15s, red flag laws and other restrictions.

I think that undocumented immigrants who have been here for several years with gainful employment and no felonies should be given a path to citizenship even as I think we need to get a handle on the southern border and know/document every single person who comes through.

If I thought about it long enough, I could come up with some more examples.

I want an alternative to the GOP - yes, as presently constituted.  But I'm not clamoring for a return to the GWB years either.  I ended up opposing the Iraq War and our rationale for going in there in the first place. 

21 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

Progressive is such a vague term I once embraced it myself. “Progress”? Sure, I’m for progress. Now I avoid and am assiduously wary of labels folks loosely throw around. I’m more interested in concrete facts. Here again your “argument” is the LA Times cheered the label.

I'm using the label because that's what Democrats have moved to in lieu of "liberal" which was pretty successfully associated with things like being weak on crime, big government, wacko on social issues, and so on.

I'd also argue that they moved to "progressive" because they've become fundamentally illiberal the last decade or so, but that's neither here nor there.

My assertion is that while some of Trump's increasing of the deficit could be explained (by many) in terms of tax cuts that did benefit a lot of middle class people and spending that had to happen for a once in a century pandemic that cratered the economy, Biden is spending at very high rates even without the pandemic as an excuse.

21 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

What are the damn facts? A bipartisan infrastructure bill? Bipartisan support for Ukraine & Israel? A bipartisan bill to support making computer chips in the USA? You said centrists don’t see his POLICIES as “normal.” Yet, when pressed you can’t make the case and instead take cheap shots when I’m trying to understand what you mean by that assertion.

Is it your honest opinion that Biden is governing as a moderate?  Or is he governing moderate on some things and more as a progressive on others?  How much of the moderate side is due to being held back by a Republican Senate?  Do you think he'd show similar restraint if the Dems took the WH, House and Senate this fall?

21 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

And even this is an overstatement, as i demonstrated with a policy you then conveniently ignored:

And then his full-on embrace of trans cult

Trans activists aren’t happy with his policy on that at all. I wish his messaging (and understanding) on the issue was better, but the actual policy I excerpted is pretty middle of the road.

Ok, I'll moderate the comment to "too much embrace of the trans ideology and messaging."  Not "full-on."  He's not as batshit crazy and radical as trans activists, though that's about one of the highest bars to clear in existence.

I think it's more than a messaging problem.  I think it's a governance problem.  When you have the L.A. Times cheering on the president for governing as a progressive I think it's pretty telling.  They don't see it as a bug or an anomaly, but a feature.  And it's a feature that gives people who might not usually or at least automatically support a Democrat in elections pause.  I don't think he's actually behaved as moderate as his persona would have led me to believe.

The Republicans sold out to their crazies a while back.  The Democrats don't have to.  Frankly, they barely have to listen to them at all given the shift by the GOP.  I wish they'd do so more obviously.