Pity for the USA

[JerryBaumchen 1,048]

10 hours ago, ryoder said:

I first heard this a few years ago, and it is even more obviously true today:

Republicans care about your life...right up until the moment of your birth; After that, you're on your own.

Hi Robert,

And it was Joycelyn Elders who said:

'Republicans love the fetus & hate the child.'

Jerry Baumchen

[tonyhays 86]

1 hour ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Robert,

And it was Joycelyn Elders who said:

'Republicans love the fetus & hate the child.'

Jerry Baumchen

I'll see your Joycelyn Elders and raise you a George Carlin. 

'If you're pre-born, you're fine.  If you're pre-school, you're fucked'.

 

[GeorgiaDon 340]

I suspect that, behind the facade of "caring" for the "pre-born", the real reason for Republican devotion to the "pro-life" mantra is a desire to use pregnancy as a means to exert control over women who dare to challenge their perception of the "right" (as in "correct") way to live.

Don

[SkyDekker 1,121]

11 minutes ago, GeorgiaDon said:

I suspect that, behind the facade of "caring" for the "pre-born", the real reason for Republican devotion to the "pro-life" mantra is a desire to use pregnancy as a means to exert control over women who dare to challenge their perception of the "right" (as in "correct") way to live.

Don

I think it is much simpler than that. I think it just boils down to money. Religious groups and people are a good source of funds. Those same groups have religious objections to abortion they want to see codified for the rest of the country and will pay good money to get that done.

[wmw999 2,121]

I think it started in the 1970's as more of a reaction against what was seen as a bulwark of feminism (which is all about the role of women and their agency). It slowly turned into the litmus test, starting more in the 1980's. Once it's a litmus test, then it can bring in the big bucks. 

But a lot more effort was put into defeating the ERA than Roe V Wade in the beginning, at least in my memory. I was a young woman at the time, so fairly aware of all this; it impacted me. 

And in the 1980's litmus tests for politics seemed to become more popular anyway, at least locally.

Wendy P.

[GeorgiaDon 340]

I think that is also true, but they are not mutually exclusive propositions.  The Republican Party is very adept at getting people to pay to support positions that are ultimately not in their own best interest, by re-labeling those positions as "freedom" or opposing positions as "socialism/communism".  It's amazing to me that people are (as just one example, many others could be given) willing to accept filthy air and water (as per airdvr's anti-EPA comment earlier) rather than be subjugated to the so-called "nanny state".  As if any one individual, no matter how determined they may be to "take care of themselves", can ensure themselves of a healthy environment if it is the financial interests of industry and other players to dump their waste into the air/water/ground. 

Don

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  12 minutes ago, SkyDekker said:

  I think it is much simpler than that. I think it just boils down to money. Religious groups and people are a good source of funds. Those same groups have religious objections to abortion they want to see codified for the rest of the country and will pay good money to get that done.

   

 

[Phil1111 910]

34 minutes ago, GeorgiaDon said:

I suspect that, behind the facade of "caring" for the "pre-born", the real reason for Republican devotion to the "pro-life" mantra is a desire to use pregnancy as a means to exert control over women who dare to challenge their perception of the "right" (as in "correct") way to live.

Don

 

21 minutes ago, SkyDekker said:

I think it is much simpler than that. I think it just boils down to money. Religious groups and people are a good source of funds. Those same groups have religious objections to abortion they want to see codified for the rest of the country and will pay good money to get that done.

You're both overthinking republicans. The Christian right is and has been their base for  a long time. Money is just a consequence, a natural result of that mutual dependence. Thats why the US religions, with the exceptions of the Mormons, made their deal with the devil. Why they signed their souls over to the devil.

Money flows from power. Not the other way around. Because if it were so elections could be bought. i.e. Bloomberg.

"Controlling women" is just a small side show after keeping blacks, brown and yellow people out. Along with the good old boy network that features anti-environmentalists, and large industries.

[airdvr 197]

12 minutes ago, GeorgiaDon said:

I think that is also true, but they are not mutually exclusive propositions.  The Republican Party is very adept at getting people to pay to support positions that are ultimately not in their own best interest, by re-labeling those positions as "freedom" or opposing positions as "socialism/communism".  It's amazing to me that people are (as just one example, many others could be given) willing to accept filthy air and water (as per airdvr's anti-EPA comment earlier) rather than be subjugated to the so-called "nanny state".  As if any one individual, no matter how determined they may be to "take care of themselves", can ensure themselves of a healthy environment if it is the financial interests of industry and other players to dump their waste into the air/water/ground. 

Don

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My anti-EPA position has nothing to do with your definition.  An EPA that is properly contained is a good thing.  Left to run rampant and subjugate laws is not.

[wmw999 2,121]

16 minutes ago, airdvr said:

My anti-EPA position has nothing to do with your definition.  An EPA that is properly contained is a good thing.  Left to run rampant and subjugate laws is not.

I'm guessing that "inconveniences me or someone I know or someone mentioned on the news" = "running rampant."

Wendy P.

[JerryBaumchen 1,048]

16 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

keeping blacks, brown and yellow people out.

Hi Phil, and SkyDekker, and Wendy,

IMO it goes back to the mid-60's; the Civil Rights Act & the Voting Rights Act.  This ended the Solid South voting for the Democrats.

Then Nixon, wanting to make a comeback, began making speeches in the south; and saying that he would put a southerner on the Supreme Court.  

That is what put them into the Republicans pocket; everything else followed from that.

And, then they saw Roe v Wade ( where is most of the effort to overturn it; the south ) and added one more 'hot button' issue to use.

Back in about '67, when I joined the Republican party, they stood for small gov't, balanced budgets, and staying out of your bedroom.

Jerry Baumchen

[billvon 2,396]

22 minutes ago, airdvr said:

My anti-EPA position has nothing to do with your definition.  An EPA that is properly contained is a good thing.  Left to run rampant and subjugate laws is not.

The EPA creates laws.  Laws, by design, subjugate people.  Laws against drunk driving remove your rights and subjugate you to the rule of law.  Laws against murder remove your rights and subjugate you to the rule of law.  Laws against pollution remove your rights and subjugate you to the rule of law.

As we have learned more about the environment, EPA laws have gotten tougher.  We now know that breathing lead is bad for you; hence laws requiring unleaded gas.  We now know that breathing mercury is bad for you; hence the laws requiring emissions limits for coal power plants.  These laws come directly from the Constitution, which tasks Congress to provide for the general welfare of the people of the United States.

In the future, as we learn more about chemistry, biology and public health, those laws will change again and get more restrictive.  There will always be a tradeoff between what is achievable via BACT (best available commercial technology) what is affordable and what gets the most good for the most people.  There will be people on both sides of the argument, as there should be - and compromises will be made.  But those compromises will absolutely result in laws that subjugate people.  (To use your language.)

[airdvr 197]

It's the rampant part Bill...the EPA needs to be reigned in.

[Phil1111 910]

1 minute ago, airdvr said:

It's the rampant part Bill...the EPA needs to be reigned in.

I'll respond to you in the same way I did to Brent. If environmental laws, the EPA, etc. Are so burdensome, so restrictive on corporations, business and people. How is it that other countries and economic zones. Of which the EU is the largest, NAFTA...er ... the trump-Mexico-and little Canada free trade agreement. Can have tougher and more restrictive environmental law?. Yet still compete with the US.

[JerryBaumchen 1,048]

15 minutes ago, airdvr said:

...the EPA needs to be reigned in.

Hi airdvr,

I could give you some credence if you would name one or two issues.

I'm waiting,

Jerry Baumchen

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

1 minute ago, airdvr said:

It's the rampant part Bill...the EPA needs to be reigned in.

Well, there's an emergency rule in place that allows corporations to 'self police', that is, the EPA isn't the one making sure the rules are followed.

Do you trust large corporations to be honest about that?
Or do you think they are going to do whatever makes them the most money?

What do you think about all the abandoned hard-rock mines sprinked throughout the west that are toxic waste sites? Where the mine owners used a wide variety of toxic crap to extract or process the minerals they were extracting and then just left it.

How about the rivers that the mills of various sorts used as convenient toilets. Just dumping all sorts of crap in them. The Cuyahoga caught on fire in Cleveland at the end of the 'free pollution era' in the 60s.

The Fox River near me (empties into Lake Michigan at Green Bay) was a convenient dump for all the paper mills around here. A lot of what they were dumping was PCBs. By the early 70s the river was essentially dead. No edible fish. Unsafe to swim in.
Since that 'rampant' EPA reigned them in, the river has largely come back. Part of that involved a huge dredging project, because PCBs settle to the bottom and don't move (makes the bottom feeder fish like Catfish very toxic). The big paper companies spent a lot of energy trying to fight it. But they put the crap there, they were responsible to get it removed. 

And the very simple fact is that the air in the LA Basin was toxic by the early 70s. Dangerous. People were being advised to move away if they developed respiratory issues. Much of the improvement was due to emissions controls on cars, but a significant portion of the pollution was industrial. 
The air, while far from perfect, is improved by a very large margin. 

If I said I wanted to drive my car 120 mph down the freeway, but those 'rampant' cops were stopping me, you would (correctly) tell me that I shouldn't be doing that, it risks the lives of too many other people.

Well, the EPA is just the 'cops' that stop polluters from risking my life and everyone else's with toxic shit.

[ryoder 1,382]

1 hour ago, airdvr said:

My anti-EPA position has nothing to do with your definition.  An EPA that is properly contained is a good thing.  Left to run rampant and subjugate laws is not.

Agreed. 30 years ago there was a thriving plant near here with 5000 good paying jobs. Then that damned EPA & FBI raided it in 1989, and now it is gone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_contamination_from_the_Rocky_Flats_Plant

[billvon 2,396]

1 hour ago, airdvr said:

It's the rampant part Bill...the EPA needs to be reigned in.

You know, every single time the EPA has done _anything_ the right has said that.

Clean air requirements?  It will drive us into a new depression because industries will shut down permanently!

Leaded gas?  Been breathing that stuff all my life and it's FINE!  It's overreach!

CAFE requirements?  Overrerach!  Government choosing winners and losers!  We will all be driving sub sub compacts and millions will die!

Lead paint?  Overreach!  Let people make their own decisions; we don't need a nanny state!

Safe drinking water act?  Let the local governments decide!  It's not the federal government's job; it's overreach!

 

Yet today even most conservatives accept the value of those things.

So today you are accept most of them as common sense.  It's just the NEW stuff that you consider overreach.  And in 20 years there will be a new generation of right wingers who accept all those things that you object to - but object to the new things because those are REALLY overreach.  In terms of environmental protection, conservatives take pretty similar views to liberals - they just do it 20 years later.

[normiss 622]

9 hours ago, wmw999 said:

I think it started in the 1970's as more of a reaction against what was seen as a bulwark of feminism (which is all about the role of women and their agency). It slowly turned into the litmus test, starting more in the 1980's. Once it's a litmus test, then it can bring in the big bucks. 

But a lot more effort was put into defeating the ERA than Roe V Wade in the beginning, at least in my memory. I was a young woman at the time, so fairly aware of all this; it impacted me. 

And in the 1980's litmus tests for politics seemed to become more popular anyway, at least locally.

Wendy P.

Mrs. America is a pretty good re-tell of that, so far anyway.

[wmw999 2,121]

I need to watch that.

Wendy P.

[jakee 1,254]

15 hours ago, billvon said:

So today you are accept most of them as common sense.  It's just the NEW stuff that you consider overreach.  And in 20 years there will be a new generation of right wingers who accept all those things that you object to - but object to the new things because those are REALLY overreach.  In terms of environmental protection, conservatives take pretty similar views to liberals - they just do it 20 years later.

It's not just the new stuff though - it's the old stuff all over again because once problems have been fixed for enough time they forget what used to happen. We just kinda think it was always like that.

 

Why do we need all those onerous controls on how companies treat the water supply when I've got clean water anyway?

 

No-one's painting my kids' toys with lead paint, so why do we need to keep looking over the shoulders of the toy manufacturers?

 

Everything's fine, so what's the point of all the laws designed to make everything fine?

[Phil1111 910]

US federal social distancing requirements expire today. Donald "I accept no responsibility" trump is NOT renewing them.    Since the commander and chief has already lost more Americans than the Vietnam war. He is aiming to lose more than the Vietnam and Korean war combined. Another 30,000.

 

[turtlespeed 212]

18 hours ago, airdvr said:

It's the rampant part Bill...the EPA needs to be reigned in.

One of the best things the EPA did was the clean water act.

I have seen what contractors, and just random people try to do, either out of ignorance, or apathy.

It can really do harm in the long run.

[ScottishJohn 25]

33 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

US federal social distancing requirements expire today. Donald "I accept no responsibility" trump is NOT renewing them.    Since the commander and chief has already lost more Americans than the Vietnam war. He is aiming to lose more than the Vietnam and Korean war combined. Another 30,000.

 

He can't pack them in at rallies if there is social distancing. 

trump-says-he-plans-to-resume-travel-next-week-with-trip-to-arizona

[airdvr 197]

38 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

US federal social distancing requirements expire today. Donald "I accept no responsibility" trump is NOT renewing them.    Since the commander and chief has already lost more Americans than the Vietnam war. He is aiming to lose more than the Vietnam and Korean war combined. Another 30,000.

 

Absolutely Phil.  It's all his fault.  If he had done things differently no one would have died.

[turtlespeed 212]

6 minutes ago, airdvr said:

Absolutely Phil.  It's all his fault.  If he had done things differently no one would have died.

Better yet, if Hillary was in office right now, No one would have even gotten sick!