Where I stand... because this has apparently been confusing to people...

ThatOwlWoman said:
So -- you claim to be a "small govt." person. Are you in favor of a ban on abortion at either the federal or state level? Or are you in favor of Roe v Wade in that it is based on privacy issues; the privacy of course being the personal decision of the woman and/or her physician and/or her significant other?

I find your claim to be a small govt. person yet aligning with the Republicans to be an oxymoron. Republicans want govt. involved in our personal lives to a degree that other political parties do not. They would ban SSM, civil rights (i.e., anti-discrimination) laws protecting LGBT citizens, abortion, weed, insert religion into the public sector (teaching intelligent design in public schools, school prayer, Christian icons and symbols on/in govt. property, etc.). None of these things comport with a libertarian, small-govt. point of view.
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Damocles said:
The largest reason I align with the republicans is because they are the only ones that will nominate judges like Scalia to either the Court of Appeals or the SCOTUS.

How do I feel about abortion. I think we should, as a people, work to solve the issue of unwanted pregnancy without a direct effort to kill. Basically, I think we should remove the fetus and attempt to incubate ex utero. This would make it so no woman would be forced to be an incubator, and it would, over time, create a second choice for all women (to allow them to choose to incubate in the womb or to incubate in an artificial womb).

We should also make it much cheaper to adopt. Unlike others I have adopted children, it is way too expensive and difficult IMO.
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It must be different in CO; because my daughter adopted 1 girl and 3 boys (all siblings) and the biggest complaint was having the parental rights severed and the time involved to go through the entire process.

By the way, good for you. :good4u:
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
I cannot even imagine a U.S. where the religious do-gooders would go along with your suggestion of an artificial womb, particularly if even a penny of taxpayer money went for R&D for such a thing. Let's say though that 50 years down the road, your invention is created and approved by the FDA. Who then is going to pay for the costs of incubating a fetus for the nine months it takes to grow to maturity? For that matter, who's going to pay to have the fetus removed from the mom? What happens after the fetus is born, who then provides for the child? Who will be his/her parents? The state?

There are plenty of kids waiting for adoptive parents. We don't need to add more to the crowd. We need to make it less expensive and less difficult. Bless you for adopting.
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Damocles said:
It has come to my attention that even people who have known me since p.com days still don't understand that I affiliate with the republican party. Not just affiliate, I am an activist.

On the first days of p.com I registered on that board as a libertarian-leaning Republican. This is what I have always been. I believe in personal liberties and am a strong constitutionalist. Shoot when I was nine I hand copied the constitution and hung that copy in my room, along with hand written "The New Colossus" and (of course) the Declaration of Independence, many flags from the original with 13 stars to the current flag... I'm not kidding. This isn't something my parents did to me, it was something that I believed in...

When I say I believe in personal liberties it means I disagree with the platform on some issues, particularly:

I have always been for Gay Marriage, though I believe that the government should never have been involved with choosing your partners other than to ensure that nobody was victimized. Laws should be against involving minors in marriage (and no, "parental permission" is not good enough, children do not have the capacity to make these lifetime-altering decisions regardless of parental "permission"), or bigamy where one or more partners are unaware of the circumstances (married to two women/men, but the both or one of the women/men do not know of the other for instance). Laws shouldn't exist that give government gifts to one type of relationship over another, because it is none of their business and the constitution simply doesn't give the federal government that kind of power of the minutiae of our lives. This involves 1st Amendment freedoms as well, in that the government pretty much passed anti-bigamy laws to stop "Mormons" from taking more than one wife. If all involved are adults and know the circumstances it is not the place of the government to judge the worthiness of their relationship/s.

I am also anti-prohibition. I believe that such laws only generate the violence that always comes with black-market turf wars and that you should have the ability to wreck your own life if you are an adult. At best, government should involve themselves in helping people out of addiction, not cutting off safe and violence free supply while doing nothing about the demand side of the issue.

I am against the death penalty. I believe a lifetime in prison is enough without government directed murder. The simple reality that we have released so many prisoners since the advent of DNA should compel any intelligent being to understand that even with "confessions" innocents have been imprisoned and executed in the past. This isn't good enough.

While I do have some disagreements with the platform, I do not have the central disagreement that I have with the Democratic Party that cannot see an "issue" without trying to resolve it through laws and corrupted government bureaucracies. On this board, in my experience, and in political culture I see a fundamental divide with that party and my beliefs that cannot be overcome because in every circumstance the first reaction is to pass laws where less government would be the answer that I would work towards. For example, gay marriage... I believe that government shouldn't be involved at all as I explained before, but democrats work towards laws, court decisions, etc. that just add to a list of government-blessed specific and listed relationships. This conflicts with a central belief of mine that the government should not be involved at this level of my, your, or anyone's life.


This is all relatively simplified, but it should be enough to clear up any confusion of where I stand, have always stood, and have never hidden:

I am a Republican, albeit a libertarian (small l) constitutionalist Republican. I am an activist for constitutionalism, limiting the scope of the Federal Government (not to "bring back" any "good ole days" but because I believe that personal liberty is so valuable that it is worth some risk), and I will continue to be an activist for this particular belief. In this I supported candidates like Rand Paul when they are running. I did vote for Trump, but not because I like Trump but because I understand that the President appoints judges and justices and that no democrat will nominate a strict constitutionalist as a judge on any appeals court or as a justice on the supreme court and in no small measure because I could in no way support somebody who broke laws that would have had me still in prison had I taken the same action they did when I was a Russian Translator in the Navy.

Anyway, sorry for the wall of text. I haven't explained this often enough in the past if people I have "known" on this board are still confused as to what party I have always, from the beginning, affiliated myself with.

I can, of course, go more in depth when I have the time and inclination and will use this thread to go there. I hereby designate this as the "ask Damocles" thread where I will try to explain my stances. I promise you this: I will not denigrate or insult you, I will simply and directly try to answer your question honestly regardless of how you ask it herein.
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You sound like a liberal to me.;)
 
Grugore said:
I disagree with you on the death penalty. We can eliminate mistakes by requiring at least two credible witnesses or DNA evidence.
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We could also institute a law; that if evidence was excluded, invented, or just ignored, by the prosecution, then they automatically receive the same sentencing outcome, with no appeals.
 
Damocles said:
Who is going to pay? The same people who pay for pregnancy now... or whatever we come up with to cover those expenses in the long run. If your sole reason to support killing anything is that it might cost you some money then you don't really have a moral platform to stand on. Sometimes there are costs to doing the right thing. I also believe that we can do better with birth control.

And while there are kids waiting for adoptive parents, there are far too many restrictions placed on those who may want to adopt. Often, like a friend who recently wanted to adopt found, there are age restrictions placed by the agencies. Often kids are available for fostering, but not adoption. It really is way too difficult. On this we have agreement.

I believe, like historic genocides of the past (not saying it is the same thing here, just saying like the fact those people who lived then didn't think of it this way), we will eventually look back at the time we used abortion as birth control as an atrocity.
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I can support abortion when it comes to rape, incest, or medically necessary; but I have a problem with numerous abortions, being used as birth control.

I also disagree with a woman being able to decide on abortion, without the father having a say
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
Ding ding ding -- that's a winner. As far as who pays for the fetuses/post-birth children -- that is not my argument; I was playing Devil's advocate from the conservative side since they only care about the pre-born. After that, in conservaworld, you're on your own. Notice that I prefaced my comments with the remark about the religious do-gooders being against such a scheme and not wanting taxpayer funds to go towards it. In other words, it would be a very difficult sell -- to them, not myself.

BTW, the incidence of abortion being used as primary method of b.c. has been dropping, thankfully. (https://www.guttmacher.org/news-rel...-report-using-contraception-month-they-became) To me personally it is abhorrent. Yet it is not *my* place to tell another woman what she can or cannot do with her own body. I hope that we can get over our Puritan squeamishness about discussing sexuality and starting in grade school, even, begin to teach kids how our bodies work, how to prevent pregnancy and STDs, and to talk openly and factually about sexuality.


And while there are kids waiting for adoptive parents, there are far too many restrictions placed on those who may want to adopt. Often, like a friend who recently wanted to adopt found, there are age restrictions placed by the agencies. Often kids are available for fostering, but not adoption. It really is way too difficult. On this we have agreement.

I believe, like historic genocides of the past (not saying it is the same thing here, just saying like the fact those people who lived then didn't think of it this way), we will eventually look back at the time we used abortion as birth control as an atrocity.
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Damocles said:
Depends on what you mean. Should you be allowed to lie about somebody because of the 1st Amendment?
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I'm specifically talking about what Kamala Harris did to Kavanaugh. I think she should be kicked out of the Senate and barred from holding public office in the future for what she did.
 
Damocles said:
I disagree with this statement, or at the very least believe it disagrees with me. Tell me how uncivilized I am some more, it fascinates me. Tell me all about my purported barbarism.
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Not sure if Anne and Margot are going to do this, but I'll give it a shot.

Anyone who claims to be a Republican in today's America...MOST ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO STILL SUPPORT DONALD TRUMP...

...are about as uncivilized as it is possible to be in a (relatively) civilized world.

And those who continue to support Donald Trump ARE barbarians of the most disgusting kind.

But...we all are complicit in our dereliction of duty to nurture and protect the political entity currently in our custody. Each is SCUM...and a barbarian...although calling a modern far-right person a barbarian is coming close to insulting barbarians.

Far right politics is enjoying a world-wide high-point right now...and I suspect civilization will not survive its corruption.

Said another way: Fuck the far right. May each adherent rot in Hell...if there is a Hell.
 
Damocles said:
You must be talking about the real old barracks then. We had class in some of those real old barrack buildings at the bottom of the hill.
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Yep, those are the ones. I know the officers lived down there. I didn't know the Navy and Marines shared a barracks, I thought that was just Marines. I almost had to live in those old barracks at the bottom of the hill. I already had two MOSes when I reported to DLI and the Army wasn't sure they wanted me living with all of the recruits who didn't even have one MOS.
 
Frank Apisa said:
Not sure if Anne and Margot are going to do this, but I'll give it a shot.

Anyone who claims to be a Republican in today's America...MOST ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO STILL SUPPORT DONALD TRUMP...

...are about as uncivilized as it is possible to be in a (relatively) civilized world.

And those who continue to support Donald Trump ARE barbarians of the most disgusting kind.

But...we all are complicit in our dereliction of duty to nurture and protect the political entity currently in our custody. Each is SCUM...and a barbarian...although calling a modern far-right person a barbarian is coming close to insulting barbarians.

Far right politics is enjoying a world-wide high-point right now...and I suspect civilization will not survive its corruption.

Said another way: Fuck the far right. May each adherent rot in Hell...if there is a Hell.
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You are insane...
 
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