Bombadil
1d ago
Oh yeah, true. Nice catch. Doesn't change the overall point though, that this is what euthanasia is supposed to be.
Bombadil
2d ago
Agreed. Modern medicine cannot cure everything. Sometimes accepting death is better than elongating the suffering.
Yeah, born 26 weeks early and with severe brain damage. Also visual impairments, cerebral palsy, and untreatable epileptic seizures. The kid could be kept alive through likely expensive and invasive means, with no hope of alleviating the suffering. But that seems largely pointless. Based on the article, this is not a case that modern medicine is capable of treating, so instead the decision was made to end the life as humanely as possible.
Bombadil
2d ago
Maybe in the US, where Black in general has been its own distinct category. But in Europe, southern Europeans were seen as darker skinned, more temperamental, and just overall different from those in the north or west. People specifically started worrying about black people once we saw immigration from the middle east and Africa.
So this may simply be a cultural issue, where an American places different meanings on "Black" and "White" than Europeans do.
Bombadil
2d ago
Are you trying to be difficult, or do you really not see how the analogy obviously fails?
Bombadil
2d ago
rape
Illegal
banning birth control
not a thing in the west.
lethal injection
Punishment for severe crimes. Not something you can just sign your way into.
Bombadil
3d ago
Different situations entirely. A contract with a private couple is not a contract with the government. And medical procedures forced upon conscripts are generally limited to vaccines.
This is "deal with the devil" territory. Literally selling your unborn child and signing away your bodily autonomy. Let's hope she at least got the ability to spin straw into gold out of it.
Bombadil
3d ago
Bodily autonomy is generally considered quite important and not something that can be signed away.
Bombadil
3d ago
"My body my choice" should apply here, right? It seems rather extreme if the law can force surrogate mothers into abortions. Though I guess dilemmas like this is why surrogacy is illegal many places in the world.
Bombadil
8d ago
Eh, basic kicks and strikes are pretty similar between styles and translate pretty well into MMA. Mastering those basics is supposed to be the mark of a black belt. Some traditional martial arts clubs also do full contact sparring, and some will occasionally host self defense courses led by a bouncer or police officer.
The katas and advanced techniques are generally useless in a fight, and any applicable benefit you get from those (strength, coordination, agility, etc.) can be also achieved through other sports. So at that point it is mostly down to personal preference.
But I would think that any dojo that does actual sparring would at least give some benefit, even if you spend a lot of time learning techniques which main purpose are to be technically impressive and look cool.
Bombadil
8d ago
It is not quite that simple. MMA is the best in terms of actually learning how to fight, but the very elements that make it so good also means it carries a massive risk of injury compared to most other martial arts.
Traditional martial arts may well have a steeper initial learning curve while also having fewer useful things to teach. But a good Karate, Taekwondo, or Jujitsu club will still improve your fighting abilities compared to someone with no formal training.
So there is a real tradeoff in terms of risk and reward here. And that is before we get into people who practice martial arts mainly because it looks cool.
Bombadil
8d ago
Once in power I assume they would work to create such a way. I think this is what many of their supporters are hoping for too. National laws can be changed. EU laws too if they have enough support, and in the extreme case they could work to leave the EU in order to restore sovereignty. I don't think any of these options would be out of the question for AfD and their like.
Bombadil
8d ago
Europe is seeing an increased support for anti-immigration policies. Not only is there a desire to limit future migration and increase requirements for applicants, a significant amount of people want to kick out people who managed to achieve citizenship without assimilating, alongside descendants who also did not assimilate. As I understand it, this kicking out of citizens who should not have gotten citizenship in the first place is the goal of AfD and similar parties on the continent.
This makes sense to me on some level; If you hate all of western society and want to rebuild the caliphate, then you have no business here. The middle east can have you back for all I care.
On the other hand, this seems like a slippery slope that draws into question what citizenship even is. Making it possible to kick out people recognized as citizens seems like a dangerous Chesterton's fence to tear down. For one, it gives the government the ultimate power to kick out citizens it dislikes. This seems like a real danger to a democracy where people are supposed to have disagreements and come to agreements through dialogue. It also draws into question what it even means to be German in the first place. Would anyone be safe if such a law was allowed? Is there any amount of generations that a family can live in Germany after which it becomes German? Or will everyone have to watch what they say in fear that their opinions may one day be recognized as against the national interest?
It makes sense then, that the existing conservative parties would be concerned about a newcomer which wants to make such radical changes. At the same time though, I don't understand why they seem so disinterested in at least limiting future immigration. There is a real concern here from a substantial proportion of the population, and political parties are supposed to represent their constituents. If the established parties would take on the more reasonable parts of AfD policies (limiting immigration and increasing requirements for applicants), that would probably net them a lot of voters and weaken AfD, without having to concede to the more extremist demands of kicking out legal citizens.
Bombadil
10d ago
0.7 points after being stagnant for decades is hardly proof of a trend.
And when talking about canada, MAID is an entirely different beast from abortions. Assisted suicide leading to pressure to kill difficult family members is an entirely different mechanism from abortions leading to filicide.
Obviously you can't allow this kind of logics. But I think there is a very clear difference between allowing abortions before and after birth. The fact that you can hold the baby in your arms changes the calculus so drastically, that I don't believe people will see it as similar at all. It is less a slippery slope and more a conscious leap into the abyss.
Bombadil
10d ago
But is it really renewed if occurrences did not increase? You claim a slippery slope, but I fail to see one. Have abortions increased over time? It doesn't seem like it is the case. While there was an increase in abortions after legalization, the amount has since fallen over time. Have cases of infanticide increased since the legalization of abortion? I couldn't find exact statistics on this, but scientific consensus seems to be that it is correlated with mental illness and lack of support, and still opposed in most countries including the US. So in this case, I think blaming the atomization of society makes more sense.
The Clancy supporters are problematic to say the least, but it is not at all clear to me how their actions are downstream of abortion and contraception access.
You are assuming that society is only okay with abortions because contraception is widespread, and that these women are becoming okay with killing babies because they see abortion as good and necessary. I don't think these things are actually connected. They merely look similar, allowing for post-hoc rationalizing into a slippery slope that never existed.
In reality, mothers were killing their babies long before medical abortions were a thing, and in societies where such were not available. In fact, this is one of the arguments in favor of making abortions legal. Desperate women are doing it anyway, at great risk to themselves. Standardization can only happen when it is legal, and makes it much safer while also allowing for better informed decision making, as the doctor in charge can explain the likely ramifications of the procedure.
So there isn't really a causal line from abortions to baby killings. Neither is there a real connection between contraception and abortions. Women have been aborting their kids long before modern condoms became available, and obviously way before more modern methods like the pill.
Wouldn't it be considered manslaughter rather than murder, with drunk driving as an extra charge? I doubt that Clancy being convicted for manslaughter would be considered a good result here.
Bombadil
12d ago
It can just be a rare side effect. Alcohol can also induce psychosis, as can weed and many other drugs. But the effect is rare enough that we assume even frequent drinkers to have a consistent grasp on reality.
Bombadil
12d ago
Solutions from progressives include throwing money or government workers at them.
Seeing as how this site leans conservative, I wonder if anyone here has a better solution? Personally, I lean pretty left on this one. You don't have connections that don't exist. I lean more towards government workers as what you need to solve this problem is people rather than cash. If current social workers are ineffective, then they either need better training, more manpower, or more competent people who would be attracted by improved working conditions and wages.
Bombadil
12d ago
It helps if the parent in question has reliable connections. A father who can take a day off work, or grandparents who can take care of the baby while she recovers.
This is the kind of problem that disproportionately affects marginalized people who are barely scraping by as is. People who simply don't have the resources to withstand catastrophe.
The reasonable thing to do would be to hand off the kid to some other responsible guardian, but when no such is available then all you have left are overworked nurses.
Bombadil
12d ago
That also would provide work experience to put on their CV and a small source of income. "Worked for the State of Massachusetts to help marginalized families take care of their children" would not sound half bad on a college or job application.
It's the kind of initiative where you can't easily track the benefits on a spreadsheet though, since the improved outcomes only show up in the future and it is hard to prove that anything good that happens is actually caused by this. So usually getting the requisite funding for these types of social programs is very hard.
They stop improving their models. If they genuinely believe there is a double digit percentage risk that what they build will destroy humanity, then they should stop building it.
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