E.g. abortion rights, anti-LGBTQ, contempt for atheism, Christian nationalism, etc.
I can only speak for my friends who fit your criteria: they’re single issue voters (like many Americans) and they’re afraid the Dems are coming for their guns.
The dilemma being that anyone who acts this way probably shouldn’t own guns.
Placing gun ownership over all other personal freedoms is an unhealthy obsession.
People who think they need weapons in case are not so different than those who think the rapture will occur in their lifetime.
People think they need guns just in case only because so many other people have guns and because our gun violence is out of control.
It’s an arms race leading only to more gun deaths.
It’s also a delusion for the most part. None of the scenarios they carve out in their minds about why guns are essential tools has much basis in any rational threat profile. Otherwise these nutters would be walking around with helmets on all the time.
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I’m not an expert by any means, but I want to say that something similar happened in Australia. Basically, they gave everyone the deal of, say, $500 per gun if turned in voluntarily, or seizure and no money if found. Then they simply restricted ammo sales and eventually the problem fixed itself. (Source: my ass)
You’re pretty much right. The big difference is that gun ownership in Australia was never widespread. America literally CANNOT afford to do a buyback.
I’ve broken down the numbers here and on Reddit before and I always get downvoted to hell and back so I cant be fucked. But if every last American just gave their guns back, at an average buyback price of $1000 per gun you’re looking at 332 Billion dollars. Thats before you add the other costs like collection, destruction and disposal.
Not even coming close to mentioning the costs involved in handling the “Cold dead hands” crowd, the preppers, the militias and the illegal unregistered firearms.
Aaaaand the destruction of a vast multi billion dollar a year peripheral industry of shooting ranges, gun stores, accessory manufacturers, ammunition manufacturers.
In short, while America needs to do SOMETHING the “Just ban guns” crowd are infuriating in their naivety.
Isn’t that more or less what happened in Australia after the Port Arthur massacre?
On the other end of the spectrum, Allende basically sealed his fate by disarming his own supporters.
Civilian disarmamends happened in various countries, i.e. Australia in 1996/97, UK after the Dunblane school massacre in 1996, Japan post WW2, South Africa in 2000, Colombia in 2000 and 2016, New Zealand after Christchurch.
Strategies and success vary, but it’s not unheard of.
You can still own guns in Australia, at least. It just requires applying for permits. I don’t get why people would be opposed to that
Introducing regulations usually doesn’t mean complete and utter ban.
From the mouth of my dad “you’ll be in a list and they’ll know you have guns. I shouldn’t have to register for a right that’s in the constitution”
There’s a ton wrong with that statement, but he’s willfully blind to any of it. He hung up on me when I pointed out all the issues that statement had XD
I believe Australia is one such example.
Australia mainly.
They are unfortunately correct. I can’t count how many failed attempts I’ve made to try to convince many of my liberal peers that trying to kill the 2nd Amendment or functionally prevent people from buying guns is doing more harm to our collective efforts than good by alienating independents who are otherwise liberal-leaning, but staunchly support 2A. Many liberals have terrible views about gun violence in general IMO, and a serious lack of comprehension of the problem. Conservatives aren’t much better, unfortunately, and they’re three times as stubborn, so here we are.
Many liberals have terrible views about gun violence in general IMO, and a serious lack of comprehension of the problem.
Could you elaborate that a bit?
Sure. For starters, they keep going on and on about mass shootings and how we need to cut access to guns to stop all the mass shootings.
First of all, gun laws have been more or less the same for the past 100 years in the U.S., so how can they be the cause of the recent rise in mass shootings? Simple answer: they’re not. The rise in mass shootings is unfortunately an aspect of modern American culture and copycat-ism.
Secondly, mass shootings make up a tiny fraction of gun violence; the fact that so many White liberals harp on mass shootings really just shows that they only really care about the gun violence that threatens to affect them and their kids. If they were serious about curbing gun violence, their focus wouldn’t be on mass shootings so much as smaller-scale gun crime.
Third, many liberals are openly willing to kill a hobby that most gun owners enjoy without harming anyone, because they personally find said hobby unsightly and stupidly think they can stop gun violence in the U.S. by getting rid of gun stores—because that’s always put a stop to gun violence in other countries wherein it’s illegal to buy/sell guns (/s).
I personally want to see many improvements to our gun laws in the U.S., such as more stringent background checks, laws against people with histories of serious psychiatric illness having access, laws against people with violent criminal histories having access, etc, but getting rid of all guns? No, total overkill, and such hardline, unreasonable stances are costing Democrats much-needed votes and ironically helping right-wing Nazis get closer to taking over the country. These views make no fucking sense when you scrutinize them and are clearly fueled by emotion rather than logic.
I am what the Americans consider VERY far left (A centrist by European standards), and I, for the most part, agree with the idea that the issue is not one of access to firearms necessarily, but of a cultural problem
But what’s the cultural problem? Could it be the gun fetishization we have (perpetuated by conservatives)? Perhaps its roots go in further back, to our founding as a nation built on a violent rebellion. Maybe it’s even further back then that, developed from a puritan heritage
I agree it’s a cultural issue, but where we’re gonna disagree is that the culture that promotes this degree of gun violence is one that loves guns so much it absolutely refuses to try and take any steps to fix the issue. The people who love guns the most, who want that shit on all their media, is conservatives
Besides that, I’d call America a uniquely desperate place. We are taught to believe this country is great and incredible and can do no wrong, but for all its affluence, everything is expensive as shit, we are always just a missed paycheck away from homelessness, medical issues, psychological problems. The cultural issue here is that America doesn’t care about its people; It cares about its companies. Most conservatives would probably side with the working man over the business suit, but it is the Republican party that overwhelmingly supports the rights of big businesses over the actual working people. I’ve seen the country described as a 3rd world country wearing a Gucci belt. The cultural problem is in this dissonance of swearing we’re in a good spot when we’re actually not
Furthermore, you don’t actually know what leftists want in regards to gun control, since you’ve likely heard a lot of it from right-leaning sources. The idea that we want some “abolish all guns” thing is a strawman. I believe that people should be able to own guns. I believe that other countries have gun ownership, and like their guns, and don’t have the issues we have. We vary quite a bit from people who want stricter stuff, to people who want lighter stuff. People who say ex-cons shouldn’t have guns, to people saying you can’t take away rights from criminals because it incentivizes political jailing (If you don’t want your opposition to own guns, arrest them). I personally believe that gun ownership should be relatively lax in terms of what you can get, but that they should have very stringent requirements
Really, the complicated web of cultural issues would require a whole book in order to cover, so I’d just leave it at that. A complicated tapestry of religious, historical, and sociological factors that contribute to our peculiar brand of gun violence, and this course must change. “Copycatism” doesn’t just exist in a vacuum. We cannot stay the course–we cannot conserve the course. We must alter American culture fundamentally, and that is exactly what conservativism inherently and necessarily opposes
I agree it’s a cultural issue, but where we’re gonna disagree is that the culture that promotes this degree of gun violence is one that loves guns so much it absolutely refuses to try and take any steps to fix the issue.
I wholly disagree. What Europeans don’t seem to understand about gun violence is that the largest predictor is the gini coefficient of an area, which is a measure of income inequality. The US has the highest gini coefficient of any developed/western country, and because of that correlation you see the largest rates of violent crime.
If you want to want to reduce the rates of violent crime down to match that of Canada your best bet would be to enact legistation to reduce the gini coefficient to a comparable level to Canada. Achieving that by reducing gun ownership in the US would require removing more guns than actually exist in the country.
Furthermore, you don’t actually know what leftists want in regards to gun control, since you’ve likely heard a lot of it from right-leaning sources
No. Just… no. First off, this discussion started off about Democrats, not leftists. And they are definitely not the same.
Second, go look up quotes from Democratic political candidates like Beto O’Rourke. There’s a rather prominent one where he promised to take away people’s ARs - exactly what you’re claiming doesn’t happen.
Third, go look up some of the legislation that has been pushed into Congress over the years. Particularly House Bill 127 in 2021.
I am what the Americans consider VERY far left (A centrist by European standards)
I’m really tired of this claim, because it’s not true and it gets more superfluous the more it gets repeated. The US has a decent share of extreme left-wing individuals, even by Europe’s standards. I know several avowed socialists and communists and the only reason I don’t know more is because I don’t want to wade further into that mess. Not only that, conservative parties in Europe have been growing in popularity, especially in Italy and Spain.
So first off, no, Americas extreme left is not all that extreme. The tankies we have here are few and far between, meanwhile people with nazi iconography are openly protesting in front of Disney World. We don’t have any significant population of soviet-style communism here, and all of our communists are about labor rights and reducing that wealth inequality. I knew one guy who was actually sad about Castro’s death, and everyone in our lefty-as-fuck circles called him stupid for it. No one here is advocating for the forcible seizure of everyone’s property to be redistributed. You have no idea what actual extreme far left is. Americas left just wants socialized health care and a decent living wage, and to maybe have rights even when they’re trans. We can talk about the Democrats all you want, but now we’re talking about conservatives, who for the most part still don’t want to do anything about police violence, and the prison-and-military industrial complex that lets them benefit from being the world police. They’re not left, or even centrist, and the Democratic party doesn’t accurately represent what American leftists want, they’re just a compromise–limp-wristed do-nothings playing tug-of-war with Republicans, and letting the rope slip further and further, loosing because they refuse to fight dirty against an opponent that fights dirty
So you wanna reduce the Gini Coefficient? Stop voting Republican. Democrats will suck the dick and lick the boots of corporations too, but not nearly as much, and they’re weak-willed enough to cave when we call them out on it in time if they don’t have Republicans to keep shifting the overton window. It is Republican policies since at least Ronald Reagan that have consistently benefited corporations. Republicans are the source of income inequality
Just, I don’t understand how you can throw your lot in with neonazis, and the KKK, and think you’re voting for the right people. The 20 or so Tankies we have in this country voted for Biden, sure, but they weren’t happy about it. Donald Trump got a fucking cult
Just, I don’t understand how you can throw your lot in with neonazis, and the KKK, and think you’re voting for the right people. The 20 or so Tankies we have in this country voted for Biden, sure, but they weren’t happy about it. Donald Trump got a fucking cult
This paragraph completely invalidated everything you said, because it’s painfully clear yhat you have no idea what you’re talking about and built a strawman in your head.
Go read my comment again: where the fuck did I ever say I voted for Republicans? I’ll tell you: fucking nowhere.
Do I hate Beto O’Rourke? Yes, but I also don’t live in Texas where he ran for governor. I vote pretty much straight-ticket in favor of Democrats even when they have terrible candidates like Hillary Clinton.
I recommend you sit down and shut up until you learn how to actually read/listen to people’s arguments. Then you won’t go off the rails on a strawman and make yourself look like a fool.
First of all, gun laws have been more or less the same for the past 100 years in the U.S., so how can they be the cause of the recent rise in mass shootings? Simple answer: they’re not.
So guns changed over the past 100 years, but the laws did not adjust. Sounds like a bad idea. How can a new technology a cause for a new problem? Did that ever happen???/s
Semi-automatic rifles were not overly widespread before the 1990, and when they became, in 1994 there was a time-limited ban for semi-automatic firearms, which then expired in 2004. And what are the major concerns for mass shootings in recent years? It is semi-automatic firearms.
If they were serious about curbing gun violence, their focus wouldn’t be on mass shootings so much as smaller-scale gun crime.
Why do you think they want to ban all guns? But when you’ve a gun proponents such as in the US you gotta get real about what you can achieve. So it is not hypocrisy to focus on assault weaponry.
That hobby thing can be said about many forbidden things, for example smoking cannabis.
First of all, gun laws have been more or less the same for the past 100 years in the U.S., so how can they be the cause of the recent rise in mass shootings? Simple answer: they’re not.
But they are, would your laws be stricter the appearance of these mass shootings would drop significantly since they perpetrators would have to go through a much mor rigorous screening process before being allowed near a firearm. The copycats and emulators are able to repeat these crimes ALSO because they have easy access to firearms, don’t act like this wouldn’t be a root cause for the mass shooting problem
Secondly, mass shootings make up a tiny fraction of gun violence; the fact that so many White liberals harp on mass shootings really just shows that they only really care about the gun violence that threatens to affect them and their kids. If they were serious about curbing gun violence, their focus wouldn’t be on mass shootings so much as smaller-scale gun crime
Those who commit small-scale gun crime use the same laws in place for mass-shooters and everybody else to access firearms used in their crimes
Third, many liberals are openly willing to kill a hobby that most gun owners enjoy without harming anyone, because they personally find said hobby unsightly and stupidly think they can stop gun violence in the U.S. by getting rid of gun stores—because that’s always put a stop to gun violence in other countries wherein it’s illegal to buy/sell guns (/s).
The Australian experience after the mass shooting in Port Arthur at the end of the 90ies tell a different story and it shows that guns buyback/confiscation can and will reduce crime committed by guns
I personally want to see many improvements to our gun laws in the U.S., such as more stringent background checks, laws against people with histories of serious psychiatric illness having access, laws against people with violent criminal histories having access, etc, but getting rid of all guns? No, total overkill, and such hardline, unreasonable stances are costing Democrats much-needed votes and ironically helping right-wing Nazis get closer to taking over the country. These views make no fucking sense when you scrutinize them and are clearly fueled by emotion rather than logic.
Tell that to the republicans, who see any intervention on the existing gun laws as an attack to the second amendment. More background checks? No thanks. Red flag laws? No thanks. Limiting firearms possession to those convicted of violent crimes? No thanks.
Who is the party operating according to feeling and who is the one operating according to common sense and logic? Let me give you a hint, it’s not the blue one who is using scare tactics to keep everything as it is
Third, many liberals are openly willing to kill a hobby that most gun owners enjoy without harming anyone
I honestly think a lot of the left’s stance on gun control stems from culture wars. Otherwise you wouldn’t see people reacting so much to pointless things like foregrips, suppressors, or painting guns black.
laws against people with histories of serious psychiatric illness having access
Tbf this is already a thing. If you’ve been involuntarily committed to a mental hospital (morning brain is preventing me from having the right term, sorry) that will show up on a federal background check.
Also, interestingly this and red flag laws can have a negative consequence: it can lead to individuals trying to hide their symptoms and not seek treatment to avoid having their rights taken away, which merely exasperates the problem.
I’m not opposed to having restrictions on gun ownership based on mental health, but there needs to be some way for affected individuals to gain their rights back after seeking treatment (similar to felons regaining their voting rights after a few years), in combination to making said treatment significantly easier to access (preferrably bia universal healthcare).
I work in mental health and I’m very sympathetic to what you’re talking about. I’d actually be opposed to any law that used a psychiatric hospitalization as a criteria alone for restricting gun rights. I said “serious mental illness,” because I meant things like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, not major depression. And even within those diagnoses, people aren’t always a risk. It’s a delicate subject, but I think whatever solution, we need laws that (a) have an impact on gun misuse and (b) are flexible enough that they don’t trap people unnecessarily in the net.
You’re entitled to your opinion, but “mass shootings aren’t the worst gun violence in the US” is just a shitty argument especially when the US is the only country that it regularly happens. I’d rather there be no gun violence anywhere, but I definitely care more about kids getting slaughtered than I do criminals shooting at each other. I don’t think that’s unreasonable at all.
I’ll also add something that’s changed is the radicalization of the likes of the NRA and right-wing groups starting in the 80s. When my father joined the NRA it was an organization that pushed for safety and training of firearms. Now they a practically a political arm of the Republican Party who just fear-monger and drive people to hoard guns and ammo, which I’m sure make the manufacturers happy. A large number of mass shooters have listened to these radicalized propaganda machines.
If we want to have a conversation about preventing the radicalization in the first place, I’m for it. Hold those people responsible instead of all fun owners is a topic to discuss.
There is one huge change in gun laws that has occurred in the last 100 years
1986
If the claim here is that these people would vote straight Blue if the Democratic Party came out tomorrow supporting guns I don’t buy it at all. They’ll move the goalposts. Half the rhetoric they believe about Democrats taking their guns is entirely fabricated to begin with, a large chunk of the rest amounts to paperwork.
My personal stance is is a combination of an observation that an armed population is harder to oppress, and that gun control tends to have a disproportionate impact on minorities and oppressed groups.
Since LGBT and minorities are the most likely groups to be attacked by political opposition, we shouldn’t be trying to hamstring their ability to defend themselves.
Plus, a contributing factor to why the alt-right and fascists have gained so much ground in the past decade is because of the perception that only the political right has guns, and therefore they think that they’ll win in a fight
You sure are making a lot of brain twists to keep school shooters shooting school kids!
Mental health is the issue. Just like anyone who would drive a car through a school yard mowing down kids, that person has mental issues. The vehicles driver should be licensed and the owner should be registered. I am a gun toting liberal in a state with essential zero gun laws. I believe in the second ammendment, but not absolute. You should be able to have a gun, but you should be licensed (psyc eval, background check, gun safety classes requirement) and your guns should be registered. If a gun you own ever kills someone, you are responsible. Your gun is your responsibility to keep locked up and if it’s stolen you should have reported it.
Just like anyone who would drive a car through a school yard mowing down kids, that person has mental issues.
No, mental health issues are specific and do not encompass simply “being fucked up.” You can be plenty fucked up and not be mentally ill, and most of the people who get violent in the way you’re describing are simply extremists, not people suffering from a psychological disorder.
You should be able to have a gun, but you should be licensed
The issue here is that gun ownership is a right, while driving is a privilege. Privileges can require licenses, but if you require a license to exercise a right then it’s no longer a right.
Requiring every gun owner to have a license would have to be done as a constitutional amendment, and invalidating part of the Bill of Rights is unprecedented
Then owning a gun in a civilized country with no legitimate threat from outside forces to it’s individual civilians and a military that has higher funding than the next 10 countries combined should not be a right in the 21st century. It should however be a privilege that you have the most basic of accountability for.
single issue voters are fucking willfully braindead. Selfish short-sighted fuckers doing the opposite of their civic duty
That and monetary issues. The “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” out there who want to keep R in power so when they finally get rich, they won’t have to pay taxes.
These are called dumb fucks in my book
If you go far enough left, you get your guns back.
And get paid for it. The difference is that it is no longer your guns but our guns
A single issue for their single brain cell.
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They are basically just democrats except they like guns.
Tbf, there’s liberals like that too, myself included. There’s a joke going around that “once you are far enough left you get your guns back”.
The Second Amendment by definition and history is a liberal invention.
This.
It’s caused plenty an awkward turn in conversations with friends as well as friends of my girlfriend’s who are almost universally Classic American Liberal Democrat™
I’m with them on domestic policy, marriage equality, LGBT rights, racial justice, electoral reform, and abortion.
Then we get to guns.
And I’m certainly not some kind of NRA nut or Y’all Qaeda tacticool dope, so it’s a lot tougher to make a strawman against gun owners when there’s one sitting there across from you that you know, like, and respect.
That being said, those occasions also give me pause because I know if we’re falling into that easy line of thinking on guns, we’re probably also doing that sort of strawman on the issues we all agree on too, there’s just nobody present to challenge that view.
Honestly, I feel like it’s so easy, especially in gun crazy states like Texas to run a Democrat who includes enjoying days at the range in their campaign advertisements, that Southern Dems have to be throwing their campaigns on purpose for some reason.
That’s not to say we should be advocating for unlimited magazines and fully auto weapons. But there should be a candidate who is like “Hey, you like your constitutional right to protect yourself? Me too. How about we start funding/investigating the programs that are already supposedly in place to catch red flag purchasers, and find out where the issues are there?”
I feel like a pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ, pro-immigratjon candidate would actually make some headway if they just let go of the gun argument, or at the very least dialed it back substantially.
or at the very least dialed it back substantially.
From what I’m aware, Beto O’Rourke completely dropped gun control as a campaign issue when he ran for governor in Texas. Granted, he was also the biggest advocate for gun control of all the candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for the 2020 election, so I don’t think anyone trusted his reversal
Yes I was a huge Beto Stan. Had his sign in my yard. But even after his reversal, I kept seeing his “HELL YEAH IM TAKING YOUR GUNS” quoted in headlines all over the state 🙄🙄🙄🙄
Of course Abbott was drowning out all the more sensible shit Beto actually said.
Eh, for me, when he said that he lost my support. Ever. For any office.
Sorry, you can drop it from your platform but you already told me where you stand.
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Beto never had a chance of getting elected in Texas on a policy of banning assault rifles. There are certainly policy decisions voters do not forget you made either so he is unelectable there now. Most people in texas support abortion rights, legalizing weed, and gun rights, but they care about the gun rights the most. Beto at this point is just a way for the democrats to raise funds from texas democrats to help themselves in other states.
Lol, y’all Qaeda, I’m stealing that one
Yep. I go further left as the years go on, but I’m still pro 2A, though not to the same extent as a lot of republicans.
Should there be controls in place for acquiring and carrying a device that’s only purpose is taking a life? Yep. Absolutely. Especially as you move towards self defense type weapons over tools for sustenance hunting.
That being said, I have no idea how to codify those types of restrictions that maintains the spirit of 2A, while at the same time reducing the vast amount firearm deaths in the US.
There has to be some sort of balance, but I’m not the person to figure it out. Even if I had the gravitas to make changes like that, I don’t have the capabilities to properly handle something like that.
Some balance does exist that not even the right fight for. Violent felons, sexual felons, and sometimes domestic abusers lose their right to bear arms even after they’ve done time served.
It’s also an extra penalty to be armed while drunk (maybe it’s just DUI?) or while trafficking drugs.
Lmao. I’ve never heard that one. What’s the thought process there?
LiberalGunNut™ here! It’s because of quotes like these:
Karl Marx — ‘Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary’
Ida B. Wells advised, that “the Winchester rifle deserved a place of honor in every Black home.”
There are more, can’t think of them ATM.
Just curious, registering as democrat or republican, what does that do?
Note: I’m not U.S. American
There’s a northern politician like that. I think they call him Adam Kinzinger.
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They happen to align with my values. I was raised Christian, and I only became agnostic in college, so that probably plays into it.
For example, abortion, I think murder is abohherent, baby murder especially so. I don’t know when the right to life begins, so I err on the side of caution, at the earliest point, at conception.
Im not anti-lgbtq.
I dont hold contempt for atheism, I dont like /r/atheism
Christian nationalism is weird one because no one seems to know what that actually means. And hell, freedom of religion is one of the most important rights, right next to free speech.
I hope that helps.
Banning abortion doesn’t stop abortion, it just shifts it to a black market where women are far more likely to die.
What does demonstrably reduce abortion to effectively insignificant levels is better sex education and easy access to contraceptives.
Prohibition has never worked. Education always has.
Let’s replace some words. I think that abortion is murder. So it becomes:
“Banning murder doesn’t stop murder”
Do you see the point I’m trying to make?
You can equate the two, but they’re not functionally the same in reality. There is statistical evidence that banning abortion does not work and in fact has the opposite effect, so swapping the words makes no sense. A better comparison would be Prohibition in the US in the 1920s - banning alcohol didn’t stop the production or use of it, it just made it exceedingly dangerous, lots of people got sick, went blind, and died from homemade liquor that contained too much methanol.
If you truly care about the life of the child at conception and after its birth, you’d choose the option where there is never an unwanted or accidental pregnancy. Most unwanted pregnancies result in children suffering abuse, entering the foster system, and eventually aging out without ever having a permanent or stable family. Many of these kids live a life where they’ve NEVER been loved.
There are nearly 400,000 children in the foster system in the US right now and the number grows every day. There’s no one to adopt these babies. Forcing women to have children does not work. No child should ever be unwanted, every child deserves loving parents. This is the world that abortion bans create.
Nobody is pro-abortion. Nobody likes or wants women to have abortions, especially the women getting the procedure…it is NOT pleasant. Pro-choice supporters would be thrilled if there’s never another abortion again, as long there were no unwanted pregnancies.
The best, statistically proven method to prevent abortions is education and easy access to contraception. Full stop.
The point behind this is that your argument boils down to essentially “people still break laws, so why have laws?” That is a poor argument that isn’t going to convince anybody who believes that abortion is murder. Particularly if you are saying that the “murderers” in this case are just putting themselves at risk.
I say this as someone who agrees with you, that the best way reduce the number of abortions is to provide better sex education and access to birth control.
My mother has been an anti abortion activist for as long as I can remember, so I’m familiar with the thought process.
We have laws that regulate abortion, alcohol, etc already. I said nothing about “why have laws?” in any part of my argument. I said banning abortion will not reduce abortions, much less stop them. That statement is a proven fact.
You and others seem to be applying my belief that abortion should not be illegal to all other laws, which is not the case. That is my opinion on a singular issue. I never stated nor implied other laws shouldn’t exist.
You’re still missing the point.
When a person sees abortion as murder, the view of abortion laws is the same as those of murder. If you say “making murder illegal doesn’t reduce the number of murders” anyone with any sort of a moral center will say “I don’t care, murder should still be illegal.” And that’s the perspective will not be changed no matter what the murder rates are. That’s how the argument gets reduced to “Why have laws?” To them, it’s basically saying “It doesn’t help enough, so why even draw that line at all?”
That said, let’s look at your proven fact for a moment. I don’t believe the data will help, because when you narrow the focus to the US, and look at reaction to legal changes, you see a very clear drastic rise in abortions in the 70’s, which didn’t begin to fall until the 90’s, and it fell at a much slower rate, and is still higher than it was in the 70s. ( source )
Which makes logical sense, if you increase access to the service, of course more people will be able to use it. At the same time, since Roe vs. Wade was repealed, there have already been multiple news stories showing that the strict abortion laws did prevent some (often medically necessary life-saving) abortions.
You may say these numbers aren’t statistically significant, but to a person who sees abortion as murder, preventing even one is better than not preventing it.
Anyway, all of this misses the major point of the abortion rights side to begin with. Which is that sometimes abortions are medically necessary and that should be between you and your doctor to decide when that is.
I want to say that the most effective argument is to show just how drastically the abortion rates fell in the areas where they increased access to birth control and sex education. However, when I showed my mother, she responded with a Youtube video that tells me how Planned Parenthood eats babies.
You’re missing the point. If you conflate abortion and murder, you’re either being willfully ignorant or exceedingly simple. Just because some people equate two things, doesn’t make them the same in reality. Whether you like it or not they are different, and applying the same standards to them makes no sense.
Your argument is like saying “Advil and heroin are both pain relieving drugs, so the law should apply equally.” They are not the same, and we should not treat them the same, even if some people mistakenly equate them.
More like banning any medical procedures during pregnancy will force people to get then somewhere else. Also killing someone who is using our body without your consent is self defense.
Aborting a non viable pregnancy isn’t and never will be murder. In fact, stopping women with non-viable pregnancies from getting an abortion often can be murder itself. Therefore abortion != murder
Thank you for your response.
I’m on team “glad you responded” but I still wanna respond to 2 things you said.
First, a lot of anti-abortion people want the abortion conversation to end at “this is murder”, but how do you address the bodily autonomy argument? Even if I accept any and all abortions as the full death of a complete person, why are women compelled to donate their bodies to save another person? I don’t support forced organ donations to save lives, and by that logic I also do not support forced pregnancies. Any opinion on that perspective?
Christian nationalism isn’t complicated in what it is, it is just the desire/push/beliefs from the people that want a nation with an explicitly christian government, a christian theocracy. If it completely took over everything, freedom of religion would be dead, everything would be christian. To try and rephrase it bluntly, Christian nationalism is the desire for and work towards a Christian nation. Some people take it seriously, some people don’t, some people outright support it, others deny it even is a real concept.
Edit to add: if you aren’t anti-lgbtq, will you call your representatives that you vote for and emphatically tell them so? The difference in opinions between conservatives and their politicians about lgbtq is something I hear from most conservatives I’ve talked to, but it makes me sad to see they don’t really care beyond saying “I’m not anti-lgbtq”. If you vote for an anti-lgbtq politician because of other policies they support, please at least tell them you don’t agree with their anti-lgbtq stance. It is literally the least amount of help I can think of to ask for.
I’m anti abortion once the fetus is viable. Prior to that point, a woman is refusing to let someone else use her body to survive, and while there are personal moral questions there, I think she should have the right to make that call. After that point, she’s attempting to kill someone else to avoid the suffering that a birth would entail.
I still support her right to rid herself of an unwelcome guest, I just don’t support abortion as the method.
I’m aware that late term abortions are so vanishingly rare that this is a pointless hair-splitting exercise, but I like to have a consistent moral system as much as I can, whether it’s currently relevant or not, and I thought someone might appreciate my .02.
If you had been aborted once viable you wouldn’t have neither cared or known.
If someone shoots me in the head while I’m sleeping I wouldn’t care or know either.
In my mind, so long as lgbtq people have both free speech and the right to bear arms, the rest of their rights will come. See: The marches and protests that lead to gay marriage. Those two rights come before everything else, and support everything else.
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Murder is wrong. There’s some argument to make for self-defense, but tbh I haven’t heard that argument made well.
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Unborn babies are human too.
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Why do you consider conception as the earliest point? What about at arousal? 😜
Murder of a consciousness is abhorent, but that doesn’t really happen. So are you also against pulling the plug on the brain dead?
Kudos for sharing. Feel free to ignore those who challenge your values. It takes a bunches of mental energy to argue and it isn’t necessarily worth it to argue.
With that said, I will still would like to ask you a question, if you are up for it.
How did you form your values?
I only ask because it is easy, when you are raised as Christian, to uncritically accept the teaching, values, and views of those around you as your own.
As kids we are conditioned through school, parents, and in general just information asymmetry to accept what adults say as fact and not question it. It is easy to carry that same tendency over into our values and viewpoints. Kids and adults have a hard time separating fact from opinion. We tend to treat widely held beliefs as fact instead of as the opinions they actually are.
Well, abortion is basically a modified pascal’s wager. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal’s_wager
Pro guns, all sorts of historical precedent, from the US in Iraq, to Roof Koreans, to the French Resistance, to Australia. (This is honestly my strongest belief, guns and free speech)
Free speech, how can you speak up if you can’t speak?
I understand your justification for your beliefs and even share some of your moral beliefs. It seems to me like you didn’t really answer in the way I meant to communicate it. I’ll try to rephrase my original question to what I mean clearer. What causes you to rank your own values in the way you do?
Why do you think access to guns is more important than your beliefs on abortion? Or why are they more important than not getting overcharged on everything from housing to education to healthcare?
TLDR: Without guns and speech, you have no rights, and I have historical evidence to back me up. But also they’re pre-crime laws.
Simply put, the right to bear arms protects every other right. But before you grab the ammo box, you supposed to actually say something. Protest, make yourself heard. Free speech and guns go hand in hand in my mind.
For guns specifically, guns protect rights I can point to any number of historical precedents. Even in America, gun control basically started as a way to disarm black people, and it’s still trying to keep poor people from arming themselves, and look how minorities are treated. In Nazi Germany, one of the first things they did was disarm the Jewish people. On a lighter note, Australia disarmed, and now they banned hentai. You can’t make this shit up
Guns are powerful tools, poverty stricken farmers in the middle east held off the most powerful military in the world for decades, whether or not you agree with them. The IRA successfully kept most of Ireland independent from the UK with guns. The French Resistance wouldn’t have been able to do anything without guns. Hell, the Roof Koreans wouldn’t have saved their stores without guns.
I can come up with more, but I think you get the point.
It’s a similar situation with free speech. Tons of historical precedents. Martin Luther King marching for example. (I came up with a ton of examples, but I realized just how long it was)
In any case, gun control and hate speech laws are pre-crime laws. What’s the actual issue? Murder, assault, robbery, that sort of thing. Simply owning and saying shit isn’t hurting anyone by itself. Murder should be against the law, not having a gun and not outing yourself as a bigot. It’s pre-crime, not actual crime.
Being a fetus doesn’t excuse a foreign body’s presence inside of mine. I do not intend to be pregnant and if my partner’s sperm invades my body when I do not want it I will take every step to eliminate it or the process that follows it. A fetus isn’t important. If anything forcing someone to exist is the utmost violation of bodily autonomy. As they say, just because something is natural doesn’t make it good.
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What country is that?
Probably the Netherlands, going by his numbers.
Not really what your criteria is being that I’m a pro life libertarian as far as ideals I align with most on what you’re looking for.
Even though I am religious, my argument against abortion is firstly a scientific one then on moral principal second. On the science side it’s a human from the moment of conception. On the moral side it’s that I believe all humans deserve human rights no matter at what stage of development there are. Just as soon as you make exceptions to kill for one type or subset of humankind you open the door to others. Usually this is done by labeling a certain group as not human to justify oppression of said group. Terms usually used to justify acts of violence against other humans are property, subhuman, animals, savages, clump of cells, parasite, etc. Usually for libertarians it boils down to having a code called the non-aggression principal which is essentially don’t fuck with other people. This is also why I’m anti capital punishment.
I hope that helps. Also, good luck at your family get togethers, lol. It feels like you’re looking for ammunition for debates.
I won’t mention the rest of the text because I’m not interested enough on the discussion to do so. I’ll focus on a single thing.
On the science side it’s a human from the moment of conception.
What should be considered a human being or not is prescriptive in nature, because it involves ethics. Science - i.e. the scientific method - does not give a shit to prescriptive matters; science is descriptive, it’s worried about what happens/doesn’t happen. For science it doesn’t really matter if you call it a human, a tissue, a wug or a colourless green thing sleeping furiously, as long as you’re unambiguously and accurately describing the phenomenon being studied.
As such, no, science itself doesn’t really tell you “when it becomes a human being”.
[From another comment, after being asked for source] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33620844/
The only thing that it “proves” is that the author (not “science”) is referring to foetuses (from nine weeks after conception [not zero] to 16 weeks) as “children”. And it certainly does not back up your claim that [ipsis litteris] “On the science side it’s a human from the moment of conception.”
And no, “The growth and development are positively influenced by factors, like parental health and genetic composition, even before conception.” does not prove it either, given that the author is solely mentioning conception as a time of reference.
Sorry to be blunt but the way that you referred to science sounds a lot like “I’m ignorant on science but I want to leech off its prestige for the sake of my argument”. If you don’t want to do this, here’s a better approach:
- Show how certain actions generate certain outcomes. Science will help you with this.
- Explicit the moral and ethical premises that you are using, to judge said outcomes as good/bad. Science will not help you with this.
It’s also a nice way to avoid a fallacy/stupidity called appeal to nature (TL;DR: “[event/thing] is natural, so it’s good lol lmao”), that often plagues discussions about moral matters like abortion.
All very well put and saved me leaving a comment.
I think the responses from the conservatives in this thread have demonstrated what I’d expected, and hopefully what OP was looking for: abandonment of Christian dogma does not always result in abandonment of dogmatic values.
People who are happy to declare that the definition of something like science is anything other than what the vast majority of those accredited in scientific fields consider it to be are just as dishonest as hard-line Christians, and will vote against their own interests just as readily.
So don’t fuck with other people, unless they’re fully grown women making decisions about their own bodies, or underage victims of rape.
There no caveat or exception. Don’t fuck with other people.
There no caveat or exception. Don’t fuck with other people.
But my hand is tired.
/jk
I like how you call out some terms used to dehumanization. Fetus, baby, and child also fit into that bucket imo.
So ,to clarify, you want the government to restrict and punish abortion? I thought libertarians were for less government.
Why should the government have a monopoly on violence and force in this case? Instead shouldn’t the enforcement of moral law like the NAP be up to their peers or free market hired private contractors?
Some libertarians are minarchist meaning as little government as possible, some are anarcho-capitalists. Pro-life minarchists would be fine having punishment of abortion be treated like any other killing of a human. Anarcho-capitalists would rather not have government have a monopoly on violence.
If the NAP could be easily dismissed by just reclassifying who is and isn’t a human, then yes some form of law setting clarifying what a human is would be necessary. You bring up THE most interesting debate though in libertarian circles IMHO. Tom Woods did an interview with Gerard Casey about this topic. I highly recommend listening to the interview and giving Casey’s book a read.
https://tomwoods.com/libertarian-anarchy-against-the-state-2/
Appreciate the honest and (somewhat) applicable answer!
I also DO NOT appreciate the downvotes … we really need to get rid of those. Don’t agree, fine, move on or respond civilly. A downvote is a manifestly uncivil action sanctioned by the interface.
Otherwise … to respond to the abortion argument … where this falls down for me is the complete lack of any mention of the mother or woman in your reasoning.
Scientifically, this challenges the “humanness” of a foetus in the way it is tightly coupled and dependent on another human to live. Morally, it raises much of your reasoning in relation to not fucking with people once you consider what is effectively done to women by forcing them to carry any foetus to birth which is a massive, very active and obviously risky undertaking.
Whether these are convincing for you or others, the lack of any weight given for these considerations indicates that the act of birthing is presumed as a duty of all women. A presumption that IMO undermines the completeness of your scientific and moral arguments.
To take that a little further … should people be legally compelled to secure and save the lives of babies? As it is now, that’s not the case anywhere I know of. Causing harm would be criminal, obviously, but failing to save a baby or anyone else from harm is not.
In debating the legality of abortion you enter into similar territory. Only by presuming birth as a duty can you think otherwise.
While aborting a foetus is a positive act, there’s the complication that it’s purpose is to avoid the onus of pregnancy and birth, which can be easily seen as tantamount to “simply not doing the thing that would save the foetus’s like”, ie all the work of pregnancy and birth which is probably all too easily presumed by men (which I’m guessing you are) as a more passive and natural event than an act of effort, toil and cost.
Your last paragraph is why I want nothing to do with killing humans just for convenience. Also look at my last comment with wantd. I posed a question about when a human is viable outside of the womb at any stage of development. Would it change how you view its rights?
Although I don’t agree with expanding government, I do agree with extending rights and protections to humans at all stages of development. I do consider that a different debate though mostly in line with who should pave roads, how police should work, and who should deliver mail (once again libertarian, not authoritarian Republican)
Also don’t worry about down votes. This topic is highly contentious and both sides generally see it the other side as a direct assault on their beliefs.
Abortion should be legal until the offspring is 18. “Son, this isn’t working out. Let’s go for a ride.”.
I know it’s contentious, but the downvotes don’t help anything.
To your first para: viability outside the womb doesn’t, I think, affect my initial argument. If it’s viable outside of the womb, then so be it. Actively harming it would be illegal, but being legally compelled to care for it would be problematic.
Viability would alter abortion laws though, I think. In that it would make sense at some point to prohibit the mother from electing to terminate rather than submit the foetus to whatever the extra-womb viability state is. What happens then would mostly put the foetus in the same position it is now in that the onus of providing the viability of its life wouldn’t be something others are compelled to do, unless of course it’s trivial and withholding is tantamount to actively killing.
On the issue of convenience, I think that’s a misrepresentation. The thrust of the argument is consistency with the rest of social norms where the “convenience” is the freedom for a whole gender to not undertake 9 months of drastic bodily transformation and work and the remaining parental duties. If the rest of society were so committed to life and prosperity as ensuring every foetus gets taken care of, then that’s a different conversation, in large part because the mothers would be taken care of too. But consigning a whole gender’s major life experiences and burdens to a matter of “convenience”, I think, marks the dissonance that a libertarian outlook encounters when it tries to compel or outlaw actions. It’s not just convenience (in principle at least), and that this onus needs to be considered trivial indicates IMO the biases against women involved treating the issue as legally black and white.
Nonetheless, I agree with your general reasoning about not facilitating the depreciation of life. I personally extend the same reasoning to animals in my arguments in favour of veganism.
Not original replier, but personally viably outside the womb changes the entire game. A strong major of my support for abortion is “I’m a man, I can’t possibly imagine getting pregnant and birthing another human”. So much of the onus of birth is the woman, a human that we also have to consider the feelings and health of. If viably was possible outside the womb, I could probably be argued into agreeing to ban abortion with some key exceptions because the world isn’t black and white.
However, I am curious on your thoughts on medical euthanasia.
I don’t fit this description, but I know many that do.
You will not get a real answer to this question due to how biased it is being asked.
Good luck on your search for knowledge.
I tried to word it as non-biased as possible. How would you word it to make it less biased in your opinion?
This comment and my other in the thread are gonna get a ton of downvotes, so I’m just going to own it.
Also, this is entirely from my experience with republicans in real life. I am not one, but many of my family and friends are.
First, most are not anti-LGBT at all. Most that I know are against these laws that are being out into place. But these issues are not very important to them so they don’t have strong convictions that would dissuade them from voting based on this issue. They will not engage if you call them anti-LGBT because they are not.
Second, contempt for atheist. This is a perspective that comes from the online and media representation of republicans. I’ve never heard a single discussion about atheists with republicans. This is not an issue, period. They will not engage in discussion around an issue they do not see as an issue.
Third, Christian nationalism is, again, not relevant to these people. They do not see it as real nor do they see it as a real problem. They may engage with this discussion. So I don’t see a need to reword this one.
Lastly, abortion rights. This isn’t how republicans frame the issue. They view it as a human right and ending a human life early. I don’t agree, but they will not engage with someone asking why they are against “abortion rights”.
Again, let me repeat, I voted straight dem ticket last election. I am only giving my perspective based on interactions with real life republicans.
Thanks for your response. Much appreciated.
Still, the things you say they don’t want to engage in a conversation about or even acknowledge are actual policies the party engages heavily in. And that’s really my question. How do they reconcile their non-religious convictions with those religious policies of the party.
Do you mean they just don’t care and vote for the party regardless because there’s one policy they like?
They honestly seem like any other voter. For me, I don’t agree with every position the dem party takes. They are the same, they simply agree with republicans more the democrats.
At least that’s my take.
Thanks for the clarification.
I read it as being a matter of phrasing. Which will make rewording potentially difficult. But for instance, you use the phrase “Christian Nationalism” to cover an umbrella of policies you see as related, I think OP is saying that your average republican doesn’t identify their policies and opinions as being part of the Christian nationalism umbrella. Since they don’t make that association, they don’t, maybe even don’t know how to, engage under that umbrella.
Honestly, this seems like the depiction of a bunch of people that are safe and prosperous and can’t imagine how their views could possibly be problematic, and don’t need to, and so avoid political discussions because it’s just a bit too yuck and they’d prefer to lead their happy lives.
Basically the conservative - privilege coupling that is so shit.
