Sanity, propriety, gravitas, statesmanship, oratory and common sense are showing their fear. The fact that idiocracy is even polling is scary. Our political tradition (and it's not really that high a bar)is under assault.
Sanity, propriety, gravitas, statesmanship, oratory and common sense are showing their fear. The fact that idiocracy is even polling is scary. Our political tradition (and it's not really that high a bar) is under assault.
Meanwhile, Rubio puts it in the hole... http://www.si.com/extra-mustard/video/2016/01/25/mustard-minute-presidential-candidate-marco-rubio-plays-cornhole-overhand
And meanwhile, Carly Fiorino is pretty neat, inviting preschoolers to her campaign event to discuss the horrors of abortion... http://www.chron.com/news/politics/article/Preschoolers-ushered-into-Fiorina-anti-abortion-6777620.php
I'm afraid if she drops out she'll go and destroy two more Fortune 500 companies. I will never forgive her for forcing the merger with Houston's own Compaq.
I'm wondering if anyone still takes Ben Carson seriously as a candidate. These last two debates he looks completely lost.
Just finished listening the debate and the absence of Trump made a big difference. Positively. The debate was much more substantial with still plenty of back and forth between the candidates. Kasich and even Jeb Bush did well and came off as the least ideological of the candidates. Rand Paul also did a good job but did get tied into knots when he was challenged on whether he would leave abortion to the states. In short he said yes but he would still federalize it. Marco Rubio in my view came off as more of an empty suit falling too often to platitudes about his faith and ideology. He had some good exchanges with Cruz regarding each other's senate record but otherwise didn't seem very substantive. Cruz for the most part did well fending the attacks as the front runner but did get tripped up over the immigration. Christie kept a laser like focus on attacking Hillary Clinton which would be great for him if he was the front runner. Ben Carson just awful..
He said that there were two options he was willing to pursue. One would be to return the issue to the states and support state level action to make it illegal, the other would be to federally recognize the personhood of the unborn child to allow them to receive protections under the 14th amendment (and presumably state laws against murder). The difficulty in the latter strategy is finding the congressional power to define personhood. The best argument in favor would be that the protection of people renders it necessary and proper for the congress to define people. A personhood amendment would be stronger, but even the power to define people federally has stronger constitutional support than a right to abortion.
Out of all the candidates, Rubio seems to be the worst to me. Just from last night, him saying he would never consider the environment over the economy, to saying that being a Judaeo Christian is basically the best for a US president, and saying everything he will do will be viewed through his religious views first, on top of all the other awful **** he proudly says and how he just comes off like he's full of it. He may be worse then Trump to me (okay, maybe not, but perhaps equal). I liked Jeb's view with immigration, and Cruz view on cutting big subsidies, overall though I don't like any of the Republicans candidates.
I will have to watch it again but it sounded like he was trying to have it both ways. If you create a federal law or a legal definition of personhood at the the federal level as starting at conception that would effectively shut down abortion. As you note yes under the 14th Amendment states wouldn't be able to redefine that and abortion in that case would be murder since it would be the deliberate killing of a person. Philosophically pursuing those two tracts are in conflict if the emphasis is to equally hold states rights as sacred as stopping abortion. Federalizing the issue already eliminates the states abilities to individually legalize or ban it.
I disagree. Pursuing the federal law doesn't impinge on a states' rights issue, because it is not dealing with a power reserved to the states. It is dealing with the meaning of the word person in the last clause of the 14th Amendment. I think it would be better handled by Constitutional Amendment than simple legislation, but don't think the legislation itself interferes with states' rights. This would be an emphasis on stopping abortion, but states' rights would be unaffected. Pursuing the overturn of Roe v. Wade and its line of cases would return the abortion issue to the states, where it would likely be made illegal in most red states and not in most blue states. Obviously this would be focused on states' rights, but would not be in conflict with reducing abortion, as it would result in fewer states having legal abortion than there are now.
Except that is really a difference with not much meaning, or a legalistic difference. It's the same argument that critics of federalism have brought up that the Federal government simply redefines what is in the purview of the states. The end result on this issue is the state's ability to decide on abortion is stopped. If Rand Paul had phrased this as an either / or argument in terms of that I want to stop abortion either by federalizing the issue or by having the states decide that would make more sense. In the debate he explicitly said he wants do both. I don't see how you can reconcile that you simultaneously want states to have the ability to decide the issue as a matter of states' rights and then also say you're going to federalize it so states can't decide on it.
Of course it is a legalistic difference, the whole discussion is about changing the legality of a medical procedure through the passage of laws or the overturning of a Supreme Court decision. Legislation relating to the personhood of a fetus has more far reaching effects than merely banning abortion. Drinking or smoking while pregnant could be considered criminal child endangerment/abuse. As I pointed out above, the stances are not logically inconsistent. Rand wants to protect babies (any way to get abortions stopped = good) and respect states' rights (pass no laws that exceed the powers granted to Congress in the Constitution). Both efforts serve those dual goals.
Consider that many critics of the expansion of federal power have frequently cited the expansion of the Commerce Clause to redefine the scope of federal power. What Paul is calling for by federalizing the issue of abortion through redefining personhood under the 14th is basically the same thing. It would be an expansion of federal power to the detriment of the states. That is in conflict with the idea of states rights because state power to decide the issue of abortion is removed. You seem to be making a rather tortured argument, that Paul made, that you can both federalize the issue while also leaving it to the states. By definition that would be in conflict. The only difference is the means of how he is pursuing making abortion illegal. That is fine if the ultimate goal is to make abortion illegal by any legal means but by nature cannot be respecting states' rights since federalizing removes the states ability to independently decide the issue. That is the key point that both you and Paul keep on skirting. Any expansion of federal power does come at the expense of the states. That is a fundamental argument of states' rights and even though I am someone who frequently is critical of those who argue states' rights I will agree with them on that point. Further I'm not criticizing Paul regarding abortion. We can, have had, and probably will again debate that issue in many other threads. I'm pointing out that he is trying to have it both ways to try to hold abortion and states' rights as equally important issues.
Funny to look back at early views in this thread, which started in 2013. Trump wasn't even in the conversation until ~8 pages in. Here's the first commentary on Trump: Needless to say, we didn't give him much of a shot. Nor Cruz. We were talking about Walker and Rand, lol.
I have often said if you live long enough you will see sh** you could have never predicted or even imagined. I saw the Kennedy Assassinations, losing a war against men in pajamas, skyscrapers taken down, but this election is as unbelievable as anything.
Dubious, maybe that means you will live to see Iowa turn to Krokus instead of Caucus. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-UYnjyenikk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
