If you think “it won’t matter” that Roe v. Wade is likely to be overturned if Trump is reelected then you’re probably not one of the people who has ever had to depend on a SCOTUS ruling to uphold their basic civil rights.
The Republicans are nowhere NEAR meeting the threshold of getting any kind of Constitutional Amendment passed, ESPECIALLY if we elect a Democrat to the White House.
Your Nihilism smacks of “too lazy to vote.”
I understand your pain, truly. I’m not feeling much hope today myself. The challenge as I see it is-- feel pain today if you must, but get back up and fight tomorrow. 
That’s possible but if Trump gets another 4 years to appoint young ultra-right-wing SCOTUS judges they wouldn’t need to go through the effort. Those are lifetime appointments and there’s not much doubt that having the 3rd branch of government firmly in republican hands for a generation would have the same effect for abortion, not to mention many other areas of law.
That doesn’t clarify anything other than that you originally said that Obama caused the backlash, which @anon61221983 pointed out is a general phenomenon in presidents’ second terms.
Well that’s not true at all - I think that it’s likely that the SC won’t have anything to do with Roe v Wade and resent your accusation. Being a realist that Trumps court could rule on that now and the balance of power in the court won’t likely change for the next 15 years doesn’t make me unaware of how important the court is - you should shove that argument and perhaps even take a gander at the fact that the court is ALREADY 5-4 and won’t likely change for another decade from that position.
A convention doesn’t take the white house, or congress. If they get 60% of the states they can call a convention and change the constitution - it’s the nuclear bomb option and they’ve been working towards it for decades.
Nope - but I’m glad to see you doing your part to encourage others.
You are absolutely welcome to your principles.
However, they do not exist in a vacuum, and you also have to accept that those who see you making the choices you do are just as likely to find those choices naive, privileged, and ignorant of those who are affected should the current government get another 4 years in office.
The price of freedom has consequences.
Mod note: For obvious reasons this is an important topic and one that is likely to fire up a lot of folks. That doesn’t mean 1) you can disparage those you disagree with, 2) rag on new posters you disagree with or 3) generally behave contrary to the community guidelines.
Amongst all the noise I just cleared out there’s actually some great conversation going on here. If you can’t contribute to that, try a different topic.
Interesting. And one more thing, I don’t think it makes for good optics or politics to “abolish” or “ban” things. Nobody abolished buggy whip manufacturers, they just went on to make handbags or something.
Going back:
This response from Mindysan33 - which quoted a specific part of my post - that part of my post (the part quoted) had nothing to do with Obama. What I said (to you) was that my post was two separate thoughts - one of which should have had a quote - thus the ‘correct flow’ I attempted to show you - which would have made the original post (way upthread) more clear about the fact that it was separate thoughts.
If this doesn’t clear it up for you I apologise but I don’t feel like I can explain it more than I have.
I think that’s actually sound reasoning in a lot of cases, but it applies more to when the government has the power to do things to people than to do things for them.
I would say in general that you should never give the government any powers (law enforcement, surveillance, etc.) that you wouldn’t want to see in the hands of your political opponents. The Dems in Congress have, by and large, demonstrated that they would rather see these kinds of powers in Trump’s hands than not have the government have those powers at all, which shows pretty clearly which side they’re on.
Changing the court is the plan they’ve been working toward—successfully—for decades. That’s the whole reason the Federalist Society exists. And it means they could effectively outlaw abortion with a couple of court appointees instead of the long, difficult road toward enacting a Constitutional Amendment.
The last time a Constitutional Amendment was ratified with any significant opposition from the states was the 24th Amendment, which abolished poll taxes in 1964.
Ok, I say this with no animus intended, but this paragraph indicates that you might not be working from the same set of facts as most of us.
First, anyone who has been watching the SC’s ruling on abortion can tell you that Roe is in serious danger of being whittled away to nothing (if not overturned outright) in the face of state restrictions. The anti-choice movement has been playing the long game on this for some time, and they are poised to make generational changes that depend on the composition of the Supreme Court.
Second, if you think that RBG is going to be a Justice on the Supreme Court for another 10 years, I admire your sense of optimism but I disagree with your sense of reality. It is nearing an actuarial certainty that the next President will nominate her replacement, and if you honestly believe that it won’t matter to this country whether we get a Biden nominee or another Brett Kavanaugh (or, likely, even worse, given that they would have the political capital to do so), then I’m afraid I don’t know what to tell you.
The other, untested way laid out in Article V is for two-thirds of state legislatures to call for a constitutional convention, also known as an “Article V convention,” to add amendments to the Constitution once they are ratified by three-fourths of the states.
If they have enough state legislatures - they can call a convention - and pretty much do whatever (the rules for what they can do are vague enough that once called - anything could happen) - and again - assuming they have the states - they could force any amendment at the convention - who goes is like the electoral college - it’s whoever the states send - they each get a vote - A vote. The result doesn’t go back to the voters, or the congress, or the SC - it just gets added on - it’s never been done before and they are actively working towards this. I’m aware of the Federalist society - if you think the SC was the biggest battleground over Roe, however - you are wrong - they have a veritable Hydra of plans with a singular reason - to overturn Roe.
Roe is both the greatest moment in our system, and the most horrible thing to happen to our politics at the same time.
Not voting isn’t checking a box that says “I would have voted but you did earn it”, it’s a box that says “ignore me, I’m cool with whatever.” It doesn’t matter what your intention in abstaining is, that is how the vote is counted in all statistical data used for governing.
EDIT
Let me be more clear: if you want to throw away a vote, go write something in if you can. And if you can’t write something in, pick your poison. It’s literally how your congressional district is decided, even if you are voting for just the best candidates and no one else.
100% it won’t matter. 5-4 or 6-3 is still a loss. Unless you are willing to change the court (which will just mean R’s do worse next time) or you are willing to bet on one of the conservatives dying early - it won’t matter.
That’s what I’m saying.
Republicans ramming a Constitutional Amendment banning abortion is within the realm of possibility, but it’s way, way more complicated than completing their takeover of the Supreme Court.
The former approach would require winning a whole lot of elections. The latter approach requires winning just one. If we’re looking for the imminent threat we should focus on who is going to appoint the next few justices.
Don’t be so sure. There are a few cases where disaster was averted when one conservative on the court didn’t go along with the others. If Roberts hadn’t sided with the more liberal justices in 2012 then the Affordable Care Act would have been completely overturned.
E.T.A.: let’s also not forget about the Obergefell decision in 2015. If Kennedy (a Reagan appointee who usually tended to vote with his conservative colleagues) hadn’t voted in favor of it then many thousands if not millions of couples around the country would currently have no right to marry.
I just hope Biden is smart and tries to unify the party. Like picking Warren as VP would be good thing and trying to pick up Sanders as Secretary of Labor would be a boon but I don’t see that in the cards since Biden is taking more cues from the corporate wing than he is from the progressive wing.
Just to clarify, in case some do not fully realise it, there is plenty of private medicine in the UK, and by far not just for the fantastically wealthy.
The NHS is universal (and fantastic, subject to funding - or underfunding when Tories are in charge for a decade or so) but many (most?) NHS consultants also have private practices on the side.
I don’t know the number but I believe maybe as much as 1 in 5 UK employees have access to some sort of employer-funded private heath cover benefit. It is used by employers to attract and retain staff and when employees have need of medical procedures, private provision gets them fixed and back to work much quicker than the delay of NHS waiting times.
This still means that by far the largest majority of consultations and procedures in hospitals are done by the NHS (and some NHS trusts/hospitals also provide some private capacity).
General Practitioners are nearly all NHS funded and free to use. But they are pretty much all technically private partnerships, funded by the NHS according to strict terms of service. They are NOT employees of the NHS. But some GPs do offer private consultations and some offer non-NHS services privately (e.g. travel vaccinations required for travel to some countries).
So, even here, there is room for both private and public options.
6-3 is a loss of an entire generation, 5-4 is the loss for a decade at most. You can’t think of things this way and expect anything but the worst to happen.
