Is there anything positive to say about Trump's presidency?

Fun fact: Obama made it possible to import firearms from Vietnam!

Maybe trump’s trade war will shut that down again.

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If you really want to be a psychopathic Machiavellian, you should also enact a Bankruptcy Abuse Protection Amendment Act that makes it impossible to discharge medical debt in a bankruptcy - lump it in with criminal fines, child support, and student debt. Then you can get praise for having ‘solved’ the bankruptcy crisis.

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Never heard of the stuff either. From the look of it, I’m glad.

I support PP, but I do not expect to ever have an abortion.

Does Russia’s age only start counting post-USSR?

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I think something “barely legal” may be more his speed, like the Parliamentary Republic of Albania (b. 1998)

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I know that the comment wasn’t made in good faith, but…

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You’re seriously attempting to compare things like (proposed!) expanded background checks, bans on armor-piercing rounds, and increased penalties for things that were already illegal… to the already largely successful attempts to curtail abortion rights?

If guns were abortions, you’d have to travel for miles (and potentially into a different state) to buy one, be harassed by potentially murderous protestors at the door to the store, sit through educational talks of the effects of a bullet entering the human body (complete with explicit pictures), be sent home to come back some other day for more…

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And in some states, have a medically unnecessary medical procedure involving a sonogram wand inserted into a body cavity.

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Ooohh, that’d cut down on some of the larger caliber gun sales when they found out where they were going!

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You don’t have to sell me on abortion rights. But the people who want to ban abortion have the same righteous indignation that gun control people have. Both groups believe that they are doing the right thing for good reasons, and they both use more or less the same tactics and language. Both groups are willing to engage in deception because they are convinced that they are working for the greater good.
“common sense restrictions on…”
"We don’t want to ban anything, it is just about safety…"
both the gun rights groups and the abortion rights groups get more support when the rights that they defend are perceived to be under attack.

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That’s a mighty silly hobby horse that you chose to jump up and ride around on. Makes you look silly too.

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Here’s one difference: by and large, the people who claim “abortion is murder” oppose unrestricted access to birth control, which has long been shown to be the most effective way to reduce the number of abortions. Gun control advocates rarely oppose measures proven to be highly effective at reducing gun deaths.

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Do you enjoy paying ten dollars for fifty cents’ worth of snap-frozen ice cream?

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Hey, can’t we at least all agree it beats the heck out of “astronaut ice cream?” That shit isn’t even cold.

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+1

Well, yeah, that’s generally going to be true of any group wanting to do something.

Again… yeah, but that’s a truism in the case of any large group that supports something, it’s not much of a similarity.

Even if we set that aside, it’s a thin, thin thread to hang any kind comparison on. Any increased support for abortion rights has to also deal with increased support against it that is raised by having a government largely made up of people who have promised bans. Like others have noted, there has actually been success on removing access to abortion from a large portion of the country, and there’s a situation where even more success is highly likely. Which really makes the two topics not at all similar.

I’ve yet to see a gun store bombed. Or, really, just about any other tactic used against abortion providers being used against gun providers…

And even if we just stick to politics, well… the Democratic party platform has consistently contained a recognition of the rights of gun owners, and focuses on things like background checks, mental health issues, funding scientific research, etc. Whereas the Republican platform has consistently not included any recognition of abortion rights, and focuses on banning types of abortion, removing public funds from groups that have the slightest amount of contact with abortion, and even modifying the constitution to do away with abortion.

Yeah, they’re totally alike. If you squint real hard.

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I thought all night about this, what’s a good thing I can say about Trump’s presidency?

People use all kinds of terrible, self-destructive behaviours to deal with their intolerable emotions. Addiction, self-mutilation, eating disorders, stuff I haven’t even contemplated. As someone who has done some of this I feel like there is no sense in talking about the issue without recognizing the utility of the self-destructive behaviour to the people doing it. When people self-mutilate it gives them relief. We can disagree that it’s something they should be doing, we can think the harm they are doing to themselves is wrong, but I don’t think we get anywhere if we don’t recognize that the relief it gives them is a good thing. It’s better that a person doesn’t have to suffer, even if momentarily. Whether it’s worth the cost and the damage done is a separate discussion from acknowledging that the relief of suffering is good.

Well, many people in America feel some temporary relief from Trump’s election and inauguration. Setting aside the obvious fact that the emotional relief experienced by those people comes at a cost that will fantastically outweigh the that good, I can acknowledge that it’s good that they are temporarily relieved.

For clarity, I am not likening voting for Donald Trump to self-harming (though I did think a lot about that), I’m only using that as a way of clearly separating the concept of emotional gains from cost of those gains, so that I can be recognize one as good without condoning the other.

Michael Moore pleaded with people not to vote for Trump saying it would feel good for one day. Feeling good for one day is good. I don’t agree that killing yourself to get that feeling is worth it. I wish people could tolerate their feelings well enough to care better for themselves, and to then look outside themselves and care for others as well.

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No, because then he’d lose the NRA support.

Not all anime!

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Earth and Jupiter are both planets; they are exactly the same!

See? Works.

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