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Thorgi Duke of Frisbee
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20 members have voted

  1. 1. Death Penalty

    • Yay
    • Nay
    • Case-by-case
    • I judge from afar in my death penalty-less country


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  • 3 weeks later...

Housing bill in California that eases height restrictions near transit lines and all that. This is important in San Francisco Bay Area and over in Los Angeles due to the absolute deadlock that NIMBYs has put on dense and tall housing projects. We need some density to ease up housing supply. Owning a property that you can call your own in the Bay Area is pretty damn hard when you need $900k (easily way higher) to play ball. Hell for renters is also tough. 

 

This housing bill is also important for transit since it can influence what can be built new or upgraded.

I just want an end to this decades long farce that will eventually bring these cities to their knees. 

Edited by Mal
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I think one issue was because the bill did nothing to preserve public transport links (bus lines in particular) meaning that low income people could move to these places and then become stranded if a bus line is discontinued. Also there are concerns it would displace low income renters.

 

It smacks to me of a perceived tendency in liberals to discard something that would help out because it is imperfect, rather than embracing the better for now and continuing to work for perfect.

 

Which is why you ended up with Trump and not Clinton...

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  • 2 weeks later...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43933056

 

A UK child has died, and I'd figured would be enough to put it into the UK politics thread. But this child has been used as a tool by various US political pundits as proof that socialised medicine is bad, that guns are needed, etc. The highest profile I've seen so far has been Ted Cruz and he's happy to hitch his trailer to anything. I'm to understand that shitheel Farage was also happy to have a slot on Fox to talk about Palins old "Death Panels" shtick despite himself knowing it to be an obvious lie.

And no doubt there will be another case soon to come around that these same groups will jump on board, and just throw the parents of Alfie under a bus along with all the doctors and nurses who've been battling for months medically and legally for the rights of this kid.

I guess it also continues with this "enough of experts" thing, where people would dismiss the prognosis of qualified doctors over that of the parents.

 

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Yeah, the right-wing's arguments based on this are extreme, particularly since the right seems fine with insurers refusing to pay for care for folks in this situation anyway. Furthermore, most folks who want socialized medicine here in the US do not want the UK's system. 

 

Personally, I do not think doctors should have the final say on whether to stop care for a terminal person and the UK should have allowed the parents to take their son elsewhere, even if it would have been fruitless. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 30/04/2018 at 5:42 PM, Mr. GOH! said:

Personally, I do not think doctors should have the final say on whether to stop care for a terminal person and the UK should have allowed the parents to take their son elsewhere, even if it would have been fruitless. 

 

I don't agree that parents should be allowed to choose. If we agree that a child is a person, with their own rights, separate to the parents, then the parents' wishes are not really material, what is key is what is in the best interests of the sick person (see: Antivaxers).

 

The parents can't be objective in deciding what is for the best for their child, their own emotions are too caught up in the situation. The doctors are able to make an objective assessment based on quality of life. In Alfie's case he would almost certainly never have regained consciousness and even if he did, he would not have been able to function. The doctors' assessment was that it was kinder to let him go and have a dignified death.

 

If a patient, for whatever reason, can't say for themselves what treatment they want, or whether they want it to continue, then I think that I would rather that the final decision were made by a doctor, than by a loved one who is emotionally conflicted.

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I agree with you except when it comes to end of life choices. Part of it is that I am very skeptical that any person who is do neuro-compromised to the point that they are not really conscious is capable of suffering or that there is a scientifically objective way to tell if such a person is suffering. I imagine the parents here could have found many other doctors who would have determined that the boy could be moved or left on respirators without undue suffering. I don't think the doctors' decision about what they subjectively believe is kindest ought to be determinative.

 

In those circumstances,  the suffering of the parents as conscious individuals and their right to determine what is best for their child when such determination does not put others at risk must also be taken into account. 

 

I take this position as a corollary my belief that people have a right to make their o we n end of life decisions and that such decisions are deeply personal and different from other medical decisions. I think terminal patients have a right to choose anything along the spectrum from assisted suicide to fighting to keep their hearts beating no matter what. I also suspect that if folks in this position were given a choice instead of knowing the decision is ultimately out of their hands,  more would accept the doctors' recommendation rather than fight to the last.

 

Personally, I am disgusted with the right wingers' political use of this boy's sickness and deliberate mischaracterization of UK laws and the NHS.  I also think it's cruel to the loved ones to pretend a brain dead person has any chance at recovery. 

 

And, as a new parent myself, I think I would have accepted the doctors' determination as well. I have a DNR order for myself in the event of essential brain death. 

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Fair. As you say it's nigh impossible to determine if the patient is suffering and being moved may well have had zero impact on their well being. I don't agree that parents' wishes should be absolute though. Obviously in an ideal scenario parents and doctors would come to a mutual understanding. Where that doesn't happen, I guess the courts are the best place to settle things. A shame it came to that.

 

I'm also completely with you on end of life choices as well as my distaste for right wing groups and the red top press dragging as much mileage out of a sick child as possible.

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  • 2 weeks later...
2 hours ago, Mister Jack said:

We're starting to get used to it.

https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-santa-fe-school-shooting-20180518-story.htmlDdhMFfJV4AAMRhI.jpg

That last part. I went to most of my middle school and high school a few miles from Columbine and I didn't have the worry. Sadly though, it did eventually happen at my high school in 2013 (I would had been Class of 2008... or was it 2007?). I am not surprised that kids are expecting it to eventually happen. Insanity is normalized.

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  • 2 months later...
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  • 2 weeks later...

What's with all the people being removed from voting lists. I carry on seeing tweets that pretty much suggest checking yourself weekly to see if you're still registered to vote. It's a bit barmy. Over here about only time you need to re-register to vote is if you move address or change name or what not. Otherwise you're on for life.

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The fuck if I know but I re-registered just in case even though I got everything but my ballot in the mail. Still waiting for that so I can spend some time researching in er nest for my votes. Also remember, you can leave stuff blank if you don't have an educated opinion about any ballot option. It's honestly better than just blindly voting for something. This is not a god damn test where it got to be 100% filled out.

 

I'm still scratching my head about my not counted 2016 Primary ballot... if any of my mail in are not counted again, I'm raging.  Should be noted that I am in California, San Francisco Bay Area none the less and I worry about this shit. I can only imagine the hell that black voters in say Georgia goes through...

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3 hours ago, deanb said:

What's with all the people being removed from voting lists. I carry on seeing tweets that pretty much suggest checking yourself weekly to see if you're still registered to vote. It's a bit barmy. Over here about only time you need to re-register to vote is if you move address or change name or what not. Otherwise you're on for life.

 

That's pretty much how it works here too, so it's been pretty weird to see people going on about having to register/check if you're still registered/stuff.

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@deanb In addition to all the really shady stuff like "losing" registrations or whatever (which does happen, but I think people blow it out of proportion) recently states have started passing laws where if you haven't voted in the last X number of elections then they send you a notice to check that you're still living there, and if you don't respond they unregister you. It's not a problem for people who vote regularly, just for people who registered years ago but haven't actually been voting, then decide they want to, only to find out they've been unregistered.

 

I actually had a weird thing happen to me in the primary this year, where they thought I had moved and had changed my registration address, even though I hadn't. Turns out the post office sent a change of address for a different person and they got it mixed up with me and changed my voting address instead. I truly believe that was accidental though, because they were really helpful about it and even made it a point to call me later after they'd figured out what happened. I had my wife check to make sure she was still registered properly, and she was.

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Putting this here since the caravan will eventually reach the US-Mexico border.

Roughly 7000 in this caravan with about 1000 applied for refugee status in Mexico. I think another 2000 is forming up in Guatemala. I know there are already some (I'm not sure how many) at the US-Mexico border. The next few weeks is going to be interesting... I'm really not sure how this will all play out.

 

On a related note: we're likely will see more of this sort of migrations in the coming decades as climate change disrupts the economies and politics of countries like Honduras (mainly poorer countries).

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