It is a sticky issue but really should not be. Conservatives try to make it all black and white. They do not allow for exceptions. I do not support abortion, I support the right of the woman to decide what is best for her health and that of the baby. Harry Reed, LDS and top dog Democrat has consistently voted exactly as I would want him to on this issue.
Senator Reid, reflecting a pro-life view, believes in a heavily restricted right to abortion. He stated in a 1998 National Political Awareness Test that he believed "Abortions should be legal only when the pregnancy resulted from incest, rape, or when the life of the woman is endangered."[10] In 1999, he voted against an amendment explicitly expressing support for Roe v. Wade.[11]
Reid has voted several times to ban what physicians call the "intact dilation and evacuation" procedure and what abortion opponents call the "partial-birth abortion" procedure.[12] In 2003, he supported alternate language than the act that eventually passed that would have banned all late-term abortions, while allowing exceptions for the life and health of the mother. Several polls have stated that a majority of Americans support banning "partial birth abortion" when the pollsters describe it as such.[13][14] Reid also voted in favor of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, in favor of parental notification in the case of minors undergoing out-of-state abortions, and in favor of maintaining the ban on abortions and supplying birth control for US military personnel.[15]
So, you see you can be a Democrat and have a responsible stance on abortion.
For those of you who are one issue voters. I'd have to point out the immorality of war, of poverty, of lack of health care, decent education and of affordable housing.
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It seems you want the home court advantage, and want to move the discussion to your own blog.
War is not Immoral when the good step up and put down those who want to harm and enslave.
Poverty is Immoral but in the US is very low, lower than most other nations and lower then most recorded history. It should be 0% but its not the governments job to fix it its ours.
Their is no lack of Health Care in the world or the US. Walk into any ER and you will be helped. (The issue here is how you pay for it, Directly or thru greater Taxes) The free Market works if you let it.
Education could use some work, if we get the Government out of it, it will fix itself. Go Free Market.
And lastly, their is TONS of affordable housing. If you can't find it your just looking in the wrong place. Try South Dakota or Texas or any other place tons of people don't want to live. Again long live the free market.
Now I do have an advantage. I thru my work have had several occasions to audit government contracts. The old jokes about the $100 hammers and Toilet seats are not too far off.
Everything the government gets involved in is by nature inefficient, and bogged down in red tape & bureaucracy. Their is not greater waist of money than governments.
Give me back MY Money (I earned it) and I will decided what health insurance I need, where to send my kids to school, where to shop, what charities to support. The hungry will be fed, the homeless housed, jobs will be created.
Craig does your warped perspective come from never having had a financial struggle in your life? Have you ever been on welfare? Have you ever gone without health insurance? Have you ever wondered what on earth you would do if you were to get sick because you could not afford to see a doctor? Have you worked three jobs at once, doing night shifts with people who had very few teeth left? While paying for a PhD and working for two Universities? Your view of the world is so idealistic, and so off base. We need to deal with the realities, and the realities are that there is a lack of health care and our country is one of the worst. No, not everyone can walk into an ER and get help. They are turned away daily, people dropped off on the street with no where to go. If your job is in California then the affordable housing needs to be in California. We need to be socialised. Education, and health care, elder care, paid for by taxes. You need to watch SICKO.
One more thing, after what Bush has done for our foreign relations most of the world wants to harm and enslave the Americans. Should we kill them all?
Decent education? In this country? The only way that'll happen is if we all send our kids to private schools and openly defy the No Child Left Behind law.
And it's always fun to see two old friends bashing each other on the interwebs...
did anyone see the video of the woman that sat in an ER for 24 hours and then slumped to the floor--no one payed an ounce of attention to it and 2 hours later a nurse went over to her, nudged her with her foot and found that she was DEAD.
you're right Franz (or Serena) NOT everyone gets help in an ER--in fact a lot of people get overlooked. That's just ONE thing that is wrong.
I also believe if you haven't had any financial struggles it is easy to be idealistic. That's one trial in my life that I am actually thankful for--it made me see the world in a different way(not just government).
Hello,
This is Martin.
And YOU think you have it hard. At our age (late 50s), health insurance at Kaiser increased from about $400 a month in 1980 to currently about $1,200 a month, while coverage declined from a fixed fee of $400 for each hospital visit to a co-payment of $400 a day for a hospital stay. Hail(!) to the free market concept.
Free market is great when you have lots of mula. If not, the capitalists cry for protection and regulation. Go figure...
Phew-what a discussion! Doesn't the Church have the same stance on abortion-legal in case of incest, rape or threat to the mother's life?
As far as war-the Book of Mormon gives two different perspectives on it and shows the consequences of both-the Anti-Nephi-Lehis non-violent resistance approach, and Captain Moroni's attack the enemy approach. Which one is better? You be the judge.
As far as health care-it should be more accessable to those who can't afford it. We are fortunate to have Healthy Families-a low cost government subsidized program for children. We have been without good benefits and know it is very scary. I don't know the solution to that one, but I don't think that the government should pay for everyone's health care if they can afford it. I've also been on other gov't assistance programs and the majority of those people who are on them, will be on them their whole lives for lack of education and good decision making.
The problem with education-ACCOUNTABILITY! The teachers and schools are held 100% accountable for student performance. What about the parents? Fine them $ for their kids testing low, getting bad grades or missing classes. Then you'd see some progress. That is why I quit teaching. We had excellent programs and training for teachers. The parents did nothing, but it was always OUR fault when their child did poorly.
The housing market right now looks pretty good to us. We just need a down payment and a low interest loan and we'll try to buy by the end of the year. It was the mortgage companies and irresponsible people's faults for all the foreclosures now days.
I think it all comes down to making responsible and educated decisions. Also realizing that not everything in life is equal or fair.
What is the governments job? I believe the constitution is pretty wide open on this one. The preamble suggests that the role of government is to establish Justice, provide for the common defense, promote the General Welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty upon ourselves and our posterity.
Does our government to a good job of supporting these goals? Yes and no. As citizens, I think we are responsible for holding government accountable to providing programs that help make these values possible for every citizen, not just white, male, property holders.
We live in a very blessed nation that has a comparatively low rate of poverty, yet the numbers of poor are growing. And, when it comes to the moral issue - do we as individual citizens take care of our poor or should we put the responsibility on government. The answer is both. Neither one can do it alone. As individuals, most of us are too in love with our material wealth to really end the problem of poverty. We don't really want to share, we just want the poor to somehow become wealthier and thus less of a nuisance to our lifestyle.
When the term Free Market gets tossed around, I have to think. Does this Free Market have a values system that is not founded on profit? Or does the Free Market operate for the good of the individual? In my opinion, the Free Market is beneficial to business but is not morally or socially driven. The Free Market reacts to moral or social injustice only when it effects profits. It does not innately seek righteousness over wickedness. And yet, many seem to view the Free Market as infallible. It seems to be set up as an idol, or false god of some sort.
I am reminded of the law of consecration (it's so socialist!). I think many people are going to be surprised when it comes time to live it.
fining parents for a child's low test scores? that's fine if the parent is lazy and not helping the child--but it IS part teacher responsibility to help a child suceed. as a parent of a child who will probably struggle his whole life with school I AM helping my child and we have taken measures to get tutoring. Some children are better test takers than others as well. as a parent that is ON 24 hours and involved DAILY in HELPING my children how am I too be faulted for poor test scores. one cannot always fault the parent for a child's failure. I do agree that children that are not parented at home will fail, but the teacher is trained for a reason and that is to deal with different children in each classroom. and just because a child struggles (and not in every subject)the parent should not be faulted.
I don't believe that the teacher should be faulted for a child's failure--but there are better ways of helping a child than fining his/her parents for their scores.
don't even get me started on the state testing and the results of those tests giving schools more money for better scores. the schools that are doing poorly NEED more funding to better help the kids that are doing poorly.
Just MY opinion.
I've really enjoyed reading your responses. As far as fining parents, perhaps for excessive unexcused abscences. I think that could work.
When it comes to public education-I am referring to MY OWN experience in the classroom. We only had 6 hours a day with the students and 29 to 1 ratio doesn't allow for much individual time with students.Plus, we only got paid for 30 minutes of planning/grading time a day! So how can you create an individual lesson plan for 6 subjects and 29 kids? A large majority of parents had no clue what their kids were learning in class, nor did they care. I'm sure fining parents is unconstitutional. I'm just saying parents should have some accountability and it shouldn't be all on the teachers. In case of bad test scores-I'm not for testing as a standard because you are right, not all kids test well-you DO have the option to not have your kids tested-that is your right.
Abortion will be with us until the Supreme Court no longer protects it as a right to privacy. It is very unlikely that it would do that.
The important case on the matter was decided in the early 90s, the Casey decision. In that case the court had the opportunity to take abortion out of the right to privacy, but chose not to do so. In an opinion written by Justice O'Connor, the state can regulate abortion as long as there is "no undue burden" on the ability of a woman to get an abortion. What is significant about this case is that it reafirmed the right to abortion as a constitutional right. Since Casey there have been several decision on the matter, each decision, based on the undue burden test simply reaffirms the right. What it has done is really make it difficult for teenagers to get an abortion, however adults are pretty free to get one. The one caveat is that there is no fundemental right to have the government pay for an abortion. What all this means that even if the Supreme Court overturns the right, which is highly unlikely, abortion would not be a fundamental right and it would fall on the states to regulate it as they please, with the constraints of their own consitutions. So politically, this issue is really a smoke screen, because politicians are very limited on what they can really do, beyond not have the government pay for it, or not funding organizations that do. The only real power that a President would have is to appoint a Supreme Court Justice, but even then it is still a crap shot. The original Roe v. Wade decision was written by Justice Blackmun, considered a conservative and appointed by Nixon. Interestingly the case decision can be traced back to a case regarding contraception, which is also a right to privacy.
julio
that is nice to know that I don't have to have my kids tested. I feel it puts too much pressure on them. when I have my 6th (now in 7th) grader talking about her class and the kids she's with because they are the kids that didn't test well, it makes me SICK. I don't think anyone should be punished for state standard testing and then thrown together because you all didn't do very well.
As parents, we of course will be very defensive of our children and as you probably know--we want the best for them. I think if there is communication between child and parent and then in turn with the teacher everybody can win. And not a seperate lesson plan for that child, but acknowledgment that there is an issue and some decisions on how to best help that child. It would be too much to have seperate lessons plan with as many kids a teacher see's in a day (middle school). I have met with many a teacher and also emailed and got weekly grade reports home. All that can be done without any extra planning on a teacher's part--it just takes a parent that cares and is willing to do extra work to ensure their child gets the help they need, that is where a parent should be accountable. And yes Serena, the excessive absences should be dealt with somehow--it just hurts the child in the long run.
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