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Author Topic: American Election Megathread - It's Over  (Read 715539 times)

NinjaBoot

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Re: American Election Megathread
« Reply #2160 on: February 20, 2012, 08:56:43 pm »

Yes, birth control increases the amount of unwanted pregnancies through simple numbers.  By increasing the amount of people wanting to have sex (because its now safe), you are also increasing the chances of "accidents" happening.  "Oh, I didn't take the pill."  "The condom broke."  "The Pill didn't work" (give me proof that it is 100% effective).

Please back this up with at least some sort of factual information. Especially the notion that, without birth control, people wouldn't be having sex unless they wanted to get pregnant. If you're going to say stuff that is this controversial, you should probably cite your sources.

You are honestly telling me you have never met or know of people who are in this situation?  I say this from personal experience, having seen and know alot of people who think they are having safe sex then end up with a kid.
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mainiac

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Re: American Election Megathread
« Reply #2161 on: February 20, 2012, 08:58:33 pm »

Why does ninjaboot hate america so much?

Yes, birth control increases the amount of unwanted pregnancies through simple numbers.  By increasing the amount of people wanting to have sex (because its now safe), you are also increasing the chances of "accidents" happening.  "Oh, I didn't take the pill."  "The condom broke."  "The Pill didn't work" (give me proof that it is 100% effective).

Please back this up with at least some sort of factual information. Especially the notion that, without birth control, people wouldn't be having sex unless they wanted to get pregnant. If you're going to say stuff that is this controversial, you should probably cite your sources.

You are honestly telling me you have never met or know of people who are in this situation?  I say this from personal experience, having seen and know alot of people who think they are having safe sex then end up with a kid.

I had a pregnancy scare but we live in a free country so plan B no problem.  One day me and that special lady will have kids together when we are good and ready and not financially incapable.

One day you will no longer be a virgin and you will look back on what you think now and shake your head.
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kaijyuu

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Re: American Election Megathread
« Reply #2162 on: February 20, 2012, 08:59:24 pm »

Personal experience isn't always indicative of society as a whole. In fact it most often isn't; small slices of anything large and complex is going to give you a skewed view.

So yeah. Statistics. Use those.


PS:
Are you guys jerks to everyone you disagree with? Vehement disagreement is fine. Sarcasm and demeaning quips toward people is well... douchebaggish.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2012, 09:01:39 pm by kaijyuu »
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For, in order that men should resist injustice, something more is necessary than that they should think injustice unpleasant. They must think injustice absurd; above all, they must think it startling. They must retain the violence of a virgin astonishment. When the pessimist looks at any infamy, it is to him, after all, only a repetition of the infamy of existence. But the optimist sees injustice as something discordant and unexpected, and it stings him into action.

MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: American Election Megathread
« Reply #2163 on: February 20, 2012, 09:03:16 pm »

You are honestly telling me you have never met or know of people who are in this situation?  I say this from personal experience, having seen and know alot of people who think they are having safe sex then end up with a kid.
NinjaBoot, you may not be aware of this, but people in general quite like having sex. A lot. We're kind of driven towards it, as a byproduct of our evolutionary drive to propagate the species.

People love sex so much, in fact, that if deprived of birth control they'll just do it anyway. With birth control, the likelihood of conceiving is entire orders of magnitude lower than without.

No form of birth control is perfect. There have been people who have actually managed to defeat vasectomies and tubal ligations, and those are the most effective forms of birth control we have.

The point is that, right now, we are in a state of law where you can use many types of contraceptive methods to prevent conceiving, and you can get an abortion if that manages to fail and you don't want or can't support a child. Santorum would try to change all of that, or make it very difficult, thus exasperating the situations you yourself have described.
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Montague

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Re: American Election Megathread
« Reply #2164 on: February 20, 2012, 09:03:55 pm »

That is more a fault of the system itself than a politician using it to ensure he gets reelected.  This also ties in with government being big enough to doll out earmarks in such a fashion as to now have them as a means to influence voting patterns.  People are more willing to vote for a candidate that offers them money rather than a candidate that doesn't. 

Just saying, all politicians love earmarks, but that isn't really conductive to deficit reduction or a conservative fiscal policy.

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Hey, doesn't matter if American is doing the Obama Apology World Tour, they will still go to war.  Look at what happened in Libya. 

Libya was a very cost-effective war in almost every aspect for the US, mostly because we prodded the Europeans into doing most of the work. I'm all for letting Europeans take the risk and foot the bill for these sorts of voluntary armed adventures in shithole countries we have nothing to do with.

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Of course, this is why we talk about "deficit reduction" instead of "debt reduction". 

Government spending has only gone up, but public debt has gone down under the Clinton administration. I'd like to see a serious effort to bring spending in line right now, with the Republican Congress, but they haven't done much there.

No birth control is 100% effective. Even abstinence only has an effective use rate of something like 70%/99.5% (Which, mind you, is actually a lower success rate for both effective and perfect use than the birth control pill.)

Abstinence, by definition, is 100% effective. The problem with the statistics is people can still get pregnant if they wanted to or not and I don't mean immaculate conception either, but that's another topic altogether.
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palsch

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Re: American Election Megathread
« Reply #2165 on: February 20, 2012, 09:05:31 pm »

You sure about that?  Obama nationalized the student loans industry.  He is also in the process of nationalising Healthcare.  He also ensured that the government now owns a portion of GM.
Not going to get into all three of these, but let's just look at one of them. As always;

Student loans;
Before 2010 there were two student loan projects. The first was private loans backed by government cash (FFEL). That is to say, private companies issue the loans and make profit from them. If a student defaults then the government pays for the defaulted value. There is no risk involved for the private company and the government needs to keep the capital required to pay for the potential cost of defaults.

The second was direct government loans directly to students (FDLP). This was started in 1993.

These two projects existed in parallel since then until 2010. During the healthcare debate the administration was looking for ways to save money. They noticed that the FDLP was cheaper for the Federal government. They estimated something like $30 billion (number from memory and I think over 10 years) was being spent on subsidising banks to encourage them to make the loans. By scrapping the FFEL project and granting all loans directly under the FDLP they could save that $30 billion instantly.

The only argument against this was that they would no longer be pumping an extra $30 billion into the banking industry. IIRC the banks could still offer loans to students. They just wouldn't be federally subsidised. All that ended was the massive subsidy that was paid to those acting as middlemen.
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NinjaBoot

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Re: American Election Megathread
« Reply #2166 on: February 20, 2012, 09:09:06 pm »

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Hey, doesn't matter if American is doing the Obama Apology World Tour, they will still go to war.  Look at what happened in Libya. 

Yes, please, tell me - how many soldiers did we lose in Obama's war compared to Bush's war? How long did it take us to win Obama's war compared to Bush's war? How much did we spend? The people asked us to be there, begged us to come, and we earned goodwill from the citizens of the country rather than their hatred. And, to top it all off, we didn't START this war - we joined it midway through due to treaty obligations we are expected to fulfil, and which congress, in fact, approved.

Congress did not give Obama the approval to goto war.  Even using his presidental authority to goto war without congressional approval for 90 days, he did not get approval for going to war period. 

Blame and hate Bush all you want, but at the very least he went and got approval from congress. 

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Libya did far more good for us and accomplished quite a bit more for quite a bit less than the mess we got into in Iraq.

How so?  Oh, right.. because the coalitian against Libya wanted to oust a dictator who happened to have control over some very profitable oil fields and he just happened to be obstinate enough to finally get ousted? 

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I could see someone who was opposed to the Iraq war making a good case against Libya, and I'd have no problem with them. But the SOLE argument people use is "see - Obama does it to!", and that's a bullshit argument hands down.

I would have no problem with the war if he had at least gotten the approval of the senate, and conducted it through the law.  He did not. 

Ontop of that, the whole circumstances and reasons for invading Libya are more controversial than what happened in Iraq. 

If you argue Libya was for humanitarian purposes, then you give an automatic pass to Iraq because, well, Saddam Hussein did gas his own people (the kurds, ya know? roughly 100,000 of them). 

Oil?  There's Oil in Libya too! 

Taking down an oppressive regime?  Thats what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan!
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Sirus

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Re: American Election Megathread
« Reply #2167 on: February 20, 2012, 09:10:47 pm »

I assume that when GlyphGryph said that abstinence is only 70% effective, he (or is it she? I can never remember) was talking about abstinence plans like Virginity Pledges. As far as medical science is aware, people who never have sex will never have kids. In reality, people enjoy having sex and will probably have it, pledges be damned. When they do, thy are less likely to use birth control. Thus, abstinence pledges are only 70% effective.
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: American Election Megathread
« Reply #2168 on: February 20, 2012, 09:13:13 pm »

Libya wasn't so much a war for the US as it was a small military operation. We bombed some stuff, that's about it. Afghanistan and Iraq were both full-scale invasions and occupations. Kind of a different ball game.
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NinjaBoot

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Re: American Election Megathread
« Reply #2169 on: February 20, 2012, 09:14:38 pm »

The only argument against this was that they would no longer be pumping an extra $30 billion into the banking industry. IIRC the banks could still offer loans to students. They just wouldn't be federally subsidised. All that ended was the massive subsidy that was paid to those acting as middlemen.

No, the banks will not be able to offer student loans.  This means companies that offer loans as a means of business.  Loan Sharks if you want to use the disparaging term.

Since they will not be able to offer loans, government has now become the sole lendor of post-secondary financial aid.  They have taken over the post-secondary loans industry. 

Yes, I know of the history surrounding this, but at the very least it still gave people choice.  There is no choice now. 
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Montague

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Re: American Election Megathread
« Reply #2170 on: February 20, 2012, 09:15:30 pm »

I assume that when GlyphGryph said that abstinence is only 70% effective, he (or is it she? I can never remember) was talking about abstinence plans like Virginity Pledges. As far as medical science is aware, people who never have sex will never have kids. In reality, people enjoy having sex and will probably have it, pledges be damned. When they do, thy are less likely to use birth control. Thus, abstinence pledges are only 70% effective.

Then, it's like saying condoms are ineffective because people end up not using them correctly, or birth control regimens don't work because people can forget to take them.

It's true people are terrible at staying out of each other's pants but it doesn't mean you can really rely compare statistics like this fairly.
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Leafsnail

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Re: American Election Megathread
« Reply #2171 on: February 20, 2012, 09:19:01 pm »

People hated America a lot less during Clinton's years than after Bush started unjustly invading everything.
Wrong.  That is what the media wants you to believe.
Guys.  You can't reason with a conspiracy theorist.  Because conspiracy theorists just know the truth even if the evidence doesn't point that way.
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NinjaBoot

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Re: American Election Megathread
« Reply #2172 on: February 20, 2012, 09:21:38 pm »

Why does ninjaboot hate america so much?

I'd like to make the distinction that I like America (being Canadian and all), I just dislike with a passion the politiking that is going on. 

I had a pregnancy scare but we live in a free country so plan B no problem.  One day me and that special lady will have kids together when we are good and ready and not financially incapable.

Good for you, I'm glad you realize the need for being good and ready and financially capable of supporting your kid(s) when you have them. 

My whole focus is one the whole section of people who are not ready to have kids. 

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One day you will no longer be a virgin and you will look back on what you think now and shake your head.

Meh, I'll let it slide.  :)
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: American Election Megathread
« Reply #2173 on: February 20, 2012, 09:22:27 pm »

People hated America a lot less during Clinton's years than after Bush started unjustly invading everything.
Wrong.  That is what the media wants you to believe.
Guys.  You can't reason with a conspiracy theorist.  Because conspiracy theorists just know the truth even if the evidence doesn't point that way.
To be fair, mass media outlets do want to convince you to believe things. It's just that they're different things, and not some shadowy monolithic entity.
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Quote from: Thomas Paine
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Leafsnail

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Re: American Election Megathread
« Reply #2174 on: February 20, 2012, 09:23:35 pm »

And they'd have trouble bribing every foreign person to retrospectively claim that actually they liked America a lot more before the Bush years even though at the time they hated it just as much as they do now.
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