Abortion Should Be Legal

This is a really interesting argument that you've brought up - I hadn't thought of it in that way before. Thanks for sharing! Do you believe that the other party should also have an equal voice in the case of rape?

That's a great and valid question. It's just as much the man's child as it is the woman's in the eyes of the law. If a man has to pay child support for a child and/or alimony to a woman if she chooses to leave him with a child, then he should have a say in whether or not the child is allowed to live or if the child is to be aborted. Some may disagree, I say you can't have it both ways without making the judicial system even more discriminatory towards gender, which most people can agree is the case this day and age for both men and women in different cases and instances. Research John Staddon of Duke University's work about how men are discriminated against and the data of the UK Criminal Justice System. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rrRjvfsx_kbDyvlf8dhluEFj8RPCH2ru8s_j1AJITnM/edit#gid=12

If you're interested in how women are discriminated against in the judicial system, you can find that information a whole lot easier, just Google it. That stuff is everywhere. It's a dime a dozen. Now does discrimination against both genders make the judicial system equal because they both have prejudices against them? Yes, but it would be better if we would stop having our biases against groups of people, see them as guilty until proven innocent instead of the other way around, and and see them as individuals instead of pigeon-holing their specific stereotypes, whether that's being American, British, Mexican, black, white, purple, blue, red, gay, straight, male, female, or if they identify as a damn unicorn. We generalize too often, it's wrong, and the change starts with us.

Really great argument that you make! There's discrimination against all groups of people, in life and in the judicial system. For "stop and search," men are largely targeted, and some studies have shown that men are viewed less sympathetically than women are.

Well we all have our disadvantages and our leg-ups on people. For instance, men are usually more physically fit than women so they're more like to get a job working construction or stocking shelves than a woman, but females are beautiful and can talk their way out of a speeding ticket with a police officer, haha.

And I sort of misunderstood your question, Rachna. In the case of rape, no, the rapist has no say in the decision of keeping the child. But, that's where things can get into the grey area of the definition of rape. If a woman simply does not want to have a child, she could falsely accuse her partner of rape. I doubt it would happen, but in the off chance that it did, there could be two instances of individuals lives being ruined: the fetus and the father. The laws of rape are incredibly skewed in favor of women and for good reason because what female is that cruel and evil to claim she was raped when she was falsifying records in the court of law. But, in the court of law, we are innocent until our guilt is proven protected by the 14th Amendment that Americans and aliens have “equal protection under the law.” Unfortunately these cases, independent of the decision, can have a negative impact on both parties. The girl has to admit her being raped, which is a difficult step in any person who has a history of sexual abuse’s life, and the man must go on trial; even if he’s found innocent, that court case is a red flag on him for the remainder of his life. And the same thing can be said if a woman is the one who made sexual advances on a man. Often times, these rape charges are filed so often because a miscommunication of what rape actually is. The National Institute of Justice’s definition of rape is incredibly biased in favor of the assumed victim. The Campus Sexual Assault (CSA) Study (https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/221153.pdf) is where the one in every four women have been assaulted on a college campus myth first started. I am in no way saying that sexual assault and rape on college campuses do not happen, because THEY DO. If I ever found out that a friend of mine that happened to be a girl was truly sexually assaulted...let's just say the rapist would wake up in a hospital. But, their definition of rape is just short of being looked at in a funny way and calling it sexual assault. No definitive questions were asked; they didn’t even ask if the women had been sexually assaulted. Christina Hoff Summers of the American Enterprise Institute disclosed that “instead of such straightforward questions, the CDC determined whether the responses indicated sexual violation.” So, if a response seemed fishy to any person overlooking the case, they deemed it sexual assault. Perhaps they believed that the women would be reluctant to admit if they had been raped, but the online survey was anonymous and their speculation was absolutely forced in favor of marking responses down as evidence of rape. Also, any person who’s even heard about sample size and how you can determine that sample to generalize a population knows that you must have a large sample size relative to the population. In this case, 5,446 women were asked to participate in the survey. Now, that may seem like a great deal, but more than 11 million women (per National Center for Education Statistics) attended college in 2016. So, the CSA Study captured not even a full percent of the population (0.00048). Not only was the sample size incredibly too small, but all of these individuals were from the same region. The lack of diversity by geographical differences is also missing in this study. With this, they still believed that they can make broad claims about college campuses. It’s a travesty. It’s a travesty that these people feel the need to stretch and bend the truth so that there is some sort of attention displayed to this issue. What you don’t do is purposefully falsify records in order to make your case; that’s absolutely the wrong kind of attention you need. In addition to that, some people make fictitious reports of rape for the same reasons—to bring awareness. For instance, The Rolling Stone article “A Rape on Campus” that followed Jackie (her last name was not provided) about a violent rape on the University of Virginia’s campus in Charlottesville, VA. The 9,000 word story was tear-jerking, and it brought the sexual assault issue to the forefront instead of the back-burner. The police, however, did an investigation and found the story to be a fugazi. And major news networks and papers have fell for it too. You can find the 1-in-4 and fabricated stories of sexual assault on The New York Times, The Guardian, Huffington Post, Time Magazine, among others. This not only made women’s testimonies of assault thought to be fictitious as well, but it also deterred women who were raped to speak out in fear that they would deem her a liar like Jackie. It did more harm than good. It built a stigma around rape victims that still lingers today. The one-in-four fiction and false accusations of rape are still alive because of people’s confirmation bias, and the only way in which to solve this problem is to educate, properly. People need to understand that rape is terrible and that it does happen, but we don’t need to lie and build a theatrical story to the public in order for them to sympathize and try to promote change. There are real stories of this tragedy all over, yet people feel the need to lie. It’s a selfish and awful. It may be altruistic in theory, but it’s detrimental in practice.

Thanks for clarifying, Dewey, that makes a lot more sense now! I do see what you mean regarding "equal protection under the law." It's really awful that misinformation is harming all members of society, and that otherwise legitimate news outlets are perpetrating these narrow studies.

Regarding the legalization of abortion, do you support centers like Planned Parenthood receiving government funding?

I don’t necessarily believe that people should have a responsibility for anybody but themselves. You must believe that someone has a responsibility for themselves which is why we have a judicial system to make legal decisions based on that individual’s actions. Humans have personal responsibilities like their livelihood, their health, their income, and among others, their sex life. The government plays no role in people’s sexuality unless it is detrimental to someone else’s rights. For instance, a middle-aged man can’t court a seven year old because the boy isn’t old enough to give consent. Other than that and some other cases, the government could care less if you’re gay, straight, or if you’re particularly affectionate to fruits and vegetables. It is the person’s responsibility whether or not they have sex with someone because the government doesn’t make that decision for us (thankfully). Therefore, it is not the government’s fault if two individuals have a child or not. You can’t blame the government for not providing condoms (which we do and I disagree with), because we claim as a country that we don’t want the government in our bed room per the Supreme Court decision of Obergefell v. Hodges where Justice Anthony Kennedy stated that the two same-sex individuals asked “for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.” You also can’t blame the government for having a child because they have health and sex-ed classes that students all around the country are required to take in order to graduate. In other words, a person can’t claim that the child is the government’s responsibility because he didn’t know if you had unprotected sex with a girl, you’re more than likely going to have a baby. Blame dictates responsibility. So, if the government has no blame, they have no responsibility. It’s also not the government’s responsibility of an individual’s income because they sustain a free, capitalist market with the best socioeconomic mobility that the history of humans has ever witnessed. So the fault of a person’s socioeconomic status is of no fault but their own and so is their ability to reproduce, because we can’t regulate that ethically. I am for removing Planned Parenthood and any other government assistance because it promotes dependency. Instead of allowing people to learn from their mistakes, the government bails them out much like they did with big banks in the financial crisis in 2008. If you don’t want banks to be bailed out, then you also can’t bail out individuals. Law has to work under principle instead of exceptions under circumstance or else inefficiency and human error will render our government too powerful and inherently oppressive of particular demographics and groups. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So, in essence, I want to make a blanket statement and say that if you cannot afford to pay for an abortion or condoms or anything else that Planned Parenthood provides, then you simply can’t be given those services. People need to learn from their mistakes instead of them having a safe-net government to catch them when they fall. All of these government assistance programs and agencies that provide a service for citizens that can’t afford the product or service is bankrupting our economy. Our national debt grows by the second and is currently 20.4 trillion because of these aid-based programs. Medicaid, Welfare, Planned Parenthood, and other things of the sort will be the downfall of this great nation because it will stunt the economy. These create dependency upon the government and therefore stunt self growth. I understand the stories of thousands of Americans that can’t afford this and can’t buy that, I live in the place where pulling these programs will hurt the most. My state is the poorest, 2nd fattest, and my city is the heroine overdose capital of the world among other concerning lists and statistics. I understand what we will be losing, but if we truly care for all of America and the longevity of this great nation, we will reduce these programs so that we will have less mandatory spending, more money for discretionary spending, and more money in the pockets of Americans that work for that money. The fact of the matter is, although the top 1% may own a majority of the country’s wealth, they won’t be able to sustain this country with a broken economy. People don’t realize that the top 1% pays for 33% of income taxes in this country. In addition to that, the top 10% pays for 66%. So, where Senator Bernie Sanders might claim that the top 1% is not paying their fair share, they’re (Sanders included) paying for 2/3 of the country’s budget from income taxes. A lot more than you’d expect. The remaining 33% is left for the bottom 90% of Americans. What does this mean? We take from the rich because they’re rich. What’s wrong with having money? Since when did we try to paint wealthy people as terrible people when they provide the most philanthropic presence in the entire world? It’s an awfully untrue stereotype that rich people are mean. Some might ask, “What do they need all that money for?” To that question, I answer, “Whatever the hell they want to because they earned it, and it’s nobody else’s but theirs.” Instead of making people pay a high income tax for having a high income, we should make a luxury tax so that we don’t punish a man for making a good living for him and his family, but he’s being punished for buying a 2 million dollar yacht that he doesn’t need that’ll destroy the environment. Movies and films tell us, “Hey, don’t like that kid, he’s rich,” but given the opportunity, anyone would accept all the money Richie Rich had in a heartbeat.

Sorry if I rambled.

No, thanks for sharing your thoughts on this! I was unaware that the top 1% and the top 10% paid that disproportionate share of taxes. I'm all for a luxury tax as well, though I personally believe that organizations like Planned Parenthood have positive impacts in people's lives, preventing them from falling into further debt, for instance, by having a child that they're unprepared for. The funding for Planned Parenthood isn't extensive, either, though it's also a matter of principle and individual responsibility and liberty.

But even you can agree that this dependency on the government is the reason for generational poverty and a whole host of other symptoms of the illness of laziness, the lack of will to work, unfaithfulness, the inability to stay dedicated to something (often times a marriage) and see it through, and a deficiency in intuition, the absence of knowledge and wisdom. Our government is no longer a crutch for people, it has become a wheelchair and they're employing someone to push that wheelchair with tax payer dollars. If you truly have no problem with government bail-outs, how can we truly have a free market and make companies and businessmen accountable? When are we going to make people responsible for themselves? Is the government going to be someone's daddy and if they mess up, they can just call him and he'll make everything okay? When will these Americans grow up and have to face the music of their own transgressions? We can't sustain this false sense of security much longer. I know this sounds dramatic and eminent, but something has to be done sooner or later to counteract this.

The amount that major entitlement programs are taking up of the federal budget is indeed quite worrisome.

What would you suggest to remedy generational cycles of poverty?

Absolutely nothing. There has been virtually no social program that have ever worked in making income inequality shrink. I’ll tell you how some legislation created income inequality in America. Something happened in 1991/1992 that made income inequality consistently rise for over two decades now (https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-767154870e7898e415b3540c5b66446b). The 102nd Congress in our nation saw the Persian Gulf War, the election of Bill Clinton, the ratification of the 27th Amendment, the Agent Orange Act of 1991, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, and nearly 600 bills seen in the two short years of the Congressmen and Senators careers. Dan Quayle was Senate President, Tom Foley was Speaker of the House, and West Virginia’s own Robert C. Byrd was the President pro tempore of the United States Senate. Despite a strong forefront for the members of the hill to rally behind and a great number of legislation passed, there were some forgettable bills that Congress turned a blind eye to. I’ll only be looking at three key bills here, though.

1. Jobs Through Exports Act of 1992: To some, globalization is a great way in which America can spread their wealth, prowess, and culture around the entire world. The only problem with this globalized world is that it leaves regular, working class Americans behind. This is something that Connecticut Democrat Sam Gejdenson didn’t foresee. Jobs are being shipped all over the world from America instead of building these factories in the U.S. President Trump is doing everything to reverse this and ran his campaign promising working-class Americans that they would have more opportunities in the land of opportunity. When there’s so much struggle in America, why would the government encourage finding markets through the Overseas Private Investment Corporation? This bill saw the authorities to the OPIC extend, and inherently make less opportunity for Americans that needed jobs. Less opportunity=less jobs=less money for people that need it.

2. Housing and Community Development Act of 1992: This bill, sponsored by Congressman Henry Gonzalez (Democrat from Texas), represents gentrification at its finest. Gentrification is building and renovating urban areas so that they look nicer and the areas seem safer. It’s basically making it so that middle-class Americans are willing to eat at a decent restaurant despite it being in a bad part of town. In theory, gentrification is an amazing way in which people can improve how cities appear and raise the living standards, but, it doesn’t actually fix the underlying problem. These gentrified areas still have crime and poverty and other issues with the neighborhood in general. Gentrification puts on a good face; it’s a façade that people live under in thinking that everyone is doing just fine. It’s sweeping poverty under the rug. To hear some pop culture references to gentrification, you can hear prolific rapper Jay Z rap about Gentrification on his album “4:44” on “The Story of O.J.,” and if you’re a fan of comedy, the notoriously controversial television show South Park tackles Gentrification on their nineteenth season, episode “The City Part of Town” (episode 3). They both portray how this concept is only detrimental in lying to a society by making them think that everything is fine and dandy when in fact it is not. This bill also saw that there would be no wasted areas, so, if they have a specific housing development apartment that isn’t being used, they will find a way to fill it. Possibly through lowering regulation and allowing more people to seek benefits? Yes.

3. Cash Management Improvement Act Amendments of 1992: According to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service in the U.S. Department of Treasury, this program “provides the general rules and procedures for the efficient transfer of funds for federal financial assistance programs between the federal government and the states.” James Sasser, a Democrat from Tennessee, sponsored this bill and essentially gave a deadline for the federal government to provide funds to the states for citizen benefits. This provided the infrastructure needed to give out tax payer dollars to people of low economic standings that met the needs of welfare. This program sees that the money is transferred efficiently, but also gave the opportunity for more money to be given to more people, increasing the amount available to provide and therefore gave government the ability to give more money than what is sustainable. In other words, it became a too big to fail scenario, and the failure is with income inequality. It seems that the more the government allots to people of low income inequality, the more income inequality grows and continues.

Its best to keep the market free, and that’s the way the administration of the Federal Reserve is leaning once Yellen’s position is up for grabs. Intelligent individuals like Gary Cohn, John Taylor, and John Allison IV are likely candidates for the Fed Chair or the Board of Governors. Cohn is said to be Trump’s top pick, the Taylor Rule for low interest rates could be proposed by the man who the rule is named after, and former CEO of BB&T, John Allison, saw the company’s stock rise nearly 38x than when he began. In addition to that, his book “The Leadership Crisis and the Free Market Cure,” perfectly illustrates the problem with our current economy and the solution, but it’s much too long for me to describe here, haha.

Okay, wow, that really does seem to be quite a dilemma. Would you suggest phasing out current welfare programs?

Yes, because people are beginning to live off of welfare, and it is not sustainable for the sole reason that welfare wasn't made for people to live off of it. Welfare is supposed to be a spring board that allowed people in a tough situation to temporarily receive benefits from the government. It used to be shameful to have to be on welfare benefits, but now it's the norm in low income communities. It's often times encouraged where I'm from. The way in which welfare should idealistically work is through the story of James J Braddock. A poor man from Brooklyn, New York could never seem to get a break. When Braddock had a place of his own, a wife, and two children, he could barely afford to pay the milk man for his family. He tried a career at boxing, but an injury put him out of the ring. He begged on the side of the street for a job at a working dock with his broken right dominant hand. He was so incredibly strong, though, that he could do a lot of the work with only his left hand. After realizing that he couldn’t afford to live like this anymore, he went on welfare while still working the dock. Then, his one opportunity presented itself. Now middle-aged, Braddock had a strong left hook from lifting crates and such from the dock that he was a deadly boxer with a strong left and right jab. He went back into boxing, made a bit of money, paid back what the government had given him for welfare, and went on to win the world championship in heavyweight boxing.

You can find his life story here: http://www.jamesjbraddock.com/

And scenes from his winning fight in “Cinderella Man,” the movie based on his life here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGU3PRBxQiw

This is what welfare is meant to do, but unfortunately, the rhetoric has changed. I’m not saying that we should scold people for being on welfare, but it shouldn’t be encouraged. People can claim that Braddock had different circumstances and that his story is simply 1 out of 100 million, but if some no-name Irishman living in an alleyway in Brooklyn can achieve the American Dream, so can anyone. His obstacles were much greater than any American in the postmodern era, and he got past them. He proves that welfare can be utilized properly, and his message should be shared with as many people as possible.

Weaning people off of welfare is really quite important, in order to prevent cycles of poverty and sometimes even apathy from continuing. What are your thoughts on encouraging workfare?

I love the concept of welfare to work, however, there are some variables that people have to put in place. One thing people don’t think about is that people on welfare know they’re going to get paid regardless of how hard they work and if the quality of their service is low. For instance, you could have John working tirelessly trying to pick up garbage on the side of the street in order for him to receive his check and benefits. But Scott is just lollygagging around and receives the same amount. We’d need to change the welfare recipients’ means of how they get their checks based on performance so that our democratic system isn’t being ran on equal pay because of the obvious inefficiencies. Then you’d have to hire people to watch these welfare workers do their job to ensure that they’re all doing their fair share and that supervisor determines the value of their work. The problem with this is that you’re giving bureaucrats the ability to use their discretion instead of specific guidelines, and they might have subconscious biases and prejudices based on a whole host of demographics like race, gender, etc. It’s a Supreme Court case just waiting to happen. Say John is white and Scott is black—Scott could attempt to sue the government for racial profiling because he heard that the white guy is getting paid more than him. And Denice could file a similar case, but in the scope of gender discrimination. Labor is the majority of the work in which the government would have to make these people perform because other jobs require a certain skill or trade in which these people wouldn’t be able to accomplish because the lack of that skill. If they had a skill or trade, they’d more than likely be able to get a job somewhere instead of receiving government assistance. On top of all of that, the quality of the work is low. One program of the WPA (The Works Progress Administration) had welfare workers lay down a road, but none of them had any idea of what they were doing. So, the road was similar to that of Lightening McQueen’s work in Disney Pixar’s movie “Cars” (https://media2.giphy.com/media/13riaBnmdHB8Fa/200_s.gif). It costed tax payers even more through this program because once the welfare workers were paid, the government had to hire a private corporation to dig up the awfully paved road, and relay it. So the best thing to do when it comes to welfare to work is to give these people the small minuscule jobs that the government has to do but can have these people do instead like picking up trash on the highway and interstate, cleaning windows on public buildings, and even having them volunteer at a local soup kitchen. This would help the local community and the person’s self-esteem that they’re actually doing a service for people, obtain a check, and possibly have a higher level of confidence and self-pride in order for them to stop depending on the government. I’d be open to other job opportunities that the government would be able to provide for welfare recipients. Hopefully in a decade or two, there would be no need for these programs and our market will be able to provide enough jobs so that the government could give out all possible working contracts to private entities.

That is a pretty awful incident. It is true that most infrastructure jobs require previous training, and that it might be more economically sustainable to have experienced workers rather than 'workfare' workers be responsible for these jobs. What sector(s) do you see the majority of these job opportunities for welfare recipients opening up in?

There would have to be a new market for these people to work in, and unfortunately it would have to be made by the government. Ronald Reagan once said “I believe that the best social program is a job,” but this was not what he meant. It's a scary thing when we allow our government to be involved in the economy because they can do so much wrong. I could write a 20 page paper on how the government’s role in the ‘08/’09 financial crisis was significant and some of the blame should be on them, but I don’t have time to write it all out, haha. So, what should the government make these people do to get their checks in the mail? Whatever the recipients are willing and able to do, I guess. I’d say that if the government would make these people actually work for their dollar in an efficient manner, which is a BIG FAT IF, they’d simply over staff municipal services and nothing would be accomplished. I’d try and make them do community service or even direct them to local businesses that need workers, but something along the way would screw everything up and I’d be back to square one. It's not a simple question. What do you think, Rachna?

I don't see a simple answer to this question either! Without proper education and/or vocational training - which I really believe should be emphasized in high schools to a greater extent - jobs don't seem to be fulfilling and as enriching, which is only reasonable. One possible way is to introduce more information in communities to children at a younger age about how they could take advantage of educational opportunities to break out of the generational cycles of poverty, though many school districts themselves do not receive adequate funding, which is a different but related problem.

Which is why we need a sustainable economy with lowered regulations so that we can promote more growth nation-wide. And a problem with vocational schools is that there's a stigma that kids that go to vocational schools are somehow stupid and inferior to students that prefer the traditional classroom setting. The only problem with this stereotype is that it is true. The best and brightest of students our age aren't going to learn a trade; we're going to college and building more onto our foundation of knowledge. Perhaps we should make each student learn some sort of trade; should we make the guys take shop class and the girls can take home-ec like back in the 80’s? Well, that wouldn’t work now for obvious gender discrimination reasons. I wish we lived in a simpler time where people could be assigned a role and accept it, but I see the problem of where certain people would come from. And another problem with that is it would call for more funding, which we don’t have. Vocational schools should attempt to pull the best and the brightest, but unfortunately that’ll never happen (except in Bernie Sanders’s America where college is free and we eat candy and play in a field of daisies and don’t worry about anything like money or food or bad thoughts). It’s all very complicated and intertwined with every other issue in our nation. Specifically, national debt. How do you think we can help diminish our national debt?