but it’s natural for people to say “who welcomes me? Who attacks me?” And go with those who welcome them.

The people in my life who are wearing the red hats are essentially always the ones attacking, despite making up a tiny fraction of the people in my social sphere. The rest of us just spend every family gathering or social event hoping they won’t start spouting off this time, and offering zero of our own opinions because we know they absolutely will start spouting off if we do. They have a chilling effect on topics that anyone can discuss, compared to what we can discuss when they are not there.

So yeah, IME they are the oppressors from Trump all the way down.

My maga neighbor across the street has no idea if I’d welcome him or not, because his yard is full of hand lettered signs letting me know in no uncertain terms that anyone who votes like I do is a moron/traitor, etc. So I just pretend he doesn’t exist, and hope he and his (continuous stream of) visiting buddies don’t blow up the neighborhood or get careless with their guns one day.

The one and only sign he does have in spanish is the one letting everyone know he’s got a surveillance system though. That’s probably not racist though…

And yes these same rules apply to someone who grew up hearing the US is an imperialist bully state.

I didn’t grow up hearing that, but I mean…

I see your point, and I hope I succeed in assuming people are interacting in good faith until shown otherwise most of the time, but at a certain point people also need to be responsible for questioning the narratives they have always accepted without having to be stroked and petted into doing so. (They are both the “party of personal responsibility” and also the “fuck your feelings” party, after all.)

I grew up surrounded by rah rah USA#1 jingoism and a continuous dose of cold war propaganda in almost every bit of media I consumed. (It was the 70s/80s after all) And now I know that the US is an imperialist bully state with a lot of things in its past that folks like to try wishing out of existence rather than willingly examining.

I didn’t change a bunch of my opinions because the people I used to disagree with about many (not all) of these and related topics were nice to me about it. The things that have changed have changed because I was willing to consider new information.

“you seem not to (or have chosen not to) understand [the parallel?] the first two times

When I typed that I hadn’t spotted my own typo yet. Sorry.

If that’s the case, you’re making it so easy for me other people might think we’re in cahoots

I don’t care in the least if anyone thinks I’m in cahoots with anyone; it won’t change that I’m in cahoots with no one.

You can, of course, think differently.

Typo notwithstanding, it remains true that I do think differently, and if your argument boils down to what has actually been banned vs an understanding of how absolutely heartless and tragic it is to deploy a bunch of explosive pagers that will randomly move around a populated area because you want to kill a limited set of bad guys in that area, there is nothing left for us to discuss.

If that’s some kind of dunk because of me being on ml, YSK I’m not a communist. Beyond that, I don’t really understand your point, which is fine.

You can, of course, think differently.

And I do. It’s been one argument the entire time, and I don’t see how it’s worth reframing the parallel when you seem not to (or have chosen not to) understand it the first two times.

Good day.

Edite: I see I typed Hamas when I meant to type Hezbollah in one place. Will correct now. I admit that was potentially confusing.

The pagers were used by Hezbollah, not Hamas.

I realize that, I was drawing a parallel between the two circumstances.

And again - when you drop a bomb, you can credibly have made an attempt to ensure no one is in the vicinity who you don’t intend to bomb. (Not that israel seems to do this) - this is especially true with modern technology.

You cannot reasonably predict the path that a pager takes once it is shipped, no matter who it is intended for, not least because no one expects a pager to be the source of a deadly threat. You control who owns that “bomb” you have just sent into the world only until the moment it is unpacked and given to the first person who takes possession of it.

They planted bombs in hardware that is used exclusively by Hezbollah operatives and their accomplices to evade gathering sigint. Yes, civilians got hurt. That’s the nature of war, and what makes it so horrible - people who might hold no malice nor pose any threat to the other side get hurt and die.

How is this argument different than defending the use of landmines?

So the pagers were ordered by Hezbollah. You send that text you don’t know if they are at a daycare picking up their kids, if they lost the pager and it’s sitting on some restaurant owner’s countertop next to some other family, etc etc etc.

There are so many things that can happen between when those pagers get rigged and sent out and the time they are detonated.

If Israel seemed at all like they tried to avoid bombing and shooting civilians in Gaza we could at least defend their actions there by saying “clearly they are trying to avoid civilian casualties” (we can’t, but we could) - but there is nothing but hopes and prayers to avoid civilian casualties in an attack like this.

Literally if any non-governmental entity did the same thing, no one would hesitate to call it a terrorist attack. And that’s what it is here, a terrorist attack.

Edit: Acknowledging that I typed Hamas out of habit instead of Hezbollah. Corrected.

Magas, anime butterfly meme, “Is this the deep state?”

OTOH they did delete all those Jan 06 text messages so I no longer regard them as objective in the performance of their duties.

Everyone seems to, except major phone manufacturers. 😡

She’ll probably be happy to take it. She achieved her goal, like a good soldier.

“Still a man, he hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest” -Paul Simon

I think you need to heed your own advice based on how this discussion has gone.

I don’t see this being examined in any objective and scientific way.

What would be scientific would be to allow women and their doctors to evaluate those risks together and make the decision without Republican lawmakers continuing to try to insert themselves in between. Sorry if that’s too emotional.

I’m also quite sure there are scientific journal papers that cover this. I feel like you are expecting an awful lot from an article about a specific event on politico.

It is literally the highlighted quote in the article: “we actually have the substantiated proof of something we already knew—that abortion bans kill people.”

For someone who complains about others not being objective, I find it unexpected that this is what you would quote to support this assertion by you:

using a sample size of 1 as evidence of an epidemic

and the perception that no women die from legal abortion procedures.

I don’t know anyone who has edit: [ever expressed] that perception. Anecdotal I know, but I’m skeptical it’s a common belief among adults of voting age.

using a sample size of 1 as evidence of an epidemic

I don’t see that word, nor any language that conveys that impression in the article.

I do see this:

At least two women in Georgia died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state, ProPublica has found. This is one of their stories.

That seems pretty straightforward and unsensationalized to me.

On the one hand, you have some women dying of complications arising from an elective procedure that they chose to have, based either on medical necessity or other factors. On the other hand you have a woman in need of medical care that she wished to have, and was denied, due to her reproductive autonomy being denied, then dying as a result.

Yet you have a hard time distinguishing what makes these things different?

Republicans are the DARVO party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO

I mean, hasn’t it been pretty clear for at least a year now that this is the plan.

In that hypothetical I think my comment would stand either way.

Fair point! I’d love to see the reaction of my maga neighbor with his handwritten signs about what morons and traitors Harris voters are.

Actually, it would probably involve violence or vandalism so I’d rather not. But, if I believed he would keep his hands and bullets to himself…

Why wait?