The Political Discussion Thread

[aretood2]

These are ENTIRELY the rights I am willing to stand for, and they are EXACTLY the ones that get "overlooked".
"OH!! I will have to marry gays in my church"
"OH!! they can get child support"
"OH!! they will degrade the moral fabric of my beliefs"
STFU you whiny little prats!!

Try "I cannot decide on care for the person I love because I don't have the right to"

ARRGGHH RAGE AGAINST THE STUPIDITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That begs the question. Why should the spouse have a greater right than the mother when it comes to someone's medical care? I think that's what Womble is sort of hinting at. What gives a lover the right to decide as opposed to a relative?

[Falcon Horus]

That begs the question. Why should the spouse have a greater right than the mother when it comes to someone's medical care? I think that's what Womble is sort of hinting at. What gives a lover the right to decide as opposed to a relative?

What if no relative is left, but the spouse? How would you say it goes then?

Thing is nobody should have a right to decide over someone else when it comes to hard decisions, hence why it's so important to have your affairs in order. Loved ones tend to think with their hearts and not their minds.

[aretood2]

What if no relative is left, but the spouse? How would you say it goes then?

Thing is nobody should have a right to decide over someone else when it comes to hard decisions, hence why it's so important to have your affairs in order. Loved ones tend to think with their hearts and not their minds.

So what do you think then? Should a mother/father be able to override the wishes of a spouse when the patient didn't set their affairs in order? This was the source of contention in the terri schiavo debacle (euthanasia notwithstanding). Husband said one thing, blood relatives said another.

[jelgate]

Spouse deciding versus family deciding a person's health care has been debated numerous times in medical ethics. As Horus put it this is why you should living wills, designate your power of attorney and so forth so medical personnel no who to contact for a person's health and what a patient wants done. When that is missing the simple reason why the law favors a spouse over parents/siblings is that its generally accpeted that you are more intimate (the emotional kind) with your spouse. The validity of such a fact is like I said been debated extensively in the courts. I'm sure you can make the case that is not always the case for spouse but the same could be said for families.

[aretood2]

I have a possible reason why. In the traditional sense of marriage, l Judeo-Christian, a husband and a wife no longer form part of their parents' home. They become an independent body. That line of thinking is why a spouse would be favored over family. Not because of an emotional bond (A very modern invention, and of course I buy into it too, I wasn't born five hundred years ago. But still, a relatively modern invention nonetheless) but because they are the next of kin or the next in line of closeness in a very literal concrete fashion. If you look at it from a slightly historical perspective.

But in the relatively modern scene, this gets challenged since families no longer control who the spouse will be. This debate exists (about the medical issue) because a remnant of the past has survived till today. And now people are wondering why love has anything to do with it. A mother loves her child just as much if not more than a spouse would, some might say. After all, she did carry it in her womb for nine months. Then that turns into the issue of adoptive mothers...it can get pretty messy if you think about it.

[jelgate]

Of course it get messy. The legal battles about medical ethics proves that. You just need to look at the bringing up the Terry Shiavo debate to prove that it gets messy. The problem is that these things about more than just loving a person. Its about knowing what a person wants. And as much I think parents (generally)love their children when a person gets married I think a spouse knows them more just for the fact parents aren't in their lives nearly as much as the spouse. And to borrow a cliche, people change. People change when they leave their parents, when they get married, when they have children. The list goes on. Like I said of course it gets messy because of the heart but I'm more inclined to agree that a spouse should say what is to be done over a parent in normal circumstances

[aretood2]

Of course it get messy. The legal battles about medical ethics proves that. You just need to look at the bringing up the Terry Shiavo debate to prove that it gets messy. The problem is that these things about more than just loving a person. Its about knowing what a person wants. And as much I think parents (generally)love their children when a person gets married I think a spouse knows them more just for the fact parents aren't in their lives nearly as much as the spouse. And to borrow a cliche, people change. People change when they leave their parents, when they get married, when they have children. The list goes on. Like I said of course it gets messy because of the heart but I'm more inclined to agree that a spouse should say what is to be done over a parent in normal circumstances

That's right, a spouse does know the patient more. It wasn't like that when Nola was born (An inside joke for those who are uninitiated) but it is now. So can a best friend, when there is no spouse or if there's a distant but uninvolved family, take that responsibility? Should they?

[jelgate]

Only if they have been granted power of attorney which does happen. The problem with friends is their is nothing legal to verify. How do you know I'm his best friend or worst Documents can easily show a person's spouse or family. Not friends

[aretood2]

That seems a bit unpractical. One day you can be my best friend, then all of a sudden we could have a falling out. Not all couples who are married love each other anymore. Sadly they are stuck in a married state because of the difficulty of divorce. But what about family that are just not good? An abusive mother or father? A divorce automatically eliminates that power, but you really can't divorce your parents.

Though it seems to me that the guy on the youtube video could have saved himself some trouble by getting a power of attorney. How hard or easy is it to do that?

[Pharaoh Hamenthotep]

That seems a bit unpractical. One day you can be my best friend, then all of a sudden we could have a falling out. Not all couples who are married love each other anymore. Sadly they are stuck in a married state because of the difficulty of divorce. But what about family that are just not good? An abusive mother or father? A divorce automatically eliminates that power, but you really can't divorce your parents.

Though it seems to me that the guy on the youtube video could have saved himself some trouble by getting a power of attorney. How hard or easy is it to do that?

Everything is easy with 20/20 hindsight..

[aretood2]

Everything is easy with 20/20 hindsight..

The question was an honest plea for information. I don't know how hard or easy it is to do such a thing.

[jelgate]

About the same for all bureacratic douments. The example is valid but that is the same for all relationships. Another cliche is nothing is perfect

[Womble]

That begs the question. Why should the spouse have a greater right than the mother when it comes to someone's medical care? I think that's what Womble is sort of hinting at. What gives a lover the right to decide as opposed to a relative?

It's not what I'm talking about. My question is whether loving someone should in and of itself confer legal rights. My method of discussion, you may have noticed, is stripping away emotional appeals and similar fallacies in order to distill things to their true underlying reasons. So long as we talk about "the person I love", we are in the emotional appeals territory and reasoned discussion will not be possible.

[SGalisa]

back to the other recent subject..

well, I'm glad to hear that someone *has* a sense of humor out there with this whole NK issue..!

It's getting serious out there.. and doesn't help that Iran is probably financially backing NK's military goals.

Anything to back that up?

I said *probably* backing up, not definitely or officially. It is believed that if asked, Iran would probably gladly support NK's goal to wipe out the USA, by shooting off on a more low-tech (less detectable level) whatever they can near our eastern shorelines, regardless of what they drop into wherever. So, in that sense, they ARE supporting NK's financial cause.


Besides, you're asking me to remember what? I've read well over 100 articles since then with more than 20 or more different news sources, and even retraced as many archives I could to find the exact quote. However, the article now appears to be deeply buried into the news archives and google doesn't always look for phrases within some articles.

I do remember the article mentioning NK focusing on certain targets in the USA, while Iran or some other anti-USA personas working against our eastern USA shores, that the article was posted somewhere around the time Alaska was getting extra missile defenses. One of the articles mentioned about how protected the west USA coast was going to be, but that the Atlantic side might end up vulnerable to other forms of potential attacks, specifically referring to rogue terrorists in international waters shooting shorter ranged missiles from boats, or sneaking them inland and just plain bombing places -- possibly in a simultaneous attack. The EMP blast was a concern mentioned that it could come from something already in earth orbit/space, possibly triggered from Iran or NK, and since NK has technology to shoot satellites into orbit, etc., they might resort to that as a form of attack on our USA mainland (to hit a wider area). The article stated that NK (and possibly in cohoots with Iran) were possibly looking into attacking the USA mainland with LESS detection time, so that a longer ranged missile might not be shot down, especially if the attack came from something offshore or within our own land instead. Anywho, it's just all bad news for US(A).

Spoiler:

World Net Daily seems to have come under great scrutiny, so it's not being taken as seriously as other news sources; however, for the record's sake -- here is a snippet..
(for archiving reasons --which sometimes changes the links--link below is broken.
Please remove B L A N K spaces in beginning of web address to access article/link for complete details)

DoD: U.S. war machine vulnerable to EMP event
'There might be no return to normal as was previously known'
Published: 03/15/2013 at 7:43 PM (WND)
http : // www .wnd. com/2013/03/dod-u-s-war-machine-vulnerable-to-emp-event/

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Defense will be hard-pressed to respond in any meaningful way to a catastrophic failure of the civilian electric grid infrastructure due to an electromagnetic pulse event, whether natural or man-made, according to a little publicized study.

There not only would be the loss of electricity and communications "on a massive scale, but little in the way of preparation has been done for the loss of the electric grid, despite the significant volume of information" available to local to federal agency levels, it said.
...

Since I figured the entire EMP info was common news for the past 2 years, I didn't pay much attention to which, when, and where the article mentioning the safety of our USA coastline, etc., came from. It was posted on the internet days ago; and I don't remember which day, other than showing up somewhere between March 15 and April 2. I was also trying to ignore what topics showed up on April 1st for obvious (April fool's day) reasons.

If the US was really worried about Iran and Iranian involvement, we would have heard about it by now, if not before NK.

Why should WE -the public and the media be told anything that might somehow affect our future? If you were intending to use STEALTH tactics to successfully reach your goal, would *you* tell your enemy what your exact plans are ahead of time? Besides, it has since been revealed in the UK's Telegraph that it is *probably* not the son running the show, but his auntie and uncle. Does that change the perspective of credibility a bit further than "the boy emperor" having a showdown with his big-boy *toys*? If anything, he is being used (as a distraction) for photo-ops to make it look like he is the person running everything in NK.

Spoiler:

(for bandwidth,etc. issues --link below is broken.
Please remove B L A N K spaces in beginning of web address to access article/link for complete details)

"As Kim Jong-un plays the tough guy, his aunt and uncle hold the reins of power"
By Philip Sherwell, New York
7:54PM BST 06 Apr 2013

http : // www .telegraph. co. uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9976634/As-Kim-Jong-un-plays-the-tough-guy-his-aunt-and-uncle-hold-the-reins-of-power.html

Behind the throne of North Korea's boy leader is a pair of formidable relatives, writes Philip Sherwell

"As with most of Pyongyang's recent propaganda reels, the footage shows the young Kim Jong-un in a typically belligerent role. Having been shown on Friday posing with a handgun, new footage released yesterday depicted the jowelly leader supervising the launch of a plane that is then deftly shot down by anti-aircraft missiles.

But while his image makers seek to portray the boyish leader as a tough guy with his finger on the nuclear trigger, it is thought to be his aunt and uncle who are pulling the strings behind the scenes."
...

What's worrisome is that most eyes are focused on the Pacific theater, while it's been rumored for months that Iran (being involved as well) has some sorts of military boats (and threatening to shoot off missiles to wipe out the east coast USA, etc) off the Atlantic USA coastline, in international waters of course, but still -- that's too close for comfort, and the several news reports have as much said so. Land or water.

So you think the US mainland will face getting both coasts wiped out? Don't think so dear.

You're putting all your eggs and trust into one basket? Wish it was that easy to be as super-confident as your words seem to convey. I've read (Bible) prophecy. What's not in there (the prophecies) is just as disturbing as what *is* in there (meaning where is the USA when Israel faces its final darkest hour?). *sigh*

...further discussion on prophecy should go into the tracking prophecies topic, not here.

[Falcon Horus]

Where do you think the missiles Iran would shoot off to the US will land?

Unless they can travel really far, I'd say Europeans will be dead long before the damn things would reach the US coast.

Damn that big ocean... if only it hadn't been there. If only the continents hadn't drifted apart, would have made it so much easier.

And I'm not even going to touch on your supersticious believes when it comes to (biblical) prophecies.