Sunday, October 11, 2015

Planned Parenthood total partisan issue

Public narrowly against defunding Planned Parenthood


The public narrowly opposes defunding the organization and half the country has a positive view of Planned Parenthood

Americans generally like Planned Parenthood – at least they did before Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina raised the subject of the sting videos (showing Planned Parenthood leaders talking about the harvesting of fetal organs for research) at last week’s GOP presidential debate.  Those videos once again focused attention on the Congressional attempt to defund Planned Parenthood, which may include the possibility of a government shutdown.
The latest Economist/YouGov poll finds Americans narrowly oppose defunding Planned Parenthood.  However, one in five Americans would support a government shutdown in order to defund the organization.  Opinions are definitely partisan: nearly half of Republicans would shut down the government in order to defund Planned Parenthood.  Just 8% of Democrats would.

Overall, nearly as many would shut down the government in order to not defund Planned Parenthood as would be willing to shut it down to defund the organization.  Catholics are closely divided on the matter of defunding, though their overall opinions mask a large gap between churchgoing and non-churchgoing Catholics.  Half of observant Catholics would defund Planned Parenthood; a plurality of those who don’t attend Mass regularly would not.
Fiorina’s comments also generated controversy over whether what she reported as seeing in the videos actually appeared in them.  In this poll, viewers draw different conclusions based on their pre-existing opinions.  In addition, groups that are opposed to abortion, like Republicans and conservatives, are more likely to have heard about the videos and more likely to have seen them.  More Republicans than Democrats and more than twice as many conservatives than liberals have watched the videos.
The reaction to the videos among viewers also divides along those lines of party and ideology.  More than three in four Republican and conservative viewers think the videos show that Planned Parenthood officials broke the law; an equivalent proportion of Democrats and liberals who have watched the video disagree.
For many in the overall public, Planned Parenthood is about something other than abortions.  More than half associate the organization with contraception; more than four in ten with pregnancy testing, and more than a quarter each with testing for STDs and sex education.  But 48% also associate Planned Parenthood with abortion services.  For Republicans and conservatives, however, abortion services is the main mention of what Planned Parenthood does.  There has not been much change in this assessment in the last few months. 
And there continues to be little change in the overall opinion of Planned Parenthood.  Although there was a slight increase in unfavorable opinions just after the videos emerged, there has been no change since then.  More Americans have a favorable opinion than an unfavorable one, though partisan differences are large.



21 comments:

  1. We already knew this ric. Most leftest support tearing apart babies for money.

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  2. No shit Rick... Relative Moralism has drawn some pretty distinct lines in what people think is good and bad...

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    1. TS,

      I've trolled you on a couple of topics, and in the moment, that surely was the intention to try and hit a nerve. But it's not the right way to have a discussion. I'll say it for the record that while I do not agree with your outlook on quite a few things, I have the utmost respect that you have undoubtedly committed decades to reading and pondering influential thinkers to have arrived at the views that you have. In the midst of ball busting or being a smart ass, I don't want to leave the impression that I don't have respect for the depth of your views, even if I don't agree with them.

      Your post here brings me back to a point that that I express like CD with a fingerprint on it that keeps repeating, if you consider relative moralism to be a catalyst to a decline in decency, what you do you do to correct it in society? At an extreme, I believe that relative moralism basically means anything goes and each individual is left to decide good and bad. At an opposite extreme, moralism would seem to be the domain of religion and belief that we are deity created and hence, are subject to the laws of that God. Yet, even in that scenario, we were given free will. The consequence of that free will, IMO, seems to be that we perpetually seek pleasure while simultaneously seeking to avoid or reduce displeasure. Relative moralism seems to me to be less of a concept being "sold" and much more of an acknowledgement that in any corner of the globe amongst any cultural group, there will be a general set of norms that will arise and become the standards of what is good and bad. This country had a constitution, a professed belief in God, and a professed belief in free markets. Each one of those things has it's own inherent code of what is right and wrong. Relative moralism, as I think you are using the term here, feels like a generic way to label and dismiss aberrant behavior as belonging to some separate group of cultists who are debase of moral reason. Not surprisingly, I don't believe it's that simple.

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    2. Relative moralism.

      Neat.

      Maybe it's a bit simpler.

      People are lazy and end up pregnant and chose the easy way out abortion. Right from wrong isn't a consideration, just convince, it's all about me. There is a very small percentage where health or rape is a factor.

      Some will distill it to, oh the poor people better for them to have an abortion so we don't have to take care of their kids weighed against their reality that a person should rot in jail on the taxpayers dime forever for committing a heinous crime. While others would cry oh the children how could you kill them while screaming for capital punishment.




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    3. Well.... part of the relative moralism comment has to do with the other thread of Ricks about the country becoming more liberal.... they, in the long run go hand in hand. Sanctity of life has a lot to do with morality.

      To the rest... what shifted the responsibility for someone’s child to the state? Parents and families are being systematically dismantled by some force in society. I certainly agree that we are lazy creatures... the more latitude we get to be lazy... the lazier we will be. Feed a lion cub from birth and you will never be able to return it to the wild..

      Death penalty... makes my head spin but only because innocent people get caught up in the punishment. I still think that strong deterrents stop negative conduct... at least in some... and in the ones that it doesn’t, what do you do? Comparing a potential future genius that someone just can’t be bothered with and someone who has confirmed their anti social behavior to the extreme is somewhat disingenuous though... some people are just plain bad.

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    4. What's disingenuous is the total disregard for life on one hand while believing that no life should be terminated regardless of the heinous crime they may have committed.

      What's interesting is how some claim the right to terminate a pregnancy as a women's right to choice yet the potential life had no choice not in the creation of the life or in ending that life.

      The other side is a bit clearer while cherishing life before birth many recognize that there is no changing a person who would kill others without a thought. The trick is how do you ensure the guilt of a person?

      The condition of the American family is appalling as we abandon our elderly in homes for the state to take care of instead of families caring for their families. Some would say it was caused by the onset of SS/medicare to make them more self sufficient. Perhaps exacerbated by the all about me generation today.

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    5. Taking care of the elderly herein the UK isn’t a discussion about children looking after their parents, it’s about the state finding more money to fund elder care facilities.. That look like and operate strikingly similar to hospice centers..

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    6. Mike

      “Yet, even in that scenario, we were given free will. The consequence of that free will, IMO, seems to be that we perpetually seek pleasure while simultaneously seeking to avoid or reduce displeasure. Relative moralism seems to me to be less of a concept being "sold" and much more of an acknowledgement that in any corner of the globe amongst any cultural group, there will be a general set of norms that will arise and become the standards of what is good and bad.”


      While in principle I agree with relative moralism as a function of liberty. (Live and let live) Where I have a problem is that society no longer has the right to create its own social norms. Like the worst despotic state, we use law to force people how to act and increasingly what to believe.

      Left to itself society will naturally create space for differences (if you have a strong rule of law against aggression) and will turn its back on people who refuse to live up to certain public standards. The example I have used in the past is Germany. They have no public nudity laws.. communities and private businesses dictate when and where it is acceptable. Go to a business that doesn’t like your naked butt and you will be asked to leave... resist and the police will remove you from THE PROPRIETORS PLACE. If the proprietor likes naked customers but clothed customers don’t, they show there disapproval with their feet.... Either the business fails, turns into a popular nude restaurant or the proprietor succumbs to public pressure and posts a sign on the door... no nudes welcome here. No law necessary and places have the right to cater to who they want in their store.

      When I first went to China in the late 80’s they had a habit that absolutely drove me up a tree. Regardless of where they were, they would spit. Street, sidewalk... and restaurant floor. It was custom and it was tolerated. When westerners started traveling more and more and complained about the practice, rather than letting proprietors work it out, the government intervened and created ‘anti-spitting’ laws. Point is, with the society, spitting was a tolerated behavior. As repulsive as it might be to a westerner. That habit never invaded the dining areas of a Michelin rated restaurant; the proprietor would have kicked you out on your ear. As more and more business would become affected by foreign business, the more they would naturally react to the complaints.. it wouldn’t have required government intervention and some restaurants would have catered to spitters.. coercive power is what the state is about... how the people use that power is a mark of how free a society is.

      With respect to this subject, abortion wasn’t illegal when the constitution was written, but their were certainly social repercussions...

      This is an article that states my feelings... its about gays in our society but it could be about any social subject.

      https://reason.com/archives/2015/10/13/a-libertarian-gay-divorce/

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    7. Where I largely disagree TS is that society will still create it's own norms, with or without government interference. There are quite a few issues where the American society is divided with a small majority, IE 55-45 or something like that. Passing a law does not change that. For many in this country who claim their beliefs are straight from God, they will never accept gay people as human,never accept that abortion is a legal medical procedure and never accept a host of beliefs that largely have already been worked out by a majority of Americans, albeit perhaps a small majority. I don't think business owners should be forced to deal with someone they don't want to. Yet, while we have one example of abuse in the gay cake story, we also have the potential wherein a gay couple may simply be traveling across the country and be denied lodging, or car repair or food at some bible thumpers restaurant. It is a decidedly gray area.

      I can't deny, there are times when a group, after getting relief from overt discrimination, will then turn the tables and push for total acceptance rather than relief from discrimination, and I have perpetually had a problem with this, especially from gay people. If they walk into a store appropriately dressed and treat the store manager or other employees with respect and have the means to pay for the service, should they be denied services solely because they are gay? If we want to protect the freedom of the shop owner, the only answer is Yes, they should be discriminated against. If we want to protect the freedom and liberty of the gay person, then the answer is no. These are both valid claims in my opinion.

      Believe it or not, I generally agree with the concept that if we social concerns be decided by market forces, the opinionated business person will then be the one who has to decide whether money or their morals are more important to them. This takes a much longer time. In a large city, the argument that the disenfranchised can just go somewhere else is valid. In a small town where fewer services are available, this argument is less valid. Of course, the disenfranchised can simply move away and on paper, the reason crowd can say their liberty was not denied because they have that freedom to move. In real life, it surely is not going to feel so free.

      A final point, if a businessman decides reluctant to sell cake to fagots because the community is shaming him, I say his morals are kind of a sham. If he decides to close because his morals are more important to him and he is being rejected by the community, the end result is essentially no different than if he was closed by laws by that bar discrimination. The cost, however, is that this creates a lot of hard feelings and arguably increases the chance for discrimination.

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    8. “Believe it or not, I generally agree with the concept that if we social concerns be decided by market forces, the opinionated business person will then be the one who has to decide whether money or their morals are more important to them. This takes a much longer time.”

      You are right... social order... culture... is a never ending and evolving process... It takes time. The problem is that, certainly since the civil war, that federal government had found many ways to short circuit the process. While you would certainly be right to believe that many stone cold racists opposed everything about the 1964 civil rights act(keeping in mind right up to its passage, the federal government supported his right to believe as he does), a large number of people tagged as racists were opposed in principle to forced integration, the antithesis of force segregation. There was never a place in US law for segregation of its citizens and likewise no place for the government to tell people who they must associate with... And after the 10th amendment all of those constitutional protections extended to the states. States still had autonomy (Supposedly) but they had to uphold the principles of the US Constitution.

      A while back I offered a book for King’s review ‘This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed’. It was written by a black northern freedom rider and historian Charles Cobb Jr. who saw a side of the freedom movement story not normally told. Long story short blacks wanted to control their own schools separate from white school boards... their own neighbourhood policing instead of white cops enforcing laws in black communities that they didn’t enforce in white communities, their own business relationships. What they got was a swap of one kind of legal manipulation for another.

      Forcing the white only establishments to cater to blacks created much animosity and the irony was that to ‘test’ these white businesses, customers of black owned business or businesses that had always done business with blacks, suffered; Some of them when out of business. It has been 50 years now, on top of the 70 odd years of forced segregation... Had the government actually adhered to the constitution by dispensing equal justice in its courts instead of creating laws that forced people together or apart, I contend our racial situation would be better than any other democracy on the planet. Yes... it will take time to undo the damage caused by government interference. Arguably gays would never have received the level of support they have today.. but then again, maybe we would still have a society that values families... so what part of our society and country has suffered in the long run?

      To your final point... The experiment is about the pursuit of happiness and liberty explore the possibilities. People have the right to buy what you are selling or they don’t (That is true for you business and personal endeavours equally). Your store... your ‘change of heart’ doubtless to say, doesn’t occur in a vacuum nor would it have changed overnight. If you were an established member of the community, likely others attitudes about the issue will likely to have changed. It is possible that they won’t like your business decision. YOUR decisions, business and moral, are what you live and die on. If you decide to serve a clientele that disturbs your regular customers... they don’t have to harm you or yell at you or picket you... they just have to go to the guy down the street that caters to them.

      Law dictating social matters are like pre-emptively jailing someone because they might do something wrong... There is every chance you will get it wrong and the worst part is that you will likely not figure it out until you have derailed a lot of lives. People will fight and bicker... some will never get along and old enemies with find common ground... not a place for the law except to keep them from killing each other while they figure it out.

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    9. I've understood what you are saying here for a long time. And yet, I keep feeling that it is so textbook. You made a fair response to the sentence you quoted, but you also snipped that sentence away from the rest of the dichotomy that I continue to struggle with because it's not that textbook. What you say makes perfect sense, on paper. But I also believe the Martin Luther King was dead on that enough was enough. Slavery ended in 1865, but in 1965, people of color were still called niggers and were being denied the same rights as everyone else. An in regard to your last para, we were not even keeping those who disagreed from killing each other.

      surely, there are accounts written by black that claimed they actually liked how things were. They don't, however, negate that a majority of both whites and blacks were tired of seeing the inequality masqueraded as protection of freedom and were also tired of seeing images like the photos of Emmet Till who was brutally beaten to death for not knowing his place. I believe, at times, the abuse is so over the top that something needs to be done. It's great to preach that the ones being oppressed should just quietly wait their turn, which is what many said to King until the murdered him for challenging a ridiculous status quo.

      The point I am always going to go to TS is that when you actually look at what conditions people have to face while they are waiting for the market to fix things, it's extremely hard to not call bullshit and state the obvious that a protected group is abusing others and hiding behind a story of protecting freedom. This is not to say that the government can fix everything, and I want to try and make it clear that this is never my intention. Rather, I believe at times a limit needs to be set on abusive behavior. I don't care that it doesn't change thinking, that's not the point, or at least it's not my goal.

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  3. Ric stop being a total shill with these DNC propaganda pieces.

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    1. There are days William where I honestly cannot tell if you are truly a genius troll or truly just not sharp enough to realize the stunning irony in a statement you have made.

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    2. I'm glad that you've calmed down your profanity since being exposed.

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    3. Simple minded William. I try to find posts to stir debate and conversation. These last three did just that. T S and Max have had a couple of great debates about these topics. Why don't you try to read and learn about both sides of an issue instead of thinking the teas are so damn holy and right.

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    4. BS Rick... you post these things because you are so far left Bernie can't even see your place on the political spectrum.... Kinda like ultra violet.. you know its their and if you are exposed to it long enough you will either go blind or wind up in a cancer ward...

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    5. "I'm glad that you've calmed down your profanity since being exposed."

      Yeah William, you are such a leader and uniter.

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    6. TS you are one of those whom I was speaking that have made a post like this worthwhile. You and Max started off good until all the name calling and bickering stared. As for how far left I am you are way way off. I am a centrist democrat. I seem so far left to you because you are so far right that you are nearly off the spectrum.

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    7. And let me add this TS, when did this get to be a board about only right issues? The thoughts of the far right sometimes dangerously come close to totalitarian dictatorship.

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    8. :-) I could say something like... well if we aren't talking about right issues we must be talking about wrong issues... but I won't.

      You are certainly correct... if you look at that real power structure of the right and the real power structure of the left.. they look very much the same to me... they look pretty scary.

      The left talk about culling the military but want to save the world and the right wants to cut debt but can resist than new military toy.... at the end of the day, both put our troops in foreign countries fighting for god knows what.

      Their seems to be a shift in what is deemed the 'electable' democrats and republicans... they are all starting to look like a morphed personality of Bush and Obama and the problem is, they say the things that left centrists and right centrist want to hear.... scary

      P.S. I did understand your comment to William and I was just havin a go...

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    9. The reason TS is because America is a centrist country: sometimes right center sometimes left center but always somewhere around the center. The Trumps Pauls and Sanders of the world have an opportunity to air out some ideas and hopefully get some imput into the party platform but at this time they are perceived to be too extreme for the average American voter. Oh they may do well in primaries and polls but the bases of the parties are the ones who vote heaviest in the primaries and answer the earliest polls. When you throw the nominal folks and the independents into the mix right back to the center the discussion moves. Case in point Mitt Romney. He started out as the true moderate republican that he actually is. But in the primaries he had to say and do things that moved him farther right: things he really didn't believe in wholeheartedly. But when he came to the general election he had to move right center to counter a center left president. In the end he really seemed insincere not only to independents but to the base of his own party as he walked back some of his more extreme policies that he presented to win the primary. It is not a shift in electability it has really always been that way.

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