Your view furthest outside the Overton window?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I think most of my views are in the mainstream outside of foreign policy.

I'd say my most "radical" or "edgy" opinion is the fact that I actively am rooting for Iran to get the bomb. I think it'd balance things out in the Middle East, all things considered.

You are so dumb.

You really buy into the whole "teh Mullahs are gonnuh nuke teh Israelis on day one!" argument? The Pakistanis have nukes. The Israelis have hundreds of them. I'm sure the Saudis have a few loose warheads hidden somewhere that they've bought. It only makes sense that Iran should have their own nuclear deterrent.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Saying that nigh-universal insta-abortion for non-life-threatening disabilities is actively "the right idea" is a significantly more extreme claim than merely saying that one should accept the consequences of women's right to make that choice, and somebody in the (abnormal, sane) minority of people who recognize the value in disabled people's lives might be well-justified in seeing one of these positions as significantly more worthy of respect, agreement, or agreement to disagree than the other. I don't expect much better from creeps (no offense) like Smiling John or posters like TDFB with long track records of reflexively defending and supporting abortion-as-such, but it's heartbreaking and bloodcurdling to see someone like Averroes propounding this callous, dishonest, poisonous false equivalency. Although the position that he's making this point in the interests of defending is vomitrocious either way, I'd be very happy to hear that I've misinterpreted his intent in making it.

For what it's worth, I was disgusted by Averroes post and it lowered my opinion of him until I gave it a few minutes of thought. I actually care a great deal about people with disabilities and I am vehemently against anything like eugenics so that part of his post came off in a bad way. That said, I think those concerned about the disabled are possibly too prone to forgetting that the disabled often need support from family for the rest of their life - we shouldn't forget caretakers and I am very wary of the suggestion that being a parent ought to mean some positive probability of being a forced caretaker for the rest of one's life, especially if this is a decision effectively made by the state.

You have to balance the importance of family planning with supporting the dignity of all people somehow. For what it's worth, I don't want to have children but I'm pretty sure that if I did, I would be open to having a disabled child. I have an aunt is a "little person" and she's married to a man who is in a wheelchair due to polio. They have a child who is also a "little person". They're great people!

[Fight for Trump]

I think most of my views are in the mainstream outside of foreign policy.

I'd say my most "radical" or "edgy" opinion is the fact that I actively am rooting for Iran to get the bomb. I think it'd balance things out in the Middle East, all things considered.

You are so dumb.

You really buy into the whole "teh Mullahs are gonnuh nuke teh Israelis on day one!" argument? The Pakistanis have nukes. The Israelis have hundreds of them. I'm sure the Saudis have a few loose warheads hidden somewhere that they've bought. It only makes sense that Iran should have their own nuclear deterrent.

I don't even know where to begin with this post.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I think most of my views are in the mainstream outside of foreign policy.

I'd say my most "radical" or "edgy" opinion is the fact that I actively am rooting for Iran to get the bomb. I think it'd balance things out in the Middle East, all things considered.

You are so dumb.

You really buy into the whole "teh Mullahs are gonnuh nuke teh Israelis on day one!" argument? The Pakistanis have nukes. The Israelis have hundreds of them. I'm sure the Saudis have a few loose warheads hidden somewhere that they've bought. It only makes sense that Iran should have their own nuclear deterrent.

I don't even know where to begin with this post.

Probably with the word "You?"

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Ban all private schools.
Define religion as a scam, and punish those who try to spread religion or similar as scammers, while acknowledging that most religious people are scam victims.
Require all humans to be vegetarian and/or vegan.
Treat the people who sell and produce harmful drugs as criminals, and the people who buy, own, and use harmful drugs as victims.
Tax the stock market to oblivion.
Hold copyright terms to limits based solely on the extent to which the copyright owner is still making an effort to keep their work readily and easily available for purchase in forms that the copyright owner would profit from the sale.
Ban the copyright of works that lack a sufficient level of individual effort involved in their creation.

[John Dule]

Saying that nigh-universal insta-abortion for non-life-threatening disabilities is actively "the right idea" is a significantly more extreme claim than merely saying that one should accept the consequences of women's right to make that choice, and somebody in the (abnormal, sane) minority of people who recognize the value in disabled people's lives might be well-justified in seeing one of these positions as significantly more worthy of respect, agreement, or agreement to disagree than the other. I don't expect much better from creeps (no offense) like Smiling John or posters like TDFB with long track records of reflexively defending and supporting abortion-as-such, but it's heartbreaking and bloodcurdling to see someone like Averroes propounding this callous, dishonest, poisonous false equivalency. Although the position that he's making this point in the interests of defending is vomitrocious either way, I'd be very happy to hear that I've misinterpreted his intent in making it.

If you're implying that I supported mandatory abortions when the fetus has a potential disability, I don't support that at all. My position comes wholly down on letting the woman make the decision and that's that. I do think they should be given all the relevant information as to the health of their child, though.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

Probably have a few.  There's been some hilarious posts but I'll attempt to be mostly serious:

I'd prefer if guns and gun paraphernalia were fully legal to all, no restrictions except for "weapons of mass destruction", maybe with required training in schools. But that isn't realistic these days.

Saudi Arabia should screw off and the US should be friends with Iran and Russia.  Their leadership sucks, so does ours.  But our people have a lot in common.  End the allegiance with Israel to normalize relations in the region.

There should be a right to free speech online (i.e. no deplatforming or witch hunts without due process) codified in law.

[Arturo Belano]

Colonization of outer space should be put on hold until capitalism is abandoned as the hegemonic socioeconomic system.

[John Dule]

Colonization of outer space should be put on hold until capitalism is abandoned as the hegemonic socioeconomic system.

Lol, the future is privately-owned platinum mining asteroid quarries, and there's nothing you can do about it.

[HillGoose]

Now that I think about it, my whole "legalize all drugs for recreational purposes" sounds pretty far out there. Maybe that's it.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

How can anyone think a 99-100% abortion rate for Down Syndrome is the result of completely free choice rather than intense social expectation?

Human beings are social creatures and social expectations will always factor into their decision-making . Insofar as social expectations factor into people's thinking about the choice to have a child with a cognitive disability (and I'm pretty sure that social expectations aren't the reason here!), this cannot be said to be evidence of "unfreedom", as this is true for choices made about almost anything...

No one says that adults of majority age are "unfree" because they refrain from wearing pajamas to weddings, right? Are people coerced into not wearing BDSM costumes when attending funerals?

edit: obviously, doctors shouldn't pressure pregnant women in any way about this but that's a different matter as that relates to a relationship between a public institution and an individual. Anyone concerned about "social expectations" ought to be more precise as, each and everyday, we act according to social expectations in a basically free society but this becomes very different when the quality of healthcare that someone receives depends on an intimate medical decision.  

People generally don't say adults are "unfree" if they don't feel free to wear BDSM costumes at funerals because they don't think that's a very important thing to be able to do.  If someone really thinks it's important to be able to choose to do that, then they'll be glad that it's not illegal, but they'll still be bothered that people everywhere are scared to express their inner selves through kinky mourning habits. I think that'd be true even for those who claim a libertarian conception of negative liberty.

If the message from society is that its important to diagnose Down Syndrome early, and the expected response to the diagnosis is to abort, that places an emphasis on a certain response, and can suggest to a person that they don't have much of a choice.  A further pressure would occur if there are so few Down Syndrome children surviving, and little focus on any result besides abortion, that there is not much in the way of resources and social supports for those who have these children.

I actually believe that what you're saying here borders on gaslighting - many women are making a choice that you disagree with. Therefore, they must be pressured into doing this, it must be coerced in some way because mothers have "maternal" or "nurturing" instincts etc. I earnestly cannot comprehend why you believe that the high rates of abortion in Iceland are reflective of social pressure - as Averroes has pointed out, such abortion rates are very high in the US, in a context where a certain kind of religion is much more ingrained in society. One has to imagine that the abortion rate of unborn babies likely to have Down Syndrome among those who are irreligious must be very high!

Social expectations exist in every arena in life and they're usually most intense around those areas of life that are perceived to be the most important. However, the areas of life that are most important also tend to be the areas of life where individuals have the strongest incentive to deviate from the herd. In the US, social expectations almost certainly work in reverse in large parts of the country, yet the abortion rate in this particular context is very substantial across the board - clearly women are willing to ignore expectations when making critical life choices. Why wouldn't they do this?

Suffice it to say that this argument isn't as persuasive as you think it is! If you believe abortion is murder, you have a pretty simple case to be against this. If you don't believe in fetal personhood or anything like it, there's no case against this and it's not eugenics unless the government is putting pressure on women. The latter is a real concern and makes me hesitant - I do not trust right-wing governments or even left-wing ones to place no pressure on women to abort in these cases because disability is expensive and, well, we know how this goes. Nevertheless, in any system, those most burdened by disability are parents and I believe they should have the right to decide what their family will look like, insofar as that is possible. Nothing is more important than this!

Thinking about the impact of costs on decision making is "gaslighting" now?

"The government's not doing it, so it's not something we need to worry about" is an interesting thing to hear from a socialist.   Should we apply that to decisions people make about accepting an offer of employment?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Saying that nigh-universal insta-abortion for non-life-threatening disabilities is actively "the right idea" is a significantly more extreme claim than merely saying that one should accept the consequences of women's right to make that choice, and somebody in the (abnormal, sane) minority of people who recognize the value in disabled people's lives might be well-justified in seeing one of these positions as significantly more worthy of respect, agreement, or agreement to disagree than the other. I don't expect much better from creeps (no offense) like Smiling John or posters like TDFB with long track records of reflexively defending and supporting abortion-as-such, but it's heartbreaking and bloodcurdling to see someone like Averroes propounding this callous, dishonest, poisonous false equivalency. Although the position that he's making this point in the interests of defending is vomitrocious either way, I'd be very happy to hear that I've misinterpreted his intent in making it.

If you're implying that I supported mandatory abortions when the fetus has a potential disability, I don't support that at all. My position comes wholly down on letting the woman make the decision and that's that. I do think they should be given all the relevant information as to the health of their child, though.

I wasn't trying to imply that, sorry; I know you're a more sincere libertarian than that. It seemed like you (and Averroes and TDFB) were looking at the fact that women are making this particular choice and celebrating that fact over against the possibility of their choosing otherwise, and that bothered me because of my own beliefs about disabled people and their rights and worth.

Thanks to all three of you for explaining further; although I still very strongly disagree with the position you're advancing, it's good to know we all have somewhat more similar concepts of the principles at stake with this issue than I initially thought.

[nclib]

For abortions and Down Syndrome, even if every single pro-choice woman terminated their fetus with DS, this would still mean that many pro-life women are aborting their fetus with DS which is hypocritical. The only exception would be a fetus who would die soon after childbirth and/or one who would suffer tremendous pain and suffering. DS doesn't usually fit that.

[nclib]

Schoolkids should not be punished for speech that would otherwise be protected by the First Amendment.

Exposure to nudity and soft-core pornography is nowhere near as harmful to children as is assumed.

Female toplessness should be allowed everywhere male toplessness is, and full nudity should only be illegal when it's a public health issue.

There should be no more reason for a woman to take her husband's name than visa versa. There should be no more reason for a child to have his/her father's last name than his/her mother's last name.

Any health condition that is caused by genetics or other forces out of the person's control should be 100% paid for by government or collective.

[DC Al Fine]

Can anyone explain why tax exempt status should be ended for religious organizations when it's the exact same status as the rest of non-profits? Ending it only for religious non-profits would be blatantly unconstitutional.

In my experience such opinions are the result of anti-religious bigotry and/or complete ignorance of how the US tax system works. Atlas is surprusingly bad on the latter for a high-effort forum.

[DC Al Fine]

Ehh, I'm not so sure about that. It might not be socially acceptable to just announce on your social media that Downs babies should be murdered in utero, but the pressure is still there.

There's a lot of complaints in the disabilities-rights community in my area about abortion being treated as the default by doctors, terrible lack of support from the health system if you choose life, social mistreatment etc.

This is a fair point. I don't have a great sense for how the medical professions treat women in these situations - where everything from body language to word choice matters - and my best guess is that you are right about how they influence decisions about pregnancy in many cases.

Everyone knows how much influence doctors have over their patients' decisions, yet this point rarely attracts much attention from people who defend abortion as a choice that should be "between a woman and her doctor" except in reminders of how recently many women had their medical decisions made for them.

On the other hand, discussing an abortion remains a taboo for most people. A woman who "chooses life" after a prenatal screening detects a chromosomal abnormality can be public about that and will receive praise for her courage, even from people who support abortion rights in principle. For a woman who chooses to abort her pregnancy, her choice is more likely to remain a closely guarded secret.

To be clear, I don't see anything wrong with the former. After all, I wouldn't approve of the Icelandic model if I saw it as anything but the outcome of freely made choices. But it's interesting to me that our public rhetoric on this differs so dramatically from our private choices. Two-thirds of women who have these pregnancies in the United States choose to terminate them, but we don't talk about that very much.

I feel I should have elaborated a bit on the social mistreatment, since that was a large part of the objection aspect in my first post.

I know a couple that has a child with Down Syndrome who is about my age, and they have all sorts of horror stories. For example: I learned about what abortion is in a middle school health class. They had to explain what abortion was to their child after a stranger told them they should have aborted while their daughter was standing next to them. Apparently this is a semi-regular occurence for them.

We in the West talk a good game about the mentally and physically disabled, but if you peel back the veneer of affirmation on social media, you will find all sorts of nastiness. We really aren't that far removed from the folks who mistreat the disabled in Eastern Europe or our ancestors who shunted them off in institutions.

Saying that nigh-universal insta-abortion for non-life-threatening disabilities is actively "the right idea" is a significantly more extreme claim than merely saying that one should accept the consequences of women's right to make that choice, and somebody in the (abnormal, sane) minority of people who recognize the value in disabled people's lives might be well-justified in seeing one of these positions as significantly more worthy of respect, agreement, or agreement to disagree than the other. I don't expect much better from creeps (no offense) like Smiling John or posters like TDFB with long track records of reflexively defending and supporting abortion-as-such, but it's heartbreaking and bloodcurdling to see someone like Averroes propounding this callous, dishonest, poisonous false equivalency. Although the position that he's making this point in the interests of defending is vomitrocious either way, I'd be very happy to hear that I've misinterpreted his intent in making it.

You've touched on what is probably the biggest source of ideological tension for the modern progressive movement (and as a socon, probably the biggest chink in its armour, and opportunity for us).

Progressives rightly see that plenty of economic behaviour is marred by unfair conditions and pressures, even if it's technically 'free', but many fail to make the same application to sexuality, perhaps due to a desire to defend the Sexual Revolution. If we as a society want to uphold the dignity and value of those who are disabled or otherwise "lesser", then a 99% abortion rate for Down Syndrome babies should be deeply disturbing, even if one is pro-choice.

For abortions and Down Syndrome, even if every single pro-choice woman terminated their fetus with DS, this would still mean that many pro-life women are aborting their fetus with DS which is hypocritical.

Well yes, that's how wickedness tends to work. It usually involves some sort of hypocrisy or rationalization.

[Cassandra]

Unpopular opinion: Catastrophic climate change is already locked in. Industrial civilization will not make it to the 22nd century and the human species is in danger of extinction.

Related: Politics over the next thirty years will narrow down to a choice: communism or genocide. Climate change-induced crop failures and extreme weather will push masses of refugees northwards. Already, the hard right is preparing us for why gunning them down at the border will be morally acceptable.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Related: Politics over the next thirty years will narrow down to a choice: communism or genocide. Climate change-induced crop failures and extreme weather will push masses of refugees northwards. Already, the hard right is preparing us for why gunning them down at the border will be morally acceptable.

I don't agree that industrial civilization as such is necessarily doomed or that the human race as a whole is in serious danger of outright extinction, but I do agree with this. In my less charitable moods I suspect that it's possible that the hard right are so bound and determined to do absolutely nothing about climate change precisely because it provides the opportunity to finally kill off the filthy filthy blacks and browns that many of them have secretly (perhaps secretly even from themselves) always longed for.

[parochial boy]

Related: Politics over the next thirty years will narrow down to a choice: communism or genocide. Climate change-induced crop failures and extreme weather will push masses of refugees northwards. Already, the hard right is preparing us for why gunning them down at the border will be morally acceptable.

I don't agree that industrial civilization as such is necessarily doomed or that the human race as a whole is in serious danger of outright extinction, but I do agree with this. In my less charitable moods I suspect that it's possible that the hard right are so bound and determined to do absolutely nothing about climate change precisely because it provides the opportunity to finally kill off the filthy filthy blacks and browns that many of them have secretly (perhaps secretly even from themselves) always longed for.

I dunno, the most likely, probably inevitable at this point, consequence of continued climate change in the short to medium term is going to be massive population movements that absolutely dwarf the one Europe experienced in 2015.

In that respect, the climate denial of the far right is hillariously short sighted because it so clearly and obviously is going to come back to bite them. And it's going to be their own fault.

[John Dule]

Unpopular opinion: Catastrophic climate change is already locked in. Industrial civilization will not make it to the 22nd century and the human species is in danger of extinction.

Related: Politics over the next thirty years will narrow down to a choice: communism or genocide. Climate change-induced crop failures and extreme weather will push masses of refugees northwards. Already, the hard right is preparing us for why gunning them down at the border will be morally acceptable.

You know, I used to think this. Then I read Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population, and I realized that people have been prognosticating disasters like this literally since the beginning of civil society. We're going to crack nuclear fusion in a few decades, energy's going to become cheaper than air, and if necessary we'll siphon CO2 out of the atmosphere ourselves. The global capitalist system will just keep on chugging.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Related: Politics over the next thirty years will narrow down to a choice: communism or genocide. Climate change-induced crop failures and extreme weather will push masses of refugees northwards. Already, the hard right is preparing us for why gunning them down at the border will be morally acceptable.

I don't agree that industrial civilization as such is necessarily doomed or that the human race as a whole is in serious danger of outright extinction, but I do agree with this. In my less charitable moods I suspect that it's possible that the hard right are so bound and determined to do absolutely nothing about climate change precisely because it provides the opportunity to finally kill off the filthy filthy blacks and browns that many of them have secretly (perhaps secretly even from themselves) always longed for.

Mainly the right opposes doing something about climate change precisely because they fear it provides the opportunity to implement full-bore socialism and reform of their exurban and rural lifestyles by urban liberals.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Related: Politics over the next thirty years will narrow down to a choice: communism or genocide. Climate change-induced crop failures and extreme weather will push masses of refugees northwards. Already, the hard right is preparing us for why gunning them down at the border will be morally acceptable.

I don't agree that industrial civilization as such is necessarily doomed or that the human race as a whole is in serious danger of outright extinction, but I do agree with this. In my less charitable moods I suspect that it's possible that the hard right are so bound and determined to do absolutely nothing about climate change precisely because it provides the opportunity to finally kill off the filthy filthy blacks and browns that many of them have secretly (perhaps secretly even from themselves) always longed for.

Mainly the right opposes doing something about climate change precisely because they fear it provides the opportunity to implement full-bore socialism and reform of their exurban and rural lifestyles by urban liberals.

I'm aware of that in my more charitable moods.

[Cassandra]

Unpopular opinion: Catastrophic climate change is already locked in. Industrial civilization will not make it to the 22nd century and the human species is in danger of extinction.

Related: Politics over the next thirty years will narrow down to a choice: communism or genocide. Climate change-induced crop failures and extreme weather will push masses of refugees northwards. Already, the hard right is preparing us for why gunning them down at the border will be morally acceptable.

You know, I used to think this. Then I read Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population, and I realized that people have been prognosticating disasters like this literally since the beginning of civil society. We're going to crack nuclear fusion in a few decades, energy's going to become cheaper than air, and if necessary we'll siphon CO2 out of the atmosphere ourselves. The global capitalist system will just keep on chugging.

Nuclear fusion has been "ten years away" since the 50s. I'm not holding my breath.

[DavidB.]

I dunno, the most likely, probably inevitable at this point, consequence of continued climate change in the short to medium term is going to be massive population movements that absolutely dwarf the one Europe experienced in 2015.

In that respect, the climate denial of the far right is hillariously short sighted because it so clearly and obviously is going to come back to bite them. And it's going to be their own fault.

If this doom scenario happens (which I don't believe in at all as I think climate change is a manmade theology that is in demand now that God is dead to most of us and people need a different purpose) it will be on mainstream politicians anyway, not the 'hard right' or whatever. Even if you think what do as humans affects the climate, the 'hard right' hasn't been in power or even in an influential position in most industrialized countries for the overwhelming majority of time in the last decades. If this happens, it's on all of us.

I absolutely do believe, however, that 2015 is nothing compared to what will happen in the near future. Africa and the Middle East's enormous population growth, instability and proximity will do the trick already. The only way we are not overrun is to strengthen our minds, to make our children believe in our civilization again, and to defend our external (EU) and internal borders at all costs. We have no other choice. If we don't do so, our civilization and our world will end with us.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If rightists would just argue that anthropogenic climate change is for whatever reason not the kind of problem that anything should be done about, rather than sextupling down on insisting against all evidence that it doesn't exist, that would be one thing, and I'd have some respect for the intellectual and moral honesty that presumably would go into those arguments. But that's not where the battle-lines on this issue are.