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Y'all are seriously struggling with the concept of representative democracy and a republic. What states are enacting laws that aren't supported by the population? How? All of these (mostly) stupid hypotheticals and comparisons, which I know you guys are smart enough to know the difference, are exactly what the legislature is supposed to decide. Miscarriage vs Abortion? Write the law. Confused about the line between preventing conception and aborting a fetus? Debate it and legislate. If you think the issue is so huge that a country-wide rule must be enacted... Guess what? There's a process for that too! If the issue was as obvious and settled as some of you are implying, we wouldn't still be fighting over it 50 years after Roe was decided. And if it's so important that it needs constitutional protection... Holy shit! There's a process for that too! Sometimes I wonder what constitution you guys pledged to defend.

You need to get out more. We are all products of our life’s experiences. My personal views are shaped by a few things. I did get my daughter’s mom pregnant when we were dating. She considered getting an abortion. I was living through the worst part of my life when that happened. Raising her was really hard in the beginning and it took a lot of sacrifices. We got through it. She’s 23 and is the light of my life. I dated a girl once who had an abortion before she met me. She was emotionally ruined by the experience. She regretted that decision to her core. My buddy and his wife had their daughter at 24 weeks. His wife had preeclampsia. Their daughter turns 7 this weekend. She’s a happy and healthy child. The medical community is making incredible progress towards helping women with medical issues while they are pregnant. There are answers to problems we encounter in life whether they are self induced or not. I don’t believe killing our children is the answer.

What did you say? Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

I understand your above view, but the "taking the life of an innocent" portion pre-supposes that life begins at conception. Lots of fellow citizens don't share that view. Lots of people think a fetus at 8 weeks has neither consciousness nor self-awareness, so is not an "innocent life". But I can respect your view and understand your moral reasoning. However, what baffles me is the Texas law and other recent ones explicitly decided to leave out exceptions for pregnancy from rape and incest. So yes, the Texas law absolutely forces a woman who is pregnant from rape/incest to have an unwanted rape/incest baby, through threat of force by the state (incarceration and/or financial ruin through lawsuits by fellow citizens). This intentional oversight really cuts the legs out from under the the moral high ground proponents of these recent anti-abortion laws are trying to stand on. This is the extreme case, but I don't find the state forcing the financial and legal burden of raising a child on a victim moral. The same line of reasoning holds for regular pregnancies, especially if you don't believe life begins at conception. The state is forcing a woman to have a child. Additionally, the Pro-Life crowd is hell bent on making sure all these babies are born, but at the same time seems indifferent to the life of the child once it is out of the womb. I see zero companion bills that promote state enforced/state paid for care standards for all these unwanted children they are forcing to be brought into the world.

The inability to understand that not everybody thinks the same way you do is a real problem in this country. You are absolutely entitled to your opinion and I respect your position even if I disagree. But that's the thing. There are hundreds of millions of Americans who disagree with you and saying that we "all know damn well" when life begins is presumptuous at best and dangerous at worst. Americans come from wildly varied backgrounds and have equally varied life experiences. I don't presume to know what's going on in your head because I haven't experienced your life. Please don't presume to know what the rest of us think or believe.

Now Admiral makarov frigate alleged to be hit too. Ukranian countersea upping up the street cred and re writing doctrine books for everybody else as we speak lol. Anybody know the 5 day forecast for crimea? Would hate for that ACME cloud pop up "storm" to sink another otherwise "perfectly intact" russian flagship lol. *Scurries to the backyard for another rain dance session*

Here’s hoping there aren’t any riots at the Supreme Court building, but if there are that the rioters are prosecuted as feverishly as the Jan 6 ppl.

And those rights all have a basis in common law. The ruling clearly shows that not to be the case with abortion. It's getting easy to tell who has and hasn't read the ruling.

Its hilarious that the merit-based line number is literally the first clear data point you get in your career on where you stand in your peer group. 8 years in seems a tad late to be getting your first piece of real feedback.

So the person unconscious and on life-support still has brain activity and can live. Just like the fetus. I think you might have missed my point. So you’re saying your life is worthless? And if you would not have lived it would’ve been no big deal? You’re right it is an emotional argument that I’m making but I’m trying to make it personal to you instead of ambiguous towards just anyone. Not sure I understand your gun ban debate. Apples and oranges. You’re right. We disagree. I see the overwhelming majority of cases as black and white. As for those that aren’t, then that should be discussed. And why in the last 20-30 years has the abortion discussion moved from safe, legal, and rare moved to it should be allowed at any convenience. Convenience is a large majority of what abortions are today. You’re right. It is complicated as well. Have you looked into planned parenthood’s origins and it’s dealings in racism and eugenics which aren’t altogether gone today?

It's almost like the country is divided on the topic and localizing the issue allows for a more flexible and tailored solution.

can't help but be reminded of one our local area grifters 😄

That is hands down the most evil, sick and twisted description of a mother carrying her own child I have ever read. And it is exactly why the pro-life side should, and I believe will win in the end. This type of thinking is how you justify aborting babies up to the moment of birth.

I saw the following argument on Reddit which makes complete logical sense against pro-life arguments. And for the record, I’m completely for bodily autonomy to include being against vaccine mandates before anybody starts that argument: Aborting a fetus isn’t killing it, it’s acting on the fact that the carrier no longer consents to providing life support at their own risk. If some guy was only alive because he was getting my blood, and I stopped giving my blood, I didn’t kill him. Circumstances killed him. The fact that he couldn’t survive without my blood killed him. No one should be able to force me to give up my body to provide for someone else’s life that way. And it’s the same for anyone who gets pregnant. They shouldn’t be forced to give life support. They’re talking about the personhood of a fetus, but they’re completely neglecting the personhood of the person who is now forced to carry, nurture and sustain another life against their will and at their own risk.

Nah, I just had to eat lunch and trying to disengage from an internet argument on abortion where neither one of us will convince the others. I don't see the abortion issue as black and white like you do. I do't think abortion is murder as you do. For the equivalency you've drawn between a person on life support and a zygote, not sure what point exactly you're asking? Absent a living will, the law allows the spouse/next of kin to take the person off life support and "destroy" or "murder" them as you put it. I don't have an issue with it. If I were a vegetable for 9 months I'd prefer someone take me off life support. For the rest of that post, I found it laughable you tried to dismiss my arguments as illogical and completely emotional at the end, while in the same post arguing "How would I feel if my rape victim mother aborted me?" and "But think of the Elon Musks and Einsteins we might have missed out on because they were aborted." Both were silly and nonsensical to me. The first, I could care less if my hypothetical rape victim mother aborted me, because I would have never been conscious or self aware to care about it. The second point about Elon Musk and Einstein I also felt silly. Who knows, and who cares? The flip side of that argument was maybe some of those abortions were the next Hitler, Stalin, Mao, other random criminal, murderer? Maybe the next Madeline Albright, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, or Madame Curie was prevented from acheiving their full potential because they were forced to have a baby as a teenager and drop out of school to care for it? Both seemed like emotional "think of the children" arguments to me that I usually see in the gun ban debates. Ultimately, we disagree. From what I can tell, you see the issue as completely black and white. Abortion = murder. All pregnancies must be carried to term regardless of the consequences (rape/incest/threat to the health of the murder). My personal views on abortion are that I think it's an extraordinary complicated issue. I think it's an extremely difficult and extremely personal decision. I usually think extremely difficult, complicated, and personal decisions are best left to the individual to make, not for the government to mandate. I think in the early stages of the pregnancy where it's a zygote that is not conscious or self aware the the mother should be able to choose to terminate the pregnancy (especially in case of rape/incest/health threat to the mother/ extreme genetic deformity, etc.), and her decision to get an abortion would not be murder to me. I oppose late term abortions, and think we as a society were probably pretty close with the best policy for all being abortions are legal until around the 8-12 week period.

This one seemed pretty weird to me, since people are taken off life support all the time for the exact reasons you quoted above. So you think taking someone off life support is murder, too?

The state isn’t forcing anything. The force happens when people choose to have sex. The effect can be a child. Why should anyone be able to take the life of an innocent as a matter of convenience for their decisions?

This is a point that never seems to get discussed enough. there never seems to be any proposed legislation by the Pro-Life crowd to care for these children they forced to be brought into the world. It just seems they want to control women. My opinion has always been if Pro-Lifers want to force a woman to carry a baby to term using the threat of force from the state, then the state should be responsible for the financial obligation and legal responsibility of raising the child. This should include full medical care/zero bills for the mother when pregnant annd zero legal responsibility for the unwanted child once born. I'd be curious how many rabid Pro-Lifers would be outraged at a bill that raised their taxes to provide the financial well being for all these saved babies they proclaim to want to protect? Or would they be perfectly content letting a child live in squalor and then blame the mother for being irresponsible?

I find it hard to believe only because right now federal law says promotion boards for officers must see ALL disciplinary against an officer. I believe that was passed as part of the 2018 or 2019 NDAA.

Way to take a very nuanced topic and expose your (non?)-binary colors. Both you and Sim are welcome to take your inflammatory hyperbolic crap over to some other forum. What you're saying is BS and you know it. Stop.

Lol you may not be a troll but holy shit you’re sensitive.

Does knock it off have a different meaning where you come from?

Not wrong. But DE is still a discriminator.

FIFY

Word, fair enough. I’m with you, I’m up for discussing the legal arguments at stake but not really much of the core issue of abortion - it’s too emotionally charged and people get big mad either way. I’ll just add that Alito at least seems to think the core issue (abortion) does matter here, because in the draft opinion he’s saying specifically that the 14th Amendment doesn’t protect abortion but still does protect the other rights that currently fall under the same logic on which Roe and Casey were built. I’m really skeptical of this and think there’s absolutely no reason why future courts, even ones with the exact same makeup of the current court, couldn’t use Alito’s logic here to strip away gay marriage or free public education or any number of other unenumerated rights. I think the most at-risk thing next would be many common forms of birth control that function by inhibiting fertilized zygotes from implanting in the uterus. If those fertilized zygotes are in fact full human beings with full rights no different than you or I, I’m not sure why those methods of birth control should remain legal. That’s not my personal opinion, just following the reasoning if someone who enthusiastically supports the draft Alito opinion. Folks are rightfully concerned about the specific way in which Roe and Casey seem to be being stuck down here, let alone their dismay at losing the rights Roe and Casey specifically clarified. If Roberts were writing a 6-3 majority opinion upholding Mississippi’s ban and just further degrading Roe without striking it entirely, along with the entire logic that Roe and Casey were built on, I think the reaction would be a bit different. Cheers 🍻

What if we allow abortions, but we require a certificate of no abortions in order to dine in at bars and restaurants, use the gym, or cross the border?

Yes I understand what you’re saying, that is exactly the foundation of Roe vs Wade. all I’m saying is this new draft opinion postulates that is not the case. And I personally think the draft opinion is more convincing than Roe vs. Wade… which I’ve read. The only reason I waded into this thread is to discuss the core legal issue. This is such an emotionally explosive topic, it is easy to sidebar into our various opinions on abortion. A discussion which I believe will be unproductive; I’ve never actually seen someone change their opinion on this issue after a discussion either online or in person. My point was simply that in this ruling as I understand the leak document, the issue of abortion itself is largely irrelevant. And even if you disagree with the draft opinion, this is the kind of thing the Supreme Court is supposed to be looking at.

Agree. We also need to mask all strats and records from a prior promotion board on a subsequent promotion board. Basically, once you promote, you get a clean slate. People don't get to ride a good record early in their career up through Wing command. Similarly, having a rough start doesn't automatically preclude you from making an amazing turnaround later.

Wish I could get my wife to say this…

Except for the position, cgo, and jr cgo strats which are meaningless, the flight strats that are meaningless, the IDE push statements that are meaningless, the fact that through dumb shell games and timing up to 3-4 people can hold the same strat at once, the fact that every base writes OPRs a little differently, and the meaningless platitudes that make your average line flyer sound like a combo between John Boyd and Robin olds. Oh and you are stratted against captains that could potentially be 5 years younger than you. And we're told masters status is masked till O-6 boards.. oh wait never mind the wing king can see it and will push you accordingly. I'm not upset, I made the majors list and my line number is about where I expected. Ive been an exec and seen how the sausage is made, and I like to think I'm decent at reading the tea leaves. But for anyone outside the top 10% you have to sift through a literal mountain of shit to get an accurate picture of where you stand. This is one of many reasons the Air Force has retention issues. We spend 8 years sugarcoating and obfuscating people's performance and then wonder why they're surprised when their board results aren't what they expected.

No. I rarely interact with them. Unlike the flight attendants, we don't need to be on the plane before they board / after they deplane. I was most surprised by how easy the entire airport process is. You almost never wait in line for security, passengers dive out of the way when they see you coming, and the cockpit door filters out most of the nonsense. Definitely something I didn't appreciate until working at a passenger carrier. But boxes are obviously much, much, much less hassle. The advantage of the pax carriers is volume of flying. More planes and more pilots and more flights means more permutations for schedule construction and manipulation. We also have dramatically less night flying. My first choice was UPS and my second choice was FedEx. I was already in training at American Airlines when UPS called, and by that time it had been clear that both my job and my wife's job we're going to take us to Dallas. That was enough for me to turn down the interviews and stick with American, because as I believed then (and know for sure now), my strategy only works well when you live in base. You really have to figure out what type of person you are, and that's going to determine what type of flying your best suited for. There are mission hackers, crew dogs, sightseers, people pleasers, authoritarians, loopholers, managers, unionists, teachers, etc. Each airline offers different opportunities for those types of people. I spend a lot of time at my airline teaching people my method (maximum ratio of pay:hours flown). It's a process and it takes time, and in many cases by the time I'm done explaining it, they are so put off from the idea that they seem pathologically compelled to explain to me why my system isn't actually that good. It's a curious response, but a lot of these guys unknowingly weight any work that isn't sitting in the cockpit as many, many times more onerous than actually flying. So while I usually only fly between 30 to 50% of what a regular line pilot flies in a month, because I spend 10 to 15 hours per month (in 1-5 minute blocks) working the various trading platforms, they view that 15 hours as much worse than the additional 50 hours they spend flying. And usually I'm making somewhere between 15-40% more pay. I mention all that to highlight the concept. Their personality is to do the job they're told to do, not spend years learning the nuances of their contract so that they can exploit it. So what type of military pilot were you? You can probably use that information as the third criteria in selecting an airline 1. Who offered you a job 2. Where can you live without commuting 3. What flying job fits your personality?

People get too wrapped up about the pax/box issue. In 10+ years of airline flying, my "dealing with the pax," has amounted to a single divert for a heart attack (got more pay for that day) and kicking off one (1) drunk dude at the gate while still pushing on time. Even with that, homie don't do "dealing with pax." We have people who are specially trained to do that, so I have the FO call them out to "deal with the pax." Meanwhile, I'll be in the cockpit flipping through baseops.net, wondering how many minds have been changed on the abortion thread. What really matters is how long it takes you to get from your home, to work and back. This single item will have the biggest impact of your QOL in an airline career. As an example, I'm typing away while drinking my morning coffee at 0500 (I've become my old man who can't sleep past 0500). Here in about an hour, I'll drive 55 minutes (about 60 miles) to the airport. I'll fly a 2-leg turn that is 2.2 hours of block. I'll block in before noon and be back in my car, headed home about 15 minutes later (Westin Valet will have my car waiting at the curb). If I don't stop at a squadron mates house for a beer, I should be home by 1300. I often bid reserve because I can sit short call from my house...hell I've flown my plane around on short call before (just stay ~500 feet to keep a cell signal). My days on long call are often spent flying my plane/hanging out at the hangar, tooling around the house, visiting family or drinking coffee/beer with current/former squadron mates who live within a mile or two of my house. Being able to do all of this, if infinitely more valuable than "not dealing with pax." So I'd recommend going to wherever allows you to do this the most.

Uh confirm you’re a Guard guy that WANTS to go to ACSC in res? The office space quote of, “Lawrence: (long pause) No.... No, man...Shit, no man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked saying somethin like that, man” comes to mind. Insert GIF someone.

Wait, so are you trying to tell us that arguing on the internet doesn’t change peoples minds?

But it won’t win. A significant majority of Americans support the right to an abortion. The most sick, twisted, and evil thing in the world are conservative Christians looking to force their hypocritical ideology into the fabric of American government. Face it dude, religion is dying and the conservative ideology is dying a slow, painful death especially among Gen Z and with the changing demographics of the US. It’s only a matter of time.

You are an “AC” that basically has to answer to an ABM SLIC “Msn/CC” who probably went to Weapons School and thinks he/she is equivalent to a fighter pilot. Not my cup of tea.

Man, there is a ton of butthurt all over this forum for some of the most insignificant comments. I call it like I see it, and I'm relaying things directly told to me from people in the community and based on my interactions with ABMs.

The level of intellectual dishonesty shown by the pro-abortion crowd is astounding. It’s the most frustrating part of the whole argument. You all know damn well that life begins at conception. After conception, life is just a series of periods of growth and development followed by decline and death. It’s a simple circle of life. You just won’t say you understand that out loud. Instead, you all come up with endless endless endless arguments about why you are for abortion as a distraction from the truth. Just admit that you’re pro-self and that a baby will interrupt your life, finances, work, goals, etc. I’d have a whole lot more respect for you and your argument if you were just truthful about your reasoning.

I'll bite on the obvious post meant to bring about an emotional response. I will attempt to describe this from the emotional point-of-view of a pro-lifer (complete satire) with my counterarguments in parentheses. Panel 1: Fetus's hands are out, which makes it seem like he is reaching out to the world. Fetus really wants to join the world. The area surrounding him is colored blue because blue is a calming color. (That fetus has no cognition and can't think about anything. The eyes of a fetus don't open until week 27-28, so an accurate depiction of this piece of work would be complete darkness.) Panel 2: Huge, scary scissors that are wide open are coming down to murder the fetus. The blue area around the fetus is significantly more strained because of the scissors. The fetus is beginning to freak out due to the position of it's hands and feet. (Fetus would have no idea this is happening, and the use of forceps directly on a baby and other tools are typically only used for late term abortions, which are very rare and typically only accomplished for medical emergencies.) Panel 3: The big scary scissors have come together, meaning the fetus has been cut and the fetus is seeing blood dripping down it's face. The clash between red and blue makes this panel particularly scary, knowing that the fetus is now gone. I'm basically crying right now. (See above argument for panel 2. Fetus knows nothing and feels nothing. Fetus never knew it existed, and it's the right of the mother to determine whether or not she wants this fetus to enter the world) Panel 4: Some dumb THOT just got that baby cut so she could laugh and party and have a drink in her hand. She got rid of that fetus because she is an irresponsible monster and just wants to laugh and have fun. (Women are allowed to have fun, and they are allowed to control everything that is in their body. It does not affect you AT ALL what ANY woman on the Earth does besides those closest to you. You need to focus on those people rather than this woman in panel 4 enjoying herself which is her God given right.) Pro-lifers don't care for life at all. They want her to be saddled with debt taking care of this baby in a society that doesn't give two craps about the fetus once its born. This picture might be the most ridiculous piece of work I have ever seen in my entire life. Bravo for posting such an obvious piece of bait trash.