I mean, that's true, but now we're at several layers more than "pay your fucking workers" which kind of implies corporate greed.

Haha, alright, the only thing I was trying to do was exemplify that the thing I'm saying isn't some obscure factoid or advice, it's common knowledge that I would expect a normal person to understand.

Let me ask you something: What does she stand to gain from a legal perspective? Again, I must emphasize legal, not "public image".

Here are the two ways it could play out:

-She says something good to the press. This is a net neutral because she could have saved it for the court.

-She says something bad. Now she is at a net loss.

She stands to gain absolutely nothing from speaking, only potentially lose.

> She is a US congressperson and can comment on anything she wishes, even ongoing investigations.

lol, no, just because you're a congressperson doesn't mean you can ignore court or fed orders. What if she talked to the press and accidentally gave away information that helped Sam Bankman-Fried develop a better defense for himself?

If you've ever had jury duty it's actually specifically outlined that you can't, so I imagine that it's the same for her.

>However, once a jury is impaneled, journalists are prohibited from interviewing jurors while the case is being presented and during jury deliberations.

Again, I'm not saying she DOES have a no-talk clause from higher ups, but it's not unreasonable at all.

>I hope she gets it together over the weekend and agrees to talk about this with the Vermont media.

I hope she doesn't, because it would mean she is an idiot and I would no longer trust her to represent me.

Have you seen Breaking Bad? There's a scene in it where they actually joke about this with Badger.

>Did you say anything stupid? And by anything stupid I mean anything at all.

So I have to emphasize again, that the thing you are asking our congressperson to do, talk about an active legal case, is so well known in the public conscious as a horrible idea that modern media actually jokes about that one of the dumber meth dealers in a TV show might do it.

> She declined to comment to VT Digger. She has been free with the media before and after the election, but on this issue, she’s avoiding the media.

Yeah, because again, this issue is an active legal investigation. It's a totally different scenario. If she's cooperating with feds, depending on what's happening, she might not even be allowed to comment on it yet, who knows.

>Maybe that’s a good strategy.

"Maybe"? Again, this is probably like Law 101-level strategy. If you ever go to a lawyer about anything, the first thing they're going to ask you is "Have you spoken to this to anyone outside of my office?" and if your answer is "Yes" they're going to tell you to stop doing that immediately. If you say you've posted about it online, they tell you to delete it. There is literally nothing you can say publicly that will help your case, only things you can say publicly that will hurt your case.

To say it's "maybe" a good strategy is like saying "maybe" it's good to eat vegetables.

Do you think Balint is never going to comment on this ever? If she's cooperating with federal prosecutors, I imagine there is going to be an official statement released at some point.

"Speaking first without properly analyzing the situation and coming up with a clear and concise answer" is the type of thing Trump did. And look at not only the problems that resulted in his candidacy, but also the legal issues that have been ongoing as a result of it.

100%. Reddit and the general public think "If they aren't talking, they're hiding something and must be guilty".

You know what happens to innocent people who talk? They go to jail, because they accidentally incriminate themselves.

Honestly people like the OP who criticize Balint for not talking are part of the reason so many innocent people go to jail. Common tactic of cops to say things like "Well, if you won't answer my questions, that'll make you look guilty." And then ask you a question like

"Do you remember where you got these drugs, yes or no?"

"No"

"So you admit these are your drugs".

If you are involved in any form of legal proceeding, do not talk, and do not like redditors like the OP guilt you into falsely incriminating yourself.

Yeah, I'm not saying he hasn't done good things. Almost all politicians do some good and some bad things in their careers.

But trying to prevent the entire internet from having user-generated content is one of the worst laws conceived, and probably the one that has the most wide-spread impact across so many people. Again, I have to re-iterate:

Under Patrick Leahy's proposed law, the following would be removed from the internet:

-Reddit

-Wikipedia

-All social media. Facebook, Twitter, etc

-All video sharing sites. Youtube, Tiktok, etc

-All Image sharing sites. Instagram, Imgur, etc.

-Any sites for users sell things. Ebay, Craigslist, etc. Amazon would only be things sold directly from amazon, no more third party sales.

And again, the REASON he tried to stifle the sharing of knowledge across the world was in order to protect the wealth of Billionaires.

Ironic seeing the support of Leahy on Reddit when he was the person who proposed PIPA to shut down sites like reddit back in 2012.

Reddit even disabled their site for a day to protest Leahy's proposed law, as did Wikipedia, and even Google put information about it on their Google doodle for a day on the day of the protest.

And he did it for the sake of preserving the profits of billionaires in the entertainment industry.

I absolutely agree. I'm extremely thankful that our republican governor is pro-choice and lead the way towards making this a law for Vermonters.

>The clear consensus in biology is that a distinct human life is formed at the point of conception with the formation of the zygote.

Plant life also begins at a seed, and I also don't think it's unethical to pull an undeveloped seed out of the ground either, because it doesn't have a brain.

>You claimed multiple times that science says life does not begin at conception. That is simply a false claim.

I'll admit my wording in my original post is fairly simplified, but I think I've elaborated enough in subsequent posts to detail what I meant at a scientific level.

> which implies that this is your primary reason.

I've also talked in depth about how it's difficult to really elaborate on the full extent of the issue because of how complex it is. I have a job not related to politics so the amount of time I spend on reddit threads explaining minute details of my arguments is minimal. Ultimately, yes, it is my primary reason, and I do have other reasoning.

>As an aside, I appreciate your reflexive downvoting of my comments, really leads me to believe you're acting with intellectual honesty and in good faith here.

I am not downvoting you.

Brain death is considered death therefore we can derive something without a functional brain is not considered alive in a legal/ethical sense.

Plants are also "alive" in the same way a fetus is, and also cannot be murdered.

Also for clarity, I do still support abortion post-7 weeks, but the reasoning and my own personal thoughts on the matter are more complex.

The neural tube doesn't fully close until 6 or 7 weeks after conception was what I was going with. Beyond that it does admittedly get trickier.

But the issue is, people who believe "abortion is murder" think that the woman shouldn't have control over the fetus, as they believe it to be a separate person.

It's like how you can't force someone to give marrow to save your own life; the people who believe "abortion is murder" don't think you should force the fetus to die to save the mom.

Thats why I prefer to focus on the "abortion is NOT murder" part of the argument.

>unless someone can look you in the eye and say the believe a 13 year old who was raped should be forced to also give birth, there is no argument supporting abortion restriction

That's the thing; pro-lifers who believe it is murder WILL say that.

Absolutely. I think a lot of the issue is the desire to have something be "catchy" and "simple". Which is great in theory, but the problem is people often lean towards "catchy and simple" at the detriment of "accurate", and it leads to the alienation of some people who generally agree.

It's a lot easier to say "men shouldn't make a decision on women's bodies" than it is to say "Due to the scientific consensus that life does not begin at conception, this no longer becomes a debate about infringing upon the rights of others, including the unborn fetus; it becomes a body autonomy issue which only impacts women".

Not to mention all the people saying "Men shouldn't make decisions that only impact women" are inadvertently validating the opinions of Amy Coney Barrett; and I do not believe those opinions to be ethically right.

> Honestly as a man, who the fuck am I to tell a woman what to do with her body?

Minor nitpick, but I haven't been a big fan of this as the most focused on aspect of the debate; a lot of the pro-lifers use the argument that "it's murder of the baby", and I don't think saying "Well that's the woman's choice" is the proper counter-argument to that.

Anyway, as a man I also voted yes because I follow the scientific reasoning that life does not begin at conception.

Not saying you felt differently, just adding in my thoughts on the messaging of the issue that I see as a whole.