Stanford and Harvard both have all sorts of interesting lecture series online! Harvard has stuff like urban design, religious history, art history, the relationship between cooking and physics, biology, Chinese history and much more!

https://pll.harvard.edu/catalog/free

Haven’t taken any with Stanford but here’s a link to their catalogue:

https://online.stanford.edu/free-courses

I don’t know how weird it is but my cat seems to understand that when faces are talking from the computer screen my hands will be free for the more important duty of skritching.

She has become a hit during team meetings, to the point where one time she was sleeping and didn’t come prompting half the team to send concerned DMs.

Sure, same but that kind of defeats the poiny of the whole exercise…

Once he turned me into a newt! . . . . . I got better.

Oh my, I haven’t watched the second one since, oh, November 2016, completely forgot that. Thank you, that’s amazing.

I keep waiting to see Ass. Anything that wins that many Oscars has got to be worth it.

I was trying to remember the name and am so glad you brought Angels w Filthy souls.

Well at the point of kicking, I don’t think many people are saying abortion is still an option.

It absolutely is and was under Roe v Wade. Babies start to kick and move as early as 16 weeks. While Roe did allow states to regulate the second trimester (14 - 28 weeks) many states had no restrictions on abortions during this period:

https://www.axios.com/2022/05/14/abortion-state-laws-bans-roe-supreme-court

So again, do you think any pregnant mom who has you put your hand on her belly to feel the kid kick, would they agree the kicker is just a clump of cells or a parasite? (Actually, having had many pregnant friends scratch that last one, I think all of them at one point jokingly referred to their internal parasite.)

But the point is that even the most staunch pro-choice of us should have the decency to admit that the thing inside may not quite be a person but is certainly more than a clump of cells. Then the divergence is who has the rights, the outcomes etc. I agree with you that it’s wrong to force a woman to carry a kid to term but, as I keep trying to say, those who disagree have a point.

I know it’s super uncool these days to try and understand those with whom we disagree and even less cool to empathize with them but I promise you, it’s a worthwhile endeavor.

I think this was really well written and gets at the heart of what actual compromise entails much better than my quick question could possibly do.

That’s fair. I come at guns with my weird Canadian perspective but I do think different classes of weapons is reasonable. Here, rifles are treated vwry differently from handguns which are basically allowed in a locked storage box at home (with ammo in, if I remember my firearms license training correctly, another locked box) or in the trunk of your car while you are on the most direct route to a firing range or coming home from one.

We have almost no gun crime. In America, I’ve had guns drawn on me twice by cops (understandably nervous cops, I would be nervous too if everyone had a handgun!) after being pulled over for speeding and one time a dude I met at a Sharks game pulled one on a guy who threatened us with a knife.

That just seems like a ridiculous way to live. I’ve had a blast shooting off guns in the bush, drunk and high in Oregon but as much fun as that was, definitely doesn’t outweigh the whole “guns are just around and yeah, school shootings happen” thing.

You mean “your” 3 points. I am not three points.

Anyway, I went to the Republican 2024 platform. There’s a lot of fluff but, as evidenced by tonight, their big issue is immigration, which is the first 2 items in the platform.

Then there’s generic fluff about inflation, tax cuts for the working class and boosting manufacturing, claims both parties make. (Also about energy but I already included climate change in the Dems column.)

Nonsense about stopping ww3 (yes, a level headed leader like trump is what we need to do that.) Then "stop charging donald for his crimes. Back to immigration. Then random attack on cities, despite urban voters voting Dem. Then generic silliness. Then climate, then culture war etc…

So, what would you say are the two non immigration issues on the Republican side?

Real tough. (Which kind of makes me roll my eyes when fellow Canadians criticize the American Right on immigration.

We have a points based system, you get points for education, skills etc. (And some specialized seasonal programs etc.)

That being said, we do take in a boatload of refugees so maybe you can claim asylum?

Okay, “secret” confession, I’m a Canadian too. But I can’t stop watching American politics, much like I can’t help but look when passing a car crash.

I think a more reasonable compromise would be to give Republicans most of what they want on immigration reform.

I strongly agree here. I think this is actually what the Harris campaign is doing. I really hope she smacks donald around on this after he stopped a pretty Right leaning border bill from happening. While I didn’t love it all, it does seem much more humane/realistic than donald’s current “Deport 'em all!” mantra.

I am bothered by how few people seem to grasp this fact.

Yeah, some of the responses in this thread have been predictable but still disheartening.

would do the obvious deal and sacrifice their dilatory approach to immigration and in particular border security.

100%. It just seems like the progressives are losing the war for the sake of being in the moral feel good category, witness the rise of the Far Right in Poland, Germany, France and probably others that I’m too ignorant to know about (sorry!) That being said, reading over this thread and you can kind of see why the Progressive parties are in a bit of a bind, we do seem allergic to the notion that we might not get everything we want.

That’s fair.

Again, I’m not trying to argue for one side over the other. I’m just saying that from their point of view, both sides have some sense of legitimacy. I tend to agree with you that abortion should be available to all who want one because it’s not my damned decision to make.

But yet again, for the pro-lifers, murdering babies, no matter how good the results etc might be is fundamentally wrong.

The reason why it’s worse if she’s pregnant is because you took away her choice and opportunity to have that baby

To each their own I guess. I personally would feel horrible about killing a child not just removing a temporary opportunity or something. I’m not saying it’s the same as an abortion, just that we on a fundamental level do understand that the fetus isn’t just a clump of cells.

Ahaha, I really enjoy this comment.

I think you’re right, most folks are middle of the road but damned if I can think of a way to get the middle to actually dominate politics…

The pervasive notion that there are “two sides” and you must be on one of them

Nah, though there is an irony to arguing that the notion of two sides means we view each other with suspicion right after deciding what I believe because of the question I asked.

Just like you, I get that there are two major political parties, one of which will hold power, both of which view the other as the enemy. I asked this to see what the general consensus would be as my friends and I played a similar game and were stymied pretty quickly.

Your example of pushing is still assault and non-consensual, pretty easy to call a difference there.

So are you saying that me pushing a pregnant woman down the stairs is the same as doing so to a non pregnant woman?

why not leave it up to the people who may or may not get an abortion?

Again, I’m pro-choice. But, the pro-life response is simply that the unborn child doesn’t get a say in the matter. We don’t allow people to murder their born children even though it’s their own child. The pro-life movement just argues that the definition of child should include those who have yet to be born.

I mean, try asking any pregnant mom about whether the thing kicking around inside them is alive or not…

I think this is absolutely the best and most well thought out response. As you might expect, I disagree and agree with parts. I don’t actually think a “compromise” like I outlined would ever happen but I was kind of curious about the responses. (Most have been “nah”.)

I just don’t see any way in the current political climate that actual compromise of the type you outlined is possible. The current dynamic is basically any policy achievement while the party you didn’t vote for is in power is a win for the “other guys” and is a loss for “us.”