Sure, but it’s a job that can provide the savings to purchase a used snow blower, is my point. In another comment OP was complaining about working a low paying job that didn’t make that possible.

Man, 80+ hour weeks? Surely if you're putting in those hours they're compensating you well enough to be able to save and purchase a used snow blower.

It'll suck, but get a couple less hours of sleep tonight than usual and shovel out. I have many fond memories of shoveling out with my dad in the dark with some terrible headlamps after he finished up with work (too bad your 8-month-old can't yet help out lol)

Your job requires you work 18 hours a day every day?

I'm not trying to be heartless, but I'm sure you can find the time to take a couple hours in the morning or evening.

Call up your neighbors and shovel out.

You don't know anybody with a plow or snowblower? You haven't stockpiled any extra propane?

230 feet of shoveling isn't exactly fun, but a grown man should be able to pretty easily do it. Get to work!

It’s all sensationalized hyper-partisan garbage. But unfortunately Redditors tend to love ingesting this sort of crap. So many people have absolutely no sense of historical or global perspective.

I kept reading and re-reading this post trying to find something actually awful that he said. Still looking. He made a dumb gaffe and then sob-storied apologized for it. There are much worse people out there.

Another thread related to the insane cost of housing in Vermont, and another thread full of comments with people trying to focus the blame on other factors or only half-heartedly support building new desperately needed housing.

Why don’t you believe building more housing would decrease the cost of housing? Very simple economic laws of supply and demand.

Landlords don’t set the rent to the average local income, they set it to what they can get for it. We desperately need to build more housing.

I will never stop flashing my high beams at those with high beams on (when it’s not just bright LEDs or higher-off-the-road lights or whatever), the selfishness is infuriating.

Think it’s been AT&T for more rural comprehensive coverage for awhile now. But I’ve noticed my friends with Verizon always had faster speeds than I did in the cities.

It’s almost like none of them are great

There are clear differences in policy preferences etc. for sure, but the only people who think there’s a Good party and an Evil party are morons.

Pretty childish tbh

Define “abort” as you use it — that’s just simple word obfuscation. A miscarriage (and its medical equivalents) are not the same as an abortion procedure.

Yes, I’ve said multiple times that the question of personhood is a different and much more relevant one. I’ve been specifically arguing about whether it’s a “life” here.

> 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.

Sure, but you made an argument with regard to life generally. Most people can distinguish between moral claims around plant life and human life. I also don't think it's unethical to pull an undeveloped seed out of the ground early; not because of a brain or lack thereof but because it's not a human life -- and plants and humans are not morally equivalent.

> 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.

Yes it was, and no I don't think you have anywhere actually. You made a clear claim multiple times around what the supposed scientific consensus was, and in fact the scientific consensus is the exact opposite of what you claimed.

> 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.

Haha same, I understand that. But as a primary point it seems to me to be deeply flawed insofar as you've only really made a moral argument because the science-life argument you led with is flatly false.

> I am not downvoting you.

Good to know, thanks. Happened a few times quickly after I made a comment responding to you so I assumed -- but you know what they say about assuming!

> It's weird for me when Republicans ban abortion except for rape or incest. Because if they truly believed abortion was murder, the conception would be irrelevant. Like, if they really think a fetus is a baby, why would they make exceptions? We don't kill actual living, breathing, not-in-the-womb babies born out of rape.

Pro-lifers generally promote this as a policy because it's very popular among Americans to have a 12-15 week ban with those few exceptions. I agree that it's intellectually inconsistent though. But isn't it also inconsistent for pro-choicers who talk about bodily autonomy and how the fetus isn't a human life to generally want abortion restrictions after 12-15 weeks?

> Which tells me they're hypocrites who just want to control women.

There are millions upon millions of pro-life women. The "controlling women" trope is so tired.

This is one of the classic arguments in favor of abortion, but it really misses the mark for a number of reasons (as you concede at the end of your comment).

The relationship of a mother to a child is not at all equivalent to a person with leukemia. A child isn't a random disease that pops up, it's a new life that was created by the mother via having sex or IVF.

Additionally, an unborn baby can be removed for medical necessity to save the life of the mother without forcibly terminating it -- e.g. through a C-section or by early labor induction. There is no medically necessary reason when saving the mother to terminate the life instead of removing the unborn baby and trying to keep it alive as well. Etc. etc. etc.

You're really getting more into ethics here than science.

The clear consensus in biology is that a distinct human life is formed at the point of conception with the formation of the zygote. You claimed multiple times that science says life does not begin at conception. That is simply a false claim.

> 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.

That's interesting, since you said elsewhere that

> "I also voted yes because I follow the scientific reasoning that life does not begin at conception"

which implies that this is your primary reason.

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.

Why the neural tube distinction? Surely the existence of a neural tube and its closure isn’t the defining characteristic of a new life according to biology.

> "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"

Source on your "scientific consensus"? Everything I've seen in biology 101 indicates that conception produces a distinct life -- the question is rather whether we ought to give that life moral equivalency to the mother and thus legal protection, and at what stage in its development.

And I meant it. Did I say anything false or are you just mad because I don’t agree with you re: Prop 5?

Edit: Apparently the latter.

Please elaborate on this claim:

> I follow the scientific reasoning that life does not begin at conception.

In another comment you describe it as the “scientific consensus.” I am very curious to know what exactly you mean by this.

Edit: Downvotes (as can be expected, I suppose) yet no reply. This is a good-faith question. Everything I've seen, and my public VT high school education taking biology, indicates that science is pretty settled around the idea that a distinct human life forms when the sperm meets the egg and forms a zygote (i.e. fertilization).

Is there some perspective within the scientific community that I'm missing here? Typically the abortion question deals with when one ought technically consider the fetus a human and worthy of equal moral consideration to the mother -- a live debate for sure -- but I've never really seen anybody argue that science says the fetus isn't a distinct life.

Lol this sub is such a hive mind

Respectfully, OP, nobody gives a shit that you’re voting yes on Prop 5 and why; 95% of this sub is as well. It’s just not an interesting or useful or conversation-inducing take, because everybody here agrees with you.

Hap's a good pic