2016 Presidential Horse Race

[zelezo vlk]

I'm serious! It's the same damned thing. I challenge you to make a meaningful coherent distinction between slavery, the Holocaust, and abortion.

The Holocaust killed fewer people.

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[Whiskeyjack]

It's not a human life

Silly SoCon extremist. Why are you focusing on stopping mass infanticide when there are serious issues to address like lowering the top marginal tax rate?

 

[Whiskeyjack]

The Holocaust killed fewer people.

 

[ACamp1900]

The Holocaust killed fewer people.

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If only Hitler were a woman...

 

[RDU Irish]

I'm sold. Chastity belts for all the unwed girls over the age of 9 and death penalty for abortion doctors.

 

[zelezo vlk]

I'm sold. Chastity belts for all the unwed girls over the age of 9 and death penalty for abortion doctors.

Edited to be less of a dick. Do you really think that that is what our proposed solution is?

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[gkIrish]

I'm sold. Chastity belts for all the unwed girls over the age of 9 and death penalty for abortion doctors.

My ten year old nephew is not allowed to date your 10 year old daughter.

 

[IrishBroker]

Big government is a symptom, not the disease. It increases to fill the vacuum left by withering civil institutions. Liberalism, in both its leftist and rightist forms, elevates the autonomous individual over all else, thereby ensuring social atomization.

Most modern Americans aren't fit for self-governance, which is why no Republican administration since WWII has ever actually succeeded in decreasing the size of government. If you'd like to downsize the government, your focus needs to be on creating a more virtuous citizenry.

Without disciplined citizens willing to sacrifice for their neighbors and future generations, the minimally invasive "night watchman" government that libertarians dream of is impossible.

Are you saying that those citizens wouldn't exist without government?

The governmental programs would be replaced by competitive, private companies that would actually have to answer for their actions....

Check this out...

Texas Town Experiences 61% Drop in Crime After Firing Their Police Department

 

[RDU Irish]

Only 29% of Americans (as of a May 2016 Gallup Poll) support abortion being legal in all circumstances.

Also, Abortion poll finds 81% Americans, 66% pro-choice advocates support restrictions on procedure - Washington Times

"morally wrong" you mean like stealing or adultery? Or are those things still bad? I can't keep up.

Good - now if they actually voted on those morals they Democratic party would be little more than a twinkle in Joe Biden's eye.

In a previous post Bogs showed a stat of Catholic women who actually have abortion - what exactly do you do with them in your abortionless utopia? Making laws is easy - enforcing them is another story.

 

[gkIrish]

"morally wrong" you mean like stealing or adultery? Or are those things still bad? I can't keep up.

Good - now if they actually voted on those morals they Democratic party would be little more than a twinkle in Joe Biden's eye.

In a previous post Bogs showed a stat of Catholic women who actually have abortion - what exactly do you do with them in your abortionless utopia? Making laws is easy - enforcing them is another story.

1) I'm not even Catholic or religious at all. It's got nothing to do with religion for me.

2) If you think people vote with Democrats because of their abortion stance you are a fool. In fact, the only people that I know who vote for a party on the basis of one issue are people who vote Republican because of abortion.

3) If you think stealing and adultery aren't morally wrong I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you are trolling.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

I'm sold. Chastity belts for all the unwed girls over the age of 9 and death penalty for abortion doctors.

We're not arguing for theocracy, dude. Separation of Church and State is a Christian idea that goes all the way back to Augustine's City of God in the early 5th century AD. Here's Saint Thomas Aquinas arguing that prostitution, though gravely immoral, shouldn't be illegal.

But the secular state still has to maintain a foundation in natural law, or everything starts to break down. Infanticide should be intolerable to any civilized people, regardless of religion.

 

[RDU Irish]

Edited to be less of a dick. Do you really think that that is what our proposed solution is?

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I'm all ears - I am actually curious what the actual enforcement of a 100% abortion ban would look like. It would be glorious, I agree. Especially if coupled with real support for adoption services and a social outpouring of respect for mothers choosing this more noble route.

 

[tussin]

As discussed numerous times on this forum and in this thread -- the liberal view on abortion is just as much based on faith as the conservative view, probably more so.

 

[Wild Bill]

1) I'm not even Catholic or religious at all. It's got nothing to do with religion for me.

2) If you think people vote with Democrats because of their abortion stance you are a fool. In fact, the only people that I know who vote for a party on the basis of one issue are people who vote Republican because of abortion.

3) If you think stealing and adultery aren't morally wrong I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you are trolling.

I know several that vote D on this issue alone.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Are you saying that those citizens wouldn't exist without government?

No, I'm saying that libertarian-style governance only works well in "thick" communities already full of virtuous disciplined citizens actively participating in civil society. Try imposing those policies in a socially atomized inner city borough, and the results would be disastrous.

The governmental programs would be replaced by competitive, private companies that would actually have to answer for their actions....

And who regulates those private companies? Our massive administrative state today was created as a reaction to the abuses of unchecked corporate greed during the Gilded Age. A union-busting monopolist paying everyone in town with company scrip is arguably more tyrannical than the nanny state we have today.

 

[RDU Irish]

I am anti-abortion and getting fileted here - how the fvck do expect to ever make headway with opponents when you instantly demonize someone on your own side for not feeling as strongly as you about an issue?

 

[IrishBroker]

No, I'm saying that libertarian-style governance only works well in "thick" communities already full of virtuous and disciplined citizens. Try imposing those solutions in a socially atomized inner city borough, and the results would be disastrous.



And who regulates those private companies? Our massive administrative state today was created as a reaction to the abuses of unchecked corporate greed during the Gilded Age.

...because government currently picks and chooses who gets to sit at the table.

Which is why I'm also a big proponent of getting money out of politics.


And while I'm sure there would be growing pains, but how do you know? I mean, of course there will always be crime, but I think easing up on the police state, and overregulation, would actually promote good behavior and encourage people to do the right thing.

 

[IrishBroker]

I am anti-abortion and getting fileted here - how the fvck do expect to ever make headway with opponents when you instantly demonize someone on your own side for not feeling as strongly as you about an issue?

For the record, I understand exactly what you are getting at.

How do we deal with all the new members of society once they leave the womb if abortion is outlawed...which is a legitimate concern.

 

[RDU Irish]

For the record, I understand exactly what you are getting at.

How do we deal with all the new members of society once they leave the womb if abortion is outlawed...which is a legitimate concern.

More interested in what we do with all the people caught having abortions - or better yet - accused of such. What does that investigation look like exactly? How do we punish the offenders - on a relative scale as well. Freaking OJ Simpson (Fight On!) gets away with murder but we are somehow expecting to prosecute thousands of abortion cases?

The reality of such a world - just like drugs. Rich get away with it, poor go to jail.

 

[connor_in]

O
M
G

I have not seen that one before. Thanks for putting that arrow in my quill.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

More interested in what we do with all the people caught having abortions - or better yet - accused of such. What does that investigation look like exactly? How do we punish the offenders - on a relative scale as well. Freaking OJ Simpson (Fight On!) gets away with murder but we are somehow expecting to prosecute thousands of abortion cases?

The reality of such a world - just like drugs. Rich get away with it, poor go to jail.

If people had written into law, the ability to kill mentally challenged people as long as they met certain metrics (unable to self-support, below 65 on IQ scale, etc), would you find that abhorrent enough to take a hard line? Or would you be pragmatic about it, ensuring we only kill the dumbest ones and we only do it with painless techniques? No back alley shotgun to the head, gas or lethal injection. They deserve that much.

We are talking about institutionalized murder that has become commonplace and we're supposedly looking at increasing the amount of time a human life can exist before destroying it. As long as a human hasn't been outside of the mother's body, it can be ruthlessly killed and the remains can be auctioned off to science.

#dystopia dawns on us all

 

[Whiskeyjack]

I am anti-abortion and getting fileted here - how the fvck do expect to ever make headway with opponents when you instantly demonize someone on your own side for not feeling as strongly as you about an issue?

You're the one who keeps arguing that abortion-crazed SoCons are holding the GOP back. gk posted links showing that the GOP's stance on abortion is actually much closer to the middle in America than the DNC's current "no restrictions and full public funding" position. Apologies if you feel demonized, but people react similarly when someone claims "Hitler did nothing wrong" or "African-Americans were better off in the antebellum South".

...because government currently picks and chooses who gets to sit at the table.

That's not remotely responsive to my last post. We had laissez-faire governance once upon a time called the Gilded Age, and massive corporations ran roughshod over millions of American workers. That's what led to "trust bustin'" Teddy Roosevelt and eventually FDR's New Deal. There's no reason to expect that private corporations are going to be any more inclined to promote the common good than government.

Which is why I'm also a big proponent of getting money out of politics.

And how can that be accomplished? Money and power are two sides of the same coin. Lobbyists have money and want power; legislators have power and want money. We can either pay our legislators a lot more money than they're currently making to reduce the temptation of accepting bribes, or we can devolve power as diffusely as possible to make it difficult to lobby effectively. But with Washington as it's currently constituted, "getting the money out of politics" is a fairy tale.

And while I'm sure there would be growing pains, but how do you know? I mean, of course there will always be crime, but I think easing up on the police state, and overregulation, would actually promote good behavior and encourage people to do the right thing.

The fact that there's virtually no modern nation governed under libertarian principles is pretty compelling evidence that it's not a practical model. There's also the recent failure of Sam Brownback's economic reforms in Kansas. Proving a negative is hard.

For the record, I understand exactly what you are getting at.

How do we deal with all the new members of society once they leave the womb if abortion is outlawed...which is a legitimate concern.

Since the American birth rate just plummeted to a new historic low, that would be a great problem to have.

 

[IrishBroker]

More interested in what we do with all the people caught having abortions - or better yet - accused of such. What does that investigation look like exactly? How do we punish the offenders - on a relative scale as well. Freaking OJ Simpson (Fight On!) gets away with murder but we are somehow expecting to prosecute thousands of abortion cases?

The reality of such a world - just like drugs. Rich get away with it, poor go to jail.

You make it impossible for them to get legal abortions (which Texas tried to do)....good luck in the black market abortion clinics.

The saddest thing about abortions, is it's done out of convenience. The "rape and incest" argument is just rhetoric as that accounts for less than 1% of abortions. Even cases in which a mothers life is in danger, is extremely low.

They use the extreme exceptions to justify murder for the sake of "well, I didn't want to inconvenience my life"

 

[gkIrish]

I am anti-abortion and getting fileted here - how the fvck do expect to ever make headway with opponents when you instantly demonize someone on your own side for not feeling as strongly as you about an issue?

You are the one cracking jokes at our comments and making light of them. That doesn't seem like you are trying to make headway.

I know several that vote D on this issue alone.

I don't believe that they vote Democrat on that issue alone. It's a lot more likely that they are liberal on most other social issues, too. I don't believe there are people out there that are socially conservative on everything but abortion, which is what you are basically saying.


How about we start by cutting all funding to organizations that provide abortions. Making it "illegal" may not be feasible but cutting funding certainly is. And less spending is always good with me.

 

[kmoose]

If people had written into law, the ability to kill mentally challenged people as long as they met certain metrics (unable to self-support, below 65 on IQ scale, etc), would you find that abhorrent enough to take a hard line? Or would you be pragmatic about it, ensuring we only kill the dumbest ones and we only do it with painless techniques? No back alley shotgun to the head, gas or lethal injection. They deserve that much.

We are talking about institutionalized murder that has become commonplace and we're supposedly looking at increasing the amount of time a human life can exist before destroying it. As long as a human hasn't been outside of the mother's body, it can be ruthlessly killed and the remains can be auctioned off to science.

#dystopia dawns on us all

I get the mentally challenged analogy, and I think it is problematic, morally, for those of us who reasonably support a woman's right to choice. But, do you feel the same about a fetus that is not viable, outside of the womb? I'm not talking about a baby that cannot feed itself or walk to a water source, but a fetus whose organs are not developed sufficiently to sustain life without the umbilical cord supplying it?

 

[Whiskeyjack]

More interested in what we do with all the people caught having abortions - or better yet - accused of such. What does that investigation look like exactly? How do we punish the offenders - on a relative scale as well. Freaking OJ Simpson (Fight On!) gets away with murder but we are somehow expecting to prosecute thousands of abortion cases?

The reality of such a world - just like drugs. Rich get away with it, poor go to jail.

From a blog post by NYT columnist Ross Douthat titled "Pro-Choice Questions, Pro-life Answers":

8. Murder. If zygotes are people, abortion is infanticide, a very serious crime. Kevin Williamson, a correspondent for National Review, has said that women who have abortions should be hanged. That’s going pretty far. After all, if every woman who had an abortion were executed, who would raise the children? But if abortion becomes a crime, what do you think the punishment should be? I’m assuming you approve of jailing the provider, but what about the parent who makes the appointment, the man who pays, the friend who lends her car? Aren’t they accomplices? And what about the woman herself? No fair exempting her as a victim of coercion or manipulation or the culture of death. We take personal responsibility very seriously in this country. Patty Hearst went to prison despite being kidnapped, raped, locked in a closet and brainwashed into thinking her captors were her only friends. Our prisons are full of people whose obvious mental illness failed to move prosecutors or juries. Why should women who hire a fetal hit man get a pass?

This is the hardest and most reasonable question, and the place where I least expect my answer to convince. But here I think the pro-choice side of the argument, the argument for not making abortion illegal at all, rests on a belief that many pro-lifers actually share: That while abortion is killing, while it is murder, it is also associated with a situation, pregnancy, that’s unlike any other in human affairs, and as such requires a distinctive legal response. No other potential murderer has his victim inside his body, no other potential murder victim is not in some sense fully physically visible and present to his assailant and the world, no other human person presents herself (initially, in the first trimester) to her potential killer in what amounts to a pre-conscious state. And again: no other human experience is like pregnancy, period, whether or it comes expectedly or not.

These are not, in my view, strong arguments for the pro-choice view that we should license the killing of millions of unborn human beings. But I think they are strong arguments for maintaining the distinctive approach to enforcement that largely prevailed prior to Roe v. Wade, in which the law targeted abortionists and almost never prosecuted women. And I don’t think pro-lifers should be afraid to say that a pregnant woman’s decision to take a first-trimester life is simply a different kind of murder than the murder of a five-year-old, and one where the law should err on the side of mercy toward the woman herself in a way that it shouldn’t in other cases, and reserve the force of prosecution for the abortionist, the man or woman who isn’t experiencing the pregnancy, instead.

This approach is, yes, exceptional in terms of how the state treats homicide. But its “exception from the general rule seems to be justified by the wisdom of experience,” as a pre-Roe court ruling put it. And while — again — pregnancy is unique, it is not the only situation where older legal forms approached killing in distinctive ways. Suicide, for instance, was historically treated as a form of murder in many jurisdictions, but attempted suicides were hardly ever prosecuted for the attempted murder that they had committed, whereas people who assisted in suicide were more likely to be charged. And a version of that distinction survives today: Suicide itself has now been largely decriminalized but assisting a suicide is still illegal, though of course a subject of much culture-war controversy, in most U.S. states.

Could one argue that this combination is illogical — that if we don’t throw attempted suicides in jail we shouldn’t make it illegal to help them make their quietus? Certainly; this is an increasingly popular position. But I think the older position, which recognizes the reality that suicide is murder but also treats it distinctively and assigns legal culpability in a particular-to-that-distinction way, is actually the one more consonant with justice overall. And in a different-but-related way, the same is true for abortion: A just society needs to both recognize abortion as murder and grapple with its distinctives, and that’s what an effective pro-life legal regime would need to do.

tl;dr We treat it like suicide. Those who attempt it are usually in dire straights, and should be treated with compassion. But those who assist/ facilitate it should be punished severely.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

I get the mentally challenged analogy, and I think it is problematic, morally, for those of us who reasonably support a woman's right to choice. But, do you feel the same about a fetus that is not viable, outside of the womb? I'm not talking about a baby that cannot feed itself or walk to a water source, but a fetus whose organs are not developed sufficiently to sustain life without the umbilical cord supplying it?

I view it as the exact same thing because it's a developing human (likely with more potential than the severely mentally handicapped, although not necessarily so).

Fetus, neonate, infant, toddler, adolescent, adult, geriatric: Different names for temporally-defined human development.

 

[IrishinSyria]

From a blog post by NYT columnist Ross Douthat titled "Pro-Choice Questions, Pro-life Answers":



tl;dr We treat it like suicide. Those who attempt it are usually in dire straights, and should be treated with compassion. But those who assist/ facilitate it should be punished severely.

sounds like middle ground to me . . .

Do you think there was middle ground on ante-bellum slavery or Nazi genocide?

 

[Whiskeyjack]

sounds like middle ground to me . . .

I'm thrilled to hear that you'd consider it, but it was suggested in the context of criminalizing abortion at the national level. That's a level of success that most current pro-life activists can only dream of; short of a miracle and/or widespread religious revival, I don't expect to see it in my lifetime. Hell, the prospect of simply overturning Roe v. Wade and letting the states decide on its legality is barely considered within the realm of political feasibility these days. We're that far down the road...

 

[IrishinSyria]

I'm thrilled to hear that you'd consider it, but it was suggested in the context of criminalizing abortion at the national level. That's a level of success that most current pro-life activists can only dream of; short of a miracle and/or widespread religious revival, I don't expect to see it in my lifetime. Hell, the prospect of simply overturning Roe v. Wade and letting the states decide on its legality is barely considered within the realm of political feasibility these days. We're that far down the road...

My point was more that maybe comparing abortions to the holocaust and slavery isn't exactly a fruitful line of rhetoric when even your own side acknowledges that there's something very fundamentally different about an abortion and a murder of a fully developed person.