Scalia Dead.

[wizards8507]

Really? Only three percent of Planned Parenthoods total services is abortion. Yet, all of their services (often free, serving low income citizens) are lumped into "abortion". But it is blasphemy that those same services are lumped into the term "women's health" when people want to talk about these issues?

That's a lie. (No, I'm not saying you're lying. I'm saying someone lied to you and you believed it.) Planned Parenthood's statistics are highly manipulated. It's an abortion mill. You can get contraceptives at Walmart and mammograms at any proper clinic anywhere. Planned Parenthood exists for the sole purpose of performing abortions. Regardless, we're talking about cases likely to appear before the Supreme Court. Nobody is trying to block any woman from walking into CVS and buying their pills.

Access to preventative care, contraception, and procedures like D&C, etc are all very different conversation from abortion. All have been under attack under the guise of "Pro Life". It's a simple convenience that on one end they are supposed to be blindly lumped into the issue, but they should be completely ignored on the other.

Please point out who tried to prevent anyone's access to preventative care, contraception, or medical procedures, ever.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

How can we possibly know that though? Srinivasan has argued a lot of cases on both sides of the political spectrum.

From the Douthat article:

Since 1968, the year that the modern right-of-center political majority was born, Republican presidents have made twelve appointments to the Supreme Court; Democratic presidents have made just four. Yet those twelve Republican appointments, while they did push the court rightward, never delivered the kind of solid 6-3 or 7-2 conservative majority that one might have expected to emerge. Instead, John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Harry Blackmun all went on to become outspoken liberals, Blackmun and Anthony Kennedy went on to author decisions sweeping away the nation’s abortion laws and redefining marriage, Sandra Day O’Connor and Kennedy both ratified Roe v. Wade — and so on down a longer list of disappointments and betrayals.

Meanwhile, none of the four recent Democratic appointees, whether “moderate” or liberal, have moved meaningfully rightward during their tenures. On the crucial cases of the last decade (including the cases Stern lists) they’ve reliably voted as a bloc. The most genuinely unpredictable of the four, Stephen Breyer, is basically crusading to eliminate the death penalty already. The more moderate of President Obama’s two appointments, Elena Kagan, has voted with the more liberal Sonia Sotamayor more reliably (especially in 5-4 decisions) than, say, Scalia voted with John Roberts. And the court’s only actual swing vote remains, of course, a Republican appointee.

So telling Republicans that they should accept a moderate liberal lest they risk a real liberal is likely to inspire a bitter chuckle, since from the perspective of conservatives they risk at least a moderate liberal in practically every appointment anyway. (Including the last Republican president’s, since most fairly or not many conservatives feel they dodged a bullet with Harriet Miers.) And if you’re starting from that kind of disadvantage, you simply can’t afford to throw away even a chance at appointing a real conservative in the name of a play-it-safe compromise: If there’s one thing conservatives have learned from forty years of judicial appointment battles, it’s that when you compromise, you lose.

So unless Srinivasan is the first Justice ever to move rightward after taking the bench, it's a very safe bet that he's going to join the Progressive block. And we already know how they vote on issues regarding religious liberty.

Furthermore, the next POTUS will most likely be replacing two of the liberal justices. Which would tilt it right back to where we are today.

Again, see the article above. Of 12 Republican-appointed Justice since 1968, most have voted as liberals when it comes to fundamental issues of human dignity.

 

[NorthDakota]

Really? Only three percent of Planned Parenthoods total services is abortion. Yet, all of their services (often free, serving low income citizens) are lumped into "abortion". But it is blasphemy that those same services are lumped into the term "women's health" when people want to talk about these issues?

Access to preventative care, contraception, and procedures like D&C, etc are all very different conversation from abortion. All have been under attack under the guise of "Pro Life". It's a simple convenience that on one end they are supposed to be blindly lumped into the issue, but they should be completely ignored on the other.

You may have had some different experiences from me.

I worked at a dinner a year ago while I was still in college. I worked at the Alumni Center and they often hosted events. The local "Women's Health" organization had a fundraising event and I was there to make sure their night went smoothly.

Each of their testimonial speakers spoke about how this clinic was great because it gave them access to an abortion(in one case, multiple abortions). They also had a speaker who got everyone all riled up about how they were living in a horrible horrible place because the ND Legislature had passed a law of no abortions after...12 weeks I think? Took a moment of silence for the baby butcher down in Kansas(I think?) that got popped at church. I heard few if any mentions of contraceptives.

On the other side of the coin,

I went to a dinner a couple months ago fundraising for a local clinic that does not provide abortions. Entire program was about helping young men as well as women deal with STD's, Contraceptives, pregnancy, etc. Actually was really refreshing.

"Women's Health" and abortion are not the same thing. I have never seen anyone try to stop women from getting pills or men from getting rubbers at walmart. Again, reference the bolded sentence at the start. As usual, no hostility intended, moreso heated discussion

 

[pkt77242]

How can we possibly know that though? Srinivasan has argued a lot of cases on both sides of the political spectrum. Furthermore, the next POTUS will most likely be replacing two of the liberal justices. Which would tilt it right back to where we are today.

^This. I really wish that people would read the article that I posted about him.

 

[Emcee77]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">NY Times Editorial Board, 1987: Party That Controls Senate Has ‘Every Right to Resist’<a href="https://t.co/ivpniD4A93">https://t.co/ivpniD4A93</a> <a href="https://t.co/G6dB7cj6IH">pic.twitter.com/G6dB7cj6IH</a></p>— jimgeraghty (@jimgeraghty) <a href="https://twitter.com/jimgeraghty/status/699944204638818304">February 17, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Lol that's funny. Another good example of how people seem to change their tune as soon as the shoe is on the other foot.

But I don't have a huge problem with senators voting against a particular Obama nominee. That's their prerogative. I do have a huge problem with the notion that Obama shouldn't nominate anyone and should instead leave that to his successor.

The Supreme Court can't do its job as effectively with an even number of justices because a case can end in a tie, which just preserves the decision below and essentially wastes the precious time and effort of the other 8 justices and their staffs who have given the case their consideration. There are too many important issues (not necessarily political ones) requiring the Supreme Court's attention and deserving final adjudication that doesn't have the potential to end in the the appellate version of a mistrial. The matter is too urgent to sit back and wait till after the election, when we might have the exact same state of affairs, a Republican Senate and a Democratic president, after dealing with an even-numbered Court for a year.

I think the president and all the senators owe it to their constituencies to do the best they can to fill the vacancy in a timely manner. If they can't reach an agreement, well, that's the way it goes sometimes, but it's no excuse for not trying.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

That said, the GOP is free to hold on to its old ideological purity, even as the country has moved on to more progressive political views. I don't agree with many of the ideologies that (I assume) you believe are at risk, so naturally I'm not going to fret when these ideas take their rightful place in our nation's past.

That's comforting. Glad to hear you're ready for Catholicism, the bedrock of Western civilization and a faith to which 1.2 billion people adhere, to take its rightful place on the scrapheap of history.

Not sure what "ideologies" you're talking about. As a religious minority, I care about religious freedom--the right of everyone to live out their faith in the public square. Your party believes in legally persecuting those who don't adhere to secular orthodoxy. That's why Catholic orphanages are already closing their doors; because the belief that every child has a right to a father and a mother is apparently "homophobic". Catholic schools are already being sued over the disallowance of a gender dysphoric boy from showering in the girls locker room, because that's "transphobic". Catholic hospitals are having to either close or dissociate from the Church because believing that human life begins at conception is "anti-woman". The list goes on, and it's going to get much much worse over the coming decades.

The Catholic Church was one of the earliest to condemn slavery as an institution. It was also at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement. What makes you so sure you're on the "right side of history" now in opposing her?

 

[woolybug25]

That's a lie. (No, I'm not saying you're lying. I'm saying someone lied to you and you believed it.) Planned Parenthood's statistics are highly manipulated. It's an abortion mill. You can get contraceptives at Walmart and mammograms at any proper clinic anywhere. Planned Parenthood exists for the sole purpose of performing abortions. Regardless, we're talking about cases likely to appear before the Supreme Court. Nobody is trying to block any woman from walking into CVS and buying their pills.

There have been tons of independent audits done on Planned Parenthood. The last one, done by one of the most respected firms KPMG, was met with protests, accusations, etc when the results didn't show what you are accusing. Show me some proof. You seem like you are stating an outright fact, so if that is the case, show us...

Please point out who tried to prevent anyone's access to preventative care, contraception, or medical procedures, ever.

How about every time someone has called for Planned Parenthood be defunded? Regardless of whether you think the numbers are accurate, it is unreasonable to say that they do not provide free services like birth control, condoms, testing, etc that are not found as a free service widely. I haven't seen any proposals where they defund them, but provide those free services elsewhere. Furthermore, how about these:

- The Personhood Measure in CO (also introduced in other states) that would have banned hormonal forms of birth control, such as the pill and intrauterine devices, or IUDs.
A Fight Over Birth Control in Colorado

- Republicans in the House proposed a bill (HR 1179) called “Respect for Rights of Conscience Act of 2011.” The bill, introduced by Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb), allows health care providers and pharmacists to deny birth control to women if it conflicts with their religious or moral convictions.

- Or my personal favorite, the bill that would allow hospitals to disregard the hippocratic oath by denying an medical procedures like abortion when the mother's life is at stake. Representative Joe Pitts (R-PA) introduced a bill (HR 358 – the “Protect Life Act”) would allow states to deny insurance coverage for birth control meaning hospitals could deny abortion procedures and transport to a facility that would provide a woman with an abortion even if failure to provide an abortion would mean the death of the woman. The “Let Women Die Act” passed the House on 10/13/11.

- If HB 363, sponsored by Rep. Bill Wright, is signed into law, schools won’t be able to teach children about contraception.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

There have been tons of independent audits done on Planned Parenthood. The last one, done by one of the most respected firms KPMG, was met with protests, accusations, etc when the results didn't show what you are accusing. Show me some proof. You seem like you are stating an outright fact, so if that is the case, show us...

Here's a balanced article from WaPo confirming that the 3% figure is grossly misleading:

The 3 percent figure that Planned Parenthood uses is misleading, comparing abortion services to every other service that it provides. The organization treats each service — pregnancy test, STD test, abortion, birth control — equally. Yet there are obvious difference between a surgical (or even medical) abortion, and offering a urine (or even blood) pregnancy test. These services are not all comparable in how much they cost or how extensive the service or procedure is.

The 94 percent figure that Susan B. Anthony List uses also is misleading, comparing abortion services to two other types of services that pregnant women receive through Planned Parenthood. But we don’t know how many pregnant women Planned Parenthood serves every year or how many they refer to private providers for prenatal care, because the organization does not report that information.

With limited data, there is no accurate way to measure how much of Planned Parenthood’s activities comprise abortions. Both sides are using meaningless and incomplete comparisons to make their argument, and the public should be wary of both figures. Thus, both receive Three Pinocchios.

While Planned Parenthood has no legal obligation to make its data more public, it is unfortunate that the public has limited access to data about the organization. Planned Parenthood could end the speculation–and Pinocchios–by providing a more transparent breakdown of its clients, referrals and sources of revenues.

And while it states that the 94% figure touted by the Susan B. Anthony List isn't possible to verify because of limited data, it notes that PP has full access to that data and could easily refute it (were it not true), yet it has never released it. Strange... I wonder which of those two figures is closer to the truth?

 

[GoIrish41]

That's comforting. Glad to hear you're ready for Catholicism, the bedrock of Western civilization and a faith to which 1.2 billion people adhere, to take its rightful place on the scrapheap of history.

Not sure what "ideologies" you're talking about. As a religious minority, I care about religious freedom--the right of everyone to live out their faith in the public square. Your party believes in legally persecuting those who don't adhere to secular orthodoxy. That's why Catholic orphanages are already closing their doors; because the belief that every child has a right to a father and a mother is apparently "homophobic". Catholic schools are already being sued over the disallowance of a gender dysphoric boy from showering in the girls locker room, because that's "transphobic". Catholic hospitals are having to either close or dissociate from the Church because believing that human life begins at conception is "anti-woman". The list goes on, and it's going to get much much worse over the coming decades.

The Catholic Church was one of the earliest to condemn slavery as an institution. It was also at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement. What makes you so sure you're on the "right side of history" now in opposing her?

Who said anything about getting rid of Catholicism? I would not support any measure that took away your right to practice your faith, just as I would not support any that would codify your faith into law such as would be the case if the court outlawed abortion.

But I was speaking more along the lines of denying a gay couple's right to marry and taking health insurance away from 20 million people -- both affected by close decisions of the court and both would fundamentally affect people's lives. I understand and admire your strong faith even if I do not share it. But I do not think it is the government's place to deny one group's rights to appease another group -- no matter how large and well established that group may be.

Given your post above, I suspect you would not have objected to those decisions going the other way and taking away freedoms that are central to liberal thinking ... or that these issues posed some existential danger to my core beliefs. At least I've never seen you post such an objection. If yon't believe in abortion ... don't have one. Don't want subsidized health care ... pay full price, but don't deny it to someone else. My request for what you meant about this came because it sounded as though you were suggesting that conservative core beliefs were somehow more important than my own. If this is accurate, I like you Whiskey, but I most adamantly disagree.

 

[RDU Irish]

I am all for fully funding support of Fetus Health.

fire away

 

[yankeehater]

The sad thing is this conversation and debate that this board and every individual who is paying attention is having even exists. It would be nice if a law was a law and viewpoints and belief systems were removed from decision making.

 

[RDU Irish]

The sad thing is this conversation and debate that this board and every individual who is paying attention is having even exists. It would be nice if a law was a law and viewpoints and belief systems were removed from decision making.

There always will be a line between legality and morality.

 

[Cackalacky]

Progressive Morality

Progressive Morality

I have been holding onto this article for a while and I think it is one of the most effective articles I have found describing the way I see the world as well as most other Progressives whether they know it or not.

Whiskeyjack, I would love to get your take on this and considered what the existential threat of Progressives by the Liberal Conservatives within the scope of this article. I fully know there are several here that will just scoff at it but I would love some feed back from everyone who would respectfully comment.

Thinking Points Discussion of Chapter 4 Part 1 Progressive Morality

This article is part of the Thinking Points Discussion Series published by the Rockridge Institute in early 2007. It was written by Joe Brewer (Rockridge Institute staff member) on Monday, April 16, 2007

Exploring the ideas presented in Chapter 4 reveals the moral foundations of progressive and conservative political philosophy. In this installment, we explain what progressive morality is and how it is related to our lived experiences of family life in American culture. Basic components of these experiences shape our moral perspective and inform our political philosophy at the deepest levels.

Our understanding of political morality is presented in Chapter 4 of Thinking Points, where we explore the metaphor of Nation as Family to reveal the core principles of progressive and conservative morality. The discussion of this chapter will be separated into two parts so that we can explore these important ideas in greater depth. This section presents the metaphor of Nation as Family and introduces the Nurturant Parent family model to explain progressive morality. Part 2 covers the Strict Father family model to explain conservative morality.

What is a Metaphor?
When we talk about metaphors here at Rockridge, we use a technical understanding that comes from the cognitive sciences. In common language metaphor means “a clever or imaginative way to apply knowledge of one thing to another by stating A is B.” Examples of this include “Suzanne is a babe.” and “Bob is a dirty weasel.” This is what most of us learn in grammar school when we are taught about metaphors.

We are talking about something deeper and more significant here. To help reduce the possibility for confusion, I will refer to the cognitive science term for metaphor as conceptual metaphor. Here is what we mean:

Definition of Conceptual Metaphor
A conceptual metaphor is the mapping of knowledge from one domain of experience (sometimes called the source domain) to another (sometimes called the target domain).

I will explain this with a sample metaphor:

Seeing is Knowing

The source domain is the physical process of vision. The experience of seeing something entails light (photons) detected on the retinas of our eyes and transmitting information through the optic nerve into our brains to construct a neural representation of the information carried by the light, say the shape and coloration of a vase on the table in your field of vision.

The target domain is the conceptual process of understanding. The experience of knowing something is conceptualized as detecting information in your “mind’s eye” and constructing a “mental representation” of the information that you understand.

An example is “knowing what is in the room” by “looking around to see what is there.”

Here are some linguistic examples of the Seeing is Knowing metaphor:

I see what you mean
I didn’t see that one coming! (referring to a thought or idea)
What you are saying is as clear as mud.
Don’t worry if this definition of conceptual metaphor is a little confusing. Just realize that when we talk about metaphors, we are referring to something deeper than merely being creative with words. (And if you want to know more about the scientific and philosophical aspects of conceptual metaphor go get the books Metaphors We Live By or Philosophy in the Flesh by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.)

The Nation as Family
The most important conceptual metaphor we will talk about today is the Nation as Family. This is how it is introduced in Thinking Points (pg. 49):

“It’s no accident that our political beliefs are structured by our idealizations of the family. Our earliest experience with being governed is in our families. Our parents “govern” us: They protect us, tell us what we can and cannot do, make sure we have enough money and supplies, educate us, and have us do our part in running the house.”

This is where we find the domain of primary experience for the Nation as Family conceptual metaphor. The experience of childhood in our homes provides a wealth of information for understanding how to behave in society.

The primary experience of governance in our family lives deeply informs (at an unconscious level) our understanding of broad society – in the case of politics, it is the nation. Here are some linguistic examples of the Nation As Family:

Mother Russia and the Fatherland
We send our sons and daughters off to war
The Constitution was written by our founding fathers
Orwell’s voice for the totalitarian state was called Big Brother
The Nation as Family is a deep frame that structures entire moral worldviews. It organizes systems of frames in our brains as precise mappings of conceptual metaphors: the homeland is home, citizens are siblings, the government (or head of government) is parent, etc.

Important Note: We are not suggesting literal meanings here!

Remember that these are conceptual metaphors. Knowledge from one domain of experience (growing up with our families) is applied to another domain of experience (our subjective understanding of politics). We are NOT saying government is (or should be) literally our parent. We are NOT saying citizens are (or should be) literally children. Rather, we are saying that the concepts we use to understand politics at an unconscious level are informed by the experience of life with our families.

(This is a very brief introduction to the Nation as Family and its relationship to politics. You can find a much more thorough discussion by reading Moral Politics by George Lakoff.)

Idealized Families Lead to Different Politics
There are two distinct versions of the ideal family in our society (and across many different cultures). We call them the Strict Father Family and the Nurturant Parent Family. These two versions provide simplified models for understanding what a family is. The simplification arises because we will talk about each of them as an ideal case:

An ideal case is defined as the standard representative of a category against which other members are measured.

An ideal case does not need to exist in reality. According to Moral Politics (pg. 9) it is a “cognitive construction used to perform a certain kind of reasoning: they are not objective features of the world.”

The Strict Father Family will be presented in depth next week in Part 2 of the Chapter 4 discussion. It provides the conceptual basis for understanding the conservative moral worldview. This discussion explores the Nurturant Parent Family to reveal where our understanding of the progressive moral worldview comes from.

Nurturance and Progressive Morality
Before we go any further I want to dispel a myth about nurturance. It is a word that has been distorted – via conservative framing – to mean coddling, spoiling, or pampering. This frames nurturance as a form of weakness. (Feminists reading this will recognize the gender bias too!) I am here to tell you that nurturance is a word that deserves to be reclaimed. Here is what the progressive framing means:

Nurturance is having empathy for another person (or yourself) and feeling a sense of responsibility to act on that person’s behalf.

The Nurturant Parent Family is:

A family of preferably two parents, but perhaps only one
The parents share household responsibilities (Egalitarian)
Open, two-way, mutually respectful communication is crucial
Protection is a form of caring, and protection from external dangers takes a significant part of the parents attention
The principle goal of nurturance is for children to be fulfilled and happy in their lives
When children are respected, nurtured, and communicated with from birth, they gradually enter into a lifetime relationship of mutual respect, communication, and caring for their parents
The primary experience growing up in a nurturant home presumes that children are inherently good and that parental respect is earned through caring responsibly for the child. There is emphasis on building strong, open relationships. Children develop best through their positive relationships with others. Parents can be authoritative but are never authoritarian.

Nurturance requires the parent to set boundaries for children, but to do so in a respectful way – including telling the child the reasons for setting boundaries and listening to the child’s concerns.

Progressive Family Values
The experience of living in a nurturant home provides an intuitive model for morality. By exploring the concepts involved in thinking about the Nurturant Parent Family, we discover the following values:

Core Progressive Values:
Empathy: the capacity to connect with other people, to feel what others feel, to imagine oneself as another and hence to feel kinship with others.
Responsibility: acting on your empathy to protect others from harm and empower them to seek fulfillment

Additional Values that Emerge When We Engage in Acts of Nurturance:
Protection (for people threatened or under duress)
Fulfillment in life (so others can lead meaningful lives as you would want to)
Freedom (because to seek fulfillment you must be free)
Opportunity (because leading a fulfilling life requires opportunities to explore what is meaningful and fruitful)
Fairness (because unfairness can stifle freedom and opportunity)
Equality (because empathy extends to everyone)
Prosperity (because a minumum base amount of material wealth is necessary to lead a fulfilling life)
Community (because nobody makes it alone, and communities are necessary for anyone to lead a fulfilling life)

These values, when organized via the Nurturant Parent Family, constitute a moral worldview that is the foundation of progressive morality. They are all entailed in the body of knowledge that arises through the experience of living in a nurturant home.

Extending From Family to Politics
When we apply the Nurturant Parent Family to the conceptual metaphor of the Nation as Family, we get the progressive moral worldview for politics. Here’s how it works:

Fill in the domain of primary experience with the experience of living in a nurturant home
This results in the the domain of subjective experience for politics being understood as a nurturant government
A number of new conceptual metaphors are created in the process:
Government is understood to be a nurturant parent
Citizens are understood to be children in a nurturant home
The community is understood to be a family
People needing help are understood to be children needing nurturance
Etc.
The core values applied to politics become empathy and responsibility. All of the additional values “make sense” through this deep framing of politics.

Progressive Morality Establishes Key Principles
The power of combining nurturant life experience with the Nation as Family conceptual metaphor is immediately evident. This deep frame shapes our understanding of all political issues. It also entails several key principles that arise from progressive values.

The Common Good Principle
The common good is necessary for individual well-being. Citizens bring together their common wealth in order to build infrastructure that benefits all and that contributes crucially to the pursuit of individual goals. You can learn more about the ways common wealth protects and empowers citizens in this article [link to tax fairness article].

The Expansion of Freedom Principle
Progressives demand the expansion of fundamental forms of freedom. In American history this includes voting rights, worker’s rights, public education, public health, consumer protection, civil rights, and civil liberties.

The Human Dignity Principle
Empathy requires the recognition of basic human dignity, and responsibility requires us to act to uphold it. This is an extension of the assumption that children are inherently good. When this assumption enters the Nation as Family conceptual metaphor, we get the expression of universal worth for all human beings as articulated in the Declaration of Independence as “inalienable rights”.

The Diversity Principle
Empathy involves identifying with and connecting socially and emotionally with all people regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. This leads to an ethic of diversity in our communities, schools, and workplaces. Diversity fosters communities and creates a range of opportunities for citizens to lead fulfilling lives.

These principles (and others) inform our moral sensibilities about how to treat people and what the objectives of government should be.

Sparking Discussion
Hopefully you now have a better understanding of the relationship between family-based experiences and morality in politics. The implications of this understanding (revealed by George Lakoff in his ground-breaking analysis of metaphors in Moral Politics) are profound.

Exploring the ideas presented in Chapter 4 reveals the moral foundations of progressive and conservative political philosophy. In this installment, we explain what conservative morality is and how it is related to our lived experiences of family life in American culture. Key differences between conservative and progressive morality arise that shape how we differ in our responses to political issues.


Last week we talked about the experience of family life that informs progressive morality in Chapter 4 Part 1 of our discussion of Chapter 4. The chapter also explores how a very different set of experiences shape the moral worldview of conservatives. This article describes the family experience that shapes conceptual metaphors that inform conservative politics. As you might expect, important differences exist between these two moralities. We will look at some of these differences here as well.

Disclaimer About Metaphors
We do not use the word metaphor in the way it is typically used. Studies in cognitive semantics – which explore how meaning arises in language through neural processes in the brain – reveal a need to modify our definition of metaphor. I will use the phrase conceptual metaphor to reinforce this new definition. A definition was introduced last week to help clarify the difference. Here it is again in abbreviated form:

A conceptual metaphor is the mapping of knowledge from one domain of experience (source domain) to the another (target domain). This tells us that our concepts carry meaning from the experience of living in the world.

Authority and Conservative Morality
Building on the previous discussion of the conceptual metaphor for Nation as Family, we now explore the family experience common in many American homes that informs conservative politics. The idealized representation we use is the Strict Father Family.

The Strict Father Family is:

A traditional family with two heterosexual parents – a father and a mother
The father is the head of the household
The mother supports and upholds the authority of the father
A hierarchy exists that is never to be questioned – children do not question their father’s authority
Children are naturally weak and lack self-control
Parents know what is best for their children and must teach them right from wrong
Children learn right from wrong when punished for wrong-doing
When children become self-disciplined, respect valid authority, and learn right from wrong they are strong enough to succeed in the competitive world
The primary experience growing up in a strict home presumes that children are inherently weak and that parental respect is maintained by consistently disciplining the child. There is emphasis on the maintenance of authority and self-control. Children who grow up in a disciplined manner will know right from wrong and will be hard-working and successful in life.

Strict Family Values
The experience of living in a strict home provides an intuitive model for morality. By exploring the concepts involved in thinking about the Strict Father Family, we discover the following values:

Core Conservative Values:
Authority: assumed to be morally good and used to exert legitimate control (therefore it is imperative that authority is never questioned)
Discipline: self-control learned through punishment when one does wrong (it is understood that failure of authority to punish for wrong doing is a moral failure)

Additional Values that Arise When Engaging in Acts of Strictness:
Strength (necessary to be self-disciplined)
Order (arises when people know their place and obey authority)
Ownership (by working hard to earn something you should be able to use it as you see fit)
Hierarchy (those above you have worked harder and proven their worth while those below you are not as disciplined as you)
Duty (each person is obligated to submit to valid authority)
Purity (absolute right and wrong must exist in order to have knowledge of them)
Physical Security (authority figures must provide physical protection from bodily or material harm)
Equity (higher positions are earned through merit)

These values, when organized via the Strict Father Family, constitute a moral worldview that is the foundation of conservative morality. They are all entailed in the body of knowledge that arises through the experience of living in a strict home.

The Legitimacy of Authority
The standards for determining when authority is valid differ considerably between conservatives and progressives. Conservatives do not obey all forms of authority equally. Otherwise they would acknowledge the authority of the Constitution as having equal legitimacy to that of a conservative leader. Conservatives generally do not acknowledge presidential authority when the person in the oval office is a liberal (or not a conservative). This happens because conservatives do not believe the liberal leader knows what is best for people in the community. Here are the standards conservatives use to determine when moral authority is legitimate (Moral Politics, pp. 76-78):

The person subject to moral authority does not know what is in his or her best interests or what is in the best interests of the community
The authority figure has the best interests of the person subject to authority or the community’s best interests at heart. The authority figure acts on those interests
The authority figure is able to know what is best for the community and person subject to authority
There is social recognition that the authority figure has responsibility for the well-being of the community and person subject to authority
Progressives acknowledge the existence of valid authority expressed through nurturance. A fully nurturant person deserves to be listened to. The standards for legitimacy are quite different. Here are a few examples of valid progressive authority figures (Moral Politics, pg. 134):

People who are empathetic
People who successfully help others
People who solve problems effectively
People who are fair
People who listen to others and communicate effectively
People who nurture social ties successfully
Conservative authority sets standards of behavior and enforces them. Progressive authority arises out of trust that people have in leaders who communicate effectively, arrange for participation, are honest, and have the wisdom, experience, and strength to succeed in helping others.

Conservative Morality Expresses Key Principles
When the Strict Father Family is applied to the Nation as Family conceptual metaphor, we get conservative political morality. This deep frame shapes conservative understanding of politics and entails several principles that arise from conservative values.

The Moral Authority Principle
Morality comes from obeying legitimate moral authorities. This includes God (for people of faith), the law (when it supports the strict father worldview – abortion is a noteworthy exception), the president (if you work in government or if you are a conservative citizen), your parents (if you are a child), your teacher (if you are a student), your coach (if you are an athlete), your commanding officer (if you are in the military), and so on.

The Individual Responsibility Principle
You are on your own in this worldview. You are personally responsible for your destiny. If you succeed you deserve it. If you fail you have only yourself to blame. Not only are you on your own, but you should be on your own.

The Free Market Principle
The free market promotes efficiency, creates wealth, is natural and moral, and rewards individual discipline. Since wealth promotes many kinds of freedom, the market is believed to be a pathway for freedom to be expressed. Government interference of the market is considered to be immoral because it opposes this freedom. (We will explore this in greater depth when we discuss Chapter 5.)

The Bootstrap Principle
With enough self-discipline everyone can pull himself or herself up by the bootstraps. This is a version of the Myth of the American Dream and is sometimes referred to as climbing the corporate ladder in the context of the corporate business world. The government has no responsibility to help those who fall behind.

These principles inform the moral sensibilities of conservatives. Progressives often experience considerable dissonance when they hear them because they run contrary to our understanding of the world.

Different Ways the World Works
The Strict Father perspective does more than express different values and principles. It is based on a fundamentally different notion of how the world works. Conservatives believe individuals are fully responsible for their actions and will only learn right from wrong by being punished for wrongful behavior. Progressives understand the teaching of right and wrong in a very different manner. We acknowledge factors that shape moral behavior in addition to individual discipline, including the environment a person is raised in, the breadth of experiences that inform a person’s perspective, and other indirect influences. How can we understand this difference? It has to do with how cause and effect are conceptualized.

Conservatives Only Recognize Direct Causation
A person who understands the world through the experience of living in a strict environment will see direct relationships between cause and effect. When they see another person causing harm – such as a burglar shooting a cashier – they will interpret the situation in terms of simple cause-effect relationships: The burglar stole money because s/he hasn’t learned the self-discipline necessary to work hard and earn money. The burglar made purely conscious decisions to steal and to shoot the other person. It was a deliberate action shaped solely by the persons lack of respect for authority and inherent moral weakness.

A different example is the conservative explanation for terrorism. Why do terrorists want to harm Americans? The answer conservatives give is that they “hate our freedom.” They don’t need anything further to understand the situation.

Progressives Recognize Greater Complexity
The experience of living in a nurturant home emphasizes indirect forms of causation. In order to empathize with others in a social environment, it is necessary to recognize subtle contributions to the perspective of others in order to both understand where they are coming from and to communicate effectively with them.

This requires us to recognize how a broad range of factors can indirectly influence outcomes of events in a complex or systemic manner. Thus a progressive who sees a burglar shooting a cashier will likely wonder what the life of the burglar was like. Did s/he live in poverty? This might contribute to the burglar feeling like no legal opportunities exist – perhaps the person was unable to find work. Is the burglar mentally ill? Many progressives realize that a significant portion of the homeless population is clinically depressed, schizophrenic, or suffering from post-traumatic stress. Was the burglar abused or neglected as a child? We understand the importance of building and maintaining (nurturing) emotional bonds between parents and children. These bonds allow for the development of empathy and promotion of emotional stability in adults. Was the burglar chemically addicted to alcohol or narcotics? This would influence the burglar’s capacity to make reasonable decisions.

We can also see indirect causation with the example of terrorism. When a progressive is asked why terrorists want to harm Americans, we are likely to consider factors like the influence of fanatical religious teachings and the reactions of people in third world countries to harmful U.S. foreign policy. We are not satisfied with simple answers because we recognize the complex nature of cause and effect in our intricate social world.

These different understandings of cause and effect are critical for issues related to the environment. Nature is filled with complex systems that require an understanding of systemic causation to understand what is happening. Just think of how complex the relationship is between our petroleum-based economy and the impacts of global climate change.

Strict Father Morality and Conservatism
The Strict Father Family is a simplified cognitive model that is activated in the brains of people who have had experiences consistent with the idealized scenario described above. We can see how this model is active in the minds of people who vote conservative, but how well does the Strict Father conceptual metaphor overlap with conservative philosophy? For the sake of stimulating discussion, I would like to suggest that conservatism does not overlap perfectly with this cognitive model.

The historian Jerry Muller has a lot to say about conservatism as a philosophical disposition. He shares in his book, Conservatism, the idea that conservatives often seek to maintain traditional social institutions because they are deemed to be good if they have stood the test of time. Reformists, including Progressives, are understood to be tampering with “tried and true” structures. Conservatives then take the cautious position that tampering may lead to unintended negative consequences. Is this an example of Strict Father morality? It is not a clear case to me. Here’s why:

Progressives recognize the U.S. Constitution as a traditional social institution that has stood the test of time. When steps are taken to reform the Constitution – such as when the Bush Administration sought to redesign the presidential office as a unitary executive that is free to bypass the courts and disregard legislation passed by Congress – we are in an uproar. According to Muller’s description, progressives are expressing a form of “conservative” philosophy. Is this a flaw in the approach we take here at Rockridge? Does this suggest the Nurturant Parent worldview is conservative? I think the answer to the first question is “no” and the answer to the second is “yes, sometimes.”

Progresses do indeed seek to conserve – or perhaps it is more accurate to say preserve – the nurturant traditional values that have made the United States a source of inspiration for millions. We resonate with the progressive values of responsibility, protection, equality, and freedom expressed in the Constitution. Conversely, many conservatives actively seek to dissolve traditional social institutions to preserve what they consider to be valid authority. When conservatives do this they do not match their label – they are not expressing conservatism! Instead, they are expressing strict father values.

This is a framing issue we need to consider as a community. What do we mean when we say the words “progressive” and “conservative”? How do the meanings of these words relate to our understanding of morality expressed in the worldviews that give coherent meaning to our lives? Is it possible to be a conservative progressive? Can such a label have coherent meaning when we are aware of the Strict Father and Nurturant Parent cognitive models?

 

[woolybug25]

Here's a balanced article from WaPo confirming that the 3% figure is grossly misleading:



And while it states that the 94% figure touted by the Susan B. Anthony List isn't possible to verify because of limited data, it notes that PP has full access to that data and could easily refute it (were it not true), yet it has never released it. Strange... I wonder which of those two figures is closer to the truth?

With all due respect, my friend. This entire article is premised on the fact that abortions are more detailed and require more resources. Fair... If we are talking about total revenue per service. But that isn't the argument at all. Opponents argue that the amount of services offered aren't accurate. That isn't true. You can't say that the argument is flawed because it takes more rubber gloves and equipment for abortions. Because there are also cost for purchasing contraceptives, needles for blood draws, etc for other procedures. If someone wants to make an argument that funds are disproportionately distributed towards abortion, then try to prove that premise. But if you are looking at the amount of services provided, and what those procedures are vis a vis. Then this article is entirely misleading.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Who said anything about getting rid of Catholicism? I would not support any measure that took away your right to practice your faith, just as I would not support any that would codify your faith into law such as would be the case if the court outlawed abortion.

(1) One doesn't need divine revelation to conclude that infanticide is gravely immoral, so legal prohibitions on abortion (as existed universally across Western civilization until the mid-20th century) aren't codifications of any particular faith; (2) a political regime that finds it convenient to destroy or subjugate certain groups of humans will not long tolerate a dissenting religious faction that condemns it as evil. See the persecution of Catholics in the Reconstruction-era South and in Nazi Germany.

But I was speaking more along the lines of denying a gay couple's right to marry and taking health insurance away from 20 million people -- both affected by close decisions of the court and both would fundamentally affect people's lives. I understand and admire your strong faith even if I do not share it. But I do not think it is the government's place to deny one group's rights to appease another group -- no matter how large and well established that group may be.

It's not about "deny[ing] one group's rights to appease another group;" Catholic theology and Progressive eugenics are utterly incompatible. They cannot coexist in the same polity. One will end up driving the other out of the public square. Thus far, Catholics have been engaged in a long defeat, and it's Progressives driving us from the public square.

Given your post above, I suspect you would not have objected to those decisions going the other way and taking away freedoms that are central to liberal thinking ... or that these issues posed some existential danger to my core beliefs. At least I've never seen you post such an objection.

The most just way to apportion healthcare services is a largely prudential question. As one who is skeptical of "bigness" in general--both corporate and governmental--I'd prefer a local market-oriented approach, but I have no trouble admitting that a single-payor system would be preferable to the cronyist system we have now.

Regarding SSM, the social function of marriage is clearly to provide a stable environment for the raising of children. Just as with contraception, abortion, no-fault divorce, and surrogacy, it's yet another development where the selfish desires of adults have taken priority over what is best for children and society in general.

If yon't believe in abortion ... don't have one.

"If you don't believe in slavery, don't own one." Somehow I doubt you would find that a compelling argument for upholding the old apartheid regime, so why are pro-life Americans supposed to accept it today?

My request for what you meant about this came because it sounded as though you were suggesting that conservative core beliefs were somehow more important than my own. If this is accurate, I like you Whiskey, but I most adamantly disagree.

Not at all. Christian socialism has a long and respectable history in Europe, and many people would like to see something similar take root here. One of the most intelligent people I follow on Twitter is Elizabeth Bruenig, a Catholic socialist. There are many issues on which I agree with you, Cack, pkt, etc, and I would love to Feel the Bern™. American Catholics were reliable Democratic voters for decades... until Roe v. Wade. Now that your party is led by avid eugenicists, it is increasingly seeking to persecute the Catholic Church for having an incompatible (and much more consistent) vision of human dignity. Ditch the eugenics, and I'll happily start voting blue. Until then, your party is complicit in serious evil, and I can't support it.

I have been holding onto this article for a while and I think it is one of the most effective articles I have found describing the way I see the world as well as most other Progressives whether they know it or not.

Whiskeyjack, I would love to get your take on this and considered what the existential threat of Progressives by the Liberal Conservatives within the scope of this article. I fully know there are several here that will just scoff at it but I would love some feed back from everyone who would respectfully comment.

Thinking Points Discussion of Chapter 4 Part 1 Progressive Morality

That's great, Cack. I've argued here before, usually against our resident libertarians, that the state, as a logical outworking of the natural authority found in every family, is inevitable. It's interesting to see a Progressive argue that children are inherently good (which I agree strongly with), given their support for abortion.

In response to it, I'd offer the concept of the Two Adams developed by a famous rabbi:

And in my secular culture, we all know the eulogy virtues are more important, but we spend more time on the résumé virtues. Another way to think about this is the book Joseph Soloveitchik, the great rabbi, wrote in 1965 called “Lonely Man of Faith.” He said we have two sides to nurture, which he called Adam One and Adam Two, which correlate to the versions of creation in Genesis.

Adam One is the external résumé. Career-oriented. Ambitious. External.

Adam Two is the internal Adam. Adam Two wants to embody certain moral qualities to have a serene, inner character, a quiet but solid sense of right and wrong, not only to do good but to be good, to sacrifice to others, to be obedient to a transcendent truth, to have an inner soul that honors God, creation and our possibilities.

Adam One wants to conquer the world. Adam Two wants to obey a calling and serve the world. Adam One asks How things work. Adam Two asks why things exist and what we’re here for.

Adam One wants to venture forth. Adam Two wants to return to roots.

Adam One’s motto is “Success.”

Adam Two’s motto is “Charity. Love. Redemption.”

So the secular world is a world that nurtures Adam One and leaves Adam Two inarticulate.

The competition to succeed in the Adam One world is so intense, there’s often very little time for anything else. Noise and fast, shallow communication makes it harder to hear the quieter sounds that emanate from our depths.

We live in a culture that teaches us to be assertive, to brand ourselves to get likes on Facebook, and it’s hard to have that humility and inner confrontation which is necessary for a healthy Adam Two life.

And the problem is that I have learned over the course of my life that if you’re only Adam One, you turn into a shrewd animal who is adept at playing games and begins to treat life as a game.

You live with an unconscious boredom, not really loving, not really attached to a moral purpose that gives life worth. You settle into a sort of self-satisfied moral mediocrity. You grade yourself on a forgiving curve. You follow your desires wherever they take you. You approve of yourself as long as people seem to like you. And you end up slowly turning the core piece of yourself into something less desirable than what you wanted. And you notice this humiliating gap between your actual self and your desired self.

So this secular world may look like Kim Kardashian and vulgarity, but I am telling you it is a river of spiritual longing. Of people who are aware of their shortcomings and lack of direction and in this realm.

They don’t have categories, they don’t have vocabularies, but they know the gap.

They know the gap because none of us gets through life very long without being knocked to our knees either in joy or in pain. And a bunch of activities expose the inadequacies of an Adam One life.

That's taken from a speech David Brooks gave a couple years ago. His larger point is that American culture promotes "Adam One" virtues at the expense of "Adam Two", and that we're worse off as a result. And while I agree with his assessment, it's possible to go too far in the other direction as well. One needs to properly balance between the two of them.

I think it's reductive to say that a "Nurturing" parenting style is superior in all ways to more Authoritarian versions. We've all met moms or dads who try to be "cool", and want to be their child's buddy instead of his parent; and in my experience, those kids suffer as a result. They need both love and discipline, understanding and limits, etc. As any married man can readily attest, love doesn't consist in "affirming your spouse's life choices" or "accepting your spouse for who they are", but in helping them become the person they should be. That often involves telling them: "This desire of yours is unhealthy," or "You're being a selfish as$hole." Parenting is no different.

Extending the metaphor to governance, let's look at immigration. Hospitality, especially toward those in need of assistance, is a very good thing. But prudent families, like churches, require that outsiders go through some sort of profound conversion before welcoming them permanently. To do otherwise would invite dissolution and chaos. Similarly, as a nation, we should welcome immigrants, but the expectation should be that they assimilate and actually become Americans. That latter part of the formula has been missing for several decades, which is partly why Trump has such a large following.

 

[GoIrish41]

First of all, thank you for your typically thoughtful, well reasoned response, Whiskey.

(1) One doesn't need divine revelation to conclude that infanticide is gravely immoral, so legal prohibitions on abortion (as existed universally across Western civilization until the mid-20th century) aren't codifications of any particular faith; (2) a political regime that finds it convenient to destroy or subjugate certain groups of humans will not long tolerate a dissenting religious faction that condemns it as evil. See the persecution of Catholics in the Reconstruction-era South and in Nazi Germany.

To be clear, I am personally against abortion. That is a position I have come to through a great deal of contemplation. I suspect that for many (if not most) the decision to have an abortion is a deeply troubling one. Not only must one consider the moral implications you describe above, but there are moral considerations to carrying a child to term, as well. As an example, there are moral considerations to bringing a child into a world of inescapable poverty and suffering, that so many of people in this country are confronted with. As a consequence of such poverty, many are forced to live in neighborhoods in which violence is a regular feature. So, a pregnant mother must decide to bring a child up in an atmosphere in which he/she will be conditioned to live in fear, or worse, become part of the culture that is causing it.

As that child grows to adulthood, in many cases, there seems little concern for the sanctity of their lives. Indeed, our prisons are overflowing with incarcerated young men who society has cast aside (at great expense to society, no less). Just as you and I have been driven by our conscience to conclude that this very personal decision is not one we would ever consider, we must allow others to come to their own conclusions. Nobody is being forced to have an abortion, and those who decide to have them are not always doing so out of convenience. Perhaps we must all leave room for the idea that many of these people believe that they are making the only moral choice given their own personal circumstances. And, of course there are cases of rape and incest, that gravely complicate any idea of a black and white decision that a woman has to make. There are women's health issues that can also complicate the matter. It's not as simple (to me, at least, and to many others) as making the decision for everyone through the law.

And certainly, scores of women will decide out of convenience to terminate unwanted pregnancies. I'm certainly not defending that behavior, but, I do not think that it is the government's place to remove the right of a woman to make a thoughtful decision because others would make a selfish one.

It's not about "deny[ing] one group's rights to appease another group;" Catholic theology and Progressive eugenics are utterly incompatible. They cannot coexist in the same polity. One will end up driving the other out of the public square. Thus far, Catholics have been engaged in a long defeat, and it's Progressives driving us from the public square.

Why would Catholic condemnation of "Progressive eugenics" not be allowed to continue in our society? Conservatives have waged a long and vigorous campaign against abortion for my entire life. They may not be winning the argument, but it seems to me they are still free to make it. Perhaps it won't be popular to do so, but I actually have great admiration and respect for their conviction on the matter, even if I do not believe it should be forced upon the entire society.

The most just way to apportion healthcare services is a largely prudential question. As one who is skeptical of "bigness" in general--both corporate and governmental--I'd prefer a local market-oriented approach, but I have no trouble admitting that a single-payor system would be preferable to the cronyist system we have now.

My issue is not with "bigness" so much as it is with the element of greed that seems to find its way into everything we do -- there must be a way for someone to get rich off of the sick. Of course "bigness" is more often than not centralization and hoarding of power, which leads to the distribution of services to the people who need them secondary to whether or not someone can make a buck off of it. I favor a single payer system only because I think it is the only way that healthcare will be guaranteed to all citizens. Leaving it to thousands of corruptible, ideologically driven governments with their hands out will inevitably lead to uneven coverage for citizens, much like education funding is often the first thing cut out of conservative governors budgets.

Regarding SSM, the social function of marriage is clearly to provide a stable environment for the raising of children. Just as with contraception, abortion, no-fault divorce, and surrogacy, it's yet another development where the selfish desires of adults have taken priority over what is best for children and society in general.

I do not think it is selfish for gay people to want to marry. Further, I don't think that a gay couple raising children consigns children to an unstable environment. A loving, supportive home with two parents is always preferable. Contraception cuts down on unwanted pregnancies (and helps to reduce the instances of abortion -- frankly, it puzzles me that the same people who want to outlaw abortion are against contraception). I hardly think contraception is a sign of a deteriorating society. I'm with you on no-fault divorce, as I believe marriage should mean something more than a contractual arrangement to be severed so easily. As the child of a divorce, myself, I know the emotional toll it can take on kids.

"If you don't believe in slavery, don't own one." Somehow I doubt you would find that a compelling argument for upholding the old apartheid regime, so why are pro-life Americans supposed to accept it today?

Slavery is owning of another living human being. There is no argument to be made (at least we've come that far) that slaves are not living, breathing, human beings. Depending on one's belief about when life begins, that is not the case with a fetus. It is clear where you come down on this, but there are many who believe differently. If given a choice, the slave would most certainly opt to be free. A fetus cannot make such a choice, nor can it survive without the mother.

So, since nobody is forcing anyone to have an abortion, something a woman from another state or another town has little effect on any other person but the mother. Of course you will argue that it affects the fetus, which is certainly true. But you must acknowledge that many do not believe a fetus to be a person. If one does not find abortion moral or ethical, one can choose to have the child. It can be argued (against and for, no doubt) that the decision lies with the mother alone because no other person is affected. And, as I stated above, I believe that there are other reasons than simple selfish convenience for women to decide to terminate pregnancies. While I understand the sentiment of your argument, I respectfully disagree (to the extent that I believe it is appropriate to impose my belief on the matter on anyone else).

Not at all. Christian socialism has a long and respectable history in Europe, and many people would like to see something similar take root here. One of the most intelligent people I follow on Twitter is Elizabeth Bruenig, a Catholic socialist. There are many issues on which I agree with you, Cack, pkt, etc, and I would love to Feel the Bern™. American Catholics were reliable Democratic voters for decades... until Roe v. Wade. Now that your party is led by avid eugenicists, it is increasingly seeking to persecute the Catholic Church for having an incompatible (and much more consistent) vision of human dignity. Ditch the eugenics, and I'll happily start voting blue. Until then, your party is complicit in serious evil, and I can't support it.

Perhaps where we diverge is that I don't see the persecution that you see against the Catholic church in the expansion of a woman's right to choose. Human dignity can also be found in allowing women the right to make choices that affect their own bodies.

There is so much more to the party than this. The GOP has been quite successful at raising this issue every election in my lifetime to persuade people away from Democrats. While we can agree to disagree on the serious evil that exists within my party, I will say that it is a shame that this single issue keeps you from Team Blue. We could certainly use people of your intellect and clarity to help make the case for progressive change.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

To be clear, I am personally against abortion. That is a position I have come to through a great deal of contemplation. I suspect that for many (if not most) the decision to have an abortion is a deeply troubling one.

I would hope so. Any woman who can abort her child without being deeply troubled is depraved.

Not only must one consider the moral implications you describe above, but there are moral considerations to carrying a child to term, as well.

But those moral considerations are in no way comparable to the import of destroying an innocent human life.

As an example, there are moral considerations to bringing a child into a world of inescapable poverty and suffering, that so many of people in this country are confronted with. As a consequence of such poverty, many are forced to live in neighborhoods in which violence is a regular feature. So, a pregnant mother must decide to bring a child up in an atmosphere in which he/she will be conditioned to live in fear, or worse, become part of the culture that is causing it.

(1) Adoption is always an option; and (2) it evinces a deeply cynical mindset to believe that being vivisected in utero is preferable to life as a poor person. There is beauty and joy even among the most materially deprived communities on the planet. To make that decision on behalf of someone else and call it mercy is horrific.

As that child grows to adulthood, in many cases, there seems little concern for the sanctity of their lives. Indeed, our prisons are overflowing with incarcerated young men who society has cast aside (at great expense to society, no less). Just as you and I have been driven by our conscience to conclude that this very personal decision is not one we would ever consider, we must allow others to come to their own conclusions.

Why must we do that? You wouldn't accept that argument in favor of slavery or genocide, so how is abortion different? I asked months ago for one of our Progressive posters to coherently explain why the Nazis are the greatest villains of recent history for destroying ~11 million innocent civilians, but the eugencists who have destroyed 54 million completely innocent human lives in this country since Roe v. Wade passed are lauded for performing a public service... still waiting on an answer there.

Nobody is being forced to have an abortion, and those who decide to have them are not always doing so out of convenience.

79% of Planned Parenthood's abortion clinics are within walking distance of a black or Hispanic neighborhood. That's not a coincidence. PP's founder, Margaret Sanger, was an outspoken eugenicist who believed that blacks and poor people were "unfit" to reproduce, and that society would be improved if their populations were "controlled" (and eventually culled). As a Progressive, I'm sure you can appreciate that those with wealth and power rarely need to resort to brute force in order to get their way. Why Progressives applaud a practice clearly aimed at undermining the poor and racial minorities is beyond me.

To your second point, you admit that some women do abort for trivial reasons. Wouldn't it bother you if some innocent people were being executed by the state? Proponents of the death penalty might argue that, "Hey, this serves an important social good! And most of these guys were guilty, so what's the big deal?" We used to believe that it was better to let 9 guilty men walk free than to wrongly convict one innocent man. Along those same lines, if even you think abortion is sometimes justified, the fact that it often isn't should cause you the question the entire enterprise.

Perhaps we must all leave room for the idea that many of these people believe that they are making the only moral choice given their own personal circumstances.

We know it's not, though. Adoption is always an option. And I'll be the first to argue that we, as a society, ought to provide a lot more material support to pregnant women so they don't ever feel like abortion is the best option.

And, of course there are cases of rape and incest, that gravely complicate any idea of a black and white decision that a woman has to make. There are women's health issues that can also complicate the matter. It's not as simple (to me, at least, and to many others) as making the decision for everyone through the law.

Hard cases make bad law. Exceptions can be made for exceptional circumstances. But the rule for any civilized society ought to be that abortion is illegal.

And certainly, scores of women will decide out of convenience to terminate unwanted pregnancies. I'm certainly not defending that behavior, but, I do not think that it is the government's place to remove the right of a woman to make a thoughtful decision because others would make a selfish one.

The government seeks to prohibit its citizens from killing each other in virtually all other realms. It's only in this one that we make an exception.

Why would Catholic condemnation of "Progressive eugenics" not be allowed to continue in our society? Conservatives have waged a long and vigorous campaign against abortion for my entire life. They may not be winning the argument, but it seems to me they are still free to make it. Perhaps it won't be popular to do so, but I actually have great admiration and respect for their conviction on the matter, even if I do not believe it should be forced upon the entire society.

The Catholic Church is facing mounting legal persecution from the Federal government, and it all revolves around the Church's "heretical" view of human dignity. The Little Sisters of the Poor will likely lose their case to a 4-4 SCOTUS ruling next month, thereby forcing them to provide contraceptives to their female employees. It's only getting worse.

Abortion was a Catholic issue long before it was a "conservative" issue.

My issue is not with "bigness" so much as it is with the element of greed that seems to find its way into everything we do -- there must be a way for someone to get rich off of the sick. Of course "bigness" is more often than not centralization and hoarding of power, which leads to the distribution of services to the people who need them secondary to whether or not someone can make a buck off of it. I favor a single payer system only because I think it is the only way that healthcare will be guaranteed to all citizens. Leaving it to thousands of corruptible, ideologically driven governments with their hands out will inevitably lead to uneven coverage for citizens, much like education funding is often the first thing cut out of conservative governors budgets.

Greed is part of human nature. "Bigness" allows that greed to do far more damage than it could at the communitarian, human level.

I do not think it is selfish for gay people to want to marry. Further, I don't think that a gay couple raising children consigns children to an unstable environment. A loving, supportive home with two parents is always preferable. Contraception cuts down on unwanted pregnancies (and helps to reduce the instances of abortion -- frankly, it puzzles me that the same people who want to outlaw abortion are against contraception). I hardly think contraception is a sign of a deteriorating society. I'm with you on no-fault divorce, as I believe marriage should mean something more than a contractual arrangement to be severed so easily. As the child of a divorce, myself, I know the emotional toll it can take on kids.

(1) Catholics oppose contraception and abortion because they're both deeply connected. If you want to have sex, get married and channel that instinct in a way that is healthy for the rest of society by starting a family. Those who contraceive and abort say, "I will indulge my sexual appetites however and whenever I see fit, and I will use these technologies to do so, regardless of how that impacts anyone else." Since contraception became widely accepted, native birth rates in every single Western country have plummeted far below replacement rate. Which in turn has led to large scale immigration levels, fostered nationalist resentment, propelled far-right-wing candidates to power all over Europe. And now Donald Trump is the leading GOP candidate for president...

I argue frequently with wizards about how free-market ideology is flawed because it's based on the pernicious lie of the autonomous individual, which encourages selfish antisocial economic behavior. "Free love" does the same thing in the social realm, for the exact same reason. Contraception and abortion are literally societal suicide.

(2) Marriage is primarily about kids. There's mountains of evidence that kids do best when they are raised by both a mother and a father. SSMs are not capable of providing that. It goes without saying, of course, that Western heterosexuals are the ones who ruined marriage, because contraception, no-fault divorce, and abortion were widespread long before Obergefell. But it will be much harder to rebuild that crucial institution now that it's legal definition has been changed in such a way that the centrality of procreation has been obscured.

Slavery is owning of another living human being. There is no argument to be made (at least we've come that far) that slaves are not living, breathing, human beings.

Slavery has been a human institution since the dawn of time. It was abolished relatively recently by Christians advancing Christian arguments about the spiritual equality of all men before God. There's no reason to believe that it won't rear its ugly head again in the future since we're no longer governed by Christian philosophy.

Depending on one's belief about when life begins, that is not the case with a fetus.

There's no debate on that point. Human life begins at conception. Progressives argue that personhood, and all the legal protections that entails, obtains at some later poorly-defined date. That's a big mistake, since allowing those in power to argue that some humans are less full persons opens the door to all sorts of atrocity (like slavery and genocide).

It is clear where you come down on this, but there are many who believe differently.

Have those other people read a history book? They must be unaware of what happens when the powerful are allowed to define vulnerable groups as something less than persons.

If given a choice, the slave would most certainly opt to be free. A fetus cannot make such a choice, nor can it survive without the mother.

Ah, the autonomous choosing individual! That selfish motherf*cker. By that definition, one could justify killing lots of people, like the mentally disabled, the old, the infirm, etc. My kids are 7, 6, 4 and 2; they'd likely perish without adults willing to care for them for them for many years yet. Am I justified in killing them?

So, since nobody is forcing anyone to have an abortion, something a woman from another state or another town has little effect on any other person but the mother. Of course you will argue that it affects the fetus, which is certainly true.

It doesn't just affect the mother and her child. It affects our entire society. I'm sure you can appreciate arguments about how even today, 151 years after the Civil War ended, the scars of slavery are still visible within this country. What do you think that abortion is doing to us today?

But you must acknowledge that many do not believe a fetus to be a person.

Sure. Lots of Americans once believed that humans of African descent weren't people either. The Nazis believed that Jews, Catholics, et al. were sub-human as well. Doesn't mean they were right.

Perhaps where we diverge is that I don't see the persecution that you see against the Catholic church in the expansion of a woman's right to choose.

Catholic adoption agencies have been shuttered in recent years because they were unwilling to compromise doctrine by placing children with same-sex couples. Catholic hospitals have had to shutter or dissociate from the Church because an unwilling to perform abortions. Catholic schools are currently being sued for refusing to cater to gender dysphoric students who "identify" as something other than their actual gender. The list goes on. This is unprecedented in American history, and it's only going to get worse.

Human dignity can also be found in allowing women the right to make choices that affect their own bodies.

Human dignity is innate. SCOTUS bestowing a newly discovered legal "right" on a Government-Approved Victim Class doesn't do that. True liberty is the freedom to do what you should; that is, to free yourself from passion and prejudice (which is the origin of the term "liberal arts education") so that you can put yourself at the service of something bigger than yourself. The freedom to do whatever you want is merely license, and our growing conflation of liberty and license is going to end very poorly for this country.

There is so much more to the party than this. The GOP has been quite successful at raising this issue every election in my lifetime to persuade people away from Democrats. While we can agree to disagree on the serious evil that exists within my party, I will say that it is a shame that this single issue keeps you from Team Blue. We could certainly use people of your intellect and clarity to help make the case for progressive change.

This isn't something that can be compromised. Concepts of human dignity are central to what distinguishes civilized societies from barbaric ones. If I'm forced to choose between a party that scorns the poor and promotes public greed, and another that kills millions of our most vulnerable citizens annually, I'm going to have to go with the former. Hopefully the Democrats come to their senses and ditch the eugenicist wing of their party sometime in the future. They ought to defend life and community instead of death and selfishness. It really doesn't fit with your other priorities like compassion, solidarity and responsible stewardship of creation.

Edit: Thanks for the civil exchange. This is why I love IE.

 

[connor_in]

Salon's offerings following deaths of bin Laden and Scalia are very telling twitchy.com

 

[Bishop2b5]

The sad thing is this conversation and debate that this board and every individual who is paying attention is having even exists. It would be nice if a law was a law and viewpoints and belief systems were removed from decision making.

That's been one of my biggest problems with the Libs/Progressives, especially on the SCOTUS. To Conservatives, a law is a law and their approach is to follow the Constitution and Bill of Rights and the original intent of their authors. The Libs/Progressives seem intent on finding ways to reinterpret them according to their political/philosophical agenda instead of adhering to the Constitution and Bill of Rights. If you can interpret any law to mean anything you want it to mean, then our laws, our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights don't actually mean anything.

 

[Buster Bluth]

That's been one of my biggest problems with the Libs/Progressives, especially on the SCOTUS. To Conservatives, a law is a law and their approach is to follow the Constitution and Bill of Rights and the original intent of their authors. The Libs/Progressives seem intent on finding ways to reinterpret them according to their political/philosophical agenda instead of adhering to the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

What if I told you that Conservatives are also just taking an interpretation of the Constitution and then running with it with little regard for the intent of the authors?

If you can interpret any law to mean anything you want it to mean, then our laws, our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights don't actually mean anything.

Good thing you can't just do that then..

 

[zelezo vlk]

I would hope so. Any woman who can abort her child without being deeply troubled is depraved.



But those moral considerations are in no way comparable to the import of destroying an innocent human life.



(1) Adoption is always an option; and (2) it evinces a deeply cynical mindset to believe that being vivisected in utero is preferable to life as a poor person. There is beauty and joy even among the most materially deprived communities on the planet. To make that decision on behalf of someone else and call it mercy is horrific.



Why must we do that? You wouldn't accept that argument in favor of slavery or genocide, so how is abortion different? I asked months ago for one of our Progressive posters to coherently explain why the Nazis are the greatest villains of recent history for destroying ~11 million innocent civilians, but the eugencists who have destroyed 54 million completely innocent human lives in this country since Roe v. Wade passed are lauded for performing a public service... still waiting on an answer there.



79% of Planned Parenthood's abortion clinics are within walking distance of a black or Hispanic neighborhood. That's not a coincidence. PP's founder, Margaret Sanger, was an outspoken eugenicist who believed that blacks and poor people were "unfit" to reproduce, and that society would be improved if their populations were "controlled" (and eventually culled). As a Progressive, I'm sure you can appreciate that those with wealth and power rarely need to resort to brute force in order to get their way. Why Progressives applaud a practice clearly aimed at undermining the poor and racial minorities is beyond me.

To your second point, you admit that some women do abort for trivial reasons. Wouldn't it bother you if some innocent people were being executed by the state? Proponents of the death penalty might argue that, "Hey, this serves an important social good! And most of these guys were guilty, so what's the big deal?" We used to believe that it was better to let 9 guilty men walk free than to wrongly convict one innocent man. Along those same lines, if even you think abortion is sometimes justified, the fact that it often isn't should cause you the question the entire enterprise.



We know it's not, though. Adoption is always an option. And I'll be the first to argue that we, as a society, ought to provide a lot more material support to pregnant women so they don't ever feel like abortion is the best option.



Hard cases make bad law. Exceptions can be made for exceptional circumstances. But the rule for any civilized society ought to be that abortion is illegal.



The government seeks to prohibit its citizens from killing each other in virtually all other realms. It's only in this one that we make an exception.



The Catholic Church is facing mounting legal persecution from the Federal government, and it all revolves around the Church's "heretical" view of human dignity. The Little Sisters of the Poor will likely lose their case to a 4-4 SCOTUS ruling next month, thereby forcing them to provide contraceptives to their female employees. It's only getting worse.

Abortion was a Catholic issue long before it was a "conservative" issue.



Greed is part of human nature. "Bigness" allows that greed to do far more damage than it could at the communitarian, human level.



(1) Catholics oppose contraception and abortion because they're both deeply connected. If you want to have sex, get married and channel that instinct in a way that is healthy for the rest of society by starting a family. Those who contraceive and abort say, "I will indulge my sexual appetites however and whenever I see fit, and I will use these technologies to do so, regardless of how that impacts anyone else." Since contraception became widely accepted, native birth rates in every single Western country have plummeted far below replacement rate. Which in turn has led to large scale immigration levels, fostered nationalist resentment, propelled far-right-wing candidates to power all over Europe. And now Donald Trump is the leading GOP candidate for president...

I argue frequently with wizards about how free-market ideology is flawed because it's based on the pernicious lie of the autonomous individual, which encourages selfish antisocial economic behavior. "Free love" does the same thing in the social realm, for the exact same reason. Contraception and abortion are literally societal suicide.

(2) Marriage is primarily about kids. There's mountains of evidence that kids do best when they are raised by both a mother and a father. SSMs are not capable of providing that. It goes without saying, of course, that Western heterosexuals are the ones who ruined marriage, because contraception, no-fault divorce, and abortion were widespread long before Obergefell. But it will be much harder to rebuild that crucial institution now that it's legal definition has been changed in such a way that the centrality of procreation has been obscured.



Slavery has been a human institution since the dawn of time. It was abolished relatively recently by Christians advancing Christian arguments about the spiritual equality of all men before God. There's no reason to believe that it won't rear its ugly head again in the future since we're no longer governed by Christian philosophy.



There's no debate on that point. Human life begins at conception. Progressives argue that personhood, and all the legal protections that entails, obtains at some later poorly-defined date. That's a big mistake, since allowing those in power to argue that some humans are less full persons opens the door to all sorts of atrocity (like slavery and genocide).



Have those other people read a history book? They must be unaware of what happens when the powerful are allowed to define vulnerable groups as something less than persons.



Ah, the autonomous choosing individual! That selfish motherf*cker. By that definition, one could justify killing lots of people, like the mentally disabled, the old, the infirm, etc. My kids are 7, 6, 4 and 2; they'd likely perish without adults willing to care for them for them for many years yet. Am I justified in killing them?



It doesn't just affect the mother and her child. It affects our entire society. I'm sure you can appreciate arguments about how even today, 151 years after the Civil War ended, the scars of slavery are still visible within this country. What do you think that abortion is doing to us today?



Sure. Lots of Americans once believed that humans of African descent weren't people either. The Nazis believed that Jews, Catholics, et al. were sub-human as well. Doesn't mean they were right.



Catholic adoption agencies have been shuttered in recent years because they were unwilling to compromise doctrine by placing children with same-sex couples. Catholic hospitals have had to shutter or dissociate from the Church because an unwilling to perform abortions. Catholic schools are currently being sued for refusing to cater to gender dysphoric students who "identify" as something other than their actual gender. The list goes on. This is unprecedented in American history, and it's only going to get worse.



Human dignity is innate. SCOTUS bestowing a newly discovered legal "right" on a Government-Approved Victim Class doesn't do that. True liberty is the freedom to do what you should; that is, to free yourself from passion and prejudice (which is the origin of the term "liberal arts education") so that you can put yourself at the service of something bigger than yourself. The freedom to do whatever you want is merely license, and our growing conflation of liberty and license is going to end very poorly for this country.



This isn't something that can be compromised. Concepts of human dignity are central to what distinguishes civilized societies from barbaric ones. If I'm forced to choose between a party that scorns the poor and promotes public greed, and another that kills millions of our most vulnerable citizens annually, I'm going to have to go with the former. Hopefully the Democrats come to their senses and ditch the eugenicist wing of their party sometime in the future. They ought to defend life and community instead of death and selfishness. It really doesn't fit with your other priorities like compassion, solidarity and responsible stewardship of creation.

Edit: Thanks for the civil exchange. This is why I love IE.

This is worthy of all the reps.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

This thread is fraught with irony!

So much so that it is Monty Pythonesque in the picture it presents.

The casket is being lowered into the ground, the tombstone recently set behind the dug out hollow. The mourners mill around after the service waiting until the last shovelful of dirt fills the grave, then immediately start a war of words, that erupts into a pushing match, that escalated into a fistfight, then a full blown rumble.

Mourners have divided into two camps the red sharks, and the blue jets. An occasional dance move accents the out and out rumble taking place directly over the grave.

The dirt hasn't even settled before it is trampled, defiled and scarred. The tombstone is tumbled and broken in the mêlée! Combatants on both sides are falling. The bloodshed is horrific.

All of the time the young child, set down by one of the combatants, is being ignored. There is no one to comfort, or care for her. So much so that the moral dilemma shifts from, 'should she be born?' To, 'why should she have to be brought into a world where everyone abandons her for their own petty differences?

 

[connor_in]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sen. Joe Biden in 1992 says President Bush should "not name a nominee until after the November election..." <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SCOTUS?src=hash">#SCOTUS</a><a href="https://t.co/setQGLzePt">https://t.co/setQGLzePt</a></p>— CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/701828664342630400">February 22, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


'Oh my God. This is gold.' 1992 Joe Biden torpedoes Dems' SCOTUS beef [video] - twitchy.com twitchy.com

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Not only does Biden warn Bush to not make a nomination, he calls on Senate to not hold any confirmation hearings! <a href="https://t.co/ZHGDVHZA4a">https://t.co/ZHGDVHZA4a</a></p>— Jimmy (@JimmyPrinceton) <a href="https://twitter.com/JimmyPrinceton/status/701839280868618240">February 22, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[NorthDakota]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sen. Joe Biden in 1992 says President Bush should "not name a nominee until after the November election..." <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SCOTUS?src=hash">#SCOTUS</a><a href="https://t.co/setQGLzePt">https://t.co/setQGLzePt</a></p>— CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/701828664342630400">February 22, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


'Oh my God. This is gold.' 1992 Joe Biden torpedoes Dems' SCOTUS beef [video] - twitchy.com twitchy.com

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Not only does Biden warn Bush to not make a nomination, he calls on Senate to not hold any confirmation hearings! <a href="https://t.co/ZHGDVHZA4a">https://t.co/ZHGDVHZA4a</a></p>— Jimmy (@JimmyPrinceton) <a href="https://twitter.com/JimmyPrinceton/status/701839280868618240">February 22, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Yummy. This is great.

 

[woolybug25]

Yummy. This is great.

Really? Does Biden saying that somehow make it right for them to do it now?

I don't give two shats who says that votes should be delayed, etc. It doesn't change my opinion of the current situation at all. Just gives people schadenfreude do huff and puff about.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

Yummy. This is great.

Once again, letting the child starve to continuing to present the case as to why they are right.

Another way of looking at it is, two wrongs don't make a right!

Unless you are talking about an extremely small gathering of GOP members.

 

[connor_in]

Really? Does Biden saying that somehow make it right for them to do it now?

I don't give two shats who says that votes should be delayed, etc. It doesn't change my opinion of the current situation at all. Just gives people schadenfreude do huff and puff about.[

Welcome to modern American politics and internet forum discussions of same.

I honestly don't know for sure the best route to take. But I have posted items I found that were examples of D's doing/suggesting the same thing R's are suggesting/contemplating but the D's are upset now because the shoe is on the other foot.

PLEASE NOTE: All of this is just hufflepuff right now because why the R's are suggesting/contemplating these actions they have not DONE anything yet because no one has yet been nominated to be acted on or not. Therefore all of this is academic rhetorical arguing and no one is exactly covering themselves with glory.

 

[IrishJayhawk]

Welcome to modern American politics and internet forum discussions of same.

I honestly don't know for sure the best route to take. But I have posted items I found that were examples of D's doing/suggesting the same thing R's are suggesting/contemplating but the D's are upset now because the shoe is on the other foot.

PLEASE NOTE: All of this is just hufflepuff right now because why the R's are suggesting/contemplating these actions they have not DONE anything yet because no one has yet been nominated to be acted on or not. Therefore all of this is academic rhetorical arguing and no one is exactly covering themselves with glory.

This isn't much of an equivalent situation. There wasn't an opening that year. Biden was speaking hypothetically. And he didn't make the statement until four months further along in the cycle (June 25th, only 4 1/2 months from the election rather than the 9 months after Scalia's death). If an opening had taken place, it would have been even closer to the election.

You can still make the argument, and I think you'd be right, that the Democrats would be playing the same card as the Republicans if everything was flipped. But this isn't the smoking gun that you're looking for.

 

[connor_in]

This isn't much of an equivalent situation. There wasn't an opening that year. Biden was speaking hypothetically. And he didn't make the statement until four months further along in the cycle (June 25th, only 4 1/2 months from the election rather than the 9 months after Scalia's death). If an opening had taken place, it would have been even closer to the election.

You can still make the argument, and I think you'd be right, that the Democrats would be playing the same card as the Republicans if everything was flipped. But this isn't the smoking gun that you're looking for.

1) Never claimed any of these items was smoking gun
2) Never going to be an EXACT match of anything in tit for tat world that is politics
3) The point I am trying to make IS the bolded part where you agreed with me

 

[IrishJayhawk]

1) Never claimed any of these items was smoking gun
2) Never going to be an EXACT match of anything in tit for tat world that is politics
3) The point I am trying to make IS the bolded part where you agreed with me

Fair enough. I do generally agree with you. And I think in an exact equivalent circumstance, I would feel very gross about my preferred side doing the same thing.