Politics: Where we struggle to kneel in the muck.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Not Me
The understanding that women are humans fully as worthwhile as men is innate. It is and always has been morally wrong for men to use their superior physical strength to gain an advantage over women. Men innately know this was wrong, but it has always been an advantage they were unwilling to give up. So they justified it in various ways, the most notable is religion. This is one reason why these religions that teach that women are not equal are the cause of so much evil on this earth. Hopefully some day, we will recognize the evils of islam and other religions that perpetrate these crimes. I know I am always harping on islam and that other religions do the same somewhat, but it is a matter of degree. Yes, there are fringe christian groups that do it, too, but with islam, it is so widespread and so oppressive. It is a scourge on this earth that I hope one day will be eliminated as a belief system.

I like the new you more. FWIW, I agree with what you posted as it relates to my own religion, and look forward to the day that God whispers instructions of equality in il Papa's ear. He seems like the sort that will listen.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by taxwonk
You are unable to understand my literary allusion, so you call me poorly read? Try not to be more of a jackass than usual, Hank.

I think that was a Kerry debate slam, ala SNL.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I agree with all of the above. But of course it can't be proven, and I posted only to beat Hank to that point.

If this is a reference to Howard Dean's comments, then I admit to whiffing. It just depends on what you mean by "proven." I can't prove beyond any doubt that the rest of you aren't figments of my imagination and that I am just a brain in a jar sitting on some alien's lab shelf being stimulated with electrical currents to imagine all this. Maybe this is all just a dream like the death of Bobby Ewing on Dallas and I will wake up soon. It can't be proven that its not.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Not Me
I disagree. Our morals are innate. Whether we choose to abide by these morals or not is influenced by environment.

I doubt that anyone else needs this pointed out, but this is fucking inane.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Adder
So what's worth debating?

"Worth"? The posting threshhold just got tougher.

(For my part, a quixotic attempt to convince Sebby that my mere recognition that women have rights ain't really dispositive.)

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by bilmore
Um, that sort of leaves an unresolved issue . . .

I adress this in brief later, but you know me, I don't STP. I believe that the debate over conflicting rights should favor the life in being. This is not an unheard of concept. Forinstance, until very recently, nearly all states' murder statutes limited their application to lives in being. You couldn't be charged with murdering a fetus. There were anti-abortion criminal laws, but they were separate.

You could argue that the fetus is a life. I can't deny that absolutely. However, to the extent one views the fetus as a life, I submit it's interests are subordinate to the life in being, i.e., the mother.

We as a society make decisions about whose life will be favored all the time. For instance, in stem cell debate, Bush favors destroying the lives represented by frozen embryos rather than creating sgtem cells. That is a decision to destroy life. Perversely, it is also a decision to throw these lives away knowing that doing so will have the collateral effect of killing millions of diabetics and others whose lives could be saved by stem cell research. Similarly, the Republican Party plank favoring a ban on abortion makes no provision for abortion where the mother's life is threatened by carrying the fetus to term. That represents a choice to favor the life of the fetus over that of the mother.

My position does not beg the question. Any position will ultimately require a choice as to who will live and who will die in at least some cases. I have stated what my preference for the decision is. We can agree or disagree, but don't try to tell me that a contrary position favors life any more than mine does.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Take it to the Sports Board. Or the NY Board. Or some other board.

Better watch what you say. I hear he owns this place.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by taxwonk
You are unable to understand my literary allusion, so you call me poorly read? Try not to be more of a jackass than usual, Hank.

Ummm, I understand that you have read 2 books (at most)written by Orwell. To be fair, I take issue here with your word choice, not your education. Scalia has used Orwellian before.

Anyway, tell me one Orwell book besides the 2 you've read and a time when you'll submit to a quiz, then i'll withdraw the comment. I do feel that if you have not read Down and Out in Paris and London; Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Coming Up for Air, then perhaps you should try not to characterize his style.

[Adder]

Originally posted by bilmore
Hitler's war.
Saddam's war with Iran.
In short, the wars of conquest, as opposed to the wars stopping evil.

How does Saddam's war with Iran fit this paradigm? I (perhaps mistakenly) always thought that much of this fighting was mutual. And even if it wasn't, wasn't Saddam just striking the evil fundamentalist government of Iran preemptively?

And isn't the evil side usually just the losing side (leave out WWII, which is too easy)? And is there such a thing as a war that isn't about conquest (at least for one side)?

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Adder
So what's worth debating?

POTD.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Funny how the Supreme Court has already expressed doubts on that. Do y'all have a second-best Constitutional argument, or did you blow your whole wad with Roe?

To say the Court has expressed doubt about Roe doesn't mena that the decison was wrong. The Court was wrong in Plessy v. Ferguson and it was wrong when it decided the Internment cases.

In any event, I didn't base my argument on Roe. I based it on the Constitution. The Fifth Amendment guarantees each person the right to be secure in her person, with the right to life and liberty. The Amendment predates Roe and it predates any decision calling it into question.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
If this is a reference to Howard Dean's comments, then I admit to whiffing. It just depends on what you mean by "proven." I can't prove beyond any doubt that the rest of you aren't figments of my imagination and that I am just a brain in a jar sitting on some alien's lab shelf being stimulated with electrical currents to imagine all this. Maybe this is all just a dream like the death of Bobby Ewing on Dallas and I will wake up soon. It can't be proven that its not.

I don't know what Dean said -- I just knew that Hank would have posted what I did if I didn't beat him to it. Scientists can explain how life might come out of the primordial ooze, but it can't be proven even in the same way that evolution can be tested against the evidence. That's all.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
Better watch what you say. I hear he owns this place.

He's my daddy.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Don't tell the sperm. They're alive, they're human, and they're full of hope.

No shit. Taken to its furthest logical conclusion, the pro-life argument presumes that any building block of what later becomes a human being is protected. Under their logic, the sandwich a pregnant woman is eating can conceivably be considered "protected matter." Now, of course, when you throw this curveball at them, they start defining conception - an event as arbitrary and random (lord knows its occurance is more often random than planned) a date as any trimester start or end date - as "the date life begins". Bullshit. You can't pick a date and say "life begins here" and then tell someone else he can't do the same thing and sssign the same degreee of credibility to his chosen date.

You can't claim the moral high ground while talking out off both sides of your mouth.

[Adder]

Originally posted by bilmore
(For my part, a quixotic attempt to convince Sebby that my mere recognition that women have rights ain't really dispositive.)

For what its worth, there also tends to be a fundamental disagreement about the degree of harm to the mother of an unwanted pregnancy. But again, its pretty hard to convince someone who believes that all hetro sex is rape, or that an unborn child is a parasite, that we should be concerned about the rights of a fetus.