Politics: A new beginning

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
similar to the rationale you long time posters use to smother newbies like me or NWN or Not Me; we're really not fully formed, so kill us; its ok. Cheers!

Puhleeze, you've been smothered with karmic love. Does the guy in your avatar have a handsome twin brother I could use for mine?

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
and yet you speak with certainty of global warming.

Didn't Al Gore invent global warming?*



* I wonder how many more times we can use that joke and it will still make us (GOP'ers) laugh?

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
similar to the rationale you long time posters use to smother newbies like me or NWN or Not Me; we're really not fully formed, so kill us; its ok. Cheers!

Ahem, speak for yourself. I am NOT a newbie. I am just password challenged. Been kickin' ass and takin' names 'round these parts (or those that are similar thereto) for years. I just do it in spurts. I just happen to be spurting alot right now.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Puhleeze, you've been smothered with karmic love. Does the guy in your avatar have a handsome twin brother I could use for mine?

Is Hank a lawyer or some other kind of person. I have never been able to figure it out. Hank, any comment?

[Not Me]

Even when he is strummin' on his gitar, he is red faced and pissed off looking. Dude, fork over the $15 for the Xanax, already would you? I mean your freakin' wife is a doc. Getting a script should be no problem.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
But go dig up some pictures of 5-day old fetuses and five day old tadpoles. There's a striking similarlity there, and dissimilarity with humans, yet the human fetus is on the safe side of your line. Why?

I am happy to do this but before I make the investment of time (and emotional energy) necessary to do this, do you believe that some of the factors that might make a fetus a human being cannot be seen with the eyes? For instance, genetic material. 'Cuz if it is all about what you can see with your eyes to you, I won't bother.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Not Me
Is Hank a lawyer or some other kind of person. I have never been able to figure it out. Hank, any comment?

I believe you speak to my avatar, surely my arguing ability speak volumes as to my legal status.
My avatar is a photo of the most useless GP I've encountered in my travels, making him also the most admiorable to us non-ambitious types.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I believe you speak to my avatar, surely my arguing ability speak volumes as to my legal status.

Umm, I have the avatars turned off.

But why must you say I stalk you simply because I engage you in conversation? You know, it is not like the warden lets us watch movies on Friday nights. What ELSE do you expect me to do?!?!?!?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Not Me
Umm, I have the avatars turned off.

But why must you say I stalk you simply because I engage you in conversation? You know, it is not like the warden lets us watch movies on Friday nights. What ELSE do you expect me to do?!?!?!?

I apologize. I will no longer haze you. I will however continue to think you are a boy. NTTAWWT.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I will however continue to think you are a boy. NTTAWWT.

I honestly don't know why you think that. Is it because of the things (or the way) I write ('cuz that would be all you know of me, so I assume that is what you are basing your conclusion on).

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Poor Not Me. Unable to deal with a world in which critical decisions are, indeed, very difficult.

I can deal with critical decisions being difficult. I just think that someone should be able to articulate a reason for choosing one option over the other even when the decisions are difficult and especially when the decisions are critical.

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
And unwilling to acknowledge with most of the rest of us, on both sides of the aisle, that these are issues and decisions that must be struggled over and where, for many of us, some level of judgment and decision must be left outside of the government's hands, even in cases where we ourselves may have strong views.

I agree with this on many issues. But when it is the life of a helpless, innocent person that is being intentionally taken for reasons that are in not in its best interest but, rather, in another person's best interest, and when the helpless, innocent person has no say in the matter, there needs to be some oversight by government.

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
This discussion yet again pushes me more toward the pro-choice

You didn't need to be pushed. You were already there before we started this discussion. And if you say you weren't, what precisely did I say that pushed you over more?

[Not Me]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I think you are right that this is a difficult issue and one on which I have never been able to reach a decision. So I just ask questions like why do we, in this case, error on the side of "death*" rather than life, while in all other cases we chose life?

*for lack of a better word.

My sentiments exactly.

I think the reason that abortion is supported by many people is because they view it as inherently unfair that women bear the burden of pregnancy and childbirth. Allowing abortion makes up for the unfairness and evens the physiological playing field between men and women by allowing women to refuse to be pregnant if they so choose.

Then there are those who support it for the reasons that LDE articulated - we don't need any more people that cannot be properly taken care of by their parents. And no one would ever go for getting rid of the ones already here, so who does that leave to get rid of?

But absent from both those reasons are the rights of the person whose life is extinguished. This is what bothers me about the pro-choice position so much - their position doesn't balance any rights; it is all about the rights of the mother.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
and yet you speak with certainty of global warming.

Again you confuse myself and bilmore. Some stalker sock you are. I know we have the same preternatural good looks, affable wit and daunting intelligence, and yet our avatars are different.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
Because, after birth, if society states that this life has to be supported (fed, whatever), it can appoint (or pay) any of a number of individuals to do it. While still in utero, society has to force one specific individual, involuntarily, to support it, and that individual has independent rights.

What about the sex part? The government did not create the baby. The people having sex did. Unless it is a rape case, or an 11 year old who didn't understand the consequences of sex, the people who created the baby knew damn well that one of the potential consequences of having sex was the creation of the baby.

The government did not force anyone to have sex and if the consequence of two people having sex is that a baby is created, a consequence that they knew was a possibility, the fact that the government does not allow you to now kill that baby isn't the government forcing you to do anything. It is the government not allowing you to kill.

So what that the individual must deal with the consequences of their actions? Having independent rights does NOT relieve you from having to deal with the consequences of your actions.

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
(Some people would be OK with the gov't dropping of an infant on their door and saying "guess what, he's your own personal problem now, if you don't take good care of him we'll prosecute," but not many I'd wager.)

Bad analogy. In this hypo where the baby gets dropped off at the door, the person behind the door didn't have to HAVE SEX knowing full well that having sex might cause a baby to be dropped off at their door before the baby was dropped off at their door. See the difference? In your hypo, the person is not doing anything that would create that life in the first place. In the real world, two people have sex and then a baby is created. The government doesn't force them to have sex and the baby is the direct consequence of their choice to have sex and they knew that.

Before you give me a rape analogy, I agree, the rape situation is very different from abortion on demand. As is the severe birth defect situation.

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
in theory, that would mean women would have a right, at any time, to say "OK, let's induce and let the thing survive on its own if it can."

Which is just yet one more reason why the viability cut off makes no sense.

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
I think most people actually rely on some vague, ill thought out combination of "viability" and "utility" in this debate to get to the balancing of rights between fetus and mother that they feel comfortable with.

The viability argument is a utility argument, according to Ty and Thomas Drew. How is the viability argument different from the utility argument?

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
The fetus has increasing rights from conception onward, with some specific events giving it a better or worse claim to protection (viability, birth defects),

That may be one of the most repugnant arguments I have heard so far. Birth defects don't give the unborn less of a claim to protection. The reason that the severe birth defect case is so hard is NOT because those who aren't perfect somehow have a worse claim to protection (BRC - did you even read what you wrote before you hit "submit"?).

The reason that the severe birth defect case is so hard is because the child with severe birth defects suffers if born and because an abortion would prevent this suffering. The reason it is such a hard situation is because of the age old question of "who is it that gets to determine what life is worth living." It CERTAINLY is NOT because those with birth defects somehow have a worse claim to protection. I am repulsed by your argument.

Confidential to Ty: I think you might want to more carefully evaluate who you give your proxies to in the future. Just so you know, for a sufficient amount of cash and/or ass-kissing, I do accept proxies.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Not Me
Even when he is strummin' on his gitar, he is red faced and pissed off looking.

Yet the man obviously knows how to relax. Or, did. in the 1960s and 70s. I think he played Pink in "Dazed and Confused."