Politics: Where we struggle to kneel in the muck.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
WTF? Evolution is not a theory about how rocks transmogrified into humans. It's doesn't tell you where life came from.

thank you. 63-6.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Cite please. What am I walking away from?

I said:

• Club's conception of individual rights -- as least as regards a woman's bodily autonomy -- is a pretty weak one. Woman who act irresponsibly in his book -- e.g., choosing to have non-incestuous sex -- are not deemed to have any real cognizable interests relating to the pregnancy that follows.

In #2602, you quoted that post, and responded:

• Dude you are being ridiculous in your characterization of my position.

Earlier, in #2482, I said:

• Is there a non-rhetorical difference between saying that a woman who engages in non-incestuous consensual sex forfeits the right to autonomy, and saying that you're not going to include the burdens to her in weighing the relative interests relevant to her desire to have an abortion? I'm not seeing it.

In response to which, in #2489, you said:

• I think it goes to how much weight you give the burdens - less if she didn't take proper precautions in the first place.

To which I said, in #2494:

• I fail to see where you are giving any weight at all to the mother's interests. It sounds like you think abortion is OK only if the fetus is entirely oblivious to whatever it experiences. It's not really "balancing" if one side of the scale has nothing on it. It is analytically, simply, I grant you, but only at the cost of ignoring half of a difficult moral equation.

And pointed out that you view property rights differently.

The crux of it is this idea that women who act irresponsibly -- i.e., opt to have sex -- have fewer rights. Or you take their burdens less seriously. It's a morally judgmental view of personal rights that is profoundly unlibertarian -- it's the opposite of libertarianism, really -- and stands in direct contrast to your many and well-developed posts about economic rights. I don't think you've ever said that someone who invests money unwisely can be taxed at higher rates.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I have no idea what you're talking about re the Juan sock. Whatever it is, my condolences. As for the abortion stuff, if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the Cocteau quotations page.

Here's what i'm saying. If your arguments lead to the absurd it is not the fault of that one who points that out. you do recognie that Harrison Begeron was meant to be taken as a negative commentary, don't you?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
Life came from a primordial soup of nucleic acids that became organized after billons of random associations lead to an organized association.

Cite, please.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Here's what i'm saying. If your arguments lead to the absurd it is not the fault of that one who points that out. you do recognie that Harrison Begeron was meant to be taken as a negative commentary, don't you?

[KEANU]Whoa.[/KEANU]

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Cite, please.

that is my line, tumor face.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I suspect there are few newborns/infants in that category. Most are going overseas to foreign countries to adopt newborns/infants because of the shortage here.

Doesn't that kind of shoot the whole "abortion is unnecessary because unwanted children can be adopted" argument to hell?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
that is my line, tumor face.

63-7

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Doesn't that kind of shoot the whole "abortion is unnecessary because unwanted children can be adopted" argument to hell?

why isn't a newborn being left in a dumpster okay? It certainly isn't viable if that means it can live without tying someone down.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Sperm and ova are alive, too. But does anyone dispute that there is life at conception?

I do. At least for purposes of determining whether or not a "life" is worth legal and political protection. I submit that the proper measurement of life is a life in being.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Then what kind of right is it?

It's a privacy right. A right to be secure in one's person.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by taxwonk
I do. At least for purposes of determining whether or not a "life" is worth legal and political protection. I submit that the proper measurement of life is a life in being.

My implicit point was that the questions of whether there is "life" and whether that life deserves legal and political protection are not the same.

I'm not sure what the test is. I kind of like Not Me's sentience test, but I'm not sure what it means or how you determine when its met. But babies are sentient, and week-old fetal specks are not.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by taxwonk
I do. At least for purposes of determining whether or not a "life" is worth legal and political protection. I submit that the proper measurement of life is a life in being.

You are funny, kinda. What's being?

And have we brought up that sometimes BCPs work by giving you a period even though there's a fertilized egg in there? Should BCPs be illegal? I think IUDs do a similar thing -- make it so a fertilized egg can't catch hold of the uterus.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
This is cheap, but I find you repellant, so here goes.

You do understand that, because I can afford plane tickets, and most of my "friends" (and for that matter the country) can afford plane tickets to get whatever abortions we may need elsewhere, that no matter what the Court does, you will never have the desired impact on our "selfish" lives that you seem to desire. Sure, I know... you're just arguing about lagalities. No you're not. You actually want to see people like me - the rotten moral relativists - suffer, or as you call it, "be responsible for our actions." You can't turn back the clock. Bugs you, huh? I may rot in hell, but you're going to have to deal with my kind for the rest of your angry life.

You should be repelled by me. I've spent years laughing at people like your internet persona when you finally were called to pay the piper. As it is, I want you to be able to get abortions wherever the community allows it. Get on all the planes you want when that time comes. Its sort of funny to see what you thought I might say, particularly when you've gone so far out of your way otherwise to mischaracterize what I do say.

Hello

[Tyrone Slothrop]

A private company registering Nevada voters has been throwing out the registrations of Democrats:

• Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash.
  
  Anyone who has recently registered or re-registered to vote outside a mall or grocery store or even government building may be affected.
  
  The I-Team has obtained information about an alleged widespread pattern of potential registration fraud aimed at democrats. Thee focus of the story is a private registration company called Voters Outreach of America, AKA America Votes.
  
  The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican registrations.
  
  Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.
  
  "We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me," said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee.
  
  Eric Russell managed to retrieve a pile of shredded paperwork including signed voter registration forms, all from Democrats. We took them to the Clark County Election Department and confirmed that they had not, in fact, been filed with the county as required by law.

KLAS-TV, via Kos

Out of control. Nevada should let people register on the day of the election this year -- otherwise, Democrats who justifiably believe that they registered will be forbidden from voting.