pan6467

I have been reading the post about the school play that was banned and two things became very apparent.

1) Everybody wants what they want and doesn't give a damn about what maybe best for the community. It doesn't seem to matter what the majority wants, or what is best, it matters who speaks the loudest, makes the most noise and has the most money for lawsuits. It doesn't matter if the people are taking away a freedom, all they see is what they want.

2) People aren't as active anymore, they either are too scared to worry, to blind to worry, not concerned enough or flatly too busy trying to make a living.

It's funny how people who fight for Guns, or Religious issues, and say the government is too big and has taken away freedoms, are usually the same people who speak out and demand government do something about the Howard Sterns, television, the arts, and so on. They don't want Big Brother telling them that they cannot own a gun and carry it anywhere they like (even if the majority in the community say they don't want guns there (i.e. San Francisco). Yet, they don't give a damn about the freedom of speech. Don't see them putting the same energy into saving Howard Stern or the school play, do you?

Same with Pro-Choicers. They put all their energy into saying they don't want government dictating whether abortion shouldn't be allowed, yet, if a community chooses to ban abortion they demand government to step in.

My point is, we all complain about how big government is and all the laws we have, yet we are all responsible for them, because we all have our issues that WE want government to protect.

We make it difficult because WE allow the minority voices to speak out and go against the wills of the majorities. What I find sad is whenever anyone says let the community decide and vote for what they want and if you don't like it move...... someone has to sue...... and who pays for the lawsuits against the government? TAXPAYERS. Wonder how much of our tax monies have to go to these fucked up lawsuits that work to overturn the voters voices?

It's a catch 22, and WE are all responsible for it.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

docbungle

Or don't have the time to worry about every little thing.

That is such a HUGE, sweeping, innacurate generalization, that there is no way to respond other than to ignore it.

Really? Maybe in isolated incidents. But not in my community. Or most others, for that matter. Every once in awhile, some story will pop up - like this school play story - and get eveyone all riled up. It gets blown all out of proportion. They'll say things like 'this is ruining society' or whatever, but it's really not. A school play got cancelled in a small, conservative town of around 10,000 residents. Communities of this size are a bit more sensitive to school content than the one I live in, which is roughly 50 times it's size. If you don't like people being so sensitive, then maybe you should move to the big city - because, as Pan would say: we're all either too scared to worry, too blind to worry, not concerned enough or flatly too busy trying to make a living. No one cares about anything.

[/QUOTE]

__________________
Bad Luck City

dksuddeth

Thats exactly what I was thinking as well, considering I am pro second amendment yet wrote condemning letters to my texas reps for the howard stern fiasco. bah, generalizations bore me.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

pan6467

My point wasn't about guns... but I guess that's what I get.

The point is, everyone wants what they want and they expect the Federal government to enforce it, regardless of whether it infringes on someone else's rights.

Noone seems to be willing to bend to what the community desires and has voted for.

Then you have small minorities that make threats and have lawyers and goverment acquiesces and everyone complains but noone does anything.

SF = voters want guns banned.... yet people in N. carolina, Ohio, wherever who do not live there are crying foul.

If a community votes pro-life and bans abortion same thing....

Since when did we make the Federal government our moral conscience. Each community is different and the people who live there know best what suits them. Or the minority to threaten lawsuits?

That was my point. If SF voted against guns and you don't like it.... fucking MOVE.
If the state of Alabama chooses to ban abortion fucking drive across state lines to a state where it is legal. If the owner of an establishment chooses for you to not carry a weapon on his private property..... fucking don't shop there. If the judge in court wishes to hang the 10 Commandments..... so what? Who does it hurt? Don't read them.

The wanting of special interests and the lobbyists isn't what is wrong it's that there are 300 million (give or take) that all want to be heard and all demand what they want and don't care about what is reasonable or truly best for society. Although they all want to believe they know what is best and they all want to believe that they are doing what is best.

If the school wants to put on the Crucible.... let them... noone is forcing your kid to go, noone is even forcing your kid to care. But by taking it away the right to have it, you destroy everyone's choice. And that is what has been happening and the majority for whatever reason has kept allowing it.

People need to wake up and fight back.

Of course this thread is a perfect example.... instead of intelligent debate or asking what I truly meant, the above read what they did, got offended and decided not to truly read what was said, or ask what the intent was.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

dksuddeth

Pan, its not that difficult to understand at all. There are things that the government is supposed to do and things that it has no business doing. At the current state we're in, they seem to have it backwards and are being supported and enthused by those least qualified to make that determination.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

samcol

I tend to agree with some of what you said. I'm a strong believer in the tenth amendment. Our federal government has grossly overstepped it's bounds. It has no business getting involved in things like healthcare or education. The federal government really only exists to protect the union as a whole, and to facilitate trade between the states. Many issues should be left to the state for two reasons: each region of the United States may have a different view of an issue, and things are much easier to change at the state and local levels.

The other problem with having a huge federal government that funds everything from the top down, is that each local issue that you mention does become everyone's business because it is part of their tax money that pays for these things. Since their money goes towards they do and should have a say in what is happening. All the more reason to leave these petty issues to the states and let the feds concentrate on the military and interstate issues.

This is how things were intended, and it would allow liberal areas like large cities to have universal healthcare or social security, while more rural areas that are typically conservative could have God in their schools and gay marriage banned or (insert other regional stereotype here).

The first step is to stop federal spending on issues that the federal government doesn't have any bussiness being involved in like abortion, healthcare, education etc. Then each issue truly does become a local issues and can be dealt with better that way.

pan6467

That is true conservatism...... not this bullshit the leaders in the GOP are trying to push.

Lol.... but see that's where the problem lies and why I say we are all responsible (some more than others), because I feel that part of protecting the people is making sure they are as educated as they desire to be and as healthy as possible (this means EPA standards on water, air and ground quality and USDA food inspection).

While for education it would probably work, for healthcare it could, but the food inspections and EPA would be a mess. Say my state/county/city has universal healthcare and yours doesn't, you get sick you'll be coming in and leeching off the system and thus arguments breakout.

So to some degree unless you come up with a system that prevented that, serious problems could exist.

I'll use my job as an example. We are the only true Detox for indigents and those without insurance in the area. We have contracts with a few surrounding counties that if they pre-cert and say they will pay we can treat.... otherwise you're SOL unless you are in full borne withdrawal. It's a system that works well.

So if the Feds. stopped taxing for those and the communities did the money would be put to better use.

Of course, the fed has to pay down the deficit and that is where a huge part of our taxes are going.

Things like workers rights, minimum wages and so on have to also be safeguarded.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

kutulu

In many ways the original intent of the powers of the fed seem irrelevant in today's world. Education wasn't as important back then and we didn't have the ability to completely wreck the environment either. Nowdays, everyone needs at least a high school level of education and without regulatory enforcement, our rivers could turn to shit REALLY fast. Healthcare is just as important. Money doesn't give you more of a right to live than someone else.

There is no way in hell poor people could afford to send their kids to school. By denying them that right, the kids are forced into a life of poverty and never have a chance.

Overall, there are a lot of issues that need to be addressed. People need to know that their food is safe, that their car meets some safety standard, and that their water is safe to drink. These issues are too important to leave to private industries.

pan6467

In regards to the products we buy, absolutely, they are interstate commerce and therefore should meet standards set by the federal government. You add the tax it costs to inspect and enforce those standards to the product, not to the people in the form of income taxes. On the other hand, then you have an added cost to the poor.

It just seems no matter what you think or the solution you come up with somewhere down the line rights are lost, people's money is screwed with and government is involved where it shouldn't be.

There is no way in Hell, I'm going to trust the private companies to police themselves. And anyone who believes they can, I would have to believe that those people haven't read the headlines for the past 10-20 years and seen all the company scandals that we have had.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

samcol

As opposed to government? I would say government is just as incapable at self policing if not more so than private companies. Government has had a comparable amount of scandals as well. At least with private companies you have the choice to not do business with them, unless they have a monopoly which is usually protected through public policy anyhow. With government you have to go through all the burecratic steps to get it to change gears.

I'll use social security as an example. It was sold to us as a retirement benefit plan. Instead we got a tax and welfare program that goes into the general fund whenver it draws a surplus. Basically it's a gigantic ponzi scheme. Obviously in the 70 years or whatever it's been in existence it has had terrible "self policing."

Likewise private and public companies have had a long history of promising benefits that were never received and of robbing pension plans. Really what's the difference between a company that robs from it's employess or a nation wide program that robs from it's citizens. I'd say the federal plan is worse just because it's on a massive scale and to the tune of $1,880,613,454,166 in the case of social security.

The solution? No pension plans or social security (or use both at your own choice while utilizing government only to enforce contracts between itself and citizens or citizens and employers). Let people keep all of their paycheck to save or spend how they want to.

As much as you may dislike private companies, government programs are just as corrupt if not more so.

guy44

I'm not getting into the general arguments over hypocrisy, but I will comment on this specific example. I've never heard a pro-choice argument made on the grounds that the government shouldn't be able to dictate whether or not abortion should be allowed. Every pro-choice argument I've ever heard said that the government should affirmatively allow abortion.

__________________
"You have reached Ritual Sacrifice. For goats press one, or say 'goats.'"

roachboy

i dont think so, guy: most prochoice arguments stop at the question of legality and safety. to say that a woman should be able to make choices about her body and what happens to it entails that the option of abortion should be legal, safe, etc.: but it says nothing about whether, in any individual case, any particular woman is therefore compelled to choose one way or another as to the procedure. anti-choice forces intrude on the content of choice. that should be the salient issue that splits most libertarian conservatives away from anti-choice positions--which is perhaps why instead you see the conflict fought out on diversionary terms, such as theological debates about the start of life, etc.--- the reality of the matter is that it is the right that, in this case, wants to dictate rather than allow folks to choose, and it wants to state to do the dictating.
it is funny.
this is why i generally do not enter into debate on abortion--i think the anti-choice position so empty as to be almost funny, and i have been told that it is not polite to laugh at people.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

samcol

It's really that simple huh? Please. You know the debate isn't about choice, it's about whether or not abortion is murder. The only reason the right wants to limit "choice" is because it's not a choice if you view abortion as killing a human being. Pro-choice sounds just dandy when you take out the question of when life begins.

If someone views an act as murder, you think it's an "empty view" that this person would want to limit or ban this act all together? At least acknowledge the other sides view as legitimate even if you disagree.

As simple as you try to make the abortion issue sound, it still hinges on the question of when life begins.

Zyr

Of course it's not about choice, but both sides would be less appealing if they were called anti life and anti choice, or even "Pro baby murder (maybe, depends when it counts as alive)" and "Pro forcing women to have babies".
/off topic

The government should be keeping the country running, allowing people to live, not telling them what to do with their lives. They should be making sure people learn good stuff, have clean water, have roads to drive on, have police, etc, and let the people choose if they want gay marrige, guns, abortion, and all that.

__________________
"Oh, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here. See, uh, people ski topless here while smoking dope, so irony's not really a high priority. We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83 when I was the only practitioner of it, and I stopped because I was tired of being stared at."

Omnia mutantu, nos et mutamur in illis.
All things change, and we change with them.
- Neil Gaiman, Marvel 1602

roachboy

samcol:
if i encountered conservative pacifists who opposed capital punishment and favored redistribution of wealth to encourage a more equitable quality of life, then maybe i would see a way to at least start to take the "abortion=murder" arguments seriously--but i dont.
the position you claim i should "take seriously" is inconsistent with the range of other views on questions pertaining to life and/or quality of life: so it is a political tweak, a way of framing this question so as (1) to lure the far right evangelical community under the republican ideology tent (ew..) and (2) to frame away the real issue, which i outlined above--because, and only because, framed in that way, the right cannot win.

if you read the post carefully, you would see that i do not view the question of the legality of abortion as obviating the questions that might arise for individuals about the morality of the procedure. people are not forced to have abortions simply because they are legal: nothing changes about the questions that might arise simply because the procedure is safe. so you see one of the two reasons i do not do this debate: anti-choice folk systematically distort the arguments of their opponents--they operate with an almost unbelievably patronizing view of all of us when they claim that keeping abortion legal obviates all questions as to the proceudre itself.

i have no patience on this question--and i am under no obligation whatsoever to take antichoice conservative views on the topic seriously--i dont----
my only obligation is social, that is to modulate when and how i enter into discussion with folk who, for whatever reason, do take that position seriously because--and only because--the discussion is not likely to go well.

you dont get to impose obligations, samcol.
so that's that.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

kutulu

Your statement contradicts itself. By allowing the government set laws restricting gay marriage, guns, abortion, etc. the govt is not allowing people to live and is telling them what to do with their lives.

Come to America, where you are free to live your life. You can marry whomever you want*, be free to defend yourself**, and have control over what happens to your body***.

* Same sex excluded
**With your fists, of course
***Unless by control you mean eliminating a clump of cells that bears absolutely no resemblence to a human

xepherys

I see a small problem here, though. I agree with the concept... and when America only had half a million people living here, maybe it worked great. But let's take the above statement. State A, a largely liberal state, allows gay marriages. State B, on the fence, allows gays into civil unions, but not "marriages". State C, a VERY red state, says no way on God's Green Earth. Now two men in state A get married. The live there for years doing their thing, and they pay federal taxes as a married couple. Then they move to state B or C where their status is not recognized. How do they file for taxes? Does the fed make regulations stating that gay, married-males can file jointly? If so, what about gay, unioned men? What about two men that have lived together for 10 years, but live in state C? If the fed makes no choice, then there is conflict. Something HAS to be determined. If the fed DOES choose, then at least 1, if not 2 of the states are going to be outraged and petition for changes. You end up in a teeter-totter type of situation.

Due to possible outcomes like this, there are some instances where the federal government must make a decision. States often have the power to narrow the scope of a federal law anyhow. So ideally, the fed would say, "Gay marriage is great" and let the states individually say, "No way Jose". But then it would be allowing states to trample on people's beliefs. For the fed to say "Gay marriage is amorale and cannot be in the US" does that prevent the individual states from relaxing that law to allow marriage or civil unions?

At any rate, it's a quagmire and is very difficult to pin down an easy solution that is acceptable, not even to everyone, but even to a majority.

Someone is NOT going to get what they want. *sigh*

Willravel

I'll agree with this. I've seen it too often, and I've seen people who try to be voices of reason silenced by sudden, massive ignorance. If a parent at the aformentioned anti-Grease school would have stood up, there would have been an answer of a dozen more parents saying how that parent was trying to corrupt Christian youth with evil Greasyness. I suspect the reason that the above statement is true is ignorance is often silent in this country. Stupid people learn to shut up at an early age, only to have their ignorance vindicated when the loud idiot shouts at the top of his or her lungs. When that battlecry echoes across the newspapers and TV news, it's like a call to arms for idiots. Suddenly everyone has their opinion and every opinion is valid (despite the obvious fallacies and weaknesses of their statements and the logic therein). When someone stands up and says "Jesus would want us to assasinate so-and-so", there are a ton of people who stand and shout "YES!". When someone says "American values are being threatened, so we have to beat up gay people", there are a ton of people who say "YES!"

The one and only solution to this is for those of us who have more than two brain cells (like the good people of TFP, for example) to get the situation under control again. It is necessary for us to use our intelect for the good of others and ourselves. It's up to us to do what we do best: win arguments with dumb people.

FoolThemAll

You don't see how one could credibly

(1) be against redistribution of wealth
(2) view capital punishment as justified
(3) believe in the possibility of just war
and
(4) view abortion as murder?

Then you need a better imagination. There are no inherent contradictions in that bundle of beliefs.

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

Willravel

I'm a liberal (socialist, actually) pacifist who opposes capitol punishment and I certianally support the convergence of the lower and upper class. I'm very much anti abortion. Just fyi.
Some will disagree that there is no contradiction between 2 and 4. Maybe it's time to bring up the abortion issue again.

roachboy

look, folks, i really am not interested in a debate about this because my disagreement with the anti-choice position is so basic that i have simply decided that these conversations are, in the main, not worth having. and above there is a demonstration of why this is the case. and this is the last post i am doing on this issue.

a. the folk who oppose abortion, for whatever reason, do not monoplize the field--theirs is not the only way of seeing the matter. given that the arguments against abortion are in the main religious in nature (that is relying upon ways of framing the question that derive from christian church positions on the matter, from the pope to the protestant fundamentalists) and so are set up to generate a differend (opposed positions talk by each other because there is no agreement--and i mean no agreement--on the premises for a conversation)--and as such are not resolvable unless one or the other side changes premises (which are often not themselves at issue explicitly in debates that are informed by them).

functionally, this means that there is and will be an irredicable plurality of views on this question--so the politics of abortion does not and should not creep into the question of legality of the procedure itself--which amounts to legislating the content of choice in this regard---rather, this is nothing more or less than an debate about whether, given the availability of the procedure, individuals should or should not avail themselves of it.

i think it patronizing in the extreme to assume that the decision of whether an individual will or will not avail herself of the procedure is evacuated by the fact that the procedure itself is safe and legal.
period.
you will not move me on this, and so i see no point in debating the question.
this is why i do not, in the main, do this conversation.

as for the logical consistency that foolthemall tried to refute above, let me say that the center of the claims from the antichoice people involve arguments about the "sanctity of life"---in this case, arguments about the "sanctity of life" override existing legal frameworks--were this not true, then antichoice people would not be in a position to generate a politics on the basis of their beliefs. another way: embedded at the center of antichoice poltics is the assumption that their views concerning this arbitrary fiction "sanctity of life" (under capitalism? are you joking?) **should** override existing legal parameters.

so let's for a moment assume that antichoice people really do see life as sacrosanct and that legal frames that legitimate ending a life are problematic.

war is a legal state of affairs--the debate on abortion indicates that the sanctity of life overrides legal questions--so pacifism is the only alternative.
same with capital punishment.
as for the question of the redistribution of wealth--concern for the "sanctity of life" that does not extend to equal concern for the quality of this life, this sacrosanct process we generate as we move through it, mean nothing to me.
more generally, if you are going to work from a position that throws around claims rooted in the discourse of sanctity, the least you could do is think about the question enough to be consistent.
that many antichoice people are not speaks volumes about the quality of the thought behind their positions.

but like i said, i have no patience on this question and find myself getting genuinely angry about it, so i check out of debates.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

pan6467

Amazing how just the mention of a hot topic in a subject that just mentions it sparks debate and total ignoring of the original intent.

Not saying that's bad but look how this board has morphed and you then can see what I am talking about in the OP and the post that has the better explanation of my intent.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

FoolThemAll

That's quite alright. I'm sympathetic to that attitude.

I'm not sympathetic to simplistic characterizations that leave no room for the nuances of reality.

(1) Frequently embedded. But not logically required. You enjoy generalizations, it seems. I don't find much use for them.

Again, a lack of imagination. Here, a hint: if life is sacred, perhaps the correct answer to the quandry of a murderer is to prevent the greater destruction of life that would arise from allowing him to live.

Perhaps your conception of "sanctity of life" doesn't allow for this option. But in that case, I don't believe that the antichoicers' conception of "sanctity of life" matches yours.

You're dismissing a strawman.

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

Zyr

kutulu, I think you misunderstood what i was trying to say. I'll make it a bit clearer.

The government should be keeping the country running, allowing people to live, not telling them what to do with their lives. They should be making sure people learn good stuff, have clean water, have roads to drive on, have police, etc, and let the people choose if they want gay marrige, guns, abortion, and all that.

Is that better?

__________________
"Oh, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here. See, uh, people ski topless here while smoking dope, so irony's not really a high priority. We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83 when I was the only practitioner of it, and I stopped because I was tired of being stared at."

Omnia mutantu, nos et mutamur in illis.
All things change, and we change with them.
- Neil Gaiman, Marvel 1602

roachboy

foolthemall:
could you please let me know what point of your posts are that you aimed at me?
it seems to me that little is happening beyond some tiresome dick thing.

i read them: the logic you employ is obvious enough--your assumptions seem to be bizarre, but no matter, really.

you havent presented anything like your actual views on this or any other question in this thread, yet you complain about "generalizations" in my posts. if by that you mean that my posts did not take account for the particularilities of your positions, then...well....duh....i dont know what those positions are.

we'll see what happens and then move from there

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

FoolThemAll

It's better not to assume that there can be only one particular mindset behind an opinion. You'll be wrong more often than not.

But, fair enough, here it is:

One can be pro-death penalty and anti-choice and retain consistency. "The z/e/f is a human being that has done nothing to deserve death, while the death row inmate's actions justify the taking of his life."

One can be pro-war to most degrees and anti-choice and retain consistency. "Except for the extreme minority case, abortion does nothing to protect human rights or human lives. War, although it will likely take innocent lives, is sometimes justified by its long-term defense of rights and lives."

One can be against the redistribution of wealth while being anti-choice and retain consistency. "The government's role is to protect rights. We have a right to life, but not a right to a comfortable life. Comfort requires labor, and if ceasing to labor doesn't destroy a right, then this 'right' will likely require a kind of slavery." Randian, I know. The point is, there's consistency.

And here's my speculation on the "sanctity of life" you ascribe to anti-choicers: it doesn't require the absence of any killing. On the contrary, defense of the sanctity of life sometimes requires killing. It's practical, rather than idealistic. It recognizes that one must sometimes make a choice between two bad options. If that doesn't sound like 'sanctity' to you, fine, call it something else. It's just a label. I speculate that they don't mean a sanctity so absolute that self-defense is off-limits.

It also doesn't require government-ensured quality of life. From what I've heard and seen, the preferred route is voluntary charities.

A sanctity-devoid antichoice position might look something like this: "Human beings have a right to life. You need a very good justification, most likely based on defending this right, to violate this right. Oh, and the z/e/f is a human being." (Is that last sentence where you think the sanctity must lie?)

I'm sure that there are hypocritical pro-lifers out there. But even then, what is gained in the argument by pointing out such hypocrisy? You show merely that they are wrong about at least one of their positions, but hypocrisy can't point to the error. You're left wagging your finger not at the pro-life position, but at the pro-lifer, and there's plenty more where he came from.

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

roachboy

thanks for posting that, fta: at least at this point i think we could talk about something.

1. basic stuff: this is a messageboard. i do not understand it as transparent, so i do not (or try not to) specualte about what individual folk may or may not think until i see something from them.

2. even in situations where information about individual viewpoints is shared, there are problems (because the writing voice of the board personae does not reflect the complexity of beliefs of the puppeteer)---i usually deal with this by moving in theother direction, away from speculating about what the puppeteer thinks and toward the ideological clusters that i see being reproduced in/shaping their positions. my usual move is to try to isolate that cluster and talk about that. that this entails a mvoe away from the particularlities of individual uses of these clusters is self-evident. but you would have to make an argument that individual political positions are somehow unconditioned by broader ideological constructions for that criticism to hold any water. you do not, and your critique therefore does not either.

3. for someone who would go after me after he imputed a confusion of necessary and sufficient cause (categories i did not use and which are irrelevant in any case--maybe i deleted a qualifier--maybe i deleted the word OFTEN--and one or another sentence should have read "one OFTEN finds"--mea culpa for an unfortunate edit---all your basic critique of my position comes down to is the absence of qualifiers at points where, for your own reasons, you feel them to have been required) you seem quite unable to distinguish major from minor arguments.

you are going after a point that is in no way central ether to my posts or to my positions---you assume--arbitrarily--that the reason i oppose the antichoice positions on abortion follows from some cartoon of those who do. that is quite beside the point. i am surprised that you did not see that.

but whatever: the major argument was the following (i am breaking my rule here, but whatever--like william blake said--"the man who never changes his opinion is like stagnant water, breeding reptiles of the mind")--that the question of when life starts is theological---its tactical functions are obvious--among them is that it shifts the focus away from women and their choice onto another topic/topos---one that assume an entirely different scale of evaluation. no part of the anti-choice position (regardless of the trajectry that leads to it, regardless of the way it is framed) more wholly justifies the "antichoice" label than this, which functions to erase the question of the mother---because the frame of reference is fundamentally theological (structurally speaking), it sets up a differend, a space where opposing views cannot but talk past each other---because positions operate on different premises---which means that there is and will be an irreducible plurality of views on the matter--which means that, in my view (qualifier--notice it) the antichoice position should remain where it presently is--a conversation about whether one should or should not avail oneself of a procedure that is itself safe and legal---because the safety and legality of abortion changes nothing--nothing at all---about the complexity of the decisions individual women undertake about whether to have one or not. the assumption from those who oppose abortion, more often than not (qualifier) is that the availability of the procedure evacuates any and all problems that might be raised about whether someone should have one. i think that is wrong, and much of my position on the question follows from that, not what you imagined it did.

as for my position in the context of that kind of debate over the ethics of the procedure itself, you know nothing about it. i havent said anything on the matter.

4. as for possible consistency of belief that travels along a logic other than that which i ran out--in shorthand, in the context of a messageboard--that informs antichoice positions: fine. your arguments rest on all kinds of assumptions that you do not specify or clarify for example: i do not know who is talking when you use the quotation marks. i do not know what point you are trying to make in your defense of killing people. but putting aside the riot of unexplained assumptions behind your logic above, i could concede your points and it would change nothing. because it seems to me that your entire position is rooted in a misinterpretation of cause/effect relations within the position that i outlined earlier, that you have been attacking.


i have to say that i do not see how the various aspects of what i take to be your more general politics hang together in this context.
i have an idea of why you dislilke certain caricatures of the antichoice crowd, but none about how you manage to yourself oppose abortion if you are, in many other contexts it seems, a fan of killing. what is the basis for your opposition (if indeed you do oppose abortion)?

ok that's enough for now.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

FoolThemAll

I don't understand. Which critique does not hold water, and why would I have to make such an argument?

If I'm understanding you correctly: I don't see how faults in ideological trends would have a bearing on the validity of individual positions they influence, unless the faults are present also in the individual positions.

No, you misunderstand my purpose. I'm aware that you're not pro-choice because of inconsistent pro-lifers. I'm not arguing against your position on abortion. I'm arguing against your characterization of antichoicers.

Theology does not have a monopoly on the question of when life begins. Discussion could be philosophical, devoid of religious speculation. (And that's my preference.)

And if life does begin at conception, then it makes sense to address that scale of evaluation. It likely won't be the only scale used, and it might not be the deciding scale. (For instance, pro-choicers who believe that life begins at conception - they look to another scale such as the limits of government.)

Thanks for the qualifiers, but I'm having a bit of trouble with this part as well. Are you referring to the "pro-life or pro-abortion" mindset, that being for or against abortion's legality is the same as being for or against abortion?

(for what it's worth, I don't agree with that mindset.)

Sorry. Those speakers were hypothetical people explaining their supposed inconsistencies.

That one can be for certain types of killing and against others without running into inconsistencies. Even if one believes in the "sanctity of life".

I view it as the killing of a human being. As such, it needs a justification. I view most motives given as insufficient justification. (I do consider saving the life of the mother to be a sufficient justification.)

Killings should have a very good reason behind them.

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

roachboy

am seeing this better now---i guess i mistook a kind of aggressive tone for something other than it was in your posts.

i usually go after posts in which the ideology is visible and working in the opinions of individual posters--that is in those places where they integrate (often wholesale) ideological clusters--that is: signifiers/ways of connecting them and/or using them to process information--usually wholesale into their personal views. i do this because, more often than not, it seems that taking over these clusters substitutes for thinking--or, in other instances, these "machines" are reproduced in an individuals posts seemingly unawares. i find these interactions of individual positions and ideology interesting. i find it usually really obvious in folk who operate from the right. but the catch is that it puts me in a position of being mostly reactive. which is why i asked you to post something of your views so that a conversation could get started.

we could probably have a long debate about genre over this.
but it would seem to me to go even further outside the threadlogic than we already have--and i think we have to be near some kind of limit.
i think for me the genre classification would follow from the nature of the premises.
a philosophical type discussion is entirely possible on the basis of theological axioms--most of heidegger for example--lots of others---2,000 years worth no less.


my point is that because there is no agreement about premises upon which a debate about abortion should happen, that it makes no sense for anti-choice folk to attempt to impose their views on the rest of us by agitating to make abortion illegal.
my argument is that keeping the procedure legal and safe has nothing to do with the complexity of the debates that women (primarily) woudl have over whether they would or would not have the procedure.
the claim that one must make the procedure illegal because not to makes it a matter of course to have an abortion is, to me, offensive as an assumption. i do not think the decision about having one is easy. i know several people who have had them, and for each it was really really difficult, the decision. it is patronizing for those who oppose the procedure to imagine that there is no debate within folk about whether to use it or not. this is the most basic area of disagreement i have with anti-choice people. and it has nothing to do with how i might choose to position them in a mesageboard post--but it does have to do with the reverse, how folk who oppose abortion choose to make into a cartoon the ethical worlds of women who may find themselves having to think through whether they should have an abortion or not.


the decision to have the procedure or not obviously turns on this matter.
no-one pretends that this is not at stake.
who are you to presume to judge whether the criteria a woman who chooses to have an abortion brings to bear on the decision are or are not adequate?
seriously--what puts you in the position to render judgements about this very personal, very difficult decision? you argue above, repeatedly, that for you killing another can be justified--then you should also be in a position to grant that those who choose to have an abortion come to the decision that their actions are justified.

it is not a cavalier action, undergoing this process.
and if there is an attitude that angers me on this--and which is the reason i check out of these debates more often than not, it is that folk who oppose abortion seem to think that the legality of the procedure obviates its complexity. that move--which is, sadly, typical of most anti-choice people i know in 3-d land (we dont tend to get along well if this topic comes up) or in messageboard land--is the problem.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

kutulu

If by people, you mean each individual deciding for themself if he wants to marry a guy or a girl, then sure. If you mean the majority acting out in a tyannical way (even if by vote) telling them who they can and can't marry then the govt is the one who has to enforce it, therefore the govt is still getting involved and telling them how to live their lives so my original point still stands.

FoolThemAll

Okay, I can understand that. Though I prefer to give, whether or not it occurs "more often than not", the benefit of the doubt to whomever I'm debating. And then I'll revoke that benefit if they fall into the category of people you speak of.

Pardon, should've read "philosophical and devoid of religious speculation". Another clarification: devoid of dogmatic religious speculation.

What if slaveholders had disagreed with abolitionists about the premises of a slavery debate?

This is one anti-choicer who doesn't disagree with you in the slightest here.

The problem here is that I don't see a relevant difference between this question and "who are you to presume to judge whether a woman was justified in committing infanticide?"

We don't do anarchy, we alternate between tyranny of the majority and of the minority.

The basic idea is that we kill, when necessary, in response to the right to life being violated, and in response to the threat of violation. (Insert neocon foreign policy jab here.) And then we try to come to a consensus on whether a given action (1) was a killing of a human being and, if so, (2) was an appropriate and necessary response to a violation. There's also (3), is the proposed legal solution within the bounds of the government's proper limits?

Some pro-choicers say 'no' to #1 and stop there. Some pro-choicers and all pro-lifers (that I know of) say 'yes' to #1. Those pro-choicers go on to say 'no' to #2 or #3. (To be honest, I don't fully understand how #3 works - or at least not how it could lead to a "no restrictions whatsoever" mindset.)

Then the people form a consensus. Or the courts do.

Believe it or not, I haven't found it that common - it's rare, even, in these parts. Though my dad probably falls into that mindset from time to time, unfortunately.

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

Zyr

I do mean the majority voting as to what the govt should enforce actually (though I would imagine the majority would be broken down into smaller bits, as in states, counties, cities.) The govt would enforce the law, but the law would be what the people want. The govt should have no say in what they are enforcing. They do not tell people what to do, they tell people what the people tell them to tell them... if that makes any sense.

__________________
"Oh, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here. See, uh, people ski topless here while smoking dope, so irony's not really a high priority. We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83 when I was the only practitioner of it, and I stopped because I was tired of being stared at."

Omnia mutantu, nos et mutamur in illis.
All things change, and we change with them.
- Neil Gaiman, Marvel 1602

roachboy

if you agree with this, then i do not see why you would require that abortion be illegal.
assuming that you do.
you could continue to oppose the procedure; if the situation arose, you could make arguments with a partner/wife that would explain your position.
which would put you in the position to make concrete evaluations about particular situations and views on them--on the basis of which you could consider the question of justification, etc.
you acknowledge that there are circumstances that would justify taking a life---it would follow, then, that you would hold open the possibility that arguments could be advanced that would make an abortion justifiable for you.

it would also follow that, dispostionally, you would not be inclined to concede this, particularly not in the abstract.
but no-one who finds themselves in a position of having to discuss whether to have an abortion or not approaches the question in the abstract.

and i would assume that if you were to find yourself in agreement that, given the particulars of the situation, that you would support your parnter/wife in a decision to go through with an abortion, that you too would prefer that the procedure be safe.

which is, i think, the same scenario that those who argue that the procedure should be legal would envision.

the simple fact of the matter is that not everyone who considers having this procedure does so. why is that? perhaps because the ethical questions are taken seriously, and the debate that the anti-choice folk assume does not happen in the context of abortion being legal in fact does happen.

but if that is true, then much of the wind disappears behind the sails of claims that the procedure should not be legal.

====
this exchange:
was entirely my fault:
i put the question in the wrong place so it came off completely differently than i intended. it followed from, and was oriented by the point that preceded it--i should not have split it off, nor should i have posed it as a question, particularly not in that snippy way.
i didnt notice until this morning, when i read through the posts.
mea culpa.
it was a technical screw up.

====
there is an enormous difference between thinking about this question as one that is always particular and thinking about it in general.
if you think about it as always particular, then we--both of us--arrive at a position like that outlined at the start of this post.
when the argument shifts to a more general level, views polarize because the complexity of particular decisions gets erased behind a much more simplistic view of abortion.
at that level, it is all to easy to become hyperbolic. for all sides.

the curious thing in this exchange is that it turned on the problem of generalization---we seem to have advanced arguments that route consideration through particulars, but not in the same place--you objected to the characterizations of anti-choice folk in my earlier posts--i objected to the tendency within this debate (in general, over abortion) to avoid the actual decision and its complexity, which is always undertaken by particular people facing particular situations that involve particular stakes. you want to focus on the characteriztion of the opposition: i want to focus on the deep questions that arise during the process of deciding whether a woman will avail herself of this procedure.

====
as for the 3 criteria you outline, i think them all elements of the discussions about whether, in a given situation, the procedure should be undertaken. i dont think anyone really argues that an abortion is not about the life of both a baby and the (potential) parents. no-one thinks this is not a decision about lives.

this has been interesting.
glad i happened to be reading blake, whose fine quote about reptiles of the mind rationalized entering into a discussion that i would usually not want to have.
thanks for explaining your position. and it is good that things drifted away from their cranky beginning.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

pan6467

I'm still wondering how this turned from talking about government as a whole -> gun rights -> abortion.

As I stated above, it just takes the mere mention of a hot topic to take the focus off what is truly wanting to be discussed. No wonder things don't get done in Wash. and state capitols and larger cities. This is a great example of why.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

roachboy

i am unclear about what objection you really have here, pan:
to my mind, this turned out to be an interesting conversation.
it did happen in a strange place, but things that way go sometimes.
you might consider that the topic was fruitful, even.

as for this thread reflecting some larger problem with "getting things done"--i dont see it. if anything, i would expect that the conversations here would point the other way: that it is, in fact, possible for folk who disagree to at least come to some form of common ground. it is just not easy to get to that place. and it does not dissolve disargreement.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

kutulu

What the people want isn't always right. The govt has to act to keep the people from enacting unfair laws. If we let people ban gay marriage then we have a tyannical majority enforcing their religious-based rules on people. Where do we draw the line? What if they then want to make homosexuality a crime or reinstate slavery?

FoolThemAll

I think that I probably misunderstood that portion of your previous post. My interpretation was that abortion is a complex decision to make even when it's legal and safe. And additionally, I may have thought 'hard' when I read 'complex'.

I do take a simpler view of most cases of abortion - those involving 'convenience', financial troubles, inability to take care for the child, evidence of genetic deformities, incest, or rape: I don't believe that those motives could ever justify the procedure on their own. I do believe that a woman in any of those situations could still agonize over the decision. It'd be a hard, and emotionally complex decision, but I don't see a sufficient justification from these circumstances alone. It's easier, although you may not agree with the comparison, to understand my thought process here if you take this thought process and replace all instances of 'abortion' with 'infanticide'. This also makes it easier, I hope, to see why I don't want the law to accept just any justification that an particular case presents.

Those areas are, as far as justification goes, black and white for me. As is protecting the mother's life - it should always be a legal option in that case. But that brings up an unavoidably gray area, "health of the mother". This is the one area where I would support a case-by-case evaluation: is the maximum damage that could reasonably be expected by a medical professional sufficient cause to abort? The law here should be crafted to allow leeway; the particulars vary in ways too important to be generalized by sweeping criminalization.

See, this is what I don't hesitate to agree with. I'm sure that most of those women who underwent abortions wrestled with their consciences beforehand. I'm not one to think them categorically immoral or amoral.

But the same is likely true of many criminals out there. The law doesn't condone these acts simply because the conscience of the perpetrator was consulted.

You've never met anyone like that? I've spoken with many pro-choicers who insist that there is no important difference between an abortion and an appendectomy.

I apologize for my tone at the beginning. I have been enjoying this exchange. Thanks for taking part.

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

Ustwo

Why agonize over an abortion unless you are mentaly trying to justify a murder?

If a fetus isn't a person, than there should be no agony, an abortion is no more wrong than using a condom. If you agonize over it, then you know its more than that, and you are just trying to play mental games to justify your own selfish desires.

Seriously to think of an fetus as a 'person' and yet accept abortion would make you evil such as myself.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

roachboy

um..ustwo? were you drinking when you wrote the last post? i type like that when i am a bit hammered too, and, like you, think i make more sense than i do. if you were, then fine....if you werent, then how is post 38 other than an egregious troll?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

FoolThemAll

I don't think it's quite a troll, but it does miss an important step. You don't go straight from "it's a human being" to "abortion is murder". You can go from "it's a human being" to "abortion kills a human being". Most people, I think, distinguish murder from killing; murder is unjustified killing.

This is exactly why women can agonize over without consciously attempting to justify murder: the agony is over whether the act is murder, or justified killing. In addition, a woman whose life is endangered by pregnancy can agonize between justified self-defense and saintly self-sacrifice.

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.