Docile & Stupid

[Pure]

no, ami, can't you get past Locke?

and don't you realize he wasn't conservative?

Since we possess life, courtesy of those who created each and every one of us, we have an innate right to that life.

There is no "innate" right to life. Newborns die for want of care, by the dozens, every month, in the US. If Ami thinks they have this right, why doesn't he lift a finger to help them --donate to the local hospitals, volunteer his time, etc. IF there's a right, someone ought to do something about it, else it's not a right.

Social groupings decide which lives to respect and sustain. The inuit used to have the old simply go out, by consent, into the snow. Aristotle, Rand's hero, had no problem with 'exposing' defective infants (e.g. leaving them by the side of the road, outdoors.). Regarding lives, there is a decision, hopefully a democratic one.

This is what occurred in the US. a democratic decision was made for society NOT to attempt to sustain the life of a first trimester embryo, where the mother wished to end the pregnancy. Ami does not believe in democracy, constitution, etc. He has his "Revelation" how it should be, even if the author he idolizes, Ayn Rand, says there are no embryo rights.

That's it. the Pope and Ami can rail about the tiny entity's 'rights', but they don't actually exist. and ami has no proof that embryos have any rights at all.

without the decision --or perhaps just a habitual set of practices--- of a social grouping, implicit or explicit, there are no rights. in the state of anarchy or chaos (which is not 'nature')--or a war-- even a right to life does not exist. one's life may be taken by the next guy, and only the spouse and kids will shed a tear. had the mortal combat gone the other way, the other guy would be dead. i'd have deprived him of life, not considered any alleged 'right' he has, to it. then his spouse would cry, and not be able to do much about it.

a reading of the Iliad, were ami ever to get an education, would dispense with this 'right to life' talk. even Achilles, the most glorious of the Greeks, did not enjoy such a right.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

KATYUSHA

I do a jig when some people get abortions or commit suicide. And I support the idea that the tree of life needs occasional pruning.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

PURE

Unfortunately science makes it possible for prenatal humans to survive outside the womb, closer and closer to the time of conception. It's around 26 weeks gestation now, but in ten years it may be 20 weeks or 18 weeks. In a century traditional birth my be irrelevant and unnecessary, and murder gets pushed back almost to the beginning of life and abortions become what they are: premeditated murder.

 

[Pure]

jbj I support the idea that the tree of life needs occasional pruning.

P: the tree of life is pruned every minute, jbj. i don't have the exact figure, but iirc, a significant proportion of conceptions do not result in pregnancies (say, at least 10%), not to say live births. iow, the living entity, whatever it is, often does not make it even to implantation; nature disposes of it.

in the US, with about double the infant mortality of any other Western country, "nature," in the form of disease, "takes care of" many newborns through disease, and other mortal problems. this is how many Americans prefer it, since, for them [including you, jbj], the dangers of socialism outweigh the evil of dead newborns. (I believe you and ami call this a 'pro life' position!)

http://www.cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5422a1.htm

A total of 225,534 infant deaths were reported in the United States during 1995--2002. [quote, verbatim]

Were the US to adopt the procedures of W. Europe, that would cut the number in about half. So, jbj, 100,000 dead babies is the price of your 'prolife' stance and political system. 10,000 per year.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

PURE

The figure I read was closer to 50% spontaneous abortions.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

PURE

I do believe that much of the infant mortality is attributed to drug abuse and alcoholism and domestic violence.

 

[Pure]

jbj I do believe that much of the infant mortality is attributed to drug abuse and alcoholism and domestic violence.

i see, and Americans don't know how to deal with these problems, as is done in other countries? i think they do, outside of the 'right.'

More likely, following you, many Americans say, "well, it's the mom's fault; she was on drugs."

10,000 dead infants per year is a lot to have on your slate, as a cost of protecting individualism, wouldn't you say?

to use your 'pro life' argument, maybe one of those 10,000 would grow up and find the cure for cancer.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

PURE

I'm confident a socialist state will monitor everyone adequately, to guarantee they act responsibly all the time. And use internal passports, etc.

 

[Liar]

well, liar, if you're a good marxist you know that 'stated reasons' are not the issue.

What on bloody earth made you think I'm a good anything, let alone marxist?

 

[amicus]

and don't you realize he wasn't conservative?

Since we possess life, courtesy of those who created each and every one of us, we have an innate right to that life.

There is no "innate" right to life. Newborns die for want of care, by the dozens, every month, in the US. If Ami thinks they have this right, why doesn't he lift a finger to help them --donate to the local hospitals, volunteer his time, etc. IF there's a right, someone ought to do something about it, else it's not a right.

Social groupings decide which lives to respect and sustain. The inuit used to have the old simply go out, by consent, into the snow. Aristotle, Rand's hero, had no problem with 'exposing' defective infants (e.g. leaving them by the side of the road, outdoors.). Regarding lives, there is a decision, hopefully a democratic one.

This is what occurred in the US. a democratic decision was made for society NOT to attempt to sustain the life of a first trimester embryo, where the mother wished to end the pregnancy. Ami does not believe in democracy, constitution, etc. He has his "Revelation" how it should be, even if the author he idolizes, Ayn Rand, says there are no embryo rights.

That's it. the Pope and Ami can rail about the tiny entity's 'rights', but they don't actually exist. and ami has no proof that embryos have any rights at all.

without the decision --or perhaps just a habitual set of practices--- of a social grouping, implicit or explicit, there are no rights. in the state of anarchy or chaos (which is not 'nature')--or a war-- even a right to life does not exist. one's life may be taken by the next guy, and only the spouse and kids will shed a tear. had the mortal combat gone the other way, the other guy would be dead. i'd have deprived him of life, not considered any alleged 'right' he has, to it. then his spouse would cry, and not be able to do much about it.

a reading of the Iliad, were ami ever to get an education, would dispense with this 'right to life' talk. even Achilles, the most glorious of the Greeks, did not enjoy such a right.

~~~

"...There is no 'innate' right to life..."

"Social groupings decide which lives to respect and sustain..."

"... Ami can rail about the tiny entity's 'rights', but they don't actually exist...."

"...
without the decision --or perhaps just a habitual set of practices--- of a social grouping, implicit or explicit, there are no rights...."

~~~

Pure, and those who immerse themselves in that ancient myopic vision, yearn to return to tribal times when indeed the group did decide who lived and died.

Those who dig up the bones and study such things, determined, by whatever methods they used, that early humans existed in groups of about thirty individuals, ruled by a strong and ruthless individual who molded the group to his vision.

I accept that premise and theory of my learned predecessors, seems logical to me that man the animal, on the road to evolution to man the 'rational animal', sought to find the most efficient and secure method by which to survive.

Although we can never know the actual evolution of social phenomena, one can extrapolate, attempting to take all things in consideration, that probably every possible alternative was explored in the continuing evolutionary quest.

As man, the rational animal, learned more and more, and found a suitable environment with not just sufficient, but a surplus of food and the basic essentials of life, that, 'rational' part of man, his individual mind, began to explore wider and wider concepts concerning his existence.

Perhaps one of those silly individual men, with good vision, looked up into the heavens late one night and asked the ultimate question: "Who are we, where did we come from and to whence do we proceed?"

A few of us continue to ask that question yet today; ain't that amazing?

Somewhere along the road of intellectual evolution, one of those silly individual men, probably with poor eyesight and a bigger brain than his neighbor, entertained thoughts about anger and rage, love and hate, affection and loyalty and tried to understand from whence those feelings originated and the purpose of such events.

That individual, desiring to protect his own existence, most likely kept his thoughts and his conclusions, if he had any, to himself, knowing the group would not tolerate such impractical thoughts and retaliate against him.

But, eventually that lone individual did find some other individual to share his thoughts with, perhaps a female who took pity on him and found satisfaction in caring for his needs.

Somewhere back in time, a single mind began to separate the abstract from the concrete and to build a framework for understanding those things which are but cannot be seen and fondled and measured and calculated. An individual man began to create abstract concepts in his individual mind and relate them, intellectually to the concrete reality of his own existence.

And this, several thousand years ago, is where Pure missed the boat and it sailed off into the future, leaving him and his fellow traveling myopic, narcissistic introverts to contemplate their own scuzzy navels.

Amicus with a chuckle...

 

[Katyusha]

I love your screen name, Katyusha, perhaps you will share the origin and reason you chose it?

However, I do not recall having seen you post before but not sure on that, a pleasure to make your acquaintance.

Thank you. I used to post a little bit a year and a half ago, then life got in the way and I haven't been posting OR writing much until just recently.

I chose my name from a Russian folk song called Katyusha; it's about a young woman waiting each day for her love to return home from war. It's a really pretty song and I fell in love with it the first time I heard it.

Were there not such protections of life and the values of life, one might rationalize taking the life of a child born blind or an old person incapacitated by age and infirmity. A rational, just society must have respect for life at all levels or that society is doomed to fail and consume itself.

I do not expect to change your position on this or any issue, but I do expect to provide you are others with the means to understand and comprehend the rational and moral approach to this subject.

I actually do understand your position quite well. I see both sides of it, and I've seen enough debates/arguments/fights on abortion to know that both sides can produce very rational arguments and also very silly arguments. Elsewhere in cyberland I recently watched an abortion thread go from 10 to well over 500 posts in a single day, with about six people participating. The same arguments were made over and over with nobody having a hope in hell of convincing anybody else of their side (and if I ever see the phrase "mindless insensate nonviable tissue" again as an argument for abortion I'll scream).

For me, personally, I don't believe I could abort a child because I would see it as killing my own baby, as sure as it would be if I drowned my baby in the bathtub after birth. But there is scientific evidence to support both the idea that a child is a child very shortly after conception and to support that a child is not actually a child until well into gestation; twenty weeks or so. Thus, to me, this is a moral problem and not a legal problem.

Now, the reason I say I support a woman's right to choose is because you can't legislate morality. I don't think the government has the right to tell a woman that she *has* to believe the baby growing inside her is an actual child, and not a nonfeeling, nonseeing clump of cells. Therefore, despite the fact that *I* see that life inside of her as a living human, I don't see where I have the right (either personally to her face or as a voter) to tell her that she has to see it my way.

I equate that to religion; it bugs me to no end that people would like to introduce religion into our government more than it already is. Regardless of what my beliefs are (I'm agnostic, btw), I don't see where I have the right to tell others that they must believe the same way I do. A long time ago I was a fairly devout Christian and I STILL didn't see where I had the right to tell people to believe as I did.

Now, as to what I was getting at with the Roe Effect deals with the following assertion:

The Roe effect, however, refers specifically to the nexus between the practice of abortion and the politics of abortion. It seems self-evident that pro-choice women are more likely to have abortions than pro-life ones, and common sense suggests that children tend to gravitate toward their parents' values. This would seem to ensure that Americans born after Roe v. Wade have a greater propensity to vote for the pro-life party--that is, Republican--than they otherwise would have.

The problem with the theory is that while yes, people who support abortion are more likely to have them, it assumes that women who have abortions aren't going to go on and have other children, and that there is no woman who thinks like me; that abortion is not an issue that should be legislated by the government but rather, is a personal choice. It also assumes that people who are pro-life don't switch sides (as pro-choicers often assume that nobody who is pro-choice would ever become pro-life). And it assumes that all children grow up believing their parents' values (many children reject their parents' values when they reach adulthood).

The full article does address these kinds of things but also pooh-poohs them. But this is the problem to which I was referring; problems with the assertions made by those who believe in the Roe Effect. Not problems with those who are pro-life.

 

[Pure]

ami, in part, That individual, desiring to protect his own existence, most likely kept his thoughts and his conclusions, if he had any, to himself, knowing the group would not tolerate such impractical thoughts and retaliate against him.

But, eventually that lone individual did find some other individual to share his thoughts with, perhaps a female who took pity on him and found satisfaction in caring for his needs.

yes, i think there has been more recognition of the individual; and to secure the *individual* rights, as the Dec of Independence says, is the function of a democratic government.

now if you're suggesting you're an individual, i see no sign of it. what you've rejected of Rand, you've replaced with George Lincoln Rockwell (blacks are inferior), Jerry Falwell (condemning adultery, while practicing it) and the Pope (asserting 'pro life' through stopping the use of condoms in AIDS infected couples.)

 

[gauchecritic]

As an answer to maundering from MiAmico I quote Cant from the other thread:

To have found the way to live this life.

That's what defines greatness in a civilization. It is one which allows for and encourages excellence.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

KATYUSHA

The government can and does legislate morality. It's called the criminal code. Violate it and there are penalties.

I work with kids who have all kinds of developmental delays. Some act exactly like 2 year olds, and most of them outgrow it. But for me development isnt a static event, its a process that is slow or quick for specific individuals, and specific traits. Gestation, to me, is 9 months of the developmental process.

You can call the prenatal protoplasm what you want, but its human; specifically homo sapien. Its simply undeveloped like many school kids I work with.

 

[amicus]

Katyusha...thank you for explaining the name, that is just lovely, wonderful and so very Russian in some aspects.

You are very knowledgeable and well spoken and practiced in the debate and thus I will not trouble you further.

Welcome back, I hope your writing flows and look forward to you participating in the forum.

regards...


amicus...

 

[SlickTony]

Taken to the ultimate -

The best way to reduce one's carbon footprint is to commit suicide by burying oneself in a compost heap.

Og

Good point, ogg!

I remember when I was in my early 20s, we were going through a similar time when such a gloomy, earnest, joyless attitude prevailed. One read a lot about Zero Population Growth. People questioned the wisdom of bringing children into "a world like this"--even though the world was always like this, and sometimes, it was even worse. Still, if this woman feels so strongly about not having children, then she shouldn't have them; anybody would be better off being born into a different family.

 

[angelicminx]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=495495&in_page_id=1879

The thing you dont know is what your children will do with their lives. Your kid might be the one who brings peace to the planet, or discovers some miraculous process that cures cancer, or whatever.

All I can say is, thank goodness not everyone feels like that. If they did, in a few generations it wouldn't matter what we did to the planet, would it?

It just sounds to me like crazy justification for not having children.

 

[xssve]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=495495&in_page_id=1879

The thing you dont know is what your children will do with their lives. Your kid might be the one who brings peace to the planet, or discovers some miraculous process that cures cancer, or whatever.

Or rob a liquor store and shoot the owner, or shake the baby to death - murder is the leading cause of death among pregnant women (every murderer is somebodies baby) - or bash your head in with a claw hammer while you sleep.

Getting pregnent is the easy part, takes little or no effort at all - by contrast, not everyone is cut out to be a parent. The decline in the crime rate is partially ascribed to increased application of family planning, including birth control and abortion amongst the impulsive.