Ron Paul climbs in the polls

Fair.

Next up: where does one draw the line on wether someone is male or female? And what's the use of drawing an arbitrary line in the context of the olympics?

let the olympic commitee and transgender worry about that. I doubt voters care much about the issue.

i like this quote by Joan Walsh

  Quote

I’m glad that GOP politicians and thought leaders are finally speaking out against the racist views in Paul’s newsletters, whether he authored them or negligently allowed them to go out under his name. But excuse me if I don’t take their sudden horror at racism and racial dog whistles entirely seriously. Virtually the entire party has tolerated the crude Birther hoax, the claim that our first black president wasn’t born in this country and is ineligible to be president, which seems at least partly inspired by racial hostility. Gingrich has called Obama “the food stamp president” and denounced his nonexistent “Kenyan anti-colonial mentality.”

So yes, Ron Paul deserves to be denounced for many of the views expressed in his paranoid, racist, pro-militia, anti-government newsletters. But he deserved to be denounced for those views long before he became the front-runner in Iowa. I am enjoying the spectacle of Bill Kristol, by the way, the man who brought us Sarah Palin, once again taking to the pages of his magazine to beg someone, anyone, to enter the GOP primary and save him from Mitt Romney. These people have wrecked their party, and they’d wreck the country if given a chance.

i dont get abortion

  On 12/28/2011 at 11:03 PM, sup said:

i dont get abortion

boys generally dont get abortions, sup

  On 12/28/2011 at 8:07 PM, GORDO said:

Please, most abortions, legal or not, are about not wanting the child, I refuse to believe otherwise unless you present me some hard data. I do know people who have had interrupted pregnancies btw so I don't need to ask. And they're not crazy rave chicks.

 

The comparison is 100% valid as long as you're using "preventing future suffering" as the trumping argument for ending life. It stops being valid once you accept that you value some forms of human life more than others.

 

The line is arbitrary, no matter how much information you use.

 

And I'll stop. As I said, I don't want to start an abortion debate, I was merely deconstructing the pro-choice line of reasoning with Ron Paul's words as a starting point. By the way, I would place myself on the pro-choice side and I have no problem in admitting that I place no value in unborn life.

I've already given you what I think is the definition of individual life. It begins outside the womb.

As for what you say - there is a difference between not wanting a child and not placing value on future life.

So your argument is still an appeal to emotion. And it's a terrible argument because it clouds reason.

An issue that isn't about emotion? how about corporate fraud? You can make any issue about emotion - but that doesn't mean that is how the legal system (for example) works.

  On 12/28/2011 at 11:34 PM, KY said:

  On 12/28/2011 at 11:03 PM, sup said:

i dont get abortion

boys generally dont get abortions, sup

i have a suspicion that sup is a moderately attractive hipster girl.

  On 12/28/2011 at 11:54 PM, chenGOD said:

  On 12/28/2011 at 8:07 PM, GORDO said:

Please, most abortions, legal or not, are about not wanting the child, I refuse to believe otherwise unless you present me some hard data. I do know people who have had interrupted pregnancies btw so I don't need to ask. And they're not crazy rave chicks.

 

The comparison is 100% valid as long as you're using "preventing future suffering" as the trumping argument for ending life. It stops being valid once you accept that you value some forms of human life more than others.

 

The line is arbitrary, no matter how much information you use.

 

And I'll stop. As I said, I don't want to start an abortion debate, I was merely deconstructing the pro-choice line of reasoning with Ron Paul's words as a starting point. By the way, I would place myself on the pro-choice side and I have no problem in admitting that I place no value in unborn life.

I've already given you what I think is the definition of individual life. It begins outside the womb.

As for what you say - there is a difference between not wanting a child and not placing value on future life.

So your argument is still an appeal to emotion. And it's a terrible argument because it clouds reason.

 

An issue that isn't about emotion? how about corporate fraud? You can make any issue about emotion - but that doesn't mean that is how the legal system (for example) works.

Hrmm mmmm can't.. help.. myself...

who cares what your definition is? maybe my definition is that individual life starts around 1 year of age, because that's when infants starts showing signs of personality (obviously making this up), then it's ok to abort infants under 1 year. maybe my definition starts at conception because that's when god creates a new soul from the soul factory. And even if there was a clear agreed upon definition then you can start playing: how about 1 day before the line? 1 minute before? 1 second? If tomorrow you read that biologists have finally agreed upon a clear cut unambiguous definition of individual life and it turns out that the zygote is an example of it, would it change your stance on abortion? Anyway, It doesn't really matter what a scientific definition of life is because those definitions are meant to define an area of study, not solve moral dilemmas.

And yeah duh, they're not the same thing, but they are obviously related and it's such a no brainer that i have no idea why would you eve argue the point. Not placing value in life makes the decision to terminate it much much easier.

coorporate fraud? It makes me fucking angry, lol.

I would argue that law is based on morals and morals are based on emotiononal responses. but I'll meet you halfway, it's a bit of both? anyway i'm done now for real, lol.

I care what my definition of life is because it affects how I view the argument. A line is a line. if scientists determine that individual life starts as a zygote tomorrow, that is that the zygote could survive independent of any other particular life, then yes it would change my view. You have yet to provide your definition of individual, independent life. Again, though Paul mentions the "day before delivery" as an appeal to emotion - because it's that much closer to being an actual life. He makes this argument regardless of the fact that the vast majority of abortions in the US occur before the 12th week. That's why it's an appeal to emotion, because it's disregarding the facts and saying "oh god it's so horrible, look you're killing a human."

Speaking from personal experience - the decision to have an abortion was not about not valuing the potential for future life in any way, shape or form. We did not want the child at the time because we didn't feel we would be able to adequately provide for he or she. It was an agonizing decision to make. We valued the future life incredibly, but chose to have the abortion, because we valued it so much that it would not have been fair to that future life to have the child. Want is not correlated positively with value.

Why would corporate fraud make you angry? You're not directly affected by it in most cases. On the other hand we determine that it is considered wrong because if we allowed fraud it would be detrimental to our society.

Can someone make a Photoshop of Ron Paul climbing a poll already??

  On 12/29/2011 at 12:52 AM, GORDO said:

I would argue that law is based on morals and morals are based on emotiononal responses.

I was going to mention that, but didn't want to leap into the shitstorm.

I honestly don't know how I feel about abortion. I agree with Gordo that if you're going to support the so-called "right to choose", you can't value unborn life. And intuitively, it does makes sense to try and find some cutoff point where the foetus transitions from being a gob of matter into a sentient, viable proto-human. But of course, that's a huge slippery slope as has been noted. To be honest, the older I get, the more attracted I feel to Paul's point of view, which is to err on the side of protecting the sanctity of life (something I actually believe). But then on my cynical days, I feel like abortion should be legal until someone is in their early 20s. That's the way life is, isn't it? Sometimes it seems totally commonplace and unremarkable (even a burden), and sometimes it seems like a miracle...

For me personally, unless I didn't have the financial means to support a child, I don't think I could ever urge a girl I was with to get an abortion. I have had a girl I was with choose one herself, but then it's out of my hands...So yeah, quite on the fence. By habit I'm pro-choice, but actually morally I think it's quite a weak position...

Law is based on a number of things, but morals is probably low down on the list of what influences law making. If we just based things on what made you angry, then we would have far harsher penalties for things like adultery as opposed to corporate fraud.

  Quote

I agree with Gordo that if you're going to support the so-called "right to choose", you can't value unborn life

Why can't a person support the right to choose and not value a future life? Of course there are cases where the mother simply does not want the inconvenience. However, there are just as surely cases where the parents feel that they would not be able to financially/emotionally support a child. Thus you could argue that they value the future life so much they choose to postpone bringing it into the world. That's why for me the definition of life as beginning outside the womb is important.

Again though, regardless of this - my point is simple, Paul is making an appeal to emotions by using the "they abort up to the day before" line. It's not a good argument because it ignores the reality that the number of abortions that happen after the 21st gestational week make up 1.3% of the total number of abortions.

don't you think "they value the future life so much they choose to postpone bringing it into the world. " is a specious argument, though? You can't "postpone" that unique, specific life - you are killing it. And imagining for a second that that foetus had the capacity for rational talk and you could talk to it, how convincing would the following sound: "I'm sorry, we have to kill you now because in the future, there's a chance you might have to go hungry, or I might not be able to afford a Wii for you." Killing something to prevent its future suffering is a tough argument to make, since you can't predict the future (unless the kid has some genetic disorder). You could always give the kid up for adoption.

Abortion is the right to choose whether or not you want to own a piece of property before it exists.

Next.

ooh, tough guy

Strong campaign ad:

  On 12/29/2011 at 6:17 AM, lumpenprol said:

don't you think "they value the future life so much they choose to postpone bringing it into the world. " is a specious argument, though? You can't "postpone" that unique, specific life - you are killing it. And imagining for a second that that foetus had the capacity for rational talk and you could talk to it, how convincing would the following sound: "I'm sorry, we have to kill you now because in the future, there's a chance you might have to go hungry, or I might not be able to afford a Wii for you." Killing something to prevent its future suffering is a tough argument to make, since you can't predict the future (unless the kid has some genetic disorder). You could always give the kid up for adoption.

No more specious than "they are pro-choice so they must not value future life".

Since we're imagining talking to a fetus "Hey, we're gonna have you, even though we're dirt poor, uneducated and live in the middle of nowhere. the best life you'll ever have is fucking a sheep behind the trailer while we keep smoking meth. you'll probably grow up to hate us, kill us while we sleep and then serve 20 to life in prison."

  On 12/29/2011 at 6:31 AM, Candiru said:

Abortion is the right to choose whether or not you want to own a piece of property before it exists.

 

Next.

  On 12/29/2011 at 6:33 AM, lumpenprol said:

ooh, tough guy

It's not me being tough. It really is that simple.

I mean, one of the sperm cells on my bedsheets could have been the next Einstein, Da Vinci, Mark Twain... Skrillex.

candiru: please don't ever have kids.

Arguing about potential life is so pointless. There is plenty of actual life around the world that is being robbed of having any chance to succeed and rise above crushing poverty and malnutrition. Nobody gives a rat's ass about that life though; it's much easier to put a magnifying glass up to the uterus every election cycle and debate the precious value of pre-birth humans.

Life is not precious. We throw away life every day on things like wars and general brutality and disrespect for our fellow man. So why is it so important that we protect the unborn when we so casually throw away life that has already been born? It's a funny conflict between so-called morality and the "every man for himself" attitude that gives the West a hard-on. Like George Carlin said, "Pre-birth, you're OK. Pre-school, you're fucked."

It doesn't make sense to me, but I accept that a lot of people feel like that. Sort of how people coldly accept mass casulties in wars or disasters but wince at animals dying. We have a compulsion to protect the defenseless. Our fellow man? Most people believe in the just world fallacy, i.e. you're an adult in control of your own destiny, so you get what you deserve. So dead human adults don't strike a chord with most people, but fetuses and cats do. Emotional garbage like that doesn't seem like a good basis for law.

I feel like Roe v Wade was really fairly ruled and that the debate should end at that. However, if we put this nonsense to rest, we'd have one less issue to irrationally divide the American people on and it's so tough to develop new ones (after all, we're still arguing over evolution).

^^^^^^^

  On 12/29/2011 at 7:37 AM, rumbo said:

Strong campaign ad:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKfuS6gfxPY

worst execution of kinetic typography i've seen.

  On 12/27/2011 at 5:47 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

 

Don't get me started on people using "queer theory" as a legitimate term for gay history.

Total 2 day old derail, but 'queer' in that context fits a lot better than gay because plenty of the people involved in gay history weren't actually gay, they fit elsewhere in the LGBT spectrum. Stonewall was started by trans people, after all.

That said, yes. 'theory' is fucking stupid, I split the difference and call it queer history.

  On 12/29/2011 at 5:16 PM, Hoodie said:

Arguing about potential life is so pointless. There is plenty of actual life around the world that is being robbed of having any chance to succeed and rise above crushing poverty and malnutrition. Nobody gives a rat's ass about that life though; it's much easier to put a magnifying glass up to the uterus every election cycle and debate the precious value of pre-birth humans.

 

Life is not precious. We throw away life every day on things like wars and general brutality and disrespect for our fellow man. So why is it so important that we protect the unborn when we so casually throw away life that has already been born? It's a funny conflict between so-called morality and the "every man for himself" attitude that gives the West a hard-on. Like George Carlin said, "Pre-birth, you're OK. Pre-school, you're fucked."

 

It doesn't make sense to me, but I accept that a lot of people feel like that. Sort of how people coldly accept mass casulties in wars or disasters but wince at animals dying. We have a compulsion to protect the defenseless. Our fellow man? Most people believe in the just world fallacy, i.e. you're an adult in control of your own destiny, so you get what you deserve. So dead human adults don't strike a chord with most people, but fetuses and cats do. Emotional garbage like that doesn't seem like a good basis for law.

 

I feel like Roe v Wade was really fairly ruled and that the debate should end at that. However, if we put this nonsense to rest, we'd have one less issue to irrationally divide the American people on and it's so tough to develop new ones (after all, we're still arguing over evolution).

couldn't have said it better.

  On 12/29/2011 at 6:27 PM, disparaissant said:

  On 12/27/2011 at 5:47 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

Don't get me started on people using "queer theory" as a legitimate term for gay history.

 

Total 2 day old derail, but 'queer' in that context fits a lot better than gay because plenty of the people involved in gay history weren't actually gay, they fit elsewhere in the LGBT spectrum. Stonewall was started by trans people, after all.

 

That said, yes. 'theory' is fucking stupid, I split the difference and call it queer history.

yeah...I know its still in its infancy, but I'd like to see more scholarship on all things "queer" within the spectrum of deviancy....wtf does "queer" theory actually mean? sexual deviancy? this nebulous idea of "gender" deviancy? deviancy in any manner, whether moral or ethnic, etc. etc.?

Again, I agree that it is needed, but at the same time its the same problem I have with other histories that were recently created to combat our ignorance of repressed miniorities..its like saying I'm a doctor in History of "Different People".