Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Liberator on August 18, 2009, 02:35:56 am
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No one seemed to see or cared to answer my question in one of the Medical threads, loaded though it was, as to what the minimum birthrate a society needs to not slip into decline.
Answer, approximately 2.11 children per family. England, for you Brits among us, has a mean birthrate of around 1.8, France 1.9, and Germany is something like 1.6. The US is 1.9, add in the Latino factor and it jumps up to 2.09 or 2.10.
Despite this, England's population rose last year as did France's and Germany's due to immigration of outsiders not of the existing culture.
I'll put this is simpler terms, in less than 40 years, give or take, France, Germany and maybe England aren't going to be the countries they are now, because the people who are these countries will be dead or elderly, and the majority population now will be a minority.
This disturbs me greatly. i mean this is the kind of thing that nightmares are made of.
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I'll put this is simpler terms, in less than 40 years, give or take, France, Germany and maybe England aren't going to be the countries they are now, because the people who are these countries will be dead or elderly, and the majority population now will be a minority.
This disturbs me greatly.
Uh, ok. Why and how exactly?
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Because he's xenophobic. Western culture is superior to non-Western culture. Et cetera.
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Well, more like I'm way nationalistic and don't want to see my country fall, and honestly, yours either.
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This disturbs me greatly. i mean this is the kind of thing that nightmares are made of.
So white men not having absolute dominance = the end of the world?
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Uh, why would a country fall due to whites not being the majority?
Nationalism is more harmful than good to any country anyway. Also, it's gross.
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Well, more like I'm way nationalistic and don't want to see my country fall, and honestly, yours either.
But the same question still applies: why?
Of course, all of this is just assuming that the whole "countries fall" scenario holds true, which is a debate I'm rather uninterested in (and would also require some expertise in the field, too, I'd imagine).
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Look what's happening in the US. Obama wants to establish death panels to kill the whites, and he's doing it cuz he wants repirations...or that's what Glen Beck has been telling me...
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Multiculturalism
This pleases me greatly. I mean this is the kind of thing that dreams are made of!
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If it makes you feel better, the massive population gain from third world countries will eventually result in energy usage so extensive that the earth itself will collapse into a black hole.
But it'll be ruled by white men!
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This disturbs me greatly. i mean this is the kind of thing that nightmares are made of.
This disturbs me too.
People who lived in a country for countless generations are the backbone of the culture. Too much immigration and too few newborns in the country lead to the decline of that very backbone.
In other words, the country will change. The culture will change. It won't be the same as it was. Skin color is irrelevant. Culture isn't.
You'll lose one aspect of the culture. Something you can't re-create or bring back again. And that is sad in a way.
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More end of the world stuff?
Liberator, stop worrying and enjoy life. This **** is hardly going to effect you directly or indirectly in any way shape or form. Except maybe the chocolate rations going down a bit, and maybe a lack of razors, but who really cares?
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Oh hey, it's the conservatives showing that deep down, they're racists who fear change.
who'da thunk
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What Liberator et al don't seem to get is that culture changes over time. You cannot force it to stop changing, or conserve it in a state of your liking. Young people and immigrants, wherever they come from, are a primary catalyst of said change.
Oh, and trying to impose a cultural freeze is doomed to failure.
Right. Now, as a german, all I can say to the immigrants is: Come on in. Sure, the Germany I'm living in right now is not the Germany I was born in, and the Germany I will die in will be different still, but since this is perfectly natural (and if it wasn't happening, I'd be worried) I can't quite see why this would be bad.
Some of the changes will be good, some of them will be bad. But short of emigrating to a culture that holds up the exact value set I like, there is very little I can do to affect that change. And always remember: Just because YOU don't like it, change doesn't have to be bad for everyone.
Oh, and listening to Liberator whine about immigration is quite funny, considering that he's from a country which is built on immigration. There is no fundamental difference between the white immigrants of the 1800s (ever watched Scorcese's Gangs of New York?) and the hispanic and asian immigrants that are coming in today.
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I'll put this is simpler terms, in less than 40 years, give or take, France, Germany and maybe England aren't going to be the countries they are now, because the people who are these countries will be dead or elderly, and the majority population now will be a minority.
This disturbs me greatly. i mean this is the kind of thing that nightmares are made of.
You know. Before Europe invaded Africa, Australia, Asia and the Americas, people living there had cultures too.
So . . . is this a nightmare? Or is it justice?
And quite honestly I'm sick to death of all this "oh the immigrants are ruining my country" bull****. Some people in Canada have a problem with immigrants. I as a person living in Vancouver am a visible minority compared to the combine asian population. There are so many immigrants from china here that some people call vancouver "hongkouver" (spl?).
But to me that's a pile of bull**** anyway. Canada wouldn't exist without the trans-continental railroad that was built on the backs of chinese labour. And white immigrants are in and of themselves new to this continent anyway. The only people who have the right to complain about immigrants are the native population.
And as for culture. The real threat I think is from corporations, not immigrants. Coca-Cola's been trying to get england to stop drinking tea and switch to coke for years. McDonalds is trying to get everyone to stop eating their local food and eat their cheap psuedo-food instead. It's the Media that influences people. The number#1 plastic surgery in North America is what, bigger boobs? The number#1 plastic surgery in places like Korea is on the eyelids to make the individual look more western. Maybe Europe is getting flooded with african immigrants but are europeans suddenly eating african food? wearing african clothes? watching african TV? no. But they probably are watchign american tv, eating american food and wearing american clothes and I doubt many americans are emmigrating to europe.
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You know, if you try too hard to "preserve your culture", you'll end up like the French. You should see some of the craaaaazy laws and stuff they have there related to their language.
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You live in a country that consists ENTIRELY OF IMMMIGRANTS.
Listen. Seriously. Read what I'm going to type here:
100 years ago everyone was freaking out about the IRISH TAKING OVER.
The Catholics were coming to destroy America.
We're still doing fine.
Calm yourself. Everything is going to be okay. The fact that your precious country is not going to consist primarily of white people does not mean the end of the world. Believe it or not, white people have not been the power-holders in the world for most of history, and yet Earth has done just fine.
If anything the fact that our birthrates are below 2 is great; it means fewer, better-educated, better-cared for people.
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No one seemed to see or cared to answer my question in one of the Medical threads, loaded though it was, as to what the minimum birthrate a society needs to not slip into decline.
Answer, approximately 2.11 children per family. England, for you Brits among us, has a mean birthrate of around 1.8, France 1.9, and Germany is something like 1.6. The US is 1.9, add in the Latino factor and it jumps up to 2.09 or 2.10.
Despite this, England's population rose last year as did France's and Germany's due to immigration of outsiders not of the existing culture.
I'll put this is simpler terms, in less than 40 years, give or take, France, Germany and maybe England aren't going to be the countries they are now, because the people who are these countries will be dead or elderly, and the majority population now will be a minority.
This disturbs me greatly. i mean this is the kind of thing that nightmares are made of.
You were watching that youtube video on the rise of islam in Europe based on population and culture decline?
its a load of nonsense the BBC ran a story about that video.
Read the article.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8189231.stm
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Liberator's xenophobia apparently extends to the point where he doesn't realize that immigration is the lifeblood of these countries.
The true death knell would be if people stopped immigrating. That would mean the First World nations are no longer places people need to, or want to, enter.
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I like immigration. It is better than always seeing the standard white person. The only downside is if the immigrant gives up their own culture. Good thing that if they are not born here, they usually hang on to their own culture, as evident of them having their own communities, instead of converting to what I would call a much worse culture like here. Maybe if enough of them hold on to their culture when they move here, it might have a positive cultural change in the USA and introduce more health and kindness as well.
Second of all, strange that Liberator should complain about immigrants when the white men are the true immigrants. It was very bad for them to take over the indians like they did. the Indians were very kind and the white man misunderstood them and started war with them. Seems like white men are too war going for my liking, on average. Also, it seems that many Americans think that so many people want to come here because they like it when a lot of times, they just come here because they have family members born here and want to see them and more want out than people here think. Many foreigners have certain things to say about USA that I feel as well, like it being too superficial, but the media tries to make everyone think that they all love it here.
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I'm all for an influx of immigrants as long as A- they contribute to society and bring skills or a trade.
And B- they are LEGAL.
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Allow everyone in that wants in (barring people with smallpox and such diseases) and you have no illegals. WOAH, PROBLEM SOLVED.
Anyway, white people all look the same to me, so I am very much in favor of immigrants. I'm sick of seeing the same douchey white guy and plastic white girl cloned all over the damn place.
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More end of the world stuff?
End of the world? No. End of one culture...forming of another.
Oh hey, it's the conservatives showing that deep down, they're racists who fear change.
who'da thunk
Gotta love label-happy assholes.
That's right. Accuse anyone who sez something that doesn't feel 100% correct to you as racist. That's certanly a good way to talk to people. With all that jumping to conclusion and running off the handle, you must be in really good shape.
Things change, yes. But not all change is for the better. Change can be slowed down or accelerated. It can be natural or unnatural. And change unavoidably leads to loss of some things. Is it wrong to feel some sorrow cause you know some things will be lost? As natural as change is, so is the feeling of loss.
Also, not all immigrants adopt to the culture of their new country. They form enclaves (especially if there's a lot of them) and that affects the core culture.
Of course cultures themsevles change. It has changed in my own country for hunderds of years. But the very "core" of that culture was pretty much the same. Rampart immigration threatens to change the very core drasticly.
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Skilled migrants that speak the language of the country ftw. There are far too many foreigners over here that attempt to run businesses without speaking a damn word of English. The only time I'd ever be okay with an immigrant not speaking the language of the country is if they're refugees.
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Oh hey, it's the conservatives showing that deep down, they're racists who fear change.
who'da thunk
Gotta love label-happy assholes.
That's right. Accuse anyone who sez something that doesn't feel 100% correct to you as racist. That's certanly a good way to talk to people. With all that jumping to conclusion and running off the handle, you must be in really good shape.
To be honest, he's right. After a lot of time in the science of this field I've realized that everyone is a racist who fears change.
Conservatives just tend to put less effort into fighting it and more into justifying it.
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Actually what you should be more worried about is successfully integrating your immigrants into your culture and national identity. Lets face it the Untied States wouldn't exist anymore if it didn't do a decent job of assimilating newcomers. That's actually something many European countries are finding difficulty with. In a lot of cases it seems more like segregated ethnic groups living in Britain, France, etc. rather then them just being British, French, what have you.
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Even at the current Birth and Immigration rates, it would take centuries for something like this to happen, not decades. and considering I, myself, am descending from French Immigrants and Italian invaders (The Romans), it doesn't strike me as too terrible. The fact is that what people are scared of isn't 'dark people' in this particular case, it's 'Islam', and that's amusing, because you talk to teenagers born in the UK, the ones who are going to 'replace' us, and you'll realise that the UK habit of 'more important stuff to do' is contagious.
So yes, our future may very well contain 'dark-skinned' people, don't care in the slightest about that, but what it won't contain is the 'Islamic republic of Great Britain', that's a story invented by Americans to convince themselves of their own social 'superiority' over the UK.
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All of you- shut up. Lib has a legit point. Normally assimilation takes care of cultural homogeneity, but if the birth rate fall low enough you have a situation resembling the late roman empire when they invited germans into the empire because they needed someone to work the increasingly vacant fields. Population and cultural replacement has happened lots of times in history.
If this was a Native American lamenting how the whites were reproducing too quickly and thus they were going to overwhelm his people, would you give him this same response? No; he'd get all the sympathy in the world. So stop being hypocritical. Cultural annihilation is a legitimate fear (unless of course, you think everything made by dead white men must all be worthless, like democracy, anti-trust lawsuits, and the Romantic Era of music. Yes, it sucks that you had to be a member of the privileged race and sex to be able to make this stuff. It's changing, slowly but surely. So stop boohooing the past and go write a piano concerto if you're a woman).
An the other hand, um, we should be reproducing at that rate. The population needs to decline if we're not going to run out of freshwater and arable land. It's just poorer cultures have just been unbelievably dense to this idea (Look at Africa, where they keep having babies right up till they die of starvation).
Also, if you're a sovereign nation, you can do whatever the **** you want with your borders. So why not close them? Does the western world still want the cheap labor but not the actual people? In America at least, there's just too much public support in favor of immigrants to pull that off (myself included, hell I have family friends who are illegals).
So yes, our future may very well contain 'dark-skinned' people, don't care in the slightest about that, but what it won't contain is the 'Islamic republic of Great Britain', that's a story invented by Americans to convince themselves of their own social 'superiority' over the UK.
No, we can claim that because we don't have cameras on the streets watching our every move. Hard not shake the image of British docility when you read about that.
I mean, it's not as bad a canada, where a misogynistic gunmen entered a classroom and ordered all the men to leave the room, when it was obvious he was going to kill all the women, and they just left, but you get the picture.
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Cultural annihilation is not a legitimate fear when cultural power is determined by economic, technological, and memetic superiority rather than numerical force.
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Hahahaha!
So another attempt at claiming social superiority justifies the last one?
And people complain about the stereotyping of American society...
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Cultural annihilation is not a legitimate fear when cultural power is determined by economic, technological, and memetic superiority rather than numerical force.
It all depends on whether there's enough immigrants to shield their children from the assimilating culture.
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Not really, a lot of the children from the assimilated culture are actually being assimilated into British culture, they will raise their own children in a mish-mash of both. The generation after that will be its own culture, the old 'hard-liners' will mostly die out on both sides at the same time, and though there will be new 'hard-liners', they wont be influencial enough over people who are a mixture of Eastern and Western culture.
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Hahahaha!
So another attempt at claiming social superiority justifies the last one?
And people complain about the stereotyping of American society...
It's the first time in recorded history I have ever supported Lib (supported, not agreed with), but I'm saying he might have a legit right to be afraid if that's what he cares about.
And again, if he was a native american on a reservation, you would be giving him all the sympathy in the world. Yes, whites hold power now, but in fifty, a hundred years? Then what, will the removal of power make sympathy possible?
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you act like there's some kind of American culture worth protecting.
our culture is based on what giant multinational corporations decide they can sell us and that's pretty much it.
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I don't care where he was raised, as I've said before, it's not about what colour someone is, or what religion, if he'd said that and had been born in the most famine-struck area of Ethiopia, he'd still be wrong. It's not about pity, it's about not looking at things from 'they are the enemy' point of view. And to assume that Eastern culture mixed with Western culture = Purely Eastern culture is just plain wrong, it's been proved time and time again throughout history that cultures don't merge like that.
Edit: And the fact is that cultures change all the time anyway, 'British culture' of the 1950's is, quite literally, a thing of the past, in fact, a society is in more danger is the culture isn't under permanent stress, change and evaluation.
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Flipside's hit it on the head.
There's a concept in biology called hybrid vigor: crossbeeds are the most fit. The same applies to cultures. The most vigorous cultures in history have been built on constant intercultural exchange and population movement.
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you act like there's some kind of American culture worth protecting.
our culture is based on what giant multinational corporations decide they can sell us and that's pretty much it.
I am not saying Lib's argument is correct, I'm saying their are elements of his argument that are correct and you're not seeing it because you're dismissing him.
Also, you live in a culture where it's ok to say stuff like that, which is mostly due to the work of white (and a lot of black) men and women of the 20th century.
And I don't know about social superority, but as for cultural achievement: John Williams. J.R.R. Tolkien. Virginia Woolfe (because we're still waaay waaaay farther ahead on feminism than the rest of world, believe it or not). Richard Feynman. Jonas Salk. Isaac Asimov.
I'll add a few black american names too: Charlie Parker. Langston Hughes. Frederic Douglas. W. E. B. Dubois.
Yeah, just multinational corporations Turambar. Of course.
Yes, this is totally unfair, because no other cultures have been given the chance to produce a body of work like that the english speaking world.
That having been said, if there comes a day where composers abandon that leitmotif style used by Williams for cultural reasons I'm gonna be angry. Not very substantial a fear, and far off, I know. But it worries me.
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And again, if he was a native american on a reservation, you would be giving him all the sympathy in the world.
If the indians had had nukes and the white men had nothing but sticks I doubt that we'd be giving him much sympathy at all. :p
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THAT'S MY POINT: Is what power you have, at this very moment, all that matters?
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I have sympathy for the native Americans just because they aren't being stupidly hypocritical.
Europeans didn't just show up and take land. They showed up, took land, wiped out entire tribes, and enforced mass assimilation programs where they effectively kidnapped native children and took them east to Christian boarding schools to be robbed of what was left of their cultural heritage.
And now the descendants of the Europeans are whining about just being maybe potentially outnumbered in the future? Give me a break.
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There is no fundamental difference between the white immigrants of the 1800s (ever watched Scorcese's Gangs of New York?) and the hispanic and asian immigrants that are coming in today.
True.
You live in a country that consists ENTIRELY OF IMMMIGRANTS.
Listen. Seriously. Read what I'm going to type here:
100 years ago everyone was freaking out about the IRISH TAKING OVER.
The Catholics were coming to destroy America.
We're still doing fine.
Indeed, IMHO we've been enriched by this.
Personally, I have no problem at all with Latino immigrants (or any other kind for that matter). I'll go so far as to say that I don't even have a problem with the Spanish language gaining in use and importance in certain states. I don't speak it, but I'll make darn sure that my kids do if Latino immigration continues like it has. :) Realistically, though, I don't think that it will continue forever. It will plateau, the older generation that doesn't understand English will die out, and their kids will grow up speaking English just fine. And they'll be Americans, adding their cultural significance and value to our own (BORG!).
I guess I believe that if you merge two cultures, the likeliest outcome is that you end up with the best of both. That's not always true, but IMHO true more often than it isn't. And I see a lot more to respect and admire about Latino culture than I do to dislike... Oh, looks like Flipside and Battuta already covered that.
you act like there's some kind of American culture worth protecting.
our culture is based on what giant multinational corporations decide they can sell us and that's pretty much it.
It's true that there is a lot of materialism in American culture, but that's not ALL of it. There are plenty of good parts too. If you live in America (not just watch it on TV) and still can't see them, then I feel sorry for you.
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Just because a people has done wrong in the past doesn't mean it's ok for bad things to happen to it in the future.
Can we at least admit that western civ is vastly superior on the feminist front, in part because of people like you. Yes, you. You are a part of western civ, believe it or not. Dissent does not make you an outsider.
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Thing is, Western Cultures' been picking and choosing from Eastern culture for centuries, there's several British 'traditions' that were born in the Middle East. It also should be noted that we are talking 4-5% of the population here, about 3 million Muslims out of a national population of nearly 60 million, it's just that the concern looms large because of the current popularity of extremism, and the ongoing assumption that every Muslim in the world is a suicide bomber waiting to go off...
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And read my earlier post god dammit before all of these replies.
And really, I have no fear of hispanic immigrant on America. They're good people.
But doesn't the nature of the immigrating party matter? If the birthrate of the immigrants is overwhelming the native population, doesn't that mean the native population is screwed if it keeps up? If there isn't enough time to assimilate before this happens, isn't the original culture screwed as well? And if the immigrant culture requires women to cover their heads all the time and acquits a lot more rapists, is that really a good thing.
THINK ABOUT THIS before you butcher me. Do all of those questions return a no? Do they?
Sweet gimminy, I wanna play devil's advocate for two seconds and this is how you treat dissent nowadays.
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Thing is, Western Cultures' been picking and choosing from Eastern culture for centuries, there's several British 'traditions' that were born in the Middle East. It also should be noted that we are talking 4-5% of the population here, about 3 million Muslims out of a national population of nearly 60 million, it's just that the concern looms large because of the current popularity of extremism, and the ongoing assumption that every Muslim in the world is a suicide bomber waiting to go off...
Britain is fine. France and Germany, on the other hand...
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But doesn't the nature of the immigrating party matter? If the birthrate of the immigrants is overwhelming the native population, doesn't that mean the native population is screwed if it keeps up? If there isn't enough time to assimilate before this happens, isn't the original culture screwed as well? And if the immigrant culture requires women to cover their heads all the time and acquits a lot more rapists, is that really a good thing.
These are the same claims that have been made about immigrant groups for centuries. They hardly seem more credible today.
Immigrant birthrate will, if anything, impoverish them rather than place them in power.
THINK ABOUT THIS before you butcher me. Do all of those questions return a no? Do they?
I've examined your points fairly.
Sweet gimminy, I wanna play devil's advocate for two seconds and this is how you treat dissent nowadays.
The unfortunate fact is that we have to be intolerant of intolerance. Sometimes it gets out of hand, yes, but I don't think it's so much a knee-jerk suppression of dissent as the fact that many people are just sick and tired of hearing attempts to justify what they see as hate and fear.
Not to say that you're hateful and fearful, but inevitably your suggestions will be lumped in with those espoused by people like Liberator.
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But doesn't the nature of the immigrating party matter? If the birthrate of the immigrants is overwhelming the native population, doesn't that mean the native population is screwed if it keeps up? If there isn't enough time to assimilate before this happens, isn't the original culture screwed as well? And if the immigrant culture requires women to cover their heads all the time and acquits a lot more rapists, is that really a good thing.
I really just don't care. Onoes, there will be more hispanics than whites in the US... so what?
As for the feminism issue, women are blamed when they are raped in pretty much every culture. Western women aren't really at much less risk of being killed by (ex) boyfriends or husbands than Muslim women. We're allowed to talk, but that doesn't mean anybody listens.
But it's not Islam anyone should be worrying about, if they are worrying about Christianity losing popularity. Atheism is on the rise. :3
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Britain is fine. France and Germany, on the other hand...
Evidence please.
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Britain is fine. France and Germany, on the other hand...
Evidence please.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_France
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:wtf:
America has had race riots with both immigrants and non-immigrants too.
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But doesn't the nature of the immigrating party matter? If the birthrate of the immigrants is overwhelming the native population, doesn't that mean the native population is screwed if it keeps up? If there isn't enough time to assimilate before this happens, isn't the original culture screwed as well? And if the immigrant culture requires women to cover their heads all the time and acquits a lot more rapists, is that really a good thing.
I really just don't care. Onoes, there will be more hispanics than whites in the US... so what?
As for the feminism issue, women are blamed when they are raped in pretty much every culture. Western women aren't really at much less risk of being killed by (ex) boyfriends or husbands than Muslim women. We're allowed to talk, but that doesn't mean anybody listens.
But it's not Islam anyone should be worrying about, if they are worrying about Christianity losing popularity. Atheism is on the rise. :3
Firstly, so you think a hundred and fifty years of the feminist movement in the western world has accomplished absolutely nothing? Wow. Not only is that completely false, it's pretty contemptful as well.
Secondly, I am an atheist silly.
These are the same claims that have been made about immigrant groups for centuries. They hardly seem more credible today.
The birthrate of the native population has never been so low. That's why it could be relevant today.
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*snip*
Which was a reaction to social conditions that the immigrants lived in, partially because of people who don't want immigrants to integrate into the culture they are emigrating to.
Commenting other demonstrations in Paris a few months later, the BBC summarised reasons behind the events included youth unemployment and lack of opportunities in France's poorest communities.
The head of the Direction centrale des renseignements généraux found no Islamic factor in the riots, while the New York Times reported on 5 November 2005 that "majority of the youths committing the acts are Muslim, and of African or North African origin" local youths adding that "second-generation Portuguese immigrants and even many children of native French have also taken part."
The BBC reported that French society's negative perceptions of Islam and social discrimination of immigrants had alienated some French Muslims and may have been a factor in the causes of the riots; "Islam is seen as the biggest challenge to the country's secular model in the past 100 years". It reported that there was a "huge well of fury and resentment among the children of North African and African immigrants in the suburbs of French cities". However, the editorial also questioned whether or not such alarm is justified, citing that France's Muslim ghettos are not hotbeds of separatism and that "the suburbs are full of people desperate to integrate into the wider society."
There is a common perception, especially among foreigners and descendants of the recent waves of immigration, that French society has long made a practice of hiding, or at least whitewashing, its numerous signs and symptoms of racism, xenophobia and classism, by all accounts at least equal in intensity to those in other European countries. Racial and social discrimination against people with "typically" African phenotypes or Arabic and/or African-sounding names has been cited as a major cause of unhappiness in the areas affected. According to the BBC, "Those who live there say that when they go for a job, as soon as they give their name as "Mamadou" and say they live in Clichy-sous-Bois, they are immediately told that the vacancy has been taken." The nonprofit organization SOS Racisme, associated with the French Socialist Party (PS), said that after they sent identical curriculum vitae (CVs) to French companies with European- and African or Muslim-sounding names attached, they found CVs with African or Muslim sounding names were systematically discarded. In addition, they have claimed widespread use of markings indicating ethnicity in employers' databases and that discrimination is more widespread for those with college degrees than for those without.
And now tell me how Germany is in trouble.
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Give it time.
All I'm saying is that it could happen, and if so, is that really what we want to happen? I admit I have worse case scenarios bouncing around in my head right now (German culture replaces Roman, and no, Muslim replacing French won't be anywhere near as bad, it might actually make things better if you like French bashing :P), but WCS's have happened in history before, and to just assume the same result will occur when the variable's have changed significantly is not giving it enough thought.
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And if the immigrant culture requires women to cover their heads all the time and acquits a lot more rapists, is that really a good thing.
A culture cannot be replaced by another (except by force, which is not happening here). Like the people, cultures will be mixed, your people will have their say. And the cocktail will be something you are able to digest.
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Hey, the Romans invaded Greece and Greek culture won.
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That's the best case. And Greece didn't win completely. No way a work as pastoral and anti-war as the Aeneid could have been written by a Greek (ironic, I know, but Roman culture wasn't all about war).
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Screw everyone else. I was here first :p
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To be honest, he's right. After a lot of time in the science of this field I've realized that everyone is a racist who fears change.
Conservatives just tend to put less effort into fighting it and more into justifying it.
I question your science.
Cultural annihilation is not a legitimate fear when cultural power is determined by economic, technological, and memetic superiority rather than numerical force.
Cultural POWER? Who is talking about power? We're talking about cultural identity.
And what does this have to do with skin color?
I don't care if it's whites pushing out blacks or blacks pushing out whites, muslims pushing out budhists or whatever. I'm against pushing altogether.
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Fortunately, there's just melding and hybridization. No pushing.
I'll be happy to educate you. Would you like some journal articles on ingroup/outgroup bias? Implicit association tasks? Shooter studies?
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Screw everyone else. I was here first :p
Heh for some reason that reminds me of this bit in Heart of Oak a book about an enlisted sailor's experiences in the RN during WW2, it was pretty cool the kid was in a lot of the major actions in the Atlantic, including when the Duke of York popped the Scharners. The part in particular I'm thinking of was during some convoy mission the Yank tin cans hauled down their colours which in the Andrew means surrender. Obviously the Brit sailors where taken aback by this until one of the more educated matelots pointed out it was July 4th and explained it was the US Independence Day. Sure enough the US ships hauled up fresh ensigns which prompted one of the sailors to ask why Britain didn't have an Independence day, he was promptly smacked in the back of the head and told "We've always been bloody independent!"
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Fortunately, there's just melding and hybridization. No pushing.
Name it as you want. I don't care about semantics.
There is a very real danger of losing the cultural identity. Some might not think much about it. A pan-global culture does sound nice, no? And it does...but still...
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Screw everyone else. I was here first :p
Heh for some reason that reminds me of this bit in Heart of Oak a book about an enlisted sailor's experiences in the RN during WW2, it was pretty cool the kid was in a lot of the major actions in the Atlantic, including when the Duke of York popped the Scharners. The part in particular I'm thinking of was during some convoy mission the Yank tin cans hauled down their colours which in the Andrew means surrender. Obviously the Brit sailors where taken aback by this until one of the more educated matelots pointed out it was July 4th and explained it was the US Independence Day. Sure enough the US ships hauled up fresh ensigns which prompted one of the sailors to ask why Britain didn't have an Independence day, he was promptly smacked in the back of the head and told "We've always been bloody independent!"
I need to read that.... And i heartily approve of that quote :yes:
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Unless you count the Romans...or the Normans...or... :p
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Better than " " which is where your profile says you are :p
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Funny how nobody seems to mind the loss of cultural integrity when it's American corporations profiting off it.
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Like Disney and ESPN?
Nike, McDonalds and American Airlines............Microsoft, General Motors and <insert near endless list>
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There is a very real danger of losing the cultural identity. Some might not think much about it. A pan-global culture does sound nice, no? And it does...but still...
Okay. Let's try this: Cultures do not propagate via people, they propagate through memes. If your culture's memes are less infectious than others, your culture will be changed. For example, the "german" meme is less infectious than the "american" meme, which is why german culture gets more and more americanized. But since the german meme is somewhat resilient, you won't suddenly wake up in America (German outpost), you will get a culture that has elements of both. And considering demographic trends, there will probably be a more pronounced turkish or arab influence on german culture some years from now, but this won't mean that we will "lose our cultural identity". It'll just be a slightly different cultural identity than the one our parents had.
Please tell us, what is bad about this? Why do you believe that a culture needs to stay in a certain way in order to stay recognizable?
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Culture propogates via the masses. not by mass media, thats just an information medium. People have always been free to make their own choices. It's just a case of the majority being sheep.
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Screw everyone else. I was here first :p
Heh for some reason that reminds me of this bit in Heart of Oak a book about an enlisted sailor's experiences in the RN during WW2, it was pretty cool the kid was in a lot of the major actions in the Atlantic, including when the Duke of York popped the Scharners. The part in particular I'm thinking of was during some convoy mission the Yank tin cans hauled down their colours which in the Andrew means surrender. Obviously the Brit sailors where taken aback by this until one of the more educated matelots pointed out it was July 4th and explained it was the US Independence Day. Sure enough the US ships hauled up fresh ensigns which prompted one of the sailors to ask why Britain didn't have an Independence day, he was promptly smacked in the back of the head and told "We've always been bloody independent!"
I need to read that.... And i heartily approve of that quote :yes:
If I'm not mistaken here is the proper tome.
http://www.amazon.com/Heart-Oak-Tristan-Jones/dp/1574090194 (http://www.amazon.com/Heart-Oak-Tristan-Jones/dp/1574090194)
Plus it as has a vulgar lower deck song at the beginning of every chapter!
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There is a very real danger of losing the cultural identity. Some might not think much about it. A pan-global culture does sound nice, no? And it does...but still...
You don't need immigrants for that. Unless you block all international business and everything but domestic TV shows, you've already lost.
But I think you are barking under the wrong tree anyway. The actual "problem", IMO, lies in the makeup of "modern societies" themselves. That is, you didn't lose an identity, you just didn't have one in the first place. And why is that? It's because, first and foremost, your "identity" in a modern society is to be a "consumer". That's what your're made into, and it's the requirement for the society to function (at least for now). The younger the generation, the stronger the "consumer" identity. And it's not a very rewarding identity to have in the long run, as it's controlled more by the daily situation on the stock market than doings or knowledge of your ancestors.
This is easy to see in countries like Finland, where immigrant population is minimal, but the plague of "rootlessness" ever growing.
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This topic really exploded since a few hours ago. Already 3 more pages.
The materialism of USA is enough to push me away, but I can think of almost 10 other reasons, but I won't get into that. I would not want to protect something I'm against, but the military seems to want to protect that. People also think it is easy to leave when it isn't.
Also, I actually find darker women (non-whites) more attractive than whites, especially orientals. Blacks and hispanics are pretty good looking too, on average. I love very dark eyes and dark hair with a brown or yellowish skin. I feel they have better accents too. I also think the oriental and hispanic culture is better than a white man's culture. They seem to have more politeness. On average, they also show more love when in a serious relationship with one of them. Those cultures have tighter families and seem to put husband/wife and certain love ones first before money compared to the white man's culture.
Being attracted to other races actually defies evolution, according to the evolution fanatics. They go saying that you are naturally more attracted to people who look more like yourself. A big hole in that part of the theory right here, since I'm definitely not the only one who finds darker women and women with a flat-bridged nose more attractive. Of course experiences can play a role somewhat.
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Leave poor evolution out of this, she was minding her own business on her side of the sandbox.
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Being attracted too other races actually defies evolution, according to the evolution fanatics. They go saying that you are natually more attracted to people who look more like yourself. A big hole in that part of the theory right here, since I'm definitely not the only one who finds darker women and women with a flat-bridged nose more attractive. Of course experiences can play a role somewhat.
You are confusing the definitions of race and species. You are attracted to those people because you are hard-wired by your genetics to seek out sexual partners that are different from you, the more different the better. People with a mixed heritage often appear more attractive than people with a "pure" heritage for that very reason. So, no. This preference of yours does not defy evolution. It actually works in evolutions' favor.
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High Max, you're not special. Just about damn near every white guy in America prefers Asian chicks. :P
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The actual "problem", IMO, lies in the makeup of "modern societies" themselves. That is, you didn't lose an identity, you just didn't have one in the first place. And why is that? It's because, first and foremost, your "identity" in a modern society is to be a "consumer".
That's a rather blanket statement about having no identity. Do you even know where I live or anything about my country? No? How can you claim that I have no identity then?
Cultural identity exists. It can be changed, it can be destroyed.
Regardless, there's nothing wrong with being saddened by a loss of something.
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Being attracted too other races actually defies evolution, according to the evolution fanatics. They go saying that you are natually more attracted to people who look more like yourself. A big hole in that part of the theory right here, since I'm definitely not the only one who finds darker women and women with a flat-bridged nose more attractive. Of course experiences can play a role somewhat.
You are confusing the definitions of race and species. You are attracted to those people because you are hard-wired by your genetics to seek out sexual partners that are different from you, the more different the better. People with a mixed heritage often appear more attractive than people with a "pure" heritage for that very reason. So, no. This preference of yours does not defy evolution. It actually works in evolutions' favor.
What The_E says is correct. Your attraction to exotic women is exactly in line with the predictions of evolutionary theory.
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High Max, you're not special. Just about damn near every white guy in America prefers Asian chicks. :P
You would be surprised how many men here only like other Americans. Plus, it isn't just about looks, it is their culture and personality on average that I like. Looks mean nothing without personality and similar lifestyles.
@Gen B: Of course I don't think I was attracted to them so much until encountering them more and having a serious relationship with a couple. I was into Latino's after having a relationship with one, then got into Asians after having one of them, but I would make an exception to an Asian girl with only my x-girlfriend who is from Colombia, if she could come back here and since she seems to miss the times we had together like I sometimes do.
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Well, yeah, what American guy doesn't like a quiet, submissive chick, especially when she's exotic!
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No, just a girl who treats a man like she loves him and is emotionally stable and strong and can stay calm and be trusted and put the husband and family first, like a spouse should. Not feminazi, as the term goes. :D I too will be faithful and honest in return.
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I suppose there's a difference between a woman who is prepared to tell you when she thinks you are wrong, and a woman who finds fault in everything you do.
Took me a while to figure that one out, I must admit ;)
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The corporat term for this situation is, ongoing.
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I have not had the best experiences, as far as dating asian women goes.
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Well you have to have a more compatible lifestyle to them, like I do, I suppose. The ones who follow their culture like to have a man who doesn't smoke, doesn't drink much, doesn't go to bars, and likes to live healthy and learn a lot and is careful with his money and strong in the mind, but isn't very superficial and doesn't care about being rich. That fits my lifestyle and way of thinking.
I assume you are Turambar using iamzack's account since you said you were with Asian women, or I could be wrong.
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You do know that more Chinese men smoke than don't smoke, right? Also, drinking is a huge part of culture in eastern Asia.
This is iamzack. Turambar has not had the, er, pleasure, of dating an Asian female.
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Yes, I know in oriental culture, men smoke even more than in USA, but I know that Asian women don't smoke or drink normally and they hate it, just like I hate smoking and hate being around it and get after some family members for their nasty habit.
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That seems very unlikely, High Max.
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I think it is culturally unacceptable for most women to smoke in most oriental countries, but once that taboo is overcome, you'll probably find the rates almost 50/50, so, if you met an oriental girl who lived in an oriental country, the odds of her being a non-smoker are far higher than an oriental girl who lives in a Western country. At least, as I understand it, possibly someone closer to the fact could give a more accurate account of whether that's true or not.
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@iamzack: No doubt you probably chose one who was polluted with this culture. Most also are heterosexual and they don't smoke normally. I know because I have known some Asian people in person who were not born here and also read about their culture and it talked about how Asian men smoke a lot and VN may have the highest number of men who smoke per capita in the world, but it is different for Asian women. I also know many Asian women don't smoke because I have seen many profiles on the net and all that I have seen so far that I can remember said that they don't smoke.
However, the kind of behavior like smoking and drinking is increasing in the newer generation in their home countries, sadly. Drugs too. It's part of the corruption spread by western culture and media (drugs mostly as well as other things and a decrease in family concern).
That is my take on it, Flipside, both with what I have read and with the people I have known in person from there. Sadly it is changing for the worst, thanks mostly by media from the west.
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Yeeeahh... you'd be surprised how many Chinese students went to my high school who still have their accents, I guess.
Anyway, the fact that most Chinese men smoke points to Chinese women probably not minding it too much. Seems to me like it is seen as a "man thing" and that would even make it a sign of masculinity. (As in, if you don't smoke, you are less masculine.)
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I'm not talking about just China. I include any country that is oriental. I'm pretty sure when it comes to certain basics, they are all similar, but they are slightly different in the less basic ways. Just like how Latin American countries have a similar core culture, but can be broken down into slightly different cultures with the same basics remaining when you look at each country in that area. Like how Colombia and Mexico are different, though similar.
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China, Japan, and Korea are very different countries with very different cultures. Their similarities are: chopsticks, slanty eyes, and racism.
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Thing is, you go to highly westernised areas of Japan, such as Tokyo, and I doubt you'd find much difference in smoking rates than in any Western city, but out in the rural areas, I honestly don't know.
And there are actually some basic Tenets that Japan and China at least have in common, partly because there's been so much interaction between the two, both friendly and unfriendly. Things like honour-based feudalism, organised armies, and certain areas of religion/myth all probably had their roots in Chinese tradition at first, and were adapted to Japanese culture.
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This topic really exploded since a few hours ago. Already 3 more pages.
The materialism of USA is enough to push me away, but I can think of almost 10 other reasons, but I won't get into that. I would not want to protect something I'm against, but the military seems to want to protect that. People also think it is easy to leave when it isn't.
Also, I actually find darker women (non-whites) more attractive than whites, especially orientals. Blacks and hispanics are pretty good looking too, on average. I love very dark eyes and dark hair with a brown or yellowish skin. I feel they have better accents too. I also think the oriental and hispanic culture is better than a white man's culture. They seem to have more politeness. On average, they also show more love when in a serious relationship with one of them. Those cultures have tighter families and seem to put husband/wife and certain love ones first before money compared to the white man's culture.
Being attracted to other races actually defies evolution, according to the evolution fanatics. They go saying that you are naturally more attracted to people who look more like yourself. A big hole in that part of the theory right here, since I'm definitely not the only one who finds darker women and women with a flat-bridged nose more attractive. Of course experiences can play a role somewhat.
Those people are off their rocker. When it comes to genetics and selection you are more inclined to seek out someone who is genetically distinct from you...not the same. Its more complicated because at the same time we're all driven to find good genetics as well. This may be based on looks although it can be in less obvious forms as well.
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China, Japan, and Korea are very different countries with very different cultures. Their similarities are: chopsticks, slanty eyes, and racism.
Well, just to be pedantic, Asian eyes are actually more level than the Caucasian average. It's just the epicanthic fold of the eyelids that makes them look slanted.
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they look slanted for any reason = slanty eyes
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:yes:
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Do you guys go looking for things to worry about? Do you need something to worry about so you can ignore how utterly pointless your life is? In a hundred years, so much wil have changed that you won't be able to recognize the street you grew up on, and I highly doubt that's going to be influenced by how much people immigrate to your country. I mean, sure, you won't recognize the street you grew up on for different reasons, but you still won't recognize it so it hardly makes a difference. Worry instead about what your going to do when your grandkids ask for a new quantum handheld computer for their birthday.
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"The universe is flux; life is opinion."
--Marcus Aurelius, prominent Westerner
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I fully recognize that my life is pointless and that I have nothing to contribute to either society or even to myself, my life has less point than most anyone's you know. I know on the same basic level that you love your significant other that my life is void of any meaning or value.
However, I don't think small-scale, it's probably one of many reasons why I've never had a serious relationship with anyone or held down a real job. I think in the largest pictures of anyone I know, in the quiet spaces of my head I plan out, in the grossest terms available, ways to solve the largest problems plaguing mankind. And no, I don't mean bigotry or social ills, I mean how to preserve the species in the near and long term. Most of which involve re-accelerating the push into space, colonization of the moon and the development, design and construction of space habitats that are capable of supporting tens of thousands. Then once we tame the space surrounding Earth and perfect our intra-orbital tech to the point where going to the moon is like driving to another city.
I worry about this because I see it happening where I live, vast numbers of immigrants who don't bother to learn the language or even the basic laws. The ones I've met are decent folk, but they're not making much attempt to integrate into the existing culture.
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It's always, if you'll pardon the pun, a Mexican stand-off, there's a vicious societal circle where everyone is waiting for everyone else to make the first move. In this case there are a lot of people on one side wishing that Immigrants would do more to involve themselves with the local culture, and there are immigrants who wish the local culture would be more accepting of them, and so round it goes.
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You realize those immigrants tend to have less than stellar education, right? And they're often working more than the 40 hour week to make ends meet. Where are they supposed to learn the language beyond the few broken phrases they need to find work?
It's not like their kids don't learn the language. They usually grow up perfectly bilingual; they're surrounded by English-speaking peers at school.
I live in an area that has mass numbers of immigrants coming in, and the only thing I've had a problem with is that hispanics are ugly and I hate having to look at them.
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Exactly, society tends to give them the unpleasant end of the stick, but the problem is that, when someone has just arrived, doesn't speak the language, and feels generally like the only people they can communicate with is people who speak their native tongue, is usually when they need to feel the most welcome, and are made to feel the least.
A simple feeling of being welcome to a society, even if you are patently not part of it would probably do far more to encourage integration than any amount of Oaths or exams.
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I fully recognize that my life is pointless and that I have nothing to contribute to either society or even to myself, my life has less point than most anyone's you know. I know on the same basic level that you love your significant other that my life is void of any meaning or value.
However, I don't think small-scale, it's probably one of many reasons why I've never had a serious relationship with anyone or held down a real job. I think in the largest pictures of anyone I know, in the quiet spaces of my head I plan out, in the grossest terms available, ways to solve the largest problems plaguing mankind. And no, I don't mean bigotry or social ills, I mean how to preserve the species in the near and long term. Most of which involve re-accelerating the push into space, colonization of the moon and the development, design and construction of space habitats that are capable of supporting tens of thousands. Then once we tame the space surrounding Earth and perfect our intra-orbital tech to the point where going to the moon is like driving to another city.
I worry about this because I see it happening where I live, vast numbers of immigrants who don't bother to learn the language or even the basic laws. The ones I've met are decent folk, but they're not making much attempt to integrate into the existing culture.
If you really did think comprehensively on the big scale then you'd address the issues with human cognition - including the very ingroup/outgroup biases that you're falling prey to here.
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Pfft speed ahead a couple millennia and we'll have ethnic Chinese colonists with Prussian culture, a Realpolitik foreign policy who speak German. :P
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What, you mean the Andermani Empire?
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hahahaha, guys you care too much about immigrants.. they are here and they have come to stay... and they'll bring their families over once they get a "choza" and a "laburo".
I'm from Argentina and we've been living with immigrants from Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Venezuela, China.
This last years I've seen more immigrants out there every day... sure I hate this but it's something that can't be helped. You can't deny the seek for a better future to this people, they deserve it as much as you do, and they come from another country where they did not have a good future (or present).
Don't worry... it only appears they bring doom, but in fact immigrants are always very VERY careful on foraign lands, respectful and kind (well most of them), they can't afford to screw the only exit they have to their problems.
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Pfft speed ahead a couple millennia and we'll have ethnic Chinese colonists with Prussian culture, a Realpolitik foreign policy who speak German. :P
Chien Liu Anderman is not amused. Or maybe he is. It's hard to tell.
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This thread. It's just- I don't even
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So I guess I'm the only one here who subscribes to the concept of American exceptionalism...
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What, Amurricans are speshul snowflakes?
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So I guess I'm the only one here who subscribes to the concept of American exceptionalism...
Just looked it up and it seems like a pretty ****ty, narcissistic concept, so yeah, you might be.
Edit: @Iamzack- no, its that America has a determination to play a special and important role in the world (play world police and **** everyone else over at any opportunity)
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So I guess I'm the only one here who subscribes to the concept of American exceptionalism...
There is no best country. You only think it is best because you grew up here and have been brainwashed to think that. Not enough people here think for themselves and they blindly follow this culture and do whatever they were brainwashed to think is cool.
Every country may be exceptional in its own way since they all have differences. If anything, this country is exceptional in a bad corrupt way. Wake up, Liberator. Think for yourself. Don't give in to the materialist train of thought and believe everything this culture wants you to think is right and the way to go. Don't give into peer pressure. Be strong. Your mind is not liberated because you are blinded by this culture, by patriotism, and with knowledge and strength in the mind can one liberate his mind from impurity and brainwashing. The truth liberates the mind.
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Every country may be exceptional in its own way since they all have differences. If anything, this country is exceptional in a bad corrupt way. Wake up, Liberator. Think for yourself. Don't give in to the materialist train of thought and believe everything this culture wants you to think is right and the way to go. Don't give into peer pressure. Be strong. Your mind is not liberated because you are blinded by this culture, by patritism, and with knowledge and strength in the mind can one liberate his mind from impurity and brainwashing. The truth liberates the mind.
(http://zulfiqar.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/neo_whoa_1.jpg)
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I don't know the meaning of that pic. Is that Neo on The Matrix? Be liberated from the Matrix? :D
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We're all citizens of Earth.
Frak, it really is going to take aliens or robot rebellions for us to realize that as a species, isnt it.
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That's why we must hurry up and invent Cylons.
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You show me an afgan or a Romanian who thinks they're a citizen of some wonderful benevolent world republic that will NEVER exist no matter how much you wish it to happen. I am proud of my country and I'm not ashamed to say it.
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You show me an afgan or a Romanian who thinks they're a citizen of some wonderful benevolent world republic that will NEVER exist no matter how much you wish it to happen. I am proud of my country and I'm not ashamed to say it.
You're one sad, hopeless little man.
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If it makes you feel better, the massive population gain from third world countries will eventually result in energy usage so extensive that the earth itself will collapse into a black hole.
But it'll be ruled by one white man and his armies of UAVs to keep them in line!
Corrected
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@Liberator: Most people are proud of their own country. It is what they were brought up to believe and they usually don't know any different. If you were born somewhere else, you would have a different opinion most likely. It's your opinion, nothing more.
Remember, the people of this world don't need liberating nearly as much as you think, but your mind does. You must release the demons from your mind that control you with deceit and not let others control you. You automatically think USA is right without question. You know, in some ways, I could say USA has terrorist-like behaviors. Invading and inflicting civilian casualties in order to force their belief of capitalism on others. Though many claim USA is over there helping people. I'm not so sure about that. I'm a skeptical person these days.
Terrorism: http://www.wordreference.com/definition/terrorism
terrorism
A noun
1 terrorism, act of terrorism, terrorist act
the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear
Is the USA really any different from normal terrorists if you look at that definition?
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You show me an afgan or a Romanian who thinks they're a citizen of some wonderful benevolent world republic that will NEVER exist no matter how much you wish it to happen. I am proud of my country and I'm not ashamed to say it.
That's...nice?
So long as it doesn't prevent you from seeing why other countries are exceptional too, it shouldn't be a problem.
But the fact is that America owes a lot to everybody else, and vice versa. We're all living on the same planet here. And America does as many things exceptionally wrong as it does exceptionally right.
The need to thump your chest about MERICA comes from the same stupid elementary school urge that requires you to divide things up into 'teams' and believe your team is better. You should fight that. Your ingroup does not need to be better than all the outgroups for you to feel good as a person.
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Terrorism: http://www.wordreference.com/definition/terrorism
terrorism
A noun
1 terrorism, act of terrorism, terrorist act
the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear
Is the USA really any different from normal terrorists if you look at that definition?
Max, if you think the USA has been involved in terrorist activity you are sad.
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Its actions could be considered similar. Think about the torturing of certain suspected people in the middle east. Try to justify that. You can't. Just imagine yourself in their shoes. Also keep in mind the deliberate civilian killings against Japanese in WWII when USA put manpower into the cities before they dropped the bomb on them. I saw the story on the history channel. It was about the art of war and war in history. And don't forget the bad mercenaries hired called Black Water. That made me very angry when I thought about what they got away with before they were finally no longer being used by the Bush admin.
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Terrorism: http://www.wordreference.com/definition/terrorism
terrorism
A noun
1 terrorism, act of terrorism, terrorist act
the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear
Is the USA really any different from normal terrorists if you look at that definition?
Max, if you think the USA has been involved in terrorist activity you are sad.
Oh my God. Were you educated? Did you have an education? Let's put aside the torture issue (though that alone is enough) and focus on verifiable consensus history.
Did you miss the entire Cold War? All the coups we sponsored? The guerillas we armed?
Do you know where the Taliban got the weapons it needed to fight off the Soviets and come to power?
Did you miss the goddamn American Revolution?
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not to mention our unconditional support of the terrorist nation Israel
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Not to mention if you actually study what we did to the Native Americans, and still do to them today, you would realize we successfully accomplished what the Third Reich attempted in Russia.
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But seriously, if the USA gets its **** together and starts acting civil, I'll be first in line to be all patriotic. If we're gonna be "leader of the free world" we need to lead by example.
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Don't forget the US eugenics movement of the 1930s.
If individual Americans count as well, we've also got abortion clinic bombings.
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not to mention our unconditional support of the terrorist nation Israel
Keep up your Antisemitism and I'll be more than happy to report your bigoted ass.
From my perspective, the events you talk about as terrorist act were in fact acts in support for people bleeding and dying in attempts to enjoy the same freedom we do here.
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yep, they destroy palestinian homes and farmland. for freedom.
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FYI, Lib, Turambar is a Semite.
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we've also got abortion clinic bombings.
Now that I don't mind.
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we've also got abortion clinic bombings.
Now that I don't mind.
That's right, any woman who dares not carry a fetus to term for any reason, and any doctor, nurse, psychologist, and receptionist who helps, well, they all deserve to die.
Yup, sounds like pro-life to me.
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I'm not getting into this after this reply since it is off topic. I'm not into people slaughtering babies and I don't feel bad for the fates of what I consider baby killers. That is the most anti-pro life action I can think of and people who support it and preach pro-life are hypocrites. I feel only in a life and death situation should abortion be done. Otherwise if they don't want responsibility, they can adopt. That's all I will say on the matter now.
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Hey, I'm not into babykilling either. However, if I don't have the right to take your kidney because I need a new one, then a baby does not have the right to hijack my uterus. The baby's rights end where my bodily autonomy begins.
Edit (due to High Max's edit):
we've also got abortion clinic bombings.
Now that I don't mind.
That is the most anti-pro life action I can think of and people who support it and preach pro-life are hypocrites.
My head hurts.
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I am not the most pro-life person and didn't claim to be, but when it comes to innocents who know no wrong or people I feel are quite moral and very caring, I can be quite pro-life and be sensitive. That should clear up the confusion.
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No. You're not pro-life but you are pro-life when it comes to fetuses? But you don't mind terrorists killing women, doctors, nurses, psychologists, and receptionists. But supporting that and being pro-life makes you a hypocrite. But you're not pro-life except when it comes fetuses...
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The Killers of innocents and the extremely evil people don't deserve life. Terrorists killing killers is different. So it does not apply to them. To go as far as to say your baby doesn't have the right to occupy your fetus sounds extremely selfish. That's your baby. Giving my kidney to a stranger is not the same as giving a uterus to your own baby, since it is yours and you had the choice to create it in the first place. Imagine a kid hearing their mother say, I choose if you have the right to occupy my utrerus and if I don't want you too, your life ends. I knew if I had a mother like that, I would be devastated and scared. That is pretty obsessive about rights to where it is becoming disturbing. What has this world come too? Thank god my mother never would think that way. I would feel like leaving someone like that and feel so unloved.
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so, you value this
(http://i30.tinypic.com/15i7td3.png)
more than a thinking feeling human being.
interesting.
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Ohhhh I get it. You're only pro-life if it's not the life of someone who matters (in your opinion). I get it.
Well, I am pro-life except for when it comes to people who want a say in what goes on in MY uterus.
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Selfish to the extreme. Do you have no heart? Carrying on about your rights when it comes to your own baby? If you are so worried about it, control your actions and plan ahead and it wouldn't occupy you to begin with. I'm disturbed. Alright, I'm done with this small abortion chat and this time I mean it. Back to population and Liberator's topic. Immigration.
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Are you kidding me? You're accusing ME of being heartless for wanting to have a choice in whether I allow another living being to take up residence in my stomach while simultaneously saying that it's totally not in conflict with your pro-life beliefs to not give a damn if I am murdered for exercising my rights?
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not to mention our unconditional support of the terrorist nation Israel
Keep up your Antisemitism and I'll be more than happy to report your bigoted ass.
From my perspective, the events you talk about as terrorist act were in fact acts in support for people bleeding and dying in attempts to enjoy the same freedom we do here.
'Terrorist state Israel' may have been a more precise to put it, but his statement was no more bigoted than 'terrorist state Iran' or 'terrorist state Afghanistan.' A state is not an ethnic group and Israel =! Jews.
Remember, from someone else's perspective, the events you talk about as terrorism (9/11) were in fact acts of support for people bleeding and dying in an attempt to enjoy the freedoms they have been so long denied. Doesn't make it right, does it?
And thanks for selectively ignoring everything said to you up above. You dodge from misguided statement to misguided statement, trying to avoid admitting any wrong.
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Are you kidding me? You're accusing ME of being heartless for wanting to have a choice in whether I allow another living being to take up residence in my stomach while simultaneously saying that it's totally not in conflict with your pro-life beliefs to not give a damn if I am murdered for exercising my rights?
If you have a living being taking up residence in your stomach you have bigger problems than the abortion debate :p
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Selfish to the extreme. Do you have no heart? Carrying on about your rights when it comes to your own baby? If you are so worried about it, control your actions and plan ahead and it wouldn't occupy you to begin with. I'm disturbed. Alright, I'm done with this small abortion chat and this time I mean it. Back to population and Liberator's topic. Immigration.
Arrogant to the extreme. Do you have no brain? Carrying on about the rights of some mindless collection of cells when it comes to the rights of a human being. (Unfortunately I can't mirror it any further because thankfully High Max can't do anything about this.)
I like your hypocrisy of saying America is bad for conducting terrorism, but doing the same to support your cause is fine. Very well done!
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And thanks for selectively ignoring everything said to you up above. You dodge from misguided statement to misguided statement, trying to avoid admitting any wrong.
Can't really blame him. The more people know, the less defensible his positions are.
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From my perspective, the events you talk about as terrorist act were in fact acts in support for people bleeding and dying in attempts to enjoy the same freedom we do here.
Apparently I missed the divine edict that declared Liberator's perspective as the absolute correct one. Can someone link me? /sarcasm.
You're not going to win any point in an argument by relying on subjective interpretation. According to the objective definition, the United States of America was founded by terrorists. You just happen to value what they did and their ultimate accomplishments. The only real difference between the revolutionaries of the 1770s and the terrorists of today is about 240 years of weapons development.
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I like your hypocrisy of saying America is bad for conducting terrorism, but doing the same to support your cause is fine. Very well done!
Yes, well done. Of course I was imagining this: http://mttu.com/abort-pics/head-jar.jpg (WARNING: graphic depiction of aborted fetus)
EDITED OUT
That was one reason I felt so bad. I hope it wasn't a violation to post that picture. If so, I'm sorry. That picture makes me feel sadness.
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That was way, way too much to put in-line in a post.
Jesus Christ.
Personally I'm not a big fan of third-trimester abortions, for reasons just like that; but the fact that a medical procedure is gruesome is not in and of itself an argument against the procedure.
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Now that that train wreck of a photo is gone, the vast majority of legal abortions are conducted between conception and 8 weeks gestation, well before the fetus is even recognizable as human. I strongly suspect that picture is actually out of context. The photo actually looks like it depicts a deceased fetus following a catastrophic case of shoulder dysplasia, in which the fetal head/shoulder become stuck under the mother's pelvis during delivery. In extreme cases, the fetus cannot be pulled backward into the uterus by caesarean section, or delivered vaginally. The ultimate result is fetal death. Unfortunately, the only way the corpse can be removed is by surgically sectioning it. (And before anyone asks, my wife is a Labour/Delivery/Postpartum RN who often needs to debrief when she gets home from work).
No legal abortions are performed by decapitating the fetus, AND that picture shows a fetus somewhere between 30 and 40 weeks gestation... at which point the only legal abortion that may be performed is in order to prevent serious health effects (e.g. death) to the mother.
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Yikes. This thread is going nowhere fast. Isn't there a variant of Godwin's law for abortion?
I do think America is something special, but I don't think it's the only country that can make a valid claim to that. There are a lot of nations and peoples with some great things to admire about them, definitely including the USA. I don't think immigrants threaten what's good and solid and great about America because they're showing up to join it, not to wreck it.
And on the flip side, America has its problems, but I don't buy the idea that it's a walking disaster trying to pretend it isn't. (Except for maybe some of our economic policy :p). But culturally, it's still more good than bad. Especially on the people-actually-living-there level.
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Yikes. This thread is going nowhere fast. Isn't there a variant of Godwin's law for abortion?
Honestly. It's like the perfect cluster**** of Internet flamebait topics. :lol:
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Ohhhh I get it. You're only pro-life if it's not the life of someone who matters (in your opinion). I get it.
Well, I am pro-life except for when it comes to people who want a say in what goes on in MY uterus.
Then I suggest you be more selective about what goes into your vagina as well.
And frankly my dear, your rights end at the point where they threaten the life of someone who has done you no wrong other than have the (mis)fortune of having you for a mother. Now I'm not going to sit here and argue semantics on what is and isn't a baby. I'm willing to be flexible a bit, but if it requires surgery to remove, no matter how safe for the mother, it probably should wait to come out the way it was designed.
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not to mention our unconditional support of the terrorist nation Israel
Keep up your Antisemitism and I'll be more than happy to report your bigoted ass.
Report away. No one on the admin staff will care.
He complained about unconditional support for Israel. That is always wrong. You can not support Israel and turn a blind eye to everything it does and then claim to support freedom and democracy.
So you really need to look up what an anti-Semite actually is before accusing other people of being one.
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I like your hypocrisy of saying America is bad for conducting terrorism, but doing the same to support your cause is fine. Very well done!
Yes, well done. Of course I was imagining this: http://mttu.com/abort-pics/head-jar.jpg (WARNING: graphic depiction of aborted fetus)
EDITED OUT
That was one reason I felt so bad. I hope it wasn't a violation to post that picture. If so, I'm sorry. That picture makes me feel sadness.
Yea, don't. Don't do that again. Ever. Consider it an official warning.
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This thread is quite possibly the most concentrated extract of stupid I've seen on the forums. Except for that 180 page evolution debate.
Liberator wins the "ARE YOU GUYS SAYING SOMETHING BECAUSE I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF MY OPINIONS" award for the week. And possibly the entire next month too. Maybe even the year if he tries hard enough.
High Max, please focus on saving the innocent lives that are being lost to excruciatingly painful deaths in africa and elsewhere; as opposed to an unfeeling ball of cells that you seem so emotionally attached to. Maybe because the latter is much easier to save, right? So because we can save a ball of cells by yelling at people at the top of our lungs instead of actually doing something, they're more important then all the people who are STARVING TO DEATH.
Great logic. Absolutely impeccable.
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Imagine a kid hearing their mother say, I choose if you have the right to occupy my utrerus and if I don't want you too, your life ends. I knew if I had a mother like that, I would be devastated and scared. That is pretty obsessive about rights to where it is becoming disturbing. What has this world come too? Thank god my mother never would think that way. I would feel like leaving someone like that and feel so unloved.
See, this is just proof of the way you think about things. You're so caught up in you own opinion that you don't stop to think about it.
If you have a pro-choice mother you know she wanted to have you. She decided that giving up 9 months of her life was worth it to bring you into the world.
If you have a pro-life mother on the other hand you don't have a clue if she wanted you or not. She may have just simply believed that it was wrong to give up a child for adoption as well as abortion. She may have got pregnant and simply been unable to terminate the child she didn't want. She may only be caring for you because she's swallowed the bollocks pro-lifers talk about taking responsibility for her actions. She may actually hate having a child and only be raising you cause of that.
When someone chooses to do something despite having the option to not do so it means a hell of a lot more than if they were forced.
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Can't save those who aren't willing to be saved. Those starving people you talk about, they're being oppressed by warlords and drug kingpins who 9 out of 10 times intercept the relief shipments. They would a lot less likely to be starving if the aforementioned thugs were out of the picture. Logically, it would fall to some country or organization to annihilate said thugs. Hmm, I wonder who would be the first to do that...oh, wait, that's unlawful interference in the affairs of another nation...
Hell, I'd drop a nuke on the UN if I thought it would stop the self-important, over bearing, power hungry nit wit politicians from gumming up the works with they're petty self-serving bull****, but it wouldn't cause there's several million willing and able to take they're place.
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Liberator - do you really think about what you're saying? Your argument boils down to:
We can't save the innocent Africans starving to death, we can't force their warlords to let them have aid.
We can save the innocent fetuses in the unwilling mothers. (how?)
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I wouldn't ever support a nuke being used on a country. That would kill everyone in a country, no matter who they are. That sounds more heartless than the abortion argument in some ways since it would kill countless people. Imagine the rage one would feel if they had foreign loved ones or a foreign girl in that country and your country bombed them. I would understand wanting complete revenge on your own country's government if that happened.
We can save the innocent fetuses in the unwilling mothers. (how?)
No one can since the mothers would just use home made ways to abort. I'm sure some mothers in pretty much every country abort, whether they make it public to anyone else or if they keep it secret to everyone except themselves. It can't be stopped and it is like you can't stop the sun from setting, crime from occuring, or people from eventually meeting their physical end.
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Hell, I'd drop a nuke on the UN if I thought it would stop the self-important, over bearing, power hungry nit wit politicians from gumming up the works with they're petty self-serving bull****
You do realise the UN headquarters are in New York right? :rolleyes:
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That was a good one :D Bomb yourself. But maybe the headquarters changed and New York isn't the primary one anymore. But I guess it never changed.
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Or you could actually spend literally 20 seconds to check on Wikipedia or Google or the UN website rather than looking just as uninformed as Liberator by saying that. :p
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If you have a pro-choice mother you know she wanted to have you. She decided that giving up 9 months of her life was worth it to bring you into the world.
...
When someone chooses to do something despite having the option to not do so it means a hell of a lot more than if they were forced.
Not to jump into this cesspool of flames regarding a topic I really don't want to debate via the 'tubes (why the hell am I doing this...), but I did want to single out this line of thinking. Maybe it's a case of YMMV, but I'd infinitely rather have the mother whom I know would never have considered abortion in the first place, even if it came down to external influences, over the mother who could have easily prevented me from walking around in the world if her financial situation wasn't all that great, or she wanted to advance in her career, or she just didn't feel like having kids. (And what I'd really love to see is a world where those first two factors don't force someone into a decision that they wouldn't otherwise have taken, but we're a long way from that yet.) Given the choice (hee, how loaded that word's become), I'll always side with the option that would have utterly guaranteed me a shot at the world, and I'll have far more respect for that person. Who knows, maybe that's just me.
And just to throw in one last tidbit that's probably going to piss someone or other off, I don't see how the "personal responsibility" mantra is bollocks at all. I think we'd all agree that penis + vagina = pregnancy, at least at certain times of the month, and especially if there's nothing physical or chemical preventing the products of the two from coming together. Provided the two people putting said penis and vagina together both consent to it, that action is entirely in their hands (or loins), as are any potential consequences that may result from it. As horrifically naive and idiotic as the abstinence-only movement in this country has been in its execution, they at least get one little factoid right: the only way to absolutely ensure that there's no chance of pregnancy is not to have vaginal intercourse in the first place. Hell, if it's a matter of getting one's rocks off, why not just fap/schlick the day away and avoid all of the risks entirely?
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Hell, if it's a matter of getting one's rocks off, why not just fap/schlick the day away and avoid all of the risks entirely?
Well it is healthier and safer that way, and I think it is more moral doing it alone if you have no love that you are in a serious relationship with than doing it with a person you don't love. They say 100 orgasms a year can help you live longer since it releases hormones, like dopamine, and if you don't have a love, you can have the health benefits of orgasm and good feelings too by doing it alone without going out and using people's bodies for sex or getting viruses or getting them pregnant, etc. It's all the pros without the cons in this case. But I wouldn't say do it all day. Too much of anything can be harmful. :P You would probably hurt yourself from soreness too :p
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You're one sad, hopeless little man.
For loving ones country and culture?
Love yours, respect the others.
not to mention our unconditional support of the terrorist nation Israel
Keep up your Antisemitism and I'll be more than happy to report your bigoted ass.
Not liking the sate of Israel does not equal not liking all the jews.
Israel does NOT equal jews.
Israel = state that acts like a bunch of dicks
Jews = group of people
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so, you value this
(http://i30.tinypic.com/15i7td3.png)
more than a thinking feeling human being.
interesting.
Value over? Why? Does the mother have to die for some strange reason? Last time I checked pregnancy doesn't end with death of the mother.
Well, I am pro-life except for when it comes to people who want a say in what goes on in MY uterus.
You had a say. But you f*** up. It's so easier to clamor about rights and freedom and kill you offspring than actually taking responsibilty for the life you created (but don't actually own).
Apparently I missed the divine edict that declared Liberator's perspective as the absolute correct one. Can someone link me? /sarcasm.
It's the same one everyone uses. Surprised much?
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I worry about this because I see it happening where I live, vast numbers of immigrants who don't bother to learn the language or even the basic laws. The ones I've met are decent folk, but they're not making much attempt to integrate into the existing culture.
So what. People are supposed to completely abandon what they are and where they came from? Culture forms people. It forms the way they think, the way they act. You can't just change that after 20-30 years.
Even if they do conform. What then. You'll think "oh these chinese immigrants are more british than I am now! Oh my God! They're not British! I'm British!" or whatever country you're from.
People have to born into a culture to really be a part of that culture. Either that or live there for a long long time.
And realistically. Culture has nothing to do with the survival of the species or whatever nonsense you're talking about. Species survival is pure genetics. And in that, there is strength in diversity (ie Immigration is good).
And unless everyone is integrated into some Borg Collective there will always be regional differences. Whether the region is a different country, state/province, or town there will be differences. That's natural. Immigrants won't turn your country into their country. People, especially second generation immigrants are so far removed from their parent country that they don't really belong there either. People know they're outsiders.
But whatever.
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I'm not even going to bother with the whole pro-choice/no-choice debate this time, in fact, considering that this is the second meandering thread in as many days, I'm tempted to lock if it weren't for the fact someone would probably claim bias.
Edit: Just remembered, I don't care.
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Not to jump into this cesspool of flames regarding a topic I really don't want to debate via the 'tubes (why the hell am I doing this...), but I did want to single out this line of thinking. Maybe it's a case of YMMV, but I'd infinitely rather have the mother whom I know would never have considered abortion in the first place, even if it came down to external influences, over the mother who could have easily prevented me from walking around in the world if her financial situation wasn't all that great, or she wanted to advance in her career, or she just didn't feel like having kids. (And what I'd really love to see is a world where those first two factors don't force someone into a decision that they wouldn't otherwise have taken, but we're a long way from that yet.) Given the choice (hee, how loaded that word's become), I'll always side with the option that would have utterly guaranteed me a shot at the world, and I'll have far more respect for that person. Who knows, maybe that's just me.
The point I was making was that you could just as easily turn the nonsensical argument I was replying to on its head and argue that pro-choice mothers wanted to bring their children into the world more.
Basically both arguments are shallow and shortsighted and anyone arguing that whether a woman is pro-choice or pro-life has any effect on how much she loves her kids is stupid.
And just to throw in one last tidbit that's probably going to piss someone or other off, I don't see how the "personal responsibility" mantra is bollocks at all. I think we'd all agree that penis + vagina = pregnancy, at least at certain times of the month, and especially if there's nothing physical or chemical preventing the products of the two from coming together. Provided the two people putting said penis and vagina together both consent to it, that action is entirely in their hands (or loins), as are any potential consequences that may result from it. As horrifically naive and idiotic as the abstinence-only movement in this country has been in its execution, they at least get one little factoid right: the only way to absolutely ensure that there's no chance of pregnancy is not to have vaginal intercourse in the first place. Hell, if it's a matter of getting one's rocks off, why not just fap/schlick the day away and avoid all of the risks entirely?
It's bollocks because this is the ONLY facet of life you apply this bull**** to.
We all know that mouth + cigarette = cancer. Have you ever made the argument that we shouldn't treat people who get cancer and are smokers because they're responsible for it?
We all know that mountain + climbing = Fall + Broken leg if you do it wrong, should we tell people who do it to take responsibility for their broken limbs and just let them make their own way down the mountain?
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I'm going to unlock for now, because there's obviously still discussion to be had on the matter, but I'll add it's against my own personal better judgement :p
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Okay, basically this is all there is to the abortion debate:
Would you allow the government to decide that you HAVE to give up your kidney to someone who needs it to live?
No, right?
Then why should I have to give up my uterus?
(iamzack, btw)
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:rolleyes:
Liberator hasn't even acknowledged any of the dozen points he's had shot out from under his feet already. If he's going to ramble about personal responsibility (apparently he has never considered that pregnancy is, to some, a treatable side effect of a vital social activity in the context of loving relationships), he should man up and acknowledge how many things he's been wrong about already.
As it stands, he's either an epic troll, or he's just closing his eyes and listening to conservative talk radio to wipe away the things we post.
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We're all citizens of Earth.
Frak, it really is going to take aliens or robot rebellions for us to realize that as a species, isnt it.
sad, but probably true.
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As it stands, he's either an epic troll, or he's just closing his eyes and listening to conservative talk radio to wipe away the things we post.
Put bluntly he knows he can't win, so he's pulling the self-suppression I alluded to when debunking Trashman once. He lost so many times before he left the first time that he's not even going to attempt to argue a point anymore.
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It's too bad conservatives are so wrapped up in parroting Fox that we can't even have a proper debate. It's all "OOGA BOOGA" from conservatives and coddling and reason from liberals and we don't get anywhere.
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Well, liberals are every bit as vulnerable to confirmation bias and ego protection as conservatives. We all share fundamental human cognitive flaws.
But MP-Ryan at least is kind of a threadwinner.
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It's too bad conservatives are so wrapped up in parroting Fox that we can't even have a proper debate. It's all "OOGA BOOGA" from conservatives and coddling and reason from liberals and we don't get anywhere.
I guess you've forgotten about the first page of this thread already, then.
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We all know that mouth + cigarette = cancer. Have you ever made the argument that we shouldn't treat people who get cancer and are smokers because they're responsible for it?
You're equating pregnancy with a deadly desease and injury with destruction of life? :wtf:
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We all know that mouth + cigarette = cancer. Have you ever made the argument that we shouldn't treat people who get cancer and are smokers because they're responsible for it?
You're equating pregnancy with a deadly desease and injury with destruction of life? :wtf:
For a woman, the hazards to her health, livelihood, and life prospects can be as severe.
Now as far as I'm concerned contraception is a way better way to handle this than abortion, but women need a way to tackle this incredible disadvantage they're saddled with.
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As far as health and safety goes, condoms are safer than birth control drugs are safer than abortions are safer than carrying a pregnancy to term.
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Barrier contraception or the contraceptive pill would be the answer to everyone's prayers, which is why I've never understood many religious establishments being against the whole lot, abortion, contraception, you name it. It's basically like saying 'women are baby-making machines and having sex purely for the pleasure of it is defying our will'.
God actually never emphatically stated an opinion either way, yes, there's the whole 'seed on barren ground' analogy, but, as has been noted before, this could mean about breeding within the same gene-pool. sharing the same wife would mean not spreading the seed of Israel into new 'soil' and therefore encouraging growth of the Israelite nation.
Personally, I don't think anyone should be forced to live up to what someone else believes, if they are against abortions and/or don't want one, great, they've saved themselves a trip to the clinic, if they want an abortion, then the service is there, and is as safe as such a procedure can be. Trying to force either side of the opinion to live according to the others' opinion will always leads to grief in one form or another. That said, abortion should be a last resort, not a first option.
That's why I think a forum like this is the worst possible place to discuss abortion, because forums are statistically male-dominated and somewhat misogynistic in opinion, that's no offence to anyone here, but simply an observable fact that happens when large groups of males are in the same place.
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We all know that mouth + cigarette = cancer. Have you ever made the argument that we shouldn't treat people who get cancer and are smokers because they're responsible for it?
You're equating pregnancy with a deadly desease and injury with destruction of life? :wtf:
Congratulations on completely missing my point and then throwing in a cheap WTF over it. I'd have expected nothing less from you.
My point was about the whole "Take responsibility" argument and how it is never applied anywhere else except when it comes to sex. If God had ever said not to smoke, you could bet that they'd be telling us to let smokers die because it's their fault for smoking. But since he didn't, they don't ascribe any responsibility to someone catching cancer even if they have a 100 a day habit.
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Bah. . .i'd lock this if i could be bothered. But someone would just unlock it.
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It's bollocks because this is the ONLY facet of life you apply this bull**** to.
We all know that mouth + cigarette = cancer. Have you ever made the argument that we shouldn't treat people who get cancer and are smokers because they're responsible for it?
We all know that mountain + climbing = Fall + Broken leg if you do it wrong, should we tell people who do it to take responsibility for their broken limbs and just let them make their own way down the mountain?
I'm going to stop you right here, since the examples you're citing aren't entirely in the mold of what we're discussing. Both of your cases involve the medical treatment of a singular entity, the afflicted person in question; no matter whether you consider it a human being or a bundle of cells, in the case of abortion, it's a given that there's something genetically distinct there. And even setting those two examples against each other, the broken arm is a result of a random accident (hell, people can break their arm by tripping over something in their house) through no fault of the person involved, whereas smoking-induced cancer is the predictable result of a lifetime's worth of conscious choices...I'd say the abortion issue falls far closer to the latter.
And honestly, I almost feel like I would be all right with smoking-induced cancer patients receiving less aggressive treatment than, say, a woman who contracted breast cancer through no fault of her own, but that's not the way medicine works. Still, the idea of a cancer-stricken lifetime smoker suing the company who sold him the stuff seems a bit laughable to me...it's pretty damn obvious that inhaling foul-smelling smoke into your lungs for years isn't exactly going to clean them out, buddy. This isn't just about abortion; I want people to take responsibility for all the choices they make, which seems increasingly unlikely in a world where passing the buck has seemingly become a sporting event.
Personally, I don't think anyone should be forced to live up to what someone else believes, if they are against abortions and/or don't want one, great, they've saved themselves a trip to the clinic, if they want an abortion, then the service is there, and is as safe as such a procedure can be. Trying to force either side of the opinion to live according to the others' opinion will always leads to grief in one form or another. That said, abortion should be a last resort, not a first option.
I really do understand this sentiment, and it'd probably a much more peaceful world (or at least Internet) if everyone shared it, but it just simply isn't an option for a lot of people, myself included. If you truly believe that the human embryo/fetus is a full-fledged, genetically-distinct (this part really isn't about belief) human being with its own attendant rights and privileges, then not speaking out against abortion would be tantamount to condoning murder. It's simply not an option to just let people "do as they believe." I'm not against abortion because I want to inconvenience women who inadvertently became pregnant, or because I want to lord myself over iamzack's uterus, or any crap like that...I'm against it because I believe, as fervently as anything I've ever believed in, that defenseless human life is being taken. I understand that that certainly isn't a majority belief in here, but there you go.
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I completely understand the "abortion is murder" argument. I'm not arguing it at all. Not only do I agree, but I don't feel it's something that really even can be argued.
The problem is that by making abortion illegal, you are condoning one person taking the body of another person hostage. If the fetus is a person, treat it as such. There's no innocent baby and its mother. It is person A and person B. Person B is living inside person A, causing severe pain and discomfort, leeching nutrients, etc. It's one thing if person A consents to it, but it's another thing entirely if they don't.
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What the hell has happened to this thread? Is there any sort of any on-topic discussion about the original topic, or has this devolved into a massive abortion debate?
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Whaddya mean? I would argue it started off topic and after a meandering about some quasi racism/culture argument now it is discussing a method of overpopulation control, which happens to be the thread title. :P
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I completely understand the "abortion is murder" argument. I'm not arguing it at all. Not only do I agree, but I don't feel it's something that really even can be argued.
The problem is that by making abortion illegal, you are condoning one person taking the body of another person hostage. If the fetus is a person, treat it as such. There's no innocent baby and its mother. It is person A and person B. Person B is living inside person A, causing severe pain and discomfort, leeching nutrients, etc. It's one thing if person A consents to it, but it's another thing entirely if they don't.
Huh. That's an excellent argument.
I'm personally of the opinion that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare (preferably unnecessary.)
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I hate abortion, but I also hate having my rights trampled on.
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It's interesting to note that banning abortion doesn't affect abortion rates (I can cite a UN WHO study about this.) It just causes more mothers to seek illegal abortions, leading to more maternal deaths.
So any argument for banning abortion is contraindicated by empirical data.
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I'm personally of the opinion that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare (preferably unnecessary.)
I do think that all sides of the debate can agree that abortion should be a far more rare occurrence than it currently is. Like I mentioned above, putting the "don't want a baby" argument aside for the moment, no woman in today's world should feel forced to terminate a pregnancy she wouldn't otherwise have because of a poor financial situation, or because she feels it would jeopardize her career; there really is no "choice" in being cornered like that. We once had the founder of a group called "Feminists for Life" speak on our college campus; her main goal is bringing both sides of the debate to the same table with the mutually-beneficial goal of expanding support for pregnant women, particularly in the college scope. As a country, the US lags significantly behind much of the western world in areas like paid maternity/paternity leave or daycare support. What I most hope for is a world where a pregnant college student can choose to have a baby with the expectation of having a good social support network after she does.
And iamzack, I've actually heard that angle explored before in a debate, though the way you presented it skeeved me out far less than the debater in question. I think it's just a matter of where you define that "consent" to take place. For me, having intercourse without taking any precautions implies consent for the significant potential outcome of that action; for you, that consent is given after the pregnancy is recognized. I don't know if that's a gap that can be bridged, but at least it's better to have it defined than to get into shouting matches for nothing.
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There is no way for a woman to guarantee she will not become pregnant, unless she is too young or old to become pregnant. Even if she chooses to abstain, there is always rape.
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I just want to point out that a woman (we'll use the college student example) may be in a good position to raise a child, may even be (somehow) absolutely free of any responsibility to the child (perhaps her parents have volunteered to raise it), and still choose to abort. Perhaps she simply thinks it's unnatural and horrifying to have this thing growing inside her. She should have the right to make that choice.
I know a lot of the women I speak to feel that pregnancy is vaguely creepy.
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I just want to point out that a woman (we'll use the college student example) may be in a good position to raise a child, may even be (somehow) absolutely free of any responsibility to the child (perhaps her parents have volunteered to raise it), and still choose to abort. Perhaps she simply thinks it's unnatural and horrifying to have this thing growing inside her. She should have the right to make that choice.
See, that's a statement that I just can't agree with, although I don't expect us to ever come to a consensus on it either way. I also have to wonder about those who find pregnancy "creepy," since that seems like a very unnatural (in the biological sense) response. As animals, we're kind of hard-wired with the drive to reproduce, so something kind of seems off with that reaction, particularly given the nurturing emotions that pregnancy triggers in so many others. But hell, what do I know, I don't have ovaries.
And the whole rape/incest angle is such a loaded one for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that they make up an almost minuscule percentage of the abortion cases today. Although I am personally against abortion in all cases, I'm okay in the pragmatic sense with laws that do leave exceptions for rape/incest/maternal complications.
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We're hard-wired with the drive to have sex. Evolution favored that trait since it led to reproduction. But we've learned how to uncouple the reward mechanism from the intended behavior - and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, because it was not a designed behavior.
Decoupling sex from reproduction is the only way we have of controlling our populations.
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Pregnancy is *gross.* There's a baby in your gut, and it swells up and you get stretch marks everywhere. And it's in there, using your blood, and leeching nutrients from everything you eat. And then you get to shove the 7lb thing out of a four inch hole while half a dozen people stare intently at your genitalia and you become incontinent.
And that's if everything goes absolutely perfectly.
But then, I also get ill when I have to deal with heterosexual PDA. Ugghhh.
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No offense, but I'm not exactly taking you as a representative sample of the population. :p
And as a fun little counter-view, sex itself can be construed as pretty gross. Swapping sticky, funky-smelling bodily fluids, handling orifices generally used for piss and ****, getting someone else's genital-sweat all over you...it ain't all killer orgasms and rose-petal beds.
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COMPLETELY agreed. Sex is icky. But it's so much fun, the ickiness can be disregarded. Ain't nothing fun about pregnancy.
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I completely understand the "abortion is murder" argument. I'm not arguing it at all. Not only do I agree, but I don't feel it's something that really even can be argued.
The problem is that by making abortion illegal, you are condoning one person taking the body of another person hostage. If the fetus is a person, treat it as such. There's no innocent baby and its mother. It is person A and person B. Person B is living inside person A, causing severe pain and discomfort, leeching nutrients, etc. It's one thing if person A consents to it, but it's another thing entirely if they don't.
Fair enough.
But person B has no say in the matter, no ill intent and no control over the situation whatsoever.
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Fair enough.
But person B has no say in the matter, no ill intent and no control over the situation whatsoever.
person B cannot think.
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That's also a fair point, and a reason why contraception is so important.
I really do keep thinking about the fact that so many human pregnancies abort naturally as a justification of sorts. I'm not sure it really is, but somehow it makes me more comfortable with early abortions.
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It's not most, it's more like 25%.
Anyway, I wasn't talking about intent, Trashman. Just the barest facts of the circumstance.
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oh, my bad. I thought "person B" was the fetus
whatever, guys make more sperm, the world goes on.
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It's not most, it's more like 25%.
Anyway, I wasn't talking about intent, Trashman. Just the barest facts of the circumstance.
Not the figure I've heard...but I may be misremembering.
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25% is the figure I hear all the time, of pregnancies that end in miscarriage.
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage#Prevalence) says 25% of pregnancies miscarry by the 6 week mark, so maybe that's it.
Person B is the fetus, fluffy.
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When did the fetus become a person?
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*headdesk*
congrats on opening that particular can of worms.
Now that I'm here, I think it begins early.
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COMPLETELY agreed. Sex is icky. But it's so much fun, the ickiness can be disregarded. Ain't nothing fun about pregnancy.
I think many mothers would disagree with that, or at least disagree that the end result isn't fun. But that's a topic better suited for a Hallmark card or something. :p
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Now that I'm here, I think it begins early.
And I think it begins when it can think, at around age 2 or 3
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So you condone the murder of 1-year-olds? Fat chance that'll ever get accepted.
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So you condone the murder of 1-year-olds? Fat chance that'll ever get accepted.
thats why we compromise :-)
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Humans tend to fail the mirror test until they are about 18 months old
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So?
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So?
We kill animals all the time, usually with little or no remorse. What distinguishes us from other animals? We think. When a kid thinks, it becomes a valuable human. Until then, it's a lower animal.
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It's not legally independant til 18. depending on country of residence or location if not homed.
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Ah. So where do we define thought, now?
Besides, the mirror test has a flawed premise when applied to infants. It assumes enough experience to know what oneself looks like. See the reference on the wiki article about how someone who is blind from birth doesn't immediately pass the test.
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Turambar, you're kind of turning into the left-wing Liberator.
Look, let's face it, any boundary we set between 'life' and 'non life' is arbitrary. We can't even decide why a human being is alive but a rock isn't - all the lines are blurred. Birth provides a nice, convenient boundary - or, alternatively, the current third-trimester viability thing enshrined in law.
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So?
We kill animals all the time, usually with little or no remorse. What distinguishes us from other animals? We think. When a kid thinks, it becomes a valuable human. Until then, it's a lower animal.
We kill animals for food, the species will do what it can to survive. Some hunt for pleasure, although this is a small minority of the population. Like most animals hunt for food, not for mere sport.
Nearly all creatures, like humans, take care of their young, it is a natural process, almost a 'natural law'.
All animals think to some degree. Otherwise they would not be able to survive or adapt to their environment throughout the ages. The differece lies with a sentient animal. Aware of its existence, but able to also ponder its future, question everything around it, build, learn grow, expand, survive another way.
Saying that a human is a lower animal until it thinks is a very dangerous philosophy. Once you set that bar, it would slowly rise. Your idea of a 'valuable human' has similar structures and educational thoughts of the infamous doctors working for Hitler's Germany. Once we start to demean a person, we demean all of us.
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GODWIN.
Please.
This was almost turning into a level-headed debate on common ground!
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25% is the figure I hear all the time, of pregnancies that end in miscarriage.
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage#Prevalence) says 25% of pregnancies miscarry by the 6 week mark, so maybe that's it.
Person B is the fetus, fluffy.
Wikipedia is full of ****, or at least misrepresenting their facts [do not rely on Wikipedia for factual information, as I keep telling people around here]. The vast major of conceptions (stable fusion of cellular membranes of sperm and ovum) are naturally terminated by the human body after implantation but before first week is complete. Upwards of 90% of all conceptions are spontaneously aborted according to developmental genetics.
It is possible that 25% of detected and confirmed pregnancies result in miscarriage prior to week 6, but that is different from spontaneous abortion, which is what Battuta was referring to.
Most products of conception are incapable of life. Truthfully, a fertilized egg in which chromosomes are intact and pair correctly, and which then develops successfully through pregnancy is exceedingly rare in the grand scheme of things.
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I don't know about any of you, but I feel that this thread is getting creepy.
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25% is the figure I hear all the time, of pregnancies that end in miscarriage.
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage#Prevalence) says 25% of pregnancies miscarry by the 6 week mark, so maybe that's it.
Person B is the fetus, fluffy.
Wikipedia is full of ****, or at least misrepresenting their facts [do not rely on Wikipedia for factual information, as I keep telling people around here]. The vast major of conceptions (stable fusion of cellular membranes of sperm and ovum) are naturally terminated by the human body after implantation but before first week is complete. Upwards of 90% of all conceptions are spontaneously aborted according to developmental genetics.
It is possible that 25% of detected and confirmed pregnancies result in miscarriage prior to week 6, but that is different from spontaneous abortion, which is what Battuta was referring to.
Most products of conception are incapable of life. Truthfully, a fertilized egg in which chromosomes are intact and pair correctly, and which then develops successfully through pregnancy is exceedingly rare in the grand scheme of things.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. The stat came from a bio class so I figured it was reliable, but I'd never found anything to back it up (until now, thank you!)
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GODWIN.
Please.
This was almost turning into a level-headed debate on common ground!
wha?
Its a valid point, I could easily have used the Imperial Japanese's Unit 731.
My point was not an over use of an analogy or anything and relevant to the discussion.
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Turambar, you're kind of turning into the left-wing Liberator.
Look, let's face it, any boundary we set between 'life' and 'non life' is arbitrary. We can't even decide why a human being is alive but a rock isn't - all the lines are blurred. Birth provides a nice, convenient boundary - or, alternatively, the current third-trimester viability thing enshrined in law.
The third trimester viability doesn't work when applied to my "it's a person hijacking organs" thing. Unless a woman can induce labor at any time after she is banned from abortion, it's a violation of her bodily autonomy. I feel her consent to have another person living inside of her can be revoked at any time in the same way that she can revoke permission to have sex with her at any time before or during intercourse.
PS: This may be hard to believe, but Turambar is the troll, not me.
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yup, i'm in here basically to provoke liberator, trashman, and spardason for my own amusement. I don't actually believe that murdering 2 year olds is ok, i just thought i could get a rise out of high max.
i do actually believe that getting nationalized healthcare will damage the corporate-owned corrupt system here, and that we need to do that whenever possible though. the country needs to go back to being for the people, not just the top 1% of people and their unknowing pawns like lib.
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the country needs to go back to being for the people, not just the top 1% of people and their unknowing pawns like lib.
This country was founded and the government set up such that the rich had all the power. So actually putting the power in the hands of the people at large is, well, destroying America's foundations.
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i just thought i could get a rise out of high max
But you didn't get it like you wanted :p I have control and I know if I did, the target would become me, and I didn't want that, so I let the others argue it more and get into detail. But really, this topic will probably get closed sooner or later and if not, probably cease to get posted in sooner than later.
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i do actually believe that getting nationalized healthcare will damage the corporate-owned corrupt system here, and that we need to do that whenever possible though. the country needs to go back to being for the people, not just the top 1% of people and their unknowing pawns like lib.
Yay, healthcare thread #3! Or is that #4? :p
More on the not-topic, I have a hypothetical for you, iamzack, and I'm not really implying anything by asking beyond my own honest curiosity. Let's say, since it seems reasonably feasible to do so, that medical science advances to the point where it is possible to construct a completely-artificial womb, capable of supporting an embryo at just about any stage of development to full-term. Let's say that doctors are capable of transferring an embryo from a human womb to this artificial one while maintaining its viability via a procedure that carries no risks to the woman beyond those of a normal abortion today, since that also seems reasonable enough. Given that sort of situation, where the "hijacking organs" claim could be negated by a simple transfer, and where the resulting baby could be put up for adoption just the same as a baby carried to full-term today, with no additional obligations placed on the biological mother, would you still see a need for full-fledged abortions to be performed? It may be a somewhat silly scenario, but I'd like to know if your objections to pregnancy would be acknowledged under it.
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I don't know about any of you, but I feel that this thread is getting creepy.
This thread was creepy when it started!
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Given that sort of situation, where the "hijacking organs" claim could be negated by a simple transfer, and where the resulting baby could be put up for adoption just the same as a baby carried to full-term today, with no additional obligations placed on the biological mother, would you still see a need for full-fledged abortions to be performed?
I don't understand the question. If it were possible to remove the fetus without harming it, there would be no debate. If the fetus can be saved without forcing the mother to carry it, who would argue for killing it?
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That's the answer he was looking for.
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I'm going to stop you right here, since the examples you're citing aren't entirely in the mold of what we're discussing. Both of your cases involve the medical treatment of a singular entity, the afflicted person in question; no matter whether you consider it a human being or a bundle of cells, in the case of abortion, it's a given that there's something genetically distinct there. And even setting those two examples against each other, the broken arm is a result of a random accident (hell, people can break their arm by tripping over something in their house) through no fault of the person involved, whereas smoking-induced cancer is the predictable result of a lifetime's worth of conscious choices...I'd say the abortion issue falls far closer to the latter.
Your later posts though pretty much prove that your making the assumption that pregnancy implies some sort of negligence on the part of both parties. Simple fact is that contraception isn't 100%. You can take responsibility about sex, you can both use contraception and still get pregnant.
Given that, it's pretty silly to claim that penis + vagina = pregnancy therefore they need to take responsibility.
That's on the same level as claiming that because someone went and climbed a mountain they should have known that they could injure themselves. Now you say that this is a medical procedure only affecting the injured person but you've missed the rather subtle point that someone else now has to risk their own life to get the guy off the damn mountain. :p Depending on the conditions that could actually be a significant risk. Would you really claim that if there was any risk to the mountain rescue people that they should simply tell the guy to take responsibility rather than risk their lives to get him?
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That's the answer he was looking for.
Pretty much.
Your later posts though pretty much prove that your making the assumption that pregnancy implies some sort of negligence on the part of both parties. Simple fact is that contraception isn't 100%. You can take responsibility about sex, you can both use contraception and still get pregnant.
Given that, it's pretty silly to claim that penis + vagina = pregnancy therefore they need to take responsibility.
I'm fully aware that 98% isn't equal to 100%, and that even if both parties are using contraception, the small potential for pregnancy still exists. Reasonably-informed people who choose to have vaginal intercourse presumably know about this potential beforehand. It's like choosing to walk around outside in a thunderstorm: the odds that you'll get hit are still very low, but they do exist, and unless you're dumb as a brick, you know this to be true even as you walk. As I alluded to before, there are forms of mutual sexual activity that convey absolutely no risk of inadvertent pregnancy. The way I see it, if you want to be 100% sure, stick to those methods and skip the penis + vagina altogether. Otherwise, come to terms with the fact that there's going to be that 1% chance.
That's on the same level as claiming that because someone went and climbed a mountain they should have known that they could injure themselves. Now you say that this is a medical procedure only affecting the injured person but you've missed the rather subtle point that someone else now has to risk their own life to get the guy off the damn mountain. :p Depending on the conditions that could actually be a significant risk. Would you really claim that if there was any risk to the mountain rescue people that they should simply tell the guy to take responsibility rather than risk their lives to get him?
Maybe it's the fact that I have some truly significant back pain going on at the moment, but I'm having a hell of a time wrapping my head around the analogy you're trying to make. :p This answer is probably completely off from where you were going, but I will say that the rescue people also make that free choice to risk their own lives by the profession they chose, even if it means saving people whose own stupidity put them in danger in the first place. They could just as easily refuse to perform said rescues by seeking work elsewhere. Like I said, I didn't really get your point, so I don't even know if that makes sense.
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They way I see it, the woman did not sign any contract with the fetus and has no legal obligation to it. She can revoke her permission at any time the way you can revoke permission for a friend to stay the night at your house at 2am. It's not the most polite thing to do, but it's not illegal to be rude. :P
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It's rude if the friend has nowhere to go, but there is a huge difference between a friend and your own child and a big difference between giving a stranger your kidney and having your own flesh and blood occupy your uterus briefly, and your uterus isn't cut out and donated.
It is always sad when a person cares about a little so-called right like that over their love ones and babies. But sadly in western culture, people tend to care more about themselves, possessions, sex, fame and fortune, and so-called fun and games and whatever they want more than people, even caring more about it than their own husband or baby. To make matters worse, they don't take responsibility and they look for scape goats to blame. That is seen as both childish and selfish. Seems that people are changing into heartless robots ariound here. Let's see how bad it gets in 20 years, if humanity doesn't destroy itself with its heartless and immoral train of thought. We also see an extreme rise in heartless feminazis who want absolute power.
Plus, just because something is not written in a law doesn't make it right. So if it became legal to kill someone I hate or take something from them, would that be right? Once the path of moral decline starts, it slowly increases until you get something like the Roman empire, then it destroys itself. But bad selfish societies deserve that since they did it to themselves, I suppose. I'll just sit back and watch the show. Who knows the outcome?
But I know arguing it won't do any good, so does this topic have a point since they never go anywhere and no one changes their mind? So I should stop right now. GD threads tend to always end up in fights, and arguments will last forever as long as others think differently.
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We also see an extreme rise in heartless feminazis who want absolute power.
:rolleyes:
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:rolleyes: Feminazis? Like in Wolfenstein?
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It was a funny term I saw recently when reading about certain things :D
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That term is the mark of guys who have no idea what they're talking about, and blame all their problems on women.
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Pretty much.
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@Zack: Yes, whatever you want to think. Of course I don't blame all my problems on women. I admit fault usually and blame people who I feel are at fault, be them men or women, it matters not to me. Maybe you misunderstood my meaning, or did I use the word incorrectly? I was using it as a substitute to feminist, or bossy controlling women who think they are superior to men and always put their own things before family and people, or misandry.
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The term is used exclusively by misogynists to silence uppity women. It's also an auto-losetheargument.
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Yes.
Feminism aims to correct deep-set inequalities between men and women. It does not seek to place women above men.
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Feminism aims to correct deep-set inequalities between men and women. It does not seek to place women above men.
To be fair, some people claiming to be feminists do want to put women in power above men. They're the ones who make ridiculous statements like how the world would be better run by women cause women don't start wars. But they are a very small minority and aren't what High Max is on about.
I'm fully aware that 98% isn't equal to 100%, and that even if both parties are using contraception, the small potential for pregnancy still exists. Reasonably-informed people who choose to have vaginal intercourse presumably know about this potential beforehand. It's like choosing to walk around outside in a thunderstorm: the odds that you'll get hit are still very low, but they do exist, and unless you're dumb as a brick, you know this to be true even as you walk. As I alluded to before, there are forms of mutual sexual activity that convey absolutely no risk of inadvertent pregnancy. The way I see it, if you want to be 100% sure, stick to those methods and skip the penis + vagina altogether. Otherwise, come to terms with the fact that there's going to be that 1% chance.
I have. That's what abortion should be for. If I'm a woman who did everything I could to prevent a pregnancy and one still occurs I should still be able to get an abortion and get the outcome I wanted. The net result is still no pregnancy which is exactly what was the desired outcome.
What you suggest is ridiculous though. You seem to be saying that if you do something that results in an outcome you didn't plan for you have no right to mitigate the effects and simply have to carry them around for the rest of your life. That's like saying the person who took the 1% chance of getting hit by lightning shouldn't get a skin graft for any burns they got since "They knew the risk"
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Part of the problem with this is when people come into a country with backwards values (such as stoning of women being "acceptable") and insist that their backwardness be respected, would should be done? Where do we draw the line? The fundemental problem is that muslim societies in general are about a thousand years BEHIND us, they still hold to ideas that we ourselves abandonded decades ago, so why should we respect values that we ourselves have been trying so hard to stamp out in our own cultures?
The issue with hispanic immigrants in the US as far as I'm concerned is not what their parents are doing, its the kids. The parents at least try to do something by working hard, they aren't the problem. The problem is their children. Often times they go to some of the worst schools ever, and too frequently they get pulled into gangs. A while back I found a blog written in the mid to late '90s by a teacher who was teaching in pico-union, and he talked about this. By 7th grade the majority of the kids there had been pulled into gangs, although I can't seem to find that blog anymore (I think it was called "inner city blues" or something but I don't remember). It's no accident that membership in hispanic gangs has exploded right alongside hispanic immigration, which causes lots of trouble for everyone.
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Stick people in crappy schools, you'll get crappily educated people as a result.
I really hated to rain on everyone's parade but when everyone was patting themselves on the back that America had elected a black president I simply thought "Meh, call me when you elect a Hispanic one"
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What you suggest is ridiculous though. You seem to be saying that if you do something that results in an outcome you didn't plan for you have no right to mitigate the effects and simply have to carry them around for the rest of your life. That's like saying the person who took the 1% chance of getting hit by lightning shouldn't get a skin graft for any burns they got since "They knew the risk"
"Rest of your life"? Try several months. This isn't something that an unwilling recipient has to deal with for the rest of her life. You can carry the baby to term, give birth, put it up for adoption into a family that actually wants it, and never even think about it again if that's your wish. Don't want to have even a remote chance of that? Then don't have vaginal sex. Really, I don't know any other way to convey that sentiment more clearly.
Putting aside issues such as financial or societal pressure, when it comes down to a simple "I don't want to" opinion, I think it's just one massive case of people wanting to have their cake and eat it too. You know there's a tiny risk of pregnancy while having sex even if you use protection, but you do it anyway. And if you wind up falling in that 1%, you just snuff that entity out, just because it would inconvenience you. There's a staggering simple alternative, one that still allows one to think with one's pants, but no, that'd be far too easy, wouldn't it? Instead, let's build up a big international abortion industry, just so we can keep screwing in the coochie. Wonderful, humanity.
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You know there's a tiny risk of pregnancy while having sex even if you use protection
If you use the pull out method correctly, they say the chance of getting the girl pregnant is about as likely as using a condom. Of course the likely-hood may also increase or decrease depending on the age of the woman, perhaps also the age of the man, etc.
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Blah. Once most women get knocked up their hormones kick in and they turn all possessive.
Men can be feminists too.
Actions have consequences, consequences imply responsibility by their own presence. But it's the individuals paragotive to act on those consequences within or without the law as they see fit.
I have consequences . . . .full life consequences :nervous:
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Maybe feminists have too much testostrone coupled with a lack of estrogen or some sort of other strange hormone coctail problem. Maybe it is like this: More than normal testostrone for a woman = tomboy. A little more than that = feminist. A little more than that = lesbian and all the above in one.
In the USA, they do put steroids in the beef and many Americans eat too much beef. Maybe there is a connection. Maybe also all those strange chemicals in the foods contribute as well. Too much beef and hot dog meat has been associated with colon cancer and other problems as well. Perhaps it may cause other cancers too, like breast cancer or may also be part of the cause of prostate cancer.
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I am not even going to comment on the above statement other than to say that it saddens me that people still think like that.
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Max, you do realise you agreed to terms and conditions when you signed up right? :wtf: blatantly inflammatory posts are toeing a fine line under my duress.
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That was nothing compared to what people like Liberator and Turambar said earlier and some others say. Why pick on me? Plus, my comment could even be considered scientific.
Mobius has been telling me that I should abandon General Disc and I'm really thinking he has a point and I'm seriously considering it. I guess on this site, some people can say what they want if they are well liked and if it is purely liberal and even disturbing with no complaints at all, but if it is people like me, it is different. Is that fair? It is playing favorites.
People get flamed for any conservative values on this forum whatsoever and any disagreements with the mainstream person here. I take both sides to a certain extent since I believe a mix of both liberal and conservative. Plus, I didn't directly insult anyone or call anyone anything and never threatened anyone and others do sometimes and call others stupid and idiot, but they get away with that. I can't believe this. It isn't fair.
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you are not being persecuted because you are conservative.
you say things that are 'stand out in a crowd' stupid, I still find my self reading threads and I come to a post and have a pain in the sides of my head from what I'm reading and how nonsensical it is and then I look and see your name.
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I don't care what people who don't know me think. It is all your opinions. None of you could understand me because you don't know what it feels like to be me or my experiences and what I see. Some people are luckier than others. Think it is stupid and I'm stupid if you all want. I've had about enough of people. They have no heart and I trust no one much. I only like to be liked by good people anyways and am very selective. I choose not to get close to many people because I see the truth. They care only about themselves and I should close my mind to people to avoid stress and them trying to manipulate me or some pretending they care. I remember it and won't forget it and I don't want to forget. It is all hopeless and the human species is hopeless. I don't know why people care so much about a species who is so selfish. I need sleep and need to calm down. Mobius is right. I should have quit posting in gen disc when I was ahead. And I never said I was conservative. I said a mix.
People only disappoint, friends also. In my experience. They don't show you much attention and they forget you. That hurts. I know what pain and disappointment feels like, probably more than many people. Seems that hate in this world is much stronger than love and friendship. Bonds of the people are weak, usually. Sometimes I feel extreme hate and I rarely smile these days. More bitterness. Love and true friendship is usually hard to create and is easily destroyed and hate is easily created and hard to get rid of and if someone is with someone, it is usually only for themselves, not out of love or you as a person, much more these days and especially in the west. Love is conditional but hate is more unconditional. One mistake and a person will never trust you again or care much about you, even if you did many good things, it seems in many cases.
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This country was founded and the government set up such that the rich had all the power. So actually putting the power in the hands of the people at large is, well, destroying America's foundations.
It's a fact that when this country was formed only (inherently) white landowners could vote. Because they were the only ones who could afford to well educated and be relied upon to stay abreast of any issues at hand. It's a known fact that people who are poorly educated are easily manipulated by people who are well educated.
you are not being persecuted because you are conservative.
Believe me when I say that it really doesn't feel like that most of the time. Most of the time I feel like I'm being ridiculed and mocked for my beliefs and stances which is galling considering most of the people who are doing it are the first to call for tolerance if they're hotbed issue comes under scrutiny.
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"Think it is stupid and I'm stupid if you all want."
will do
well, lib, I'll have your back on any small government argument, but I'll have to disagree when you want to expand the government into my bedroom.
and I think I sort of agree with you here, an exsistant culture is suicidal if it welcomes a huge surge of outsides to displace the existing population, though a suicidal culture is what you would expect if it focuses only on it's negative points and specifically points out cultural pride as a source of said problems. my biggest problem with the multiculturalists is they don't treat western civilization the same as every other culture, its a one way road, we can learn from the rest of the world but they have nothing to learn from us to the point of Xenocentrism. honestly I think we should all just mind our own business. personally learning about the rest of the world is good, importing another culture wholesale is not so much.
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That was nothing compared to what people like Liberator and Turambar said earlier and some others say. Why pick on me? Plus, my comment could even be considered scientific.
Finally, conclusive proof that you truly have no idea what science is.
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Meh. I think ya all are stupid. Humanity needs to be eradicated. :drevil:
But really, we all know why this is happening. It's because the western culture set itself up for a slow "death". Everything about it seems like it's geared against more children.
Think about it.
It emphasises living out your dreams and being somebody (and a parent doesn't count as somebody important), the cost of bringing up and educating your offspring is redicolous (have you even look at the prices of kids items? How the hell do you justify those prices? How can baby pants cost 4 time more than regular pants when they use so little material? Are they made from friggin gold?).
Then the housing is a problem, and since the culture is so consumer-oriented, people feel like they NEVER have enough money cause they need item X. And they go to redicolous lengths to get it. Wasn't the financial crysis caused by so many pople taking loans by morganing their homes? Because they couldn't live without that shiny new plasma TV and designer handbag.
Seriously, the whole western culture is rigged to push children into the background - they're not the future, they're an obstacle to happines. And then people wonder why the west is dying out! Here's a hint - it's because it's STUPID.
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Plus, I didn't directly insult anyone or call anyone anything...
Maybe feminists have too much testostrone coupled with a lack of estrogen or some sort of other strange hormone coctail problem. Maybe it is like this: More than normal testostrone for a woman = tomboy. A little more than that = feminist. A little more than that = lesbian and all the above in one.
That's not scientific, and it is an insult. You're suggesting that women who don't act how you think they should act have a medical issue. As a tomboy-lesbianish-feminist with perfectly normal hormone levels: ****. you.
I will admit, that's a well-known conservative viewpoint, though. It's funny how conservatives ***** about respecting points of view they find barbaric and then demand their own barbaric points of view be respected.
What you suggest is ridiculous though. You seem to be saying that if you do something that results in an outcome you didn't plan for you have no right to mitigate the effects and simply have to carry them around for the rest of your life. That's like saying the person who took the 1% chance of getting hit by lightning shouldn't get a skin graft for any burns they got since "They knew the risk"
"Rest of your life"? Try several months. This isn't something that an unwilling recipient has to deal with for the rest of her life. You can carry the baby to term, give birth, put it up for adoption into a family that actually wants it, and never even think about it again if that's your wish. Don't want to have even a remote chance of that? Then don't have vaginal sex. Really, I don't know any other way to convey that sentiment more clearly.
Putting aside issues such as financial or societal pressure, when it comes down to a simple "I don't want to" opinion, I think it's just one massive case of people wanting to have their cake and eat it too. You know there's a tiny risk of pregnancy while having sex even if you use protection, but you do it anyway. And if you wind up falling in that 1%, you just snuff that entity out, just because it would inconvenience you. There's a staggering simple alternative, one that still allows one to think with one's pants, but no, that'd be far too easy, wouldn't it? Instead, let's build up a big international abortion industry, just so we can keep screwing in the coochie. Wonderful, humanity.
It's my right to have vaginal sex, and it's my right to not have a foreign entity living inside my body. Obviously anyone who doesn't want to be pregnant is going to go as far as their education allows in preventing a pregnancy, but to say "if you don't want to get pregnant, don't have sex" puts pressure exclusively on women to not have sex. Where's the consequence for men who have sex and get someone pregnant? Oh, right, pregnancy is a women's issue.
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"Rest of your life"? Try several months. This isn't something that an unwilling recipient has to deal with for the rest of her life.
If you think that choosing to bring a life into this world is only something that affects you for several months you should get a ****ing vasectomy now. Not to mention stopping sanctimoniously lecturing the rest of us about responsibility. You've already proved that you aren't with that statement.
You can carry the baby to term, give birth, put it up for adoption into a family that actually wants it, and never even think about it again if that's your wish. Don't want to have even a remote chance of that? Then don't have vaginal sex. Really, I don't know any other way to convey that sentiment more clearly.
Why? Cause some religious guy believes that a collection of cells is a lifeform? I don't believe that. Why should I have to live my life conforming to your twisted and ridiculous beliefs of what constitutes a life?
Putting aside issues such as financial or societal pressure, when it comes down to a simple "I don't want to" opinion, I think it's just one massive case of people wanting to have their cake and eat it too. You know there's a tiny risk of pregnancy while having sex even if you use protection, but you do it anyway. And if you wind up falling in that 1%, you just snuff that entity out, just because it would inconvenience you. There's a staggering simple alternative, one that still allows one to think with one's pants, but no, that'd be far too easy, wouldn't it? Instead, let's build up a big international abortion industry, just so we can keep screwing in the coochie. Wonderful, humanity.
When you start going on about the abortion industry you really show how badly you've lost the plot on this one. :)
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"Rest of your life"? Try several months. This isn't something that an unwilling recipient has to deal with for the rest of her life.
If you think that choosing to bring a life into this world is only something that affects you for several months you should get a ****ing vasectomy now. Not to mention stopping sanctimoniously lecturing the rest of us about responsibility. You've already proved that you aren't with that statement.
You can carry the baby to term, give birth, put it up for adoption into a family that actually wants it, and never even think about it again if that's your wish. Don't want to have even a remote chance of that? Then don't have vaginal sex. Really, I don't know any other way to convey that sentiment more clearly.
Why? Cause some religious guy believes that a collection of cells is a lifeform? I don't believe that. Why should I have to live my life conforming to your twisted and ridiculous beliefs of what constitutes a life?
Who cares why? You implied that getting pregnant makes you carry something for the rest of your life, he corrected that by saying the above. Why someone would take the course of action the viability of which proves you were wrong is completely irrelevant.
P.S. There's no reason.
P.P.S. The amount of stupid fallacious posts in this thread is incredible.
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You can carry the baby to term, give birth, put it up for adoption into a family that actually wants it, and never even think about it again if that's your wish
agreed :yes:
Who are we to decide what constitutes a human, a large number of people put the beginnings of human life at conception. Adoption gives a chance for a great person to be born. Who knows, the next Beethoven or mozart. Grant could swing the other way too.
There is an old myth related to the story
If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already (some versions say 5 kids, some say 14), three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, (some versions of this story say that one of the siblings was in a mental institution) and she had syphilis (some versions say tuberculosis and some also say that the father was sick with sniffles), would you recommend that she have an abortion?
If you say 'yes', then you get the gleeful response "Then you just killed Beethoven!"
Although strictly speaking he was the second eldest, first died at a very young age. But it is an interesting proposition. We have no idea, what potential this person may have in their life. Unless you believe that your right to be born simply comes down to luck and want.
Why? Cause some religious guy believes that a collection of cells is a lifeform? I don't believe that. Why should I have to live my life conforming to your twisted and ridiculous beliefs of what constitutes a life?
Im very surprised at this comment. 'Twisted' and 'ridiculous'??? So that goes for the billion and more people who believe that life is special? Its not about conforming to a religious belief, its about respecting human life.
Putting aside issues such as financial or societal pressure, when it comes down to a simple "I don't want to" opinion, I think it's just one massive case of people wanting to have their cake and eat it too. You know there's a tiny risk of pregnancy while having sex even if you use protection, but you do it anyway. And if you wind up falling in that 1%, you just snuff that entity out, just because it would inconvenience you. There's a staggering simple alternative, one that still allows one to think with one's pants, but no, that'd be far too easy, wouldn't it? Instead, let's build up a big international abortion industry, just so we can keep screwing in the coochie. Wonderful, humanity.
Agreed :yes:
Its my life, im going to live it the way i want to. Sounds like a young childs ego-centric attitude "me, me, me, me". Im glad that most would choose the adoption method. Give that life a chance!
basic message though:
IF YOUR GOING TO HUMP, COVER YOUR STUMP :D
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basic message though:
IF YOUR GOING TO HUMP, COVER YOUR STUMP :D
But as others have already pointed out, even that form of contraceptive can fail. It is only 98% sure, so what then carry to term for 9 months a give up the baby for adoption?
High Max is all for abstinence.......
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This country was founded and the government set up such that the rich had all the power. So actually putting the power in the hands of the people at large is, well, destroying America's foundations.
It's a fact that when this country was formed only (inherently) white landowners could vote. Because they were the only ones who could afford to well educated and be relied upon to stay abreast of any issues at hand. It's a known fact that people who are poorly educated are easily manipulated by people who are well educated.
You're a perfect example of that, in fact.
you are not being persecuted because you are conservative.
Believe me when I say that it really doesn't feel like that most of the time. Most of the time I feel like I'm being ridiculed and mocked for my beliefs and stances which is galling considering most of the people who are doing it are the first to call for tolerance if they're hotbed issue comes under scrutiny.
There are well-educated and articulate conservatives here who aren't mocked (Scotty, Mongoose, spardason.) You're not being ridiculed and mocked for your beliefs and stances. You're being ridiculed and mocked because you can't back them up, and every time they're demolished, you fail to acknowledge that you might have learned something.
This thread seems to be heading back into flame territory. If people like Mongoose and TESLA want to define human life as beginning at conception, fine. But don't force that view on me or my friends. Practice it in your own lives rather than trying to enshrine it in legislation.
Because, as has already been pointed out: BANNING ABORTION DOES NOT CHANGE ABORTION RATES.
I hope that empirical data is clear enough for everyone.
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That's a logical fallacy, TESLA. The fetus could also be the next Hitler/Stalin/etc. Most likely, it's just another schmuck that's going to grow up to be a criminal after 18 years in the horrific fostercare system.
IMHO, adoption is a much more disgusting practice than abortion. Even if the child ends up in a wonderful, loving home at a very young age and stays there permanently, not all is well. You end up with perfectionists with self-esteem in the ****ter wondering what's so wrong with them their own parents didn't want them who then spend all their time desperately trying to make sure their adoptive parents never for a second regret their decision. (I know too many girls adopted from China.)
Aaaanyway. I still don't think it's relevant when life starts. It's a stupid argument that no one can win and doesn't address the unwanted parasitic relationship of a foreign entity taking up residence inside someone's body aspect of it.
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BANNING ABORTION DOES NOT CHANGE ABORTION RATES.
Have I ever said ban them?
It's a medical procedure. MEDICAL. With certain logical positions in MEDICAL situations. I'm against abortions on demand simply for the selfish wants of an immature little little girl or little boy who'd rather savage themselves/significant other and murder someone rather be responsible that certain actions have CONSEQUENCES.
BTW, it was posited that sex is a necessary part of social activity...yes it certainly is...within the bonds of marriage. Sex is one of the primary strengthening agents in marriage early on as the couple discovers the other's likes and dislikes and actually changes the brain chemistry over time(usually) reinforcing the love bond between the couple. There is little doubt that humans are designs to enjoy sex. Both genders have extremely oversize genitalia for they bodysize and the fact that we can mate any time of the year regardless of season also indicates that sex was meant for more than simple reproduction. But the idea that rampant sex along with all the baggage it brings with it STDs and unwanted pregnancy chiefly among them is ludicrous.
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:)
Solve all the world's problems while you're at it, k?
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BANNING ABORTION DOES NOT CHANGE ABORTION RATES.
Have I ever said ban them?
It's a medical procedure. MEDICAL. With certain logical positions in MEDICAL situations. I'm against abortions on demand simply for the selfish wants of an immature little little girl or little boy who'd rather savage themselves/significant other and murder someone rather be responsible that certain actions have CONSEQUENCES.
BTW, it was posited that sex is a necessary part of social activity...yes it certainly is...within the bonds of marriage. Sex is one of the primary strengthening agents in marriage early on as the couple discovers the other's likes and dislikes and actually changes the brain chemistry over time(usually) reinforcing the love bond between the couple. There is little doubt that humans are designs to enjoy sex. Both genders have extremely oversize genitalia for they bodysize and the fact that we can mate any time of the year regardless of season also indicates that sex was meant for more than simple reproduction. But the idea that rampant sex along with all the baggage it brings with it STDs and unwanted pregnancy chiefly among them is ludicrous.
Goodness gracious me. Keep your religious/social institution away from my biological imperative. Besides how do you expect the birthing rates to stay high enough to forestall your culture collapse if your constraining sex to marriage :P
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BANNING ABORTION DOES NOT CHANGE ABORTION RATES.
Have I ever said ban them?
It's a medical procedure. MEDICAL. With certain logical positions in MEDICAL situations. I'm against abortions on demand simply for the selfish wants of an immature little little girl or little boy who'd rather savage themselves/significant other and murder someone rather be responsible that certain actions have CONSEQUENCES.
BTW, it was posited that sex is a necessary part of social activity...yes it certainly is...within the bonds of marriage. Sex is one of the primary strengthening agents in marriage early on as the couple discovers the other's likes and dislikes and actually changes the brain chemistry over time(usually) reinforcing the love bond between the couple. There is little doubt that humans are designs to enjoy sex. Both genders have extremely oversize genitalia for they bodysize and the fact that we can mate any time of the year regardless of season also indicates that sex was meant for more than simple reproduction. But the idea that rampant sex along with all the baggage it brings with it STDs and unwanted pregnancy chiefly among them is ludicrous.
How is not wanting a foreign entity leeching off your body not a medical issue? Also, when men have to be responsible after knocking someone up, then you can *****. As it is now, only women have to deal with it, and it's men who make up the vast majority of morons crying "take responsibility for your actions!"
Also, no, sex was not designed for marriage. Marriage is a legal contract that has to do with property and familial rights, not sex. Not everybody is into having sex with only one person their entire life. Some people are, but they're definitely the minority. In fact, loads of people don't have much or any emotional attachment to sex.
(Also, until gays can marry, screw abstinence until marriage bull****.)
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It's my right to have vaginal sex, and it's my right to not have a foreign entity living inside my body. Obviously anyone who doesn't want to be pregnant is going to go as far as their education allows in preventing a pregnancy, but to say "if you don't want to get pregnant, don't have sex" puts pressure exclusively on women to not have sex. Where's the consequence for men who have sex and get someone pregnant? Oh, right, pregnancy is a women's issue.
There is a fundamental inequality in the genders regarding this whole issue; I completely agree with that sentiment, and that it can really suck in many respects. But short of a sex change, there isn't really any way to resolve that biologically. The only way to attempt to equal that playing field is correcting the woeful inadequacies that exist in the support network for pregnant women. I'd love it if the world as a whole would force all the deadbeat baby daddies out there to man up and take responsibility for their half of the act, since I view them as a disgrace to my own gender. That aside, the world is what it is, and I have to make my belief calls within what we're given.
"Rest of your life"? Try several months. This isn't something that an unwilling recipient has to deal with for the rest of her life.
If you think that choosing to bring a life into this world is only something that affects you for several months you should get a ****ing vasectomy now. Not to mention stopping sanctimoniously lecturing the rest of us about responsibility. You've already proved that you aren't with that statement.
Give me a break, kara. You and I both know that that was exclusively responding to your "rest of your life" hyperbole, and nothing else. Yes, there is an emotional impact that lingers from any situation like that, but if the baby is put up for adoption, from a physical and economic standpoint, the birth mother's responsibility ends as soon as the birth itself does. And trust me, I know full well the responsibilities and challenges inherent in raising a child, I'd like to think significantly better than at least a few other people around here.
You can carry the baby to term, give birth, put it up for adoption into a family that actually wants it, and never even think about it again if that's your wish. Don't want to have even a remote chance of that? Then don't have vaginal sex. Really, I don't know any other way to convey that sentiment more clearly.
Why? Cause some religious guy believes that a collection of cells is a lifeform? I don't believe that. Why should I have to live my life conforming to your twisted and ridiculous beliefs of what constitutes a life?
Labeling the legitimate viewpoint of a large percentage of people on the other side of the debate "ridiculous" and "twisted" sure is an easy out, isn't it? Call me when you're ready to ditch the ad hominems.
Putting aside issues such as financial or societal pressure, when it comes down to a simple "I don't want to" opinion, I think it's just one massive case of people wanting to have their cake and eat it too. You know there's a tiny risk of pregnancy while having sex even if you use protection, but you do it anyway. And if you wind up falling in that 1%, you just snuff that entity out, just because it would inconvenience you. There's a staggering simple alternative, one that still allows one to think with one's pants, but no, that'd be far too easy, wouldn't it? Instead, let's build up a big international abortion industry, just so we can keep screwing in the coochie. Wonderful, humanity.
When you start going on about the abortion industry you really show how badly you've lost the plot on this one. :)
Wanna explain that one to me, chief? The abortion industry as it stands is part and parcel with the concept of legalized abortion, since that's precisely where said abortions take place. And while I could rail on said industry directly, I only meant that statement in the general sense that an entire dedicated industry has been able to thrive just on the desire for abortions, which I think by any standards is a pretty sad fact.
You know what amazes me the most about this thread, kara? When I see new posts appear in this thread, it's not the decidedly-liberal feminist I'm worried about verbally reaming me out, even though one would think she'd have by far the greatest cause to...it's you. You have such a fantastic way of declaring an opposing side's fundamental viewpoint to be completely invalid by default, as if you're the omniscient arbiter of such things. You're singlehandedly reminding me of why I've loathed getting into these sorts of GD arguments so much in the past; it really isn't worth the anxiety of wondering if I'll get royally pissed off by a set of responses each and every time I visit the boards. If I could find a nice stopping point to bail out of this now without looking like I was running with my tail between my legs, I would in an instant.
This thread seems to be heading back into flame territory. If people like Mongoose and TESLA want to define human life as beginning at conception, fine. But don't force that view on me or my friends. Practice it in your own lives rather than trying to enshrine it in legislation.
Because, as has already been pointed out: BANNING ABORTION DOES NOT CHANGE ABORTION RATES.
But again, Battuta, that's the kicker. If one does define human life as beginning at conception, then it follows that one has to view the act of abortion as at least some degree of murder. And as such, holding that definition is true, one is essentially ethically obligated to work against legalized abortion. Trust me, there are many disagreements in viewpoint I have with the majority of you that I feel are completely not worth arguing over, since when it comes down to it, they aren't affecting myself or anyone else. But in this case, where I believe that someone else is being affected, the "forcing" becomes something of an obligation.
And no, I'm not that naive to think that abortions wouldn't still happen if they were declared illegal. But to remove that endorsement from the law, to state that we, as a society, do not condone such actions, would be a massive step forward for me. To pass such a law in the first place would require a significant shifting of attitudes in this country, and I'd like to think that said shifting would correspond in a reduction of abortion numbers across the board, whether you're talking about the legal or illegal sense.
(And I probably missed something else in the five other posts that just popped up, but screw that. :p)
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Okay, maybe I wasn't quite clear.
When you ban abortion, the abortion rate does not change. The rate of maternal death, however, skyrockets. This is because women go to get risky, illegal abortions instead of safe, legal ones.
You're trading one kind of murder for another.
All that aside I don't really care what you believe. You are not obligated to work against abortion. You can feel free to practice a no-abortion creed in your own life, but please, stay the hell out of mine and let people do what they want. If I don't believe a little cluster of cells is alive, then you shouldn't be telling me it is. I'm not trying to force you to have abortions, so why the heck are you forcing people not to?
That is fundamentally inequitable. If you were so worried about human life, why aren't you up in arms about the 90% of pregnancies that spontaneously abort? Because it's 'natural'? So is disease, but we do our best to fix that...which brings us to the conclusion that, really, a degree of pre-natal infant mortality is expected and normal, and adding a few more isn't a big deal.
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I don't see abortion as murder, even though I see fetuses as human beings. As it is, the fetus cannot survive without the woman's body. It is her right to not lease her body to the fetus. That's all there is to it. Are you going to accuse her of murder if she starves herself until the fetus dies?
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Okay, maybe I wasn't quite clear.
When you ban abortion, the abortion rate does not change. The rate of maternal death, however, skyrockets. This is because women go to get risky, illegal abortions instead of safe, legal ones.
You're trading one kind of murder for another.
No, I know what you mean, and I've seen those statistics. What I want is for any ban on abortion to be concurrent with a cultural and societal shift that abortions flat-out aren't necessary, or even desired, in the vast majority of circumstances. I don't want women to feel like they have to be pressed to make that choice, and I want society as a whole to view the concept of the practice as abhorrent. If all of that could come to pass, then I think a legal ban on abortions would be truly effective. I know it's ridiculously idealistic, and that you never really get what you want, but that doesn't stop me from wishing.
All that aside I don't really care what you believe. You are not obligated to work against abortion. You can feel free to practice a no-abortion creed in your own life, but please, stay the hell out of mine and let people do what they want. If I don't believe a little cluster of cells is alive, then you shouldn't be telling me it is. I'm not trying to force you to have abortions, so why the heck are you forcing people not to?
Ah, but I am obligated, in the same sense that so many are obligated to work against genocide in Darfur, or general poverty and hunger, or AIDS. To me, it's a cause on equal footing. You say to "let people do what they want," but from my viewpoint, certain people aren't able to to begin with, which is kind of the whole problem. This isn't an issue like that of gay marriage, where the entire debate on both sides involves consenting adults; in this case, one particular party never gives its consent at all.
That is fundamentally inequitable. If you were so worried about human life, why aren't you up in arms about the 90% of pregnancies that spontaneously abort? Because it's 'natural'? So is disease, but we do our best to fix that...which brings us to the conclusion that, really, a degree of pre-natal infant mortality is expected and normal, and adding a few more isn't a big deal.
As in so much of the legal system as it stands today, it's a matter of intent. Spontaneous abortions aren't under anyone's control; in fact, I believe the vast majority happen before a woman is even aware that she was pregnant in the first place. There's nothing that we as humans can really do to change that. But intentionally terminating a pregnancy via a medical procedure is a conscious action, one that the actor is fully complicit in. To use an analogy, it's like the difference between having a drunk stumble out right in front of your car, with you having no chance at all to stop in time to avoid killing him, and you revving your engine to intentionally strike a pedestrian in a crosswalk. The law makes such distinctions on a daily basis, and I do the same...there's a fundamental difference between acknowleging that pre-natal mortality exists and willfully contributing to it oneself.
Edit, since these posts are flying fast and furious:
I don't see abortion as murder, even though I see fetuses as human beings. As it is, the fetus cannot survive without the woman's body. It is her right to not lease her body to the fetus. That's all there is to it. Are you going to accuse her of murder if she starves herself until the fetus dies?
See, this is the one aspect of this debate where I can't even begin to see things from your viewpoint. In my head, if you view the fetus as a human being, then the murder aspect is an absolute given, which absolutely trumps any "leasing rights" concept. I don't really know that going back-and-forth on it will do any good for either of us, because I don't know that we're going to come to any sort of common understanding on it.
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I think we're just working from fundamentally different grounds here. I don't know why anyone would care about a bundle of cells that much. There are billions of them. Billions have been wasted, billions more will be. A few more or less is irrelevant. Perhaps it's murder, but it's a commonplace and harmless kind.
I sincerely hope your world never comes to pass, Mongoose. You ask for the restriction of a fundamental freedom (self-determination) and the fundamental enslavement of women to a biological flaw they never asked for. I hope that such inequity will never be enshrined in law or in culture.
Certainly I'd like abortion to be unnecessary. But if it is necessary, it should be safe, legal, freely available, and shame-free. What happens in your world when a woman has to get an abortion for a legitimate reason? Perhaps the child is a result of rape? If abortion is viewed with 'loathing', then she has to deal with the shame of abortion on top of the existing shame of being raped - both unjust and despicable.
We already have slut-shaming. We have the shame that is cast upon women who have abortions because they simply don't want to be pregnant. That is an awful thing; it's a shame that men will never have to face. I can't see how expanding these shames would be a good thing.
Thinking about it makes me very afraid. But it is, at least, better than a world run by paleoconservative Liberator-types who'd like to 'protect' and 'cherish' women by creating an environment in which 'sex is restricted to marriage' - except for men, since 'boys will be boys' and some premarital exploration is expected. (The women they explore with, naturally, are sluts.)
However, since we have to live in the same world, here's what I'd propose as a compromise:
We agree that abortion should be minimized.
-- Your proposed solution is to build better support networks for mothers. You argue that this would allow mothers to carry babies to term even if it would normally impede their careers or livelihood. You also propose oral and anal sex as a substitute for vaginal sex in order to minimize accidental pregnancies.
-- My objection is that, first, it's impossible to ask humans to abstain from such a fundamentally hard-wired behavior; and second, that this still shackles women to a parasitic organism they never asked for and never consented to (women don't choose to be born women!)
-- As a compromise, I would endorse such support networks. If you want to encourage women to carry babies to term, fine, go for it. But women need to have shame-free access to abortions if need be. You are a man; your closest experience to imagining pregnancy probably came from watching the Alien movies. You should empathize with women who find the idea of something growing in their abdomen repulsive and horrifying. Birth is painful, potentially crippling, and viscerally unpleasant.
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I was going to post an image of the waste disposal from an abortion clinic, but when I went looking for one, the one I found almost made me vomit, as opposed to most medical imagery. Even now I'm sitting here with chills wracking my body because it was disgusting.
I have seen the statement multiple times that a fetus is just a bunch of cells.
Well so's
(http://www.collider.com/uploads/imageGallery/Battlestar_Galactica/katee_sackhoff.jpg)
and
(http://luv2hateu.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/who-is-barack-obama.jpg)
and also
(http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/3000000/RAMMSTEIN-TILL-LINDEMANN-rammstein-3076555-399-424.jpg)
Are these just a bunch of cells that you could dispose of without a thought? Just think about that, how many people like the above are murdered every year because some selfish little girl or boy decided they didn't want to pay and still play around?
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My serious opinion is let the parents (primarily the mother of course) decide. It's their business and has no influence or bearing on anyone elses life.
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Completely agreed, Dekker.
Liberator, could you please go read MP-Ryan's last post in this thread and show some evidence of actually reading and understanding what people say to you?
As for the ball of cells argument, you're right. People are all just collections of cells. The lines we draw between 'non-living thing', 'animal', and 'human' are utterly arbitrary. People have no worth except for what we assign to them.
Welcome to the real world. And the reason we're willing to discard fetuses, but not real people, is simply because we have chosen to recognize one as a living, independent thing, and the other as an organ of its mother, a part of her body that she has the right to determine the fate of.
Since you seem so stuck up about the goodness of women who don't have abortions, how about you face the truth about 'pro-life' women? (http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html)
Women want the freedom of self-determination that men are biologically granted. Even the most conservative women want it. And they have an inalienable right to it.
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Liberator, could you please go read MP-Ryan's last post in this thread and show some evidence of actually reading and understanding what people say to you?
Reading is too liberal for him.
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I think that's a bit uncalled for. My own derision towards him is already pushing it a bit. We should be fair-minded.
It's not that he's ignorant or stupid. Just that a lot of his beliefs, and the reasoning behind them, appears that way to me.
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That's a logical fallacy, TESLA. The fetus could also be the next Hitler/Stalin/etc. Most likely, it's just another schmuck that's going to grow up to be a criminal after 18 years in the horrific fostercare system.
I had already stated that it could easily go either way.
I know a few people who were adopted by a fostercares system. All are doing great. Not screwed up in any way whatsoever.
All lead very happy lives. People could just as easy grow up to be a criminal in a normal household. The argument you make is false. It all depends to a large extent on how you were raised, by whom, without getting in a whole nature vs nurture debate. If you come from a broken home and do you have your two parents with you, chances are you could be a bit mixed up in the head.
IMHO, adoption is a much more disgusting practice than abortion.
at least it gives the individual a chance at life. Nothing disgusting about it
Even if the child ends up in a wonderful, loving home at a very young age and stays there permanently, not all is well. You end up with perfectionists with self-esteem in the ****ter wondering what's so wrong with them their own parents didn't want them who then spend all their time desperately trying to make sure their adoptive parents never for a second regret their decision. (I know too many girls adopted from China.)
This could happen in any household, parents trying to put their failings and ambitions on their children.
Aaaanyway. I still don't think it's relevant when life starts. It's a stupid argument that no one can win and doesn't address the unwanted parasitic relationship of a foreign entity taking up residence inside someone's body aspect of it.
It is unfair to call it an unwanted parasitic relationship when pregnancy is in a league of its own. Symbiosis is more correct.
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Women want the freedom of self-determination that men are biologically granted. Even the most conservative women want it. And they have an inalienable right to it.
Just interested here, with your response. Just play a bit of devil's advocate here: What if the female did not want to carry the baby, but the male was willing to take over, raise and love the child after birth?
Should the male, have any say in the issue, (since it does take two to tango) or is it a completely female choice?
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It's the woman's choice until the baby is born. If the male was willing to have a functioning uterus and vagina implanted, receive the fetus, and carry it to term, sure, he could do that.
Unless that was possible, it's the woman's call. Her body, her choice.
And it's not a symbiosis if the parent doesn't get anything out of it.
Look, I feel that a lot of the more conservative views in this thread come from inexperience. (Not all, by all means.) When I was single and adolescent I felt pretty conservative about abortion too. If we can't kill babies after birth, I'd ask, why before?
Then I got into a committed, monogamous, loving relationship, and I found myself thinking: what if she did get pregnant, and abortion were illegal? Would I be able to watch this woman I loved suffer through nine months of crippling misery, leading up to a terrifying and unwanted trauma, followed by years of mental, physical, and economic consequences? Depression? Shame at being a young mother? Educational and job-market handicaps? An end to her athletic career? Hatred and disgust towards this child she never wanted?
And suddenly I felt that abortion was the only moral choice.
I feel that many people here would be changed by a close relationship with a woman who did not want children.
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It's the woman's choice until the baby is born. If the male was willing to have a functioning uterus and vagina implanted, receive the fetus, and carry it to term, sure, he could do that.
Unless that was possible, it's the woman's call. Her body, her choice.
So should a former wife of a man be intitled to his stored and frozen sperm, even if he does not want to have another child
(happened in the high court recently)
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My immediate instinct is 'no'. Related how?
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My immediate instinct is 'no'. Related how?
Curiosity
Like you said, if a female does not want to carry the child, even if her partner would raise it, feed it, etc,etc. Then naturally it should follow that the male have the same rights and not allow any of his sperm to be used without consent.
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The issue is the nine months of pregnancy. The male never has to deal with that.
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The issue is the nine months of pregnancy. The male never has to deal with that.
If your arguing that a women has the right to make the choice, then surely so does the male. If not, are you not simply reversing the discrimination?
Why must the male be forced to pay for the child when its born if he does not wish to support or have anything to do with it, if its an 'unwanted parasite'
Male may not deal with nine months of pregnancy, but could be dealing with a lifetime of financial payouts.
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:wtf:
That's not an issue I've commented on here, so I'm not sure why you're ascribing an opinion to me - especially when I just said 'no' to your last question...
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We agree that abortion should be minimized.
Yes
-- Your proposed solution is to build better support networks for mothers.
Yes
-- My objection is that, first, it's impossible to ask humans to abstain from such a fundamentally hard-wired behavior; and second, that this still shackles women to a parasitic organism they never asked for and never consented to (women don't choose to be born women!)
The consent is implicit by they participation in the activity that can lead to the creation of said organism. One of the qualities that makes us human is the ability to put our instincts aside and not be ruled by them. The implication has been made that the instinct for sex is somehow separate from our instinct to see after our own continued survival and well being.
No they don't ask to be born women. But contrary popular notion that there is no difference between the sexes, each carries with it a certain responsibility in both sex and the aftermath of that activity. The female is nominally expected to carry to term, bear and see to the initial raising of the child, the male is nominally expected to see that the female is free from her survival needs to do her part then work with her to raise the child.
-- As a compromise, I would endorse such support networks. If you want to encourage women to carry babies to term, fine, go for it. But women need to have shame-free access to abortions if need be. You are a man; your closest experience to imagining pregnancy probably came from watching the Alien movies. You should empathize with women who find the idea of something growing in their abdomen repulsive and horrifying. Birth is painful, potentially crippling, and viscerally unpleasant.
In third world levels of medicine perhaps, but proper medical care minimizes the potential aftereffects of birth. Hence why I am against home births.
In my experience, limited though it is, if a woman feels that the child that she is nurturing in her womb is repulsive and horrifying, those feelings stem from something attached to the child and not the child itself, as a unborn child is very embodiment of innocence, and she should receive such counseling as is needed to shed whatever is cause the feelings of revulsion. Contrary to physical health, the mental health of most everyone is not something considered by modern medicine.
Also, while I'll continue to read this thread with great interest, I'm not going to post anything further. Obviously, I'm a intellectual degenerate who isn't worth of occupying the high spaces with the rest of the gods.
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Liberator, please read other people's posts, okay?
Women never consented to be able to become pregnant. If given the choice I imagine most women would want conscious control over the pregnancy issue. That control is now available, if not in an ideal form.
And read this. (http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html)
And you're right: part of what makes us human is our ability to overcome our instincts and genetic heritage. Which is why it's so important that women be able to put aside the shackles of their genetically predetermined role and be truly free.
As for your second point, you're basically saying 'women who want abortions are crazy.' I refer you to my my earlier post about the value of being in a loving relationship. Since you describe yourself as someone with no experience in relationships, I imagine you aren't qualified to judge, and you're basically talking out of your ass.
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I don't really feel like chiming in with anything else at this exact moment, but with all due respect, Battuta, repeatedly linking to that page isn't really going to change anyone's mind on anything. I could just as easily link to a whole bunch of anecdotes from women who were all for legalized abortion, who indeed had abortions themselves, yet later went on to become prominent figures speaking out against abortion (including Norma McCorvey, the "Roe" in Roe v. Wade), but I know that that wouldn't shift your opinion in the least, either. Neither those nor your link would do much more than side-track the main debate that's going on here.
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The intent is not to change anyone's opinion. I would be happy to read anecdotes you post as well.
The point is to recognize that many women want this freedom. The women you cite (who have become anti-abortion) still have the freedom to not have abortions. These women, who remain anti-choice but still have abortions, have the freedom to have abortions even while morally opposed. I see that freedom as extraordinarily valuable, and these anecdotes are intended to illustrate it.
How could we ban abortion when so many people who would apparently support that ban still go and get abortions? It seems to suggest that the very foundation of anti-abortion activism is based on the fact that 'well, I would never need to get an abortion anyway!' (which, incidentally, is why so many men are suspect in their views on the topic)
Expanding the range of freedoms available to human beings is, as I see it, far more valuable than constricting it - especially when there is no consensus that the acts being permitted are in any way damaging or immoral to society at large.
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It's the woman's choice until the baby is born. If the male was willing to have a functioning uterus and vagina implanted, receive the fetus, and carry it to term, sure, he could do that.
Unless that was possible, it's the woman's call. Her body, her choice.
I was directing the question and you because of this statement. Naturally males cannot give birth. But it still requires two people for conception to take place. So should the male not have a say in the matter?
And it's not a symbiosis if the parent doesn't get anything out of it.
As your doctor, it is symbiosis. Regardless of what you 'get anything' from it.
Look, I feel that a lot of the more conservative views in this thread come from inexperience. (Not all, by all means.) When I was single and adolescent I felt pretty conservative about abortion too. If we can't kill babies after birth, I'd ask, why before?
Thats speculation on the experience of the conservative views. Although generally, i am a lot more left leaning, like a lot of people i know, on this one issue, people tend to be much more conservative.
Then I got into a committed, monogamous, loving relationship, and I found myself thinking: what if she did get pregnant, and abortion were illegal? Would I be able to watch this woman I loved suffer through nine months of crippling misery, leading up to a terrifying and unwanted trauma, followed by years of mental, physical, and economic consequences?
Where is your evidence of years of mental and physical pain?
Economic consequenes, yes their will be, but there is also childrens allowance to help in these matters.
Depression? Shame at being a young mother?
Society has moved on in many parts, young mothers do not face the shame that used to exist. I know of this from a very good friend of mine.
Educational and job-market handicaps?
Many educational institutes have a creche or on site accomadation of young mothers to help them keep studying. Many companies also have day-care.
Hatred and disgust towards this child she never wanted?
Adoption. Give the child to loving couples who cannot have children.
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Are you trying to tell me what my girlfriend should think? If she says that having a child would make her deeply unhappy for years, then I'm inclined to believe her rather than you.
As for your other points - no, the disadvantages that young mothers face have not been erased. A simple glance at statistics about why women leave the workforce is evidence enough for that. There has been progress, and it's good progress, but both the economic problems and the cultural stigma remain.
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Are you trying to tell me what my girlfriend should think? If she says that having a child would make her deeply unhappy for years, then I'm inclined to believe her rather than you.
I never said anything about what your girlfriend should think. You and me both know well, that our girlfriends are well capable of thinking for themselves! All be it, certain times to the month, it may not be the most logical..... :D
If having a child would make her or you unhappy, there are other options to prevent pregnancy occuring in the first place. Like the snip :shaking:
As for your other points - no, the disadvantages that young mothers face have not been erased. A simple glance at statistics about why women leave the workforce is evidence enough for that. There has been progress, and it's good progress, but both the economic problems and the cultural stigma remain.
Can you show me these statistics? Are you sure that women dont choose to leave the workforce to concentrate on raising kids at a young age. Maybe a career break?
The cultural stigma may be there where your from. Where i live, yes it is seen as unfortunate, not the ideal situation, but there is no discrimatnion of stigma attached to these ladies.
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The point is to recognize that many women want this freedom. The women you cite (who have become anti-abortion) still have the freedom to not have abortions. These women, who remain anti-choice but still have abortions, have the freedom to have abortions even while morally opposed. I see that freedom as extraordinarily valuable, and these anecdotes are intended to illustrate it.
That may have been your intent while posting those, but all they provided to me were a rather disgusting example of hypocrisy (a flaw which I'm certainly not immune to myself). I have very little respect for the individuals portrayed in them, although I do feel sympathy for the fact that they saw that action as their only option at the time.
How could we ban abortion when so many people who would apparently support that ban still go and get abortions? It seems to suggest that the very foundation of anti-abortion activism is based on the fact that 'well, I would never need to get an abortion anyway!' (which, incidentally, is why so many men are suspect in their views on the topic)
I would not say that a handful of individual anecdotes suggest anything beyond the actions of those individual persons; indeed, one could just as easily cite instances of women in tough straits who decided to go ahead and have their children. As for the views of men, while it's true that we can't have that experience of carrying a child, that's obviously something that's through no fault of our own; all we can do is take a look at the situation presented to us and determine what we feel is right as best we can. I'd like to think that's what I've tried to do.
Expanding the range of freedoms available to human beings is, as I see it, far more valuable than constricting it - especially when there is no consensus that the acts being permitted are in any way damaging or immoral to society at large.
It really is a question of freedom, isn't it? Yet that's another area where we apparently fundamentally disagree. You see abortion as giving an additional freedom to a particular subset of humanity. I, however, see it as constricting the most fundamental right that we as human beings possess: the right to live, to have a chance at plotting our own course through life. That's why I can never compromise about any arguments regarding not wanting a "parasitic organism," or "lack of consent" (which I've already addressed in another form), or anything along those lines. For me, life trumps all other concerns.
(And by the way, I never saw any of the Alien movies. :p)
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Unfortunately, human beings are really, really bad at putting themselves in the shoes of others. Psychologists call this 'egocentric cognition' and it's most famously demonstrated by an experiment involving the whistling of common tunes.
I just can't understand the 'life trumps all other concerns' argument when many of the fetuses being aborted are indistinguishable from the billions that naturally fail (or are only a few weeks past that stage.) Sure, there's the question of intent, but...every single implanted embryo is a unique, precious person. Yet billions of them vanish without ever getting a chance at life. If a few more vanish due to human intent, why does that matter? If I had never been born, well, then, I guess that would be a bummer - but everyone else who is born is unique and precious too. My own presence or absence only matters to me. And the only reason it matters is because I was lucky enough to live. Billions of others weren't, largely for natural reasons. Had I been aborted, well, I wouldn't care, would I? It just wouldn't be a big deal.
It's like getting upset about the failed formation of whatever planet used to be between Mars and Jupiter. It probably would've been a pretty cool, pretty unique planet. But nobody cares that it didn't make it, simply because, well, it didn't make it! And Planet X wasn't formed either, and neither were ten billion other possible planets that might have been.
Sure, nobody blew up that planet while it was still forming (well, probably.) But it illustrates why we don't mourn over all the fetuses that never make it naturally. They had the potential to be beautiful human beings, but that potential was snuffed out by accident. No one cries over them. The difference you'd cite, of course, is that fetuses aren't being aborted by accident...and no, they're not. But I don't really see how they have more of a right to life than all those who die accidentally. They're all unique individuals.
There's a higher freedom to consider here, though. And that is the freedom to hold a view about morality and the world. If someone else doesn't believe the same way you do about the right to life, why do you have the right to impose your views on them? Isn't it the height of arrogance to believe that only you have correctly analyzed the world and synthesized a system of morality?
Conservatives do not have a monopoly on 'good' and 'right' and 'life-affirming.' Those with differing viewpoints can claim those values just as firmly.
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If people like Mongoose and TESLA want to define human life as beginning at conception, fine. But don't force that view on me or my friends. Practice it in your own lives rather than trying to enshrine it in legislation.
Why not? Isn't that what EVERYONE is doing?
Aren't people who want abortion legalized doing the same - pushing their own agenda/beliefs, enshrine it into a legislation.
How is not wanting a foreign entity leeching off your body not a medical issue? Also, when men have to be responsible after knocking someone up, then you can *****. As it is now, only women have to deal with it, and it's men who make up the vast majority of morons crying "take responsibility for your actions!"
Bull****.
Men have to take equal responsiblity - if not more. They have to take care of the child and mother. If they decide to bail on the girl they should be friggin castrated...no, hung from the highest tree by their balls and THEN castrated.
I think we're just working from fundamentally different grounds here. I don't know why anyone would care about a bundle of cells that much. There are billions of them. Billions have been wasted, billions more will be. A few more or less is irrelevant. Perhaps it's murder, but it's a commonplace and harmless kind.
You know, if you have been talking about humans, it the above would stil lapply. I mena, humans are jsut a bunch of cells. nothing special. There's billions of them and many die each die. A few more don't make a difference...
I sincerely hope your world never comes to pass, Mongoose. You ask for the restriction of a fundamental freedom (self-determination) and the fundamental enslavement of women to a biological flaw they never asked for. I hope that such inequity will never be enshrined in law or in culture.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: fundametal freedom :lol: :lol: enslavement :lol: Oh, that's rich.
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If people like Mongoose and TESLA want to define human life as beginning at conception, fine. But don't force that view on me or my friends. Practice it in your own lives rather than trying to enshrine it in legislation.
Why not? Isn't that what EVERYONE is doing?
Aren't people who want abortion legalized doing the same - pushing their own agenda/beliefs, enshrine it into a legislation.
No, because they're not forcing people to have abortions. They're just permitting it. 'You can do this, if you want to' is very different from 'you MUST NOT DO THIS.'
How is not wanting a foreign entity leeching off your body not a medical issue? Also, when men have to be responsible after knocking someone up, then you can *****. As it is now, only women have to deal with it, and it's men who make up the vast majority of morons crying "take responsibility for your actions!"
Bull****.
Men have to take equal responsiblity - if not more. They have to take care of the child and mother. If they decide to bail on the girl they should be friggin castrated...no, hung from the highest tree by their balls and THEN castrated.
The worst men have to do is pay for the kid and change some diapers. They never have to deal with an invasion of their own body. The women already suffer friggin' castration, or at least near-equivalent physical change! Nine months as a handicapped, hormonal, invalid are way outside the male responsibility.
I think we're just working from fundamentally different grounds here. I don't know why anyone would care about a bundle of cells that much. There are billions of them. Billions have been wasted, billions more will be. A few more or less is irrelevant. Perhaps it's murder, but it's a commonplace and harmless kind.
You know, if you have been talking about humans, it the above would stil lapply. I mena, humans are jsut a bunch of cells. nothing special. There's billions of them and many die each die. A few more don't make a difference...
Point already addressed above. Please read posts.
I sincerely hope your world never comes to pass, Mongoose. You ask for the restriction of a fundamental freedom (self-determination) and the fundamental enslavement of women to a biological flaw they never asked for. I hope that such inequity will never be enshrined in law or in culture.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: fundametal freedom :lol: :lol: enslavement :lol: Oh, that's rich.
Women didn't ask to be born as baby factories. They certainly don't want to live as them.
You apparently can't think of any disagreement, though. Quite a fumble.
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Unfortunately, human beings are really, really bad at putting themselves in the shoes of others. Psychologists call this 'egocentric cognition' and it's most famously demonstrated by an experiment involving the whistling of common tunes.
Your right about this to an extent. Choosing the moral high grand, in a sense, without actually being in that situation can seem like hypocritical.
But (there is always a but...) sometimes people choose the wrong action out of fear, terror or afraid of a social stigma.
I just can't understand the 'life trumps all other concerns' argument when many of the fetuses being aborted are indistinguishable from the billions that naturally fail (or are only a few weeks past that stage.)
Those that survive are very distinguishable, thats what is important, of all the possible combinations, all the chances, variations, the person that will emerge, will be like you said unique
Yet billions of them vanish without ever getting a chance at life. If a few more vanish due to human intent, why does that matter?
see above point.
If I had never been born, well, then, I guess that would be a bummer
Awwww then we couldnt have this debate :)
There's a higher freedom to consider here, though. And that is the freedom to hold a view about morality and the world. If someone else doesn't believe the same way you do about the right to life, why do you have the right to impose your views on them? Isn't it the height of arrogance to believe that only you have correctly analyzed the world and synthesized a system of morality?
In a strange sense, you are trying to 'impose your views' on others. Are you not been just as arrogant by assuming that everyone is wrong as they dont conform to your method of thought?
The idea of the higher freedom, is not a new one. Many a great philosopher has discussed this at length. (great length)
But human freedom has to have limits. Without these limits, we simply create chaos. Now while id love some chaos, reminds me of a good old university night out, freedom has to come at a price, it has to have consequences if it is to be worthwhile
Conservatives do not have a monopoly on 'good' and 'right' and 'life-affirming.' Those with differing viewpoints can claim those values just as firmly.
The 8 years of the bush administration proved this :D
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If other people choose to view abortion as wrong, I have no problem with it. They can live their lives however they choose.
I just ask that the grant me the freedom to live my life how I choose as well. Now, I can see the argument that murdering babies is not an acceptable lifestyle, but until there's a broad consensus that this is what's happening, I think the benefit of the doubt is in order, no?
In real life there is no 'good' or 'bad'. There are simply actions with consequences. We, as a society, shun murder because of its consequences, and we have generated moral systems that label murder as 'inherently bad' in order to discourage it. But really, murder is only physics, only biology. It's only 'evil' because we choose to call it so. Life is only valuable because, well, if we didn't think life was valuable, we wouldn't be around.
And abortion falls into a grey area that we, as a society, haven't quite defined yet. What's 'alive'? What's 'not alive'? We can't say, because the term 'alive' is an illusion...everything is a spectrum. And when is it okay to kill a living thing? Well, that's a hard question too, if we can't say what a living thing is, and if we, maybe, kill many living things every day, because they aren't quite as alive or as real as us.
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Life is a whole grey area.
I just follow my conscience.
Now im heading out to a friends bday party. going to have a couple of beers. Put a friend in a wheelie bin and roll him down the street.
Cheers for the intelligent debate people, i shall continue this later on :)
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Good stuff. Have fun out there.
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I just follow my conscience.
Right, and your conscience tells you that abortion is wrong. Nothing wrong with that; Noone is forcing you to have an abortion. However, how does this translate into "Abortion is wrong, all the time, for everyone" ? Why do you think that YOUR morality needs and has to apply to everyone? What is wrong with having the OPTION available for anyone who thinks they need it? Why do you wish to restrict the amount of choices available?
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:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: fundametal freedom :lol: :lol: enslavement :lol: Oh, that's rich.
And people wonder why I think religion needs to die
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Quick question for Liberator, TESLA, Mongoose, Trashman, etc:
Since abortion is murder, are you in favor of prosecuting women for starving themselves (or punching themselves in the gut or shoving knitting needles in their cooch, etc) on purpose in order to kill the fetus?
Because, if yes, you are suggesting that if a woman becomes pregnant, her body is no longer hers to do with as she wishes, and is instead property of the government.
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Self harm is self harm, akin to attempted suicide. Still a crime in most places.
WTF is a cooch :wtf: ?
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A remarkably archaic term for vagina.
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Self-harm isn't a crime. That's why you can drink alcohol, smoke tobacco, cut on yourself, etc. and not get arrested.
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Stabbing your own Vagina ort its contents in a an unqualified attempt at surgery is kinda not good. Like me slicing my cock off. i'd find it hard to justify. Although it would solve a hell of a lot of problems with abortions on my estate. :p
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I'm ignoring you now. Go be drunk somewhere else. :P
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Quick question for Liberator, TESLA, Mongoose, Trashman, etc:
Since abortion is murder, are you in favor of prosecuting women for starving themselves (or punching themselves in the gut or shoving knitting needles in their cooch, etc) on purpose in order to kill the fetus?
Because, if yes, you are suggesting that if a woman becomes pregnant, her body is no longer hers to do with as she wishes, and is instead property of the government.
I would be in favor of getting those individuals commited to some sort of help program.
As it stands, doing those things, to me, would be somewhat like using illegal drugs. Yes, you could do it, since it is your body, but you still go to jail for that sort of thing.
Not going to re-quote the same post: legally, your body is not free to do with as you wish. There are still constraints that can't be crossed without risk of prosecution.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: fundametal freedom :lol: :lol: enslavement :lol: Oh, that's rich.
And people wonder why I think religion needs to die
:wtf:
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Give me a break, kara. You and I both know that that was exclusively responding to your "rest of your life" hyperbole, and nothing else.
Except it wasn't hyperbole. I was only partly referring the emotional effects. It goes deeper than that. You are aware that after the age of 18 an adopted child can attempt to track down their biological parent, right? At best you get 18 years of freedom followed by the rest of your life wondering if your adopted child is going to try to track you down.
And then what? Sure it might be some happy hallmark moment where you promise to always keep in touch forever, but you might not. So it's not as simple as "Give the child up for adoption, problem over" like some people like to claim it is.
Besides, why are you choosing to ignore emotional effects as a problem that will affect you for the rest of your life anyway?
Labeling the legitimate viewpoint of a large percentage of people on the other side of the debate "ridiculous" and "twisted" sure is an easy out, isn't it? Call me when you're ready to ditch the ad hominems.
Call me when you ditch yours first. How many times have you referred to abortion as murder? And therefore anyone involved in the process as murderers?
Why do you believe you can use evocative language but no one else can?
Wanna explain that one to me, chief? The abortion industry as it stands is part and parcel with the concept of legalized abortion, since that's precisely where said abortions take place. And while I could rail on said industry directly, I only meant that statement in the general sense that an entire dedicated industry has been able to thrive just on the desire for abortions, which I think by any standards is a pretty sad fact.
See, again you attempt to use evocative language and then complain at anyone else who does so. Abortion Industry? Great way to paint the picture of a self sustaining business dedicated to the murder of babies and willing to lobby like any other industry, not for the rights of its consumers but for it's own money-grubbing needs.
Except that picture is wrong.
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Not going to re-quote the same post: legally, your body is not free to do with as you wish. There are still constraints that can't be crossed without risk of prosecution.
Why would my body not be my responsibility? Why do you want me to hand part of the authority over MY BODY over to the government? Are you totally insane?
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Back again (*sigh, oh Frak, not him again*) ;7
Stayed off the booze, cause moving in the GF tomorrow, need to have clear head, or get my head bitten off with 'why I'm not interested in rugs, carpet colours or curtains (but i did manage to get a lovely 50" HD TV, for my xbox 360 & PS3 :D :D I'm sorry but now I'm very happy lol
Right to the point.....
Let me play a little more devils advocate.....
Quick question for Liberator, TESLA, Mongoose, Trashman, etc:
Since abortion is murder, are you in favor of prosecuting women for starving themselves (or punching themselves in the gut or shoving knitting needles in their cooch, etc) on purpose in order to kill the fetus?
Because, if yes, you are suggesting that if a woman becomes pregnant, her body is no longer hers to do with as she wishes, and is instead property of the government.
I never mentioned anything about government. But if you agree with this complete freedom of the body, then logically you are in favour or Self assisted suicide, since starving of the body can be a necessary act? Or how about self-harm?
If you believe that a womens body is free to do what she chooses, does that mean, if she gave birth, she could give the baby to whoever she wanted, simply because she produced the 'end product'?
Finally on this point, i must point out, that if a women is pregnant, it is not simply her own body, her body is now shared with another lifeform growing within her. Regardless of personel feelings towards the issue.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: fundamental freedom :lol: :lol: enslavement :lol: Oh, that's rich.
And people wonder why I think religion needs to die
Religion has made mistakes, so has science.
Simply wishing the other did not exist is not an option. Be Realistic. Both sides have caused great harm, when both sides wanted to create some sort of benefit to humankind.
Religion preached peace, it has in many cases, caused war
Science wanted electrical power, it has the nuclear bomb
Both points are valid. I believe in God. I will never back down from that. I know i am an intelligent person. My School, University grades all back this up. In the field of work i do, i make great progess and have a lot of respect (talk about an ego-centric response here :nervous: ) I love the work of science and the progress of humankind. Why else would I be on a forum like this (other than the greatest game that is Freespace)
Without losing focus on the topic, both science and religion can work together to help humanity.
Science asks the question how.
Religion asks the question why.
I just follow my conscience.
Right, and your conscience tells you that abortion is wrong. Nothing wrong with that; None is forcing you to have an abortion. However, how does this translate into "Abortion is wrong, all the time, for everyone" ? Why do you think that YOUR morality needs and has to apply to everyone? What is wrong with having the OPTION available for anyone who thinks they need it? Why do you wish to restrict the amount of choices available?
If abortion becomes simply a "feck I'm pregnant, down to the local clinic, get rid of this thing inside of me" then few weeks later your out fraking again, i just believe it lowers use all as a species.
I never said, its a simple black and white issue, wrong all the time,
1) what is the mothers life was in danger?
2) rape or incest issues?
which are very valid points
Abortion is illegal in my country. The people went to the polls twice on the issue. Both times voted against it. Does that mean that a whole people are wrong, if we as a democracy, vote against it, but a small minority are in favour of it?
Thats like saying, we voted against drugs, but addicts voted in favour, therefore, all drugs should be legal, i know thats a very flippant remake, but you understand the picture.
Not going to re-quote the same post: legally, your body is not free to do with as you wish. There are still constraints that can't be crossed without risk of prosecution.
Why would my body not be my responsibility? Why do you want me to hand part of the authority over MY BODY over to the government? Are you totally insane?
If you attempt to harm yourself or others, does your body not become the responsibility of the state or your family.
Granted this should be of last resort. Think rationally. There are times, when the government must take control of your body: A virus outbreak (Quarantine)
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As your doctor, it is symbiosis. Regardless of what you 'get anything' from it.
Tsk tsk. Compact Oxford English Dictionary says:
SYMBIOSIS noun (pl. symbioses /simbioseez, simbi-/) Biology interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, especially to the advantage of both.
SYMBIONT noun Biology; an organism living in symbiosis with another.
As opposed to:
PARASITE noun an organism which lives in or on another organism and benefits at the other’s expense.
As a fetus provides no benefit to the mother, and actually weakens her in many ways (immunologically and nutritionally being the two biggest ones), it is a biological parasite, not a symbiont. Anyone who says its a symbiont needs to go back to high school biology, nevermind developmental biology.
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You "give it up for adoption" idiots are going to make me drag out the sociology again, aren't you?
Two reputable sociological studies have actually found that crime rates are lower in areas where access to abortion services is (1) readily available and (2) legal. Social conditions are also better in those jurisdictions. Why? Because the vast majority of unwanted children who are born are never actually given up for adoption (for a variety of reasons). Instead, they are raised by families unable or unwilling to care for them. That correlates directly with involvement in criminal activity (it's not causal, it's correlative). It also costs the social support system a fortune in resources dedicated to crime prevention, drug and alcohol abuse prevention and treatment, subsidized housing, anti-homelessness programs, etc.
This avoids a whole host of other valid issues of course, namely:
The biology of the issue; aborting a pluripotent cellular mass at a few weeks gestation is not the termination of a human life, it's the termination of something which - given a very narrow set of circumstances - has the potential to become a human life.
Or the fact that pregnancy takes an enormous, and still often fatal, toll on the female body.
Or the fact that men bear as much if not more responsibility for a pregnancy than women, yet share none of the biological or emotional cost.
Or the fact the number of pregnancies aborted remains constant regardless of the legality of the procedure, while female mortality is dramatically higher in jurisdictions where the procedure is illegal.
Or the fact that sexual education is, in general, woefully inadequate and the same people that typically advocate the anti-abortion stance are also the biggest proponents of abstinence-only sex education which actually has the effect of INCREASING teen pregnancy rates in jurisdictions where it is taught.
Or the fact that it is patently unreasonable for the decision (either way) to be forced upon anyone.
Ultimately, the decision to abort a pregnancy is the sole decision of the people who created it in the first place. It is no one else's business if they choose to conceive a child or not. The parents are required to bear the biological, psychological, social, and financial cost of the pregnancy even if they are able to give the child up for adoption. Until someone else is prepared to take over ALL of those costs (I'm especially interested in seeing someone claim the biological cost can be accounted for), then they have precisely ZERO say in that couple's affairs. The same goes for sex itself; the only people who have any say in it are those directly involved. Everyone else can concern themselves with their own affairs.
And for any of you more conservative-minded folk who are prepared to debate me on this, I'm warning you in advance that you will be called to account for your opinions based on the following topics:
-Biology.
-Social cost.
-Rights of liberty, equality, and freedom.
-Rights of government.
-The governing constitutional document of your nation.
I'm warning you in advance so you have some prep time. There are a lot of hypocrites around here that espouse libertarian principles when it comes to government and then promptly turn into facists when it comes to individual social rights. You can't have it one way for one issue and a different way for another just because you personally don't agree with it.
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Finally on this point, i must point out, that if a women is pregnant, it is not simply her own body, her body is now shared with another lifeform growing within her. Regardless of personel feelings towards the issue.
If abortion becomes simply a "feck I'm pregnant, down to the local clinic, get rid of this thing inside of me" then few weeks later your out fraking again, i just believe it lowers use all as a species.
I never said, its a simple black and white issue, wrong all the time,
1) what is the mothers life was in danger?
2) rape or incest issues?
which are very valid points
Abortion is illegal in my country. The people went to the polls twice on the issue. Both times voted against it. Does that mean that a whole people are wrong, if we as a democracy, vote against it, but a small minority are in favour of it?
Thats like saying, we voted against drugs, but addicts voted in favour, therefore, all drugs should be legal, i know thats a very flippant remake, but you understand the picture.
Well, first of all, the woman doesn't WANT to share her body. She is being FORCED to.
Second of all, if abortion is okay in ANY case, you're being inconsistent. If murder is not okay to preserve bodily autonomy, then murder should not be okay to save the life of someone else. If murder is not okay because it's not the fetus's fault it got where it is, then it's not okay in the cases of rape or incest either. Pick a side.
Finally, majority is not always right. In fact, the majority has been very gravely wrong many times in the past. Think slavery, witch burnings, gay marriage, etc.
Side note: Drugs are a good example. It's your right to not use drugs, it should be my right to use drugs. And we both have a right to information about said drugs so that we can each make informed decisions about whether or not to do them.
I guess my point is that we should be educating people rather than keeping everyone uninformed and making decisions for them. Given information on birth control measures/drugs and abortion, obviously people will choose preventative measures over abortion, but there are cases where something goes wrong, and we shouldn't be punishing women for that.
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As your doctor, it is symbiosis. Regardless of what you 'get anything' from it.
Tsk tsk. Compact Oxford English Dictionary says:
SYMBIOSIS noun (pl. symbioses /simbioseez, simbi-/) Biology interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, especially to the advantage of both.
SYMBIONT noun Biology; an organism living in symbiosis with another.
You are correct, i am not sure what point you are trying to make here. :wtf:
PARASITE noun an organism which lives in or on another organism and benefits at the other’s expense.
As a fetus provides no benefit to the mother, and actually weakens her in many ways (immunologically and nutritionally being the two biggest ones), it is a biological parasite, not a symbiont. Anyone who says its a symbiont needs to go back to high school biology, nevermind developmental biology.
You really need to learn about the affect of another active organism working within the human body.
The fetal growth may actually help improve our knowledge of a whole range of health problems:
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2008/12/04/moms-cells-prime-fetal-immune-system.html
It has been proven, that the development of a fetus can strongly benefit a mother to be, as it can strengthen her against certain, bacterial, and fungal infections, (although the evidence about a virus is still up for debate)
http://www.news-medical.net/news/2007/09/20/30130.aspx
But you are correct in a sense: pregnancy usually suppresses a woman's immune system, otherwise the fetus might be rejected by her body as a 'foreign body'. This can make a pregnant woman more prone to infection which has implications for her own health as well as for her developing baby.
I do know this, as i am coming from a background of where people close to me, are involved in the field of medicine.
But the point simply remains, the field of medicine views pregnancy as a 'Symbiosis' not as a 'parasite'
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Second of all, if abortion is okay in ANY case, you're being inconsistent. If murder is not okay to preserve bodily autonomy, then murder should not be okay to save the life of someone else. If murder is not okay because it's not the fetus's fault it got where it is, then it's not okay in the cases of rape or incest either. Pick a side.
read my statement before you post: 'Let me play a little more devils advocate.....'
You are forgetting that in all this, the feutus does not get to choose! The feutus has done nothing wrong but follow the laws of nature, it has no concept of right or wrong.
Finally, majority is not always right. In fact, the majority has been very gravely wrong many times in the past. Think slavery, witch burnings, gay marriage, etc.
So if the majority is not right, then democracy should not be followed?
We all make mistakes. The only way we learn as a species, is to pick ourselves up, think, grow, and try a different action.
But just because the majority are always right, does not mean the minority are right too.
Think anti-war protesters in London 1939, making kitty porn legal, etc.
I guess my point is that we should be educating people rather than keeping everyone uninformed and making decisions for them. Given information on birth control measures/drugs and abortion, obviously people will choose preventative measures over abortion, but there are cases where something goes wrong, and we shouldn't be punishing women for that.
An informed debate with education is key, rather than simply branding people 'idiots' as a previous poster has done
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You are forgetting that in all this, the feutus does not get to choose! The feutus has done nothing wrong but follow the laws of nature, it has no concept of right or wrong.
So what? Just because it has no concept of right and wrong doesn't mean it's not invading another person's body.
So if the majority is not right, then democracy should not be followed?
We all make mistakes. The only way we learn as a species, is to pick ourselves up, think, grow, and try a different action.
But just because the majority are always right, does not mean the minority are right too.
Think anti-war protesters in London 1939, making kitty porn legal, etc.
You're the one who effectively said "majority voted against abortion, how can the majority be wrong?" I was just pointing out that the majority CAN be wrong, AND that in this case, it's something that's not the majority's business in the LEAST.
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Give me a break, kara. You and I both know that that was exclusively responding to your "rest of your life" hyperbole, and nothing else.
Except it wasn't hyperbole. I was only partly referring the emotional effects. It goes deeper than that. You are aware that after the age of 18 an adopted child can attempt to track down their biological parent, right? At best you get 18 years of freedom followed by the rest of your life wondering if your adopted child is going to try to track you down.
And then what? Sure it might be some happy hallmark moment where you promise to always keep in touch forever, but you might not. So it's not as simple as "Give the child up for adoption, problem over" like some people like to claim it is.
Besides, why are you choosing to ignore emotional effects as a problem that will affect you for the rest of your life anyway?
How did I "ignore" them when I directly acknowledged them? Your original use of the phrase "the rest of their life" was in the context of someone having to deal with burn scars, or some other sort of physical disability, and that was the only scope of my response in the first place. And while I acknowledge the issue of being able to look one's biological parents up, something that I completely support, that's still a very small price to pay compared with 18 years' worth of raising and caring for a child.
Labeling the legitimate viewpoint of a large percentage of people on the other side of the debate "ridiculous" and "twisted" sure is an easy out, isn't it? Call me when you're ready to ditch the ad hominems.
Call me when you ditch yours first. How many times have you referred to abortion as murder? And therefore anyone involved in the process as murderers?
Why do you believe you can use evocative language but no one else can?
I wasn't even attempting to be "evocative" with that statement, not at all. As I said before, if one considers a human embryo/fetus to be a human being, then it logically follows that the termination of that human being's life, as is the case with the termination of any human life, can be construed as murder, or at least manslaughter. Even iamzack, who fully supports legalized abortion, used the term "murder" herself, which kind of defeats your statement right there.
(Honestly, blowing single terms way out of proportion like this is why I loathe debates on the Internet, and even in general, so much.)
Wanna explain that one to me, chief? The abortion industry as it stands is part and parcel with the concept of legalized abortion, since that's precisely where said abortions take place. And while I could rail on said industry directly, I only meant that statement in the general sense that an entire dedicated industry has been able to thrive just on the desire for abortions, which I think by any standards is a pretty sad fact.
See, again you attempt to use evocative language and then complain at anyone else who does so. Abortion Industry? Great way to paint the picture of a self sustaining business dedicated to the murder of babies and willing to lobby like any other industry, not for the rights of its consumers but for it's own money-grubbing needs.
Except that picture is wrong.
Again with the "evocative"...trying to provoke someone was the last thing on my mind when that phrase popped out of my fingers. There is a subset of the medical profession dedicated to providing abortions. There is a company, Planned Parenthood, largely dedicated to providing abortions. There are organizations dedicated to maintaining the legal status of abortions. "Industry" seemed like a suitable blanket term to apply to everything. Oh, and don't tell me that that "picture" is entirely wrong, either; I've heard enough horror stories from former workers in abortion clinics to have a pretty decent idea of how the management views the entire enterprise.
I've been trying to work my way out of the conversation over my last few posts, but I think this tears it, and I don't even care if it looks like I'm bailing out. I don't need this **** hanging over my head all day and making my blood pressure skyrocket. Thanks to the people who have been making reasonable back-and-forth posts, and everyone else have fun with this trainwreck in the making.
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Even iamzack, who fully supports legalized abortion, used the term "murder" herself, which kind of defeats your statement right there.
I don't see abortion as murder, even though I see fetuses as human beings.
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Those who are against abortion are not, so far as I see it, ever going to be able to overcome this fundamental inequality:
They are telling people what they can do. Those who are pro-choice are simply asking for a freedom. They make no demands of the anti-choice individuals.
The great tide of history is overwhelmingly liberal. More and more freedoms and rights have been granted to human beings as the centuries have ticked past. I can only hope (and, perhaps, assume) that this is one area where this will remain true.
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You "give it up for adoption" idiots are going to make me drag out the sociology again, aren't you?
You are not superior to the rest of us, lose the attitude, this is a debate, not a flame match!!
Two reputable sociological studies have actually found that crime rates are lower in areas where access to abortion services is (1) readily available and (2) legal.
Please show me the evidence and statistics. Also show me a direct correlation between that and a country where abortion is illegal.
Social conditions are also better in those jurisdictions. Why? Because the vast majority of unwanted children who are born are never actually given up for adoption (for a variety of reasons). Instead, they are raised by families unable or unwilling to care for them.
What are these reasons. Please state.
Is it the grandparents or other parents raise the child rather than see it destroyed by abortion?
That correlates directly with involvement in criminal activity (it's not causal, it's correlative). It also costs the social support system a fortune in resources dedicated to crime prevention, drug and alcohol abuse prevention and treatment, subsidized housing, anti-homelessness programs, etc.
This could occur in any number of different environments, it is too simplistic to state that it is merely down to being adopted. Can you take into account the social area to which the child is born, the background, the family lifestlye?
Drugs problems, crime hot spots generally take place within areas of civil unrest, social disorder or economic turbulance.
This avoids a whole host of other valid issues of course, namely:
The biology of the issue; aborting a pluripotent cellular mass at a few weeks gestation is not the termination of a human life, it's the termination of something which - given a very narrow set of circumstances - has the potential to become a human life.
So where does human life begin? Birth? If that birth has defects, then should than life be terminated?
Or the fact that pregnancy takes an enormous, and still often fatal, toll on the female body.
What are the numbers of fatalities in relation to births then?
Or the fact that men bear as much if not more responsibility for a pregnancy than women, yet share none of the biological or emotional cost.
If the child dies at birth, the father will still feel a huge amount of emotional pain, if the child survives, generally, the father will feel deep joy. There is without doubt, a lot of emotion involved for males. They are involved with all the bumps, fuzzy feelings, helping the lady along her way, they try the best to feel every kick that the baby makes inside the womb, they are very, very invovled. How dare you say otherwise.
Or the fact the number of pregnancies aborted remains constant regardless of the legality of the procedure, while female mortality is dramatically higher in jurisdictions where the procedure is illegal.
once again, evidence please. how can this be so, in many countries when the process is illegal, and you have nothing to compare it against?
Or the fact that sexual education is, in general, woefully inadequate and the same people that typically advocate the anti-abortion stance are also the biggest proponents of abstinence-only sex education which actually has the effect of INCREASING teen pregnancy rates in jurisdictions where it is taught.
How is it been taught? By what standard? What statistic do you have to show that this is true. Abstence taught is bound to fail, since it is very natural for humans to engage in sexual relations. So naturally, if this method of education is taught, then it is bound to fail, as it requires zero babies, while each school is bound to get at least two.
Or the fact that it is patently unreasonable for the decision (either way) to be forced upon anyone.
What about the decision if it is forced upon the male. This child will be born, you must support it?
Ultimately, the decision to abort a pregnancy is the sole decision of the people who created it in the first place. It is no one else's business if they choose to conceive a child or not.
As long as the law permits the couple to do law: eg: incest?
The parents are required to bear the biological, psychological, social, and financial cost of the pregnancy even if they are able to give the child up for adoption.
Yes of course.
Until someone else is prepared to take over ALL of those costs (I'm especially interested in seeing someone claim the biological cost can be accounted for), then they have precisely ZERO say in that couple's affairs. The same goes for sex itself; the only people who have any say in it are those directly involved. Everyone else can concern themselves with their own affairs.
It is not possible to claim the biological cost, are you going to swap the womb or eggs?
If regards to sex, that only the couple are directly involved, then all laws regarding, age and incest are not relavant, since its their 'own affairs'
And for any of you more conservative-minded folk who are prepared to debate me on this, I'm warning you in advance that you will be called to account for your opinions based on the following topics:
-Biology.
-Social cost.
-Rights of liberty, equality, and freedom.
-Rights of government.
-The governing constitutional document of your nation.
fire away mate
I'm warning you in advance so you have some prep time. There are a lot of hypocrites around here that espouse libertarian principles when it comes to government and then promptly turn into facists when it comes to individual social rights. You can't have it one way for one issue and a different way for another just because you personally don't agree with it.
What gives you the right to put people into one camp or the other. Maybe the average person is trying to judge for themselves what they feel is right, and not get stuck in a brand of a way of life! You can have it both ways. You can choose a medium or a centre approach, not merely right or left. It is not that simple.
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I have bookmarked MP-Ryan's post for future reference as well. Given that he's far better qualified to actually address these issues than us, I think he's entitled to some attitude.
Today has been a good day for sense in GenDisc.
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If the child dies at birth, the father will still feel a huge amount of emotional pain, if the child survives, generally, the father will feel deep joy. There is without doubt, a lot of emotion involved for males. They are involved with all the bumps, fuzzy feelings, helping the lady along her way, they try the best to feel every kick that the baby makes inside the womb, they are very, very invovled. How dare you say otherwise.
Lol, you haven't met my father.
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So what? Just because it has no concept of right and wrong doesn't mean it's not invading another person's body.
How is it invading? It is simply responding to your sexual stimuli. You are creating the event. Both parties are responding to a natural occurance within the human domain.
You're the one who effectively said "majority voted against abortion, how can the majority be wrong?" I was just pointing out that the majority CAN be wrong, AND that in this case, it's something that's not the majority's business in the LEAST.
If the majority voted what you believe is wrong. IF the majority Vote in FAVOUR of that action. Then is it actually wrong?
If society decides as a whole, what is right and what is wrong, then the majority, cannot actually be wrong.
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Even iamzack, who fully supports legalized abortion, used the term "murder" herself, which kind of defeats your statement right there.
I don't see abortion as murder, even though I see fetuses as human beings.
Okay, **** my memory. Sorry about that, zack.
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So what? Just because it has no concept of right and wrong doesn't mean it's not invading another person's body.
How is it invading? It is simply responding to your sexual stimuli. You are creating the event. Both parties are responding to a natural occurance within the human domain.
You're the one who effectively said "majority voted against abortion, how can the majority be wrong?" I was just pointing out that the majority CAN be wrong, AND that in this case, it's something that's not the majority's business in the LEAST.
If the majority voted what you believe is wrong. IF the majority Vote in FAVOUR of that action. Then is it actually wrong?
If society decides as a whole, what is right and what is wrong, then the majority, cannot actually be wrong.
And yet the majority of society for years (centuries!) supported things we now consider deeply wrong.
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I have bookmarked MP-Ryan's post for future reference as well. Given that he's far better qualified to actually address these issues than us, I think he's entitled to some attitude.
Today has been a good day for sense in GenDisc.
Although we disagree on the point of view.
yes it has been the most interesting discussion i have had on here in ages.
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So what? Just because it has no concept of right and wrong doesn't mean it's not invading another person's body.
How is it invading? It is simply responding to your sexual stimuli. You are creating the event. Both parties are responding to a natural occurance within the human domain.
You're the one who effectively said "majority voted against abortion, how can the majority be wrong?" I was just pointing out that the majority CAN be wrong, AND that in this case, it's something that's not the majority's business in the LEAST.
If the majority voted what you believe is wrong. IF the majority Vote in FAVOUR of that action. Then is it actually wrong?
If society decides as a whole, what is right and what is wrong, then the majority, cannot actually be wrong.
And yet the majority of society for years (centuries!) supported things we now consider deeply wrong.
And society voted, one shape or form, whether through arms, the vote or another means, to decide for them what they believed to be right and wrong.
Everything changes.
You never set foot in the same river twice
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The trend is that when the majority votes to restrict the rights of the minority, we later decide that the majority was very, very wrong.
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The trend is that when the majority votes to restrict the rights of the minority, we later decide that the majority was very, very wrong.
Please give examples to prove this point.
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The trend is that when the majority votes to restrict the rights of the minority, we later decide that the majority was very, very wrong.
Please give examples to prove this point.
How about all of history?
Slavery? Women's rights? Commoners having political representation? The conquest of other nations? The existence/acceptance/legal recognition of gays?
The number of rights we have today is a thousand times what we would have had just a century or two ago. The trend of history is overwhelmingly liberal.
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The trend is that when the majority votes to restrict the rights of the minority, we later decide that the majority was very, very wrong.
Please give examples to prove this point.
How about all of history?
Slavery? Women's rights? Commoners having political representation? The conquest of other nations? The existence/acceptance/legal recognition of gays?
The number of rights we have today is a thousand times what we would have had just a century or two ago. The trend of history is overwhelmingly liberal.
you are talking about exclusion of others.
lets be realistic. Democracy, as we now know it, has been a very very slow process. Sure the greeks had it, the romans too, (gave it up for the imperial system, etc) Pais commune under the Bismarkian siege, lots of examples throughout history.
Its not that history is overwhelmingly liberal. History moves slowly. It has too. If you pull too far ahead, to quick, you will isolate a large percentage of the population and risk causing civil unrest if not civil war.
In certain ancient traditions such as celtic trads, women had rights, until the conquest of roman and later Briton type society and structures, like the removal of Brehon law.
When you mention the conquest of other nations, then, does that mean that the spread of democracy by force, cannot be justified, such as in times when it was needed throughout history? (not personal opinion, just as a matter of interest)
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International law today is very harsh on conquest by force. Five hundred years ago it was a de facto tool of international relations.
Today we have the Four Freedoms. Five hundred years ago you'd get no justice if you were poor, sick, or exploited. You could be murdered or raped and your family enslaved and nobody would give a crap.
Today we have human rights and equality. Five hundred years ago we were still debating whether savages were human.
The trend is unavoidable and distinct: we give more freedoms as time goes on. Today's 'conservatives' hold positions that would be called wildly liberal not so long ago.
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I know I promised not to post in here any more, but I have to correct a lack of understanding.
More and more freedoms and rights have been granted to human beings as the centuries have ticked past.
Rights are not granted, they are inherent.
What entity or organization is able to grant previously non-existent rights?
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International law today is very harsh on conquest by force. Five hundred years ago it was a de facto tool of international relations.
Today we have the Four Freedoms. Five hundred years ago you'd get no justice if you were poor, sick, or exploited. You could be murdered or raped and your family enslaved and nobody would give a crap.
Today we have human rights and equality. Five hundred years ago we were still debating whether savages were human.
The trend is unavoidable and distinct: we give more freedoms as time goes on. Today's 'conservatives' hold positions that would be called wildly liberal not so long ago.
Yes, but my point still remains, that society, can only go so far ahead, without causing massive social disorder. All in its own good time, in a way.
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Substitute "recognized" for "granted." Problem solved.
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I know I promised not to post in here any more, but I have to correct a lack of understanding.
More and more freedoms and rights have been granted to human beings as the centuries have ticked past.
Rights are not granted, they are inherent.
What entity or organization is able to grant previously non-existent rights?
None of us have any inherent right to anything. The universe is made of physics. That's it. There is no good, no evil, certainly no human rights written into the equations that define our reality.
We, the human species, define what is right and what is wrong. We certainly define liberties. And that's all there is. If no one on Earth believed in civil liberties, they would be gone.
If you want empirical proof, travel back in time a few centuries and insult a king.
iamzack's solution works too. You can say 'discovered' if you find that more palatable.
International law today is very harsh on conquest by force. Five hundred years ago it was a de facto tool of international relations.
Today we have the Four Freedoms. Five hundred years ago you'd get no justice if you were poor, sick, or exploited. You could be murdered or raped and your family enslaved and nobody would give a crap.
Today we have human rights and equality. Five hundred years ago we were still debating whether savages were human.
The trend is unavoidable and distinct: we give more freedoms as time goes on. Today's 'conservatives' hold positions that would be called wildly liberal not so long ago.
Yes, but my point still remains, that society, can only go so far ahead, without causing massive social disorder. All in its own good time, in a way.
Sure, fine by me. Probably why the abortion debate won't be resolved in favor of the pro-choice side for decades, I'd imagine.
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Inherent rights are the basis of American style republicanism which in turn is the basis of modern republics the world over.
Just because king somewhere in history denied his people some of their rights doesn't mean that they didn't have them implicitly.
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Look, in a vacuum consisting entirely of hydrogen atoms, there are no rights. And at some point that's all we were.
Rights exist because people define them. Stop selective reading and address all the points I make.
Now, our society has decided to define 'inherent rights' as inalienable, unalterable things that people are born with and that cannot be taken away from them. I wholeheartedly agree with and support this belief. If we ever run into aliens, I hope we will grant them the same rights.
But don't try to cheapen the gift of liberty by treating it as something that was always there. We, as a species, made it. It's one of our greatest creations. We should be proud of it and fight for it, instead of bashfully attributing it to pre-existence.
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Except that inherent rights just aren't real. Humans aren't special. We are profoundly different, but we got here the same way barn swallows did.
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A very american belief. Not that it is necessarily wrong, mind you, but it's a very recent phenomenon. For a very, very long time, it was the society that granted rights to the individual, not the individual that granted rights to the society. This reversal is arguably one of the greatest achievements in history. Now I have to ask you: Why do you want the society to take away rights again?
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I'm not advocating that society take away any rights, I'm simply speaking for those who cannot. One of the most important things a free man can do is speak in favor of the restoration or recognition of the rights of those who cannot speak on they're own behalf. Also, recent or not, it does not make it less correct.
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do you guys really need to deconstruct the world to the point of determinism to make you point, are you that far outside of how most people think that you have to go there?
if you want to live in that sphere then there are no wants, no preferences, no happiness no sadness.
the whole point of inherent rights is that if they are inherent then they cannot be legitimately taken away.
what exactly is the fundamental basis of your ideology? what do you believe and why do you believe it?
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You advocate removing the right to bodily autonomy, Liberator.
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Your right to bodily autonomy is eclipsed by the baby's right to live.
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Actually, no, it's not. Unless my right to live eclipses your right not to have your blood forcibly removed from you and given to me.
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Liberator, I actually want to know, what is the basis of the 'at conception' definition for the start of human life?
why isn't it ovulation or implantation into the womb, or first breath (how the bible defines it)?
I always considered birth to be the starting point.
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Your right to bodily autonomy is eclipsed by the baby's right to live.
When it's a baby capable of living then maybe you'd have a point, but that doesn't happen until a good while into the pregnancy.
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Liberator, I actually want to know, what is the basis of the 'at conception' definition for the start of human life?
why isn't it ovulation or implantation into the womb, or first breath (how the bible defines it)?
I always considered birth to be the starting point.
At conception? No, if it can be ended by a pill or injection within a reasonable amount of time after conception, I would be fine with that. It's just that conception has been the defining moment for the entirety of human history up until about 45 years ago.
zack, your arguments are becoming more and more crass and mindless. I do not know you, nor would I claim to know how you have been raised. But, and I'm basing this on your reasonings in favor of the premature termination of a pregnancy, you strike me as a spoiled, bratty, narcissistic child with little concern for anything other than her continued freedom to live a life seemingly free of consequence or responsibility who has no idea of her or anyone else's place in the world.
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That's... really funny. XD
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Liberator, I actually want to know, what is the basis of the 'at conception' definition for the start of human life?
why isn't it ovulation or implantation into the womb, or first breath (how the bible defines it)?
I always considered birth to be the starting point.
At conception? No, if it can be ended by a pill or injection within a reasonable amount of time after conception, I would be fine with that. It's just that conception has been the defining moment for the entirety of human history up until about 45 years ago.
No, historically it often came at the point where the baby began to move - or, as in the Bible, at the moment of birth. And as MP-Ryan pointed out earlier in this thread, most abortions occur at a very much earlier stage than that.
zack, your arguments are becoming more and more crass and mindless. I do not know you, nor would I claim to know how you have been raised. But, and I'm basing this on your reasonings in favor of the premature termination of a pregnancy, you strike me as a spoiled, bratty, narcissistic child with little concern for anything other than her continued freedom to live a life seemingly free of consequence or responsibility who has no idea of her or anyone else's place in the world.
iamzack has more experience with responsibility, hardship, and consequences than you have ever had. I'm not sure of how to take 'no idea of her place in the world', but it seems ironic coming from a man who has never had a relationship and apparently lacks the social ability to cure crippling loneliness. You are in no position to talk about anyone's place in the world when you have yet to find yours, and when you lack the deftness and confidence to respond to challenges to your beliefs with anything but blind denial and rage.
If you're going to go ad hominem prepare to reap the consequences. Since you can't handle iamzack intellectually you apparently feel the need to tear her down on a personal level.
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Just as a small point so that this doesn't go back to feminism, I don't think Liberator meant "your place in the world" to be directed at my sex. I assumed it was something much more general than that. He's not High Max.
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You really need to learn about the affect of another active organism working within the human body.
The fetal growth may actually help improve our knowledge of a whole range of health problems:
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2008/12/04/moms-cells-prime-fetal-immune-system.html
It has been proven, that the development of a fetus can strongly benefit a mother to be, as it can strengthen her against certain, bacterial, and fungal infections, (although the evidence about a virus is still up for debate)
http://www.news-medical.net/news/2007/09/20/30130.aspx
But you are correct in a sense: pregnancy usually suppresses a woman's immune system, otherwise the fetus might be rejected by her body as a 'foreign body'. This can make a pregnant woman more prone to infection which has implications for her own health as well as for her developing baby.
I do know this, as i am coming from a background of where people close to me, are involved in the field of medicine.
But the point simply remains, the field of medicine views pregnancy as a 'Symbiosis' not as a 'parasite'
The field of medicine does no such thing. Let's clear things up for a second here: I am married to an RN who has a B.Sc in Nursing and works exclusively with pregnant women, delivers babies, and does postpartum care. I myself have a B.Sc in Molecular Genetics with emphasis on Immunology and Infection, and significant course material in the area of early development and the immunology of pregnancy. I have a second B.A. in Sociology and Psychology.
Now then, while some forms of T-cell regulated immunity increase during pregnancy to increase resistance to microbial and viral infection by up-regulating B-cell production and increasing the overall response time of immune cells like macrophages, natural killer cell and T-cell response to organism-mediated infection drops off dramatically during pregnancy (as you've mentioned). The result is a marginal increase in efficacy of response to bacterial infection, and a sharp decline in the efficacy against parasitic infection. This is why pregnant women are much more susceptible to infection by parasitic worms and extracellular disease.
On top of that, pregnant women also faces problems of immune rejection of the fetus and pregnancy dramatically increases the risk of autoimmune diseases due to the up-regulated activity of B cells.
Beyond that, fetal development alters physiological structure and places tremendous demand on the digestive and cardiovascular systems of the body.
To be a symbiont, a fetus has to provide some benefit to the mother. There is no biological benefit to pregnancy (aside from the benefit to the new organism). It makes a woman weaker and more susceptible to illness and injury in virtually every way possible. The slight increase in the effectiveness of the immune response to bacterial infection is so negligible it can hardly be considered a benefit.
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A fetus isn't viable until it's an employee and paying health insurance. This is AMERICA afterall.
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This is going to be quick and dirty since I have to get my ass to bed so I can get up for work.
Two reputable sociological studies have actually found that crime rates are lower in areas where access to abortion services is (1) readily available and (2) legal.
Please show me the evidence and statistics. Also show me a direct correlation between that and a country where abortion is illegal.
I can't link directly to the study for copyright reasons. If you have a subscription to eJournals, this brief summary should give you the reference information you need. http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/990812/abortion.shtml
The study was undertaken using data from the United States around and after the 1973 Roe Vs Wade decision. That should prove satisfactory for your needs. To my knowledge, it has not been performed elsewhere.
Social conditions are also better in those jurisdictions. Why? Because the vast majority of unwanted children who are born are never actually given up for adoption (for a variety of reasons). Instead, they are raised by families unable or unwilling to care for them.
What are these reasons. Please state.
Is it the grandparents or other parents raise the child rather than see it destroyed by abortion?
Access to adoption services can be quite limited; mothers who carry a child to term often choose to keep it believing they may be able to support it even if they can't; familiar pressure prevents adoption; etc.
That correlates directly with involvement in criminal activity (it's not causal, it's correlative). It also costs the social support system a fortune in resources dedicated to crime prevention, drug and alcohol abuse prevention and treatment, subsidized housing, anti-homelessness programs, etc.
This could occur in any number of different environments, it is too simplistic to state that it is merely down to being adopted. Can you take into account the social area to which the child is born, the background, the family lifestlye?
Drugs problems, crime hot spots generally take place within areas of civil unrest, social disorder or economic turbulance.
Preaching to the choir here. The study was correlative, and social conditions were a part of the examination. The abortion finding was actually incidental to the study, and not the initial focus.
This avoids a whole host of other valid issues of course, namely:
The biology of the issue; aborting a pluripotent cellular mass at a few weeks gestation is not the termination of a human life, it's the termination of something which - given a very narrow set of circumstances - has the potential to become a human life.
So where does human life begin? Birth? If that birth has defects, then should than life be terminated?
I don't believe anyone is qualified to tell you the moment human life begins. My personal opinion (which is not to be taken for objective fact) is around the point of self-sustainable viability - 24 weeks gestation or so.
Or the fact that pregnancy takes an enormous, and still often fatal, toll on the female body.
What are the numbers of fatalities in relation to births then?
Which country and what year? It varies significantly between various nations. I don't want to quote the statistic that's popping into my head for the US and Canada because it's been a couple years since my demography classes.
Or the fact that men bear as much if not more responsibility for a pregnancy than women, yet share none of the biological or emotional cost.
If the child dies at birth, the father will still feel a huge amount of emotional pain, if the child survives, generally, the father will feel deep joy. There is without doubt, a lot of emotion involved for males. They are involved with all the bumps, fuzzy feelings, helping the lady along her way, they try the best to feel every kick that the baby makes inside the womb, they are very, very invovled. How dare you say otherwise.
What you have described is SOME men. It is by no means all, perhaps not even most.
Or the fact the number of pregnancies aborted remains constant regardless of the legality of the procedure, while female mortality is dramatically higher in jurisdictions where the procedure is illegal.
once again, evidence please. how can this be so, in many countries when the process is illegal, and you have nothing to compare it against?
You can compare nations which legalize abortions and which don't? This statistic is widely available and comes from the WHO. Battuta mentioned it earlier too. The WHO, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and several other non-profit international groups regularly do studies and estimates on health. Look up the latest study and compare whichever countries you like.
Or the fact that sexual education is, in general, woefully inadequate and the same people that typically advocate the anti-abortion stance are also the biggest proponents of abstinence-only sex education which actually has the effect of INCREASING teen pregnancy rates in jurisdictions where it is taught.
How is it been taught? By what standard? What statistic do you have to show that this is true. Abstence taught is bound to fail, since it is very natural for humans to engage in sexual relations. So naturally, if this method of education is taught, then it is bound to fail, as it requires zero babies, while each school is bound to get at least two.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/teen-girls-having-less-sex-safer-sex/article704447/ Read and enjoy. Improvement in delivery of sex ed = fewer teens having sex and fewer teen pregnancies, as compared to the model south of the border where abstinence-only is taught. To be fair, my initial point here was directed more at Canada and the US. I don't follow Europe on a regular basis.
Or the fact that it is patently unreasonable for the decision (either way) to be forced upon anyone.
What about the decision if it is forced upon the male. This child will be born, you must support it?
Never really agreed with that either, though it's a thornier issue. If she wants to keep the child and he doesn't, there needs to be a legal apparatus in place to allow that. Right now it's pretty thin (again, in North America).
Ultimately, the decision to abort a pregnancy is the sole decision of the people who created it in the first place. It is no one else's business if they choose to conceive a child or not.
As long as the law permits the couple to do law: eg: incest?
Please don't pull that nonsense. I'm not advocating the abandonment of protection principles firmly entrenched in law to prevent the violation of a legally established human being.
Until someone else is prepared to take over ALL of those costs (I'm especially interested in seeing someone claim the biological cost can be accounted for), then they have precisely ZERO say in that couple's affairs. The same goes for sex itself; the only people who have any say in it are those directly involved. Everyone else can concern themselves with their own affairs.
It is not possible to claim the biological cost, are you going to swap the womb or eggs?
If regards to sex, that only the couple are directly involved, then all laws regarding, age and incest are not relavant, since its their 'own affairs'
This is my point - it ISN'T possible. And therefore, other people need to keep their noses out of it. And as for your second sentence, see my response above. In the case of a sexual assault where there is lack of consent (which both of your examples fall under), it remains firmly entrenched in criminal legislation.
fire away mate
You're so rational I don't have to. I don't see any severe contradictions I can take you to task over (which is pretty rare, so good on you).
I'm warning you in advance so you have some prep time. There are a lot of hypocrites around here that espouse libertarian principles when it comes to government and then promptly turn into facists when it comes to individual social rights. You can't have it one way for one issue and a different way for another just because you personally don't agree with it.
What gives you the right to put people into one camp or the other. Maybe the average person is trying to judge for themselves what they feel is right, and not get stuck in a brand of a way of life! You can have it both ways. You can choose a medium or a centre approach, not merely right or left. It is not that simple.
It's not putting people into camps. My issue is with people who at one point say that the government has no business running health care, or regulating weapons, or intervening in the financial system and scream about how their personal freedoms and liberties are being trampled upon by big government, and then turn around and scream about how the government should be telling people where, how, and when to have sex and what they can and cannot do with the products of intercourse. Where is the personal liberties argument then? It's contradictory.
Fortunately, again, you don't seem to tumble into that nonsense either, so I have no comments about you. =)
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You said it'd be quick.
Zack, intelligent riposte earlier by the way.
If people are gonna try and villify anyone who has an abortion based on the wasted potential life, using the excuse that 'it never got a choice' then why not apply that to preventative contraception. Ie. "you used condoms. Evil git! The baby never had a chance!' it's the same end result but ignorance clears the woman of any guilt.
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Cause if you do that we're straight into Monty Python land? :p
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I'm curious about something:
iamzack, in the case of a parasitic twin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitic_twins), has the autosite the right to have the other one killed? If yes, why?
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Why not? Isn't that what EVERYONE is doing?
Aren't people who want abortion legalized doing the same - pushing their own agenda/beliefs, enshrine it into a legislation.
No, because they're not forcing people to have abortions. They're just permitting it. 'You can do this, if you want to' is very different from 'you MUST NOT DO THIS.'
No, it's not really different.
It's still pushing ones own agenda, no matter how nice you put it.
You know what the difference between the so-called liberals and conservatives is? Or should I say pro-life and pro-choice (cause I hate the liberal and conservative labels, they suck, are very USA-centric and simply don't fit in most situations anyway).
Nothing.
One pushes it's beliefs, justifying it by freedom (or should I say convenince?), the other by life. It's basicly a battle between two ideals.
Which is more importnat - life or freedom* ? Call me whne humanity reaches a consensus on that one.
*in a very narrow sense of freedom
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Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
Give me liberty or give me death!
etc.
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No, it's not really different.
It's still pushing ones own agenda, no matter how nice you put it.
You know what the difference between the so-called liberals and conservatives is? Or should I say pro-life and pro-choice (cause I hate the liberal and conservative labels, they suck, are very USA-centric and simply don't fit in most situations anyway).
Nothing.
One pushes it's beliefs, justifying it by freedom (or should I say convenince?), the other by life. It's basicly a battle between two ideals.
Which is more importnat - life or freedom* ? Call me whne humanity reaches a consensus on that one.
If the anti-choice agenda is achieved, a large group of people are forced to stop practicing what they believe (female choice), and anti-choice individuals are permitted to continue acting as they have in the past (except for all those anti-choice women who had abortions anyway; now they have to stop.)
If the pro-choice agenda is achieved, anti-choice individuals are allowed to continue practicing what they believe, and pro-choice individuals are allowed to practice what they believe.
That's a clear-cut difference.
Also, MP-Ryan wins threads. All our philosophical ramblings about abortion are one thing, but he's provided concrete evidence that access to abortion benefits society, and that's worth more than a dozen essays on either side to me.
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You should start issuing a badge for that. Can be like Battle Stars (the campaign commendation not the scifi ship).
Though i figure MP Ryan would end up with more thread winner badges then DaB has Project badges :D
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I'm curious about something:
iamzack, in the case of a parasitic twin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitic_twins), has the autosite the right to have the other one killed? If yes, why?
Uhm, well, yeah. "Parasitic" is why.
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If the anti-choice agenda is achieved, a large group of people are forced to stop practicing what they believe (female choice), and anti-choice individuals are permitted to continue acting as they have in the past (except for all those anti-choice women who had abortions anyway; now they have to stop.)
If the pro-choice agenda is achieved, anti-choice individuals are allowed to continue practicing what they believe, and pro-choice individuals are allowed to practice what they believe.
That's a clear-cut difference.
Not really. It just seems clear cut to you because for you freedom of choice outweighs life, so you highlight and focus on that.
Seen from another persepctive, in pro-life is achived more children get to live compared to the other agenda.
Also, MP-Ryan wins threads. All our philosophical ramblings about abortion are one thing, but he's provided concrete evidence that access to abortion benefits society, and that's worth more than a dozen essays on either side to me.
Bah.
A law by itself is no solution if the society itself isn't fit for it.
It's like trying to bring in democracy to a comunist country that just faced a war, and expect it to turn into a democratic utopia over night. Just doesn't work. it takes time, probably generations - a new mindset needs to take root.
Same thing here.
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If the anti-choice agenda is achieved, a large group of people are forced to stop practicing what they believe (female choice), and anti-choice individuals are permitted to continue acting as they have in the past (except for all those anti-choice women who had abortions anyway; now they have to stop.)
If the pro-choice agenda is achieved, anti-choice individuals are allowed to continue practicing what they believe, and pro-choice individuals are allowed to practice what they believe.
That's a clear-cut difference.
Not really. It just seems clear cut to you because freedom of choice outweighs life, so you highlight and focus on that.
Seen from another persepctive, in pro-life is achived more children get to live compared to the other agenda.
Except in reality, not only do the fetuses still get aborted, many women also die. Pro-life is only pro-life when it's a fetus in question.
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Exactly. The abortions still happen when illegal, but the mothers die.
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I'm curious about something:
iamzack, in the case of a parasitic twin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitic_twins), has the autosite the right to have the other one killed? If yes, why?
Uhm, well, yeah. "Parasitic" is why.
If being parasitic alone is enough reason, would you vote for the right to eliminate people who do not benefit society? They are, after all, parasitic in nature.
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You can't make the leap from biology to society on the back of a single razor-thin linguistic metaphor.
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Are they biologically parasitic? That is, physically attached in some way to another person leeching off of them?
Metaphorically parasitic is a whole other can of worms.
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I see, you draw the line at physical attachement.
Is the biological factor of reducing the amount of nutrients in the blood or similar things the important part, or is any disadvantage reason enough to have the other one killed? (Asuming physical attachement)
You can't make the leap from biology to society on the back of a single razor-thin linguistic metaphor.
The basic principle "my disadvantage without any benefit"->"other one has no rights" (yes this is simplified, please don't jump at me because you don't like how I said this) is similar, and I was planning to extend it until I can find out where iamzack is drawing the line, and as a result, why iamzack is drawing that line there.
It has nothing to do with a "linguistic metaphor", it only has something to do with the underlying principle.
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I agree, its not just a metaphor. A different mechanism, but the action is parasitic whatsoever.
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You can't make the leap from biology to society on the back of a single razor-thin linguistic metaphor.
Who's gonna stop me?
Ain't logic a grand thing? We can rationalize everything - including completely confilicting and oppoising views.
Exactly. The abortions still happen when illegal, but the mothers die.
Which is why people should learn to read the whole post before replaying. You kinda missed the second part...
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Who's gonna stop me?
Nobody's going to stop you, but by constructing arguments on a fundamentally flawed basis you'll probably just dig yourself a deeper hole for Karajorma to piss in.
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There's nothing fundamentally flawed.
Oh, maybe you can "see" something flawed, but why should I care? Just because you think it's flawed, I should be concerned? If that was a usual approach to debating, nobody would ever say anything, cause people always question eachothers logic.
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There is a massive difference between a biological parasite and any sociological use of the term. That's your fundamental mistake.
And if you can't see that then it's a waste of time debating with you since you're not going to be able to follow all the fancy book-lurnin' that follows. :p
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What time is it in China :confused:
I'm still of the live and let (parents decide whether it) kive(s) view.
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About 9:30 at night.
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There is a massive difference between a biological parasite and any sociological use of the term. That's your fundamental mistake.
And if you can't see that then it's a waste of time debating with you since you're not going to be able to follow all the fancy book-lurnin' that follows. :p
I'm really curious now: Why should you judge the underlying principle of those two differently? How IS the underlying principle different?
I currently can't see an obvious explanation except basically tautological ones.
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Which is why people should learn to read the whole post before replaying. You kinda missed the second part...
Uh...no I didn't. More children do not get to live, and on top of the same number of children dying, mothers die too.
There is a massive difference between a biological parasite and any sociological use of the term. That's your fundamental mistake.
And if you can't see that then it's a waste of time debating with you since you're not going to be able to follow all the fancy book-lurnin' that follows. :p
I'm really curious now: Why should you judge the underlying principle of those two differently? How IS the underlying principle different?
I currently can't see an obvious explanation except basically tautological ones.
You are obviously intentionally obfuscating. The difference is transparent.
A biological parasite saps resources directly from its host. Like a murderer or an organ harvester, it directly violates bodily autonomy.
A social parasite saps money from an abstract economic system - yet s/he never violates any of our society's established laws or rights regarding individual determination.
Think of it this way: which is more severe, a man who beats you up and takes your money, or a man who drains your blood with a syringe every night?
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Not only that but how do you define someone as a sociological parasite anyway? How do you prove he doesn't give back something to society?
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:[ No one ever answered my question about whether we should be prosecuting women for murder if they starve themselves until the fetus in their belly dies.
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There is a massive difference between a biological parasite and any sociological use of the term. That's your fundamental mistake.
And if you can't see that then it's a waste of time debating with you since you're not going to be able to follow all the fancy book-lurnin' that follows. :p
Pft.
Your fundamental mistake is that you think I must conform to whatever logical deduction you followed. The Word of Kajorama doesn't interest me - the world does not follow it.
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You're disregarding how WORDS work. Parasite is a term for a biological relationship between two living things. When you use it in a social context, that is a metaphor. I know, I know, reality has a liberal bias.
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:[ No one ever answered my question about whether we should be prosecuting women for murder if they starve themselves until the fetus in their belly dies.
Quick question for Liberator, TESLA, Mongoose, Trashman, etc:
Since abortion is murder, are you in favor of prosecuting women for starving themselves (or punching themselves in the gut or shoving knitting needles in their cooch, etc) on purpose in order to kill the fetus?
Because, if yes, you are suggesting that if a woman becomes pregnant, her body is no longer hers to do with as she wishes, and is instead property of the government.
I would be in favor of getting those individuals commited to some sort of help program.
As it stands, doing those things, to me, would be somewhat like using illegal drugs. Yes, you could do it, since it is your body, but you still go to jail for that sort of thing.
Not going to re-quote the same post: legally, your body is not free to do with as you wish. There are still constraints that can't be crossed without risk of prosecution.
In case you missed it all those many pages ago.
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:[ No one ever answered my question about whether we should be prosecuting women for murder if they starve themselves until the fetus in their belly dies.
If they did that as opposed to seeking medical aid, it indicates a rather serious mental disorder.
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Oh, there we go, I missed the very last sentence. XP
So how do we prevent women from starving themselves into miscarriage? Should the government have the right to forcefeed a woman just because she is pregnant?
Liberator: I'm talking about a hypothetical situation where abortion is illegal and aborting a fetus is murder.
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:[ No one ever answered my question about whether we should be prosecuting women for murder if they starve themselves until the fetus in their belly dies.
If they did that as opposed to seeking medical aid, it indicates a rather serious mental disorder.
Medical aid...like an abortion?
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WIN WIN WIN
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I'm really curious now: Why should you judge the underlying principle of those two differently? How IS the underlying principle different?
I currently can't see an obvious explanation except basically tautological ones.
Anything social is arbitrarily defined based on time (era), culture, and the size and history of the group defining it. Much as sociologists try to make sociology a science, it's a psuedo-science at best (and I say this as someone with a serious interest in the field) because there is always going to be an element of the subjective in any definition or term.
Biology, on the other hand, has definitions based on objectively observed fact. There is a set of criteria which makes up the fundamental basis of the definition which have to be objectively met - it isn't subject to interpretation (as I already pointed out to TELSA in discussing the parasitic nature of a fetus) no matter how much you want to make it so.
So, with that regard, a social parasite requires a judgment call on the part of the person making the declaration. A biological parasite does not. The two are not comparable. Though, it must be said, the harm which can result from either is not pre-determined. There are many people that can be called social parasites (depending on one's perspective) that could be considered to do a greater amount of harm than any single biological parasite.
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I believe you ignored the part of my statement after the comma, the statement taken as a whole implies the medical forms of mental health treatment, such as counseling and psychiatry.
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You aren't addressing the question though. Should a woman who starves herself to kill the fetus that she doesn't want inside her be arrested, prosecuted for murder, and sentenced accordingly? And if yes, should the government have the right to take possession of her body, forcefeed her and take other similar measures, just because she is pregnant?
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I believe you ignored the part of my statement after the comma, the statement taken as a whole implies the medical forms of mental health treatment, such as counseling and psychiatry.
And again we come back to 'women who want abortions are crazy'.
Which is absolutely false.
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;-)
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You're disregarding how WORDS work. Parasite is a term for a biological relationship between two living things. When you use it in a social context, that is a metaphor. I know, I know, reality has a liberal bias.
If you want to talk about biology then a offspring is not a parasite. NEVER has that word been used in any scientific paper that I know off.
The offspring is in it's own category.
Also "social parasite" is a valid term. The word "social" is part of the term.
And no, I'm not arguing how words work. In case you missed it, I'm arguing the whole train of thought to get to this point in this discussion was going on completely different tracks for each "side" of this discussion. Like I said - logic is a wonderful thing. One can rationalize practicly everything. So just as you can rationalize your views (and regard everyone elses view as moronic and illogical), so can everyone else rationalize his.
What I find ironic is that I'm not outraged at the abortion issue itself, but rather the sheer disgust with which someone views their offspring. Regarding it as a parasite, something tewrrible to get rid off - that sickens me.
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;-)
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You're disregarding how WORDS work. Parasite is a term for a biological relationship between two living things. When you use it in a social context, that is a metaphor. I know, I know, reality has a liberal bias.
If you want to talk about biology then a offspring is not a parasite. NEVER has that word been used in any scientific paper that I know off.
The offspring is in it's own category.
Also "social parasite" is a valid term. The word "social" is part of the term.
And no, I'm not arguing how words work. In case you missed it, I'm arguing the whole train of thought to get to this point in this discussion was going on completely different tracks for each "side" of this discussion. Like I said - logic is a wonderful thing. One can rationalize practicly everything. So just as you can rationalize your views (and regard everyone elses view as moronic and illogical), so can everyone else rationalize his.
What I find ironic is that I'm not outraged at the abortion issue itself, but rather the sheer disgust with which someone views their offspring. Regarding it as a parasite, something tewrrible to get rid off - that sickens me.
Well, considering you'll never have one, it's probably just what you say: you're on a completely different track from a prospective mother's thoughts.
If the embryo is unwanted then it is disgusting. It is not an offspring, it is not desired, it was not asked for (and no, having protected sex is not asking for a baby), and it feels unnatural.
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The thing about it is that "parasite" is an objective term. It doesn't have inherent negativity, it's just a term to describe a particular relationship between living things which is found in nature. When you're the one with the parasite, though, then it's a very negative thing.
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So, the problem is that the term "parasite" has not been scientifically declared in social context? Then I think what we have here is an analogy, rather than a metaphor.
As for why, here's my reasoning.
A. Two groups of people, group "A" and group "B" (both groups sized 1...n)
B. Group "A" uses the material or mental resources of those in group "B", without consent of group "B"
C. In the process, group "A" gains, group "B" wastes away
And because of point C, I think this analogy CAN be determined in social context without arbitrariness and without taking cultural factors in consideration.
All you need to do is record the start and end states of both groups, and the flow direction of "goods" between the groups.
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You're disregarding how WORDS work. Parasite is a term for a biological relationship between two living things. When you use it in a social context, that is a metaphor. I know, I know, reality has a liberal bias.
If you want to talk about biology then a offspring is not a parasite. NEVER has that word been used in any scientific paper that I know off.
The offspring is in it's own category.
Also "social parasite" is a valid term. The word "social" is part of the term.
And no, I'm not arguing how words work. In case you missed it, I'm arguing the whole train of thought to get to this point in this discussion was going on completely different tracks for each "side" of this discussion. Like I said - logic is a wonderful thing. One can rationalize practicly everything. So just as you can rationalize your views (and regard everyone elses view as moronic and illogical), so can everyone else rationalize his.
What I find ironic is that I'm not outraged at the abortion issue itself, but rather the sheer disgust with which someone views their offspring. Regarding it as a parasite, something tewrrible to get rid off - that sickens me.
Why are you bringing your connotations into the discussion? Parasite is an objective, scientific term, and is therefore neither "good" nor "bad." It just is. The only people who have a problem with the term parasite seem to be the ones bringing all their connotations to the term.
I love kids. My wife and I fully intend upon having children. Just because a fetus fits the biological definition of a parasite doesn't mean it isn't desirable to create one.
Seriously - take your preconceptions out of it. Fetuses - of all mammalian species, at least - are parasitic in nature. Get over it.
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So, the problem is that the term "parasite" has not been scientifically declared in social context? Then I think what we have here is an analogy, rather than a metaphor.
As for why, here's my reasoning.
A. Two groups of people, group "A" and group "B" (both groups sized 1...n)
B. Group "A" uses the material or mental resources of those in group "B", without consent of group "B"
C. In the process, group "A" gains, group "B" wastes away
And because of point C, I think this analogy CAN be determined in social context without arbitrariness and without taking cultural factors in consideration.
All you need to do is record the start and end states of both groups, and the flow direction of "goods" between the groups.
What's your point? Social parasitism is a subjective, ill-defined term while actual parasitism is an objective term. The two aren't comparable just because of that fact.
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This is like equating a demographic shift with murder. It's kind of silly.
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What's your point? Social parasitism is a subjective, ill-defined term while actual parasitism is an objective term. The two aren't comparable just because of that fact.
So its the difference between "parasites" and "parasite-likes"? So what you said before about parasites, you would apply only to parasites but not to parasite-likes (even though the outcome would be the same)?
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Castor. Point to an example of someone who is a social parasite.
I'll bet you any money that you'll get a whole bunch of objections to your classification.
Now point at a biological parasite. If you are correct, I bet you won't.
The difference is that you can pretty clearly define the parameters of biological parasitism. Try to do that in a social sense and you have more problems. How do you know that the person you claim is a parasite isn't actually providing an important service or function to someone who you claim isn't?
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Castor. Point to an example of someone who is a social parasite.
We're talking about actual people, so case studies are not easily available. But as a more general example, I would say the subject of this study deals with parasitic relationships.
http://oem.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/57/10/656
The difference is that you can pretty clearly define the parameters of biological parasitism. Try to do that in a social sense and you have more problems. How do you know that the person you claim is a parasite isn't actually providing an important service or function to someone who you claim isn't?
There are problems, and in many ways they are very different things, yes. What I "objected" here was the apparent conclusion that if we can't clearly define the parameters of social parasitism it becomes a non-issue (at least that was the impression I got)? That approach seems too easy to me..
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This metaphor is incredibly dumb.
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The difference is that you can pretty clearly define the parameters of biological parasitism. Try to do that in a social sense and you have more problems. How do you know that the person you claim is a parasite isn't actually providing an important service or function to someone who you claim isn't?
There are problems, and in many ways they are very different things, yes. What I "objected" here was the apparent conclusion that if we can't clearly define the parameters of social parasitism it becomes a non-issue (at least that was the impression I got)? That approach seems too easy to me..
Not so much a non-issue as an irrelevant one. Social parasitism and actual parasitism can't be compared because social parasitism is completely subjective. That's all there is to it.
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This metaphor is incredibly dumb.
Thanks GB, I really appreciate your insights.
Not so much a non-issue as an irrelevant one. Social parasitism and actual parasitism can't be compared because social parasitism is completely subjective. That's all there is to it.
So, in your reply below, the key point really is the definition of the term parasitic; your evaluation of the case completely stands or falls with it.
I'm curious about something:
iamzack, in the case of a parasitic twin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitic_twins), has the autosite the right to have the other one killed? If yes, why?
Uhm, well, yeah. "Parasitic" is why.
Well, my mistake, I didn't read you as literally as I should have. But no worries, I'm done with all the pestering now :-]
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I've already explained why it's dumb.
It's dumb on a logical level because you're using an analogy to compare a defined phenomenon and another analogy defined by that phenomenon. That's completely circular. Social parasitism is an analogy, not an empirical phenomenon. As iamzack said, it's subjective.
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This could go on forever without ever going anywhere, so I just say, Fine :)
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;-)
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Actually people's point of views can and have been changed at least in part due to discussion on this board. I've seen some fundamentalists become more moderate and conservatives become more liberal in my time on here.
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Personally I find the data that gets posted up is worth the effort of debate (and, gratifyingly, it looks like my points of view are generally well-supported.) :p
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Actually people's point of views can and have been changed at least in part due to discussion on this board. I've seen some fundamentalists become more moderate and conservatives become more liberal in my time on here.
I've gotten more conservative :)
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I have in some ways, just not over the more 'hot' topics that are usually discussed here, though, admittedly, I still think it'd be a cold day in hell before I ever voted conservative ;)
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Nah, you both just got older. :p
I know it seems like the same thing....
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:lol:
It's that whole Churchill quote catching up with me...
'Anyone under 30 who isn't Liberal has no heart, anyone over 30 who isn't Conservative has no brains' ;)
But yeah, you're probably right, I can't wait to get a lawn ;)