Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Loss of consciousness/memory/mental functions means loss of the knowledge of Good and Evil, hence a Sinless State maybe ?

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Here's what I said: No matter what position you hold about abortion, you should try to be accurate. Characterizing abortion as the removal of a collection of cells is hardly that.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

I see it the other way around. I feel that giving birth to unwanted children is a sign of decadence. Healthy cultures don't allow a woman to give birth if she considers a child to be an inconvenience.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Characterizing it as the murder of a child is at least as inaccurate, and I think moreseo. no one disputes that we are talking about a collection of cells. The dispute is whether the collection of cells is also a human being (or, for squishier anti-abortionists, "life).

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

dec·a·dence   [dek-uh-duhns, dih-keyd-ns] Show IPA
noun
1.
the act or process of falling into an inferior condition or state; deterioration; decay: Some historians hold that the fall of Rome can be attributed to internal decadence.
2.
moral degeneration or decay; turpitude.
3.
unrestrained or excessive self-indulgence.
4.
( often initial capital letter ) the decadent movement in literature.

So abortion is bad because its a sign of decadence, which means that it's bad because it's a sign that things are becoming worse. As I said:

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/honor_societies.png

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

You said abortions were the removal of a (your own words) "very small cluster of cells with no human features other than DNA". You followed that with a blast at conservatives for failing to recognize the "actual". I pointed out that this statement was born of ignorance and provided a link to a website providing the "actual".

I really don't think you're trying to argue that you made a valid point, you appear to just be changing the argument. Why can't you just say "I don't care if it has a beating heart, brain activity, lungs, kidneys, eyes, hands, fingers, toes - this is not a human and sucking it into a sink and chopping it into pieces is no big deal."

As to the 'conservatives are against abortion but pro-capital punishment' argument that always seems to follow, I challenge all deep thinkers to find the small difference between a murderer who has received due process, upteen appeals, court-appointed lawyers as well as pro-bono experts issuing every challenge under the sun no matter the logic, whining protesters who care nothing for the perp's victims etc.........and a small unborn human.

And squishier doctors too. A stopped heart has been the definition of death (opposite of life) for quite a while. Artificial hearts and brain science have clouded it up a bit but I ask you to provide a better definition.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

The First Rule of Tautology Club is the First Rule of Tautology Club is a winner. This kind of suggests that conservative movement thinking is a kind of recursive function. Appealing to authority over and over again going further and further back in time.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

It is not fair to drunks.
While scrolling through the comments to post this, I saw the ultra sound pictures. Someone must be talking about abortion. I wonder how many of these so called pro life people are upset by killing women and children with drones?
chamblee54

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Sounds a little coercive.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

More or less.

Really, our society should encourage recreational sex – and all that it entails – because few things could increase the happiness of our citizens better than more sex for everyone.

This withdrawn support is inconsistent with the free birth control the government institution Planned Parenthood provides and most candidates support, but in the case of abortion, cowards quickly compromise their views to appear as "good guys" to both moral camps.

[....]

Anyone with a thorough philosophical platform for a woman's right to abortion should also be pro-abortion. If abortion adds no moral wrong to the world, every woman should terminate pregnancies if it is at all useful to her.

If one truly believes a mass of cells, a potential not yet in the realm of existence, can be manipulated without harm, he or she should boldly allow it without restrictions. We have real people to care about, and this procedure can help them a lot.

http://www.thedaonline.com/opinion/c...7#.TsQRN3Kt20s

You seem to be suggesting that fetal development in the first month is the same as fetal development in the first trimester. I think of faces, brains, hearts, spinal cords, etc, as human features other than DNA, quite easily seen as a child.

I care about a healthy culture.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Do you think this would fit on a t-shirt?

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

A chimpanzee has a beating heart, brain activity, lungs, kidneys, eyes, hands, fingers, and toes. Subtract the hands and my dog does too. Surely there's some other quality about human beings that give us our moral stature.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

I always respect an xkcd reference. Although what you cite is not technically a tautology. Things might be getting worse and yet still be good, provided they begin at a sufficiently high point on the ordering of value and the change is sufficiently small. Usually if you want to find tautologies, you want to make use of logical constants, i.e. abortion is bad, or abortion is not bad.

What's the Matter with Kansas topic
 

I am finally getting around to listening to the diavlog and I want to commend Erica and Amanda on the discussion surrounding the Frank's book.

Erica criticism here is a good place to start.
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/398...2:26&out=23:19

and Amanda's response was useful as well
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/398...3:19&out=25:00

I would like to add to what Amanda says here by noting that even if the subjects of Frank's book see it as voting against their self interest they will still suffer FOR the group/tribe. Now you may agree or disagree with that logic but this is how they seem themselves, judging them right or wrong might not be helpful since, at the very least, they are the ones suffering.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

LOL Ridiculous. Evolution has divided the reproductive role between two parties for the sake of survivability of the species, not as a sop to the mau-mauing of feminists. A child isn't some trinket of a woman's simply because she is gestating it, the child is the product of a biological union. Her pregnancy is her duty as an organism. We forget that reproduction is the primary purpose of life.

This makes no sense and it isn't remotely difficult to answer even if you assume your meaning. An IUD is fine, a very strange question.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

That's just gross. ;) Although I am sure some anti-choice/pro-life types have tried something like that.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Here's what you said:You err, sir: Abortion is the removal of a collection of cells. (It may or may not be something else, too--though it certainly is the removal of a collection of cells.)

...300,000 abortions were performed in Kenya each year, the vast majority of the illegal, resulting in 20,000 hospitalizations and 2,600 deaths.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

The tautology is not quite the same as the infinite recursion you try to cite. The First Rule of Tautology Club is the First Rule of Tautology Club does return a value, true in this case. Infinite recursion never can return a value.

The bit about appealing to authority again further and further back in time is actually a much deeper problem than what we see in conservative thinking. It is a problem with constantly seeking justification. Suppose you create a theory. You begin with either a set of axioms derivation rules. To justify these if pushed on them, you must create an additional set of axioms and rules of inference. And so forth. The problem you are pointing out is just the instantiation of this with the case of appeal to authority as the (usually really bad) rule of inference. There is actually a very important logical result on this topic due to Alfred Tarski (and Kurt Gödel) for those who are as interested in this sort of thing as me.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Surely you will also understand that because of the physiological changes in the pregnant woman the only person that we can safely say understands what is at stake is the pregnant woman. Why not allow her to be the arbiter of what happens to her and her zygote/fetus and/or whatever zygotes and fetuses she chooses to have in the future. Your interest or the interest of Ralph Reed or Rick Perry is far less of a concern.

Biology as destiny eh. Such reductionist logic would allow you to justify having your way with a well endowed 13 year old girl. Is that the kind of leg you would like to be standing on, especially when your argument is that a woman should have no choice as to what happens to her body when pregnant.

I am assuming he/she is referring to the Mississippi life begins at conception law where IUD's and other forms of that type of birth control would be banned.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

All of these sound like the consequences of choices. Add another lifetime of suffering, the child support burden on the man, which if the coupling is so marginal, will either result in him being cemented there if he pays or cemented there if he doesn't (Constant evasion of child support is likely determinative of someone's standard of living).

The moral of the story here is to avoid libertine sexuality. Or, if not, to exercise the minimum amount of caution, predictable with the slightest amount of reason, by using preventative measures.

I'll point out that by every single reasonable measure, the society is more violent and degenerate, with more money collected and spent by governments, than it was before the legalization of abortion.

I believe the only way you establish a mechanism for reinforcing virtue in a culture is to allow the consequences of vice to play out. In the long run, the societal benefit will outweigh any temporary inconvenience.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Due to its infinite lack of wisdom, the Senate has thus far failed to name me dictator legibus faciendis et rei publicae constituendae causa, I have yet to assume my proper role in this society. That being the case, however, I assumed that everything I say on this board is assumed to be a matter of opinion if I don't cite data or source material. Hence why we all argue and debate the subjects.

LOL Hold on a moment. The idea of decadence being a bad thing is a point of argument now? Do men of the left hold no regard for virtue at all? Are things so naked, now?

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

False. The Pro-life argument is that the choice was made when a thoughtless, empty, sexual coupling was joined. What happens after is a cascading wave of probability.

There is no element of choice in this.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

That isn't a tautology at all. If x equals good, and z equals worse, then y as a gradient between x and z is bad, meaning undesirable. Unless you can factually assert that y isn't bad, or z isn't worse, or even x isn't good, then it is all a matter for debate and consensus. You seem to be skipping a step and assuming that any one of the three has been demonstrated.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Can you name a decadent culture in history that was decadent because it was too fecund?

Why do you assert that? Is this Feminism as uterine feudalism?

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

The thing that prevents a chimpanzee from being a human isn't knives and vacuums. Causality qualifies children and human beings, Don Zeko. The inevitable result of time. Interrupting the sequence of events doesn't make a baby into a dog, or a monkey,

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Only 10 minutes in and this is already shaping up to be quite a dispatch from the echo chamber - Citizens United is not merely wrong, but ridiculous! Walker and Bloomberg are craven oligarchs willing to do anything to hang onto power! OWS demonstrations being disbanded by the police is some ultimate symbol of corporatism that vindicates the movement's aims! I imagine that things are going to get really good when these ladies make it to the abortion section.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

That a particular human organ or capacity was adaptive, within the evolutionary environment, does not demonstrate that it places any moral obligation on the individual.

IUDs prevent pregnancy, in part, because the foreign body inside the uterus irritates the lining and wall making it hard for an embryo to implant. The IUD functions successfully when it causes abortion to occur. An IUD user may effectively have numerous abortions, over the years. (As a critic of anti-abortionist ideology, I regard this as a poor reason to foreswear the IUD.)

The next time you run into a strong anti-abortionist, ask if IUDs should remain legal--and if so, why.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Because this isn't Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld, where we all emerged into a strange world and are learning how to operate in it. In what possible sense is the woman gestating the infant the only person who understands what is at stake? This is a matter for the culture, not her. It is a matter for a society which trains the abortionist, forges the blades, and cannibalizes the infant for various medical purposes.

Abortion is the only place where liberals remember that all law is coercive. Liberals would legislate what you can eat, where you can smoke, what you can earn, how you can work, what you can think, what you can say.....but when we reach abortion? It's Galt's Gulch. Don't tread on me, soulless minion of the Patriarchy!

Strange assumption, since it would do no such thing. There are reasons why moral codes have developed between organisms after their conception.

Absolutely.

Her pregnancy was a choice. That is how we arrived here. Your claim seems to suggest that lacking an ability to erase the consequence of that choice means there are no choices, at all. Again, strange assumption.

I have no problem with birth control.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

You're right that it's not technically a tautology, but the function is similar. You're not arguing why you think abortion is bad when you say it's a sign of our decadent culture, you're just restating your opinion. It has about as much analytical weight as telling us what your favorite color is. If there's any content to your comment, it's the implication that the culture now is worse than it was in the past, which of course leads me to wonder what past period of American history had superior moral norms to today's.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Putting aside the merits of the claim for a moment, I think the argument that abortion represents decadence is an entirely coherent and cognizable one.

If you think of a fetus as at least the moral equivalent of human child with some rights of a person,* then definition #3 pretty much covers why someone might regard it as decedent for the most prosperous society in the history of the world to sacrifice the lives of (the moral equivalents of) children in order to facilitate a marginally increased satisfaction of the material desires of some (many) adults.

Its a claim that could be questioned empirically -- why do abortions actually happen? are they merely serving self-indulgent interests? Its a claim that could be questioned normatively -- the very word decadence implies that excessive indulgence is morally inferior, but is this true? and what counts as excessive? You could even ask whether the decadence inheres in the fact of abortion or in the facts that create the incentives for abortion.

But it seems to me that none of these objections stop the initial claim from being rhetorically valid.


* = and seriously, can we just have a rule where we expect all intelligent people to 1) recognize that when "pro-lifers" say the word "child" they frequently mean the term inclusive of fetuses, and that when "pro-choicers" say the word "child" they frequently mean the term exclusive of fetuses; 2) take the meaning plainly conveyed by any particular use of the word "child" without having to agree (or be seen as agreeing) that the word is being correctly used; and 3) try to avoid getting into pointless semantic arguments by declining to completely alter the implicit assumptions of the other party when addressing secondary points that clearly depend on those assumptions?

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Perhaps not. You'll notice you're the only one arguing with the formulation of the post itself; which means that what I said contains assumed values, not just of pro-lifers, but pro choice people as well. That seems to be a significant piece of evidence that I am the one ensconced in the Fortress of Reason, to borrow from Danton. :p

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

It's up now:

The Occupy Wall Street movement is not wearing well with voters across the country. Only 33% now say that they are supportive of its goals, compared to 45% who say they oppose them. That represents an 11 point shift in the wrong direction for the movement's support compared to a month ago when 35% of voters said they supported it and 36% were opposed. Most notably independents have gone from supporting Occupy Wall Street's goals 39/34, to opposing them 34/42.

Voters don't care for the Tea Party either, with 42% saying they support its goals to 45% opposed. But asked whether they have a higher opinion of the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street movement the Tea Party wins out 43-37, representing a flip from last month when Occupy Wall Street won out 40-37 on that question. Again the movement with independents is notable- from preferring Occupy Wall Street 43-34, to siding with the Tea Party 44-40.


http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/m...or-fading.html

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

You are casting women who chose abortion as trivial minded people with no common sense or shred of morality. I beg to differ and I mention that A.) Women are affected psychologically by physiological changes in their body during pregnancy and so are way more likely to have weighed the pro/cons of continuing their pregnancy and aren't doing merely to keep the weight off. B.) A pregnant woman is the most affected by abortion rights ( or wrongs depending on your point of view ) while those on the periphery with agenda that don't seem to have anything to do with a woman's life should have little say in it.

Only maybe be a slight overreach of course the man if he gives a shit, does give a shit then he has a stake to one extent or another, friends and kin can be helpful/hurtful etc, still the woman is way more affected body and soul, so to speak. Does Ralph Reed care about this person ? He can say he does, he can have his opinion but does she want to put her life in his hands ??




And abortion is where conservatives believe in plenty of Collectivism. :)


Eat what you want. Show me a law that jails people for eating junk food.

and where you can shit and piss as well. Personally I don't have as much of a problem with smoking but that's me.

You can earn what you want but you do have to pay the cops amongst other trappings of civilization. By all means go off the grid because I don't think that is illegal.

Sorry to stop an entrepenuer from becoming an assasin.

If my "only" was over reach ???

1st amendment remedies are fine for me.

Well you chose to argue that I woman should be at the mercy of a law based on biological determinism or should be at the mercy of the urge to procreate. I was just following the logic you put forward. If the biological urge the procreate is the standard you put forward, what is the problem. I would also point out that forcing a woman to come to term with a rapist's child or her fathers would be considered a moral code that I have no interest in. Plenty on the pro-life/anti-choice side think that is just peachy.


Hey I'm pro-choice, I can't be lectured on choice ;)

Well if birth control fails ( meaning they made the required minimum preventable measures ) then can they say what does or does not happen to their body ? Can we question a woman to see if she didn't want to be ejaculated into and then allow her to choose ?

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

I would like to see this happen too. Unfortunately the lazy argument in this debate is simply to say we should not kill children and a fetus is a "child" (however you wish to parse the word), then try to show this using various scientific facts that have inherent limits in application to the moral question - see naturalistic fallacy. It just ends up being a lot of screaming and posturing.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Question: Are there women who chose abortion as trivial minded people with no common sense or shred of morality? When I was about 18 years old, I met such a woman. She was a friend of a girl who I was dating at the time, and during an evening of festivity, told me that she had had multiple abortions. She said it with irritation, not with regret; her boyfriend didn't like the feel of condoms, and she didn't have the time to go get proper birth control.

People of the age are too often frivolous. Too often, they lack common sense. Too often, they not only lack morality, they work to shred it.

This seems to argue against reasoned choice. Obviously the choice to abort a child isn't usually for such a ridiculous reason (Though I'm sure you will admit, it is too often). But the choice to engage in the coitus which led to the pregnancy usually is.

I do not agree with this. You're simply suggesting that the woman has a special set of rights as some sort of modern mater familias. In a society where we frown upon spanking or "harsh words" to children, it seems an odd arrangement to suggest that there is a point in the gestation where a woman is entitled to excise it because of special privilege. You are arbitrarily setting a line of choice when one is already clear. Sex is where the choice was made, the child we're talking about extirpating is the inevitable conclusion of that choice.

By your argument, why should there be any limit on when you can terminate this child? The terrible burden of life exists past the first trimester, after all. And people undergoing psychological and physiological changes have been known to...change...their minds.

The woman knew that her body was designed to be impregnated after successful conception of a child, no? If so, the choice was made. That seems like a pretty fair arrangement to me. It is less arbitrary than what you are describing, no?

In a sense. It is where we believe that an individual has a pretty elementary duty to not kill the next generation of our grand compact.

Conservatives don't want to jail women who get abortions. The law in some places assesses fines against certain types of food; failure to pay fines carries further legal penalty.

Excretions carry viral and disease contaminants far worse than smoking.

"Paying the cops" should account for about .01% of all state and federal spending. How about the other 99.99%? What's next?

"You can earn what you want but you do have to pay for the Cowboy Poetry Festival amongst the other trappings of a civilization. If you're not willing to do that, go off the grid." :p

Thank you for the apology. For other people however, the vast increase in licensing at the state and federal level (For the sake of "the children", ironically coming from the left) limits the ease at which people enter various forms of work.

Fine for thee but not for me?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_code

The woman is at the mercy of causality, not "law". You are suggesting that the law allow a different remedy than the natural biological course. I am saying I oppose such supranatural intervention by the skulking abortionist.

Women should be allowed to abort the children of rapists, and probably should be forced to abort the products of incest. See? I'm more than willing to compromise. Perhaps you should agree that women should be prohibited from getting cosmetic abortions, or multiple abortions in the spirit of comity.

No, because two forms of birth control used simultaneously are almost failure-proof. Considering the statistics, and what we know about people who engage in unprotected sex in non-abortion related surveys of sexual activity, I do not believe the woman in most cases. There remains some small amount of stigma for abortion among pro-choice people, even.

Unless she is charging rape, she should assume that this is the natural consequence of a sexual act. It is, after all, the very point of one party.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

First of all, the vast majority of abortions occur before the times you stated. But I ask you this: if these really are exactly the same as other human beings in every way, why not just remove them from the mothers who don't want to house them and let them develop and thrive on their own? Or are they freeloaders, a condition of persons that conservatives normally abhor?

I didn't at all make the abortion/capital punishment argument. That reveals the hipocrisy of a great deal of religious opponents of abortion, but certainly not all of them.

I am interested, rather, in why, even if you deem these blastocysts person, why this is the one instance in which you want to mandate at the force of state sanction, that another human being be forced to sustain them, not simply through monetary costs, but through some risk to their physical being. Or why, instead, you object to a very minor portion of your income going to the support of an uninsured person in a coma, but you are willing to have someone else be forced, at a much higher cost, both physically and economically, to sustain another "person's" life support within herself.

Brain death is a pretty reasonable definition of death, and relates in a more meaningful way than heartbeat to what we normally consider to constitute a uniquely human being.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

The early part of your post seemed to demand that your opposite side in the argument be as loose with facts and as eliding of reality as you are on this topic. That seems strange.

As to the above, I apologise. I didn't realize that you only oppose abortion after the first month. If you in fact don't oppose early term abortions, I have misunderstood your position.

Some thoughful interlude.
 

To quote Jack Nicholson "Oh my God Don't Stop NOW"

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Wow, that is sad.

I feel kind of bad for anything negative I have ever said about you. The world you live in is far more impoverished than the one I know.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

LOL What a strange thing to say. That is the evolutionary purpose of biology, facilitating reproduction. Everything that marks an organism as unique is meant to further this purpose, from the neck of the giraffe to the tusks of the elephant to the brains of a human. So...don't quite see how I'm 'impoverished' for knowing this is true.