I always find it illustrative to point out how the liberals have double standards for everything. “Do as I say, not as I do.” We see it all the time, most often lately in doing things 100x worse than what they complained about under Bush. But perhaps the perfect example of how they view the world is looking at abortion vs the death penalty – here’s a very narrow example comparing “pain” involved in each.
Liberals hate the death penalty – the one for criminals that is. They love to spend lots of taxpayer dollars getting death penalty cases tied up the court system forever. Their solution is to eliminate the death penalty completely of course. A good example of their efforts was in Baze v. Rees. It argued that the the three-drug “cocktail” used by many states could lead to suffering for a moment between two of the drugs in the sequence. Eventually the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that method was okay after all. Baze got to live an extra 15 years thanks to all these taxpayer-funded appeals and arguments. All he did to get on death row was to shoot two cops in the back multiple times with an assault rifle.
But now let’s look at the other side and consider possible pain and suffering when it comes to abortion. Nebraska is debating a bill that would make all abortions after the 20th week illegal because of the suffering of the baby vs the current law there that looks at viability on a case by case basis. I’ve emphasized a few words to show how ABC tries to paint this as an extreme notion.
The bright-line rule is necessary because of some medical evidence that a fetus can feel pain at that stage of gestation, sponsors of the legislation say.
The legislation has drawn national attention from groups such as the Center for Reproductive Rights, which sees it as a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that legalized abortion. If the legislation passes, Nebraska will be the first state to ban abortions based on the controversial notion that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks.
The same sort of liberals who didn’t want criminals to allegedly suffer for a moment just before death are absolutely outraged at this idea. They are worried because with the Roberts court having already okayed partial birth abortion bans in Gonzales v. Carhart that they might allow another “pillar” of Roe v. Wade to be chopped down by setting a fixed limit – a “bright line” – on viability.
So when you compare and contrast the two, you find that a “true” liberal believes that:
- There should be zero chance of any suffering for even the most heinous criminals while they work toward the ultimate goal of having no executions.
- There should be zero consideration of any suffering for babies in the womb while they work toward the ultimate goal of having no abortion restrictions.
Steve Maley
KnightsofMalta
Liberal Minds...
alarm1201 Wednesday, April 7th at 8:15AM EST (link)There is only one way I can explain the degeneracy of the liberal mind – inbreeding.
How about Evil?
Beaglescout (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 9:18AM EST (link)When you believe your own lies and force others to believe or at least not object to them, you are Evil.
“A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.”
5
MikeG (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 9:36AM EST (link)n/t
Liberals and their "no abortion restrictions"
penguin2 (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 8:19AM EST (link)translates into murdering infants in utero. As the advances in general and medical technology are so rapid, it is becoming easier and easier for any layperson to see the incredible life of the living child inside the womb. Think – coming to a TV monitor near you.
The Leftist Liberal and this double standard of keeping sociopaths from being put to death vs their efforts to destroy innocent humanity, is beyond hypocrisy. It is pure evil itself.
Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. – Benjamin Franklin
When Good stands up to Evil, Evil blinks. – Vassar Bushmills
Conservative Education: Suggested Reading List
Activists Taking Action: Unified Patriots
Try "Translates into murdering children whenever"
Raven (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 10:01AM EST (link)Let’s not forget their defense of partial birth abortions and what can only be termed “post-birth” abortions: leaving children unattended in hospital storage rooms while they die slowly.
“If you do not have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”
Luke 22:36
War casualties versus abortion...
guyaverage (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 8:34AM EST (link)…is another area of double standard. The Left would rather leave us defenseless in the face of our enemies than risk a single military casualty but mass genocide of prenatal humans is just fine.
The logical disconnect is couched in a strong self-deception. Frankly, both the double standard I’ve mentioned and the one mentioned in the article makes them look foolish and disingenuous when examined rationally. However, the lack of rational and critical thought seems to be a prerequisite for “Progressives”.
Most importantly, it has cost the lives of babies who have been sacrificed on the Altar of The Left by those of all backgrounds.
/snark off.
http://guyaverage.blogspot.com
I frequently run into the rabid leftist who...
Conservative Phantom Wednesday, April 7th at 11:28AM EST (link)…is adamantly opposed to the death penalty. In their “argument” against capital punishment they will almost inevitably use the “conservative pro-life stand as hypocrisy” ploy. It is at that point that I concede, admit that they are absolutely right, that all killing is wrong and offer to join them in opposition to the death penalty if they will join me in opposing abortion on demand. That sort of kills all further attempts at debate on their part.
Tired of commenting on other people’s topics? Consider a visit to the “It’s About Liberty” forum where you can start your own:
http://itsaboutliberty.com/
And be as politically incorrect as you damn well please.
C P
NoDoze Wednesday, April 7th at 11:42AM EST (link)There is absolutely no equivalency between capital punishment for crimes, and abortion. Capital punishment is a God-given requirement to maintain justice and sanity in any nation. No nation that I know of applies capital punishment correctly, but even incorrectly applied, it tends to contain criminal activity.
Abortion on the other hand has no justification whatsoever. What action, criminal or otherwise, has an unborn person taken that would even remotely — by the most radical definition of crime — deserve the death penalty?
I will never equate capital punishment and abortion — not even to confuse the idiot that is arguing against capital punishment. I have a strong argument for capital punishment, and an equally strong argument against abortion. Never confuse the two.
Conservative case against the death penalty:
SoulEspresso Wednesday, April 7th at 2:41PM EST (link)1. It is not applied equally. Poor prisoners are more likely to get it than rich ones, because their lawyers are not as good. (You get what you pay for. And we’ll leave race out of it.) Do some crimes deserve death? Absolutely. But the whole conservative idea of “personal responsibility” goes out the window if you can buy your way out of the death penalty.
2. It does not deter crime. If it did, why would people in poor communities consider their friends and relatives on death row to be bad@$$es? Life on death row is pretty comfortable.
3. It is fiscally irresponsible. Keeping a prisoner in prison for life is cheaper than applying the death penalty when you factor in the expenses of mandatory appeals.
4. It is irreversible. I know even DNA testing is not infallible, but sometimes people are proven innocent after years in prison.
5. From a religious perspective (take it or leave it), people are never beyond hope. This does NOT mean I believe all criminals can be rehabilitated. A lot of guys who should get life sentences don’t, and a lot of commuted sentences should not be. But a guy who has more years (behind bars, please!) to repent is less likely to die damned.
I quit paying attention to him when he started trying to be so even-handed, but a few years ago O’Reilly suggested labor camps in Alaska as a replacement for death row. It might be a better deterrent; I know I’d rather die.
A conservative reason to support the death penalty
JSobieski (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 2:55PM EST (link)… its a Kantian opportunity to redeem oneself, to pay for one’s crimes. Kant would say that we execute the murderer not to protect society or to deter crime, but by punishing the criminal, to provide them the opportunity to be suitably punished.
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
And if you or I were convicted of a capital crime, and we believed in this way, we would accept it.
SoulEspresso Wednesday, April 7th at 3:03PM EST (link)But nobody in the criminal class thinks this way. If they can get a good enough lawyer, they will.
Of course, all the homicides I’ve ever considered would have been obviously justifiable to any jury.
Yes, but it is irrelevant to the formulation whether
JSobieski (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 5:17PM EST (link)the person “thinks this way”.
If I am ever in such a situation, I would hope to volunteer for some type of suicide mission in which some good could be accomplished.
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
Second conservative case against the death penalty:
Achance (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 3:40PM EST (link)the government is simply too cumbersome, incompetent, and self-interested to be given that kind of power.
I’ve never used the power of government to take someone’s life but I’ve used the same powers and tools that a prosecutor uses to really, really ruin more than a few lives. In fact, throught the trial court level I submit that it is easier to arrest and convict someone for murder than it is to discharge a public employee for not coming to work on time, certainly the procedural burden is greater on the public employer trying to dismiss an erring employee than it is on a prosecutor trying to convict him of murder.
Using those same tools and without even the vagaries of a jury of twelve morons with driver’s licenses, a labor arbitrator or ALJ is supposed to be an expert, I’ve won waaaay to many cases I should have lost and lost waaay too many cases I should have won. The whole system is simply too unreliable, too dependent on emotion and the quality of advocacy, to do ANYTHING that is irreversible.
In Vino Veritas
In some sense, nothing is reversible
JSobieski (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 5:22PM EST (link)Put someone in jail for 10 years, you can’t give them 10 years back. Get someone fired, they may not be able to get their old job back.
One of the reasons for capital punishment in my view is that if society does not consider the justice system to be at least a half-way decent provider of justice, you are going to have vigilantism. There are safe-guards in place for criminal trials. If the prosecutor uses emotion to overly sway the jury, the judge, an appellate court, or even the chief executive can right the wrong.
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
Yeah, but I'm the one that sometimes lies there
Achance (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 7:32PM EST (link)in the middle of the night thinking about some people whose lives I’ve really changed, including a couple that went home and committed suicide. You really want to think you were right when it turns out like that and it is hard to know sometimes. I look at some of the “bloodthirsty” prosecutors I’ve seen and I think there is something just as wrong with that person as there is with the worst of the ones they deal with.
The only ones I ever got any pleasure from doing in were the ones who thought they were players and could outsmart the system; I just took that as a challenge. The dumbass that just did something stupid, even if it was a bad, bad thing wasn’t any pleasure to deal with, you did what you needed to do with him/her, fired them, had them prosecuted, but mostly you just wished people didn’t do stuff like that and didn’t cause you to have to deal with it. But maybe after a few hundred, I became something of a softie – too many pained faces, even if 99.9% of them undoubtedly deserved that pain.
In Vino Veritas
I totally understand where you are coming from
JSobieski (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 11:43PM EST (link)which is why I went from a primarily litigation practice to a primarily transactional and IP prosecution practice. Litigation is combat, and the people who thrive at it are like ambitious people who grow up wanting to be president—they are precisely the wrong people to engage in those roles.
However, the issues you raise are just as prevalent in a shoplifting case, business litigation, and other contexts. Capital punishment cases get a lot of attention, and frankly, I trust the system more on a death penalty case than a case in which the person will “merely” be locked away for life without a possibility of parole.
Capital punishment has the merit of at least making people pay attention, and that gives me some confidence.
Of all the legal proceedings that truly scare me, civil commitment hearings are at the top of the list. Humdrum murder cases based on purely circumstantial evidence without a prosecutor seeking the death penalty are a distant second. A well publicized capital case is far down that list in my view.
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
Oh, I know the safeguards built into the appeal
Achance (Diary) Thursday, April 8th at 12:35AM EST (link)process; it is extraordinarily unlikely these days that an innocent could face execution. Nevertheless, it is a blunt and brutal instrument at the trial court level. It convicts people that it shouldn’t and frees people that it shouldn’t.
In Vino Veritas
I don't doubt that, but that calls into question entirely different issues
JSobieski (Diary) Thursday, April 8th at 1:08AM EST (link)such as the viability of our justice system when it comes to lesser felonies. It would be very easy to frame some disadvantaged kid for various drug possession and other crimes. The thought really does frighten me.
My wife works as a social worker in a public school for kids diagnosed with various emotional empairments. The kids all come from broken homes, and are of the type that nobody in the justice system would ever take their side over that of an adult staffer (teacher, principal, social worker, various assistants, etc) working in the school (which is technically a day treatment center).
If I wanted to abuse kids or otherwise take advantage of people to whom our system gives no credibility, I would get a job at that school. Its terrifying, and my wife, being to good trooper who fights the good fight, pays a big price for not simply giving in and going along with many people who at best, don’t really care about the kids and at worst, use the kids to fulfill their own objectives.
My wife is so unpopular with some of the true scumbags that if they sense my wife likes a particular student, they will provoke the student just to strike back at my wife.
There is simply no accountability that the kids in the school will ever be able to assert, and the staffers know it.
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
Ahh, but you see it isn't me that equates...
Conservative Phantom Wednesday, April 7th at 6:16PM EST (link)abortion and capital punishment. I merely force the leftist to turn his point on its head and then sit back and enjoy the spectacle of them sputtering and stammering.
I totally agree that there is no equivalency between the two. Anyone with a smidgen of common sense knows this. But I was speaking of leftists so common sense does not apply, eh?
Tired of commenting on other people’s topics? Consider a visit to the “It’s About Liberty” forum where you can start your own:
http://itsaboutliberty.com/
And be as politically incorrect as you damn well please.
As a physician...
get2djnow (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 8:39AM EST (link)I feel very comfortable saying that there is no medical reason for having an abortion past 24 weeks gestational age. I don’t care what you hear in response to this; the baby can be delivered via Cesarean section and given up for adoption, or the woman can wait to have the baby, but this “control of my body thing” trumps all and it doesn’t matter if the baby could be delivered by c-section, they want it dead so they don’t have to go through the whole thing of answering for their decisions.
A1C Elizabeth N. Jacobson (26 Mar 1984 – 28 Sep 2005) Killed by an IED during OEF, probably of Iranian origin, but aided by having predictably scheduled logistics convoys.
“And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.” (Genesis 17:7)
“Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land which you see I will give to you and to your descendants forever.” (Genesis 13:14)
“For those who are with us here today before Hashem our God and (also) those who are not here with us today.” (Deuteronomy 29:14)
Thankyou
angryred Wednesday, April 7th at 9:16AM EST (link)for your professional insight into this debate.
Even my 7 year old knows a baby is alive before it makes its debut outside of its mother’s womb.
The liberals have a terrible double standard, its undeniable.
Let’s not forget to mention, that gosh forbid you have a different opinion, you are completely wrong. They have NO tolerance for different pov’s. But dont step on their toes!
I’m a mother of 3, and absolutely pro life. I know when life begins, and so does every woman.
The liberals like to use the words “difficult choice”, I like to call them out on this; why, oh why, is it so difficult?? Oh, because you are killing your BABY, that’s why!
I have been flamed numerous times by my friends who can’t BELIEVE i’d trample over their right to kill their baby.
What kind of country is this, anyway? Makes me very sad.
Let’s see where this court challenge goes..
1-20-13 Hope for Change
24 weeks? Really?
In The Hook (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 10:04AM EST (link)My son was born at 25.5 weeks. He was less than two pounds and while he spent four months in the hospital, he’s a perfectly healthy and well-developed two year old today.
But there were plenty of kids in the NICU that were born earlier. Most of the boys likely developed some problems (nothing outside of defects you’d see elsewhere like mild/moderate cerebral palsy) though for some reason the girls tended to be healthier. I personally met a little guy who was born at 22 weeks and yes, he was handicapped. But he was plenty alive, loving and he assuredly could have felt pain when he was first born.
Heck, my son could barely be handled for the first few weeks after because he was so sensitive. The c-section process left him with some serious bruises and even stroking him caused sensory overload and discomfort. That’s why you’re taught to just place your hand gently on them instead of petting… it’s painful to stroke them! So don’t tell me unborn kids at 20 weeks don’t feel pain. They do.
And honestly, that should be immaterial anyway. The kids have unique DNA at conception and that makes them unique human individuals with rights. Period.
“Hello? You play to win the game.”
Support conservatives that can win.
http://www.marcorubio.com
Check those "Mother's Health" clauses
Raven (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 10:04AM EST (link)I wouldn’t be surprised to find her “financial and economic” well-being covered.
After all, C-Sections are expensive. Abortions, not so much, for the most part.
“If you do not have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”
Luke 22:36
Control of their bodies...
Steph C (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 11:07AM EST (link)If they have such control of their bodies, why did they engage in the thing that resulted in the pregnancy to begin with?
Consequences always follow behavior and unwanted consequences is not a justification for murder.
“[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.” –Candidus in the Boston Gazette, 1772
Hillbilly Politics
But ignoring consequences
eastbaylarry (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 1:24PM EST (link)is what the lefties are all about.
They want to be able to do what ever they please without regard or regret.
2+2=4 dammit!
But ignoring consequences
eastbaylarry (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 1:24PM EST (link)is what the lefties are all about.
They want to be able to do what ever they please without regard or regret.
2+2=4 dammit!
Liberal ideology is more like magical thinking.
kyoufuu (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 8:44AM EST (link)They believe that any criminal can be reformed. It’s just a matter of trying. They’ll make claims that we’re not “nuanced” enough to understand the circumstances which led to the perpetrator committing the crime. It’s all about context to them.
Everything liberals believe is based on the idea that personal responsibility is an artifact which leads to inequality which is therefore to be crushed by the state.
The same is true for abortion. It’s not a matter of whether a fetus is alive. It’s a matter of whether the responsible party for it’s existence should be held accountable for that existence.
In both cases – abortion and the death penalty – the one responsible should not be held accountable.
“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” — James Madison
“I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
It's another case where "the science is settled"
Next93 (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 8:56AM EST (link)The “right” to an abortion is an absolute given with most of the “reproductive rights” crowd; the morality or even the necessity of the practice is simply not up for discussion. The number of logical and ethical inconsistencies in thier positions simply aren’t visible to them.
I think the pro-life groups should try approaching the situation by attacking these inconsitencies, and cause enough “cognitive dissonance” among abortion supporters to force them to stop and really look at what they’re supporting (a version of Ghandi’s approach, really). For example, if women have an ultimate right to abort, and the “father” has no right to an opinion on the matter, then children are solely the result of the mother’s decisions, and there’s no moral justification for enforcing child support. Therefore, mount a legal attack on child support and see how the feminists respond.
Obama was The One in 2008.
He’ll be a BIGGER one in 2012.
There are also inconsistencies in their reasoning on why abortion is okay...
kyoufuu (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 9:18AM EST (link)And I say this as someone who is pro-choice (although, to admit, my feelings have been wavering on the matter and I’ve been doing considerable soul searching). But I am fully opposed to partial or live birth abortions.
Liberals claim that abortion is necessary for many reasons: to save the mother the embarassment, for financial reasons,health reasons, etc. But the fact is that none of these reasons can logically permit following a path which leads to a late-term abortion. There is no embarassment saved in carrying a child to a viable point, money must still be spent on doctors appointments, and there is little difference in terms of health between birthing a live, full term child and an aborted child. Their reasoning can only stand if they only really advocate for abortions in the first trimester.
But they don’t want that. They want it to be unrestricted. I think – speaking from no genuine knowledge whatsoever – that most people who are pro-choice, but not of the nutroots, favor reasonable restrictions on abortion.
A key to winning them over could be in convincing the moderates that by standing aside the liberals they are basically endorsing infanticide.
“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” — James Madison
“I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
It often takes a while to realize how serious it is to take the lives of innocents
zollistar (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 9:40AM EST (link)So keep up your soul searching, kyoufuu. This is a very important issue.
A close friend who bought and paid for his niece (or nephew’s) death took over 20 years to accept that he was involved in paying for the taking a completely vulnerable, innocent family member’s life.
I know several people who, years and years later, are coping with the consequences of their irreversible decisions. They need our prayers, support — and love.
One person who is still reeling from her long-ago abortion has created a website to help others who once had an abortion and/or were involved in procuring one. Here’s the link in case any of you know someone who might find help and relief: http://abortionchangesyou.com/
For a more complete understanding
NoDoze Wednesday, April 7th at 11:19AM EST (link)of the thought and feeling processes of “Liberals,” go to this link and start reading their statements of belief.
http://www.americanhumanist.org/who_we_are/about_humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_I
Liberalism/Socialism is at root a religion.
NoDoze Wednesday, April 7th at 11:28AM EST (link)As you read their own words, and look at the actions and positions they take on a wide range of social/political/moral/economic questions, you will be struck with the fact that they are practicing a fanatical religious system.
Admittedly there are numerous inconsistencies and contradictions in their beliefs, but nevertheless they believe them to the core of their being.
Do yourself a favor, and inform yourself about the opposition.
Whoa - that's a dangerous thing to assert
jdw4america (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 1:57PM EST (link)“For example, if women have an ultimate right to abort, and the “father” has no right to an opinion on the matter, then children are solely the result of the mother’s decisions, and there’s no moral justification for enforcing child support. Therefore, mount a legal attack on child support and see how the feminists respond.”
I understand that you’re angry about the one-sided argument that a woman has to carry the child, therefore she has the sole right to determine whether or not to abort, but this is not the way to settle the issue.
The left has succeeded in minimizing the humanity of the child in the womb. If a woman has sole right to determine the termination of a pregnancy on the basis of the residence of the child inside her body, then she has, in essence, nullified the integral dignity of that child as a separate and distinct human being. She has rendered her child the mere property of her body.
If we then were to adopt the attitude that since a father has no right to determine the continued existence of his child, he should then be relived of all responsibility for that child, we are agreeing with the idea that the child is the mother’s property.
A child is not property. He is not the property of either his mother or his father, regardless of whether his life is welcomed or not by either parent. He is a HUMAN BEING. He is as fully human as his parents or anyone else for that matter. He has rights and dignity given to him by Almighty God and NO ONE has the right to deny those to him.
His life is a gift to him. God desired his existence and as John Paul II used to say,”When God gives life, it is forever.” No mere creature has the right to reject the will of God. We have the power, but not the right.
Child support is the right of the child. He did not choose to be conceived, but he has been through the deliberate action of his parents. The child therefore is to the protection, devotion and love of both parents. In a perfect world he would receive them. We cannot mandate that every child be loved by his parents, but we can mandate that responsibility for his well-being be assumed by the two people who, through their sexual union, and most especially, by the power of God, caused him to be conceived.
As for the rightness of Abortion vs the Death Penalty, it’s apples and manure. The unborn is an INNOCENT and DEFENSELESS CHILD. The felon is a heinous criminal who has so thoroughly and violently, violated the social contract, that in the opinion of many, myself included, he has forfeited his right to continued existence within that society.
For the record, though, although I believe the death penalty is absolutely within the rights of a civilized nation to enact, I find the tendency to coddle monsters on their way to the needle offensive. I favor a return to a less comfortable form of penal existence, life on a chain gang, working for his meals and begging to be relieved of his miserable, monotonous and empty life. That’s justice. I resent a murderer being helped into death by an injection similar to the ones intended for the alleviation of suffering for a beloved pet. Let him find rehabilitation in suffering and remorse.
oop correction -
jdw4america (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 2:01PM EST (link)The child therefore is ENTITLED to the protection, devotion and love of both parents.
Let me restate this ...
Next93 (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 8:10PM EST (link)I shouldn’t have said that there’s no moral responsiility. Moral responsibility is something that the government can create or take away. You don’t need to explain to me a father’s responsibility to his children; I’ve raised three children that I would literally walk through fire for.
However, a moral responsibility is different from a legal responsibility. A law that strips a man of all legal rights in the decision-making process *should* also strip him of any legal responsibility for the results of that decision, either way.
Going to court to undermine the validity of government-enforced child support payments would force the pro-abortion people to take a hard look at what they beleive in. It might bring a lot of them to understand that the core beleif (the right to an abortion) is faulty at its core.
Obama was The One in 2008.
He’ll be a BIGGER one in 2012.
All problems go away when you rewrite the dictionary. nt
Xasteius (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 11:53AM EST (link)Don’t leave the party, hijack it back!
The only poll that counts is the one at the ballot box.
I don’t want to be Reagan. I want to be a Chance/Soros hybrid.
Personal Sustainability
mkozikowski (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 8:50AM EST (link)My experience shows that the “Liberal” takes the stance that most strongly protects their existence.
If you protect a criminal from the death penalty, then you gain votes from criminals, their sympathizers , families and gangs.
If you side with abortion, you gain votes from others who need or want abortions, their families, friends and others in their click that are looking for more “Social Engineering Handouts”.
If you protect a fetus, you gain nothing. It will not remember that you took a stand.
It is all about retaining their coveted political position.
NOT what is right or wrong (morally or ethically)
No Answer or is there?
Sandy Salt Wednesday, April 7th at 9:01AM EST (link)This whole debate shows that the liberals feel they have to answer to no one because who is really calling them out on their hypocrisy? There will come a time when each will have to answer for their views and what they have accomplished. If the degenerates want to kill their babies and glorify murderers then so be it, but as for me and my house I will take an eye for and eye and stand up for the unborn. That decision is between me and my maker alone. I will love the liberal and hope they see the error of their ways, that is what I am commanded to do. Separate myself from the world and they will know me by my love.
We cannot force the debased to change their ways with speeches and protests because that is not what we are called to do. We are to kill them with kindness and love. The liberal in this world knows what they are doing is wrong deep down inside, but they are so hardened by what they think you need to break that barrier with love and show them a better way. I the mean time love one another and be there.
Angry Joes unite and turn this country around.
I find it...
builder20 (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 9:08AM EST (link)…curious that the party that deems itself the protector of minorities advances the notion the the only truly innocent minority, of which we were all once apart, that has no voice of its own should be slaughtered at wholesale.
That they should be executed merely for the “crime” of existing and offending the one who should be protecting them at all costs.
What is the possibility of labeling the unborn as a protected minority? Hmmm, maybe republicans should start using this verbiage to describe them instead of using “the unborn”. “Republicans: The party that protects the innocent minority”
I think I'll start saying that I believe in protecting "the innocent minority".
zollistar (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 9:29AM EST (link)Good idea, Builder 20! I’m seizing it.
It's kind of like how I've never heard a woman say
bk (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 9:46AM EST (link)“Ooh I just felt a kick from my fetus.”
The real minority of blacks is also the major user
renny (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 11:01AM EST (link)of lib. abortion, a kind of self-imposed genocide that the leftis sit back and watch without qualm.
Some Christians find cover for their support
4life (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 9:57AM EST (link)of abortion loving liberal politicians by saying “If you are really Pro-Life you have to be against war and the death penalty too.” So, they justify voting for a pro-abortion liberal by saying that conservative Republicans are just as bad. However, for a Christian, there is no Biblical support for this view. The government’s role in protecting it’s citizens from enemies without and criminals within is supported by Biblical teaching. Jesus’ injunction to ‘turn the other cheek’ is being misused by liberals when applied to the role of government. Liberals have been effective in wooing away many ‘social gospel’ leaning Christians by this line of argument.
Turning the Other Cheek
kmacwayne (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 11:32AM EST (link)This is not only misused by liberals, it’s misinterpreted by many – and once truly understood – allows you to stand in the power of Christ as He intended – “Meekness is the strong gentleness of power under control – control of God’s Spirit.”
“Jesus illustration of “meekness” specifies “the right cheek”. This would require someone to strike you with the back of the right hand, since the left hand was used only for “unclean” tasks. A back-handed slap was a serious insult and routine way to keep inferiors in line. By turning the other cheek, you are serving notice that you refuse to be humiliated. To strike the left cheek would require the person striking you to use the palm of the right hand, a sign that you are a person of equal worth.” pg 48 The Way of Blessedness
Don't fully agree.
4life (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 1:00PM EST (link)The second paragraph seems to be a misinterpretation of the parable. So if you get slapped on one cheek, turning the other to be slapped again also is somehow an act of defiance? That doesn’t seem to ring true with the whole verse: “But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. ” Matthew 5:39 The power of Christ compels us, as Christians, to refuse to insult those who insult us and to show love to our enemies. The ultimate example of this is Christ praying for his executioners as he hung on the cross. This will win some to Christ. However, Jesus did not come as a government leader. Applying this teaching to government is a misinterpretation of Scripture as well. He was speaking to his followers, the Church.
Applying this to the letter Erick received, he is certainly justified in reporting this to the peace keeping government, however he is not justified in sending back an equally hateful response, and I’m sure he didn’t.
Deadly Force
ss396 Wednesday, April 7th at 12:09PM EST (link)I would like to point out that the argument on the hypocrisy of being pro-abortion & anti-death penalty works in both directions: that support of the death penalty is inconsistent to pro-life. The use of deadly force to contain deadly force is easily justified, but once that deadly force is contained then the justification for continuing to apply deadly force is considerably weakened. The criminal might well be justifiably killed during his or her capture; it is the criminal who decides whether deadly force shall be used during capture. But having been captured, short of the use of deadly force, lifetime incarceration in death-row-like conditions under a no-release policy works as well to remove the societal menace, and is more philosophically consistent.
Government certainly has the right to try its citizens under the law, and to execute them according to law. But having the right to do so is not the same as having the obligation to do so. I do not think that the application of the death penalty has ever been arbitrary, or whimsical. But pro-life means pro-life means pro-life.
If you pay someone to sit on his butt, you can’t be surprised when he does.
The death penalty
4life (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 1:10PM EST (link)was commanded in some cases in the Theocracy of the OT. It was in use and practice at the time of Christ and he said nothing against the government’s right to keep peace by imposing the death penalty on criminals. Even as he hung between two criminals he did not challenge the government’s right to execute justice.
Pro-life is the term anti-abortion groups have chosen to describe their movement to stop the killing of the innocent unborn. It absolutely is an accurate description of our view that abortion is murder. To stop abortion is to save horrendous loss of life.
“Pro-life is pro-life is pro-life”, is simply an attempt to distract from the horror of abortion, and to paint pro-lifer’s as hypocrites, which is simply not supported by any serious understanding of ethics, morals, religion, and the role of government in protecting its citizens.
A living evil-doer continues to have influence.
NoDoze Wednesday, April 7th at 1:51PM EST (link)Charles Manson is still spouting his craziness and corruption.
You have something a little off
Raven (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 9:59AM EST (link)“There should be zero consideration of any suffering for babies in the womb”
We seem to be forgetting their desire to see babies who survive abortions suffer while they wait to die, unattended, on hospital storage shelves. You know, the practice Obama supported when he voted against a law banning the practice in Illinois.
There’s also the little bit of suffering a baby endures during a partial birth abortion.
“If you do not have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”
Luke 22:36
Abortion is about sex without consequences.
Achance (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 10:07AM EST (link)No matter what intellualism they try to applique over it, the root of the advocacy for unrestricted abortion “rights” is the desire to be able to have irresponsible and unprotected sex without consequences. This desire exists in adults who either take risks or have an “accident,” something I don’t much believe in, and it exists in parents who want their child to be able to escape the consequences of irresponsible and unprotected sex.
Having raised a teenage daughter as a single father, I have some sympathy for the second one. I have no doubt that back then if she’d become pregnant while still dependent on me, I’d have had her on the next plane to Seattle for an abortion. I’m not so certain of that now and thankfully I never had to confront it with my stepdaughter either. I think now I would do what I could to make the daughter have the child and then put it up for adoption, though I’ve known two women who did put “unwanted” and “unplanned” babies up for adoption and had serious issues with their decision in later life. I was working with one of them when the baby that she’d given up, now college-aged found her and called her. They were able to establish a good if awkward relationship but both were pretty freaked by it.
As to adults who have “unplanned” and “unwanted” pregnancy, I have no sympathy. If you have sex, you’d damned well make certain that there are adequate protections in place or you’re PLANNING to have a baby. There is no “good time;” Vatican Roulette is the reason Catholics have such large families! With child support laws as they are in most states any man who has sex with a woman without being absolutely certain the HE has taken necessary precautions is just plain nuts or is just blithely assuming that if there is an “accident” she’ll just “take care of it” and the most consequence he’ll have to endure is paying some or all of the cost of the abortion. Unfortunately, with young women, that blithe assumption is probably correct.
In Vino Veritas
There are many false asumptions
NoDoze Wednesday, April 7th at 12:40PM EST (link)involved in the discussions of abortion that trouble me.
One of the assumptions is that it is OK to have random sex with various partners, as long as you practice “safe sex.” That is wrong on the face of it. The only person anyone has a moral right to have sex with is that person’s rightful mate (1 Corinthians 7:1,et. al.) Too many of us assume that sex between unmarried persons is natural and acceptable. That is far from true, and in fact that attitude is the cause of many unwanted pregnancies and abortions. We need to face the fact that abortion is sin, and that it is often the underlying sin of fornication that induces many to commit the sin of abortion. If all responsible people would commit to one mate for life, and all children from that marriage are to be valued and reared up in respect for their Creator, abortion would be confined to those who have no respect for God. It would still be a problem in our nation, but the “sane” people would not be part of the problem.
The second assumption is that we can determine the rightness or wrongness of our actions by the consequences. Whether or not we suffer painful consequences for a wrong action, the action itself is still wrong. We are limited in our ability to see all of the consequences of our actions. God knows all about the real consequences, and we need to defer to His instructions. If I stole all my life, and never got caught, I would still be guilty of theft. Even if my stolen goods made me feel happy and comfortable, and if people admired my success, I would still be guilty of theft. Results or consequences do not define right or wrong.
We need to take time to examine the underlying assumptions of our belief system. We might find that we are sometimes part of the problem.
And you can tell me where the planet is where
Achance (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 12:57PM EST (link)things work that way or ever did. There WILL be sex out of wedlock. And not everyone believes in consequences beyond those that are direct and tangible in this life.
And if that lecture was aimed at me specifically, you don’t have a clue what I believe or how I live, nor is it any of your business.
In Vino Veritas
The "Somebody Elses' Problem" (SEP) syndrome
eastbaylarry (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 1:51PM EST (link)This is the base of the abortion issue and many (most?) of the other problems with our current society and progressives in particular.
I’d like to see the SEP believers called out on every infraction.
The oposite of SEP would be Personal Responsibility. Wasn’t that one of the founding principles of this country?
2+2=4 dammit!
My appeal is for conservatives
NoDoze Wednesday, April 7th at 2:06PM EST (link)to not be part of the problems. Of course some will do wrong, but I do not intend to make that an excuse to do so myself.
Yes, I did hear those assumptions in your post. I think your protests are revealing and interesting. If how you believe or live is none of my business, then how pro-choice people believe and live is none of your business.
Exclusive reliance on theological arguments is not going to persuade the non-theological
JSobieski (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 2:49PM EST (link)There is plenty of psychological/medical/scientific evidence that casual pre-marital sex is not healthy. Couching the argument exclusively in terms of God means you aren’t going to reach the people who don’t think much in terms of God.
So you have to decide am I trying to bring someone to God by using a particular policy discussion as a launching point or am I trying to persuade someone of a particular public policy position.
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
5! And NoDoze, if that sounds like a cop-out
CincoSolas_del_Bronx (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 3:42PM EST (link)I would ask you to re-examine the Scriptures you have cited today for the intended audience in context. In the instances I read, the “we” and “us” passages refer to the visible church, not the civil society, but you want to keep applying the passages in the civil sphere.
Now of course as a sola Scriptura Christian you must make those points when addressing another person in relation to his standing before God. The problem is, there are times (ie from ~30 AD to the present) and places (ie a site whose purpose is encourage political activtism) where those references are not required or even helpful–even as the apostles and the 1st generation of elders left no traces of using their church offices to effect policy.
So when one of the contractor’s carpenters did a substandard job putting a railing around my 2nd-story rooftop deck a couple years ago, I did not need to quote Deuteronomy 22:8 to the contractor, but rather “you need to fix this before somebody leans on it and breaks his neck.” Were I in Yunnan or Afghanistan, I could have used the same approach.
The right times to apply specifics of the Mosaic law is in the midst of either evangelism, so the carpenter can know that even his shoddy work is a part of his offense against his Creator, or discipleship, so the Christian can know what a high standard his Redeemer will enable him to attain. In the public policy sphere, however, the Christian must trust that the remnants of the imprint of the moral law retained in the imago Dei–disfigured and distorted by original sin as it is–still give sufficient direction for the maintenance of civil justice under the–even unacknowledged–sovereignty of God.
Failure to hold that distinction will tempt you either into the direction attempted from the early 4th to the late 18th centuries in much of the West, with the church’s message weakened commensurately with her management of temporal affairs, or into that of the monastic pietist who attempts to disengage from any involvement in temporal affairs, fearing that the reign of Christ, though unseen, cannot be accomplishing his sovereign purposes in that realm simultaneously.
Those dreading urbanization should remember that though the Kingdom of God first appeared in a temporal Garden, at the end of the book it is established in an eternal City. (paraphrase, James M. Boice)
soli Deo gloria
"VATICAN ROULETTE???"
jdw4america (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 2:17PM EST (link)I would ask that if you intend to express your opinion on any subject and expect to be taken seriously, you might want to keep your contempt for the teaching of the single largest religion in the world – a religion professed by over 1 Billion people worldwide, a sixth of the human race, myself included, out of the conversation.
For us, the teaching on contraception is inseparable from the teaching on abortion AND on the teaching of the dignity of the human person. We are not compartmentalized creatures whose bodies are part of who we are, we are integrated persons who dignity is not to be assaulted through the cheapening of our sexuality.
And, in accordance with the Holy Scriptures, we look upon every child as a gift from God, because nowhere in those sacred pages does the Almighty tell us that it’s okay to reject His decision as to who shall be given life.
You owe the Catholic world an apology. I don’t expect to read one.
Go die, and, no, you won't be getting an apology. nt
Achance (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 2:19PM EST (link)In Vino Veritas
To liberals, abortion is sex without consequences, however there is more to it than that
JSobieski (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 2:36PM EST (link)and having sympathy for a person in an unfortunate circumstance does not justify ignoring the “more than that part”. Abortion is either the killing of a living being with human rights, or it is analogous to trimming your finger nails. No doubt, there are times when it is convenient to ignore the humanity of the fetus, but there are costs to ignoring the humanity in human beings.
While I agree with you that out of wedlock births are going to happen, that logic applies to everything.
Murders . . . happen despite the laws.
Rapes . .. happen despite the laws.
Theft . . . happens despite the laws
Speeing . . . happens despite the laws.
The logic of “its going to happen anyways” is a logic that supports the repeal of ALL laws (if something wasn’t ever going to happen, you wouldn’t need a law, and if it happening despite a law is a justification for not having a law, no law would be justified) and living in pure anarchy.
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
Let's force the abortion - death penalty issue
Veronica (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 10:08AM EST (link)and require that rapists be executed if their victim chooses to abort the “rape” baby.
If babies are killed as a result of abortion, then rapists should get it, too.
Nice little deterrence to enforce self-control.
Can’t take credit for this idea — this came from the hubby.
God bless the children.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pray as if everything depends on God, and work as if everything depends on us. – St. Augustine
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Another liberal double standard
Joe Cor (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 10:10AM EST (link)in this area revolves around the whole “torture” debate. Liberals wring their hands over discomfort that terrorists undergo in waterboarding, which was carefully monitored and intended to prevent the deaths of thousands of innocent people, while they are indifferent to the pain that an unborn child experiences in the exercise of “reproductive choice.”
Consider also liberals’ double-standard in the whole Terri Schiavo affair, which we have just celebrated the fifth anniversary of. They feel great compassion for the suffering of a convicted murderer while they scoffed at the notion that Terri Shciavo was suffering for days on end after her feeding and hydration tubes were removed. They actually floated the argument that she was experiencing “ecstasy” during this ordeal.
Liberal problem is equation of unborn to killer
johnt Wednesday, April 7th at 10:30AM EST (link)Normal people can tell the difference, unbalanced loons desperate for a gotcha can not. The convicted killer has committed the most heinous crime, the baby has yet to be born, a liberal[?] can’t tell the difference? But the liberal thinks himself oh so clever.
It fits coming from the same creatures who have so much empathy for islamist terrorists. Terrorists, convicted murderers, well I guess they have to place their so called morals somewhere.
Truly sick human beings.
“a man’s admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him”. Tocqueville
Evil among us
avgamerican (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 10:44AM EST (link)When the people of this country begin to believe in and legislate evil, it becomes only a matter of time until God invokes judgement on this nation. Judgement can occur cataclysmically or incrementally. But it will come rest assured. This issue among others has taken us down the same path as past fallen civilzations.
We don't have to bring God into this
zollistar (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 11:36AM EST (link)There are always consequences to evil, including legislated evil. Many view these consequences as God’s judgment .
How can we leave God out?
NoDoze Wednesday, April 7th at 1:04PM EST (link)Read Romans 13:1-7 and ponder God’s part in our laws.
Not suggesting we leave God out of it, but am suggesting that relying on theological texts will not persuade atheists, agnostics, and those of other faiths
JSobieski (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 2:45PM EST (link)The number of pro-choicers who presume that the pro-life position is based solely on theology is staggering. Put up some decent logic, and we can shave off another 10-15% of the pro-aborts.
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
Appeal to justice
zroxx (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 3:11PM EST (link)An appeal to fundamental justice would be extremely effective but the groundwork for that has to be an agreement on the “legal” status of the unborn.
If the person you are trying to persuade can be convinced that the post-conception subject is a full citizen to whom all the same protections and regard is given – equivalent in all legal matters to a post-delivery subject – then logically, willfully terminating the life of the post-conception subject must be treated as murder. Further, the case could easily be made that it is premeditated murder, carried out with forethought and planning. The aborting physician, the mother and anyone providing financial or material assistance would then all be subject to the same indictment, prosecution, and punishment as if their victim had been born.
The humanity of the fetus is the critical issue, and
JSobieski (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 5:29PM EST (link)one need not be religious to be convinced. Science, particularly the technology of ultrasound, have been winning the day in large part.
I disagree with the contention of murder, as there are many mitigating factors, particularly with respect to the pregnant woman (the doctor is a different issue). Back when abortion was illegal, people were not charged with the crime of murder and there are reasons for that.
There are several circumstances under which you could kill me but not be charged with murder.
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
Well...
zroxx (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 7:37PM EST (link)If you’re going to assert that abortion is not murder, that’s a position to take but one that differs from most pro-life proponents.
What is the existing legal analogy you’d propose then? Outside the context of war, self-defense is the only circumstance I can think of where I can deliberately kill a citizen and not be convicted for murder.
If we’re going to be consistent, then you have to hold the mother culpable for the act, not just the aborting physician. It would be analogous to driving their one week old to an acquaintances house and letting them strangle the child. Sure they didn’t use their own hands but they had a premeditated and deliberate role in carrying out the murder. The punishment for the mother in the case of abortion should be no less – do you disagree? For what reasons would you excuse the mother’s complicity in the act?
You really aren't familiar with the criminal justice system are you?
JSobieski (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 11:36PM EST (link)In between guilt for murder and innocense on the basis of self defense are numerous “mitigating factors” that can can result in what most states is called manslaughter. In many instances of abortion, it would be relatively easy for one or more mitigating factors to be applied.
There is a reason why abortion was not as a general matter prosecuted as murder pre-Roe v. Wade.
If you can identify one legitimate legal scholar in the pro-life movement who talks about prosecuting women undergoing abortion for murder, I would love to see the link.
Now, the doctors are a different story. . .
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
Amen, JSob
aesthete (Diary) Thursday, April 8th at 12:39AM EST (link)Good posts, all. IMO, it is much easier to make a case against abortion using natural rights and science than it is a theological argument against the same. Virtually every reasonable metric establishes the fetus as being biologically equivalent to a baby for our purposes; we should use that to persuade others, rather than meandering with unbelievers (or those who aren’t serious about their faith) through vague passages in the Psalms.
The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice – G.K. Chesterton
Then educate me...
zroxx (Diary) Thursday, April 8th at 10:55AM EST (link)You’re evidently suggesting that aborting doctors be held to a standard of murder.
But you’re telling me there may be “mitigating factors” associated with the mother who calls the doctor, schedules one or more consultative visits regarding the [murder?] of the unborn subject, schedules the final visit where she knows the [murder?] will be carried out, drives (or is driven by yet another accomplice) to the site where the [murder?] will take place, and willfully places herself in an accommodating position to allow the doctor to carry out the [murder?].
But according to you, that is not at all legally similar to the mother of the one week old infant who calls her friend, schedules a visit to discuss how her friend will [murder?] her infant, schedules a final visit where she knows the [murder?] will be carried out, drives to her friend’s residence, and then willfully hands over her infant to allow her friend to carry out the [murder?].
So what mitigating factors would you like to see us apply to the mother of the unborn that you believe excuses her of the same degree of prosecution that we would levy against the mother of the born? So-called crimes of passion aren’t generally carried out over days or weeks with deliberative planning. Abortion is a premeditated activity, not a sudden rush of anger, rage, or uncontrollable emotion.
As stated, I recognize in neither case did the mother actually perform the [murder?] with her own hands. But you’ve not put forth any argument that suggests why it would not be just to regard these two scenarios as equivalent for the purposes of prosecuting the mother (as well as the others who were involved). If it’s manslaughter in the second scenario, ok, it’s manslaughter in the first scenario. But I’m familiar enough with the criminal justice system to know that when premeditation and deliberation are found, there is adequate cause for prosecuting as murder.
Interesting recent legislation in Utah, BTW:
Hey, she just wanted a less expensive abortion, right? I guess you’d argue there were mitigating circumstances and we should excuse her actions and substitute some lesser punishment than if she’d just waited til the child was born and then paid someone to pummel the infant to death.
You need to do your own homework
JSobieski (Diary) Friday, April 9th at 12:59AM EST (link)Assignment #1: Google the pre-Roe criminal statutes and tell me for which states abortion resulted in First Degree Murder convictions
Assignment #2: Google any pro-life proponent saying that abortion would be murder in a post-Roe world. Criminal homicide is just another phrase for manslaughter.
Assignment #3: Google the words “manslaughter” and “mitigating”. You will find the that mental state of the person is one area of mitigation. Being physically attached to another human being when you don’t want to be . . . day in and day out over a period of months is easily going to put someone in the manslaughter category.
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
Most of the mitigating factors for the patient
JSobieski (Diary) Friday, April 9th at 1:09AM EST (link)would not apply to the doctor, which is why more stringent sentences would be possible for the doctor.
I am simply looking at the issue from a criminal law perspective. Criminal law looks at wrongful death through the lens of “mens rea”. In that perspective, most abortions would be something in between murder and drunk driving. Moreover, in a post-Roe world, I suspect all but the harshest of state laws would actually set forth more lenient criminal sentences for abortion . .. at least with respect to the mothers.
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
Ok...
zroxx (Diary) Friday, April 9th at 1:38PM EST (link)I’m not opposed to differentiating between the actions of the mother and [murdering?] physician if it follows the same legal differentiation made between the mother and the [murdering?] friend. If you assert that it’s voluntary manslaughter for the mother who has her friend strangle her infant but murder for the friend, fine, then it’s voluntary manslaughter for the mother who pays her doctor to plunge scissors into the unborn skull but murder for the doctor. Or maybe in both cases the mother is treated as an accomplice to the murder.
I’m interested in seeing a consistent application of justice. If we concur that human life and citizenship begins at conception, then, if we are a just society, we must prosecute and punish the mothers in either scenario with the same crime, as both are equally culpable in the wrongful death. One death occurs outside the womb, the other inside.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but we agree on that much.
We disagree on excusing the actions of the mother based on mitigating circumstances. I assert that the mitigating circumstance must be severe and profound in order to justify the premeditation and deliberation involved in procuring an abortion. You offered up one example, but other than the genuinely mentally disabled, I don’t see how mental state can be used as a mitigating circumstance. You’re echoing rationale advanced by pro-choice proponents – that the mother’s (mental) health is a factor in the degree of justification for abortion. It’s also a terrible excuse for personal responsibility. What mental state do you think excuses premeditation and deliberation? I don’t think any abortions take place within minutes of discovering a pregnancy and breaking down emotionally, so a heat of passion kind of defense based on mental state is out.
There’s also no provocation, and abortion isn’t self-defense.
So I don’t yet see a mitigating circumstance that can, even partly, justify a mother planning, purchasing, and participating in the [murder?] of her child. But I’d be willing to allow the same mitigating circumstances that might apply to, say, a mother who hires a hit man to [murder?] her child. Can you think of any?
I am simply telling you how it was pre-Roe and how it will be post-Roe
JSobieski (Diary) Saturday, April 10th at 1:49AM EST (link)People were not prosecuted for 1st degree murder when abortion was illegal, and I don’t think any pregnant women would ever be prosecuted for murder after Roe is overturned.
Undoubtedly, states would pass specific statutes defining the punishment for abortioin, and for an entire host of reasons, the strongest punishment the most pro of pro-life states would enact would be something akin to manslaughter. It would however be an abortion-specific crime, and not something prosecuted under the general laws of murder.
You are totally missing the important difference between a “justification” and a “mitigating” factor.
A justification is when there is no crime. You attack me with deadly force. I use deadly force in self-defense, so there is no crime. You are dead, but I am not guilty.
A mitigating factor would be if I am drunk, you hit me in the face with your fist mocking me, and I stab you with a knife when there a reasonable person would find no current threat to my person. You are dead, but I am not necessarily guilty of murder. I am likely guilty of manslaughter.
Both of the situations above are different than on the spur of the moment, I decide to kill you.
And all three of the crimes above are lesser infractions than a premeditated murder.
The law is filled with all sorts of grey, and that grey is not based on the value of life of the victim, but rather a judgment on the behavior of the alleged criminal.
Abortion being illegal won’t remove that grey. A person DUI who kills someone isn’t convicted of murder (although some states call the infraction a “vehicular homicide”—the magnitude of punishment is really analogous to manslaughter). A DUI that results in a death is NOT justified in any way, but it is not first or second degree murder either. Its just a different degree/magnitude of criminal intent, what lawyers call “mens rea”.
Find anyone in any pro-life group who is responsible for formulating policy was to what a post-Roe world will look like, and you won’t find many if any people out there talking about bringing 2nd degree murder indictments against pregnant women.
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
For an analogous example of mitigating circumstances
JSobieski (Diary) Saturday, April 10th at 1:56AM EST (link)If one siamese twin killed another because he or she was traumatized by the connection between the two, the killing would not be “justified” (i.e. the person would go to jail), but the crime would be some type of manslaughter, not murder.
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
Ok...
zroxx (Diary) Monday, April 12th at 2:13PM EST (link)I don’t think I’m missing the difference between justification and mitigation. Perhaps I misused the term justify but what I was looking for was some compelling reason to “justify” a “mitigating circumstance” – in other words some reason for which prosecuting under a lesser charge than murder would be “justified”.
Part of the disconnect is you are referring to what status quo was before Roe or what people think now. I’m asking what is consistent with an objective application of justice, which may certainly be different from what the majority currently think.
I will say I was looking for a good example that is situationally analogous to abortion and the Siamese twin scenario is pretty good, I hadn’t thought of that, thanks! It’s close but not quite the same however… it’s more akin to self-induced abortion, self-induced miscarriage.
But if we tweak it such that one of the twins hired a third party ahead of time to kill their attached twin, and goes so far as to physically make the killing possible – coordinates with, schedules to visit, and travels to the killer for the purpose of having the killing take place – that would be a better approximation of what occurs with abortion (indeed, the Utah example I gave above is also more similar). So if it is just for us to say that some mitigating factor mitigates the actions of the twin in that scenario such that we charge them with voluntary manslaughter, or perhaps just as an accomplice, then it would be likewise just to regard the mother in the same way and I’d be fine with that.
My purpose was not to persuade those who will not use reason.
NoDoze Wednesday, April 7th at 4:26PM EST (link)The people on this site presumably have some interest in right thinking, and moral action. We all act on what we believe. My purpose is to direct thinking people to the place where real answers can be found. Science and psychology do not give us real answers — just other opinions.
There may be some benefit in reasoning with pro-abortion people based on the actual effects of their applied beliefs. Actually seeing an abortion performed convinced one of the directors of Planned Parenthood that abortion is wrong. We applaud any changed minds on the Left, however they arrive at that change.
So you limit your efforts at persuading those who are already persuaded?
JSobieski (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 5:25PM EST (link)I mean thats fine with me, but I in contrast want to accomplish some things and make progress.
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
Science and psychology do give us "real answers"
JSobieski (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 5:31PM EST (link)and to some people, those answers can do a lot of good
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
JSobieski beat me to the punch, but a bit more about "real answers"
CincoSolas_del_Bronx (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 6:50PM EST (link)A significant part of the American evangelical world, whose forebears were rightly adamant about maintaining the inspiration, inerrancy and inviolable authority of Scripture, sadly went adrift about discerning the applicability of Scripture during the heady days of the 90s when a political majority made it seem that the kingdom was at hand. Of course similar moments have come and gone countless times since–within moments of the Ascension!–the disciples thought the same thing; such moments tend either to growing attempts by the church to seize temporal authority, or much better, to the church sticking to its commission and living within the temporal arrangements afforded by God’s sovereign pleasure for that time and place.
Can general revelation–including science and psychology–explain why the universe was created or how a sinner can be justified at the final judgement? Of course not, and for these only the special revelation of the Old and New Testaments, culminating in the person and work of Jesus Christ, will suffice. Can science and psychology give wrong answers–e.g. how the universe was created or the source of a patient’s unremitting sense of guilt and fear of death? Of course.
But it is not also true that they are not capable of giving “real answers”, because the same God whose very words live in the Scriptures also sends good gifts–including natural knowledge–on both the just and the unjust, and there are particular outworkings of that knowledge which do not depend on the status of a person before God. Will you take only medicines discovered by Christians? or eat only food grown by Christians? or drive only a car built by Christians? or heed the advice of only a Christian doctor? or obey only the edicts of a Christian president? or read only blogs whose packets are transmitted along tubes maintained by Christians?
Of course you want to direct people “to the place where real answers can be found”. I do too. But you need to believe that God uses not only his written word but the (derived) wisdom of many who do not even acknowledge him as he rules the entire cosmos–including political activism blogs–for the sake of his glory. If you’re a little gunshy about that, it might be time to bone up on Cyrus, Nebuchadnezzar, and Paul in Athens.
Those dreading urbanization should remember that though the Kingdom of God first appeared in a temporal Garden, at the end of the book it is established in an eternal City. (paraphrase, James M. Boice)
soli Deo gloria
Yes, of course
NoDoze Wednesday, April 7th at 8:49PM EST (link)I did not mean to imply that nobody knows anything of a physical or temporal nature outside of the Bible. I apologize for lacking nuance in my words that would satisfy all questions. I meant that in matters of morals and basic principles of life, the ultimate source is not in mankind, but in the Creator of all things.
I am sometimes a man of too few words.
Good summary, NoDoze
CincoSolas_del_Bronx (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 10:36PM EST (link)And please understand that my response was not intended as an attack on your several recent points, most of which I largely agree with in the context of evangelism and/or discipleship but not so much persuasion of unbelievers about civil sphere matters–even matters of as eternal import as a society’s views on abortion and other moral issues. Though I am glad–and not surprised–to hear your clarification above, your “lack of nuance” did mimic the recent evangelical tendency to misapplication, and the error of that tendency was my target.
Your summary meshes well with the Westminster/Savoy/London confessions–doctrinal standards of the Presbyterian, Congregational and Baptist churches–on the role of the Scriptures:
Let me urge you to learn what you can of the 2-kingdom model of Christian citizenship, which was robustly developed among the reformation churches as 1200 years of “Christendom” began to unravel, and was instrumental in paving the way for aspects of the Establishment Clause in ways that can be beneficial for both the church and civil society. A great place to start is with recent broadcasts of The White Horse Inn.
Those dreading urbanization should remember that though the Kingdom of God first appeared in a temporal Garden, at the end of the book it is established in an eternal City. (paraphrase, James M. Boice)
soli Deo gloria
Cinco, you, me, and Birdmojo should get together sometime
JSobieski (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 11:49PM EST (link)We each represent very distinct viewpoints—it would make for great conversation.
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
Nice thought, but if my writing seems verbose
CincoSolas_del_Bronx (Diary) Thursday, April 8th at 12:18AM EST (link)my speech is positively somnolence-inducing. The two of you would be out cold before I finished the third caveat of the second illustration of my first paragraph.
Those dreading urbanization should remember that though the Kingdom of God first appeared in a temporal Garden, at the end of the book it is established in an eternal City. (paraphrase, James M. Boice)
soli Deo gloria
I disagree on on all counts
JSobieski (Diary) Thursday, April 8th at 12:37AM EST (link)I think Mojo and I drove some on this site to tears, but it was in my view like a good dorm-hallway discussion that didn’t end until sunrise
My rules of the road for primary season.
Rule #1: Vote for YOUR first choice in the primaries
Rule #2: Vote for the R in the general.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone convince you to violate Rule #1 or Rule #2
Rule #4: When in a center-right argument, reaffirm Rules #1-#3–it will help us all to get along better.
Rule #5: If you are using the language of the left, you probably aren’t furthering conservativism
Rule #6: The priority is issues first, candidates second, and supporters third. Nobody is bigger than the issues. Conversely, if you spend your time focusing on supporters, you are wasting everyone’s time.
STOP THE MADNESS!
A reduction in the rate of spending increases is NOT a cut!
In-state tuition for illegals is NOT amnesty!
Requiring someone to pay their medical bills is NOT an individual mandate!
Reducing tax rates is NOT a tax increase!
I'm such a pushover; ask him to cc me next time he writes. -nt-
CincoSolas_del_Bronx (Diary) Thursday, April 8th at 12:52AM EST (link)Those dreading urbanization should remember that though the Kingdom of God first appeared in a temporal Garden, at the end of the book it is established in an eternal City. (paraphrase, James M. Boice)
soli Deo gloria
We already know the left hates children,
renny (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 10:57AM EST (link)or they wouldn’t encourage abortion, rant and rave about “adult” access to pornography (which often includes depictions of children if not ACTUAL children), keep ruining the pub. school system and condemning the children trapped in it from learning anything, and keep from bearing any themselves—that last to our favor, as conservatives have more children than commies.
They love criminals because they function from a criminal mindset. Look at what they did to pass Obamanationcare: bribery, blackmail, secret deals, special dispensation (little o’s EO), and egregious lying, much of which could get you behind bars in any org. except Cong.
In fact, the left hates people altogether. Zeke Emanuel has advised all the cuts in Medicare and attention to the aged as they are not “worth” the investment. Just drop dead, granny, is exactly what Obamanationcare says.
Then there are the enviros who envision an earth without humanity. Except themselves, of course.
Bork’em. Don’t stop calling Cong. It is always planning to bork you. 202-224/225-3121.
I'm going to take issue with you regarding this statement of yours
Finrod (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 3:14PM EST (link)… rant and rave about “adult” access to pornography (which often includes depictions of children if not ACTUAL children), …
Pretty much every purveyor of ‘x-rated’ materials that I’ve come across is incredibly sensitive about the subject of child pornography. One forum that I read that allows such material to be posted doesn’t even allow pictures of under-18s to be posted AT ALL in any context– doesn’t matter if they’re 17 years and 364 days old, no picture of any type at all of them is allowed there. In fact, most of the restrictions put on pornography is ostensibly to prevent child pornography, but the supporters of those measures often don’t even keep up that false front, they just want to discourage pornography period, which to me is dishonest at best.
So I’m calling bull on that statement of yours. The only people blurring the line between pornography and child pornography are the people that want to ban both and are using the latter as the stalking-horse to attack the former.
Let’s get down to brass tacks here. How much for the ape?
let's look at the numbers...
readtheredwords Wednesday, April 7th at 11:26AM EST (link)Since 1600, the beginning of the primary colonial era in what became the USA, do you know how many criminals have been executed? About 20-22 thousand. I’m sure a handful of them may have even been innocent, and in the early days, some committed relatively minor crimes (not murder).
Since 1973 (just 37 years ago, less than 10% of the time frame mentioned above), there have been around 500,000 abortions in the USA. How many of them were innocent? I’m guessing all of them. And a disproportionate percentage were black.
The law that God gave through Moses describes
NoDoze Wednesday, April 7th at 1:10PM EST (link)Seventeen or eighteen violations which carried the death penalty. Included among them were prostitution, homosexuality, witchcraft, and many more.
Adultery and blasphemy too! Let's start here on the site--I'll take out users from A-M and you get N-Z.
CincoSolas_del_Bronx (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 1:56PM EST (link)Or … please don’t go there at all unless you are prepared to defend a denial that all terms unique to the Mosaic civil covenant were fulfilled in a unique series of events ~1980 years ago.
Those dreading urbanization should remember that though the Kingdom of God first appeared in a temporal Garden, at the end of the book it is established in an eternal City. (paraphrase, James M. Boice)
soli Deo gloria
While the civil covenant is no longer
NoDoze Wednesday, April 7th at 2:29PM EST (link)binding as a Law, the principles of morality taught in that law give us insight into how a society should function. I am certainly not advocating that we apply the death penalty in all of these situations — even the people to whom it was written didn’t do that very well — but they help us understand what is right and wrong. Read 1 Corinthians 10:11 for a glimpse of what I am saying. The things that they did wrong, and the consequences of their actions should warn us.
NoDoze, I ended up answering this
CincoSolas_del_Bronx (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 3:46PM EST (link)over here.
Those dreading urbanization should remember that though the Kingdom of God first appeared in a temporal Garden, at the end of the book it is established in an eternal City. (paraphrase, James M. Boice)
soli Deo gloria
Good logic, but check your numbers--the abortion tallies are way too low -nt-
CincoSolas_del_Bronx (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 1:43PM EST (link)Those dreading urbanization should remember that though the Kingdom of God first appeared in a temporal Garden, at the end of the book it is established in an eternal City. (paraphrase, James M. Boice)
soli Deo gloria
absolutely waaaaay too low
jdw4america (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 2:36PM EST (link)It is estimated – by the left, by the way, that 1.5 million babies have been aborted every year since the passage of Roe v Wade. When I put those numbers on my calculator, it’s
sorry, hand slipped
jdw4america (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 2:42PM EST (link)I was obviously staggered by the numbers – it says 60 billion.
1,500,000X40=60,000,000.
I don’t know where you got 500,000. That’s not even teh number of abortions in NYS before Roe.
I wish it were so. No, I wish it were 0.
Pray my brothers and sisters, that the Lord does not take His righteous revenge on the nation. Lord, have mercy.
The "estimated" number is well above 50 MILLION!
From ME to You (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 2:48PM EST (link)It’s estimated because there is no legal requirement to report them!
Equal protection, not "life" in general
Menlo (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 11:29AM EST (link)This illustrates why any argument emphasizing life over equal protection of the laws is illogical and flawed.
Find an unborn child who brutally and intentionally killed someone else, and there should not be an inconsistency. I’m sure everyone here would be in agreement under that scenario.
“The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it.” -Felix Frankfurter
Criminals are victims
indyjohn Wednesday, April 7th at 11:38AM EST (link)In the twisted logic of the liberal, criminals are not responsible for their actions, because their life experiences, which are beyond their control, have inexorably led them to a situation in which a murderous act is inevitable. Similarly, they believe that women who becomes pregnant against her current wishes is not responsible, because her life experiences have led her inevitably to this circumstance.
We are all meat puppets, controlled by the hand of a mysterious and sometimes malevolent force. Those of us who are healthy, happy, and reasonably prosperous are just the lucky winners in a great cosmic lottery.
But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
Edmund Burke
I left something out
indyjohn Wednesday, April 7th at 11:53AM EST (link)Because the unwillingly pregnant woman is a victim of circumstance, the liberal believes that she has an inherent right to alter that circumstance to her benefit by whatever legal means necessary. This is how liberals would define freedom – the ability to right those wrongs that the vagaries of fate have inflicted upon the individual.
But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
Edmund Burke
Let's not forget about...
jb13 (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 12:08PM EST (link)the other liberal double-standard when it comes to abortion: science.
Liberals will rail forever at conservatives for “not believing in science” when a conservative dares to question the “consensus” on global warming/climate change. But those same science-loving liberals will not for a second lend credence to real scientific evidence that proves conclusively that an unborn baby 1) is alive, 2) feels pain and 3) is not in any way a part of the mother’s body — all standards that would, in a sane, reasonable and just society, lead to the conclusion that an unborn baby is a separate living person and is thus entitled to equal protection under the law.
5's n/t
NoDoze Wednesday, April 7th at 1:14PM EST (link)n/t
Thanks to DNA testing
indyjohn Wednesday, April 7th at 1:19PM EST (link)(that’s scientific isn’t it?) we know that the baby being carried in the womb is a separate, unique human being, and that this uniqueness is established from the moment of conception. We also know (this is biochemistry) that the immune system of the mother is, in effect, short-circuited in order to prevent her body’s rejection of the the baby’s alien tissue. Science is anti-abortion.
But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
Edmund Burke
PP is racist
grandma Wednesday, April 7th at 12:41PM EST (link)Please see: http://www.blackgenocide.org/
Margaret Sanger formed PP and the foundational precept was to keep the birthrate down for the “undesirables.” http://www.blackgenocide.org/sanger.html
How about the murder of a pregnant woman as double homicide?
Common_Cents (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 1:18PM EST (link)But that same woman could choose to murder her unborn legally?
How does the left explain that?
Obama=Golfer in Chief, Leading from,
behind, the Back Nine.Leaders don’t create movements. Movements create leaders. Get involved. Your future depends on it.
Govt “invests” YOUR tax money for POLITICAL return rather than economic return.
Even the very idea that they are "pro-choice"
Lammo (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 1:54PM EST (link)shows their extremism in support of the double standard. They are only pro-choice when the “choice” being made is to have an abortion. They don’t want you to be able to choose a revolver over a semi-automatic, a Toyota over a Chevrolet, Blue Cross/Blue Shield over Group Health or even Bleu Cheese over Ranch. They are “Pro-Choice” only if “choice” means “do what we tell you”.
Don’t be so open minded that your brains fall out. (John Corapi, The Black Sheep Dog)
We already lived through several decades of no death penalty
kyle8 (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 2:48PM EST (link)For those of you who are too young to remember I will clue you in: IT SUCKED!
We had a revolving door, we had criminals killing people they robbed because the penalties for robbery and for murder were about the same.
We had a feeling among the populace that there was no justice to be had and thus the rise of vigilante sentiments. Witness the popularity of movies like “Death Wish” and it’s many copycats.
And eventually we had the return of the death penalty in most of the nation and also mandatory minimum sentencing. Which I can best describe as; A bad idea who’s time has come. Not a good thing, but a necessary thing.
So, I don’t see any big push against the death penalty succeeding until a few more generations have passed (people always have to make their own mistakes it seems)
“Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty”
Kyle
Kowalski me
kyle8 (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 2:54PM EST (link)Just another in a long line of stupid ideas I thought we had finally put to bed during the seventies, Like the 55 mph speed limit, High taxes, too much spending, stagflation, big sideburns, polyester suits, gas rationing, and a vacillating foreign policy.
But I guess no matter how bad an Idea is, there is always somebody who cannot learn form history. Everything old is new again!
Not a happy thought.
“Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty”
Kyle
You forgot
indyjohn Wednesday, April 7th at 4:02PM EST (link)about disco. Since the Carter years are being relived, except this time in fast motion, I expect to hear a new, even more annoying version of disco any day now.
But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
Edmund Burke
no don't go there
kyle8 (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 8:34PM EST (link)Disco was great dancing music. In fact it was the best dance music ever. I had a lot of fun as a single young man in the late seventies, Chicks loved to go to discos and if you could dance a little you could make good time. That was, in fact, about the only good thing.
“Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty”
Kyle
We're concerned the baby feels pain during an abortion? Really?
Jim Clonts (Diary) Wednesday, April 7th at 11:37PM EST (link)The very fact the concern is whether the baby feels pain while we kill it indicates how low we have sunk as a species.
Forget about religion for a moment and look at science. The argument that it’s the woman’s body and she has the right to kill the fetus can be scientifically disproved. The fetus is most certainly not part of the woman’s body. The fetus has its own, unique, genetic code and does not match the code of any organ in the woman’s body. The fetus may not even share her blood-type. The fetus is not just another organ to be dealt with as she desires. It is a unique individual that is killed during every abortion.
Jim Clonts