Remember junior high? For some of you, it’s only a couple of years ago, for others many, many more. Many. More. Where was I? Remember English class and public speaking? I think we had to do two speeches during the ‘semester’. For the expository speech, I did contact lens cleaning. Pro tip, once your contacts are out, cleaned, and in their case, you can’t really see. Including note cards. And no, I didn’t think to bring a pair of glasses. Not quite naked in front of the auditorium, but bad enough. I don’t recall what I choose for the other speech, but it was of the ‘confrontational’ (I think they called it ‘persuasive’) variety. Now what topics did one have to do in speech or debate class, always? That’s right, you were assured to get at least 10 speeches on abortion and 10 on gun control. To the point of the topics becoming tired, trite, and cliched. So of course, I’m going to write about abortion!
Evil. Pure unadulterated evil with no discernible redeeming qualities.
How did it come about that I wanted to put some thoughts down about a topic that, at best is mired in trite cliches and at worst can turn friends into enemies, if hopefully only for a short time? Well, as with most things in life, it can be traced back to cacti. I was working outside, doing some much delayed yard work, uprooting about 100 chollas. If there’s a parallel construction to the Hate Birds, The Birds that Hate in the plant world, it’s these little bastards. They will stick on anything, refuse to be removed without sticking to the object removing them (i.e. fingers) or, if successfully removed, jump immediately and with malice aforethought onto the nearest pant leg or boot and subsequently to the nearest exposed body part capable of producing blood. Truly Hate Plants, the Plants that Hate. Anyway. As is my wont while doing relatively thoughtless (except keeping the base reptilian mind focused on the task of not backing your bulbous ass into one of the bastards you haven’t uprooted yet, or kicking a ‘pod’ up from the back of your boot to the fleshiest part of your thigh) physical labor, my mind was wandering. Sometimes it’s on work issues I haven’t sorted out yet, but often, I’m thinking about some political, philosophical, or economic, issue; replaying arguments for or against, creating an internal dialogue. I try not to talk out loud to myself when doing this. I mostly succeed. Mostly. Sometimes, I’m recreating a discussion or fight I’ve had in the real world about a given topic: Did I lay out the arguments well? Did I listen and try to address their arguments in good faith? Did they present the best arguments in support of their position, or can I make better arguments that will in turn strengthen my position if I can address them, or cause a re-evaluation of my thoughts? On this day, that’s exactly what I was doing. I was recreating a specific argument I’d had recently (Late September 2020 – no longer recent when I got around to writing this…) on the topic of abortion.
I imagine this is about what it looked like.
A bit more background. I’m not sure how we got on the topic, but there was no discussion. Any and all questioning of the basic premise that abortion was a sacrosanct right devolved into accusations that one must be an idiot trapped 2000 years ago and rooted completely in unsophisticated religious reasoning. My attempts to introduce the concept of a non-religious based objection to abortion were immediately curtailed with “Bullshit!! The only reason anyone objects to abortion is because they are religious zealots, not sophisticates like me!”; okay, the last clause is not a direct quote – the first part is almost verbatim – but that was the general attitude. Sophisticated, rational people are pro-choice, pro-life people are superstitious, unsophisticated, and simply reciting doctrinaire religious dictates, not rational thought. There was no penetrating that wall – any attempt I made to question the premise of abortion rights was immediately met with (before I could get more than 2 words in) “superstitious, unsophisticated, religious freak! I thought you were smarter!” It ended with me, to my chagrin, accusing him of arguing in bad faith and being a disingenuous cunte. Not really to my chagrin, he deserved it. However correct, from my perspective, the accusation of cuntitude was, it meant that I was not able to layout the issues and arguments, not the least of which would clarify where I come down on the issue to myself. So there I was, surrounded by a field of hateful, destructive Hate Plants, trying to reconstruct the arguments as they should have played out. Hopefully it won’t be as cliched as the topic can become.
As a disclaimer, I’m going to address this from a non-religious POV, as that was my intent in the original… ‘discussion’. There can be further debate as whether that’s even possible and I’ll touch on that briefly, but as a non-religious person myself and as one who doesn’t really know at the end of the day where I come down on abortion, I think that’s the most fruitful course for me. I won’t claim to answer the question for myself, let alone anyone else.
Let’s get ready to ruuuumble!
I think they were in the deontological camp.
The question of whether one can truly address the issue from a non-religious POV has at least 2 layers, one very superficial and one considerably deeper. The ‘shallow’ layer is the proposition that, if one opposes abortion, it is merely because your church has told you to. That is, I think, the idea that most people who dismiss opposition to abortion as religious non-sense hold to. It’s almost certainly the position the person I was talking with held and was largely reactionary against dominant western religious traditions (hence the accusation of pro-lifers being ignorant bigots stuck 2000 years in the past); I wish we could have talked more to ferret that out, but alas, not to be. In any case, in general, I’m not very interested in that argument – or if one wants to be more generous, the more post-modernist argument that you are embedded in religious social institutions that ‘force’ you to some sort of false consciousness of being pro-life; I don’t find it compelling and it trivializes the very real ethical considerations and how they arise – HOW did those religious traditions arise and become dominant? If we consider humans and their institutions in an evolutionary context, they were not simply spake from on high, but must have developed over time. Which leads to the second, deeper layer, a question of the origin of rights, and in our case, specifically the right to life. There are two broad areas of thinking on the origin of rights, deontological and consequentionalist, or broadly, ‘natural law’ vs. utilitarian. The question becomes is the deontological view fundamentally a religious view (“endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”) or natural law/the nature of human existence? In some ways the origin of right to life in man’s nature simply pushes the question back one step and is not totally satisfactory. It’s possible that, if one takes a pro-life position based on the existence of a right to life, they are fundamentally taking a religious position since accepting that proposition requires, in some sense, ascribing a fundamental value, a divinity/sovereignty, to individuals, and the origin of that fundamental value must be rooted in a faith based tradition, whether one acknowledges it or not. It’s difficult to conceptualize, at least to me, that, in a natural world where life requires death, and where a baby antelope can be eaten alive by a lion without a moral dimension, that man, as just another animal, obtains some additional moral stature because we can think about it. In any case, that discussion would take a much longer tract than this one is already becoming, so I’ll just leave it as a premise; Both pro-life and pro-choice take it as axiomatic that there is a right to life, the question becomes how absolute that right is or when it manifests and, maybe ultimately, whether one takes a deontological or utilitarian view of the nature of rights.
Well, that setup was much longer than I anticipated. The actual discussion of pro-life vs pro-choice maybe somewhat anticlimactic.
On the pro-choice side, I think there are 4 major arguments for abortion rights, two of which are related and fall into the utilitarian basket, one of which is at least superficially in the natural rights camp, and one that is perhaps neither. On the pro-life side there are two broad arguments, one utilitarian, one based in “natural rights”. I’ll step through the pro-choice arguments and interleave the pro-life position as appropriate rather than break them into separate blocks.
The two utilitarian arguments for abortion “rights” are broadly population control and the burden a baby can put on a mother and society. China’s one-child policy is a concrete manifestation of the first, and the foundation of Planned Parenthood a manifestation of both. I don’t think it’s a secret that Sanger was trying to control the populations of minorities and undesirables that would burden society through abortion. For me, as a natural rights guy, this is one of the most pernicious aspects of a utilitarian view of rights. These positions completely by-pass the question of what is a human life and whether that construct is worthy of protection; It jumps straight to what the greatest aggregate value is, never mind whether those professing that value are actually capable of making that analysis or whether long term utility is being properly weighted against the short term utility. I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to recognize that such a conceptualization of rights can (easily?) lead to the atrocities of 20th century, whether one argues that there is greater utility in the elimination of an ethnic class (Nazis, yes I went there), intellectuals (Cambodia), kulaks/wreckers/hoarder (Soviet Union), anyone who doesn’t tow the lion (China), or the unborn. If one can make a convincing argument that a large group of people will be better off in the long run through the violation of another group or an individual, the utilitarian concept of rights can’t mount a convincing defense, it has too weak a view of what rights are. Indeed, the population control argument will by necessity involve a further violation since there will undoubtedly be some who don’t want to terminate a ‘socially undesirable’ pregnancy.
The equivalent pro-life utilitarian argument against abortion is that you’re removing tremendous human potential from the pool of human activity; You are undoubtedly going to abort the next Einstein. As you may have guessed, I personally don’t find either of these arguments convincing enough to have force of law. They pre-suppose that society has the ‘right’ to someone’s productivity or to eliminate that which it sees as a drag on productivity. I think the idea that human life is worthy of protection regardless of what perceived cost (or benefit) that existence might have on the greater social structure is the fundamental question that needs answering, and in a way the question of abortion is irrelevant there. If one comes down on the side of a human right to life by whatever means, the abortion question comes down, as it always seems to, to when is life life.
A child being a burden on the woman (on the individual level, where the woman sees the fetus as burdensome, not where society/state impose that view externally), both in terms of carrying to term and in caring for an infant, is, again, in some ways irrelevant. If we accept as axiomatic on both sides, that humans have a right to life, if a fetus is life, the burden placed on the woman (or man for that matter) is a practical matter, not one of principle, or that tells us whether abortion should be legal or not. I think this leads naturally into the superficially natural rights defense of abortion rights, the famous “My body, my choice”.
Virgin birth, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, know-what-I-mean-eh?
At the surface, this appears to be the strongest argument in favor of abortion rights. A woman is, for evolutionary reasons, burdened with carrying a child for 9 months and preventing a woman from opting out of that burden can be seen as a violation of her natural rights. However, I think this is only superficially a natural rights defense of abortion rights in that it is blind to everything that precedes the decision to abort a pregnancy. It presupposes that the fetus somehow magically appeared, uninvited (the rape issue is an interesting one that I’m not sure how to address, so I’ll be lazy and ignore it – and it’s also one of those life-boat ethics questions) and is therefore imposing a burden on the woman that she can choose to accept or not. However, pregnancy does not magically occur (pax virgin Mary!), it is the direct, foreseeable consequence of action taken by a woman and a man. So, in this sense, abortion rights are less about the right of the woman to choose what to do with her body, and more about the privilege of a woman (and man) to avoid the consequence of and responsibility for an action they voluntarily took in the past. In a biological or evolutionary sense, the only purpose sexual activity is to reproduce and the production of a child is the foreseeable consequence of that activity. Now I know as practical matter (though the knowledge may be largely theoretical in my case) that humans engage in a sexual activity for many reasons beyond reproduction, but I would postulate that our proclivity for non-reproductive sex is a result of our ancestors being the horniest bastards that were most likely to successfully reproduce. So while we are evolutionary programmed to engage in lot’s of sex, the fundamental biological nature of sex is reproduction. So when we engage in it, one of the ‘consequences’ is the production of a child. That’s why I think this only superficially a natural rights defense of abortion rights; it ignores that the fetus is the result of actions that have, as their basic reason to exist, the production of that fetus. So preventing abortion is less a violation of a woman’s right to choose, and more an acknowledgement that an individual took action that produced a human life (see below) and they do not have a right to terminate that life that they voluntarily produced. Actions have consequences and you can’t avoid those consequences for convenience, especially as avoiding those consequences means violating someone else’s right to life (the pro-life response to this sort of argument).
Nine months old? Birth? T-4.5 months? T-6.75 months?
That brings us to the final defense of abortion rights, one that is neither utilitarian nor deontological. “The fetus is not really a life so abortion is no different than removing a tonsil, a wart, or having a hair cut.” For me, this the strongest arguments in favor of abortion rights. I don’t think a newly merged egg and sperm, basking in the afterglow with perhaps a lit smoke, really constitutes a human life, worthy of the protections of a right to life, beyond potentiality. Of course, most would agree that at 10 years old, a human child has achieved that status. And so we enter into a sort of biological Zeno’s paradox; when does the merged genetic material achieve that status? In that sense the pro-life answer here is much more logically consistent – there’s no ambiguity, human life begins at conception so there’s no need to struggle with the question. But that apparent logical consistency is not necessarily the hall mark of a correct argument and the life begins at conception argument does, I think, require a fundamentally religious POV, that there’s some divinity (the soul) that is attached to the cells immediately. But without some sort of religious grounding, and I’m trying to avoid that, I find it difficult to justify the position that 2 newly merged cells constitute a full human life with all the rights and privileges that obtain. But it absolutely will become that. At some point. So the argument becomes one of when does that transition occur. And there probably will never be an agreement on that, so compromises must be made, but care must be taken to ensure that the compromise doesn’t fall too far into a utilitarian area where actual human life is discarded for convenience. This is probably where I fall in the policy arena, and I probably draw the line much earlier than others might to avoid being too close to that line of humanity.
So in conclusion (no, honest). I think it is possible to have a non-religious defense of the pro-life position, one based in natural rights. In a sense, that pushes the question back to the origin of rights and it may be that, depending on what one defines as religious, that accepting a right to life is fundamentally a religious proposition, so my non-religious defense maybe a religious one, even if I don’t accept a particular religious metaphysics. Looking back, that’s a lot of words to say “I don’t know”. I’m in favor of abortion rights from conception to …. ? a couple of months? But I can see the logic of an argument extending the proscription back to conception. I think my position (and the extension to conception as well, though that’s more difficult) is non-religious since I don’t base it on some sort of ab-initio declarative statement from the divine (what I think most people are visualizing when they talk about religious objections to abortion).
It seemed much easier in Junior High.
It was boring.
I’m fixing to step away from my computer for awhile, so I’m going to cheat by copy-pasting-and-very-slightly-editing what I dead-threaded on Tuesday morning, and then leave:
I’m as pro-life as they come, so I won’t bother repeating any of what trashy’s wrote on that thread.
One NAP/risk-management-related reason to be pro-life is basically “what if you’re wrong on the humanity/personhood thing?”
– If you’re a pro-lifer and you’re wrong, then the result is that something that’s not human becomes human (even by y’all’s definitions). And even if you want to fall back on the dubious “you’re enslaving the woman” argument, well, then let’s agree for a moment to accept that for the sake of this exercise.
– If you’re OK with abortion, and you’re wrong, then the result is murder of an innocent.
One of these is way, way worse than the other.
Hence the libertarian case against abortion.
I saw that the other day; and it’s stewing in my mind a bit. Hopefully it won’t stew into another wall of text. But I think what bothers me about that line of argument is that it has a bit of the precautionary principle baked in. One of my very religious aunts used to use that line of argumentation with me when it comes to religion. “If you’re right about the existence of God, you’ve lost nothing. But if you’re wrong, you suffer eternal damnation. So you really should believe.” I just don’t find that convincing nor particularly libertarian. Shrug?
Ah, yes. Pascal’s Wager.
I can’t turn belief on and off like a switch. So, if this God is indeed omnipotent, would he not know that I was insincere in my profession of belief? Further, if that God is indeed omnipotent and omniscient, would he have not made me knowing, in advance, that I would not believe?
If that latter is the case, my belief or lack thereof can have no moral consequence; I am just a robot, carrying out the will of an all-powerful, all-knowing God.
Related
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/10/09/horseshoe-luck/
Also related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnxkfLe4G74
Pascal’s Wager is old and flawed, there are a multitude of religions, and most are incompatible with each other.
This will probably be the only forum that abortion is ever discussed in that doesn’t turn into a feces-on-fire festival of hate and condemnation.
Which should make everyone realize just how fucking weird we all are.
We are actual liberals?
“Can you change my mind with facts and not a boot on my neck?”
A species tottering on the brink of extinction.
An shrewd observation.
The night is young!
*imagines the multi-thousand-comment shit-show this post would have generated on TOS*
Great — flashbacks of Nikki. That would have been fun.
Dominated by no more than a handful of commentators.
People tend to walk away from a heated ‘discussion’ rather than become the target of it.
Where’s John?
I have no knowledge of where John may or may not be buried.
Hopefully adjacent to Bo Cara, locked in eternal struggle.
See if you can work in the fetus wearing a bullet proof vest.
“I don’t know”
Well, if we all started from that premise, instead of everything we absolutely certain about, we might approach things a bit more cautiously and with more respect for other peoples’ opinions. And what kind of world would that be?
Wiser, kinder, gentler, more just, prosperous, etc. etc.
We’d have flying cars, and adjustable penises too. Plus silicone/saline free perfect boobages.
Yours doesn’t adjust? I adjust mine all the time.
Well now that you mention it.
*Squirms*
Amazing isn’t it. We have the Great Library of Alexandria, The Library of Congress, all the world’s knowledge at our finger tips and yet we all still ‘know’ as if we are teenagers in junior high complaining to our parents.
Part of growing up is admitting you don’t know.
Tangential but related anecdotal point I picked up years ago…
I had heard that here in Japan when a woman comes in for her third abortion (covered by national health insurance) the doctor usually will “tie her tubes” while he is in there. Supposedly this happens without any previous discussion and is just part of the process. The unspoken part of this is that a woman “like that” doesn’t want to be getting pregnant anyway.
All part of the silken social fabric of Japan.
I can’t dare ask my friends if they have heard the same.
And omoiyari!
Former neighbors of mine adopted a kid. Later the mother got pregnant again and contacted them about adopted the 2nd. And the 3rd. And the 4th.
They think 3 (but maybe 4) different fathers.
They were kind of hoping that she would stop, as they hadnt planned on adopting four kids, but they weren’t going to say no either.
Ha ha. “cuntitude”.
Word of the day, right there.
Excellent article, PM
As a present day duffer most of what you said is N/A in my case, but it wasn’t always like that. When my kids were a lot younger I was always concerned about the possibilities of abortion.
As times changed back in the ’60s and birth control became a woman’s responsibility, to a large degree. It also had a profound effect on (some) men.
I am personally aware of some of the ramifications of the issue. In today’s world, however, seems conception goes on unabated, in spite of all the social concerns.
I’m not religious but I find the “conception is human life” argument the most compelling of any of them. To me, that clump of cells is inarguably, scientifically, a “human life”. What the heck else could it be?
The question then becomes does one choose to protect that human life? I have to lean pretty strongly toward “yes”.
As a religious person, seeking a logical answer, I can only get to the ‘having a human body’ makes you human, and thus conferring the property right of your own body.
[see my thought experiment on the rights we confer to corpses below]
I am now very unhappy.
First, I find that I mixed up the numbers on my tax return, so instead of being owed almost $600, I owe $7.
Second I’ve found out that the eligability curve for the resident bribes cuts off more sharply on round three, so that it hits $0 just before my taxible income.
I like not this news. Bring me different news.
It could be worse. You could have thought you were owed $7 and instead owe $600.
Always look on the bright side of life.
I’m more disappointed I can use bidenbux to buy the remaining components for a ghost gun.
I have no illusions that I’m still poor, or that I’m put in any great hardship by this development, but I’m still not happy about it.
*can’t use
I understand, UCS.
I made grave errors with Turbo Tax, over reported my income (by a lot). Discovered my mistakes, almost immediately and sent in a snail mail amendment and forgot it.
Seems that I overpaid some 4 K to the feds/state. Anyway, both taxing people apparently decided to check me out and within 6 weeks got my money back.
In addition my state had enough errors in it that I was due a refund in addition to the overpayment.
I’ve used Turbo for 8-10 years, first time I made mistakes. Happy guy now
I used TurboTax as well. This mistake was 100% my fault as I’d put in my refund amount from the 2019 tax year in the field for the first round stimulus recieved, which made the calculations wrong by the $600 difference between the two. I can’t blame the software. Garbage input and all that.
My
Twothreefour bits:1. I had to giver a persuasive speech in a college class. This was during the Ethanol push. I explained that if you used all of the arable land in the US to only cultivate corn for ethanol (no food crops, no grazing land, no lawns, every acre capable of producing anything only produced ethanol corn) we still could not meet the demand. The class prog still said we should do it, because.
2. The human right of bodily ownership may not depend on life at all, see desecration of a corpse. Interesting thought experiment.
3. Abortion is one of the oldest medical procedures known, who is stuck 2,000 years ago?
4. As someone who believes in self ownership, I agree the woman has the right to remove the child, but I do not agree they have a right to intentionally kill it in doing so. Maybe we could put all the money spent on the subject into figuring out a way to do so?
So to address point 4 – the morning after pill causes a miscarriage; it is deliberate and it ends the life/development underway. Still wrong?
Going to point 2 – it isn’t about the self ownership right in the corpse; it is a really social taboo. But it does point at something more transcendent than mere self ownership. Self ownership doesn’t even really exist at birth, nor does it make sense after death.
I don’t see how the morning after pill isn’t wrong if you believe the conception is the moment a child is produced. No different from “The woman’s boyfriend punches her in the stomach, causing a miscarriage” other than method, after all.
A pill that prevents conception is where things are debatable — but preventing implantation of a conceived child (fetus, embryo, zygote — whatever term you want) triggering a miscarriage is still preventing it from living barring artificial wombs and transfer.
Just my opinion on the topic.
What I feel is morally wrong does not equal what I think should be illegal. I think it is morally wrong for two individuals to get ‘married’ by anyone other than a Catholic priest, and observing all the rituals such incurs. I do not think people who do not do so should be jailed or even hated.
Yeah — that gets fuzzy, though.
Do I acknowledge it is morally fuzzy enough to want to punish people, especially in the case of morning after pill type scenarios? Yeah.
However, given it is homicide from my point of view… that makes it harder to just say “Whatever, we disagree — you do you”. Given where society is right now, that’s where it has to be — that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable with it when I think about it. But neither would I want to lock everyone up.
Best case scenario? Society comes to the same realizations and people stop doing that (Hey, buddy….). Chance of that happening? Snowflake… Hades… Moral State == Quandary, and I suspect something I’ll have to answer for in the afterlife.
Look at it this way – nature spurns many of those same chances when the embryo doesn’t implant. Do we mourn all of those as lost souls? And given that miscarriages do happen, and can be induced, how exactly should the law deal with them? Pity the poor woman who miscarries and then is subject to legal torment.
And given that miscarriages do happen, and can be induced, how exactly should the law deal with them?
The same way they deal with somebody who dies in a nursing home or other high death rate setting. With a light touch.
Act of Nature vs. Accident vs. Deliberate Choice. As others have said, people die of natural causes or accidents — that doesn’t mean someone should choose to murder someone else.
And yes, proving intent (especially for early miscarriages) is almost certain to be too messy for society, much less the legal system. Doesn’t mean we should be pushing abortifacients willy nilly.
And finally, yes — I think there are lots of people who do mourn for the lost souls of miscarriages. Why wouldn’t they?
My highly progressive, highly feminist coworker changed noticeably after having a miscarriage, and her reaction was one of the least painful that I’ve seen.
I was speaking specifically to the non-implanted embryos, which I don’t think would be a miscarriage, just an unsuccessful take.
Self ownership is the right to life, as far as I can reasonably determine. So, therefore there must be a self to own. If one doesn’t own their body, they have no rights at all. If one has no body, how can they have rights?
If you don’t own your body after death, why is there a taboo against dismembering a corpse? If it’s only a taboo, should we still have it codified in law? If ownership ends at death, why can’t the state appropriate all your belongings upon death?
Shh…. they’ve got enough bad ideas in the next House bill as it is!
If ownership ends at death, why can’t the state appropriate all your belongings upon death?
My understanding of estate law isn’t the best, but isn’t that exactly what happens? The State appropriates all of your belongings upon death and then only releases them after a will has gone through probate. They may not physically take possession, but nothing passes until the State approves it which denotes de facto appropriation.
Even worse if someone dies intestate. My aunt died intestate, never married, no children, and it was quite a process for her siblings to get the State to grant them ownership of her estate even with no contesting claims.
Depending on how things are set up, some to all of your property can pass directly, if it is held jointly with right of survivorship. You and the other joint owners have undivided rights in the property. When you die, your rights are automatically extinguished, but theirs aren’t.
Right, I should have clarified solely owned property and there are certainly exceptions with trusts and such. Even then, those are set up to shield assets from the State, so I think would still support my point.
If you don’t own your body after death, why is there a taboo against dismembering a corpse?
The taboo is a social convention that doesn’t rely on your self ownership. The taboo exists in enough cultures that have very little concept of individualism/rights that it should be consider supra to our notions. I think you’re putting the cart before the horse.
You can’t exercise self ownership after death, just as you can’t from the very moment of your birth. That you are treated as you are is entirely because of the social conventions that exist, not because your will commands it.
Ironically, it is the state that provides the legal means to transfer all of your ownership interests to others at your death.
Juris rapes babys! he’s a baby raper!
Had to do it.
I’m really drunk and have to work tonight.
Good nightGood day sir!“only cultivate corn for ethanol”
Had this discussion yesterday with a bud. Ethanol was to be the salvation to pollution/energy. Now , 40 years later and in an era of energy sufficiency we have to turn to Green Energy, the first part of the camel’s nose being unnecessary.
I think of all the good and bad whisky that could have been made with all that corn wasted on ethanol.
Tears
Muh bourbon!
Even Mother Jones reported that the ethanol push was basically a big handout to Big Agra.
Not just that, but large areas of former barley growing converted to corn. Driving up beer prices.
ethanol – I never understood how that became a thing. It never made any sense from any perspective. And maybe now we are starting to see consensus form around this wasteful, damaging concept (maybe too late with all the entrenched interested parties). And yet, we just move on to the next big thing that will solve all the problems. And you better get on board damn it! There won’t be any ‘unforeseen’ consequences that are worse than the problem we are allegedly trying to solve this time!
Not for nothing, but ethanol production does not use up all the corn, mostly just the sugars. So no HFCS. Not much of what is left over is good for human consumption, but it is still decent livestock feed.
Which is pretty good for this human.
I like my >50% corn ethanol mixed with some rye and wheat ethanols and a little splash of high lime branch water to go with my seared livestock.
Regarding speech. So in my Airmen Leadersheep School back in ’05, we were tasked with public speaking. One of the topics was abortion in the military. I chose the ‘against’ stance, not because I believed in it, but because I wanted to know the other-side of the argument. I wanted to challenge what I thought I knew and believed by basically arguing against my beliefs. My opponent was a female non-comm and it was a great time because as it turns out, she was doing exactly as I was without either of us knowing.
It’s Friday, and I am not particularly interested in going through this subject matter again.
Much more important today, is whether or not I should buy another sword.
Yes – before “common sense sword control” becomes a thing.
Are you still seeing quart large mouth fruit jars? I’m not able to get out and about but last I checked pints were available at Fleet. I could use 4 dz and would be happy to pay in advance if you find any? Gonna be scarce, I’m guessing.
Buy the sword!
Last time I was in Walmart that had a dozen cases of wide mouth quarts. I can check next time I am in.
Fourscore, when walking past the local True Value here in western Montana I noticed that they had a mountain of cases of mason jars. I didn’t notice what size they are and I’m not sure if that is something that can be easily shipped. If you would like me to investigate then I think you still have my email address.
Shipping glass costs as much as the glass (brewer that buys lots of bottles).
Thanks, Bearded One and Kinnath.. I was sort of implying that I would sent K a piece of paper and he’d bring the jars at HH time.
We’re hoping for a record harvest this year (we’re fishermen at heart and always optimistic). We’re also hoping for a record turn out of Glibs.
Well, apparently all the teenaged girls out there have knives, so probably wise to keep a reach advantage, sure.
for context.
My hobbies bring me in to contact with lots of “makers” working many different fields.
An acquaintance is a blacksmith who has suffered traumatic brain injury and can no longer pursue smithing.
He is cleaning out his storage and selling off a rather large collection of stuff.
I have already picked up two Viking hand axes, a beautiful Damascus dagger, and an even more beautiful Damascus kukri knife.
The question is whether my checkbook can tolerate whatever he is asking for the Normal war sword he just posted photos of on Facebook.
fucking auto correct — Norman war sword.
Figure that would be between you, the wife and the checkbook. On the yes side – when will you have the chance to buy such again?
Later on you can always beat it into a plowshare.
I remember learning that a cell is the smallest unit of life. The argument over when life begins has always struck me as strange because from a scientific perspective, the first cell is unambiguously alive and human, whereas from a religious perspective life begins when the soul enters the body, which could be at conception but doesn’t have to be (in some faiths it’s not).
I used to think that since there’s uncertainty about when personhood begins, we should err on the side of the mother, since we’re certain of her personhood.
Now, like Pine_Tree, I tend to think we should err on the side of the baby since the consequence if we’re wrong is so much worse.
the first cell is unambiguously alive and human
It’s certainly alive. Human? Well, doesn’t that kind of depend on what you mean by human. Sure, it’s ofhuman. But, I’m not at all sure that translates to saying it’s a human. I mean, when you get your hair cut, the clippings are alive and human, if you mean the former. I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume they have rights.
Hair is not alive. It’s a keratinous extrusion. Dead protein.
Good catch. But, I don’t see that my point is fundamentally different. Say I cut myself and drip some blood. Does that blood have its own rights?
If the blood naturally would be placed in an environment designed to nuture it and some months later would emerge a distinct person? Yeah — I think we’d consider that it would.
That’s rather the difference on the whole hair / toenails / whatnot argument to me. None of them naturally grow into people if things are left alone on average.
Whether it would emerge as a distinct person or not is sort of beside the point. It’s not a distinct person at that point. If you assign right or wrong based on some presumed future state, well, you’re opening up a whole can of worms (pre-crime, killing as-yet innocent baby Hitler, etc.).
It is not a separate entity genetically unique from you, so it is completely unlike a fetus.
Oooo – take a super-hypothetical case – cloning. What self ownership would you have in a clone of yourself?
Life confers rights. The blood is not alive, thus no rights. Same with hair or toenails or arms or legs. They may have residual cellular activity. They may even be reattachable for a period of time, but they’re not alive. Left alone on their own accord, they will cease to function, they will rot. They cannot reproduce, they cannot consume, they cannot do the things a living being can.
The embryo/fetus, OTOH, is alive. Left to its own devices, it can do the things living being do, because it is an immature form of a living being.
Left alone on their own accord, they will cease to function, they will rot.
Isn’t that true of people, too?
I was wondering what that smell was.
Hey, you’re the one living in a trash can and this thread was brought to us by putrid meat and all…
Does your blood do this?
I thought hair cells were dead, but either way, the difference is that hair clippings are part of a unique organism that continues to survive after their removal. The first cell at conception is the entirety of a unique organism that will not survive if that cell is killed. If it doesn’t have human rights, that needs to be justified from some perspective other than the scientific.
“the first cell is unambiguously alive and human” – That’s really the crux of the matter. It is unambiguously alive. Human? That’s were I run into confusion. It will undoubtedly be human at some point, there is that potentiality (or rather certainty). But does that inevitable, if un-interrupted, development necessarily imply that the origin is ‘human’? It’s just not clear to me that 2 merged cells with out any expressed human characteristics – physically, neurologically, cognitively – is really human in the sense of being afforded fundamental rights. But as I mentioned, the logical consistency of the idea that human life begins at conception is appealing to my brain; I just can’t convince myself that it’s right.
It’s homo sapiens. If that’s not the same as human, the difference comes from something other than science.
From what I understand, anthropologists consider “human” to encompass “any creature from genus Homo,” which would include such folks as the habilines, H. erectus, H. neandertalensis and so on.
But that’s stretching the point just a tad.
Well, the entire idea of rights, itself, is not a “scientific” concept. For example, you have to go outside of science to find a reason to say humans have rights distinct from ants or any other creature. Rights are a moral concept. We define the moral limits of personal interaction by saying “interacting outside of this limit is wrong; it’s a violation of his rights.”
Rights are a
moralphilosophical concept.Leave my moral hatred of sex outside marriage out of your politics!
Well, morality is a branch of philosophy, so yeah.
Ethics is a branch of philosophy, morality is what I feel is wrong.
I was relying on this.
And that is again the redefinition of terms. Morality is not dictated by thought, but by emotion. What is ethical and what is moral do not always coincide. Sure, the Ethiticians want to become the new moral superiors, but that’s not how it works. Ethics is the philosophical study of morality, to be sure, but it is not morality in and of itself. A ‘Moral Compass’ cannot be realigned by argumentation.
Sure. I’m not making any claims about rights, I don’t know the answer. My claim is just that from a scientific perspective, human life begins at conception.
Life begins at conception. Life as a human? I’m not convinced that it’s at all reasonable to call a single cell a human being.
It is a life, and it is genetically human, therefore it is a human life. The real argument is over whether it is a person, entitled to the natural rights of a person, and when it might become a person entitled to those rights.
But the question isn’t about life, it is about rights. Things can be ‘alive’ and not have rights, so the question is, when do rights emerge?
Going by living cell, yeah, the hair thing is wrong, but even if you are to say a living cell with unique human DNA, that does include sperm and egg. Each Sperm and each Egg are cells with unique human DNA. Do I commit murder with each flushed kleenex?
Obligatory
Yeah, that was inevitable in this crowd to be linked at *some* point. 😉
Sperm and egg do not have a complete set of human DNA. Other cells do not have unique DNA from the rest of your cells.
The question from the article isn’t about life or rights, it’s about what perspectives can you use to debate abortion, and I’m just pointing out that the purely scientific perspective can only get you to “life begins at conception”.
See this photoshop I did for Cracked.com
Other cells do not have unique DNA from the rest of your cells.
But, that becomes sort of an odd standard, then. If I could successfully clone myself, would the clone somehow not be a unique person? After all, it’s genetic makeup is entirely my own, then. The clone, by that standard, would exist only as extension of my own body.
A clone is basically an identical twin, a unique person, it is not just a part of your body, like hair or fingernails, or your kidney.
a unique person
Well, yeah. I agree. And that’s why the argument of a unique genetic structure doesn’t work. Both my kidney and my clone are alive and human. But, the clone is a distinct person and the kidney clearly isn’t. I’d suggest that it’s the clone’s ability to think that makes it different.
That’s an interesting take, one I hadn’t entertained. I’ve always thought of the life begins at conception argument as a religious one. I think the problem with saying human life begins at conception from a scientific perspective is everything that is encoded in the word ‘human’, especially endowing a human with a set of rights. Biologically, perhaps it makes sense to say that human life begins at conception. But the extension all the ‘baggage’ (for lack of a better term) that we built up and associated with being human vis rights to single cells is not obvious to me. In fact in that sense, maybe the answer cannot be arrived at scientifically since that baggage is not understandable scientifically. Which might argue that a pro-life position is fundamentally religious if not metaphysically so… Guess I better find some yard work to do so I can think about that…
In fact in that sense, maybe the answer cannot be arrived at scientifically since that baggage is not understandable scientifically.
This. Science is indifferent to “should we kill this” or other moral questions. See also, the hand wringing over what to do with the Mengele research.
I have to agree with Cannoli on human life beginning at conception as being scientific. A biological process has taken place.The process continues until it becomes a baby. To Suthen’s point above, when is that? When does it gain the right to live? I don’t need a religious/soul debate to accept the science.
“Commonly stated as ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, the biogenetic law theorizes that the stages an animal embryo undergoes during development are a chronological replay of that species’ past evolutionary forms.”
In that sense the fetus (let alone zygote/embryo) isn’t ‘human’ until near the end. By the same token, the DNA isn’t going to result in anything other than human.
Since we postulate that not all animals have souls, the soul transmission/development can’t occur in the extremely early stages of a pregnancy.
Knives just aren’t that dangerous.
Just a late term abortion. That said I find myself changing my mind on late term abortion for teenagers. They’re not really human at that point.
I quipped long ago that God doesn’t give you teenagers right off the bat because you’re much less prone to kill them after all you’ve invested in them.
Having studied FMA (among other martial arts) for many years, and trained in knife fighting, and participating in tournaments (some of which I won) I learned that I never, ever, want to be involved in a real knife fight with knives with sharp blades.
CTO is heaping praise on the “Excelsior Pass” abomination.
I am almost sick. he says “you should be proud” I blurt out “No, you should be ASHAMED”.
Sadly, all non-executive level employees are on mute and no one heard me. No points for bravery.
I am starting to really be disgussted by this guy. He should have been fired a decade ago. He’s the only one who hasn’t left from the top offices of the agency.
Sorry for the venting/virtue signalling.
I was just angry.
Thankfully, that meeting is over now.
Maybe I can calm down.
No need to apologize. I had to google what that was, but you’re quite justified.
Same. And as far as I’m concerned — until the USPS tracking sends the commissars to shut us down, this is about the only friendly space to rant for most of us. So go for it.
I ended up taking my walk to calm down. As this is still the middle of the workday this is very aberrant behaviour for me.
I’m still over my hours at this point in the pay period, so it’s not going to make much difference.
The Putrid one speaks truth. I’ve been referring to them as Hate Plants for a few years now. I have been moving nodules (which will grow into an entire new Hate Plant) up to the front of our property, along the road. My goal is to have a Hate Hedge, as a true expression of my personality.
Honestly, I probably got the hate plant construct lurking around here, so you’re probably responsible for that little bit of exposition.
“Hate Hedge” – hmmm. An interesting idea.
“Evil. Pure unadulterated evil with no discernible redeeming qualities.” I withdraw the caption. Even pure unadulterated evil has it’s use. A Hate Hedge. Nice.
I am already investigating “defensive planting” to surround my property for the coming bad times.
We don’t have cactus in Iowa, but some really, really nasty thorn bushes will thrive here.
The previous owner of my land planted locust trees along the border with my neighbors. I should take that as a warning.
It’s paramount that we get our kids back into school.
I was never in ‘advanced math’ courses, but as someone who was shoved into ‘advanced reading’ courses I can say if they are at all in a way similar, they should be destroyed. That shit ruined my love for reading. Just because I can read better doesn’t mean I want to read the the shitty books you choose, you fucking pieces of shit! I intentionally flunked out of those classes because they crammed piece of shit Newberry Award winning garbage into my face and made me hate a pastime I once loved.
I was in the advanced math courses in Virginia growing up. It is functionally just moving ahead of the bulk of the students. You’re in 6th grade, you take 7th or 8th grade math.
I think that’s what they do with art classes in K-12 school.
“This is a great piece of art. Here are the reasons why it’s good. You must learn these reasons why this piece of art is good.”
“Here’s acrylic paint. You will paint a picture of this flower using the acrylic paint. Make sure you paint this picture correctly.”
No wonder so many people hate art and reading.
Newberry Award winning garbage
I liked Johnny Tremain & A Wrinkle in Time.
Some good stuff was nominated – Lloyd Alexander, Susan Cooper
I likes those too.
I wonder if AWiT and its sequels would make me cringe from the woo in them now.
Plus A Swiftly Tilting Planet is super racist, yo. “Blue eyes save the universe?” wtficanteven.
JHTFC
They’re intent on ending the meritocracy by ending any chance for merit. Even the goddamned soviets were less crazy.
And just to double down on the incredibly stupid:
The fucksticks making these decisions are not people who work as engineers, scientists, accountants, etc…. These are the people who got C’s in math and went on to ed school. They are deliberately undercutting the success of the math inclined in order to bring them down to their level. They’re getting even.
If they don’t get algebra and geometry, they can’t understand analysis, spatial reasoning (whatever that’s supposed to really mean), and probability. And they will be teaching those concepts at such a basic level as to be useless.
New New New Math!
So we can watch the drugs fall out of their asses?
I hear Lou Reed is stumping for this policy.
Let’s absolutely fucking clear, without proficiency in computation and routine problem practice, the other concepts are impossible. You cannot build an structurally sound edifice on mud.
As I’ve said before, at viability works for me. Viability is when the fetus can survive outside the womb; its actually a very old place to draw the line (although previously a fetus was said to be viable when it began moving around, I believe). The line for viability has been stable for decades at around 22 weeks; it will take a true artificial womb to move it from there, on account a fetus’s lung development can’t hack it until that point.
I get that argument and I have a fondness for it as it seems like a compromise people with divergent views can probably accept.
My problem with it is that the line of viability can and will move, despite the relative constancy with current technology. But if (when?) we come up with an artificial womb, does the line move? My logical brain says that, if so, it can’t really be a viable position. Whether a fetus has a right to life or not really shouldn’t be dependent on whether some un-aborted genius invents a viable artificial womb or not. Did the fetus aborted the day before the invention that pushes viability back by one week not have a right to life, but the one of the same developmental stage presented the day after does? I like logical consistency, A leads to B leads to C. 2+2=4. But maybe that’s why this is such a quandary – it’s not necessarily amenable to a logical scientific solution. And maybe y’all are convincing me that opposition to abortion truly is a ‘religious’ one, for some value of the word ‘religious’.
But I think the best compromise in a very challenging issue is the one you propose above.
Of course, I drop by for my weekly visit and it’s an abortion thread.
*tears up*
You guys really do love me! ?
[passes trashy the pineapple pizza]
[adds pineapple to deep dish
pizzacasserole.Thanks for this article. I have struggled myself to find an argument for some “inherent worth” in human life that does not depend on a higher power. I’d really like there to be some inherent worth, both for selfish reasons, and because the logical end point of no inherent worth is an ugly place.
I’m sympathetic to the “life begins at conception” argument. It’s unambiguous, and like you say, the clump of cells will develop into “life”. Except it won’t, necessarily. Humans spontaneously abort fertilized embryos all the time, in many cases the woman never knows about the pregnancy or the miscarriage. So how big a deal is it that the same thing happens as a result of conscious decision? I don’t know.
People die from accidents and disease all the time. Doesn’t make it okay to choose to kill someone because sometimes it just happens anyway.
The distinction is that I’m discussing when the clump of cells becomes “life.” Most people are presumed to have unambiguously achieved that state.
That is separate from the point that since sometimes women have spontaneous abortions, why would it matter if it was due to a conscious decision. Which is the point you seemed to be making.
I have struggled myself to find an argument for some “inherent worth” in human life that does not depend on a higher power. I’d really like there to be some inherent worth, both for selfish reasons, and because the logical end point of no inherent worth is an ugly place.
From a religious point of view, this is a huge point that I try not to miss when (on exceedingly rare occasion) discussing why religion/God is important, nay necessary. It’s really hard to get to egalitarianism or even innate human dignity ex nihilo. There’s always that lingering question of “why the hell would I agree to that when I could just take what I want and be better off?”
Basically the argument that without God, morality is just a matter of opinion, and what makes yours more valid than mine? (or even Hitler’s? Yeah, I went there.)
Essentially, yes. People can put together frameworks that feel nice and that may even work out better (for some definition of better) for the average person, but they’re all built upon a foundation of either reducing social friction or embracing hedonism.
I try to use the serial killer exile Island thought experiment to expose widely accepted feelings and thoughts that are really sitting on a weak foundation. Pretend the world exiled all of their serial killers to an island and those serial killers created a society. Would my premise apply there? If not, then it’s not universal.
why religion/God is important, nay necessary
Which is all fine and dandy, except for the fact that religion/God is pretty culturally dependent. There, I went there. Christians do have a broad agreement now – after spending centuries killing each other over who was fucking wrong about what. That there are still other God-concepts out there does not augur well for the necessity of A God being the single author of morality.
That there are still other God-concepts out there does not augur well for the necessity of A God being the single author of morality.
Morality isn’t about consensus any more than science is.
Um, science is indeed consensus. It’s just that unlike religion, the consensus is always tentative and open to new thoughts.
The ancient Greeks were arguably more moral, from our perspective, than the ancient Jews. The soul and the afterlife were introduced into Christianity out of Greek metaphysics, not Judaic.
The discussion of when a collection of human cells becomes a “human” is as pointless as when a collection of sand grains becomes a “heap”.
Fuck religion, fuck morality. The only question is when a fetus becomes a “person” with 14th amendment rights to equal protection under that law. And that question is pretty much unanswerable.
There are at least 4 arbitrary points that could be used: conception; implantation; viability; birth. Each of those is both right and wrong although probably in different measures depending upon you view of religion, morality, or ethics none of which is universal.
Enjoy the rest of your conversations.
I pretty much agree, and would add another point that could be used: Fetal brain activity onset.
“Fuck religion, fuck morality. ”
Um… nah. I don’t think I will. Thanks tho’.
I guess I should be clear I don’t agree with the “Fuck religion, fuck morality ”, part. I do agree with his basic point, though.
Agreed on more than one level.
I understand kinnath’s point but ideas matter. They matter a lot.
So, to clarify (or fail to clarify) I don’t see religion or morality as necessary to establish civil law.
I absolutely have strong feelings on moral/ethical behavior and am quite willing to think poorly of people whose character doesn’t meet my standards. But, that doesn’t mean I think the law should be involved in fixing those character defects. Mostly because I am certain that the people that want to use the law to enforce morality would finding me lacking.
Exactly. Not all that is immoral should be illegal – we make that distinction for very good reasons.
There is a flipside, though, isn’t there?
Shouldn’t every law have some basis in morality? Or are we OK with laws that are merely the arbitrary diktats of whoever is in power at the moment?
Plenty of law exists for reasons of structure and administration. Are you referring specifically to criminal?
“We” are. Haven’t you noticed?
Shouldn’t every law have some basis in morality?
Isn’t that the core of vice law?
If I pollute, have I truly sinned as well?
Shouldn’t every law have some basis in morality?
If you want to define the non-aggression principle as a moral code, then fine. Don’t hurt people; don’t take their stuff.
I’m good with stopping there.
Are you referring specifically to criminal?
Definitely including civil law, property law, etc. Even laws on structure and administration exist to structure a society that should have some moral basis, and to administer laws that also should have some moral basis.
Haven’t you noticed?
Yes, I have.
That’s malum prohibitum vs. malum in se, no?
The fact there are fancy terms for them makes me thing this is not a recently initiated discussion…
Different strokes for different folks.
Be well.
Well that clears thing up.
when a collection of sand grains becomes a “heap”.
Six.
TEN!! YOU GODDAMNED HERETIC!!
BLASPHEMY! TWELVE IS THE ONE, TRUE ANSWER!
433494437 exactly
Eight if they’re skinny, four if they’re fat.
My non-religious view – once a fetus becomes viable outside the womb, abortion becomes murder. With slightly more effort (i.e. a cesarean), that living person could be brought out of the womb and enjoy full protection under the law. Killing it because of where it happens to be sounds completely arbitrary.
I recently saw an interview with Stevie Nicks. Apparently she got pregnant while dating Don Henley and had an abortion because it would have messed up her career. She was saying all the right girl-power words while her expression and body-language were saying “my God, what have I done?” That kid might have been a typical rich Hollywood loser, or an incredible talent. Either way, she wouldn’t be a spinster in her 70’s with no family.
I think viability outside the womb seems incredibly arbitrary, as well, though. Most of our legal system rests on the notion that rights proceed from our agency. And that our agency is a function of our ability to think. The brain waves we associate with normal human thought, show up roughly around the same time as viability, IIRC.
“The brain waves we associate with normal human thought, show up roughly around the same time as viability, IIRC.”
Bullshit. They show up around the age of 40….in some people.
LOL!
I said normal human thought.
18 years old to be an adult is incredibly arbitrary as well. Funny how legal systems work on such standards.
Elizabeth Warren has come out against the torture of Trump Supporters who participated in the Capitol protests. Meanwhile, the Republican cowards say nothing. If you don’t trust the source Politico covered this as well. The dystopia is here ladies and gentlemen. We have political prisoners in the United States and the Federal government is engaging in a campaign of terror against them.
https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=62174
Jim Snow is here and real.
Sorry, don’t get the reference.
Jim Crow = Black people 2nd class citizens
Jim Snow = White people 2nd class citizens
What about John Snow? He knows nothing.
I see shit like this and wonder if I’m going crazy. Am I sliding into conspiratorial la-la land, or is this country on the express train to banana republic town?
Politico previously reported that defendant Ryan Samsel was “severely beaten” by DC correctional officers and is now “blind in one eye” and “has a skull fracture” and a “detached retina,” according to his attorney.
Another defendant, 60-year-old Richard “Bigo” Barnett, who is being held in indefinite detention for daring to put his feet up on Pelosi’s desk, was reportedly “tackled to the ground” by DC corrections officers who told him they “hate all white people.”
“This is not normal. It’s not normal to isolate people and make the
This is sick. We are a banana republic. America is gone.
Fucking idiots. Fucking fucking idiots. And the morons pushing it don’t even realize how fucking stupid there are, even when they get found in a pile of mush in the woods or in pink mist across their lawn.
The latter, definitely.
I have the same thoughts and recently landed on we’re already in banana republic town and currently witnessing the solidification of power. Confirmation bias makes it difficult to accept.
I dislike the term black-pilled that’s been going around for it though. Recognizing what’s going on doesn’t mean I’m in despair or depressed. It just means that I should prepare. Doing things like ditching Gmail, social media (for the wife who has done so), and keeping as low a profile as possible.
Recognizing what’s going on doesn’t mean I’m in despair or depressed. It just means that I should prepare. Doing things like ditching Gmail, social media (for the wife who has done so), and keeping as low a profile as possible.
Thank you! You said it better than I could.
Keep your head down Semi. We are going to need people like you when this inevitably blows over.
Michael Malice, who is one of the big proponents of using white pill/black pill terminology, doesn’t define the white pill as a belief that the right side is winning or will win, simply that it still could, that defeat is not a foregone conclusion. It is entirely possible, and is my preferred position, to prepare for the worst but hope for the best.
defeat is not a foregone conclusion
Which color pill represents “we were defeated by the fascists in the 1930s and 40s, and the only reason we’re not living in rail cars is because the fascists figured we were controllable enough to keep as tax cattle”?
While I expect abuse in the prison system because it’s always been there, the question becomes why these prisoners are being mistreated.
Are our political masters demanding it? Because that is an evolution. Perhaps they saw the ease with which we accepted the abuse of terrorist detainees and decided that we were ripe for the evolution into the abuse of domestic political prisoners.
That is not to be read as an endorsement of the abuse.
Putin should tie his response to the Navalny-inspired sanctions on Russia to the issue of political prisoners in the US. At least Navalny has been seen by doctors and ended his hunger strike.
He could just send a diplomat down to the Capital green zone for a photo and compare it to a photo in front of the Kremlin. Which one looks like the capital of a free country?
Holi sheet! This green zone is huge. The World Bank where I worked twenty years ago as a summer intern is firmly inside the zone. I thought the zone was much smaller.
Yeah, that’s crazy.
And I’m reminded that 20 years ago I was working just outside a similarly-barricaded zone at the southern end of Manhattan, which has since been slightly prettied up but remains (dys)functionally the same.
We lost the plot in this country many years ago.
Abortion is a complex issue so I will make a complex argument.
If you murder a baby I will shoot you in the face.
Now we have to define what a baby is.
Baby?
Didn’t Baby get an abortion in that movie? Would you shoot baby to save baby?
Would shoot, IYKWIMAITYD
Why dont you present me with a more difficult dillema?
I am good with this.
The Baby
You disappoint!
Damn. I thought glibs were all about pot, ass sex, and Messicans. Now I come here and have to read serious content about morality??? Well, at least Q is still making stellar contributions.
JK, great article and great discussion. I’m pretty much with Pine_Tree on this, FWIW.
Related, in (Catholic) HS debate class way back when I drew the short straw for the topic of birth control. Defending Humanae Vitae in front of 25 teenaged boys was most unpleasant.
My freshman year in high school we had a debate on the Reagan vs. Carter Presidential election about a week before the election. What is striking in my memory is how little we cared, how it wasn’t even discussed until late October, and how it was forgotten 2 days after the election. Better days.
Not better days. 600 million people had to wear the yoke for years because Jimmah Fuckin’ Carter bailed out the Soviets…twice. The most important strategical location in the Western Hemisphere belongs the the Chicoms because of Jimmah Fuckin’ Carter.
I also did not understand the importance of politics in those days. Remember – you may not care about politics but politics cares about you. Now we are paying the price.
Hey — speaking of politics. In the Thursday links, you stated
Got a cite for that? I don’t remember hearing of it before and would like more details on it… I’m assuming it was a Copperhead, but again – would like to find out the specifics.
In 8th grade history class that was considered an article of faith. I looked online and find a lot of conflicting articles.
I looked just now and find no majority of articles agreeing with that account.
What it amounts to is that Lincoln was determined to preserve the union at any cost. My memory is that a man protested Lincoln’s efforts and read the bill of rights publicly in Chicago?/Baltimore? and was hanged for his efforts. I cant seem to find and references to that but I will keep looking.
Maybe they are with the records of the Bolivian Air Force all crashing into a mountain?
Thanks for asking that – it didn’t click for me either. Sounds like it must have been some Southern history. 😉
Yeah, after Suthen mentioned that I did a bit o’googlin and all I found was reference to a bunch of injuns Limcoln okay’ed the hangin’ of for an uprising where the injuns killed a bunch of settlers.
I remember one of the rich kids – who I was sort of friends with (this kid got me into both Rush and Tangerine Dream) – told some of us that “he was a Republican” and nobody gave a shit. This was also around 9th grade. In basically what we would call the ghetto where even in the 80s such a creature was rare.
In hindsight, it boiled to who’s dad worked at the unionized factories that were still running nearby, and whose dad’s didn’t.
Ha. That kid’s dad was a chemist or something at Kodak. Most of the other dads I knew about were machinists and such at Kodak.
I remember in my school’s mock election, Carter beat Reagan.
Proving why we shouldn’t allow children to vote.
Actual science: https://wrat.com/2021/04/22/just-how-many-surfaces-does-your-cats-butt-touch-a-sixth-graders-science-fair-project-has-the-answer/
They did a whole project for this? Why not just ask Swiss?
Ours more…project toward people. Not surfaces.
I.E.
Nice kitty!
My cat? 0…fucking cat people are disgusting.
My home is free of cat butt contamination! Now, the shed cat hair is another matter entirely.
Turn out the lights. Take a black light and shine it around. See how many ass, dick, snot and pussy germs are in your house, kitchen, doorknotbs, car etc.
Whatever you do dont take that black light to the grocery store.
Then pretend it all didnt happen.
The above is why we are so robust as a species and why it is being stifled
In high school we had an old codger teaching science. One of his famous lectures was when he’d talk about the government’s Filth Standards. He’d spend the entire class highlighting various standards that food manufacturers had to meet.
The one that stuck out to me was the number of insect heads (13) that could be in a fig newton*. (I just looked it up and my memory of 13 was spot on).
He’d gross out the entire class and enjoy every minute of it. He ended the lecture by reminding us that we all liked Fig Newtons and other food before, knowing what was in it shouldn’t change our minds. And we were all fairly rural kids. Not all of us lived on a farm, but we all had at least one or two friends who did and we spent time out on their farms. I can only imagine how horrified true city kids would have been.
I love pointing that kind of stuff out to people that naively believe our govt standards mean food is pure.
It’s part of their long effort to get people to switch to an insect based diet
*adjusts shiny headcovering*
And what more proof do you need that we are ruled by lizard people? Lizards eat insects. DUH
This is why I don’t live with cats.
The dogs can be kept off the counters and tables.
You mean ‘while you are looking’?
*Looks at a room full of dogs that will not make eye contact*
Mine are small enough that they can’t get to the top of the counters or the dining room table.
From your previous photos, anything on the counter is fair game.
lol. I grew up with a beagle that would climb up onto the kitchen table to look out all the windows there. As soon as you turned up the sidewalk you’d see here jumping down to run to the door.
She was more of a sociopath though. She’d feign complete innocents when you accused her of being on the table. She never showed an ounce of guilt.
Drove my mother crazy, the rest of the family thought it was funny.
Not clicking it, but the link text is why I refuse to let the GF bring a cat into our home.
100% Nope.
I just think this was an awesome project for a 6th grade boy. It seems clear it is one the kid actually did, instead of the parent doing it.
Slightly OT. Today is a beautiful day here in Vegas. Low 80s, slight breeze. Put a 6lb pork shoulder on the smoker.
Starting with the premise that killing another person is a bad thing (in most circumstances). As we do not an objective standard as to when a person becomes a person (if such a thing is even possible). So sometime between conception and death, a person becomes a person and if killing is bad, we risk killing a person. Therefore it is a bad thing to abort something that could be a person.
Great article. Thanks for writing and posting this.
A few thoughts…
I find this sort of reasoning amusing, because it could easily be turned back the other way. Abortion was more tolerated among the pagans than the monotheists who succeeded them, so if newer = better then the anti-abortion position is more enlightened.
Personally, I view all moral codes, other than “might makes right”, to be religious positions. As I see it, “might makes right”, or more accurately just “might makes”, is the only code that has definitive evidence in the natural world supporting its veracity, everything else would appear, from a naturalist perspective, to be simply social constructs. “Religion”, from my view, is giving unprovable answers to important (and otherwise) questions. Unprovable, in my view, does not necessarily equal wrong.
As someone who leans strongly in the anti-abortion direction, I agree that this is a trickier issue, but I take the view that the rapist is more deserving of death than his spawn, so if society finds it unacceptable to execute rapists it should likewise hold the same opinion on their progeny.
“…the rapist is more deserving of death than his spawn, so if society finds it unacceptable to execute rapists it should likewise hold the same opinion on their progeny.”
Bullseye.
I find the rape and incest line that is trotted out by the pro-choice crowd not very compelling. The exceptions where the issues get much more morally/ethically ambiguous does not mean that abortion, writ large, is a good thing.
Especially when they represent such a miniscule percentage of the abortions actually performed, yet they argue as if this edge case were the only reason they process so many [inset inflammatory descriptor]s.
Bingo
Says a white mail who was never raped by incest!
Give me money or I’ll expose your good deeds.
Got a job with USPS?
No.
I’ve officially been working for the State for thirteen years as of last week.
I just have admin rights on the servers.
I was saved by 0 [rapes]!
STEVE SMITH HELP ADD TOTAL.
I find it interesting that most people here are generally pro-choice.
I suppose the premise of self-ownership leads in the same direction for anyone that subscribes to it.
I remember throwing up in my mouth a little bit when Barry O’bumbles derided ‘individualism’. English doesnt contain words to describe how much I despise collectivists.
I think that most folks here do not think that abortion is an unabashed good, unlike the insane ‘shout your abortion’ harridans. I would speculate that those that are pro-choice ’round these parts are more in the “safe, legal and rare” camp.
I’d go further and say that many/most/all don’t think the opposite of proscription is prescription. Many elsewhere think that which isn’t prohibited, is mandatory, and vv.
Interesting. I feel like most people here are pro-life.
Maybe it is because it is so rare to find a place where both sides are represented by people arguing in good faith. Most places have either country OR western, not both. So it seems odd when you find a place where both sides can discuss it openly without it ending in bitterness. You notice the other side more than your side because you are used to hearing your side.
Unfortunately, those labels have become associated with the extremes – the no abortion ever camp, and the taxpayer funded abortions until the umbilical cord is cut camp.
I’m currently in neither camp.
Watch where you are standing buddy! You are stepping on my foot.
I’m in the middle with you. Don’t like it at all, but don’t think a complete ban is going to solve things either.
Didn’t I say up front how damn weird we are?
“…a place where both sides are represented by people arguing in good faith.”
This.
Today is a beautiful day here in Vegas. Low 80s, slight breeze.
~3″ of fresh snow, here.
Another few trillion dollars for the green New Deal, and we’ll have global warming on the run.
Praise Biden!
It’s CLIMATE CHANGE! Global warming wasn’t working out.
AGW. Global Warming. Climate Change. Climate Chaos. Climate Emergency.
SHUT UP AND OBEY – that’s all that matters.
I don’t know, either. But as I get (much) older, the idea that it’s just a clump of cells just doesn’t sit right anymore.
I wouldn’t call myself religious, but I’m starting to experience limits to reason (drink!).
My mom and dad got this clump of cells started before they got married. I’m glad that they didn’t choose another path.
“I wouldn’t call myself religious, but I’m starting to experience limits to reason”
Find myself in a similar place, though maybe less sure about the “limits of reason”. I’m definitely not religious in the sense that, whatever the tradition, I don’t believe there’s some entity out there that created the universe and is sitting out there in judgement, listening to prayers, worried about whether we worship them, etc. But religious as in over evolutionary timescales, some concepts and behaviors have been ingrained into our biological systems and they are not directly amenable to direct rational inquiry. So we don’t necessarily need to (or can’t) articulate a rational basis for a moral system. But it exists nonetheless. So I hesitate to call that a limit to reason; maybe we can figure all that out rationally in thousands/millions/etc of years, but we can’t now, other than to articulate it as a ‘religious’ revelation, even though it’s origin is biological and scientific.
If you have time, the most recent JBP podcast is with a catholic bishop. They go quite a lot into this very struggle.
I do think it’s biological and I do think it’s important.
I really enjoyed this article, btw. Thanks for sharing it!
#metoo
I was at my parent’s wedding, hidden in all of the pictures by a conveniently placed bouquet.
My mom wasn’t too far along at the wedding, so there was no photographic evidence. Every once in a while I will tease her about my gestation period, though.
Whatever. Once I figured it out it made them much more interesting to me.
*cue Cheap Trick’s Surrender*
Once when I particularly pissed off my mom – it happened often, I was, and am still I’ve been told, quite the asshole – she told me I was a mistake on the beach! Apparently dad is on leave in Hawaii to meet my mom, out on the beach, cue pRoN music, 9 months later, OOPS! Always have loved the ocean and the beach though…
I am an agnostic and I have been a foaming at the mouth atheist in years past. I tend to agree with you, logic only gets you so far.
My apologies if someone else has already said this, but better (the perils of having like 2 minutes at work to do something else). Putting aside my advocacy for retroactive abortion:
Clump of cells or a zygote- human life. Scrape and vacuum is unfortunate.
Organized neural activity- human being. Scrape and vacuum is murder.
For all my bluster here, I’d be celebrating in the streets if that made it into law.
Organized neural activity- human being.
I am uncomfortable saying that somebody under general anesthesia or in a coma isn’t a human being.
Also begs the question of, how much/what kind of neural activity? And why its perfectly OK to kill creatures with organized neural activity who aren’t humans.
Just scanning this later and hope to leave a respectful postscript.
Emotionally, I couldn’t consider an abortion. It was never an issue for me: the one pregnancy I happily caused will sit for the bar this year.
But those emotions make for bad law and awful governance. We lecture each other every day here about the police state and over-reach. As technology advances, the ability to police a woman’s pregnancy enters the dystopian. Imagine a Minority Report world where the police use the fetal-rights argument to further trump the woman’s autonomy and rationalize detaining her to ensure full term. Imagine being able to identify, track, and smell the pregnancy progress of a woman like as if turbocharged CCTV had a lovechild with Skynet; imagine a knock on the door by the Gestation Gestapo because our records show you had been pregnant for four months and we now detect that you suddenly no longer are.
Live your life; make your choices; then be a good libertarians and basically just go fuck off. Because everyone just going and fucking off makes for weaker policing and better society in general. The consequences may be emotionally heavy, but they’re someone else’s business and everyone I know is pretty busy already screwing up their own lives and need to pretty much stick to that particular enterprise.