EPTAsk a Conservative Anything: Part 1, Rage Welcome - Page 12
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JingleHell
United States11308 Posts
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
On April 28 2012 08:59 SaintBadger wrote: @DoubleReed Agree to disagree on relative probabilities, but at least we see eye to eye on the general concept of what constitutes proof. Some people really do think they can absolutely prove such things. Well, I can't prove that the Sun is going to rise tomorrow morning, but I can certainly guess. Edit: Eh, I don't want to get any more deeply into religion. Just to make sure, when you say "agree to disagree on relative probabilities" are you saying you disagree my ideas of certainty, or just that your probabilities of God's existence are different from mine? | ||
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
I think I'm going to stick with theistic evolution. Sounds like Day-age still leaves some ambiguity about evolution and such. @DoubleReed I was referring to the probability of God's existence. I definitely accept that we live our lives based on what's probably going to happen or probably the case. We rarely have a 2 + 2 situation. | ||
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
Otolia, I want to hear your revulsions concerning my world view. We haven't had enough folks explicitly stepping up for the liberals of the world. | ||
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ninazerg
United States7291 Posts
On April 28 2012 07:00 SaintBadger wrote: @Ninazerg I'm very surprised that you added the bombing of Serbia to this list. Do you just think we should not intervene when people are being killed in foreign countries? I mean, there is absolutely no doubt that less people died because of our involvement. But we just didn't have any business there, or what? I'm just wondering, because the inclusion of that instance is strange to me. Was Kosovo a situation where mass deportation and genocide was occurring? Yes. Did the conflict pertain to our national security or the survival of the United States? No. That's why it's on the list, and I will address your prior post shortly. Edit: Actually, I need to go to the grocery store, so it's going to be a somewhat delayed response. | ||
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Mindcrime
United States6899 Posts
On April 28 2012 08:34 SaintBadger wrote: @Mindcrime Is genocide ever justifiable? Hmm, I don't think so. I mean, during most of history and probably today, there are populations small and constrained enough where any sort of military conflict would run the risk of completely destroying them, so if they happened to be the aggressor, I suppose one could come up with some sort of hypothetical. I've never really come to terms with US obligation as humanitarian interventionist. I know Bush Sr. was heavily criticized for the Persian Gulf War and the justifiction of liberating Kuwait when so many other areas were also suffering under similar occupations. Then again, I don't have an issue with vital resources being something we actively protect, so that particular dichotomy never struck a chord with me. Similarly, there were some black leaders (many of whom are prominent Dems) who criticized Clinton for having a racial bias in getting involved with Serbia, but not engaging in certain parts of Africa where similar violence was taking place. It's a hard question. I think the conservative answer is, we look to ourselves first. If we are in a situation where the nation is prosperous and we could engage in military effort without jeopardizing that prosperity, then it becomes a question of consent by the electorate. That's a political answer, not a moral one. Obviously, in this world there are a lot of options to attempt prior to military action, but I assumed by your question that the implication was whether military intervention is justified. I actually had the Conquest of Canaan in mind. According to the Bible, God commanded the Hebrews to "completely destroy" a number of peoples including the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Jebusites and Amorites. In some cases women and children were kept as "plunder," but in other cases all were put to the sword, even the livestock. My gut certainly doesn't react favorably to that. As for the rest; fair enough. I'm not comfortable with America policing the world unilaterally. At all. If the United States is going to take military action that isn't strictly in self-defense, I would prefer it to be very multilateral in nature. But, at the very least, I think we owe it to ourselves to not support a genocidal regime as America did the Khmer Rouge. | ||
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ninazerg
United States7291 Posts
On April 28 2012 06:48 SaintBadger wrote: Since "murder" is a legal term, let's be perfectly clear: War is NOT mass murder. I'll assume you meant mass killing. I'm very used to having words put in my mouth, but this is on a whole new level. There is nothing in my response to you that remotely implies a lack of conflict of conscience, and in fact, I find it hard to believe anyone in this country who has taken the time to reflect on any war is completely without conflict. Furthermore, I get the feeling you haven't read my other responses regarding abortion. I do apply that argument to abortion. As a matter of fact, I said "I recognize this country probably couldn't survive without [abortion] at the current state of society". So, I'd ask you to review a few posts if you're interested in continuing this discussion, and while you're at it, I'd appreciate an answer to my question. On the subject of war, most of the scenarios we discuss are based on historical events. They aren't hypothetical at all. And liberals are very quick to jump on the war bandwagon, in fact, VIetnam was all them. If you would like to discuss the merits of individual conflicts, we can do that, but I was discussing the reasons why aborting a pregnancy is not analogous to war. Btw, we weren't the aggressors in several of those conflicts you mention. I would be happy to defend Iraq I and II and Afghanistan, but it's probably a waste of time since we're not going to be able to agree on facts surrounding Gen. Powell's WMD presentation to the UN. I will NOT be defending the nation-building in the aftermath. 1. Since we're suddenly discussing the legal definition of murder, the exact definition of 'murder' changes depending on jurisdiction, however, according to Common Law, murder is "the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought". This means that the killing is calculated and pre-meditated, as well as unlawful. If you consider the United States to be the police force of the world, then nothing we do is "unlawful". The legality of war cannot be argued, because there is no World Court in which to make such a litigious claim, however, there never was a United Nations mandate authorizing the invasion of Iraq. The United Nations only ordered Iraq to allow weapons inspectors into the country, and Iraq's government complied fully. How do I know they complied fully? Because, no 'weapons of mass destruction' were ever found. The war was completely illegitimate and therefore, in my view, was unlawful. But for the sake of clarity on your part, I will change my phrase to "mass killing", because we certainly don't want to confuse murdering a huge number of people with merely killing a huge number of people. 2. Regarding the question: "Regarding the fifth amendment, let me ask you something. Forget everything you know about abortion law. In a void where all is legal, if I wanted to pass a law that forbids an abortion IF the pregnancy had reached a point at which two doctors will sign off (at the risk of their licenses) on the notion that the child could be delivered viably THAT DAY without foreseeable consequence to mother and child beyond normal natal care, what would your feeling be on that law?" I have a few thoughts on this hypothetical question. - It is completely off-topic. My original inquiry concerns whether you as a Conservative believe that one form of killing is justified over another in your view. You basically said, in a nutshell, 'No, the killing in war is a separate issue than the killing involved in abortion.' - Most hypothetical scenarios are full of holes. So is this one. Using a 1-day-before-birth-where-the-baby-is-healthy scenario would be a terrible basis for the opposition of all contraceptive options, including first and second trimester abortions. Furthermore, even two or three or a billion doctors swear on their mothers' graves that the baby is going to be born healthy, they are not able to see the future. That's why no two doctors would ever both sign a document risking their medical licenses simultaneously. You would be hard-pressed to find even ONE doctor who would do such a ridiculous thing. - The question ignores a woman's personal liberty over her medical decision. This question ignores HER right as the carrier of the fetus. There's a reason this argument didn't win Roe v. Wade. - Bringing this kind of question up seems to be a way of gauging my perception and opinion of abortion-issues. That's really not important. The important thing is discussing your view of the killing in war (which I believe is horrible) versus the killing in abortion (Which I also find horrible). 3. Concerning Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations: carrying a vile of anthrax onto the UN floor seems hyperbolic and theatrical in nature. I actually had the opportunity to watch the presentation live on television as it unfolded, and personally felt underwhelmed and unconvinced by it. Colin Powell's own assessment of the UN speech later on is that he believes that it should have never been made. Anyone can watch the entire presentation for themselves. There are accusations quoted, bullshit audio recordings, computer-graphics depictions of fictional mobile weapons labs, various satellite images of sites that proved to either be empty or were harmless, and so on. Journalists outside of the United States were very skeptical about the report made before the UN, and for good reason: there was no concrete evidence presented in the report given to the UN that suggested that the only option was military action against the Iraqi government. The United Nations subsequently did not pass a resolution allowing a US military engagement with Iraq, but we went to war anyway, despite the fact that the Bush administration had information that suggested that there were no WMDs in Iraq and that the Iraqi government was complying with the UN resolution to inspect for WMDs. Furthermore: - Iraq had no ties to Al-Qaida or housed any Al-Qaida bases in their territory. - Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. - North Korea had a much more appalling human-rights violation record, and was known to be actively attempting to develop nuclear weapons, and eventually did in 2006. - Saddam Hussein fully complied with the UN resolution to open his country to weapons inspectors. | ||
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
Indeed. You'd think after the Exodus, the Hebrews would have learned to follow instructions. But, if memory serves, they were tempted by . . . was it Palestinian women? One of the black listed people's women, anyway. And I believe that was the beginning of the forty year exile. The Old Testament was a brutal time. For the record, I speak for conservatives. Not for God. I've never felt called to evangelism and I don't plan on starting now. And we've done far worse than Khmer Rouge in our history. | ||
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
1. We really need to work on our use of the words "know" and "prove" in this blog. No WMD's being found does not equate to you knowing anything of the sort. But in any case, the US is not subject to common law, so I'm glad we agree that "murder" is not the correct term. To the best of my knowledge, we never surrendered authority to act to UN discretion either, so I can't imagine how that is relevant. Certainly UN support is preferable, but in no way required. 2. Regardless of original inquiry, you subsequently made some statements about Supreme Court precedent. My question was meant to discern whether you actually understood the precedent on the issue. I wish you had answered it. Since you brought that up, I can't see how it would be off-topic. Your comment about the one-day-before-birth concept doesn't seem to indictate you read my hypothetical very carefully. My proposed law would potentially be relevant as early as four months into pregnancy. And the invocation of personal liberty is relevant to all laws in this country, but personal liberty is not absolute. Roe specifically codified a time in a pregnancy after which a woman was not at liberty to seek that particular form of "legitimate medical care". Roe also stated that its trimester framework was based on the concept of viability. So conceptually, under Roe, a woman is not at liberty to abort a viable fetus. We are, however, not under Roe anymore. We are under Casey, which prevents laws from placing "a substantial obstacle" in the way of a woman seeking an abortion, and all subsequent precedent fleshes out what constitutes a substantial obstacle. If you don't want to share your views on something, that's fine, but I follow along with discussions well enough to understand what is related to a topic and what is not. 3. Once again, regardless of one's political views or opinions of the Bush administration's performance, I am thoroughly disappointed in the lack of basic propositional logic that has surrounded the history of the Iraq War. If place A does not contain B, then place A never contained B??? I certainly don't purport to tell you that Iraq had WMD's, because as you correctly recall, they were never found. That absolutely does not equate to there never existing WMD's in Iraq, but for the sake of argument, let's assume every factual statement you make is 100% correct. I'd like to examine a quote: "there was no concrete evidence presented in the report given to the UN that suggested that the ONLY option was military action." You once again never answered my question directly concerning the bombing of Serbia, but I think you implied that the U.S. had no business involving itself because the matter did not threaten us. I think, by double implication, you are suggesting that you DO buy threats to the US itself as potential justification for war. Now you've entered into this notion of "only option". That is an impossible standard. There is never a circumstance where war, or for that matter any reaction, is the only option. So I don't really understand how one proceeds in a discussion with you. From my perspective, in the modern world where the power of the atom has been weaponized, the difference between "remote threat" and "imminent threat" basically amounts to the push of a button. So, if we believe that a hostile nation possesses or is close to possessing nuclear weapons, that does constitute a threat to our security. We can absolutely choose to NOT exercise the military option. But in the case of Sadaam Hussein, I did not lose a lot of sleep over the fact that we chose otherwise. I think it was a tragic and stupid mistake to stay behind and allow thousands of soldiers to die importing democracy, but that's a whole other issue. Whether you believe that the WMD argument was sincerely made is largely irrelevant. Democrats, Republicans, and the electorate all lined up to be the first and loudest supporters of the invasion. We can ret-con history all we like, but it doesn't speak to the philosophy behind it all. By the way, if memory serves, North Korea was already a confirmed nuclear power. With a man like Kim Jong Il with his finger on the button, you bettter believe there is a decided change in the calculus of foreign policy towards that nation. EDIT: You say it was 2006 when NK first detonated? I'll take your word for it, but close enough for my comfort level with that particular maniac in charge. Also, geographically speaking, the technology required to strike mainland US from NK is far less than from Iraq. | ||
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
Good evening, ladies and gents. | ||
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shinosai
United States1577 Posts
On April 28 2012 14:14 SaintBadger wrote: I really want to get this out on the table. Anybody else who wants to jump on the "pro-life folks are hypocrites because they support a party that goes to war and exercises the death penalty" stage, please speak your piece. Well, I will speak my piece here. Although my criticism is going to be a little different. I do think the position is typically somewhat hypocritical, though, and here is why: First off, anyone that would allow for an abortion in the case of rape but not in any other case is hypocritical. To be consistent you must say that all abortion is wrong. After all, the rights of a fetus should not have anything to do with whether or not the mother was "responsible" for the fetus coming into existence. There seems to be a lot of blaming going on here. Now, I'm sure there are plenty of conservatives that are consistent on this issue, but... It seems like we expect a lot more out of women than other people in society. The conservative position is very strange in this respect. The rhetoric is often heard that we are not responsible for your livelihood. I should not have to pay for your healthcare or for your food, etc. Even if you are unable to get them, I bear no responsibility to you. And yet, at the same time, they hold that women have a sort of strange responsibility to bring a fetus to live birth. If I accidentally hit someone with my car and damage their kidney, I am not required by law to give them my kidney. But even though I'm "responsible" for their current predicament in every possible sense, and I could keep them alive by simply donating a kidney, and they will die if they don't get my kidney, there's nothing in the law that requires me to help keep alive people that would die without my help. So it seems strange that at the same time we expect women to keep the fetus alive, when people in general have no such responsibility to their neighbors and other strangers. I think if pro-life is to be a consistent position, then you are going to have to argue that we have more responsibility towards each other rather than the current conservative mindset which typically tends to be "every man for himself." | ||
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ninazerg
United States7291 Posts
On April 28 2012 14:10 SaintBadger wrote: @ninazerg 1. We really need to work on our use of the words "know" and "prove" in this blog. No WMD's being found does not equate to you knowing anything of the sort. But in any case, the US is not subject to common law, so I'm glad we agree that "murder" is not the correct term. To the best of my knowledge, we never surrendered authority to act to UN discretion either, so I can't imagine how that is relevant. Certainly UN support is preferable, but in no way required. 2. Regardless of original inquiry, you subsequently made some statements about Supreme Court precedent. My question was meant to discern whether you actually understood the precedent on the issue. I wish you had answered it. Since you brought that up, I can't see how it would be off-topic. Your comment about the one-day-before-birth concept doesn't seem to indictate you read my hypothetical very carefully. My proposed law would potentially be relevant as early as four months into pregnancy. And the invocation of personal liberty is relevant to all laws in this country, but personal liberty is not absolute. Roe specifically codified a time in a pregnancy after which a woman was not at liberty to seek that particular form of "legitimate medical care". Roe also stated that its trimester framework was based on the concept of viability. So conceptually, under Roe, a woman is not at liberty to abort a viable fetus. We are, however, not under Roe anymore. We are under Casey, which prevents laws from placing "a substantial obstacle" in the way of a woman seeking an abortion, and all subsequent precedent fleshes out what constitutes a substantial obstacle. If you don't want to share your views on something, that's fine, but I follow along with discussions well enough to understand what is related to a topic and what is not. 3. Once again, regardless of one's political views or opinions of the Bush administration's performance, I am thoroughly disappointed in the lack of basic propositional logic that has surrounded the history of the Iraq War. If place A does not contain B, then place A never contained B??? I certainly don't purport to tell you that Iraq had WMD's, because as you correctly recall, they were never found. That absolutely does not equate to there never existing WMD's in Iraq, but for the sake of argument, let's assume every factual statement you make is 100% correct. I'd like to examine a quote: "there was no concrete evidence presented in the report given to the UN that suggested that the ONLY option was military action." You once again never answered my question directly concerning the bombing of Serbia, but I think you implied that the U.S. had no business involving itself because the matter did not threaten us. I think, by double implication, you are suggesting that you DO buy threats to the US itself as potential justification for war. Now you've entered into this notion of "only option". That is an impossible standard. There is never a circumstance where war, or for that matter any reaction, is the only option. So I don't really understand how one proceeds in a discussion with you. From my perspective, in the modern world where the power of the atom has been weaponized, the difference between "remote threat" and "imminent threat" basically amounts to the push of a button. So, if we believe that a hostile nation possesses or is close to possessing nuclear weapons, that does constitute a threat to our security. We can absolutely choose to NOT exercise the military option. But in the case of Sadaam Hussein, I did not lose a lot of sleep over the fact that we chose otherwise. I think it was a tragic and stupid mistake to stay behind and allow thousands of soldiers to die importing democracy, but that's a whole other issue. Whether you believe that the WMD argument was sincerely made is largely irrelevant. Democrats, Republicans, and the electorate all lined up to be the first and loudest supporters of the invasion. We can ret-con history all we like, but it doesn't speak to the philosophy behind it all. By the way, if memory serves, North Korea was already a confirmed nuclear power. With a man like Kim Jong Il with his finger on the button, you bettter believe there is a decided change in the calculus of foreign policy towards that nation. EDIT: You say it was 2006 when NK first detonated? I'll take your word for it, but close enough for my comfort level with that particular maniac in charge. Also, geographically speaking, the technology required to strike mainland US from NK is far less than from Iraq. Actually, I did answer the question concerning Serbia. In 2003, North Korea did not yet have nuclear weapons. Additionally, the distance of the United States from Iraq is about 7,000 miles, whereas North Korea is only 6,300 miles away. North Korea kicked UN weapon inspectors out of the country prior to the United States' engagement of Iraq in diplomacy, indicating that they were a more potent threat to "National Security" than Iraq. I say this because there is a flaw in the notion that we neutralized the greatest threat to our nation by removing Saddam Hussein from power. Personally, I hated Saddam Hussein, but that in itself does not justify lying to the American public for the sake of war. Furthermore, I don't care if Democrats supported Vietnam or Iraq along with or without Republicans. Both wars were wrong, unjustified, and did not have to do with the security or survival of the United States. The NATO mission against Serbia was a response to a forced mass deportation, but again, was not pertinent to the survival of the United States. The reason I bring this up is because you said that a country has the right to go to war for it's own self-preservation, and these wars clearly did not serve that purpose. Furthermore, arguing that Iraq may have had WMDs prior to the Iraq War, and we just didn't find them, ignores a mountain of post-war evidence that shows that Iraq did not possess or was in the process of developing such weapons in 2002-2003. When I said "there was no concrete evidence presented in the report given to the UN that suggested that the ONLY option was military action." I did not present an "impossible standard". I presented a standard that says the criteria for war cannot be based upon flimsy evidence and outright falsehoods. | ||
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
Ok, now we're into theater of the absurd. I asked you if you were saying we shouldn't intervene when people are being killed in foreign countries. You did not answer the question. And you stated that there was no concrete evidence suggesting war was the only option, which implies lack of evidence is significant to the discussion. Since war is never the only option, that evidence can never exist. And I stated that if we believed WMD's existed in the hands of an enemy, that does involve self-preservation. You said nothing which suggests otherwise. Your issue is with whether WMD's existed. I don't care one way or the other for the sake of this argument. And forced deportation was the least of what was happening in Serbia and Kosovo. I don't even really know why we're discussing specific conflicts. I believe it is a tenable moral position to make a distinction between purely innocents, which unborn children surely are, and transgressors of various sorts which may be judged to have, by malicious action, forfeited certain rights afforded to innocents. That is my evidence for the lack of hypocrisy in the conservative stance on these issues. @shinosai You bring up worthwhile points, and tomorrow I shall respond. Very tired at the moment. | ||
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Monsen
Germany2548 Posts
 ) when I have the time. Please disregard if already answered:You mentioned that you try to keep your faith from informing your political decisions. Do you think that is true for any/most/all other politicians (US, obviously)? And if not, how do you reconcile with some of the "rather strange" aspects of (Romneys) Mormonism? | ||
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Silvertine
United States509 Posts
On April 26 2012 16:32 SaintBadger wrote: The short version is that given all the evidence I can perceive, Occam's Razor points me in the direction of some sort of prime mover. Occam's Razor would lead one to the exact opposite conclusion. | ||
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
On April 28 2012 22:17 Silvertine wrote: Occam's Razor would lead one to the exact opposite conclusion. He said "all the evidence I can perceive." Judging by his delusions that conservatives aren't any more homophobic or sexist than liberals, his perception of reality is certainly nontrivial. | ||
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Salv
Canada3083 Posts
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
I didn't say Occam's Razor proves God, I said Occam's Razor leads me to believe there was a prime mover. If you like, I'll amend that to "first cause". As I've said several times here, there was a lot of development between that and my coming to the Catholic faith, but I'm not an evangelist and this blog isn't really about that. I stated my subscribed faith only because it is necessary against the backdrop of some of these political issues. | ||
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SaintBadger
United States139 Posts
RE: Abortion is murder vs. rape conception If one equates abortion with the legal concept of murder, then you are correct. A rape victim would be equally culpable as any other abortion seeker. Rick Santorum famously (or infamously) made a splash during one of the early primary debates when he said something to the effect of, "We live in a nation where a rapist can't be put to death, but the child conceived from the crime can be, and that is wrong." While on some level, I admire his singlemidedness, Santorum probably hasn't considered the other results of abortion == murder. If a woman is holding her child in a careless way and drops the child, somehow managing to kill it in the process, she is probably guilty of some level of manslaughter. If she is carrying a child and skipping or dancing or some other such non-careful activity and falls, suffering a miscarriage, she should be similarly liable under Santorum's definition. I see abortion as morally reprehensible, but I do not equate it with murder. In terms of responsibility, perhaps an argument could be made that it is more akin to a betrayal of trust. I'd have to consider whether I'm fully endorsing what I'm about to say, but let's go with it for a moment. A woman who WILLINGLY engages in sexual intercourse understands that she is risking conception, to a varying extent, regardless of the use of contraception. In doing so, perhaps she is willingly taking upon herself an added responsibility absent from the lives of men and women who do not engage in intercourse. If pregnancy results, maybe it represents a shirking of this responsibility by electing to seek an abortion. While I absolutely agree that men, through an accident of biology, get the better end of this construct, I suppose the masculine equivalent would be the responsibility to share in the care and upbringing, or at least providing for, a child. If you subscribe to this notion, than the allowance for an exception in the case of rape is not inconsistent. If a woman did not willingly undertake that added responsibility, she cannot be seen as having betrayed it. I think if you really pressed pro-lifers who do not have an issue with rape exceptions, they would reach some form of this argument. This assumes that everyone who expresses a political opinion actually has fleshed out thoughts behind it, which as we all know is a silly assumption on both sides, but still . . . perhaps. RE: Responsibility for injuring persons vs. abortion I would suggest that one aspect of your argument is a bit unfair. It is true that the Supreme Court has long held that invasive medical procedures represent cruel and unusual punishment, and thus, even if I can give the man I injured a kidney, I will not be required to do so. However, I am certainly responsible under the law to make him whole in the best method which does not violate the 8th Amendment. Normally, that means money. I am required to pay all expenses resulting from my negligence. There may be some analogy to child support somewhere in there. I don't think we'll ever be at a point where a woman is forced to carry a pregnancy to term from conception, and because I respect the law of the land as I understand it, that's probably a good thing. But we're talking morality here, which reaches far beyond legality. | ||
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