On August 17 2012 06:26 Barrin wrote: Ugh. My parents are devout Mormon (probably voting for Romney, surprisingly not blindly), and perhaps some of their views on this have rubbed off on me. I'm certainly not entirely pro-life, but I don't think I'm utterly pro-choice either.
Please tell me I am in a range of normalcy?
Yeah. Most Americans regard abortion with distaste but they would support it in varying but limited circumstances.
On August 17 2012 05:19 Barrin wrote: How can you be in greater danger than someone who is most surely going to die?
I mean I would be in greater danger swerving than I would be relative to driving in a straight line. Suppose we were to say a 100% chance of the person in front of me dying if I go straight, and a 5% chance of me dying if I swerve. Am I morally obligated to get out of the way or can I slam into him?
So if you keep going right at him, there is a 100% chance that you live, and a 0% chance that he lives.
But if you turn away, there is a 95% chance that you live, and a 100% chance that he lives.
I don't think there's any question as to which one is more 'moral' in an absolute sense. The highest survival rate between the two of you is the clear winner.
It's only when you factor in selfishness and self-preservation that this changes... Is selfishness moral? Probably not. Is self-preservation moral? Very much so... as long as it doesn't intrude upon others'.
Would I blame you for not swerving away? A little. I wouldn't forget but I could forgive. Do I think you should be legally punished? No. Should you feel at least a little bad about not swerving away? Fuck yeah.
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But this is an analogy, and to treat it as one:
What about the third entity who put the other car on a collision course with you?
Did you agree to a decent possibility that they might? You did not try to prevent it? If so, you better have swerved. You both should pay for it.
Was it forced upon you? If so, I won't really think much worse of you if you stay on track (I would definitely think very poorly on whoever forced it upon you), but if you swerved I'd think of you as noble.
Of course, it doesn't just stop there... you have to turn around and follow the other car for 18 years. If you swerved, you are partially responsible for paying for this (especially if you want me to keep thinking of you as noble ^^), but it's still at least half the responsibility of the person who forced it upon you (only about half if not forced).
What if the other person is nowhere to be found? If you cannot get someone else to fill the second half of the responsibility... is it okay to get rid of the whole responsibility altogether? I personally think that the life of a human being begins when a sperm successfully penetrates an egg. If you 'get rid of the responsibility' after this point, you are essentially destroying a human life as far as I'm concerned. Manslaughter, at the least. But the fault doesn't lay solely on you, not even halfway if you were not a willing participant. If you were not a willing participant, you're not even an accomplice IMO.
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Ugh. My parents are devout Mormon (probably voting for Romney, surprisingly not blindly), and perhaps some of their views on this have rubbed off on me. I'm certainly not entirely pro-life, but I don't think I'm utterly pro-choice either.
Please tell me I am in a range of normalcy?
lol, pretty in depth post here. I really don't know, I don't think morality has clear cut answers, I think we just make them up at any given time to describe our subjective emotions and to criticize other people's decisions or ideas. I'm not a big believer in morality to be honest, but I am a believer in empathy.
I just think it's interesting people keep talking about the "risk of the mother's death" when we contrast that with the CERTAINTY of the fetus' death. Obviously if I said the odds of me dying in that car analogy were 0.0001% we would all agree that it would be pretty fucked up for me to not swerve out of the way. But the higher the percentage gets to more murky things get. How much risk exactly does the mother need to be in to justify the guaranteed death of the fetus? I don't know, but it's an important idea for people to think about if they are going to keep using the "health of the mother" argument. Of course most people using that argument don't think the death of the fetus is even a problem so I guess I'm going nowhere with this. -_-
Like always people are bickering about trivial issues. Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt. The credibility of our currency itself is in jeopardy, while we continue to fight wars in the middle east. Our educational and health care systems are a joke when compared to other 1st world nations. And you guys are arguing about slavery, and at what point a muddled clump of cells becomes a human.
On August 17 2012 06:37 Sozai wrote: Like always people are bickering about trivial issues. Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt. The credibility of our currency itself is in jeopardy, while we continue to fight wars in the middle east. Our educational and health care systems are a joke when compared to other 1st world nations. And you guys are arguing about slavery, and at what point a muddled clump of cells becomes a human.
Get a grip
2nded! I find it hilarious/depressing how easily voters are co-opted into voting for a party that doesn't represent their interests because of relatively minor social issues.
On August 17 2012 06:37 Sozai wrote: Like always people are bickering about trivial issues. Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt. The credibility of our currency itself is in jeopardy, while we continue to fight wars in the middle east. Our educational and health care systems are a joke when compared to other 1st world nations. And you guys are arguing about slavery, and at what point a muddled clump of cells becomes a human.
Get a grip
Most of the last 300 pages were about things like debt, foreign policy, education, health care... But thanks for popping in here to shit on the thread and us while contributing nothing of your own. If I were in a worse mood I'd probably report your post.
On August 17 2012 06:17 coverpunch wrote: In the discussion, I'm surprised nobody has pointed out the elephant in the room. One of the biggest underlying reasons why social conservatives fiercely oppose abortion is because they want to discourage pre-marital sex.
No, I don't understand this at all.
Although that does fit with my theory that conservatives basically have two ideas when it comes to solving problems: Deterrents and Blaming the Victim. That's basically been the extent of their thought processes on all social, economic, political, and personal issues.
On August 17 2012 05:44 Falling wrote: Woah, this has gone down the abortion road.
One thing Kwark, how do you justifiy calling the fetus "inanimate." Isn't it biologically 'living' however you want to define that especially as it growing and responds to stimuli?
I think he called a fetus for a "parasite" which is a actually pretty accurate in describing how the mothers body reacts to it the first month of the pregnancy.
In my mind the question of when a baby is a baby and not just cells have to be somewhere between inception and birth. Calling for a ban of abortion at inception or complete freedom untill birth are both completely insane in my opinion. Where to draw the line on the other hand is a hard question to answer. Most would say 10 weeks (end of embryogenesis), 13 weeks (end of first trimester) or 20 weeks (start of perinatal period). Anything later and the chance of delivering a viable child preterm is beginning to become possible (The child is still very far from fealing anything or remembering for that matter.).
A new debate is forming in Europe. After having had the limit at about 3 months in many countries, the newest technology is making it more of a moral question: You can now determine sex and several potential illnesses from before that time and how do you deal with that? I would still say 3 months is about the right time from a development-stand but I can absolutely see the dilemma. Now you are getting the technology to determine so much more about the fetus/lump of cells so early that the potential parents have the possibility to take a decently informed decission before having an abortion. I do not know how to avoid this dilemma. Ban the technologies? That would be horrible! Limit their use to only be legal in some circumstances, and we are talking a restriction of rights. Letting people have all information and play "god"? There is quite a margin for abuse of the information to avoid girls (China) or avoid a child with a potential genetic defect.
Denying people oportunities only creates a more severe pressure for freeing the information. In the future it might even be possible to give information about sex and genetics of a potential child before inception and then we are really screwed when it comes to abortions... I do not think we need to change any laws here, but there is definately a very clear ethical problem to take into account in the future.
On August 17 2012 06:37 Sozai wrote: Like always people are bickering about trivial issues. Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt. The credibility of our currency itself is in jeopardy, while we continue to fight wars in the middle east. Our educational and health care systems are a joke when compared to other 1st world nations. And you guys are arguing about slavery, and at what point a muddled clump of cells becomes a human.
Get a grip
Most of the last 300 pages were about things like debt, foreign policy, education, health care... But thanks for popping in here to shit on the thread and us while contributing nothing of your own. If I were in a worse mood I'd probably report your post.
I think it's a fair comment to try to put the thread back on track.
On August 17 2012 06:37 Sozai wrote: Like always people are bickering about trivial issues. Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt. The credibility of our currency itself is in jeopardy, while we continue to fight wars in the middle east. Our educational and health care systems are a joke when compared to other 1st world nations. And you guys are arguing about slavery, and at what point a muddled clump of cells becomes a human.
Get a grip
2nded! I find it hilarious/depressing how easily voters are co-opted into voting for a party that doesn't represent their interests because of relatively minor social issues.
If I only had my self interest in mind, I probably would vote democrat 100% of the time. If I had children, I'd probably vote for their interests above mine, which would mostly mean voting against anyone who wants to continually balloon our debt. But I've got this old fashioned notion that democracy should be about more than competing self interests, unfortunately.
I really don't think a bunch of techniques to avoid crippling genetic diseases are a bad thing for the world. :o The notion that we should not Play God is ridiculous, as if God is a real concept.
On August 17 2012 06:37 Sozai wrote: Like always people are bickering about trivial issues. Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt. The credibility of our currency itself is in jeopardy, while we continue to fight wars in the middle east. Our educational and health care systems are a joke when compared to other 1st world nations. And you guys are arguing about slavery, and at what point a muddled clump of cells becomes a human.
Get a grip
2nded! I find it hilarious/depressing how easily voters are co-opted into voting for a party that doesn't represent their interests because of relatively minor social issues.
If I only had my self interest in mind, I probably would vote democrat 100% of the time. If I had children, I'd probably vote for their interests above mine, which would mostly mean voting against anyone who wants to continually balloon our debt. But I've got this old fashioned notion that democracy should be about more than competing self interests, unfortunately.
As Churchill put it: "Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains."
On August 17 2012 06:37 Sozai wrote: Like always people are bickering about trivial issues. Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt. The credibility of our currency itself is in jeopardy, while we continue to fight wars in the middle east. Our educational and health care systems are a joke when compared to other 1st world nations. And you guys are arguing about slavery, and at what point a muddled clump of cells becomes a human.
Get a grip
We've gone over a whole ton of issues in this thread. Hell, we just went over a huge section on taxes. Politics is complicated man. Abortion is just one of several diversions in here.
And social issues have serious economic consequences. Of course, conservatives never like to bring those up because they are almost exclusively in favor of the liberals. And liberals don't like to bring them up because we prefer to be warm/fuzzy and talk about 'civil rights' and things like that.
Anyway, here's Paul Ryan flip-flopping a bit on Ayn Rand:
On August 17 2012 06:37 Sozai wrote: Like always people are bickering about trivial issues. Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt. The credibility of our currency itself is in jeopardy, while we continue to fight wars in the middle east. Our educational and health care systems are a joke when compared to other 1st world nations. And you guys are arguing about slavery, and at what point a muddled clump of cells becomes a human.
Get a grip
2nded! I find it hilarious/depressing how easily voters are co-opted into voting for a party that doesn't represent their interests because of relatively minor social issues.
If I only had my self interest in mind, I probably would vote democrat 100% of the time. If I had children, I'd probably vote for their interests above mine, which would mostly mean voting against anyone who wants to continually balloon our debt. But I've got this old fashioned notion that democracy should be about more than competing self interests, unfortunately.
As Churchill put it: "Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains."
So if someone started out as a young conservative and ended up an old liberal, does that mean they have neither heart nor brains?
On August 17 2012 06:37 Sozai wrote: Like always people are bickering about trivial issues. Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt. The credibility of our currency itself is in jeopardy, while we continue to fight wars in the middle east. Our educational and health care systems are a joke when compared to other 1st world nations. And you guys are arguing about slavery, and at what point a muddled clump of cells becomes a human.
Get a grip
2nded! I find it hilarious/depressing how easily voters are co-opted into voting for a party that doesn't represent their interests because of relatively minor social issues.
If I only had my self interest in mind, I probably would vote democrat 100% of the time. If I had children, I'd probably vote for their interests above mine, which would mostly mean voting against anyone who wants to continually balloon our debt. But I've got this old fashioned notion that democracy should be about more than competing self interests, unfortunately.
Care to elaborate? I'm not really sure how you could manage to maintain such a viewpoint in this age of corporate sponsored political partisanship.
On August 17 2012 06:37 Sozai wrote: Like always people are bickering about trivial issues. Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt. The credibility of our currency itself is in jeopardy, while we continue to fight wars in the middle east. Our educational and health care systems are a joke when compared to other 1st world nations. And you guys are arguing about slavery, and at what point a muddled clump of cells becomes a human.
Get a grip
2nded! I find it hilarious/depressing how easily voters are co-opted into voting for a party that doesn't represent their interests because of relatively minor social issues.
If I only had my self interest in mind, I probably would vote democrat 100% of the time. If I had children, I'd probably vote for their interests above mine, which would mostly mean voting against anyone who wants to continually balloon our debt. But I've got this old fashioned notion that democracy should be about more than competing self interests, unfortunately.
As Churchill put it: "Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains."
On August 17 2012 06:37 Sozai wrote: Like always people are bickering about trivial issues. Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt. The credibility of our currency itself is in jeopardy, while we continue to fight wars in the middle east. Our educational and health care systems are a joke when compared to other 1st world nations. And you guys are arguing about slavery, and at what point a muddled clump of cells becomes a human.
Get a grip
2nded! I find it hilarious/depressing how easily voters are co-opted into voting for a party that doesn't represent their interests because of relatively minor social issues.
If I only had my self interest in mind, I probably would vote democrat 100% of the time. If I had children, I'd probably vote for their interests above mine, which would mostly mean voting against anyone who wants to continually balloon our debt. But I've got this old fashioned notion that democracy should be about more than competing self interests, unfortunately.
As Churchill put it: "Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains."
So if someone started out as a young conservative and ended up an old liberal, does that mean they have neither heart nor brains?
If the statement was definitively true I would be very afraid of the average professor in USA. I think that there is some trueth in it, but if you do not fit in the boxes, don't sweat it, dude!
On August 17 2012 06:37 Sozai wrote: Like always people are bickering about trivial issues. Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt. The credibility of our currency itself is in jeopardy, while we continue to fight wars in the middle east. Our educational and health care systems are a joke when compared to other 1st world nations. And you guys are arguing about slavery, and at what point a muddled clump of cells becomes a human.
Get a grip
2nded! I find it hilarious/depressing how easily voters are co-opted into voting for a party that doesn't represent their interests because of relatively minor social issues.
If I only had my self interest in mind, I probably would vote democrat 100% of the time. If I had children, I'd probably vote for their interests above mine, which would mostly mean voting against anyone who wants to continually balloon our debt. But I've got this old fashioned notion that democracy should be about more than competing self interests, unfortunately.
So, you would vote democrat 100% of the time regardless. Republican plans (overall) these days address the deficit less than democrat plans, by attaching tax breaks with the cuts to government.
On August 17 2012 06:37 Sozai wrote: Like always people are bickering about trivial issues. Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt. The credibility of our currency itself is in jeopardy, while we continue to fight wars in the middle east. Our educational and health care systems are a joke when compared to other 1st world nations. And you guys are arguing about slavery, and at what point a muddled clump of cells becomes a human.
Get a grip
2nded! I find it hilarious/depressing how easily voters are co-opted into voting for a party that doesn't represent their interests because of relatively minor social issues.
If I only had my self interest in mind, I probably would vote democrat 100% of the time. If I had children, I'd probably vote for their interests above mine, which would mostly mean voting against anyone who wants to continually balloon our debt. But I've got this old fashioned notion that democracy should be about more than competing self interests, unfortunately.
As Churchill put it: "Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains."
So if someone started out as a young conservative and ended up an old liberal, does that mean they have neither heart nor brains?
No, you could be a really bad combination of characters from the Wizard of Oz.
On August 17 2012 06:37 Sozai wrote: Like always people are bickering about trivial issues. Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt. The credibility of our currency itself is in jeopardy, while we continue to fight wars in the middle east. Our educational and health care systems are a joke when compared to other 1st world nations. And you guys are arguing about slavery, and at what point a muddled clump of cells becomes a human.
Get a grip
2nded! I find it hilarious/depressing how easily voters are co-opted into voting for a party that doesn't represent their interests because of relatively minor social issues.
If I only had my self interest in mind, I probably would vote democrat 100% of the time. If I had children, I'd probably vote for their interests above mine, which would mostly mean voting against anyone who wants to continually balloon our debt. But I've got this old fashioned notion that democracy should be about more than competing self interests, unfortunately.
As Churchill put it: "Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains."
Yeah, that was stupid from him.
Considering the "liberals" in his day were advocating for soviet style socialism, nah, not really.
On August 17 2012 06:37 Sozai wrote: Like always people are bickering about trivial issues. Our country is 17 trillion dollars in debt. The credibility of our currency itself is in jeopardy, while we continue to fight wars in the middle east. Our educational and health care systems are a joke when compared to other 1st world nations. And you guys are arguing about slavery, and at what point a muddled clump of cells becomes a human.
Get a grip
2nded! I find it hilarious/depressing how easily voters are co-opted into voting for a party that doesn't represent their interests because of relatively minor social issues.
If I only had my self interest in mind, I probably would vote democrat 100% of the time. If I had children, I'd probably vote for their interests above mine, which would mostly mean voting against anyone who wants to continually balloon our debt. But I've got this old fashioned notion that democracy should be about more than competing self interests, unfortunately.
As Churchill put it: "Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains."
Yeah, that was stupid from him.
Considering the "liberals" in his day were advocating for soviet style socialism, nah, not really.
No they weren't, and even if you take away the second part of the quote, the first part is still stupid.
EPT
