Mod Passive Aggressive Posting? - Page 5

On November 15 2012 11:17 MountainDewJunkie wrote:
Calling a fetus a baby is just a way to paint abortions as morally wrong because no one wants to kill babies (right?), because even if a baby is technically a fetus, the use of the word baby is just to arouse feelings of the "common" definition of baby, namely, a living, cute, innocent gift from above.

It's like a loaded question: "Do you support killing innocent babies?" instead of asking if someone is pro-choice.

The vagueness of terms should certainly monitored and moderated in some cases. Especially when their primary use is to appeal to your emotions rather than your intellect. Even if the argument itself is based on morality or something else subjective, it should not validate the use logical fallacies and dishonest language.

On November 15 2012 11:17 MountainDewJunkie wrote:
Calling a fetus a baby is just a way to paint abortions as morally wrong because no one wants to kill babies (right?), because even if a baby is technically a fetus, the use of the word baby is just to arouse feelings of the "common" definition of baby, namely, a living, cute, innocent gift from above.

It's like a loaded question: "Do you support killing innocent babies?" instead of asking if someone is pro-choice.

The vagueness of terms should certainly monitored and moderated in some cases. Especially when their primary use is to appeal to your emotions rather than your intellect. Even if the argument itself is based on morality or something else subjective, it should not validate the use logical fallacies and dishonest language.

On November 15 2012 12:12 jdseemoreglass wrote:

Moral issues are completely about emotion, not about "intellect." Values are based upon value, which is a subjective emotional assessment by definition. It makes no sense to even talk about eliminating emotional arguments with respect to a moral debate. Empathy is the foundation for all morality.

In either case, you may disagree personally with the use of a term or specific argument, but that doesn't mean the site should restrict it as a matter of protocol, which is the whole point here. Just look at the terms themselves... Pro-choice is meant to imply the other side is anti-choice. Pro-life is meant to imply the other side is anti-life. Debate is all about words and how you use them, and restricting the words that can be used is to restrict the arguments that can be made, and is therefore stifling opinions.

On November 15 2012 12:56 HULKAMANIA wrote:
Once again, there's nothing absurd or illogical about referring to unborn children as babies, whether you append some qualifier or not. It's an acceptable use, preserved in idioms and ratified by lexicographers for a great number of native English speakers. Calling unborn children babies is no more or less rhetorical sleight of hand than calling them fetuses.

Coming to some sort of understanding that would allow constructive dialogue to take place between the pro-life, pro-choice camps could be useful. Insisting that the other side use your terminology and then calling them ridiculous, unintelligent, and lazy when they balk at your demands isn't all that useful.

On November 15 2012 13:16 micronesia wrote:

I often see pictures of cute babies (say, 1-4 months) on bumper stickers that say things like "abortion kills babies." While there may be a linguistic justification for using the word baby to refer to an unborn child, such ambiguity in what 'baby' means is taken advantage of by people with agendas all the time. Why does it make sense to put a 3 month old baby on an abortion bumper sticker? Why not put a 30 year old crack head who is dying from leukemia? They each have the same amount of a relationship with abortion (barring infanticide/murder).

Yes, obviously they don't put a picture of a miscarried fetus because well, that's gross. This doesn't change my point though. There is a reason why people have trouble discussing the pros/cons of abortion with people who intentionally refer to unborn children as babies.

On November 15 2012 13:20 dAPhREAk wrote:

do you honestly think that the conversation will go any better if they refer to it as "fetus killing" rather than "baby killing?"

On November 15 2012 13:20 dAPhREAk wrote:

do you honestly think that the conversation will go any better if they refer to it as "fetus killing" rather than "baby killing?"

On November 15 2012 12:56 HULKAMANIA wrote:
Once again, there's nothing absurd or illogical about referring to unborn children as babies, whether you append some qualifier or not. It's an acceptable use, preserved in idioms and ratified by lexicographers for a great number of native English speakers. Calling unborn children babies is no more or less rhetorical sleight of hand than calling them fetuses.

Coming to some sort of understanding that would allow constructive dialogue to take place between the pro-life, pro-choice camps could be useful. Insisting that the other side use your terminology and then calling them ridiculous, unintelligent, and lazy when they balk at your demands isn't all that useful.

On November 15 2012 13:22 micronesia wrote:

I'm not sure how to respond to such a crazy loaded question lol

Can you just stick to the spirit of what I'm going for?

On November 15 2012 13:26 KwarK wrote:

Yes.
Example below.
Pro lifer: "you're okay with killing babies"
Pro choice: "..... you're fucking retarded"

Example #2
Pro lifer: "you're okay with killing foetus"
Pro choice: "yes, as long as it's before it can exist independently outside of the womb (or whatever other rules that pro-choicer puts on it)"
Pro lifer: "oh.... well, I think you shouldn't kill a foetus because...."
Pro choice: "well I disagree because...."

On November 15 2012 13:30 dAPhREAk wrote:

well, the idea is that if you change the words they can use then you can somehow lessen the emotions involved in the discussion with the idea that it makes the discussion better.

On November 15 2012 13:16 micronesia wrote:

I often see pictures of cute babies (say, 1-4 months) on bumper stickers that say things like "abortion kills babies." While there may be a linguistic justification for using the word baby to refer to an unborn child, such ambiguity in what 'baby' means is taken advantage of by people with agendas all the time. Why does it make sense to put a 3 month old baby on an abortion bumper sticker? Why not put a 30 year old crack head who is dying from leukemia? They each have the same amount of a relationship with abortion (barring infanticide/murder).

Yes, obviously they don't put a picture of a miscarried fetus because well, that's gross. This doesn't change my point though. There is a reason why people have trouble discussing the pros/cons of abortion with people who intentionally refer to unborn children as babies.

On November 15 2012 13:32 dAPhREAk wrote:

example #3
Pro lifer: "you're okay with killing babies"
Pro choice: "yes, as long as it's before it can exist independently outside of the womb (or whatever other rules that pro-choicer puts on it)"
Pro lifer: "oh.... well, I think you shouldn't kill a baby because...."

why dont you just ban the people who call the pro-lifers retards?

On November 15 2012 13:37 HULKAMANIA wrote:

People have trouble discussing the pros/cons of abortion with people who intentionally refer to unborn children as fetuses as well. People have trouble discussing abortion. Period. I don't know that there's a more vexed issue in our shared public lives today.

In one sense, a one-to-four month baby is much more comparable to an unborn child than a 30 year old crackhead who is dying from leukemia, and the human life ended by abortion is much more similar to that of a newborn than that of an adult. But I guess that's neither here nor there. I mean you might think that pro-life people are guilty of emotional manipulation by talking about "babies" in the context of abortion. That's fine. I happen to think that pro-choice people are guilty of emotional manipulation by using vocabulary like "fetus" to distance themselves from the act of abortion. I also think they're frequently guilty of emotional manipulation when they frame the issue as a necessary component of women's liberation, as something only opposed by misogynists and fanatics.

One approach to this impasse is to do our best to respect one another's worldviews and the values and the emotions that each one of those worldviews includes. This would include, I think, allowing people to express themselves in the terms they find most fitting to the debate and/or to collaborate on more neutral lexical ground.

Another approach would be to continue to insist that the other side adopt our language and the worldview that such language inheres. I don't think that approach goes much of anywhere, personally.

On November 15 2012 13:39 KwarK wrote:

Because making the argument that a pro choice advocate is in favour of infanticide is such a stupid thing to say that calling them a retard is an act of charity. Someone stupid enough to actually say that may have gotten to that point in their life without noticing that they're a complete moron because they're simply too stupid to understand it, flat out telling them is a kindness.