God is an Iraqi
POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 29, 2025 20:41
VIEWED: 12402
PAGE 5 of 12
Citizen,
We do listen to radiohead in the states, or some of us do. We're not all trapped inside a metal box of Britney and Fitty.
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usually the extremism is more 50/50.
Activism, violent and not, used to be almost entirely a thing of the left. Now more and more I would think that it is right. I would confess that Osama Bin Laden is a right wing extremist, something I say with a fair amount of shame, but I think it's true. He's not at all socialist or pro-govt., and his arguments are all based on "protection of a way of life" which is probably the signature right wing framework, and not focussed on "universal equality" the signature left wing framework. So yeah, I think this sort of activity is becoming part of the right, and ceasing to be so much part of the left. I don't really know what this says.
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I would label you as a pro-choicer, Dreamtrove, if that helps your understanding of my stance any.
Did you read my posts?! Hmm. I'm not sure it does. I'm solidly RTL. Pro-choice to me pretty much falls within the spectrum of 'right to kill' to me, not a position I ever support. I may disagree with the Christian extremists on the most effective means to stop abortion, but I definitely agree with them on the goal. I don't think I'm even a moderate on RTL, because I wouldn't support the 'rape and incest' exemption. I do support the 'life of the mother' exemption.
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Such I see the banning of abortion could very well be counterproductive to the RTL campaign.
This is very possible. It would merit a great deal of study. If done, 'twould be best that 'twere done slowly. I think most RTLers get that no one is pro abortion. Well, I have a cousin who is pro-abortion, but he's a freak. He's to the right of me, too. He just wants to limit the number of humans.
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Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance
Clever name. Did you report her to the Paternal Educators for Non-Intervention Society?
For those who misses it:
Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance
Fe.Ma.Le. All.
BTW, yes, education has been taken over by the 1984 left, we on the true right must act. Bush is of course the 1984 left. For those who don't see it, and don't know about PNAC and it's communist origins, it should be enough to say that Bush is lockstep with Tony Bliar on all his policies.
But I don't want to simply attack the left because then they'll fight back :) So appologies.
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Mugtwaine:
Yeah, the 'nutjob' contingent of any argument. Like the animal rights protesters who dig up the dead bodies of old women to protest. They most likely don't care one bit about animal rights.
I imagine your FMLA 'friend' liked to play the part of the repressed minority somewhat...
What I meant was that the radical extremists planting bombs in abortion clinics are on the pro-life side, and I don't see that level of violence on the side of pro-choice.
Your school, btw, doesn’t sound too liberal, more like a PC tyranny...
Dreamtrove:
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Originally posted by Dreamtrove:
We do listen to radiohead in the states, or some of us do. We're not all trapped inside a metal box of Britney and Fitty.
You mean you guys don't all listen to gangsta rap
? I just hadn't realised that Radiohead was all that pervasive within America.I did indeed read your posts, and your approach seemed very much toward, give people the choice but educate them not to use it. Hence what I meant by pro choice.
I see a ban on abortion, even if there are extreme circumstance excemptions, in ending up back where we were before legalised abortions, and I see that very much as a 'bad' backwards step.
I'd be careful making distinctions like pro-choice being right to kill.
Sure, from a right to life position it may seem like pro-choice is right to death, but from a pro-choice stance right to life could very well seem like anti-choice, and these distinctions could be part of the reason these discussions degenerate.
In other words, I'm pro choice for some (I think) very good practical reasons, not because I'm pro-death.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
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Originally posted by Dreamtrove:
Paternal Educators for Non-Intervention Society?
LOL!
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I happen to think 'rule by example' justice is an inherently flawed system. It creates fear in the populous, so they more or less obey you, but fear breeds hatred.
Interesting that you see it that way. It's true that most people become aware of a law by witnessing the example of people who have already broken it. But the laws are there before they are broken.
In fact, there are usually well defined guidelines within which a sentence can fall - guidelines that are outlined and approved through a somewhat flawed but mostly reasonable democratic system. A judge can't simply decide on a whim that certain behavior is illegal and punish it arbitrarily. A high profile example of this would be how Napster and other file sharing software was perfectly legal until only a few years ago - people were scrambling to put the legislation together because in the meantime they were essentially being robbed legally.
This is where I think we as a country differ from China. I don't know how their legislative system works, but I'd wager ours is a bit more public-input friendly. I agree that if unreasonably harsh laws were imposed upon us without representation, our country would be headed toward an eventual revolt. That is after all how the country began in the first place.
As it is, I believe our laws do instill an appropriate fear of wrongdoing. The point of criminal laws is to discourage bad behavior. I have no problem obeying those laws when I had a hand in deciding what they are. We obey the state, but if our democracy is functioning then we're really only obeying ourselves anyway. We shouldn't have a problem playing by the rules if we're the ones who made up the game.
Sorry if I've rambled or said the same thing six times in only slightly different ways. I'm tired.
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It's been an interesting thread. But I come back to my original concept, which is that in general people are in love with the IDEA of a human but that the actuality is, alas, much more complex. There is a lady in our lab - a good Catholic- who carried a trisomy 18 baby to term. She, her husband, and the doctors all knew that the baby was doomed to die a horrible, struggling, gasping death- the only question was whether it would die in childbirth or live for a few days. Was giving birth to this baby mercy, or torture? And then there was my MIL who was mentally incompetent and riddled with cancer and consumed with pain and fear near the end of her life. Is overdosing a tad with morphine (and potentially hastening her death) a bad thing or good thing?
I struggle with the specifics each time. For me there seem to be no clear-cut answers. But I know I have seen ONE good death and that was- ironically- my cat's. He had an incurable case of megacolon, he was vomitting stool and starving. So I took him to the vet's where he had been treated many times before and they sedated him, as if for surgery. In his experience this had always led to relief and he died, purring, under my hands.
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Please don't think they give a shit.
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I'd wager ours is a bit more public-input friendly
I wasn't quite sure what this was supposed to mean. There are several things about the chinese justice system which would seem bizarre or even unfair to us.
1. It's the extreme 'rule by example' society. Often such systems do have the laws written in advance because they know they'll be broken. In China they sometimes see a behavior as undesirable, pass a law, and then execute people that day on the street for the same crime.
2. All charged are assumed guilty. Everything after that is a plea bargain. The state is supreme, and if you deny their claims, you are thwarting the state. This is what I get from Chinese people. They don't hate their country at all, but some prefer not to live there. I know two who live there now, but say this sort of stuff. Lately they don't say it now because the govt. has started tapping email.
My sister in law is Chinese also, and both her parents spent many years in prison. Her mothers jaw was broken in a torture chamber, and never rehealed. They were career communists, but they opposed some genocidal policy of the party during the cultural revolution, so they were sentenced to decades in prison and torture. They've told me stories over the years, including quite recently, there's been basically no change in the concept of law and rule in the upper eschelons. They still see their goal as a nation to dominate the world, but it's a long term plan, conquering just a tiny bit at a time.
The takeover of Taiwan has been concurrent with the annexation of Iraq by us. The two have many parallels, not just that they're both wealthy first world countries with populations of 23 million each.
The differences will be clear when it's all said and done, Taiwan's chance of freedom might head for zero. Iraq's chances depend on who succeeds Bush. It might very well fall to Al Qaeda, or become a lifeless US puppet state. Taiwan is almost certainly headed for lifeless puppet state.
I'm not at all anti-Chinese, and you may have seen that in my posts blasting the ideas that China is to blame for our economic state. I do have serious problems with the commies. And Bush, whose supporters really do fall into that group.
We're definitely very different from communist China, but I just like to use my imagination of where something like the Patriot Act might ultimately lead, were all its provisions to be ultimately enforces. I think it's good to do this. It's bad to be a tyrannical dictatorship. It's good not to even be on the road towards that destination.
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As it is, I believe our laws do instill an appropriate fear of wrongdoing. The point of criminal laws is to discourage bad behavior. I have no problem obeying those laws when I had a hand in deciding what they are. We obey the state, but if our democracy is functioning then we're really only obeying ourselves anyway. We shouldn't have a problem playing by the rules if we're the ones who made up the game.
I'm not sure. I guess I basically agree we're okay behaviorwise. I think that not much would change if law disappeared. Not here anyway. Some laws people ignore all the time, other ones they obey. I don't think anyone really knows the law. Not here. If law disappeared, the catskills would remain the same. People would be just as decent tomorrow as today. I don't know how it might effect life in the city.
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Signym
I think all of these are right-to-die issues. I don't support RTD, but I think it's an entirely separate issue, somewhere within the realm of right ot liberty. I guess right to die probably requires some belief in afterlife which my chosen faith doesn't really accord. My cat, therefore, died horribly, yet lived much longer.
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Quote:Now this is where I get confused. What does RTL mean? That no postive action- too much morphine perhaps- will be taken to end a life? Does RTL mean that all efforts will be taken to preserve life? ANY life? At any quality? It seems that RTL will inevitably conflict with RTD in certain circumstances. Death and life are two sides of the same coin: inseparable. You can't discuss one w/o the other IMHO.
I don't support RTD, but I think it's an entirely separate issue
BTW, this is more than theoretical to me. The forum where I've been hanging out for the past seven years deals w/ neurocompromised children. Some children just have easily controlled seizures. Others are in pain, fully dependent, able to react only on a primitive level. One mom had a daughter die prematurely (in her opinion, due to doctor's persuasion) of mito disease. With her NEXT daugher she fought tooth and nail through multiple organ failures, total parenteral nutrition, several central line infections, experimental nutritional regimens... in the end, she had to let that daughter go, too. Fight for life? Choose death? It all depends on the actual circumstances.
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Please don't think they give a shit.
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RTL is your personal right to live that no one else can take from you. for us RTLers, that starts at the moment that your life becomes likely if no one else intervenes to stop it. For the pro-choices it begins either at birth, or the point you can survive if tranfered to an incubator, depending.
Right to die is the right of you to choose to end your own life. To me it's a silly argument since all life is better than no life.
All of the conditions you describe are ultimately curable. The decisions you choose seem simple ones. Life is a challenge, and life for the terminally ill is a larger one. If you have a condition that no one can cure, that's probably just a matter of people in the medical community not having had people they care about with the condition. But now you do, so it actually falls upon you to cure it. I know this may seem like a rough gig, and it is. But that's the challenge that you're faced with. Sure, you can give up, but you will get no support from me for doing so. I am aware of how rough this sounds, but since I was in this position myself, and I know a fair amount about the subject, I'm sure it can be done. Most of these inherited problems come from the breakdown of some enzymatic function. Is it possible that in such a battle, you would lose? Yes, it's even probable. But does that mean it's not worth fighting? Not IMHO.
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