God is an Iraqi
POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 29, 2025 20:41
VIEWED: 12402
PAGE 4 of 12
Fremdfirma,
I gotta slam this
Okay, yeah sure, yay us, but I was much more interested in the non-abortion side of things, so I was trying to spin it :)
But I can't accept this, oh it's a depraved life, throw it away. This is an appalling argument. By this argument, let's legalize genocide against the poor. Right to life is a right to life, and things that are alive tend to want to stay alive. I can't even come close in words to how strongly I oppose this idea of "better off dead" Euthanisia is sick. It's genocide for the purpose of making the lives of those who don't want to have to deal with the problems of others so they can make there own lives a little more convenient. I don't think this is your position, but this is the logical endpoint of this type of thinking. Better if we don't even venture down this road.
The reason adoption is a nightmare is that most the unwanted children are aborted. So you end up getting kids from other countries, most of which are facing serious situations where crimial baby snatching rings are kidnapping kids and/or killing parents and selling babies for cash, and it's a mess, hence endless legal trouble, etc. A new adoption system, preferable private sector (I hate govt.) would be much better. Competition between several competitors could make things quite smooth.
A final point is that adoption people waste a lot of time vetting parents. What a total waste, and what a socialistic discriminatory practice anyway.
Here's why:
We don't vet parents before allowing them to give birth.
The only difference with adopting parents is usually one of biology. The genetic variance among humans exceeds the species barrier by a hair, and that means any two random humans may not be genetically compatible. Some people can't have children at all. This idea that these people who are biologically unfortunate should have to meet the standard of, let's be honest, a left leaning institution, is just plain fascist. I'm not in this group, and not looking to adopt, but objectively I'm appalled.
I basically get where you're coming from, so none of this is directed at you, just at the world state of affairs.
The foster system, IMHO, sucks pretty bad. This is a different issue, though. People's right to life simply can't be tied to the probably quality of that life, or you get dangerously close to giving justification to fascism again.
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Chris
Quote:
that's kind of a sad belief, don't you think?
The post you were responding I probably thought was about the most offensive one I ever read, but I don't think it was intended to be. I was just hoping for a retraction. Anyway, of course you're right. I think it goes further than that.
1. A child is born in a hospital and chances are only 10% that the child will ultimately survive and live a happy normal life, so you decide to take an axe and chop it's head off.
2. A group of cats are sitting in the pound. Statistically you know, if released into the wild, of the 10, only 3 will lead normal happy lives, then 3 will probably die in a year and the remaining 4 will contract feline leukemia. So you start out by killng the most dilapidated, and then, because you're not certain which will survive, you kill them all.
3. A group of children are dispondent because they live in foster care. They never had a decent family life, and they don't really have any friends other than each other. Some are already career criminals, and others are terminally ill. You can't stand the sight of this lack of normalness of shiny happy people, so you kill them all.
I can't find an application in which this kind of thinking isn't utterly appalling. One of my best friends was in foster care. He was given to a born again christian family which locked him in a room for his entire childhood. He had no friends and wasn't allowed to socialize with the family. He was essentially just slave labor. I've known a fair number of people in this or a similar situtaion, even some who were terminally ill on top. I didn't kill any of them. None of them ever said to me "I wish I were dead" or "Someone should've killed me before they put me through this." Ironically those are things said by troubled teens who've never really had these sorts of life threatening problems.
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Quote:At that point I call 911 and try to stop his bleeding, IF he no longer has the strength to overcome me.
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Chavez cannot move much and no longer poses any serious threat to you.
I think we're on the same page here.
Chrisisall
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Yeah, I knew we were, I was making the point that he has not at any point forfeited his right to life, killing him is self defense was the only option you had to ensure your own survival, and thus the RTL of it was a wash, and didn't apply. It was a minimum measure to protect your own RTL which you had a right to do.
I like Clint Eastwood movies okay. I'm not saying I want ot live in one. But if we live in Clint World, than WTF is govt. for?
Govt. is the most expensive thing we buy. Having it costs the avg. worker more than buying a new car every year. If we actually buy govt. it ought to provide something worth having.
At the moment all I get for my money is Iraq War, (my fed tax) and then some guys who threaten me with guns on the highway (my state tax).
I'd like to see some competition of govt. Maybe I could be a citizen of newamericancitizen.com instead of the USA, and then I'd be bound by its rules, and get its benefits. If this sounds absurd, bear in mind that this is essentially how it was done in Germany before the Christians came.
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Quote:We have to go with what we get; I just have no problem with the aborting of an unwanted pregnancy because from my view, you're essentially starting from scratch, again.
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I've known a fair number of people in this or a similar situtaion, even some who were terminally ill on top. I didn't kill any of them. None of them ever said to me "I wish I were dead" or "Someone should've killed me before they put me through this." Ironically those are things said by troubled teens who've never really had these sorts of life threatening problems.
I still like the bus analogy, miss that one, catch another.
But of course, like any other view, it can be perverted into 'Let's kill starving poor people to relieve them of their burden', and that's not likely to ever become an acceptable view for any civilized group- I hope.
I think we're almost on the same page here.(?)
Chrisisall
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Ah, the other side of that coin.... there was a place on the Long Island Expressway where it dips down (near Roslyn/Glen Cove exits for you NYers) and anyone going 55 in an easterly direction would invariably exceed the speed limit for a short time due to the decline; only the most speed-aware would use their breaks for such a small run. However, the police became aware of this section, and had it manned round the clock as it became the 'fish in a barrel' area to shovel out tickets. Was it helping anyone be more safe? NO. It was a cash cow for the local authorities. Laws= money, not safety or protection.
Yeah, I hear you on that one. I was driving in New Hampshire recently (where I grew up), but I now have the misfortune to have Massachusetts plates. I was traveling with the flow of traffic (which, admittedly, was speeding in itself, but not to an extreme degree). Came upon a downward slope in the highway, and neglected to hit the brakes. Next thing I know, I'm pulled over and smacked between the eyes with a $216 ticket. My first. I didn't know they could cost that much.
Anyway, I agree that speeding tickets are just a cash cow. Meanwhile, you can drive as recklessly as you want at lower speeds, and you'll never get in trouble despite the fact that what you are doing is far more dangerous. In fact, I'd wager failing to signal a lane shift in moderate traffic is much more dangerous than speeding. It's just not as easy to catch.
The speeding thing was just an example though. Hopefully the point made sense.
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Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
... then the incarceration is not a restriction of freedom of the convict, but an enforment of the freedom of the non-convict as a minimum measure.
Interesting point. So you're saying that the rights of potential victims are given a greater weight than the rights of the convict. The victim's right to be safe from the criminal trumps the criminal's right to walk free. I might be able to buy that.
Unfortunately, it gets a bit messier when you think of a one-time crime. Maybe somebody loses money gambling, and realizes the error of his ways. He'll never again get himself into such a tight spot, but just this once he needs to knock off a convenience store to avoid getting his thumbs broken by Jimbo. Since the ex-gambler will never again rob a convenience store, nobody else's rights or safety are in danger. So he should go free, right? There is no potential victim whose rights trump the ex-gambler. If we punish him, then we're just being vengeful.
Problem with viewing incarceration in this way is that it would actually damage the cause of prevention. If you follow the idea to its somewhat silly end, you'd have thousands of people doing illegal things and then crying (maybe even honestly), "But it was just that once!" and then getting off scott free.
Quote:
Again, you have no right to speed, or a right to drive. You have a licensed priviledge to drive, and never had a priviledge to speed.
Never meant to imply that people did have a priviledge to speed. I was really just trying to make the point that if you don't do anything wrong, then you have absolutely nothing to fear from the state (not true, of course, since false convictions do occur, but I'm trying to keep things simple).
So yeah, I guess my semantics are a bit strong. The government *does* punish people. However, while the criminal does not *welcome* punishment, he is the only one who can create the *opportunity* for it.
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It's a punishment system and comes dangerously close to having a legal system based on vengeance.
The legal system should be based on prevention, if it is to exist at all. I am coming from an extremist position where I wouldn't be heartbroken if I woke up tomorrow and there was no govt. and so it wouldn't bother me if there was no law either. The only problem with lawless society is that it falls to easily into law by vengeance, and if we legislate it as such, then we really haven't created an improvement on total lawlessness.
This all reminds me very much of a Philosophy of Law class I took a few years ago in college. Basically, I do think of our laws as preventative. They are also punishment, but not just punishment for punishment's sake. I don't see our system as vengeful. If you were so inclined, it could very easily be seen as a system of threats of punishment - which is not much nicer than a system of vengeance when you get right down to it, but would at least be more preventative in its goals.
Still, I don't even see the system as a threatening one. When a mother tells her child that hitting his brother will get him a time out, that is not a threat. It's a consequence. It's a promise. That's how I see our laws.
Now there are of course some very silly extensions of my approach. For example, if I buy a CD in a music store, am I really *buying* it or am I stealing it and paying a petty theft settlement outside of court? It's really not so different, I guess...
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Quote:
Originally posted by Dreamtrove:
Citizen, try to stay in the bounds of reality. This is like saying the ultimate right to bear arms is to give everyone a nuke. Radiohead aside, we want to live in this world.
I thought you were asking the logical extreme of the RTL argument, and that’s where I see it leading, eventually, if unfettered by the other POV. Yeah it's entirely unrealistic but that's where I see it leading if taken to its logical conclusion.
However, you’re American, right? Kudos on recognising the Radiohead quote
.As for the right to bear arms stuff I'm not sure, again logical extremes, a gun is a tool, but a tool that from conception to reality is designed to kill.
I mean we all still don't carry swords, do we
.Quote:
Still and all, we can't have people walking around with nukes. The best way, IMHO, to deal with the problem is via a bilateral disarmement, whereby US forces and citizens agree to scale back from machines guns hopefully towards some non-lethal but equally combat effective weapons.
I agree, to a point, but that point is kind of outta the scope of this discussion.
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When life begins is obviously subjective, and clearly a lot of us would disagree. I hold it is an irrelevant argument. A human will come to pass if no intervention is made, so just as the failure to intervene to stop a murder is accessory to the crime...
I was stating my own opinion on that, I don't see a couple of cells as a Human, and not all pregnancies result in a viable birth, beyond that it's all very subjective.
I accept your point on not every right to lifer wants a ban, which is why I made the distinction of moral extremists.
One thing I will say, which is one of the reasons I'm not pro-pro life, is I see a lot of extremism (even violent extremism) on the side of the pro-lifers, and little if any on the side of the pro-choicers. This is something you don't often see; usually the extremism is more 50/50.
Also my own thoughts on the issue are backed by real life situations I've experienced. If I may share an anecdote:
A very close friend of mine had an abortion once. Her mother nearly died of a retained placenta, and so did she after she gave birth to her eldest daughter. This wasn't the reason for her abortion though, her eldest was born some years post, and she had no reason to assume she'd suffer from a retained placenta.
The reason she had an abortion was because she was forced into it by her abusive boyfriend.
Whether abortion was illegal or not she would have had an abortion. The only difference is whether she had it in a licensed clinic with an experienced doctor or in a seedy kitchen with some guy who killed a cow once.
I realise your not advocating a ban, but pretty much all I see of the RTL side of the argument is the desire to ban abortion.
If abortion had been banned (as I believe will happen if the RTL 'side' gets it's way as a whole) my friend would most likely be dead, or infertile.
Since both her children (my god children) were born some years after the abortion, then neither would be alive now.
Such I see the banning of abortion could very well be counterproductive to the RTL campaign.
I think that the RTL campaign is most essentially toward a ban on abortion, and the pro-choice is against a ban on abortion.
That's to say I'm pro choice because I'm against a ban not because I'm pro abortion.
Under my idea of the two ideals I would label you as a pro-choicer, Dreamtrove, if that helps your understanding of my stance any.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
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Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
One thing I will say, which is one of the reasons I'm not pro-pro life, is I see a lot of extremism (even violent extremism) on the side of the pro-lifers, and little if any on the side of the pro-choicers. This is something you don't often see; usually the extremism is more 50/50.
Count yourself lucky. I have seen it.
I do of course agree that most extremism on the subject of abortion tends to come from Christian conservatives. I myself am Roman Catholic, but really not very devout. All things being equal, I do like to think there is something more to this world than it seems, and something more to us as humans than simply muscle tissue urged to action by the flashing of synapses. But that doesn't mean I believe every last word in the Bible. Far from it. I generally think its heart is in the right place, but I don't take it as fact.
I remember in my Philosophy of Law class, we were discussing a theoretical case of a man who thought he'd committed adultery simply by lusting after a woman who was not his wife, since there is at least one passage in the Bible that says this is how it works. Somebody said something like "The Pope says x, y, and z," to which I responded openly, "Yeah, well the Pope says a lot of things." Big laugh, but it's true. Before all Christians are branded crazy-people, there are those of us who can look at an issue and make up our own minds.
(Long story short, anyway, I don't really think my position on abortion has anything to do with my religion.)
But I digress - I've met people who are not only pro-choice extremists, they in fact openly identified themselves as pro-abortion. One of them (one of the truest jackasses I ever did meet by the way), insisted that the world was so overcrowded with humans that only a select few in the next few generations should be allowed to procreate. All others should be required to take birth control or have abortions.
The other was a member of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance (which as far as I can tell is nearly a militant pro-choice group). She stood up on a table in our dorm's common room and gave an impromptu speech once about how having children forces women into stereotyped gender roles, which represents a social step back for all women everywhere, and therefore all women everywhere should have abortions regardless of whether they (selfishly) want to keep the child or not.
This girl was incredibly annoying. Thankfully, she transferred out of my school after a year because it wasn't liberal enough for her. I can't really conceive of this, of course, because the school was the single most stiflingly liberal, PC place I have ever been in my life. We're talking 1984, thoughtcrime levels of social conditioning. I try to see both sides of an argument (and I hope that has come across in the discussion so far), but at this place I couldn't, because there were never two sides to any argument. Dissenters were afraid to speak.
So yeah. Didn't exactly love the school I went to.
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Mugtwaine,
Generally speaking, the punish all convenience store robbers equally is a 'rule by example,' so it's not really vengeance.
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.
The Chinese justice system is almost exclusively based on 'rule by example.' The end effect of this is the Chinese keep pretty much in line, the crime rate is low, and everyone in China hates the govt. to the point that any random citizen if they could just push a button and kill them all, they might do it. I think this is not a condition you would ever want your country to be in. Since the Chinese govt. has a strong hand, it can keep order. But as people saw in 1989, whenever that hand slips, all out revolution may ensue. China is currently very close to that with their takeover of Taiwan. They need to be very carefu. If Taiwan should come to a conflict, and Godlessness forbid they were to lose said conflict, the empire might come down like a house of cards.
I think overall our legal and justice system is horribly flawed. It rehabilitates no one, costs a fortune, and holds a population of millions while generating no benefit for society from these people. It's pretty close to a total loss. Designing a better one would be another thread which I'd be up for if you want to start it.
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