tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post4345878569553293456..comments2024-03-27T23:12:08.917-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: A widening chasm... Is there a "left" vs. "right"? And the Russian mob.David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-8547023799560811632019-07-20T14:37:06.878-07:002019-07-20T14:37:06.878-07:00onward
onward
onward<br />onward<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-72193287680087269032019-07-20T14:36:38.691-07:002019-07-20T14:36:38.691-07:00Jon S. Wonderful story.
Lawrence, you are lawyerin...Jon S. Wonderful story.<br />Lawrence, you are lawyering. You know damned well there are lefty flakes who give Hannity etc ammo. We cannot, should not repress them. But dig it, the ONLY hope Trump has in 2020 is if they can help stir a leftist insurrection splitting our side.<br /><br />You know this. Moreover we will not be tolerantly and indulgently shrugging hi a Nader or Stein rears their ugly heads. We'll fight the outright enemies of civilization that they are.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-38959674277267737912019-07-20T14:22:12.101-07:002019-07-20T14:22:12.101-07:00... spit on soldiers and veterans."
I assume ...... spit on soldiers and veterans."<br />I assume you are referring to the treatment of men returning from duty in Vietnam. Are you under the impression that this actually happened? If not, why mention it? Lawrencehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01897088393026835108noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-54897852476018528522019-07-20T12:48:37.027-07:002019-07-20T12:48:37.027-07:00An obviously rhetorical question, but when an oran...An obviously rhetorical question, but when an orange-haired demagogue spews forth hatred while vowing to "Make America Great <b>Again</b>" (with the clear implication that she does not currently merit that distinction), why is it not incumbent upon <b>him</b> to go back where he came from?<br /><br />Liberals are routinely demonized for not loving America enough, for "hating" America, but in any case for <b>criticizing</b> America. But the problem apparently isn't the criticism per se. It's the fact that the criticism is of our Republican masters. It's acceptable and even expected for <b>them</b> to criticize America as long as the criticism amounts to "America isn't right-wing enough."Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-40947394948788520392019-07-20T08:18:08.667-07:002019-07-20T08:18:08.667-07:00Having sex is not in and of itself consent to beco...Having sex is not in and of itself consent to become pregnant. That's why we have several methods of birth control - if I'm using a condom, and she has an IUD, there's a reasonable expectation that there <i>won't</i> be children as a result, and if there are, that's a problem, not something to which anyone "consented".<br /><br />On the other paw, I can feel this argument a bit, because there was a period during which, for complex legal reasons, my fiancee and I couldn't get married. However, we did want children, so we stopped using birth control (which of course meant we were "consenting" - hell, we were <i>planning</i>). So of course she got pregnant - but then the fear hit her, because her parents were part of an Evangelical church and she feared what they'd say if they knew she had gotten pregnant out of wedlock. And then there was the first checkup, where the doctor said that based on certain measurements there was a 30% chance our baby would have Down's syndrome.<br /><br />We had to have a discussion, given these factors - should we keep the baby, who at that point was maybe ten weeks along, or should she consider abortion? She was against amniocentesis, which would permit a genetic assay to rule Down's in or out, because it's an invasive procedure and presented some risk itself. Over about the next week, after considerable talking and worrying, we elected to go ahead with the pregnancy, a decision we haven't regretted for a moment since (well, I think there might have been a couple of times during labor when she wasn't so certain, but... :) ).<br /><br />(Parenthetically - her mom was disappointed that we didn't wait, but when she saw us all together, she relented. Well, that and both her mom and dad doted on our little girl - they turned out to be really into that "grandparents" thing. And when we finally did get married, we had a lovely moment when Hillary was coming up the aisle, and two-year-old Morgana wriggled loose from Grandma, ran over to jump on the train of Mommy's dress, and shouted, "Yippee!")<br /><br />My point here is that we <i>had</i> a choice. Despite what her parents might have wished, no law dictated our actions - all the options short of anthropophagy were open to us. And in my opinion, that's exactly how it should be, for everyone.Jon S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13585842845661267920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-76938085908574221672019-07-20T05:55:15.745-07:002019-07-20T05:55:15.745-07:00Dr Brin:
Sorry, I deem it quite possible for a wo...Dr Brin:<br /><i><br />Sorry, I deem it quite possible for a woman to choose to be harmfully evil. Not as often as men, but it is within reach and we have a right to look at it, when it happens.<br /></i><br /><br />I don't think what's being argued here is that women are always good. At least that's not what I'm arguing. Priority given to the woman is about her biological risk with pregnancy.<br /><br />Again, I'll assert that the types of laws being pushed by the anti-choice lawmakers are <b>not</b> aimed at women being harmfully evil:<br /><br />* They oppose contraception as well as abortion<br />* The aim to prosecute women for natural miscarriages, making the worst time of her life into a crime to accuse her of<br />* They actually prosecuted a woman for getting <b>into</b> a fight in which she was shot and her baby died (while <b>not</b> prosecuting the other woman who shot her)<br /><br />Do you ever caution Republicans not to give <b>us</b> ammunition when they make clear that protecting babies is a cover story for their intent to control women's bodies?Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-91306068068473173012019-07-20T04:39:06.581-07:002019-07-20T04:39:06.581-07:00I feel like this current argument violates my '...I feel like this current argument violates my 'thousand year rule.'<br /><br />Will people care about a topic in a thousand years? If not, then it's not that important now.<br /><br />What a few individuals do to a few other individuals, however heinous, almost never affects the welfare and survival of the many, far into the future. And by the many, I include trees, fish, frogs and bugs, because we have never proven that the human race could survive in a world without them. The human population is over what the planet can carry sustainably, and probably has been over capacity for a hundred years. We are reaping the whirlwind.<br /><br />I don't worry about giving the anti-abortion fascists ammunition; they make their own. They make up their own 'facts'. They act and speak always in bad faith. They are the reason any compromise Dr. Brin may suggest cannot work. Barry Goldwater predicted how they would govern:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/777519-mark-my-word-if-and-when-these-preachers-get-control" rel="nofollow">“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.”</a><br /><br />The fascists do not even care if we survive; Jesus will ride in with the cavalry, right?<br /><br />And here we are arguing about fetuses that, if brought to term, may not reach adulthood without seeing environmental collapse or nuclear war...TCBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08153506222271955110noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-15711062455953534312019-07-20T00:53:33.004-07:002019-07-20T00:53:33.004-07:00The word "dark" here is particularly unf...The word "dark" here is particularly unfortunate.reasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09488435543492412991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-22647685349128074792019-07-19T20:59:05.833-07:002019-07-19T20:59:05.833-07:00DD: "Which would make your 8.5 month "ab...DD: "Which would make your 8.5 month "abortion" just an early birth ..."<br /><br />Facile, my friend. Does this mean it is illegal for the carrier of the 8.5month fetus to reject it and expel it, except under hospital conditions where it has a best-chance of survival? Okay. <br /><br />But every week of early birth carries a statistical risk of problems re birth weight and side effects like poor eyesight. Can a guardian be appointed to file suit on the infant's behalf? After birth, for damages? Or before? <br /><br />Those odds get worse the farther back in time you go. It can affect future fertility. Who is the "woman" here? JUST the carrier? or her damaged - unwelcome and rejected daughter?<br /><br />Yes, these cases are spectacularly rare! So why fight over them, giving the enemy a chance to use them to call us dogmatic, murder-allowing assholes, and thus discrediting 99.9999% of womens' tright to keep the procedure "safe, legal and rare"? Should the very, very few women who are (under these conditions) making an unambiguously evil decision, be given such power?<br /><br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-28365738977933463402019-07-19T18:55:31.679-07:002019-07-19T18:55:31.679-07:00Consciously elective abortion is a rare phenomenon...Consciously elective abortion is a rare phenomenon peculiar to certain hyperfecund technologically disruptive primates with intimate knowledge of their own inner workings and abstract models of future events.<br /><br />Religion is also a rare phenomenon peculiar to certain hyperfecund technologically disruptive primates with intimate knowledge of their own inner workings and abstract models of future events.<br /><br />Both, in the view of almost any animal, plant, or other organism, are pretty goddamn unnatural and incomprehensible.<br /><br />What if the primates, for complex ideological reasons, incomprehensible to any other organism, outlawed the wrong one?TCBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08153506222271955110noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-55297723935700653902019-07-19T18:49:28.528-07:002019-07-19T18:49:28.528-07:00Dr Brin
As soon as the fetus can survive outside t...Dr Brin<br />As soon as the fetus can survive outside the womb - about 6 months - then I would consider him/her to be able to be taken from the mother<br /><br />Which would make your 8.5 month "abortion" just an early birth - IF IF IF the fetus was actually viableduncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-25335763505929461162019-07-19T18:12:52.601-07:002019-07-19T18:12:52.601-07:00Let's be clear on a pragmatic outcome here. Po...Let's be clear on a pragmatic outcome here. Positions like that of Deuxglass do NOT help the cause he claims to espouse. It serves the propaganda pupose of the mad/manipulative right, giving them ammo to call us a pack of dogmatic and murderous fanatics, drawing a line between "property" and "human" that is just as fictitious and artificial as the one they seek to draw, at conception. <br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-81113003418986150262019-07-19T17:46:43.257-07:002019-07-19T17:46:43.257-07:00Thanks jim, for appearing sane and reasonable in y...Thanks jim, for appearing sane and reasonable in your PCness compared to Deuxglass. You at least can see there's something bizarre about a position that:<br /><br />-- a women can, in a fit of rage that no male has any right to even question of examine, kills a viable, healthy 8.5 month old fetus but is punished if she waits a week and then kills the birthed baby. <br /><br />Non, no. Oh no! No male can even have an opinion about that! Not even in abstract! <br /><br />Oh, for sure, once you start with that extreme case I described - which has maybe happened fewer times than I have fingers and toes(!) you open up a discomforting spectrum that's far easier dealt-with by making grand, universal proclamations! Say yes to everything in paragraphs two and three above! But in fact, history is rife with stupidities and injustices that were based upon demanding comfortingly pure digital laws for an analog world.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-48311098519938763072019-07-19T13:27:02.398-07:002019-07-19T13:27:02.398-07:00No need to apologize,
I really need to work on ma...No need to apologize, <br />I really need to work on making it more clear when I am not being serious.<br />jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07865068658069680309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-76635619322109596532019-07-19T13:21:31.517-07:002019-07-19T13:21:31.517-07:00Jim,
I should have caught your humor. Sorry.Jim,<br /><br />I should have caught your humor. Sorry.Deuxglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03488986307291616948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-42412141584326208622019-07-19T13:14:26.173-07:002019-07-19T13:14:26.173-07:00Sorry Deuxglass I should have made it clear that I...Sorry Deuxglass I should have made it clear that I was not really being serious.<br />I was kind of joking with David's response to my previous comment.jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07865068658069680309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-84901161602619628512019-07-19T12:53:18.876-07:002019-07-19T12:53:18.876-07:00Jim,
Come on Jim. There still will be laws to tak...Jim,<br /><br />Come on Jim. There still will be laws to take care of those cases. There are crazy evil women but there are crazy evil men too so what would change? Just because women would make the laws concerning abortion doesn't mean that no laws will be made. Deuxglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03488986307291616948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-7372696333214873972019-07-19T12:33:30.058-07:002019-07-19T12:33:30.058-07:00Ok I am squinting now,
OH BOY!
Seems like a lot of...Ok I am squinting now,<br />OH BOY!<br />Seems like a lot of patronizing going on here and not just me.<br /><br />With all this support for women folk, many seem to forget that women can be EVIL AND CRAZY!!!! (just ask locum ;-)<br /><br />Although I am not sure what is worse<br />a) an evil crazy woman having a late term abortion<br />b) that same woman giving birth and "raising" (abusing/ neglecting) a child.<br />jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07865068658069680309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-38517333119622515342019-07-19T12:19:09.530-07:002019-07-19T12:19:09.530-07:00Not all of us are men, but my note above on ethica...Not all of us are men, but my note above on ethical value was meant to be personal -- I would not tell anyone else what to do. kvshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03289662941161551212noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-67433726964302536272019-07-19T12:13:53.879-07:002019-07-19T12:13:53.879-07:00Darrell E,
Of course men will have opinions on so...Darrell E,<br /><br />Of course men will have opinions on something like abortions and that they should support their dear partner. What I am saying is that the ultimate decision should be the woman's and that having men being the deciders, which is the current situation, disenfranchises women in this very important subject. To be brief, men pollute the debate. If women had control of the debate then they would be 100% responsible for it's resolution which in my opinion is the best way to lead to consensual legislation.Deuxglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03488986307291616948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-8776462334631879402019-07-19T12:05:01.225-07:002019-07-19T12:05:01.225-07:00Deuxglass,
To be clear, you are saying that males...Deuxglass,<br /><br />To be clear, you are saying that males should not have an opinion about abortion (your first sentence) <i>and</i> that males shouldn't legislate on abortion? I largely agree with you on the latter (at least in spirit), but on the former? Bullshit. Every male should be offering their support to the females they hold dearest, if not to females in general. Not to mention that the tired old trope of "you should STFU, your opinions and ideas can't possibly be valid if you've never experienced it yourself" is pure crap. Yes, women should absolutely take the lead. No, men's opinions are not necessarily inappropriate and can be helpful to women.Darrell Ehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14054311762477388637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-4945076305433461732019-07-19T11:43:08.134-07:002019-07-19T11:43:08.134-07:00ElitistB,
Male legislators should abstain but fat...ElitistB,<br /><br />Male legislators should abstain but fat chance of that happening. Male Republican legislators wouldn't like that but I wonder how many male Democrat legislators would go along. I think it should be brought up and see what happens. Deuxglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03488986307291616948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-75781318321468599132019-07-19T11:18:00.214-07:002019-07-19T11:18:00.214-07:00Deuxglass, I half agree with you. All legislators...Deuxglass, I half agree with you. All legislators should abstain. If for some reason 90 percent of women think the other 10 percent should never have an abortion, I still don't think the 90 percent should have a say.ElitistBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07510852277233475399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-13163668671299176812019-07-19T11:11:50.426-07:002019-07-19T11:11:50.426-07:00By walking down the street, I do not consent to be...By walking down the street, I do not consent to being assaulted and raped. Is it a possible outcome and a result of my choice? Yes, but that doesn't mean I consent to it.<br /><br />I'm not sure I'd consider the above reasonable or ethical. It is indeed a possibility, but that doesn't mean I consent to ElitistBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07510852277233475399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-5718818837823754262019-07-19T10:49:05.164-07:002019-07-19T10:49:05.164-07:00I notice that none of you are women but you do hav...I notice that none of you are women but you do have strong opinions on abortion. Abortion is a woman's decision and it is she who will have to live with it therefore we as men have not much say in it because we do not suffer the consequences either from a religious point of view or from the modern moralist view. My belief is that only woman have the right to legislate on abortion. Male legislators should abstain. It should be a debate between women because men in this situation have little skin in the game. They gave their seed but the life is nurtured in the woman. We should just butt out and let them come up with a solution that they like. If women hit us with big paternity payments then so be it. After all men could have just said no instead of going for it and if they went for it then they assume the consequences. Deuxglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03488986307291616948noreply@blogger.com