@3, @1 is referring to Calvinist theology, whereby the "Elect" are those preordained to go to Heaven, the "Reprobate" or damned are preordained to go to Hell, and the "Preterite" or passed over are in an undetermined state. See http://www.drbilllong.com/Words/Preterit…, though most people using these words this way these days are talking about Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow", which is Pynchon's private little universe of meaning, where it means something more like "common folk" (see http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pyn…).
The GOP's misogyny is an open secret at this point. Only women who are delusional or self-loathing vote Republican any more anyway so I can't really see this hurting them among their core asshole demographic.
Every time the GOP incites a culture of lawlessness and violence toward illegal immigrants, it has a ripple affect on legal American citizens who happen to share their skin color with illegals. Police profiling, harassment, intimidation, these are all things that LEGAL citizens with brown sking get to put up with when Republican politicians encourage behavior like this. It happened after the Arizona law passed - even Americans of native ancestry (and skin color) became targets.
Dan, you might want to change the "phony issue" text; the quote is "phony exception". Has he never seen House? They use pre-eclampsia on every episode with a pregnant patient.
I love it. They go from McCain's sneering scare quotes around "health" of the mother to flat-out stating that pregnant women should just fucking die already.
Seriously...how did a man with the name "Ryan Fattman" ever get elected in the first place? No person with that name can be well-adjusted. After a long, torturous childhood and adolescence (and probably adulthood) of constant ridicule, he may be a strong personality with hard-won self-esteem, but he will also have hang-ups, insecurities, strange ideas and untrustworthy impulses. Under no circumstances should a rational voter have put such a person in a position to make decisions for the collective.
Santorum's an asshole, but if you believe abortion is murder, and conception is sacred, the health/life/rape/incest exceptions really are phony. It's the people who call abortion murder, but would allow exceptions because they need the support from the mildly pro-life crowd who I truly don't understand.
Yeah, the rape debate is going to be one of those things that never disappear in America... Is it one life, or two? One human being, or two? If two, is one more important than the other? If one, whose is fetus -- the mother's, the father's, both, itself's (because it will eventually grow into a human being if allowed)?...
With Americans tending towards seeing life and rights in more and more entities of this world (e.g., animal rights), the tendency of the future may go against the idea that the fetus can simply be aborted. Which will please the religious right, of course.
Guess my life-saving DNC never happened, Rick Santorum. I was so proud to receive 2/3 Quebecois blood that day, because it cost me so little money. With HarperCare, they ask YOU if you want to take heroic measures. They don't sue you or pretend you don't exist.
@21 yeah, but it seems like abortion just becomes more and more important and black/white because politicians keep banging away at it. They know keeping people morally outraged about personal issues is a great way to get elected while being an idiot and to distract people while ruining the economy/justice system/education. So! They just keep screaming about it.
It is important to remember that when people believe that some violent crime victims should be exempt from justice it is often because they want violence to be committed against those people. This privledged little twit who has obviously never lived in a drug war zone has a lot of explaining to do about what he really believes.
@17 Even scarier is Ron goddamned Paul, who is actually a fucking OB/GYN and still says there's no such thing as a medical condition that necessitates abortion (although he seems to have taken that statement off of his website).
@20 I can see the argument there. Most people, I would say, believe that killing someone is, in general, morally reprehensible, but that you have a right to kill someone who is trying to kill you. It's basically the same idea, not to mention the fact that if the mother is going to die, the fetus generally will, too, so the choice is either allowing one innocent to die, or two. But yeah, allowing exceptions for rape is really misogynistic: "It's okay to abort if you didn't want the sex that caused the baby! But if you did, you face the consequences, you filthy harlot!"
And on another note, I actually personally know a woman who had an abortion (of a wanted child, no less) to save her life; she was in a car accident that caused a placental abruption early in the second trimester--well before viability. If she'd not had the abortion, she would have bled out and died. So when people say there are no valid health-related reasons to have an abortion, I want to beat the everloving fuck out of them.
@28 I'm being a devil advocate here, so I don't really know how these people think, but the save life exception isn't really the same as self-defense. And I don't think the pro-life crowd really wants to get behind the whole "the fetus is going to kill the mother argument," more likely they choose the actual life over the potential life. But that's just not consistent with their life begins at conception argument.
If anything their argument should be, pregnancy carries certain risks, dying is one of them, thus saving the "baby" is more important than saving the mother. Since the "baby" is an innocent bystander.
I don't agree with it, but it's way more consistent that the run-of-the-mill pro-life arguments.
I just don't think progressives should be attacking people who are consistent about the issue. We can make arguments about why their religious opinions shouldn't be used across the board, and shouldn't be used to take rights away from all women. But we're way more likely to gain pro-choice supporters if we force everyone to be consistent about the conception/life/abortion issue.
Argue about the details if you like, but only a fool would be in favour of an increase in the number of abortions per se. It seems that reduction of demand is the common goal that ultimately unites both pro-life and pro-choice: in an ideal world there would be no need.
In the long view, and regretfully allowing that there's a pragmatic need for abortions currently, the debate is a waste of time and money that could be put towards everything from pragmatic sex education, poverty relief, contraceptives, and perhaps even meaningful psychology to help counteract peer pressure for kids and something 'spiritual/meditative' to help make the masses more reflective and less herd-like in their disgusting procreative urges... ;)
Anything to drive down the demand.
Please wait...
and remember to be decent to everyone all of the time.
The GOP has been batshit crazy for so long that I don't remember them as being normal human beings. They're like emotionless pod people.
preterite? you realize that's a past tense in language, right?
what you mean is "unregenerate"
...until it exits the womb, of course.
Every time the GOP incites a culture of lawlessness and violence toward illegal immigrants, it has a ripple affect on legal American citizens who happen to share their skin color with illegals. Police profiling, harassment, intimidation, these are all things that LEGAL citizens with brown sking get to put up with when Republican politicians encourage behavior like this. It happened after the Arizona law passed - even Americans of native ancestry (and skin color) became targets.
With Americans tending towards seeing life and rights in more and more entities of this world (e.g., animal rights), the tendency of the future may go against the idea that the fetus can simply be aborted. Which will please the religious right, of course.
Ah, I just don't know what's going to happen...
GOP favorable ratings down among the Slog Degeneransia?!
horrors!
@20 I can see the argument there. Most people, I would say, believe that killing someone is, in general, morally reprehensible, but that you have a right to kill someone who is trying to kill you. It's basically the same idea, not to mention the fact that if the mother is going to die, the fetus generally will, too, so the choice is either allowing one innocent to die, or two. But yeah, allowing exceptions for rape is really misogynistic: "It's okay to abort if you didn't want the sex that caused the baby! But if you did, you face the consequences, you filthy harlot!"
And on another note, I actually personally know a woman who had an abortion (of a wanted child, no less) to save her life; she was in a car accident that caused a placental abruption early in the second trimester--well before viability. If she'd not had the abortion, she would have bled out and died. So when people say there are no valid health-related reasons to have an abortion, I want to beat the everloving fuck out of them.
Maybe not. But it IS possible, as attested by other countries.
If anything their argument should be, pregnancy carries certain risks, dying is one of them, thus saving the "baby" is more important than saving the mother. Since the "baby" is an innocent bystander.
I don't agree with it, but it's way more consistent that the run-of-the-mill pro-life arguments.
I just don't think progressives should be attacking people who are consistent about the issue. We can make arguments about why their religious opinions shouldn't be used across the board, and shouldn't be used to take rights away from all women. But we're way more likely to gain pro-choice supporters if we force everyone to be consistent about the conception/life/abortion issue.
In the long view, and regretfully allowing that there's a pragmatic need for abortions currently, the debate is a waste of time and money that could be put towards everything from pragmatic sex education, poverty relief, contraceptives, and perhaps even meaningful psychology to help counteract peer pressure for kids and something 'spiritual/meditative' to help make the masses more reflective and less herd-like in their disgusting procreative urges... ;)
Anything to drive down the demand.