What views are you on?

Post Reply New Topic

Abortion?
Generally pro-life except in cases of rape, the mother’s life is in peril if the pregnancy were to be continued, etc……

Censorship?
Depends on what’s being censored and why. I’m for maintaining decency by common standards and consent where public broadcasting are concerned.

Death penalty?
Yes: I would allow as many as 2 appeals. If those are unsuccessful then it’s time for the electric chair or the rope. To me the electric chair and the hangman’s noose are more symbolic of the death penalty than lethal injection and therefore may have more of a deterring affect.

Guns?
I’m very pro-gun. I’ve never seen any argument made that justifies gun control and I’ve and been in lots and lots of those debates.
It is the right of every free citizen to be armed.

Health care?
Theoretically it has a good sound to it but in practice I can see where it would fail miserably. The government cannot run anything well and it tends to be hawkish about the things it does run that involves regulation.
I saw a bumper sticker that said something like; “Socialized Healthcare: The efficiency of the post office, the compassion of the IRS, all at pentagon prices”.
I believe healthcare is a service, not a right.
You have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness but that doesn’t mean you are entitled to be provided those.
Rights and entitlements are two different things.

Official US language?
English.

War on Terror?
The war on terror should have been more aggressively pursued well before 9-11 because it has always been an issue in some form.
9/11 was evidence of that negligence.
The WOT should also be (and should always have been) executed with a heavier hand. We may not be able to make them respect or like us but fear will suffice.

Taxes?
Flat tax or federal income tax.
Restrictions on what tax revenue can be spent on.

LGBT rights?
Left blank intentionally

Secular government?
The state should not run the church and the church should not run the state.
Having a witch hunt to remove all evidence of the Christian religion from government exceeds the above to the detriment of both.

Vexcalibur: for the record, only the first of your quoted bits wasa mine. I know you know that, but other viewers may not.

Also for the record.

A. I AM an etymologist.

B. homicide IS derived from the Latin equivalent of manslaughter.

C. Forget "etymological fallacy". In even Mod English homicide IS killing a human being. NOT quite as if I tried to maintain you cannot be a communist unless you live in a commune.

Etymological fallacy is when you use the dictionary to prove an argument right, when you should be using actual arguments.

Homicide means killing human beings. For you to call abortion homicide you need not point us to the dictionary, because we already know the definition of homicide. You need to prove that unborn things are human beings/persons/etc. Something that anti-abortionists have always avoided to do.

Instead of pointing us to the dictionary. Try listing traits that surely apply exclusively to what we all admit are human beings and also to fetuses.

-------
@Official language. It is of note that many people here believe that eagle land, the place that is marketed as land of the free , should determine an official language.

If all your citizens speak a language, there is no need to set it "official". If you are afraid of language X people becoming a majority soon or a large enough minority that you will have to learn the language, that's a tough life for you. But unfortunately, trying to regulate things and set English as an official language is not going to stop any demographics growth in quantity and power.

Last edited by Vexcalibur on 04 May 2011, 10:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Don't you know though? Just naming off fallacies is to trump the opponent regardless of whether the fallacy applies or not. All one has to do to "win" an argument therefore is just have wikipedia's fallacy pages bookmarked and use Ctrl+F every time one sees a keyword that might also be related to the name of a fallacy.

False dichotomy. :P

a) The fallacy applies.

b) I win because you people have been utterly, pathetically, horribly, sadly, unable to ever, come close to giving an actual argument to show that unborn things are human beings. Instead, you shield away in silly non-arguments like fallacies, and when someone points out you are not actually doing your job - to actually elaborate your position - you call foul and try to look like a victim.

Back when philogos said "look up your latin" he was already under the burden of showing that fetuses are human beings. He avoided the question, and instead pulled a ridiculous "learn latin" argument. Such a thing is dishonest and it is crap. If you do not like it when people point out that your arguments are crap. Don't base your points on crap. Thank you.

And I mean: Seriously, do your job. You are proposing that women should be forced to go through the extremely uncomfortable thing that a pregnancy is, as if their own bodies didn't belong to them. So, at least have the decency to try to base this twisted wish of yours into something different to a dictionary. Specially when the dictionary actually disagrees with you - because homicide means to kill a human being and fetuses are not that. Out of respect to these women that will get enslaved if things go like you wish, try to actually justify it.

Last edited by Vexcalibur on 04 May 2011, 10:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.

At conception, between two humans, the fertilized egg cannot become non-human. There may be an unintentional miscarriage, but if delivered the baby will be human, and so the fertilized egg is also human. The sperm and the egg by themselves will not develop into a baby, they require each other, so it is the fertilized egg and not the components prior to fertilization that determine human-hood. From the time the egg is fertilized onward, the gravitas is carrying a human being in her uterus. Murder is the intentional killing of an innocent human being, and abortion is the killing of an unborn human being. An unborn human being cannot have committed any crime prior to birth, so the unborn human being is innocent. So, abortion is murder.

Abortion? I'm pro choice and concur with Bloodhearts reasoning on this one. We have choice in NZ

Censorship? I think censorship is undesirable, however in order to maintain a civil society it is desirable that individuals think before they speak - self censorship. Hate speech and rabble rousing are not constructive. Our censorship laws in NZ need modification as do our liable laws.

Death penalty? I have no simplistic final answer on this, but generally no, a society that thinks killing someone for a percieved crime [usualy murder itself] only sends confused messages and has renounced compassion which I think undermine the social bonds that maintain civil society. We have no death penalty in NZ hoever we are the third most imprisoned society in the OECD, this is a problem especially as over one third are victimless offenders.

Guns? Some people use guns for so called sport, my country needs to maintain a limited defensive capability. We have fairly high rates of gun ownership. Our laws require the owner to get a gun license, to do this they need to pass scrutiny as a 'fit and proper person', theoreticaly people can lodge objections in the case of undetected mental health issues etc. We used to register the actual gun as well as license the owner. Since the relaxation of the gun laws we have had an increase in gun violence. I desire a return to the old system. In NZ handguns are not percieved as having any legitimate purpose except for specialised target shooting guns and an attendant special license.

Health care? We have a mixture of private healthcare and public for emergencies and those too poor to afford private. For the most part this works fine and I support it.

Official US language? I have no respect for liars and hate mongers.

War on Terror? I have no respect for liars and hate mongers, nor the invaders of other countries and the killers of civilians.

Taxes? Bills need paying, government incurs bills, logically government must raise these funds through taxation, I favour taxing those who have the most first and working our way down from there. In return I expect government to not waste taxes on beurocratic gravy trains and supporting bogus 'wars on terror'. As a New Zealander I want my government to bring the SAS home!

LGBT rights? Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender? [Presumably] Well why shouldn't they have the same rights as anyone else, I would add all victimless lifestyle variations to this list, polygamy, pot smoking...

Secular government? Yes

peace j

Who the hell said this?

This being a complete syllogism relies on the presumption that pornography is "speech",
and also the presumption that if it is, that it does not fall under certain restrictions, such as hate speech.

The very ethical foundation on which codifications against murder (and rape and assault) rest is the same which protects abortion-
sovereignty over one's person.

I personally fail to see how abortion meets the malice aforethought criterion of "murder".
Moreover, the nature of the fetus, while human, as a BEING, that is, a distinct entity, would necessarily require that it be, ya know, distinct.

Abortion? Yes. I would err heavily on the side of abortion versus continuation of a pregnancy and childbirth in most cases where it's considered.
Censorship?

Death penalty? Yes- after being inflicted with the same horrors a person committed against their victim(s).
Guns? I'm anti-gun. But since neither snapping my fingers and declaring "Guns, be gone!" nor sticking pins in voodoo dolls of Charlton Heston has thus far worked, I would think it imperative that in every state where the government is heavily-armed, so should be the citizenry.
Health care? Food? Water? Clean air? The answers are "yes".
Official US language? Hm. Unsure.
War on Terror? You mean a misnomer for imperialist American interventions abroad, slaughter of resistant civilians and leaders, and installation of right-wing puppet governments partial to the American corporatocracy? No.
Taxes? Of who? How much? For what purpose? Dunno.
LGBT rights? Equal Protection before the law/yes.
Secular government? YES.

Ok, but the sperm and the egg are also human. After all, what step would have turned either NON-HUMAN? Even further, how are they not "beings", they are entities. They are living in some sense given that both are cells. They exist, and they continue to exist, and so it seems clear that they are beings. I think the entire argument you give is flim-flam, as you try to use definitions to avoid the real heart of the matter, as it isn't some logic-chopping that determines when we call an action "murder", but rather it is substantive fulfillment of our intuitions regarding persons and murder, and to say otherwise is to misunderstand that squishy, fluid mess we call language, which doesn't work like a programming language might.

Look, I'll be honest, I don't find the argument very compelling, particularly that given how we use the term "human being" we aren't referring to an entity that is human, but rather we refer to something more in lines with a human person, which we regard as having ethically compelling features. As it stands, the combination between an egg and a sperm doesn't really yield this. The combination does not have any personal characteristics. If we take it seriously as a human, we end up with basically a reductio ad absurdum as the female body kills a very vast number of these zygotes, which mostly go unmourned. Finally, human beings don't merge, nor do they split, but a fertilized human egg CAN merge with another egg to create a human being(chimerism), and a fertilized egg can split with the split resulting in two human beings(identical twins). Now, if human beings don't do this, but the entity at conception can do this, then it seems pretty clear it isn't a human being.

Vexcalibur:

A. Evidence / proof on the fetus? If A what not proven YES, has B proven NO?

B. You cannot convince me mayonnaise is not loathesome slime. COULD I convince you [as you are today, things can change] that a fetus matches your criteria for humanity?

C. We are supposed to believe in the close relationship of ape and human because of formal and behavioral similarities, suggestions of common ancestry in the fossil record, and extremely close DNA. If I put before you evidence that the fetus in your mother's womb has formal characteristics more like a human every day, the strong suggestion that the fetus is the result of conjugal relations between your parents, and show that its DNA is more like yours than that of any bonobo tested, will you say it is absurd thatr I suggest it is human?

D. All humans are different [that includes identical twins from pretty early on. You and I and John Mopulu Lebokozi are classed as human because, despite our differences, we are more like one another and other critters classed as human in structure, behavior, DNA than we are like any other known life form. Any healthy human fetus is more like us and other presumed humans than it is like any other known life form.

Of course, I am sure this is unconvincing, that it does not constitute the proof you call for; you may adjust your definitions as you please. After all, Senhor Lebokozi may define one of us as non-human. Many ethnic groups simply use the local sword for human to identify themselves. But for a scientist to define a fetus of human origuin as non-human, while listing me and Lebokozi as human, requires a gymnastic perversion of taxonomy that boggles my taxonomic mind.

You may say a fetus is not a person. No science I know of has a viable definition of person, that is cultural definition and legal code.

You may say a fetus has no rights. I will quibble that it has rights and what you are denying it is privileges - but whatever you call it, you can legislate it anyway you can talk people into living with.

But to say that Number 1 Son when an EXTREMELY unexpected fetus was not human: unless you can prove he was lifeless or some other animal and explain the mechanism by which he eventually turned into a human - well that is a silliness on the level of the barnacle goose.

There's no such thing as a compelling argument. People freely think whatever the heck they want to it seems, which is anything from Elvis living on a UFO in the center of the Earth to the world being on the back of a giant spacefaring turtle.

The baby inside the mother is not part of the mother. Abortion would have it required that one person have sovereignty over another, that inconvenience is a capital crime, and that people are free to be irresponsible for their actions.

What are your views on…

1. Abortion?

I have a general tendency towards anti-abortion rather than pro-'choice'. Needs to be much more heavily restricted than it is now in the UK. If you have unprotected sex and don't use the Pill you should pay for the consequences of your actions.

2. Censorship?

Shouldn't exist apart from those cases where it would actually be a crime. Free speech is paramount but those who use free speech should be prepared for any consequences that may result.

3. Death penalty?

This isn't really that much of an issue in the UK as it used to be, although many hanging/flogging Daily Mail social conservative types support it. I'm against the death penalty; I don't think the state should have the power to take another's life. Let them rot in prison for the rest of their lives.

4. Guns?

Far too heavily regulated here. An unarmed population is a defenceless population, especially with the police performance often being powerless to help victims of crime or, occasionally actively hostile towards members of the public/householders under attack.

That said, I wouldn't trust a lot of people round here with guns as they're simply not responsible enough. Without a massive sea-change in the way government and society conducts itself, I'd say against. But in principle I'm for less gun control.

5. Health care?

I would be considered to be on the classical liberal right here. I don't support privatising the NHS but I do think that people should be able to opt out if they so wish. Healthcare is hideously inefficient and bureaucratic in this country and doctors often treat you like dirt. It needs radical reform along classical liberal lines. Unfortunately, socialists will prevent any serious discussion on the NHS.

6. Official US language?

I'm not an American so this question doesn't affect me. However, I think that the UK should be a unilingual country and road signs et al should be monolingual so an end to this self-hating mindset that translates every NHS booklet into fifteen different languages. If you want to live in the UK, you learn the language that the vast majority of citizens speak. That depends where you are in the UK. If you live in particularly Welsh-speaking areas of Wales you might want to at least try picking up the local language along with English in an attempt to integrate with the local community. So I pursue a policy of integrationism.

7. War on Terror?

It's a massive con and has been from day one. We have nutters who want to kill us here but there is no specialist cells. Stop dividing the population against each other (i.e. end state-enforced multiculturalism and pursue a policy of multiracialism in its place) and these issues can be dealt with.

8. Taxes?

I would prefer a classical liberal regime, based upon the slogan of "as much government as necessary, as little government as possible". Those who genuinely need assistance should be supported by the state. Those people who want the state to look after them all their lives and scrounge should be told in no uncertain terms where to get off.

9. LGBT rights?

Gay people and lesbians generally have enough rights in law, though I don't think they should be segregated out from the rest of the population. There needs to be a more tolerance based form of government, where people can feel free to be who they are. That means not discriminating against people who have unusual sexual fetishes, for instance, and allowing them to safely speak their mind.

I think, related to this, there is an awful lot of work that could be done in the mental health area to give mentally ill people a decent standard of living and feelings of a person.

Fundamentally, I think most people have switched their hatred/dislike for gays onto other groups.

10. Secular government?

This is an imperative. Religion is a private matter; keep it out of politics.