Mitch McConnell: Tea Party Is "Ruining" GOP

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JSBACHlover
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03 Dec 2013, 6:52 pm

sonofghandi wrote:

What exactly is a wall going to do? They aren't going to stop coming because you build a ridiculously expensive wall for them to climb over or tunnel under.

Actually, if you engineer walls properly with sensory devices, etc. it would work just fine. Good walls usually stop people.

sonofghandi
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03 Dec 2013, 6:54 pm

JSBACHlover wrote:

I want to share something with the posters on this thread.

When I, a Yankee, moved to Mississippi for a job in the 1990s, I befriended an old man named Joe (he was friends with Eudora Welty and a gentleman in every respect. Joe is in his mid-90s by now and is slipping into senility).

Anyway, back in the 1920s, he was raised by his wet nurse"Tiola" who was black. When this little boy hurt himself he wouldn't go running to his mother but to Tiola. Tiola was considered part of the family. Tiola used to tell Joe stories, and one day she told him a story from her childhood, a story about the day when the slaves were freed. Most of the slave-owners (at least in Mississippi) considered their slaves to be part of the family, and most of the slaves had a genuine love for their masters, who fed them, clothed them, and taught them how to read. The masters did this because they were above all Christians, who felt responsible for their slaves. (This was Tiola's experience.)

I have some trouble with your story about a man who knew a former slave when he was a child being used as evidence of the overall treatment of slaves in Mississippi. And it was illegal to teach slaves how to read. And as for Christianity and slavery, there were plenty of passages taken from the Bible (Old and New Testaments) that were used as justification for treating slaves as livestock. Not to mention the fact that in many areas slaves were prohibited from religious gatherings of any type.

And yes, some slaves were treated well by their masters. But they were still slaves and property for their owners. Even if every single slave owner treated their slaves well, they still owned other human beings. Even without the horrors of slavery, that is wrong any way you slice it.

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sonofghandi
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03 Dec 2013, 7:02 pm

JSBACHlover wrote:

sonofghandi wrote:

What exactly is a wall going to do? They aren't going to stop coming because you build a ridiculously expensive wall for them to climb over or tunnel under.

Actually, if you engineer walls properly with sensory devices, etc. it would work just fine. Good walls usually stop people.

Good walls usually stop people who are not highly motivated and/or desperate, you mean. Adding a bunch of sensors to a wall isn't going to do much, either, other than increase the costs to an even higher level.

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03 Dec 2013, 7:17 pm

[Moved from News and Current Events to PPR]

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03 Dec 2013, 7:35 pm

Slavery sucks and so did share cropping.
On one side of the family they did share cropping.
On Sundays the landowners gathered on the veranda and listened to the workers below sing hymns,on what was suppose to be their day off.How nice.

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Kraichgauer
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03 Dec 2013, 7:39 pm

Misslizard wrote:

I can imagine what they really wished they could be singing to the bossman.

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ArrantPariah
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03 Dec 2013, 7:40 pm

ruveyn wrote:

Thelibrarian wrote:

Good deal. The country will be much better off without the GOP. The Republican Party should've gone out with slavery.

Have you ever studied American History. The Republican Party was formed as an anti-slavery party in 1859. It was the Democrats that were pro-slavery back then.

Question: What was Abraham Lincoln's political party? Think about it.

ruveyn

The North-South divide still exists, but the labels have changed.

JSBACHlover
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03 Dec 2013, 7:41 pm

sonofghandi wrote:

JSBACHlover wrote:

sonofghandi wrote:

What exactly is a wall going to do? They aren't going to stop coming because you build a ridiculously expensive wall for them to climb over or tunnel under.

Actually, if you engineer walls properly with sensory devices, etc. it would work just fine. Good walls usually stop people.

I think that our exchange has reached an impasse. It can only be answered objectively by a civil engineer.

JSBACHlover
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03 Dec 2013, 7:46 pm

sonofghandi wrote:

I never used this as "evidence of the overall treatment of slaves in Mississippi." As I wrote at the end of my account, this was just one story. As for it being illegal to teach slaves to read, that is a matter of fact of history. However, at least at Tiola's place, this piece of legislation was ignored. As I say, it was one example, one story.

GGPViper
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03 Dec 2013, 8:07 pm

JSBACHlover wrote:

GGPViper wrote:

The 1st, 4th and 9th Amendment, and according to Supreme Court case law in the following cases:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas
Roe v. Wade vastly limited the prospects of a police state and judicial tyranny. If you were genuinely concerned about the powers of government, then you would embrace Roe v. Wade unconditionally.

I read the above and my immediate reaction was ... I don't think you have ever studied law.

You listed the 9th amendment (why I have no idea) but I did not see you list the 14th Amendment here, which was the primary argument for the 7-2 decision in Griswold_v._Connecticut, which then became the precedent for Roe vs. Wade. In other words, it seems you were just copying and pasting decisions that you liked.

No, it wasn't. Please read Griswold v. Connecticut before pointing fingers at others.

The 14th Amendment reference was from the concurring opinion by Justice Goldberg (and thus not the official 7-2 opinion, which was judicial activism in overdrive). But I'm glad that you mentioned that case... Because here are two excerpts from the Goldberg concurrence:

Although I have not accepted the view that "due process," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, incorporates all of the first eight Amendments (see my concurring opinion in Pointer v. Texas, , and the dissenting opinion of MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN in Cohen v. Hurley), I do agree that the concept of liberty protects those personal rights that are fundamental, and is not confined to the specific terms of the Bill of Rights. My conclusion that the concept of liberty is not so restricted, and that it embraces the right of marital privacy, though that right is not mentioned explicitly in the Constitution, is supported both by numerous decisions of this Court, referred to in the Court's opinion, and by the language and history of the Ninth Amendment.

This Court, in a series of decisions, has held that the Fourteenth Amendment absorbs and applies to the States those specifics of the first eight amendments which express fundamental personal rights. [b]The language and history of the Ninth Amendment reveal that the Framers of the Constitution believed that there are additional fundamental rights, protected from governmental infringement, which exist alongside those fundamental rights specifically mentioned in the first eight constitutional amendments.

And the Roe v. Wade Opinion twice referred to the Goldberg concurrence when justifying their ruling.

If you have no idea why I referred to the 9th Amendment, then perhaps you should think twice before pointing at others for not understanding US law.

JSBACHlover wrote:

And then you state that Roe vs. Wade is an expansion of freedom? Its main argument is to consider the unborn baby as a kind of personal property, which is a position akin to what happened under slavery, which allowed for certain races of peoples to be treated also as private property. I therefore don't understand how you can view this as an expansion of freedom. Rather, it appears to be a contraction of human rights, and a giant step backwards.

The typical rhetorical device. You start by making the claim "unborn baby" - without actually reflecting on whether or not a few cells at the very earliest stages of pregnancy (zygotes) can meaningfully be considered unborn babies. You argument only holds if people accept that premise. I do not.

Instead, I see Roe vs. Wade as one of the most powerful safeguards against government power (and against subversions of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the 1st Amendment, as anti-abortion attitudes in the US tend to correlate highly with specific religious attitudes). Considering the historical tendency for governments to be excessive busybodies when it comes to all aspects of the lives of women, Roe v. Wade should be a beacon of hope for anyone who champions limited government and individual freedom.

Jacoby
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03 Dec 2013, 8:19 pm

Mitch McConnell is ruining the GOP

sonofghandi
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03 Dec 2013, 8:33 pm

Jacoby wrote:

Mitch McConnell is ruining the GOP

among others

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JSBACHlover
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03 Dec 2013, 11:31 pm

GGPViper wrote:

JSBACHlover wrote:

GGPViper wrote:

JSBACHlover wrote:

1) Sorry for pointing fingers at you so harshly. It's been a while since I have studied this case. I was thinking that Griswold v Connecticut cited Amendments 1, 3, 4, 5, and 8; but my memory failed me. I double-checked. You were right it was not 8 but 9. Yet what caught my eye in your original posting was your omission of 14, that that was the primary Amendment considered by Justice Douglas in the Majority Opinion. So when you omitted it, I made the assumption that you were cherry-picking from Wikipedia. I apologize. Although, again, I don't know why you omitted it.
2) As for Roe v Wade, you state "The typical rhetorical device. You start by making the claim "unborn baby" - without actually reflecting on whether or not a few cells at the very earliest stages of pregnancy (zygotes) can meaningfully be considered unborn babies. You argument only holds if people accept that premise. I do not. " I understand that. Now, I do indeed consider those "few cells" a human person. However, in practice, the law allows for abortion on any fetus well into the 2nd trimester, and even well into the 8th month. Any denial of the existence of a human person in the womb by appealing to the rhetoric of a "few cells" is sidestepping the issue. If you honestly think that aborting a 7-month old fetus is a great triumph in human rights and an example of "limited government," well, then just say so.

sonofghandi
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04 Dec 2013, 7:33 am

JSBACHlover wrote:

However, in practice, the law allows for abortion on any fetus well into the 2nd trimester, and even well into the 8th month. Any denial of the existence of a human person in the womb by appealing to the rhetoric of a "few cells" is sidestepping the issue. If you honestly think that aborting a 7-month old fetus is a great triumph in human rights and an example of "limited government," well, then just say so.

Just for the record, even in the most liberal states, the latest you can have an abortion is 24 weeks (2nd trimester) unless it can be documented by a qualified physician that the mother's life is in danger. In most states the limit is 14 weeks, and even less in some of the more conservative states.

I do think that the government minimizing its legal authority over the prevention of abortion is much more limiting to it than being allowed to pass law after law placing more and more restrictions on abortion.

I also don't see how believing that a fetus is a group of cells is sidestepping the issue. It seems quite relevant to me.

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GGPViper
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04 Dec 2013, 9:42 am

JSBACHlover wrote:

2) As for Roe v Wade, you state "The typical rhetorical device. You start by making the claim "unborn baby" - without actually reflecting on whether or not a few cells at the very earliest stages of pregnancy (zygotes) can meaningfully be considered unborn babies. You argument only holds if people accept that premise. I do not. " I understand that. Now, I do indeed consider those "few cells" a human person. However, in practice, the law allows for abortion on any fetus well into the 2nd trimester, and even well into the 8th month. Any denial of the existence of a human person in the womb by appealing to the rhetoric of a "few cells" is sidestepping the issue. If you honestly think that aborting a 7-month old fetus is a great triumph in human rights and an example of "limited government," well, then just say so.

Here are the actual 2005 abortion statistics compiled by the CDC:

Source:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtm ... 1.htm#fig4
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtm ... .htm#tab16

The vast, vast, vast majority of abortions (94.8 percent in total in the CDC study cited, to be exact) are performed within the first 15 weeks of gestation, and 62.1 percent are perform within the first 8 weeks.

So I am less than impressed by the late-term abortion argument for repealing Roe v. Wade. Furthermore, Planned Parenthood vs. Casey replaced the 28/24 week threshold set by Wade v. Roe with an "Undue Burden" standard that allowed States to limit access to abortion even at earlier stages of pregnancy. And as sonofghandi pointed out, that is exactly what the States have done.

In fact, there is currently a court case being fought over whether Texas is unconstitutionally abusing this power to effectively prevent women from seeking earlier elective abortions.

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04 Dec 2013, 10:16 am

alpineglow wrote:

^ that's quite an intense story jsbachlover. I'm glad you've posted it.
Thelibrarian, I willl check it out if it is at our library.

theLibrarian wrote:

...Alpineglow, that is an interesting, if not horrifying, question. My guess is that the blue states would form one country and the red states would form another. The horrors come into play since there are pockets of Americans in the blue states, and pockets of post-Americans in the red states. This is why I think it is such a shame the South, and like-minded states, weren't to secede in 1861. This war would be over rather than just beginning.

And war is just the word. I don't have time to look for figures, but when India was partitioned into Muslim and Hindu areas, I understand about ten million people died. I'm hoping we can sort out our differences more humanely.

I tend to ask horrifying qusestions. My intent is good. Because, I too would like to see humans sort out their differences more humanely than history suggests.

Actually, I've always known you to ask good, intelligent questions, and without the prejudice and intolerance of liberals. As for "horrifying", that is simply the way of history. The first step toward minimizing history's horrors is to educate liberals on the importance of REAL tolerance and diversity, which means respecting those who don't share their values and beliefs.

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