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auntblabby
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06 Dec 2021, 3:54 am

i call the anti-abortionists "the anti-sex league." because that is what really sets them off, the counterculture of people minding their own business and having fun, esp. if they are not respectable middle and upper-class people like they deem themselves to be.



Sweetleaf
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06 Dec 2021, 4:00 am

auntblabby wrote:
i call the anti-abortionists "the anti-sex league." because that is what really sets them off, the counterculture of people minding their own business and having fun, esp. if they are not respectable middle and upper-class people like they deem themselves to be.


yeah I didn't even go into that part, but I think you're probably right.

Like some of us want to enjoy sex and not have kids, and what's wrong with that? Nothing I'd say but seems some people do think there is something wrong with that.


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auntblabby
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06 Dec 2021, 4:02 am

Sweetleaf wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
i call the anti-abortionists "the anti-sex league." because that is what really sets them off, the counterculture of people minding their own business and having fun, esp. if they are not respectable middle and upper-class people like they deem themselves to be.


yeah I didn't even go into that part, but I think you're probably right. Like some of us want to enjoy sex and not have kids, and what's wrong with that? Nothing I'd say but seems some people do think there is something wrong with that.

mainly old-line fundies who were taught that sex was only to make a baby and that you weren't supposed to enjoy it.



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06 Dec 2021, 4:16 am

auntblabby wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
i call the anti-abortionists "the anti-sex league." because that is what really sets them off, the counterculture of people minding their own business and having fun, esp. if they are not respectable middle and upper-class people like they deem themselves to be.


yeah I didn't even go into that part, but I think you're probably right. Like some of us want to enjoy sex and not have kids, and what's wrong with that? Nothing I'd say but seems some people do think there is something wrong with that.

mainly old-line fundies who were taught that sex was only to make a baby and that you weren't supposed to enjoy it.


I can see that, I mean that is the sort of crap I somehow internalized so I was quite uncomfortable about sex for quite a time. LIke its just been in the last year I sort of let go of all that and so me and my boyfriend have been having better sex and more often than before. But yeah I feel kinda silly about it now, because with me and my boyfriend we've explored a bit but yeah Idk for like my whole 20's I was having sex because I just thought it was expected idk like it didn't occur to me I am also supposed to enjoy and get pleasure out of it. So I thought it was just a thing I had to do to get a guy to stick around even though it didn't do much for me and that carried a little over into my current relationship. Turns out I had it all wrong and it can be really enjoyable if you and the person you have sex with are on the same page and it doesn't have to be a hassle. Still though I feel bad it took me like 5 years with my boyfriend to get over some of my internalized negative ideas about sex and morality that certainly came from my parents and realatives. LIke I think I even had it internalized that maybe even orgasams where sinful, but in my 30's I can't even remember all the religious bullcrap people told me growing up I feel it was a lot though. But that stuff I think held me back from enjoying sex for quite a while.


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auntblabby
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06 Dec 2021, 4:19 am

Sweetleaf wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
i call the anti-abortionists "the anti-sex league." because that is what really sets them off, the counterculture of people minding their own business and having fun, esp. if they are not respectable middle and upper-class people like they deem themselves to be.


yeah I didn't even go into that part, but I think you're probably right. Like some of us want to enjoy sex and not have kids, and what's wrong with that? Nothing I'd say but seems some people do think there is something wrong with that.

mainly old-line fundies who were taught that sex was only to make a baby and that you weren't supposed to enjoy it.


I can see that, I mean that is the sort of crap I somehow internalized so I was quite uncomfortable about sex for quite a time. LIke its just been in the last year I sort of let go of all that and so me and my boyfriend have been having better sex and more often than before. But yeah I feel kinda silly about it now, because with me and my boyfriend we've explored a bit but yeah Idk for like my whole 20's I was having sex because I just thought it was expected idk like it didn't occur to me I am also supposed to enjoy and get pleasure out of it. So I thought it was just a thing I had to do to get a guy to stick around even though it didn't do much for me and that carried a little over into my current relationship. Turns out I had it all wrong and it can be really enjoyable if you and the person you have sex with are on the same page and it doesn't have to be a hassle. Still though I feel bad it took me like 5 years with my boyfriend to get over some of my internalized negative ideas about sex and morality that certainly came from my parents and realatives. LIke I think I even had it internalized that maybe even orgasams where sinful, but in my 30's I can't even remember all the religious bullcrap people told me growing up I feel it was a lot though.

there are a significant number of these folks who think that being this way is essential to their long-term spiritual salvation, that people who enjoy it are "fornicators" who will burn in hell.



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06 Dec 2021, 4:26 am

auntblabby wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
i call the anti-abortionists "the anti-sex league." because that is what really sets them off, the counterculture of people minding their own business and having fun, esp. if they are not respectable middle and upper-class people like they deem themselves to be.


yeah I didn't even go into that part, but I think you're probably right. Like some of us want to enjoy sex and not have kids, and what's wrong with that? Nothing I'd say but seems some people do think there is something wrong with that.

mainly old-line fundies who were taught that sex was only to make a baby and that you weren't supposed to enjoy it.


I can see that, I mean that is the sort of crap I somehow internalized so I was quite uncomfortable about sex for quite a time. LIke its just been in the last year I sort of let go of all that and so me and my boyfriend have been having better sex and more often than before. But yeah I feel kinda silly about it now, because with me and my boyfriend we've explored a bit but yeah Idk for like my whole 20's I was having sex because I just thought it was expected idk like it didn't occur to me I am also supposed to enjoy and get pleasure out of it. So I thought it was just a thing I had to do to get a guy to stick around even though it didn't do much for me and that carried a little over into my current relationship. Turns out I had it all wrong and it can be really enjoyable if you and the person you have sex with are on the same page and it doesn't have to be a hassle. Still though I feel bad it took me like 5 years with my boyfriend to get over some of my internalized negative ideas about sex and morality that certainly came from my parents and realatives. LIke I think I even had it internalized that maybe even orgasams where sinful, but in my 30's I can't even remember all the religious bullcrap people told me growing up I feel it was a lot though.

there are a significant number of these folks who think that being this way is essential to their long-term spiritual salvation, that people who enjoy it are "fornicators" who will burn in hell.



I mean I don't believe in that stuff, but honestly, I'd rather burn in hell with all the other fornicators, than live in heaven with all those judgmental jerk offs. :twisted: I mean if you really get subject to eternal fire down there, I figure there's gotta be a point you'd get used to it and it's not so bad.


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auntblabby
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06 Dec 2021, 4:28 am

^^i'd have to agree with you there.



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06 Dec 2021, 5:47 am

Again, fornication should be mandatory.


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auntblabby
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06 Dec 2021, 6:04 am

with a big c*ck on it.



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06 Dec 2021, 8:30 am

Descartes wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
Killing another person is not a civil right. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that LGBT by its nature is something that was demonstrated to harm others and threaten society as a whole. If so, then there’d be no discussion…it couldn’t be tolerated. While there might be arguments made to that effect, to my knowledge being gay doesn’t make you a murderer. Killing people without justification, however, DOES make you a murderer, DOES deprive another of civil rights, DOES cause harm to society. It is not a victimless crime. It’s not about “beliefs.” It’s about objective reality.


Being pregnant is a medical condition. What about the harms to society by forcing people to continue a medical condition against their will? You can argue that it's for the sake of protecting another life, but where do we draw the line in that case? If I am in dire need of a kidney or some other organ, do I have the right to demand you give up one of yours in order to save my own life? Does declining to donate a kidney make you a murderer?

Not only that, but being pregnant is potentially dangerous, especially if you are poor, lack health insurance, or are a person of color. For example, black women are 3.5 times more likely to die giving birth than are white women.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-re ... nal-deaths

What about the harms to society by forcing rape victims to continue pregnancies against their will? Does a rape victim's human rights to not continue a condition violently forced upon her not trump anybody else's rights?

Being a “medical condition” is irrelevant. I mean, you might as well call it a disease. If carrying a life is a disease, it’s no less so outside the body as it is in. You might say teenagers are pets, pests, or a disease. Elderly people are a disease. Anything and anyone you dislike is a disease, and you can justify murder on any scale you like because it’s a “medical condition.” Actually…the common cold and even COVID are medical conditions that don’t require killing people—COVID does that enough on its own, but we don’t kill people to cure a virus. People die from kidney disease all the time, nobody DEMANDS anyone give a kidney, peritoneal dialysis is a thing that can extend someone’s life for a few years, and when someone DOES donate a kidney, it doesn’t require that other person to die. You’re comparing apples to oranges. A better argument in favor of abortion would tackle how people justify killing other people. And I fail to see how killing babies is ever justified other than what I’ve already said. Is self-defense justified? Is the death penalty justified? Does a difficult pregnancy EVER meet the same conditions as either of those, i.e. it is a imminent threat to the life of the mother? If so, then you can convince me that abortion is a necessary, emergency medical procedure.

In the event of rape: I mean…see above. One problem I have with the rape argument is that it would be different if every single 12-year old girl was getting raped and impregnated. My 12-year old hasn’t been raped. We never let our kids out of our sight, so she doesn’t even have the opportunity to be sexually active. So bringing up rape doesn’t make much sense because it’s not some rite of passage to get pregnant against your will and then have an abortion. It trivializes a traumatic crime and the emotional burden of either suffering consequences of unwanted sex or living the rest of your life knowing you killed someone. While I do think that rape meets justifiable conditions of abortion, a knee jerk reaction of crying “rape,” and not just rape but anything that is by nature emotionally charged, is dangerous. Rape is a big deal, and to throw rape under the bus for the sake of justifying killing an innocent person is not something I think you really intend to do.

I also think that killing a baby because of how the “sperm donor” treated the mother is kinda blaming the victim. You’re basically saying that it’s the baby’s fault for being alive even though it’s the rapist that caused the pregnancy. I’d say it’s the choice of the girl. But I think that also demands justice because she’s still killing another person. If that’s the case, then rapists should get the death penalty, same as other murderers. The nature of the crime is an assault on another person’s life regardless and should be treated as same.


Descartes wrote:

AngelRho wrote:
If you champion LGBT “rights,” it should frighten you that the only reason legal gay marriage even exists is because of court cases. Again, is being gay or having legal gay marriage harmful to society? Is it possible to imagine a world in which it is? Well, yeah. A world in which LGBT is not a problem is a world in which everyone respects each other’s boundaries, their own right to live and work for their own sake and on their own terms. So when ANY group, whether you’re talking about gays or conservatives, uses the force of government to tell someone else how to live, you do have a problem. If gays want to get married and a free society tolerates gays, then why not? But if gays are targeting Christians who are opposed to LGBT to force their acceptance by baking a wedding cake, then they ARE doing something that is harmful to society—not because Christians are right, but because it means anyone can wield government power to force anyone to do anything. Karma. And I don’t think the gay community as a whole wants that any more than Christians do. If you want a cake, just find someone who will bake the cake. There is no need to force someone to violate their own values when any number of people will step up, take your money, and do good work for you. Nobody has to get butthurt about it, nobody has to feel isolated or resentful. More importantly, nobody has to fear the government or the courts when the system works the way it’s supposed to. But considering the issues of abortion and LGBT rights, never forget what the Courts giveth the courts can taketh away.


Well, it doesn't really bother me that gay marriage is the result of a court case. That's what the courts are there for, after all, to protect people's civil rights. There would be no interracial marriage, freedom to access birth control, or desegregation without court cases, either.

Regarding the cake thing, I believe that if you own a business that's open to the public, then you have a responsibility to serve the public. That includes baking wedding cakes for gay couples as well as straight couples. It's not a matter of forcing anybody's beliefs on you, it's a matter of not wanting to be discriminated against, which does harm society.

Oh, but it SHOULD bother you. I have no dog in that fight, no skin in that game. I tend to give most people the benefit of the doubt. Could ANYONE be a threat to society? Sure, and that includes religious people, gay people, atheists, musicians, babies…nobody gets a free pass. So I ask what do ______ people do that cause governments to pass laws banning _______? And if any group of people are known to cause problems and constitute a threat to individuals, then they SHOULD be criminalized. It is the proper role of government to protect its citizens and guarantee their life and freedom. It is NOT the proper role to regulate the lives of ordinary citizens by restricting their rights beyond what is necessary to preserve life and freedom. You have the right to free speech when you are in the public marketplace. You do NOT have freedom of speech once you cross over onto my property. You do NOT have the right to free speech anywhere on my property, especially not inside my house. I am not even obligated to give you a public platform and a microphone if I do not wish to. But the government cannot stop you from creating your own platform and reaching out to others. Likewise, it is not the proper role of government to regulate what you create and who you do business with. You should have the right to know what your product is going to be used for and the right to decline service to anyone for any reason. If you sell guns and suspect someone is going to shoot up a school, then you should have the right to not sell guns to that person. If you have a religious or other objection to baking certain products for certain purposes, you have the right to decline your own participation in such an act. Or you should, same as how you might decline to sell ammonium nitrate to someone you suspect might have non-agricultural intentions. No, I’m not comparing gay weddings to terrorism. But it’s the same principle. Individuals have the right to discriminate. But not all individuals share the same values. For every one individual who doesn’t want to be associated with gay marriage, there might be a hundred who just want your money. Maybe a thousand. So picking on the one Christian who disagrees with gay marriage is really just pathetic.

Being open to the public does not imply a responsibility to the public. At all. The only responsibility any individual has is to himself. Being open to the public means being open to people with shared values. If individuals are responsible to the public, that means that when I go to Office Depot, I have the right to sue them for refusing to sell me groceries. I just wanted a freakin’ apple, and they wouldn’t sell me one. They must be racist. Absurd, right? Because Office Depot isn’t in the business of selling groceries. And that’s what shared values are. You need office supplies, you go to Office Depot. You want groceries, you go to Kroger. And if you want a cake for a gay wedding, you find a baker who does that kind of thing. The proper role of government is to protect the rights of individuals to do business as they think is best and to punish individuals who cause harm to others, not to force Office Depot to sell fruit.

If you have to depend on government to “allow” gay people to get married, or allow mixed race marriage, or force integration (twist of irony, black people calling for segregation in recent years), then you are placing government in a position to take away those rights at any time for any reason—or no reason at all. That ultimately does individuals more harm than good. And I think with regard to abortion if you take away the right of individuals to agree as to whether unrestricted access to abortion all the way up to birth is harmful to individuals or not or whether there can be a justification for doing harm. I believe in non-aggression—the principle that the individual should never initiate force. People with similar attitudes to mine often support women’s right to abortion since restrictions on it constitute restrictions on the individual. However, it is also the destruction of a human being and poses greater restriction on human rights than NOT having abortion. If left up to individuals, a nation can come to a consensus as to how it sees the issue and can include it as a right to be protected in itself. The nation can be guided by reason. Same applies for race and LGBT matters. Court cases helped minorities assert the rights they were already guaranteed. Court cases did NOT help in getting society as a whole to accept minorities. Any time a small group of people imposes control over the thoughts and beliefs of other individuals who disagree with them, all you are going to get is suspicion and resentment. To that end, certain segments of black society say they are better protected living apart from whites than being forced to integrate. Oh, and btw…integration in public schools happened when black kids were bussed out of district into white schools. How has that worked for the benefit of the black community in the decades since? And government enforcement of a right to murder babies is going to improve things…how?



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06 Dec 2021, 2:27 pm



^^ The most fun thing do in red states


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06 Dec 2021, 2:48 pm

AngelRho wrote:
In the event of rape: I mean…see above. One problem I have with the rape argument is that it would be different if every single 12-year old girl was getting raped and impregnated. My 12-year old hasn’t been raped. We never let our kids out of our sight, so she doesn’t even have the opportunity to be sexually active. So bringing up rape doesn’t make much sense because it’s not some rite of passage to get pregnant against your will and then have an abortion. It trivializes a traumatic crime and the emotional burden of either suffering consequences of unwanted sex or living the rest of your life knowing you killed someone. While I do think that rape meets justifiable conditions of abortion, a knee jerk reaction of crying “rape,” and not just rape but anything that is by nature emotionally charged, is dangerous. Rape is a big deal, and to throw rape under the bus for the sake of justifying killing an innocent person is not something I think you really intend to do.


Yes of course children only get raped if they were already sexually active. :roll:

You're the one who seems to be trivializing rape.

Also, did you know a lot of times in cases where a child is molsested or raped, the perpetrator is often times a trusted family member/family friend. 'My children could never get raped because I supervise them.' is an incredibly ignorant thing to say.


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06 Dec 2021, 5:19 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
In the event of rape: I mean…see above. One problem I have with the rape argument is that it would be different if every single 12-year old girl was getting raped and impregnated. My 12-year old hasn’t been raped. We never let our kids out of our sight, so she doesn’t even have the opportunity to be sexually active. So bringing up rape doesn’t make much sense because it’s not some rite of passage to get pregnant against your will and then have an abortion. It trivializes a traumatic crime and the emotional burden of either suffering consequences of unwanted sex or living the rest of your life knowing you killed someone. While I do think that rape meets justifiable conditions of abortion, a knee jerk reaction of crying “rape,” and not just rape but anything that is by nature emotionally charged, is dangerous. Rape is a big deal, and to throw rape under the bus for the sake of justifying killing an innocent person is not something I think you really intend to do.


Yes of course children only get raped if they were already sexually active. :roll:

You're the one who seems to be trivializing rape.

Also, did you know a lot of times in cases where a child is molsested or raped, the perpetrator is often times a trusted family member/family friend. 'My children could never get raped because I supervise them.' is an incredibly ignorant thing to say.

Again... You're focusing on when abuse DOES happen, ignoring the ACTUAL frequency of abuse. In the real world, not every uncle or grampa is a crusty old pervert. That assumption that they are trivializes sexual abuse as a crime, though I don't think that's what you intend to do. Over the last few decades people tend to be hyper-vigilant over sex crimes in ways they didn't tend to before, but over time too much rhetoric on any subject tends to desensitize the public to the seriousness of it. I find it unthinkable that we live in an age when sex trafficking is actually a problem, but here we are, and society is progressing in a direction in which what your uncle does to you is less a problem to others than what some greasy guy from Central America or Eastern Europe does. These aren't conversations we had back when I first joined WrongPlanet.



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06 Dec 2021, 5:23 pm

AngelRho wrote:
Descartes wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
Killing another person is not a civil right. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that LGBT by its nature is something that was demonstrated to harm others and threaten society as a whole. If so, then there’d be no discussion…it couldn’t be tolerated. While there might be arguments made to that effect, to my knowledge being gay doesn’t make you a murderer. Killing people without justification, however, DOES make you a murderer, DOES deprive another of civil rights, DOES cause harm to society. It is not a victimless crime. It’s not about “beliefs.” It’s about objective reality.


Being pregnant is a medical condition. What about the harms to society by forcing people to continue a medical condition against their will? You can argue that it's for the sake of protecting another life, but where do we draw the line in that case? If I am in dire need of a kidney or some other organ, do I have the right to demand you give up one of yours in order to save my own life? Does declining to donate a kidney make you a murderer?

Not only that, but being pregnant is potentially dangerous, especially if you are poor, lack health insurance, or are a person of color. For example, black women are 3.5 times more likely to die giving birth than are white women.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-re ... nal-deaths

What about the harms to society by forcing rape victims to continue pregnancies against their will? Does a rape victim's human rights to not continue a condition violently forced upon her not trump anybody else's rights?

Being a “medical condition” is irrelevant. I mean, you might as well call it a disease. If carrying a life is a disease, it’s no less so outside the body as it is in. You might say teenagers are pets, pests, or a disease. Elderly people are a disease. Anything and anyone you dislike is a disease, and you can justify murder on any scale you like because it’s a “medical condition.” Actually…the common cold and even COVID are medical conditions that don’t require killing people—COVID does that enough on its own, but we don’t kill people to cure a virus. People die from kidney disease all the time, nobody DEMANDS anyone give a kidney, peritoneal dialysis is a thing that can extend someone’s life for a few years, and when someone DOES donate a kidney, it doesn’t require that other person to die. You’re comparing apples to oranges. A better argument in favor of abortion would tackle how people justify killing other people. And I fail to see how killing babies is ever justified other than what I’ve already said. Is self-defense justified? Is the death penalty justified? Does a difficult pregnancy EVER meet the same conditions as either of those, i.e. it is a imminent threat to the life of the mother? If so, then you can convince me that abortion is a necessary, emergency medical procedure.


So then the government is justified in forcing people to continue a medical condition against their body if it saves another life. If that is justified, then how long until it is considered justified to force people to donate organs to save lives?

Where do we stop in our crusade to protect the unborn? Should there be police investigations into every miscarriage to make sure there was no foul play? Should women be forced to take pregnancy tests before entering drinking establishments? I"m not trying to obfuscate the discussion, this is the pro-life movement taken to its most logical extreme.

That's not to mention the fact that abortion bans are proven to not work and are actually counterproductive (e.g. resulting in more abortions). Banning abortion does not work, so the pro-life movement needs to find other ways to reduce abortions.

For reference:

"The data shows that abortion rates are roughly the same in countries where abortion is broadly legal and in countries where it isn't. And abortion rates are actually four times higher in low-income countries where abortion is prohibited than in high-income countries where it is broadly legal."

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/a ... cna1235174

Banning abortion has also been shown to increase maternal mortality. It seems as though the "pro-life" movement actually is not.

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2021/09/ ... ble-digits

AngelRho wrote:
In the event of rape: I mean…see above. One problem I have with the rape argument is that it would be different if every single 12-year old girl was getting raped and impregnated. My 12-year old hasn’t been raped. We never let our kids out of our sight, so she doesn’t even have the opportunity to be sexually active. So bringing up rape doesn’t make much sense because it’s not some rite of passage to get pregnant against your will and then have an abortion. It trivializes a traumatic crime and the emotional burden of either suffering consequences of unwanted sex or living the rest of your life knowing you killed someone. While I do think that rape meets justifiable conditions of abortion, a knee jerk reaction of crying “rape,” and not just rape but anything that is by nature emotionally charged, is dangerous. Rape is a big deal, and to throw rape under the bus for the sake of justifying killing an innocent person is not something I think you really intend to do.

I also think that killing a baby because of how the “sperm donor” treated the mother is kinda blaming the victim. You’re basically saying that it’s the baby’s fault for being alive even though it’s the rapist that caused the pregnancy. I’d say it’s the choice of the girl. But I think that also demands justice because she’s still killing another person. If that’s the case, then rapists should get the death penalty, same as other murderers. The nature of the crime is an assault on another person’s life regardless and should be treated as same.


The thing is, rape can happen to anybody at any time, no matter how much a part of your child's life you believe you are. I think it's immoral for the government to force someone to continue a condition that was violently forced upon them just for the sake of bringing another baby into the world. If a person is impregnated as a result of rape, then forcing that person to continue that pregnancy just perpetuates that abuse. It's not the rape victim's fault that they were raped and impregnated, either, so why should they have to suffer the consequences by continuing the pregnancy imposed upon them by their rapist?


AngelRho wrote:
If you champion LGBT “rights,” it should frighten you that the only reason legal gay marriage even exists is because of court cases. Again, is being gay or having legal gay marriage harmful to society? Is it possible to imagine a world in which it is? Well, yeah. A world in which LGBT is not a problem is a world in which everyone respects each other’s boundaries, their own right to live and work for their own sake and on their own terms. So when ANY group, whether you’re talking about gays or conservatives, uses the force of government to tell someone else how to live, you do have a problem. If gays want to get married and a free society tolerates gays, then why not? But if gays are targeting Christians who are opposed to LGBT to force their acceptance by baking a wedding cake, then they ARE doing something that is harmful to society—not because Christians are right, but because it means anyone can wield government power to force anyone to do anything. Karma. And I don’t think the gay community as a whole wants that any more than Christians do. If you want a cake, just find someone who will bake the cake. There is no need to force someone to violate their own values when any number of people will step up, take your money, and do good work for you. Nobody has to get butthurt about it, nobody has to feel isolated or resentful. More importantly, nobody has to fear the government or the courts when the system works the way it’s supposed to. But considering the issues of abortion and LGBT rights, never forget what the Courts giveth the courts can taketh away.


Descartes wrote:
Well, it doesn't really bother me that gay marriage is the result of a court case. That's what the courts are there for, after all, to protect people's civil rights. There would be no interracial marriage, freedom to access birth control, or desegregation without court cases, either.

Regarding the cake thing, I believe that if you own a business that's open to the public, then you have a responsibility to serve the public. That includes baking wedding cakes for gay couples as well as straight couples. It's not a matter of forcing anybody's beliefs on you, it's a matter of not wanting to be discriminated against, which does harm society.

AngelRho wrote:
Oh, but it SHOULD bother you. I have no dog in that fight, no skin in that game. I tend to give most people the benefit of the doubt. Could ANYONE be a threat to society? Sure, and that includes religious people, gay people, atheists, musicians, babies…nobody gets a free pass. So I ask what do ______ people do that cause governments to pass laws banning _______? And if any group of people are known to cause problems and constitute a threat to individuals, then they SHOULD be criminalized. It is the proper role of government to protect its citizens and guarantee their life and freedom. It is NOT the proper role to regulate the lives of ordinary citizens by restricting their rights beyond what is necessary to preserve life and freedom. You have the right to free speech when you are in the public marketplace. You do NOT have freedom of speech once you cross over onto my property. You do NOT have the right to free speech anywhere on my property, especially not inside my house. I am not even obligated to give you a public platform and a microphone if I do not wish to. But the government cannot stop you from creating your own platform and reaching out to others. Likewise, it is not the proper role of government to regulate what you create and who you do business with. You should have the right to know what your product is going to be used for and the right to decline service to anyone for any reason. If you sell guns and suspect someone is going to shoot up a school, then you should have the right to not sell guns to that person. If you have a religious or other objection to baking certain products for certain purposes, you have the right to decline your own participation in such an act. Or you should, same as how you might decline to sell ammonium nitrate to someone you suspect might have non-agricultural intentions. No, I’m not comparing gay weddings to terrorism. But it’s the same principle. Individuals have the right to discriminate. But not all individuals share the same values. For every one individual who doesn’t want to be associated with gay marriage, there might be a hundred who just want your money. Maybe a thousand. So picking on the one Christian who disagrees with gay marriage is really just pathetic.

Being open to the public does not imply a responsibility to the public. At all. The only responsibility any individual has is to himself. Being open to the public means being open to people with shared values. If individuals are responsible to the public, that means that when I go to Office Depot, I have the right to sue them for refusing to sell me groceries. I just wanted a freakin’ apple, and they wouldn’t sell me one. They must be racist. Absurd, right? Because Office Depot isn’t in the business of selling groceries. And that’s what shared values are. You need office supplies, you go to Office Depot. You want groceries, you go to Kroger. And if you want a cake for a gay wedding, you find a baker who does that kind of thing. The proper role of government is to protect the rights of individuals to do business as they think is best and to punish individuals who cause harm to others, not to force Office Depot to sell fruit.

If you have to depend on government to “allow” gay people to get married, or allow mixed race marriage, or force integration (twist of irony, black people calling for segregation in recent years), then you are placing government in a position to take away those rights at any time for any reason—or no reason at all. That ultimately does individuals more harm than good. And I think with regard to abortion if you take away the right of individuals to agree as to whether unrestricted access to abortion all the way up to birth is harmful to individuals or not or whether there can be a justification for doing harm. I believe in non-aggression—the principle that the individual should never initiate force. People with similar attitudes to mine often support women’s right to abortion since restrictions on it constitute restrictions on the individual. However, it is also the destruction of a human being and poses greater restriction on human rights than NOT having abortion. If left up to individuals, a nation can come to a consensus as to how it sees the issue and can include it as a right to be protected in itself. The nation can be guided by reason. Same applies for race and LGBT matters. Court cases helped minorities assert the rights they were already guaranteed. Court cases did NOT help in getting society as a whole to accept minorities. Any time a small group of people imposes control over the thoughts and beliefs of other individuals who disagree with them, all you are going to get is suspicion and resentment. To that end, certain segments of black society say they are better protected living apart from whites than being forced to integrate. Oh, and btw…integration in public schools happened when black kids were bussed out of district into white schools. How has that worked for the benefit of the black community in the decades since? And government enforcement of a right to murder babies is going to improve things…how?


Maybe the courts don't have the power to tell people to stop being racist, homophobic, etc., but they can order you to not discriminate against them. A wedding is a wedding, gay or straight. Saying you'll provide wedding cakes to straight couples but not to gay couples is textbook discrimination. But I also believe that focusing on wedding cakes is petty and obscures the egregious discrimination that LGBT people continue to face.


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Last edited by Descartes on 06 Dec 2021, 8:04 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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06 Dec 2021, 5:28 pm

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Tim_Tex wrote:
Again, fornication should be mandatory.


No mandates with the exception of consent.

Just because fundamentalists wrongly want to mandate what I can’t do does not mean I should mandate what they have to do. Two wrongs do not make a right.

If they do no want to have sex with other people or themselves let them miss out, their choice, not my problem.

It goes the other way also. If my choice results in me going blind or eternal damnation that is not thier problem.


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06 Dec 2021, 8:05 pm

Descartes wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
Descartes wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
Killing another person is not a civil right. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that LGBT by its nature is something that was demonstrated to harm others and threaten society as a whole. If so, then there’d be no discussion…it couldn’t be tolerated. While there might be arguments made to that effect, to my knowledge being gay doesn’t make you a murderer. Killing people without justification, however, DOES make you a murderer, DOES deprive another of civil rights, DOES cause harm to society. It is not a victimless crime. It’s not about “beliefs.” It’s about objective reality.


Being pregnant is a medical condition. What about the harms to society by forcing people to continue a medical condition against their will? You can argue that it's for the sake of protecting another life, but where do we draw the line in that case? If I am in dire need of a kidney or some other organ, do I have the right to demand you give up one of yours in order to save my own life? Does declining to donate a kidney make you a murderer?

Not only that, but being pregnant is potentially dangerous, especially if you are poor, lack health insurance, or are a person of color. For example, black women are 3.5 times more likely to die giving birth than are white women.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-re ... nal-deaths

What about the harms to society by forcing rape victims to continue pregnancies against their will? Does a rape victim's human rights to not continue a condition violently forced upon her not trump anybody else's rights?

Being a “medical condition” is irrelevant. I mean, you might as well call it a disease. If carrying a life is a disease, it’s no less so outside the body as it is in. You might say teenagers are pets, pests, or a disease. Elderly people are a disease. Anything and anyone you dislike is a disease, and you can justify murder on any scale you like because it’s a “medical condition.” Actually…the common cold and even COVID are medical conditions that don’t require killing people—COVID does that enough on its own, but we don’t kill people to cure a virus. People die from kidney disease all the time, nobody DEMANDS anyone give a kidney, peritoneal dialysis is a thing that can extend someone’s life for a few years, and when someone DOES donate a kidney, it doesn’t require that other person to die. You’re comparing apples to oranges. A better argument in favor of abortion would tackle how people justify killing other people. And I fail to see how killing babies is ever justified other than what I’ve already said. Is self-defense justified? Is the death penalty justified? Does a difficult pregnancy EVER meet the same conditions as either of those, i.e. it is a imminent threat to the life of the mother? If so, then you can convince me that abortion is a necessary, emergency medical procedure.


So then the government is justified in forcing people to continue a medical condition against their body if it saves another life. If that is justified, then how long until it is considered justified to force people to donate organs to save lives?

That's not to mention the fact that abortion bans are proven to not work and are actually counterproductive (e.g. resulting in more abortions). Banning abortion does not work, so the pro-life movement needs to find other ways to reduce abortions.

For reference:

"The data shows that abortion rates are roughly the same in countries where abortion is broadly legal and in countries where it isn't. And abortion rates are actually four times higher in low-income countries where abortion is prohibited than in high-income countries where it is broadly legal."

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/a ... cna1235174

Banning abortion has also been shown to increase maternal mortality. It seems as though the "pro-life" movement actually is not.

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2021/09/ ... ble-digits

Ok, but all of that is completely superfluous and irrelevant. You don’t go killing teenagers or the elderly by labeling them a “medical condition.” Elderly people eventually die on their own, teenagers eventually grow up and leave you alone, and pregnancies end themselves when the baby leaves the room. Murdering a baby is unnecessary when the body will normally expel the child on its own WITHOUT causing lasting harm to either.

Most pregnancies end that way. So if it’s unnecessary to end a pregnancy early by killing a baby, what are we really talking about? What’s so important about killing babies?

Conversely, organ transplants aren’t even the same thing. Apples to oranges. A kidney is an organ. A baby is a human being. Kidneys are donated by people who care about other people in treating a permanent condition. Pregnancies are temporary and end with a baby independent of its mother—and she never has to see her baby again if she doesn’t want to. And while you cannot be called upon to save a life that doesn’t matter to you, neither can you call on another person to approve and support infant murder.

Demonstrate that killing a baby is self-defense and I’ll at least understand why you’d want legal abortion. A baby simply growing in a womb does not constitute an attack. An ectopic pregnancy, however, is potentially a death sentence for both mother and baby. Justifiable homicide is not murder.

Legal abortion implies the consent of the public. Back alley abortions and wire hangers arguably result in greater mortality. However, it doesn’t come with the burden of voters giving their nod of approval. If it happens that way, then it really is the mother’s fault for doing something she knew not to do. Or it is the action of criminals acting in secret and could result in prosecution if they are caught. Either way, it doesn’t force the public to go along with something they believe is destructive. Now…if it is a medically necessary, emergency, life-saving procedure performed in a hospital O.R., the public can sleep at night since women have at least the option of choosing themselves if at least one of them is going to die, anyway. Given the choice, better to only lose one life than two.

Descartes wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
In the event of rape: I mean…see above. One problem I have with the rape argument is that it would be different if every single 12-year old girl was getting raped and impregnated. My 12-year old hasn’t been raped. We never let our kids out of our sight, so she doesn’t even have the opportunity to be sexually active. So bringing up rape doesn’t make much sense because it’s not some rite of passage to get pregnant against your will and then have an abortion. It trivializes a traumatic crime and the emotional burden of either suffering consequences of unwanted sex or living the rest of your life knowing you killed someone. While I do think that rape meets justifiable conditions of abortion, a knee jerk reaction of crying “rape,” and not just rape but anything that is by nature emotionally charged, is dangerous. Rape is a big deal, and to throw rape under the bus for the sake of justifying killing an innocent person is not something I think you really intend to do.

I also think that killing a baby because of how the “sperm donor” treated the mother is kinda blaming the victim. You’re basically saying that it’s the baby’s fault for being alive even though it’s the rapist that caused the pregnancy. I’d say it’s the choice of the girl. But I think that also demands justice because she’s still killing another person. If that’s the case, then rapists should get the death penalty, same as other murderers. The nature of the crime is an assault on another person’s life regardless and should be treated as same.


The thing is, rape can happen to anybody at any time, no matter how much a part of your child's life you believe you are. I think it's immoral for the government to force someone to continue a condition that was violently forced upon them just for the sake of bringing another baby into the world, but we may have to agree to disagree on that.

TBH, I think expecting a 12-year old to carry a baby to term and raise that child is unreasonable and expecting too much. I have a different opinion on this. I see nothing wrong with Plan B birth control, not to mention I believe pregnancy starts with the implantation of the fertilized egg. Life technically, but ONLY technically, begins with fertilization. But I also know that chemical pregnancies happen, the embryo doesn’t always make it, and I’ve even had to emotionally process the loss of a baby. So I can’t allow myself to get so emotionally bound up in so many billions of aborted embryos that most women never know they had. That’s a perfectly natural phenomenon. So there are reasonable steps one can take in ending a pregnancy before it can even start. I would prefer my own daughters begin birth control precisely because rape can happen. Regular b.c. wouldn’t be a carte blanc for promiscuity, but rather protection against those who don’t take no for an answer (although it has been argued that the pill actually INCREASES the likelihood of rape since rapists don’t have to deal with the consequences of impregnating a girl).

It seems most legislators recognize this as a potential problem and allow early abortions in the case of rape. The ban on abortions is not without exceptions, and the attitude that there are never exceptions is just hysteria on the part of those who want more dead babies. It is true that there are those who expect a full, complete ban. I’m not one of those guys. But I do believe that MOST cases of abortion are unnecessary.

Descartes wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
If you champion LGBT “rights,” it should frighten you that the only reason legal gay marriage even exists is because of court cases. Again, is being gay or having legal gay marriage harmful to society? Is it possible to imagine a world in which it is? Well, yeah. A world in which LGBT is not a problem is a world in which everyone respects each other’s boundaries, their own right to live and work for their own sake and on their own terms. So when ANY group, whether you’re talking about gays or conservatives, uses the force of government to tell someone else how to live, you do have a problem. If gays want to get married and a free society tolerates gays, then why not? But if gays are targeting Christians who are opposed to LGBT to force their acceptance by baking a wedding cake, then they ARE doing something that is harmful to society—not because Christians are right, but because it means anyone can wield government power to force anyone to do anything. Karma. And I don’t think the gay community as a whole wants that any more than Christians do. If you want a cake, just find someone who will bake the cake. There is no need to force someone to violate their own values when any number of people will step up, take your money, and do good work for you. Nobody has to get butthurt about it, nobody has to feel isolated or resentful. More importantly, nobody has to fear the government or the courts when the system works the way it’s supposed to. But considering the issues of abortion and LGBT rights, never forget what the Courts giveth the courts can taketh away.


Well, it doesn't really bother me that gay marriage is the result of a court case. That's what the courts are there for, after all, to protect people's civil rights. There would be no interracial marriage, freedom to access birth control, or desegregation without court cases, either.

Regarding the cake thing, I believe that if you own a business that's open to the public, then you have a responsibility to serve the public. That includes baking wedding cakes for gay couples as well as straight couples. It's not a matter of forcing anybody's beliefs on you, it's a matter of not wanting to be discriminated against, which does harm society.
AngelRho wrote:
Oh, but it SHOULD bother you. I have no dog in that fight, no skin in that game. I tend to give most people the benefit of the doubt. Could ANYONE be a threat to society? Sure, and that includes religious people, gay people, atheists, musicians, babies…nobody gets a free pass. So I ask what do ______ people do that cause governments to pass laws banning _______? And if any group of people are known to cause problems and constitute a threat to individuals, then they SHOULD be criminalized. It is the proper role of government to protect its citizens and guarantee their life and freedom. It is NOT the proper role to regulate the lives of ordinary citizens by restricting their rights beyond what is necessary to preserve life and freedom. You have the right to free speech when you are in the public marketplace. You do NOT have freedom of speech once you cross over onto my property. You do NOT have the right to free speech anywhere on my property, especially not inside my house. I am not even obligated to give you a public platform and a microphone if I do not wish to. But the government cannot stop you from creating your own platform and reaching out to others. Likewise, it is not the proper role of government to regulate what you create and who you do business with. You should have the right to know what your product is going to be used for and the right to decline service to anyone for any reason. If you sell guns and suspect someone is going to shoot up a school, then you should have the right to not sell guns to that person. If you have a religious or other objection to baking certain products for certain purposes, you have the right to decline your own participation in such an act. Or you should, same as how you might decline to sell ammonium nitrate to someone you suspect might have non-agricultural intentions. No, I’m not comparing gay weddings to terrorism. But it’s the same principle. Individuals have the right to discriminate. But not all individuals share the same values. For every one individual who doesn’t want to be associated with gay marriage, there might be a hundred who just want your money. Maybe a thousand. So picking on the one Christian who disagrees with gay marriage is really just pathetic.

Being open to the public does not imply a responsibility to the public. At all. The only responsibility any individual has is to himself. Being open to the public means being open to people with shared values. If individuals are responsible to the public, that means that when I go to Office Depot, I have the right to sue them for refusing to sell me groceries. I just wanted a freakin’ apple, and they wouldn’t sell me one. They must be racist. Absurd, right? Because Office Depot isn’t in the business of selling groceries. And that’s what shared values are. You need office supplies, you go to Office Depot. You want groceries, you go to Kroger. And if you want a cake for a gay wedding, you find a baker who does that kind of thing. The proper role of government is to protect the rights of individuals to do business as they think is best and to punish individuals who cause harm to others, not to force Office Depot to sell fruit.

If you have to depend on government to “allow” gay people to get married, or allow mixed race marriage, or force integration (twist of irony, black people calling for segregation in recent years), then you are placing government in a position to take away those rights at any time for any reason—or no reason at all. That ultimately does individuals more harm than good. And I think with regard to abortion if you take away the right of individuals to agree as to whether unrestricted access to abortion all the way up to birth is harmful to individuals or not or whether there can be a justification for doing harm. I believe in non-aggression—the principle that the individual should never initiate force. People with similar attitudes to mine often support women’s right to abortion since restrictions on it constitute restrictions on the individual. However, it is also the destruction of a human being and poses greater restriction on human rights than NOT having abortion. If left up to individuals, a nation can come to a consensus as to how it sees the issue and can include it as a right to be protected in itself. The nation can be guided by reason. Same applies for race and LGBT matters. Court cases helped minorities assert the rights they were already guaranteed. Court cases did NOT help in getting society as a whole to accept minorities. Any time a small group of people imposes control over the thoughts and beliefs of other individuals who disagree with them, all you are going to get is suspicion and resentment. To that end, certain segments of black society say they are better protected living apart from whites than being forced to integrate. Oh, and btw…integration in public schools happened when black kids were bussed out of district into white schools. How has that worked for the benefit of the black community in the decades since? And government enforcement of a right to murder babies is going to improve things…how?


Maybe the courts don't have the power to tell people to stop being racist, homophobic, etc., but they can order you to not discriminate against them. A wedding is a wedding, gay or straight. Saying you'll provide wedding cakes to straight couples but not to gay couples is textbook discrimination. But I also believe that focusing on wedding cakes is petty and obscures the egregious discrimination that LGBT people continue to face.[/quote]
I think a better solution is to allow people the freedom to discriminate. People do it all the time. It’s a matter of self-preservation and self-interest. What music you listen to. Where you live. Which church you attend. Which school you attend. Which jobs you apply for. Who you date. Gays are among the most exclusionist victim classes out there, but as a victim class (not all gays prefer to be victims) expect to be completely accepted and protected without regard for whether people WANT to accept them or think they deserve protection. If discrimination is so bad, why not just ask gays to be straight? Because by expressing a preference for only other gay men one severely narrows the pool of potential mates. Who’s to say the perfect mate for any given gay man doesn’t happen to be a straight woman?

But if you DON’T discriminate, then you open yourself to unacceptable, potentially deadly risks. Not discriminating your sexual partners likely will lead to diseases, some incurable, and unwanted pregnancy and murdering babies. So there’s discrimination we accept and discrimination we don’t. And thus by discrimination we keep ourselves safe as well as others by extension. When you let just anybody fly planes, they fly them into skyscrapers and kill thousands of people. Or when someone gets pissed off by heavy-handed government intervention that results in the deaths of religious people, it might be a good idea to hold off on sales of fertilizer. Or when a proud dad walks into a pawn shop with a disaffected teenager, it miiiiight be a bad day to sell guns.

If you discriminate on race…well, ok, that’s just stupid, because you’re denying goods and services to a COLOR rather than a human being who has the same value you have. But that’s the beauty of the world we live in. If one person denies someone a thing based on skin color, then his competitor gets the guy’s money and prospers. Black civil rights came about as the result of blacks being LEGALLY denied their rights. IOW, it was government action that disenfranchised them. The correct course of action would have simply have for governments to enforce laws that afforded blacks equal opportunity. Instead, what happened was a stream of legislation and constitutional amendments that dealt with the rights of a specific race and allowing the formation of special, protected, victim classes after which other victims would crawl out of the woodwork to get their piece of the pie. I can’t make this any simpler: You cannot solve a problem that the government causes with a government solution. You only succeed in causing more problems. All you can do is try to talk people out of being douchebags. And if their policies are unreasonably discriminatory (emphasis on “unreasonably”), then you just respond in kind. Christian guy won’t bake a cake? No problem. Open up a business that caters to baking cakes and steal business away from the Christian guy.

I do agree with you that the baking cakes thing is petty. I typically will refer to baking cakes as a metaphor for someone being coerced into an action that violates his principles. It’s been years since I noticed anything remotely similar in the news, so hopefully we’re over this in the United States. Mississippi and other states passed laws prohibiting lawsuits such as the famous case in Colorado. Personally…yeah, I’d raise religious objections, too. But there are other ways to handle this. What I might do if it were me is I would just bake the cake and not ask what it was for. It’s not a wedding cake. It’s a cake that just happened to end up at a reception for a recently married gay couple. It wouldn’t be necessary to attach my name to anything to do with the event. That way we all get what we want. It becomes a problem when the buyer demands validation for something the producer doesn’t agree with or doesn’t want to be associated with, and that’s precisely what has happened. When businesses are forced to shut down over things, it becomes a matter of civil rights because it means you do NOT actually have freedom of religion or the right to property.

The relevant takeaway, though, is the mistake in assuming that government involvement in a thing magically makes everything ok. If you have to depend on government to make abortion available in spite of public interest, it might be a good time to consider whether you should have it at all.