This is topic Election Matters: the Tea Party, incumbent dissatisfaction, and Christine O'Donnell in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.
Palin-backed Tea Party candidate Christene O'Donnell wins Delaware G.O.P. primary.
NYT:
quote:The Tea Party movement scored another victory on Tuesday, helping to propel a dissident Republican, Christine O’Donnell, to a stunning upset win over Representative Michael N. Castle in the race for the United States Senate nomination in Delaware.
Mr. Castle, a moderate Republican who served two terms as governor and has been reliably winning elections for the last four decades, became the latest establishment Republican casualty of the primary election season. Republican leaders said the victory by Ms. O’Donnell complicated the party’s chances of winning control of the Senate.
With almost all the votes counted, Ms. O’Donnell defeated Mr. Castle 53 percent to 47 percent. Her victory provided a fitting bookend to a tumultuous primary election season for Republican incumbents, which was roiled by Tea Party activists and a concern over Republicans who failed a so-called purity test by conservative candidates.
Ms. O’Donnell won the endorsement of Sarah Palin, Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina and other leaders of the party’s conservative wing. The state and national Republican Party mounted an aggressive campaign to defeat her, but it fell short, with Mr. Castle unable to rely on independent voters who have long formed his base of support.
She's also near-completely unelectable due to how crazy she comes off; she has well-publicized financial issues, 'stunning exposes' by ex-aides, problematic history, and a series of extremely outlandish positions on subjects like masturbation being adultery, 'weekly shootings' being the result of taking the bible out of schools, and opponents 'hiding and waiting for her' in bushes.
Her nomination means that the once guaranteed win for the GOP in Delaware has turned into an almost guaranteed defeat. O'Donnell is massively unpopular with voters of both parties, with something around 40% of Republican voters vowing to vote for the Democratic candidate this November.
quote:Castle had a 95% chance of winning in November, but the odds of the GOP winning the seat with Christine O’Donnell as the nominee have sunk to 16%. By nominating O’Donnell the Tea Party sliced the GOP’s odds of winning the Senate almost in half from 30% to 16%.
Because of the severe liability that the Tea Party poses towards Republican electoral chances in the midterm election — one which previously fostered a one in three chance of the republicans retaking the senate — I'm holding off analysis of electoral predictions until the extent of the damage done to the G.O.P. in primaries can be roughly assessed. Overall, things still look good for the G.O.P. in the house election and they are still practically guaranteed to make 'midterm surge' advances.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Seriously though, I kinda wish tea party candidates would run as a third party, break up the two party system a bit by region kinda like the Bloc.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Seriously though, I kinda wish tea party candidates would run as a third party, break up the two party system a bit by region kinda like the Bloc.
It wouldn't break up the two party system, it would just continue to favor the Democrats and force continued consolidation among conservative elements.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
*shrug* The Bloc seem to be comfy.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Considering the Democrats can't find a cohesive message with two hands and a flashlight, I still think they'd be even.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Considering the Democrats can't find a cohesive message with two hands and a flashlight, I still think they'd be even.
Yup.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: *shrug* The Bloc seem to be comfy.
The Bloc don't have to exist on the margins of America's 'first past the gate' winner take all election system.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
I'm pretty sure it's the same in Canada, first past the post.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Yep.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Right, let me try that again with new emphasis.
The Bloc don't have to exist on the margins of America's system, which has much different implications of game theory and is not parliamentary. The same mechanisms of the canadian parliamentary government that allow the Bloc to be 'comfy' don't exist in the american system.
If the conservatives break up into the Republicans and the Tea Party, the Democrats are the victors, and they remain so until opposition to the Democrats reforges back into a single party that can challenge them and not vote-split the conservative electorate into powerlessness, leaving us a two-party system again. You aren't going to see viable minor parties in this system.
Of course, that leads to me agreeing with you in the sense that I would love for the tea party to run as their own party. It would benefit me greatly, but what they're doing right now works too.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Samp, I just realized that when you talk like that you remind me of Micah Quill.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Samp, I just realized that when you talk like that you remind me of Micah Quill.
You would be more fun if you could find more direct ways to express that my political commentary pisses you off. But thank you for yet again opening your participation in one of my threads with backbite, and comparing me to a malevolent, deceitful, evil character from fiction!
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:If the conservatives break up into the Republicans and the Tea Party, the Democrats are the victors, and they remain so until opposition to the Democrats reforges back into a single party that can challenge them and not vote-split the conservative electorate into powerlessness, leaving us a two-party system again.
Unless splitting with the Tea Party allows the Republicans to take a more moderate position and steal moderate Democratic voters away. Two conservative parties vs. one liberal party doesn't work for the Republicans, but one conservative party vs. one moderate party vs. one liberal party would work.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
the only way I can see a viable third party working out is if it's a moderate one. Made up of the Snowes and Liebermans. Or maybe blue dog dems, and whatever is comparable (is there?) in the republican party.
edit - whoops, Tres posted while I was posting.
Posted by Mucous (Member # 12331) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: ... until opposition to the Democrats reforges back into a single party that can challenge them and not vote-split the conservative electorate into powerlessness, leaving us a two-party system again. You aren't going to see viable minor parties in this system.
I don't see this as a distinguishing factor. The same pressures of vote-splitting do exist in the Canadian system and caused the Reform and Progressive Conservatives to merge in 2003 while the same system lead to the rise of the Reform and the Bloc as regional parties causing vote-splitting on the right and left respectively.
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: [QUOTE]Unless splitting with the Tea Party allows the Republicans to take a more moderate position and steal moderate Democratic voters away. Two conservative parties vs. one liberal party doesn't work for the Republicans, but one conservative party vs. one moderate party vs. one liberal party would work.
Wow, what percent of moderate voters would the republican party have to gain to offset the vote cracking of a tea party split? Nobody looking at election studies has even proposed this as a hypothesis, its not gonna happen.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
I reference this in my post, but if they could also combine with moderate democrats they could be a significant force.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
I find this interesting because back in the late 70's people said the same things about Ronald Reagan. People said he didn't have a shot in hell of winning, that other candidates would be better, and that he shouldn't even try. Four hundred and eighty nine electoral votes later he became president.
I could honestly care less that some Republicans are angry that Castle lost. In my opinion this was a victory for the people and not the establishment. Whether O'Donnel wins or not, I'm happy that more people are voting and making their voice be heard.
I should also point out that most of the backlash was from the local Republican Party. The national party has already pledged the maximum amount allowed to the O'Donnell campaign.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Geraine: I don't think Ronald Reagan was ever *that* much of a dark horse candidate. He was narrowly upset for the party nomination in 1976 against an incumbent president, and came roaring back in 80, taking advantage of Jimmy Carter's almost total lack of support, and evident impotence.
I don't think the Republican party is going to collapse, there's too much legacy to rebuild with a brand new party. Instead they are going to rediscover their bearings, perhaps take stronger stances on certain issues and drop others, just like the Democrats did when Reagan became president.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:In my opinion this was a victory for the people and not the establishment. Whether O'Donnel wins or not, I'm happy that more people are voting and making their voice be heard.
Really? Geraine, I'm all for government by the people, but with that government comes a powerful responsibility. It's not just government by the people, period. Can you look at O'Donnel and tell me you're pleased that 'the people' have looked at her and said, "Yes, please, she is the person we wish to elect to federal office and wield great national and even possibly international power in our name." Really? Just as an example that took all of fifteen seconds to cough up, she's a woman who thinks (or has thought) women ought not be in the military, but is running for elected office. Back in 1997, she was claiming that condoms don't work and in fact help spread disease.
Geraine...we shouldn't be proud of the people expressing their voices in support of this fruit bat. We should be proud of the people making their voices be heard in support of good things, or neutral things, or things we don't necessarily agree on but can still respect. Not clowns like this. I mean, "Condoms don't work?" In 1997? I think we can both agree, can't we, that that is just a flat out lie. There's simply no wiggling out of that. It's a lie because it's an incomplete statement intended to scare people, and I just can't believe people saying it don't know it.
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
How come "Moderate Republican" always means "votes exclusively with the democrats?" but "Conservative Democrat" means "occasionally votes with Republicans?"
...
The third party route is not a solution. It WOULD guarantee victory for the progressives even if it was, as Tres puts it, Conservative v Moderate v Liberal.
I am VERY grateful for the Tea Party though. It has reversed the Bush era focus on bashing gays and returned the republicans to the fiscal issues where they should be. Cutting taxes and Cutting spending. Two things that Bush didn't have a clue about.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I think the lack of responsibility people take when it comes to exercising our rights in America is appalling.
I think that one of the things we really need to change is to combat this ideas that right exist without any sort of concomitant responsibilities. I think that we've developed this idea that because there are not (and generally should not be) any external constraints on the exercise of rights that it is correct the rights are somehow free of constraint.
It is, in my opinion, completely wrong to celebrate the act of voting in and of itself. Irresponsible voting is a great wrong. The right to vote unfettered by external forces is founded on people having the internal constraint of taking responsibility for this vote. They can't be made to do so (directly anyway), but when they cease to do so, as it appears to me many people have done in our country, the system breaks and you get very poor results.
A lot of people have criticized the Tea Party for, among other things, being made up people who have little sense of actual personal responsibility. One the things that seems to lend this credence is the absolutely horrible people they seem to be picking as their standard bearers and who they are trying to elect to office. Christine O'Donnell winning the primary on Tea Party support should rightly be seen as bringing shame onto the Tea Party.
They are free to choose and, in this case and in others, they have chosen very, very poorly. That this is something we should celebrate or even approve of can, as far as I can see, only come from the idea that they have no responsibility to choose well.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Geraine: I find this interesting because back in the late 70's people said the same things about Ronald Reagan. People said he didn't have a shot in hell of winning, that other candidates would be better, and that he shouldn't even try. Four hundred and eighty nine electoral votes later he became president.
I don't remember that at all.
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
kmb: I do. The press *hated* Regan. Especially after he was elected.
Squick: I agree with most of what you said. The whole "But you GOTTA vote thing" sticks in my craw. We don't need people who don't pay attention voting.
Thing is, the tea partiers ARE paying attention. Sometimes for the first time in their life. And what they said, in their vote for O'Donnell, is "Yeah, she's crazy, but Castle is a Democrat with an R by his name." It was a vote against the Obama agenda, which Castle supported. If this means a Democrat gets elected in the November election, so be it.
Even primaries are a "lesser of two evils" choice.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I was referring to him not having a shot at getting elected. Rep. Anderson was the more moderate republican* and drew as much from President Carter as from President Reagan. I don't think that most people thought that President Carter was going to win.
*He ran as an Independent after losing the Republican primary.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Thing is, the tea partiers ARE paying attention.
I don't see it that way. There are plenty of very serious people out there who are for what I see as the core issue of the Tea Party. I myself looked into them when I heard of them. I believe that right now we are in a situation where effectively we have taxation without representation and that something drastic should be done about this. The Tea Party groups I looked into and the national movement as a whole (I mean, come one, they're headed by Sarah Palin and Glen Beck) were very disappointing and, from my perspective, at least as irresponsible as rank and file voters and often worse.
There is, as I see it, a fundamental incoherency and desire to live in a simple fantasy world that underlies much of the Tea Party movement. Yeah, they're angry about stuff and against it, but seems to be as far as many of them take it. A lot of them are being led by the nose from people who are manipulating to their own ends.
There are those who are very serious, dedicated, and responsible, but they seem to me to be mostly marginalized by the bulk of people who don't seem to rise above the level of teenagers whining about the man keeping them down. They certainly aren't the ones who are winning the primaries that people are crowing about.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: And what they said, in their vote for O'Donnell, is "Yeah, she's crazy, but Castle is a Democrat with an R by his name." It was a vote against the Obama agenda, which Castle supported.
If, as you say, that's what they 'said' with their vote, then they aren't very smart in their punishment of dissent from the party line, even outside of the fact that their choice effectively hands the election to someone who's actually a Democrat. This is because 'he's a democrat with an R by his name!' isn't true:
quote:Castle opposed the Lilly Ledbetter pay act, which the ACU described as a “new Pandora’s Box for trial lawyers.” He voted for a January 2009 bill that would prevent the Treasury from spending the $350 billion that remained in the TARP program. He opposed the Obama stimulus. He voted against efforts to water down legislation barring federal funds to ACORN or other organizations that employ people who have been convicted of election-law violations. He voted to eliminate the earmark for the airport near Johnstown, Pa., named after Rep. John Murtha. He voted to cut discretionary government spending in the appropriations for the Departments of Housing and Transportation by 5 percent.
He supported an amendment to the health-care bill that would ban using taxpayer funds to provide abortion services, an interesting vote for a self-described pro-choice Republican. He voted against the health-care bill.
A central point of the O’Donnell folks is that Mike Castle is unacceptable because he doesn’t support the repeal of Obamacare. But that’s only half his stated position. Castle thinks trying to repeal Obamacare while Obama is president is a waste of time, but he’s open to the idea if the GOP can regain control of the White House ...
He voted for a bill to repeal the TARP program and lower the federal debt limit. Finally, he voted against the financial-industry-regulation legislation backed by Barney Frank.
Because Delaware has only one representative in the House of Representatives, we have no House Democrat from that state to compare against Castle’s voting record, but in all of the above votes, the vast majority of Democrats took the opposing position.
Jeff Lord argues, “Mike Castle plays for the other side [meaning Democrats] wearing the Republican jersey.” But the terms “not as conservative as I would like” and “Democrat” are not synonyms, no matter how much we pound the table or how loudly we insist it is so.
quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: How come "Moderate Republican" always means "votes exclusively with the democrats?" but "Conservative Democrat" means "occasionally votes with Republicans?
This is what you think these terms "always" mean? That's strange, because that's not true.
Take Snowe, for instance. If you think she "votes exclusively with the democrats" you just have no idea what you are talking about and she is the most common example of a "moderate Republican".
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Regarding Samp's post...see, that's an example of the sort of irresponsibility that I'm talking about. Don't say things that obviously aren't true. Either you know they aren't true and are lying or you haven't done the basic research to speak about the matter.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucous:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: ... until opposition to the Democrats reforges back into a single party that can challenge them and not vote-split the conservative electorate into powerlessness, leaving us a two-party system again. You aren't going to see viable minor parties in this system.
I don't see this as a distinguishing factor. The same pressures of vote-splitting do exist in the Canadian system
What i've been unable to express so far, apparently, is that it is differences between canada's parliamentary system and america's non-parliamentary system which are going to keep there from being the 'same pressures.' America's system has ensured a two-party balance of political power since the 18th century, and barring a vast rework of our legislative system, the tea party isn't going to change that.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:the only way I can see a viable third party working out is if it's a moderate one. Made up of the Snowes and Liebermans.
Lieberman has displayed extremist views on enough issues (civil liberties, Iran, Israel) that I find it hard to understand how people can still call him a moderate.
I would agree that he used to be pretty centrist, before 9/11.
Posted by natural_mystic (Member # 11760) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: What i've been unable to express so far, apparently, is that it is differences between canada's parliamentary system and america's non-parliamentary system which are going to keep there from being the 'same pressures.' America's system has ensured a two-party balance of political power since the 18th century, and barring a vast rework of our legislative system, the tea party isn't going to change that.
You haven't expressed what it is about the systems that generates this difference. For example, we have independents in the senate who have some political strength based on who they will caucus with. Why couldn't a third party take on this role? I agree that it's harder to break in to the presidential race. A similar dynamic is more or less at play in the UK, tho, where a member of the third party is unlikely to actually be the prime minister in the near future, but the Lib Dems are clearly significant.
Returning to the US: in the past both parties have been pretty big tent with party membership credential varying by region. Thus it's common for, say, a Boston Republican to be to the left of a Miss. Dem on some issues. The Tea party is a bit different as seen, for example, by the fact that the views of O'Donnell are not obviously more moderate than, say, those of DeMint. Does this leave a vacuum?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Money. Lots of money and organization behind the two parties. An Independent has to be enormously wealthy to even make an impact. Canada has reasonable rules about campaign finance.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Largely it is because American plurality elections from single-member constituencies and a single elected executive give few chances of victory or reward to parties that cannot muster plurality. We don't have a structure that's amenable to two separate groups who organize in a coalition structure to contend against the plurality group. Giving up the majority posts in the legislature is too much of a liability, and you put yourselves at additional liability in presidential elections, which comes with its own host of substantial problems. Then there's the issue of funding; independents have a funding hurdle that established parties lack.
What seals it in this particular case is that the Tea Party is not able to draw upon support from both sides, or work 'from the middle.' They are cracking a dwindling ideological demographic and shrinking the 'big tent' strategy necessary to stand up to Democratic majorities, and they're also currently abusing the advantages that voter tendencies grant to the minority party in times of economic distress and midterm elections where your opponent holds the presidency. Nothing about what they are doing is electorally advantageous for conservatives, not least of all their clampdown on 'dissent' from their strict definition of what should count as a conservative, and their outright hostility to electable moderates within the party. Extrapolate Pixiest's black and white assessment of Castle as a Democrat in the eyes of the tea party, who 'supports the Obama agenda.' They are shrinking the tent at a time where conservatism is experiencing a severe issue with a lack of intergenerational transmissibility of the ideology. Absolutely nothing about their approach — or circumstantial positioning well outside of moderate appeal — would do anything but empower the party they oppose. It would fall back into a two party system in short order.
I guess i could say that a break from the two party system isn't impossible in other concievable circumstances, but this isn't one of them.
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
Hey, you're right.. Mike Castle sometimes votes with republicans:
# Voted YES on banning gay adoptions in DC. (Jul 1999)
But check out his spending: * Voted YES on $192B additional anti-recession stimulus spending. (Jul 2009) -- Just keep it under 100 billion and he'll vote YES as many times as you like. * Voted NO on additional $825 billion for economic recovery package. (Jan 2009) -- looks like he prefers to spend nickle and dime. * Voted YES on $15B bailout for GM and Chrysler. (Dec 2008) * Voted YES on $60B stimulus package for jobs, infrastructure, & energy. (Sep 2008) * Voted YES on revitalizing severely distressed public housing. (Jan 2008) * Supports balanced budget amendment & line item veto. (Sep 1994) <- How's that working out? * Maintain & enforce existing spending caps in the future. (Sep 1998) -- HA!
And his energy policy. Does this look republican to you?
* Voted YES on enforcing limits on CO2 global warming pollution. (Jun 2009) * Voted YES on tax credits for renewable electricity, with PAYGO offsets. (Sep 2008) * Voted YES on tax incentives for energy production and conservation. (May 2008) * Voted YES on tax incentives for renewable energy. (Feb 2008) * Voted YES on investing in homegrown biofuel. (Aug 2007) * Voted YES on criminalizing oil cartels like OPEC. (May 2007) * Voted YES on removing oil & gas exploration subsidies. (Jan 2007) * Voted YES on keeping moratorium on drilling for oil offshore. (Jun 2006) * Voted YES on scheduling permitting for new oil refinieries. (Jun 2006) * Voted NO on authorizing construction of new oil refineries. (Oct 2005) * Voted NO on passage of the Bush Administration national energy policy. (Jun 2004) * Voted NO on implementing Bush-Cheney national energy policy. (Nov 2003) * Voted NO on raising CAFE standards; incentives for alternative fuels. (Aug 2001) * Voted YES on prohibiting oil drilling & development in ANWR. (Aug 2001) * Voted YES on starting implementation of Kyoto Protocol. (Jun 2000) * Establish greenhouse gas tradeable allowances. (Feb 2005) * Rated 33% by CAF, indicating a mixed record on energy independence. (Dec 2006) * Sign on to UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. (Jan 2007) * Supports immediate reductions in greenhouse gases. (Sep 1998)
And the Environment:
* Voted YES on $2 billion more for Cash for Clunkers program. (Jul 2009) -- more BS spending. * Voted YES on protecting free-roaming horses and burros. (Jul 2009) * Voted YES on environmental education grants for outdoor experiences. (Sep 2008) * Voted YES on $9.7B for Amtrak improvements and operation thru 2013. (Jun 2008) * Voted YES on increasing AMTRAK funding by adding $214M to $900M. (Jun 2006) * Voted NO on barring website promoting Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. (May 2006) * Voted NO on deauthorizing "critical habitat" for endangered species. (Sep 2005) * Voted YES on speeding up approval of forest thinning projects. (Nov 2003) * Supports grants for brownfields remediation. (May 2002) * Make EPA into a Cabinet department. (May 2002) * Rated 70% by the LCV, indicating pro-environment votes. (Dec 2003) * Strengthen prohibitions against animal fighting. (Jan 2007) * Focus on results, not regulation. (Sep 1998)
Tell me progressives, how many of you would vote for this guy if he had a D or a G by his name. Honestly. Say it was running against Lieberman.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:And his energy policy. Does this look republican to you?
It depends. Do I have to define republican energy policy as inherently being in denial of anthropogenic global warming? That seems uncharitable.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Tell me progressives, how many of you would vote for this guy if he had a D or a G by his name. Honestly. Say it was running against Lieberman.
quote: # Voted YES on banning gay adoptions in DC. (Jul 1999)
Not likely unless the Republican was worse. I don't know Sen. Lieberman's record on those but he is too much of a hawk for my vote. What is this guy's record on foreign policy? Lieberman might have an edge on gay rights but not by much.
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
I just went line by line through Castle's record on ontheissues.org. he seems very clearly to be a centrist, with more general support of Republican legislative maneuvering and a slightly more right-wing than left-wing slant. I fail to see how this makes him a "Democrat" who "Supports the Obama agenda" more than "a moderate Republican".
Posted by Mucous (Member # 12331) on :
quote:Originally posted by natural_mystic: You haven't expressed what it is about the systems that generates this difference.
Exactly. I think kmbboots for example is onto something with the money issue. That is a substantial difference. I'm not sure it extends back particularly far historically, but it is a difference.
But other supposed differences, I'm less convinced about. Canadian third-parties run into many of the same issues of never having a reasonable chance to form a government and coalitions are rare, e.g.:
quote:Does Canada have any history of coalition governments?
There's the one in 1917 when a lot of Liberals left the Liberal Party to join the Conservative Party to form a new Union Government. That wasn't really a coalition. That was more people leaving their party. That wouldn't technically qualify as a coalition.
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Samp, I just realized that when you talk like that you remind me of Micah Quill.
You would be more fun if you could find more direct ways to express that my political commentary pisses you off. But thank you for yet again opening your participation in one of my threads with backbite, and comparing me to a malevolent, deceitful, evil character from fiction!
No, no, it's specifically when you say things like "I hope the Tea Party continues to do X, because that will actually have the opposite effect they intend, which is what I want."
To me, Quill's most memorable scene was near the end of his first appearance, when Purity tells him that he's twisted things and he says "That's good. Keep that up. That'll get you hanged."
Coming from a position of thinking the Tea Party is one of the best things to happen to American politics in my lifetime, when you say things like "Of course, that leads to me agreeing with you in the sense that I would love for the tea party to run as their own party. It would benefit me greatly, but what they're doing right now works too." it just... really reminded me of Quill. So much so that I felt compelled to say so. Not to say that you are, in general, like Quill, only that you said the one specific thing I found similar.
So, for the record, though I think you are wrong about the Tea Party, I don't actually think you're malevolent. Are we buddies again? Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Coming from a position of thinking the Tea Party is one of the best things to happen to American politics in my lifetime
It's only not surprising because you're ably mislead enough to defend indefensible parties, much like in the Breitbart/Sherrod affair.
quote:So, for the record, though I think you are wrong about the Tea Party, I don't actually think you're malevolent.
That's nice! But I'm right about the Tea Party, and nobody with any sense is going to argue that Christine O'Donnell is not a terrible candidate and a loss for conservatives. A legit, bona fide, and tea party inflicted disaster. Any mass of the electorate who can still champion her as someone who has any business being a national legislator is either (1) ignorant, or (2) a few fruit loops short of a full bowl.
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Coming from a position of thinking the Tea Party is one of the best things to happen to American politics in my lifetime,
This is depressing in the same way it is when far right conservatives are happy that Sarah Palin came along and is 'taking our party in a new direction'. Yeah, the tea party is killing conservative revival one disasterously inept endorsement at a time and making conservatism look idiotic and bigoted to young and moderate voters. Hooray?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Dan_Frank, To me, one of the frustrating things about a lot of contemporary political discourse is what seems to me to be many people's tendency to consider it a contest of claiming ground. That is, they have a position and most of what they do is to repeat that position. It seems to me that they think that through repeatedly stating it, they can establish it as true for other people (which, honestly does work in many situations).
Perhaps it does not seem this way to me, but you often seem to do this. I can understand it. There are several prolific posters here that strenuously attack positions like those that you espouse.
However, there are other people here who are trying to foster more of a respectful back and forth atmosphere. This can be hard to see because the loud and offensive is so much easier to see. It is so much easier to destroy and attack then to build and constructing is so much more fragile. But we are out there.
It would help this goal if you approached conversation here with the idea of conveying why you hold the positions you hold rather than trying to plant them like a flag. Of course, my perception of this from you may not be accurate, but that is often what I see from you.
In this particular instance as I noted, I have a lot of sympathy for what is supposed to be core of the Tea Party message, but I've found the reality of the groups to be pretty disappointing, in ways that Christine O'Donnell winning this primary illustrates. You seem to disagree with this. I'd be very interested in reading why you disagree with this.
I can't say that I'll come to agree with you. I may not even come to regard your reasons as legitimate. But I can promise that I and several other people here will try to give them a fair consideration.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Dan_Frank, how on Earth could a party that inflicts O'Donnel on a Senate race be among the best things to happen in anyone's lifetime? That's a serious question. I am baffled. Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
Yeah yeah. Same thing was said about Ted Kennedy's seat, and Scott Brown ended up winning
You can keep discounting a group purely because of what you hear in the media and because their ideals conflict with yours, or you can accept that they are simply a group of pissed of people that have the belief that government is running the country the wrong way. Most of the candidates they support may be republicans. They did support Walt Minnick in Idaho who is a Democrat. A pro-union, pro-abortion Democrat.
And hey, don't even worry! Looks like Liberals have something to join now too!
quote: In an effort to replicate the tea party's success, 170 liberal and civil rights groups are forming a coalition that they hope will match the movement's political energy and influence. They promise to "counter the tea party narrative" and help the progressive movement find its voice again after 18 months of floundering.
The large-scale attempt at liberal unity, dubbed "One Nation," will try to revive themes that energized the progressive grassroots two years ago. In a repurposing of Barack Obama's old campaign slogan, organizers are demanding "all the change" they voted for -- a poke at the White House.
Gee, sure sounds like the same kind of movement as the Tea Party. I hope all of the members of all of those different groups behave themselves 100% of the time. I wonder if Samprimary will condemn them as well as being inherently racist if someone steps out of line. Anyone want to wager?
Posted by theresa51282 (Member # 8037) on :
I honestly just don't get the internal logic of the tea party. They seem intensely distrustful of government and government interference in peoples lives. It seems from the tea partiers I have talked to that at its core it is a group that feels like government hasn't been good for the American people. I see this in their candidates wanting to abolish everything from the EPA to the dept of education and in their desire to drastically cut taxes and services. What I don't get is how this goes hand in hand with wanting the government intensely involved in my personal life. They want to regulate who I can marry, who can serve in the military, what my kids learn about sex, which God I pray to, and my reproductive rights. How does one deal with the inconsistent underlying premise that gov't shouldn't interfere and regulate and then in another breath increase regulation and interference?
I feel like the core of their platform just doesn't make sense. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of Conservatives don't like the tea party. What shocks me is how many people seem to share this completely dissonant set of beliefs.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Geraine, Is that supposed to be a substantive reply to anything said in this thread? It seems like me the same sort of generalized, flag planting that I talked about in my last post.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Gee, sure sounds like the same kind of movement as the Tea Party. I hope all of the members of all of those different groups behave themselves 100% of the time. I wonder if Samprimary will condemn them as well as being inherently racist if someone steps out of line. Anyone want to wager?
Yeah, because after all, Scott Brown is a complete and total vindication of Tea Party methods and politics, right? C'mon, Geraine. Furthermore, while the far left opposite to the Tea Party will be sure to have its host of distasteful problems, you can bet there won't be quite so many among them who will have thinly veiled racism among their numbers who will say, "Gee, y'know, we don't really know whether or not Obama is actually an American citizen at all!" as though that were actually anything but a smear attack and thinly disguised racism and/or Islamophobia.
I really don't know who Tea Party supporters think they're kidding thinking about things in terms of actual, y'know, demographics beyond a few election cycles. Populations grow more liberal, not less, over time, particularly in times of economic prosperity, something the Tea Party is supposed to want. Now are you going to sit there and tell us that the Tea Party is really, on social issues, socially centrist and not socially conservative? Really?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote: The large-scale attempt at liberal unity, dubbed "One Nation," will try to revive themes that energized the progressive grassroots two years ago. In a repurposing of Barack Obama's old campaign slogan, [b]organizers are demanding "all the change" they voted for -- a poke at the White House.[/n]
Good! Where can I sign up!
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
quote:The Anchorage Daily News reported that Murkowski campaign staff member Bonnie Jack sent out an e-mail today asking people to "join us at the Kick-off of Senator Lisa's campaign" and "write in her name in and fill in the oval" on Election Day.
"We plan to make history!" the invitation read, according to the newspaper.
--j_k
Posted by FoolishTook (Member # 5358) on :
There seems to be a lot of misconceptions about the Tea Party.
First: Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are not Tea Party leaders.
And while a Tea Party-backed candidate may be conservative on social issues, the Tea Party's main concern is the size and scope of government, the national debt, and high taxes.
Otherwise, I don't know enough about Christine O'Donnell to make a judgement on her either way, and I'll reserve my judgement until I have more information. However, her strict religious beliefs about sex have no bearing on her qualifications as a candidate.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:First: Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are not Tea Party leaders.
There's enough overlap that I think it's fair to say that a large percentage of those that participate in the Tea Party movement respect and identify with Beck and Palin and consider them fellow travelers.
quote:However, her strict religious beliefs about sex have no bearing on her qualifications as a candidate.
Depends on how she applies those views in her role as an elected representative. Would she, for instance support traditional, ineffective, "Abstinence Only" sex education?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:First: Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are not Tea Party leaders.
Given Sarah Palin's prominence in traveling about the country endorsing and not endorsing Tea Party candidates and speaking at Tea Party rallies, I'm not sure how she could possibly not be considered a Tea Party at least luminary of sorts, FoolishTook, I mean really. That's just such a huge stretch it's hard to take seriously. She's obviously a serious force among the Tea Party.
quote:However, her strict religious beliefs about sex have no bearing on her qualifications as a candidate.
They absolutely have bearing on her qualifications as a candidate depending on her willingness to take those views into the realm of secular law.
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
Yup. She's an 'anti-abortion, no exceptions for rape and incest' candidate. Which is as far from being a 'less interference in people's lives by the government.' Forcing a 14 year old to have her father's baby is a pretty darn intrusive thing for a government to do.
And even Rove said she says some pretty "nutty" things, doesn't have experience or exemplify qualities or rectitude and truthfulness. (That was before he got the memo that Republicans have to support Republican candidates, even if they don't think they are fit for office.
I will say that Democrats do not seem to have any compunction about bad-mouthing their own party's candidates.
It will be interesting to see what happens, now that long time culture warriors are running as viable candidates.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Geraine: Yeah yeah. Same thing was said about Ted Kennedy's seat, and Scott Brown ended up winning
What? Scott Brown was never a hopeless case, and methodological poll outcome prediction never showed Brown as an unelectable candidate.
O'Donnell is essentially a hopeless case. Her opponent has to start kicking puppies in the name of Satan order for her to stand a remote chance of winning.
You can kid yourself about this, but there's little point; O'Donnell is going to lose this election. Period.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Dan_Frank, To me, one of the frustrating things about a lot of contemporary political discourse is what seems to me to be many people's tendency to consider it a contest of claiming ground. That is, they have a position and most of what they do is to repeat that position. It seems to me that they think that through repeatedly stating it, they can establish it as true for other people (which, honestly does work in many situations).
Perhaps it does not seem this way to me, but you often seem to do this. I can understand it. There are several prolific posters here that strenuously attack positions like those that you espouse.
However, there are other people here who are trying to foster more of a respectful back and forth atmosphere. This can be hard to see because the loud and offensive is so much easier to see. It is so much easier to destroy and attack then to build and constructing is so much more fragile. But we are out there.
It would help this goal if you approached conversation here with the idea of conveying why you hold the positions you hold rather than trying to plant them like a flag. Of course, my perception of this from you may not be accurate, but that is often what I see from you.
In this particular instance as I noted, I have a lot of sympathy for what is supposed to be core of the Tea Party message, but I've found the reality of the groups to be pretty disappointing, in ways that Christine O'Donnell winning this primary illustrates. You seem to disagree with this. I'd be very interested in reading why you disagree with this.
I can't say that I'll come to agree with you. I may not even come to regard your reasons as legitimate. But I can promise that I and several other people here will try to give them a fair consideration.
I appreciate your respectful request, here, and I'll do my best to honor it.
Usually when I "plant a flag" it's just to make what I see as a snarky and amusing comment, but I recognize that those comments are probably only amusing to people who agree with me. Aand maybe not even then!)
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Dan_Frank, how on Earth could a party that inflicts O'Donnel on a Senate race be among the best things to happen in anyone's lifetime? That's a serious question. I am baffled.
Part of why I think the tea party is so great is because it's not a unified group. It's a bottom-up, grass roots movement that's only loosely affiliated in any official sense. Some "tea party" candidates will be better than others. O'Donnel seems a little nutty, for sure. But what is tying these loose groups together, the single cause that they all agree on, is fiscal conservatism. As a (mostly) libertarian, fiscal conservatism is one area where I and Republicans are supposed to agree. However, most Congressional Republicans are nearly as bad as Democrats when it comes to wasting money. The whole point of the tea party is sending a message that this will no longer be tolerated.
Because the tea party isn't a libertarian group, but rather a generally conservative one, they have a large percentage of people who also believe things I disagree with, like, say, no abortions under any circumstances. And so some/most tea party candidates also have these views. But honestly, I think the chance of the House or Senate making any significant votes on the issue of abortion to be vastly less likely than making votes on spending and budgets.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by theresa51282: I honestly just don't get the internal logic of the tea party.
They have an external logic, of sorts. Several very rich ops such as the Kochs have found that the Tea Party was the perfect group to corral into weakening government regulation against businesses like their own. Any other incoherence, such as the wildly muddled and contradictory mix of quasi-libertarianism with others who demand theologically motivated restrictions on civil liberties, is irrelevant to that as long as they help break down government regulation of businesses and reduce tax rates on the richest.
quote:Given Sarah Palin's prominence in traveling about the country endorsing and not endorsing Tea Party candidates and speaking at Tea Party rallies, I'm not sure how she could possibly not be considered a Tea Party at least luminary of sorts, FoolishTook, I mean really. That's just such a huge stretch it's hard to take seriously. She's obviously a serious force among the Tea Party.
Just because Tea Party members support her doesn't mean she's a Tea Party leader. Is she funding the Tea Party and planning these rallies? Nay. She supports them, and they support her.
quote:They absolutely have bearing on her qualifications as a candidate depending on her willingness to take those views into the realm of secular law.
Because her views are so far removed from your own doesn't mean she can't run for office and win or lose according to the people's support or lack thereof.
Personally, I would not support her because of her financial problems. It means she may have a habit of being fiscally irresponsible. She'll fit right in with the current House and Senate, but I really want someone who knows how to pay the bills.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Just because Tea Party members support her doesn't mean she's a Tea Party leader. Is she funding the Tea Party and planning these rallies? Nay. She supports them, and they support her.
In a movement like the tea party which isn't structured as a formal organization, do we want to consider the movement's leaders the people who are at the forefront of championing it as a cause, or do we want to consider the leaders the people who fund it and manage the rallies?
The latter makes people like Mark Williams and the Kochs the 'leaders' of the movement; I think you're not going to get a lot of support within the tea party for such a notion.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Because the tea party isn't a libertarian group, but rather a generally conservative one, they have a large percentage of people who also believe things I disagree with, like, say, no abortions under any circumstances.
Here's my problem with voting for Tea Party (or even most libertarian) candidates: I sympathize with them on many issues, especially fiscal, executive power, and states' rights concerns. However, I can understand why someone who disagrees with me (and them) on those issues might be able to hold those positions without being an evil nutcase.
However, it is not possible for someone to believe -- for example -- that 9/11 is an inside job or Barack Obama is a secret Muslim plant without being an evil nutcase.
So when it comes to voting for someone who shares my fiscal views but is an unrepentantly evil nutcase, or voting or someone who has a logical reason for disagreeing with my desired tax policy but is otherwise a rational human being, I will always wind up voting for the rational human being.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: However, it is not possible for someone to believe -- for example -- that 9/11 is an inside job or Barack Obama is a secret Muslim plant without being an evil nutcase.
I'm not sure I buy the former. Given the sheer lopsided nature of casualties as a result of the whole thing and the nature of incidents like the Gulf Of Tonkin, I find it hard to write off roughly 15% of the world's population or 900 million people ( link) as being evil.
Even if you exclude countries with Muslim majorities as having too much at stake emotionally, we are talking about significant minorities in areas as varied as Italy (15%), South Korea (17%), and Mexico (30%).
Do I necessarily want them in power? Probably not. But I think its fairly understandable without them being evil or a nut-case.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
O'DONNELL: ... these groups admitted that the report that said, "Hey, yay, we cloned a monkey. Now we're using this to start cloning humans." We have to keep...
O'REILLY: Let them admit anything they want. But they won't do that here in the United States unless all craziness is going on.
O'DONNELL: They are — they are doing that here in the United States. American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains. So they're already into this experiment.
And she cancels Face the Nation, similar to Rand Paul's abrupt cancellation of Meet the Press:
via Politico
quote:Delaware GOP Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell has backed out of an appearance tomorrow on CBS's "Face the Nation" with no explanation to the network.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
"... their twilight campaign, is easy to explain ... "
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:But I think its fairly understandable without them being evil or a nut-case.
I am perfectly willing to believe that up to 30% of a given country's population falls into the category of "evil or a nutcase."
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Perhaps you can walk through the thought process that makes it mandatory for a South Korean to be evil or a nutcase in order to believe that the US was behind 9/11.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Because the tea party isn't a libertarian group, but rather a generally conservative one, they have a large percentage of people who also believe things I disagree with, like, say, no abortions under any circumstances.
Here's my problem with voting for Tea Party (or even most libertarian) candidates: I sympathize with them on many issues, especially fiscal, executive power, and states' rights concerns. However, I can understand why someone who disagrees with me (and them) on those issues might be able to hold those positions without being an evil nutcase.
However, it is not possible for someone to believe -- for example -- that 9/11 is an inside job or Barack Obama is a secret Muslim plant without being an evil nutcase.
So when it comes to voting for someone who shares my fiscal views but is an unrepentantly evil nutcase, or voting or someone who has a logical reason for disagreeing with my desired tax policy but is otherwise a rational human being, I will always wind up voting for the rational human being.
I think I absolutely agree with you here, Tom. Having grown up in the SFbay, almost all of my friends are vastly more leftist than me. That's fine with me, because they're all totally reasonable, rational people who just disagree with me on what's best for society. Reasonable people can disagree.
Because I grew up in the bay area, though, I've also seen my fair share of complete wackjobs.
I would say, for example, being completely opposed to abortion does not make someone an evil nutcase. All that requires is a different classification of when life starts than I have (or, say, belief in a soul, which I lack. Er, I lack belief, not a soul. Well, I guess I lack a soul too, but only insofar as I think everyone lacks a soul. I'm not especially soulless.)
From some of the stuff you guys have shown, it seems like O'Donnel may very well stray into nutcase territory, which is sad.
See? Now I'm sad. I'd better go listen to some more Ratatat.
Posted by sinflower (Member # 12228) on :
People are completely against abortion with no exceptions for rape and incest are much lower on the evil quotient than those who are against abortion with exceptions.
Let me explain: if you're against abortion with no exceptions, then you can plausibly state that you're against it because a fetus's life has as much value as that of a child or an adult. It's a consistent worldview, albeit not one I agree with.
But if you're against it with exceptions for rape and incest, what you're saying isn't "a fetus's life is worth as much as that of a child or an adult." If you were saying that then you'd be okay with executing a five year old kid who was the product of rape and incest. Nope, what you're actually saying is "Worthy people can get abortions, but not those stupid sluts who brought it upon themselves and should accept punishment for their actions." Which is pretty evil in my book.
So the fact that she doesn't allow exceptions actually makes me like Christine more than I did before. Which, granted, still isn't much.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
She has cancelled scheduled appearances on Face The Nation and Fox News Sunday.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Dan_Frank,
quote:Part of why I think the tea party is so great is because it's not a unified group. It's a bottom-up, grass roots movement that's only loosely affiliated in any official sense.
You've just described some of the characteristics of an angry, property destroying mob. I'm not characterizing the Tea Party that way here, just pointing out that the traits you're lauding here do not seem to me to be very desirable in and of themselves.
quote:But what is tying these loose groups together, the single cause that they all agree on, is fiscal conservatism.
It seems to me, from the outside looking in, that what unites these groups is the kind of fiscal conservatism that says, "Spend less," period. No nuance, no compassion, no reasoning. Spend less, cut taxes, cut spending - except for the military, of course. And while we're at it, lower oversight because that's somehow often included in fiscally conservative outlooks.
quote:Just because Tea Party members support her doesn't mean she's a Tea Party leader. Is she funding the Tea Party and planning these rallies? Nay. She supports them, and they support her.
Saying they 'support' her seems to me to be pretty darn incomplete to me, FoolishTook. They don't just support her. They turn out in droves and listen very carefully to what she has to say. They 'support' her in many ways in the way that far-right conservative Repulicans 'support' Rush Limbaugh. Why are you shying away from identifying Sarah Palin as a leader among the Tea Party?
quote:Because her views are so far removed from your own doesn't mean she can't run for office and win or lose according to the people's support or lack thereof.
Who said anything about 'can't'? This always seems to come up in these sorts of discussions. I didn't say she should be disallowed from running. I said her views on sexuality are absolutely relevant to her campaign for senate. And they are.
quote:However, it is not possible for someone to believe -- for example -- that 9/11 is an inside job or Barack Obama is a secret Muslim plant without being an evil nutcase.
I don't grant the evil premise, or even necessarily the nutcase premise. I do, however, believe that it is impossible for someone to believe such things and not be very dangerous for them to have any real political power in the world.
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I am perfectly willing to believe that up to 30% of a given country's population falls into the category of "evil or a nutcase."
If you make that "evil, a nutcase, stupid or badly informed" and I agree. (Though the qualifiers would raise the percentage considerably, I suspect.)
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:If you make that "evil, a nutcase, stupid or badly informed" and I agree. (Though the qualifiers would raise the percentage considerably, I suspect.)
Likewise. Personally I reserve words like evil and nutcase for stronger things than politically attractive but very little considered beliefs such as 'OMG SECRET MOHAMMEDAN!' which is what I tend to think is the root of much of that nonsense.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:At issue are more than $20,000 of spending in 2009 and 2010 that Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington claims was illegal. "It turns out Miss O'Donnell has treated her campaign funds like they are her very own personal piggy bank. She's used that money to pay for things like her rent, for gas, meals and even a bowling outing. And that's just flat-out illegal," said Melanie Sloan, the group's executive director.
In an interview on CNN's "AC360," Sloan said her organization would be sending letters to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Delaware and the Federal Elections Commission on Monday asking them to investigate.
"For example, in 2009, Miss O'Donnell wasn't a candidate for anything, yet she had numerous campaign expenses, things like travel and gas, and yet she had no actual campaign," Sloan said. O'Donnell's spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
At this point I would consider O'Donnell dropping out of the race a significant possibility, if not yet the most likely outcome.
And this after Newt Gingrich used his powers of prophecy to predict her ultimate win in Delaware.
Guess his prophet status lasted just a few hours.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
quote:But if you're against it with exceptions for rape and incest, what you're saying isn't "a fetus's life is worth as much as that of a child or an adult." If you were saying that then you'd be okay with executing a five year old kid who was the product of rape and incest.
...What?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:...What?
It's pretty straightforward and an entirely consistent position. *IF* you consider a fetus a human being with every right owed to any other human, then the fact that it was produced by rape or incest would be immaterial. If you wouldn't allow the murder of a five-year-old because it was discovered that the child was a product of rape or incest then you also shouldn't be allowed to abort a fetus for the same reason.
I disagree with the premises upon which this argument is based, but I fully understand it and I think it's a more consistent argument than that made by people that say, essentially, that abortion is murder unless the mother was raped. That's where I say "...What?".
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:...What?
It's pretty straightforward and an entirely consistent position. *IF* you consider a fetus a human being with every right owed to any other human, then the fact that it was produced by rape or incest would be immaterial. If you wouldn't allow the murder of a five-year-old because it was discovered that the child was a product of rape or incest then you also shouldn't be allowed to abort a fetus for the same reason.
I disagree with the premises upon which this argument is based, but I fully understand it and I think it's a more consistent argument than that made by people that say, essentially, that abortion is murder unless the mother was raped. That's where I say "...What?".
Yep. Though I'm pro-choice, I have a lot of respect for the pro-life position if applied consistently. If you believe life starts at conception, then you should be pro-life. Period.
I especially hate it when pro-choice people say things like "I think an abortion is a terrible, lamentable choice and I don't know if I could do it, but everyone should have the right to choose." This totally sidesteps what is actually at issue, which is when a fetus becomes a person. Why is it a terrible, lamentable choice you'd never do? Is it because you think even the most undeveloped embryo is a person? If so, then how can it be everyone's person right to decide? That's like saying you think it's tragic when someone chooses to kill someone and take their stuff, and you would never kill someone for their stuff, but really, who can decide whether it's wrong for everyone to kill people for their stuff?
I'm wandering off on a tangent here, sorry.
Rakeesh, I appreciate the bottom-up grassroots nature of the Tea Party because I approve of their overall message, and I think that their nature makes it much harder for the media to marginalize them. There is no one spokesman for the tea party, to which every member must be held accountable. I agree that simply having that nature inherently is not necessarily a positive attribute, sorry if I was unclear.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:There is no one spokesman for the tea party, to which every member must be held accountable.
What this seems to mean in practice is that whenever a big, well known Tea Party mouthpiece says something objectionable such as O'Donnel, the Tea Party as a whole cannot ever be held to it as a group, because they're 'grass roots', though of course they never seem to have much compunction doing the same to liberals, Democrats, Muslims, socialists, etc.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
That's one of the risks of being anti-government, the moment anybody starts showing leadership you've got to snuff em out. Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: If you believe life starts at conception, then you should be pro-life. Period.
I especially hate it when pro-choice people say things like "I think an abortion is a terrible, lamentable choice and I don't know if I could do it, but everyone should have the right to choose." This totally sidesteps what is actually at issue, which is when a fetus becomes a person. Why is it a terrible, lamentable choice you'd never do? Is it because you think even the most undeveloped embryo is a person? If so, then how can it be everyone's person right to decide? That's like saying you think it's tragic when someone chooses to kill someone and take their stuff, and you would never kill someone for their stuff, but really, who can decide whether it's wrong for everyone to kill people for their stuff?
It is consistent to believe that a fetus has rights but that even the rights of a person do not trump the right to sovereignty over one's own body. A living person cannot force another person by law to even be a marrow donor much less coerce the use of his organs - even if the person would die without them. I am comfortable saying that I would never have an abortion but am unwilling to let the law take that sovereignty away from another person.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:It is consistent to believe that a fetus has rights but that even the rights of a person do not trump the right to sovereignty over one's own body. A living person cannot force another person by law to even be a marrow donor much less coerce the use of his organs - even if the person would die without them. I am comfortable saying that I would never have an abortion but am unwilling to let the law take that sovereignty away from another person.
Well, we've had this back-and-forth before, so I'll just point out that while a person cannot compel someone else to become their bone marrow donor, it's also true that someone also cannot force someone else to need their bone marrow and then refuse to give it. So it's not quite as cut-and-dried as that, kmbboots.
In other words, it may be consistent to make that claim, but it doesn't seem especially morally or ethically reasonable a claim, that it ought to be acceptable to create a person and then say, "But you have no claim to temporary use of my body." If we're granting personhood at conception, that is. Something I don't think myself, but do grant as possible.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Well, we've had this back-and-forth before, so I'll just point out that while a person cannot compel someone else to become their bone marrow donor, it's also true that someone also cannot force someone else to need their bone marrow and then refuse to give it. So it's not quite as cut-and-dried as that, kmbboots.
Sure they can. Even due to evil actions. I am driving drunk and I hit a car. You are injured and need a kidney. The law can not take one of my kidneys. It is, I think, unethical for me to not give you one, just as I think that many abortions are unethical, but it would be reprehensible for the government to take that choice away.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
Rakeesh- I could smash into someone with my car and still refuse to donate blood, even if I was a perfect match and the other guy might die because of it. And it is possible that in a car accident, the circumstances would be such that I was at fault, but not legally negligent homicide. Also, you can think that the baby is a potential life and so in that sense it is a bad choice, but not murder cause potential not life.
ETA- too slow at posting.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:...What?
It's pretty straightforward and an entirely consistent position. *IF* you consider a fetus a human being with every right owed to any other human, then the fact that it was produced by rape or incest would be immaterial. If you wouldn't allow the murder of a five-year-old because it was discovered that the child was a product of rape or incest then you also shouldn't be allowed to abort a fetus for the same reason.
I disagree with the premises upon which this argument is based, but I fully understand it and I think it's a more consistent argument than that made by people that say, essentially, that abortion is murder unless the mother was raped. That's where I say "...What?".
Yes, you're correct. That's not what Sinflower said though. She (He? Sorry, correct me if I'm wrong) said that "If you hold position X, it means you hold belief Y." Which is not necessarily so. There are multiple other sets of nuanced beliefs regarding fetuses and what rights they have, and why they have them, that are entirely consistent.
That such an absurd conclusion (you should then be okay with executing a five-year-old that was the product of incest or rape) was reached is not an inherent weakness in the position sinflower was critiquing, but in the belief (s)he ascribed to those holding that position.
...See this is the post I should have written in the first place. Sorry, sinflower.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Sure they can. Even due to evil actions. I am driving drunk and I hit a car. You are injured and need a kidney. The law can not take one of my kidneys. It is, I think, unethical for me to not give you one, just as I think that many abortions are unethical, but it would be reprehensible for the government to take that choice away.
But the law can, and in many places will, take away your liberty for doing so, which is the law's only recourse in terms of penalty. It's not as though you'd support imprisonment of people who have abortions either, after all. If I were to die from kidney failure as a result of your drunken driving, the law might even take away your life, for that matter.
I am curious, though, by what reasoning it would be 'reprehensible' of the government to compel you to yield up to me one of your kidneys after you effectively stole one from me, though. I mean, what is the basis for labeling such an action reprehensible? Body sovereignty and all that, yes, but most such ideologies I've ever heard of stop where fists meet noses.
quote:I could smash into someone with my car and still refuse to donate blood, even if I was a perfect match and the other guy might die because of it. And it is possible that in a car accident, the circumstances would be such that I was at fault, but not legally negligent homicide.
An automobile accident is one thing, even being at fault is one thing, but I personally think that drunk driving is a bit different.
quote:Also, you can think that the baby is a potential life and so in that sense it is a bad choice, but not murder cause potential not life.
I was talking about the example given of abortion being more or less unethical for people who believe a fetus is a human being, period. Kmbboots replied that it can still be just as ethical for someone to have an abortion because of body sovereignty issues.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:There is no one spokesman for the tea party, to which every member must be held accountable.
What this seems to mean in practice is that whenever a big, well known Tea Party mouthpiece says something objectionable such as O'Donnel, the Tea Party as a whole cannot ever be held to it as a group, because they're 'grass roots', though of course they never seem to have much compunction doing the same to liberals, Democrats, Muslims, socialists, etc.
Mark Williams demonstrated this from beginning to end, leading to a somewhat paradoxical nature as an ex-leader of the tea party, and some True Scotsman defenses still linger when he's brought up.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I was talking about the example given of abortion being more or less unethical for people who believe a fetus is a human being, period. Kmbboots replied that it can still be just as ethical for someone to have an abortion because of body sovereignty issues.
No. I was talking about it being just as ethical and consistent to believe someone should have the right to have an abortion. An important difference. I think that it is ethical for people to have the right to do some things that I consider unethical because the coercion is less ethical.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
I suppose there is some debate as to whether or not getting pregnant is more like an accident or drunk driving, but in either case, the government will not force you to give up any body parts of blood of anything else to save the victim's life. I agree with this in principle and would extend it to abortion. I would think someone who refused to donate was a jerk (pick stronger word that inappropriate for board) but I don't want the government to have the right to force that donation. If you are drunk driving, you might do better by providing the donation, but the charge against you would not be failure to donate, it would be homicide because of the drunk driving.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Christine O’Donnell isn’t the only Delaware Tea Party candidate making waves. The seat in the House of Representatives currently held by Republican Mike Castle — who was defeated by O’Donnell in Tuesday’s Senatorial primary — is also up for grabs. The Republican primary for that office was won by Tea Partier Glen Urquhart, and it turns out that his political positions may be even more unique than O’Donnell’s. “Do you know, where does this phrase ’separation of church and state’ come from?” Urquhart asked at a campaign event last April. “It was not in Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists. … The exact phrase ’separation of Church and State’ came out of Adolph Hitler’s mouth, that’s where it comes from. So the next time your liberal friends talk about the separation of Church and State ask them why they’re Nazis.”
"wait, but, that's not .."
"why are you a Nazi?"
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:No. I was talking about it being just as ethical and consistent to believe someone should have the right to have an abortion. An important difference. I think that it is ethical for people to have the right to do some things that I consider unethical because the coercion is less ethical.
*shrug* Just as ethical to have the choice, then. Functionally it comes out to much the same thing.
But I am curious about the kidney question. How it it reprehensible for the government to compel restitution for what amounts to theft, kmbboots? Is it just because it threatens body sovereignty? I'm not talking about just a car accident, I'm talking about a drunk driving accident where one person's willful, potentially murderous behavior harms another. Isn't one of the key underpinnings of society that, well, individuals stop having an inalienable right to their own lives, liberties, and bodies at some point, somewhere?
quote:I suppose there is some debate as to whether or not getting pregnant is more like an accident or drunk driving, but in either case, the government will not force you to give up any body parts of blood of anything else to save the victim's life. I agree with this in principle and would extend it to abortion. I would think someone who refused to donate was a jerk (pick stronger word that inappropriate for board) but I don't want the government to have the right to force that donation. If you are drunk driving, you might do better by providing the donation, but the charge against you would not be failure to donate, it would be homicide because of the drunk driving.
I'm not making the argument that pregnancy is like drunk driving, though personally in the 21st century I think the argument could potentially be made (ETA: Absolutely, that goes for men as well as women), I was just sticking to the example being given. You're right, the government won't force you to donate blood, but I think there are two very good reasons for that. One, it's almost never, ever necessary. Two, the government simply doesn't do that: we have a penalty system in place, and it's called the civil courts or the criminal courts, with jail or prison time or fines. The question at hand isn't, "Should the government have the power to compel donation," but rather, "Should the government have the power to intervene at all."
Unless I'm mistaken, kmbboots for example thinks the answer to the latter question is 'no', the government should not have the power to coerce in any way whatsoever, in part because it's wrong to interfere in the right to bodily sovereignty. But we do interfere in that right.
[ September 19, 2010, 02:31 PM: Message edited by: Rakeesh ]
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: [QUOTE]You're right, the government won't force you to donate blood, but I think there are two very good reasons for that. One, it's almost never, ever necessary. Two, the government simply doesn't do that: we have a penalty system in place, and it's called the civil courts or the criminal courts, with jail or prison time or fines. The question at hand isn't, "Should the government have the power to compel donation," but rather, "Should the government have the power to intervene at all."
Unless I'm mistaken, kmbboots for example thinks the answer to the latter question is 'no', the government should not have the power to coerce in any way whatsoever, in part because it's wrong to interfere in the right to bodily sovereignty. But we do interfere in that right.
I think Rakeesh's point about the penalty system in place is excellent, and he elaborates on that point very well. I just want to elaborate off of the first point he made (boldness added.)
The analogy breaks down completely, because you need to go through serious logical contortions to create a scenario where the person who caused the accident is the only person who can save the guy missing a kidney.
Let's make a much more direct analogy. For my analogy I will be assuming it's an abortion-in-the-case-of-rape situation, where the pregnant person did nothing to get themselves pregnant, and it is entirely the fault of the person who assaulted them.
Okay, so a madman kidnaps you and chains an innocent man to your back. For the sake of the analogy, the chain is unbreakable. Before he releases you the madman shows you that the chain is on a time-lock, and nine months from now it will fall away. He also explains that if the man on your back dies, the lock will automatically release.
The chained man can't feed himself, he's bound to your back hand and foot. It's annoying and difficult to get around with him on your back. He begs you to feed him something every time you eat a meal.
Finally, one day, fed up with this crap, you buy a gun. The chained man begs for you to spare him, you've only got seven months left to go! He sobs and pleads and rants. But you know that seven more months of this would be intolerable. So you shoot him in the head. (Or maybe you get a doctor to shoot him in the head for you?)
Is that immoral?
The only thing that keeps abortion from actually being the above scenario, to my mind, is the fact that an embryo is not a person. But for those that believe it is a person, how is this a faulty analogy?
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
Well, for one thing, chance of death is a whole lot higher with pregnancy, as well as other permanent problems. Annoying and difficult to get around is a horrible description of pregnancy- ten months of hell is a better one. Of course, I personally have 2 friends who would have died 20 years ago with the problems they had during pregnancy and another that eliminated all chance of future pregnancy after her last child because the drs said pretty much zero chance of surviving pregnancy again.
ETA- also make the man numb so no pain or awareness of shooting him (depending on age of abortion) and make him mute. And the chain should be breakable, but breaking it kills him- no need to directly kill him- just break the chain.
Also, you say oh, the accident and need for blood or liver will never happen so that scenario doesn't work- but neither will the crazy guy who locks up the guy.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
One more point- didn't some ethicist argue the point like with the violinist I think and in the end still argued that it would be unethical to force someone into that position.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Well, for one thing, chance of death is a whole lot higher with pregnancy, as well as other permanent problems.
I agree, actually, which is why I don't liken it to drunk driving or kidney loss. I was just sticking to the comparison someone else made, and wondering why it would be 'reprehensible' for the state to compel the drunk driver to yield up a kidney in such a case. I'm perfectly aware that 'annoying and difficult to get around' don't describe pregnancy, and also quite aware that sometimes it is literally a death sentence.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by scholarette: Well, for one thing, chance of death is a whole lot higher with pregnancy, as well as other permanent problems. Annoying and difficult to get around is a horrible description of pregnancy- ten months of hell is a better one. Of course, I personally have 2 friends who would have died 20 years ago with the problems they had during pregnancy and another that eliminated all chance of future pregnancy after her last child because the drs said pretty much zero chance of surviving pregnancy again.
First of all I just want to say that I'm really not trying to marginalize how difficult pregnancies can be. If I sounded that way, or even continue to sound that way, I definitely apologize.
However, a significant percentage (I want to say a majority but I have no relevant stats handy so that could be wrong) of pro-lifers, even ones who don't want an exception for rape, will still make an exception if the life of the mother is directly endangered. So, for that reason, it's important that the chained man not be threatening your life, just your health. I mean, having a guy chained to your back, eating a bunch of your food, getting fatter and fatter, that's not just a little inconvenient. That would be incredibly difficult and it would wear your body out pretty quickly, too. Your back would probably never recover.
quote:ETA- also make the man numb so no pain or awareness of shooting him (depending on age of abortion) and make him mute. And the chain should be breakable, but breaking it kills him- no need to directly kill him- just break the chain.
It's no less immoral to kill a guy who can't beg for his life, it just makes it easier on the shooter. Also, it's not as if abortion simply consists of snipping the umbilical cord and calling it a day. Regardless though, these are cosmetic differences. The very fact that someone is arguing for the changes says a lot, I think. "Shooting a begging man in the face" versus "Indirectly killing an unconscious man" are worlds different if we're talking about how easy it is on the killer. Less so if we're trying to draw a moral distinction.
quote:Also, you say oh, the accident and need for blood or liver will never happen so that scenario doesn't work- but neither will the crazy guy who locks up the guy.
Sure. I chose an intentionally impossible analogy to exaggerate the issues at play. If you think it's silly and pointless to discuss, that's fine too. Just say so. I promise I won't be offended. Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Dan_Frank,
quote:I think Rakeesh's point about the penalty system in place is excellent, and he elaborates on that point very well. I just want to elaborate off of the first point he made (boldness added.)
Just to be clear, I don't actually think we ought to have a penalty system in place that does things like harvest people's organs. I do, however, think that our penalty system does involve itself in questions of bodily sovereignty, liberty being a huge such question for example, and taking away another's rights another.
quote:The analogy breaks down completely, because you need to go through serious logical contortions to create a scenario where the person who caused the accident is the only person who can save the guy missing a kidney.
The analogy is silly for a variety of reasons, not least this one.
quote:The only thing that keeps abortion from actually being the above scenario, to my mind, is the fact that an embryo is not a person. But for those that believe it is a person, how is this a faulty analogy?
As scholarette quite rightly points out, this analogy is much more fundamentally flawed than the drunk driving one was. Pregnancy can be much more dangerous than simply being chained to another human being against one's will for period of, shall we say, eight to ten months. It can even be fatal in the presence of the best possible medical care. Happens all the time. Don't believe me? Look it up. So for those who believe the fetus is a person, the analogy is faulty for those reasons. The person chained to you isn't simply an inconvenience, the person is a potentially fatal inconveniece. And that's above and beyond describing the situation as 'inconvenient'. It's a little strange to me, as a man, with some academic and limited personal understanding how onerous pregnancy can be, describe it in such a way.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
The problem with saying, sure it's ok if the mom's health is in danger is that the highest danger to mom's health comes near the end and post partum complications. At 3 months (almost all abortions are done before then) the risk factors may not be apparent. In the cases I know of, at 3 months, none of my friends knew the risks. One didn't know until a week after the baby was born. So, when a woman is making this decision, she has to guess at what her chance of death is. And when you find out at say 33 weeks, you have a different decision than at 7 weeks. I have had 2 friends who induced knowing baby would be a preemie with potential problems because the risk got too high. Both have since done permanent sterilization.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I do, however, think that our penalty system does involve itself in questions of bodily sovereignty, liberty being a huge such question for example, and taking away another's rights another.
I consider imprisonment and external-to-the-body-itself rights fairly distinct from sovereignty over an individual's actual body. And I cannot think of any examples -- short of the death penalty -- where we currently consider it acceptable for the government to violate bodily sovereignty of an individual considered to be an adult. And quite a few historical and/or theoretical/fictional examples where doing so is now considered a heinous crime. (Tuskegee experiments, forced sterilization, etc.)
What am I missing?
Edit: Of course, as soon as I posted that I thought of things like handcuffing, tasering, etc. Those still seem different to me, but I'm having difficulty articulating why.
Posted by LargeTuna (Member # 10512) on :
I will be voting Chris Coons.
woohoo Delaware in the news!
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Nope, what you're actually saying is "Worthy people can get abortions, but not those stupid sluts who brought it upon themselves and should accept punishment for their actions."
Or you're saying "I think fetuses should have the right to life, but the idea of a victim of rape or incest being then forced to give birth to and raise a lifetime reminder of such a horrific event is so off-putting to me that abortion seems less offensive in comparison."
Posted by sinflower (Member # 12228) on :
Right, but in that case you'd have to necessarily concede that while fetuses have some right to life, it's not equal to the right to life of a child or an adult human, but rather more similar to the right to life of say, a dog. Or a monkey. Something that's not a person, anyhow.
And then you'd have to justify why you get to decide whether other people euthanize their dogs and monkeys or not.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
That's why people against abortion, with exceptions, get edgy when asked about them.
However, your initial statement was pretty screwed up.
But if you're against it with exceptions for rape and incest, what you're saying isn't "a fetus's life is worth as much as that of a child or an adult."
True, although even people willing to permit abortions for rape and incest get more resistant to the notion the farther along the fetus development is. It's not an either/or.
If you were saying that then you'd be okay with executing a five year old kid who was the product of rape and incest. Nope, what you're actually saying is "Worthy people can get abortions, but not those stupid sluts who brought it upon themselves and should accept punishment for their actions." Which is pretty evil in my book.
And no, I offered another viewpoint. Many believe that all abortions are wrong, but in extreme cases abortions may be less wrong. And there are other viewpoints, whereas you've limited everyone to just that one.
Granted, if you believe in allowing abortions at all, for any circumstances, than yes, you believe the fetus has less rights than the mother. Which is also what the law believes, but the fetus gains rights as it develops and the closer to viability and life outside the womb, the more rights the fetus has. You seem to be operating in an all-or-nothing place.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by sinflower: Right, but in that case you'd have to necessarily concede that while fetuses have some right to life, it's not equal to the right to life of a child or an adult human, but rather more similar to the right to life of say, a dog. Or a monkey. Something that's not a person, anyhow.
And then you'd have to justify why you get to decide whether other people euthanize their dogs and monkeys or not.
Or maybe it's worth more than a dog or monkey, but less than a already-born human. Which is, in fact, what many pro-life people quite clearly believe.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: ... And I cannot think of any examples -- short of the death penalty -- where we currently consider it acceptable for the government to violate bodily sovereignty of an individual considered to be an adult.
Suicide/self-euthanasia might be one. Force-feeding detainees at Guantanamo might be another. Both examples are obviously very controversial, I'm just trying to think of examples.
quote: And quite a few historical and/or theoretical/fictional examples where doing so is now considered a heinous crime. (Tuskegee experiments, forced sterilization, etc.)
Actually, I was thinking about the Babylon 5 mindwipes and the alien healing machine, where both were used as methods of punishment. Clearly controversial, but approaching it from a bit of a different angle although historically you could think of it as an extension of the "eye-for-an-eye"-based legal systems.
Posted by sinflower (Member # 12228) on :
quote:Or maybe it's worth more than a dog or monkey, but less than a already-born human. Which is, in fact, what many pro-life people quite clearly believe.
You're right, I'm treating this issue as more binary than it actually is. If it matters, it's partly because in real life the pro-life people I know tell me "abortion is murder," which implies that they think fetuses are people and have equal moral value as already-born humans (several people confirmed this when asked). The idea of personhood/moral worth as a sliding scale makes sense to me, even though it leads to the potentially disturbing conclusion that some people's lives are intrinsically worth more than others.
The view you describe is more justifiable. I'd like to know what those justifications are specifically though (not directed at you). What makes a human of more moral value than a chimpanzee, and a chimpanzee of more moral value than a duck? I can't write out a complete answer yet, but it'd definitely include things like "self awareness" "intelligence" "emotional complexity"-- all things that fetuses don't have.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by scholarette: The problem with saying, sure it's ok if the mom's health is in danger is that the highest danger to mom's health comes near the end and post partum complications. At 3 months (almost all abortions are done before then) the risk factors may not be apparent. In the cases I know of, at 3 months, none of my friends knew the risks. One didn't know until a week after the baby was born. So, when a woman is making this decision, she has to guess at what her chance of death is. And when you find out at say 33 weeks, you have a different decision than at 7 weeks. I have had 2 friends who induced knowing baby would be a preemie with potential problems because the risk got too high. Both have since done permanent sterilization.
That's an excellent point. Nearly all of the friends I have that experienced life-threatening complications knew pretty early on that they were very high risk factors for those complications. The only exception I can think of was my own mother, whose serious complications didn't arise until she was already in labor.
So, I definitely neglected to take that into consideration. Sorry about that!
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: It can even be fatal in the presence of the best possible medical care. Happens all the time. Don't believe me? Look it up.
I'm probably just being thin-skinned, but this seems needlessly snippy to me. I don't need to look it up. You are correct. I wasn't trying to imply otherwise, and I apologize if I did.
quote:And that's above and beyond describing the situation as 'inconvenient'. It's a little strange to me, as a man, with some academic and limited personal understanding how onerous pregnancy can be, describe it in such a way.
I thought I said in my last post that I wasn't trying to marginalize how serious pregnancy can be. Once again, if I had to choose a single word to sum up pregnancy, "inconvenient" would not be it. If my choice of words gave a different impression, that was an error on my part.
quote: So for those who believe the fetus is a person, the analogy is faulty for those reasons. The person chained to you isn't simply an inconvenience, the person is a potentially fatal inconveniece.
Well, "potentially" fatal seems to have a lot of wiggle room. I mean, in my absurd analogy the guy on your back could throttle you to death in your sleep, too. Then it seems like we're in the territory of preemptive strikes, which are somewhat controversial in themselves.
Also since I was writing this, I left, saw a movie, and came back, and now I see Chris has said some interesting things about a fetus being less than a person but more than, say, a dog. A good point, but, as sinflower said, when people say that abortion is murder, that seems to imply that they see a fetus as a person. And being a person, in most other cases, is a binary status. We don't usually say that people with Down Syndrome have less of a right to life than people without.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
The debate tends to be polarizing, which means it is all too common for people to exaggerate the position they actually hold. And of course, SOME people actually do consider abortion to be equivalent to murdering a child or adult. But I suspect those are probably not the same people who believe that exceptions should be made for rape and incest.
quote:The idea of personhood/moral worth as a sliding scale makes sense to me, even though it leads to the potentially disturbing conclusion that some people's lives are intrinsically worth more than others.
Still not what I said. Saying there are two levels (unborn and born) does not necessarily imply there are others.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: ...of course, SOME people actually do consider abortion to be equivalent to murdering a child or adult. But I suspect those are probably not the same people who believe that exceptions should be made for rape and incest.
I think that's an excellent point.
Posted by sinflower (Member # 12228) on :
quote:Still not what I said. Saying there are two levels (unborn and born) does not necessarily imply there are others.
I am confused. What did you mean? You say personhood is not a sliding scale, which means you must consider it a quality with discrete, not continuous levels. I'm not sure how more than two discrete levels ("not person," "person") would be consistent. If both unborn and born humans are under "person," with all the moral worth that that bestows, then why do they need to be distinguished at all? Unless one of them is more of a person. Which would then make three discrete levels ("not person," "slightly person," "wholly person"). Is this the categorization you describe? But if there are different levels of personhood, why would there only be two or three? Presumably a one month old fetus isn't as much of a person as a eight month old one. So then that makes "not person," "slightly person," "slightly more person," "wholly person." Applying the same logic, you'd eventually get a continuous scale. And I'm not sure why that continuous scale would "cap out" at a value most humans attain, either.
As for whether the pro-lifers who allow exceptions for rape and incest are or are not the same ones who claim fetuses are people, my experience suggests that they often are. The vast majority of pro-lifers allow exceptions-- and yet many still claim fetuses are people as much as already-born humans are. But this is testable. I'd really like to see a survey that quantifies the overlap, or else we're all just guesstimating from personal experience.
[ September 19, 2010, 10:13 PM: Message edited by: sinflower ]
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
We have yet to discuss what I actually believe. All I am pointing out is that you keep making assumptions about what pro-lifers believe -- assumptions that strongly differ from the beliefs of those I have discussed this with. And the consistent factor, both when you are oversimplifying and under-simplifying is that in each case it makes it easier for you to vilify them. Aka strawmen.
Posted by sinflower (Member # 12228) on :
I'm not denying that my model of pro life beliefs is flawed. I'm trying to make it better, incorporating your suggestions. But I'm not sure how to incorporate "they don't think personhood/lack of is continuous or binary" into my model of their beliefs. It seems inconsistent to me; I explained why and am now hopefully awaiting clarifications as to why I'm wrong.
If it turns out a subset of them believe "personhood is a sliding scale," and they accept the implications of that belief (some humans are worth more than others) I wouldn't consider that a reason to vilify them. I would actually respect them more, since it takes guts to take your premises to their logical conclusions. I lose respect for people who excessively compartmentalize and hold contradictory beliefs, not those who believe mean things.
[ September 19, 2010, 10:28 PM: Message edited by: sinflower ]
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: We have yet to discuss what I actually believe. All I am pointing out is that you keep making assumptions about what pro-lifers believe -- assumptions that strongly differ from the beliefs of those I have discussed this with. And the consistent factor, both when you are oversimplifying and under-simplifying is that in each case it makes it easier for you to vilify them. Aka strawmen.
I just want to say that I am also making assumptions about what pro-lifers believe (well, also based on what I've read them say, or discussed in person... more the former than the latter) but my intent was not at all to vilify. I started by saying I actually tend to have more respect for the pro-life position than the pro-choice position, because from what I've seen the most common pro-life arguments are more logically and internally consistent.
This despite the fact that I am actually pro-choice myself.
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
Dan_Frank- the pregnancy inconvenience is a big point because frequently in abortion debates, the negatives of pregnancy are minimized. And of course, at 9 months pregnant, I am even more negative regarding pregnancy than a lot of people might be. Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by scholarette: Dan_Frank- the pregnancy inconvenience is a big point because frequently in abortion debates, the negatives of pregnancy are minimized. And of course, at 9 months pregnant, I am even more negative regarding pregnancy than a lot of people might be.
Oh! Congratulations!
So, yeah. I'm not trying to minimize those negatives at all, I promise. I assure you, I do understand how difficult an experience pregnancy can be, at least from the outside.
My only contention was that if one accepts the common pro-life stance granting embryos personhood, then one should by rights be measuring the negatives of pregnancy against murdering someone. And, in my opinion, once you accept that stance, the instances where an abortion can be justified seem vanishingly small.
My real point in all this is that the kind of pro-choice arguments that are logically consistent and persuasive, to me, all have to do with denying embryos full personhood. If you grant personhood but claim body sovereignty trumps it, I really think you're standing on uneven ground.
That's a general "you," by the way, not specifically saying you've claimed that, Scholarette. Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
rivka,
quote:I consider imprisonment and external-to-the-body-itself rights fairly distinct from sovereignty over an individual's actual body. And I cannot think of any examples -- short of the death penalty -- where we currently consider it acceptable for the government to violate bodily sovereignty of an individual considered to be an adult. And quite a few historical and/or theoretical/fictional examples where doing so is now considered a heinous crime. (Tuskegee experiments, forced sterilization, etc.)
Why are they to be considered separate? To me that has always seemed a pretty, well, deliberate and artificial distinction. I realize it's a distinction we've decided to make, but it seems pretty arbitrary to me. "I'm going to put you in a cage for fifty years," doesn't seem fundamentally different from violating bodily sovereignty to me, though thankfully I have no personal experience with either that or with loss of organ function.
I genuinely don't know why they should be considered different either, just that many people think they are different.
quote:I'm probably just being thin-skinned, but this seems needlessly snippy to me. I don't need to look it up. You are correct. I wasn't trying to imply otherwise, and I apologize if I did.
It wasn't intended as snippy, sorry if it came across that way.
quote:I thought I said in my last post that I wasn't trying to marginalize how serious pregnancy can be. Once again, if I had to choose a single word to sum up pregnancy, "inconvenient" would not be it. If my choice of words gave a different impression, that was an error on my part.
I realize that, it's just that you say that, but your choice of analogy was really odd given your protest that you weren't trying to marginalize how serious pregnancy can be, that's all.
Posted by theresa51282 (Member # 8037) on :
quote:Originally posted by sinflower: I am confused. What did you mean? You say personhood is not a sliding scale, which means you must consider it a quality with discrete, not continuous levels. I'm not sure how more than two discrete levels ("not person," "person") would be consistent.
I can try and tackle this part from my perspective. I do think there isn't a sliding scale of human. Something either is a human or its not. I can say that I am confident that an embryo outside the womb is not a human. I am perfectly ok with destroying and researching on them. I am also confident that a newborn is human. The question becomes for me where in between these two states does a fetus become human. All I can say with confidence is that I don't know. I don't think science knows. Its not that I think a 10 week old fetus is slightly human. It's that I don't know what category it falls in. I'm not sure if it has developed self awareness and consciousness. This makes me more unwilling to infringe on a woman's right to her body than I would be with a 39 week old fetus which I have a fair level of confidence has reached human status. If I don't know for sure if something is human or not, it becomes decidedly harder to figure out if abortion should be permissible. I have to weigh the risk of something being human with the amount of intrusion on a woman's right to her body. I am less willing to force pregnancy upon a woman who had no choice in becoming pregnant than to tell a woman who willingly accepted the risk of becoming pregnant she can't back out now because the woman's rights side is higher in one case and weighs more heavily against the risk of infringing on another human's rights.
My personal views on abortion are pretty mixed. I would never have one. I wish others would stop having them. I wish the gov't would do more to make pregnancy less of a hardship on women. I would like to see them banned after the fetus has reached the age of viability outside the womb at which point I feel confident that the fetus has become human. But before that point, I am really torn. I just don't know if the fetus is human or not. I hate to take away sovereignty of body away from a woman but I hate to think of the idea that humans are killed because we don't have the science to know when consciousness is reached. I also struggle with the notion that banning abortion isn't going to actually stop abortions but simply push them underground and make them more dangerous.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:I'm probably just being thin-skinned, but this seems needlessly snippy to me. I don't need to look it up. You are correct. I wasn't trying to imply otherwise, and I apologize if I did.
It wasn't intended as snippy, sorry if it came across that way.
No problem.
quote:
quote:I thought I said in my last post that I wasn't trying to marginalize how serious pregnancy can be. Once again, if I had to choose a single word to sum up pregnancy, "inconvenient" would not be it. If my choice of words gave a different impression, that was an error on my part.
I realize that, it's just that you say that, but your choice of analogy was really odd given your protest that you weren't trying to marginalize how serious pregnancy can be, that's all. [/QB]
That's fair. The point of the analogy was that if a fetus is a person, then abortion is exactly on par with killing another human, and at that point any pregnancy complication that isn't life threatening becomes much more shaky grounds for abortion. The goal was to strip the situation down to a very basic level, but clearly it didn't work and was offensive, so, yeah. My mistake.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Hate to derail the derail but
Christine O'Donnell: I'm not doing any more national TV interviews. National exposure is now "off the table, because that's not going to help me get votes," O'Donnell told Sean Hannity.
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