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Scott: Yes, Current American Culture. We've come a long way and I'm not willing to give up equal rights as a woman nor am I particularly anxious to give back the progress we've fought for as a lesbian/bisexual.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: While vasectomies are SOMETIMES reversible, no one should ever get one with the plan that if they change their mind, they'll get it reversed. Leaving aside the whole surgery thing, it is NOT always reversible, and counting on that is foolish in the extreme.
The numbers I hear quoted are closer to "often" or "mostly" with regard to how reversible a vasectomy is.
Not even close to mostly. There is a significant percent that aren't. Last I heard it was about 25% of them.
If 75% are reversible, I'd call that most of them. Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Only of you weren't in the 25% of them that weren't.
I am not trying to quibble, really, sorry if it seems that way. But when you are talking about a procedure than will result in 25% of the people not ever being able to have children (at least not naturally), it is not an ideal solution.
You made it wound like there would only be a small amount of people that wouldn't be able to reverse it, even if that wasn't you intent.
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quote:We've come a long way and I'm not willing to give up equal rights as a woman nor am I particularly anxious to give back the progress we've fought for as a lesbian/bisexual.
Cultural immigration doesn't threaten these things.
Immigration itself doesn't threaten these things.
Islam imported into the US is not a threat to Christianity.
Latino machismo (imagined or real) isn't a threat to feminism.
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Scott: Only if they're thrown into the soup a little at a time. En mass, our culture and all of our own subcultures which we hold so dear are in jeopardy.
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I think you are being a moron. I never said you were stupid. (although I wonder)
You constantly insult anyone who doesn't agree with you, assign motivations to others, claim to know how and what they justify their action with, and compare them to Nazis.
You fail to ever, even once, admit that you have these problems (and not just with me) over and over again because you aren't communicating well. I believe that you ARE communicating well....too well.
You disdain for others, your feelings of moral and intellectual superiority, and your smugness come across loud and clear. I just don't know of you realize that is what you communicate....with almost every post.
If someone disagrees with you it is because they are the equivalent to genocidal killers...what part of that did you think was conducive to civil discourse?
Do you honestly think that EVERY SINGLE PERSON who disagrees with you... including the Supreme Count for God's sake.... are simpletons who haven t' considered all the aspects of this situations over and over again? That somehow they are all equal...even though they believe things for different reasons?
My problem has never been with your arguments. Most of them have been so weak that I didn't even have to refute them...others do it far better, and far more often.
You constantly and consistantly make an ass of yourself. Not for arguing positions, but for the way you interact with the people on this board. Other people who hold the same positions as you are embarrassed that they have to agree with you...I know it has happened to me more than once. I just don't post, because I don't want to feed you.
You are one of the largest symptoms of what is wrong with Hatrack these days. You aren't' a cause...you don't matter that much. But there was a time where I liked posting debates here. Now I rarely start a topic like that, because I will have to listen to someone with twice as much arrogance as sense (like you) spout off, insulting the very people I want to engage in conversation.
Here is a news flash, kid...it is possible to disagree with someone without shitting all over them. Dag and I do it all the time. So do Tom and I. I disagree with people all the time here, and we never act the way you do in every single post!
Anger issues aside (that was funny), I acted so strongly this time because I feel we have cut you too much slack for far too long as it is.
Seriously, I can understand why someone concerned with equal rights for women and with gay/lesbian/bisexual rights would be concerned with a shift in the voting population toward even more conservatism.
It worries me, too. Not that I think there is anything we could or should do about it.
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Yeah, we're not going to start on the hair-stroking and stalking again, are we? It took OODLES of therapy for me to get over that. Kind of.
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quote:Only if they're thrown into the soup a little at a time. En mass, our culture and all of our own subcultures which we hold so dear are in jeopardy.
I disagree. I think this is fear mongering.
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quote: I can understand why someone concerned with equal rights for women and with gay/lesbian/bisexual rights would be concerned with a shift in the voting population toward even more conservatism.
It worries me, too. Not that I think there is anything we could or should do about it.
Have national politics ever moved right because of mass immigration?
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: As has been said several times already:
1.) There are significant funds available to cover the cost of pregnancy, both from the state and from adoption agencies. 2.) The $500 is only given to women who put the child up for adoption. 3.) As for costs of adoption based on bureaucracy, it is incredibly rare for the birth mother to pay any of those fees at all.
As far as #2, failed to realize, mea culpa. But for the other two, it's worth recognizing that deferred costs still exist, and much of the costs mentioned would probably be shouldered by the state. $500 paid to a mother to deliver and give their child up for adoption is an addition to the costs of delivery, adoption, etc.; $500 paid in addition to a vasectomy is pretty much the end of it. *If* the goal is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies ending in abortion.
And I recognize the whole thing is pretty much hypothetical; I don't think the bill mentioned in the article is likely to pass, and I don't think a vasectomy bill would either.
(Then again, I understand the Texas legislature is a stange place...)
quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: A fine idea, except our native population is barely keeping even as it is. we don't want to encourage them to stop reproducing.
I tend to agree that this could easily fill another thread on it's own, so I'll state my own view and try to be brief.
I don't know that the U.S. population continuing to rise is necessarily beneficial for our country. We consume more resources per capita than any other nation on the planet; the cost of a college education continues to rise, and the kinds of jobs that can support a family and don't require a college education continue to be exported to countries with less expensive labor markets. I think the U.S. is heading towards an inevitable decline in quality of life, and I think a population curve that only goes upward is likely to accelerate that trend before compensating measures can be taken.
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I don't think it has moved righte economically. It moved left economically due to mass immigration, but the politics of the folks coming in were left of those of the country. I don't see why it couldn't go the other way when it comes to social policies - especially since the "family values" stuff has entered the political sphere. I don't think that was as much of an issue during other times of mass immigration. Though I am thinking pre-WWI immigration.
As I said, though, I don't think there is anything we either can or should do about it.
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Mass immigration always makes a huge change. That's how my white ancestors took this country from my native american ancestors. It's how we took Texas from Mexico and took Hawai'i from the Hawai'ians.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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This keeps happening. One is tempted to conclude that this really is a problem with me and not my arguments. I see it as being one of two ways. Either I really am an idiot, an arrogant ass, and patently offensive to everyone I disagree with, or I am right, I am stating painful truths, and my opponents cannot accept these truths and instead lash out at me, and excuse themselves by accusing me of provoking them.
I am hard pressed to find an objective way of determining which is the case, but for one thing: My little concise formula which is rarely ever addressed directly. This is the third time I've expressed my logical construct in three different ways, and the reason why it is dodged and the ad hominems begin is because when someone does try, they end up with some incoherent thing like Rakeesh. The only reason why he is even able to try is because he is pro-life, so he can process the concepts. But a sliding scale, Rakeesh? What are you talking about? Yes; no; maybe. How much simpler can you get? So I give you credit for trying, Rakeesh, it's more than anyone else ever tries.
And my "final answer bullcrap?" I was just making fun of your pathetic attempt at making an incoherent thought into a sentence. "If you don't believe a person is someone or is not." Are you serious with this?
"Jim Crow, anyone? McCarthyism? Watergate?" I'm the political hack? This revisionist history you've been sold is the most hackneyed nonsense I've seen yet on this thread. Apparently reading books by Patrick Buchanan and Robert Bork disqualifies my from rational political discussion, but Michael Moore and Al Franken are good enough for you to know better than I do.
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quote:But a sliding scale, Rakeesh? What are you talking about? Yes; no; maybe. How much simpler can you get? So I give you credit for trying, Rakeesh, it's more than anyone else ever tries.
And my "final answer bullcrap?" I was just making fun of your pathetic attempt at making an incoherent thought into a sentence. "If you don't believe a person is someone or is not." Are you serious with this?
Resh, Rakeesh presented a fourth option - that something does not become a person at a discrete point in time but gradually, over the course of weeks or months.
Think of it like a pupating butterfly. When it starts spinning the cocoon, it is a caterpillar. When it comes out, it is a butterfly.
At any given time while it is in the cocoon, you are asked "Is this a butterfly?" Someone might say yes. They might say no. They might say maybe. Or they might say it's half butterfly, half caterpillar.
And remember, I am at the hard end of "instant in time" humanity. I don't think the analogy applies to human beings.
But I do think someone can honestly believe that it does - that an unborn child is becoming a person - at any moment it's more a person than it was a moment before, but not fully person until X happens.
You are doing us a huge disservice here. Not only do you make pro-life people look bad by association, you are also stopping yourself from truly understanding those who disagree with you. And, until you do that, you can't convince them.
If you got much better at what you're doing, you could probably make many pro-choicers look stupid or indecisive. But you'd convince no one - not the ones you make look that way, and not the ones watching.
Our goal is to change people's minds. You are useless to our cause as long as you act in this manner.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:I see it as being one of two ways. Either I really am an idiot, an arrogant ass, and patently offensive to everyone I disagree with, or I am right, I am stating painful truths, and my opponents cannot accept these truths and instead lash out at me, and excuse themselves by accusing me of provoking them.
Let's take a poll! We can even restrict it to pro-lifers. I wonder what such a poll would indicate?
quote:The only reason why he is even able to try is because he is pro-life, so he can process the concepts. But a sliding scale, Rakeesh? What are you talking about? Yes; no; maybe. How much simpler can you get? So I give you credit for trying, Rakeesh, it's more than anyone else ever tries.
I went in to more detail, detail which you have completely failed to address, instead reverting to your tired, "This is the question, the only question, answer it or you're full of it!" technique. Allow me to reiterate:
quote:Second...the 'maybe' in your question refers to "maybe a fetus is a person, or maybe it is not". It does not refer to a sliding scale of personhood with respect to preserving a life. For example, convicted rapists or child molestors. Clearly, those are still people. Equally clearly, some people view them as less than other people.
By a similar leap, a person could honestly believe that a cluster of cells in a woman's womb is still "people", but so low on the personhood sliding scale so as not to have its life thwart a woman's right to choose to have an abortion.
To put it more bluntly: some people believe that humanity and personhood is closely related to things such as self-awareness, intelligence, etc. etc. I am not one of those people, but the perspective exists. For example, some people could credibly argue that someone in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease, brain largely ruined, etc., isn't really a person anymore. Someone could argue that someone kept alive on machines in a hospital, with zero or nearly zero cognitive function wasn't really a person anymore.
I'm not a doctor, I don't know the precise terminology for the ideas I'm trying to convey, but I trust you get the point. These are the kinds of things I'm referring to when I talk about a "sliding scale of personhood". For some people, despite your shrill accusations that they simply must fit into the round or square holes you've got punched into the wooden board of your argument, the answers "yes, no, or maybe" really aren't enough to adequately answer the question.
Someone could honestly say, "Yes, they are a person, but of such a low order of personhood that their right to live does not trump the woman's right to terminate the pregnancy." Indeed, if personhood really is a spectrum ranging from near-zero brain power to Flowers for Algernon levels, the argument has some credibility.
So take back your credit, Reshpeckobiggle. It's no good here at the moment. I've already answered the questions you've insisted I haven't once. This is the second time. The third time you insist I haven't done so, well at that point you're just an arrogant troll.
quote:And my "final answer bullcrap?" I was just making fun of your pathetic attempt at making an incoherent thought into a sentence. "If you don't believe a person is someone or is not." Are you serious with this?
It's a good thing you don't make posts intending to insult people, like you said in the CT fallacy thread! Freaking liar.
quote:"Jim Crow, anyone? McCarthyism? Watergate?" I'm the political hack? This revisionist history you've been sold is the most hackneyed nonsense I've seen yet on this thread. Apparently reading books by Patrick Buchanan and Robert Bork disqualifies my from rational political discussion, but Michael Moore and Al Franken are good enough for you to know better than I do.
*hands over $0.25* Pop that quarter there into the search engine and do a search for Michael Moore, and see what I've had to say about him in the past, sonny.
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Hey, thanks Dagonee. That's a much better way to get the point I was trying to make across re: personhood.
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As far as personhood, I hope this doesn't come off as insensitive, but here is my explanation. I know people who have had miscarriages at different points in development. The grief level seems different from those who lose the babies at 6 weeks vs 16 weeks. This is including women who have had multiple miscarriages at different developmental times. And the grief at 16 weeks is different than those who lose the baby after birth.
Resh- you said earlier that if the chance of personhood is .00001, then that is unacceptable. Considering that a woman's chance of dying due to pregnancy complications is .0001, does this mean that you find the baby's life ten times more important than the mothers?
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:As far as personhood, I hope this doesn't come off as insensitive, but here is my explanation. I know people who have had miscarriages at different points in development. The grief level seems different from those who lose the babies at 6 weeks vs 16 weeks. This is including women who have had multiple miscarriages at different developmental times. And the grief at 16 weeks is different than those who lose the baby after birth.
Even if, as a general rule, this is true, personhood is not defined by how sad someone is when the being in question dies.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:As far as personhood, I hope this doesn't come off as insensitive, but here is my explanation. I know people who have had miscarriages at different points in development. The grief level seems different from those who lose the babies at 6 weeks vs 16 weeks. This is including women who have had multiple miscarriages at different developmental times. And the grief at 16 weeks is different than those who lose the baby after birth.
Even if, as a general rule, this is true, personhood is not defined by how sad someone is when the being in question dies.
I think it was just meant as an example of the continuum.
And I think the medical issue is a good one. If you're pro-life, at what point (if any) is a pregnancy too risky to the mother?
quote:Originally posted by Kwea: Because it is disgusting.
I realize your position on aborting, Dag, and I think you know mine...we have had a "few" discussions about it here, haven't we?
But this seems like a horrible idea to me, and it bothers me.
Of course it's a terrible idea, it's basically paying women 500 dollars for getting pregnant, since any pregnant woman can claim to be considering abortion. Also, how feasible is it to pay every woman in the state who gets pregnant and claims to be considering abortion? In case the legislators hadn't noticed, Texas is a big state, this would be a nightmare for taxpayers.
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quote:Of course it's a terrible idea, it's basically paying women 500 dollars for getting pregnant, since any pregnant woman can claim to be considering abortion.
Once again, only women who give their child up for adoption would collect the $500. So unless you think there are thousands of mothers who would sell a child they want for $500, this won't happen.
I know people have stated that women will get pregnant and bear a child just to earn $500, but I'd be really surprised if that happened.
If it did happen, though, I guess that would settle the question as to whether the $500 could cause a woman to change her mind about aborting. Seems to me that if $500 is incentive enough for some women to get pregnant, it'd be incentive enough for some women to stay pregnant.
Most likely, though, I doubt anyone would get intentionally pregnant for $500.
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It was more of an example than a proposed definition. Having just had a baby, one thing I found suprising was just how much pregnancy damages your body. I always thought it was a routine thing. Mine was pretty routine, but afterwards, my mom pointed out several things which could have led to death without a dr present.
Edit to add- $500 definetely wouldn't be enough to make me go through pregnancy again. I am thinking like in the millions before I would do it again, unless I was getting a baby out of it.
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quote:I know people have stated that women will get pregnant and bear a child just to earn $500, but I'd be really surprised if that happened.
While I can't imagine it will ever become commonplace to become pregnant just to get $500, I can certainly see some misguided people making snap decisions in tough situations, ignoring or remaining ignorant of the fact that the math just doesn't add up.
quote:If it did happen, though, I guess that would settle the question as to whether the $500 could cause a woman to change her mind about aborting. Seems to me that if $500 is incentive enough for some women to get pregnant, it'd be incentive enough for some women to stay pregnant.
I can see a woman making the snap decision to get pregnant in order to make $500, then realizing what a dumb, unworkable decision it is six, eight, twelve weeks later...and then aborting.
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quote:That's how my white ancestors took this country from my native american ancestors. It's how we took Texas from Mexico and took Hawai'i from the Hawai'ians.
No. We took America through the use of war, starvation, deprivation, and by introducing sickness to indigenous populations.
NOT through cultural immigration.
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quote:I can see a woman making the snap decision to get pregnant in order to make $500, then realizing what a dumb, unworkable decision it is six, eight, twelve weeks later...and then aborting.
So can I. It's a good thing that's not the program, though.
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Scott: Only if they're thrown into the soup a little at a time. En mass, our culture and all of our own subcultures which we hold so dear are in jeopardy.
You display a great ignorance of American history with statements like this. Half of the 20th century and close to a quarter of the 19th century beg to differ greatly with your statement.
quote:Mass immigration always makes a huge change. That's how my white ancestors took this country from my native american ancestors. It's how we took Texas from Mexico and took Hawai'i from the Hawai'ians.
Nope. All three of those examples were taken by force. Military and money.
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: We took America through the use of war, starvation, deprivation, and by introducing sickness to indigenous populations.
posted
Pix has a point though, guys. Major influxes of immigration into those areas was, for those examples, a harbinger of later conquest.
Had there not been substantial numbers of Americans living in, say, Texas and California (questions of gold and silver aside in the latter), it is uncertain whether or not our government would've fought a war for them.
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quote:I can see a woman making the snap decision to get pregnant in order to make $500, then realizing what a dumb, unworkable decision it is six, eight, twelve weeks later...and then aborting.
So can I. It's a good thing that's not the program, though.
Well...of they agree hoping to get the cash, then change their mind, what happens?
They don't get it, right? But they are still pregnant.....and who knows what they will decide then.
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There have been other major influxes of immigrants that haven't led to conquest. Notably things like Irish immigrants to the US -- there were a million Irish immigrants during the potato famine, making nearly one in every twenty three Americans Irish.
Comparatively, the entire current foreign-born population of the US right now, including an estimate of illegal immigrants, is only about 33 million, or slightly over one in ten. Mexicans, the vast majority of that, make up somewhere around one in thirty.
And of course there were large influxes of Germans, and Chinese, and others, at various points in times.
That's just the US, too.
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Hmmm.. ok, I've had enough of the name calling. I've been called a racist and ignorant now and I'm tired of it so you guys can go back to calling eachother nazi about the abortion issue and I'll leave you to it.
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Seeing as how women (and men) make the 'snap decision' to get pregnant all the time anyway, and change their minds all the time anyway...well, it's already happening a lot.
This is an effort to help stop it from happening so much. Every effort will have its downsides, there is no perfect plan.
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I am just saying that it may not help at all....and may even cause the opposite reaction once some idiot realizes that getting pregnant for $500 was a bad deal.
Even if the program wasn't intended to be used that way, you know.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Pix has a point though, guys. Major influxes of immigration into those areas was, for those examples, a harbinger of later conquest.
You mean like the Chinese influx that helped lay rail across the country? You mean like the influx of Polish, Italian, Irish, Greek, and Jewish people that brought with them not only the hands and backs that helped turn this country from an upstart to a world power, but also made America one of the most diverse nations in the world? You mean like the constant influx of brain-trust (engineers, doctors, scientists, professors) from countries like India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Liberia, and other countries that are keeping us ahead of most countries in technology, at a loss to their nations of origin?
quote:Had there not been substantial numbers of Americans living in, say, Texas and California (questions of gold and silver aside in the latter), it is uncertain whether or not our government would've fought a war for them.
You are aware that Texas was its own country for a short time there, right? We fought the Mexican-American war for one reason: manifest destiny.
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quote:I can see a woman making the snap decision to get pregnant in order to make $500, then realizing what a dumb, unworkable decision it is six, eight, twelve weeks later...and then aborting.
So can I. It's a good thing that's not the program, though.
I don't mean getting pregnant, getting the money, then aborting - I mean getting pregnant, realizing that it's not worth it, and having an abortion to get out of the pregnancy, without any money (and having less money from, presumably, paying for the abortion).
Edit to add: I'm not trying to say that this is going to be a majority, or even common, or even uncommon occurance.
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We didn't fight it for the country of Texas though, and the only reason that is true is that we won that war. Otherwise they would have been annexed back into Mexico, and it would have been a failed rebellion.
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It would seem that people are ignoring a qualifier I included, for those examples
As for Manifest Destiny...consider for a moment. What was the single biggest outcome of a widespread American belief in Manifest Destiny?
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quote:Originally posted by Kwea: We didn't fight it for the country of Texas though, and the only reason that is true is that we won that war. Otherwise they would have been annexed back into Mexico, and it would have been a failed rebellion.
Was that to correct me? If so, you missed my point. I pointed out Texas being its own country to emphasize that our motive was to push to the Pacific per Manifest Destiny, which is exactly what we did. Texas came in a decade later.
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quote:Originally posted by Kwea: Not so much as correction as added information.
It was worthy to point out, since Texas offered a buffer zone for America after taking California by force.
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I was imprecise. The single biggest symptom of widespread belief in Manifest Destiny.
Immigration, that's what.
Texas was recognized as a soverign country, sure. Would've never happened without substantial American immigration into then-Mexican territory, though.
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