quote:I don't think me (and by my estimation, boots) meaning something different from what you want us to mean makes me automatically wrong.
You don't understand what we are saying.
Wrong. The problem is you have fundamentally misunderstood the nature of my objection, and from that misunderstanding reached the conclusion that I have misunderstood you.
Which is fine. I ignored you all of yesterday - which turned out to be wise since you didn't know what the hell you were talking about when you posted the bit about infants dying in agony being somehow relevant to this law - and wish I had continued to do so. But you're wrong about what I've said. None of the "explanations" you've posted in an attempt to clarify your meaning change my basic point or make it less applicable. If you think they do, it means you're wrong about what I've been saying.
That kind of is a problem.
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What I think I understand is that you think that if there isn't "fatal" element in one particular proposal, that that particular proposal is "harmless" to Roe v. Wade. And that none of the proposals Senator Obama voted against (or failed to vote for) has such a "fatal" element.
Is that right? Honestly, I'm finding some of what you are writing to be confusing. Probably since I am not a lawyer!
I do know that people other than Senator Obama have expressed the same concern about "undermining" regarding these bills.
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No. I'm pretty sure I understand your objection. The problem, as I see it, is that you don't seem to see a difference between saying that there are things that suggest that there may be parts of this law that could undermine or could be used in some way to undermine abortion rights and saying that this must be the case.
The distinction between may and must, between what the law itself could do versus what it could be used to do, and between knowing that this is the case and things suggesting that this is the case are all important ones to me. If they are not to you, I think you are very wrong.
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quote:The problem, as I see it, is that you don't seem to see a difference between saying that there are things that suggest that there may be parts of this law that could undermine or could be used in some way to undermine abortion rights and saying that this must be the case.
Nope. I see the difference just fine.
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Well, those are the differences in what I said (and what I think boots was saying) versus what you said I said, as I've pointed out twice now, but you say that there aren't any differences between them.
Is there some interpretation of your statement that I'm missing that makes it so, for example, your use of the word must really means may?
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First please point out where I said there "must" "be parts of this law that could undermine or could be used in some way to undermine abortion rights and saying that this must be the case."
I want to make sure we're talking about the same thing, and the only use of "must" by me I can find doesn't say that at all.
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Oh, my bad. I thought there was a must in the statement I've been quoting.
I should have been saying "necessarily entails that there is". As far as I can see, that's semantically equivilent to must.
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Ah, I see. I've already clarified that I meant "more explicitly, it necessarily entails 'that parts of this law could have the effect or be used for the effect of chipping away at abortion rights.'" Call this one B. Call the one you quoted ("That necessarily entails that there is some part of this law that would undermine Roe without that language") A.
You said that B "is a fundamentally different statement from [A]* and is also fundamentally different from the approach you've been taking up to this point."
I'm telling you that when I said A, I meant the same meaning as presented by B. To the extent you think that my point would be different if A and B meant (to me) different things, you have misinterpreted my point.
*This is how I interpreted your use of pronouns in that sentence - that is, I interpreted "what you said" as referring to A. Please clarify if you meant something different.
Edit to change a B to an A.
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quote:To the extent you think that my point would be different if A and B meant (to me) different things, you have misinterpreted my point.
Yes, but the statements A and B have the three differences I pointed out. If they mean the same thing to you, then these differences are not meaningful to you, which, you've said is not the case.
Both can't be true. They are either not equivilent statements or you don't recognize a difference in those three things I pointed out. You can't have it both ways.
You've been addressing boots and myself as if we were saying there must be things in the law that challenge Roe v. Wade. This is the third time I've pointed out that this is not what we were saying and presented the three substantive differences between them.
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quote:Yes, but the statements A and B have the three differences I pointed out. If they mean the same thing to you, then these differences are not meaningful to you, which, you've said is not the case.
They have three differences to you AS YOU WERE USING THE WORDS. Not as I was using those words.
Forget I said A. Pretend I only said B. My point remains the exact same. If it's different to you, it means you misinterpreted it.
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err...I'm not sure I understand what you are talking about. I said B. You didn't, except when quoting me. You were using my words to characterize what I said as being the same as what you said. If the rather bizarre way you were using the words doesn't match up with how I meant them, well, that's my whole point. You are not addressing what people said, but instead what you wanted them to say.
In that case, your point is what? That what I meant when I wrote those words is not important because you want them to mean something else?
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My point is that your wording made meaning that was unclear to you in my original wording more clear.
Forget I used A. Pretend I used B. Pretend I meant exactly what you meant. It doesn't change my point, at all.
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I'm unclear of what point you think this doesn't change. Could you explain? I can't see any point that you've made in relation to this that isn't changed by this.
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Whether it's classified as "could have the effect or be used for the effect of chipping away at abortion rights" or "might chip away at Roe or abortion rights" or "will undermine Roe," I'd still like to see the parts of the law that can/might/will do so and an explanation of how. My point is utterly unrelated to the probability being assigned or the specific affect.
I'll make it even more general: I'd like to see identified the parts of the law that, absent corrective language, might affect Roe or abortion rights in any way and to see a brief explanation of how it might do that.
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You made various points, but they were not valid absent your "must".
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edit: Also, do you now admit that the statement that you made and the statement that I made are different? Because, you know, you were awful emphatic and insulting in saying that they weren't.
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We're done, Squick. None of my points relied on the differences that could be read into the statements. To the extent you think my points relied on such differences, you misinterpreted what I meant.
That's not debatable - it's simply a true statement.
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And my point was that, until my requests (not demands) are met, I don't see how this law has ANY affect on Roe or abortion rights, with or without the language. I might not see how it would affect Roe or abortion rights after having my request answer, either.
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Points that were changed (they have a pretty good correspondence to points that I challenged you on):
quote:Now we have the argument that not having explicit "this does not overturn Roe v. Wade" language somehow undermines Roe.
quote:Since Kate pointed to that language as being determinative of whether the law undermines Roe, she must believe that the bill with the language does not undermine Roe.
quote:It's also pretty clear that she thinks the "this does not overturn Roe v. Wade" language would cure the law we have been discussing.
quote:It is perfectly logical to conclude that she thought that the lack of the language (in this law, not in any law at all) was what undermined Roe.
quote:That necessarily entails that there is some part of this law that would undermine Roe without that language.
And then there was the whole section where you emphatically and insultingly maintained that there was no difference between what I said and what you did.
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quote:And my point was that, until my requests (not demands) are met, I don't see how this law has ANY affect on Roe or abortion rights, with or without the language. I might not see how it would affect Roe or abortion rights after having my request answer, either.
Which is fine, but is not actually related very much to what boots was saying. You want an exact part of the law that clearly challenges it. Great, but boots certainly didn't through anything she said suggest that she had one and what she said can stand without fulfilling your demands.
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quote:Now we have the argument that not having explicit "this does not overturn Roe v. Wade" language somehow undermines Roe.
This point is not affected by the characterization of the effects of the bill on Roe or abortion rights and the probabilities of those effects occurring.
(Also, this is almost a direct quote to Kate's answer to my request that she "explain how this law undermines Roe." Again, her answer was, "It undermines Roe v Wade by enacting laws that do not have that "this does not overturn Roe v. Wade" language. I suspect that, if that language was unnecessary, it wouldn't have been included in the existing Illinois law. Or that it would have been included in the new proposal - in which case, Senator Obama said he would have supported it.")
quote:Since Kate pointed to that language as being determinative of whether the law undermines Roe, she must believe that the bill with the language does not undermine Roe.
Same.
quote:It's also pretty clear that she thinks the "this does not overturn Roe v. Wade" language would cure the law we have been discussing.
Same.
quote:It is perfectly logical to conclude that she thought that the lack of the language (in this law, not in any law at all) was what undermined Roe.
I have since clarified that this would only be true because THIS bill contained provisions that "could have the effect or be used for the effect of chipping away at abortion rights."
Again, if you think using B instead of A changes the meaning of those points, you have misunderstood them.
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If it doesn't make any difference, why would the federal legislature and the Illinois state legislature in the existing law have included such language? Most of them are lawyers; I would think that they had some idea what they were doing.
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quote:If it doesn't make any difference, why would the federal legislature and the Illinois state legislature in the existing law have included such language? Most of them are lawyers; I would think that they had some idea what they were doing.
I'm a lawyer, too, and I can't see where a definition that someone outside the mother is a person at law could have an effect on the mother's rights to terminate the pregnancy before the triggering event in this law occurs.
If it was necessary, I'd think it'd be easy to say why.
Edit: And if it wasn't necessary, but just convinced some people to vote for it to overcome a fear they couldn't define, I'm fine with that. But it doesn't mean I agree that the original version could have chipped away at anything.
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So you don't think that there was any reason for it to be included in the other laws?
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edit: Ok, so you won't answer. Here's the thing. You don't think there was any reason. boots does. She may not know what that reason is, but, as I've now pointed out for the fourth time, she suspects that there could be a reason for this. Because you keep treating her differently from this (and resisting all attempts to get you to realize that you are wrong), you are not addressing what she said.
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Newspeople are speculating that Obama will announce his VP candidate before the weekend at a rally in Springfield, Illinois.
They're saying we're in the "final hours" before the announcement. Interesting to time it just as the Olympics are closing. I have to imagine a lot of people will be keeping an eye on the closing ceremonies tomorrow, though for me, all my favorite events and races are pretty much done, and I'm not a huge fan of the ceremonies.
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quote:Because you keep treating her differently from this (and resisting all attempts to get you to realize that you are wrong)
What the hell am I wrong about concerning her view? She thinks the law without the explicit "this does not overturn Roe v. Wade" language could undermine Roe (her words, not mine).
Based on that, I've asked for specifics about how it could do this. I've spent a page going back and forth with you about something else. But what I've asked of Kate is to explain how.
So how am I treating her "differently from this"?
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Going back to the A and B statements, you're treating her like she said A when what she really said was B. Go back and read what I wrote there. If you actually try to see where those three differences are and what they mean, I think you could get it.
Or you know, just keep insisting that she had to mean what you want her to mean.
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The impression I get from those worried about this law is that it'll be used in concert with other possible future laws in an attempt to form a framework with which to unseat Roe. The laws themselves wouldn't be able to do much, if anything, since the SC decision itself overrules all of them, they could make a law saying the sky is green and it wouldn't much matter because of SC precedent.
But I think the fear is that a law like this could be appealed up to the SC level, and a ruling, with a more favorable court to Conservative issues than has been had in decades, could uphold all or part of the law, since only the SC can overturn what the previous court has done. Obviously a law saying abortion is against the law is unlikely to be passed by the Illinois state legislature, or for that matter the US Congress, so they try something small just to get their foot in the door. If the SC rules that babies in this situation are people, then they can push it one step further and ask how they aren't people seconds before when they are in the womb.
I think it might be that such a hypothetical, (which isn't really totally outside the bounds of possibility is it?) is really the endgame of proponents of such a bill, since the opponents state that this bill would do nothing that wasn't already covered by existing law.
That's my take on what the fears of the opponents of the bill are. I can't say how likely I think such a thing is, even down to the actual act of the SC taking up the case should it get that far, if such a case was even brought, but it's not utterly impossible.
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quote:Going back to the A and B statements, you're treating her like she said A when what she really said was B. Go back and read what I wrote there.
I am not treating her like she said A. Whether she said A or B, I still want to know the specifics. And my reason for wanting to know the specifics is utterly unrelated to the differences between A and B.
Is that really so hard for you to grasp?
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quote:And my reason for wanting to know the specifics is utterly unrelated to the differences between A and B.
But it isn't.
I'll quote myself again:
quote:You don't think there was any reason. boots does. She may not know what that reason is, but, as I've now pointed out for the fourth time, she suspects that there could be a reason for this.
quote:Which is fine, but is not actually related very much to what boots was saying. You want an exact part of the law that clearly challenges it. Great, but boots certainly didn't through anything she said suggest that she had one and what she said can stand without fulfilling your demands.
You're as wrong here as when you incorrectly tried to claim that there was no difference between what I said and what you were cliaming it to be.
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To get back to abstract letters. boots, if I read her right, believes what she does because of X. You keep saying, "Well, you must believe Y then. Now show me Y."
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You can stop quoting yourself merely to repeat a point - it's as unconvincing the second (and third, fourth, and fifth) time as it is the first.
I would like to know specifics. Certainly she doesn't have to provide them. Certainly she can think that the language is needed without being able to provide them.
But she can't convince me that the language is needed without providing them. Nor - at least to date - can she make me understand why she thinks that way, even absent a desire to convince me.
Nor can she really support her original statement that there is no logical reason to support this law absent that language other than to undermine Roe or allow attacks like the ones on Obama without such specifics. Her later qualified statement limiting that lack of logical reason only to her doesn't require specifics, either.
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quote:To get back to abstract letters. boots, if I read her right, believes what she does because of X. You keep saying, "Well, you must believe Y then. Now show me Y."
Nope. You're wrong. I'm not saying show me Y. First I said show me specifics about Y, relying on her own use of Y. When that became a problem for you, I changed that to show me specifics about X.
And you still. can't. let. it. go.
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I don't anymore which is A and which is B. Lyrhawn is capturing a sense of why I think there is concern. If there are a lot of laws clamoring about the personhood of a fetus, that "pushes" against the Roe v Wade dam. The clarifying language mitigates that. At least that is the impression I get from the legislators who framed the laws. I think that many of them are smart and learned enough about the law that I would hesitate to dismiss their concerns as "vague fears".
And if it were just vague fears, why wouldn't the proposers include the meaningless language in order to allay those fears and get their proposal passed?
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quote:I think that many of them are smart and learned enough about the law that I would hesitate to dismiss their concerns as "vague fears".
Until they provide specifics, though, that's exactly what they are - vague.
Moreover, I didn't dismiss them. I remain unconvinced that the possibility for undermining Roe with this law exists, but I specifically said that I support adding the language to get the support of people who fear the use of the law to undermine Roe.
quote:And if it were just vague fears, why wouldn't the proposers include the meaningless language in order to allay those fears and get their proposal passed?
They did - the law with that language passed federally and in Illinois.
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Yes. And Senator Obama said that he would have supported those. He is being hammered for not supporting the Illinois proposal where the sponsors would not include that language.
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quote:Yes. And Senator Obama said that he would have supported those. He is being hammered for not supporting the Illinois proposal where the sponsors would not include that language.
There's some evidence that's been cited in the mainstream press that he actually voted against a version of the bill with that language.
I have no idea if it's true or not. I'm not particularly interested in how Obama voted on it with and without the language, but it's something that could be definitively answered with the proper legislative records.
It will have no effect on my vote either way.
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VP non-announcement. Obama has said he's decided on his running mate, but hasn't said who it is or when he'll announce who it is. I find that a little annoying.
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I find it a little amusing. The press is RIDICULOUS when it comes to this VP thing. They're staking out potential VP's houses on a 24 basis trying to glean hints and clues from random statements. They look stupid, but they don't realize it, and I think it's a sign of A. Nothing better to talk about. And B. Being lazy. Because there IS better stuff to talk about, they just aren't going out to look for it.
The other day the Obama camp sent out an email to the press saying something like "VP announcement, and the winner is..." and on the inside of the email (that was the subject line) it said "just kidding!"
The press need to get over themselves and stop hyping up things that don't require or deserve hype. Besides, I'm willing to bet that by this time tomorrow, or shortly thereafter, you'll know who he picked. I'd be surprised if it didn't leak out sooner. Whoever it is will be getting on a plane tonight.
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I agree with Lyrhawn. I think it's pretty amusing. Isn't he supposed to email/text his supporters with his pick before making a public announcement?
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Yep, and I'm signed up for the text. As I'm sure is every reporter covering the election, so it'll be on the news sites as soon as it's out.
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quote: The laws themselves wouldn't be able to do much, if anything, since the SC decision itself overrules all of them, they could make a law saying the sky is green and it wouldn't much matter because of SC precedent.
The sky is not green only because of SC precedent?
Take your logic the other way, Lyrhawn. Because of Roe, a baby I've given birth to should be killable without guilt because only a few moments before it was?
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I am very much having a problem with McCain not being able to remember how many houses he owns - exactly how many does he own that he doesn't remember offhand? It annoys me that here we are in the middle of a mortgate crisis with tons of families not being able to afford to stay in their homes; either McCain owns so many houses that the number is significantly above that of regular middle-class Americans, or he is getting to the age where he can't remember the most basic information a person should know off the top of their heads. Either way, I am more and more not being able to stand him.
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Between that and his various slips about the Middle East (Sunni and Shia, Al Qaeda/Iran), it is a little troubling. More and more, it's just like, "I don't hate you, you just really, really shouldn't be president."
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quote: The laws themselves wouldn't be able to do much, if anything, since the SC decision itself overrules all of them, they could make a law saying the sky is green and it wouldn't much matter because of SC precedent.
The sky is not green only because of SC precedent?
Well I worded that wrong, or at the very least could have worded it better. My point was that Congress could pass all the laws they wanted declaring the sky to be green, but until a higher power (in this case the Supreme Court) changed their ruling, none of those laws would matter because they'd be struck down just like the initial one was when Roe was first established. Maybe not the best comparison to mix laws of science with laws of the land, but I think you get the drift.
quote:Take your logic the other way, Lyrhawn. Because of Roe, a baby I've given birth to should be killable without guilt because only a few moments before it was?
I'm not quite able to parse that pooka. I didn't actually say what my personal feelings were on the subject because I didn't want to get bogged down in a debate on it, at least not in this thread. I was just trying to help clear up what looked like some misunderstandings, and for that matter, trying to get a better sense of Obama's thought process. My own views of abortion are a mishmash of both the "pro-choice" and "pro-life" sides.
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In other news, Obama's VP will be announced tomorrow morning, and speculation is swelling around Biden.
I think Biden is a great choice. He only has two or three real drawbacks: 1. Obama is the change candidate, and Biden has been in Washington I think as long as McCain has. 2. He hasn't always been very careful about holding his tongue, which means there are a LOT of quotes for the media to prey on. 3. Same as number two, except I'm sure there is more to come in the future.
The real thing I see as a great opening for McCain is the change vs. experience argument. Obama will say that he chose Biden because he wanted someone who could do the job of president in case Obama dies for whatever reason, and that's why he chose him despite his time in Washington. The question there is: so wait, McCain is Washington through and through, and has the experience, but don't vote for him, while Biden is Washington through and through and you should vote for him BECAUSE he has the experience? Hard to bash McCain on one side while praising Biden on the other side of the same coin. I'm wondering though if that argument isn't a tad too complex for the American electorate though, so he might get away with it.
Biden has a lot of great experience, has NO problem telling truth to power, and should shore up ANY concerns about Obama and foreign policy experience, as Biden arguably knows more about foreign policy than anyone else in the Senate. He's also a great attack dog. He can rip someone to shreds, cut through the bull, and come across as a straight talker all while smiling and not looking like a douche doing it. He's smart, eloquent, and acutally pretty damned funny too. A nice unfortunate bonus also is that Biden, according to the tax returns and what not from the primaries, was the poorest of the candidates. I think his net worth is well under $100,000. He's a regular guy, and unlike a lot of people in the Senate, hasn't amassed wealth from his position. I think he might actually have quite a bit of debt. In other words, I think he'll come across (as he well may be) as a perfectly regular guy. I like him personally, I was sort of rooting for him or Chris Dodd as underdog candidates back in the primaries, and was secretly hoping one of them would make it as VP.
Electorally? Tim Kaine would be better, giving Obama a much bigger leg up on Virginia, but he might not even need him. Or Evan Bayh, for Indiana. It's not like Deleware is in any trouble of flipping, and even if it was, so what? But actually the scuttlebutt is that Biden is very, very popular in Pennsylvania, and Obama could use the extra push there to make sure they stay Blue. Between that and governor Rendell, that should be a nice one-two punch.
If it's Biden, I'll be satisfied, but I won't be at all surprised if the media have it wrong and it ends up coming out of left field. It DOES match up with what the rumors have been saying about Obama struggling with choosing between change vs. experience, and some of the qualities he's listed as wanting.
Edit to add: Word is, the Secret Service has been dispatched to Biden's house.
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quote:Originally posted by jh: I am very much having a problem with McCain not being able to remember how many houses he owns - exactly how many does he own that he doesn't remember offhand? It annoys me that here we are in the middle of a mortgate crisis with tons of families not being able to afford to stay in their homes; either McCain owns so many houses that the number is significantly above that of regular middle-class Americans, or he is getting to the age where he can't remember the most basic information a person should know off the top of their heads. Either way, I am more and more not being able to stand him.
My brother may not know the number of houses he owns. His wife is a real estate agent and he flips houses, as well as renting them out. Since McCain's wife handles their investments, it is possible that he is not aware of what exactly she has invested in at any given moment. He might have done better by saying, well, my wife has numerous investments.
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I think that would've been much, much better. No matter how he answers that question he looks like a rich muckety muck, but at least he could have foisted that off on his wife instead of either looking like a non-chalant elitist or a forgetful old man.
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I can't quite place why, but I have a negative opinion of Biden. Does it go back to the Clarence Thomas hearings? Well, anyway, I guess you want to pick someone that is like nails on the chalkboard to the other side.
As far as birth and choice go, I have to say - though I understand it is the law of the land - that I am mystified by the right to abort as an inalienable right we were endowed with by our creator, and that we must steer well clear around it. Of course, someone will point out that the creator is never mentioned in the constitution, but that is the declaration of independence. Whatever.
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