Gender Wars are Mainstream

[nova_guy123]

What? I want small government, not no government. Just courts and minimal police, minimal military. No mandatory social security program, no mandatory public schooling (although in theory those could exist), no CIA, no Homeland Security, no TSA, no DEA, no Department of Agriculture (which gives a lot of money to big corporately owned farms), no Federal Reserve, etc.

 

The free market state would basically be people buying and selling freely and the state's responsibility would be enforcement of contracts and defending from possible foreign invasion (which has happened only once in US history, and we brought it on ourselves).

 

How can people be so dumb! Dont you reelize that government gave you everything you have? You're rights, your freedoms, even your precious property is all from the government. If you make government small peoplle will die in the streets.

 

You must be rich and selfish. People have to contribute to the greater good, it's the price tag of society. You would have old grandmas dying in the street and eating catfood.

[Untouchable_Fire]

Both sides of the abortion debate are motivated by deep concern over human life.

 

I would very much agree with that.

 

I think there are only a few radicals on either side. Unfortunately the media focuses on them.

 

On a philosophical and moral level... it bothers me to apply arbitrary dates to human development in order to define a "person". I don't think being a "person" matters at all. Too many people throughout history have used that concept to do evil.

 

However, I recognize the burden pregnancy creates on a woman. I find it acceptable to leave the choice up to her so long as she is medically informed and understands the moral implications.

 

It also bothers me that we allow Planned Parenthood to use the public school system to target young black women in marketing campaigns. I believe Martin Luther King jr called abortion a racist institution... and from the numbers he may have a case.

[zengirl]

Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that no one should be made to participate in a system they don't like. If I think I can better finance my retirement than the Social Security program can, why make me participate in it? If I think I can take care of my health care needs without buying overpriced insurance via government mandate, why make me do it?

 

Because that's the only way you have a society. You say your for minimal government, but I wouldn't want to live in or participate in your society, so there' be no way to maintain a nation under the terms where everyone "pays for what they want." There is no such thing as government a la carte. The best we can do is a government freely elected by the people. Granted, we could reform our party system and do a bit better at that (there are other countries that do it better nowadays, and we could do what the Founding Fathers did and take a lesson from others), but a la carte government doesn't work. Especially with the current population of the Earth, industrialization, globalization, and depleted resources. Too many people now for everyone to opt in or out.

 

Clearly, I don't agree with everything the government does. But I don't think the answer is allowing me to create my own state with only likeminded people because there aren't enough people who think JUST like me to do so! That's silly. We all have to compromise and work together.

 

If the government wanted to really help women in poverty... they would force compliance for their own program.

 

You are entirely correct. This is a social problem that needs solving as well.

 

not really. you're ignorant of the reasons that led up to the civil war (and yes, it was about slavery), but then again most people are ignorant of the reasons, so here, i'll help...

 

it was the middle class that wanted slavery gone. a small landowner had no chance to compete against a large slave owning landowner. that's why the middle class left for territories like missouri in droves, and did NOT want those states to become slave states.

 

so, no, the pre civil war south was not a magic happy funland as ignorant lower middle class southerners seem to think it was. unless they owned thousands of acres and hundreds of slaves, they would be worse off than they are now.

 

Well, that is ONE reason. You're right it was not magic happy funland, of course, but you've given only one of MANY reasons for The Civil War, which is often simplified. It was not really about slavery (as a moral choice), as textbooks suggest, or about states' rights, as some people suggest, though both of those played a role. It was, like most wars, about economics. You've highlighted one important part of it, but there were others. Southerners also thought they faced unfair taxation, for instance, that encouraged them to buy goods from the Northern states, rather than Europe. They were really miffed about that. Today, it would be a GOOD thing to buy things from your own country -- and is indeed a core value many Americans discuss and feel we've lost -- but the South preferred goods from Europe until they became fiscally unfeasible. At any rate, it was all about slaves and money, mainly, but not slavery in the MORAL way so much as slavery as an economic reality, sadly.

 

If that was the case then why did middle and lower class southerners fight FOR slavery? Where they enslaved themselves... or do you think their army was entirely comprised of millionaire slave owners?

 

The fact is that it was a mixed bag... with most southerners supporting the institution despite the fact that they were not currently engaged in it. Yes there was a strong and vocal minority who were opposed.

 

Well, there was a lot of misinformation, and really the South didn't HAVE a middle class. They had a society that was deeply divided by class without a working or middle class (there were a few "lower" class landowners, sure, who may be considered "middle" class -- since any landowner had some rights -- but they were pretty poor; you were either really rich, pretty poor, or REALLY poor and lacking in many basic rights due to not owning land). The lower classes supported the upper class rule in many of those states generally due to misinformation and socialization, as often happens in such societies, particularly in an age before global or even national information.

 

The middle class was really a phenomenon emerging in the North at that time, mostly due to industrialization.

[zengirl]

It also bothers me that we allow Planned Parenthood to use the public school system to target young black women in marketing campaigns. I believe Martin Luther King jr called abortion a racist institution... and from the numbers he may have a case.

 

PP can't GET in a public school here to do outreach of any kind (they'd be run out on a rail) so I'm not sure what you mean. At any rate, the goal of PP outreach (I work with them to do some -- in neighborhoods, not schools) is to prevent pregnancies before they become abortions! There is no outreach that encourages abortions -- the idea is to encourage STD testing, awareness of the new vaccine for cervical cancer, and awareness for safe sex and BC. More educated women (which sadly follows socioeconomic lines, which is what PP hopes to overcome) are less likely to need abortions.

Edited March 23, 2012 by zengirl

[Untouchable_Fire]

How can people be so dumb! Dont you reelize that government gave you everything you have? You're rights, your freedoms, even your precious property is all from the government. If you make government small peoplle will die in the streets.

You must be rich and selfish. People have to contribute to the greater good, it's the price tag of society. You would have old grandmas dying in the street and eating catfood.

 

Government control has worked wonders in Syria, the USSR, Communist China... Nazi Germany... just to name a few. Let's give it a shot here!

 

So... who cares more about your grandma... petty government bureaucrat in D.C... or you? Who is going to take care of her more... them or you? Because you are saying it's them.

 

Sure people should give back something to society. Nobody argues against that. Rules are good for everybody so long as they are not burdensome and commonly agreed upon.

[Untouchable_Fire]

PP can't GET in a public school here to do outreach of any kind (they'd be run out on a rail) so I'm not sure what you mean. At any rate, the goal of PP outreach (I work with them to do some -- in neighborhoods, not schools) is to prevent pregnancies before they become abortions! There is no outreach that encourages abortions -- the idea is to encourage STD testing, awareness of the new vaccine for cervical cancer, and awareness for safe sex and BC. More educated women (which sadly follows socioeconomic lines, which is what PP hopes to overcome) are less likely to need abortions.

 

... it would make sense to me that they can't use the public schools. However, I've heard that in the inner city here they distribute pamphlets and work with the school nurses office. That could be wrong I just read it online a few years back.

 

Also... I believe the founder of PP was an extreme racist.

 

I'm glad to hear many people within the organization work to prevent pregnancy in the first place. That is the healthiest option for girls. Once it comes down to the choice to abort... I think that can be very painful psychologically.

[zengirl]

I'm glad to hear many people within the organization work to prevent pregnancy in the first place. That is the healthiest option for girls. Once it comes down to the choice to abort... I think that can be very painful psychologically.

 

Well, in more liberal states, it would make sense to make materials to distribute (I'm thinking pamphlets that educate, not that advertise the PP or even mention abortion) for schools, and many schools might accept such materials from the PP. We do make pamphlets like that (they don't advertise the PP at all, really; some don't even list the name of the PP -- they're more like pamphlets ABOUT sexual health and such). That seems like something schools SHOULD do, to me, as I think sex ed needs to be in all schools (not sponsored by any particular named corporation or foundation, but just the information on how to prevent pregnancy and so forth) and it was in mine when I was growing up.

 

But yes, the idea is to prevent pregnancies AND abortions! No one at the PP "likes" abortions. It's just better that they be safe, legal, and reasonably priced than the alternative. But prevention is where all the education funds (PP's education funds) go.

[fortyninethousand322]

Because that's the only way you have a society. You say your for minimal government, but I wouldn't want to live in or participate in your society, so there' be no way to maintain a nation under the terms where everyone "pays for what they want." There is no such thing as government a la carte. The best we can do is a government freely elected by the people. Granted, we could reform our party system and do a bit better at that (there are other countries that do it better nowadays, and we could do what the Founding Fathers did and take a lesson from others), but a la carte government doesn't work. Especially with the current population of the Earth, industrialization, globalization, and depleted resources. Too many people now for everyone to opt in or out.

 

Clearly, I don't agree with everything the government does. But I don't think the answer is allowing me to create my own state with only likeminded people because there aren't enough people who think JUST like me to do so! That's silly. We all have to compromise and work together.

 

 

But then you're going to have huge fights. Because even if one side or the other wins 60% of the vote that still leaves the other 40% with a raw deal.

 

You see it all the time. A local fight over a school curriculum. Should evolution be taught, should it not be taught? One side has to win and the other has to lose. Why? Why not let both have their own choice?

 

There are 315 million or so people living here in the US, why not have 315 million different value systems? I don't know what's best for you and you sure don't know what's best for me. Why have an election to decide which of us knows best how to run the other's life?

[zengirl]

But then you're going to have huge fights. Because even if one side or the other wins 60% of the vote that still leaves the other 40% with a raw deal.

 

You see it all the time. A local fight over a school curriculum. Should evolution be taught, should it not be taught? One side has to win and the other has to lose. Why? Why not let both have their own choice?

 

There are 315 million or so people living here in the US, why not have 315 million different value systems? I don't know what's best for you and you sure don't know what's best for me. Why have an election to decide which of us knows best how to run the other's life?

 

I don't see it as "how to run my life." The government really can't tell me that. They can determine how I can behave within society, how much money I owe them for the benefits provided by society, and so forth. But they cannot tell me my own mind or values, and the laws restrict me very little in my day-to-day actions. There are some laws that really DO restrict people needlessly, and I'm opposed to them (I'm in favor of decriminalizing drugs, legalizing gay marriage, etc) but I draw huge distinctions between my personal life and things like what school curriculum is taught. No one is stopping the parents, there, of teaching their kids whatever they wish! (Nor should anyone.)

 

I also don't see such battles as necessarily "bad." They're frustrating sometimes, sure, but it's better than us each being our own little island and making our own laws. Being part of a society has costs and benefits. I'd prefer to be part of a society than not. Granted, sometimes I wish I could emigrate to England or Sweden or Canada or some other country that better shared my values, as a society, but most of those wouldn't give me citizenship or work rights, so here I stay. Perhaps more open national membership would help people group into countries of their choosing, rather than of their birth, but that seems hard to do, practically.

[fortyninethousand322]

I don't see it as "how to run my life." The government really can't tell me that. They can determine how I can behave within society, how much money I owe them for the benefits provided by society, and so forth. But they cannot tell me my own mind or values, and the laws restrict me very little in my day-to-day actions. There are some laws that really DO restrict people needlessly, and I'm opposed to them (I'm in favor of decriminalizing drugs, legalizing gay marriage, etc) but I draw huge distinctions between my personal life and things like what school curriculum is taught. No one is stopping the parents, there, of teaching their kids whatever they wish! (Nor should anyone.)

 

Perhaps this should be moved to the "freedome" thread in the other section but anyway.

 

What I mean by "how to run your life" I mean certain programs. Let's say I think I'm better able to put money aside for my retirement and thus do not want to participate in things like Social Security (setting aside for a moment that its not meant for an entire retirement) I don't exactly get that option in our current set up. Let's say I think a specific private charity can do a better job taking care of the poor and disadvantaged than welfare programs. Let's say I want to buy a cheaper car that doesn't have air bags or seat belts or I want to work for 5 dollars an hour. Our society doesn't let me do these things. You might think that this is just society looking out for me, but I see it as restricting my freedoms in unnecessary ways.

 

I also don't see such battles as necessarily "bad." They're frustrating sometimes, sure, but it's better than us each being our own little island and making our own laws. Being part of a society has costs and benefits. I'd prefer to be part of a society than not. Granted, sometimes I wish I could emigrate to England or Sweden or Canada or some other country that better shared my values, as a society, but most of those wouldn't give me citizenship or work rights, so here I stay. Perhaps more open national membership would help people group into countries of their choosing, rather than of their birth, but that seems hard to do, practically.

 

I see it as "bad" because someone has to lose. Actually probably everyone at some point gets to lose. It should be (and can be) win-win. Our system prevents it from happening.

[zengirl]

I see it as "bad" because someone has to lose. Actually probably everyone at some point gets to lose. It should be (and can be) win-win. Our system prevents it from happening.

 

I disagree it can be win-win. Without collective funds and efforts, we could not build much of the infrastructure we use and need and make it available to the masses. Regulation helps people, IMO, whereas you disagree with it. But regulation only helps people if it's uniformly applied. So, there is no "win-win" on this issue. No win-lose usually either. It's mostly all compromise.

[ScreamingTrees]

How can people be so dumb! Dont you reelize that government gave you everything you have? You're rights, your freedoms, even your precious property is all from the government. If you make government small peoplle will die in the streets.

 

You must be rich and selfish. People have to contribute to the greater good, it's the price tag of society. You would have old grandmas dying in the street and eating catfood.

 

They see me trollin, they hatin.. i trollin, tryin to catch me trollin dirtay.. tryin to catch me trollin dirtay, tryina catch me trollin dirtay..

 

Honestly, isn't that how our world works as it is? With people contributing to the greater good through physical labor of some sort? How would that change in his situation? We're not nearly the productive country we used to be, when a ****load of people could be suckling off of big brother's tit and doing nothing but consume..

 

You're a total moron who can't see the bigger picture. Government didn't give us everything we have in the US, and the founding fathers would disagree with you. As one poster had in her sig; Gov is like a fire - A dangerous tool to be used, but if left to spread it could be one's demise.

 

Our rights and freedoms stem from the constitution, as far as I'm aware. The government didn't write it, but they sure do love to mess around with it to suit their own agendas.

[aj22one]

Our rights and freedoms stem from the constitution, as far as I'm aware. The government didn't write it, but they sure do love to mess around with it to suit their own agendas.

 

Sorta man. Our rights are natural, they stem from the fact that we are human beings. The Constitution merely enumerates those rights. We don't get our rights from a piece of paper. haha

 

And yeah, I miss Queen Z. She needs to hurry back real soon.

[ScreamingTrees]

Unlike you, I strongly support government regulation. However, I also strongly agree with this. Ironically, if the drug industries were legal and regulated (I'd say only a few of the softer drugs like shrooms and marijuana should/would become a "real" industry, probably -- I probably wouldn't be for selling heroin in department stores; decriminalizing and legalizing aren't the same thing), then kids would find it harder to get weed. More kids CAN get weed these days more easily than alcohol or tobacco. Why? Drug dealers don't care about age limits, but convenience stores do. Ironic.

 

FWIW, Kids aren't typically "just trying" meth or heroin or even cocaine anyway. Harder drugs aren't something someone typically tries till later in life, unless they come from an environment with extraordinary problems. It's also ironic that the biggest drug problem with kids today are their parents pharmaceuticals.

 

Well, maybe I'm just not well read in regulation to have a strong, supported opinion, but from what I have read, I guess we do differ a bit in that respect. I DO support government regulation so long as we make sure they're actually doing what we want them to do, and not what some rich ******* pays them to do at our expense.

 

If I'm just giving away my hard-earned wealth as a tax payer, it should be going to something that is actually benefiting me in some way. Otherwise, why am I paying? I'm not leaving a financial/material footprint of some sort if I'm laboring for my cash.. (And what is a dollar, ultimately? A paper claim on material goods.. I don't like how someone can invest in imaginary "stocks" and make a ****load from it.. You're basically getting paper claims on material goods for virtually no physical reason.. due to things that have no practical value other than the one stated.. Sounds like an easy way of manipulating the system to me.)

 

I DO agree with your post, otherwise, though. If you think I'm totally ignorant, I'd appreciate it if you'd enlighten me so that I could correct my thinking based on flawed information. I don't believe a normal person would ever feel compelled to try hard drugs, well knowing the consequences.

[ScreamingTrees]

Sorta man. Our rights are natural, they stem from the fact that we are human beings. The Constitution merely enumerates those rights. We don't get our rights from a piece of paper. haha

 

And yeah, I miss Queen Z. She needs to hurry back real soon.

 

Alright, alright, talk about a hypocrite, I totally missed the point.

 

Forgive me.. Obviously our rights are natural. No one inherently has the right to do anything to another person. Some obviously do, and the majority oppose them. When it comes down to it, there's negativity, neutrality and positivity. Most sane individuals avoid negativity.. Negativity being actions that would go against our natural rights.

 

Y'know, I think it's funny how Rick Santorum's supposedly neck and neck with Romney (a morally deficit perpetually lying crook) and the guy opposes birth control. Why do I get the feeling neither of these guys are REALLY what the general populace wants? I'm not a total "paulbot" as some might say, but I like the guy. He has his heart in the right place, if anything, and doesn't seem to be able to be bought like all of the others.

 

The difference between him and the other two is that, while they're all religious to some degree, I don't see him letting his religion taint his decision making for others, whereas

 

Do I even need to say anything about Santorum? I've seen videos of college students shutting him down.. Tather than explain to them why they're incorrect would rather throw a childish hissy fit. He's incompetent, moreso than Obama. What's up with this ****? Seriously. I wouldn't have any problems if these were the choices I've been "gifted"..

[xxoo]

... it would make sense to me that they can't use the public schools. However, I've heard that in the inner city here they distribute pamphlets and work with the school nurses office. That could be wrong I just read it online a few years back.

 

Also... I believe the founder of PP was an extreme racist.

 

I'm glad to hear many people within the organization work to prevent pregnancy in the first place. That is the healthiest option for girls. Once it comes down to the choice to abort... I think that can be very painful psychologically.

 

Well, in more liberal states, it would make sense to make materials to distribute (I'm thinking pamphlets that educate, not that advertise the PP or even mention abortion) for schools, and many schools might accept such materials from the PP. We do make pamphlets like that (they don't advertise the PP at all, really; some don't even list the name of the PP -- they're more like pamphlets ABOUT sexual health and such). That seems like something schools SHOULD do, to me, as I think sex ed needs to be in all schools (not sponsored by any particular named corporation or foundation, but just the information on how to prevent pregnancy and so forth) and it was in mine when I was growing up.

 

But yes, the idea is to prevent pregnancies AND abortions! No one at the PP "likes" abortions. It's just better that they be safe, legal, and reasonably priced than the alternative. But prevention is where all the education funds (PP's education funds) go.

 

If more discussions about abortion laws could go like this, we might actually find some common ground!

 

But where would that leave the gender wars????

[aj22one]

If more discussions about abortion laws could go like this, we might actually find some common ground!

 

But where would that leave the gender wars????

 

In the dustbin of history, where they belong.

[dasein]

Without collective funds and efforts, we could not build much of the infrastructure we use and need and make it available to the masses.

 

Social Security, Medicare, and wildly wasteful expenditures on "defense" are not infrastructure. No one I've seen here is arguing for repeal of the government's taxing power for truly public uses such as interstate infrastructure. The individual states also do and should have the taxing power available to tax for intrastate infrastructure. No one is arguing they don't that I've seen.

 

Governments have proven since Aristotle and before that they are inefficient providers or even mediators of goods and services, so their role as such should be strictly limited. This is inevitably the case whenever political power is concentrated centrally, whether in the hands of a king or a massive bureaucracy. Corruption and factionalization must result, and they have. Locke set the parameters of the few legitimate government functions out nicely, and the fine points were debated in the Federalist Papers. This is the -entire- reason why the founding fathers, with their greater grasp of history and experience of tyranny, insisted on enumerating specific powers to the federal government and excluding all else. Even so, the forces of expediency began to distort the "necessary and proper" clause almost before the ink was dry on the Constitution. The 20th centuries favorite distortion used to allow illiegitimate federal power outside the burdensome constitutional amendment process was the "interstate commerce clause."

 

The government even managed to bungle the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement. Blacks were making great strides with no help at all from Big Brother, with low incarceration rates, increasing literacy rates and high legitimate birthrates. This is another facet of history you won't be taught today. LBJs misguided War on Poverty ensured that those strides would be erased or marginalized, as the incarceration rate of African American males and the AA illegitmate birthrate are ATROCIOUS today, needlessly so. Raw transfer payments, while they may create more immediate voters (a chicken in every pot), also create dependency, whether SS, medicare, welfare, etc. They simply don't work for any other purpose than politicizing and vote buying from the ignorant.

 

If actual history were taught in conjunction with the politicized social sciences in universities today, more people would realize this. Instead, "history" is merely a dishonest, revisionary tool of the left in academia. It's all happened before, many times, the reason more people don't realize this, and that we don't learn from it, is that we are sold a bill of goods by the sorry excuse that is education in this country, secondary and post-secondary, public and private, and ironically they charge more and more outrageously for such "education" every year.

 

The first step is to remove programs that don't meet a strict interpretation of "public." Social Security and Medicare (together with most other entitlement programs) go away at this point. Taking money from one person and giving it to another is only "public" use by way of a tortured abstraction (and the complicity of a packed court). It promotes mob rule, where 51% of the people determine how much theft takes place from the other 49%.

 

Social Security consisted of a lie to a more illiterate, less informed public than exists today. It was sold as a "savings account" that the government administers for each individual, when that was clearly not the intent nor the structure. Moreover, it was never intended to be a retirement plan, but rather a safety net to prevent the starvation of people who were unable to work once they continued living past their life expectancy and unable to do the more physically demanding labor of the time. With a much higher life expectancy today, yet SS vesting ages remaining mostly static, it has basically become supplemental income for senior citizens.

 

Medicare is similar. Healthcare is not a right, nor can it be efficiently implemented as one by a government. In governing their lives and personal property, people must be left to their own devices, other than with respect to taxing for minimal, legitimate government function. The burden is on those who disagree to demonstrate how "healthy" the nation is today and how, in any rational future, the big transfer programs have any hope of perpetuating without destroying the country financially.

 

The only healthy solution is to grandfather in a certain segment of the population and abolish the programs for the rest. Stop social engineering of all types because when centralized governments do it, it just doesn't work. Somewhere back several decades, social engineering bureaucrats decided that it was the government's place to incent home ownership. This is where all the federal quasi public mortgage entities came from. The results, as we have all lived over the last several years, have been painful. The left loves to point its finger at the "Wall Street rich" because it has no understanding of history other than what it reads in the coopted national media, certainly weren't taught it in school, and when it comes to civic morality, only has an abjectly ignorant version of such based on expediency, "what do I get now?"

[Taramere]

Sorta man. Our rights are natural,

 

If our rights are natural, then there must be some law of nature that decrees we have those rights. What is that law?

[aj22one]

If our rights are natural, then there must be some law of nature that decrees we have those rights. What is that law?

 

The fact that we are human and thus have the ability to use reason. Rational thought leads to the only possible conclusion: humans have the right to life, liberty, and property.

[dasein]

If our rights are natural, then there must be some law of nature that decrees we have those rights. What is that law?

 

Natural rights do not issue from any particular "law of nature," but from the person's essential -nature- as a human being.

 

The concept needs be taken in the context of "legal rights," those ordained by state power, whether via mutual representative agreement or fiat (representative legislature, for example, or divine right of the king), such legal rights ending at the door of natural rights, which are inalienable by any legitimate political power. Locke enumerated the natural rights as life, liberty and property.

 

Natural rights are immutable, and attach to the human being. Legal rights are a function of the state.

[Necris]

This whole abortion thing is becoming insane. We are killing unborn children and now it seems killing already born children may become acceptable as well, just read about Katrina Effert a canadian woman who strangled her baby with her underwear and threw his lifeless corpse into the neighbor's yard she was sentenced to 90 days for improper disposal of a body no one seemed to care that she murdered a human being. The judge ruled that what she did was okay because in Canada they recognize abortion, which also reminds me of another news story where two bioethicists (I believe they were from Australia) argued that since abortion is legal logically infanticide should be legal as well. I guess next time she should remember to at least give the baby the same amount of care she gives her trash and actually put him/her in the trash can.

 

Anyway no one should have the right to slaughter another human being just because they feel that human in inconvenient. Children shouldn't be viewed as parasites and punishments we need to view children as fellow human beings and help them grow to their full potential not slaughter them. Pro-life isn't a war against women but a fight to save lives I believe a much better abortion law would ban all abortions except for in cases of medical emergency or rape using abortion as a form of birth control or eugenics should be illegal.

[aj22one]

This whole abortion thing is becoming insane. We are killing unborn children and now it seems killing already born children may become acceptable as well, just read about Katrina Effert a canadian woman who strangled her baby with her underwear and threw his lifeless corpse into the neighbor's yard she was sentenced to 90 days for improper disposal of a body no one seemed to care that she murdered a human being. The judge ruled that what she did was okay because in Canada they recognize abortion, which also reminds me of another news story where two bioethicists (I believe they were from Australia) argued that since abortion is legal logically infanticide should be legal as well. I guess next time she should remember to at least give the baby the same amount of care she gives her trash and actually put him/her in the trash can.

 

Anyway no one should have the right to slaughter another human being just because they feel that human in inconvenient. Children shouldn't be viewed as parasites and punishments we need to view children as fellow human beings and help them grow to their full potential not slaughter them. Pro-life isn't a war against women but a fight to save lives I believe a much better abortion law would ban all abortions except for in cases of medical emergency or rape using abortion as a form of birth control or eugenics should be illegal.

 

While I agree that abortion is wrong, good luck enforcing any law banning it. You'll have about as much luck as they're having trying to stop people from smoking pot.

[Taramere]

The fact that we are human and thus have the ability to use reason. Rational thought leads to the only possible conclusion: humans have the right to life, liberty, and property.

 

Natural law implies a law that cannot be violated. If I'm holding an object and I let go of it, it falls. That's natural law.

 

The rights you're talking about can and do get violated. I think it would be more apt to say that as rational beings who act in our own interests, we realise that it is in our interests that laws are created to protect life, liberty and property. Otherwise somebody might take ours.

 

Where there is no law against slavery, some perfectly rational people will make slaves of other perfectly rational human beings, or kill them or take their property. The strong/well supported will do this to those who are weak - especially those who lack any support network of friends/family who would protect or avenge them.

 

Consider how life is in some fundamentalist Islamic societies. People stoned to death for adultery. Women lashed if they leave the house without wearing a burqa. Teenagers lashed for listening to music or watching films. Those are rational people. How can their lives, liberty and property be trampled so easily (and without consequence) by those in charge?

 

The answer, surely, is that they live in a society where there are no penalties prohibiting the strongest members of society from behaving in hideously oppressive ways. Societies that do not share our western notion of natural rights. It's only by calling something a right and enshrining it in law that a weak person can appeal to a higher authority (ie the court) to protect them from another person's desire to oppress them.

 

Without that law, and without consequences, there will always be those with power who oppress those without....regardless of how human and rational the person without power might be.

Edited March 23, 2012 by Taramere

[zengirl]

Well, maybe I'm just not well read in regulation to have a strong, supported opinion, but from what I have read, I guess we do differ a bit in that respect. I DO support government regulation so long as we make sure they're actually doing what we want them to do, and not what some rich ******* pays them to do at our expense.

 

If I'm just giving away my hard-earned wealth as a tax payer, it should be going to something that is actually benefiting me in some way. Otherwise, why am I paying? I'm not leaving a financial/material footprint of some sort if I'm laboring for my cash.. (And what is a dollar, ultimately? A paper claim on material goods.. I don't like how someone can invest in imaginary "stocks" and make a ****load from it.. You're basically getting paper claims on material goods for virtually no physical reason.. due to things that have no practical value other than the one stated.. Sounds like an easy way of manipulating the system to me.)

 

I DO agree with your post, otherwise, though. If you think I'm totally ignorant, I'd appreciate it if you'd enlighten me so that I could correct my thinking based on flawed information. I don't believe a normal person would ever feel compelled to try hard drugs, well knowing the consequences.

 

I agree with your first paragraph immensely. I think we need BETTER regulation for sure! Regulation is extremely complex in this country and not altogether great right now, though for all its problems, it still provides us with some of the safest food, water, and medicines of any country. We can always get better at regulating properly, in a way that is efficient and balances protecting consumers and doing so without driving up costs. Many will disagree on WHAT kind of regulation that means, but I'm of the opinion it takes a lot of voices.

 

I do think many well-adjusted people try "hard drugs" but generally as adults. Many I know have tried cocaine, and I'd consider that a hard drug. Probably very few well-adjusted people touch meth or heroin without some sort of underlying social problem interfering.

 

Social Security, Medicare, and wildly wasteful expenditures on "defense" are not infrastructure. No one I've seen here is arguing for repeal of the government's taxing power for truly public uses such as interstate infrastructure. The individual states also do and should have the taxing power available to tax for intrastate infrastructure. No one is arguing they don't that I've seen.

 

The person who I was discussing with was discussing the idea that he could basically "secede" if he owned his own property. Granted, to what degree is unclear, as he wants "some" government, just not government he disagrees with, I guess, but I was clearly responding to someone who was talking about not reporting to the nation-state as a whole. We weren't debating specific entitlements, like SS, any more than we were discussing roads; we were discussing whether people should have to report to a common government. As such, your comment is actually one of those things you hate - attacking a strawman that leads the discussion off-target.

 

ETA:

 

FWIW, I support such entitlements and social programs, of course. Many of our public works and infrastructure was built during The Great Depression to get people back to work. A lot of it wasn't needed at that time. Roosevelt just wanted people working, so he created public programs. They're very much wrapped up in concepts like Social Security---as they all came from the same place. The thing about progress is, you don't just pay for what pays off and seems necessary at the time, in a transactional way if you want to grow a nation. That has never actually CAUSED national economic growth.

 

And no, entitlements don't cause economic growth either, though there's no proof they hinder it -- what they do is provide a cushion for people from absolute poverty, hunger, and ruin. I believe that protecting someone from hunger or poor health (by providing basic needs and healthcare to people who cannot afford it, particularly the very old or very young who need our help most) is covered by basic human rights. You may disagree, of course.

Edited March 23, 2012 by zengirl