"Gag Rule"?

Lemme make something perfectly clear. The Mexico City Policy does not violate free speech. It does not punish foreign institutions, but merely prevents taxpayers from being forced to support the promotion of the violence of abortion.

Gang Rape

A 15-year-old girl was gang raped. The rapists are being prosecuted. Everything's fine and dandy, right?

Right?

Apparently not. There were bystanders that failed to report the crime. Some want them held accountable.

Such a law would be unenforceable. If one person reports it, do the rest of the people still get prosecuted? What if there's a shooting, does everyone in the neighborhood get arrested?

And some people, horror of horrors, took pictures of it. And people are trying to arrest them for it! What's next, the school is arrested for activity on their surveillance tapes? If this happens, these bystanders will find it almost impossible to find a job or a house due to sex offender laws. This is just more of the government legislating data. Of course, someone cited the sexting cases to justify this. PROTIP: Don't cite stupid laws.

Then there's the issue of the underage rapists being tried as adults. Many of the rapists I assume were also under the age of consent; so, technically, they were also raped. But this stupid technicality aside, it is absurd to treat youth as inferior until it comes time to punish them. These criminals had no say in electing the judges, will not get a jury of their peers, and are being seen as too irresponsible to drink or vote or drive but responsible enough to be tried as adults.

FINALLY

WHY AM I TYPING SO LOUD, YOU ASK? THIS IS WHY.

SERIOUSLY, I PRETTY MUCH STOPPED WATCHING TELEVISION BECAUSE OF ADS IN GENERAL (THOUGH I STILL WATCH C-SPAN).

Reproductive Power

In its simplest sense, freedom is liberty. Liberty is the right of A to control A. A has every right to control A, B has every right to control B, ad infinitum.

The problem comes when we introduce coercion. Power is the ability of A to control B, of B to control A, of C to control G, ad infinitum. C only has the right to control A in order to stop A from coercing C.

The a problem arises when the concept of freedom is expanded beyond liberty and into power. Many seek to extend A's freedom into power over B.

We see this taking place in the Net Neutrality argument, with many arguing A should be allowed to censor the content that B, S, Q, F, and L are exposed to. It also takes place when the concept of "reproductive freedom" is extended to the right of M to avoid the consequences of her mistakes by inflicting violence upon D.

Personhood picks up strength!

I probably should've told you about these but there were just so many. Michigan, Colorado, Maryland, Georgia, Mississippi, and others are current in progress.

Namecalling

Look: anti-abortion-ers, the pro-abortion are not "anti-life", "pro-death", or such.

Pro-abortion-ers, the anti-abortion are not "anti-choice", "forced-birthers", "sexist", "fascist", or "reactionary".

We just hold different beliefs and this isn't getting us anywhere.

Democrats against democracy?

This disgusts me. Most Americans are against coverage of abortion in health care.

"Wait, there's a debate over ______?": Pirates versus Ninjas

On the series of tubes, there's a common question posed: who would win in a fight: pirates or ninjas?

Seriously?

The pirates wouldn't know what hit 'em.

Another Blog

Write.

Fuzzy Language

2010

There's just a tiny issue I'd like to comment on.

It's "two-thousand and ten", not "twenty-ten".

That is all.

Dismiss

Another NationStates reminder for myself: don't be afraid to dismiss issues. For example, a recent issue gave me the choice of either allowing the death penalty or banning fringe groups.

Fringe groups are like the junk under your keys. The system typically runs fine regardless, and you're likely to screw something up trying to get rid of them.

Cognitive dissonance

This is just sick.

I'm not talking about abortions while pregnant. I'm talking about recognizing the humanity of the unborn and still killing them.

Invalid birthday?

I've noticed a non-COPPA form of ageism on the 'nat against the unborn and supercentenarians.

Basically, anyone older than 100 or younger than 0 has to lie.

Doe, oh dear.

I've discussed Doe v. Bolton before, so I'll just do a brief overview.

Basically, Roe v. Wade presented what seemed to be a reasonable compromise, and many people still see it as one. However, it demanded that abortions be allowed until birth for "health", which they Doe (decided the same day as Roe) defined so broadly as to cover emotional concerns, familial concerns, the mother's age, et cetera.

In the same thread I mentioned yesterday, someone claimed that this means no elective abortions can be performed after viability. In his/her opinion, a woman could be carrying a postterm baby, the doctors could be about to induce labor, and the mother could decide at the last minute that she wants an abortion. Because she wants it, not getting it would logically have a negative emotional effect. By this poster's logic, killing a 42-week fetus would count as "therapeutic".

Why do people laugh at Roebots?

Only Roebots don't understand why.

Baby = cat?

It's a well-known fact that humans are a highly altricial species. We have some of the least developed newborns.

In order to deny the rights of the unborn, many people base personhood on properties such as self-awareness. The problem is that nothing happens developmentally at birth; neonates are practically identical to prenates. Self-awareness takes place 12-15 months after birth.

Some Roebots bite the bullet. One even told me killing an infant is no worse than killing a cat.

Why do people laugh at Roebots?

Only Roebots don't understand why.

Articles

There were a few WTF news stories, but there's one I want to call your attention to.

If any of my international readers live in Venezuela, here's your time to shine.

Oh, yeah...

I forgot ESCR was illegal.

Insanity

This article made me so angry.

The school board president's email is here. Do with it as you please.

Prenatal Right[s]s[/s]

I've noticed that many personhood bills grant only the right to life to the unborn, and not full personhood. Why is this?

Obama's Nobel Peace Prize?

Did he do anything to deserve it? He's promised lots, but what has he actually done? Not really much. At least he wasn't given the prize for promoting the barbaric practice of prenaticide overseas, as least not according to the Nobel committee.

H.R. 227

A child dies from abortion 20 times more often than someone dies from lack of health care. More unborn children die every day than were killed on 9/11. 9/11 was a one-time occurrence, yet the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians were considered a fair trade for bringing the terrorists to justice. There's currently a lot of people working on health insurance reform. But the plight of the unborn is not even noticed!

Yet the Sanctity of Human Life Act has gone mostly unnoticed. We seriously need to get our priorities together before we try to democratize other nations.

How is babby formed?

Again, I'm not important enough to hack. But Roebots seem to be clueless as to how girl get pragnent.

When I point out that banning aborion doesn't give the unborn more rights than the born, they say [crap] like "give me your kidneys then". They seem to be under the impression that fetuses just walk around the streets looking for women to "glom onto", and that having an abortion is just refusing permission.

But I hope anyone arguing on the internet knows where babies come from, so I'll spare you another Post 239.

The offspring in no way chooses his position; it is forced upon him by the mother. And abortion occurs after implantation, and is performed by actively killing the prenate, not merely "unplugging". To have an abortion is therefore analogous to bringing someone onto a cruise in their sleep and dropping them in the middle of the ocean. After all, who are we to force you to carry him on your ship to Bermuda.

But I guess this is all irrelevant since granting the unborn their human rights and insisting women take responsibility for your actions is just a punishment for sexuality.

For more, see Libertarians for Life's article "Abortion and Thomson's Violinist: Unplugging a Bad Analogy, Comments on why the prenatal child has the right under individual liberty to be in the mother's womb".

NationStates

Mostly as a reminder to myself to address new issues that come up, I'm announcing here I have founded a country on NationStates.net.

Censor Youtube (BOO!) ...for the children! (YAY!)

"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."

~Adolph Hitler

How the Internet has hurt politics

This country has been shaped throughout its history by influential writings. From John Locke to Thomas Paine to Harriet Beecher Stowe to John L. O'Sullivan to modern-day bloggers. The problem today, with the advent of the Information Age is that we have too many. While the notion that everyone can be a pamphleteer certainly is a positive one, it also results in a retardation of the change of public opinion. With a vast number of sources readily available, people are free to simply read, watch, or listen to arguments that simply reaffirm what we already believe, regardless of how wrong we are.

An extension of this principle of ideological isolationism is the politicization of science. As the saying goes, you're entitled to you own opinions, but not your own facts. However, today that doesn't practically apply. If you want to believe that the universe is 6000 years old, or that Global Warming is a myth, or that abortion causes breast cancer, or that the unborn child is somehow part of the mother's body, you can find a city on the planet of Internetopia where you will never be corrected because everyone is just as crazy as you are.

This is even more extreme on forums where dissent results in banning, causing forum's ideological spectrum to shrink further, narrowing the acceptable viewpoints further. This eventually snowballs into situations like you see on RevLeft or Democratic Underground, where anyone (even a die-hard liberal) is accused of being "misogynistic", "reactionary", or "anti-choice".

42 mHz

Every 24 seconds, another American child is brutally murdered in the sanctity of his mother's womb. In this country of ours that declares all men are created equal, we still deny the most basic inalienable rights to the weakest among us.

It is still considered a perfectly legitimate practice in America (even one taxpayers are expected to subsidize!) to slaughter unborn babies for money. These prenatal hit men are allowed to roam free, killing over a million innocents every year.

Ever since this country was founded eleven score and thirteen years ago, we have seen a slow but steady progression towards equality of all our human family. It is for this reason that I hold that we will eventually reach this goal, and there are even advances being made today.

I know it's cliché, but I'd like to end with a quote.

"I am aware, that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hand of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; -- but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead."

~William Lloyd Garrison

I'm 12 years old and what is this?

No, I haven't been hacked by /b/tards.

I've got an experiment for you. Go to Omegle or any anonymous chatting service and pretend to be completely clueless about abortion. Get someone to mention abortion* and ask what it is.

Almost invariably, they will admit it kill a baby. This isn't an argument; it's just interesting how many people will say it kills babies and still defend it.

*How? Say you're pregnant or something; just do it!

Convo

Connecting to server...

You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

You: hi

Stranger: hey :)

You: wanna have a pointless political debate?

Stranger: sure!

You: gay marriage: for or against?

Stranger: for

You: me too

Stranger: good :)

You: im an atheist

You: u?

Stranger: i'm catholic...sorta. My family's catholic.

You: okay

You: why are you catholic?

Stranger: because... my family is?

You: but do you have any logical reasons to believe in the existence of a supreme deity?

You: any empirical evidence?

Stranger: nope. just makes you feel better to think that there's something helpin you along.

You: that doesnt make it true

You: a man may be happy at the thought that there's a diamond the size of a refrigerator in hi backyard

You: but hes still crazy

Stranger: no it doesn't. who says i say it's true? reincarnation'd be pretty sweet too. anything that means there's more to life than just this one.

You: but a notion that makes you happy isnt necessarily true

You: so thats no reason to believe

You: assuming u care about the truth

Stranger: like a said before, it doesn't have to be true. if there really is no life after this, i'd rather be happy now then spending my life dreading the end

You: but if you recognize that this is the only life you;ve got, you'll more likely live it to the fullest

You: instead of counting on a pipe dream

Stranger: but if you recognize that this is the only life, that's on your mind and you realize you can't do much with yourself, because you're not going to live to see the results.

You: its not about living to see the results

You: its about making life better 4 every1

Stranger: by preaching that there is no hope?

You: no by preaching that this is your only life, so live it to the fullest

You: by fighting for equality, social and economic

You: by fighting to give food to the starving

You: by fighting to embetter medicine to make our lives longer

You: by fighting violence in all its forms

Stranger: you can do that and be religious. Mother Theresa? Ghandi?

Stranger: Martin Luther King Jr?

You: by fighing bronze-aged superstitions that cause attrocities like the holocaust, the inquisition, the mistreatment of women, 9/11

You: but anyway, a comforting belief can be wrong

You: you're commiting the fallacy of wishful thinking

You: an argumentum at consequentiam

Stranger: you can't prove that things like love and happiness exist, so they could be untrue. Those emotions still make us happy, don't they?

You: no we actually can prove that love and happiness exist

You: weve studied the brain and know exactly what chemicals signal and cause them

You: the difference is that emotions THEMSELVES make us happy

Stranger: you can prove that there are hormones in the brain. but there are hormone imbalances that exist. the people and brains that have been tested could have had imbalences

You: not the CONCEPT of emotuon

Stranger: and who is to say that it isn't god HIMSELF making us happy when we feel joy?

You: we already know what causes joy

You: enorphins for one

You: thats why drugs are pleasurable

Stranger: endorphins? cause the feeling of joy, not actual joy.

You: joy is a feeling

You: you're now commiting the no true costman fallacy

You: ^scotsman

Stranger: no, it causes the guise of joy. Drugs don't acutally make you happy, they convince you that you're happy by causing imbalances in your brain.

You: happiness IS an imbalance in the brain

You: if it werent for those chemicals that your brain releases and the firing of neurons, happiness would not exist

Stranger: why not "fire off those neurons" by believing that there is a better life out there, rather than killing yourself and ruining the one you have with drugs?

You: so you think we should believe anything that makes us happy, regardless of its veracity?

Stranger: why not?

Stranger: i'd rather be happy than wallow in self pity

You: if believing there's an invisible pink unicorn in my shoe that wil give me a cake after i die for every woman i rape, thats okay/

You: ?

Stranger: that's the dumbest shit i've ever heard, that's not even a legitimate argument. THAT would be what we call the crazies and it would be time to lock you away

Stranger: time out. Obama or McCain?

You: but an invisible sky daddy that controls everything and will let you live forever and torture ppl 4ever but loves everyone is sane?

You: i dont like either

You: but obama is better i guess

Stranger: good man! :)

You: i dont like his position on prenatal rights

Stranger: you don't like abortion?

You: no i dont

You: y?

Stranger: just makin sure. that's one issue i don't really like to get into ever.

You: oh

You: y not?

Stranger: Because of my religion and my family, basically.

You: explain?

Stranger: Catholicism (and living in super conservative and religious Kansas) has pretty much ruined my points of view on most of the major issues. I can't really lean either way for fear of being rejected.

Stranger: the only issue i'm sure and certain on is that I support gay marriage wholeheartedly.

You: oh okay

You: thats another benefit of atheism

You: freethought

Stranger: true. i don't entirely believe in god. I'm more of a deist (i think that's how you spell it)

Stranger: so that's why i'm only sort of catholic

You: oh ok

You: deism says nothing about an afterlife

You: I'm a humanist, so I oppose abortion on the grounds that human life has value.

Stranger: yeah, that's the reason why i'm sort of catholic too? i dunno what i am really.

You: maybe unitarian?

Stranger: whas that?

You: not sure

Stranger: lol

You: more liberal christian denomination

Stranger: cool? haha, i don't really know how that'd go :P

You: id have 2 look it up

You: but may you find the denomination that fits you

You: :)

Stranger: yeah. well, i have a choir concert to go to! peace, mann! had fun talkin to you :)

You: ok

You: :)

Your conversational partner has disconnected.

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GET TO IT PRO-LIFERS

I look on Youtube and search for atheist videos. What do I find? A bunch of logically sound arguments in against the existence of a supreme deity. Sometimes dissecting, line-by-line, another video.

I search for pro-life videos what do I see? A bunch of videos with slow zooms and pans on pictures of babies overlaid with sappy music and titles like "Abortion? No; life is precious". Videos that just scream "Oh, look at me. I figured out how to use Windows Movie Maker!" Nobody cares you figured out the star wipe transition.

THEY'RE ALL PRACTICALLY THE SAME FREAKING VIDEO.

Pro-lifers, I know you're capable of it. Post more than touching slideshows and "from the heart" commentary.

SHOW NO MERCY!

Interesting conversation

I'm okay with ZJemptv on most things, but we're having an interesting conversation at this video's comments.

He seems to think that customers have a right to force their morality upon business owners and that not wanting to kill another human being is a "completely arbitrary and unnecessary basis" upon which to decide how to excercize your liberty.

Let's say there's a restaurant that refuses to serve veal for ethical reasons. What do you do if you want veal? Don't eat there! You have no right to force anyone to sell a product that they do not want to sell, regardless of the reason they refuse to sell it. You have no right to force them to comply to your morals.

Them not selling BC is no more forcing their morality on you than a store closing on Sunday forces their religion on you.

If I run any sort of business, I have the right to choose what products to sell. I could open a candy shop and refuse to sell Jujubees because I think they're part of an evil plot to turn toddlers into smores. You still have no right to tell me what products to carry. If I'm looking for jujubees, I loose you as a customer.

I could sell clothes and arbitrarily not carry blue socks.

I could close on Sunday even if "cultural homogeneity" means every other business in town is closed on Sunday too.