Volition

I'd embed it here, but it's too wide, so here's the link.

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

And now a moment of silence...

Ha.

This blog updated every day and 9/11 happened 8 years ago, almost a day for every death caused by 9/11.

Although, this blog is text-based. Which means, technically, it's always silent.

Anyway, we still mourn the loss of those three thousand victims killed 8 years ago.

Yet where is the public outrage from the 4,400 innocent unborn children killed every single day in America alone? Where is the sense of unity stemming from this ongoing Holocaust? Why does the nation not feel such an urge to prevent these deaths that we know are happening and can be prevented through education, outreach, support, and legislation? Why was the loss of civil liberties and the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqis considered acceptable (when they did very little to help prevent future attacks that we didn't even know were coming) when an inconvenience to women is considered a source of outcry?

Of course, I have a bigger point to this. Whenever I debate prenatal rights, someone is bound to say something along the lines of "there are enough people in the world".

I'm not suggesting some sort of forced breeding camp or that all condoms shall be made of cloth. I'm saying that once you do reproduce, your offspring have rights. We could "fix" the population (and feed the hungry!) problem by eating every left-handed 3rd grader. Likewise, the population of the world could be reduced by 17% by killing the entirety of China. Or reduced by 84% by throwing every religious person into a volcano. I'm sure nobody would defend these "solution".

Merely reducing the population clearly doesn't make something morally defensible. I'm surprised this argument is so popular.

Wait, no I'm not.

"Slut-punishing" cont.

I feel I should expand upon Post 59. Pregnancy is not a punishment. It doesn't even happen randomly.

When a woman gets pregnant, just like anyone else in any other situation, she may react the situation in any way that does not violate someone else's rights.

I have been told that banning abortion somehow harms women, banning rape and murder doesn't hurt people, and that it should therefore be legal. But what that basically says is, regardless of its morality, homicide should be permitted if it allows one to excape an inconvenience or a responsibility.

Abolition harmed plantation owners. Does that make slavery okay, regardless of its morality?

40 Years

40 years since the Moon Landing. Will we ever go back? Will we go further?

Only time will tell...

'Nuff Said

What if what they really want is for us to herd children into stadiums like we're doing? And put soldiers on the street and - and have Americans looking over their shoulders? Bend the law, shred the Constitution just a little bit? Because if we torture him, General, we do that, and everything that we have bled and fought and died for is over, and they've won. They've already won!.
-- Denzel Washington. The Siege (1998).

I ♥ the Constitution

That is all.

Today

Given the date, you're probably expecting me to say something about what was said about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happinefs.

However, something important has come up.

Obama clarified that he supports concience protections, and removed Bush's protections because they were hasty last-minute shove-throughs.

Lets hope the repeal or the Dornan amendment, if it passes, has a similar explanation.

Nixon

A biracial coworker (okay, friend online) just told me that they just released tape of Nixon saying that interracial relations are one of the "times when an abortion is necessary". He then, when prompted, basically said "Oh, yeah. And rape."

I checked. He's right.

Oh, and did I mention it's his birthday?

I also thought you'd like this.

Durr... it's medical!

Describing abortion as a "legal medical procedure" does nothing for it. So is circumscision. But both are performed on nonconsenting parties.

I also had someone say that doctors take an oath to do no harm, so abortions would never be performed if the prenate was a person.

1. This assumes oaths are unbreakable.
2. This is an argumentum ad verecundiam.
3. This ignores the fact that doctors are often forced to perform them (especially after Obama rescinded conscience protection).
4. Holocaust executions were done by "doctors".

North Dakota

You all know my opinion on this. I'm just posting this unless you hadn't heard.

Here's hoping the Senate passes it (track it here)...

Voting Age

Some ten-year-olds are mature and knowledgeable enough to vote. Then again, some aren't. But the characteristics you list obviously aren't determiners of one's rights. A completely stupid and uneducated 18-year-old is still allowed to vote, but a politically knowledgable and opinionated 16-year-old cannot.

Some people still think Obama was born in Kenya, or is a Muslim. They still have the right to vote. Many people voted for Bush because he was the same intelligence level as them. Some people thing the Holocaust never happened, or the moon landing was faked, or the government planned 9-11. They are still allowed to vote. If anything, voting rights should be decided on a case-by-case basis. However, this would clearly be unfeasable, as whoever controlled the test would control the world.

It used to be thought that women were too stupid to vote, or would just vote with their husbands. Now, it is true that young people would tend to vote with their parents. So do old people. The number one fector in determining one's political affiliation is one's upbringing. However, the secret ballot ensures that nobody will be intimidated by anyone else to change their vote.
Different age groups generally have different needs. These needs will not be met if they have to wait to vote, as they will then have different needs. When you get right down to it, voting is about expressing your opinion, and your opinion cannot be wrong.

Children are the future. The future is now.

Hiroshima

The WW2 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were immoral; the US government is guilty of genocide and mass murder. Regardles of whether or not the war was ended early, thousands of innocents were killed. If more had been killed in a longer war, it would be the fault of the individuals who killed them, not those who did not murder innocent men, women, and children.

Is abortion genocide?

Main Entry:
geno·cide 
Pronunciation:
\ˈje-nə-ˌsīd\ 
Function:
noun 
Date:
1944
: the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group 
— geno·cid·al \ˌje-nə-ˈsī-dəl\ adjective

No.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but no one's even calling for all prenates to be aborted.

It is, however, quite analogous, as expressed brilliantly by Augustine of Pro-Life America's Forums:

In 1996 Gregory Stanton the president of Genocide Watch presented a briefing paper called "The 8 Stages of Genocide" at the United States Department of State. In it he suggested that genocide develops in eight stages that are "predictable but not inexorable". 

-Stage Characteristics of Genocide 

1.Classification 

People are divided into "us and them". (the born vs the unborn, person vs fetus, mother vs baby, etc...) 

Women and unborn persons are portrayed as competitors human rights in a adversarial manner. The prospect of motherhood is seen as a conflict between the right of the child to be born and the desire of the woman to be unburdened from the inconveniance of carrying a child to term. 

2.Symbolization 

"When combined with hatred, symbols may be forced upon unwilling members of pariah groups..." (reproductive choice, a womans right to choose, reproductive freedom, womans health, family planning etc...) 

The unborn are portrayed as burdensome, unwanted, malicious, threatening, dangerous; as infringing on the rights of women, while women are portrayed as victims, carrying children "against their will" and having their rights taken away by the unborn. 

3. Dehumanization 

"One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases." (clump of cells, blob, fetus, parasite, comparisons to tumors, not a person, mutant, tec...) 

The unborn are portrayed as not being persons. It is said they are only a clump of cells, they are not sentient, they are not "persons", they are unaware, they are different from adults, undeveloped and only potential human beings. 

4. Organization 

"Genocide is always organized... Special army units or militias are often trained and armed..." (abortion providers, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, Emilies List, NOW, ect...) 

Organization that claim to represent to women's health give large sums of money and exert political influence in order to protect and preserve the practice known as abortion. They fight any attempts at restrictions or safeguards against certain types of abortion, age of the women/child receiving abortion and prevent parental notification where and when possible. 

5. Polarization 

"Hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda..." (information promoting abortion on websites, radio, blogs, publications) 

Abortion rights groups and abortion providers portray the pro-life movement as being radical, anti-women, intolerant, bigoted while making abortion seem as normal as possible rejecting any negative consequences of abortion including negative effects of the health of women. 

6. Preparation 

"Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity..." (in this instance the commonality is conceived unborn persons who are deemed not persons, undeveloped, weak, sick, deformed, unwanted, ill timed, etc...) 

Unborn persons are deemed a threat to the welfare of the mother either physically or mentally, considered a financial burden, are deemed unworthy to live because of health problems or physical defects which may or may not be life threatening. They portray the practice as compassionate shifting the focus away from the conceived person to the woman, identifying rare instances and exceptions to justify what is normally and largely an elective practice. In 96% of all abortions the health or welfare of the mother or child has no bearing on the decision to abort. 

7. Extermination 

"It is "extermination" to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human." (abortion, partial birth abortion, saline abortion, medicated abortion, etc...) 

Unborn persons are ripped apart, dismembered, euthanized in the womb prior to delivery, have the brains removed in partial birth, are frequently not given anasthetics; wombs are injected with saline to cause premature delivery to crush the unborn when expelled from the womb or are left to die or are killed if they survive the abortion technique. 

8. Denial 

"The perpetrators... deny that they committed any crimes..." (abortion is not killing, abortion is not murder, it's my body, abortion is a right, right to privacy, etc...) 

People say that abortion is not murder. They say that abortion does not kill a person. They call abortion a medical precedure. They stack the courts with people who believe the same, have passed numerous decisions and laws allowing abortion to remain legal; they claim that abortion is a right, deny the personhood of the unborn, and reject any and all evidence and testimony to the contrary.

Today...

is a momentous day for pro-life dozenalists such as myself. Instead of the typical pwnage, I will leave you with a quote:

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

And two words:

1. Take
2. Action

Now go do some pwnage of your own!

An Open Letter to President Obama

Dear Barack Obama, 

I would like to congratulate you on your historic inauguration, and hope you will continue advocating social change, though I am more a Green myself, and supported kat swift(1) until she lost the nomination. 

The mark of the left has always been its defense of the underdog. The unborn child is much more vulnerable than the farm worker or the single mother welfare recipient. I've noticed change.org has a section for animal rights but not one for prenatal rights. You said that abortion is not something decided lightly, and, while that may be the case, it does not mean abortion should be legal; a poor man deciding to kill his daughter to collect on the life insurance may be making the hardest decision of his life, but that does not mean no one should stop him, though it doesn't mean he shouldn't be given welfare either. While we should continue fighting poverty and other societal ills, we must eventually stand up as a nation and as a party and declare that all are equal: male or female, young or old(2), black or white, gay or straight, born or unborn, theist or atheist, rich or poor, American or foreign. Because of this, I strongly urge you to support a Constitutional Amendment defining "personhood" as beginning at fertilization, at which point modern medical science tells us a unique human individual is present. I also suggest you abandon ESC research in favor of the much more promising adult stem cells, or iPS cells (equal in all regards to ES cells, but with the added bonus that they do not involve the distruction of human embryos).

Being pro-life is not merely a stance of "the religious right", as is so wrongly believed by many. We are much more diverse than that. I, myself, am at once pro-life, liberal, feminist, and an atheist. I am anti-war, pro-universal health care, pro-ERA (The ERA's original author was pro-life, by the way), pro-gay marriage, pro-comprehensive sex ed, and anti-religion. 

I would also like to discuss the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). The only good thing about it is its abolishment of parental consent and notification laws; it is insulting, when millions of young children are being denied equality, to turn around and strip older, biological adults, of equality as well. Ignoring the issue of abortion's immorality, FOCA completely deregulates abortion, and, thus, puts the lives of mothers in danger. It allows doctors not trained in the practice to perform abortions, abolishes laws requiring operational emergency equipment standing by, abolishes informed consent laws, and even allows unsterilized equipment to be used. Not to mention it would also force doctors to perform abortions, regardless of their moral convictions. Catholic hospitals have threatened to close before performing abortions, and will follow through on it.

Instead of signing FOCA, I suggest signing the Pregnant Women Support Act, which is endorsed by Democrats for Life of America, does not restrict abortions, and would dramatically reduce abortions by providing support to pregnant women; sadly, many women feel abortion is their only choice, and college campuses often default to directing pregnant students to abortion clinics because the colleges do not know what else to do, a fact lamented by Feminists for Life of America. 

This is one of the main reason Crisis Pregnancy Centers exist, supplying everything from ultrasounds to baby clothes free of charge. We need more federal funding for these charitable organizations if we really want to decrease the abortion rate. These are needed because women do not want abortion like a kid wants a candy bar; they want it like a bear in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg. 

I would suggest that you read Democrats for Life: Pro-Life Politics and the Silenced Majority by Kristen Day and The Liberal Case Against Abortion by Vasu Murti. 

If you've read this far, or even read this post at all, I am extremely grateful and sincerely apologize for this post's length. 

Yours in the fight for freedom, fairness, and equality, 

Nulono

(1) That's how she writes it, not a typo. 

(2) Youth rights is a bigger topic not discussed here, but I suggest you look into the National Youth Rights Association and read their arguments. I was disturbed, yet not surprised, by your statement on the drinking age. Youth rights was a main reason I support(ed) kat swift.

Restraint of the Heartless

"Now the other myth that gets around is the idea that legislation cannot really solve the problem and that it has no great role to play in this period of social change because you've got to change the heart and you can't change the heart through legislation. You can't legislate morals. The job must be done through education and religion. Well, there's half-truth involved here. Certainly, if the problem is to be solved then in the final sense, hearts must be changed. Religion and education must play a great role in changing the heart. But we must go on to say that while it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty important, also.

[APPLAUSE]

So there is a need for executive orders. There is a need for judicial decrees. There is a need for civil rights legislation on the local scale within states and on the national scale from the federal government."

~ Exerpt from a speech by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Reminder

Just wanted to remind everyone that the three-dozenth anniversary of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton is in one week.