I am making fun of the anti-choice screams of "LIFE!!!". If they think society can force a woman to have a kid she doesn't want that society should take care of it.Originally Posted by Justin '77
And if you are poor and can't get an abortion than society is forcing to have the kid. The rich could always get abortions when they wanted, it's the poor that always gets screwed.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
I don't see the anti-choicers comming forward to adopt all these unwanted babies.
And calling sex "a choice" is simplistic. It's an extremely powerful drive that results in people making decisions they should not have no matter how "responsible" they are. the "Abstinence Only" BS doesn't help matters because ignorance about birth control is not going to stop people from having sex.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
The negative consequences of one's own actions always hit the poor harder than the rich. So what? Such does not absolve the poor from having to make smarter decisions about their lives... who else, after all, is going to make them?
"Better hurry. There's a storm coming. His storm!!!" :-O -Abigail Freemantle, "The Stand" by Stephen King
A story I ran into on DU:
Only 3 people in my world know this, but in 1990 I had to come up with $300 cash. This was a whole paycheck for me at the time. I had to sell some of my grandmother's jewelry at a pawn shop to scrape up the money -- I could not tell anyone about this. I was a good girl. I was in my late 20s, college educated, lived on my own with roommates, and I had a respectable but miserably low-paying job. I had health insurance, but unlike those of some of my girlfriends who were in better jobs, my policy did not cover what is sometimes euphemistically called a "therapeutic D&E."
I had done everything right -- I was on the Pill and never missed a day. I even took all the sugar pills just to stay on track. But I was put on an antibiotic for a severe sinus infection, and there are pharmaceutical drugs that will render the Pill inert, and Amoxycillin is one of them. I was in a committed, monogamous relationship -- at least it was on my side -- and the "father" left me to fend for myself. We had a long distance relationship and he couldn't be bothered to help me out financially, much less come and see me and help me through one of the most agonizing experiences I believe any woman can endure.
In the few short weeks before I found out I was pregnant, my mental and emotional health underwent a seismic shift; I was hospitalized for 2 weeks with clinical depression, following suicide ideation. Adding to the trauma of hospitalization and fear that I might never be right again was the fear I would lose my job. After my release, my supervisor began to treat me as if I were dangerous and strange... she gradually began taking away some of my responsibilities and eased me out of projects I had developed and was managing quite well, despite everything. (Some months later, she found a way to force me into resigning, knowing that my pride would not allow me to stay after she had promoted an employee over me who I had trained and taught everything she knew.)
It was right after I returned to work that I discovered I was four weeks pregnant. Devastating does not begin to describe my shock and disbelief, which were unbearable. How could this could possibly have happened? If I carried to term, I knew that 36 weeks later I would be in no better position to care for a baby. This child would be born to a single mother who could barely make ends meet herself, much less provide adequately for a baby's needs. I briefly considered carrying to term and giving the baby up for adoption. Logistical and practical considerations aside, I was afraid that my baby might be born with the same mental and emotional disorders I had just discovered that I had. To keep or not to keep was not a "choice."
The clinic I went to was safe and reputable, but they did not perform "discretionary" abortions before 6 weeks. So I had to wait. The dreaded day finally arrived. It was a bitterly cold, wintry Saturday morning. Upon checking in and handing over a wad of crumpled $20 bills, I discovered that I was the only patient in the waiting room that day older than 17, and that for one of the girls, who was 16, this was her second trip for a D&E in 14 months. In the two weeks prior to my ending up on a gurney in a line of women "in trouble" waiting to be led in to the OR, I felt lost somewhere so deep I didn't know if I could ever find my way back up again and out into the sunshine. I was tormented with shame, guilt and anger -- anger at my ENT specialist who didn't think or know to tell me that while I was on Amoxicillin I should use a backup method of birth control.
The agony of the wait was horrible, and so was the "procedure," which insured a steady supply of nightmares for years afterward. I was given nothing but laughing gas; the pain was so horrid they practically had to scrape me off the ceiling. They sent me home with a couple of Tylenol 3's and told me to rest up, advising that a hot water bottle would help ease the cramps, and that I should feel fine by the time I had to be at work on Monday. Depends on what your definition of "fine" is.
Anyone who thinks that a woman just drops in to an abortion clinic on her lunch hour to have things "taken care of" is crazy. Michelle Bachman is insane to think that 13-year-old girls will be spirited away to abortion clinics during recess and sent home on the school bus with their parents none the wiser. Some of the girls in that clinic that day might have been using abortion as birth control. But I wasn't. I was there because of a tragic oversight on the part of my allergy doctor.
I have to pass a Planned Parenthood clinic when I go to visit my father. On Sunday afternoons, there are three or four wizened old men standing out front holding up anti-abortion placards. They have been doing this for years and are strangely silent, letting their homemade, often misspelled signs speak for them. On January 22 of each year, the blackest day on the calendar for the Pro Lifers, they are joined by others; men, women and children, almost all of whom are surely ignorant of the fact that PP does not carry out abortions. The same old men, one of whom wears a sandwich board with a full-color picture of an aborted fetus, parade up and down every Sunday, rain or shine. During the week I suppose they write fan letters to Scott Roeder. Even if they knew the facts of my story and those of other women like me who drive past them, I'm sure they would consider that there is no corner in hell hot enough to make us renounce our sins. These old men's brows are furrowed, but the lines on their faces have not been etched by grappling with the wrenching moral, ethical and spiritual dilemmas fomented by an unplanned pregnancy. Stubborn ignorance of facts, inability to empathize and refusal to respect other people's legal rights and decisions can make you look old before your time, too.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
When it comes to sex people do stupid things, especually when the "Abstinence Only" anti-sex education morons leave people ignorant. Sex is a very powerful drive and to spew platitudes about "personal responsibility" is to ignore realities about human behavior.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Well... we could impose a bit of censorship on the media, for the public good. A net result of our sex-saturated sitcoms, movies, music videos and lyrics are that people think about sex far more often, and deeply, than they would on their own. This, of course helps Corporate America to use the image and promise of sex to sell us all their toys. In effect, they've hijacked our most primal instinct in the name of profit.
Once we've eliminated all the subliminal bullcrap, the decision to do, or not to do, can be truly called a completely individual choice.
"Better hurry. There's a storm coming. His storm!!!" :-O -Abigail Freemantle, "The Stand" by Stephen King
I have a problem too, with letting supposed "tolerant people" enforce their tolerance on everyone else. I like to think I can get along with all sorts of people. I may not agree with them, but I can get along and have a civil discussion with all types. However whenever one side forces the other to do something or support something, etc. against their will, that's going too far--for any side.
As for the Karl Popper quote, you highlighted the least important part of the quote:
Saying this:I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise.
&****ing religious BS!!!
&Translation: "Women are sinful sluts are should be punished for having sex".
Is not living up to Mr. Popper's standards, now is it?I have no respect for a world-view that believes a zygote is a person because it has a "soul" or such crap.
This is why I'm a moderate. I'm a moderate in everything I do. I even moderate my moderation by sometimes going extreme every now and then.
Also, using 3Turning Victim politics?! That'll knock this argument right back to 1990... oh wait, it already has... *sigh* Victim politics is "nice" and all, but substitutes rational discussion with emotional degeneracy in a conversation.
Also you destroy any true tolerant society by supporting intolerance of any sort--even intolerance against the intolerant. That's something I think the next Prophets will rail against Millennials on. Sort of like how the Boomers railed against the GIs for opposing anti-Jewish & anti-Catholic sentiment, but doing nothing about anti-Black. However that's just my guess.
Also not all Christians are against scientific technologies. I put before your judgment: Madeline L'Engle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_L%27Engle
Can I use an aging machine on all the available Homelanders and make them all 15 - 35 right now?
~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
I don't believe in the mythical notion of "Free Will". IMO the Right-Wing chant of "personal responsibility" is little different that The Secret and similar "you can change reality by your thoughts" nonsense. People are products of their genetics and their environment. preaching "personal responsibility" without changing the environmental influences on ones behaviour is delusional, and dare I say it is magical thinking.
Last edited by Odin; 11-08-2009 at 03:37 PM.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Having a rational argument does not preclude letting off steam in the meantime. Sorry, I'm just really ticked off right now.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
This is very true, and since I don't like any of those things either, I'd support you on your decision not to pay money into those causes.
Although all this talk leads into rope of sand or rod of iron debate, and we all know how messy that can be.
Another thing to keep in mind is that this country has been culturally controlled by the Catholics and the Jews since WWII. Catholics took over the majority Christian opinion in the 1950s and had the Fourth Great Awakening in the 1960s. Jews had Hollywood and started the secularization of religious culture by promoting Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, etc. After all, it wasn't sacred to them, so they didn't mind messing around with it. Also secularizing it made it so that even non-Christians could celebrate those holidays, and thus have a common culture to unite everyone. I see the African-Americans stepping up for the next saeculum as the cultural controlling group. What that means for society at large? I dunno yet, but we'll find out soon won't we.
I'm not saying any of this is good, bad, or what have you. I'm just saying that it has/will happen. That's all.
~Chas'88
Last edited by Chas'88; 11-08-2009 at 03:55 PM.
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
However it does set up challenges to making the argument a rational one.
Letting off steam is fine, but find some other way to do it than disrespecting other people please. It only gets you into more trouble than the argument is worth.
~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
What are you so ticked off about?
"Better hurry. There's a storm coming. His storm!!!" :-O -Abigail Freemantle, "The Stand" by Stephen King
Good gracious, how I do love to read Silber.
The Fuck You Act
-excerpt-The lies begin with the name itself. The bill is titled: Affordable Health Care for America Act.
In fact, the bill's primary purpose has absolutely nothing to do with providing "affordable health care." The purpose is to extract as much money as possible from "ordinary" Americans -- and to do so at the point of a gun (what do you think those financial penalties and even possible prison time are, if not a gun pointing directly at your head?) -- and shovel it directly to already-engorged insurance companies. Americans will be forced to buy insurance, which as we all know, many of us through deeply painful personal experience, has nothing whatsoever to do with health care. And Americans will be forced to spend money for largely useless insurance -- which insurance will often be entirely useless just when they need it most critically -- in amounts that may devastate them and their families.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch
"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy
"[it] is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky
Let me tell you who certainly DOESN'T know better about the realities of poverty: anyone who has never experienced it.
"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?"
My blog: https://brianrushwriter.wordpress.com/
The Order Master (volume one of Refuge), a science fantasy. Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GZZWEAS
Smashwords link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/382903
Nah, I have found out over the years that people aren't nearly as rational and predictable as I used to believe in my more idealistic days.
You would truly enjoy Barbara Ehrenreich's new book, Taylor.
Quite true.Let me tell you who certainly DOESN'T know better about the realities of poverty: anyone who has never experienced it.
~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
Catholics were behind the Boom Awakening? Huh? That's news to me.
And sometimes birth control does fail, in which case I believe the woman should have access to Plan B contraception.
Congress throwing women's health under the bus.What are you so ticked off about?
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
I ordered it on Amazon yesterday.You would truly enjoy Barbara Ehrenreich's new book, Taylor.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Exactly!!!
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
No, they're two different aspects of the last Awakening. Would you say that the Seventh Day Adventists were Socialists in the Third Great Awakening?Catholics were behind the Boom Awakening? Huh? That's news to me.
Catholicism grew in numbers and strength during the last Awakening--due to its new found flexibility in dogma amongst church leaders--primarily due to Pope John Paul II.
The last Awakening would split up into a couple of social movements happening at once:
Consciousness Revolution
Jesus Movement
Catholic Resurgence
Christian Unification Movement
etc.
However as Christianity came closer to uniting into a single viewpoint after WWII, Main Line Protestent churches began taking on Catholic-like qualities.
I can attest for my own Methodist Church and the Catholicization its undergone. People think it's "cute" to bless the kids' pets, etc. Traditions that belong to the Catholic church found there way into my Methodist church until the point where I start questioning why do these traditions if they have nothing to do with Methodism at all?
I've heard how other denominations, like the Lutherans are undergoing a similar "unification" which sounds eeriely like the things going on in my Methodist Church.
~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
It is disconcerting to consider that the overall health care bill probably would not have passed without the Stupak amendment. However, if we can get coverage for women's birth control methods included in the final legislation, I can probably live without federal funding for abortions.
We'll just have to increase our donations to Planned Parenthood.
That's a pretty categorical statement. Are you saying that no woman has ever gotten an abortion in order to save her own life or preserve her health?
