The irrationality of Liberals

reply to post by Misoir


This is why I prefer the philosophy of not aligning with a single party. They have this great and wide belief system that dictates what people think of me without any control given to me what people may think.
Sure, I may lean more liberally, but I don't agree with everything they, or any other party, says.

Why do we have to have divisions? Why can't I be "Joe Q. Public" and be recognized as a single entity that has his own way?

That is also why it's unfair to classify people who label themselves liberal as believing everything the liberal party, or someone in that party, says. I would hope more people are smarter then that then to think all liberals are bad, or all republicans are. All division does is create conflict and nothing good comes from that.

reply to post by OutKast Searcher


It was to show the whole irrationality of the liberal vs conservative paradigm.


Ya know divide and conquer, but I'm glad you were eager to jump up and defend.

Originally posted by OutKast Searcher
reply to post by maybereal11

 

Saying a miscarriage is the same as abortion is like saying a heart attack is the same as murder.

One has human interaction to commit the act, the other does not.

In this argument you are continuing to define murder by the actor. Heart attack - nature/Stabbing-murder.

I am defining murder by the qualification of "life". And as my previous post outlines...nature or "God's Will" has demonstrated that they treat a first trimester fetus as expendable for the slightest of health concerns to the mother. Doctors call a misscarriage "Spontaneous Abortion" for a reason. Spontaneous being the defining factor.

Now while "Spontaneous" abortions occur up to 50% of the time in the first tri-mester...they fall to the tiniest of percentages for the 2nd and by the third nature seems to place such a value on that "fetus" that if the mother's health is at risk, nature is willing to flip a coin in dire circumstances on whether the baby survives and the mother perishes during birth. Women used to die during childbirth all the time...and sometimes still do.

the first trimester obviously is not regarded by nature as equal life to the last trimester and taking into account estimates that almost half of all pregnancies are aborted spontaneously in the first trimester...I believe that the spark of life occurs somewhere after 13 weeks.

reply to post by maybereal11

In this argument you are continuing to define murder by the actor. Heart attack - nature/Stabbing-murder.

I am defining murder by the qualification of "life".

And you have to create special cases and create different definitions for your qualification of "murder".

I do not...it is very simple for me. Death by another human....accident, self defense, murder. Doesn't matter if the other human life is one day old counting from conception, or one day old counting from when they are "born", or if they are 100 years old...it is always the same thing. Accident, self defense, or murder.

Nature also "kills" at any stage of life...so I don't see where your argument is going? Are you saying since "nature" naturally kills at any stage of life...then it is ok for us to kill at any stage of life?

Or are you saying since "nature" kills more often before the 2nd trimester, then it is ok for us to kill before the 2nd trimester? "Nature" kills pretty often when people are older than 90 years old...should old people be scared around you?

So what about "conservatives"?

Don't they oppose abortion because it is murder yet support the murder of people on death row?

I don't believe in murder period.

reply to post by Sherlock Holmes

On all issues pertaining to this discussion, there are always deflection tactics used by pro-abortionists to steer the conversation away from their own untenable position.

The poster you are replying to is clearly trying to twist the subject matter away from where the debate's gone and is heading.

It is telling that anti-abortionists always get to the heart of the matter, and aren't afraid to put across reasons why they are against it, yet so many pro-abortionists are very coy and defensive on their own viewpoint.

I think that speaks volumes.

OK I am PRO CHOICE or "Pro Abortion" and I'm not at all coy about it. In fact - I do wish that *I* had been aborted!

My father split and the rest of my relatives were supremely pissed that they were stuck with me. *I* would've been better off ABORTED. They did not want me - none of them did.

And please do not tell me that I got "the gift of life" anyway. My life sucks and has always sucked. There was no money. And these people begrudged me every moment of my existence. They also psychologically and physically abused me. I was once beaten so badly that I wound up in the hospital. And had to have surgery. Yes indeed I got some *serious* beatings.

And of course there is the mental legacy I'm left with - which is - that I trust NO ONE. I cannot get married and have kids because I trust no one. Yes, I have been "shrunk". I still trust no one.

This is why I am Pro Choice. Because there is nothing worse than being an unwanted child. You're better off dead.

Do you know what its like to see other people be happy and you cannot have that? Other people feel positive emotions but you cannot? Do you know what its like to live in constant fear? What about complete emptiness?
You cannot hope for nor feel what others do?

You don't want to be brought into this world to live a life of abject misery. It is NOT fair to the child. And as one of these children - I know whereof I speak.

Originally posted by OutKast Searcher
Making something illegal does not mean that the government can now commit or force somone to do that act.

Making abortion illegal forces women to bear children, should they become pregnant. If the government makes abortion illegal, they are, in essence, taking the choice away from the woman and making the choice for her. In other words, they are choosing for her to have a child, should she get pregnant.

Then I asked the reader to imagine a world where the government makes our reproductive choices for us (which is what making abortion illegal would do). Imagine a time in the future when we are overpopulated and the government starts CHOOSING to have certain women have abortions to counter the population explosion. Is this what you want? The government making the choice?

You either want the government to make the choice or the woman to make the choice. Which is it?

My argument makes perfect sense. I think you're not reading it correctly or something.

reply to post by againuntodust


Yes, labels are ridiculous and divisive, as Lysergic pointed out. You'll have people that lean liberal that support the death penalty. As you would have conservatives that are OK with abortion. It's about thinking, not about who you tend to identify with. Sad that we haven't gotten past the school yard BS.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
Making abortion illegal forces women to bear children, should they become pregnant. If the government makes abortion illegal, they are, in essence, taking the choice away from the woman and making the choice for her. In other words, they are choosing for her to have a child, should she get pregnant.

It's actually deeper than that BH. If abortion is illegal, illegal abortions, probably done by a hack, would prevail. What kind of a health risk is that?

reply to post by Misoir


I am in the unenviable position of being both pro-life and pro-choice. While I believe that abortion is necessary because of things like rape, incest and the Mother being in danger of dying, and extreme poverty, I am against it in almost all other cases.

We cannot, however, call it murder. Murder is what happens when you kill a PERSON but a fetus is not, legally, a person. While it is true that genetically a fetus is human that doesn't mean it has rights or is legally a person. After all the hair on my head also has a human genetic structure, but I wouldn't get arrested for getting a haircut. Now I'm not saying that a fetus is equal to hair but what I am saying is that, at least before nerve endings form, we can't really call it a person with any legal rights. Once the fetus can feel pain, however, I think most everyone agrees that abortion should be illegal at that stage of pregnancy barring some medical emergency procedure to save the Mother.

You bring up an interesting point though and I have always wondered something similar when it comes to conservatives who are against abortion but are heavily in favor of capital punishment... It seems that both fringes are a bit off when it comes to those two subjects.

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


I am opposed to both abortion and the death penalty, no murder whatsoever.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic

Making abortion illegal forces women to bear children, should they become pregnant. If the government makes abortion illegal, they are, in essence, taking the choice away from the woman and making the choice for her. In other words, they are choosing for her to have a child, should she get pregnant.

Women still have a choice...they can choose to have sex or not. No matter how many times you say it...their choice is not removed. She just has to make it at the appropiate time.

Then I asked the reader to imagine a world where the government makes our reproductive choices for us (which is what making abortion illegal would do). Imagine a time in the future when we are overpopulated and the government starts CHOOSING to have certain women have abortions to counter the population explosion. Is this what you want? The government making the choice?

Which is a huge illogical leap. Let's just ask if we think the government should make the choice if we should murder each other, or if we should rape each other.

This switch in scenarios is illogical and there is no connection.

You either want the government to make the choice or the woman to make the choice. Which is it?

I'm all for the women making the choice...at the appropiate time...the same time the man makes his choice.

My argument makes perfect sense. I think you're not reading it correctly or something.

No, sorry but it doesn't. You created a fantasy scenario that has no connection to the argument. It's an appeal to people who fear government making "choices" for people...but has nothing to do with abortion being murder or not.

The universe gives us these ideological attributes and then laughs at us as we go round and round with them, hoping we will see how funny we are and grow a little.

I am definitely a liberal, but I don't believe abortion should ever be used unless the mother's life is in danger. This is my personal ethic and I will live by it, but I do not expect others to agree with me because I say so.

Yet I don't think, as a near death experiencer, the argument going on here is very deep. This is a surface-level discourse that, it seems to me, does a lot more to divide than to decide. It's more heat than light.

I think we are all here for different, but similar, purposes -- to learn and grow what each of us needs to. I don't know how things are "supposed" to be, but I do know that the source of our being is infinite and not constrained by anything we may do. That source (out of deference to the many views on the subject, I do not name it one way or another) seems pretty obviously to have been at pains to give us a good measure of free will. (That source alerted me to this fact during our interview.)

If you believe that people should not have abortions, I agree with you. If you believe people should have freedom to do as they will, I do not oppose you.

I don't hate liberals or conservatives -- as the article points out, each has been necessary for the animals that we (half) are to survive. What I tend to dislike is how liberals and conservatives hate each other.

reply to post by intrepid


Exactly. It's a huge health risk.

Not to mention the additional deaths of women in childbirth.

Make abortion illegal and More people will die. That's what I mean about so called "pro-lifers" not getting it. They don't think about the consequences of making abortion illegal. They just want it illegal, damn the additional deaths it will cause.

I'm pretty sure that dogma and ideology are by definition 'irrational' ... although I'm not married to the idea.

After all what could be more irrational than to squeeze one's positions, which themselves are nothing but personalized thoughts, into a predetermined umbrella label. It is imprisoning one's self into intellectual predetermination in order to acquire group validation. As such one's individuality and reason have to be surrendered to allow for ideological homogeneity such as labeled ideology and party affiliation.

I remember in my college years driving from NY to DC with a group of girls to a pro-choice rally, then not being talked to from the moment we got there because I had the audacity to open their door for one of them. Like a person has to choose between women's' rights and chivalry. That was a 'light switch' moment for me that I had a choice between being myself or conforming to an ideology. I chose the former. There is a cost of course associated with that disposition, but to me at least, a worthy one to pay.

Liberal is basically the "catch all" bucket - of what conservatives don't agree with at the moment.

If at some point conservatives do agree - - then it becomes their idea and ideology.

Originally posted by OutKast Searcher
I'm all for the women making the choice...at the appropiate time...the same time the man makes his choice.

Well, so am I! Talk about unrealistic scenarios! How realistic is this?

You created a fantasy scenario that has no connection to the argument. It's an appeal to people who fear government making "choices" for people...but has nothing to do with abortion being murder or not.

Al Jazeera recently reported that in the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen, a woman who was 8 months pregnant was forcibly given an abortion because her pregnancy was in violation of the country's one-child policy.
...
While forced abortions are not officially part of the government's family planning policy, reports of women being physically forced to submit to abortions make their way out of the country with regularity...

Source

It's no fantasy. It's happening in China.

When a woman gets pregnant, who do you want to make the choice? Her or the government?

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
When a woman gets pregnant, who do you want to make the choice? Her or the government?

Good questions BH. I have noticed, just in this thread, that some would have the gov't dictate to the people, if it served their stance. That's not democracy. That's not even defensible imo.

So since im a male and own half the baby when its made do i have any rights to wearth i want it or not? can i sign my right away if i dont want it so i dont have to pay child support. what about a mans right to not want to pay for the "MISTAKE"

Originally posted by schrodingers dog
There is a cost of course associated with that disposition, but to me at least, a worthy one to pay.

I agree completely. It's always dangerous to give up individuality in exchange for groupthink.

And you can open my door for me ANYTIME.