This will be a rambling non-post, inviting your input (even) more than usual.
First, here’s my general position on abortion. Having long believed that both total permissiveness on abortion and a total prohibition of it will lead to some horribly unjust outcomes, and that a line must be drawn somewhere even though the line will be permeable and arbitrary: I would ban late-term abortions – let’s say, I don’t think second-semester abortions should be allowed – while permitting early-term abortions – let’s say, I’d allow first-semester. (Again, I know the “semester” line is unclear and highly debatable; I simply believe that the other lines that people propose are worse.) Also, I favor counseling about the alternatives, and parental notification where the mother is a minor. Finally, I oppose publicly-funded abortions, i.e., I am against our government forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions against their conscience.
Having arrived at the above positions some time ago, I spend little time on the issue of abortion. It’s just not a top one for my interest.
But abortion may interest many of you. This is, after all, a gay conservative blog (and, as a non-conservative on certain issues, I am a guest).
So, what’s up with the Gosnell trial? It’s big right now, in Bruce’s Twitter stream. In my slower-moving way, I gather that:
- Gosnell did some particularly shocking, immoral late-term abortions; and that
- The media silence about the trial is shocking and repugnant in itself.
Is that the gist? Or is there more (or less) to it? Re: the media blackout – Is it a conspiracy perhaps, or just the media’s usual left-wing Herd Instinct? Has the trial been getting, say, foreign coverage?
People who have been following the trial, please feel free to inform me (and everybody) in the comments, and to express your informed opinion. I feel that, certainly on a conservative blog, this topic should get some daylight as a comment thread.
UPDATE: Wouldn’t you know, today Yahoo! is rotating a column on the Gosnell trial through its headlines, on and off. I don’t know if that means the wall of silence is cracking, or only that Yahoo! had me profiled as conservative-leaning.
UPDATE: The wall of silence is cracking. Ace has examples of Jake Tapper and Andersen Cooper both teasing some coverage to come. Naturally, and as Ace puts it, Cooper’s “entree into the story is through the prism of ‘not enough government regulation.'” Better than nothing!
1. Yes, Gosnell did horrible things. With the permission of the grandmother in one case, he strapped a girl down, drugged her, and aborted her child against her will. He is not on trial for this, but for seven OTHER deaths. I believe one or two women have died due to his abortions, also.
2. Yes, this is very deliberately NOT being covered by the Democratic Propoganda Arm, a.k.a. the “Media.” It is getting foreign coverage, but the alphabet networks are strangely silent, since then-State Senator Obama voted for a law that pretty much allowed for what Gosnell broke the law doing — killing or leaving viable babies who survived abortions to die.
It’s being kept quiet because it puts the lie to the claims that there are few if any late-term abortions. If it got a tenth of the media coverage Sandy Hook (I think I earlier called it Hill) got, and Democrats were forced to OWN this issue as they should, they would likely never win another election again.
I’ve leave it to others to provide more. Don’t want to hog this.
Thanks,
This is how it’s being covered by the Daily Mail in the UK.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?sel=site&searchPhrase=Gosnell
An inherent contradiction from the ‘pro choice’ point of view is that the most vulnerable get no choice in this instance. The fact that the innocent are labelled as foetusi merely is equivalent to putting lipstick on a pig.
From a moral perspective, how is having an abortion for convenience any different than murdering a 5 ear old child?
From a societal cost perspective, there is plenty of evidence that the after effects of an abortion is not all beer and skittles for participants.
Also, amongst the tens of millions of those who have been aborted, it would be statistically odd if at least a handful hadn’t given us breakthrough discoveries (like a cure for cancer) which would have significantly raised the quality of our lives above what they are now.
The MFM claim they aren’t covering it because it’s “just a local crime story” … You know, like Newtown or Aurora.
There is much more to the story. I have been following it since the story broke. This facility was horrifically filthy – everything one would imagine in a pre Row v. Wade back alley abortionist. there were unclean un-sterile instruments, expired medications, one-time-use medical was used repeatedly for multiple patients. Most women treated there were poor minority, mostly immigrants who spoke little to no English and were unaware of the standard of medical care. The doctor kept “specimens” in jars and his freezer (severed feet of aborted babies). unlicensed non-medically trained staff administered anesthesia and pain meds, in at least 30 cases, babies born alive were killed. Also, a patient was killed when her uterus was perforated and she was left alone, bleeding for hours before an ambulance was called, by that time it was too late to save her.
The rest of the story is that this facility was operated like this for over a decade, even though there were several patient deaths, without any citations from the Philly health department. the place should have been inspected every year, by the health dept, l&I and the fire department. No one stepped forward to correct this house of horrors.
PhillyGirl – Yeah, I’ve been reading about it the last few minutes in the new Conor Friedersdorf article (http://news.yahoo.com/why-dr-kermit-gosnells-trial-major-news-story-104719415–politics.html). It’s horrifying. Among the least of Gosnell’s many and varied sins is that he was also, apparently, a racist.
I didn’t know that PA bans abortions after 24 weeks. Good!
Juan – Wow, they’ve been covering it for months!
From a legal standpoint, the medical consensus on viability outside the womb must be the key. Once the unborn can be medically defined as able to survive on its own, even if medical assistance is initially required to sustain life, they must be protected under the law just as anyone else would.
If we don’t do this, we are no better than Nazi Germany. Human life must be recognized as inherently valuable by any society that hopes to survive.
From a theological standpoint, it would still vary according to personal belief. No theological standard, however popular, can be used to determine whether, or when, abortions can be performed. But as medical science continues to advance, the unborn can be kept alive at ever earlier stages. The solution I propose would nonetheless gradually scale back the number of legal abortions.
That wouldn’t satisfy the zealots on either side of the issue. But it would be a solution on which the majority could agree.
Actually it is, in its own way, a strong test of libertarianism, isn’t it Lori? You have (at least) two competing humans, who may find their G_d granted rights of life and liberty in direct confliict.
I found out about this story from the British press. As for my opinion on abortion, I have to concede that there are times when an abortion must be performed as a “necessary evil” but otherwise, I find it wrong and repulsive. The hardest part for me to wrap my head around is how and why the concept of an abortion began in the first place. Of course, I am a man, so what does it matter what I think, right?
I hadn’t even heard of Gosnell until about one month ago and that was because I was doing a random search for something unrelated. I’ve refrained from reading more about it because the story made me so sick that I couldn’t continue.
Like so many happenings involving inner-city “services”, to highlight this could effect certain cash flows and mainstream narratives…
#9 — There is no libertarian consensus on abortion. Some believe it should be legal with no restrictions whatsoever, while others think the unborn are human beings to a full degree from conception on.
I believe the State exists to protect human beings from force and fraud. Once it can be established, by a religiously-unbiased authority (medical science), that an unborn baby has become — as can be legally definted (and therefore legally protected) — a human individual, the State can protect that baby’s life.
If we destroy religious liberty for those who disagree with the Human-from-Conception crowd, which we WILL do if we destroy the First Amendment, then they will have opened Pandora’s Box. The evils they unleash will plague them as much as they will everyone else.
I’m curious as to whether Christian conservatives have even stopped to ponder the dystopia they may create by destroying religious liberty in this country.
As the statist Left, hostile to all traditional religious faith, has as good a chance of getting its hands on unlimited government power as anybody else does, what makes Christian conservatives think they might be magically protected from persecution if the First Amendment is destroyed?
They haven’t thought this through. They couldn’t have.
Personally, I feel about equally certain that (1) the blastocyst from the unreportable ‘date rape’ by that douchebag last weekend isn’t entitled to legal protection, and (2) the 30-week old that Gosnell had beheaded to “ensure fetal demise”, *is*.
There are probably no good answers on this… the “semester line” is where I split the difference. It also happens to be roughly when the fetus starts to have brain activity. Viability seems like a reasonable concept too, but it’s not clear-cut. All these “lines” have problems. But we have to draw one, somewhere. We have to make the effort.
Post at NRO with link to USA Today piece on the Gosnell trial and missing MSM. It mentions another doctor that had a woman die after an abortion at 33 weeks (typical pregnancy being 39 weeks).
I’ve read that the baby had some sort of defect (not specified) but she had apparently been looking forward to the birth (baby stuff purchased, name picked out, &c). I am in no position to judge her since I don’t know the background. If the child had some sort of profoundly debilitating defect, I truly can’t say what I would choose in that situation.
The doctor in this case is a celebrated abortionist – and that’s what bothers me the most. I suspect late term abortions can be medically complicated but I can’t see why any doc would want to be “celebrated” for these skills. To me, it would be like being celebrated in Saudi Arabia as a skilled headsman.
It may well be necessary in some cases but I’d think more of the man if he believed that the abortion was a procedure that, like capital punishment or euthanasia, or amputation of a young man’s legs, or having to choose a twin to survive a complicated birth was just some awful thing that people may be called on to perform.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/345425/kermit-gosnell-not-outlier-shannen-w-coffin
If a fetus/infant can be brought to term outside the womb and if an induced birth (non-lethal, non-harmful abortion) is possible, why is death even considered?
Jeff… We’re pretty much in line on this.
I also agree with Jeff. An important but unswered question is “at what point does a fetus have rights?”
Is it at conception, is it at birth, or is it somewhere in between? Or was this question answered in past court cases?
Rights are attributes of sentient beings: beings that make moral choices (morally right/wrong) as an inherent part of their mode of survival. Rights say what such beings are morally in the right to do (or not). As such, people have rights – and animals don’t.
Very young children don’t make moral choices (the moral capacity doesn’t kick in until around 7, I think), but they are arguably going to grow to the point where they do make moral choices (and will constantly have to). Until then, guardians – such as their parents – exercise their rights on their behalf. And are obligated to do so, in a protective fashion.
So, yeah… at what point do parents go from having the right to dispose of the fetus, to having the obligation to protect the fetus? I don’t know exactly where; fetal development is a spectrum. But I can point to the 2 extremes/poles of the spectrum.
At this point in time, I could be “bribed” into accepting returning the issue to the states and getting the fed completely out of the picture.
(Of course I will continue to scream that abortion is murder, I will just lower my volume.)
We do need to consider the farther-down-the-road consequences of abortion law. What other vulnerable and powerless group of people might those with power determine are expendable? Where does it stop?
“Pro-choicers” never want to talk about this aspect of it. To the degree that a decision might need to be made on the basis of medical necessity — the life of the mother vs. that of the baby — do we want government making that call? Better that the parents of the baby make it — even if we don’t like what they decide — than the State.
ILC – I have to ask the obligatory question: does a human being incapable of making moral choices (e.g. profound retardation or brain injury) have rights?
Like you and Sonic, I don’t know where the line should be (it just can’t be at the ends). I’m grateful that I don’t have to decide.
Hello Lori Heine:
Lori there is no such thing as a religiously-unbiased authority, and there never will be. Moreover, science is unable to answer such questions as these without the assistance of theology and/or philosophy. I think on close and thoughtful observation you will find that too many often today confuse science and post-modernism. Too many find answers in Post-modernism when we think we are relying upon science. Science can help us find tentative answers but for questions such as these science can only be as an assistant to theology and/or philosophy. In fact the very way that modern science determines scientific truth is inherited from Christian theologians. Christian religious bias is structured into the foundations of Western Science. It is Christianity that told us that our world is rational, knowable and that our world obeys laws. Without those three Christian truths there can be no modern science.
Modern science however does indeed help us understand that human life clearly begins at conception. No small effort of Post-Modernist sophistry is required to evade this truth.
And it is not just the left that is hostile to traditional religious faith. So are Objectivists, materialists and no few Libertarians. Many on the extreme right seem hostile to Christianity in particular.
BTW: Lori, American Christians are not in the habit of creating dystopias. Further you no doubt will recall the great and deadly dystopias of the 20th century were almost invariably creatures of the radical anti-religioust. And rest assured we Christian have given a lot of thought to such matters as the 1st Amendment. I for one do not expect the 1st Amendment to long withstand those who rationalize and condone the ongoing mass murder of children, born and unborn.
Every time you draw a line, or offer a definition off-the-cuff, there will be cases that challenge it.
I’m pretty sure that dead people have at least some rights, because they used to be human. I’m thinking here of inheritance taxes. They violate the property rights of the person who just died. To own property (for real, not just in name), is to be able to dispose of it. While the person A was alive, she said “I want my property to go to person B when I die.” Estate taxes, especially punitive ones, violate that.
Since dead people do (or should) have at least some residual rights, I can easily see that the profoundly mentally incompetent would have rights. I just don’t have an explanation ready right now. But some sort of human potential is still there. Perhaps the profoundly incompetent person could still make a miraculous recovery, or be rescued by a technology of the future, or at the very least, their family knows them (or thinks of them, remembers them) as a human being with a moral capacity. Something like that.
Anyway, history shows that it is a mistake to deny the humanity/rights of any human, because that puts you on a slippery slope to becoming a violator of rights. Even criminals should be deprived of rights only very carefully, after, well, “due process.”
Sorry I can’t give a stronger answer, right now.
Every instance of abortion, whether permissive or not, leads to a horribly unjust outcome for the unborn baby. The baby is always innocent. The baby always dies.
Anderson Cooper CNN leading his hour with the Gosnell story right now.
What you are describing is, or at least was, known as “Lebensunwertes Leben”, “life unworthy of life”, people without a right to live because they were mentally impaired and thus were to be “euthanized”.
Question ILC: Why does the ability to make moral choices convey a right to life?
Western human rights and civil liberties are founded on the Christian “truth” that we are all made in the image and likeness of G-d and therefore we should be free so that we should not and can not be forced or coerced to do evil against our wills.
As someone that doesn’t have a problem with early term abortions, but that changes after about 5 months. This Gosnell guy is a murderer, plain and simple. No to partial birth abortion, no to killing babies outside the womb, and no to killing of a woman due to a botched late term abortion. This guy should spend the rest of his filthy days in prison.
On the Anderson Cooper segment, the documentarian (3801 Lancaster, the name of the film, as well as the clinic’s address) who helped break the story made the observation that part of the reason why this story had difficulty catching steam is because people are uncomfortable talking about the subject.
One of the best documentaries I have ever seen on abortion (unrelenting and unbiased in its coverage of both sides of the issue) was called Lake of Fire, which came out in 2007. It grossed a grand total of $21,297 at the box office. It’s obviously not a subject that people want to grapple with on a large scale. And, that’s unfortunate. I wish it was. Speaking from the left, a lot of liberals just want to sweep it under the carpet and take the hardline, just as much as people on the right are accused of doing. Holding fast to your beliefs without willing to discuss the specifics of the abortion debate doesn’t do the matter justice.
Thank you Jeff for writing this post and being so open-minded.
#24 — Hello Mike O’Malley.
You know, you really ought to bother reading a few other comments by regular commenters before pontificating to us like you just stepped down from Sinai.
I’ve been a Christian since I was eleven years old, and taught adult catechism for nearly a decade. I’m sure I managed, in that time, to pick up a clue or two about the importance of Christianity to the development of scientific inquiry.
We all started life as unborn children. You hold no special stake in the matter that the rest of us don’t. So get over yourself.
The problem is that the reporters on the left can’t come up with a way to present the issue that doesn’t make one squiggy about abortion in general. The key takeaway is that if you can’t find a way to report on this without your morality conflicting with your politics, maybe that should be telling you something.
Part of the problem with the whole debate is that we’re still letting Baby Boomers dictate its terms. They think it’s 1975. The country has moved on considerably since then.
The best indication of the change can be seen in young people. They are much more affirming in their attitude toward gays, but they are generally more pro-life on the abortion issue. The Boomers can’t wrap their minds around this. It wasn’t that way in 1975.
#13 – The problem with relying on a “religiously-unbiased authority (medical science)” is that there are a disturbing number of professionals who are now espousing the idea that a child may not be fully “human” until well into its first year of life. And, yes, some are open to the idea of “aborting” a full-term baby months after it has been born. Sort of like the expert witnesses in court cases – you can find one to say virtually anything.
Just a curiosity: animals and humans possess some extremely complex instinctual behaviors. Put in computer terms, they would require a lot of lines of code to perfect. Ask where that information is stored, and the obvious answer is, “the brain”. So where is it stored when the creature is composed of but a single cell? Don’t answer too quickly. The more you pursue it, the more you’ll see that it is very much related to the topic in your post, and at a number of different levels. Not the least of which is, “At what age do babies become actualized humans, rather than simply acting on instinct?”
Try and set any objective standard for limiting abortion, and the people who believe in unlimited abortion will make a medical, scientific case that it is arbitrary and illegitimate. I think it was Voltaire who said, “To the wicked, everything serves as a pretext.”
In Gosnell’s case, he listed all pregnancies beyond the legal, 24-week limit as being 24 1/2 weeks. Beyond the legal limit, but within the margin of error. Ponder the implications of that a while, and you will see that the kind of reasoned guidelines you are looking for won’t mean much. It’s the same reason that making abortion legal when “medically necessary” (before Roe v Wade) simply meant you had to find a doctor to sign off on it. And there will always, always be doctors that will sign off. So… was the unborn a “human individual”? Some medical expert will always be willing to answer “no”.
What trial???
Another instance of the MSM needing the appropriate time to figure out how to spin the story so that it won’t damage the left. You see, the offending doctor wasn’t white. If he had been, it would be an easy story to headline daily. Can you imagine a white physician ‘eliminating’ black babies after birth. Now that’s a story that could spin off into several great directions. If there is no way to spin the race/racist angle then it is just not worth covering for the left.
Abortion is a necessity for people who “don’t want their lives punished” by a pregnancy. Ask Obama.
The “health” of a mother includes the “yips” at eight months which requires a “partial birth abortion.”
If the little inconvenience pops out alive, you must be able to snuff it. Again, ask Obama.
For the hard core “pro-choice” addict, this is not about anything more than having access to medically removing a wart.
Pro-life people are insistent upon dragging all their religious, pious, pontifications into private lives of the clump of cells owners just to have an occasion to do a piety dance.
The woman is the owner. If she decided to keep the clump of cells, her last chance in just before birth. After that, she can’t kill it because it is an inconvenience and gets in her way. After the thing is born, she is essentially stuck with it.
However, the good news is that she can kill the cells without any say-so from the sperm donor. But, if she goes through the birth process, she can take that sperm donor to court or put him in prison if he does]t pony up for supporting the product.
Now, it seems to me that if I want to buy a fine automobile and park it in my driveway and cut the top off and plant corn in it, I should be allowed to do so because it is my property.
So, if I have a kid who takes forever to mature to the point that I can toss his hind parts out of the house, I should be able to do whatever I want with him, I own him, after all.
But, oh, no. We have child labor laws. We say he can’t drive a tractor until a certain age. I have to vaccinate the little sucker. I have to send him to school. I have to feed his whining mouth. I can’t even beat the snot out of him when I am drunk and don’t need the noise.
When does all this morality and shoving your nose in other people’s business ever end?
This is a woman’s issue. A feminist issue. Men should butt out. Women should be able to have the privacy of decision over what they do with their bodies.
In fact, if a woman wants to grow little clumps as starter plants for fetal farms which harvest cells and body parts, it might be a pretty good living for her.
This 2013 folks! Get with program. The ancient Romans were way ahead of us on this one.
Meanwhile, I prefer a society in which abortion is rare and where the health of the child in the womb is of importance to everyone. Sort of misty-eyed pontificator of the concept that it “takes a village to bring a healthy child from the womb” am I. Just an old, religious, meddling fool who believes that biologically the thing is going to be human and that it started life on that path when the unique genome sprang into existence at conception.
Did you know that in Australia, a lab can’t dump Human eggs and Human sperm down the the same drain? What’s up with that? C’mon, ethicists, dump it and forget it. Move on. Nothing to see here.
Sometime we really need Levi to clear our heads.
RE: Comment by Lori Heine — April 13, 2013 @ 12:40 am – April 13, 2013
Hello Lori:
I’m new here and as my initial contributions were not well received I am less likely to return. I have limited time and I’m dyslexic so for me just getting the grammar right takes precedent over getting the literary tone right. 😉 So please forgive my literary tone and help me understand what offended you. Each theme, reminders perhaps, I offered are meaningful:
. There is no such thing as unbiased science,
. Post-Modernism corrodes critical thinking and moral judgment,
. Traditional Western civilization, human rights and civil rights are founded in no small part on the Judeao/Christian virtues and religious imagination, and
. Religious liberty has enemies on the right as well as on the left.
Lori, help me understand just which Christian conservatives were you referring to. Generally I find Christian conservatives to be thoughtful and not unaware of the horrors of the 20th century. Were you being fair? Were you buttressing unhelpful stereotypes?
.
Hmmm: you “taught adult catechism for nearly a decade”. For which church? Are you acquainted with the the teaching of Antonio Gramsci in regard to Western Civilization and Marxism?
They just want to bring back “old time” religious values!
ILC – Thanks for the response. It is a difficult question – above my pay grade, anyway.
I’ve said elsewhere that I reluctantly accept that abortion is legal and may be necessary in some cases. I other words, I favor it being legal (with restrictions) but I also acknowledge what’s going on. I think we focus too much on the providers and not enough of the women who elect the procedure and a society that condones it. As warped as Gosnell and some other celebrated abortion specialists are, they’re not chasing down clients with forceps and a consent form.
Andy McCarthy, who’s definitely more anti-abortion than I am, has a powerful piece at NRO this morning regarding the dehumanizing rhetoric of the debate.
Caution: it’s not pleasant reading (nor is the Supreme Court ruling he links to).
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345483/dehumanizing-word-games-gosnell-andrew-c-mccarthy
How are the poor Democrats supposed to exploit the victims of tragedies (like Sandy Hook) for campaign cash with stuff like the Kermit Gosnell massacre going on?
If the public puts two and two together, won’t they start to question why we are giving our tax dollars to ‘Planned Parenthood-run’ businesses that host people like ‘Kermit the Baby Killer? And it only makes matters worse when Planned Parenthood’s own spokesperson comes out in favor of ‘after-birth abortions’ (murder).
Potential donors would be made to feel like accessories to murder instead of ‘protectors of children’.
Everyone saw this, right?
—-
Video: Planned Parenthood Official Argues for Right to Post-Birth Abortion
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/video-planned-parenthood-official-argues-right-post-birth-abortion_712198.html
It ain’t easy makin’ green.
I have to agree with the original post. Although I would prefer no abortion at all, abortion of a child who is viable is definitely murder, pure and simple. The ‘mother’ does not have to keep the child, there are long waits to adopt in this country and many have resorted to adopting from other countries. Most especially if the child is viable, it does not need the ‘mother’ to survive and therefore has all the rights of any American citizen including the right to keep its brain from being pierced or its spinal cord snipped. Babies are surviving at earlier and earlier premie births so I definitely say first trimester only. At some point the child’s right to life is at least as great as the mother’s rights and should not be subordinated, the child is a complete innocent while in nearly every case the ‘mother’ voluntarily participated in the conception of the child. So I agree, first trimester onlt, unless two physicians will certify under the review of a medical board that the physical life of the mother is at risk. Falsifying records should lead to a charge of murder of an innocent child.
#37 — “Were you buttressing unhelpful stereotypes?”
Gee, I dunno, Mr. O’Malley. As you seemed to have been too lazy to scroll up and read the entire thread, weren’t you?
You seemed to come here thinking “duh, typical Leftist feminazi lesbian who hates little babies, doesn’t know what Christians are and is part of a plot to destroy them” and proceeded, from there, to lecture me on things I already knew thirty years ago.
I taught adult catechism through the RCIA program in the Roman Catholic Church. If you want to sneer at that, at least get off your butt and bother to read this entire commentary thread so you can pass judgment on everything I’ve said on it, instead of the comment which seemed to prompt your poli sci lecture.
Newcomers are always welcome, but I at least read this blog and its comments for a while before I started posting my own. I already had some feel for the opinions and perspectives of the people making them before I commented. I’m sorry you are dyslexic, but it won’t fly to blame that here.
I offer that the cracking of the leftist MSM media wall on the Gosnell trial is cause for optimism (guarded optimism, to be sure, but optimism none the less). It is an indication that the alternative media of the internet can create enough pressure to break through an intentional wall of MSM ignore-ance. This is the first sign that this is possible since the election of Obama in 2008.
God-willing there is more of this to come.
It takes a village to murder a living, breathing, unwanted child.
Some further thoughts if I may. The abortion controversy actually has three layers which are wrapped into one topic:
Roe v Wade really only deals with that second point; jurisdiction. The great irony is that the Gosnell trial is not about jurisdiction at all. The Gosnell trial is about the morality of what went on (i.e., is this murder or not) which is a completely different element of the abortion controversy, and
completing former thought (sorry)
andbut there will,indeed, be repurcussions to Roe v Wade because of it, and thus the media blackout.This one takes the cake: Atheist Feminist wants to outlaw adoption; thinks it results in too few abortions.
I cannot find anything to suggest this is a joke.
V the K,
I could sarcastically note that it’s too bad that the atheist feminist’s mother didn’t take advantage of Roe v Wade. This thought points out the underlying attitude which is “I got mine [life]; screw you [the unborn],” which come to think of it, pretty much typifies the underlying attitude of many on the left.
Mike O’Malley, I can find nothing in your comments that would be offensive to an adult reader. Welcome to the blog.
If this debate were made about the proper role of government, whose money is paying for all this, and how freeloaders might be made to stop getting abortions and murdering children instead of pursuing an endless debate on theology, it would be more productive.
Every debate, on abortion, gay marriage or any other social issue, quickly degenerates into an exercise about as meaningful as watching a dog chase its tail.
Though by no means is it all there is to the argument, a large portion of what “pro-choicers” want is the ability to have abortions paid for by other people’s money. Which can only be accomplished by forcing those who believe it’s murder to fund it.
Stopping that madness would by no means convince everybody to believe in the same sort of God or interpret the Bible the same way. It would, however, pull the plug on a large percentage of the abortions performed in this country. If ending abortion were the point, one would think that made sense.
I don’t believe the government — at any level — is God. This tells little to nothing about my theological convictions. I don’t subscribe to the notion that “if the government doesn’t do it, it isn’t real.”
If people had to pay for their own abortions, many would choose to carry their pregnancies to term and put their unwanted babies up for adoption. Is this not a desirable solution?
Not, I suppose, if preening and posturing and calling people names is more fun.
@Vince #30
” It’s obviously not a subject that people want to grapple with on a large scale. ”
This is the most succinct illustration of Natural Law I have ever seen. As St. Paul noted, in our hearts, we know the difference between good and evil. And as a secular society, we know we are talking about evil, and being human, we naturally want to look away …
#52 Comment by Ignatius — April 13, 2013 @ 2:08 pm – April 13, 2013
Thank you Ignatius. Until I read your post I wouldn’t be honest if I said I felt welcome. 😉
I’m an avid reader of non-fiction with copious footnotes. My thinking is highly analytical. I find that on occasion the wealth facts and unusual view point I can bring to bear on certain topics offends the narrow minded and the partisan. My complex sentences and academic tone do not help. But as I said I’m dyslexic and it requires of my time a substantial effort to edit what I write for grammar so I rarely have the time to edit for tone. 🙁 Frankly, at times it astonishes me that a working-class kid with my disabilities actually eventually learned to read and write never mind achieve a successful professional career based on my ability to read and write 🙂 In no small part I thank the nuns for that. 🙂
So Ignatius, please forgive the tone 😉 and thanks for the welcome. 🙂
Regarding #31 and #45:
My my, Ms. Lori Heine, you seem a sour and an uncharitable sort; and unwelcoming to boot.
I find your mocking slur directed at me in the second paragraph of your post #45 presumptuously wrongheaded. Rather than wondering ” “duh, typical Leftist feminazi lesbian who hates little babies, doesn’t know what Christians are and is part of a plot to destroy them” ” I wondered initially whether you had fallen away from an Evangelical Protestantism of your youth and had adopted Libertarian views as an adult. It is hard to imagine a feminazi criticizing a “statist Left”.
I asked you about Antonio Gramsci because I didn’t know where you were coming from.
.
Perhaps you will see fit to say whether you are acquainted with the the teaching of Antonio Gramsci in regard to Western Civilization and Marxism?
And Lori, help me understand just which Christian conservatives were you referring to. Generally I find Christian conservatives to be thoughtful and not unaware of the horrors of the 20th century. Were you being fair? Were you buttressing unhelpful stereotypes?
Was I “buttressing unhelpful stereotypes” in my comments at #37?
No. I was accurately reflecting where our culture has led us.
The arguments on the pro-choice side have brought us a range of ideas of when life begins by stacking on qualifiers such as survival outside the womb, EEG’s, life vs. “human” life, “healthy” life vs. crummy life, and so forth.
Do women own the life in their wombs and therefore have the right to “privacy” in making the choice to kill it? Just like having a tumor excised? Why is the man out of the choice circle until after the birth when he is legally tied to supporting the child?
Why does a woman’s “health” include the stress of raising a child in supporting an abortion, but does not extend to killing it a year after it is born?
When does the property right to kill the child in the womb expire? Why can’t the owner treat the little slave like a cat or a calf until the “law” emancipates it at age 18?
And on and on.
The problem with the high-handedness of most “arguments” concerning abortion is that the positions staked out generally ignore the “compelling state interest” in regulating abortion.
The “state” is viewed as some as the great community organizer and it is viewed by others as the central organ for law and order and and ordered society.
The state interest, traditionally, is to support the family and to generally follow the code of doing unto others what you would have them do unto you.
Oh, I am sorry. That is religious and moral and getting all ethical, isn’t it. Can’t have that. Let’s make a movie about Jesus lusting away in his mind and telling himself that if he causes a pregnancy he will just arrange to have it aborted under the rubric that property is property and it wasn’t actually life until is pops out in a manger or gets scooped out a basket in the bullrushes or whatever.
The best thing is to be hard-nosed and ideological about it. Gain power, win the state and make rules. Screw the whining, pontificating morality. Make the ethics fit the power structure de jour. Live free and screw the society that sticks its nose in your life and how you lead it.
I now declare Ground Zero in NYC to be a clothing optional zone and the go-to place for push cart abortions and forgiveness indulgences.
Adults in the room must confront the basic questions of good and evil. When is abortion “good” is the issue. Rape, incest and life of the mother has been the tradition. Can a mother “choose” to carry a child by rape or must “we who rule” force the abortions? We haven’t reached that screwy point yet, but just wait. Someone will step forward and speak for the society they envision. Canvas the journals and you can find no reason for partial birth abortion. The incidence of killing a baby eight months in the womb out of necessity to the health of the mother is statistically nil.
Oh, but, the “health” of the mother can be damn near anything you want it to be. Like she doesn’t want to trade he car for one with a back seat.
The core “problem” with discussing abortion is that it leads to discussing “family” and that gets everyone who is somehow tied to the redefinition of family all nervous and snarky. Counter culture movements love that. They chip away here and there as a strategy to weaken the whole structure and thereby get what they want out of the redefinition.
Eugenics was a an intellectual and “smart” thing until Margaret Sanger and Adolph Hitler put their touches on it. My state of Virginia sterilized the mentally incompetent without much of an understanding of mental “incompetence.” The state can drift into all manner of things that seem good for the state at the expense of the citizen. And willing people can promote and justify the state actions while never bothering to think out the core problems and the basic questions.
This diatribe is not “aimed” at anyone in particular. It is an expression of frustration with pettiness run amok.
I know the psychological and lifelong damage abortion has done to some women. This Gosnelll creature is a classic example of a venal opportunist. When his story has faded, the abortion issue will subside and the culture can go back to SNL and MTV.
Was I “buttressing unhelpful stereotypes” in my comments at #37?
No. I was accurately reflecting where our culture has led us.
The arguments on the pro-choice side have brought us a range of ideas of when life begins by stacking on qualifiers such as survival outside the womb, EEG’s, life vs. “human” life, “healthy” life vs. crummy life, and so forth.
Do women own the life in their wombs and therefore have the right to “privacy” in making the choice to kill it? Just like having a tumor excised? Why is the man out of the choice circle until after the birth when he is legally tied to supporting the child?
Why does a woman’s “health” include the stress of raising a child in supporting an abortion, but does not extend to killing it a year after it is born?
When does the property right to kill the child in the womb expire? Why can’t the owner treat the little slave like a cat or a calf until the “law” emancipates it at age 18?
And on and on.
The problem with the high-handedness of most “arguments” concerning abortion is that the positions staked out generally ignore the “compelling state interest” in regulating abortion.
The “state” is viewed as some as the great community organizer and it is viewed by others as the central organ for law and order and and ordered society.
The state interest, traditionally, is to support the family and to generally follow the code of doing unto others what you would have them do unto you.
Oh, I am sorry. That is religious and moral and getting all ethical, isn’t it. Can’t have that. Let’s make a movie about Jesus lusting away in his mind and telling himself that if he causes a pregnancy he will just arrange to have it aborted under the rubric that property is property and it wasn’t actually life until is pops out in a manger or gets scooped out a basket in the bullrushes or whatever.
The best thing is to be hard-nosed and ideological about it. Gain power, win the state and make rules. Screw the whining, pontificating morality. Make the ethics fit the power structure de jour. Live free and screw the society that sticks its nose in your life and how you lead it.
I now declare Ground Zero in NYC to be a clothing optional zone and the go-to place for push cart abortions and forgiveness indulgences.
Adults in the room must confront the basic questions of good and evil. When is abortion “good” is the issue. Rape, incest and life of the mother has been the tradition. Can a mother “choose” to carry a child by rape or must “we who rule” force the abortions? We haven’t reached that screwy point yet, but just wait. Someone will step forward and speak for the society they envision. Canvas the journals and you can find no reason for partial birth abortion. The incidence of killing a baby eight months in the womb out of necessity to the health of the mother is statistically nil.
Oh, but, the “health” of the mother can be damn near anything you want it to be. Like she doesn’t want to trade he car for one with a back seat.
The core “problem” with discussing abortion is that it leads to discussing “family” and that gets everyone who is somehow tied to the redefinition of family all nervous and snarky. Counter culture movements love that. They chip away here and there as a strategy to weaken the whole structure and thereby get what they want out of the redefinition.
Eugenics was a an intellectual and “smart” thing until Margaret Sanger and Adolph Hitler put their touches on it. My state of Virginia sterilized the mentally incompetent without much of an understanding of mental “incompetence.” The state can drift into all manner of things that seem good for the state at the expense of the citizen. And willing people can promote and justify the state actions while never bothering to think out the core problems and the basic questions.
This diatribe is not “aimed” at anyone in particular. It is an expression of frustration with pettiness run amok.
I know the psychological and lifelong damage abortion has done to some women. This Gosnelll creature is a classic example of a venal opportunist. When his story has faded, the abortion issue will subside and the culture can go back to SNL and MTV.
Mike O’Malley, you’re very welcome. I would never have guessed that you’re dyslexic, as your posts are perfectly articulate and technically admirable. I’m apologize if you feel less than welcome here; I can honestly say that in my experience here, the feeling is a common one, myself included. But I for one hope you stay a while. Have a great week. 🙂
Mike O’Malley, you are as accountable for the first impression you leave as am I, or anyone else.
Your first attempt at addressing me was to lecture me as if you were a professor and I a callow teenager. You were way out of line.
You’re entitled to your opinion, and I can certainly live with being seen as sour and uncharitable.
My only experience with evangelical Protestantism was actually quite a good one. I graduated from a Southern Baptist university, made many conservative Christian friends and enjoyed it immensely. I simply see the drift of those who want to commandeer big government to force their views on everyone else — mistaking themselves for God — as dangerous.
Not anywhere near as bad as some Islamic nations, certainly, but certainly the same general drift. This country didn’t become a great one by not being quite as bad as others; it achieved its distinctions by striving to be better.
Antonio Gramsci has not been a particular influence. I’ve become a libertarian as a result of watching the jolly human drama of American politics and drawing my own conclusions — as a Christian who believes in the infallibility of nobody but Almighty God — about how dangerous it is to deprive citizens of liberty. That God was willing to chance it has been a linchpin of Judeo-Christianity for thousands of years, and I believe no human being, however impressed with his or her own morality and religious education, can trump God.
In a hurry…must get to Mass. Come back and fight with me later.
V the K: “Atheist Feminist wants…..”
——
Not to change the subject, but we need to start calling these people out. If you worship government AS GOD, you are not really an ‘Atheist’.
You are the follower of an alternative religion.
Jim Treacher was wondering if Kermit Gosnell would have been more newsworthy if he had strapped a dog to the roof of his car.
This is the first time I have found this web site. I found it while trying to get more info on K. Gosnell. I have always found the ‘letters to the editor’ and responses to blogs indicative of a zeitgeist. The conversation on this issue on this site is educational and thought filled. Thank you to all the writers who have given me food for thought.
Back from church. All I can say, Mr. O’Malley, with regard to Antonio Gramsci is that it is truly bizarre that anyone even passingly familiar with my opinons — as abundantly expressed in comments on this blog and elsewhere — might think I got my ideas from him.
Because I believe that drying up taxpayer funding for abortions is the best means of fighting it…that means I believe Western Civilization must die to make way for socialism? Huh? What?!
I don’t think your problem is dyslexia. If you come up with wild flights of fancy like linking me with Gramsci, then you’re challenged in ways more profound than that.
It’s nice having someone else to spar with. You can sit at the cafeteria table with the other social cons and shoot chocolate milk at me through your straw. Much the way they do at Sonic Frog, Vince, Rusty and some of the others who brave this site to express their opinions.
Very, very astutely put.
One answer might be that the information is stored in some intangible, supernatural soul that is not confined to the space within a single cell.
But a completely naturalistic answer would be that the genetic information in the cell can only code for different proteins, but all the instincts (as well as the sophisticated brain) are “emergent properties” of the mind-bogglingly complicated ways in which proteins interact with each other.
But if one accepts this second answer, the obvious follow-up question would be: could these emergent properties “emerge” from a single-celled dog zygote, or dolphin zygote, or chimp zygote? The answer is: No. No matter how the information is ultimately stored, everything that makes us human is already there in the uniquely Homo sapiens DNA of that undifferentiated but fully human single-cell zygote.
I’m reminded that in the one of the world’s best novels EVAH, namely Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, there is a particularly poignant episode involving a young woman named Frieda, who has been condemned to Hell for the infanticide of her newborn child, and is eternally punished with cunning psychological cruelty.
The title heroine Margarita has been granted “Just One Wish” by Satan himself — and she unselfishly (if a bit rashly) uses this wish to request some degree of clemency for Frieda.
Strikingly, Margarita (and implicitly, the author Bulgakov) does not deny that Frieda deserves to be punished for the baby’s murder, and does not use her One Wish to spring Frieda out of Hell — rather, she believes that Frieda’s punishment is gratuitously harsh given the difficult circumstances of the case, and hence she only requests some leniency for Frieda — that the punishment should be lessened.
(This “One Wish” is granted, but then Satan — for his own reasons — finds a convenient technical pretext to offer Margarita a second wish on the house.)
Mike O’Malley, I hope you have not left in disgust.
Winnowing issues down to the basic question is often threatening to the basic “belief systems” of people who are still in the reactionary mode of protecting the mystique of said belief system.
You noted:
You are dead on in making these observations.
At heart, many people lean toward the Kelvinist concept that everything can be measured: scientific absolutism. Therefore, we can scientifically determine when life is and when it is not. There is no “soul” because it can not be measured, let alone located or verified. Science can not be judgmental. It is all reason, logic and no emotion. Therefore, the findings of “science” are immutable.
So, some want the emotional issues concerning the definition of “life” to be judged by rational, logical, unemotional, immutable science. It is a denial for faith in favor of the whole pathway which leads to dialectical materialism. Once you enter this mare’s nest which is fully feathered with psychobabble, you give up your free will to reason and to err.
Can science determine when life begins? Not if we keep making the meaning of “life” ever changing. The whole business of load the definition down with abstract qualifiers is meant to keep the door open for cheating the definition. Hence, we add “meaningful” and “useful” and “quality” and (my particular favorite b.s. qualifier) “human.”
“Post-Moderism” is, generally speaking, reactionary with an emphasis on reappraising the cultural assumptions. It tends toward skepticism and even absurdity. Progressives have managed to promote an agenda that has accomplished making a near mockery of the traditional concept of the family.
Diane English wrote in the LA Times:
Diane English was the creator of Murphy Brown and she is fully critical of those who are not at her side in her self-centered, postmodern world from which she looks back on those of us who will have to be “dragged kicking and screaming” into her view of reality.
She is the protector of the mystique of her belief system. But, we all do that. We conservatives, however have the massive weight of tradition and the Judeo-Christian ethic on our side.
Until I can locate the core of libertarianism, I see it as an excuse to avoid identifying as conservative. Clearly, there is no monolithic liberalism or conservatism or Progressivism, so why are we to suffer the inanity of being led to think that “moderates” and “libertarians” are any more or less monolithic?
I have yet to meet the modern liberal who will permit moral absolutes. They are all relativists and everything is relative to what best suits and satisfies them.
“Until I can locate the core of libertarianism, I see it as an excuse to avoid identifying as conservative.”
The “core” of libertarianism, Helio, is that the government should be kept to its rightful purpose. That it should do only what it can do well, which is protect its citizens from force and fraud. I keep repeating this, then people keep saying they can’t find the “core” of libertarianism.
When I was in college, I began the practice of buying symphony seats in the orchestra pit. I did this because it was cheap. But I came to enjoy being able to see the sweat beading on the musicians’ faces and the notes on their sheet music. Once I watched the conductor’s glasses slide down his nose, as he furiously conducted away, and the boy beside him catch them as they fell off and hand them back. It went on throughout the performance and was a show unto itself.
The problem with sitting in the orchestra pit is that you only see whatever is right in front of you. You don’t see the whole orchestra. Libertarians like to sit in the balcony seats so they can see the overall picture. So they notice things others don’t. This gives rise to the frequent charge that libertarians are “conspiracy theorists.” But we don’t believe that everything we see results from a conspiracy; most of it is simply the workings of the human drama, played out (unlike a symphony) without its participants being fully aware of it all.
All the bagging on the other team that goes on here is very unproductive. I know it makes you feel good, but it really doesn’t convince them of anything. If it disgusts you that some commenters get fed up with this, then please excuse me.
To be considered a disciple of Gramsci simply because I suggest that taxpayer funding of abortion on demand may be what’s feeding and empowering it seems, to me, not only extreme but irrational. You are perfectly welcome to disagree.
Lori,
Permit me to explain this: “Until I can locate the core of libertarianism, I see it as an excuse to avoid identifying as conservative.”
There are two political parties: if you are liberal, you have only the Democrats and if you are conservative, you have only the Republicans. If you are libertarian, you only have the Republicans and that party is a very squirrelly excuse for affiliation.
Your “force and fraud” identification for libertarianism is fine with me and I agree that it is a good one. However, like conservatism and liberalism, libertarianism branches out to include issues and screwballs of many dimensions, whether you or I would cleave to those issues or not.
Our Constitution does not open the door to three or more political parties primarily because of the Electoral College system. Consequently, we don’t have the advantages or shortcomings of coalitions that make our political parties even more fickle than they are already.
So far, I see libertarianism as an amorphous concept which is unable to gel around actually being a political force for change. If I am wrong, I would be delighted to learn of where its political center can be found.
Therefore, I see libertarianism in the terms you use when you speak of “bagging the other team” which makes “you feel good but doesn’t really convince them of anything.”
The Gramsci reference is not my issue. If my reference to dialectical materialism led you there, it was not my intent. As you know, I do not worship Kelvinism, Darwinism or anything smacking of the metaphysics of determinism.
If there is basis for a moral and ethical code that avoids the Judeo-Christian roots, I would love to know of it. Otherwise, all the efforts to realign the existing moral and ethic code is just post-holing based on group preference.
All group preference is power play and based on the force of numbers. We are either going to preserve our limited government, representative democracy concept or we are going to continue to morph toward socialistic statism. If there is another option, I have missed it.
It seems to me that libertarianism is not a friend of socialistic statism. Do I have that wrong?
Helio, you are correct that libertarianism is opposed to socialist statism.
There is a little test out there on the Internet that shows up frequently on libertarian websites. It’s called “The World’s Shortest Political Quiz,” or something like that. I have taken it a few times, just for kicks and giggles, to see if my political orientation has changed at all. I always come out nearly 100% libertarian.
This quiz represents the political picture as something like a baseball diamond. One point is conservatism, one liberalism, one socialism and the other libertarianism. We are, according to this diagram, neither fish nor fowl.
I believe the Libertarian Party will either eventually transform the Republican Party or replace it. I don’t yet know which will happen, and I probably won’t live long enough to find out.
I believe that the libertarian movement is fast accelerating into a force for political change. Obama is proving the tipping point, the starting gun, whatever image works best. He’s managing to make just about everybody except the hard-core loons detest big government. Believe it or not, even many of my Leftist friends can no longer stand him.
They applauded Senator Paul’s anti-drone filibuster. Go figure!
I’m aware the whole Gramsci thing was not your fault. As to that, I will simply scratch my head and go on.
#57: & #58 “Was I “buttressing unhelpful stereotypes” in my comments at #37?” … Comment by heliotrope — April 14, 2013 @ 9:34 am – April 14, 2013
Hello Heliotrope!
My post from which you post was addressed to Ms. Lori Heine. See below:
“Regarding #31 and #45:
My my, Ms. Lori Heine, you … And Lori, help me understand just which Christian conservatives were you referring to. Generally I find Christian conservatives to be thoughtful and not unaware of the horrors of the 20th century. Were you being fair? Were you buttressing unhelpful stereotypes?
Comment by Mike O’Malley — April 14, 2013 @ 8:16 am – April 14, 2013”
But now as we are acquainted I’ll take a look at your post 🙂
Mike, which Christian conservatives am I referring to? Those who believe in using a large and intrusive government to institute theocracy. Those who want to replace the protection of everyone’s freedom of religion with a government that protects no one’s but their own.
As you’ll recall, student of history that you are, our founders fled the Old World to come to these shores because they wanted to escape that. It makes no sense to me to repeat it over here.
I don’t care what they believe. As an Episcopalian, I interpret the Bible quite differently than they do. But I am uninterested in commandeering the State to force them into following my beliefs instead of their own. Those Christian conservatives who are simply behaving themselves and minding their own business, I have no problem with.
I hope that answers the question.
#67: Comment by heliotrope — April 14, 2013 @ 8:12 pm – April 14, 2013…
Impressive! You will forgive me Heliotrope if I digest your contribution and add little for now other than to say the Post-Modernism is founded upon the philosophical work of a major Nazi theorist, Martin Heidegger. Heidegger was “rehabilitated” after WWII, ironically by his Jewish former girl friend, Hannah Arendt, with whom he had an adulterous affair before the Nazis came to power in Germany. In my estimation it is unsurprising that Heidegger’s legacy has been so destructive of liberal democracy, because I think that is just what Heidegger intended.
#74: Mike, which Christian conservatives am I referring to? Those who believe in using a large and intrusive government to institute theocracy. Those who want to replace the protection of everyone’s freedom of religion with a government that protects no one’s but their own. Comment by Lori Heine — April 14, 2013 @ 11:20 pm – April 14, 2013
You mean the fabled Dominionists? Yes? No?
The “Dominionists were little more than a social construct, a straw man, formulated by the Progressive/Left as a polemical device with which to discredit the Evangelical Religious Right.
#74 — Who exactly are you quoting in that last paragraph?
Wow, you really like to quote people. And recite facts. And drop names. I’m so impressed!
Calm down, Mike, and breathe. Just breathe. You don’t need to bombard everybody with a lecture in socio-history. You will be well-liked here, because you have all the right opinions.
No, I was not talking about the Dominionists. I am speaking of every conservative Christian who wants to use legislation to institute his or her social goals against the will of those whose convictions differ.
I only wish they were but a social construct, a straw man and a polemical device. The America in which that were true would be a nice place, indeed.
What, exactly, is it about me that has put such a bee in your bonnet? Is it because I called you on your attempt to stereotype me as a leftist? You spoke out of ignorance. Let’s just say you saved your face and call it even.
#34 — I just happened to notice SH’s comment. And I agree that medical science will also provide a variety of answers. But what’s the alternative?
One religious authority does make all the decisions in some places. Iran comes to mind, as does Saudi Arabia. Sorry, but I don’t think that would be any improvement.
The alternative to settling on a medical consensus would likely be — what we have developing now. That there should be no consensus, because different medical-scientific minds do not agree. That has given us “Doctor” Gosnell and his ilk.
Part of my point (evidently lost on Mr. O’Malley) is that human life must not be made vulnerable to the life-and-death decisions of the most powerful. The suggestion on which you commented, however imperfect, was intended to make that point.
#75 “I am speaking of every conservative Christian who wants to use legislation to institute his or her social goals against the will of those whose convictions differ”. Comment by Lori Heine — April 14, 2013 @ 11:45 pm – April 14, 2013
.
It would however in your view be OK for say the American Population Control Movement to use those very same legislative processes, and the courts, and the Federal bureaucracy, and Executive authority and the Federal power of the purse to institute its elitist social goals against the will of those whose convictions differ”?
Indeed, “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”!
Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Government in Modern America, by Donald T. Critchlow
.
Who????
#64 and #68,
How do you do it Ms. Heine? How do you draw false inferences over and over and over again from what I write? I did not say, suggest or suspect you are a follower of Antonio Gramsci. I simply asked you “are you acquainted with the the teaching of Antonio Gramsci in regard to Western Civilization and Marxism?”
Good lord!
#78 Who???? Comment by Sonicfrog — April 15, 2013 @ 12:13 am – April 15, 2013
.
Antonio Gramsci was a brilliant Italian Marxist who escaped Josef Stalin only to died imprisoned by Benito Mussolini. Gramsci foresaw the very vulnerabilities in Communist revolution that were exploited by President Reagan, Prime Minister Thacher and Pope John Paul II to overthrow Communism a half a century after Gramsci’s death. Gramsci before he died revised Marxist revolutionary theory to more effectively comprehend the dangers traditional Western cultural institutions presented to Communist revolution and communist victory. He provided theoretical road maps for undermining a capitalist Western democracy by undermining and subverting a democracy’s foundational institutions such as the traditional western family.
Where would I get the notion — batty little me! — that you said I was a follower of Antonio Gramsci?
Well, you are prone to making absolutely extraordinary statements like this:
“It would however in your view be OK for say the American Population Control Movement to use those very same legislative processes, and the courts, and the Federal bureaucracy, and Executive authority and the Federal power of the purse to institute its elitist social goals against the will of those whose convictions differ”?”
— And as I am a libertarian, you got the notion of my views on these things…where?!
Go find out what a libertarian is. You clearly have absolutely no clue. Libertarians do not believe in using government for the purposes of population control, or for any of the other aims you accuse me of supporting in your wild, scrambled-up fear fantasy.
What part of “government should keep to protecting citizens from force and fraud” — which I have repeated more than once here — are you unable to understand?
I’m beginning to think that you can’t be TOO much of a social con. You seem to form your opinions by smoking doobie while listening to Glenn Beck.
Absolutely entertaining. I’ve never encountered anything quite like you. Please proceed with more wonderfulness. I can’t wait.
If libertarians get the impression that social conservatives are devious, two-faced and somewhat bipolar, I would suppose siccing somebody like Mr. O’Malley on us would not be the best way to change our minds.
I’m sorry…I’m still laughing. Sir, you are truly an inspiration. I’ve got to write some sort of an essay about this very enlightening exchange.
You listen to Glenn Beck backwards, right? While smoking doobie. I’m determined that I will learn the secret source of your intellectual power.
Libertarian or not Ms. Heine, you seem compensate for an evident absence of thoughtful insight with robust personal unpleasantness.
If you wish to make a valuable contribution to civil democratic discourse in America I recommend you try:
– less ad hominem abuse
– less straw man argument
– more critical thought
…
and work on your impersonal listening skills
… just sayin’
Have a good day Ms. Heine.
Mr. O’Malley, I’m afraid I find your lack of “thoughtful insight” in what I say a little less than totally heartbreaking. You seem to think borrowing arguments from conservative thinkers — arguments you give no evidence you understand — constitutes thoughtful insight.
You lecture people on “the family” as if to imply they were picked out of a berry patch and have no families of their own. You deign to instruct us in morals as if you alone possess them. You are a poseur.
But of course, this is exactly the M.O. of the social conservative demagogue. Demonize those with whom you disagree — objectify them. Thus can you justify taking their own tax money and using it to turn their own government against them.
You’ve managed to give me even greater contempt for social conservatives than I ever had before. Nice work.
Just sayin’.
And thanks, I am having a very good evening. It is fun, reading your schtick. You’re one for the books.
Ms. Heine, you seem compensate for an evident absence of thoughtful insight with robust personal unpleasantness.
[Slow Clap]
The biggest obstacle to Libertarianism is Libertarians’ own intolerance for ideological impurity, and to deal with disagreement with insults and name-calling. It’s one reason I’ve abandoned both the Conservative and Libertarian labels and just describe myself as a Realist
# 85 Comment by V the K — April 15, 2013 @ 6:09 am – April 15, 2013
🙂
There are Libertarian Americans who are thoughtful and bring much of value to the public square. In my experiences such men and women respect the role of religion in American democracy and in Western civilization. Dr. Charles Murray is an worthy and gutsy example of such a Libertarian. Many Libertarians, perhaps too many, seem to think that the world should be organized around a principle of “no rules! No rules, man!”. Moreover too many Libertarians seem to be awful coalition partners for Conservatives. Those Librarians seem over eager and ever ready to throw Conservative coalition partners under the bus. They come across too often as useful idiots for the Progressive-Left. Activists on the Progressive-Left oft seem to view such Libertarians as a ripe field for vote harvesting.
Mike O’Malley,
Your references to Heidegger and Hannah Arendt and Post-modernism is one of the branches of that mythical “school of philosophy” which took root in the Upper West Side salons in NYC and Princeton and Wellesley. But there were many other forces of Post-moderism in Europe which were not holocaust centered. So, I prefer the general reference to the specific. Fascism is a close cousin to Post-moderism in that its “definition” lacks a specific model or framework. That said, The New Yorker magazine is still infested with Hannah Arendt fans and clingers.
I bring this up, because many of us here are testy about being removed from the main topic to consider and then accept or reject conditional arguments based on someone’s interpretation of a less than compact root cause analysis.
My continuing expressions of confusion over libertarianism arises from its absence of a coherent basic platform. I extensively interviewed both Roger McBride and Lyndon LaRouche in the 1970’s and between them there could have been no greater disparity in defining libertarianism. Since those days, “libertarians” have popped up on the national stage from time to time, but almost always as charismatics or odd-balls.
We are in one heck of a cultural decline. Oswald Spengler (not to throw a name and change the flow) took was one of those people who looked at the collapse of the monarchies and the rise of democracies and socialism. He noted that the concentration of wealth was a natural phenomenon and that wealth attracts political power and political notions questioning its influence, it propriety, its “decency.” From that people engage in Marxist, socialist, “cultural enlightenment” schemes to manipulate “equality” and “justice” and the culture itself. This is done “intellectually” for the “good” of the masses through the power of the state.
Spengler noted that the culture was the product of the villages and that intellect was the product of the city. The clash comes about when the “intellectuals” look at the culture and determine what has to be reinforced and what has to go. From a city perspective, provincialism can only be preserved for its artistic peculiarities. Beyond that, provincialism is lazy and deleterious to the intellect.
It is not the least bit surprising that liberal universities (nearly a tautology) are unified in their doxology and differ only in their intensity and areas of focus. Conservative universities are generally regarded as an oxymoron and so provincial as to be inhabited by a branch of humanity that is barely escaping the jaws of extinction.
Abortion is the “child” of liberalism and gay marriage is liberalism’s poster child for the post-modern family. Manipulating the society through birth control (birth control by any means) is intellectually sound reasoning to a liberal and even an economic imperative to the welfare state.
However, intellectuals must have measurements and absolutes tied to their authority programs. Therefore, there is an age cut-off point for hip replacements based on actuarial tables and other “scientific” calculations. The very wealthy can get around this, but the rest have to abide by the rules of social justice. So the Politburo thrives outside the system and the people are manipulated by the intellectual culture of applied equality, justice and fairness.
It doesn’t really matter when this form of thinking found its roots. It only matters that it is being applied to us with a broad brush by the socialistic statists of both political parties with the Democrats leading the parade and the Republicans trying to stay in the game.
We have become a nation of quitters where many would prefer a regional confederation where limited government would just stay out of our way and we would take the initiative for sound fiscal government. And we would be delighted for the liberals to be elsewhere in their own country and tax themselves into prosperity and go full bore toward Utopia without us.
That is not going to happen. Neither are we ever going to elect another Calvin Coolidge or have a great awakening. Most of us fear that only financial collapse will shake the populace.
Meanwhile, the demagoguery will continue to divide us culturally and to focus blame on false causes so that intellectualism can proceed apace to warp reality into the form the liberals long for, yet can not actually define. As Kermit the Frog puts it: Someday we’ll find it – The Rainbow Connection – The lovers, the dreamers and me.
What a time we live in.
V… Let me fix that for you:
I see and hear the term RINO thrown around all the time by Conservatives to identify those who display ideological impurity. Note, there is no such term or acronym in the libertarian lexicon. We understand that we’re going to have varied opinions and disagreements on things policy and politics.
I’m not sure it Dems / liberals have a term like that either.
Statist.
Yet another term used by Conservatives. Libertarians don’t call other libertarians “statists”, Mark Levine Conservatives do.
V the K, you are a statist social conservative. And like many statists, you throw the word “purist” at anyone who makes you uncomfortable — or who makes you look bad, if you’re incapable of discomfort — by exposing what you are.
It is your very hostility toward individual liberty that reveals what you are. When you refused to answer a simple question — what’s the social conservative (or — what was your new Madison Avenue euphemism — “socially responsible conservative”) philosophy of government? — you showed your true colors.
If government ought to serve as a stand-in on earth, run by people like you who believe you’ve got a direct pipeline to the very Mind of the Almighty, then why be shy about it? How come you people scramble for cover, like earwigs under a rock, every time the light is shown on you?
Heliotrope is a very refreshing exception. I know I won’t always agree with him, or he with me, but he deals squarely with libertarians. It may be because, in many ways, he is one, but it also has something to do with knowing his convictions and being willing to articulate them.
You ought to try it sometime. But of course the latest soc-con strategy is stealth, so honesty is out.
Very tellingly about your actual agenda, it isn’t just leftist liberals on whom you spew your hatred. You’ ve taken it upon yourself to run every libertarian or libertarian-leaning commenter off of this site.
If people like Sonic leave, it will be this blog’s loss. Rational discourse will be replaced with katie-bar-the-doors lunacy. But you’re at home with lunacy, so you’d love it.
By the way — why DO you keep changing names? You probably never were a libertarian, so you’re showing a glimmer of honesty in now admitting it. But why the gumption-fail in refusing to stand up and call yourself a social conservative? Or — excuse me — a “socially responsible conservative?”
Go ask Madison Avenue what to do next.
Realist. That’s it. Though you’re an “unrealist” if you think the majority of Americans are going to put up with any more of the soc-cons self-idolizing, theocratic crap.
If there is a “libertarian lexicon” where may I obtain a copy?
How is this fact established?
This downward spiral of sentience in the defense of an abstract concept is cresting toward the absurd.
Yeah, I am a conservative and almost exclusively vote for the Republican candidate, even John McCain over Obama. Yeah, I am not happy with McCain, GW Bush, Grahamnesty, and even Reagan for growing the government and being in the bigger and bigger government business.
Did you know that Calvin Coolidge vetoed a tax cut because it would increase government revenues which would cause the government to grow? No one has the guts to run on that platform.
What the heck kind of line in the sand are you “libertarians” drawing? I first took the little libertarian test back in the 70’s and every time I have taken it, I come out a nearly perfect charter member. So where is the libertarian sign up table and the TEA Party level organization, interstate and intrastate think tank and so forth?
Every time three libertarians start to emerge on the national stage, back biting and purity challenges break out within the camps. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous at best.
The Republican establishment is not a limited government group. They are as anxious for the power, the pork and the budget growth and control as the Democrats. There is a conservative dissatisfaction with the Democrat-lite Republican Party members who we call RINOs. The establishment argument is that having them with us 40% of the time is better than not at all. My reaction is having someone hold their seat who with us 85% of the time is far better.
For the most part, the Democrats have chased their conservatives out of the party at the national level. But even those moderates who remain will pull together in a unified manner to vote for statist programs and ignore the rules for the good of the party.
The animosity shown by libertarians here toward conservatives makes me wonder just what the purity test demands. Do I have to shut out the judeo-Christian ethic and get on board with legalizing drugs in order to begin to establish my bona fides for trial membership in the novitiate level of the libertarian society?
#96 — Helio, the animosity shown by libertarians toward conservatives? Are you joking with us?
All you’ve got to do here, to bring out the nasty, is express small government principles. Libertarians laugh about how biased this blog has become. Actually call yourself a libertarian, and the flying monkeys begin to screech.
The main dirty trick — indulged in time and time again — has been to (I think quite deliberately) portray libertarians as leftist liberals. That happens all the time.
If I were a wagering woman, I’d make a bet with you as to how long it will take any of the social cons here to pull that crap again. I doubt you’d take me up on that, even if you were a gambler. You know better than to say it doesn’t happen.
Someone once said (I’ve seen it attributed to more than one author):
The only flaw I can find in this otherwise excellent observation is the author’s mistaken belief that this mindset is peculiar to Islam and Muslims.
It seems to me that one could plug in various other terms like “libertarian” or “progressive” or “social conservative” and the sentiment would be heartily endorsed by many on this thread. E.g.:
“The average Libertarian has a curious tendency to believe that non-Libertarians know Libertarianism to be the Truth and reject it out of pure obstinacy”
“That anyone should be able to oppose conservative Christianity with a good conscience quite exceeds the Christian’s imagination”
P.S. I might suggest writing “our soi-disant libertarian Lori Heine claims that…”, instead of “Libertarians claim that…”; or “Mike O’Malley and heliotrope are among those self-described soc-cons who say…” instead of “Social conservatives say…”
Thanks, Throbert. Your observations are always interesting.
I don’t know that I believe non-libertarians always oppose libertarian opinions out of obstinacy. I think those who manipulate public opinion in favor of statism play upon things people want to believe — that they’re enlightened, sophisticated or hip (on the Left) or that they’re moral, godly, patriotic and responsible (on the Right).
To shore up their shaky self-image, some statists attack libertarians because we say things that question their worldview. It doesn’t mean they’d ever agree with everything we said, no matter how respectfully they considered it. But our postmodern media caters to exactly what each audience wants to hear. So most people resent it when they have to hear anything else.
Were I that way, I wouldn’t bother to come here. I’m willing to get slapped around with a dead mackerel on an almost daily basis because I do want to hear a variety of viewpoints. When I comment on left-liberal blogs, I’m often accused — as unfathomable as it might be to our soc-cons here — of being a social conservative.
Lori,
Maybe I don’t know what qualifies one for the label of “social con” and how to read and recognize the benchmark characteristics of a “social con.”
Helio, I define it as one who holds to the political philosophy that government should be run by people who believe the “right” things about morality and are willing to use government force to make others toe their line.
I am not speaking of people who simply think they’re good and moral people. Nobody (except possibly their mothers) cares what they think of themselves.
As this is a political blog, when I comment here I’m always commenting on the way citizens influence, and interact with, government. I confine my discussions on theology for religious blogs.
I know that some people use “social conservative” to mean “good person.” They’re entitled to their opinion, but again, I’m not their mother. I don’t much care how impressed they are with themselves.
Pardon me if I sound snarky. Tax day never brings out the best in me.
To expand, Helio, the reason leftists often think I’m a social conservative is because I’m a Christian, and because I do care about moral issues. I may interpret the Bible differently on some matters than conservative Christians do, but it’s ignorant of them to assume that means I don’t try to live by the interpretation I believe is right.
I think we do have a terrible moral confusion in this country, and that most of our problems come down to being spiritual in origin. But I believe the obsession with government control distracts us from having a serious discussion on those matters. I also think that until we take our lives away from the State and back into our own hands, we will not even begin to solve our problems.
This can only be equated with leftist statism by people determined to slander anybody who believes in freedom. On a blog, we communicate in little drips and dribbles. We can’t expand on what we mean. This makes our words easy to distort. And if somebody wants to disagree with us, they’ll find a way to do it.
I find social conservatives’ attempts to hijack religious faith so objectionable precisely because I am a person of religious faith. If the government is going to push me around, pick my pocket and violate my beliefs by sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong, then there is no religious freedom in this country.
Leftists misunderstand this. They assume that all religious people think alike and hold the same political opinions. They really don’t care about religious faith — it’s a tempest in a teapot to them. And when other libertarians (many of whom are not religious) disagree with me, it’s usually because they think my religious faith is a waste of time.
I hope that provides some background to the the comments I make here.
regarding #88
Thank you for another excellent response Heliotrope. It is a well played return to topic.
I’ll offer a rash observation on it before I print it out so that I may give your response due detailed consideration later in the day. [I my not post another response to it. I may just think about what you wrote, Heliotrope.]
You say “Abortion is the “child” of liberalism and gay marriage is liberalism’s poster child for the post-modern family. Manipulating the society through birth control (birth control by any means) is intellectually sound reasoning to a liberal and even an economic imperative to the welfare state.” There is no little truth in your observation. I’ll recommend for you and others in this thread:
Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Government in Modern America, by Donald T. Critchlow
Abortion and birth control and population reduction were social projects of a wealthy, highly educated, powerful and often racist and anti-Catholic American eugenics movement that emerged during FDR’s New Deal and in the immediate aftermath of WWII. They used the awesome powers of the state and the media to impose their dystopia upon America.
I will also offer for your consideration and for the consideration of others two studies of what they have wrought upon us:
Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980, by Charles Murray
and
What to Expect When No One’s Expecting: America’s Coming Demographic Disaster, by Jonathan V. Last
.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell is our Dr. Joseph Mengele. He is a marker and an omen of how far we have fallen:
http://pjmedia.com/michaelwalsh/2013/04/15/dr-mengele-i-presume/
http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2013/04/14/the-house-on-the-corner/
Lori,
Would you settle for civil unions to clear up the problems caused by the state or is the gay “issue” more complicated than that in terms of “social conservative” moral angst about homosexuality?
Please, I don’t mean to stir up a hornet’s nest, but I find this germane to the thread: Isn’t the right to “choice” over whether the baby in the womb gets to live or is killed really just a privacy issue and up to the free will of the mother in the libertarian construct? Why is it the business of the state or of a meddling society to tell the woman what she can and can not do with her life and her freedom to live it as she sees fit?
If the state is sanitized of “choosing sides” in issues of morality, what “force” besides altruism guides the masses? If altruism is overwhelmed by greed and opportunity and survival what good is the soul and practicing restraint?
I obviously just don’t get it. I understand the mechanical rules and regulations for driving and the need for traffic lights in order to have an ordered society. But why does the state have the power of judgmental zoning laws and the power to protect children from predators? We don’t keep cheetahs from running down baby wildebeest, so why should we interfere with the animal instincts within our selves? If killing the fetus is hurting a “someone” in one instance and permitted in another instance, on what morality-free basis is that decided?
Somehow, this abortion society has succeeded in taking the brakes off restraint. Gosnell is a fabulous venture capitalist. He ran a slum housing business, a greasy spoon cafe, a rent-to-own furniture scam, a no-credit/lousy-credit used car business, a pay-day loan shop, a Dewey, Cheatem and Howe legal firm, a derivatives bundling scam, a home-ownership for the penniless program, the hope and change church of a better tomorrow.
So, how does a morality-free zone government advise itself on what constitutes fraud, coercion, force and predation? Isn’t Planned Parenthood a fully vested predation construct? Do they take calls from fetuses who want their womb owners to quit with the crack cocaine already?
I am just not cut out for a world where the Lord of the Flies is constantly rearing his ugly head to settle disputes among the free-will faithful who keep bumping into one another. I am not a fan of the “survival” shows, but as I understand them, they are fairly good psycho-plays akin to how the vaunted “nobel savages” worked things out on our pre-Columbian continent.
Who makes the libertarian rules? And, is “enforcing
libertarian understandings on non-complying libertarians an act of despotism? Obviously, I need the syllabus.
#104 — Mr. O’Malley, as I have not had any reason to practice birth control for fifteen years, and probably most other readers of this blog haven’t, either, I’m rather wondering why you’re recommending reading material on the evils of artificial contraception. Maybe if you read this blog for a while, you’ll figure out what it’s about. And a visit to some libertarian websites might help clear up what libertarians believe.
Helio, I would certainly settle for civil unions — accompanied by a sharp change in the tax code so single people are no longer penalized for being single. It is not the business of our government lords and masters to determine whose lives should be officially approved of (and rewarded) and whose punished. That prerogative belongs to nobody but Almighty God.
As for why you’d need a syllabus, I’m not sure. I look at the views you express, and I get depressed. This is what eighty-some-odd years of American nanny-state paternalism has done to even some of the best of us. It’s very sad that you can’t even imagine a country in which free people actually govern themselves. I suppose it would be like someone born and raised in prison being unable to imagine the world outside.
It comes down to this. SOMEONE is going to run our lives. The only alternatives are that (A) we run them ourselves or (B) someone else runs them for us. Whoever does it will be a fallible human being. I would rather have the fallible human beings with the most at stake — those caring for their own lives — running their lives, because they’ll do a better job of it.
You just agonize over this. You scratch your head, and ask me, again and again and again, what I mean. But let me point, as an illustration of what I mean, to what we’ve got instead. We’ve had Those Who Know Better running our lives for quite some time. We’ve got it right now.
I need no syllabus to tell me I want no more of it.
Thanks, Lori.
The conundrum of representative democracy continues and will do so until it is overtaken by some other power. My frustration with understanding the libertarian game plan is complicated by the vast history of movement philosophy that precedes us. The world is always challenged by asymmetries, reflexive and reactionary impulses, adaptation for the purpose of cohering and adaptation to effect modification and change. These realities are known to every commander as the battle begins and the battle plans begin to unravel.
My preference for a vastly limited government is sobered by the reality that 47% of the population is locked into state welfare.
Helio, I think you get it. We need to spread the word. To me, every other issue increasingly takes a back seat to this. Which is why, I suppose, sometimes I sound like a broken record.
Even people like Mr. O’Malley might be made to understand if we can only get through to them that without liberty, the rest is meaningless. The history of relations between God and man, in our scriptures, shows that God saw fit to entrust us with liberty. Man now wants to take that away, presuming that man knows better than God and must correct God’s mistake.
“But…but…but…next time it will be different,” they insist. Yet that time comes, and the time after it, and the time after that. And it never is.