You know, if you cannot understand that you do not have to hate anyone who is gay to be against the government sanctioning gay unions, you must be the one who has a problem with hatred. You sound like you have a lot of hatred in your heart to me.

Posted by Goldie on November 5, 2004 05:37 PM Link to comment

It's not that I can't understand that. It's that no-one has ever given me a single argument in favor of excluding gay people that did not boil down to simple prejudice. And - they've had plenty of opportunity to. I just read your comment from another post, and I would say that there really is only one person here whose words would justify the perception that there might be hate in their heart. I say look to thine own eye.

Posted by smijer on November 5, 2004 06:13 PM Link to comment

I do have hate in my heart, but it is not for people. I hate the wrong ideas that hurt people. I hate the idea that it is kinder to brutally kill a baby than to cost the mother an inconvenience or hardship. I hate the idelogies that fail to teach children the whole truth. I am also sad. I am sad that children are no longer presented the idea that some things are worth dying for. While I know it is not a popular idea, I still believe that greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend. How great is the love of a mother who knows that for the birth of her child, she could pay with her own life? Everything you say is true about caring for mothers and providing for the baby. In America, we practice these ideals more than any other nation, but we fail to teach that there is another way. Life is short and we will all die. To hold on to our own life at the expense of another will not bring the happiness that we allow our children to believe it will bring. We have failed our children. Personal responsiblity and right choices are no longer considered of utmost importance. There is a lot of hatred and a tremendous amount on your website, but I think that it is misdirected. You suggested that I wanted mothers charged with a crime of abortion. That is not true. Mothers do not commit abortion. Technicians who call themselves 'doctors' do that. My opinion is that the crime is as much against the mother as the child. Our laws should protect life. We can argue for years and have, but the truth remains...our laws should protect life and the choice is made at conception!! For those victims of rape, they are most certainly that, victims, and victims suffer. Whatever they and their doctors do and have done in the past long before Roe vs Wade is not something for a court to decide. Hating a person who holds a view that you feel is harmful is wrong. Hating the idealogy that he preaches is not. I think liberalism is short sighted. I think that liberals cannot see the end result of the positions that they take. Taxing the rich to 'save' the poor is a good example. That practice, when continued long enough makes two classes of people. The powerful, who will avoid the tax, remain rich. Everyone else will become poor. Theoretically, it sounds good, but study history and see who is right. That is just one example, but I don't have all night. But no, I don't hate liberals. I just believe that a close look at policy in light of history and truth will show us a better way.

Posted by Goldie on November 5, 2004 08:58 PM Link to comment

I confess I have little admiration for the view that people should die for their fellows without their own consent in the matter. Yes, if someone finds themselves in the position to voluntarily risk or give up their own life for their country or kin, that doing so is worthy of honor. I don't believe that makes it honorable to kill someone for the supposed benefit of their country or kin.

If you believe that the unaware and unconscious fetus who has never known a name or the color of the sky is a human being, then I suppose it makes a kind of sense to deprive a woman of sovereignty over her own body in order to preserve its life. We, as a society, don't really have a model for dealing with it when one person's life depends on the exploitation of another person's body. So I suppose that it is a defensible view that society should make a woman slave to the fetus gestates within her, provided that the fetus is thought to be a human being with a right to life. One ethical sense could lead us to conclude that the fetus' right to life included a right to the exploitation of a woman's body. Other ethical senses are possible. It has only been in the last hundred years or so that anyone ever thought of granting a fetus such rights....

But, if humanity means something more to you than a set of cells with the right number and kind of chromosomes, then it really doesn't make sense to create such a conflict by granting a right to life to any set of cells that meets that criterion. In that case "baby" is just an emotionally charged word with the same meaning as fetus, and includes both real human babies and pre-human fetuses.

In that context your statement below is merely an attempt to turn abortion into murder by making a fetus into a person:

I hate the idea that it is kinder to brutally kill a baby than to cost the mother an inconvenience or hardship.

In addition, I would respectfully suggest that a woman's right to control over her own body and what she will allow to grow in it is more than simply a "kindness". I would suggest that it bears a force nearer to the term "inaliable right". It is only if you consider a fetus as due such inaliable rights that a near-insoluble conflict arises. I don't think I've ever seen a reasonable justification for treating an early term fetus in this way. Can you give one?

Regarding the hate, considering what I know about you from real life, I don't think you are hateful by nature. But I also think you have passed up the opportunity to put yourself in others' shoes and try to understand how your life would be if you were shut out of the major cultural instituions of your society by people who enjoyed the fullest benefits of those same institutions.

Posted by smijer on November 5, 2004 09:48 PM Link to comment

So, you think you know me? I have learned a lot about you as well. One thing is clear, to argue with you is a pointless thing. You did ask me a question when you wrote:

"It is only if you consider a fetus as due such inaliable rights that a near-insoluble conflict arises. I don't think I've ever seen a reasonable justification for treating an early term fetus in this way. Can you give one?"

If I understand the question correctly, you are suggesting by your question that a woman or young girl should be able to enjoy the pleasures of sexual intercourse and disreqard the fact that the nature of life is such that sexual intercourse is specically designed for reproduction. When the reproduction occurs, the female, having "sovereign" rights over her body should have the freedom to have the fetus scraped or sucked out of the way in a similar fashion as one would have a piece of corn removed from the teeth after enjoying a succulent meal. This seems to be the general idea that you are asking me to accept. Now of course you are not stating it that bluntly. You want me to realize that the person eating the corn had a deprived childhood and had never had corn before. Besides, she was never taught that eating corn would result in some getting stuck in the teeth and therefore should not be held accountable for her actions. I know that young girls in America have been taught by entertainment media and by example of parents that the acceptable thing to do is sleep with your boy friend. If not on the first date, by all means, on the second or third. I know that many do not have traditional families and that they have not been taught traditional values. I know all the arguments. Because we have lost our moral compass in this country, unwanted pregnancy is at an all time high and yet....truth still remains truth. Here is truth. Sexual intercourse often results in conception. What is conceived is a child, a human child. The first ultra-sound of the fetus shows only one movement - a beating heart. The heart of a tiny baby. The baby is alive. The actions of two people have resulted in the conception of a child. The female is the one who will carry the child, however. A young teen may have the baby aborted and not realize until much later that what she did resulted in the death of her child. She may suffer emotional trauma at that time. She may never fully recover from the trauma. She may suffer from breast cancer due to the 'procedure'.In cases whe may become sterile and there are some instances where death occurs. All of this will have happened because we refuse to teach our children the truth. Not only to we not teach them, many of us refuse to let others teach them either.

Except in the rare exception of rape, a woman has the choice, sovereignty,(as you put it)to choose to conceive or to choose not to conceive. That is her right as a woman and a human being. If people, (I won't even use the term liberals) could just get that much of the truth into their thought process, that would be a beginning down the pathway of truth. If one could only understand that much, then could come the understanding that the only pregnant female who is a victim is a rape victim. Every other pregnant female has consented. With that consent comes the potential for pregnancy and with that potential comes sacrifice and responsiblity. Girls MUST be taught this if America is to overcome this sin of slaughtering our own young. That is obviously outside your realm of consciousness and all others who have chosen to call themselves pro-choice. Pro-abortion has such a nasty sound to it.

Posted by Goldie on November 6, 2004 10:02 AM Link to comment

If I understand the question correctly, you are suggesting by your question that a woman or young girl should be able to enjoy the pleasures of sexual intercourse and disreqard the fact that the nature of life is such that sexual intercourse is specically designed for reproduction.

Well, no... you didn't understand my question correctly. My question was this: why should we consider (for instance) a three week-old fetus to be due the inaliable right to life?

The reason I ask it is this: because I believe that every person is due an inaliable right to sovereignty over their own body, and I cannot understand how it is possible for you to ask for that right to be denied a woman with regards to incubating a fetus in her body unless you can give good cause for believing that the fetus is equally due an inaliable right to life.

While we're having this discussion, since you are talking so much of the "responsibility" you want to put on this person, let's at least give her the respect of calling her "woman" rather than the diminuitive "girl".

One other note - your family or relationships may not have had this issue, but non-consensual sex doesn't always wind up being recorded in the statistics as "rape." In our patriarchical society, non-consensual sex can occur in a marriage bed just as easily as it can in a darkened parking lot.

Posted by smijer on November 6, 2004 11:08 AM Link to comment

You know, the sin nature of man is such that non consensual sex does take place, even in the bed of marriage. It isn't always reported. It isn't always the choice of the female. Let me make my position crystal clear. I believe that life begins at the moment of conception. I believe that calling a girl 'a girl' is not diminuitive. I believe that accepting responsiblity for the life within her is a responsibilty all female's share. I believe that those who support candidates who have voted and will vote to keep abortion legal have a part in each abortion as it occurs. I believe that I will vote pro-life as long as there is a pro-life candidate on the ticket. I believe that many Americans share in my convictions. I believe that you can hate George Bush and call him a liar and a murderer. You can tell me that I have blood on my hands for voting for him and that your hands are lily white, but as the old song goes, "it ain't necessarily so!!!

Posted by Goldie on November 6, 2004 12:45 PM Link to comment

I understand, and to a degree, respect your beliefs. However your belief that humanity begins at conception is not supported by any understanding of nature that carries force of law, and your belief is therefore insufficient to make the moral responsibility of which you speak into a legal responsibility.

On the other hand, self determination is a legal right. You wish to impose your view of someone else's moral responsibility on that person through legal means, in contravention to their legal and fundamental rights. I have more respect for those who try to foster that sense of responsibility without legal coercion, since attempting to use legal coercion interferes with their more fundamental right to self determination and sovereignty over their own body.

I would tend to give your viewpoint more weight if I viewed a single cell as being the moral equivalent of a person, because then there would be another person's rights to take into consideration besides just my own moralizing about someone else's "responsibility".

I never said that my own hands were lily white. I'll take responsibility for my own hands. I'll defend my choices (just as I have done in this conversation). But, I'm also reminding others that they have responsibility for their choices. Bush does bear responsibilty for his choices and their consequences. We, as a nation, bear responsibility for endorsing his choices and their consequences. This is the "responsibility" thing that the right wingers say they care so much about, but seem unwilling to apply to themselves.

Posted by smijer on November 6, 2004 02:56 PM Link to comment

Have you ever visited this website. It contradicts so much of what your propaganda mills tell you. It appears non-partisan.

I am sure that since it does contradict some of the information on your web site you will consider it partisan, but at least read it and see for yourself.

http://www.vote-smart.org/issue_keyvote_detail.php?vote_id=3332&can_id=S0421103

Posted by Goldie on November 6, 2004 05:45 PM Link to comment

Here is the home page.

http://www.vote-smart.org/index.htm

Posted by Goldie on November 6, 2004 05:48 PM Link to comment

The 1997 fight created some unusual alliances. Two pro-life academics Stephen C. Meyer and David K. DeWolf wrote in the Wall Street Journal at the time that the Daschle amendment would have stopped more than 10,000 abortions each year. The writers declared, "For Americans who want to limit abortion on demand, a historic opportunity stands open in Congress. Whether pro-life legislators seize this opportunity will depend on whether they prefer symbolic victory or substantive reform."

Kerry supported the Daschle Amendment. GWB & the Republican congress supported the "symbolic victory". Republicans are very good at keeping wedge issues alive for future campaigns. You can win a lot of symbolic victories. Real victories cost can sometimes keep you from using the issue in the next election.

Posted by smijer on November 6, 2004 09:09 PM Link to comment

The site you sent me to was a religious commentary. To find out what really happened you need to find a site that has two things available. The wording of the bill in its entirety including all riders that are attached and the vote of every member of congress. I am still searching for that site.

Posted by Goldie on November 7, 2004 01:45 PM Link to comment

I found a site that may have the bill and I found a site that has the senate votes. I need the number of the bill. Here is Bill B-

#http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ105.108

Posted by Goldie on November 7, 2004 01:52 PM Link to comment