Republican Sharia Law

[redfox]

My feelings aren't hurt, I am disapponted by your disrespectful language. Done here now.

[peggy]

My feelings aren't hurt, I am disapponted by your disrespectful language. Done here now.

redfox, I do appreciate you watching our backs here, but I do honestly think Alan was just engaging in 'spirited banter'. To be truthful, he does sound a bit condescending in that post, but not really over the top. But, just wait for my answer, and I'll return in kind.

[peggy]

Damned Gosh Darned Republicans. Standing up for the 2nd Amendment and suggesting local legislation to make sure people know that there may be a living baby rather than a simple clump of cells prior to destroying it.

You're right! The War on Wimmenses Women continues unabated.





Edited in order to ensure appreciation.

Cause, those slutty sluts aren't smart enough to know what pregnancy means, right? They probably think it's a puppy or something...Sheesh! Women sure are stoopid!!

[Alan]

Cause, those slutty sluts aren't smart enough to know what pregnancy means, right? They probably think it's a puppy or something...Sheesh! Women sure are stoopid!!

LOL, I'll let you sucker me into something like this once, but you can't make me do anything more that's gonna get me sent to bed without supper.

[bae]

Is it possible for all of us to frame this conversation in adult language?

It does not seem a likely outcome, given the title and tone of the initial post.

Pardon me now, I must finish composing my "Democrats Eat Kittenz" thread.

[peggy]

It does not seem a likely outcome, given the title and tone of the initial post.

Pardon me now, I must finish composing my "Democrats Eat Kittenz" thread.

Hey, as long as you have links dude, go for it!

[peggy]

LOL, I'll let you sucker me into something like this once, but you can't make me do anything more that's gonna get me sent to bed without supper.

Well, you might get supper, but it will be served by a woman in a burka, if you live in Wisconsin.
I can't believe any reasonable "keep government out of my private life" republican would support this.
Do you actually support this Alan? Do you think this is a reasonable government action? Or do civil rights only apply to men?
Maybe men should have a trans-penile probe before they...well, you know, 'spill their seed, so to speak, starting at about, oh, 12 or so?

[bUU]

Is it possible for all of us to frame this conversation in adult language?

I think that a lot of issues these days, such as those that peggy raised, break down these days in a similar manner: On the one side is an assertion of human decency, social conscience and/or civil progress, and on the other side is an assertion of self-interest, personal entitlement, or reactionary preference. Those priorities tend to seem more brusque by their very nature.

[LDAHL]

On the one side is an assertion of human decency, social conscience and/or civil progress, and on the other side is an assertion of self-interest, personal entitlement, or reactionary preference.

I think the primary problem with this view is that almost everyone considers themselves to be in the first group rather than the second. Is the "assertion of human decency" made more authoritatively by those who hold with the woman's right to choose or the child's right to live? By the need to provide government benefits or the need to maintain a functioning economy? By the advocates of privacy or the advocates for security?

There are many conflicting priorities and interests that a democracy needs to balance, and making the assumption that one's side of any particular issue is the only true and moral position strikes me as naive at best and arrogant at worst.

[bUU]

I think the primary problem with this view is that almost everyone considers themselves to be in the first group rather than the second.

I don't think so. When push comes to shove, and we talk about the motivations behind the first side versus the second side, the arguments set forth by the second side are challenges to the assertion that such tenets of decency, conscience, or progress are their concern. For example, in discussions about universal healthcare, those opposed present the argument, "We shouldn't have to pay more because other people don't have enough to pay for their own," i.e., an assertion of self-interest, personal entitlement and reactionary preference. They don't make a cogent, defensible argument (for example) that, "Those who cannot afford healthcare are better-off without it," or that, "Society is better off with people who cannot afford healthcare dying in the streets."

Is the "assertion of human decency" made more authoritatively by those who hold with the woman's right to choose or the child's right to live?

You may have hit on the only major issue for which the reactionary preference itself has some rational claim to decency. (To be clear, it must be recognized as a valid claim, for the reasons you implied, even though we may personally reject the notion.) This is more of a traditional dispute - where, because there isn't a side that prevails on the basis of the decency versus self-interest test that I alluded to earlier, the ethic of reciprocity and the locus of personal privilege should prevail.

By the need to provide government benefits or the need to maintain a functioning economy?

The problem with this assertion is that the former is real - there is no question about the impact of inadequate healthcare - while the claim that an economy couldn't function has been claimed before about the economy the way it is now. It's just something people say because they are desperately trying to defend self-interest or personal entitlement, and they need a defense for their perspective that cannot be proven wrong because it is an assertion of something that they claim would happen.

By the advocates of privacy or the advocates for security?

Which side is on which side of that debate, though?

There are many conflicting priorities and interests that a democracy needs to balance, and making the assumption that one's side of any particular issue is the only true and moral position strikes me as naive at best and arrogant at worst.

That's different from saying, though, that the other side's position is definitively indecent, antisocial, and/or regressive. There are indeed many possible paths forward, but the specific comments that peggy's comments are confronted with most often are distinctly tainted by those maladies of self-interest, personal entitlement, or reactionary preference. There may be other sides that are indeed defensible approaches. As a matter of fact, I think those distinctions would return to the stage if the abject self-serving perspective lost its place in society. Those distinctions even exist, albeit less attention is paid to it, within the rest of society. A good example of this was seen during the Occupy demonstrations, when different shades of socially-conscious perspective debated with each other.