Thank you, Governer

[AZRedhawk44]

I would also bet you would find a similar pattern WRT Santorum, who hails from the Roman Catholic wing of Roman Catholicism.  Despite the Pope(1) being the anti-Christ (according to many denominations).

Oddly, it is the "intolerant" fundy folk who are more willing to overlook religious oddity than the "tolerant" secular crowd.

Santorum:  I don't care about his faith.  I care about how much of his own moral compass he's going to try to shove down my throat. 


Anyone else:  Same rule applies.  Stay out of marriage.  Leave teh gheyzors alone.  Attack abortion via technology and rebuilding the moral framework, not by the Lincoln-ian Statist temper tantrum.

[AZRedhawk44]

One last thing:

As long as children are a product of marriage and as long as married folk have stuff worth passing on to heirs, gov't will be involved in marriage.  "Getting the gov't out of marriage" would be about as practical and useful as "Getting the wet out of water."

You don't think gov't was involved in marriage in, say, the Middle Ages?  Think on it for about five minutes.

Private contracts can handle inheritance just fine.

[SADShooter]

Private contracts can handle inheritance just fine.

But not tax obligations. The family, beyond its moral or spiritual scope, is also an economic unit. As such, the tax man will have his say.

[AZRedhawk44]

But not tax obligations. The family, beyond its moral or spiritual scope, is also an economic unit. As such, the tax man will have his say.

Inheritance = property gain.

IRS has had no problem with property gain for quite some time.  They always seem to find their slice of the pie.

[zxcvbob]

Yep, many/most Christian denominations look at Mormonism as a non-Christian cult and are not shy about saying so.  Many were not shy about saying so WRT Romney. 

Thing is, Romney got a larger percentage of the so-con/"evangelical" vote or polled better than did McCain, who is Baptist.

I thought Romney's Mormonism was a big plus (nonChristian cult tho' it is.)  Some of their cultures and practices would serve us well -- like that years worth of savings and provisions thing.

[Strings]

KNEW I could count on someone to hit this...

>again.  If by ignoring them you mean trying to keep them from murdering unborn folks...<

You just demonstrated the point. You are SO caught on "save the unborn" you have nothing left for those already here and living in Hell.

If a quarter of the energy spent on trying to eliminate abortion was expended working on laws to protect currently living abused children, those kids would be in a MUCH better place.

But no... y'all find "fighting for the rights of the unborn" to much better: screw those snots that are getting beaten/raped/pimped out. So long as they weren't aborted, who gives a damn.

[RevDisk]

One last thing:

As long as children are a product of marriage and as long as married folk have stuff worth passing on to heirs, gov't will be involved in marriage. 

Fixed that for you.

Yes, govt has too often been involved in private religious ceremonies between consenting adults. Doesn't mean it's necessarily good or right.

[zahc]

Attack abortion via technology and rebuilding the moral framework, not by the Lincoln-ian Statist temper tantrum.

I don't understand what you are actually saying here. Can you explain?

[AZRedhawk44]

I don't understand what you are actually saying here. Can you explain?

When people have moral-imposing hissy fits, we get Civil Wars.  The Civil War was avoidable by allowing technology and evolution of the economic environment to do its thing.

Similarly, abortion has exploded in popularity as a service, for two reasons:
1. Medical advancement has made it a very safe procedure for the mother (previously it was extremely dangerous and practiced by people with dubious medical backgrounds)
2. Destruction of the nuclear family and established common moral centers.  Particularly the growth of the public school system.


For the record: I hate abortion.  It's a vile practice, I won't date anyone who has ever had one, and I would feel betrayed if anyone I was dating had an abortion while dating me.  It's a conversation I have with anyone I date if the relationship appears to be worth more than a few dates.


Abortion is not needed, if people use the following things, though:
1. Condoms.  Duh.
2. The Pill.  Duh.
3. Morning After Pill, if #1 and #2 aren't in place. 

Some religious fundamentalists have a strong dislike for all of the above, and some only have a dislike for #3, seeing it as different than 1 and 2.  #3 just makes the uterus chemically incapable of allowing implantation of the fertilized egg into the uterus walls, and I think it also may do something to discourage conception in the first place but I'm not sure about that.

While I find abortion disgusting, the notion of a zygote of blastocyst not being allowed to find ground to attach to the potential mother is not that big of a deal.  Before it implants in the walls, it's still usually a single cell.


So, science is helping in this regard.

Also, I'm a child of a broken marriage.  I've seen what damned smelly hippies do with their repercussionless lifestyles.  The current out-of-wedlock numbers will self-correct, much like political numbers also self-correct.  The dirty unwashed hippie period marks a generation of unimaginable decadence.  While John Adams was an authoritarian statist putz of the 9th order, this quote of his is rather pertinent:

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

And those children that studied poetry and music, had children that studied pot and LSD and Bob Dylan. [/shudder]

We'll revert to a generation of people that study the fundamentals, to rebuild the base.

However I will not condone the use of the State to commit murder in the name of selective moral compasses, even if they happen to be coincidentally in tune, or close to tune, of mine.

[lupinus]

But not tax obligations. The family, beyond its moral or spiritual scope, is also an economic unit. As such, the tax man will have his say.

So while we are at it, stop social engineering via the tax code too. If it's going to be an income tax pick a flat rate and use the same rate for everyone. Better yet, tax via consumption instead of income and the issue further resolves itself.

KNEW I could count on someone to hit this...

>again.  If by ignoring them you mean trying to keep them from murdering unborn folks...<

You just demonstrated the point. You are SO caught on "save the unborn" you have nothing left for those already here and living in Hell.

If a quarter of the energy spent on trying to eliminate abortion was expended working on laws to protect currently living abused children, those kids would be in a MUCH better place.

But no... y'all find "fighting for the rights of the unborn" to much better: screw those snots that are getting beaten/raped/pimped out. So long as they weren't aborted, who gives a damn.

So murdering entire swaths of people just because they've never seen the light of day is OK, because shitball parents sometimes abuse their kids? WTF kind of bassackwards argument is that?

And AZ, I just don't see your logic working. The more accepted abortion gets the more and more often we see it used as just another form of birth control. There's no incentive if you can just do a little spot vacuuming. 

[AZRedhawk44]

Lupinus, abortion isn't accepted.  The popular majority disapproves of it.

But the popular majority hasn't made up their collective conscience on exactly HOW bad it is.

And when we sic the State on it, we condemn its practitioners to death if they feel the practice of it is a justifiable form of civil disobedience or demonstration.


That whole "democracy is two wolves and a lamb" thing swings both ways.  And I know you are thinking that the lamb is actually the unborn fetus, and I am also.  But in this case I guess it's two wolves, and a pregnant lamb. 

Regardless, here we're the wolves. 

And it's inappropriate to act like it, because we're better than that.

[lupinus]

So you would contend that since it's legalization it hasn't become drastically more accepted?

There's nothing more "statist" about using the law to protect the unborn then there is anyone else.

[charby]

So how does the prolife group feel about the death penalty?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

So how does the prolife group feel about the death penalty?

thats a tuff one

i'll give em the hot shot myself    see no similarity in the two types of killing

[AZRedhawk44]

[redacted]

[zxcvbob]

So how does the prolife group feel about the death penalty?

I'm against it... but mainly because the State is imperfect in its judgement, whether by corruption or incompetence or just simple human failure.  Too many people are being proven innocent of crimes they were convicted of years ago.

The government does have to power of the sword* (and wields it poorly IMHO) but that is hardly an apt analogy for abortion since the unborn baby hasn't been convicted of *anything*.  [Why has nobody raised a 14th Amendment legal objection to abortion -- lack of standing since we have all been born?]

*Romans 13:4

[lupinus]

So how does the prolife group feel about the death penalty?

In cases where there can be no doubt of the guilt of the convicted, of serious enough crimes, then I'm all for it. I'd even say we drag out the process far to much and could apply it to more crimes than we currently do.

But the two are frankly apples and oranges, and a pretty piss poor straw man comparison. The human being sucked out of the womb hasn't done a thing to warrant it's killing other than existing, almost exclusively as the result of the consensual actions of the person it's being sucked out of. When you show me a baby that has committed an act worthy of execution, then I'll have no problem with it being summarily executed at the wishes of it's female parent. Short of that, I have major issues with the government condoned killing of, on average, 3500+ people per day just because they haven't crossed some arbitrary number of days in the womb before it's mother decides if it should die.

[Strings]

>So murdering entire swaths of people just because they've never seen the light of day is OK, because shitball parents sometimes abuse their kids? WTF kind of bassackwards argument is that?<

False dichotomy.

You are arguing that the unborn (for whom we have no idea what their lives would be like) are more deserving of your time and effort to protect than those that HAVE been born, but are victims. I'm going to guess that this is because the leaders of the Religious Right have decreed that abortion is sinful/unGodly/evil... while they are incredibly silent on the subject of children (who are already completely separate entities: don't hear folks arguing that a 9 year old is a not a person) who are subjected to all manner of abuse.

I stand by my statement: you will "fight for the rights of the unborn", while ignoring the abuse of children all across our country.

1 in 5 boys, and 1 in 3 girls, have been the victim of sexual abuse. Let's round that to 1 in 4 kids.

Looking at what info my weak Google-fu can find, we had 75,000,000 children in the US as of 2010. That gives us 18,750,000 victims of child sexual abuse (JUST sexual abuse)

The only figure I can find for the number of abortions was for 2008: 1.21 million

Pardon me if I don't get all weepy about "the murder of the unborn" when we can't bloody protect the kids we have already

I NEVER stated that abortion was "ok because shitball parents sometimes abuse their kids". I said I don;t give a good damn about the abortion issue, because we have a MUCH bigger issue to deal with: MANY much bigger issues face our country, really.

But again: folks are so hung up on "save the unborn!" and "Marriage is between Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!"

[Marnoot]

How does putting effort into opposing abortion hurt the effort to end child abuse? Your argument isn't any different than the argument of "Why are we putting money into space exploration when there's still poverty and war on earth?" It's not a zero-sum game. One can oppose abortion, fight child abuse, and volunteer/donate to both. Those that don't wouldn't suddenly start giving more to child abuse causes if abortion ended.

If someone that opposes abortion but doesn't care about child abuse stopped opposing abortion, do you think they'd suddenly start fighting child abuse? I know plenty of people who care about both, and put efforts into both; those that don't wouldn't regardless. The former cause doesn't rob the latter.

[lupinus]

>So murdering entire swaths of people just because they've never seen the light of day is OK, because shitball parents sometimes abuse their kids? WTF kind of bassackwards argument is that?<

False dichotomy.

You are arguing that the unborn (for whom we have no idea what their lives would be like) are more deserving of your time and effort to protect than those that HAVE been born, but are victims. I'm going to guess that this is because the leaders of the Religious Right have decreed that abortion is sinful/unGodly/evil... while they are incredibly silent on the subject of children (who are already completely separate entities: don't hear folks arguing that a 9 year old is a not a person) who are subjected to all manner of abuse.

I stand by my statement: you will "fight for the rights of the unborn", while ignoring the abuse of children all across our country.

1 in 5 boys, and 1 in 3 girls, have been the victim of sexual abuse. Let's round that to 1 in 4 kids.

Looking at what info my weak Google-fu can find, we had 75,000,000 children in the US as of 2010. That gives us 18,750,000 victims of child sexual abuse (JUST sexual abuse)

The only figure I can find for the number of abortions was for 2008: 1.21 million

Pardon me if I don't get all weepy about "the murder of the unborn" when we can't bloody protect the kids we have already

I NEVER stated that abortion was "ok because shitball parents sometimes abuse their kids". I said I don;t give a good damn about the abortion issue, because we have a MUCH bigger issue to deal with: MANY much bigger issues face our country, really.

But again: folks are so hung up on "save the unborn!" and "Marriage is between Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!"

Are you serious? Or are you just off of your *expletive deleted*ing rocker?

[zxcvbob]

When you show me a baby that has committed an act worthy of execution, then I'll have no problem with it being summarily executed a

There was a movie about that; came out in 1974: "It's Alive!"   I had no idea when I watched it in the theater that it was compelling social commentary -- about the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, I guess.

(this gives me an excuse to watch it again) :D

"Another one's just been born in Seattle"

[charby]

In cases where there can be no doubt of the guilt of the convicted, of serious enough crimes, then I'm all for it. I'd even say we drag out the process far to much and could apply it to more crimes than we currently do.

But the two are frankly apples and oranges, and a pretty piss poor straw man comparison. The human being sucked out of the womb hasn't done a thing to warrant it's killing other than existing, almost exclusively as the result of the consensual actions of the person it's being sucked out of. When you show me a baby that has committed an act worthy of execution, then I'll have no problem with it being summarily executed at the wishes of it's female parent. Short of that, I have major issues with the government condoned killing of, on average, 3500+ people per day just because they haven't crossed some arbitrary number of days in the womb before it's mother decides if it should die.

So why is the life of a person convicted of a heinous crime worth less than that of a human offspring that happens to be in utero?

[Perd Hapley]

So why is the life of a person convicted of a heinous crime worth less than that of a human offspring that happens to be in utero?

Why is the liberty of a person convicted of a heinous crime worth less than yours?

[zxcvbob]

So why is the life of a person convicted of a heinous crime worth less than that of a human offspring that happens to be in utero?

Why is the liberty of a person convicted of a heinous crime worth less than yours?  [charby's]

What does relative worth have to do with anything?  

The person who commits a heinous crime's life is precious; too bad he wasted it.  It does however mean we need to be careful with defining the threshold for "heinous".  

[Strings]

>Are you serious? Or are you just off of your *expletive deleted* rocker?< (and others)

Oh, I realize that it's not a zero sum game. That said...

I don't see or hear any of the folks who are oh so vocal about protecting the unborn saying or doing jack about protecting the already born. Ever.

You would THINK that laws to protect kids would be a no-brainer... but there are so few actually pushing for them. So the only conclusion I can reach (in my "off my *expletive deleted* rocker" way) is that the folks so concerned about kids have exhausted themselves on the abortion issue...

So sorry if my crazy ramblings have offended you, in your stalwart defense of children (well... some of them).