Wednesday, February 25, 2009
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"Oh Shit! ... GMO Food Sterilizes People ... And It's Really A Form of Population Control?"
"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."
Alexander King, Bertrand Schneider - founder Club of Rome - The First Global Revolution, pp.104-105
"In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill ... All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."
GET A CHICK...
Were We All Kunta Kinte? Or Are We Also Mansa Musa?
Barry Goldwater 1909-1998
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. "
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad
"It Is Easier To Change A Man's Religion Than It Is To Change His Diet"
Private Prison Industry
2,000,000 human beings in American prisons and counting
IS THIS LITTLE GUY A PERSON?
The founders of the American state understood that the proper functioning of a democracy required an educated electorate. It is this understanding that justifies a system of public education and that led slaveholders to resist the spread of literacy among their chattels. But the meaning of "educated" has changed beyond recognition in two hundred years. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are no longer sufficient to decide on public policy. Now we need quantum mechanics and molecular biology. The knowledge required for political rationality, once available to the masses, is now in the possession of a specially educated elite, a situation that creates a series of tensions and contradictions in the operation of representative democracy.
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
Margaret Sanger. Woman, Morality, and Birth Control. New York: New York Publishing Company, 1922. P
"We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
Louis Pasteur
"The Microbe is nothing. The terrain is everything."
Beverly Johnson. Beverly Hills. 1978
"Bra! Tell Me About It!"
"Most of the trouble I have had in advancing the cause of the race has come from Negroes."
Ted Turner - CNN founder and UN supporter - quoted in the The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, June '
"A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal."
Lord Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science On Society (Routledge Press: New York, 1951).
"At present the population of the world is increasing at about 58,000 per diem. War, so far, has had no very great effect on this increase, which continued throughout each of the world wars.. War has hitherto been disappointing in this respect, but perhaps bacteriological war may prove effective. If a Black Death could spread throughout the world once in every generation, survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full. The state of affairs might be unpleasant, but what of it?"
Denmark Vesey For President 08
1. Troops Out Of Iraq Immediately. Like By Monday. 2. Money Owed To Haliburton and War Contractors Be Given Directly To The Iraqi People 3. Complete Electoral Reform 4. No Corporate Conglomerate Will Be Allowed To Control More Than 5% Of News Market 5. Federal Reserve Abolished 6. For-Profit Prison Industry Abolished
*George Orwell (1903-1950) English novelist, critic
Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness... If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear... The great enemy of clear language is insincerity... The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it... To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle... For a creative writer possession of the truth is less important than emotional sincerity.
“The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society will be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values.” – Zbigniew Brzezinski
God Don't Make No Mistakes
Gordon Parks 1912-2006
"I suffered evils, but without allowing them to rob me of the freedom to expand."
Great Grandmother Harris
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47 comments:
Why Denmark Vesey, you madcap.
Tell me that in this post - and in your planned parenthood post - you didn't make bald-faced appeals to group identity politics?!?!?!
The extent of your unselfconscious, plantation-negro hypocrisy is breathtaking brah!!!
Casper, you can stick a fork in him now, after this morning's ass-showings - I'm quite certain he's done.
rotflmbao...,
Time to lighten the mood.
Watch this and try not to laugh.
"Tell me that in this post - and in your planned parenthood post - you didn't make bald-faced appeals to group identity politics?!?!?!" CNulan
What?
Nah, nerd. You reaching again.
This post simply documents what you pretend not to see:
Secular fanatics put black men in prison for violence against dogs while celebrating doctors who commit violence against 6 month old human fetuses.
I mean ... come on CNu.
What's the devil gotta do, put on a red suit and horns before you recognize?
What up Gray?
You aint lying. Talking about abortion can fuuug up somebody's morning can't it?
But somebody gotta stand up to the Secular fanatics sacrificing human babies at the alter of Baal while calling it "A Woman's Right To Choose".
G.T.F.O.H.
yeah man. peeped the Family Guy piece.
didn't find it particularly funny.
not because it mocked abortion. (I have the capacity to laugh till tears come down my face about things I hold dear.)
Just didn't strike me as all that funny. What I miss?
I mean ... come on CNu.
What's the devil gotta do, put on a red suit and horns before you recognize?
I'm.looking.at.him...,
You my boy and all DV, and I love you like a play cousin, but if you insist on a gunfight - and show up with a little dog and stick - don't act all surprised with your lip stuck out - when pointing in my direction and saying "bang, bang" gets you blasted...,
Blasted?
Stop CNu. Consider this spanking a favor. Kind of an extension of what I do for Casper.
Bust em in the head with the observable truth as an act of love.
You are on the blog arguing that the destruction of a fetus is a "good".
I'm arguing that the unnecessary destruction of human life is not only bad, it is an intentional affront against humanity and God.
You argue that anyone with my position is a bibtard ... fundamentalist ... yada yada.
I say kiss my bibtard ass. Fuck the name calling. Let's stick to the subject of destroying unborn life.
But ... if you want to play that game. It can go both ways.
Now I don't know if some white boys kicked your ass when you were a kid out there in Kansas or if some religious fanatics did something else to you, but you are carrying a chip on your shoulder that is clouding your vision and aint got a gotdamn thing to do with the subject at hand.
DV
"I'm arguing that the unnecessary destruction of human life is not only bad, it is an intentional affront against humanity and God."
Is it unnecessary destruction of human life when pimps are outsourcing hoes for unsafe sex for greenbacks? Is it unnecessary destruction of life when drug lords are slinging crack to their community? Is it unnecessary destruction of life when bloods and crips roll through Comptom blasting firearms, Wu Tang and Death Row! Or is all of this behavior protected from your ridicule because it's promoters and their lyrics, videos and bank accounts allow them to skate board along side you in the hills of Belair?! While the Jews you so hate also disproportionately profit!?
Was the real Denmark Vesey only concerned about some slaves and their freedom!? Or was he influenced by house versus field negro identity politics!?
Your moral compass needs repair!
-Kill Dogs Go To Jail Kill Babies Get Federal Funds
-More Black Children Die In Abortion Clinics Than Were Lost During The TransAtlantic Slave Trade
-The Arrogant Ignorance of Secular Jihad
-If Objecting To The Destruction of A Child Before It Is Born Makes Me A "Bibtard", Well Kiss My Bibtard Ass
-Scientific Fundamentalism - Why Are They So Eager To Kill Babies?
-Simply Elegant
As I read through the comments that were made on each of these entries, I've come to the conclusion that you guys are beating a dead horse and that conversations dealing with this subject invariably fail to take the form of a conversation and quickly devolve into a full-on shouting match.
Perhaps this issue necessarily permits no rational debate to take place.
The quality and tone of comments that appear over the course of these six entries proves that this topic is irredeemably toxic. The fact of this toxicity shouldn't prevent us from speaking on it, but I find that the way in which the issue is framed and the terms by which it is bracketed does not help me think about the issue.
[secularism] toxic content [fundamentalism]
Each side has dug in their heels and are now lobbing rhetorical bombs from their respective fox holes. I'm all for a good argument, but I don't think that any sort of "resolution" is possible here given the fact that the conversation has now descended mostly to the level of digital 'oneupsmanship'.
I'm sure that this comment won't be the end of it, but consider this: What will anyone have gained in terms of increasing their understanding or grasp of the issue after the final comment is published? Will any sort of consensus have been reached, or will each party retreat to their respective corners after having declared themselves the "winner" of the conversation? Is a "consensus" or "resolution" even possible here? Will anyone have been convinced to alter their beliefs, and if so, based upon what?
You are on the blog arguing that the destruction of a fetus is a "good".
Unless you're prepared to shoulder the costs of bringing that fetus to term, assume the responsibility for parenting it to adulthood, I don't see as how you have any skin in the game.
I'm arguing that the unnecessary destruction of human life is not only bad, it is an intentional affront against humanity and God.
First, you haven't defined "human life" but have instead played an applause-seeking semantic game with it. Being the memetic artist that you are, supporting your "argument" with an endless panoply of pictures and words but constantly ducking a firm definition - is not an argument. It's a polemic.
Is it a blastomere, a fetus, an unborn child, etc., etc., etc....,
Second, since neither you, nor I, or your nasty little dogs - is EVER going to be pregnant and the sole support of a child - how is it that you presume such an egregious affront against womanity?!?!?!
Help me understand that level of egotistic presumption magne?
You argue that anyone with my position is a bibtard ... fundamentalist ... yada yada.
You haven't yet articulated a definite position brah. When you get around to clearly articulating your belief about the moment of "ensoulment", i.e., when that unborn potential has something in it that you unambiguously define as "human" - then - and only then - do we have the makings of an argument.
Now I don't know if some white boys kicked your ass when you were a kid out there in Kansas or if some religious fanatics did something else to you, but you are carrying a chip on your shoulder that is clouding your vision and aint got a gotdamn thing to do with the subject at hand.
C'mon DV, you know me well enough to know that I'm not in the least bit arbitrary or ambiguous about target selection and servicing. Which is why I emphasize to you over and over again, the absolute futility of putting your dogs out in front of you for purpose of applause-seeking or rhetorical gamesmanship. I have nothing whatsoever to discuss with them...,
When I saw my daughter's heart beating 7 weeks in the womb, there was no question that what was growing inside me was a life.
With regard to affronts to womanity, abortion is one of the greatest. Convincing a woman to kill her own child has to be one of the most evil things that one can do to rob a woman of her soul.
I've never met a woman who had an abortion and isn't haunted by it years and decades later. If it were a mere blob of cells, she would think nothing of it, like having a tooth pulled. But the guilt and eternal gnawing at the soul is haunting. Resort to haughty scientific rationalizations and crafty political sloganeering do nothing to save those women from their misdeeds.
The Negro Project
In 1929, 10 years before Sanger created the Negro Project, the ABCL laid the groundwork for a clinic in Harlem, a largely black section of New York City. It was the dawn of the Great Depression, and for blacks that meant double the misery. Blacks faced harsher conditions of desperation and privation because of widespread racial prejudice and discrimination. From the ABCL's perspective, Harlem was the ideal place for this “experimental clinic,” which officially opened on November 21, 1930. Many blacks looked to escape their adverse circumstances and therefore did not recognize the eugenic undercurrent of the clinic.
That blacks endured extreme prejudice and discrimination, which contributed greatly to their plight, seemed to further justify restricting their numbers. Many believed the solution lay in reducing reproduction. Sanger suggested the answer to poverty and degradation lay in smaller numbers of blacks. She convinced black civic groups in Harlem of the “benefits” of birth control, under the cloak of “better health” (i.e., reduction of maternal and infant death; child spacing) and “family planning.” So with their cooperation, and the endorsement of The Amsterdam News (a prominent black newspaper), Sanger established the Harlem branch of the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau.21 The ABCL told the community birth control was the answer to their predicament.
Abortion = eugenics.
If we are talking about affronts to womanity, abortion reflects one of the greatest affronts to Black womanity in history. Women fought through slavery to keep their children only to get "freedom" and be convinced to kill them. Wow.
I'm sure that this comment won't be the end of it, but consider this: What will anyone have gained in terms of increasing their understanding or grasp of the issue after the final comment is published? Will any sort of consensus have been reached, or will each party retreat to their respective corners after having declared themselves the "winner" of the conversation? Is a "consensus" or "resolution" even possible here? Will anyone have been convinced to alter their beliefs, and if so, based upon what?
You're a good man Gray.
We resolved it on the phone.
From where I sit, it boils down to some very simple issues.
1. At what point does a potential human become a full-blown human?
2. How does the humaneness of medical abortion compare with other more ritualized modes of collective population self-limiting, e.g., japanese feudalism, aztec heart removal, WW-II, etc?
3. Who exercises final agency over a woman's bodily prerogatives?
When I saw my daughter's heart beating 7 weeks in the womb, there was no question that what was growing inside me was a life.
You also play host to vastly more numerous (more cells than your body has cells) and genetically diverse epiphytes - on which your life depends - and for which you've evolved an appendix - than of your own genetic and cellular material.
As a strictly factual matter, given the composite nature of the human organism, perhaps you should entertain the possibility that your intestines contain the raison d'etre of your existence Dina.
Perhaps a bad case of dysentary is the moral equivalent of an early term abortion?
With regard to affronts to womanity, abortion is one of the greatest. Convincing a woman to kill her own child has to be one of the most evil things that one can do to rob a woman of her soul.
Do YOU know what seigneurial privileges were and how these were exercised/imposed up through the end of slavery?
I've never met a woman who had an abortion and isn't haunted by it years and decades later. If it were a mere blob of cells, she would think nothing of it, like having a tooth pulled. But the guilt and eternal gnawing at the soul is haunting. Resort to haughty scientific rationalizations and crafty political sloganeering do nothing to save those women from their misdeeds.
Please let us know when you've established the II orphanage and are prepared to adopt, raise and parent all these unwanted lives.
Abortion = eugenics.
If we are talking about affronts to womanity, abortion reflects one of the greatest affronts to Black womanity in history. Women fought through slavery to keep their children only to get "freedom" and be convinced to kill them. Wow.
Medical abortion is far and away the safest and most humane mode of collective human population self-limiting known to the species - and one in which individual choice remains intact.
When humans, most other primates, and many other mammalian vertebrates overshoot their environment's ability to support population, what do understand them to do to correct the imbalance?
When humans, most other primates, and many other mammalian vertebrates overshoot their environment's ability to support population, what do understand them to do to correct the imbalance?
Nature has wonderful mechanisms of population control such as droughts, earthquakes, tsunamis, famine and disease. Who needs abortion when one potato famine confirms that Mother Nature remains head honcho and is the ultimate arbiter of what the correct population size should be?
Please let us know when you've established the II orphanage and are prepared to adopt, raise and parent all these unwanted lives.
This is a non sequitur.
Whether I open an orphanage or not doesn't change the guilt that haunts the women who choose to murder their own children. Indeed, should you wish to substantively address my point, I look forward to receiving the announcement of the opening of the CNulan psychiatry clinic to help women who murder their babies cope with the terminal spiritual pain they suffer.
As a strictly factual matter, given the composite nature of the human organism, perhaps you should entertain the possibility that your intestines contain the raison d'etre of your existence Dina.
Perhaps, but my intestines will never grow to have a beautiful face and a heart-warming giggle.
Perhaps a bad case of dysentary is the moral equivalent of an early term abortion?
When your poop has a beating heart 7 weeks after hanging out in your large intestine, let me know. :-)
"When I saw my daughter's heart beating 7 weeks"
This is because the soul supposedly doesn't enter the blob of cells until 7 weeks.
Therefore, maybe that's where the line should be drawn, if one must draw one.
Anyhow, are all the Christians protesting abortions also protesting our genocide of 1.3 million Iraqis and Israel's Gazacide? Or are they quietly applauding such actions against anti-Zionist forces?
Still don't know or couldn't even google to find the meaning of seigneurial privilege, eh?
It's kind of like the subject matter of La Sorciere, too hot for public circulation or consumption in orthodox history even up through the modern era.
Indeed, should you wish to substantively address my point,
Which was what?
The fact of the matter is that Francis Schaeffer and the folks that backed him did a spectacular job of engineering that psychological turnabout. That you, a highly educated, well-informed, and intelligent woman don't know where that meme war started and what it was started for - is a tribute to the cunning of those dominionist arch manipulators.
Traditional abortifacient knowledge and technique would have rendered that entire enterprise moot, but then, the feudal and ecclesiastical powers that be exterminated such knowhow over the course of the Inquisition. Quite a few traditional cultures have known how to safely induce abortion, no guilt, no shame, just pragmatic control over a bodily function - little different than what women undergo with their use of so-called feminine hygiene products.
I wonder how many women could be guilted into despair over their elective use of tampons and sanitary napkins?
Perhaps, but my intestines will never grow to have a beautiful face and a heart-warming giggle.
Perhaps poopamadre views her brood rather differently, eh?
Anyway - now that we've gotten down to the warm and fuzzy tootsie roll center of YOUR specific strain of magical thinking Dina, (and that other person whom you chided so sternly on the abrogation of personal responsiblity) perhaps you would be so kind as to painlessly indulge a little something more entertaining that provoked me to look at the reality of the situation rather differently many years ago.
Or not, it's up to you.
Two short stories submitted for your consideration.
Oh, and lest you thought I was joking about your appendix;
Maintaining gut flora
Although it was long accepted that the immune tissue, called gut associated lymphoid tissue, surrounding the appendix and elsewhere in the gut carries out a number of important functions, explanations were lacking for the distinctive shape of the appendix and its apparent lack of importance as judged by an absence of side-effects following appendectomy. [8] William Parker, Randy Bollinger, and colleagues at Duke University proposed that the appendix serves as a haven for useful bacteria when illness flushes those bacteria from the rest of the intestines.[9][10] This proposal is based on a new understanding of how the immune system supports the growth of beneficial intestinal bacteria,[11][12] in combination with many well-known features of the appendix, including its architecture and its association with copious amounts of immune tissue. Such a function is expected to be useful in a culture lacking modern sanitation and healthcare practice, where diarrhea may be prevalent.[10] Current epidemiological data[13] show that diarrhea is one of the leading causes of death in developing countries, indicating that a role of the appendix as an aid in recovering beneficial bacteria following diarrhea may be extremely important in the absence of modern health and sanitation practices.[10]
One wonders, given a specialized adaptation such as that, why - if it's so terribly important - don't you have a spare uterus? Cause it's some major shit to have an organ specifically structured as a backup in the event that you suffer a catastrophic shit!
From where I sit, it boils down to some very simple issues.
1. At what point does a potential human become a full-blown human?
I tend to leave the question of what constitutes a full-blown human out of it and instead focus on the potentiality aspect of the thing. Call it what you will: a fetus, an embryo, a glob of cells, etc., but that glob of cells essentially represents some sort of potentiality. The question of when "life" or "ensoulment" begins has got to be one of the sharpest stumbling blocks that trips us up on our way to a reasonable conclusion. We need a new way to speak about the issue. Instead of looking at a clump of cells and asking, "Is this a human?", we should ask instead, "Is this a potentiality?"; "What are the possible things which this clump of cells could grow into?"
2. How does the humaneness of medical abortion compare with other more ritualized modes of collective population self-limiting, e.g., japanese feudalism, aztec heart removal, WW-II, etc?
I've never thought of it terms of what goes on at the societal level. I think of it terms of individuals who have made a definite reproductive decision in the form of a personal resolution: "Be it so resolved that I do not want a child at this time." It's my belief that the state cannot criminalize this personal resolution such that individuals become cut off from all abandonment/termination options. The state is wholly incapable of preventing people from concocting homemade saline solutions so long as the availability of salt and water is pretty much ubiquitous.
If a state declares that abortions are no longer legal, it will only affect the practice and availability of standardized medical abortions; the statute will be wholly unenforceable when it comes to a determined and resolute individual who is dead-set on jettisoning the payload using a saline solution in their bathroom.
I accept the legitimacy of abortions to the extend that people are going to to what they want to do anyway. You may not agree with abortions in principal and may want to pass laws to that effect, but you can't prevent Shelly from obtaining salt and water once her mind is made up. The question is then, what sort of crude methods will people resort to if standardized medical abortions are no longer made available?
3. Who exercises final agency over a woman's bodily prerogatives?
The woman—and ultimately, if a woman is determined not to carry a child to term, she will eventually find a way to get rid of it regardless of whether there are officially sanctioned avenues available to her or not.
I operate under the assumption that people are going to do what they want to do without any regard for third party objections, i.e., the personal resolution that I mentioned. Prior to standardized medical abortions I would imagine that the homemade solution was sufficiently effective in carrying out the resolution and was done completely independent of the supervision of a trained medical professional.
However, here is where we may differentiate between the realization that resolute individuals will manage to jettison the payload through whatever crude means are available to them (which establishes what we refer to as "abortion" as a fact of reality) versus the question of the legitimacy of a sustained public campaign that engages in the proactive promotion of abortion as a first alternative and which receives its funding from one or more interested groups. I tend to believe that such a sustained public campaign is what DV is primarily railing against, and not so much the reality of abortion in-and-of-itself.
Well, well, well CNulan, the point that I made quite clearly and that you have conspicuously dodged, is the haunting, anti-spirit, evil nature of abortion.
You tell DV "since neither you, nor I, or your nasty little dogs - is EVER going to be pregnant and the sole support of a child - how is it that you presume such an egregious affront against womanity?!?!?!"
Well, since you will never be pregnant and never have an abortion, how do you dismiss the egregious spiritual affront to those of womanity who murder their babies? I've seen it in women I know and they will suffer for what they did for the rest of their lives.
Just as, according to your logic, DV and I must assume the care of unwanted children, then you too must assume the care and rehabilitation of damaged women to remain true to your point.
I can appreciate your references to signeurial privilege, as I was once "pro-choice", but that doesn't change the analysis. Legalized abortion, as it stands in America is born of eugenics, with a specific emphasis on wiping out Black folks; the degradation of human life; the cultural precept that promiscuity has no consequence.
What remains after such cultural suicide is a culture of people wasting the dangerously few brain cells they have debating when a human becomes a human.
However, here is where we may differentiate between the realization that resolute individuals will manage to jettison the payload through whatever crude means are available to them (which establishes what we refer to as "abortion" as a fact of reality) versus the question of the legitimacy of a sustained public campaign that engages in the proactive promotion of abortion as a first alternative and which receives its funding from one or more interested groups. I tend to believe that such a sustained public campaign is what DV is primarily railing against, and not so much the reality of abortion in-and-of-itself.
Amen!
Instead of looking at a clump of cells and asking, "Is this a human?", we should ask instead, "Is this a potentiality?"; "What are the possible things which this clump of cells could grow into?"
So, by that logic, is jacking off into a kleenex or menstruation also pre-homicide?
Or would removing a parasitic fetus from its human host to simply survive (or not) on its own really be murder? I mean, by that definition, not going out of your way to feed a hungry bum for 9 months would also be "murder" then, no?
Byrdeye, I like you, but you have provided me with Exhibit A of silly discussions about when a human becomes a human.
If we weren't discussing the murder of babies, would anyone dedicate any energy to these questions? If some people weren't trying desperately to rationalize murder, would such intellectual contortionism be necessary?
Well, well, well CNulan, the point that I made quite clearly and that you have conspicuously dodged, is the haunting, anti-spirit, evil nature of abortion.
Perhaps your superstitions are more clearly resolved in the rhetorical confines of your subjective self-talk? Cause out here in thought exteriorization land, I didn't see any such "clear" assertions of superstitious belief.
Well, since you will never be pregnant and never have an abortion, how do you dismiss the egregious spiritual affront to those of womanity who murder their babies? I've seen it in women I know and they will suffer for what they did for the rest of their lives.
I associate exclusively with stable, sane, responsible women who own their bodies and brook no interference with their bodily prerogatives. I don't know any women who've succumbed to Francis Schaeffer's political scheme meme.
Just as, according to your logic, DV and I must assume the care of unwanted children, then you too must assume the care and rehabilitation of damaged women to remain true to your point.
I'm no more responsible for women afflicted with Schaefferism than you're responsible for Nadya Suleman's inexcusable and immoral litter.
Lol, well if the line were really that clear, then there wouldn't be this much debate.
This issue involves a complex intersection of spirituality, science and legal logic - many unknown variables, which is why it requires far more than a simple glance.
Can we sue based on potentials?
Is an egg a chicken?
An undifferentiated stem cell a corneal cell?
When does a fetus stop being part of the mother and become its own legal human entity? At conception, 7 weeks, at delivery or some other time?
Is a parent obligated to raise their children.
Is a child responsible for its own survival, or are its parents?
Is not caring for something the same as murdering it?
What is murder vs criminal negligence?
Keeping in mind that morally unacceptable =/= illegal.
Etc...
II
"Nature has wonderful mechanisms of population control such as droughts, earthquakes, tsunamis, famine and disease."
Are homo sapiens not apart of "Nature" as well? Secondly, even with earth's orbit and human evolution has the population increased or decreased over the last 1000 years?
I tend to believe that such a sustained public campaign is what DV is primarily railing against, and not so much the reality of abortion in-and-of-itself.
So also with the Schaefferian dominionists who first crafted the so-called "right-to-life" movement and its associated complement of memetic weaponry and immediately introduced all-a-that into the political sphere in the late 1970's.
I associate exclusively with stable, sane, responsible women who own their bodies and brook no interference with their bodily prerogatives.
Indeed. Indeed. Isn't what this is all about? Responsible women who do not treat their bodies as cum receptacles for any old fool who speaks sweet nothins in their ears?
About women who, absent some tragic use of force, wouldn't need to debate when a human becomes a human in order to rationalize having to murder the consequence of their poor choices?
Yes, this is about ownership of one's body. And what one does with the things they own is evidence of their spirituality, "choosing" whether to treat that owned body like a fine piece of property or like a common trailer in the park up the street, where nothing inside or out is worth much.
With regard to your superstitions about blobs and diarrhea, perhaps you should explore the exteriorization land of women who have actually murdered their babies.
If you want to honor womanity, let these women speak for themselves
http://www.silentnomoreawareness.org/
Are homo sapiens not apart of "Nature" as well? Secondly, even with earth's orbit and human evolution has the population increased or decreased over the last 1000 years?
Otherwise smart folks pretend not to understand the exponential function when it comes to massive human population growth and ecological overshoot.
Not only that Cap, but history and science show time and time again that all primates and most social mammalian vertebrates will self-regulate their population sizes in a given ecological domain. If not, they also show the inevitablity of overshoot and die off....,
With regard to your superstitions about blobs and diarrhea, perhaps you should explore the exteriorization land of women who have actually murdered their babies.
You should save the propaganda for someone on whom it has a prayer of achieving the desired effect.
I'm quite clearly not that one...,
Instead of looking at a clump of cells and asking, "Is this a human?", we should ask instead, "Is this a potentiality?"; "What are the possible things which this clump of cells could grow into?"
Byrd asks:
So, by that logic, is jacking off into a kleenex or menstruation also pre-homicide?
Byrd, I'm not sure how the classification of pre-homicide emerges as an extension of the logic of my statement, but in my mind, the question of what constitutes "murder", "homicide", or "pre-homicide" in relation to the extermination of the "thing" is divorced from the question of assessing the "thing's" potentiality.
...how can I put it another way.
My ability to fathom the possibility that a young sapling might eventually grow into a tall tree is completely independent from the question of whether or not the burning of that sapling should be classified as "arson" or "tree-o-cide".
Or would removing a parasitic fetus from its human host to simply survive (or not) on its own really be murder? I mean, by that definition, not going out of your way to feed a hungry bum for 9 months would also be "murder" then, no?
Again, the classification of what one does to the thing in its infancy is separate from the question of assessing the thing's potential to become something. And a hungry bum is not in his "infancy".
What exactly is the procedure called when one removes the fetus from the woman's body without actively killing the fetus? Is that still considered abortion (regardless of whether the fetus dies or survives)?
02 25 09
II you provided some good testimonies and there are many sites dedicated to just this thing.
Craig you think you are so smart and have a monopoly on knowledge in this area. But in this case, you are clearly incorrect.
And frankly, sometimes I wonder about debating the wrongness of abortion with men unless they are 'sensitive' because they truly have no freaking clue about this AT ALL.
Once conception occurs it is a life. You can call it a clump of cells but at what point would you call it alive? This is where your whole lack of logic is inconsistent.
You have children. When your wife was pregnant and the baby kicked, was it still a clump of cells not deserving of the right of human status?
If we were in court, I would voi dure on your qualifications and frankly you would come off as an arrogant sob who thought they knew entirely more than they really do.
You really should look at the afterabortion.org site and look at the testimonies Dina provided. Anyone who has ever been pregnant KNOWS this is a life inside of them. They can choose to acknowledge that fact and act accordingly or they can say that it is a clump of cells, depersonalize the baby, kill it and then regret it.
I have met many women in my time. At SFSU I was somewhat active in womens issues. AND despite the culture condoning abortion on campus, when you get to the nitty gritty 99.9% of the time any woman who has had an abortion cries when they talk about it EVEN IF THEY ARE PRO CHOICE.
Why is that? The deep spiritual WRONGNESS of the act of child murder, infanticide, the taking of an innocent human life.
So DV and II you are all aokay with me. I carried a baby inside of me and when he kicked, I knew he was a human being with a heart and a sould.
No. That isn't magical thinking. It is common sense.
Mahndisa, you are so closely identified with YOUR subjective experience that you are incapable of fathoming how anyone else under any other circumstance could think or feel differently.
A simpering mess like this;
Once conception occurs it is a life. You can call it a clump of cells but at what point would you call it alive? This is where your whole lack of logic is inconsistent.
You have children. When your wife was pregnant and the baby kicked, was it still a clump of cells not deserving of the right of human status?
If we were in court, I would voi dure on your qualifications and frankly you would come off as an arrogant sob who thought they knew entirely more than they really do.
defies rational parsing.
While it may garner you the sympathy of folks with no expectation of factual, logical, or ethical consistency - to me it just looks like a mentally disturbed mess.
conception
clump
kick
human
which is it?
Not that that amorphous logic blob matters to you, because to the polemicist it's all the same and you might as well cite the old testament injunction against onanism as anti-life in the interest of thoroughness.
Leaving aside my criterion number one - which is intractable to you - we could go to criteria two or three;
1. At what point does a potential human become a full-blown human?
2. How does the humaneness of medical abortion compare with other more ritualized modes of collective population self-limiting, e.g., japanese feudalism, aztec heart removal, WW-II, etc?
3. Who exercises final agency over a woman's bodily prerogatives?
and I still wind up thinking and believing as I do, while you pre-emptively dismiss all other considerations due to your all consuming belief that your subjective experience of criterion number one is definitive and determinative - which it's simply not.
Lastly, and this was the crux of the Nadya Suleman disagreement, there remains a criterion number four, which is the effect on the commons exerted by the profligacy of irresponsible breeders.
All those other considerations matter and are NEVER pre-empted by your solipsistic preoccupation with your subjective experience and interpretation of pregnancy.
Here's the thing. I DO understand exactly where you're coming from. I AM sensitive enough and experienced enough (by proxy) to understand all of what you described. That fact notwithstanding, I have not been rendered logically or factually blinded by that single facet of the issue in question and remain obliged to consider all the other aspects of it, as well.
Mahndisa,
Don't be intimidated by Nulan's regressive post-Darwinian "rationale" on the good of abortion.
He has conveyed several beliefs and made other claims concerning the issue of abortion. Here are a few of those beliefs and claims:
-C Nulan believes Mamma Nulan had a moral right to kill glob of C Nulan in utero due to her status as sole provider of sustenance.
-C Nulan believes Wife Nulan had the moral right to kill globs of Nulan children DNA in utero due to her status as sole provider of sustenance.
Isn't this self-capitulation to one's hypothetical demise automatic grounds for excluding said individual from any discussion concerning other's hypothetical demise?
Because mamma is your sole provider of sustenance she can kill you, but because the doc becomes a multiple source of sustenance then your life is spared because of your sudden human beingness... Isn't C Nulan's stance really CRAZY?
-C Nulan claims that a "glob of cells" is a threat to a woman's agency.
-C Nulan claims that a baby in utero is not a human being.
This leads one to the absurd conclusion that a non-human being with self-evidently no agency exercises control over a woman's agency. Can the material reductionist explain this magical phenomenon?
-C Nulan also claims that idealized abortion is the safest and most humane way to cull the population.
In order for this to be true then one would have to think of human beings as nothing better than mere animals.
Couldn't enlightened and progressive human beings tell themselves when they needed to cull the population? Is there any evidence to suggest that we should be doing such a thing?
So you see Mahndisa, C Nulan has all the appearance of an incoherent anti-intellectual nitwit who's thinking isn't deep enough for the subject at hand.
But what does explain the phenomenon of C Nulan is his autonomous biological mercenary nature. There is life and there is death. And in between is the force of will. The exercise thereof being the only principle. This is the heart of C Nulan.
This leads one to the absurd conclusion that a non-human being with self-evidently no agency exercises control over a woman's agency. Can the material reductionist explain this magical phenomenon?
For example. Josh Farst's (thordaddy) white supremacist politics and ideology results from severe central nervous system injury arising from the virally induced colo-rectal cancer that's ravaging his brain tissues.
IOW, a virally induced tumor with no agency of its own, merely the organic urge to flourish, both dominates Josh Farst's body, controls Josh Farst's behavior and will determine the span of Josh Farst's life.
-C Nulan also claims that idealized abortion is the safest and most humane way to cull the population.
History and nature are replete with examples of behaviors by which primates and mammalian vertebrates either self-limit, or, suffer mass die off when they overshoot the ecologies on which they depend.
Some of the best examples of self-limiting behavior are to be found in pre-Meiji Japan and with Aztec heart ripping.
By comparison, discretionary clinical abortion in cases of unwanted pregnancy constitutes a highly safe and humane method for the democratic self-limitation of the population.
In order for this to be true then one would have to think of human beings as nothing better than mere animals.
Josh Farst and his ilk make ideal candidates for state sanctioned retroactive abortion.
02 26 09
Isn't this self-capitulation to one's hypothetical demise automatic grounds for excluding said individual from any discussion concerning other's hypothetical demise?
Um Yeah baby I feel you on this statement.
Hehehe ThorDaddy:
Cnulan doesn't intimidate me one bit. I respect his vocabulary and other topics that he brings up but by no means does his rambling intimidate me.
Craig, once again you are comitting many critical thinking errors. Because you deem a comment as irrational you refuse to respond. YET there are TWO women here that have already discussed this issue and we are experts DUE to our experience. If someone voi dured on our qualifications to discuss pregnancy and children we'd beat you every time DUE to our intimate knowledge of the subject matter.
You can say my statements are mentally disturbed mess, but after all this is simply your OPINION. Opinions are like assholes and everybody has one.
What remains to be seen is if your opinion is valid, which via the obsfucation and personal insults you have levied, your opinion seems not to be valid at all.
And I have already answered your question. When conception occurs, the embryo, fetus or whatever is a HUMAN BEING. And you admitted that you are familiar with my experience by proxy. This is a very telling statement because I mentioned on my blog that I believe your aneurotypicality impedes your abilities in this area. It appears as though it is difficult for you to interpret emotional data. You accused me of 'crying a river' for something that I laughed about as I wrote it.
Therefore I can only infer that you have a lack of emotional intelligence. Therefore, discussing an emotional topic you are somewhat void. You can bring up all this mumbo jumbo and large words which increase my vocabulary (thanks!) But at the same time, what are you really saying:
1.A human is a clump of cells.
2.A woman has a RIGHT to kill her baby.
3.You have shifted the burden of proof to those with whom you debate yet we clearly have stated our beliefs of when a human life begins.
I bring up Shroedingers cat for a reason. You well know that at the qm level, energy is discretized. Likewise, in this aspect of reality we are EITHER alive or DEAD. So I attribute LIFE to this clump of cells from the get, which is a far more consistent theory than you have outlined.
If we take your reasoning to its logical conclusion, then the baby is a clump of cells before it emerges from the womb and is not 'alive' until after its emergence. Well,what does alive mean to you anyway?
BTW You NEVER answered the question I posed, which is this: "When your wife was pregnant and the baby kicked, did you consider it a clump of cells then? Or a human being?" So until you answer that question you have LOST this debate.
02 26 09
Love the obsfucation by citing arcane historical references which may have little to do with intentional population culling. It was my understanding that the Aztec heart ripping emerged as sacrifice to the GODS not as a population control measure.
Hehehe ThorDaddy:
Cnulan doesn't intimidate me one bit. I respect his vocabulary and other topics that he brings up but by no means does his rambling intimidate me.
Your narcissism now has you seeking "intellectual" refuge with a so-cal white supremacist who'd as soon bash in your skull and that of your infant son - as look at you.
You are, as I'm very fond of saying, priceless....,
Love the obsfucation by citing arcane historical references which may have little to do with intentional population culling. It was my understanding that the Aztec heart ripping emerged as sacrifice to the GODS not as a population control measure.
Your understanding is flawed, little surprise there.
Before I return to dissect your more lengthy scrawlings, I thought I'd respond to this choice bon mot you left as an afterthought.
You see, some of us choose to view human behavior through the lens of ethology and evolutionary psychology, rather than magical thinking Mahndisa - so we tend to be somewhat dismissive of the quaint good/evil/gods/devils systematization preferred by you Manichean fundamentalists (aka bibtards).
We don't put much stock by the magical interpretation of the constructs of the collective human id that those afflicted by the neurobiological sickness of religion (as Fr. Romaides termed it) call devils, gods, demons, and other imaginary non-human entities. (so also for exobiological entities and other imaginary constructs of the id more popular in the modern era)
But anyway, this is about the totalitarian empire of the Mexica, which institutionalized not only population control, but compliance enforcement, and nutritional supplementation by the largest scale practice of ritual human sacrifice and cannibalism ever known to humankind.
Pre-Meiji Japan was also just such a totalitarian warrior culture, but they did it by serial homicide practiced by the 3 million strong samurai warrior class. No need for pyramids and necropolitan ritual human sacrifice if you maintain incessant ritualized warfare as a way of life. Japan managed to maintain a zero population growth status for nearly 300 years until they were forcibly opened to western "trade" in the late 19th century - and the 1000 year rule of the samurai was terminated.
--------------------
Traditions Of Cannibalistic Sacrifice
‘The Aztecs were not the first Mesoamericans to sacrifice human beings. We know that the Toltec and the Maya engaged in the practice, and it is a reasonable inference that all steep-sided flat-topped Mesoamerican pyramids were intended to serve as a stage for the spectacle in which human victims were fed to the gods. Nor was human sacrifice an invention of state-level religions. To judge from the evidence of band and village societies throughout the Americas and in many other parts of the world, human sacrifice long antedated the rise of state religions.’ ( Harris, 1978. P102 )
The cannibalistic sacrificial practices, which were so abhorrent to the invading Spanish, were by no means a purely Mesoamerican phenomenon. Sacrificial activities have persisted in religion throughout recorded history. ( Sagan, 1974: p50 ) Reports from missionary travellers clearly detail both the Iroquois of North America and the Fijians engaging in cannibalistic practices whereby they would eat the bodies of their enemies ( Reeves Sanday, 1986. P28 ).
A Jesuit priest, Father Antonio Blasquez, wrote in 1557 of the Brazilian Indians’ enjoyment of the practice of cannibalism; he stated that these people find “their happiness by killing an enemy and afterwards, for vengeance, to eat his flesh… there is no other meat they like better.” ( Harris, 1986. P210 ) There is even gratuitous mention of cannibalism in Ayurvedic physiology, where ‘corpulence is a sign of power’ ( Zimmerman, 1982: p160 ).
However, the ritualistic style in which the Aztecs performed their sacrifices, their reasoning behind their activities, and the sheer scale of human life put to death because of this reasoning certainly makes them unique.
‘Nowhere else in the world had there developed a state-sponsored religion whose art, architecture, and ritual were so thoroughly dominated by violence, decay and disease. Nowhere else were walls and plazas of great temples and palaces reserved for such a concentrated display of jaws, fangs, claws, talons, bones and gaping death heads’
( Harris, 1978. p99 )
Marvin Harris points out in his 1986 work ‘People Eating’ that the Aztecs were the only state society which not only did not suppress the act of cannibalism, but actively encouraged it, involving it in ritual purposes integral to the country’s religious worship. ( p225 ) To many, this makes the Aztecs something of a mysterious and complicated puzzle, seeing their being civilised peoples whom practised religious cannibalism as something of an oxymoron.
“The Aztecs developed a literate, complex culture, and, yet, they practiced cannibalism. They are the only known exception to the rule that cannibalism is practiced only by primitive societies.”( Sagan, 1974: p1-2 )
The Aztecs had an extensive knowledge of mathematics and astronomy, skills which they had utilised in the production of a highly accurate eighteen month calendar . As we have today, this calendar had fifty-two cycles in a three-hundred and sixty-five day year. ( Web Ref. 7 ) They also had a complex state system in operation, having united Technochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan into the Triple Alliance in 1430, and succeeded in bringing decisive state-control into an area previously wracked with political uncertainty and characterised by fierce fighting. ( Brumfiel, 1983: pp266-9 )
Theirs was an advanced, complex and well-oiled state, wholly deserving of the term ‘civilised’. There are even those whom believe that the Aztecs’ practices of sacrificial cannibalism were direct contributors towards their civilisation ( Reeves Sanday, 1986. P193-4 ), and that religion was only an instigating factor whose secondary functions and profits eventually super-ceded its original purpose. Certainly, it grew in scale over the years from very modest beginnings…
http://www.pinktink3.250x.com/essays/aztecs.htm
Craig, once again you are comitting many critical thinking errors. Because you deem a comment as irrational you refuse to respond. YET there are TWO women here that have already discussed this issue and we are experts DUE to our experience. If someone voi dured on our qualifications to discuss pregnancy and children we'd beat you every time DUE to our intimate knowledge of the subject matter.
We're not debating pregnancy Mahndisa, we're debating the definition of human-ness in the context of the overall human life-cycle which happens to include several months of non-autonomous gestational dependency on a woman's body.
You can say my statements are mentally disturbed mess, but after all this is simply your OPINION. Opinions are like assholes and everybody has one. What remains to be seen is if your opinion is valid, which via the obsfucation and personal insults you have levied, your opinion seems not to be valid at all.
I could have simply dismissed you as mentally ill, as have so many other correspondents in the debates I've observed you engaged in over the past few years. I didn't do that. Rather, I focused on the lopsided illogic of your statements and their root in magical thinking, narcissism, and an increasing investment in trying to prove yourself "right".
And I have already answered your question. When conception occurs, the embryo, fetus or whatever is a HUMAN BEING.
Not only is the above assertion entirely arbitrary - but it's fully and completely ridiculous, as well.
Sperm are alive.
Ova are alive.
The result of their combination is alive.
Nadya Suleman's brood was alive in a freezer as a matched set of potentialities.
However, none of the above are viable on their own, and none of the above even remotely approach human being.
They are merely a potentialities, which more often than not, wind up in a tissue, tampon, or sanitary napkin, period.
And you admitted that you are familiar with my experience by proxy. This is a very telling statement because I mentioned on my blog that I believe your aneurotypicality impedes your abilities in this area. It appears as though it is difficult for you to interpret emotional data. You accused me of 'crying a river' for something that I laughed about as I wrote it.
google "figure of speech" and get over it.
Therefore I can only infer that you have a lack of emotional intelligence. Therefore, discussing an emotional topic you are somewhat void. You can bring up all this mumbo jumbo and large words which increase my vocabulary (thanks!) But at the same time, what are you really saying:
1.A human is a clump of cells.
2.A woman has a RIGHT to kill her baby.
3.You have shifted the burden of proof to those with whom you debate yet we clearly have stated our beliefs of when a human life begins.
No.
A clump of cells is a clump of cells and not human.
Notice how you are compelled to play semantic games that you'd never conscience for even a moment were this math rather than natural language? When I catch most folks pulling this stunt, I just flatly call them liars. I've been "emotionally intelligent" enough to kindly extend you the benefit of the doubt because it's painfully obvious how identified and irrational you are concerning this issue.
A woman has every right to terminate a clump of cells with the potentiality to become a human should the woman elect to make it so. Matter fact, the overwhelming majority of women routinely seek the recourse of tissue, tampon and sanitary napkin on the regular to dispense with such potentialities.
I bring up Shroedingers cat for a reason. You well know that at the qm level, energy is discretized. Likewise, in this aspect of reality we are EITHER alive or DEAD. So I attribute LIFE to this clump of cells from the get, which is a far more consistent theory than you have outlined.
This is one of the most painfully backward misuses of a smidgeon of physics that I think I've ever seen.
Living or dead is not the issue Mahndisa.
Human or pre-human is the issue here.
The sine qua non of human-ness is consciousness and self-awareness.
Do you want to pretend that a newly conceived embryonic blastomere is conscious or self-aware?
Cause that's the level of absurdity to which you've arrived through the flailing extremity of your "arguments".
If we take your reasoning to its logical conclusion, then the baby is a clump of cells before it emerges from the womb and is not 'alive' until after its emergence. Well,what does alive mean to you anyway?
Very little actually.
Consciousness, on the other hand, is the sine qua non of what it means to be human. It is the absolute definition of humanity.
BTW You NEVER answered the question I posed, which is this: "When your wife was pregnant and the baby kicked, did you consider it a clump of cells then? Or a human being?" So until you answer that question you have LOST this debate.
Puh-leeze Mahndisa...., lost a debate? Do you tutor elementary school children, or are you IN elementary school?
Our youngest who is as biologically close to me as it's possible to be, and who is the absolute light of my life - was the product of a very stressful and dangerous pregancy. When he kicked in the womb, I didn't succumb to any feelings of superstitious delight because his potentiality moved, my exclusive concern was for the well-being of my wife. His active movement was a further complicating factor.
Had the risk factor "he" imposed on my wife exceeded a clearly defined threshold, there's no question whatsoever that I would not now be enjoying his delightful company. From my perspective, there would have been no hesitation or superstitous afterthoughts concerning the priorities and the actions required thereby.
Those types of humane, responsible, caring, and rational decisions are made every day.
The only people who lose are those who fail to make such decisions because their minds are afflicted by superstitious nonsense. Secondary to these, are the innocent and mostly silent majority whose lives are negatively impacted by the failure of the superstitious mentally ill to make humane and responsible decisions. Lastly, and far from least, are the potentialities permitted to come to term by irresponsible folk who don't invest the overwhelming requirements necessary to rear a humane, responsible, caring, and capable child.
"Living or dead is not the issue Mahndisa.
Human or pre-human is the issue here."
I have to agree with this. And since science has not conclusively proven exactly when this occurs, it remains speculative.
Simple introspection is more than sufficient to this task.
Subjective conscious mind is an analog of what is called the real world. It is built up with a vocabulary or lexical field whose terms are all metaphors or analogs of behavior in the physical world. Its reality is of the same order as mathematics....
Like mathematics, it is an operator rather than a thing or repository....If consciousness is this invention of an analog world even as the world of mathematics parallels the world of quantities of things, what then can we say about its origin?
Consciousness comes after language!
The implications of such a position are extremely serious.
In Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, in the chapter entitled The Arousing of Thought, Gurdjieff wrote the following explicit and very illuminating comments about language, mentality, reality and the possibility for development;
"....during preparatory age there is acquired in the brain functioning of every creature, and thus of man also, a definite property whose automatic manifestations proceed according to a certain law that the ancient Korkolans called the "law of associations," and that the process of mentation of every creature, especially man, flows exclusively in accordance with this law.
Since I have happened to touch upon a question that has recently become almost an "obsession" of mine, namely, the process of human mentation, I consider it possible, without waiting for the place in my writings I had designated for the elucidation of this question, to speak at least a little in this first chapter about some information that accidentally became known to me. According to this information, it was customary in long-past centuries on Earth for every man bold enough to aspire to the right to be considered by others and to consider himself a "conscious thinker" to be instructed, while still in the early years of his responsible existence, that man has two kinds of mentation: one kind, mentation by thought, expressed by words always possessing a relative meaning; and another kind, proper to all animals as well as to man, which I would call "mentation by form."
The second kind of mentation, that is "mentation by form" - through which, by the way, the exact meaning of all writing should be perceived and then assimilated after conscious confrontation with information previously acquired - is determined in people by the conditions of geographical locality, climate, time, and in general the whole environment in which they have arisen and in which their existence has flowed up to adulthood.....That my language, or rather the form of my mentation, can produce such an effect I am, thanks to repeated past experiences, as much convinced with my whole being as a "thoroughbred donkey" is convinced of the rightness and justice of his obstinacy."
02 26 09
"Human or pre-human is the issue here."
This is assinine. What the hell does that mean- a prehuman? What? Either a being is human OR not. DNA determines this. When remains are found that are unrecognizable, DNA determines the species. When crimes are comitted and hair specimans analyzed, DNA analysis is used. The way I see it is that DNA determines the SPECIES of being that we are talking about.
Embryos have their DNA so are by MY DEFINITION human beings!
Um to me the abortion debate is all about how life is defined. As I said I define an embryo as being alive. And no Craig, I am not narcissistic once again your inability to glean emotional statements shows through. The fact that I have said that you don't intimidate me does not equal narcisism. And thordaddy and I have a similar belief on this issue. It doesn't mean that I wouldn't be pissed with him on other issues, same with you. So you are trippin. And I love the way you have to take up space by having two or three long comments in a row further citing arcana.
At this point, The Gray Conservative was right; there will be no agreement, so why even bother discussing it with you?
Mahndisa,
C Nulan has no intention of establishing when a unique strand of newly conceived DNA "becomes" a human being.
In fact, it is down right hilarious to read this materialist clown attempt to bolter his arguments with non-material things like "consciousness," "potentiality" and human "beings."
This post-Darwinian psuedo-scientist would have us believe that he has transcended human being status without ever even defining what a human being is or when the human being status begins.
So far, everything we know about C Nulan and his belief on this issue points to the supremacy of autonomy theory. Or, simply put, might makes right.
We could expose further the attempt by C Nulan to give incoherency a good name, but he really doesn't care because autonomy is the name of the game and incoherency is the principled practice of one's autonomy.
At this point, The Gray Conservative was right; there will be no agreement, so why even bother discussing it with you?
Having left you curbside over a week ago, I don't recall doing any dumpster diving to retrieve your hopelessly cracked pot.
Doesn't the whole "just a clump of cells" argument fall flat because technically, when is a human being ever *not* just a clump of cells, only at one point significantly more than at another.
My view on the thing is a promotion of self-responsibility. I'm pro-life, but I won't presume to have any say over what anyone does, because as has become abundantly clear here the issue is complicated. I would however, strongly advocate that people be educated about the consequences of their actions and that proper birth control techniques become almost a cultural mandate, not just a suggestion. What's the old adage, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Doesn't the whole "just a clump of cells" argument fall flat because technically, when is a human being ever *not* just a clump of cells, only at one point significantly more than at another.
No brother...,
Not only does tradition speak to the thing, but also contemporary empirical practice informed by tradition. What we must consider given the benefit of tradition, and contemporary understanding is the composite nature of the human organism.
There is a larger quantity in number of cells and amount of DNA of non-human life inside you right now, than there is of Doc cells and DNA. So the question is begged concerning what has primary agency in the mystery we call "human"?
My studies have led me to conclude that "inspired" traditional knowledge comes from within. Not from unembodied spirits, but from something more ancient, definite, and real that informs and sustains our existence as self-aware, living entities.
Some people choose to believe in disembodied spirits in the sky. My own preference is to look at what's actually there and to try and understand how my predecessors and forbears came to terms with the mysteries and enigmas of their world.
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