Accepted Wisdom™ on How to Properly React to the Death of a Fetus or Infant
(Accepted Wisdom™ is an occasional feature of this site, highlighting contradictory viewpoints held by the elite.)
It is Accepted Wisdom™ that:
If a woman decides to end her pregnancy, no matter how developed the fetus is, and no matter how frivolous the reasoning, that is her choice, dammit. If she decides to kill an 8-month-old fetus because the birth of the child might personally embarrass her, then how dare you criticize her, mister!
And at the same time:
If a family wants a child, and the baby is born but dies 2 hours into his young life — and the family chooses to bring the boy home to introduce the child to the rest of the family, then bwahahahahahaha. Pro-life freak. Let’s all point and laugh!
I lost a reader on my blog once because I said that I didn’t approve of the 80-90% kill rate of Down syndrome children in the womb. She said I was trying to enslave women, shove my religious beliefs down everyone’s throat and she’d never read me nor patronize my advertisers ever again. Her objection was to an article I wrote about why we decided it was a good thing to allow my Down syndrome daughter to be in a commercial for all to see.
Tragic Christian (2cc0a0) — 1/3/2012 @ 1:03 amCome on, that was pretty ghoulish. The kid was dead; he belonged in a grave so he could get on with whatever lay in his future. Then again, I suppose I’m just being a cultural chauvinist. I know Catholics have some bizarre (to me) attitudes towards death and the dead. Wakes, for instance; how disrespectful can you get? And burying people in the church basement instead of in a cemetery like normal people. And relics; to me that seems horribly gruesome. If you venerate someone, then surely the least you can do for them is let them rest in peace and in one piece instead of dismembering them and putting bits and pieces of them on display. You wouldn’t want someone doing that to you, so why is it OK to do it just because they’re dead and can’t object? I just don’t get it. But I suppose if you’re OK with the idea of carrying around St Whatshisname’s finger bone, then playing with your dead kid’s body, and introducing your kids to their dead sibling, may not seem that strange either. But don’t ask me to relate to it; I just can’t.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 1:20 amI should add that if anyone ever carries my fingerbone around, and then has the chutzpah to ask me to intercede with God for them, they’ve got to be crazy. Put me back together and bury me properly, and apologize for having disturbed my rest, and then maybe you can ask for my help. I’ve got no problem with asking saints for intercession; I just think the Catholic way of doing it seems calculated to achieve the opposite result.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 1:24 amHell is being inside Colmes house.
sickofrinos (44de53) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:23 amFor what it’s worth, Colmes has apologised.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:25 amI am Pro-Abortion. I am also convinced that in my lifetime Abortion will once again be illegal, and that that will be more because of the actions and attitudes of the Pro-“Choice” faction than it will be because of anything any Pro-Lide people have done. I put scare quoted around the choice in Pro-Choice because Pro-“Choice” people aren’t for choice in the sense of “Let everybody make their own choice”, they are for “everybody make, and affirm, MY choice”. That is not an attitude that can stand.
C. S. P. Schofield (d726e2) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:56 amMaybe it’s not a one off, with this nazgul;
http://www.therightperspective.org/2008/09/02/alan-colmes-blames-palin-for-down-syndrome-child/
narciso (87e966) — 1/3/2012 @ 4:27 amUnfortunately, the pro-choice decision requires maintaining the lie that a pre-born baby is not a separate human life. It’s probably too much to expect someone who has made or been associated with this death decision, with all of it’s inhuman rationale, to sympathize with the reasonable grief of the Santorums. This decision is not like the choice of which tie to wear in the morning, and it never will be. There is a sharp line between those who accept life and those who out of convenience or guilt deny it.
Then again, this entire issue could have been played up in order to make Santorum into the pro-life grieving-parent candidate in order to silence and obstruct any other message he has. The media focus on this personal family tragedy seems oddly deliberate to me.
Amphipolis (b120ce) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:28 amWell I wouldn’t past them, but considering Colmes
narciso (87e966) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:36 amprevious statement, he may just be an insensitive jerk;
Well, I am not sure this should be accepted wisdom. i am pretty sure most liberals are as horrified by Colmes’ idiot comment as anyone.
but it really says something about Colmes. I mean let’s pretend for the sake of argument that the Santorum family did act a little nutty. Well, they just lost their baby, okay? Under those circumstances you can expect people to act a little nuts, okay? We’re not vulcans, you know. I mean you have a wife going through hormonal changes that make puberty look like nothing, and you have just the utter sadness of it all. All of the family was probably gathered. They probably had a nursery waiting at home that now they would have to tear down. They had a name for that baby that instead would be chiseled on a grave. Even if their reaction was nutty, isn’t that within the range of acceptable levels of response to a personal tragedy?
And I thought the liberal position was that life begins at birth. so shouldn’t everyone be “pro-life” the moment that the fetus leaves the birth canal? apparently colmes would wait a few days or something.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:42 amRecall the Accepted Wisdom of Barack Obama’s repeated rejection of the Illinois Born-Alive Protection Act.
Or his lovely wife Michelle’s efforts to raise money to keep partial-birth abortion legal.
Then tell me who the creepy freaks are in this country.
CrustyB (d4da92) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:49 amOr how about this,
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aGrKbfWkzTqc
narciso (87e966) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:58 amThanks for reminding me why I don’t watch Fox News / MSNBC / etc. any more. Faux outrage and talking over each other is great for ratings, but not the best way to convey information to the viewer.
carlitos (49ef9f) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:58 amWhat’s the connection between that and this story, which is about a baby who was already born? Even in post-Roe-and-Casey America, that baby was a legal person, and had anyone killed him they would have been convicted of murder. And even the “pro-choice” people would at least claim to support that, since they claim to believe that birth draws a bright line between personhood and non-personhood. So I don’t see how the whole abortion debate relates to this.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:59 amJust epic fail, seriously, they don’t think that way;
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-if-alan-colmes-calling-santorum.html
narciso (87e966) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:02 amNot really; I don’t know where you would have got that impression. He just seems to think that taking ones dead child home and cuddling him and having ones very young children do the same is so weird that once people find out about it they won’t be able to vote for him. I also think it’s pretty weird, but I accept that people are different, and that my cultural attitudes to how one treats the dead are different from Santorum’s. And that none of this is relevant to his suitability for the presidency.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:04 amMilhouse — You do know that funeral homes are a primarily urban thing of only the last hundred and fifty years or so, right? It’s not a Catholic thing. It was entirely normal for bodies to be kept at home (in a coffin or in bed, or laid out on a table or temporarily removed door) until they could be buried. It was normal for the women of the house to wash and clothe the body for the funeral, and for everyone in the surrounding area to come pay their respects at the house. Undertakers and sextons only made coffins and dug graves. Funeral homes were only introduced as a convenience for the urban poor, whose apartments were too small for a funeral gathering. (And to provide a more attractive sales floor for coffins than the typical coffin warehouse.)
To be totally disconnected from the cycles of life and death — that’s weird. It’s like thinking food comes from the grocery store instead of the farm.
Maureen (863608) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:06 amYou don’t apologize after something like this. You cut your throat.
Richard Aubrey (a75643) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:31 amWho said anything about funeral homes? When someone dies you lay them out, wash them, dress them, and then take them out and bury them as soon as practicable. You do not take them home and play with them as if they were still alive, much less have their very young siblings play with them.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:32 amIt’s a crazy thing to do. My crazy thing would be different if I went through this situation, but it would be crazy nonetheless. I know colmes apologized (though maybe he needs to offer a Jesse Jackson apology (“that’s right, kiss it. Apologize.”)), but how do you judge the actions of anyone who loses a child, so long as “murderous rampage” isn’t the method of coping you choose.
Ghost (6f9de7) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:47 amJust wanted to say thank you to Patterico for the nice juxtaposition of views above. Perfect. And also for filing this under “Scum.” Alan Colmes is…not a nice person. Even if he has apologized.
no one you know (325a59) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:58 amI know Catholics have some bizarre (to me) attitudes towards death and the dead. Wakes, for instance; how disrespectful can you get? And burying people in the church basement instead of in a cemetery like normal people. And relics; to me that seems horribly gruesome. If you venerate someone, then surely the least you can do for them is let them rest in peace and in one piece instead of dismembering them and putting bits and pieces of them on display.
Heh. My personal feelings about finger bones and such aside (church basement is respectful; it’s a gravesite like any other), I will just say that we Catholics firmly believe that when we get to Heaven, the very last thing we’re going to care about is where somebody put our old finger bone.
I feel comfortable saying that I’ll still pray for anyone when I (by God’s grace) get to Heaven, even if they’re holding my finger bone. Maybe it’ll help to think this, Milhouse: maybe someone who’d do that needs even more prayers. 😉
no one you know (325a59) — 1/3/2012 @ 7:04 amwhat is odd is why did he ever publicize about how he brought the dead kid home I think
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 7:05 amOne of the most disturbing things about the era in which we live, is prolife people usually have to defend their position. Every time I hear the question “how can you be against abortion?” I always think, “really? I need to explain and justify that? You can’t figure that out from the prolife tag?”
Ghost (6f9de7) — 1/3/2012 @ 7:05 amWhen you’re appealing to superstitious voters, it’s good to show that you’re the most superstitious candidate?
carlitos (49ef9f) — 1/3/2012 @ 7:46 amSantorum is not appealing to you.
Faux outrage? This is rich coming from someone who whines if I decide to mock Michelle Obamas fashion sense.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:09 amI looked it up on the google it says this all came out in a book under his wife’s name
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:28 amIsn’t that explained in the Hannity clip?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:34 amIt was unusual how a couple acted within hours of losing their child?
That’s not surprising. It’s very wrong, in my opinion, to delve into how people who are suffering from immediate grief. It’s just off limits for polite conversation.
Colmes brought it up, and that gleeful grin was nasty, and he was so arrogant he objected to the interjection that he had crossed the line with ‘let me know when I can talk’.
Obviously because they wanted to say they found their child, less developed than many aborted children, to be a person.
Some folks view a dead person as part of their funeral and saying goodbye. It’s obviously very unusual, but it’s not so far gone that we don’t understand what the idea was, and again, these folks just had their kid die. It’s not right to scrutinize their thinking at such a time.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:34 amOf course now if he had stomped on his baby than that would be perfectly alright correct Alan Goebbels?
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:40 amIt’s superstitious to view a dead body at a viewing before the funeral, or it’s superstitious to be pro life? I guess you’re saying they are being superstitious to think this dead baby was a person?
Seems like the ghoulishness Milhouse is searching for is easily found in those who are actively making a political point at the expense of how people acted when suffering from grief. That is the root of what Colmes was saying too. They are saying there is something zany about seeing this baby, not yet developed to the point most born children are, as a person, and so let’s just grin and sneer at those who act consistent with the view that the baby was a person.
You could just as easily sneer at how we treat a five year old who dies, mocking the embalming ritual and viewing the corpse and visiting the buried remains or keeping a jar of burnt corpse on your mantle.
Yes, how we handle death is often desperate and irrational, and that’s because all mentally healthy people have a hard time with death of loved ones, especially young ones.
Most folks who realize these rituals are not actually accomplishing anything and that the corpse is not the person are polite enough to let the closest folks who are grieving do their thing, hopefully get some kind of solace out of it.
It’s not really ghoulish to try… it’s just desperate and futile. Ghoulish is trying to use this grief in a roundabout mockery of the concept of a soul so someone like Colmes can sit back and laugh at pro lifers.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:41 amI find it pretty rich that there are several commenters on this thread who condemn the government’s war on drugs as an intrusion on individual liberty now condemning Rick Santorum’s decision over the handling of his over “superstitious” or “bizarre religious” reasons. The second clip makes it clear that Rick’s wife had been a neonatal nurse for nine years and had seen families deal with the situation many times. She was the one who recommended the family acknowledge the presence of another member by taking him home, not some weird religious rite.
Watch the clip. Your religious bigotry is showing.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:43 amYou do not take them home and play with them as if they were still alive, much less have their very young siblings play with them.
They did not take the baby home to play with, they took the baby home so that the children could know they had a brother and who he was, to have a funeral at home and bury him that day. If you watch Santorum in the 2nd video, he also explains that his wife,as a neo-natal intensive care nurse for 9 years and what she learned from that experience was the need to affirm that life to yourself, your children and to make sure that child is a part of your family.
If one is going judge the Santorums, one should at least have their facts correct.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:45 amFunerals are not about practicality. They are rituals that you could easily describe as playing with dead people if they weren’t conforming to our culture.
And no, the Santorum family wasn’t “playing” with their dead child. They were showing their kids and grieving by saying goodbye to the body, which is not normal, but is also not vulgar. It actually seems like the instinct to do this is probably in all parents. Letting go of someone you love, especially a newborn child, is probably extremely challenging. These people were probably having a hard time thinking at all.
Good for Santorum for being a big enough man to forgive. It impresses me, because I had previously had the impression Santorum was on hair trigger alert much like Bachmann is.
But why did Colmes really apologize? That contempt you see on that grinning face went away and he saw the error of his ways? Or that career of his was important enough to issue the typical thing liberals say when they reveal their true hatred.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:47 amDana, you said it much better than I did.
I don’t see why that’s not an honorable thing to do.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:49 amInteresting points. It initially sounded creepy to me, but upon reflection, maybe not so much.
carlitos (49ef9f) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:50 amI know when you have two dogs and you have to put one to sleep it helps the other dog a lot if you bring the the other dog’s corpse home for so he can sniff it and understand more better so he’s not always wondering where his little doggie friend went
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:50 amwhat is odd is why did he ever publicize about how he brought the dead kid home I think
Mrs. Santorum wrote a book about Gabriel, the son they lost, in order to help other parents who may have lost a child.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:59 amJust consider the source… I mean Alan Colmes…c’mon!
The Santorums were free to grieve and deal with the loss of a baby as they saw fit and God bless them.
Colonel Haiku (5b04f4) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:02 amPersonally, it’s not something I’d do and I understand why people would think it’s unusual or odd because it is and we’re talking about a dead person’s body so that gives the issue that element.
It’s far within the slack I’d cut someone who just lost their baby.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:03 amIf you were trying to teach your dogs to grow up to be adults who understood the gravity of losing a family member, perhaps.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:05 amI mean you have a wife going through hormonal changes that make puberty look like nothing, and you have just the utter sadness of it all.
Another point I will bluntly make in order to illustrate the level of grief being experienced is that if his mother had already put the baby to her breast and nursed him, that most likely would have increased the mother-child bond in the most profound and intimate of ways, only increasing the devastation of it all.
I think people who haven’t grieved to such a degree are the ones who insensitively judge. It’s perhaps the very time to simply explain one simply doesn’t understand such loss. And then shut up.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:06 amRick Santorum and his wife are Catholics. They have wakes. They always bring the body home. Just because we wouldn’t do it, and consider it wrong, doesn’t mean we should not visit.
Even many Protestants used to keep the body home. In the parlor. Which was why, later, someone around the year 1900, it was renamed the “living room” Surely a baby that was even born alive – not even a stillbirth – can be expected to be buried.
So what’s the problem?
I guess maybe either treating the baby as alive after it is dead, or praying.
Sammy Finkelman (b17872) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:11 am_____________________________________________
Recall the Accepted Wisdom of Barack Obama’s repeated rejection of the Illinois Born-Alive Protection Act. Or his lovely wife Michelle’s efforts to raise money to keep partial-birth abortion legal.
I was speaking with a generally right-leaning, Republican-registered guy last year who expressed annoyance to me about the way that many cultural conservatives want to ban or restrict access to abortion. The reason? He doesn’t want certain people — ie, undesirable ones — from having kids, so his bias is influenced by an interest in eugenics. So a portion of the right ends up in an unholy alliance with various liberals.
In the very blue state of California, a majority of voters don’t even want to restrict young, single girls from getting an abortion by requiring they obtain parental or guardian permission. But many of these same voters back in the 1990s passed a law that forbids owners of horses from selling them to rendering plants.
A society dumbed down to the max, with President “Goddamn America” being a somewhat fitting symbol of the US, or Western society in general, in the 21st century.
Mark (411533) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:19 am“They always bring the body home.”
Sammy – Are you saying it is Catholic Doctrine to always bring a dead body home?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:19 amI think people who haven’t grieved to such a degree are the ones who insensitively judge. It’s perhaps the very time to simply explain one simply doesn’t understand such loss. And then shut up.
Comment by Dana — 1/3/2012 @ 9:06 am
Well said, Dana. That video was actually painful to watch; it’s so clear that Alan Colmes has never grieved the loss of a child.
no one you know (325a59) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:25 amThen again, this entire issue could have been played up in order to make Santorum into the pro-life grieving-parent candidate in order to silence and obstruct any other message he has. The media focus on this personal family tragedy seems oddly deliberate to me.
Smart observation. One can see from comments at Karl’s Iowa Caucus thread where Santorum has been referred to as being tone-deaf (because this election is about the economy…not social issues) and comparing him to Dole – as in 20th century mold, that a possible deliberate strategy to only focus on this singular issue rather than his views on other issues, just might be working.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:54 amActually, I suppose focusing on this issue of his family’s choice in grief would only bolster him in the eyes of the evangelicals and serious soc cons, but really, in the bigger picture of the campaign and moderates and independent, I can only see it hurting him.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/3/2012 @ 10:00 amIt can’t help him because Kevin is right that what really matters is the economy. Sure, culture comes into play, but Santorum has economic arguments that put him in the top three candidates and … as usual … because he’s conservative MSM patrons are unlikely to come into contact with those views.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 10:05 amSantorum’s wife gave birth to a child. When she did (and, to my mind, even before she did), Santorum’s other children had a baby brother.
When that baby died, the other children lost their baby brother. What were the Santorums to do? Pretend that the other children never had a baby brother? No. The kids might not have understood at the time, but they would eventually; and, young as they were, they had a stake in the matter, a right to know.
The alternative – the only really acceptable alternative – was to tell them that a child had lived and breathed as their brother, to memorialize him. But it would be difficult to communicate that message to young child with mere words. So, they brought his body home; the words became unnecessary.
Those children will always remember their brother; and thoughts of the mystery, sanctity, tragedy, and brevity of human life will be indelibly stamped on their consciousness – a trait sorely lacking in many modern men and women. What bothers the most calloused members of the pro-choice crowd is the intuitive (though ever unacknowledged) realization that some people really do feel love for a child that they don’t know, for the “simple” reason that it was their own, however briefly – that some people really do respect and realize how sacred that bond is, and that they… don’t.
(This is of course not directed at someone like Milhouse, who is merely objecting to certain treatment of the dead – who understands the importance of the connection, but believes it ought to be honored in a different way. It is directed at someone like Colmes, who would mock this as making a fetish of dead tissue. I can understand Milhouse’s point, though I agree more closely with noyk as to the concern of the dead with the state of the body. In either case, I think there’s a common ground of respect for the dead and an understanding of the gravity of the situation.)
As objectionable as I find Santorum on other grounds, what he and his wife chose to do does not bother me.
An English Speaker (dd1d7b) — 1/3/2012 @ 10:13 amWhoops. Dunno why that handle persists – I’ve switched it back multiple times…
Leviticus (dd1d7b) — 1/3/2012 @ 10:14 amThey are paleocons Mark.
They are leftys masquerading as rightys,
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/3/2012 @ 10:16 amOne factor in favor of the pro-choicers is the fact that some people, like Courtney Nash, are considered dead even though they have living organs, let alone cells.
What makes Courtney Nash dead despite the existence of living cells with the same unique genetic code that she had?
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 1/3/2012 @ 10:53 amI personally have never witnessed a Catholic wake at home and am curious if those commenting about Catholics always taking bodies home are speaking from real life experience.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/3/2012 @ 11:12 amThere was a Puerto Rican dude in New York that had himself embalmed standing up for his 3-day, at home wake. The Yankee hat was a nice touch.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D92LHCK80&show_article=1
carlitos (49ef9f) — 1/3/2012 @ 11:18 amOops – San Juan, not New York.
carlitos (49ef9f) — 1/3/2012 @ 11:19 amDoesn’t Alan Colmes defend Islam on a daily basis.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/3/2012 @ 11:22 am“There was a Puerto Rican dude in New York that had himself embalmed standing up for his 3-day, at home wake. The Yankee hat was a nice touch.”
O.K. So that must mean they all do it?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/3/2012 @ 11:31 amspeaking of the dead babies though I watched the pilot of American Horror Story this weekend and it was really really fun and apparently it was a big show for fx
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/3/2012 @ 11:32 amdon’t google though cause of there are spoilers everywhere cause the finale was last week or so
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/3/2012 @ 11:33 amDaley,
There are three parts to a Catholic funeral: the vigil, the requiem Mass, and the burial. A wake is (typically) what Irish Catholics call the vigil.
The vigil is generally the night before the Mass and burial, and involves a Rosary along with scriptural readings and other prayers. It’s here that any eulogies are said. These are held nowadays at funeral homes, or in churches (for the Rosary and prayers), or sometimes a family home. It all depends on the culture.
When my wife passed, we didn’t have a vigil or burial service: my wife wanted to be cremated, so we held a memorial Mass (rather than the standard Mass of Christian Burial) in her honor. And even though we were both part Irish, we didn’t have a wake.
Hope this helps.
Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd) — 1/3/2012 @ 11:55 amI never said that “all” Catholics have at-home wakes. I’ve been to one, but at the time I thought it was more of an Irish thing than a Catholic thing.
carlitos (49ef9f) — 1/3/2012 @ 11:58 amCrappyfeet is a dousche.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/3/2012 @ 11:59 amI suggest, (with deference to our host and his extended family) that one not make a practice of telling women who had a miscarriage, “Don’t worry about it, it was just a blob of tissue”.
Perhaps an early spontaneous abortion, when a woman isn’t even sure she is pregnant, has little emotional impact, but when a woman has been carrying and anticipating the birth of the child for many months, the loss of the child is…(get ready for it) the loss of a child. I have personally known of several instances where a funeral was held when there was a miscarriage or a stillbirth when the woman had obviously been pregnant, and just because a funeral service was not held in the event the miscarriage happened early on, expecting someone to grieve at the loss of a child is the appropriate thing to do, if one is human.
Young children don’t conceptualize as well. I’m sure they better grasp the reality of their family’s and parents lives for having an opportunity to see they had a baby brother who died as a baby.
I heard some references to Colmes this am on the radio of how people who once tolerated and rspected him, even if they disagreed, had lost that, but I didn’t know what it was in refernce to. Now I know.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/3/2012 @ 12:10 pmMD, it’s bad enough that folks didn’t want to refer directly to Colmes’s point.
RSM had a nice post noting it’s good we had apology and forgiveness. That’s true, but I don’t believe the apology because Colmes’s entire body language just screamed out what he really thought.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 12:20 pmClarification, I heard part of a discussion, not all of it, so they probably had stated it.
I think to say something like that one would pretty much have to think along those lines, and to change their mind, or to have second thoughts of having said it, would require a very deep change of heart, virtually an experience of repentence and conversion.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/3/2012 @ 12:25 pmLeviticus #50: that was very moving. Thank you for taking the time to write it.
Simon Jester (ebbb20) — 1/3/2012 @ 12:33 pmwhat is odd is why did he ever publicize about how he brought the dead kid home I think
Comment by happyfeet — 1/3/2012 @ 7:05 am
— His wife (or, in happy-speak, his “baby factory hoochie”) wrote a book about her experience.
Icy (0e6cd5) — 1/3/2012 @ 12:38 pm“The vigil is generally the night before the Mass and burial, and involves a Rosary along with scriptural readings and other prayers. It’s here that any eulogies are said. These are held nowadays at funeral homes, or in churches (for the Rosary and prayers), or sometimes a family home.”
Chuck – Thanks. Save a casket at a funeral home, I see no big difference or bizarreness to point out from a Jewish tradition of having a funeral service at a Temple with eulogies, graveside ceremony with what some folks may view the creepy practice of inviting mourners to shovel dirt on the casket in the grave, and the family sitting shiva at home (rended garments optional).
I just see religious chauvinism and ignorance talking.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/3/2012 @ 12:43 pm“His wife (or, in happy-speak, his “baby factory hoochie”) wrote a book about her experience.”
Icy – Just more griefing on his part. Mr. Feets does not believe people with sincere religious beliefs should hold elected office in this country. They should be placed in walled off compounds where they cannot do other people harm. It’s a litmus test thingy.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/3/2012 @ 12:52 pmmilhouse… ‘For what it’s worth, Colmes has apologised.’ i was insulted and offended by colmes’ comment and he has NOT apologized to me.
kay2the2nd (691117) — 1/3/2012 @ 12:59 pmThere was no — repeat, NO — “political strategy” involved in Colmes’ decision to say what he said. He saw an opportunity to slam a conservative candidate for being a ‘religious freak’ and he pounced, simple as that.
Anybody that seriously thinks Colmes was engaging in a calculated ploy to engender sympathy for Santorum in order to muddy the political fortunes of his fellow Republicans is, IMHO, engaging in a form of conspiracy theorizing that really should be reconsidered.
Icy (0e6cd5) — 1/3/2012 @ 1:05 pmAs for Colmes’ apology, I think we all know that he did what he “had to do”. Which is not to say that I don’t think he is genuinely sorry for saying what he said. I think Colmes likes to believe in a world where “the candidate with that name” and “the man with that name” can be treated as separate entities.
Icy (0e6cd5) — 1/3/2012 @ 1:12 pmMilhouse’s penchant for candor is helpful, in that it removes the shroud that covers his bigotry.
He’s his own Personal Moyel.
Colonel Haiku (5b04f4) — 1/3/2012 @ 1:17 pmAnd to the commenter that wrote: “You do not take them home and play with them as if they were still alive, much less have their very young siblings play with them.” You are formally invited to carry around one of my finger-bones after I die.
I’ll give you exactly ONE guess as to which finger.
Icy (0e6cd5) — 1/3/2012 @ 1:18 pmIcy, this colmes business has prayed on my mind all day. Your ‘finger’ comment caused the laugh that released the flood I hadn’t realized I was working so hard at holding back.
I grieve for the loss of sweet baby Gabriel. I also grieve that there are such vile people as alan colmes.
kay2the2nd (691117) — 1/3/2012 @ 1:30 pmTeh dybbuk Milhouse escaped from Sheol to haunt Patterico…
Colonel Haiku (5b04f4) — 1/3/2012 @ 1:38 pmThis is appropriate
The tool-tip reads, “It’s easier to be an asshole to words than to people”. Let’s all remember that there are people on the other side of the comments, and behave appropriately. Unless it’s imdw.
Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd) — 1/3/2012 @ 1:58 pmI think religious people are fine – normal ones… but I think most evangelicals are really confused about the role of the state in defining morality.
When barbarians like Governor Rick and Michele with one l and bigot Santorum (ewww) want to force fourteen year old girls to bear rape babies for Jesus, the only thing what makes them acceptable to be in our White House is if they’re removing a particularly rapey socialist by virtue of their taking office, and then only just I think.
This is one of those ymmv things.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/3/2012 @ 1:58 pmWell said, chuck.
Some of these folks need… well, they need to get some perspective and I feel sorry for them. Some of these folks will call you a dick and then cry that there was nothing personal intended by it, and I wonder if they either are mentally ill or just addicted to rage.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:11 pmI don’t think it was correct to bring a grey, stiff, and/or macerated baby and confront small children with the “miracle” of death.
I don’t approve. Nobody asked me really but there it is. I”m sure they meant well…
I wonder how you would react to my mother giving her four year old the grand tour of the teratology lab at UT. Was that morbid? Or did it connect me to the reality of unborn life?
It does make an impression.
SarahW (b0e533) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:13 pmThat’s not what they “want”. That’s horrible.
That takes the most extreme possible scenario and forces someone to chose between ending a human life or putting a child victim through more misery. No one sane gets what they want out of that scenario and it’s not a fair way to analyze whether a fetus is a person.
If you do think a fetus is a person, then yes, you would rather someone not abort that person, even if by some odd scenario giving birth meant everyone has to stub their toe fifty times or eat nothing but tofu for a week. Doesn’t mean they are fans of tofu or toe-pain. It means they value life even at cost to other things.
That said, there is an argument, and I believe it, that abortion leaves quite a scar mentally, so I’m not sure rape victims having abortions is the default ‘right’ answer. I think it’s one of those horrible scenarios because there is no satisfying way out.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:15 pmSarah, I wonder what they would do when they were not encumbered by the so recent loss of a child.
And I learned a new word today: Teratology (study of abnormalities of physiological development).
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:18 pmI just don’t think the state has any role in that decision in any way shape or form Mr. Dustin. People should make their own choices.
It’s what gives their life a speck of value.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:20 pmOne good thing about on-line communication is that one can take the time to think twice before “saying” something; the bad thing about on-line communication is the impersonality of it makes it easier to “let it fly”.
I am assuming that the Santorums minimized the ugliness of a dead child. Unfortunately, much of life is not sanitary.
Feets, what Santorum wants is a society where life is respected and less 14 yo’s are getting raped to begin with
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:25 pmNot having an abortion is respecting life, and I think most of us excel at this.
Forcing a 14 year old rape victim not to have one is sick in the head. Me I’m batting 1000 on this one too.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:30 pmI don’t think it’s either, Dustin. I think the impersonality of the internet gives users the impression that they are dealing with a machine, so they can be rude to it. As an analogy, you would scream things at your television that you would never say were the target of your anger sitting in front of you. The internet just allows us all to be rude.
Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:33 pmThat’s a good principle and I certainly respect it. For example, Row v Wade (you can see Mitt Romney, Harvard Law Grad praise it as “good law” on youtube) is absurd abuse of power and a stupidly conceived way to find it. It’s contrary to federalism and has led to an unpredictable legal system on a massive but soft foundation of Chemerinksy’s ‘living’ hornbook.
If you think the fetus is a human being, no, it’s not sick. Those who are willing to make exceptions for things like rape are falling for a trap, frankly. They are playing politics with human life, by their own measurement of life.
Forcing a suicidal 14 year old girl who didn’t get pregnant to live with the mental scars of being raped is not sick either.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:36 pmI just don’t think the state has any role in that decision in any way shape or form Mr. Dustin. People should make their own choices.
It’s what gives their life a speck of value.
Comment by happyfeet — 1/3/2012 @ 2:20 pm
*sigh* Oh feets.
So if I have a newborn baby and then decide I don’t want it, I should be able to make my own choices, right? It’s what gives MY life a “speck of value, ” right? Forget any other body’s value.
You know very well you don’t agree with that. An unborn child is just as much a human being, and a separate one, as a born one.
Am still not sure how offering a horribly raped girl the easy (for us, mind you, not her) a dead child, instead of love, support and caring, and financial support for herself and her child should she want it, or help finding a good family to adopt it out should she want that, is more valuing of her “speck of life”.
Raped women who have abortions are more upset at the abortion, statistically, as the months go on, than at the rape. (Asked why, they typically say, because they know the rape is not at all their fault, while they had a hand in the abortion.)
Everyone knows abortion kills children. Some people are just not willing to take an easy out at the expense of the very young child’s “speck of life.”
no one you know (325a59) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:36 pmTrue. And I used to have more of a problem with it. Perspective helps a lot. The range of evil, even just internet evil, is quite wide.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:37 pmJohnny-One-Note rides that donkey!
Colonel Haiku (5b04f4) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:39 pmAnd yes, I think noyk has this right.
Adoption is a better result than burdening that child with taking a life.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:39 pmFeets, what Santorum wants is a society where life is respected and less 14 yo’s are getting raped to begin with
Comment by MD in Philly — 1/3/2012 @ 2:25 pm
Exactly. Why liberals want to set up a society that makes it positively likely, and easy, to rape teenage girls, and then want to kill their children to make it even harder on their already damaged memories, is a complete mystery.
no one you know (325a59) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:40 pmAnyway, I think feets is more concerned about people whose campaigns seemed defined by social issues because that’s not the focus he wants conservatives to have. Feets (correctly) thinks we have urgent existential to the Republic problems with spending, and worries that pandering on social issues is simply off topic.
Dana (I think) noted that Santorum offers a lot of good ideas on these issues. Spending, energy, taxation, but it seems Colmes has forced Santorum to be defined by this very vibrant story about his deceased baby.
That’s a shame.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:42 pmOn the subject of rape victims, help for them, and positive outcomes….
no one you know (325a59) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:46 pmI just think it’s best if we let people make their own choices.
This fantasy that we can create a state what can police everyone’s uterus is dangerous and naive I think.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:47 pmThank you Dustin you are correct… I think exotic and oppressive abortion policies are a luxury this little country can’t front-burner at this time.
We can talk about this later. I really really liked Michele with one l’s editorial the other day where she put all the family blah blah blah last last last. Way after economics and national security.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:51 pmp.s. I think adoption is a better choice too
but what’s the key word there?
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:52 pmfeets, you know there is a limit to “letting everyone make their own choices”, the question is where is the limit and on what basis. none of us gets to make the choice to go to your house and injure you, so you really need to give better arguments than “everyone gets to make their own decisions”
of course, making extended arguments is not your claim to fame/notoriety/something
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:54 pmYeah, I get it, Happyfeet. This is why I offered the suicidal 14 year old rape victim (who isn’t pregnant) counter example, where choice is not priority #1.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:55 pmI just think it’s best if we let people make their own choices.
Unfortunately, for the baby in the womb, he doesn’t have that luxury.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:56 pmJudgmental, MD, but you are correct, sir!
Colonel Haiku (5b04f4) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:58 pmp.s. I think adoption is a better choice too
but what’s the key word there?
Comment by happyfeet — 1/3/2012 @ 2:52 pm
I hear what you’re saying about the priorities in the coming election (even if I don’t agree).
Re: your last post (above), the point is, dear feets, that some choices respect the rights of others, and some do not.
If we were talking about a born child there would be no confusion on anyone’s part. A parent allowing a child to be brutally and (very often) painfully slaughtered is simply not an acceptable “choice.”
re: an unborn child, adoption and raising the child are choices that respect both parents and child. It’s not “fetus-shrieky” as you’ve put it before — it’s simple respect for the lives of both. And maximizing choice –for everyone involved — while doing so.
no one you know (325a59) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:58 pmI think out of context quotes will be my new hobby (not that Happyfeet has earned this somehow… he’s a straight shooter even when I don’t agree with him).
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 2:59 pmIt’s that “clown car logic” thingy he uses.
Colonel Haiku (5b04f4) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:00 pmfeets, you know there is a limit to “letting everyone make their own choices”, the question is where is the limit and on what basis. none of us gets to make the choice to go to your house and injure you, so you really need to give better arguments than “everyone gets to make their own decisions”
Comment by MD in Philly — 1/3/2012 @ 2:54 pm
Crossposted — thanks for (both) saying it better than I did.
no one you know (325a59) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:00 pmyes extended arguments are hard
but there are so many situation what are not cut and dried out there in this cruel and heartless fallen fallen world
you have to have faith in people, that they can make their own decisions and do what’s right
some of them will disappoint you probably
but oh well
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:01 pm*situations* I mean
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:01 pmnoyk I don’t see any of these lifeydoodle Team R suggesting we study ways for to make abortion less painful for the fetus
and yet that would be a moral thing to do I think
I would definitely support that.
Just please don’t use tax money for it.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:04 pmIf I’m not mistaken, the Roe v Wade decision bypassed the question as to whether the in utero human fetus was a living person, correct, saying that question was above their pay grade? although i think Roe v Wade is not the primary ruling in operation anymore, isn’t it a decision concerning Casey, as in current PA senator’s dad, the last of the vocal (when he was allowed to speak) pro life dems
But before you kill something, shouldn’t the question be “what is it”? Just because it has wings doesn’t mean you can shoot a turkey during duck season.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:04 pmIf I’m not mistaken, the Roe v Wade decision bypassed the question as to whether the in utero human fetus was a living person, correct, saying that question was above their pay grade? although i think Roe v Wade is not the primary ruling in operation anymore, isn’t it a decision concerning Casey, as in current PA senator’s dad, the last of the vocal (when he was allowed to speak) pro life dems
But before you kill something, shouldn’t the question be “what is it”? Just because it has wings doesn’t mean you can shoot a turkey during duck season.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:04 pm*Team Rs* sorry for all the typos I am multitasking
poorly
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:04 pmWe already make so many exceptions for killing born humans.
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:05 pmAttorney General v. X
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:07 pmI don’t see any of these lifeydoodle Team R suggesting we study ways for to make abortion less painful for the fetus
and yet that would be a moral thing to do I think
I would definitely support that.
Just please don’t use tax money for it.
OMG, if you’re even thinking of making something less painful, you are admitting there is pain which would indicate nerve endings in tact which speaks to a LIVING BEING. How can you then espouse that that would be the moral thing to do???
This is some kind of madness.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:08 pmnot sure how that happened
feets, the problem about anesthesia for a fetus means one has to admit killing a living thing that experiences feeling, but since it isn’t a person and is just a blob of cells there is no reason to use anesthesia…ht
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:08 pmonce you start with one absurd notion one needs to protect it with additional absurd notions
of course, I agree with you that in this fallen, fallen world absurdity is one thing in ample supply
Yes MD, you’re right.
Interestingly, they say we have some kind of fundamental right to privacy over our medical decisions found all over the place but not really anywhere specific.
So if, in fact, abortion kills a person, it can’t be outlawed by a state because there is a constitutional right to privacy over that procedure.
Yet… does our right to privacy over medical decisions extent to Mitt Romney demanding (in bold ink) every subject of the commonwealth of MA prove, every year they made the ‘right’ healthcare decisions in getting the ‘right’ insurance, or pay a four digit fine?
No, it would be absurd to attempt to overturn Obamacare or Romneycare by citing Roe on privacy. They excluded such interpretations. They were just dodging the issue of whether these people are people.
I think it should be a state issue. I don’t really think the US President should have to worry about social issues beyond insisting the federal government reverse whatever intrusions already exist.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:12 pmuh oh, I think Dana has you on that one, Happyfeet. If you prefer abortions be painless for the fetus, you’re giving up a lot of ground.
Not a bad idea, of course. Abortion can be a gruesome thing.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:15 pmTo add to my comment at #115, how on earth does one have the nerve to bring morality into a conversation that condones the killing of a baby?
The inconsistencies are stunning.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:15 pmOn this issue, I find it incongruous to demand that some our sons kill other people to resist an invasion of other people’s land, while simultaneously demanding that our daughters submit to an invasion of their own bodies.
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:16 pmwell yes I imagine it’s painful for the luckless little fetus
we should at least assume that it’s extremely uncomfortable
and if people have a less painful way to do the abortings they need to put that on the table
because even if the vaunted United States government outlaws the abortings, they will still merrily proceed in no small number
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:16 pmnoyk I don’t see any of these lifeydoodle Team R suggesting we study ways for to make abortion less painful for the fetus
and yet that would be a moral thing to do I think
I would definitely support that.
Just please don’t use tax money for it.
Comment by happyfeet — 1/3/2012 @ 3:04 pm
You mean like a lethal injection for a condemned prisoner, instead of being dismembered or having a scissors gouged into the back of her skull and the brains vacuumed out? Like that?
Well….just a couple of questions before I get on that project. How will she be any less dead? Or any less human? And more to the point, what did she do to deserve Death Row?
And why is it “moral” if we’re not dealing with a living being in pain? And if she’s not human, what kind of a being is she? And if she is human, why is it “moral” to kill her?
I know you don’t want to think about any of these questions, feets. It’s easier to send a teen to the abortion clinic to “take care of it.” You’re not there when she’s dealing with the aftermath. It’s easier for you. Not for her.
no one you know (325a59) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:16 pmI guess bringing morality into a conversation that condones the firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden would be out of the question for you.
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:17 pmIt’s more than giving up ground, Dustin – it is undeniably recognizing and admitting that it is indeed a life that is willfully being killed – and giving one’s approval to that death.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:17 pmOMG, if you’re even thinking of making something less painful, you are admitting there is pain which would indicate nerve endings in tact which speaks to a LIVING BEING. How can you then espouse that that would be the moral thing to do???
This is some kind of madness.
Comment by Dana — 1/3/2012 @ 3:08 pm
Yep yep.
(Cross posted above again — OK am going to let you and MD do all the prolife replies from now on. You answer better plus you type lots faster than I do . Heh. )
no one you know (325a59) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:18 pmA recent study says that fetuses begin to feel pain at around 37 weeks. That’s pretty far along in the third term, so abortion is illegal then anyway. Evolutionarily speaking, I would guess that the purpose of feeling pain (knowing when you’re injured) isn’t much use to a fetus in the womb.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/fetus-feels-pain-37-weeks-study/story?id=14472566#.TwOLb9S0wsI
carlitos (49ef9f) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:19 pmI worry that such studies, relating to political hot button issues, cannot be relied upon because we basically live in the dark ages when it comes to academics and politics.
What if a study showed that fetuses felt pain at ten weeks? Would that make it to ABC news, get grants, be published in medical journals? These days, I suspect the person ‘proving’ that somehow would have a hard time even getting a job at a University.
It’s unfortunate, as this is interesting and important information (my guess is that fetuses aren’t thinking above the frog or spider level at the beginning of their life, but it seems very difficult to know such matters).
Anyway, a newborn baby is very unlikely to understand much either, and yet they are people with some rights.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:25 pmIt’s unfortunate, as this is interesting and important information (my guess is that fetuses aren’t thinking above the frog or spider level at the beginning of their life, but it seems very difficult to know such matters).
Quite vexing, but the search continues…
Colonel Haiku (5b04f4) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:35 pmHappyfeet, your argument falls apart completely if a fetus is in fact a human being. What possible motive could you have for killing a human being that has done no wrong? “I’m sorry, you just weren’t conceived the proper way, so you’ll have to die.”
It’s an indefensible position.
Chuck Bartowski (490c6f) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:44 pmBartowski, were you speaking to me?
Icy (0e6cd5) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:48 pmThe pain and heartbreak suffered by a woman who comes to the realization/recognizes later in life that she made a horrible decision to abort her baby is gut-wrenching.
Colonel Haiku (5b04f4) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:48 pmIt’s totally defensible, but if it were done when tis done then twere well it were done quickly I think. Way before 37 weeks. And don’t tell anyone you’re doing it if you can help it.
Cause of people, they will judge you.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/3/2012 @ 3:50 pmCrappyfeets noise is leading to noise pollution.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/3/2012 @ 4:11 pmNo he was speaking to Crappyfeet isn’t it obvious?
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/3/2012 @ 4:44 pmif it were done when tis done then twere well it were done quickly I think
Wow. An amazing admission, feets. (And speaking of judgment, BTW.) But it isn’t “done when tis done,” and that’s part of the problem.
no one you know (577ce5) — 1/3/2012 @ 4:50 pmSantorum is not my kind of guy but Colmes is creepy.
Mike K (9ebddd) — 1/3/2012 @ 4:55 pmThis is one of those ymmv things.
Comment by happyfeet — 1/3/2012 @ 1:58 pm
— Exactly. For example, what do you think these “barbarians” are going to do when they get in office? What policies will they implement? What objectionable laws will they push through Congress?
Icy (0e6cd5) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:02 pm“Fetus Panels” is my guess, Icy. Mark my word… hear me now and understand me later… one day, they will be proposed.
Colonel Haiku (5b04f4) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:04 pmyou don’t need to leave, no one I know, I type slow too
I know it as risk of trivializing an important topic, but I would ask did they do post abortion interviews of fetuses at different weeks gestation to see if they felt pain?
More seriously, you can show a fetus will respond to dangerous stimuli, like an amniocentesis needle, much younger than 37 weeks. I suppose there may be an argument that early on responses are merely reflexive avoidance, and not really pain.
But as said, there is intense “secondary gain” for researchers no matter where they come from.
I remember a college professor in ethics in circa 1979 being dismayed at the level of “reasoning” of college students. People had little more to say than “It’s my choice” “You can’t legislate morality”, etc.
The problem for the left usually comes looking at the unintended consequences of a policy that was intended to do good, usually by making something necessarily difficult easier or less painful. To make a serious decision, one needs to look into the future consequences. What are the consequences of drinking a bottle of vodka before I drive, or driving at 80 mph in a 35 mph zone, or getting rid of an unwanted pregnancy by killing the unborn child? To paraphrase Santorum, when does the “something other than a human infant” become a human infant? When one foot is out of the birth canal? Two feet? The head? “Most” of the child? Is the being with one foot still in the birth canal a human infant or something other? Even if “it” is a human infant, what does that mean? It doesn’t think like a human, it can’t take care of itself like a human. What if “it” still can’t take care of itself at 5 years old, what if it could at 70 years but not 75?
Usually in a confusing situation we want to “err on the safe side”. I guess the question is “safe side” for whom, based on what?
The main reason to allow abortion is perceived convenience. That may be a good reason to choose where to buy a product, but not so much for life and death matters.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:10 pmI just feel like the sort of utopian-minded thinking what drives people to think a moral agency as bankrupt as the government of the United States of America can meaningfully “outlaw” the abortings is very naive.
As with many things, this is a government-governs-best-what-governs-least thing. The minute jackbooted American thugs started to attempt the enforcings this little country’s quite-by-design impotence with respect to social control will be laid bare for all to see.
America just doesn’t have that kind of moral authority. And the American character is not fertile soil in which to nurture mindless obeisance. Best for all concerned not to flaunt that fact I think.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:12 pmIt’s totally defensible, but if it were done when tis done then twere well it were done quickly I think. Way before 37 weeks. And don’t tell anyone you’re doing it if you can help it.
Cause of people, they will judge you.
How is this defensible when you’ve already agreed that what is being killed is a life? How does killing it earlier and in secret make it okay.
And yes, people will judge. And I hope there will always be some sort of judgement when an abortion takes place, some sort of notice and recognition that what has just taken place scarred someone deeply for the rest of their life – and killed someone else. God forbid the time comes that it no longer makes an impression on the heart, mind and soul of a people.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:12 pmGod forbid the time comes that it no longer makes an impression on the heart, mind and soul of a people.
Too late, as far as the liberal tribe.
Colonel Haiku (5b04f4) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:28 pmIt’s defensible cause of you have no way of knowing what is figuring into such a decision. I don’t, you don’t, and the ridiculously inept U.S. government mostest certainly doesn’t.
Best to let people order their affairs as they see fit. Best not to have a State in the mind of doing it for them.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:30 pm“Best to let people order their affairs as they see fit.”
Sure…as long as they don’t see fit to kill folks or steal stuff.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:38 pmThis fantasy that we can create a state what can police everyone’s uterus is dangerous and naive I think.
Comment by happyfeet — 1/3/2012 @ 2:47 pm
— Equally dangerous (or “just as silly”) is the notion that ANY of the GOP candidates would actually do ANYTHING that would result in the ‘policing’ of ANYONE’S uterus. But by all means, you keep flogging that fear factor. As you said, you mumblings may vary.
Icy (0e6cd5) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:41 pmSociety breaks down if you let people kill folks and steal stuff.
Society doesn’t break down if you let people decide when to have their own abortions.
It just doesn’t it’s a proven true fact.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:41 pmMr. Icy if you want to elect someone who maunders on an on about the sanctity of LIFE but isn’t really planning on doing anything about it then what you do is you vote for Mitt Romney.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:42 pmThat applied to killing human beings, both born and unborn, in Dresden and Tokyo.
Michael Ejercito (64388b) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:51 pm“Society breaks down if you let people kill folks and steal stuff.”
“Society doesn’t break down if you let people decide when to have their own abortions.”
So…a little killing and stealing is o.k. as long as it’s not enough to cause society to break down?
Somehow, I don’t think I’m going to go along on that one.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:51 pmThe don’t pander worse on abortion the Mitt Romney, they guy who moaned about how outlawing abortion amounts to death in back alleys, and how he will never waver in supporting abortion rights and the “Good law” of Roe v Wade.
Of course, the second he needed to stop pandering that way, he pandered hard core in the exact opposite direction. I have no idea what he actually thinks of the issue, other than it being a way to dupe idiots.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:52 pmp.s. I think adoption is a better choice too
but what’s the key word there?
Comment by happyfeet — 1/3/2012 @ 2:52 pm
— Well, the key word would have been “best”, had you chosen it. But instead you chose to write “better”, which in this context comes across as ‘the lesser of two evils’, and is hardly a very brave (or moral) choice . . . of words.
Icy (0e6cd5) — 1/3/2012 @ 5:54 pmSociety breaks down if you let people kill folks and steal stuff.
Society doesn’t break down if you let people decide when to have their own abortions.
Given that you’ve already acknowledged, albeit unintentionally, that what is in the womb is a life being killed (#115), and yet argue that people should be able to decide when to have their own abortions, how is that not giving explicit permission to let people kill folks thus leading to a societal breakdown?
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:01 pmwhere did I say a little killing and stealing is ok? I said that those are crimes what threaten the fabric of society.
Abortions don’t do that. America’s ungodly obscene deficit is far far more of a destabilizing force than the abortings. Even Michele with one l understands that I think.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:02 pm“That applied to killing human beings, both born and unborn, in Dresden and Tokyo.”
– Michael Ejercito
Ooh. Ouch.
That’s a point that doesn’t get made nearly as often as it should.
Leviticus (dd1d7b) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:04 pmDana if abortings cause rippy rippy tears in the social fabric I don’t really see the evidence of it. I see the problem being more that a huge percentage of our home-grown native-born American citizen people whore their ass out to the government in exchange for food stamps and a section 8 apartment.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:05 pmCalling gays pedohpiles is wrong…………unless your referring to catholic priests.
/Lefty hypocrisy
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:07 pmCalling gays pedophiles is wrong…………unless your referring to catholic priests.
/Lefty hypocrisy
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:08 pmMany women who are not even religious grieve when they miscarry a few months into a pregnancy because they know they have lost a child.
dunce (15d7dc) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:19 pmMr. Icy if you want to elect someone who maunders on an on about the sanctity of LIFE but isn’t really planning on doing anything about it then what you do is you vote for Mitt Romney.
Comment by happyfeet — 1/3/2012 @ 5:42 pm
— Okay, it’s the second half, and now you’re facing the other goal post: What do you think Bachmann or Santorum will actually do?
Icy (0e6cd5) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:22 pmwhere did I say a little killing and stealing is ok? I said that those are crimes what threaten the fabric of society
When you make the statement:
1) I don’t see any of these lifeydoodle Team R suggesting we study ways for to make abortion less painful for the fetus
you tacitly admitted that this is a life being killed.
Thus, when you further state:
2) Society breaks down if you let people kill folks and steal stuff.
you have made the observation that killing folks (I would assume ‘folks’ refers to one alive that can be killed) helps break down the societal fabric.
It would appear contradictory because you’ve made the claim that what is being aborted is alive (which you approve of), while simultaneously making the claim that killing folks helps break down the societal fabric. (Apparently this form of killing is acceptable.)
But then when you make this claim,
3) Abortions don’t do that.
you engage in further self-contradiction.
It’s circular. I am hammering (hopefully not rudely) at this to clearly better understand the justification for accepting this practice and to see where inconsistencies dwell.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:23 pmI don’t think they’re electable so this is really a highly abstract thought problem.
I think for sure if they were elected it would only encourage all the other deranged lifeydoodle politicians to claim a mandate to pursue their deeply silly and not-a-little-bigoted agenda even as America glub glub gubbed into a fatal quicksand of debt and fail and unsightly blemishes.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:26 pmthat was for Mr. Icy
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:26 pmAmerica’s ungodly obscene deficit is far far more of a destabilizing force than the abortings. Even Michele with one l understands that I think.
— Some people ARE able to multi-task well.
Icy (0e6cd5) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:30 pmDana Dana bo Bana banana fana fo Fama… I don’t tacitly admit a life is being killed I’ve always have said when you have an abortion what you’re doing is killing a wee little baby. Albeit one that’s in something of an inchoate state.
But a lot of people get pregnant who are too inept and stupid to be parents, and a lot of times adoption may not be an option cause the dad may not be in the picture or the baby daddy is abusive or maybe not the guy the poor hoochie is married to or there may be drug addictions involved or the poor lass may be an olympic champion tuba-fluter who has a Dream or maybe the girl’s parents don’t want everyone to know they raised a god-awful slutty daughter.
Whatever, really. It’s a mixed-up muddled-up shooked-up world except for Lola.
But no anyhoo we’ve had legal abortions for many many moons and aside from a very few slaughtered abortionists and the establishment of a surpassingly irrelevant litmus test for Team R candidates and judges, there hasn’t been very much in the way of ripple effects.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:37 pmoops
dad may
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:38 pmnotbe in the pictureYou don’t think society has gotten a whole lot worse in the last 40 years? You don’t think a careless disregard for life has anything to do with that?
Chuck Bartowski (490c6f) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:39 pmYou would have made a formidable boxer. Duck, dodge, bob and weave. If their militant pro-life stance is reason enough to not vote for them there must be something they would do, once in office, that you wish to avoid. WHAT IS IT?
Icy (0e6cd5) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:39 pmI would NOT have made a formidable boxer.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:41 pmYou don’t think a careless disregard for life has anything to do with that?
No I think it’s cause spendy spendy foolish America squandered the seed corn on high speed trains and half-hearted but well-meaning invasions of Vietnam and Iraq and on gabillions of dollars of food stamps and a decades-long search for an air refueling tanker and stem cell research and stupid EPA regulations and solar energy and a silly and feckless War On Drugs and on the piggy piggy pigs at the trough of the Department of Education and the thuggy thuggy autoworker whores at Government Motors as well as throwing a wad to thuggy thuggy unionized “first responders” to squander in the name of homeland security as well as a crapload of money shoveled to a degenerate dictator in Egypt and a fortune on a space program what is going backwards in terms of capability and plus they paid you cash for your clunker and then wrecked it for no reason like a drooling idiot child pulling the head off a barbie.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 6:49 pmBut a lot of people get pregnant who are too inept and stupid to be parents, and a lot of times adoption may not be an option
— Sorry kid, but you were doomed to face a life of pain and misery, so we’re just gonna end your suffering before it begins.
Abortion as mercy killing; it’s a pity Dr Kevorkian never thought of it.
there hasn’t been very much in the way of ripple effects.
Icy (0e6cd5) — 1/3/2012 @ 7:00 pm— Only 1.3 million “ripple effects” per year. Like dropping a pebble into the lifey lifey ocean.
yup sorry kid them’s the breaks no chef boyardee for you
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 7:02 pmI go back to #160 with this change:
you
tacitlyadmittedclearly admit that this is a life being killed.Somehow this is just so much worse. Knowing that it is indeed a life being killed and yet, approving…
Re there being not much in the way of ripple effects: To believe that 1.3+ million abortions per year are not causing some sort of ripple effect in our society is ludicrous when one considers that, by its very definition, abortion is the ultimate degradation of human life. If that doesn’t cause a ripple effect, I don’t know what does. The callous disregard for life is seen and experienced daily in our society.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/3/2012 @ 7:14 pm154.“That applied to killing human beings, both born and unborn, in Dresden and Tokyo.”
– Michael Ejercito
Ooh. Ouch.
That’s a point that doesn’t get made nearly as often as it should.
Comment by Leviticus
Hi there, Leviticus,
Actually he’s made the statement before and I’ve addressed the statement before.
The manner in which war is conducted, especially when looking at action other than direct military-military action, is a very worthy and important subject.
I think, though, that there is little direct analogy between abortion and deaths of civilians in wartime. First, the issue whether the unborn child “counts” as a person is not addressed. Second, if one tries to make the case that in both instances innocents are killed, where does the argument go from there? If you are pro-life and against abortion you should be pro-life by opposing war as well? I am not sure what that does in the context of the abortion discussion.
It’s another battle in the “language wars”. Very few people are “pro-war” as the opposite of “anti-war”. There is a relatively small number of people who do not think war is ever an option. They would have surrendered Britain to Hitler, the Pacific to the Japanese Emperor and have Americans move to one side of the country vs the other, depending on whether they wanted to learn Japanese or German. Most of the time the question is really over “This war, yes or no; if yes, how?”
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/3/2012 @ 7:25 pmAs I said, I think those are very worthy and important questions, but I don’t see how it is directly related to the abortion question.
I don’t approve but people have to find their own way through this vale of tears and I am but a wee pikachu possessed of the conviction that Virtue, if compelled by a fearsome and unreasoning State, is no virtue at all. It’s oppression is all it is.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 7:28 pmI think for sure if they were elected it would only encourage all the other deranged lifeydoodle politicians to claim a mandate to pursue their deeply silly and not-a-little-bigoted agenda
— Again, what do you think would actually be enacted on a federal level? Mandatory viewings of ultrasounds? No transporting minors across state lines for the purpose of abortion? What?
Icy (0e6cd5) — 1/3/2012 @ 7:38 pmI am a fan of tofu. But if I had nothing else to eat for a week I don’t think I’d be much of a fan afterwards.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 7:39 pmDana Dana Dana can’t you see sometimes your words they mystify me. There is no “our society” in the sense that we have this thing we get to boss around for its own good. There’s an “our society” only in the sense that we’re just what happens when a promising and sparkly sparkly terra nouveaux is given unto them a passel of tempest-tost huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
And it’s our duty to see that these people bless their hearts stay as free as they can for as long as they can. And part of that is this messy and distasteful abortion business, particularly for the women-folk of uncertain prospects.
I wish it wasn’t that way but you can’t choose the cards you’re dealt just what hat you wear to the card game.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 7:40 pmHow about in the decision whether to kill my annoying neighbour, or whether to rob Michael Moore? Do you think the state should have a role in that decision?
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 7:40 pmComment by daleyrocks — 1/3/2012 @ 12:43 pm
To return to the original topic (I’ll let y’all scuffle about on abortion and so forth)–what Milhouse was saying was that what Santorum and his wife did ran severely against what Jewish tradition believes is proper respect for the dead. The Santorums could have achieved their object by taking their other children to the funeral home to view the open casket, and spending time alone as a family with the body in the casket. And even that pushes the Jewish envelope a little, since in Jewish tradition one is supposed to close the casket and keep it closed once the body is cleansed and prepared.
(And everyone joining in to fill the grave is another way of showing respect for the dead, by helping in this one last act of kindness to the deceased–but the shovel is held upside down, in token of the fact that this is one act you would very much prefer not to be doing).
We Jews believe that the body, since it was the house of the soul (that is, the Divine Image or Spark), should be treated with utmost respect after death, and that respect is shown by giving it a simple decent funeral, with eulogies, as soon after death as circumstances (which include among other things letting out of town relatives or important friends or colleagues fly in if they can do so quickly) permit, and to bury it in the ground so it can dissolve in the manner God intended, while the family begins the process of grieving in earnest with the rituals of sitting shivah. This means that, for instance, you don’t shuttle the body between funeral home and family home, no matter how valid the rationale might be (and I admit the Santorums had a fairly good rationale.
Last year, when my stepmother (who was not Jewish) passed away, she was given an open casket memorial service at the funeral home, and being in the room with that open casket was one of the creepiest experiences I have ever had. It just felt fundamentally wrong–and the statements by various people on how beautiful she looked, and how good a job the funeral home had done with her makeup and the embalming in general only made it creepier. A cultural thing, no doubt, but it made me shudder to the core.
JBS (a6ffde) — 1/3/2012 @ 7:42 pmMr. Milhouse you have to catch up on the thread I already said about how there are these things what are inimical to a society of free people living freely – thing like murder most foul – and then there are things like abortion which are not in effect inimical to a society of free people living freely.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 7:43 pmHow about forcing a 14-year-old rape victim not to massacre her rapist’s entire family? Or just forcing her not to stalk his 3-year-old daughter at the playground and steal her doll? Do you think that’s sick too?
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 7:44 pm“I think… that there is little direct analogy between abortion and deaths of civilians in wartime. First, the issue whether the unborn child “counts” as a person is not addressed. Second, if one tries to make the case that in both instances innocents are killed, where does the argument go from there? If you are pro-life and against abortion you should be pro-life by opposing war as well? I am not sure what that does in the context of the abortion discussion.”
– MD in Philly
MD,
The issue as to whether or not a fetus is a person is not really an issue at all, to my mind. I believe in a soul, connected in some way to the body as an earthly vessel. It makes indisputable sense to me that the spiritual would be joined to the physical at conception. Any other point of union would seem exceedingly arbitrary.
The connection – and I think it a relevant one – is that both abortion and the deaths of civilians in wartime are examples of autonomous agents causing the deaths of other human beings by either recklessness, ignorance, or malice. You don’t need to be anti-war to be pro-life, but you can’t be apathetic either (adopting the pragmatist’s stance that you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs). All possible care should be taken to preserve the lives of innocents, in both cases, and news of either should cause great sadness to a person of real conviction.
Unfortunately, I think there are plenty of people who are inconsistent in regard to these two matters: either decrying civilian deaths while shrugging off abortions as the termination of an inconvenience, or decrying abortions while shrugging off civilian deaths as a necessary consequence of some foreigner’s impertinence.
Leviticus (dd1d7b) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:00 pmI don’t understand about the playground. Everyone should practice good playground etiquette at all times I think.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:04 pm“what Milhouse was saying was that what Santorum and his wife did ran severely against what Jewish tradition believes is proper respect for the dead.”
JBS – I disagree. Milhouse was criticizing what the Santorum’s did with their dead son by reference to bizarre Catholic rituals when if he had actually watched the second video in the post he would have seen Santorum explain the family’s action’s were not motivated by religion, but by his wife’s experience as a neonatal nurse.
So first, he jumped to a conclusion by not watching the explanation and two his words are par for the course when Milhouse attempts to describe religious practices which differ from his own, mockery and scorn. Simply describing differences in practices does not suffice.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:08 pmmy sister has a cat what brings in dead things all the time but it’s ok cause she always leaves it for her on the parquet not the carpet
but it can really ruin breakfast
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:11 pmJBS – The first time somebody sees an open casket can be very creepy, but again it is a way of saying goodbye and caskets are not open at all vigils or visitations.
The first time I was asked to shovel dirt into a grave on top of a casket at a Jewish funeral I thought that was the incredibly creepy – asking me to bury the person too.
I’m willing to respect the traditions of other religions unless they try to do me harm. Each is free to worship in his own way and believe his own is the best. Proclaiming in everybody’s face that your own is the best is just plain rude, YMMV.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:17 pmI just feel like the sort of utopian-minded thinking what drives people to think a moral agency as bankrupt as the government of the United States of America can meaningfully “outlaw” the muggings and the rapings is very naive.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:30 pmI think Crappyfeet is a dousche.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:34 pmthat’s not a very good analogy I don’t think Mr. Milhouse cause of abortion is different than muggings and rapings cause of it’s volitional
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:35 pmYou know when else society doesn’t break down? It doesn’t break down if you let people kill their own children, or their elderly parents, or homeless people who have no friends or relatives to avenge them. It doesn’t break down if you let rich and powerful people rob poor and powerless ones, so long as they keep a tight enough control that there isn’t a revolt.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:36 pmGiven the liberal reaction to criticism of the Wellstone memorial service/pep rally/”We hate Republicans” session (“HOW DARE YOU TELL US HOW TO MOURN!!!”), Colmes’ reaction (and defense of that reaction from the usual suspects) becomes all the more pathetic.
M. Scott Eiland (003254) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:39 pmif people think their kids are going to kill them then that is inimical to free people living freely Mr. Milhouse
the homeless people maybe not so much
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 8:44 pmHappyfeet is a pimp for Huntsman.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:14 pmYMMV.
In this case, my mileage does not vary. But what the Santorums did pulled too many triggers for me to not feel creeped out by it. What they did was not Catholic, but it was a bizzare ritual. That it had a psychological rationale and not a religious rationale does not change that–and in modern American culture, what Catholics do with saints’ relics is the nearest parallel to what they did.
There are in fact a number of things Catholics do that raise my Jewish hackles, but that’s an instinctive reaction–I know why they do it, and know there’s solid intellectual justification for it if you start from Catholic premises, and I still have a hard time dealing with it. The reason why is best summed up by the fact that when I visited NYC as a kid with my mother, she took me into St. Patrick’s Cathedral for a few minutes “so you can see the idols”. (exact quote)
I think that what the Santorums did was disrespectful to the mortal remains of their child, and that they could have achieved the intended result by other means that were more respectful to the dead. I take it you disagree with me on the first point at least, so I suggest leaving the matter in polite disagreement.
JBS (a6ffde) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:21 pmJBS, it’s not just a matter of the body having once upon a time housed the soul. The cultural assumption that underlies the Jewish attitude to the dead is that the body is not just a house, or a suit of clothes, that one shucks and leaves behind; it’s part of us. A person is not just a soul, a person consists of a soul and a body just like a light consists of a flame and a wick. A dead person is still conscious of his body, and especially at first is focused primarily on it and what’s happening to it. A dead person has to be treated with respect because he is paying attention. He may not have pain nerves any more, but he has feelings. And that’s why treating the body disrespectfully, putting it on display, let alone cutting it open or burning it, feel so wrong to someone who has grown up in that culture.
As time goes on, from this cultural viewpoint at least, a person learns to focus his attention elsewhere, and stops paying so much attention to the body; after all, not much interesting is happening to it once it’s finished decomposing. But when he has visitors his attention returns, and he is aware of what the visitors are saying. Hence the practise of visiting relatives’ or saints’ graves to ask for their prayers, or to inform them of family news; and hence the revulsion Jews tend to feel at the idea of autopsies, cremation, or exhumation. (That’s why there are protests in Israel whenever a construction site uncovers ancient graves.)
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:27 pmReally? Where did I write any such thing? You have a sick sick mind, and it makes you hear things that nobody has said and imagine things that don’t exist outside it.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:30 pmI did not mention religion at all. Religion has nothing to do with it.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:31 pmBut they clearly did it out of respect. They disrespected your norms, not the actual child or the child’s remains. They revered those, obviously.
It’s hard to build a case for disrespect from someone’s reverence. And at any rate, how can we judge people who were reacting so soon to such a thing as losing their child? It’s not very fair.
I have my own reasons for opposing Santorum. But I think this whole thing only serves to continue to force Santorum to be defined by social issues.
He has a page about his stances. Here’s what he defines himself with: Second amendment rights, a health care reform, spending, family, Iran, family again, and low taxes.
Alan Colmes defined Santorum with this slice of his life, and I think it’s unfortunate if we let that work.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:34 pmDid you murder his dog or something? I don’t get it either. Some people take the internet too personally.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:35 pmComment by Milhouse — 1/3/2012 @ 9:27 pm
The idea that the deceased is aware of what happens to their remains and can even feel pain from it is not a universal tradition among Jews. It was never part of what I was taught as a child or an adult, for that matter.
And indeed, from a certain perspective, it’s an idea that is not really different or better than carrying around blessed body parts for the edification of the faithful.
JBS (a6ffde) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:36 pmHow can that be creepy? Doing the person one last favour? Don’t you want to be buried when you’re gone? If others don’t do it for you, who will? You can hardly do it for yourself. It may be a chore, but when someone is helpless they must depend on us to help them, and it’s no more creepy to help bury someone when they’ve died than it is to help feed or wash them when they’re hungry or dirty and can’t manage to do it for themselves. But putting someone on display, looking at their face when they can’t look back, holding and cuddling and kissing them when they’re beyond physical sensation, how does that help them? How is that respectful, or something you would want others to do to you when your time comes?
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:37 pmHuh? Muggings and rapings are also volitional; or do you think that muggers and rapists are some sort of automata, or else possessed by a spirit that makes them do things they don’t choose? Muggers, rapists, and abortionists all choose to do their thing; but their victims don’t choose to have those things happen to them.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:39 pmnobody chooses to be mugged or raped is what I mean
it’s a thing
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:40 pmBut they clearly did it out of respect. They disrespected your norms, not the actual child or the child’s remains. They revered those, obviously.
well, yes. but sometimes one’s personal norms seem to obviously common sense it’s hard to keep in mind the fact that they may not be so common sense for someone else.
It’s hard to build a case for disrespect from someone’s reverence. And at any rate, how can we judge people who were reacting so soon to such a thing as losing their child? It’s not very fair.
Again, I’m not really disagreeing with you. But if the grieving parent went out and killed someone they blamed for their child’s death, I think you would be at least a little judgmental, wouldn’t you?
JBS (a6ffde) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:42 pmNo, they didn’t disrespect my or JBS’s norms; they simply acted on different cultural assumptions, different basic premises.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:43 pmAnd nobody chooses to be aborted.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:45 pmBut putting someone on display, looking at their face when they can’t look back, holding and cuddling and kissing them when they’re beyond physical sensation, how does that help them?
You do realize that you just contradicted what you said in reply to me in comment 195? I think if I was aware of what was going on at my memorial service or whatever, I would like people giving me a hug or a kiss, even if I couldn’t hug and kiss back.
JBS (a6ffde) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:46 pmthey also don’t choose not to be aborted
it’s all frightfully arbitrary
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:49 pmOnce again, it’s not about religion, it’s about basic cultural attitudes. Which ultimately come from what you think is going on. If you think dead is dead and the person no longer exists, or if you think they’ve already gone elsewhere and are unaware of and unconcerned with what you’re doing with their remains, then what you do is for the living, and you do whatever makes the living feel better. But if you think the person is still there, and keenly aware of what you’re doing with what they’re still used to thinking of as their self, then suddenly everything you do becomes about them and what you think will make them feel better.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:51 pmmugging and rape victims also don’t choose not to be mugged or raped, at least not until the attack has started. And not even then, if they’re asleep or unconscious.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:53 pmYou know what I meant, though. They didn’t act out of disrespect. Anyway, it’s hard to imagine a better time to cut someone slack.
Of course. “My kid just died” is a sufficient explanation for a lot of lapses, though. and that’s assuming this was a lapse rather than an understandable attempt to teach kids about their sibling and about life and death. Which is a hard debate to win either way.
Personally I had never really thought about it like that, but it makes a lot of sense. This is, to some extent, a chore we’re doing for someone out of kindness. But to others, it’s a lot more than that.
This is one of the better threads on this blog in some time, and I appreciate the greasemonkey sctipt, Milhouse, which I am sure has aided me greatly today.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:53 pmIt’s just dragging things out; a dead person belongs in the ground as soon as possible, so he can begin to move on.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:54 pmOf course they didn’t. Why would they disrespect their son whom they loved so much? Did I criticise them for it?
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:56 pmYou’re welcome. I won’t ask whom you’re blocking. Personally the only person I block on this blog is EPWJ, because I can’t even begin to respond to him. It’s as if we don’t share a language.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 9:58 pmYou were responding to me responding to another commenter.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 10:27 pm“Milhouse was criticizing what the Santorum’s did with their dead son by reference to bizarre Catholic rituals
Really? Where did I write any such thing? You have a sick sick mind, and it makes you hear things that nobody has said and imagine things that don’t exist outside it.”
Milhouse – Right here from Comment #2, your words:
“Come on, that was pretty ghoulish. The kid was dead; he belonged in a grave so he could get on with whatever lay in his future. Then again, I suppose I’m just being a cultural chauvinist. I know Catholics have some bizarre (to me) attitudes towards death and the dead. Wakes, for instance; how disrespectful can you get?”
Not my imagination so you must have forgotten writing them.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/3/2012 @ 10:32 pm” The first time I was asked to shovel dirt into a grave on top of a casket at a Jewish funeral I thought that was the incredibly creepy – asking me to bury the person too.
How can that be creepy?”
Milhouse – I was describing how I felt, not looking for an argument, you socially defective sitzpinkler.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/3/2012 @ 10:34 pm“This is one of the better threads on this blog in some time”
Dustin – I agree, except for the attempts to turn it into a Romney bashing thread.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/3/2012 @ 10:36 pmWay to bury the shovel, daley!
Colonel Haiku (5b04f4) — 1/3/2012 @ 10:37 pmThe evil in the internets!
Colonel Haiku (5b04f4) — 1/3/2012 @ 10:39 pm“Once again, it’s not about religion, it’s about basic cultural attitudes.”
Milhouse – If so, then why did you introduce religion into it with you comments about wakes, burying people in church basements and then relic veneration?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/3/2012 @ 10:39 pm“Way to bury the shovel, daley!”
Colonel – Some people just want to pretend they forgot what they wrote earlier. Friend Milhouse uses that technique often.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/3/2012 @ 10:40 pmGrandmaster Milhouse, the Gefilte Rapper would do such a thing as that?!?!
Colonel Haiku (5b04f4) — 1/3/2012 @ 10:46 pm“In this case, my mileage does not vary. But what the Santorums did pulled too many triggers for me to not feel creeped out by it. What they did was not Catholic, but it was a bizzare ritual.”
JBS – It’s fine to feel creeped out by it, but it does not seem a religious thing. Argue the psychology if you want, I don’t have any neonatal grief training, do you?
Milhouse was the commenter who introduced religion into the thread with his rant about how disrespectful wakes are and his diatribe about relics.
I don’t think there is any parallel to the veneration of relics, which was primarily related to the idea that miracles attributed to the Saints whose clothing, iron filings from their crucifixion, ashes or even bone fragments might yield similar miracles to those venerating the relics. I see no parallels at all.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/3/2012 @ 10:52 pmColonel Haiku has enough hot air in hi smouth to melt the ice caps.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/3/2012 @ 11:00 pmThere’s definitely something wrong with you, Daley. You quote my words and what you claim was there is plainly not there, and yet you pretend it is. Even brazen liars don’t lie when the evidence is right in front of everyone’s eyes. So you must really have some kind of filter that makes you see things that aren’t there.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 11:17 pmI didn’t. You did.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 11:17 pmYeah, that stuff doesn’t add to an interesting discussion of these issues. Some folks should lighten up a bit. Not to the point where they don’t take the matters seriously, but to the point where they aren’t changing the arguments folks use into things they don’t recognize, and then when someone says ‘hey, that isn’t what I mean’ insisting ‘no, that is what you mean’ so you can bash them.
That is childish.
Thanks again, Milhouse, for the filter, and perhaps you see why I enjoyed the thread more than you are.
Dustin (cb3719) — 1/3/2012 @ 11:26 pmYes, you see what plainly isn’t there, and don’t see what’s right before your eyes. The parallel is obvious: I’m operating from a deep-seated assumption that dead people belong in the ground, where they can rest in peace.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/3/2012 @ 11:33 pm“It is Accepted Wisdom™ that”
Alan Colmes is a bloviating moron…and, in this case accepted wisdom is spot on.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/3/2012 @ 11:50 pmWow! I sure wish that I could alter reality and make things that I wrote non-existent, even when folks can just scroll up the page and still think that they see those things clearly displayed in black & white before their skeptical eyes.
Is there a place where you can download one of those filters?
Icy (44e33c) — 1/4/2012 @ 12:26 amfeets- i agree that govt. is poor at inforcing positive virtue, but has the role of inhibiting negative behavior. Govt. doesn’t do a good job of making people generous, but it needs to do what it can to discourage theft.
so…I guess it depends on whether you think govt. is trying to enforce a positive virtue in making someone keep an unplanned pregnancy, or is it preventing the killing of an innocent
I don’t see the point much of having viewings of a dead body in general. the body is dead, it deserves a degree of respect as being the housing of a human being. but it is merely a body, dust to dust.
But there was a legitimate point to what the santorums did that made sense, as far as I can see
Leviticus- two things
I still don’t see how the death of innocents in combat is connected to the death of innocents in war, other than as an overarching political position argument that is not very clearly thought through.
I don’t think pro-life people don’t think about the death of innocents in war, just as I don’t think it is necessarily a contradiction to be anti-abortion and pro-death penalty. some talk of being “Consistently pro-life” as being opposed to killing anybody, but that is an opinion and rhetorical appeal, I think, more than a logical argument.
An alternative view is that to be pro-life is valuing things that protect life, which may mean that the murderer, the person who takes life wontonly, has so violently degraded the human condition that they forfeit their life, not only to prevent their own repeated offenses, but to emphasize to society the respect put on life.
I think those that liken innocent war casualties to abortion are those that think it is relatively easy to avoid war, that war happens when the US is greedy, so if we just stop being greedy we will not have to fight wars. I think that is more flawed wishful thinking than supported by history. To avoid committing abortion one does not generally risk other innocent life (“everybody” recognizes abortion may be unavaoidable in the case of the life of the mother being at risk). To avoid killing innocents in war may at times risk increased death of others, with Japan at WW II being the prime argument. (Though the US continues to work to avoid civilian deaths more than any country in the world-by far).
I agree that suggesting the soul and body unite at birth is a reasonable argument, but i can’t agree that it is “indisputable”. yes, you have the problem of arbitrariness of deciding when an unborn child is a person. santorum famously argued arbitrariness with Boxer on personhood at birth too. Does the soul enter the body when the body is completely out of the birth canal, when the brain/”mind” is out, when the torso/heart/”heart” is out? as long as one foot is still in the birth canal has the soul not yet connected?
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/4/2012 @ 5:03 amThe least arbitrary dividing line in personhood is conception. at one moment you have an egg and a sperm that each have an incomplete complement of DNA, a cell that cannot live for long. then you have a fertilized human egg heading down the fallopian tube. it is human, nothing else, and unless interferred with by “natural mishap” or planned intervention, will become a human child capable of life outside of the womb. One may want to say the fertilized egg is not a person, but you do have a very difficult time of deciding when it is. i agree there is logical reason for your view, but i do not agree it is indisputably the case.
Lots of good comments here since yesterday.
carlitos (49ef9f) — 1/4/2012 @ 7:26 am“The parallel is obvious: I’m operating from a deep-seated assumption that dead people belong in the ground, where they can rest in peace.”
Milhouse – Operate from that assumption all you want. A newly dead baby is not the same as a clothing shard, ashes from someone burned at a stake, iron filings from nails used to crucify someone or a small bone typically of centuries dead saints which are considered relics. The differences are obvious.
Once again by going on a rant about relics and the Catholic church, you introduced religion into the thread and somehow believe you can deny it. No sale.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/4/2012 @ 7:31 amMr. MD the state’s interest in inhibiting people who don’t want to be parents from not being parents is not super clear to me.
That seems like a decision the state doesn’t need to be involved in. If it’s “negative behavior” then what we do is we trust our fellow Americans to do the right thing or suffer the consequences.
That’s a very large facet of personal responsibility as I understand it.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/4/2012 @ 7:40 amHow about the state’s interest in inhibiting people from violating the rights of other people: is that super clear to you?
Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd) — 1/4/2012 @ 8:02 amComment by Chuck Bartowski — 1/4/2012 @ 8:02 am
Well said. Am really liking your comments on this thread.
no one you know (325a59) — 1/4/2012 @ 10:15 amNo Mr. Chuck I think women are a lot of times compromised to where the sexual intercourse is something what they don’t have as much control over as they should. And lots of these women are poor and ignorant and wicked in the eyes of the Lord already.
But they should still be allowed to say hey it’s in nobody’s best interest that I have a baby with my abusive heroin-addict boyfriend or my alcoholic father or my criminal husband what I know is already cheating on me and is awaiting sentencing or the loser rapist what reeked of hepatitis I met outside the Pick n Pack last Thursday or what have you. So if they want to nip that sort of thing in the bud and they’re cool with that then I don’t see why the state should interfere, or by what right it even could.
And I think it’s an over-reach by any government what dictates that decision. Whether it’s the godless chinese one or the righteous right-hand-of-God American one.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 10:54 amNo Mr. Chuck I think women are a lot of times compromised to where the sexual intercourse is something what they don’t have as much control over as they should. And lots of these women are poor and ignorant and wicked in the eyes of the Lord already.
Meh.
I’m pro choice, but I don’t support turning women into victims just to make the pro choice argument.
Women can be slutty, promiscuous, stupid, and careless just as well as men can. Women know what gets them pregnant and they are often as not just lazy about it.
But I still support the choice.
MayBee (081489) — 1/4/2012 @ 10:59 amIt seems that Mr feets is characterizing women that get abortions as being of the lowlife variety … poor choices, substance issues, part of a cycle of abuse, attracted and attached to loser males. Perhaps a trip to the other side of the tracks is in order. Maybe then he will see — as I do every single day that I have worked in my particular industry — that for a great number of these women their children are THE driving force for them to clean up their act and live improved, respectful, meaningful lives.
Icy (44e33c) — 1/4/2012 @ 11:07 ampost #228 in the early lead for “Most Ironic Post of 2012″…
Colonel Haiku (5b04f4) — 1/4/2012 @ 11:12 amYou’ve completely missed my point,happyfeet. Let me set it forth:
1. You have conceded that a fetus is a human being
2. We as Americans stipulate that all people have rights
3. We have set up a government to ensure those rights, primarily by making it illegal for one person to violate another person’s rights
4. The state has an interest in preventing one person from killing another
5. Since you’ve conceded that a fetus is a human being, you have conceded that a fetus has rights, and that the state has an interest in preventing other people from killing said fetus.
NOW do you see what I was getting at?
Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd) — 1/4/2012 @ 11:29 amI just think you can never know what’s going on with people to where you’re justified substituting your decisions for what they would choose.
I don’t actually know any women who’ve had abortions what didn’t go on to be happy moms later doing whatever it is they’d set out to do, whether it was getting married and settled first or knocking our some school or doing a career thing, so I have to use my imagination. Except for M but I imagine she’ll end up adopting, which, that’s probably a good choice for her cause I think pregnancy would be really hard on her cause she’d have trouble eating enough.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 11:35 amknocking *out* some school I mean
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 11:37 amwhen Lila Rose plays a wannabe abortion chick, she always makes them really white trash and victimy, so that’s probably where I got that
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 11:39 am🙂
carlitos (49ef9f) — 1/4/2012 @ 11:39 amNG knows a girl from a faraway land what just got her MBA but still lives at home and she had an abortion cause her boyfriend is hispanic and she’s not allowed to date outside of her culture and she doesn’t want to get disinherited.
But they’re still together even though he really wanted the baby. She’s very pretty I’ve seen pictures and her parents are very successful entrepreneurial types.
Also there’s this one other girl she knows who’s sort of “loose,” as they say. And she became pregnant through sheer carelessness. And so what she did is she picked a guy from her recent past and went to him and said hey you I’m pregnant your share of the abortion is $300.
But then she ended up getting the abortion for free and spent the money on ugg boots and makeup.
Those are the only two she knows.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 12:07 pmBoth non sequitur, hf, and both illustrate horrible and inhumane reasons for killing a baby.
Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd) — 1/4/2012 @ 12:11 pm“But they should still be allowed to say hey it’s in nobody’s best interest that I have a baby with my abusive heroin-addict boyfriend…”
Yeah, because you wouldn’t want to do anything to force a slut and a junkie to step up and take responsibilty for the life they created.
Far better that they be allowed to kill an unborn baby, so that they can enjoy the blessings of slutdom and junkiehood, unimpeded by the horrible responsibity of parenting.
It’s better for all concerned, especially the now dead unborn baby.
Now, please excuse me, I feel a compelling need to vomit.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/4/2012 @ 12:13 pmno Mr. Surls we’re walking that part back about the heroin-addicted boyfriend
yes some people what have abortions are in unfortunate circumstances but a woman’s right to choose in these matters does not inhere in the unfortunateness of her circumstances
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 12:18 pmyes Mr. Chuck those aren’t very good examples maybe, but they’re real life ones
and there’s lots more to both stories I’m sure
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 12:21 pmNo maybe, hf, those are horrible stories. The first woman murdered her unborn child for money. The second murdered for convenience. If that’s the sort of choice you support, you really ought to change your thinking.
Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd) — 1/4/2012 @ 12:27 pmIt’s not about supporting these choices it’s about not wanting to live in an America where the state forbids such choosings.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 12:30 pmSo, you would have no problem with an America that allows human beings to be killed for money?
Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd) — 1/4/2012 @ 12:34 pm“a woman’s right to choose”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…exception: women should be free to kill their unborn offspring, if it looks like dealing will be a hassle.”
Very noble words. Glad to see someone updated them, so that we’d be a little more up to date.
There’s no such thing as the right to choose to kill the innocent.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/4/2012 @ 12:37 pmyes I don’t think the state has any business being involved in these and many many other matters
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 12:45 pm“…it’s about not wanting to live in an America where the state forbids such choosings.”
Yeah, ’cause no one wants to live in a place where the mean old state forbids the taking of innocent human life. That would harsh the buzz of millions of stupid sluts who do want to have orgasms, but don’t feel like being pregnant.
And, that right to have an orgasm thing is real, real important. Much more important than the right of an innocent unborn baby to live.
[Vomits again]
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/4/2012 @ 12:51 pmI don’t agree that the state *can* forbid abortion… I think abortions would by and large continue.
Americans are very resourceful people.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 12:57 pmI’m sure there’s like a youtube or something.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 12:58 pmDodging the question once again, hf.
By your logic, the state can’t forbid theft (or assault, or rape, or murder, or anything) because those activities would still continue.
I don’t think you understand the full logical conclusion of your positions.
Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd) — 1/4/2012 @ 12:59 pmWow! I sure wish that I could alter reality and make things that I wrote non-existent, even when folks can just scroll up the page and still think that they see those things clearly displayed in black & white before their skeptical eyes.
Is there a place where you can download one of those filters?
Comment by Icy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cain’tcha just cover yer ears and eyes and go all lalalalalala?
You are a funny dude, Icy!
Colonel Haiku (5b04f4) — 1/4/2012 @ 1:05 pmthen all the state has done is created a new class of criminals
which just makes the state look silly
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 1:06 pm“I don’t agree that the state *can* forbid abortion… I think abortions would by and large continue.”
Same thing with murder and armed robbery. No matter how much the state forbids, people still do it, so we might as well give up trying to forbid it.
Right?
The usual utterly irrational arguments from the defenders of a “woman’s right to choose to kill her unborn baby for any reason whatsoever”.
But, considering what is they’re defending, it’s hardly surprising they can’t formulate a rational argument that won’t turn a decent person’s stomach.
Don’t feel bad though, folks who tried to justify race-based slavery or Nazi/Communist genocide had the exact same problem, so you’re in “good” company.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/4/2012 @ 1:07 pmjust trust me it’s better to leave things pretty much just the way they are as far as all this abortion stuff goes
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 1:08 pmYes, it’s silly for the state to create a class of criminals called rapists. Because, even though the state has made rape illegal, there are rapes every day.
You really don’t understand your own logic, do you?
Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd) — 1/4/2012 @ 1:08 pmLet me get this straight the right only oppose not getting senate approval for Obamas nominees because their hands are getting greased?
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/4/2012 @ 1:11 pmy’all really really like these analogy thingies huh
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 1:17 pmfeets thinks a woman’s right to liberty supercede’s an unborn child’s right to lifey doodle.
Icy (44e33c) — 1/4/2012 @ 1:54 pmok we’ll just put your name here in the lifeydoodle column Mr. Icy how’s that?
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 2:00 pmAnalogy? You’re the one who conceded that a fetus was a human being. I’m just trying to show you where your own beliefs lead. If you can’t take that heat, stay out of the kitchen.
Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd) — 1/4/2012 @ 2:06 pmfetuses are sorta like trial size people like sometimes you get in the mail
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 2:22 pmYou just refuse to face your own inconsistencies, hf.
I’m done with this thread. No point in trying to point out illogical thinking in someone who refuses to see it.
Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd) — 1/4/2012 @ 2:27 pmHow ’bout we put your name in the “out of sight, out of mind” column?
Icy (44e33c) — 1/4/2012 @ 2:31 pmI think lifeydoodle theory and practice and limited government are inconsistent too. But I’m still willing to engage.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 2:31 pm#273 was for feets, who espouses the unspoken leftist justification of “if you can’t see it then you can pretend it isn’t really there”.
Icy (44e33c) — 1/4/2012 @ 2:34 pm268 I agree with Happyfeet
SarahW (b0e533) — 1/4/2012 @ 2:59 pmi don’t really know but i’ve heard there are sometimes children with poor mommies and nonexistent dadies and they don’t get enough love and have poopy diapers for too long
and old folks whose no good rotten hoochie daughters and heroin addict sons live off of their SS checks, and they too sit in poopy diapers too long
they would all be better off if they did not have to put up with those poopy diapers and that heroin and all that hoochieness we in america can find ways to help them, i think iq and reasoning and self care ability all the same, you know
besides, its easier that way and no one should tell you what to do with your mother
from the wisdom of happyfeet, the lost posts
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 1/4/2012 @ 3:30 pmif you don’t treat you mama right then after she dies she’ll come back and make parts on you not work
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 1/4/2012 @ 3:32 pmIf you inconvenience your mama while she’s still alive she’ll allow a doctor to come in and make all of your parts not work.
Icy (44e33c) — 1/4/2012 @ 3:51 pmfetuses are sorta like trial size people like sometimes you get in the mail
Comment by happyfeet
a rather unusual sense of humor, or humour, as Milhouse would put it.
Colonel Haiku (5b04f4) — 1/4/2012 @ 4:02 pm“fetuses are sorta like trial size people like sometimes you get in the mail”
Yeah, and blacks are sorta like people, only not really, and that’s why it’s o.k. to enslave them and make them pick cotton.
Same old crap…different century.
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/4/2012 @ 5:04 pmagain with the analogies this is starting to feel like an if-all-you-have-is-a-hammer thing
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/4/2012 @ 5:22 pmlook Mr. Surls you’re the one what wants to radically upend a status quo what works real well to where women what don’t like abortions don’t have to have them ever ever ever and women what are ok with them can have them as desired within certain reasonable parameters.
Both groups have to stand before God later and say ok here was my thinking and God will give them constructive feedback.
It’s like you can have your cake, or you can eat your cake.
There’s so much more in America what’s broke and needs fixing… there’s just no reason to misappropriate America for to pursue a narrow agenda when the poor little thing is facing extraordinary existential issues of sustainability and viability that are truly truly horrific.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/4/2012 @ 5:29 pmPlanned Parenthood’s Annual Report: $500M in Tax Money, 329,445 Abortions…
Good return on investment, happyfeet? What say you?
Colonel Haiku (5b04f4) — 1/4/2012 @ 5:31 pmIn much of pre-Christian Northern Europe, murder was treated as a tort against the victim’s family; the penalty was that you had to compensate the family. Therefore if the family didn’t mind that you killed one of their members, and especially if they gave you permission in advance, then there was no problem. And certainly if the family decided to kill one of their own members then it was nobody else’s business.
In pre-Xian Rome there was a different legal model: a man’s children were his property for as long as he lived, and he could kill them or sell them if he chose. After all, he made them. Of course nowadays such a rule would apply to both parents, or perhaps only to the mother.
Of course both of these rules produce the same result for abortion; and it’s a result that seems to fit happyfeet’s attitude. I wonder whether he actually subscribes to one of these rules. The first rule seems totally in accord with his stated views in this thread; it seems geared entirely to preventing the disruption of society by vendettas. Perhaps a modern version of the rule might be that if there’s no relative or friend or employer/employee who can demonstrate that they’ve been harmed in some way by a person’s death then it should be regarded as a victimless crime and nobody’s business. The harm to the victim himself should be ignored because the dead can’t sue, or else because his heirs can consent in his place. How does that sound, feets?
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/4/2012 @ 5:38 pmI don’t think planned parenthood should get tax monies at all. We are so broke.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/4/2012 @ 5:39 pmAnd what about child abuse? Is it really anybody’s business what I do to my own kid?
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/4/2012 @ 5:39 pmI don’t like those rules Mr. Milhouse I like it the way it is now to where people just sort of muddle through.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/4/2012 @ 5:42 pmBut why not kill your five-year-old, or your fifteen-year-old, if you both agree? Whom else does it affect? In what way is it the government’s business? In what way would it disrupt society if the government just minded its own business and left it up to the parents to decide? Or, since a minor can’t speak for himself and it’s up to the parents to make decisions on his behalf (cf Elian Gonzales), why can’t the parents just decide on his behalf to commit suicide?
And of course if parents can kill their children then a fortiori they may abuse them in any lesser way.
Is it just that the current state of the law just happens not to allow this, and you don’t want to make any changes? But then why shouldn’t we return to the status quo ante Roe? Is change allowed only when it suits you?
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/4/2012 @ 5:48 pmBut why not kill your five-year-old, or your fifteen-year-old, if you both agree?
nonono Mr. Milhouse that would be barbaric and unchristian…. children need to feel safe and loved and if you start letting them get killed willy nilly, you’re gonna have problems. People are gonna start to say hey something’s wrong with this situation.
But with the wee baby fetuses, discretion attends, and everyone just sort of muddles through.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/4/2012 @ 5:52 pmWhat kind of problems are you going to have? People saying something’s wrong? Well that’s exactly what you have now. All us lifeydoodles are saying exactly that. So if you’re OK with banning the killing of five-year-olds because the stickybeak neighbours won’t like it, then why not five-month foetuses?
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:00 pmBut with the wee baby fetuses, discretion attends, and everyone just sort of muddles through.
— It’s a wee bit difficult to ‘muddle through’ when you’re lying in a dumpster, umbilical cord still attached, wrapped in a plastic bag.
Icy (44e33c) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:01 pm“look Mr. Surls you’re the one what wants to radically upend a status quo”
Certainly. The status quo currently allows a certain special, privileged class of human beings to murder another special class of totally innocent human beings, entirely at the whim of the said first class.
What decent person wouldn’t want to upend it?
Dave Surls (46b08c) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:03 pmgack mr. Icy I’m eating dinner
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:06 pmWhat decent person wouldn’t want to upend it?
I dunno maybe a really busy one?
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:07 pmgack mr. Icy I’m eating dinner
But that’s the reality – and that’s what you’re defending.
Dana (4eca6e) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:12 pmit’s not really the reality I don’t think cause the vast majority of fetuses are incinerated I would bet
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:19 pmOh really? This happens all the time. There are photos all over the Internet.
Many people are in denial about what abortion is. It’s unbearable otherwise. And they don’t want to take the trouble to do anything about it. All due respect, no cute little turns of phrase will make this reality not real, happyfeet.
no one you know (577ce5) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:27 pmbut I bet that’s a very very small percentage of all aborted fetuses… that’s why it’s a big story when it happens
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:29 pmI don’t have exact figures but I don’t think it matters much exactly what percentage ends up in a Dumpster. So for you, limbs and umbilical cords is “ick” but a pile of ashes that used to be a living child, because someone is having a very difficult time, is OK?
Unbelievable. Truly. And please, please, do me a personal favor, feets, and do not use cute language on this thread anymore. The subject matter is just not appropriate.
no one you know (577ce5) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:36 pma pile of ashes that used to be
a living childlimbs and umbilical cordsFTFM
no one you know (577ce5) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:38 pm“ick” = “gack” . Sorry.
no one you know (577ce5) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:41 pmThat wee baby foetus never got to eat dinner, and never will.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:42 pmwe’re just talking about abortion but okeydoke I will shuffle off
thank you all for allowing a wee choicey pikachu his say
it truly is a big big tent
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:43 pmCareful NOYK, or you will get called the “word police” like I do. But thank you for writing what you did. The cutesy language is always bizarre, but in this context, it is remarkably heartless and tonedeaf.
But I’m a jerk and a “whiny bitch,” so what do I know?
Again, thanks for helping to make an important thread more readable.
Simon Jester (410735) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:49 pmI didn’t intend, Simon Jester, that he’d stop talking. I hope it was clear that it was a request. I simply couldn’t take hearing his usual (the word’s escaping me here — but I actually usually like it, as I’ve told him) but in this thread it just seemed (to me) too lighthearted and dismissive for such a grave subject.
Hope you are well, BTW. Nice to see you around the threads. I hope happyfeet speaks his mind on the next thread which comes around.
no one you know (577ce5) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:55 pminsouciant
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:56 pminsouciant twaddle
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/4/2012 @ 6:57 pm“lighthearted banter” is more what I was going for (that’s not right either but close enough). It works really well on a lot of subjects, just FTR. Like I said to Simon, I didn’t intend to drive anyone from the thread but I appreciate your respecting my sensibilities. If you have anything else to say I’m listening.
no one you know (577ce5) — 1/4/2012 @ 7:01 pmBelieve it or not, NOYK, I truly don’t care what people say—except when I read what I consider to be deeply offensive commentary about women and babies and families in great pain (I have good reason to feel quite strongly about all three scenarios).
But many people don’t mind, or think confuse honesty with tactlessness, insults with wit, and that’s all cool. In the final analysis, it’s not my electronic living room.
I very much appreciate your posts, whether or not I agree with them, and read them avidly.
Simon Jester (410735) — 1/4/2012 @ 7:07 pmI do respect you and I’ve most certainly twaddled on at length in this thread already.
All I’ve left to say really is I think this Santorum fellow is a poor poor choice of candidate because he absolutely guarantees and ensures threads and threads of social con issue talk and that’s really not where we are as a little country right now.
We have to talk about the spendings, and the regulatings, and the steady steady encroachment of the state into our liberties. I agree with the much maligned Mr. Mitch that fractious social issues need must be bracketed for a time, and we need a leader what can focus our attentions on the wolf at the door.
Santorum, he is not that man.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 1/4/2012 @ 7:08 pmComment by Simon Jester — 1/4/2012 @ 7:07 pm
I lurk much more than I post so I enjoy reading yours, and everyone’s, posts. Some threads I skip but most I read – it’s amazing how much you learn about people from their offhand comments.
Not to (sort of) change the subject but I read something on a thread around New Year’s that you’d had a very difficult year, and was glad to read you’d found support here. Hope 2012 is better for you than 2011 was.
no one you know (577ce5) — 1/4/2012 @ 7:11 pmgack mr. Icy I’m eating dinner
Comment by happyfeet — 1/4/2012 @ 6:06 pm
— Like I said, it’s all well and good to play the “if you can’t see it then it’s not a person” game . . . as long as you never lose sight of the reality that it IS a person.
it’s not really the reality I don’t think cause the vast majority of fetuses are incinerated I would bet
Comment by happyfeet — 1/4/2012 @ 6:19 pm
— The Undertaker’s Sketch
UNDERTAKER: (Graham Chapman) Morning!
MAN: (John Cleese) Ah, good morning.
UNDERTAKER: What can I do for you, squire?
M: Um, well, I wonder if you can help me. Um, you see, my mother has just died.
U: Ah, well, we can ‘elp you. We deal with stiffs.
M: (aghast) What?
U: Well there are three things we can do with your mother. We can burn her, bury her, or dump her.
M: Dump her?
U: Dump her in the Thames.
M: (still aghast) What?
U: Oh, did you like her?
M: Yes!
U: Oh well, we won’t dump her, then. Well, what do you think: We can bury her or burn her?
M: Well, um, which would you recommend?
U: Well they’re both nasty. If we burn her, she gets stuffed in the flames, crackle, crackle, crackle, which is a bit of a shock if she’s not quite dead. But quick. And then we give you a handful of the ashes, which you can pretend were hers.
M: (timidly) Oh.
U: Or, if we bury her she gets eaten up lots of weevils and nasty maggots, which as I said before is a bit of a shock if she’s not quite dead.
M: I see. Well, she’s definitely dead.
U: Where is she?
M: She’s in this sack.
U: Let’s ‘ave a look.
(sound of bag opening)
U: She looks quite young.
M: Yes, she was.
U: (over his shoulder) Fred!
F: (Eric Idle, offstage) Yea!
U: I THINK WE’VE GOT AN EATER!
F: (offstage) I’ll get the oven on!
M: Um, er…excuse me, um, are you… are you suggesting eating my mother?
(pause)
U: Yeah. Not raw, cooked!
M: What?
U:Roasted with a few french fries, broccoli, horseradish sauce …
M: Well, I do feel a bit peckish.
U: Great!
M: Can we have some parsnips?
U: (calling) Fred – get some parsnips.
M: I really don’t think I should.
U: Look, tell you what, we’ll eat her, if you feel a bit guilty about it afterwards, we can dig a grave and you can throw up in it.
Icy (44e33c) — 1/4/2012 @ 7:14 pmComment by happyfeet — 1/4/2012 @ 7:08 pm
Thanks, feets. Just wanted you to know I read your comment. 2012 is going to be a very interesting political year.
no one you know (577ce5) — 1/4/2012 @ 7:17 pmThank you, NOYK. I try to be the same kind of person I am in real life here, which is at least honest if not very many people’s cup of metaphorical tea. And I remain grateful to some people posting here (plus Patterico) who have never met me or even spoken with me on the telephone, and helped me through some difficult times. That was what is surprisingly valuable about all of this internet business.
Simon Jester (410735) — 1/4/2012 @ 7:26 pmI love how a lefty 9-11 truther goes out of his way to paint the GOP as a bunch of loons alienating americans………………….I’m looking at you Michael Moore and Obama.
Dohbiden (ef98f0) — 1/4/2012 @ 7:37 pm