The decision by the Susan G. Komen foundation to cut funding of Planned Parenthood has created quite a brouhaha. Komen may even have backed down, although there is debate over whether this is a genuine retreat or just a tactical maneuver.
Komen does wonderful work (my wife and I have a close friend who survived breast cancer, and we help with Komen's breast cancer walk in our community each June). They made a courageous decision to stop sending money to America's Abortion Mill. The amount was rather small-- $700,000-- probably what PP spends in coat hangers and little baggies in a week-- and the ostensible reason for the defunding was the fact that PP is currently under criminal investigation in several states. Komen also realized that PP does no mammograms and no real breast cancer screening that can't be done by genuine health care centers who don't specialize in industrial-scale killing.
I think the deeper issue is that Komen's leadership may have had the "revulsion moment" normal people experience when they look too closely at Planned Parenthood.
Why did PP make such a big deal about such small change? After all, Planned Parenthood is a billion-dollar-per year abortion mill, $500,000,000 of that paid for by you, dear taxpayer. Why would they give a damn about $700,000? Chump change.
There are three reasons, I think:
1) Complaining about it raises money-- PP got a big influx of donations-- several million bucks-- the past couple of days.
2) PP has big-time problems with enthusiasm. All rhetoric aside, it's hard to get people worked up in support of a nationwide charnel house for babies. Pretending to be the victim of an injustice-- 'they cut funding for womyn's choice!'-- gets the pro-abort lumpen-Truppen marching, for a couple of days.
3) PP knows that it must at all costs avoid a cascade of revulsion. Many other organizations might begin to ask themselves "why do we associate with these scum?". Can't let the idea catch on.
So kudos to Komen for standing up for life. Breast cancer is an horrendous killer of women, but even cancer pales in comparison to abortion's femicide-- 20 million baby girls in the U.S. since 1973, and counting. Planned Parenthood takes an idiosyncratic approach to breast cancer prevention. They kill 500 little girls in the womb each day. Not one aborted girl grows up to get breast cancer. It is, you might say, Planned Parenthood's final solution to the problem of cancer prevention.
Planned Parenthood kills 300,000 kids a year for profit, so don't expect them to hesitate to brutalize people who wear little pink ribbons and have a conscience.The blow-back from Komen's tiny bit of resistance will be intense. But Komen deserves praise for trying to dissociate themselves from America's abbatoir, and for doing all they can to save innocent lives of women and girls of all ages.
Komen does wonderful work (my wife and I have a close friend who survived breast cancer, and we help with Komen's breast cancer walk in our community each June). They made a courageous decision to stop sending money to America's Abortion Mill. The amount was rather small-- $700,000-- probably what PP spends in coat hangers and little baggies in a week-- and the ostensible reason for the defunding was the fact that PP is currently under criminal investigation in several states. Komen also realized that PP does no mammograms and no real breast cancer screening that can't be done by genuine health care centers who don't specialize in industrial-scale killing.
I think the deeper issue is that Komen's leadership may have had the "revulsion moment" normal people experience when they look too closely at Planned Parenthood.
Why did PP make such a big deal about such small change? After all, Planned Parenthood is a billion-dollar-per year abortion mill, $500,000,000 of that paid for by you, dear taxpayer. Why would they give a damn about $700,000? Chump change.
There are three reasons, I think:
1) Complaining about it raises money-- PP got a big influx of donations-- several million bucks-- the past couple of days.
2) PP has big-time problems with enthusiasm. All rhetoric aside, it's hard to get people worked up in support of a nationwide charnel house for babies. Pretending to be the victim of an injustice-- 'they cut funding for womyn's choice!'-- gets the pro-abort lumpen-Truppen marching, for a couple of days.
3) PP knows that it must at all costs avoid a cascade of revulsion. Many other organizations might begin to ask themselves "why do we associate with these scum?". Can't let the idea catch on.
So kudos to Komen for standing up for life. Breast cancer is an horrendous killer of women, but even cancer pales in comparison to abortion's femicide-- 20 million baby girls in the U.S. since 1973, and counting. Planned Parenthood takes an idiosyncratic approach to breast cancer prevention. They kill 500 little girls in the womb each day. Not one aborted girl grows up to get breast cancer. It is, you might say, Planned Parenthood's final solution to the problem of cancer prevention.
Planned Parenthood kills 300,000 kids a year for profit, so don't expect them to hesitate to brutalize people who wear little pink ribbons and have a conscience.The blow-back from Komen's tiny bit of resistance will be intense. But Komen deserves praise for trying to dissociate themselves from America's abbatoir, and for doing all they can to save innocent lives of women and girls of all ages.
gets the pro-abort lumpen-Truppen marching
ReplyDeleteLook, if you aim to become the Dishonesty Institute's Goebbels, you need to work some more on your German. It's either Lumpenproletariat or Sturmtruppen, but not lumpen-Truppen.
Washington Post's Ezra Klein: What Planned Parenthood actually does, in one chart.
ReplyDeleteWait, are you suggesting that PP is not just an "abortion mill", but primarily provides access to contraception and reproductive health care to poor people? But that would mean that Egnor was lying?! No way Egnor would ever do that and risk an eternity in hell.
DeleteOleg,
DeleteIt provides the reason why Michael is so upset at Planned Parenthood. At least 73% of the services are because women are having sex. 35% screening for STDs. 35% for contraception. 3% for abortions. It might be higher, because some of the cancer screening would be Pap smears, for cervical cancer, and that's largely due to sexually transmitted HPV infection.
Let’s not forget that in the conservative world view contraception and reproductive health care for the poor (especially urban poor, wink wink) are almost as bad as abortion.
Delete-KW
In my view, killing the unborn is wrong.
DeleteOleg,
DeleteI was wondering if you've ever seen Lila Rose's video. Well, there are so many good ones to choose from, but I'm talking mostly about the one in which she calls various PP clinics and asks them if she can come in for a mammogram. Over and over again, they tell her that they can refer her elsewhere but they just don't do that stuff there.
Which is interesting because, according to your pie chart, cancer screening and prevention amounts for 16% of their services and abortion for only 3%. I wonder if she's have to call around (and around...and around) to find a PP clinic that would snuff her child out for her. Probably get one of those on the first try.
Please watch the video. Don't dismiss it off the cuff:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/planned-parenthood-president-falsely-claimed-their-clinics-provide-mammograms_556015.html
The Torch
@Oleg: The old "Planned Parenthood does other stuff too" canard. Basically, their statistics are lies and I don't care at all if they do other stuff. They should discontinue their baby-killing operations and just keep doing all the rest of it. No one would bother them if they did. This idea that conservatives really want poor women to get breast cancer is more than a little absurd. We just don't like lethal violence against the unborn.
DeleteYes, I know that PP files as a non-profit corporation. The point is that their non-profit status is an illusion, just like the rest of what they do. There are no profits left over after they divvy up all the money.
CARLITO
@Carlito:
DeleteIf you don't care what PP do besides perform legal abortions, then why sling unsupported accusations regarding their non-abortion activities? Good old smear tactics and below the belts eh?
Even if PP really are secretly for profit, since abortions are legal medical practice, what would be wrong with that? Are you against all for-profit medical help?
Troy,
DeleteWho is slinging "unsupported accusations regarding non-abortion activities"?
"Even if PP really are secretly for profit, since abortions are legal medical practice, what would be wrong with that?"
It would be wrong because it's mass murder on a macro scale. And it would be wrong to lie about it because lying is wrong. Did I answer your question?
Think of it this way. If PP weren't nominally "non-profit", would they get any money from the taxpayer? If they weren't nominally non-profit, would they get all the benefits enjoyed by "non-profits"?
CARLITO
My point, Troy, is that the "other stuff" that they do is fine. It's not excuse to continue their campaign of violence.
DeleteI don't know how to explain it to someone who just doesn't seem to care that they kill children. How about this?
Imagine a company that kills a half a million adults per year but also provides free groceries to the poor. Would you defend that company on the grounds that, hey, they do other stuff besides killing adults! Would you make ridiculous counter-accusations that the people opposed to this company are actually motivated by a deep desire to starve the poor? Would you entertain the notion that the company is persecuted for all of the good that it does?
CARLITO
Carlito, I think you know very well that I don't share your opinion that PP "kill children". Abortion is not wrong in my opinion and that of many if not most people. It is legal too.
DeleteSince you can't do anything about PP's legal abortions, you resort to underhanded tactics by trying to smear PP's other activities, apparently hoping that public opinion will turn against them and ultimately politicians will withdraw state support.
@Troy:
DeleteOne of the ways I test the credibility of an ethical justification for a particular behavior is to ask myself, "Using this approach to determine the rightness of a behavior, what behaviors might potentially fail to be justified? In other words, what behaviors would this rule proscribe, given consistent application of the rule?" If the answer is "None", then I regard the justification as specious.
Fill in the blank:
_____ is not wrong in my opinion and that of many if not most people. It is legal too.
What behaviors might potentially not be justified by this approach? Virtually none. Puppy torturing, environmental rape, misogyny, genocide -- you name it -- if it's not wrong in someone's opinion, and many if not most people think it's OK (maybe it's even legal too), then the behavior is morally right. Your justification of abortion is ethically vacuous.
Kent, I think you misunderstood what I wrote. I pointed out that many share my moral point of view regarding abortion, and that abortion is legal (in the USA). I didn't offer my personal justification, and I don't justify moral opinions "ad populum".
DeleteThe reason why I referred to the opinion of many others was to show that equating abortion with "killing of children" isn't an obvious moral truth that all reasonable people must accept. Many reasonable people see it differently than you do.
I don't see an embryo as a human being, and if the woman that carries the embryo wants to get rid of it, that's her decision. That's my opinion.
@troy:
DeletePerhaps I read your prior post carelessly. Your remarks seemed like an informal justification for abortion to me. Thanks for the clarification.
> I don't see an embryo as a human being...
What do you mean by "embryo"? As I understand it, at the time that Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, the American Academy of Pediatrics defined the embryonic stage as ending at two months from conception. Is that your intended meaning -- an embryo is the product of conception as it exists in utero from conception to approximately two months?
If an embryo (as you define it) is not a human being, what is it?
@oleg:
ReplyDeletePP does 300,000 abortions per year-- about one in three of the abortions in the US.
Their total revenues are $1,000,000,000 per year.
3% of one billion is $30,000,000.
$30,000,000 divided by 300,000 is $100
The usual fee PP charges for an abortion is $1000-- an order of magnitude higher than "3% of its services".
The "3%" comes from counting the number of activities-- abortions, condoms, BCP's, counseling sessions, etc, not from adding up the revenue from each.
Business are usually assessed by percent income from different activities. PP makes about a third of its income from abortions.
If a company were to report to investors the contribution by an activity by number rather than income, without explicit clarification, they would be indicted for fraud.
PP is a fraud, and you-- Mr. Scientist-Mathematician-- are an idiot.
Planned Parenthood is not a business, it is a non-profit organization. Its goal is to provide services, not to generate income. PP serves 3 million people a year. That includes 300,000 abortions, or ten per cent. However you count it, abortions are not the main product of PP.
DeleteAbortions worldwide this year
ReplyDeleteThere will be another 50,000,000 dead children by the end of 2012!
Heh, looks like Mike has a short fuse: PP is a fraud, and you-- Mr. Scientist-Mathematician-- are an idiot.
ReplyDeleteI could respond in kind, Mike, but my fuse is way longer than yours. Keep an eye on your blood pressure, buddy.
Oleg, he loves to name-call doesnt he? Why does a neurosurgeon feel the need to resort to baiting people with childish name-calling?
DeleteA question for Pepe - are you completely anti-abortion? As in, is it OK in the case of rape or incest?
@Oleg,
Delete"I could respond in kind..."
What goes around comes around. Sneer at others and expect to be sneered at.
Enjoy your deserts.
@Mulder,
"A question for Pepe - are you completely anti-abortion? As in, is it OK in the case of rape or incest?"
Obviously I cannot answer for Pépé, but I will answer for myself.
Yes.
I am against abortion unless it is necessary to save the life of the mother and the child is almost certainly doomed.
I am against elective, cosmetic, selfish abortion.
I am against abortion for population/birth control.
I am against femicide, and infanticide of all types.
Rape and incest are not the fault of the child.
Why should he or she die for those crimes/sins?
Well put and succinct, Pépé!
DeleteAgree.
Easy for you to say. If a woman gets knocked up with a mindless clump of cells from some rapist thug, what gives you the right to prevent her from cutting out the thug's unwanted souvenir? Not everybody believes your cult's fantasy that an embryo has a soul.
DeleteInteresting.
DeleteAre there any ACCURATE stats on what types of abortions are done? I mean, anti-abortion people always use the 'abortion-for-birth control' argument. Yet i wonder how many women actually put themselves through that on a regular basis instead of just using the pill?
And Pepe, do you have kids? Say your 14-year old daughter was beaten and raped by some scumbag loser. The experience would traumatize her the rest of her life. And dad (you) would insist on her going through that pregnancy, ostracized in school, and then raise the unwanted rape baby. Sounds evil to me.
@troy:
Delete> Not everybody believes
> your cult's fantasy that
> an embryo has a soul.
Do you believe that adult human beings have souls? How about newborn babies? Just curious.
That hypothetical “clump of cells” to which you refer – that product of rape -- represents not only genetic material from "some rapist thug", but also from the gravida. Is the rapist thug a human being? Is the gravida a human being? At what point, if ever, does the clump of cells produced by their union become something more than a mere clump of cells? 2 weeks? 2 months? 8 months? At birth? If it does become something more, exactly what is it that it has become? Does it ever begin to merit recognition as human life, with the concomitant legal protections that human life had traditionally enjoyed?
Is each product of rape merely a "clump of cells"? At the end of World War II, during the Soviet occupation of Germany, tens of thousands of women were raped -- probably at least 100,000 in Berlin alone. Many women died as a result. Of those who survived and became pregnant, many chose to abort, but many gave birth. Their offspring are the so-called “Russian Children”. Jan Gregor was one such Russian child. Mr. Gregor was 61 years old as of mid-August 2007. At what point did Mr. Gregor become human, and worthy of legal protection? Or perhaps he never did...?
troy,
Delete...what gives you the right to prevent her from cutting out the thug's unwanted souvenir?...
Mulder,
...insist on her going through that pregnancy...
Have you ever thought about the child?
What if that child was YOU!
What if that child was a futur Einstein, or Mozart, or Celine?
Explain to me what gives you the right to select who lives and who doesn't?
Are you the NATURAL SELECTION?
Do you believe that adult human beings have souls? How about newborn babies? Just curious.
DeleteFair question. No I don't. It depends of course on the definition of soul, but I assume that you mean an immaterial entity that can exist without being "embodied". I don't believe such entities exist.
At what stage of development does a fetus become worthy of legal protection, you ask. A standard question. I'm fine with the moment a fetus can survive without the mother. But it depends on the fetus. It's OK with me to abort at a later stage a terminally ill fetus or even to kill a baby that is about to expire in great pain.
@troy:
DeleteI asked about adults because it seemed obvious from a prior remark of yours that you don't believe that embryos have souls. So I wondered what you thought about adults.
I notice with this last post that you are making a shift in terminology from "embryo" to "fetus". Is that change significant, or do you regard the two terms as referring to the same thing?
> I'm fine with [legal protection
> starting at] the moment a fetus
> can survive without the mother.
A fetus ex utero cannot survive without its mother. So your guideline effectively seems like no protection at all.
> It's OK with me to abort
> at a later stage a terminally
> ill fetus...
Are you in favor of euthanasia, then, for sick adults? Sick children? Sick infants? (I don't mean assisted suicide. I refer to a deliberate act by a caregiver to end the life of one who is ill.)
> It's OK with me to abort
> at a later stage...a baby
> that is about to expire
> in great pain.
Why not simply ease the pain, without taking the baby's life?
As an aside, I'm intrigued by our use of language in discussing the abortion issue. The words we use betray our implicit acknowledgment of the reality of what abortion is. In the years leading up to Roe v. Wade (1973), and for some years thereafter, those in favor of abortion used a great deal of circumlocution to mask the act: the mother was a "gravida", or some such depersonalizing term; the embryo was "a product of conception" or "ovum" or "potential life"; etc. But today, Troy, you refer to the gravida as "mother", and to the fetus as "baby". Do you not find that interesting?
Organizations like PP are yet another example of the modern slide towards barbarism.
ReplyDeleteIt is one symptom out of dozens that indicate the rapid approach of decline.
Nah, it's not as bad as you think. You might want to read Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
Delete"it's not as bad as you think"
DeleteBad? What is not as bad?
The barbarism or the decline?
Or do you mean that the barbarism and decline are not 'as bad'?
Sorry, I do not follow.
As for the book, I have read the synop and if we ever get a copy locally maybe I will read it.
Honestly, thought, it sounds like the fantasy of a pronoid positivist. Someone totally cloistered and insulated in the theoretical and statistical, and disconnected from visceral reality.
Violence is a big part of my industry, it is NOT in decline.
It is in a growth phase.
“Violence is a big part of my industry, it is NOT in decline. It is in a growth phase.”
DeleteHow many brown people have you killed while elbow deep in the visceral reality Mr. Professional Barbarian? Looking forward to some more business are you?
-KW
"How many brown people have you killed while elbow deep in the visceral reality Mr. Professional Barbarian?"
DeleteIs that an actual question? Or are you just exhibiting some sort of limbic response to being upset by my comments, KW?
Are you seriously asking me that?...or is it just pure rhetoric and libel?
"Looking forward to some more business are you?"
It depends on what you mean by 'looking forward'. If you mean anticipating and preparing, then the answer is yes. That's part of my job.
If you mean I relish the idea, then you have no experience with veterans of conlfict - as in NONE.
The answer to that insulting jab would simply be:
No. Of course I don't.
@KW,
Delete"How many brown people have you killed while elbow deep in the visceral reality Mr. Professional Barbarian?"
Just in case you were actually asking, and for the record:
MY ANSWER
Now back to our egnorantly scheduled programming.....
@Troy,
Deletehas violence really declined? In order to come to that conclusion, you have to exclude all that violence against the unborn. Which is essentially what we've done. That kind of violence doesn't "count".
CARLITO
That's right, Carlito. That doesn't count.
DeleteHow about bringing a child into the world that you know you won't be able to feed and that will starve? Does that count as violence?
CrusadeRex,
DeletePerhaps you should read Steven Pinker's book.
One statistic he provides is that 58,000 American soldiers died in Vietnam. 800,000 South Vietnamese civilians. In Iraq, the figures were around 4,000 and perhaps 100,000 (the figures are in dispute). In both cases, the civilians were largely killed by the insurgents.
The My Lai massacre initially was ignored. In Afghanistan, when a drone initiated a missile attack killing 10 innocents, the American military commander saw fit to immediately apologize to the Afghan president. Remote killing at the behest at a drone killing innocents is bad, but the alternative is worse. Blasting into a village with heavily armed troops to kill a small group of enemy combatants would probably kill more civilians.
@bachfiend:
DeletePerhaps it would be more accurate to say, rather than simply "violence is decreasing", that also "our ability to avoid violence is increasing". It seems to me that at least two factors are in play to explain this perceived decrease in violence. (The following remarks apply only to actions by the US military, and the US public's perceptions of those actions.)
The first factor is that there seems to be, speaking very generally, a different attitude toward violence than there was, say, a century ago. Consider the Philippine–American War (1899–1902). American atrocities are well documented. Interestingly, some of the documentation comes from the letters of soldiers themselves, whose actions were seemingly received without question on the home front. Today, similar behavior (say in Afghanistan) would be greeted with disgust, opprobrium, and (one would hope) court-martial here at home. So there's been a change in attitudes, both on the part of the fighting men specifically, and the citizenry in general.
Another factor is our improved ability to avoid violence. There is no question that our ability to avoid collateral damage while delivering significant firepower has increased by orders of magnitude during the last century. The ability to destroy designated targets with near-pinpoint accuracy was unheard of during both world wars, and later during Korea, and Vietnam. (Although in the latter case significant strides were made; I think laser-guided bombs were in use before the end of the war.)
In addition to decreasing collateral damage, increased accuracy also obviates the need (real or perceived) to demoralize a population with overwhelming destructive force. (Hell was literally rained down on Dresden and Tokyo, for example, during World War II. To take out a Hitler or a Tojo with a surgical strike would probably have a similar demoralizing effect, without such great loss of innocent life.)
Kent,
DeleteActually many of your points, Steven Pinker made in his book too. Public perception of death in wars has changed over the years, and what would have been acceptable during WWII wouldn't be accepted now.
I don't think that the allies wanted to assassinate Hitler. After June 1941, he was doing a very good job of winning the war for the allies, with all his strategic blunders.
To give Pope Pius XII credit, he was probably the first public figure who condemned the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Both were undoubted war crimes and did nothing to end the war. It was the Soviet invasion of Japanese held Manchuria on August 9 that did it. The inner Japanese cabinet had been discussing the dire situation in Manchuria for about an hour, were informed of the bombing of Nagasaki (ho hum, another Japanese city destroyed to add to the 60+ already destroyed) and immediately went back to the discussion of the soviet invasion.
Bach,
DeleteI understand your (and Pinker's) point regarding the new standards of war. I have heard it a MILLION times from various civilian intel groups and at a dozen 'tanks'.
All I can say at this point is that it is a false standard. It is not only illusory, the illusion is only temporary.
|I cannot be more specific.
What I can say is that this current status quo regarding the 'acceptable' level of violence to the electorate is just media spin.
The truth of it is that our population(s) have been groomed to NOT accept any sort of serious casualty (in international sense) 1) within OUR forces 2)or ANY within our civilian pop 3)or HIGH within enemy civilian pop.
A suicidal political-come-military strategy.
Those stats you use regarding Vietnam, I use to make my point when working with young men in our program. I also use European second world war figures and the Atomic attacks on Imperial Japan.
Just not the same way as you or Pinker would.
I use them to illustrate the strength and determination of our enemy, and the political weakness we face at home.
I use those materials, the live and recent field intel and contrast them with media releases to show the reality of the war we face. Also to understand what they can and cannot say.
The sterile, push button, long distance killing war that is sold to the public is not what it seems. It is one of the first things we need to de-condition our officers about.
I see this deception in a similar light as that sterile cocoon the media has spun about abortion or eugenics...except that war is inevitable.
Besides, Pinker is talking about the wars WE publicly fight in. The wars we actually declare. He does not seem to understand Africa, for example.
When we arrive in a place, like say the Horn, or the Yemen - to do our bloody work - the war is ALREADY under way. We have not are even 'there' till we are gone.
Sure we attempt to keep it low, and primarily to our targets.... but what about the 1.5 million dead already? What about the fields of flies and meat.
What about the machete gangs that will erase entire villages when we have left for home, AC and beer?
What about the wars that are not wars (yet)?
Those stats are intentionally NOT included in political briefs and media stories. Why?
The things I have seen in Africa, SWA, and even the Americas do not, I suspect, make it into Pinker's book. They do not make it into his world. For the former, I am actually quite proud. For the latter, I am not surprised.
Pinker writes about a theory in a book. I am writing about a practical reality that I (and literally hundreds of thousands like me) have experienced.
Why do you think Comrade O's chief inquisitor has issued a warning that returning US troops are a BIGGER danger to that regime that Al Queda?
All those WIDE awake young men coming home?
All that said, I will have a look at the book when I can get my hands on a physical copy of it.
I will not support a pro abortion author with a purchase, so it will have to be a loan. I will check the local public library next week when I take the lads in.
Hell, I will even read it through (try!), seeing as you lot are so fond of this work and seem so convinced it will do me some good :P
I have read some of Pinkers work in the past, and found myself in disagreement with his foundations / premise.
But franky, Bach - considering the atmosphere and the reality of this to my person - I have reached the limit of my interest in discussing this further.
Under more civilized conditions and the correct post, perhaps. But I will not be baited by cowards like the above cretin while others attempt to rationalize.
Not happening.
I have been attacked personally and accused of atrocity and this is not even a post about military service - this is about PP.
Out of self respect and respect for the Blogger, I will rest my rifle here.
Here's the funny thing about you rabid pro-abortion people.
ReplyDeletePlanned Parenthood is a corporation. Yes, I know that it's a non-profit corporation but that's a sham just like everything else that they say and do. They aren't honest and upfront about their propensity to cover up sexual abuse, or even to facilitate it, as has been exposed numerous times. They lie.
But Planned Parenthood is the only corporation in the whole world that liberals take at their word. You will find that most of the arguments/statistics liberals cite to defend the infanticide giant come from...Planned Parenthood? That's a little like citing Exxon-Mobil as your source that petroleum is a wonderful thing.
Here's the irony of it all. Liberals hate Big Pharma--the ones who make the medicines that save our lives. They hate Big Oil--the ones who provide the energy that fuels our economy and keeps us from living in the eighteenth century. They hate Big Agriculture--the ones that have created food abundance that the world has never seen before. They hate the Detroit Big 3--the ones that give us cars and the freedom of movement. They hate advertisers, banks, gun manufacturers, tobacco companies. It's hard to think of an industry they don't hate.
Well, there is one. It's the baby-killing industry. They'll go to the mat for the baby-killing industry every time. They carry baby-killing industry pamphlets on them just so they can rattle off talking points to anyone who will listen.
Corporations are bad. Unless they kill children, er...uh, provide mammograms. Then they are good.
CARLITO
Nice fantasy stereotype you got there, Carlito. I hope you enjoy hating it!
DeleteCarlito,
DeleteWell, I'm a liberal. Perhaps I should take your test.
I don't hate big business, but I do note that their main function is to make profits for their shareholders, and their aims may not actually match mine. As a fairly large shareholder myself, I also note that the managers of companies are more concerned with short term profits to maximize their earnings rather than long term goals to maintain value for shareholders.
Oil companies don't have a future. Fossil fuels are finite and will run out eventually. Where will we get our energy?
Big Pharma is concerned with making profits. A pity that there's Viagra but still no effective malaria immunization.
I am concerned about Big Agriculture. With global monoculture of many crops, we are vulnerable to any global crop disease, such as happened with the potato blight in the 1840s.
Cigarette companies are evil because they sell an addictive drug that is lethal in a large percentage of its customers.
I don't like the advertising industry, but mainly for aesthetic reasons.
Banks are vital. They allow the circulation of capital and the prospering of business to provide needed services, products and jobs.
Detroit blundered in producing fuel inefficient vehicles, such as SUVs, and when the price of petrol went up, they lost their markets as no one could afford to run their products. I have a car. It's a necessary evil. It's the smallest one I need and I use it as little as possible (around 20 km per week), so I need to fuel once or perhaps twice a year with 25 liters of petrol, using a combination of bike/public transport for all other times.
I absolutely hate gun manufacturers. They're the only business that makes a product guaranteed to be lethal.
LOL. Carlito and people like him are the reason why conservatives are perceived as yahoos. He has no idea what is happening inside liberal heads, but he read on the interwebs that they hate corporations. Well, Carlito, in case you have a few live brain cells, here are some actual opinions of a liberal, in addition to another one above.
DeleteI don't love and hate corporations or entire industries (with a few exceptions, see below). I like and dislike their products.
For instance, I don't care much for cars produced by the Big Three. I owned a Pontiac in the late 1990s. Had to sink big bucks into it to keep it running. My subsequent cars were from Japan. No comparison. But if you think that liberals hate the Big Three, how do you explain the inconvenient fact that Obama's administration bailed them out?
Speaking of the Big Oil, I don't hate these companies. I rely on their products, which are not just gasoline. I am of the opinion that we should limit our oil consumption, for various reasons, but primarily because of global warming. I drive a car with pretty good fuel economy, 45 miles per gallon, or 5 liters per 100 km. I don't need a truck or an SUV.
Or take computers. We all rely on them, obviously. I don't hate computer manufacturers. I prefer Macs to PCs because they are much more convenient, versatile, and stable. Expensive, too, but I am happy to pay for a good product.
Advertisement does not influence me much. I don't buy things on an impulse.
I don't hate banks. I keep my money in one of them.
Tobacco companies, here I draw the line. They profit from a product that is addictive and deadly to its consumers. Profiting from that is simply immoral. They fought government regulations tooth and nail, trying to discredit scientists. I won't cry when they go under.
I did not want the following to go unnoticed.
ReplyDeletetroy,
...what gives you the right to prevent her from cutting out the thug's unwanted souvenir?...
Mulder,
...insist on her going through that pregnancy...
Have you ever thought about the child?
What if that child was YOU!
What if that child was a futur Einstein, or Mozart, or Celine?
Explain to me what gives you the right to select who lives and who doesn't?
Are you the NATURAL SELECTION?
ANSWER MY QUESTION.
DeleteIf my daughter was raped, i would be concerned with HER.
Thats the problem with anti-choice people. Screw the mother, what about that tiny clump of cells? It COULD some day be..i dunno, a genius!
What about all the spilled sperm from men, what about miscarriages? They could be vast civilizations of people!
Mulder,
DeleteIf your child was raped and you had the baby aborted -YOU insisted - then you would be complicit in the killing of your unborn grandchild. FACT.
The 'lump of cells' you refer to is only the very fist stages of HUMAN embryonic development. The potential of those cells can ONLY be human, and can ONLY be your grandchild.
And what of the mother - your child? Do you have any idea how rape OR abortion affects women? She has already been raped and now you want to suction HER child from her womb? Reminds me of the mooj.
Why not flog her for getting raped while we are at it?
The baby did NOTHING to warrant execution. The mother did nothing to be treated with shame, and for her child to be killed.
Get out of the Bronze Age, Mulder.
@Pépé
"What if that child was YOU!"
The ONLY point that matters to Mulder.
Must be ignoring you, Pépé.
Rex:
Delete"If your child was raped and you had the baby aborted -YOU insisted - then you would be complicit in the killing of your unborn grandchild. FACT."
So, if it were your daughter and she, traumatized, a virgin no more, disgusted of the very thought of going through with a pregnancy with this predator's child, YOU would make her have it. You have the nerve to imply that its all about MY wants, but you're doing the same thing. Sorry, but my daughter would come first.
Get out of the bronze age? Ha! Pot, meet kettle.
"Explain to me what gives you the right to select who lives and who doesn't?"
ReplyDeleteMe? No right. Just like you.
The person who owns the body it is dependent upon? It's her body.
Anonymous,
DeleteDo you think that her owning her body justify Partial Birth Abortion?
To all atheist commenters who support abortions, I have this question:
ReplyDeleteDo you agree with Partial Birth Abortions?
It's a non-issue. Less than 1% of all abortions are third-trimester abortions. Third trimester abortions are generally prohibited by Roe v. Wade (which holds that after viability the rights of the fetus take precedence) except in cases where the life of the mother is threatened.
DeleteI am against late abortions. Next question.
DeleteAnonymous,
DeleteIt's a non-issue?
Would you like to be in that 1% of non-issue?
Remember, 1% of 50,000,000 if 500,000! That's 1370 children murdered each day...
oleg,
How insensitive can you be!
What about the guy who killed his 2 children in NY?
Oh! you're against killing young children. Next question.
How about a deranged mad man killed you?
Next question oleg?
How old are you, Pépé?
Delete@anonymous:
Delete> Less than 1% of all abortions
> are third-trimester abortions.
The Guttmacher Institute reports that in 2008 (presumably the last year for which statistics are available) 1.21 million abortions were performed. One percent of 1.21 million represents 12,100 babies. A non-issue, indeed. Shame on you!
> Third trimester abortions
> are generally prohibited
> by Roe v. Wade...
That, of course, is the legal fiction. The reality is that third-trimester abortions are effectively permitted. Courts have recognized the "right" to abort not just when the life of the mother is threatened, but when there is a percieved threat to her health or well-being -- a much lower bar. The mother's well-being has been construed very broadly by the federal judiciary, at a cost to the baby not only of its well-being, but of its very life.
@oleg:
Delete> I am against late abortions.
On what grounds?
Just (genuinely) curious...
Oleg,
DeleteI am very very very old!
How about you?
Do I need your permission, Kent?
Delete@oleg:
DeleteOn what grounds?
Remember, 1% of 50,000,000 if 500,000!
DeleteJust inventing numbers doesn't actually constitute an argument.
By the way, the 1.2 million abortions per year in the U.S. figure? Its a manufactured bullshit number. More than half of the number of "abortions" that are counted are the result of oral contraceptives that prevent implantation. No one but the wild-eyed fringe of the forced-birth movement considers this to be abortion.
Now that the forced=birth movement is becoming more public in their opposition to contraception, it seems likely that their adherents will dwindle quickly.
@Anon
Delete'Forced Birth'? WTF is that supposed to mean?
A woman becomes pregnant by a man and gives birth. The 'force' is nature.
Hello?
I have to presume 'forced birth' is one of your super PAC, partisan-talk, new-speak terms for being pro-abstinence or perhaps actively anti-contraceptive?
If so, it would be comical of the subject were not so deadly serious.
If that is not what you mean,could you please explain?
Thanks.
@Anonymous:
DeleteYou wrote:
By the way, the 1.2 million abortions per year in the U.S. figure? Its a manufactured bullshit number. More than half of the number of "abortions" that are counted are the result of oral contraceptives that prevent implantation. No one but the wild-eyed fringe of the forced-birth movement considers this to be abortion.
Certainly the Guttmacher Institute is not part of "the wild-eyed fringe of the forced-birth movement". The Institute counts as abortions only the terminations actual pregnancies: if no implantation, then no pregnancy; if no pregnancy, then no abortion, and no counting as an abortion. Yet the Institute's own published statistics indicate that 1.21 million abortions were performed in 2008.
Seems like the bovine scat in this case is being shoveled by you.
"'Forced Birth'? WTF is that supposed to mean? "
DeleteIt describes the "pro-life anti-contraception" lobby as what they actually are. The more that is revealed about the forced-birth movement, the more people will see it for the nasty set of medieval zealots they are.
@myself:
DeleteGrammatical correction:
The Institute counts as abortions only the terminations of actual pregnancies...
I mistakenly omitted the of. Sorry for the confusion.
@Anon,
DeleteOkay....
So you are referring to the pro-life movement in politigibberish (US dialect).
@Kent D.
"Seems like the bovine scat in this case is being shoveled by you."
Well put!
I was thinking equine. But what the hay! An apple is an apple when rolling down the road.
The give away to me - besides the mid-sentence redefinition of abortion - was the term 'forced birth'. One can almost see the oral foaming in the text.
Pepe,
ReplyDeleteThe actual figure for partial birth abortions compared to total induced abortions in America is 0.17%. There's around 1.3 million induced abortions per year, so that means there'd be around 2,000 partial birth abortions in America per year. Around 7 a day. You also need an advanced medical system, so the American figures wouldn't be representative of the world.
I also don't think that they should be legal, unless there's a fetal or maternal indication, and it should be strictly controlled. Fetal conditions such as trisomy 21 and spina bifida I think are justified. Minor correctable anomalies such as cleft palate aren't. In Western Australia, there has never been a partial birth abortion allowed because of medical reasons in the mother.
Fetal conditions such as trisomy 21 and spina bifida I think are justified.
DeleteExplain why this child should have been aborted.
...You also need an advanced medical system...
DeleteYou mean an advanced killing machine!
What about the Hippocratic Oath?
@Pépé
Delete"What about the Hippocratic Oath?"
Excellent question.
What is an oath to the type of nihilist who would even consider participating in this kind of procedure.
@Pépé & Bach,
Here is a series of questions I would be interested in hearing both of your ideas on:
If abortion is to be considered a 'medical procedure' and a personal right of the woman - made totally legal and open to all - should the academe compel new and training professionals in the OB, emergency, and surgical nursing fields to participate in an abortion? Should it be part of their credentials? Should killing an unborn human of any stage be considered 'training'?
And what about Euthanasia? Same questions.
I would love to hear and contrast the positions of you two, if you can spare the 'ink' :P
Thanks.
My short answer is NO.
Delete(I am known for my one-liner! One-liners are most effective...)
Thanks, Pépé.
DeletePepe you STILL didnt answer MY question.
ReplyDeleteI did but you can always re-ask.
DeleteCould all the PP defenders out there explain why they hate black and brown people and want to eliminate them? PP is the creation of Margaret Sanger, and that was her objective. And by the abortion stats, at least for black folks, it looks like she is having her wish.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. Maybe the same reason that W.E.B. DuBois supported Sanger, and Martin Luther King, Jr. praised her when he received the award named after her.
Delete@anon:
DeleteYea. PP likes black folks so much that they site a disproportionately high percentage of their abortion clinics in minority neighborhoods.
Good neighbors!
"PP likes black folks so much that they site a disproportionately high percentage of their abortion clinics in minority neighborhoods."
DeleteGee, an organization that provides health care to poor women locates itself disproportionately near where poor women live. How surprising.
As a privileged wealthy white man you can quit crying your crocodile tears over the "racism" PP displays towards poor minority women. When advocacy groups made up of members of those groups start decrying PP, then I'll pay attention.
@anon:
DeleteJust what I need. A little Marxist shit in my combox.
I'm not privileged and I'm not wealthy. I work for a living. My family was on welfare when I was a kid, and I went into the army to get the GI bill so I could go to college. I came out of med school with $100,000+ debt, and I paid every cent of it off. The government takes half my income now.
PP is the most prolific killer of blacks in American history. Sanger was a raging racist and eugenicist. PP has been caught on tape accepting donations specifically to kill black babies. It is an odious organization. Just the kind of folks you like, apparently.
Learn something, jerk. [http://liveaction.org/planned-parenthood-racism-project]
@anon:
ReplyDelete[Says the wealthy neurosurgeon. Pretending that being a white male doesn't give you privilege is the true mark of an asshole.]
Says the coward who posts anonymously.
[If PP was such a horrible thing for black people in the United States why is it that none of the actual advocates for black people agree with your lily white overprivileged wealthy ass?]
"Advocates for black people"? You mean privileged hucksters like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton? Don't make me laugh.