Saturday, August 18, 2012
Speaking of vice presidents
Seems to me Romney is beginning to conduct a serious, professional and highly polished campaign in his choosing Wisconsin Congressman and budget hawk Paul Ryan. On the other side we have the walking gaffathon Joe Biden and Obama happily defended his latest put y'all back in chains remark what was that last week? not getting the whole Wall Street/Racism angle but I was thinking if I were a high-ranking key advisor to the President first thing I'd do is say you gotta dump the guy. It's like getting a fresh pair of sneakers or a spanking new car with that new car smell or even when you clean your room and buy new clothes, you just feel different. Biden is like the friend who's always a snot's throw away from embarrassing you but you hang with him anyway. Obama is clean and articulate (where did I hear that before?), Biden is like your uncle on Scotch and for the life of me I don't get why Obama sticks with him unless he wants to lose. Biden is Yogi Berra without the charm and, OMG they have vice-presidential debates don't they!!
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Not sure how much effect VP candidates have, but observe that
ReplyDeleteBiden has his mouth....and Ryan has his plan ..
Compared to Biden, Sarah Palin was a miracle of articulation, achievement, dignity and poise. Joe — dumb folksy Joe — always got a free pass. The Washington crowd had grown inured to bumbling Joe. Not this time. Ryan’s competence spotlights Joe’s lack of same.
ReplyDeleteSome of this election was supposed to have pivoted on Romney’s pick of Ryan. Now it might — after the “y’all in chains” comment this week — turn more on up-to-now-ignored Joe Biden. After all, what besides misadventure, an undammable flow of cliches and gaffes, and sour race-based slurs, does Joe Biden bring to the Obama ticket? If we discount the flurry of prayers begging that Obama never fall ill or worse, nothing.
There were even rumblings among those Democrats with minds and consciences that Biden should be replaced with Hillary Clinton in this run, but it’s too late for that salvation. Nor would Hillary, mortified once already by Obama in 2008, willingly submit to this deeper humiliation: Understudy for Joe Biden would foul her resume.
No, Obama has to live with his VP, like a strange uncle in the attic. But I suspect after this week, the handlers will take over Joe, write his scripts, narrow his appearances and keep him away for good from African-American audiences. If he needs something to feel like he’s contributing, a colouring book should suffice. And perhaps a little extra clarification on what century he’s living in, too.
I think I will enjoy the vice-presidential debates this time around. I kinda wish it was a Ryan/Romney ticket instead of the other way around, but either way you have it is better than Obama/Biden, by far! At least Ryan has ideas that are consistent with the Constitution.
ReplyDeleteBB under the Romney/Ryan Plan you would have the option of keeping traditional coverage the vouchers only being another way. Kinda pro-choice no? but then again liberals aren't pro-choice on too many issues are they?
ReplyDeleteBeth I agree but if Ryan were the presidential candidate would he have chosen Romney? At any rate it all points to the smallness of Obama's campaign, it's lack of seriousness and even dignity. I agree w/Mizz Anon, dumb folksy Joe always got a free pass. Rush? we have to talk about him for days.
If Paul Ryan is a budget hawk then i'm a fucking Catholic. Balancing the budget by 2040 is not what one would ascribe as "hawkish" on fiscal matters. But, if it makes you co servatives sleep well at night perpetuating a myth and fallacy then have at it. The fucking guy looks line Glenn Quagmire.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's a sorry state of affairs if the best you can do for a budget hawk is to applaud a man who pleaded to congress like a little bitch to pass TARP.
ReplyDeleteVouchers, Z-Man? Isn't a voucher like a food stamp? What, you hand it over to some health insurance
ReplyDeleteaccountant. Smells bad.
....IMO Romney missed out-should
have picked Condi.
Chris, you Ron Paul supporters are
ReplyDeletewasting your time in the GOP; start a third party, shake up the
status quo.
@cwhiatt anyone who calls themselves a "fucking Catholic". is a fuckin idiot.
ReplyDeleteregardless of your faith, YOU'RE AN IDIOT!
What can you expect from this little snot!
ReplyDeleteI'm not in the GOP. And quite frankly BB, I'm in not politics as there are no political solutions.
ReplyDeleteI used them for my own self interest. I accomplished what I set out to do.
I have no further use for them.
I think they can learn to get along with you pretty darn fast
ReplyDeleteChange of subject.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious to know how it is that all these Republican men, like Todd Akin, have such intimate knowledge of the processes of a woman's body.
Where did they get this info, anyway? The back pages of some religious tract?
Since when is there 'legitimate' rape and other kinds of rape? RAPE is RAPE. And what is this BS continually spouting from the Right about some mythological process that makes a sperm and an ova know when a woman is being raped, and since they know it, there's never any conception?
WTF do these people come from? How can women vote for these people?
RAPE is RAPE. And it doesn't have any bearing on conception. These people need to get out of the middle ages and get over to their local Planned Parenthood, who can give them plenty of educational materials (that they obviously need) on the basics of women's anatomy, and on the simple biology of conception.
No war on women, right?
And another thing, which I brought up this morning at my place.
ReplyDeleteIf 'personhood' begins when sperm A meets ovum B, let's say, for example, on a starry-skied beach in Belize, do those cells have American citizenship?
Do they count on the census, or get factored into allocation of state and federal funding? Does Congressional representation take into account their being?
Hmm?
Oh humm
ReplyDeleteSaty, there is old science that thought that the trauma in a rape can suppress the ovulation and fertilization of an egg, so you can fault the guy for not knowing the current science, or you could use this as a teachable moment, but instead everyone on both sides is making it a whole political thing. Which goes along with Chris' thoughts that he has no use for politics.
ReplyDeletebtw, Chris, if you don't like Paul Ryan, wouldn't you want him out of the Ways & Means Committee, if his fiscal policy is so bad?
ReplyDeleteMethinks if his name was reversed (Ryan Paul) that you would worship the guy, lol.
I don't worship a guy Beth. I worship the principles and virtues for which that guy just so happens to uphold. By your poor logic I would bow at the shrine of Rand Paul.
ReplyDeleteThis moron won't quit until they drag him out on a strieght jacket..... Where he belongs
DeleteBeth, I have upstairs a medical textbook over a hundred years old and it doesn't contain that kind of 'old science'.
ReplyDeleteI have nursing textbooks from the 1920's and they don't contain any of that 'old science' either.
Let's call this what it is: bullshit pseudo-scientific-sounding crap that people use to advance their political agendae.
And who's making it a political moment? The man's a politician making a political statement. And it's not the first time that this whole 'legitimate rape' concept thing has been brought up by the Republicans; Paul Ryan was on that committee trying to redefine rape, too... you know, because men know better what rape is and rape isn't. Hell, they know better about contraception too, right?
And would any one of you personhood advocates like to explain why the zygote isn't a citizen, doesn't get counted in the census, doesn't get considered in the allocation of funds, doesn't get to be a tax deduction until it's actually born?
ReplyDeleteSo you're a person, but not really a person in any sense of the word but some political concept that means I can be charged with murder if I can't prove I miscarried "not intentionally"? Not really a person that has citizenship or counts like everyone else, but a person just enough so that you can make laws about it that restrict the rights of people who actually DO have citizenship, count in the census, et al?
You wanna explain that?
And just because I wanted to look into your "old science" thing, Beth, I did a little investigating. The St Louis Post Dispatch also did some investigating. It appears that this nonsense all started in 1972 when an assistant clinical professor named Fred Meckelenburg wrote an article.
ReplyDelete(c/p from St Louis Post Dispatch)
Mecklenburg's article was one of 19 in a book called, "Abortion and Social Justice," published a year before the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision.
In supporting his claim about trauma and ovulation, Mecklenburg cited experiments conducted in Nazi death camps.
The Nazis tested this hypothesis "by selecting women who were about to ovulate and sending them to the gas chambers, only to bring them back after their realistic mock-killing, to see what the effect this had on their ovulatory patterns. An extremely high percentage of these women did not ovulate."
Finally, Mecklenburg said it was likely that the rapists — because of "frequent masturbation" — were unlikely to be fertile themselves.
The book was edited by a doctor and a lawyer, and funded by Americans United for Life, the major legal arm of the anti-abortion movement.
Americans United for Life was founded by Brent Bozell, a Catholic activist (and William F. Buckley's brother-in-law) who wrote for the National Review.
On Monday, the National Review's editors called for Akin to quit the race, saying there was "no evidence for Akin's biological claim."
The dissemination of Mecklenburg's article may have had more to do with the influence of the doctor's wife, Marjory, an early opponent of abortion rights who was a chairwoman of the National Right to Life Committee, an adviser to Gerald Ford's 1976 presidential campaign and director of the Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs in the administration of President Ronald Reagan.
(end c/p)
This is the kind of 'old science', Beth, that isn't really science at all, can be reasoned out by your average eleven-year-old, and is used strictly to further the political causes of people who hope the people they're telling it to aren't as bright as the average eleven-year-old.
In reality, the pregnancy rates from rape are somewhat higher than average due to inconsistent use of contraception.
No one needs a degree in medicine to figure this stuff out.
There is a medical term called
ReplyDeleteconfirmational bias: it permits
of false things as being fact...
Well thanks Saty for your research, aren't you glad now that the truth is coming out? The guy apologized for his remark, why can't you accept his apology and let him run if he still wants to run?
ReplyDeleteP.S. Citizenship does not make one a person.
ReplyDeleteWhat truth, Beth? The truth that for almsot 40 years, Republicans have been presenting a bogus statement founded on BS research paid for by people who have a stated political agenda, and presenting that bogus statement as scientific truth?
ReplyDeleteOh, did I ever say I didn't want Akin to run? I don't recall saying that. You must have imagined it. What I said was that I hope McCaskill whips his ass.
And please, go into more detail on the citizenship, tax deductions, fund allocation thing. I'm curious to understand how ordinary people get counted for all those things, but the zygote doesn't.
Seems like it's only a 'person' for certain things, and not for others.
And interesting you mentioned 'citizenship doesn't make one a person'.
ReplyDeleteUndoubtedly correct.
However, all persons have citizenship, in one country or another.
Therefore, if one is a 'person' then one ought to have citizenship with all the rights and priveleges pertaining thereunto.
This would mean the zygote needs to be counted on the census, be a tax deduction, be recognized for funds allocation and congressional representation purposes, etc.n just like all other American citizens.
So please explain why said zygote, whom you claim to be a 'person', isn't a citizen until birth.
'citizenship does not make one a person' suggests complications.
ReplyDelete..would something other than a
human being be a citizen? Certainly some humans are citizens
(of some country) while others are not. Yet, how do we define 'person'? Any member of
homo sapiens? If we choose to
define a person as possessing
human DNA, which would then include
the pre-born, we run into trouble:
fall off your skateboard and you leave a trail of DNA on the pavement..but though it possesses
human DNA, the pavement is not human. Early catholic doctrine considered a person as a rational
being...yet persons are not necessarily rational. IMO, we
all know what a person is, but we
cannot fully define the category.
Holy cannoli! Sat come up for air. Ah back in the day, 1972, sounds like some infomercial for a Time-Life Collection but anyway re Akin's medical theory "where did they get this info?" Correction: where did HE get this info? most GOPers don't subscribe to the man's medical thesis here or haven't you heard? Most don't share it otherwise they wouldn't have called for him to quit the race and withdrawn his funding or maybe this is part of the overall Conspiracy no? "No war on women right?" Uh no, just one man's dickheaded remarks.
ReplyDeleteNow onto the main bone of contention which is quite easy to respond to. So why is the zygote not counted in the census, why no tax deduction, why no funds allocation and anything else you wanna throw in there? Well alot can happen in the womb, maybe the unborn won't be born so practically speaking maybe government has decided that it's better to wait. Pragmatically speaking wait until the unborn is actually born, I mean women do miscarry you know and to me it's just gov't making a practical decision is all before granting the full rights and thingamajigs. Why grant citizenship to a zygote since alot can happen to that zygote these days? makes sense to me, I wouldn't make too much of it.
ReplyDeleteIf a zygote is a person then it ought to be counted as one. Otherwise what you have going on is selective shit that reinforces one group's agenda. Oh, it's a person alright, but not a citizen and all so forth until it's born. Cmon.
ReplyDeletePlease explain why someone who shoots a gun at a pregnant woman and the baby and mother die it is considered a double homicide. Seems to me that an unborn child is considered a person, now doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteAt what point in the pregnancy would it be considered a double homicide, Beth? Two hours after conception?
ReplyDeleteThen if that's the case, Beth, I want to know if I get pregnant on the beach in Cozumel whether that clump of cells has American citizenship. I further want to know why I can't claim that clump on my w-2, and why I can't list it on the census.
Because if you're going to define that clump of cells as a person then it necessarily should be given all the rights and priveleges as any other person, viz., citizenship, counting towards Congressional representation, counting towards allocation of state and federal funds, and so forth.
Because otherwise then you've kind of changed the definition of 'person' to suit your own processes, in a departure from the commonly used legal sense of the term. At that point it becomes clear that you've defined that zygote as a 'person' because then it lets you use that concept in ways that restrict the rights of ACTUAL people, and further your own religious beliefs at the expense of those who may hold beliefs different than yours.
"Please explain why someone who shoots a gun at a pregnant woman and the baby and mother die it is considered a double homicide"
ReplyDelete..In the unlikely case the murder
is in Federal court, they may be charged under the recent (2004) Unborn Victims of Violence Act (which excludes abortions).
Most murders are tried in state courts, where there are various
versions in 36 states. The law was passed for two reasons: homicide
is the third leading cause of death among pregnant women-and
pro-life groups pushed for a
concept of fetal personhood.
Of course Saty you missed the entire point, which is that our government has recognized the preborn as a person whenever a double homicide is charged for killing a pregnant woman. So, you thought that the government only considers them persons if they are on a tax form somewhere is just plain dumb.
ReplyDeleteAnd...enter abortion. Good grief you can set a watch by this.
ReplyDeleteAngry man w/the edge again. Dude the subject was brought up with Mr. Akin or maybe we can rap about the hot topic of Austrian Economics.
ReplyDeleteSaty: "If a zygote is a person it ought to be counted as one."
ReplyDeleteYou keep harping on this. Let's pop in the word "immigrant" -- if an immigrant is a person then it ought to be counted as a citizen, again just gov't making practical everyday decisions.
"At what point in the pregnancy would it be considered a double homicide?"
Well all I know is you can't execute a pregnant woman on death row. Mathematically speaking human life does start at conception but choicers always have to inject Theology into the matter.
Austrian Economics is a hot topic?
ReplyDeleteIn the case of the 'double homicide' charge, at what point does the zygote count? If the woman is shot five minutes after conception, is it a double homicide?
ReplyDeleteAn immigrant IS a citizen. Of another country.
ReplyDeleteUntil they become naturalized, at which point they become citizens here.
Of course, from the time they arrive, they are counted for taxes, censuses, et al. unlike a zygote.
And that noise you hear is your analogy being flushed.
"If the woman is shot five minutes after conception..."
ReplyDeleteWell chances are we'll never know in such a case, kinda moot. There's an old old truism and it's true that the choicers vastly prefer, insist we talk about conception, keep the debate percolating at the earliest possible stages although in most abortion clinics most of the time we're not even talking about zygotes being flushed down toilets, rather arms and little legs on a cold metallic table... um but if that's what you prefer to talk about...keep it on that abstract philosophical level it is kinda interesting but this argument is vastly becoming circular.
Exactly, Z-man, because there is no magical moment when you say when the baby within its mothers womb becomes a person, so Saty the Sheeple needs to make a 5 minute after conception kind of remark because it isn't even logical but that doesn't stop her from using it. Of course 5 minutes after conception the woman isn't even aware she is pregnant, most women don't know they are for weeks after conception. But it is the same unborn child whether it is five minutes from conception, or 1,000 minutes after conception or 10 years after, so what is your point?????
ReplyDeleteChiatt, you are welcome to not read if you do not prefer the topic, good grief we can set our watches as to what your response will be to anything we discuss, pick one from the list:
ReplyDelete1.) Ayn Rand
2.) Ron Paul, and
3.) The political parties are a means to an end, and I have no use for them
Beth..1) 2) 3) that is pretty darn funny!
ReplyDeleteThe point is that personhood amendments make that five minutes the difference.
ReplyDeleteI don't expect you to be able necessarily to understand that, but that's the point.
Well my point is that allowing death to be the answer to a perceived problem is as bad as what Hitler did.
ReplyDeleteWhat Hitler did is a bit enigmatic:
ReplyDeleteUnder Nazi changes to the legal
code (sec 208), abortions were encouraged for non-Aryan women...
gypsies, jews (as if they weren't already in concentration camps).
On the other hand, abortion was
strictly illegal for german women
(even the teenage girls impregnated by SS men in special
baby factories). The penalty in
that case was death. Since the process was both legal and illegal,
and strongly so, the Hitler era
based their stance on flawed
eugenics; indeed most of their
regs were rooted in such.
Since we're going minute by minute here how is an unborn child a person at 6 months or 24 weeks which is a common standard based on viability but five minutes before that or five hours or five days before that the unborn is not considered a person??? Works backwards too Saty so can you explain exactly the Cindarella Moment when the unborn becomes a person in your eyes? It's most arbitary, even whimsical.
ReplyDeleteCinderella moment: for legal purposes, I'm going with the moment of birth.
ReplyDeleteThat would be the same exact moment that said person becomes a citizen by birth, and receives all the rights and priveleges pertaining thereunto.
'the moment of birth. Genesis 2-7
ReplyDeletesupports that view.
Okay, now you actually make me sick to my stomach, Saty, you would actually allow an abortion at 9 months in other words? A woman could be in labor but not give birth yet and you would say go ahead and suck it out, huh? Sick.
ReplyDeleteI never said any such thing.
ReplyDeleteI said that for legal purposes I would say that the fetus becomes a person at the moment of birth.
I never addressed abortion at all.
Nice try to manipulate and add things in, Beth.
But now that you've mentioned it, it brings up a very important point to me.
ReplyDeleteI never addressed abortion in any way, shape or form. My comment was strictly about at what moment a fetus becomes a 'person' with all the rights etc.
Yet you took that and somehow turned it into me making a statement about abortion, even though the word wasn't even in the post.
I think that's incredibly significant, because it shows that you're seeing things that aren't there, and basing your opinion of me on words I never said, but that you only imagined.
Now, I would not be so naive as to presume that this is either the first or the last time you've made an opinion on something based on something that wasn't there, so that tells me a lot about what you've got going on.
You might want to think about it too, and think about the fact that you want to believe something so very badly that you create things out of things that don't exist, words that were never said, situations that were never addressed. You want to believe something so desperately that you've created something out of absolutely nothing.
You might want to think about that.
But Sat you were kinda using the same legal framework of Roe vs. Wade which many scholars say basically legalized abortion up until birth. I got the same impression as Beth but thanx for the elucidation (I think).
ReplyDeleteWhat you asked me is what is the magic moment that personhood occurs. To my mind that would be the moment of birth.
ReplyDeleteRealize that 'moment of birth' does not in any way, shape or form set a date or time.
Birth can take place at 26 weeks, 32 weeks, 40 weeks. It doesn't specify.
And actually, the antecedent to the discussion wasn't about abortion per se, it was about personhood bills, which specify that an egg that's been fertilized for even just a few seconds is a person.
And I pointed out that this concept of 'personhood' isn't global, ie, doesn't address things like citizenship and so forth, but is used in a very limited way for the express purpose of furthering a particular political agenda.
So, an interesting outcome here is that people have taken one single statement of mine and put all kinds of imputations onto it that weren't there.
That bears some investigation, I would think.
Of course you got the same impression that I did Z-man because Saty said "if one is a 'person' then one ought to have citizenship with all the rights and priveleges pertaining thereunto." and then when pinned down on her idea of when the unborn become a 'person' she said at birth...well then she doesn't think the unborn has any protection as a citizen under the Constitution until it is 100% outside his or her mother's body. Which is such a disturbing thought that she thinks killing it a minute before it gets all the way out is OK (like the head is out so it would be OK to kill it then). Sick!!!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm pointing out, beth, if you can unknot yourself, is that a 'personhood' law is inconsistent in that it only awards 'personhood' in specific situations and for specific reasons. It isn't handing over 'complete' personhood, because all it is designed to do is one specific thing, ie, support its own political agenda. It has no consistency. Either you are a person or you're not and if you are then you should be a citizen and counted on the census and all that. Even you admit that's impossible. So you're saying a zygote is a person BUT only in those situations you want it to be. Inconsistent, thus invalid.
ReplyDeleteEven if you are a person that doesn't necessarily mean you should be a citizen. Maybe a zygote shouldn't be counted on a census, maybe because it won't make it to birth. Personhood and citizenship are two very different things.
ReplyDeleteMy point, again, is that personhood laws are inconsistent because they only address specific things and are designed to promote a particular agenda.
ReplyDeleteEither be comprehensive or don't be at all. The inconsistency is what invalidates it all.
We won't count that zygote on a census because it might not make it to birth. However, under personhood laws, a miscarriage can be investigated as a potential homicide.
There's inconsistency there. Either do, or do not. There is no try.
And again, this proves that even when something that isn't abortion is being addressed, you have to make it into abortion, because if it isn't abortion, you have nothing to work with, because abortion is all you care about.
ReplyDeleteIf a zygote is a person it doesn't have to be a citizen of course, that's a practical consideration of Government. Speaking of philosophical inconsistency I never got that someone doesn't eat animals out of ethical concerns but apparently unborn life has no value. Not saying you're pro-abortion don't get me wrong but I've yet to read a statement of yours that concedes the fetus at least at some point in the whole process has some value.
ReplyDeleteSo again, a zygote is only a person for the furtherance of a particular group's political agenda.
ReplyDeleteThe political agenda being what exactly?
ReplyDeleteThe political agenda that finds it expedient to define a person as a fertilized egg for purposes that don't include anything except criminalizing women who have miscarriages and making it vastly more difficult to obtain a safe and legal abortion.
ReplyDeleteSo if Science once and for all proves the zygote is human then any laws proposed reflecting this would be evidence of dark motives? Must there always be an agenda?
ReplyDeleteUm, but still doesn't holding and pushing the view that the fetus has no value kinda add up to a political agenda too that of making it easier to obtain a safe and legal abortion? How come that ain't a political agenda but the other one is?
ReplyDelete"..So if Science once and for all proves the zygote is human .."
ReplyDelete..Z-man, they are still working
on when the fruitfly becomes an insect.
I almost spit my coffee on the computer screen this morning when I read Saty's comments, HA! She says we make abortion and personhood into an issue when she is the one who brought it up in the first place. Wow, you've got balls, lady.
ReplyDeleteWell how 'bout Saty and soap telling us when we can talk about abortion. Maybe once, twice a year but they'll let us know.
ReplyDeleteI was the one who brought up personhood because it's an inconsistent law that makes a cell that's been fertilized for 1 second into a person, but only for particular circumstances.
ReplyDeleteEither make it a person for ALL circumstances or none.
That was my point, but Beth, you just can't wrap your brain around that, can you?
Yes, I know you want to make it so that a baby is only a baby if you can hold it in your hands, I get that, I just find it very disturbing that you feel that way that is all. But it helps you justify killing the unborn, so I understand you have to think that way.
ReplyDeleteFor CHRISSAKE this is not about ABORTION...
ReplyDeleteit is about an INCONSISTENT LAW.
You want a personhood bill? Fine. Give that cell citizenship. Count it on the census. Make it a tax deduction.
BE CONSISTENT~!
That's all I'm asking. But you run on one very narrow track, Beth, and you can't think outside it.
I waste my time with you.
"For CHRISSAKE"
ReplyDeleteHave you changed religions?
I'm ecumenical, man.
ReplyDelete