Random News I Found Amusing
It eats a fish’s tongue. And then it replaces the fish’s tongue using it’s own body. Sort of like Maria Bello in The Mummy 3: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, if you assume that she devoured Rachel Weisz to get the part.
"Quaid! Start the reactor!"
And I’m pretty much done eating sushi forever.
A Guy Got Killed By A Sword Today.
Habitual criminal breaks into a college kids garage. Gets one hand partially hacked off, and bleeds to death. There’s pretty much nothing I dislike about this story. It’s got a sword. A clearly defined bad guy. And he was even punished appropriately for theft, at least if you subscribe to some Middle Eastern schools of thought on the subject. So everybody wins. Except for Donald D. Rice.
Operation Rescue May Have to Shut It’s Doors
They’re blaming the economy. Which is true I guess. Because when money starts getting tight the first things to get cut are unnecessary luxuries like expensive restaurants, family vacations, and domestic terrorist organizations.
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September 16th, 2009 at 4:49 am
Toungue Parasite-Creepy but cool. Gives me ideas for critters. Now, am I going nuts or does the fish in the picture have teeth?
Sword guy-Just cool.
Op Rescue-Boo bloody hoo you freaking wackos! Because killing a doctor is a GREAT idea! Dat’ll stop dem makin’ wid dem damn abortions. I wonder, since they fired first, are we allowed to return fire? What’s the RoE on this?
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September 16th, 2009 at 5:36 am
Unfortunately, the Baltimore prosecutor is looking into filing charges against the student. There is a reason I love Texas’ self-defense laws.
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September 16th, 2009 at 5:45 am
If I wasn’t already suffering from insomnia, I’m pretty sure the nightmares about that parasite would do the trick.
Captcha: arriving general: quick everyone look busy
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September 16th, 2009 at 6:01 am
1) It looks so cute sitting there in the fish’s mouth
2) Right on. If more people had the spine to defend themselves and their property crime would fall
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September 16th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Where else have I seen that tongue parasite? I know it’s shown up elsewhere…
I agree that the sword kid is cool. Part wants to say excessive force, but another says that the burglar got what he deserved, natural selection style.
I’m disappointed about Operation Rescue. Disappointed that it’s closing, and more disappointed that some nut decided that the best way to campaign for life was to cause death. Most of us Pro-Life supporters aren’t violent sociopaths who think that the way to end abortion is to kill the doctors who provide it and destroy the clinics. Those guys account for less than 1% of our total membership, but they are the most vocal by far. Figures that the most vocal of a group are also the most damaging to that group’s image.
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Minty reply on September 16th, 2009 9:44 am:
Then why don’t you (the majority) speak up? Just like any other issue, when the minority is the only one making noise, the opposition assumes everyone with that opinion thinks and acts the same way, and then overacts accordingly.
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Rick R. reply on September 16th, 2009 1:29 pm:
They do.
But unless they publicly execute the loudmouths in the city street via immolation, it won’t get any coverage.
Keep in mind that many of the pro-life dmeonstrators are ALSO anti-death-penalty demonstrators. Yet that somehow doesn’t get reported, either.
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Minty reply on September 16th, 2009 2:28 pm:
You could always try a debate. It would be fun! Watch them (metaphorically) hang themselves as they rant on and on about the sanctity of life, and then have to defend their violent behavior. Granted, most of them are just going to babble away, so what you do then is just keep saying “what about ‘thou shalt not kill?'” Eventually, the debater(s) are going to whine about you repeating the same thing over and over, to which you then reply “I’ll stop repeating the question when you’ve answered it. So, what about ‘thou shalt not kill?'”
And then, with a little luck, their heads will explode from the frustration.
Chris reply on September 17th, 2009 9:03 am:
Thank you, Rick. That’s exactly what I was going to say. And Minty, while a debate would be amusing, it would be somewhat pointless. The militant faction and we agree on everything except tactics, and they would just say something about killing being acceptable in defense of innocent human life. Admittedly, more press for those of us who are exercising our First Amendment rights to peaceful assembly and to petition the gov’t for a redress of grievances would be nice, but “Peace Protest” won’t sell papers. That’s why we get less coverage. No matter how vocal we are, the militant ones are more sensational.
Rick R. reply on September 17th, 2009 9:28 am:
In Minty’s vein of having a rational dialogue between teh pro-choice and pro-life factions, we could set ground rules and agreed-upon definitions beforehand.
Because if teh two sides are not even using the same meanings for teh same words, NO dialogue is possible.
For example, pro-choicers repeatedly fail to show any understanding of the fact that, to a pro-lifer, it is NOT a discussion on the property rights of the mother to her own body in isolation.
They see it as the property rights of the mother over her own body, balanced against the right of a different human being to live.
Which is why the pro-lifers do not understand the concept of “It’s a choice”. You MUST look at it from their perspective to have even a HOPE of understanding (and you must have that understanding to have even a hope of rational debate or compromise) — where else in in the law or American culture do property rights allow you to kill someone who has NOT committed a crime?
To a pro-lifer, saying “It’s my body, my choice,” as an excuse for unrestrcted on-demand abortion is semantically identical to saying, “It’s OK to shoot toddlers who inadvertently walk into the wrong house.”
This is also where many pro-lifers do not understand the logic behind exemptions for rape or incest. The fetus didn’t commit any crime, so allowing abortion solely becuase it’s FATHER committed a crime is killing a baby for it’s poor choice in paternity. If you acknowledge ANY point in a pregnancy where a fetus is far enough developed to qualify as a “people”, this logic is hard to refute.
(Of course, the reverse is true — charging an assailant who causes a miscarriage with a crime against the fetus at a point where the mother could have an elective, on-demand abortion doesn’t meet the logic test either. Either the fetus has rights and can be a victim in it’s own right — in which case an on-demand elective abortion is wrong, or it has no rights, in which case the only victim is the pregnant woman.)
The reverse is true. Many pro-choicers do not understand how anyone could deny that it’s merely a single person choice, not involving another individual. They see pro-lifers as being intent on taking away a personal right, for some unfathomable reason (and thus it must be misogyny).
Shadowydreamer reply on September 17th, 2009 11:01 am:
The common misconception being that it’s a person before three months. I won’t disagree that it’s LIFE, but it’s not yet a person.
Rick R. reply on September 17th, 2009 11:19 am:
Just becuase YOU believe that a fetus isn’t a person during the first trimester doesn’t mean that belief otherwise is a “common misconception”.
That just means that it’s rather common to disagree with you on this issue.
Unless you happen to be blessed with omniscience, it’s entirely possible YOU are mistaken.
Or they may be.
Or both of you may be.
Me? I’m not prepared to call it, one way or the other, at any specific point. I’d rather the issue be settled by scientific consensus, using the same criteria for “beginning of life” as we use for “end of life”. Establish set of a “necessary and sufficent conditions” and to seperate “legally alive” from “not legally alive”, and use the same conditions at both ends. If followed, I don’t really know where that would draw the line in gestation.
However, I don’t claim to have all the answers.
September 16th, 2009 at 9:09 am
1: I agree about the sushi. My tongue is way too useful for me to risk it for something I don’t even like eating.
And it pisses me off Rachel Weisz isn’t in the Mummy 3. That was the whole damn reason I got into the damn movies in the first place.
2: Hooray, the world’s an asshole short. Now if I can just convince a few other people to start garage robbing we might make some headway….
3: Damn idiots. Anti Abortion on an overpopulated planet? What a frickin genius idea! That’s like those vegans who get all holier than thou about not eating any animal product but neglect to mention how if we all followed their example then most domestic animals would be a waste of space and probably end up slaughtered to extinction.
In short, I hate stupid people. That’s my rant about the news over.
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September 16th, 2009 at 9:40 am
I have a sneaking suspicion that the fish picture is fake, though apparently the bug is real. Either way, I’ve got the heebie-jeebies.
Gotta love Taxachusetts and their hippie “oh, you can’t cause massive bodily harm to some loser thief who attacked you in the first place” laws.
Favorite quote about Operation Rescue: “Another anti-abortion group, Kansans for Life, says it hasn’t seen a noticeable drop in its donations.”
That’s because KFL isn’t staffed by tunnel-visioned assholes who think “Thou Shalt Not Kill” only applies to themselves and the unborn.
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M578Jockey reply on September 16th, 2009 10:27 am:
Aww, Mass-of-two-shits isn’t that bad. I knew someone who blew away an intruder with his 9mm and never heard from the cops or DA after they questioned him at the scene.
Captcha: Mallano believed…in an eye for an eye
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Minty reply on September 16th, 2009 12:56 pm:
I refuse to acknowledge your presentation of evidence disproving my statement! They’re hippies, I tell you! Hippies! They must be scrubbed down with lye and dressed in synthetic, eco-unfriendly clothing while being made to eat ultra-processed food products!
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M578Jockey reply on September 16th, 2009 2:02 pm:
I am not a hippie! I spent 10 year in the Army, have short hair, drive a SUV, and am a Republican (not a neocon), and lived my whole life, except for the Army time living in the far west of Mass. I will admit that Northhampton, Amherst, and most of the Boston area are freaky leftist liberals.
Until I was recently exiled to the buckle of the bible belt for economic reasons. :-(
Minty reply on September 16th, 2009 2:39 pm:
[fingers in ears] lalalalalalalala!
StoneWolf reply on September 16th, 2009 12:19 pm:
But Minty, he didn’t cause massive bodily harm. He killed him. So they have to charge him with mutilating the body. Massive bodily harm only works if the asshole is still alive. Isn’t it a wonderful, safe world where even burglars are protected by the law? Where the average Citizen doesn’t need to protect himself because that’s doing the Police’s job for them? Where you can rob, murder and rape but it’s not your fault because your just misunderstood? Where the independent, self-reliant individual is damn near forced into an “I love you” jacket all for the sake of “the children” so you don’t scare “little sister”.
As you can probably tell, I figure the average burglar should be shot and dumped into the nearest silage pit. Its been one of those days.
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Maven reply on September 21st, 2009 5:56 am:
No, No, NO! You can’t dump criminals in silage pits! COWS HAVE TO EAT OUT OF THERE! The nearest cesspool should suffice.
Catchpa corded 60th. Sounds like a BDSM anniversary…
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StoneWolf reply on September 22nd, 2009 4:40 am:
Yeah, your right. Brain fart. I meant an offal pit. The one with all the guts, crap and other random junk that ends up growing some awesome bacteria that’ll even eat bones in two or three years. Like I said, it was one of those days.
Rick R. reply on September 16th, 2009 1:36 pm:
Why do you assume the fish picture is fake?
That’s what they look like when in place.
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Minty reply on September 16th, 2009 2:19 pm:
The herbivorous teeth attached to the front of the fish’s upper jaw. I’m fully aware that the bugs are real and actually do that.
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Anna reply on September 22nd, 2009 9:35 am:
God, I love Americans, in Canada the sword fellow would be arrested too fast to blink. Here you aren’t allowed to use more force than the intruder, so as a 5″3 young woman if I were confronted with a 6″something male if he had no weapon it would be illegal for me to use one against him. Police advise you to lock yourself in a secure room and call for help.
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September 16th, 2009 at 10:45 am
If you enter a house illegally, you leave your inalienable rights at the property line. Now if there were some way to get the Maryland legislature to see things the same way.
captcha: “Mr dabblers” — Where is this congressman’s mailbox?
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September 16th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
They do.
But unless they publicly execute the loudmouths in the city street via immolation, it won’t get any coverage.
Keep in mind that many of the pro-life dmeonstrators are ALSO anti-death-penalty demonstrators. Yet that somehow doesn’t get reported, either.
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Rick R. reply on September 16th, 2009 1:31 pm:
Somehow, this DIDN’T get appended to Minty’s post above the first time. . .
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Minty reply on September 16th, 2009 2:19 pm:
And yet somehow it still ended up after it. Weird.
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September 16th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Except, Minty,
The commandment is NOT “Thou shalt not kill.” That’s only the transaltion from teh King James Authorized Version — one of the WORST translations EVAH of the Bible in English. (Artisically beautiful language — one of the linguistically prettiest English translations ever. . . but chock full of really piss-poor translations. I mean, “Your local rabbi snickering behind the corner at the stupidity” bad.)
The commanment is “Do not commit murder,” an entirely different commandment — which is why the rest of the Bible is rife with God-designated capital offences, detailed right down to preferred method of execution. And why the Bible also identifies cases in which a private citizen, killing another private citizen, is justifable homicide — not murder.
So, you’re starting the debate with a strawman argument to begin with.
And it still doesn’t address the fact that many of teh pro-lifers are ALSO anti-death-penalty people. You know, like many of those people called “Catholics”. (Note that, despite the propaganda issued by some, while the Church has taken an absolute position on abortion, and PREFERS governments would avoid the death penalty as they see it as unnecessary with modern prisons, the official Church position still allows capital punishment by the authorities in each nation. But, by and large, the politically active go-to-demonstrations pro-life Cathoilics are often the same politically active, go-to-protests anti-death penalty Catholics.)
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Minty reply on September 16th, 2009 3:02 pm:
Kill, murder. For many people, it’s the same thing. I’m not going to debate semantics with you in this venue (but if you’re interested, we can have an email battle. Email battle! Woo!)
Anyway. The debate I have in mind is between representatives of the different facets of the Pro-Life movement. Instead of debating the viability of abortion–since all participants are in agreement about that issue–the topic is about methods of protest. Ask the one side to justify their murdering doctors who perform abortions. It’s a fair bet that they’ll deliver some rambling, half-baked reply that makes them look good, but doesn’t answer the question at all. So, then you boil it down to “but the Bible says you shouldn’t murder people.” They’ll give another rambling answer. So you just hammer them with the same question over and over in a calm, collected manner (please note, it is very important that you do not lose your composure, no matter how inflammatory they become) while they dig themselves into a deeper hole of crazy.
This would accomplish several things. First, it would be educational, as it shows society as a whole that there are many different sides to the Pro-Life argument. Second, again, educational, as it would show that those with the biggest mouths and (as a result) the most exposure probably shouldn’t be trusted with so much as a piece of string. Third, they would be metaphorically defanged through mockery, which is a better way of shutting someone down than killing.
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skippy reply on September 16th, 2009 4:10 pm:
Actually, Rick is completely correct. The original text of the bible made a distinction between killing someone and murdering them. In this case arguing semantics is in fact the debate, not a distraction from it.
The kind of pro-lifer that encourages murder typically has no problem claiming that killing an abortion doctor constitutes a justifiable homicide.
If you consider abortion a murder, (Which I don’t but let’s say for debates sake that I do) then someone who performs it is a murderer. And an unrepentant one, who evidently plans on doing it again.
Given an unrepentant murderer who plans to do it again, killing them would be a justifiable action.
It doesn’t make it right or anything, but I don’t think that your plan to catch them in a logical fallacy would work nearly as well as you think. Also people that are willing to encourage the killing of other people based on religious grounds are typically immune to things like logic.
And also, I don’t think most pro-lifers condone violence. But sane rational people who have a philosophical disagreement are rarely entertaining enough to make the news.
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Texan reply on September 16th, 2009 5:15 pm:
Wait, you mean the news doesn’t report everything factually?
Rick R. reply on September 17th, 2009 7:33 am:
And those people are wrong, and have demonstrated their lack of understanding of simple English.
“Do not kill” is pretty blunt. It means, “Do not kill ANYONE, ANYWHERE, at ANY TIME, for ANY REASON.” That precludes warfare, self-defense, capital punishment, police acting to protect others from violent criminals, etc. Utter and complete pacificsm.
And an utter and complete contradiction of much of the rest of the Chirstian Bible (both New and Old Testaments) as well as the Judeo-Christian tradition of law, philospohy, and the interpretation of the Law.
It also means that people who truly believe the commandment is “Do not kill” are nothing but victims, as they are not even permitted to kill to save their own life, or the lives of anyone else. Even Jesus told his disciples to go buy a sword if they didn’t already have one. . . and 1st Century swords are pretty much pure anti-personnel deadly weapons — ain’t no sport versions, aside form items to train people to use the real ones in combat against other people. Pure dismembowling or dismembering tools.
“Do not murder” (i.e., “do not kill unlawfully”) is much more flexible, AND is 100% compatible with the rest of the Bible and 3000 years of philosophical discussion.
While the overwhelming majority of pro-lifers DO publicly decry the violence of the miniscule minority who actually commit these crimes, this NEVER gets reported.
In the last 32 years, you can LITERALLY count the number of people slain by millitant anti-abortion murderers on your fingers – 9 victims (carried out by six murderers), with 17 additional murder attempts (some of which were carried out by the aforementioned 6 murders). . . this is NOT a significant portion of the prolife movement by ANY stretch.
That’s 6 murderers, committing 9 murders, in 32 years. Add in another 214 bombings or arsons were no one got hurt. In a nation of over 300 million residents.
Remember, according to polls, ONLY A MINORITY of Americans believe that abortion should be as or less restricted than it is now — the majority believe it should be abolished or at least more heavily restricted. According to a 2007 CBS poll, only 30% had no opinion or favored the NARAL position; 70% wanted more restrictions. In current polls, roughly HALF of adults voluntarily identify themselves as “pro-life” versus “pro-choice”. . . and that’s with many of the “pro-choice” crowd STILL favoring more restrictions!
So, roughly 150 MILLION self described “pro-choicers”, and only 6 murderers. . . statistically, that ain’t bad. Out of any crowd of 150 million people, there’s going to be a certain cumber of psychopaths.
Hell, the Black Liberation Army killed more people in only 10 years. Ted Kaczynski BY HIMSELF hit 26 people — luckily, only 3 of them died, and he was stopped only when the FBI captured him. All in the name of environmentalism.
In terms of property attacks (compared to the clinic bombings and arsons where no one was hurt), the enviro-whackos have conducted MORE attacks, for GREATER damage. That doesn’t include mere vandalism (1264 anti-abortion vandalism attacks, versus HOW MANY environmentalist/eco-weirdo vandalism attacks?).
Yet I don’t see the mainstream environmentalists called out on the carpet to continually wear hairshirts and flagellate themselves publically to account for the actions of the deeply disturbed individuals (who make up a MUCH larger segment of their movement — both in absolute numbers and percentages) who do criminal acts.
If the ecological movement were being held to teh same standard you seem to expect we hold teh ENTIRE [pro-choice movement, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club would be classified as a racketeering organizations that provide material support to terrorists, and mere membership in them would be criminalized.
I’m not proposing that — just noting the inconsitsency in the two cases.
Leftist violent weirdos are assumed to be deranged individuals acting alone, and NOT reflective of the beliefs or even approval of the larger movements.
Yet pro-life violent weirdos — who are ROUTINELY condemned from within teh pro-life movement, even when no attacks have occurred recently — are procliamed to be the standard by which ALL pro-life people are judged, and the entire pro-life movement is held individually accountable for the actions of these few psychos.
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Chris reply on September 17th, 2009 9:20 am:
Rick, I now feel compelled to bow down before you. That was amazing! Also, entirely accurate. You’re my new best friend. I thank you for sticking up for me and my beliefs with logic and facts, when many others would not have done so, and in a manner of which I can only one day hope to achieve. You win one internet, and, failing delivery of that, a platter of cookies.
Rick R. reply on September 17th, 2009 9:48 am:
Chris,
I’ll be honest. It’s the illogic and hypocracy associated with the left that pisses me off. This insistance that pro-lifers (for example — there are other examples) be held to some unattainable standard they do not EVER require of their fellow travelers is offensive in the extreme.
On elective abortion, I am severely conflicted, despite growing up Catholic.
On the one hand, I cannot make myself believe that a mass of undifferenciated cells is a “people”.
On the other, I cannot make myself believe that a fetus that is theoretically viable if delivered today is not a “people”.
I just don’t know where the line between them is.
My wife and both of my sisters were preemies, and my daughter was definitively reactive to stimuli – noticeably particular sounds; Mozart calmed her down and artillery jazzed her up – early on in utero (and she continued analogous reactions to the same stimuli AFTER birth; the very same Mozart pieces made her sleepy, while she giggled and cackled at artillery booms and thunder).
I do believe, especially when dealing with a life or death decision, that “the tie goes to the runner” — thus any line drawn should be drawn as to ENSURE no “people” end up on the “not people” side by mistake.
Likewise, a person going about their innocent business has an ABSOLUTE right to try and preserve their own life — so “life of the mother” is a place for an exception to any restriction. (NO ONE can force you to commit suicide to keep another person alive, not even if it’s one of your kids.) To me, “life of the mother” signals that it is NOT an “elective” abortion.
I suspect, had the courts NOT interfered in such a high-handed and Constitutionally unsupportable fashion, we would have hammered out a better consensus on the abortion issue by now, through the magic of the 50 legal laboratories called “the United States”. The biggest LEGAL consequence of Roe v. Wade is that it nearly froze efective dicussion along a particular trenchline — and like WWI, there has been very little movement since then.
I also suspect that, when such a consensus IS developed, it will end up drawing a line at one of two points:
Either “viability” (a slippery, ever-changing timeline), or using the same brain wave activities as are commonly used now to determine brain death.
skippy reply on September 17th, 2009 10:03 am:
Every political faction gets condemned by the opposition, by comparing them to their fringe elements. Just because you don’t do it to liberals doesn’t mean no one else on the right does.
skippy reply on September 17th, 2009 10:27 am:
Rick, you know that you are currently and repeatedly condemning an argument that nobody here made right?
No one here said that all pro-lifers are terrorists, or support violence.
I said that Operation Rescue is. And frankly about 95% or America agrees with me on that.
You currently trying to hold an entire end of the political spectrum accountable because some portion of them are trying to hold your entire end of the political spectrum accountable due to the views of a portion of yours.
You’re actually making the error you are accusing others of, as you make it.
Rick R. reply on September 17th, 2009 11:04 am:
Actually, Minty DID make that argument, obliquely.
(snipped quotes follow)
1. Minty reply on September 16th, 2009 9:44 am:
Then why don’t you (the majority) speak up?
2. Minty reply on September 16th, 2009 2:28 pm:
You could always try a debate. It would be fun! Watch them (metaphorically) hang themselves as they rant on and on about the sanctity of life, and then have to defend their violent behavior. Granted, most of them are just going to babble away, so what you do then is just keep saying “what about ‘thou shalt not kill?’” Eventually, the debater(s) are going to whine about you repeating the same thing over and over, to which you then reply “I’ll stop repeating the question when you’ve answered it. So, what about ‘thou shalt not kill?’”
3. Minty reply on September 16th, 2009 3:02 pm:
The debate I have in mind is between representatives of the different facets of the Pro-Life movement. Instead of debating the viability of abortion–since all participants are in agreement about that issue–the topic is about methods of protest. Ask the one side to justify their murdering doctors who perform abortions. It’s a fair bet that they’ll deliver some rambling, half-baked reply that makes them look good, but doesn’t answer the question at all.
(Replies)
1. As pointed out, the majority DO speak out against the violence, and strongly condemn it.
2. She’s proposing a debate with some identifiable group — something that DOES NOT EXIST within teh “Killing abortion doctors is OK” crowd, as it ISN’T a “crowd” — it’s isolated nutcases.
3. Same thing as #2. She’s talking about a discussion between a few dozen people, MOST OF WHOM are already dead or in prison, versus the other 150 million who oppose abortion AND the violence against abortion providers?
It’s pretty clear that Minty believes there is some significant (if minority) segment of the pro-life movement that can be readily identified. When in fact, the numbers demonstrate that violent anti-abortion types are probably LESS common in the pro-life moevment than generic violent people in the general population. They’re for damned sure less common than their violent counterparts in various leftist causes. (Not surprisingly. . . I suspect the level of “violent nutcases for pacifism” is even lower.)
I DO notice a difference betwen the “villification” of enemies on the “right” and “left”.
I see a HELL of a lot of acceptance and understanding of tgose who commit violence on teh part of their individual “leftist” causes on teh part of teh left, while at the same time stretching UNBELIEVABLE reaches to try and villify their opponants on the “right”.
Such as blaming “conservatives” for actions actually taken by leftists that happen to seem aimed at a leftist cause.
skippy reply on September 17th, 2009 12:32 pm:
Response to Point 1:
“Actually, Minty DID make that argument, obliquely.”
Okay fair enough, she did make that at the beginning. In your examples other than the first though, she did appear to be separating the violence enthusiasts from everyone else. She even talked about making them debate each other to show how crazy the extremists were.
Point 2: I think that this is demonstrably false. There are identifiable groups that promote and endorse violence as means to resolve the debate on abortion. It’s more a few people. Your equating only the actual trigger (bomb/whatever) puller as the person who espouses those views. There are plenty of examples of folks saying “That SOB got what he deserved.” Or putting up web-sites that are designed to assist in violence against abortion providers. There is most assuredly a “killing abortion doctors is okay” crowd. They are still by no means the majority, but they still exist.
That’s like saying that only 64 people in Dallas like football, because that’s how many people are players for the Cowboys.
Point 3:
Google “George Tiller deserved to die.” Research what some people on the pro-life side have had to say. I’m willing to bet we can find more 2 dozen that think that what happened was okay.
And I think you notice more vilification coming from the left because you are on the right. It’s human nature. Most people on the left view things the same way about the right.
StoneWolf reply on September 22nd, 2009 5:06 am:
Rick, you wanted a line on the abortion thing. I have an idea. If its IN Mommy, its her choice. If its OUT of Mommy, killing it would be murder. Because IN Mommy and OUT of Mommy is a pretty hard freaking line. At most you get a few hours of grey when its comming out.
Also, and this goes to everybody on both sides, I don’t care what the Bibe, Tora, Quoran or Constitution says, no adult has the right to tell another adult how to live their own life when they aren’t hurting anybody else. If you are against Abordtion, DO NOT GET ONE and teach your children not to get abortions, but don’t interfere with those that do want abortions. If you’re Pro Choice, go ahead, its your body, but don’t interfere with those that choose never to have an abortion. To both sides, the other isn’t “wrong” or “evil”, they are just different. Let eachother live as they choose to live and stop trying to force your ideals on the other side.
Rick R. reply on September 22nd, 2009 6:59 am:
And Stonewolf sets out to prove my point about an inability to understand the basis of the arguments of the opposition.
While ignoring my point about drawing a bright line that is scientifically supportable AND coherently matches with all the other lines we draw to seperate “not human life” from “human life”.
Honestly, if we selected a line at either “neonatal viability” OR used standards based on the brain activity we use to decide if a car accident victim is “alive” or merely an “organ incubator” for harvesting, probably MOST of teh people currently calling themselves “pro-life” would nod their heads and say, “That makes sense to me. Logical, based on science, and not driven by emotion.”
But an insistance on “elective abortion, on demand, with no restrictions, until the cord is cut and the baby starts breathing” marginalizes the pro-choice position and designates it as an extremist position. Only about 25% of America holds your position. . . as opposed to roughly 70% who feel that their should be GREATER restrictions than currently exist. Even many who describe themselves as “pro-choice” feel that there needs to be some tightening of the rules.
This is 25% of the population calling 70% a “fringe outside the mainstream”. *We are at war with Eastasia. We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.*
Shadowydreamer reply on September 22nd, 2009 8:42 am:
I’m confused.. where in the western world if a baby not recognized as a little human being post three months? As far as I know you can only get an abortion in the first trimester?
Rick R. reply on September 22nd, 2009 10:45 am:
In Roe V, Wade, the Supreme Court (AKA SCOTUS) invented a whole new right that they couldn’t actually point to it’s basis in teh Constitution, and then arbitrarily divided gestation into three identical periods for legal purposes.
In teh United States, abortion in effectively unlimited in the first trimester, the states may impose SOME limits in the second trimester (but cannot actually outlaw elective abortions), and the states can have abortion more stringently limited (primarily in banning either specific techniques, or in banning abortions of “viable” — i.e., can live outside the womb — fetuses; note that SCOTUS also said that states could create a “presumption of viability” after 20 weeks) in the third trimester, so long as they include an execption for the life, health, or mental health of the mother.
HOWEVER, it is still legal in the United States to get a totally elective abortion, unless your state has a specific ban based on gestation (13 states).
KO reply on September 24th, 2009 3:37 pm:
Dittos. I was going to reply with the same (or similar) comments Rick and Skippy posted. ;)
KO reply on September 24th, 2009 5:01 pm:
Sorry. I meant the comments of the 16th.
THEN I read the rest of this thread… :rolleyes:
September 17th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Skippy,
If there was THAT MUCH wide-spread approval of the violent nuts, there would be FAR MORE violence.
150 million people — 6 killers in 32 years. That’s pretty definitive odds. There’s probably more anti-gay violence (especially if you limit it to “per capita”) in San Fransisco, yet NO ONE argues that there is a noticeable antigay violent hate movement in San Francisco.
To claim that there is a large — even if acknowledging it is a minority — violent wing of the pro-life movement is engaging in pure demogoguery.
It’s not that I have a dog in this fight. I’ve never been to a pro-life rally.
You’ll note in my earlier comments, I stated my confliction on abortion. I WOULD NOT describe myself as “pro-life”, as I do believe that there is a point where an elective abortion is acceptable, even if I’m not sure where the cut off point should be.
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skippy reply on September 17th, 2009 9:21 pm:
I’m making the point that there are more people that endorse violence than you are admitting to.
“50 million people — 6 killers in 32 years. That’s pretty definitive odds. ”
Actually it’s misrepresenting the data.
Basically you are claiming that only the most extreme examples of one side apply, but every example of the other side applies. More than 6 individuals have been convicted of using violence in the abortion debate. And a lot more than that have been convicted of using the threat of violence.
Additionally, you are naming a number, and then arbitrarily claiming that it is less than another, non-specified number, as proof that one side is more violent than the other. How many deliberate murders did eco-terrorists in America perform in the same period of time?
And I have to disagree on your stance on publicly supporting murder. I think if you publicly say that it’s okay to have murdered someone and that it was a morally justifiable act, then you are supporting violence.
And I saw what you said earlier on your own views on abortion. I just like to debate, and I figured you do as well.
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Rick R. reply on September 22nd, 2009 6:46 am:
Well, Skippy,
If so many pro-life people support actually violence against aboirtion providers, you still haven’t answered teh question:
Why so LITTLE violence, relative to the size of the pro-life population?
Come on, with roughly 150 million adherents, even if the violence level were merely *equivalent* to teh general population, there should be dozens or hundreds of lethal attacks, as well as several times the number of non-lethal attacks on people. (NO, I am NOT going to classify property crimes, where people were INTENDED to be avoided — AND the criminals managed to NOT hurt anyone — as being the equivalent of capital murder or criminal battery. Just like I wouldn’t classify an anti-war protestor spray painting a recruiting office or smashing its windows with bricks at 3 AM as the same as some guy planting a bomb timed to go off in the midst of the working day. Releasing lab bunnies isn’t the same as sending bombs to bio researchers, either.)
Your argument seems to be that, while *supporting* violence, pro-life people are still *less actively violent* than even the genral population, much less in comparison to other hot-button issue groups.
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skippy reply on September 22nd, 2009 9:05 am:
Well Rick I did answer this. Twice now I believe.
1) The amount of violence is higher than you say. I’m not counting property damage, not intended property damage that accidentally resulted in people damage. (Which would coincidentally disqualify most of the eco-terrorism)
Pro-lifers have threatened people (That’s a form of violence), they have physically attacked people without killing them(violence), putting up all of the personal information of abortion providers “We don’t actually want to murder them….we just want to make it easy for someone who does”
You force me to repeat myself. Even if no one is murdered it is still violence.
Do you have some form of evidence that out of 150 million people they have no non-abortion related violent crime? I’m willing to bet you don’t.
Most people that are pro-environment don’t blow things up or shoot people either.
And again if you publicly say that you support or approve of murder, then you support it.
If you publicly say that you hate black people, and they deserve to be hung, but don’t actually take part in a lynching, you’re still a racist.
This is really a matter of definitions, and I believe you are deliberately skewing yours to reach a pre-determined result.
Rick R. reply on September 22nd, 2009 10:19 am:
Skippy,
I’m sticking with the murders of people by anti-abortion crminals BECAUSE they are easily identified and tracked. There is no ambiguity as to what level of violence a killing is — someone is dead.
Trying to compile simple “assault” numbers is more slippery. Depending on the locality, “assault” can involve no actual violence whatsoever.
Even the National Abortion Federation, ON THEIR “ANTI-ABORTION EXTREMISTS” (http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/violence/extremists.html) page, detailing violent anti-abortion groups, lists only ONE GROUP (“The Army of God”) and three individuals (and NAF identifies all three individuals as being part of the AOG freaks).
Here’s the break down of VIOLENT crimes NAF states have been carried out by anti-abortion types in 32 years.
520 TOTAL events in 32 years.
8 Murders
17 Attempted Murders
41 Bombings
175 Arsons
96 Attempted bombs or arson
179 Assault & Battery
4 Kidnappings
This includes bombings and bomb attempts specifically scheduled to go off when no one would be around to get hurt (reasonable), and ALL arsons or arson attempts where neither the suspect nor the motive can be determined.
I’ve left out many of their claimed line items of “violence”, as they actually didn’t involve VIOLENCE — any violent act committed during them would be tabulated with the actual violence above.
Examples:
Vandalism (1400 incidents in 32 years) — while damaging, “vandalism” itself is NOT a crime of violence — it’s a property crime.
Trespassing (1993 incidents in 32 years) — again, not a crime of violence. No matter how many times NAF claims it is.
Picketing — not a violent act. In fact, it’s a Constitutional right. (NAF included this on their “Violence Stats” file, even though they even admit it’s merely “disruption”, not “violence”.) 141,837 arrests have been made (often the same person being arrested many times) for people violating teh terms of their assembly permit (or not bothering to get one — blocking city streets is against the law.)
Hacker/spam attacks (339 incidents in 7 years) — until Skippy perfects his “Stab stupid people in the face through the computer screen device”, hacking and spamming are NOT crimes of violence. (Again, disruptive, not violent.)
Hate Mail/Harassing phone calls (roughly 14K incidents in 32 years) — Nope, not a crime of violence. Hate mail isn’t even even “disruptive”. (Although harassing phone calls ARE.) Do you realize how much hate mail the Catholic Church in the US ALONE receives from gay and pro-chioce eople each YEAR? Let me suggest to you that it is *slightly* more than 14,000 over the last 32 years. . . which is the COMBINED total of hate mails/harassing phone calls abortion providers have reported over than same period.
Now, crimes are crimes — but disruptive civil torts ARE NOT examples of “extremist violence”, and are no different than any group of protestors marching, conducting “Die-Ins” in the street, or making hoax calls to “enemy” phone lines.
In other words, even counting the penny-ante BS crap that NAF breathlessly includes on the same page as actyual terrorism, the actual numbers of incidents simply aren’t that high. Not in comparison to teh numbers of people classifying themselves as “pro-life”.
Not compared to the numbers of similar incidents carried out by various leftist wacko groups. (Every lady who ever got paint or blood thrown on her fur coat while she was wearing it? That would be recorded as an assault and battery. Every home development or Hummer dealership torched — that would be an arson or attempted arson. Every piece of equipment spray painted with anti-logging graffitti — listed as vandalism.)
skippy reply on September 22nd, 2009 10:44 am:
Here is the math you are trying to do:
(Population*)/(violence support**)is less than Left Wing Violence***
* = Inflated number
** = Deflated number
***= Not actually a number at all, just an impression
1) So where are your numbers for American leftist wacko groups? “Here’s a bunch of numbers…which are less than than whatever the hell non-specific number I think it is.” If you want to go with deliberate murder as the standard, please show me the same numbers from the other side. Also, pick one cause. You can’t compare one right wing cause with *every* left wing fringe cause.
2) Your math is off. Pro-life was a minority position for most of it’s history. The switch to majority position was recent. Since you are trying to do for percentages this is significant. Also merely having pro-life doesn’t make you an anti-abortion activist. You are basically artificially inflating the population count.
3) Hate mail/harassing phone calls can be violence, depending on what’s in them. “I hate what you do” is different from” “You should die for what you’ve done!” Granted it’s not like we have the numbers on that. But I think it’s reasonable to assume that much of the hate mail was threatening.
4) You’re really having to play some pretty serious verbal and statistical ju-jitsu in order to make one rather large and general set of political beliefs into the violent ones.
Bear in mind, I’m not trying to prove that anti-abortion people are more violent that other groups. Just5 that you’ve misrepresented the data to make them look less violent than they actually are.
Heck my original point was that Operation Rescue is a terrorist Organization. Which is a statement that I will stand by.
Rick R. reply on September 22nd, 2009 10:48 am:
Making a hateful phone call or latter, even if you say, “You should die for what you are doing!”
IS NOT A VIOLENT ACT.
“You should die” is not even the same semantically as “I’m going to kill you”. The first is an expression of an opinion — the second is an actual threat.
You are insisting on conflating the two.
skippy reply on September 22nd, 2009 10:58 am:
It’s a threat. Which is a violent act.
Tell you what, start sending letters to the President saying that he deserves to die.
See how much of “not a threat” Secret Service considers that one to be.
“How would you like to step outside and say that” by your definition isn’t an attempt to start a fight. But reasonable person would conclude that it wasn’t intended that way.
Maven reply on September 21st, 2009 6:07 am:
I would just like to see a 3 strike rule. 3 non-medically required (to save mom’s life) abortions gets you a free tubal ligation.
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Rick R. reply on September 22nd, 2009 7:30 am:
Why?
Either the elective abortion is purely a matter of lawfully executed personal choice, in which case, you cannot morally, ethically, or Constitutionally punish someone, especially via mutilation (and I would say that involuntary forced sterilization qualifies as “mutilation”.) No other “person” is involved, so there is nothing to “punish”.
Or, the elective abortion in question is NOT a matter of personal choice alone, but involves another “person” as well, in which case “personal choice” cannot be morally, ethically, or Constitutionally held to trump the right of an innocent person to live. Your right to privacy (the unenumerated prenumbra upon which Roe v. Wade is built) is subordinate to another person’s survival.
You CANNOT say, “Oh, it’s 100% your choice alone and doesn’t involve the rights of any other person, but the state will punish you for LIFE for doing it.”
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September 17th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Oh, and on the “Dr. X deserved to die”.
Again, if pro-lifers believe that abortion is murder (and they do), then it’s not shocking that they — while decrying teh violent act itself — feel an abortion doctor got what was coming to him.
Just as many people would think if OJ Simpson got offed tomorrow. Doesn’t mean they would kill him — nor that they SUPPORT extra-judicial killing.
Yeah, there’s people I would smile if they got whacked. Yet, I do not support — and would in fact defend the victim if able — the killing of some guy by “street justice”, yeah, if some drug dealer, mass murderer, or mafioso eats a bullet, I feel it wasn’t a great loss to society.
Again, doesn’t mean I SUPPORT or even really APPROVE of the killing. And I would, in fact, vote for conviction if on a jury of that hypothetical “justice killer” and teh evidence indicated guilt. Vote for death in the penalty phase too, if the evidence warrants it. And feel good about it later — as murdering vigilantes are ANOTHER class of poeple I don’t mind assuming room temperature.
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