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jdavidb (1361)

jdavidb
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http://voiceofjohn.blogspot.com/
J. David Blackstone has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Engineering and nine years of experience at a wireless telecommunications company, where he learned Perl and never looked back. J. David has an advantage in that he works really hard, he has a passion for writing good software, and he knows many of the world's best Perl programmers.

Journal of jdavidb (1361)

Tuesday October 01, 2002
08:34 AM

Official sig discussion thread

[ #8113 ]

Amazingly my sig has gone mostly unnoticed for a week. Or maybe everyone just said, "I don't want to get into it."

Here's the place to discuss it. No, it's not sarcasm, Miss Poppins. Surprisingly, there are some people who think abortion should be legally wrong. One of the most important things to me right now is doing whatever I can to get a Republican senate behind the President, because his court nominees are not being approved, solely for partisan reasons.

The democrats claim it'd be wrong to use abortion as a litmus test for court nominees. That's sheer hypocracy; Jimmy Carter, the "Christian" president, quietly left a slew of pro-abortion judges all over this country. The democrats themselves treat abortion as a litmus test, or else they'd approve George Bush's court nominees.

Court nominees are appointed for life. It's one of the most important things a president does, but it's practically invisible to the American public.

No, I don't expect to find a lot of support here. :)


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Official sig discussion thread 21 Comments More | Login | Reply /

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  • Your sig (Score:3, Insightful)

    by petdance (2468) <andy@petdance.com> on 2002.10.01 9:50 (#13472) Homepage Journal
    Amazingly my sig has gone mostly unnoticed for a week. Or maybe everyone just said, "I don't want to get into it."

    In my case, I didn't see that there was anything to discuss. "OK, Jdavidb is staunchly anti-abortion, can't say I'm surprised." Whether I agree or disagree, what would I have to say? "Right on, brother! Fight the good fight!" or "You anti-woman rhetoric-spewing bastard!"? It's been said before, many times, many ways.

    --

    --
    xoa

  • Did you know that the display of sigs can be disabled ?

    I'd be happy to discuss this, and I even understand the words "litmus test", but, being unfamiliar with the US political system, I don't know what a court nominee actually is and what role he has in voting or amending laws.

    Besides this, I've already explained my opinion somewhere : a law is not necessarily a bad law even if it's morally wrong or repelling. It's a bad law when it fails to help citizens. The point is : does abortion help citizens ? If so,

    • I don't want abortion to be made illegal, because this won't prevent efficiently illegal abortions -- this will only make them more dangerous.

      If we are to say that abortion is the taking of an innocent human life (that is, the subjugation of one human's rights by another), how is this different from, "I don't want slavery to be made illegal, because this won't prevent efficiently illegal enslavements -- this will only make them more dangerous"? Or s/abortion/$insert_crime_here/?

      I am not asking anyone to
      • You are pointing out the only place in my post where my personal opinion slipped through. This wasn't intended, sorry.

        You should understand that the abortion issue, like the slavery issue, will never, ever, go away until abortion is illegal. Not true. Replace "never, ever" by "never in the next 150 years in the U.S.A." and I'll agree -- you can't guess beyond that scope. Abortion (like slavery, death penalty, homosexuality, polygamy, ritual murder of widows, cannibalism, and other things that may or may n

        • No, I can say never, absolutely. The death penalty, as well. These are distinct from homosexuality and polygamy, because abortion and the death penalty have to do with essential human liberties of an oppressed people. The issue absolutely will not go away. Of course, the death penalty is different because those people are not innocent (ideally), but still, it strikes at the heart of what it means to be a human being. Issues like that never go away until the side of liberty wins. I cannot think of any
      • > the abortion issue, like the slavery issue, will
        > never, ever, go away until abortion is illegal.

        or maybe when birth control is so easy and perfect that nobody ever has children unless they want them. It would also be nice if all new parents had at least as much preparation as we require of new drivers or gun owners.

        -matt

        • No, it won't go away in that case. As I already said, the very notion that it is *legal* to abort my child, with whom I am communicating, with whom I am playing, is an affront to humanity. Whether or not anyone is being aborted, if it is legal to abort that life, that means that we are devaluing that life, and it is not acceptable.

          It would be great if there were no unwanted pregnancies. But it wouldn't make the problem go away, because these principles, how we define life and humanity, how we codify the
          • I'm with pudge there. A society might allow slavery and have no slaves -- this doesn't solve the problem that slavery is still legal in it. The problem is how we define life and humanity. Three centuries ago, black people were not, to most occidentals, humans, and thus slavery was morally acceptable for them. Now that child mortality is very low, our society learned to view humans in little children, but this doesn't extend to foetuses, not for everyone at least, mainly because a foetus is not an independe

          • In that case, your "as long as abortion is legal" could be ammended to "as long as abortion is legal and there are those who believe it should be legal" because making it illegal today would not put end end to the dispute. There are very many who would be quite upset were that to happen.

            I'm not trying to take sides here, just pointing out that outlawing abortion may be a necessary condition for 'making the issue go away' (your opinion, and many others' opinion) but it is not sufficient. So long as there ar
            • outlawing abortion may be a necessary condition for 'making the issue go away' ... but it is not sufficient

              I never meant to imply otherwise.

              There are those who feel that abortion must be a legal option, and for them, the legalization of abortion is a necessary condition for 'making the issue go away'.

              People felt that way about a lot of human rights issues in the past. They eventually got over them, for the most part. There are still people who believe in slavery, but we mostly took care of that such
  • I concur 100% with both petdance and rafael. I saw the sig, and while I was somewhat unimpressed, I didn't feel this forum appropriate (adequate or otherwise) for intelligent debate.

    I am extremely familiar with the Republican stance on issues. I am extremely familiar with the Democrat stance on issues. I am unimpressed with almost all of them, and find myself quite disenchanted and more than a little discouraged.

    Will I still vote? Yep. Will your sig influence me one way or the other? Nope. Don't

    --

    If things get any worse, I'll have to ask you to stop helping me.

  • I'm afraid I haven't seen your sig.

    What does it say (he asked, not wanting to be bothered to enable sigs, find a posting with the relevant sig, then disable sigs again)?

    This may not be the right forum, but if you do want to discuss it here, then you could make it more convenient for those who might want to participate but don't normally care to read sigs.

    -matt
  • While I can understand being appalled by abortion, I think your assertion that GWBush wants to save babies is overly broad. The administration has made it clear that they care about babies only until they are born, and only US babies at that.

    Refugee camps (think Palestine, or Afghanistan) are generally pretty unfortunate places for babies. I don't see Mr. Bush struggling to save them.

    Many babies (after they are born) grow up malnourished in impoverished households, even in the US. Again, I don't see Mr
    • A moderator has labelled my post a troll.

      This does not meet with my understanding of the word. My post does not contain incorrect assertions, as far as I know. On the contrary, I was trying to point out a serious disconnect from reality which I believe exists in the statement that voting Republican is a great way to improve the lives of babies. If there is a factual error in my post, please respond and point it out to me, so I will be less ignorant.

      I haven't seen any trolling (as I understand the word)
      • Ye powerful moderator, reply! I beseech you! Enlighten me, bring me out of this infernal darkness!
        • I think labelling a post in this particular a topic a troll is kind of funny. The topic itself could be construed as a troll, but none of the responses has been trollish, in the sense that they were designed simply to fan flames. All of them (on all viewpoints) seemed thoughtful and sincere, FWIW.

          • truth is often considered a troll when so much disinformation and religion muddy the waters. Ms Poppins is correct and all you have to do is look around and notice that for a place with so little regard or respect for life of any kind, human or otherwise, it seems to be just another political vehicle to champion the stripping the right to choose from women in the cause to 'save lives'. 50 million or so people in the US have no healthcare, many of them children.

            I might also add here that there are a number

            • To give some benefit of the doubt, I think that many people do honestly and sincerely believe that abortion is murder, and I think that's a perfectly justified reason for opposing it.

              However, I _don't_ believe that many politicians who take this stance do so out of principle (well, I don't believe most politicians have any principles at all).

              And just as importantly, if you really honestly believe that human life is sacred then I can't help but wonder if pushing for things like a Republican Senate will hel
  • jdavidb, I'd like hear your reaction to the various posts on this thread -- after all, you started the discussion :)
  • I won't reveal my own opinion on the pro-life vs. pro-choice debate, but I will pass along a report of a very recent court case here in Michigan (came by way of a good friend who is a lawyer).

    Boyfriend has fight with his girlfriend, who is 16 weeks pregnant (boyfriend impregnated the girlfriend). Boyfriend begins punching girlfriend in the stomach and girlfriend reacts by taking a knife and killing him. She's charged with manslaughter. At trial, her lawyer attempts to argue self defense -- not that she f

    --
    Jeff Boes Hyper-real techno priest of Perl
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