The big news story of the day is that a good-natured Christian man from Louisiana has expressed an opinion that, while in full concordance with traditional Christian beliefs, is, in eyes of the modern Cathedral, a grievous heresy. (If “no news is good news”, I suppose we should all be relieved.) You can read about it here, if you’re interested.
In brief, this man — Phil Robertson, a star of the hit TV show Duck Dynasty — said in an interview that he believed homosexuality to be frowned upon by God, and that, as a God-fearing man himself, he therefore could not give it his own endorsement. Note that he did not call for the persecution of gays, nor did he say that he hated gays (quite the contrary, in fact). He simply said that in his own opinion, as guided by the teachings of his religion, homosexuality is a sin — and that he therefore could not “celebrate” it, as we now are all, quite suddenly, expected to do. For this he has been booted off the show.
It was not long ago that “tolerance” was publicly understood to mean just what the word itself actually means: “the ability or willingness to allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of something that one does not necessarily like or agree with without interference”. (It was only a year or two ago, after all, that Barack Obama himself first expressed publicly any support for same-sex marriage.)
Now, however, “tolerance” means “mandatory, enthusiastic support”. Its meaning has also been expanded to include “loathing, demonization, and ostracism of anyone who expresses anything less than enthusiastic support”. Persons not manifesting the required intensity of enthusiasm are now guilty of “hate”, and may be publicly shamed, and fired from their jobs.
Voltaire said: “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.”
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Uncle Jang Song-thaek was executed for “half-heartedly clapping” during the moments of forced applause for his nephew Kim Jong-un.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Yup, that’s about where we’re getting to over here. No executions so far, but you can certainly have your career destroyed, and in most of the modern West you can already suffer severe civil and criminal penalties. All for expressing an opinion.
Any member of a non-protected class (that is, any white, heterosexual male, or any traditional Christian) who isn’t terrified by this simply isn’t paying attention.
Nobody got evenly mildly upset when Andy Rooney was suspended from 60 minutes, and all he said was AIDS was related to behavior. Who disagrees with that?
Will someone please explain to me the difference between “progressive” liberalism and old-style fascism?
Progressive liberalism claims to be non-race-based in its politics and international in its orientation, whereas old-style fascism was overtly race-based and insistently national in its orientation. Moreover, progressive liberalism takes over by degrees, whereas fascism attempts to take control quickly.
Jeffery Hodges
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Thanks, Jeffery.
FYI, here is a quote from today’s post by Roger L. Simon: The PC Lynching of Phil Robertson
“…old-style fascism was overtly race-based ”
Italian fascism was not race-based until it came under the influence of NS Germany.
Funny how the following is being mostly ignored:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/19/phil-robertson-black-people_n_4473474.html
It must be really hard to be a conservative. You have to get up every morning and find something to be outraged about. December is when the hyper-ventilator goes on overdrive. It starts with the annual holiday tradition of right wing heads exploding over a perceived war on Christmas, although it looks like someone at Fox News didn’t get the memo this year:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/12/fox-news-war-on-christmas-bill-reilly-happy-holidays.html
Last week, we were treated to the pulchritudinous and callipygian Megyn Kelly helpfully explaining why the imaginary character of Santa Claus is a white guy. Today’s outrage du jour is over A&E’s decision to disassociate itself from the star of a reality TV show who described gays as sinners in the same class as those who practice bestiality, and for espousing racial views which are — to put it kindly — quaint.
We are harangued that Mr. Robertson is being denied his right to express his religious beliefs. (When conservatives are equally stout in their defense of Muslims to express their religious beliefs in national media, I’ll take notice.) If those beliefs happen to offend millions of people: well, what can you do? They should just suck it up and let the lame Duck from Louisiana have the national microphone. Hey, it’s in the Bible!
If Mr. Robertson wishes to expound upon his conviction that homosexuals are sinners and gay sex is bestiality lite, express his preference in orifices, or long for the time when Old Black Joe was singing minstrel songs, he has a right to do so. However, while he has constitutional rights of free speech and religion, there is no First Amendment right to be employed by a cable network as a reality TV star. A&E has a brand to protect, and it has the right to protect it from those whose utterances will offend millions of its viewers.
I don’t recall any outrage from the right when MSNBC fired Alec Baldwin for homophobic remarks or Martin Bashir for his equally disgusting suggestions regarding Sarah Palin. Do you?
We have heard at great length how an employer has the putative right to deny his employees health coverage for contraception because of management’s beliefs. Perhaps the management of A&E subscribes to the belief that it is wrong to castigate and offend millions of people with homophobic and racist remarks. Perhaps they agree with Barry Goldwater — one of the last true conservatives — that whether a man has sex with a woman or another man is nobody’s business except his. Moreover, A&E has a bona fide corporate interest which contraception-denying employers do not: offending millions of your viewers is bad for business. Why should Catholic business owners have the right to make business decisions based on their beliefs but not A&E?
Core to the right wing Weltanschauung is self-victimization: right wing leaders gin up their excitable followers by telling them that powerful forces are arrayed against them to destroy their way of life. The belief that conservative values are under constant attack is part of this. However, when one of their own attacks the values of millions of other people, the right wing rushes to his defense. As we say in New York: go figure.
Baldwin was fired because he insulted someone in a hot-tempered irrational manner, as he once insulted his own daughter.
Bashir was fired because he tried to make Palin’s use of the word “slave” an example or racism; it is a common leftist ploy, and he probably hoped that other leftists would join him.
Robertson was fired because he politely answered a question that was put to him about his own beliefs. He was expected to lie and he didn’t.
I don’t think any of them should have been fired, but the last case, like the Andy Rooney case I mentioned before, is certainly something that should bother all of us.
And what exactly are you going on about with the “defense of Muslims to express their religious beliefs in national media”? Is this something they are denied? Were the Boston bombers protesting the fact that they could not publish editorials?
There’s the nub [pun intended], Dom. Everyone, including One-eye, has the right to express their opinions (the usual caveats apply). But the problem with One-eye’s diatribes, aside from his rabid support for all things leftist, is his penchant to run off at the mouth (to coin a phrase).
I recommend that some limitation on comment length be instituted (informally of course) to lessen the tedium.
Dom:
All three were fired for saying things which are offensive to a vast number of people. The public face of a cable network is the stars which it features. When one of them acts in a grossly offensive manner, they should start looking for a job somewhere else.
Let’s suppose that a Muslim wins an Oscar and gives a speech glorifying Islamic tenets. Or a Muslim equivalent of Tim Tebow put down a prayer rug after a touchdown and thanked Allah. Your suggestion is that conservatives would be loudly defending them?
Now there’s a bet I would make.
And, so far as I know none of the gays and lesbians I know have ever once told me they sit and watch the show. Well, I suspect maybe the one lesbian does but she’s both a game warden and a duck hunter.
(But I would almost bet were I to call her up and ask her she’d likely respond I don’t give a … duck.)
“Your suggestion is that conservatives would be loudly defending them?” My suggestion is that no one would try to fire them to begin with. There are many black Muslim boxers who bow towards Mecca before a fight. Four Muslims used a prayer rug at an airport and acted like they were set to hijack the plane — the courts defended their right to do so.
Generally it is the criticism of Islam that is censored. Yale University refused to reprint the mo-toons in a book about the mo-toons, just to calm Muslim sensibilities.
The courts defended their right to pray at an airport because they have a constitutional right to do so. However, we’re not talking about the judiciary. We are talking about the Foxiverse.
If a football player in the Super Bowl prayed to Allah in the end zone, we would never hear the end of it.
There’s only two things I hate in this world: People who are intolerant of other cultures, and the Left.
Probably not. But it wouldn’t be the “Foxiverse” we’d be hearing ad nauseum from, it’d be the new fans from the gay community.
Dom has this exactly right. Baldwin and Bashir publicly expressed venomous personal loathing, and framed it in the foulest terms. Baldwin called another man a “cocksucking fag”, and Bashir expressed his wish that someone would shit in Sarah Palin’s mouth. As for Muslims, the lunatic jihadi Nidal Hasan was allowed to go through his military career publicly trumpeting his toxic Islamist antipathy to the very organization that employed him — and, far from being silenced, was repeatedly promoted.
Phil Robertson, on the other hand, simply explained his religious beliefs, when he was asked to do so — and took pains to say that it was not his place to judge any person, expressing the Christian idea that one should “hate the sin and love the sinner”.
Yes, traditional Christianity, as well as most traditional, non-diluted religions, consider sex to be a sacred and potent force in human life, and believe that both homosexuality and bestiality are perversions of a God-given sacrament. Nobody is under any compulsion to believe this. However, it now seems that anyone who wishes to hold a job in the West is under a de facto compulsion to reject and, when asked, publicly to denounce, this belief (and many other beliefs besides, several of which even have considerable empirical support). This is a hallmark of totalitarianism.
Please do not lecture us about the First Amendment; we all know that doesn’t apply here, and we do not frame this this as a constitutional issue. A&E can do whatever they like. Would that the rest of us could. If Phil Robertson had been fired for expressing support for gay rights, A&E would probably have found themselves in court.
Finally, it takes some serious cojones to pretend that it is the Right, rather than the Left, that lives on continuous outrage. It is perpetual grievance that motivates the Left’s infinite quest for “social justice”; such a quest, by its very existence, implies existing, pervasive injustice.
The whole edifice of the modern Left, particularly the academic Left, is built upon a foundation of irremediable, even fractal, grievance. It has given rise to a florid taxonomy of resentment: the rich oppress the poor, males oppress females, straights oppress gays, the First World oppresses the Third World, U.S. citizens oppress “migrants”, the privileged oppress the “under”-privileged, the hearing oppress the deaf, and of course white people oppress everybody else — and anyone who is the subject of any one of those clauses is fair game for loathing and vicious retribution by those who are the object.
There is now a “hot” culture war in this country (and indeed in this civilization). It is going to get hotter. It is the Left, not the Right, who are the aggressors.
I also hate people who are tolerant of vile cultures, such as the fungal and the Left; but I repeat myself.
There aren’t a lot of Muslims in the NFL. For one thing, whenever the play is a “Hail Mary”, they walk off the field. And whenever a Muslim QB calls for a “long bomb”, everyone else runs off the field.
I think that equating gay sex with bestiality is a prima facie example of venomous loathing, regardless of whether or not this sentiment springs from religious beliefs. Until the 1960’s, the official position of the Catholic church is that Jews were guilty of deicide in killing Christ. If a television star expressed this belief to an interviewer, would you consider the religious basis of his assertion to be exculpatory?
Your assertion that “anyone who wishes to hold a job in the West” has to glorify gay sex is risible. However, if you wish to hold a job as the very visible public face of a cable television network, you have the obligation to keep offensive views to yourself. When you demean a sizable portion of your employer’s audience, you have no right to expect continued employment.
You might want to remind Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal that there is no First Amendment right to a sinecure in reality teleivion:
http://www.businessinsider.com/phil-robertson-suspension-bobby-jindal-statement-duck-dynasty-2013-12
The oppression of women, blacks, the poor, gays, and the disadvantaged is historical fact. It is an incontestable fact is that straight white men with money have had a favored position in society throughout history, which continues to this day. There is no equivalency between examining the roots and effects of power imbalances with gratuitously offending gays and blacks.
You have evaded my question. Why is it A-OK for a Catholic business owner to impose his personal beliefs on his employees when contraception is involved, but somehow wrong for a national cable network to enforce its beliefs regarding sexual equality, when failure to do so would adversely impact its business?
Forcing Catholics to pay for contraception coerces them actively to subsidize, simply in order to run a private business, behavior that they consider grievously sinful. Far worse, forcing them to pay for abortion forces them to subsidize what they believe, on a coherent and defensible philosophical basis, to be the murder of innocent and helpless human beings.
A&E, on the other hand, having decided to run a “reality” show that focuses on the lives of southern Christians, has now fired one of them merely for holding — and for expressing, upon being asked — the opinions of a southern Christian. Again, it’s their show, and nobody is suggesting that they don’t have the purely legal right to do this. As I said before, though, if Phil Robertson had been fired for gay advocacy, I have no doubt A&E would have been dragged into court.
Yes, yes, you needn’t start reciting the infinite grievances of the Left; we’ll be here forever.
That this was your response simply illustrates my point.
Was Bashir suggesting someone like One-eye should French-kiss Sarah Palin? ‘Enquiring’ minds want to know.
Well, you’re entitled to your opinion. But there are a lot of good and decent people who don’t share it. It’s a category error, and typical of what passes for rational discourse on the Left these days. (See the penultimate paragraph of the original post, above.)
I, for one, think that a person can rationally hold and defend such a view without hatred. One can think gambling is destructive without having to hate gamblers. And so on.
You will be very hard-pressed to find any traditional religion that does not consider sex a sacrament, and that does not consider both homosexuality and bestiality to be abuses of that sacrament.
But of course you are entitled to your own, venomous opinion — to see hate, and to ascribe blame for hate, where all that exists is lack of approval. To me, that seems both vicious and narrow-minded, but then I’m not you.
“I think that equating gay sex with bestiality is a prima facie example of venomous loathing…”
Beastialophobia is a grave social disease that can only be corrected with legalized inter-species marriage, you bigot. Stay out of my bedroom!
Right again, Dom. Where’s the limiting principle?
“Exculpatory” of what, exactly? Having an opinion I disagree with?
Your use of this word, your framing the question in these terms, provides an instructive example of the underlying problem.
My goodness.
The Ladies and I of the Ladies’ Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society are taking a breather from nuzzling one another’s nether regions, our tongues being sufficiently exercised now to wag for just a moment in the direction of the good gentlemen of Man Chat.
The good Ladies and I speak with one voice in our appreciation of Phil Robertson and his Duck Dynasty, calling now for the national microphone to be restored to his strong and capable hands.
(Sorry, JK, for bursting your bubble, but perhaps you should get out more; Lesbos loves those frog giggers from Louisiana!)
Who among us can ever forget Phil’s sage advice to his grandson on the qualities to look for in a wife?
“Don’t marry a Yuppie girl. Get a meek, gentle, kind-spirited woman. If she knows how to cook, carries her Bible and lives by it, and she loves bullfrogs – now there is a woman! Know what I’m saying’? She doesn’t have to be a pretty girl, if she looks a little homely, that’s all right.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4UQQ6qNAzU
Such wisdom was gleaned early in Mr Robertson’s life when he studied with that great philosopher, Jimmy Soul.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH_PANCU9oQ
Presumably, Phil speaks from experience when he expresses a preference for vagina over anus when considering where he desires to – ahem – park his car. Naturally, the Ladies and I appreciate greatly the virtues of a switch hitting bearded patriarch like our Phil.
The good Ladies and I are heading back Down South, and leave you gentleman with just one question . . .
It’s after 10 o’clock.
Do you know where your wives are?
Well, hello, Eugenia! So nice to see you, my dear. As always.
I do.
By your logic, a Christian scientist who believes that anesthesia is morally wrong is entitled to deprive his employees of insurance which pays for it. A restaurant owner who thinks that the races should not mix can refuse to serve blacks, a pharmacist who opposes abortifacients can refuse to fill prescriptions for Plan B, and a county clerk who opposes gay marriage can decline to issue marriage licenses in states where it is legal. If you want to conduct business in the public sphere, you are bound by laws which are universally applicable, and those laws trump personal belief. Moreover, your argument ignores the religious freedom of employees, who also pay for their health insurance. Why should the employer’s personal beliefs have primacy over employees’ beliefs?
A&E did not place Mr. Robertson on leave for holding his views. He was placed on leave solely for expressing them to a national magazine. You may recall that Tex Antoine was fired from his job as weatherman for suggesting that a woman who was raped should just “lie back and enjoy it.” Antoine’s views on the subject are irrelevant, but once he expresses them to a national audience, they become very relevant.
Exculpatory of offending millions of people by suggesting that their sexual behavior is no different from those who cavort with dogs, sheep, goats, and horses. Speaking of horses: this one is dead, and I’m not going to beat it any longer. This is my last word on the subject. Off to do the crossword puzzle on google today.
I think it’s illegal to get off on crossword puzzles, unless the puzzles consent.
And here we have another category error: that “not to provide” is to “deprive”:
Yes, I think the whole idea of compelling employers to provide health insurance is insane — except for a few years, I’ve bought my own health insurance all my life, and never felt that anyone was “depriving” me of it by not buying it for me — and I do believe that people should have a great deal more latitude to conduct their business as they see fit. If Catholics don’t want to pay for your abortion, they shouldn’t have to. If you don’t like it, you can go and work for someone else who provides the form of compensation — and employer-provided insurance is just a form of compensation — that you’re after.
Most recently we have the Colorado case, where a baker was coerced into participating in the “celebration” of a gay marriage. In freer times it would have been sufficient simply to go find another baker; there were plenty of others who would have been very happy to provide a cake. But no, this poor man had to be singled out for his thoughtcrime, dragged before a tribunal, and battered into submission. Why couldn’t he simply have been left alone? If his views are really so toxic, he’ll soon go out of business anyway, for lack of customers.
I want to make clear here that my point in these remarks is not to stake out any position at all about any of these topics — abortion, gay marriage, or even bestiality — but rather to defend a free citizen’s liberty of opinion. In a free society, merely to utter an opinion, however unpopular, should not require “exculpation” — and if we are serious about the freedom of speech, it means that nobody has a “right” never to be offended.
fnn says:
“Italian fascism was not race-based until it came under the influence of NS Germany.”
Fair point. Hyper-Nationalist-based, then.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
“But no, this poor man had to be singled out for his thoughtcrime, dragged before a tribunal, and battered into submission.”
“‘You are a flaw in the pattern, Winston. You are a stain that must be wiped out. … We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us … We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him.”
Not to worry Eugenia, “I know whereof you speak” – I, for a time, was “tasked” to working a towboat out of Houma. Rented a place in French Settlement. Drank a few beers at Bonnie’s. As it happened, that’s where I met the “Lesbo” duck hunting game warden.
Enjoyed very much fried turkeys on Thanksgivings and though the first Rolex’ winding mechanism worked perfectly fine a year later I received that next Christmas, a battery-operated “thingamajig” the next which, as I type, reminds me I should’ve volunteered to work the Inter-Coastal earlier than I did.
Thing is though Eugenia, and you might agree, not everybody got so worked up about this stuff pre-Internet Militancy.
I will.violate my oath of silence long enough to answer a question you asked above which I missed.
There are many limiting principles distinguishing homosexuality from beastiality. For starters, animals are insensate and people are not. People can give informed consent and animals cannot. For that reason, what Rick Santorum calls man-on-dog sex is tantamount to rape.
You can turn this argument around. Many argue that a third trimester fetus should have legal rights of personhood, because it shares many characteristics with newborn babies. So do chimpanzees, which are more developed in many ways. If a third trimester fetus deserves legal protection for having baby-like characteristics, then so should chimpanzees.
However, we don’t recognize apes as having legal rights. Why? Because they’re apes.
This makes no sense. If animals have no legal rights — after all, we already enslave and eat them — then why should anyone object to people having sex with them, or even marrying them? The only person whose consent would be required can be counted on to provide it — and hey, who are we to judge?
“Many argue that a third trimester fetus should have legal rights of personhood, because it shares many characteristics with newborn babies. So do chimpanzees, which are more developed in many ways. If a third trimester fetus deserves legal protection for having baby-like characteristics, then so should chimpanzees”
Except for the fact that this “third trimester fetus” is a human fetus – a human being, as per that standard used to foist legalized abortion onto the American law books – a third trimester human fetus is viable, as in can sustain life on it’s own outside of the womb. In fact, that tricky viability timeline keeps moving earlier and earlier, with 20 week human fetuses routinely being born and actually becoming thriving, happy alive babies. A chimpanzee fetus will never become a human baby, no matter how long you search for that missing link, Darwin.
Judge not lest ye be judged, I always say (feel free to quote me).
On the other hand, what about Philip Roth’s gem?
Personally, I think that’s OK, unless you are “glatt kosher“.
Uhm, TBH?
I’m thinking maybe you’d appreciate One Eye at one time actually expressed an “oath of silence” – which oath I’m not guaranteeing if only because “we’uns” do our stuff by keyboard.
I’m simply typing One Eye at one time did type as much but I’m supposing TBH you’d need go out to the Left Coast, have One Eye meet you at the baggage whirlymajig then, listen to whether either of you could stay shut up.
Just saying.
JK?
What’s the polite way of saying ‘bite me’ in your language?
Just asking.
I’ve “heard” F off the most frequently TheBigHenry.
That one at least I can understand. Some of my neighbors hail from Florida, I’m not too good at comprehending just what precisely, they’ve said. From their body language I’m guessing it is, equivalent to the Arkansanese.
As always, Malcolm, thank you for the warm welcome.
The Ladies and I, of the Ladies’ Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society, wish you, the lovely Nina, and one and all, a satisfying Winter Solstice and a Happy New Year!
Roasting fat marshmallows by the fire, stirring our hot chocolate with candy canes, and watching the snow fall is pure delight, so we are somewhat reluctant to interrupt our bliss and to take up the digital pen.
Nonetheless, the duty we owe to truth, the fidelity owed to facts, the kindness we owe to one another, compels us.
Miss LibertyBelle, your words intrigue me and all the Ladies – “a third trimester human fetus is viable, as in can sustain life on it’s own outside of the womb. In fact, that tricky viability timeline keeps moving earlier and earlier, with 20 week human fetuses routinely being born and actually becoming thriving, happy alive babies.”
Let us clear up a few errors here, shall we?
Only in recent years has the age of viability shifted downward from 28 weeks to 24 weeks gestation, and no where in medical literature will you find any suggestion that such a vulnerable and tender being can live on its own outside the womb.
Simply put: When life is supported in such circumstances, the fragile micro-preemie is on life support.
Risk of long term disability for micro-preemies who survive such a rocky start include: Neurological compromise leading to mild and frequently severe learning delay or disability; loss of vision and hearing, specifically blindness due to retinopathy of prematurity; delayed or absent sucking reflex requiring tube feeding and which may lead to necrotizing enterocolitis, the sequelae of which are further and long term digestive compromise adversely affecting growth and development; risk of severe respiratory complication includes bronchopulmonary dysplasia; approximately 30% of micro-preemies develop cerebral palsy, a serious condition affecting balance, movement, and coordination, which may also includes life long mental impairment.
There is more, to be sure, but this distressing laundry list of potential neonatal compromise will do.
To assert that those born at the so-called age of viability are truly viable on their own is misleading. Whether due to wishful thinking on your part or a failure to acquaint yourself with the facts, Miss LibertyBelle, such a statement is irresponsible and a disservice to Malcolm’s readership, all of whom deserve better.
Further, 20 weeks gestation is not anywhere near the third trimester; indeed, 20 weeks gestation is not even half way into the second trimester.
Facts are fun things!
I have shown you mine, now would you show me yours?
If you would, Miss LibertyBelle, please do share with us any professionally recognized sources citing the age of viability being at 20 weeks.
As for you, JK, my man . . .
Sometimes, my dear, the Ladies and I cannot begin to parse what you are talking about. As we are fond of saying, unlike you, JK, Eugenia does not write well enough to be unintelligible.
But I do like guys who like dolls who like guys and dolls, so I will content myself with a wink to you and a sweet smile tossed over my shoulder.
And to all a Good Night!
Eugenia,
You wrote:
Forgive me, but I must point out that even a fourth-trimester baby cannot live “on its own”; indeed, if we are to consult John Donne, none of us can.
“Viability”, then, as it applies to the unborn, is merely a matter of technical proficiency — and I should be very surprised if we do not, within the next decade or two, have the capability to gestate our larvae entirely outside the womb, ab ovo.
As such, then, I think “viability” is a questionable, and as Liberty Belle points out, ever-shifting, marker for the onset of our moral obligation.
Well, well.
Now we have stirred that fire there is no need to toss on another log. It is always warm enough in Man Chat.
I shall not be inveigled this day into a hot potato discussion of when life begins, the deplorable status of reproductive freedoms in this country, or our attendant moral obligations.
Today is a Holy Day and tomorrow we shall both stand in a greater light.
Peace on Earth and Goodwill to the Men of Man Chat, and to the fact-challenged Lady LibertyBelle too.
God bless us, everyone.
Consider yourselves blessed.
What do you mean? A North African or European God?
The former is harder to swallow . . .
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Jeffery,
I had planned to abstain from further quips in this thread, in deference to JK’s admonition to “stay shut up”. But please don’t tempt me with such straight lines.
:)
I’ve heard that “He’s got the boogie in his fingers and the hubba hubba in his soul.”. Also, He wears a zoot suit. But that’s all I know.
Thank you, God.
I stand corrected it was 21 weeks and 6 days as the earliest baby to survive. The point Eugenia, was that “viability” was the argument used in the early years of this abortion debate, with the oh so particular word choice of “fetus” as opposed to baby. This “viable” point has changed with the advent of more advanced neonatal care and moved into the second trimester. Assuredly, the earlier a baby is born, the higher the risk for birth defects. The way in which the list of calamitous conditions preemies might succumb to was presented by Eugenia made me wonder if she felt the effort to save these children’s lives was a wasted effort. Luckily for Eugenia, her mother decided she was a fetus worth saving. Amazingly though, many parents choose to give birth to children, despite knowing their baby has severe birth defects. It usually depends on the word choice though – those who consider it a baby all along opt to do their best to make sure it lives and those who consider it a “fetus”, opt to let it die. Same thing, different way of looking at it. The fact-challenged libertybelle is quite happy to meet Eugenia and oh, I really do sew and am quite good at various types of needlework, but I doubt I’d be welcome at Eugenia’s sewing circle, rofl. I’m also extremely well-read on military strategy and military matters, but hey it’s easier to stereotype….
Baby: “a very young child, esp. one newly or recently born”
Fetus: “an unborn offspring of a mammal, in particular an unborn human baby more than eight weeks after conception”
You can call it whatever you want, but the English language is pretty clear on the difference between the two.
It’s not so simple. For example, there’s the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which ascribes personhood, and therefore victimhood, to a murdered fetus. Many states have similar laws.
Are the not-yet-born rights-bearing persons, deserving of moral consideration? One would think that in a morally consistent ethics this would be an attribute inhering in the unborn person — but apparently in many people’s opinion it depends merely upon the whim of the mother. From the perspective of the unborn, that’s a mighty precarious position to be in — and rather unfairly so, it seems to me.
It’s SchrÁ¶dinger’s Kid.
Of course:
“My fetus is kicking!” Sally exclaimed.
“I aborted my baby,” Sally stated.
In both instances Sally is referring to the same thing, but in general conversation you would find the word choice odd.
Malcolm, I forget which post but earlier this week I linked to a CRS report on Saudi Arabia’s “Sovereign Immunity.”
Merry Christmas.
http://gma.yahoo.com/9-11-families-39-ecstatic-39-finally-sue-222121660–abc-news-topstories.html
As far as the English language goes, it really is that simple. A fetus is not a baby. They are entirely different things.
It is precisely because a fetus is not a baby that leaders of the anti-abortion movement deliberately conflate the two. Everybody opposes killing babies. Therefore, by characterizing the abortion of a fetus as equivalent to the killing of a baby, they rile up their followers with incendiary and Orwellian use of language.
Similarly, those who oppose abortion describe themselves as “pro-life.” Before Roe v. Wade, botched abortions were a leading cause of death among women of child-bearing age. This ceased with legal abortions. If they get their wish and abortion becomes criminalized, untold numbers of women will die as a direct result. Anyone who was actually pro-life would find that abhorrent and unacceptable.
As for providing personhood to a fetus etc., this is a moral issue which is exogenous to what the words “fetus” and “baby” mean. I am disinclined to argue about the morality of abortion, as these arguments are invariably unproductive. My views are directly opposed to Ms. Belle’s, and neither of us will ever convince the other of the validity of our position, so why bother. However, the meanings of the words are clear and unambiguous. All you have to do is look them up.
I never – well very rarely anyway – One Eye, make my opinions “obvious” where moral issues are concerned. My reasoning being fairly simple – I don’t wish to have another make my decisions for me – therefore, I’ll not inject myself into theirs.
But I will say this, I can understand such things as these sorts of arguments and though I realize I very often confuse people (as above)
Semantics, word choice in other words, insofar as the English language is concerned doesn’t really mean much where opposing parties are concerned on such. For instance, some oppose guns, some oppose abortion and vice versa. And no matter what the ultimate decision on either of just these two issues for example winds up being …
It’s for me determined simply as to how I view “the act of becoming.”
Where for you (I’m fairly certain you’ve not budged) you’re against guns because in part, “guns = death” – and for LibertyBelle, “abortion = death” the arguments for or against either and likewise for either’s resolution are as you say, invariably unproductive.
So indeed, why bother.
Peter — the language notwithstanding, the important issue here is the moral one, and only the moral one. Webster’s may provide two different words to discriminate between the one-minute-pre- and one-minute-post-natal condition, but the referent of both terms is the same living, human organism. To elide that distinction for the sake of moral caution is “Orwellian” only if you have already decided that the moral issue is settled in favor of the disposability of the unborn. You are begging the question.
The question — and despite its difficulty, it is an inescapable one, with the profoundest moral implications imaginable — is whether the unborn offspring growing in a mother’s womb is a living person, deserving of moral consideration. In my previous comment I remarked on the troublesome moral and ontological ambiguity of our current stance — in which that personhood strangely does not inhere in the entity whose fate is being considered, but exists or not simply depending upon the whim of the mother.
I consider the abortion question to be by far the most difficult moral question of all, involving as it does two lives, and two often-competing interests, inextricably intertwined. That the personhood of the fetus can reasonably be considered to come into existence only gradually, and by degrees, makes it even more difficult.
JK, we bother because the moral stakes are very high. If indeed, as some believe, the unborn fetus is a defenseless person deserving of moral consideration, then abortion is mass murder. And if not, then we might coercively restrict the liberties of women for the sake of an inanimate lump of tissue.
I agree with the point you are making, Malcolm, though I think it appropriate to replace “murder” with “manslaughter”.
But that is another can of moral issues …
An interesting point, Henry. Of course, in both murder and manslaughter the result is nevertheless the same, from the perspective of the victim.
Yes, Mal, but the point you were making was from the perspective of “as some believe”.
Right, but I think the important issue here is “At what point along the continuum of becoming do we ascribe personhood?”
The question of manslaughter vs. murder only applies once that question is resolved, and all agree that a person has been killed.
That, I understand. But to me, all this is very tricky business. I will admit though, as the folks in DC are increasingly taken to saying, I’ve evolved on the subject of abortion.
But in the main, my position where “my system” might force another to take or not take an action simply doesn’t “feel right.” I for instance feel very bad when the “system of others” would force me individually to, say for instance, block access to Duck Dynasty on my whole neighborhood’s cable system.
To me, it wouldn’t feel right to be endowed with the power to decide for others.
(Admittedly, where as a society is concerned, I won’t be in such a position.)
Before I get shoehorned – it would equally feel not right to lock everybody’s TVs onto the channel.
I don’t think so, Mal. Man/mur applies assuming that question has been resolved in favor of personhood.
But I think I have opened another can of contention that perhaps should be left to another thread (if you are so inclined).
As JK has commanded, albeit not in so many words, I will now STFU.
That’s what I said, no?
JK, do you see that you are begging the question in the same way that Peter did?
Don’t you agree that society has a moral obligation to insist that no person may kill another, innocent person?
The whole matter, then, depends on the personhood of the entity being killed. To leave that ontological determination up to the whim of the person doing the killing is a unique moral and philosophical ambiguity. If you were a developing fetus, would you want your fate to be in such a precarious position?
Given that we are all brought into the world this way, one could say this is the ultimate Rawlsian question.
My dear Miss LibertyBelle,
The Ladies and I, of the Ladies’ Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society, extend to you a warm welcome and hope you will be able to join us soon for sips and nibbles.
May we have the honor of your company when next we gather?
We will then complete the embroidery on our newest silk banner in support of that most timely of social concerns, Patriarch Phil Robertson and his Dynasty of Ducks. Our slogan . . .
“Pretty Yuppie Girls Do Too Eat Bullfrogs!”
All the Ladies are accomplished in the Feminine Arts – cuisine, needle art, and pleasure in the bedroom – and are graduates of Female Finishing Schools, of which we are all, indeed, finished.
The Ladies and I endorse the honor system and do happily take you at your word, no demonstration of your Womanly Talents is required beyond sitting on your tuffet and sewing a fine seam. The Ladies and I, and we hope you will agree, do not want to be seduced into seeing who among us might bake the lightest cake.
As we sew, we often discuss Books of Note.
May we assume you have read The Art of War?
Please have you man come around to deliver your reply, the Post is so very unreliable and the weather irksomely inclement.
Looking forward to welcoming you warming to our Society.
Sincerely,
Eugenia
**********
To the good Gentlemen of Man Chat,
This discussion, begun worthily on the topic of the vital need to restore Phil to his national platform, has wandered far astray and become strident.
How very (please excuse me for saying so) unattractive.
And please, do not smoke on the street, use foul language, or wear more than three pieces of jewelry (including your wedding ring).
How else might a Lady recognize a Gentleman?
On the first in general, yes. However I see (I think) I might need specify. If another individual seeks to neither pick my pocket nor break my legs I would choose to leave that individual be. Were the 82nd Airborne to be deployed (presumably at Society’s behest) to pick my pocket and break my legs I hope I would have the courage to protest. Though I’d expect I’d lose.
On the second, generally and specifically, yes. The first question is posed to me referencing the individual Peter. The second implies Society has made, in the collective, it’s judgement call to take an action. However on the second it appears the jury is still out.
Eugenia, these threads do tend to wander off topic.
We are 72 comments in at this point, and as these things go, I think the stridency is actually a little below average for such a long thread.
My only aim, as regards the discussion of abortion that took shape here, has been to clarify the issues, so as to make clear that this is the sort of thing about which there are respectable positions on both sides — and more importantly, to make clear that by the unique nature of the problem, the simple answer — “just leave it up to each person to decide” — is actually a resolution in favor of one viewpoint, and leaves unanswered the essential moral and philosophical problem.
But anything further that I, at least, have to say on the subject will go into a new post.
Malcolm, the very serious question on “human life” has been answered definitively by the one-eyed man. The “dictionary”, states it is so and with a source like the dictionary deciding such a serious question, well, I decided it best to walk away – because I was laughing so hard. Yes, the dictionary, where words are defined by panel discussions and also by capricious decisions on common usage.
Eugenia, Thanks so much for the invitation. Actually there are several “The Art of War” tomes on military strategy, with Sun Tzu being the most well-known, followed closely by Jomini’s rather mechanical take on military strategy (US Civil War generals liked him). Even Machiavelli penned his own “The Art of War”. I’ve read all of these. Western armies gravitate toward Clausewitz, who wrote an unfinished, ponderous manuscript, “On War”, which his devoted little wife edited and promoted after his death, determined to get his life’s work into print. Among my other talents, Eugenia, I was trained as a M60 machine gunner in my youth, even though my actual job in the Army was public affairs. A girl can’t be all sugar and spice, now can she, lol. I’m sure we’d have lots to chat about. My other passion is foreign affairs, so needless to say I am a confirmed news junkie. Oh and I like studying nuclear proliferation issues, which became a pet hobby after serving in a Pershing missile unit long, long ago. Mostly though, I love baking cookies and puttering around in my cozy country-style kitchen.