I wonder how the Repubs pundits will reply to this. Probably the opposite of how they responded to Wanda Sykes wish that Limbaugh's kidneys would fail.
"It's DIFFERENT because he is a socialist. And not American. And he's killing my grandma and unborn baby."
You should really note that those death threats toward Fathima Rifqa Bary on the part of her father (and parents, really) are, in fact, alleged. There has been no resolution or judicial decision made about this case, and it is very complicated - there have also been allegations that the "pastor" she met online is part of an Evangelical group that pressured Bary into making those accusations about her parents. Which could be entirely untrue, and it could be entirely true that her parents did threaten her - but neither has been proven in any way, and so it's irresponsible to state otherwise.
a) A hipster performance artist from Portland
b) Emasculated by the threatened removal of his white privilege mohair sweater
c) That weird teenager from your neighborhood clutching a spiral-bound notebook sitting on a see-saw by himself
d) Ann Coulter in drag
I would say the same for your Pastor Anderson but I was raised a Christian and we were taught not to hate like that or to wish death on anyone like that. Whatever you are practicing is not Christianity.
A new law passed in the UK will allow lesbians to register the names of both partners on their children's birth certificates. Previously, only one woman was allowed to register as the mother.
Hooray for this!! I have a friend from Wisconsin who married her British girlfriend in Wales last September. They couldn't get married in the States A): because of the douche-y, homophobic laws and B): because my friend's gf did not have American citizenship. Finally some good news. Now let's see some changes in laws here, plz.
@lilbobbytables is a la-di-da feminist: I just don't understand people like that. I mean, I really don't understand. I try and make sense of them, and the chain just comes off my brain. I was watching Louis Theroux's documentary on the Westboro Baptist Church this morning on YouTube, spewing the same kind of irrational hate and scattershot feculence, and I couldn't even begin to formulate an argument against them.
There's just no conversation to be had with these sort of people. None. I don't wish them harm, but damn, I wish they'd just disappear into the ether.
@lilbobbytables is a la-di-da feminist: He must think that because of his righteousness, he himself will be spared an end-of-life illness in his late seventies. As they so often are.
@lilbobbytables is a la-di-da feminist: True story: When my first husband left me for our pastor's daughter, I pretty much stopped going to that church. But after a few months, I decided to test the waters and go back. As I was leaving after the service, though, a group of women in the vestibule grabbed me, pulled me to them, and told me they were praying that my ex-husband would die so I could remarry.
I ran out and never returned, and that is one of the reasons I am now an agnostic.
@Harlot Brontë: I don't understand it either-- even more confusing is the congregation that gathers to hear him preach and allows their hard-earned dollars to pay his salary.
Wow... I'm pro-life and I'm... speechless.. I guess, at the callousness of the comments. But then I'm sans uterus so my thoughts don't count, I know, the same way none of us can say anything on illegal immigration since we're not illegal immigrants.
Yay, you're women, you have choices, I get it, but you have lots of choices before you darken the clinic door.
And to be on-topic, yes, if unemployment was 16% instead of 6%, you can believe we'd have some of our fair citizens migrating with the harvest and working in meat-packing plants. And since they'd be legal and have legal recourses, maybe we'd actually have some safety enforcement in said plants.
@MosesKabob: you're speechless at the callousness of OUR comments? You don't see anything callous about someone bemoaning abortion in America because it means fewer workers?
As long as women are the ones who have to bear the brunt of pregnancy, we should have the final say. Are you aware that there is still maternal risk in pregnancy and childbirth?
Gah, I'm not going to start feeding trolls. Sorry I even began to get worked up. Not worth it.
@MosesKabob: Dude, being pro-choice isn't about necessarily encouraging abortion. It means providing a safe and legal process allowing a woman to make the decision herself, rather than going back to the bad old days when women died in backalley abortions.
BTW PT II, we TOTES should give out birth control to everyone who wants it, for free, and really we need to come up with the male pill at this point.
"enter the clinic" then. That better? And I understand the "my body/basic rights" argument, really, although I disagree with it.. further discussion will probably not be constructive, in my experience.
I'm aware that there is risk in pregnancy and childbirth. The solution to this is "don't get pregnant". If you don't like risk, don't engage in risky behavior that leads to risky circumstances. Call it unfair if you want to; I'll likely agree with you. Doesn't change reality.
And ... to be perfectly honest, no, I don't see anything callous about someone bemoaning abortion in America because it means fewer workers. It's true. It's not the reason I rally around the pro-life flag, but it's a point. Although I guess it depends on how much negative connotation you attach to the word "workers". Generally speaking, productive activity is good. This isn't some evil capitalist bemoaning the lack of cogs in the great wheel of industry, as far as I can tell.
Sorry that you see me as a troll, portia. Sometimes it seems that Jez is stuck in a myopic positive-feedback loop, so I figured a contrarian viewpoint wouldn't go amiss. Maybe I was wrong.
@rptrcub: Understood, but you could make the same argument for legalizing drugs (all drugs, understand, and go ahead and read "More, Now, Again" if you think that's fun) and physician-assisted suicide.
And yay for both of PT II, although the "free" part bugs me only because nothing is free. Someone pays for it. But call it a public health issue and I'll most likely agree and watch another little bit of my paycheck disappear.
My comments about callousness were directed more at the "44 million dead! Awesome, that r0x0rz!" sentiments I feel were expressed in the first two pages. I didn't think one of the pro-choice arguments was, "Yeah, it's murder. So?".
@MosesKabob: There are a couple of points. First, I'm not actually sure that making abortion illegal would actually lead to millions less abortions leading to a more productive economy. Abortion has been around since Roman times and probably before and women will generally try to find a way to terminate their unwanted pregnancies, wanted or unwanted.
Second, I generally don't agree that sex, in a loving, monogamous relationship in particular, is a risky behavior and someone needs to suffer the consequences for engaging in it. I don't think it is fair to categorize a fetus as a consequence or punishment that must be suffered. That seems to me honestly to devalue life.
Abortion is not a black and white thing in my view. There is plenty of gray between taking a birth control pill and disposing of your newborn in a dumpster. Where I generally draw the line is when a delivered baby would be able to survive outside of the womb. I that point, it is immoral to kill it, since someone else could realistically support it if they wanted to. If it is a three-month old fetus, yes it is "alive" like many cells in my body are alive, but it is not capable of existing as a separate being and thus is dependent of taking its nutrients from my body, and since I don't think I am an incubator, I do believe that is should be a basic human right for a woman to decide whether she wants to go through with a pregnancy.
@MosesKabob: Well if you (generic you) honestly don't think abortion is murder, then why would you feel compelled to pretend that there is some actual holocaust of babies going on?
Calling a fetus a "consequence or punishment that must be suffered" devalues life, yet killing it doesn't? Which devalues marriage more, me calling my wife "the ol' ball and chain" or divorcing her?
The glib answer to your last paragraph would be "If that were the case, we'd have never heard of Terri Schiavo". I'm not really clear on why human life is only valuable so long as someone else has a vested interest in it. And it's not alive like many other cells in your body because the other cells, if left alone inside your body, won't spontaneously create another human being (unless you're on an episode of "House"). Saying "it's not a human being but I want to stop it before it becomes one" smacks of hypocricy, which is at the root of my problem with this particular issue.
Didn't mean to turn this thread into a referendum on abortion, though, although I guess I'm not sure how I expected it not to. :)
@MosesKabob: The problem with you agreeing with Rep. Emery is the mere, yet important fact that while abortion has only been legal since 1973, the procedure itself has existed for centuries. So forgive me if I'm wrong, its not really possible to wittle down the issue of illegal immigrants and less workers to well, abortion as its root cause. I think the point of this particular article was to show how conservatives tend to use abortion as their knee-jerk excuse for all the problems plaguing America. It's pathetic because like I said, abortion has only been legal for 35 years and last time I read my history books America faced serious issues before then.
I'd also like to point out what a few other commentors have and that is that many Americans wouldn't dare perform the jobs that illegal immigrants do. Including Rep. Emery himself. The problem isn't that we need illegal immigrants to fill in jobs, its's that we need them because no one else will do them.
@treecut just Baracked the Vote!: Wouldn't expect generic you to say that.. Sorry, in the back-and-forth commenting I think I'm missing what you're trying to say.
I guess there's a pro-choice school of thought that says "yes, we're killing the unborn, but it's not murder"? I don't know; It's been ages since I've actually argued the abortion issue. But at any rate, yeah, if generic you doesn't think that abortion is murder, there's no holocaust in generic your mind.
@MosesKabob: I guess it is the "leaving the fetus alone" part that bothers me. I feel like some pro-lifers, men in particular, think of the fetus as something separate from a woman's body. That fetus is living off the blood and nutrients of a mother's body, and will radically change that body into something different than it was before (not to make it sound like a parasite). I really, really think that a fetus is still part of my body at that point. If it was a separate being, I could just have the doctor "deliver" it during the first trimester and let someone else take care of it. All my eggs in my ovaries also have the potential for life if I let them get fertilized, so why am I not guilty for flushing them away. I guess I honestly don't buy into this black and white line occurring at the moment of conception that suddenly turns two cells into a full human being (whom some people would like to see get legal rights).
So if we had never legalized abortion and those 44 million "babies" had been born we know for a fact that they would all grow up to perform the same jobs that illegal immigrants currently do?!? Freaky! I want the name of the fortune-teller that Rep.Emery got this information from, she's sound really freaking good.
09/01/09
"It's DIFFERENT because he is a socialist. And not American. And he's killing my grandma and unborn baby."
08/31/09
08/31/09
what, you mean having an amazing political career as a champion of some great causes and having the high esteem of your peers, as well as the nation?
Steve Anderson himself would be so lucky as to die like Ted Kennedy.
08/31/09
Seriously. Dude loves his wiki.
08/31/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
Christianity? You're doing it wrong.
But I love you anyway. 'Cause that's doing it RIGHT.
Love,
Jesus
08/31/09
a) A hipster performance artist from Portland
b) Emasculated by the threatened removal of his white privilege mohair sweater
c) That weird teenager from your neighborhood clutching a spiral-bound notebook sitting on a see-saw by himself
d) Ann Coulter in drag
(Choose the most correct answer)
08/31/09
08/31/09
Hooray for this!! I have a friend from Wisconsin who married her British girlfriend in Wales last September. They couldn't get married in the States A): because of the douche-y, homophobic laws and B): because my friend's gf did not have American citizenship. Finally some good news. Now let's see some changes in laws here, plz.
08/31/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
There's just no conversation to be had with these sort of people. None. I don't wish them harm, but damn, I wish they'd just disappear into the ether.
08/31/09
08/31/09
I ran out and never returned, and that is one of the reasons I am now an agnostic.
08/31/09
11/20/08
Yay, you're women, you have choices, I get it, but you have lots of choices before you darken the clinic door.
And to be on-topic, yes, if unemployment was 16% instead of 6%, you can believe we'd have some of our fair citizens migrating with the harvest and working in meat-packing plants. And since they'd be legal and have legal recourses, maybe we'd actually have some safety enforcement in said plants.
11/20/08
And "Yay for Choices"? I think we women here take some of our basic rights a bit more seriously than choices in nail polish color.
11/20/08
that's effed up, man.
11/20/08
As long as women are the ones who have to bear the brunt of pregnancy, we should have the final say. Are you aware that there is still maternal risk in pregnancy and childbirth?
Gah, I'm not going to start feeding trolls. Sorry I even began to get worked up. Not worth it.
11/20/08
BTW PT II, we TOTES should give out birth control to everyone who wants it, for free, and really we need to come up with the male pill at this point.
11/20/08
I'm aware that there is risk in pregnancy and childbirth. The solution to this is "don't get pregnant". If you don't like risk, don't engage in risky behavior that leads to risky circumstances. Call it unfair if you want to; I'll likely agree with you. Doesn't change reality.
And ... to be perfectly honest, no, I don't see anything callous about someone bemoaning abortion in America because it means fewer workers. It's true. It's not the reason I rally around the pro-life flag, but it's a point. Although I guess it depends on how much negative connotation you attach to the word "workers". Generally speaking, productive activity is good. This isn't some evil capitalist bemoaning the lack of cogs in the great wheel of industry, as far as I can tell.
Sorry that you see me as a troll, portia. Sometimes it seems that Jez is stuck in a myopic positive-feedback loop, so I figured a contrarian viewpoint wouldn't go amiss. Maybe I was wrong.
11/20/08
And yay for both of PT II, although the "free" part bugs me only because nothing is free. Someone pays for it. But call it a public health issue and I'll most likely agree and watch another little bit of my paycheck disappear.
My comments about callousness were directed more at the "44 million dead! Awesome, that r0x0rz!" sentiments I feel were expressed in the first two pages. I didn't think one of the pro-choice arguments was, "Yeah, it's murder. So?".
11/20/08
Second, I generally don't agree that sex, in a loving, monogamous relationship in particular, is a risky behavior and someone needs to suffer the consequences for engaging in it. I don't think it is fair to categorize a fetus as a consequence or punishment that must be suffered. That seems to me honestly to devalue life.
Abortion is not a black and white thing in my view. There is plenty of gray between taking a birth control pill and disposing of your newborn in a dumpster. Where I generally draw the line is when a delivered baby would be able to survive outside of the womb. I that point, it is immoral to kill it, since someone else could realistically support it if they wanted to. If it is a three-month old fetus, yes it is "alive" like many cells in my body are alive, but it is not capable of existing as a separate being and thus is dependent of taking its nutrients from my body, and since I don't think I am an incubator, I do believe that is should be a basic human right for a woman to decide whether she wants to go through with a pregnancy.
11/20/08
11/20/08
11/20/08
Calling a fetus a "consequence or punishment that must be suffered" devalues life, yet killing it doesn't? Which devalues marriage more, me calling my wife "the ol' ball and chain" or divorcing her?
The glib answer to your last paragraph would be "If that were the case, we'd have never heard of Terri Schiavo". I'm not really clear on why human life is only valuable so long as someone else has a vested interest in it. And it's not alive like many other cells in your body because the other cells, if left alone inside your body, won't spontaneously create another human being (unless you're on an episode of "House"). Saying "it's not a human being but I want to stop it before it becomes one" smacks of hypocricy, which is at the root of my problem with this particular issue.
Didn't mean to turn this thread into a referendum on abortion, though, although I guess I'm not sure how I expected it not to. :)
11/20/08
I'd also like to point out what a few other commentors have and that is that many Americans wouldn't dare perform the jobs that illegal immigrants do. Including Rep. Emery himself. The problem isn't that we need illegal immigrants to fill in jobs, its's that we need them because no one else will do them.
11/20/08
I guess there's a pro-choice school of thought that says "yes, we're killing the unborn, but it's not murder"? I don't know; It's been ages since I've actually argued the abortion issue. But at any rate, yeah, if generic you doesn't think that abortion is murder, there's no holocaust in generic your mind.
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