Toward A More Constructive Dialogue

[athelind]

I could have phrased Monday night's entry more tactfully, and probably should have. Several people whose opinions I value and respect have noted that accusing those who disagree with you of being stupid, deluded or worse will win no converts and prove no points.

With the outrage and frustration filtered out, what I was really trying to say was, "What are you people thinking??"

On that level, this was not an entirely unsuccessful attempt at communication. Several of you did give some indication of what you've been thinking.

You think, apparently, that George Walker Bush is a "conservative".

Please note that I did not attack the conservative philosophy. I did not claim that one had to be Stupid, Deluded or Corrupt to adhere to conservative ideals. While I disagree with many -- though not all -- conservative positions, while I am in fact far more willing to proudly embrace the label of "Liberal" than any candidate endorsed by the Democratic party in well over a decade, I can indeed see the logic and the internal consistency of conservatism.

The single author who most deeply influenced my personal philosophy is well-known -- even infamous -- for his conservative views, particularly later in life. I may have reached different conclusions than he did, but I still hold his opinions and his thought processes in the deepest respect.

I think, however, that, were Robert Heinlein still alive, the regime of George Walker Bush would horrify him.

He has, in hafoc's words, "...betrayed the good conservative principles while throwing all his strength behind the bad ones."

Comments

[ssthisto.livejournal.com]

Want a womb? Take mine. Mind, the connections aren't all there any more, since I NEVER want to be pregnant. Pregnancy, the early weeks of, in my experience (not opinion, experience) is nothing to get all excited about. I don't get excited about having the flu either - and the symptoms of both are about the same.

But with regards to the fact I'm not all 'connected' - I've got a tubal ligation. Sterilization. I'm 'fixed'. And you know how HARD that was to get done? At 24, nobody says 'Are you sure you won't change your mind' if you decide to make the permanent decision to have a child. But at 24 a doctor feels perfectly justified in TELLING someone who wants to make the (possibly reversable) decision never to have children that she's too young and too stupid to know what she wants. It's a procedure that is covered by the NHS here in the UK for the few people the doctors accept as 'mature' enough to make the decision. I wound up having to pay over a thousand dollars (converted) to have it done at a private clinic - but if I'd been pregnant and wanting antenatal care, I'd have had no costs and no problems.

That's still not personal experience, Dracono. That's a secondhand account, and you don't know what was going on 100%. From my third-hand perspective, it sounds like the boy decided he WANTED the baby - and the girl did NOT want the pregnancy. Maybe someone clued the girl in to how difficult adoption processes can be. Maybe her parents found out and took her to the clinic themselves. Maybe she decided she didn't want to be pressured into giving birth to a baby she couldn't support, be pregnant and have to drop out of school, or generally ruin her life. And maybe she didn't want to tell him because she knew him well enough.

And you know what? He made a mistake in killing himself. His decision to kill himself might well have been what made her kill herself. But what would he have done if she'd miscarried?

My problem with your argument, that it's a human being when it's got its own DNA, is that, really, a tapeworm ALSO has its own DNA. Is it acceptable to you for me to worm my cats? It's not an actual human being until it's viable outside of the parasite existence - say, five or six months along? I mean, a tapeworm's alive, too. It's got DNA and a nervous system and everything. What if *I* had a tapeworm? To me, it's just a matter of the type of parasitism.

I never said a blastocyst/embryo doesn't have a nervous system - it's developing. I said a blastocyst/embryo is not sentient and aware. Trees ARE 'aware' in a way I can't quite describe - they're aware when they're being fed upon by another animal and can produce anti-feedant chemicals, for example. And chopping a tree down doesn't necessarily kill it. For that matter, cows and chickens are aware - and I'd say that, in their own way, they're also sentient. Doesn't stop me from eating them.

[pathia.livejournal.com]

Tapeworms don't grow into humans.

[ssthisto.livejournal.com]

Neither do 25% of recognized human pregnancies (miscarriage after pregnancy is verified)
And for that matter, even more pregnancies - maybe as many as one in three - are miscarried before the woman in question even suspects she might be pregnant.

But what makes a human intrinsically 'better' than a tapeworm?

What makes a human better?

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Very simple:

Human babies are kyooote and pwecious. Tapeworms aren't. That's what makes them better.

Re: What makes a human better?

[ssthisto.livejournal.com]

Eeeeurgh. Human babies ... cute?

Kittens, yes. Baby alligators, yes. Puppies, yeah.

None of them excretes foul-smelling slime from both ends that has to be cleaned up for the better part of their first year unless they're sick.

I'd rather have a tapeworm - at least then, I'm on a biological weight-loss plan *grins*

[pathia.livejournal.com]

I'm well aware of these facts and there I really don't think there is anything better about a human than a tapeworm, other than I am a human and so is the proto-fetus.

That means something to me, maybe I just have a very strong preservation of species urge in me, because it'd be hard as hell to have children myself, thus there is no preservation of my own young urge.