Preview is my friend.
Preview is my friend.
If I wanted to have a rational, fact supported debate, I would have started this thread in GD. Instead, I chose to post here in the Pit because I wanted to bitch and generalize at will. But with this crowd, a rational debate is likely to happen spontaneously.
So I might as well join in. I support everyone’s right to free speech. Given that right, citizens in a civil society tacitly agree to certain standards, some of which are written into law, others are common sense. Examples: don’t yell fire in a crowded theater. Don’t pick up a hooker and get nekkid in a playground. Don’t drive with pictures of mutilated babies. I don’t think that’s too much to ask, regardless of how you feel about abortion or outdoor fucking.
Now, about abortion, I think it is safe to say that not too many people would like to see the numbers of abortion go up, assuming of course, that most people are not psycopaths. But I suppose there are people who feel that the Nazis didn’t kill enough people in the Holocaust. Is that fair iampunha?
So riddle me this, which is a more effective way of reducing abortions: sitting outside a clinic singing hymns, or talking to young people about preventing pregnancies from happening in the first place? Passively praying (or crossing your fingers if you aren’t Xn) and trying to outlaw safe, clean abortion, or working with poor mothers, helping to make sure that there is no reason for an unwanted pregnancy. If you talk the talk, walk the walk.
OK, so you want both sides of the story to be told, right?
Do you think that you would be allowed display these images on television? In fact, if television were to show something as gory and disgusting as these pictures, a lot of the people who display these pictures would also picket the TV station because of “Indecent images”.
Uh, no. The fire in the theater and hooker example are ILLEGAL actions. The abortion posters, while distasteful, are certainly not. Unless you think all things considered distasteful by a significant number of people should be banned…then may I introduce you to Tipper Gore?
Citizens do NOT tacitly agree to not have gross abortion posters anymore than they tacitly agree not to publish the kind of crap Eminem puts out.
Damn you know …I think you’re on to something here…let’s see, black males have by far the highest incarceration rate of any “group”…I think it’s only fair that we extrapolate their behavior to the rest of their “group”…
And all those folks who aren’t real crazy about fur coats or animal torture…they’re crazy lunatics I tell ya…look at the PETA twits running their “Got Beer?” ads, and the morons who throw paint/blood on people wearing fur coats…
I’m not sure I know enough bad words to post in the pit, but it always amazes me that people seem to group on one or the other side of the abortion issue. Pro choice people will defend all types of abortion, even when partial birth abortion is such a hard thing to justify. Pro lifers will condemn even very early abortion, but we don’t hear too many IUD protests, although it is by design a very, very, early abortion.
I think with the age of viablility getting earlier, and the fate of such babies determined solely by who is ‘wanted’ and who isn’t, it’s time to find some middle ground. Why can’t we exercise some common sense here. Education and affordable medical care should take care of the problem of women not knowing they are pregnant till some months into it. I am neither pro choice or pro life. I don’t have a problem with very early abortion. I have a BIG problem with killing a child that we would spent hundreds of thousands to save were it being carried by a mother that wanted it.
I know that this is an issue that people won’t compromise on, but damn I wish they would. We cannot keep killing almost full term babies, and we cannot send women back to untrained persons working in unsafe conditions.
I see you don’t know shit about partial birth abortions except that they are icky, huh… :rolleyes:
Ultimately, these kinds of abortions are the MOST IMPORTANT ones to keep legal, as they are almost always done only in cases of emergency to pregnant woman and/or fetus viability.
But I guess it’s easier to just go, ew, they’re so yucky! I mean, have you ever seen an amputation of a limb? Gross! Ban that. And how about when they hack out a bunch of stuff from someone’s throat and make the patient breathe through a hole in his throat? Yucky!
:rolleyes:
Yer pal,
Satan
*I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Six months, four weeks, 13 hours, 53 minutes and 48 seconds.
8463 cigarettes not smoked, saving $1,057.89.
Extra life with Drain Bead: 4 weeks, 1 day, 9 hours, 15 minutes.
David B used me as a cite!*
I have seen some of these sorts of signs before, and they were obviously doctored. That is not “the reality of an abortion”. Even if it was, the fact that something looks icky doesn’t mean that it is bad or wrong. Most medical procedures are not pretty. This doesn’t mean they should be banned.
Bad example. The FCC regulates the kind of content that gets shown on TV.
By all means though, “picket” things that you find offensive…whether its crude posters or crude rap music…thats your right.
Yes, and that’s what the discussion with my friend centered on. She couldn’t understand how I could personally be against abortion, but as far as politics go, want to keep it legal.
Beagle,
first off, if you don’t like eminem, you can turn off the Radio/television, or skip the article in the magazine, radio. At least, it is possible to monitor who hears his music, or when it is played.
But 6 foot pictures of of a dismembered foetus are something that I personally would not want my children seeing (if I had children until I believed they were ready to see.) Take a walk down any of Dublins main shopping areas on a busy Saturday and you will see these pictures.
They could easily replicate the picture onto a pamphlet and therefore control who views these pictures by dispersing them themselves.
However, scaring young children is not on, as far as I am concerned. They can hold all the demonstrations they want. hell, they can have a big Pro-life Riverdance down the middle of Dublin for all I care, but If I was to put a 6ft poster of the picture on Satan’s link on display in Dublin, I would be arrested, or at least told to take it down. These Youth Defence Facists are not.
Crunchy,
I find it rather odd that your friend didn’t understand your position. I know a lot of people who personally would never have an abortion (and not because they’re male ;)) and believe it’s wrong, but who still want to keep it safe and legal. Often it’s because they find the alternative more objectionable, or because they don’t believe their moral choices should apply to others.
Fine…if you don’t like the audio example…there are certain public sculptures or artwork or t-shirts worn in malls (visible to children, I presume) that some people find offensive as well…
Re: your Dublin example, it depends on WHERE you put that poster (at least in the U.S. where such things are often decided on 1st Amendment grounds). Placing such a poster in front of a store (on somebody elses propery) would be a legal no-no. Putting it on your own damn truck (or a scaled down version on a t-shirt ) is a different matter.
Let me be clear again that I think the poster on the truck (from the OP description) is crude, rude and something I don’t “approve of” personally…that being said, in the U.S. such things are not banned.
I never said they should be banned, that would make me no worse than they are. They should have the decency to realise what they are actually doing. These posters aren’t going to change peoples opinions. They don’t seem to realise that, and insist that by publically displaying these pictures is the only way of educating the children about abortion.
They should just self regulate who these pictures are being displayed to. A child cannot physically have an abortion, but can be scared into accepting one side’s story.
Sadly, this happens.
I believe in freedom of speech, but the scare tactics these people employ are in very bad taste.
Well when you said earlier
“Do you think that you would be allowed display these images on television?”
I thought you were suggesting that some content should be regulated…if not, then we’re in agreement that it’s in bad taste, but (on a truck anyway) permissable free expression.
Thank you for proving my point exactly. A hell of a lot of people do extrapolate the prison statistics (among other things) to be fearful of black males. Which is not to say it’s right, but that it happens. Nobody said it was fair. But this isn’t really entirely the same issue anyway, because in this case there is also the factor of a biased justice system and biased law enforcement, so I’ll adress the simpler of the two: PETA.
Do you realize how much shit PETA takes because some of the people in it are out of their goddamn minds? A lot of people are in general agreement with PETA on basic issues, but would never associate themselves with the group, because the actions of a few members (/leaders) reflect badly on the group as a whole. This is pretty fuckin obvious, really.
Like I said, anybody who wants to deny them their right to protest is an ass, but at the same time, their goals would probably be better served if a particularly vocal portion of their organization didn’t alienate so much of the population.
Or, to get back to the topic of the OP, I know a lot of people who really dislike one religion or another because some fundie nutcase made their childhood miserable. Now it’s possible they’re just all localized around me and Podunkville, New York, but I kinda doubt it.
Well at first I thought you HAD agreed with me (people extrapolate extreme behavior across an entire group, but they SHOULD NOT)…but then you say
" Of course, this guy is a drop in the bucket, but eventaully, enough of em start to add up. "
So, does that mean…eventualy enough black men will be incarcerated so that they “add up” …or eventually enough PETA folks will act wacky so that they will “add up”? You apply this notion of “adding up” to one group (Christians), but not (it would appear) to other groups.
Eminem does not drive down the street with a PA letting us all enjoy his music. And if he did, he’d probably be cited in most places for breaking noise ordinances.
Interactions between members of a civil society are governed by ideas which are not necessarily written into law. That’s why Tom Green and Jackass are so popular, because they defy these guidelines in a humorous manner. This guy with his abortion posters did so in a distastful manner. Or to put a finer point on it, he does have the right to display such things, but common sense and decency should prevent him from doing so. Or try to be more tactful about it.
I agree with your last 2 sentences. I would add that just because someone perceives themself as “humorous” does not give them carte blanch to defy civil societal norms either (in a common sense/deceny arena, not a legal arena)
On further thought, what struck me the most I guess, is that there IS no such thing as a Christian organization…so extrapolating behavior seems even more suspect. In my PETA example, there IS a PETA organization, and I would suspect that some leaders in PETA signed off on the controversial ads…so while it might not be fair to say everyone in PETA feels that way, there IS an identifiable organization.
If on the other hand, I extrapolate the wacky PETA folks behavior across lets say all “liberals” (I’ll assume for this point, that most if not all PETA folks are left of center politically) , then that would be even more suspect. There is no “liberal” organization anymore than there is a “Christian” organization…there are, at best, a few common beliefs and MANY differences. Indeed, i would suspect that the differences among Christian beliefs is at least as big as the difference among various “liberal” beliefs
The link between some PETA behaviors and the rest of liberalism is, I thnk, analagous to the link between JimBobBilly in the pickup and the rest of Christianity.