# Hey, guy passing out fetus dolls at a Halloween event, come on down to the pit. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 8, 2011, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-guy-passing-out-fetus-dolls-at-a-halloween-event-come-on-down-to-the-pit/602279 "2011-11-08T15:12:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2011, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-guy-passing-out-fetus-dolls-at-a-halloween-event-come-on-down-to-the-pit/602279/141 "2011-11-11T16:44:00Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > …you said a lot of vapid nonsense that ended with “then I suppose I’m guilty as charged”, to which I in effect said… “okay, you’re guilty.” There’s no “win” here, just you continuing to lose. Of course, at this point you have nothing left on this board TO lose - certainly no credibility, worthiness of respect, value as a human being… Is that what it means? I don’t think so. In fact, I know so. Again, you made a charge against me, and I responded. I said nothing about “guilt”; I said if that’s what you think, and that’s the charge you levied against me, then I suppose I’m “guilty as charged”. …With that being said, have you actually tried to objectively read the posts written in GD, Elections and the BBQ Pit? Given the make up of this board, it wouldn’t surprise me if people considered me to have no credibility, no worthiness of response and no value as a human being. …And since when do liberals give value to human beings, anyway??? > [@](#): > > Well, I’m very bright even in your absence, and when _compared_ to you, even more so. You’re giving yourself far too much credit here. > [@](#): > > I won’t try to replicate the entire exchange you’re trying to use to prove your point since it would get overly complicated, but I invite anyone reading this who has even the slightest inkling of entertaining the merest possibility that you are not completely full of shit to read the full conversation, not just your attempts at self-serving selection. In [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=607448), I recommend the following posts to anyone wanting to independently evaluate the quality of your argument and my responses: > > [#1696](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13817154&postcount=1696) > [#1700](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13817314&postcount=1700) > [#1702](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13817461&postcount=1702) > [#1951](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13826090&postcount=1951) > [#1965](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13826828&postcount=1965) > > I also invite anyone who is interested to look earlier and later in that thread if they have even the slightest feeling that these five posts are not sufficient. I’ll put a summary in spoiler, so if someone wants to read the linked posts and make up their own mind, they can do so without the potential bias of seeing my opinion first: You know-- and this is no surprise-- but you’re disingenuous as hell. You want to read the full conversation? Okay, fine. Let’s start at post [#1,539](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13812216&postcount=1539) where I said: [QUOTE=Me] I’m perfectly willing to say let’s ban abortion and get all the details worked out over the next one hundred years. [/quote] In post [#1,585](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13813099&postcount=1585), you responded: [QUOTE=You] I know you are, and that you’ve expressed no opinion or indicated that you’ve given any thought to the ramifications of such a ban. [/quote] Which generated the following response in post [#1,587](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13813166&postcount=1587). [QUOTE=Me] I feel we’re going in a circle. Again the ramifications are immaterial if the thing being banned is, indeed, wrong. I, again, make reference to my slavery example which continues to be ignored. Would you argue that it would be better to keep slaves as slaves than to emancipate them into a society which could not absorb the shock of them being free? Surely, you wouldn’t, because you would argue that the effect on society is irrelevant. [/quote] Which, in post [#1,591](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13813319&postcount=1591), generated your following response: [QUOTE=You] Well, for those of us living in the real world, ramifications kind of matter. [/quote] Follow by my response of: [QUOTE=Me] I don’t quite remember who said it, but the notion that one much have all the answers before instituting policy change is ridiculous. You fix the problem and address the issues as they come up. Isn’t that what happened with slavery (a hundred years later)? [/quote] In post [#1,595](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13813478&postcount=1595). You gave some lengthy response of what might happen if abortion is banned in the U.S. in [#1,614](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13814845&postcount=1614), to which I responded in post [#1,666](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13816178&postcount=1666): [QUOTE=Me] It might. It might not. The question is, who cares? Again, you can harp on this issue all you want, but the fact is that in the context of the abortion debate, it’s quite irrelevant… So are you saying that, if society couldn’t handle emancipating the slaves, that they shouldn’t have been emancipated? It’s a very simple question. I mean, I know why you refuse to answer the question, but you could at least give the appearance of at least trying to do so, if just in the slightest. [/quote] Which led to your response in post [#1,696](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13817154&postcount=1696) and my response in post #1,700 telling you that the tangent you went on regarding the history of slavery and whatever mechanisms were set up or it operated on where irrelevant to the question posed to you. This led to post [#1,702](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13817461&postcount=1702), in which you wrote: [QUOTE=You] Okay… yes, slaves should be emancipated regardless of the effect on the overall society. I still don’t get the relevance to abortion, I admit. Slavery is evil, and evil practices should be ended, therefore slavery should be ended. Since abortion isn’t evil (opinions vary, of course)… that’s pretty much where the sequence stops. [/quote] To which, in post [#1,951](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13826090&postcount=1951), I responded: [QUOTE=Me] Great. So you realize that if an action is wrong, then the societal consequences of addressing that wrong to be immaterial to addressing that wrong. Which means that, by your own admission, arguing the effects disallowing an action would have while ignoring whether or not that argument is indeed a wrong to be nothing short of a red herring. [/quote] To which you came in with the response: [QUOTE=You] Sure, for the sake of argument, if an action is wrong. I’m unconvinced that abortion is morally wrong. In all fairness, you’re not likely to convince me that it is morally wrong, either. And this is the problem with pretty much all your attempts at transitive logic thus far - your premises aren’t solid. I mean, I trust it’s obvious to you that abortion is morally wrong and thus deserves to be treated like all other things that are morally wrong. It’s rather less obvious to me. It’s not just the first premise, either; sometimes in one of your chains of two or three premises leading to one of your conclusions, all the premises are suspect, and sometimes the conclusion is as well. [/quote] In post [#1,965](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13826828&postcount=1965). To which I responded in post [#2,049](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13830601&postcount=2049): [QUOTE=Me] You’re clearly behind the proverbial eight ball. “So you realize that if an action is wrong, then the societal consequences of addressing that wrong” is a conditional, meaning that if the premise is true then the conclusion must be true. Of course, no one here has assumed the premise as true (you’re more then welcome to find me where I have), but rather I have attempted you get you to stop focusing on a complete red herring (the effects of making abortion illegal), which I have called a red herring numerous times and asserted to be irrelevant, instead focuing on the actual relevant issue (whether abortion is morally wrong). Now that you’ve finally agreed that if an action is wrong that the effects making that action illegal would have on society are irrelevant, maybe we can focus on the actualy issue, hmmm? [/quote] Thus effectively ended that argument. That is just one example of your obtuseness, where instead of focusing on the actual issue, you try to shift the focus to some completely irrelevant issue. The issue at hand isn’t, wasn’t and never will be whether abortion should be made illegal based on the effects it has on society (you would not argue that if there were no negative repurcussions to making abortion illegal that it should be made illegal nor would you argue that something you find wrong should be left illegal if correcting that wrong would have negative repercussions on society), but whether or not abortion is wrong in actuality. But I don’t have to explain that to you, because you perfectly well realize this. I said this to you in in the other thread and I’ll say it again. If the majority of pro-choicers in Canada try to argue as you do, then it’s no wonder they try to shut down debate before it even begins. But continue to pat yourself on the back and claim you’re so smrt (reference!). You will anyway. > [@](#): > > Your arguments across those posts consists of an effort to equate abortion to slavery, and abortion to murder, and then trying to get a moral judgement from me about slavery and murder with the intent to claim I must also apply this judgement to abortion. My responses are uniformly that abortion is distinct in several important ways from both slavery and murder, and thus any argument that begins “If we can draw an analogy between abortion and slavery/murder…” is therefore based on a flawed premise, leading to a suspect conclusion. False. That argument (abortion is morally equivalent to slavery or any other atrocity) didn’t even start until the one above ended. > [@](#): > > The last time I asked, I got a link to a lengthy, generalized wiki page. I doubt you’d offer anything better if I asked again. To be honest, you got more than you deserved to get, especially considering how I’ve never seen you demand anyone else to define ‘liberal’, much less asked any of your buddies to define what a ‘conservative’ is before they go off on one of their usual conservative bashing episodes. > [@](#): > > I cheerfully _delightfully_ invite you to drag up every past argument you think will help your case. _Please_ do so. _Pretty_ please do so. I’ve defeated you so many times that they’re starting to blend together, and I’d enjoy the chance to reread and relive past victories. I can’t think of a single time where you out-argued me, and if it happened, I would enjoy rereading it and would happily admit that, yes, on that occasion, your position was unassailable. Let’s start with the one quoted above, where you “owned” me. We can move on the other ones afterwards. > [@](#): > > I’ll get around to it sooner or later. Probably later. > > Well, probably never. That ain’t going to work. You made a claim, so prove it. I’ve noticed quite the trend with you. You have a knack for _frequently_ speaking out of your ass and making shit up, yet when called on it and told to put up or shut up, you try to weasel your way out of it with some psuedo-intellectual rationale. So, please, do go out and find these “oft quoted right-wing rants”. Otherwise, you’re nothing more than a bald-faced liar. > [@](#): > > I _can_ (in fact, do) write you off as a conservative whackjob (or maybe more accurately as a pseudo-conservative idiot: I’m not sure it’s fair to call someone a “conservative” when the values they want to restore and conserve never actually existed, i.e. when they have idealized and wildly inaccurate beliefs about what life was like during the Reagan administration and in the pre-_Roe_ years, and “whackjob” wouldn’t be correct because I don’t think you’re mentally ill - just proudly and determinedly ignorant). The volume of my posts indicates little more than I like to talk a lot. I like to refute your stupid arguments, and I like to do so in a thorough, thoughtful and detailed way. I take pride in my postings. Oh, I’ll bite at this. Please fight my ignorance and explain to the ignorant conservative what life was like during the pre-Roe years, as I’m completely ignorant. Because, apparently, the last time we went on down this road, you weren’t satisfied by any of the sources I gave you, while you were deeply satisfied with your baseless ranting (which you couldn’t even give credence to when asked for some kind of credible sources). I would be deeply indebted to you if you did. Seriously. …Of course, the simple fact is that you don’t actually refute anything nor have anything. You tend to ignore the central issue, go off on some tangents and then claim that you’re performing some kind of public service in refuting my posts. Well, whenever you get around to doing that, lemme know. > [@](#): > > I know you can’t (honestly) just write me off, because there’s no argument you have ever raised that I can’t challenge on a rational basis. If we ever get to the point when my response consists solely of “well, you only believe that because you’re an icky fascist!” then feel free to write me off, with my blessing, because I’ll have obviously succumbed to senility. Unlike you, I can actually provide examples of me making arguments you can’t challenge on a rational basis. How many examples of this would you like? One? Five? Ten? > [@](#): > > Look up the definition of “hypocrite”. You are one because the practice you’re accusing me of (fairly or not) is something you routinely do yourself. You bring up tangents; I respond to your tangents. How’s that make me a hypocrite? > [@](#): > > I’ll just assume this is a lame attempt at a joke and not just another example of hypocrisy. Obviously, you’re not a comic book reader. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2011, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-guy-passing-out-fetus-dolls-at-a-halloween-event-come-on-down-to-the-pit/602279/142 "2011-11-11T16:58:06Z")
Halloween is a day to give candy to kids in the neighborhood. It is not a political day to teach kids how you feel about abortion. It is like putting campaign flyers in the candy bags. They are kids. They don’t vote. They are not having abortions. They just want candy. The guy was an idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2011, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-guy-passing-out-fetus-dolls-at-a-halloween-event-come-on-down-to-the-pit/602279/143 "2011-11-11T18:48:24Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > Is that what it means? I don’t think so. In fact, I know so. Again, you made a charge against me, and I responded. I said nothing about “guilt”; I said if that’s what you think, and that’s the charge you levied against me, then I suppose I’m “guilty as charged”. Well, I don’t care how you try to spin the “charge”. I stand by what I’ve written, and if say you’re “guilty as charged” of _something_, I won’t argue with you. > [@](#): > > With that being said, have you actually tried to objectively read the posts written in GD, Elections and the BBQ Pit? Yes, though not “Elections” so much, since I don’t visit it that often. I daresay I’ve got an excellent mix of snarky wisecracks and thoughtful, objective analysis that I’ll match against anyone on this board short of Cecil himself [makes the Sign of the C]. > [@](#): > > Given the make up of this board, it wouldn’t surprise me if people considered me to have no credibility, no worthiness of response and no value as a human being. Well, it’s a pretty smart board. If it bothers you, I’m sure you can easily find other boards where you’ll be warmly hailed as one of the gang and I’d be quickly banned. > [@](#): > > And since when do liberals give value to human beings, anyway??? Are you saying I’m a therefore not a liberal, or at least I don’t meet your definition of one? Just curious. Maybe this is one of those “OMG a Liberal Assigning Values to Humans” moments and I could change my username accordingly. > [@](#): > > You’re giving yourself far too much credit here. Not possible, I’m sure. > [@](#): > > You know-- and this is no surprise-- but you’re disingenuous as hell. You want to read the full conversation? Okay, fine. Let’s start at post [#1,539](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13812216&postcount=1539) where I said: Okay in addition the five posts, I cited, throw in #1539 and any others in the conversational chain up to #1696. I _did_ invite anyone interested in analyzing the issue to go further forward or further back if they felt necessary. I’m not going to bother reading the posts in full, but just based on your selected quotes, which I’ll assume that you assume best bolster your arguments, it goes like: You: Ban abortion, regardless of the consequences. Me: I don’t think you can or should ignore the consequences. You: Would you ban slavery, regardless of the consequences? Me: Yes. You: Then you’re contradicting yourself. Me: No, I’m not, because abortion and slavery are not the same. You: Yes, they are. Me: No, they’re not. etc. I invite anyone who thinks this is an inaccurate and unfair summary to comment, assuming anyone cares, which is probably quite a big assumption. > [@](#): > > If the majority of pro-choicers in Canada try to argue as you do, then it’s no wonder they try to shut down debate before it even begins. But continue to pat yourself on the back and claim you’re so smrt (reference!). You will anyway. I don’t know how this got back to Canada or the shutting down of debate. I don’t see any effort here on my part or anyone else’s to shut anyone down. Heck, was the guy handing out plastic fetuses charged with anything, hit with injunctions or fines? Or was it just people giving their opinions of his actions in exercise of their own rights of freedom of expression? > [@](#): > > False. That argument (abortion is morally equivalent to slavery or any other atrocity) didn’t even start until the one above ended. Well, I forget who brought up the issue of slavery in the first place in that thread. I assume whoever did _thought_ it could be used as an analogy for abortion, and thus a statement about slavery could be (and should be) transferred to abortion, or else a moral contradiction existed. I’m going to do a fast check, just for laughs, for the first occurrence of the word “slave” or “slavery” in that gargantuan monster of a thread… Ha! It was Der Trihs, in #137: “You want women to be treated as slaves, as walking wombs and sex toys.” I’m going to assume this is not relevant to the point at hand so I’ll start at your post #1539 and work backward for the beginning of the particular discussion of slavery as an institution. **villa** invoked slavery in post #954, while getting into a definition debate with **Bricker** about “premeditated murder” and then later in post #1015, in a response to **Baniamo** that referenced Jefferson Davis, in a similar discussion about labels. And in post #1356, I find, I say the following: > [@](#): > > As far as I know (and I invite you to educate me), the kinds of arguments that made abortion legal have never hinged on trying to define a fetus as not a person, in some kind of latter-day version of Dred Scott, but in claiming the state had insufficient grounds to tell a citizen she must remain pregnant against her will. The reference to Dred Scott does indeed invoke slavery, but not in suggestion that slavery and abortion were morally equivalent. The point I was making is that Dred Scott legally defined a slave as not a person (which gave a justification for the continuation of slavery), while I was unaware that any comparable legal definition for a fetus existed (which you implied was what allowed abortion to continue). The word “slavery” and the attempt to establish it as a moral sibling (or at least a cousin) of abortion comes in your post #1366, which includes, (bolding added): > [@you](#): > > **For a moment, let’s get away from abortion.** Let’s, for argument’s sake, assume we’re arguing whether or not slavery should be legal or illegal. There is virtually no one here who would argue that emancipating the slaves is contingent on whether or not we have a social safety net set up in order to absorb the shock emancipating the slaves would have. There is virtually no one here who would argue that emancipating the slaves to be contingent on whether or not we can force equal treatment of the ex-slaves by the ex-slave owners. Those would all be deemed red herrings, which have little to do with whether or not slavery should be legal or illegal, as they do not address the issue of whether something is wrong or not. **It’s the same deal with abortion.** Over the course of one paragraph, you want to “get away” from abortion, you talk about slavery for a bit, then come back to conclude it’s “the same deal with abortion”. I cheerfully admit my part in invoking Dred Scott, though I think it obvious that I did so just to make a point about trying to define “person” and then using that definition to form law, and not about some forced and clumsy equivalence between abortion and slavery. > [@](#): > > To be honest, you got more than you deserved to get, especially considering how I’ve never seen you demand anyone else to define ‘liberal’, much less asked any of your buddies to define what a ‘conservative’ is before they go off on one of their usual conservative bashing episodes. Oh, I’ve asked some people who write things like “Group X is made of idiots”, to define Group X on several occasions, and I’ve certainly do so at times when an American throws off a comment about “liberals” or “left-wingers”, often in the form of: “Well, I’m Canadian, and therefore living in a country that, by American standards, is leftish, so are you saying _ **we** _ are liberals and therefore behave the same way as the people you’re criticizing?” But it wouldn’t surprise me if you’d never seen me do this, or forgotten if you have. I don’t offhand recall ever asking someone to define “conservative”. I guess the circumstances just don’t come up as often. > [@](#): > > That ain’t going to work. Well, I’ll face the consequences bravely, if any. > [@](#): > > Oh, I’ll bite at this. Please fight my ignorance and explain to the ignorant conservative what life was like during the pre-Roe years, as I’m completely ignorant. Because, apparently, the last time we went on down this road, you weren’t satisfied by any of the sources I gave you, while you were deeply satisfied with your baseless ranting (which you couldn’t even give credence to when asked for some kind of credible sources). I would be deeply indebted to you if you did. Seriously. Sorry, if you think what I’m doing is “baseless ranting”, then my repetition of earlier arguments (which I thought were actually quite cogent and insightful and reasonable) will just get written off as “baseless ranting” again. > [@](#): > > You tend to ignore the central issue, go off on some tangents What you call “tangents”, I call “a reasonable consequence of that which you are proposing.” Well, I don’t _actually_ call them that, but I _could_. > [@](#): > > Unlike you, I can actually provide examples of me making arguments you can’t challenge on a rational basis. How many examples of this would you like? One? Five? Ten? I’d like any example you can find of what you perceive to be your shining moments (in fact I requested such cites quite a while back), but I admit that since I’m not exactly bursting with energy to study your posting history to compile a list of your failings (I figure they’re obvious enough just in this thread), then I have no basis to demand anything of you. Do it, don’t do it… up to you. > [@](#): > > Obviously, you’re not a comic book reader. You’re wrong, of course. I’m not as avid as I once was, admittedly, but I keep an eye on what’s happening to the characters that I liked as a youth. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-guy-passing-out-fetus-dolls-at-a-halloween-event-come-on-down-to-the-pit/602279.md?page=7)