Sorry, I hit submit too soon.
I meant to stress that the above isn’t my view. I was just trying to look at the issue from the standpoint of an ardent anti-abortionist.
Maybe, to someone like that, it is not unreasonable to compare the two issues.
(Personally I think the argument is hogwash but I can kinda see where they’re coming from - they think life begins at conception so abortion is murder).
Jojo: the difference is that abortion is enabled by a legal framework. This means that the majority of a democratically chosen parliament ratified a bill enabling the practice. For me, that is the moral equivalent of a society condoning it. Sure, there are going to be those that disagree, but a democracy is based on majority rule. Using this logic, we can also deduce that illegal abortions (i.e. in a country where the proper legislation is not (yet) in place) are per definition immoral, in terms of what society thinks of it.
The same reasoning can be applied to matters like euthanasia, the death penalty, corporal punishment, and whatnot. Note that whether I agree or disagree with the matters at hand doesn’t influence the moral judgment call.
Now, on to our pal Hitler. We can be brief. Did he ever obtain a democratic authorisation to murder 6 million Jews?
THAT’S the difference.
Coldfire:
Now I’m confused.
Are you saying that the moral outrage we feel at the holocaust i because Hitler didn’t get his genocidal plans ratified?
Similarly if an act of Congress endorses the genocide of a portion of American Citizens based on their ethnic or religious background, do we then say “oh, well I guess it’s ok then.?”
You may want to rethink this stance.
Scylla I believe the underlying assumption is that Hitler would not have been able to get ratification, that his actions were in secret (relatively - certainly he did not publicize the ‘final solution’).
Generally speaking, humans may disagree on certain points of ‘humanness’ (ie when does ‘human life’ begin, or ‘is DP justified’), but we collectively seem to have a basic prohibition to wanton killing, genocide etc.
I don’t believe she was comparing the Holocaust to owning a leather bound book, she was comparing owning a lampshade made from human skin to owning a book made with animal skin.
gee TRyan - the quote you selected had Coldy saying ‘anyone who’ and continued w/ ‘makes this comparison’.
your response referring to a specific incident with a specific poster, would be inferring something that wasn’t said, now, wouldn’t it?
My view is that the
abortion = holocaust comparison
is bogus because the holocaust was a political decision made by the government of the day and based on a (spurious) political ideology ie it was a group ideology.
Whereas abortion is a personal decision made by an individual on the basis of personal feelings - not made on the basis of any group ideology.
A personal decision as opposed to a group decision.
That’s the difference.
That’s why they can’t be compared.
That’s a good addition, Jojo. It’s certainly another factor which makes it different.
Scylla:
If the majority of Americans as represented in congress and the senate vote for the complete genocide of all blind, catholic, lesbian Texans with a limp, then yes, by American society’s standards it’s “OK”.
This doesn’t mean that I would consider it “OK”. It’s a rationalisation of democratic processes and their moral value. Rationalising it means that I completely detach it from my own moral system.
And, for the record, I think you’d be hard pressed to pass that Anti-BCLTWaL bill. 
I’m here to talk to the religious folk. Christians in particular. I’m thinkin’ a conversation is comin’ soon here in the pit. I may as well head it off at the pass. I’ve been spending alot of time in GQ lately talking about their god “God”. I have been inspired by RL conversations I have had with devout Chrisitan fundamentalists in my own family and home town (old peer group). There seems to me to be some big problems in a literal reading of their main text which they refer to as “The Bible”. I, like most people here, find the following laundry list of things to be repulsive:
Genocide.
Racism.
Rape.
Murder.
Now all of thse things are contained in this book. For some reason, my hatred of these four things is not decreased just because it appears there. So I get pretty passionate when faced with extremism, but I can see where it may look like I am losing site of the fact that most here are middle of the roaders who interpret it and take what is good and loving from it. Folks who try their best to work kindness into their dealings with people. That is a good way to live in my book. I cannot help but suspect your faith is misplaced, but I accept the possibility that I could be wrong and wish all of you well.
A literal interpretation spooks me out. I get passionate and I am a wiseass so these things come together and the result is a brash posting style. I will try to be more sensitive to the capitalization thing. Not capitalizing was indeed a form of protesting the haughty naming, but I’ve made that point and I will stop, since it seems to be misconstrued as mockery. If I have a long post I may still drop caps. Sorry, but I do that typically anyway. Either way, I’m going to back out of the religious debates for a while. I’m sure this will please many out there. I think I’ve made my points in the various threads (do I really need to link here?)and I think they are good ones. Perhaps I could have been less hostile about it, and I am pretty sure that most of the people I have discussed this with are not supporters of the things on that list and still maintain faith anyway. I disagree with your conclusions, but do not presume you to be evil people. Even if it sonded like it. I was defending against the most extreme view from a logical perspective. ie:
A is bad.
It says G said to do A.
G is bad.
People really seem to resent this tactic for a reason I can’t understand. For some reason A cannot be judged bad any more when G does it and I am foolish to think that it can be. It may just be my tone, but I think it is a bigger problem. The devil cite’s scripture as Shakespear said. I just MUST misunderstand the text and have perverted it because they somehow just know G MUST be good. Either way I’m not trying to debate just sumamrize where I stand and where aggression seems to come in. I really am going to take a break from religious debates for a while. So please feel free to comment on what I’ve said here but know that you will have the last word on it for now. No more religious questions or anything (unless they are questions for me to ask of myself).
True blue literalist supporters? What can I say? That is some serious faith. The movie “Frailty” is an interesting excercise in testing the limits of ones faith. In it, God orders a man to kill people who are demons. He makes his kids help. Do me a favor. If you ever hear voices telling you to kill people, see a shrink first. There really are some treatable medical conditions that could cause this as well. As long as you don’t hurt anybody, I support your right to believe whatever you want, no matter how much I may disagree. I would advise you to question everything, but free advice is admittedly worth what you pay for it.
I just hit the post limit size in a line by line defense of a ton of my own posts. It sucked. No fun. I’m going to start talking about things that are fun.
Things like . . . new launch technologies . . . . cryogenic “insurance” units . … genetic enhancement procedures. . . .
DaLovin’ Dj
I dunno. Hitler was pretty publically anti-jewish. Could he have manuevered public perception to the point where he got the German citizenry to democratically endorse the Concentration camps?
Pure speculation, but I don’t see why not.
It’s not like the exact same thing isn’t happening in the Middle East.
As for the US, I don’t underestimate our genocidal abilities either. Let Warren Buffet’s prophecy of this past Monday come true (the one about a nuclear terrorist attack on either NY or DC,) let it be done by Arabic infiltrators, and I don’t doubt the American people’s willingness to round up Arabs and put them in camps, either. It’s not like we haven’t done it before. Let the BCLTWaL’s start flying planes into skyscrapers and see how long they retain their freedom.
And hey, they’re criminals. We don’t want to make that camp cushy. It’s not like they need the best of everything. They need to work. Why waste our medical resources helping them. Let them take care of themselves. We won’t want our boys fighting and dying while the enemy lives it up in encampments on our tab. If a few of them die, too bad. Can’t say we’ll be sorry about it. Look at all our people who died? Serves them right.
Forty years later we’ll look back in shame and wonder how we could ever be so uncivilized, how we could ever have done such a thing. We’ll think we’re different and better and that it couldn’t happen again.
Of course, that it means it could.
It seems the entire history of civilization is basically a dominance struggle with one group doing their damndest to exterminate the other. That’s natural for us as a race. It’s only the times that we’re not actively killing the other guy cuz he’s not from our tribe that are the exception.
Why would you think our nature has changed now?
So, could you pull up a popular opinion to exterminate a whole entire racial group? Abso-fucking-lutley!
I personally don’t think what particular bureacratic red tape or politics Hitler used or bypassed in implementing his final solution have any bearing on the ethics of the action.
You may argue that abortion is different because unlike Hitler it’s not by decree that the genocide is occuring, but for the sake of argument I’ll disagree.
Suppose Hitler didn’t have the Jews rounded up and put in camps, but simply declared that they weren’t people? Since they’re not people, it’s not murder to kill them. So, if a German citizen makes the informed personal choice to kill a jew, that’s their business.
Is that better?
I personally have no wish to compare the holocaust with abortion, I’m just making a point. The thing that Hitler did was point to a people and say “You are not human.” Once you say that, anything you do after that is justifiable. And “the Jew is not like us,” was a very deliberate and key part of the platform under which Hitler was elected.
So, I do think Democratic process was followed in the holocaust. It was all very civilized industrious and efficient. That’s why this particular instance of humanities capability for dehumanization stands out above others, because it was done in such a civilized fashion. It was that very progress which was supposed to prevent such things, wasn’t it?
Some people look at an unborn child, and when the Supreme court says “You are not human,” they see no difference.
I think an honest person has to see the possibility of that viewpoint even if they don’t share it.
No you didn’t.
Not a single person, not one, argued with you on the merits of ‘petlove’. Not one single poster. Your argument was that dogs who have been abused by having sexual relations with humans should be euthanized. This was the point of contention, as was pointed out to you many, many times by Waverly.
No you haven’t.
Coming in here and publicizing the fact that you’re dropping it does not fall under the category of ‘dropping the subject’. That thread is an exercise in futility because you are unwilling to acknowledge that people who disagree with you don’t necessarily have intercourse with dogs. This, understandably, gets people worked up.
If you’re going to drop it, drop it. If you’re not going to drop it, come back to the damn thread and defend yourself there, not here.
Link.
Abortion was a group decision, too. The group was Harry A. Blackmun, Potter Stewart, William H. Renquist, Warren E. Burger, William O. Douglas, Byron R. White, William J. Brennan, Thurgood Marshall, and Lewis F. Powell.
White Lightening, in case you missed the point, this thread is a place to post regrets. I regret starting that thread but I still hold firm in my beliefs that having sex with a pet is damaging to its mental well being.
I am going to say this one last time----I never said or implied that anyone who disagreed with me must be screwing the pooch. Never. On fact Waverly is the one who misquoted me–twice even–and attributed those comments to me.
The problem is people only see what they want to see. My OP was directed toward a specific poster cited in the op. Every one who jumped in to flame my ass has missed the point. There is nothing I can say to do to remedy this situation other than to ignore the responses of persons who still don’t get it.
When I said I was done with the thread I meant it. You are the one who picked it up, hunted me down to try to give it back to me. Then you have the nerve to metaphorically stamp your foot and demand that I come back to defend myself when I have clearly indicated that I don’t feel the need to defend myself for anything.
Give it a rest OK?
Scylla, for you to make the analogy that your wife’s cooking is in ANY WAY comparable to…
Eh, forget it!
I was probably the only one who did a doubletake when reading this…
Errr… pretend that I had removed the opening and closing b tags for the whole post… “Harry” and “Potter” should be the only bolded words there.
The Mermaid: Sure, post here about your regrets about starting a thread. Posting here to make underhanded claims about another thread that you’re unwilling to return to is not legitimate. I didn’t hunt you down. I don’t appreciate that allegation either, but oh well. After I saw the developments in that thread, I started composing a post but figured you deserved a break, so I deleted it.
But then I read through this thread and found you making the same wild claims that you fled from in the other thread. I just don’t think that’s fair.
And, like you said, this thread is about regrets. Whatever you have to say about ‘persons that just don’t get it,’ this isn’t the place. If you don’t feel the need to defend yourself, don’t. That’s all I’m saying. Let’s not have an argument. I don’t have anything against you.
[sub]So, is no one going to point out that the word we’re all looking for is actually ‘mediation’? When I opened this thread I thought it was going to be like a review session for posters that had been ‘left back’.[/sub]
I’m not so convinced that it would be that easy. But even if it WOULD be, your example still deals with criminals. As wrong as it would be to kill all Arabs in the US because a few of them commited an act of terrorism, it is in essence an overreaction to a real cause.
Hitler didn’t have a real cause, other than the global economic crisis of the 1920’s and 1930’s, which cannot be attributed to Jews any more than to any other race/ethnicity/people.
Now, whether or not you consider the means by which Hitler came to the conclusion that killing Jews would be endorsed by his people “democratic” all depends on perspective. Call me crazy, but my impression is that he was a brilliant dictator who was very well aware of the power of propaganda. He was picked as Chancelour because they ran out of other options, and seized power from there. Democratic my ass.
Also, his actions during WWII were in no way predicted by the party program of the Nazi’s in 1932. Slightly racist, sure, but certainly no mention of genocide.
Long story short: evn IF the US were to democratically decide to wipe out an entire race, it would still be different from the situation in Nazi Germany.
Yep. Somewhere between speed-reading and dyslexia, I definitely had Harry Potter on the Supremes.
Have to pull you up there Lib - that’s a very AmeriCentric view of abortion. And given that neither Coldie nor Hitler are American, not necessarily appropriate.