In recent months in Grand Rapids, Michigan – one of the North’s most conservative-benighted cities – where, after inmates had died (and continue to die) in jail due to an appalling absence of medical care, we had weeks of fine, upstanding conservative letters to the Grand Rapids Press shouting that inmates don’t deserve medical care.
These conservatives, most or all of which would proudly declare themselves to be “pro-life”, sure are moral, aren’t they?
Well, perhaps they think “pro-life” means they’re in favor of life sentences for all transgressions. And after all, the police think they’re guilty of something, or they wouldn’t be in jail! So they think: Let 'em die for their sins, or at least their appearance of guilt.
Silly me for suggesting that if they don’t want to pay for an inmate’s medical care, they shouldn’t arrest them in the first place, eh? And that if they deny a person their ability to receive health care in the outside world, they shoulder the moral “burden” of keeping them healthy?
And one of the many wonderful things this recent “pro-life” ruling by the Supreme Court does is to outlaw the most effective autopsies of brain-dead and similar fetuses, since the ruling requires obstetricians to chop of the fetus into bits rather than allow an autopsy on a much more intact fetus. The latter of which would allow the doctors to best determine what went wrong so that the next child the couple has would be less likely to suffer the same fate.
That’s a mighty wide umbrella of hatred you’re lumping pro-lifers under. You’re comparing hypocritical conservatives, a Supreme Court ruling, morality, and I assume every single pro-lifer. Color me unimpressed yet slightly offended. (that color would be light urple btw).
Cite? I find it hard to believe that anybody in this country, let alone enough in one town to provide weeks worth of letters, truly believe that inmates don’t deserve medical care.
Why do you assume they are pro-life? Any reason they can’t be pro-choice and in favor of letting inmates die?
See, this is where a cite would come in handy. Is that what the letters say?
As above.
What does this tangent have to do with the remainder of the OP?
As above.
Well, perhaps lack of coherence is too strong a charge; how about a lack of evidence?
I see. Are you saying that none of these conservative letter-writers consider themselves to be under the “pro-life” umbrella?
And what I wrote demonstrates “hatred”, is that right? I sure am glad to see you’re not lumping me under any “mighty wide umbrella of hatred”. Because if you were, you might be considered a hateful pro-lifer, would you not?
Advocating letting prisoners die seems to me to be rather an extreme populist position, not one that is rooted in any coherent conservative philosophy. And this kind of populist, frankly, is as likely to be pro-life as pro-choice.
Whatever position they hold, it likely will be as well thought out and coherent as their prison policy, I’d bet.
Here are the links citing what my fellow Grand Rapidians wrote to the local paper…
Uh, what do you know, the GR Press doesn’t provide such links. How incoherent of them!
I guess I need to go to the library and photocopy and scan every such letter to the Press over the course of weeks before you consider anything I say to be coherent. As I’m sure you do in every single laughably stupid post you make, right?
No, your argument is senseless. You’ve shown nothing. After your first paragraph, which is unproven, you have done nothing but wildly extrapolate what you believe the letter writer(s) believe.
I work in an office with an oral surgeon’s office across the hall. One morning a week, prisoners in orange jumpsuits will be in that office as most of us come in. Many times, some of my more conservative and/or religious coworkers have expresses their outrage that they, as taxpayers, have to contribute to CRIMINALS being able to see a “dentist” for free.
I find it inconceivable to deny a prisoner health care and I just ask them, “Have you ever HAD a toothache?” :dubious: I wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on my worst enemy.
Hell, I don’t doubt there are pro-lifers who think this way when it comes to prisoners. There are pro-choicers who feel the same way, though. I’ve heard these sentiments from people who wouldn’t dream of voting Republican.
You might not have noticed this, but prisoners don’t get much love around here. And by here, I mean everywhere.
The Grand Rapids Press does not have an online edition. See how easy that was to type?
Look, I agree with your premise. Those who wish to deny inmates medical care (how many have died?) are barbarians. It’s your broad brush I object to. You wound up connecting any pro-life conservative to the letter writers who wish inmates to die. Why?
I just wonder how one can start from just these letters indicating “people against inmate medical care” to “conservative, pro-life people against medical care”. Did they identify as conservative or pro-life in their letters?
Not to mention being pro-life and being against medical care for prisoners needn’t be hypocritical anyway. Unborn kids are innocent. Convicted prisoners aren’t. One deserves medical care, the other doesn’t. No hypocrisy of morality needed.
I think it’s because all people’s political beliefs and opinions come in one or the other of two monolithic sets. Either you’re a conservative, which means you’re eeeevil and hold all those reprehensible conservative opinions, or you’re one of the rest of us.
And the nice thing about this is that people on both sides get to look down on the other in smug superiority.