You say this like it’s a BAD thing :).
I would personally find abortion a somewhat repugnant last resort but I also have no say over what someone else does with their body, therefore I suppose that makes me pro-choice. But I also agree that tax money shouldn’t be used to fund them; I shouldn’t be forced to subsidize others’ stupidity!!!
Cite, please. Please provide an authoritative cite demonstrating that IQ or some other commonly-accepted measure of intelligence correlates negatively with frequency of births and/or number of offpsring. Also, do the same for any other of these “negative traits” (drug use, mental retardation, etc.) you might be thinking of.
Gee, the human race has survived for several millennia just fine with, we can assume, an approximately normal distribution of intelligence and other traits without your little eugenics program. I think maybe you should volunteer to be first.
By the way, could you outline for me all of the biological functions which you consider to be priveleges rather than rights? I would hate to think I am evacuating my bowels or blowing my nose without a license or proper authorization from you or some other authority.
That’s a very good way of persuading people not to take a responsible attitude to sex birth control. Why use contraception when a ‘mistake’ earns me $100?
Wrong. Who are you to dictate to nature what is a negative trait? That’s eugenics. If stupidity
(or blond hair or a passion for fast cars or… whatever) makes you more reproductive then stupidity is a positive trait.
Oh yes, Kalt, while you’re looking up those other cites, could you also provide a few which demonstrate that these “negative traits” with which you are concerned are heritable? Thanks.
I’d like to request an exception to Godwin’s Law for this thread. How else to respond to Kalt’s moronic forced sterilization and forced abortions’ manifesto…then calling it what it really is…
I’m unable to digest the rest of the post, but I think I can address this “hypocrisy”. Churches don’t receive government money because they engage in proselytizing and government funding of that would violate that whole church and state thing. Churchgoers pay for their church’s expenses.
I believe this is what Kalt is trying to get at:
Churches enjoy tax free status.
People and Corporations, in general, don’t.
For the rest of us, who do pay taxes, our tax burden would be lessened if those who have tax free status didn’t.
Those with tax free status have more surplus $$ to purchase things like gold plated fixtures for the dog house, since they’re not paying taxes (legally).
Therefore, in a sense, tax payers are subsidizing the tax free status of churches etc. (pretty similar to the same arguement used by folks who claim that any $$ given to an agency that also counsels about abortions is the same thing as paying for abortions.).
And, actually, since Mr. Bush is proposing that churchs etc. can apply for grants without worrying about that pesky SOCAS stuff, the issue is even more egrigious than before.
(by the way, I do not support the postion of paying some one to have an abortion)
I’m about as antireligious as you get, but this is a load of crap. Churches, along with most other nonprofit charitable organizations, do not pay property taxes or sales taxes. Furthermore, the property tax exemption only applies to the portion of the property being used for charitable purposes.
Church employees, just like pretty much everyone else who earns an income, pay their income taxes and FICA just like you and I do. So when you say, “For the rest of us, who do pay taxes, our tax burden would be lessened if those who have tax free status didn’t,” baloney. The tax-free status of charitable orgs doesn’t affect your income tax or FICA burden one bit.
If you’re going to rail about the tax-free status of churches, you’d better do so for the American Cancer Society and Habitat for Humanity, too. Most churches are funded entirely through the donations of their parishioners, anyway; and Deacon Fred :rolleyes: pays income tax on his salary from the church. He isn’t taking your tax money to buy Mercedes or anything else. And it’s perfectly legitimate for churchgoers, like all of us do, to gripe about things they think their income taxes are being spent on that they don’t like.
Cripes. Taking longer than we thought, indeed.
Maybe Kalt is thinking along this route, a NPO like a church can pay employees enough money that they can afford a mercedes, then maybe they are making alot more money that they need to support themselves, shoveling it into payroll may be nice but it starts to look a little self serving. Bigger Church, more donations, more money. A self employed just about anything is lucky to pay his or her bills in many cases.
I could be wrong but wasnt there something a few years back about the Mormon Church losing their NPO status due to huge church assests?
I’m exceedingly pro-choice, and I’m not a libertarian (Hi, Techie!!). However, I am against government-funded abortions for a very simple reason:
With limited exceptions where the life or health of the mother is at risk, it’s an elective procedure. Unless as noted above, having a baby doesn’t cause a woman death, disability, or a chronic medical problem. Medicare, Medicaid, etc., don’t pay for elective procedures. This is logical, as there is limited funding, and the money is needed for necessary procedures. I see no good reason why abortion should be an exception to this well-founded rule.
Sua
Is getting an abortion any more expensive than childbirth-related medical care(on average)? If not, then the net cost to the government for taxpayer-funded abortions is zero.
How many church employees have you ever met that drive a Mercedes or Lexus or BMW, that don’t also work a second Monday-thru-Friday job?
Whoops–that last one was me, not my wife.
If this is responding to me, then it’s a fair enough point. However, the same logic could mean that we don’t treat a guy on Medicaid/Medicare who’s bleeding to death in a car accident, 'cause if he survives, the cost of his treatment (again, on average) in his old age will be high.
Once a child’s born, everyone (pro-choice/pro-life) agrees he/she’s a person, and we as a society has decided we pay for necessary medical treatments for persons who can’t afford them on their own.
Sua
Guys, for Christ’s sake, please stop trying to ascribe some intelligent thought to Kalt’s posts! Kalt, you slay me. It is obvious that you haven’t looked up “eugenics” yet.
For many “church employees” it is their 9-5 M-F job! For every preacher there are at least a dozen or more support people.
Thanks Sua, for trying to get this back on track. I don’t think that the government should pay for my abortion, any more than they should pay for any elective surgical procedure. I’ll take care of it, thanks.
Oh fuck it, back to the rantings of the less enlightened-
Again, the dictionary would be helpful at this point. And as to the crack about only Dems complaining about the disenfranchisement of felons, wrong again kid. Where were the people who share your beliefs when your parents were having sex instead of doing something more constructive?!?
:rolleyes:
Wring basically summed up my theory about the tax free status of religions. The fact that religious groups don’t have to pay taxes on their profits means less tax revenue generated by the government each year, which means each dollar generated must stretch farther, which means taxes are theoretically higher than they would be if religions didn’t enjoy tax free status. And yes I know of many preachers who drive around in “lord-bought” Mercedes. Just ONE is enough to make them pay taxes IMHO.
Comparing religious groups to the American Cancer Society is a a bad analogy… religions pray on people who have cancer (give us your money and jesus will cure you and save you and when you die you’ll go to heaven), while the ACS is trying to find a cure for cancer to save their lives. Incidentally, I don’t mean to only pick on Christians…
>That’s a very good way of persuading people not to take a
>responsible attitude to sex birth control. Why use
>contraception when a ‘mistake’ earns me $100?
They don’t seem to be doing a good job of safe sex without the reward. Anyway, if abortion is really so “horrible” then there is no way $100 would be adequate consideration for going through it. Even with some nice cookies it wouldn’t encourage people to get pregnant on purpose in order to get the money/cookies. And if it did… these are the people who would be getting pregnant anyway… may as well provide them with abortions.
>Please provide an authoritative cite demonstrating that IQ
>or some other commonly-accepted measure of intelligence
>correlates negatively with frequency of births and/or
>number of offpsring. Also, do the same for any other of
>these “negative traits” (drug use, mental retardation,
>etc.) you might be thinking of.
I think you misunderstood my basic presumtion. When I said “negative traits” (plural) I was referring to the broad history of evolution. But specific to humans, I was referring simply to the trait of intelligence. Normally intelligence is a reproductive asset. The smartest of the species is most adapted to survival, and therefore gets to live longer and reproduce more. In the year 2001, it is really not very common that someone dies out of their own pure stupidity. Sure we all laugh at the “Darwin Awards,” and I do get a sense of satisfaction when some idiot kid removes himself from the gene pool by copying something he saw on “Jackass” (and burns himself to death). But for the most part, stupidity will not kill the stupid. Our society protects people too much to allow that.
Do you not agree that the dumber a person is, the smaller the chance of them using contraception (and using it properly) is? The greater the chance of them having more partners is? The greater the chance that finding someone to screw is their daily goal? The greater the chance of them not being adequate parents is?
Our society (and it may just be limited to America, although whatever our values are, we tend to impose on the rest of the world) values looks and appearance much more than intelligence. In fact, for the most part, intelligence doesn’t really mean much to the average “person looking for sex.” How hot are they? That is our #1 value. Yes, appearance IS a genetic trait… but not the way intelligence is. Anyone can go hit the gym and get a 6 pack or a tight ass… anyone can go get the “in” clothes… and anyone can get a nice haircut, etc. My point being, good looks are much easier to achieve than intelligence (which doesn’t matter that much anyway).
Can you honestly tell me the really intelligent people are having more sex/children than the really stupid people? No way. When teenage girls have posters of physics majors at Harvard on their bedroom walls… let me know (and thank me for my wonderfully effective eugenics plan!!). If you really CAN tell me that with a straight face, then I suppose we can go to the research phase.
However, I will point you to the Donohue-Levitt paper entitled “The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime.” I’ve read the paper and in my opinion, the logic is pretty tight. I’m not jumping to the conclusion that crime is a genetic trait (it’s not, in my opinion), but I think this paper will show 2 things. One, that the wrong people are having the most children. Two, abortion is good. We need more of it.
Oh yeah, EJsGirl, I am well aware of what eugenics means. One dictionary provides a nice, succinct definition: The study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding. I would change one word though… I’d change “study” to “duty”… And yes, no republican has ever complained about felons being disfranchised. The democrats are the ones going to prisons trying to sign up voters. They know where their constituency is 
As you can probably tell, I’m not much of a Republican fan either… but they don’t go “rock the vote” in San Quentin.
Okay, i admit this is not constructive and aI apologize to all but at the moment /i can only type with one hand…but I mentioned that Kalt got hit by a meteor, and in the words of Stephen King “Meteor Shit”.
When I am 90% I will be back to disputre it all, but typing one handedd sure is not easy in a debate.
I’m against my tax dollars being used on anything but national defense, law enforcement, and MAYBE infrastructure, but as long as I am living in a country where I have to pay for more than that, I am fine with government funded abortions. It’s some of the cheapest preventative medicine in the world.
If we are going to start asking for tax dollars to be withdrawn from things we have moral objections to, then I don’t think our tax dollars should be spent on welfare for the able-bodied, nor should we grant churches and other non-profit organizations any tax breaks. If they are non-profit, they have no income to tax. If they need to purchase property to do their work, the taxes on the property will be far less than the cost of the property itself, so those giving to the organization shouldn’t mind paying them that much. I don’t think tax dollars should be spend on medical research, let the pharmaceutical companies decide which diseases are worth curing. I don’t think our tax dollars should be spent on schools, the only kid I should be responsible for is my own. I don’t think tax dollars should be spent on the enforcement of drug prohibition. There are a lot of things I don’t think we should be spending tax dollars on, but I recognize that other people DO think we should spend it there, and since they pay their share too and have just as much opportunity to pick their legislators as I, I just have to accept it.
This is line is hilarious, as my new sig can attest. 
And here on the Straight Dope Message Board, we value intelligence FAAAAAAAAAAAR more than appearance. Hell, appearance doesn’t even matter here.
I disagree. While superficiality may be a prominent aspect of American society, I hardly believe it to be the #1 value. That would assume that A: the majority of Americans are like-minded, and B: the majority of Americans disregard such things as money, power, fame, sex, drugs, skill, talent, non-conformity, art, activism, or television.
You’ve got it wrong, buddy-boy… it’s the RICH people who are having more sex. Doesn’t matter if they’re stupid or smart.
Let me guess… you spend a lot of time at Starbucks, don’t you?
In case it wasn’t clear, my previous post was mostly tongue-in-cheek.
(Also, I wanted to show off my sig! :D)