I’ve backed out of this debate because I have no stomach for passive-aggression or sarcasm, nasty jabs, and particularly the one mention of spanking directed my way, but I will say for the record that I’ve found Eye Dentists’ posts enjoyable to read both for content/direction and for the complete lack of these unpleasant tactics.
Taking his points to ridiculous extremes does not make him look ridiculous or extreme except, I would imagine, to people invested in having him portrayed that way.
I had some sarcasm but over the points in my previous few posts are 100% serious. Actually, though I do like him personally and think he is a nice person, I find his statements inherently extreme.
Great point, for real, considering there are god knows how many people with fancy accolades that are now hell-bent on having America, Europe, and some parts of the Middle East slide further downhill.
I would sum up his main point in the last third of this thread as “time-honored traditions are not reliable gauges of right and wrong, as proven by the many broadly-approved changes made to these over time.”
I can’t think what there is to disagree with there, and to the point of vitriol no less.
Edit: ED, forgive me speaking for you, and feel free to correct me if I’m mistaken. I just feel it incumbent upon me to say something.
Fair enough. You could just say so, though.
Yeah, that’s about the size of it. Might add the related point that empirical questions can only be answered empirically, with science being the technique of choice for doing so.
No forgiveness (or correction) needed. I appreciate that you have taken the time to read my comments.
I agree with Emily.
It’s usually the same people who are the name callers and are sarcastic and rude. Most people know the sign of a good rhetor is to avoid such poor debate tactics.
I was one that was sarcastic, once in an aggressive way, for which I apologize, and and all other times after being called a bigot and ass.
I can’t deny that some of what is said here is infuriating though.
Although yes, I believe you employ passive-aggression in your posts and yes, I believe it a weak debate tactic, I wasn’t speaking to you or anyone else because I wasn’t looking to fight about who did what. As you rightly note, there would be no point in doing so - no one is going to change. I was only posting to say that I appreciated ED’s civility and wished there was more of it.
I don’t know whether he posts regularly in PWI, perhaps he does and is used to this. Perhaps he finds satisfaction in being one of the few posters able to hold onto civility, perhaps he is conducting some sort of study of his own and is recording each “LOL” and name-calling with glee, but just in case the derisive laughter and taunting are getting to him, I thought I’d speak up and say that his message seems clear to me and lacking in the kind of shock-value that would seem to invite these vituperative responses.
It didn’t seem important to me to call people out as conflict was not my goal, particularly with people I feel handle conflict distastefully, though I also acknowledge that punches are pulled when dealing with me, presumably due to my gender. I also have no stomach for insulting my friends, which I have done, but again, it seemed important to me to acknowledge ED’s continued courteous tone and on-point posts.
Amen. Not enough of that around here… or much of anywhere on the internet forum arena.
Despite being somewhat resourceful and a big reader and history buff in the past, I’d like to know if anyone can forgive my momentary intellectual laziness (being serious here as I usually look into things myself or ask around and take some initiative in getting information) and tell me when and how women were subjugated in American and European societies? I’m being serious here.
Not covered in the above is the franchise, the absence of which is a form of subjugation.
Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. Except it will have to be later, because I am SO behind at work.
@ “Roe v Wade “put this to bed,” made me smile a little bit. I can imagine the pro-life lobby together with the gun control lobby. Lock them in a room. There will be a cage match where they fight it out. The winner agrees to freeze time so that there would never be another law or legal battle on either issue, officially “putting them to bed.” You would win the Nobel Peace Prize if you could pull that off.
If you feel that Dems have been put in the terrible and exhausting position of always defending Roe V. Wade, then you can empathize a little bit with how the people who are always trying to defend the 2nd Amendment feel. The problem with saying a “matter has been settled” always rests with, when? And do technological advances or changes in information have to be addressed if the Constitution is a living document? For gun control, was it “put to bed” at DC vs Heller? McDonald vs Chicago? The Firearms Control and Regulation act of 1975? Or hey, the Supreme Court has ruled on Citizens United. Does that put election reform “to bed?” I think these area all excellent comparisons. I recently read that the Millennials are the most pro-life generation. That tells me that this issue won’t be “put to bed” anytime soon.
@ You won’t find these extremes in HRC or Bernie… Well, members of the House and the Senate have voted on the two abortion-related topics I mentioned in recent memory, and mostly lined up along partisan lines. In that sense, what HRC says on the campaign trail, or what Republicans say in their official party platform help us a bit, but words are usually less important than what people actual do. We can go and read or watch video of HRC’s arguments in support of Partial Birth abortion while in the Senate. We know how people in both parties actually voted fairly recently on these issue. Elizabeth Warren has taken a stance that extends elective abortion up to birth, at tax payer expense. Each person can decide if she’s extreme in her position or not.
Even for people who are accepting of Roe v. Wade as the law of the land (you and me), there will still be issues that will arise related to methods, technology, or scientific advances in what we know about the fetus since 1973. Some of us, on both sides of the aisle, may be concerned with negative unintended consequences over 40 years later while some people will resist ANY change at all, and will defend any abortion-related topic. For the most part, these things have only shifted practice in relatively small ways. For example, the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (which bans a particular late-term procedure except when necessary to save the life of the mother), or The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (killed in the Senate in 2015), which attempted to move the accepted gestational age for termination to 20 weeks post fertilization, in light of scientific testimony regarding fetal pain at the time of termination. We have nearly one million abortions per year in the US, and it’s unlikely that either of these things even if passed would effect that very much, if at all.
We see the same thing with 2nd amendment arguments regarding modern technology like semi-automatic weapons or larger clips that weren’t around in the days of the musket, for example. Both the pro-life lobby and the gun control lobby will continue to use those types of things - technological advances, changes in practice, negative effects of society, rates of gun violence - as places to either dig in and defend, or to attempt to chip away at current law to shift policy in their direction. That’s all just part of the process. If there’s a better option, I don’t know what it is.
On a more hopeful note, 70 percent of women in the U.S. object to abortion past the fifth month. Between 55 and 60 percent of Americans say Roe v Wade should not be overturned. In 2003, 68 percent of Americans agreed that Partial Birth abortion should be illegal, except to save the life of the mother, putting HRC’s position in the minority. Around 90 percent of Americans support universal background checks for gun owners. In other words, when you really get down to some of the details of what people think, big swaths of people from both parties overlap quite a bit on the big issues. Party positions are often extreme for moderates on both sides, and remember, we have 42% of Americans who consider themselves independent, a group that may soon grow by one as I consider becoming politically disaffiliated for now.
I did change my mind, actually. I was concerned about safety, and the idea of effectively eliminating gender separate facilities, and decided that IMO, the NC type laws weren’t going to have much if any effect. I still think it’s bigger than The Civil Rights Act or Title IX, and LGBT rights will have to be addressed in a more specific way.
I actually can’t, because the 2A is not being systematically degraded in any way, shape or form–certainly nothing like the right to an abortion. For instance, there are no gun-store TRAP laws being passed by statehouse legislatures. (When multiple states have successfully legislated themselves down to literally a single gun shop, we’ll talk about comparing the assault on abortion rights to the ‘assault’ on gun rights.) 2A extremists like to wave the bloody shirt and sound the alarm, but the truth is, in light of the Heller decision, gun rights in the modern era have never been more solid than they are right now.
Citation, please.
This is true. Most of us would like to live in the pragmatic (dare I say common sense? 
) middle.
She is co-sponsor of S.217
https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/217/text
I’m not a lawyer, nor an expert on this topic, but pro-life people are calling s.217 the “Women’s Health Protection Act,” “Roe v. Wade on steroids.” I won’t link to them, but you can search for Elizabeth Warren Abortion S217. The concern is that it will effectively make elective abortions up to birth legal because “maternal health” can be something as simple as telling your Planned Parenthood doc that you have anxiety. The pro-life people are calling it the “Abortions Without Limits Act.”
From a Pro-life group so you can decide if this is an accurate statement or not.
S. 217, formally titled the “Women’s Health Protection Act,” was introduced by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct.) with strong support from the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, NARAL, and other pro-abortion activist groups. A more accurate title for this radical bill would be the “Abortion Without Limits Until Birth Act.” The bill, if enacted and upheld by the federal courts, would invalidate nearly all state limitations on abortion, including waiting periods and women’s right-to-know laws. For example, it would invalidate laws recently enacted by 10 states to protect pain-capable unborn children after 20 weeks fetal age – and would require all states to allow abortion even during the final three months of pregnancy based on an abortionist’s claim of “health” benefits, including psychological health. It would also invalidate nearly all existing federal limits on abortion. The House companion bill is H.R. 448.
I know a number of abortion providers, and I can assure you, none would abort a term fetus simply because the birth mother said ‘I have anxiety.’ These doctors are people, with children of their own–they’re not cold-blooded monsters capable of such callous, unethical action. (On the other hand, and for the right price, a backroom, illegal abortionist may have no such qualms.) So I have to say, I think those anti-abortion groups are overhyping the worst-case scenario in an effort to ‘motivate the troops.’
I have asked the Magic Google Box several times for a statement concerning Warren’s personal views on abortion, but have yet to come up with anything definitive.