DOJ to investigate Google for being too innovative with Google Books. I guess the theory is that it’s better to have no searchable online archive of books at all than to allow the company that came up with the idea to have a contractual monopoly.
Laid off Chicago Tribune reporter wins journalism award, only to have the paper that fired her snatch it out from under her.
This has basically been my position on the abortion issue for years. And once you buy into the idea that there are gradients of life with corresponding gradients of protection, it only makes sense to adopt a federalist position on the issue, allowing localities to formulate policies that reflect local values.
Daniel Larison says torture and war are really the only positions on the right that can’t be compromised. That sounds about right. Sorta’ like abortion rights with the left.
This is either an elaborate, funny hoax, or even funnier unintentional humor.
Only one niche part of the music industry is actually growing. Can you guess what it is? You might be surprised.
The flyover flap gets more infuriating by the day. I’m prepared to believe Obama when he says his office wasn’t informed of it. That said, if that’s the case, someone needs to be fired. This guy would seem to be the leading candidate.
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TheAgitator.com
I wondered when they would start to go “Microsoft” on Google. It’s too big, too successful, and too independent from government “assistance.”
Those reporters have my sympathy. Three years ago, I was laid off from a job, the day after the company I worked for, was awarded patents, on an idea that I had. I am currently fighting them now over a patent that I have applied for and that they think that they own.
From what I’ve heard, the head of the FAA is being set up to take the fall for this. At least if you listen to Biden’s rant about him being a foul up appointed by Bush.
OMG! I’m so calling LOL internet consultants! I need a bright ass green header with ridiculous graphics on MY web site!
the big thing I miss about vinyl and cd’s is the liner notes.
I HATE abortion articles, but this one was pretty good.
The abortion thing – exactly what is wrong with the idea that states’ rights can trump the federal constitution. Either we have a republic where rights are respected, or we do not. It can’t be up to “local values” (i.e, local tyranny) to set this. So, fundamentally, it has to be resolved whether an unborn baby has rights, or not, objectively, and the protection of those rights (or those of the mother, an already-existing independent human being, ahem) needs to be the law of the land.
Obama flyover – you’re prepared to believe this guy? Sorry, but I have to disagree on that; I’ve seen zero evidence of Obama having any integrity from the day he popped on the radar, end of story.
Vinyl – interesting but I think it’s just a hipster fad kind of deal. Ironically, I was in the vinyl-is-better-than-CD camp for some time, but with the right equipment (good d/a converter is key it turns out) it’s not the case, Nyquist limit notwithstanding. I think the main thing here is people not knowing how good CD is (esp with variability in pressing/mastering quality, note that aging presses is mentioned as issue) and going from MP3 (sucks) to vinyl (very good, CD comparable given the right gear AND high-quality virgin, properly-mastered/pressed vinyl) is eye-opening. I think this will die out once uncompressed (and higher quality, i.e. 24/96+) downloadable files become more standardized (FLAC seems to be gaining a bit of traction in this regard).
Er, I meant lossless compression, not “uncompressed.”
“The flyover — apparently ordered by the White House Office of Military Affairs so it would have souvenir photos of Air Force One with the Statue of Liberty in the background”
It’s called ‘Photoshop’, assholes.
lolworld.com – for all your interweb needs – if it were 1994
I believe in abortion up until the eighteenth year after birth. I think such a policy would provide parents with the leverage they need to more effectively manage disciplinary issues.
Two comments re: flyover
1. I’m getting increasingly annoyed at how government officials (and some media outlets) are acting like the authorization of the flyover photo op itself was the scandal. That was just a big, stupid waste of money.
The scandal is the extreme measures that were taken to keep the public (and even other local & federal officials) in the dark about it. For what conceivable reason should a photo op be classified?
2. If I’m remembering correctly (I can’t find it now, so maybe I’m mistaken) early reports about the flyover contained outright false explanations by government officials, before they ultimately admitted that the entire thing was a photo op.
If this is true, whoever authorized the statement, whether it was a low level PR flack or some high white house official, should be immediately fired. When the government does something stupid, it is NEVER an acceptable reaction to try to cover it up with lies.
Please. Google didn’t “come up with” the idea. It’s been a dream of basically anyone who 1) knows how the internet works; 2) has read a book. The only reason it’s Google doing it is that 1) they have kajillion dollars; and 2) they aren’t old enough to have adopted conservative strategies with their money.
Make no mistake. I am so far agnostic on this extremely complicated issue. However, it’s interesting to me that so many people, when defending patents &c. say that Google or Microsoft or whoever was the “first to come up with the idea”, when it’s demonstrably false and a priori ridiculous. It’s a modern myth that patents protect the “prime originator” of an original thought, with about as much factual support as any other religion.
I personally have been getting into vinyl as of late because I cant seem to find anyone I like on cd at the major CD outlets. Since I have gotten into vinyl I have found so much stuff I thought I would never find, which has only led to awesome discoveries of artists I dont think I would have otherwise stumbled upon.
I think the LOLworld site is a spoof. I seem to remember Anonymous of 4chan fame waging a war against that lady through a different webpage some time ago. Could be wrong, though.
Personally, I don’t see how you can define life as beginning after a certain time or when the fetus becomes viable or at a certain point in development. There are just two states: the baby inside the mother and the baby outside the mother.
I think the state’s responsibility to the baby begins at birth and before that its responsibility is to the mother. The baby is not conscious of its own existence before it’s born (nor for that matter for sometime after its born) and has no concept of death. It doesn’t feel any different of it’s aborted at nine weeks or nine months.
I know that runs counter to popular lore about how the fetus responds to music and singing and therefore must be alive enough to actually sense its impending doom and later to bear witness against mom on judgment day.
In other words, we’re splitting hairs. Aside from the religious zealots who believe it’s their right to tell everyone else how to live their lives, this is like trying to get everyone to agree on what color the “flesh” crayon should be.
If making abortion a local issue instead of a national issue is a step in the right direction, then making it local all the way down to the individual is even better.
“Only one niche part of the music industry is actually growing. Can you guess what it is? You might be surprised. “
I’m hoping that’s what happens with film.
I find it ludicrous that people think that Obama would be approving or disapproving the use of an air force plane for photo ops. That being said the person who did approve it deserves to be removed because this was just astoundingly bad judgment.
re: lolworld
The domain was originally registered in 1996 and created with Frontpage 3.0 – its reasonable that this was put out there long ago and completely forgotten about.
I do NOT want a cheetah running me down and attacking me every time I want to post pictures of my vacation! What is wrong with LOL Consulting?
I believe the abortion issue is the universe saying “Fuck you!” to about 99% of the population. Oh geesh, is this an abortion post by Radley? Will now wait for the 200 comments. Radley, you sly traffic-generating dog!
#14 – Dave Krueger
this is like trying to get everyone to agree on what color the “flesh” crayon should be.
There is no controversy there. Everyone knows it’s peach.
I’m not sure I agree with your complaint about the DoJ investigating the Google settlement. That settlement looked awfully problematic to me, from a libertarian standpoint; my understanding is that it involves the Author’s Guild granting Google exclusive access to publishing rights owned by third parties (namely, the authors of orphaned books), such that those authors could not, at some later date, make those books available online in a way they preferred, even though they were never participants to the settlement. I may not understand it correctly, and perhaps Google is doing the best they can in the face of problematic copyright law, but this still seems like a spot where the government actually should be involved. (As is typical, the government should be involved in cleaning up a mess it created in the first place, but still.)
#14, #19:
I think the “flesh” colored crayon is universally understood (red?). Perhaps you were thinking of “skin”….
@#20, Henry,
Exactly. Google got this strange exclusive blanket award for owning all books using strange laws and logic. They don’t really have a right to be the sole owner to begin with. If the DOJ wants to investigate this, they should investigate it because somehow a guild has exclusive ownership over books their members didn’t write and then sold said rights to google exclusively forever.
Kind of how the Indians not living on Manhattan island “sold” the island to the white people for a bunch of beads. The entire thing stinks.
Point #1: Abortion.
I don’t believe in abortion, but I believe everyone should have the freedom to decide, on their own, whether or not to have one. I believe that it should be a two-parent decision, if the father is known, because it took both of them to create the fetus.
Also, as long as the fetus cannot live on it’s own (without help from machines to either breath, for example), it’s not a person, it’s a parasite.
Point #2: Fly-over
I don’t get what the big deal is. So a plane flew over NY, so what? That people are dumb enough to panic is a different story. I understand the secrecy as you don’t want to let the public know that Air Force One (or the back up to it) is going to be in X place at Y time because it gives those who’d love nothing more than to blow it up a place and time where to be. It’s a symbol of America and, as such, was being protected.
That said, they probably should’ve told the authorities that a plane would be flying by, just don’t tell them what plane.
“re: lolworld
The domain was originally registered in 1996 and created with Frontpage 3.0 – its reasonable that this was put out there long ago and completely forgotten about.”
Well, it had to have been updated in this century because it references Windows XP, which was released (I believe) in October, 2001.
well, it looks like the “Author’s Guild” is doing it’s level best to get in line behind the RIAA as the pariahs of the digital age.
Hey assholes! The Dark Ages are over!
In this day and age, what with birth control and the morning after pill, I really can’t see how abortion can be justified. Throw in the fact that as the father I would have no say regarding this procedure. But of course if the woman decided “She” wanted the baby, I would be required to pay child support for 18-21 years. And for the record, I am a full time single father of three lovely young ladies, and I’m very much for their rights.
I was going to make a clever comment on abortion, but I remembered it is pointless. So, short version: Its none of your fucking business!
This is exactly what the Wayback Machine is for!
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://lolworld.com
First archived version in Feb 97, with muliple redesigns over the next six years. Current layout virtually unchanged since Mar 2003.
Not a spoof. Genuine unintentional hilarity.
@Henry(#20) and @Omar (#22): You both have good points…but times being what they are, the opportunity to shout “Directive 10-289!” is just too tempting to pass up. :-)
#14 @ Dave: I’ve been meaning to tell you for some time how much I value your contributions. You totally get it!
#27 @ Zeb: Yours is pretty damn good too.
Radley, I am deeply disappointed.
“And once you buy into the idea that there are gradients of life with corresponding gradients of protection, it only makes sense to adopt a federalist position on the issue, allowing localities to formulate policies that reflect local values. ”
You can make the same argument for torture.
If you happen to be into the Grateful Dead, you’d know that FLAC is has been THE choice for high quality lossless audio for almost ten years. In 2001 (I think) the remaining members of the Dead asked fans to stop trading in MP3s due to the fact that they had serious problems with sound quality, especially after 2-3 re-recordings.
And a 90 year old is typically far less physically and mentally fit than a typical child in their late pre-teen years. Yet society is unwilling to admit that if you are going to use the sliding scale of physical development to determine when an organism starts to become human, you have to acknowledge the other side of the issue which is that after the biological peak of the organism, its body begins to deteriorate to the point that it is functionally indistinguishable to society in value to a zygote. In fact, one could make a better case for the intrinsic worth of a 1 week old zygote under the development-based definition of human life than most old people who need a cocktail of pills to keep them from keeling over.
*cue the emotion-based responses from people who support abortion rights*
Why not stick with what you know, which is that you don’t feel any different about the matter, one way or another. There no reason other than willful blindness to suppose the fetus wouldn’t.
I don’t know about response to music, but it certainly runs counter to the “lore about how” a nine-month fetus is generally — including neurologically — developed enough for life outside the womb and a nine-week one is not.
Neither are most retards. Therefore every parent should have the right to give them a lethal injection or shoot them in the back of the head the moment they get tired of supporting them. Fucking mooches, those severely retarded kids who are no more sentient than a dog.
So, I’m curious, Dave. If a baby were grown to full maturity in an artificial womb, and just at the point of being ready to enter the world, would you support the parents’ “right” to open up the artificial womb and kill it while it is still technically “in the womb?”
I guess by some magic, a 9 month old suddenly becomes a human being with basic rights based not just on its state of development, but based on its position in space. Hitler should have hired you as a philosopher, since you’re the first person I’ve encountered who can argue with a straight face as that less than moving a child 2 feet in any direction at 9 months is the difference between it being a human being with a right to life, and a thing that is entirely at the mercy of its creator (can’t call her a mother now can we).
Nando,
People panicked because they have lived through 2 terrorist attacks in that area since 1993. When a plane followed by fighter jets flies close enough to rattle windows and shake buildings in lower Manhattan, it’s time to freak the fuck out.
Will,
Abortion isn’t always that simple. In this day and age, people still rape their daughters. To be less dramatic, cuts in funding for birth control and promotion of ‘abstinence only’ education have raised rates of teen pregnancy. But don’t worry, while your only punishment would be sending a check each month (for which I truly feel bad) the woman has to actually raise the child – a much harder job. It’s a good punishment for sluts who didn’t get the pill ahead of time.
Why don’t you take a moment and tell your three girls about condoms this evening? Because boys have to be responsible, too, and you only mention the pill.
Planes fly over my house every day and I don’t freak out (I live right by the Pentagon so I have just as much right to freak out as those in NY and was leaving my house when the plane hit the Pentagon).
As for abortion, like I said before, I don’t like it and I don’t condone it, but I will not oppose others from doing it. I also believe it should be a federalist issue where local communities (or, in this case, each State) make their own judgement.
On the contrary: I oppose abortion precisely because I don’t know, and can’t say, when life begins.
I had to read all the comments, only to find the KBCraig making basically the point I was going to make right before me. The one thing that I find missing in the abortion debate is that there’s no such thing, really, as a first trimester – until after the baby is born. Every pregnancy is different, every baby devleops differently…and many times you don’t even know when conception happened. So the dividing line between the first and second trimesters is different in every pregnancy – and worse, unknowable.
So if you believe that (which I do), then it’s really hard to get comfortable with abortion at any point…because the question of when life begins – even after conception – is impossible to know.
having said that…federalism’s the way to go.
“A federalist approach wouldn’t minimize the stakes for either side. But it would recognize how important the issues are to both sides by allowing as many people as possible to live under an abortion policy that best reflects their own values” — Radley Balko
No, that would be accomplished by leaving abortion to the sole discretion of the prospective mother: then each person really would live under the abortion policy that best reflected her own values: the one dictated by her own conscience.
Unless, of course, you also count the values of the unborn whatchamacallit — but it doesn’t get to choose in what state its host lives, anyway.
Are you counting others in the community who are not involved in the decision? You might then as well use the same justification for any intrusion on private choice: “Why should I have to live in a place where my gay neighbors are free to cornhole one another in the privacy of their own home when I believe that’s an Abomination before The Lord?” Giving credence to the moral outrage of third parties opens the door to unlimited tyranny of the majority. Mere proximity, absent demonstrable impact on security, liberty or even the peace and character of the neighborhood, cannot be a basis for imposition into otherwise private matters.
Abortion does not cause a social problem (unlike, say, murder, rape or even shoplifting). When the morality of an issue is controversial and its social footprint is negligible outside of its effect on those directly involved, then the decision is rightly left to those directly involved. End of story.
First of all, you don’t have a clue what I can argue with a straight face, but aside from that, I didn’t make the argument that moving the fetus by two feet constitutes any change in status at all, so drop the straw man and the insults.
The difference between being born and not being born is that the baby is parasitically occupying someone else’s body up until it’s born. You can consider that an immaterial factor if you want, but giving birth is a hell of a lot more of an event than simply moving the “child” two feet in space.
Given your obvious inability to grasp the above distinction, I won’t even bother with your proposed artificial womb scenario.
As a Philip K. Dick fan, I have to point out that he coined the term “pre-persons” in a short story (“The Pre-Persons”) written in 1974 from a decidedly anti-abortion point of view.
If we are going to discuss the idea of drawing a line, he deserves credit for the basic idea, no matter which side you agree with.
(and I am not certain that the views expressed were definitely his, he just was carrying certain attitudes to their logical conclusion within the dramatic confines of a story.)
The flyover was stupid, but my understanding is that the authorities were notified in NYC, but that notification didn’t go to the mayor or the public. So, fire whoever at the White House made the call, certainly, but I’d be more peeved at the NYC officials who apparently agreed that this was a just peachy idea.
As for abortion – I agree with the gist of some of the comments above – either the fetus has rights that trump the mother’s rights, or it doesn’t (for the record, it doesn’t). Saying let the locals make policy on the subject seems like a cop out to me.
If you want a rational place to draw the line, abortion should be legal until the fetus develops the brainwaves that separate us from lower animals. Seems logical to me.
Planes fly over my house every day and I don’t freak out (I live right by the Pentagon so I have just as much right to freak out as those in NY and was leaving my house when the plane hit the Pentagon).
Planes fly around NYC all the time too. The point was that the plane was flying very low, close to the site of the WTC, with an escort of two fighter jets.
I don’t know why it didn’t quote the first paragraph in my last post, but I was quoting #38.
You have an annoying habit of refuting arguments no one has made. There is nothing in my statement that suggests it’s ok to kill anyone based on the state of their mental or physical development. I’d elaborate, but I suspect you would simply continue with the same lame strategy making further debate pointless.
#19 | Danno49 | April 29th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
#14 – Dave Krueger
this is like trying to get everyone to agree on what color the “flesh” crayon should be.
—-
There is no controversy there. Everyone knows it’s peach.
—-
I’m gonna go with “honkey flaccid penis”
#23 Nando said: Point #2: Fly-over
I don’t get what the big deal is.
—-
Um, non-military-looking (airliner) type planes are not usually escorted by fighters. Seeing this without knowing what was going on would make me think SOME shit was going down (disturbance on the plane and for some reason pilot requested escort, at minimum).
#32 | Ben | April 29th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
(FLAC seems to be gaining a bit of traction in this regard).
If you happen to be into the Grateful Dead, you’d know that FLAC is has been THE choice for high quality lossless audio for almost ten years.
—-
Heh, I’m not so I guess I’m late to the FLAC party. I actually only know about it because of some folks on a Rush board doing a “remastering” of a pretty-poor-sound-quality cd, and providing me with the files in FLAC format – so I had to learn how to get that to CD so I could check it out. Not to say I don’t -like- the Dead, but to say I’m -into- them would be a stretch. The Orb, on the other hand (touring USA next coupla months, woot at the kids say).
Touché. Well, it’s not like we can ask one, is it? Let’s just say that if the fetus were conscious, was self-aware, and understood the concept of death, I doubt that it would be particularly thrilled with the prospect of abortion at nine weeks or nine months. But they’re not. If you’re talking about their capacity to sense pain, then I would agree with you, except it’s still not an abortion issue. It’s a pain issue.
By making abortion illegal after the first three months, you’re just telling the mother, “Ah-ha! Too late. You should have aborted before the state-assigned expiration date” and that’s really about all you’re accomplishing.
I don’t see the moral superiority of deciding to terminate the life of a fetus that could go to term over one that is approaching term.
The best way to prevent abortion, isn’t to outlaw it. It’s to make birth control easier.
FLAC is also a pain in the ass with HUGE files. Let me know when the compression gets down to MP3-sized files. I’m not such an audiophile that I’m able to tell the difference anyway.
Sadly, I’m old enough to remember that debate and you’re absolutely right. It’s amazing to me what long ago historical events become a part of my instant recall when I can’t even remember what I ate for breakfast. :)
The abortion article was good. But I am still of the firm belief that women have the choice of whether or not to have sex, “safe” or not.
Basically, what is the only cause of pregnancy? Sex. Sex causes pregnancy. Now, there are ways to reduce the chances of pregnancy, but the only way to prevent them altogether is to never have sex. Therefore, any sexual intercourse should be seen as a risky choice, but a free choice nonetheless. Hell, even if you properly use a condom, the thing prevents pregnancies 98% of the time. For those out there that know anything about statistics, that’s pretty damn good odds that the condom isn’t going to prevent anything. So, with this knowledge, how can you say that the mother has a choice then to have sex, and then have the choice AGAIN whether or not to keep the baby? Regardless of whether the baby is “human” or not, the woman had her choice and took her risk. In the case of rape, I don’t believe that one “evil” deserves another. They steal something from you, but you permanently steal something from that baby. Regardless of the expected standard of living of any child, people without the means are still going to keep having kids. Such is life and the human condition.
I think the comments here on the abortion article are making the author’s point for him.
Dave @ #52:
Painful struggle unto gruesome death is a real and readily observable component of later-term abortions. Arbitrary and unsupportable allegations like your “The baby is not conscious of its own existence before it’s born” don’t change that fact.
I don’t either, but earlier is at least more merciful to the victim.
It isn’t to deny the brutal truth about it either.
How does the author get “most” out of that? 31% think abortion is NOT “taking of a human life”. Presumably they think it should be legal. That leaves only 41% of the people who think it should be legal AND think it is the taking of a human life.
In general, it’s all in the wording. Consider the haploid phase of our species. A sperm is human (it’s not something else) and it’s alive (for 36 hours or so) – that does not lead to “Every sperm is sacred”.
Mike T at #33:
Try to find a malpractice attorney to take a case of someone old who died of a completely avoidable medical error, and keep hearing “You’re right, but the damages would be too small for it to be worthwhile for our firm” and you’ll find just how willing society is to admit this.
Trust me, if it were a law involving your penis, you wouldn’t be so wishy-washy. Also.
Ah, the abortion debate.
Hey, I’m all for federalism, but really what worries me is creating a black market for products and services that people are going to demand and consume anyway…regardless of the law. So why not just let the market determine whether or not abortion services are offered in a particular locality…rather than introducing a gaggle of laws…government interference is still interference, and banning products in demand will still create a black market. So, rather than leaving it up to the “tyranny of the local majority” (what if I’m of a particular religion that happens to believe differently than the majority religious affiliation of my community)…why not just consider it a simple “supply and demand” scenario. If a local community is against abortion services, most likely there will be no services in that area…rather than having all these people vote and make a law, why not vote with the wallet. Seriously, I don’t want my neighbor telling me what services and products and can and can’t consume. That goes for drugs, prostitution and guns too. I mean some people would like to ban guns in certain local communities, and some have essentially succeeded in doing so…in these communities some people believe that “guns=murder”…Where I live it is virtually impossible for me to get a gun, unfortunately I am in the minority here in believing that if I want to go buy a gun, say for self protection (I’ve been home invaded several times), then I should damn well be able to. All these laws seem to do is create another bigger problem, i.e. all the criminals have guns, and law abiding citizens have no right to self-protection. So I know to some it might sound callous phrasing abortion as a simple “supply and demand” equation…but in many ways, I think that’s what it comes down to. No doubt if say the state of Texas voted on an abortion ban, that it would create an immediate black market for abortion services (consider Texas has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy)…I’m sure most libertarians would agree that black markets are definitely undesirable, especially with products or services that people are going to obtain no matter what “laws” are in place (drugs, prostitution, etc.).
And yes, that flyover frap is just absurd. Still, someone needs to loose their job over this. I live in NYC, and was here on 9/11, so, I don’t think a simple “oops, we messed up, sorry” is going to cut it…way to go retraumatizing an entire neighborhood (u idiots).
“Hey, I’m all for federalism, but really what worries me is creating a black market for products and services that people are going to demand and consume anyway…regardless of the law. So why not just let the market determine whether or not abortion services are offered in a particular locality…rather than introducing a gaggle of laws…government interference is still interference, and banning products in demand will still create a black market.”
I’d love it if I didn’t have a mother in law, and there’s a legal way and a not-so-legal way for that. The illegal way is really just a black market… there’s a demand… so let’s satiate that demand even if it harms somebody else? You are completely assuming that the thing in her uterus is nothing even remotely human.
“Trust me, if it were a law involving your penis, you wouldn’t be so wishy-washy. Also.”
Haha, I laughed, but that’s a fair analogy. Imagine if all the nuts all around you believed “every sperm is sacred” and then made a law where most everything from blowjobs to masturbation was illegal…basically only “baby making sex” is legal, (and I suppose lesbian sex since no sperm are wasted). But, man, that would suck…except the lesbian sex.
okay, so it was partly an excuse to throw in the monty python reference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kJHQpvgB8
“You are completely assuming that the thing in her uterus is nothing even remotely human.”
No, I’m assuming that people are going to have abortions anyways, whether you want them to or not.
“…why not just consider it a simple “supply and demand” scenario.”
Ah, spoken like someone without a uterus. Basic rights — including the right to control what happens in YOUR body –– should not be determined by the laws of supply and demand or any other laws. This is Libertarianism 101.
Yeah, I know you’re pretty much on my side, but the reduction of basic civil rights to market forces still rankles.
It’s been fun watching you folks argue amongst yourselves for a change. If anyone is conducting a poll, I’m pro-choice but believe it should be up to the states to regulate. I find it odd that a teenager in my state can’t get her ears pierced without parental consent but she can have an abortion.
Nic, I think what you missed in the statement “You are assuming that the thing in her uterus is nothing even remotely human” is that we are assuming that Danny’s mother-in-law is human, and therefore that she is protected by law from being killed. In other words, if there is a distinction between the market for abortion and the market for assassination, the difference is in whether or not the fetus is human. Or can you make some other distinction?
Judas, I understand your point about a “basic civil right” not being subject to the market, but are you saying that if no one is willing to provide abortions in a particular part of the country, then someone should be forced to, or that the government should provide this “basic civil right” by opening an abortion clinic?
“This has basically been my position on the abortion issue for years. And once you buy into the idea that there are gradients of life with corresponding gradients of protection, it only makes sense to adopt a federalist position on the issue, allowing localities to formulate policies that reflect local values.”
And once you buy into the idea that it makes sense to allow localities to formulate policies that reflect local values, it only makes sense to reduce the level of control further to the individual level.
Come over to the anarchist side, Radley!
There are two important distinctions. One is that a stable, cohesive social order depends on people not engaging in assassination at will; the other is that laws against assassination are not to any degree controversial. Neither of these are true of abortion.
Whatever personal beliefs one might hold, moral questions regarding abortion are not answerable on any basis consistent throughout our society; furthermore, there is no reason to believe that society needs to suppress abortion in order to function effectively. Those two facts markedly differentiate abortion from murder.
“Hey, I’m all for federalism, but really what worries me is creating a black market for products and services that people are going to demand and consume anyway…regardless of the law.”
Well, if you outlaw murder, or slaving, or whatever, you’re just going to drive consumers of those services into the black market. Since people are going to demand and consume them, anyway.
And yes, I DO think “but people will still do drugs anyway” is an incredibly bad argument against prohibition. And “they’ll just have sex anyway” is a bad argument against abstinence education. And so on.
“Nic, I think what you missed in the statement “You are assuming that the thing in her uterus is nothing even remotely human” is that we are assuming that Danny’s mother-in-law is human, and therefore that she is protected by law from being killed.”
I can assure you that she is not human. So, anybody know of any good businesses for my problem*?
*Of course I’m kidding. It’s quite easy to ignore somebody instead of permanently getting rid of “the problem”.
I’ll take one more stab at the abortion thing.
For me it’s not about the definition of “when life begins”, or religion, or having a soul, or even that it’s a poor defenseless “child”. My complaint, as always, is with the state using a social controversy as leverage to interject itself into territory where it has no business. It’s no surprise that each side wants the government to impose their “solution” on everyone, which is, of course, how government usually winds up controlling everything. I think permitting abortions only part way through a pregnancy is nothing more than an expedient compromise on the part of the courts to try and placate the two warring sides. It’s basis in moral argument is weak at best.
A woman should be sovereign over her own body. I don’t believe that’s politically negotiable or a matter for a vote of the people (locally or nationally). It’s not a privilege that the Supreme Court can tinker with according to prevailing social and religious trends. If a woman gets pregnant, she doesn’t suddenly lose that sovereignty and become livestock in the state baby farm where all aspects of her behavior that may or may not affect the welfare of the fetus are subject to state oversight and management. The baby acquires the status of citizen when it leaves the woman’s body alive at the woman’s prerogative. Granting citizen status to the baby before it’s born makes the mother its slave (and the state’s slave by extension). Concern over pain is noble, but if pain is the issue, it can be addressed without forcing the woman to surrender authority over her body to the state. I’m not advocating late term abortion nor am I condoning irresponsible behavior. I’m simply saying that not all the world’s wrongs can be magically righted by passing a new law. Criminalization should be reserved for actions that most people agree are crimes, not for something where a third think it’s a crime, a third think its not, and a third don’t give a shit. And, yes, it does matter that women will get abortions whether it’s legal or not.
Given the comments, I suppose it’s necessary to point out the obvious, to the disappointment of some, that the above reasoning does not rationalize executing old people and “retards”. Nor have I addressed artificial wombs, space babies, or those conceived and/or grown in petri dishes where gray complected, white-coated, sunken-faced, scientists grab their heads, look to the heavens, and gasp, “It’s alive!, It’s ALIVE!”
“Criminalization should be reserved for actions that most people agree are crimes, not for something where a third think it’s a crime, a third think its not, and a third don’t give a shit. And, yes, it does matter that women will get abortions whether it’s legal or not.”
Ah, so criminalization is all about popularity. And high demand is all it takes to justify it. Got it.
#41 | Coises | April 29th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Excellent post.
Kudos to you.
#72 | Dave Krueger | April 30th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Same to you – Excellent post as well.
#69: “There are two important distinctions. One is that a stable, cohesive social order depends on people not engaging in assassination at will; the other is that laws against assassination are not to any degree controversial. Neither of these are true of abortion.”
I could imagine a pretty stable, cohesive social order that incorporates assassination. I’m sure some pretty good speculative fiction writers have beaten me to it. Does you really mean to say that if you agreed that murder didn’t interfere with stability and cohesiveness, you wouldn’t mind it being legal? I’ve always had a problem with it based on the idea that it’s simply wrong to murder someone.
I could also imagine the “stable, cohesive social order” argument being used in order to impose all sorts of statist restrictions. Oh, wait, I don’t have to; it’s already trotted out as an excuse for all kinds of controls. I would consider the phrase “stable, cohesive social order” vague enough to be meaningless.
Controversy should not determine whether or not something should be legal; rights should. Slavery was literally split-the-country-in-half controversial. Women’s suffrage was controversial. Clearly we should’ve left well enough alone in support of the status quo, rather than deal with all that controversy.
In a manner of speaking, yes. That’s pretty much how democracy works.
I think there are many distinctions between abortion and assassination, not the least of which is the fact that the person being assassinated usually isn’t occupying the body of the assassin.
Another distinction is that there is no question that the target of assassination has already passed through the window wherein he is universally counted as a person.
If you believe personhood begins at conception, then the murder argument can be applied to abortion at any time during pregnancy. But someone who believes that personhood does not happen immediately at conception is not going to buy into the murder argument so easily.
In the end, it’s not a murder issue. It’s an issue about when a person acquires the right to life. If you win the argument that the right to life begins at conception or at some arbitrary milestone during pregnancy, then you won’t have much trouble convincing someone that abortion is murder after that point.
Like it or not, rights are defined by government. They make the laws and they interpret the Constitution. Government is influenced by popular opinion. If the overwhelming majority of people believed that life begins at conception, abortion would be illegal. But, the split and resulting controversy ensures that government will compromise, giving us a solution that continues to satisfy no one and is almost nonsensical under close scrutiny.
Never mind what abortion is or isn’t, or whether the lives it ends warrant your concern, but God forbid that government be left to tell us what rights are and which ones we may have.
I don’t think government answers to god. Nor do I for that matter.
As I said immediately after the sentence you quoted, “They make the laws and they interpret the Constitution. Government is influenced by popular opinion.”
The nine people on the Supreme Court are always telling us what our rights are. I personally think they very often get it wrong and I think most everyone thinks that as well, but for different reasons. I don’t think the wording of the Bill of Rights (which is also a product of government) is high on their list of significant factors influencing their decisions.
Who do you believe defines our rights? God? The Majority? You?
Dave,
I always appreciate your posts, including the sarcastic ones that get downmodded by people who don’t get the irony.
But…
You can’t simultaneously say that rights are defined by government, and then that you personally think that the Supreme Court often gets it wrong. If government is the source of rights, then whatever the Court decides defines those rights. If you believe that they can, let alone actually do, “get it wrong”, then you believe that the source of rights lies outside of government, whether it is within nature, the individual, or God.
If rights are derived solely from government, then the tyranny of the Soviet Union or Communist China was or is every bit as legitimate as our own system, because the government has the power to define the citizens’ rights down to nothing.
On the abortion issue, I agree with you that the issue will remain contentious because it is, indeed, really the question of what defines human life, and that is an emotional and philosophical question which may only get more complicated in the future as science advances, rather than less.
This may sound like I’m splitting hairs, but when I say the Supreme Court or the government “tells us” or “defines” what our rights are, I don’t mean that they are the source of our rights. Just that they have taken on the job of interpreting the Constitution which is, as far as I’m concerned, the master document that spells out our rights in the U.S. (including those not spelled out — if that makes any sense).
When I say they get it wrong, I’m simply saying they have interpreted the document incorrectly (often blatantly so). They are limited in their interpretation only to what they can get away with and the American Public lets them get away with a lot. A lot more than the framers ever intended, in my estimation.
The real source of our rights is us, but only if we choose to exercise the power rather than delegate it. That’s what makes freedom such hard work.
Nature. At least, our individual rights are intrinsic to and determined by our nature as human beings and they take precedence over such social arrangements as governments. I raised my objection to the notion that they – our rights – are justly the government’s to decree, emend and apportion as it likes.
But I note your clarification in your reply to Bill that you didn’t mean that government is the source of our rights and I agree in essence that government interprets (and misinterprets and often ignores) our rights in the making and interpretation (and enforcement) of laws.
I can’t, however, agree that the Constitution is or was intended to be “the master document that spells out our rights in the U.S.” On the contrary, its ninth amendment specifically states: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
I did not mean to say that the Bill of Rights lists all of our rights and, in fact, tried to make that clear in my wording without explicitly going into detail.
“the Constitution which is, as far as I’m concerned, the master document that spells out our rights in the U.S. (including those not spelled out — if that makes any sense)….”
I believe the Constitution defines a very restrictive set of boundaries in which the federal government may operate and, if it stayed within those boundaries, it wouldn’t be able to violate many of those un-enumerated rights.