Insert Your Own McRib Joke Here
I’m currently visiting family in Oklahoma, the state that passed a law last year that made it illegal for judges to rule using Sharia instead of State and Federal law. (Because clearly that’s where Oklahoma was heading.) But my sister pointed out to me a new bill OK’s state Senator Ralph Shortey has introduced that makes the Sharia thing look wise and measured: It’s a bill that makes it illegal for companies to use human fetuses in food. Seriously:
“No person or entity shall manufacture or knowingly sell food or any other product intended for human consumption which contains aborted human fetuses in the ingredients or which used aborted human fetuses in the research or development of any of the ingredients.”
To date the number of companies that have done or considered such a thing (that we know of!) is zero. But one must always remain vigilant, I suppose.
It will come as a surprise to absolutely no one that since being elected in the anit-Obama whack-a-mole derby that was the 2010 election, Shorty has also introduced these other bills:
* Bill that would deny US citizenship being recognized in the state for people born of illegal immigrants
* Bill that would allow the police to confiscate the cars, houses and all other property of illegal immigrants
* Bill that would require a presidential candidate to produce a “real” birth certificate in order to be placed on the OK ballot
None of these bills has yet become law, and even if they did they would soon be struck down in the way OK’s Sharia law was. But all these Oklahoma laughingstock bills and laws – protecting the base against Sharia and Fetus Food alike – do suggest that the panic buttons that the right wing media machine presses so irresponsibly are taking hold in their intended audience. And I find this somewhat unnerving.
“Long Pork Bacon Bits”Report
“Bill that would deny US citizenship being recognized in the state for people born of illegal immigrants”
I’m curious where the children of illegal immigrants would possibly have citizenship, then. If my great-times-x-grandparents had failed to file the proper paperwork before fleeing death-by-potato, would I be entitled to Irish citizenship? Or would I be part of a permanent world-underclass that has no rights anywhere?
There are, in Japan (and in other countries where citizenship is jus sanguinis), the descendants of Korean “laborers” who were brought over to Japan during the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere for co-prosperity purposes. These “Koreans” speak no Korean, have Japanese names, and know no country but Japan, and yet they are not citizens. Up until very recently, they were denied entry to Japanese public universities. Either fork over the tuition for a private university education or fail to matriculate.
Our present immigration policy is bad, but it’s not this bad.Report
“I’m curious where the children of illegal immigrants would possibly have citizenship, then.”
Based on the other fine work Shorty has done, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that he never thought it out that far, and that if you asked him his response would be “Mexico.”Report
The situation with the “Zainichi” is one of the most shameful things that the average Japanese person seems either conspicuously ignorant of, or simply don’t care. I’d blame the education system, but the rot goes a lot deeper than that.Report
They know, all right. They just pretend they don’t. Shiranu ga hotoke. Same thing with the burakumin.Report
Chris:
Those Koreans were brought to Japan to be slave labor as opposed to the illegals that voluntarily come to the US. Besides, why should we reward someone that broke the law by giving their kids US citizenship? Citizenship is too precious to give away as we currently do.Report
Are you familiar with the story behind the 14th Amendment?
If you aren’t you really should read it. It’s totally interesting.Report
Jaybird:
I’m familiar with the 14th. It was discussed at length in my Con law class at law school. I think it should be changed to address today’s problems with illegals and their offspring. Though I doubt that will happen as liberals will claims it is a racist plot.Report
Yeah, it’s weird how when people start talking about illegals and their offspring, all of the progressives start reaching for the racism card.Report
Jaybird:
Yes, because we all know things like that are always racist and couldn’t possibly have a different legitimate explanation. It is so much easier to play the race card than actually think about it.Report
I feel so bad for you because there have been so many people prior to you that have poisoned the discourse by using “illegal” as a noun rather than an adjective and talking about all of the children that these people have and they did it *TOTALLY* differently than the way you’re doing it now.
It’s just so awful for you that the terms you’re using were loaded with meaning by others… but not to the point where you would know that before you used them. And so now you’re talking about nouns and their offspring and wondering why in the world everybody is looking at you the way they looked at the last group of people who used those words that way.
You poor thing.Report
Jaybird:
I appreciate your understanding. I wish liberals and progressives ( whatever they are ) could honestly talk about dealing with illegal immigrants and not be so quick to always play the race card.Report
Hey, if we can deny citizenship to children born here, how about denying citizenship to felons and their children? They can’t vote. They can’t get a job.
Let’s just export them, like Britain did with its criminals. Maybe we can send ’em to Australia. Or Antarctica.
See, the illegal immigrant we have here on our shores are hard-workin’ individuals. Our felons and other lazy persons aren’t. So if we’re to deny anyone citizenship, let’s start with the lazy criminals you guys are always rattlin’ on about. That way we’ll have room for all those Hard Workin’ Individuals who aren’t asking for any rights anyway.
What say?Report
What a waste of organs that could be used by law-abiding citizens!Report
Well, if Newt becomes President, we can send all the illegals to our moon colony.Report
That’s not a given. Playing the Racism Card isn’t how the liberals would handle such a discussion. The illegal immigrant is an interesting fixture in the American landscape. He came here across the bleak deserts at very considerable peril to his life, to be exploited. Look at it in biological terms, evolutionary terms, we’re getting the most robust and enterprising citizens of other countries, intent upon bolstering the American economy by their hard work.
Now I always thought the Conservatives were all about Hard Work and Enterprise and all that jazz. The sermons they preach on these subjects are quite inspiring. But when people appear on our shores, asking for no benefits of any kind, asking for nothing but work others won’t do, lo do these Conservatives rise to their hind legs to loudly decry their presence. It is a fascinating phenomenon, one we’ve seen repeatedly in American history.Report
Dude. I see human beings as a positive good. I *LOVE* immigration, I wish we had more of it.
I do think that it’s sub-optimal that we have so much of it from one particular country… but the way to remedy that is to get even more from all of the other countries rather than to try to stem the tide.
But when people appear on our shores, asking for no benefits of any kind, asking for nothing but work others won’t do, lo do these Conservatives rise to their hind legs to loudly decry their presence. It is a fascinating phenomenon, one we’ve seen repeatedly in American history.
One of my online buds has lived in both California and Texas and he explains to me that the attitude toward illegal immigrants is 100% different in these two places. He told me that Texas shrugs and says “they just want to work, whatever” while California has all sorts of dynamics going on that result in La Raza parades, Mexican flags being flown while American flags are trampled, so on and so forth.
Dunno if this is true or not, of course. I’ve lived in neither place.Report
“I see human beings as a positive good.”
They’re a hell of a lot cheaper than machines, that’s for sure. (At least if you get Mexicans.)Report
In Texas, a very conservative state, there are plenty of white conservatives who will tell you how evil illegal immigration is, but they also want to have their roof done in July… in Texas. So they tell you how evil it is, but they have no interest in doing anything about it.Report
Case in point: Perry tried to pass an Arizona-style immigration law, and even the Republicans in the legislature were like, “Fish that!”Report
Blaise:
We are both a nation of immigrants and law or law and immigrants. Either way, I fail to see why someone’s desire for a better life should trump our country’s right to regulate who comes here. However, that seems to be the argument of many liberals/progressives.Report
Countries don’t have rights.
Individuals have rights.Report
Jaybird:
Really, is that the most intelligent response you can come up with?Report
It was that or write an essay comparing modern immigration arguments to racially restrictive neighborhood covenants. I went for economy.
If you’d like me to rephrase, sure.
You don’t have the right to tell me that I can’t sell my house to a Mexican… even if you have a group of friends (neighbors, even!) that took a vote and said “you can’t sell your house to Mexicans.”Report
Dude, here in San Jose we can’t even cut down a tree if our neighbors don’t want it.Report
Interesting you just mentioned that. I got in a discussion with Burt about this topic some while back – he also thinks states or nations don’t have rights. But that just seems incorrect to me. I mean, it’s sorta trivially true that states don’t have natural rights (whatever the hell those are), but there are all sorts of other rights which apply to socially constructed entities, eg., corporations have the right to free speech.
I think states, and nations too, do have rights as the word is used in normal English, and they clearly have liberties which they can act on or be restricted from acting on. The state of Texas, for example, has the right (the liberty?) to sue the state of New Mexico over water rights violations. What’s being appealed to is a legal right, or course, but it’s one which adheres to an individual. I personally don’t see a reason for thinking the phrase ‘the right of the US to protect it’s own borders’ is coded language expressing something which isn’t in fact a right. (I mean, try to imagine language resolving a dispute between nations which doesn’t invoke the word ‘right’?)Report
I think it’s obvious that they have *POWER*. They have guns, certainly.
I mean, try to imagine language resolving a dispute between nations which doesn’t invoke the word ‘right’?
How about invoking the word “interests”?Report
Appealing strictly to the language of the Constitution, the Tenth Amendment grants states “powers” rather than “rights”. You are certainly correct that standard English usage makes no real distinction between those two things (see, for instance, “states’ rights” discourse, which emanates from the Tenth Amendment), but a technical argument can be mounted.
Since I think “natural rights” are self-evidently ridiculous, and I don’t see any way for you to enforce anything other than a legal right against me in the first place, I’ve never been all that interested in this debate.Report
Do states have rights in relation to other states?Report
Yeah, they *do* have the power. But if the issue is the legitimate use of that power – say, to protect the borders – then something more than power or domestically granted authority is being appealed to. Something which can be rationally justified. I think at that point we get pretty close to, if not a complete overlapping of, rights as they apply to individuals. In this case, the individual is the state.
Maybe I’m not thinking about it right.Report
“Rights” may not be precisely the right word, but when you combine “powers” and “interest”, it does become a right in its own way. Maybe a synthetic right, if not a natural, real, or unitary one that might be said to apply to an individual.Report
My fundamental thought is always “do *I* have the right to do X?”, if it turns out that I have the right to do X, it makes sense that The State could have the right to do X.
If, however, I do not have the right to do X, I am going to shift the burden of proof onto people who claim that a state has the right to X.
This makes it easy to argue for even the existence of Police, Fire Departments, roads (drink!), even schools. Heck, if we really want to get into the weeds, we can discuss such things as welfare programs. Or war!
I don’t understand how a group of people might get the right to do something that I wouldn’t have the right to do. I understand how they’d have the *POWER* to do it, of course… but not the right.Report
Much of my insistence on precision in language on this subject comes from the fact that the common use of the term “rights” does seem to embrace the idea of a government entity’s power conjoined with a legitimate governmental interest. So if a police officer were to say something along the lines of “I have the right to arrest you and search your car if I have good reason to believe you’re committing a crime,” the qualification that there is probable cause makes my insistence on calling that a “right” as opposed to a “power” sort of legalistic.
Where I see a problem creeping in to policy from such a casualness of language is the idea that a right may be exercised without reprisal. This could come up in the case of the police officer conducting a search, thinking he’s exercising his “right” as a police officer, who then believes that his own rights are somehow violated when the legitimacy of that search is challenged in a motion to suppress evidence, or in a civil rights lawsuit. It also comes up when people think that they have “rights” they can exercise against entities other than the government — for instance, people who make a statement about a political issue, then find that private companies refuse to do business with them, and whine that their rights to free speech have been somehow violated. These kinds of complaints become glossed with concepts of entitlement and moral outrage, and soon enough people start demanding that police officers get more rights than private citizens, and private companies be required to conduct themselves as though they were governmental entities.Report
Rights don’t come with responsibilities.Report
Chris: Do states have rights in relation to other states?
It seems to me that they do. I mean, we can change the language a bit like Will was suggesting below, but to my mind it amounts to the same thing.
Ryan: that’s a nice analysis. Since the ‘natural rights’ language is something that I’m allergic to as well, legal rights do my heavy lifting. So saying that states have ‘Constitutionally accorded powers’ rather than ‘legal rights’ seems like a distinction without a difference. (Granting that this can get really weedy, of course.)Report
Here’s another way to look at it.
Do you have the “right” to, say, read Nabokov? We can hem and haw and discuss “Natural Rights” and how fundamentally incoherent they are and so forth… but if we agree that whether you have a “right” to read Nabokov is up in the air, can we agree that I don’t have the “right” to take the book from you and burn it? I don’t have the “right” to imprison you for reading it?
Is there a bubble around you that I do not have jurisdiction over (absent evidence of harm of another)? Whether you have a right to read a book is one thing, but even if we agree that it’s not demonstrated that you have this right to read a book, can we agree that there’s a difference between the two states of “Stillwater does not have the right to read Nabokov” and “Jaybird has the right to prevent Stillwater’s purchasing/owning/reading of Nabokov”?
Because, in practice, once we establish that you don’t have the right to X? Someone will argue that there is therefore no problem with X being denied you.Report
Burt, this post has all the fixin’s for another one of your excellent OP’s. Looking forward to it (and if you don’t do it on the front page, could someone point it out down below for dunderheads like me who don’t keep up with the sub blogs like I should?Report
Hey Ward, I had wanted to shoot you an email but didn’t want to cross a line without your permission. Do you mind if I shoot you something?Report
Ward, I’ve already written that post, at the sub-blog. My apologies if you missed it the first time around.Report
Burt I miss so much you wouldn’t believe it. Reading this site in little bursts is like drinking from a fire hydrant. When I go away for a few days, fugeddaboutit. Thanks for pointing me to your sub blog, I periodically try to remember to check things out down there but realistically all I get around to doing on a normal basis is skim the left column and click on the most interesting looking tidbits. When it seems like I’m not getting back to threads it’s because the post has scrolled away. Turned on the ‘Notify me via email box’ once, drove me crazy so haven’t used it since.
Tod, I almost never check that mailbox, so if you send me something there, give me a head’s up in a discussion thread and hopefully I’ll notice it and go look. Sorry to be disorganized about it, but this site is supposed to be a hobby for me and RL keeps interfering.Report
Ward – Awesome. I will send in the next hour; know that it isn’t urgent, so whenever you see it will be fine.Report
Jaybird,
Because, in practice, once we establish that you don’t have the right to X? Someone will argue that there is therefore no problem with X being denied you.
I think even that issue gets a little murky. Invoking natural rights here wouldn’t, it seems to me, resolve the issue. And even if natural rights (or any other conception of rights) were invoked, folks would still argue that their interest trumps the interests ostensibly protected by the relevant right. Rigidity in rights’ talk doesn’t lead to any interesting political resolutions. If anything, that rigidity leads to political irreconcilability. I mean, this is a big problem, no?
But I agree with you about one thing, and Burt as well: that the rights of flesh and blood individuals are (or ought to be) the center-piece of the rights-nexus and that abridging those rights requires meeting a pretty heavy burden. So if states have rights, then resolving a dispute over a right’s conflict ought to place the burden on the state (or any non-flesh-and-blood individual, for that matter).
But I don’t see how rights can be arbitrarily circumscribed to only flesh-and-blood individuals. So I think what you say above amounts to a burden-of-justification issue wrt extending the powers of the state which might be justified by an appeal to the rights of states, rather than a rejection of the claim that states have rights. And presumably, if the state has certain rights, then acting on those rights in ways that infringe on the rights of flesh-and-blood individuals may (or could) be justified.
Eg, lots of conservatives believe that the state, rather than the federal government, has the right to determine the limits of what constitutes marriage. Or let’s say it more charitably: insofar as the federal government does not have the right (or Constitutionally accorded authority) to determine what constitutes marriage, then the state has the right (Constitutionally accorded authority) to do so. There may be a rights conflict there, but the states rights advocate thinks it ought to be decided by including the rights (CAA) of the state into the calculus.
Report
I don’t know that I’d necessarily argue that States (or other groups of people) cannot (one word) have Rights… but I think I’d be fine with saying that about States (or other groups of people) when it comes to Rights that we agree that individuals do not have.Report
How very right you are. We liberals are all ’bout reforms. First thing let’s do is tear down the Statue of Liberty. Yanno, though most people never get to see her feet, the Statue of Liberty stands among broken chains. Tellin’ ya, the Statue of Liberty is just cluttering up New York Harbor. We could put a perfectly good condo there and Lord knows the price of copper’s high enough to justify melting it down. It’s false advertising I tell you, to have her standing there saying “give me your poor.” We don’t want the poor anymore or those huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We want huddled masses to pluck chickens and clean cow stalls like my illegal immigrant neighbors who work every single day of the year.
We are a nation of immigrants, many of us imported in those aforementioned chains. You know, we Liberals are all about the Nanny State, well, if we’re going to remove the right to citizenship from children born here, let’s just push it a little farther and remove all Illegal Persons from our shores, starting with those Welfare Mamas and Lazy Felons and other useless persons. They’re just cluttering up the landscape, like the Statue of Liberty.Report
Blaise:
Your hyperbole doesn’t help anyone take you seriously or encourage a serious discussion Just to show you that I care, I’ll get out my violin, even though it is out of tune and will play something maudlin for those poor down trodden illegals.Report
Oh I dunno. I find the only valid response to arguments of this sort is to take them to their logical conclusion with a bit o’ mockery. Nobody’s actually proposing tearing down the Statue of Liberty but it does stand for a certain essentially American viewpoint, one which those who oppose jus soli don’t much like anymore.Report
And when it comes to little violins, I’ll put a whole mariachi band on the sidewalk in front of your house. Or a klezmer band. Or even, heaven forbid, a bunch of drunken Irish bagpipers.
When it comes to removing citizenship from kids born on this shore, maybe we can remove 3/5 of the citizenship from black people, as per the Consty-tooshun. Wonder what the paperwork would look like.Report
Blaise:
“When it comes to removing citizenship from kids born on this shore, maybe we can remove 3/5 of the citizenship from black people, as per the Consty-tooshun. Wonder what the paperwork would look like.”
Once again you fall back on hyperbole and the race card, how pathetic.Report
Pathetic is as pathetic does. Yes, when folks run out of argument, they start in on ad hom. I will not be called a racist by some half-baked lawyer on the subject of the American tradition of jus soli. You want to overturn it, that’s great. Now quit attacking liberal straw men and justify your stance. More immigration law for you.Report
Scott, the first thing you need to realize when talking to BlaiseP is that he isn’t writing for you, he’s writing for himself.Report
Haw. Scott’s reduced to schoolmarming me, as if it will do any good. Come to think of it, that’s about all I get out of you, too.
His majesty, in another audience, was at the pains to recapitulate the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions he made with the answers I had given; then taking me into his hands, and stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words, which I shall never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: “My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which, in its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It does not appear, from all you have said, how any one perfection is required toward the procurement of any one station among you; much less, that men are ennobled on account of their virtue; that priests are advanced for their piety or learning; soldiers, for their conduct or valour; judges, for their integrity; senators, for the love of their country; or counsellors for their wisdom. As for yourself,” continued the king, “who have spent the greatest part of your life in travelling, I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many vices of your country. But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.”Report
Blaise, this is a beautiful piece of prose.Report
Converting from jus soli to jus sanguinis just might sound a little racist, too.Report
I had written a long response to you last night, but it appears to have disappeared. I apologize that I cannot recall it to rewrite any more.Report
Could you summarize it?Report
I’ll try.
As a citizen of the EU, no nation that is part of the EU has Jus Soli citizenship laws any more. The last to eliminate them was Ireland a few years back. We’ve all converted to Jus Sanguinis laws because there’s no good way to handle the speed and prevalence of travel availability in modern times; a weekend trip from the UK to France for an 8-month pregnant woman could result in a child with both British (by inheritance) and French (by birth) citizenship claims should she go into labour early, and that’s assuming mere biological chance and not active malice such as the occasionally-advertised travel tours to go have one’s child born in the USA. Given the current laws and the laws concerning ability of stateless individuals to gain citizenship via backup “if you have no other claim to citizenship, Jus Soli applies” treaty agreements and law, the threat of anyone in the EU becoming stateless is minimal.
Also, from what my sister states the issue in your American States is not really the idea that the children of your illegal population will become stateless, but that they would be remanded to a nation where they cannot easily adapt for lack of speaking the common language and understanding the common culture. Is that correct?Report
Good points. The EU is definitely a unique political structure that calls for unique political and legal institutions.
To go back to my example of Japan and Korea, I believe South Korea offers citizenship to all of Korean ethnicity living abroad at least in part as a response to the situation of the Zainichi (someone correct me if this is wrong). I’m not sure what the situation with Mexico is. My point was more how absurd it all is, in the year 2012, that people born in a country who know only that country would be deported to some other country they know nothing about because some ancestor failed to follow proper procedure. My own extremely liberal position on immigration aside, for a nation of immigrants like the United States, switching to jus sanguinis makes no sense at all.Report
Apparently not. My first attempt has not posted, and attempting to paste it in is resulting in a “duplicate comment detected” response. This sort of nonsense in your site’s commenting system is very disheartening.Report
It was caught in the trash, I got it.Report
Also, David, your comment above is quite insightful and brings the kind of unique perspective that is greatly appreciated around here. if this were a restaurant, I’d be offering you an apology and a gift card about now. Please do continue to read and comment.Report
I notice Oklahoma scored high on Will’s most recent and most challenging trivia question. I think my response to Shortey’s antics is: “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”Report
But really, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate.Report
You know, I think the contrapositive of that aphorism doesn’t get enough recognition: If you’re not part of the problem, you’re part of the solution. So many problems would go away if people would just mind their own business.Report
but if i mind my own business then someone might be allowed to be raaaciiiiissssttttReport
I’ve heard all kinds of stuff about what they put in hot dogs.
I have to wonder why there’s no bill to prohibit the fashioning of shuttlecocks from aborted fetal tissue.
Of course, being Oklahoma, they’re perfectly ok with sporting boots made out of the stuff.Report
My mother’s family fled Oklahoma for the Imperial Valley during the 1930s. All I can say is thank goodness, although OKC does have some great steak restaurants.
Considering that the state’s two senators are one who fears lesbian activity in high school girls’ bathrooms (and he’s the sane one) and the Senate’s biggest global warming denier, it’s not all that surprising that it would be a place where folks would vote to ban Sharia Law and elect someone like State Sen. Shorty. But it’s hardly the only such state.
Give my best to your sister!Report
She says hi.Report
This gives a posible source for the idea. Essentially new artificial flavourings can be tested using cell cultures that if you trace them far enough back originated in an aborted fetus (in the early 70’s if you follow the link through to wiki).
So yes there may well be foods that technically “used aborted human fetuses in the research or development of any of the ingredients”. It is worth pointing out though that.
1. We are talking about one abortion that occured decades ago, the test cultures do not require new fetal cells
2. The cell lines in question were developed for medical research
I think therefore we can dismiss the implication that aborted fetuses are being taken from the clinics by food manufacturers.Report
I wondered where in Moloch’s den this proposal was coming from.Report
I thought that it was aimed at the traditional chinese medicinal practice of eating human placentae. Of course, if he did not do his research, he would have thought that they ate human foetuses.Report
I don’t know about eating placentas, but I do know that when there is amniotic fluid on my wife’s shoes, our dog’s evening is set lick, lick, licking away… it just makes her night.Report
This happens often enough that it’s a regular occurance?Report
Many a stubborn cervix has been loosed with a good swift kick to the pudenda.Report
ewReport
I have a friend from Shanghai who swore to me that there really are restaurants in China that serve human fetuses. I’m pretty sure it’s a myth, but it’s not a myth confined to the American Christian Right.Report
Just as Sharia’s next stop in the world was going to be Oklahoma, I’m sure the next place fetus-eating becomes the new craze will surely be Oklahoma.Report
That’s also possible though my guess would be that artificial flavourings are more common in Oaklahoma than traditional Chinese medicine. Either way it seems obvious he didn’t do his research.
Incidentally in a lot of other mammals (I think all but not certain) including herbivores the mother eats the placenta straight after birth.Report
straight after birth.
As opposed to mixed? On ice? I see what you did there.
Report
I suspect this Fetus-Free Food statute is a wedge they’re trying to insert into statute law so the pro-lifers can prise open the disposal of fetuses and from there have their way with any privacy considerations thereafter.Report
Are you suggesting there’s some rationality behind this?Report
So much for my Tulsa Soylent Green franchiseReport
Should win the threadReport
I remember, back in 1952 I believe, going to St. Al’s cemetery with my father to bury my stillborn sister. I remember it was dark, dreary, and cold, kind of befitting the circumstances. I remember my aunt, uncle, and the priest who conducted the graveside services. My sister was not any older then many of the babies you people abort by the thousands, daily. Perhaps the Oklahoma lawmaker you intellectual-progressivists (commie-dems) are mocking is merely being prescient?Report
When it comes to eating the poor and unwanted, didn’t your precious Voegelin have a great deal to say about this society’s resistance to reality? Speak for yourself about who’s aborting whom in this society: the Conservatives seem glad enough to consign them, like Scrooge, to the prisons and workhouses.Report
I’ll pray for you, Bp.Report
Meanwhile, I will pray for the poor and unwanted might have some food to pray over. I am given to understand a steady diet of platitudes will result in an undernourished child.Report
When it comes to eating the poor and unwanted
Didn’t Swift cover this ground a long time ago?Report
Heh. Yes he did. I was trying not to bring Swift into the mix.Report
There are all sorts of ways that causing loss of life to a “child in utero” would be illegal.
You can look here, subsection (b).
I’m not sure what all of those numbers are.
What we’re talking about here is foodstuffs, Bob. *
There are already statutes to enforce disposal of bio-medical waste, proper storage, etc.
That was one of the big things about the clinic in KCK where employees were storing their lunches in the same refrigerator as bio-medical waste, re-using syringes and other equipment, etc.; something like 27 health code violations. I believe that it wasn’t until the 5th time the place was cited that it was finally closed.
Of course, at great loss of freedoms to every woman on the planet.
* You probably don’t even want to know about how pickles are made on an industrial scale, or what kind of stuff gets in there.Report
Perhaps. Or perhaps he’s taking an emotional subject full sorrow and attaching it to a completely unrelated and fictitious matter, hoping that the sad subject will distract from the fictitious matter.
If you catch my meaning.Report
Why do you people put up with this pychopath? I would think the conservatives especially would be embarrassed by his odious presence and drive him from the board.Report
drive him from the board
Spoken like a true liberal. You do your peers honor. Now head to your nearest college and shout down any conservative stupid enough to try and speak there with all your other tolerant friends. And thank you for yet again making liberals look so tolerant.Report
Conservatives and liberals both have their nuts Ward. Neither have the monopoly on speech stifling wingnuttery.Report
Wouldn’t it be funny if stereotypes were based on reality?
“The undersigned hereby adamantly demand that the United States government shut down right wing hate sites. The hate speech propagated by sites like the Drudge Report, Hot Air, Instapundit, Big Government, and others must not be allowed to corrupt our political discourse any longer. These sites are dangerous not only to truth and freedom but also to our society as a whole. BAN THEM NOW!”Report
Like this? Not to play Van Dyke’s tu quoque game, but North is right.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCYQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newshounds.us%2Fwill_fox_news_condemn_allen_west_for_saying_liberals_should_get_the_hell_out_of_the_u_s_01292012&ei=k1olT9uOHPPJiQLf_vjGBw&usg=AFQjCNHmSwykN02Xrg77-cNpQd0FaU63WA&sig2=7BEu2VRaRYQkVOKvY8AcuAReport
Thanks for sparing me having to plug 60 seconds of time into google Mark.Report
Well, it just seems we’re all still trying to figure out a way to prove that being an asshole, or having assholes amongst us, is an affliction that “our” group is exempt from. As you rightly point out, this an equal opportunity game that can be played ad infinitum.Report
Not that this is an argument that is really worth having but this is REALLY the best you could come up with? ONE stinking politician? How about the (ex)speaker of the house saying the Tea Party can go straight to hell? I guess that doesn’t count because Hell apparently isn’t “out of the country”. In point of fact your supposed “proof” amounted to much ado about nothing.
Meanwhile how many hundreds of videos do I need to post of liberals shouting down speakers at colleges? Tu quoque is weak sauce indeed, but the least you could do is show a petition of conservatives damning free speech on the part of liberals, said petition’s non existence being your problem not mine. Liberals are more intolerant than conservatives, I’ve said it and you haven’t disproved it, nor can you. To take a stab at tu quoque, you should point me to a video of organized conservatives shouting down a speaker and NOT ALLOWING him/her to SPEAK, which is the modus operandi at campuses across this country. I don’t mind disagreement even if rancorous but taking a concerted stance of showing up with the sole intention of stifling free speech smaks of the fascism liberals pretend to decry.
Contrary to Tod’s protest below the conservative voices on this site are rare and diminishing quickly. I’m reasonably confident we’ve already seen the last of TVD. This site can become another Baloon Juice in no time where all can luxuriate in a thoughtless echo chamber. I’m sure the remainder can then set about cleansing the “herd” of any memes not deemed fit for the “group”.Report
Ward,
I can probably dig up some more regarding flag burning and a whole bunch of folks freaking out about Ward Churchill including one of the current GOP contenders (http://academeblog.org/2011/12/04/newts-2005-attack-on-tenure-and-free-speech-on-campus/ ) and some opinions from conservatives about whether atheists are worthy of office or even citizenship, but I digress. You keep on with your ability to quantify assholism within the parties. I’ve deemd them both equally capable and am more free for not having to defend either from the charge.
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ward:
Exactly, at least folks should try and compare apples to apples. I’ve never heard of conservatives on a campus shouting a liberal speaker down, but we’ve certainly heard of plenty of the other happening despite liberals self professed love for free speech.Report
Sheesh Ward, we’ve nixxed one guy the entire time I have been here, it was two weeks ago, and the guy was so far left he thought moderates were Nazis. Have a sense of proportion. Before complaining too loudly that this board bans too many conservatives you might wait till it bans it’s first.Report
Not talking about bans North, but approbation. TVD was a front-pager and I worry he’s gone for good voluntarily, although I’d happily be wrong. Was Ward Churchill shouted down on campus? I don’t believe so. He was removed from his tenured position as I recall for plagiarism, not his odius opinions although had he remained silent we’ll never know if the plagiarism would have materialized.
My larger point in line with previous discussions concerning banning those with whom the proverbial we might not agree – said members including both Bob and TVD although interestingly not yours truly was that the left opts to silence the dissenters, as Scott opines above, an interesting tack given their predilection for “tolerance” towards their preferred interest groups.Report
I think you hit on something here about some people saying Bob should be banned but not you. But I think you are missing it.Report
Yeah, and as I linked above, no conservatives were asking for his dismissal based on POV, right? Like I say, you can quantify this thing in your own mind all day long. As far as I’m concerned, they all suck, they’re all hypocritical in one way or another.
What’s funny to me is that we’re sitting here arguing over who gives a shit about the first amendment while they’re all busy trashing about three others and nobody blinks. The same folks who trashed Bush are now shoehorning explanations for why Obama has been so lax to back off most of Bush’s executive transgressions (while instituting a few of his own) while conservatives think the second coming of Stalin sits in the Oval Office. I finally decided to get off the train of party before country or reality.Report
Dear Wardsmith, I believe you are exactly correct re: librul intolerance and specifically that of the vicious ‘secular progressivist’ (SP’s), a horse I’ve been beating these recent days. I’m not exactly sure why but the SP’s are rather extreme in their desire to ‘silence’ the opposition (conservatives) and I’m working on an analysis of ‘why’ that is.
My cursory findings are that as most, but not all, either profess a certain, “Christianity”, usually in its perverted ‘social justice’ manifestation, or have abandoned the faith of their ute and thus suffer the grief/loss associated with such a spiritual dislocation, or they have engaged in egophanic revolt and have chosen to face immortality on their own account, or as a follower of the verities of the Nietzschean-Hegelian dialectic.
This bold movement to remove oneself from ‘order’ and to chose to live in ‘disorder’ though the actor in many/most instances isn’t aware of the effect has, I think, a profound effect on the psyche. It is an act the violates the essence of our being and inhibits his ability to exist in reality. Life becomes confusing in this immanent-world reality and thus the first response to this voluntary loss of the ability to participate in the divine order is a, sometimes, demonic and violent rejection of any exposition of the truth, or order, or reality.
Consequently, this ‘intolerance’ is in fact, a cry in the darkness. It is an expression of the profound effects of sin, when consciousness has lost it’s primordial responsibility as the location of the divine/human encounter.Report
either profess a certain, ”Christianity”, usually in its perverted ‘social justice’ manifestation
Interesting, Bob. Perhaps you’ve not read Aquinas? Or is his a perverted manifestation as well?
Anyway, as one of the people who is, in all likelihood, responsible for TvD’s extended absence (and I don’t miss him), I’ve said several times that I don’t think Bob should be banned. I think Bob’s world view is pretty damn shitty, but to ban Bob for insulting others would essentially be to ban that world view, because that’s what it consists of (see, for example, his comment before this one). Bob’s nostalgic, nostalgic for a bygone age that probably never was, at least not as Bob seees it, but which he has (through Voegelin) attached to a specific religious world-view, in order to find some explanation for why that age is now bygone. He sees everyone who does not share that particular religious world-view as responsible for the bygoneness of his beloved (fantasy) age, and so we’re all targets of derision. But that’s just the way Bob sees things. Banning him for it would be counterproductive.
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I should note that I think it’s a shame that Bob’s entire presence here is about going after the people he blames for the loss of his fantasy age, instead of extolling the virtues of that age in an attempt to convince people a.) that the culture of that age is worth returning to, and b.) that his religious world view is necessary to achieve that return. But Bob will be Bob.Report
I dunno North, lately the League seems to have gathered in among its midst a host of secular-progressivist true believers whose primary objective is to get me ‘banned,’ for thinking unbecoming a Leaguer. And, ‘banned’ for merely suggesting that there’s something inhuman about systematically slaughtering children. As if this isn’t a wonderful example of what the beloved Voegelin referred to as ‘selective conscious?’ The meaning of which is that men can no longer differentiate between the moral and immoral obligations of reality; and finally, in the instant case of ‘abortion’ they no longer want to.
So this thread, and others, becomes a very good place to analyize the modern perspective-particularly the secular progressivists here, where ideologies have perverted reality and decimated the divine order.
Modernity as Orwellian? Of course, but in the sense of self-divinization where our macho exemplar proudly pounds his chest and declares, ‘no one’s the boss of me.’ And why? Because he must justify himself, his deeds, his lusts of every sort while refusing to be accountable, for anything to anyone! His, then, becomes a failure to apperceive and with that the loss of reason and eventually he arrives before the entry gate to madness. And, so it is that systematically killing babies, an act startingly reminiscent of the horrors visited upon mankind by the Nazi’s and the Soviets, becomes a ‘good,’ among those no longer able to be human, among those whose soul is forfeit.
Sure, sometimes here we see examples of this ‘morbus animi’, such as this one, where killing babes is a ‘good’, an obligatory ‘right’, a social correction. And, this is an example of deformation of modern ‘think,’ and so we try to understand how it is we got this way. It’s rather fascinating, don’t you think?
And, as always, I’m here to hep!
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“And, ‘banned’ for merely suggesting that there’s something inhuman about systematically slaughtering children.”
Bob, speaking as someone that in no way thinks you should be banned, the reason some people here think you should be has nothing to do with your being pro-life. The site is full or commenters and contributors that are pro-life, and no on ever says they should be banned.
Also, your ability to be a fairly clear thinker is way off in this thread. You are taking a position that the reason people here find Sen. Shortey’s bill objectionable, a parody, or both is because being liberals they would welcome the eating of human fetuses. To which I would say two things:
1, I suspect you know without having it pointed out to you that this is not true.
2. If you really are curious as to why some people here would like you gone, you might unpack the whole ‘accusing them of of loving a tasty fetus with big words’ thing. You might find something more substantial there.Report
Tod, I was being facetious about being ‘banned.’
Also, I was merely suggesting that the bill proposed from our legislative friend from Ok may, indeed, be prescient when one considers the rather successful progressivist trajectories since, say, 1950, or so. I didn’t say/imply that ‘libruls’ want to eat fetuses (let the Chi-coms speak for themselves) and I’m not sure where that comes from…er, I should say, at least not this generation of libruls. All bets are off on the next generation of libruls. One never knows what relativism may bring.Report
I was merely suggesting that the bill proposed from our legislative friend from Ok may, indeed, be prescient when one considers the rather successful progressivist trajectories since, say, 1950, or so. I didn’t say/imply that ‘libruls’ want to eat fetuses (let the Chi-coms speak for themselves) and I’m not sure where that comes from…er, I should say, at least not this generation of libruls. All bets are off on the next generation of libruls.
So… you’re not suggesting that anyone eats fetuses. You’re suggesting that people some day might eat fetuses, and those people will be future liberal, because current liberals teach a doctrine that includes a future trajectory that includes, “It’s okay to eat fetuses”?
Bob, that’s a pretzel-shaped non-backtracking bending over, right there.Report
Bob, speaking from my perspective, it’s not the pro-life that infuriates the progressives, it’s the waving away of such concepts as the inherent evil of “ACS”… followed by full-throated arguments for the pro-life position.
Remember the whole First Things kerfuffle? I’d wager that even as progressive as we are here, the things that infuriate us are similar to the things that infuriated them.Report
Could one use “selective conscious” (or did he really mean selective “conscience”) to totally ignore the reprehensible and immoral behavior of the South in its defense of slavery while trying to defend the South because the North was so aggressive? Sounds kind of the same.Report
Excellent retort, Mark!
Ya got me good!Report
I’m glad you understood I was talking about your selective conscience in that matter.Report
It’s all the same thing in French.Report
North:
It is true that both sides have their nuts, but as a rule the left is usually the side claiming how they are more tolerant and moral than the right. Those claims make outbursts such as this and those on college campuses all the more amusing.Report
Hypocritically claiming tolerance I’ll give you Scott, but no wing embraces morality more loudly, feverently and hypocritically than the right wing.Report
North;
I might agree that the right usually embraces what I would call “standard” morality. The left however is always claiming morality via social justice, wealth transfer, fairness, removing inequality, etc. However, there are many time when the left embraces standard morality like “free speech” when it suits them and then demands others be silenced, claiming they are doing so to save us from hate speech, etc.Report
Yes yes Scott, just as the right claims free speech while demanding book cencorship (on morality, sexuality, and decency grounds), media cencorship (oh won’t someone think of the children!), press censorship (national security), protest cencorship (flag burning) the list goes on and on. My point to ward was that trying to attribute this kind of hypocrisy to only one group in the country and claim that a side as vast as the right is free of such sentiment or behavior is doomed to failure and then quibbling afterwards about which side is “more” hypocritical about this issue or that is a fools errand.Report
Just how … stupid are you? Am I calling for any of the many, many other conservatives who post here to be banned? Or the other idiots of all ideologies?
The problem with Cheeks is that he is a rude, nasty old troll who has never, in 1000s of comments, added anything of value to this comment section.
For example, the fact that YOU are a stupid moron is no reason to discourage you from posting. In fact you provide (unintentional) entertainment value. It’s not the ideology at all, or even the stupidity.Report
Larry, I do my work in alerting those of you with sundry psychopathologies. I your case, I see I’m successful and you’ve begun the journey toward the light. Goodluck!Report
When I first read through this, I thought you were being rude in calling him Shortey, but that’s his name. I don’t know. If I ever get elected to public office, first thing I’ll do is introduce a bill mandating that candidates from the other party may not beat their spouse. As someone once said, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not; we’re still making the bastards deny it.Report
I once knew a fellow named “Harry Weiner, Jr.”
Do you suppose his dad was influenced more by pride or sadism?Report
It’s actually pronounced “Viner.” Or should be, anyway. But yeah, I’ll grant that it looks pretty bad, especially since most people don’t know that.Report
Did he insist that people call him “Harrison,” or whatever the unabbreviated form was?Report
I knew him as “Harry.”
I knew a guy named “Polecat” one time, but I’m pretty sure that one was a nickname.Report
Are there any cultures/religions that do use parts of the afterbirth in meal preparation? If I remember correctly, Hmong people typically bury the afterbirth in the backyard. I wonder if this legislation was aimed at a particular group that either does or is believed to engage in acts the good Senator finds troubling…Report
As I mentioned above, afterbirth is believed to have medicinal properties under Traditional Chinese Medicine.Report
I’ll admit, when I read the OP I thought it said placentas too, but apparently only mentions fetuses. Interestingly it sounds like eating human placentas is already occurring. The pigs I talked about below sill aren’t ‘biting” however. That and they’re long dead of natural and unnatural causes. 😉Report
What’s really in “baby food”?Report
Heh. The circle of life.Report
Coffee powder: Add water to get coffee
Milk powder: Add water to get milk
Soup powder: Add water to get soup
Potato powder: Add water to get potatoes
Baby powder: …Report
Years ago a friend of mine told me the story of his birth. He was the largest baby ever to have been born in the state (a record eclipsed by his own cousin a few months later). Born on the farm (where nothing is thrown away) they gave his afterbirth victuals to the pigs. Pigs wouldn’t eat anything after that for weeks. He was around 15lbs IIRC.Report
what RTod didn’t mention was the tour of the low-carb fetus food aisle at Wal-Mart…..Report
What I want to know is why Tod Kelly is so interested in eating babies. What do you have to hide from the Oklahoma authorities, friend?Report
I can’t believe we’ve gotten this far in the thread without somebody bringing up xkcd.Report
I was under the impression that this bill was meant as a sort of bass-ackwards ban on embryonic stem cell research. The bill does read “food or any other product intended for human consumption,” which is a clause vague enough to include medicines in its interpretation. That’s about the only way I can rationalize a bill this incredibly inane.Report
but it says food i mean dude it says food now come on dude food i mean really FOOD?
Who cares about some way in which this bill might make sense? It’s vitally important that we find some way to mock them!Report
Uh-huh. Everyone is totally making that bit up:
“There is a potential that there are companies that are using aborted human babies in their research and development of basically enhancing flavor for artificial flavors,”…
Some argue there has to be more to the proposed bill and believe it is a back door attempt to ban stem cell research.
Shortey says it is not, although he admits, he would support and vote for a ban on stem cell research in the state.
……..
“No, he’s never heard of any instances of this happening before, Sen. Ralph Shortey told the Associated Press.
But Shortey read that it might be happening, so he thought the bill would, at the very least, give any food companies toying with the idea an “ultimatum.” …
“Shortey said he filed the bill after reading last fall that an anti-abortion group, Children of God for Life, had called on the public in March 2010 to boycott products of major food companies that partnered with a biotech company that produces artificial flavor enhancers, unless the company stopped using aborted fetal cells to test their products. The company has denied the allegation.
Federal food safety officials have never heard of such a thing. A U.S. Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman told the Associated Press that the agency has never gotten any reports of fetuses being used in food production.”Report