Number one, no, I don't think a broad consensus on viability is likely. Secondly, don't you think it's a little odd to have a rubric where the definition of where life begins changes with time and technology? I'm particularly interested in the question in regards to communities or countries where advanced life-support facilities for premature babies are unavailable.
To me, here is the crux of the matter: while we will have endless complex religious, philosophical and moral debates, and many of us will come to the same conclusion that there are no bright line answers, to have a law and a functioning civil society, we have to have bright line rules. This is impossible with a doctrine of human-at-viability, and difficult, I would say, with a doctrine of human-at-conception. (And pragmatically, that would have a whole host of consequences for things like in vitro fertilization.)
Defining the beginning of human-ness at birth, meanwhile, gives us the best bright-line rule to enact as a functioning society. And it eliminates the vast angst that forcing every pregnancy to be carried to term causes. That may not be a satisfactory philosophical stance for many, but I think that it's by far the most pragmatically workable system.
I’m one of those “horrific” supporters of abortion rights who doesn’t deny that fetuses are scientifically human.
I am not interested in who is scientifically human; I'm interested in who has gained human rights. Of course, I'm begging the question there; hence my dilemma. None of this makes my support for abortion rights less zealous or complete. It does mean that I struggle sometimes.
This only because there is no chance of the fetus ever becoming anything other than a human - even if they aren’t, in this definition or assumption, “human” or “persons” yet. There is no biological likelihood, no chance at all, that the fetus ends up as anything other than human.
Oh, but it can end up as something other than human. It can be aborted. If the fetus has never become human at all, we can terminate it without qualms. The minute that the fetus becomes human, it has gained human rights, and its termination is murder.
I get this a lot, people saying that my assumption that abortion can only be justified if we deny the personhood of the fetus is weird. I don't think people have actually thought this position through, though. Does something that has full access to human rights, the same human rights which we believe empower the mother to abort the fetus in the first place, really not have the right to maintain its human existence, because of the preferences of the mother? That seems to me to open up a whole can of worms, morally.
But that's just it, raft-- no one is going to replace quality reporting. News blogs don't actually report on anything near the scale of newspapers. Nowhere close. And they aren't going to start. That's a big part of my anger: people act as though the web is just going to jump up and provide this quality reporting. Not going to happen. That's the tragedy, and that's what drives me crazy, people celebrating the death of extensive reportage.
First of all, a big part of the reason insufficient numbers want to purchase the product is because now they can get it for free! Second of all, it's not a question of saying "newspapers have to survive". It's a question of pushing back against some of those who think that there was some other path for the newspapers to take, or that Web companies have a lot to teach about profitability.
Roque, I'm sorry, but if you can't see the difference between saying "there is a powerful pro-Israel lobbying interest in the United States which undertakes unprincipled tactics to silence critics of Israel" and "there is a Jewish conspiracy that controls the world"... I don't know what to tell you. This is again one of those instances where I can't believe that you are the same person that wrote many of your more insightful comments. Clearly, there is an enormous difference in those ideas, and it really reeks of bad faith that you don't acknowledge it.
Again-- you're taking the AFL-CIO to task for making explicit a practice that you admit is common. Isn't that weird? Look, lobbying and interests groups hinging their support of a politician based on a particular bill or issue isn't fraud. It's democracy. It's common. Not "it happens sometimes" common, but "it happens every day" common. What on earth is the difference between the AFL-CIO saying that their support of Specter is dependent on his position on card check and AIPAC saying that their support of a politician is dependent on his position on Iran? Or the NRA's support being dependent on a politician's position on an assault weapons ban? That's how democracy works-- people, or organizations, support politicians with their votes, voices and money based on the degree to which those politicians represent their interests.
Now you can question the purpose and effects of lobbying groups or constituent groups pledging their support to a candidate in exchange for particular votes, but if you were going to do so, you'd have to tear the whole house down. You'd have to attack the NRLC for only supporting politicians who voted for the partial birth abortion ban. You'd have to attack NARAL for only supporting politicians who voted against it. You'd have to attack every lobbying and special interest group in the country that has tied their support to certain pieces of key, defining legislation. To only criticize the AFL-CIO and Arlen Specter for this, when it's the basic reciprocal arrangement of American politics, isn't fair.
There's a lot to say here, and I disagree with you on almost everything, but I'll limit myself to this-- if you think that a political organization promising to support a candidate in an election in return for his voting one way or another on a piece of legislation is bribery, then I think you need to move to a small island in Micronesia. Are you really going to suggest to me that you don't think that this happens all the time? That it isn't a plain and simple part of what has become the process? That the NRA, AARP, AIPAC, et al., don't do precisely this? Come on, Mark.
Max, he does it over and over again. They might be meaningless and flip, but they add up and add up and add up and contribute to a culture of intimidation.
So, up to now, give me an honest answer: if you were a Jew, and you were aware of this history, wouldn’t you be a bit “sensitive” about it? Wouldn’t you tend to see “updated” versions of the blood libel and the Elders theory?
Absolutely. But I would expect that I would either be able to provide better evidence than insinuation to back up my specific claims of anti-Semitism. More importantly, I wouldn't make throwaway accusations or imputations of anti-Semitic tropes, because that leaves the people so accused with no meaningful way to challenge the accusation at all.
Of course, there is reason for sensitivity when it comes to anti-Semitism. And vigilance is the responsibility of all principled people. But we still have to behave in a manner conducive to respectful and principled debate-- in part, because that ultimately will be a benefit to eliminating genuine anti-Semitism.
If I was going to stoop to your level I would at this stage call you a snob and a pretentiousness smothered pseudo-intellectual incapable of reconciling his raging insecurities with a medium not widely accepted as suitable for his nation’s pitiful intelligentsia, but I’ll stick away from that presumptuous territory and just say that this article is very, very stupid.
As is always the case, James-- always-- your criticisms of me say everything about you, and nothing about me.
I guess when I saw him making fun of Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease, I moved Rush from the category of guy I disagreed with about almost everything to the category of worthless human being.
How can people "earn their own living" when they are systematically denied the ability to do so because of their ethnicity and religion? You're confusing cause and effect. And, look-- Wilders is most certainly not just asking for an end to a European welfare state. He is asking for systematic cultural repressions that would be flatly unconstitutional in America. Check his record outside of that quote.
But the idea that globalization has been, on net, bad just doesn’t seem to hold much water, not just as a matter of economics but also as an issue of morality.
The question is always, good or bad for whom? Globalism is the recipient of rampant magical thinking and optimism. Look at Dubai. People hold it up as an example of globalisms benefits all the time. But Dubai functions on the backs of a massive amount of totally impoverished foreign workers, who labor for tiny amounts of money under terrible working conditions. I might say that that is as much evidence against globalism as the towers and malls and man-made islands are evidence for globalism. But the pro-globo side always says, "No, the good parts are the products of globalization, the bad parts are errors in the system, holdovers from protectionist eras, or statistical noise." I'm not much of a protectionist, I don't think, but I know that globalization gets the holy writ treatment online when the reality is much more complicated.
The point, LJ, was to take a mostly-random Gawker post, and give it the Gawker treatment. I don't think I did that in a particularly smart or funny way, and I certainly can be criticized on those grounds. But that was the point, at least.
plus the fact that you’re doing a vapid, snarky takedown of something that is itself … vapid and snarky
Yes. Indeed.
Seriously, for someone who seems to take such satisfaction in this sort of thing, I think you really need a tune up of your self-critical process. Like, for reals.
You can't spread democracy through force of arms; trying to do so is just a basic contradiction in terms. Spreading stability through force of arms is always self-defeating in the short term (by definition), and in the long term, the record is really, really bad. We're still stuck on "should wes", when "can wes" remain the absolutely essential questions.
No other policy in American politics could have such a horrendous record and yet enjoy more chances than an aggressive foreign policy.
On “induction leading to abortion qualms”
Number one, no, I don't think a broad consensus on viability is likely. Secondly, don't you think it's a little odd to have a rubric where the definition of where life begins changes with time and technology? I'm particularly interested in the question in regards to communities or countries where advanced life-support facilities for premature babies are unavailable.
"
To me, here is the crux of the matter: while we will have endless complex religious, philosophical and moral debates, and many of us will come to the same conclusion that there are no bright line answers, to have a law and a functioning civil society, we have to have bright line rules. This is impossible with a doctrine of human-at-viability, and difficult, I would say, with a doctrine of human-at-conception. (And pragmatically, that would have a whole host of consequences for things like in vitro fertilization.)
Defining the beginning of human-ness at birth, meanwhile, gives us the best bright-line rule to enact as a functioning society. And it eliminates the vast angst that forcing every pregnancy to be carried to term causes. That may not be a satisfactory philosophical stance for many, but I think that it's by far the most pragmatically workable system.
"
I’m one of those “horrific” supporters of abortion rights who doesn’t deny that fetuses are scientifically human.
I am not interested in who is scientifically human; I'm interested in who has gained human rights. Of course, I'm begging the question there; hence my dilemma. None of this makes my support for abortion rights less zealous or complete. It does mean that I struggle sometimes.
This only because there is no chance of the fetus ever becoming anything other than a human - even if they aren’t, in this definition or assumption, “human” or “persons” yet. There is no biological likelihood, no chance at all, that the fetus ends up as anything other than human.
Oh, but it can end up as something other than human. It can be aborted. If the fetus has never become human at all, we can terminate it without qualms. The minute that the fetus becomes human, it has gained human rights, and its termination is murder.
I get this a lot, people saying that my assumption that abortion can only be justified if we deny the personhood of the fetus is weird. I don't think people have actually thought this position through, though. Does something that has full access to human rights, the same human rights which we believe empower the mother to abort the fetus in the first place, really not have the right to maintain its human existence, because of the preferences of the mother? That seems to me to open up a whole can of worms, morally.
On “the Web has a lot less to teach the print media than you think”
But that's just it, raft-- no one is going to replace quality reporting. News blogs don't actually report on anything near the scale of newspapers. Nowhere close. And they aren't going to start. That's a big part of my anger: people act as though the web is just going to jump up and provide this quality reporting. Not going to happen. That's the tragedy, and that's what drives me crazy, people celebrating the death of extensive reportage.
On “The Myth of Europeanism”
Did you check out James Poulos in the Boston Globe? Thought it might be worth a look in this context.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/03/15/rethinking_europe/
On “the Web has a lot less to teach the print media than you think”
Slow day?
I'm trying to imagine a day in my life so slow that I spend my time correcting word usage on a blog's comments.
"
First of all, a big part of the reason insufficient numbers want to purchase the product is because now they can get it for free! Second of all, it's not a question of saying "newspapers have to survive". It's a question of pushing back against some of those who think that there was some other path for the newspapers to take, or that Web companies have a lot to teach about profitability.
On “the anti-Semitic accusation as throw-away”
Roque, I'm sorry, but if you can't see the difference between saying "there is a powerful pro-Israel lobbying interest in the United States which undertakes unprincipled tactics to silence critics of Israel" and "there is a Jewish conspiracy that controls the world"... I don't know what to tell you. This is again one of those instances where I can't believe that you are the same person that wrote many of your more insightful comments. Clearly, there is an enormous difference in those ideas, and it really reeks of bad faith that you don't acknowledge it.
On “Celebrating Bribery, Extortion, and the End of the Secret Ballot”
Again-- you're taking the AFL-CIO to task for making explicit a practice that you admit is common. Isn't that weird? Look, lobbying and interests groups hinging their support of a politician based on a particular bill or issue isn't fraud. It's democracy. It's common. Not "it happens sometimes" common, but "it happens every day" common. What on earth is the difference between the AFL-CIO saying that their support of Specter is dependent on his position on card check and AIPAC saying that their support of a politician is dependent on his position on Iran? Or the NRA's support being dependent on a politician's position on an assault weapons ban? That's how democracy works-- people, or organizations, support politicians with their votes, voices and money based on the degree to which those politicians represent their interests.
Now you can question the purpose and effects of lobbying groups or constituent groups pledging their support to a candidate in exchange for particular votes, but if you were going to do so, you'd have to tear the whole house down. You'd have to attack the NRLC for only supporting politicians who voted for the partial birth abortion ban. You'd have to attack NARAL for only supporting politicians who voted against it. You'd have to attack every lobbying and special interest group in the country that has tied their support to certain pieces of key, defining legislation. To only criticize the AFL-CIO and Arlen Specter for this, when it's the basic reciprocal arrangement of American politics, isn't fair.
"
There's a lot to say here, and I disagree with you on almost everything, but I'll limit myself to this-- if you think that a political organization promising to support a candidate in an election in return for his voting one way or another on a piece of legislation is bribery, then I think you need to move to a small island in Micronesia. Are you really going to suggest to me that you don't think that this happens all the time? That it isn't a plain and simple part of what has become the process? That the NRA, AARP, AIPAC, et al., don't do precisely this? Come on, Mark.
On “the anti-Semitic accusation as throw-away”
Max, he does it over and over again. They might be meaningless and flip, but they add up and add up and add up and contribute to a culture of intimidation.
"
So, up to now, give me an honest answer: if you were a Jew, and you were aware of this history, wouldn’t you be a bit “sensitive” about it? Wouldn’t you tend to see “updated” versions of the blood libel and the Elders theory?
Absolutely. But I would expect that I would either be able to provide better evidence than insinuation to back up my specific claims of anti-Semitism. More importantly, I wouldn't make throwaway accusations or imputations of anti-Semitic tropes, because that leaves the people so accused with no meaningful way to challenge the accusation at all.
Of course, there is reason for sensitivity when it comes to anti-Semitism. And vigilance is the responsibility of all principled people. But we still have to behave in a manner conducive to respectful and principled debate-- in part, because that ultimately will be a benefit to eliminating genuine anti-Semitism.
On “Watchmen”
Good question-- a friend asked me to go. I obliged. Shouldn't have!
"
Ah.
"
That you take movies seriously in exactly the wrong way.
"
If I was going to stoop to your level I would at this stage call you a snob and a pretentiousness smothered pseudo-intellectual incapable of reconciling his raging insecurities with a medium not widely accepted as suitable for his nation’s pitiful intelligentsia, but I’ll stick away from that presumptuous territory and just say that this article is very, very stupid.
As is always the case, James-- always-- your criticisms of me say everything about you, and nothing about me.
On “Regarding Rush”
I guess when I saw him making fun of Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease, I moved Rush from the category of guy I disagreed with about almost everything to the category of worthless human being.
On “you can’t support the labor movement and illegal immigration”
How can people "earn their own living" when they are systematically denied the ability to do so because of their ethnicity and religion? You're confusing cause and effect. And, look-- Wilders is most certainly not just asking for an end to a European welfare state. He is asking for systematic cultural repressions that would be flatly unconstitutional in America. Check his record outside of that quote.
On “Protectionism and National Security”
But the idea that globalization has been, on net, bad just doesn’t seem to hold much water, not just as a matter of economics but also as an issue of morality.
The question is always, good or bad for whom? Globalism is the recipient of rampant magical thinking and optimism. Look at Dubai. People hold it up as an example of globalisms benefits all the time. But Dubai functions on the backs of a massive amount of totally impoverished foreign workers, who labor for tiny amounts of money under terrible working conditions. I might say that that is as much evidence against globalism as the towers and malls and man-made islands are evidence for globalism. But the pro-globo side always says, "No, the good parts are the products of globalization, the bad parts are errors in the system, holdovers from protectionist eras, or statistical noise." I'm not much of a protectionist, I don't think, but I know that globalization gets the holy writ treatment online when the reality is much more complicated.
On “my blog post titles demonstrate my ironic detachment and caustic verve”
The point, LJ, was to take a mostly-random Gawker post, and give it the Gawker treatment. I don't think I did that in a particularly smart or funny way, and I certainly can be criticized on those grounds. But that was the point, at least.
On “Focus, People, Focus!”
http://lhote.blogspot.com/2008/07/ta-nehisi-coates-and-megan-mcardle.html
On “away from Joe=towards success?”
DeLong’s response was better.
True. But then, Brad Delong is a better blogger than I am.
On “my blog post titles demonstrate my ironic detachment and caustic verve”
Long post coming for you, paul.
"
plus the fact that you’re doing a vapid, snarky takedown of something that is itself … vapid and snarky
Yes. Indeed.
Seriously, for someone who seems to take such satisfaction in this sort of thing, I think you really need a tune up of your self-critical process. Like, for reals.
On “Overlearning Lessons”
You can't spread democracy through force of arms; trying to do so is just a basic contradiction in terms. Spreading stability through force of arms is always self-defeating in the short term (by definition), and in the long term, the record is really, really bad. We're still stuck on "should wes", when "can wes" remain the absolutely essential questions.
No other policy in American politics could have such a horrendous record and yet enjoy more chances than an aggressive foreign policy.