Would probably go over as well as if we did something commesurrate to someone located in China. But let's not be silly, neither power gives a damn so long as the 'sploding or snatching is done to people located in backwater states.
I think the rationalization of this though is that people have different perceptions of the preventability of the two issues. MAD involved the Soviets and we really didn't think we could push the Soviets around very much, thus a certain fatalism about it.
Terror though involves stone age bomb toting peasants from durka-durka-stan. People honestly think that we should be able to stop bomb toting stone age peasants from killing us. Thus the crazy over reaction.
Me too James and I have 3 years on you (1979). Never saw the movie, never was very worried about nukes. Thinking about it though, rural Nova Scotia was kindof in the middle of nowhere but on the other hand we got all of New Englands acid rain so had the bomb been dropped the air currents would probably have dropped tons of New Englands radioactive fallout on us.
Not to hijack the subject but it has been observed that injecting a tch more market into the issue of transplants pretty much eliminates the scarcity that is involved. The only reason why Mr. Crosy and young little Jimmy bum-liver both cannot not now have prompt matching transplants is a socially (and governmentally) created artificial scarcity.
Roger, correct me if I'm misremembering but as I recall in the company town the company paid you less to work than it cost to buy goods for living at the company store. This gap in pay/expenses was made up for with a line of credit that represented a steadily expanding shackle on the ankle of the worker and was passed to his children when he dies. Nowhere in this scenario are the workers remotely free from coersion.
Oi, I remember once at TNR I found a study that seemed to support some fun assertions that I tossed up on the comments. I hadn't read into it sufficiently and the writhing discomfort of watching my post get utterly defenestrated by the follow up responses was agonizing. You have all my sympathies Tom.
It's depressing when things go predictably. Romney in a walk. The only interesting thing to watch will be if any of his rivals actually try and take aim at him or if they all abstain out of fear of harming him in the general.
BlaiseP, I'd disagree because I do not think think you're analysing the biology far enough. Let us focus on pregnancy as a biological construct. Do the effects, burdens and risks of pregnancy not fall entirely upon the woman in a pregnancy? Where is the impact of the pregnancy upon the father? The Father is utterly detatched from the gestation process. He has deposited his genetic material and thereafter biology in its tyranny leaves him free to blithely sail on to other waters if he is so inclined. The Father is not remotely one half of the process and accordingly his rights are proportional to his skin in the game. This strikes me as about as just as one can hope for when dealing with this issue.
I hate to say it Kim but I must reluctantly agree with Murali that the claim he highlighted is hair raising and probably needs either substantiating or possibly walking back. As a fellow commenter who often finds himself indulging in the heady liquor of hyperbole I would suggest there's no shame in that.
Most assuredly Tom, the problem then steps on out of the moral to the mere practical. Pregnancy stage estimating is an imprecise science. Is the fetus a week old? Two weeks old? How many months? There are some concrete indicators at certain developmental stages but beyond that one is pretty much out of luck. So the questions of aborting then become pretty much yes/no in general.
And with respect most pro-lifers who I read online generally view banning of abortion entirely to be the end game to which incremental bans of certain stages of abortions are mere waystations. It's one reason why pro-choicers fight so fervently over the least defensible abortions; if we fight em over there we don't have to fight em over here. An arguement with impeccable neocon credentials that one.
As with all things abortion related Tom it boils back down to questions of personhood. If a woman has unprotected sex with a scofflaw or even has sex with a fine fellow but suffers a contraception failure then you (and pro-lifers) assert that there's a natural moral obligation (presumably to the zygote thus formed). Since neither I (nor pro-choicers generally) consider a zygote a person (or persons- some zygotes turn into more than one person) we don't feel that the woman owes a moral obligation to anyone but herself.
Personally I concede that as the pregnancy progresses at a certain stage a very small moral obligation develops and then increases and intensifies as the woman continues to permit the pregnancy to progress until at the stage where the infant is capable of surviving outside of the woman she does have considerable moral claims competing against her own. But for the overwhelming majority of all abortions that take place I view nothing morally problematic to have occurred.
As always, being Canadian by upbringing, I find the abortion debate in America bemusing in how it inverts the normal MO’s of the respective sides. Left wingers and liberals develop a keen appreciation for individual rights, personal sovereignty and personal property rights; right wingers and conservatives turn into positive rights endorsers to an intrusive and intimate degree that’d make them scream socialism to the heavens if the subject in question was anything other than a pre-viability fetus.
A good analysis Simon. Essentially the terms pro-life and pro-choice are likely being used by the masses to indicate their position vis a vis current policy rather than by objective standards. Therefore a pro-choice person who favors more restrictions on abortion, for instance, would identify as pro-life to a pollster since they feel that currnet policy is to the left of them.
Though, based on what you've subsequently said I take it both these paragraphs are pretty much negated?
I know you must have gone out of your way, at this point, to engage in substantial discussion of policy with modern liberals? For the most part, they are completely sold on centralized, technocratic economic management to the point that where they cannot fathom market-based policies being rationally preferable to anyone who isn’t on a Koch payroll (Wilkinson, ironically has been ridiculously labelled a libertard for his Koch connections) .
Meanwhile, conservatives are beginning to be more cosmopolitan, or maybe cosmopolitan independents are becoming more conservative. Whatever the case may be, I find the social libertarian argument much more amenable to conservatives than I find the free market amenable to liberals.
Ah Bradp, but you appeared in your initial comment to be conflating libertarians with conservatives as if they're one and the same. In my experience the former are massively different from the latter. No matter how much conservatives like to pretend it is so, libertarians are not conservatives.
Now I'll agree that libertarians have some principles that seem to be ends to themselves. Taxation is theft, for instance, is a common one and even if you could demonstrate that people overall are better off with a government that operates using a taxation system some libertarians would say that nevertheless taxation is a bad thing.
I'd also quibble with your characterization that Liberals largely rejecting or in some cases badly understating the value of decentralized economic decision making. Perhaps this might have been characteristic of liberals in the past but I've seen relatively little movement among most liberals now days towards centralizing economic control or rejecting markets. If anything many true believer liberals (at least on the internet) complain that the centrist liberal masses that actually have political power in this country are excessively comfortable with the ideas of unfettered markets.
Odd BradP, my own experience is the exact inverse of yours. Perhaps it's an age thing? Liberals purportedly want to make people in general better off and happier. That's generally their asserted goal. There's nothing in markets that is fundamentally opposed to that goal. Many liberals, if convinced that markets are the best way to achieve their goals, support markets. Those who don't support markets generally believe that markets cause problems or have issues that make people less well off or more unhappy. Liberals want the same end regardless of the means that they think would best achieve that. I may part company with liberals on the means but generally I agree on the ends (generally).
With conservatives, on the other hand, many of the issues I part company with them on are questions of the ends, not the means. You have Santorum, for example, who wishes to force socially liberated minorities back out of society, ban abortion and initiate additional wars with foreign backwater theocracies. Maybe he has some laudable means to get to those ends but damnit those ends are awful.
I'd say that it jives with my proposed theory. Talk is cheap and polls are ultimately talk. In the privacy of the voting booth confronted with the option of taking a concrete act to enact a strict pro-life policy many voters turn pro-choice despite what they tell the pollsters.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “When the Fourth Estate Fails”
Would probably go over as well as if we did something commesurrate to someone located in China. But let's not be silly, neither power gives a damn so long as the 'sploding or snatching is done to people located in backwater states.
On “The 10 Commandments of Tod”
These comments and the post are so full of win. Praise Tod!
On “Note on “The Day After””
Yes, quite well said.
I think the rationalization of this though is that people have different perceptions of the preventability of the two issues. MAD involved the Soviets and we really didn't think we could push the Soviets around very much, thus a certain fatalism about it.
Terror though involves stone age bomb toting peasants from durka-durka-stan. People honestly think that we should be able to stop bomb toting stone age peasants from killing us. Thus the crazy over reaction.
"
Me too James and I have 3 years on you (1979). Never saw the movie, never was very worried about nukes. Thinking about it though, rural Nova Scotia was kindof in the middle of nowhere but on the other hand we got all of New Englands acid rain so had the bomb been dropped the air currents would probably have dropped tons of New Englands radioactive fallout on us.
On “What the Evidence Says about Strategic Voting in Open Primaries”
Well BSK, political parties do still have to draw voters and the like.
On “Is Social Mobility Overrated?”
Ward, what on earth are the positions are they trying to fill and what're the technical qualification requirements?
"
Not to hijack the subject but it has been observed that injecting a tch more market into the issue of transplants pretty much eliminates the scarcity that is involved. The only reason why Mr. Crosy and young little Jimmy bum-liver both cannot not now have prompt matching transplants is a socially (and governmentally) created artificial scarcity.
"
Roger, correct me if I'm misremembering but as I recall in the company town the company paid you less to work than it cost to buy goods for living at the company store. This gap in pay/expenses was made up for with a line of credit that represented a steadily expanding shackle on the ankle of the worker and was passed to his children when he dies. Nowhere in this scenario are the workers remotely free from coersion.
On “The Hanging of Hosni Mubarak”
I'd have to write more regularily to merit a spot on the League's slate. I'm not good, it seems, at writing my own initial posts.
On “Guess Who’s the Party of Big Business”
Oi, I remember once at TNR I found a study that seemed to support some fun assertions that I tossed up on the comments. I hadn't read into it sufficiently and the writhing discomfort of watching my post get utterly defenestrated by the follow up responses was agonizing. You have all my sympathies Tom.
On “You Can’t Change Anything”
It's depressing when things go predictably. Romney in a walk. The only interesting thing to watch will be if any of his rivals actually try and take aim at him or if they all abstain out of fear of harming him in the general.
On “Reproductive Rights and Libertarianism”
BlaiseP, I'd disagree because I do not think think you're analysing the biology far enough. Let us focus on pregnancy as a biological construct. Do the effects, burdens and risks of pregnancy not fall entirely upon the woman in a pregnancy? Where is the impact of the pregnancy upon the father? The Father is utterly detatched from the gestation process. He has deposited his genetic material and thereafter biology in its tyranny leaves him free to blithely sail on to other waters if he is so inclined. The Father is not remotely one half of the process and accordingly his rights are proportional to his skin in the game. This strikes me as about as just as one can hope for when dealing with this issue.
"
I hate to say it Kim but I must reluctantly agree with Murali that the claim he highlighted is hair raising and probably needs either substantiating or possibly walking back. As a fellow commenter who often finds himself indulging in the heady liquor of hyperbole I would suggest there's no shame in that.
"
Blaise, what is your first language if I might be so bold?
Also, my own humble applause for the congeniality; it is admirable in any discussion but down right laudable when used when discussing this subject.
"
Most assuredly Tom, the problem then steps on out of the moral to the mere practical. Pregnancy stage estimating is an imprecise science. Is the fetus a week old? Two weeks old? How many months? There are some concrete indicators at certain developmental stages but beyond that one is pretty much out of luck. So the questions of aborting then become pretty much yes/no in general.
And with respect most pro-lifers who I read online generally view banning of abortion entirely to be the end game to which incremental bans of certain stages of abortions are mere waystations. It's one reason why pro-choicers fight so fervently over the least defensible abortions; if we fight em over there we don't have to fight em over here. An arguement with impeccable neocon credentials that one.
"
As with all things abortion related Tom it boils back down to questions of personhood. If a woman has unprotected sex with a scofflaw or even has sex with a fine fellow but suffers a contraception failure then you (and pro-lifers) assert that there's a natural moral obligation (presumably to the zygote thus formed). Since neither I (nor pro-choicers generally) consider a zygote a person (or persons- some zygotes turn into more than one person) we don't feel that the woman owes a moral obligation to anyone but herself.
Personally I concede that as the pregnancy progresses at a certain stage a very small moral obligation develops and then increases and intensifies as the woman continues to permit the pregnancy to progress until at the stage where the infant is capable of surviving outside of the woman she does have considerable moral claims competing against her own. But for the overwhelming majority of all abortions that take place I view nothing morally problematic to have occurred.
As always, being Canadian by upbringing, I find the abortion debate in America bemusing in how it inverts the normal MO’s of the respective sides. Left wingers and liberals develop a keen appreciation for individual rights, personal sovereignty and personal property rights; right wingers and conservatives turn into positive rights endorsers to an intrusive and intimate degree that’d make them scream socialism to the heavens if the subject in question was anything other than a pre-viability fetus.
On “Some Socially Conservative thoughts from a Liberaltarian”
I am very ignorant in most things Shakespear but wasn't R&J written as a comedy?
On “Required Reading”
TNC sure can turn a phrase from time to time.
On “Reproductive Rights and Libertarianism”
A good analysis Simon. Essentially the terms pro-life and pro-choice are likely being used by the masses to indicate their position vis a vis current policy rather than by objective standards. Therefore a pro-choice person who favors more restrictions on abortion, for instance, would identify as pro-life to a pollster since they feel that currnet policy is to the left of them.
On “Libertarianism and Liberalism and Labels”
Though, based on what you've subsequently said I take it both these paragraphs are pretty much negated?
I know you must have gone out of your way, at this point, to engage in substantial discussion of policy with modern liberals? For the most part, they are completely sold on centralized, technocratic economic management to the point that where they cannot fathom market-based policies being rationally preferable to anyone who isn’t on a Koch payroll (Wilkinson, ironically has been ridiculously labelled a libertard for his Koch connections) .
Meanwhile, conservatives are beginning to be more cosmopolitan, or maybe cosmopolitan independents are becoming more conservative. Whatever the case may be, I find the social libertarian argument much more amenable to conservatives than I find the free market amenable to liberals.
"
Okay thanks for clarifying.
"
Ah Bradp, but you appeared in your initial comment to be conflating libertarians with conservatives as if they're one and the same. In my experience the former are massively different from the latter. No matter how much conservatives like to pretend it is so, libertarians are not conservatives.
Now I'll agree that libertarians have some principles that seem to be ends to themselves. Taxation is theft, for instance, is a common one and even if you could demonstrate that people overall are better off with a government that operates using a taxation system some libertarians would say that nevertheless taxation is a bad thing.
I'd also quibble with your characterization that Liberals largely rejecting or in some cases badly understating the value of decentralized economic decision making. Perhaps this might have been characteristic of liberals in the past but I've seen relatively little movement among most liberals now days towards centralizing economic control or rejecting markets. If anything many true believer liberals (at least on the internet) complain that the centrist liberal masses that actually have political power in this country are excessively comfortable with the ideas of unfettered markets.
"
Thanks for sharing BlaiseP, I found it a great read (and I've not read anything of consequence about the Russian revolution).
"
Odd BradP, my own experience is the exact inverse of yours. Perhaps it's an age thing? Liberals purportedly want to make people in general better off and happier. That's generally their asserted goal. There's nothing in markets that is fundamentally opposed to that goal. Many liberals, if convinced that markets are the best way to achieve their goals, support markets. Those who don't support markets generally believe that markets cause problems or have issues that make people less well off or more unhappy. Liberals want the same end regardless of the means that they think would best achieve that. I may part company with liberals on the means but generally I agree on the ends (generally).
With conservatives, on the other hand, many of the issues I part company with them on are questions of the ends, not the means. You have Santorum, for example, who wishes to force socially liberated minorities back out of society, ban abortion and initiate additional wars with foreign backwater theocracies. Maybe he has some laudable means to get to those ends but damnit those ends are awful.
On “Reproductive Rights and Libertarianism”
I'd say that it jives with my proposed theory. Talk is cheap and polls are ultimately talk. In the privacy of the voting booth confronted with the option of taking a concrete act to enact a strict pro-life policy many voters turn pro-choice despite what they tell the pollsters.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.