El Yebe did have an email scandal remember? He accidentally released the private information, like SS numbers, of the people who emailed him looking for help with stuff. We made like 3 jokes and instantly got bored.
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PoliGAF 2015 |OT| Keep Calm and Diablos On
- Thread starter Aaron Strife
- Start date
- Status
El Yebe did have an email scandal remember? He accidentally released the private information, like SS numbers, of the people who emailed him looking for help with stuff. We made like 3 jokes and instantly got bored.
Of course I do. I responded to him as if he was actually serious. I know he was diablosing. It won't be the last either.
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
Don't know where there is 30k number is coming from other than Trump campaign. People who were there estimate the stadium was about half full at best.
The CNN article says 30 but doesn't explain how that number came to be. Seems to be more like 20 which is pretty good but it's also Alabama, that's not that different from Sanders getting big crowds in big liberal cities.
The CNN article says 30 but doesn't explain how that number came to be. Seems to be more like 20 which is pretty good but it's also Alabama, that's not that different from Sanders getting big crowds in big liberal cities.
PantherLotus
Professional Schmuck
And this election meme was born. Well done.
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
Isn't as good without the juxtaposition of the baby.
I totally forgot about that.
Democrats have done a lot for African Americans. I don't know where he's getting the idea that the party takes their vote for granted.
So I just randomly decided to rewatch Game Change last night when I was just mindlessly browsing through Amazon Prime Instant. Now, I've not read the book, and I believe the film at least makes Palin, and McCain for that matter, look more sympathetic than I think anyone has a right to think of them. However with that election now less fresh in my mind, but knowing now how GOP has reacted to an Obama two-term presidency, and the absolutely abhorrent xenophobia being ratcheted up during this GOP primary, the film is absolutely ominous.
That scene just before McCain goes out to give his concession speech and he turns back to Palin and says (granted the first bit isn't really true IMO, but the second follow-up is true), "You're one of the leaders of the party now Sarah. Don't get co-opted by Limbaugh and the other extremists. They'll destroy the party if you let them."
Listen to the damn ominous score under that scene, and realize the bigotry this GOP primary is trying to champion and it's enough to make one completely depressed that a sizable, albeit minority, part of this country's population is willing to tear its own political machine apart - though they probably don't realize that's what they're doing - in order to forcibly remove children from this country that happen to not be white.
In fact, for the first time I really noticed the score in the film (not the licensed music, but the score) , and it really is fairly dark particularly when a scene is addressing Palin using the process for bolstering her own ego, and the descent into screaming racist rally crowds the campaign ended up with.
It's a far better film about a descent into political darkness than the Star Wars PT.
That scene just before McCain goes out to give his concession speech and he turns back to Palin and says (granted the first bit isn't really true IMO, but the second follow-up is true), "You're one of the leaders of the party now Sarah. Don't get co-opted by Limbaugh and the other extremists. They'll destroy the party if you let them."
Listen to the damn ominous score under that scene, and realize the bigotry this GOP primary is trying to champion and it's enough to make one completely depressed that a sizable, albeit minority, part of this country's population is willing to tear its own political machine apart - though they probably don't realize that's what they're doing - in order to forcibly remove children from this country that happen to not be white.
In fact, for the first time I really noticed the score in the film (not the licensed music, but the score) , and it really is fairly dark particularly when a scene is addressing Palin using the process for bolstering her own ego, and the descent into screaming racist rally crowds the campaign ended up with.
It's a far better film about a descent into political darkness than the Star Wars PT.
speculawyer
Member
It has already delivered the laughs by the truckload. And we still have more than a year to go.
speculawyer
Member
Yeah, he really is quite the comically evil character. If I were casting a movie and I needed someone for the nasty mean far-right politician, I'd ask for Ted Cruz. I think he won that 'Most punchable face' thread. And that voice . . . that squeaky little voice. The guy is Joseph McCarthy reincarnated.
Macho Madness
Member
Hmmm.
Lmao, my voice is somewhat similar though lighter. But yeah, his smug face rustles my jimmies greatly. I mean the man is one of the most cynical politicians out there, and that's saying something. I seriously don't see how conservatives like this self-serving stooge. At least the other GOP guys are charming/endearing in their own way (even Trump), but him, I don't get it.
After 2012 I turned to my brother and said, "There's no way it could get better than this."
I stand corrected.
Aaron Strife
Banned
Biden-Warren would be holy shit territory. Still wouldn't consider it particularly likely.
It would be even better if the GOP ticket was Trump-Cruz.
speculawyer
Member
Aww, hell no. Cuomo the lesser is not much liked.
RastaMentality
Banned
I wonder if he'd move farther left than he's typically been with her on the ticket.
eBay Huckster
Member
or a third miracle happens and i gain canadian citizenship in the next year so i don't have to participate in this farce
RastaMentality
Banned
Confirmation from the police.
adamsappel
Member
Is Warren even going to make an endorsement in this primary? She is not a kingmaker so I wonder what effect it would ultimately have.
YOU FOUND IT! THAT'S THE PHOTOSHOPPED JEB! PHOTO!
That would be an amazing ticket right there.
Agreed. Between the all-out war between him and deBlasio and education "reform" he's really not looked too good.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Is Warren even going to make an endorsement in this primary? She is not a kingmaker so I wonder what effect it would ultimately have.
Huh, so it is his hand.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Yeah but where did the police get the number?
Are you doubting the #1ness of this classy and excellent rally that was held last night?
Police typically figure out rally size counts for things like this. Fire Marshall requirements I believe.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
ErasureAcer
Banned
You realize the number came from the Police Department, not Trump right?
And this video is about a Trump tweet from a different rally. What the hell are you trying to ramble about? Your post had nothing to do with what was being discussed.
speculawyer
Member
Ladies and gentlemen, the most photoshoppable picture in the 2016 election cycle.
Suddenly everything about EraserAcer makes a lot more sense:
http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=165777
http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=165777
Should post that in the Bernie Sanders rally thread.
Oh my god :lol
The gifts.. they keep on coming.
And these giant collars that she's wearing; I wonder if her wardrobe person is a fan of Groose? Or Suze Orman?
(she just needs to avoid getting to close to Dolores Umbridge territory..)
RastaMentality
Banned
PC talk has been taking more and more of a center stage in the cycle ever since the Donald entered. Guy on CNN trying to convince this other guy that calling a baby an "anchor baby" is obviously placing all of the offensive nature of the word on the child and not on the mom. Then he just shrugs it off that we have much more important things to worry about over political correctness. It's an easy response that conservatives can yup up.
Biden better get in the fucking ring. Warren as VP is ideal. If not her, then O'Malley, Castro, or as a wild card, Kamala Harris. That would set her up for a 2024 run faster than anything else. DO IT.
Everyone worries about Biden's gaffes but compared to Donald Trump's filthy mouth, they are nothing.
Maybe my mind is racing but I just think Hillary is once again failing miserably at connecting the dots and we don't have time for this shit again. The climate isn't so favorable to Dems like it was in 2008 when Bush drove his party off a cliff. We can't play games again.
speculawyer
Member
You know . . . isn't it pretty fucking Bizzaro for the GOP to suddenly go all 'anchor baby' and 'end birthright citizenship' when they have TWO presidential candidates that are 'anchor babies'?
Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
Aren't you the same guy who wanted Obama to be challenged by his own party in 2012?
Don't mind him, Diablos is in a perpetual state of panic.
Three if Mitt Romney gets back into the race.
If i said anything like that it was short-lived. I sincerely doubt I said it, but if you find the post so be it.
I'm serious, Biden is not that much older than Hillary and he is intelligent, charismatic/really knows how to work people, is a formidable diplomat and doesn't fuck around when things get crazy (i.e. doing the heavy lifting for Obama when no one else in his cabinet could work with Congress to get the Budget Control Act figured out). He knows how to ask tough questions and defend himself; he would wipe any GOPer all over the floor in a debate, from a jackass like Donald Trump to a complete establishment tool like Jeb Bush and everything in between.
Again, all of this Hillary stuff reminds me of the Democratic primary for '08 when she really started to piss me off. There's a reason why Obama won.
Brawndo Addict
Banned
I hate to keep harping on this but since nothing super substantive is really going on...
Thomson discusses the violinist analogy primarily in the introductory section where she is talking about defending abortion even under the condition of the fetus being a person with a right to life. When she brings it up in later instances they are significant modifications of the original scenario intended to apply to a different argument. In particular, Section 1 is about instances in which the mother's life is threatened; she is attacking "the view that abortion is impermissible even to save the mother's life".
When she brings up the violinist argument in that section, she modifies the scenario by saying: "There you are, in bed with the violinist, and the director of the hospital says to you, "It's all most distressing, and I deeply sympathize, but you see this is putting an additional strain on your kidneys, and you'll be dead within the month."
That's a completely different situation from the original one. And again, if we were to say that you were the direct causation of the violinist's ailment, we would find ourselves in a quite less straightforward situation. The analogy's effectiveness turns quite heavily on embedded issues of causation that don't parallel well to the real world. She also discusses the expanding child/house analogy here with respect to self-defense.
I'm not sure where you're getting the responsibility issue in section 3. I don't think it's a coincidence that she uses the word responsibility/responsible in other places but not section 3. If you mean as a general catch-all for legal duties or moral obligations, sure I guess. But in the context of your use of it, I think you're getting at something more particular with respect to causation.
I also think your use of 'self-defense' is quite problematic. Your use is not, as you suggest, simply a little more broad than hers, it's fundamentally different. She's speaking with specificity for a particular purpose, I don't see how you can change the definition and say the argument is still the same.
I think you have to be really careful in reading Section 5. Section 5 is about making clear distinctions between rights and what she calls moral decency. She is trying to say that the morally decent thing to do is not co-extensive with the operation of rights to have that 'thing' done; "You ought to do" is not equivalent with "they have a right to have you do". And she goes on to say that yes, indecent it may be, it is permissible to unplug. You later use semantics derogatorily but I think she is being quite earnest in trying to explore these differences. In anything, I think she fails to properly explore this subject in enough depth as she seems to treat duties as a moral issue that are ultimately subservient to rights (but one cannot have rights without corresponding duties).
I think you're conflating things here because this section is not necessarily conditional on any threat of bodily harm or death or self-defense at all, all 'other interests and concerns' would suffice. She's saying that even if you need to be hooked up to the violinist for only an hour, that even if that action carries no risk whatsoever, that even if that action is a moral 'ought to do', none of that means the violinist has a right to be hooked up to you for that hour. You can refuse and unplug yourself and while doing so would perhaps be considered immoral, it is not, as she says, "unjust".
When you quote her closing to section 5 you fail to include the extremely important conditional she prefaced it with: " Except in such cases as the unborn person has a right to demand it--and we were leaving open the possibility that there may be such cases--nobody is morally required to make large sacrifices, of health, of all other interests and concerns, of all other duties and commitments, for nine years, or even for nine months, in order to keep another person alive."
Now if we re-translate the bolded into her analogical situation, "Except in such cases that the violinist has a right to demand it", we get to precisely my problem. The analogy is not generalized in a way that is helpful, it is a very particular formulation with implicit conditions that move us in a predefined direction. If we interrogate the internal issues of causation and what is necessary to create a "right of demand", we very quickly see the analogy's lack of efficacy.
There's a lot to unpack here so let me first make a different point before addressing your points more directly. I think you're misusing sentences by failing to take into account the full context of how they're being used. That she later discusses self-defense in her paper, for example, does not mean that self-defense was inherently important to the original violinist analogy (she explicitly modified that analogy to include a self-defense element when she turned to that issue). And that original analogy was what this discussion was originally about was it not? But now it seems we've been forced to shift to an analysis of her entire paper in order to 'understand' the analogy, which supports my original argument:
That said, let's look in depth at this because there's a lot to unpack:
If that is an argument predicated on a right to defend oneself from harm, wherefore is the harm in the example? I don't think the nuisance of postponing the trip is the type of harm she had in mind when she was discussing self-defense. I think you're drawing the wrong conclusion about this section, mostly because she is being misleading.
Prior to your quote, she starts by saying that: "First, while I do argue that abortion is not impermissible, I do not argue that it is always permissible." But this makes no sense on its face, if something is not always permissible than it is sometimes impermissible. Yet she clearly states she is arguing against that conclusion, she doesn't say that 'abortion is not always impermissible'.
She continues: "There may well be cases in which carrying the child to term requires only Minimally Decent Samaritanism of the mother, and this is a standard we must not fall below." The whole "minimally Decent Samaritan" subject is a mess in my opinion. She originally uses 'decency' to imply a sense of morals and distinguishes that from rights or duties. So what is the relevance of minimal decency if the whole point is that decency is irrelevant to whether a right to something exists or not? Does minimal decency create a duty to act or or a right in a third party? How do we define minimal? When she says we must not fall below the standard does she mean we have a moral obligation but not an ethical one? If so, why bring it up? After all, she doesn't take a position one way or the other on 'minimal decency' laws:
This may seem unrelated, but now let's consider the example you pointed to: "It would be indecent in the woman to request an abortion, and indecent in a doctor to perform it, if she is in her seventh month, and wants the abortion just to avoid the nuisance of postponing a trip abroad." As we've both said, indecent does not mean unjust, and indecent does not confer a right or a duty to act. So what is the purpose of this example beyond stating the obvious that someone may express moral disapproval? I really don't think she's saying this is a case of "Minimal Decency" and even if she was, she certainly hasn't said that minimal decency corresponds with any kind of right or legal obligation.
Which is to say that she's not arguing that an abortion in the context of that situation would be impermissible, merely that it could be morally objectionable. I do think she is in fact arguing that abortions are always permissible, but she is obscuring the fact through word-play and misuse of her own terminology.
So when you say that:
I think you're arguing for something she was not. Whether or not the woman's actions are 'decent' has no bearing on whether the abortion itself is permissible, she's merely making a moral observation. She's not saying that because it would be indecent to abort in this situation that abortions should not be permitted in this situation. See our and her earlier discussion in Section 5 about the differences between 'oughts' and 'rights':
And that is exactly my point when I say the analogy and her argument operates independently of self-defense. Even if you stretch the definition to mean defending oneself against temporal inconveniences, it's not intrinsic to her argument; her point is that irrespective of the harm involved the fetus has no right to the body in the first place even if we grant that it has a right to life.
Her whole paper was an exercise in defending abortion even under the bolded condition. Her strategy was to show that even if you grant the opposing side this axiom, it doesn't necessarily follow that abortions are impermissible. And yes, while I think this is a perfectly good method of inquiry that doesn't mean this is the best process for more casual interactions between citizens.
Rather than drudging up an analogy which just takes one farther afield from the issue, why not simply explore the proponent's argument directly. They claim a fetus is a person with a right to life so abortion is murder. There are plenty of ways to interrogate that directly without feeling like a misaligned analogy is the only possible move left available to you. We could ask them what we should do when a woman miscarries, is it manslaughter? What about fertilized eggs that don't implant? Are those accidental killings? You can explore real-life parallels without having to manufacture a contrived analogy, does the right to life compel us to always act to save a life? Must we donate kidneys to those who will die without them, do we have a duty to rescue someone regardless of the hazards involved? This will probably move you into a discussion about passive vs. active (letting die vs. killing), which takes you to a more nuanced place than simply "nuh uh...yes uh".
You can even grant them the argument that abortion is murder and then ask what should follow. Should we prosecute any woman who gets an abortion for murder? If their spouse assents are they an accomplice to murder? How long should the prison term be? Statute of limitations? In many cases, someone may feel good about the principle in the abstract but fail to think through whether they would want that actually implemented.
Again, I don't think the violinist case captures the abortion issue in the way you think. It assumes complete lack of causation on your part, you're kidnapped and hooked up against your will. You say that pro-lifers are put on the defensive because they'll have to make up reasons (responsibility) to distinguish between rape and other abortion scenarios and that this distinction is not defensible. But why should we treat the claim that responsibility or causation is irrelevant or meaningless to this analogy? If we change the setup of the analogy to one in which you are directly responsible for the violinist's predicament, does that not change our moral/ethical calculus? By changing the starting scenario of the analogy, we completely change the way the analogy translates back into the real world. We would rightfully object and say that choosing to get pregnant is not like causing someone to become mortally injured, but this variant of the analogy would lead us to think that way by default. You can make one 'slide' in different directions by changing the setup.
I'd argue that the violinist analogy is the functional equivalent of a political slogan. It's deliberately constructed to lead to a certain conclusion that doesn't map over well to the real world, and we can reverse the outcome by changing the underlying starting variables. And yeah, not everyone who is pro-life believes it for certain reasons, just as not everyone who is pro-choice believes it for certain reasons. That bad rationale for a position exists does not mean that better rationale does not exist or should not be addressed (tacit consent, responsibility/causation, stranger vs. offspring, killing vs. letting die). I'm not saying those are, or that we should treat them as, persuasive arguments against abortion, but they are more cogent formulations that are worth engaging with, as opposed to assuming that the argument is just about punishing women for having sex. Even if that is someone's reason, it's better to try to make them aware of the more structured arguments, and try to force them to interrogate their own positions. Developing understanding beyond what is sufficient is beneficial to society at large.
Thomson discusses the violinist analogy primarily in the introductory section where she is talking about defending abortion even under the condition of the fetus being a person with a right to life. When she brings it up in later instances they are significant modifications of the original scenario intended to apply to a different argument. In particular, Section 1 is about instances in which the mother's life is threatened; she is attacking "the view that abortion is impermissible even to save the mother's life".
When she brings up the violinist argument in that section, she modifies the scenario by saying: "There you are, in bed with the violinist, and the director of the hospital says to you, "It's all most distressing, and I deeply sympathize, but you see this is putting an additional strain on your kidneys, and you'll be dead within the month."
That's a completely different situation from the original one. And again, if we were to say that you were the direct causation of the violinist's ailment, we would find ourselves in a quite less straightforward situation. The analogy's effectiveness turns quite heavily on embedded issues of causation that don't parallel well to the real world. She also discusses the expanding child/house analogy here with respect to self-defense.
I'm not sure where you're getting the responsibility issue in section 3. I don't think it's a coincidence that she uses the word responsibility/responsible in other places but not section 3. If you mean as a general catch-all for legal duties or moral obligations, sure I guess. But in the context of your use of it, I think you're getting at something more particular with respect to causation.
I also think your use of 'self-defense' is quite problematic. Your use is not, as you suggest, simply a little more broad than hers, it's fundamentally different. She's speaking with specificity for a particular purpose, I don't see how you can change the definition and say the argument is still the same.
I think you have to be really careful in reading Section 5. Section 5 is about making clear distinctions between rights and what she calls moral decency. She is trying to say that the morally decent thing to do is not co-extensive with the operation of rights to have that 'thing' done; "You ought to do" is not equivalent with "they have a right to have you do". And she goes on to say that yes, indecent it may be, it is permissible to unplug. You later use semantics derogatorily but I think she is being quite earnest in trying to explore these differences. In anything, I think she fails to properly explore this subject in enough depth as she seems to treat duties as a moral issue that are ultimately subservient to rights (but one cannot have rights without corresponding duties).
I think you're conflating things here because this section is not necessarily conditional on any threat of bodily harm or death or self-defense at all, all 'other interests and concerns' would suffice. She's saying that even if you need to be hooked up to the violinist for only an hour, that even if that action carries no risk whatsoever, that even if that action is a moral 'ought to do', none of that means the violinist has a right to be hooked up to you for that hour. You can refuse and unplug yourself and while doing so would perhaps be considered immoral, it is not, as she says, "unjust".
When you quote her closing to section 5 you fail to include the extremely important conditional she prefaced it with: " Except in such cases as the unborn person has a right to demand it--and we were leaving open the possibility that there may be such cases--nobody is morally required to make large sacrifices, of health, of all other interests and concerns, of all other duties and commitments, for nine years, or even for nine months, in order to keep another person alive."
Now if we re-translate the bolded into her analogical situation, "Except in such cases that the violinist has a right to demand it", we get to precisely my problem. The analogy is not generalized in a way that is helpful, it is a very particular formulation with implicit conditions that move us in a predefined direction. If we interrogate the internal issues of causation and what is necessary to create a "right of demand", we very quickly see the analogy's lack of efficacy.
There's a lot to unpack here so let me first make a different point before addressing your points more directly. I think you're misusing sentences by failing to take into account the full context of how they're being used. That she later discusses self-defense in her paper, for example, does not mean that self-defense was inherently important to the original violinist analogy (she explicitly modified that analogy to include a self-defense element when she turned to that issue). And that original analogy was what this discussion was originally about was it not? But now it seems we've been forced to shift to an analysis of her entire paper in order to 'understand' the analogy, which supports my original argument:
That said, let's look in depth at this because there's a lot to unpack:
If that is an argument predicated on a right to defend oneself from harm, wherefore is the harm in the example? I don't think the nuisance of postponing the trip is the type of harm she had in mind when she was discussing self-defense. I think you're drawing the wrong conclusion about this section, mostly because she is being misleading.
Prior to your quote, she starts by saying that: "First, while I do argue that abortion is not impermissible, I do not argue that it is always permissible." But this makes no sense on its face, if something is not always permissible than it is sometimes impermissible. Yet she clearly states she is arguing against that conclusion, she doesn't say that 'abortion is not always impermissible'.
She continues: "There may well be cases in which carrying the child to term requires only Minimally Decent Samaritanism of the mother, and this is a standard we must not fall below." The whole "minimally Decent Samaritan" subject is a mess in my opinion. She originally uses 'decency' to imply a sense of morals and distinguishes that from rights or duties. So what is the relevance of minimal decency if the whole point is that decency is irrelevant to whether a right to something exists or not? Does minimal decency create a duty to act or or a right in a third party? How do we define minimal? When she says we must not fall below the standard does she mean we have a moral obligation but not an ethical one? If so, why bring it up? After all, she doesn't take a position one way or the other on 'minimal decency' laws:
This may seem unrelated, but now let's consider the example you pointed to: "It would be indecent in the woman to request an abortion, and indecent in a doctor to perform it, if she is in her seventh month, and wants the abortion just to avoid the nuisance of postponing a trip abroad." As we've both said, indecent does not mean unjust, and indecent does not confer a right or a duty to act. So what is the purpose of this example beyond stating the obvious that someone may express moral disapproval? I really don't think she's saying this is a case of "Minimal Decency" and even if she was, she certainly hasn't said that minimal decency corresponds with any kind of right or legal obligation.
Which is to say that she's not arguing that an abortion in the context of that situation would be impermissible, merely that it could be morally objectionable. I do think she is in fact arguing that abortions are always permissible, but she is obscuring the fact through word-play and misuse of her own terminology.
So when you say that:
I think you're arguing for something she was not. Whether or not the woman's actions are 'decent' has no bearing on whether the abortion itself is permissible, she's merely making a moral observation. She's not saying that because it would be indecent to abort in this situation that abortions should not be permitted in this situation. See our and her earlier discussion in Section 5 about the differences between 'oughts' and 'rights':
And that is exactly my point when I say the analogy and her argument operates independently of self-defense. Even if you stretch the definition to mean defending oneself against temporal inconveniences, it's not intrinsic to her argument; her point is that irrespective of the harm involved the fetus has no right to the body in the first place even if we grant that it has a right to life.
Her whole paper was an exercise in defending abortion even under the bolded condition. Her strategy was to show that even if you grant the opposing side this axiom, it doesn't necessarily follow that abortions are impermissible. And yes, while I think this is a perfectly good method of inquiry that doesn't mean this is the best process for more casual interactions between citizens.
Rather than drudging up an analogy which just takes one farther afield from the issue, why not simply explore the proponent's argument directly. They claim a fetus is a person with a right to life so abortion is murder. There are plenty of ways to interrogate that directly without feeling like a misaligned analogy is the only possible move left available to you. We could ask them what we should do when a woman miscarries, is it manslaughter? What about fertilized eggs that don't implant? Are those accidental killings? You can explore real-life parallels without having to manufacture a contrived analogy, does the right to life compel us to always act to save a life? Must we donate kidneys to those who will die without them, do we have a duty to rescue someone regardless of the hazards involved? This will probably move you into a discussion about passive vs. active (letting die vs. killing), which takes you to a more nuanced place than simply "nuh uh...yes uh".
You can even grant them the argument that abortion is murder and then ask what should follow. Should we prosecute any woman who gets an abortion for murder? If their spouse assents are they an accomplice to murder? How long should the prison term be? Statute of limitations? In many cases, someone may feel good about the principle in the abstract but fail to think through whether they would want that actually implemented.
Again, I don't think the violinist case captures the abortion issue in the way you think. It assumes complete lack of causation on your part, you're kidnapped and hooked up against your will. You say that pro-lifers are put on the defensive because they'll have to make up reasons (responsibility) to distinguish between rape and other abortion scenarios and that this distinction is not defensible. But why should we treat the claim that responsibility or causation is irrelevant or meaningless to this analogy? If we change the setup of the analogy to one in which you are directly responsible for the violinist's predicament, does that not change our moral/ethical calculus? By changing the starting scenario of the analogy, we completely change the way the analogy translates back into the real world. We would rightfully object and say that choosing to get pregnant is not like causing someone to become mortally injured, but this variant of the analogy would lead us to think that way by default. You can make one 'slide' in different directions by changing the setup.
I'd argue that the violinist analogy is the functional equivalent of a political slogan. It's deliberately constructed to lead to a certain conclusion that doesn't map over well to the real world, and we can reverse the outcome by changing the underlying starting variables. And yeah, not everyone who is pro-life believes it for certain reasons, just as not everyone who is pro-choice believes it for certain reasons. That bad rationale for a position exists does not mean that better rationale does not exist or should not be addressed (tacit consent, responsibility/causation, stranger vs. offspring, killing vs. letting die). I'm not saying those are, or that we should treat them as, persuasive arguments against abortion, but they are more cogent formulations that are worth engaging with, as opposed to assuming that the argument is just about punishing women for having sex. Even if that is someone's reason, it's better to try to make them aware of the more structured arguments, and try to force them to interrogate their own positions. Developing understanding beyond what is sufficient is beneficial to society at large.
speculawyer
Member
Not quite. George Romney was born in Mexico but he was a US citizen, so I guess Mitt would be a US citizen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Romney
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
tbf, I don't know if the GOP knows that Jindal is still alive and part of the political process.
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