Saturday, April 14, 2007
Liberals frame the argument
You know that we've been letting liberals define the argument for too long when requiring a 15 year old child, who wants to kill her baby so she doesn't get stretch marks, to tell her parents before she gets an abortion is seen as an "unconstitutional restriction" but republicans will gladly let liberals restrict how many bullets can be in my gun, where the clip should be located on my gun and whether or not I can stand on my front porch with it.
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33 comments:
If you can't spell porch, maybe you ought not be able to carry a gun--you think. Anyways, you were in felony possession of a firearm during your drug dealing so you don't qualify for a concealed handgun license anyways.
Got me on the spelling. But your fact checking needs some work, I'm not a felon and I do qualify for a CHL.
You must have fixed the spelling the word "porch."
Besides, I get tired of people who get hellbent on the past with your mistake. You learn from your mistake, and you imporve for the better in the future. Apparently some can't put it to rest.
imporve=improve
If my choice was between having a "legal" former drug-dealing gang member who brandishes his guns on the front porch and spends his free time harrassing fellow workers by shoving a video camera in their faces living on my street OR an "illegal" family who have never used drugs, own no guns and spend their weekends working in the garden ...
'Nuff said.
and spend their weekends working in the garden ... ???
Like the Woodburn girl who tried to bury her new-born child in the back yard?
Better spend some time in parts of Gresham, Hilsboro, Gervais or Salem and then tell how great Illegal Aliens are.
Playing devil's advocate: the difference is that what the fifteen-year-old girl does to her own body is not the same as what a bullet does to someone else's.
A bullet will hopefully kill whoever is a threat to my safety or the safety of others. A 15 year-old girl will hopefully not kill an innocent unborn child.
That's right, Daniel. Fuck with me and I'll kill you. Sounds very christlike.
hey, wrong, 3:52, you apparently agree with gandhi when he said that folks threatened with death should willingly submit themselves for execution as an act of "heroism." You, and the other lefty idiots, would then be "heroes," and there would be less sophistry for intelligent folks to endure...a win-win.....sheesh. BTW, kidiot (aka kaelri), you have once again revealed yourself as being among those who would save "aggravated murderers," and kill innocent babies (after all, if it's not a baby, you're not pregnant, right?) My wife and I prefer to be on the side of executing murderers, and working to save innocent babies.
Mr. Daniel, what most lefties don't "get," and may never understand, is the likelihood that our second amendment right is self-fulfilling. They will attempt to "talk" us out of our Constitutionally reaffirmed (recent Washington D.C. decision) right to bear arms as individuals, and find out firsthand what "running into a brick wall" feels like. Sooo, anti-second amendment freaks, get stuffed! (and stay that way)
I'd like to congratulate Bear, for managing to get through two rants in a row about liberals without resorting to the ridiculous "anti-American" or "America-haters" rhetoric. As for Daniel, I don't give a shit how many bullets you have, where the clip is located, what color it is, or how many ducks you shoot for dinner, and I also don't care if you want to stand on your porch with your gun enjoying your little Rambo fantasies. It's sad and pathetic, but if that's the sort of thing that gives your life meaning, then enjoy yourself.
I think the key here that some seem to be missing is that Daniel was making a comparison, not an analogy.
A comparison doesn't require similarity as an analogy does. In this case comparison is being used to illustrate the absurd.
That no restrictions are placed on a fifteen year old seeking an abortion on the slightest of whims, yet severe restrictions are levied on the magazine placement and capacity in a gun an adult may buy is certainly absurd.
True, R Huse but,
A bullet will hopefully kill whoever is a threat to my safety or the safety of others. A 15 year-old girl will hopefully not kill an innocent unborn child.
sounds more like a desire to me than a comparison.
Um - Yes "wrong" - Desire being indicated by the word "hopefully"
Not exactly sure what your point is here as I think the definition of hopefully as expressing desire is fairly well understood by the population at large.
My post was clearly referring to the original post as indicated.
That Daniels original comparison would then bring about a desired outcome from its rectification is hardly odd. People rarely compare two things with no purpose, even if that purpose is simply to express a desire.
Where exactly were you going with this?
[ORS] 161.219 Limitations on use of deadly physical force in defense of a person. Notwithstanding the provisions of ORS 161.209, a person is not justified in using deadly physical force upon another person unless the person reasonably believes that the other person is:
(1) Committing or attempting to commit a felony involving the use or threatened imminent use of physical force against a person; or
(2) Committing or attempting to commit a burglary in a dwelling; or
(3) Using or about to use unlawful deadly physical force against a person. [1971 c.743 §23]
The debate over abortion rights in this country ended in July 1992 when Dan Quayle went on national television and, in response to a question from Larry King, said that if his daughter was considering having an abortion, he would "support her on whatever decision she made."
But on the topic of "pro-life," I think Anon 2:16 nailed it. Even cops, who are disproportionately represented by can-do macho men types, absolutely dread the idea of having to even draw their weapon, much less kill someone. Most of them, anyway.
Daniel's bloodlust is hardly surprising. The United States is currently presiding over mass murder in Iraq on a genocidal scale, and ... well, let's be brutally fucking honest about it: Daniel Miglavs doesn't give a shit about Iraq's dead. Which is why his "pro-life" posturing is so disgusting and utterly pathetic. He's a very confused, disoriented man.
"BTW, kidiot (aka kaelri), you have once again revealed yourself as being among those who would save "aggravated murderers," and kill innocent babies (after all, if it's not a baby, you're not pregnant, right?) My wife and I prefer to be on the side of executing murderers, and working to save innocent babies."
All of that aside, the first three words of my comment were included for a reason.
Oh ok guys, I guess the whole "debate" on abortion ended in 1992 according to the memory hole, let's all go back to what we were doing and forget about the killing of children because women don't want to take personal responsibility for their choices.
(cont. from Daniel's quote) while trying to put bullets in the heads of people we think are a danger to our safety. While we're at it, lets kill some Iraqi kids, but ostracize mothers who kill non-human organisms.
Wrong, actually head shots are for movies, for self defense purposes you are supposed to aim for the center of body mass.
And at what point does a "non-human organism" become human?
When it ceases to become a ball of cells. When it is self-substainable.
Also, the argument that is easy to defend (if somewhat flawed) because the law says so, the very law you hold as infallible (I'm referring to "we are a nation of laws).
Notice how Miglavs has nothing to say about the American financed- and executed slaughter in Iraq. My earlier point, that he "doesn't give a shit about Iraq's dead," stands confirmed. The relevancy of that fact in the broader context of his "pro-life" chest-beating is obvious.
Memory Hole...
Unless you've BEEN to Iraq and witnessed the "Mass Murder and Slaughter" in Iraq, then I would suggest that rather than speaking out of emotion, you do a little fact digging, and if you can come up with TRUE facts and figures that support your assertion, you'd be much better recieved as someone who has done thier homework rather than a lefty nut-job spewing a few things that he's "heard about."
Oh, Anon 4:28, you mean like the testimonials of four star generals who have been to Iraq?
Facts about the extent of civilian deaths in Iraq have been thoroughly and exhaustively documented by multiple and reputable sources, both in this country and abroad, for anyone who cares to study them.
Mr. Miglavs chooses not to study them or even acknowledge them, and I don't care to take the time to speculate why that is. He's capable enough, as he regularly uses the Internet to seek out the macabre details of individual crimes committed by illegal immigrants and pore over obscure statutes and handbooks he would otherwise never have to consult for his own use.
You'd think that, for someone who professes to be a Christian, an event leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings might pique one's interest, but Mr. Miglavs obviously has different priorities.
Finally, Anon 4:28, I do not need to personally visit Iraq to know something about what has happened there, although I think it's fair to say that if I had, I'd be speaking with a hell of a lot more emotion than I am now.
And let's be honest: If I did go to Iraq and then presented to you dispassionately even a fraction of the research on this subject that is currently available, I wouldn't be any "better recieved" by you then I was half an hour ago, so knock off the bullshit.
October 11, 2006
Updated Iraq Survey Affirms Earlier Mortality Estimates
Mortality Trends Comparable to Estimates by Those Using Other Counting Methods
As many as 654,965 more Iraqis may have died since hostilities began in Iraq in March 2003 than would have been expected under pre-war conditions, according to a survey conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. The deaths from all causes—violent and non-violent—are over and above the estimated 143,000 deaths per year that occurred from all causes prior to the March 2003 invasion.
The estimates were derived from a nationwide household survey of 1,849 households throughout Iraq conducted between May and July 2006. The results are consistent with the findings of an October 2004 study of Iraq mortality conducted by the Hopkins researchers. Also, the findings closely reflect the increased mortality trends reported by other organizations that utilized passive methods of counting mortality, such as counting bodies in morgues or deaths reported by the news media. The study is published in the October 14, 2006, edition of the peer-reviewed scientific journal, The Lancet.
“As we found with our previous survey, the majority of deaths in Iraq are due to violence—although we also saw a small increase in deaths from non-violent causes, such as heart disease, cancer and chronic illness. Gunshots were the primary cause of violent deaths. To put these numbers in context, deaths are occurring in Iraq now at a rate more than three times that from before the invasion of March 2003,” said Gilbert Burnham, MD, PhD, lead author of the study and co-director of the Bloomberg School’s Center for Refugee and Disaster Response. “Our total estimate is much higher than other mortality estimates because we used a population-based, active method for collecting mortality information rather than passive methods that depend on counting bodies or tabulated media reports of violent deaths. Though the numbers differ, the trend in increasing numbers of deaths closely follows that measured by the U.S. Defense Department and the Iraq Body Count group.”
Key points of the study include:
• Estimated 654,965 additional deaths in Iraq between March 2003 and July 2006
• Majority of the additional deaths (91.8 percent) caused by violence
• Males aged 15-44 years accounted for 59 percent of post-invasion violent deaths
• About half of the households surveyed were uncertain who was responsible for the death of a household member
• The proportion of deaths attributed to coalition forces diminished in 2006 to 26 percent. Between March 2003 and July 2006, households attributed 31 percent of deaths to the coalition
• Mortality data from the 2006 study reaffirms 2004 estimates by Hopkins researchers and mirrors upward trends measured by other organizations
• Researchers recommend establishment of an international body to calculate mortality and monitor health of people living in all regions affected by conflict
The mortality survey used well-established and scientifically proven methods for measuring mortality and disease in populations. These same survey methods were used to measure mortality during conflicts in the Congo, Kosovo, Sudan and other regions. For the Iraq study, data were collected from 47 randomly selected clusters of 40 households each. At each household selected, trained Iraqi surveyors collected data on the number of births and deaths that occurred in the household between January 1, 2002, and June 30, 2006. To be considered a household member, the deceased had to have lived in the home at least three months prior to death. When interviewers asked to see a death certificate at households reporting a death, it was presented in 92 percent of instances. The survey recorded 1,474 births and 629 deaths among 12,801 people surveyed. The data were then applied to the 26.1 million Iraqis living in the survey area.
While the survey collected information on the manner of death, the study did not examine the circumstances of the death, such as whether the deceased was actively involved in armed combat, terrorism, criminal activity or caught in the middle of the conflict. The study outlines other limitations of the survey method, including the hazards of collecting data during a conflict.
The results from the new study closely match the finding of the group’s October 2004 mortality survey. The earlier study, also published in The Lancet, estimated over 100,000 additional deaths from all causes had occurred in Iraq from March 2003 to August 2004. When data from the new study were examined, it estimated 112,000 deaths for the same time period of the 2004 study. The new survey also found that the number of deaths attributed to coalition forces had declined in 2006, though overall households attributed 31 percent of deaths to the coalition. Responsibility could not be attributed in 45 percent of the violent deaths.
According to the researchers, the overall rate of mortality in Iraq since March 2003 is 13.3 deaths per 1,000 persons per year compared to 5.5 deaths per 1,000 persons per year prior to March 2003. This amounts to about 2.5 percent of Iraqi’s population having died as a consequence of the war. To put the 654,000 deaths in context with other conflicts, the authors note that during the Vietnam War an estimated 3 million civilians died overall; the Congo conflict was responsible for 3.8 million deaths; and recent estimates are that 200,000 have died in Darfur over the past 31 months.
“Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey” was written by Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy and Les Roberts.
Funding for the study was provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Johns Hopkins Center for Refugee and Disaster Response.
Public Affairs media contacts for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Tim Parsons or Kenna Lowe at 410-955-6878 or paffairs@jhsph.edu.
Response to the Wall Street Journal's "655,000 War Dead?"
October 20, 2006: A letter written in response to a opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal questioning the figures from the study cited above:
Dear Friends:
I submitted a letter to the editors of the Wall Street Journal on October 18 regarding an opinion article by Steven E. Moore (“655,000 War Dead?,” October 18, 2006). Les Roberts submitted his own letter to address some of the statements inaccurately attributed to him by Mr. Moore in his article. We hope the paper will publish both responses shortly.
Mr. Moore did not question our methodology, but rather the number of clusters we used to develop a representative sample. Our study used 47 randomly selected clusters of 40 households each. In his critique, Mr. Moore did not note that our survey sample included 12,801 people living in 47 clusters, which is the equivalent to a survey of 3,700 randomly selected individuals. As a comparison, a 3,700-person survey is nearly 3 times larger than the average U.S. political survey that reports a margin of error of +/-3%.
Our study also produced a range of plausible values that reflect the margin of error in our estimate. These values are included in our study, which was published Oct. 11, 2006, in the peer-reviewed, scientific journal, The Lancet. Using our 47 clusters, we estimated that 655,000 excess deaths have occurred in Iraq since March 2003 within a range of plausible values from 393,000 to 943,000 deaths. Even our lowest estimate indicates that a significant amount of death has occurred in Iraq, which is not being measured by other surveillance methods, such as news accounts or counting bodies in morgues.
It is clear that using more clusters would have given our estimate a greater degree of precision, assuming we also increased our sample size. For example, had we used 470 clusters, our range of plausible values would have been about 3 times narrower. However, there is a trade off between obtaining meaningful data and ensuring the safety of our surveyors. Surveying more clusters would have also meant more risk to the survey team.
In addition, Mr. Moore claimed that the Hopkins study did not include any demographic data. The survey did collect demographic data, such as age and sex, related to violence, although they are not the same details Mr. Moore’s company would have collected for public opinion polls. The characteristics of households in our study are similar to other accounts of households in Iraq and the region, though the household size for the 2006 study is smaller (6.9) than found in the 2004 survey (7.9).
Mr. Moore apparently agrees with us that a cluster survey is the preferred approach to quantifying post-invasion violent deaths in contrast to counts of deaths from newspaper articles and morgues or not counting at all. We hope he will join us in our recommendations that an independent body with adequate resources monitor deaths among civilians in conflict—using scientific methods, as was done in our survey.
Sincerely,
Gilbert Burnham
ANON 9:23AM DID YOU MISS THIS ONE?
Click here: Officers outgunned on U.S. border - Nation/Politics - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper WAS THIS WIDELY REPORTED? HELL NO!
AND DIVERSITY AN OPEN BORDERS = WHAT?
Daniel said: And at what point does a "non-human organism" become human?
12:19 PM
wrong said...
When it ceases to become a ball of cells. When it is self-substainable.
-------------------------------------
Which do you want--the ball of cells or the self-sustainable? The ball divides and a core forms at about 21 days. The heart starts beating at about 42 days.
Self sustainable? Doesn't that depend on the environment? If I weigh 235 and you "Wrong" weigh 135 and we dump our canoe in the Willamette, then you are sustainable for only about 20 minutes and I'm sustainable for nearly an hour. If you had a beer and I had a steaming Starbucks, your time would be even shorter and mine would be longer.
Do you really want to make 'sustainability' the criteria for whether a person should have the right to live or die?
Cheers!
Concordbridge
Many handicapped people aren't "self-sustainable" as are many of our senior citizens, should we "abort" them for conveniance as well?
We as individuals have no legal obligation (perhaps a moral, but that is subjective) to those people. Besides, those people aren't physical parasites.
Love that way of accounting deaths...
A) we took an action.
B) more people have died in that place than before our action.
C) Every extra death must be our fault.
Because of course, opportunistic agents of neighboring governments crossing in with weapons and military personel, carrying out civilian-targetted attacks, and disrupting necessary infrastructure wouldn't have happened unless we'd acted... so it must be OUR fault... I mean OBVIOUSLY they're blameless, they're just doing what we allow them to do...
I mean, it's not the criminal, it's the fact we're not effective in our social training.
Geeze, I can't believe the mental flexibility of some people.. the way they can tie themselves into double-helixed pretzel knots just to support ridiculous positions.
Abortion? It's killing babies... k? That's all it is. Unless you think that there's a way to physically abort a child before it reaches a size that's way way beyond a "cluster of cells".
So fine... kill babies... but don't get all pissy about people dying in Iraq. It's a hard thing we're about there, and people are working hard and risking everything for a chance at a real representative government there. Plus we're WAY past the point where anyone serving there didn't know exactly what they were volunteering for when they enlisted or re-upped. Kind of hard to speak for them, when their actions are speaking so much louder.
As to the abortions... as an experienced parent, I can tell you that it takes a couple years after birth for any sort of real personality to start showing itself. Does that mean it's not a "real" person til then? Why don't we be intellectually honest and allow infantcide up to the age of 2? That'll give new parents plenty of "test drive" time to find out if they're cut out for the job.
You know... in a sensible world, the people screaming and spitting on shoppers at a fur store would be the same ones protesting at the abortion clinics...
And now the punchline:
My personal opinion on abortions is... I'm not involved. I don't much care if a person aborts a baby. What I don't want is public money doing it, I don't want it specifically protected from the parental notification and approval that ALL OTHER MEDICAL PROCEDURES require for minors, and I don't want those who actually feel strongly about this issue to be prevented from voicing their opinion TO the candidates for the "procedure."
Glad to see people are willing to continue this dialog :)
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