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At 1/21/12 11:43 PM, adrshepard wrote:

Money combined with promises of money, hence the parentheses.

That's not what you wrote, but whatever.

If promises of money were all that was needed to get our way we would never have fought Vietnam, Korea, or either Iraq campaign.

Single cause fallacy;

Not at all. If you're attributing responsibility, the person or group most responsible is the one that did the most work. Just because it may not have happened without US support (who can say for sure either way?) doesn't mean the US caused it. There were probably a thousand of things that the pro-shah faction could have failed to do that all the US money in the world wouldn't have fixed. "For the want of nail," and all that.

this doesn't excuse the fact that the US intervened in the politics of a sovereign nation and allowed a dictator to seize power in doing so.

If Mossadegh hadn't been so quick to confiscate foreign assets and demand more domestic authority, perhaps the west wouldn't have saw the need for him to go.

That would be relevant if Hezbollah and Hamas targeted the US and not Israel.

For Iran those are two heads of the same hydra. Seriously, since Israel acts as a proxy for the US in the region, the same way Iraq acted a proxy for the US during the 80s, I don't see the need to split hairs here.

Israel a US proxy? Hardly. It uses US weapons and money, but it doesn't act at our behest. If anything the US has had to urge Israel to restrain itself.
It still doesn't explain why Iran would support anti-Israel groups in order to "get back" at the US for support Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War.

What did Israel ever do to Iran?

The same way Iran maintains good relations with Venezuela because they share opposition to the US, Iran backs faction that are opposed to both the US and Israel. This way, if the US were to invade Iran, they could ask groups like Hezbollah and Hamas to return favours.

Which would do absolutely nothing to save Iran or discourage the US. Israel is more than capable of handling anything Hamas and Hezbollah can dish out. If it ever came to a US invasion of Iran, Israel would probably welcome a justification to assault these two terrorist groups.

And if they're pragmatic, then why would they not support terrorists against Israel?

Because it doesn't accomplish anything and never could. The Israelis aren't afraid to fight and are willing to live in a security-heavy environment if it means stopping terrorists. Israel is too strong militarily, economically, and politically to be threatened by these two groups of thugs. Iran, on the other hand is not as politically or economically stable, which makes them much more vulnerable to terrorism.
That, and it needlessly antagonizes the US, which is a real military threat to Iran.

That would be pretty impressive considering US support predated Saddam's gas attack on the Kurds.

I was talking about chemical attacks against Iranian troops in border villages in '84 and '85.

Ok, but you said he used it against civilians. Deploying it against Iranian soldiers isn't the same thing.

Sigh, that was a hyperbole. The point is that Iran's interest in nuclear weapons prior to 2002 is irrelevant, other countries such as SA and Brazil were also interested in nuclear weapons up to a similar level.

And if those programs hadn't collapsed or been abandoned, who's to say there wouldn't still be international pressure on those countries today? South Africa was certainly hit by sanctions. Perhaps there wouldn't be as much talk of a military strike, but obviously the Middle East is far more important to US interests than southern Africa or South America.

What's relevent is that Iran's nuclear program did not begin in earnest until Ahmadinejad got to power.

It's accelerating now, but its still the same people behind the scenes as in the past.

Look, I'm not naive up to the point that I believe that if Iran were to give up its nuclear weapons program and stop backing terrorists, that the West would stop being hostile.

It wouldn't. But it would remove the critical justification for a US invasion. Iran supports terrorist groups, but that's not enough of a reason for military conflict. Iran is playing a needlessly risky game, seeming to build a deterrent to invasion that itself could merit invasion. Nuclear weapons don't safeguard against domestic unrest.

On the other hand, I believe that the best blow that can realistically be struck at the Islamists at this point is to let the Iranian regime collapse in on itself due to sanctions and a popular protest movement that does have lie about not being supported by Western puppet masters.

I agree that is the best option.

At 1/21/12 01:51 PM, lapis wrote:

Oh come on, (promises of) US financial support bolstered the elements of the royalist faction to the point where they were stronger than the majority of the population.

No, you "come on." All you're saying now is that our word alone overthrew the Iranian pm, that the US somehow took out Mossadegh through the international equivalent of "peer pressure."
If promises of money were all that was needed to get our way we would never have fought Vietnam, Korea, or either Iraq campaign.

After how many years of Iranian support of Hezbollah and Hamas?

Hmm, answer that one for me, will you? I would like to know if it predates US support for Saddam Hussain.

That would be relevant if Hezbollah and Hamas targeted the US and not Israel.

Right, but in doing so they lost all claims to moral superiority. I guess you don't care much about abstract concepts such as "morality", but when someone uses the fact that Iran supports terrorists as reinforcing the notion that they're crazy and evil, then it doesn't help that your major ally in the region is guilty of the exact same thing.

Obviously, the Israelis don't care about whether or not you approve of their morality, thankfully. And it isn't the same thing if Israel is supporting Iran's enemies in retaliation. What did Israel ever do to Iran? Ever ask yourself that? Or do these Islamic fundamentalists who execute homosexuals just overflow with emphathy that they think Jordanian "Palestinians" are just as important as fellow Iranians.

They expected that you wouldn't support a dictator who used WMDs against civilians?

That would be pretty impressive considering US support predated Saddam's gas attack on the Kurds.

And this stuff at the very least influences the debate in the US. If Bush's only argument in favour of the Iraq war had been "we want their oil and $500 is worth more to us than the life of an innocent Iraqi civilian" then the public reaction to the invasion within the US might have been a little different.

Ok. Except I've never said those things, so I don't care.

South Africa and Brazil have also been interested in nuclear weapons in the past and nobody's saying that they should be invaded.

Invaded now? Of course not. South Africa's were dismantled and the army government of Brazil disbanded, with current reactors (all two of them) under international inspection. All of this happened decades ago.

You forgot "stop screwing around and start actively cooperating."

Cooperating with what? Turning over sovereignty over their oil industry to the USA?

Not at all. One option would be to abide by the Additional Protocol to inspections, which is voluntary, but would nonetheless do a hell of a lot to defuse the situation if the Iranian effort is as peaceful as they claim. The country's past secret and undeclared nuclear work didn't help gain any trust, either.
And, at the very least, not play such an elaborate game of deception and secrecy that the IAEA comes out with reports like this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew s/middleeast/iran/8878002/Iran-is-buildi ng-nuclear-arms-say-UN-inspectors.html.

At 1/21/12 09:39 AM, lapis wrote: Required reading material for everyone who thinks he knows something about Iran's motivations.

That's a fantasy devised by Iranians to disguise the fact that they themselves were responsible for reinstituting the shah. Do you honestly believe a handful of CIA agents could take down a leader over the resistance of all Iranians? Of course not. The country was divided and we provided middling support to a side.

At 1/21/12 08:38 AM, Korriken wrote: this is the same nation that is actively funding groups that perform Jihadist attacks (to hell with calling it "terrorism") on non Islamic soil.

Which is so much worse than your good friend Israel which is actively funding groups that perform Jihadist attacks (to hell with calling it "terrorism") on Iranian soil (and saying that they're CIA but that's not even the worst part of it).

After how many years of Iranian support of Hezbollah and Hamas? The Israelis don't mess around. If Iran supports terrorist groups against Israel, who also kill women and children, Israel can do the same to terrorist groups targeting Iran. Perhaps they don't have the same "we're better than that" complex as Americans. Not a big problem for me so long as they don't instigate it.

Could it be because of the shit tons of cash that the US gave to Saddam Hussain to fight post-revolution Iran, cash that was probably used in part to develop chemical weapons (you know, WMDs) that were used against Iranian soldiers and civilians? To some extent, certainly.

What did they expect? Saddam was getting hammered and Iran was our enemy.

But the biggest reason for Iran to currently oppose the US politically was the moment in 2002 when Bush decided to brand Iran as one of the members of the illustrious Axis of Evil, together with Iraq and North Korea (Iran at the time even had a reformist president!).

Except that they had been doing the same sort of covert research and material purchasing for the past decade. http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/ir anbackground032100.pdf
Iran hasn't exactly been forthcoming and open about its nuclear work. They have to know what it looks like to the rest of the world.

So there only two things Iran could do to extend the sovereignty it had over its own country and people:

You forgot "stop screwing around and start actively cooperating."

"Before the flaming begins", can you at least agree with me that one motivation for Iran to be developing nukes at the moment is the COMPLTELY LEGITIMATE desire to defend their national sovereignty from US/Western imperialism?

No, because they risk more from this sort of secret weaponization act than they would if they just played ball. You can still save face as a leader without deliberately antagonizing other countries all the time.

At 1/17/12 11:32 PM, Ravariel wrote: You have a funny idea of how diplomacy works.
You have a funny idea of what "normal" means.

Enlighten me, then.

Bullshit. You simultaneously humanize the enemy by saying they live normal lives yet reduce them into mindless reactionary zealots. Pick one and stick with it.

You have a funny way of completely misreading what is written.

I had a lot of choices of how to attack his argument. I chose to point out that he humanizes people yet maintains they abide by an unbreakable honor system that mandates they abandon their current lives and take up arms against the US anytime there's a civilian casualty.

Look, stop calling it "military revenge." There were more than enough practical reasons to justify the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Also, stop blaming the US for the victims of terrorists. They are human, they chose to attack civilians, the responsibility lies with them exclusively.

A) Bullshit.
B) I have never blamed America for the actions of the 9/11 terrorists.

A. According to you.
B. No, but you're implying that all the deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are direct results of US policies, even though our enemies, through their tactics and attacks, are responsible for the majority of them.

Right, so we're thought police now. If you have any animosity toward the US, whether or not you have performed any offensive action, you should die. Gotcha.

Actively supporting or joining a terrorist group dedicated to killing Americans and other innocent Westerners IS an offensive action.

Indeed it thrives in places where we are not. This is the problem. Do you want us to occupy every country that might harbor Al-Qaida? That's sure to reduce their numbers and curry us favor in the region. And it won't stretch our forces too thin to be effective anywhere at all. Brilliant idea!

You can say that, but it doesn't mask your earlier claim that our military presence only makes things worse in every respect.

The only diplomacy that will ever work is the kind in which Al-Qaida renounces terrorism and violence, forfeits its goals, or disbands entirely.

Ah, to see things in such simple black-and-white terms as you again.

Where are you getting that from? Look. Al-Qaida HAS to lose completely. Either they give up and abandon their goals (or at least their violent methods), or they are hunted down to the point where they are little more than isolated bands making fanastic plans in caves. We don't have to get every last one of them. John Kerry was right when he talked about reducing terrorism to a nuisance, despite all the flak he took. Continuous pressure and monitoring is enough to ensure people with aims like Al-Qaida's never gather enough power or influence to accomplish anything.

At 1/17/12 12:55 PM, SolInvictus wrote: ...the thing is we've always negotiated with terrorists, hostage takers, etc... but the intent of such discussions is always to have them stand down without conflict. i don't see the difference with this situation, either in approach or expected outcomes.

The difference is that a successful negotiation always results in the criminal or terrorist turning himself in to the higher authority. In diplomacy, there is no higher authority; the two groups are meeting as equals.

At 1/17/12 06:27 AM, Dogbert581 wrote: So you think everybody who is part of Al Qaeda just sits in a cave up in the mountains, doesn't try to live a normal life and has no contact with people who do live a normal life? I've got news for you, that is completely wrong. Most members of Al Qaeda have families, they have friends, they know people who have nothing to do with Al Qaeda and may not even support what they do.

Having a family and knowing normal people is not a normal life. Getting a job, settling down, sending your kids to school, that is a normal life.

However, the issue of honour and revenge is a big deal in Afghan society - if your friend or family member is killed or injured, its your duty to take revenge on the person responsible. If we march in saying 'there will be no negotiating, everybody who is connected with Al Qaeda will be killed no mercy given'; we will create more trouble, more attacks against our forces.

Bullshit. You simultaneously humanize the enemy by saying they live normal lives yet reduce them into mindless reactionary zealots. Pick one and stick with it.

At 1/17/12 02:13 AM, Ravariel wrote: How many have died in the Afghanistan war, again? How many of those have been actual Al Qaeda members? Do all of those others in Iraq and Afghanistan not count, then? Are they less dead because of our military revenge?

Look, stop calling it "military revenge." There were more than enough practical reasons to justify the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Also, stop blaming the US for the victims of terrorists. They are human, they chose to attack civilians, the responsibility lies with them exclusively.

...We have caught, or killed every member we know of who had any direct relation to the actual attack.

As though out of all the members of Al-Qaida, they were the only ones willing to do such a horrible thing. As if the suicide bombings of mosques and markets aren't reprehensible enough to merit any action.

The one thing we can never do, with military might, is eliminate them completely. It is impossible. Every exertion of force creates pushback elsewhere, ripples in the pond. Those can (and have in the past... need I remind you of our previous dealings in these very countries in which we hunt our prey in the 80s) have disastrous effects down the road.

Giving material support to the Afghani resistance is not the same as invading Afghanistan, and can't be assumed to have the specific outcome ("bad") that you're suggesting. Giving Saddam Hussein some support against the Iranians did not make him any more or less likely to develop WMDs.

These people live, work, and exist amongst the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and others. These declared enemies, because they are not geographically located in one area, and are not a recognized state, are MORE likely to be able to resist the military pressure, and often come out ahead when it is used.

Because Iraq and Afghanistan are such safe havens for Al-Qaida now? The group is almost universally despised in Iraq, and has only a token presence in Afghanistan. The places where it thrives, like Yemen and Somalia, have the lightest US military footprint.

We cannot stay in the middle east forever. We will not. And when our muscle has left, the power vacuum will allow them to rise once again to a level where they may be able to launch attacks. Our current actions HELP them gain more members, HELP them in their propaganda, and HELP them gain the backing of the people of those countries among whom they live.

Sorry to destroy your theory, but reality has already proved you wrong. What happened in Iraq when the US military efforts intensified? The Sunni Awakening. What happened in Afghanistan after 9/11 and it was clear we were about to invade the country? The Taliban offered to surrender bin Laden. Did the Afghanis rally around the Taliban and Al-Qaida to resist the "evil invaders?" No. The Taliban folded and retreated in a heartbeat. And look at any opinion research in Afghanistan today. Do they dislike the U.S.? Of course, but they hate the Taliban and Al-Qaida even more. Virtually none of them want the Taliban to return to power.

Diplomacy is the only way that will ever happen.

The only diplomacy that will ever work is the kind in which Al-Qaida renounces terrorism and violence, forfeits its goals, or disbands entirely.

At 1/16/12 07:33 PM, Ravariel wrote: I think it's amusing that you think we can actually hunt them into extinction, as though they were a game animal. Your opinion is that we should destroy with great prejudice from now until the end of time, likely many thousands, if not millions, of people,

Don't know what you're getting "thousands" and "millions" from. The Taliban are not the same as Al-Qaida. The insurgents in Iraq are not the same as al-Qaida. Ranger2 can get them confused and lump them together but I don't.

How's that working out for you so far? How many people who disagree with your country's philosophy will you have to slaughter before your lust for revenge is satisfied?

Revenge? A side benefit. Members of al-Qaida should be eliminated whenver possible. Do you think that's a bad idea?

This position is patently terrible. It is childish and accomplishes nothing but more strife. The proportional response has been done. We have found revenge. Now we need to find a way to stop the killing. That only happens by talking. We talked to the Nazis (believe it or not). We talked to Japan (and rebuilt their goddamn country). We talked to the USSR. We talk to Cuba and Venezuela and Iran.

None of whom are remotely similar to al-Qaida, a non-state terrorist group. These are not people just trying to live a normal life, like the people of Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran. Everyone who is a part of al-Qaida is a declared enemy of the US, and pretty much of all western civilization.

At 1/16/12 02:10 PM, SolInvictus wrote:

in a thread discussing the feasibility of negotiations i figured i had been clear enough in expressing that Al Qaeda does have some sound political demands and thus the possibility for negotiations as opposed to the simple "kill all the infidel" as presented in the OP...

You don't understand. What Al-Qaida did and continues to do is unforgivable. There can't be any peace. There shouldn't be any peace. The group should remain our enemy until they surrender or are eliminated. Anything less gives legitimacy to what they've done and violates the most basic concepts of justice.

Only once they are gone should the US think about what their motivations were and decide if it's worthwhile to alter national policy in any way.

This is not the same as a health insurance mandate. First of all, the circumstances are nowhere near similar. Health insurance covers treatment, medicine, etc. all the time, whereas this law only mentions medical care at the workplace, the ship. Things were a hell of a lot dirtier a few hundred years ago, and seamen got some of the worst of it: traveling around to foreign lands with their own sanitation problems, dealing with spoiled provisions, and probably spending shore leave at cheap taverns and brothels. Busy ports were extremely nasty places. Not only could you say that these are natural hazards of shipping and are therefore the employer's responbility, but no one in the US wanted sailors bringing back infectious diseases from who knows where.

The healthcare mandate, on the other hand, is driven by the sentiment that "people have to have health insurance because it's just so cruel for them to lose their $300,000 house from medical bills and be forced to suffer the humiliation of Medicaid."

At 1/15/12 06:16 AM, EKublai wrote: Just to put my opinion out there, I believe that the only way for America to be strong is for its population to be healthy and covered. If that means universal healthcare, then that's the way it has to be. I'm tired of being shorter than the Norwegians anyway.

Strong how? Having the longest average lifespan is an impediment to most concepts of strength, since it places a greater burden on the public safety net. If medical breakthroughs rather than a healthy lifestyle are responsible for extending life, then people will still age at the same rate and retire at the same general age.
As for the very poor and chronically uninsured, there's no practical reason why the US should invest more in their health than it already does. There may be a moral one, but morality does not translate into strength.

At 1/14/12 12:27 AM, Cochises wrote: I never justified Al Qaeda, I just stated they are retaliating. You started the mess.

By doing what, stopping Saddam's invasion of Kuwait?

Yet the idea of Afghanis having those same freedoms scares the shit out of them.

Your very ignorant, the Afghans HATE the Taliban, they hate them even more than you guys.

I don't know how you interpreted what I wrote to mean that. The Taliban ruled through brutality and oppression. They don't want Afghanis to have any sort of political or social freedoms.

Not really. We gave them stinger missiles and some training in explosives. The rest they did themselves.

Really? I hope your joking. You had your CIA train them to be cold blood ruthless killers, which is why you can't defeat them today. You created a very strong enemy.

Nonsense. The CIA didn't train hundreds of thousands of Taliban. The most "training" the US did was show Pakistanis how to use Stinger missiles against Soviet helicopters, who then showed some Afghanis.
The Taliban aren't "strong," they just are very hard to eliminate given their tactics and the geography. The Taliban don't have the capability to actually rule over any significant areas, only wilderness and backwater villages. The only reason they are still around is due to the civilian casualties and huge financial expense it would take for the US to go in and clear them out. That, and so many of them are hiding in Pakistan.

At 1/14/12 12:51 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: At any rate, Reasons are NOT valid justifications, but they DO exist, and knowing the answer to the question of "Why" terrorism occurs is key to answering the question "How can we prevent it"

Ok, from now on, public officials should answer all grammar-related questions from nutjobs as thoroughly as possible so they don't go on a shooting rampage later.

It wasn't SIMPLY that US Troops we strutting around places where they didn't belong.

According to who?

"Our" [And i use that word with great hesitance] government has a habit of supplying money and weapons to some of the worst Regimes of the 20th century, many of which are well remembered by the people of the Arab world.

So to retaliate, they don't go after the people who actually carried out the violence, or those who ordered it, or those who indirectly funded it, but instead target civilians who had absolutely nothing to do with it decades later. That makes sense. About as much sense as saying they care about the welfare of Arabs in surrounding nations while they butcher and oppress their own people. Even the most wretched of the Arab dictators had more popular support than the Taliban in Afghanistan.

One particular example of this were the sanctions imposed against Iran in the 90s, approximately 500,000 Iraq's died. I know that one death is a tragedy and 1 million is a statistic, but try to imagine if China blockaded the US and that many people [or more, think proportional to the population of the country itself]

IF America were that vulnerable and IF the entire nation was run by a brutal dictator and IF he would rather see his people starve than damage his ego by submitting to inspections, then I sure as hell would not blame China, I'd blame him.

No individual american is capable of changing the policy of the Government they live under, and so no individual American is justified in having his/her life taken away...

I sense a "but" coming to tear down this rational statement..

However, the rhetoric of 'We're innocent' and 'They're evil' is not going to get rid of Terrorism any time soon.

No, it won't. It doesn't have to. Every policy the US pursues overseas is a calculated decision that comes with risk. Sometimes its the risk of wasting money or backing the wrong guy. Sometimes its a risk of making people angry. Occasionally, things don't turn out as planned. The only way to remove all risk is to hide inside our own borders and hope that nothing that happens overseas will negatively affect us, and that's not a choice.

At 1/13/12 09:34 PM, Camarohusky wrote: Our health pricing is based on quantity and not quality. If you get a $10K operation and it is successful you pay $10K(ish). If you get a $10K operation that is poorly done you pay $10K(ish) for the operation and then you, as the patient, are charged with paying for the treatment to make up for the poor operation.

I would think that's what malpractice lawyers are for. How would you know the difference between an inept procedure and an inevitable or unexpected complication? If you think it's a problem of quantity over quality, are you saying that most doctors aren't skilled enough or are overworked?

Also, many times doctors are incentivized to steer patients toward more expensive and less successful treatments.

The incentive exists, yes, but it doesn't have to be the primary reason. A doctor doesn't think about the cost of an additional procedure, only about the potential benefit. He'll recommend it even if the benefit is small.

Really?

From what I've read, yes.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9924/
12-18-KeyIssues.pdf
Pages 112-16

At 1/13/12 10:17 PM, Cochises wrote: No silly, Al - Qaeda never made the first move, they are retaliating. Of course the way they are retaliation is horrible, but it is retaliation none the less.

If we napalm a bunch of civilians burning the American flag, are we not retaliating against their hostility? Would you justify the US response as readily as you have al-Qaeda's?

The Taliban and Al Qaeda don't hate America for it's freedom, as I'm sure a lot of people stated, including Osama Bin Laden himself.

Yet the idea of Afghanis having those same freedoms scares the shit out of them.

The only reason you are in Afghanistan is because the CIA created the Taliban in the first place.

Not really. We gave them stinger missiles and some training in explosives. The rest they did themselves.

The only problem is that everything is so goddamn expensive and there's little to no downard pressure on prices because consumers don't pay for it directly. That's allowed a whole slew of relatively worthless services to spring up ("Fast ER" is one example where I live, advertised as an emergency room for people suffering from things like headaches and minor burns) that no one would ever pay for himself.

Lack of insurance coverage is not a problem. Those "40 million" are usually young or uninsured for brief periods, and I shed no tears for the chronically uninsured. I've never seen any compelling evidence showing that people die from a lack of health insurance, only that they choose to put money ahead of their health.

Uncompensated care costs are vastly overrated. A significant portion of uncompensated care is borne by insured persons, and as a whole it makes up a very small amount of total health spending, too little to influence prices all that much.

At 1/13/12 12:02 PM, SolInvictus wrote:

meh, Osama did have political reasons for fighting the US such as having them remove their troops from Saudi Arabia.

And Jared Loughner had reasons for shooting Giffords and all those other people. Everyone has "reasons." It's usually pretty obvious which ones are defensible and which simply mask hatred and malice.

At 1/4/12 08:26 PM, aviewaskewed wrote: So...you just made a statement earlier that patently doesn't make sense with what you're saying now (so I'm going to chalk that up to the fact that you made a typo earlier and meant to say that non-elective abortions are the exception, not that elective ones are the exception).

I said it correctly. When you criticized the other guy for implying that all abortions are by choice, I assumed you thought that a substantial portion were by medical necessity or some other circumstance like rape. I'd wager that only a few percent of all abortions fit into that category, and the article I linked to suggests as much, even if it isn't the same exact percentage.

Then you trot out an article you admit doesn't state explicitly that you're position is correct...but decide that you can tell from reading it (which if you apply a certain prejudicial lens to the facts you surely can) that you're "probably" right. Really? That's the best you got?

Fine. From the same site:
http://www.guttmacher.org/datacenter/tab le.jsp
Pregnancy-->Pregnancies and their outcomes-->Total pregnancies, % ending in birth, unintended pregnancies

The numbers don't match because the data is missing from certain years (but it's apparently still viable enough to use them in a table), but if you do the division work, it suggests that the vast majority of pregnancies ending in abortion are unintended pregnancies. I'd say that's conclusive enough for us, unless there's some abnormal number of rapes counting as "unintended" pregnancies.

Let me know when scientists figure out how to recreate the beginning of existence.

Let me know when "Let there be light..." and "God" is a fact outside of the Holy Bible. Two can play that game sir.

Why have certainty in nothing when you can have faith in something? Does it really matter to you if scientifically omniscient people 5000 years from now look back and laugh, saying, "These people thought life came from God?"

At 1/4/12 02:49 AM, Gario wrote:

At 1/3/12 06:52 PM, adrshepard wrote:
Let me know when scientists figure out how to recreate the beginning of existence.

Big Bang? Hadron Collider? I think they're working pretty hard (and pretty successfully, might I add) at that.

They have? You mean they've created matter from nothing?

At 1/2/12 10:59 PM, aviewaskewed wrote: Yes, because that's the only reason anybody EVER has an abortion...it's NEVER medically necessary and is ALWAYS elective.

Hasn't this silly blanket argumentation been shot down a billion times already? Why the hell did I even bother replying to it?

Probably because you haven't tried to argue that elective abortions are the exception, wich good reason.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induce d_abortion.html
It doesn't state it explicitly, but you can tell from reading it that probably most abortions are elective.

Far as adr? Yeah...when you start saying "science can't answer it" and then invoke "God" which is an unproven deity of a specific faith whose claims are equally unproven (and many in fact have been proven false) I think we've hit the wall and are just going to have to agree to disagree.

Let me know when scientists figure out how to recreate the beginning of existence.

At 12/29/11 06:06 PM, marchohare wrote: I would say it does, but I'm actually willing to listen to pro-lifers regarding the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. I might think they're wrong, but I'll hear them out. I don't believe there's a person in the womb even then, or that killing a fetus causes even as much suffering as killing a pig...

Who the hell said anything about suffering? The pain experienced at death is totally irrelevant.

Now you're saying that it isn't human until it is physically removed from the uterus? Is a baby 36 weeks into the pregnancy born premature a human being, but a developmentally identical baby not if its still in the womb?

I personally don't think that amounts to any more than a bare-bones operating system with no applications installed or documents created yet, but I can't prove that to pro-lifers; therefore, I'm not going to fall prey to what I get irritated at them for doing: believing stuff without proof.

Oh, there's plenty of proof that it's a human life.

Of course, animals are also aware, so that definition alone doesn't work.

Actually, it does work. Think it through. What it actually means is that we slaughter loving, feeling, aware creatures every day, but pro-livers are obsessed about something that doesn't even have a brain, much less brain waves. I could make a better case for defining the killing of a cow, a pig or a chicken as murder than I could for a first-trimester fetus, but of course, that would be absurd

No, you couldn't, because they aren't people.

See where I'm coming from now?

Yeah, it's the same place where many serial killers originate, a place where people don't understand that human life is intrinsically valuable.

You seem to be angling toward infanticide, but, all I'll say about it is that it's acceptable in some human cultures and widely practiced throughout the animal kingdom, but I won't take a moral position on it beyond that.

Because the values of today and those of some foreign culture that died hundreds of years ago are equally persuasive to you? You feel its hypocritical to condemn the murder of newborn babies?

When I asked you about when it becomes a human being, I thought you would fumble about trying to make a non-arbitrary definition. I had no idea you would simply answer the questions outright and sound like a sick fuck.

At 12/28/11 09:53 PM, marchohare wrote:

At 12/28/11 07:29 PM, adrshepard wrote: So, to you, a human being is nothing more than a collection of organs.

No, to me a human being is AWARE! Dig it?

So that would exclude the fetus at all stages of development, since it exists in a unconscious sleep-state prior to the violent awakening of birth.
Of course, animals are also aware, so that definition alone doesn't work.

Or did you mean self-aware? If so, then newborn babies aren't human beings until they are several weeks old.

At 12/28/11 03:46 PM, marchohare wrote:

And its arguably not even that. I hope you'll excuse me for posting a picture of a blastocyst again, but it's relevant and certainly nowhere near as obnoxious as the photos of dismembered fetuses pro-lifers post everywhere. My point being, can you call this a human being? It's genetically human, but it has no brain. It has no nerves. It has no organs. It's only alive in the sense that a potato is (in fact it contains fewer cells)

So, to you, a human being is nothing more than a collection of organs. Until it gets those organs, it's worthless.
Which organ in particular makes it a human being to you? They all form at different rates, you know. Is it when you can first see vertebrae form? Or maybe when the ear pits are visible? Or when it starts looking like it has arms? Or whenever you announce it has met your enlightened standards of human existence?

At 12/26/11 09:42 PM, aviewaskewed wrote: Because you can see the future and how all human learning will progress? This is also pretty funny in the face of such magnificent breakthroughs like The Human Genome Project.

No, because its not a question that science can answer.

BTW, for all the talk about the Human Genome Project, it hasn't done very much.

Not at all. I wouldn't trust anyone to figure it out because they are all equally unqualified.

Says who? You? What would make them "qualified" in your opinion, and what qualifies you to be the judge of their qualifications?

Gee, maybe God would be qualified. Do you not see what I'm trying to say?

Such and such a group wrote that a fertilized embryo is not a human being. How do they define "human being?" Is the embryo not human?

So, you clearly didn't bother to read the article where they actually laid out why they arrive at the idea that a fertilized embryo does not meet the definition of human being in their scientific opinion.

You must be reading an entirely different article. Your link goes to a debate style article, in which the "life begins at conception" arguments are far more persuasive.

Is "when does it become a human being?" the right question? That only opens up more questions.

Like what? Because I think "when does it become a human being?" is central to the debate.

Ok then, when do you think it becomes a human being?

It's not absurd if you believe life begins sometime after conception. If it does, then you have to be able to describe that precise moment.

But your argument wasn't that. It was about "5 seconds before" which is an absurd question, and one can only assume you lead with that to try and say that scientists who don't believe in life begins at conception are absurd and have no real evidence for it. That they just pick arbitrary definitions out of the air which is clearly not what happens.

If it isn't, then show me.

I don't believe anyone has the sole ability to define anything so fundamental as life.

Why?

Because you're talking about something that can't be quantified. If life doesn't begin at conception, then there has to be some other point when it does begin, but there's no conceivable point where that could be. I am not just some collection of tissues and organs; the stage of development of my brain or spinal cord doesn't define my existence.

But one of the points of the article is that we actually DON'T seem to grasp "alive" and "dead" in a completely empirical sense. There's still debate raging on what that means

I didn't get that impression. The other views in the link besides the "genetic" one seemed arbitrary and weak.

I want to be truthful and accurate about it. Instead of the bullshit generalization you put out that abortion is only used as extreme birth control. That was an extremely ignorant and disrespectful thing to say.

Take it easy. What, did you get someone pregnant and she got an abortion?

Look, in every abortion discussion I've ever seen or heard of, the first thing the pro-choice women say is not, "what if I'm raped?" or "what if my cousin impregnates me?" They say, "it's my body and I can do whatever I want," which is exactly what people say when they can't think of any legitimate reason to do something.

At 12/25/11 04:23 PM, aviewaskewed wrote:

Scientists using definitions they themselves made?

No, you're thinking of the pro-life folks and the religions they hide behind and couch their arguments in. I'm talking about the people with the knowledge, training, research, and equipment to find the actual answer.

No amount of knowledge, training, or equipment is going to answer the question "what is the nature of human life?"

Right, because smart people who actually bother to study things are evil.

Not at all. I wouldn't trust anyone to figure it out because they are all equally unqualified.

Tell me, if life doesn't begin at conception, then when does it begin?

In it, they say, "If the preimplantation embryo is left or maintained outside the uterus, it cannot develop into a human being." Did you catch that: "... into a human being"?" Full article. Seems perhaps we're not asking the proper question in this debate.

I don't get it. Such and such a group wrote that a fertilized embryo is not a human being. How do they define "human being?" Is the embryo not human?

Is "when does it become a human being?" the right question? That only opens up more questions.

What about 5 seconds before then? Or is it up to the scientist's discretion?

Arguing the absurd isn't really proper arguing. How about you do a little research like I did instead of just trying to reduce things to absurdity so as to dismiss conflicting ideas?

It's not absurd if you believe life begins sometime after conception. If it does, then you have to be able to describe that precise moment.

I don't know how scientists phrase it, but to me being alive isn't something that can be done halfway.

So, you admit you don't know how scientists "phrase it" which would also suggest to me you don't understand the methodology by which a scientist may say "life doesn't begin at conception", but you're willing to bet that your own personal opinion is superior

Until I hear a convincing explanation otherwise, yes. I don't believe anyone has the sole ability to define anything so fundamental as life. For use among others in their own profession, sure, but not for everyone. "Alive" and "dead" are two descriptions everyone understands, and while medicine has stretched the limits of what it means to be dead (like reviving someone whose heart has stopped and has no pulse), I've never heard of any similar feats changing the concept of life.

And the ignorance continues since you're saying abortion is only used as a last resort in birth control.

Well, shit, if you want to be super technical about it, it's also used in cases of rape, incest, or when the birth could kill the mother. Do you deny that most abortions don't involve any of these reasons?

At 12/25/11 03:35 PM, marchohare wrote: It's relevant because it illustrates why RightWingGamer's analogy was false. Calling the environment inside the womb and the support system a pregnant woman's body is supplying "food, water, and shelter" is downright silly. I could just as easily make the case that a fetus is a parasite.

And what would that prove other than that it's human and alive?

So it's human and it's alive. I don't see how destroying that is morally equivalent to destroying a tomato plant.

Do you believe a mindless ball of cells can feel pain?

No, but so what? Not everything that's alive feels pain.

Do you believe it has a "soul"?

Sure. No reason for it not to, unless there's some other point in pregnancy when the "soul" attaches itself.

Pro-lifers chant, "Human from the moment of conception!" Well, yeah, in the same sense that the cells a technician scrapes from the inside of your cheek for a genetic test are human.

My cheek cells don't turn into babies. It would be cool though if they did.

Lol...

Drop the lolcrap. It's old, it's trite, it's childish, and you're not amused. Laughter does not make one's fingers spasm.

Lol, this from the guy who sees no moral difference bewteen killing a random person off the street and executing a murderer. What, aren't their lives equally sacred?

...not quite. No one enjoys war or executions, but sometimes they have to be done.

The hell they don't. Ever see video of crowds celebrating outside of prisons during executions? I sure have. Ever heard an idiotic eighteen-year-old who's enlisting say, "I can't wait to get over there and kill me some..."

You got me. When I said "no one," I was of course referring only to mobs and idiotic 18 year olds because they represent the opinions of everyone else.

At 12/25/11 04:59 AM, marchohare wrote

An embryo (first 8 weeks) is not viable outside the uterus under any circumstances, but I guarantee you that I'm viable outside my house.

Good for you. That's relevant how?

Is an embryo human? Genetically, yes. Structurally and functionally, no.

Are all of the above alive? Yes.

So it's human and it's alive. I don't see how destroying that is morally equivalent to destroying a tomato plant.

Is human life sacred? If you support the death penalty or warfare of any kind, you'd better say it's not or you don't have a leg to stand on.

Lol, not quite. No one enjoys war or executions, but sometimes they have to be done. Unless the life of the mother is at risk, there's no real urgent need for anyone to have an abortion. I have more sympathy for those who are impregnated through rape, but the end choice is the same; sacrificing a life for personal convenience. Even so, I'd hate to have to make that choice.

At 12/23/11 08:55 PM, aviewaskewed wrote:

Or we could use actual science and reality in our arguments instead of bullshit like "life begins at conception" which is a concept that has been wholly discredited.

Discredited how? By who? Scientists using definitions they themselves made? I'm not particularly spiritual, but there's no way I'm about to just let a bunch of academics dictate the nature of existence.

Tell me, if life doesn't begin at conception, then when does it begin? What about 5 seconds before then? Or is it up to the scientist's discretion?

I don't know how scientists phrase it, but to me being alive isn't something that can be done halfway. It's not like baking a pie, where it's "just about" ready. It either is or it isn't. You can give sperm and ova their own wombs, give them plenty of nutrients or whatever, and nothing happens. You combine the two and give them the same, behold, a kid pops out. It follows that "life" must have had something to do with fertilization, unless there's some mysterious third ingredient that I've never heard of.

Not that I care about abortion either way, it just irritates me when I hear people that can't own up to the fact that they destroyed someone for their own convenience and try to rationalize it by saying, "it's just goo."

At 12/23/11 06:13 AM, Ravariel wrote: Considering the top 1% of earners actually earns more than 25% of the entire nation's income, the top .1% make more than the bottom 120 million people combined (and from 2001-2007 their yearly income doubled while the rest of the country's incomes grew less than 2% per year), and that their real tax rates are actually lower than many of the people in lower tax brackets, that number should actually be higher.

Forget about rates. There isn't any perfect ratio of expenditures for rich and poor people, as though someone with 3x the income will pay 3x as much for food, 3x as much for utilities, etc. That $500 dollars of the working person has a lot less potential than the $100,000 dollars of the wealthy man, even though they may represent roughly equal percentages of income.

Zero Federal Taxes. Eventually (remember, the government gets to hold on to their money for the year until refund day). They also make less than 33k a year. That's barely enough to provide for a family of 4. And if both parents work, that means that they're making about 17k per year a piece. That's basically McDonald's wages. Their money is better spent on living and maybe savings in order to grow into a tax bracket that can better afford to pay taxes.

Please. Have you ever actually met people who would be considered "working poor?" They aren't poor because they try real hard at everything but have had terrible luck. They're poor because they make terrible decisions. How much do you think the average poor person wastes on cigarettes, booze, and prepared foods? I've interacted and worked with these types for years. Only once or twice have I ever met someone who could ever be described as having "fallen through the cracks."
No, everyone should be paying at least some federal taxes, if only a few hundred dollars a year.

'Scuse me? I guess the rich just fly everywhere and don't need roads, or other infrastructure, or a military. This argument that for some reason social safety nets are the only goddamn thing that taxes pay for is really disingenuous.

They aren't, but they are a substantial part of it, and are only going to grow in the future.

...The top 1% can afford to pay more taxes. The top 1% will not suddenly find themselves unable to hire people or make investments because they are paying a few thousand more in taxes.

Sure, and the bottom 50% aren't going to starve to death if they pay a few hundred dollars more a year, either.

At 12/21/11 03:56 AM, BUTANE wrote: ...Also, they better add something about taxing the rich even more to pay for it...cause right now it's not in there and im pissed off about it.

Why? Do you honestly believe that every single cent of the federal budget is absolutely vital to the prosperity and security of the country? That they can't find a few hundred billion in cuts in a budget that exceeds the entire economic output of 95% of all other countries in the world?

Or do you just want to stick it to rich people out of spite?

At 12/13/11 01:28 PM, djack wrote:

...This is also less of a concern as drones are mostly used to monitor nations that normally wouldn't be able to take the drone down like this. Iran has probably been planning this for a while and waiting for the opportunity to catch a drone.

I doubt it. If they had brought it down electronically, they would have boasted about that rather than say that they "shot" it down. The drone probably just malfunctioned and glided down like you said. If it's flying at 50,000 feet, there isn't anything like small arms fire that could coax it to make a soft landing; it would just blow up if hit by a missile or flak.

At 12/13/11 02:59 PM, Proteas wrote:

This is the U.S. Military we're talking about, the most well funded military in the world. Don't you think it's odd that they didn't have a few fingers of Semtex rigged to explode and destroy the most sensitive parts of that drone if something like this happened?

If it malfunctioned in some way in the field and you were sent to fix it, would you go up to it knowing that it could explode violently without warning?

At 12/7/11 10:24 PM, Iron-Hampster wrote: Unless people change their voting habits the surveillance is only going to become MORE pervasive. You can bet there will be more bending of the constitution and bill of rights as well. Then again there is not a lot stopping people from buying out the whole electoral process either.

Funny how it's always someone else whose votes are bought by lobbyists. Everyone I've met said they voted for such and such because of his stance on certain issues.

camobch0, you are a egotist pussy. Egotist, because you're so deluded as to think that the government cares enough about your boring existence to listen to your phone calls. Pussy, because you're unwilling to do bad things to bad people, even if saves the lives of good people, due to your loyalty to some foreign statute over your own ability to judge.

At 12/7/11 05:51 AM, dirtshake wrote: What worries me is the language of those sections. It does not require the President to use this bill on suspected citizens on United States soil, but it also does not offer any protection AGAINST this type of treatment.

The protection is that 99.9% of the population couldn't be treated like this even if they wanted to. You could never attract that sort of attention without first being arrested for a different crime. No one knows who the suspected terrorist agents, supporters, sleepers, etc. actually are. Even those who may know would still have to choose to make meaningful, repeated contact with those persons before intelligence agencies considered him a threat. No, the only thing you could do to get charged with terrorism is to go around making threats and asking to join Al-Qaeda. Then, all the government has to do is get two Arabic-looking guys to pose as terrorists, tape your meeting, then use it against you in a civilian court. That's already happened several times.

I hate to deflate your ego, but you just aren't that important to merit any secret military detention.

The President could still detain a United States citizen and hold them without trial,

Yes, the President himself would make that decision, and no one would question him. Everyone would follow his orders to the letter without hesitation. And the President could do this as many times as he wanted, to anyone, without consequence.
Please. Even many of Ghaddafi's soldiers refused to slaughter civilians and turned against him, even though "the law" said they had to obey.

Even if this bill is overturned by Conress if the President vetoes it, I would very much hope President Obama vetoes this bill simply out of principle. I would also hope he does not implement those sections in his policy towards American citizens.

So you would prefer that Anwar al-Awlaki be up and kicking, huh?