Does the "average American" agree with Michael Moore?

[Japher]

I support abortion, but not for that reason. There are many people who want to adopt kids. Yet, there aren't alot of parents who want to adopt kids addicted to crack.

[Ben Kenobi]

putting more effort to encouraging safe sex and/or lack of sex instead of pushing the money into social organizations that mimic Planned Parenthood.

Japher:

If you want to get away from funding PP clones, you are going to have to apply the word abstinence. PP will bill itself as promoting, 'safe' sex, but they don't really have an interest in lowering the abortion rate.

[Ben Kenobi]

There are many people who want to adopt kids. Yet, there aren't alot of parents who want to adopt kids addicted to crack.

So how will abortion solve the problem of kids being born hooked to crack?

Cali:

I support abortion simply because there are already too many unwanted kids in the world. Why bring in more?

Suppose a mother no longer wants her 5 year old child. Is she allowed to simply do away with her? The kids in the womb are already here. We have an obligation to provide for them, as we would any other children.

[Japher]

I realize that, and I don't like PP. Planned Parenthood should be called Planned Abortion Center.

I'm all for holding people resonsible for their own actions, granted that those actions were made with knowledge of the consiquences. I am not for handing out "get out of jail free" cards will-nilly to any stupid teen who decided to get pregnant or have sex to look "cool" or pss of mom.

Irresponsibility is not without repercussions. I would sooner support kids who want to have the child and supply ways for that person to have a healthy child than organizations that allieve these kids from their "burden".

Using the word abstinence will then not be a deterent word, the organizations that will help you if an abortion were desired would be.

[centrifuge]

Isn't Michael Moore the voice of the guy doing the interviews of scientists in the anti-smoking commercials? If so, I've grown sick of his bullsh*t. I actually found much of bowling for columbine interesting, except for the parts where he went to Charlton Heston's house and Kmart (those parts just pissed me off, made me think that he was going way overboard.)

These stop smoking ads that he's doing now have me thinking that he's an over inflated waste of clean air. Espescially the one that focuses on acetone. It has a scientist who is surprised to learn that cigarrette smoke has acetone in it, and everybody is supposed to run scared because this is so shocking, and nobody should ever be exposed to acetone

Well this comercial and some of Moores other stunts are making jackasses out of us. I have personally been up to my elbows in acetone, its a very common chemical, and only rarely have I ever see anyone wearing a mask while using it. How many girls(or boys ) do you know that have painted fingerails? Well here's a shocker... fingernail polish remover is primarily acetone Run IN FEAR EVERYONE SHE's DOING HER NAILS!!!!!!!

Michael Moore

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Suppose a mother no longer wants her 5 year old child. Is she allowed to simply do away with her? The kids in the womb are already here. We have an obligation to provide for them, as we would any other children.

To me you don't count as a person until you're born.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Suppose a mother no longer wants her 5 year old child. Is she allowed to simply do away with her?

Hmm. How many foetuses attend infant school?

A foetus is not a baby, a five year old or a child, but feel free to mis-state the case and propagandize away. We've heard it all before.

[Japher]

In some cases, I am for post-natal abortions. Especially if they are very evil ppl.

[Mr. Harley]

Bush is a radical, as is shown by his judicial agenda. If he had been interested in being a conservative President, and had mentioned Rehnquist (arguable, but at least open to doubt) and Kennedy (quite probably the only strict conservative constitutionalist on the Supreme Court) as his kind of Supreme Court justices, I'd respect him.

Promoting Thomas (a mental midget for the court) and Scalia, who is one of the most radical activist judges of our time, though on the right, as his type of justice frightened me enough to pull the Gore lever (I didn't like most Americans vote FOR somebody, just against the choices I was stuck with - and yes, I vote in primaries :P ).

The problem with the entire birth control debate is that if those children have children, then the taxpayers end up on the hook. Or do you support creating the next generation of f****d up kids with no intervention. My wife did intake assessments for a seven county mental health private/public hybrid agency (really weird, with the worst of both worlds). You can pay when the kid is young, or you can pay $30000 a year to incarcerate them when they are older. Which is cheaper?

Any anti-abortion type who has adopted a special-needs child, or has done volunteer work, I will listen to. I've done the latter, and it's what started me on the path from being anti-abortion to pro-choice. At least Ben is consistant, and I respect him even as we agree to disagree. Most people don't have the courage of their convictions. Why aren't the anti-abortion demonstraters spending that much time, or more, working with teens and helping them see abstinence as an alernative, or working to support special needs children. I repeat, I respect those that do, but they are a minority. Make it voluntary, and keep the government out of my private life.

And that leads to my on-topic post. Many Americans are social libetarians. Look at how many want to decriminalize pot. However, political pandering disenfranchises them, and many opt out rather than vote against someone while voting for a different candidate they also loathe. The points already made out our two-party system are germane. At times I wish we were a parliamentary democracy, instead of a Republic.

[Ben Kenobi]

Why aren't the anti-abortion demonstraters spending that much time, or more, working with teens and helping them see abstinence as an alernative, or working to support special needs children. I repeat, I respect those that do, but they are a minority.

Would they listen when they believe they have a cheap and easy alternative that does not require them to change their habits and behavior?

Make it voluntary, and keep the government out of my private life.

If you believe that personhood begins at conception, than it no longer becomes a private matter. Just as one has no right to beat a child in the privacy of your own home, one has no right to kill a child.

You can pay when the kid is young, or you can pay $30000 a year to incarcerate them when they are older. Which is cheaper?

It is a sad society where the only use they can make of someone is to jail them.

[Shi Huangdi]

Sava:

Conservatism != Libertarianism

[Ben Kenobi]

To me you don't count as a person until you're born.

What's so special about birth?

[Mr. Harley]

Ben, you hit the one place libetarianism comes into conflict with the anti-abortion movement. Except that if you look at the members of that movement, including their leadership in the Catholic and Baptist congregations, they do not limit themselves to just the issue on abortion, and that unfortunately means that I take up the required opposite stance. How many leaders of the anti-abortion movement are against passing "morality" laws, including ones affecting consenting sex, substance use (vs. abuse), etc. ? I err on the side of freedom, so I will continue to be pro-choice.

Your first statement:

Would they listen when they believe they have a cheap and easy alternative that does not require them to change their habits and behavior?

shows an appalling lack of knowledge about kids coming from messed up families. Have you done much work with them, Ben? For my wife it has been a career, she has specialized in problem adolescents.

They often come from homes with no books, only a TV running continuously in the background. Their only role models come from mass media, advertising, and peers in the same situation (my wife added that) are the primary influences on their behavior. If they are fortunate enough to have a social worker assigned to them, she/he is overworked and underpaid (between 20,000 and 35,000 in most areas of the US, major metro areas can pay slightly more, but the cost of living goes up astronomically, and remember they have a Masters for this crappy pay). If they are fortunate it's just because their parents have minimal time working multiple low-wage jobs to just make ends meet. The less fortunate have parents, if you can give them such a title, who don't give a crap about them, and the kids know it.

Yes, Ben, I don't know what you have in Canada, but get involved with Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Your presence in such a program can get that teenager to listen when it's "cheaper/easier." Just tellling them, when the entire system they are immersed in sends them a different message, is very difficult. If the anti-abortion groups worked as hard in programs like this, in the last twenty years I'll bet they could have cut the teenage abortion rate/unwanted pregnancies in half. But instead of the instant gratification of the protest, they would spend years on 2-3 kids, and possibly lose one. It's a tough road to take, which is why I respect anyone who does it. By the way, you didn't mention your youth involvement/credentials Ben? Don't tell me about involvement with kids in the local Church, I'm talking working with the at-risk kids.

I just had my wife proof-read my post, to make sure I didn't miss anything. She just made another point. Ben, getting at-risk adolscents to change their beharior will never be "...cheap and easy." In fact, she states it will be neither cheap nor easy. Go do some volunteer work with the adolescents, for multiple hours a week, and then run your mouth about "...cheap and easy." Otherwise, don't post about someplace you've never been. If you came from an abusive family, with uncaring parents, no books, and atteneded a run-down school with minimal on-site support services, and now do ministries with at risk kids, I'll apologive. Until then...

[Elok]

The utter unspeakable repulsiveness of abortion cannot be overstated. Meaningful societal change is important. Very important. I don't oppose birth control, or the spread of information about it. But abortion is a completely depraved institution, a failure of democracy, damn near a crime against humanity, and it needs to end. NOW. Compared to the wanton denial of basic rights to an entire subclass of human beings on the arbitrary grounds of age, teen pregnancy is hardly a problem at all.

And the answer to those societal problems might start with destroying the societal problems rather than trying to immunize against them. I'm not talking about censorship, I'm talking about an attempt to make certain things as distasteful as they ought to be. Stop picketing the abortion clinics and start picketing showings of the next halfwit movie from the producers of "The Fast and the Furious." Throw eggs at those #$%! gangsta rappers, while we're at it. And somebody shoot James Patterson before he writes another book about Alex Cross and his detailed investigations and gets another lurid movie made out of it.

Sorry, got a little worked up. Anyway, if popular culture is a big part of the problem, why do people oppose fixing the culture and encourage kids to just try and ignore the things getting pumped into their brains 24/7? How is that any less dumb or naive then promoting abstinence only?

[debeest]

Originally posted by DanS
Re Michael Moore, polls would indicate that he has a very small constituency.

The poll consisting of who chooses to buy his $25 book suggests that he has a pretty substantial constituency. Wasn't his last book the #1 bestseller of the year? Close, if not #1.