Free Speech on Campus

[Ben Kenobi]

Obviously I don't know the Canadian law, but I am guessing it'll be similar.

Now we do for our structured displays, but before the university used to require 10k just for 'security', a ridiculous requirement, and one not used against any other club.

Besides, John's club knew we were coming, they wrote several articles to the local campus paper, warning people about a possible display coming up in the future. So it's not like it was unpredictable.

[Ben Kenobi]

Ben, this is why the abortion debate never advances. You've got blind extremists (I should add the "on both sides" qualifier) invoking Godwin's Law left and right, and the vast majority of people who would see it as immoral instead just think of those crazy ultra-fundies that were out with a banner of aborted fetus pictures.

Actually, the comparisons are valid, and there are many parallels with the holocaust and with abortion.

You have death camps, where jews were incinerated, and now you have the abortion clinics.

The Final solution became public policy for nazi Germany, and supported by the state. The same is true of abortion up in Canada, where the state provides the clinics. The government has a public policy to ensure the deaths of unborn children who are not protected by law.

The same terminology used against the Jews, is used against unborn children, that they are parasites, and the like.

Finally, when you look at the numbers, it's not so much invoking Godwin's law, but that the only thing that comes even close to abortion, is the holocaust. The numbers are nowhere near comparable, in that the holocaust only killed 6 million people, and abortion has killed far more. Around 40 million in the US and Canada alone.

Those who would consider us Fundamentalists, and religious extremists have a much harder time doing so, when we are calm and collected, and the other side seems to be full of hate and rage.

[loinburger]

Appendectomies make me pretty queasy, should we ban those too?

[Ben Kenobi]

Of course they have an absolute right to put it up. I've got a right to avert my eyes.

You can choose to walk away from the display after you see our warning signs. That is your right.

[Ben Kenobi]

Appendectomies make me pretty queasy, should we ban those too?

No, because an appendectomy has a valid medical rationale. Abortion does not.

[Ben Kenobi]

So you also think people would have a right to put up huge billboards with hardcore pornography on them?

Considering the pride parades we get, that would just fit in.

[Wernazuma III]

What if I come to the Campus with a huge poster of hardcore gay porn. I do so to convince people that it's a) a very natural thing to do or b)to convince people that this distgusting behavior is against the will of God. I' put up warning signs, so that people who do not want to see the display do not have to walk by them, as a courtesy.

But seriously and honestly, your Holocaust comparison is pathetic, Ben and outrage about it is more than understandable. Just ask yourself what the victims of the Holocaust had to suffer physically and psychologically in the Death Camps for years and then think what a foetus suffers during abortion. Now please, spare me the details, I accept whatever you say it suffers, but you'll understand that it's not comparable to above.
About using the same terminology: Nowhere in my or your society, I see massive propaganda all day long that unborn children are parasites that have to be whiped out collectively and the cause of all the bad in the world, as Nazi propaganda hammered in the heads of Germans every single day in the case of jews.

That's why people call you hate-mongers.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
No, because an appendectomy has a valid medical rationale. Abortion does not.

Do your posters somehow convey this questionable difference in kind, or do they just appeal to people's visceral reactions to the sight of blood? I mean, it's all well and good if you're trying to stop abortions through these sorts of base emotional appeals -- lord knows that it's easier than trying to change somebody's mind through rational debate. I'm just wondering if there's something you left out in your description of your free-speech activities that are somehow being trampled upon by other peoples' free-speech activities.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Now Jon, I have no intent to take this any further, okay?

I think you have gone far in the time since that incident 5 years ago, and that the past is the past.

Yet you, Master Kenobi, appear to have brought it right back into the present....

If you want to get down dirty and personal, don't try beating a hasty retreat to a presumed moral high ground.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


No, because an appendectomy has a valid medical rationale. Abortion does not.

Yes it does, you fool. Take ectopic pregnancy and anencephalic foetuses as an example.

Now explain to me the valid medical rationale for gassing, shooting or working to death Jews. Or accept that your stance cheapens the Holocaust.

[Ben Kenobi]

Take ectopic pregnancy and anencephalic foetuses as an example.

Ectopic pregnancy is where you have a choice between saving one life, or allowing two to die. That's it. There is unfortunately no third option.

As for an anencephalic baby, I'm still not sure about that. I've heard arguments either way.

The argument against abortion in this circumstance is that abortion has risks of it's own to the woman, of complications that need to be considered. Secondly, a woman who carries her baby to term recieves protection from breast cancer, whereas abortion not only robs her of this protection, but increases her overall risk.

So it seems to me from the medical standpoint, that it is most beneficial to encourage the mother to carry her child to term, even if the child will not survive long.

However, if we look at abortion, an almost infinitesimal percentage of the total can be accounted for by these two hard cases. So in almost every case, the comparison between abortion and the holocaust is valid.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yet you, Master Kenobi, appear to have brought it right back into the present....

If you want to get down dirty and personal, don't try beating a hasty retreat to a presumed moral high ground.

I didn't want this to get personal in the first place, and I have tried to keep this from becoming personal.

[Patroklos]

I used to get my college column cut if I mentioned anything about females, regardless of what it was, which considering where I went to school was always a taboo issue.

Funny thing was the scolding words were always how dare you "expose," or "release" or "make public."

I thought it was funny I got accused of sexual harrasment the next quarter by a knob that was not even at the school anymore. Apprently she had remembered an off color comment I made about cheerleaders. Supporting evidence was apparently not an issue.

Then they fired the papers editor and replaced him with an "acceptable" student. My column never saw the light of day again and was later canceled, after a 20 year history.

I am a very big proponent of free speech, from all sides. I am also a proponent of not being obnoxious, for all sides. So while I think you have a right BK to say and show what you want, but your methods are suspect. It is a disturbing trend, being obnoxious, which is primarly utilized by the left.

[Ben Kenobi]

Do your posters somehow convey this questionable difference in kind, or do they just appeal to people's visceral reactions to the sight of blood?

It helps to see the pictures. With moderator permission I can post them here, but otherwise, I would have to send them via PM.

I mean, it's all well and good if you're trying to stop abortions through these sorts of base emotional appeals -- lord knows that it's easier than trying to change somebody's mind through rational debate. I'm just wondering if there's something you left out in your description of your free-speech activities that are somehow being trampled upon by other peoples' free-speech activities.

The pictures stop people, and some of them choose to continue to talk to our volunteers. The pictures are less effective in changing peoples minds on their own, rather they are more effective in getting people to think about abortion.

The same arguments that I have presented here on this board are also the same ones we use out there, that if abortion kills an unborn child, then abortion can be compared to the holocaust. If it does not, then it cannot. We have to centre the issue on whether or not the unborn child is a person.

Now, if you think we are hiding something, then I'm not sure what evidence I can provide to the contrary other than the posters themselves. You would really have to go to one of the protests to see them in action.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


I didn't want this to get personal in the first place, and I have tried to keep this from becoming personal.

Balls, Ben! Big dangly sacks of nuts! You made it personal by giving everyone a handy little potted history. Now apologise to the man or grow a spine.

Now I'll repeat my question. You've conceded a medical validation for termination of ectopic pregnancies.

Now. Tell. Me. When. It's. Medically. Justified. To. Gas. Jews.