Why do 90% of black people vote for Democrats?

[kentonio]

A quick scan back reveals that so far this thread has covered..

Black people voting democrat
Israel/Palestine
Northern Ireland
Muslim/domestic US terrorism
Fourth Crusade
Elibabethan (Tudor) religious oppression
US voting suppression
Slavery
Racist terminology
Maryland founding charter in Latin
Ben's mental condition
Abortion

Go team!

[C0ckney]

Me too, we just disagree about what constitutes a human.

fetuses are clearly human from a biological perspective. to argue otherwise is senseless. it's a question of balancing rights. the rights of the mother and the rights of the fetus. i support legalised abortion because i believe the right of the mother to decide what to do with her body trumps the fetus' right to life. although i do support limits on that, for example a ban on abortion after 24 weeks.

[kentonio]

A. What Lorizael said. Governments impose on people's right to self-determination all the time.

I did disagree with him on that though. Government does not impose on peoples rights in a comparable way except in a few very limited instances (death penalty for instance).

B. Likewise don't take offense, but doesn't the same apply in reverse? I don't believe in killing fetuses--which necessarily entails a restriction on women's freedoms. You don't believe in restricting women's freedoms--which necessarily entails a world wherein more abortions take place, because you can't tell me that illegality has no deterrent value whatever. Your position necessarily entails more abortions, mine necessarily entails less liberty, but I'm pro-life, you're pro-choice, because those are the things we place value on. It's really just civility.

A more valid comparison would be to crisis pregnancy centers, which do receive a certain amount of hate from the left for "preying on vulnerable women" and ostensibly employing dishonest tactics. I don't want to get into comparisons of relative hatefulness, but let's just say there's plenty of anger to go around.

Yeah, that's fair.

This is because you're reading a basically villainous thought pattern into the opposition. I, at least, don't give a damn about controlling the rights of women, certainly not for its own sake. You make it sound like I want to keep them down--I don't. I simply think abortion is unconscionable, and think their freedom needs to be limited to precisely that extent. I used to impute a similarly sinister worldview to the pro-choice, that they were waging a deliberate campaign to dehumanize the unborn so they could kill them with impunity. I gave up on it because not only is it generally not true, it's simply not helpful to demonize the opposition in that way. A certain amount of dehumanization does go on, as when people refer to the fetus as a "parasite" or "tumor" (FFS), but it's more the result of the two sides becoming increasingly ossified in extremism as the argument goes on.

You're quite right. Personally I didn't used to be quite as fierce about it, I've become more so in the wake of things like the Tiller murder. I do think things should be debated in a calm, polite way generally, but the problem here is that if your position ever came into law, it would mean taking something major away from half the population. Regardless of the rights or wrongs of that morally, that is not something that women are going to tolerate and certainly not quietly or politely.

Here we get to one of the big problems: the pro-life movement, in America and AFAIK in most of the rest of the world, is hopelessly dysfunctional. Aside from their tendency to conflate opposition to abortion with Christianity--which is a serious fault all by itself--most of the people who oppose abortion also oppose access to birth control and responsible sex education. Which is like being against drunk driving but for 24-hour drive-through windows on bars and nightclubs. The latter position effectively cancels out the former; you're feeding the monster at the same time you're trying to kill it.

That's why I keep referring to the target being the removal of womens rights. If you remove abortion and then remove easy access to contraception (close Planned Parenthood for instance?) then you're saying that if women want to have sex, then they must then expect to become pregnant. Men have the option to walk away afterwards, women don't. I know you don't support that extreme position, but a large part of your side on this do.

I also think this highlights a big social problem which abortion tends to obscure: that pregnancy is such a burden for women that a substantial number of them will do something obviously life-threatening rather than go through with it. That's a problem we are a couple of thousand years late in addressing seriously.

There's always going to be reasons, and to remove them you'd need to solve infidelity, ambition and social morality at the same time. Good luck with that.

[kentonio]

fetuses are clearly human from a biological perspective. to argue otherwise is senseless. it's a question of balancing rights. the rights of the mother and the rights of the fetus. i support legalised abortion because i believe the right of the mother to decide what to do with her body trumps the fetus' right to life. although i do support limits on that, for example a ban on abortion after 24 weeks.

I just see a fetus as a potential human rather than an actual human with the full range of rights and protections. I agree with you about the 24 weeks limit.

[Elok]

So...you only want to remove half their freedom?

[Elok]

Oh, and WRT Planned Parenthood, the big problem there, as I see it, is that one of our society's biggest supporters/providers of contraception is also one of its biggest supporters/providers of abortion. Ideally, I'd like to see an organization that provides all of PP's services except abortion. They'd get my money. Just as soon as I get money myself...

[Guynemer]

Oh, awesome! I assumed Mike was joking because I didn't see an entire page of and replies.

That better?

[Elok]

Much, thank you.

[kentonio]

Oh, and WRT Planned Parenthood, the big problem there, as I see it, is that one of our society's biggest supporters/providers of contraception is also one of its biggest supporters/providers of abortion. Ideally, I'd like to see an organization that provides all of PP's services except abortion. They'd get my money. Just as soon as I get money myself...

3% of their budget goes to abortion services and that money isn't provided by the government. What is the possible justification for removing funding that goes to the 97% of services like cervical cancer screening/contraception/STD testing etc?

[Herman Cain]

Herman Cain has trouble stringing together coherent sentences, but he's made it pretty plain that he's anti-choice with statements such as..

My sentences are perfectly coherent, you preposterously debauched cretin and a maniacal monotonous solitaire playing pulp of stultifying inanity.

[kentonio]

My sentences are perfectly coherent, you preposterously debauched cretin and a maniacal monotonous solitaire playing pulp of stultifying inanity.

Cain 2012!

[DaShi]

More of the same.

[Herman Cain]

Cain 2012!

Would you like to make a campaign contribution? hermancain.com

Also, why can't I attach links until I've reached 20 posts? This is clearly the main-stream-media political class trying to keep conservatives quiet.

[Elok]

3% of their budget goes to abortion services and that money isn't provided by the government. What is the possible justification for removing funding that goes to the 97% of services like cervical cancer screening/contraception/STD testing etc?

I wasn't thinking of federal funding, more of general support for the organization by the public. As for which part of the funding is being provided by the government, though, I don't see how it matters. Money being provided for [inoffensive service X] frees up other funds for abortion, no?

[Herman Cain]

That better?

Just don't let President Asher take all the credit for it, like Obama did with Osama bin Laden despite the fact that clearly if it hadn't been for the Bush administration's actions in Guantanamo Bay we never would have found him.

Vote Cain in 2011 for OT President!