Will the real Christians like Father Michael Ryan please stand up?

[Wezil]

To give you the best answer I can - All things equal I'd probably be in one of those camps praying for foreign liberation while folks like you chatted up like minded neighbours.

[Jon Miller]

So you would die to do no good, while I might have a chance to save a couple of people.

JM

[Jon Miller]

Not everything can be solved by bellowing a challenge and charging forward...

JM

[Elok]

While I'm not sure Wezil isn't just yanking chains here, how exactly would violence or civil disobedience accomplish anything? If they were a million teenagers, six-month-olds or bunny rabbits you could do violent raids, rescue them and whisk them off en masse. Not so plausible for abortion. The violence that has been tried has made life marginally more difficult for abortion clinics (forcing them to beef up security and act paranoid...I don't know if all the shootings and bombings have actually prevented any abortions in the long term) while generating tons of bad publicity for the pro-life side.

[Wezil]

So you would die to do no good, while I might have a chance to save a couple of people.

JM

I'd be dying to do no good as I belong to one of Hitlers hated groups (it wasn't just Jews in the camps Jon). Besides, my public pronouncements against such a system would have landed me there anyway.

Yes, you may be able to keep quiet and save your ass but don't tell me you'd be saving any lives by meeting clandestinely and talking about how horrible the situation is. Eventually you'd say the wrong thing to the wrong person and end up sharing shelf space beside me in the camp.

All this is beside the point as we both know your government is not going to send you to a concentration camp for civil disobedience. This whole scenario is a HUGE red herring.

[Wezil]

While I'm not sure Wezil isn't just yanking chains here, how exactly would violence or civil disobedience accomplish anything? If they were a million teenagers, six-month-olds or bunny rabbits you could do violent raids, rescue them and whisk them off en masse. Not so plausible for abortion. The violence that has been tried has made life marginally more difficult for abortion clinics (forcing them to beef up security and act paranoid...I don't know if all the shootings and bombings have actually prevented any abortions in the long term) while generating tons of bad publicity for the pro-life side.

How far would you go to stop the "killing" of 1 million innocents a year?

It's the over-the-top rhetoric I object to. Then taking the position one is going to change minds after just calling people baby killers is just plain preposterous.

[giblets]

I'd be dying to do no good as I belong to one of Hitlers hated groups (it wasn't just Jews in the camps Jon).

You're a freemason?

[Wezil]

And who wants to know?

[Elok]

How far would you go to stop the "killing" of 1 million innocents a year?

It's the over-the-top rhetoric I object to. Then taking the position one is going to change minds after just calling people baby killers is just plain preposterous.

...so, how would violent intervention, or even Gandhi-style satragraha, help anything? If killing/dying/getting beaten or imprisoned wouldn't actually change anything, and I don't believe it would (unless we had a massive number of people doing it--millions and millions--enough to crush it with concerted action democratically), the point is moot.

I don't know about calling people baby-killers; I've tried to back off of the more heated rhetoric as I've aged. But the only real reason to object to abortion is that it's tantamount to murder, and it's no good trying to pretend it's about something else.

[Jon Miller]

I'd be dying to do no good as I belong to one of Hitlers hated groups (it wasn't just Jews in the camps Jon). Besides, my public pronouncements against such a system would have landed me there anyway.

Yes, you may be able to keep quiet and save your ass but don't tell me you'd be saving any lives by meeting clandestinely and talking about how horrible the situation is. Eventually you'd say the wrong thing to the wrong person and end up sharing shelf space beside me in the camp.

All this is beside the point as we both know your government is not going to send you to a concentration camp for civil disobedience. This whole scenario is a HUGE red herring.

Where did I say that I wouldn't act. I said I would, just in ways that was effective. I am pretty sure I would end up there too, because I wouldn't 'not act' as you keep trying to paint me.

I am comparing acting effectively or ineffectively in Nazi germany versus acting effectively or ineffectively in the abortion-legal USA.

Just as it would be ineffective for me to go up to the local SS/etc office and complain about the Final Solution in Nazi germany, so would it be ineffectual for me to get myself (as I am now (not King/Ghandi/etc), and only myself) thrown in jail in the US.

I don't think you understand anything about civil disobedience. Why/when it works, and why/when it doesn't.

JM

[Jon Miller]

We wouldn't even need millions and millions, Elok. One hundred thousand or so doing a hunger strike, for example, would make a difference.

The problem with this idea is that the only two organized religious groups that are against abortion are the Mormons/Catholics, and they don't do things in that fashion.

The other anti-abortion groups are not so organized.

JM
(My own group has pastors (in some churches) who, from the pulpet, describe 'choice' as a glorious freedom)

(I am not saying that a hunger strike is the right method either, just that it is more acceptable than any of Wezil's ideas.)

(Note strike means a group of people acting, not a lone person )

[Kidlicious]

As I said when we started this - I don't think you have the courage of your convictions.

Tone down your rhetoric about the "killing" of babies when people mention abortion and I won't call you on it.

I don't see anything wrong with calling it "killing babies." Infanticide is popular in China btw.

[Felch]

How far would you go to stop the "killing" of 1 million innocents a year?

I wouldn't lift a finger. But I also wouldn't pretend like it somehow wasn't killing innocents. I'm lazy, but at least I'm honest.

[Hauldren Collider]

I also think communism is evil but you won't see me flying to Cuba to take out the Castros. Is that hypocritical?

[BlackCat]

I also think communism is evil but you won't see me flying to Cuba to take out the Castros. Is that hypocritical?

No, it's simply an idiotic statement that doesn't make any sense