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Thrown Under the Bus
Insulted at the thought of God. Limbaugh higher. Kennedy in Carolina. Plus more.
(Page 3 of 3)
WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?
Re: Brian Broker’s letter (under “Compassionate Plea”) in Reader
Mail’s Bushwacked,
Part III:
Brian Broker trots out a version of the old abortion as compassion argument: “…faced with a difficult pregnancy and the possibility of a life for the fetus/baby of profound sickness and pain a loving mother is confronted with an impossible choice.” He goes on, “Their desire to choose [abortion] stems not from self-interest but from a profound love for their unborn child.” He ends saying that we should count ourselves fortunate we aren’t in that loving mother’s shoes and have compassion for those mother’s who have to make abortion their choice.
It is difficult to know from his letter exactly what Mr. Broker’s broader point is. Is it the availability of abortion should be curtailed in most instances but reserved for those special cases such as the one he outlines? Or is it that if you allow some abortions then you must allow them all? Is he saying that the “hard case” abortion he relates in his letter is in fact emblematic of all abortions?” Mr. Broker doesn’t say and one suspects that silence may be deliberate.
In fact, Mr. Broker has constructed his argument to frame the abortion issue as a matter of heartlessness vs. compassion. That is, the pro-abortionists are the kind hearted champions of those mired in the human condition while Pro-lifers are the narrow-minded, two dimensional, self-righteous s.o.b.’s who set themselves up to render cold judgment upon their fellow brothers and sisters with no acceptance for human frailty. Somehow, we are to relent and change our views because this hypothetical mother is wringing her hands all the way to the abortionist’s table.
All our anguish and handwringing shed little light upon whether abortion is an injustice toward the unborn. There is no question that life is complex and messy and much of the time we have no solutions but only tradeoffs. But we complexify far too readily when a simple question gets to the heart of the matter. Direct answers often mean a harder life to live, doing what we don’t want to do and going where we’d rather not go.
Women who are seeking abortions are human beings and as such they
have the whole array of thoughts and responses. Some do feel
anguish while others are indifferent. Some are horrified while
others can’t believe this is what all the shouting is about. Some
feel remorse and regret afterward while others look upon their
abortions as a positive good. Rarely are any of these truly evil.
Rarely are their consciences dead. But are they misguided?
Perhaps the truth is that terminating a gestating life for
whatever reason is not their choice to make.
— Mike Dooley
QUACK POLITICS
Re: Joe Bialek’s letter (under “Count Me Out of the Cult”) in
Reader Mail’s Bushwacked,
Part III:
I have just read Mr. Bialek’s letter captioned “Count Me Out of
the Cult.” I am compelled to write in to say that I believe that
Mr. Duck would have defeated the Republican candidate by a wider
margin than Mr. Obama. Personally, I would have cast my ballot
for Mr. Duck.
— Reid Bogie
Waterbury, Connecticut
Letter to the Editor View all comments (33) | Leave a comment
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Michael L. Hauschild| 1.27.09 @ 6:43AM
“Perhaps the truth is that terminating a gestating life for whatever reason is not their choice to make.” Perhaps, Mr. Dooley, your insistence on making choices for an entire gender has caused some political ramifications. Perhaps the new administration, buoyed by your willingness to assess behavioral standards, will have a few choices for you.
Michael W. Dooley| 1.27.09 @ 7:24AM
Mr. Hauschild: I should think the Obama administration need very little use of me to engage in its mischief.
I always thought it quite amusing that, while I maintain that most abortions should not take place (a restriction of "rights" according to many), my opponents often insist that I have no right to talk about it (a restriction on my freedom of speech).
As far as your faux concern of my gender making decisions of the other gender, no restrictions on abortion can be adopted without support from the women in our fair county.
Finally, as I have written several times in these pages, there is no more public question than whom we count as citizens and to whom we will extend our protections. No writer in these pages has ever directly challenged this assertion. One might think that is because debating abortion is precisely what we are doing.
Rocco| 1.27.09 @ 7:27AM
Re: Quack Politics. In January 1988, while I was living in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the country had mayoral elections. The people of the city of Rio, disgusted with the selection of candidates, actually gave a plurality of the vote to a protest candidate, a famous monkey in the Rio zoo - in Portuguese his name was "macaco Tião." To Reid Bogie, I agree, and also believe if people here were as disgusted as the Cariocas were 21 years ago, Donald Duck would have won.... I would have voted for him too.
Pecos Pete| 1.27.09 @ 7:52AM
re: Jay Molyneaux's letter above...
Jay is correct and, if we were to read his letter replacing the word Nazi with Communist, we could almost believe that we live in Germany during the early 1930s.
The adoring crowds trumpeting the success of Obama certainly are similar to the glorification rallies at Nuremberg.
I could go on with more examples but no need. We live in a dangerous time with Congress prepared to legislate our nation into a socialist union while at the same time limiting the first and second amendments supported in due course by a "living constitution" Supreme Court.
Alan Brooks| 1.27.09 @ 8:54AM
brave new world, not socialism, is coming. do you know what scientists are doing in the lab now? you dont think so now but you will.
call me a Cassandra-- Cassandra was right.
Tim| 1.27.09 @ 9:58AM
If we are not yet in the age of "Logans Run"
we are making a fast dash to get there.
Vern Crisler | 1.27.09 @ 10:52AM
I think Mr. Ron Schoenberg is incorrect. There isn't a shred of real evidence for the theory of evolution. Moreover, it's the Darwinists who use coercive measures to clamp down on any disagreement with their religion. It is in fact Darwinism that is at war with science, not religion.
frost| 1.27.09 @ 10:53AM
Thanks, Ms Lambert -- super posting! And, to Rocco (we may move down there, or to Costa Rica, to escape the pending completion of the Marxist/socialist-state and its tax-increases (plus the numerous other nauseating ramifications), thanks! Pecos Pete nailed it too, and Mike Dooley showed some interesting insight; 'cause again, it seems to be the warped priorities on the subject of abortion, gay-crap and stem-cells that trump the multiple/monumental REAL problems.
Often the letters are far more telling than the columns which inspired same. Thanks, all!
frost| 1.27.09 @ 10:57AM
Wellllll, maybe not "all" -- some are kinda lacking, 'ay Alan?
And, Vern's right -- as I read somewhere: 'The noted “Big Bang” hypothesis states that, at some point of singularity in space, an extremely dense ball-of-matter exploded, ‘ay? And thus the universe was born. That, of course, prompts the question as to where that matter came from - - to which there are two potential answers, right? It always existed – eternally self-existent, or an eternally self-existent God created it. Okay, but, to believe that that self-existent ball of matter just simply exploded? On its own? Nope, that does not follow the Law of Physics. Isaac Newton’s first law stated that “an object will remain at rest or in uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force.” So, from whence did this external force come? Who or what “pushed the button?” Something known as God appears to be most logical.'
David| 1.27.09 @ 2:07PM
To those who believe the "theory" of evolution is a proven scientific fact, please answer the following.
How can it be a scientific fact if it is not repeatable or testable? Therefore, the study of evolution cannot be subjected to the scientific method in the strict sense of the term.
How can evolutionists/scientists vary so greatly in their "opinions" about the age of the earth when they are supposedly all looking at the same "credible" evidence? I have heard some true believers in Darwin say earth is 100,ooo years old, some say 1 million, others say 50 million, and others say the earth is multiple hundreds of millions of years old. If they are looking at the same evidence, how can that be?
What museum can I visit to see the evidence that one species transformed into another?
Why have all of the several so-called "missing links" that were found all proved to be either hoaxes, or determined to be completely human, or determined to be completely animal?
Why were we told for years that the reason we couldn't go to a museum to see the evidence for the transformation was because evolution occurred so slow; and now, I believe the excuse used is that we can't find the evidence because evolution happened so fast?
Weren't we taught that apes are the animals most like humans? Then why would it be that pig blood is the animal blood most similar to human blood?
The Science of Probability says that evolution never could have happened - it is impossible.
Evolution? Is it based on facts, credible evidence, or science? I don't think so.
David | 1.27.09 @ 2:23PM
Has anyone seen the new anti-abortion ad that aired on the tube before Obama's inauguration? I think it says it all to those who use the "hard cases" to justify their pro-abortion positions. Enjoy it. I love it.
The ad shows the ultrasound image of a fetus in the womb. As the camera slowly moves in, a message gradually appears onscreen:
This child's future is a broken home.
He will be abandoned by his father.
His single mother will struggle to raise him.
Despite the hardships he will endure...
this child will become...
the first African-American president.
Then, alongside a picture of President Obama, comes the closing message: "Life: Imagine the Potential."
Crusader| 1.27.09 @ 2:32PM
David, my favorite question for darwinists is if evolution is true why did so many creatures (earth worms, slugs, etc) apparently stop "evolving?" I mean, don't they WANT to evolve into a rat or some other higher life form? For that matter why isn't there only one species on this planet? What's the deal?
Thom| 1.27.09 @ 3:47PM
To echo the comments of David and Crusader I think those that believe in Evolution as they understand it need to explain why there isn’t infinite variation both within and between species if this process actually works as suggested? Simple law of probabilities would litter the planet with hordes of variations since the change agent in Evolution is random chance at the very least. On an Evolutionary scale, Man is a 10 and everything else is between 0 and 1. That includes the smartest Prime Ape and Dolphin. No other species is self aware and capable of changing their environment to suit like Man. No other species values life as we do. No other species exists outside the strictly defined rules of instinct that governs every other species on the planet except one.
At the very least if the Evolution process accounts for anything, there would be abundant evidence in every corner of the world. To repeat what I’ve said in the past, if man evolved from any known species then why is that original species from say 500,000,000 years ago still just as they were then? The corner piece of Evolution rest on the notion that random chance started a process no one can find any evidence of now or has taken place in the past. On the contrary, if anything the planet has a pretty ordered set of processes that govern all life and there is simply nothing to support that random chance is involved at all with the development of one species or the other. Simple probability works against the theory; the lack of evidence of an on going process or any past evidence works against the theory; the shear gap between man and the next best thing down the list works against the theory.
You don’t have to believe in any concept of a “god” to see that our world has order to it and each thing a place in the world connected to some other thing. A true evolutionary process would have produced a world quite different from the one we have and it would be a whole lot less friendly than the one we have (relatively speaking).
Vern| 1.27.09 @ 4:07PM
David, I liked the following point, which nicesly encapsulates the having-one's-cake-and-eating-it-too side of Darwinism:
"Why were we told for years that the reason we couldn't go to a museum to see the evidence for the transformation was because evolution occurred so slow; and now, I believe the excuse used is that we can't find the evidence because evolution happened so fast?"
Darwin did use the excuse that everything happened slowly and imperceptibly, and punctuated equilibria uses the excuse that everything happened too fast. Beautifully put, David.
David| 1.27.09 @ 4:08PM
To the evolutionist Ron from Seattle, I think there are a lot of questions from several writers for which you don't have the answers. It appears that you have as much "faith" in Darwin as many of us do in God.
To everyone else, thanks. I learned some things.
Thomas| 1.27.09 @ 4:45PM
Actually, Darwinian evolution and scripture are not mutually exclusive. One merely has to recognize that the term "day" is not readily defined in Genesis and that the scripture, itself, should be viewed as Cliff notes for the illiterate. Once these two factors are taken into account, there is no reason to discount any form of intelligent design in natural selection.
The debate between whether there exists Divine intervention in the evolutionary process is based, largely, upon the ongoing power struggle between Deists and Secularists. It began back in Athens and has continued to this day. The ironic thing is that neither Darwinian evolution nor intelligent design can be proven empirically. Which reduces the participants in the debate to shouting "OH, Yeah?" at one another.
Thom| 1.27.09 @ 4:58PM
Thomas said, "The ironic thing is that neither Darwinian evolution nor intelligent design can be proven empirically". That is why so much of "science" today is regarded just like lawyers and politicans. They keep trying to pass off theory as fact and want others to worship the new religion that they have created. All I've ever wanted was "proof" of both Evolution and man made global warming/climate change, etc. Neither exists and I know what standards of proof true science must follow in order to be valid. It is so easy to just follow the money to disprove these hoaxes and ultimately true science ends up wearing the same stench from those that devalue the profession.
Roy| 1.27.09 @ 7:28PM
Re: Crusader: There isn't just one species on the planet because there is more than one environment on the planet, and more than one niche in a given environment. It's a big planet.
As far as whether worms and such have stopped evolving, who says they have? It has nothing to do with what anybody "wants"(except God). A worm doesn't wake up one day and say hey, I'd sure like to be a frog! He wakes up and says oh dangit I'm blue on a brown background! just before getting eaten by a bird. Pretty soon there aren't any blue worms left.
Anyway: I don't really have a dog in this fight. I am not a Genesis literalist, although I am a Christian and believe the unborn have rights. I do understand why Genesis literalists feel so passionately about this issue and I would much rather be ruled by one than by a pro-abort, any day of the week, but I don't agree with them.
I am often, however, at a total loss to understand why the atheistic left makes such a big deal over this issue. If it is alleged to be a disinterested concern for objective research my response would be BAHaahahahahha ha... aHaha
HAAHH AhahHaH..ahaha hha.a.aha.ah haa hahah ahaha....hahahaha.. "An Inconvenient Truth"... the Twinkie Defense .. The Bell Curve.. Larry Summers.. Bjorn Lomborg... I could go on. It is fundamentally unserious to state that the Left is concerned with objective science when that threatens their agenda. So I have to think they are so passionate about this issue mainly because it is one of darn few where they actually think they have it over the hated "fundamentalists".
Alan Brooks| 1.27.09 @ 8:55PM
Nazis wanted to attack the German Churches more than they did, but the war interfered. The families of young men at rthe front needed succor, attacking the Churches more than was done 1942-- '45 would have been out of proportion to any gain.
Lutherans were easy to manage by the Nazi state, but other Churches were more problematic. Catholics resisted most, btw Stauffenberg was a Catholic, Bishop Galen.
Nazis were also quite proletarian, May 1st a big holiday, Robert Ley's Labor Front offered mush to prole nazis, such as good holiday packages.
Hitler despised aristocracies.
Ron Schoenberg| 1.27.09 @ 10:41PM
If any of you critics of the theory of evolution were to spend even the slightest attention to the research over the last twenty years or so, you would know that there are repeatable experimental results supporting the theory, that there are numerous discoveries of transitional species, that all biological species continue to evolve even this day, including humans, but also that as an explanation of the deepest biological questions, the theory of evolution is not just an efficient explanation, it is a beautiful explanation. To people who spend the time to understand it, it is as wondrous as understanding the motion of the planets about the sun or the behavior of electromagnetic radiation. I can assure you, if you refuse to understand evolution, you are missing out on something truly amazing.
ruth| 1.28.09 @ 1:56AM
Mr. Schoenberg, why don't you explain The Theory of Evolution to us; since you're so enraptured by it. Recently, I've read that major conflicts had been discovered in the 'Theory'. Please elucidate us.
ruth| 1.28.09 @ 2:00AM
Mr. Mealor (aka Your livid reader), does it also offend you that Pol Pot, Mao, Castro, and Stalin were atheists? Or is it just the atheism of Hitler that twists your tights?
ruth| 1.28.09 @ 2:04AM
Well, Mr. Hauschild, talk about choices! You and others like you have made the choices for millions and millions of innocent babies. Imagine the 'choice' God has for you.
David | 1.28.09 @ 3:17PM
To Ron Shoenberg, reeeeeeally? In the past 20 years? I guess all of the liberal mainstream media missed what you claim has been proved because it sure didn't make the news.
What great faith you have.
Jimmy | 2.1.09 @ 11:40AM
There's no such thing as god. Religion has absolutely nothing to do with science. Belief is what you tell yourself in your head (ie there is a god, he care about me) Facts are what happen in the real world (innocent people die every single from naturally occuring events, for no reason)
It's sad that people can't made the distinction and choose to live in a hybrid world where they think that their god somehow affects all of our mutual reality.
kjkj| 11.19.09 @ 10:20PM
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