So, maybe this Debate about the Debate hasn't been a total waste of time. There have been some illuminating moments.
Like this one into the pretzelly mind of SUZYALLCAPSLOCK.
A-yup. We in Culture of Death® want to kill fetuses. We want fetuses DEAD DEAD DEAD.
It's aaalll about the fetuses.
No thought of the woman. Let alone 'for' the woman. The woman whose sole thought is 'Make this go away.'
This is why we won't debate them.
They are insane.
13 comments:
Wasting the time of those opposed and and continuing to confound those in support would be the common ground in the obvious resemblance in style of destructive communication that creationists have adopted when talking about "Darwinism" which persists in this discourse around dead fetuses and, of course, members of parliament on the Harper side of which Dean Del Mastro is the paramount mouth.
Religion kills brain cells.
This is why we won't debate them.
They are insane.
Why be so sporting about it, though? Debating an insane person is easy, and the longer it continues, the more obvious becomes your adversary's insanity.
Don't let SUZYALLCAPS off the hook after such an obvious fabrication. She even made it trivial to refute with her universal quantification ("NO woman"). If she'd said "some women want their foetuses dead," it would be trickier (who knows... perhaps some do), but the burden of proof would still be on her to prove even that (milder) assertion.
I think the real challenge here is in just trying to overcome decision paralysis in choosing the wittiest response. I tend to clam up in situations like this because I don't want to waste the opportunity--kicking myself later when I think, "Oh! Oh! Damn! No, I should have said... Crap, that would have been so much better. Sigh..."
Yabbut, GN, debating insane people drives oneself nutz. Did you see CC's take-down of HER shifty goalposts and lies linked to here?
Yeah about that kicking oneself thing. I just ran into a nifty French phrase for that, something like 'repartee from the stairs', i.e. on your way out. Maybe dBO will enlighten us.
No doubt there are millions of feminists around the world deliberately getting pregnant so they can feel the rush of exhilaration at the knowledge they've killed a fetus DEAD DEAD DEAD.
Godel Noodle, the words used to frame not only the debate but how social institutions perceive pregnancy and women's reproductive capacity, are important.
If someone believes for religious or personal reasons, that human life starts when a sperm fertilizes an ova, then it is consequent they say the purpose of pregnancy is to incubate a zygote, blastula, embryo, fetus until it leaves a woman's body.
Then, there's a majority of people who think that an event that begins with the inadvertent or intended collision of an ova and a sperm can be a life-giving process that could be facilitated - or terminated.
I think that pregnancy requires an integrated intellectual, emotional and physical choice to engage in, and complete this process. Even then, external circumstances can intervene and the covenant is broken.
This is the 21st century. Women are not bound by religious dogma, or cultural imperialism.
Compliance or acquiescence to carry the developmental progression from zygote to infant has been assigned to women because of their physiology and according to archaic interpretations of the Old Testament.
Women know that a pregnancy can kill them, that the process of giving life can end in death. It explains why so many will attempt self-abortion if a medical intervention is not available to them.
@roseblue aka Blob Blogging Wingnut chooses to believe the absolute frame of reference of HER religious ideology, with regard to the purpose of human sexuality and reproduction.
I will not engage in a discussion, using HER ideologically-laden terms unless it is to demonstrate that they are based on fundamentalist religious doctrine.
L'esprit de l'escalier.
Yabbut, GN, debating insane people drives oneself nutz.
Well, that's a good point. Safety first. Everyone has a limit, for sure. I guess I don't believe in a categorical moratorium on any debate, but I definitely appreciate the need to avert an impending troll-induced stroke by whatever means necessary.
Did you see CC's take-down of HER shifty goalposts and lies linked to here?
Actually, I just saw that yesterday (thanks to your post). It was very scathing, but I read only about half of it before I had to go...and then I forgot about it (oops!). I should definitely finish it. Thanks for reminding me.
...
deBeauxOs, I read your comment very closely (and three times), but I don't think I fully understand your point (which is a bit frustrating because you clearly put a lot of care into writing it). The biggest source of my confusion is in your opening and closing remarks--and what I think is your main point.
I strongly agree with you that the words chosen are very important (otherwise people like Frank Luntz would be out of work), but why must you use her ideologically-laden terms? For example, "pro-life" is an obvious misnomer since most people who identify themselves as such seem to have pretty "anti-life" sentiments toward people who have already been born (particularly doctors who perform abortions and life-sentence criminals). So if I'm arguing with such a person, she or he will invariably refer to me as "pro-abortion," and I'll refer to her or him as "anti-choice." But this incongruity in our language introduces no ambiguity. I can refuse to use the terms "pro-abortion" and "pro-life," and still be perfectly well understood. Our terms must agree only on denotation, not connotation to have a coherent dialogue.
So you've lost me a bit here. I'm not suggesting anyone needs to debate them using *their* terms. By all means, use your own. Furthermore, if you want to use their terms only to demonstrate that their ideas are based on fundamentalist religious doctrine, that's cool too. Who said you couldn't?
Maybe I'm not grasping which terms you have in mind...?
I could do paragraph-by-paragraph responses, but I think I'm pushing it as it is for length here.
GN, We'll have to get together at some point so you can parse what I wrote because I don't understand what it is you don't get about it.
8^)
GN, We'll have to get together at some point so you can parse what I wrote because I don't understand what it is you don't get about it.
I'd be delighted to get together! But we needn't defer the discussion until then. Perhaps if I paraphrase (in MASSIVELY broad strokes) the discussion--as I see it--it will be clear where I went off the rails.
Fern Hill: We won't debate them because they're insane.
Godel Noodle: But it's easy to debate against an insane person, and the longer you go, the more apparent their insanity becomes.
deBeauxOs: The words used in a debate are crucial. I won't debate them using their words.
Godel Noodle: Um... Ok... Who said you had to use their words?
This obviously skips over a lot (including the short, latter exchange between Fern Hill and me), but it was meant only to highlight where I got lost rather than summarize the whole discussion.
P.S. The CC post on SUZYALLCAPS was hilarious! Admittedly, it would have been better if I had been more familiar with her earlier antics (I became aware of her only recently), but he did a fairly decent job of making it self-contained.
Try this:
http://punkrockmomjeans.tumblr.com/post/24062545202/lakilester-no-one-gets-lynched-for-exfoliating
Zing!
LOL. chris's link.
They also want to write about dead fetuses over 100,000 times: http://www.letters4life.ca/
The so-cons haven't realized that they're just a useful tool for the business cons and even their supposed allies don't care for so-con goals.
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