Indoctrinating the military to commit genocide.

PeterZ wrote:Laws allowing the personal choice of an abortion is one thing. Laws that force people who believe it is murderer to financially support it through mandated insurance coverage is another. Who's religious/moral view will government enforce?

Given that a significant portion of government revenue goes to fund the military, shouldn't pacifists be able to claim an exemption from federal taxes under this lgic?

(to be clear, this is a serious question, I'm not trying to be snide)

Namelessfly wrote:By any objective, scientific standard, a child in utero is a living human being.

Hardly as clear-cut as you present; I'd submit this is the main point of contention between pro-choicers and pro-lifers.

Namelessfly's paragraph "Many secular laws that are not at all controversial such as a near prohibition on killing (self defense, war, executions are exceptions) and laws against theft, robbery and rape were originally formulated by people whose political positions were informed by their religious beliefs. The fact that so many divergent religious traditions could agree on these laws suggests both the possibility that there exists an objective, secular morality as well as the possible validity of religious thought." is a new subtopic so I'll comment. I fully agree with what's said except for the execution bit, as most countries don't have capital punishment. Overall it states the situation better than I could have done. Good people have similar values regardless of religious or otherwise backgrounds.
The abortion debate does indeed hinge on when a foetus becomes a person. Somewhere between conception and a full term natural birth.

namelessfly wrote:

7thsealord wrote:Very basically, Ms Palin talks about something she read that was written by a guy who was told stuff by someone else. Which may or may not be accurate at any step of this progression.

An accurate description of Palin's post.

However; I have heard many similar accounts from diverse sources which makes it credible to me.

Keep in mind that this is the adminstration that classified themass murder by Maj Hassan as "workplace violence" rather than terrorism.

What I cannot help but notice that this allegation is;

(a) being supported by Ms Palin;
(b) on the Fox News website;
(c) pushes the Tea Party line of being hard-done-by "The evil gubmint hates us because we are so patriotic, yadda-yadda".

I'm being VERY polite (a rare state ), when saying that I consider the credibility of the claim is less than zero.

Slight topic change, but it does actually apply to the original topic title. At the start of the last Iraqi war I was in a "war room" that had lots of information feeds including commercial news casts. Time and age have dulled the detail but essentially Fox had a headline along the lines of "Treacherous Iraqi insurgents murder 35 brave US soldiers", Reuters had "Enormous imbalance in equipment and training enables US soldiers to advance with minimum causalities, while thousands of Iraqi government soldiers have been slaughtered", and the French said "American invaders have used their massive war making superiority to kill thousands of ill equipped and untrained patriotic Iraqi conscripts who never had a chance".
If Fox said it was raining I'd go outside to check. Goebbels would be jealous of Fox's ability to spin anything.

Daryl wrote:<<SNIP>>
If Fox said it was raining I'd go outside to check. Goebbels would be jealous of Fox's ability to spin anything.

I miss the days of Walter Chronkite and the Huntley/Brinkley Report. Granted, it was a somewhat simpler time, but there was less spin, more fact checking and less ego. Their reports on a story might not be word-for word the same, but they would be close. And they seldom had to retract a story once aired. But if they did make a mistake, they admitted it on air, explained the mistake and corrected the error. Both shows were trusted and trustworthy, because they all felt a responsibility to inform the public, unlike today were the idea is to shape opinions.
The only reason Goebbels would be jealous is because they have better equipment, not because they are any better at doing it.

Regarding Abortion: I believe its the woman's choice, but that the person or persons who develop a viable exowomb should get a Nobel Prize for Biology AND Peace.

Regarding Fox's spinmeistering: Ditto to every single one of the major networks. I've notice a distinct tendency to decide on the general story first, and then find (or make) facts to match. (As an aside, have a broad look at their coverage of US government debt, and Quantitive Easing. Then do the rough math yourself, and see how close to financial collapse things really are.)

Regarding the seperation of church and state: Good idea that so many people seem to ignore. To my mind, Gay marriage (provided its not compulsory!) is a non issue. A marriage is conducted in a church. If the church objects, that's their prerogative. A civil union (also often called marriage) is done in front of a magistrate (like my folks(the marriage, their not magistrates) and has nothing to do with the church. So long as everyone is over the age of majority, and is acting of their own free will, I don't care whether they are gay, straight, interracial, monogamous, polygamous, (have I left any out?), or some combination of the above. It has no effect on me, and I wish them all happiness.

Invictus wrote:<<SNIP>>
Regarding Fox's spinmeistering: Ditto to every single one of the major networks. I've notice a distinct tendency to decide on the general story first, and then find (or make) facts to match. (As an aside, have a broad look at their coverage of US government debt, and Quantitive Easing. Then do the rough math yourself, and see how close to financial collapse things really are.)
<<SNIP>>

Since my local PBS station carries the BBC World News at the same time as the late local news, I tend to watch them. They also have an ax to grind, but it is not as big or as sharp as the US networks. And they are not above admitting to mistakes when they do make them. Their reporters do a much better job on US politics than US reporters do. The financial news is where they don't do as well with the US, but suspect that that is as much to do with not scaring the s**t out of people in Europe as bad reporting.

Indeed so, Eyal.

Of course there is the question of self-defense. How do we prepare to defend against foreign aggressors? The Constitution already mandates the Feds support provions for an armed defense. Pacifists would have to change the Constitution to eliminate the military altogether.

I have no issues with effecting political barriers to initiating aggressive war.

Eyal wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Laws allowing the personal choice of an abortion is one thing. Laws that force people who believe it is murderer to financially support it through mandated insurance coverage is another. Who's religious/moral view will government enforce?

Given that a significant portion of government revenue goes to fund the military, shouldn't pacifists be able to claim an exemption from federal taxes under this lgic?

(to be clear, this is a serious question, I'm not trying to be snide)

Namelessfly wrote:By any objective, scientific standard, a child in utero is a living human being.

Hardly as clear-cut as you present; I'd submit this is the main point of contention between pro-choicers and pro-lifers.

Are you also discarding descriptions of TEA Party members as suicide bombers in this last funding debate? I recall Harry Tied using those terms. There is also the IRS targeting TEA Party organisations to prevent their getting propped tax treatment. Perhaps you might consider the Washington Times article where Nepolitano supports an intelligence estimate that claim conservative groups that oppose abortion and immigration reform are terrorist threats. That article ran in 2009. Are these not instances where a group is being demonized?

Namelessfly's claim is a small extension from these other data points. Discarding that claim as having zero credibility when all the other data points suggest this is not only possible but likely is at best niave.

7thsealord wrote:

namelessfly wrote:
An accurate description of Palin's post.

However; I have heard many similar accounts from diverse sources which makes it credible to me.

Keep in mind that this is the adminstration that classified themass murder by Maj Hassan as "workplace violence" rather than terrorism.

What I cannot help but notice that this allegation is;

(a) being supported by Ms Palin;
(b) on the Fox News website;
(c) pushes the Tea Party line of being hard-done-by "The evil gubmint hates us because we are so patriotic, yadda-yadda".

I'm being VERY polite (a rare state ), when saying that I consider the credibility of the claim is less than zero.

PeterZ wrote:Of course there is the question of self-defense. How do we prepare to defend against foreign aggressors? The Constitution already mandates the Feds support provions for an armed defense. Pacifists would have to change the Constitution to eliminate the military altogether.

There's nothing in the Constitution, AFAIK, mandating how the revenue to support armed forces is raised. So exmpting pacifists from taxes so as to avoid contirbuting to the military (for simplicities sake, assume the pacifists in question oppose violence under any circumstances).

PeterZ wrote:There is also the IRS targeting TEA Party organisations to prevent their getting propped tax treatment.

IIRC there were also quite a few liberal groups being investigated at the same time (I'm about to leave for the airport, I'll try to dig up the links in a day or so).