As someone who has always called what the Jihadists do terrorism, could I get a response from Malkin as to whether she believes this Christianist murder is terrorism as well? Imagine an Islamist fanatic had assassinated a pro-Israel rabbi in a synagogue, and had harassed synagogues for years, including one arrest for bomb materials in his car. Imagine if one of his associates had tried to kill the rabbi before. Would there be any question that this was Islamist terror? So why is this not Christianist terror?
Shut up! That’s why!
Punk David
Well, for one, this man is not a Christian. He is a right wing terrorist, to be sure. But he does not act like a Christian, nor follow its most fundamental rule of the right to life. He is not a Christian.
You’re no better than those who call all Muslims, terrorists.
Little Dreamer
I can’t wait to see the twisted pretzel logic that comes out of trying to answer that question. I predict we’ll hear a lot of crickets instead.
Dreggas
Amazingly Malkin did call it terrorism
John Cole
@Dreggas: Read the link in this post, Dreggas.
evinfuilt
@Dreggas:
I had to read her whole post, its dripping in sarcasm.
She’s amazed that we don’t use the word terrorism to describe whats going in Iraq anymore, but will use it against these god fearing Americans.
No, Malkin doesn’t believe its terrorism.
TR
@Dreggas:
No, she didn’t. Sullivan mistook a quote from someone else that she was mocking as a sincere quote from her — Benen, and Balloon Juice, for a while, followed his lead.
Frankly, I’m glad to see it was all a misunderstanding. If Malkin had actually showed some intellectual consistency on the subject of terrorism, I’d probably have to start paying attention to what she says.
But since she’s simply being a knee-jerk asshole as usual, no big deal.
cleek
@Dreggas:
actually, she was quoting someone else who used the T-word, and mocking them for it.
Punk David
Well, using this flawed logic, one could call Hitler’s, Mao’s, and Stalin’s mass murders “Atheist Terrorism”.
Stop acting as if being irreligious is some sort of panacea, when a short glance at history shows that to be the furthest thing from the truth.
This man killed another man. That is wrong. Period. George Tiller killed babies. That is wrong. Period.
What is so difficult to understand? Perhaps you’re being purposely obtuse in the hopes of creating controversy.
Joey
Punk David, your reading comprehension skills, such as they are, leave much to be desired. Nobody said all Christians are terrorists.
And if you have to act like a Christian in order to be Christian, I don’t know too many Christians.
Punk David
Joey, EXACTLY my point. There are many who claim to be Christian, but are not. I do not pull any punches on that. You hit the nail on the head.
Dreggas
@John Cole:
Yeah, usually i trust the washington monthly. Re-read it and obviously the anchor-baby is still being a hack.
aimai
How about “christianist sectarian violence” if that makes the rest of the christians feel good?
aimai
Patrick
I don’t dig the term “christianist”. It’s a cop out.
People like this murderer are fundamentalists, pure and simple. Militant fundamentalism is a problem the world over, no matter if you’re talking the al-Qaedas and Talibans and Osamas and Zawarihis of the Islamic world, the Gush Eminems and the Kahanists of the Judaic world or the Roeders and Rudolphs of the Christian world.
Call him what he is: A fundamentalist terrorist.
Not a shocker that the murderer is from suburban KC. The FBI could do worse things than open field offices in every major suburban county west of the Mississippi and south of the Mason-Dixon Line. I live in one in Texas that is chock-full of militant pro-lifers and Revelation nuts, and I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that some of those sick folks threw some parties yesterday to celebrate.
Col. Klink
You also forgot to add 9/11, 9/11, 9/11 !!!
If you yell ‘9/11’ loud enough it solves everything. Unless of course you disagree, in which case you obviously suffer from a pre 9/11 mentality.
El Cid
Note that Sullivan used the term “Christianist,” not “Christian,” in order to distinguish religious fundamentalists from the more commonly religious or cultural backgrounds. (In the same way that many people in ‘Muslim’ nations are Muslim via integration in daily life but not particularly religious.)
John Cole
@Punk David: Punk David, I see you are new here and have decided you want to debate abortion endlessly and equate having an abortion with murder.
Na ga hap en.
The official position here is if you don’t like abortion, don’t have one. Otherwise, back to Operation Rescue or from whence you came and do your wanking over there.
SimplyOn
@ Punk David
But that does not make any sense for a couple of reasons. He is not calling all Christians terrorists; he is basically framing this individual’s terrorism as rooted in what this person thought were Christian beliefs. You are doing the same thing by saying “right wing” terrorist. There are left wing terrorists as well, but by me saying that, am I stating that all left wing followers are terrorists?
What Sully is claiming is that Malkin always does what you are saying toward Muslims; saying they are all terrorists basically. So he is asking what is the difference and how can she say one without the other.
And I am sure that the murderer would definitely claim his Christianity and that what he was doing was God’s work unto his deathbed. Just because you can see he is not a Christian by his actions doesn’t mean he does not believe in his own version of Christianity, as well as many others…
Little Dreamer
@Punk David:
Excuse me, but Atheists don’t have a Bible stating that they shouldn’t kill other people. Athiests, for the most part, seem to understand the goodness in that statement inherently. The religionists are the ones who seem to need reminding of that message (over and over and over again).
Dreggas
I still prefer the term Talibaptists.
DBrown
@Punk David: You are dead wrong. Get your facts correct – Dr. Teller never killed a single baby- period. Learn the law and stop trying to prove how little you know or understand and how uneducated you are in a public forum.
eric
@Punk David: the theme you are responding to is not that irreligion is a panacea, but that too often, “christian soldiers” hide behind religion as a justification for the act itself. Further, you are hearing from people who are tired of watching people threaten law abiding citizens. Finally, you are hearing from people who are tired of watching politicians knowlingly use rhetoric that will serve no purpose other than to incite people to extreme behavior.
Right now, I know of no athest or agnostic doing any of those three things for the sake of spreading their beliefs.
eric
randiego
Really? He killed babies? Like in their sleep?
Get your weak-ass intellectually dishonest shit out of here, troll.
Patrick
@Dreggas: That’s a good one!
AnotherBruce
Show us the evidence, or shut the fuck up.
Tom
@Col. Klink:
Bingo.
Dreggas
@Patrick:
I can’t really take credit for it, it’s been around for a while. Given what I’ve seen of baptists and other fundamentalists it’s pretty much the truth though.
Punk David
Again, atheists propagated the worst slaughters in history (Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc). So stop blaming religion, it only makes you look foolish.
As far as this sites “official” stance, that is pathetic as well. As if saying, “If you don’t like torturing innocent people in Iraq, then don’t do it” would make it right for Bush and Cheney to do it. As if saying, “If you don’t like torturing and killing women, don’t do it” would make it right for the BTK killer to do it. Simply not murdering someone does not make murder right. Simply not aborting a child does not make it right for others to do so. Sorry, you lose on that.
That is elementary school logic on your part, and sad. For so many of you to claim to be educated and above such things, your thought processes are quite flawed and erroneous.
Librarian
Sullivan shouldn’t have posted the Malkin quote in the first place, and given it a “Yglesias award”. He should have realized that she was telling the left not to make political hay out of the Tiller murder, and so attacking the liberals like she always does. Instead he took what she wrote at face value. Why is he so fucking naive when it comes to the far right? He should know by now that people like Malkin never say anything that doesn’t further their own cause.
Little Dreamer
@Punk David:
I think many of us would disagree with you on what defines the two. Here, let me give you a hint, all the words Jesus was said to have said “love one another, feed the poor, clothe the naked…” are in red in many Bibles.
J
It’s actually v. hard to tell what attitude Malkin is taking in her post.
Certainly there is that–obviously sarcastic–comment about the word ‘terrorism’ being re-discovered. But the quotation that Sullivan, Benen, Dreggas et al. took to be a commendable condemnation of the murder as terrorism isn’t presented as a quotation and, so far as I can tell, isn’t linked. It heads a set of citations and quotations that, Malkin seems to view as sound and which, if I’ve read her correctly, she presents as such before going to make her main and rather predictable point that these worthy sentiments aren’t enough for the liberal left baddies who will exploit this crime for their own nefarious purposes. On this reading–and I confess to finding Malkin’s way of presenting her points hard to follow (what is it with all those asterisks?)–the remark about how quickly the word ‘terrorism’ has been rediscovered is an aside that she couldn’t resist throwing in even though it obscures her main point. But I could be wrong.
Martin
I think you need to look more closely at what some of the Christian leaders are preaching.
If you have people with Christian religious titles calling, effectively, for holy war, then he absolutely is acting like a Christian. Maybe not your flavor of Christian, but the only definition of ‘Christian’ that has any meaning are the collective preachings of Christian leaders. I’m happy to say he’s not a Catholic, or a Lutheran, etc. But he’s definitely a Christian.
If you don’t like the definition that some of the outlying groups are putting out there, then clean up your own house. The 9/11 bombers may not have been representative of most Muslims, but nobody is arguing that they were Muslims.
Punk David
Also, don’t you think it is quite hypocritical to tell me to go elsewhere because I have a different opinion? Doesn’t that go against the very freedoms leftists and Democrats fight so hard to defend (such as speech). Why is it okay for you but not for another?
That is fascism.
Victory
Theses are not the droids you are looking for…..
kay
@Patrick:
Not a shocker that the murderer is from suburban KC. The FBI could do worse things than open field offices in every major suburban county west of the Mississippi and south of the Mason-Dixon Line. I live in one in Texas that is chock-full of militant pro-lifers and Revelation nuts, and I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that some of those sick folks threw some parties yesterday to celebrate.
Well, forget it, because the FBI had everything but a road map and a ride to this guy’s house, and he walked into a church and shot someone anyway. So much for that.
We can’t have a cop in every kitchen. The cure is worse than the disease.
Olly McPherson
Punk David is setting a Balloon Juice record for queering multiple threads.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Little Dreamer:
So, do we think that if Jesus were alive today, he would be palling around with terrorists?
Just asking.
Punk David
I certainly do not condone the speech of hateful people claiming to be “Christian”, just as is the case with fraudulent Muslims propagating hate. It does a disservice to true Christians and Muslims. It also does a disservice to everyone when people propagate hate speech on this site. I did not like what George Tiller did, and I never will. But I do not like what his pathetic murderer did either, and I never will.
I would say, “Well, duh” to that, but apparently it is not clear.
sgwhiteinfla
Punk David is quite hysterical isn’t he? No more attention for you! LOL
jenniebee
@Punk David:
Oh yeah? Show me in the Bible where it says that abortion is forbidden. You can’t.
And for every place you can find where it says that killing or endangering your own children is wrong, I can find one that says it’s ok. What Abraham was about to do to Issac is portrayed as an unequivocally good act because the voices in his head told him to do it. Lot offered up his daughters to be gang-raped. And Moses’ mother would have been arrested for child abandonment if she’d set a kid floating down a river today, but instead, in the Bible, she’s a hero. Suffer the little children is like a motto with you people.
Charity
Because SHUT UP BABY-KILLER, that’s why.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Punk David:
Nice try PD, but you fail. He is a Christian, he was a Christian. You don’t get to cut him loose when he does something horrific.
The comments over at Malkin’s place are all about moral equivalencies: “Yeah, well, in Afghanistan they cut women’s head off!!” and “Chicago had 7 murders in 24 hrs over the weekend. Where’s the outrage?!1” These people are hopeless.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Punk David:
Nah, don’t puff yourself up. People just don’t like you.
Free speech permits them to tell you to go away because you are a dickhead.
This is also known as the Richard “Dick” Head Rule.
cleek
you shouldn’t use a word if you don’t know what it means.
Punk David
Since an abortion debate was mentioned, I might as well throw in my three cents.
If abortion is not murder, then what is it? Does it not kill a human being? I’m not sure of the logic of not calling something what it actually is. What are you trying to hide?
Well, until each and everyone of you on here starts to consider yourselves more than merely “walking genitals”, women will seek an easy way out, through the murder of a child, to solve a problem rooted in their (and their partner’s) irresponsibility.
Are you all quite comfortable with admitting you have no control over your sexual urges? That is rather sad and pathetic. It is akin to admitting that you are little more than animals.
As far as Pro-Life groups are concerned, they never have and never will promote murder, as murder is the realm of pro-abortion groups. This man murdered a child killer, and is no better than him for it. George Tiller was a human being, and had every much a right to life as the children he killed, or the women he maimed. He had well-known drug and emotional problems in dealing with his line of work. He deserved compassion and help, not death. Stop associating real Pro-Life people with the likes of pro-death individuals such as this cowardly killer.
If you want to stop abortion, promote responsible sex. We can CHOOSE not to have sex until we are ready to accept a baby. It really isn’t that hard. The best sex is sex without fear, reservation, or contraception with someone you truly love. But it isn’t the end all, be all of life. Quite the contrary, it is but one small aspect of it. Unfortunately, our society glorifies it into something much more than it actually is.
Morbo
I, for one, can’t wait for Ross Douthat’s take on this.
El Cid
@Punk David: Whoa, whoa — someone asking you to go away is “fascism”? No, it’s not.
LD50
Are you the one who decides this? Do you notify the people who don’t pass the test?
Little Dreamer
@Punk David:
When you learn how to mix oil and water and come to a way to mix the two so that they don’t separate, let us know.
jrosen
@Punk David
Dr. Tiller’s “late term abortions” (2nd trimester, not late) were medical interventions to remove a dead or dying or badly malformed fetus for which the prognosis was either death in utero, or a very short (days, hours?) pain-filled life, while the health and/or life of the mother was at serious risk. You may think that even in such a situation that “God’s will be done” (and if you do I’d find you woefully lacking in empathy, let alone Christian compassion) but evidently you don’t even have that much of a grasp of the basic facts of the case.
This leaves entirely aside the question of vigilante “justice” (the medical procedures in question are legal still, as the juries in DR. Tiller’s legal persecutions found); or the more difficult question of what gives you the omniscience to decree (without any authority I can see) that a fetus is a human being with the same status as the mother carrying it.
What I hear behind your words is self-righteous bloodlust. May I suggest that you reread the Sermon on the Mount carefully (or perhaps, read it for the first time?)
Were Roe v. Wade to be reversed and the logic of the anti-anti-choicers (the Forced Birthers) carried out, every doctor who terminated a pregnancy and every mother who requested the procedure would be murderers (and 1st degree at that, with premeditation). Would you subject them to the usual penalties, i. e. long-term hard time or execution? (think Texas, for example) If not, why not? And if yes, at least you would be consistent but I think your somewhat shaky public support would dwindle very quickly. But at least you’ll have Randall Terry.
AnotherBruce
You accused Tiller of killing babies. Show us the damn evidence. If you are going to accuse someone of murder, then you better know what you’re talking about, even if you are using a pseudonym on the internet.
Tiller got killed because of assumptions like yours.
angulimala
Punk David,
Christian: Anyone who professes the belief that Jesus is the son of God who died on the cross to redeem the sins of humankind. That includes murderers who profess the belief as well.
If sinners are automatically not Christians, then you are no Christian either. Neither is anyone else. There are no Christians if we use that litmus test.
Seriously though, it might be interesting to have this discussion if it wasn’t so played out and stupid.
El Cid
For my part, there will be no debate. People who proclaim a few embryonic cells as people and thus abortion as murder are ludicrously as well as legally wrong. It’s all about enforcing a strict control over women’s reproduction and making sure women are punished for sexual behavior. The anti-abortion movement is entirely worthless and a blight on modern society.
Little Dreamer
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
Depends on who you ask, I guess. ;)
wilfred
One thing I never understood was how people could claim that abortion was killing babies – not like killing babies, or the moral/ethical/philosophical equivalent of doing so, – but exactly the same, and somehow not do exactly what this guy Roeder did.
I mean that if I believed that a woman entering a clinic to have an abortion was exactly the same as her entering with a 6 month old, or 2 yo, or whatever, in order to kill the child, I’d be down there with a gun pretty damned quick.
I never quite figured out someone could have so much respect for the law. At least this guy is about to swing for what he believed in, instead of maintaining a feel-good chickenshit position that most of the diehard pro-lifers do.
LD50
Oh wise one, please enlighten us poor benighted securalists. We await your precious condescending wisdom.
LD50
There’s a little thing called ‘birth control’. Try googling it.
cleek
There are many who claim to be
Christian,Scotsmen but are not.Scruffy McSnufflepuss
It would be nice if this Punk David asshole would actually post original thoughts, instead of spamming each thread with the same asinine post.
WereBear
Exactly.
In fact, it doesn’t matter what fundamentalist religion gets mixed up with it. That’s just the excuse to feel righteous and badass and dangerous and important and kill people.
Another thing fundies do; they block the life force, (for instance, their follower’s sex drives) to get them worked up and aim-able at a selected target.
Essentially, any religion which tells a person they can only find joy… in God… through their church… is only interested in warm bodies to carry out their heinous plans.
Frustrated, angry, miserable bodies that are desperate to get some kind of relief from their suffering.
LD50
Wuh oh. Punk David thinks Hitler was an atheist. Not a good sign.
kid bitzer
you know, i heard someone suggest once that anti-abortion fanatics are primarily motivated by an obsessive desire to control other people’s sexual activity.
#44 seems to have been written for the express purpose of proving them right.
punk david, you are such a hopeless loser.
El Cid
Um, no. Please no. Please don’t waste my time or this blog commentary space with any of this anti-abortionite crap.
Little Dreamer
Do you think a child with no spine, or no brain or many other severe birth defects that would cause the pregnancy to not result in a viable child who can live a real life, and which only burdens the parents and family of said child is a pregnancy that should go forward?
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@El Cid:
QFT
Brachiator
@Punk David:
No. Its that you make stupid declarations (“it’s just elementary logic…”), as though your “opinion” were actually received wisdom.
Apart from this, John Cole can set whatever policy on posting that is reasonable to him — since it’s his blog.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I am not consistently leftist, and have never been a member of any political party for as long as I have been able to vote. But again I note that you don’t seem to be so much interested in an exchange of opinions as you are in spouting uninformed and uninteresting noise.
But that’s just my opinion.
Little Dreamer
@LD50:
Hitler was a Christian and was supported by the Catholic church. Look it up.
Edit: Whoops, sorry LD50, I referenced you but was informing the troll.
kid bitzer
[deleted. just remembered: ‘dnftt. dnftt. dnftt.’
Punk David
I would be happy to enlighten you. When does a human become a human in your mind? When it is fully developed? That may take some people well into their twenties. Should we be able to murder them? How about when a child can survive without a womb? Well, a toddler cannot survive without a mother. Should be we be able to murder them too? How about the developmentally disabled? How about the very old?
You know what that becomes?
How about liberals? How about conservatives? How about environmentalists? How about corporations? How about Jews, Christians, Muslims, atheists?
Where does it begin and end for you?
Biology says life begins at conception. Each and everyone of you was an embryo. None of you were hatched as an adult. Someone decided to keep you alive in the womb, and aren’t you lucky and thankful for that!
You can insult and disagree with me all you like but you won’t change my mind. I hope I can change some of yours. I don’t hate any of you, but look at you as one looks upon a lost child or animal. You need help, and happiness. I hope you find it.
God Bless, and may He have mercy upon you!
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Punk David:
Overall, one of the lamest spooftroll acts we’ve seen in a long time.
“We can choose not to have sex, it’s really not that hard” was spoof gold though.
Maude
@John Cole:
Re: Punk David-can you make him go bye-bye?
Litlebritdifrnt
I am sure that these people will next justify shooting God cause he kills all them babies with miscarriages.
Will Danz
@Punk David:
“Also, don’t you think it is quite hypocritical to tell me to go elsewhere because I have a different opinion?
Doesn’t that go against the very freedoms leftists and Democrats fight so hard to defend (such as speech). Why is it okay for you but not for another?
That is fascism.”
And with that silly, trivializing characterization of “fascism,” you forfeit the right to be taken seriously. At all.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Hm. Do we get to use you as an example?
We are going to need more time.
But really, the answer is: Just before the spermacide kicks in, apparently.
cleek
heh. thanks for stating your M.O. so clearly.
off to the pie factory with you, troll.
Joel
@Punk David:
Ergo the word “Christianist”, coined by Andrew Sullivan, akin to the term “Islamist” used to describe fanatics that desire to apply convoluted, oppressive principles loosely derived from Islam to the rule of law.
21cdb
My wife the biologist would like to disagree with you on this; turns out the only thing we can prove begins at conception is cell division.
sgwhiteinfla
Commenters like Punk David is the reason why blogs should have ignore functions in the comment section so you don’t even have to deal with that kind of bullshit.
Punk David
Did I ever say that Tiller the Killer’s murderer did not commit murder? He sure did. He is no better than Tiller, and should be put away forever.
As far as the sex part, do you not have control over your sex drive? Have you not evolved enough for that (yes, I did say evolution, which the Church supports, duh)?
Seriously, are you no better than an animal in terms of your urges and drives? Because admitting that makes you no better than Tiller’s killer acting on his urges and impulses. It makes you NO DIFFERENT.
People can control themselves. Trouble results almost ALWAYS from people not controlling their urges. Why is that such an anti-liberal and anti-democratic thing? To be responsible? I’m sure our president would support what I am saying as well, and preaches that very thing to his daughters. He gets it, why don’t you?
sarah
DNFTT
TheFountainHead - 'Easily Led'
Win.
The best part about this was that John’s post was directly after Sully’s in my RSS feed. I laughed out loud reading them back to back, and then I came here and LOL@Punk David for a while. Good times.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Oh yeah? I guess you haven’t met Birdzilla.
El Cid
If God’s real intention is that I be lectured by crazy condescending freaks like you, then f*** Him, too. Sounds like He needs to grow the f*** up.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Punk David:
Some people choose celibacy, others have celibacy thrust upon them (hat tip @ Tbogg).
Joel
@Punk David:
I deeply regret ever taking you seriously.
If you want to change people’s minds, consider taking a more Christian approach. One grounded in empathy and understanding, for example. Right now, you’re just spouting zealotry.
Punk David
Well, have degrees in biology, physiology, as well as a medical degree (see my other posts), and every single course and text I consult says that life begins at conception.
If that is not life, what is? It certainly is not a rock. It certainly is not a frog, either. It is you. It is me. It is all of us whether you like it or not. And to destroy it, is to kill someone.
Pure and simple. And I am a biologist, physician, as well as a leftist as well.
DBrown
@Punk David@Punk David: A fetus is not a child or a baby (by law) and even the Bible does not label abortion as murder OR KILLING A HUMAN – period. If you understood any part of the Bible you would know that. as for when does life start, that is fine but that is not taking a human life. Facts are facts and your lack of education (even in the Bible) is amazing.
David
Christianity cannot fail, Christianity can only be failed.
Except in the case of the Punk and in the case of Christianity’s murderous fundamentalist followers. Last year these murderers did their thing in a church in Knoxville, TN.
Fascism cannot fail, Fascism can only be failed. Especially in the case of Balloon-Juice.com. Need to work a bit harder on that, John. Oh, and you need to grow a nice square mustache too.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Prove it. Say something that isn’t hilarious.
valdivia
@Morbo:
FTW. that will be some tortured pretzel logic indeed.
Joey Maloney
@Patrick:
People like this murderer are fundamentalists, pure and simple. Militant fundamentalism is a problem the world over, no matter if you’re talking the al-Qaedas and Talibans and Osamas and Zawarihis of the Islamic world, the Gush Eminems and the Kahanists of the Judaic world or the Roeders and Rudolphs of the Christian world.
8 Mile Road runs through Jerusalem? Who knew?
Laura W
@Litlebritdifrnt: OK, I’ll just post my OT superfluous question for you here Because Shut Up. The thread is already wanked.
In the vein of the John Cole school of advice seeking, please tell me which of these to buy. I need to do it today for the 10% off coupon.
Thank you in advance, Queen of Egyptian Cotton.
MH
WEEEOOO-WEEEOOO virgin alert!!!
Punchy
You dont abort “children”, you dumb fuck. Weak sauce, beeyotch.
El Cid
You women just need to stop doing the nasty until a good Christian tells you it’s time.
joes527
@John Cole:
Operation Rescue appears to be completely offline. looks like they want a chance to cleanse the site before folks can point out that the shooter was a regular in the forumns.
Little Dreamer
Ummm, no, actually I was an accident which came along many years after my parents had several children previously, and I was not delicately treated in the womb, I was doused with booze. My mother had me because it was expected that middle-aged, middle class white women didn’t get abortions in the early 60’s and she treated me like shit for years afterwards until I finally made it out of that hell hole. She continued to drink heavily throughout my childhood and early adulthood, and eventually died of cirrhosis of the liver.
AnotherBruce
Still waiting PD, where is the evidence that Tiller was a baby killer? Pretty easy to piss on a murdered man, isn’t it you coward.
TR
Blow it out your ass.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
Punk David is on to the “Listing One’s Credentials in Advance of Your Argument” chapter in the Official Troll Playbook.
Sit tight everyone. It means we are nearing the end of the trollery.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
You are going to need to provide some links. In my days as a pre med student and Zoology major, I never heard such a thing or saw it in any textbook. Are you ordering your study materials from the Creation Museum?
Better lies, please.
South of I-10
@Punk David:
Without contraception? Why? So I should have had a kid a year as punishment for having sex with my husband? My husband and I made a mutual, responsible decision not to have a child for a long time after we were married, and that decision to use birth control has absolutely nothing to do with you or your beliefs. I wish you would admit that your arguments have everything to do with controlling women. I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions about my uterus.
Ash
No it doesn’t. Who taught you biology? Some cracknut with a degree from Liberty University?
ARGH, why do I even bother?
flukebucket
One word for you buddy……vasectomy!
Shinobi
Punk David;
Hitler was catholic. Also, have you not heard of the crusades? Srsly? Population % wise I think they probably made a pretty big dent.
But why am I bothering. Arguing with the overly religious is like playing fetch with my blind dog, kindof amusing at first, but then you just feel sorry for them. (Fortunately my dog is cuter.)
Punk David
Wow, such rage and hatred on the part of the liberal movement I have long supported. I am ashamed of you for acting as you do, but I am not offended nor threatened. I feel sorry for you, because you are letting liberals down, letting Obama down, and letting your friends and families down by spouting such hateful rhetoric.
Do you really believe that those who disagree with one of your opinions should be shunned, arrested, or destroyed? Do you? Because that makes you a fascist, akin to KKK goose-steppers. As Eddie Vedder once said, If you hate something, don’t you do it too.
Sage advice for many of you here.
Laura W
@El Cid: Or at least have the good taste and self-worth to do it on fine Egyptian Cotton sheets, for Allah’s sake.
Sarah: Thanks!!
sarah
@Laura W: I think thread count is like SPF, once you get above a certain number it’s all kinda the same and comes down more to brand, exact fibers used, manufacturing methods etc. But FWIW I have the 600 thread count striped sheets and they’re really nice. But I don’t notice a whole lot of difference between them and another 400 thread count sheet set i have. If you want something nice just stay around 400 or above. 1500 strikes me as overkill. Like getting those $$ monster cables from Best Buy.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
You are right, it is Too Big To Fail.
So big that a spoof like Punk can find a niche in there somewhere and fire off the straight lines …..
Little Dreamer
@Punk David:
Tell that to Bristol Palin.
cleek
@sgwhiteinfla:
Pie filter
LD50
I’m getting a very strong sense from PD of a precocious home-schooled Conservative Catholic virgin who’s about 18, still lives with his folks and who is far too impressed with his own brilliance.
Punk David
Yeah, you’re wrong about Hitler once again. Being brought up in the Church, doesn’t make you a Catholic. He once famously said:
“We do not want any other god than Germany itself. It is essential to have fanatical faith and hope and love in and for Germany.”
Wow. That makes him an atheist.
Stalin and Mao were atheists too, and look what wonderful things they brought the world. Do you really want to cast your lots with them? That is not what John Lennon wanted. Why do you?
Joey Maloney
The KKK don’t goosestep, you dumb fuck.
Trollery simile fail.
chopper
the first amendment doesn’t apply to some dude’s blog, dumbass. sheesh, spoofs just keep getting worse and worse.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
PunkDavid’s trolling every abortion thread. Annoying spooftroll. “I’m a doctor! And a leftist!” Waste of time. Very unfunny.
Spoofing used to mean something, it was humorous. This dull, unfunny spoofing isn’t worth the time.
MH
I don’t know which of these is least believable.
Fleem
@El Cid:
Referring to a fetus as “a few embryonic cells” is a dismissal of the complex issues involved with abortion. Any parent or person involved with reproductive health issues knows that it’s far more complicated than that. Having an abortion doesn’t mean the pregnancy never happened. That clump of cells COULD have developed into a person. Women who have abortions are at risk for PPD, among other problems.
Talking about abortion this way does a serious disservice to the pro-choice cause, which I support, although with great ambivalence. As the Clintons said, abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.”
I don’t agree with Punk David about anything, except the fact that it’s a good idea to prevent unwanted pregnancies before they happen, rather than after.
Ash
What is this crap? Who said that anywhere? Are you typing from a padded room or something?
Litlebritdifrnt
@Laura W:
Laura looks to me like the best VFM is this one.
http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Hotel-Fine-Linens-600-Thread-Count-Egyptian-Sheet-Set/3834746/product.html
Provided they have the color you want. I generally go for the 600-800 thread count.
Brick Oven Bill
The reason why this cannot be termed ‘Christian’ terror is because Christ did not go around killing people. He had a different outlook on life than Mohammed. Then reference 33:21.
Punk David
Hi Joey,
Thanks for the insult. I love you. I feel sorry for you. May God have mercy on you.
Have a nice day!
Punk David
David
KKK fascist alert! Beware followers of Balloon-Juice!11
Hateful spewing against teh doctor/biologist/Christianist/liberal/ex-liberal/wierdo will not be tolerated!
Square mustaches for you all if you don’t let me take over this blog! WHY AM I NOT ON THE FRONT PAGE YET?
/Punk David
LD50
After you’re done with your narcissistic preening, could you bother yourself to answer a few of the questions thrown at you?
valdivia
maybe Punk David should move to Nicaragua where the socialist communist Ortega pushed through a law that makes all abortion criminal no exception for health of the mother at all.
oops forgot the s word and landed in moderation.
TR
Punk David likes pie.
Xenos
No, but dishonest, mendacious, and malicious jerks should be shunned. Arrested and destroyed? Now you bring it up I have to admit you have some good ideas…
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Oh boy, already you are blowing your cover?
You are becoming a lounge act.
LD50
BOB’s back from his banning? That doesn’t feel like it was a whole week.
DBrown
@Punk David: Since you fail to address my points I realize that you know you are wrong.
As for your claim to be an MD, your degree is a very strange one. If you understood even HS biology you would have learned that any cell is living. Also, rats, dogs, even plants much less germs are all types of living things. So you have never killed a germ? Or eaten an animal? or plant? If so, you are a murderer and should get the same title you give out so freely.
I await your answer to why you are not a murderer.
Gocart Mozart
What were Hitlers religious beleifs?
Joey Maloney
@Fleem:
Concern troll is concerned.
angulimala
Punk David,
If sinners are automatically not Christian, then you are no Christian either.
DFS
YHBT. YHL. YHGMTPOBH.
Death By Mosquito Truck
@wilfred:
Completely agree with yer larger point (not blockquoted) but this guy isn’t the example yer looking for. He fled the scene of the crime like he’d done something wrong, not something heroic.
El Cid
Listen, idiot — telling someone on a god-damned blog comments page to fuck off is not fascist, and you’re a fucktard pin-head to keep repeating this shitty claim.
And you’re a stupid god-damn baby who doesn’t give the slightest shit what fascism ever was or is, but you like using the word whenever somebody tells your preachy ass to fuck off.
This isn’t the fucking grocery story or the town’s one medical clinic and overall wearing farmers are barring your way because you’re suspected of being the wrong ethnic group.
You came to this voluntary political blog, started throwing around a bunch of moralizing bullshit, and now like most conservatives you think that not only should you have your say, but that everyone needs to respond to you exactly in the method you prefer.
Keep annoying these other people if it flows from your mojo, but I’m done with your fake, whining ass.
Zuzu's Petals
@J:
I agree. I don’t see where Malkin was quoting anybody else in that paragraph. The Google link seems to be to a search for the use of the “t-word” in connection with the Tiller murder.
Punk David
Well, is that how you want to be perceived? As stifling the views of those who disagree with you? That is not very open-minded, but rather as close minded as Dick Cheney, President Bush, and Rush Limbaugh. You are acting no different from them, and in some cases, I would say they are more charitable to dissenting opinions than you.
Do you really want to be stereotyping bigots? Do you? Or do you want to be the open-minded peaceful folks I protest the war with. This is a sad day for liberalism.
Laura W
@Litlebritdifrnt: Thank you Thank you!
I’m getting this, too. My new bedroom has really gorgeous deep yellow walls and this too looks like a great value for everything you get. Throw it all on top of my new 4″ Serta Memory Foam mattress pad and I have very high hopes of one day sleeping through the night with only two pee breaks. Lofty dreamer, I am.
Oooooo…BOB’s back in the nick of time!
Little Dreamer
WTF?
Ash
@DBrown: Oh geez, my vegan next door neighbor is gonna have a coronary when he finds out he’s been murdering all that arugula he loves.
Perry Como
Well fuck. So much for my clown suit, hotel and spiked condom weekends. I wonder if I can get my deposit back on the penguins I rented?
Martin
Much more likely that the FBI has their servers. I suspect OR isn’t dumb enough to try and cleanse their forums.
Punk David
Do you think killing animals is murder, or is killing people murder?
I believe the latter. And because humans begin at conception, killing them is murder. Duh. That is pretty simple biology.
As for the crack about my credentials, as if that would actually insult me. At the next anti-war rally, I’ll introduce myself to you. You see, I am Pro-Life no matter what, and that includes anti-war. Just like you.
El Cid, thanks for the insults. Keep them coming. Since you have ended the debate, and instead wish to assault me because I disagree with you, I shall forgive your actions. You do not know what you do. You can spit, hit, and even kill me. But you won’t change my mind because you’re simply wrong on this. I’ll pray for you today.
El Cid
@Fleem:
You are correct that I am completely and insensitively dismissing the moral concerns which are obsessed with defining these embryonic forms as actually human and possessing human rights, and I will absolutely continue doing so. Absolutely.
I did not dismiss any medical concerns, which remain the province of decision-making between a woman and her doctor and only anyone else she chooses to involve.
redbeardjim
@Punk David:
Really. I have several biology and physiology textbooks within arm’s reach. Let me just check.
* Martini & Nath, “Fundamentals of Anatomy & Physiology”. Nope.
* Campbell, Reece & Simon, “Essential Biology”. Nope.
* Mader, “Human Biology”. Not there either.
* Tortora & Grabowski, “Principles of Anatomy & Physiology”. Nothing about “life begins at conception”.
Honestly I didn’t expect to find such a statement in the Campbell book, as it’s a general bio text. The human-focused textbooks, if they said anything begins at conception, referred to “embryological development”. Which, again, I expected. I mean, are the sperm and egg not alive?
Of course, none of my books were published by A Beka or Zondervan. Maybe that’s my problem.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@Punk David: A bit better, but not yet up to TZ’s lofty standards. Keep trying. You are upping your game by working in the war protesting…
LD50
@Punk David:
Um, no.
El Cid
@Punk David: I’m not debating you because you’re an annoying prick, you make zero interesting points, you are free to keep trolling this blog and jacking off to your own enlightened status, I don’t give a shit if you ‘forgive’ me or not, and the God you believe in is a small little needle-dick fucktard, whereas any Supreme Being worthy of the name is going to be more grown up than the shitbag you believe in.
LD50
Punk, could you please explain to us why the best sex is without contraception?
You know, based on what other people have told you about sex.
Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
“When does a human become a human in your mind? When it is fully developed?”
When it’s able to be viable outside of the womb. Which is the bright line for Roe v. Wade.
In Christian thought, Aquinas believed the soul entered when the fetus became recognizably human.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
You are making the Baby Jesus* cry.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
* not my yardman
Gocart Mozart
“Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise.”
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 1
“I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.”
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 2
atheism.about.com
Of course, the truth is a bit more complicated and nuanced but since Punk David and other wingnuts don’t do nuance I wont either. Fap, Fap, Fap.
Little Dreamer
Uhhh. what?
Punk David
Um, yes
“They also show the different steps involved in the persecution,[44] including the campaign to suppress denominational and youth organizations, denominational schools, and the use of defamation against the clergy, orchestrated to started on the same day over the Reich and supported by the press, Nazi Party meetings and by traveling party speakers.[45][46] The documents show that the Nazis early on wanted the churches neutralized because they feared that the Churches would oppose Nazi plans based on racism and aggressive wars. The Nazis planned to infiltrate churches and use defamation, arrest, assault and/or kill pastors, and “re-educate” church congregations. They also suppressed denominational schools and Christian youth organizations.”
Duh. How about Stalin and Mao too? Wonderful works of hateful atheists.
freelancer
Punk David:
Ah the Atheist Genocide Trope: again, not true.
Could you just go troll PZ Myers? I’m sure his commenter’s would have an excellent time devouring you for lunch.
I for one, don’t have the time or energy right now to devote the much needed smackdown.
As I wrote yesterday, the pro-life movement’s reaction today and yesterday, to me, is perfectly analagous to the videos we all saw of a small group of Palestinian Arabs dancing in the streets on 9/11 and 9/12. They may not have been perpetrators, but they sure are giving a lot of cover to their fringe.
In other words, go away you factless jackass.
Punk David
John Lennon:
If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you aint gonna make it with anyone anyhow.
John Lennon would not approve of your actions, and would side with Christians against your behaviors here.
You are doing liberalism a disservice. I am a liberal and yet you attack me. It goes to show how divided liberals are.
Shinobi
PunkDavid
Yeah, you’re wrong about Hitler once again. Being brought up in the Church, doesn’t make you a Catholic.
Actually, the church, I believe, disagrees with that. They would call me a lapsed catholic, but since I was baptized and confirmed I think they would still consider me catholic. I could come back at any time and receive confession, communion and whatever the hell else I wanted. (I know this, because they tried to get me to do it like, last weekend.)
Which is why it is stupid to base really, anything at all, on what people “believe.” Belief is subjective and cannot be defined. What is important is what people DO.
The guy who killed Dr. Tiller killed someone no matter what he believed. And Dr. Tiller saved the lives and fertility of women whose pregnancies were no longer viable by terminating those pregnancies so the women would not be harmed.
No matter what they believed, that is what they did. And now women who need Dr. Tiller will give birth to dying or dead babies, lose their uteruses, or die themselves because of what that murderer did.
El Cid
I guess we should thank God that Stalin only slaughtered millions for atheist reasons — can you imagine the heights of purification he could have achieved if he thought he was on some crazy religious crusade?
LD50
We know you’re rather a simple minded lad, but hostility to churches does not prove atheism. Do try harder next time.
jrg
Shorter PD: “Because I can’t get laid, no one else should, either”.
So, we should all just stop using birth control, and no one will ever have sex unless they are married, then we won’t have any more abortions! Magical winged ponies will make the problem go away! Praise Jesus!
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Any excuse to get on your knees. Really, you ought to change your ways.
Next you will be telling us that life begins at swallowing.
Comrade Darkness
@Brick Oven Bill, I don’t know about that. In that era, a man abandoning his family would have effectively been giving his wife and kids a death sentence. Jesus insisted his disciples abandon their families. I’m assuming I’d be insulting you by pulling up the Fishers of Men quote to demonstrate.
Punk David
Oops. you’re wrong again. Pro Life groups have come out and unanimously condemned this man’s murder. The same holds true for the murder of Jeffrey Dahmer. Life is sacred, all human life.
Those that violate that principle are not Pro Life. They are pro-death, pro-abortion, and anti-life. Just like abortion supporters and providers.
DBrown
@Punk David: You say as a fact
A group of cells are human? Last time I checked both med schools and the law defined a living human as having a brain with active function. A group of cells has no brain – so it is not human by science or the law. Also, the Bible already supports my point that these cells are not human. Please try to use logic, law, science or God’s law to prove me wrong but you can’t – so abortion is not taking a human life -peroid.
steve s
Virtually nobody, Punk David included, really believes that abortion is murder. I will accept that they actually do believe this when they call for the prosecution, for premeditated murder, of the 20 million women in the US who’ve had abortions. Until then, they’re just babbling incoherently.
LD50
That was precisely little old Adolf’s status. The Vatican never saw fit to excommunicate him. And most Catholics I know grudgingly acknowledge that he was a Catholic. It’s mostly just American fundies who try and claim he was an atheist.
Fleem
@Joey:
Not a concern troll. A mom. Think about it: lot of people you know have had babies. And miscarriages. And abortions. The end of a pregnancy messes you up, no matter how it comes about. That “clump of cells” in there is not some nodule whose excision causes nothing but relief. To deny that there’s nothing more to it is to be divorced from reality. Nobody should take lightly the decision to have an abortion.
But even saying that, I still think people should be allowed to end their pregnancies. I just think dismissing the concerns of those who think its morally wrong is completely unhelpful. Because there is common ground in the idea that the pregnancies should be prevented in the first place. And acknowledging that the issue is far from black and white would help people calm down a little. But probably not.
anonevent
@Fleem: The problem in dealing with an ass like PD is that it’s hard not to have the replies get turned into simple statements, since we’re having to argue with a simpleton. It’s beyond time to ignore PD.
chopper
sorry dogg, but a blastocyst aint a human being. otherwise i’d be forced to believe that a woman who just recently unknowingly conceived an embryo who goes out drinking and loses it should be found guilty of manslaughter, and that’s just loopy.
Dork
Ruh roh. My county prosecutor has been sucking at his job then, cuz I know at least 3 women in my area who’ve had miscarriages in the last year, and NONE of them have been charged with manslaughter. None of them. WTF?
jenniebee
@Punk David:
It isn’t that you’re wrong, ill informed and self-righteous, it’s that you’re tiresomely unimaginative about it. At least throw in that you’re dedicated to lecturing people about how they should support laws that condemn young women to die screaming in agony from septic shock and entopic pregnancies because you’re concerned for the welfare of their everlasting soul.
And the stuff about humans not being animals (I see somebody was homeschooled to avoid the biology requirement!) and thus being able to resist sex… boring. The entertainment value would skyrocket if you threw in a couple of “she had the choice to keep her legs together” jibes.
Dave, buddy, sell it like you mean it!
Lihtox
Of course it’s terrorism, and I wish that public figures would call it that. And it’s time to start asking the right-wingers whether they are terrorist sympathizers.
LD50
Am I the only one here that suspects John Lennon wouldn’t like this pompous clown speaking for him one bit?
And why this obsession with John Lennon? Are liberals all supposed to pass some ‘John Lennon test’ that you administer?
Dulcie
@Laura W: If you live anywhere near a TJ Maxx or Marshall’s, they alway have a great selection of high threadcount sheets. The lat set I bought were on clearance – queen sized, egyptian cotton, 1000tc, and came with 4 pillowcases. I paid $39.99 for them.
rmp
Is it just me or does anyone else notice that Punk David continually ‘forgets’ to responds to any of the fact based questions? I guess I’ll give him some points for at least trying to say that Hitler wasn’t a good Christian. After all, to hate the Jews like he did would take an exceptional Christian like Martin Luther.
Punk David
Yeah, this whole thing about Tiller the Killer only helping poor and frightened women is bogus as well. It doesn’t make it right to kill him. Never. But it doesn’t make him a saint either.
Luhra (Tivis) Warren, a former Tiller employee, wrote the following:
“I was required to falsify the medical records. But not just that, related to that, I was required to lie to the women over the phone. And the way he’d explain it to me was, without coming right out and saying it, these are really third trimester abortions, but we’re going to tell them they’re only in the second trimester. They would say, well, I’ve already had a sonogram, and my bpd was 7.8 or 8.3 or whatever. He said, when they tell you that, don’t turn them away as being too far along. Tell them to come in, and we’ll do our own sonogram, and it will show they’re not that far along. Tell them that sonogram reading is an art, not a science. He explained to me that the bpd is a measurement of the angle of the baby’s head, where at that angle, the baby’s head is roughly egg-shaped. The usual way that you measure the bpd is from the top of the egg to the bottom of the egg, which is at the widest point. But we measure it from side to side, at the narrowest point.”
Dave C
As best as we can tell, life began 3.5 – 3.8 billion years ago, so, no, life doesn’t “begin” at conception because the human egg and sperm that unite are both themselves alive. Also, somebody needs to google the phrase “Gott Mit Uns.”
Brachiator
@Punk David:
Really? And conception is what? Fertilization? Implantation? Some point afterwards?
You can claim various degrees, but it’s odd that you don’t seem to know anything about biology itself.
Killing people is just killing people. And sometimes not even that. Murder is a legal concept. That’s why first degree murder is not the same as, for example, involuntary manslaughter.
Oh yeah, and in the Bible, there is no penalty for performing an abortion. Go figure.
Shinobi
LD50:
Oh great, one MORE way I’m just like Hitler. I really need to get my upper lip waxed.
TheFountainHead - 'Easily Led'
Punk David is making me having feelings of nostalgia towards myiq2xu.
Does that mean I have to go wash my skull out with bleach??
jenniebee
@Fleem:
Can we get the link again to the explanations from all the lifers about how the only good abortion is my/my daughter’s abortion and the rest of the women who abort are immoral sluts?
Punk David
So, are you men and women so developmentally disabled that you cannot refuse sex? Really?
Wouldn’t that make you eligible for euthanasia by some of the eugenics crowd here?
As a liberal, I am ashamed for you.
Punk David
So, are you men and women so developmentally disabled that you cannot refuse sex? Really?
Wouldn’t that make you eligible for euthanasia by some of the eugenics crowd here?
As a liberal, I am ashamed for you.
Dr. Paul McHugh is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. McHugh was hired by the then-Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline to review some of Tiller’s records. McHugh said the records show Tiller performed abortions for trivial reasons. One woman even said she was having a late-term, abortion because she wanted to go to a rock concert. Click here to see Dr. McHugh’s interview in Lenexa, Kansas on June 11, 2007.
Little Dreamer
No, actually those who are anti-choice are only concerned about their ideological bent and how it affects current politics. Once the child is born, it will normally be considered a drain on society. Moreover, many unwanted children would become depressed and turn to influences in society that have a very high ability to cause mental illness, homelessness and violent acts. You ask the many thousands of people currently on death row, most of them have a story about how their childhood sucked because their parents didn’t care.
I am wanting to keep society on the upward side of that balancing act, despite the fact we are teetering on the edge.
Delia
Various fun facts:
1. St. Thomas Aquinas believed that the soul does not enter the fetus until quickening, that is, until the mother can feel it moving in her womb.
2. On Hitler: the various atheist websites always type him as a Catholic and point to his numerous pious public pronouncements as evidence. This are in fact misleading. He made pious public pronouncements because most of the German public were either Catholic or Lutheran and he needed to maintain their support. The inner Nazi circle tended towards a lunatic Wagnerian paganism, and in the now published Table Talk of his later days he fantasized about hanging the Pope in his full papal regalia when he conquered Rome. This doesn’t mean that he didn’t coerce both the Catholic and the mainstream Protestant churches into collusion with him in the 30s. He was very good at that sort of thing.
3. Sex and abortion. As someone pointed out, Tiller was aborting dying and grossly deformed second term fetuses. These, as like as not, were wanted pregnancies that had gone heartbreakingly wrong for the parents. Hardly covered by this new troll’s standard propaganda line.
4. Laura: get the highest count sheets they have in the color you want. I’ve always had good luck ordering sheets from Overstock.
DBrown
@Punk David: You need to attend a school that teaches history and not ignorance.
Stalin was a Christian and even attended seminary school to become a Priest! He may (and there is no proof that he did) fallen away from those beliefs but like Hitler, they were both Christians by every definition – period.
You got Mao possibly right but wishingful thinking about the others is not going to change ‘God’s’ truth on the subject.
Please try and address even one of my points as wrong so I know that you are not affraid of the truth. Any real Christian loves the truth (or so I hope.)
mightygodking
Stalin wasn’t an atheist either. He reinstituted the Orthodox Church once he’d purged it of anybody who would have opposed his rule.
Atheism – as defined by PD up here – requires active hostility to religion. Mao was an atheist. Stalin just wanted to get rid of anybody who would oppose him, regardless of whether they were religious or not. That’s not atheism; that’s cold-hearted dictator’s practicality.
jenniebee
@Punk David:
That’s what’s been missing from this! What’s the procedure for canonization in the Temple of the FSM?
Fern
@Dork:
I bet they didn’t even have funerals.
Fleem
@anonevent:
Point taken. Just think that the “clump of cells” argument is just as disingenuous (in the opposite direction) as “life begins at conception.” It’s a squishy thing, this “life.”
El Cid
No one here said that. Likewise, a clump of cells which eventually develop into a baby cannot be said to cause nothing but joy for all involved, and it would be horribly shallow to discuss such a weighty decision as the default correct approach.
No. Sometimes people need to just bluntly debate and put their arguments out and not seek to deny fundamental disagreement in the name of some consensus. I think the moral concerns are crap and I want to say so clearly.
Fern
@Dork:
I bet they didn’t even have funerals.
El Cruzado
@Brick Oven Bill:
Obligatory Onion link.
Punk David
Fun Facts (reality edition)
Catechism:
2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.72
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.73
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.74
2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:
You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.75
God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.76
2272 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. “A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,”77 “by the very commission of the offense,”78 and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law.79 The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.
2273 The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:
“The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being’s right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death.”80
“The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child’s rights.”81
2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.
Prenatal diagnosis is morally licit, “if it respects the life and integrity of the embryo and the human fetus and is directed toward its safe guarding or healing as an individual. . . . It is gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent of a death sentence.”82
2275 “One must hold as licit procedures carried out on the human embryo which respect the life and integrity of the embryo and do not involve disproportionate risks for it, but are directed toward its healing the improvement of its condition of health, or its individual survival.”83
“It is immoral to produce human embryos intended for exploitation as disposable biological material.”84
“Certain attempts to influence chromosomic or genetic inheritance are not therapeutic but are aimed at producing human beings selected according to sex or other predetermined qualities. Such manipulations are contrary to the personal dignity of the human being and his integrity and identity”85 which are unique and unrepeatable.
Comrade Darkness
In Christian thought, Aquinas believed the soul entered when the fetus became recognizably human.
Interestingly, the Ancient Greeks thought it was the point where infants displayed a personality. They also thought people had three souls (two mortal ones of appetite and courage, and one immortal: reason) so it’s tough to create an equivalence with that.
Gocart Mozart
Yes Jenniebee, Punk David is committing the ultimate sin of the intertubes. He is boring us.
Little Dreamer
@Punk David:
Take your judgmental ass somewhere else please.
LD50
Well, so far, David has enlightened us as to who the REAL atheists, Christians, and liberals are, what the best sex is, what John Lennon would think, and when life really begins. And to think we’re getting all this for free!
Shinobi
Obviiously he was completely objective in his observations.
greynoldsct00
Whether I do or not is not up for you to discuss or pass judgement.
Fleem
@El Cid:
Then you and I disagree. Because I don’t think they’re crap. And I AM pro-choice.
LD50
Well, not if the person was really hot.
tc125231
@Punk David:
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Punk David:
Say hello to Punk “Shaker” David, ladies and gentlemen.
Shinobi
OMG, Punk David, Did you teach at my highschool?
Because seriously, every time one of my teachers was losing an argument he would whip out the catholic catechism as though it was some kind of proof that we were wrong.
Uhm, true story, Stating an opinion in a book does not automatically make it true. Especially if the people you are arguing with think that the book in question is a pile of dog shit.
Yako
@Punk David:
Are you aware that Eddie Vedder’s position on abortion is pro-choice? Just thought you might like to know.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Punk David:
What about those of us who don’t give a rat’s ass what the Bible has to say about anything?
LD50
Yes, PD seems to define ‘atheism’ as ‘hostility to organized religion’. This is just one reason why I think he’s been home schooled.
Brick Oven Bill
Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued..
Christ did not use force to subjugate populations and then collect protection money (Jizya) from the subdued. Christ gave away fish and bread and made free wine for people. This is another reason why the term ‘Christianist’ terror is an oxymoron.
Your new room sounds nice Laura. Hilter called Christianity ‘flabby’, and was sad that the French had won at the Battle of Tours.
BDeevDad
@jenniebee: You forgot that it is necessary that this fetus must be born with genetic disorders such as Tay Sachs so the baby is made to suffer.while the parents are forced to watch their child die in agony.
El Cid
Then that’s the point we should arrive at.
MH
@LD50: I know, I usually have to tithe to get this kind of instruction!
Laura W
@Dulcie: But that would involve driving somewhere and going into a store. I don’t understand?
;-)
gwangung
Given what I understand of Dr. Tiller’s practice, this is a bald faced lie. For someone who specializes in late term abortion, there’s no point in fudging the specs like Mr. Warren is saying. It doesn’t make sense.
Moreover, YOU are blatantly stating that women are too stupid to know what’s going on. That they can easily fooled. And it takes another man to make it right.
Kinda arrogant. Very sexist.
Little Dreamer
Hey PD, if your God is so perfect, why did he implant a zygote in my fallopian tube which burst, almost killing me, and causing me to lose both that fallopian tube and an ovary in the process?
So, God tried to perform an abortion on me, and because a doctor intervened, I didn’t die?
Perry Como
I don’t know about you, but when the Swedish Bikini Time shows up at my door with a Slip and Slide and an economy size tub of KY, refusing sex is the last thing on my mind.
LD50
So, PD, I’ll ask you again: can you tell us why the best sex is without contraception?
I suspect the answer is not obvious to the rest of us here.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
The custom here is to supply a picture of yourself when asking that question.
Gocart Mozart
I would have to concede that Stalin was an atheist throughout most of his adult life, but here is an interesting factoid about his teenage years.
ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin#Religion
Comrade Darkness
@Dulcie, note that anything over 600 is possibly hype.
jenniebee
@Punk David:
Gosh, since Kansas requires not just one, but two doctors to agree that a late term abortion is being medically necessary to protect the life of the mother, then that means that Tiller was breaking the law! Flagrantly, and with no respect for… oh wait, yeah, the jury isn’t exactly out on that question, is it? Nope, it came in and said that your propaganda wasn’t credible and that you don’t get to look over women’s shoulders and play Big Daddy and make aww the hawd decisions fow the pwetty wittle things who can’t think fow themselves.
Alan
Here’s a fascinating read from a former hate purveyor of the pro-life movement.
LD50
@Brick Oven Bill:
Go away, Bill. We’ve found a funnier asshole.
Dork
Banned for what?
Dulcie
@Laura W: I lol’ed – loudly :-)
Little Dreamer
@Punk David:
It’s bad enough when people take words that men wrote supposedly inspired by God, but, catechism… really? What does that prove exactly, that men of the church had opinions? That doesn’t make them right.
Many popes had prostitutes, orgies, and used the church to sell indulgences… are those moral decisions as well? I wonder what your opinion is of child molestation in the church?
As for whether someone has control over their sexual urges, again, I ask you to go ask Bristol Palin.
Laura W
@Brick Oven Bill:
And that right there is why Jesus is just alright with me, Bill.
My new TeeVee room’s so bright you gotta wear shades!
Sadly, I don’t get to keep the couch. Or the big teevee.
freelancer
ugh,
Screw it, just sayin’ for my own peace of mind, I’m done with this thread and any other that Punk David or any fundie jackass highjacks and starts Godbot-ing people to death.
Shorter Punk David, care of The Onion:
tc125231
@Punk David:
ThymeZoneThePlumber
“Tiller the Baby Killer”
That’s how Fox News host Bill O’Reilly referred to Dr. George Tiller who was murdered in cold blood Sunday while he attended church.
Tiller’s crime? He provided health care to women. Including abortion.
Salon.com reports that FOX’s “O’Reilly Factor” has featured attacks on Dr. Tiller on no less than 28 episodes:
“He’s guilty of “Nazi stuff,” said O’Reilly on June 8, 2005; “a moral equivalent to NAMBLA and al-Qaida,” he suggested on March 15, 2006. “This is the kind of stuff happened in Mao’s China, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union,” said O’Reilly on Nov. 9, 2006.
==//
Via CREDO.
tavella
Hmm. I’m trying to use the pie filter, but when I “select the script and click edit”, all I get is a file list for My Documents folder. Are there any other filters that work? I know that atrios had one where you get a block option next to the name.
Nancy Darling
Punk David, As a pro-choice Christian, I have thought about this issue long and hard. I believe in Tillich’s God which is the God who appears after the gods of all the theisms have died. I do not believe that a loving God would want a woman impregnated by rape or carrying a severely deformed fetus to be forced to carry that child to term. Yet, if, as you seem to believe, personhood is present at conception, then I have no other choice but to assume that carrying to term is the only option.
I don’t know where I would draw the line for myself. Would I abort a Downs Syndrome child? Having never faced it, I can’t say. I most likely would abort, but I support women in whichever choice they make. My earliest child hood friend was slightly retarded with club feet requiring surgeries. He was a blessing to every life he touched including mine. And yet….
Some cases like anencephalics or conjoined twins are more clear cut for me. I have been through the embryology museum at Loma Linda University Medical School (not open to the general public) and you cannot imagine the mistakes that nature can make. To me, knowingly carrying such babies to term are acts of moral cowardice—just chalk it up to the will of God and you are off the hook for any moral responsibility. On the other hand, I support every woman’s right to make such a choice. What I don’t support is you, the government, religion, or anyone else deciding this most personal choice WHATEVER a woman’s reason for making it.
Because I don’t know where I would draw the line for myself, I will not draw the line for anyone else.
No woman entering Dr. Tiller’s clinic did so lightly. There were stringent protocols in place for who got a late term abortion. No one got a late term abortion based on a whim or inconvenience. To me, Dr. Tiller was doing God’s work, and we are all diminished by his death.
LD50
@Dork:
He apparently said something rather racist and John put him on timeout for it. I didn’t see the comment in question.
John PM
@Gocart Mozart: #219
The world certainly would have been a different place had Stalin become a priest and Hitler been a better artist and Castro a better baseball player.
Dork
Then how do Indians procreate?
ThymeZoneThePlumber
I’m pretty sure he was referring to sex with Mister Hand.
Punchy
Grady Sizemore probably nails his wife, and I’m guessing Carmona’s got some chicks down in the Dominny that he regularly knocks up. Methinks Hafner is a bit…..loafer-light.
Dulcie
@Comrade Darkness: Oh, I know. The big difference between my 600 tc and my 1000 tc is the weight. The 1000 tc are unbelievably heavy, and very thick. They feel the same as the 600 tc when i’m sleeping on them, though. I couldn’t pass up the 1000 tc for the price, plus they came with extra pillow cases. How often does THAT happen?
DBrown
@Gocart Mozart:
WTF?
Please show me any proof at all that Stalin was an atheist. You and Punk saying it is so does not make it a fact. Stalin was a Christian – many mass murderers are (look at puppet Bushwhack and bloody-hands cheney the puppet master.) While I will concede that Christ wouldn’t call those monsters Christians but that would also be true of 99.99% of people that do call themselves Christians in the USA (but for different reasons, of course.)
redbeardjim
What exactly does the catechism have to do with biology, Punk?
Gocart Mozart
Hey Punk David, any thought s on Jefferson’s “christianity”.
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/alley_18_4.html
Comrade Darkness
@John PM, LOLs.
That parallel between Stalin and Hitler’s motivation for petty revenge for getting dissed in school (one for money, one for lack of talent) is not one I had realized. Telling. Good reason to have lots of cheap trade school fall back options in modern society, I’ll say.
Shorter catechism: Quick, rewrite the rulez, we needs to outbreed the infidelz.
Fleem
Nancy:
Well said.
TenguPhule
Onward Christian Terrorist Supporters!
Slaughter the heathens to save their souls!
TenguPhule
Catholicism can’t fail. It can only be failed.
TenguPhule
Sex = Murder.
Ye Gods we have a really big troll here.
jenniebee
@Alan:
It’s interesting/annoying that his solution is that if you could just get rid of all those third-trimester abortions (like deeka06’s wife’s) then everybody would be happy. What grits my teeth is that it’s the third-trimester abortions, the ones where the pictures show up on the protester’s signs, that were most likely to be wanted children, and the 9-week D&C that has all the photographic impact of a heavy period (ooh, look! a used maxi-pad!) that is most likely to be a failure-of-birth-control issue.
Hilzoy just put up a link to a story by a woman who had to find a doctor to remove an already dead third-trimester fetus, and it’s disgusting what she had to go through. The moral righteousness of self-important people like Punk Doofus here has extended to putting women like that author at risk of bleeding out because the fact that life is messy challenges their religious faith, and they’d rather have women they don’t know die to preserve their illusions than to face them. If a pregnancy is unwanted, then it’s a just punishment that the slut had coming. If a pregnancy is wanted but goes wrong, carrying the non-viable fetus to term is a just punishment for not wanting to carry a non-viable fetus to term. If a wanted fetus has died, well gosh that doesn’t really happen and it isn’t important and it certainly isn’t as important as putting a stop to all those cheap whores who think they can go to rock concerts and get laid and otherwise thumb their noses at society (society never gets laid, and if they do it’s by their spouse, once a week, on Thursdays, and in the missionary position. The mood music is always good 1940’s crooners, not that Rock & Roll – yes, it’s another of my youtube finds, click it if you dare.)
tc125231
@freelancer:
Great stuff.
Gocart Mozart
Ok DBrown, as to your WTF comment, all I can say is WTF. I think that because the fact that communist ideology officially rejects religion as “The opiate of the masses.” – Marx, and the fact that the Soviet Union under Stalin was officially atheist, you should have the burden of proof.
To be fair, I did spend some time on google looking for quotes by Stalin on religion and couldn’t find any worthwhile. “How many divisions does the Pope have?” doesn’t say anything about his religious views.
tc125231
@Nancy Darling: Thank you. This was a useful and illuminating post.
Brachiator
@Punk David:
You know, I actually agree with you here, in part.
But we’re not talking about your masturbation habits today.
El Cid
You should realize that when Marx mentioned religion as the “opiate of the masses,” he was being sympathetic.
In literal terms, the poor and working classes really did have illnesses which they couldn’t get cured, wounds which no one would heal. They couldn’t afford the real opiates.
They needed and deserved something to temporarily salve their pain.
For Marx, religion appeared to help them with their suffering, and reducing their pain, but in an opiod fashion — temporarily and without resolving the underlying problems causing the illness or condition.
Zuzu's Petals
@Little Dreamer:
I had that exact same situation in 1976. I almost died.
I was in a fundamentalist church at the time. Not only did the pastor and his wife pray over me before surgery, the entire church prayed for my quick recovery.
Of course if I had been diagnosed earlier and had the same procedure, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have gotten the stinkeye from a few ignoramuses.
Joey Maloney
@Fleem:
What on earth makes you think you can speak for all women (or even worse, dictate) how they should feel about the choice to abort? “The end of pregnancy messes you up”? Perhaps it messes, or has messed you up, but you don’t live in anyone else’s head than your own.
Even if you were right – which you are not – your or anyone else’s feelings about how icky abortion is have exactly zero to do with its necessity and legality and how they should be defended. If you think it should be safe and legal, you should put your money where your mouth is (and if you do that, I applaud you), and then keep your nose out of other women’s business. If someone wants your support or advice about how to feel, I’m sure they’ll ask you.
Little Dreamer
@Zuzu’s Petals:
If your fallopian tube burst as mine did, you were probably in shock – so comforting that religious fundamentalists decided you needed to spend a few extra minutes in shock so they could pray to their fantasy deity to make THEM feel better.
Fuck!
Zuzu's Petals
Dear Punk’d:
You have inspired me to donate $50 to Planned Parenthood.
Keep up the good work!
Zuzu's Petals
@Little Dreamer:
Well, actually, they were praying over me as I was being wheeled into the operating room. And to be fair, it was at my request.
Mostly I look back on my doctor telling me for all those weeks prior that nothing was wrong, it was my imagination, go home and get off my feet, etc. …. you know, standard treatment of a complaining female patient back in the day.
Oh, did I mention that my hubby, after making comments like “What about the pioneer women?” on the way to the hospital, proceeded to faint in the emergency room? My ex-hubby, I should say.
Tuffy
Christian means follower of Christ.
Scott Roeder belives in Jesus Christ.
Scott Roeder is a Christian.
Wile E. Quixote
@Punk David
Well I’ve got some bad news for you sunshine, because 99.99999999 percent of the people out there who consider themselves Christians don’t follow the “…the fundamental rule of the right to life” and are going to be sucking Satan’s cock in Hell for all eternity.
Jesus hates people who use commas incorrectly.
Fleem
@Joey Maloney:
Methinks I struck a nerve. All I’m saying is an abortion is not the same as a tonsillectomy. I’ll admit that I am personally icked out when someone says it is — I’ve seen way to much evidence that tells me otherwise. 1) You’re ending the possibility of a baby. Rationalize that however you want. 2) There are massive hormonal whackouts that happen to all women after a pregnancy ends by whatever means — abortion, miscarriage, giving birth.
I don’t think I’m keeping anyone else from thinking anything, nor do I expect to. It sucks to be in a position where you have to decide whether to end a pregnancy, for whatever reason.
LD50
Taking turns, or all at once? I’m confused.
Avi
I realize it’s flip, but here’s what I want to know: If an Islamist fanatic assassinated an abortion clinic doctor, how would the Malkin crowd react?
Little Dreamer
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Well, my apologies, I was wrong, but, I remember what that felt like and I wouldn’t have been able to deal with it, personally.
I was unaware that I was pregnant when my tube burst. I was not under the impression I was pregnant at all and I had to wait for them to perform a blood pregnancy test and an x-ray before they put me into surgery. When they asked me if I could be pregnant, I said no – I honestly couldn’t remember having had sexual relations in any time recent to that incident (my husband at the time and I were not getting along well). Since I have had endometriosis since I was 17 and the pain I experienced that night seemed very similar, I notified them that was what it was and I was very shocked to find I was pregnant and that my fallopian tube had burst. I laid on the guerney for quite a while before I made it into surgery and I remember how awful that felt. I was in shock that entire time from the moment my tube burst until I made it into surgery.
Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
“Where does it begin and end for you?
Biology says life begins at conception. Each and everyone of you was an embryo. None of you were hatched as an adult. Someone decided to keep you alive in the womb, and aren’t you lucky and thankful for that!”
If you have a medical degree, then you’ll know that only 25-30% of embryos implant. If an embryo is ensoulled on conception and hence is a moral being by your reckoning, then the Big Guy upstairs is sure condemning most of them to death in the darkness before they reach the fetal stage.
Cpl. Cam
@Punk David:
Ironically, this is what was running through the shooter’s mind as he entered the doctor’s church and began firing.
Cpl. Cam
@LD50: Luckily Satan’s cock is multi-headed so all us little pigglet’s can nuzzle up and suckle at the same time. /Bill Hicks
Zuzu's Petals
@Little Dreamer:
No apologies needed. Fundie preachers have a way of interjecting themselves at inappropriate times, that’s for sure.
Your experience sounds harrowing, glad you made it through okay.
I knew I was pregnant from the start, but because the first test came back negative (not unusual in ep’s), the doctor just waved me off; when a later one came back positive he told me to just get off my feet. When I eventually came into the ER in excruciating pain and white as a sheet, he was able to make the diagnosis by comparing a quick blood test to one I’d taken a few days before … the difference in the count was dramatic. It was sheer luck that I had the earlier blood test, otherwise they might have waited to take a second one and I’d have been dead.
To be fair, mine was the first ep my doctor had ever seen. But I still look on the event as a lesson in trusting my own body sense.
In Nicaragua, where all abortion is illegal, doctors are forced to wait until the tube ruptures and the embryo/fetus is clinically “dead” before operating. Those are for the women lucky enough to be diagnosed early and hospitalized in anticipation of the eventual rupture.
freelancer
@ cpl cam:
Beat me to it.
Little Dreamer
@Zuzu’s Petals:
OMG, that’s horrifying.
By the way, how large is your scar? Mine is about eight inches. It’s awful. :(
freelancer
Speaking of Bill Hicks, the guy’s been dead 15 years this February, but his material couldn’t still be more relevant.
valdivia
@Little Dreamer: @Zuzu’s Petals:
El Salvador is another case, like Nicaragua, where abortion is not just illegal in all cases but also heavily criminalized. Pretty horrific.
This piece gives you an idea, it was written before the law became as restrictive in Nicaragua ahead of national elections where even the progressives (ie Ortega and the sandinistas) supported it.
gex
@LD50: Not to mention that the atheist atrocity angle really pisses me off.
Listen, we all know that some people do really bad shit. But religious people believe that morality comes from religion. To show that morality does not exclusively belong to religion you don’t go looking for evil atheists, you look for moral atheists. They exist, so morality must not require religion.
But religion claims to be a source of morality. To test this thesis, then, you look for religious people who do evil things. But whenever atheists point those people out, religious people point out Stalin, Mao, and (hilariously) Hitler.
Logic.Fail.
LD50
@Avi:
I fancy it’d be something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rjn3AzOk0Bo
(starting at the 1:00 mark)
Wile E. Quixote
@Punk-ass David
The irony of someone starting a post with the words “Fun Facts (reality edition)” and then quoting the Bible and the Catholic Catechism, neither of which qualifies as anything I’d recognize as a fact, is just too, too rich. I think I’m going to start using that as a rhetorical technique when my shit is weak. I’ll start my posts with the words “Fun Facts (reality edition) and then quote from works of fiction such as Shakespeare, Danielle Steel, Dan Brown, old back issues of The Flash from the 1960s and 1970s (Which to their credit did contain the “Flash Facts”), Warren Ellis’s run on “The Fantastic Four” and the Republican Party alternative budget proposal of 2009. Look upon my rhetorical prowess ye mighty and despair!
You know Punk-ass David, I went to high school with a guy who believed that all of you guppy gulpers and mackerel snappers were going to burn in Hell for all eternity with Satan’s cock up your ass. Why? Well for a variety of reasons too tedious to recount but among them this little gem from the Book of Revelations, you know, the book of the Bible that Saint John wrote after he’d come down from a really bad trip.
See, according to Brett, who enlightened me on various matters theological on choir trips and during choir practice when the tenors and the basses were sitting on our asses waiting for the fucking sopranos to pull their heads out of their asses and learn their parts, all of y’all Cathalicks were going to burn in Hell for all eternity because y’all dared to fuck with God’s intellectual property and had produced a derivative work, to wit, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, without regards to the divine copyright asserted in Revelations 22:18, which explicitly prohibits derivative works that add to or remove elements from the original work, i.e., the Holy Bible. Brett also felt that the Mormons were going to go to Hell for the same reasons because the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price constituted similar violations of divine IP.
Brett also assured me that Cathalicks were not Christians because they worshipped the Virgin Mary and had not accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior and that the Mormons really weren’t Christians because, well I can’t remember. I do remember that according to Brett’s theology Cathalicks, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses were all going to go to Hell because they really weren’t Christians and Methodists were going to go to Hell because, well I don’t recall the exact details but it basically came down to “because they’re Methodists, damnit!”, but that Lutherans (like me) could get into Heaven (Even though Lutherans are basically just Catholic J.V.) but that we didn’t get into the good part of Heaven that people who went to Brett’s church, The First Church of the Divine and Holy Snake-Handling Glossolaliacs (reform), got to go to.
So Punk-ass David, if Brett was right then it’s “Burn baby burn, Catholic inferno. Burn baby burn” time for you. Have fun quoting your “fun facts” from your catechism while Satan’s minions have their way with you.
Zuzu's Petals
@Little Dreamer:
My scar is just like a (horizontal) c-section scar, because they didn’t know for sure which side was involved. He told me I could still wear a bikini, which given my fundie tendencies (at the time), and my somewhat zaftig body, was a bit of a giggle.
I misspoke in saying the policy on ectopic pregnancies was in Nicaragua. They may actually have that policy, because they too prohibit ALL abortions, but the piece I read in the NYT was actually describing the practice in El Salvador:
Warning: reading the entire piece will make you insanely pissed.
Zuzu's Petals
@valdivia:
Oh my gosh, I just linked to that same article in my response to LD @ 275. Yes, it was actually El Salvador I was thinking of; I assume Nicaragua is now just as bad.
Laura W
@sarah: I just scored the LAST set of King striped sage green 600ct Egyptian cotton sheets on Overstock. Phew. They were $10 more than LilEgyptianQueen’s reco, but hers only had white and ivory. I don’t do white or ivory.
Gocart Mozart
They would stalk themselves, inspect each others counter-tops and then their heads would explode.
Little Dreamer
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Well, considering I’d never had a c-section and don’t know anyone who has, I may not have anything more than that. I just know my scar seems huge.
Thanks for noting the El Salvador thing. Frightening. Absolutely awful.
Zuzu's Petals
@Wile E. Quixote:
Well there’s also that praying before graven images thing. And praying to saints. Oh, and limbo and purgatory.
I was Protestant who went to Catholic schools, and remember being told repeatedly that the “two pillars” of the Catholic church were Scripture and Tradition. Both were given equal importance. See how that works?
valdivia
@Zuzu’s Petals:
funny we linked almost at the same time. and yes nicaragua now is probably just as bad. A high percentage of the countries where abortion is illegal and criminalized are sadly in Latin America but Nicaragua and El salvador are the one’s at the vanguard of pushing for criminalization to the utmost.
(consider too that Chile only made divorce legal a few years ago, because of the strong Catholicism of the country)
Zuzu's Petals
@Little Dreamer:
Hey, I understand that in the old days, the c-section scar went up and down instead of sideways. Yuk.
Zuzu's Petals
@valdivia:
I wish this article would be linked in every discussion about outlawing abortion…just for a real-life take on what’s it’s actually like.
Little Dreamer
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Glad I missed that. My ep episode was in 2003.
Joey Maloney
@Fleem:
You did. And when that happens, normal people tend to say some variation of “gee, sorry”.
But I guess that’s unnecessary for someone with your superior level of empathy and understanding.
Seriously, I agree that speaking for myself only the thought of terminating a pregnancy is upsetting. But many women report that their only feeling afterwards is relief – relief that their lives weren’t ruined by mischance. Insisting that every woman must agonize over exercising choice is just an indirect way of slut-shaming those who don’t.
valdivia
@Zuzu’s Petals:
I completely agree. I use it in every class I teach on latin american politics because speaking about female rights does not become real until you discuss this instead of when you get to vote etc.
Da Bomb
@Punk David: Actually I feel sorry for you. That’s alot of anguish to carry around in your heart. As Christians we are not suppose to judge. Whatever sins a person commits is between that person and God. Period.
As for the Catechism and anything else Christian for that matter is open to interpretation. Jesus doesn’t speak out against abortion, homosexuality, interracial coupling or anything of the sort. But it’s funny how Christians harp on as if Jesus did. And what about victims of rape and incest, if they have this procedure done, then according to your logic they were being irresponsible.
Also according to your logic, the women who have to have later term abortions based on the prognosis of horrible abnormalities inflicted on the child are also irresponsible? Based on what? A genetic defect, caused by mother nature. How silly of you to think that commenters on this site are advocating for the death of anyone.
Delia
@Little Dreamer:
I had two c-sections, the first after about 40 hours of non-productive labor. Both kids are now happy and productive adults.
And here’s a bizarre medical abortion story that happened to a friend of mine back when mine were babies. She got pregnant, intentionally. Early on she developed a very high fever and she and her husband went to the emergency room at UCLA. After a number of tests they determined that she had been pregnant with twins and one of them had died. The decay of the dead one was poisoning her system and threatening her life. They told her they had to do a compete D&C, in effect aborting the live twin, in order to save her life. Neither parent had any medical training and it was an emergency. They didn’t really want that option but felt they had no choice, though they really felt bad about it.
A year or so later they had a healthy baby. Strange things happen.
Zuzu's Petals
@MH:
Interestingly, I have never heard a married woman – of my or my mother’s generation – say such a thing. Unless she was trying to get pregnant or was infertile / postmenopausal.
In every other case I’ve known of, the fear of an unwanted pregnancy diminished the pleasure for a woman.
Rather obvious where this “best sex is without contraception” idea comes from, eh?
Fleem
@Joey Maloney:
No, it isn’t. People have good and valid reasons for having abortions. But when we use the expression “exercising choice” instead of “terminating a pregnancy” we’re being disingenuous. Just because a choice is less bad doesn’t make it good.
Bey
Unrepentant aborter, reporting in.
I was 23, newly divorced from my abusive husband and mother of 2 sons, ages 3 and 1. I was lonely and depressed, welfare-and-foodstamp poor, and terrified about our future.
Met a nice guy, we hit it off and the condom failed. I knew immediately and had an abortion as soon as the test showed positive. There was no way I was able to provide for an additional child at that point in my life – scrambling back onto my feet was taking up every resource I had and some I didn’t.
I suppose I could have made a better decision and not slept with the guy, but it was a human thing. I was lonely, sad, young, scared and needed someone to love, if only for a little while.
Having another child would have tipped us over the knife-edge of survival into long-term, and probably permanent, serious poverty. As it was, it took me the better part of 8 years to get my education and work my way up to a living wage.
It was the right decision for me and my family. I don’t regret it.
Laura W
@Joey Maloney:
Awesome.
Zuzu's Petals
Sort of curious where Punk’d came up with his odd talking points re John Lennon.
Turns out the Catholic pro-lifers are co-opting Lennon’s life story for their own purposes.
Couple of obvious lies here. First, Lennon was raised by his aunt, but I’ve never seen any evidence that she adopted him; in fact, his mother was still in his life until she died. Second, even if he was adopted, it was after the age of 5, so what’s the point of using him in an anti-abortion campaign…unless of course it’s to mislead the viewers?
In fact, why use Nancy Reagan or Bill Clinton, who were both adopted by step-parents as children? Or Jack Nicholson, raised by his grandmother?
Laura W
@Laura W: Don’t have permission to edit my comment, or regulate my womb, apparently.
I wanted to add that even worse than the slut shaming is the “WHAT? You don’t want to BREED?” line of attempted shaming.
Not everyone loves kids or wants to devote their life to birthing/raising them.
That’s what cats are for. (Except for the birthing part.)
Tattoosydney
@Punk David:
If that is not life, what is?
It certainly is not a rock.
It certainly is not a frog.
That’s not my cow!
Zuzu's Petals
Oops, wrong linkie @ 293.
Here’s the ad.
Alan
@jenniebee:
I’m with you regarding late term abortion. No-choice advocates don’t seem to live in the real world. They have their one-size-fits-all solution which ignore actual realities. Having said that, I posted the link as a response to the rhetoric Punk David was using. But yeah, what the article proposes is still wrong.
Joey Maloney
@Fleem:
Just because you think a choice is bad – in whatever degree – doesn’t make it so for someone who is not you. I’ll happily concede the use of “terminate a pregnancy” if you’ll just agree to get off your moral high horse and stop arrogating to yourself the right to judge the validity of others’ moral decision process.
jim
Successful troll was successful.
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I’ve seen this routine so much it’s lost its comedic value:
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1: Spew chain-pulling gibberish (easy as pie with cut-&-paste)
2:Await replies from enraged rubes (P.T. Barnum was a prophet)
3: Ignore all pwnage, refutation or contrary information unless it can be decontextualized or twisted to make replier/s look weak, dishonest &/or wrong
4:????
5: VICTORY DANCE!
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Any response requiring more effort than “LOL” is utterly pointless. The pest has no interest in ANYTHING you have to say & is only there to waste its – & your – precious time & energy, & to take a long hot piss in your Wheaties.
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You respond = troll wins.
asiangrrlMN
@jenniebee: Oh, you win for best post on this thread with your, “Go away, you’re boring me.”
I didn’t read PD because as we all know by now, life is too short for me to waste reading trolls.
@Bey: Thank you for sharing your experience. This needs to be said as well. Amanda at Pandagon said that we do the movement a disservice when we talk about abortion being such a tragedy. It cedes the moral high ground to the right. Why a woman chooses to have an abortion or how difficult a choice is was is really no one’s business but the woman.
As for Mr. Sex is best without a condom and wait until you want to have children–uh, no. I don’t ever want to have kids or be married, and I am not going to be celibate for life. YOU don’t get to decide what I do with my body. It’s really quite that simple. In fact, now that I am past thirty-five, I should get my tubes tied so I most likely won’t have to decide about getting an abortion. I’ve been wanting to do it since I was twenty-two.
This man called himself a Christian. He belonged to Operation Rescue and other rightwing groups. He talked about killing doctors who perform abortion as justifiable, and he congregated with others who feel the same way. As noted on GOS, this would be called a terror cell if the participants were Muslim and if they were brown-skinned.
rmp
Jim (299), I forget the exact phrasing but roughly
Never argue (asdb) with a troll. It’s like playing chess with a pigeon. They knock over all the pieces, shit on the board and then fly home and say they won.
Fleem
Listen. I think the guy responsible for killing Dr. Tiller is a terrorist. There’s no way to come to an agreement with people who think like that. I get that positing any moral question about abortion seems to a lot of people like ceding rhetorical ground to these terrorists. But they’re terrorists because they’re on the wrong side of the law. What they’re doing instills fear but doesn’t change minds. I don’t have decent facts to back this up, but I believe there have been polls showing that something like two-thirds of American voters are pro-choice. Fear and murder are the only tactics they have left.
However. You kill a cow to get a hamburger; you remove a presumably viable embryo from your uterus when you get an abortion. That’s not a judgement, it’s a fact. We should be able to face up to both things. I think a lot of people feel differently about this after having kids, where you feel and see what actually happens to that embryo. Very similar to when you figure out that the slice of bacon you just ate is actually Wilbur. That doesn’t make me arrogant or a terrorist, emotional or otherwise.
I still find it alienating when pro-choice people act like the issue is buttoned up, when I really think it isn’t. And I don’t think I’m alone in that, although it does feel like it around here. Nobody who doesn’t want to carry a baby should have to do it, and stuff happens that we don’t intend. I don’t think life, whatever that is, starts at conception. I wish our laws allowing abortion were based on something less shaky than “right to privacy” because it would be better to have laws that addressed it directly and weren’t vulnerable to political interpretation.
I have nothing but compassion for people who go through ending a pregnancy. Every woman I know, myself included, can tell some kind of abortion/pregnancy scare story from her own life. Me: was 25, working as temp secretary, on vacation in another state with boyfriend. Relationship is sort of on the rocks. There’s a contraceptive malfunction. Panic. We spend the next day driving all over looking for a walk in clinic that will give us morning after-pills. We find them. Wasn’t the right time or place for anything else. No regrets.
Did ending a possible pregnancy give me pause when I did it? Not a bit. Now, after having a baby, it might.
kay
@Fleem:
Great post. You’re the middle ground, but you probably knew that.
There’s a book you might like. “Becoming Justice Blackmun”.
He struggled. He actually wrangled with the whole issue. It’s tough, and he knew it. In the end, Roe was the best he could come up, faced with competing interests.
He’d never get confirmed now. He was almost painfully honest. He got death threats from the day the decision came down. Anyway, good book.
Fleem
This thread is probably defunct by now, but thanks for that, Kay.