GOOD MORNING!
1. I’m moving this to the top from its original placement at the end. I warned that the mania for retroactive statue-toppling and historical air-brushing was a deadly slippery slope to cultural chaos from the moment Dylan Roof’s rampage primed the Confederate flag banning push. I said that there was no clear stop on that slope, and that this was a massive ethical error that would quickly spin out of control.
I am accepting apologies and “You were right, I was wrong” messages at jamproethics@verizon.net. I will reply gracefully.
2. It’s a good thing, in some ways, that President Trump has no ethics alarms, or has them but doesn’t understand what all the ringing means, because if he did, he might realize that he has put himself in ethics zugswang in the matter of former sheriff Joe Arpaio, the anti-illegal immigration zealot who is facing up to six months in jail for defying a federal judge’s order to stop targeting Latinos based solely on the suspicion of their legal status. Trump has been urged to pardon Arpaio. Let’s see:
- Arpaio did defy a judicial order. Should a law enforcement official be treated especially harshly when he does this?
Yes.
- The judicial order related to Arpaio’s practice of assuming that individuals of Hispanic descent were more likely to be violating the immigration laws in his jurisdiction than other citizens. Since his jurisdiction was rife with Hispanic illegals, was this an unreasonable assumption on his part? No. Was it still discriminatory? Sure. Is the balance between profiling, which in such situations is a valuable law-enforcement tool, and the importance of equal treatment under the law a difficult one legally and ethically? Yes. Does a sheriff have the right and authority to ignore the way this balance is decided one legal authorities define it?
No.
- Is the determination of this balance often polluted by ideological biases, in this case, against enforcement of immigration laws?
Yes.
- Do Donald Trump, and his supporters, and those Americans who may not be his supporters but who agree that allowing foreign citizens to breach our borders at will without legal penalties is certifiably insane, believe that Arpaio’s position on illegal immigration is essentially correct and just?
Yes.
- Nonetheless, did his ham-handed methods give ammunition to open-borders, pro-illegal immigration, race-baiting activists like the one who told the New York Times,
“Trump is delivering a slap in the face to dignified, hard-working people whose lives were ripped apart by Arpaio. Arpaio belongs in jail, getting a taste of his own medicine. Trump wants to put Arpaio above the law, showing they are both about white supremacy.”
- Is sending Arpaio to jail a political imprisonment?
Yes, although he made it easy to justify on non-political grounds.
- Are political prisoners the ideal objects of Presidential pardons?
Yes.
- Would pardoning him send dangerous messages (it’s OK to violate judicial orders you think are wrong; the ends justifies the means; Presidents should meddle in local law enforcement, “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice”) as well as defensible ones ( judges and elected official enabling illegal immigration are a threat to the rule of law; Joe is an old man with a long record of public service who deserves mercy even though he was wrong…)
Yes.
- Will such a pardon, especially as the news media is again spinning to make the case that Trump is sympathetic with xenophobes and white nationalists, further inflame an overly emotional debate that needs to be calmed, not exacerbated?
God, yes.
- Is the most responsible course for Trump to stay out of this mess?
YES!
- Will he?
Of course not.
3. ESPN’s indefensible decision to pull Asian-American sportscaster Robert Lee from broadcasting a football game [NOTE: this is a correction: the original post erroneously and stupidly called it a basketball game.] in Charlottesville is, of course, being defended. ESPN’s jaw-droppingly moronic statement, tweeted yesterday, shows how badly. The Bristol, Conn. based sports network wrote,
“This wasn’t about offending anyone. It was about the reasonable possibility that because of his name he would be subjected to memes and jokes and who knows what else. Think about it. Robert Lee comes to town to do a game in Charlottesville. No politically correct efforts. No race issues. Just trying to be supportive of a young guy who felt it best to avoid the potential zoo.”
The claim that morons somewhere would be offended at least makes twisted sense assuming the network’s cowardice and aversion to progressive fury. But pulling an employee from an assignment based on a fear of jokes and memes? Announcing that social media trolls are now the tail that wags the journalism dog? Making the brain-cramping argument that pulling an announcer because of fear of what political correctness bullies and fanatics might say or tweet isn’t about political correctness? Can any organization be that stupid?
More:
- CNN’s Roxanne Jones added this incompetent and biased analysis to the question of whether ESPN acted reasonably:
“Nope, not unreasonable at all. Not in today’s America. Not when we just witnessed heavily armed, swastika-wearing protesters who believe in white supremacy clashing in the streets with counterprotesters, who believed just as passionately that all people are created equal. Not when one woman is dead and dozens more injured because they had the audacity to stand up to the failed notion of white supremacy. Not when a statue, or a team name, or a presidential tweet can incite racial tensions and violence”
Is this a new rationalization for the list, of just so crushingly cretinous that it sounds like one? I think it’s a Bizzaro World argument: everyone’s acting absurdly, so acting absurdly is reasonable. Let me make that clear with a slight translation: “It’s reasonable for ESPN to pull an Asian-American announcer because social justice warriors want to purge statues of a long dead general and the wrong people protested against it, and two groups featuring armed thugs fought over the fact that they hated each other, and this made the network afraid of jokes and memes.”
Got it.
THIS is CNN.
- Conservative talk radio host Buck Sexton tweeted, “ESPN owes Robert Lee an apology. Can’t punish Asian Americans as part of PC obsession. Only elite college admissions offices get to do that.”
Unfair? Explain why.
- Moderate conservative commentator S. E. Cupp–she teamed with New Gingrich on CNN’s recent failed attempt to revive “Crossfire”—wrote in an op-ed for the New York Daily News,
President Trump held a rally in Phoenix, in which he once again offered unto his base the reddest of red meat.
“They’re trying to take away our culture,” he said, of the exploding debate over Confederate statues and monuments.
“They’re trying to take away our history. And our weak leaders, they do it overnight. These things have been there for 150 years, for a hundred years. You go back to a university and it’s gone. Weak, weak people.”
Simultaneously, on the other side of the country, something else was happening. ESPN was scrambling to release a statement on a baffling assignment change that a sports website had caught wind of.
The decision to remove an Asian-American announcer named Robert Lee from calling University of Virginia’s home opener — “simply because of the coincidence of his name,” as ESPN inexplicably admits — unsurprisingly lit up the Internet with outrage, jokes and memes. It also rendered inarguably true the assertion made by President Trump himself as well as many others that this debate will descend quickly and embarrassingly down a slippery slope. I’d argue the pre-emptive removal of an Asian-American sportscaster, who had nothing to do with the Civil War or slavery, from a college football game simply because his name sounds similar doesn’t represent a gradual slope, but a 1000-foot cliff.
…
Whatever you think of the statue debate, one thing is now abundantly clear: President Trump has won it.
The list of offensive iconography grows by the hundreds every day. From removing Lee statues all over the South to changing the name of Fenway Park’s Yawkey Way and Boston’s Faneuil Hall, even abolitionist strongholds aren’t spared the scrutiny of ravenous liberal activists on a mission to run as far as they can towards crazy with this argument…
Over at the University of Southern California, activists are taking issue with the school’s mascot, a horse named Traveler. The mascot, according to his official bio, is “a symbol of ancient Troy. Its rider, with costume and sword, is a symbol of a Trojan warrior.”
So what’s the problem? Robert E. Lee’s horse was also named Traveller — spelled differently, but unacceptable nonetheless.
This is nonsense. What’s unnerving to conservatives like me, who are actually sympathetic to the fact that confederate flags, statues and monuments are painful reminders of one of our darkest moments as a nation — and have written so — is that this is exactly what Trump wants….
Trump dared liberals to go down this kooky rabbit hole of political correctness. It’s fertile ground and he knew they’d take the bait.
And did they ever. So instead of talking about the growing scourge of white supremacy in this country, and what the President should do about it, we’re talking about blowing up Mount Rushmore and punishing Asian-American sports announcers for having the wrong name. Game, set, match: Trump.
Whatever seriousness this argument once had is gone. And I, for one, think that’s a real shame. But in the meantime, all the other Robert Lees out there should think about brushing up their resumes.
- The Asian American Journalists Association said in a statement that “it is unfortunate that someone’s name, particularly a last name that is common among Asian-Americans, can be a potential liability.”
Who is making it a potential liability?
- Finally, Robert Lee has been unavailable for interviews, and ESPN is claiming that he agreed with its decision. I want to see him say that, on camera. If true, then he is a coward, and could learn something about courage from his maligned sort-of name-sake. in fact, there is a lot every American can learn from Robert E. Lee. “Today’s America,” however, doesn’t approve of learning from the past. Today’s America is increasingly about programming minds to achieve a politically correct future.
Ethics Alarms 
The Robert Lee thing is indeed ridiculous; an egregious case of self-foot-shooting and leading with a glass jaw.
And, in addition to being stupid, if the network really cared, why didn’t they ask him to go by Bob Lee? I mean, the dude is in show business — personalities change their names all the time.
http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3t59kj
Interesting question. He’s certainly not famous enough, that such a subtle change in name would really be noticed.
An additional question: One of the top HS basketball recruits in the nation is named David Duke. He will have his pick of top colleges to attend and will be on ESPN nationally televised games more than a few times. How are they gonna handle that?
I like this so much, it’s worth saying twice.
Ack. Take one down please.
Oh, all right.
“So instead of talking about the growing scourge of white supremacy in this country”
I like Cupp’s analysis, but this line. It’s still the favorite dishonest meme of the Leftist media: that America has a Nazi problem.
No, it does not.
It has a Nazi coverage problem.
I left out that and some more along those lines. I worried about it, but I wanted to quote Cupp on what was rel;evant to the issue at hand. She also called Trump’s “moral equivalence” unforgivable. No, Left wing nuts and right-wing nuts who spout hate based on class or race are equally morally/ethically despicable; violence to stifle speech and protest is per se unethical regardless of the speech, and Trump chided the group trying to intimidate legal protesters.
The media’s narrative is that the fact of Trump’s election proves we have a Nazi problem.
I wonder how this compares to the Red Scare of the 1950’s.
My view is that it is very similar.
Except that the Soviets were actively infiltrating and propagandizing key American institutions at the time.
They were, though not to the extent being claimed. The Left claims that evil fascist conservatives are infiltrating the White House, and trying to infiltrate the sanctified Halls of Academia, journalism and show business, hence their persecution of any dissenters there. It’s not that different.
The fact that the Left believes this is proof they are so far off the rails within the American Republic that you ARE absolutely right covering their wildly anti-civic behavior. Anyone crying about a bias only means they fail to see how far gone the Left is.
Unfortunately Obama set the bar really low with releasing Oscar Lopez Rivera, a convicted terrorist. Compared to that, Arpaio seems like a wronged hero. I know, I know, ethics is not supposed to be on a sliding scale, but optics count.
I said long ago that the statue toppling and history-airbrushing wasn’t going to end in a good place, at length, and I said why. As I also believed at the time, my thoughts fell on deaf ears. That said, it DOES look like this craziness has boomeranged on the left and made them look like fools at best, Bolsheviks at worst. They talk of pulling the hoods off the right, I think Jim Wright’s rant and online rants like it has effectively pulled the masks off the left and shown them for what they are – evil control freaks hopped up on hate, rage, and adrenaline who will not hesitate to injure or kill those who don’t agree with them. Most regular Americans have no use for evil control freaks, and I think when the boomerang finally comes full circle and hits these masked cowards and bullies in the face and breaks their jaw, it’s going to be a great day.
WHO was wearing the masks in Charlotte? Why, the progressives, of course.
And now that progressives are going after political opponents based on pictures taken during these sort of events, you will see everyone wearing them. Except it will be wrong when non progressives do so.
I find it so interesting that the liberals screech and moan about the danger of conservatism and neo-Nazis, but by their behavior they actually embrace their own form of totalitarianism: free speech is dangerous unless it’s the “right” free speech; your name alone can estop you from getting a job, (though profiling is still ‘evil’); and if they were honest, they would admit their belief that non-liberals have no right to participate in ‘their’ American culture, or maybe, need forced ‘cultural education,” (This last sounds pretty terrifying, I know, but we’re getting there…)
Socialism always leads to concentration camps. It is the logical progression of that form of insanity.
Socialism also always ends up using force to attack their foes, when their programs fail and they have nowhere else to turn to maintain power.
History is full of examples of these two truths.
Venezuela, so loved by the political left here, is just the latest exemplar of these two truths.
Sexton’s tweet iss the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time, a timely 180 from HRC’s “gosh, if I’d only said…”
Reminds me of when a coach (Terry Bowden?) of a NCAA D-1 FB program under investigation (Auburn?) was asked if it should be allowed to be the National Champ.
Something like: “If Marion Barry can be reelected Mayor of D.C., then (Auburn) can be National Champ.”
Wait–iss? do I detect a German accent?????
“do I detect a German accent?????” Ja!
Like Herr Freud (another Kraut) averred: there were no mistakes.
“Schlecht” in German:
http://www.dict.cc/?s=schlecht
It gets worse!
ESPN is going to wish they stuck to sports rather than branching out into snowFLAKE feelings!
From the “You Gotta Be Effin’ Kidding Me!” department:
”ESPN Won’t Say Whether It’ll Pull Pundit (Robert Ley) Who Shares Name With Infamous Nazi (Robert Ley) Off The Air”
http://iotwreport.com/espn-wont-say-whether-itll-pull-pundit-who-shares-name-with-infamous-nazi-off-the-air/
Bob Ley is next/ Ridiculous. He’s one of the original ESPN guys from back when they were shoeing water ski jump contests from Silver Springs, Florida back in the late ‘seventies. Yikes. All he does now is introduce the “30 for 30” “documentaries.”
First they came for Robert Lee, but I wasn’t Robert Lee.
Then they came for Robert Ley, but I wasn’t Robert Ley….
So ESPN wanted to protect Robert Lee from “memes and jokes” and help him avoid “the potential zoo”???? One wonders what THAT would look like to ESPN.
While America continues to allow itself to be spun up over NOTHING with the entire goal being to undermine its constitutional system and set up Democrats for success in 2018:
Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, regional competitors whose animosity can generally be relied upon to bring an amount of stabilization to that region, are showing signs of warming (long term effects, not good for us).
In the wake of Brexit, France, under Macron, is courting protectionist measures within the EU, which could lead to ripple effects in rebellion against Germany’s generally hegemonic behavior over that entire bloc (this could be the first indicators of a potentially unavoidable break up of EU – for better or worse).
The UN, in a rare move, issued an “Early Warning” regarding potential civil war in OUR COUNTRY. An abjectly stupid claim to make, but internationalists who hate America are probably inwardly smiling.
NK seems to have shut up in the face of US brinkmanship, credit given to passingly to China brow beating North Korea, when inevitably China’s move must be credited also to US brinkmanship…of course not a peep about Trump’s role in this.
Coverage of yet another Islamic terrorist attack in Europe lasted a grand total of about three yawn-lengths of time in the American media.
ISIS is being steadily and methodically beaten out of Syria and Iraq reaching a point in its existence where it is going to be seriously forced to consider dropping any defense of geographic areas and start considering a massive splintering, dispersing and infiltrating tactic against neighboring nations and nations further abroad.
NAFTA reform is being discussed by all 3 nations involved.
Iraqi Kurds are nearing a referendum to secede from Iraq and go their own way, which would establish a majorly destabilizing presence for Iran & Turkey, (for better or worse).
But, by all means, contrived arguments and manufactured crises in America for electioneering purposes are far more important.
Thanks Democrats!
Bravo, Tex. Nice work.
Go Longhorns!
“Go Longhorns!”
Huh?
You don’t follow college sports, am I right?
One of your more readable comments…
“Go Longhorns!”
Hiss… spit spit!
TexAg and I went to Texas A&M, and the Texas Longhorns are formal rivals for 100 years… until we grew past them. Now they are just another failed football program.
ack… should have read “…were former rivals…”
What is a formal rival? Competition for Prom Queen?
I’m reformed. Go Aggies!
This is a special gift to Tex because I am doing research on his idea that the ‘Alt-Left’ and the ‘Alt-Right’ are oddly related. Also Tex I am sincerely sorry I implied you are a groundhog. I even ordered some ‘Texas Tumbleweed Tea’! There is a new me soon on the horizon.
Providence guide us in these trying times.
You may be reformed but you aren’t radically reformed.
The phrase is “Gig ’em Aggies”
“Go” is about as pathetically mundane as a college can get. Even LSU pretends to be ethnically woke by saying “Geaux”…
If you want to be truly enlightened, the phrase is “Gig ’em”. Not “go”
A handful of pennies at Sully’s feet and 40 laps around the Bull Ring, and you might near absolution.
I am reading a book very helpful to my understanding: ‘A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars’. What is amazing is that I can read on the iPad and then look up the references on the iPhone. That’s where the Buckley-Vidal thing came from. How strange the apparent reversal from then to now. YouTube is my time transporter! Sort of weird really.
GO Tylers!!!!
“Two Russian strategic bombers, accompanied by Russian fighter jets, flew around the Korean Peninsula as the United States and South Korea conducted joint military exercises, Reuters reported Aug. 24. South Korean and Japanese fighter jets scrambled to intercept the Russian aircraft, and Japan also intercepted six Chinese strategic bombers that were flying in the region. These are the United States and South Korea’s first joint military exercises since North Korea’s successful test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile in July. The exercises are mostly computer-based simulations, but also involve a large military presence, which Russia and China view as a destabilizing factor within the region.” -Stratfor
But hey, NAZIS SOMEWHERE!!!
2. Mr. Arpaio is being set up as a martyr. He is becoming the focus of how progressives use the courts to keep the revolution moving forward regardless of the will of the people. While he should go to jail in this case, many who have just had enough of this progressive meltdown over the past 9 months (and the incredible political casuistry from establishment elites from both sides of the aisle during the past two decades) will use this as a posteriori evidence of how the deck is stacked against non progressives, no matter what happens to the former Sheriff. Rationalizations will stream for doing unto those that have done unto you, and both sides are now using Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.
If he goes to jail, he is celebrated as a political prisoner and champion of the rule of law (against all reason, but there it is.) The rule of law will unravel a bit more as more people come to believe there is no equal protection under the law. Jury nullification will become more common as more people are aroused from the drunken stupor of their self centered existence by that myoptic existence being threatened by tyranny, perceived or real.
If he is pardoned, they will run him for office as a hero against the Left. He might be a good candidate (Texas Sheriffs are politicians first, so I assume this is true in Arizona) but will be constricted to this controversy in office.
3. Progressives are tearing into their own these days: good. Minorities have an opportunity to see just how they have been used, and how little they really matter to the progressive cause, except as an excuse to move the ball, or as cannon fodder. The mask is off on the socialist tyranny advocated by the mob, and hinted at by any number of progressive politicians over the past few years. The enemy of my enemy may not be my friend, but making my enemy duck from fire from another direction never hurts.
Here is a witty comment on the Confederate flag issue.
– Christopher c. Morton
There were a number of economic issues dividing North and South, and had been for decades. For example the North was becoming more of a manufacturing society with a burgeoning middle class, while the South was still mainly agricultural. As such they had pretty much opposite wants as far as federal tariffs were concerned. However, I think that slavery was almost certainly the only issue that carried the emotional weight to provoke secession.
Interestingly, the war never did stop trade between the regions — they were just too economically interdependent for that. Nor, for that matter, did it stop the opposing armies from trading with each other.
The radicals in the South did their best to sabotage the Democratic party, in effect throwing the election to the Republicans, which gave them the flash point to push through secession. They essentially figured on a preemptive strike to preserve slavery in the South. So how’d that work out for them, eh?
As far as the enlisted troops fighting the war, there just weren’t that many slave owners in the South numerically speaking (and I am sure they felt they had better things to do with their time). Nor did you see many of the aristocracy from the North in the ranks. The officer corps was a different matter.
I think many of the men who enlisted did so out of patriotism, either to their country (USA) or to their state (CSA). I’m sure that a lot of the initial recruits joined up for adventure (remember that there had never been a war like this before), for comradeship and all the myriad reasons boys find to join the army.
That is a fair comment, Mr. Garcia
“I’m sure that a lot of the initial recruits joined up for adventure (remember that there had never been a war like this before), for comradeship and all the myriad reasons boys find to join the army.”
Yer onto something there, Big Guy: rich man’s war, poor man’s battles.
“For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War” (by Pulitzer prize-winning/Southern historian extraordinaire James M. McPherson) fleshes it out magnificently.
I guess if the pc warriors get their way, this song will no longer be played at Civil War reenactments:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UVeSKwM–1M
If the PC warriors get their way, there will BE no re-enactments, because said warriors will be taking photos of the Confederate re-enactors, finding out their names, posting them as proof or racism, and getting them fired.
This nation is going Stalinist with it’s own KGB volunteers.
Let me begin with the question, what lies as the foundation of tolerance? Is it understanding, empathy, or a just a willingness to comprehend an alternative perspective? Perhaps it is all three. By definition, tolerance is a willingness to live and let live, so to speak. But, the notion of willingness to live and let live does not preclude the actions of those who seek to change minds through cogent rational argument.
I have listened at great length to those who oppose and support the destruction or removal of Confederate iconography in today’s world. If we start with the assumption that what is right and good will triumph over that which is bad and evil in time without the need to resolve the dispute violently we might move toward a more tolerant and enlightened social structure.
My thesis is neither a defense of nor a condemnation of societal issues that continue to pit one against another. I will merely juxtapose the historical issue which divided the nation into camps that found the practice repugnant and those that found no problem with it an a modern day issue that one group find morally repugnant while others do not and attempt to draw parallels to historical events that sanctified, or at least legitimized social behavior.
Again, I am trying not to cast any judgement on any behavior but to develop my thoughts I needed to find a modern day issue that a majority segment of our population finds morally repugnant and another minority segment sees as perfectly acceptable. I then asked myself the question to what lengths might the minority segment go should the majority segment impose its will by executive or judicial fiat? How much will the minority tolerate before it finds the political majorities imposed will too much to tolerate. What issue might create substantial animus toward the ruling segment that it too may seek to enjoin itself from laws of the land. What parallels in history do we see that might engender such animus and how might future generations view the loser if the debate escalated into a full on confrontation?
Today, I would guess nearly 100% of our people see involuntary servitude a human rights violation. I am aware there are some that still cling to beliefs of racial or ideological supremacy. Here in Maryland, a border state, some in the nineteenth century had differing opinions on that issue. In those days, such as now economics and politics played a critical role in one’s perspective. Even Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in states that seceded. Maryland’s slaves were held hostage by to ensure that Maryland did not secede which would have been strategically disadvantageous for the Union forces. Why is Lincoln’s strategic decision to emancipate only those slaves in confederate states and not in Union states acceptable. If slavery was believed to be an anathema by Lincoln then the Emancipation Proclamation should have applied to all those currently in bondage. Or, did politics and military tactics play a role in his ethical decision making? Do we rationalize this as the ends justify the means?
Then as now, when the federal government imposes its will to expropriate value from one sector of the population to give value to another the group that perceives harm fights to preserve that to which it feels entitled.
It seems logical that any supremacist, irrespective of its biological or ideological rationale perceives others as an inferior or sub-human species. Science can now show that genetically we are virtually the same as a species with the exception of differences due to the expression of certain genes. Why is it that some see other humans being substantially differently enough and thus not worthy of the same inalienable rights as another.
This brings me to my point. Since time began one group enslaved another for various reasons. In the United States, we endure the legacy of the past injustice of involuntary servitude of Africans who were brought here in chains and legally considered personal property that could be treated as its owner wished. I doubt seriously that any American – even these “supremacists” – would today argue to return to the days in which any group could be treated as personal property and maintained in bondage; separatism maybe but not involuntary servitude.
Nonetheless, we have a large segment of the population, as well as modern day court decisions, which promote the idea that certain human beings are not deserving of the same inalienable rights. If we compare much derided Scott v Sanford in which Supreme Court Justice Roger B Taney decided that Mr. Scott had no standing to sue in Federal Court, as well as, extending his ruling to state that the Federal government had no Constitutional power to deny states the right to permit involuntary servitude to Roe v. Wade we might see little difference in the two. In Scott, we see the court ruling in favor of state sovereignty and denying a person citizenship status because he was deemed legally inferior in the state of his domicile. In Roe, the court determined that the rights of a developing human being are subordinate to its master. It effectively treated the unborn human being as an inferior class of the species such that personal sovereignty over one’s body permitted that person responsible for its care and maintenance to exercise a property right over that unborn human being to the extent that the unborn human being can be discarded at will.
I find it hard to believe that anyone, especially those who decry the “science deniers” can argue against the fact that upon conception all the genetic material necessary for a human being has been combined in a manner necessary for that human being to begin to grow and develop. Why did the court establish what could be perceived as an arbitrary line in the human being’s development? What makes leaving the uterus of its host any more of a determining factor when the life of a human begins than when it begins cellular division, or the age of reason, or graduates from college? Why is the age of consent different in different states? Why are fathers not given the same right to choose if we have equal treatment under the law? Why do we have a “violence against women act” and not a “violence against children act”? Are little boys to be precluded from protections from violence Because these determinations are made by other human beings who decide what groups have superior rights over others which, is in fact a form of supremacy belief based on societal beliefs, political calculations and assumptions of social roles, and inherently superior capabilities of the genders. It matters little if they are actually correct of incorrect assumptions – they are what they are at that time. When a woman seeks to terminate the life of a developing human being, the fact that the government never provides a guardian ad litem for the unborn to argue on its behalf is prima facie evidence that much of society today views the developing unborn human being an inferior species – no better than your pet which too is treated as property in law. Thus, the born are treated as a superior class of people.
Today’s science can tell us what genes will be expressed which determine whether or not the child if left to develop will be “normal” or be afflicted with some characteristic that will impose a burden on the parent such as Down’s syndrome or some other undesirable trait. It was recently reported that Iceland has wiped out Down’s syndrome simply by aborting pregnancies – i.e. children – that test positively for that trait. China, long used abortion to control the female population and still maintains strict rules for family size. At what point, does abortion advocacy lead to the point of genetic cleansing? Should we begin to claim advocates of at will pregnancy termination are actually attempting to create a superior race that embodies only the genetic characteristics deemed desirable by society? I hope not. Wasn’t that the rationale behind opponents of interracial marriage? Didn’t they think any offspring would jeopardize the strength of its gene pool? Wasn’t this the basis for Dr. Mengele’s experiments in Nazi Germany? . Maybe it just boils down to simply a belief that as a born humans have more rights than an unborn humans and that the unborn human is imposing a cost on that one does not wish to bear.
All arguments are couched in terms of endearment. We don’t kill babies we terminate pregnancies. No one will ever argue that women have a right to kill their unborn babies. They simply have a right to choose. How Orwellian. Either way the effect is the same the baby dies because the master of its destiny believes the human being not yet born is an inferior human being and not entitled to the same rights as the born. Like today’s advocates for abortion, confederate soldiers were fed the line that the issue isn’t about slavery it was all about state’s rights and state sovereignty. Conversely, the counterarguments paint the opposition with ad hominem attacks and attempt to stifle the speech of anyone espousing a different point of view in order to preserve the purity of their ideals. That itself is a form of supremacy belief.
Before we start condemning all those who stand for anything we owe an obligation to allow them to speak their peace, make their arguments, and then and only then rebut them if we can do so logically, rationally, and peacefully.
I close with the following thoughts, would some states seek to secede from the union if the majority of its voters and politicians demanded it if the high court decided that women no longer have the right to choose. If they lost the fight would they be considered treasonous? How many statues to progressives might be felled 150 years should they fall from grace in those future times and will those that seek to preserve the past to which their foremothers fought maintain be treated as social pariahs?
One word: politics.
Comment of the day. Good work, Chris.
Thanks Jack
Typo you might want to address, Jack. It’s a football game, not a basketball game between UVA and William and Mary. Fortunately, college basketball doesn’t begin until late fall, not lat summer.
Fixed. Since I scrupulously boycott both college sports, this was bound to happen. Thanks.
You’re welcome. I agree that college sports are, for the most part, really unsavory and have absolutely nothing to do with higher education.
Arpaio was pardoned, of course.
I assumed he would be. As I wrote, it was ethics zugswang. Knowing Trump, h’e rather be vilified for acting than not acting, and would rather be attacked by the opponents of Joe than his allies.
It will take about 20 minutes to ID far, far worse miscreants pardoned by every previous President. He’s over 80, and doesn’t like illegal immigrants. I wouldn’t complain.
My god, is that a dangerous understatement, Jack. I’ll explain further on your more recent thread about Arpaio.