Barbarians Inside the Gate

_{Barry Arrington

August 17, 2015

Intelligent Design}

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Everyone who believes the barbarians among us have declared total war on Western Civilization raise your hand.

The differences between this and Auschwitz:

1. The victims are more defenseless.

2. The victims are more innocent.

3. The victims are smaller.

4. The execution chambers are more sanitary.

Ideas have consequences.

Comments

"Not at all" You mean, "no". See how easy it is? Andrewasauber_{August 19, 2015
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asauber: Your claim of fondness for homo sapiens is a joke. asauber: Are you retracting/modifying that claim now? Not at all. We are quite fond of Homo sapiens. Consider it a peccadillo, if you like.Zachriel_{August 19, 2015
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"claiming that you know who or what we are fond of" You claimed you are fond of homo sapiens (comment #63). Are you retracting/modifying that claim now? Andrewasauber_{August 19, 2015
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asauber: It’s not an answer. No, you just don't like the answer. Rejecting our explanation, or claiming that you know who or what we are fond of, is not an effective way to advance your position. We explained our answer in detail @77.Zachriel_{August 19, 2015
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"Our answer stands." It's not an answer. It's cowardice in the face of a simple question. Your claim of fondness for homo sapiens is a joke. Andrewasauber_{August 19, 2015
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asauber: Is it unfortunate for the aborted human that his/her present and future has been destroyed? The balance of our previous comment discussed this issue. Your question contains the implicit assumption that a blastocyst has the same moral value as a baby. The reason you don't consider it an answer is because you are insisting on a black and white distinction where it may not exist. Our answer stands. It’s unfortunate for the loss of a potential baby.Zachriel_{August 19, 2015
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"Thought the answer was clear." If you really thought the answer to my question was clear, you could have answered yes or no to my question as I tried to suggest. We both know the answer is clear, you just choose to obfuscate/evade. Now, if you have a fondness for me as a homo sapien barbarian, you could at least do something not too difficult and answer yes or no to my question repeated here: "Is it unfortunate for the aborted human that his/her present and future has been destroyed?" Andrewasauber_{August 19, 2015
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asauber: Is it unfortunate for the aborted human that his/her present and future has been destroyed? Thought the answer was clear. It's unfortunate for the loss of a potential baby. Ultimately, there's no arguing values. If you place a very high value on a fertilized human egg, there's no conclusive argument otherwise. You can show the implications of such a position, such as whether you would preferentially save a human baby, or a vat of human blastocysts from a fire at a fertility clinic. If you consider the value of a fetus on a gray scale, there's no conclusive argument otherwise. You can show the implications of such a position, such as when exactly should rights be accorded, but it's the nature of grays to have no strict dividing line, and lines that are drawn tend to be arbitrary. The U.S. Supreme Court drew the line at viability. Before then, the right to autonomy for the woman prevails. After that, states can legislate more protections for the unborn.Zachriel_{August 19, 2015
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"Unfortunate for the woman." Zach, Is it unfortunate for the aborted human that his/her present and future has been destroyed? Can you answer yes or no to my question? Andrewasauber_{August 19, 2015
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StephenB: [a] The fact that life begins at cconception is not a dogma, it is a scientific fact. There is no other place that life can begin. Sperm is alive too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUspLVStPbk StephenB: [b] A woman’s autonomy over her own body is irrelevant to pregnancy. The baby is not part of her body. It is connected to her body. A woman's autonomy is, of course, important. You may not think it trumps the rights of the unborn, but it is not irrelevant. Otherwise, women are nothing but vessels for reproduction. Keep in mind you want the state to force women to carry babies they may not want, that may actually harm them, that may have been forced upon them. asauber: Why “unfortunate”? And unfortunate for whom? Unfortunate for the woman. Unfortunate for the loss of a potential baby. kairosfocus: Those who emphasise the distinction have a significant point. Emphasizing the distinction is fine, but redefining words is not. All modern democracies are representative systems.Zachriel_{August 19, 2015
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eigenstate, I have to admire your fortitude in this comment strand. I hope that you are taking sometime to digest what people are trying to say. Yes, we are all just fallible people, but we just might have an idea that you have not thought about or that you have a false opinion about. Interestingly you use the analogy of two acorns. Contrary to what you say, by choosing one and discarding the other you are not just getting rid of an acorn. You are discarding a tree. By your action that one tree will never exist. I also find your reaction to God interesting. If there is no God then how can He be the greatest abortionist? If He exists, then by definition He knows more than you. Because He knows more than you, the best you can honestly say is, "I do not understand why God acts in a certain way". By arguing that abortion is alright because God allows spontaneous abortions implies that you are on an equal level with God. You are saying that you know and understand everything just as God does. Think of what a wonderful creation you are. It all happened when one egg from your mother was fertilized by one sperm from your father. At that moment you were formed (and since you, not I, mentioned it, God breathed into you your immortal soul!). Do not degrade yourself. You were you from that moment and look how wonderful you have become. You were the acorn that was planted. Now continue to grow up to reach your full potential, a relationship with the One who ultimately created you. Thank You for listening and God Bless.GCS_{August 19, 2015
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Zachriel, it is precisely because of the distinction the US founders drew, that we have had the situation of modern constitutional democracies with limits on the majority and their representatives, that there has been the convergence that you point to. Those who emphasise the distinction have a significant point. Rule of the majority without adequate limits and restraints is not good enough by a long shot. KFkairosfocus_{August 19, 2015
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"see abortion as an unfortunate choice" Zach, Why "unfortunate"? And unfortunate for whom? Andrewasauber_{August 19, 2015
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eigenstate
Behind all that is the gender subjugation imperative, the leverage a “life begins at conception” dogma exerts over females who can be controlled, threatened, shamed, exploited, kept in their submissive and dominated places if they are denied autonomy over their bodies and their choices about their reproduction. That’s a travesty, too, yet another black stain on Christian culture.
Your ignorance, which seems to be willful, astounds me. [a] The fact that life begins at cconception is not a dogma, it is a scientific fact. There is no other place that life can begin. [b] A woman's autonomy over her own body is irrelevant to pregnancy. The baby is not part of her body. It is connected to her body. I don't understand how you can not be embarrassed by the nonsense that you write.StephenB_{August 19, 2015
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kairosfocus: In the sense BA spoke, unlimited undefined or unrestrained power of a majority is potentially destructive and abusive. SteRusJon cited an article which made an incorrect distinction. Representative and democratic governance are not antithetical, but have merged into modern representative democracy.Zachriel_{August 19, 2015
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Zachriel, You left out the context:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security . . .
In the sense BA spoke, unlimited undefined or unrestrained power of a majority is potentially destructive and abusive. In that sense, republic with consent of the governed and democratic state can be sharply distinct. The above FIRST sets limits to legitimate governance, then in that context envisions the state and its derivation of just powers, built on sound principles and manifesting forms calculated to sustain the prior rights, with legitimacy tracing to both the under God purpose and the consent of the people. In this thread, that speaks to the abuse of judicial and voting power to rob what, half a generation, of its life even while it cannot speak up or fight back, being in the womb. And that we are speaking of distinct individuals and lives can be shown by two indisputable facts: (a) half the time the unborn child is of opposite sex to its mother, (b) the unborn child -- even if female -- can be racially quite diverse from its mother, as is so common in this part of the world and as is increasingly so in the USA. I think that when we speak of limited state power, constitutional democracy (with a bill of rights)-- not just a corpus of laws and precedents -- and democratic leadership . . . notice the three dimensions, we are discussing something that emerged from the process in the US an most often appears in a parliamentary system. In this restricted sense, a Constitutional republic is democratic, with deeply entrenched protection of rights in defence of the civil peace of justice. But in the classic sense, democracy does not necessarily imply that limit. And we are back at the distinction, X . . . -y vs X . . . -ic. And indeed in the UK, in principle any act can have constitutional effect, there is no one definite Constitution. Indeed a GBP 300 book not generally known to the public, Erskine May, has Constitutional power as it regulates Parliament. KF PS: As I have said before, any list that does not address Barbados as a stable full democracy of long standing is flawed. I think there is an omission of the eastern Caribbean zone, leading to a lockout effect. Size should not be a criterion. And yes I agree that Jamaica is flawed.kairosfocus_{August 19, 2015
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asauber: Not small and innocent ones, evidently. Actually, we're fond of all of them — even the barbarians —, and see abortion as an unfortunate choice, though sometimes the best among bad options.Zachriel_{August 19, 2015
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"We are very fond of Homo sapiens" Not small and innocent ones, evidently. Andrewasauber_{August 19, 2015
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SteRusJon, Here's the democracy index from The Economist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#Democracy_index_by_country_.282014.29 The U.S. is considered a full democracy, though they do note that "US democracy has been adversely affected since 2008 by the increasing polarisation of the political scene and political brinkmanship; popular faith in political institutions and elites has collapsed." We would add that the influence of money is tending the U.S. towards oligarchy.Zachriel_{August 19, 2015
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SteRusJon: "These two forms of government: Democracy and Republic, are not only dissimilar but antithetical" That is incorrect, otherwise there could be no such thing as a democratic republic (ETA: usually called representative democracy). The U.S. was not particularly democratic at its inception. Only white men of property could vote. Over time, the U.S. has extended suffrage to more and more people; first white men without property, then non-whites, then women. Universal suffrage is considered a requisite condition for a modern democracy. While there is no pure democracy, the U.S. is certainly a representative democracy by any reasonable standard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracyZachriel_{August 19, 2015
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Your #53, eigenstate Well, as you manage to concede, even as you trivialize its significance, eigen, if that saw did not resonate with us all, it would not have taken such a hold on our minds. You have allowed yourself to be duped by the sophistication and subtlety of Eichmann's PR, as a result of your own kind of pedantic Mr Magooism, preventing your being disgusted beyond measure - which is actually the effect of the banality of evil. There is just something 'low rent' about evil (as the American saying goes), whatever form it takes. No need to get caught up in the details, even if you have the stomach for it. That's how I see it anyway. Though I must say your protestations at the wickedness of Eichmann I find difficult to understand. Amounting to vivisection being perpetrated on the most vulnerable human beings, abortion is on a par with the behaviour of the concentration camp guards and doctors (though I know there are substantially innocent girls who are dragooned into it by one means or another).Axel_{August 19, 2015
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harry: You have already made it apparent that you placed humanity on a par with the eggs you have for breakfast. Not at all. We are very fond of Homo sapiens, and see no reason why they shouldn't eat chicken eggs. However, your argument that "the technology in this factory is light years beyond anything modern science knows how to build from scratch" applies just as well to a chicken egg as to a human egg, yet, like a barbarian, you'll eat the latter. (ETA: Barbarians are humans too, by the way.)Zachriel_{August 19, 2015
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Seversky, Suggested reading about republic vs democracy, http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/aspects/demrep.htmlSteRusJon_{August 19, 2015
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Zachriel
So is the egg you had for breakfast.
You have already made it apparent that you placed humanity on a par with the eggs you have for breakfast. Use them for your own purposes and run what's left down the garbage disposal. Of course, you would make whatever money you could off of human body parts and then run what was left down the disposal, right? It is not like eggs will ever become rational beings. You are sick, Zachriel.harry_{August 19, 2015
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Robert Byers: People think its a mass opf goo almost up to the last months or something. You ignored our comment, so we will repeat it. Most women are quite aware of fetal tissue, as that is something women deal with all the time, such as with miscarriages. Traditionally, abortion would be done until quickening, so the process of development was not a secret to women even in ancient times, but they still had abortions. The Big Secret of Abortion: Women Already Know How It Works: Sixty-one percent of women who seek abortions already have at least one child. More than a third already have at least two children. Women know what pregnancy is and what abortion does. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thecut/the-big-secret-of-abortion_b_7967878.html harry: It is obvious to you that the technology in this factory is light years beyond anything modern science knows how to build from scratch. So is the egg you had for breakfast.Zachriel_{August 19, 2015
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Barry Arrington @ 36
Are you serious? Don’t you believe in democracy?
No, I don’t,...
That says a lot.
...and neither did the founders...
Didn’t they?
...That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,...
So was Lincoln wrong?
...-- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

They established a constitutional republic.
False distinction. A constitutional republic is a form of democracy. What the founders apparently feared - and it seems to have been a prevalent concern in European societies of that period and later - was mob rule and violent revolution. Democracy, in their minds, was equated with what is sometimes called direct democracy or “mob-ocracy”, in which a majority is able to do whatever it decides by sheer weight of numbers, unchecked by any other considerations, what John Stuart Mill and others called the “tyranny of the majority”. That’s not what we understand by democracy today. UDEditors: "What the founders apparently feared . . . was mob rule" Indeed, like your idea of putting up for a vote who gets to live and who dies.Seversky_{August 19, 2015
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eigenstate
Once you get back far enough where there’s not even cognition, there no place to hang this supposed contradiction. At that point, there is nothing lost but potential. And as I pointed out, God (if you believe in a sovereign, immanent God) liquidates 2 out of every three — let’s use Barry’s sleaze and call them “babies” here for emotional tugs! — cute little innocent babies before they even get to 8 weeks development. God is the #1 abortionist in that model, hands down. Planned Parenthood isn’t even with the right order of magnitude.
First of all, lack of cognition does not mean one has no right right to life. If that were the case, if you passed out for some reason others would be free to kill you. While passed out you would have only the potential for cognition in the future. So does a zygote. From conception what we have is a human being with potential, not a potential human being. The nutrition and hydration the newly conceived human life processes do not add “humanity” to it. Neither will anything else. Other life forms process the same kinds of nutrition and hydration and do not become human. Whatever makes the newly conceived human life "human" is already there. It is already as human as it is ever going to be. But you are thinking it isn't a person yet, right? The concept that one's human rights come with one's personhood has a terrible track record. Humans of African descent were denied full legal personhood in the Old South. Jewish humans were denied legal personhood in Nazi Germany. The most egregious crimes against humanity are perpetrated by those claiming their victims are not legal “persons.” This is certainly the case with “legal” child-killing. Your assertion that God is the #1 abortionist reveals an amazing ignorance on your part. From our human perspective, spontaneous abortion happens naturally. Nature is God's creation and is held in existence by Him from instant to instant. A human life only comes into being by God's intention and design. He calls that life back to Himself when He is good and ready to do so. He may want to do that an instant after creating a human being, or in a hundred years. It is up to Him because human life belongs to Him, not us. He told us “You shall do no murder.” When God calls the human life that He brought forth home to Himself by what we call spontaneous abortion, that is not killing, that is God doing what He wants with what belongs to Him. When we decide to “send” someone back to God, that is murder. The above assumes one believes in God. But a rational atheist, assuming there is such a thing, should still come to the conclusion that it is wrong to destroy an innocent human life. There are many way to explain why this is so. I will present only one. Suppose you thought you were in the farthest reaches of the wilderness, yet you come across a completely automated factory filled with computers directing robotic equipment. It steadily drew into itself and processed available raw materials, and as it did it transformed them into even more computers and more robotic equipment. It was developing into something. It is obvious to you that the technology in this factory is light years beyond anything modern science knows how to build from scratch. What is its meaning? What is its ultimate purpose? A rational, moral person would have a problem with blowing up that factory without knowing the answers to these questions. What right would one have to do that? None whatsoever. Only a barbarian would destroy it without knowing what it would mean if he did so. Well, a newly conceived human being consists of much more sophisticated technology, and much more of it, than our automated factory. And all that functionality, amazingly, has been miniaturized into microscopic nanotechnology that develops as it processes the raw materials available to it. What is the meaning of this newly conceived human life? What is its ultimate purpose? Only a barbarian would destroy it without knowing what it would mean if he did so.harry_{August 19, 2015
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Zachriel. nope. i was consistent. Abortion contention is only a intellectual one for 99%. its not a moral one. if i didn't believe abortion killed a kid THEN i would be pro-choice. likewise proc choicers would become pro life if persuaded the fwtus was a regular child. In fact this thread shows the pro choicers insisting the fetus is NOT YET a child. They are not saying its a child and then okay to kill it. Case in point. The pictures can excite instincts in the intellect about how to see the fetus. People think its a mass opf goo almost up to the last months or something. The pictures work and so , sadly, are real examples of our fellow human beings being slaughtered on eath. However our opponents, thankfully, sincerely think they are not people yet. The people have varrived issue is their intellectual problem and why pro choicers do avoid it as much as possible. They are sure a two day old conception is not yet a kid but they don't know the magic line that turns it into a creature uniquely with inalienable rights. Likewise the stupid roe decision judges had this problem. They still do. They have less excuse. Dumb and possibly bad.Robert Byers_{August 18, 2015
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eigenstate rants and raves and spews hundreds of words into this combox to justify his evil. There are, he says, two kinds of beings that are "fully human and fully alive," those that should be killed if they are inconvenient and those that are worthy to have their lives protected by law. He has literately resurrected the Nazi concept of lebensunwertes leben. He acknowledges that the babies he would allow to be killed are fully human and fully alive. They are "life." Yet he says their life is unworthy of our protection and is thus subject to being snuffed out on a whim. If that is not the concept of "life unworthy of life" nothing is. The vile darkness represented by such as he spreads like a hyper-malignant cancer eating through the very soul of this nation. Ideas have consequences, as the picture at the beginning of this OP demonstrates. He who advocates killing is as evil as the killer, and there will be a reckoning eigenstate; of that you can be certain.Barry Arrington_{August 18, 2015
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@GCS,
As one former blastocyst to another, I wish to thank you for your thoughtful statements. I tend to disagree with you for one important reason. Your personal experience contradicts most of what you are saying.
No, I don't think it does. I certainly value my life as a person who's conscious and aware enough of my status to make such judgments and commitments. But as a zygote, or an 8-week old fetus, there is nothing of the future-me that has the capacity for such awareness, regret, anticipation, or anything else that we take for granted as "built-in" as functional adults. There is no "expecting" or "wishing" or anything else for the zygote, it's just a glob of cells, with not even a central nervous system, which the lowly mosquito will happily smash against the window of his car without even a thought has. Once you get back far enough where there's not even cognition, there no place to hang this supposed contradiction. At that point, there is nothing lost but potential. And as I pointed out, God (if you believe in a sovereign, immanent God) liquidates 2 out of every three -- let's use Barry's sleaze and call them "babies" here for emotional tugs! -- cute little innocent babies before they even get to 8 weeks development. God is the #1 abortionist in that model, hands down. Planned Parenthood isn't even with the right order of magnitude. All of which just points to fallacy in thinking, that there was an actual loss at the time, when there was nothing there capable of being lost, as we understand it ourselves. The way to reconcile this, and this is why it's no surprise that "protected from conception" advocates are religious, is because they superimpose the imaginary soul, which they feel obligated to protect, along with God's sovereignty of course (as StephenB points out, if there's mass murder to do, mass "life unworthy of life" judgements to be made and acted upon, then Yahweh is the one to pull that maneuver off, not us!). If you can step away, even just momentarily, from the mystical ideas about the soul, there is no "person" there at the zygote level, or at 8 weeks of develop, to realize the loss of a person in the first place. Which is why Barry's putting that zygote on a par with 38 year Jew from Warsaw with three kids to look after is an egregious affront not just to him, but to all of us.
I ask that you consider yourself today and then go back day by day and tell us when whatever you were (adult, adolescent, child, monster [age 2], infant, fetus, blastocyst, fertilized egg) was not you. You were always you, just at different stages of development.
No, at 8 weeks in development, I wasn't "me" or a "person" yet, by any rational standard. An acorn is not an oak tree. It can develop to be an oak tree, but it is not an oak tree. An 8 week fetus that has the potential to become me is NOT me. This is a fundamental point that collapses the "me from conception" argument, or at least reduces it to a naked appeal to religious superstition, detached from reasoning human development, faculties and the capacities that distinguish human persons *as* persons.
The defining point of all your life was when one egg from one woman was fertilized by one sperm from one man.
Please try and separate yourself for just a moment to behold that statement from outside of a religious superstition about "endowment of the soul". There's nothing "defining" about the conception that led to me being me. I have DNA as a blue print, but so does every sperm and ovum, every cell in fact. Unless the acorn is the tree, this point doesn't hold.
How that fertilization occurred does not matter, what was produced was you. All of your potential existed at that point. The rest of your life is a series of challenges, difficulties and opportunities, which determined how much of your potential became actual.
Yes, but the whole idea falls apart and you realize that the same is just as true of the sperm and egg separately before hooking up: the same potential existed in the two organisms. Together, as happened for some pair in my case, and another in yours, the potential was realized. But it's just potential. It's not actual. Potential is not actual, hence the different terms we use! That was a hard point for me to get way back when as a Christian, and I point that out because I think it's important to make an effort to "reasoned for a moment unburdened" by all that to see the salient difference there. When you have this gloss of the divinely endowed immortal soul and all of that stuff it clouds things up in thinking about the practical mechanics of biology and human development.
If you are you from the moment of fertilization, then any rights you have as a person exist from that moment.
But I'm not me at that point. I'm only me-in-potential. Consider an acorn -- does it help to separate this from personal connections, perhaps and emotional strings pulling on you?: if I have two acorns in my hand, and I plant one, and toss the other in the fire, I've not harmed a tree. I've destroyed an acorn. That acorn was EXACTLY as much an acorn-in-potentia as the one I planted (and may become yet a mighty oak tree at length), but Acorn B got tossed in the fire. We can lament unrealized potential if we like, but it's ONLY potential. It never was a tree, it never will be a tree. No tree was harmed in the making of this scenario, not harmed whatsoever. To say the acorn is a tree is to completely to misunderstand both acorn and tree. And to lament the burning of a unicorn in the same way one might lament the frivolous felling of a mighty oak is not even a rough approximation of the degrading of human persons, and their value AS PERSONS in comparing the Holocaust to the practice of abortion. Please be generous enough to give to others the opportunity that you had to live. If anything, I think i'd stand accused of being too generous that way. Someone recently accused me of being a "quiverfull atheist", on learning how many kids my wife and I have. I'm just not a sucker for the cynical propaganda and wicked values that animate the "pro-life" movement, at least in its Christian segments, the kind that Barry proffers here. If you've got the faculties that qualify you as a human person, the fundamental biological developments (even a severely mentally handicapped person is fully a person under this principle for example -- it's a very very low bar, as it should be), then we have a legal and moral obligation to protect that life from unjustified harm or killing. But an 8 week old fetus can't qualify, not nearly, and a zygote! The fact that a zygote is held on par with 38 year old Jew or an infant, or even a fetus at 30 weeks... well that can only come from deeply irrational religious indoctrination, or wicked cultural motives. In Barry's case, like that of much of the movement he is part of, it's both.eigenstate_{August 18, 2015
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