That fit all the criteria above? Virtually nothing.

That’s why my criticism is not specifically about Obama, but more about the polity and culture of our nation in general. Virtually by design, grand cultural/political/social/economic shifts that fit my ideal can not evolve and manifest top-down from within the two-party American political structure.

My criticism is not that Obama is a scum bag because he is not like me. Even if he was exactly like me, and managed to fool everybody into thinking he was like him in order to get elected, and then upon inauguratation turned back into me, there’s a very finite limit on how much he could actually do, as me. (Movie rights to that story are already sold, Terrence Howard signed on to play Barack, Michael Rappaport as me)

But, when I’m saying that Obama isn’t like me (or you, or KTK), I’m not lamenting that our President isn’t a Vanguard Lenninist or something. I’m noting that the optimism and expectations about the scope of change an Obama administration will bring have gotten out of control, and run amok way beyond the boundaries of what is remotely acheivable.

I’m not slamming Obama. He is who he is. (The Bears are also who we thought they were, as per Dennis Green) I’m saying that if we want to judge him by standards appropriate to the position he is in, practically speaking, a lot of the left needs to lower the bar. Right now, he’s got Lebron James high school hype, anything short of becoming a part of the discussion for best ever may be viewed as a disappointment.

digg:

That seems to me to be a completely different proposition. Saying that expectations for what he’ll be able to actually get done are too high is a completely different thing than saying that substantively, Obama’s positions are closer to W’s than they are to mine. Maybe that’s true for some issues that aren’t particularly hot-button for me, and it’s true for one or two hot buttons, but on balance I’d say he’s a LOT closer to me than to W. Then again, I’m arguably a lot less liberal than KTK or Kevin, so perhaps that factors in.

This may be off topic and if it is I apologize but I can’t seem to figure out why so many people are already making excuses for Obama. “he won’t be able to do everything he wants”, “he will disappoint me”, “he will not live up to expectations”. Comments like that seem to abound.

For me, the reality is this:
1. Compare what he does to what Bush did. That is the bar that needs to be used in the short term.
2. Compare what he accomplishes to what he “could have” accomplished as opposed to comparing what he accomplishes to some lofty unattainable ideals.
3. Accept the fact that he got a lot of votes based on his color and he will be facing unfair criticism from people who expect his color to affect his decision making from all groups. This will automatically cloud the clarity of what he accomplishes.
4. Let the man succeed and fail on his abilities not on your expectations or lack thereof.

I have never seen so many excuses or reasons for disappointment being laid out at the start of a term in my life. If Obama is who you voted for, accept that you voted for him good and bad. Stop trying to make excuses for things that may not happen. If he is not who you voted for, odds are you won’t like anything he does anyways (at least that’s the way it seems to go with you guys in the US)

Now, if I was out of line I apologize, I just don’t get why people pumped him up so high prior to the election and even inauguration and now they are trying to lower the bar that they themselves set. A bunch of the stuff I have read about what he should do or accomplish doesn’t seem to be a part of what he actually said himself.

Big U:

I agree with three of your four points, but I don’t accept #3 as a “fact.” Did his skin color drive voter enthusiasm among African-Americans? Certainly, it did. But from what I’ve seen, Obama did not with the African-American vote by a substantially wider margin than did, say, Kerry or Gore or Clinton.

In any case, it’s not about “making excuses,” it’s about keeping expectations reasonable, and about the fact that conservatives (you included) are accusing liberals of making him some sort of messiah figure.

The fact of the matter is, the excuse-making and messiah-worship are mutually exclusive. Preemptively making excuses for the failures of the messiah just doesn’t make sense, unless the “failure” in question involves saying “I’ll be right back” and then disappearing for a couple of millennia.

In any case, I think if you look back at the 2000 election, you’ll see a lot of the same type of thing going on surrounding George W. Bush. The GOP had been out of power for eight years, and expectations for W were very high. And much like with Obama, a personality cult started to emerge around W.

Accept the fact that he got a lot of votes based on his color and he will be facing unfair criticism from people who expect his color to affect his decision making from all groups. This will automatically cloud the clarity of what he accomplishes.

Okay, but only if, by the same reasoning, we (you) accept the “fact” that 98% of all those before him were elected becase they were/are White Anglo-Saxon Protestants.

Also, you kinda imply that I voted for Obama, but who says I did?

TG,

I wouldn’t say they’re two totally different propositions. I’d consider the two propositions syllogistic.

His views are PROBABLY more like W’s than MINE. (However, the deliberate misappopriations of his views the right peddled in the attempt to slander and mischaracterize Obama are probably closer to mine than W’s.)

His views are QUITE POSSIBLY more like W’s than KTK’s.

His views MIGHT be more like W’s than YOUR’S

But, what drives your excitement about a candidate/politician if not optimism that he/she will (at least attempt to) affect change in the likeness of your ideals? In order to do so, it seems like a pretty important prerequisite that there is a high degree of homogeniety between your set of ideals and said politician’s.

So, your degree of optimism should be based on a combination of how similar you think the politicians views are to yours, and how far in those directions you think said politician can realistically push the current state of affairs. I think that in KTK’s post, he overestimated on both ends. (I wonder if Bill James has a formula for this, adjusted for home ballpark, of course)

You may be both closer in your views and more tempered in your optimism. Or, a smaller gluf between your and Kevin’s respective views as compared to Obama’s may justify a greater degree of optimism. I dunno.

Maybe I’m the one miscalibrating here. Because if I think Obama is more like Bush than he’s like me. And, you think Obama is kinda like you. Then that means, I’d also have to think you are more like Bush than you are like me. You know, since I brought up syllogism and all…

Perhaps the best way to characterize it is that I think the way Obama will behave in his role as President, and the way I would would seem closer than where we stand on actual fundamental issues (you know, socialism vs. capitalism, aetheism vs. organized religion, Jay-Z circa ‘96 vs. that dude with the Jewish mafioso glasses currently boinking Beyonce….)

Sorry digg. not trying to imply anything. And I will happily acknowledge that a chunk of people voted for White Anglo-Saxon Protestants because they were white.

Now I am NOT saying he got elected because of his color because that is simply not true and I’m not stupid enough to think it is. What I am saying is that there are enough people that have been saying his skin color influenced them that it will cloud how people view him. Just like I am sure many people refused to vote for him based on his skin color and their perspective on what he does will be clouded by skin color as well. I think skin color is an asinine reason to come to any conclusions but it does happen.

I will defer to tgirsch on the George W personality cult as I do not remember it as being as significant (perhaps because the media did not cover it as much here in Canada as they did Obama). So I will trust his comments.

tgirsch:
You’ve set some pretty narrow parameters here, particularly regarding Congressional and public approval, given that the public, and by extension, the Congress they elected, are politically moderate to conservative (the public did elect GWB twice, remember). Don’t forget digglahhh’s original observation was that Obama isn’t as much of a liberal as many on the left seem to suggest. If that were the case, I don’t think he would have stood a chance of being elected. But hell, I’ll bite anyway…

How about:
1. Investigating possibly abuses and illegalities that may have taken place, particularly with regards to the Iraq war, illegal wiretapping etc. Obama is taking a conciliatory approach by saying he will not pursue an investigation. Given that 4,000 American troops are dead, untold wounded, we invaded a country that posed no threat to us, caused incredible destruction and a still undetermined death toll and further destabilized a volatile region all by possible deliberate distortion of facts seems to me to be an incredible abuse of power and most likely illegal. That no one will have to answer for it seems immoral.
2. In addition to providing assistance to the business sector to help jump-start the economy, which, if it works, will benefit everybody in the long run, how about some kind of assistance to home-owners in danger of defaulting on their mortgages. I get the argument of personal responsibility, and agree with it (to an extent in this case). However the mortgage companies and banks baited alot of potential home-owners who are now paying mortgages far in excess of what their properties are worth. There are people who made a ton of money at the expense of the rest of us (Paul Krugman wrote that, yeah, Madoff should be behind bars, but what he did is only SLIGHTY more outrageous than what the rest of the financial sector was doing). If people continue to default on their payments, the economy will continue to collapse.
3. Obama is now stating he will not repeal the tax cuts from which the very wealthy benefit. Is that wise? Will keeping the tax breaks for the very wealthy really help keep money moving and help the economy? We still have an unnecessary Iraq war and a bailout to finance. The Far East is now getting squeamish about buying our debt. Are we risking default here?

I’m obviously not addressing other conservative stances of his, such as gun control, gay marriage, the death penalty, as they lie outside of Federal purview.

By the way, I am deeply honored by being included among the ranks of the Cynics. By Diogenes, I will wear that label proudly!

BU: request for clarification:

First you say (a) Obama “got a lot of votes based on his color“, and then you say (b) “that a chunk of people voted” previous based on color.

Do you agree that “a lot” sounds an awful lot like a bigger amount than “a chunk”, and doesn’t that rather belie Digg’s point? Do you really think that race-based voting has benefitting black presidends? (I’m hoping not.) Do you even think that race-based voting has benefitting this president?

Let me start by agreeing w/ Digg again, in this first comment, and also with Janusz (though I hadn’t heard about his #3).

But a few particulars:

(1) I expect Obama to get the chance to veto at least a few federally scoped attempts to ban “partial birth” abortion or to add separate penalties for causing miscarriage during the commission of another crime. I think Obama will cave on these fringe efforts to erode reproductive rights and personal autonomy, because he’s a compromiser, and he’s going to make the mistake of thinking that because moderate Americans don’t understand that those erosions are bad, he’s not going to be less moderate than them in order to effectively protect what moderate American’s really do value: bodily autonomy when it matters. Reproductive rights are like First Amendment rights; you don’t need laws protecting them when the thing protected is popular.

(2) I expect Obama to get the chance to replace John Paul Stevens. I expect Obama will choose a justice who’s in the mainstream of the judicial left. But the mainstream of the judicial left has been pushed to the right since Stevens was appointed 30-some years ago. The next justice appointed needs to be one of those “activist judges” who knows that human rights trump legislative powers and jurisdictional boundaries. Obama will not appoint such a justice, though I do think we’d at least get another Steven Breyer. (On a side note, what I would like to see, but know couldn’t happen, even if Obama chose to try, is appointing somebody who would fight for stripping legal personhood from corporations.)

(3) I would like to see us get out of Iraq, oh, say, tomorrow. I’m only sort of joking; need need to stop killing people and we need to stop getting our youth killed, and we need to stop literally blowing up millions of dollars worth of stuff, but most of all we need to stop paying young men and women to become killers who come home to America and beat and kill their wives and girlfriends and husbands and boyfriends. That is the cost of the war that we cannot bare to pay, and though every war costs something in the precious coin of the souls of our citizens, this war is usurous in that regard, because we have no moral authority this time, and our soldiers know it.

Oh, and it’s rather anti-climactic compared to (3), but

(4) Faith-based initiatives. Nuff said.

Janusz:

I’ll give you #1. On #2, he’s on record stating that assistance to such homeowners is a high priority for him, especially wrt the second half of the TARP. Will he do enough? That remains to be seen. But I do expect him to try to provide at least some assistance there. As to #3, if he has said repealing the top-bracket tax cuts is permanently off the table, I haven’t heard as much. I know he’s talking about delaying their repeal (or, basically, allowing those tax cuts to expire as scheduled rather than repealing them earlier), and I’m largely ambivalent about that. I think even Krugman has said that raising the top tax bracket right now would be counterproductive, though I could be wrong about this.

Dan M:

First and foremost, if I may put on my Dvorkin hat for a moment, if something “belies” digg’s point, that would demonstrate that the point is false. In other words, it would prove digg wrong, and I think you meant exactly the opposite. That term is often misused, so it’s a pet peeve of mine. Example of correct usage:

“Her trembling lip belied her smile.” — The trembling lip reveals that the smile is a false one; she’s upset, not happy, as she’s trying to pretend to be.

Anyway, moving on to substance:

On #1, I’d be surprised and disappointed, but I don’t think it will come to that. Unless the GOP re-takes control of both chambers, I don’t see a new “partial-birth” bill or other such restriction coming to the president for a signature. But his record on reproductive rights has been pretty solid to the best of my knowledge, so I expect he’d veto it if one came to him.

On #2, I think another Stephen Breyer would be a big win. Unfortunately, I don’t expect the makeup of the court to change substantially unless something unexpected happens. Thomas is still pretty young, as are Alito and Roberts, and Scalia isn’t going anywhere — he’ll tell the conservative wing to prop him up and keep on voting, Marshall style!

As for #3, I think a phased withdrawal is the correct approach, although I would like to see some immediate redeployment out, even if just one combat brigade, as a good faith measure.

On your #4, I hope you’re wrong, but on that one, I’m afraid you may be right.

digg:

For whatever little it’s worth, Barack Obama was an 88% match with me on this quiz. John McCain: 26%. So, from that perspective, the distance between me and Obama (12%) is dwarfed by the difference between Obama and McCain (62%). Note that McCain is arguably closer to me than W was, so take that for what it’s worth.

Now I understand that those quizzes are far from comprehensive, but they can be a useful shorthand…

Dan M > In this instance I will say that Obama got lots of votes bases on his color. I will also say McCain got a lot of votes based on his color. However in past elections since it was white against white, the concept of voting based on color was not really an issue.

Now before I get labeled racist, etc., let me explain. Since the election, I have heard an incredibly large number of non-white voters, commentators, etc. talk about how the fact that he is a person of color will be so significant to the non-white community and how they were hoping he would win because of the impact he would have. Now, maybe it is the media skew. Maybe they are hunting out people who seem to put color at or near the top but that is what I have seen a lot of which leads me to my conclusions. Experience has taught me that people who feel the color of someone will have such a huge impact on things will make choices related to that color. In this case that would mean a lot of votes swinging his way. Do I think that is why he won? No. Now it is clear that I do not live in the states and have not experienced the race issues that Americans have. Personally I like Obama and hope he does well. He is, in all honesty, the first US president I actually have respect for since Reagan. I couldn’t care less about his color but from comments I have heard and interviews I have seen, there are many people who are expecting certain things from him because of his skin color. And I truly feel that is unfortunate.

TG,

You need a better Dvorkin hat. If BU was right in claiming (as he had seemed to be) that there was more race-based voting for Obama than there had been race-based voting for white presidents, it would have meant Digg was wrong in his claim that race-based voting benefits whites, not blacks.

BU has contested my reading of his claim, but my use of ‘belie’ was correct.

By the way, BU, the fact that the final two-party race for president has never before included a black man means that race-based voting has always been more harmful to blacks than whites. Cart before the horse.

TG, for reference, given my answers to that quiz, Obama and McCain only differ by 46% and I differ from Obama by 22%, so even a crappy internet quiz like that can figure out that we care about different things. *grin*

And I agree that a phased withdrawl is the correct approach to Iraq, but those phases should be completed in the next few months, not the next few years.

T -

I have to say that the structure of the question is, hopefully unintentionally, extremely restrictive. Put a different way, I’m being asked to name something that I want Obama to do, which already has widespread, even majority, public support, and which already has at minimum sufficient support in Congress to build on – but which he would refuse to do anyway.

Something about camels and the eye of a needle comes up here. Did we elect Obama to make changes or merely to endorse what is already popular?

However, I will suggest a few that meet criteria #1 and at least one of the two others:

1. He will not withdraw all troops from Iraq.
2. He (watch the construction here) will not not escalate in Afghanistan.
3. He will not investigate Bush administration crimes relating to national security and Constitutional rights.
4. He will not undo the “Protect America Act” (the changes to FISA) – and, since doing so would require Congressional action, I’ll add that neither will he foreswear the use of the expanded powers it provided.
5. He will not seek to reverse the hideous 2005 bankruptcy law.
6. He will not require of corporations that they provide detailed account of how they spent their TARP money before they can get any more and he will not require such detailed accounts from new applicants.
7, He will not, in the pursuit of a few more GOPper votes, refuse to capitulate to demands that the proposed stimulus package focus more than it has on tax cuts and less than it has on spending to create jobs.

That’s enough for now; I’m sure I’ll think of more. Why not keep a record of this to throw in my face whenever it turns out I was wrong? I expect you’ll find it a rare occasion when I would be happier to be proven wrong.

BTW, I took that quiz and of course it says I’m closer to Obama than to McCain wow what a surprise. Then again, since based on their distance from me, the quiz indicated Obama was almost the same as Dennis Kucinich and Cynthia McKinney, I don’t think I can put a lot of faith in it.

I think those best served by that kind of quiz are those who accept the conventional wisdom as to the range of policy options available.

I completed the quiz, but then it keep asking me to sign up for coupons and shit, so I just said fuck it.

But, Larry’s point is important here. My “true” answer would often be “neither.” And, the questions themselves focus on a pretty narrow spectrum of mainstream issues. For examle:

Do I support decriminalization of marijuana? Sure.

What about the follow up questions of decriminalization of almost all drugs, though?

What about the questions that ask whether the criminalization was, in the first place, an attempt to systematically disenfranchise undesirable sets of the population and the escalating legal penalties a coup that redistributes political power by articifilcially fudging population numbers in conservative/democratic voting districts because the inmates are disproportionately from democratic districts and the prisons are constructed disproportionately in conservative voting districts, where the prisoner pop gets reflected in political clout, but aren’t actually able to vote? I don’t think that was one of the choices…

The questionaire splices out the spectrum of views supported by a meaningful contingent of mainstream America and sets those as the outer limits. It would be much more instructive if we (the LL crew and Obama) took one of those quadrant-based surveys that plotted our political/philosophical views in comparison to a much more diverse set of thinkers and see where we all meter out.

And, by the way, thanks to those who offered some more concrete examples of possible actions and predicted responses that reinforced by perspective here.

Wrt SCotUS, I agree that another Breyer would be very nice, unless he’s replacing Stevens, who’s both more humanitarian and a better coalition-builder on the court.

What we need is for some conservative “think tank” to convince Scalia that he can be filthy rich by quitting the court, going on the lecture circuit, and getting a fancy title from some political blowhards. The problem of course is that he’s already not poor and gets to be plenty filthy where he is.

But if it was Scalia or Alito who was being replaced, another Anthony Kennedy would be a big win for humanitarianism. The problem is losing Stevens.

P.S. actually, replacing Scalia w/ a Kennedy might not be that great, since everyone else on the court already hate’s Nino’s guts, so he’s actually a coalition-breaker for the right wing. Not sure how that balances out.

LarryE:

I think your response has been the best so far, and I’ll address it when I have a few moments. But I will say that you’ve hit at the root of the problem, I think: yes, the conditions were fairly restrictive, and yes, that was intentional. It comes down to a fundamental difference in philosophy, and it has nothing to do with liberal/conservative. It has to do with pragmatism/idealism. There’s room for both, of course, but I slide a lot more toward the pragmatism end of the scale than most of the others in this comment thread. We just have different ideas about how to bridge the gap between what we’d like to get done and what we can get done, a difference that has caused some, err, “passionate” discussions between you and me in the past.

I, too, hope you’re wrong, early and often (it would be a shame to have to change Obama’s slogan to “In some cases, no, we really can’t.”)

Dan M:

I like the craft project from the Supreme Court section of America: The Book: Make yourself a Clarence Thomas hand puppet. Congratulations! You’re Antonin Scalia!

T -

I think it likely that we would not be far apart on what we think is achievable at the present moment. It’s just that in any political fight, not just elections but any political fight, there is what you want and what you will settle for.

I maintain that if you start out shooting for what you’ll settle for, at the end of the day you’ll always wind up with less and too often get into “get worse more slowly” territory.

So with Obama now, I don’t think we should concern ourselves with what will pass Congress or is already popular but with what we want done. Then we can, if necessary, negotiate back to what we’ll settle for – and maybe a good deal more.

Think of it like the limitations on that quiz which Digg and I noted (and Dan M. hinted at): the narrowness of the alternatives. We should focus on widening the debate, getting more options on the board, before we start saying “X is the best we can get.”

LarryE:

I really don’t think we’re all that far apart. About the only modification I’d make is that because there’s so much damage to be undone, a two-tiered approach is needed: get what we can done now, but not settle for that. Call it a good start, rather than mission accomplished. My concern is always that if you hold out for too much, you wind up with nothing.

1. Investigating possibly abuses and illegalities that may have taken place, particularly with regards to the Iraq war, illegal wiretapping etc. Obama is taking a conciliatory approach by saying he will not pursue an investigation. Given that 4,000 American troops are dead, untold wounded, we invaded a country that posed no threat to us, caused incredible destruction and a still undetermined death toll and further destabilized a volatile region all by possible deliberate distortion of facts seems to me to be an incredible abuse of power and most likely illegal. That no one will have to answer for it seems immoral.

Will this include prosecuting then Sens. Hillary Clinton (NY), Joe Biden (DE), Chris Dodd (CT) and John Edwards (NC) who all voted for the war?

(3) I would like to see us get out of Iraq, oh, say, tomorrow. I’m only sort of joking; need need to stop killing people and we need to stop getting our youth killed, and we need to stop literally blowing up millions of dollars worth of stuff, but most of all we need to stop paying young men and women to become killers who come home to America and beat and kill their wives and girlfriends and husbands and boyfriends. That is the cost of the war that we cannot bare to pay, and though every war costs something in the precious coin of the souls of our citizens, this war is usurous in that regard, because we have no moral authority this time, and our soldiers know it.

Over one million unborn children are murdered every year (50 million since 1973) in the U.S. alone. Until this horrific holocaust is ended, liberals have absolutely zero moral high ground to stand on when it comes to protecting life. Even an atheistic understands the natural law of the right to life, most importantly of the innocent.

bob,

Even an atheist[] understands the natural law of the right to life, most importantly of the innocent.

Right to life by whom. Just because you belief in god squirting magic fairies into newly fused zygotes doesn’t mean the rest of us are that stupid. People have a right to life, and until authoritarians like you can tell the difference between an entity with hopes, dreams, and feelings, and little clumps of cells that your sky daddy destroys half of anyway, you can go shove your mewling for the innocent where the sun don’t shine.

See, now, once you’ve calmed down enough from that, reread your post and tell me how your comment is different in tone from mine. Here’s a hint: “Even an [insert group who disagrees about your theology] has a few morals.” is a pretty fucking bad way to show that you’re participating in politics in good faith.

bob:

Voting for the war is no doubt poor judgment, but I fail to see how it’s on anything like the same level as committing war crimes, or lying to the public and the congress to justify the war. But a valiant effort at moving the goal posts anyway.

And if you’re so bent about abortion, you’ll no doubt be willing to do everything in your power to prevent unintended pregnancies, up to and including comprehensive sex education, publicly-funded contraception, etc.

Dan, I challenge you to watch this video and still argue that aborted fetuses are nothing more than little clumps of cells.

http://obamamustsee.com/

Even the ancient Hippocratic Oath (4th century BC) spoke out against abortion:
…I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion…

SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT THE DAMN ABORTION SHIT ALREADY, BOB!!

Not only is it fucking moronic, but it is a total non-sequitur. The Inquisition, ’nuff said – you can’t talk about the sanctity of life either. Isn’t this game just tons of fun.

By your definition of life and murder, a woman who has a miscarriage is also a murder, or I guess it’s just manslaughter she should be prosecuted for.

Oh, and voting for the war is not a war crime – especially if those above you have deliberately misled you as to the premises on which you are voting for military intervention.

Really, you need to post-birth abort yourself, or at least your account here! You make Fred seem rational by comparison.

Hey, Bob, stop whining about the unborn. “Dead babies don’t steal food off the shelf”, as Alice Cooper once sang.
However, I think condoms are plenty safer. Furthermore,
an embryo doesn’t have human characteristics until it is a fetus. Your “death” quote is worldwide, not just the USA. Abortion is simply not that common here.

Bob -

1. I watched the video. (Okay, I skipped the talk at the end but I watched the whole intended-to-tug-at-heartstrings part.) And what do I say now?

Aborted fetuses are clumps of cells that have no existence, no life, independent of the mother. They are no more independent lives than her fingers are, no more “babies” than a caterpillar is a butterfly.

2. Quoting the Hippocratic Oath doesn’t help your case because for millennia there have been disputes over what constitutes an abortion, that is, when a fetus becomes “human.” The Catholic Church established its doctrine that “human life begins at conception” (i.e., the soul enters the fetus at that time) only in 1869. For over 600 years before that, the teaching had been that the soul entered at the time of quickening, so abortion before the quickening was not murder because the fetus was not a human life. The absolute ban on abortion dates only to 1886.

3. You did not answer Dan’s challenge to explain “how your comment is different in tone from mine.”

4. You did not answer T.’s challenge to declare your support for programs “up to and including comprehensive sex education, publicly-funded contraception, etc.” to minimize the demand for abortion.

Actually Steve, the abortion number is for the US since 1973. So seemingly it is “that popular”. Agreeing with or disagreeing with abortion doesn’t change the numbers.

Where did you get your “dead count” from? Phyliss Schafly.com?

Larry,

1. So you are defining a life based on its independence of the mother? A baby is still dependent on its mother (or caretaker) after they’re born and for quite some time.

2. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
#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. 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.”
Its true that the Church has not always definitively stated that life begins from the moment of conception, because we didn’t know the exact science behind fertilization going back 2,000 years. But it has always taught that any abortion is an intrinsic evil no matter when performed.

3. I’m not sure what he was getting at, other than he didn’t like my atheist comment?

4. I’m sure that you will howl in protest, but contraception is not the answer either. Its interesting that pro-choice men are so quick to defend women and their so-called right to abort their own babies, yet have no problem at all of what the contraceptive mentality has done to them over the last 40 years. Statistics show that more contraception does not reduce the incidence of abortion. In fact, historical figures suggest that more contraception tends to establish a “contraceptive state of mind” which leads to absolving responsibility for children conceived, which, in turn, leads to more abortion. As Malcolm Potts, the former medical director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, accurately predicted in 1973: “As people turn to contraception, there will be a rise, not a fall, in the abortion rate.”

Big U:

You haven’t a whole lot of room to talk; the abortion rate in Canada is almost as high as that in the US. Then again, Canada is a great example of why the pro-life movement in the United States is misguided. Canada’s abortion rate remains lower than ours, despite the fact that abortion is virtually unrestricted in Canada, and fully funded by the provincial government of all but three provinces (and two of the remaining three partially fund). Restricting access and making it more difficult and expensive to get one hasn’t exactly helped in the US.

TG, or somebody, could you link to this in a new post?

http://community.feministing.com/2009/01/the-times-they-are-a-changin.html

And, yeah, it’s sort of the opposite of the point of this thread.

tgirsch > wasn’t trying to make any comments other than correct Steve. I believe, if I am correct, that per capita Canada’s rate is pretty close to that of the US. Making it easy to obtain one doesn’t exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy all over. It is actually legal in Canada for a child to be birthing and to be terminated which I feel is incredibly disgusting for a supposedly advanced society.

Steve> not sure what you are talking about with the phrase “dead count”.

Big U:

About the only problem I would have with a properly-crafted late-term abortion ban is that it “solves” a problem that for all intents and purposes doesn’t exist. About 99% of abortion in the US are performed within the first 21 weeks gestational age. The few that are performed after that are done almost exclusively for medically legitimate reasons which have nothing to do with “choice” any more.

My point was more that the approach of the anti-abortion crowd is all wrong. They’re attacking the supply side of the equation, rather than trying to reduce demand, and even the most adamant pro-choice people I know don’t have much of a problem with trying to prevent people from wanting or needing abortions. They only object to preventing them from getting them when they do want or need them, which has been the sole approach of the US anti-abortion movement.

tgirsch> as odd as this may sound, I actually agree with you. People will make their choices and should be given latitude to do so. While I disagree with a person having an abortion just because they want to, it is their right to choose to do so. Unfortunately, in a debate about things such as abortion, calm, legitimate, intelligent discussion is often thrown aside by BOTH sides in favor of outlandish over-the-tip rhetoric and lies just to get the most media support for their causes.
Now it seems I have hijacked the thread so sorry about that. Back to regularly scheduled discussions.

So you guys actually believe Shafly and Company’s figures on Abortion frequency and think discussion is over on that?
Hey, I guess you heard that Obama lifted restrictions on funding for international money for abortion. I think that is great. It is about time that “right to choose” is not funding restricted.

Another thing, since you like pat answers, how about having the government fund pre-natal care for pregnant mothers so babies will not be stillborn or be born with defects?
I’m sure Obama would support that. It seems to me that pro-lfe people, as a whole, are all for not funding abortions, but they do squat to fund pre-natal care for all women. This, too, is a life and death matter. Once again. embryos do not have physical characteristics of humans until they become fetuses in about 12 weeks. So, if the “dead count” from abortions is either 50,000,000 or 5,000,000 it makes no difference. These are not deaths like the death of a fetus or of a baby. Come let us reason together. Obama is on the side of the right to choose. Let’s get real here. If you are going to have a discussion, let’s have one. No, in my view, you’ve not highjacked anyt discussion on this thread . You’ve cleared the air for erudite philosophy on ethics.
Just what is your problem with abortion? Are you a papist or a baptist ? A muslim or a jain? As for me, I’m an unorthodox methodist. I want the government to stay out of the bedroom.

In the final analysis, a woman’s right to abortion is between herself, her partner, her doctor and God.

bob:
A baby is still dependent on its mother (or caretaker) after they’re born and for quite some time.

See, you put that parenthetical “or caretaker” in there as if it’s a trivial point, when in fact it’s a critical one. An embryo/fetus is physically dependent upon the woman who carries it. That responsibility simply cannot be transferred, even if you had a willing recipient. With a baby, it’s completely different. Absolutely any competent adult who is willing and so inclined can take care of a baby. That’s a night-and-day difference.

Statistics show that more contraception does not reduce the incidence of abortion.

Baloney. In 1980, the abortion rate in the United States was 26.3 abortions per 1,000 women of child-bearing age. By 2005, that was down to 19.4, a 26% reduction. Most of this decline occurred during the “liberal” policies of the Clinton Administration. Contraception absolutely leads to fewer unintended pregnancies, and by extension, fewer abortions.

Steve> Here in Canada, all of that prenatal care, etc. is paid for by the government.

Now, you ask me what is my problem with abortion? I disagree with it as a method of birth control. I fully believe a full and complete sex education with a clear presentation that the only 100% safe alternative to avoid pregnancy is what should be done. This includes proper use of condoms, full details on STI’s etc.

However, what a woman does with her own body is her own choice. If she chooses to have an abortion that is her choice and that is her right. From a political perspective it is my right to disagree with government funding of abortion when it is being used as a method of birth control when for the MOST part pregnancy is a result of previous intentional choices.

Now in Canada abortion is fully funded in most provinces. However, several eye procedures and glasses are not. Chiropractor and physiotherapy costs are not. Several other procedures are not. So, political decisions have been made to decide what will and will not be covered. My perspective is that if one goes with the perspective that abortion is a choice, it should not receive priority funding when things such as being able to see properly are not funded. The ability to see, which affects all people of all ages should take the priority in funding.

Big U: “I honor the Spirit in you which is also in me.” — attributed to author Deepak Chopra. Hey, down here in the USA we don’t yet have universal health insurance. However, chiropractic treatment and eye treatment are covered by insurance. I don’t know about whether abortions are covered or not. Perhaps if the mother’s life is threatened. Maybe things will improve here under the Obama administration.

Bob -

Previous experience has shown you to be impervious to logic, so this will be my last on this and is more for the consideration of others in this conversation.

1. Tgirsch has already answered your #1 but I will add that your answer is a gross distortion of my words, which seems to be your stock in trade: re-defining what someone has said in a way you find advantageous. I said a fetus has “no existence, no life, independent of the mother.” And it does not. Remove it from the mother short of viability and the biological processes stop. No escape, no avoiding it. It is only with our most advanced medical technologies that we have been able to push back that point of viability by a just few weeks. A fetus is not a baby. Period.

(No, I have no intention of getting into an argument about “what about after viability” beyond saying that -

- while you can at that point argue a fetus could have an independent existence, it still is not a baby any more than, again, a caterpillar is a butterfly. What it would be in the future is not the same as what it is. And -

- even arguing about viability would be an acknowledgment on your part that there is a difference, so I expect you won’t do it.)

2. Your Catechism is lawyer-talk that claims consistency by eliding historical variations over what constituted abortion and when a fetus could be said to be “human.” It’s as if some state changed the legal definition of what constituted “possession” of marijuana from “any detectable amount” to “a minimum of one ounce” and later someone insisted “possession of marijuana has always been illegal in this state.” For over 600 years prior to 1869, ending a pregnancy before the quickening was not murder in Catholic doctrine. That is simply an historical fact.

3. What Dan was “getting at,” quite clearly, was that your remark implied that atheists have no morals. If in spite of that clarity you didn’t know what he meant, why didn’t you ask him?

4. Again, T. has already answered you but I’ll add that a 2007 study by the Guttmacher Institute showed an inverse relationship between abortion rates and availability of contraception: The former are high in countries where contraceptives are not readily available their use is not encouraged – even though abortion is very restricted in those same places. Meanwhile, the world’s lowest rates of abortion by far are in Western Europe, where there are very few legal restrictions on abortion but contraceptive use and comprehensive sex education are widespread.

Your opposition to abortion, which now, it appears, extends to contraception, displays a preference for the days of hidden shames, back alleys, and wire coat hangers. You may prefer those days. I do not.

So far, the stuff he’s lied about is the least of my personal concerns. I’ll go from a strawman political left-wing individual’s perspective, if you don’t mind, and things that Mr. Obama promised earlier.

The broadband for all promise, currently still up on whitehouse.gov, is another one. Broadband (and faster-than-200k broadband) regardless of economics or position is something a vast majority of the voting public would get behind, and even Rethuglicans wouldn’t try to filibuster. It’s also something that’s damned near impossible, as anyone with an MSCE or CCNA and a brain could tell you, and sadly Mrs. Palin knows more about that than Obama or Biden despite lacking all of the above. There are places without major population centers within a hundred miles throughout the mid-West, nevermind Alaska (where you start to reach >300 mile ranges before people even think it’s weird). Whitehouse.gov still starts the promise off with “we have ensured that every American has access to telephone service and electricity, regardless of economic status,” and that reality-be-damned stance tells you the odds of the thing actually entering reality no matter how easy it would be to call on politically.

There are a good number of others that are practically impossible (ie, most of the whitehouse.gov tech page, most of the Energy and Environment page, some of the Urban Policy page), but I doubt that’s what you were interested in, regardless of the actual criteria. Leaving the stuff that might as well be physically impossible and going over to political differences…

Ending torture, as in really doing so rather than except on Thursdays or except when the CIA doesn’t bother to ask about it. I’m not complaining about this — I think it’s a good, practical policy, just like it was under Bush — but it’s the sort of thing nearly everyone that voted for him would want, doesn’t require Congress (nor would Congress likely stop him). The reality is that when people have defined torture to include solitary confinement in a room with the AC on too high, a blanket statement just isn’t going to cover it.

Lobbyists out of political power is big one. It’s the sort of thing he can and did try to do by executive order, but as a definition, lobbyists tend to be the sort of people who care about a subject and deal with the government enough to actually be useful. I won’t be shedding many tears that a Raytheon lobbyist is going to be somewhere near the military, given that the alternative would almost certainly end up being a rabid idiot, but that’s the sort of thing that the left and much of the middle loathe.

If any of you like the Second Amendment, or even the Fourth Amendment as applied to such… well, say farewell to Tiahrt and hello to more government groups providing the names of the politically unpopular to publishing companies. That, by the way, is a promise. I doubt he’ll go so far as to take away Mr. Tgirsch’s “I’m pro-gun, really” card during the first term — thus fulfilling the criteria for the other side of the gun debate.

As he’s already demonstrated by lobbing a few missiles at people who really, really deserved it, he’s not going to pull up every single American military presence and bring them home. This won’t surprise much of the hard left, but quite a [i]large[/i] number of DUmmies will be ever-so-disappointed.

I think that’s a decent start.

He’s [i]sane[/i], for a politician, and not stupid. There’s no way he can fulfill the fever dreams people projected onto him and his scriptwriters had him tag onto.

Oh, and I doubt there will be any major trials for the Bush administration officials, despite people slobbering for them. I think Obama (and even the much less sane and intelligent Pelosi and Reid) know better than to start down that particular road, especially with some of the laws on the books as they are. There’s some extremely bad mojo down that particular path, in particular when your political side doesn’t like legal punishment to focus on revenge.

1. So when do you define a fetus as a baby then? This needs to be exact, within seconds, since you are differentiating between a “nonhuman” fetus and a “human” baby and any mistake would mean a homicide has potentially taken place during an abortion.

2. Again, since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. There was historical debate over when exactly a fetus is “ensouled” from the likes of great theologians like St. Augustine, but as I said this was before the exact science of the fertilization process was known and the Church never adopted their theories. If you want to argue that some early Catholic theologian believed abortion performed early in the pregnancy, before a “quickening” or “ensoulment” occurred, was not necessarily murder then fine, but the Church still believed and has always taught that any abortion is still an intrisic evil because it denies the fundamental right to life. In other words, whether its considered murder or not, its still a moral evil. Anyway, the first recorded explicit “Catholic” opposition to abortion can be found in the Didache (written circa 80 AD). Though it was not included in the Canon of the Bible, the Didache condemned abortion as “the way of death” by men who are “killers of children.” The letter of Barnabas written around 140 AD also condemned abortion: “Thou shalt not kill the fetus by an abortion or commit infanticide.”

3. His comments weren’t very nice and didn’t deserve a response.

4. I’ll comment on later.

Bob, usually more moderate positions operate by defining the differentiation as point of birth, and banning things while erring on the safe side for the last trimester (excluding ‘health’ of the mother, vague as that can be).

I don’t particularly like it, but it’s not hard to find a position that’s relatively intellectually coherent.

I find a far more effective criticism is the question of whether a right can disappear the day that a Brave New World-style decanting tube becomes viable. Of course, on the other side of things, I have to ask why you brought down this entire tangent on the belief that an entire political spectrum needs to have any degree of intellectual consistency when it represents everyone ranging from the very sane ProGunProgressive to KTK to DU-forumites.

Hypocrisy is not a deadly sin, from my understanding of Christian religious dogma, and I expect even an internally self-consistent viewpoint that holds just one similar value to the viewpoints held by the left here would be acceptable to you.

bob,

“His comments weren’t very nice and didn’t deserve a response.”

“Even an atheistic understands [...] the right to life[.]”

If your criterion for engaging in discussion is being “nice”, then you best be quiet until you grasp that it’s not “nice” to call somebody the nadir of morality just for not agreeing with you about the supernatural and the imperceptible.

Do you at least grasp that it’s impossible for a law to be based on a criterion of “ensoulment”?

Are you an atheist Dan? I don’t see how my remark (which was actually meant to be complementary towards atheists) would be considered the “nadir of morality”, but go figure.

As much as liberals like to deny it, the very foundational laws of our country are based on Judeo-Christian principals such as the right to LIFE, liberty and happiness. This involves the belief that each human being has a spiritual soul
created by God. Its not “ensoulment”, which occurs at the exact moment of conception, but the idea of when a fetus is “viable” outside the womb (which nobody can determine exactly) that is an arbitrary criteria on which to base a law. Liberals always complain that the Church doesn’t pay enough attention to science, but when she does, they ignore her teaching.

bob:

Err, where does the Bible tout the pursuit of happiness as a core value? For that matter, where does it tout liberty as such? The Bible never even condemns slavery, which is saying something for a book that even had the time to condemn the consumption of shellfish, and dictate the exact procedures by which menstruating women should be banished from the village…

TG,
Don’t forget the exact procedures for the local politicians washing in cow’s blood instead of solving murders.

bob,
I know that ensoulment is the moment of getting a soul, not the feature of having one. The point was that deciding the rightness of an abortion on the basis of the supernatural cannot possibly make good law. It’s fine that you believe in spirts, but it’s not fine to predicate rules for the rest of us on your perticular system of magic.

And, no, a right to life does not require the supernatural, and I’m sorry that you’re so miseducated as to not know that.

God never intended the bible to be the be-all, end all sourcebook of morality and truth (that’s a protestant notion – sola scriptura), we must also rely on Tradition and the teachings of the Church. The catechetical tradition recalls that there are “sins that cry to heaven”: the blood of Abel, the sin of the Sodomites, the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt (slavery), the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan, injustice to the wage earner (another form of slavery). Not everything is specifically spelled out in the Bible, for instance you won’t find the words “Holy Trinity” either.
As I’ve said in the past, the Old Testament laws such as those under the Deuteronomic Covenant, no longer apply with the coming of the living Covenant, Jesus Christ. God had specific reasons for OT laws such as requiring animal sacrifices. These were to teach Israel to stop worshiping idols (which were usually animals). Christ is now the only sacrifice necessary. Jesus even sets the Mosaic food laws in the context of the kingdom of God where they are abrogated, and he declares moral defilement the only cause of uncleanness.
(see Mark 7:15-16).

bob:

You realize that there’s absolutely nothing that you cannot defend with that argument, right?

And as I’ve pointed out before, you apparently think Jesus was lying.

Again tgirsch, this comes down as to whether you believe its the Catholic Church that Jesus founded upon Peter (its first Pope), what is loosed on earth will be loosed in heaven, what is bound on earth will be bound in heaven (the teachings of the Church which includes Tradition), and upon which the gates of hell will not prevail (it hasn’t after 2,000 years). Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it cannot teach error, or as you say be used to defend anything.

Jesus was not lying, He is talking about the Ten Commandments. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
#577
At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus issued a solemn warning in which he presented God’s law, given on Sinai during the first covenant, in light of the grace of the New Covenant:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets: I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law, until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

#1967
The Law of the Gospel “fulfills,” refines, surpasses, and leads the Old Law to its perfection. In the Beatitudes, the New Law fulfills the divine promises by elevating and orienting them toward the “kingdom of heaven.” It is addressed to those open to accepting this new hope with faith—the poor, the humble, the afflicted, the pure of heart, those persecuted on account of Christ—and so marks out the surprising ways of the Kingdom.

I simply don’t recognize the authority of the Catholic Church on this matter (and I say that having been raised and educated as a Catholic, though I haven’t practiced in nearly two decades). When the Church issues an edict/catechism/whatever that contradicts the plain text of the Bible — and, more importantly, the very words of Jesus himself — that smells bad to me.

There’s no contradiction here, you’re confusing God’s Commandments with Pharisaic Law. Recall in Mk 7:1-23 how Jesus castigates the Pharisees for holding strict to their laws (advanced from the Deuteronomic Covenant) but disregarding God’s Commandments:
1 Now when the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him,
2
they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands.
3
(For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands, 2 keeping the tradition of the elders.
4
And on coming from the marketplace they do not eat without purifying themselves. And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles (and beds).)
5
So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?”
6
He responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;
7
In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts.’
8
You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.”
9
He went on to say, “How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition!
10
For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and ‘Whoever curses father or mother shall die.’
11
Yet you say, ‘If a person says to father or mother, “Any support you might have had from me is qorban”‘ 4 (meaning, dedicated to God),
12
you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother.
13
You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many such things.”
14
He summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand.
15
Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”
16
) 5
17
6 When he got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable.
18
He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile,
19
7 since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?” (Thus he declared all foods clean)
20
“But what comes out of a person, that is what defiles.
21
From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder,
22
adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.
23
All these evils come from within and they defile.”

Bob:

It might help if you could point me to anyplace else where the term “law of the prophets” was ever used exclusively to describe the Ten Commandments and nothing else. Who are the prophets plural? The Ten Commandments were handed down to Moses, and to no other prophet.

bob, for fuck’s sake, learn to use the hyperlink.

TG, don’t forget that the gospels as recorded in the NT were written decades after Paul had been spreading his version of the story of Jesus, so its hardly likely that the gospels are any more faithful to the real words of Jesus than are Paul’s letters.

Dan M:

I know, but baby steps, man, baby steps! After all, we’re dealing with a guy who thinks that the Catholic Church can override what the Bible says, so there’s an awful lot of rehabilitation that needs to happen — it can’t all be done at once.

It might help if you could point me to anyplace else where the term “law of the prophets” was ever used exclusively to describe the Ten Commandments and nothing else.

Jesus said: “I have come not to abolish the law OR the prophets….” not the law OF the prophets.

After all, we’re dealing with a guy who thinks that the Catholic Church can override what the Bible says, so there’s an awful lot of rehabilitation that needs to happen — it can’t all be done at once.

The Church and the Faith existed before the Bible. The first of the NT books was not written until about 45ad. It was oral Tradition passed down from the first Pope and Bishops of the Church (Peter and the Apostles) that first converted thousands to Christianity. The committing of it to writing was a later and secondary development. In fact, the Bible itself didn’t even exist until the Council of Carthage held in 397ad, where the Catholic Church selected what books of the Old and New Testament would be in the Bible. Having said that, the teachings and Traditions of the Church never contradict or override what is in the Bible.

TG, don’t forget that the gospels as recorded in the NT were written decades after Paul had been spreading his version of the story of Jesus, so its hardly likely that the gospels are any more faithful to the real words of Jesus than are Paul’s letters.

The first of the NT writings was completed about 45ad, 12 years after the ascension of our Lord. St. Paul’s letters date from the year 52ad to 68ad. 40 years passed between the writing of the first and last of the books of the NT. The book of Revelation was mainly about the sacking of Jerusalem in 70ad.

bob:

Jesus said: “I have come not to abolish the law OR the prophets….” not the law OF the prophets.

Yep, you’re right on that. My bad. Still, it would help if you pointed out where else “the law” was used to refer to the Ten Commandments and only the Ten Commandments. And even there, as a Catholic, you’ve got issues, because you have to look the other way on the whole “no graven images” thing… Yeah, I know, the Church has some long-winded rationalization of why they get to do that, too; you can spare us.

Long-winded? Not really. People who oppose religious statuary forget about the many passages where the Lord commands the making of statues. For example: “And you shall make two cherubim of gold [i.e., two gold statues of angels]; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. “(Ex. 25:18–20). Similarly Ezekiel 41:17–18 describes graven (carved) images in the idealized temple he was shown in a vision, for he writes, “On the walls round about in the inner room and [on] the nave were carved likenesses of cherubim.”

The Church absolutely recognizes and condemns the sin of idolatry. What anti-Catholics fail to recognize is the distinction between thinking a piece of stone or plaster is a god and desiring to visually remember Christ and the saints in heaven by making statues in their honor. The making and use of religious statues is a thoroughly biblical practice. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know his Bible.

I’d recommend reading some books on salvation history by Catholic authors such as Scott Hahn. This will give you a better appreciation of what the Old Testaments Covenants were all about, and why the laws under the Deuteronomic Covenant was only meant to be transitory and ended with living Covenant of Christ. Since you are a fallen away Catholic, I’d recommend his excellent book “Rome, Sweet Home” as well. Best wishes.

[So, I had a comment explaining just how much influence Paul had after Jesus died, but I can't seem to make that point without openly mocking bob and his Christianity. Out of respect for Kevin, I've deleted it.]