ParanoiA

An unborn child is within the mother's body. You have to violate her personal rights to get to it in any way. Her compliance is required, in my view, and not enforceable. A born child becomes a responsibility; it has the "natural born rights" afforded to it by the state - us. Once it is protected by our constitution, naturally, the responsibility follows the parent. The resources being leeched by the unborn vs the born child are different as well. A born child does not need any specific food provider, or in any specific manner (ie..breast feeding by mom is not required etc). An unborn child takes specific resources by a specific provider in a specific way - most of which are uncontrollable, involuntary processes by the host. She will miss work; she will suffer biological consequences that could jeopardize any other aspects or responsibilities in her life - like providing food, shelter and clothing for 3 already born children, all on her own. Should be charged with two, in my opinion. The default assumption should be that the mother afforded rights to her unborn child. Now, if she was murdered on her way to the abortion clinic...ugh...maybe not.

What? We don't have any right's to public privacy. We have no rights to grieve and not be bothered by someone, like asking for a cigarette, if you need a handkerchief, or letting you know your loved one died because god hates what he created. There's no infringement of religious rights either. No one is stopping them from grieving (hell, they're certainly helping in that case). Harrassment, however. I think that's the key. You certainly don't have a right to harass someone, and I would accept an argument in that direction. That may have been the basis for this suit too.

Not after they're born and afforded rights by the people of the country. The gaurantee of life, liberty and all that jazz. I just don't believe we have the right to supercede an individual's personal rights - which is what you're doing when you try to afford rights to something inside of them, forcing its host to comply.

Screaming "fire" in a crowded theatre (provided there is no fire that is..) is prohibited since it endangers the lives of the folks in the theatre due to mass panic. This protest doesn't endanger anyone's life, much less out of mass panic.

I don't see the logical connection there. And this is the proper kind of response. I'm so proud of these guys to do this. I wish I could participate in one of these things locally. The next step would be to picket their church, or the church members' homes, their places of employment. Free speech and demonstration runs both ways. I like that title. That's what I'm going to start calling them, since that's what they are.

Yeah, it shouldn't be illegal. It's free speech. It's classless free speech, but nonetheless. I'm also curious about the "invasion of privacy" bit. The emotional distress is highly suspicious to me. Is this basically saying that I can't walk up to someone in the throes of grief and insult them? Certainly not a noble pursuit of liberty, but I don't like where this could go. Some could even fake grief just to keep anyone from being able to say anything challenging to them or - wham! - you caused emotional distress, pay up. Like the 9/11 widows. Could this kind of mentallity enable them to vocalize political opinions through the media, yet use their "grieving widow" status to scare anyone from opposing their points of view - "intent to inflict emotional distress". That said, I can't imagine such an obviously tasteless and downright cruel method as this would really motivate people to join them or listen to them. Everyone I talk about this with just seems disgusted and repulsed, including myself. This is definitely the sick side of religion. While I'm not happy they're mangling the constitution to stop something they don't like, yet again, at least someone is fighting back.

How did you get that? He's clearly advocating a purely objective assessment of history. Value judgments have no place in that class. You can make your own personal judgments and most of us will, but it has no relevance to the objective of the course. Science is supposed to be purely objective as well. Why don't we judge predators for being so darn mean when learning about natural selection? Do you all go off on conversations about what animal is right or wrong, justified or not when they slaughter and eat each other? It's not relevent to the course is it? However, their motivation for killing and eating prey is relevant isn't it? And sometimes that motivation is repulsive isn't it? And still any value judgment of said predator is completely meaningless. I believe that was John's point. Understanding that helps when practicing tolerance.

Law. No doubt about it.

My father has always made the case that people should be eating what they need rather than "eating what tastes good". He says we put too much focus on taste, when we should be focusing on what we know we need. And we will eventually enjoy the taste of those foods, like veggies, the same way we enjoy the fatty stuff. He does consider a banana a candy bar. And of course, grapenuts with yogurt has long been a desert favorite of his...yuck.

dude, I only got one more than you. It said I would have been better off guessing. I think I've been married too long...

So are you advocating incarceration "for their own protection" or what? If I'm reading this right, I would agree on both points. It's creepy to strip someone's rights based on such obvious subjectivity. Of course, "sound mind" creates a sticky subjective mess as well really. Yeah, in principle, I'm with you. Assisted suicide has the potential for creepiest of all here. Honestly, I trust doctor discretion, for the most part. Although I realize that's somewhat hypocritical on my part. Going to have to chew on this one awhile. Haven't thoroughly thought through the implications of assisted suicide enough.

No one has any moral authority over your life, in my opinion. It is an insult to presume otherwise. Suicide of any variety, for any reason should not be illegal.

36 m, Pro-choice. I don't believe it is any more righteous to force a woman to carry a child than to force a woman to carry a parasite. The lifeform is using her resources, disabling her efficacy in terms of survival, responsibilities to existing offspring and so forth. Not to mention the many health risks associated with pregnancy and delivery. To force someone else to risk their life or even quality of life for another life is unethical. The child she carries has no rights not afforded to it by her. As long as it's in her body, I don't see how anyone can claim the moral authority to force her to endure these things. Think of it this way...if some accident victim's life was only possible via an umbilical connection to another human, would we also force that other human to remain connected? Wouldn't we see that as a basic violation of their rights?

My favorite is the commercials they run for his "Endgame" documentary that supposedly exposes "the elites" and their plan. He purposely lowers his already gravely voice as he pretentiously narrates extremely charged dialogue of fear and "warning" - with some guy in the background yelling through a bullhorn, bombs and crap going off - it's hilarious. Sorry don't mean to derail the thread. Carlin is my favorite comedian - or has been my whole life. I've always enjoyed his political humor as well (the "civil" war bit still makes me smile...oh, and baseball with randomly placed landmines - definitely a keeper). I love his rant on capitalism - everywhere you turn somebody's trying to sell you something..etc. But I have to put this stuff in perspective. That's comedy, that's art and it can reflect how we feel, but it's not critical thought - well, honest critical thought - otherwise it wouldn't really be funny. Good humor has a dash of truth and heaping spoonfulls of exaggeration.

Do you have a graph to support that claim and is it as big as Klaynos' graph?

Because people listen to him and other artists as if they are a world leader, and in most cases they are heard OVER world leaders. That's how stupid our country really is, iNow. Get this...I was listening to Alex Jones, a 9/11 truther, conspiracy wacko dude, but endlessly entertaining - and he was actually serious, repeated himself several times - that "Top Celebrities are coming out and demanding answers". He went on about how Martin Sheen, following the footsteps of Charlie Sheen, was seriously concerned about the collapse of building 7. He actually got in the microphone and voiced this crap like a charge. "I'm telling you folks, the lid is about to blow off this thing. We got top celebs coming out. George Carlin questions the 9/11 report. Martin and Charlie Sheen, and we've got more coming." Haha! Top Celebs? Might as well brag about the janitors for Microsoft are about to go public about their doubts on the 9/11 report. Who gives a flying f#$k? Our countrymen do. That's who. Our countrymen care more about what their favorite actor, musician, comedian says, rather than what an actual expert in the field, nor an actual legislator has to say. It may be trendy, but not very thoughtful. So yeah, it matters.

And I believe the "rich Cali" folks who are enduring this catastrophe have not been on TV whining and moaning how unfair the government's response has been. From what I've read, although not too much because I tend to get bored with these stories, they've been helping each other out and didn't wait for uncle Sam to do a damn thing. On Rush's show, a few days ago anyway, there were several callers upset about the national media trying to make victims out of them (even though I'm thinking they really are, in this case) due to lack of government response, when they were actually proud of their own efforts and didn't appreciate being portrayed as helpless children hopelessly dependent on the government to bail them out. Weird too, because I'm thinking they had every right to expect help in this case. This is one of those times the government should get involved - well everyone really, not just the "assigned" work groups. Not that CNN and company couldn't find someone to complain about it, but I think it's noteworthy that these people apparently didn't ask to be portrayed as victims - they seem to be stepping up and accepting their plight, which makes Carlin's comments all the more ignorant. The poor have something to learn here. There's nothing noble about being helpless.

I appreciate your experience with him, but he hasn't done this yet. So, while you're probably right (my money's definitely on it), I think it would be more productive to lead by example and be consistent with your scientific, objective approach. After all, this is why science trumps ID.

How interesting. The locals beating up the new kid. Gee..that's new... I saw no references to "the bible" except by "the scientists" in this thread. Fripro never mentioned it. He also said "A" god...not "god". Seems like a mass hysterical strawman by all parties involved, thus far, in reference to the OP. If I didn't know any better I'd think you all had a chip on your shoulder... My hat's off to fripro for handling himself with class. There was no reason to answer his OP with animosty - none at all.

What an interesting post. I felt this exact same way in school. I learned more by reading than by lecture, but I did learn some from lectures. Typically, knowledgable teachers seemed to lecture better, but most of my learning came from reading and asking the specific questions I was hung-up about. And I can soooo relate with the "wasted time" frustration. Almost every single one of my instructors annoyed me to no end with this ridiculous "class participation" crap. I never learned a damn thing that way. All it did was heighten the anxiety of those of us scared to death of group attention and focus and steer us completely away from learning the subject material - which I then had to back and learn on my own in the book. And I paid for this? Some peope need group interaction to learn and really enjoy it. I don't. Many others very noticeably didn't either. It did us a diservice and wasted our time - precious time. After working a full-time job and driving straight to school covered in sawdust, I wanted to LEARN THE MATERIAL. I've got a family waiting for me at home that I don't get to see but an hour a night if I'm lucky and these ridiculous instructors want to play "group games", which turns out to be an incredibly inefficient method of covering material. Like the OP said, when I tuned out, I progressed. Otherwise, I suffered. I noticed one thing in particular that could at least be applied today, and I'm surprised, no amazed, that partitioning by learning style hasn't been implemented at some level. But I noticed some people learn more qualitatively, while others were more quantitative. So we would have a teacher that I was completely in tune with, yet half the class is frustrated with him. Next class, I'm struggling to understand something, while the book's "style" is more in line with me and I find it remarkably easy to follow. So, I've always been curious why we don't test for learning style, and at least design course structures that compliment these styles - which could also maximize the total amount of information learned as well.

Yes, it recognizes the UN, not the country that's actually doing the mission. It symbolizes the UN as a force of its own - a necessary first step towards centralization of global power. I don't agree with this. I don't have a problem with cooperating with other sovereign nations for a military end. However, it should only be in the case of real war, when our interests or lives are directly being threatened - not preventive police exercises that have nothing to do with our interests. Rationalizing "prevention" in the form of troops, weapons, tanks and so forth to play police force is a sticky mess that we should not be involved in. Alliances are not forgotten, and the future is not foreseeable. Therefore tangling alliances should be a rare - extremely rare - necessity. Remember, my moral obligation is to my countrymen, which will always be higher in priority than anything, or anyone else. And I believe in the principle of non-intervention, militarily. Similarly to the principle of free speech, there are negative consequences and dynamics related to such things, but to then cherry pick exceptions is to undermine the value and reliability of principle. In the case of intervention, it finds value in never choosing a side, never becoming imperialistic, never creating enemies regardless of "intent"...etc. These are big problems right now. America's image feeds the terror machine. And none of it would have been possible without interventionist policies. How is it not? Well sure, it was better than outright imperialism. But was it a good decision? We're coming at this from the black and white, non-controversial position of a naughty Germany. But what about terrorism? There are plenty of countries that call us the terrorists. There is no clear good and evil partition here - at least from the global perspective. So, any country choosing a side here is rolling the dice in terms of future consequence from such alliance. To me, a clear line of non-intervention prevents this, yet still allows alliance based on merit when we are directly threatened. Absolutely. Why did they need to be contained? That was a direct imperialist agenda - ever bit as much so as North Korean agenda. The only difference is which side you happen to be on - as both sides claim justification. War is rarely about right and wrong - it's about weak and strong. We fought in WWII out of self-preservation, vengence, status, posture...right or wrong is subjective. At the end of the day, the objective observation is fighting for what we claim - including land, life and resources.

Yeah this business about people living in areas prolific with natural disasters, or at least natural disasters to us, and then acting like they deserve it for living there seems more that ridiculously ignorant. Where can you live where there is NO occurence of natural events that can wreck our build-ups? And can EVERYONE live there? That's silly. Live on the coast or under sea level and you're an idiot because of hurricanes. Live in the midwest and you're an idiot because of tornadoes. Live near the forest and you're an idiot because of forest fires. Live around fault lines and you're an idiot because of earthquakes. Live in flood zones and you're an idiot come flood time. What exactly is the alternative? Where's everyone supposed to live? We're supposed to abandon thousands of acres of land, that remains free from destruction 99.9% of the time just because ever once in a while in isolated spots we have a natural disaster of some sort? What about the folks living around Yellowstone? Are they all stupid because they built cities over a super volcanoe? Should everyone in the US move because it's stupid to live here with a super volcanoe that will destroy all life in the country? Do we all then deserve it when it happens? I love George Carlin. But like all artists, he conveys emotions - not logic or critical thinking. I try not to pay attention to these idiots when they separate themselves from the artistic position and act like their "art opinion" is an actual worthy opinion. It's not. Art doesn't have to make sense, so I can overlook Carlin's stand-up routine and John Lennon's unrealistic ideas of the power of love to solve everything. These are emotional statements that I can agree with - artistic feeling and expression. NOT to be taken as logical, nor thoughtful conclusions to be applied to the real world. Just my two cents..

That's weird because I heard Alex Jones today say that global warming was part of the cover story by "the elites" to blame future disease and plagues and catastrophes on to fulfill their plan to rid 80% of the population of the earth. But then, when you consider the pirates and the fact that graph is so big...I don't know what to believe anymore...

That's what I'm asking you. My countrymen are made up of interventionists. Why must anything be done about Iran? I don't support this mentallity and I'm wondering why you do.