SuperThread

Ah, yes, of course. The US military aircraft will get to China in a couple of hours. Please. Are you really so self- and nation-centered that you'll destroy other countries simply because China's more powerful? As Aardvark has said a number of times, this is *civilization*, not free-for-all anarchy. No. But you do anyway, because it's the right thing to do, while suppressing those few people might be called the "cruel, imperialistic, overly nationalistic thing to do". How long has Nazi Germany been China's role model?

Okay, but ignoring the 'worst in history' quote, we're still left with one hell of a bad record. How do you defend that?

Every site linked to on the first page of Google results for 'Bush environmental record' condemns it. The League of Conservation Voters call him the "worst environmental president in modern history." The links on the front page of http://www.sierraclub.org/wwatch/ give a painfully revealing overview of some of the more recent travesties of George W. Bush supporters out there, tell me: How do you defend Bush's environmental record? Or is this some great conspiracy or misinformed liberalism (if so, sources would be appreciated)? Thanks to anyone who replies.

Please try to keep it on topic. So, any other arguments for/against abortion?

*shrug* It's technically a republic, but yeah, that quote was a bit over-the-top. Hey, the guy's a liberal . Yes, he failed to show both sides of the issue in that quote, but that doesn't invalidate his point. Indeed. Americans *are* uninformed with regards to politics, and simply repeating a point with sarcastic spin doesn't make it untrue. Come on. It was fairly obvious that that answer was an intentional (comic) exaggeration. And Bush isn't what you'd call the best at upholding the separation of church and state. Indeed. Again. The interviewer said that, not Maher. Point taken. ... I'm afraid that, at the moment, I'm too tired to translate the badly-punctuated quoted section, and as such I'm not going to address this point. Maybe tomorrow. That's neither a fact nor a factoid. It's an opinion. Anyway, I certainly see Maher's point- the amendment deprives us of our best governers for no apparent reason. If Clinton's the best, why stop him from spending another four years in office? What's the point of having Gore run instead if he's not as good? Source? And, in any event, that's not a gross exaggeration, but it is a good point. Good point. Again, Maher did not say this, though the interviewer implied it. Again, that was an exaggeration, though it was not as obvious. Certainly a point against Maher, but not a large one. He's not. He doesn't even mention pre-Bush relations except for those of, as you say, thirty-seven years ago. He *is* saying that our current situation is due in large part to Bush. Which is true. I don't know enough about this topic to make an educated response, so I'll leave it to some other poster. I agree with you on this issue, but again, it's Maher's (perfectly valid) opinion. Of course it's *worked*- anything that selects a single candidate to be President works. That doesn't mean that it works well. Likely something along the lines of: "Well, it's too bad that Kerry had to win this way, but any solution that gives us Kerry over Bush is a hell of a lot better than the alternative(s)."

Not necessarily. If one person kills one hundred pigs and the other kills one hundred humans, both people took one hundred lives. That doesn't mean that both commited equal crimes- indeed, one of them didn't commit a crime at all. A life is not a life is not a life.

So you'd like to minimize the number of abortions- I can certainly relate to that stance. Well, that's really in the eyes of the beholder. If responsibility translates to saving human life, it is most certainly *not* too much. Which brings us to the question: How valuable (in the sense that a human life is valuable) is a fertilized egg? It's arguable that there are few reasons to have sex in the first place, but that certainly doesn't stop it from happening, so we might as well assume that there *will be* at least some instances in which the mother will wait that long. And if she does, I fail to see how partial-birth is any more 'wrong' ethically- more gruesome, yes, but no more wrong. * * * Fair enough. Because it is necessary to set an arbitrary line somewhere, or we get into the whole "is it still legal to kill them?" question, and birth is the easiest place to set such a line. Also because upbringing (and, ostensibly, genetics) causes us (by which I mean people in general) to think of killing a baby as a horrible crime, though it's not, as you say, much worse than aborting a six-month-old fetus. Finally, it's because there's very little reason to kill a baby when you can simply put one up for adoption. * * * Because the mother should have choice at *some* point along in the process. A victim of a rapist did not assume responsibility for her actions, while a fifteen-year-old having casual sex with her boyfriend did.

In the interest of refuting as many arguments as possible, I'll be playing the Devil's Advocate. I was her right to choose when she had sex. In doing so, she accepted the consequences of her actions and lost any further choice.

I'd like to know the positions of forum-goers on the issue of abortion and their reasoning behind said positions. At the moment, I'm relatively neutral on the topic, and I'd like to hear some arguments for either side. Here's a preemptive 'thanks' to anyone that posts on this thread.