When Gonzalo Lira sent me his latest article this morning, I went to his site and saw this article he had posted over the weekend. I thought it captured the essence of the abortion debate in America. I have always believed life began at conception. Gonzalo takes a slightly different angle, but his heartfelt words speak volumes. I congratulate him on an honest, truthful, human article.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
He was telling us a new development in what had heretofore been a rather boring saga. Previously, he had told us—casually and not particularly interestedly—that he was going to have a baby brother or a baby sister: A perfectly common occurrence among our six-year-old set. In fact a few months before, I myself had told my clique of friends that my mom was going to have a baby, and had gotten an earful of varying opinions about having young siblings—usually negative if it was a girl, but slightly less negative if it was a boy.
But then my friend gathered us all around him with a new piece of startling news: He wasn’t going to get a baby brother or a baby sister after all—and the phrase he used to explain this new development is a phrase I have remembered quite clearly all these years later: He explained that they had “vacuumed up the baby from mommy’s tummy.”
VAlivin says:
My mother was in the processing of leaving an abusive marriage and had three kids when she discovered she was pregnant. She choose to have an abortion figuring it would be better to survive with three kids rather than four. To this day she doesn’t regret the decision she made. She says it was the hardest thing she ever had to do and though she thinks what could have been, she knows that doing so was the right thing. She never got child support and never became a life long member of the FSA, only getting food stamps for 6 months and worked her A$$ off to provide for her family and today is a huge success in her profession. Who knows how much harder it would have been for her had she had no choice and another mouth to feed.
I am glad I have never had to make choice or been down such a road, but it is me and my partner’s choice.
With that said……read Freakonomics……apparently abortion was directly related to a drop in crime during the 1980′s…why, because women who didn’t want their kids didn’t have them…..studies show that when you force someone to keep a child who is unwanted that child grows up in a less than hospitable environment. Let’s keep overpopulating the earth…..all the talk about resources being strained and then someone wants to increase the world’s population……if the ruling elite don’t like abortion than figure out a way to make people sterile when eating processed Hamburger Helper…..we would certainly have fewer FSA folks…..
Hot debate. What do you think?
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20th January 2011 at 12:18 pm
Administrator says:
Yes, let’s rationalize our guilt by siting Freakonomics.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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20th January 2011 at 12:21 pm
Thinker says:
Even though I could never be “for” abortion, I’m pro-choice for one reason only: No government has a right to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body. Just as I would not support a government telling men they had to give up kidneys, I would never presume to tell women across the board whether or not to have a child. Each situation is different.
This is one we need to deal with societally, not legislate.
That said, whoever thought it was a good idea to tell a 6-year old that an abortion was just “vacuuming up a baby” is a freaking idiot.
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20th January 2011 at 2:27 pm
cahuitabeachbound says:
Valivin: Let’s carry out your suggestion to the logical conclusion. If we aborted all children and hence future population we would really see a drop in crime rate. Nowhere in your argument do you mention the adoption alternative your mother could have availed herself to. Your mother very well could have bore the child and, knowing she couldn’t have kept it, put it up for adoption. That would have been nobility on biblical proportions.
Thinker: You exhibit no thinking in your argument either. Your premise is fundamentally flawed. It is not “her own body”. It is another body she is affecting. Crudely but accurately put, a woman is a “gestational host” for another human being whether a two celled embryo or a soon to pop child. It is entirely correct and just for a government to have interest in protecting a vulnerable child.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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20th January 2011 at 2:44 pm
Yabby Dabby says:
Life is precious from the moment of conception, but once the child is born, all bets are off and we do not want anything further to do with the little bugger
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20th January 2011 at 2:45 pm
Administrator says:
DA: Oversight failure enabled Philly abortion mill
PHILADELPHIA — A doctor whose abortion clinic was described as a filthy, foul-smelling “house of horrors” that was overlooked by regulators for years was charged Wednesday with murder, accused of delivering seven babies alive and then using scissors to kill them.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell was also charged with murder in the death of a woman who suffered an overdose of painkillers while awaiting an abortion.
In a nearly 300-page grand jury report filled with ghastly, stomach-turning detail, prosecutors said Pennsylvania regulators ignored complaints of barbaric conditions at Gosnell’s clinic, which catered to poor, immigrant and minority women in the city’s impoverished West Philadelphia section.
Prosecutors called the case a “complete regulatory collapse.”
“Pennsylvania is not a Third World country,” the district attorney’s office declared in the report. “There were several oversight agencies that stumbled upon and should have shut down Kermit Gosnell long ago.”
Gosnell, 69, was arrested and charged with eight counts of murder in all. Nine of Gosnell’s employees — including his wife, a cosmetologist who authorities say performed abortions — also were charged.
Prosecutors said Gosnell made millions of dollars over three decades performing thousands of dangerous abortions, many of them illegal late-term procedures. His clinic had no trained nurses or medical staff other than Gosnell, a family physician not certified in obstetrics or gynecology, prosecutors said.
At least two women died from the procedures, while scores more suffered perforated bowels, cervixes and uteruses, authorities said.
Under Pennsylvania law, abortions are illegal after 24 weeks of pregnancy, or just under six months, and most doctors won’t perform them after 20 weeks because of the risks, prosecutors said.
In a typical late-term abortion, the fetus is dismembered in the uterus and then removed in pieces. That is more common than the procedure opponents call “partial-birth abortion,” in which the fetus is partially extracted before being destroyed. Prosecutors said Gosnell instead delivered many of the babies alive.
He “induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord,” District Attorney Seth Williams said.
Gosnell referred to it as “snipping,” prosecutors said.
Prosecutors estimated Gosnell ended hundreds of pregnancies by cutting the spinal cords, but they said they couldn’t prosecute more cases because he destroyed files.
“These killings became so routine that no one could put an exact number on them,” the grand jury report said. “They were considered ‘standard procedure.”’
Defense attorney William J. Brennan, who represented Gosnell during the investigation, said: “Obviously, these allegations are very, very serious.”
The grand jury report came out a day after new Republican Gov. Tom Corbett took office. Spokesman Kevin Harley pledged that Corbett’s administration, through his new health secretary, would do more to oversee such clinics.
“What needs to be done is regulators, whether on the local or state or federal level, need to properly regulate, inspect and do their jobs,” Harley said. “The safety of our citizens should be first and foremost.”
Authorities raided Gosnell’s clinic early last year in search of drug violations and stumbled upon “a house of horrors,” Williams said. Bags and bottles holding aborted fetuses “were scattered throughout the building,” the district attorney said. “There were jars, lining shelves, with severed feet that he kept for no medical purpose.”
Prosecutors said the place reeked of cat urine because of the animals that were allowed to roam freely, furniture and blankets were stained with blood, instruments were not properly sterilized, and disposable medical supplies were used over and over.
Gosnell didn’t advertise, but word got around. Women came from across the city, state and region for illegal late-term abortions, authorities said. They paid $325 for first-trimester abortions and $1,600 to $3,000 for abortions up to 30 weeks. The clinic took in $10,000 to $15,000 a day, authorities said.
“People knew near and far that if you needed a late-term abortion you could go see Dr. Gosnell,” Williams said.
White women from the suburbs were ushered into a separate, slightly cleaner area because Gosnell believed they were more likely to file complaints, Williams said.
Few if any of the sedated patients knew their babies had been delivered alive and then killed, prosecutors said. Many were first-time mothers who were told they were 24 weeks pregnant, even if they were much further along, authorities said.
Prosecutors said Gosnell falsified the ultrasound examinations that determine how far along a pregnancy is, teaching his staff to hold the probe in such a way that the fetus would look smaller.
Gosnell sometimes joked about the babies, saying one was so large he could “walk me to the bus stop,” according to the report.
State regulators ignored complaints about Gosnell and the 46 lawsuits filed against him, and made just five annual inspections, most satisfactory, since the clinic opened in 1979, authorities said. The inspections stopped completely in 1993 because of what prosecutors said was the pro-abortion rights attitude that set in after Democratic Gov. Robert Casey, an abortion foe, left office.
Williams accused state Health Department officials of “utter disregard” for the safety of women undergoing abortion, and said the testimony of agency officials “enraged” the grand jury. But he said he could find no criminal offenses with which they could be charged, in part because too much time has elapsed.
“These officials were far more protective of themselves when they testified before the grand jury. Even (Health Department) lawyers, including the chief counsel, brought private attorneys with them — presumably at government expense,” the report said.
The state’s reluctance to investigate, under several administrations, may stem partly from the sensitivity of the abortion debate, Williams said. Nonetheless, he called Gosnell’s conduct a clear case of murder.
“A doctor who with scissors cuts into the necks, severing the spinal cords of living, breathing babies who would survive with proper medical attention commits murder under the law,” he said. “Regardless of one’s feelings about abortion, whatever one’s beliefs, that is the law.”
Four clinic employees were also charged with murder, and five more, including Gosnell’s wife, Pearl, with conspiracy, drug and other crimes. All were in custody. Gosnell’s wife performed extremely late-term abortions on Sundays, the report said.
One of the murder charges against Gosnell involves a woman seeking an abortion, Karnamaya Mongar, who authorities said died in 2009 because she was given too much of the painkiller Demerol and other drugs.
Gosnell wasn’t at the clinic at the time. His staff administered the drugs repeatedly as they waited for him to arrive at night, as was his custom, the grand jury found.
Mongar and her husband, Ash, had fled their native Bhutan and spent nearly 20 years in camps in Nepal. They had three children. A man who answered the phone Wednesday at a listing for Ash Mongar in Virginia did not speak English, while their daughter did not immediately return a message.
The malpractice suits filed against Gosnell include one over the death of a 22-year-old Philadelphia woman, a mother of two, who died of a bloodstream infection and a perforated uterus in 2000. Gosnell sometimes sewed up such injuries without telling the women about the complications, prosecutors said.
Gosnell earned his medical degree from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and is board certified in family practice. He started, but did not finish, a residency in obstetrics-gynecology, authorities said.
Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore said: “He does not know how to do an abortion. Once he got them there, he saw dollar signs and did abortions that other people wouldn’t do.”
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20th January 2011 at 2:50 pm
Thinker says:
Admin: read the horrors of Gosnell the other day. Dispicable. He’ll surely burn in hell.
CBB: As always, the very definition of life becomes the question in the debate. It’s not a matter of flawed or insufficient thinking, but of different beliefs. And that is not something that a government should legislate, either. Unless, of course, you prefer an Orwellian world.
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20th January 2011 at 2:57 pm
Jiggerjuice says:
Speaking as a Libertarian, fuck anyone who says what I can and can’t do. I’m not a woman… but morals are what I decide for me. This whole post is just going to make people angry talking about it. Flamewars on? Where are the trolls? I am not going to support or reject abortion, because it makes me a target for one side or the other. Instead, I respectfully reserve my opinions on this matter to myself, and suggest everyone else thinking of commenting on this post to think about what you are trying to achieve for the pro/against viewpoints.
I doubt you will convince one side to switch to the other, and I also doubt you will say anything productive people haven’t already thought about and already have a retort against.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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20th January 2011 at 3:13 pm
Whippet says:
Jiggerjuice- speaking as a Libertarian, fuck the mother who murders her child in cold blood.
Libertarians disagree wholeheartedly on this issue. I think the unborn child has liberty as well…
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20th January 2011 at 3:30 pm
cahuitabeachbound says:
Thinker/ Jiggerjuice:
One of the most tired canards is “you can’t legislate morality”. If you think about it we do little else. The very embodiment of our criminal and civil law is a recognition that there are certain shared moral beliefs. I’m horny. I want to fuck that 15 year old girl with the blond hair and pom poms. Why can’t I do it? Because the government will send me to Stillwater prison. Jigger: your statement “morals are what I decide for me” is self contradictory. Morals by definition are plural rather than a singular decision or they cease to be morals. You cannot have a morality of one because the nature of a moral is to put some restraint on self interest. Without restraint we have “Lord of the Flies”.
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20th January 2011 at 3:44 pm
Thinker says:
Good point, CBB.
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20th January 2011 at 3:52 pm
cahuitabeachbound says:
Thinker:
Great thinkers think alike. That’s why I relate so much to Smokey.
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20th January 2011 at 3:59 pm
bigargon says:
a very thought provoking article.
I am a pro-lifer ( i realize there needs to be realistic exceptions-health of mother, rape or incest)
We hear a lot a woman’s right to choose. She does have a choice say no, use birth control, insist you man uses birth control, there is the option to offer the child for adoption. the truth is abortion has also given many men the “freedom” to abandon their children ( the whole “you wanted the kid, i didn’t”.) sometimes men pressure their woman to get an abortion ( i know one close friend this happened to.)
It interesting that with other “freedoms” come responsibilities and consequences.
For example I drive a car. I can drive that car and follow the traffic laws, or i can get drunk off my ass and run over somebody. It was my freedom to drive but if choose to drive drunk, if am caught and/or hurt someone , I have a consequence to my actions.
yet we try to separate action from consequence when it come to sex.
I was born in 1965. I was an unexpected pregnancy. My father did what men did in those days, he took responsibility and married my mom. they were married for 30 years until my mom passed away. I sometimes wonder if i was born in the same circumstances after 1974, would i be alive? would my mom exercised her “right to choose”, or would my dad have pressured her to abort?
I fear our loose definition of life will come to haunt us. when today’s teens and twenties have to decide what to do with “Grandpa”, when our retirement and health care systems Implode, it won’t be a long journey to setting up “dignified life termination centers”
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20th January 2011 at 5:24 pm
Kill Bill says:
If life began at inception then Jesus wasnt born on Dec 25.
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20th January 2011 at 5:33 pm
cahuitabeachbound says:
bigargon:
There was an incident about ten or fifteen years ago where a woman tried to have an extremely late term abortion but for whatever reason the baby was born. Unfortunately both of the baby’s arms were severed during the botched procedure. I remember George Will commenting about this in an article. He mused that he wouldn’t want to be the mother having to tell the child someday how their deformity came to pass.
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20th January 2011 at 5:41 pm
cahuitabeachbound says:
bigargon:
One other thing. You say there should be exceptions for rape and incest. Is it the kid’s fault that Dad’s an asshole? I don’t know but it’s something to think about.
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20th January 2011 at 5:47 pm
Kill Bill says:
What about miscarriages after inception?
Who is to be held accountable?
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20th January 2011 at 5:51 pm
Kill Bill says:
Funny that many pro-lifers are okay with war and many pro-abortionists are not okay with war.
Clearly, hypocrisy, for many, has become the norm.
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20th January 2011 at 5:53 pm
Smokey says:
I disagree with abortion except in the cases of rape or incest.
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20th January 2011 at 6:14 pm
Smokey says:
Sorry. I did not see where bigaron already mentioned that.
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20th January 2011 at 6:16 pm
Smokey says:
Controversial issue.
For those who are die hard supporters of abortion, I say it is a MOTHER fucking shame that it wasn’t your sorry ass that was stabbed to death with the coat hanger.
For those who are die hard opponents of abortion, I say I can’t WAIT for your 15 year old white sister/ daughter to be knocked up from a rape by a big black crackhead.
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20th January 2011 at 6:24 pm
Smokey says:
GLES
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20th January 2011 at 6:27 pm
Punk in Drublic says:
Eh, Sure, its murder. Our society justifies murder all the time. This particular form of murder is not distasteful to me, so I am pro choice.
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20th January 2011 at 6:49 pm
Matt says:
So let me get this straight. Abortion is wrong, but the death penalty is right? Or it is wrong to kill American babies, but it is o.k. to kill Afghan and Iraqi babies. How about people just mind their own fucking business about what someone else feels necessary to do for themselves, short of harming others. I have two beautiful children and cannot imagine my life without them. Then again, that is my life and I cannot speak for anyone elses. If someone decides not bring a child into this “utopia” we have created for them, why is it my place or yours, or Tony Perkins, to make that decision?
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20th January 2011 at 7:29 pm
MuckAbout says:
Reading this thread makes me think of taking the position for atomic attack; Head up ass, see no evil, hear no evil, smell much evil.
Philosophically, abortion means granting women control over the input and output of their own bodies. First, scientifically speaking, a fetus is a parasite up to the point where it can be viable and survive on its own outside the womb. When you add philosophical personal opinion to it, it then goes all over the bloke – hence, we keep it scientific.
The a priori fact is that any woman has the right to ride her body of a parasite if she so wishes (no different than ridding herself of stomach worms or ringworm or any other beastie that takes up residence in or on her body).
Moral values are up to the individual (and that means the woman involved and NO ONE ELSE). The State has no business dictating how a woman can use her body and certainly no philosophical body (or religion) has no valid input at all.
Without freedom to use, or not use your body, there is no freedom at all. Without the freedom to terminate your own life, thereby abandoning your body, when and where you decide, there is no freedom at all. Control over your own body is the ultimate test of true freedom and a test that should be defended to the death.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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20th January 2011 at 8:50 pm
MuckAbout says:
Make that “block”..
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20th January 2011 at 9:03 pm
Kill Bill says:
Yet smokey agrees with Cheney death?
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20th January 2011 at 9:13 pm
Smokey says:
Kill Bill,
Why are you so obsessed with me ? Is it because of my suave style on the blog, or is it perhaps because of my 11 1/2 ” package ?
I obliterate your meager posts with hardly a second thought, but still you come back for more.
I believe you aspire to my level of coolness, an intellectual sophistication that can only be approached, never equaled.
You are a small fry wannabe in the Pee Wee league.
I am Babe Ruth, Rocky Marciano, Peyton Manning, Wayne Gretzky, Tony Stewart, Jack Nicklaus, Larry Bird and Michael Phelps all rolled into a power package that the chicks drool over.
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20th January 2011 at 9:52 pm
Dregs says:
Steve Sailer tore apart the Freakonomics claims about abortion and lowered crime rates.
http://www.isteve.com/Freakonomics_Fiasco.htm
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20th January 2011 at 10:04 pm
Barbarossa says:
Like it or not, a human fetus is still a human being. Those who spill innocent blood are damned. It doesn’t matter if it is a human fetus or the innocent victims of a drone attack or of a suicide bomber – if they are innocent and you killed them you are damned. There is nothing wrong with the death penalty for a murderer – that is NOT spilling innocent blood. Just make sure that the person you condemn to death is guilty. Because if he/she isn’t, you’re damned.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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20th January 2011 at 10:07 pm
Smokey says:
Barbarossa,
Let me ask you something, since you know so fucking much about the salvation of mankind.
When we nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killed hundreds of thousands of innocents, who was damned?
The President that ordered the attack? The guys that flew the planes? The guys that built the planes that dropped the bombs? The Congress that was complicit ?
When we bombed Iraq, and thousands of innocent people were killed, who was damned ?
Was it Bush? Or the guys that pulled the trigger? Or the people in Congress who approved the attack? How about the people that manufactured the bullets, KNOWING they may be used to kill?
Where do you draw the line? You seem to know so much about who is and is not condemned.
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20th January 2011 at 10:46 pm
Matt says:
PMES!
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20th January 2011 at 10:56 pm
SSS says:
Cahitabeachbound
You nailed it with, “Thinker: You exhibit no thinking in your argument either. Your premise is fundamentally flawed. It is not “her own body”. It is another body she is affecting. Crudely but accurately put, a woman is a “gestational host” for another human being whether a two celled embryo or a soon to pop child. It is entirely correct and just for a government to have interest in protecting a vulnerable child.” Ding, ding. We have a winner. Jim, give that man contributor status and a two-week, all-expense paid vacation to the Thirty Blocks of Squalor.
Mucky
I swear to God you have just said the dumbest fucking thing ever posted on the Internet, “First, scientifically speaking, a fetus is a parasite up to the point where it can be viable and survive on its own outside the womb.”
A woman’s womb is BIOLOGICALLY DESIGNED to carry a fetus. That’s what it’s there for, you numbskull. And you dare to compare a fetus to a true parasite, such as a tick or a leech? Are you fucking insane?
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20th January 2011 at 10:57 pm
Smokey says:
Matt’
You’re on thin ice with me, after that despicable insult.
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20th January 2011 at 11:00 pm
cahuitabeachbound says:
Smokey:
For fuck sake would you please stop forgetting to put the plus sign between the 1s and the 1/2 symbols. People are going to think you think you have a 11 1/2 johnson rather than the correct 2 1/2 inch dong you have.
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20th January 2011 at 11:14 pm
Smokey says:
cahuitabeachbound,
Thank-you ! Thanks to you, I have reviewed my post and I’ve caught my mistake.
It was an egregious mistake and there is no excuse for it. Although you are slightly confused as to what the mistake is. So I will clarify, in order to eliminate the confusion once and for all.
I have inadvertently been putting ” beside the numerals, which signifies inches. A MAJOR blunder. When, of course, I should have been putting ‘ by the numerals, in order to realistically portray the actual endowment.
Thanks for calling the post to my attention.
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20th January 2011 at 11:53 pm
Smokey says:
I’m watching the TNT halftime NBA show tonight, and Quinn is going to be pissed.
But someone has to break the news to him. A few seconds ago, whose picture just filled the entire screen while Charles Barkley was talking ?
You guessed it. Friechickeneesha and her bucket of KFC.
Looks like someone is making a move on your babe, JQ.
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20th January 2011 at 12:05 am
eugend66 says:
There are pills and other means to avoid pregnacy and a couple can choose to use them.
I`m pro-life, any life so I think is better to use the pill. Abortion sucks.
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20th January 2011 at 5:33 am
VAlivin says:
As a woman, I doubt I could ever bring myself to have an abortion, but unlike much of America, I am educated enough and understand birth control. When we have a mass of uneducated young men and women with raging hormones the inevitable occurs. You can throw out all the morality argument all you want…..those who thump the bible the hardest are usually the ones who have reason to. Some argue that birth control education makes people more promiscuous….who cares who is bopping who, as long as they are responsible about it. Knowledge is power….what good does it do to have an ignorant population who are procreating (not advocating selection, just stating that it does our nation no good to have idiots having babies and therefore raising idiots, give them a chance to get an education and stay in school instead of becoming drop outs because they are teenage parents).
Yes, my mom could have adopted out that unborn child…..she would have had to explain to her three children what happened and I can’t imagine how hard emotionally that would have been on her and the confusing situation for her young children. She says she knew it would be hard to give up the baby once it was born. She may have suffered complications and been forced to take time off from work….there was no family medical leave in 1975, thus leading to a whole other set of problems than just the pregnancy. I knew several women in college who had abortions…….what a change of course for women who were pursuing degrees…..chances my one friend would have gone on to get a masters and work in one of the top companies in the US as an executive…..zero if she had a child back then. Cold and callous, maybe, but she has to live with that, not me…..she will be judged by whatever judgment there is on the other side…..but not by me.
You have to ask yourself a few things when you decide to use your own religious views/morality to impose a law or behaviors: How does this truly effect my life? (Very little, if any at all, tax dollars go towards abortions…..so no it doesn’t effect your wallet). Does it keep you from your daily life? Does it keep you from sleeping at night?
Sure, you can call it murder…..but I am not killing someone who has a bonafide living life, who is walking across the street, who was at a Safeway in Tucson, at the ATM, caught in the crossfire, an abortion doesn’t kill someone’s existing mother, brother, sister, father……yes, it is a silent type of murder, but the reality is that it doesn’t effect anyone but the mother and father of the unborn…..
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20th January 2011 at 9:25 am
Barbarossa says:
@ Smokey:
“Where do you draw the line? You seem to know so much about who is and is not condemned.”
Every single individual who knew that the weapon they were using was killing innocent people and refused to stop never-the-less is damned (Nuremburg War Trials). Life’s a bitch and so is death. Of course, you can always repent and try to make amends. Forgiveness comes easy if you are truely sorry for the murders you’ve committed – but you’ve got to be sorry first.
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20th January 2011 at 9:38 am
Smokey says:
Barbarossa,
So if a person says “Damn, I know I might be sorry for this later, but what the Hell. ”
And then that person sets off a suitcase nuke at Times Square on New Year’s Eve, wiping out a couple hundred thousand people, and the person repents and is TRULY sorry afterward, then he is not damned.
Right.
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20th January 2011 at 9:59 am
Smokey says:
Barbarossa,
Every member in the US armed forces knows that they are contributing to operations that will kill some innocent bystanders.
Are all of the hundreds of thousands of members of the military damned ?
Hell will be awful full.
How about a person driving a car who knows they might kill an innocent person in a car crash, and then it happens? Is that person damned?
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20th January 2011 at 10:04 am
VAlivin says:
Many Christians have that mentality…….kill and then repent and say Jesus is your savior and they get to go to the pearly gates the same as those who never did evil. Wake up, an evil soul is an evil soul……they can say they love Jesus all they want……they are evil.
Military personal act on the belief that they are doing it for good and noble reasons…..our military has no idea they are being used……being ignorant doesn’t make you evil. Committing evil and knowing full well it is evil is…..well, evil.
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20th January 2011 at 10:11 am
Smokey says:
Evil does not exist as a force in itself. All of what you call evil actions are based on ignorance and misunderstanding.
Evil is a judgment rendered in a human value system. Right and wrong change from place to place, time to time, and culture to culture.
Burning “witches ” at the stake was perfectly acceptable a few hundred years ago. Today it is wrong.
Prostitution is legal in Nevada but a couple miles down the road in Arizona it is illegal.
The majority of Congress agreed with the Iraq war.
The 6 year old innocent boy whose legs were blown off might call the war evil.
As might his innocent sister who died of shrapnel, if she were still alive.
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20th January 2011 at 10:33 am
Pirate Jo says:
“I disagree with abortion except in the cases of rape or incest.”
This would be because you want to use pregnancy as a way to punish women’s sexual behavior that you don’t agree with. Busybody.
If you believed abortion was murder, murder would not be acceptable just because the innocent victim happened to exist as a result of rape or incest. Either that fetus is a baby/person, or it isn’t. When, to your meddlesome mind, the woman deserves punishment for her behavior, suddenly it’s murder. When she herself is an innocent victim, it’s suddenly okay to abort the fetus.
Every time I hear someone say they are against abortion except in cases of rape or incest, I know I’m listening to someone who just wants other people to do things their way.
I myself am so far pro-choice as to be out and out pro-abortion. The reason being that I do NOT believe a fetus is a baby, don’t buy the argument that it’s murder, and I’d much rather that the members of the Free Shit Army abort these societal burdens before they are imposed upon the rest of us. Abortions don’t hurt anyone, but downloading a bunch of screwed up crack babies for the rest of society to try and cope with does.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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20th January 2011 at 11:02 am
Whippet says:
How very Margaret Sanger of you, Pirate Jo. Get rid of those little “nigger-babies”, those “societal burdens” in the Free Shit Army.
That being said, I agree with your assessment of the “except for rape and incest” crowd. I am against abortion, period, except for things like ectopic pregnancies where the life of both parties would obviously be toast. That’s an extremely difficult situation. If that were to happen to my wife, it would be a long, prayerful decision to make. But if she were raped, God forbid, we would both want to have and raise the baby- because the baby is a person, and it ain’t their fault.
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20th January 2011 at 11:07 am
Barbarossa says:
@ Smokey:
I’m not talking “maybe” or “what if”. If you fire an RPG into a house you KNOW is crowded with innocent women and children and you kill some of them, then your are guilty of murder. It doesn’t matter if someone in that house is shooting at you – you are a soldier and that comes with the “turf”.
Repentance means to be truely sorry for your crime. If you don’t repent, there is NO forgiveness. It’s not a matter of convincing people that you are sorry, it’s a matter of convincing someone who has intimate knowledge of your every thought. LOL if you’re lying.
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20th January 2011 at 11:33 am
Pirate Jo says:
“How very Margaret Sanger of you, Pirate Jo. Get rid of those little “nigger-babies”, those “societal burdens” in the Free Shit Army.”
Nonsense. My pragmatic realism is not limited by racial barriers. When people have children they cannot support, it makes life miserable for everyone. It’s why one out of every eight people on the globe is facing food and water shortages, it’s why we have so many people in the USA on welfare and food stamps, and it’s why we have 30 blocks of squalor in almost every city. And the reproduction rates? About fifteen to one in favor of the complete mouth-breathing dullards. Look around you. Not only do they have a lot more kids, they have them at much younger ages. By the time an intelligent person is thinking about having the one child they can support and will have, the morons already have five kids and a batch of grandkids on the way. The responsible people are already outnumbered and cannot carry everyone anymore. People who only survive on the fruits of other people’s labor need to stop cranking out social parasites and focus on taking care of themselves. If you are riding in the wagon, you should be learning how to walk on your own two feet before creating more people. If birth control fails, I’m okay with abortion. It’s a nasty business, but not as bad as the alternative.
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20th January 2011 at 11:50 am
Smokey says:
Pirate Jo,
You say that you do NOT believe a fetus is a baby, and do NOT buy that it is murder.
OK, let me ask you something, you sanctimonious know-it-all bitch:
At what point does the fetus become a baby ? A week before birth ? How about one second before it is pulled out of the stomach? Is it a human at that time, bitch?
How about the partial birth babies? Are they still fetuses or humans ? What was that kicking in the mother’s stomach? You have no doubt aborted a few yourself, but of course will deny it now.
When an attempt to abort the fetus inadvertently results in a LIVE birth, is it a human because the abortion failed? Or should it be killed immediately ?
Stupid bitch.
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20th January 2011 at 11:51 am
cahuitabeachbound says:
Pirate Jo:
“Pragmatic realism” is a self contradictory philosophy. The nature of realism implies absolute conclusions or hence it cannot be “real” Being pragmatic forces you to adjust to the grays in life. A more accurate description of your philosophy is relativism, which is intellectually less strenuous.
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20th January 2011 at 12:00 pm
Whippet says:
Pirate Jo-
Here are a few Mags Sanger quotes for you. Tell me which ones you don’t agree with. Your arguments sound a bit similar :
“We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”
Margaret Sanger’s December 19, 1939 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, 255 Adams Street, Milton, Massachusetts. Original source: Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, North Hampton, Massachusetts. Also described in Linda Gordon’s Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976.
“Eugenics is … the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.
Margaret Sanger. “The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda.” Birth Control Review, October 1921, page 5.
“Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives.”
“The undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind.”
Margaret Sanger, quoted in Charles Valenza. “Was Margaret Sanger a Racist?” Family Planning Perspectives, January-February 1985, page 44.
There’s more where that came from.
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20th January 2011 at 12:03 pm
Pirate Jo says:
“At what point does the fetus become a baby ?”
I do not know and could not possibly care less. I don’t spend ANY time thinking about it. You (Smokey) are throwing quite the little temper tantrum. But there is no need to give yourself a thrombo. I have never been pregnant. I faithfully took birth control pills until I could finally get a doctor to tie my tubes in my early thirties. If there had been a birth control failure, I would have gotten an abortion without a second thought. It probably would have gone on record as one of my quickest and easiest decisions. But take a deep breath – I never did that and was never in a position to.
I say I am being pragmatic and realistic because the simple truth is that there are a lot of people in this world mindlessly breeding with no thought to the consequences. Is it cheerful, fun, or rosy to look at a fellow human being as a societal burden? No! But THAT’S WHAT THEY ARE. And it’s not my fault for seeing it like it is, it’s the fault of the dummies who spawned them.
I don’t agree with Margaret Sanger because I don’t accept the premise that someone else should decide whether any given individual breeds or not. (This is my belief whether someone is deciding TO breed or to NOT breed.) I think that if you want to pop out kids, that’s your business, but you should pay for the decision yourself. Don’t ask me to feed, clothe, and educate a bunch of kids that I had no say (and should NOT have a say, I want to clarify) in you choosing to have.
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20th January 2011 at 12:28 pm
Smokey says:
Pirate Jo,
You say you don’t know , which, by definition, means you are ignorant.
You say you don’t care , which, by definition, means you are apathetic.
For someone who is admittedly ignorant and apathetic about an issue,
you have some strong feelings about it.
In one post you strongly proclaim that you don’t believe a fetus is a baby and that you don’t buy the argument that aborting it is murder. In the next post, you proudly proclaim your ignorance of the matter.
Is the fetus a baby three seconds before it is pulled out of the womb, after the mother carries it a full nine month term ?
Stupid bitch.
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20th January 2011 at 12:49 pm
Reverse Engineer says:
Since life is a continuing process, there really isn’t any point at which you could define when a “fetus” becomes a “human being”. However, you can define the point at which a human being becomes capable of self sustenance. As long as you have a social welfare system that will support those who are not capable of self sustenance, you have no need for abortion. Once you no longer support those incable of self sustenance and you have no abortion, you will have exposure, which is the analogue of abortion that comes after birth. Death comes to everybody, the moral question is who gets to choose when and how the death comes? That is a more involved question than I’ll cover here, but I should have something on it by tomorrow
RE
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20th January 2011 at 1:01 pm
Administrator says:
Smokey
The members of the military might not be damned by God, but many are damned on earth. A huge number of combat members come back to the US with post traumatic stress disorder. Our civilian leaders tell these men it is OK to blow up villages and kill civilians because it is war. These men are still human beings and they know what they’ve done. It will eat at them for the rest of their days on earth.
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20th January 2011 at 1:08 pm
Administrator says:
Pirate Jo
I bet trick or treaters don’t come to your house on Haloween.
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20th January 2011 at 1:12 pm
cahuitabeachbound says:
Murder by legal definition is unjustified (in an absolute sense) homicide. Manslaughter although not called it is murder. If abortion transpires for any reason which isn’t ABSOLUTELY necessary it is murder. I cannot think of any absolute reason for an abortion: hence it is murder. Death of the mother is an absolute reason for an abortion because the cancellation of one life only offsets each other(assuming life over death is the most fundamental existential moral which it must be or else existence is meaningless).
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20th January 2011 at 1:13 pm
Pirate Jo says:
I will clarify: I do not believe that a fetus is a baby or that abortion is murder.
As to your (Smokey’s) hypothetical situations: A week before birth, one second before it is pulled out of the stomach, partial birth, etc. – no one actually does these things, and I can’t figure out why you (and many others, it seems) become apoplectic over the issue. The only time partial birth abortions occur is when the fetus is clinically brain-dead anyway. Everyone else who wants an abortion gets it done as soon as they find out they are pregnant; they don’t wait until “a week before birth.” So as to those far-fetched examples, I don’t know or care, because it’s not worth learning or caring about.
One of the nice things about condo living is the avoidance of trick-or-treaters.
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20th January 2011 at 1:26 pm
Smokey says:
Administrator,
I am inclined to agree that the act of killing someone carries an enormous emotional and psychological scar.
And the tragic thing is that war is so easily avoidable.
If they’d just hand over the fucking oil……..
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20th January 2011 at 1:30 pm
Administrator says:
Smokey
Have you checked the bushes outside your window? An Islamo Fascist Terrorist is waiting to slit your throat.
Blowback is a bitch.
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20th January 2011 at 1:36 pm
Administrator says:
Smokey
Do you think I riled up the site with the posts in the last day? Nothing like religion, abortion and war to fire things up. I think Stuck is on his way to Philly to beat me up.
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20th January 2011 at 1:37 pm
StuckInNJ says:
OK, time to declare a winner.
First, a quick comment. These abortion debates generate a lot of heat, but little light.
To the Pro Life crowd: There is not ONE argument made here that I have not heard before.
To the Pro Choice crowd: There is not ONE argument made here that I have not heard before.
The WINNER is: —– ME!! “But you didn’t say anything!”, you protest. That’s right! And that’s exactly why I win this unwinnable debate. To win without debating is the acme of skill — SunTzu.
.
.
.
I have some Awards to hand out;
The GOOD SPORT Award — Pirate Jo. Geing called bad names, she merely turns the other cheek. Well done thou good and faithful debater.
The WHATTHE FUCK Award — Pirate Jo. For simultaneously claiming a fetus is not a baby AND then saying she doesn’t think about it.
The DUAL ASSHOLE Award — to Muck About for not defending his “babies are parasites” comment after SSS reamed him a new (and 2nd) asshole.
The SHIT STIRRER Award — to Jim for starting this thread and running (except for his one snide remark.)
The GOD DELUSION Award — to Barbarossa for damning people to hell. With friends like Barbarossa, who needs God anyway??
The SMARTEST GUY IN THE ROOM Award — to Smokey for very very obvious reasons.
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20th January 2011 at 1:38 pm
Administrator says:
Pirate Jo
Read about the abortion doctor in the other post. It happens all the time.
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20th January 2011 at 1:38 pm
Barbarossa says:
@ Stuck:
Thanks for the award, but I can’t take credit. “Damn” means “cursed by God”. So I can’t damn anyone. For scripture (and a whole lot more) please go to the following web address: http://www.scribd.com/doc/24875158/Innocent-Blood.
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20th January 2011 at 1:50 pm
Chris Valenzuela says:
Stuck, quit kissing Smokey’s ass.
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20th January 2011 at 2:08 pm
Smokey says:
“Nothing like religion, abortion and war to fire things up.” Don’t forget, we had race too.
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20th January 2011 at 2:19 pm
Smokey says:
Chris’
Leave Stuck alone.
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20th January 2011 at 2:22 pm
Administrator says:
Stuck already fondling Smokey’s balls like I predicted. Shameful.
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20th January 2011 at 2:25 pm
MuckAbout says:
@STUCK: Stick it.. I just got around to reading the comment queue and read SSS’s (which stands for “Super Sorry Sling of Shit”..
When I say that a fetus is a parasite residing in a female uterus until such time as the pregnant female or Mother Nature deems it appropriate to eject such an object, I mean just that. How else would you describe a parasite?
Perhaps like this:
parasite |ˈparəˌsīt|
noun
an organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host’s expense.
• derogatory a person who habitually relies on or exploits others and gives nothing in return.
Parasites exist in huge variety, including animals, plants, and microorganisms. They may live as ectoparasites on the surface of the host (e.g., arthropods such as ticks, mites, lice, fleas, and many insects infesting plants) or as endoparasites in the gut or tissues (e.g., many kinds of worm), and cause varying degrees of damage or disease to the host.
ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: via Latin from Greek parasitos ‘(person) eating at another’s table,’ from para- ‘alongside’ + sitos ‘food.’
***************
If anyone says that carrying a fetus to full term does not damage the female body is full of shit. Tummy tucks and boob jobs abound in following years due to that damage.
Now that we have established that a fetus is described accurately by the above definition you have to understand that just because the parasite has human DNA does not make it a living viable human so long as it is in the womb. It is a parasite living wholly at the pleasure of the female who is carrying it. Becoming human doesn’t happen until after birth (by whatever means) whereby the fetus is able to breath on its own, take offered sustenance, pass waste products and begin the long road from fetus to adulthood.
This last sentence is the one that ties undershorts in a knot in some people. Things rapidly switch from objective to subjective and “opinion” enters into it.
But when you couple a persons’ absolute right (and the only “natural right” provided anyone, assuming he/she is willing to fight to keep it) to control his or her own body, what it does, how it does it, when it does it, when it stops doing it and when it dies, then the objective logic of defining a fetus (from one cell to billions) as a parasite is the only one that can be reached.
You might indeed personally disagree with the definition but that’s your personal right as well (even if it’s illogical, psychologically in nature or influenced by a mythical religion or two or three).
Now I’ll sum up with all eloquence…. SSS eats shit and StuckinNJ is too damn quick to judge.
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20th January 2011 at 2:27 pm
Smokey says:
Administrator,
I left a little something for you on the “Bomb ‘em Back” thread.
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20th January 2011 at 2:29 pm
Whippet says:
Barbarossa- don’t argue Scripture with Stuck. It’s like arguing the Constitution with Obama- he knows everything about it, but think’s it’s a stack of shit.
I’ll share the “God delusion” award with you. I’ve taken up these matters with stuck since Jason’s website was the forum. Argumentum ex scriptura = pearls before swine on just about any blog page…
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20th January 2011 at 2:31 pm
Whippet says:
MuckAbout- what a pile of crap.
A parasite is a commensal organism of DIFFERENT SPECIES to its host. Borrowing terminology from biology to eloquently describe a eugenic theorem should at least be done accurately. You have all the freedom in the world to describe abortion as a “surgical procedure”, “preventative medicine”, “reproductive health”, or “freedom of choice.” For conscience sake, in all honesty. To call it “infanticide” or “murder” is no less justified given your own reasoning.
The most accurate term would be “homicide” if you care to use biology- a killing of a member of the same species.
Which “mythical religion” do you belong to? Nihilism? Dawkinsism? Hitchensism? Hedonism? Epicureanism?
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20th January 2011 at 2:42 pm
StuckInNJ says:
Jim, I also fondled your balls in the 4th Turning thread. Testicle Licking is a fine art. Think of it like a Vegas bookie — you want the same number of bettors on BOTH sides … it’s all about the vig.
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Muck — do not complain about my judging, whether it is too quick or slow. You should be happy that you are one of the few who received an award. Nice definition and explanation by the way. Using your definition it appears that my dick is also a parasite. Damn disheartening.
.
Whippet, I never claimed to know everything about Scripture. I just know more than you and that seems to piss you off. I never said it’s all a stack of shit. If you want to see a stack of shit look in the mirror.
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20th January 2011 at 3:41 pm
Stinkfunk says:
If you cant breathe on your own you are not really alive.
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20th January 2011 at 4:00 pm
Whippet says:
Ooh, Stuck, “you know more than me and it pisses me off?” Honestly, you haven’t pissed me off once. And I’ll give you a hat tip that you know more about the arcane passages in the Pentateuch regarding kosher laws than I do. I’ll challenge you to a Bible quiz any day of the week.
But the premise of my comment, details aside, was correct, was it not?
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20th January 2011 at 4:07 pm
SSS says:
Murky (sarcasm intended)
Your math is as bad as your logic when you said, “I just got around to reading the comment queue and read SSS’s (which stands for “Super Sorry Sling of Shit”..
My screen name contains 3 S’s, not 4. You’ll need to drop one of those words. Next time, try counting with your fingers and toes.
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20th January 2011 at 4:28 pm
StuckInNJ says:
A Bible Quiz duel? LMAO My ex-wife was a Bible Quiz champ in high school and college. Boy, could she ever memorize facts. But, like you, she didn’t KNOW shit. Knowledge is much more than the accumulation of facts.
You want a quiz? Try this. Which ass actually talked?
A) Bartholomew’s
B) Balaam’s
C) Whippet
The correct answer is B and C.
Premise? What premise? You actually made a premise? Wow, that would be a first. What was it again?
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20th January 2011 at 4:32 pm
Reverse Engineer says:
Whippet’s Premise is that he is HOPING for a return to Feudalism and Slavery, when society eally valued the sanctity of Human Life. LOL.
RE
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20th January 2011 at 4:37 pm
MuckAbout says:
When I say SSS’s anything it four fucking S”s.
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20th January 2011 at 5:53 pm
Whippet says:
Sorry, Stuck- you won’t have me bowing to ad hominem response attacks.
The premise I had? That “knowledge of” and “adherence unto” (or “respect for”) a codex are completely unrelated phenomena. I don’t think I’m presuming much- you proclaim your rejection of Christianity and reject the inspiration of Scripture often, while touting a superior knowledge of the same.
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20th January 2011 at 6:23 pm