agreed GUNDAM,and jwray brings up the exact point (harming others) where this argument always gets caught up.
is abortion murder?
i say it is.but that does not mean i wish for the government to step in and create legislation to ban it.
roe vs wade has stood up well for 35 years,mainly in part (in my opinion) due to the fact it compromises.
and while i agree jwray that laws may pertain to morals,but really they are in place to protect the victims.
so while masturbation is a victimless crime,it is still against the law in some states.just as me using an old testament reference was a jab at brutality for the sake of justice,that was jab at stupid,archaic and puritanical laws.
that whole diatribe was my lil jab at some of the archaic laws that have infected human society.
though i understand your point,which you made succinctly,it brings us back to
the beginning,in which we ask,when does life start?this is the juxposition that can never truly be clarified.
if life starts at conception,then its murder.
and if thats true,
how can we deprive this "potential individual" of its/his or hers..rights?
and the deabte rages on.
all im saying is keep government out,
it is already a relative issue with the person involved.
a moral crisis they will have to face,and ultimately take responsibility for.
but thats my take on the issue.
i thank gundam and jwray for their well-thought out posts.
till next time..peace.
Enoch D.D.S

Point 1: (on topic) While I don't agree with the somewhat tongue in cheek assessment that Sarah Palin is the most intelligent woman McCain could find to take his VP slot (which is, needless to say, offensive to many women out there), I can use it as a clear demonstration that McCain has done women, particularly in the political field, absolutely no favours picking Palin as an offsider.

Would you use Sarah Palin as a role model for aspiring young women who want to get in to politics? "Look girls, one day you can be as incoherent and unprepared as Ms. Palin..." I think not. She is, daily, setting back real women in politics because she just reinforces the "old boys" opinion that women are unsuited for such careers.

That is not to say she is completely incapable as a politician, merely that she is so far out of her depth that she looks incapable. I oppose her moral stances and think that governments should lean towards less meddling in the affairs of citizens (ie. reducing this mania for victimless crimes), but that is another issue.

Point 2: Abortion. Oooh, very scary topic. Splitting hairs over sentience or when life actually stops being an abstract concept and actually gets a ticket to this great ride we call human existence is pointless because there is no clear determinate that everyone will agree on.

My personal take? Leave the choice to the mother and let her take responsibility for her actions and the life of her child. In the long run, the government and the pro-lifers do not have to spend the rest of their life raising said child or taking responsibility for it. They make a nice clean moral judgement and wash their hands of the rest.

I do not agree with killing unborn babies but faced with the choice of forcing a woman to live with a child produced by rape when she really doesn't want to, there is no question in my mind that her priorities and preferences must take precedence over my own. Following on, if a young women get's pregnant (through lack of contraception, failure of contraception, stupidity etc), do I or anyone else have the right to dictate that the rest of her life must follow a certain path because of an error in judgement?

To mitigate this, set an arbitrary period on legal abortion at which point it is reasonable to expect a person to have made a informed decision on whether they want to terminate the child. Add a self-defense clause re: imminent danger of death to the mother and you're done.

ps. Some people might think ^ is a bit flippant. It's not, but the complexity of the issue and the emotion charged nature of it means that there will never be a true meeting of the minds. As such, the only recourse a government should take is an arbitrary decision that acknowledges that pro-lifers get the easiest time in this whole debate, but demand the most.

That is, they get to dictate terms of how another persons life plays out, but take no responsibility for that result. No care taken, no responsibility taken.

In some cases, they take that self righteousness a step or 2 further...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion-related_violence

smoking marijuana is a victimless crime.

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Victimless crime

>> ^Aemaeth:
Jwray, how many victimless crimes do we have? Prostitution, drugs, etc. Again, we're looking at the social issue and not the political.


Anything about what the law ought to be is political. We're talking about whether gay marriage should be legal.

Some drugs (and Truancy) ought to be illegal solely because they impair the ability of the actor to give his informed consent to future actions. Reproductive incest is illegal because it harms (via birth defects from inbreeding) the offspring without their consent. But prostitution should be legalized consistent with the principle before stated, because it harms no nonconsenting party.

Gay Marriage does not lead to any sort of harm PERIOD, let alone harm without the informed consent of the harmed, therefore it should be legal.

Jwray, how many victimless crimes do we have? Prostitution, drugs, etc. Again, we're looking at the social issue and not the political.

Drattus, I'm just saying it's stupid. It's within their power to make that choice, but in November there will be ANOTHER measure on the ballot to add an amendment to the stat constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage (it's already set, it's going to be on the ballot). Everything we vote for costs money. Why did we need to vote THREE TIMES for what could have been one or two if the supreme court hadn't gotten involved?

>> ^dag:
^ Abducted, you hit the nail on the head. Yes, these people are creepy weirdos to us. But snatching their kids away and putting them in foster care because we find their culture not in step with today's mores is not a good answer.



This may be the most controversial position I've ever taken, but it's worth it...

Let's take a somewhat unrealistic hypothetical scenario, and tell me how you would avoid it:


Scenario
1. There's a stupid cult called the froods that supports censorship.
2. Frood dogma commands that they indoctrinate their children so thoroughly that a child of a frood has a 75% chance of remaining a frood for the rest of his life.
3. Frood dogma commands froods to have at least 10 children.
4. Frood population grows until they take over the "democratic" government with sheer numbers of their brainwashed offspring, and then they repeal freedom of speech.

Possible Solutions:
1. universal 2-child policy prevents any one small cohort from taking over via multiplication, and helps apostasy overcome the rate of indoctrinating new children.
2. Try to deprogram their children to increase the apostacy rate beyond 80% so that the Froods stop growing in number and population growth slows before we all starve to death.


What is so deeply troubling about this scenario is that democracy is fundamentally meaningless if people are so closed-minded that they merely inherit the ideas of their parents or social cohort, and thus reproduction rates determine votes. Many people are too smart for that, as most ideologies have decent apostasy rates in the teens of percentage, but it is not enough apostasy to compensate for extremely high fertility rates.

I think it is time to recognize that having children is one of the deepest effects one can have on a society, and therefore reproduction should be somewhat regulated by law with the common good in mind. Human civilization and environment may be very adversely affected by a trillion unilateral decisions to have excessive numbers of children.
Of course it is troubling to restrict any freedom, but benefits far outweigh the costs. Having excessive numbers of children would not be a victimless crime; the victims would be the children themselves and the whole of society that has to deal with the environmental degradation and infrastructure burden of an unsustainably high world population.

"Shoplifting is a victimless crime, like punching somebody in the dark!"

-Nelson, from this episode

Those are the daughters of those evil old bitches in Monty Python's expose.."Biker Grannies"...Shit! Is nothing sacred?? Shoplifting has become the one crime, for which most folks feel justified in performing a citizen's arrest!! Which is why in America, we arm ourselves before shoplifting..."Bring on the heroes, Isle 6!"

Like Nelson says, "Shoplifting is a victimless crime, like punching somebody in the dark."