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Necroshea wrote:Someone dies
Let's make fun of his name
Good thing he's dead

Really guys?

What did you expect? There's a reason obituary pages don't have message boards, nor do these message boards function as obituary pages.

JEB_Stuart wrote:

azazel the cat wrote:Watergate most definitely was interesting to the rest of the world. The Western world, at least. It's not very often the leader of the Free World declares himself above the law in a bid to tamper with his own election.

That wasn't what Nixon's involvement in Watergate was about. Try again.

The irony of your username is not lost on me, and only punctuates my disdain for needing to explain what the Watergate Scandal was about: the CRP ordered a break-in of DNC headquarters in addition to illegal wiretaps, after which Nixon attempted to use the CIA to claim it was a matter of national security in a bid to stop the FBI's investigation, and then went on to try and invoke executive privilige in order to avoid turning over evidence to the courts.

JEB_Stuart wrote:

azazel the cat wrote:1. For a constitutional scholar, he seems to have missed the part about the separation of church and state.

Please tell me, as a consitutional scholar yourself, where the separation of church and state come up in the U.S. Constitution.

It comes up in the First Amendment, in the Establishment Clause: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...". The phrase itself, the "wall of separation between Church and State" is Jefferson's own explanation of what the Establishment Clause pertains to.

JEB_Stuart wrote:

azazel the cat wrote:4. I currently do not consider any anti-abortion arguments valid as they all ultimately reduce to misogyny and magical thinking.

Wow, very open minded indeed. Now, I am willing to entertain the idea that I am wrong on my stance regarding abortion rights, but your stance apparently can't be changed. And because of your own insecurity you resort to playground insults to demean the other point of view. You are no better then those extremists who assume that abortion is all about über-feminism and murder.

Please don't try to create a strawman. I have underlined the relevant element to accommodate for your reading compreshension skills, and will also point out that I'm not a fan of you attacking me personally in lieu of attacking my argument.

I have yet to hear, in my lifetime, a decent argument for the outlaw of abortion. To date, every argument always reduces down to either magical thinking, such as "God said ______ and we will be rewarded/punished if we do/don't obey", Kantian ethical arguments which ultimately fall under either arbitrary decrees of authority or else the aforementioned magical thinking, or else a basic dislike of women's rights, which can sometimes be as mild as a subconcious desire to uphold a patriarchal system, or as strong as an outwardly hostile and obvious resentment towards women.

JEB_Stuart wrote:

azazel the cat wrote:Maybe so, but that doesn't make it incorrect.

Being nasty doesn't make it wrong, but your mind boggling logic leads to ask you just who you were accusing of magical thinking? You have to understand that Bork's viewpoint of the judiciary was not only that it was dominated by liberal justices, but that the courts were actively "legislating from the bench." He saw it as nothing more then an oligarchy of unrepresentative, unelected, nearly unaccountable lawyers that were using the idea of an evolving Constitution to impose their own viewpoints on society. That is why he advocated a strict originalist approach to legal theory, because it removed the passions and ambitions of the individual and replaced it with the plain writing of the Constitution. Of course, that writing is not always so plain, and it doesn't always remove those items, but I can appreciate his ideas on the matter. I am not saying Mr. Bork was a man with no fault, but i think you are being overly rude in your remarks with very little understanding of who the man actually was.

You may be entirely correct in this statement, and I may have been overly rude. However, that is why I was quite careful to qualify my statement with "from that writeup, it seems... ". I freely admit that I did not know much about Bork other than the contextual use of his name as a verb, and what Frazzled's posting told me. However, with that being the case, I will still say this: death does not protect someone from the criticism of their publicly-stated ideas. If you want to argue that point, then this thread will be Godwin'd. All I can say in response is the following:

Legal constructionism and time are a volatile and dangerous combination when placed within an evolving world.

 azazel the cat wrote:
I have yet to hear, in my lifetime, a decent argument for the outlaw of abortion. To date, every argument always reduces down to either magical thinking, such as "God said ______ and we will be rewarded/punished if we do/don't obey", Kantian ethical arguments which ultimately fall under either arbitrary decrees of authority or else the aforementioned magical thinking, or else a basic dislike of women's rights, which can sometimes be as mild as a subconcious desire to uphold a patriarchal system, or as strong as an outwardly hostile and obvious resentment towards women.

Then you haven't looked very far. Check Virtue Ethics and Abortion by Rosalind Hursthouse. Although not completely an argument for outlawing, her argument basically allows for outlawing if the conditions of a society are optimal for the realisation of a virtuous outlook on life. The same way it allows for abortion in a society where conditions do not allow the acheival of those conditions.

Kovnik Obama wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
I have yet to hear, in my lifetime, a decent argument for the outlaw of abortion. To date, every argument always reduces down to either magical thinking, such as "God said ______ and we will be rewarded/punished if we do/don't obey", Kantian ethical arguments which ultimately fall under either arbitrary decrees of authority or else the aforementioned magical thinking, or else a basic dislike of women's rights, which can sometimes be as mild as a subconcious desire to uphold a patriarchal system, or as strong as an outwardly hostile and obvious resentment towards women.

Then you haven't looked very far. Check Virtue Ethics and Abortion by Rosalind Hursthouse.

Haven't read that, but I believe I've read her other writing (On Virtue Ethics). Hursthouse' entire philosophy is based around her own personal and arbitrary subjectivism: what she calls cowardice (aborting a child because the mother knows that child will live a tortured life) others might call mercy. Virtue Theory always fails in this respect, as it rarely is able to form a hierarchy out of its pantheon of virtues. Additionally, Hursthouse's own take on Virtue Theory reads as being influenced by Kantian ethics, as her judgement of what adjective to assign to any given verb is largely representative of either an innate, natrually-occuring although undefined morality (of which Kant simply bothered to name, but is otherwise very similar) or else based upon a completely subjective societal structure, and therefore not a proper universal morality.

 azazel the cat wrote:
Haven't read that, but I believe I've read her other writing (On Virtue Ethics). Hursthouse' entire philosophy is based around her own personal and arbitrary subjectivism: what she calls cowardice (aborting a child because the mother knows that child will live a tortured life) others might call mercy. Virtue Theory always fails in this respect, as it rarely is able to form a hierarchy out of its pantheon of virtues. Additionally, Hursthouse's own take on Virtue Theory reads as being influenced by Kantian ethics, as her judgement of what adjective to assign to any given verb is largely representative of either an innate, natrually-occuring although undefined morality (of which Kant simply bothered to name, but is otherwise very similar) or else based upon a completely subjective societal structure, and therefore not a proper universal morality.

You don't build a hierarchy of virtues, you derive them from the principle of the just middle. And yes, it's arbitrary, some of the best ethics systems are strongly arbitrary, like Ross's, because a correct theory of morals also integrates the act of moral judgement.

Particularism is a quality in a theory of ethics.

Especially when applied to the abortion issue, it's good to retain a certain particularism. Otherwise you end up reifying humanity like all the arguments around the status of the fetus.

Huh. I knew about this guy, and have read a couple of really interesting debates about the fallout of Bork's nomination, that can basically be summed up that the subsequent politicisation of nominations has been really detrimental, but the Democrats were probably left with little choice because Bork was a really terrible option, having been so closely aligned to the Nixon administration, and having held political views that aren't just conservative, but downright reactionary. The issue then becomes one of how much the Democrats tried to politicise the issue and play off it, and how much it was simply a high profile issue because of the nature of what it was.

Then I come here and read about Americans not knowing who this guy is. At the same time, the radio this morning was full of coverage of the death of Robert Juniper, who was apparently one of Western Australia's best artists, and I'd never heard of the guy. I think I know more about America than I do about Australia.

 JEB_Stuart wrote:
Please tell me, as a consitutional scholar yourself, where the separation of church and state come up in the U.S. Constitution.

Yeah, see, when people talk about the intellectual bankruptcy of social conservatism, it's exactly because of the constant repetition of fundamentally broken arguments like that.

"The constitution doesn't say 'seperation of church and state'! The magical words aren't there! Therefore we can put Jesus wherever we want, and make children pray to our God in schools!"

Never mind, you know, the first amendment states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" and the argument that because it says 'Congress' that it doesn't apply to states has been held as bs since the 1940s.

And never mind that whether or not it is in the constitution, keeping the state out of religion, and religion out of the state is a just plain good thing for both religion and for the state.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
Then you haven't looked very far. Check Virtue Ethics and Abortion by Rosalind Hursthouse (although not completely an argument for outlawing, her argument basically allows for outlawing if the conditions of a society are optimal for the realisation of a virtuous outlook on life).

That her essay is held up as a meaningful treatise on abortion is a pretty strong indication of the generally woeful state of pro-abortion writing. And understand I'm saying that as a guy who is pro-choice, but believes there is a sound, and justifiable case for the banning of abortion dependant on personal beliefs.

Her effort to remove metaphysics from the equation is like trying to improve football by taking out all that stuff about the ball.

 azazel the cat wrote:

Necroshea wrote:Someone dies
Let's make fun of his name
Good thing he's dead

Really guys?

What did you expect?

A pretty swift thread lock. Well no I didn't expect it but I can always hope.

 sebster wrote:

Her effort to remove metaphysics from the equation is like trying to improve football by taking out all that stuff about the ball.

I really disagree, and think that your recent arguement with Peregrine shows exactly why. Introducing metaphysics in the question is inevitably going to reify humanity, to make it a developped system of perception, a working subjectivity, a nervous system, etc... This does nothing but evacuate the moral question and releguates the entire debate to expert definitions.

Everyone should more or less know the necessary fact of life to decide if an abortion is a moral or immoral.

But I agree that generally speaking, the pro-life litterature is bad. Oh and Hursthouse writes horribly, but then so do most ethics writers.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
I really disagree, and think that your recent arguement with Peregrine shows exactly why. Introducing metaphysics in the question is inevitably going to reify humanity, to make it a developped system of perception, a working subjectivity, a nervous system, etc... This does nothing but evacuate the moral question and releguates the entire debate to expert definitions.

Everyone should more or less know the necessary fact of life to decide if an abortion is a moral or immoral.

I accept that it introduces a high level of complexity, but I'd argue that complexity is an unavoidable component of the debate. People are, simply, impacted by the complexity of the foetus.

That said, I've only read her original essay, not the subsequent book that I understand clarified a lot of the more contraversial claims.

Oh and Hursthouse writes horribly, but then so do most ethics writers.

Absolutely yes. Not as bad as, say, Marxians, but not that far behind them.

 sebster wrote:

I accept that it introduces a high level of complexity, but I'd argue that complexity is an unavoidable component of the debate. People are, simply, impacted by the complexity of the foetus.

But the issue isn't weither or not it's a complex 'object'... all of us are, all animals are, etc... The idea that some caracteristic of the fetus is relevent, beyond the fact that it's a future human being, is not necessary at all to treat the subject. After all, not that many ethics authors claims that morals are grounded in natural facts.

That said, I've only read her original essay, not the subsequent book that I understand clarified a lot of the more contraversial claims.

If the essay is what appeared in the American Journal of Ethics, your at the same level as I am. Although I don't see anything controversial in it, it's basically the most reasonnable instance of a ''generally'' pro-life argument I've come across. It doesn't really condemn any position except those which assume a clearly vicious outlook toward life, it even allows that in our society a person could decide to abort out of a desire to develop one virtuous aspect of their life that they wouldn't be able to otherwise.

Absolutely yes. Not as bad as, say, Marxians, but not that far behind them.

Just a question aside, is 'Marxians' really an acceptable denomination in English? I always thought it'd be 'marxists', like in French...

And to me it's not so much how badly they write, more how badly they organise their texts. The School of Francfort should apologize for almost all of their writings.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
But the issue isn't weither or not it's a complex 'object'... all of us are, all animals are, etc... The idea that some caracteristic of the fetus is relevent, beyond the fact that it's a future human being, is not necessary at all to treat the subject. After all, not that many ethics authors claims that morals are grounded in natural facts.

But that's an assertion that simply doesn't hold for all people. A lot of people really are swayed by how many identifiable human components a foetus has at any given stage.

That said, I tend to be more inclined to a study of ethics as a study of how people think, than it producing a conclusion on how people ought to think, so maybe it's just the kind of argument that isn't for me.

Just a question aside, is 'Marxians' really an acceptable denomination in English? I always thought it'd be 'marxists', like in French...

Marxians are distinct from Marxists. It's the group that accepts and argues for Marx's methods of analysing and understanding economics, distinct from his political and social views.

It probably shouldn't be an acceptable term (if only because it sounds so awkward when said), but it is what they call themselves.

 azazel the cat wrote:

Necroshea wrote:Someone dies
Let's make fun of his name
Good thing he's dead

Really guys?

What did you expect? There's a reason obituary pages don't have message boards, nor do these message boards function as obituary pages.

For point of reference, in death announcement/discussion threads, we expect the deceased to be treated with a reasonable degree of respect and decorum, unless we're talking about a notorious mass murderer or the like. Popping in to speak ill of the dead or announce that you don't give a damn (as has happened in other threads) is considered rude and off-topic.

Expressing one's disagreement with the person's politics is okay. Insulting them or saying the world is better off without them is unnecessary and inappropriate.

 Necroshea wrote:
Someone dies
Let's make fun of his name
Good thing he's dead

Really guys?

With that beard I'm surprised that no one ever asked if Bork came from Ork?

Nanoo nanoo

I took a week-long class with Judge Bork while in law school. He was quite a fierce man in person.

I could definitely envision that.

 whembly wrote:
That's where the term "Borked" came from with respect to judicial appointments....

I'd like to point out that, in fact, this phrase was never used correctly. The phrase Borked, according to Google, is defined as:

Verb
Obstruct (someone, esp. a candidate for public office) through systematic defamation or vilification.

But this isn't actually what happened to Mr. Bork. What actually happened to him was that he answered the questions he was asked during his confirmation honestly, and was reasonably rejected by the senate because of his extreme views. His later writings cemented the fact that as a SCOTUS justice, he would have unerringly steered the country back to a time of less freedom where married couples could be barred from buying birth control, schools could be segregated, poll taxes instituted, and the state could prosecute gay men for having sex in their own homes.

I never met the man so I can't speak to his personal character and feel no joy at his passing; but I feel like we definitely dodged a bullet when he wasn't confirmed for the court.