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Planned Parenthood Attack

Okay, there isn't anybody who thinks that. We're getting somewhere. This nonexistent person is, indeed, stupid.

Why did you feel compelled to then add the last 20 words of your post? Upon what evidence?

I think pro-life people are very sincere. I think so much so that they have done harm to their political party of choice and the electability of their candidates. For the most part, this group is not much of the protest march type. They are trying to work within the system. Many are single issue voters.

Personally, I think republicans would have better election chances if the term abortion was never uttered, but for many republicans it is the single most important issue. Just because they do not believe passing out condoms would help does not mean they are insincere.

I responded to this post of knowell's by saying that the bold would not make someone insincere but would instead make them stupid. You then responded by quoting my post responding to knowell and an unrelated Townie post to call such a statement condescending.

That would imply that you, along with knowell, think individuals who deny that increased access to birth control would lead to fewer abortions are not stupid.
 
Do you think that Obama's use of drones in the Middle East has resulted in the death of innocent people? How many times this year have you marched against it?

As many times as you have, I suspect. I'm not denying that people are often apathetic toward injustice in the world. This is even truer when the injustice is happening half a world away. I do think such apathy would extend to the slaughter of millions of people in our own country. But maybe I'm wrong and #pro-life advocates would be equally apathetic if 2-year-olds were being slaughtered instead of 12-week old fetuses. I did present that as one logical possibility.
 
I see what you are arguing, but I disagree. It is possible to be a) sincere, b) mistaken and c) not stupid. For example, I think you are sincere, mistaken and not stupid on this very issue.
 
I see what you are arguing, but I disagree. It is possible to be a) sincere, b) mistaken and c) not stupid. For example, I think you are sincere, mistaken and not stupid on this very issue.

You must not see what I am arguing. There is a difference between being mistaken and denying logic.
 
You must not see what I am arguing. There is a difference between being mistaken and denying logic.

There are people who have a deeply held religious objection to condoms and abortion. I don't agree, but they are allowed to oppose more than one thing they find objectionable, right?
 
Dear DV7,

Did you have a problem with the original statement of MysteryMen? Did you notice any limitation to "politicians" in his allegation?

Thanks,

jhmd2000

It was pretty clear from my post, and if not from the post alone, from the 10 I've made afterwards that I was referring to the national Republican party and its rhetoric, not every single person who identifies as a Republican beyond the extent to which they all carry some responsibility for making that disgustingly empty rhetoric a viable political position in this country.

Your intentional misreading of things like my post and the phrase "Black lives matter" betrays your true motivation - finding a straw man to attack rather than confronting the genuine issues
 
There are people who have a deeply held religious objection to condoms and abortion. I don't agree, but they are allowed to oppose more than one thing they find objectionable, right?



Of course. But they are stupid if they don't realize that the opposition of one of those things (condoms) leads to more of the other (abortions). If they allow their objection of condoms to win out (most do) then the logical conclusion is that their moral objection to condoms is stronger than their moral objection to abortions.

If that's the case I think it's legitimate to question whether their moral objection to abortion is really founded in the belief that life begins at conception.
 
Of course. But they are stupid if they don't realize that the opposition of one of those things (condoms) leads to more of the other (abortions). If they allow their objection of condoms to win out (most do) then the logical conclusion is that their moral objection to condoms is stronger than their moral objection to abortions.

If that's the case I think it's legitimate to question whether their moral objection to abortion is really founded in the belief that life begins at conception.

People tend to see life through a certain lens. Older religious Christians tend to believe that handing out condoms in school lends approval to kids having sex. You can disagree with them without feeling they are stupid. Being unable to understand another persons argument reflects on you more than them.
 

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At what point does "being set in your ways because you're older" become "stupid" though?

People who are still racist because they're older doesn't make me less inclined to believe that they are stupid about that topic.
 
People tend to see life through a certain lens. Older religious Christians tend to believe that handing out condoms in school lends approval to kids having sex. You can disagree with them without feeling they are stupid. Being unable to understand another persons argument reflects on you more than them.

I'm not sure there is any data to support such a belief but I'll agree that it's not stupid on its face. It's also not what we are talking about.

In order for that belief to support a belief that comprehensive sex education and increased access to birth control would not lead to fewer abortions you would have to assume at least one of the following things:

1. The percentage of sexually active teens already practicing safe-sex is very high.
2. Comprehensive sex education would not have a significant impact on the number of teens practicing safe-sex.
3. The teens that choose to have sex as a result of sex education or access to birth control would largely ignore that education and access

All three of those assumptions are pretty stupid.
 
People tend to see life through a certain lens. Older religious Christians tend to believe that handing out condoms in school lends approval to kids having sex. You can disagree with them without feeling they are stupid. Being unable to understand another persons argument reflects on you more than them.

This just further suggests that they are more appalled at the idea of teenagers having sex than they are at the idea of 12-week old fetuses being aborted.
 
I'm not sure there is any data to support such a belief but I'll agree that it's not stupid on its face. It's also not what we are talking about.

In order for that belief to support a belief that comprehensive sex education and increased access to birth control would not lead to fewer abortions you would have to assume at least one of the following things:

1. The percentage of sexually active teens already practicing safe-sex is very high.
2. Comprehensive sex education would not have a significant impact on the number of teens practicing safe-sex.
3. The teens that choose to have sex as a result of sex education or access to birth control would largely ignore that education and access

All three of those assumptions are pretty stupid.

The only thing I mentioned was giving out condoms. I think even most of the religious old people are not against teaching sex education (granted a small percentage of fundamentalist likely are).

I would agree with you that not wanting kids to have knowledge is dumb. At some point things like giving away condoms becomes closer to facilitation than many are comfortable with.
 
This just further suggests that they are more appalled at the idea of teenagers having sex than they are at the idea of 12-week old fetuses being aborted.

No. It just suggest that they do not like either. You can chose to honestly understand your opponents position and disagree with them or you can chose to caricature them. It doesn't help the conversation, but it can be fun.
 
The best argument about the stupidity of the anti-contraception movement is that 95% of sexually active adults in the United States use contraception. So that would necessarily include the overwhelming majority of Christians who stand up and decry it
 
The only thing I mentioned was giving out condoms. I think even most of the religious old people are not against teaching sex education (granted a small percentage of fundamentalist likely are).

I would agree with you that not wanting kids to have knowledge is dumb. At some point things like giving away condoms becomes closer to facilitation than many are comfortable with.

Right, but that discomfort has nothing to do with condom distributions effects on the number of abortions. Even if we isolate this discussion to handing out condoms (the large majority of #pro-lifers would not) it's still pretty stupid to claim that handing out condoms wouldn't decrease the number of abortions (even if it might facilitate more teens having sex).

Thus older Christians who oppose handing out condoms are choosing their own comfort over preventing abortions. How convenient
 
At what point does "being set in your ways because you're older" become "stupid" though?

People who are still racist because they're older doesn't make me less inclined to believe that they are stupid about that topic.

You will get old too some day (if you are lucky). I tend to grant older people some leeway. The point remains that calling them stupid is not accurate. Calling them obstinate or some other adjective would be better. Age does not cause people to get stupid. It does sometimes make it difficult to adjust to a world that is radically different from everything they were taught. Empathy could be extended if you wanted to be charitable.
 
No. It just suggest that they do not like either. You can chose to honestly understand your opponents position and disagree with them or you can chose to caricature them. It doesn't help the conversation, but it can be fun.

Of course they do not like either. I understand their position just fine. But the fact remains that fighting against condom distribution is counterproductive to the goal of decreasing abortions. That many #pro-lifers fight against this anyway does indeed suggest that they value preventing condom distribution more than decreasing the number of abortions.
 
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