What's Mallard raving about today?
Progressives, Torture, Abortion.
Shorter Mallard Fillmore: Progressives are in favor of terminating as many completely viable late-term fetuses as possible.
What surprises me most is how many people willingly swallow this line of obvious horse crap, designed to turn political opponents into sub-human monsters.
24 comments:
WHAT IF THERE WAS A TICKING TIME BOMB AND ONLY THE FETUS KNEW WHERE IT WAS?!? THEN WHAT?!? ADMIT THAT YOU WOULD BE IN FAVOR OF TORTURE THEN, LIBRULS!
I'm pretty sure that a fetus wouldn't have problems with waterboarding, since, you know, they don't breathe.
Ok..wow this is weird. Generally speaking most late term abortions are probably going to be performed in the cases of risk of life to the mother. I want to figure out if the conservatives argue that the fetuses life is more important than that of the mother. If so, then do we say that if a woman miscarries she can be charged with manslaughter if it occurred due to her lifting a heavy object or falling over?
I myself am somewhat torn on abortion, on the one hand I am against it being used as a form of birth control and I don't know definitively when we can claim that it is human. Conversely, if a woman is raped, molested, etc. then she shouldn't be forced to carry the rapists child. If a womans life is in danger due to the pregnancy then she shouldn't have to sacrifice her life for it.
The weird thing is that apparently the neocon group seems to think that progressives WANT abortions IE we want women to have them frequently. It's sort of strange, since what we want is for them to have the right to control their own body.
I know even people who identify strongly as pro-choice get uncomfortable when I say this, but my position is: abortion readily available, on demand, at any stage of pregnancy, for any reason or none at all. It's not that I think abortion is fun'n'games, but I refuse to buy into the anti-choice canard that there are women running around who don't take it seriously; who just get abortions on whims. It's a goddamn serious decision, I'm not them, and I or you or anyone else has neither the right nor the qualifications to decide if they're "justified" or not. Besides which, there would be no way to make a law saying "you can have an abortion, but only for X reason" without creating a huge, incredibly oppressive/intrusive police state.
Not that this is really the place for this discussion.
Iron Dragon, you don't keep the Dittoheads in line by depicting "the enemy" as reasonable or even human; you do it by calling them "baby killers" or "fans of late-term abortion" (Tinsley's own phrase to describe people angered by a doctor's murder).
No one is a "fan" of abortion. (Paradoxically, many cowards on the right are huge fans of wars in which they don't personally participate, which always results in huge losses of innocent life. Go figure.) But people on both sides of the aisle (including Tinsley's once-beloved Michael Steele) firmly believe that choice is a woman's right.
Tinsley just can't process that. He doesn't have the stuff upstairs for the task.
But if you could, heaven forbid, knock him up, he'd be all over freedom of choice like a bottle of Jack Daniel's found in the gutter.
I've often thought that the best solution would be a compromise that both sides would feel compelled to agree to:
You can kill a fetus, but only if you use a handgun.
Setting aside the acknowledged idiocy of Tinsleys' strip, to be fair here --and, yes, I recognize that the concept of "being fair" takes on a certain irony in the context of discussing an MF strip--, the practice of turning one's "opponents into subhuman monsters" is not the exclusive property of either side of this debate.
I know where I come down in this discussion, but what bothers me the most about all this is is the notion that each side seems to have that they are are completely, exclusively right, without fault, and that the other side is absolutely wrong, without a single valid point. As opposed to what seems to me to be the only sensible approach, which is that one "side" could possibly "win" only by the slimmest of margins.
Or to put this briefly, I think this is a situation in which, quite simply, both sides are right.
I'm focusing my own irritation here on the torture part - it's like "oh, those crazy liberals hate the torture" - as if being anti-abortion and pro-torture are both equally virtuous and not mutually exclusive, and, if you genuinely see yourself as supporting human rights when you take an anti-abortion position, a complete contradiction.
Spoken in whiney, condescending tones: "Oh, maybe if we TORTURED the fetus then you'd CARE about it." It's practically a cliche now, but maybe people should start caring a little more about each sacred human life AFTER they're born.
"Well, God wants that child born. So he can grow up and be waterboarded..."
@Fester Bestertester --
How's your friend Carbuncle?
@NLC --
I generally agree with you on this, although I might be more inclined to say both sides are wrong (especially any members of the male persuasion participating in this debate).
Once again, Tinshley demonstrates that American conservatives have no fucking clue what "consent" means.
And all of this reminds me of Jesus General's take on the issue of abortion...
Someone should tell that fetus not to bother coming out.
If his mother is poor, he isn't getting any assistance. That would be socialism, and we all know that leads to swastikas and red flags.
And of course the significance of being pro-choice is lost on the neocon crowd. I'd ask if they really thought a majority of women were hysterical baby killers incapable of making rational decisions regarding their own health, but I'm afraid of the answer.
NLC - I cannot agree that pro-choicers, as a whole, think
"... that they are are completely, exclusively right, without fault, and that the other side is absolutely wrong, without a single valid point...."
To the contrary - while there are no doubt black-vs-white thinkers everywhere, most pro-choicers know and state clearly that abortion is a tough thing, life is sacred, abortion should be avoided and so on and so forth.
Fair enough. I will concede rewinn's point that I may have painted this with too broad a brush. Surely there are thoughtful, well-reasoning individuals on both side of the debate.
But I've simply been involved in too many discussions about this to allow that this practice --the inability to acknowledge any validity to your opponents position-- is the exclusive provenance of either side.
It's fair to point out here that this is no doubt a feature of the nature of public debate; i.e. the necessity of not acknowledging any flaw of your position tends to drive one to more extreme stances.
But perhaps that's the basic point here, the state of "public debate". It's hard to see how topics like this can ever be adequately addressed if the participants in the debate are always required to watch their back for fear of having any small turn of phrase pounced on by the Hannitys or Jay Lenos (or, sadly, the Tinsleys) of the world.
I knew I was in trouble when the tag read, "Progressives, Torture, Abortion." Way to take the moral high ground on a human rights issue by attacking people who are against torture.
As an aside, I had no idea that was going on inside cashew nuts. I didn't know THAT was the difference between legumes and nuts.
A veritable cornucopia of Fox "News"-approved talking points:
- Liberals calling themselves "progressives" is oh-so-laughable.
- Liberals love terrorists and don't want them to be tortured.
- Liberals are baby-killers who get their jollies from aborting viable late-term fetuses.
- Liberals care more about the comfort and well-being of terrorists who want to destroy America than about the lives of innocent, helpless unborn babies.
This is what passes for political discourse in Brucie's wet brain.
"I might be more inclined to say both sides are wrong (especially any members of the male persuasion participating in this debate)"
Nice transformation of NLC's pat, wishy-washy cop-out into complete sexist bullshit right there--two steps away from the "all men are rapists" nonsense that I found all over the blogs of feminists who switched to Palin when Clinton didn't get the nomination, as if all that matters is genitalia.
I support a woman's right to control her own body. You tell me what's wrong with that.
Once again I find it necesary to pont out that the number of late term abortions performed in the U.S. is about 100 per year. There are significnat medical and legal hurdles to be overcome before the abortion is performed. Most of these fetuses are not viable. there is always some serious compelling reason.
Tinsley is either unbelievably stupid or unbelievably dishonest. You know - a typical right-winger.
NLC and Anonymous and all - I think we can agree that the abortion issue is a highly charged black hole.
Into it goes a lot of energy, out of it comes heat but no light.
It's the perfect issue for angry people, such as Tinkley, who enjoy righteous rage without the inconvenience of thought or understanding. Giving them the same in return, even though they totally deserve it, is just pouring more matter down the black hole. They like it when you beat them!
They need our love.
It is hard to love the disgusting twits but, then again, there is no special merit in loving those who agree with you.
And if it makes you feel better, know this: loving them really annoys them.
The only response I can make to Anonymous is "Q.E.D."
Thank you; you've made my case far better than I could have hoped to.
This would carry more weight with me if Ducky wasn't in favor of firebombing third world villagers.
This strip is just so full of bullshit and misrepresentation, it's not possible to begin to address it seriously.
I gotta go with GeoX on this one.
NLC: "Nobody is right. Everybody is wrong."
WavyDavy: "Especially if they have a penis! Hurf hurf durf!"
Me: "That's bullshit. ...And that's double bullshit."
NLC: "Alas, as I expected, I am being demonized, martyred for my brilliance."
That must be some dimension you live in, there. Oops, I'm doing it again. God, I'm such a Nazi!
Side note, there is some meat to the argument that men don't have a dog in the fight the way that women do. IE that since men can't become pregnant that their perspectives on this are going to be radically different. That being said, the views of men shouldn't be discounted merely because they're men.
Post a Comment