GWB hates women

[Deckard]

Pre-term twin here - my sis was fine, but I went straight into the incubator. Turned out perfectly fine though (well ok, matter of opinion )

Can't remember how many weeks... will have to ask my Mum.

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by Sean

The accusation that legislation against birth control equals hatred of women is not a logical, objective progression of thoughts, and you've said nothing to prove otherwise.

again, i'm just completely floored by how thoroughly you're missing the very VERY elementary concept of opinion. my opinion, according to what i believe is ethically sound, is that preventing women from having access to basic contraception is in and of itself a misogynistic policy. period.

and let's be very clear here. you extrapolated that into the whole abortion issue. my statement was that bush's new policy, which seeks to find a means of restricting BASIC CONTRACEPTION for women (meaning only means that women can utilize) is inherently detrimental to women. it oppresses women in a way that no other subsection of humanity is oppressed. and that, according to my ethical code, constitutes absolute hatred of women.

in all the years i've been posting here i've never see you ask for something quite as dumbfounding as "factual" support of this type of assertion. it's like you've made a conceptual error and you're stuck in an illogical loop.

you don't prove ethics. if i were to say that i felt it was inherently amoral to utilize the death penalty and that a society that applies the death penalty is inherently hateful, would you ask for "proof" that the society is hateful? you want proof? my proof would be that the death penalty is inherently hateful and thus any society that applies it is hateful. do you see how that works? do you get that there's no "proving" an ethical assertion?

it's elementary, man. the fact that you're missing such a rudimentary concept makes me want to bang my head against the keyboard.

[dubman]

i mean i'm just going to get sillier if this goes on.
a failure to engage on a level this fundamental can only end in jokes and sarcasm

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by Sean

Holy crap....I just saw this. Is this a serious question? I know you're pregnant, but even that doesn't excuse the outlandishness of this analogy.

sean, don't ever dismiss any of my posts as the addle-brained confusion caused by the hormonal weakness of my condition. ever.

take me seriously. i've always respected you regardless of whether i agree with you. but you crossed a line. i'm going to tell you just this once to fuck off and expect you to accept that as something you earned.

anyway.

Originally Posted by Sean

If a man beats the shit out of his wife to stop her from killing their child, then no, I wouldn't label him as misogynistic.

i wish i knew what to say about this. it's just beyond shocking.

[dubman]

Originally Posted by cacophony

sean, don't ever dismiss any of my posts as the addle-brained confusion caused by the hormonal weakness of my condition. ever.

take me seriously. i've always respected you regardless of whether i agree with you. but you crossed a line. i'm going to tell you just this once to fuck off and expect you to accept that as something you earned.

... or that.

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Pre-term twin here - my sis was fine, but I went straight into the incubator. Turned out perfectly fine though (well ok, matter of opinion )

Can't remember how many weeks... will have to ask my Mum.

excellent! what makes it harder is that i do content management and user experience for an online medical information company now, and just about every day our news division covers some ridiculous story about how anything and everything that happens during pregnancy means long-term harm for your unborn child.

like the study we published the other day that said women who eat nuts every day while pregnant will likely have kids who have asthma. and that women who use their cell phone more than 3 times a day while pregnant will have kids with behavioral problems. and that kids with moms who work outside of the home are more likely to have allergies. or that washing your hands with antibacterial soap while pregnant will make your kids develop autism.

usually when we delve into the studies we find out the funding is totally biased and the scientific methods were not exactly scientific. but still. i have to sit and listen to these studies every day and after a while it becomes difficult to believe that ANYONE was ever born healthy.

so thank you! it helps.

[Sarcasmo]

Originally Posted by cacophony

excellent! what makes it harder is that i do content management and user experience for an online medical information company now, and just about every day our news division covers some ridiculous story about how anything and everything that happens during pregnancy means long-term harm for your unborn child.

like the study we published the other day that said women who eat nuts every day while pregnant will likely have kids who have asthma. and that women who use their cell phone more than 3 times a day while pregnant will have kids with behavioral problems. and that kids with moms who work outside of the home are more likely to have allergies. or that washing your hands with antibacterial soap while pregnant will make your kids develop autism.

usually when we delve into the studies we find out the funding is totally biased and the scientific methods were not exactly scientific. but still. i have to sit and listen to these studies every day and after a while it becomes difficult to believe that ANYONE was ever born healthy.

so thank you! it helps.

LOL...don't do crack or play a lot of contact sports, and your babes will be born just fine. Don't pay too much attention to the rest of the drivel, because worrying while carrying a child to term will cause that child to develop a sociopathic personality...or some shit.

[cacophony]

^ we actually published a study that said essentially, "taking antidepressants during pregnancy may cause pre-term labor. however don't stop taking them because being depressed during pregnancy may cause pre-term labor."

i felt like it was irresponsible to publish it because the last thing a depressed pregnant woman needs to read is that uncontrollable circumstances of her very existence may compromise the viability of her baby.



they should just have titled the study We Don't Know Why Stuff Happens, But We're Pretty Good at Making Stuff Up.

[Sarcasmo]

Originally Posted by cacophony

We Don't Know Why Stuff Happens, But We're Pretty Good at Making Stuff Up.

Or For God's Sake, Don't Get Out Of Bed! Why Are You Reading This? Don't You Know What You're Doing To Your Retinas?

[Sean]

Okay, first things first.

Originally Posted by cacophony

sean, don't ever dismiss any of my posts as the addle-brained confusion caused by the hormonal weakness of my condition. ever.

take me seriously. i've always respected you regardless of whether i agree with you. but you crossed a line. i'm going to tell you just this once to fuck off and expect you to accept that as something you earned.

Just this morning, you said: "screw everyone. i'll take up the debate with anyone else woke up at 5 a.m. starving half to death with 4 legs kicking the shit out of their cervix.

i'm cranky. i'll apologize in october."

I was simply referencing that post. If you feel that's worthy of a response as crass as what you just said, then so be it.

Originally Posted by cacophony

frankly i'm baffled by your whole stance in this discussion. and by that i don't mean that i'm baffled that you don't agree. i'm baffled that your means of disagreeing is to assert that there should be a means of "proving" discrimination or effect on a group of society.

So what are you saying - you can call anyone you'd like a racist or a misogynist or whatever your heart desires, and then no one can ask you to qualify your assertion? Since when did these concepts become so freakishly subjective?

"That guy's a racist."

"Oh, really? What did he do that was racist?"

"Whaddya mean 'what did he do?' I just told you, he's a racist"

"Okay, but did he call a black person the 'n' word, or maybe use some other racial slur...something like that?"

"Whatever....you're not makin' any sense, dude".

Originally Posted by cacophony

you're essentially doing a holocaust denier thing here. or the same thing people who defend slavery in america do when they try to prove that slaves actually lived well, so it wasn't such a bad institution after all.

Are you kidding me with even more ridiculous analogies? The reality of the holocaust can be proved through the fact that 6 million Jews were killed in concentration camps. It can be proved that slaves didn't live well because they were ripped from their home country, sold into a lifetime of work for no reward, they were beaten, sexually assaulted, and killed if they did something their "owner" didn't approve of....like try to be free. And our President is supposedly misogynistic because he lumps birth control in with abortion? Really? That's the solid example that compares to the evidence that slavery was wrong, or that the holocaust actually happened? I mean, it certainly proves that he makes some dumb-ass decisions, but hating women?

Originally Posted by cacophony

no one can argue this with you. it's not a matter of "proof." it's a matter of a defined set of ethics. ethically you differ. fine. that's your right. but you can't "prove" ethics.

Yes, you can argue it with me, but so far, no one seems to have actually tried. The title of this thread asserts a conclusion in a factual manner, NOT as a personal opinion. "GWB hates women". I'm simply asking for a logical progression of thought that leads us from "George Bush equates birth control with abortion" through to "George Bush hates women". It seems that this request is so brutally difficult that neither you or Dubman have been able to offer anything more than saying the assertion itself is somehow all the explanation that's necessary, or now, to fall back on saying it's just your opinion. Well, while Dubman did at least qualify his assertions with comments like "in my opinion...", you've been stating your conclusions as fact up until now. Statements like:

"...it is a woman hating policy"

or

"that is misogyny. that is hating women. period"

I don't think I'm showing poor comprehension skills when I take these and other comments like them as intended to be factual, objective assertions. Had you framed your comments as opinion rather than as fact, then we probably wouldn't even be having this discussion. But suddenly trying to spin it around and act as if I'm asking for something totally outlandish and unreasonable is a total cop-out. If you call someone something as serious as sexist, then yeah, I personally want to know what they did that was sexist. This is a discussion forum, and I want to discuss when I see an assertion that I find to be fundamentally flawed or unfair.

Originally Posted by cacophony

what exactly are the "facts" you expect to be presented? why don't you list a good collection of "facts" that would "prove" someone hated women?

How about a direct act by Bush that illustrates his sexism? An act that doesn't require a huge assumption to make it apply. Is that really so unreasonable? It's common knowledge that the pro-life stance is based on the idea that fetuses are human beings who need to be protected. That core belief in no way implies sexism. You've artificially injected your conclusion of sexism into it in the case of Bush, based on nothing more than an extremely thin assumption that since this concern over unborn babies has a negative affect on a woman's right to choose, then Bush must hate women. Hell, maybe it's true, but that doesn't change the fact that based on what we know, it's still an assumption and therefore doesn't warrant being stated as fact. As I said earlier, it's no different than me saying that since you're pro-choice, presumably because you recognize that there are a myriad of reasons related to health, psychology, etc that justify it....doesn't matter! Abortion results in the termination of a fetus - SO YOU HATE BABIES! BABY HATER! And the great thing is that now, if I get the same pass that you're claiming you should have, I don't need to qualify that assertion with any logic at all!

If you want something specific that you can do to satisfy my request, then then there it is - explain to me how you saying Bush hates women is any more correct than me saying that you hate babies. Or just stick with saying it's just your opinion, and I'm fine with that too. But you started off by stating your conclusions in an undeniably objective way, and that's what I was responding to. So there ya' have it.

And incidentally, the discussion between Dubman and I is where the extrapolation to abortion in general happened, so you and I don't need to discuss it at all.