gekkobear on June 28, 2007 at 2:39 PM

I have mixed feelings about the smoking issue. However, while my logic can be used to make a case for the legality of gay marriage, your logic could be used to make the case for abortion.

After all, it’s her body, right? She owns it, right? So, she has the right to do with it as she pleases, right?

Again, I don’t think that’s what your saying, but you see the dilemma I’m in with the whole gay marriage and individual rights issue.

However, I’ve thought of a retort to back up my viewpoint on rights. And I’ll answer it with a question: Do you have the right to allow murder to take place on your property? Answer: No, because you’re infringing on that person’s right to life. A person’s right to life is inherent and inalienable, a gift from our Creator.

—

All in all, a nice discussion.

Exit question: Isn’t MK taking the same basic position here on porn that Rudy takes — and takes heat for — on abortion?

Slight problem with this idea: Rudy talks about maintaining taxed funding for abortion. That is to say, he would allow my and your tax dollars to pay for abortion. No one is talking about using tax dollars to make porn. At least I hope not. I figure abortion’s still worse…probably why I can’t, as a pro-lifer, support Rudy’s campaign while he talks about using tax dollars to kill potential human beings with a dremel and shop-vac.

Meh, I think your analogy fails based on the differences in topics; but I’m thinking Abortion should be left to the states (and adult “free speech, free expression” whatever) isn’t a good comparison.

Serious exit question: Gay marriage? I do believe it’s morally and legally wrong, but using my above logic, a case could possibly be made for its legality. However, I don’t think it should be legal.

Not-so-serious exit question: Smoking bans… Does your smoking infringe on my right to not smoke?

HYTEAndy on June 27, 2007 at 10:28 PM

Serious question: Unserious answer… I was against Gay Marriage until it was explained to me that it wasn’t compulsory.

More seriously, I don’t care if gay people get married. I don’t have enough gay friends that I’d have to go to too many more weddings (a few), and it certainly won’t affect me personally.

I dislike the Government being involved and meddling in what is (at it’s base) a religious event coupled with a legal partnership agreement. Do you really want the Government deciding you can or can’t get married to? Are your politicians that socially adept?

Not-so-serious exit question: Serious answer. It’s situational.

As a private citizen, landowner, business owner, etc. you should have every right to limit, restrict, or ban smoking on your property. Smoking should not be done in public (or Government owned) property in enclosed areas, or near children; for health reasons.

On the other side of the coin, you should have every right to allow smoking on private (or business) property with signs just as clear that smoking is allowed. Smoking and non-smoking bars, restaurants, etc. is just good business (on both sides).

If you believe going non-smoking won’t hurt any bar’s business; then being one of few (possibly the only) non-smoking bar in town should be a huge draw… but oddly the anti-smokers would rather have the Government destroy this obviously profitable market niche they’ve located.

At which point you have to suspect that they have no faith in that belief. Like Colorado, the smoking ban was assured not to harm businesses, but wouldn’t be applied in Casinos to avoid damaging tourism… Either slot machines avoid 2nd hand smoke health issues, or you’ve knowingly lied in your statement that businesses won’t be hurt.

In any case, the ban was overreaching. Affecting public property (especially enclosed areas, children’s parks, etc.) is reasonable; forcibly limiting a business owner’s choice is not reasonable; so long as customers have a good idea going in whether smoking is (or is not) allowed.

Pre-emptive defense: I’m sure some are going to claim their asthma, allergies, etc. make smoking bans a good idea in all cases; so please also explain why a ban on any presence of peanuts, seafood, wheat gluten, or any other potential allergens should be handled differently…

Just my opinion, so of course I think I’m right.

Images of naked breasts is not pornography.

Aitch on June 28, 2007 at 1:42 AM

Perhaps not. But then, on the other hand, the photographs do not exactly demostrate a “penchant for modesty” either, n’est-ce pas? And BTW, I don’t buy the “I never dreamed THOSE photos would end up on the internet” argument. Any woman that makes such a statement is simply revealing how little that she truly understands about men, donchathink? If a woman is stupid enough to get drunk and/or expose herself to a lowlife photographer, methinks that she pretty much gets what she had coming to her (and maybe more). MKH is correct when she says that THOSE kind of photos can haunt a woman for the rest of her life.

I’ll be in the cold shower…

http://www.jimgilliam.com/outfoxed/mackris_complaint.pdf

Double standards at Fox?? Nah! Can’t be… It is a joke of an organisation – as are the presenters on it, and the ‘guest pundits’ invited to comment on issues they have no real expertise in. Talking heads for the hard of thinking.

Dread Pirate Roberts VI on June 28, 2007 at 8:59 AM

Actually, when I’m done with college, I would love to enlist in a branch of the military. My parents wouldn’t like that, because they want me to become a dentist and work with my dad (also dentist).

But I think it’d be an honor to serve. Part-time Air Force reserve, maybe? That’s a good compromise I think they’d accept.

I’m hardly a conservative, though I lean very right on certain issues. Now that we’ve established my frame of reference, you guys are out of it, specifically regarding:

So, no, I don’t think the media is biased. And the main reason I don’t think the media is biased is because the media deliberately slants the partisanship in favor of Republicans.

Study after study demonstrates that the majority of mainstream media outlets and professionals tilt at least left-center. (I could link about 6 more)

So, while you can pull out specific data points all day long (certain columnists, certain pubs, editorial pages or networks), it remains that you are not contextually nor comprehensively analyzing the media landscape anything like, say, political scientists conducting and authoring research.

Just because the “liberal media bias!” complaint is overdone by righties doesn’t mean that the paradigm which inspires it doesn’t exist, nor that it’s really the opposite, as you claim.

And agreed that Fox news leans right (though center-right overall, far right on some shows, and downright populist and trashy on others), but so what? It’s a format in the marketplace of ideas, it’s not THREATENING THE REPUBLIC. Fox, talk radio, etc are a natural market reaction and it’s not a bad thing to have someone other than Walter Cronkite offering up news as a media grand priest.

And finally, anyone who writes this:

Charles Krauthammer, the founder of Neoconservatism

Is so oddly uninformed that it gets very hard to take anything seriously. To wit:

In a 1999 Time magazine article, Krauthammer wrote:

“ The essence of foreign policy is deciding which son of a bitch to support and which to oppose — in 1941, Hitler or Stalin; in 1972, Brezhnev or Mao; in 1979, Somoza or Ortega. One has to choose. A blanket anti-son of a bitch policy, like a blanket anti-ethnic cleansing policy, is soothing, satisfying and empty. It is not a policy at all but righteous self-delusion.[12]

I like many of Krauthammer’s columns, but not that one, which not only classifies him as “not the founder of neoconservatism,” but comes close to classifying him as “the opposite of the founder of neoconservatism.”

Especially considering neoconservatism – a position contingent upon advocacy of muscular, interventionist American foreign policy centered around national interest as well as humanitarian goals – emerged in the late 60′s and early 70′s among liberal academics, I believe.

Just because a columnist supports the Iraq war or various Bush Admin policies, that does not classify that person as a neocon. Learn your terms.

THIS PROGRAM BROUGHT TO YOU BY-ROGER AILES, FORMER REPUBLICAN POLITICAL CONSULTANT-THIS IS FAIR AND BALANCED FOX NEWS”
Fragility on June 27, 2007 at 11:08 PM

You promise that it’ll be a wildly different perspective than former White House Spokesman, George Stephanopolos hired by ABC despite no previous broadcast experience, would be doing on the same subject? The guy who used to be the mouthpiece for the Clinton Administration?

So explain to me how a women is not charged with “the killing of a fetus” when she commits the same act at “health clinic”.

Because these type of statutes contain language exempting abortion.

Then why is he being charged with two counts of the same crime? Why was Scott Petersen convicted of two counts of the same crime?

Not the exact same crime in that both Ohio and California statutes say death of another or the unlawful killing of a fetus.

murder: 1.killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law.

And the conditions specifically covered in the statutes being used to charge Cutts/Peterson are the killing of a human being/another or the unlawful killing of a fetus/termination of a pregnancy.

Then what did he kill? To assume he killed something would suggest that it was living or somehow viable. If an unborn child is not really a human, but simply a fetus which can be disposed of, then why is he being charged with a homicide (a term used to describe the murder of a person)?

One doesn’t assume — one specifically looks at the language of the statutes. Under Ohio law he is being charged with aggravated murder which is defined, among other things, as the unlawful termination of a pregnancy with prior calculation and design.

“AND COMING UP NEXT ON HANNITY & COLMES, THE SHOCKING TRUTH ABOUT HILLARY CLINTON’S DARK PAST, THE BOOKS SHE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO SEE… THIS PROGRAM BROUGHT TO YOU BY-ROGER AILES, FORMER REPUBLICAN POLITICAL CONSULTANT-THIS IS FAIR AND BALANCED FOX NEWS”

Fragility on June 27, 2007 at 11:08 PM

Cool. What time?

I’m not buying it, BOR.

I do find MKH quite attractive, in more ways than one. If I was older (I’m 19), and lived near her, I’d date her. HYTEAndy

Hey Kid…go join the Army and then, maybe, after oh 8 years or so, you’ll have a chance!

MKH, that pursed lip pout thingie you’ve got going is a killer!

The left accepts Rosie as viable.
We reject Ann as not viable and accept that we are right leaning.

Ergo, the middle position between Rosie and us is….Hillary! And that is why the MSM THINK they are the center and support liberal causes. Shifting the perceived center has been the lefts greatest accomplishment.

Unless they’re retarded I think they’re capable of making their own decisions on how they want to run their life regardless of our feelings towards which trade they choose to ply.

Maybe they’ll model our upcoming version of it on Chavez’s outstanding work in Venezuela.

You’re complete hypocrites. If you embrace blatant Republican propaganda and then scream and whine about instances of liberal bias, all you’re basically angry about is the fact that the media isn’t biased in favor of you.

Fragility on June 27, 2007 at 11:59 PM

Of course…! We’re not happy because the media isn’t biased in favor of the TRUTH…, or US. However you choose to word it. Same difference. :)

On the other hand, if all these young women see in the media are Britney’s, Beyonce’s, J-Lo’s, etc. who have naught to say but are barely clothed, why wouldn’t they copy it? It’s cool to them apparently, even if it is a warped version of sexy/sensual/etc. If their parents aren’t around to teach them values and, more importantly, show them by their actions, well, it’s a disaster waiting to happen. If the only attention women can get these days is being told whether or not they are “hawt,” crap like this will never go away.

We need better role models, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Well-spoken, intelligent, beautiful, fully clothed, modest. Since I live in Denmark, I don’t know MKH but she seems a better role model than the above mentioned singers.

Bottom line: Fox News is right-of-center. The rest of television media is left-of-center. (Also most newspapers, periodicals, etc.)

The debate on this thread has broken down to semantics, which nobody in there right mind gives a hoot about.

I think we can all agree on one thing: MKH is smokin’!

Fox News, of course, has TEN Republican shows.

Fragility on June 28, 2007 at 2:13 AM

Just out of Curiosity (As I don’t really watch much Fox News), Which ten do you consider Republican?

And by the way, isn’t it irrelevant that they’re biased?

You obviously don’t understand that quote. It’s not irrelevant that any agency is biased, in a general sense. What I was saying is that the fact that one organization is biased or not, does not determine whether another is biased.

Thusly, Fox News is a Republican whine factory in all circumstances.

1.) If CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, NYT, etc…. are all Democratic propaganda outlets, Fox News is STILL biased.
2.) If CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, NYT, etc…. are libertarian propaganda outlets, Fox News is STILL biased.
3.) If “………” are propagand outlets for the Green Party, Fox News is STILL biased.

Understand? The bias of one news channel does not justify or change the bias of another. Even if the entire media (other than Fox) had a liberal bias, if Fox News is pumping out Republican talking points, then Fox News is biased. It’s not fair simply because it’s different. If it’s biased, it’s biased.

In case you haven’t been following closely, even the mighty BBC has conceded to the fact that the vast majority of their journalists are, in fact, liberal. I can’t really believe you are actually defending MSNBC. Have you really watched a single episode of Keith Olberman’s show? What about Hardball? To say that network has no bias really shows your complete ignorance on the subject.

1.) Yup, have occasionally tuned in.
2.) Hardball? Do you actually ever listen to Chris Matthews kiss up to Rudy Guiliani and trash Clinton?
3.) Ever heard of Tucker Carlson? You know, the conservative with a show on MSNBC? How about Joe Scarborough, the former GOP congressmen who brings on unhinged lunatics like William Donahue on a nightly basis to rave and rant about how “The Jews in Hollywood are trying to destroy Christianity”. And of course Glenn Beck has his own political program at CNN where he mouths off, brings on only Republicans, and basically just uses the program to dish out RNC talking points. And then there’s Lou Dobbs, whose main political issue – illegal immigration – is where he’s as conservative as you can get.

So, no, I don’t think the media is biased. And the main reason I don’t think the media is biased is because the media deliberately slants the partisanship in favor of Republicans. A perfect example is the Washington Post, who offers REAL conservatives and REAL Republicans on its editorial pages. Charles Krauthammer, the founder of Neoconservatism, and of course, George Will. These are columnists that conservatives actually LIKE, and quote, and enjoy reading.

Have you ever met a liberal or a Democrat who quoted from a jackass like David Broder? Mr. I’m-more-moderate-than-all-of-you? The guy is a dead-center-centrist. Not center-left. Not left-leaning. Dead center. And the Post claims that he’s a “liberal”, while he spends most of his time attacking Democrats to prove his “centrist” credentials. And then you’ve got a sniveling little weasel like Richard Cohen who pulls the exact same trick.

This is how the media works. Moderate-to-conservative Democrats are presented as “liberals”, against partisan Republicans.

So, no, the media is not liberal. There are no liberal pundits or talking heads on CNN with their own show. And MSNBC only has one, two at most, equaling its Republicans.

Fox News, of course, has TEN Republican shows.