Quote of the day
posted at 10:30 pm on September 17, 2008 by Allahpundit
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“Given that Palin’s decision is being celebrated in some quarters, it is crucial to reaffirm the morality of aborting a fetus diagnosed with Down syndrome (or by extension, any unborn fetus)—a freedom that anti-abortion advocates seek to deny.”
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Exactly, it’s straight-up eugenics.
Jim Treacher on September 18, 2008 at 12:07 AM
Show me to him on here!
SouthernGent on September 18, 2008 at 12:08 AM
ITBOTB:
Please forgive me for my oversensitivity(I am an aspie woman after all) but…you mentioned “imperfect children”.
We are ALL imperfect.
I don’t have a “defect”, I have a quirk that just makes me more interesting.
annoyinglittletwerp on September 18, 2008 at 12:08 AM
fify
Ace ODale on September 18, 2008 at 12:14 AM
One of the commentators on that thread is very, very disturbing.
Loxodonta on September 18, 2008 at 12:15 AM
I think it’s more fundamentally simpler than either just Objectivism, selfishness, or morality as defined by the most irrational of reasons.
All natural life wants to procreate. No matter where you look, life prevails. It is the nature of things. However….
Given that God gave us the clarity of thought, a soul and the ability to reason. I wonder if the truly mentality deficient people are the ones obsessed with thinking like Nicholas Provenzo.
Kini on September 18, 2008 at 12:17 AM
Gianna Jessen…nuff said.
otcconan on September 18, 2008 at 12:21 AM
Well said.
TheCulturalist on September 18, 2008 at 12:28 AM
Can someone please explain in any reasonable fashion
that these Liberals what to continue the practise of
a certain partys docturne in the middle and late 30’s
of what Germany wanted to accomplish!
Ya,I know,this clown is working from the cost factor,
and the other is a purity thing!
Liberal’s champion life my #ss,certainly not a new born,
but the murderous clowns on death row!
canopfor on September 18, 2008 at 12:32 AM
I posted this before but it got stuck in the spam filter…
Rand(objective morality):
aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_intro
aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/abortion.html
abortionisprolife.com
Macintyre(tradition-constituted morality, most moral discourse is emotivist because there’s no agreement on precepts nor do most people know where they came from):
iep.utm.edu/p/p-macint.htm
ethicscenter.nd.edu/archives/macintyre.shtml
Alasdair MacIntyre vs. Pragmatic Liberalism
journal.telospress.com/cgi/content/abstract/2008/143/7
ninjapirate on September 18, 2008 at 12:33 AM
This is why the Objectivists were kicked out of the conservative movement.
You go, Buckley/Chambers.
emailnuevo on September 18, 2008 at 12:38 AM
If we could explain why, then we’d know the cause of autism.
Of course, the easy way out is the liberal view. Abortion.
Kini on September 18, 2008 at 12:41 AM
of course…
Kini on Sept 18,2008 at 12:41AM.
Kini: I think the Liberal Democratics need a visit
by Dr.Kavorkian,I think he’s their only Hope,
a hem!!! haha:)
canopfor on September 18, 2008 at 12:47 AM
Hmmm…Russia and Eastern Europe in upheaval returning to dictatorships…a political party trying to enforce fascism through the “fairness” doctrine…and eugenics making a comeback.
This feels horrifyingly familiar.
MadisonConservative on September 18, 2008 at 1:00 AM
I want to see the author pulled over by this guy….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlUVGf8B2yc
TBinSTL on September 18, 2008 at 1:12 AM
It’s so hard for libs to see that human life has value.
Mojave Mark on September 18, 2008 at 1:16 AM
I seriously considered abortion 25 years ago, today she is the light of my life.
kellyjane on September 18, 2008 at 1:29 AM
@kellyjane: Good for you.
Is your daughter seeing anybody? =)
Lincoln on September 18, 2008 at 1:40 AM
You mean the entity posting as “an_abstraction”? Yes, the stuff that he/she/it posted was so sick — I mean, really, “subhuman… no human potential…”? — that I can’t help thinking he/she/it was just trying to bait us, not actually expressing his/her/its actual point of view. I hope that’s the case, anyway.
Mary in LA on September 18, 2008 at 1:41 AM
No- it isn’t. My fiancee/common-law wife suffers from it
(completely paraylized from the nose down). It is a neural disease for which there is no known cure. There is a treatment available that slows it down (I don’t remember the name of the drug), but you have to be diagnosed fairly quickly for it to have any effect. She led a fairly active life before ALS started up, at first weakening her right arm and left leg. It progressed fairly rapidly- less than a year before she went on a ventilator and feeding tube. She still has a working mind, and I can communicate with her through eye movement.
Even though I have a great deal of respect for Stephen Hawking and his work, I don’t worry about him being considered a “useless eater”. His future is likely assured.
I do, however, worry about Vicki. She is on MediCal, and will be for the remainder of her life. So, yeah, she is a burden on the State- the kind of burden that the program was designed for. I’m waiting for some leftist like Provenzo to tell me she’s an “undesireable”, an “untermensch”, on “the list”.
BillH on September 18, 2008 at 1:50 AM
Oh, gee, BillH. I am so sorry. I’ll keep you and Vicki in my prayers.
Mary in LA on September 18, 2008 at 2:08 AM
Thank you, Mary.
BillH on September 18, 2008 at 2:26 AM
So, according to the Left, if Hitler had done his thing pre-birth, it would have been kosher?
OldEnglish on September 18, 2008 at 4:22 AM
OT a bit, but on the above, a fine insight vis a vis Palin:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/palin_the_base_and_the_northea.html
Lockstein13 on September 18, 2008 at 5:04 AM
Just a personal note. My brother, Phil, was severe Down’s Syndrome. Never walked, never talked, deaf and mostly blind, but he could and did communicate with us and we understood him. He knew when his brothers were crying and scooted over to us and cried with us. He pulled my hair when he was happy and excited on those rare occassions when we got to ride in a car. I complained but not loudly. When we made popcorn we had to break off the soft bits so he could have some and not choke. He was who he was and he was our brother. He never contributed a dime to the economy, but the world was better for the 24 years he was in it. Mr. Provenzo can go to hell. Phil will not be there waiting for him. His perfect soul is elsewhere.
SKYFOX on September 18, 2008 at 5:09 AM
Do these people realize the Hitleresque qualities of their ideologies? It’s so hard to comment on this – aside from the fact that I’ve “burdened” society with a child with Down syndrome – because the line of thinking is so absolutely foreign to me.
Candy Slice on September 18, 2008 at 5:13 AM
This is how vile some pro abortion advocates can be
Comedian offers money for Bristol Palin to abort her baby.
Elric66 on September 18, 2008 at 6:06 AM
This is how vile some pro abortion advocates can be
Comedian offers money for Bristol Palin to abort her baby.
Elric66 on September 18, 2008 at 6:06 AM
I’ve heard this guy before. I think you are a wee bit generous calling him a comedian.
SKYFOX on September 18, 2008 at 6:19 AM
Skyfox,
Didnt want to get banned for calling him what he deserved to be called. :-)
Elric66 on September 18, 2008 at 6:33 AM
A wise man once said, the old immorality has become the new morality.
no matter how they play word games, it is still immoral
Noelie on September 18, 2008 at 6:45 AM
What’s moral about murdering innocent life?
Killing a death row inmate, someone who has earned that right, is one thing, but it’s another to just murder an innocent unborn because the child is in-convienent or un-wanted.
There is nothing moral about murdering innocents.
E L Frederick (Sniper One) on September 18, 2008 at 7:01 AM
When will this country stand up to these lunatics who murder the innocent and praise the guilty, are we so complacent that we are willing sit idly by while the value of life itself is turned on its head?
Viper1 on September 18, 2008 at 7:05 AM
Murder–the new freedom. Isn’t that what radical Islam espouses?
m064404 on September 18, 2008 at 7:12 AM
The abortion debate in this country is evolving from one over the rights of the mother (”Keep your laws off my body”) to one over utility. The utilitarian argument holds that the life value of the unborn is outweighed by other factors, such as the burden on the parents or societal cost.
The most cold-hearted example of this is China’s monstrous one-child policy, where children are routinely murdered in order to serve the societal priority of population control. But the utilitarian argument is popping up in other places as well.
When advocates of embryonic stem cell research advocate federal funding for this work, they are making a frank utilitarian argument, that the value of the potential research outweighs the value of the human life destroyed. By advocating for public support, they are moving the debate from the area of the rights of the researcher to do what he wants with private property, to the area of utility, where the government makes a value judgement that this trade of research-for-life is valid and worthy of support.
Now we are seeing this utilitarian argument rearing it’s ugly head in the case of Trig Palin. The balancing of life vs. burden that is at the heart of the utilitarian argument is effected by the fact that the burdens are greater and the percieved value of a handicapped life is less. The proper response to this argument is not to put things on a scale and weigh them, but to refuse to engage in the argument because it is monsterous.
People must be mindful of the fact that “burden” and “value” both lie on a scale. Every birth is a burden on the parents, on some level. Every life has value. If we accept the argument that Trig Palin should die because he will be a societal burden, then we must be ready to accept the argument that the child born to a poor mother who can’t provide for him must also die. If we accept the argument that Trig Palin’s life is not worth living because he probably have a limited intellect, then me must be ready to accept the argument that the life of an elderly person who is losing his intellectual capacity is also not worth living.
This way lies nothing but untold horrors. This argument must be rejected at every opportunity. The Palin family had rejected it through their beautiful example of caring and love. We should all do likewise.
gridlock2 on September 18, 2008 at 7:39 AM
I like Objectivism, but like Libertarianism it’s one of those things I can’t really throw myself into because the spokespeople tend to be pretty crazy. After Rand died it became not so much a coherent ideology as a contest between factions over who tosses Ayn Rand’s salad the most.
Lehosh on September 18, 2008 at 7:55 AM
I’ve mentioned before that I have a grandson with Down Syndrome. To those who think that such people can’t reach their human potential I would answer, “They help everyone around them to reach THEIR human potential.” We achieve our highest humanity in our care and love for “the least of these” our brothers.
Heiress on September 18, 2008 at 8:17 AM
The Nazi slogan for this applied to the handicapped was “Life unworthy of life”, using the same soulless utilitarian justification.
DavePa on September 18, 2008 at 8:26 AM
thank you for sharing..
and the info about ALS as well.
DaveC on September 18, 2008 at 9:06 AM
Wait, haven’t the ‘Gay’ community been trying to tell us that Homosexuality is GENETIC??? Do they really want to go down that road.
PappaMac on September 18, 2008 at 9:50 AM
A variation of one of my favorite observations:
Perfection exists only in the mind of God*
(sorry – i don’t have proper attribution)
* fits whether you’re a believer or not
dts-01 on September 18, 2008 at 9:57 AM
Stupidest quote I ever read on abortion:
“I’m marching for abortion because my mother couldn’t.”
Exactly, which is why this doesn’t necessarily reflect on Rand or Objectivists. Ayn Rand did believe that abortion was a right, but I haven’t found anything that suggests that people should be pressured into having them.
Esthier on September 18, 2008 at 10:02 AM
Not really. The author would agree with us on that point. He’s an objectivist and as such doesn’t believe that anyone should live at the expense of another, including welfare mothers.
But that’s also where his argument fails. You don’t fix welfare by killing off the welfare mothers. You fix it by getting rid of it. If government would stop spending money on them, there would be no need to get rid of them. They’d fail or succeed on their own merits.
The same is true of disabled people. So long as we get rid of government programs that burden others (by force or by taking our money) with their care, the issue is resolved.
Esthier on September 18, 2008 at 10:08 AM
C’mon AP, this is like analyzing the ranting of the village idiot. Any analysis is over-analysis.
Akzed on September 18, 2008 at 10:39 AM
All of these wackjobs out there, especially when it comes to the abortion debate.
Abortion is the destruction of life.
Religion is the destruction of intellect.
LevStrauss on September 18, 2008 at 11:06 AM
What else can I say but you’re welcome, and thank you for asking. It’s a little awkward posting something that personal on a political site like this, but I guess it illustrates that life is precious, regardless of the circumstance. We all make our own decisions. The Palins made their decision, and I just cannot see how it can be a burden on them, or would be a burden on society in general.
Sorry Akzed- I disagree. Provenzo may be a village idiot’s apprentice (village idiot is above his paygrade) but there are too many people out there who are either true believers, or are willing to give such a flip disregard for the disabled a pass because they just don’t give a damn. The way I see it, Provenzo attempted to make eugenics look “hip and edgy” by way of a soapbox. Trig Palin was just a vehicle to make his true feelings acceptable to a wider audience. Abortion is a very personal matter, and is not the sort of thing that should be tippped by a poorly researched column.
BillH on September 18, 2008 at 11:26 AM
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