h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Some loud obnoxious American who dropped out of the conversation earlier after he started arguing against both sides of the this debate.



Thanks for the compliment. That's going on my narcissism page.

I suppose it goes without saying that as an American nationalist and a staunch states' rights advocate, I would be dead set against a world government.

Potholer - it's simple - I don't sleep

WD

Two-Bit Trigger Pumping Moron.
Maybe I should acronymise less, but full names can get a bit unwieldy at times.

Scratch that last post - I was replying to the one on the previous page of replies asking what TBTPM was.

Regarding the One World Government, I thought the irony of the concept might be amusing.

Amusing? If - like me - you have a sick and twisted sense of humour.

"When I rule the world. dum-de dum de-de-dum dum-de-dum"

Psst - 2Bit - dictators' meeting round the back of the Whitehouse in half an hour, eh?



B

Is that the right location, Ben?

I've tended to think of that location as more of a puppet show than a place of power. Sort of a Punch and Judy, without the sausages ...

Hey - *I* wasn't the one who said we'd be any good at it!

B

There's a huge hotel right around the the corner. Actually there's a lot of stuff right there. The White House looks like a majestic plantation on TV, but it's really right in the middle of the city. The parking is pretty miserable if you don't get to park in the compound.

I don't have my White House ID anymore, so we'll just have our vassal come meet us over at the hotel.

I've been to the washington. It's a nice city. I rode the subway every day I was there. Then I went to New York. Ugh!

Now I'm going to go back and read all this... just a sec.

Two Bit, you have been very helpful, and politely disagreed as nicely as anyone could possibly expect, except for this one thing that makes me mad here.

I expected that some rather unintellagent individuals would say things like "you are a moron" which only serves to damage their positions in the long run actually, but "I say it's absurd to knowingly bring clearly defective children into the world" ?

When I hear people say that, I start taking it personally because I myself was "clearly defective" and my life shure hasn't been pointless!

I'd take that back if I were you. Not only am I myself living proof that you're wrong, but history shows it as well.

Sorry man. I don't retract statements. I might apologize for factual errors, poorly constructed phrases, and my positions may change. In this case it hasn't. I can't unsay what has been said. Saying that I wouldn't cull a defective fetus would be a lie.

We all have to make our own value judgements in life. It is my intent for my wife to abort if a fetus of ours is defective. If there's something that can be detected in the womb, I plan to have it checked for. I want to give our children every advantage that we can. They're going to have to deal with poor vision, a tendnacy towards being plump, and possibly genes that are condusive to addiction. I don't want to saddle them with any more congenital problems.

I understand that many people disagree with this idea. A lady I work with has grandchildren that have numerous problems including blindness and retradation. They've had multiple surgeries to keep them alive. She says that they are her heart. That's good for her and her family. I like and respect her. It won't do for my family if I can prevent it.

Euthanasia.

Well what's your tail. You've mentioned it, but I haven't heard your story. You haven't given me a reason not to cull something that isn't a person yet.

Can't say it now, but I will soon, I'm outta time again.

The only question, that. And no one, and I don't care what their proof, can prove a foetus is a person or not. So the argument is solely based on beliefs and subsequent morals. And so unanswerable.

Do me a favour Nerd? When you insult me, please refer to me by name. Makes it a lot easier for everyone to tell!

Well, I guess I count as more or less pro-choice. I don't think you can argue that termination of pregnancy only affects the mother, in the majority of cases (I would assume it would be the majority anyway), it also affects the father. In all cases it obviously affects the child. Having said that, can you call the child a person at that point? Certainly they're an individual, living human, but a person? In any case, my view has to be that the final choice is with the woman.

Certainly not with politicians. Its a cliche I know, but anyone who wants power isn't fit to handle it. Just because a government is elected democratically, doesn't mean that it always follows the wishes of the people. Sometimes the "wishes of the people" aren't the best way to go anyway.

I'm generally uneasy about people trying to impose their morality on others, although I can see that in some cases it is necessary in order to protect people, and I can certainly sympathise with the point of the woman complaining that men have a say in termination legislature, although you could then extend this to women who are infertile, then maybe women who have never had children, and then where do you stop? So do it by referendum is what I say, termination is an important enough issue for that. The same with euthanasia. I doubt that would pass in the US, but it might here in the UK and probably some other parts of Europe.

One interesting thing I've noticed is that the pro-life people are also often the people who will defend to the death their right to bear arms, with which they are statistically far more likely to shoot their own relatives than defend themselves (although always take statistics with a pinch of salt), or the death sentence. Also, they tend to scapegoat "liberals" for everything. Not that I respect liberals any more than any other politicians you understand - every liberal is a closet aristocrat as the saying goes.

On a lighter note, how many of the women going on about how men could never cope with the pain of pregnancy have ever had to cope with the pain of accidentally sitting on your own testicles? Thought not...

Ah. I don't think anyone said we didn't think men could cope.

Mind you. Being punched in the hurts more than you think it would...

Ouch.

Phew! Got through the backlog.
OK, first I have to say that I'm female, probably liberalish, pro-choice. I have two kids, both medication-free natural births that I thought were going to kill me (a tad painful) and I suddenly found mysefl expecting a totally totally unwanted 3rd child after a slip-up.

TwoBit what I wanted to say to you is this: I respect your view about not bringing less-than-perfect children into the world, and your wife for agreeing. However, if she does change her mind if she finds herself expecting a less-than-perfect child and changes her mind, that's just the mother instinct kicking in. You won't know how that situation will affect either of you until it's too late.

Unfortunately, my 3rd pregnancy ended in a miscarriage about a week after I finally got my head round a 3rd child and was happy. But at no point did it even occur to me to have a termination. Strange, but there it is, I'm pro-choice after all.

The procedure as described by WD (thanks for that, btw) sounds horrific. I'm sure people don't do that willy nilly, and my first thoughts were that the medical staff probably need serious trauma councelling after one of those. How awful, in fact, for everyone concerned.

So, considering that this procedure, horrible as it is, is sometimes necessary, just think how banning it would affect all concerned. As well as losing the baby, we'd likely (as far as I can make out from what I've read here) lose the mother too. And if she had other children, dependents, people who love/rely/depend on her... that's a whole lot of lives isn't it?

Ben: you're so erudite and helpful. I just wanted to say that.

S@ - you so remind me of me at your age it's not true. You'll calm down eventually. Probably.

hmmm... a disjointed post but I just had to add here.