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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Midgetsnowman Since: Jan, 2010
#41701: Nov 21st 2012 at 7:36:59 PM

so in good ol fashion conspiracy theory land, the fine people over at Daily Beast had fun poking fun at Dean Chambers, whose latest idea is to set up a website claiming Obama only won because MASSUVE VOTER FRAUD IN ERRY SWING STATE

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/20/barack-o-fraudo.html

deathpigeon Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: One True Dodecahedron
#41702: Nov 21st 2012 at 8:15:53 PM

Ok, normally I'd be content to just let this slide, but this is too stupid to. Let me do this point by point.

Ohio: So what he's saying here is that Cleveland, a big city, swung Obama, therefore... voter fraud? Don't big cities usually swing toward the Democrats?

Pennsylvania: Again with looking at an Obama lead in a big city (this time Philly) and declaring fraud. Does this guy no NOTHING about demographics?

Viginia: I'm sensing a theme here. Cities swung Obama, therefore fraud. However, it's even worse here. He's counting the suburbs of DC as voter fraud. DC had over 80% vote Obama, so OF COURSE THE SUBURBS WOULD LEAN TOWARD OBAMA!

Florida: This time no city, but, unfortunately, it feels like he just pulled a county that happened to swing Obama out of a hat, and declared fraud.

Carter: Really? You're gonna bring up Carter? Ok. So, first off, you're saying Carter could've done voter fraud, therefore Obama did? Do you understand how much that fails? However, this gets worse. He said "Ronald Reagan won a landslide in 1980 by winning 489 electoral votes and 50.71 percent of the popular vote to Carter's 49 electoral votes and 49.98 percent of the popular vote. That means Reagan won the popular vote by 9.73 percent or about 8.4 million votes." Carter got 40.98% of the vote, not 49.98% of the vote, and 50.71 + 49.98 is equal to OVER 100%. I knew that was wrong from a casual glance, and only had to look up the figures to know exactly why it was wrong.

Voter turnout: I don't get what he's saying here. Less people voted, therefore voter suppression? Has it occurred to him that, I don't know, LESS PEOPLE MIGHT HAVE VOTED? Also, you used stats from Nate Silver who you have said is wrong many times. BE CONSISTENT. (Also, on a side note, I read in the article that he accused Nate Silver of being gay, which a look at his Wikipedia page will tell you to not only be true, but something that he's very open about... And I'm not sure how this would affect his statistics, either.)

Article on 2008 fraud: Did you not read that article? It said that Obama would've won even without that fraud, which is why it was never pursued.

Also, the website has an inefficient use of space, and looks bad. Finally, if you really wanted to show that he committed voter fraud with that picture, why didn't you show a black bit of the bar thingy between Obama and Romney that would've been comprised of the electoral votes that were stolen? When I'm lied to, I expect better than that! Seriously.

#41703: Nov 21st 2012 at 8:15:58 PM

Ok, back, skimmed the discussion, replying to a few of the more substantial posts. Forgive any misstypes, it's a bit much to proofread.

Radical Taoist: Rape Culture and Conservatism

Yes, it is reasonable. It's actually very easy to make this argument once you realize how pervasive rape culture, institutionalized misogyny, and unconscious misogyny are in our culture. Indeed it would be more astonishing if Mr. Mourdock were free of these pervasive influences - I'm a progressive Canadian urbanite, and I'm still working on it.

I entirely agree that misogyny (misandry too, but that's another issue) and "rape culture" (though there are probably less charged terms to use for it) are pervasive in our society.

What I find totally baseless and false is the idea that conservative Christianity and the pro-life movement in particular are things that stem from or are supportive of this harmful part of our culture. In my experience, the conservative Christians like myself who tend to be strongly pro-life are also some of the first to be offended when people around them treat women like objects.

Radical Taoist: Implicit Assumptions

This is all right for a statement, but it comes with a few implicit assumptions. One, God should determine how things work in a secular system of law, according to an candidate for a legislative position. Two, life is a gift we owe to someone else.

These are both positions you can support or oppose, but since neither are related to misogyny or rape culture they are irrelevant to the point I am making here, which is that a vile and false accusation has been made, not that Mourdock is a candidate you would ever like to see in office.

Radical Taoist: God's Intentions

The underlying frame of that question is that there is someone who has a plan for your well being, and rape may be the price you pay for that. If I were a Christian woman who believed God only ever wished me well, I would find this the most blasphemous insult. God doesn't intend for me to be in unfair situations!

First, a short theology tangent, because this is important if you want to understand how someone like me (and evidently Mourdock) view God:

Being a Christian and living in God's will comes with no guarantee of safety. Quite the contrary. The Bible does not teach that God wants us to be in fair situations. It teaches that every Christian should "take up their cross as Jesus did", expecting hardships in this life, and living to be a witness to others. The idea of God as a benevolent uncle who you butter up with praise in order to get blessings has no place in Christian theology. When God does bless you, that is a call to use the resources your have been blessed with to do all the more good. Likewise, when you experience hardship, you should also find a way to use that for good.

All this does not mean being a Christian is unpleasant, but that relates to the other half of the deal, the peace that comes from knowing God, which is itself difficult subject and isn't the point here.

Moreover, let's see its interactions with the previous premises. Either as a reward for paying this price or a consolation for the awful event that happened to you, you receive this gift, for which you should be thankful. Because God, who has this plan for your well being and should be dictating law in a secular country, is behind this, being thankful is the most healthy response since we won't allow you to refuse the gift unless there's a chance it will kill you. And this is coming from a man.

Your problem here is related to the previous issue: you are still fixated on the horrible event that occurred, and the idea that the baby is somehow given to the women "for being raped". The actual train of thought, as was instantly clear to me and which ought would be clear to anyone who understands Mourdock as a devout Christian rather than a misogynist caricature, is as follows:

Human life, the ability to think and love and be an individual person, is a beautiful thing, a gift from God to man. Every individual person is something sacred, which should be cherished and protected.

Everyone should agree with the above statement. If you don't believe in God, you derive this sense of value for life from somewhere else, but unless you are a sociopath you do possess this value.

The obvious difficulty is that some lives cause grief to other people. I think a lot of people have been completely ignoring Mourdock's statement "I struggled with it myself for a long time". It's a very hard issue, and Mourdock is not ignoring or belittling it. However, if you believe in the value of human life (and particularly in the Christian principle that every person is special and put on earth for a purpose), then you have to conclude, difficult though it is, that when God allows a life to begin existence, He loves that person and considers them precious, and we should do the same.

In summary, the "gift" is God's gift of a precious person to humanity, who may be destined to do some great good in the world, not a gift of a cute toy to "cheer up" the rape victim or some despicable notion like that. To interpret Mourdock as meaning something like the latter is to show an extremely assumptions about the kind of person Mourdock is, assumptions which are permitted to remain and which I am here trying to dispel.

Radical Taoist: Framing and Interpretation

There's "I disagree with your position that you have a right to terminate a life" and then there's "Your input on this matter should be nonexistent". The latter is emergent from how Mourdock framed the debate. You don't get to choose how to appreciate this "gift" (the term for gifts like that are "impositions") and there's already a plan for you to follow.

The difference between those two statements is essentially "the woman's rights do not override the child's rights" versus "the woman doesn't matter", and there is no reason to place Mourdock in the latter category other than a preconceived idea that people like him are anti-women.

To make the distinction clear, imagine what Mourdock could have said. He could have said "Rape is a horrible, horrible situation no woman deserves. Such a horror should not be followed by the additional horror of ending a life." No problem! (Well, actually lots of problem, but only in the sense of disagreement over the debate.) "Rape is a horrible, horrible situation no woman deserves. I believe God offers those women the opportunity to make something precious and beautiful, the life of a child, emerge from that horror." Okay, I disagree, but I can respect that. Do you see how those statements are framed differently?

Yes, and I think that those statements are only different in that they are less fundamentalist in nature, and are in no way more or less misogynistic or supportive of rape culture.

TD;DR: Mourdock is clearly a person whose religious views guide his policy views. It is perfectly honest for you to dislike him and want him nowhere near elected office for that reason. It is dishonest, reprehensible, and simply wrong to portray him or his beliefs as anti-women or to act like that is the reason you oppose him.

Now, to reply to a few points from Best Of:

There are two premises expressed in that quote that I disagree with: 1) that there is a God, and 2) that life begins at coception. That's enough to justify that I don't agree with that statement[[/qutoeblock]]

This is perfectly correct and honest, and has nothing to do with the question of misogyny. Were you to come to agree with those two premises (or even just the second one), your views would change to be similar to Mourdock's without your attitude toward women changing at all.

[[quoteblock]]Mourdock explicitly stated that in cases where rape results in a pregnancy (that isn't fatal to the mother) God wants rape to happen.

You appear to be parsing his sentence wrong, or at least not in the way that seems obvious to me. Therefore, a syntactical excursion:

If, in the phrase "even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen", "it" refers to the rape, then yes, he would be saying that God wanted rape to happen. However, in context, he is not making a distinction between "rapes where life is created" and "rapes where no life is created", he is making a distinction between "life created by rape" and "life not created by rape". "It" refers to the life: "even when a person's life begins in the horrible situation of rape, God still intended that person to exist and that person's life is still a gift from God (which to Christians means 'a thing to be cherished')".

This seems to me to be the only reasonable way to interpret his statement, especially as it is preceded by "even". A phrase of the form "even when X, Y" is stating that X is an extreme case in a larger pool where the general principle Y which applies to the whole pool might be in doubt, yet even in the case of X, Y holds.

Parsing his statement like I did, X is the extreme case "life beginning in rape" of the general pool "all life", and Y is the general principle "when a life begins, God intended it to begin". This makes perfect sense.

Parsing his statement like you did, X is the extreme case "rapes which create life" of the pool "all rapes" and Y is the general principle "when a rape occurs, God intended it to occur". This makes no sense at all, and only a really horrible person following a really horrible God would make such a statement.

TL;DR again: As before, Mourdock is undoubtedly a religious person and those of you who dislike religious people are justified in disliking him on that basis. You are not justified in selectively interpreting his statements as anti-women or pro-rape when that is not a reasonable understanding of his words.

I hope some of that made sense. *sigh* There's a reason I don't normally engage the subject of abortion in the case of rape. I wouldn't be doing so now, did I not feel a need to address the kind of horrible treatment people with similar values to me are getting in this thread.

<><
#41704: Nov 21st 2012 at 8:22:40 PM

Oh, and right before I left, there was somebody saying that the mods tend to ban extreme conservatives but not extreme liberals, thus pushing the forum left. I just wanted to say that I don't see that. They ban people who are abusive, whatever their views. If more extreme conservatives than liberals have been banned, I suspect that is due merely to extreme conservative positions being much more fun for trolls on a predominantly liberal forum.

<><
Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#41705: Nov 21st 2012 at 8:25:09 PM

[up][up]In short: don't try saying something that won't parse to people who don't share your belief in God in the way you meant, as they don't have the patterns to ascribe to the word blocks in the ways you're used to.

They won't read what you meant in what you said... but. the other meanings that could be in the sentence you used... intended or not. tongue

Can we, please, move along? It's getting tedious: the old "abortion shouldn't be a forum topic" rule is... a good one. tongue All we get is a lot of unhappy people complaining that other people don't read what other people meant in what they said, and it winds up in circles.

To deathpigoen: I'm surprised you left out the name of the site and domain name, mate. wink

edited 21st Nov '12 10:02:34 PM by Euodiachloris

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#41706: Nov 21st 2012 at 8:32:18 PM

Eh, more liberals tend to get banned here on account of there being more of us on this board. Also bans tend only to come after extreme offenses. *shrug* The mods here are pretty patient with us.

[up][up]In regards to whether or not something is a reasonable interpretation, I think interpreting current Republican policy as anti-women is quite fair. For one, all these abortion debates disproportionately affect women. Any idea that we *absolutely have to* bear the children of our rapists is going to negatively affect us. And it's not even just the abortion thing, because this particular idea comes hand in hand with denial of health care services and blocking of laws to protect women from sexual assault because it'll also protect illegal immigrants (who are already more at risk than the average woman) and transexuals.

This is a specific law that was blocked, by the way. Violence Against Women... something or other. I forget the exact acronym. But for me, it's not just the abortion thing that makes me see or interpret all this abortion debate as anti-women. It's every thing else Republican lawmakers are doing.

So yeah. It's actually pretty reasonable to interpret them as anti-women, because these statements they got raked over the coals for are not flukes or slips of the tongue. They're continuances of a systemic issue and policies that Republicans are pushing.

deathpigeon Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: One True Dodecahedron
#41707: Nov 21st 2012 at 8:33:39 PM
Thumped: Wow. That was rude. Too many of this kind of thump will bring a suspension. Please keep it civil.
Zephid Since: Jan, 2001
#41708: Nov 21st 2012 at 8:39:23 PM

I love the whole "tax rate vs. tax revenue" mishegoss Boehner and his caucus have been on about for the past year. They're essentially saying, "We don't mind taking more money from rich people, we just want to be as cryptic about it as possible."

I wrote about a fish turning into the moon.
shimaspawn from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#41709: Nov 21st 2012 at 9:04:33 PM

Please calm down, deathpigeon. All Caps and incoherent rage do not suit you.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
deathpigeon Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: One True Dodecahedron
#41710: Nov 21st 2012 at 9:10:14 PM

Sorry. I'll try to avoid it more in the future.

HilarityEnsues Since: Sep, 2009
#41711: Nov 21st 2012 at 9:20:21 PM

As before, Mourdock is undoubtedly a religious person and those of you who dislike religious people are justified in disliking him on that basis.

I don't mind religious people. If I did, I'd be pretty out of luck considering how hard to come by atheists are in politics.

There are some things said and done in the name of religion within politics that I absolutely detest but that is not quite the same thing. Even though I don't like Murdouck's statement, it's not really that significant to me.

Now, when Bush said that God told him to invade Iraq because the biblical demons Gog and Mogag were there... that to me was infinitely more crazy and offensive than anything Murdouck and co. have ever said. That's an example of what sets off red flags for me, personally.

edited 21st Nov '12 9:23:59 PM by HilarityEnsues

DrunkGirlfriend from Castle Geekhaven Since: Jan, 2011
#41712: Nov 21st 2012 at 9:50:12 PM

@Hilarity: Speaking of, American Atheists filed a petition for their suit against the state of Kentucky to get heard by the SCOTUS.

" On August 17, 2012, the Kentucky Supreme Court refused to hear a motion for discretionary review, brought by American Atheists and local plaintiffs, to a state law that makes it mandatory that the Commonwealth and its citizens give credit to Almighty God for its safety and security. "

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian
DeviantBraeburn Wandering Jew from Dysfunctional California Since: Aug, 2012
Wandering Jew
#41713: Nov 21st 2012 at 9:54:33 PM

Did we really have to start talking about Murdouck again?

[up]

Kentucky is a commonwealth?

edited 21st Nov '12 9:58:09 PM by DeviantBraeburn

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016
HilarityEnsues Since: Sep, 2009
#41714: Nov 21st 2012 at 9:59:02 PM

12 months in prison for that? What in the flying fuck?

DrunkGirlfriend from Castle Geekhaven Since: Jan, 2011
#41715: Nov 21st 2012 at 10:00:09 PM

[up][up] Yep. As is Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

[up] And to be perfectly fair, even some of the Democrats out there are supporting it.

edited 21st Nov '12 10:00:30 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian
Inhopelessguy Since: Apr, 2011
#41716: Nov 21st 2012 at 10:01:20 PM

Commonwealth? What's that mean? I presume they're not part of the real Commonwealth, which is obviously much more awesome? tongue

DrunkGirlfriend from Castle Geekhaven Since: Jan, 2011
#41717: Nov 21st 2012 at 10:02:45 PM

[up] It doesn't mean much, really.

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian
DeviantBraeburn Wandering Jew from Dysfunctional California Since: Aug, 2012
Wandering Jew
#41718: Nov 21st 2012 at 10:04:18 PM

[up][up]

According to Wikipedia:

Four states in the United States (Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) officially designate themselves as "commonwealths". All four were original colonies (Kentucky was originally a part of the land grant of the Colony of Virginia) and share a strong influence of colonial common law in some of their laws and institutions.

However "Commonwealth" is also used in the U.S. to describe the political relationship between the United States and the overseas unincorporated territories (such as Puerto Rico).

edited 21st Nov '12 10:04:33 PM by DeviantBraeburn

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016
Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#41719: Nov 21st 2012 at 10:04:38 PM

Hopey... a commonwealth is a commonwealth. The Commonwealth is like the Doctor... the definite article. wink

Sadly... there're quite a few definite articles walking around. As well as badly defined ones. tongue

edited 21st Nov '12 10:06:46 PM by Euodiachloris

GameGuruGG Vampire Hunter from Castlevania (Before Recorded History)
Vampire Hunter
#41720: Nov 21st 2012 at 10:07:12 PM

[up][up][up] It means that if Puerto Rico is admitted as a U.S. State, it has precedent to still be called a commonwealth.

Wizard Needs Food Badly
Midgetsnowman Since: Jan, 2010
#41721: Nov 21st 2012 at 10:07:14 PM

@Hilarity

Welcome to the deep south. where all you have to do to get re-elected is appeal to god fearing southern baptists.

edited 21st Nov '12 10:07:31 PM by Midgetsnowman

HilarityEnsues Since: Sep, 2009
#41722: Nov 21st 2012 at 10:12:06 PM

That doesn't really surprise me. Plenty of democrats are pretty loathsome people in general.

@Midgetsnowman: I live in Georgia. But even around here, there aren't people asking you to acknowledge God or be incarcerated. We at least attempt to maintain something resembling a civil society.

DeviantBraeburn Wandering Jew from Dysfunctional California Since: Aug, 2012
Wandering Jew
#41723: Nov 21st 2012 at 10:33:20 PM

Rice Rejects Criticism of Her Remarks on Benghazi Attack

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016
Inhopelessguy Since: Apr, 2011
#41724: Nov 21st 2012 at 11:03:48 PM

Hmm. A general question: In the Apple v Samsung cases, why are the companies fighting in a court in California? Why not a national court? In other nations, they're fighting in national courts.

Completion oldtimeytropey from Space Since: Apr, 2012
oldtimeytropey
#41725: Nov 21st 2012 at 11:58:31 PM

No such thing as a general federal court.


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