Good to see you again Lemon; I was afraid the mod response in the social conservatism thread had driven you off.
A Combustible Lemon wrote:Kate wrote:He went on WTOP to defend an abortion bill and ended up either accidentally or purposely supporting infanticide in a scenario that did not actually have to do with the bill in question, and needless to say that did not do any favors for support for the bill (that's what prompted the conservative deep dive, btw).
Crimson847 wrote:Bluntly, I consider that story conservative media's answer to the Covington affair: a stellar example of confirmation bias and group polarization working together to make us all fucking hate each other.
So what you're saying, Crimson is he did not
- accidentally or purposefully support infanticide
-AND- - the scenario had something to do with the bill in question
-AND- - This did not prompt a conservative deep dive
Wait, what? I contested #1; I don't see how you inferred #2 and #3 from that.
Do you think the scenario of "End of life care for babies born while non-viable" has something to do with a late-term abortion bill.
If it doesn't, what's your explanation for "accidentally or purposefully support infanticide". Because the context is literally about killing babies in the womb. He answered a question about killing babies in the womb by talking about non-viable babies that were born. It doesn't take "confirmation bias and group polarization working together to make us all fucking hate each other" to think he was talking about...what he was talking about.
Specifically, the chief sponsor of the new bill said it would allow a woman to have an abortion "even while she's in labor". Northam was asked if he agreed with this, and in his response he described what he thinks the medical response should be at that point, if a woman in that situation goes into labor.
I'm aware how it sounds to pro-life ears to hear a pro-choice politician talk about having a "discussion" about a flawed infant's future. Shades of Margaret Sanger, at the very least. I'm also aware how it looks to woke eyes to see a smug white kid with a MAGA hat standing and smirking right in a Native man's face as he's trying to protest. Just because something looks or sounds awful at first glance, however, is not dispositive evidence that evil is actually occurring.
And tell me which bit of the infanticide thing is the lie, since you're both sidesing this with the Covington stories.
That Ralph Northam said he supported infanticide in that interview, and that the left all secretly agrees with him or they'd have denounced him for it already.
I hesitate to call either of those or the media claims about Covington "lies", because that implies a degree of intentionality I don't think is present. I doubt anyone is privately rubbing their hands together gleefully at how many people believe their lie; I do think an awful lot of people carelessly jump on wild negative stories about their ideological opponents that they'd be rightly skeptical of if roles were reversed.
Here's the lies from Covington, in order:
- The man wasn't a vietnam vet, despite this being in every tweet about the situation and every headline.
- Phillips decided to "de-escalate the situation" by deciding, racistly, that the white kids were the aggressors. He "de-escalated" by siding with the hate group calling the kids faggots. That he knew was a hate group, and that he knew was calling the kids faggots, considering his group is standing right there in the entire first hour of the video.
- The kids surrounded Phillips and Nick Sandmann stepped into his way. Neither of these is true. Phillips makes a turn straight into the kids, finds Sandmann and stands in his face drumming.
- Literally none of this was escalated by the kids, who stopped chanting the second they realized that Phillips was being hostile to them instead of being supportive.
- The kids were not public figures. They were not elected to any office. They did not endorse any controversial political position. They did literally nothing of note.
The media clearly targeted them for being, in that order, Trump supporters, Pro-Life, and Catholic. This is inarguably true given every single point before this. You don't get points for skipping all the way here and only denying this bit and saying I'm wrong.
Each one of these lies is deliberate and takes deliberately ignoring the evidence to believe. And you're equivocating this with a grown-ass man supporting a late-term abortion bill by talking about infanticide.
I can see you differ on that last point of mine. Well, if it's inarguably true that the same media folks who later apologized en masse for jumping to conclusions were in fact intentionally lying from the start, I shan't try to argue it then. Damn clever of those assholes to engineer things like that I suppose; they must really love the taste of crow.
Even his own fucking defence condemns him, since if the kid wasn't going to be killed on the table, why would killing it in the womb make it more ethical.
It certainly does underline the, uh, precarious moral logic involved in late-term abortion.
"Doctor, I think she's going into labor!"
"Alright, get the ICU on the line, we're gonna have to pull out all the stops to save this precious baby once it's out!"
"Wait, my bad, false alarm."
"Oh. Alright, let's get on with vaccuming that thing out and scrambling its brains then."
How's broadening your sources working out for you so far, because it looks like you're comparing a man with a shovel digging himself deeper with the fourth estate trying to get a bunch of kids killed.
Oh, it's quite fine. Oddly enough, it's actually kinda relaxing--you'd be amazed how much of the stuff we're supposed to hate each other for is media-driven bullshit, and how many supposed disagreements are really more about the language we use. The disagreements that hold up even
after you look at the world through the other guy's eyes seem downright manageable. I'm even developing a fair amount of sympathy for Trumpers nowadays, though my feelings about their leader remain unchanged.
It's come at the cost of my respect for political media, though. I mean, I always knew a lot of it was bullshit, but I didn't really understand the degree or that the sources I thought were exceptions...weren't.
PS: Absentia, what Lemon's on about is that the new bill that Northam was discussing removes the requirement for three physicians to sign off that exists in current law, and also eliminates the need for substantial and irremediable harm to the mother. The new law effectively says "one doctor must agree that the pregnancy is likely to impair the mental or physical health of the woman". Pro-lifers allege that this effectively does legalize on-demand 3T abortions, on the theory that impairing heath to
any degree is such a low bar it's practically a limbo stick, and the patient only has to get one person to agree it's been met.
Kate wrote:And this is why I am giving the benefit of the doubt of the maybe accidentally, because it isn't actually clear if he is only referring to babies that aren't compatible with life and normal end of life hospice decisions or of he is including "severe deformities" that are compatible with life and leaving born infants to die at the parents' behest; this is something that does happen and that some people do believe should be legal, we have had that discussion on TCS before.
Aren't DNRs legal already?
"If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them; but the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn