Woozle/2021/12/02

About

This is a cross-post from Nextdoor.

Post

subject: petition: defend abortion access

https://action.aclu.org/send-message/defend-abortion-access-all

For my letter, I wrote this:

The far-right war on abortion is war on a free and egalitarian society. Both political parties need to come together to fight this by protecting reproductive rights at the federal level.

Abortion should be a personal and medical decision, not the government's choice.

That last sentence is aimed squarely at our conservoid Congressional reps, who are always talking about how government should be small and unobtrusive. Their actions consistently belie their words, but I like to give people an honorable way out when I can by pretending they didn't *mean* to be forking hypocrites.

Someone on Mastodon added: "small enough to fit in the body and bedroom, yes." Indeed! Hurrah for Republican fold-away vaginally-inserted government! Fits neatly in your purse, right next to your AR-15 and ivermectin tablets. (Be sure to wash thoroughly and sanitize between pregnancies. WARNING: May cause electile dysfunction.)

Comments

Responding to Dennis Sharp:

"The court is not trying to end abortion rights but leave it up to the states."

That's the same thing, Dennis.

"If you read the US Constitution, there is a list of federal powers. The federal government is not impowered in this area, so it is up to the state."

That's why we need a Constitutional amendment.

"This puts this matter into the hands of citizens, not appointed judges."

NO. IT DOES THE EXACT FRICKIN' OPPOSITE, YOU COLOSSAL DINGUS.

When you rebooted your brain, did you remember to TURN IT BACK ON AGAIN?

Dennis digs in; I responded again:

I see you can't even grasp basic logic -- so when others try to explain it to you, you think they are confused.

I'll go over this one more time:

1.

you said: "The court is not trying to end abortion rights but leave it up to the states."

Leaving a right "up to the states" is removing that right nationally. A right doesn't exist unless it is enforced.

2.

you said: "This puts this matter into the hands of citizens, not appointed judges."

This is the exact opposite of reality.

If you have a right to do something, then the choice to do it (or not) is yours.

If you *don't* have that right, then it's up to others (including but not limited to the government) to decide whether you're allowed to.

Letting the states decide means that any state can choose to take away that right.

--

At the very least, you're being dishonest with yourself -- and I see no reason to think you're being honest with me, either. Nobody could possibly really *believe* the twisty non-logic you're putting out here.

Dennis continues to dig in; I responded:

"You don't have to move to another state to get an abortion." While the idea of just traveling to another state for an abortion is more practical (certainly a lot of people in Texas are now having to do exactly that), the point remains that a lot of the people most in need of abortions *cannot afford to do this*.

As I said: your privilege is showing.

"I raised seven children in poverty. They all became functioning adults."

One thing I'm curious about: Did you make use of government aid during this time?

"You think they should have been killed?"

(...speaking of straw-manning the opposition...)

What have I ever said that would lead you to believe I might think that?

"Politicians are supposed to govern with the consent of the governed, not just Woozle."

WHICH ONE OF US IS ARGUING THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO MAKE A BLANKET PROHIBITION ON A HIGHLY PERSONAL MEDICAL-ETHICAL CHOICE, DENNIS?

That's the OPPOSITE OF CONSENT.

Gods, you are a prize pazoozle. Why am I even responding anymore.

2021-12-08

Meg C. said:

The attempts at gaslighting here are fascinating: Discounting attempts at clarifying or verifying information as alternately "nitpicking" or a "hit piece".

I responded with an essay (it just kind of happened):

Ultimately, meaningful dialogue requires a certain amount of trust in both directions. If one party decides to break the process, it's really easy to do: they just have to violate that trust. If they want to waste the other party's time into the bargain, all they have to do is violate it in small, subtle ways that might be accidental.

Are these misunderstandings accidental, or deliberate? If they're accidental, it's reasonable to think that the person in question might never understand a particular mistake... but if they consistently *never* understand when they make a mistake... or, more damning, never admit to even the *possibility* that they made a mistake...

...then there comes a time when you have to decide the other person is being willfully dishonest, rather than simply failing to comprehend.

The obvious solution then is to disengage: this person is untrustworthy, and any discussion with them will ultimately lead down a rabbit-hole of small betrayals.

The problem, though, is what do we do about others who happen to hold the same viewpoint? Do we assume that those dishonestly-held viewpoints can *only* be arrived at through dishonest argumentation?

I want to believe that some of the people who hold opinions that seem flatly wrong to me did in fact arrive at those positions through honest analysis, allowing for the possibility of meaningful discussion and perhaps even changing my own mind -- but in nearly 2 decades of political argumentation, I can't really say I've ever run into an example of this.

The next problem then is how to deal with this kind of dishonesty, once detected -- especially in a forum moderated by someone of that fundamentally dishonest mindset.

I don't immediately have an answer.