"I understand a lot of people disagree with my view – but I believe that all human life is worthy of protection of our laws. And when you present it in the context of Zika or any prenatal condition, it’s a difficult question and a hard one," Rubio told POLITICO.If I’m going to err...
"But if I’m going to err, I’m going to err on the side of life."
That "I" suggests the better answer: Do your own moral reasoning. It's a difficult decision. How do you make it? Erring on the side of life is one idea, and when it is your decision to make, you can embrace it. But to decide for someone else's family that they must continue in a pregnancy that they know will produce a child with severe microencephaly, rather than to have a chance to begin again and produce a different child... that is mind-bending intrusion into their suffering. I find it hard to believe Rubio actually wants a law that imposes his answer on those who face this decision. I assume he simply finds himself committed to a political position that requires purity at the abstract level, and he's trying to say that as nicely as possible.
I’m going to err, I’m going to err on the side of life.
That can be understood in different ways, one of which is: If I’m going to err politically, I’m going to err on the side of the pro-life politically forces, because that's way I've leveraged my career.
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248 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 248 of 248Terry said...
Average IQ's have been rising, not falling, by several points per decade since the 1930 ("Flynn effect").
Some IQ test scores, but probably not intelligence. The Flynn Effect (actually the Lynn-Flynn Effect, first mentioned in the 1940's by someone named "Smith" who was attempting to determine if prejudice against Asians in the US lowered their IQs - it didn't, of course) only occurs in the dumb part of the distribution, and seems to be mostly due to more exposure to things similar to IQ tests in school (other tests), and categorizing and generalizing (2 pgs) items in the same way the (educated) test maker does.
Terry said...
Blogger cubanbob said...
R & B,
We are near the point that we have a society that has a large segment of people who do not have the IQ needed to be successful in an advanced technological economy.
By definition half of humanity will always be below average in intelligence. Average IQ's have been rising, not falling, by several points per decade since the 1930 ("Flynn effect"). If the average IQ today was twenty points higher than it is, you would still hear complaints that the bottom half of the curve was too stupid and that "something must be done about them" before they drag "the rest of us" down.
8/7/16, 2:45 PM"
The operative issue isn't the rising bar of what constitutes average intelligence but the minimum IQ necessary to be able to be self supporting in an advanced technological society.
The conversation I started with R & B is with respects to Chinese experimentations in increasing IQ by gene editing. If the average IQ were indeed a real 20 points higher today then the bell would be more skewed to the right and we would have proportionately less people skewed to the lower left of the current bell. As for the Flynn Effect how much is that attributable to better health and nutrition and prenatal care allowing people to reach to innate IQ?
Idiocracy is instructive. Once people can get their machines to think for them there will be no incentive for intelligence, let alone editing genes for it; the same way there is no incentive for people to be hulking physical flesh forms of Optimus Prime or Charles Atlas now that the industrial revolution has become complete. If anything they do it for limited atavistic appeal, early in their reproductive years for a kick. On a lark. To amuse themselves and whatever bimbos actually hearken back in their barely evolved ovaries for a guy that big.
Same thing will happen to intelligence.
Enjoy!
The downfall of civilization. If you can't bring up a chair and watch the spectacle with amusement it's just no fun.
But no. It's not playing out in the way you claim.
Rhythm and Balls said...
If it can be done then when does it become an imperative?
Never.
When are you guys finally going to endorse the concept of reproductive autonomy?
8/7/16, 3:14 PM"
When are you guys going to endorse the concept of supporting one's self? You say never about the imperative but what makes you so sure? Right now since genetic intelligence editing isn't a reality there is no imperative but if it were to come to pass what makes you believe it won't become an imperative? You mentioned a list of accomplishments (legitimate ones) made by progressives such as abolition slavery but overlook those evils were once considered right and proper by previous progressives. To overcome an evil, there has to be an evil to overcome.
3/?
This just makes you look silly and cruel.
Oh no. Sounds like someone's getting sentimental. Or image-obsessed. Or some other thing that has no bearing and should have no bearing on me.
Well it can matter, AA just warned me on a COOKING thread that I was looking troll-ish, which I now take as a chilling threat that 'step out of line, man come and take you away' off this blog. Of course, you and she presumably align here, so you at least are safe.
(Some people of course delight in cruelty or the appearance of cruelty, equating it with strength or some other virtue, and so I would not deprive you of it if that is your choice; but...
First off, aren't you already making concessions on late term abortions? The cruelty there is that for the minuscule proportion of all that they represent, they are usually calamitous medical tragedies whereby willing parents decided, quite humanely, that undergoing a risky birth for the sake of seeing a grotesque baby cyclops with or without a neocortex and skull who has the chance of surviving for maybe a few minutes at most was just not worth it to anyone or any morality. So there's no way in hell I'm going to relinquish that one. I might let it go for the sake of reasonable people (April) who have better points to make. But I'm not conceding it. Google "wanted pregnancy abortion" and lecture to them.
Well, me, making concessions? How so? Not saying I am or amn't. Johnny Got His Gun isn't much of a use case for nurses giving handjobs.
What you are doing in this case is saying that, in such a case, it is better to kill the child. Okay, say so. Down Syndrome is perhaps not such a case, but I've always been led to believe that Tay-Sachs is such a case. I don't know where Zika falls, if that's what you refer to here.
And I'm guessing you are OK to be identified with euthanasia, but not with "Lebensunwertes Leben". <-- slippery slope though?
Second, let the record show that I delight in making ignorance scarce, and its shameless promotion scarcer. Often that requires embarrassment of the proudly ignorant. But they're playing a game for which I'm quite certain I hadn't made the first move.
Certainly, evil must be destroyed. Maybe if you can take delight in it you are better off. I disagree but there are two sides:
Rabbi Johanan taught that God does not rejoice in the downfall of the wicked. Rabbi Johanan interpreted the words zeh el zeh in the phrase "And one did not come near the other all the night" in Exodus 14:20 to teach that when the Egyptians were drowning in the sea, the ministering angels wanted to sing a song of rejoicing, as Isaiah 6:3 associates the words zeh el zeh with angelic singing. But God rebuked them: "The work of my hands is being drowned in the sea, and you want to sing songs?" Rabbi Eleazar replied that a close reading of Deuteronomy 28:63 shows that God does not rejoice personally, but does make others rejoice.[68]
...I feel sure you don't want to look ridiculous)
No one knows what anyone here actually looks like. But image obsession is something you'll have to leave to others. Only a fool stops in the middle of a fight to part his hair.
8/7/16, 12:52 PM
Oh, don't be too cute. Is it much different if one is ridiculous or if one looks ridiculous? This is what they call a nice distinction. Nice in the sense of petty, hairsplitting.
Long story short, abortion may be a good idea, but don't sing yourself to sleep saying it's just a clump of cells. Don't fool yourself or others. Yes or no, it is a grave decision, and people led to treat it lightly are open to a terrible future. <-- this is probably all I meant to say. I wrote too much.
There are rather good indications that the Flynn effect has run its course in advanced societies, and has reversed. Perhaps in some poor countries there is scope for more of the Flynn, but we may have seen its limit. There are numerous European studies showing long term declines in IQ and g-factor.
This is not necessarily tied to greater immigration of lower-IQ people into these countries, as the decline is also seen in places like Finland that have had very little immigration. This is not to say that immigration is not also a factor.
Human degeneration through dysgenics is a proximate danger.
R & B once the machines can do the thinking for us how do we guarantee they will need us? We may need to start figuring how to program AI with humor and compassion coding while we can as we may be in need of it in the future. I have a bad feeling we won't be watching the downfall of civilization sitting on a comfy chair with a beer and a sandwich.
Here comes 'no true Scotsman'!
Utterly predictable, R&B.
Yep. Tom Friedman. Big leftist. Huge capitalist, warmonger, and American jingoist. Big strong voice for all things left-wing.
China is a right-wing cause.
How China is ruled: Communist Party
Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party's more than 80m-strong membership makes it the biggest political party in the world. Its tight organisation and ruthlessness help explain why it is also still in power.
The party oversees and influences many aspects of people's lives - what they learn at school and watch on TV, even the number of children they are allowed.
It is made up largely of government officials, army officers, farmers, model workers and employees of state-owned companies.
It is unrepresentative of China as a whole. Only a quarter of its members are women, for example. It is also obsessive about control, regularly showing itself capable of great brutality in suppressing dissent or any challenge to its authority.
Statue of Mao outside university in Wuhan
The party is still the guiding hand
Joining the party brings significant privileges. Members get access to better information, and many jobs are only open to members. Most significantly in China, where personal relationships are often more important than ability, members get to network with decision-makers influencing their careers, lives or businesses.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-13904437
Leaving religious-ethical considerations aside, which in my tradition (Catholic) these matters are absolutely clear-
Some of this "libertarian" argument for abortion is based on a narcissistic conceit. It assumes a sort of personal autonomy that is foreign to healthy human nature. We are not autonomous creatures forging an independent path through the universe. We are social animals. We owe each other a certain standard of behavior. We are born with heavy obligations.
Abortion and suicide and self-abuse through bad habits are social acts. They influence other people negatively, in many ways. Abortion and suicide are self-indulgence in the extreme.
Blogger buwaya puti said...
Human degeneration through dysgenics is a proximate danger.
The cure for dysgenics can only be eugenics.
But who is allowed to judge whether dysgenics or eugenics is good or bad? The State has a rather mixed record on this. The State tends to find that policies that strengthen the State are not only advisable, but are essential to the survival of the human race.
Blogger buwaya puti said...
Some of this "libertarian" argument for abortion is based on a narcissistic conceit. It assumes a sort of personal autonomy that is foreign to healthy human nature.
The definition of freedom as personal autonomy is a creation of modernity. In the West in premodern times, the idea was that there was an ideal human mode of existence, and that freedom meant freedom the internal as well as the external obstacles that prevented us from being truly human. Freedom meant freedom from unhealthy appetites as well as freedom from certain social rules.
Catholics and other Christians (as well as followers of other faiths) tend to believe in the premodern definition of freedom.
S.M.Stirlings alternate history/dystopian Draka novels are interesting.
The slogan of the villainous, but superior, faction of humanity was "Service to the State, Glory to the Race".
One assumes that it should be in the long term interest of a state to tend to the genetic quality of its people, as a shepherd does his flock.
"Sen. Marco Rubio said Saturday that he doesn’t believe a pregnant woman infected with the Zika virus should have the right to an abortion even if she had reason to believe the child would be born with severe microcephaly."
If this is outrageous, isn't it equally outrageous to say that late term abortion is a sacred right? At 34 weeks along, the mother has basically gone through her entire pregnancy. The only benefit she gets from a late term abortion, since she could give the baby up for adoption, is that she gets to kill a living human being.
@RW: "While it may be legal to abort babies the question is still whether or not it is moral, which hinges on the question, are the unborn people." Sorry, but morality and intellectual discussions are not practically relevant here. In the U.S., the question is whether the people have the right to legislate morality. When it threatens to obstruct progressive purposes (greater sexual freedom, SSM, abortion restrictions), the answer is no. Of course, as AA has reminded us, "women have the right." And the Supreme Court, as we all know, has the last word. Combine rights absolutism, antimoralism, and rule by anointed justices, and we are stuck (I say as a non-pro-lifer). Short of a constitutional amendment, or a massive conservative victory that would cause a switch in time, nothin' ain't gonna happen.
"I find it hard to believe Rubio actually wants a law that imposes his answer on those who face this decision."
If you really believe -- for religious or other reasons -- that an abortion is the murder of an innocent human person, then how could you not want to impose that belief on everyone? Abortion supporters often claim that pro-life people are motivated solely by a desire to control women or that they're religious people who want to impose their beliefs on others. Was it also wrong for abolitionists in the 19th century to impose their beliefs about the personhood of slaves on slaveholders? Because that's what this is about -- not whether fetuses are human (of course they are), but whether they are persons entitled to legal protection and if so at what point do they become persons -- conception? third trimester? somewhere in between? Maybe abolitionists should have let it go at "I wouldn't own a slave myself, but you can do what you like," which is what I always think when I see a bumpersticker saying, "If you don't approve of abortion, don't have one."
When are you guys going to endorse the concept of supporting one's self?
We're doing it right here right now, Goofy! A pregnant woman doesn't need you and the auspices of your all-powerful state to make her do what you want her to do with her pregnancy. Leave her alone!
Here comes 'no true Scotsman'!
Utterly predictable, R&B.
Yep. Tom Friedman. Big leftist. Huge capitalist, warmonger, and American jingoist. Big strong voice for all things left-wing.
China is a right-wing cause.
As are you, with your desperately inapplicable nonsense. Friedman isn't only a "true Scotsman," he's not a Scotsman at all. Get over it. Being a DNC booster is not left-wing. That's it.
How China is ruled: Communist Party
Communist Party...
Yeah. It's an authoritarian government that no left-wing American is advocating for with an economy and political economy that is the envy of the American right-wing. Get over yourself. You really are a true authoritarian - pretending that the word "communist" isn't supposed to have anything to do with a country's economy and instead placing the label as one that has to do with politics alone. The question to you is, since you love China's economy so much, how are you going to get ours to be more like theirs without their political system? And you hate democratic checks against environmental abuse (in the name of defending the "economic" interests of big corporations, to be sure), so chalk that down to just one more thing that you love about communist China that is more of a problem for your ideological psychosis here.
But you're all about a name, instead. The name, the name.
A rose by any other name....
Dummy.
"Leave her alone!"
But as soon as that child leaves the birth control, he or she is a ward of the state!
Suppose a woman insists on bearing a child, and also insists on engaging in behavior which will result a dead or damaged child? Okay with you, R&B?
Yeah. It's an authoritarian government that no left-wing American is advocating for with an economy and political economy that is the envy of the American right-wing. Get over yourself.
The 'no true Scotsman' argument again? Unbelievable. You can either accept the definition of Leftism that actual leftists give themselves, or R&B's fanciful definition pulled from God knows where. Communists aren't Leftists in R&B's world.
Do you think your precious Sanders was a friend of free speech? Or free association? Or freedom of conscience?
Rhythm and Balls said...
When are you guys going to endorse the concept of supporting one's self?
We're doing it right here right now, Goofy! A pregnant woman doesn't need you and the auspices of your all-powerful state to make her do what you want her to do with her pregnancy. Leave her alone!
8/7/16, 5:05 PM"
Didn't know you were advocating the repeal of Medicaid and welfare. You do need a rather powerful state to enforce income redistribution. If she wants to get pregnant and stay pregnant that's fine as long as I don't have to forcibly support her via taxation. Taxation isn't charity, there is no coercion in charity and no charity in coercion. As for what I want, that isn't the issue. It is what the State will do if and when certain conditions arise.
Strangely, in many ways it is easier for businesses to operate in China than the US, with different but more predictable risks.
Speech is not as free, by miles, but it is steadily becoming less so in the US also, especially among the class of people with something to lose. The only free men in the US are the poor, the retired, and billionaires.
Okay with you, R&B?
I don't know. Ask yourself. It's not me you're intending to get an answer from, with this question you only meant to be asking yourself.
The 'no true Scotsman' argument again?
Wrong again. You failed intro logic - or never took it.
Unbelievable. You can either accept the definition of Leftism that actual leftists give themselves, or R&B's fanciful definition pulled from God knows where.
Who or what is a "leftist" or "leftism"? China is renown for the reverence that they and your fellow right-wingers direct toward their market economy. They call themselves "communists" but are capitalist authoritarians, just like you. But I guess you really are so dumb that if someone gave you a plate they called "chicken" that consisted of grilled fish, you'd say, "Hey! This is some great chicken! It really tastes like chicken! I'm so glad that I ordered the chicken!"
You give even Hawaiians a bad name.
Communists aren't Leftists in R&B's world.
Names are more important than realities in Terry's world.
Do you think your precious Sanders was a friend of free speech? Or free association? Or freedom of conscience?
Lol. Who did he prevent from saying what they wanted to say or associating with whom they associated or believing what they wanted to believe, you consummate self-delusionist? Disagreeing with the premise that corporations are people doesn't make you an authoritarian. It just means that you value the rights of people over the rights of businesses.
You'd fit right in in China. Ever been there? Ever learn a single fact about the place that you couldn't gather from the local take-out diner?
You are pathetic.
Didn't know you were advocating the repeal of Medicaid and welfare.
Hey bob. Didn't know you were feeling desperate enough to change the subject.
Someone put an Apple sticker on an HP computer and Terry kept asking why the Safari browser didn't come pre-loaded. And what about iTunes?
If you really want to confuse terri, sell him a used Pinto for $25,000 with a Ferrari sticker on it and tell him it's the best Lambourghini/Porsche he'll ever drive! The motherfucker will eat it up, telling everyone he knows what a great bargain he got!
Tell Terry his vagina is really a penis, and...
Oh well. Enough for now. Save that stuff for the campaign.
Abolition was not a progressive concept. The progressives, the Darwinists, those up to date with the latest discovereis of racial science, favored slavery.
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind -- from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics; their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just -- but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle.
--Alexander Stephens, 1861
Check out how wiki summarizes what Terry thinks of as China's marxist, communist, centrally planned economy - where vendors are prohibited from selling and people can't buy what they want and private property is supposedly outlawed:
Following Mao's death in 1976 and the consequent end of the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping and the new Chinese leadership began to reform the economy and move towards a more market-oriented mixed economy under one-party rule. Agricultural collectivization was dismantled and farmlands privatized, while foreign trade became a major new focus, leading to the creation of Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Inefficient state-owned enterprises (SOEs) were restructured and unprofitable ones were closed outright, resulting in massive job losses. Modern-day China is mainly characterized as having a market economy based on private property ownership, and is one of the leading examples of state capitalism. The state still dominates in strategic "pillar" sectors such as energy production and heavy industries, but private enterprise has expanded enormously, with around 30 million private businesses recorded in 2008.
Since economic liberalization began in 1978, China has been among the world's fastest-growing economies, relying largely on investment- and export-led growth. According to the IMF, China's annual average GDP growth between 2001 and 2010 was 10.5%. Between 2007 and 2011, China's economic growth rate was equivalent to all of the G7 countries' growth combined. According to the Global Growth Generators index announced by Citigroup in February 2011, China has a very high 3G growth rating. Its high productivity, low labor costs and relatively good infrastructure have made it a global leader in manufacturing. However, the Chinese economy is highly energy-intensive and inefficient; China became the world's largest energy consumer in 2010, relies on coal to supply over 70% of its energy needs, and surpassed the US to become the world's largest oil importer in September 2013.
Seriously. It's like Terry didn't know any of this. What a damn goon.
Terry! Nixon's not the president any more, either.
Not one mention of evolution in that tract, Creationist Michael Kochin, which would be odd if you thought Darwin's Origin of Species, published for the first time in 1859 (1860 in America) was that important a basis for longstanding Southern sectionalism and its race-based plantation-slave economy less than a year later.
OTOH, the equality of men and human rights were important enough to mention explicitly in the three amendments ending the regional slave economy that led to war. Progressive ideals mentioned for a hundred or more years before as such. But what would relevant facts like that matter to an "anti-Darwinist" such as yourself.
"Who or what is a "leftist" or "leftism"?"
Apparently, Leftism is whatever you say it is at any particular moment, R&B.
Does the state control the means of production in China? Why yes! Yes it does!
R&B would have you believe that the premier of the Chinese Communist, Party Lee Keqiang, is no communist. True, he has been a member of the communist party and other communist organizations since he was a lad, but apparently Keqiang is secretly a Roatrian, LOL.
Next R&B will explain that Lenin, Stalin, and Trostsky were not Leftists, either.
Do you think that Castro a Leftist, R&B?
The world is too complex for simple ideological postures, especially now, after the collapse of international socialism, the one and only global political ideology.
Politics does not map the same way, with the same bundles of issues and interests as in US politics.
The closest commonality across the world is that nearly all countries are now some species of corporatist-fascist Of course all have peculiarities. But that goes with that category of systems.
Fascism won.
In the US the state is trying as hard as it can to bring all the "commanding heights" of the economy under close control.
And a huge lot of the lowlands as well.
Industrial policy was explicitly a part of the Clinton administration platform, back in 1993-94, but they had to abandon it, overtly anyway. Since then though it has been gradually implemented as a consequence of the long march through the institutions, regardless of the overt politics of the administration.
Wall Street, at least, and several industries that are more infiltrated or willing to play ball, have learned to use it to their advantage.
Your 7:03 reads like a McCarthy hearing memo, Terry.
How many American businesses are involved in China, Terry? Are their "production means" also being controlled?
You are quite literally one of the dumbest assholes to rule the internet.
To reiterate: Private property, very relaxed commercial regulation, 30 million private businesses as of 8 years ago, GDP growth greater than 10%, practically NO "business stifling" environmental regulation, private ownership of property including farms, and one of the largest trade businesses in the world.
Keep fucking your chicken, Terry. Read on about the revolution! This is exactly what those Russian intellectuals advocated! Long live propaganda with no use for facts! Pay no attention to those corporate executives behind that curtain!
Terry, test: What color is the sky?
That said, the Chinese Communist Party still does train/indoctrinate its members with the sacred texts of communism and its great god Mao. They keep the rituals and holy books of the old religion.
Much as the US Democrats and Republicans keep the sacred texts of theirs.
"A pregnant woman doesn't need you and the auspices of your all-powerful state to make her do what you want her to do with her pregnancy. Leave her alone!: Fine. If she leaves me alone after she gives birth. Deal?
Much as the US Democrats and Republicans keep the sacred texts of theirs.
Good point, buwaya. This would be a good year in which to revise our parties' doctrines.
Rhythm and Balls said...
Didn't know you were advocating the repeal of Medicaid and welfare.
Hey bob. Didn't know you were feeling desperate enough to change the subject.
8/7/16, 6:34 PM"
Neither desperate nor changing the subject. You referred to the State's power and I simply replied. So if the State has no business in a woman's womb nor deciding whether she can carry or must abort then it doesn't have any business putting it's hand on my wallet to subsidize that woman's choice.
As for your comments about China it is a Communist country insofar as the ruling party is the Communist Party. There is a large sector of the economy that is owned by the State. However the Party recognized it needed rapid economic growth to first be able to fend off the USSR and somewhat later to compete with the West. There still are true believers in China and they subscribe to the position that capitalism is a necessary evil transition period until communism can be truly implemented. China for all of it's money and power is still a rather poor country. So for now in some instances it is more capitalistic than we are and that is largely due to corruption. Laws are in just not enforced. Or selectively enforced. Foreigners need to tow the line in China, locals not so much. Beijing often times has less control over local circumstances than you would think and things are managed at the local level until Beijing gets sufficiently aggravated to temporarily crack down on local officials. One of our biggest advantages over China is our bureaucracy is a model of efficiency and virtue compared to China's. Yes its easy to deride their pollution and their lax safety and health regulations but then again we weren't much better for much of the twentieth century. Still the Chinese government has implemented measures that you would find progressive such as mandatory health insurance and a month's severance pay for every year of service. All Chinese rulers understand they cannot lose The Mandate From Heaven or they risk losing their heads. They will do whatever they must to grow China economically and if that includes genetic engineering they will do it.
"No one has the right to decide another person's life isn't worth living."
Except we do it all the time, individually and as a society. Some of us have had to make extremely difficult medical decisions. I hope you never have to (not being sarcastic; I really hope you don't.)
R&B better talk to the CIA:
Country name:
conventional long form: People's Republic of China
conventional short form: China
local long form: Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo
local short form: Zhongguo
abbreviation: PRC
etymology: English name derives from the Qin (Chin) rulers of the 3rd century B.C., who comprised the first imperial dynasty of ancient China; the Chinese name Zhongguo translates as "Central Nation"
Government type:
communist state
Capital:
name: Beijing
geographic coordinates: 39 55 N, 116 23 E
time difference: UTC+8 (13 hours ahead of Washington, DC, during Standard Time)
note: despite its size, all of China falls within one time zone; many people in Xinjiang Province observe an unofficial "Xinjiang time zone" of UTC+6, two hours behind Beijing
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html
R&B thinks China is run by the Rotarians or maybe the US Chamber of Commerce.
As for your comments about China it is a Communist country insofar as the ruling party is the Communist Party. There is a large sector of the economy that is owned by the State. However the Party recognized it needed rapid economic growth to first be able to fend off the USSR and somewhat later to compete with the West. There still are true believers in China and they subscribe to the position that capitalism is a necessary evil transition period until communism can be truly implemented. China for all of it's money and power is still a rather poor country. So for now in some instances it is more capitalistic than we are and that is largely due to corruption. Laws are in just not enforced. Or selectively enforced. Foreigners need to tow the line in China, locals not so much. Beijing often times has less control over local circumstances than you would think and things are managed at the local level until Beijing gets sufficiently aggravated to temporarily crack down on local officials. One of our biggest advantages over China is our bureaucracy is a model of efficiency and virtue compared to China's. Yes its easy to deride their pollution and their lax safety and health regulations but then again we weren't much better for much of the twentieth century. Still the Chinese government has implemented measures that you would find progressive such as mandatory health insurance and a month's severance pay for every year of service. All Chinese rulers understand they cannot lose The Mandate From Heaven or they risk losing their heads. They will do whatever they must to grow China economically and if that includes genetic engineering they will do it.
Translation: Apart from some heavy industries that remain state-owned, China is an authoritarian capitalist country.
R&B thinks China is run by the Rotarians or maybe the US Chamber of Commerce.
The COC would love it if we could run our country in such a way as to give us the 10% growth that China's enjoyed.
And you would, too. Dipshit.
Nice source, too: CIA. Yep. A failproof operation if ever there was one. And very up on their politics. They always know exactly how to identify countries by political setting and how to intervene and why.
Admit it. You admire China's one-party system. If you could make the U.S. a one-party system you would do it. You know you would.
This is why I don't view my children as "wants", but as human beings. I want my children to be healthy, smart, well off, and so on BUT they're human. We're human, not gods.
And there are qualities even more important that those you listed, e.g., courage, strength of character, generosity of spirit and wisdom, to name a few.
R&B, you don't even see that you are endorsing the pre-1978 totalitarian China as somehow being better than China in the grip of its economic reformers.
R&B, speaking of distracted, we were discussing Zika and abortion, not China.
Except they don't "know" a child will be born with an issue that makes their life unlivable. Plenty of children are born without issue when the doctor says beforehand there will be. And plenty of handicapped children are born who are happy to be alive. As a society we should back off the pathway we are on that has us ending life after discovering new ways that nature makes life less than "ideal".
It's a terrible thing that as our technological ability to detect problems and make life less harsh and painful; as we've discovered how to prolong life-- we are fixated on how to end lives "not worth living."
Our modern miracles aren't elevating the extremely less fortunate, but creating a culture where life is better to be snuffed out rather than lived imperfectly by average standards, but potentially these people will offer something beautiful to the world. And at a minimum their life is worth living for their own sake.
Anyone else notice how everything these days is being reinterpreted to an assault on traditional morality?
It's not an absolute right, and there are questions about the scope of that right.
I'd ask the same question nobody asks the Dems on the issue:
What restrictions are OK?
Nobody gives any answers.
The fact that the FDA has not approved and already deployed the GMO mosquitos made by Oxitec (XON) is a massive moral and human rights disaster squarely on Obama. It will make the Flint water matter look like a walk in the park. Coming soon will be hundreds of Zika babies in PR.
Hell, he whines that Republicans haven't provided money to fight Zika, yet he's only doled out half of what has been passed so far and the Democrats are stopping anything more.
I support abortion now because, predominately, it kills Democrats.
Translation: Apart from some heavy industries that remain state-owned, China is an authoritarian capitalist country.
Call it quasi capitalist. The state still absorbs an immense amount of wealth and then uses it to build cities no one will live in. Or to build islands and then claim them as their boarder.
" No one legitimately forces people to become pregnant and no one legitimately forces them to abort."
I can foresee a society wherein the government will not pay for the live birth, medical care, or welfare payments of an individual known to be genetically "wrong" before birth.
"Wrong" will be defined as a point on a spectrum between purebred and defective, with each further defined by the authorities.
In case you cannot tell, I consider this prediction a reason to keep the government's authority, and budgetary involvement, in reproduction to as minimal a role as possible.
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