Shot In The Dark: Feet Firmly Planted In The Clouds

March 17, 2006

Feet Firmly Planted In The Clouds

Don't get me wrong; I like Mona Charen. She's a fine writer, an excellent commentator, and one of the precious few conservative opinions to occasionally leak into the Star/Tribune.

But her latest column illustrates a conundrum that faces social conservatives. The piece relates to a suit by the National Center for Men that does something that, viewed properly, exposes one of the key hypocrisies of Roe V. Wade; it's trampling on equal protection.

Charen finishes the article at the point where her reasoning (and that of most social conservatives, like Laura Ingraham, who was tittering about this case the other morning) begins:

The point (and it is not one the feminists will find in their quiver) is that sexuality requires responsibility -- and that doesn't just mean using birth control. It means that if you engage in sex you have an automatic obligation to any child that may result. Prochoice women have been vociferously rejecting this responsibility for decades. It should come as no surprise that men are inclined to do the same.

Roe vs. Wade and the sexual carnival we've encouraged in this country ever since have planted the idea that men and women have some sort of constitutional right to enjoy sex without consequences. Dubay and all of those similarly situated (including women who use abortion as emergency contraception) should look into the faces of their sons and daughters and explain that it's nothing personal.

Well, yeah. No kidding. In a perfect - or even particularly good - world, that's where the argument would end; the world would be full of responsible people who treat sex with the responsibility (to say nothing of the morality) that potentially bringing a human life into the world deserves.

But that's not where we are. We live in a world where having children is a retroactive option for women - but not for men. The difference is important in many cases:

In cases where the father and mother agree to have and raise the child, all is fine, of course.
Likewise, if mother and father agree to abort the child, all is...well, not fine. Deeply wrong. But everyone's rights are equally protected (except those of the "fetus", of course [1]).
So when the mother wants to have the child and the father would just as soon not be tied to 18 years of child support? "Tough rocks" you might say - and as someone who takes these sorts of things very seriously, I agree, on one level. We'll come back to that.
In cases where the mother wants to abort the child but the father - who but for the mother's decision would be obligated to pay child support - would like to raise the child? His child? Where's the "choice?"

Which is, of course, the larger issue.

The suit is a #3:

Here are the facts: A 25-year-old computer programmer named Matt Dubay of Saginaw, Mich., was ordered by a judge to pay $500 per month in child support for a daughter he fathered with his ex-girlfriend. His contention -- and that of the National Center for Men -- is that this requirement is unconstitutional because it violates the equal protection clause.

Dubay does not dispute that he is the child's father. Rather, he claims that during the course of his relationship with the mother, he was given to understand that she could not become pregnant because of a physical condition. He insists that she knew he did not want to have children with her. The courts, he and his advocates argue, are forcing parenthood upon him in a way that they cannot do to a woman.

Charen, viewing the case through Roe-colored glasses, is not impressed:

But the gravamen of the men's complaint is unwanted fatherhood. These poor fellows who have sex with women they do not want to marry or have children with are persecuted in this Brave New World we've created. When the only frame of reference is a competition of rights, both sexes strive to outdo each other in selfishness.

Charen completely misses the point of the suit, I think.

Remember our list of four situations, above? The "Men's Rights" angle involves #3 and #4. Some, indeed, are men like Mr. Dubay, whose consequence-free tryst went awry and are unhappy about it. Social conservatives like Charen and Ingraham are - justifiably - not especially sympathetic.

But there are two reasons they should be.

First: there are many men who fit into example #4 from our list above, who are willing and able to raise the children conceived by their (and their girlfriends', or sometimes spouses') oopses. And they have no - zero, nada, bupkes - rights under current law.

Second: It's a simple fact that negative consequences help to mitigate negative behavior. It's a fact that men tend to regard divorce as a less favorable option for dealing with marital difficulties than do women (by nearly a 2/1 margin); the consequences for men are almost universally negative, certainly more negative than for women as a general rule. Allowing equal protection to men in cases like Example #4 (and, commensurately, requiring responsibility on the part of women) would add some sobering consequences to casual sex for women; it follows that at least part of the problem that vexes social conservatives would be mitigated.

This suit - odious as it seems at first to the social conservative's nose - has the promise of serving as a precedent that could start to re-establish the notion that sex has consequences, and those consequences have responsibilities, for both men and women.

What's to argue about?

Aside: Charen is also misinformed to the point of myopia on one issue:

(The NCM has other complaints, too, and it's amusing to see the tables turned. They whine, for example, that men tend to die an average of eight years earlier than women, and that the overwhelming majority of the homeless are men. True. Is it the fault of the matriarchy?)

"Whine?"

It's a fact. Men's life spans are not only eight years shorter, but the gap is entirely a product of the last 100 years (in 1900, men and women had nearly the same life expectancy).

A fair part of the discrepancy, according to Warren "Don't Call Me Perry" Farrell, is that men, in addition to working most of the most dangerous jobs (soldiers, construction workers, farmers, cops, etc), are on the wrong end of much of life's stresses; their lives are unbalanced by living up to the expectation to be good breadwinners, only to have that work turned against them when their marriages go sour because - surprise! - they work too hard; the balance of having their children around and in their lives is then ripped away from them (but not the duty to provide for them), contributing to untold stress-related health issues later in life.

So yeah, the the matriarchy might have something to do with it. Or so goes the theory.

[1] And the first person to chime in "a fetus has no rights!" will get a rhetorical wedgie, because you are being lazy and also illustrate the problem perfectly; a "fetus" may or may not be "viable" at any given moment during gestation, but left on its own, even with absolutely no medical care, it will develop into a live human being at least 2/3 of the time. It has motive and intent (and biological programming) to become human, and ignoring it amounts to clamping your ears shut and yelling "Na na I can't hear you!".

Also, the "viability" argument is a canard; a "fetus" isn't "viable" until it can hold a job and pay its rent. Neither of my children are "viable" yet.

Just saying.

Posted by Mitch at March 17, 2006 07:08 AM | TrackBack

Comments

A woman must have a right to choose whether to have children. She can change her mind from the moment of sex up to the moment of birth.

A man has the same right to choose whether to have children, but only up to the moment of sex. After that, he has no choice.

Women's fundamental rights get special priviliges that men's fundamental rights don't. How can this NOT be discrimination based on sex?

Posted by: nathan bissonette at March 17, 2006 08:36 AM

Women have the unique obligation to carry the child. They should get more consideration than the man in the process. However, since we as a society have dismissed the quaint, old-fashioned notion of marriage, we now have new problems such as this to confront.
Back in the old days we had bastards. Now we have dead babies. Some progress.

Posted by: Kermit at March 17, 2006 08:54 AM

No U.S. Congress ever passed a law establishing the right to an abortion. Deciding to fill that vacuum, five unelected judges on the U.S. Supreme Court, in Roe v. Wade, declared it was perfectly legal for one class of Americans to obtain rights denied to another class of Americans, and that those denied equal rights under the law must thereafter finance activity contrary to their beliefs for the benefit of those who oppose their beliefs.

What's wrong with that?

Posted by: Eracus at March 17, 2006 09:16 AM

The point is, the father has absolutely no say in whether the child is put up for adoption, or raised by the single mother. The mother has all the options and the father--even a father lied to about the mother's fertility--has none. He can't say, I give up all parental rights in favor of the birth mother. Doesn't matter. It's a strange event in a person's life where the person has only financial obligations, but absolutely no decisions to make.

Posted by: RBMN at March 17, 2006 09:17 AM

Judges have foisted child support on men in circumstances where DNA has proven he isn't the father.

Posted by: Kermit at March 17, 2006 09:22 AM

Yet anaother irrelevant and stupid post by an irrelevant and stupid person. Why do you force us to waist our time on this carp?

And why didnt' you mentoin that your Dear Leadre Geroge Dumbya Bush had an abotion when he was a cokehead? You are just tryrging to excoose that kind of bad behavior while bringing down the full wait of govenrment on poor people who need abortions to stay healthy.

Yet anaother irrelevant and stupid post by an irrelevant and stupid person. Why do you force us to waist our time on this carp?

Posted by: PWannaBe at March 17, 2006 10:04 AM

Re: Kermit at March 17, 2006 09:22 AM

I think that's only when the man is legally married to the woman giving birth. And that makes sense for the child, who in most cases has bonded with the man who they think is their father. Thirty-five years ago, how could two men with the same blood type determine who was the biological father? They couldn't. The court still had to have an answer in those cases.

Posted by: RBMN at March 17, 2006 10:08 AM

Re: PWannaBe at March 17, 2006 10:04 AM

> And why didnt' you mentoin that your Dear
> Leadre Geroge Dumbya Bush had an abotion
> when he was a cokehead?

If he/she had an abortion, then you must admit that he/she did a great job of picking the doctor for the subsequent sex-change operation. Give him/her that.

Posted by: RBMN at March 17, 2006 10:15 AM

"I think that's only when the man is legally married to the woman giving birth."

And the judge rewards her adultery which ended the marriage. No wonder I'm a bit cynical.

Posted by: Kermit at March 17, 2006 10:29 AM

Let's flip the Dubay facts around.

What if the man had untruthfully told the woman that he could not and did not want to have children. The woman also does not want to have children yet ends up pregnant.

Should she be forced to bear the child?

If so should she be able to somehow force the man to take custody after birth and relinquish any financial obligations?

Posted by: Nick at March 17, 2006 11:12 AM

Nick,

"Should she be forced to bear the child?"

You ask the question as if it's hypothetical - it's not. She is not forced to in practice today.

"Should" she? If we're talking "Should", the couple "should" not be getting their phreak on if they're not up to the consequences (at least, not if you accept that there is a moral component to conceiving a child; if you do not, then the parameters of the conversation change; one might then ask why the ongoing support of a creature with no moral weight is such a legal imperative) - and billions of years of biology have determined that the natural consequence of the horizontal mambo is the pitter patter of little feet.

"If so should she be able to somehow force the man to take custody after birth and relinquish any financial obligations?"

The hypothetical may be entertaining, but family court system does not in practice "force" custody on people; quite the opposite, it more usually denies it to people who are willing and able to practice it.

The hypothetical is something of a non-sequitur; there is no way a *male* can currently force a woman to take custody and escape (legally) paying child support. Nowhere has doing the opposite been suggested.

Posted by: mitch at March 17, 2006 11:27 AM

"Should she be forced to bear the child?"
It appears that you stand firmly on the side of "yes she should be compelled legally to bear the child." Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Assuming that we could get the laws changed to agree with you. What about the woman's equal protection? A woman would be legally coerced into carrying and birthing the child while this could never be the case for the man.

What about alcohol use in the case of the mother who is pregnant with an unwanted child. What are her obligations?

These questions are germane becaue they illustrate the inherently imbalanced nature of the issue. When the facts are reversed they change the obligations of the female to an extent that is impossible to replicate for the male.

"The hypothetical is something of a non-sequitur; there is no way a *male* can currently force a woman to take custody and escape (legally) paying child support. Nowhere has doing the opposite been suggested."

My question was poorly worded. However Dubay IS suggesting that he should be able to escape paying child support. Basically he has sex and he later asks not to pay child support. The opposite situation would be that a women would have to give birth, relinquish custody to the willing man (I don't think there is anyway to argue that the fetus is in the custody of the man) and then ask not to pay. This is clearly not equal either.

Posted by: Nick at March 17, 2006 12:13 PM

"It appears that you stand firmly on the side of "yes she should be compelled legally to bear the child." Please correct me if I'm wrong."

Consider yourself corrected - and please let me know exactly what it was that led you to that conclusion, from what I wrote?

"Assuming that we could get the laws changed to agree with you. What about the woman's equal protection? A woman would be legally coerced into carrying and birthing the child while this could never be the case for the man."

Biology doesn't trump equal protection.

"What about alcohol use in the case of the mother who is pregnant with an unwanted child. What are her obligations?"

This is covered by existing laws - and is, strictly speaking, a diversion from the topic.

"These questions are germane becaue they illustrate the inherently imbalanced nature of the issue. When the facts are reversed they change the obligations of the female to an extent that is impossible to replicate for the male."

So the question is, do we have equal protection, or do we not?

"My question was poorly worded. However Dubay IS suggesting that he should be able to escape paying child support. Basically he has sex"

...with a woman who assured him conception was impossible. Remember; if a guy assures a woman that he's had a vasectomy, and she gets preggers and opts to deliver the child, he's on the hook for child support, too.

" and he later asks not to pay child support. The opposite situation would be that a women would have to give birth, relinquish custody to the willing man (I don't think there is anyway to argue that the fetus is in the custody of the man) and then ask not to pay. This is clearly not equal either."

Nope. Biology is a beeyotch.

And will probably be what decides the case, anyway.

Posted by: mitch at March 17, 2006 12:21 PM

Let me be clear, here: My biggest quibble isn't so much with the "women SHOULD have more rights" crowd - I disagree, but that's a separate argument.

It's with the social conservatives who see this lawsuit as nothing but a guy who wants to bump and run on his obligations. It's more than that - and the issue touches on one where the Social Conservatives are consistently on the wrong side, to my chagrin.

Posted by: mitch at March 17, 2006 12:30 PM

I'm confused, on one side of the law if a person murders a pregnant woman they can be charged with murder of the baby also. The same woman could make the decesion to abort her baby before her murder and that's OK. I was a single parent for 14 years, my son is now a productive member of soceity. Men, can raise children. Since we have to put up with this grose procedure(abortion), at least men should have a say in whether they want their unborn murdered or not.

Posted by: Bob Johnson at March 17, 2006 01:03 PM

I should of added this for informational purposes. John Gilbertson of the Minnesota Department of human Rights caused a big stir on this issue and how the laws were unfavorable written against men. He came under enormous pressure to back off the issue.

Posted by: Bob Johnson at March 17, 2006 01:11 PM

Since we have to put up with this grose procedure(abortion), at least men should have a say in whether they want their unborn murdered or not.
---------
No, such a concept would be unconstitutional according to the progressive legal philosophy of the U.S. Supreme Court. Who are mere men to decide the fate of their own unborn children? You are suggesting women be held accountable for their own behavior. This is blasphemy! Go to your room.

Posted by: Eracus at March 17, 2006 01:15 PM

Mitch said
"Consider yourself corrected - and please let me know exactly what it was that led you to that conclusion, ("that (I) stand firmly on the side of "yes she should be compelled legally to bear the child.") from what I wrote?"

The following quotes led me to believe that you are firmly anti-abortion.

"has the promise of serving as a precedent that could start to re-establish the notion that sex has consequences, and those consequences have responsibilities, for both men and women."

"the couple "should" not be getting their phreak on if they're not up to the consequences"

Without the option of abortion, a woman who gets pregnant would be legally compelled to give birth to an unwanted child.

PS - To all posters - as a reader, sometimes poster, I appreciate the civility with respect to this thread when compared to some recent posts.

Posted by: Nick at March 17, 2006 01:40 PM

What an amazing litany of what the law is NOT.

RBMN says..

The point is, the father has absolutely no say in whether the child is put up for adoption, or raised by the single mother.

False, to be put up for adoption requires the biological father to relinquish his rights.

The mother has all the options and the father--even a father lied to about the mother's fertility--has none. He can't say, I give up all parental rights in favor of the birth mother.

Wrong - as above, no adoption moves forward without consent of the biological father. Further, even after the fact, a biological father has several years (as I recall) to stake claim.

Doesn't matter. It's a strange event in a person's life where the person has only financial obligations, but absolutely no decisions to make.

Well, it would be strange, were it true.

As for Mitch's post - Men are given a poor shake in courts, but that is not a static event, their interests are increasingly given more voice, but the point he makes that men view divorce less faovorably than women because the primary negative consequences are to men is so shot through with unsubstantiated (and inacurate) falacy that it's laughable. First, the far larger majority of men consider their marraige "happy", so small wonder they'd want to preserve it... the negative to negative tie is hardly proven by this rather stretched analagy.

Second, divorced women wind up financially devestated in a huge number of cases. Much of it comes from dead-beat dads, but not exclusively. Regardless, the assertion is just wrong, specificaly that somehow women benefit or profit, or even don't substantially suffer from divorce, is completely unsupported by fact. Men suffer economically, and so do women - any argument to the contrary is utterly groundless.

Perhaps Mitch, you can provide details that divorce isn't a negative impactor to women - emperical evidence like comparative household income or net worth before and after?

Men take a disproportionate hit to their incomes when weighted against the time they have with their children, and further when you consider some take substantial amounts of time housing/raising children for which they get little credit - and that's unfair and wrong.
Asserting women are more inclined to divorce because they don't suffer economicaly enough is just as wrong.

But ya' know, this was about abortion, not divorce, so let's get back to that, shall we?

Eracus said...

What's wrong with that?

Well... first Eracus, considering your party has been engaged in a pattern for the past 25 years of asserting the Executive power to squelch the legislative's, this seems kinda ironic... but.. let's go a little further.

The 14th Ammendment of the Constitution, the one ratified by "the Congress", is the foundation of the right of privacy according to then Supreme Court Justice Brandies, perhaps you've heard of him? He is seen as one of the finest Chief Justices in our history. Anyway, this concept of the right to privacy is what guarantees the government doesn't have the right to monitor your actions, your travels, your person.

Extending from that is this, that life is defined scientifically and legally, not religiously. The definition in 1972 equated to something called "viability". The Roe v. Wade decision reaffirmed that until a fetus can meet the definition, the scientifically supportable definition, of life, it is not legal to assert it IS in fact, a life, no matter the religious views of some folks. The comment you made..

Deciding to fill that vacuum, five unelected judges on the U.S. Supreme Court, in Roe v. Wade, declared it was perfectly legal

is entirely inaccurate, they determined whether life should be defined by religious zealotry, or by a scientific process divorced from and separate from religion. YOU say it determined rights denied another class - and yet, until it is a life, it is not denying the father anything, other than denying the father has the right to dictate physical process on the mother.

That's the law, and all the Supreme Court did was to say where a life began, based upon the best evidence of the time. Without life, there is no denial of any such right. That it has been permitted to be performed past viability is a repulsive offront to our society. The ONLY reason for such a case is when the life of the mother would be sacrificed - which is hard to fathom of such a circumstance considering a baby (i.e. a viable life) can be surgically removed (C-Section) and sustained externally. Consequently, partial-birth abortions are a vile anethma and should never be allowed.

However, what this gets to is what you consider to be a life, it's what it has always been about. Considering the MOST judicially active judges are in order Thomas, Ginsberg, Scalia, , in terms of overturning legislatures, I find myself thinking your complaint is both hollow and not genuine.

Posted by: pb at March 17, 2006 02:00 PM

point of clarification...

No adoption moves forward w/o consent of the biological father - AS LONG AS HE IS LOCATABLE - considering all the whining about poor, aggrieved fathers who are actively involved though - this certainly would NEVER happen - I mean, would it?

Posted by: pb at March 17, 2006 02:02 PM

"No adoption moves forward w/o consent of the biological father - AS LONG AS HE IS LOCATABLE - considering all the whining about poor, aggrieved fathers who are actively involved though - this certainly would NEVER happen - I mean, would it?"

Correct, and irrelevant.

Posted by: mitch at March 17, 2006 02:24 PM

You know Mitch, two things.

First, I don't need your affirmation of facts. Foremostly becasue I understand them just fine myself, but secondly, I'm far from convinced you do - although in this case I'm sure you do.

However, and secondly, given that your sychophant (aka toadie) crew were the ones attesting there are no such rights, why is it you waited until I pointed it out, to note their comments were inaccurate and irrelevant?

Seemingly, you could have disabused those assumptions on your own.

Hey, and lastly, and I suppose breaking my promise, thirdly, I don't consider "bzzt, irrelevant", or any other trite little comeback anything like a constructive conversation or even - you know - relevant.

Perhaps in your continuing inanity you do, but I'd rather discuss what you consider life to be, where it begins, and why..

THAT would be useful discourse, be something of worth, as opposed to falsely claiming that women don't have negative economic impacts from divorce - or that the reason men eschew it stems primarily FROM those negative impacts. Perhaps it's why YOU are so offended, but I'll also assume you happen to think beyond your pocketbook impacts, and can grasp the concerns with the children just MIGHT enter into the psyche of a sex that is most often associated with having responsibility to "provide for" the welfare of the family.

you know, the actual RELEVANT topics - ametuer is apt when describing your philosophical approach. If you care to discuss the topic - try hard to do more than simply post an acknowledgement that your support base is misinformed followed by an oxymoronic denial of the importance of thier misapprehension.

Posted by: pb at March 17, 2006 03:32 PM

Paraphrasing Homer Simpson "That PB. Is there anything he doesn't know?!" And argue with Mitch about.

Posted by: Colleen at March 17, 2006 03:34 PM

There's LOTs I don't know, how to spell is first on the list..

How to orient my entire thought process around my selfish interests..that would be another - meaning I have a really really hard time accepting conservatism.

But you know, Colleen, I'm not the one with the blog who claims to:
a. have never lied, then
b. claimed he never lied here,
c. claims to have heard everything,
d. claims to have responded to every post,
e. then said he doesn't have the time, and/or already knows everything, so why bother
f. who claims to have an interest in discourse and then pointedly ducks topics/issues that might bring about actual discourse.
g. claims to make mistakes, but then doesn't provide any example, and then claims it's simply because he is pressed for time, while constantly posting to this blog during the day (you know, when he's supposed to be the hard working guy).
h. Claims he never lied in his life then says he called his "bad" boss at his awful employer and told him his car (or the car he was riding in) broke down...

True wisdom it is said is in realizing you know nothing...meaning I'll never be Mitch because I'm unwilling to make such outrageous self-aggrandizing and utterly unbelievable statements. Nor do I believe that an edifice to my ego is any other than just exactly that, and which unfortunately only serves to point out how intractibly biased an uninformed the blogger really is.

Posted by: pb at March 17, 2006 03:53 PM

Oh, my - where to start:

"I have a really really hard time accepting conservatism."

And then PB says:

"How to orient my entire thought process around my selfish interests..that would be another"

Badda bing! We're on to somethign here!

The reason you can't accept conservatism is that you've subscribed to a cliche! It's like saying that you can't dig rap because you don't like Vanilla Ice.

Now, we'll get to the part where PB puts on flippers and dives into the septic tank:

"But you know, Colleen, I'm not the one with the blog who claims to:
a. have never lied,"

That is a principle - but is as close to fact as any other imperfect mortal gets.

"b. claimed he never lied here, "

That's a fact.

"c. claims to have heard everything, "

It's a figure of speech.

"f. who claims to have an interest in discourse and then pointedly ducks topics/issues that might bring about actual discourse."

UGARTE: "You don't think much of me, do you, Rick?"

RICK BLAINE: "I suppose if I thought about you at all, I probably wouldn't".

Ah, P. Ever heard the phrase "never ascribe to malice what can be better assigned to..." in this case, lack of attention span?

"g. claims to make mistakes, but then doesn't provide any example,"

SFW?

I mean, I HAVE blogged about mistaked I've made - but it's not really generally scintillating subject matter, y'know?

When I have made mistakes, and it's mattered, I've said as much.

But - here's a little point for you, P - just because someone jumps up and down and bellows " you made a mistake and you're stupid and irrelevant anyway", doesn't necessarily mean that any of the three is true.

" and then claims it's simply because he is pressed for time, while constantly posting to this blog during the day (you know, when he's supposed to be the hard working guy)."

PB: Check my timestamps. My posting comes before or after work.

If I leave a comment, it's during a phone meeting (a big part of many days) or lunch.

And are we to assume that your tolstoiian magnam opii are all written outside company time? If so, you must be unemployed; give me a holler, I know a vendor that's shopping for people who do what you do (note to readers: it's a technical field; screeding is not actually PB's vocation. 'strooth!)

"h. Claims he never lied in his life then says he called his "bad" boss at his awful employer and told him his car (or the car he was riding in) broke down..."

Pffffffffffffffffft.

OK, PB. You got me there.

I didn't walk into the office reeking of green beer. I also didn't call my Boss; "Shay, bosh - I am f*cking HAMmered. Want me to, um, pick you up a 12 pack before I come into the offish?"

Point, P. There's a first time for just about everything.

"True wisdom it is said is in realizing you know nothing."

Koff koff koff.

"..meaning I'll never be Mitch because I'm unwilling to make such outrageous self-aggrandizing and utterly unbelievable statements."

Hah. It's a documentable fact - FACT, I tell you - that I am the most un-self-aggrandizing and believeable person IN HISTORY.

" Nor do I believe that an edifice to my ego is any other than just exactly that,"

So, PB - what DO you call your doestoyevskiian screeds if not an edifice to YOUR ego?

Occasional hyperbole aside (most of which exists strictly to get a rise out of you - successfully with a regularity that is becomeing un-fun, by the way), this blog is not an "edifice to ego"; it's my hobby. Period. I encourage people to invest very little faith in it.

So what is it when an otherwise productive person devotes HOURS and HOURS to expounding on your own wisdom as compared with some dumb, uninformed, irrelevant blogger?

You've taken it as a mission to EXPOSE the "edifice" to my "ego" that this blog is?

Is the disconnect becoming apparent yet?

"and which unfortunately only serves to point out how intractibly biased an uninformed the blogger really is."

Intractibly biased?

(BELLS, SIRENS, BALLOONS EXPLODE IN A MAELSTROM OF PANDEMONIUM)

You figured it out! I AM BIASED! I AM NOT OBJECTIVE, AND I ADMIT IT!

As far as "well-informed" - well, I am as well informed as I need to be.

Or to paraphrase someone who shall remain unnamed, "How to orient my entire thought process around my immense opinion of my own point of view - that would be another - meaning I have a really really hard time being PB"

Posted by: mitch at March 17, 2006 04:15 PM

The 14th Ammendment (sic) of the Constitution, the one ratified by "the Congress", is the foundation of the right of privacy according to then Supreme Court Justice Brandies (sic)......"
------------------
Thank you, PB, for yet another of your glistening pearls of colossal ignorance. The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which was ratified not by "the Congress" but by three-fourths of the United States, says precisely nothing about the "right of privacy," which is nowhere found in the U.S. Constitution. In 1868, Article I, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution was simply modified by Section 2 of the 14th Amendment regarding the qualifications of voters and candidates for office. Justice Brandeis, an appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court who had no previous judicial experience, did not produce his opinion --his interpretation-- of privacy rights until 1890 which do not and never did carry the weight of settled law. Hence, the current dispute upholding abortion rights championed by one class of people over the right to life championed by another class of people in direct violation of their rights under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It is precisely this invasion by the Government to monitor their actions, their travels, and their person (to use your construction) that lies at the heart of the controversy over Roe v. Wade.

Further,
-------------------
That's the law, and all the Supreme Court did was to say where a life began, based upon the best evidence of the time.
-------------------
That's the law? What law? And what gives the U.S. Supreme Court the power to decide what is life and what is not??

Where is there any Federal legislation signed into law by the people's elected representatives upon which the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled to guarantee or restrict the right to an abortion? There is no such law, it doesn't exist.

The opinion issued in 1973 simply declared Texas law violative of the "due process" clause as it jettisoned the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment, invading the constitutional domains of both the Legislature and the Executive. It has no foundation either in law or the U.S. Constitution, but is merely the declarative judgment of 5 unelected, unaccountable justices of the U.S. Supreme Court in violation of the democratic process in the great State of Texas.

For the record, given the privileges and rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution, it is incumbent on the Legislature to establish laws that assure abortion remains safe, legal, and rare. The sacred "viability" of life (again, to use your construction) on which most would agree deserves to be a matter of settled law constitutionally decided, not a judicial decree based on opinion without foundation in the laws or constitution of these United States.

Otherwise, legally speaking, abortion is just murder by popular consent, depending on one's opinion. In the alternative, it's just contraception. Both are legally and morally indefensible.

Pass the law. Amend the Constitution.

Posted by: Eracus at March 17, 2006 04:45 PM

What gives the Supreme Court the right to decide what legally constitutes life is the fact that it had not been defined by the Congress, and the extent of that then included being compelled to do so by a case having been brought before it...aka, the excercise of it's responsibility under the Constitution.

You had a paradox, first, that folks have a right to determine their own health and course, weighed against an imprecise line of "where does life begin". Would you have had them say "we don't know?" when there in fact was just such legal prescedent stemming from how hospitals, doctors, life ins. companies, etc.. determined life?

So, Erac, Constitutionally, that's what gives them the right.. specifically, that there was an absence of opinion.

BTW - Erac,is ratification by the states LESS credible than congressional ratification then, in your eyes? I used a shorthand reference to your complaint. If that constitutes ignorance, I wonder how much greater is yours at not understanding the extension of the right of privacy from the 14th. It would seem your point was that the poeple (or their representatives) had not asserted such a claim, when in fact, they had. Given your penchant for blowing things off with comments like "semantics" when they were actually important, how important is it whether congress or the states ratified the 14th , in context of this discussion?

Further, I never, EVER said the 14th ammendment provided or defined in writing a right of privacy, I said it was from it that such right was extended by Brandies. Please go re-read my post.

Consider this point for a moment, their right to make this decision is not at issue except among those who, candidly, don't understand the Consitution and assert "activism" by a court simply excercising it's responsibility.

Mitch, at first in reading your response, I thought it was further childishness, but actually some of it was funny, kudos.

And, fella, you know as well as I do, that was hardly the first time you lied.

Also, posting during a meeting - yeah, and see when you said you DIDN"T post during the day, that would be um.. not true then.. huh?

As for my own long-windedness.. I have a long way to catch up man, but I'm trying... god knows.

AS for this..
Or to paraphrase someone who shall remain unnamed, "How to orient my entire thought process around my immense opinion of my own point of view - that would be another - meaning I have a really really hard time being ..

Uh, huh, Mitch.. you surely don't orient or sculpt or leave out or anything, around your immense opinion of your own point of view, I mean excepting that it's the perfect definition of your entire ethos.

Anyway, care to define life, when it begins, and why?

Posted by: pb at March 17, 2006 05:35 PM

Btw - ERAC..

From Wikipedia

However, Ohio passed a resolution that purported to withdraw their ratification on January 15, 1868. The New Jersey legislature also tried to rescind their ratification on February 20, 1868. The New Jersey governor had vetoed their withdrawal on March 5, and the legislature overrode the veto on March 24. Accordingly, on July 20, 1868, Secretary of State William Seward certified that the amendment had become part of the constitution if the rescissions were ineffective. Congress responded on the following day, declaring that the amendment was part of the constitution and ordering Seward to promulgate the Amendment.

Thus, yes, the Congress did certify it's authority and approval of this ammendment.

Ain't the internet neat?

Posted by: pb at March 17, 2006 05:39 PM

BTW Mitch, are you going to post anything regarding the Bill before Congress to allow internet sites an exemption from campaign finance law? i.e. the one that implies the absence of such a law defines this site, and MANY MANY others constitute a direct contribtuion to a political party..

Which of course, it is, you are spending money, and time, and time at work btw, advocating for your party...

Cough.chuckle.cough - and it's a serious question, not trying to hijack things too much, just curious if you have the cajones.

Posted by: pb at March 17, 2006 05:46 PM

"BTW Mitch, are you going to post anything regarding the Bill before Congress to allow internet sites an exemption from campaign finance law?"

Way ahead of you. I've posted about this issue several times in the past year, and commented on the show.

" i.e. the one that implies the absence of such a law defines this site, and MANY MANY others constitute a direct contribtuion to a political party."

So "free speech" is a contribution to a political party?

And - let me guess - that definition exludes things like unions and people like George Soros?

As usual?

Years and years ahead of you.

Posted by: mitch at March 17, 2006 06:06 PM

"it's a serious question, not trying to hijack things too much"

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

"just curious if you have the cajones."

Cojones.

And I have cojones like you have sneering arrogance.

Posted by: mitch at March 17, 2006 06:08 PM

"you are spending money, and time, and time at work btw,"

Ahem. You sure you wanna go down that road?

I spend less time at work writing than you do, unless you type at 500wpm.

" advocating for your party..."

I am completely independent of any party. The fact that I agree doesn't imply (much less mean) there's a link of any sort.

People get to have opinions. If the time and money I spend is a "contribution", then EVERY partisan utterance of every kind is, too.

You REALLY want to go there?

Posted by: ,mitch at March 17, 2006 06:11 PM

"Anyway, care to define life, when it begins, and why?"

When the "fetus" is viable.

Meaning when they can pay rent and keep a job.

Next question.

Posted by: mitch at March 17, 2006 06:13 PM

Man, you can't buy comedy like this. Peeb, you are amazing, I really mean that.
Some hobby you got going, Mitch.

Since Tolstoy Jr. asked "Anyway, care to define life, when it begins, and why?" I'll give the answer a good hard-line liberal friend of mine offered.
"Life begins when the kids have all moved out and the dog dies."
Peeb, spend sixteen paragraphs refuting this absolute truth.

Posted by: Kermit at March 17, 2006 07:09 PM

Fine news! I love this blog!

Posted by: VIP at March 18, 2006 09:14 AM

Obviously, PB, like Humpty Dumpty through the looking glass, when you use a word it means exactly what you wish it to mean, nothing more and nothing less.

You are arguing "facts" not in evidence to support conclusions that have no foundation. Congress has not passed a law defining XYZ, so it's the responsibility of the Supreme Court to rule it's okay to kill XYZ? Because, you know, everybody agrees XYZ is inconvenient......
-------
AMENDMENT X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
--------
What part of this amendment do you not understand, PB? Does an "absence of opinion" allow the U.S. Supreme Court to make its own law? Where in the Constitution does it say that?

Or does it just say whatever you want it to say?

Posted by: Eracus at March 18, 2006 10:35 AM

How polite of you Mitch to completely ignore the question.

Eracus, your command of Constitutional law is amazing in it's utter lack of depth.. it's exceeded only by your unending need to insult.

Let me go from point A to point B for you.

14th ammendment - to be secure in their persons
Goldberg (I think) decision - contraception legal
Roe v. Wade - the government doesn't have the right to define abortion illegal if there is no legally defined life.

It's really THAT simple - so in order to change the equation, you have to change the point of arrival, the orinating point, of life, under the law.

As for the Xth ammendment, so I assume you think it overrides the IXth or for that matter the XIVth?

As for your XYZ argument, yes Eracus, THAT IS how it works. When courts are challenged to answer a point where no legislation exists, they look at past legislation and attempt to understand the legislation in the context of the Constitution. In the case of Roe V. Wade, they were bound to determine where life began because the challenge was about the RIGHT OF THE GOVERNMENT TO INTERCEDED in the health of a woman. They determined the government had no such right because, simply, there was no legally defined life.

Had the Congress defined life as beginning at conception, then, as long as that concept can be vetted against the remaining Constitutional provisions, the SCOTUS would be obligated to accept. The challenge is in the "vetting against other provisions" in that such a position is not consistent with other non-religious standards, and would be challenged as an establishment of religion, correctly.

As Mitch and Kermey so blithely failed to make their case or statement of life, because they know they have a loser of an argument, let me give it a whirl.

A non-religious based definition of the start (and therefore end) of life would probably be something like, sufficient, measurable brain activity which, under reasonable defined standard meets the bare minimum to assert there is conciousness and which can exist separate from the life of another.

That may seem legalistic, and may be shot through with holes, but you know what, it also happens to be pretty well what we define as how we determine if some is alive or dead.

Now.. on to Mwitless

you are spending money, and time, and time at work btw,"

Ahem. You sure you wanna go down that road?

>I spend less time at work writing than you do, unless you type at 500wpm.

First, you write FAR more than I do, second, you write far more than I do during the day, third you write FAR more often than I do.. whatever, is there a point to your comment here, as the question isn't about me, I don't own a blog dedicated to advancing a political agenda without spending a moment on any contrary opinion, ever.

" advocating for your party..."

>I am completely independent of any party. The fact that I agree doesn't imply (much less mean) there's a link of any sort.

That is such utter crap it can't even stand on it's own. You are the hack of the neo-con right, you aspouse their views openly, without restraint. You advocate for their candidates, glad hand with their candidates, attend their caucuses, and continuously tout their ideas both hear and on radio... you would NEVER win such a debate in court, and know it, or ought.

>People get to have opinions. If the time and money I spend is a "contribution", then EVERY partisan utterance of every kind is, too.

No- you spend money to support your opinion, your posters do not.

>You REALLY want to go there

Mitch, you say that as if it's a threat - you are about as fearsome as a puppy, and only about half as bright.

"it's a serious question, not trying to hijack things too much"

Well, see the issue Mitch is, you don't EVER SPEND any time on issues that probably ought to be meaningful to you, you know, like the long-term viability of your blog.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

- yeah, that's pretty clever stuff there... do you feel good about yourself when you condescend so incessantly Mr. Christian?

"just curious if you have the cajones."

Cojones.

And I have cojones like you have sneering arrogance

No- you duck issues incessantly - and you have arrogance coming out your butt - such as in attempting to claim you have big stones.

The most ironic part, the only one with sneering arrogance here, is wearing your clothes, sitting at your keyboard. I believe you are smart enough to know better than you write - just that you won't admit to yourself the failings of your side because in so doing you would indict nearly everything you've done or said over the past 15 years. I can freely admit to the failings of my side, of my own words, and the retrenchment of ideas I've taken when shown better ones.

Sneering arrogance - coming from someone who answers valid questions with Bwhahahaha... who fails to actually speak to the issue.. yeah, physician, heal thyself.

Posted by: pb at March 19, 2006 09:50 AM

What a load of crap, PB.

The Judiciary does not have the power to make law under the U.S. Constitution. To suggest otherwise, however much in earnest, is simply wrong. To repond further only perpetuates the delusion and disorder of your ranting.

Amendment X means exactly what it says it means, nothing more and nothing less.

Posted by: Eracus at March 19, 2006 01:05 PM

"coming from someone who answers valid questions with Bwhahahaha."

I answered the statement "I'm not trying to hijack..." with a gale of laughter. You *never* "try not to hijack" comment threads; if you did, they wouldn't get hijacked.

I do NOT have the time to address every single "point" you raise in every single one of your doestoyevskiian screeds; all the less so given that so many of them lack the faintest basis in reality (Tenth Amendment discussion above, and the radio discussion in the next thread, being prime but hardly solitary examples).

Posted by: mitch at March 19, 2006 03:52 PM

Mitch,

Your responses have become so tired, and so easily picked apart (sigh).

What I ASKED was if you'd address the bill somewehre else, I didn't say you needed to shift the subject to here, so the truth is I wasn't trying to hijack your thread. It was you who decided the best way to respond was to act like an ass, but whatever, grow up.

Eracus, - the IXth ammendment (and btw Mitch, your last response implies you know less about the Constitution than your past vastly wrong comments indicate) says essentially that simply because a right is not defined in the Bill of Rights, is not a reason to think it is not implied or can exist. Not a right of the Government, but of the people. Specifically, the right to privacy.

As I said, what about the Xth, obviates the XIVth. (btw Mitch, this is where you sound like a complete fool because defending Eracus' specious claim that the Judiciary is not empowered to determine intent/legality of conduct in absence of other law - makes you look like you didn't actually attend government class).

Erac, NO ONE, not me, not anyone said the Judiciary has the right to write laws, but you mistakenly interpret the fact that they have to determine legality between laws - they have to chart a course when laws conflict - those ARE thier responsibilities, and only black and white simpletons think it's just about looking at the Constitution and determining if the words are present.

Moreover, considering the President is attempting to assert that he has the authority in wartime to do pretty much anything, that it's "implied" in teh Constitution, and you back him, you are exposing your own hypocritical inadequacy. There is no such ability of the President to simply do as he sees fit, to issue "signing statements" to divert money as he desires, in fact, doing so is clearly unconstitutional and has been held so. Defunded programs are defunded as a check against the Executive.

But regardless, YES Eracus, because there was no uniform, CONSTITUTIONAL standard regarding life, and because the states had no continuity, and because there WERE scientific standards, and because the case was brought before them, they had to weigh the authority of the states to define life, against the implied proscription against unwarranted observation of the government in provided for in the XIVth. I hear time and again from conservatives about the Xth, and each and EVERY time I hear from them, the subject they are talking about, they are wrong, just as here.

When the SCOTUS ruled Oregon has the right to determine if assisted suicide is legal (or not), it was correct to do so, where was your prescious Xth? Specifically, when Bush tried to use FDA to limit the drugs to prevent the procedure after LOSING the case against Oregon, and SCOTUS again reprimanded him, where was your prescious Xth?

You pick your times to literally interpret, and the Xth has become almost meaningless with the vast growth of a federal state, but that doesn't mean I don't respect it, merely that I recognize the Courts have a challenging job, finding a way through a maze of problems, attempting to determine what is legal, what is supportable, under the constitution, which is their charter. They decided that without proof of life, there is no life, and therefore, no claim of loss. What Congress can provide proof of life? What legislature can provide a definitive answer that doesn't rely upon the same science SCOTUS used. Had they done so, perhaps SCOTUS simply would have said, "Here, they have done so, we would be wrong to say", but there was no such law. Absent it, the SCOTUS has the responsibility to determine if cases before it fall on one side, or another, of Constitutionality.

It's that simple, nothing more, nothing less.

Posted by: pb at March 19, 2006 08:04 PM

PB, take the medicine. The benadryl is just for the side-effects, don't sweat the thorazine. Medicine is good.It will help you. Honest. Once you crossover to Haldol, you won't know the difference, believe me. Everything will come together then. I promise.

180mg, q.i.d.

Posted by: Eracus at March 20, 2006 01:40 AM

Yet another Eracus capitulation..

Semantics, and .. I don't know enough to argue my point any longer so I'm going to accuse PB of needing medication..

Yeah, as always Erac, your level of respect, information, and decency, knows no depths.

Posted by: pb at March 20, 2006 10:25 AM

It has more to do with the sheer volume and unrestrained idiocy of your posts, PB, which seem to be largely loose associations and incoherent streams of consciousness related through a schizophrenic haze. You're constantly fabricating and rationalizing the fantasies you live in expecting to convince others to join you in your insanity.

Meanwhile, all you really do here is just rant and rave and make stuff up to attack the host and everyone else. You're projecting what you think is superior knowledge and intelligence but what comes across instead is someone who is clearly unhinged from reality and completely out of their mind. You've turned yourself into something of the village idiot here and it is simply wrong to encourage you further.

Posted by: Eracus at March 20, 2006 03:39 PM

Posted by: Dominic at October 15, 2006 09:32 AM