Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

[Polish_Silver]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

A favorite bumper sticker slogan of mine: "Pro-Life? How many kids have you adopted?"

There are lots of children from problem families available---check your county department of social services. Amazingly, there are families willing to take in these children, who are likely to be mentally, emotionally, and in some cases physically handicapped. It's called love. I think these anti-abortion people should adopt one of the problem children. We decided we did not have enough love to adopt one of these children. Certainly, late stage fetuses are viable. That is a strictly technical question, and a poor criterion for abortion. It is probably based on the medieval idea of "quickening". It was considered wrong to abort after the fetus had observable signs of life. We should remember that 50% or more of fertilized eggs spontaneously die. The ones that happen later are called "miscarriage". These are the result of gene replication errors, developmental errors, etc. However, the process is very imperfect and in some cases infants are born dead or terminally deformed. In some cases we can keep them alive but their life is severely impacted (hydro encephalitis). In the case of a drug addict, it may be the woman's fault that the embroyo is malformed, but somebody still has to take care of that baby. Are you willing to do it? Do you think the mother will give the baby a good life? I think the reality is that abortion is in some cases the most humane thing to do.

[Ghent12]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

A favorite bumper sticker slogan of mine: "Pro-Life? How many kids have you adopted?"

BTW, I'm an adoptive parent. I know what it's like to be truly grateful that someone didn't choose abortion. I wish we lived in a world where no one did.

Maybe if all the Pro-Life advocates -- the ones who are really vocal about it -- took in an orphan or a foster kid, or directly helped a family with hungry kids or that pregnant 18 year old down the street, we could get there. Shouting instructions at people isn't the same as helping them.

I know you hashed this out already, but I want to chime in too. What you say is a wonderful sentiment, but advocating good (or the abstention of evil in this case) should not have any prerequisite action. Actions, of course, speak louder than words but words still matter quite a bit.

[lektrode]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

you can't do anything to offend me so no offense taken.

thanks! i appreciate that... and i share your POV on that one (too)
its never my intention to offend personally anybody on the 'tulip - not intentionally, but realize it happens due to my being somewhat overzealous (that and always having been one of them proverbial 'exciteable boys', have been known to let my emotions get the better of me - sometimes like a pitbull and sometimes like a labrador retriever) - but we have seen that some get a bit too 'personally invested' in their arguments... uhh... i mean Discussions and then things get taken too personally.

[LazyBoy]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

I took it to mean that unless you were willing to adopt an "unwanted" child you had no right to stand near an abortuary and ask women to spare the life of their unborn child.

I don't challenge that right. If they're polite and passing out information, I'd even support the effort. I have no problem with "asking".

I speculate on the effectiveness of the angry, mean, intimidating protests I see in the media and would not support that. Some people will say "Meanness is nothing, we're saving lives". OK. But what if you could save more another way?

(None of this is directed at anyone in the forum. I have no idea what you do with your time in real life.)

... She eventually became one of the regulars at two of the local abortion mills who stood about 30 feet from the gate asking women to spare their children. She and the other physicians in her practice offer FREE neonatal services to any woman that decides to forego procured abortion and give life to their little one.

That's truly wonderful. I wonder which effort they see as most productive.

If you closely examine the situation you just might find that the protesters of abortion are some of the largest contributors to Crisis Pregnancy Centers and adoption agencies as well as other ministries and agencies that provide formula, diapers, vitamins and other help to pregnant women.

Also wonderful. But I'm sure there's a range of people and you mean that "some of the protesters" are large contributors. My impression is that some are people who are more interested in telling others that they're wrong and making them comply with their views than helping them. (Helping them make the right choice isn't helping them with the consequences.) My impression is that some are experts at outrage and anger, even fear and intimidation. If Roe v Wade were repealed, I suspect many would declare "mission accomplished" and go home, never giving a thought to the illegal abortions.

But that's just my opinion, colored by the media. I've never been near an abortuary (a new word for me!) in real life, that I know of. I only know the protests from the media, so I've only seen the ugly ones. I really don't go around discussing these issues -- in real life or in forums.


I wonder if people who show up because they like to yell at women can be recruited by people like your friend to do the good works.

I like to think that if the pro-life movement shifted their focus (and their image) to the good works you mentioned, away from mean protests and "right to choose"/criminalization issue for a while, they might find common cause with pro-choice people and make real progress with the problem of fetus killing. I don't think anyone's going to be pro-fetus killing if they're not challenging their "rights". So go at it from another direction. When hardly anyone's choosing abortion, it should be easier to make it illegal.


This is largely a theoretical issue for me. OTOH, it sounds like some of the people you know have done quite a lot. I applaud them.

[Raz]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

Exactly what opinion did I write that should be different?
I didn't say anything pro-choice.

I merely suggested an approach that might work better than shouting at people.
I didn't single you out. I joined a conversation.
Are you upset that I'm pro-helping-people?

I just re-read my post and it didn't come across as I intended so please accept my apology for any offense.

Now, as to "what opinion did I write that should be different". I took it to mean that unless you were willing to adopt an "unwanted" child you had no right to stand near an abortuary and ask women to spare the life of their unborn child. That argument is specious and if you were the one who had only an hour or so before being ripped to pieces you would hope someone would attempt to intervene in order to save you from such a fate. If I misread your intent then please forgive me.

I am personal friends with an OBGYN who operated the first abortion clinic (mill) in Mississippi. She changed her mind after being in business for only a year when one day she had to clean out the suction device used to evacuate the "contents" of her patient's uterus. She eventually became one of the regulars at two of the local abortion mills who stood about 30 feet from the gate asking women to spare their children. She and the other physicians in her practice offer FREE neonatal services to any woman that decides to forego procured abortion and give life to their little one.

If you closely examine the situation you just might find that the protesters of abortion are some of the largest contributors to Crisis Pregnancy Centers and adoption agencies as well as other ministries and agencies that provide formula, diapers, vitamins and other help to pregnant women.

Of course I'm not upset that you're "pro-helping-people". But the pregnant woman is usually portrayed as the real victim when she is not - unless she was raped (less than 1%) or abandoned by the man who impregnated her. We can find the real victims in the collection chambers of the suction devices and garbage bins.

[LazyBoy]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

You might have a different opinion if you were the one being ripped apart with a pair of forceps or burned alive with saline. It's not "them" who are the victims.
Adoption is wonderful but it doesn't erase the fact that millions of innocent, helpless Americans (half of them female) have - and are - being mercilessly slaughtered.

If I am unable - or unwilling - to provide someone with an income that doesn't give them the right to rob a bank. Nor does my lack of charity convey upon them the right to murder an "unwanted" child.

Exactly what opinion did I write that should be different?
I didn't say anything pro-choice.

I merely suggested an approach that might work better than shouting at people.
I didn't single you out. I joined a conversation.
Are you upset that I'm pro-helping-people?

[doom&gloom]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

you can't do anything to offend me so no offense taken.

[lektrode]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

That by choosing sides and enabling the staus quo, it is really just us screwing ourselves.

I encourage people now to just vote for the other guy every election. If every two or six years most got tossed, they would learn to respect the voters, not just pander to them.

um... with all due respect, d&g, thats a copout and you know it.

if i have ranted on _anything_ around here, its AGAINST THE STATUS QUO.

doing that requires people to MAKE A DECISION and simply voting 'for the other guy' is exactly why/how we got here - with the latest sideshow/distraction, tragicomedy coming out of the 2 stooges that currently occupy the whitehouse - on one day we get the man himself saying he's NOT for 'marriage' while his sidekick sez he is - and the next day the waffler-in-chief says he's FOR it???

sounds like desparation to me... (and all this for what? so 5% of the population and the other hangers-on will like em or something, while most of the rest of us couldnt care less about these sorts of 'issues' while 'rome burns' ) i mean its like this - and kinda simple for us (kinda) rightwing rednecks (and what? a guy cant poke a little self-deprecating humor at himself without being castigated for it, with apologies to rednecks ;)

in 2009, during what will likely prove to be the biggest economic meltdown of the past century, if not 2 centuries - what did we get out of the beltway - exactly?

WE, as in We The People that occupy mainstreet got ZILCH - while they that occupied all three branches of the .gov fiddled with bailouts for the banksters and a nightmare known as o___ascare, that "we have to pass so we can read it" before it being rammed thru congress on the night before the night before christmas? (like it was some sort of 'emergency')

one would have thought that having seen what was going on in the REAL (aka the productive) ECONOMY that it might - just might - have made more sense to perhaps krank up some sort of - i dunno, road repaving or bridge rebuilding projects - anything that involved physical WORK - that could've put hundreds of thousands of wageslaves back to work (and most em em likely davis-bacon 'qualified' to boot) - AND WHAT HAPPENED???

and you tell me that i am 'enabling the status quo' by speaking truth to power?

its also kinda funny (for a redneck like me) that i was simply responding to and plus-one'g to what you had put up from ritholtz (which i thot was HILARIOUS) - esp when you and i appear to be on the same page a lot of the time???

but again - i feel like a lot of what i write is somehow misinterpreted or thot of as being mean spirited, when the vast majority of the time, i'm typing with a smile on my face (and chuckling when i re-read it)

again - no offense intended - just sayin.

sincerely
R dubya Ilk

[doom&gloom]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

and your point is?

That by choosing sides and enabling the staus quo, it is really just us screwing ourselves.

I encourage people now to just vote for the other guy every election. If every two or six years most got tossed, they would learn to respect the voters, not just pander to them.

[Raz]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

I think a fetus of five months gestation in the womb can be born live, as a baby. I have heard of this many times. The baby is just tiny, but it does just fine outside the womb, and under the care of a hospital for an extended period of time. The baby grows-up to be a normal, full-size infant.

At four months (or less) I don't think a fetus has consciousness, and I don't think a fetus can be born live. I am no doctor; I am just a lay person and an official moron, but I have never heard of a fetus of four months (or less) in the womb being born and surviving. And I suspect that fetus would have little or no consciousness both in or out of the womb..... Maybe a doctor might better answer this question than me, and it is an important question to answer. Also, and a quite important to answer: would a four month or younger fetus, once born and possibly survive in some way, be so dwarfed as to be deformed and have other serious mental and physical problems?

Regardless of what religions might teach, I don't think suffering should ever be a part of life. No-one is being done a favour by being born into a life of hell..... I saw what was done to an old woman in hospital (Victoria General Hospital in Victoria, BC) with the tray-board of her high-chair rammed into her gut so she begged for help, 17 or 18 hours per day. That sight, really changed my belief about life, and so-called humanitarians and pro-life people. On the neurology floor ( where they stuck me ) that old woman was known as "the help lady" because she always cried and begged for mercy ( for help ) and no-one came. They kept her in the hallway, and the nurses and doctors just ignored her. The hospital used her tray-board to keep her from falling through her high-chair. [ Winter 2011 ]

Consciousness almost certainly begins by the 22nd week because a fetus (Latin for "little one") will begin to respond to sound at that time.

Suffering is a fact of life for everyone in this fallen world and it is beyond ridiculous for anyone to think he's on moral high-ground to sanction murder as an alternative to a "life of hell" when we cannot know the future. Get a paperback copy of The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis. It will answer as many questions in that regard as anything I've ever read.

PS. This ends my commentary on these matters here because I don't want to hijack this thread. Anything else belongs in Rant-n-Rave.

[Raz]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

A favorite bumper sticker slogan of mine: "Pro-Life? How many kids have you adopted?"

BTW, I'm an adoptive parent. I know what it's like to be truly grateful that someone didn't choose abortion. I wish we lived in a world where no one did.

Maybe if all the Pro-Life advocates -- the ones who are really vocal about it -- took in an orphan or a foster kid, or directly helped a family with hungry kids or that pregnant 18 year old down the street, we could get there. Shouting instructions at people isn't the same as helping them.

You might have a different opinion if you were the one being ripped apart with a pair of forceps or burned alive with saline. It's not "them" who are the victims.
Adoption is wonderful but it doesn't erase the fact that millions of innocent, helpless Americans (half of them female) have - and are - being mercilessly slaughtered.

If I am unable - or unwilling - to provide someone with an income that doesn't give them the right to rob a bank. Nor does my lack of charity convey upon them the right to murder an "unwanted" child.

[lektrode]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

uh, and who enables and empowers the political class?

and your point is?

[doom&gloom]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

and the fact is, that the POLITICAL CLASS, on both sides of the aisle is who is screwing us.
they are the ones that enable the banksters, the military-and-welfare-and-education-industrial complex to enslave us with their debt and bankrupt us - its just that SOME of us aint afraid to call the kettle black and cast stones without inhibition of being politically correkt

but no offense intended D&G, just sayin.

sincerely
R.W. Ilk

(ps and mr steve knows i like joustin with him, methinks we both have fun with our rants ;)
its theraputic, right mr steve???

uh, and who enables and empowers the political class?

[lektrode]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

They get no traction because of people like Starving Steve on the left, and his ilk on the right.

American Politics is like British Soccer -- fans choose teams for life, and it matters not what they do.

You see this in CONgressional polling, where people rate CONgress continually lower each year, but then say their rep is good. It is mind numbing.

We have now had NO, ZERO, NADA budget for THREE YEARS. WTF?! This is what we ELECT them to do. This is their primary job, or at least what they are paid to do.


A note to Starving Steve and his ilk on the right. All the 'good stuff' was done in the past when the vote of the people actually mattered. Now it is just the dollars from K Street that matter. To continue to blindly believe in some ideology, when the facts support otherwise, is just plain foolish. Witness:

The 'supposed' liberal Clinton gave us job killing NAFTA, and market killing CFMA & repeal of Glass-Steagall.
The 'supposed' conservative GW Bush gave us Medicare part D, zero fiscal responsibility and The Patriot Act (to strip away our Constitutional rights)
The 'supposed' liberal Obama re-upped the Patriot Act, made it worse, and gave us the NDAA and the belief any American can be killed anywhere in the world anytime he says so.

Does anyone see anything strange in thos positions?

I could go on, but really, the facts speak for themselves.

and the fact is, that the POLITICAL CLASS, on both sides of the aisle is who is screwing us.
they are the ones that enable the banksters, the military-and-welfare-and-education-industrial complex to enslave us with their debt and bankrupt us - its just that SOME of us aint afraid to call the kettle black and cast stones without inhibition of being politically correkt

but no offense intended D&G, just sayin.

sincerely
R.W. Ilk

(ps and mr steve knows i like joustin with him, methinks we both have fun with our rants ;)
its theraputic, right mr steve???

[lektrode]

Re: Summers & Krugman: Lost Decade

A study was done a few years ago that showed that when people hear talk that agrees with their beliefs, a part of their brain responds the same way it does for an addict receiving his drug of choice. This is why the far right listens to conservative talk radio and gets their news from WorldNetDaily, and the far left listens to liberal talk shows and gets their news from MoveOn.org. People don't want to hear anything that contradicts their beliefs, they simply want the pleasure of having their beliefs reinforced. If they really wanted to learn something new, they would listen with an open mind to arguments from people who disagree with them, because no one side has a total lock on the truth.

and believe it or not - some of us like/prefer even, to read/watch what the opposition is thinking - as it helps broaden our perspective - even us kinda righties prefer to watch something other than fox 'entertainment'.. altho i prefer to read o`reilly, his show is perhaps the only one of theirs eye will watch, and not very often at that - altho i will admit to being a fan of the wall st journal's op/ed section, for the simple reason that they who appear there are the ones who make the news, not just talk about it and the biggie reason? if something written there isnt The Truth, the rebuttal shows up in the letters to the editor the next day or week and i'm talking about CEOs, US Senators/Reps, cabinet level people, lefties and righties all -- vs some yahoo member of the chattering class (and the letter writers arent slouchers/slackers with chips on their shoulders either and THEN there's the comments on their blogs ;)

Re: Infant mortality rates:

Different countries use different criteria for defining a live birth and calculating infant mortality. In the United States, we consider any baby that is born with a heartbeat or muscle twitch as a live birth even if it dies within moments. When the baby dies, its death adds to our "high" infant mortality rate. Part of our high infant mortality rate comes from the high number of extremely low-birth-weight premature infants that are born here, then soon die. In other countries, those babies are not counted as live births. You have to be sure you're comparing apples to apples, or else you end up believing misleading statistics.

brilliant/astute observation there, ms shiny!
in another great example of how stats can be presented to make any side's case/point.