Listening
Gold Member
- Aug 27, 2011
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Taking a scythe to the Bill of Rights
Controversies can be wonderfully clarified when people follow the logic of illogical premises to perverse conclusions. For example, two academics recently wrote in the British Journal of Medical Ethics that after-birth abortions killing newborn babies are matters of moral indifference because newborns, like fetuses, do not have the same moral status as actual persons and the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant. So killing them should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled. This helpfully validates the right-to-life contention that the pro-abortion argument, which already defends third-trimester abortions, contains no standard for why the killing should be stopped by arbitrarily assigning moral significance to the moment of birth.
Now comes Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) with a comparable contribution to another debate, the one concerning government regulation of political speech. Joined by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), 26 other Democrats and one Republican, he proposes a constitutional amendment to radically contract First Amendment protections. His purpose is to vastly expand governments power i.e., the power of incumbent legislators to write laws regulating, rationing or even proscribing speech in elections that determine the composition of the legislature and the rest of the government. McGoverns proposal vindicates those who say that most campaign-finance reforms are incompatible with the First Amendment.
Taking a scythe to the Bill of Rights - The Washington Post
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I am O.K. with their frustrations with corporations. I am frustrated myself.
But compounding the error seems to be Pelosi's goal in life.
Controversies can be wonderfully clarified when people follow the logic of illogical premises to perverse conclusions. For example, two academics recently wrote in the British Journal of Medical Ethics that after-birth abortions killing newborn babies are matters of moral indifference because newborns, like fetuses, do not have the same moral status as actual persons and the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant. So killing them should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled. This helpfully validates the right-to-life contention that the pro-abortion argument, which already defends third-trimester abortions, contains no standard for why the killing should be stopped by arbitrarily assigning moral significance to the moment of birth.
Now comes Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) with a comparable contribution to another debate, the one concerning government regulation of political speech. Joined by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), 26 other Democrats and one Republican, he proposes a constitutional amendment to radically contract First Amendment protections. His purpose is to vastly expand governments power i.e., the power of incumbent legislators to write laws regulating, rationing or even proscribing speech in elections that determine the composition of the legislature and the rest of the government. McGoverns proposal vindicates those who say that most campaign-finance reforms are incompatible with the First Amendment.
Taking a scythe to the Bill of Rights - The Washington Post
**************************************************
I am O.K. with their frustrations with corporations. I am frustrated myself.
But compounding the error seems to be Pelosi's goal in life.