will Obama be a good President?

[ksinger]

Date: 10/14/2008 12:44:40 AM
Author: HollyS

Date: 10/13/2008 11:36:13 PM
Author: thing2of2

Date: 10/13/2008 11:08:45 PM
Author: beebrisk

I saw a clip on the news today where Obama told a self-employed plummer that he was going to raise his taxes and see''s nothing wrong with wealth redistribution, giving to those less fortuate and in need. I''m all for helping the poor but I want to do it myself, not because the gov''t decides to take even more of my husband''s (who is a small business owner) $$. I swear, if the average american had to pay in their taxes, like small business owners do, they would be shocked at how much the gov''t already takes and angry that they will have to pay even more

A clear indication of Obama''s Socialist leanings. The remark he made about spreading the wealth around is downright frightening.

What do you think about the Bush administration''s bailout of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. Wall Street, etc., beebrisk? Seems awfully...I don''t know...socialist to me!

The Bush Administration bailout? Just ''cause the utter nonsense that was ''loans to the unloanable'' and the real estate speculation, and the Wall Street corruption came to a head before the upcoming election? This problem began in 1977 under Jimmy Carter, and was compounded by the Clinton administration. It just took 30 years for it to fester into the ugly situation it has become. It would be so nice if some of you who apparenty were not around (or paying attention) during other administrations would at least read some history. History, not op/ed pieces. Not internet soapboxes. History. Please.

You are right about a few points. The financilization of America''s economy began years ago. The seeds were sown years ago. Each party has enough support of bad policies over the years to make the s*** sandwich big enough for everyone. However, 8 years of policies which amounted to pouring gasoline on a fire can - and SHOULD - and WILL - be laid right at the feet of the administration in power. Maybe it isn''t "fair". (All those things my mama told me when I whined about fairness come rushing to mind) But it''s the way the game is played - and knowing history, as admirable a goal as that always is, won''t change that unpleasant little fact of life one iota, as you should well know by this point. Sorry. Deal with it.

 

[ksinger]

And since everyone is mentioning HISTORY these days, here is a beautiful piece I saved in a text file the minute I was finished reading it. Reading it just made me want to sing.

January 1, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Folly''s Antidote
By ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER Jr.
MANY signs point to a growing historical consciousness among the American
people. I trust that this is so. It is useful to remember that history is to
the nation as memory is to the individual. As persons deprived of memory
become disoriented and lost, not knowing where they have been and where they
are going, so a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in
dealing with its present and its future. "The longer you look back," said
Winston Churchill, "the farther you can look forward."
But all historians are prisoners of their own experience. We bring to
history the preconceptions of our personalities and of our age. We cannot
seize on ultimate and absolute truths. So the historian is committed to a
doomed enterprise - the quest for an unattainable objectivity.
Conceptions of the past are far from stable. They are perennially revised by
the urgencies of the present. When new urgencies arise in our own times and
lives, the historian''s spotlight shifts, probing at last into the darkness,
throwing into sharp relief things that were always there but that earlier
historians had carelessly excised from the collective memory. New voices
ring out of the historical dark and demand to be heard.
One has only to note how in the last half-century the movements for women''s
rights and civil rights have reformulated and renewed American history. Thus
the present incessantly reinvents the past. In this sense, all history, as
Benedetto Croce said, is contemporary history. It is these permutations of
consciousness that make history so endlessly fascinating an intellectual
adventure. "The one duty we owe to history," said Oscar Wilde, "is to
rewrite it."
We are the world''s dominant military power, and I believe a consciousness of
history is a moral necessity for a nation possessed of overweening power.
History verifies John F. Kennedy''s proposition, stated in the first year of
his thousand days: "We must face the fact that the United States is neither
omnipotent or omniscient - that we are only 6 percent of the world''s
population; that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of
mankind; that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity; and
therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem."
History is the best antidote to delusions of omnipotence and omniscience.
Self-knowledge is the indispensable prelude to self-control, for the nation
as well as for the individual, and history should forever remind us of the
limits of our passing perspectives. It should strengthen us to resist the
pressure to convert momentary impulses into moral absolutes. It should lead
us to acknowledge our profound and chastening frailty as human beings - to a
recognition of the fact, so often and so sadly displayed, that the future
outwits all our certitudes and that the possibilities of the future are more
various than the human intellect is designed to conceive.
Sometimes, when I am particularly depressed, I ascribe our behavior to
stupidity - the stupidity of our leadership, the stupidity of our culture.
Three decades ago, we suffered defeat in an unwinnable war against
tribalism, the most fanatic of political emotions, fighting against a
country about which we knew nothing and in which we had no vital interests.
Vietnam was hopeless enough, but to repeat the same arrogant folly 30 years
later in Iraq is unforgivable. The Swedish statesman Axel Oxenstierna
famously said, "Behold, my son, with how little wisdom the world is
governed."
A nation informed by a vivid understanding of the ironies of history is, I
believe, best equipped to manage the tragic temptations of military power.
Let us not bully our way through life, but let a growing sensitivity to
history temper and civilize our use of power. In the meantime, let a
thousand historical flowers bloom. History is never a closed book or a final
verdict. It is forever in the making. Let historians never forsake the quest
for knowledge in the interests of an ideology, a religion, a race, a nation.
The great strength of history in a free society is its capacity for
self-correction. This is the endless excitement of historical writing - the
search to reconstruct what went before, a quest illuminated by those
ever-changing prisms that continually place old questions in a new light.
History is a doomed enterprise that we happily pursue because of the thrill
of the hunt, because exploring the past is such fun, because of the
intellectual challenges involved, because a nation needs to know its own
history. Or so we historians insist. Because in the end, a nation''s history
must be both the guide and the domain not so much of its historians as its
citizens.
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who has won Pulitzer Prizes for history and
biography, is the author, most recently, of "War and the American
Presidency."

Amen and amen!!

 

[HollyS]

Date: 10/14/2008 1:15:54 AM
Author: thing2of2

Date: 10/14/2008 12:44:40 AM
Author: HollyS

Date: 10/13/2008 11:36:13 PM

Author: thing2of2

Date: 10/13/2008 11:08:45 PM

Author: beebrisk

I saw a clip on the news today where Obama told a self-employed plummer that he was going to raise his taxes and see''s nothing wrong with wealth redistribution, giving to those less fortuate and in need. I''m all for helping the poor but I want to do it myself, not because the gov''t decides to take even more of my husband''s (who is a small business owner) $$. I swear, if the average american had to pay in their taxes, like small business owners do, they would be shocked at how much the gov''t already takes and angry that they will have to pay even more

A clear indication of Obama''s Socialist leanings. The remark he made about spreading the wealth around is downright frightening.

What do you think about the Bush administration''s bailout of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. Wall Street, etc., beebrisk? Seems awfully...I don''t know...socialist to me!

The Bush Administration bailout? Just ''cause the utter nonsense that was ''loans to the unloanable'' and the real estate speculation, and the Wall Street corruption came to a head before the upcoming election? This problem began in 1977 under Jimmy Carter, and was compounded by the Clinton administration. It just took 30 years for it to fester into the ugly situation it has become. It would be so nice if some of you who apparenty were not around (or paying attention) during other administrations would at least read some history. History, not op/ed pieces. Not internet soapboxes. History. Please.

Funny, Holly, the only information regarding your history lesson for me comes from extremely conservative blogs who essentially blame the current economic crisis on minority homeowners. The Community Reinvestment Act applied to depository banks only, and many of the worst offenders in the subprime mortgage business were not banks and were not regulated by the Federal Reserve, so they were not forced to comply with the CRA. But thanks anyways for the lesson given from your very own internet soapbox!

I''m not quoting conservative blogs. Read something besides internet sites to gain some perspective. Pick up a book. Pick up the Congressional Record. The Congressional Record is probably available on line. Review some actual laws/policies of previous administrations besides the last one. Think outside the box of your own liberal viewpoint and your usual sources.

And regardless of ksinger''s post that suggests history is all in one''s perspective, or subject to change, it is not. Opinion changes; history never varies. You can twist it to make your point I suppose, as long as no one questions your revision.

 

[ksinger]

Date: 10/14/2008 8:17:28 AM
Author: HollyS

I''m not quoting conservative blogs. Read something besides internet sites to gain some perspective. Pick up a book. Pick up the Congressional Record. The Congressional Record is probably available on line. Review some actual laws/policies of previous administrations besides the last one. Think outside the box of your own liberal viewpoint and your usual sources.

And regardless of ksinger''s post that suggests history is all in one''s perspective, or subject to change, it is not. Opinion changes; history never varies. You can twist it to make your point I suppose, as long as no one questions your revision.

LMACOMPLETELYO! Yeah! Take THAT, SCHLESINGER! PTHBBBBTTTTT!!! We no need no definition of history from no steenking HISTORIAN!

 

[AGBF]

Date: 10/14/2008 8:17:28 AM
Author: HollyS

Opinion changes; history never varies. You can twist it to make your point I suppose, as long as no one questions your revision.

Holly, you couldn't be more wrong when you write that, "history never varies" and you couldn't be more right when you write that, "you can twist it to make your point"! Historians do not usually do the latter deliberately, but it is what they do. It is what makes the study of history interesting. Entire "schools" of history come along and review the same data (more or less) and see things entirely differently. That there have been "new finds" (new documents, additional information) adds to the excitement, but it certainly isn't the only explanation for the constant revisionism in historiography. Do not trust history books! I always taught my students to be skeptical. I have said it here before and I do not want to be repetitive, but one book I used while teaching high school history said that before a battle during the Punic Wars the Roman Army ate a hot breakfast. I asked my class how anyone could know that. It turned out that the sole source for the information on the war was a Roman historian born 50 years after the war. Did he really know whether they had had a hot breakast? Can we take that on faith?

Deborah

 

[AGBF]

Karen, we were writing at the same time. Perhaps I need not have posted .



Deb

 

[ksinger]

No, you needed to post Deb. I was too busy rolling around to post anything serious. I''m still at a loss as to where to start on that....and maybe I won''t. I''ll leave it in your capable hands. Besides, Rocinante really isn''t feeling up to the chase today.

 

[Anna0499]

Thanks for posting your insights on the consumption tax miraclesrule! I think it is an interesting concept as well, and would probably support it since I am a law student and I "consume" very little!

I agree that our country won't soon be embracing the implementation of the idea anytime soon, but perhaps if Obama raises taxes on the wealthy some lobbying will take place to do so. I think the low-income and unemployed population also opposes it, not just the wealthy, since they are forced to pay incremental taxes even though they may not earn an taxable income. The more I think about it the more I like it!

 

[beebrisk]

Date: 10/14/2008 7:36:48 AM
Author: ksinger
And since everyone is mentioning HISTORY these days, here is a beautiful piece I saved in a text file the minute I was finished reading it. Reading it just made me want to sing.


January 1, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

Folly''s Antidote

By ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER Jr.

MANY signs point to a growing historical consciousness among the American

people. I trust that this is so. It is useful to remember that history is to

the nation as memory is to the individual. As persons deprived of memory

become disoriented and lost, not knowing where they have been and where they

are going, so a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in

dealing with its present and its future. ''The longer you look back,'' said

Winston Churchill, ''the farther you can look forward.''

But all historians are prisoners of their own experience. We bring to

history the preconceptions of our personalities and of our age. We cannot

seize on ultimate and absolute truths. So the historian is committed to a

doomed enterprise - the quest for an unattainable objectivity.

Conceptions of the past are far from stable. They are perennially revised by

the urgencies of the present. When new urgencies arise in our own times and

lives, the historian''s spotlight shifts, probing at last into the darkness,

throwing into sharp relief things that were always there but that earlier

historians had carelessly excised from the collective memory. New voices

ring out of the historical dark and demand to be heard.

One has only to note how in the last half-century the movements for women''s

rights and civil rights have reformulated and renewed American history. Thus

the present incessantly reinvents the past. In this sense, all history, as

Benedetto Croce said, is contemporary history. It is these permutations of

consciousness that make history so endlessly fascinating an intellectual

adventure. ''The one duty we owe to history,'' said Oscar Wilde, ''is to

rewrite it.''

We are the world''s dominant military power, and I believe a consciousness of

history is a moral necessity for a nation possessed of overweening power.

History verifies John F. Kennedy''s proposition, stated in the first year of

his thousand days: ''We must face the fact that the United States is neither

omnipotent or omniscient - that we are only 6 percent of the world''s

population; that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of

mankind; that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity; and

therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.''

History is the best antidote to delusions of omnipotence and omniscience.

Self-knowledge is the indispensable prelude to self-control, for the nation

as well as for the individual, and history should forever remind us of the

limits of our passing perspectives. It should strengthen us to resist the

pressure to convert momentary impulses into moral absolutes. It should lead

us to acknowledge our profound and chastening frailty as human beings - to a

recognition of the fact, so often and so sadly displayed, that the future

outwits all our certitudes and that the possibilities of the future are more

various than the human intellect is designed to conceive.

Sometimes, when I am particularly depressed, I ascribe our behavior to

stupidity - the stupidity of our leadership, the stupidity of our culture.

Three decades ago, we suffered defeat in an unwinnable war against

tribalism, the most fanatic of political emotions, fighting against a

country about which we knew nothing and in which we had no vital interests.

Vietnam was hopeless enough, but to repeat the same arrogant folly 30 years

later in Iraq is unforgivable. The Swedish statesman Axel Oxenstierna

famously said, ''Behold, my son, with how little wisdom the world is

governed.''

A nation informed by a vivid understanding of the ironies of history is, I

believe, best equipped to manage the tragic temptations of military power.

Let us not bully our way through life, but let a growing sensitivity to

history temper and civilize our use of power. In the meantime, let a

thousand historical flowers bloom. History is never a closed book or a final

verdict. It is forever in the making. Let historians never forsake the quest

for knowledge in the interests of an ideology, a religion, a race, a nation.

The great strength of history in a free society is its capacity for

self-correction. This is the endless excitement of historical writing - the

search to reconstruct what went before, a quest illuminated by those

ever-changing prisms that continually place old questions in a new light.

History is a doomed enterprise that we happily pursue because of the thrill

of the hunt, because exploring the past is such fun, because of the

intellectual challenges involved, because a nation needs to know its own

history. Or so we historians insist. Because in the end, a nation''s history

must be both the guide and the domain not so much of its historians as its

citizens.

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who has won Pulitzer Prizes for history and

biography, is the author, most recently, of ''War and the American

Presidency.''


Amen and amen!!

The theory that history is all about one''s perspective is ill-conceived and frankly, ignorant. It takes only one example to disprove it.

The Holocaust.

History is history whether looking at it from the Nazi perspective or the victim''s perspective. If the truth of that history was dependent on the perspective of the individual there would be no room for justice. Ever. At that point, every recollection would be correct and "factual" regardless of the evidence, regardless of the truth. Every interpretation of an event would be only as true as one perceives it. It''s relativism...it''s not real.

 

[partgypsy]

Not to be inflammatory, but as a thought experiment, what if Nazi Germany had won? What would have been written up in the history books regarding the Holocast (among other things). Certainly different than what we read now. And dispite that there are many people out there that believe that the holocast did not happen, or at least not in the way we think.

It used to be that all of history was about famous white men. In anthropology one had to be very aware of what kind of assumptions one brings into observing another culture. I am sure it''s the same for historians, try to be aware of what assumptions they bring in interpreting the past.

Myself, regarding the economic fiasco, politically I blame both parties. The Democrats for supporting Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae even after they started getting into financially questionable practices, because we were on the hook for theire bad behavior. And Republicans for voting down any regulatory oversight on Wall street, especially when all these exotic "derivatives" were being introduced which traded mortage risk, etc. Sometimes one can be extra sensitive to the "other sides" faults and blind to one''s own "side" when the stuff hits the fan, but there is plenty of blame on both sides of the aisle.

I could say alot more, but I''ll leave it at that.

 

[beebrisk]

Date: 10/14/2008 11:54:33 AM
Author: part gypsy
Not to be inflammatory, but as a thought experiment, what if Nazi Germany had won? What would have been written up in the history books regarding the Holocast (among other things). Certainly different than what we read now. And dispite that there are many people out there that believe that the holocast did not happen, or at least not in the way we think.

Exactly my point. If the truth was that the Nazi''s won, indeed the history books would tell a different story.

You are correct, many do not believe it happened despite the irrefutable evidence...but that doesn''t make the deniers "right".

It''s not a matter of it happening in the "way we think". The facts do not change because you, me and the next guy might "think" about it differently--No matter if we are talking about a 60 year old atrocity or something that happened yesterday.

 

[partgypsy]

Exactly Beebrisk. Say you were a citizen living in post-Nazi victory, all the information you have, from what you family knows, to what is told to you by the government and the history books, is the version of what you know as truth. Unless you happen to be omniscient what you know of the events IS what happened, is history.

To get another idea, watch Al Jazzera (sp) and watch our news. Same facts, very different portrayal of events.

Thankfully we live in a free society and have an independent press. It is good we do have an independent press (even if we don''t like what they say sometimes), and as other people have said before me it will be troubling time if/when we lose that independent media, because then you can control history.

 

[MoonWater]

Interesting article about women that voted for Bush twice based on the abortion issue. They are now changing their minds this time around: http://www.slate.com/id/2202174/

 

[beebrisk]

Date: 10/14/2008 12:46:29 PM
Author: part gypsy
Exactly Beebrisk. Say you were a citizen living in post-Nazi victory, all the information you have, from what you family knows, to what is told to you by the government and the history books, is the version of what you know as truth. Unless you happen to be omniscient what you know of the events IS what happened, is history.


To get another idea, watch Al Jazzera (sp) and watch our news. Same facts, very different portrayal of events.


Thankfully we live in a free society and have an independent press. It is good we do have an independent press (even if we don''t like what they say sometimes), and as other people have said before me it will be troubling time if/when we lose that independent media, because then you can control history.

I think you misunderstood my reasoning.

While any one group or individual may "perceive" events differently, that doesn''t mean that the perception is correct. The truth is the truth.

If everyone''s perception were "correct" you''d be forced to ignore the truth of any situation or event. There would be no way anyone could ever be brought to justice. How would you possibly argue for or against a defendant if the actual facts of a case were negated and replaced by "perception"?

This is why relativism doesn''t hold up. The sky is blue. If I''m colorblind and it looks red to me doesn''t change the fact. Doesn''t change the truth.

If relativism worked, how then can we look at a group such as the Nazi''s and proclaim them guilty of their heinous crimes? If perception is truth--if perception is fact, then what standard do you use to declare anyone guilty of anything. What standard do you use to find any justice in this world?

 

[Anna0499]

I might be opening up a can of worms, but what do you all think about the Freedom of Choice Act? Obama said that the first thing he would do in office is to sign this Act (a change from when he said he supported SCOTUS's Roe v. Wade regulations). Do you Obama supporters agree with it? It strips away any and all regulation of abortion, which is good if you are 100% pro-abortion rights; I don't see why he opposes federal funding of crisis pregnancy centers though.

ETA: This isn't meant to be inflammatory - I believe an intellectual conversation about this Act can be conducted on PS. I think with all of the talk about what McCain/Palin would mean for the restriction of abortion, it is only fitting that we also discuss the expansion of abortion under Obama/Biden.

 

[partgypsy]

It''s funny, it reminds me of alot of the provoking things that Scott Adams says on his Dilbert blog to get people fighting mad, what if - this was really true. Perhaps the reality is that the universe is contained in a dewdrop on top of a gigantic flower''s petal, or a computer simulation or whatever, it doesn''t actually affect the way we live, and the decisions we make.

I hope people don''t misunderstand the posting about history. I don''t think it''s arguing for relativeism. Relativeism is an interesting topic from a philosopical standpoint, it''s not workable from a political, scientific, law making point of view. In all situations, there has to be truths and assumptions etc that are agreed on. If you read it, it is really that we should not forget history, and the longer we can look back, the better we can understand the present. It is the forgetting of the past and only judging things on the present that can color people''s perceptions.

I am not going to post on any of the abortion type discussions because they can get very heated and to me, often have a religiously based tinge, because people''s strong feeling often have to do with religiously held standards of "life". If anything, I would agree with Laraonline''s Australian''s view that it something to be decided between the woman and her doctor. I don''t think the judgements should be taken out of their hands, and decided politically.

 

[Anna0499]

Date: 10/14/2008 3:55:40 PM
Author: part gypsy
It's funny, it reminds me of alot of the provoking things that Scott Adams says on his Dilbert blog to get people fighting mad, what if - this was really true. Perhaps the reality is that the universe is contained in a dewdrop on top of a gigantic flower's petal, or a computer simulation or whatever, it doesn't actually affect the way we live, and the decisions we make.

I hope people don't misunderstand the posting about history. I don't think it's arguing for relativeism. Relativeism is an interesting topic from a philosopical standpoint, it's not workable from a political, scientific, law making point of view. In all situations, there has to be truths and assumptions etc that are agreed on. If you read it, it is really that we should not forget history, and the longer we can look back, the better we can understand the present. It is the forgetting of the past and only judging things on the present that can color people's perceptions.

I am not going to post on any of the abortion type discussions because they can get very heated and to me, often have a religiously based tinge, because people's strong feeling often have to do with religiously held standards of 'life'. If anything, I would agree with Laraonline's Australian's view that it something to be decided between the woman and her doctor. I don't think the judgements should be taken out of their hands, and decided politically.

I respect your decision to stay out of any discussion of it part gypsy. My question as solely about the legislation that Obama himself stated that he would sign as soon as he entered office, not about the morality of it. So much has been debated on these threads about McCain/Palin's pro-life views (aside from the morality argument, the possibility of SCOTUS appointments), I thought it was relevant to discuss his different topic on Obama's thread since he adamantly supports the Act. It would essentially provide abortions on demand without restriction for women of all ages and conditions, enlarge the scope of Roe v. Wade (it was in actuality pre-empt Roe v. Wade because it would eliminate the rights given to the government in that decision), and provide federal funding for these abortions. I think once federal funding is going towards performing these abortions they unfortunately become politicized. I just found it quite ironic that Obama wants to increase federal funding for abortions on demand but eliminate federal funding of pregnancy crisis centers.

 

[partgypsy]

Here is a copy of the bill, I think this is the same bill.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s110-1173


It''s pretty short, the meat of it says:

(a) Statement of Policy- It is the policy of the United States that every woman has the fundamental right to choose to bear a child, to terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability, or to terminate a pregnancy after fetal viability when necessary to protect the life or health of the woman.
(b) Prohibition of Interference- A government may not--
(1) deny or interfere with a woman''s right to choose--
(A) to bear a child;
(B) to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability; or
(C) to terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman; or
(2) discriminate against the exercise of the rights set forth in paragraph (1) in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.
(c) Civil Action- An individual aggrieved by a violation of this section may obtain appropriate relief (including relief against a government) in a civil action.


I don''t see that it protects abortions after viability, except to protect the life and health of the woman, nor any provisions for federal funding of these abortions. It also protects the woman''s right to choose to bear a child. I know that doesn''t seem very relevant in the current situation, but as you see such as in places like China, shouldn''t take those things for granted.

 

[Anna0499]

Date: 10/14/2008 4:42:49 PM
Author: part gypsy
Here is a copy of the bill, I think this is the same bill.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s110-1173


It's pretty short, the meat of it says:

(a) Statement of Policy- It is the policy of the United States that every woman has the fundamental right to choose to bear a child, to terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability, or to terminate a pregnancy after fetal viability when necessary to protect the life or health of the woman.
(b) Prohibition of Interference- A government may not--
(1) deny or interfere with a woman's right to choose--
(A) to bear a child;
(B) to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability; or
(C) to terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman; or
(2) discriminate against the exercise of the rights set forth in paragraph (1) in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.
(c) Civil Action- An individual aggrieved by a violation of this section may obtain appropriate relief (including relief against a government) in a civil action.


I don't see that it protects abortions after viability, except to protect the life and health of the woman, nor any provisions for federal funding of these abortions. It also protects the woman's right to choose to bear a child. I know that doesn't seem very relevant in the current situation, but as you see such as in places like China, shouldn't take those things for granted.

Here is a link from NRLC (pro-choice organization) about what the FOCA would do: http://www.nrlc.org/foca/PPFAfoca-questions-12445.mht
The Act is quite deceivingly simple, as it has huge repercussions as far as abortion rights are concerned. It takes away any ability of the federal government to restrict abortions in any way for pre-viability abortions. This includes denial of federal funding for abortions. Since viability is an ever-changing and individualized determination, I am sure that arguments can be found with that distinction as well. It would also pre-empt any state-mandated counseling, parental notification, or waiting periods in place currently.

I actually don't think that this Act will pass both Houses anytime soon (barring a large influx of pro-choice representatives this year), I just thought it was an interesting piece of legislation in light of the Bush-signed Partial Birth Abortion Ban and I certainly don't agree with taking funding away from pregnancy crisis centers - just seems like punishment for keeping a pregnancy. I agree that the right to procreate, under Skinner v. Oklahoma, is something not to take lightly, as I have family members whom have been forcibly sterilized in SE Asia.

 

[MoonWater]

Date: 10/14/2008 7:36:48 AM
Author: ksinger

And since everyone is mentioning HISTORY these days, here is a beautiful piece I saved in a text file the minute I was finished reading it. Reading it just made me want to sing.

January 1, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Folly''s Antidote
By ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER Jr.
MANY signs point to a growing historical consciousness among the American
people. I trust that this is so. It is useful to remember that history is to
the nation as memory is to the individual. As persons deprived of memory
become disoriented and lost, not knowing where they have been and where they
are going, so a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in
dealing with its present and its future. ''The longer you look back,'' said
Winston Churchill, ''the farther you can look forward.''

snip....

I passed that one on to FI!

 

[MoonWater]

Date: 10/14/2008 4:42:49 PM
Author: part gypsy
Here is a copy of the bill, I think this is the same bill.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s110-1173


It''s pretty short, the meat of it says:

(a) Statement of Policy- It is the policy of the United States that every woman has the fundamental right to choose to bear a child, to terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability, or to terminate a pregnancy after fetal viability when necessary to protect the life or health of the woman.
(b) Prohibition of Interference- A government may not--
(1) deny or interfere with a woman''s right to choose--
(A) to bear a child;
(B) to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability; or
(C) to terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman; or
(2) discriminate against the exercise of the rights set forth in paragraph (1) in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.
(c) Civil Action- An individual aggrieved by a violation of this section may obtain appropriate relief (including relief against a government) in a civil action.


I don''t see that it protects abortions after viability, except to protect the life and health of the woman, nor any provisions for federal funding of these abortions. It also protects the woman''s right to choose to bear a child. I know that doesn''t seem very relevant in the current situation, but as you see such as in places like China, shouldn''t take those things for granted.

Hmm... define viable.

 

[ksinger]

Date: 10/14/2008 3:55:40 PM
Author: part gypsy
It''s funny, it reminds me of alot of the provoking things that Scott Adams says on his Dilbert blog to get people fighting mad, what if - this was really true. Perhaps the reality is that the universe is contained in a dewdrop on top of a gigantic flower''s petal, or a computer simulation or whatever, it doesn''t actually affect the way we live, and the decisions we make.

I hope people don''t misunderstand the posting about history. I don''t think it''s arguing for relativeism. Relativeism is an interesting topic from a philosopical standpoint, it''s not workable from a political, scientific, law making point of view. In all situations, there has to be truths and assumptions etc that are agreed on. If you read it, it is really that we should not forget history, and the longer we can look back, the better we can understand the present. It is the forgetting of the past and only judging things on the present that can color people''s perceptions.

I am not going to post on any of the abortion type discussions because they can get very heated and to me, often have a religiously based tinge, because people''s strong feeling often have to do with religiously held standards of ''life''. If anything, I would agree with Laraonline''s Australian''s view that it something to be decided between the woman and her doctor. I don''t think the judgements should be taken out of their hands, and decided politically.

Well then, it''s a good thing then that the point of Schlesinger''s piece, and my posting it, wasn''t to provoke people to defend relativsm, wasn''t it? All I could think of while you all were building your rather large straw man (ksinger''s suggesting that "history is only about one''s perspective"? Nazis? Holocaust deniers? Honestly, how on earth did you guys GET there??), was that all of you were so happily going off on a tangent, you completely missed the point of Schlesinger''s piece.

I''m glad to see that at least one poster did not miss the point completely. I posted it for the beauty of its prose, and it''s tone of joy, of pure FUN attempting the pursuit of the full truth, even if it is unattainable for mere mortals, and some perspective that in the grand sweep of history, our micro level battles on this board AND even in the general political arena of late, are a mere blip. None of us, not ONE, knows everything, or has a corner on objectivity. It was intended to get people to BACK UP, and see things from a higher perspective. It was not intended to "provoke" or to present and defend a position, or be partisan. But I guess there are some people here who are so ready to argue about SOMETHING that they''ll read WAY more than was there just so they can take exception to it. Sheesh.

 

[decodelighted]

Hmmmm. Maybe someone should have thought twice about plugging hard on the "guilt by association" stuff re: Obama.

Turns out McCain's palling around with Saddam's old lobbyist. Even made him his "transition chief"?? Really?? Really? Where are Seth & Amy when you need them?

ETA:

And here's what Christopher Buckley said when he resigning from the National Review after endorsing Obama.

So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it's a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.

While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of "conservative" government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven't left the Republican Party. It left me.

 

[swimmer]

Date: 10/14/2008 5:42:40 PM
Author: ksinger

Date: 10/14/2008 3:55:40 PM

Author: part gypsy

It''s funny, it reminds me of alot of the provoking things that Scott Adams says on his Dilbert blog to get people fighting mad, what if - this was really true. Perhaps the reality is that the universe is contained in a dewdrop on top of a gigantic flower''s petal, or a computer simulation or whatever, it doesn''t actually affect the way we live, and the decisions we make.


I hope people don''t misunderstand the posting about history. I don''t think it''s arguing for relativeism. Relativeism is an interesting topic from a philosopical standpoint, it''s not workable from a political, scientific, law making point of view. In all situations, there has to be truths and assumptions etc that are agreed on. If you read it, it is really that we should not forget history, and the longer we can look back, the better we can understand the present. It is the forgetting of the past and only judging things on the present that can color people''s perceptions.


I am not going to post on any of the abortion type discussions because they can get very heated and to me, often have a religiously based tinge, because people''s strong feeling often have to do with religiously held standards of ''life''. If anything, I would agree with Laraonline''s Australian''s view that it something to be decided between the woman and her doctor. I don''t think the judgements should be taken out of their hands, and decided politically.

Well then, it''s a good thing then that the point of Schlesinger''s piece, and my posting it, wasn''t to provoke people to defend relativsm, wasn''t it? All I could think of while you all were building your rather large straw man (ksinger''s suggesting that ''history is only about one''s perspective''? Nazis? Holocaust deniers? Honestly, how on earth did you guys GET there??), was that all of you were so happily going off on a tangent, you completely missed the point of Schlesinger''s piece.

I''m glad to see that at least one poster did not miss the point completely. I posted it for the beauty of its prose, and it''s tone of joy, of pure FUN attempting the pursuit of the full truth, even if it is unattainable for mere mortals, and some perspective that in the grand sweep of history, our micro level battles on this board AND even in the general political arena of late, are a mere blip. None of us, not ONE, knows everything, or has a corner on objectivity. It was intended to get people to BACK UP, and see things from a higher perspective. It was not intended to ''provoke'' or to present and defend a position, or be partisan. But I guess there are some people here who are so ready to argue about SOMETHING that they''ll read WAY more than was there just so they can take exception to it. Sheesh.

Ha! I hear ya! this was a wacky thread to skim. What was that bumpersticker about relativism, "Be careful your mind is so open your brains fall out" ha! That is my second favorite!

 

[Anna0499]

Date: 10/14/2008 5:34:28 PM
Author: MoonWater

Hmm... define viable.

There is no true, concrete definition...the central problem with Roe v. Wade and any legislation sought to be passed under it''s reasoning.

 

[MoonWater]

Date: 10/14/2008 6:39:12 PM
Author: IndyGirl22

Date: 10/14/2008 5:34:28 PM
Author: MoonWater

Hmm... define viable.

There is no true, concrete definition...the central problem with Roe v. Wade and any legislation sought to be passed under it''s reasoning.

Exactly. That''s what I was saying. It sounds great and all, but defining viable will always be a problem.

 

[MoonWater]

Date: 10/14/2008 5:48:30 PM
Author: decodelighted
Hmmmm. Maybe someone should have thought twice about plugging hard on the ''guilt by association'' stuff re: Obama.

Turns out McCain''s palling around with Saddam''s old lobbyist. Even made him his ''transition chief''?? Really?? Really? Where are Seth & Amy when you need them?

ETA:

And here''s what Christopher Buckley said when he resigning from the National Review after endorsing Obama.

So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it''s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.

While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of ''conservative'' government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven''t left the Republican Party. It left me.

Ok, I just found the whole blog from Buckley. Wow.

 

[HollyS]

Date: 10/14/2008 8:33:59 AM
Author: ksinger

Date: 10/14/2008 8:17:28 AM
Author: HollyS

I''m not quoting conservative blogs. Read something besides internet sites to gain some perspective. Pick up a book. Pick up the Congressional Record. The Congressional Record is probably available on line. Review some actual laws/policies of previous administrations besides the last one. Think outside the box of your own liberal viewpoint and your usual sources.

And regardless of ksinger''s post that suggests history is all in one''s perspective, or subject to change, it is not. Opinion changes; history never varies. You can twist it to make your point I suppose, as long as no one questions your revision.

LMACOMPLETELYO! Yeah! Take THAT, SCHLESINGER! PTHBBBBTTTTT!!! We no need no definition of history from no steenking HISTORIAN!

Well, you can laugh your ass off if you want, but ''facts'' don''t change. People''s beliefs might skewer their understanding of historical facts, but what happened five minutes ago or 50 years ago might as well be set in stone. You can Monday morning quarterback, but you can''t ''change'' what actually happened. No matter how hard you try. I don''t believe in ''relativism''. I don''t believe in ''revisionism''. Sorry.

 

[HollyS]

Date: 10/14/2008 11:17:58 AM
Author: beebrisk

Date: 10/14/2008 7:36:48 AM
Author: ksinger

And since everyone is mentioning HISTORY these days, here is a beautiful piece I saved in a text file the minute I was finished reading it. Reading it just made me want to sing.


January 1, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

Folly''s Antidote

By ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER Jr.

MANY signs point to a growing historical consciousness among the American

people. I trust that this is so. It is useful to remember that history is to

the nation as memory is to the individual. As persons deprived of memory

become disoriented and lost, not knowing where they have been and where they

are going, so a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in

dealing with its present and its future. ''The longer you look back,'' said

Winston Churchill, ''the farther you can look forward.''


But all historians are prisoners of their own experience. We bring to

history the preconceptions of our personalities and of our age. We cannot

seize on ultimate and absolute truths. So the historian is committed to a

doomed enterprise - the quest for an unattainable objectivity.


Conceptions of the past are far from stable. They are perennially revised by

the urgencies of the present. When new urgencies arise in our own times and

lives, the historian''s spotlight shifts, probing at last into the darkness,

throwing into sharp relief things that were always there but that earlier

historians had carelessly excised from the collective memory. New voices

ring out of the historical dark and demand to be heard.


One has only to note how in the last half-century the movements for women''s

rights and civil rights have reformulated and renewed American history. Thus

the present incessantly reinvents the past. In this sense, all history, as

Benedetto Croce said, is contemporary history. It is these permutations of

consciousness that make history so endlessly fascinating an intellectual

adventure. ''The one duty we owe to history,'' said Oscar Wilde, ''is to

rewrite it.''


We are the world''s dominant military power, and I believe a consciousness of

history is a moral necessity for a nation possessed of overweening power.

History verifies John F. Kennedy''s proposition, stated in the first year of

his thousand days: ''We must face the fact that the United States is neither

omnipotent or omniscient - that we are only 6 percent of the world''s

population; that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of

mankind; that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity; and

therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.''


History is the best antidote to delusions of omnipotence and omniscience.

Self-knowledge is the indispensable prelude to self-control, for the nation

as well as for the individual, and history should forever remind us of the

limits of our passing perspectives. It should strengthen us to resist the

pressure to convert momentary impulses into moral absolutes. It should lead

us to acknowledge our profound and chastening frailty as human beings - to a

recognition of the fact, so often and so sadly displayed, that the future

outwits all our certitudes and that the possibilities of the future are more

various than the human intellect is designed to conceive.


Sometimes, when I am particularly depressed, I ascribe our behavior to

stupidity - the stupidity of our leadership, the stupidity of our culture.

Three decades ago, we suffered defeat in an unwinnable war against

tribalism, the most fanatic of political emotions, fighting against a

country about which we knew nothing and in which we had no vital interests.

Vietnam was hopeless enough, but to repeat the same arrogant folly 30 years

later in Iraq is unforgivable. The Swedish statesman Axel Oxenstierna

famously said, ''Behold, my son, with how little wisdom the world is

governed.''


A nation informed by a vivid understanding of the ironies of history is, I

believe, best equipped to manage the tragic temptations of military power.

Let us not bully our way through life, but let a growing sensitivity to

history temper and civilize our use of power. In the meantime, let a

thousand historical flowers bloom. History is never a closed book or a final

verdict. It is forever in the making. Let historians never forsake the quest

for knowledge in the interests of an ideology, a religion, a race, a nation.


The great strength of history in a free society is its capacity for

self-correction. This is the endless excitement of historical writing - the

search to reconstruct what went before, a quest illuminated by those

ever-changing prisms that continually place old questions in a new light.


History is a doomed enterprise that we happily pursue because of the thrill

of the hunt, because exploring the past is such fun, because of the

intellectual challenges involved, because a nation needs to know its own

history. Or so we historians insist. Because in the end, a nation''s history

must be both the guide and the domain not so much of its historians as its

citizens.


Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who has won Pulitzer Prizes for history and

biography, is the author, most recently, of ''War and the American

Presidency.''


Amen and amen!!

The theory that history is all about one''s perspective is ill-conceived and frankly, ignorant. It takes only one example to disprove it.

The Holocaust.

History is history whether looking at it from the Nazi perspective or the victim''s perspective. If the truth of that history was dependent on the perspective of the individual there would be no room for justice. Ever. At that point, every recollection would be correct and ''factual'' regardless of the evidence, regardless of the truth. Every interpretation of an event would be only as true as one perceives it. It''s relativism...it''s not real.

Thank you. That''s exactly my point. Someone''s personal viewpoint about history is not history.

 

[trillionaire]

Date: 10/14/2008 7:36:48 AM
Author: ksinger
And since everyone is mentioning HISTORY these days, here is a beautiful piece I saved in a text file the minute I was finished reading it. Reading it just made me want to sing.


January 1, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

Folly''s Antidote

By ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER Jr.

MANY signs point to a growing historical consciousness among the American

people.

Amen and amen!!