The ‘K’ is not silent

But we can end infanticide by voting for torture, pandering to the rich, reckless bullying of other nations, the rapid impoverishment of the working class, and the utter abandonment of the poor!

Abortion is ugly. But uglier still is the willingness of so many Christians to let this particular bit of morality serve as an excuse to abet some of the most immoral policies imaginable. (This from Christians who, by and large, support in vitro fertilization, eradicating any hope of a consistent moral argument.)

Christians cannot let continued manipulation of the abortion issue turn them into a tool for greater and greater evil, as they have done over the last eight years.

By Nate on Feb 3, 2008

That’s a view I would respect more if you included “torturing other human beings” on the list of single issues like that.

By Nate on Feb 4, 2008

Would you have refused to vote for any Republican candidate except for Huckabee or McCain?

Or, back to the in vitro thing, do you have a truly defensible separation between the justness of creating embryos for inevitable destruction and abortion? Or will you refuse to vote for any candidate that supports in vitro? ‘Cause that’s all of them.

By Nate on Feb 4, 2008

It’s this kind of dilemma that makes me want to punch the two-party system in the face. The two-party system encourages us-versus-them mentalities and gross oversimplification of complex issues, to say nothing of this whole stupid thing where we end up voting for the lesser of two evils.

By Jackson on Feb 5, 2008

Having a two-party system is essential for fairness, otherwise coalition dynamics end up erasing any real choice. I would be interested in the possibility of multiple-choice voting, in which there were a system for listing tiered preferences. Thus votes would have different merit and real voter preference could matter a bit more. But voting for the lesser of two evils is an essential part of life, which consists almost entirely of choosing between two things which we cannot know or understand fully to be good. (This in and of itself being an evil, a consequence of the Fall.)

As to the over-simplification of complex issues, we have to get along with millions and millions of other people. I cannot stress that enough! Of course complex issues are going to be hashed and reduced… we have to find common ground between that many separate human beings.

Anyway, Mr. Knoll; I’m surprised that it seems clear to you that murder is worse than torture, a moral presumption that seems not at all clear to me. Certainly if one’s views on this are derived from Christianity, scripture does nothing if not make it more difficult to make these kind of moral valuations, since Jesus especially places such an emphasis on the ultimately equal nature of sins.

You should learn about in vitro fertilization, a practice that creates a number of embryos for implantation in the whom while the others are then either frozen or discarded. This practice is widely used by Christians, the majority of whom seem to think it’s okay to promote this while opposing abortion or even the morning-after pill. It’s an area of great hypocrisy in the pro-life camp.

By Nate on Feb 8, 2008