When does life begin?

I am sure they could be used for dog food? Don't they feed meat to pigs? (oh, what would be a more fitting end to Bin Laden?)

Placing EQUAL value seems to be as important, because once you can pick and choose, they we get the KKK or Hamas in charge and there all of a sudden opens up a lot of organ donors.
[b]
What is YOUR take on the claim I heard last summer on how the ease and acceptance of abortion in innercities is actually a plot to perform genocide on the black people? I think the "honorable" Rev. Jessie Jackson hisself said that very thing as well.[/b] All I could say was "wow".

Who said that it appeared that Israel had used Excessive Force and the media was trying to get him to admit that Israel had committed [b]War Crimes[/b] by their reactions to the attacks upon them. I actually think that he was a German as well but none the less he stuck to his story of what he had witnessed. Although to be fair he did say that he had only just arrived and had not seen the other side this was just his [b]First Impression.[/b]

What the media didn't show was the damage in Israel in all Civilian areas when the Rockets had struck. These things are not designed to kill outright but to maim as they have a relatively small HE Payload surrounded by nails, ball bearings and anything else that can be found that will act quite nicely as Shrapnel and do serious damage to anyone unfortunate enough to be in the area when hit.

I particularly liked the Media showing scenes of devastation in Lebanon and in the background there where rockets being fired at Israel which wasn't mentioned. The media was making out just how bad the destruction was but wasn't interested in telling the full story. While they where filming they had to run for cover as a retaliatory Air Strike came in for those rockets launched in the background pictures earlier.

Whatever you do [b]DON'T GET ME STARTED ON Rwanda![/b] what happened there was appalling and there was no excuse for the things that happened. I was at the time attempting to get Medical Supplies in there as the UN was unable to furnish details of when they could resupply an Medical Facility that the AU Army had sent there. The first day that they where operational they had to take a native off O2 because he was consuming the O2 at an alarming rate and it would soon have run out and there would be none available for any of the AU troops if they where injured. The Field Hospital didn't have the correct supplies so that on this particular patient who had to have a chest operation they didn't have any thread strong enough to hold a chest closed with so they ended up pulling down some blind Plastic rope and running that through an Autoclave to sterilise it so it could be used to hold the guy together.

They ran out of surgical gloved after 5 days and where reusing the used ones till they fell to bits and then operating in bare hands. And none of that are any of the gruesome parts involved.

Col

One would have to assume that this particular "plot" is being perpetrated by white male politicians and these would mostly be Republican Christians who are the same people who want to reduce the availability of abortion.

Bit of an idiot, our Jesse.

Neil

I reckon Bin Laden's long dead.

heard it on the news on the way home from work. Turns out it was back in 2000, that "peace keepers" didn't keep any peace, but sat there and video taped the abduction of isrealie soldiers and then lied to the world about having that tape. It is all coming out now, and once again, surprise surprise, the UN looks like scum again.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1428913.stm
http://www.israelinsider.com/channels/diplomacy/articles/dip_0057.htm

And actually, Rwanda convinced me more against the UN than their clearly anti-US attitudes up to that point, that there is nothing good that will ever come out of that corrupt organization. This was also before we knew about the Food for Oil scam.

Hmmm, my baby is going to have green eyes, and the master race should have blue. Time to try again.

"REDO!" (most likely a lost reference to "fairly odd parents")

Yes, if there are medical issues, I would never hold that against someone. Child birth can be dangerous enough when everything goes according to plan. It is that is have become so damn casual and a "no biggie" that really sickens me about the whole pro-abortion group. While it should be available, it should NEVER be a "no biggie".

because it is the Democratic party that is always pushing abortions at will as "just one of those things", and is also the party that for a long time had the GOVERNMENT paying for abortions because it "wasn't fair" that the poor poor couldn't use this new form of birth control.

Jackson is a tool, and so is each and everyone that supports him still, after everything he has done to hurt the civil rights movement and the people that needed him most.

I heard on the news the other day, that points out a government out of control.

They were talking about the problem of unpaid parking fines in Columbus, Ohio when one city official said:

"Something more has to be done. The city heavily depends on this money."

Maybe they should fine murderers, then they could heavily depend on THAT money too!

Got me on one of my favorite pet peeves!

I LOATH when some scumbag politican refers to MY friggen tax dollars as "Revenue". Revenue is something you EARN, not take! X-(

And then we get the DemonCrats fanning the flames with stupid cries for the mindless masses about the "windfall profits" of the oil company, when it is a FACT that the GOVERNMENT gets more PROFIT PER GALLON than the oil company does, and the oil company did all the work!

Same is true for cigarettes. What a scheme THAT was. Sue them, get a big settlement, they just raise the price per pack, which increases the TAX per pack. Government is double dipping on that one big time, and the poor poor are getting hammered by it all.

Maybe we should raise the minimum wage? Just because it raises the cost of living for MIDDLE CLASS that doesn't GET a raise, lowering THEIR standard of living, it will make the people flipping burgers feel better.

"Marriage pentaly tax" that Wild Bill Clinton refused to get rid of, "because they needed that money".

A fine is a tax for doing bad.
A tax is a fine for doing good.

When the perp flatly states, "your society will not be safe as long as I am alive".

I am referring to Wesley Allen Dodd who was convicted of the sexual assault and murder of three young boys in 1989. to his credit, he admitted to being a repeat paedophile and clearly stated his belief that he would be a danger to society for as long as he lived. He was sentenced to death for his crimes as a result of "special circumstances".

The net result, however was that he had to fight the state and a rash of lawyers to refuse appeal. When some appeals moved forward, he simply went to court and repeated his sentiments.

He was finally executed on 5 Jan 93. He spent the time while waiting for the justice that had been determined to be carried out by writing letters to children about how to protect themselves.

One can be found here: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/5400/protecturself.html

I have a tough time with the death penalty. I had been supporting Charles Mansion for quite awhile as a resident of California- and don't prefer that my $$$ go to that cause. At the same time, I got to know Patricia Krenwinkle quite well via letters and have no problem with supporting her incarceration. My expereince incidates to me that Mansion is pure evil, Ms. Krenwinkle has experienced a life changing epiphany.

I think that there are some serious flaws with the system as it exists today. I don't know that any of us have the correct answer- I believe that we all have insight that could improve what is currently in place.

Edit for typo

it's just a little disingenuous to make laws restricting or prohibiting something (ostensibly because it is detrimental to the public good), then turn around and claim that you depend on the fines collected from violators to operate the government.

With an admission that blatant, one wonders if all of the other bad stuff you hear about the government isn't true. That the bureaucracy exists only to serve itself and the citizens be damned.

Contraceptive failing, and the couple do not want any more children. What is the general take on this scenario?

I you read all my messages, you'll notice that I did say that I didn't like the alternative either, considering the way the system is structured today.

Breaking rocks on Devil's Island for the rest of his natural life might seem like a more fitting punishment. I prefer a "living death" penalty, rather than the dead one.

As we currently have "law of the land" my question speaks more to the appropriate enforcement.

In the case of Wesley Allen Dodd, a decision was reached that the perp had to push in order to have carried out. Appeals were filed against his wishes. The judiciary had made a determination and the perp chose to live with it- or die with it.

My thinking is more aligned with dealing with what is currently in front of us. Or if there is an effective way to deal with it.

when is it life, and when does that life have any value. If that life has no value, vacume away. Besides legal restrictions, that is really the only other deciding factor.

Bottom line, people don't WANT to KNOW if it is a life or not, so they don't have to face what it is they are doing and WHY they are doing it. There would be a lot more vegitarians out there if people had to kill their own food. Go to the corner and buy a burger, you don't feel like a killer. The same as hiring a "hit man", only the target is a cow instead of your wife. And the BAD thing is, the COW never did anything to DESERVE it! :0

If a couple truely don't "want anymore children" you go in to get "fixed", just like you do the dog or cat.

I went in.

SOAPBOX ALERT!

When you take your pets in to get them "fixed", they do NOT lose their gender, and do NOT become "IT'S".

Also, if you take something that works just fine and make it so it DOESN'T work anymore, why is that called "fixed"? :D

This couple [b]do[/b] want children but only when they can afford to look after them properly so being "fixed" is not really an option.

This couple have only just got married and do not want children until they have really got their marriage stable.

Contraceptive fails and they find this out too late for the morning after pill. Both partners agree that they would not like at child at that point and, although the prospect of an abortion is distressing, [b]they[/b] think it the lesser of two evils.

People can rationalize things all they want to make themselves feel better about doing all kinds of things. This is just one more thing that you just admitted was "evil"? [i](I know, an expression, but you KNOW I couldn't let it go, right? :D )[/i]

My twins were conceived while using the pill.

My Ex-Step-Mother-in-law had two out of three of her kids while on the pill.

This does not change anything I said though, does it? If the individual has no or little value for that life, they have the legal choice to "terminate" that life. For some odd reason, people CHOOSE not to use the word "KILL"? go figure. Matter of fact, the more clinical the choice of words, with no references to "baby", the easier it is to rationalize away until this has come to the stage it is at in America. No big deal and just one more form of birth control.

You will notice I am not advocating a change of law, just a change of attitude, and MAKE people aware of what the choice is they are making. I will not candy coat the topic just to keep you from getting your feeling hurt over this choice.

Life is full of choices. The choice to hide or distort what is going on with lables like "pro-choice", hides the facts. It also brings up if it IS a life, what about IT'S "choice"?

Just like in capital punishment cases, isn't it best to error on the side of caution?

...to becoming a Vegetarian :-)

Neil's words is very precise "although the prospect of an abortion is distressing, they think it the lesser of two evils."

Once I had to run to the pharmacy sometime in the night, when we suspected something :-) We had already spent a few days agnoizing over things, and what needs to be done. But in those few days we just could not make a decision. Finally, it just turned out to be a false alarm. It is not fun to be making such decisions in life.

"Fixing" is an issue to be decided by the couple.

As a guy, I found that it took a while for me to get attached to the growing child. Whereas it was quicker for my wife.

...that is Political ones? Is it because the society is divided on topics like - abortion, stem cell research, gay marriages, war?

Was divorce ever an issue in the history? BTW, does the Chrisitan religion saying anything about divorce? Sorry to get this going tangential. I was suddenly fascinated about all these things. Hopefully I have not offended people, I am just little curious.

I'm sorry, jd, but you're still doing the one thing that I don't want to do and that is to want to affect other people's actions according to your own personal morality.

You are allowed to judge, of course, but if they choose to want to describe their abortion as a "termination" rather than a "killing" to make themselves feel less bad about it then they have as much right as you (doing whatever the opposite of candy-coating is) to call a sixteen-week foetus a "baby" in an attempt to load on the guilt. But, and it's a big but, it's their foetus or baby and their choice.

Should we make this hypothetical couple suffer as much guilt as they possibly can because their decision to abort their pregnancy offends us?

I do hunt and fish, and see NOTHING wrong with that cow frying on my grill.

"fixing", yes for the couple to decide. There is MUCH less risk for the man than the woman, THAT is why I had it done. I suspect the EX's last boyfriend knocked her up, making her regret not being the one to have the procedure done! :D Single, WAY underemployeed, an knocked up at 40? NOT a bright prospect.

Divorce has been a big thing in the past, but it seems like it is just an easy way out of the marriages of today. I just recently got divorced (you MIGHT have heard :D ) but it was not by my choice. I live in a no-fault divorce state, which means you don't need a REASON to get divorced, you just have to WANT to get divorced. I gave her the divorce she wanted, and moved on with my life. do I think divorce is a good thing or should be done lightly? No. Just like I don't think abortion should be done lightly, neither should divorce.

Not Catholic, so I don't have as much religious pressure to form this opinion. I have always been a big believer of personal responsiblity and accountablitiy. (that is why I am a registered Republican, although I identify myself more as independant, with a concervative leaning, these days.) Democrats want NO personal accountability, and make plenty of excuses to make it so people don't feel badly about things they SHOULD feel badly about. And abortion SHOULD make people feel bad, because it is a bad thing.

Here is an interview on Frontline with Romeo Dallaire, the General in charge of the Rwandan Mission

Author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide

There was only one major editorial in The New York Times, one major editorial in the Washington Post for the entire duration of this genocide. These editorial were editorials that lamented the carnage, that used the word "genocide" even to describe the carnage, but that never dared to suggest that the United States be involved in stopping it. Again, they were occupying the land that Prudence Bushnell and others within the bureaucracy were occupying -- the desire to stay relevant politically, and to be an advocate within the realm of the possible.

The very people who can push the policy agenda were muted and self-censored, so that they don't want to put an editorial in that says the United States should go in and stop genocide and actually think about pulling together a rapid reaction force. ? They don't want to do that, because they don't want to be seen as being outliers from what is doable and possible. ?

There're a variety of policy tools short of U.S. intervention that actually could have been applied and that might well have deterred a serious amount of killing. Again, we will never know whether denouncing the perpetrators in the early days of the genocide and declaring that we were going to set up a tribunal to prosecute them; or freezing their assets, so they understood that there wasn't going to be any bounty on the other side of this; or patrolling from the skies and trying to deter just by our presence; or really earnestly going to African countries in the early days rather than waiting two or three weeks -- just so many things that could have been done that weren't done.

It wasn't that they weren't contemplated, and it wasn't that there weren't people within the U.S. government really earnestly trying to cut through the red tape and to make them happen. But for even the mildest of those measures to have been carried out, it would have required high-level ownership of the genocide and of the U.S. response. It would have required somebody above a kind of State Department assistant secretary level, preferably somebody of a Cabinet-level post, who simply made it their business to put the issue in front of the president, to put the issue and even the moral stakes in front of his or her colleagues in Cabinet-level meetings, in principals' committee meetings.

It would have required personal risk, putting your career on the line, being associated forever with, yes, a loser, as it were. I mean a loser in the sense that there's nothing geopolitically to be gained by getting involved with this, and only risks on the horizon -- and indeed, no risks at all or no costs at all foreseeable, anyway, of staying uninvolved for you or for the United States. No one's going to remember who made what decision around the Rwandan genocide. Omissions never get remembered.

So nobody owned it. Thus all of these kind of floating proposals about denunciation and freezing of assets and radio jamming and partnership with African countries -- they floated earnestly in the ether, and they never got the engine behind them that they would have required. I mean, Prudence Bushnell and others did denounce publicly, and it may even have done some good. The hotel owner in Kigali claims that Bushnell's phone calls to the perpetrators, mentioning the hotel and the people inside, are probably what deterred an attack on the hotel, and that's incredible. ? It's a rare instance.

But imagine if the president had taken his profound political capital and charisma, and if it had been him going to African countries, urging them to send troops, saying, "Hey, look, there's a division of labor on this earth. The United States is involved in Haiti now. We were involved in Somalia. This is one we're not going to be involved. We're not going to be boots on the grounds. ? But the fact that we're not going to put boots on the ground doesn't disqualify us from exerting leadership." The really profound mistake was to think that if U.S. troops are taken off the table, or if they never even go near the table ? then that somehow disqualifies the United States from playing a prominent leadership role.

Well, no, of course it should demand [the president's] attention. Of course the Cabinet should have met around the clock on this question, no matter what else they were handling. If they weren't going to put U.S. troops on the ground, if they didn't think they could carry that in the Congress, it may well not have been the matter. No amount of Clintonian leadership may have carried U.S. troops through the Congress; they may be right about that. But at least you want to be able to look back and say, "We did everything short of a thing that we couldn't achieve." Instead, they have to look back and say, "We did nothing short of a thing that we couldn't have achieved."

Peacekeeping Adviser to Madeleine Albright

They all looked for the U.S., but I argued that not only Americans had the capability to fly a battalion or two into Kigali. There were at least half a dozen of the countries in the world that would have lead such an effort. But they were looking for the U.S. to go back into Rwanda at that time, and I think that had been a very, very difficult political decision for the United States to make at that time.

And I can tell you, having remembered very clearly, there was no one within the United States political spectrum in that period that was calling for an American-led intervention -- no one in the Congress, no one in the executive branch, no one in the military, no one in the press. There was almost a silence on that issue at the time. It was only later, mid-May and later, as the horrors came into full view, that there were a rush of people, volunteering that [the] Americans should have guided an operation in there. But I can tell you, in late April and early May, in terms of the serious political leadership within the executive branch or in the Congress, there was no big advocates for taking U.S. forces that were basically steaming out of the port of Mogadishu at that same time and reinserting them into central Africa in a very, very unstable situation.

There was concern about the humanitarian situation. There was great concern about that, and there was talk about mounting a humanitarian operation in the south. And that was being discussed by members of the Pentagon with me [and] with military officials in the U.N. about the safe areas in the southern part of Rwanda. Eventually that type of operation was mounted and the U.S. did lead that humanitarian operation into eastern Congo and western Rwanda and that zone where we set up a massive humanitarian operation. But this was really later, after the massive killings had already been perpetrated.

Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights

[In the] middle of May, the State Department mood, as you describe, is pretty grim.

Well, mid-May was probably the nadir of 1994, which itself was in many ways the worst year in the Clinton administration, certainly on foreign policy. By then, we really did have a political crisis on human rights and trade in China. The president was about to take a huge hit on human rights because of his change in position in China, whereby he basically authorized an extension of the "most favored nation" trading status with China without any human rights conditions which he had imposed a year earlier.

So that really cut the legs out from under the human rights assistant secretary as well as, at least at that stage, within the administration more generally. I think later on we recovered significantly. Bosnia was in one of its real crisis modes. The Europeans and the Americans were kind of arguing about whether to have more peacekeepers, in the case of the Europeans, or more air strikes, in the case of the Americans. The Europeans didn't want to authorize American air strikes for fear that it would endanger their troops, and U.S. was not about to authorize any troops for Bosnia.

So it was a terrible stalemate there, and the Bosnia situation just kept getting worse. [And] thousands and thousands of Haitian boat people [were] taking to the high seas and trying to get away from Haiti. The policy was slowly being changed at that point, but it hadn't been changed yet.

Then, of course, there's Rwanda, which I think for anyone who had any sense of human rights and human catastrophe, they had to think that was the worst thing going on in the world at that time, and nothing was being done about it. So the mood was not only grim, but very much resigned, if you will, to something overwhelming happening in Africa that was not being dealt with by the United States or any other country. I don't want to just keep pointing a finger at the U.S. -- the international community as a whole failed the Rwandan people.

Did you ever have a conversation with Warren Christopher about Rwanda?

I never had a conversation with Warren Christopher about Rwanda at that stage. There was no occasion when there was a Rwanda meeting. He had sort of delegated this to [Strobe] Talbott and to [Peter] Tarnoff, whom I had many conversations with. But I did not have a conversation with Christopher about it.

Did anyone [at that stage] talk to him about it later?

I think later, I did -- certainly reflected on how terrible I thought the situation was. He was, of course, being battered over Bosnia, because he was taking the position that nothing really could be done about Bosnia. I think it was he actually who called Bosnia the "problem from hell," and I didn't believe that a lot could be done about Bosnia. ?

But it's been described to me that he really [was] not ? interested in the policies about Rwanda.

Yes, I think that's true. I think he tended to take issues and farm them out, and this was one that he farmed out. He kept the Middle East and China for himself at that stage, and there were other issues I'm sure that he was deeply involved in. As secretary of state, he had to make sure that somebody was paying attention, and there were people paying attention. ?

Any other principals that you ever discussed this with at the time?

[Sandy] Berger, certainly, though Berger's not a principal, of course. I had a couple of conversations with Tony Lake. I think Tony was depressed about the fact that there was no one pushing from the outside for action on Rwanda. There were a few human rights groups, to be sure, and they were heroic, although even they were somewhat late to arrive at the conclusion that this was a genocide. I did have a couple of conversations with him.

Was there anybody, as far as you know -- Lake or anyone else within the administration -- [that] tried to make the case at a higher level for more accurate--

That I don't know. My position in the spring of 1994 was weakened by the controversies that I was involved in in Haiti and China, so I didn't have any direct access to the president on this.

U.N. Force Commander in Rwanda

How do you feel now when you hear U.S. senior officials -- Clinton, Albright, others -- talk about Rwanda? Of course Clinton went and apologized--

He didn't apologize.

Well, it was couched as an apology.

No, no. He went to reinforce the blackmail on the Rwandans. ? When he was there in '98, he said, "Oh, I didn't know. We didn't realize." I've got all those quotes and stuff, which are outright lies. They knew, it was there as information, and it is evident that that information was either at his level or stopped within the structures. But the Americans knew what was going on inside there, and to go and excuse yourself -- the Belgians did the same thing -- in front of these people. The Americans scuttled any initiative to bring about a force to be able to save hundreds of thousands. How can they look at this guy and accept an apology?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ghosts/themes/response.html

Mark Doyle BBC reporter
There was even a point ? when African countries offered [more] soldiers, and all they needed was a few trucks and some airlift to get them in. The Americans even refused to do that. ? The British government and the American government -- who send their politicians to Kigali and cry over the gravesites -- these are the same countries that refused to send soldiers to stop it happening, when they knew it was happening, not just because I was telling them that it was happening. ? They deliberately tried to stop countries [from] sending troops to the U.N., and started manufacturing a plan, where the Americans in particular said the most important thing to do is to get some soldiers around the borders of Rwanda to save the refugees.

Well, hell, was that the most important thing? It was completely the opposite of what was required. What was required was to have soldiers in the middle in Kigali in each town, each football stadium. Broadly speaking, that was Dallaire's plan -- to have soldiers at football stadiums to protect people. I think it was a doable plan. He just didn't have enough soldiers. I'm sure a few thousand extra soldiers could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2001/6.html
According to the report, the killings could have been stopped before they began. The report refers to the well known fax that Canadian Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire, commander of the UN peacekeeping troops in Rwanda, sent to the UN three months before the genocide began. In the fax, Dallaire warned that an extermination campaign was coming. In fact, three days before the genocide started, a Hutu leader told several high-ranking UN officials that "the only plausible solution for Rwanda would be the elimination of the Tutsi." While the report states that, "there were a thousand early warnings that something appalling was about to occur in Rwanda," the Clinton administration took every step possible to avoid acknowledging that genocide was taking place.

Dallaire asked for an additional three thousand UN troops, which would have brought the total to 5,000, a number likely to have been able to prevent the genocide. However, Madeleine Albright played a key role in the Security Council of the UN in blocking the troop expansion. In fact Albright is cited by the report as "tossing up roadblocks?at every stage."

http://www.oxfam.ca/news/Rwanda10/Rwanda10_Whathappened.htm
But there was no appetite for intervention. On 21st April, the UN Security Council voted to cut the UNAMIR force to just 270 personnel. The United States took the lead in pushing for this decision. Under Resolution 912, UNAMIR was given a new mandate which was restricted to mediation and humanitarian aid. In practice, 444 UN troops stayed on in Kigali. The reduced force managed to protect the 15,000 Rwandan sheltering in the UN compound in Kigali, but its reduction sent a clear signal to those committing genocide that the world was not going to intervene.

Repeated attempts by Boutros-Ghali and members of the Security Council to request reinforcements for UNAMIR were blocked by Madeleine Albright the United States' representative who refused to describe what was happening in Rwanda as "genocide", saying only that "acts of genocide" may have taken place, an important legal distinction. Boutros-Ghali later wrote: "The behaviour of the Security Council was shocking; it meekly followed the United States' lead in denying the reality of the genocide."

So blame it all on Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright. And perhaps its unfair to lay all the blame on the US, but if you read these quotes, many from US sources, how can you not see that Albright and Clinton and the State Department got their way.

So I guess I am a complete moron.

James

Well Max I must say you are partially correct. I do hold myself to much higher standards than those around me. I know I am able to perform better than those around me so I am my own worst critic. I see so many people who COULD have done something else/better or different but found themselves "victims" of society. By victims I don't mean so innocently but I see others as weak, unable to compete against the likes of myself and many others I deem peers. I don't deem myself 'general public', the standard, average etc. I know I am capable of more than most and therefore expect as much from myself.

When I see the downtrodden, I want to help, as I have also been there, as you may remember.
When I see the helpless I want to help, I guess that's just the pathetic pity thing that keeps me leaning somewhat left.
When I see those who have given up but COULD have done better, i just shake my head and think myself lucky that I just kept pushing on in times of trouble.

In order to help those who I deem worthy of help, we need to help those who abuse the system. It's not right but it is reality.
Although it's horrendous (in the case of welfare for example)I still see the need and the benefit gained by those in need as being far greater than the loss of those who are just lazy.

the system is not so flawed, there are always people who will abuse a system, that's life (not that I agree with it but I must accept it to see others receive the help I feel they are worthy of).

You are right, I don't live my own life the way I expect others too, but they aren't me and I'd hate to equate myself to the common muck that I deal with daily.

so here's where we almost agree, I accept personal responsibility fo rmy actions and would LOVE to see others do it too. Perhaps you are right in forcing people to live responsibly by removing the hand outs.

I just see it that by doing so, too many people worthy of the handouts and help will lose out. the people who can't scam teh system will still be scammers, but they will be ripping us off directly. I think violence, crime and drug use would escalate and nothing good would com eof it, except a few people would pull their socks up while others suffer the consequences.

...a hand up, but I realize that giving a hand out is, in most instances, nothing but enabling destructive behavior or a self-defeating mind-set.

And the people who really DO need a hand out (and I'm talking about people in the USA, Canada, etc.), are such a small percentage of people overall. I would venture to guess that 99 percent of the population in industrialized nations are quite capable of being self-sufficient and self-responsible.

As to others not living up to your standards, of course there are such people. Some people are more driven. Some people are willing to settle for less. That's why I any sentiment based on equality of outcome is flawed.

Or how about the life of an Israeli child who is murdered in their school?
Or how about the life of an Israeli child who is killed by missiles fired from Lebanon?
Or how about the lives of the thousands of Iraqi people who were murdered by Saddam?
Or how about the thousands of lives ended by radical islamo-fascists all over the world in the name of Islam?
Your last statement is right on the money.

...the system isn't gonna' change, and it's a lose-lose for me the way it currently is. The lawyers will continue to drag out the appeals until the cows come home or until the money runs out, whichever comes first -- even if the convict doesn't want it to happen. Any Devils Island type facility is gonna' remain in the history books or in the movies, but it'll never be indicative of how we incarcerate violent and deserving felons. The death penalty will continue to serve as a tool of vengeance, and abortion will probably continue to be used primarily as a method of birth control, regardless of how much we, as a society, claim to value human life.

I don't like spending the $$ to keep those kinds of people behind bars or in front of the judge, and I don't like the idea that we, as a nation, kill people when it's neither necessary or a deterrent. I guess it boils down to what I don't like the most, and opposing the death penalty trumps the other. Just because we're stupid enough to spend tens of millions of dollars keeping the scum alive and out of society, it doesn't, in my mind, justify killing them.

"Would we argue that in the rare event that an abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother, we should value the foetus'life higher than the mother's? The mother may decide differently but that's her choice."

In my mind that would be equivalent to self defense, which is generally accepted world-wide as an acceptable reason to take a life. Even to ward off serious injury (which could even mean emotional or mental) would probably be acceptable to most.

"Would we agree that a woman should be permitted an abortion - if she wishes - if the child would be born severely handicapped?"

I don't think so. It's not acceptable to kill a handicapped child after he is born.

So I would say: It's acceptable to kill a human inside the womb under the same circumstances it would be acceptable to kill one outside. "Because I can't or don't want to support it." is not a good enough reason (and despite what they say, that is the number one reason!).

"I wasn't having a pop at the US over Rwanda, just trying to point out that very few people anywhere seem to care much about Africa. Myself, alas, included as I just stand by and watch as the continent goes down the toilet."

Because nobody has found oil there :)

"As for Israel, do you really think that destroying the infrastructure of Lebanon and killing hundreds of civilians is going to lessen Hesbullah's influence?"

No, but beating them into submission will if they aren't interfered with. Lebanon failed to do what the world community told them to do, so Israel had to do it itself. It will. I'm predicting something big.... not WW3, but definitely world-changing.

I'd take 5 or 6 :)

"That's why I any sentiment based on equality of outcome is flawed."

I know it looks like a typo due to a reworded sentence but I am just not clear on your meaning, can you elaborate a bit?

As far as peopl enot living up to my standards. It sounds incredibly arrogant,but I honestly feel that way and perhaps that's exactly WHY I have succeeded so far. I think it takes IMMENSE personal drive to get ahead these days. As you know very well, I am EXTREMELY sure of myself and overly confident in most cases. As a person in my day to day life I am actually quite mellow and somewhat resevred, when it comes to winning or getting ahead I am a force to be reconed with though.

When I say, nobody can keep up to me, and I don't expect much from others, I fully understand there are much more driven and capable people in the world, but not in my life. If they are more driven or seem more capable, I need to get to work and figure out why. I simply refuse to let opportunity pass me by.

I am hard on myself, but I am very laid back at teh same time, most people say far too laid back as I take too much in stride, I can take almost any blow in life and roll with it, confidence is easily confused or seen as arrogance.

I would think the number of people really in need, in Canada anyway, is actually far greater than you think. When we consider disabled, those left high and dry by lost work even though they work hard at finding new opportuniteis, the sick, the injured, the left behind. There are many people who would warrant some support, life's not free while we rebuild it, and we can't consider welfare as a free ride when it doesn't even cover rent. In vancouvert welfar is less than $600.00/mo, I think around $550'ish. A bus pass just to get to job interviews can be as much as $196.00/mo, rent is never under $500.00, even for a 1 room dive.

So how can it be done? It's not a free ride through life, unless you are ripping off several systems at the same time.

The people who do get a free ride are those who abuse it, there are people who collect Unemployment cheques, welfare cheques and then work under the table. If it wasnt for these dickheads, the people that need support would at least get enough to actually live a somewhat normal existence, but they don't.

The scanmmers make out like bandits, and those in need suffer on next to nothing. It really breaks my heart to see a completely disabled person who is hungry, behind in bills, has little or no life to enjoy and struggles simply to exist. Why should any worthy human being in a free country live with nothing while others rip off the system? Especially while some puke gets his three cheques and laughs about how dense the government is.

Sorry bit of a vent there.

I would love nothing more than to se ethose in need get suport and those who arent either work or perish. The first issue is not a reality without the second, it's unfortunate but that's reality and while I don't support the scammers I do support those in need, so far we haven't developed a better/foolproof system, unless everyone loses out.

I was just kidding, I remember our discussion on hunting. And, I do not have any qualms on how you feel - wrong or right - about it.

Oops, I should'nt have brought the divorce topic here. I forgot about your thread :-) My bad. It must be a sensitive subject for you and sorry for bringing it up here.

It's their decision not anyone else's.

Someone doesn't have the right to come to my front door and tell me how I'm to live my life & I don't have the right to do it to others either.

I have a sister 15 years or so younger than me and she was born when my father was 65 Years Old so he had to work till he was in his 80's to put her through school and then Uni. Was it good that he had to do this well to be perfectly honest I'm not sure. While he was working he didn't have a single health problem and when he finally was forced to retire not one of his coworkers would believe that he was over 80 they all thought that he was taking [b]Early Retirement[/b] they didn't even believe him when he showed his Birth Certificate showing him born in 1904 everyone insisted it must be his father who had the same name. Up until he retired he was perfectly fit had a full head of hair and other than requiring reading glasses was in perfect health.

2 weeks after he retired he had a Heart Attack which he had shown no signs of previously and in the next 18 months he had had several severe Heart Attacks a couple of Strokes and was dead. But the worst thing was after the first stroke he was [b]Legally Blind[/b] which was his biggest bugbear everything else he could cope with but loosing his sight was the last straw for him and it was after that, that he just gave up on life and eventually died.

Now as he was planing on retiring at 65 and had everything in place maybe he would have lived longer maybe not but when he was forced to retire that literally killed him, he wasn't prepared for retiring and all the plans that he had made so long ago had all disappeared out the window so effectively one day he was happily working and the next he was sitting at home doing nothing but look at the 4 walls. He even lost interest in driving his V8 at unreasonable speeds before he was forced to relinquish his driving license.

He was perfectly happy working and it was the [b]LAW[/b] here that forced him out actually the company involved asked him to return but under the table as they had to employ 3 people to do the job that he used to do by himself and still have time left over to do other things in the office. He was thought of as the Manager there with out the actual title or perks but that was just the way that he worked if something needed doing he did it and then got on with the job and put out the next fire as it started.

Really it's hard to say what would have happened if he had of retired at 65 and done his own thing it's a case of [b]Nobody Knows[/b] what would have happened.

But at the time when my sister was conceived there wasn't a choice she had to be born and that was it. Dad consistently described her has [b]His Happy Accident[/b] and he adored her so there was never the feeling that she was unwanted. However my younger brother took it very hard and this eventually lead to his death some 13 odd years after she was born.

So there was good and bad that sprang from that incident and I'm not one to pass judgement on the rights and wrongs of the entire position or what should have been done.

The simple answer is [b]I Don't Know the Right answer[/b] for Everyone but if children are going to be brought into this world they should be wanted it doesn't matter if a contractive failed or not if they are wanted they are well off and if they are not wanted they are mistreated and abused in some form.

Currently here in an attempt to increase the Birth Rate the Federal Government has introduced a [b]Baby Bonus & Increased Child Endowment[/b] to try to increase the population and this is good in one way and bad in another.

The good side has younger people now in a position of having children and still be allowed to have a roof over their heads to raise the children which has been one of the biggest problems here as children are [b]So Expensive[/b] to have.

On the down side I've seen cases where girls as young as 12 years old are getting pregnant for the Baby Bonus and Child Endowment and the children born from this are not treated anywhere near as well as they could be. In one rural town of a population of somewhere around 2,000 people they currently have 40 babies born to girls under 15 years of age. Then there are the people who just have children for the money and once they get up around 8 or more the parents can effectively cease to work as the money that the receive from Welfare and Perks that go along with the Welfare far exceeds the wage that they could ever hope to earn so they are actively encouraged not to work as the children would be adversely affected. When I was much younger there was a family that lived near us in a Government supplied home with 12 children and another on the way I don't know just how many children that they eventually had as we moved away from there but the woman seemed to be putting out 1 a year as regular as clockwork. When I knew them the children where well cared for and loved but even this failed to produce a workable family as both parents where stay at home Living on Welfare types who taught this to their children.

I don't see this as good either but if it's going to happen it's infinitely better than taking the children into [b]Care.[/b]

The trouble is that any system can and is abused so I really do not have a all encompassing answer for everyone and I would never presume to force my opinions onto others.

But personally I would prefer to see 1,000 terminations rather than see one child abused which is something that the [b]Pro Life Lobby[/b] seems to fail to grasp. I've worked with Abused Children and it should never be allowed to happen and in every case those abused children where the unwanted ones so if I was to say anything it should be left to the individuals involved if they want children they can have then and if they don't want them they shouldn't be forced through Community Pressure or Legislation into having them as far as I'm concerned 1 abused child is 1 too many.

But at the same time I don't want to see forced terminations and sterilisations put in place either like China or big fines imposed for having more than a set number of children. But I suppose you can't have your cake and eat it at the same time which so many people seem to want to happen.

Col
[i]edited because you spell good as good not god.[/i] :)

matter of fact, discussing it on this board is the only thing that has kept me sane.

It's all good! :D

Or for that matter that anyone else on this forum is sane either?

Even MS describes it resellers as [b]Certified Partners[/b] which here means that they are not quite all there, that's being the nice version really it should read these people need locking up in the Loony Bin for their & Society Own Protection. :p

We all work IT so by that very reasoning we are all part way insane or at the very least have questionable sanity. How many other people would move into an industry where you are consistently not thought about till something goes wrong and they it's your fault that whatever broke. :)

Every one of us here is only wanted when something isn't working right or to implement the cheapest solution available and [b]Make It Work No Matter What![/b] :^0

Col ]:)

You drank the purple Kool-Aid too many times. All brain function has stopped. Haven't you heard many times: I am from the government and I am here to help you as a punch line?

Wake up! The Military is worthwhile still. I'd flush the FBI and CIA in a heartbeat, but the experienced people would still be from those organisations, and you'd get the same culture. Lawyers are in Congress, so htat gives you an understanding why they have no moral compass and struggle with anyone trying to right the ship...