Posts by Keir Leslie
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Yeah, it isn't like the British Tories might want to take a long hard look in the mirror over a culture of racism & xenophobia, is it?
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Remember, out-of-town students live in their university electorate too
Not strictly -- in Wgtn, students are split between Rongotai and Wellington Central (Vic's in Wgtn Central) & possibly Ohariu-Belmont? Not sure about Auckland or Dunedin. In Christchurch students are split between Wigram, Ilam (Canterbury's in Ilam), and Chch Central.
Out of town students often reside in an electorate which is nearer to their uni than to their holiday residence, but it mightn't be the one where university is, and there may well be no one electorate where the overwhelming bulk of students live.
The prospects of registering a bunch of Green students in any one electorate looks pretty dim tbh.
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What Giovanni said.
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Given the history of this thread I am unclear why you would think that is not relevant.
I think it is relevant; I just don't think it helps.
I'm sure you're right that robbery's not going to win any Poster of the Year awards; I just don't think that there's anything to be gained by bitching at him. It clearly isn't effective.
(And Simon's being really interesting at the moment.)
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Uh, I think you'll find Rob has just claimed that copying is theft for the umpteenth time, so nothing is changing in at least one hermetically sealed universe.
This adds what to the conversation, really? You could have just gone straight to the interesting bit without needing any dig at anyone else.
And I really don't believe that rob's talking about copying=theft, he's actually currently having a semi-sensible conversation about the costs of making music at the moment (making no predictions btw).
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Why would we do that? An infant can survive without the use of another person's body, a foetus can't.
Proves too much; incest exceptions premise bans on (for example) abortions-because-the-condom-was-shoddy. The argument-from-forced-medical-care won't let you ban those kinds of abortions, so you can't use it for or against incest exceptions.
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I'm sorry but I'm having difficulty understanding that. Could you say that again.
Well, Tess is saying that any human life, up to and including a just fertilised egg, is as deserving of protection as any other human life, right?
And so a fertilised egg can be swapped for any other human in any true statement about the right to life.
So, if I say a fertilised egg can be killed in case of incest, I must also say the same of a month-old baby if I am to be consistent. And if I say a month-old baby can't be, I must also say the same in the case of a fertilised egg, because I have granted that the two things are the same for this purpose.
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But your Church says that women (even women who don't believe) shouldn't be allowed to have that option. How do you explain/justify that?
I'd imagine the same way the Church justifies not letting people to have the option to commit murder even if they don't believe it is wrong.
The point being not that the Church is wrong in wanting to stop people doing wrong things; the point is that the Church is wrong about what's wrong. Certainly the argument that pro-life people are being given the right to live in a pro-life way is specious -- apply to the repeal of the murder laws, and the flaw becomes glaring.
Once you grant a fertilised cell is a full human being most of the rest of the anti-choice position follows on logically; but that premise is very faulty. Even if you are a pretty extreme an-it-harm-none type, once you grant the existence of another person in the abortion scenario, you have to invoke the harm-none part no?
How about pregnancy from Incest?
Mmm? Swap out pregnancy for 1 month old baby (the equivalence of the two being the Tess' point) and the flaw is obvious. (And that that the two obvs. aren't equivalent, but.)
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I'm not against using the word terrorism, I'm just wondering if yet another shorthand is what we need, and if it addresses the specificity of the act and the moral complicity of its enablers.
In the US legal context, it should be used, because it lets you play with the fun powers (and some of them should be used in these sorts of cases, even if the ones about Guantanamo shouldn't.)
Also, it kind of makes it clear that these acts are an attempt to use violence as a political tool by a bunch of scumbags. (And these guys are scumbags; part of the problem is that not enough Americans think that killing doctors who provide abortions is wrong.) But I'm not sure that's effective as an empirical matter.
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In other words, you don't have a leg to stand on.