Cliffs Notes -- Ross Douthat on Abortion
Hilzoy doesn’t understand Ross’s latest column. Others say the same thing. But I think I understand it, and that it does make sense, even if it is unclear to some readers in certain parts. I think this is probably due to the enormous pressure Ross must feel to both do justice to the pro-life cause he very much believes in, and write a fair, even-handed column that serves a readership that largely disagrees with him, all in 800 words or so, on the most fraught topic in America, at a terrible moment for pro-lifers.
Thus I’ve tried to restate his argument in different words, in hopes that his critics better grasp his insights. I hope I am not misstating his views. Suffice it to say that if so, the fault is mine for taking undue license.
Okay, everything that follows is my best attempt at restating what I take Ross to be saying.
George Tiller performed lots of late term abortions in morally difficult, heart-rending circumstances. Given those experiences, it’s easy to fathom why he felt himself to be doing the right thing, and why many Americans believe late term abortions should remain legal. But! Dr. Tiller also performed lots of late term abortions in circumstances that wouldn’t seen so fraught or heart rending if you heard them described. It’s very likely—though we can’t know for sure—that he aborted healthy fetuses belonging to healthy mothers. And evidence suggests he bent the rules to do so.
Anyway, those really tough, sympathetic cases you read about on Andrew’s blog don’t actually reflect most abortions in America. The average abortion doesn’t involve medical complications of any kind, lots of abortions are at the opposite end of the “sympathetic circumstances” spectrum — e.g. second, third and fourth abortions — and even most partial birth abortions are totally elective.
The argument for unregulated abortions rests on the idea that because there are these really heart-rending, morally fraught cases involving rape, incest, the health of the mother, or the health of the fetus, there shouldn’t be any restrictions on ending pregnancies. I can see how people would wrongly reach that conclusion. They erroneously figure that if their moral intuition tells them it’s okay to abort in the case of rape, for example, the fetus must not have an absolute right to life — therefore, they reason, the deciding factor ought to be the woman’s judgment, not some outcome determined by the rights of the fetus, which logically wouldn’t be affected by something like rape.
If we were engaged in moral philosophy, and our project required us to reach an internally consistent answer, we might be forced to conclude either that the fetus has a right to life, therefore we must force pregnant rape victims to carry them to term… or else it is obviously wrong to force a rape victim to carry a fetus to term, therefore a fetus must not ever have a right to life since it doesn’t in that circumstance.
But the law demands no such consistency! We can adopt a compromise that makes practical rather than principled sense!! That’s what would happen in a saner, stricter legal regime.
Instead, we’ve got this bullshit Supreme Court decision that prevents a compromise that reflects the moral intuitions of most Americans. It makes it so that pro-lifers focus all their attention on stopping late term abortions, because those are basically the only ones that they can stop under prevailing Supreme Court jurisprudence. Thus pro-lifers effectively focus disproportionate attention on even those really tough, morally fraught late term abortions — whereas if they were free to focus their energy on stopping any old abortion, they’d end up picking as their battleground not the really tough third trimester cases that Andrew’s readers described, but first and second trimester cases that are less sympathetic — they might focus, for example, on woman having second and third abortions, since to these pro-lifers a first-trimester fetus saved is just as much a person as a third trimester fetus saved, and the populous is far more likely to go along with restricting the options of women having second abortions than women having late term abortions when their kid would be born without a face or lungs or some other Godawful condition.
Thus, weirdly, the legal landscape won by pro-lifers has resulted in this perverse circumstance where hard cases in the third trimester are more controversial — read: the focus of anti-abortion efforts — more often than they’d otherwise be. And if abortion restrictions were again decided by state legislatures without the interference of the federal judiciary — which, come on, the penumbras? they just made that up — pro-lifers would be too busy opposing “abortions of choice” in the second trimester to bother spending energy fighting a losing battle against the most morally fraught, sympathetic third trimester abortions. The result would be “laws with more respect for human life, a culture less inflamed by a small number of tragic cases — and a political debate, God willing, unmarred by crimes like George Tiller’s murder.”
Exit Conor, chased by a troll.
— Kate Marie · Jun 10, 05:21 AM · #
Run coward.
We had this argument already at the League. km will luv this. ;)
I hear Douthat loud and clear.
This is the same argument McArdle and Coulter propose, essentially terrorist apologia.
Here’s the 411.
McArdle, Douthat and Anne Coulter all have the same argument– Roe should be overturned because it drives the pro-life jihaadis into fanatical terrorist practices which aren’t really their fault because they have tried and tried to change the law. If you recall Coulter proposed this same line of faux-reasonableness during Rev. Paul Hill’s murder trial.
Douthat et al are mendacious douchebag-terrorist apologists.
In conclusion, my substrate limited little conservo droogies, Roe has 68% support among the electorate and federalism is simply localized mob-rule, which the Supremes understandbly think is verbotten by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, see Loving vs Virginia, Brown vs Board.
The only sapients that can support Douthats argument are either so intellectually limited (the prolife base and likely Ms. Coulter) as to naturally support the cognitive dissonance inherent in its tropes, or so deeply intellectually dishonest (see McArdle, Douthat) that they can employ mendacious pretzel logic to endorse it as a form of terrorist apologia.
— matoko_chan · Jun 10, 12:48 PM · #
Fair paraphrase, in my estimation, Conor. This line from Douchat is the most important:
“This evidence is persuasive, but not dispositive.”
I had to look up “dispositive”.
Anyway here’s my paraphrase
“Given my prejudices, I am persuade, but I admit that an unprejudiced person would not be. None the less, I will use this as a segue to introduce inflammatory rhetoric, such as the serial use of abortion as birth control.”
Am I mistake in my belief that Douchat opposed all forms of birth control, not just abortion? It’s very hard for me to take his opposition to abortion seriously when he is opposed to the most effective means to prevent it.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 10, 01:01 PM · #
IOW, Conor, Douthat’s piece is a big gross stinky pig of unconstitutional cognitive dissonance and all the lipstick in the western world can’t make it attractive to the majority. Because it requires overturning Roe.
68%, dude.
And Douthats mendacious pretzel logic isn’t going to appeal to the upper right tail either.
At least, not to those who are intellectually honest.
Why can’t Douthat just say to the prolifers, you are wrong!
If you can’t change the law, and you break the law, then you are criminals, no matter how where your fucking “moral intution” leads you.
And this guy is the best you have, the creme de la creme of the GOP intelligentsia?
Fail.
— matoko_chan · Jun 10, 01:27 PM · #
And (Dr. Jacobs) Hizoy’s point is not about “negotiating” with terrorist movements, it is about rewarding terrorist movements.
Since Roe has the support of 68% of the electorate, forcibly overturning Roe would essentially be rewarding the life-jihaadis for terrorism.
Scott Roeder’s “victory”.
“Tiller’s family said Tuesday the clinic he headed will permanently close, effective immediately, and they would issue no more statements. At the time Roeder was interviewed Tuesday, word of the permanent closure had not come out — but when told the clinic had been shuttered since Tiller’s death, he said, “Good.”
Roeder said the closure would mean “no more slicing and dicing of the unborn child in the mother’s womb and no more needles of poison into the baby’s heart to stop the heart from beating, and no more partial-birth abortions.”
— matoko_chan · Jun 10, 01:51 PM · #
matoko: Ross is not saying that “Roe should be overturned because it drives the pro-life jihaadis into fanatical terrorist practices”, Ross is saying that Roe should be overturned because it prevents us from reaching a legislated compromise which would reduce the political inflammation surrounding the issue of abortion (and, as a side effect, one of the potential positive results of reduced inflammation might be less or even no violence). And I’m pretty sure that Douthat’s column refers to Tiller as a “terrorist”, which I think most people would agree shows fairly clearly that he would agree that “If you can’t change the law, and you break the law, then you are criminals, no matter how where your fucking “moral intution” leads you.”
Your argument would be a lot more persuasive if you, like Tony does above (and its not like he’s being super-kind; he does call Ross a hypocrite, after all), took your opponent’s arguments seriously, rather than throwing rhetorical bricks that ignore the plain meaning of your opponent’s statements.
— rob · Jun 10, 01:55 PM · #
Mako, you know that making all these posts in short order without even waiting for any sort of response makes you look just a batty as Douchat, right?
— Tony Comstock · Jun 10, 01:56 PM · #
That would be…..Ross Douche-hat.
My last comment is a response to a post Dr. Jacobs just pulled, where he called Hilzoy “irrational” for not wanting to reward terrorism.
— matoko_chan · Jun 10, 02:00 PM · #
“the populous is far more likely to go along with restricting the options of women having second abortions than women having late term abortions when their kid would be born without a face or lungs or some other Godawful condition.”
I rather doubt it, unless by ‘far more likely’ Conor-channeling-Ross means an increase from something close to zero percent to something not quite as close to zero but still less than one percent.
— Erik Siegrist · Jun 10, 02:41 PM · #
Conor,
I thought that was an effective restatement of Ross’s column, which did seem a bit clunky in parts, no doubt due to space limitations.
— Tim O'Rourke · Jun 10, 02:44 PM · #
Wow. Is this really as intelligent as the comments get to a post like Conor’s? Guys, the argument’s right there, clearly spelled out. How about engaging with it?
Conor — Your summary was good, but I thought it was pretty clear what Ross was saying the first time. Those who are confused don’t seem to want understand Ross. Or their brain melts when someone doesn’t just come out and say “abortion is murder!” or “I support choice!” Ross done went and made a distinction between moral reasoning and the legislative process?! Huh?! Too subtle for some, I guess.
— Chris Floyd · Jun 10, 03:06 PM · #
matoko-chan,
You say “Roe has 68% support among the electorate and federalism is simply localized mob-rule.” Could you do the following:
1) Point to the poll that demonstrates that level of support and especially point to the poll that explains to the respondent what Roe does and does not allow before asking them their opinion. And then explain what this support has to do with good judicial decision making, as opposed to good laws.
2) Explain what you mean by “federalism is simply localized mob rule” and how this “federalism” is different from “democracy” which is presumably, in your constitutional scheme, NOT “mob rule”.
Also, if you are really ready to grapple with some interesting philosophical reflections on Tiller, check out this blog: www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net, and read Beckwith and Feser. I suspect that if your head doesn’t explode (I just rewatched “Scanners” and while dated, it is amazing how interesting and ahead of his time Cronenberg was), you will come back here spewing even more ad hominem. But that won’t make a persuasive argument.
— Jeff Singer · Jun 10, 03:13 PM · #
Serious question for Douthat and allies: if there were a constitutional amendment proposed that would permit states to regulate second trimester abortions with health exceptions, but also enshrined into the Constitution a woman’s right to first-trimester abortions in all states, would you support this amendment?
I ask this because I suspect for a lot of us, Douthat’s compromise sounds reasonable, but we’ll still never support overturning Roe because we fear regulation of first-trimester abortions and birth control.
— Consumatopia · Jun 10, 03:47 PM · #
No.
I will not engage in this bullshytt argument which has been effectively and repeatedly fisked ever since Coulter proposed it during the last prolife terrorist’s (Rev Paul Hill) murder trial.
“Moral authority” doesn’t allow terrorists or terrorist supporters to either break or overturn the law in a constitutional republic.
Conor I am grievously disappointed in you.
False knight.
— matoko_chan · Jun 10, 04:53 PM · #
Actually, Conor, it doesn’t seem to me that banning abortions, say, after the second trimester, would reduce the inflammatory rhetoric. Because, it seems to me, there must be equal number of “heartrending” cases of first or second trimester abortions that pro-lifers can focus on. Which is not to say that the United States should restrict third trimester abortions (the way Europe does, I’m told) but it doesn’t seem to me that it would do that Ross suggests it would: reduce the rhetoric and perhaps the violence.
— scritic · Jun 10, 05:31 PM · #
Scritic,
you’re reading a different Ross Douthat and Conor F. then the one I’m reading. The argument is that our abortion regime funnels dissent into arguments about 3rd trimester abortions, a disproportionate number of which are “heartrending” cases. If abortions in general were on the table prolifers could and would be wise to funnel their efforts into the non “heartrending” cases, most of which are now off the table.
— Adam Greenwood · Jun 10, 08:34 PM · #
How about we explore the use of those ghastly photo that prolifers put on their picket signs as a way to encourage familiarity with and consistent use of contraception by those who do not wish to be party to an unplanned pregnancy? Can we meet in the middle on this? We can run a pilot program in Wassila High School.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 10, 08:46 PM · #
matoko,
so you came into this board just to spout off and denounce people without engaging them (since that would be “bullshytt”)??! What’s the point?
— Lance Zeirlein · Jun 10, 08:47 PM · #
Lance don’t know Matoko very well, do he?
— Kate Marie · Jun 10, 09:02 PM · #
Lance, the point is warmed up failcake is still failcake.
This is Coulters same argument, McArdles argument, and Ross made the same failcake a few months ago.
What is the point?
I don’t want engage with dishonest poseurs and terrorist apologists living in some fantasy land where they think Roe is going to be magically overturned on their moral authority.
Enough already.
— matoko_chan · Jun 11, 12:44 AM · #
In other words, Lance, the answer to your first question is a resounding yes.
— Kate Marie · Jun 11, 02:15 AM · #
Also, Conor putting more frosting on the failcake doesn’t work either.
— matoko_chan · Jun 11, 05:04 AM · #
Not a single taker? Mako? Conor? Kate Maire? Ross? Then I declare “abortion compromise” dead on arrival.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 11, 11:21 AM · #
Tony……. sheesh……. this is the same dumb christianist argument as ever…..that somehow “moral authority” gives some citizens more rights than others. It didn’t work for the slavers, or the anti-miscegenation folks, and it isn’t going to work for the prolifers or anti-SSM homophobes.
You can’t shake the devil’s hand and say you’re only kidding.
— matoko_chan · Jun 11, 12:14 PM · #
Must be your Aspergers kicking, Mako. The only rights I’m suggesting be impinged are the rights (if any) of the yet to be born.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 11, 12:52 PM · #
They aren’t citizens.
There is no argument and the cake is a lie.
— matoko_chan · Jun 11, 06:03 PM · #
They aren’t citizens? Isn’t that the pro-torture argument? And hell, I’m not even sure fetuses are people, but WTF, we toss human citizen’s lives on the cost/benefit balance all the time? Why not fetuses?
And at any rate, I’m not looking to ban abortion, I’m looking to reduce the number of abortions by reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies. When I was in school they showed us really ugly pictures of pustule covered penises and vulvas in the hopes of impressing upon us the consequences of irresponsible sexual behavior. It would seem that abortion photos are a natural compliment to this approach.
One last time: who’s with me? If Douchat was serious about stopping abortions, this would be the subject of his next column.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 11, 06:33 PM · #
And BTW, Mako. I often enjoy your ranty pants antics, and have been giving you the benefit of the doubt because if it. But I’m afraid you’ve with your comments on this thread you’ve pitch yourself into the rigid, unserious and unimaginative penalty box, at least in my estimation.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 11, 06:40 PM · #
Tony,
Maybe I’m being dense, but is that a serious attempt to “engage?” My sense of other commenters’ good faith is thrown a bit off-kilter in threads like this one . . . What, exactly, are you proposing as a compromise — that pro-lifers abandon their efforts to make abortion illegal and focus all their efforts on contraception? That sounds like concession, not compromise, but maybe I’m misunderstanding . . .
— Kate Marie · Jun 11, 06:46 PM · #
Tony,
The problem with your argument: Ross is obviously serious about stopping abortions… and that isn’t going to be the subject of his next column. As for abortion photos in schools, it’s never gonna happen, and I don’t think I’d want it to happen.
Though I haven’t given this a ton of thought, I have a general aversion to the shock and awe approach to public education, favoring instead the harder work of actually grappling with tough issues. The last thing I want is pro-life groups finding the grizzliest photos of abortions imaginable, and pro-choice groups finding the equivalent photos of botched back alley abortions, and the anti-pregnancy fringe finding photos of deliveries gone wrong…
…and then anti-war groups would start putting up pictures of bloodied corpses, and MADD would tack up its “red asphalt” style images, and the CDC would post images of emaciated AIDS patients on the verge of death, and the vector society would post corpses of people who died from West Nile virus, and Darfur activists would post photos of the genocide, and the anti-drug folks would put lifelike sculptures of meth addicts without teeth all around campus…
There is just no end to this approach, once you go down that road, and the ultimate effect isn’t even to scare people straight — rather, it is to desensitize them to grizzly images.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jun 11, 06:46 PM · #
Go right ahead and hit me with the banstick, False Knight.
I’m just sick of the failcake.
Quit changing the frosting and bake a new one or stfu.
— matoko_chan · Jun 11, 06:56 PM · #
“There is just no end to this approach, once you go down that road, and the ultimate effect isn’t even to scare people straight — rather, it is to desensitize them to grizzly images.”
This is simply untrue. I have, on more than a few occasions, used provocative imagery in my filmmaking, and my films are overwhelmingly regarded as anything but desensitizing, and I’m far from the only example.
Douchat is unserious about reducing abortion. He is serious about his sexual-political agenda, but that’s another argument.
I am still believe that you are serious about reducing abortion, Conor, as am I; and will continue to engage with you in good faith.
Kate Marie, question about “good faith” coming from you are as rich as Mako’s failcake. Enjoy your time in the penalty box with her.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 11, 07:07 PM · #
I’d like to congratulate myself for the prescience of my initial comment on this thread, and register my disappointment that no one appreciated the Shakespearean allusion.
It was especially obnoxious of me, however, not to thank you for your efforts here, Conor. I think your restatement of Ross’s argument was clear and cogent. I wish I had been wrong about the kind of “thoughtful discussion” your honest efforts would engender.
— Kate Marie · Jun 11, 07:11 PM · #
Tony,
Huh? My question to you was an honest one; I was seriously attempting to understand exactly what kind of compromise you are proposing, and I have a harder time in threads like this one (with the omnipresent heckler) interpreting the level of seriousness of other comments. Where have I shown bad faith?
— Kate Marie · Jun 11, 07:19 PM · #
Tony,
I don’t think that all provocative imagery is desensitizing — just that if the public school system began implementing a systematic strategy of abortion reduction by displaying images of grizzly aborted fetuses on campus posters everyday, the effect on those walking by the posters would be to gradually be desensitized to them.
It is one thing to use provocative imagery in a piece of art or entertainment, and quite another to employ it systematically in what amounts to a propaganda campaign.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jun 11, 07:38 PM · #
“I don’t think that all provocative imagery is desensitizing — just that if the public school system began implementing a systematic strategy of abortion reduction by displaying images of grizzly aborted fetuses on campus posters everyday, the effect on those walking by the posters would be to gradually be desensitized to them.”
Did I suggest putting posters on campuses? Lemme read back… Nope, I didn’t. I know you’re a writer, Conor, but fer key riste sake, try not to be so gauldern litteral.
Some background:
I’m from a religiously mixed non-practicing family. My father Irish-Catholic, my mother is a Jew. Both are pro-choice on libertarian grounds. My father thinks abortion is a sin in as much as a non-believing person can believe in the concept of sin.
When I was in the fifth grade (1976) we were assigned a term paper on the project of our choosing. Then as now, abortion was subject of contentious debate, so I picked it as a topic.
My ever loving parents sent me over to visit with Mrs. Patrick, mother of nine, member of St. Mary Star of the Sea, and anti-abortion activist. She gave me a handful of pamphlets. In short order I realized I was over my head and decide to write my paper on the Tet Offensive instead.
But the pamphlets made a lasting impression, and that impression is that sex is a profound and consequential act, not to be undertaken thoughtlessly. Those pamphlets made vivid my father’s caution, “If you have sex with someone, you are entertaining the possibility of becoming a father. You should ask yourself “Do I want this woman to be the mother of my child?”“
Give me $500,000 and one high school and I will create a model for sex education the likes of which the world has never seen. Will it offend people’s sensibilities? Perhaps. But as Ross argues, the current regime offends people sensibilities to the point that they are taking up arms. It hardly seems like we have anything to lose.
RE: Propaganda
All art is either entertainment or propaganda. The best art is both.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 11, 08:02 PM · #
Also everyone should go read this.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 11, 08:10 PM · #
Tony,
If you were able to convince me that your program wasn’t going to be desensitizing, and that it had some chance of being effective, I’d contribute to it. I have a feeling, though, that opposition to the kind of program you propose isn’t going to be coming primarily from pro-life quarters.,
— Kate Marie · Jun 11, 08:11 PM · #
Thanks for the link, Tony. I enjoyed reading it, and I like the author’s approach to discussing sex and sexuality.
I must ask you, though, why you appear to associate people like Ross Douthat with the strictly punitive/ironically “pagan” attitude toward sex that the author describes. Are you willing to entertain the notion that it is precisely the attempt to disconnect sex from the very human desire for companionship and intimacy that at least some “social conservatives” are railing against. Again, maybe I’m misunderstanding your objection to Ross Douthat, though.
— Kate Marie · Jun 11, 08:34 PM · #
“Give me $500,000 and one high school and I will create a model for sex education the likes of which the world has never seen. Will it offend people’s sensibilities? Perhaps. But as Ross argues, the current regime offends people sensibilities to the point that they are taking up arms. It hardly seems like we have anything to lose.”
I’d genuinely love to see what you came up with.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jun 11, 08:51 PM · #
This image never loses its power, no matter the context.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 11, 09:06 PM · #
If you showed the pictures once, say in a seventh grade seminar on sex, and didn’t republish them to the same students again, then the photos would stick the first time while remaining effective as propaganda over time.
Make a big deal out of it, so that rumors of the graphic/disgusting/disturbing pictures would trickle down to next year’s up-and-coming crop. In other words, exploit the little buggers’ anticipation of this critical experience.
Anticipation, stroked appropriately, amplifies resonance in memory.
— Sargent · Jun 11, 11:47 PM · #
Shorter Douthat—the Randall Terry mix.
“In response to a follow up question from The Washington Independent’s Dave Weigel about the correlation between violent right wing extremism and Democratic administrations, Terry recalled a quote, which he believed to have originated with either Robert or John F. Kennedy: “When you make peaceful protest impossible, you make violent protest inevitable,” adding, “I can promise you this—there is visceral contempt for this administration,” in the pro-life community.”
Look, this line of discussion has not worked in the past, and simply cannot work in the future, but I guess must work in the Conor/Ross parallel multiverse where Roe is magically overturned by a tribe of just King Solomon clones riding on unicorns trailing rainbows and bible quotes.
Tir Tairn Giri, I guess.
Bake a new cake or stfu.
Your frosting is rancid Conor.
— matoko_chan · Jun 12, 01:24 AM · #
I just rellyrelly tired of this remix.
I guess Douthat keeps playing the same song cuz thass all he’s got.
— matoko_chan · Jun 12, 01:27 AM · #
Other commenters, please avert your eyes while I combat Matoko’s nonsensical cake rant in kind.
Matoko, the gustatory criticism you’ve leveled at what you call my icing — actually they are coconut shavings — is not fit even for the lousy food criticism in the last pages of the alt weekly in Merced, California. Or something.
Okay, everyone else, end of nonsensical cake rant.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jun 12, 03:22 AM · #
I have no desire to argue abortion politics, but I feel compelled to point out that “grizzly images” are what you might see in a nature documentary. Graphic abortion pics are more likely to be “grisly.”
— KenB · Jun 12, 03:43 AM · #
KM: I appreciate your receptiveness to my ideas. If you like that link, try Beyond Birds and Bees The woman who runs BBB told me she thought the above link was one of the best things she’s read about sex on the internet in the last year, and she’s a polyamorous single mother who sometimes attends orgies.
Conor: I also appreciate your receptiveness to my ideas. Your assessment of Douchat’s seriousness is immaterial. He has to convince people like me, and he’s doing a terrible job. He is actively discrediting people like you who actually have my ear.
Sargent: I think you might enjoy a very good documentary called “When Hollywood Went to War” about what happened when the very best cinematic communicators turned their craft and artistry to the great task of defeating fascism.
Sargent
— Tony Comstock · Jun 12, 04:06 AM · #
Aye, there’s the rub…not only do actual intelligentsia like Conor degrade in contact by feebly trying to justify the Coulter/Terry/McArdle argument….but Douthat gives cover to people like Roeder who actually don’t have the intellectual substrate to actually recognize a failcake.
— matoko_chan · Jun 12, 07:51 AM · #
actually.
;)
— matoko_chan · Jun 12, 07:52 AM · #
I can’t sleep.
Conor, you restated what you think Ross is saying…..why on earth would do you need to do that?
Because Ross is a TAS alumni and you like him?
I think you are trying to obscure what Ross is actually saying with glossy faux-reasonable verbage,
Because you don’t want to admit that gist of Ross’ argument is what Coulter said, what McArdle said, what Randall Terry said.
“When you make peaceful protest impossible, you make violent protest inevitable,”
That is what I am hearing.
Sargeant says He has to convince people like me, and he’s doing a terrible job.
What do the Michelle Malkins and the Scott Roeders hear?
I think they hear what I hear, the siren song of the pre-eminence of “moral authority”, that the imperative of “moral intuition” forces criminal action on them.
But I have enough intellectual substrate to reject an argument based on cognitive dissonance and terrorist apologia, however elegantly it is worded.
They simply don’t.
— matoko_chan · Jun 12, 12:18 PM · #
DougJ at Balloon Juice hears what I am hearing.
the way that Ross Douthat blamed the Tiller murder on the pro-choice movement.
— matoko_chan · Jun 12, 12:30 PM · #
One more thing before the srcolloff.
I completely agree with Sanger.
“And, so what’s the lesson from all this? On abortion, I’m afraid the news is bad. As Megan McArdle wrote recently, most of the normal political process was cut off by Roe v. Wade. Pro-lifers’ only hope is the virtually impossible route of a constitutional amendment. Other than that, it’s in the poisonous process of Supreme Court confirmation battles, where we’re not actually allowed to fight about what we’re fighting about (it’s called strict constructionism, dammit, not anti-abortion!). And, so, essentially shut out of the political process, some extremists are going to take extreme actions. The best we can do is try to protect clinics and be vigilant in law enforcement.
On other the rest of it: Paradoxically, the worst thing the government could do is crack down on right-wing organizations (unless they’re plotting actual violence) or suppress dissent in any other way. That would only further the feeling of disenfranchisement and make people more likely to resort to violence.”
And the OTHER WORST THING, is for supposedly rational, intelligent sapients like Ross and Conor to lend their burkha (give cover to) to the idea that somehow the prolife terrorists have A RIGHT to terrorize.
— matoko_chan · Jun 12, 04:31 PM · #