Republicans push for an amendment that would ban abortion; even if the woman is raped

[Katie]

In the history of the United States, slavery was perpertated by white males. It was before females had voting rights.

Fictional accounts of how slaves were regarded is not reality. I'm from Alabama. I can take to to a farm which was a breeding facility for slaves. Yep....treated just like horses. Auctioned. Looked in the mouth. Forced to breed.

Some slave owners were more progressive, but generally blacks were considered to be no better or more intelligent than a beast. Infact, the bank I work for has a building where slaves were held as collateral on loans. Treated as I treat cattle today.

What happens in the world today is irrelevant when the comparison was that blacks in this country were once not considered to be people. They actually were only considered 3/4 of a person in states which needed a boost in population to gain congressional seats.

[Type 97 Chi-ha]

Originally Posted by Katie

In the history of the United States, slavery was perpertated by white males. It was before females had voting rights.

Fictional accounts of how slaves were regarded is not reality. I'm from Alabama. I can take to to a farm which was a breeding facility for slaves. Yep....treated just like horses. Auctioned. Looked in the mouth. Forced to breed.

Some slave owners were more progressive, but generally blacks were considered to be no better or more intelligent than a beast. Infact, the bank I work for has a building where slaves were held as collateral on loans. Treated as I treat cattle today.

What happens in the world today is irrelevant when the comparison was that blacks in this country were once not considered to be people. They actually were only considered 3/4 of a person in states which needed a boost in population to gain congressional seats.

Most white males didn't have voting rights either, until deacdes after America's independence...and most people didn't own slaves except for a rich few. And yes, women did own slaves of their own accord. The stories I mention are fiction but they are based on reality. Sorry to disappoint you, but slaves could hardly be claimed to be considered less than human if they could legally be released and become citizens...or if it were murder to kill a slave. Even then, killing animals was not considered as serious as killing a slave. You're going to have to learn the whole story before you talk on this matter.

[The Stryker]

Are we seriously going on about slavery because one idiot brought it up in a desperate attempt to validate his opinion?

Also Chi-ha, where'd you get this information? Talk to a relative of a slave once? Some girl in canada? Hm?

[Type 97 Chi-ha]

Originally Posted by The Stryker

Are we seriously going on about slavery because one idiot brought it up in a desperate attempt to validate his opinion?

Also Chi-ha, where'd you get this information? Talk to a relative of a slave once? Some girl in canada? Hm?

My information on slavery? A course I took in college on Latin American history, part of which was about the comparison of slavery and later race relations in the USA versus that of Brazil. Yes, it's too big a topic to discuss in this forum, but one interesting note: Brazil imported a tremendous number of slaves while the USA imported only a small number. Which affected how slavery worked in each country.

[Leo656]

While I'm glad this thread has mostly stayed civil, and we're proving we can at least imitate what a reasonable conversation looks like, it still just looks like the opposing sides can't agree, and both sides think the other is totally nuts. Nice to know some things stay constant.

Here's where I come off as an arrogant, self-righteous prick to support my position. Ready? Here we go.

Who do I love more, myself or God? Interesting question. There is me, the one person I can always trust to have my back, the one who has never lied to me or given me false hope or misled me, the one and only person who is going to be in the grave when I die. I get along with that guy.

OR, we have God, who may or may not exist, but I gotta tell ya, He doesn't take my calls. Or if he does, they go straight to voicemail and He forgets about 'em. I was raised Catholic in a devout family full of people who never questioned their faith at all, and I did my best for yeeeaaaars to walk that same line, but you know what? The more time passed, the more I saw something interesting. You know who has the strongest faith of all? People who always get their way. People who have easy lives, people who have money, people who don't have to struggle. The more messed up stuff happens to you, the harder life gets, the worse off you are, and I don't care who you are, you start asking hard questions about Why. Why you, why me, why them, and they tell you "Don't ask, God's plan," and I'm like "Fine." But what about the day you realize that God's Plan involves a lot, a LOT of people starving to death, living on the streets, being born in some third-world backwater and dying in a week from AIDS or malaria, and all kinds of messed up stuff in between? What is the POINT of this so-called Plan?

When I realized God's Plan is all about some people suffering for no good reason, while others get rewarded despite being horrible people, and that basically, MY happiness was not a part of this Master Plan, I removed myself from it. I won't say "I don't believe", because God may well exist. I DO hope all this sh*t we go through has a point. I really do. But I'm still waiting for proof, because "Faith" is something I lost after the hundreth time I prayed and begged, "Please let that assh*le stop beating my sister;" "PLEASE let my mother get off drugs so she can have a long and happy life;" and nothing changed. I guess we're all being taught some "moral lesson" and these "simple creatures" are just pawns in the game, and their "Role" is to suffer so... what? So someone else might learn a lesson? Bullsh*t. Doesn't work that way, or at least it BETTER not.

God might exist, but He doesn't live on this planet. WE do. WE are the ones who have to live on this planet and deal with everything, and if people tell themselves "This is God's will," and it keeps them from blowing their brains out, good for you. But I refuse to accept ANY religious justification for a REAL issue/problem, like whether abortion is OK or not. God does NOT care, if He did, He would take a more active role in things, if it all mattered so damn much. I mean, if He didn't want my mother to have any abortions, she would have dropped dead after the first one to "teach her a lesson", no? If God hated gay people, they'd all be struck dead. God isn't the one casting stones, telling raped women to "suck it up and deal with it," or telling gays that they're "Morally Wrong". WE spout that bulls*t, because we hate anyone we don't like/understand, and we make up New God Rules to justify how WE want the world to work. And every time God ever spoke to anyone to tell them "The Rules", it was privately, with no one around, to some guy who walked up a hill or out into a field all alone with no witnesses. I'm sure those rulings are iron-clad, infallible, and not at ALL Total Bullsh*t. I'm sure.

Say abortion is wrong because it messes with chicks' heads. Fine. Say it's wrong because that potential life could have grown up to be a super-hero. Ok, I can buy that. "It's wrong because someone I've never met, but apparently has more powers than Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, The Brother Eye Sattelite, and the entire Justice League combined, who I am SURE loves me even though he's never paid any particular attention to ME personally and he sure seems to hate a lot of other people... Well I trust that judgment 1000%, no questions asked! If he says it's wrong, it's wrong!" That's not an argument, that's someone inventing an argument to reinforce their belief when their belief is proven BS.

So I don't trust God's judgment on anything. If He's real, He'll forgive me for being prideful, I'm sure. He must already know I'm a Huge Assh*le, because it's only by His will I exist as I do, right? Meanwhile, I think more rational and SANE arguments against abortion are needed before anyone takes them seriously. "God ain't down with it" isn't enough, sorry.

[Xav]

Originally Posted by The Stryker

Are we seriously going on about slavery because one idiot brought it up in a desperate attempt to validate his opinion?

I'm an idiot for what? Bringing up facts? Some white people wanted to take away the rights of slave owners to buy and sell property, even though it didn't effect them, and they wanted to give rights to what was legally only 3/5 of a person.

[Donnie]

Originally Posted by Katie

In the history of the United States, slavery was perpertated by white males. It was before females had voting rights.

And who sold the white merchants the slaves from Africa? Africans.

I'm from Alabama.

Eek.

What happens in the world today is irrelevant when the comparison was that blacks in this country were once not considered to be people. They actually were only considered 3/4 of a person in states which needed a boost in population to gain congressional seats.

Hm...I believe you are speaking of the "Three-Fifths Compromise", which in 1787 stated that three-fifths of the slave population would be counted towards a state's representation in Congress.

[Jester]

Which the South wanted because it would give them an unfair political advantage, since they would be more populace than the North if the slaves were counted. It was a case of the wanting to consider them sub-human, except in cases where it would be politically expedient to consider them human.

[The Stryker]

Originally Posted by Xav

I'm an idiot for what? Bringing up facts? Some white people wanted to take away the rights of slave owners to buy and sell property, even though it didn't effect them, and they wanted to give rights to what was legally only 3/5 of a person.

You're an idiot because that example has nothing to do with unborn fetuses. Nobody debated that the slaves were alive. There's a wee bit of difference between an entire race of living, walking, talking people and a being that basically amounts to a jelly sack.

Also it bothers me that the fallback argument for any issue on both sides eventually boils down to 'Well, The Blacks!'.

[Katie]

Originally Posted by Donnie

And who sold the white merchants the slaves from Africa? Africans.

Yes.....to the whites

Eek.

Nice. Ever been to Alabama? If so, where? Don't judge based on what is shown in the media. We're not all racist hicks. Infact the two most racist people I have ever met in my life were from New York and Chicago.

Hm...I believe you are speaking of the "Three-Fifths Compromise", which in 1787 stated that three-fifths of the slave population would be counted towards a state's representation in Congress.

So I got the number wrong....you knew what I was talking about.

Chi ha.....not sure why you're so defensive when someone says something about white men. I'm not saying that you support slavery or that in particulat today's white male wants slavery....but that is the history of the United States.

Yes Brazil imported more slaves....but couldn't you argue that the Portugese were white......or at least let's say men of European decent.

It was despicable for sure....but the treatment of African slaves is absolutely not a good comparison for placing rights on an unborn fetus.

[Xav]

Originally Posted by The Stryker

You're an idiot because that example has nothing to do with unborn fetuses. Nobody debated that the slaves were alive. There's a wee bit of difference between an entire race of living, walking, talking people and a being that basically amounts to a jelly sack.

Also it bothers me that the fallback argument for any issue on both sides eventually boils down to 'Well, The Blacks!'.

Again they weren't saying they weren't alive, but they were saying they were lest than white people, and in both cases people wanted to take away the rights of others because they thought something was morally wrong, even if it didn't effect them.

[The Stryker]

It's still completely different homie. It's a reach and a half. A race of people being enslaved and treated like farm animals is different from sacks of jelly.

Again. Its only about the choice here. Thats it.

[Duke]

Originally Posted by mysterycolor

i would like to believe you are joking...but deep down i know you arent the connection between separation of church and state and supporting abortion is that the majority of people that argue the "rights" of the fetus are doing so based upon their religious beliefs and the biblical definition of life- and this cannot be what we base government policies on because we are not a christian nation and we do have freedom from religion and a separation of church and state.

There's a big difference between "freedom from religion" and the constitutional right of "freedom of religion."

[Type 97 Chi-ha]

Originally Posted by Katie

Chi ha.....not sure why you're so defensive when someone says something about white men. I'm not saying that you support slavery or that in particulat today's white male wants slavery....but that is the history of the United States.

Yes Brazil imported more slaves....but couldn't you argue that the Portugese were white......or at least let's say men of European decent.

It was despicable for sure....but the treatment of African slaves is absolutely not a good comparison for placing rights on an unborn fetus.

Because as a white male I'm sick of being blamed for all the world's evils, which is what you definitely are implying.

Well guess what? While males didn't invent slavery, or colonialism, or oppression, or torture, or genocide. Slavery existed in Asian, African, and pre-Colombian American cultures for milennia, and they didn't need white people to invent of perpetrate it. And not all slaves were African, either. As for colonialism and conquest, that has been going on in the cultures mentioned above too. The Japanese colonized part of China and other Asian nations and did not treat the natives nicely. But once the Communists took over China, then Chairman Mao showed the Chinese what brutality really was. He wasn't white. Neither was Pol Pot, who slaughtered a whole quarter of Cambodia's population. And ever heard of Idi Amin?

And BTW, American Indians owned slaves, too...which ought to tell you something. And that's your much-needed lesson in world history.

[Candy Kappa]

Originally Posted by Type 97 Chi-ha

Because as a white male I'm sick of being blamed for all the world's evils, which is what you definitely are implying.

Well guess what? While males didn't invent slavery, or colonialism, or oppression, or torture, or genocide. Slavery existed in Asian, African, and pre-Colombian American cultures for milennia, and they didn't need white people to invent of perpetrate it. And not all slaves were African, either. As for colonialism and conquest, that has been going on in the cultures mentioned above too. The Japanese colonized part of China and other Asian nations and did not treat the natives nicely. But once the Communists took over China, then Chairman Mao showed the Chinese what brutality really was. He wasn't white. Neither was Pol Pot, who slaughtered a whole quarter of Cambodia's population. And ever heard of Idi Amin?

And BTW, American Indians owned slaves, too...which ought to tell you something. And that's your much-needed lesson in world history.

thanks for the old well known history lesson?

[PAAATE]

Originally Posted by Type 97 Chi-ha

Because as a white male I'm sick of being blamed for all the world's evils, which is what you definitely are implying.

I'm a white male too, and I didn't feel anyone was implying anything. Stop it with the guilt :p

[Xav]

Originally Posted by The Stryker

Again. Its only about the choice here. Thats it.

Well than why can't I choose to own a slave?

[The Stryker]

Originally Posted by Xav

Well than why can't I choose to own a slave?

.....wow. What the hell are you even talking about anymore?

Originally Posted by Type 97 Chi-ha

Because as a white male I'm sick of being blamed for all the world's evils, which is what you definitely are implying.

When did she imply that? She was just talking about black slavery in america which did involve white males. Unless you want to dispute that fact.

[Candy Kappa]

Originally Posted by Xav

Well than why can't I choose to own a slave?

well According to PETA, all pets and house animals are today slaves, cause slavery totally doesn't exist today...

[PAAATE]

Originally Posted by Xav

Well than why can't I choose to own a slave?

Well, you could always kidnap someone, make her pregnant, keep her in your basement until she gives birth, then you kill her, you don't tell ANYONE about the baby, and then you could raise it into slavery.

Because a stupid question deserves a stupid answer.