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DarkSyde Interviews Olduvai George

stcynic — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 13:58:33 +0000

DarkSyde Interviews Olduvai George

My old pal DarkSyde has published an interview at Unscrewing the Inscrutable with Carl Buell, better known as Olduvai George. Buell, as I mentioned last week, is a brilliant illustrator who has done the illustrations for numerous books on science and evolution. Most notably, he did all the illustrations for Carl Zimmer's wonderful book At The Water's Edge (if you haven't read this book, go buy it. Now.). It's an interesting interview that touches on the subject of how a conscientious artist goes about turning a fossil into a picture of the animal as it might have looked while alive.

stcynic Sat, 12/03/2005 - 08:58

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Dembski Gets a Parody Blog

stcynic — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 08:23:45 +0000

Dembski Gets a Parody Blog

William Dembski has gotten the honor of an official parody blog, Uncommon Dissent. The author, using the nom de plume of TH Huxley (I would have chosen Asa Gray myself), does a post-by-post mockery of Dembski's blog. It's not terribly good, but I'll say this - he's a hell of a lot brighter than Robert O'Brien. Then again, your average baked potato is brighter than Robert O'Brien.

stcynic Tue, 10/25/2005 - 04:23

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I also disagree with Robert. That doesn't mean I think he's stupid.

Tangled Bank Is Up

stcynic — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 08:18:20 +0000

Tangled Bank Is Up

The Tangled Bank, a weekly blog carnival devoted to science, is up for this week and, without my knowledge, I'm linked in it. Given the excellent company of bloggers, which include PZ Myers, Orac and many other fine folks, I'm happy that someone nominated me for it and happy to be included. Go check it out, there are lots of other interesting links there about science.

stcynic Thu, 10/06/2005 - 04:18

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Am I a Conservative?

stcynic — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 13:51:21 +0000

Am I a Conservative?

There's a site called Unpartisan.com that links to my site a lot. Unpartisan.com is a computer-generated RSS feed that tracks big news stories and the reaction to them from around the blogosphere, then provides links to them. They pride themselves on covering both left and right equally because the computer picks all of the blog stories and links to them without bias or comment:

Unpartisan.com is a political site that blends news, discussion, and commentary from all over the internet. There are thousands of political weblogs all over the internet comprising two distinct political spheres. Unfortunately, it is extremely rare that these spheres ever intersect or even meet. It is our mission here at unpartisan.com not to get everyone together at the table to discuss our differences and reach a compromise, but to at least offer a forum where each side can at least see what the other has to say.

But here's the odd thing, from my perspective: they have me classified under conservative blogs. How did they reach that determination? Well, here's their explanation:

The categorization of blogs is determined by which types of blogs link to you and who you link to. If the majority of sites that link to you are known to be conservative and the majority of the sites you link to are known to be conservative, you get lumped in with the conservative blogs. This tends to work close to 98% of the time, and saves me the time of analyzing every single blog that is listed here.

This seems to beg the question just a bit, doesn't it? If categorization is based solely on how many liberal and conservative blogs link to me or I link to, how was it determined whether those blogs were liberal or conservative? By the number of links from liberal or conservative blogs? At some point, someone has to categorize the blogs politically in order for this to work and have some definition of them.

Ah well. If someone from that site sees this post, please don't take it as a real complaint. I'm happy to have the links regardless of how I'm categorized. I have some views that would be considered conservative and some liberal, but mostly I'm in the moderate libertarian camp. I'm just amused that with all the criticism I aim at conservatives, I'd get classified as one. And frankly, you can label me a neo-Nazi pagan warmonger for all I care (just don't label me a vegetarian...or a Celine Dion lover; even I have my limits).

stcynic Mon, 10/03/2005 - 09:51

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You have to try awfully hard to fit into one category or the other.

Well, all i can hope for is that we are blessed with more and more citizens of your particular brand of conservatism then. Sure you are well to my right, but most are, and yet you have consistently articulated principled views honoring the most enlightened liberal(in the proverbial classical sense) foundations of human rights and respect for same.

And frankly, you can label me a neo-Nazi pagan warmonger for all I care (just don't label me a vegetarian...or a Celine Dion lover...

This just in, conservative blogger Ed Brayton admits to being a quote, "neo-Nazi pagan warmonger", unquote, while simultaneously denying that he is a, quote, "vegetarian...Celine Dion lover", unquote.

Me thinks the gentleman doth protest too much and frankly I think we can all agree that if Mr. Brayton (Nazi Dion loving swine) had any decency whatsoever he would immediately find himself a tall building (or bridge) and leap off of it.

We now return you to the normal, rational, world where Harriet Miers is the most qualified candidate in the country for the Supreme Court of the United Sates.

Troy-

If you weren't 3000 miles away, I'd come to your house and play "My Heart Will Go On" for hours on end. With earplugs in, of course.

Skeptic's Circle

stcynic — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 09:35:43 +0000

Skeptic's Circle

The latest edition of the Skeptic's Circle is available at Be Lambic or Green. It has links to lots of interesting posts in the skeptical vein.

stcynic Thu, 08/04/2005 - 05:35

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Buy These Harmful Books!

stcynic — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 08:25:12 +0000

Buy These Harmful Books!

Via Radley Balko comes this amusing link. The very right wing newspaper Human Events took a poll of prominent conservatives to get a list of the most harmful books ever written. The list was pretty much what you'd expect, with Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto in the top ten. I was disappointed to see that two of my favorites, On Liberty by John Stuart Mill and On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin only made honorable mention (but got a good chuckle out of the rather predictable fact that they got the name wrong on the second one, calling it Origin of the Species). But here's the punchline. While compiling this list of books that they don't think people should read lest they be harmed in some way, they link to the Amazon pages of all of them using their code to get a cut if anyone buys them. Ah, the age old clash between free market conservatives and social conservatives finally resolved - yes, these books are evil, but we don't mind profiting from them.

stcynic Wed, 06/01/2005 - 04:25

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I like how Keynes made the list, and how they blame him for our current burgeoning deficits and debt. Hmm, let's see, under which presidents did our debt increase the most, and which economic theory did they subscribe to?

Thank you Steve! Nothing in Keynes' theory required that government spending during a recession be unending. In fact, unemployment insurance is a classic Keynesian devise - the government's revenue increases to pay these benefits during down times, and automatically reduces when employment picks back up.

I thought the honorable mentions were more telling than actual top ten. Mill's On Liberty with Carson's Silent Spring and Nader's Unsafe at any Speed seems to prove the long held impression that the conservative definition of freedom is no regulation of business but regulation of people's personal lives. Whether or not Detroit makes safe cars or if a pesticide harms the environment are issues that can be left to the free market, but flag burning and sodomy laws need to be vigorously enforced.

...yes, these books are evil, but we don't mind profiting from them.

A capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him with!

(Ok, that's a silly commie cliche, but it was what popped into my head when I read this.)

Did I miss something or is the list devoid of a actual eugenics book or books promoting Jim Crow?

"Capitalists selling the rope to hang them" is not really a commie cliche. It's more of a right-wing anticommunist cliche. It's one of numerous quotes, usually attributed to Lenin, used by the far right though there's no proof that Lenin ever said it. "Useful idiots" is another.

i particularly liked the critiques that were offered by the esteemed reviewers. This one is classic:
"He(Dewey) disparaged schooling that focused on traditional character development and endowing children with hard knowledge, and encouraged the teaching of thinking "skills" instead. His views had great influence on the direction of American education--particularly in public schools--and helped nurture the Clinton generation."

Now Dewey's educational efforts, for the most part, were undertaken during the 30's reorganization of public education(see Joel H. Spring's various books on the subject) and it is pretty striking to connect some of the children of the 60's as nurtured directly by that period of time. If it was so pervasive and powerful, wouldn't more of that generation been more supportive of those policies? Or was that impeachment thing just an aberration?

I'm so proud! I own half the books on the list, and have even read them. Okay, except for Kapital, which I own but haven't read. But then again, I don't even know anyone who's made it all the way through Kapital.

I also have read a fair number of the honorable mentions. My brain is now a threat to Western civilization, democracy, and Christianity itself. I wonder if I could undermine electoral politics just by rubbing my head on a voting booth? The possibilities are endless.

I've got to run off now and go reread A Sand County Almanac. Maybe after finishing that, the corruption of my brain will have reached critical mass, and I'll be able to shoot anticapitalist laser beams out of my eyes.

Goodbye, Mr. Sandefur

stcynic — Thu, 26 May 2005 08:37:28 +0000

Goodbye, Mr. Sandefur

Timothy Sandefur has decided to leave the world of blogging, I am sad to report. Now that he is preparing to wed the lovely Erin and owns his own home (one can almost visualize the honey do list), the time and energy he has to devote to Freespace has dwindled and he has decided to cash in his chips. He signs off with a typically passionate defense of liberty:

My final message is to always love your freedom, and fight for it with all you can. It is the rarest, and most precious, possession on earth. Without freedom, no other joys are meaningful; no victory is worthy; no riches are wealth; no tomorrows make a future. The right to speak and think and believe and study and work and earn and keep and buy and sell and be what you are, as you want, on your own terms, as an individual worthy to make choices, are beyond any treasures that so-called benefactors might offer you in trade.

Hear, hear. I will miss Timothy's writing very much (but take hope, there is a possible plan in the works to lure him back on a part time basis). He was one of the very first blogs I linked to when I started a year and a half ago, and he was one of the first to link to me as well. From the start, we immediately had an intellectual affinity despite some obvious (and public) disagreements. He is brilliant, extraordinarily well read, passionate about freedom, sometimes cantankerous (not that I can relate to that, eh?) and always challenging. Over the course of the last year and a half, we've become friends and I hope that doesn't change. But his writing will sorely be missed.

stcynic Thu, 05/26/2005 - 04:37

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Very interesting to pen a passionate piece on liberty as he willingly gives up his own.

Well said Mr. S. Well said, and good luck.

A friend sent me this website this afternoon, and in reading through it i realized how Sandefur's input would have been most helpful in gaining a fuller understanding of the intents and foundational principles contained therein.

http://www.natlogic.com/

the definitions and axioms regarding the ecological lens are particularly interesting.

While I disagreed vehemently with Mr. Sandefur's postion on the current administration and its actions in the Middle East, as well as not "getting" the libertarian position entirely, he is one of the best writers that I have seen in the blogosphere (that group includes you, Ed, as well.) Mr. Sandefur is clearly intelligent and principled and he will be missed.

OGeorge: Not a well timed "joke," I'm afraid. A good marriage is an opportunity for tremendous liberty.

I wasn't kidding.

Sandefur is one of the very few conservatives who seems to think things through, especially on the legal side. I regret to see him close down the shop!

Sad. But, I suspect that, like the Terminator he'll be back

And, yes, I'm trying to be funny

In the Agora in the Major Media

stcynic — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 11:13:49 +0000

In the Agora in the Major Media

The group blog that I write for as well, In the Agora, has received a big notice in the Indianapolis Star, which I imagine is probably one of the top 20 largest circulation newspapers in the country. They also took note of Radley Balko's The Agitator. Congratulations to Paul and Josh and the rest of the Agora gang, and to Balko as well. Hopefully this will boost readership for both excellent blogs.

stcynic Sun, 04/17/2005 - 07:13

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... the Indianapolis Star, which I imagine is probably one of the top 20 largest circulation newspapers in the country.

Ed:

According to the website referenced below, the Indianapolis Star, with an average weekday circulation of ca. 250,000, is ranked #37 in that category.

Congrats on the shout-out. Good to see some decent blogging getting recognized.

http://powerreporting.com/knight/in_the_indianapolis_star.html

Dave-
That surprises me. I thought Indy was something like the 10th largest city in the country, so I thought my prediction was safe. At any rate, it's a great opportunity to increase the readership of Agora.

Indianapolis is technically the 12th largest city, but that's a bit misleading. Here we've combined the city and county governments, so we're able to count people that most cities lose to suburban calculations. I imagine that when you count the metropolis area we're closer to the mid-twenties.

Ed-

As Josua mentioned, the reported population of Indianapolis (783,438 as of the July 2003 census) is a bit misleading, based on how the population is tabulated.

Also bear in mind that a city like New York, which has 10 times the population of Indianapolis (8,085,742), has several dailies (New York Times, Newsday, Wall Street Journal, Daily News, New York Post) with higher circulation.

But yes, it's still a nice bit of promo.

For Future reference, these are the top 40 newspapers in the country as ranked according to circulation:

1. USA Today, Virginia
2. The Wall Street Journal, New York
3. The New York Times, New York
4. Los Angeles Times, California
5. The Washington Post, D.C.
6. Daily News, New York, New York
7. Chicago Tribune, Illinois
8. New York Post, New York
9. Newsday, Long Island, New York
10. Houston Chronicle, Texas
11. San Francisco Chronicle, California
12. The Dallas Morning News, Texas
13. Chicago Sun-Times, Illinois
14. The Boston Globe, Massachusetts
15. The Arizona Republic, Phoenix, Arizona
16. The Star-Ledger, Newark, New Jersey
17. The Miami Herald, Florida
18. Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Minnesota
19. The Philadelphia Inquirer, Pennsylvania
20. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia
21. The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio
22. Detroit Free Press, Michigan
23. The San Diego Union-Tribune, California
24. The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon
25. St. Petersburg Times, Florida
26. The Orange County Register, Santa Ana, California
27. The Sun, Baltimore, Maryland
28. The Sacramento Bee, California
29. The Denver Post, Colorado
30. Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colorado
31. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri
32. San Jose Mercury News, California
33. The Kansas City Star, Missouri
34. Orlando Sentinel, Florida
35. The Times Picayune, New Orleans, Louisiana
36. The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio
37. The Indianapolis Star, Indiana
38. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin
39. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pennsylvania
40. Boston Herald, Massachusetts

Ed,

I'm sorry, but the Indianapolis Star as a top 20 paper? Indianapolis as a top 10 city? You have GOT to get out more. It's Indiana, for God's sake. Most of America can't find it on a map. ; )

-CP (Ensconsed in the oft-maligned, easy-to-find Massachusetts on one of the elitist coasts. And, yes, I know Boston has fewer people than Indianapolis.)

Well Indianapolis only recently fell from the top 10, mainly because cities like Louisville combined city and county government as well. So I don't think Ed's suggestion is off base at all.

And may God have mercy on anyone's soul that can't locate Indiana. I shudder to think about what they're missing out on.

Indianapolis is actually one of my favorite cities. I've spent a lot of time there and never a bad time at all.

The Boston Herald is the 40th in circulation? Oh, my. I've been living in Bahston for 26 years. The Bahston Herald? They'll be going under shortly.

I shudder to think what they're missing out on.

Um....coal? Chemicals? A.J. Foyt?

Jim Babka's Report on Brayton vs. Klayman

stcynic — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 12:16:54 +0000

Jim Babka's Report on Brayton vs. Klayman

Jim Babka, the host of the radio show I was on a few days ago, has posted a report to his blog on how the show went. It seems he thought it went pretty much the way I thought it went:

Brayton, who argued that the outcome of Terri's case was correct, was well-prepared and forensically strong. I think Mr. Klayman, who was primarily upset with Jeb Bush's failure to intervene and rescue Terri, is used to shorter interviews because after his four or five-bullet point initial statement he crumbled into almost entirely ad hominem arguments. He called one set of judges morons, his opposing guest an idiot (but then quickly corrected himself, and said he meant to say his ideas were idiocy), and so on. The most interesting moment in the show is when the conservative Republican lawyer said, "I don't care what Justice Scalia thinks, he's an intellectual lightweight...one of my least favorite Justices."
Most of the show focused on the role of the Courts. Klayman tried to dodge a question about state sovereignty and federalism, but ultimately conceded that he has little regard for such things when he insisted on the justification that, "Congress does stuff all the time."
Brayton handled my two toughest questions for him, but I wasn't finished with him. There were several things I wanted to ask. He was so confident and forceful he managed to keep Klayman on the defensive the whole time, and I didn't have enough time to ask him the remaining questions I have...
You can read Ed Brayton's opinion of how he thought the show went here. If Larry Klayman ever writes about it, and I find out, I'll link to that as well. But I'm guessing Larry would prefer to forget.

Ouch. Jim did have one question in his post for me that he didn't get to ask me on the air, and I want to address it here because I think it's a good question. He writes:

I still believe starving Terri was nothing short of barbaric. And I would've loved to ask Ed if Michael Schiavo's attorney is mentally ill? After all, he looked at Terri and said she was "peaceful" (a potential statement of fact) and "beautiful."
Beautiful? Someone is starving, their eyes are dark and sunken, their lips are bleeding, and their skin is flaking from dehydration, and you say they look "beautiful?" Sounds to me like Felos is disgustingly infatuated with death.

First, let me say that I think it's absurd that the only legal option is withdrawal of nourishment. The medical evidence may be clear that Terri didn't feel anything during the 13 days she was dehydrating, but it's still absurd to drag the whole process on that long. We wouldn't do that to a dog. The problem is that the same people who were screaming about how barbaric that was would scream even louder if we passed a law allowing active euthenasia, where doctors would administer a lethal dosage in such situations to bring death quickly and painlessly. But that is precisely what we need to allow in such cases.

As far as Mr. Felos is concerned, I had the same reaction Jim did when I saw those comments. I found them downright creepy. And I found them just as delusional and insincere as the comments from the Schindlers that Terri was "crying out to them" and "saying she wants to live." The whole scene at the hospice was creepy to me, from the self-serving media whores like Randall Terry and Jesse Jackson (and yes, Larry Klayman) doing their schtick to the people in the background who would talk on their cell phones and wave excitedly at the TV cameras (that's the way to reinforce the solemn nature of what was going on, eh?) to the family's monk/spokesman who came out at least twice to announce that the family would no longer be talking to the press because they wanted to grieve privately the way families should, only to have those family members booked on every TV show in existence for 3 days after that declaration, to the people sending their kids in to get arrested to make some sort of weird statement. It was a circus we should all be glad has ended.

P.S. I'm not posting this to brag; I'm posting it just in case some other host or producer out there might be reading and be interested in inviting me on their show. I've long subscribed to HL Mencken's description of a writer as "a man in whom the normal vanity of all men is so vastly exaggerated that he finds it a sheer impossibility to hold it in. His overpowering impulse is to gyrate before his fellow men , flapping his wings and emitting defiant yells. This being forbidden by the police of all civilized countries, he takes it out by putting his yells on paper. Such is the thing called self-expression." There's no point in pretending otherwise, or in confining one's yelling and flapping to print.

stcynic Wed, 04/06/2005 - 08:16

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Take a gander at Felos's book. (Interestingly, Amazon has removed some of the reviews citing passages that showed Felos's New Age "soul speak" claptrap.)

One wonders how many medical acts of humane euthanasia take place quietly in hospitals around the country, far from the intense scrutiny this case garnered.

One wonders how many medical acts of humane euthanasia take place quietly in hospitals around the country, far from the intense scrutiny this case garnered.
Honestly, it happens all the time. I've been personally involved with three such cases, and know of many more. With my own mother, when we made the decision to turn off the machines, the doctors had given her enough morphine to insure that her body would not thrash around or convulse, so that she expired quickly and quietly. They didn't come out and say that, of course, but we knew. And thank goodness they did. In hospices and hospitals around the country, morphine is often used to hasten the shutting down of the organs in cases where death is imminent but may stretch out for long periods of time. It's justified on the basis of pain, and rightfully so, but it does more than that. And this is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Of course, had there been that much morphine delivered to Ms. Shiavo, it would have leaked to the right wingers, I'm sure.

And, didn't someone tell me that the Florida legislature, in its thrash of wisdom, has passed a law that limits the use of morphine in such cases? Can't let terminal patients get enough to get addicted (or am I confusing Florida with New York?).

Morphine to a dying person isn't just about pain relief. It's not a polite fiction to say that it relieves some breathing difficulties that can happen in the days before death -- I've seen it do so. I'm not talking about depressed respiration with high doses, but easy and more effective respiration, with visible reduction in circumoral cyanosis and intercostal pulling and general signs of both stress and hypoxia.

Breathing difficulties, like those in severe asthma, lung cancer, emphysema, and so on, are accompanied by what I can only call physiologic fear. The worst, most frightened deaths I've seen were from lung cancer, for example, and that's partly because there's a physical fear reaction to being badly short of breath. It has nothing to do with courage or lack of it; it's as physical as turning blue. Denying a dying person relief of that is barbaric.

This is absurd. (Sorry, Ed, I'm not referring to the report).

Let's get something straight. What does the issue regarding "euthanasia-inducing" drugs have to do with?

Let's get something perfectly and totally straight. The issue is the fact that the doctor-priesthood controls access to these "euthenasia inducing" drugs. So an individual can't get access to them on his or her own.

That's the whole point of "doctor-assisted suicide." If the access to suicide-inducing drugs was not limited to doctors, via "prescriptions," there would be no issue regarding "doctor assisted suicide" would there be? Of course not.

Just wondering, is "Babka" a stage name? It sounds like a Polish pastry. BTW, I'm not kidding, I'm just wondering.

Just wondering, is "Babka" a stage name? It sounds like a Polish pastry. BTW, I'm not kidding, I'm just wondering.

Yeah, me too.

It's like that episode of Seinfeld where they wanted to buy the chocolate babka as dessert for a dinner party, but the bakery was out and they has to settle for the lesser cinnamon babka instead. Sure enough, another couple going to the same dinner party had bought the last chocolate babka and of course much mirth ensued.

I laughed till I stopped.

Sandefur's Triumphant Return

stcynic — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 08:37:30 +0000

Sandefur's Triumphant Return

I'm pleased to announce that Timothy Sandefur has returned to the blogging world after a few weeks away. Having moved in to a new home with his lovely fiance Erin, he is now free to ignore her and turn his attention to the far more important task of writing entertaining and enlightening posts for all of us. And he begins, naturally, by busting my chops for pointing out the wrong basis for decrying the fanaticism of those who are "pro-life", yet threaten to kill others (like Judge Greer, Michael Schiavo or abortion doctors). Point taken. He also has this amusing post about the "rational basis" standard of review, which, as he points out, generally means that whatever excuse may be offered up is neither rational nor a basis. Welcome back, Timothy. Your voice has been missed greatly in the cacaphony of conversations around the blogosphere.

stcynic Fri, 04/01/2005 - 03:37

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Ed, I think you've given up too easily.

Mr. Sandefur writes that if you begin with the premise that pulling Schiavo's feeding tube and performing abortions are murder, then it's (at last arguably) legitimate to use deadly force to combat these (in the same way and to the same extent as deadly force is permitted to combat any other murder).

Maybe so, but "murder" is a legal term, which applies to certain homicides which are prohibited by law. Neither the Schiavo situation, nor abortion, is murder. Neither is against the law.

The question is really whether pulling feeding tubes or abortions "should be" murder. There are people who believe that they should. But whether it is justified to use deadly force to advocate these "should be" views is a different question from whether it is OK to use deadly force to combat activities which "are" murder.

I concur w/Jeff on this one. Even if the Schindlers were right about Terri's condition, that does not imply that intimidating the judiciary with threats of violence is morally justifiable. It's an absurd position to take. Judges make mistakes. There will be, and have been, cases in which judges have made life-or-death decisions in which their reasoning about the facts have been flawed. This is an unfortunate consequence of them being human beings, and to imply that this inevitable consequence gives moral license to vigilantism is absurd.

Good thing Mr. Sandefur doesn't live in North Carolina or we could have him thrown in jail for cohabitating with his girlfriend before they marry.

:-)

I think being pro-life and pro-death penalty is rather silly. I think you are more correct than wrong Ed. I don't see murdering those who commit murder as a moral act at all. I think he's off base.

I'm with Jeff and JY.

Actions are neither moral or immoral, it's the societies judgement that makes it so.

Judges make mistakes. There will be, and have been, cases in which judges have made life-or-death decisions in which their reasoning about the facts have been flawed.

Doctors also err. Unfortunately, there aren't too many appellate processes within the American medical care system. Regardless, sometimes they get it right, and sometimes they don't. That's life, too.

Christian preacher media whores also err. And there aren't any appellate processes to get them to stop. Usually they get it wrong, because the only thing that they're interested in is attracting money to their bank accounts. That's life. That's life, too.

What lessons should be gleaned from all this? I don't know. I really don't know. Except for the fact that I, myself and me, don't want to get into the clutches of the doctors. And I've made that fact clear to anyone within earshot.

Obviously I don't think that people should kill judges or anything because I don't think the death of Terri Schiavo qualifies as murder. My point is that if we assume that it is murder, which sure seems to be the view of the conservatives on this issue, then killing for prevention or punishment is morally justified. Likewise, if we assume that abortion is murder, is unequivocally is the position of many conservatives on this issue, then killing for prevention or punishment is morally justified.

Some time ago, I had an anti-abortion guest blogger, and I challenged him to explain to my why killing to punish or prevent abortion would not be justified. He was unable to, which I remarked upon here.

I do not think it is silly to "be[] pro-life and pro-death penalty," or at least, it is not inconsistent. One may disagree with the positions, but it is entirely consistent to view a fetus as an innocent life that ought not to be killed, and a murderer as a person who has chosen to give up his right to life and who may be executed. But even if we put aside the death penalty, what about killing to prevent killing? Surely we all agree that if a man is about to kill someone, a police officer may shoot and kill him to prevent him from doing so.

Yet again let me restate: I in no way think that killing people to prevent abortions is even close to being justified, because a fetus certainly does not have a right to life. What I can't figure out is how someone can believe that abortion is murder--but then say it is not morally acceptable to use deadly force to prevent it.

I do not think it is silly to "be[] pro-life and pro-death penalty," or at least, it is not inconsistent. One may disagree with the positions, but it is entirely consistent to view a fetus as an innocent life that ought not to be killed, and a murderer as a person who has chosen to give up his right to life and who may be executed.
I agree with this completely, and I've always thought it was a silly argument to make.

'One may disagree with the positions, but it is entirely consistent to view a fetus as an innocent life that ought not to be killed, and a murderer as a person who has chosen to give up his right to life and who may be executed.'

But the flip side of this is that a person who then 'kills' the innocent life is guilty of murder and is the person who allows it.

I find the death penalty to be inconsistent with a 'pro-life' viewpoint as the person committing murder, an inherently selfish act, is NOT choosing to giveup there own life but usually acting in some other manner.

I agree with this. But I view the issues from two different directions.

First, regarding the "death penalty," it really has to be acknowledged that the prosecutor has way too much discretion in asking for the death penalty. Way too much discretion in charging. Way too much discretion in regards the death penalty. Way too much discretion. And, of course, the fact that the jury determines the death penalty adds another issue. Get a gay person in the issue, and the result is obvious.

The second direction is the fact that the people who harp on the "pro-life" issue want to criminalize abortion want to go against doctors, but they don't want to put the women in prison. And they don't want to put the men who impregnate the women in prison. And they don't want to put the men who pay for the abortions in prison.

That suggests to me that the politicians who harp on the "pro-life" issue are nothing but a bunch of hypocrits.

Surely the irony is that many of the people who claim the distinction is between "innocent" babies/PVS patients and "guilty" murderers also believe in original sin.

The guest blogger should have been able to answer this: abortion, although in his opinion should be murder, is not officially murder. It is a reasonable position to take that in a civil society, individuals have the rightful expectation that no one will take their life if they obey the laws of that society. The dispute of the anti-abortion activist is not with the individual abortion doctor, or the judge, etc., but with the laws of society itself, and individuals should not bear the brunt of that disagreement.

Timothy Sandefeur's position is that people who disagree with abortion are being morally inconsistent for not going out and killing (or supporting killing) to prevent abortion. This is equivalent to the view that it is morally inconsist to disagree with the death penalty and not attempt to use, or at least support, deadly force to stop executioners from pushing the button, or juries and judges from handing down the 'death' verdict. But neither position is inconsistent. As there is a moral difference between a lynching - an extra-judicial killing - and a legal execution, there is a similar moral difference in a killing to *stop* a lynching versus a legal execution, and it should be possible to see that distinction regardless of whether you support legal executions.