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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank

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To: TimF who wrote (6386)	2/23/2001 5:49:14 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) of 82486

Even when we are talking about an fertilized egg then we are talking about something which is obviously alive. When we try to understand people who are coming from some totally different place, no matter how hard we try, it's just not always possible. We have to try to put the other person's ideas into some construct that we can relate you. I've labeled my best understanding of what you're saying as sentimentality. I guess you don't feel that word fits or you wouldn't have repeated your position. That doesn't surprise me because I know I don't really understand. I agree with everything you say right up to the point where you conclude that this alive, human, distinct thing is entitled from conception to all the rights and privileges of a newborn. I'm pretty sure that I will never get it so it's probably not worth your spending any more time on helping me to understand. But let me ask you this--do you think you understand where I'm coming from better than I understand you? I know you don't agree, but do you think you understand? Just curious about whether this communication problem works both ways. BTW, I don't mean sentimental as an put-down. I can be pretty sentimental. I'm looking at a mature star magnolia out my front window. If anything happened to it I'd be heartbroken. I'm sentimental about most animals, about music and painting, about places I've traveled. I'm even sentimental about fetuses. Just for the record. Some would even call me "specieist". Yup. That's what I'd call you. I don't mean anything derogatory by that. I think you're very comfortably in the mainstream on that. It's pretty well ingrained in our religions and probably in our wiring. I'll admit a preference for humans. I see a continuum. I put mammals over "lower" species and animals over plants. Humans are awesome creatures. I'm so glad that I have the capacity to ponder myself and my species and the world around me. Concurrently, I'm a systems person so I also look at humans in context. It makes no sense to me to add another billion humans to the planet at the expense of the extinction of the tiger. I don't take myself and my species so personally that I can't see the parallels between humans and weeds. A long time ago I used to daydream about doing a survey to see how "specieist" people really are. In my mind I created a scenario in which the participant had to choose a course that would result in the death of either column A or column B. Column A would be a human and column B would be another animal. For example, a condemned serial killer one hour from execution vs. the participant's companion animal. Or a person in an irreversible coma vs. the last mating pair of bald eagles on earth. I'd bet most people would pick the human in all cases. I wouldn't. Karen

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