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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (4387)	2/2/2001 11:58:47 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Some people who make the claim that they would not support imposing any moral idea on some one else when there is no consensus, would still have imposed an end of slavery on the slaver owners if they were in that situation and had the power to do so. I take your point about the parallel. You may recall that I told you about my equating the two back in the days of Roe v. Wade. The problem is that I don't know what I would have done at the time of slavery. I was quite involved in the civil rights movement in the '60s so I clearly have an inherent concern about freedom for all. But in the '60s I also had the benefit of a retrospective on slavery and the civil war. Had I lived way back then, I don't know what I would have thought or done. It's hard to factor hindsight out of the equation. For example, in those days, women didn't have full citizenship. So would I have been deeply troubled that a black man didn't have citizenship? Probably not. In the present, I have a deep concern for animal welfare. I just can't stand to see a creature hurt. From that I suppose that I would have opposed cruelty to slaves. I have a wide streak of independence and I follow my own drummer. If I apply those characteristics to the slavery situation, it's likely that I would have participated in the underground railway and sheltered runaway slaves. I haven't agreed with any of the wars the US has entered during my lifetime, so I doubt I would have wanted to go to war to free the slaves. In those days, as a woman, I wouldn't have been so well educated or so accomplished as I am now and I wouldn't have cut my teeth on The Feminine Mystique, so I probably wouldn't have been able to think about slavery in the abstract way we're discussing abortion now. I'm sure I wouldn't have been so self-actualized that I could comprehend a discussion about the difference between personal truths and public policy. That's why I have sidestepped a discussion of a slavery parallel. I just don't think it applies because I can't know what I would have done contemporaneously. Prohibition is a more current example of a controversial issue. Regarding prohibition, I'm pretty sure I would not have considered temperance as in appropriate business for the Federal government to be in, just like it doesn't belong in procreation. (edit) Karen

To: TimF who wrote (4387)	2/2/2001 12:21:24 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

I figured I'd deal with your first issue in one post and the second issue in another. I would oppose that significant minority just as you oppose the pro-life movement. Well, of course you would. We both knew that. What's important here is not whether but on what basis you would oppose it. Would you charge that the pro-permit position is immoral? Would you defend your natural right to produce offspring? Or your privacy? Would you agree with the concerns of the pro-permitters and just disagree with their proposed solution? Would you say that the pro-permitters have no right to take away the choice of others based on their deeply held sense of truth? On what basis would you oppose it? Karen