IMG_6377

Yes, I’m aware that’s a terribly politically incorrect term, but it’s hard to come up with something that better describes what you see above. If anyone had any illusions that the New York Daily News makes even a passing attempt to cover politics or the gun issue down the middle, today’s cover should put paid to that notion. But you probably knew that. Mortimer Zuckerman’s pride and joy has gone full monty for President Obama’s anti-gun push. Which is just as well. As with their cross-town broadsheet rival, it’s far better that they let the fig leaf drop and there’s no longer any pretense as to where they stand. Unlike the president, no one on the pro-gun side is likely to shed a tear over the News’ pathetic, ineffectual name-calling. The only appropriate response: bring it.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

84 COMMENTS

        • Maybe we should start a go fund me acount and start a collection to buy them out. Any reasonable owner of that rag should know it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. Maybe $2000 and a case of new jockstrap with instructions will motivate them. 🙂

        • Mike,

          The case of jockstraps with instructions would be of no value to them since they have no balls anyway.

        • Actually there is one gun shop in NYC, ONLY ONE, if it is still in business.
          And they only sell to the cops.
          ‘Cause, you know, nobody else has a gun.

        • John Jovino. It’s a damn hole in the wall. Bad service from ignorant sellers who don’t even know much about their grossly overpriced crappy products. They suck. The best thing about them is their big revolver signage.

          If you want the last vestige of gun culture in New York City, you ought to go to Westside Rifle & Pistol Range (link). There’s usually a regulars hanging out shooting the shit and their handguns. People who follow all the rules, pay hundreds of dollars in recurring licensing fees and hand over their fingerprints for the privilege of keeping a low-capacity handgun in their home. Also a lot of cops. Although at this point a lot of the range’s business is bachelorette parties and the like going there for the thrill of shooting 50 rounds of .22LR through a 10/22 locked to the range booth. A “shoot a gun for the first time” novelty experience. It’s not much better than an amusement park game, but they do get a safety lecture and learn something about real firearms so I won’t tut-tut it for introducing people to firearms.

          I’ve met Glen Hermann who runs the NRA safety course and Utah/Florida CCW class there, he’s the go-to expert on NYC gun laws. His website is NewYorkCityGuns.com (link). He’s a good guy, one of us. (One of us, gooble-gobble.)

  3. It’s going to be pretty funny when Rubio is in the White House and the anti-gun media zealots get zero access to the President.

  5. “hard to come up with something that better describes ^WHAT^ you see above.”

    Is that how it’s supposed to read?

  7. I remember when the “Daily News” had a “financial page” with the prices of the 100 most active stocks at the bottom of the page, under the heading “STOX”.
    Such was ever the quality of that newspaper, whose main contribution to society was the publication of lurid reports of sexual assaults to titillate young boys, and aging men with arrested development.
    There’s not much difference in the pandering and manipulation of the masses they are up to now.

    • The News and Post were always rags, but they were great fun when I was a little kid. My parents were college educated, got the Times and it was boring to read. The News and the Post, which the grandmother and other relatives got, being straight off the boat (literally) had great stuff for little kids to read about. Mostly murders, as I recall, and comic strips, which were never ever under any circumstances going to be found in the Times. Just as now. But back then, the tabloids were conservative. Sad to see the News has followed the Times’ political line.

  8. Your point would be much clearer if you had the linguistic talent to find another word than one chosen to get attention. It is a disgustingly transparent tactic. The very same used by the newspaper by saying a party is pro death. All shock tactics. I just agree more with you since I love the second amendment. I hope you mature as a writer in time so you are better than the new york journalists.

    • “Ultra Mega Sissy Retard!” Is how it should’ve read. And before you get all uppity and politically correct, you should know that I am part retard myself. My left testicle never fully matured and as such remains just slightly smaller than my fully grown right testicle. It ain’t pretty, but I’m a proud partial retard. Thanks for contributing.

  9. Wow! Two satirical atricles in one day; how fun!

    Oh wait, it’s the NY Daily, they’re being serious.

  10. Why are they attacking Ryan?
    Everyone knows this fucking turncoat is gonna just mouth the appropriate objections until the time comes to hand Barry exactly what he wants.

  12. I can’t imagine that this will change the opinion of anyone who regularly reads the daily news. Go ahead, radical leftists. Belly up to the bar for your daily shot of affirmation.

  13. I am pro-death. I don’t think any of these politicians are however. I believe a fetus is a life AND am pro-choice. I also believe in the death penalty, rather than warehousing violent criminals in jail at great expense until they die. Also I think people should be allowed to kill themselves if they’d prefer not to live, especially if they’d prefer not to be warehoused in a nursing home gradually diminishing in agony until they die.

    Seriously, I’m pro-death (anti-overpopulation) and I don’t think any of these politicians would agree with me.

  14. It seems like that paper should be satire. I know, it isn’t. It’s such a crude caricature of real news.

    That being said, it’s unsurprising to see an ad banner for the “tax on the poor and the stupid”, aka the New York Lottery.

  15. After reading the NYDN scathing critique of gun advocates, of which I am one, I’m not…….sure…….I…….can…….go…….on.

  18. “Measured response”? What response was that? He didn’t really do anything when it comes to gun laws, except make it easier to get NFA items by elimination of the top local leo sign off, and didn’t “close t” the gun show loophole because his regulations merely adopt what criteria were already being applied by the courts. Other than the potential to expand the definition of those ineligible to own firearms, he did NADA! So why all the trumpeting? Ans: They know not of which they speak.

  19. 55 million dead babies and counting and they think it’s the Republican Party that’s the ‘party of pro-death’. Good one!

    • Imagine those 55 million babies growing up to get on welfare and live the gangsta lifestyle.

      How much would your taxes go up, eh?

      • Imagine if your mom had aborted you. I wouldn’t have to respond to your asinine remarks. Have you ever considered correcting your mom’s mistake?

        • Some of the most asinine shit gets deleted as flaming, but you can suggest this guy should kill himself and it’s totally cool?

          Noted

      • So we kill people who *might* turn out to be too expensive, but aren’t yet?

        Can we incarcerate people who haven’t broken a law yet? How about execute those who haven’t committed murder?

        Why on earth did you think this was a valid point?

        • Freakenomics snark. You could just as easily say, ‘imagine 55 million productive taxpaying citizens’ or ’55 million law abiding concealed carriers’. It’s supposed to be a libertarian philosophy, but executing human beings for the greater good?!? Doesn’t sound like libertarian philosophy to me. More like Nazi eugenics.

          Sad thing is he actually thought he was being clever.

        • Who says they’re not people? You? At what point do they become people? Birth? Why are 95% of the people opposed to late term abortion? When they can feel pain? Why are we allowing legal abortion for several weeks after they can feel pain? How about when his or her heart starts beating and circulating his or her own blood? Congratulations, you can now only have an abortion in the first 17 days after conception. How about when the baby’s sex is determine? Oops, that’s conception. So what part of prenatal development do you consider the magic moment when a fetus becomes human?

          • >> Who says they’re not people? You?

            Me, over a hundred million of people in this country alone, and common sense. You don’t think amoeba are people, do you? Or even chimps? Well, a fully grown chimp has a more developed brain than a fetus.

            >> It what point do they become people? Birth?

            Hard to say, because it really isn’t a trigger, more of a scale. There isn’t any “magic moment” there, scientifically speaking, it’s just gradual progression. We can put an arbitrary line somewhere, but it has to be consistent with our treatment of non-human animals.

            >> Why are 95% of the people opposed to late term abortion

            For the same reasons people protest clubbing seals: appeal to emotion is wildly successful when there’s a hardwired response to “protect the baby”, and all you need then is to convince them that it is a baby, which can be done on looks alone, ignoring brain development etc.

            >> Why are we allowing legal abortion for several weeks after they can feel pain?

            For the same reason why we are allowing killing animals who can also feel the pain, and consider it a crime to kill people who cannot feel the pain (there is a medical condition that does that). Being capable of feeling pain is not a criteria of personhood. I mean, if it were, fish would be protected persons.

            >> How about when his or her heart starts beating and circulating his or her own blood?

            For the same reason why we’re allowing killing animals that have a heart that can circulate blood. This is an even lower bar – even insects have a heart.

            >> So what part of prenatal development do you consider the magic moment when a fetus becomes human?

            The question isn’t when fetus becomes a human. The question is when it becomes a person. Persons (including non-humans) have natural rights. Animals (including non-person humans, such as braindead) do not.

            Ideally, some sort of EEG screening that would be able to determine that a fetus has sufficiently complicated thought processes that it is cognizant of itself and has a concept of “self” (since we can’t exactly do a mirror test on them). This is really something for the scientists to figure out. Until then, we can draw some hard lines based on various proxies. In particular, a fetus without a brain, or with a brain that doesn’t register any activity, is definitely not a person. A fetus with a brain that has fewer synapses than an animal that we wouldn’t consider a person is definitely not a person.

            On the other hand, viability has nothing to do with this. Stephen Hawking is “non-viable” as a grown-up adult, but he’s definitely a person.

            Note, however, that all of these pertain to the more narrow question of personhood, rather than legality of abortion. Abortion should always legal when no natural rights of a person rights are affected, but it can also be legal when the aborted fetus is a person. The reason is that, while there is a natural right to life, there is no natural right for other people to provide you with sustenance for said life – and that includes mother supporting a child that she carries. So a non-viable fetus that is a person can still be aborted if their mother does not with to sustain them.

            In practice this is most likely a non-issue, because with modern tech, viability happens before the brain is sufficiently developed for the fetus to become a person. However, it can matter when there’s no way for the fetus to be delivered normally without noticeable risk of killing or otherwise harming the mother – no-one has a natural right to put other people in jeopardy to protect their own life.

        • ‘Me, over a hundred million of people in this country alone…’ – Why does less than a third of the population get to make this decision and why don’t the other 2/3 get a say?

          ‘We can put an arbitrary line somewhere, but it has to be consistent with our treatment of non-human animals.’ – That’s a new one. So does that mean farmers can no longer have cows because that would constitute slavery? BTW, there’s nothing arbitrary about conception. It’s a specific point in which a full set of unique human DNA is created that defines every physical characteristic you will ever have.

          ‘…all you need then is to convince them that it is a baby, which can be done on looks alone, ignoring brain development etc.’ – There’s no significant change in brain development at birth.

          ‘…a crime to kill people who cannot feel the pain…’ – Exactly why 20 weeks makes lousy moral standard for person-hood.

          ‘For the same reason why we’re allowing killing animals that have a heart that can circulate blood.’ – There you go with the animals again. Is it legal to hunt and kill humans? No? Animals? Yes? Why? Because animals are not human (see Dred Scott). However, the claim that the fetus is a ‘part of the mother’s body – no different than her appendix’ is a false argument. Her appendix doesn’t have a beating heart that circulates it’s own blood (often not even the same blood type as the mother) through it’s own circulatory system.

          ‘This is really something for the scientists to figure out.’ – Justice Blackmun wrote in the Roe v Wade majority decision that ‘if the humanity of the fetus could be established’ this would void their decision. Note he said humanity, not person-hood. I’d argue that in the entire history of mankind there has never been born to a woman anything that was not human, therefore the humanity of the fetus is pretty well established. Scientifically speaking.

          ‘…there is no natural right for other people to provide you with sustenance for said life – and that includes mother supporting a child that she carries.’ – Childbirth is the natural process of reproduction. If you make a child that child has every right to be sustained and nourished by it’s parents until it is capable of self reliance. If a mother didn’t care for her 8 year old child she’d have the child taken away by the state and given to someone who would care for it. She might even be locked up in jail for failing to care for her child. Why would an 8 year old have a natural right to be provided for by his/her parents but not the fetus?

          As far as severe birth defects and the right of the mother to protect her own life over the life of the child I have no disagreement. I’m not opposed to euthanasia. If the child has no chance of achieving adulthood I don’t have a problem with aborting it. That might have to come down to a personal decision. And if the mother has no right to protect her own life over that of the fetus she carries than I really don’t have a right to self defense. There are times when the taking of a human life is justified. It’s just really rare when the other human is a fetus.

          • >> Why does less than a third of the population get to make this decision and why don’t the other 2/3 get a say?

            The split among population eligible to vote is usually pretty close to 50/50, so it’s not 1/3 vs 2/3. In any case, due process was followed in consideration of this subject, using the procedures that the existing political system provides. Are you complaining that there wasn’t a nation-wide referendum on this? Would you want one on RKBA as well?

            >> ‘We can put an arbitrary line somewhere, but it has to be consistent with our treatment of non-human animals.’ – That’s a new one. So does that mean farmers can no longer have cows because that would constitute slavery?

            If we decide that cows are persons, then yes. I don’t think we will. My point was that personhood status of fetus should be consistent with personhood status of non-human animals that possess the same intellect and capacity of cognition and self-awareness. So if, say, a 20-week-old fetus is no more self-aware than a cow, then you cannot meaningfully claim that it’s a person deserving protection while eating a steak.

            >> BTW, there’s nothing arbitrary about conception. It’s a specific point in which a full set of unique human DNA is created that defines every physical characteristic you will ever have.

            I didn’t say anything about conception. I said that personhood is a sliding scale, and for the purposes of definitively answering the question of “is X a person” (and therefore “is X entitled to natural rights that all persons have”), any determination that is based on a hard cut-off point will be arbitrary.

            I actually wish that we’d have a system in place where the applicability of different rights would correspond to different points on that scale. For example, great apes may not have a right to due process or free speech, but they sure as hell have a right to life and to self-defense.

            >> There’s no significant change in brain development at birth.

            Yep. I’ve never said that birth is a better cut-off point than any other.

            >> There you go with the animals again. Is it legal to hunt and kill humans? No? Animals? Yes? Why? Because animals are not human (see Dred Scott).

            This is tautology. Basically you’re saying that it’s legal because it was always legal – but that’s not really an explanation. What makes an animal different from a human?

            >> . However, the claim that the fetus is a ‘part of the mother’s body – no different than her appendix’ is a false argument.

            I never claimed that.

            >> Justice Blackmun wrote in the Roe v Wade majority decision that ‘if the humanity of the fetus could be established’ this would void their decision. Note he said humanity, not person-hood. I’d argue that in the entire history of mankind there has never been born to a woman anything that was not human, therefore the humanity of the fetus is pretty well established. Scientifically speaking.

            Sure, there’s no doubt about that. Anything that has a human DNA is human. But I don’t believe that humans have any innate rights by virtue of their DNA. This is an obvious slippery slope – if genetic markup is sufficient to grant or deny rights, why should it be the species boundary? especially given that such boundary is not actually precise? what would prevent us from denying rights to “subhumans” by some definition or the other, Nazi-style?.

            I believe that humans have innate rights by virtue of being persons – i.e. intelligent and self-aware. Therefore, humans that do not possess those qualities do not have such rights.

            So Justice Blackmun is wrong. Or rather, he may be right in a legal sense (existing laws are far from perfect on this matter, being heavily rooted in old religious concepts of soul and such), but wrong on the ethical and moral aspects, at least from the perspective of a materialistic atheist.

            >> Childbirth is the natural process of reproduction. If you make a child that child has every right to be sustained and nourished by it’s parents until it is capable of self reliance.

            Sex is not always voluntary, and even when it is, vast majority of it is not done for reproductive purposes. Unless there was specific intent to conceive, or gross negligence on behalf of the mother, there is no moral obligation here at the moment of conception. Now, failure to abort early despite being aware of one’s pregnancy and having the means to do so may be considered as accepting such an obligation after conception.

            >> If a mother didn’t care for her 8 year old child she’d have the child taken away by the state and given to someone who would care for it. She might even be locked up in jail for failing to care for her child.

            If she claimed control over a child without properly caring for it, yes. I’m not aware of any state that would charge the mother for surrendering a child to the care of someone else (or the state).

        • ‘What makes an animal different from a human?’ – I think I’ve found the root of your moral confusion.

          ‘…what would prevent us from denying rights to “subhumans” by some definition or the other, Nazi-style?’ – Like we’re doing to ‘sub-human’ fetuses?

          ‘Unless there was specific intent to conceive, or gross negligence on behalf of the mother…’ – If you accidentally take a ‘person’s’ life, say because of intoxication for example, you are held accountable for your gross negligence. I can’t see how creating a person you don’t intend to raise as anything but gross negligence, with the exception of rape. Using abortion as contraception makes you at least just as despicable as the ‘affluenza’ kid.

          • >> I think I’ve found the root of your moral confusion.

            Note that I didn’t say that animals aren’t different from humans. I’ve asked you to consider what makes them different. I notice that you haven’t answered my question.

            >> If you accidentally take a ‘person’s’ life, say because of intoxication for example, you are held accountable for your gross negligence.

            That’s why I specifically listed negligence (e.g. knowingly not using birth control). But if you do use birth control, conception can still happen. It’s not negligence then, and no responsibility can be attached involuntarily.

            >> Using abortion as contraception makes you at least just as despicable as the ‘affluenza’ kid.

            I don’t see anything controversial in the slightest in abortion as contraception for cases where fetus is clearly not a person. This includes any stage of gestation at which the brain is not developed or functioning. You’re welcome to disagree, but you still haven’t voiced any coherent reasoning for such disagreement (although based on how you sound, I suspect that reason is religious in nature).

          • While we’re at it, your desire to dodge the bullet on how natural rights pertain to humans vs other living beings reminds me of a Soviet joke from late 80s (when ethnic strife was on the rise).

            Someone asks a Georgian, “Are Georgians better than Armenians, in your opinion?”. He answers immediately, “Yes, of course!”. “Okay…. but in what way are Georgians better?”. “In the way of being Georgians!”.

        • ‘But if you do use birth control, conception can still happen.’ – And if you put your money down on a double O you might win. Or lose. Having sex and relying on contraception to prevent pregnancy is gambling. If you lose you have to pay the bookie. Only in this case you’re betting with your child’s life, not money.

          ‘…no responsibility can be attached involuntarily.’ – The only way a woman can be impregnated involuntarily is to be raped. And even when it comes to rape we don’t execute the children of rapists. But I’d have no issue with a woman’s decision to give up the child after birth. In a sense it’s the state’s fault for failing to protect the woman so the child can be the responsibility of the state. But 9 months of inconvenience is no reason to kill someone.

          ‘…for cases where fetus is clearly not a person.’ – The fetus is clearly not a person in your mind so you feel free to kill it. Jews weren’t persons in Hitler’s mind so he was free to kill them. To the rest of us it didn’t and doesn’t seem so innocent.

          ‘…I suspect that reason is religious in nature).’ – Morality has it’s roots in religion. Even atheists adhere to the vast majority of Judaeo-Christian morality. If you proscribe to no morality then the only reason to abstain from murder, rape, theft, etc. is out of fear of punishment. Those people usually spend most of their lives in prison.

          • >> The fetus is clearly not a person in your mind so you feel free to kill it. Jews weren’t persons in Hitler’s mind so he was free to kill them.

            Argumentum ad Hitlerium, really? And with a stretched analogy at that. I never said that definition of person is purely arbitrary, and anyone can set it to what they want, and that they would be free to act on those definitions. Yes, Jews weren’t persons to Hitler. But he didn’t have any rational basis for such a claim, only prejudice. So he was wrong, and he was not free to kill them.

            >> To the rest of us it didn’t and doesn’t seem so innocent.

            You don’t speak for “the rest of us”, not anymore so than I do. You and I only speak for ourselves. At best, we can reasonably guesstimate what people with similar convictions would say.

            >> Morality has it’s roots in religion. Even atheists adhere to the vast majority of Judaeo-Christian morality. If you proscribe to no morality than the only reason to abstain from murder, rape, theft, etc. is out of fear of punishment. Those people usually spend most of their lives in prison.

            I ascribe to morality, but my morality is not Judeo-Christian morality, and does not require God as a source of it. It also doesn’t operate with non-existent entities and concepts such as “sin” or “soul”, but rather with material concepts such as “harm” and “self-awareness”, that can be observed, measured, and compared. That the result of this process coincides in many cases with Judeo-Christian moral norms is immaterial – the process used to get there is radically different, as are the ethical axioms used as a starting point (as with any system based on logic, you cannot reason in vacuum, so some axioms are necessary to begin the process – but mine doesn’t involve God).

            Consequently, in cases like these, the results can actually be quite different, as you can plainly see.

        • ‘But he didn’t have any rational basis for such a claim, only prejudice.’ – I don’t see how you’re any different. You don’t believe that a fetus is a ‘person’ because he or she is not ‘self aware’, but you are not self aware when you are sleeping. Does that make it OK for someone to kill you if you’re sleeping? Or in a coma? Of course not. Well a healthy fetus is only temporarily not self aware, so you have a moral double standard.

          Which isn’t surprising. You think only your line morality is based on reason, but this is where you’re ignorant. Abraham was not an unreasonable man. Neither was Moses. The belief system implemented by Jesus Christ and his disciples was the most well thought out reasoned belief system ever devised. The inclusion of a higher being that we might be answerable to wasn’t unreasonable then or now. The truth is we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of a creator at this time so I’d say that while it’s not unreasonable to doubt the existence of a creator it’s downright foolish to discount the possibility.

          • >> I don’t see how you’re any different. You don’t believe that a fetus is a ‘person’ because he or she is not ‘self aware’, but you are not self aware when you are sleeping.

            What makes you believe so?

            In any case…

            >> Well a healthy fetus is only temporarily not self aware, so you have a moral double standard.

            It depends on your definition of “temporarily not self aware”. If you include any state that has a potential future state that includes self-awareness, then a non-impregnated egg is also “temporarily not self-aware”, as is semen. Hell, if you keep digging, any random configuration of atoms not at absolute zero is “temporarily not self-aware”, because there’s a probability, no matter how small, that it would randomly arrange itself into some self-aware configuration purely by chance, even if it takes 10^100 years to do so.

            Now, a meaningful definition of “temporarily” is when there is a transition back and forth. In other words, X was self-aware before, is currently not self-aware, but will revert to a self-aware state in the future. This includes all forms of sleep, reversible coma etc. It doesn’t include irreversible brain death. And, obviously, it doesn’t include anything that wasn’t aware to begin with. If it wasn’t aware at any point in the past, it’s not a person yet. If and when it first becomes aware, it will be a person, but not before. Therefore, destroying it is not killing a person, since a person doesn’t exist yet.

            Under your interpretation, logically extended, we should charge every murderer with a murder not only of their victim, but also of any children that said victim might have had in the future, and their children etc, even the ones not yet conceived. Every murder is genocide!

            >> Which isn’t surprising. You think only your line morality is based on reason, but this is where you’re ignorant. Abraham was not an unreasonable man. Neither was Moses. The belief system implemented by Jesus Christ and his disciples was the most well thought out reasoned belief system ever devised. The inclusion of a higher being that we might be answerable to wasn’t unreasonable then or now.

            I didn’t claim otherwise. I said that my morality is based solely on reason, and a bunch of base axioms that do not include supernatural entities or concepts, including God. I never claimed that any other ethical system does not incorporate reason. Since reason is innate to intelligence, any system that humans devise has reason to some extent.

            The difference is that religious morality incorporates a lot more fundamental axioms that are taken on faith and inherently not verifiable, such as the existence of God, and the notion that God is the source of absolute morality, and explicit enumeration of some of the moral norms purported to be stemming from God. So for example in conservative Christian morality, homosexuality is bad – not because there’s any rational reason for that, but because [they claim that] God has declared it to be bad; so it’s bad, period. OTOH, in case of abortion, the relevant axioms are that humans have souls, that they get souls at conception, and that killing anyone with a soul is murder (with self-defense exceptions and such). From these axioms, it reasonably follows that abortion is murder at any point from conception onward.

            On the other hand, Jews, for example, believe that human beings acquire souls with their first breath, and so abortion is not murder (but still consider it sinful on the grounds of Genesis 9:6 and/or Exodus 21:22–24, though which one applies when is a matter of a still-ongoing debate). This is an example of a similar but different religion starting with a different set of axioms and arriving at a slightly different conclusion. Various Christian denominations also differ on the aspect of when a human being acquires soul, and so take different perspectives on abortion. Most American Evangelicals, for example, didn’t believe that fetuses have souls until second half of 20th century, and so didn’t consider abortion to be murder (but usually considered it sinful nevertheless on the grounds that it explicitly contradicted “be fruitful and multiply” and other generic family-related commandments):

            http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/03/hobby_lobby_and_contraception_how_conservative_evangelicals_went_from_not.html

        • First, I don’t prescribe to your notion that humanity (or personhood) is dependent on being self aware. However there’s a huge difference between an unfertilized egg or a sperm cell and a fetus. Whereas the egg has the potential to become self aware, the fetus most certainly will become self aware unless it is killed.

          Not sure at what point evangelical Christians realized that fetuses have souls (or probably more accurately are souls) but I do know that in colonial times it was generally illegal to have an abortion after what they called the ‘quickening’ which was the baby’s first kick, because it was believed at that point that God had given life to the child. Of course now we know that there’s nothing special about the baby kicking but that was their reasoning. Just a side point, if you wanted an abortion back then you didn’t go to a doctor, you went to a witch.

          Sorry, I don’t read Slate.

          • >> First, I don’t prescribe to your notion that humanity (or personhood) is dependent on being self aware.

            I’m aware of that. I’m not inviting you to change your opinion – merely to understand that “abortion is murder” is simply not a meaningful argument when you’re addressing someone with a different religious foundation (or lack thereof) for their moral axioms; and acknowledge that your position is fundamentally rooted in some very specific doctrines of your religion, doctrines which not even all adherents of it share, much less others.

            >> However there’s a huge difference between an unfertilized egg or a sperm cell and a fetus. Whereas the egg has the potential to become self aware, the fetus most certainly will become self aware unless it is killed.

            Or suffers a miscarriage. Or never develops a brain because of some condition. Or… or …

            >> Not sure at what point evangelical Christians realized that fetuses have souls (or probably more accurately are souls) but I do know that in colonial times it was generally illegal to have an abortion after what they called the ‘quickening’ which was the baby’s first kick, because it was believed at that point that God had given life to the child. Of course now we know that there’s nothing special about the baby kicking but that was their reasoning.

            The treatment of abortion in Christianity, and the corresponding legal treatment of it in Christian countries, has varied widely throughout the ages, and not always in the same direction. Broadly speaking, it was most often considered both a sin and a crime, but also distinct from murder (and hence requiring a different punishment). Wikipedia actually has a pretty good, well-sourced article documenting the various major points and how they changed.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_abortion

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Christian_thought_on_abortion

            >> Sorry, I don’t read Slate.

            Well-researched information is valid regardless of the source. But for the sake of promoting awareness, here’s a write-up by a anti-abortion conservative evangelical on this issue that’s basically one big “mea culpa, we were wrong then, we’re right now”.

            http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/2013/01/22/roe-v-wade-anniversary-how-abortion-became-an-evangelical-issue/11238

            Really, though, this is no secret to those who have looked beyond the present politics and into the history of it. If you just google “evangelical abortion history”, you’ll immediately find several articles in prominent media outlets investigating the subject, rebuttals of those articles, rebuttals of rebuttals etc.

        • ‘…merely to understand that “abortion is murder” is simply not a meaningful argument when you’re addressing someone with a different religious foundation…’ – Just as ‘abortion is a choice’ is not a meaningful argument when you’re addressing someone with a different religious foundation. I’m well aware that some don’t consider it murder, but I highly doubt they appreciate my conviction that it is.

          ‘Or suffers a miscarriage. Or never develops a brain because of some condition. Or… or …’ – I said HEALTHY fetus. For severely deformed fetuses please refer to my comments on euthanasia.

          I’m also not an evangelical Christian, so I can’t speak for them.

          • >> – Just as ‘abortion is a choice’ is not a meaningful argument when you’re addressing someone with a different religious foundation.

            I think that it is a choice is a meaningful argument in any religion that recognizes free will 🙂 It’s a question of whether it’s a moral choice or not.

            >> ‘Or suffers a miscarriage. Or never develops a brain because of some condition. Or… or …’ – I said HEALTHY fetus. For severely deformed fetuses please refer to my comments on euthanasia.

            Even a healthy fetus won’t necessarily develop into a person – it needs its mother to provide it with nutrients and protective environment and so on. If you remove the fetus from the womb while intact (therefore not killing it), and leave it, it will die shortly after. That, to me, is clear evidence that fetus does not naturally develop into a person by itself.

            Even without removing, if the mother starves herself, for example, she can induce miscarriage. Now that I think about it, I actually wonder if it would qualify as murder in your book? I mean, it doesn’t involve any action per se – refusing to take food is rather a lack of action. In principle, it is no different from e.g. not jumping into water to save a drowning man, despite being aware of them and being capable of saving them – we generally don’t consider that to be murder, and most jurisdictions wouldn’t even treat it as a crime, even though most people would consider it immoral.

  20. Party of Pro-Death? Okay, why not? All that FEMA infrastructure? You know, the trains, the detention centers, the hundreds of thousands of four person coffins? That’s probably planned to be used against gun-owners, veterans, militia, libertarians, christians, and white conservatives in general? I say we pull an Augusto Pinochet and use it all on the lefty rabbit people.

    The left wing only exists to destroy. That’s it, that’s all they do. They live off stolen money handed to them from the government, they push degeneracy after degeneracy – when they get one socially accepted and legalized they just move on to another one. They don’t want us disarmed to make the place safer. They want us disarmed SO THAT WE CAN DIE TOO. They are importing third world people to vote for the welfare that will come along with the gun control, and cheering as they bring n their third world rape culture and theocratic system with them. I’m tired of pretending these people have anything good in their intent. They are the enemy of everything good so I say again I’m comfortable with the Pro-Death label. Specifically theirs.

    • “The left wing only exists to destroy. That’s it, that’s all they do.”

      It’s far more nuanced than that.

      The left exists to spread misery equally among all.

      • No, they say they want to spread misery equally, but in reality, they always grant exceptions for party officials.

  22. Notice they left Trump off the front cover. If Trump were featured as a “liar”, the NYDN would be out of business in about 5 minutes.

    Whether Trump is pro-2A or not, he has stated his support of the gun-rights movement recently, and any lefty journo would consider him fair game.

    NYDN omitting him shows just how disingenuous they are. They know Trump wields a lot of power in NYC and they fully well know not to mess with him.

  23. “Full retard?” Are you kidding me? Better check your micro-aggressions bro, PC Principal is gonna pull you over.

    • “Holy c*ap! The powerball is at 450 million?”

      Temper that thought with the reality of who will probably win it.

      Years back when Lotto first came to Florida, a TV crew visited one of the early million dollar winners.

      Her daily driver car was a white Lambo Countach. The woman weighed an easy 300 lbs and and lived in a trailer that she remodeled by putting an addition on it and adding a swimming pool.

      A class act…

      • I saw her on the boob tube! The reporter pointed out that she sold the Lambo and bought a Vette. My point was to highlight the only thing that was truly news worthy printed in that rag. The rest of paper was a waste of a perfectly good tree.

  25. Is it not time to consider some common sense federal guidelines on the press? Headlines like these are causing stress and ultimately premature deaths. I propose press publications apply for a license through the county sheriff after submitting to a psychological profiling exam to determine if they can distinguish truth from lies. They would be restricted to only reporting on topics from a list issued by the government.

    The majority of Americans agree with me.

  30. To quote Dan Zimmerman: “…pathetic, ineffectual name-calling.”

    Careful, Dan. TTAG tries to pass itself off as news/resource as well… I’m sure NYDN readers know what they’re taking in as well as TTAG readers do

    • Exactly Matt,
      It’s the hypocrisy that burns to the forefront. Speak and write intelligently and your arguments and positions have more gravatas. Seems like the writer is dumbing down to the crowd.

      • Lighten up retards…I mean, Francis.

        And before you attempt to make yourself sound smart, learn how to spell gravitas. You just told us a better written story would have more neckties…in Portugese.

        • If you don’t recognize that Mr. Zimmerman is making a complete ass of himself by upping the hyperbolic ante you need to have your head examined.

          I swear, some of the slack-jaws around here get so wound up with being angry at something that they can’t see things right in front of their faces sometimes.

  31. I’m no Neo-Nazi, white supremist, anti-Semite, but I have to ask, what is the deal with all these freedom hating Jews?
    Between a moderate Muslim or a leftist Jew, I have to go with the Muslim. Got no use for either one but damn! Those Jews are a real pain in the ass!

Comments are closed.