Sperm-egg
Pro-life isn’t just from fertilization to birth. Life is a continuum that streams from generation to generation.

I find it astonishing that some of our biggest “pro-life” movers and shakers in the community were down at McCoart Building yesterday ready to hop all over the Board of County Supervisors for allowing refugee children to live at Joe Gibb’s private facility, Youth For Tomorrow.

Many “pro-lifers” who feel quite comfortable with legislation that would force a woman to give birth even in extreme cases of rape, incest and fetal anomaly, have no compunction about telling the “illegals” to go back where they came from, even if they are 5, 8 or 11 years old. These same people want to deny these children refuge, even on a temporary basis.

These people simply aren’t pro-life–not by my standards. Perhaps my standards are just a little too high for some of the movers and shakers. From here on out, if I heard you calling out children who are here, alive and kicking, and telling them to go home, I will be calling bullshit on you, regardless of who you are.

Sort of makes you wonder who the real pro-lifers are. Perhaps the very name pro-life has been high-jacked by many who are very short sighted.

80 Thoughts to “Pro-Life: It’s not just fertilization to birth”

  1. Cargosquid

    I’m sorry…..when did having people go back home become punishment? When did demanding accountability of politicians and foreign governments become hateful?

    Pro-life? Really? But…because they are poor and apparently no one wants them…perhaps their mothers should have sought family planning. Like you, yourself, have advocated.

    And Sanger would have been at the forefront of promoting easy access to abortion to prevent them from populating the US.

    So don’t get on your high horse and think that your attitude is so superior to others.

  2. ed myers

    if it is true that sending them back is a sentence of death, then the pro-life position has to be to keep them here until the violence in central America has been fixed.

  3. @Cargosquid

    Refugees don’t leave because they feel safe and comfortable. Historically speaking, parents don’t separate from their children when times are safe and secure and everyone has a full belly.

    As for you comment about their mothers seeking family planning…if it weren’t so offensive I would laugh. Just how available is safe, reliable contraception in third world countries? NOT!!!

    Let’s just tell them they shouldn’t have sex since we are going all male chauvinist on them.

    Sanger? Too funny. You obviously don’t know anything about Margaret Sanger. She was opposed to abortion because of the health risks the procedure presented to women in the early part of the 20th century. She has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion.

    Actually, I intend on staying on my high horse as long as I hear children called vermin and diseased by people who claim to be pro life. I have ears all over PW County.

  4. @ed myers
    I think we need to offer refuge to children until their situation can be determined. If their lives and safety are in danger, then we need to propose solutions. There are plenty of people who can foster a homeless child. It might be that we have to play hard-ball with the countries that place so little value on the lives of children. It might be that the Church has to step in and hold various people accountable.

    I don’t have solutions. I just know that the Get OUT message is simply against every major religious value I have ever known.

  5. Wolve

    7 July report from the USG’s El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) says that violence in the Central American countries concerned is not the prime cause for the current mass migration. It is, rather, a combination of traditional migration causes and misperceptions created by current US immigration policies. EPIC is a joint border intelligence entity with participation by almost all our intelligence and security agencies.

    1. The immigration policy hasn’t changed in years. Why is it suddenly so confusing?

      The policies have been pretty much the same for the past 12 years.

  6. Wolve

    If you arrived at Ellis Island or other ports of entry with certain forbidden diseases detected by our port of entry medical inspectors, you could be and often were sent back to your country of origin. They even gave tests for mental capacity. Those decisions could be heartbreaking. If little Hendrikus Jr was the only one in the family who was not qualified medically for entry, the family had to make a decision: Do all of us return to the home country or do we just send little Hendrikus back by himself?

    1. Elena has a fabulous family story about that very situation, Wolve. Her aunt was smuggled in from the old country in a suitcase. She was ill.

  7. Second Alamo

    It’s 2007 all over again! Rather than wasting everyones time lets just repost all the comments from 2007. That should about cover it. I suspect there’ll be new signs near the train station shortly also. Enjoy!

    1. Its a little bit different situation.

      Maybe I will put up a big ass sign. Think my neighbors will like it?

  8. Wolve

    Moon-howler :The immigration policy hasn’t changed in years. Why is it suddenly so confusing?
    The policies have been pretty much the same for the past 12 years.

    The recent revival of our loud national debates over “amnesty” — however either side in those debates may interpret the concept. I have a feeling that a goodly part of this migration may be driven by parents or a parent already in the US illegally and seizing upon the current atmosphere to get their kids into the country. Get in here while the going looks good. Seems to be working, too.

  9. Cargosquid

    @Wolve
    Don’t forget Obama’s statement of not deporting children that meet certain requirements that he decided were good enough for them to stay here. That got HUGE publicity.

    1. From http://www.ice.gov:

      July 15, 2014

      Washington, DC

      Central American adults with children returned to country of origin

      Central American adults with children returned to country of origin

      On July 14, a group of adults with children who recently crossed the border were returned to Central America. As President Obama, the Vice President, and Secretary Johnson have said, our border is not open to illegal migration and we will send recent illegal migrants back. We expect additional migrants will be returned to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador in the coming days and weeks, based on the results of removal proceedings or expedited removal. These returns are a result of the President’s direction to surge resources such as immigration judges and asylum officers to process these cases more quickly.

      Don’t you effen hate it when facts obscure propaganda?

  10. Cargosquid

    @Moon-howler
    “She was opposed to abortion”
    Of course, that’s why she famous advocated for it among minorities. And invented Planned Parenthood.

    1. Perhaps you should read her autobiography. She isn’t famous for advancing abortion among minorities except by ill-informed people who want to discredit her. Shall we count them?

      She didn’t “invent” Planned Parenthood. She founded the original organization that promoted birth control for women to keep them from repeated pregnancy after pregnancy.

      I repeat, she was opposed to abortion because of the toll it took on women’s lives during the turn of the century. She was all about prevention and took great personal risk to publish information so that women could be informed. (violation of the Comstock Act)

      Don’t take my word for it. Read her autobiography. She did advocate for birth control among minorities because she felt that having too many children kept minority women in the cycle of generational poverty.

      You are a history major. Go to the source instead of reading untrue garbage about her.

  11. Kelly_3406

    As I said in another thread, there have been no hurricanes, no earthquakes, no death squads, no famines, no fascist dictatorships. …. in short, NO CRISIS, except that associated with the dangerous journey to our border. In all the pictures that I have seen, there has been no evidence of starvation (distended bellies, etc).

    Until I see some plausible evidence of a crisis, I will continue to oppose this mass migration. We already have enough poverty-stricken children in the U.S. without importing more. There is a big difference between snuffing out a life with an abortion and controlling the number of immigrants allowed to enter the U.S.

    The issue with a private organization accepting illegal aliens is that it drives up costs for the county. The schools will have to make room for them and the county will have to provide services, especially medical services, if the reports of various diseases transmitted into the US are true. That’s why you see traditionally liberal states denying refuge to these illegal aliens (e.g. Maryland, Connecticut).

    Poverty by itself cannot be the determining factor for entry into our country. There are many, many more poverty-stricken children across the world than the U.S. could ever accept. In fact, there are probably more children in poverty than the sum total of the entire U.S. population.

    1. @Kelly

      Actually there have been earthquakes and hurricanes in the region. Well, the hurricanes were last year. Does that count?

      I think we all (well most of us) oppose mass immigration and certainly mass immigration of unaccompanied minors. Can we oppose it and yet treat it in a humanitarian way?

      YFT has its own educational facilities out there. Will they put kids in public schools? I don’t know how many kids are out there. If they do, then they should pay a per pupil rate the same as we pay them for educating a kid. Where they get the money is not my problem. They can get money from private donations or from the Feds who they have contracted with.

      I agree. Poverty cannot be a sole factor. That is the reason there are detention hearings–to determine if the child should be kept in the United States because of compelling humanitarian reasons. We simply do not know at this point.

      So I ask you–do we simply take children to the border and set them on the other side and say GO? How do YOU want to handle it? It makes for great sound bite but I seriously don’t think you want to do what I just suggested. You also don’t want to just tell them to stay on the other side. There is a moral responsibility in there somewhere…same as if you saw an unaccompanied child wandering around your neighborhood. You would take it inside and call the police.

      As for abortion being the same as refusing to admit undocumented unaccompanied kids…I don’t think I ever said they were the same. I have to ask…at what point do you consider “snuffing out a life?” A fertilized egg in petri dish? Is washing that down the sink the same as shooting a 21 year old in the face? To me, it really isn’t even close. I guess to others, no difference.

      Having said that, you missed my point. There are people out there protesting all day long who are hollering and yelling about sending those illegal kids back before they have a deportation hearing. To me if you are that seriously pro-life, you really need to be thinking about life past birth. You can’t go all out for non-sentient beings and then ignore the plight of real live children trying to escape violence and other life threatening situations.

  12. Second Alamo

    How long before all those kids parents show up at our doorstep? So many here cried about separating families through deportation, and now the families are doing it themselves by sending just their kids. So where’s the outrage over that? Is not collecting someones children, and then taking them to other places unknown to the parents without the parent’s permission bordering on kidnapping? How is that any different? Returning lost children to their parents is the ultimate focus when it occurs, but suddenly that’s no longer the case. Very strange situation.

  13. Starryflights

    Arizona politician, protesters mistake YMCA campers for immigrants

    A would-be congressman joined protesters in Oracle, Ariz., to object to housing some Central American immigrant children at a local academy. But when all was said and done, he might have been better off staying home.

    Protesters on both sides of the issue came to this town about 40 miles northeast of Tucson on Tuesday after Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu warned that Sycamore Canyon Academy would be sheltering some unaccompanied minors who have crossed the Southwestern border illegally.

    http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-nn-na-immigration-oracle-protest-kwasman-20140715-story.html

    HahahahahahahA! Dumb ass!

  14. Starryflights

    And God bless Joe Gibbs’ Youth for Tomorrow foundation for the good work they do.

  15. Second Alamo

    I’m waiting for the parents to show up and, with the help of the ACLU, sue the government for taking their kids without their permission. They’ll be laughing all the way to the bank at those who were only doing the “right thing”. Say it can’t happen.

  16. Starry flights

    What would you do, Second Alamo?

  17. blue

    Well, I think the United States has a moral obligation to take any and all children in distress – no limits. Why would you limit the next dreamer generation of Americans to south americans – do you think they have any more culteral ties to the US than the 8 year old from say the Congo, Yeman, the Crimea, Iraq, Thailand, India or better yet – Gaza. If violence at home is the new immigration criterian – these places have a better argument for amnesty. Stop making excuses, money is not the problem, we can just borrow more from China and end this racist hate. Lets get some private foundations to help with the overseas transport so that children in real distress can get here and not be hidden away from authorities on the top of a train through Mexico.

    Democrats need to quit calling everyone names and step up for a solution. The Federal Gov is already auctioning these kids off – calling it placement into foster care – so step up and take two or three or shut the ^*!# – up.

    1. Blue, the point is, the kids were at our border and by law, they had to be taken in and processed, and given a detention hearing. What would you do with them in the meantime? Keep them in cages? We need judges to push the process through and we need places to house kids.

      I actually think some of those slinging vitriol out need to STFU and take a few. I especially feel those who are demonstrating at clinics need to take at least one child to foster. They seem to have a lot of time on their hands.

      I have already volunteered.

  18. Steve Thomas

    ‘Sanger? Too funny. You obviously don’t know anything about Margaret Sanger. She was opposed to abortion because of the health risks the procedure presented to women in the early part of the 20th century. She has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion.”

    “they are…human weeds,’ ‘reckless breeders,’ ’spawning… human beings who never should have been born.” – Margaret Sanger (views on Minorites)

    “”Couples should be required to submit applications to have a child…”
    Margaret Sanger – Birth Control Review, April 1932

    “On sterilization & racial purification: Margaret Sanger believed for the purpose of racial “purification,” couples should be rewarded who chose sterilization. Birth Control in America, The Career of Margaret Sanger, by David Kennedy, p. 117, quoting a 1923 Sanger speech.”

    “We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. And the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” Margaret Sanger, letter written to Dr. Clarence Gamble, co-developer of “The Negro Project”

    “Organized charity itself is the symptom of a malignant social disease. Those vast, complex, interrelated organizations aiming to control and to diminish the spread of misery and destitution and all the menacing evils that spring out of this sinisterly fertile soil, are the surest sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding and perpetuating constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents and dependents. It [charity] encourages the healthier and more normal sections of the world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead weight of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant. The most serious charge that can be brought against modern “benevolence” is that is encourages the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents and dependents. These are the most dangerous elements in the world community, the most devastating curse on human progress and expression.” -Margaret Sanger, The Birth Control Review, 1926

    “I note that you doubt it worthwhile to employ a full-time Negro physician. It seems to me from my experience … that, while the colored Negroes have great respect for white doctors, they can get closer to their own members and more or less lay their cards on the table, which means their ignorance, superstitions and doubts. They do not do this with white people and if we can train the Negro doctor at the clinic, he can go among them with enthusiasm and … knowledge, which … will have far-reaching results among the colored people.” Margaret Sanger to Dr. Clarence Gamble, Memorandum regarding the operation of an illegal abortion clinics as part of the Negro Project, 1939.

    These are the words of Margaret Sanger. Sounds to be like Margaret Sanger thought minorities inferior, whose populations needed to be controlled by contraception, sterilization, and abortion, and if they resisted, they should be manipulated by quislings from within their racial community. Sounds to me like she despised “benevolence” and “charity”. I think Cargo is spot-on in that Margaret Sanger would want the same applied to the Latino community.

    1. Steve, you know the importance of placing people in their historical context. You could do a real number on Thomas Jefferson if you take him out of context. Read her autobiography. You will find out how she really felt. You are also aware that blacks and whites didn’t mix in those days. She was trying to bridge gaps and build trust. An no, she didn’t come from the upper class.

      Just out of curiosity, how many people in leadership roles, or in non leadership roles believed in equality around the turn of the century, up into depression?

      Are we going to single out Margaret Sanger to vilify? How about Eleanor Roosevelt and other people who were heroes amongst minorities. To funny. By todays standards that would be painted with the scarlet R.

      Above all, what difference does Margaret Sanger make? I expect I have pissed a lot of people off with my discussion of people really caring about life. Good. Maybe there are people who need to think about it. Life is a continuum. We can’t just concern ourselves with pregnancy and then throw up our hands when kids are born.

      Right now there is a humanitarian crisis at our borders and in our country. It doesn’t matter what the reasons are or if they are even valid reasons for leaving home. That is irrelevant. The fact is, there are unaccompanied kids who need food, shelter, and some compassion. There are mothers with young children who are stranded here. Rightly or wrongly. Doesn’t matter. We need to show compassion for these people and help get their situation resolved.

      Some of the people I know who were down at McCoart to “throw” the bums out have been very vocal about their pro-life stance. Perhaps they need to think about what that really means in terms of being a decent human being to their fellow man(kind).

    2. And yes, I believe I have put my money where my mouth is on more than one occasion. I am doing so now, as a matter of fact.

  19. Steve Thomas

    Moon,

    You should know the danger of taking one’s position on a particular issue, and then using that as a broad brush to ascribe motive to everything else they do. In doing so, you place them in an improper context…

    To whit; using a person’s pro-life position to manufacture some hypocrisy with regards to this issue with unaccompanied illegal-alien minors. Now, I agree that this is a humanitarian crisis, and once these minors are in the custody of the US Government, the custodian has a legal and moral obligation to provide food, shelter, and medical care. We do this for people in the correctional system, or under some other form of government control. I have no issues with charitable organizations, faith-based or otherwise stepping up to help. We do this during natural disasters, while waiting for FEMA to get it together.

    I don’t have any issue with people wanting answers either. This is a problem of the Federal Governments making, and this includes the President. When he starts making statements about taking executive action to force his vision of immigration reform, and actually USING executive action to defer deportations, two things happen: First: those outside of our country get the impression that if they can get here before the President uses his “Pen and Phone”, they will get “permiso”. Second, those in this country who oppose this president’s policies get mobilized to stop this from happening. If their tax dollars are going to be used to feed and care for these minors, then they have a right to ask questions. Their elected officials are entitled to know whether or not the Federal government will follow its oft-used playbook of dumping its problems on state and local governments.

    And there are those like me who see these minors as pawns in this Presidents game to sow as much division and dissention within the socio-economic fabric of the United States, to overwhelm the system until it collapses, manufacturing a true crisis, so he can point to it and say “this is why we need immigration reform, and why I need to use executive authority to accomplish my vision for this country”. I have read his books (well, those he’s claimed to have written), and watched his actions on this and so many other issues. I think I have him placed in the proper context of “means, motive, and opportunity”.

  20. Steve Thomas

    “She was trying to bridge gaps and build trust.”

    or she was recruiting quislings.

    “Steve, you know the importance of placing people in their historical context.”

    I am placing her right where she deserves to be. Same context as a failed Austrian painter who had some strongly held views regarding races, population control, etc., and subscribed to the same junk science as Margaret Sanger: Eugenics. Funny how some people today hold that failed Austrian painter in high regard, and they are correctly labeled as “racists”, but those who hold Sanger in high regard escape this criticism. What is so ironic is many of this latter group use the charge of “racism” as a means to attack those who oppose their position, and even go so far as to try to cast those who hold opposing views on “Life” based religious grounds as spiritual descendants of the former.

    1. Oh the Hitler thing. There it is. I figured that was lurking right beneath the surface. He didn’t share Sangers beliefs.

      What I find ironic is that in order to justify some of the hate and venom being tossed about, someone would liken me to Hitler, regardless of how veiled.

      I do have high regard for the accomplishments of Margaret Sanger, without apology. I find some of her ideas to be unacceptable nowadays but I find that about many historical figures I hold in high esteem: Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Harry Truman, Teddy Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Robert E. Lee to name a few.

      Do you not agree that people who label themselves pro life ought to be concerned with life after birth? Are people throw-aways after birth? At what age to they become dispensable? 8? 12? 16? I tend to have more concern over the sentient than the non-sentient. Again, without apology. I am going to have more concern over a 10 year old from Honduras than I am over a fertilized egg in a petri dish. Again, without apology.

      Perhaps you need to spend a little less time on military history and more on social history. Seriously, read her autobiography and then we can continue this discussion. I hope you realize that most educated people of the time held similar views. Sanger was jailed because she wrote about contraception and ways to prevent pregnancy. I honestly don’t see what Sanger or any other women leaders have to do with the topic. Specifics about historical individuals really have nothing to do with this thread and it’s a deflection off the real topic.

      Apparently I have touched a nerve with many–a nerve that they don’t chose to deal with.

  21. Starry flights

    Conservatives are quick to criticize but offer no solutions.

  22. Steve Thomas

    “Do you not agree that people who label themselves pro life ought to be concerned with life after birth?”

    Yes. As I said, I have no issues with churches, other faith-based organizations, etc. showing these people compassion. My church operates a compassion ministry in Georgetown South. They go there monthly to provide food, clothing, ESL classes, stewardship classes, and attend to other material and spiritual needs. My tithes go to support this. I, along with other members of my church have provided, prepared and served meals at SERVE and performed maintenance. Compassion is not an ideological thing, and I too have and do put my money where my mouth is.

    Immigration policy is. Welfare reform is. Border security is. Just because you want secure borders, deportations of those who violate our laws, including entering the country illegally, and for welfare to be reserved for those who truly need it, doesn’t mean you lack compassion.

  23. Steve Thomas

    “Oh the Hitler thing. There it is. I figured that was lurking right beneath the surface. He didn’t share Sangers beliefs.”

    Which ones? The ones where members of certain races are inferior and their populations limited? They held the same beliefs. They just had different motives and methods. Eugenics was widely subscribed to, and this included Sanger and Hitler.

  24. Steve Thomas

    “What I find ironic is that in order to justify some of the hate and venom being tossed about, someone would liken me to Hitler, regardless of how veiled.”

    Just pointing out the hypocrisy of your argument: Sanger was a product of the times, and her views need to be placed in “historical context”, motives examined not through her well-documented beliefs, but rather, through the prism of today’s views on “reproductive rights” or the “war on woman” (canard).

    You made the argument that those who spoke at the BOCS who are pro-life are being hypocrites, because these illegal alien minors are poor children from poor countries and if you are “pro-life” you can’t be anti-illegal-immigration and have an intellectually honest position (or did I misread your opening premise?). Cargo made the counter argument that Margaret Sanger (Paragon of the pro-choice movement) would have advocated their limiting their populations. You dismissed his argument as irrelevant, and furthermore, dismissed his knowledge of Sanger.

    The historical record supports his argument. Facts are sticky things. Ignoring what motivated Sanger is your choice, or minimizing her beliefs as “just how people thought back then” doesn’t change the fact that she had them, and they motivated her actions. It doesn’t change the fact that Planned Parenthood was born of the idea that “inferior populations” need to be limited by medical means, whether those means be pre or post-fertilization.

    Mussolini made the trains run on time. Probably a boon to commuters in Rome. Sucked for those Italian Jews riding trains to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

  25. Steve Thomas

    “Perhaps you need to spend a little less time on military history and more on social history. Seriously, read her autobiography and then we can continue this discussion.”

    I am a student of all history, and I value primary sources above all else when interpreting history. I’ll read an auto-biography, but value the other primary sources more…dairies, private letters, speeches, etc. Sangers was published in 1938…which was a number of years before Roe. I have provides quotes from private correspondence between Sanger and one of her Negro Project colleagues, Dr. Gamble that would indicate she was in favor of abortions as well as sterilization. So which source should we grant greater credence? Her autobiography, intended to sway people to her point of view, or the private correspondence between her and a fellow-traveler?

  26. Elena

    I cannot fathom how incredibly ridiculous comparing contraception to mass murder sounds. Really, advocating the ability of poor women, especially, to control their ability to care for the children is the same as gassing them and burning their bodies? Advocating women control their reproduction in order to SAVE their lives is the same as performing hideous experiments on twins, torturing them and killing them in the end? Really, you that is a valid comparison?

    I am quite confident my grandmother’s cousin Izzy, in his 90’s now, an Auschwitz survivor, would be horrified by your comparison Steve.

    You continue to obfuscate the point Moon is making. We believe, that in order to claim you are pro life because you care about children, is to care about children, no matter what their heritage. This has nothing to do with immigration, but everything to do with how you treat your fellow human being when they are in your midst. Period.

    Also, Moon was referring to those hanging around the McCourt building, not necessarily those you spoke, although they could be included in her reference.

  27. Censored bybvbl

    OMG. A lecture on history from someone, who as a representative of Help Save Manasass, was almost giddy while introducing the local Republican pols to the tune of Wagner.

  28. Steve Thomas

    Censored bybvbl :OMG. A lecture on history from someone, who as a representative of Help Save Manasass, was almost giddy while introducing the local Republican pols to the tune of Wagner.

    So I like Wagner. I like Orff. I like Beethoven. It’s classical music. What’s your point? Charles Manson was a fan of the Beetles. Does that make every person who owns a copy of Abby Road a murderous cult leader?

  29. @Steve Thomas
    Finally we agree. From a legal point of view, I think it is perfectly ok to want the border secured. What I don’t think is ok is to wage war on children. I don’t think it is ok to call kids vermin or try to run them off from YFT. I think the children ought to be left alone until their deportation hearing. Maybe they will stay after that, maybe they will go. It all depends on their circumstances.

    I would have a difficult time sending a kid back when there was strong indication that the child would probably be killed. I don’t think we can look at a humanitarian crisis and compare it to those who just want higher wages.

    For the record, I did not say specifically people who spoke to the BOCS.

    Also I will be glad to discuss Sanger with you, just not in relation to these kids from Central America. There is no relationship.

  30. @Elena

    I would also add the post birth requirement. I don’t think we stop caring once kids are born, especially when they are too you ng to care for themselves.

  31. Censored bybvbl

    @Steve Thomas

    You apparently envisioned the helicopter scene from “Apocalypse Now”. Wagner was a controversial subject in his time given his anti-Semitic writings. Why do you give him a pass and not Sanger. Did you not think of the history when you decided to play “Ride of the Valekyries”?

    All things in context after all.

  32. Steve Thomas

    Moon-howler :@Steve Thomas Finally we agree. From a legal point of view, I think it is perfectly ok to want the border secured. What I don’t think is ok is to wage war on children. I don’t think it is ok to call kids vermin or try to run them off from YFT. I think the children ought to be left alone until their deportation hearing. Maybe they will stay after that, maybe they will go. It all depends on their circumstances.

    Nor did I ever say that these kids shouldn’t be housed/detained at YFT. I happen to think that organizations that are set-up and structured to handle kids in distress are much better suited than some converted warehouse or shuttered college. It takes more than a “place to park them”, and the law is the law.

    I would have a difficult time sending a kid back when there was strong indication that the child would probably be killed. I don’t think we can look at a humanitarian crisis and compare it to those who just want higher wages.

    Is there such a “strong indication”? Are they members of some persecuted group? I don’t think so. These aren’t “refugees” or “political asylum seekers”.

    For the record, I did not say specifically people who spoke to the BOCS.

    For the record, that is what you implied, or did I read this incorrectly?: “I find it astonishing that some of our biggest “pro-life” movers and shakers in the community were down at McCoart Building yesterday ready to hop all over the Board of County Supervisors for allowing refugee children to live at Joe Gibb’s private facility, Youth For Tomorrow.”

    Also I will be glad to discuss Sanger with you, just not in relation to these kids from Central America. There is no relationship.

    When your premise is pro-life/anti-immigrant = Hypocrite, you have made the relationship, and the counter argument is pro-choice/pro-Sanger= Hypocrite.

  33. Steve Thomas

    Censored bybvbl :@Steve Thomas
    You apparently envisioned the helicopter scene from “Apocalypse Now”. Wagner was a controversial subject in his time given his anti-Semitic writings. Why do you give him a pass and not Sanger. Did you not think of the history when you decided to play “Ride of the Valekyries”?
    All things in context after all.

    Yes, I did think of the scene from “apocalypse now” and had the footage not been edited, you’d have also seen that it transitioned into the theme from the movie Patton.

    In regards to Wagner, I am aware that he was anti-Semitic. I am aware that he had lots of German fans, one of them was Hitler. However, he didn’t devote his lifetime to the pursuit of exterminating “the Negro population”, and I don’t hold Wagner up as someone who advanced the cause of anything (just really powerful classical music), nor have I ever defended his views. I think Tom Cruise is a terrific actor, but wouldn’t hold him up as an example of religious devotion to be emulated either. So, if you find playing Wagner offensive, why don’t you stage a protest at the NSO when his music is next featured?

  34. Steve Thomas

    @Elena
    “You continue to obfuscate the point Moon is making. We believe, that in order to claim you are pro life because you care about children, is to care about children, no matter what their heritage. This has nothing to do with immigration, but everything to do with how you treat your fellow human being when they are in your midst. Period.’

    I am not obfuscating anything. You defined the argument, pro-life/anti-illegal=hypocrite. I am simply pointing out the fundamental flaw in your argument, when held up to the converse argument. I am doing so by pointing out what Margaret Sanger said and wrote regarding minorities, poor people, children of poor minorities, and charity. I also pointed out that she was a racist, believed in eugenics, and that those she viewed as inferior should not reproduce. Adolf Hitler held these views as well. These are facts Elena.

    “Advocating women control their reproduction in order to SAVE their lives is the same as performing hideous experiments on twins, torturing them and killing them in the end? Really, you that is a valid comparison?

    Now who is REALLY obfuscating here, Elena? Sanger wasn’t interested in saving women. She was interested in eliminating the population of those she believed undesirable, inferior, or as she put it “defectives, delinquents, dependents”, by limiting reproduction. Sorry to shatter your image of Saint Margaret…her heart was just as black as was Hitler’s:

    ““Organized charity itself is the symptom of a malignant social disease. Those vast, complex, interrelated organizations aiming to control and to diminish the spread of misery and destitution and all the menacing evils that spring out of this sinisterly fertile soil, are the surest sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding and perpetuating constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents and dependents. It [charity] encourages the healthier and more normal sections of the world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead weight of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant. The most serious charge that can be brought against modern “benevolence” is that is encourages the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents and dependents. These are the most dangerous elements in the world community, the most devastating curse on human progress and expression.” -Margaret Sanger, The Birth Control Review, 1926”

    “Nature is cruel; therefore we are also entitled to be cruel. When I send the flower of German youth into the steel hail of the war without feeling the slightest regret over the precious German blood that is being spilled, should I also not have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiply like vermin.” Adolf Hitler

  35. Censored bybvbl

    @Steve Thomas

    Wagner was a poor choice of music to be used for an organization such as Help Save Manassas. It was an organization thought by many in the community to be xenophobic, nativist, bigoted, hysterical. It targeted “others”. Its leaders should have run like hell from any reference to Wagner. Someone should have caught that mistake before it happened. Film makers and watchers have their eyes out for just such an error. It made for a gotcha moment.

  36. Elena

    Once again, to compare Sanger to Hitler is silly Steve, so you just keep trying and deflect from the issue at hand which you have yet to discuss.

    Anchor baby was also seen by many in the pro life community as offensive, to dehumanize an innocent child, and yet, anti immigration rhetoric LOVED that terminology. All Moon, Censored, and I are suggesting is that there be some consistency. I look forward to hearing you actually comment on the topic of protecting innocent children ex utero.

  37. Elena

    SA,
    In a weird way…Welcome back, hope all is well with you 🙂

  38. Elena

    http://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/8013/9611/6937/Opposition_Claims_About_Margaret_Sanger.pdf

    While we can have different views on Sanger and her ultimate goals Steve, even if the facts bear out you are probably incorrect, there is NO debating the horror that Hitler reaped upon the world. Your comparison continues to be outrageous. While you may not treasure the ability to control when you will and will not have a baby, I am very thankful for the right to have dominion over my body.

  39. Elena

    Oh, and Steve, there are soooo many fabricated statements I doubt what you are reading is accurate.

  40. Elena

    The legacy of planned parenthood is of advocacy for women and their ability to control their reproductive health, legacy of Hitler is vile and will go down in history as the one of the most heinous mass murderers.

  41. steve thomas

    Elena, I have provided actual quotes from Sanger, and you post a link from planned parenthood and then say my facts are wrong? Who’s deflecting? I have already answered, way upthread with regards to the illegal unaccompanied minors at YFT, so I have deflected nothing.I am not advocating these minors be detained anywhere else, and have agreed that the law says if they are OTM and cross the border we must apprehend and detain. If they are in our custody, we must provide for their needs. We do this for anyone who is in the custody of the authorities. It is you who can’t be honest and admit that the founder of the modern “controlled reproduction” movement was motivated by racism. You want to paint people who disagree with you as hypocrites, but the very premise you cling to is hypocritical on its face. Sanger was a racist. Regardless of whether it was and acceptable position in society during the 20s through the civil rights era, her motivations were racist, not feminist. The facts, her OWN words attest to this.

    1. I am asking that any discussion of Margaret Sanger be moved to her very own thread. I seriously don’t want the discussion of how these children are to be treated hijacked by a disagreement about an historical figure.

  42. Lyssa

    You know I read somewhere that Angela Davis used to throw that quote about extermination around all the time..that’s enough to maybe consider the message may not be as exact as it appears in 2014.

    Historical or diachronic linguistics is definitely an interesting subject.

  43. Scout

    “secure the border” has a lot of implications. If it is part of a “good fences, wide gates” program, it makes some sense. Right now we have teeny-tiny gates that don’t begin to meet the needs of the Nation. The backlog is so vast that we inevitably get people coming over what passes for fences. Immigration from areas of less opportunity (political and economic) is a good thing and generally benefits the recipient country at the expense of the country being fled. If “secure the borders” means a working system that encourages people to use the gates, I can back that.

    1. Excellent post, Scout. Just excellent!!!

  44. Cato the Elder

    Censored bybvbl :
    @Steve Thomas
    You apparently envisioned the helicopter scene from “Apocalypse Now”. Wagner was a controversial subject in his time given his anti-Semitic writings. Why do you give him a pass and not Sanger. Did you not think of the history when you decided to play “Ride of the Valekyries”?
    All things in context after all.

    By God, that is the most creative Godwin I’ve ever seen. Not that the entire thread wasn’t already Godwin’d from about comment 3, but good show nonetheless.

    This might well be the most amusing thread on Moonhowlings in months.

    1. Oh Godwin was alive and well long before Censored got in the act.

      I grant you, its pretty difficult to answer why the sidewalk thumpers seem to forget all about their pro-life stance one delivery has happened. 8 year old central American kids don’t seem to qualify with some folks, not all, but some.

      I got Godwined for bringing out this point, for sure. Just call me Spawn of Hitler.

  45. Censored bybvbl

    @Cato the Elder

    It was an opportunity made far too easy to pass up…

    1. You didn’t lob the first grenade.

      Just call me Spawn of Hitler.

  46. Second Alamo

    While everyone is focusing on the kids, what are the parents going to be doing in the future. No one has brought up that issue. I tried, but it was totally bypassed by all the feel good rhetoric about love, peace, and innocent children. At some point there will be people asking for their children. Then what ???????????

  47. Scout

    SA – do you think we wouldn’t return the children if the parents want/need them back? What’s the problem? Find something else to worry about.

  48. Second Alamo

    Ok Scout, you assume we know enough about the children and have such a great database on everyone of them that all it takes is a simple keystroke search to locate the kids for the requesting parents. As long as the hard disk that stores the database doesn’t ‘crash’ that is. Lets hope the IRS doesn’t house the database. I seriously doubt that the government has that all under control, and if you don’t, then you can keep your beliefs … period. (sound familiar?)

  49. Lyssa

    There is something there – how would they prove they’re the parents – wristbands weren’t issued and I’m pretty sure documentation, related technology and medical records are a bit slim for these folks. How would we know we’re not turning them over to the absolute wrong people?

  50. Lyssa

    There is something there – how would they prove they’re the parents – wristbands weren’t issued and I’m pretty sure access to documentation, related technology and medical records are a bit slim for these folks. How would we know we’re not turning them over to the absolute wrong people?

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