Yeah, let’s put this topic down for now and move on.

By the way, I actually still owe you an ad. I’m planning on putting it in Showdown, which is beginning to lurch into production. When I have a final book size, I’ll let you know. (We’re currently looking at something about 4″ x 6″, but I don’t know for sure yet.) It’ll definitely be a better fit for a Sons of Liberty ad than A Flower for Mara would have been.

Actually, just to share, this article asserts that this bailout cost the U.S. government…well…a lot:

Bailout costs more than Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, moonshot, S&L bailout, Korean War, New Deal, Iraq war, Vietnam war, and NASA’s lifetime budget — *combined*!

It appears that the topic went on without me, and that’s probably for the best. I’m afraid I let frustration get the better of me and posted my last comment when I should have stepped away and come back later. I would like to apologize for that, and I would like to explain my agitated state of mind a bit.

The debate about the definition of marriage may be a mostly academic topic in Peoria, but it is not where I live. I am in California, and Prop 8 eliminated my right to marry if I love another man. This is not a matter of the rights, lives, and families of a minority of Those People Over There. This debate, right here and right now, is about me, my rights, and my family. Essentially, 52% of California just told me what shape my family must be. Imagine the state just told you that six children is enough, and if you had a seventh, the state would take it away from you. That’s how I’m feeling these days.

Then this guy I knew from the Internet, met once, shared a meal with, traded ads in our books… (this is you, by the way)… This guy posts a link to my twitter feed and my girlfriend’s feed, using us as examples of… and here language fails me. Are we examples of heathens? Left-coast liberals? Gay sympathizers? Whatever the specifics, we were used as examples of Them, in a post addressed to your coreligionists. I read this as charitably as possible as an invitation.

While I’m sure that you have nothing against me commenting here, I think it’s pretty clear that an invitation was not your intent. As we talked back and forth, it became clear that you weren’t really interested in discussing our differing politics here (which I hasten to point out is fine; your blog, and this article had a very specific point, which wasn’t the political arguments that we’ve been tossing around). But as it became clear that discussing my politics was not the point, I started to wonder why I was involved at all. Why had my name been invoked in your article? I realized that I was on display. I was on display because I disagreed with you and your church. And, given that you are so certain the your beliefs are backed by God, that meant I was on display because I was wrong. I felt like a zoo animal.

So if you’re keeping score at home, I was told by the state what shape my family had to be and then I was put on display. And I was put on display by a guy who thinks I should be told what shape my family can be. Now, I must admit that, in my head, I conflated you and the Yes on 8 crowd, which isn’t quite fair. You didn’t eliminate my rights, you just said it was a good idea to do so. Which I’m still rather disappointed about, but you did not, as it felt when I made my last comment, trample my rights and then hold me up for derision when I was angry about it. Part of that is my overreaction, which I will totally cop to. But I can’t help but feel like part of it is your trespass, too — you used me and my life without asking my permission or explaining to me why you were doing so. Were you obligated to ask my leave? No, not really. But it would have been nice, and it would have avoided a lot of frustration and bruised feelings.

I’m not going to belabor this comment with anything more — I certainly don’t want to reopen the debate that was so clearly unproductive upthread. The bottom line is, you used me. And it seemed to me that you felt that you had some kind of right to do so because you were backed by your God’s infallible word and I was just some poor lost soul wandering in the wilderness. The amount of privilege you wrapped yourself in throughout this thread was staggering — and maddening. And while I should have shown better self-restraint when I posted last, I hope I’ve been able to explain where all that anger and frustration came from.

I hope to talk with you again, Seth.

– Josh

Now it’s back to boardgame design for me…

At this point, I think that I’ll invoke the Forge again and suggest that it’s time to close the thread. Seems like we’ve stated our positions pretty clearly, and anything further will just be running in circles.

Thanks for the conversation.

Said daughter is the one who I never try to predict. Her FAS and ADHD are extremely severe. So I’m damned if I how how she’d respond. But yes – I am quite comfortable with the idea of telling her that I feel that way, someday. Only once she’s able to hold conversations on this level of sophistication, though – which may well be never – since otherwise the words would be quite misunderstood. And there’s no point in speaking when you know, with the certainty of the one who taught this girl to speak, that she will not understand.

I do not disagree that there exist parallels between the ’cause’ of the fetus and the disputed personhood of various victims over the ages. Godwin’s law winced at and forgiven. But the Jews were not, in fact, literally bloodsucking parasites on the Nazis, and I use this inflammatory diction with intent. Not because it’s literal, but because I do not believe that the parallel is sufficiently exact that it serves any useful dialectical purpose.

Similarly, to argue that the mother’s pain derives validity because of its presence in my senses is, I’m sorry, solipsism of the first water. I literally don’t know what you were thinking with that paragraph, and with your permission I will ignore it because obviously one of us isn’t understanding the other here, and I don’t think it’s hugely germane at this point. Of course if a baby suffers it is a wrong; but once again it’s a tautology to assert the baby’s personhood (including suffering) as proof of its personhood. So this argument on your side, to me, appears to once again reduce to circular reasoning, even where it escapes solipsism.

But to the meat of it.

My daughter is not different on one side of a uterine wall and on the other.

She is different because she is real, not potential.

I used to imagine a son, a biological son to be a brother to Aria (our oldest and our only bio child). It was very important to me that I have a son, for reasons of genetics and emotional roots etc. We agreed that his name would be Martin. Martin James. We used to talk about him, what he’d be like. But Star’s pregnancy was very hard even by the standards of pregnancy, and the nursing actually worse. And we’ve adopted twice since, and been very happy with what came of that, and now consider ourselves “full up” on kids, thank you very much. So, dreams aside, she’s not going through that again. Which is fine. But it means that Martin James Finley will now (probably) never come to be. I have Jamie, our adopted son, instead, who is an utter delight (if completely different from Martin as envisioned). He’s the apple of my eye.

I have also been the father to an aborted fetus. I won’t say with whom, it may or may not be Star as well, because that’s private and not germane here. But my part in it I can share. I consider Martin’s nonexistence to be a substantially greater loss, to the world and myself and even to him, than this fetus who never reached the end of first trimester nor acquired a name.

Because I believe that a child becomes a child when it is born. It’s that simple. To be honest, when I articulate these arguments for abortion, what I’m doing is groping for words to describe why I consider this to be, not the necessary, but the wisest, the default, and the most rightful interpretation of the cycle of life.

You believe that a child becomes a child when it is fertilized. I guess where I get hung up is that on empirical grounds, there is no a priori reason to take one belief about the beginning of life over the other. And thus when I articulate reasons why one might choose one belief over the other, from the viewpoint of this world and this life, I hope to be answered with reasons why someone might choose your belief instead. Reasons which don’t root themselves in a book in which I do not vest credit.

So I see, on the one side, my belief about when life begins, and articulations which do not depend on that belief of why this belief – personhood begins at birth – has socially beneficial results. And on the other side I see your belief about when life begins, and socially negative results therefrom. So if you omit the tautologies and refuse to presuppose the conclusion, I can’t see how I could end up on your side of the fence. This is why I focus on the welfare of the mother; because it does not depend on the conclusion, it is an independent issue that I can look at when attempting to weigh one belief against the other.

(To be more precise, actually, I believe that life begins at the exact moment that the mother – and father if relevant – commit in their hearts to bearing this child to term. Actual birth is simply the point where the choice necessarily gets made, even if you’ve failed to commit previously. What matters to me is the moment that the child becomes real in their desired vision of the world and of their lives; the moment they impart the gift of personhood to their baby, in their hearts and flesh. But this reduces to the pro-choice position, even more strongly than many pro-choicers… since in this construction the choice is itself an essential part of the procreative act… and thus it is not actually productive to bring this in, in my experience, as compared with defending the “standard” pro-choice position.)

So, since I am honest with myself and others, yes, I may someday have that conversation with Cassandra. It’ll be very interesting to see what she says. But I am not going to jump the gun and do it now, when on a bad day she has the emotional maturity of a two-year-old.

(And as to your note re the Forge… I’m pretty sure that I brought this sort of tendency with me when I discovered the Forge, because I remember the sense of coming home. But I certainly wouldn’t argue that Ron gave us a wonderful arena to practice in.)

Before I launch into my replies, I thought I’d share something with you. Bizarre as this might seem, this particular conversation strikes me as having something of a Forge vibe. Like, actual paragraphs being written, ideas being formulated, and the like. Strange that the Forge taught us how to argue on the Internet. I’ll bet that Ron wasn’t thinking about anything like this when he insisted on certain standards of discourse in roleplaying.

Anyways, to the matter at hand.

You said:

“With respect to the first two (in vitro and criminalization of the mother) I am startled to hear that you espouse the consistent view. I mean, I applaud it from a consistency standpoint… but I am startled from a media exposure viewpoint. Because I have never heard either of your opinions on these fronts expressed by the proponents of your side. Ever, until now. So I would suggest that even if you may be consistent here, and bravo, there’s a certain lack of consistency in fervour, or in emphasis.”

First, just for disclosure, I fixed the tags on this part of your post. (You used BBCode instead of HTML, which I do on a distressingly regular basis.)

As far as media exposure, you may be right. Again, the majority of the Christian circles I move in wouldn’t find these positions particularly controversial. As far as the larger media exposure, you’re probably right that there’s a “certain lack of consistency in fervour, or in emphasis”. And I would consider that to be a problem.

You said:

“Also as a note on criminalizing the mother, are you of the opinion that divine forgiveness should negate worldly justice (jail time and so forth)?”

Nope. There was a case a few years ago where a man on death row became a Christian. He admitted that he was indeed guilty of murder and was actually asking people not to try to protest against it. He insisted that he needed to face the punishment for his actions. (Sadly, I can’t locate a link to the news story right now.) Yes, I know that there are folks in evangelical Christianity who would want such a man to be let off at this point, but this convicted murderer understood forgiveness better than they.

And now to the heart of the matter.

You said:

“Right now, however, that harm is simply too real and too concrete to outweigh the rights of a quasiperson, to me. You’re within your rights to drop the ‘quasi’, at which point I simply contend that you don’t have the right to insist that all people do so.”

Yeah, but at that point, one of us is wrong. Either it’s a fetus and a quasi-person, at which point you can do whatever the hell you want to it, or it’s a person and therefore an image-bearer of God who must be protected.

Saying that I have the right to drop the “quasi” means nothing. It is essentially telling me that I have the right to be deluded. Because, when I say that a fetus is a person, and therefore is a baby, this view has consequences for everyone. This even applies to my silence. If I stand by idly while babies die, then I share bloodguilt.

Our views cannot peacefully co-exist. One of them has to lose. That’s logical necessity, n’est pas?

You said:

“So “killing a child” is either fightin’ words, or is a rhetorical dodge of the actual meat of disagreement.”

You’re right. They are fightin’ words, and I intend them as such.

Consider this: in my nation’s history, there have been a number of occasions where blacks were lynched. Murdered, simply for being black. What about their personhood? It was questioned, after all, right? Or what about the Jews in Nazi Germany? Wasn’t their personhood also questioned? Isn’t that how Auschwitz was justified?

At this point in our history, we look back and say, “Why didn’t anyone speak for those victims?” When we discover those who bravely stood against society, we applaud them. We idolize the abolitionists and cheer for those who hid Jews from the death squads.

All this, despite the perfectly logical arguments presented in favor of these horrific acts. Check out the Reich Citizenship Law. Section 2.3 states that only a Reich citizen has full political rights.

Or how about the poster being displayed in the Wikipedia article about the Holocaust? Check out that caption: “60,000 RM is what this person with genetic defects costs the community during his lifetime.” Because the needs of the community apparently outweigh the needs of the individual. But wait! The caption goes on: “Fellow German, that’s your money too…” Because my needs outweigh your needs. And I’m willing to kill to ensure that my needs are met.

How are our actions different? We deprive an inconvenient class of people of their “personhood”, and then we kill them at will. We even perform experimentation on the dead babies! The chicken pox vaccine was developed using an aborted baby. And what about harvesting stem cells from embryos? We are appalled that the Germans performed experiments on the Jews and then we do the same.

(Yes, I realize that I just proved Godwin’s Law, but it nevertheless seemed applicable. That’s a link, BTW, because my CSS does need to be tweaked, and I’ll need to see about fixing it.)

You assert that the person who gets hurt gets to judge morality. But that’s not really what you mean. Because I stand here saying that the unborn child is being hurt, and you say that doesn’t matter, because that pain cannot be empirically verified, whereas the mother’s can. But empiricism is rooted in the senses. Specifically, rooted in your senses. So, again, you make yourself judge of whose pain matters. If I can’t prove the baby’s pain to you, then it does not matter.

Now, maybe the “you” in that paragraph isn’t you, personally. It could be a judge or other socially appointed person. The fact remains that someone makes the judgment. And that makes your claim that we’re just “context” ring a little false.

Which leads up to my final statement.

You said:

“I’m not going to convince you. I can tell that at this point. You’ve made your argument well and grounded it firmly on your beliefs, and those beliefs include the right to make Heather’s decision for her. But I hope that you can at least perceive where, in the absence of your certitude, one could fight tooth and nail to allow Hather her right to choose.”

When I was taught logic, my teacher stressed that logic could not prove first principles. An argument can string together principles, but it cannot pass value judgments. Logic tells us if an argument is valid; it cannot tell us if it is true or good or beautiful.

So, to answer your question, I perceive the logic of your argument, and I acknowledge that it all hangs together. But a logically valid argument is not necessarily a righteous argument.

I follow your logic, but I can only label it as wickedness.

Or, to put it a different way….

Upthread, you said:

“Our adopted daughter hails from this list; she should not have been brought to term. Her fetus’ rights should never have trumped those of her mother, and the overstressed social welfare system, to allow her to be born. But she was, and she’s ours, and cold dead hands and so forth.”

So, that now your daughter is on this side of a uterine wall, you’d be willing to die to save her life. But, when she was on the other side of a uterine wall, you’d let her die because she would be a strain on society. Indeed, you would have made that choice yourself.

Do you think that you’ll ever tell her that? Will you look into her eyes and say, “I think that you shouldn’t have been born”? Will you tell her, “It would have been better if your birth mother had ‘terminated your pregnancy’”?

How do you think that she would respond to that? Do you think that she will respond positively to the logic of your position?

Would you?

Hey, Seth. Thank you for addressing those points I raised. Your answers are… very interesting.

With respect to the first two (in vitro and criminalization of the mother) I am startled to hear that you espouse the consistent view. I mean, I applaud it from a consistency standpoint… but I am startled from a media exposure viewpoint. Because I have never heard either of your opinions on these fronts expressed by the proponents of your side. Ever, until now. So I would suggest that even if you may be consistent here, and bravo, there’s a certain lack of consistency in fervour, or in emphasis.

Also as a note on criminalizing the mother, are you of the opinion that divine forgiveness should negate worldly justice (jail time and so forth)? Or is the prospect of the mother doing ten-to-life simply not important, in the face of the forgiveness she (can) receive for the sin of the murder? Obviously, to me, the ten-to-life is a big deal. Interestingly, and only about half tongue-in-cheek, perhaps there’s some kind of middle ground there, of a sort… if the jail time isn’t sufficiently important to you, and is a horror to me, then surely we can work somethin’ out here.

Please remember that “killing a child” presupposes the conclusion. Of course sane pro-choicers oppose the killing of children. We just don’t consider previable fetuses to be children, and you do. So “killing a child” is either fightin’ words, or is a rhetorical dodge of the actual meat of disagreement. This is, for reference, why we (or at least I) insist on neutral language like fetus. Because in order for the word “child” to be meaningful in your argument, you have to have already won said argument. Tautology.

And on the socialism front, I’m afraid your position remains apparently incoherent to me. I do not advocate the arbitrary suspension of consequences on pity grounds (though I often do so on utilitarian and consequentialist grounds, cf. the failure of the ‘war on drugs’ and similar).

What I do advocate, strongly, is the view that these consequences are themselves social constructs. They are effects of a political structure, one to which there exist defenisble alternatives. So the fact that a young single mother with an unwanted child – I say nothing of rape, that’s a straw man distinction IMO – is forced into a largely unlivable position… that’s a wrong that we, as society, do to her. It’s not a necessary physical consequence of bringing a child to term. We can choose otherwise. And if we did, then the fetus’ more negoiable rights (from our POV) would probably carry the day against the mother’s very concrete ones, since the harm done to her would be diminished. At which point the secular humanists would come over to your side of the abortion battle. Right now, however, that harm is simply too real and too concrete to outweigh the rights of a quasiperson, to me. You’re within your rights to drop the ‘quasi’, at which point I simply contend that you don’t have the right to insist that all people do so.

So yes, the question of the suffering of the unwed mother – even if she chose this course, by default or even by stupidity – is relevant. It’s the other side of the scales of justice here.

Okay, Heather. Either you accept a 25% XP penalty for the rest of the campaign compared to the other PCs, or your fetus must roll its ‘arguable nonpersonhood’ score as a save vs. death magic. Yes, the decision sucks. So I’m not going to make it for you.

I’m not going to convince you. I can tell that at this point. You’ve made your argument well and grounded it firmly on your beliefs, and those beliefs include the right to make Heather’s decision for her. But I hope that you can at least perceive where, in the absence of your certitude, one could fight tooth and nail to allow Hather her right to choose.

God, I’m glad I’m a Canadian. Now to punt our Republican-lites out of office…

My sister Gabrielle can do a fine New York/Jersey accent, too.

Re: your family – thanks, that explains the Ben Ezra (I’d been wondering about that since I first heard your name but realized you weren’t Jewish). So you’re from Newyorican stock? Yeah, I’m afraid that makes us kinsmen, dude.

I read your blog post today.

You said this:

I suppose the way this relates to roleplaying games is this – for all our obvious ideological differences, I still really respect Seth as a game designer and rpg theorist. I like his passion for the hobby, I like his games. I like Seth. And if we get to see one another at a con, I’ll be happy to drink with him and break bread with him and call him a friend. Because there’s still a kinship there. Our hobby is a bridge over all the mess, and we can meet upon that bridge and be friends.

And I think that’s cool. I’m totally thankful for it.

You know that I think the same, right? Like I said earlier, I’d love to see you at a Go Play Peoria. Sure, Louisville is a bit of a haul, but you’d be welcome to crash at my house.

All those things I said earlier about wanting to be your friend are still true.

Yeah, I wasn’t thinking that the list was an accurate list of Jewish beliefs either.

And, as far as Sodom and Gomorrah, I was specifically citing the passage from Jude…which is of course from the New Testament. So, yeah, at that point it becomes a matter of discerning what is God’s revelation.

But I’m figuring that you’re probably not wanting to wrangle that point. So, instead, I throw out a random factoid that might be of interest to you.

Did you know that my grandfather is Jewish (of Turkish descent), and my grandmother is Puerto Rican? My grandmother’s mother and father actually moved to New York from Puerto Rico, and my grandmother’s first language was Spanish.

It’s true!

To Comrade Andrew, on Mick’s list in comment #44 above:
Those items do not represent a checklist of Jewish concepts of marriage. Some laws are derived from some of those passages, but it isn’t a laundry list. Our concept of marriage is just as the Christian one (with the obvious differences).

In comment #46 Seth says:
Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for practicing that which you support, Mick. They burned with fire from heaven, because God wanted to make sure that we understood exactly what He thought about this issue.

Actually, Sodom and Gomorrah burned for a completely different reason, but for that you’d have to believe in the Oral Torah, including the Midrash, the Mishnah, and the Talmud.

Just an aside to point out that when it comes to Scripture, not everything is as clear as it may seem. Carry on.