Swing and a miss on Stewart last night.

[Deep13]

After listening to Huckabee's bullshit, John Stewart was confused into admitting that there is no clearly right side on the abortion issue. All I heard was the same logical errors I have been hearing for years.

One in particular was the fallacy of equivocation. When does it become "a life." Here, Huckabee was using the term life to mean two completely distinct ideas. One is the biological, chemical process of life which exists at every stage of development and in fact exists in all plants, animals, bacteria and whatever else there is. The other meaning is a human person which does not clearly exist until after it is born.

As far as Stewart's admission that there are extremes on both sides, where are the pro-choice terrorists harassing RW church parishioners and killing RW priests etc?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

1. stewart always rolls over for huckabee. not sure why

[rug]

2. What do you mean by human person?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

3. different from being a cow/pig/bacteria person

[rug]

5. How about a corporate person?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

6. also diff

[DarkTirade]

7. Yeah, I think human people have souls...

:)

[rug]

8. The question is, when do legal rights attach?

[Deep13]

14. I mean an actual person as opposed to mere human tissue...

...which is not a person. A newly fertilized ovum is human and it's alive, but it is not a human life.

[rug]

15. So, when is that? Birth?

[Deep13]

16. How the hell do I know?

That's not the point of the issue or of this thread. My complaint here is that Stewart rolled-over for Huckabee and allowed a lot of logical fallacies to go unchallenged.

[rug]

17. There's more to the abortion issue than a tidy syllogism.

[Deep13]

18. Again, off topic.

The complaint here is about an entertainer who was bamboozled by a charlatan.

[Gormy Cuss]

4. I missed it, but agree with your last point.

Pro-choice extremists? Please.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

9. Without dragging the Lounge into GD serious talk (although at this point, what's the difference?)...

....Stewart is exactly right. It is a complex issue. Anyone who tries to sell the abortion issue as a simple, black and white issue is either simple-minded in that respect or blinded by their own passionate ideology into thinking that way.

Yes, the truly violent extremeists fall almost exclusively on the anti-abortion side, that in and of itself doesn't make the issue one that is substantially complex. The problem is, both the abortion-rights proponents and the abortion opponents want to boil the entire debate down to a few lame bumper sticker slogans, and that just disservices what the actual debate could be.

Anyways, just my two cents. Don't really feel like getting into a debate over abortion over here at the Lounge, since I've tried to use the Lounge to avoid such heavy topics. Happy to talk more about it elsewhere.

[Arugula Latte]

10. That exchange rankled me.

At the end I wanted to scream: "Why don't both of you shut the fuck up and weigh in when you grow a uterus!" And I normally love Jon, but he pissed me off with his namby pamby bullshit.

[LoveMyCali]

19. That was exactly my reaction

except I believe I screamed get back to me when one of you can get pregnant.

[PassingFair]

11. I turned to my husband when it was over and said...

"Well, THAT sucked."

I should be a TV critic.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

12. Huckabee made a fool of Stewart,

which shocked and disappointed me.

When Huckabee incorrectly quoted "All peope (sic) are created equal," that was Stewart's cue to jump him and correct him and point out that it took massive amounts of work and lots of years to get equal rights for women (are we there yet?) and "Negroes" (are we there yet?), so Huckabee's pathetic and vapid assertion that a fetus is a person and thereby protected by law is simple bullshit.

I was really stunned that Stewart let that go by. I was yelling at the TV set.

Huckabee's religious beliefs about when life begins are irrelevant to a woman's decision about what she does with her body. That's between her and her doctor.

Remember the old joke?

A priest, a minister, and a rabbi are having a drink and discussing the matter of when life begins.

The priest said, "Life begins at the moment of conception."

The minister sad, "No, no, life begins when the fetus quickens."

The rabbi said, "Life begins when the last kid leaves for college and the dog dies."

[Tommy_Carcetti]

13. LOL at that joke

Didn't think any humor could be found in that situation, but apparently it could be!