An open warning

[fpb]

To anyone who might feel like defending abominations such as baby-murder and the State murder of the old and sick: be reminded that this blog is my space. I decide what goes in and out; and while I allow all my friends to say what they think or feel, I will not, on principle, leave in any defence of what I regard as crime. If you want to defend crime, do it in your own space and don't bother me; all you will get otherwise is deletion and banning.

Comments

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

I know exactly what you mean by a 'sense of visceral revulsion', as it is exactly what I feel after reading the bigoted, ignorant, hurtful, ridiculous bile you have spewed in the above comment.

fpb, if you quite seriously cannot behave in a manner rational and intelligent enough to accept that there are views other than your own insensitive and outmoded beliefs, I would request that you remove me from your flist. Before you do, however, there's one thing I would like an answer to-how can you possibly be justified in writing this entry after everything you said to me and my friends here?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I am speaking of partial-birth abortion. I am against all abortion, but abortion of what is in effect a live baby is a revolting procedure. And I am very surprised that you should find this surprising, since one thing I thought I had made clear was that I regarded abortion as wrong in itself. What, in the name of Heaven, did you think I meant?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

As for my belief being outmoded, you are only seventeen, so I will excuse your apparent belief that ideas of right and wrong depend on "mode" - that is, on fashion. But I suggest you ask yourself whether date has anything to do with morality. If you had been born in Germany in 1930, would that make killing people right for you? Because, you know, the fashion in Germany in the thirties was to kill Jews and Slavs any enemies of all kinds. And the fact that that was the up-to-date idea must have made it right. That is what you say when you say that moral ideas can be "outmoded".

That is not to say that you should not argue in favour of abortion if you really think it is just and right. If you want to defend a right to abortion, that is one thing; but you have to say that it is a right that exists at all times and for everyone, or else it is not a right at all. Fads and fashions, mode, do not have anything to do with it at all.

You also have to realize that this sort of argument simply robs you of the ability to argue. When superversive attacked this supposed right, you could say nothing in favour of it except that it is "outdated" to oppose it. You did not say anything that seriously threatened superversive's reasoning or pointed out weaknesses in his argument or stated alternative views: you simply thought that to impose this supposed chronological scheme, that opposition to abortion is "outdated", was enough to silence his points. That is both irrational and very poorly conceived. I would like you to try and set out an argument of your own on the matter, rather than to foolishly rely on dates.

[superversive.livejournal.com]

If you want to blame fpb for a comment I made, go right ahead; it proves that you are a fool. And if you feel a sense of visceral revulsion because you feel insulted, and none at a fully-formed human child having its brains sucked out through a tube and its body flung into a disposal, then I suggest you may need to have a competent neurologist examine the reactions of your viscera.

Tom, that goes too far.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Never judge a person before you have walked a mile in their shoes. You know nothing whatever about eyeliner297; I do, and I know that not only does she have a right to feel strongly in the matter - even if I think she feels wrongly - but that she has reason to feel angry about me in particular. This is not my story to discuss, but let me just say that other people would have de-friended me for one or two things I said on a certain occasion. That she is still speaking to me is more than I could have expected. And whether or not she did actually mistake you for me, she is right that I am responsible for whatever appears on my LJ. That is a principle I enforce. You are a friend and a person I hold in the highest esteem, but I ask you now to withdraw and apologize for the language you saw fit to use to her, or else I will do it for you.

Did you even notice, by the way, that I have already given her quite a firm reply without feeling the need to insult her?

Re: Tom, that goes too far.

[superversive.livejournal.com]

You’re quite right, my language was excessive and inappropriate, and I apologize for it. (And no, I didn’t see your own reply, because eyeliner297’s reply appeared in my email and I responded from there. I was stung and acted in haste, which makes me more culpable, rather than less.)

I still feel that there is a considerable disproportion between feeling visceral revulsion at the actual occurrence of a partial-birth abortion, and feeling it on account of a purely verbal insult. I cannot help suspecting a degree of hyperbole in drawing the equivalency.