Sebastian – Page 36 – Obsidian Wings archive

dKos Controversy – Hopefully a Slightly Different View

April 5, 2004 by Sebastian

There is a little blog-tempest going around about the comments of highly popular left-wing blogger dKos. It is tough to link to the original comments because he is rerouting links to his pseudo-apology. I’ll try to link here but I will reproduce the entire text in question in case this link also vanishes. He wrote … Read more

If Al Qaeda Vanished Tomorrow

April 2, 2004 by Sebastian

Michael Totten has an interesting post where he tries to define our enemies in the probably poorly named ‘War on Terror’. I’ve tackled this topic before (see also here ) and will gladly admit that it is a fuzzy concept–much like the exact parameters of the Cold War. So lets put that aside for a … Read more

Pro Choice Debate

March 31, 2004 by Sebastian

In the previous entry I pointed out how many pro-life advocates muddy the waters of the abortion debate, and gave advice about how to avoid doing that. Since I am pro-life myself, I won’t be so rude as to give advice to the pro-choice side about how they should argue. That won’t stop me from identifying how some of them poison the well of the debate. If some pro-choice advocates want to use that to steer their compatriots to a more civil debate, I’m not opposed. The polling data on abortion reflects a large amount of unease on the part of the US public. You may believe that the best way to deal with that unease is to use the techniques which I outline below. I suspect (or maybe hope) that such tactics will eventually alienate some voters in the middle, which may cause a sudden shift in abortion politics at some point in the future. If that is true, it may be to your advantage to manage such perceptions so that you have some control over the shift.

How To Be Pro-Life (and still politically relevant)

March 30, 2004 by Sebastian

I am strongly anti-abortion.

However I believe that the pro-life movement is amazing in its ability to squander good will and obscure even the clear moral points which could aid it. This happens because there are certain truths which the pro-life movement does not accept.

Just because you believe you are morally right doesn’t mean that the people who disagree with you are evil. Not every pro-life advocate believes this. But the debate gets played out by many as if pro-choice advocates were evil and engaged in a vicious plot to kill babies for nefarious reasons of their own.

Abortion questions revolve around a disagreement about the moral and legal status of the unborn. It is not clear to many people that a fetus–especially at the early stages of pregnancy ought to be afforded the same protections as an adult. It may be that this disagreement is willful self-blindness about the status of the unborn in late term pregnancies. But in early term pregnancies you need to understand that many people do not see the fetus as a baby. Believing that everyone sees the fetus as a baby, and then ignores the implications of that is a sure way to get on the wrong track when arguing about abortion. It is perfectly possible to believe that a 4-month fetus is not a child without being evil.