{"id":3636,"date":"2009-11-09T11:10:15","date_gmt":"2009-11-09T15:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=3636"},"modified":"2009-11-09T11:12:52","modified_gmt":"2009-11-09T15:12:52","slug":"grown-ups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2009\/11\/09\/grown-ups\/","title":{"rendered":"grown-ups…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
In an earlier post, I wrote:<\/div>\n
\n
I think we have the right to object to an abortion ban. But we don’t have the right to insist dissenters pay for abortions they don’t believe in. If we’re "do-gooders," then we’d be better placed to do what Sara suggests and pony up for our beliefs in another way.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Friend Ralph commented: <\/div>\n
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How far do you go with that? Should I not have to pay my [considerable] share of the cost of the Iraq war, which I don’t believe in? I think I’d also like to deduct my share of the TARP money that went to CEO’s bonuses, and all of the abstinence-only sex ed programs, and a lot more.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
and Joy added:<\/div>\n
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Ralph has good points as usual. The part about our paying for a war we don’t believe in reminded me of what that awful Senator Lieberman said yesterday on one of the talk shows about why he opposes the health bill and how he won’t let it come to a vote when the bill reaches the Senate because it’s too expensive and will cause too much debt.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
As always, great points. But I want to elaborate my point further. I don’t think I quite understood my own point [yet] when I wrote that.<\/div>\n

I claim that we should take the following "high road" because of<\/u><\/strong> Ralph’s and Joy’s point. National Defense is a legitimate governmental function. Unprovoked War of Conquest isn’t. Government intervention in a economic collapse is a legitimate governmental function. Bonuses to Wall Street hot-shots isn’t. Government intervention in programs to voluntarily prevent unwanted pregnancies is a legitimate function. Ineffective programs driven by religious ideas is not. A government health program that is "too expensive and will cause too much debt" isn’t a legitimate governmental function. Obama’s health care reform doesn’t portend debt and is a legitimate governmental function. The Republicans abused the government’s programs. Now they don’t want to pass reasonable legislation because they claim it might be abused. The solutions to abuse are prevention and prosecution, not avoidance. They use "projection" much like paranoid people. To me, "I don’t want to pay for abortions" is legitimate. But "I want to ban abortions" is not. "You invaded another country with our National Guard<\/em>" is abuse of a legitimate governmental function. Prosecute!<\/strong> <\/p>\n

The "you did it so I can too" argument is tempting schoolyard logic. But, if we are to represent responsible grown-up thought, we need to champion using it, and insist that they do too. I wish I’d said that last time, but I didn’t quite know I was thinking it. Thanks for the nudge…<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an earlier post, I wrote: I think we have the right to object to an abortion ban. But we don’t have the right to insist dissenters pay for abortions they don’t believe in. If we’re "do-gooders," then we’d be better placed to do what Sara suggests and pony up for our beliefs in another […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}