dagblog - Comments for "The Fallacy of Mark Levin's Ameritopia: What on Earth Can I Do?"

Look, I'm not a lawyer, but

Verified Atheist — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:43:12 +0000

Look, I'm not a lawyer, but the half (at best!) truth I was talking about in that case wasn't whether it was Poe v Ullman or Griswold v Connecticut. Both of those cases were about contraceptives, not abortion. Your assumption that right to privacy was always about abortion and just abortion is therefore patently false.

I didn't say the Catholic issue is a non-issue, I said that they weren't being forced to provide contraceptives or abortion. They have a choice: they can either follow federal guidelines or not take federal funds. They want both. That's why the Archdiocese is taking such a strong stand.

Finally, what do you mean "don't trust your own lying eyes"? If you mean don't trust what you read on bogus web-sites, then yes, I agree. Do some serious research, and understand the difference between anglefire.com and more reputable sources.

If you post links with an

Donal — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:40:03 +0000

In reply to I'm telling a half truth?

If you post links with an unverified user name, it will snag in the spam filter every time.

And I think at this point, I

Elusive Trope — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:48:14 +0000

In reply to I could literally go through

And I think at this point, I need to reiterate the point of this particular blog:

There is a lot of reasons for this (many of them having to do with personal issues of the participants that have nothing to do with the topic of the discussion), but a key to this dynamics is we spend most of our time focused on the manifestations of the ideological paradigms (the public policies, the social critiques, the economic behavior) rather than on the fundamental principles and assumptions.

This current part of the thread is a perfect example of what I am talking about (of which I myself not immune).

I have no doubt you could provide "a very long list of egregious and unConstitutional affronts by the EPA" - but the heart of the matter goes back to an interpretation of the general welfare, etc. I will state since the EPA, like all human institutions, is developed by and run by humans, there will be some mistakes, some over-reach. Just as I could provide examples of under-reach by the agency. But for the most part we would be talking past one another. And that is the point.

I'm telling a half truth?

William P — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:27:35 +0000

In reply to As for the Catholic church

I'm telling a half truth? That Poe vs. Ullman was the genesis of the phony "right to privacy" isn't even controversial. See this about.com article:

"Since no one had been charged with anything and no one could demonstrate any damage from the law, the Court refused to rule on it. In his dissent in Poe v. Ullman, Justice Harlan wrote that

I believe that a statute making it a criminal offense for married couples to use contraceptives is an intolerable and unjustifiable invasion of privacy in the conduct of the most intimate concerns of an individual’s personal life ...the intimacy of husband and wife is necessarily an essential and accepted feature of the institution of marriage, an institution which the state not only must allow, but which always and in every age it has fostered and protected. It is one thing when the State exerts its power either to forbid extra-marital sexuality altogether, or to say who may marry, but it is quite another when, having acknowledged a marriage and the intimacies inherent in it, it undertakes to regulate by means of the criminal law the details of that intimacy.

This dissent would play a role later on in Griswold v. Connecticut, and Harlan would refer to it in his concurring opinion in that case."

That the case as dismissed just goes to show you the entire premise was contrived, and that indeed it was a part of a strategy by the ACLU to legalize abortion. Do you want me to spell it out? Create a phony right however possible... then use that phony right, "emanations and penumbras," to legalize abortion.

Why am I not surprised that ICE disagrees with an ICE watchdog?

If this Catholic issue is just another non-issue, why do you think the Archdiocese is taking such a strong stand?

To believe you is easy; just don't trust my own lying eyes.

As for the Catholic church

Verified Atheist — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:40:57 +0000

In reply to I could literally go through

As for the Catholic church being required to provide abortions and contraception, that is a half-truth. They are not required to do so, but if they don't then they are not eligible for government funds.

As your link says, the Supreme Court did not find standing for Poe v. Ullman, so the right to privacy is not relevant there. The right to privacy came up in GvC, and it was about condoms, not abortions. Hence, your information was wrong, and your conclusion that right to privacy was all about abortions fails before it starts.

As for Baldwin, although he did make that quote, and he was a founder, there were several other founders who were conservatives, and Baldwin himself led an effort to purge the ACLU of communists in the 1940s.

You had so many half-truths, that I didn't feel I had the time to list out their specifics, but as for Obama's mandate, the opt-out provision is that you may pay a fine instead of buying health insurance.

Others address your ICS concerns.

As for your lists, I don't really have the time to wade through more stuff that you found on the internet that's not exactly true, so please don't bother.

And I'm not sure why the

Elusive Trope — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:24:54 +0000

In reply to I could literally go through

And I'm not sure why the Church is all freaky about the contraception mandate. As this job application for the Sacramento Diocese indicates, first:

As a community of believers, we embrace as a matter of faith, the teachings, policies and beliefs of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, as defined in the Deposit of Faith. We, therefore, reject anything which is contrary to that teaching, including:
· abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, artificial contraception, voluntary sterilization, and the unnecessary use of capital punishment;

later it states that all employees must follow the teachings of the Church. So while they would have to have insurance which allows for free contraception, none of their employees would ever utilize this facet of their insurance.

From ICE: In their report,

Elusive Trope — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:13:49 +0000

In reply to I could literally go through

From ICE:

In their report, TRAC used a data set that represents individuals removed — regardless of the fiscal year that removal occurred — that can be linked to an apprehension that occurred in 2005. TRAC then used this data set to identify what it claims are the total number of ICE apprehensions in FY 2005, which is inaccurate. That data set is a subset of FY 2005 apprehensions. This is merely one example of TRAC's flawed analysis.

Another response as related Leslie Berestein Rojas

Last month, ICE officials cited vastly different accounting methods: When counting criminal deportations, for example, the agency includes administrative deportations in which the individual had a past conviction. However, if the crime doesn’t factor into the deportation case, it’s typically not found in the immigration court records, which the TRAC report analyzed. Many immigrants, particularly those who are in the country illegally, are removed solely on administrative grounds, whether or not there’s a criminal history.

It is possible that the Syracuse TRAC had its own agenda and attempted to utilize the data in such a way to meet that data. Or they were just not knowledgeable on how to interpret the data.

Moreover according to ICE

During FY11, ICE responded to 16,488 FOIA requests.

So should I let ICE know that you are willing to increase your personal taxes in order for them to hire more personnel in order to repond to data requests? I guess this also means you are for bigger government.

Moreover, it is interesting that you have now taken the side of the academic institutions, given that they have been over run by liberals, if not the Marxists.

I could literally go through

William P — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 04:46:22 +0000

In reply to You should really stop

I could literally go through your entire post, point by point, and deconstruct it piece by piece. I won't; there is no glory in rectifying willful delusion (i.e. "the housing market is improving," "he didn't insist Catholic institutions provide birth control and abortions"). All of this is well documented in recent news pieces, and you'll have to Google them without my aid. I don't think that Bishop Dolan is arbitrarily picking a fight with the White House, do you?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/dolan-obama-betrayed-birth-control_n_1232364.html

As to your "right to privacy" rejoinder, I am well aware of the case history, and it starts before Griswald v. Connecticut. See Poe v. Ullman, 1961. That's why I said "decade long" (i.e. 1961 to 1973).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe_v._Ullman

I did not provide any "wrong information." The ACLU was involved in PvU, GvC, and finally RvW.

As for their Communist roots, here's what ACLU founder Roger Baldwin had to say:

"I am for socialism, disarmament, and, ultimately, for abolishing the state itself... I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and the sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal."

You cannot opt-out of Obamacare's individual mandate. If you could it would be entirely self-defeating. The law as written is intended to prevent those who "can afford" health insurance from not purchasing it. An opt-out provision would render the entire idea behind an individual mandate irrelevant.

Syracause University is being stonewalled and harassed after filing a FOIA request for actual deportation numbers.

http://trac.syr.edu/foia/ice/20120104/

As they wrote on January 4, 2012:

"Case-by-case records provided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that many fewer individuals were apprehended, deported or detained by the agency than were claimed in its official statements — congressional testimony, press releases, and the agency's latest 2010 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics."

...

"The failure of ICE to abide by the mandate of the FOIA in a timely way about its immigration enforcement actions during the five-year period covered by our May 2010 request starkly contrasts with the repeated transparency statements of President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and many other administration officials since they came to office almost three years ago."

This is no conspiracy, unless you want to charge Syracuse University with conspiracy. That's ludicrous.

Are you satisfied? Would you like a very long list of egregious and unConstitutional affronts by the EPA?

What VA said; and also The

Elusive Trope — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 21:18:34 +0000

In reply to The oldest question in

What VA said; and also

The checks and balances were put into place in part to keep the popular will from running rampant - as I mentioned above the Senate was formed to be more deliberative than the House. Therefore, it was set up through the checks and balances to determine just what the general welfare is over time. In this way, we could form a perfect union.

I don't have the time to go through all the points you bring up at this moment. VA did a good job on a number of them.

I would say about

Our educational system is run by bureaucrats who don't teach, and who don't understand education.

The reality is that most schools were driven by school boards - whose members usually never taught. And to use this logic, since most parents do not teach, you are arguing that parents should have no say in their child's education. Bravo.

You should really stop

Verified Atheist — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 19:57:47 +0000

In reply to The oldest question in

You should really stop trusting sites like "angelfire" for your facts. Anyone can post anything there. If you can find "In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU" by Samuel Walker in your local library, check it out. In it you'll discover that the ACLU was originally the CLB (Civil Liberties Bureau) and was founded by "social reformers, Protestant clergy, and conservative lawyers", not communists or even communist sympathizers.

As to your right to privacy assertion, a little research might do you some good there, as well. The right to privacy was not established in RvW, but in Griswold v. Connecticut, in 1965, and was about contraception, not abortion. That wrong piece of information also proves the fallacy in your conclusion.

As for your other assertions: I'm curious to know how you "honestly" measure unemployment, and whether you used that same measurement for previous presidents; your assertion that the president flouts, mocks, and taunts is clearly subjective; he didn't insist that Catholic institutions provide birth control or abortions; he's deported more illegal immigrants in his 3 years than G. W. Bush did in 8, but that fact is protected from you by your assertion of a forgery conspiracy; you can opt out of buying health insurance; the housing market is improving; your assertions on the EPA are imprecise and subjective at best; no one has ever been arrested for suggesting the Islam was a driver behind most acts of terrorism.