All this proves is that Ben is perhaps not as stupid as we thought. It takes some measure of intelligence to formulate a deceit, even one as transparent as this one.

Many six-year-olds can come up with something better than this, but at least we see that Ben D. has the capacity to think about using trickery for his argument. Some day he might even approach the ability to convince an average reader by such methods.

Modern day Repubs are so trained to be talking point robots, effectively making their every utterance a form of plagiarism, that lifting entire passages just seems completely normal to them. It’s just what they do.

So Young William F. Ben cut quotes just enough so he could repeat a frequent Repub frame, which like so many of their focus group tested “arguments,” can’t stand up to the simplest scrutiny.

Wait, aren’t these the same people who’re talking about how minorities are taking over? And suddenly they’re concerned about the birthrate of those same minorities dropping due to abortion? Right.

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Heh.

http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/22525.html
http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/22486.html
http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/22860.html

p.s. Is that photo of Ben showing just about the most smug individual ever?

That was my first thought, too. The whole, um…”idea” doesn’t scan and runs flush into another major article of wingnut faith (that we’re all hellbent on browning and blacking the population ASAP so we can hold on to power fo’EVAH.)

Seems obvious to me that they’re stoking whatever fear they can to keep the scary Liberal Latina of the Supreme Court (even though she’s really kinda conservative). Paint Bader-Ginsberg as some wacky Liberal nutjob and conflate with similar arugments toward Sotomayor so people will think, “well, we can’t have two of ‘em on the Court.”

Yes. Not only is he insanely smug; he apparently has no reason to feel such smugness (besides being promoted again and again despite his literary felonious tendencies. I mean, if Michelle Malkin is calling you out, then you’ve sunk to new lows).

If I were a typical republiKKKan, like say, Ben Domenech, looking at Ben Domenech, I well might say “why should I read or believe anything written by a gay looking Puerto Rican who couldn’t even finish the College of Wilma and Larry afte his affirmative action admission?” But I don’t really give a fuck what typical republiKKKans think, so instead I’ll just note that Ben is a self hating, closeted panty waist cocksucker corporatist taint lapping swallower POS jerkoff douche nozzle twat mouth whose smugness and dishonesty know no apparent limits. I also think that he should have shown ellipsis with a mid para lift like that because he effectively changed the meaning from her gibberish to his much clearer neo Nazi lunacy. Motherfucking jerkoff. Guess we’re lucky he couldn’t get into fucking law school.

i can’t get past the first graph. why does the right attract such shitty writers?

Wow, TBogg, this really has you upset. Re-reading your post, it seems more-or-less your usual stuff, but my vibe on the first reading was that you were seriously pissed-off. Maybe you shouldn’t try to catch up from your recent celebrations all at once: pace yourself. It’s for your own good.

Someone check on John “We Need More White Babies” Gibson at Fox News and tell him this Domenich clown is going to ruin everything.

-G

Ah decades ago – though I think it ended in ‘80 with Reagan – some were smart enough to be concerned about population growth – which even at 1% is unsustainable. I think you both left out the part of the quote where Bader-Ginsberg states that there were never two stronger arguments for abortion than Ronnie and W though.

Yea, that’s been weird to see. I mean, I’ve been out working on my career for over 15 years, had some pretty great successes and accolades, overcome some substantial adversity in life, have a successful marriage and several little kids, and yet even in my relatively small city, I am constantly told I need to “pay my dues more” and earn my stripes more before getting in with certain companies and bigger contracts.

Odd to see these twits like William F. Benly and Ross Douchehat keep moving up and getting larger megaphones over the national public discourse, despite having basically no accomplishments, personally or professionally, and work that couldn’t stand up to scrutiny from a junior high school journalism class. Sorta like Bloody Bill Kristolnacht. And people still try to make the case that BigMedia cares about ratings and strengthening democracy.

Silly monkeys…it’s pure propaganda to keep John Q. Nascar voting against his own self-interest, and that’s why Young Ben and Young Ross keep getting high-paying jobs, despite a long record of mediocre mediocrity (actually mediocre is being too generous).

The leaders on the right, as well as Hannity, O’Reilly, etc. in the media, have used the ‘parse the facts to fit a preconceived idea’ for years to great effect. Unfortunately for the wingers, as Tbogg mentions, the pool of talent is so shallow now, the playbook is coming apart. Ben’s attempt comes off as confused even for the intelligent among us, and I can’t imagine the average conservative teabagger making heads or tails of this. At best I see them reading the first few sentences before setting down the laptop, emitting a giant yawn, and then flipping on re-runs of John and Kate + 8.

And stories like yours (bonkers at 14, in case it doesn’t show up) frustrate the hell out of me even more when juxtaposed with asswipes like this fucking idiot. Jonah Golberg is the prince of nepotism, and yet, he wah wah wahs all the way home to Mommy about that damn affirmative action.

You are being way too kind to these guys in calling them mediocre. They can only wildly dream of reaching merely adequate.

You don’t even need the second half of the quotation to understand that Ginsburg is not talking about her own opinion but about her impression of the prevailing political winds. She says she thought at the time that a policy of funding abortions via Medicare would be seen as acceptable because there was concern over so-called overpopulation _as well as_ support for abortion rights. She was surprised when restricting the use of that money was upheld because it seemed like something that various sides of the debate might agree on. (And as I recall, the people who were worried about overpopulation in the 1970s included a lot of conservative racists.)

BTW, on behalf of William & Mary, I apologize for unleashing this dimwit’s malformed political arguments on the nation.

“My eyes fill with pride and stupidity.”

That picture always makes me think of “Sea Ferring” by the Butthole Surfers.

Red State.

You’re assuming that Ben actually abridged Ginsburg’s quote himself from the actual New York Times Web site, rather than copy-pasting from a mass e-mail from a random “citizen journalist.”

I think you’re making a mistake.

Off topic but highly amusing, and from the Canadian press of all things: Conservative Free Republic blog in free speech flap after racial slurs directed at Obama children

No, they’re concerned about pinning some nasty racism on liberals, no matter how much they have to stretch the evidence to do it. They couldn’t really care less about abortion, really–otherwise they would have done something about it while they still owned all three branches of government.

This argument would have much in common with that found in the bestselling book Freakonomics, which used crime statistics to argue that abortion filled a communal need by casting out the “weak” to ensure the “strong” survive, with a coldly calculating description of ethnic cleansing.

He’s misrepresenting this argument as well. The authors correlated the legalization of abortion with a drop in crime about 2 decades later, and hypothesized that those unwanted pregnancies wouldhave been more likely to result in adolescents who fell into a life of crime (due to lack of parental interest/resources).

“Wow,” is steverino genuinely concerned or trying to get a rise from the droll, relaxed, TBogg (who is probably at the beach with Beckham, Fenway, and the delightful Mrs. TBogg). It’s hard to tell.

Ben Domenech gets paid by someone to do something.

I’m saying it and I’m writing it but I still can’t believe it.

But… but… it’s just like that stimulus thing, right — pay people to dig a hole and fill it again, just to keep them busy and the economy turning over. Surely no-one is paying a cent for his actual thoughts-on-paper. On the whole, though, I think Ben would be more useful digging holes and filling them again.

Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure that they really don’t give much of a shit about abortions, particularly of minorities, except as a wedge device. I think it has a lot to do with being able to project an air of moral superiority. You’re correct that the root of Ben D’s post is about trying to make R B-G look like a racist. The pot trying to paint the kettle black, I suppose.

That would be, “genuinely concerned.” I just read it again, and, yeah, the tone seems to me to be more P.O.’d than your typical TBogg post. I thought it unusual.

It looks to me like this is an attempt to paint RBG with the same brush as Sotomayor. We can’t have TWO WOMEN with such views on the SC. In other words just another jab at Sotomayor using RBG as the poker.

Even though neither of the Two said or meant exactly what they are implied to have said or to have said or meant.

Prolly it is too conceptual for the dittohead contingent.

apparently David Shuster is to cover this on his Monday afternoon show, with Tamryn Hall

link

and apparently, they’ve put down the paste long enough to promise a big throwdown with dfh’s

link

Mornin’ All

There’s too many people in this country and indeed the world. Population control should be more of an issue. Somehow it fell off the radar screen. People should have children they really want and can afford. I’d just as soon not use my tax dollars to raise someone else’s children.

Good plan. Let’s start with post partum abortions for anyone who voted for Bush twice. Then for Bush once. And since the Owners have stolen so much money from us, and raised THEIR children with it, let’s abort their children, too. WTF, let’s abort the Owners as well and then see how the census looks.

I actually have always believed that the “pro-lifers” (except for the death penalty and killing in wars) support for banning abortion goes hand in hand with their fear that the white race will be overwhelmed by all those procreating minorities.

The math works out well for them: keep initiating wars against brown people all over the world, send our brown people and poor white kids to fight them, outlaw abortion so that the white girls of privilege won’t be able to eliminate their little snowflakes, and, eventually, voila! a lily white America purged of all those illegal immigrants, a church on every corner, and good old repressed white people in every seat of every pew.

…that the white girls of privilege won’t be able to eliminate their little snowflakes…

I can assure you that the white girls of privilege will most definitely find a way to “eliminate their little snowflakes.” Some will go to a state where abortion remains legal. Others will find a compassionate doctor in their small town or the nearest larger community.

Trust me that this went on all over the country, even during the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s. For every girl who “visited out of town” for 6 months, there was one who managed an abortion.

Where the quotes go seems much ado about nothing. But the idea there is some sinister plot to have more minority groups have abortions vs whitey doesn’t seem to hold up. Non Hispanic whites are the slowest growing (shrinking) group of all. Actually by the middle of this century we may have a majority of Muslims. In the end does it really matter?
In any event the population of whites and blacks will decrease on a percentage basis.
If there is a sinister plot it’s not very successful and I wouldn’t get to concerned.
Finally, why interview Ginsburg? She has cancer and it has likely spread to her brain. Why not interview Justice Scalia?
No quotes were used in this comment.

OK, I’ll go along with aborting the Bush voters.
You need the Owners more than you know. I’d give them a pass.

…that the white girls of privilege won’t be able to eliminate their little snowflakes…

The white girls of privilege have always been able to fly off to Switzerland for a little R&R and D&C over Spring Break.

This argument would have much in common with that found in the bestselling book Freakonomics, which used crime statistics to argue that abortion filled a communal need by casting out the “weak” to ensure the “strong” survive, with a coldly calculating description of ethnic cleansing.

The chapter in “Freakonomics” referenced by Ben Domenech is called “Where have all the Criminals Gone?” It explores potential reasons why the crime rate dropped to 1940 levels during the early ’90’s, after alarmists had earlier predicted that crime rates would mount to a virtual “bloodbath” during that period. It compares the true economic effects of various popular theories for this decline–including: innovative policing strategies, increased reliance on prisons, changes in drug markets, aging of the population, tougher gun control laws, strong economy, increased numberr of police, and other methods–such as capital punishment, concealed weapons laws, gun buybacks, etc.

“Before Roe v. Wade, it was predominantly the daughters of middle- or upper-class families who could arrange and afford a safe illegal abortion. Now, instead of an illegal procedure that might cost $500, any woman could easily obtain an abortion, often for less than $100.
What sort of woman was most likely to take advantage of Roe v. Wade? Very often she was unmarried or in her teens or poor, and sometimes all three. What sort of future might her children have had? One study has shown that the typical child who went unborn would have been 50% more likely than average to live in poverty; he would have been 60% more likely to grow up with just one parent. These 2 factors–childhood poverty and a single-parent household–are among the strongest predictors that a child will have a criminal future. Growing up in a single-parent home roughly doubles a child’s propensity to commit crime. So does having a teenage mother. Another study has shown that low maternal education is the single most powerful factor leading to criminal activity.
In other words, the very factors that drove millions of American women to have an abortion also seemed to predict that their children, had they been born, would have led unhappy and possibly criminal lives.
. . .
In the early 1990’s just as the first cohort of children born after Roe v. Wade was hitting its late teen years–the years during which young men enter their criminal prime–the rate of crime began to fall. What this cohort was missing, of course, were the children who stood the greatest chance of becoming criminals. And the crime rate continued to fall as as an entire generation came of age minus the children whos mothers had not wanted to bring a child into the world. Legalized abortion led to less unwantedness; unwantedness leads to high crime; legalized abortion, therefore, led to less crime.
This theory is bound to provoka a viariety of reactions, ranging from disbelief to revulsion, and a variety of objections, ranging from the quotidian to the moral. The likeliest first objection is the most straightforward one: is the theory true? Perhaps abortion and crime are merely correlated and not causal.
. . .
One way to test the net effect of abortion on crime would be to measure crime data in the five states where abortion was made legal before the Supreme Court extended abortion rates to the rest of the country. In New York, California, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii . . . crime beg[a]n to fall earlier than the other 45 states and the District of Columbia. . . .

But what if thos early legalizers simply got lucky? . . .
One factor to look for [to establish the abortion-crime link] would be a correlation between each state’s abortion rate and its crime rate. Sure enough, the states with the highest abortion rates in the 1970’s experienced the lowest drop in crime in the 1990’s, while the states with the lowest abortion rates experienced smaller crime drops.

From “Freakonomics” by Levitt & Dubner, pp.138-141 (2005).

Notice that there is no mention of race or ethnicity in this argument.

What I find most frustrating about the argument against safe, legal and accessible birth control of any kind, but particularly abortion, is the notion that women and families can’t make these decisions (I believe the intulleckshuls call this “agency”), that only the state can make these decisions. Now who’s the nanny party and who is the party of rugged individuals again? I remember reading that part of Freakonomics and being stunned: a whole cohort of women had made a decision that had such a broad impact, for themselves and society, and these morans think it’s as trivial as what flavor Slurpee to get.