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sperrico87 on 14 October 2012
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richardhutnik said:
sperrico87 said:
richardhutnik said:
sperrico87 said:
Both held their own very well. There wasn't a clear winner like last week's debate with Obama and Romney. Biden interrupted a lot, smirked and laughed a lot, and was generally rude and not respectful. Whether or not you like that style of debating will likely decide for you who "won". On substance, they seemed pretty even. Biden delivered a very good show for the left's base. Ryan delivered a good show for the right's base, even if it was a tad on the moderate side of things.

The only part of the debate I really had a hard time with was the abortion segment. Why didn't Ryan make it clearer that there isn't much Romney could as President to limit abortion? He could do very little, other than Supreme Court nominees and over-turning that international funding that can be used for abortion. Ryan could have made his party's point much clearer I thought. It's not like if Romney is elected all the sudden women are going to have more difficulty getting abortions. That's not the case at all.

If Romney or Ryan come out and say there isn't much they can do about abortion, they are going to lose the socially conservative base that is pro-life.  They are invested in the GOP, because the GOP panders to them with promises of ending abortion.  Say they can't do anything about it and they will lose the base.  If you end up mentioning the Supreme Court resolving things, then you make the Suprepe Court an even larger political issue.

And on the abortion issue, there is a degree of irony that those who are pro-choice and those who say they are pro-life (but want to gut welfare) end up crying out about "meanness" and "compassion".


I disagree. You base your argument on the assumption that without welfare people would be starving to death and dying in the streets, therefore in order to be "compassionate" you must support welfare.  Well, that's not actually true, because most of the compassionate types who are pro-life give generously to charity and in many other ways support the sick and the needy both directly and indirectly by tything to their Church and being active in the community.

I resist any accusation that says "those who are pro-life are hyprocrites because they don't care about poor people" or other poorly formed arguments.  They are entirely false and based on false assumptions about what true compassion really is.  For instance, if you were truly compassionate, you would resist welfare because it incentivises people to not work and to take instead of give.

Unless you can show poverty levels would be on par, or less, than they are now by gutting welfare, you are advocating a position that would result in more people dying and shortening of life.   You can at least show cases where those doing charity work to help the poor advocate cutting welfare, and believe that doing such will make their job easier, and reduce poverty.

Here are examples of individuals who have connection to doing welfare and their take on cutting welfare to the poor...

Catholic Church speaks out against it: http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=21197

Protestant churches oppose cuts to welfare: http://articles.courant.com/1995-03-10/news/9503100370_1_welfare-cuts-real-welfare-reform-mainline-protestant-denominations

President of Catholic Charites speaks out against eliminating welfare: http://salt.claretianpubs.org/issues/welfare/kammer.html

Now that is some on my end.  Now, either you show facts that it would work, or quote those who are in the business of helping the poor, that they support gutting welfare, or abolishing it.  If you can't, then you can't show that someone is pro-life.

In a nutshell here, your priority is not the sanctity of life, if you advocate gutting a current system that helps people and cannot speak of another alternative to replace it.  You may have a priority of freedom or rewarding the successful, but it isn't life.  Thus, do not bring up mercy and compassion as values, because they aren't there.


I work at a liquor store.  I have a brother who is a carpenter and does contract work for local grocery chains.  Do you really want get into an argument with me about how people on welfare and food stamps cannot help themselves and require our money in order for them to be able to have food on the table?  You don't want to go there.  We'll have to leave it at that.

By the way... obviously Churches (however short-sighted it may be) are proponents of more services and more money being dumped into welfare.  It is their job, so to speak.  The trouble is, they're not the ones paying for it.  Churches are tax exempt.