10-09-2004 13:37									#31
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Yes, I have been the Vice President of Lifeline.

Everyone is welcome to google my name to see how much I was involved.

I tended to do most of the research for the group, and though I am not currently serving on their exec, I assist in an advisory capacity when requested by the current president.

You can even check up on the current president. The first name is no coincidence.

quote: Tearing down posters is not violence.

Not according to Ryan Marshall, the AMS president at the time, who testified that at the trial. You may not have believed your actions to be violent, but again, put the shoe on the other foot. Suppose I wanted to try to break your white pro-choice banners? Would you not construe such an act as violent?

quote: You folks should have put your huge, graphic images in a room somewhere where students could go and look at them if they wanted to.

So shutter us away in a corner where no one will see them? That's very fair.

Also, where would we put them? We couldn't go in the AMS building, now could we, where all the other clubs go to hold meetings of this sort.

quote: Our side would have picketed to be sure, but we wouldn't have prevented anyone from seeing them.

Why rip down the posters, unless you want to prevent people from seeing them? Why try to evict all students who dare to come close to the signs? Why try to cover up the display with your white banners, so much so, that the campus security has to enforce a barrier to make sure people see our display.

Why do you campaign to keep GAP off our campus?

Your sole goal has been to prevent people from seeing these pictures, because the pictures are effective in changing people's beliefs on abortion.

Now, I have no problems with your counterprotests, but when you bring a bullhorn to shout us down, how are you respecting our rights to be on campus, and to put our display where other people will see them.

And by the way, we put up warning signs, so that people who do not want to see the display do not have to walk by them, as a courtesy.

So we are not forcing the pictures on anyone.

	10-09-2004 13:39									#32
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quote: Joncha, I know you are the far most immature person I have ever met here

Gian:

**** off.

	10-09-2004 13:45									#33
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quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi Gian: F*ck off.

My thoughts exactly.

	10-09-2004 13:45									#34
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**** off? Is that all you can say? I'm trying to defend your right to freedom of speech. I don't like you, BK.. and I don't like attitude.. but if you want me to "**** off", fine.

	10-09-2004 13:55									#35
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quote: **** off? Is that all you can say? I'm trying to defend your right to freedom of speech. I don't like you, BK.. and I don't like attitude.. but if you want me to "**** off", fine.

I don't need that kind of **** to defend my points, and I'm trying to keep that **** out of here.

	10-09-2004 15:33									#36
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It's not a fair way to put things Ben Kenobi, it's pure sensationalism. These foetuses have a very low state of neurological development. Much less than cattle or pigs. So go and show pictures of abattoirs as well if you feel that strongly...

	10-09-2004 15:41									#37
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quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi So all protests must have prior notice before they are conducted?

As far as i know you have to have police permission before holding any kind of demonstration, at least here in the U.K. (lots of hassle with animal rights people over the last few years).

Obviously I don't know the Canadian law, but I am guessing it'll be similar.

	10-09-2004 16:34									#38
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quote: Comparisions between the victims of the holocaust and the victims of abortion makes us hatemongers?

Ben, this is why the abortion debate never advances. You've got blind extremists (I should add the "on both sides" qualifier) invoking Godwin's Law left and right, and the vast majority of people who would see it as immoral instead just think of those crazy ultra-fundies that were out with a banner of aborted fetus pictures.

Instead, both sides need to take a step back, look at all the facts again, and approach the issue much less explosively. Otherwise things will never get done.

	10-09-2004 16:57									#39
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quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi Sadly, the folks on our campus want to prevent others from seeing the same.

Why would anyone want to see it? Why not show pictures of a heart transplant and declare it bad because it's gross? If you're argument is anything other than gross=bad, then there is no point to show the pictures. Why not approach it in a way that doesn't make your group look like hatemongering bigots?

	10-09-2004 19:02									#40
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The issue here isn't whether Ben's posters were effective or proper or appealing to look at, the issue is whether he had a right to put them up.

Certainly he did.

That's what free speech is about, and the reason these protections exist. A law protecting free speech isn't needed to protect speech that everyone agrees with. Its needed to protect controversial speech.

Also, I never knew Ben and John went to school together. Facinating.

I would urge y'all to watch that video. It had some similar stories. Like a College Republican at Cal Poly in California whose flyer advertising an upcoming speaker was torn down. The flyer had the title of the book their speaker had written, named something like "Leaving the Plantation" (it was written by a black author). The people who tore it down said it was offensive and called the police on him. He was brought up on charges at the school and made to write letters of apology for putting up that flyer and told to take sensitivity training. He refused and fought the issue. (there was more, you need to watch it)

	10-09-2004 19:06									#41
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quote: The issue here isn't whether Ben's posters were effective or proper or appealing to look at, the issue is whether he had a right to put them up. Certainly he did.

So you also think people would have a right to put up huge billboards with hardcore pornography on them?

Graphic images in either case.

	10-09-2004 20:19									#42
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I don't think thats a fair comparison.

See how you like this one, when visiting Sacramento recently there was a large billboard advertising some gay dating line, or phone sex line or something, and it showed two beefy men embracing. Now I'm all in favor of gay rights, but that big billboard wasn't a welcome image for me.

Of course they have an absolute right to put it up. I've got a right to avert my eyes.

Should animal rights activists show images of factory farms? Should anyone show images of the Houlocaust? Do we dare present people with the awful truth?

	10-09-2004 22:28									#43
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quote: Originally posted by OzzyKP I don't think thats a fair comparison.

It is absolutely fair. Let's say it was for a women's rights groups protesting how pornography exploits women.

	10-09-2004 22:34									#44
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This is always such a silly issue.

Certainly there are plenty of clueless raidal lefties at universities who think acitng like an ass makes them an intellectual, and university admins. more interested in getting rid of a problem than enduring the ire of these morons making a nuicense of themselves, but in the end the righties get to move on and thrive.

	11-09-2004 02:16									#45
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quote: It's not a fair way to put things Ben Kenobi, it's pure sensationalism. These foetuses have a very low state of neurological development. Much less than cattle or pigs. So go and show pictures of abattoirs as well if you feel that strongly...

And that's the whole point. If we truly believe that these children are less developed than pigs or animals, then it should be no different then from showing a slaughterhouse.

Sensational? Only because people begin to see the opposite, that these are children, that look like children and not animals.

So don't give me that. If university students are mature enough to have an abortion, then they are also mature enough to see pictures depicting one.

	11-09-2004 02:19									#46
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quote: Obviously I don't know the Canadian law, but I am guessing it'll be similar.

Now we do for our structured displays, but before the university used to require 10k just for 'security', a ridiculous requirement, and one not used against any other club.

Besides, John's club knew we were coming, they wrote several articles to the local campus paper, warning people about a possible display coming up in the future. So it's not like it was unpredictable.

	11-09-2004 02:26									#47
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quote: Ben, this is why the abortion debate never advances. You've got blind extremists (I should add the "on both sides" qualifier) invoking Godwin's Law left and right, and the vast majority of people who would see it as immoral instead just think of those crazy ultra-fundies that were out with a banner of aborted fetus pictures.

Actually, the comparisons are valid, and there are many parallels with the holocaust and with abortion.

You have death camps, where jews were incinerated, and now you have the abortion clinics.

The Final solution became public policy for nazi Germany, and supported by the state. The same is true of abortion up in Canada, where the state provides the clinics. The government has a public policy to ensure the deaths of unborn children who are not protected by law.

The same terminology used against the Jews, is used against unborn children, that they are parasites, and the like.

Finally, when you look at the numbers, it's not so much invoking Godwin's law, but that the only thing that comes even close to abortion, is the holocaust. The numbers are nowhere near comparable, in that the holocaust only killed 6 million people, and abortion has killed far more. Around 40 million in the US and Canada alone.

Those who would consider us Fundamentalists, and religious extremists have a much harder time doing so, when we are calm and collected, and the other side seems to be full of hate and rage.

	11-09-2004 02:27									#48
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Appendectomies make me pretty queasy, should we ban those too?

	11-09-2004 02:28									#49
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quote: Of course they have an absolute right to put it up. I've got a right to avert my eyes.

You can choose to walk away from the display after you see our warning signs. That is your right.

	11-09-2004 02:29									#50
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quote: Appendectomies make me pretty queasy, should we ban those too?

No, because an appendectomy has a valid medical rationale. Abortion does not.

	11-09-2004 02:30									#51
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quote: So you also think people would have a right to put up huge billboards with hardcore pornography on them?

Considering the pride parades we get, that would just fit in.

	11-09-2004 02:50									#52
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What if I come to the Campus with a huge poster of hardcore gay porn. I do so to convince people that it's a) a very natural thing to do or b)to convince people that this distgusting behavior is against the will of God. I' put up warning signs, so that people who do not want to see the display do not have to walk by them, as a courtesy.

But seriously and honestly, your Holocaust comparison is pathetic, Ben and outrage about it is more than understandable. Just ask yourself what the victims of the Holocaust had to suffer physically and psychologically in the Death Camps for years and then think what a foetus suffers during abortion. Now please, spare me the details, I accept whatever you say it suffers, but you'll understand that it's not comparable to above.
About using the same terminology: Nowhere in my or your society, I see massive propaganda all day long that unborn children are parasites that have to be whiped out collectively and the cause of all the bad in the world, as Nazi propaganda hammered in the heads of Germans every single day in the case of jews.

That's why people call you hate-mongers.

	11-09-2004 02:56									#53
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quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi No, because an appendectomy has a valid medical rationale. Abortion does not.

Do your posters somehow convey this questionable difference in kind, or do they just appeal to people's visceral reactions to the sight of blood? I mean, it's all well and good if you're trying to stop abortions through these sorts of base emotional appeals -- lord knows that it's easier than trying to change somebody's mind through rational debate. I'm just wondering if there's something you left out in your description of your free-speech activities that are somehow being trampled upon by other peoples' free-speech activities.

	11-09-2004 03:06									#54
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quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi Now Jon, I have no intent to take this any further, okay? I think you have gone far in the time since that incident 5 years ago, and that the past is the past.

Yet you, Master Kenobi, appear to have brought it right back into the present....

If you want to get down dirty and personal, don't try beating a hasty retreat to a presumed moral high ground.

	11-09-2004 03:10									#55
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quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi No, because an appendectomy has a valid medical rationale. Abortion does not.

Yes it does, you fool. Take ectopic pregnancy and anencephalic foetuses as an example.

Now explain to me the valid medical rationale for gassing, shooting or working to death Jews. Or accept that your stance cheapens the Holocaust.

	11-09-2004 03:24									#56
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quote: Take ectopic pregnancy and anencephalic foetuses as an example.

Ectopic pregnancy is where you have a choice between saving one life, or allowing two to die. That's it. There is unfortunately no third option.

As for an anencephalic baby, I'm still not sure about that. I've heard arguments either way.

The argument against abortion in this circumstance is that abortion has risks of it's own to the woman, of complications that need to be considered. Secondly, a woman who carries her baby to term recieves protection from breast cancer, whereas abortion not only robs her of this protection, but increases her overall risk.

So it seems to me from the medical standpoint, that it is most beneficial to encourage the mother to carry her child to term, even if the child will not survive long.

However, if we look at abortion, an almost infinitesimal percentage of the total can be accounted for by these two hard cases. So in almost every case, the comparison between abortion and the holocaust is valid.

	11-09-2004 03:28									#57
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quote: Yet you, Master Kenobi, appear to have brought it right back into the present.... If you want to get down dirty and personal, don't try beating a hasty retreat to a presumed moral high ground.

I didn't want this to get personal in the first place, and I have tried to keep this from becoming personal.

	11-09-2004 03:29									#58
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I used to get my college column cut if I mentioned anything about females, regardless of what it was, which considering where I went to school was always a taboo issue.

Funny thing was the scolding words were always how dare you "expose," or "release" or "make public."

I thought it was funny I got accused of sexual harrasment the next quarter by a knob that was not even at the school anymore. Apprently she had remembered an off color comment I made about cheerleaders. Supporting evidence was apparently not an issue.

Then they fired the papers editor and replaced him with an "acceptable" student. My column never saw the light of day again and was later canceled, after a 20 year history.

I am a very big proponent of free speech, from all sides. I am also a proponent of not being obnoxious, for all sides. So while I think you have a right BK to say and show what you want, but your methods are suspect. It is a disturbing trend, being obnoxious, which is primarly utilized by the left.

	11-09-2004 03:33									#59
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quote: Do your posters somehow convey this questionable difference in kind, or do they just appeal to people's visceral reactions to the sight of blood?

It helps to see the pictures. With moderator permission I can post them here, but otherwise, I would have to send them via PM.

quote: I mean, it's all well and good if you're trying to stop abortions through these sorts of base emotional appeals -- lord knows that it's easier than trying to change somebody's mind through rational debate. I'm just wondering if there's something you left out in your description of your free-speech activities that are somehow being trampled upon by other peoples' free-speech activities.

The pictures stop people, and some of them choose to continue to talk to our volunteers. The pictures are less effective in changing peoples minds on their own, rather they are more effective in getting people to think about abortion.

The same arguments that I have presented here on this board are also the same ones we use out there, that if abortion kills an unborn child, then abortion can be compared to the holocaust. If it does not, then it cannot. We have to centre the issue on whether or not the unborn child is a person.

Now, if you think we are hiding something, then I'm not sure what evidence I can provide to the contrary other than the posters themselves. You would really have to go to one of the protests to see them in action.

	11-09-2004 03:35									#60
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quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi I didn't want this to get personal in the first place, and I have tried to keep this from becoming personal.

Balls, Ben! Big dangly sacks of nuts! You made it personal by giving everyone a handy little potted history. Now apologise to the man or grow a spine.

Now I'll repeat my question. You've conceded a medical validation for termination of ectopic pregnancies.

Now. Tell. Me. When. It's. Medically. Justified. To. Gas. Jews.