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Posted by DAVID SCHRAUB, Assistant Editor in At TMV. Oct 20th, 2007 | 12 responses
Huckabee calls post-Roe v. Wade America a “holocaust”. This is how the GOP thinks it will attract Jewish voters? Oh, and this isn’t the first time Huckabee’s been a bit loose with Shoah references either.
If you genuinely believe that abortion is the premeditated murder of an innocent human being then, yes, legalized abortion is akin to the Holocaust. The only difference would be that it wasn’t executed by the government – only condoned by it.
“Akin to” would be different, albeit Jews wouldn’t have to like it any better (Huckabee can believe the validity of whatever he likes, but we don’t have to accede to it as a community). But he said it is a holocaust, which is independently annoying to Jews because we don’t like “holocaust” used as a generic term for any and all genocides. It’s a proper noun.
Who cares what Huckabee thinks? He has as much chance of getting the nomination as I do and I think you’re wrong to conflate and expand his statements to include everyone in the GOP. The fact is a lot of conservatives and GOP faithful are tired of the crap put out by the religious right.
The problem is that pro-choice people aren’t genocidal racists who get off on murder. The basic philosophies that give rise to such divided views are both well-grounded.
Uh, all these people calling abortion a holocaust are anti-war and anti-capital punishment, right?
What really got my goat about Huckabee’s statemment was the implication that if there were no abortions, there would be a home grown stream of cheap labor to make immigrants unnecessary. Well, which class would provide cheap labor? It wouldn’t be the wealthy, that’s for sure. It would be the overburdened lower classes who are constantly derided for not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.
What those who are sincere in their oppostition to abortion fail to acknowledge is that abortion is very much a class issue. The welathy are not much affected by laws, anyway If abortion is illegal where they live, they can travel to where it is legal to take care of their problem. Not so the poor, who are not only stuck with the consequences, but are criticized for them, to boot.
At the same time, Huckabee expressed what has become apparent in our economic system and society. There is a need for a caste of cheap laborers, and those on top are seeing to it that he need is fulfilled in any way they can.
We are turning back the clock of history by a full century, and many are applauding this as ‘progress’.
Progress, my foot!
ELROD-
People can be sincere and dead wrong at the same time, even malevolent.
There is no doubt Nixon was sincere in thinking he was acting in the best interests of his country while he presided over the Watergate mess.
Bigots are also sincere.
Sincerity is no excuse.
I’m with Elrod, if you really believe that a fetus is equal to a full human being, then the comparison is valid. Mind you, only to a certain extent, it would only be completely valid if abortions were systematic and government ordered. But still, if I thought the government was legally protecting the murder of babies, then yeah, I wouldn’t find it to be such a strange statement. It’s much more consistent than this wishy washy “abortion is murder” but then making exceptions for rape or incest (what, it’s suddenly less of a baby when it’s a rapist’s baby?).
Of course I don’t agree with him, just like I believe in evolution, something he apparently does not. I wonder if anyone has asked him how old he thinks the Earth is?
“if you really believe that a fetus is equal to a full human being, then the comparison is valid.”
Okay. Then, if you really believe that Africans are an inferior race, it’s valid to compare them to monkeys?
What matters is not he validity of a comparison but the validity of the premise from which it stems and the consequences thereof.
Therw’s always the tendency to let a debate over semantics overhadow the substance of the debate.
If a person like Nixon sincerely believes he is the savior of the world, then anything he does in his own interests or his party’s interests will appear to be in the interests of the world.
That’s exactly where the sinceity yardstick fails.
we don’t like “holocaust†used as a generic term for any and all genocides. It’s a proper noun.
The word is not a proper noun, but was capitalized to give a name to Hitler’s extermination of the Jews in Europe. There is a word and there is a name here.
The word has existed since the Middle Ages, long preceding the Holocaust, to which the older meaning of a burnt offering, in a sacrificial sense, is added, poetically or philosophically, to the more recent (1800s-onward) use of the word to mean a massacre or mass slaughter.
Uh, all these people calling abortion a holocaust are anti-war and anti-capital punishment, right?
“Uh”? *frown*
1. Embryos are innocent; criminals and our enemies are not. You are attempting to expose an inconsistency than in fact does not exist.
2. “Pro-life” and “pro-choice” (the latter especially) have always been incorrect euphemisms (and in the case of the latter) weasel phrases (choice of WHAT?). The correct terms are always “anti-abortion” and “pro-abortion.” Many anti-abortion activists consider abortion to be murder, hence the obvious use of the word “holocaust,” no worse than (in the case of nuclear power and lies about risks and accidents, much better than) the use of the term “nuclear holocaust” as anti-USA-and-Western-nuclear activists said so often in the 1980s about the US and Western military and about nuclear power plants.
If you genuinely believe that abortion is the premeditated murder of an innocent human being then, yes, legalized abortion is akin to the Holocaust. The only difference would be that it wasn’t executed by the government – only condoned by it.
“Akin to” would be different, albeit Jews wouldn’t have to like it any better (Huckabee can believe the validity of whatever he likes, but we don’t have to accede to it as a community). But he said it is a holocaust, which is independently annoying to Jews because we don’t like “holocaust” used as a generic term for any and all genocides. It’s a proper noun.
Who cares what Huckabee thinks? He has as much chance of getting the nomination as I do and I think you’re wrong to conflate and expand his statements to include everyone in the GOP. The fact is a lot of conservatives and GOP faithful are tired of the crap put out by the religious right.
The problem is that pro-choice people aren’t genocidal racists who get off on murder. The basic philosophies that give rise to such divided views are both well-grounded.
Uh, all these people calling abortion a holocaust are anti-war and anti-capital punishment, right?
What really got my goat about Huckabee’s statemment was the implication that if there were no abortions, there would be a home grown stream of cheap labor to make immigrants unnecessary. Well, which class would provide cheap labor? It wouldn’t be the wealthy, that’s for sure. It would be the overburdened lower classes who are constantly derided for not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.
What those who are sincere in their oppostition to abortion fail to acknowledge is that abortion is very much a class issue. The welathy are not much affected by laws, anyway If abortion is illegal where they live, they can travel to where it is legal to take care of their problem. Not so the poor, who are not only stuck with the consequences, but are criticized for them, to boot.
At the same time, Huckabee expressed what has become apparent in our economic system and society. There is a need for a caste of cheap laborers, and those on top are seeing to it that he need is fulfilled in any way they can.
We are turning back the clock of history by a full century, and many are applauding this as ‘progress’.
Progress, my foot!
ELROD-
People can be sincere and dead wrong at the same time, even malevolent.
There is no doubt Nixon was sincere in thinking he was acting in the best interests of his country while he presided over the Watergate mess.
Bigots are also sincere.
Sincerity is no excuse.
It’s probably a good idea to watch the entire speech, because the “abortion is holocaust” comment — a bread-and-butter applause line in the anti-abortion community for a long time now — is only one of several disturbing statements Huckaby makes at James Dobson’s little soirée. You can watch it (and several other speeches, including Romney’s, Ingraham’s, Fred Thompson’s, Gingrich’s, Bork’s, Giuliani’s, McCain’s and Santorum’s) here.
I’m with Elrod, if you really believe that a fetus is equal to a full human being, then the comparison is valid. Mind you, only to a certain extent, it would only be completely valid if abortions were systematic and government ordered. But still, if I thought the government was legally protecting the murder of babies, then yeah, I wouldn’t find it to be such a strange statement. It’s much more consistent than this wishy washy “abortion is murder” but then making exceptions for rape or incest (what, it’s suddenly less of a baby when it’s a rapist’s baby?).
Of course I don’t agree with him, just like I believe in evolution, something he apparently does not. I wonder if anyone has asked him how old he thinks the Earth is?
“if you really believe that a fetus is equal to a full human being, then the comparison is valid.”
Okay. Then, if you really believe that Africans are an inferior race, it’s valid to compare them to monkeys?
What matters is not he validity of a comparison but the validity of the premise from which it stems and the consequences thereof.
Therw’s always the tendency to let a debate over semantics overhadow the substance of the debate.
Huh? You do realize what Watergate was all about don’t you?
I don’t think even Nixon would claim he was acting in the best interest of the country and not his campaign.
Davebo=
If a person like Nixon sincerely believes he is the savior of the world, then anything he does in his own interests or his party’s interests will appear to be in the interests of the world.
That’s exactly where the sinceity yardstick fails.
The word is not a proper noun, but was capitalized to give a name to Hitler’s extermination of the Jews in Europe. There is a word and there is a name here.
The word has existed since the Middle Ages, long preceding the Holocaust, to which the older meaning of a burnt offering, in a sacrificial sense, is added, poetically or philosophically, to the more recent (1800s-onward) use of the word to mean a massacre or mass slaughter.
“Uh”? *frown*
1. Embryos are innocent; criminals and our enemies are not. You are attempting to expose an inconsistency than in fact does not exist.
2. “Pro-life” and “pro-choice” (the latter especially) have always been incorrect euphemisms (and in the case of the latter) weasel phrases (choice of WHAT?). The correct terms are always “anti-abortion” and “pro-abortion.” Many anti-abortion activists consider abortion to be murder, hence the obvious use of the word “holocaust,” no worse than (in the case of nuclear power and lies about risks and accidents, much better than) the use of the term “nuclear holocaust” as anti-USA-and-Western-nuclear activists said so often in the 1980s about the US and Western military and about nuclear power plants.