But I object to the characterization of abortion of zygotes as murder by those who are willing to kill fully formed people under other circumstances. It is blatantly hypocritical.

Lastly, I have always opposed government intrusion into matters that I believe to be between a couple or a woman and God alone. Early-term abortion happens to be one of those matters, in my opinion. Not every moral issue should not be a legal one.

And neither is your position. If you support abortion, then you should support anyones right to choose, just about anything. And if juries choose to execute a criminal for their crimes, you should support that choice. If nations choose to go to war, you should support that choice.

You are being very inconsistent.

have a nice day
neocon

No, it’s not.

“The only possible conclusion I can make is that the sanctity of human life is a morally relative value to many people on the right - subject to political considerations, expedience etc.” - Dennis

The only conclusion that I can make is the people, like you, who support abortion use casualties of war and executed convicted criminals as a morally relative values to support their anti war views.

It cuts both ways my friend, so quit being so sanctamonious. It’s nauseating.

My example stands - you feel that taking x number of lives is okay to get rid of a dictator - even when it is possible to tie the hands of that dictator by other means. By so doing you set yourself up as a god over the lives of those who become “collateral damage.” Why don’t they have a say? What gives you that right? Perhaps someday you will become collateral damage in someone else’s war, and may come to ask the same thing.

I hear this same argument frequently used against abortion, and have always said I could take it seriously if it were consistently applied. But it is not - neither with capital punishment.

The only possible conclusion I can make is that the sanctity of human life is a morally relative value to many people on the right - subject to political considerations, expedience etc.

Once again, abortion and war are mutually exclusive concepts. Your desperate attempt to link the two is just dishonest and embarrassing, but very typical of liberals.

Rico,

And yet when you dial in closer, considering all components, Denmark is #21.

http://www.cgdev.org/section/initiatives/_active/cdi/_components/aid/indicators/?country=denmark

But I am not denigrating Denmark per se, only when one of their Danes has the audacity to voice their negative opinion of the US do I excoriate them. How many Americans feel the need to chide Denmark for their past missteps?

I just don’t take kindly to foreigners who feel compelled to lecture us.

have a nice day
peace, neocon

I never claimed that we only kill the bad guys, but I also don’t wring my hands over collateral damage. Life is not fair, never has been and never will be. I look more on the scale of mankind than I do man, and taking out murderous, oppressive dictators is always the right thing to do for mankind, irregardless of the collateral damage.

That being said, our war planners should always try to mitigate loss of innocent life when ever possible, and people like you should never use that loss of life as an excuse not to go to war.

Got it?

Your only defense is to pretend the only casualties of war are bad guys. You have shown yourself too smart to believe something that ignorant. Human flesh can’t tell the difference between a terrorist bomb or a JDAM , between an insurgent bullet or an American bullet.

We may not deliberately target civilians as others do, but any decision to go to war is a foregone conclusion of many civilian casualties. If sound plans are not in place to secure the peace the numbers will be vastly higher.

In the end, the fact that the Iraq war was not a war of last resort (i.e. a just war), and the irresponsible manner in which the security of the population was disregarded (inadequate troop numbers, leaving munitions unguarded, not securing hospitals, etc) makes those who started it morally culpable for large-scale loss of human life.

You can pretend all you want that we only kill bad guys, ergo we are good guys. Once you begin making such disctinctions you already have fallen under the spell of moral relativism. Taking lives by violence cannot be simply contained - war spreads like a contagion. Once you become a supporter of war, your stand on abortion becomes like the woman arguing that she isn’t a whore.

http://www.cgdev.org/section/initiatives/_active/cdi/_components/aid/indicators/

You might want to go hunting around on that page. For example, in addition to “overall aid”, you can see how much is “tied” to the requirement that the aid be spent on equipment/materials from the donor nation, and how much of it is “selective”, meaning the percentage that is provided to countries that are poor, thus deserving, but well governed, thus more likely to use aid well.