well, I read the 13 page intro. I'll work my way through the rest at a later date. It does seem somewhat interesting but I do fear as I begin that our good doctor is concentrating more on one type of authoritarianism. There is hope in the fact that he acknowledges a broader view of authoritarianism.

A final point on this is that I see left-wing authoritarian as being more subtle and less obvious as it builds up...but no less pervasive when it takes hold.

As for Thoma, I have my quibbles with him as you may have read elsewhere. I agree that economic modeling is lacking as a pure science but that doesn't negate their in limited applications.

Personally, I prefer economics from a more philosophical and axiomatic perspective. It's telling that Johns Hopkins PhD in economics is actually a PhD in philosophy. They explain this all on the website to masters in econ grads looking to a PhD.

Mises, no fan of excessive math and modeling in economics, once said pejoratively that mathematical economics and econometrics is "mental gymnastics" and that it's no substitute for real economic thought. He said it can not be compared to physics because the things studied in physics do not think and modeling makes too light of this.

But his blog can be very, very shrill. What I don't like is his lack of will to interject when the nonsense gets really thick.

Suppose someone says:
I believe that it should be ILLEGAL to kill any innocent person.
I believe a late-term fetus is a person.
I believe it should be LEGAL to kill a fetus.

The above is illogical -- internal inconsistency, self-contradiction. Is that the kind of thinking (to use the term loosely) that Dostoevsky is saying is or might be a good thing? Is that what YOU are saying?

I find it hard to find any value in illogical thinking, at least not any inherent value. Even if somehow there were some value to it, it's quite evident that in practical terms, the harms far outweigh the benefits.

Adding this one brief comment to your comment Rachel because it seemed the best place, although the other women posting comments have made similar points; and I feel some obligation to say something on this topic.

Regardless of the rationality, or how many ways the men want to slice and dice this one in the name of logic, they will never understand the entire picture. Just as I will never completely understand what it is to be a man.

A woman has the absolute right to control her own body

Yes. And that's as complicated as we should make it. All this application of logic just muddles the underlying, immutable reality.

that didn't work. I just sent you an email from gmail account.

Re: "Gestation cannot be delegated."

What if it could. What if we can/could remove an embryo/fetus and transplant it to the womb of another woman, or for that matter somehow (just hypothetically) gestate it in a lab from the moment of conception. Would you then oppose all abortions?

Does it matter to you whether a fetus is a person or not? Do you consider it a person? On what basis?

Should a woman have the legal right to abort a fetus ten minutes before delivery for any reason at all?

I won't bother further with you on this thread. You keep falsely and baselessly attributing positions and arguments to me -- I believe out of honest misunderstandings on your part -- and you are either unwilling or unable to see that that's what you're doing. Not worth spending a lot of my time correcting an abundance of invalid statements.

I think you might be being a bit too strenuous on this. I understand the methodological exercise you're trying to drive this discussion with but in the end, I think, many people, especially those who disagree with the end result that you're challenging people to consider, simply do not have the patience to talk it through. They just want to get to the bottom line verdict. The philosophical or methodological road to that result may too tedious.

Some people just prefer their views and would rather just debate the old fashioned way by looking for things to make tangential debates about as part of that effort.

For my part, I did my best on this last night. I simply stick to my point that a fetus is not a person until it's born. I know it has holes in it but that's OK with me. Either way, I favor the woman's rights. But, on a personal level, I do abhor late term abortions. Why wait so long? But that's a personal opinion on the woman in question...not a judgment of the law.

As for your hypothetical way upthread about some future breakthrough that would allow the embryo or fetus to be removed and brought to birth without the mother, it's a touchy matter. In one sense, it's a pro-life way to avoid an abortion and preserve the life but it also could be a problem for psyche of the baby and the mother. I don't know.

toward Miss Liberties.

It has nothing to do with the Bible.

really.

You had provided your criterion for personhood ("awareness of self") and then wrote "what I think is irrelevant, except as regards MY decision to have or not have an abortion". It certainly seemed as if you were saying that the determination of whether or not an organism (whether in the womb or walking around on the street) is a person should be left up to the individual that wishes to kill that organism.
1) Was that not your point? If not, what was the point of that statement?
2) Do you agree that, as a society, we must pass laws defining what is murder and that that definition contains – either explicitly or implicitly – a definition of personhood, and that, therefore, the definition of personhood is NOT left up to each individual who wishes to kill an organism that may or may not be a person, but is rather a distinction that must be made by society and reflected in law?

Of course not. Are you saying that any person has the right to kill their neighbor’s unborn child before the fetus has achieved your definition of personhood?

First, that question seeks to refute an argument that I have not made -- in fact an argument that I have been refuting myself in this dialogue with you . My point is that we do not (and should not) leave the determination of personhood up to each individual who wishes to kill an organism. In any case, just to be responsive to your question, no, a person has no such right, just as they have no right to chop down their neighbor’s tree (assuming it’s on the right side of the property line!), not to mention that people generally don’t have the right to perform surgery on other people against the latter’s wishes.

You seem to be completely glossing over the fact that this is not about anyone’s rights; it is about the mother’s rights.

There is some glossing over occurring here, but, with respect, you’re the one doing it. Think about this logically. If – repeat, IF – the fetus is a person, and if all persons have rights, then there are the rights of two persons involved, right? So we’re back to the determination of personhood, and you may believe that a fetus even ten minutes prior to delivery is not a person, but you cannot logically say that ONLY the woman’s rights are involved unless you assert that the fetus is not a person or that it is a person without rights.

To set the point of birth as the time when a mother’s rights become superceded by societal laws is not illogical, just because you say it is.

First, to be very clear, I did NOT say that “to set the point of birth as the time when a mother’s rights become superceded by societal laws” is “illogical”. What IS illogical is one making statements that contradict each other (I’m not saying you’ve done so; I’m just clarifying what I’m calling illogical), or faulty deduction (the latter in the “dog” syllogism I presented in my comment to missliberties). Now, an example of what WOULD be illogical would be if one were to say that he believes all of the following:
- that all persons have a right to life.
- that the criterion for personhood is some particular type/level of cognition.
- that the cognition of a fetus ten minutes prior to birth is essentially the same vis a vis that standard as that of a newborn baby.
- that a newborn baby is a person.

And then concludes that that fetus ten minutes prior to birth does NOT have a right to life. THAT would be illogical, because it’s essentially saying “It’s ok to kill A, but not B, but B is the same thing as A.”

Birth is a completely clear dividing line

As I’ve said before, the lack of ambiguity is not in itself an argument for the point of onset of personhood, nor for any other basis for whether or not an organism has a right to life, even if it may be convenient or remove one element of the overall controversy (measurement). I could say that the first signs of brain activity are a completely clear dividing line, albeit not evident to the naked eye as is birth and requiring more deliberate measurement, but even that is beside the point. What does the clarity of some “dividing line” have to do with an appropriate criterion for personhood and the associated right to life (or of a right to life on any other basis)?

before birth, the baby is completely and totally dependent upon the mother for survival, barring some invasive operational procedure to separate the two.

So? What does complete dependence have to do with whether or not the fetus is a person? If an adult conjoined twin is dependent on his brother’s organs and dependent on them for survival, does the former not have a right to life? Should his brother have the right to undergo separation surgery without his consent even if that means certain death? Or, just to make a wild hypothetical for the sake of discussion, if for some reason a baby would not survive if the umbilical cord were cut prior to his fifth birthday, is he not a person at age four, and should his mother have the right, therefore, to kill him at age four, simply because he is still completely dependent on her for survival?

. After birth, the baby is an individual entity

What do you mean by “inidividual entity”? Simply physical separation? Are you saying that a fetus ten minutes prior to birth is not an individual entity simply because he is physically attached and/or simply because he is physically dependent on the woman? Assuming you consider a person to be an “individual entity”, what does location or physical dependence have to do with personhood?

I am not the one who is using personhood as a criteria for the legalities or moralities of killing at all, you are. Personally, I have some pretty serious problems with killing cows, pigs and chickens, too

First, you are mistaking what I am saying is a sufficient condition for denying the choice of an abortion with what I’m saying is a necessary condition, although I must admit I have not consistently made that point explicitly and some of my statements, by failing to include that qualifier, may have caused that misunderstanding. I’m saying personhood is SUFFICIENT to establish a right to life. It may be that some type/level of fetal cognition that does not yet establish personhood IS the equivalent of some other animal life form that has some type of a right to life. But that gets into a gray area within a gray area, so I only mention it in passing (and sometimes not at all), rather than divert attention down the road of the animal rights issue.

Personally, I'm pretty sure I would not choose to have an abortion myself. But I don't think my personal morality should be made law.

I think we’ve already established that the definition of murder and, therefore, the definition of personhood is not up to each individual, but rather must be made law. Moreover, you DO support one type of your “personal morality” being reflected in the law. You have simply chosen birth as the key “dividing line” for the acquisition of a right to life, and you have not provided much of a justification for choosing that point -- only that it’s “clear” and that it’s the least common denominator view of personhood / right to life, which apparently (if you’ve thought it through) reflects your moral view that it is more moral, for some reason, to only grant a right to life to organisms who are universally recognized as persons (the least common denominator), regardless of what criteria for personhood you or I would have or would even consider reasonable -- and I think (not sure) you agree that, if that least common denominator (what everyone could agree on) in some society were that a child is not a person with a right to life until age ten, you would oppose the legalization of killing of children under that age, so there goes the legitimacy of that least common denominator approach.

For example, the Pastafarians smoke their noodles.