Welcome to a World that Debates the Undebatable
this entry brought to you by rage against the machine, "mic check (once hunting, now hunted)"
I'm not sure when it happened, really. It might have been when the Bush administration stole the election and the government simultaneously was controlled by a neo-con Senate and House. Or it might have been when, with a vice-like grip of fear over the country, Bush convinced the idiots of America that we needed to go into an illegal war of first resort under false pretense with Iraq. But somewhere in those years, the doors were opened for lunatics demanding equal time in "debates", when the issues at hand were not debatable.
There was no clear and present danger in Iraq. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no connection with 9/11. These are the facts, and they have always been facts. It has been illegal to go to war with a country unless there was a threat since WW2. Furthermore, the United States has never had a preemptive strike on another country even when there was proof that the country was in danger. And yet, even when the government acknowledged our pretenses for war were fabricated, conversatives still demanded (and got) equal time to this issue, as if it was an issue that was still debatable. It was absolutely mind blowing turning on the television and, even though the White House admitted the documents were false, here were people unembarrassed, very eager to support a war built from the ground up on non-facts!
There was also the intelligent design nonsense that was suddenly given credence when our buffoon of a President said that if we taught evolution in school, we ought to teach intelligent design also. No, Mr. President. I'm sorry. We ought not teach intelligent design in schools, because it has no facts behind it. Evolution, on the other hand, is based on facts. This is the reason we teach it in schools. Many believers in intelligent design believe that man lived with dinosaurs. This is not true. There is no reason to teach non-truths in school for the sake of "alternative answers". There is no debate. One is arguing fact, the other is arguing fish. There is no reason to give them equal time.
Then I turn on the television, and people are talking about the legalities of the government spying on the American people, and how much torture we should give a prisoner before it should be illegal. How much torture? If it's one thing I can safely say without a shadow of a doubt, it's that America is based and founded on not torturing people. This isn't a question. You just don't torture people. Period. And yet, apparently, we live in a Bizarro World where grown, official men-- often elected official men-- are on television, comfortable enough with their insanity to talk about not whether we should spy on Americans and torture our prisoners-- which should be an obvious no-- but how much.
Which brings me to the reason I decided to write this. Here in Arizona, our legislation sat down the day before yesterday to discuss a new law that would be put on the ballot, allowing pharmacists to deny certain medications (specifically the morning-after pill) to patients for religious beliefs. As a compromise to opponents, pharmasists denying medication would have to recommend a pharmacist that wouldn't deny them.
The problem is that there is no compromise when one side is wrong. Pharmacists aren't medical doctors. They don't get to make choices about patients, they can't, in most cases, prescribe medicine to a patient based on judgement, and they cannot unprescribe a patient-- they don't even have patients. They have customers. And if they disagree with a product the retailer they work for sells, they can find a different job.
The argument, of course, is that if a doctor can refuse an abortion, a pharmacist should also. This makes no sense, because pharmacists are not medical doctors. You don't need a doctorate in medicine to be able to measure various powders and to be able to pour them into smaller recepticles. I'm not trying to say that pharmacists don't have an important job. Mismeasurements can cause horrible reactions in people, or even death. Furthermore, pharmacists often know more about pharmaceuticals than doctors do. But they aren't medical doctors. They can't give out anything based on a judgement call. A doctor can. The reason doctors can refuse abortions and pharmacists can't is because they are two totally different jobs, with totally different job specifications, with different qualifications. One takes the Hippocratic Oath, the other takaes the Oath of Maimonides. There is no argument or debate because one side's argument is completely nonsensical and baseless. If we wanted pharmacists to make decisions based on judgement, they would have to have medical doctorates.
To put it into perspective, imagine that I, a liberal pacifist (rather than a conservative religionist, the people trying to argue this into law), am a pharmacist. And let's say a hunter and his buddy were out hunting, and one of them accidentally shot the other. And let's say they need medicine to help heal the wound. If I turned this person down because I'm a pacifist and didn't believe in guns, would that be alright? Of course not. It's nonsense. And yet here we are, this very issue taken all the way to state legislation, as if it deserves the same consideration as something that does make sense, as if it does have base and merit, as if there were some sort of argument for it founded in reality. There isn't a debate here. Just insanity.
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with love from CRS @ 1:51 PM
Thursday, March 09, 2006
I'm not sure when it happened, really. It might have been when the Bush administration stole the election and the government simultaneously was controlled by a neo-con Senate and House. Or it might have been when, with a vice-like grip of fear over the country, Bush convinced the idiots of America that we needed to go into an illegal war of first resort under false pretense with Iraq. But somewhere in those years, the doors were opened for lunatics demanding equal time in "debates", when the issues at hand were not debatable.
There was no clear and present danger in Iraq. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no connection with 9/11. These are the facts, and they have always been facts. It has been illegal to go to war with a country unless there was a threat since WW2. Furthermore, the United States has never had a preemptive strike on another country even when there was proof that the country was in danger. And yet, even when the government acknowledged our pretenses for war were fabricated, conversatives still demanded (and got) equal time to this issue, as if it was an issue that was still debatable. It was absolutely mind blowing turning on the television and, even though the White House admitted the documents were false, here were people unembarrassed, very eager to support a war built from the ground up on non-facts!
There was also the intelligent design nonsense that was suddenly given credence when our buffoon of a President said that if we taught evolution in school, we ought to teach intelligent design also. No, Mr. President. I'm sorry. We ought not teach intelligent design in schools, because it has no facts behind it. Evolution, on the other hand, is based on facts. This is the reason we teach it in schools. Many believers in intelligent design believe that man lived with dinosaurs. This is not true. There is no reason to teach non-truths in school for the sake of "alternative answers". There is no debate. One is arguing fact, the other is arguing fish. There is no reason to give them equal time.
Then I turn on the television, and people are talking about the legalities of the government spying on the American people, and how much torture we should give a prisoner before it should be illegal. How much torture? If it's one thing I can safely say without a shadow of a doubt, it's that America is based and founded on not torturing people. This isn't a question. You just don't torture people. Period. And yet, apparently, we live in a Bizarro World where grown, official men-- often elected official men-- are on television, comfortable enough with their insanity to talk about not whether we should spy on Americans and torture our prisoners-- which should be an obvious no-- but how much.
Which brings me to the reason I decided to write this. Here in Arizona, our legislation sat down the day before yesterday to discuss a new law that would be put on the ballot, allowing pharmacists to deny certain medications (specifically the morning-after pill) to patients for religious beliefs. As a compromise to opponents, pharmasists denying medication would have to recommend a pharmacist that wouldn't deny them.
The problem is that there is no compromise when one side is wrong. Pharmacists aren't medical doctors. They don't get to make choices about patients, they can't, in most cases, prescribe medicine to a patient based on judgement, and they cannot unprescribe a patient-- they don't even have patients. They have customers. And if they disagree with a product the retailer they work for sells, they can find a different job.
The argument, of course, is that if a doctor can refuse an abortion, a pharmacist should also. This makes no sense, because pharmacists are not medical doctors. You don't need a doctorate in medicine to be able to measure various powders and to be able to pour them into smaller recepticles. I'm not trying to say that pharmacists don't have an important job. Mismeasurements can cause horrible reactions in people, or even death. Furthermore, pharmacists often know more about pharmaceuticals than doctors do. But they aren't medical doctors. They can't give out anything based on a judgement call. A doctor can. The reason doctors can refuse abortions and pharmacists can't is because they are two totally different jobs, with totally different job specifications, with different qualifications. One takes the Hippocratic Oath, the other takaes the Oath of Maimonides. There is no argument or debate because one side's argument is completely nonsensical and baseless. If we wanted pharmacists to make decisions based on judgement, they would have to have medical doctorates.
To put it into perspective, imagine that I, a liberal pacifist (rather than a conservative religionist, the people trying to argue this into law), am a pharmacist. And let's say a hunter and his buddy were out hunting, and one of them accidentally shot the other. And let's say they need medicine to help heal the wound. If I turned this person down because I'm a pacifist and didn't believe in guns, would that be alright? Of course not. It's nonsense. And yet here we are, this very issue taken all the way to state legislation, as if it deserves the same consideration as something that does make sense, as if it does have base and merit, as if there were some sort of argument for it founded in reality. There isn't a debate here. Just insanity.
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