> plus a lot of panting to tell a lot of
> people what to do.

Like avoiding circumcision, right?

But tonight, I say enough.
And then, suddenly, everything changed. Right.
We will get the same rhetoric from both parties.
If you vote for the other guy, it's BAD FOR AMERICA.
You know what? No matter who wins, we all lose.
(Except our resident gracious winner)

How to fix things:
Hey, Congress! Let's give everyone the same health care as you get. You all get to vote on what is is and what it costs, but EVERYONE GETS THE SAME DEAL.
Put taxes back where they were in the late 70s and let's see what happens. Repealing tax cuts is not really 'raising' taxes, depending on your point of view.

Every one of them is spending millions to get a job that pays one or two hundred thousand a year. They hire people who don't know how to do anything to tell the rest of us what we can and cannot do.

You expect better?

> I don't want to deny people circumcision.
> I just want them to wait to give a person
> the ability to consent to it.

That's essentially the same thing. It's a religious practice for children, Amy. If it doesn't happen in particular early times, the point is lost...

Which, you freely admit, is your whole point: You want to take control of their expression of religion, telling them what to do, because you think you know better.

How this is distinguished from the most repellant government intrusion, or even the Taliban, is not clear to me.

> you admit that this a superstition-based
> practice, not warranted medically.

Right. I think people are allowed to be superstitious, at all sorts of costs.

You, Amy, are a government junky. You want that next hit of irresistible power so bad, you can taste it.... And you're ready to mainline.

>>We don't let parents abuse children. Unnecessary surgery to bend to some superstition on a child who cannot speak to deny consent is abuse

Funny, I don't feel abused. In fact, I'm glad it was done. What I really want to know is why you insist on trying to make me feel bad about it? Where's the mens rea that makes it abuse? If you insist on calling me, my parents, my friends and their parents and millions of other "abusers" because of this, all you are doing is insulting millions of people and pissing them off, which is not going to convert anyone to your cause or point of view. Ok? I'm done.

(Actually, I don't admit that. Religious, aesthetic and social tastes play a part in the choice to circumcise as well. Anyway, there ain't no law against superstition.)

> Funny, I don't feel abused. In fact, I'm glad
> it was done.

Yeah, that.

Again, the Taliban casually describes Buddhism as 'superstition', right?

Government power, man. Y'know?

And where is your parade of heartbroken circumcised men? You're arguing for an ENORMOUS expansion of government power... You'd better have some serious numbers behind your effort. Not just a few men who are goofy and weeping and all up in their heads, but several dozen million who are least annoyed.

...Assuming you feel that voters should have something to say about this, but maybe you don't.

Or am I reading this all wrong? Are you not trying to compose strong policies against circumcision? Or are you really just offering advice to the rest of us about how to live? Because in the latter case:

Thanks, I'm cool.

Karl Marx believed in a two-steps forward and one step back approach. When people resist back off. But never cede more ground.than you gain. Republicans are the one step back phase. They rarely make any meaningful rollbacks of socialism but enable people to.feel they are resisting. They screams of hope and change move us.left once again.

As I've written before, the Democrats are the party of ginormous government and the Republicans are the part of slightly less ginormous government, plus a lot of panting to tell a lot of people what to do.

They both tell people what to do - just different people, different things.

(The old saw is "the Republicans want to tell you what you can't do in the bedroom, and the Democrats what you can't do everywhere else".)

That and I find that the extant media prejudices are best suited to fighting the missteps of the Republicans, but suck up to the missteps of the Democrats in terms of liberty, so I prefer Republicans in power, of the two; not because I want their particular brand of telling-people-what-to-do, but because their brand has more organized opposition, and will thus has less actual negative effect.

Funny, I don't feel abused.

So then, assholio, as long as I properly drug your sister before I rape her so she doesnt rememebr anything afterwards and doesnt feel abused it means nothing really happened to her right?

Wow. Your "logic" here baffles me.

There is a huge difference between a parent having an infant circumcised according to religious custom and forcibly violating someone's adult sister (with or without "properly" drugging her).

One is a religious practice - possibly outdated and perhaps even somewhat cruel.

The other is a deliberate act of violence against someone.

By the way, the earlier poster is not saying that because he doesn't "feel abused," nothing happened to him. He's saying what happened to him is not abuse.

Assaulting someone's sister is abuse ... and a felony - even if she doesn't remember it.

>>as long as I properly drug your sister before I rape her so she doesnt rememebr anything afterwards and doesnt feel abused it means nothing really happened to her right?

I guess if you told her after and she was glad you did it, it wouldn't be rape would it?

Honestly, I want the government as far out of my life, and my child's life as possible. I don't really care what your cause is, I do not see it as a reason for government intrusion into my choices that do not concern you. And if you want to write a law against something, there must be a HUGE cost to society caused by the something, before I'll back you. And your proof must be incontrovertible. Every and I mean every single time we ask or let the government control any aspect of our lives, we are inviting more of the same. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

Plus government Bureaucrats are the last people I want to implement any policy, even if I wrote it up myself. Some dickehead along the way would fuck it up.

One is a religious practice -

Incorrect, outside of some jewish sects circumcision was introduced by a whack job looking to damage sexual responses in males, and is continued today not for health resons but for the billion dollars of health and cosmetic products produced each year by foreskins

It aint about health, its about money.

Also, technically were I to murder assholio and the marry his siter after raping her it would indeed be a religious practice

>>Also, technically were I to murder assholio and the marry his siter after raping her it would indeed be a religious practice

Wrong poster, I'm not endorsing any policy based on it being a religious practice. Looks like you'd be a murderer and a rapist to me. Nice counter-point, while avoiding my response which leaves you dead in the water. And you'd still be a rapist! Good show!

Every and I mean every single time we ask or let the government control any aspect of our lives, we are inviting more of the same. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. -- Assholio at August 29, 2012 6:33 PM

That is exactly the answer. I can't say how much I agree with that thought.

If you can open a phone book and find the same service provided by the a privately owned company or organization -- why should the government be doing it? Is the government more efficient? I have as yet to find a government program that even operates at close to break even. If you do know of one, let us all know.

I want the Democrats out of my pocket and Republicans out of my bedroom. I want to know that every law and regulation can be tied to an enumerated power.

If it can't then it needs to be taken off the books.

One Assholio I was addressing Conan who said it was a religious tradtion,

Two according to you so long as no one feels abused abuse never took place. Therefore if I were to kill you so long as you died quickly and painlessly enough you'd have no cause for complaint

>>Two according to you so long as no one feels abused abuse never took place.

Nice try, but that is not what I've said. I am completely aware of the supposed abuse which your victim is not. Being aware of everything that has "been done to me" and looking at it subjectively over more than 40 years of existence, I'm telling you that you are full of shit. You have no qualifications for argueing your point. You have no solid evidence to conclusively prove your point. And even if you did I'd still tell you to stay the fuck out of me and my family's lives. I don't trust your judgement. And you've given me no reason to trust you.

And please stop calling my parents abusers. I've been polite about that have I not?

I retroactively grant my parents permission to have me circumcised. Thank you my loving parents for having taken care of it before I was too old for it to be painless or any non-trivial trauma in my life. I have never once been insecure in the cut status of my genitalia. And have more than once been thankful for it. I love you and I know you love me, and have done right by me.

Sooo ... Stockholm Syndrome?

But feel free to continue to espouse your point of view, it's a free country after all. But please stop trying to label me a victim, and stop insulting my parents. Are you civilized enough to do that?

I am completely aware of the supposed abuse which your victim is not

So, what did the doctor look like? what was the color of the celing where the procedure took place? How exactly did if feel to have the skin scrapped off your dick without anesthisia?

>>So, what did the doctor look like?

I don't know - he was wearing a surgical mask.

>>what was the color of the celing where the procedure took place?

White.

>>How exactly did if feel to have the skin scrapped off your dick without anesthisia?

I cried much more three months later when my parents wouldn't give me a cookie.

"You, Amy, are a government junky. You want that next hit of irresistible power so bad, you can taste it.... And you're ready to mainline."

Wow, Crid, what a piece of work. No matter what Amy says, what you make up is the point, instead.

As usual. I'm glad I can read her side, because you're simply not representing what she says at all.

> I want minimal government and blog about
> this with some frequency.

Yep. You'll be through with government power after you've used it stop circumcision. Nothing more. After that. You promise.

Raddy trusts you!

Nope, circumcision is for children. It's a little late to tug your skirt over your knee, Amy... You've said it in as many words several times in the past few days: You want to use government power to stamp out a practice of religion, so that the cosmologies of others will be more coherent to your own, of which you're terribly proud.

Because what could possibly go wrong?

Incorrect, outside of some jewish sects circumcision was introduced by a whack job looking to damage sexual responses in males....

Circumcision was begun as a religious practice and continues as a wide-spread practice today because of that origin.

Amy is not advocating the elimination of a surgical procedure done under anesthesia in order to enhance health, but of a religious practice (done without anesthesia); because she disagrees with religion and wishes it would go away so we can all live rational lives entirely guided by science and logic.

Warning: Basing a human civilization entirely on science and logic has never worked out well.

==============================

And, luj, who is this man-hating "whack job" who got the entirety of Western civilization to mutilate its children, all so he could make a killing in the cosmetics industry?

Raddy trusts you!

Another delusion. What I've called out, genius, is that YOUR word has nothing to do with her position.

You're simply making things up and arguing that as if it was something Amy said. You do this with me, and you do it with others, all because your own words please you most.

> simply making things up

There are 17,000 words of discussion in the thread about circumcision, not including links. There are almost 3,000 in this one. Some are mine! Is there some particular mischaracterization that offends you? If I'm reading this wrong...

> a medically unnecessary procedure because your
> daddy wants to honor Maimonides' attempt to stop
> little boys from jerking off

and

> surgery to bend to some superstition on a child

Can you say how?

Conan, circumcision was NEVER a christian tradition, Paul wrote about it in the first century AD saying so.

And you are conflating two different arguments. Why it was started and why it continues.

Why it continues is money; skin grafts, hormones for bio research, drug companies and cosmetic companies.

As for why it started, because of people like this, and others with similar views

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_Kellogg#Views_on_sexuality

Quick question, is this guys practices are good enough for males, why dont we also employ his practices for females?

Circumcision has been traced at least as far back as the ancient Egyptians and is still widely practiced among Christian and non-Christian peoples of Southeast Asia and Africa. It is common among most Semitic peoples (including Muslims).

Early Christianity accepted circumcised Jewish converts and did not require circumcision for non-Jewish converts who were not circumcised. However, early Christianity still considered itself part of the Jewish community and was Jewish in its outlook and rituals. As such, early Christians considered non-circumcised converts less than full members of the community, and excluded them from some rites and privileges.

Paul believed in salvation solely through faith and opposed a growing movement among early Christians that stressed rigid adherence to Mosaic Law as the pathway to salvation.

Paul attacked circumcision in his letters to the Galatians. It's difficult to convert someone when joining the new religion involves a stranger taking a knife to your genitals.

Paul did not attack circumcision in Romans 3:12. Some say he praised it in that passage, but I don't quite see it that way.

Peter opposed requiring non-Jewish converts to be circumcised - probably that difficulty in conversion thing - and wanted non-circumcised converts to be considered full Christians.

In general, the New Testament appears hostile to circumcision.

Western Christianity as a whole is neutral on the subject while many Eastern Christian churches require it.

As for the relatively recent advocates and opponents of circumcision: whatever their reasons, they're just more in a very long line of people who have been debating whether cutting the end of your penis off makes you more or less holy, healthy, and a man.

A government ban won't end circumcision. It's been around too long and is too much a part of various cultures (religious or otherwise). A government ban on circumcision is only going to result in people going to back alley mohels with rusty knives and dirty hands.

> Mohels sucking little boys' dicks after
> the circumcision

Without your teenage inflammatory language, you got nothin'... The whole point of this for you must be to have an excuse to be rilly meen.

A government ban on circumcision is only going to result in people going to back alley mohels with rusty knives and dirty hands.

That was a tongue-in-cheek riff on the old pro-abortion argument.

> That was a tongue-in-cheek riff

I hearya Bro, but try to understand how uptight these people are about themselves. See Tony at August 28, 2012 9:42 AM:

> You're saying children have no rights
> beyond those four

They're serious as a heart attack. But it would be wrong to say they're lookin' for a fight...

They're looking for a very specific fight against a very specific opponent, some simpleton from a 1950's TV show who doesn't exist.

But when you affirm that the character with whom they seek warfare was a contrivance for a pandering but profitable media enterprise, they'll shake their heads like they can't hear you. No, man, Skeletor exists! And he's a real hard-ass!

Conan, I need you to have faith that your ear for tonal nuance in policy conversations is not somehow deficient.

Please believe me: We're on Planet Childhood (though just as visitors), where fantasy means more to cosmology than does observation.

So then were you opposed to the government ban on female circumcisions on the grounds that it is culturally valid and banning it would only lead to it being done in unsanitary conditions?

Or slavery, or polygamy, or spousal rape?

Well, when we were talking about the TSA a few weeks ago, YOU'RE the one who said retarded children should have to give up their internal organs when good-looking people need transplants. I don't see why you'd bother to deny it.

Less than 50 deaths over 10yrs got the federal government to ban drop side cribs. Are you people willing to defend parents choosing these "death trap" cribs over safer models as vociferously as a cosmetic penile surgery that provides not benefit to anyone with access to condoms or soap.

Incedentally for tose of you bad at math
(5 per year)

So when it comes to childrens safety a pointless surgery which causes 20x as many deaths is a parenting choice, but a crib with half as many deaths in ten years as circumcision has every year is grounds for a government ban that noone bothers to protest

That should have been

(Less than 5 per year) is less than
(Greater than 100 per year)

Dude... Seriously... As long as you believe that all the old Ku Klux Klan offices should be re-activated to deal with illegal immigration, I don't think you should be making time for this issue... And that IS what you believe, obviously.

(You were once given the opportunity to deny that's what you think, but YOU DIDN'T.)