Tag Archives: Abortion

Abortion, Tomlinson, and Moral Midgets

A few days ago, an author by the name of Patrick S Tomlinson, posed a trolley problem, which, in a huge bout of Dunning-Krueger, he claimed eviscerates the pro-life argument.

You can read his argument in full here, but the basic gist is: if given a choice between saving a thousand frozen embryos or a 5-year-old from afire, every pro-lifer will either equivocate or choose to save the 5-year-old. Of course, many pro-lifers then responded that they would save the embryos, invalidating his point, and he showed his intellectual maturity by calling them monsters, thinking that was a reasonable argument. I personally tweeted that I would save just 1 embryo before I would save Mr. Tomlinson, thereby proving, by his own logic, that he was worth less than an embryo and should be killed, to which he reacted predictably. I tweeted some other stuff he didn’t respond to because they showed his argument to be foolish.

That was the end of it until tonight, when one Heidi asked one Lauren if she had a response. She responded, that tagged me in saying much smarter people such as myself could answer better. Being a sucker for flattery (thank you for the compliment, Lauren), I couldn’t resist responding, but decided it would be easier to do so by blog than by Twitter. So here we go.

Ben Shapiro already responded, and his response was okay. Tomlinson then proved the full heft of his intellectual integrity and honesty by then refusing to engage the argument, then blocking Shapiro. He further displayed his overwhelming philosophical openness by whining about people who pointed out flaws in his little puzzle I don’t expect this to have any impact on Tomlinson (though I plan to tweet it at him), or those ideologically blinded, morally retarded, or just plain stupid enough to agree with his little trolley trap but hopefully it will help those questioning.

Before I begin, these kinds of puzzles are often given by those with good verbal abilities to trap people. It can be hard to see the trap because their high verbal abilities conceal things; leading you into thinking incorrectly based on their hidden presuppositions. Never concede the presuppositions until you have figured out what they are. A good way to do this is to switch to equivalent terms. In this case I did so:

We can see when we replace the terms that there’s something wrong with the argument. Almost everybody would save their own child over 1000 strangers (and most people would look askance at someone who too readily agreed to part with their own child) or a healthy child over 1000 dying elderly people.

We can see that Tomlinson himself would rather spend money on plants and Mustang’s than on saving Africans from Malaria or starvation. By his own logic, Tomlinson himself values the life of a plant more than the life of an African. He values slightly higher acceleration over Africans. Tomlinson is a very cold, ruthless person is her not?

No, because everybody does these kinds of things. Those who don’t are a cut above and end up sainted.

So what are the problems:

Action vs. Theory

The first trick the question plays is to set up an elaborate story of a burning building and a crying child. YOU CAN ONLY SAVE ONE! This story is meant to play on your emotions, to get you thinking like you are actually there. Quick, you see a crying, frightened child and a metal box, which do you save? A crying child about to die provokes a strong emotional response. Nobody in that situation would stand still for a minute and carefully ponder the ethical ramifications of saving a child or embryos, they’d just grab wailing kid that’s hogging their attention and run. He’s trying to force you into immediate emotional response, then acting like this applies to a moral-philosophical question. There is no basis for claiming a split-second decision is equivalent to a well thought-out moral philosophy of life.

Remove the story, remove the immediacy and the loaded wording and the question suddenly becomes: either one 5-year-old child or 1000 unborn children will perish. Which would it be more ethical to let die? Now the answer’s not so obvious and requires thought. I’d bet pro-life folks would be a lot more split on this.

Concentric Circles of Morality

This then touches on another matter Tomlinson has artfully concealed: Moral distance. Interpersonal morality is different the closer the person in question is to you. Anybody who neglects to feed their own child is a moral monster and almost everyone agrees they should be jailed. If a neighbour child was going without food most everyone would feed him, and we’d probably look down on or criticize someone who didn’t, but we wouldn’t call them a monster and certainly wouldn’t demand they be jailed. You can feed a child in Africa for less than your own child or your neighbour, yet most don’t give to World Vision. (Sponsor a child). Many of you won’t even click that link. This is normal, we wouldn’t even look askance at someone who doesn’t give to World Vision, let alone actively try to punish them.

This is because your moral responsibility is greater to those near you than to those farther from you (by whatever metric that distance is measured).

In Tomlinson’s story, he artfully forces the moral closeness of the crying child right in front of you compared to the sterile farness of embryos in a cold metal box. The question suddenly changes if you change the moral closeness. Would you spend $3340 to save the unborn child you’ve been trying to conceive for years, your only chance at a child, from a miscarriage, or donate $3340 to World Vision? I’m sure most pro-abortion people would suddenly find themselves valuing embryos more than 5-year-olds in that situation.

Situational, Relative, and Absolute Moral Worth

The next trick he pulls is to apply to confuse absolute, relative, and situational moral worth. He assumes into the question and the follow-up that because you would save a child about to burn to death over a thousand embryos that that is a guide to the absolute moral worth of an individual.

My little joke earlier illustrates the problem nicely: I dislike Tomlinson for being intellectually dishonest and for supporting the murder of children by the millions, so I’d save an embryo over him. Does that mean I think the embryo has some absolute moral worth more than Tomlinson? No, I just think he’s a evil dick and like embryos more than him.

There’s absolute moral worth: all lives are equally valuable before God (or before Athe if you don’t believe in God).

Then there’s relative moral worth: Anybody with a soul and an ounce of moral character would think to themselves: “my child is my child and is therefore worth more to me than an indeterminate, but very high amount of other people’s children.”  Yet that doesn’t mean that in absolute sense one child is worth more than another.

Then there’s situational moral worth: Most people, including many elderly cancer patients would think to themselves: “these elderly cancer patients have lived long lives and will die soon. This healthy child will live for decades to come. We’ll save the child.” That doesn’t mean that the child is somehow absolutely more morally worthy than dying old people. It’s just the current circumstances dictate who we save.

Change the relative and situational moral worth and the question and answers change: do you save a 1000 embryos, including your dozens of you own, your only hope for children, or do you save the cruel little brat who’s laughing as he set the clinic on fire while trying to kill those embryos for fun?

Moral Worth and Killing

There is an unspoken argument Tomlinson denies making and doesn’t come right out and say, but implies heavily and is trying to make you emotionally feel without having to come out and say it because, at some, level, even Tomlinson has to know that it is utterly ridiculous. This argument, the argument that the pro-abortion argument rests on, is that if there is a difference in value between a child and a embryo, then it is alright to kill the unborn. Tomlinson, and most other abortion supporters, won’t make is that an unborn child is without value, because anybody with a shred of humanity knows there is at least some value in the unborn.

Instead, they say it is of lesser worth, then leap from lesser worth to morally acceptable to kill with impunity, and hope you won’t catch the leap, maybe not even catching it themselves. Tomlinson denies making this, saying he’s against abortion, but his argument right from the go is that pro-life people (ie. those wanting to restrict abortion) don’t care about the unborn but only desire to control woman (for some vague unprovided reason). His whole argument, unstated but very clear, is that the only reason to be against murdering the unborn is that you hate women and desire power over them for some unknown reason. Contra his objections, this does not seem to be imputing any value to the unborn.

Even if it is ceded that an unborn child is of lesser absolute moral value than a born child, (something I won’t cede, but that Shapiro weakly did) that does not in itself make abortion morally acceptable. If the elderly cancer patient is of lesser moral worth than the healthy child, that may morally allow me to save the child instead of the cancer patient, it does not morally allow me to shoot the old cancer patient.

To make abortion morally acceptable you have to show that it has no value (which Tomlinson rejects) or show that the difference in value is great enough that killing an unborn child for convenience is permissible while killing a born child is not. Tomlinson does not even attempt to do so, he just accuses his opponents of bad faith and hopes the emotional correlations he builds will carry this implicit argument without him having to make it.

Action vs Inaction

Following from the above: abortion is the killing of the unborn. In his story, the embryos are dying. There is a moral difference between allowing someone to die, particularly if you can’t save them or have to choose, and killing something. Allowing embryos to die makes zero logical impact on whether killing them is justified.

Utilitarianism

All the above can be linked to one major moral flaw, the philosophical hobgoblin that eats the minds of morally stunted rationalists: Utilitarianism. Look past the fancy language and big words and utilitarianism is essentially stripping away man’s humanity and reducing him to units of pleasure and pain (perfect for our inhuman modern society), then doing cold calculations on how various actions allocate units of pleasure and pain, then deciding to take the action that gives the most overall plaeasure. You can see this inhuman calculation most readily when they start talking about animals and meat-eating, and making mathematical conversions of animal pain to human pain.

Trolley problems are usually interesting because they bring up deep philosophical problems. The classic brings up the relative weight of killing the fat man by action versus allowing 5 others to die by inaction. Are people as morally responsible for inaction as for action? If not, how much difference is there? It’s these deeper issues that really get you to think. Strip away the deeper issues and a trolley problems becomes a utilitarian calculus of do you save one replaceable human unit or five replaceable human units. Five is more than one so you obviously do what is most efficient with your replaceable human units. This interchangeability is the crux upon which Tomlinson’s argument rests, yet he cloaks it behind an emotional story to prevent you from seeing it.

Tomlinson’s argument rests on the implicit assumption of utilitarian interchangeability. He assumes that if you value one life in a particular circumstance over a thousand lives in another particular circumstance, you therefore assign an objectively higher moral value to the former over the latter. If you value both embryos and children as lives worth preserving and protecting, you must therefore view them as morally exchangeable sacs of utilitarian units. One embryo for one child. One fat guy for one guy tied to a railroad track. One unit of utility for one other unit of utility. All are interchangeable.  If they are not interchangeable, you must value one less than the other, they must not think them morally equivalent.

This stripping away of humanity if what Tomlinson’s argument, and many modern moral arguments, rest upon. This child is not a crying child in need of rescue from a fire pulling at your virtue, he is one unit of 70 life-years to be saved. If you do not act exactly the same to an embryo as to this unit of 70 life-years, you must place lesser absolute value on the embryo. The circumstances of the life-unit, your relation to the life-unit, your own virtue, your own emotions, none of it matters, this is the cold calculus of comparing life units.

Morality can not be removed from its circumstances. This is why Tomlinson made up that whole story to put the argument in specific moral context and circumstances to best elicit the moral response that bolstered his argument. Once he elicited that moral response, he then strips the moral context away and introduces a cold utilitarian calculus. You did not save the embryos, therefore they must be of less value.

Nobody sees this magic trick because he pulled it off deftly and we’ve been conditioned through countless abstract moral problems involving switches, trolleys, and lying to axe murderers to view morality as inhuman, contextless, calculations of utilitarian value.

Human morality can not be compared as numbers on a spreadsheet. It exists in context. After a moral decision has been placed in a specific context, it can not then be removed from that context to suddenly become an abstract, absolute, objective arbiter of moral value.

Abortion Regulation and Hypocrisy

I came across this Slate article defending and promoting the dismemberment of unborn children. Abortion is a travesty, but the support of abortion not what was particularly interesting about this piece. Rather this part is:

And partly because the bill was written by nonphysicians using nonmedical terminology, there is a good deal of uncertainty among doctors about precisely which procedures will be illegal come July.
…
In some ways, these new second-trimester bans are of a piece with the national movement to intimidate and harass physicians, with strategies that range from forcing them to perform unwanted ultrasounds and read from factually flawed “informed consent” scripts, to forcing them to obtain admitting privileges at local hospitals (which may refuse to provide them)—or new efforts to simply refuse to let doctors learn about abortion in the first place.

This has echoes of earlier pro-baby-killing insanity in Texas. You might remember that last year the baby-killers got in a fit because Texas instituted laws where abortion clinics had to “meet the same architectural, plumbing, staffing, training and other requirements that apply to surgical centers”.

Didn’t it seem odd to anyone else that somehow baby-killing “clinics” were not held to the same basic safety standards that applied to other clinics? Didn’t it seem even more odd that leftists, usually in favour of safety regulations, were so opposed to the application of safety regulation in this particular case?

But this article combined with the earlier Texas events point out something even more odd: when it came to their sacred rite of abortion, the leftists seem to recognize that stringent regulations have negative effects on the ability of service providers to provide services.

Now compare this to Obamacare: somehow the leftists realize that heavy, arbitrary, and unclear regulation hurts the ability of baby-killers to kill babies while at the same time calling for even heavier, more arbitrary, and more opaque regulation on the health care industry as a whole? Do they want health care to be worse, do they lack the ability to integrate particular reasoning into wholistic worldviews, or are they just base liars and hypocrites?

When it comes to baby-killing, leftists even go so far as to say that basic regulations are simply forms of harassment and intimidation. Yet these same leftists will happily call for far more stringent and arbitrary regulations on everything not related to baby-killing. So, by the leftists own logic it seems that leftists wholeheartedly support the harassment and intimidation of any productive activity.

It it interesting to note how hypocritical leftists are on regulation. When it comes to things that are unimportant to the leftist, like economic production and good health care, stifling regulation is good, but when it comes to something important to the leftist, like massacring babies, any regulation at all is too much. As I’ve written before, the definition of good regulation to a liberal is anything that increases the power of government and doesn’t personally impact them, while the definition of bad regulation is anything that inconveniences them personally.

Keep the State out of Women’s Bodies… Except When Convenient

One major theme in this year’s presidential election was that of the “war on women”.

The complaint was and  essentially that the state shouldn’t get involved in women’s reproductive choices.

I agree.

With the exception of abortion, where a child’s life is involved, the state should leave women alone and let them make their own reproductive choices. They should be free to do as they will and live with the consequences.

But, feminists lie. They do not want the state to let them make their own reproductive choices. They want the state to force them (and others) to only accept certain reproductive choices.

Feminists want privilege and choice, not freedom.

****

Here’s a good example of the hypocrisy of the modern women espousing the creed of keep your hands off my body.

a woman in a country where politicians who actually believe that the female body has special powers to discern between evil sperm and loving sperm have been elected to create and vote on legislation that limits women’s control over their own health care.
…
“Perhaps remove the focus from that one point and think instead about the free abortions and contraceptives that will be given to all females of reproductive age… Or about the Muslims, Christian scientists, and Amish ( among others) that are exempt from obamacare due to religious beliefs….”

She goes on and on, hitting every talking point FoxNews and its ilk have drummed into her head, including the legitimacy (there’s that word again) of Obama’s citizenship and his ties to socialism. It was all a bunch of moronic nonsense, but what stood out to me the most was her first line: “Perhaps remove the focus from that one point” — that “one point” being a woman’s right to control her own health care choice, as if that point weren’t worthy of our focus!! This was a woman saying this! A woman who was fed the bullshit and ate it up with a spoon, just like the GOP wanted.

By “limiting a women’s control over their own health care” she obviously means don’t want others to  pay for it, even if it goes against their religious principles.

She says she wants the state out of her body, but she’s very clearly inviting the state into her body by having the state pay for her health care.

Her next complaint is about how crime effects women: a valid point, but ignores how it also effects men and children. It’s not part of this topic, so we’ll mostly ignore it.

I didn’t get any paid maternity leave when my baby was born. I work for myself, so I wasn’t expecting any, of course. But here in America, even if I had been working for someone else, that person or that company would not have been required by law to give me even a day of paid maternity leave. Not even an hour. My job would have been held for a few weeks, but that’s it.

I started a new moms’ group when I was pregnant and most of us all had babies within a few weeks of each other. Some of the women took extended maternity leave — six whole months — so they could stay home with their babies until they started, you know, sleeping for more than three hours at a stretch. They weren’t paid for that leave, and they worried as their savings dwindled what they’d do if there were an emergency and they missed more work.

Here she demands that the state pay for and legislate her reproduction. She’s demanding her workplace interfere with her body. She’s begging the state and corporations to involve themselves in her reproductive choices.”When they did go back, they had to deal not only with juggling motherhood and their careers, but also with navigating the office politics surrounding working mothers. One woman, a producer at a major network news station, worried about being overlooked for assignments that would require her to travel now that she was a single mother of an infant. She worried about being overlooked for promotions and raises now that her “focus was split.” “I don’t want to be mommy-tracked,” she lamented, as she plotted ways to ensure topnotch child care for her daughter should her commitment to work be “tested” with a last-minute assignment that would take her out of town with just hours to prepare.”

Here she’s lamenting that the employer is not becoming involved these women’s reproductive choices.

How dare those corporations stay out of women’s private lives!

Many of my new mom friends who returned to work months after giving birth continued breastfeeding, which brought the new challenge of pumping at the office (or, “in the field,” in the case of my producer and journalist friends). They told me stories about the “designated areas” for them to pump, which are required by law. One woman, a clinical psychologist, pumped in a supply closet with a broken lock on the door. She kept one hand on her pump and one hand holding the door shut in case anyone wondered why the light was on and barged in on her without knocking. Finally, she put a sign on the door, but it was gone the next day and she had to make a new one. That one came down the next day, too.

Not content with the state and workplace involving themselves in her reproductive choices, she desperately wants the state and employers to further interfere in women’s breast-feeding decisions.

She notes that the state interferes in her breastfeeding decisions, but the tone of lament clearly indicates that the state is not interfering enough.

How dare they let women be free to make their own breastfeeding decisions!

Our rights are at risk — our basic rights — not to mention the fact that many of us are afraid, on a daily damn basis, of being attacked — legitimately attacked — simply because we are women.

This election year, vote to keep your rights. Vote for the people who are going to fight to protect you. And fight to keep the morons and the assholes and the douchebags out of power and out of our bodies.

She ends with a hypocritical statement about keeping people out of women’s bodies. How fitting when she spent the article arguing that other should involve themselves in women’s bodies and that this involvement was the basic right of the female.

One final observation, somewhere in the middle of her article she says:

I need a chaperone because some crazy douchebags think my body is public property. Hmm, I wonder wherever in the world they got that idea.

My suggestion: if you don’t want your body being viewed as public property, don’t act like it is by having the public pay for its upkeep.

****

This was just one example I’m using for illustrative purposes that I happened to come across while thinking about this post. I could find numerous others, but the point is made: No matter what the issue, most modern women want the state in their bodies. They beg for it, they vote for it.

They will selectively say they don’t on certain issues. They will dissemble about what the “state in their bodies” means. They will flat out lie, saying they don’t. But when it comes down to it:

The modern women fervently desires state interference in her reproductive choices.

It’s a  broad-brush generality, NAWALT, I know, but most modern women who would say something like “keep your rosaries out of my ovaries,” “my body, my choice,” “keep the state out of our bodies,” or whatever, truly want the state interfering in their bodies.

They want the state to pay for their contraception.

They demand the state pay for their abortions and reproductive health care decisions.

They demand the state educate children on sexuality, contraception, and reproduction.

They demand the employer subsidizes their reproductive choices.

They demand the employer and state make their breast-feeding choices for them.

They demand their employer make their personal work-life balance for them.

They demand the state dictate their private marriage contracts (and then demand that the state dictate homosexuals’ private relationship contracts).

The modern women demands that the state and society involves itself intimately in her personal, sexual, and reproductive choices… but only when its convenient for her.

She demands privilege without responsibility. She demands society cater to her every whim, without her having

She detests others’ freedom, but argues for it for herself when it suits her.

She demands you pay for her every whim, but denies you any say.

She is tyrannical, irresponsible, and greedy.

****

To women reading this: either the state and society are involved in your body and your reproductive choices or they aren’t. You can’t have it both ways.

You can not demand that the state not regulate contraception, then demand that the state (or other organizations under the compulsion of the state) pay for your contraception.

You can not demand leave itself out of women’s abortion decisions, then demand that the state pay for abortion providers such as planned parenthood.

You can not demand that public schools stay out of dictating women’s sexual choices, then demand they engage in mandatory sexual education.

You can not demand that the public not comment on your reproductive choices, then demand that they pay for the maintenance of your children.

You can not demand the public refuse to comment on your sexual choices, then force the public to subsidize your sexual lifestyle and health care needs.

You can not demand that your employer not dictate your personal life to you, then demand your employer subsidize your maternity leave and fund your personal choices.

You can not demand that the church remove itself from your reproductive choices, then demand that the church pay for your reproductive choices.

It is an either-or proposition.

Either the state has the right to interfere in your sexuality and reproductive choices or it does not. Either the public has the right to interfere with your sexuality or it does not. Either your employer can interfere in your personal life, or it can not.

You are either free or you are not.

Make the choice.

If you choose to invite others into your sexual, reproductive, and personal lives, do not hypocritically complain when they do.

****

In conclusion, the modern women, however much she may protest otherwise, desperately desires that others involve themselves in her reproductive and sexual choices, but only when it is convenient to her.

So, next time a modern women says the state should stay out of her uterus, ask her opinion on mandatory maternity leave. Point out the contradiction. Point out her hypocrisy.

Americans Deserve to Get What They Want

So, by now most of you have heard Obama won. I’m not American and have been moderately ambivalent about this election; a moderate conservative like Romney is not what America needs at this time.

Despite my ambivalence about which Republicrat won, I think in retrospect this election was very important because of the issues at play and how they were handled. In particular the narrow-minded childishness of it all.

Right now the US is drowning itself in debt, its social security program is unsustainable, entitlement programs are growing and becoming unsustainable, unemployment has been stuck at a high level and the economy is still suffering, the upcoming generation is drowning in student debt and are unable to find gainful employment, one in seven Americans are on food stamps, the fed has a policy of printing $40-billion/month to create inflation, the US is engaged in two wars and a massive assassination program, and Obamacare represented a takeover of a large portion of the economy (along with the attendant side effects). Essentially, America is nearing the end of the process of moving from a (somewhat) free market economy to a broke European cradle-to-grave welfare state.

Whatever side of the issue you fall on (and most of my readers are probably opposed to Europeanization), this is a huge change that deserves debate. Even if you agree that the US is on the right course and should become a European-style welfare state, it is still something that should be debated, voted over, and planned so the US welfare state can become a moderately sustainable one like Germany or the Nordic countries rather than a fiscal disaster like the PIGS.

So, with all these important issues of war, America’s future, the economy, etc. what were the issues that got traction?

Muppets and “binders of women”.

Think about that for a minute: with America’s economic and post-secondary education problems almost literally destroying an entire generation and America’s future in the balance, the issues everybody talked about and that got the most traction were about was a few million dollars of funding for a TV station and whether 30-something women should have to pay for their own contraception.

Really? Fucking really?

What is wrong with you America?

Are you a bunch of fucking children?

****

I’m not exaggerating the muppet thing one bit, but I might be being somewhat unfair on the “war on women” thing, so let’s analyze it a bit more.

The war on women has revolved around the following:

  1. Defunding planned parenthood
  2. Fluke wanting religious organizations to pay for her contraception
  3. State laws restricting abortion access.
  4. A few dumbasses saying stupid things about rape.
  5. “Binders of women” and the pay gap.

The first and second restrict nothing and are no more a “war on women” than defunding Big Bird is a “war on literacy”. Whatever your opinion on contraception and abortion, paying for your own shit is one of the hallmarks of being a responsible adult. That who funds contraception can even be debated by supposedly “serious” people is proof of the childishness of American politics.

As for the third, it is a major issue but not a presidential or federal one.

I’ll write it clearly so all the idiots on both sides can hear it. I don’t care whether you are pro- or anti-: abortion is no longer a federal issue. The courts have decided and are supported in their decision by enough of the population that no president will be able to restrict abortion no matter how much he may want to. There may be some fights at the margins at the state level, but only at the margins and only at the state level.

Any “war on women” rhetoric saying there are threats to abortion at the federal level are simply fear-mongering. Any anti-abortion activists that are are trying to limit abortion at the federal level are frivolously wasting their time, it would be much more productive to focus on changing the culture than the law. Debating abortion on the federal level is about as relevant as debating abolitionism.

Nothing short of the second coming of Christ is going to result in the banning of abortion in the US at any point in the foreseeable future.

As for the fourth, any group of 535 people will have its share of dumbasses. The opinions of these particular dumbasses matters, but only for their congressional districts. Their idiocy is a local matter. Unless the presidential candidate and/or the party as a whole holds these views on rape (which they have disavowed). It is a non-issue at the presidential level.

The fifth may matter if it exists (although, the existence of an actual gap is empirically dubious). But assuming it does exist, a 17% (or whatever the current number being used is) wage differential pales in economic significance to the other economic woes facing the US. The near doubling of the unemployment rate since 2008 combined with a full 2% of the population dropping from the labour market. The 50% unemployment and underemployment rate of an entire generation. The wage gap may be something to debate at some point in the future, but the overall state of the economy is hurting women much worse than any potential wage differential. Act like adults and shoot the tiger in the living room before fretting over the house cat.

In other words, the entire “war on women” is one big non-issue for a presidential campaign.

****

The most important part of this election was simply the frivolity of it.

Elections have always had mud-slinging, character assassination, and stupid political games, but this election was special. There were/are major obvious structural problems with the US and its economy that need to be addressed (whatever the solution) and this election was fought on none of them.

It was fought on frivolities and non-issues.

Up to this point I have had hope for the Republic. Obama may have been a liberal and won in 2008, but he won for some serious reasons (economic collapse). Bush won in 2004 over a debate over a serious issue (Iraq War). Even in 2000, when the US was running smoothly and the US could afford to debate frivolities, the election was mostly about serious domestic issues.

I had hope that someone the serious issues facing the US over the next few decades would be addressed, if not this election than some other one, because at some level I thought adults were running the establishment.

Even is Obama had won because voters debated over and decided they wanted a European-style social democracy rather than a free republic, I would have held some level of hope for the Republic, because then at least adults (however incorrect they might be) would have been in charge. Then when the failure of social democracy became apparent (as it has in Greece) adults would have been able to pick up the pieces.

But choosing the executive based on a puppet show and who pays for contraception (not even the legality of contraception, but simply who pays) when the US is in the midst of the worst recession in decades and the system is eating an entire generation?

Really?

It seems the US electorate are a bunch of ignorant little children.

At this point I’m just going to say, y’all deserve the decline.

I’m going to enjoy a delicious, steaming cup of schadenfreude watching you suffer over the next decade.

****

Tim had similar thoughts:

We’ve re-elected the president. I hope that those of you who voted for him get what you wanted, good and hard.

****

For your amusement, here’s some other bloggers’ post-election writings in no particular order. Doing it this way will avoid clogging up next week’s Lightning Round with only election stuff.

Jerkonomics
Jack Donovan
Rollo and Mark Minter
Private Man
Freedom 25
Empathological
CMD-N
Sunshine Mary
Ian Ironwood
John Wright
White Sepulchre
The Captain
The Captain Again
Vox
Vox Again
GLP
Neanderpundit
Apocalypse Nowish
An Instapundit Reader

Update: More Post-election Analysis – 2012/11/08

Publius
Bill
Tim (@ Matt Forney)
Carnivore
Simon Grey
Simon Grey Again
A Physician (h/t: Smallest Minority)

Update: A few more – 2012/11/09

Bill Again
Young Hunter
Mangan
Professor Hale
Frank Fleming
James Taranto
Beverly Gage

Update: One last time – 2012/11/13

Jack Donovan again
Suyts (Related, Related)