Jim Farmelant wrote:
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> Since that is an argument that many rightwingers would accept,
> I think it might be a good place to start when discussing
> abortion rights with them.
Why wouid one want to argue about abortion with right-wingers? And if one did, why would one want to advance arguments to persuade the right-wingers to change their judgment _rather_ than arguments to persuade bystanders (some of whom already believe in abortion rights) to become active in the struggle to achieve them.
Left politics is neither a courtroom nor a university seminar, the only contexts in which arguments on this or most issues might make a difference. Left goals are achieved only by mobilizing a minority to create enough public excitement to give the impression of a majority in action. Then the number of semi-private conversations on major issues increase rapidly in number, with the result that the minority raising the disturbance, though still a minority, becomes a much larger one thereby generating more continuous semi-private (and probably more inofrmed) conversations resulting in larger and larger rallies, strikes, petitions, marches, riots, over-crowding of local jails, interference with normal working of schools, local courts, city councils, rush-hour traffic, thereby moving important conservative leaders to realize that public order depends on absorbing and muffling the unrest throug serious reforms. Nowhere in all of this, on abortion or any other topic, do the arguments Jim & Andie are discussing become of any importance.
Carrol