Gun ownership poll

[AustinMike]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

So Bob, is a pro-life individual being a hypocrite if he or she signs up for military or police service knowing that could involve the taking of a human life?

Personally I see no inconsistency between being pro-life and supporting the appropriate (and hopefully very limited) use of the death penalty.

You see no inconsistency? I'm pro-life except when I'm not? No inconsistency? I happen to consider myself pro-life. Like you, I support the use of the death penalty when appropriate and when there is 100% absolute proof of guilt (after all, once they're dead, there's no taking it back). I find being pro-life and supporting the death penalty as contradictory. I could be called a hypocrite for espousing both views and I would agree. To me, it's better to acknowledge the hypocrisy than to try to perform some mental gymnastics and twist my brain into a pretzel to convince myself otherwise. But, to each their own.

Originally Posted by G1911

Nobody thinks in such absolutes without any regard for context whatsoever.

A person who is pro-life does not believe that there is no such thing as justifiable self-defense and that they are obligated to let their family be killed instead, or that the innocent and the guilty are the exact same thing.

A person who is pro-choice does not believe anyone can make any choice at any time.

This should not need to be said. I’m sure the two sides could debate on reasonable grounds.

Wow, talk about thinking in absolutes. Do you automatically assume that self-defense has to include killing the perpetrator? This should not need to be said, but a pro-lifer can defend him(her)self and his(her) family without resorting to killing. To think otherwise is unreasonable.

Originally Posted by G1911

You know exactly what pro-life vs. pro-choice is about. Stop pretending you don't. I did not define these terms in context. Nor did Peter. Decades of American culture and common language have.

Again, you know damn well what the phrase means and its context here in this thread. You know what pro-choice vs. pro-life is.

I know what the terms mean to me. Pro-life is a term people who are opposed to abortion like to call themselves in an attempt to take the high moral ground in the abortion debate. They want to claim abortion is murder and therefore they are "pro-life" in opposing abortion. They also, like Peter has done repeatedly, call people who are pro-choice, "pro-abortion." That's a pejorative term they like to label the opposition, again in an attempt to frame their argument in a more favorable light. But, just because a person likes to use "pro-life" to describe himself in regards to abortion, it doesn't mean they are truly pro-life. A more accurate term for them is anti-abortion or even anti-choice.

The pro-choice vs. pro-life dichotomy doesn't exist. It's a made-up artifice perpetrated by people who are against abortion to persuade others that they are morally superior to people who don't have the same belief about abortion that they have. That is the plain, simple truth about pro-choice vs. pro-life.

I happen to be pro-life and pro-choice. Even though being pro-life and not opposed to the death penalty makes me a hypocrite, being pro-life and pro-choice does not.