From: anne@cco.caltech.edu (Anneliese Lilje)
Subject: Re: What the pro-lifers do not tell you
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 00:26:31 GMT

In article <1992Apr10.225631.24842@midway.uchicago.edu> rivk@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>In article <1992Apr10.003426.9619@cco.caltech.edu> anne@cco.caltech.edu (Anneliese Lilje) writes:
>>In article <1992Apr9.203910.4727@midway.uchicago.edu> rivk@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>>>In article <1992Apr8.214030.10716@cco.caltech.edu> anne@cco.caltech.edu (Anneliese Lilje) writes:
>>>
>>>>So you're making the analogy that by comparing abortionist to Nazis
>>>>that somehow degrades the term NAZI? Your OBVIOUSLY not looking at it 
>>>>from the hard core pro-life perspective. To some pro-lifers, abortionist
>>>>are people who methodically (sp?) KILL children. Because they see
>>>>the life of the unborn child as being as important as your life or my
>>>>life. TO you or ME this may not be the case...but the comparison is 
>>>>QUITE valid to many. 
>>>
>>>But it isn't valid, and it's known not to be valid, to the people the
>>>pro-lifers are trying to convince. If they just use the analogy when
>>
>>WHY?????????????? Why is it NOT valid. I have presented a case for it 
>>being valid in the eyes of some pro-lifer, now please show me
>>how it is NOT valid. I could be wrong ya know!
>
>Sorry; my wording was ambiguous. What I meant was "It isn't valid to
>the people the pro-lifers are trying to convince, and the pro-lifers
>know it."

Okay. I see. You mean valid in the eyes of the pro-choice persons hearing
this argument. That I can by (or I would HOPE they see it as invalid...)
For the pro-lifer, however, I would think that this would very much
be another technique to reenforce what they perceive as the "horror"
of abortion. In that case I would think that making such a comparison
would work to KEEP people in the pro-life camp. In otherwords, if 
abortionist ARE as bad as Nazis than this would be a GREAT scare
tactic to KEEP them thinking pro-life.

Just MHO.


>>>talking among themselves, it doesn't do any harm. But when they, and
>>>the prp-choicers who are claiming that pro-lifers are nazis, and the
>>>anti-fur people, and everyone else with a cause to further, start try-
>>>ing to make their points to the unconvinced by using the analogy, the
>>>inevitable reaction is that the people who *don't* see the cause in
>>>question as that bad will start tuning out anyone who refers to the
>>>Holocaust, as in, "Oh, no; not *this* again!!" And this will get very
>>
>>Ohhhh Mannnn. This is *YOUR* preception. Do you have any evidence that
>>affiliating the term "Nazi" with a cause "tunes" people out to the 
>>horrors of Nazi Germany? The pro-lifers equating these terms are NOT
>>taking it lightly. THAT is why they are using the term in the first place,
>>to illustrate the horror that they perceive abortion is.
>
>But they're saying it to people who *do* take abortion lightly. And

Yes. NOW I see this. But I don't think that pro-choice people take
abortion "lightly". I would say that they see the worth of the woman
as being of importance. Especially in the light of being able to make her
own choices.

>there's plenty of evidence for the "crying-wolf" effect -- scream "Nazi"
>or scream anything else about too many different things, and can you
>blame someone for ignoring it?

Well. Hmmm. Hmmmm. But is it a case of "crying wolf"? In the case of 
Nazi Germany the events were REALLY happening whether one shunned it or
not. In this case the ACTION is abortion. The NAZI is only a comparison..
not a scream in a movie theatre of "FIRE".

>
>>>dangerous, in exactly the same way that it was very dangerous that the
>>>reaction of Americans, British, and the population of most of Europe,
>>>when the Jews started to call for help, was, "That's ridiculous. Everyone
>>>knows they're always yapping about something." The underground radio
>>>station from the Warsaw Ghetto broadcast for thirty days, detailed re-
>>>ports from inside Treblinka and Majdanek. Nobody listened. When I have
>>>to prepare those reports and broadcast them from the Chicago concentration
>>>camp, I want people to be so unused to hearing such things that they are
>>>shocked into action.
>>
>>DO you *really* believe that Jews are going to be thrown into a camp in
>>Chicago some day soon? 
>
>Yes. Maybe not in the next few years -- though if certain people end
>up in political office, probably -- but within my lifetime. Or in Minsk,

Hmmm. You are allowed to have that opinion if you like. I can't say that
I would agree with you. But then again perhpas you know something *I* don't?
In L.A. harassment of Jews is pretty rare compared to say in New York
(where I used to live). What is CHicago like so that they would harass
Jews *so* much as to want to throw them into a downtown Chicago concentration
camp. Seems like you gotta hate them before bothering to go to all this 
effort. Never having been in Chicago I can't say. I would look for it in L.A.
any time soon.

>>Look, I can understand if you are *particurlarly* sensitive
>>to the human tragedy of the Nazi Germany for some reason. A large part of
>>my family tree (Western Russia) was wiped into oblivion by Nazi forces. But
>>I can't quite imagine that by equating something like the pro-lifers
>>view of abortionists with the term Nazi is going to somehow lead to 
>>a concentration camp in Chicago! That seems a bit too out there for my
>>beliefs at this moment...
>
>It's not going to lead to it; the usual batch of violent racists is
>going to lead to it. What equating every political position that comes
>along with the Nazis is going to do is to ensure that, when it *does*
>happen, the essentially decent people won't believe it or do anything
>about it.

Hmmmm. Well, I guess we have a big difference of opinion. 

>>Should we ask Suzanne to stop claiming that unmarried women are "lower
>>than prostitutes" because it is devaluing the "magnitude of immoral behavior"
>>of prostitutes and therefore making them more accepted in society. NOT!
>
>Suzanne's position isn't used by every idiot with a cause to yell about.
>The Holocaust is.

But it is a position that many in the Catholic church cling to. Oh...
and the Holocost isn't used by every idiot with a cause to yell about.
That's a pretty overboard generalization. I would say it is used by those
who want to stress the point that the cause they are triumphing is 
something as BAD or as EVIL as the Holocaust was. And there ARE people
who truly and passionately believe that there are things that are as
or were as bad as this...

>
>>I also take GREAT offense at your saying that Warsaw Ghetto broadcasts
>>we're ignored by EVERYONE. THere is a GREAT difference between hearing
>>broadcasts and being ABLE to do something and hearing them and NOT being
>>able to do something. There we're people who believed these reports but
>>were powerless to do anything. 
>
>"ignored" can mean "behaved as though it hadn't happened." Nobody did
>anything about them, you're correct; and the ghetto was broadcasting
>specific instructions on what *could* be done. They may simply have
>not had the courage, but I somehow don't find that an excuse; the people
>in the ghetto somehow managed to find the courage...

Well. It's easy for us to sit here and say that...but considering the 
climate at the time I can't blame decent people for being scared shitless
for their own lives or the lives of their families. Many took the 
policy of GET THE FUCK OUT. SOme could some couldn't. Fear is a tough
emotion. To ignore.

anne

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