URLs du Jour

2021-12-08

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  • We're not in Oz any more, Toto. In his "The Tuesday" column, Kevin D. Williamson urges his readers to Reject Magical Thinking on Abortion.

    To believe the story the abortion-rights advocates tell you, you have to believe in magic.

    There’s no magic required on the pro-life side.

    That’s the real source of our long disagreement.

    In its most basic version, the pro-life position is easy to understand, requiring no special intellectual training, no religious commitment, no mysticism, and nothing you’d really even call a philosophy. What we believe is that you don’t kill children who haven’t been born for the same reason you don’t kill children who have been born. That’s it. There isn’t some magical event that happens at some point during the pregnancy that transforms the unborn child from a meaningless lump of cells to a meaningful lump of cells. Modern, literate people don’t need the medieval doctrines of “quickening” or “ensoulment” (or some half-assed, modern, secular repackaging of those ancient superstitions) to know that the unborn child is an unborn child — we have biology, genetics, and, for those who need to see with their own eyes, imaging technology for that. The human organism that you hold in your arms six months after birth is the same organism it was six months before birth. It isn’t a different organism — it is only a little older. It is true that the child six months after conception isn’t fully developed — and neither is a 19-year-old. We have a natural, predictable, reasonably well-understood process of individual development. There is no magic moment, no mystical transformation, and the people who tell you that there is are peddling superstition and pseudoscience.

    I listened to the Reason editors' podcast yesterday, and Katherine Mangu-Ward put forth her pro-abortion side. I wonder what would happen in a debate between KDW and KMW? Would they simply talk past each other? Maybe, but they're both serious people, so maybe not.


  • I think Katherine's consistent on this point, though. Betsy McCaughey notes an oddity in the prevailing progressive narrative: 'My body, my choice'? Only for abortion as left pushes vaccine mandates. For example, outgoing NYC mayor Bill de Blasio, who still has a few more weeks to impose statist mischief.

    A mayor who professes to defend bodily autonomy is doing the opposite, forcing everyone to take the shots, regardless of personal qualms. This is the same de Blasio who warned at a recent Brooklyn pro-choice rally that “you cannot have your government attempt to take away your right to control your body. It cannot happen in America.”

    The progressives mouth pious libertarianism as long as you're not doing stuff they disapprove of. Or saying stuff they disapprove of. Or thinking stuff they disapprove of.

    Then they'll tell you you're a menace to (a very broadly defined) "public health."


  • In another few months, look forward to hand-wringing about declining trust in media outlets. Ed Morrissey reports Great news: CNN reports media outlets engaging in "productive" talks with White House to shape Biden coverage.

    Hey, nothing to see here, only the Fourth Estate institutions collaborating with the power that they are pledged to hold accountable. CNN reported in its daily newsletter yesterday that the White House has held “productive” meetings with reporters, anchors, and producers from media outlets hoping to get them to stop covering Joe Biden’s incompetency. With inflation raging and job growth relatively anemic to the potential in the workforce, media outlets are apparently eager to hear the “me or your lyin’ eyes” argument about the economy — and who knows what else:

    White House quietly tries to reshape economic coverage

    The White House, not happy with the news media’s coverage of the supply chain and economy, has been working behind the scenes trying to reshape coverage in its favor. Senior White House and admin officials — including NEC Deputy Directors David Kamin and Bharat Ramamurti, along with Ports Envoy John Porcari — have been briefing major newsrooms over the past week, a source tells me.

    The officials have been discussing with newsrooms trends pertaining to job creation, economic growth, supply chains, and more. The basic argument that has been made: That the country’s economy is in much better shape than it was last year. I’m told the conversations have been productive, with anchors and reporters and producers getting to talk with the officials

    Imagine what the rest of the media would have said had the Trump White House held a star-chamber meeting with conservative media to shape their news coverage. In that sense, the word “quietly” does some heavy lifting here.

    But in the interest of equal time…


  • Also, there's that "Doddering Old Fool" problem. At National Review, Jim Geraghty isn't that worked up about Biden Administration/Media collusion: Biden Doesn’t Have a Perception Problem, He Has a Reality Problem.

    The thing is, all kinds of institutions and organizations arrange off-the-record or on-background briefings and meetings for reporters. There’s nothing inherently unethical or manipulative about them. The sources from the institutions effectively say, “here’s how we see things,” and usually some variation of, “and we don’t think this has been covered enough.” The reporters usually get to ask questions – if there isn’t a chance to ask questions, it makes one wonder what the point of the briefing is.

    How this meeting affects subsequent coverage is up to the reporter. Maybe the reporter thought the briefer had a fair complaint or made a good point. Or maybe the briefing shared new information that the reporter thought was newsworthy. Maybe the reporter thinks the briefing was unconvincing spin and a lot of whining. Or maybe the reporter wasn’t persuaded much one way or another. It only becomes unethical or manipulative when the official says, “you should be covering the story this way,” and the reporter effectively answers, “yes, sir.” That’s the only scenario where the complaints of “state-run media” have merit.

    Well, we'll see. If the MSM turns even more toward a "Baghdad Bob" stance toward reporting reality, maybe Geraghty will change his tune.


  • If you need amusement… Kyle Smith wonders: Who can believe one word Jussie Smollett says? (Yes, I know we had a link to Kyle's NR article about the Smollett trial yesterday. But this is the NYPost.)

    Not since Rumpelstiltskin has a mischievous troll spent so much time and energy spinning as Jussie Smollett did on the stand the last couple of days. But instead of spinning straw into gold, Smollett spent eight hours trying to churn what the New York Times used to call a barnyard epithet into a Frappuccino. We’ll see if the jury is interested in drinking what Smollett is putting out.

    Rumpelsmollett claims that there were these two guys he used to chill with, one of whom took him to a gay bathhouse for a stimulating exchange or two, who just two days after partaking of some dope smoking in Smollett’s Mercedes decided to enact the world’s most overdetermined hate crime against him, using not just the N-word and the F-word but also carrying a symbolic bottle of bleach and a symbolic noose.

    Black guys do this to other black guys all the time. Gay guys do this to other gay guys all the time. But at the same time? At 2 a.m.? On a frigid night?

    Nope, not buyin' it. Note (as does Kevin D. Williamson) that perjury is also a crime. In additon to the crime on which he's being tried. You'd think Jussie would have more sense. But he's apparently in his own reality.


Last Modified 2024-01-19 5:47 PM EDT