"Funny how tolerant the Left can be."

Yeah LeftWingPharisee, how dare I not tolerate the amputation of a healthy, functional part of a defenceless child's genitals? You sound like one of those right-wing homophobes, who lambast liberals for not 'tolerating' their hate.

"And if you outlaw it, we'll go underground, just like in the good ole USSR."

Wow, you are an absolute religious fundmentalist. Do you want to bring back animal sacrifice, slavery, stoning, polygamy and all of the other Biblical practices in the vein of circumcision?

"Get over it. Find something else to obsess over."

The day I "get over" my concern for children's rights would be the day I become as morally blind as you. If god does exist, I'm willing to stake my soul that mutilating a child will be considered the sin, not my 'obsession' about ending it.

"The people who are vociferously anti-circumcision are an annoying pack of twisted, obsessed freaks. Don;t you people have better things to create polemical mythologies about?" --Mr. Pillhouse

Yeah, what's wrong with us loony, bleeding-heart liberals...concern for children's rights, including self-determination about their bodily integrity? WTF? Gosh, I guess some of us will just get twisted and obsessed about anything...

"I entered the Covenant of Abraham when I was 8 days old. Thank G_d."

Slavishly following an archaic religious blood ritual (not mention afraid to write GOD), yeah, you're real "LeftWing," a progressive model for us all.

"All you anti-circ lunatics, read up on the history of Chanukah."

You mean how the violent religious fanatic Maccabees murdered their fellow Jews (who had picked up crazy heathen notions like 'reason' from Hellenistic influences) for not obeying their fundamentalist brand of religious dogma? In fact I think they killed uncircumsized Jews as part of their 'revolt.'

"@Victoria

Get a penis since birth and then get back to me...

-- Jonathan"

Get a clue, be able to formulate a substantive response to my points instead of a childish non sequitur and then get back to me...

[My having a penis or not has nothing to do with the validity of the points I raised.]

I'm circumcised, my son is circumcised, and I don't feel the slightest bit guilty/oppressed about it. I'd do it again in a second. I also cut his hair, trim his nails and other various things which make it easier to keep him clean and germ free.

And I often make decisions on his behalf without consulting his opinion first. He's 2-years-old and I'm his father, so I'd say that's pretty normal as well.

1. The fact you do not feel bad about something is never a justification, moral or legal, to infringe the rights of another person.

2. You begin by talking about circumcision and then switch to hair, nails, etc. which only shows your unwillingness to confront the fundamnetal differences between irrevocable removal of healthy, functional human tissue (i.e. surgical amputation) and routine removal of dead cells (i.e. grooming).

3. You refer to making your son "germ free," indicating an astounding ignorance of biology.

May you do feel a bit "guilty/oppressed" deep down or you wouldn't need to justify the supposedly self-evident justifications for your actions to a group of strangers.

If anything, it's "ageist", but it's not a bad thing. I'm betting that they would feel the same way about vasectomy's for men under 30. Any responsible physician would be reluctant to make permanent changes to a person's body when they were that young.

I wonder if you would trot out that same argument for barring young transsexuals from surgery, because trans-phobic conservatives certainly do that. After all how can society 'allow' people to make poor choices when they're young, especially "permanent changes to a person's body"? Their wise elders know so much more. In fact if those kids just read the Bible more...

Left meets Right and we are all less free.

jebldmm wrote:

You wouldn't think so based on the media and the right wingers. They talk about "illegal immigrants" as if they were vermin who needed to be either kept out of the U.S. or eradiated.

Let's see, you start with an absurd strawman argument which envokes Nazi terminology (e.g. "vermin"). In fact you actually want us to demonise the same "the media" which has moved from using "illegal" to the phrase "undocumented" immigrant so as not to offend? And you want us to overlook that some of the "right wingers" include religious fundamentals who may not have come here legally. So is a homophobic, misogynistic illegal immigrant from the Muslim world OK to disapprove of, or does that make me some kind of vile hate-monger?

I have to keep reminding myself that we're talking about human beings who want to work so that they and their families can have better lives, not freeloaders who are out to take advantage of the generosity of U.S. citizens.

Claiming an entire group "want[s] to work" seems a very dubious assertion, especially when said group is as extraordinarily diverse as immigrants. Obviously the small number of legal and illegal immigrants who run criminal enterprises are not big on lawful employment. And who says they all have "families" whose lives to "better"? Or is that some racial stereotyping that all Latin Americans (or East Asians) are family-oriented? I mean maybe someone comes here to get away from their repressive family or just to enrich themselves?

This sort of mindless, uncritical praise does nothing to foster a more mature public debate on immigration.