Tag: abortion

Mansplaining And The GOP

I’ve been trying to limit the amount of political commentary snark that I offer on this blog, but this one is just too amusing to pass up.  In attempting to prove why the GOP does not have a war on women thing going on, Mike Huckabee managed to prove that, no really, they do:

Thursday, at the annual meeting of the Republican National Committee in Washington, D.C., once and possibly future presidential candidate Mike Huckabee became the latest Republican to step into the quicksand that women’s issues have become for the GOP. The one-time Arkansas governor and talk show host told a roomful of party officials that Democrats insult women by telling them “they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government.”

Robin Abcarian points out all the reasons why Huckabee is confused about which party is the one saying that. Hint: it’s not the Democrats:

Here’s a remedial lesson for Gov. Huckabee: That is not what Democrats tell women; it’s what Republicans tell them.

Republicans call women “sluts” because women tell Congress they want access to insurance-covered contraception.

Republicans talk about “legitimate rape.”

Republicans say pregnancies as a result of rape are a “gift from God” and should be carried to term.

Republicans say: “One of the things I will talk about that no president has talked about is, I think, the dangers of contraceptives in this country. The whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, ‘Contraception’s OK.’ It is not OK.”

Democrats know that invoking women’s sex drives in conversations about healthcare mandates is demeaning, patronizing and wrong.

What Democrats tell women is that women have the right to comprehensive health coverage, which should include access to contraception — even if you work at Hobby Lobby.

What I would really like to know is how exactly Republicans like Huckabee can accuse their opponents of doing exactly what they themselves are doing and not perceive the inherent silliness of doing so.

After all, the opposite of “pro-life” isn’t “pro-abortion.” Do Republicans believe that if the Democrats had their way, abortions would be mandatory? That, at least, would be an example of Democrats believing that the government must tell women what to do with regards to their libidos and reproductive systems.

But since mandatory abortion is only something that exists in the minds of the most deranged Tea Partyers (Partiers?), we can safely ignore this silliness and remember which party actually supports the position that includes the word “choice.”

Cause, you know, giving people choices instead of taking choices away insults them. Somehow.

And In Other News

I’m related to a lot of people who vote for the GOP. This is something I really, really don’t understand. I don’t understand how we can have the same DNA, the same stuff that programs our brains and such, look at the same actions by Republicans and have completely divergent reactions.

For example, my reaction to  the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is one of abject horror that something this misogynistic passed through the House of Representatives. The fact that it will likely die in the Senate is a cold consolation; what would make me happy is knowing that bullshit like this couldn’t survive long enough to make it to the House at all.

And yet, you don’t have to go far along the family tree to find beings who are almost exactly like me in terms of DNA who likely think that this is a great idea, who would have almost certainly voted for Franks if he was representing our district (he’s actually representing a district in Phoenix, which should come as no surprise to anyone ever).

The only answer that makes sense to me is that I’m a genetic aberration, a mutant who was born with a defective brain bucket that renders me incapable of understanding the wisdom of this action, or anything else that the GOP does. That must be it.

Baby’s Got A Gun

I think that one of the great things about the Internet is the juxtaposition of the profoundly amazing and the profoundly moronic. Just before I came upon this article, I was looking at a high resolution image of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, one of the most awe-inspiring images ever captured. Let’s admire it for a moment before we continue.

hubble

Doesn’t look like much, until you realize that each of those little blobs is an entire galaxy. Billions and billions of stars are out there in the black and we humans, we are the only animals on this planet who have ever even seen these stars. Magnificent, when you think about it.

The wonderful thing about the Internet is how with just a few clicks, I can go from this wonderful example of scientific achievement and transition to this slogan by Representative Steve Stockman of Texas: “if babies had guns, they wouldn’t be aborted. Vote Pro-Life.”

Let’s look at a list of all the ways this is an absolutely asinine thing to say.

  1. We don’t abort babies. We abort embryos and fetuses.
  2. If a baby is capable of holding a gun, it can’t be aborted because it’s already been born.
  3. Why would a baby having a gun change anything anyway? Babies don’t have the physical capabilities to effectively wield a firearm.
  4. Who the fuck would give a baby a gun? If your baby is holding a gun,  it means you have failed as a parent. Seriously, you’re the worst.
  5. WHAT DOES THIS STATEMENT EVEN MEAN I DON’T

Ahem.

One thing that flaming liberals like myself like to remark upon is the contradiction that seems to be part of the basic belief system of the religious right. Okay, so you’re Pro-Life. I get that, even if I don’t agree with it myself. I can understand holding all life to be sacred; hell, I’m a vegetarian myself almost entirely for philosophical considerations. Let’s set all that aside for a moment.

Why is it that the person who is proudly Pro-Life usually is also the person that supports the death penalty? Why does the Pro-Life person want more guns, when guns are specifically designed to take life away? Why does the person who values life more than anything else not value any life other than that of the embryo? All life is supposed to be sacred, right? Except for the lives of convicted felons. And the lives of burglars. And the lives of mothers.

Why is it that Pro-Life love stops once the fetus is a baby? Why do you care so intensely about the fetus, but rail against the welfare systems in place to take care of those fetuses now that they’re babies?

The only answer that makes sense is hypocrisy. That’s the only thing that makes sense  when you have a platform that is supposedly protects individual liberties, unless you’re a mother, or a minority, or a homosexual, or part of a lower economic class, or an atheist, or really just anybody who doesn’t meet with a very strict set of social requirements.

Seriously, I cannot understand how you can look at a politician like Stockman and not feel your brain recoil in the presence of such concentrated idiocy. This is slogan-bait of the worst kind. It’s the kind of thing you do when you are so convinced that your constituency is composed of morons that you know slapping “guns, babies, pro-life” together will get you some attention. I guess it worked in that regard, since we’re all talking about it. On the other hand, I don’t see how getting a lot of attention for being a moron could possibly help one’s political career.

Even if I was Pro-Life, this shit would offend me, because it’s so very blatant. The funny thing is that I could almost, almost, believe that this was satire. If it hadn’t come from a Republican from Texas, I would have laughed it off as a jest poking fun at the silliness of sloganeering. Part of me hopes that it’s a joke. I would be very relieved to find out that this was a story that originated from the Onion.

But I don’t think it’s a joke. I think that there are people who think like Rep. Stockman and there are people who agree with him. And those two sobering thoughts just leech away whatever schadenfreude I might have felt at this whole silly thing.