Writing for TNR, Michelle Cottle manages to pen precisely the kind of article one expects from a liberal media elite pretending to some nuanced consideration of the Palin VP nomination. Whatever praise there is for Governor Palin is undercut by condescension and oblique swipes at her authenticity; and of course the selection itself is nothing but bald-faced opportunism that any woman worth safeguarding her own uterus should see through as cynical and opportunistic, and propped up by cheesy homemade throw pillows.
Writes Cottle:
[…] amid the snows of Iowa, it all fell apart. To be fair, New Hampshire may be more to blame. Iowa was where Hillary’s inevitability narrative unraveled, but New Hampshire was where she got the idea that redemption lay in the legions of gals who rallied ’round when the (mostly male) political establishment and punditocracy began salivating at the thought of her imminent demise. That much of the animus toward Hillary had more to do with her last name than her chromosomes did not matter; women objected to seeing one of their own kicked to the curb with such haste. Hillary’s now famous moment of teary-eyed vulnerability fueled their fury. Sisterhood is what resurrected Hillary in New Hampshire.
And, just like that, the strong, proud, fearless, gender-transcendent Hillary morphed into a disrespected, mistreated victim. Grievance feminism came roaring back with a vengeance. Clinton’s supporters increasingly went from praising her gender-neutral success to celebrating her triumph over a male-dominated system and decrying the patriarchal forces still aligned against her. Obama wasn’t just beating Clinton; he was behaving, as Hillary surrogate Geraldine Ferraro charged, in a “terribly sexist” fashion. Party bigwigs, we were told, were pushing Clinton to bow out in a way that they would never pressure a man. Her supporters, meanwhile, saw themselves as suffering the same demeaning treatment women have endured through the ages. As one pro-Hillary group raged, women were being told to “sit down, shut up, and move to the back of the bus. […]
[…]
Not even the primary’s resolution could end the drama. As many of Clinton’s supporters and fund-raisers prepared to unify behind Obama, the true dead-enders–an overwhelmingly female cohort–grew ever more marginalized and belligerent. Giving themselves cutesy names (PUMAs! Hillary Villagers!) and loudly venting their rage or sorrow at their hero’s unjust fall, they were increasingly derided as overly emotional and downright nutty. No matter that Americans of both genders tend to cast their presidential votes less on reason than on gut-level intangibles; the extremism of Hillary dead-enders has played into all those tired stereotypes about women being fuzzy-headed and irrational. By the time of the conventions, MSNBC’s notoriously chauvinistic Chris Matthews was far from the only person grumbling about “women of a certain age.”
Then, just when you thought it was all over and the recovery could begin, Republicans handed us Sarah Palin.The Palin pick is disheartening on so many levels. For starters, even what little we know about the Alaska governor’s policy views is enough to make a traditional feminist weep. The staunchly conservative Palin not only opposes abortion rights (even in cases of rape or incest), she also supports abstinence-only sex education and takes a strict free-market approach toward health care.
Of course, these days, the feminist mantle is claimed by pro-life conservatives and pro-choice progressives alike. Palin herself is a proud member of Feminists for Life. Feminism seems no longer to denote a particular set of values or ideological agenda; it is merely a label appropriated to proclaim that one is committed to the best interests of women–whatever one believes those to be. Thus far, there’s no reason to doubt that Palin devoutly believes her hard-core conservatism is right for women. A McCain-Palin White House, however, would spell only trouble for women’s rights.
Even setting aside Palin’s political views, the governor’s candidacy is a slap in the face to all women. No matter how feisty she is or how darling she looks with a rifle on her shoulder, Palin is abjectly unqualified to sit one heartbeat away from the presidency. She is less than two years into her first term as governor of a state with a population roughly equivalent to that of Baltimore or Fort Worth. Her minimal experience with national domestic issues is overshadowed only by her total lack of experience, or even apparent interest, in foreign affairs. This makes her a bizarre choice for a candidate who has been hawking the need for experience and gravitas in these troubled times–and makes the cynical tokenism of Palin’s selection all the more vivid.
By far the most insulting aspect of Palin’s candidacy is the McCain team’s hope that placing a ballsy female on the ticket will attract some former Hillary supporters by stoking their gender-based resentments against Obama and the DNC. Palin has been happy to encourage this strategy by cheering Hillary’s “eighteen million cracks in the glass ceiling” and offering herself up as a way to help women go even farther. Sadly, some Hillary dead-enders may be so blinded by bitterness that they fall for this nonsense. The rest of us should be outraged by a strategy so nakedly founded on the premise that Hillary gals were driven more by identity politics than by any interest in their candidate’s values, ideology, or qualifications. It’s not just that Palin stands on the opposite side of so many issues dear to Hillary; she is also vastly less accomplished and engaged than the senator from New York. (As political consultant Dan Gerstein has quipped, many Hillary supporters will think Palin “not worthy of carrying their candidate’s pantsuit.”) In Team McCain’s eyes, however, female candidates are pretty much interchangeable and women voters too addlepated to know the difference. We don’t care about issues or experience; we just want someone with the same reproductive parts as ours.
None of which is to disparage Palin’s inherent intelligence, political savvy, or judgment. It’s entirely possible that some day she could make a top-notch vice-presidential, or even presidential, candidate. But, at this point, we are talking about a woman who makes Dan Quayle circa 1988 look like an elder statesman.
[…]
[…] there’s little doubt that every clueless, unprepared, or unpresidential word out of Palin’s mouth will have tongues clucking over what the need to cater to women voters has wrought.
Working mothers in particular should be holding their breath. The McCain camp’s decision to pitch Palin’s Supermom-of-five status as one of her chief assets has opened yet another front in the endless and endlessly counterproductive Mommy Wars. The moment Palin’s addition to the ticket was announced, women began publicly and privately savaging the hard-charging governor for perceived mothering missteps both great and small. (What kind of pregnant woman is reckless enough to travel twelve-plus hours from Texas to Alaska after her water breaks? What mom subjects her pregnant, unmarried 17-year-old to the scrutiny of a presidential race?! How dare she take her newborn to a campaign event without socks?!!) How, or whether one should even try, to balance career and family remains a raw subject for women in this country, and the centrality of Palin’s motherhood to her candidacy guarantees that this corrosive debate will rage for the remainder of the election.
Am I suggesting that all of these setbacks for feminism are Palin’s fault? Or Hillary’s? Or that there is nothing at all to celebrate in their achievements? Of course not. Neither would I argue for a second that these smart, ambitious women shouldn’t be pushing as hard as they can to get what they want out of life. But, as with any enduring movement, feminism has its shining moments and its discouraging ones. I just wish someone had warned me ahead of time that this election season would wind up falling with such a thud into the latter category.
Leaving aside that Cottle uses her thesis as an excuse to rehash a number of Palin smears and conspiracy theories without bothering to supply correctives — eg., as the NYT’s Jodi Kantor rightly notes with regard to the slow leak of amniotic fluid, “in fact, Ms. Palin was not in labor, and her doctor thought she had time.” Ultimately, labor was induced back home in Alaska — what we have here is a glorified partisan hit piece: to many on the liberal side of the aisle, the personal is the political, and Governor Palin’s refusal to go along with the ideological orthodoxies of a certain brand of feminism marks her as necessarily anti-feminist, and an absolute horror for “women’s rights.”
My response, which I’m not sure will be posted, I reproduce here:
Such a sad, bitter article.
You do know that, if elected President, Obama would be less than a heartbeat away from the office of President, correct? And that his claim to executive experience is running the campaign meant to put him in position of chief executive?
— Well, that, and the CAC. But he doesn’t seem much interested in discussing that experience in much detail.
As for Sarah Palin being a step back for women’s rights and feminism, that is one of the most tendentious statements I’ve heard in quite a while. To believe it, one must have adopted a particular view of feminism that has nothing whatever to do with legal equality, or the opinions and beliefs of women being on par with those of men and judged on their merits. Instead, such an argument relies on a view of feminism tied directly to second wave feminist orthodoxies — with those women who don’t buy into the platform labeled either anti-feminist, or else condescendingly dismissed as suffering from false consciousness.
The truth is, Governor Palin’s stand on abortion — incidentally, Joe Biden believes life begins at conception, too — is far more complicated and consistent than you let on, or than perhaps Palin herself even conceives of it. As science makes strides toward moving forward the viability of the fetus, the idea that said fetus is a parasite rather than a human whose fate is decided not by natural law but by a hierarchy of socially-determined (by fiat) libertarian-flavored laws that put a woman’s right to choose above a child’s right to life, will be increasingly put to the test — with the libertarian view, at some point, sure to split at least evenly, as the right to live begins its elevation over the right to snuff a life by appealing to some inconvenient fact of biology.
I myself am reluctantly pro-choice; but this doesn’t mean I don’t see and respect the argument by the pro life camp — and there are plenty of pro-life libertarians, as it happens. One need not be some religious fundie to share this view — and sharing this view does not make one anti-woman or anti-feminist. It marks them only as having broken with a second-wave feminist orthodoxy.
For Governor Palin’s part, her position — no abortions, even in cases of rape or incest — is, when you consider it, the most reasonable pro-life case: after all, if you believe life begins at conception like Palin and Biden do, then it follows that ending that life because of the sins of the father or mother is hypocritical: after all, the child is not at fault.
None of which much matters to those wishing to portray Governor Palin a certain way (the way, in fact, she is portrayed in this piece).
But in truth, as the Denver Post‘s David Harsanyi, himself a libertarian, has pointed out, Palin’s governing style has drawn back into the GOP tent a lot of libertarians and classical liberals not too keen on McCain. For all her socially conservative beliefs, Palin does not try to legislate those personal beliefs. And as Glenn Reynolds has noted, “One can, of course, be a social conservative in philosophy and still support a libertarian approach to government and regulation.” Why many progressives can’t see this is because they cannot separate their personal beliefs from the desire to see them implemented by whatever measures necessary, including appeals to a “living Constitution” and to left-liberals in the judiciary who believe the role of the courts is to promote “social justice” rather than to interpret and apply the law.
Like Obama, Palin opposes same-sex marriage, but she nevertheless vetoed a bill seeking to block the state from giving public employee benefits to same-sex couples — the rationale being that such a ban would be unconstitutional; she has also stated explicitly that she doesn’t think intelligent design belongs in the school curriculum, regardless of what her personal beliefs happen to be.
She believes in individual autonomy — though she might quibble over when “individualism” begins, with respect to the sticky question of abortion; but she realizes that her opinion of the practice stands separate from her role as an executive. She believes in free-market health care, not because she is anti-feminist, but because, as a feminist — that is, as a strong woman who expects her opinions to be treated with equal consideration by those looking to solve problems without an appeal to her vaginal authenticity — she believes it to be the best solution to the health care problem.
Articles like Ms Cottles’, while they pretend not to condescend to feisty, strong women like Governor Palin, are nevertheless the worst sort of elitist indictment of those feminists who don’t follow a particular second wave feminist agenda; but in engaging in such backhanded attacks, Cottle and others like her merely show their contempt for what actual feminism was engaged to correct: namely, that women weren’t to be taken seriously as capable thinkers, and so were to be relegated to the function of second class citizenry.
Sarah Palin has raised a family, dealt with the hardships many parents and spouses go through, and yet has managed to balance those workaday concerns and responsibilities with public service.
To sniff at what she has done — while simultaneously exulting a Chicago pol with no practical experience as “The One” ready for his “historic” anointing, is where the real cynicism lies.
That Ms Cottle can’t see that is a testament that she has succumbed to what Crispin Sartwell and I have both pointed out elsewhere is a classist semiotic that lies at the heart of liberal elitism.
To say I’m disappointed in Cottle’s article would suggest I expected something better.
But as second wave liberal feminists have spent much of the last decade plus figuring out ways to keep their ideological views in line with their political affiliation and identity — in the process, attacking a powerful and successful working mom and an intern they’d normally decry as caught in a power dynamic that rendered her the victim of abuse, while simultaneously defending Bill Clinton and John Edwards against those wishing to make political or moral hay out of their indiscretions — Ms Cottle’s article is merely par for the course.
The Sarah Palins of the world have come a long way, baby. The Michelle Cottles? They pretty much stalled somewhere around the time Julia Kristeva came to intellectual prominence.
****
update: More here.
To this degree, I agree with Cottle, and you – it’s the ideas, stupid.
let her raise or sink the ticket based on her abilities as a leader and the political platform she stands for, and her perceived ability to carry it out in accordance with right priniciple, respect for the constitution, and the will of the people.
That mommy war fights erupt, and I’ve had my own concerns on that score, really are not relevent to her competency. If the left wants to be stupid bending all over backwards on itself trying to disarm an effective candidate, that’s them doing damage to “feminism”. Not Palin, not Palin’s candidacy.
Marshall, Sullivan, and Cottle; the three
unwisemen pundits of the liberal apocalypse…I mean, can’t they just shut up about her womaness or her motherness and vote according to what kind of leader they would have?
It undermines no woman to be against Palin on principle, or for her on principle.
Tryin’ to het fancy and messed up…I meant to say:
Marshall, Sullivan, and Cottle; the three unwise
menpundits of the liberal apocalypse…Coddled or Curdled? Both.
But she has more executive experience than Jesus!
For you to reluctantly admit this obvious Palin-truth knowing you’re doing so in th face of waves of foaming conservatard denialists indicates some reality is beginning to sink into the discourse.
Bu the way, intelligence and savvy? I see little proof.
somebody might want to read something again, more closely.
Seems to me that for a certain set of leftist feminists, the term feminism has merely become another synonym for Democrat. The goals of feminism that they claim to be fighting for have been supplanted by an apparent desire to supplant the “boys club” with another, equally limiting group that they control.
But she has more executive experience than Jesus!
No, just more than Obama.
Sorry about that.
supplanted and supplant in the same sentence. I give up.
Thor, read s…l…o…w…l…y.
In Cottle’s first paragraph, comes this doozy on Hillary:
Better still, she wasn’t running as a Woman Candidate.
I don’t think Ms Cottle recovered from this booboo.
#3: To Cottle and the rest, Palin isn’t the opposition, she’s a traitor, a turncoat. In a war, enemies can be considered honorable, traitors never.
The legend lives on from the Gray Lady on down
To the network they call “Fair and Balanced.â€Â
The MSNBC, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of September turn gloomy.
With a load of delegates – 2,500 or more
Than the Barack Obama weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early
The ship was the pride of the Democrat side
Rising out of the machine in Chicago
As big ships go it beat out Team Hillary so
With a campaign and the Veep well seasoned.
Concluding some terms with a couple of special interest groups
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ships bell rang
McCain announced Sarah Palin.
The Kos and the Dish made a tattletale sound
Claiming that McCain was insane
First it was Trig, and then it was Bristol,
This would finish the old man off early.
Gustav came late and the GOP convention to wait
And bets were being taken when she would drop out
But when the Governor spoke to the assembled folk
The Dems were in the face of a hurricane Palin
When supper time came the old Veep came on deck
Saying I hear that life starts at conception
At 7AM when Intrade caved in
Biden said fellas it’s been good to know ya.
Then Captain hit a shoal called “New Pennsylvania”
And the Dem ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when Mac’s polls went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Barack Obama.
I hope that TNR publishes your comment Jeff – but if they don’t, Cottle is getting pretty ‘shattered’ by the commenters there already.
You saw that some pre-wave feminism has broken out?
The entire duration of the current spectacle where the champions of feminism on the left contort their views to fit with the party’s intent of keeping the accomplished woman down to exalt the undeserving man has come as no surprise to me. The vim and vigor of it, yes. I would have thought that they’d try to mask it a little, as they did during the campaign against Hillary.
But surprised, no. I’ve been convinced that second-wavers were solely about the will to power since the day I noticed that there was a deafening silence from the feminists over the treatment of women in the world of Islam. Speaking for women in Islam undermines the authority of part of the left’s base who hold multiculturalism as the great moral imperative of our time. Speaking out against Islam wounds an ally. They maintain silence to maintain power, sacrificing the underlying principle on which feminism stands.
From the silence against mistreatment of women abroad to disdain and condescension for women who are objectified at home isn’t that wide a leap to make, especially when it’s perceived as essential for the maintenance and gain of power.
That it also betrays the underlying principle is something of a shock to second-wave feminists, since many of them hadn’t realized how corrupt the movement had become in its service to the greater good of power at all costs.
Nicely done, Jeff. As if women like Michelle Cottle have a clue about executive experience. Feh.
Do “traditional feminists” weep? That doesn’t sound very modern and progressive.
Suck it up, ladies.
Excellent response Jeff. It probably won’t see the light of day. The whole experience thing is fantastic, too. Nevermind the fact that these schmucks are still talking about the repubs VICE-repsident pick against the dems president pick. But, if she’s inexperienced what about Obama? Are they really that lost?
She has written the same number of books as you, maybe, but she has less “executive” experience than Jesus and the Messiah, meaning Obama.
“Executive experience” has quickly become nothing more than a nuance coded no-experience cover-up.
Very well written, Jeff. Of course, Cottle, just like Hammer Boi, will be unable to comprehend it, as it does not fit The Narrative of The Lightbringer.
Shut up, Thor.
Cottle believes, or rather fears that votes gained by Palin are, essentially, taking advantage of identity politics in a cynical way, and notes that the “fights” and “wars” caused by her candidacy undermine feminism. Which, they do, but it’s odd she can’t see whose to blame for that….Palin opponents flailing around trying to undermine a candidate who doesn’t hold beliefs that they do, and doing so in a most hypocritical and cynical fashion.
They are afraid Palin will get votes just because she’s a woman, and fight this by trying to convince others she doesn’t live up to various (inconsistent) ideas of what a woman should be or do, that they think will persuade undecided people. Instead of proclaiming lamentations over infighting or identity politics, maybe they could just stick with attacking in an honest and straightforward way.
#14
That was Grrrrrrrreat!
Yeah. Should’a.
Agree to disagree.
“Who’s”, not “whose” to blame…
So writing a pair of memoirs is a qualifier to be president?
Just trying to get the ground rules down here.
And to be fair, most people who supported Romney in the early part of the GOP primaries did so citing his executive experience as a greater qualifier than McCain’s service in the senate. It’s not an entirely new phenomenon. I think most people view previous leadership experience as a greater qualifier for an executive position than serving on a council or board.
It’s the same groupthink that renders Republicans of Color Uncle Toms.
Nothing more than rank hypocracy.
When does the vetting of Barry’s executive experience at CAC begin?
Abort your shutterings.
Agree to disagree.
Who’s the stiff?
I don’t think her candidacy undermines feminism. What it does do is undermine the authority of establishment feminism, and in so doing, actually points feminism back to its root ideals — while simultaneously expanding its number.
The failure of “feminism” in this country is tied to the failure of the self-proclaimed voices for feminism that have done much to sabotage it. As I’ve written before, by virtue of being a classical liberal, I am by default a feminist. I need not follow any of the orthodoxies of the establishment feminists, who insist on group solidarity and a narrative consensus.
Ironically, such a stance mark them as perhaps pro-woman (of a kind), but it also marks them as anti-feminist, in the original sense of the term.
No, Hadlowe. “Feminists” of that particular sect exposed themselves when they argued forcefully that as an elected official, Bill Clinton was entitled to the services of bimbos, and the said bimbos were not entitled to complain about rough trade. The attitude toward Islam simply continues and reinforces that philosophy.
Regards,
Ric
Women have resentments against Obama less because of how he bitchslapped Hillary but more because he mostly just pities them I think. Poor piteous womens. He’s been yammering on about that tired equal pay for equal work shit for a couple days now, so he knows the womens are hating him, but he answers them with pity. His socialist revolution bullshit would only work if for real there were like tons of womens thinking well shit if I didn’t have these damn titties I’d me making more monies but for real it’s hard to find womens that think that. So it’s all very theoretical. See Marx.
That is a beautiful argument, JeffG. I still harbor the belief that John McCain chose Gov. Palin for her virtue before he thought at all about the inside baseball niceties his campaign managers were likely looking for and to which the media jumped immediately as a means of explanation for a phenomenon they cannot otherwise understand.
edits: 1)”they’re” to “their”, para. 12, 2)”Cartwell” to “Sartwell”, para. 15,
Hadlowe says:
“But surprised, no. I’ve been convinced that second-wavers were solely about the will to power since the day I noticed that there was a deafening silence from the feminists over the treatment of women in the world of Islam.”
It was even earlier than that for me to throw feminism into the dustbin of history. What did it for me was Bill Clinton. Had that SOB had a R after his name, the feminists would have seen to it that he was “tarred and feathered, and rode out of town on a rail” (ask Bob Packwood), for the Lewinski affair, not to mention all the other “bimbo eruptions”.
Here you had repeated classic cases of the sort of “patriarchy”, “abuse of power”, etc, ad nauseam, that the feminists have been howling about for decades, and they said….nothing.
Fucking hypocrites, all of them.
Balzac might have believed such, but I didn’t imply it.
Also it doesn’t help that womens are probably repelled by Joey Hairplugs. He’s so that guy in the bar.
I liked the part about moving to the back of the bus. Wrong metaphor. That was for the bros, not the hos. Men actually used to give women their seats on the bus. I always have to question the intellectual depth of anyone whose grasp of history doesn’t even encompass the last fifty years.
If I have time later today I’ll explore Jill@feministe’s contention that privilege is what marks the Palin decision to keep the baby as problematic.
If not, I’ll just eat pot stickers and watch tv.
“2nd Wave” Feminism died when Gloria Steinem went to the mat, figuratively (I hope), for Bill Clinton.
“Well, even if he demanded a little tale on the side, He’s doing a good job as President, so nothing is the matter”
Now, swap out [POTUS] for [CFO of General Motors], and the naked political maneuvering becomes instantly apparent.
The daughter’s bastard child or the stricken one?
Last time:
The deep attachment of non-leftists to the moral-highground connotations of leftist in-words like “feminism,” and the desire to appropriate them (often by falsely — though not knowingly falsely — claiming to re-appropriate them), is a total — total — victory for the left.
But you just go right ahead.
Joey Hairplugs is that guy in the bar but he’s also that boss you hate. Joey transcends faux-virile I think. He’s repellent in all sorts of scenarios. Plug and play, our Joey.
You stay classy, Thor.
What’s this with “Ms. Palin”? Why not Mrs. Palin? Is this a literary protocol or a thinly-disguised slight?
Did thor just call Barry a bastard?
The daughter’s bastard child or the stricken one?
What sort of pathetic human being keeps taking cheap shots like this? Don’t you have anything better to do with your life then to try to cause grief and anger?
Right. What Palin is doing is showing that a woman can do anything in America. But the problem is that this can only happen when a woman sets about doing what she wants to do as opposed to achieving her desires through avowed victimhood and societal support for her shortcomings.
Sarah Palin threatens to do the thing that most frightens any sort of activist. She threatens to conclusively solve their problem and put them out of the job of trying to fix it. This will not do for those who have staked their very lives on trumpeting their oppression. How dare this bitch just go ahead and succeed?
I believe that Jill et al were kvetching constantly how articles in the press would refer to HRC as “Hillary” instead of “Sen. Clinton”. To be fair, they did have a point. I always put it as a holdover from calling her “Hillary” during those 8 years as First Lady.
Now, they are deathly silent on “Ms. Palin” vs. “Gov. Palin”.
Jill really has a bug up her butt about “privilege.”
I must be misreading this comment, thor:
The Nipponese womens are having this same problem kind of.
Boo for missing blockquote closing tags. Blockquote should end after the first paragraph.
So far the polls aren’t bearing this out, psycho. Maybe I’m just a glass half-full kinda guy. With the patience of an Islamist dead ender.
Several notable feminists have already begun changing their tunes. I think making the case that feminism is the default condition of classical liberalism — of following the ideals of the founders to their logical ends — is a winner.
But maybe that’s just me being all hopey and changey.
No, no, no it wasn’t just the speech, the same thing is happening with these womens. I have passed some line, some place. I am beginning to repel people I’m trying to seduce.
Grief and anger? No, no, my words were meant to cause pain, humiliation and suffering. My intentionalism is that hard.
If it’s going to be you you you thor would you please share reviews of consumer packaged goods you find interesting or maybe tell us a little about what you’re Netflixing? I would like a fuller portrait.
If thor has a point or points, I ask that he make it/them. If not, I ask that he find something better to do than bother those who are interested in talking about the content of this post.
happy and I had reached the same point, looks like.
Welcome, gents.
I’ve been on the phone. I can only type (quietly) during the one-two minute bouts while I pretend to listen/care what my customer is saying.
Please do excuse my multitasking ways. You narrative-focused Elitist!
I’ve been rolling this thought around my brain for a while, trying to put it on paper (unsuccessfully) a couple times, but here is the gist of it:
Saying (as the “progressives” do) that in order to be an authentic black man, you must approve of certain policy issues (e.g., affirmative action) or that, in order to be an authentic woman, you must be pro-choice, is not (in spirit) really all that different from saying, “Because your DNA makes you a black man, you cannot vote at all, or work for pay, or because your DNA makes you a woman, you cannot serve on a jury or take the bar exam.”
At bottom, it’s an attempt to control the contribution one makes (or does not make) to society. Attempted enslavement, not of the body, but of the mind.
It’s hands-down the thing that offends me most about politics today.
Seems to me that for a certain set of leftist feminists, the term feminism has merely become another synonym for Democrat.
Swap out “Democrat” for “Progressive” and I’ll agree.
And to be fair, most people who supported Romney in the early part of the GOP primaries did so citing his executive experience as a greater qualifier than McCain’s service in the senate.
No, it was his magic underwear. Cloaking device! Shiatsu massage! Intermittent steering!
I think most people view previous leadership experience as a greater qualifier for an executive position than serving on a council or board.
Listen here, buster. Obama never served on any board, especially not the CAC and especially not with Bill Ayers, and he definitely did not fritter away millions of dollars on dubious educational projects.
Also, Stanley Kurtz is a figment of your fevered imagination.
Wasn’t Bill Clinton the self proclaimed “first black president” because of his policies rather than his race? “Policies” is stretching the meaning of the word, a better description would be “intentions”. If all it takes is political affiliation and having the right policy talking points then I’d say we just give Jimmy Carter the title as the great feminist of our time.
Toni Morrison proclaimed.
Cross posted from the pub:
At some point in the distant past, Feminism got hijacked by “Abortion rights†as a foundational loyalty test. It’s now so foundational that even Gloria Steinem assumes it’s a no-brainer part of the program, failing to remember that the genesis of feminism was equality of opportunity both professionally and personally (I.E. education) and recognition of and standing against abuse and other intimidations within marriage.
Sarah Palin embodies the original concept of feminism in terms of her being empowered to make her own decisions and deciding to have it all. She may have elected to take on more responsibility than the average woman or man but it was her choice. She should be a shining poster child for the the truly important principles of equality between the sexes while recognizing each gender’s unique characteristics. None of this confirms her as the second coming of Reagan but it certainly does not make her inauthentic and shouldn’t make a “traditional feminist weep,” unless traditional only encompasses the last 25 years or so of New age Feminist thought.
Instead she is relentlessly smeared because she will not kow-tow at the altar of choice, thus every other aspect of her non-conformity (hick, hunter, backwater town, substandard schooling)is flung about to separate her from “true, traditional†feminism. She elects to put aside her choice for what she considers a higher moral value, the preservation of life. You may agree or disagree with this decision but to brand her as “inauthentic feminist†is to ignore the history of feminism, blinded by the super precedent light of Roe v Wade.
This is a well balanced and deeply wrought piece, Jeff.
Thor let me guess your a telemarketer?
<i<…Julia Kristeva came to intellectual prominence…
Was that before or after she was in Dr. Zhivago? See, I can run with you people; I just need the facts.
dicentra, I see no difference presently between the terms democrat and progressive.
I was heaved from the party with Lieberman and Zell Miller. The liberals have lost the internal war for the soul of the party and the progressives have won through sheer volume on the megaphone. Whatever non-progs are still in the party are effectively working for Dean and Soros. Were JFK alive today, his vocal opposition to communism would be grounds to run a special campaign organized by dKos to oust him from whatever position he was serving and attempt to replace him with someone more willing to toe the line.
Oh, and some more HTML training.
A followup:
I’m not saying in #67 that pro-choice is not feminism but merely that it shouldn’t be the secret decoder ring that gains one entrance to the “Secret Authentic Traditional Feminist Coven.” The fact that someone like Michelle Cottle is aghast at Palin’s Feminist bona fides while ignoring the very essence of her success is the the flip side of Phyllis Schlafly raving about a woman “abandoning” her children to Day Care to pursue a career.
It’s intolerance of details (i.e. blind partisan adherence to The Narrative™) rather than recognition of the whole package of opportunity, strength and success.
If I have time later today I’ll explore Jill@feministe’s contention that privilege is what marks the Palin decision to keep the baby as problematic.
My stomach lurches at the thought of the conversation. The “debate” from the left lacks honesty and is steeped in college-educated elitism and condescension.
What I’m saying, is I lack the balls. Perhaps I’ll feel better after my workout.
BJTexs:
Alot of third wave feminists reject the idea that there’s one single thing that makes a woman a feminist. I get along fine with a few of the third-wavers. Camille Paglia has vocally rejected much of the “fish needs a bicycle” misandry of the second-wave although I don’t know that she’d qualify herself as third-wave. Ayaan Hirsi Ali would be a prime example of third-wave feminists. Women who hold that women’s rights are more important than party platform uniformity. As would Feminists for Life, the group Palin supports.
This is not to say that all of third-wave is good stuff. I find plenty of theories under that big tent to disagree with, but the idea of delegitimizing ideological uniformity and therefore authenticity as a qualifier is a great step in the right direction.
The big problem is deciding how long the decentralization will last. Decentralization removes feminism as a bloc-vote gatherer from the democrats, so I expect to see a surreptitious gathering of minds to declare what is legitimately third-wave in the near future.
Jonah Goldberg’s wife, it just so happens, played high school basketball in Alaska at the same time as Sarah Palin did and has written up a nice account of the time and the lessons of the time for the Weekly Standard.
The moron has stated that he’s getting “revenge” for the treatment Obama’s been subjected to. Apparently trying to suss out someone’s motivations and beliefs by looking behind the (thin) record and examining the folks he chooses to hang with is just like attacking their family.
Beyond that, all the moron has is abuse and a massively inflated self-worth. He’s admitted he doesn’t respond to what people write so much as what he believes to be their motives; he’s certainly never bothered to connect those beliefs to actual statements anyone’s made, so as far as I can tell, those beliefs are based on his own fever dreams and bigotries.
More knowing condescension toward Gov. Palin, from her betters, in the form of friendly advice for Joe Biden, on how to win his debate with the “gifted reader of speeches” by Dahliah Lithwick.
“…She’ll suggest you [Biden] are a coward and unpatriotic and also (heh heh) that you are corrupt and dishonest. …”
Lithwick
Wonder where she got this meme?
I have already stated that I think the experience argument is a bit of a non starter, but that Dahliah Lithwick article really sort of misses the point that the Democratic POTUS nominee has as little or less experience as the VP candidate of the Republicans. At this point, I have to guess those making these sort of arguments are just easily distracted by shiny objects. Oooh look, tinfoil!
While I think you are too kind to “thor”, I wish that ya’ll would stop feeding the troll.
That Lithwick woman, she seeks approval. Incessantly.
It’s intolerance of details (i.e. blind partisan adherence to The Narrative™) rather than recognition of the whole package of opportunity, strength and success.
Exactly.
Wasilla is disappearing. First, it was 9,000. Then, it became 8,000. Now in the Slate article, it seems to be 6,000.
Pretty soon, it will lose its zipcode.
a classist semiotic
A classist semiotic… what?
Or a classist semiosis?
Hadlow: I’d never try to make a point for conformity or homogeneity in anything, especially third wave feminism. I’m looking towards the angry partisan feminist, third wave or not, who demands ideological requirements before a successful woman can me granted public access to the “Kill the Patriarchy” club. I’ve met plenty of feminists who are more concerned about access, equality and life-success (in whatever form) than they are about specific issues, background and political tests.
I find it deeply ironic that, as I read Ms. Cottle’s spew above, that she sounds every last bit as intolerant and dogmatic as almost any ultra fundamentalist female “family first” proclaimer I have ever heard.. The lack of tolerance tends to make me giggle like a Japanese schoolgirl.
Yay me!
I saw it and quoted it in the other thread!
(commence happy dance…)
obama is the ceo of his campaign? he says “no family stuff” and they fall in line? guess it’s more complex. management by objectives or something.
Here is a sneery NPR hoochie that bemoans that this election won’t be decided by the “smart people” like her and her husband oh and also Sarah Palin is a moose-killing breeder bitch. She’s not a particular clever woman, this Sandra, so there’s nothing new here, just a distillation really of condescending feminist bitchness generally and how darn funny they think their condescension is. In-jokey. I didn’t get it.
a center-left DC establishment pundit wrote a center-left establishment take on Sarah Palin, who is not in, of, or about the center…the left…or DC.
shocking, but true.
in teh late 80s and early 90s there was a lot of intellectual diversity at TNR…Kaus, Sullivan, Blumenthal, Barnes, Krauthammer, Kinsley….
they may not have always been right, but it was always thought-provoking and usually quite decently argued.
dicentra,
You are right that O! didn’t fritter away millions and millions of dollars on educational projects.
He frittered it away on pseudo-Marxist black theology projects.
Forget algebra! We want to abolish the Fourth of July!
When I read about CAC, I have trouble thinking of the mighty O! as “The Lightgiver”. Where I wound up after looking at his activities as a “community organizer” is that I think he should be called “The Darkgiver”.
The Kurtz interview on WGN is a mind blower. I don’t think O! and Ayers gave anything to any project even remotely connected to academic education..
BJTexs:
Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I think we’re in agreement on what’s going on here. I was referencing third-wave as a sort of protestant reformation against the established authority of second-wave feminists. The analogy isn’t perfect, but it works as a means of understanding how Palin can consider herself thoroughly a feminist while Gloria Steinem loses her shit about abortion rights qualifiers. Steinem is stuck on dogma while Palin, Ali, and other nonconformist feminists speak of the fundamental betrayal of principle.
Maybe that’s a meme that could gain some traction in the media, Palin as the feminists’ Martin Luther.
What sort of pathetic human being keeps taking cheap shots like this?
One who doesn’t have the intelligence or the talent to do anything else.
I like it!
a sneery NPR hoochie that bemoans that this election won’t be decided by the “smart people†like her and her husband oh and also Sarah Palin is a moose-killing breeder bitch.
happy — Lisa said NPR is a comfy, non-screechy place where open-minded and tolerant people gather for fun and informative conversation. So maybe calling Palin “the Bride of Frankenstein” was a movie reference only, to add erudition and shit.
It looks like this is going to be the standard approach. One of the Kansas City (Red) Star’s editorial page writers hit pretty much the same buttons on their Op-Ed page today.
[…] I’ve no intention to stop doing so, but if I ever did, it’d be because of statements like “I see no difference presently between the terms democrat and progressive.â€Â Or claims that almost-imperceptibly-left-of-center candidates are socialist, communists, […]
Sdfer:
Jonah Goldberg’s wife, it just so happens, … has written up a nice account…
You wanna denounce yourself there, Sdfer?
This comment is a test to see if html codes work in the Name field.
Back on topic, the (Red) Star editorialists notion is that if you’re not for free childcare and universal healthcare, you’re just not hip to “women’s issues.”
I see SEK took issue with my comment about a present lack of distinguishing features between “Democrat” and “Progressive.” I explained my justifications for this position in my comment, none of which you bothered addressing in your out of context quote.
Might want to try again, this time without the selective editing.
Really, stop torturing yourself hf, you can give the NPR up, life will go on, even better than before. An awful cognitive burden will be lifted, your step will be lighter. Besides, you can use the quitting as practice for the ciggys next year.
Hadlowe, its SEK, what are you expecting?
Comment by Mr. Pink on 9/8 @ 11:32 am #
Thor let me guess your a telemarketer?
Considering the viciousness, I would have guessed he worked for a debt collector.
I wish NPR still played music. I miss my Monday night Classical Guitar.
Techie, there’s a maxim I like about the soft bigotry of low expectations. I try not to be a bigot.
You are soooooooo denounced. Racist patriarchalists.
I believe the correct term is Patriarchal Racists, JD.
As Yoda would say, “Denounced, you are!”
My hyper-dyslexia rears its ugly head. I am a looksist.
Word-level dyslexia is a side effect of the fear of dwarves.
JeffG wrote: I myself am reluctantly pro-choice
In the same way that Democrats support the troops: All your rhetoric and principles are given to the other side, but you occasionally toss in the phrase “reluctantly pro-choice” in an effort to maintain your libertarian bonafides. It’s not working.
Apparently, you believe that at some stage in the development of science, we’ll be able to dispatch a group of diplomats to talk the fetus out of the womb and into a petri dish. Do you really think that somehow or another we’re going to be able to magically transport the fetus from the woman’s womb to a life support system without in any way having to violate her right to her own body? Or will you go ahead and go on record as saying that you believe the rights of the unborn trump a woman’s right to her body? That is the principle for which you are arguing, and it’s not in anyway consistent with being pro-choice.
For Governor Palin’s part, her position  no abortions, even in cases of rape or incest  is, when you consider it, the most reasonable pro-life case: after all, if you believe life begins at conception like Palin and Biden do, then it follows that ending that life because of the sins of the father or mother is hypocritical
While we’re at it, let’s give a nod towards the internal consistency of the Islamists. The Muslims who think that they should make some sort of accomodation with Western mores are clearly the less reasonable, if consistency is our measure of reasonableness.
On the other hand, we might judge reasonableness by the person’s principles, in which case, those who believe that women are under a moral obligation to give birth even when the pregnancy was forced on them, might seem a great deal more unreasonable than those who only claim an obligation in those cases where the woman chose to have sex.
And as Glenn Reynolds has noted, “One can, of course, be a social conservative in philosophy and still support a libertarian approach to government and regulation.â€Â
Maybe so. Our party has nominated a candidate who opposes free speech, excoriates the free market, and supports cap and trade. For his running mate, he selected a social conservative who opposes abortion and believes in ID. I guess the audacity of hope is all we have left.
“I guess the audacity of hope is all we have left.”
– Well no. Theres always the campiness of camo underware.
Ards:
I’ll let Jeff answer for himself but it seems to me that equating Palin’s views on abortion and Islamists as a “purity of viewpoint” is quite beyond the pale. The fact that you are so sure that liberty of choice for a woman trumps a life, be it planned, inconvenient or foisted, speaks more to your hard line position than it does to any sort of fluffiness of Jeff’s part.
I know that you are honest in your views but there is a reasonable and important discussion to be had about this topic; the balancing personal liberty with responsibility. In other words it is possible to have this discussion without pro lifers like Palin being compared to medieval religious fanatics who also see those that disagree with them as heretics to be snuffed without a second thought.
Ya unrepentant heretic, you!
Hey Perfesser: Are women allowed to disagree on issues or are we supposed to identify based on our similar netherparts?
It is exciting to see Governor Palin captivate the country like she has – she is kicking ass more than any of the boys in this election. However, I am not going vote for the GOP ticket because she and I have different ideas for what would be great for this country. That is not being a hypocritical feminist. That is just voting my interests.
Stop reading shit just to piss yourself off fool. Everyone from both sides hates The New Republic because they suck ass (they cheerleaded the war then pretended that they didn’t – pissing both sides of the issue off really bad). They are deeply untrustworthy on any subject and are to be scorned then dismissed.
How can one even claim to be a libertarian if he/she completely avoids the concept that there can be no liberty without life?
I’m reluctantly pro-choice cause I don’t really care if people get abortions but it’s progressives want it to be like a quinceria or some sisterhood initiation ritual and the whole idea that you can take someone’s kid and be all scraping on her uterus without telling her parents you’re doing it is just fucked up.
I’m pro-life, but I don’t necessarily want to see abortion made illegal. Our creator demands we be moral, and then leaves us to make the choices for ourselves. Those that follow that model tend to get my support. So far as I can see, Palin fits that bill.
oh. Hey. Sdferr… I think when my new computer is built, which should be end of month or so… waiting on the cpu cooler is all… I will figure out something other than NPR News to do it’s just the way mine is they do boring Canada news/BBC at bedtime to put me to sleep and then the progressive kindergarten teacher guy comes on in the morning and he says dumb shit that wakes me up. But for news they’re useless.
Lisa: WHAT UP?
I don’t think anybody who knows you in this place expects you to vote for McCain/Palin. We also should know that you will make your decision based upon political preferences rather than some steely expectation of feminist mores. At least give Jeff the opportunity to highlight those who are trying to contort themselves into an epileptic Gumby doll in an attempt to frame Palin’s lack of feminist authenticity in a way that they would have howled at if it had been applied to a femaleDemocratic candidate (and was by the Hillbots.)
In truth I generally dismiss all who make their decisions based on one, shining issue although I must tell you that Energy Policy has my goat at the moment and your candidate is not looking good.
Shocka, I know! I’m glad that you are still around, BTW.
Ardsgaine:
I always find that “reluctantly pro-choice” or “I am personally find abortion immoral but support the right to choose” to be cowardly. Either a woman has autonomy over her body and anything in it, or she doesn’t. Don’t play games. Sad to say, but way too many people, liberal and conservative play that damned game. I have personal feelings about abortion, but they have no place in my discussion of choice. I am pro-choice and that is that – no caveats or asterisks.
On the other hand, we might judge reasonableness by the person’s principles…
You mean like the principle like a beating heart and active brain mean nothing if you happen to have the wrong address?
Either a woman has autonomy over her body and anything in it, or she doesn’t. Don’t play games.
Careful with that, Lisa. Right now I am accepting of abortion up to viability. Given that ultimatum, I would have to go with the pro-lifers. And I think there are a lot of us hold that view. Late term abortion is murder, that is what I believe.
It works for me, because it’s where I am on the issue. I don’t claim to be libertarian. And I don’t wish to be one if it means sharing the stage with you.
On the other hand, I do believe in the natural right of life, and try my best to balance that against the privacy of women.
Maybe when I grow up I can be as brave as you and Lisa, though. You know, so secure in my belief that possession is 9/10 of the law that I can begin slaughtering all the hobos in my basement and using the fact that I’ve been feeding them and keeping them housed as justification of ownership. Here’s hoping!
Meantime, you can fuck right off.
I kinda figure Lisa will vote against McCain but without really voting for Baracky. That’s what I think anyway. He’s just lost a lot of his Baracky razz-ma-tazz thing, and is losing more and more as we go. Stammering marxweasel.
Abortions would be more fun if there wasn’t always so much crying involved.
– A game? Ask some of the women hitting their 40’s that had “discretionary” abortions in their teens and 20’s, and are now emotional train wrecks.
– No. No its not a game.
Yeah, it’s not cowardly at all to completely ignore the aspect of a gestating human life, or hell, not even be able to call the position by it’s name – pro abortion. The brave thing to do is to just pretend that the one and only issue on the table is liberty.
I am pro life and I’ve felt for quite sometime now that there was a reason that Life came before Liberty in the famous phrase.
The “when does life begin?” argument is disingenuous at best and a smokescreen at worse. in fact, I’ll take Lisa’s and Ard’s positions as honest even as I vehemently disagree. Ultimately it is an argument of whether life or liberty is supreme in the calculus, not whether the fetus is a “parasite” or a collection of cells. It’s a dead end street designed to make reluctantly pro-choice a little easier on the heartstrings. Arguing that a fetus is not a life is a dodge. Arguing that a woman’s liberty in making choices in her own body regardless of the status of the “life” is, at least, honest if stark. This does not offer criticism to those like BMoe who struggle with the concept and choose to cl;ing to viability questions.
The moral issue becomes a matter of law and I’ve determined, for myself, that promoting liberty through the taking of a life is immoral. Whether or not it can be practically illegal is another matter.
Hiya BJ it is good to see you too!
Yeah we all have that one issue that gets us steamed or inspired or whatever.
I think the Perf is right that it would have been nice to see poeople be fucking honest for a change and write “I am glad to see those dogs over in the GOP finally nominate a woman. A smart clever one at that – but they still suck and I am not voting for them” rather than this phony handwringing. But alas, it is what it is.
Are we not allowed to slaughter the hobos living on our property? Huh, I don’t remember reading that before. Oh well, my bad.
To me it’s a lot like how you just know that not all those little tadpoles are gonna grow up to be froggies. But I respect people who think about this a little more deeply.
Before somebody takes my head off: The comment about “honesty” is not, I repeat NOT directed at Jeff or BMoe as their views reflect a struggle to deal with the balancing issues of liberty/privacy vs. life. Rather it is directed at those on the choice side who callously use the “what is a life argument” to create a convenience for a broad reaching choice concept.
Please don’t kill me.
BJT damn that was very well put. We are on opposite ends of this issue but that was very compelling. Can I copy your post and send it to a couple of friends? (We have been having an ongoing conversation on this subject for several months now.)
What kind of person enjoys giving others pain, suffering and humiliation? One who doesn’t see others as humans but rather as problems to be removed or tools to be used until they cease to be useful. Then the tools become problems.
A malignant narcissist, like one who adopts the name of a god as his handle. Dr. Sanity has a lot to say about malignant narcissism. Lack of self-esteem is so not the trait of the malignant narcissist, rather overy grandiose self-esteem, beyond any reasonable basis, is the trait.
And rage towards those who will not acknowledge the latent greatness the malignant narcissist sees in him or her self.
#112 Lisa:
However, I am not going vote for the GOP ticket because she and I have different ideas for what would be great for this country. That is not being a hypocritical feminist. That is just voting my interests.
Sounds reasonable to me.
Tries to be serious but laughs at Happy’s post anyway.
Lisa: I am honored and feel free. Do me a favor and email me how it was received at bjtexs *at* gmail *dot* com.
I’m not sure I’d be willing to take it that far, Mike NTH. It seems to me on an issue that attempts to find the proper balance between life and liberty that individual circumstance must be a compelling factor. That said, to my mind life should be the baseline always, for as I said before, there can be no liberty without it.
– Setting aside all the emotional, legal, and moral baggage that swirls around the whole issue of unlimited abortion, heres My feelings on the matter.
– What I can’t accept is the woman who calls her girl friend and tells her she’ll be a little late for their shopping date that evening at Neiman Marcus because she has an appointment for an abortion over her lunch hour.
– Sarah Palin has the sort of human values and strength of character that makes me believe she’d “choose” to let her own life go, if it maent saving her baby’s.
– Thats the sort of person I can vote for.
Welcome to the third wave, Lisa.
They hypocrisy is the sin of the second-wavers who insist on ideological purity as a membership prerequisite to the Feminist club, with that ideological purity being defined as what the second-wave priestesses insist upon at this particular moment. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle could apply to defining that ideology.
Third-wave seems very small f feminist, to me.
– Oh, and before anyone goes batshit, I would in no way advocate such a thing. I would in fact, pray her loved ones would prevent her from making such a sacrifice. But the choice of selfless love is what I’m pointing at here, and the character and loving heart behind it.
I just listened to a conversation filled with profound dishonesty, conducted by C. Matthews with Chuck Todd and Stu Rothenberg: “Community organizer”, Matthews ventures, pretending he has never heard such an outlandish thing said, “Why are the republicans talking about community organizers, why is Sarah Palin making fun about community organizers?” Then the three go on to spend five minutes dancing around the subject, never once mentioning the name Saul Alinsky, saying stuff like, “It’s just a job he once had” as if it were a job like car mechanic or bank teller or what-not. “Is it an ethnic thing?”, Matthews asks, of course his use of ethnic being what? Ethnic? Like Greek Easter? Ethnic? God I hate these pieces of shit.
“…ethnic being what? Ethnic? Like Greek Easter? Ethnic?”
– Hes implying that its somehow racist without actually using the word. The Left have been showing signs of hesitation in using the word lately, because they feel self-conscious about accusations they are obsessed with the color of a persons skin.
– You do the math.
Community Organizer == Paid Marxist.
Arguing that a fetus is not a life is a dodge. Arguing that a woman’s liberty in making choices in her own body regardless of the status of the “life†is, at least, honest if stark. This does not offer criticism to those like BMoe who struggle with the concept and choose to cling to viability questions.
Just to clarify, my struggle is with when does it become a human being, and thereby protected by the rights that state of being confers. That is why I advocate using the same legal and medical definitions we use to remove life support systems to make the determination. It is as fair and reasonable to everyone involved as I can come up with.
Also Lisa, I would like to point out some things about Palin. While she is on record as supporting abstinence only sex education, she sends her kids to public schools that teach comprehensive sex education and doesn’t make a big deal about it. She is on record as being opposed to same sex marriage, but vetoed a bill denying domestic partners benefit packages and didn’t make a big deal about it. She opposes abortions, but has taken no steps to restrict it that I know of and doesn’t make a big deal out of it.
In short, while she may hold different views than you or I on some of these issues, she seems pretty damn tolerant of opposing opinions, much more so than the folks trying to burn her at the stake, wouldn’t you say?
“any way having to violate her right to her own body. Or will you go ahead and go on record as saying that you believe the rights of the unborn trump a woman’s right to her body?”
I’ll ask again. The fetus is part of the woman’s body? How do you figure?
EG at 115. You nailed my feelings about abortion, too.
“Either a woman has autonomy over her body and anything in it, or she doesn’t”
Hey, a caveat (and anything in it)! Nothing cowardly about it, Lisa. One can personally believe that abortion is killing a human being all the while knowing that NOT everybody believes a zygote/blastula/embryo is indeed a human being. It’s the known unknown.
Matthews is a mendacious fuck. Community Organizer. These motherfuckers acted like it was all a big joke. Not one serious question, not one. And some clown awhile back was saying Chuckie Todd could replace Tim Russert. Chuckie Todd is not fit to hold Tim Russert’s clipboard. Fuck. Cocksucking lying scumbags. All the while reciting one already debunked bullshit Democrat meme about Palin after another.
I should take my own advice to hf and avoid that MSNBC place like the plague. Sorry for the outburst.
– Palin has demonstrated over and over in her public record that she deliberately seperates her perosnal feelings from her legislative actions. If anything, she alwats errs completely on the non-advocacy side. Something that most of us might find hard to accomplish.
– The Left, with their “the feeling is the political”, will have a natural dislike for her, because she undermines their entire mantra.
I always find that “reluctantly pro-choice†or “I am personally find abortion immoral but support the right to choose†to be cowardly. Either a woman has autonomy over her body and anything in it, or she doesn’t.
Ok, she doesn’t. If I have to choose …
Of course, there’s the nuanced thought that a woman doesn’t have the “moral” right while recognizing they have the legal right.
– Of all the animals on the face of the earth, mankind is the only one that would not do everything in its power to protect its newborn/unborn.
– I’m not sure exactly what the proves, but at the very least it doesn’t speak well of civalization.
(And yes I’m aware some species eat their newborn, to which I’d ask, are we no better than that.)
Either a woman has autonomy over her body and anything in it, or she doesn’t.
By the way, Lisa, what is your stand on prostitution?
That is a hard question to phrase right there!
how do you feel about prostitution? SLAP!
no, I mean what is your position on prostitution? SLAP!
Jeez, just forget I said anything.
As some of you know, I was adopted. Maybe my reluctant pro-choice stance, which I’ve articulated before as pro-choice with a number of restrictions (parental notification in most cases, no late-term abortions, etc), is perhaps my way of overcompensating for the choice my biological mother made not to treat what is now me, the person whose site you are reading and commenting on, as a clot of cells to be rid of like some minor inconvenience. In short, I appreciate the ride.
I understand that there are circumstances, however, that could convince a woman that that clot of cells really IS going to be an inconvenience, and that it has SOME NERVE thinking it can gestate in HER womb.
Like BMoe, I struggle with the idea of what constitutes a person — at what point does the clot of cells become a human being whose rights need protecting — and so I use viability as a way to provide cutoffs for when I’m willing to give the woman precedence over the rights of the unborn.
That’s my way of working through the problem intellectually. People like Ardsgaine who are so quick to point out just how much more “libertarian” they are than everyone else are, to my mind, after the same kind of back patting and kudos for ideological purity as any would-be zealot.
But then, we already know that Ards, like nishi, is terrified that the godbotherers will force him to do things he not comfortable with. Like, you know, telling a woman that after a certain point she’s now responsible for two lives, and that she simply can’t just kill one of them off because she wants to.
In my mind, that takes more courage than standing back and sniffing “liberty” as you call into question someone’s worldview.
– Its a jungle out there Moe. SLAP!
Late to the party, because there was a catastrophic failure in the DSL lines at work:
At some point in the distant past, Feminism got hijacked by “Abortion rights†as a foundational loyalty test.
Actually, some early feminists went beyond mere suffrage and legal equality and observed that part of a woman’s “chains” were biological: childbearing and childrearing tie a woman down in a way that does not apply to men. And because of a woman’s close ties to children, she was often treated as an overgrown child herself. (It doesn’t help that women were often much younger than their husbands.)
Contraception, and later, abortion, were the very keys to a woman’s liberation: until and unless a woman can control utterly when (and if) the children come, she is not truly free, i.e., equal to a man.
So in many ways, you can insist on abortion as a sacrament of feminism, as long as you understand that this brand of feminism is all about the de-feminization of women and/or the feminization of men.
Which is what we have in many quarters. There’s barely an ounce of testosterone in most faculty lounges, even when men are present.
Sarah Palin is both hyper-feminine (beauty queen, studly husband, fertile, motherly) and she’s in touch with her masculine side (hunting, fishing, kicking @$$ and taking names).
That’s why they hate her: while they’re trying to get rid of both masculinity and femininity as concepts, she’s gone ahead and embodied both without compromising either.
I take issue with the framing of the entire abortion argument. Feminists have turned into some sort of intrusion on their person. As if they had no control or foreknowledge what all the sweating and bumping may lead to. I know, I know RAPE! INCEST. Anyone have any idea what the numbers are on that?
That is the reason I would bitterly oppose any of these “abortion only in the case of rape”, scenarios, Carin. How many teenage boys and young men would be branded as sex offenders for life just so the little darling could get an abortion?
– Yes. well femininity and masculinity, if you notice, are both individual traits.
– Heretical to the “erasing” of all forms of individuality, per the Left agenda/dogma.
– Hell, they can’t even tolerate dodge ball.
“I always find that “reluctantly pro-choice†or “I am personally find abortion immoral but support the right to choose†to be cowardly. “
Uh, that’s pretty much the entire Democratic Party.
JeffG wrote: I don’t claim to be libertarian.
That’s my mistake then. I thought you did claim to be a classical liberal/libertarian. It’s why I keep coming back, but it’s also why I’ve been so frequently disappointed at seeing you carry water for the religious right. I will adjust my expectations accordingly.
And I don’t wish to be one if it means sharing the stage with you.
??? I don’t have a stage. I just have a computer and a set of strongly held opinions, like everyone else here.
Meantime, you can fuck right off.
See ya later, and thanks for the fish.
[…] Gavora, writing in the Weekly Standard (and echoing many of the arguments I outlined in an earlier post today), is the latest woman to take on establishment feminism and the case of Gov. Sarah Palin. […]
Adoption is so nice especially when you just say here you go love my baby ok bye bye. That is very huge I think. I’m so glad my birth mother is not something I ever have to think about. It would be different if I knew she was like really rich or something though.
Personally, making abortion illegal isn’t really my thing. I’m all for the limits Jeff mentioned, of course. But, I would like to see abortion to be taught in a non-propagandistic way. All that glob of cells, keep your hands off my uterus bullshit that the kids parrot. I think if women realized what a 10 week old fetus WAS, they’d be awfully more careful about not getting pregnant, and would be (hopefully) less willing to make that choice.
I don’t carry anyone’s water, nishi-lite.
If I do, show me where. Make an argument. I mean, other than YOU ARE LIBERTARIANISM, and in frequently disappointing you, I have shown my true allegiances. But be careful: your purity could potential blind us lesser lights.
Incidentally, of the two of us, you are the one acting the sanctimonious twit. BECAUSE OF THE IRONY!
That’s my mistake then. I thought you did claim to be a classical liberal/libertarian. It’s why I keep coming back, but it’s also why I’ve been so frequently disappointed at seeing you carry water for the religious right. I will adjust my expectations accordingly.
HA! Apparently have a similar opinion (although I think Jeff’s stated abortion stance would get him kicked out of a fundie tent) means you are carring water for the religious right.
All your morals belong to us!
No, Jeff. You gotta claim you’re full board pro-abortion, or you’re a water-carrier.
I’ve been so frequently disappointed at seeing you carry water for the religious right.
Not half as disapointed as get being accused of being a member of the religious right because of moral and ethical positions I have arrived at completely independent of any religion, I’ll bet.
The religious right is not as monolithic as all that anyway. Especially the women.
Jeff writes:
People like Ardsgaine who are so quick to point out just how much more “libertarian†they are than everyone else are, to my mind, after the same kind of back patting and kudos for ideological purity as any would-be zealot.
Ardsgaine then walks right into it:
That’s my mistake then. I thought you did claim to be a classical liberal/libertarian. It’s why I keep coming back, but it’s also why I’ve been so frequently disappointed at seeing you carry water for the religious right. I will adjust my expectations accordingly.
When are you people (I denounce myself for using that term) going to realize that a single issue does not make you something? There are pro-choice libertarians and there are pro-life libertarians. And guess what, there are actually libertarian who GO TO CHURCH!
How fucking stupid do you have to be to insist on applying a yea/nea imprimatur to an issue so complex (even to me, and I’m a doctor), just for the purpose of sticking a label on somebody?
as I get, I meant to say
– Sdferr, take heart. Mathews and Olberdouche have been taken doen from their anchor positions. Apparently the nudge came from pissed of Hillery supporters who have flooded the MSNBC email bitching about the two of them as “so obviously partisan and in the tank for Obama”.
– Of course their replacement, a prominent member of the Bush hating White House press corp, may not be much better. His first name rhymes with David.
– In the mean time the Fem leader of a large contingent of women voters in Florida have written to Oprah and informed her they will mo longer support her or her program, and intend to lead a boycott of her show, based on her partisan shunning of Sarah Palin.
– At the same time a current video released by Al Zahari, Bin Ladens 2nd in command, is blaming Iran for siding with the West to do serious harm to the al Qaeda Muslim movement.
– Lots of chickens coming home to roost.
(even to me, and I’m a doctor)
I feel that way sometimes about how people don’t understand tv very well even though they watch it every day and then I remember how much my life would suck if they did.
Some people seem to be highly indignant over the fact that sexual intercourse leads to pregnancy, hence phrases like “punished with a baby,” as if having sex were a fundamental need like oxygen.
Many of those early feminists I mentioned in my last were determined to uncouple sex from reproduction, as a way to establishing a Brave New World, so to speak. Keeping people obsessed with sex and other pleasures is a good way to keep them from noticing the man behind the curtain.
when does it become a human being, and thereby protected by the rights that state of being confers.
Questions such as when “it” becomes a “person” or “human being” are false questions, because they are predicated on subjective criteria. If you want to be purely objective, you have to acknowledge that prior to conception, you have two germ cells, both belonging to their owners, and after conception you have a new DNA combination that cannot rightfully be called either the property of the mother or the father.
It’s not a person? Not a human being? Then what is it? An elephant? A tree?
Basic physiology says that it’s a new individual of the species Homo sapiens sapiens. Terms like “person” and “human being” don’t have a scientific or objective meaning besides that.
And if you want, you can wade hip-deep into questions of “ensoulment” and whether you should consider a miscarriage a lost child with a name and a gravestone and all.
But let’s be honest: the vast majority of abortions are not confused teenage girls but married and/or employed women who have the financial resources to raise a child but would rather not, thank you very much. Being able to free themselves from pregnancy and childbearing is at the core of some feminist thought, and they’ll never give up on abortion-on-demand until their dying day.
Ards and nishi are Brookhiser snob types. Ards has been here for years, yet he now wants to pretend I’m a water carrier for the religious right.
It is to laugh. I hope he finds a site that blazes with the white hot fire of ideological purity. Everything else is beneath him.
#152 Jeff G.:
I knew that. And as a very proud papa you have another reason.
[To all the guys and gals out there – yes, it really is bigger than you. Choose wisely.]
And lest we call being anti-abortion a Christainist, godbothering stance, remember that the Hippocratic oath prohibits abortion as well.
Do no harm, remember?
[…] GYNEFASCISM: “Women of the world unite! Except for like, you inauthentic ones” …. […]
Perhaps you can explain that to the law, then. Also, the questions aren’t predicated on subjective criteria. They are burdened by the inability of language to name a thing directly.
I’m done arguing this with you people. If you don’t happen to find my stance palatable, I don’t much care. At the end of the day, I have to answer for it, not you.
I’m kinda libertarianesque in that regard.
Oh, shit! Say it ain’t so. Ards is yet another atheist libertarian God hater? I’d like to second Jeff’s requests for examples of him carrying water for the religious right. Now, being reluctantly PRO fucking choice is in league with the religious right? Jesus, yeah I went there, you people and your hate are unbelievable. Are there any atheist libertarians who DON’T hate religious folk?
Sure.
I’m not religious. My stance has nothing whatever to do with religion. Just thought I should make that clear.
I’m not religious. My stance has nothing whatever to do with religion. Just thought I should make that clear.
It’s a shame that on a site that doesn’t have a cross, star of David, or even someone exploding (NNTAWWT), you feel it necessary to have to point that out.
– BTW – In the never ending parade of “I voted for it before I voted against it” changiness, Obama finally decided today that “well maybe I wouldn’t raise any taxes until the end of the year when we’ll see where we are”. This comes on the heels of his finally cracking and admitted that the surge was wildly successful, much more than anyone ever expected, to O’Reilly. (Even as his lose cannon VP pick was out on the campaign trail bragging about how the surge was in no way the reason for recent gains in Iraq. Someone needs to introduce then to each other, or at least get them reading from the same talking points. I’m actually beginning to feel some pity for Axelrod.)
– Thank you mister changy. Hes now 47 for 49, only two more to go. Abortion, and Border control. Hes already thrown SS marrauge under the MagicBus.
– Could someone remind me again of why the Left is supporting this guy?
This is the first argument I think about: my mom was never in the greatest health, and in her late thrities she had my little brother. If he had been aborted I wouldn’t have two little nieces, there wouldn’t have been a sergeant who, after he went reserve to get his BA, was called at night by his former soldiers, asking ‘Sgt. O’ for advice. There wouldn’t be a US Army major that is respected by his fellows and his superiors.
Second argument: my older brother had his first son out of wedlock. If that son had been aborted there wouldn’t be a brand-new marine whom I will see Friday, on his way to Newport to take classes at the Navy Justice School.
I fall pro-life now, being pro-choice for many years. (N.B. – I was, and am now, never more then leaning one way or another). It’s just – you never know, really, what will happen.
As I get older I grow both more and less tolerant – more tolerant of human frailty, less tolerant of narcissitic behavior. It isn’t all about me, you see. It really isn’t.
Hadlowe, spleen does not an argument make. If you consider Democrats to be progressives, you don’t know who the term “progressive” refers to. Same if you call them socialists or communists. As to your “argument,” such that it is, your belief that JFK would be ousted from the party on account of his anti-communist beliefs is a lovely conjecture, but speculation also doesn’t an argument make. There isn’t a single communist or communist-sympathizer in the Democratic party. There are some who weakly support socialistic, not socialist, programs, but a single-payer health care system isn’t communist, Marxist, or progressive unless you live atop a slippery slope.
“Progressive” is what NPR calls liberals because Lakoff told them they needed a new word what they could own all by themselves.
Perhaps you can explain that to the law, then.
The standard reply for this is that “the law is a [sic] ass.”
Also, the questions aren’t predicated on subjective criteria. They are burdened by the inability of language to name a thing directly.
If a language is missing a term, it takes no time at all to come up with a neologism — either word or word phrase — to name it.
But when people wonder about when “personhood” comes into effect, what do they mean? Heartbeat? Neurological activity? Appearance? Self-awareness? (Gotta wait until well after birth for that.) When the soul enters the body?
How about we go with this: reverse the legal definition of “dead” to get “alive”: heartbeat, brain activity, and “breathing” (oxygen uptake and usage).
You don’t got it, you ain’t “alive” and therefore are not legally protected as a living human being.
My personal preference would be no abortion at all, but I could live quite well with the above definition.
Also lots of people in Los Angeles live on top of slippery slopes and I don’t usually feel all that terrible when they slip unless there’s children involved.
There isn’t a single communist or communist-sympathizer in the Democratic party.
Is are the Castro brothers communists? Does Michael Moore sympathize with them? Is MM a democrat? Are there others in the Democrat party who also sympathize with the Castros?
Yes! Yes! Yes! and Yes!
The whole issue regarding aborting a four cell entity is really null and void. The ONLY people who know they are pregnant w/in 3 weeks (considered 4 weeks at this point- you get credit for that first week even though you didn’t yet do the deed) are those who are desperately trying to get pregnant.
Most people don’t realize there’s a “problem” until they are already 6 weeks along. Heart is beating, yada yada yada.
“There are some who weakly support socialistic, not socialist, programs, but a single-payer health care system isn’t communist, Marxist, or progressive unless you live atop a slippery slope.”
– Now wait the fuck a minute. Universal healthcare is absolutely a social give-away program. There is no other way you can describe it.
– Its is part and parcel exactly patterend after similar programs in European countries.
– I call bullshit. It is exactly Socialism, the same as Social security.
– If you really belleve in the right idea of something, don’t be ashamed to call it what it is.
– The Left loses a lot of gravitas precisely because they’re always trying to rename things.
#159 Asdargaine:
Most humans are a mish-mash of conflicting pulls and pushes. And this may be a real sensitive area.
We are not all rational on all decisions, you know. The best we can hope to do is know what force we are bowing to when we do that.
If you consider Democrats to be progressives, you don’t know who the term “progressive†refers to.
Well, Obama is a self-proclaimed progressive, and he’s the Democratic nominee for president.
So … there’s that.
So when Maxine Waters (D-CA) threatened to nationalize certain industries, she was just being all socialistic, but not really socialist? And those who want single payer healthcare (defined as the single payer being the government) are simply favoring (weakly) a socialist-like system that sounds socialist but is really just socialistic? Because there aren’t any socialists, communists or communist sympathizers in the Democratic Party because no true Democrat is a socialist, communist or communist sympathizer?
Universal pre-K has that socialist feel to me. But, then I’ve fallen down a few slippery slopes.
Obama needs Scott to tell him what he is.
But he’s going to have to stand in line. There’s a lot of the world what need’s SEK’s correcting.
I think the distinction would be far more clear to us, Carin, if it were presented with an analogy to something involving a well-known and notorious roustabout.
Guys, SEK really doesn’t have anything to say. He makes an assertion and demands you deny it. He doesn’t support the assertion he makes.
But to humor SEK (before I stop to take care of household duties – this place won’t clean itself) I will note, historically, Henry Wallace.
And no, I am not doing any research tonight. SEK can promote and defend his own assertions with facts if he wants to all by himself. Not that I think he will.
SEK can claim progressives aren’t “commie lit” but whenever I check out one of their sites that’s not the impression I come away with. The concerns and issues read like bullet points from the Communist Manifesto.
And, sure, I’ll give you it’s not full-throated Marxism. But,they know that would never fly. Best to just gently walk us there step-by-step.
“Progressive†is what NPR calls liberals because Lakoff told them they needed a new word what they could own all by themselves.
Then it stands to reason that it’s the same Democrats with a new name, not — as Hadlowe suggests — a new breed of Democrat, right?
Also lots of people in Los Angeles live on top of slippery slopes and I don’t usually feel all that terrible when they slip unless there’s children involved.
Kitten hater.
Universal healthcare is absolutely a social give-away program. There is no other way you can describe it.
It might be, that doesn’t make it socialist, i.e. state-owned. Mandated coverage guaranteed by the state isn’t the same thing as state ownership of health-care institutions. Not by a long-shot.
If you really believe in the right idea of something, don’t be ashamed to call it what it is.
I’m not ashamed — in fact, I’m all for calling these programs what they are, instead of calling them something else because I don’t happen to like them. Sort of my point here.
The Left loses a lot of gravitas precisely because they’re always trying to rename things.
I know! Now pass me some of those freedom fries, if you don’t mind.
Mikey, do you have one of those laundry baskets that fit on your hip? They are da bomb.
– Your party uses every trick it can straight from the Marxist handbook. You espouse every Socialistic program known to man. You want to turn the country into France West. You support only candidates that diss the Military, and pledge themselves to all social programs all the time. You practice race warfare and class warfare, you don’t believe in fighting for your country, throw away the flag, and look down your noses at middle America and anyone who has strong spiritual beliefs….. And yet you claim you’re not communistic leaning or Socialists?
– You have to be kidding.
Obama is a self-proclaimed progressive, and he’s the Democratic nominee for president.
And he’s a hair’s breadth left-of-center, not a knife-between-his-teeth communist come to rape your virgins.
SEK can claim progressives aren’t “commie lit†but whenever I check out one of their sites that’s not the impression I come away with.
I defy you to produce one example of a mainstream liberal perspective which reads like a bullet-point in Marx and Engels.
He makes an assertion and demands you deny it. He doesn’t support the assertion he makes.
Lord knows I’ve never made an assertion.
Universal healthcare is absolutely a social give-away program. There is no other way you can describe it.
It might be, that doesn’t make it socialist, i.e. state-owned. Mandated coverage guaranteed by the state isn’t the same thing as state ownership of health-care institutions. Not by a long-shot.
Well, that’s one of those babysteps, SEK. Mandated coverage guaranteed by the state is just a few short years from employers no longer offering coverage. Companies will drop policies because they simply will not be able to compete with the state-price controlled programs.
So, you start with commie lite, and you end up with full-throated State Control.
Then it stands to reason that it’s the same Democrats with a new name, not  as Hadlowe suggests  a new breed of Democrat, right?
I think that’s fair, mostly, talking about the Democrats that actually get talked about. The real wacko Democrats are the Pacifica Radio ones and they never get invited anywheres.
It’s not a person? Not a human being? Then what is it?
It is a fertilized human egg. Human, but not a human. Like your foot, or your hair.
How about we go with this: reverse the legal definition of “dead†to get “aliveâ€Â: heartbeat, brain activity, and “breathing†(oxygen uptake and usage).
You don’t got it, you ain’t “alive†and therefore are not legally protected as a living human being.
That is what I am proposing. Life support is life support, whether biological or mechanical, and both ends of a human life should be treated with the same laws.
There isn’t a single communist or communist-sympathizer in the Democratic party.
That is absolute bullshit, Scott. The unions, the organization, not rank and file, are full of them. I have been there, I know them.
Obama is a self-proclaimed progressive, and he’s the Democratic nominee for president.
And he’s a hair’s breadth left-of-center, not a knife-between-his-teeth communist come to rape your virgins.
His tax policy doesn’t suggest his a hair’s breadth left of center. Central is the idea that wages are basically unfair. Taxes are the way commie-lites intend to rectify this situation.
And he’s a hair’s breadth left-of-center
Oh, please.
You don’t even believe your own bullshit, SEK. Don’t expect anyone else to believe it.
Mandated coverage guaranteed by the state isn’t the same thing as state ownership of health-care institutions. Not by a long-shot.
He is right. State control and private ownership is usually defined as fascist.
I thought the Pacifica types just got a new tv program starting tonight, hf? That Rakeheel Maddog show or somethin’, no?
Your party uses every trick it can straight from the Marxist handbook. You espouse every Socialistic program known to man.
This is exactly what I mean, RE: people don’t know what their empty insults mean, they just like to say them. To my assertion — ahem — that socialized medicine isn’t a socialist program because it’s not state-owned, you’ve responded that the Democratic Party espouses “every Socialistic program known to man.” Stripped of hyperbole — if that’s possible, but probably not — you’re saying the Democrats believe in state-owned and -controlled everything. If I knew any better, I wouldn’t even respond to something so patently untrue; but since it seems I don’t, I’ll give you one counter-example: Al Gore’s patronage of the ’95 TelCom Act. Your statement has been proven false, and by one of the idols of the progressive, socialist, communist, marxist crypto-fascists of the Left.
As to your “argument,†such that it is, your belief that JFK would be ousted from the party on account of his anti-communist beliefs is a lovely conjecture, but speculation also doesn’t an argument make.
You don’t like speculation? How about if I come up with an example for you?
I think I know of somebody else, Joe.
– Alright Scott. Lets go at this a different way.
– Say after me. “Redistribution of wealth”.
– Its really easy. Come on, I know you can do it.
I was just about to go with the fascist thing, BMoe. That’ll teach me to stop to kiss my wife.
Did you know Barack Obama had to sign up for Selective Service? Man he’s a noble fellow. He even knew people who’s parents were in the army. Wow.
SEK is just here to argue semantics with you. Then he’ll point out your “generalizations” while declaring, without irony, “There isn’t a single communist or communist-sympathizer in the Democratic party.”
Because you see, he’s vetted them all.
Don’t play the game. It’s his way of distracting himself from having to take aim at the filth and elitist bigotry being spewed by his ideological brethren over the past week or so.
To my assertion  ahem  that socialized medicine isn’t a socialist program because it’s not state-owned, you’ve responded that the Democratic Party espouses “every Socialistic program known to man.†S
That’s not how I responded. You ignored that one.
– You know, when you can be surrounded up to you ass in Che, Castro, and Chevez lovers and STILL deny your affiliations, that there takes a special kind of willing ignorance.
– Let me guess. You probably believe Georgia attacked Russia on the 7th, right? You’ve probably even repeated that somewhere at one time or another, I’m guessing.
203. I could link articles if you’d like.
I’ll bet Barack thinks there is something ineffably better about a pair of sneakers made in the USA, over say, a pair of sneakers made in French Indo-China. Cause he’s patriotic like that.
So, you start with commie lite, and you end up with full-throated State Control.
I’m being refuted by a fallacy in its purest form? I’m sort of honored, er, I think.
Oh, please.
I’m assuming you’ve read the National Journal‘s own account of its unscientific, tendentious methodology?
That’s short-sighted and unfortunate. Abortion is what they used to call ‘an issue on which reasonable people may disagree’–an imponderable.
One the one hand, human life is, undoubtedly, sacred. On the other hand, a person should be in control of his or her own body. A key feature of slavery, in fact, is the inability to be in control of one’s own body.
Unfortunately, both ideas are true. One thing I’ve noticed about reality is that ideas may be true that are in complete opposition to each other; it’s one of the things that makes life so very interesting. Once you understand that seemingly contradictory ideas may be true at one and the same time, it explains a lot about our experience of reality.
Your opinion is a decision–not the result of some reasoned argument as you may erroneously believe. You and I see the same things and read the same facts; yet, we decide to come down on different sides of the issue. You have decided that Aspect X is most important, and I have decided that Aspect Y is most important. I understand the virtue of Aspect X, but I reluctantly come down on the side of Aspect Y. That is not cowardice, it’s an honest and a valid opinion.
The whole concept of a right to healthcare is communist. How the hell can you have a right to the services of another?
Umm, I agree with Zell!
Pure, distilled fallacy. It’s what the government is best at.
“I’m being refuted by a fallacy in its purest form? I’m sort of honored, er, I think.”
– Yeh Scott. Europe is dotted with those “fallacies”.
– I’ll say it agains Scott.
– If you believe in certain ideas and you think they are good and correct, then don’t be ashamed to call it what it is.
– Makes you look unserious.
Barack wants to keep you jobs here, because there is lots of asbestos to be removed to save your life and your job. If your job were to go somewhere else, it could be you wouldn’t have the scratch so’s you could get the asbestos removed. That asbestos is out to get you, be careful. But you don’t have to be too careful because Barack is on the case on your behalf.
I’m assuming you’ve read the National Journal’s own account of its unscientific, tendentious methodology?
Feel free to lay your scientific, non-prejudicial survey instrumuent on us, SEK. You know, the one that shows Obama as being “a hair’s breadth left-of-center.”
As I said: you don’t believe your own bullshit. Don’t expect anyone else to believe it.
– Barracky definately has the Mesothemioma vote.
PRESENT!
That’s really kind of communistic, if you think about it.
Technically, I don’t need to provide more evidence at this stage. I have provided evidence.
SEK has provided none.
That means I win.
However, the National Journal is hardly the only group which ranks politicians.
The interested reader is invited to examine the ratings given to Sen. Obama by several different groups and decide for him- or herself whether or not SEK’s characterization of Obama as “a hair’s breadth left-of-center” is plausible.
– PRESENTIST!!!111eleventyone!!!
I think SEK fell down that slippery slope I presented.
The only people a hair’s breadth left of center in DC today are some rookie blue dog congressmen you have never heard of and a few Republicans. No Democrat of any significance is allowed that kind of leeway.
– I kind of see the whole gaggle of the Left, and its “bite myself on the ass” contradictory themes and agendas as one giant slippery slope.
Steve Diamond’s latest report (based on a FOIA) on the who-done-it in the UIC Library hijinks two weeks ago withholding the release of the CAC archive. So down in the weeds you’ll come away with chiggers, but sacrifices must be made.
h/t JOM
By the way, if anybody’s looking for Karl, you can find him in the comments at Ace’s. With a bunch of others you’ll likely recognize.
Well, no, you’ve missed Scott’s point (and Jeff’s).
Scott is playing with you. He has in mind some mind-bogglingly technical definition of “socialist”, specifically concocted and very carefully trimmed so as to exclude Vladimir Ilyitch and anybody to the right of him. When you make the accusation, he runs his finger down the verbiage — aha! that doesn’t meet Chapter Two, Paragraph Eleven, Clauses Three and Five; therefore it is not socialist. Buuuuwahaha!
His definition is probably based on Marxism, and there hasn’t been a Marxist around since about 1916, or at least not one in power. When Lenin, Trotsky, and allied thinkers introduced the “cadre” or “Vanguard of the Proletariat”, it put socialism into the comfort zone of European elitists, both noble wannabees and Somebody Else’s Problemites. Since then it’s been all Fabianism of one variant or another, and Fabianism segues so smoothly into autarky that the attempts of individual politicians to define and isolate their very own ponds make fascism inevitable.
Part of the problem is that to my knowledge nobody ever named the pre-Industrial European system of nobles, “gentlemen”, and commoners — “mercantilism” is an economic description, not a social one. Scott possesses a conviction, so deep-seated as to no longer even burn, that he and his fellows constitute an elite in possession of TRVTH and therefore are solely qualified to direct society. “Noble” precisely fits.
Regards,
Ric
– Sdferr. All you come away with from that entire piece is that there were some behind the scenes manipulations going on, possibly illegal in some sense, to give the Obama people time to cull and redact or with-hold.
– At some point I hope we’ll see a summary of findings, since nothing will ever be done about the shannanigans, per Berger with the docs in his shorts.
– It is interesting that the campaign has shown to have floated several lies about Obamas involvement with Ayers. For what its worth. But really we always knew his background was dotted with extremist associations.
#221 SEK
I’m old enough to remember when dimes and quarters were solid silver. Only legal tender for 10 cents and 25 cents, but still solid silver. Then one fine day, the US mint started putting out “sandwich” money…those dimes and quarters were now layered, sandwiches of copper and nickel. Of course, they were still worth 10 and 25 cents just like the solid silver ones.
How long do you think the solid silver ones lasted in circulation?
How long do you think private health care is going to last when government healthcare which will be cheaper because it will be subsidized comes on the scene?
That’s the socialist/progressive trick. Oh NOES, we ain’t going to interfere with your solid silver health care ….
– Ric, they’re simply not smart enough to be good Komrads. I liken it to some twelve year old that stumbles across a copy of Mein Kampf, and suddenly sees an opportunity to rearrange the power ballance at the local playground.
Jim at 179, yeah it was kind of rhetorical. I know they’re out there. Jeff at 180, I apologize I wasn’t actually thinking about you (I figured Ards knew as I did and he’s brighter than me). It just seems that many atheist libertarians seem to be very belligerent to religious people. Or at least religious people who are anti-abortion. BTW, my stance on abortion is very similar to Jeff’s and BMoe’s. However, I consider myself fairly religious. It’s just that I think my religious beliefs can be segregated from my secular views. God’s above it. So to speak.
The devil is in the details, BBH.
I’m really not expecting anything to come from the CAC to stain Obama terribly. If there is something there, bonus, but I don’t look to that boondoggle to discredit him, especially since the media is conspicuously disinterested in pursuing holes in Obama’s narrative.
Ric:
Yeah that was the impression I got. When he said there were no communist sympathizers in the Democrat party, I saw he was playing semantic games where he insisted on his privately crafted definition and only his privately crafted definition to support facially ridiculous claims, and promptly disengaged. Humpty Dumpty doesn’t deserve much effort. Better to do as Alice and just skip along and whistle.
B Moe,
Let’s just put this to bed with some perfectly good words we already have. It is a nascent human being. The end.
#200 Carin:
No. I’ll wait until the current basket expires before getting a new one.
#202 SEK:
He makes an assertion and demands you deny it. He doesn’t support the assertion he makes.
Liar. My cite? This site. Prove I’m wrong.
Mandated coverage guaranteed by the state isn’t the same thing as state ownership of health-care institutions. Not by a long-shot.
Someone has to provide that mandated coverage, guaranteed by the state. So perhaps the state doesn’t own the health care institutions, which only means it owns the providers. Great.
A sort of interesting aside, since it brings the topics of health together with life and liberty. I finished reading “Two Treatises of Government” over the weekend, and was surprised to learn that Locke had included a 4th right which our founders decided not to lis t- Health. Locke’s lists is, from memory; Life, Liberty, Health and Property.
Now I need to find out why Jefferson left that one off. If anyone knows and wants to save me a search, I’d be obliged.
Well, Education Guy, the devil is in the details.
Benedict XVI is stony broke, owning nothing, not even the underwear he has on. It’s all in the definitions, and if there’s anything SEK is good at, it’s definitions.
Regards,
Ric
Mandated coverage guaranteed by the state isn’t the same thing as state ownership of health-care institutions. Not by a long-shot.
Welcome to Canada! Care for am MRI?
Carin@200: Laundry basket that “fits your hip”? Hell, I bought one ’cause it fit around this big ol’ gut….
He didn’t. He considered that it was subsumed in the pursuit of happiness — recalling, of course, that the primary meaning of pursuit, then, was something like “occupation, avocation, hobby”, activity that passes the time, although Jefferson was by no means unacquainted with the then-secondary meaning of “chase”.
Regards,
Ric
Sdferr,
“I still harbor the belief that John McCain chose Gov. Palin for her virtue before he thought at all about the inside baseball niceties”
I believe McCain looked at their respective records and saw that while Obama was kissing ass and playing games, Palin was kicking ass and taking names, and he had enough confidence in the people to trust that we would figure it out for ourselves.
Perhaps the most important qualification for the unique office of President is a demonstrated ability to go against the interests of one’s own party for the greater interest of one’s state/country. Palin’s record highlights this glaring weakness on Obama’s part.
Lisa,
“Either a woman has autonomy over her body and anything in it, or she doesn’t.”
I agree that she does. Anything. Anyone? Not so much, pace Kant.
Thanks Ric. I suppose that should have occurred to me since property is also rolled into “pursuit of happiness”.
Mandated coverage guaranteed by the state isn’t the same thing as state ownership of health-care institutions. Not by a long-shot.
Someone has to provide that mandated coverage, guaranteed by the state. So perhaps the state doesn’t own the health care institutions, which only means it owns the providers. Great.
My argument, which SEK ingnored and then said I was being hyperbolic or something, was that state controlled mandated coverage will lead to the decline and failure of private insurers. Eventually everyone will be on the government plan.
The state, like with medicare, will put limits/caps on what it will pay to control costs. Private insurance costs will go up (competing with the government) and employers will eventually opt out of option A, and go to B. It will simply be cheaper to get with the government’s plan.
End game will be that everyone will be part of the state plan. Except, of course, the extremely wealthy, like Al Gore, John Edwards, and Nancy Pelosi.
And, before some liberal moonbat says there are rich Rethugs, well, I know that. But they are not hypocrites advocating a system for YOU but not them.
#257 Carin:
All SEK does is make assertions.
Support for his own assertions? Never.
Respond to an opponent’s argument? Never.
Build strawmen a-plenty? Oh, hell yes.
Debate honestly? Oh, hell no.
I am against government run healthcare. That said, the argument that the government program would absolutely replace any private one is not necessarily a great one. The Post Office manages to compete with the private carriers like UPS and FedEx without driving them, or itself, out of business.
The post office loses money hand over fist, without constant rate increases and government cash injections they’d soon go out of business.
FYI
I’ve gone around the bend with Ardsgaine several times and he is a pretty virulent anti-religious/anti Christian Conservative/Libertarian. As a result he tends to be rather ..um .. emotive when arguing against issues that he feels are impelled by religious views.
All of us have our emotional peccadilloes in political discussions (some might recall how I went ballistic on nishi for referring to Trig as a “bad photo op”) and my experience with Ards is that he’s intelligent, well read and perfectly capable of crafting an argument. He just jumped on this one with both atheistic feet without taking a moment to examine the variety of views supported by both religious and non-religious moral outlooks.
In the meantime, Obama’s campaign in PA is making clear their intention to woo disaffected Hillary voters by scaring the crap out of them, one issue style. His campaign has been flooding radio and TV with an ad presenting a nurse practitioner from Planned Parenthood warning that if McCain is elected he’ll overturn Roe v Wade and make abortions illegal for all woman.
No doubt with a wave of his hand and enforced by the palace guard.
I’m assuming that this sort of acme issue presentation is directed at Philly, Pittsburgh and the suburbs as this sort of ad would not play well with the bitter clingers in farm country.
Eben
All the shippers raise their rates when they need/desire to. Can you show me where the post office is getting “government cash injections”?
The private carriers had a different product to sell than the USPS – at least at first. While there is much overlap now (overnight letters, priority mail, etc) – if you want to mail a letter … pay a bill, etc, you’re going to use the USPS. Because it’s the only game in town.
The issue with Obama’s healthcare plan wasn’t one I came up with myself; NR hardcopy had an excellent article about it. I don’t know if I can dig it up now (I’m at work), but I’ll try to see if I can locate it at home.
What we have now is also absolutely a social give-away program. It’s not the most efficient way to emplace a social give-away program, but here we are.
Question is, do you want to somehow get rid of the social give-away aspects, or do you want to keep it the way it is, or do you want to make it more cost-effective? I think those are your only choices. First choice, though, means denying emergency-room care to the indigent.
There is no true pro bono work. What there is, instead, is hospitals giving away free healthcare to those who neeed it, and hitting the insurance companies and cash-payers harder to compensate.
need
Guess I bought one too many vowels.
“The historical reason why we have a post office monopoly is because the Pony Express did such a good job of carrying the mail across the continent that, when the government introduced transcontinental service, it couldn’t compete effectively and lost money. The result was a law making it illegal for any body else to carry the mail. That is why the Adams Express Company is an investment trust today instead of an operating company. I conjecture that if entry into the mail-carrying business were open to all, there would be a large number of firms entering ti and this archaic industry would become revolutionized in short order.”
Milton Friedman, 1962 (“Capitalism and Freedom” Chapt. 2)
Wow. Either Miltie doesn’t know his history, or what I know is wrong. The Pony Express operated for just over one year, and was put out of business by the advent of the Transcontinental Telegraph, which (and this is where Miltie is almost right) was operated by the US Post Office. I don’t believe it was illegal to deliver mail, so much as impractical; it was just a lot more expensive to send messages by horse or by stagecoach than it was to send a telegram.
I’m sure official documents still had to take the long way around, which was undoubtedly (temporarily) made longer by the demise of the Pony Express. Eight years later, the hardcopies could go by train.
“…It is a federal crime for private suppliers to transport and deliver messages on pieces of paper or other material media and charge prices as low as those of the U.S. Postal Service….”
Cato Handbook for 105th congress (c. 1997)
Monopoly power, not a (trivial?) historical compression in a popular book, is the question.
Interesting sdferr, I was under the assumption that the monopoly powers had gone away when UPS and FedEx were allowed to start carrying packages.
Baracky’s mendoucheousness is on full display at his press conference in Ohio.
Did Biden really call for partitions in Iraq again?
Universal healthcare is absolutely a social give-away program if by social you a lot mean unions. That’s what drives this marxy nonsense more than anything I think.
Unions lurvs them some Joey Hairplugs.
As to criminal penalties, see POSTAL ACT OF 1845, particularly Sec. 9 – 13, for a start.
Edu Guy: “…monopoly powers had gone away…” — in a real (and threatening, though I know you didn’t intend this general a sweep) sense, monopoly powers never go away, and therein lies the problem, as for instance, in health-care policy proposals.
The USPS is horrid, but has shown signs of improvement in the last couple years. Their 2-day priority program is pretty reliable, and a far sight cheaper than DHL, FedEx, and UPS.
Not sure wheere you’re going with that, Sdferr. I’m just saying that the law didn’t put the Pony Express out of business, the telegraph did. If you disagree with that, speak to that point. If not, then we’re in agreement on my main point.
I don’t really care about your main point Slart, so yeah, we’re in agreement, you are right about the Pony Express. The phrase I qouted and that you re-quoted is aimed at this: “…I don’t believe it was illegal to deliver mail…”
If people just understood that priority mail was NOT guaranteed negative USPS wom would decrease markedly I think.
I’ve seen two companies here where the Germans bought them and they switched to DHL, which is sort of a shell company or something now in the states. I should look it up cause there’s some political angle to it where some progressive little monkey is having some problem with UPS doing DHL’s actual delivering for them. Anyway that’s just kind of something I remember when I think about Germans. Extremely nationalist fuckers, these Germans. No, really.
Jingoistic, too.
Ah. So, it was an unenforced law, then. Either that, or the law didn’t apply to operation of private companies in the territories.
…not having the actual text of the Postal Act of 1845 at hand, I kind of have to take Cato’s evaluation of it at face value.
So, just to clean up that point, Sdferr, looks like I probably was wrong about it not being illegal.
OT: there is one funny result to be found when Googleing Postal Act of 1845.
The Lunacy act of 1845 should be sufficient to keep nishit from commenting outside of rooms with padded walls.
[…] I noted yesterday – though my own views differ substantially — Governor Palin’s views on abortion, […]
Slart, I begin with no particular knowledge of the history of postal letter and package delivery in the US (even though one of my grandfathers was a Postmaster in a small town back when those were heavily political appointments, so I might expect myself to have at least a little) and especially no knowledge of the Pony Express and its demise. I don’t question your account and don’t dismiss the importance of technological advancement in achieving the unexpected obsolescence of otherwise mighty monopolies or near monopolies (I witnessed just such a thing in the fall of IBM to Microsoft way back when).
Trying to recall why I posted that quote from Friedman, I believe I was spurred by EduGuy’s “…The Post Office manages to compete with the private carriers like UPS and FedEx without driving them, or itself, out of business…” while in possession of the idea that the US Post Office was for a long time a legal monopoly and that there were indeed criminalizing laws written with the intent to prevent the undermining competition of private enterprise. And bonus, Friedman practically predicts the subsequent successes of FedEx, UPS, et al which, my guess, many people today take for granted.
That Friedman might have had his (compressed) history w/r/t the Pony Express wrong hadn’t even occurred to me, but does that change the monopoly relations he was describing?
I know that he was aware of the potential effect of technological advance at end-running monopoly, but I think that is another (and very interesting) question in the context of an argument about establishing a brand new Government monopoly (in health care for instance).
But hang on a minute. Did the telegraph with its power to deliver messages, put a new owner in possession of the signed and sealed documents he needs to prove his ownership in 1881 or 2008, to pick a couple of dates at random? Aren’t we are still hard at work trying to cut down on the paper bona fides we’d prefer to send electronically? Isn’t that at least part of the reason the monopoly in law lasted so long (and why hf hasn’t got his auto-dinner down-loader a la Star Trek)?
I don’t know if it’s worth the trouble to read but Friedman’s cited Adams Express Co., is still around apparently, with their self-published history in pdf online.
Perhaps I needn’t say it but I recognize I still have a great deal to learn about all this business.
Education guy, that’s because the Post Office doesn’t compete on price, merely on ease of use. There’s a mailbox on every corner. You put your stuff in there and it gests to where you want it (most of the time). You might be paying more or less than what the private carriers charge, but who cares, because there’s a mailbox on every corner.
But the entire point of single-payer healthcare is to compete with the evil insurance companies on price and price alone. When do you get to see your doctor? When do you actually get your health care? When your number’s called, bub. Isn’t it great to have health care?
well, you can pay extra for delivery confirmation, so at least you’d know for sure if it didn’t make it there I guess and you could complain to the post office for all the good it would do you. Anyhoo, the whole discussion reminded me of this annual contest.
does that change the monopoly relations he was describing
No, I think you/he are right in general. Wrong about that specific, though, and I’m a nitpicky kind of guy.
IIRC, the Pony Express went out of business within a month of the transcontinental telegraph service being established. Oh, looking at Wiki, it was even closer than that:
Not all that relevant to the main point, but interesting nonetheless.
[…] how Dr Cole (or, for that matter, SEK — who likes to spend an inordinate amount of time parsing semantic nuance) might analogize those who, per Rasmussen, think that Supreme Court decisions should be decided on […]
Ummm, yes, the Governor’s libertarian credentials were certainly burnished by her windfall profit tax on oil companies and the forwarding of those stolen reserves to Alaskan citizens. nothing succeeds in politics like bribery (in her case) and ignorance of a record (your case).
As Scottish historian Alexander Tytler noted “[D]emocracy can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.” Apparently, Governor Palin, feminist hero to the author noted this as well. Maybe someone could ask Palin how much success is too much before the government can take it and re-distribute to the citizens…all to the fawning approval of a “classical liberal.”
[…] abortion gets bandied about, especially in terms of Libertarianism, I find myself quite naturally thinking of slavery. Indeed, when my adolescent mind first attempted […]