A brief response, if I may, to dicentra’s post below: I doubt there’s a single unvarnished truth in the whole of Ms Fluke’s hamfisted emotional appeal. Including about the real identity and motivation of the woman giving the testimony (who as it turned out went to Georgetown specifically to challenge First Amendment rights of the Jesuits with respect to her desire to have her contraceptives provided for her through them).
Sleepnumber, Citrix, Proflowers, Carbonite, et al., may all have been bullied into pretending that by supporting Ms Fluke they are by extension supporting “woman’s health” and engaging in a sober and serious discussion about the need for free and universal access to rubbers. They aren’t. They are supporting the end of individual liberty and the massive expansion of the power of government, who hope through this issue — and through the implementation of Obamacare more broadly, to bracket the First Amendment at those seminal legal moments it was established specifically to provide protection for.
Protection from government.
Just as I will not pretend Obama is merely “incompetent,” I won’t pretend Ms Fluke is just a well-meaning pawn being used by the Democrats to put an innocuous and “courageous” face on its agenda. Instead, I view her as an interested operator and, by virtue of her new alliance with Congressional Democrats, a managed operative hoping to cash in on our carefully-nurtured cultural fears of appearing “insensitive” or, if we happen to be males, of overstepping “our place” by virtue of even having and voicing an opinion with respect to “women’s issues” (or “mansplaining,” as some castrated beta male liberal tried to frame it for me on Twitter last evening).
What we have here is an activist feminist and a committed progressive. Which means that, while she insists that private industry has no right to make its own choices, simultaneously she and the government have a right to tell people of conscience what they must purchase and provide — even though prior to this wholly manufactured issue, there was absolutely no crisis with respect to securing contraceptives (and in fact there still isn’t one).
And that’s because this is not about contraception and never has been — and our Reproductive Rights champion knows it. Instead, the entirety of this issue redounds to using government to force a social and political agenda on those who would resist; it’s about an attack by the secular state on those civil institutions, like churches, that by way of competition trouble its desire for total authoritarian control over the individual and his sets of choices; and its ultimate goal is not to secure affordable contraceptives — free markets and competition provide for that — but rather to secure conformity, and to loosen the hold “individualism” and “individual choice” exert on our traditional cultural consciousness in this country.
In short, it’s a plea for progressive tyranny dressed up in shame politics, maudlin emotional appeals, and the empty promises of a “benevolent” State whose technocratic expertise, they’d like you to believe, is being managed to protect your security and secure your positive “rights” — not their own hoarding of power and influence.
And Ms Fluke’s testimony was merely another bit of propaganda geared toward blunting any resolve we can muster to resist. Sadly, too many on the right — in a rush to show their own “compassion” and “understanding” and “sophistication” — not only accept the left’s premises and framing of the issue, but they are oftentimes more concerned with chiding conservatives forcefully beating back those premises than they are with the institutionalized power and epistemological ubiquity of the premises themselves.
— All ostensibly so that they can, as a political party, woo “moderates” and “independents” into voting GOP — which they hope to do, first and foremost, not by forcefully and aggressively promoting liberty and illuminating the cynical maneuverings of the professional activist Left wherever and whenever they’re deployed, but rather by staying under the cultural radar and hoping that the promise of tax cuts and a more aggressive approach to deficit reduction wins over the “sane” voters in the middle.
We’ve become a party of the pander. But worse, unlike the progressive left, we seem in our leadership and among our most vocal opinion leaders to lack real ideological conviction.
This was the case in 2008 and sadly, as the 2012 elections near, we seem to be falling back into that same mindset of playing not to lose.
Speaking of “benevolent states”, I recommend David Karp’s dystopian novel “One”, in which the government actually calls itself the “Benevolent State” and considers individualism to be a form of mental illness. Sadly it seems that a few sessions with a psychiatrist are usually enough to clear it up; the incorrigibles are often co-opted to help find a cure for their condition (but if that doesn’t work they get euthanized). The society is more of a low-key nanny state than an overt dictatorship, which makes it more disturbing in a way…
So far, the state and its lackeys don’t kill the non-compliant, they just do their best to shut them up.
So far.
The Benevolent State in “One” has a sneaky way around that (they’re just sneaky in general, come to think of it); they arrange “illnesses” and “accidents” for the people they deem incurable, so nothing can be pinned on them. Apparently they used to be more open about it, but they’ve become more refined since then.
“We” lack the brains God gave a goldfish. How these people keep falling for the false narratives and allow themselves to be framed into unwinnable positions astounds me. Wake the hell up, people.
Oh, and guess what else that mean old Rush did.
[…] remembrance that Breitbart always insisted that culture was upstream from politics. This morning, Jeff considers the cost of backing down, with respect to the Rush Limbaugh fallout. And it has become a truism that even in death Breitbart […]
All very good points Jeff and as always, very well expressed.
Ms Fluke is simply the progressive “parry” to the Catholic’s reaction to the HHS mandate. The O!ministration’s calculus yielded the expectation that, much like their other pet constituencies among minorities and especially American Jews, the Catholics would “play ball” because in their minds, really, “where else did they have to go“?
But the USCCB wasn’t down with it. Not only did they object, but framed their objection squarely as a matter of religious liberty; and in doing so, exposed ObaMao and his fellow travelers as the wannabe tyrants that they, well, want to be; and clearly illustrated their willingness to circumvent the Constitution in the pursuit of their ends. To advance their agenda “By Any Means Necessary“…
The confluence of the visceral reaction among rank and file Catholics, a constituency they thought safely in their pockets, the church as a whole, and the effective framing of their extra-Constitutional initiative was a treacherous development for the progressive left indeed. It presented a clear threat to their preferred narrative and electoral aspirations.
So by a happy coincidence (snark), Ms. Fluke is called to testify in Congress about her unfair treatment at the hands of the Jesuits at Georgetown U; for denying her the free stuff she desires. Even more interesting that her testimony conveniently concerns just the kind of institution the HHS mandate was supposedly all about. And by framing it in terms of “fairness”, “women’s rights”, and “personal freedom”, they hope to not only cloud the issue for the public at large, provide their MBM cohorts with the opoortunity to push their desired narrative without overtly seeming propagandistic, but also woo back some liberal “cafeteria Catholics” who believe that the Church should change their dogma to align with societal values…
In short, this usual and customary TL:DR comment boils down to, “I question the timing…
My Regards to all
What _I_ want to know is when _I_ am gonna get my 15 minutes of fame? Let Sandra work for CAIR…I wanna work with NAIR!
http://twitter.com/SandrasMustache
I watched Chris Wallace try and grill Santorum on the icky religious objection to contraception and the meanness towards poor wittle Fluke, and Santorum would have none of it. kept telling Wallace it ain’t about contraception, it’s about the constitution.
I thought he did well.
Businesses are already under siege in Obama’s America and supporting Rush is probably an open invitation to extensive audits by the IRS. This whole contraception thing gave these businesses the cover they needed and they ran like scared little school kids.
I was seriously considering Carbonite and use ProFlowers regularly. Not any more.
It’s also about keeping the bitches obedient. Obama’s got to get his Pimpbot 9000 on if he’s going to turn them out in anything like the numbers he’s going to need this November.
This is not about contraception. This is about Rush Limbaugh and the mean words he used. That’s all anybody wants to talk about now.
But let’s be honest, if it wasn’t Rush it would have been something else to suck all the air out of the room. Anything to avoid reminding eveyone that the policy is still in place and will still take effect for even the bitterest of clingers within a year.
Just like the incandescant light bulb ban. It’s still on the books.
I think we’re all agreed that it was never about contraception.
Whatever it was, or is, or will be tomorrow.
. . . to testify in Congress . . .
But it is not [actual Congressional testimony]!
This really isn’t about contraception or the Constitution.
It is about the total lack of common sense we are now facing.
By the way, I have a question for all the edgy, real-world, pragmatic Republicans out there, who may have seen Jeff’s central thesis and dismissed it as interesting linguistically but impractical and academic… of little use in the rough-and-tumble of everyday politics. Here goes:
You now find yourselves in the position of defending the integrity and honor of a known Democrat operative activist pushing demagogic propaganda in front of an all-Democrat body in Congress for the purpose of shutting down debate and enshrining the smallest blandishments of socialized medicine.
How is that pragmatism working out for you?
If Rush killed the Volt then good on him. Nobody wanted or needed that car.
If there was a market for Volts then Obama would not have felt the need to try and shove them up our gestalt communal ass with huge subsidies and they wouldn’t be piled up in lots waiting for nonexistent dealer orders. Now they’ll try to make normal cars more expensive. I guess that’s what passes for lube.
If the square peg won’t fit then blame the round hole for being the wrong shape and start cutting. The peg is always right because it is revolutionarily true as proven by superior theory. QED.
Philosopher kings do not listen to artisans and laborers. They tell them what to ask for.
Civility as espoused by democrats is a pavlovian response.
They ring the bell and we start fighting amongst ourselves to keep our cause from falling into uncivil hands. The “dirty” allies become the primary enemy and the “clean” allies declare their higher quality and status. This serves as license to attack those declared “dirty”. The former enemy becomes a victim to be rescued. Then the “victim’s” knife goes into rescuer and attacker alike with no distinction.
This is the dance of civility. It is ‘divide and conquer’ dressed a bright bonnet of false superiority.
The real enemy is fine with this. They think we have it coming for standing in their way and daring to disobey them. They are the true voice of history. We are the dialectic chaff to be sacrificed for “progress”. Hegel’s promise of synthesis is too imperfect a form of progress. The old must give way to the new without compromise.
” I was seriously considering Carbonite and use ProFlowers regularly. Not any more.”
Make sure they know why you won’t be doing business with them.
Contact them and politely pass on your disgust, preferably in a brief and businesslike snail-mail paper letter that they’ll have to read and file as customer feeback.
I interviewed for a job at MozyPro but didn’t get it. Must be Yet Another Local (Utah) IT Startup.
*sigh*
That initial backup session takes DAYS over DSL.
Personally, I like sluts. Over the years, I am proud to say, that there are many sluts that I have had the privelege to call “friends.” They add to the richness of our otherwise dour everyday lives with such things as cleavage, visible thongs, tramp stamps, and Dollar Tree cologne. Platform stillettos would have never become a part of our culture without sluts. Can you imagine life with only one or two shades of “bottle blonde”? And would we really be better off with drug stores that have more drugs than make-up? An entire economy has blossomed around Botox, teeth whitening, and stretch mark creams.
I believe it is time for sluts to come out from under the desks, and be celebrated as the true American heroes they are. No more apologizing for being a slut. No more feigned indignation when being called a slut. Slut is a way of life, a noble calling that adds to the richness and diversity of our American way of life. Say it loud, say it proud.
I am a Slut!
Sorry for the slip-up sdferr, and thanks for setting me straight.
I’m still trying to catch up after returning from a month long odyssey down south to introduce young Bobby to all the home folk :)
My Regards
Yah, because we can *never* call someone on her utter falsehoods going after a welfare state handout. Seriously, the tart’s cell phone bills, and I will bet her Starbucks coffees, are more than her birth control pills per month. That they fall of this obvious red herring is sad indeed.
George Will has gone the prissypants David Brooks and David Frum route, so he can go the proper cocktail parties too? Well screw that. I’m tired of theirs getting away with murder while ours are read the riot act for jaywalking or missing the fine print in the Liberal Media’s Rules.
Carbonite? Sleepnumber? Citrix? Proflowers? Fuck you too. I will avoid any purchases from you.
Hear! Hear! Let’s hear it for the suicide* blonde!!
*dyed by her own hand :D
Hey Bob, you’re in good company anyhow. Limbaugh’s own initial presentation of the subject had him saying ” . . . or Sandra Fluke, whatever her name is — the Georgetown student who went before a congressional committee. . . “
-When the Left tries to take control of the Narrative, I’ve resolved to do as AB would have: Just Say ‘So?‘
-FYI: ProFlowers is just one of several companies owned by Provide Commerce Inc.
The others: Shari’s Berries, ProPlant, Red Envelope, Cherry Moon Farms, and personalcreations.
Provide’s website is: http://www.prvd.com/
It might be best to use their ‘Contact Us’ address to send a single e-mail complaint that covers all the brands.
[…] and respect is every bit as foolish as thinking that the Taliban would do the same. In the end, this is what it’s really all about: Just as I will not pretend Obama is merely “incompetent,” I won’t pretend Ms Fluke is just a […]
http://www.prvd.com
Pravda?