Well, unless he can grow the economy, bring down unemployment, help reform unsustainable entitlement programs, rein in the overzealous and unchecked administrative state, fix the crony tax code, and promises not to kill any more working class women with his nefarious, pro-capitalism cancer beam, that is.
— In which case, yes, that’s exactly what America needs.
Why would someone with the dodgy history that he has be stupid enough to go there when he HAS TO know that Romney was making a joke? He really is a dumber than average Muslim homosexual.
Great, it’s now official. Obama is campaigning about bunnies rather than accomplishments.
To repeat myself… I can’t wait for the snarkosphere to condemn Romney as an unhelpful birther.
Oh wait, they didn’t. Yet every MFM news report on the incident tried to whip up birtherism again. Doesn’t seem to have soured Republicans on Mittens.
If only we could discover why.
The Obama campaign already has embraced the “birther” crap as joke anyway
From TPM
An Obama functionary would say “for” rather than think to say “of” . . . since who would be determining what, why and how much “for” “the middle class”.
Always with the classes, these leftists. At the drop of a hat, it’s classes classes classes.
How about instead a vision of a reasonable understanding of and adherence to the Constitution and Constitutional government, what say? That is the job after all, isn’t it?
Not only is Romney a Birther, he is a raaaaacist! or he wouldn’t have made that
jokegaffe.These guys really are a bunch of amateurs.
GO
We know Mitt was joking, we know Akin wasn’t.
But too many ostensible GOPers allowed themselves to be Alinskied re: Akin.
Of course Mitt was joking, and it’s darkly amusing that the Pragmatists’ critical response to it was “the joke just wasn’t funny.”
Really Made me LOL. Pragmatism seems to make people sour.
sdferr
The middle class isn’t a destination as much as it is a set of principles.
Poor people moving up the economic ladder and rich people who run successful business are “middle class” by their ethics & morality even if their economic status doesn’t define them as so.
And definitely, that Obama “tell” that the King must have a vision “for” the middle class, rather than embracing their vision for themselves, is pretty revealing.
I think part of the problem is that while a lot of social cons have a rich fantasy life which shields them from this realization, even most Republicans find opposing abortion when a woman is raped to be hyper-creepy and imbecilic. It’s something that people live with uncomfortably in the platform, but you go full goofball like Akin did in that interview and people have no problem at all with taking a hot steaming dump on your head.
GO
I don’t give an rat’s ass if the joke wasn’t funny, it was offered up as an obvious joke.
It’s like when GW was looking under his desk for the WMD and not finding them.
Lighten up, people. Dark humor is engaged in all the time, whether you “get it” or not.
Being an American, according to Paul Ryan, is less a destination than it is adherence to a small set of principles, or ideas, as he likes to put it. Barack Obama happens to display none of that, but in fact, little but opposition to it. If we only ask Americans themselves, which would they say is the correct view?
Abe
I’m a reluctant pro-choicer and I don’t find anything creepy or imbecilic about some pro-lifers wanting to protect unborn babies regardless of the circumstance of their conception. I don’t agree, but I understand the POV.
But its a philosophical discussion at best, because Roe v Wade is not going to be overturned in my lifetime. Just isn’t. And even if it is overturned in the next 30-40 years, there will still be places like CA and NY where it will be allowed.
Being an American, according to Paul Ryan, is less a destination than it is adherence to a small set of principles, or ideas, as he likes to put it
Yep.
The joke was funny. It’s the diaper-clad pragmatists who aren’t. That joke made me like Mitt a bit.
Obama has a set of principles. Read Herbert Marcuse to learn them.
And for sad little Miss Smoot, the thought that she has ahold of the wrong collection of “facts” never occurs. But then, that’s why she is who she is.
AP interviews the Wonce:
That’s Willard, alrighty. Extreme! Whether he believes it or not.
The fantasy is that abortion is a winning issue for Democrats in 2012. Fact is, it wouldn’t have been a winning issue for them in 2008.
Time to stop worrying and learn to love the socon bomb.
I blame Mitt Romney.
On a serious note, Obama’s hasn’t any other choice.
But its a philosophical discussion at best, because Roe v Wade is not going to be overturned in my lifetime. Just isn’t. And even if it is overturned in the next 30-40 years, there will still be places like CA and NY where it will be allowed.
I’ll say, first off, that this specific issue is the single most embarrassing thing to me about being a Republican. I have pro-life friends who feel the same way.
As to the permanence, or, semi-permanence of Roe, the fact that most conservatives are fully cognizant of that kind of underscores what a moronic, doe-eyed left-wing-style suicide pact this insistence on hollow symbolism is.
Great, it’s now official. Obama is campaigning about bunnies
As pragmatic conservatives, we must support the right of a rabbit to abortion in the case of incest or of the dog humping.
The fantasy is that abortion is a winning issue for Democrats in 2012. Fact is, it wouldn’t have been a winning issue for them in 2008.
Time to stop worrying and learn to love the socon bomb.
I agree. I don’t have a problem with socons, nor do I think this war on women campaign will be anything but a huge failure, but again, rape or life of the mother – they’re on the side of sanity there.
Ok Abe, can you unpack that for me? What exactly is the ’embarrassment’?
I don’t find pro-life “embarrassing” nor the discussion about it. Indeed, science is actually helping move more people across the spectrum into the pro-life sphere of influence. It is the pro-abortion faction that has to cloak their position with the risible rhetoric of “women’s reproductive rights” or “women’s health”.
Back when Reagan signed CA’s abortion law, the whole thing was predicated that in the first weeks of pregnancy one wasn’t dealing with a “real” baby. A sentiment that has faded from most arguments except from the hard-left [feminist]. And even they make it about “punishing women” with a baby for enjoying sex.
“Anti-Obama Movie Stuns Hollywood For #3; Other Newcomers & Holdovers Weak Friday”
http://www.deadline.com/2012/08/first-box-office-anti-obama-movie-1/
AH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Abe
AFAIK no pro-lifer opposes abortion to save the life of the mom.
I really don’t think that there’s anything to unpack here, Darleen.
A. I respect opposition to abortion.
B. I don’t respect opposition to abortion when a woman is raped. I find it extremely embarrassing to share a party with people who do.
So I guess now, along with the list of things we can’t say, we need a list of the issues we’re going to permanently concede to the left as too institutionally entrenched to be worth discussing anymore. Because trying to undue one hundred years of progressivism is quixotic and hollow symbolism.
The era of Reagan really must be over.
Don’t you all understand that if we just ran everything past David Frum for approval, the millienium would dawn?
Phooey, Ernst.
Abe
I’d rather share a party with people committed to saving innocent lives rather than share it with a party that believes leaving born-alive babies in a closet to die is ok as long as mom didn’t want it alive in the first place.
YMMV but that’s mine
Just go away, Abe. That will save us all embarrassment.
Do you concede that such people believe that life begins at conception? And if so, is it that that embarrasses you? Because if not, why would they NOT agitate for adoption or other answers to babies conceived through rape? They believe the unborn child an innocent. That’s not the same as believing the traumatized mother not terribly traumatized. It’s just a matter of one being murder, and the other being trauma — and they believe in the lesser of two evils, as they see the difficult moral dilemma playing out.
Seems to me it’s a lot easier just to sniff and express embarrassment than it is to try for some kind of moral consistency in which you might actually truly believe.
I won’t put words in Abe’s mouth, but I can understand where he’s coming from.
There is a big difference between a woman receiving an RU-486 pill at the hospital, following a rape and jamming a scissors into the base of a newborn’s skull. they aren’t equivelant.
Darleen, Catholic doctrine used to call for saving the life of the child over that of the mother. That was a hundred years ago.
“America doesn’t need a birther-in-chief”
I love the assumption that, given the current state of the country, the respect Romney exhibits for Obama’s birth certificate should be the decider. Obama shows just how thin-skinned and full of himself he truly is. Well played, Mitt. (And Obama used birtherism just last week to dismiss the OPSEC video about national security leaks, so it’s not off limits.)
Regarding abortion, the Dems focus on only two sympathetic scenarios in which one would abort because they want to avoid the more pertinent abortion discussion thanks to Obamacare: government funded abortions and HHS mandated free abortion & contraception coverage by health providers. Even if you support abortion in the case of rape, you may feel quite differently about forcing someone else (especially a religious institution) to pay for it.
Understanding where Abe is coming from is easy: it’s the status quo view. Understanding where people like Akin are coming from is more difficult. But no less worthy of understanding.
I don’t find them creepy. I find them morally torn. And I can appreciate the dilemma.
Calling them creepy outlying zealots is just a way to allow you to not ask yourself a lot of tough moral questions. Which is why so many people bond together and do it, and shout the creepy purists off the stage if they can.
At least, that’s my take.
Competing sanctities make for difficult discussions. Nevertheless, occasional attempts to calmly draw the placement of these sanctities can help to illuminate the questions. Barking and foaming, coming from whatever quarter it may, will not help.
phoey nothing leigh.
What are the permanent or semi-permanent bits of the progressive-liberal-new-left agenda that we aren’t going to push back against because raising them as issues is just too embarassing?
I don’t find them creepy. I find them morally torn. And I can appreciate the dilemma.
Agreed.
It all depends on the courage of one’s convictions, Ernst. Keep ceeding ground to the other and we end up like Steve Martin’s character at the end of “The Jerk”, wearing a bathrobe and yelling about we don’t need anything! Except this chair!
I mean seriously, we might just as well hang it up and cheer Sandra Fluke on while she pulls a train, all of us secure in the knowledge that she won’t be burdened with an unwanted baby.
What are we, a bunch of uptight, stuck-up religious bigots and prudes? Who are we to stand between her and her free birth control when that’s all she needs to reach self actualization? Why should it be any of our business if being the town pump is all that she wants out of life?
Jeff:
I understand what you’re saying, and I understand where people who believe that the child is an innocent are coming from. I just don’t accept the notion that a woman who has been raped should then be required to carry a half-rapist-DNA baby whether it is to welcome it into her family or give it up for adoption. It strikes me as medieval, really.
Why should it be any of our business if being the town pump is all that she wants out of life?
Ideally, it isn’t. If we are going to be paying for treatments for her various diseases and the like, then it becomes our business.
I’m all for shunning her kind, but there are laws against that sort of thing in the world outside the Amish.
Not accepting the notion doesn’t mean you need dismiss the thinking behind it. After all, some people might find the snuffing out of a child — that’s what they believe is happening — because it might prove an emotional and physical burden to carry it to term, rather medieval, too. Although with a new-agey Oprah candy coating.
Personally, I’d be happy if such people merely worked diligently to counsel or convince women to keep the child. I disagree with them trying to make it the law to require women to carry to term under those circumstances.
But I understand it, because I understand they think it to be murder and not just a medical procedure to remove alien tissue.
Being religious — and believing in the tenets of your faith — has its burdens.
So the march of history actually is the ruling question? What “age” or “era” (the eval part of medieval) one lives in determines whether one is moral and just or simply barbaric and unjust? Live in the “right” era adopting the peculiarities of that era’s tenets — like “history determines”, for instance! — (ours, as it happens!) and you’re good to go as a moral being. Live in some older, unenlightened age and you are ex-post facto condemned to moral disapproval? Yipes.
” But its a philosophical discussion at best, because Roe v Wade is not going to be overturned in my lifetime. ”
I think it was superseded by Planned Parenthood v. Casey and then modified by the Partial Birth Abortion Act which was upheld in Gonzales v. Carhart.
I think a discussion about “abortion should be legal in cases of incest or rape” is way to close to an “oh look, bunnies” distraction.
If I’m not mistaken, only 5% of abortions are due to rape or incest.
Sure, it’s a good conversation, but rape/incest abortions are a tiny portion of the abortion holocaust currently occurring in our country and that discussion is a distraction from a much larger issue.
” a half-rapist-DNA baby”
The embarrassment is quite mutual I assure you.
I suppose that I could be more empathetic toward them, but there’s surely an internal logic to much of what all here would readily consider to be the batshit-craziness of Muslim culture as well.(I’m hoping that people here, of all sites, won’t suggest that I’m comparing the two.)
The embarrassment is quite mutual I assure you.
That was quick. Normally people are here for years and are quite sure that people give a fuck what they think before they presume to speak for everyone.
The baby didn’t rape anybody. Killing it anyway isn’t exactly modern.
” That was quick. Normally people are here for years and are quite sure that people give a fuck what they think before they presume to speak for everyone.”
Uh huh. If I start to give a fuck how you feel about presumption and respect then I’ll be sure to let you know.
Do we even routinely kill rapists? Do we want to? Does the law allow it? Or do we just do it with half rapist DNA babies? And is rapist DNA or even half rapist DNA even a thing? Isn’t that kind of an embarrassing “Akin like” pseudo scientific misconception that could scandalize the party ? Or at least Happyfeet style wacky zowie biting hyperbole ?
How I feel about presumption? Really? One would think that some of the excess wit around here would rub off on you by accident.
I know I was calling the offspring of rape “rape babies” the other night but I was using it to sneer at a hypothetical someone who wants to suggest that a baby born of rape is some kind of substantially different type of entity than a baby born of planning or accidental insemination.
All men are created equal…except in cases of rape or incest?
“One would think that some of the excess wit around here would rub off on you by accident.”
Yeah, I’ve heard a few boring stuck up asses talk like that and presume that it’s impressive somehow. Nothing new under the sun.
Abe
re DNA … we no longer hold kids who are the children of mass murderers (e.g. BTK) as somehow “tainted” because they share some of their parent DNA.
I wouldn’t have laws restricting the abortion option for rape, I’d only hope that rape counseling addressing the horrible trauma the woman goes though would also speak to not shifting the blame of her rape to her unborn child. Then let her make the decision.
It has nothing to do with the offspring being tainted, Darleen. I reject the idea that a woman should have to carry a physical reminder of the trauma at all. Some may choose to do so, but forcing them to do so in an age where medicine precludes the necessity of it is barbaric.
Killing babies isn’t exactly civilized.
I could do this all day, but it gets boring after a while.
Can you pin down the juncture of the difficulty Abe, where one form of “barbarism” shifts into another, so to speak?
That is, from the point of view of the sufferer of rape, the nascent life in potentia is tantamount to nothing for some passing time, a non-entity we might say, as an entity with an “interest” in political terms goes (for instance, in a non-exhaustive list, the rape sufferer has an interest, her near family has an interest, even the rapist can be conceived to have an interest, and more distantly, society itself claims an interest in outlawing rape).
Whereas on the other hand, the memory, physical or otherwise, of the trauma or suffering itself takes on a seemingly disproportionate actuality (to be maintained ever after in many instances, whether willingly in some cases and unwillingly in others, we cannot say). And the potential child an ever present “reminder” we are told, of an event one would presume would be wished to have never happened yet which paradoxically seems to loom to have a permanent standing all its own. A more “real” being than a mere bundle of dividing cells.
At some point of development however, we moderns have taken to insisting that the dividing bundle of cells, the unborn child, has come to “have”, to “possess” a kind of political interest as a soon to be breathing human infant, an interest which the wider political community has taught itself to respect, for reasons, I believe, of not wishing to be drawn into self-contradiction on grounds of taking innocent life.
That’s a rather weighty philosophical question for a dullard with ADHD like myself, sdferr.
Could be, although I think the conflict itself sits very close to the center of all political conflict, so as such just might be worth the efforts we make to dig into it. But could be too, I’m simply nuts! ;-)
I don’t find them creepy. I find them morally torn
– Of course. The whole subject is stuck on morally torn because nobody can define when life begins, so theres no way to make any sort of “Well that’s ok then” judgement.
– But that’s the question for this mellinium. In the next “era”, when the human race starts clone body replacement in earnest, the entire set of questions will change, and those with specific feelings and idea’s for now will also change.
– Isn’t science wonderful!
(I’m with you McGehee, it does get old doesn’t it. And more the worst for it knowing that sometime in the future it will all seem silly in retrospect.)
It’s easier when you don’t buy the notion that a zygote is a baby with individual rights or anything else, but the non-consensual nature of the act of rape strikes me as one which must afford the victim at least a window to remedy that which took place against her will.
“….the act of rape strikes me as one which must afford the victim at least a window to remedy that which took place against her will.”
– To which the deeply devout will reply that “they believe that birth and the sanctity of life is Gods will, not mans”.
– And lacking a firm accurate definition for the beginning of life keads you badk to where you started.
– It’s terribly difficult to decide anything when you have no definitions for the problem.
– Hence, most people, when pressed for their reasoning for a strict pro-life position, will simply say that all life from the moment of inception is protected.
the idea that the same failshit US government what can’t pass a budget or secure our borders can somehow safeguard cute little baby cell clumps, and the idea that we should impregnate our politics six ways to sunday with such fantasies, are both really stupid ones
How would we think of the window of remedy at a time when abortifacients were either lacking or highly unreliable, abortions themselves too dangerous to the mother to be undertaken, and therefore rapes resulted more often than today in live births of the resulting conceptions of life, naturally or willy-nilly, whichever we choose in descriptive terms?
At such a time, I can readily imagine, some people may have been inclined to be more understanding than not should the unwilling mother, in her rage against the violation of her body and will, take the live born child to bash against a tree. And wouldn’t there have been no such tolerance in other people?
In other words, the stress of one sanctity (non-violation and revenge for the fact of it) over another (living birth and the embodied interest of the rapist) may have taken a stronger shape, and a distinctly different appearance of relative force.
That these conditions are no longer the case doesn’t remove the form of the contention, it seems to me. That is, that form lives on in the stances of the conflict maintained today.
I think I could potentially be argued back to neurulation instead of conception but then I’m not devout.
But if you have the beginnings of neurology I think you might potentially suffer and potentially become self aware and thus deserve protection. When the embryo starts to resemble an intact chordate more than the thing that turns into a chordate it should be protected.
I believe that’s at three to four weeks and in some cases the mother may not yet be aware of the pregnancy so this will not please pro choice advocates. as being a useful way to deal with unwanted pregnancies.
I go back to neurulation because I don’t know when a nervous system is sufficiently developed enough to suffer and be aware. So I choose when the hardware starts to assemble itself.
I am completely unmoved by the nonviability issues. I don’t think humanity occurs at the point where survival is possible outside the womb but before that so in the interest of preserving a human life I would not favor the nonviable = nonhuman assumption.
– The problem for the slut bragade does not address, or even care about the question of life. For them its a simple formula that says “fuck no I don’t want a 500K bill and 20 years of my fun time shot to hell for some barflies little bastard.”
“hat the same failshit US government ”
So devolve it back to the states where it was when Roe Vs. Wade came along and invoked penumbras and emanations cast by the equal the protection clause of the 14th amendment to make it a federal issue modified by states according to trimester and that was weakened by Planned Parenthood vs. Casey and then the Partial Birth Abortion ban again modified. .
it doesn’t belong with the states neither womens can’t be coerced to give birth in america
it’s a thing
if our gay-ass government restricts the abortings, Real American Womens will set their minds to circumventing that nonsense, just like how we all circumvent Gay Shit Our Failshit Government Demands every day
it’s all very Outlaw! you see
So, how the the same failshit US government what can’t pass a budget or secure our borders can somehow protect womens from their defective unwanted cute little surplus baby cellclumps?
They can coerce people to not sell big sodas, not smoke at home, not use a cell phone while driving, and to participate in a national healthcare system if you pretend that it’s a tax. So who says they can’t coerce anything if they decide to?
oh dear Mr. palaeomerus you’ve rendered me speechless
*, *
oh dear Mr. palaeomerus you’ve rendered me speechless
– Ah, if only it were so….
– I can imagine at times the Almighty looks down on earthlings and wonders to Himslf what he was thinking.
– But then again, with all the probable billions of races in the universe he probably has a lot of successes he can smile about, and who knows, maybe with all our warts we are right on schedule in our evolution, and that’s why he’s allowed us to survivr, at least so far.
– Which, given all that, is one more reason why you’all better hope I have a happy birthday, otherwise…..Boom!
that’s not all that compelling Mr. geoff I will tell you why
here is what I learned from Mr. instapundit, it’s science and it raises the very real possibility that what these statistics are showing us is that for conventional pregnancies, the board is tilted towards the production of happy bouncing babies
whereas for procreative rapes, it’s inherently much much more of a crapshoot inasmuch as the dynamic described at the link is much less likely to pertain
but if anyone reading this is perchance contemplating bashing a wee rape baby against a tree please know that I’d be happy to look after the little wazzle dazzle until such time as they can fend for themselves
references available upon request
happy birthday Mr. Hunter champagne wishes and caviar dreams to you
It’s your birthday, BBH? Happy Birthday and many happy returns of the day.
Isn’t Instapundit a lawyer? Or is he also a doctor on the interwebz?
Happy Birthday BBH.
I’d have said it sooner but I feel like I’m arguing with an episode of Wonder Showzen sometimes and it throws me off a little.
Well it does point to a good case that the pregnancy rate in forcible rape is somewhere in the range of 1 per 10,000 cases of forcible rape which would put the number is the US somewhere below, likely well below, 100 per year.
That’s rare. And this case could have been made days ago if the GOP had wanted to do so. However they are more concerned with posturing publicly in order to maintain access to all the good private parties and so maintain peace at home. Nobody wants to be married to an high status jerk who can’t deliver the social life goods.
Current TV (Al Gore’s channel) has a British journalist investigating Mormonism.
” Is it a cult? We look beyond the strange history and doctrines of the LDS Church tonight and go right to the source seeking answers from Mormons, ex-Mormons, and the non-mormons who live beside them. ”
They interviewed an intellectual couple who won’t vote for Romey because he’s a muslim.
Wheeee!
The spittin’ match hath begun. The left is ready to pull the string.
Proceeding on the assumption that human life begins at conception, the child is just as much a victim of the rape as the mother. In the case of statutory rape, the child is even more innocent. Killing an innocent victim of a rape is about as medieval as it gets.
I don’t believe that life begins at conception, so that doesn’t really bother me other than for the logical inconsistancies, what bothers the hell out of me about the rape exclusion is the obvious consequence that a shit load of innocent men are going to suddenly find themselves getting raped by the legal system.
If the only way to get an abortion is to be a rape victim, then any one who wants an abortion is going to have to accuse someone of raping her. That is insane.
” They interviewed an intellectual couple who won’t vote for Romey because he’s a muslim.”
Okay, I made that up. They did interview an -evangelical- couple who won’t vote for Romney because he’s a -Mormon-. That’s almost as good right?
Well it does point to a good case that the pregnancy rate in forcible rape is somewhere in the range of 1 per 10,000 cases of forcible rape which would put the number is the US somewhere below, likely well below, 100 per year.
well that’s good we want it to be rare, and I think we can all agree this rareness phenomenon exists to the extent it does very much independently from Team R policy stances
And this case could have been made days ago if the GOP had wanted to do so. However they are more concerned with posturing publicly in order to maintain access to all the good private parties and so maintain peace at home.
I think while some people like the priebus and the romney and the ryan had to come up with a calculated response cause of that’s their job, the vast majority of the response to akin’s remarks was spontaneous and visceral and quite apart from political calculations. What I heard people saying first off was homie can’t hang and I can’t hang with homie. And I think the priebus and the romney and the ryan heard them too.
They did interview an -evangelical- couple who won’t vote for Romney because he’s a -Mormon-. That’s almost as good right?
That’s weird. We’re surrounded by Evangelical types here, you can’t swing a cat without hitting a Church of the XYZ, and people aren’t shy about broaching matters religious with complete strangers over the produce section, for example. I’ve had several of them tell me, in a confidential tone, that “even though Romney is a Mormon, bless his heart” that he still “loves the Lord” and that’s good enough for them.
It’s not weird. It’s Current TV. The facts have a leftward bias dontch’a know.
Ah. I stand corrected.
Also, does anybody else think it pretty funny that Romney is being blasted for being stiff and humorless by the folks who foisted Al Gore and John Kerry on us?
Or Obama, for that matter.
a lucy goosey president what can make us giggle isn’t gonna to help things I don’t think
Happy BBHday Mr. Hunter!
I think this is precisely correct. I’m on record advocating that abortion be made legal retroactive to the age of 18 at the request of either parent or a simple majority of the neighbors — and only about half kidding. But I’ve always wondered a those who argue that life begins at conception and that abortion is the murder of an innocent unborn, and then make exceptions for rape and incest. That seems both logically and morally inconsistent. The unborn child did not commit the rape or incest; if abortion is murder how is aborting that child any less murder than any other abortion?
It is.
It isn’t.
and then make exceptions for rape and incest
you can make exceptions for other people’s rape babies all day long and what?
they’re still other people’s rape babies
I don’t care about birtherism. I’d vote for a birther over a democrat. I think the odds are that the democrat is dumber, less honest, and more prone to being dusional and morally bankrupt than the birther.