Okay. Let’s work through this:
“It’s a problem. There is no doubt about that,” [Senator John] McCain [R-failed presidential candidate and megalomaniac] said on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” when asked about the impact of [Todd] Akin’s remarks on the Republican presidential ticket. “Mr. Akin should recognize having the nomination of your party is a privilege and if you abuse that then you are not eligible to keep it. What he said was unacceptable.”
[my emphasis]
Look. I understand that this is the most important election in our lifetime — and some of you are so very desperate to take back the Senate that you worked diligently, vocally, and inexhaustibly to get the crazy Christian pro-life nutter to step down from his Senate run. But you failed. And Akin is the GOP candidate, your wishes notwithstanding.
So the pragmatist in you should be telling you at this point that Akin is running in a pro-life state; that his opponent is a tax cheat and a reliable left-wing rubber stamp for Obama’s brand of disguised Marxism and liberal fascism; and that if this really is such a crucial election for such a crucial Senate seat, it’s time to start in on savaging McCaskill, not beating your chests over Akin’s drop in the polls — particularly while you forgive yourselves for affecting that drop in any way, as if your vocal criticism, public party withdrawal of support, and a virtual shunning of our own candidate even after he apologized (which it turns out was his mistake: I believe he was playing by the calculus that if he simply apologized, the right would naturally have his back; unfortunately, it turns out ostentatious outrage may just prove to be more important that the most important election in our lifetime, right down to the stubborn continuation of attacks on Akin and the relish some are taking in his abysmal poll numbers) are incidental to that poor polling.
It seems to me if Akin is guilty of believing in a magic vagina, more than a few people on the right are guilty of believing in a magic hive mind, one in which they are free to swarm and sting and buzz incessantly, then declare that the thing they swarmed on hasn’t been hurt by their swarming, and besides, he made them swarm and sting and buzz in the first place, dressing himself up like that in such a short poll skirt.
— All of which is beside the point that I wish to make with this post. Instead, I want to focus on what John McCain [R-would by statist tyrant] said on “Meet the Press,” which is what anyone who knows John McCain would have bet he’d say on “Meet the Press”: what Todd Akin said, largely in passing, about forcible rape / “legitimate rape” is not wrong. It’s not mistaken. It’s not dubious. It’s not “unsupported by a vast majority of medical evidence.”
No. Instead, it’s unacceptable. That is, the argument — and it wasn’t even that, because it was a minor point in an interview, not a debate on the topic at hand — can’t even be posed. It can’t be talked about, discussed, raised, or even uttered in polite company. At least, not during an election.
I’m sorry, but this is anti-intellectualism and socio-cultural bullying of the worst sort. And it is sickening to watch “our” side engage in it. Because what McCain is saying is that certain topics simply can’t even be broached, much less discussed, if they are already too entrenched in (largely leftist) conventional wisdom — and among these now are some of the critical moral issues at the core of a plank GOP’s own political platform: rape exceptions — not merely from the standpoint of policy (which tends to be conveniently opportunistic) but from the standpoint of the moral / ethical / medical basis for that policy.
And lest you think this is a one-off instance — and that it makes no sense to defend a religious “kook” (who happens to be an engineer, and a former National Guardsman, as well as a world-class “idiot”) — consider that John McCain, among others, also recently declared it unacceptable to ask questions, or investigate in any way beyond the a mere cursory vouching, the degree of influence and insinuation into our government has the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots. Just as McCain took all sort of potential attacks on then candidate Obama’s past off the table during the 2008 election cycle for fear of being thought racist — not typically the charge one need fear for raising what essentially would have been important and quite legitimate questions of judgment and / or ideological commitment asked of a relative political newcomer hoping to be President.
Here’s an uncomfortable truth: if you surrender preemptively the very grounds on which legitimate (ahem) intellectual discussions can even take place, you have surrendered one of the most important victories of the Enlightenment. When you surrender that ground preemptively while pretending that you have done so for intellectual reasons, you are part of an attack on the Enlightenment — and are a champion for, inadvertently or not, the kind of consensus-based anti-intellectualism upon which the left builds its communities of manufactured consent.
Being OUTRAGED isn’t going to change that.
.0032 million pregnancies out of 6 million pregnancies each year, as others have pointed out, is “rare” — and in the context of a brief, thumbnail discussion of the rape exception to abortion laws, particularly for those who espouse a very orthodox pro-life philosophy (and so have adopted the decidedly unpopular and yet ethically consistent position of being against the killing of a fetus even in cases of rape, what they believe to be murder being what they believe to be murder) , it is not unusual for a politician hoping to avoid that bit of public policy fly paper by diminishing its statistical importance. Especially when one knows that the exception is being raised as way to delegitimate the orthodox pro-life position.
— Which is not the same as dismissing the very real potential trauma such a pregnancy would have on those women who do find themselves pregnant as a result of forcible rape, but is instead to note that these cases are statistically-speaking outliers — and often offered up as a way to problematize the very real ethical dilemmas faced by pro-life folks who actually believe in the pro life stance, rather than merely adopt it as a kind of necessary evil to bring the godbotherers into your electoral tent, then distancing themselves from it when the social stakes become potentially too high.
The point being, there were any number of thoughtful ways to deal with Akin’s statement that didn’t reinforce what the left says about us: because ironically, by rushing to distance ourselves from the Biblethumping kooky Christianty (or even painting Akin that way, despite his engineering background which influences him just as surely as does his devout religious background) — and declaring the intellectual basis for a different ethical argument “unacceptable” based on nothing more than conventional wisdom and fear of being labeled “anti-science” by the mocking left (who, incidentally, is doing just that anyway, your distancings and shunnings notwithstanding) — it is our side here who has shown itself willing to engage in the very kind of anti-intellectualism and consensus group think that provides the left its social power, reinforced often times by popular culture, the media, the academy, and various institutions they’ve managed to infiltrate and control.
That we did it to one of our own, very publicly — with the hope that it would buy us some cheap grace and prevent the left from using it against us — is why we continue to lose even when we win.
But hey — those Twitter hashtag games are fun, so fuck it, right? Let’s pile on the stupid Christer and his (supposed) belief in the magic cooz! — which, incidentally, appears to have some basis in fact and medicine, despite the (at first blush) biological unlikelihood: from the effects of stress and trauma on chances of conception to peculiarities in nerve wiring to pure chance, there’s no denying the real science and statistics, regardless of how counterintuitive they may seem, regardless of the date of provenance, raise certain medical questions. At the very least, we as conservatives shouldn’t be taking the position that settled science and science are the same thing — especially when the former is the very antithesis of science, properly understood, and when the former is the very mechanism by which the left takes control of social and cultural narratives.
Once we begin to act as if questioning orthodoxy is unacceptable, we have already lost. Because it isn’t us who sets the parameters of the prevailing orthodoxies. I don’t expect John McCain to get that. But I do expect conservatives should.
Related: Rush Limbaugh summarizing reports that the theme for Tampa is Obama’s a nice guy who’s incompetent, and that Obama enjoys a double digit advantage on the “cares about people like me” poll question:
Their theme: Romney killed that guy’s wife!
Our theme: Obama’s a nice guy!
Rush concludes: The establishment guys running this thing have decided to act like this is just another ordinary election.
Apologies to Jeff for going off-topic so quickly, but wanted to get that out there.
On what McCain said,:
I would have thought that the right to stand for election to the Senate won in the primary would outweigh the privilege of being endorsed by the party bigwigs.
And if that’s not the case, then bring back the smoke-filled rooms, just so all of us know where we all stand.
“And if that’s not the case, then bring back the smoke-filled rooms, just so all of us know where we all stand.
Heh, (and I don’t intend to abuse the thought), but don’t we already know damned well where we stand, and that place is decidedly outside the ruling class? Or to say it another way, the ruling class wouldn’t see any need at all to make its position more clear than it is. Ruling is sufficient.
A Senate-obsessed effort cedes that the national government and national Party machinery are already paramount. Hence the Pragmatic Right.
Talk about losing more slowly.
They are only paramount in damages already done. Defeating the rhetoric thereof, on the other hand, is paramount. Hence PW.
The real effort lies in reasserting State autonomy, which itself comes from local success.
So the pragmatist in you should be telling you at this point that Akin is running in a pro-life state; that his opponent is a tax cheat and a reliable left-wing rubber stamp for Obama’s brand of disguised Marxism and liberal fascism; and that if this really is such a crucial election for such a crucial Senate seat, it’s time to start in on savaging McCaskill, not beating your chests over Akin’s drop in the polls
A thousand times yes. Precisely what I have been saying.
https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=43029#comment-908576
Do you want to win, Republicans? Do you? Time to fucking get over it and decide if you want Missouri or not. You’re stuck with Akin. Let’s see your vaunted pragmatism go to work.
The point being, there were any number of thoughtful ways to deal with Akin’s statement that didn’t reinforce what the left says about us
John Derbyshire unavailable for comment. But Rich Lowry remains a cute-as-a-button smug ponce.
I believe that this August 1980 piece [pdf] is the original source of Akin’s statement.
At the link the footnotes show the sources.
There are also some other studies I’ve found referenced online.
And these:
It appears to be a subject which has not been studied since the late 70s or so. Because of that, access online. to the actual studies is difficult.
It is said if neither the law nor the facts are on your side pound the table. The Left has perfected pounding the table by introducing false or deliberately misleading “facts” while pounding the table furiously. They have done so so well over the years that there are any number of “facts” that everybody knows which on close inspection show their core of “truthy”-ness.
I’m not very popular with the Chicago police dept.
What did you do now?
I’d like to see Akin get to work. It’s his fucking job, after all. And he’s the guy who just blew a walkaway race. Isn’t any of this on him? Or is he now the flip side of Obama?
No, he’s read Willke and was referencing that. He’s said so.
What Pablo said. Akin’s the nominee and all his done since The Incident™ is dither.
I’ve said from the get-go that he is Missouri’s choice to represent them on the Republican ticket. Whether or not he gets elected is on him and the electorate of Missouri.
I still won’t count him out, but he needs to start slugging back at McCaskill and stop treating her like a girl.
It’s either that or the Show Me staters can write in Mel Carnahan and call it a day.
I’d like to see Akin get to work. It’s his fucking job, after all.
Absolutely right. Unfortunately 95% of the Republican snarkosphere isn’t interested in covering whatever he is doing, only denouncing him. Look, this whole thing is likely an electoral disaster for that Missouri seat. Neither Akin nor the wizards of snark have anything to show that proves their commitment to beating McCaskill, not at this point. I believe the NRSC pulled funding for Akin a week ago, so we know how badly they truly want that seat (not very much). I haven’t seen any story suggesting that Akin is getting a groundswell of support from non-elites. So: six more years of Claire.
The whole thing ought to be an object lesson, but likely won’t. As John Derbyshire might observe.
Akin’s the nominee and all his done since The Incident™ is dither.
I’ve said from the get-go that he is Missouri’s choice to represent them on the Republican ticket. Whether or not he gets elected is on him and the electorate of Missouri.
That is the plain fact of the matter. No one is a hero here.
So Willke comes into being out of thin air. A virgin birth of a theory, opinion, that came into the world without any underlying studies or facts? Fine.
BTW it appears the “incriminating” interview when he talked about the Hoo-Hoo of Voodoo was recorded almost five days before the story broke. (sorry, have no direct link, this was heard on the FTR radio podcast, mentioned by a Missouri resident active in GOP politics)
http://www.fingersmalloy.com/2012/08/snark-factor-257-the-akin-chronicles-with-molly-teichman
That this interview stood for five days before airing without someone on Akin’s staff doing a review and saying something about the huge potential for misunderstanding, suggests that he has no real staff.
As for the rape exception. It’s been done and with the results noted in the same piece I linked at 10:57.
I think Akin should have dropped out (after he fucked up his campaign), but it should be clear (even to John McCain) what the GOP should be doing now: Stop Digging.
Akin is not dropping out. If you want to pressure him behind the scenes, do it if you think it will be effective. But I would focus on winning other Senate races and seeing if Akin can persuade Missourians to support him over McCaskill.
There’s that fundamental unseriousness at a time when there’s an election to be won again [grin].
More in the same vein:
Gertrude Himmelfarb, fom the title essay.
Todd Akin, I have maintained, made one serious, politically significant mistake, error, gaffe, brain fart, call it what you will: that was to use the crucial political term “legitimate” in a place the term does not belong. His brain betrayed him at that instant, so to speak. He was careless in his speech, to put it another way.
But legitimacy is the preeminent question of politics. Wanton abuse of this term is the essence therefore, of political stupidity, so far as I can see. The ancillary questions of scientific controversy were not at the center of the trouble Akin brought on himself, or so I believe. Had he not misused the term legitimate, his other remarks would likely have gone largely unnoticed, certainly on this national scale.
“. . . [D]eriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”, says the founding document, addressing and providing the answer to — without using the term — the question “what is legitimate?”. This is our answer — our American answer — to the question of legitimacy. There is a sense in this circumstance that the question itself, for the purposes of governance, thereafter ceases to be a question (and indeed, this is so for any and every “nation” or “polity” or “government”, no matter the form of their answer, so not peculiar to the USA as such).
But the people opposed to this answer, led by Barack Obama today, do not cease to propound the question, and answer it very differently from that founding document.
To this extent, in the claim by the progressives that science is the source of legitimacy, science becomes a subject of the ensuing controversy. So much the worse, then, that Akin happened to be talking about controversial science at the time.
No. Willke is the basis of Akin’s understanding. And Willke cites what he cites, and not what he doesn’t.
Their actions and lack thereof since suggest the same.
What are the individual voters in his district responsible for? The RNC?
Saying all the responsibility of avoiding a Senator McCaskill is on Akin fundamentally misses the concept of representative governance IMHO.
Also, I was on vacation when this all went down, and when I got back it was in full-on outrage frenzy. I couldn’t understand it. In no way does what he said, even a tiny bit, bump my needle towards disqualifying him for Republican Senator from Missouri. I knew what he was saying, and thought to myself; “huh! Wonder if that’s right? I could see where maybe a huge shot of adrenalin could maybe sterilize all the eggs outside the uterus.”
If I was really interested or thought it important, I would google.
I would NOT say to myself; “What an Idiot! That ASSHOLE needs to immediately resign and crawl back in the hole he dragged his stupid, incompetent ass out of!”
This was an awesome post Jeff, very clarifying.
I think the mistake came slightly earlier. He never answered the question. Instead, what he did do was to try to explain why his (implied) answer (in response to an implied question no less!) was what it was. And then he compounded his error by speaking casually as if he were talking to an audience of like minded people i.e. an audience of abortion opponents in broad agreement in their opposition to abortion, but divided on what exceptions, if any ought to be allowed on compassionate or humanitarian grounds.
Allow me to clarify my rhetorical question:
It seems to me that the more ‘prominent’ an Establishment GOPer is, the less need he’d have to wear a giant vagina jumpsuit and still be recognized as whatever one recognizes as being a giant vagina.
Doesn’t that in turn suggest that Missouri only appeared to be a walkaway race? Everyone assumed we’d win Missouri, so nobody bothered to ask if Akin was in fact logistically positioned to win.
My problem with your proffer Ernst, is that if I abstract away the out of place term legitimate — for example, assume for instance Akin had simply troubled himself to spell out the distinction he had in mind rather than attempt a (wrong) shorthand for it — I believe no entry for such widespread notice and outrage would have been present, and therefore the extent of the “story” would have been vastly truncated. This is at the heart of my pinning the “primary” error (not saying there weren’t any number of other errors at hand) as I’ve identified it, or at least as I think of the thing. That isn’t to say there aren’t gajillions of other proper and even quite reasonably better ways to think of it. Leave the misuse of legitimate in whatever answer Akin makes and the entry is still there.
All he (or any other R that had gotten the nod) needed to do was not screw up and not be named Claire McCaskill. That was polled, not assumed. He was positioned just fine until he became that guy.
– Setting aside the rammbling arguments pro and con concerning Akin, it seems our side is more than willing to give Obama every opportunity to hijack the narrative and avoid the real issues.
– Maybe someone could set me straight here. Is Rowe vs. Wade up for vote? Because if not, WHY THE FUCK ARE WE TALKING ABOUT IT?
*ahem* – I need to stop channeling Crissy Mathews.
But thankfully he did, or we’d have never been able to distance ourselves from the rape-loving Christian kook and his reliance on the magical cunt of Jesus to shield him from his barbaric idea that a rape baby shouldn’t have it’s little half-rapist brain scrambled with some scissors — or that a woman who was raped perhaps take into account the innocence of the child produced as a result when weighing her options.
It may seem abstract because without specialized equipment it remains invisible for some time. But that doesn’t mean it’s really an abstraction. It’s a physical reality, and we have to face it that some people — quite reasonably, given the adopted premise that life begins at conception — believe you are intentionally killing an innocent human, simple as that.
If it’s science, it’s not settled; if it’s settled, it’s not science.
But that takes away the heady self-righteousness that comes from pounding those ignernt Christers into submission.
Let me get this out here: Christians and other religious types reject the theory of evolution not out of ignorance but out of loyalty. All too many brainiacs have told them that they have to choose between God and Darwin, and if that’s the choice, they’ll stick with God, thank you very much, one being the Creator of the Universe and the other a mouldering corpse.
But again, if you understand it in terms of loyalty rather than intellect, that takes away the heady self-righteousness that comes from pounding those ignernt Christers into submission.
A poll is a mathmatical expression of the underlying assumptions, isn’t it?
If my campaign consists of I’m running for Senate because she’s Claire McCaskill and I’m not, then, it seems to me that antipathy for her has to be hard, not soft if that strategery is going to be successful. From that, it follows that if she hasn’t dropped out on her own, her negatives are probably soft, and therefor I can’t count on just being not McCaskill.
Or to try to put it another way, if we’re relying on positioning, it’s because we don’ trust the voters to choose us on substance. And that seems to me to be a bigger problem going forward.
Christians and other religious types reject the theory of evolution not out of ignorance but out of loyalty
That’s not true dicentra. Catholics don’t have a conflict with Evolution and Creationism. The two are not mutually exclusive. If they were, we’d be talking about the “shoebox God” not the Almighty.
This could be the most disappointing post on this subject yet. Why ? Because the master of the importance of words apparently thinks that because numbers aren’t words, the same standard does not apply. I guess.
.0032 million ? Really ? Out of the otherwise planned or at least CONSENSUAL 6 million pregnancies ?
Lets make this perfectly clear, shall we ? .0032 million = 3,200. Three thousand two hundred. So lets dispense with the -again – RETARDED – idea that 3,200 victims of rape becoming pregnant IS rare, or is in any way, shape, or form indicative of the magical uterus that expels foreign sperm during rape.
Women DO in fact get pregnant during rape. And since there are about 80,000 to 90,000 rapes per year in the US, the rate of pregnancy is 3.5% or 1 in 28. And since out of the 30 days of each month, a woman is actually only fertile for like 5 of them, lets adjust these statistics and divide the rapes by 6, giving us approximateley the number of rapes of fertile women of only 15,000. Which doesn’t take into account the ones on birth control.
And you know what the rate would be then ? 20%. Or 1 in 5.
Or, as I would describe it – pretty fucking likely.
So if you want to have an honest debate about whether or not there should be an exception for rape or not, great. But what you CANNOT do is pretend there is some magical force that could prevent you from having to engage in that debate in the first place. Which is exactly what Akin did.
Again, the now completely obliterated “magic vagina” defense.
So the REAL “honest debate” we should be having is what use of the “magic vagina” defense really says about a person seeking one of the most prestigious political offices in this country.
Instead, we get long diatribes about the establishment and defense of the “magic vagina” defense.
Jeff G. says August 27, 2012 at 12:46 pm
All he (or any other R that had gotten the nod) needed to do was not screw up
But thankfully he did
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gosh, I must have missed all the wrangling to cut down and replace Akin BEFORE he fucked up.
Otherwise, great strawman argument.
Oh, hey, another way to think about these 3200 “rare” cases….
One woman gets pregnant from being raped – EVERY 3 HOURS. Almost 9 every single day.
No, unfortunately he did. Me, the #2 thing I want to see on 11/7 is that Harry Reid will no longer be the Senate Majority Leader.
I’m perfectly fine with that position, and I have no problem with people who want to argue for it…provided they can do so without sticking their feets in their mouths. That portion of his argument was dumb, irrelevant, and it didn’t need to be made. Part of it was just fine, perfectly moral and all he needed to say; that the child is innocent and shouldn’t get the death penalty. Had he left it at that, he’d still be up by 5 points or better.
I prefer my math to yours, so there,
fucking assertion monkey.
“Me, the #2 thing I want to see on 11/7 is that Harry Reid will no longer be the Senate Majority Leader.”
I thought we had reached the conclusion that the Mo. race will have little impact on this likelihood? Have I got that totally wrong, or have the circumstances changed in the interim?
So rape victims have an 80% chance of not conceiving at their most fertile?
And the chances of becoming pregnant hover around the Mendoza Line?
And these 3200 cases per year ARE NOT some excuse to be problematic. Its a no-shit problem. If you make abortion illegal as people are pro-life – like Akin – want, then you also make it no-shit illegal for women pregnant from rape. It happens and as we see here not all that “rarely” after all. In fact, at about the same rate as people TRYING to get pregnant, both about 5% of the time.
So its one thing to blame promiscuous men and women without enough responsibility for their own actions for the vast majority of abortions and then claim that if they just took responsibility and used birth control that this wouldn’t be an issue. But then, women pregnant from rape, well they are quite inconvenient, aren’t they. They aren’t a convenient foil, they are a serious issue that has to be addressed.
Its not a ploy, its a legitimate issue that this blog is trying to dismiss as a ploy when it is no such thing.
And BTW, when idiot liberals claim the earth is warming because they’ve seen the Mann hockey stick graph, that bullshit is no less “unacceptable” than the “magic vagina” defense. Unless you think they should get a pass because its only “unsupported by a vast majority of evidence”
Bullshit fake science is bullshit fake science regardless of which side is using it.
And I think the most ridiculous part of this is you are effectively making the same kind of bullshit case that is made for “intelligent design”, yet another bullshit fake science.
McCaskill believes human exhalation is a poisonous gas that, uncontrolled, will cause apocalyptic consequences to the earth.
I’ll take the guy that believes there are biological defenses to forcible rape, thanks…
Have I got that totally wrong, or have the circumstances changed in the interim?
Nope.
[D]eadrody proves that for him/her/it both math and reading are much too hard.
1.2 million pregnancies per year owing to rape? That really would be medieval.
There are 685 pregnancies every hour in an average year.
2,055 pregnancies every three hours. ONE of which was the result of a rape.
9 out of 16, 438 pregnancies every single day!
That’s a human tragedy for the nine women and their families. But it’s not a social crisis.
I was a little worried that we weren’t going to get deadrody’s take on this today. Imagine my relief.
It could have an impact, but I suspect the margin will be higher than that. The thing is, most people had this checked off as a pickup 2 weeks ago, and now it’s a tough fight at best and very possibly a Dem hold because of an unforced error. Which sucks.
That bullshit math and bullshit reading to you Mr Geoff!
By impact, I intended the idea that Reid retains the majority. If this were to be in question on account of the Mo. race outcome, then the Mo. race outcome would be a couple of orders of magnitude a greater interest to the Party aiming at majority control than it otherwise seems to be. That is, Priebus has bluntly stated the RNC will not be putting funds into the Mo. Senate race. So I’m left believing that the Party judges there will be little impact as I’ve defined it.
Also, Akin never said abortion should be outlawed in instances of rape (unless you have a cite). He said it was a complex issue, and he viewed the rapist as worthy of punishment, not the innocent baby.
What a fiend!
At the risk of a derail . . .
Every time I look at pablo’s avatar, I see an impressionist eyeball staring back at me; an unblinking eye of Sauron with large brush strokes.
It takes careful effort to not see the eye and see the rabbit with chapeau, but once I do, I can’t see the eye anymore.
There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, but I’m too lazy to root it out.
Statistically, no. But it’s a really dopey argument to be making in the midst of a Senate race where the issue was only in play to the extent that the Dems are trying to freak people out with it and distract from their current track record.
And I think the most ridiculous part of this is you are effectively making the same kind of bullshit case that is made for “intelligent design”, yet another bullshit fake science.
– You were doing a fair job of ecpressing yourself up ’til then.
– Intelligent design is not a science, nor has it ever claimed to be. Its a belief system.
– And therein lays the reason this argument will go on ad nausia. Both sides demand that the argument be conducted on the rules they embrace, which is impossble, Logic based systems, and belief based systems are fundementally incompatible.
The ultimate Apples and Oranges argument.
It’s the eye of the hurricane, Hadlowe.
You’re fine Ernst.
What was the question he was answering?
So, we’re “anti-science” when we reject the Left’s math, and ‘insensitive” when we resort to our own numbers. How’s that working for us again?
Bear in mind that deadrody’s 9 pregnancies grow by a factor of 100 once rape is established as a “legitimate” reason for killing an unborn child. Especially given the defenselessness of the accused in most cases.
Hey, deadrody. No one here cares what you “think.”
Huh?
Something he should be ashamed of apparently.
Statistically, no. But it’s a really dopey argument to be making in the midst of a Senate race….
– Even worse it was totally uneccessary. A successful politico with his experience should be use to ‘gotcha’ attack questions, and should remember the less is more rule.
– Still, what he said does not rise to the level that the Left has played it for, but right now they need each and every distraction they can gin up.
– Why should we give them that?
Math is the universal language. It is not subject to interpretation.
Statistics are a whole other matter.
So, you approve of Romney’s “he’s a nice guy” tack?
And Rush should never have said “I hope he fails”?
Only the shadow of a man can walk on eggshells without breaking any…
On Intelligent Design and the Public School Curriculum.
See? No reason to guess what I would or wouldn’t defend. Just ask. Or do a search.
See, I’m willing to debate the left on environmental warming science because they keep insisting it’s settled. And we are denialists for not caving to their take on what the information tells us.
In that instance, they tell us any other view is unacceptable and many of us rightly fight back against such a notion.
…
…
…
Have I made my point?
Not quite as much as the child conceived as a result, evidently.
But then that’s not murder murder. I mean, it’s not like you put a high chair in concrete and dropped it into the fucking ocean, right?
Math is the universal language. It is not subject to interpretation.
– Boy would we ever be in the soup if the Left’s textualism were applied to math Leigh. But then again, maube that ecplains their failure at economics. :)
Statistics are a whole other matter.
– Statistics deals with probabilities and chance, not a real number process as an end point.
– For instance if you flip a coin ‘x’ yimes probability states you will have a 50% chance of either heads or tails.
– Where the two sides get into trouble is when they try to flip a coin to decide whether God exists. Unless you believe in some magic coin existential agent, you can’t ‘flip a coin’ with a belief system.
– The two sides would give us all a break if they’d just coexist and basically ignore each other.
Wait, did deadrody just try to say I’m engaging in a war on women because I’ve pointed out that committed pro-life activists really believe in the pro-life message, regardless of the political convenience of holding that position?
And people wonder why I continue to cast deadrody as a useful idiot.
No, it was whether there should be an exception for rape in a ban on abortion. You generally don’t need to be ashamed of other people’s questions.
Look, it’s another term deadrody throws out without understanding what it is.
I think it explains the Lefts in ability to understand Economics perfectly, BBH.
They did and do try to apply textualism to numbers and it doesn’t work that way. Stupid stubborn MATH being what it is.
– Jeff, you can’t hold a reasonable disscussion with people that have adopted ‘their beliefs’ on a basis that somehow one belief system is ‘better’ (read more intelligent) than the other guys. Its a built in set of blinders that can’t be overcome.
You guess wrong.
Yes.
These are two different points that I’m to conflate because of the OUTRAGE in your tone for not Recognizing The Human Suffering of the 3200.
So let me disentangle it for you before you hurt yourself.
1) 32000 out of 6 million is comparatively rare, yes.
2) There has been a lot of documentation on this site over the past several days calling into question the idea that planned pregnancies and rape pregnancies occur at equal rates.
1+2) Noting that something is objectively and statistically rare in comparison to the standard, has nothing whatever to do with the magical uterus, though I understand for you to continue to feel superior and smarter and more pragmatic than we silly useless purists you have to create cartoons and then demonize them. It’s all very leftwing.
He didn’t pretend. Perhaps he actually believed some of the science that others here have been so helpful as to dig up and post. And of course, my post is on the necessity of NOT PREEMPTIVELY SHUTTING OFF AS “UNACCEPTABLE” THE ASSERTIONS INTRODUCED IN GOOD FAITH BY THOSE RELYING ON A DIFFERENT FACT SET.
Or else we’d still be living on a flat world where the sun revolves around the earth. Well, not really. It would be what it would be no matter what we thought. Unless we were leftists and believed that all truths are man’s truths, made through language, and therefore reality is really just about who can control language.
Incidentally, you are free to skip my long diatribes — which I suggest you probably should, because they are aimed squarely at people like you, who wish to use emotional appeal, faux outrage, group thinking, unsettled science, and the excuse of elections that We Must Win to kill off the very mechanism by which humans gather and sort through various facts and ideas in order to reach informed conclusions. For the Greater Good of a Republican controlled Congress (without the taint of acknowledging the godbothery vote that got us there).
And that makes you a mouthy, presumptuous, anti-intellectual dullard masquerading as a realist — and worse, you pat yourself on the back for being willing to overlook such abstract notions of how we come to know what we know, etc.
You’re a useful idiot who doesn’t recognize his usefulness. And that’s because your realism leads you to believe you’re useful for “our” side. When in fact, that’s only partly true, for reasons I spell out here nearly every day.
And the most depressing part of it is, people like you refuse to see it, because you’re too busy trying to work some giant chessboard. Much like the statists — only with lower taxes.
There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, but I’m too lazy to root it out.
– Pablo is in the eye of the beholder?
– Heh. Yes it is Leigh, and they won’t get any joy from statistics either. If you’re obstinent enough to go ahead and do the coin flip on the existance of God, after ‘x’ tries statistics will tell you theres a 50/50 chance.
– Most intelligent people don’t want to buck those odds, which I would imagine is quote frustrating to people who call themselves ‘elites’. *snicker*
Ok, just went back and re-read what I wrote. Seems to me deadrody intentionally bracketed much of what I said in order to accuse me of writing something I didn’t write, or of arguing something other than what I actually did.
Doing so allowed him to get his sanctimony gland pumping, though — which come to think about it perfectly illustrates one of the larger points I’ve been making about this manufactured kerfuffle. Performs it, even.
He said good day, sir!
Heh. I’m one of those nerds who loved stats. So much so that I am proud to say that my boys were complete buzzkills to their teammates in that they can explain to them exactly why there is no such thing as home field advantage.
Probability is something that even Obama should be able to grasp. I’ll even provide a coin for him to flip until he gets the hang of it.
And his answer, basically, was that it was too complex for a straightforward yes or no answer, it’s statistically rare, and he would always be for preserving innocent life.
What threw you is, you expect polished political answers from your representative, and that was decidedly not.
– A Leftist coin Leigh, would either be the same on both sides, reflecting their inflexible belief that their POV is the only one that counts or is intelligent, or the coin would only have one side, reflecting their inability to see conservative objects, like WMD’s or media Left-wing bias.
– In either case the coin would be a tail, because that’s all they know how to tell.
Um, that’s a yes or no answer. A “no”, actually.
Apologies for the confusion. I wanted to get a reply in before I had to pick up my kids. So let me unpack that.
Pablo wrote
In my reply I was attempting to suggest that when we respond to a leftist appeal to reason, with reason of our own, we get met with anti-science!, as we’ve seen with global warming, for example. Similarly, when we argue from reason, as Akin may (or may not, or may only partially argued from) have done in this instance —”that’s really rare,” we get hit with an appeal to emotion, “freak[ing] preople out” in your words. And that’s not even taking into account BBH’s observations about resoning from logic and reasoning from belief. So my question arises: how does letting the left (and our own moderates and centrists, I suppose) set the conditions and terms of the debate, as well as the subjects which are up for debate help us?
As I said in one of the earlier Akinstreit threads, I’m more interested in winning the argument than winning the politics. And that’s because it seems to me that the left uses the politics to keep us from even having the argument. So if we can’t fully, openly and honesty discuss the merits (or lack thereof) of a rape exception to abortion because it’s icky and insensitive; or, for that matter, public funding of birth control because we don’t want to appear anti-woman, then I think we’ve already lost the fight to repeal Obamacare.
Because
You’re taking away people’s healthcare! Which is a right!
Why do you want people to get sick and die?!?!
Thus, in order to win the politics we first have to win for ourselves the right to even have the argument in the first place. Which we can’t do if we’re to busy trying to win the politics.
– So if the it’s statistically rare had not fallen from his lips countless tree’s worth of paper, and untold billions of text bytes on the internet would have been saved.
– I blame Bush.
No, you blame bush (lower case), BBH or we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.
I’m not sure I agree that it was a gotcha question. I think he was honestly asked about abortion and risks to the life of a pregnant woman and about abortion and rape. He answered (I’m inclined to believe) honestly but imperfectly. And now it seems as if we’re being asked to choose between honest answers and politically perfect answers. And I’m viscerally opposed to punishing somebody for speaking honestly, however stupid it is to do so in the context of electoral politics.
Always being for the protection of innocent life doesn’t necessarily mean you’re for legislation outlawing abortions for rape victims.
I personally would prefer there was no need for the death penalty, but I’m not opposed to it in certain circumstances.
Sometimes there aren’t good choices.
It’s not the rare part, it’s the we don’t need to worry about it aspect of the argument that would still blow up in his face. The rarity doesn’t really matter if it happens, which it does. And saying you’re not going to consider the plight of rape victims in not a winning soundbite. Also, the proggs would still have spun his poor “legitimate” word choice into something it wasn’t. (At least I thought it wasn’t.)
Friggin echo chamber.
Promoting adoption as preferable over abortion, to the culture, would be a healthy thing for society I think. But I guess it’s best to not talk of such things when the fate of the country is in the balance, and only shrewd politicians can save us…
If you’re legislating that protection, you have to make those choices. He was being asked how he’d legislate that issue and he came down on the side of protecting life. Which is a completely defensible position.
It’s best not to dry hump political third rails and set your head on fire during an election season. Save that for January.
he wants to go back to the days where people were getting raped in back alleys all illegitimate-like and whatever
The fiend! Probably still thinks the Duke lacrosse team is innocent, too.
Right, but they confuse science with propaganda. They’re kinda stupid.
I’m going with “may not” which certainly colors my view of the whole mess. Even his most vehement defense which Jeff has linked above as evidentiary support of his argument tells us that: “I have yet to see a study that demonstrates some sort of contraceptive effect from a rape.” It is theoretical at the very best. So, to my mind, it looks like Akin has heard this and found it “too good to check” because it conforms with his position. That’s not reason. That is also blew up in his face is more a political problem than a rhetorical one, but again, shrugging off rape victims is just bad form and always will be.
It doesn’t and we shouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean we should be spouting any fool thing at any damn time either. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t worry about not handing them gifts like Akin did. This was not “I hope he fails.” This was dumb, dumb, dumb.
Me too. The best way to do that is to make good arguments and not dopey ones.
Maybe have the RNC make’m all use teleprompters with a centrally orchestrated scrip of talking points. Nice talking points. If they get off script, dump’em! Tell the voters he’s unacceptable and try again.
Better yet, just install the proper people from a centrally planned roster.
Conservatism! ducking it’s head in shame since 1987!
“Shrugging off” rape victims seems a little off base. As you accuse Akin of, possibly even correctly, you sound to be rationalizing for a previous stance.
If you can find any concern or compassion for the pregnant rape victim (if such a victim could even exist) in that scenario, you’re seeing something I do not see. What I see is “I’ve got bigger concerns than this possibly non-existent pregnant rape victim.”
It’s hard to make a good argument when the argument you want to make is prejudged, if not “dopey,” at least illegitimate. As for example when prefacing your answer (such as it is) to:
with:
Becomes “shrugging off rape victims,” and therefor dismissable as “dumb dumb dumb.”
On the other hand, one could also argue that, ignoring
because shrugging off rape babies is an example of smart politics because, well, rape babies aren’t real babies to anybody except lifeydoodle freaks, (obviously I have somebody else besides Pablo in mind here) doesn’t strike me as all that smart.
Unless, that is, we’ve decided to accept the terms of the debate as they have been framed for us because of concensus or something.
And that I think we can all agree is Fredo Corleone smart. Or even Frank Stallone smart.
Where’s the hypothetical victim in:
“Okay, so if an abortion can be considered in the case of, say, tubal pregnancy or something like that, what about in the case of rape?”
I see a policy question answered in terms of policy.
No, it’s the “that’s really rare” that does that, not slicing an ethical question. It suggests there’s not much reason to worry about them. And to the extent that he acknowledges their existence, he has nothing to say to them. Or, in the vernacular, he shrugs them off.
There’s no need to shrug either them or the babies off. You can explain that position without doing that. Which would be much better politics. And, given his longstanding pro-life stance, Akin ought to have had it figured out long before that question came his way.
No, we have to accept what it is that we’re doing when we’re campaigning. We’re talking to the public, much of which is not paying close attention, dumb, emotional or some combination of the above. We don’t need to accept the left’s frame, but we do need to be clear and we need to make good arguments. This should not be a surprise to anyone.
You can’t find the victim in that scenario? Really? What are we talking about again? Turnips? Or rape?
Exactly. That there is a rape victim is assumed, but the question was about abortion.
Unless you’re unwilling to assume Akin has sympathy for the rape victim.
The fiend.
There is no product of rape to abort unless it’s in a rape victim. Akin had no trouble finding her in his answer. She’s the one that has ways of fighting the little fella off, remember?
Jesus Christ, did I wander into Bizarro PW?
How many ‘rape babies’ do you suppose aren’t aborted because the victim is pro life?
Is urging an abortion under the circumstances sensitive to those rape victims?
Jesus Christ, did I wander into Bizarro PW?
I must have wandered in here with you, then.
No, and I would recommend against doing that on the campaign trail.
The only upside to this whole Akin debacle that I have been able to find is that it has made the Dems, in their haste to find new brushes to tar the Right with, double down on their “Free Abortions is Fundamental Right!!” rhetoric.
I fully expect them to run with this until it’s too late and they will end up losing heavily Catholic states like pivotal Ohio for doing so.
In an interview for Revealing Politics today, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus was asked, among other things, if the party’s position on Akin would eventually change if Akin refused to step out of the race:
The question is: “If he stays in, is your position eventually going to change? Are you going to have to support him? The Chairman replies “No, no. No. He could be tied. We’re not going to send him a penny.” That’s a pretty definitive answer. Priebus also states that stepping aside from the race and letting someone with a better chance of winning step in would be “putting [the] country first,” and implies that stepping aside is what someone would do if they “really did believe this is about liberty and freedom and the future of this country.”
“I just think that the people who want to do something special are always better than the people who want to be somebody special,” says the Chairman.
link
If Akin wins now, the RNC will really be in a pickle! They will have no influence over him.
It’s like they have a vested interest in him losing…
I don’t think they have a vested interest in him losing, Lee.
As I said above, Akin is forcing the DNC to take a position that can only help the RNC in the long run.
What would seem to be more telling Lee, is the party’s embrace of the likes of Charlie Crist, or the Maine twins, among many others who hold with nothing at all akin to republicanism under any reasonable interpretation of the notion. The very idea that their political views could stand outside the parameters of Republican thought cannot occur. Because: power.
Respectfully leigh, I don’t think you’re looking at it from the point of view of the ruling elite.
They hear the rumblings of a third party, and want no part of a grass roots revolution sweeping the election. The RNC will tell you who can win, so sit down and leave the driving to us…
Indeed sdferr, indeed.
Not to distract from the Ernst-and-Pablo show, but I want to touch back on a point that was raised a hundred comments earlier. sdferr said that the big mistake was using the word “legitimate”, with which I concur — that’s the thing that (iirc) initially sent the Left into a tizzy. “OMG! All rapes are legitimate! Republican WarOnWimmenz!”
Predictably.
The Right either saw this happen, or correctly predicted the reaction; not hard to do. Except that everyone understands that what he actually meant was “forcible”, as opposed to statutory, etc. Witness the “Hey, Paul Ryan, you’re probably in favor of forcible rape, but could you define it for us?” questions from the press shortly thereafter.
The thing I find interesting is that the Right, in “getting out in front of the story”, knew they couldn’t sell that form of outrage to their peeps — of course he meant ‘forcible’, and in any event there are ‘non-legitimate’ rapes, just ask those Duke boys — so they had to go Alinsky on his ass. Take the “ways to shut that down” out of the context of a statement that, on the whole, doesn’t seem especially outrageous (it’s not like he said “well, most victims of rape are poor and/or black, so who the fuck cares!”) and start an exciting little Twitter-storm of “OMG, this guy believes in magic twats! He’s teh dumbzorz!” style mockery.
I just think it’s mildly interesting that the Left and Right fixated on different aspects of “The Stupidest Thing Anyone’s Ever Said” as just targets for their Manufactured Outrage.
I don’t think you’re looking at it from the point of view of the ruling elite.
Yeah, probably not. I would have to agree with sdferr that it is all about power.
Or Arlen Specter. But hey, what’s Charlie up to these days? And Marco Rubio?
See, the RNC is finding that doesn’t fly any more. The natives are revolting. The Tea Party is winning elections…often against the RNC. The winds have changed.
“The winds have changed.”
I don’t know, but suspect such circumstances may have played a role in the departure of the Ohio Rep. Steven LaTourette, for one. There may well be such others I haven’t happened to have noticed.
Respectfully, I’d be more inclined to accept that your interpretation was the more correct one if the question had been personalized, e.g., “So [Kitty Dukakis can consider an abortion] in the case of, say, tubal pregnancy or something like that[.] What about in the case of rape? Should it be legal [for Kitty Dukakis to get an abortion] or not?”
Because I’m hearing relief that it’s unlikely that Kitty Dukakis or any other woman would become pregnant as the result of a violent sexual assault, because “that’s really rare,” and “this [is a] particularly tough sort of ethical question.”
And yes, that’s me giving Akin a charitable reading to which you aren’t inclined. But that reading, it seems to me is at least as preferable as dismissing Akin to a rhetorical fate of his own making because he failed to choose his words with more precision, which is where (again it seems to me) that you end up, whether or not that’s where you want to be.
I agree with you that he forgot his audience (having said as much myself) and is responsible for the confusion that his answer to the question has caused, which, as I’ve said, I believe is the result of Akin giving the reasons for his answer instead of his answer to the question about a rape exception. But here’s the thing about that:
Or, as I’d have put it, just because Politics ain’t beanbag, that doesn’t mean that the bastard asked for it, had it coming, and thus deserved it. Why do some people want to punish him with a tarry word-baby that he never wanted? He asked rhetorically.
Dick Lugar, Bob Bennett and Specter are big incumbent names. Murkowski damn near bought it, and had to leave the party to stay in. Then there’s the likes of Nikki Haley and Susanna Martinez in big state races. Why stop now?
Is it automatically groupthink when everyone has the same reaction to a particular stimulus? Do you suppose there were meetings where the position on Akin’s comment were mapped out or is it possible that the general reaction was more organic? Sure, the RNC had to figure out what it was going to do, as did the Romney campaign, but the rest of the right didn’t seem to need them to chime in to realize that Akin had screwed up. I know I figured it out as soon as I heard the clip.
Could be we’re in agreement but speaking to two different questions Pablo, I dunno. To me, Lugar, Bennett, Specter and other incumbents bodily tossed from office by primary voters are one sort of case. LaTourette walks away under his own steam, I think, and so constitutes a different kind of case. But the question I’d first broached addresses the party’s apparent indifference to taking up for itself, as a party, the question of nominal “ex-communication” on principled grounds, which in turns calls into question the party’s depth of adherence to any particular republican principle beyond others (just don’t get caught taking a wide stance, or the like, I guess).
The party has been less concerned with principle and more concerned with who’s in and who’s on the outside. Incumbency uber alles. They did that in our ’06 Senate primary, backing Lincoln Chaffee over Steve Laffey, a very popular mayor/businessman who could do math and balance a budget. What they got us was Senator Whitehouse. I could be mistaken, but I’m seeing less of that these days.
Thinking Akin screwed up: organic, not group think.
Thinking Akin’s screw-up is unacceptable, indefensible, and that he therefor has to go before he costs us not only Missouri, but quite possibly our shot at winning back control of the Senate, and even a shot at the White House itself: groupthink.
In my opinion.
I don’t think you are mistaken, for I too think I see incrementally less of plain old outright support for all and every incumbent. Baby steps, we might say.
The next question though, is whether the baby steps have come too late or are judged to be too insincere, too fundamentally unfounded, and the lot of us who may have heretofore been inclined to offer the Republican Party support head off in vast numbers post-election to form a new party worthy of our support, if only because we have made it and it can’t be otherwise.
I still won’t support the party. They’ve got an awfully long way to got and a lot to make up for before they’ll get my support. I’d be more inclined to support a third party if I didn’t think the odds of success so low. The Libertarians, theoretically, ought to have some electoral success. The Reform Party should have gotten somewhere. I’d like to be more hopeful about the prospect but I’m not. And I continue to wonder how, if we can’t fix a party, are we going to fix the country?
Did groupthink cost him 15 points? Or did screwing up do that?
There’s no guarantee that even having a super-majority in the Senate is going to get those humps in line and have them vote the way they should.
CJ Roberts was supposed to be Madison/Jefferson/Hamilton all returned to lead us to the promised land of judicial prudence.
Look how that turned out.
Roberts is an unholy fucking whore on the level of a Meghan’s coward daddy or a Crist
even Akin doesn’t rise to the level of these ones… he’s just dumb
Interesting observations John.
Be sure to tip your waitress
Heh Ernst. I was just heading to the betting windows.
I’d say scewing up cost him 5-7 points and groupthink cost him another 8-10.
Screwing up cost him some but dipshitthink by so-called pragmatists cost him a lot more.
so does the nrsc stop funding the pa senate race now?
“And I continue to wonder how, if we can’t fix a party, are we going to fix the country?”
I’m thinking.
(But not about Cold Harbor, or trench warfare.)
Maybe it’s
more akin (jesus, can’t escape it)closer to taking Baghdad and subduing Iraq by simply bypassing the cities on the route there? The partymen are the cities — we go around them, cutting them off, isolating them with their now useless holdings?I suspect you (both) overestimate the degree to which the average Joe even knows what the pragmatists were groupthinking. Most people are just not tuned in to that shit.
I say we storm the polls and take their stuff.
Exactly. And that would be the child he’s supposed to say it’s okay to kill.
Most people are just not tuned in to that shit.
post-it notes at the gas stations thanking baracky for $3.80 gas might work
Maybe. It’s entirely possible. But what then is the average Joe reacting to, what Akin said, or what’s been said about what Akin said?
the important thing is that Team R stand united on the principle of using the mechanisms of state to establish various bullshit religious doctrines as the Law Of Teh Land
this is how we will balance the budget cause fiscal policy and social policy are completely inextricable… it’s a thing
Who says he’s supposed to say that?
the important thing is that Team R stand united on the principle of using the mechanisms of state to establish various bullshit religious doctrines as the Law Of Teh Land
what’s your favorite kosher food?
Fuckin A, Bubba! Completely agree. 100 percent!
(missed that earlier)
THEY MUST! THERE IS NO WALKING BACK OR EXPLAINING OR EXPANDING OR CLARIFYING A SOUND BITE ONCE IT HAS BEEN UTTERED AND FROZEN IN TIME! WE MUST OBJECT IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS! WE MUST SHOW THAT WE DISAGREE, AND THE ONLY WAY TO DO THAT IS TO PUBLICLY CALL FOR HIS REMOVAL FROM THE RACE, A HALT ON HIS FUNDS, AND MAYBE SOME SOUNDBITES FROM THE RNC AND EVERY REPUBLICAN FROM PA EVER!
MY OUTRAGE MUST BE SATED!
What did he hear in those 3 days? He heard Akin, and he probably thought what just about everybody else thought. Maybe he heard that Romney asked him to drop. But what else is the 6:00 news covering? Rove? Tea Party Express? Priebus and the RNC? No.
My guess is that the vast majority of those who flipped on him just knew they didn’t like McCaskill before. Now they know they don’t like him either. So a clear anti-McCaskill preference becomes a clear anti-both of them preference.
Granted, I’m guessing here. I could be completely full of shit.
More than you’re prepared to admit. Or do you really think that the fuzzy headed, feel-good, pseudo-intellectual bullshit in which social policy seems inextricably mired doesn’t spill over into and contaminate fiscal policy?
If the NRSC is funding the PA Senate race, they’re wasting their money.
It follows. He says he’s inclined to punish the rapist. What he’s leaving unsaid is that he doesn’t want to punish the unborn child. With, you know, death.
Which isn’t as barbaric, we all know, as forcing women to carry a rape baby to term. Unless you’re the baby, I mean. Or a principled and consist pro-lifer wrestling with a difficult ethical question, and you have the temerity to do so in public, instead of just keeping your stupid Christian mouth shut and waiting until you’re already in to say what you believe.
Now, the courts overruling the will of the voters? Now that’s the way it should be. Because it gives us the gay marryings.
After all, those judges are wicked smart and the best of us. Except for the illegals who pick fruit and cabbage I mean. But that was understood.
what’s your favorite kosher food?
more on this later right now I’m looking for a travel rice cooker
this one seems to be the one most like how I would imagine one would look like – it’s very easy peasy japanesey looking, but I don’t think it has a brown rice setting
but hey it’s worth a shot I guess
Now, the courts overruling the will of the voters? Now that’s the way it should be.
that’s a Roberts thing he’s a big cowardly statist whore weirdo like John McCain and Mitt Romney
If the NRSC is funding the PA Senate race, they’re wasting their money.
yea because voter id is a drag on voter fraud?
I don’t think you’re completely full of shit. I think that’s close to right. I would add that Romney et. al. piling on probably acted to confirm in their minds that they were right not to like Akin either. So now it comes down to who do they dislike the least, and who’s reluctant supporters are the most disciplined about showing up in spite of it all.
And my guess is that is going to be the candidate who goes negative the hardest.
Hopefully somebody from Romney HQ is lurking.
Let me get this out here: Christians and other religious types reject the theory of evolution not out of ignorance but out of loyalty. All too many brainiacs have told them that they have to choose between God and Darwin, and if that’s the choice, they’ll stick with God, thank you very much, one being the Creator of the Universe and the other a mouldering corpse.
But again, if you understand it in terms of loyalty rather than intellect, that takes away the heady self-righteousness that comes from pounding those ignernt Christers into submission.
Have I told you lately that I love you, dicentra.
Awww damn it. happyfeet came back again?
as forcing women to carry a rape baby to term.
under sharia the woman needs 4? male witnesses to her rape. maybe someone can clarify that at the islam fest in charlotte.
Awww damn it. happyfeet came back again?
you don’t like the food reviews?
Romney didn’t “pile on” he’s the quasi-titular head of the party now – when the question comes up about whether or not Team R is the legitimate rape party, he doesn’t get to not have an opinion –
so he thought it over and decided that Akin Republicanism is incompatible with what Romney/Ryan Republicanism vaguely stands for
I’m sure he could’ve gone either way
No, no. Who is saying he’s supposed to say that killing the kid is cool?
ok with shipping the rice cooker came to about fiddy dollah, which is a lot for an appliance category notorious for not being very long-lived
but it’s more about having healthy foozle choices available than about value – it’d be nice though if healthy foozle choices and value were to get better acquainted but it’s a fallen world
so I’ll let you now if it works then that way at least if you ever want a travel rice cooker for to make brown rice you can at least buy one with confidence that it’ll do the job
or not
I think he decided that Akin
Republicanismwasn’t going to win the seat and that there were betteremployeescandidates available.Oh, we’re not going by inference, suddenly? I’m confused, because you had him “shrugging off rape victims” after having talked about the difficult ethical question at the heart of exceptions, while I had him not shrugging off rape babies in that same context.
One of the two is going to be implied in his answer.
Nuance!
happyfeet came back again
the skies above are clear again!
Yes, griefer. We must accept the left’s framing of the issue. Because marketing.
Staunch.
Or even someone from Akin HQ.
I think he decided that Akin wasn’t going to win the seat and that there were better candidates available.
or that. I’m certainly not he who is given to standing athwart Mr. Pablo’s lacerating perspicaciousness on matters Akin.
We must accept the left’s framing of the issue.
actually the right jumped out way way ahead of the left
the left’s narrative was that Akin was representative of Team R
Team R’s narrative was the fuck he is
I’m asking who is saying he should endorse killing the baby. That’s all. The answer to that question has at least one name in it. Or maybe it refers to a specific group of people. It isn’t an argument or a view of things.
Too bad it didn’t go the other way, then, since Akin’s failure to follow throws Romney’s leadership into question.
Live by what the mediacrats are going to say, die by what the mediacrats are going to say.
Akin’s failure to follow throws Romney’s leadership into question.
I thought Romney’s passionately 1500 shades of grey embrace of fascist health care insurance mandates plus socialist global warming dogma threw Romney’s leadership into question.
Which only serves to prove that the left is right, because COVER-UP!
fucking idiot
here she’s awesome and authoritative and blonde basically she says it’s likely I might have to use a bit less rice than the measuring cup what comes with the cooker will hold and add a bit more water, which means less rice but I figure I can cook rice ahead of when I’ll need it and just warm it up for a meal
And it worked, too, now that the left has given up on trying to tie Akin’s godbothery Christianity to the GOP. At least until some enterprising reporter notices that the GOP platform contains the pro life stance.
So, shhhh.
Wait, what?
Okay. half-idiot, or idiot savant
this once
Aside from Abe and happyfeet here, you mean? I’d say an awful lot of embarrassed non-social cons desirous of the social con vote.
But only rape babies and mother-will-die babies. The other kinds they’re against killing. Which is fortuitous, because that just happens to poll well.
the point is the government shouldn’t get involved in deciding about the rape baby killings – in this matter Mr. Mitt actually had the grace to acknowledge a limitation to State Authority
and that’s cause different people have different feelings about giving birth to kids whose daddies are rapey rapey rapists what raped them
it’s a thing
you just can’t have a one-size-fits-all policy on this sort of thing and call it America
Everyone demanding his resignation from the election because he DIDN’T say it…
OT: I bought another 400 rounds of .308 and another 150 rounds of 45 ACP from SGAmmo. I still don’t have a 1000 rounds of each, but I’m getting there (about 900 for the rifle and maybe 800 for the pistols). Also found a guy in Nashville selling 4 used SCAR mags for $31 each. Wound up costing me about $34 after shipping.
That gives me 8 20 round mags for the SCAR, 6 15 round mags for the FNP-45 Tac, and 5 12 round mags for the Taurus 24/77 45 Tac. I figure I’ll want to have maybe 20-30 mags for the SCAR and 10 or so for each of the pistols. But that’s a ways off.
Still. I’ve taken to putting a little bit of everything I sell off into ammo and mags and, over the next year, if I can pull it off, probably a shotgun, a second rifle, and maybe a 40 or 9mm subcompact carry piece (leaning Beretta P4 Storm), plus a .380 for my wife.
btw I got my California license today… or at least I’m officially waiting for it to come in the mail
so I’m a for reals official Californian now, kinda
it was either that or fly to texas and get a new texas one and in hindsight if I wanted to do that I shoulda done it when I went home for my sister’s wedding
sometimes you just have to bow to pragmatism
Thus, Akin must step aside…
Apparently it’s a thing where the opinions of people who think rape babies are no different from baby babies, and thus worthy of a better fate than a date with the medical waste incinerator, don’t count.
Different people have different feelings about killing babies, too. Also a thing.
And if it is indeed the killing of a life, then yes, the state normally does get involve. Also a thing.
That these are difficult questions that you continue to pretend can be cartooned into tacky Christianist questions says more about you than it does about those who take the ethical dilemma seriously. Which is why no one here cares a whit about your opinion on this subject. As I’m sure you’ve noticed.
And that even goes for those inclined to side with you.
and that’s cause different people have different feelings about giving birth to kids whose daddies are rapey rapey rapists what raped them
ax baracky’s muslim buds. dude it be choom.
Thus, Akin must step aside…
no Mr. Lee the policy what the Romney is embracing is that if you’re raped then what you do with the blessed issue of said rape is between you and your God
and I kinda love him for that, for certain values of love him
That’s very unsciencey of you Ernst. Of COURSE rape babies are different than baby babies. Sheesh!
Compare and contrast:
dumb, dumb dumb
NUANCE
these are difficult questions
for individuals to answer
not the state
it’s really that simple
No, it isn’t. It isn’t that simple at all if you consider it the murder of a child. In that case, you’d believe it immoral for the state not to step in.
Or is it only citizens the state should show compassion toward? And, you know, illegals who happened to make it out of mama’s hooha unscrambled?
Akin’s screwup was the trigger that caused a double-barrel blast of vitriol; of course we always expect such from the Left. What’s sad is that parallel vitriolic blast from those many nerveless, spineless sorts, many of them GOP ‘elitists’, who could but tag along, given their staunchlessness. They caved before they even considered the children.
And if those individuals can’t speak for themselves, jam something sharp in their soft spot!
Simple indeed.
no it’s totally that simple
God never wanted us to surrender our moral agency to a failshit joke like the US government
Just out of curiousity, have all of you guys always been pro-lifers or did that change when you had kids?
Absolutely no disrespect meant by this, but if you ever have the misfortune to find yourself in a situation where you’re going to cycle through that many mags, you’re in something you should have never gotten into in the first place, and you’ve already lost.
Unless your prepping for the Reavers landing in your backyard, I suppose. (But again, if you know the Reavers are going to land in your backyard, why are you still home?) Or reloading magazines at the range is too much of a bother.
My impression, for what it’s worth —weight in gold OR spit.
Jeff, you might think of buying your wife her pistol before you get more toys for yourself.
Just a helpful hint.
ammo is the same as currency in post-Obama America Mr. Ernst
Jeff describes himself as reluctantly pro-life.
I was life- excepting 3 (or whatever the shorthand was back in my college Republican days.
I’m life excepting 1 now. And it’s none of your damn business why.
reluctantly pro choice I meant.
Apologies to Jeff for the mischaracterization.
have all of you guys always been pro-lifers or did that change when you had kids?
never had kids never had wives never did the pervert lifestyle never did the xtianist thing but yea pro life hon. you gots to be morally stupid not to see it
I’m guessing that many on the Left (and ALL of the far-Left) could care less about having children, especially those who by choice (or perhaps they were born that way?) will never have any. To those, supporting abortion is as easy as flipping the bathroom light off after a contented crap. Nothing else matters, especially nascent life that hasn’t a vote.
And there’s billions and billions of people already! Al Gore says we must stop ruining Gaia! So, fellow Democrats, let’s abort all we can, go teh ghey, and SAVE THE WORLD~~!
loose/boxed ammo carries the same currency and doesn’t wear out your magazines.
I don’t need to know your reasons, Ernst. I was just curious.
1.2 million abortions a year happyfeet. Necessity or sickness?
I know! It’s ‘cuz of the insurance companies don’t provide birth control for free!
I was pro-choice when I was younger (1980s), and never thought of the baby as having any rights. I ignored the notion entirely. As I got older I became less so. Around 2000, I read a description of the average abortion and was horrified at the barbarism.
I now describe myself as reluctantly pro-choice, in that I’m not interested in making abortion illegal because, as the late Ric Locke noted, truly enforcing such a law would require a state that basically trampled all other rights of women (the state would have to routinely test for pregnancy, probably every month, etc).
I’ve been pro-Life probably since I figured out we all had souls, and purpose.
Of course if that’s not correct, then we are animals, and abortion is a correct tool that should be used with abandon. Because, animals.
“God never wanted us to surrender our moral agency to a failshit joke like the
.US governmentdemo/gop proggtard partyThat’s because God wants us to surrender our moral agency to Him.
Or did you miss that Sunday School lesson?
Patronizing/Condecension FULLY intended.
That sounds like me and my husband, too crank-y.
I know my kids are pro-choice—boys, anyway! They’ll grow out of it just like you did.
good point I guess
I don’t really imagine it’s very likely any of these post-Obama-America guns are going to actually be doing any shooting unless a tasty bunny hops by
I read about the Great Depression in school … it seems that sort of shared hardship creates no small amount of what Mr. sdferr sometimes calls “fellow feeling”
If you have to go years without being able to buy parts, extra magazines could be useful simply because the springs eventually wear out and have to be replaced.
Also, high-cap mags are great trading stock, especially if they are outlawed again (note that the last time they were outlawed, the law only applied to new manufacture, not older ones).
Plan for the worst.
No kids, but raised Catholic. I have no trouble with the death penalty though, since murderers get to choose to be murderers, while a blob of protoplasm is both innocent and helpless.
Necessity or sickness?
1.2 million abortions a year?
you’re looking at what happens when free people live as such
deal
Makes a lot of sense cranky. Value my objection: spit.
My plan for the worst doesn’t include zombies, because zombies aren’t real.
And people are dangerous enough.
zombies are just people reduced to unreasoning appetite
not unlike post-obama americans really
Once you decide that an unborn baby has no right to live, how much of a stretch is it to say the born ones don’t either? At what age does a person have a right to live? At what age does that right end?
I don’t think a million abortions per year is a sign of freedom. It’s a sign of sickness.
See, McGehee I don’t get where my boys are coming from with the pro-choice thing.
They’ve been raised Catholic and even went to parochial schools for a while.
I use the word zombies in place of the rioting masses. Those could easily be real enough.
Your boys are hoping they can get some of that sex stuff, and don’t want to have to be married to get it. Plus, they know babies are often the result, but babies also get in the way of fun fun fun.
1.2 million abortions a year?
how many negros?
Except for the people who aren’t allowed to live and don’t count as people anyway because it’s not like they’ve seen Glee or had lavender biscotti.
Rather than state my position howzabout this?
a) I understand the pro-abortion rights position just fine but I can’t understand those who treat abortion so glibly.
b) I understand pro-life positions just fine and wish more people who disagreed would make a good faith effort to understand their actual position on the matter.
My wife can use my pistols, or the tiny 9mm Browning my Dad owned.
I’m not buying toys. I’m buying insurance.
Ernst —
Mags wear out and yes, government does occasionally impose bans. In fact, they’re trying now to get capacity bans, and certain states already require smaller capacity or other modifications.
I don’t trust the bastards, so I’m getting ’em while I can.
You knew what I meant. She might like one of her very own.
We have an arsenal and I only have one hand gun that’s just mine.
There is an absolute collapse of faith in our systems and in the guy they helped put into office. These folks who were so quick to believe the press in ’08 and to believe in “hope and change” are now willfully believing the absolute worst. While I was getting my grey washed away I heard about local goings-on that I won’t write about here until I check it out for myself, because I don’t know what is real and what is paranoid fantasy or conspiracy theory. But the thing is, the anxiety is real, the doubt is real, as is the willingness to believe the absolute worst of all of our institutions — the press, the churches, the government. These folks are utterly convinced that the only thing that is going to be installed come next January is chaos and oppression. They’ll vote for Romney (“assuming there is an election and we’re allowed to vote and the vote is actually counted…”) simply because he’s not Obama, but they’re convinced that America’s best days are over.
“Soon, it’s going to be every man for himself, mark my words” said the salon owner. “I’m telling you, get a gun. Get a generator, now, because in six months you won’t be able to. Stock up.”
Honestly, what I thought was, “I need to get a new salon…” Because that was a miserable way to spend 90 minutes and my hard-earned cash.
When I met up with some friends later that weekend, one announced that her husband is talking about getting a gun, too. “I told him, over my dead body. He says he wants a rifle to go hunting! Please. This man doesn’t like to be outside, where there is dirt, now he wants to go hunting? Baloney. He thinks there is going to be some kind of revolution, and I’m saying, ‘what, you’re going to fend off revolution with a rifle you don’t know how to shoot and your barbecue grill?’ Everything is going to be fine. People need to calm down.”
So, let me ask you, readers — do you also “expect the crowd in power to destroy everything”? Are you arming yourselves, stocking up on food and buying generators? Or do you think everything is going to be fine, and we all need to take a breath?
Or are you, like me, just a tad wary but still hoping that the nation can pull itself together?
link
Late to the thread. What about plan b? Isn’t that the wonder drug we just had to have? Make that part of the rape kit.
Or are you, like me, just a tad wary but still hoping that the nation can pull itself together?
karltherovester hears you. you go mush head middle grrl!!11!!
Ru-486 is part of a rape kit offering if you choose it, charles.
That actually points to my problem with the whole “zombie apocalypse” thing. Everybody seems to have their own definition of zombies.
In your example cranky, I’d say that rioters, unlike zombies, are amenable to persuasion
in the caliber/guage of your choice.
Your definition of people isn’t the same as mine. I think a fetus has a right to their life as an individual, same as you. Forcible rape aside, there are ways women can avoid washing their eggs in sperm, you know?
Responsibility is a bitch, I know, but you can’t have a really free society without it.
leigh, I think that’s the answer. Like many I am reluctantly pro choice, but I also think abortion as birth control is wrong.
mush head middle girrl!!11!’s faith is in a higher power.
Either way, she’ll be fine.
I kind of envy her that courage actually.
What about plan b?
yes let us eliminate reality like the proggtards. that black gang didn’t attack white peeps, those muslim aren’t in favor of world wide islam domination. keep the delusion going peeps.
newrouter, No delusion here. My mother was raped as a young woman. She was put into a convent and put the baby up for adoption. She was made to feel that it was her fault. Her life was hell and she moved away from home in shame. Had there have been a pill she could have taken to avoid her pregnancy she might have had more self asteem and might have been able to put that part of her life behind her. To this day she is bitter about what happend to her. I may not be as smart as you but I am realistic. In other words fuck you.
That’s awful, charles. I’m so sorry your mother had to go through that.
In other words fuck you.
Word.
Thanks leigh .
I don’t mind the food reviews so much except that everyone else here is less horrible and still capable of talking about food.