The Conservative War On Women

Kier wrote:

I think it might be worthwhile to point out that the problem is not all conservatives. Just the fringe group that seems to have way too much power over the republicans.

Not so fringe. This piece from The Onion puts it in the proper perspective.

Paleocon wrote:
Kier wrote:

I think it might be worthwhile to point out that the problem is not all conservatives. Just the fringe group that seems to have way too much power over the republicans.

Not so fringe. This piece from The Onion puts it in the proper perspective.

Exactly, not fringe at all. When Gingrich and Santorum are winning primaries there's no excusing these people as a minority. If they are a minority than the reasonable minded majority is lazy and letting them run things anyway.

Kier wrote:

I think it might be worthwhile to point out that the problem is not all conservatives. Just the fringe group that seems to have way too much power over the republicans.

That outsize power (and consequent mainstreaming) of the previously right-wing fringe has been enabled by the gerrymandered legislative districts covering most of our country.

If there's no meaningful competition between two-or-more political parties for a seat, the loonies can seize power by running (or threatening to run) fringe candidates. Incumbents have to then either tack away from the political center, or risk being outflanked. Either way, the center ends up progressively eroded and unstable.

gregrampage wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Kier wrote:

I think it might be worthwhile to point out that the problem is not all conservatives. Just the fringe group that seems to have way too much power over the republicans.

Not so fringe. This piece from The Onion puts it in the proper perspective.

Exactly, not fringe at all. When Gingrich and Santorum are winning primaries with single-digit percentages of the population at large voting for them there's no excusing these people as a minority. If they are a minority than the reasonable minded majority is lazy and letting them run things anyway.

I dunno. Statistically, winning a primary don't mean diddly-squat. It means that a slightly less small number of people voted for you than for the other guys.

Jonman wrote:
gregrampage wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Kier wrote:

I think it might be worthwhile to point out that the problem is not all conservatives. Just the fringe group that seems to have way too much power over the republicans.

Not so fringe. This piece from The Onion puts it in the proper perspective.

Exactly, not fringe at all. When Gingrich and Santorum are winning primaries with single-digit percentages of the population at large voting for them there's no excusing these people as a minority. If they are a minority than the reasonable minded majority is lazy and letting them run things anyway.

I dunno. Statistically, winning a primary don't mean diddly-squat. It means that a slightly less small number of people voted for you than for the other guys.

Hence the lazy part.

Dimmerswitch wrote:
Kier wrote:

I think it might be worthwhile to point out that the problem is not all conservatives. Just the fringe group that seems to have way too much power over the republicans.

That outsize power (and consequent mainstreaming) of the previously right-wing fringe has been enabled by the gerrymandered legislative districts covering most of our country.

If there's no meaningful competition between two-or-more political parties for a seat, the loonies can seize power by running (or threatening to run) fringe candidates. Incumbents have to then either tack away from the political center, or risk being outflanked. Either way, the center ends up progressively eroded and unstable.

I'm not sure I buy it.

The Democratic party has tacked consistently toward the right since the Reagan Era in spite of safe congressional seats. The fringe phenomenon has largely been a Republican phenomenon.

gregrampage wrote:
Jonman wrote:
gregrampage wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Kier wrote:

I think it might be worthwhile to point out that the problem is not all conservatives. Just the fringe group that seems to have way too much power over the republicans.

Not so fringe. This piece from The Onion puts it in the proper perspective.

Exactly, not fringe at all. When Gingrich and Santorum are winning primaries with single-digit percentages of the population at large voting for them there's no excusing these people as a minority. If they are a minority than the reasonable minded majority is lazy and letting them run things anyway.

I dunno. Statistically, winning a primary don't mean diddly-squat. It means that a slightly less small number of people voted for you than for the other guys.

Hence the lazy part.

It could just be that they don't want to vote for any of the candidates running, or are not all that eager to get rid of Obama since he's politically where the Republicans were a few decades years ago.

Stengah wrote:
gregrampage wrote:
Jonman wrote:
gregrampage wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Kier wrote:

I think it might be worthwhile to point out that the problem is not all conservatives. Just the fringe group that seems to have way too much power over the republicans.

Not so fringe. This piece from The Onion puts it in the proper perspective.

Exactly, not fringe at all. When Gingrich and Santorum are winning primaries with single-digit percentages of the population at large voting for them there's no excusing these people as a minority. If they are a minority than the reasonable minded majority is lazy and letting them run things anyway.

I dunno. Statistically, winning a primary don't mean diddly-squat. It means that a slightly less small number of people voted for you than for the other guys.

Hence the lazy part.

It could just be that they don't want to vote for any of the candidates running, or are not all that eager to get rid of Obama since he's politically where the Republicans were a few decades years ago.

Huntsman wasn't so bad. I'm guessing there were others early on.

I'll give you the Obama part though.

Paleocon wrote:
Dimmerswitch wrote:

That outsize power (and consequent mainstreaming) of the previously right-wing fringe has been enabled by the gerrymandered legislative districts covering most of our country.

If there's no meaningful competition between two-or-more political parties for a seat, the loonies can seize power by running (or threatening to run) fringe candidates. Incumbents have to then either tack away from the political center, or risk being outflanked. Either way, the center ends up progressively eroded and unstable.

I'm not sure I buy it.

The Democratic party has tacked consistently toward the right since the Reagan Era in spite of safe congressional seats. The fringe phenomenon has largely been a Republican phenomenon.

This is because the Democrats don't have major news corporations backing astroturf campaigns to outflank their candidates on the left.

Stengah wrote:
gregrampage wrote:
Jonman wrote:
gregrampage wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Kier wrote:

I think it might be worthwhile to point out that the problem is not all conservatives. Just the fringe group that seems to have way too much power over the republicans.

Not so fringe. This piece from The Onion puts it in the proper perspective.

Exactly, not fringe at all. When Gingrich and Santorum are winning primaries with single-digit percentages of the population at large voting for them there's no excusing these people as a minority. If they are a minority than the reasonable minded majority is lazy and letting them run things anyway.

I dunno. Statistically, winning a primary don't mean diddly-squat. It means that a slightly less small number of people voted for you than for the other guys.

Hence the lazy part.

It could just be that they don't want to vote for any of the candidates running, or are not all that eager to get rid of Obama since he's politically where the Republicans were a few decades years ago.

As an 80's era Republican, this is pretty much where I am.

Tanglebones wrote:
DanB wrote:
Seth wrote:

Masturbation is a perfect example. My point with that unsourced statement above was to throw a bit of water on the "sex has consequences" crowd. If it can be accepted that sex is fun for its own sake, I think it delegitimizes in some way that argument.

In other words, people dont have sex to make babies, rather babies are the ocassional result of sex. Looked at like that, it seems dishonest to tie them inextricably. One could also say that people don't drive cars to run over pedestrians, rather pedestrians getting run over are the ocassional result of driving. I think I am repeating someone else's rhetoric, though, and there's is likely better than mine. :)

Yeah I was trying to form a similar argument but I can provide a reference: the book Sex At Dawn
http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Dawn-Prehi...

IIRC one of the stats in there is that current estimates are that humans are typically having sex between 300 and 600 times for every live birth. Animals that only have sex for procreation's sake typically have sex only a couple of times per birth. So in humans birth is actually a fairly rare consequence of sexual activity. Although it's not proof it certainly suggests that sex's principle, day-to-day role for humans is not procreation.

How is that, btw? (sorry for derail) It's on my wishlist, but I haven't grabbed it yet.

To briefly continue this derail: I really enjoyed it, it's full of fascinating information and I think their overall all argument is pretty strong and I would definitely recommend it. That said they don't do a very good job of laying out the their point very explicitly at either the start or the end and some of the argumentation in places is a little screwy. I forget where it was in the book but I do remember noticing that some of their critiques of about other's points were equally applicable to their own points.

The Republicans don't just call, they raise:

Senate Republicans push to let any employer deny coverage for any health service on 'moral' grounds.

So they seem to be fully supportive of a Muslim employer refusing to let his female employees be seen by male doctors.

Malor wrote:

The Republicans don't just call, they raise:

Senate Republicans push to let any employer deny coverage for any health service on 'moral' grounds.

So they seem to be fully supportive of a Muslim employer refusing to let his female employees be seen by male doctors.

**insert sad commentary about how the KKK and other misogynist/racist members can finally and legally discriminate again when those members are in corporate powers of position**

Podunk wrote:
I wonder, though, if there actually is some ethically valid anti-abortion argument that can be made. I am skeptical that there is, but I will attempt to do so; if, even when given a generous set of premises, the argument is of little value, we can perhaps conclude that the whole anti-abortion movement really is pure sexism.

There are valid anti-abortion arguments that don't fall back on religion. The central issue is personal rights: at what point does a fetus become a person who is granted the inalienable right to life? There is really no one point in the continuum of human development at which we can conclusively say that personhood is achieved. We have only arbitrary points that we superimpose on the continuum: first trimester, viability outside the womb, and so on. The only point that is not arbitrary is conception, so some people feel (I'm one of them) that until we have some way to definitively scientifically identify when a fetus becomes a human person, conception is the only safe, logical place to begin. There are a lot of arguments to be had from that point regarding how we prioritize the rights of the mother versus the rights of the unborn child. Some of these are discussed in articles like this: http://www.l4l.org/library/abor-rts.... There's too much reverence toward Ayn Rand and Libertarian principles, but it's an example of how one can arrive at an anti-abortion position through secular reasoning.

So, Ayn Rand aside, if we accept that there is probably a non-sexist argument to be made for disallowing abortion (even if few have actually made it), it seems possible to me that the people we're discussing are both anti-abortion AND anti-women, rather than being anti-abortion BECAUSE they're anti-women. They are simply incapable of articulating an anti-abortion argument divorced from the whole slut-shaming angle because that is sort of how sexism works.

KrazyTacoFO wrote:
Malor wrote:

The Republicans don't just call, they raise:

Senate Republicans push to let any employer deny coverage for any health service on 'moral' grounds.

So they seem to be fully supportive of a Muslim employer refusing to let his female employees be seen by male doctors.

**insert sad commentary about how the KKK and other misogynist/racist members can finally and legally discriminate again when those members are in corporate powers of position**

Seems like an extremist, poorly thought out and easily abused policy.

Someone should explain to the senate pubs that they don't have to mirror *everything* the White House does

Malor wrote:

The Republicans don't just call, they raise:

Senate Republicans push to let any employer deny coverage for any health service on 'moral' grounds.

So they seem to be fully supportive of a Muslim employer refusing to let his female employees be seen by male doctors.

Well, I find most Republican political platforms these days utterly immoral, so I need to start me a business and start denying care.

Someone should explain to the senate pubs that they don't have to mirror *everything* the White House does

So, somehow, this is all Obama's fault?

Your team can't be doing sh*tty stuff because they're wrong, they have to be doing sh*tty stuff because the other side forces them to?

Sounds like an abusive husband blaming his wife's behavior.

Seems pretty reasonable that without the original bad policy the knee jerk reaction bad policy wouldn't have been introduced.

giving women access to birth control is bad policy now?

NormanTheIntern wrote:

Seems pretty reasonable that without the original bad policy the knee jerk reaction bad policy wouldn't have been introduced.

Do you mean the "bad policy" that was already in force in 28 states, including such liberal bastions as Arizona, Montana, Iowa and Georgia?

Ok, so, the Democrats have made a policy proposal the Republicans don't like. Here are two possible responses:

1. No, we don't think it seems reasonable at all, and we won't support those changes.
2. f*ck you, and because of your hubris in making that terrible suggestion, here's a counter idea: let's be absolutely vile to women.

If you actually think #2 is "pretty reasonable", well, I dunno what to tell you. From this perspective, #1 would have been the adult thing to do, and #2 is something you'd expect from a spoiled teenager.

And blaming the Democrats for Republican policy proposals is f*cking ridiculous. They're not even adult enough to own their own behavior? They're controlled, like puppets, by the Democrats?

Might I suggest you choose new leadership, ones that can actually decide for themselves what to do?

NormanTheIntern wrote:

Seems pretty reasonable that without the original bad policy the knee jerk reaction bad policy wouldn't have been introduced.

I'd love to hear you flesh this out a bit.

What do you think is the original bad policy here, and how do you see the GOP policy being a response to the White House one? Additionally, what role (if any) do you believe was played by the compromise suggested by the White House?

NormanTheIntern wrote:

Seems pretty reasonable that without the original bad policy the knee jerk reaction bad policy wouldn't have been introduced.

Everyone else has already covered how this doesn't apply in this situation but this logic in general is...disturbing. There's no excuse for introducing bad policy. Ever.

I'm going to play devil's advocate here for a moment, and since the GWJ crew seems to be pretty level headed, maybe you guys can help me work through a few things.

I'm pretty involved as a volunteer with my local Catholic parish and school. My family are all very devout Catholics and my wife used to work for a Catholic school. Now, I personally am not against contraception (I am not a big fan of abortion for any reason except to save the life of the mother or rape/incest but that's another thread). However, I'm also seeing a lot of people in the Catholic community feeling absolutely attacked and marginalized by a government trying to ram something they find repugnant down their throats. This is less of a "slut shaming" or "anti woman" initiative as it is the feeling that the government is oversteping its bounds. Giving religious organizations an exemption in truth hurts nobody. Contraception will still be relatively cheap and available. Employees who feel that working for a Catholic institution is constricting their rights can always leave and go work elsewhere.

However, if the government can basically threaten and bully a very large segment of the community on one issue, where does it end? What if the next Republican president is a religious zealot and decides to withold federal funding to any state that legalizes gay marriage? Obama is setting a rather dangerous precedent here. I'm a big fan of the separation of church and state, and in this case it's pretty clear the state's coming over and legislating what people are supposed to believe.

jdzappa wrote:

I'm going to play devil's advocate here for a moment, and since the GWJ crew seems to be pretty level headed, maybe you guys can help me work through a few things.

I'm pretty involved as a volunteer with my local Catholic parish and school. My family are all very devout Catholics and my wife used to work for a Catholic school. Now, I personally am not against contraception (I am not a big fan of abortion for any reason except to save the life of the mother or rape/incest but that's another thread). However, I'm also seeing a lot of people in the Catholic community feeling absolutely attacked and marginalized by a government trying to ram something they find repugnant down their throats. This is less of a "slut shaming" or "anti woman" initiative as it is the feeling that the government is oversteping its bounds. Giving religious organizations an exemption in truth hurts nobody. Contraception will still be relatively cheap and available. Employees who feel that working for a Catholic institution is constricting their rights can always leave and go work elsewhere.

However, if the government can basically threaten and bully a very large segment of the community on one issue, where does it end? What if the next Republican president is a religious zealot and decides to withold federal funding to any state that legalizes gay marriage? Obama is setting a rather dangerous precedent here. I'm a big fan of the separation of church and state, and in this case it's pretty clear the state's coming over and legislating what people are supposed to believe.

For me it appears to be the hypocrisy of the thing: You have the dogma and leadership of the Roman Catholic Church basically saying "Contraception is against God's wishes, don't use it" and then the rank-and-file members of the same church overwhelmingly saying "It's not that big of a deal, I choose to use contraception regardless of what the Church says." Yet these same rank-and-file members are now complaining that these Catholic institutions will have to pay for that same contraception for it's Catholic and non-Catholic employees. Frankly it's like they are talking out of both sides of their mouth, somehow wanting to hold up the Catholic church for it's beliefs while at the same thinking that it is ok for them to personally ignore those same beliefs they say are so important.

jdzappa wrote:

I'm a big fan of the separation of church and state, and in this case it's pretty clear the state's coming over and legislating what people are supposed to believe.

No. They're legislating what benefits employers are allowed to withhold from their employees, not what those catholic employers are allowed to believe.

Making catholic employers provide health insurance that includes contraception is no more unreasonable than making a Muslim employer provide health insurance that allows gender mixing, or a Christian Scientist employer provide health insurance that covers modern medicine.

Of course, their religious beliefs wouldn't be an issue if employers got out of providing health insurance, and you moved to something sensible like universal health care, but as long as you've got your current system, the government setting a minimum standard is entirely resonable.

The only difference here is that a bunch of reactionary disgusting old men don't consider contraceptives to fall under the minimum standard, and have a big bully pulpet to trumpet their stone age beliefs from, and there aren't enough people that consider stigmatizing women for being in control of their own sexuality creepy and ass-backwards to shame them back into their hole.

Malor wrote:

And blaming the Democrats for Republican policy proposals is f*cking ridiculous. They're not even adult enough to own their own behavior? They're controlled, like puppets, by the Democrats?

So, as I said, the amendment is bad legislation and the people who support it are wrong. Full stop. It's also true that they didn't wake up one day and feel like proposing it. It's an attempt to protect religious organizations from a percieved threat. White House policy isn't to blame for this, but it was the catalyst.

MacBrave wrote:

For me it appears to be the hypocrisy of the thing: You have the dogma and leadership of the Roman Catholic Church basically saying "Contraception is against God's wishes, don't use it" and then the rank-and-file members of the same church overwhelmingly saying "It's not that big of a deal, I choose to use contraception regardless of what the Church says." Yet these same rank-and-file members are now complaining that these Catholic institutions will have to pay for that same contraception for it's Catholic and non-Catholic employees. Frankly it's like they are talking out of both sides of their mouth

I'm not sure it's fair to consider responses based on principle "hypocrisy". Many people would not have an abortion but are pro-choice for the same reason.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:

The only difference here is that a bunch of reactionary disgusting old men don't consider contraceptives to fall under the minimum standard, and have a big bully pulpet to trumpet their stone age beliefs from, and there aren't enough people that consider stigmatizing women for being in control of their own sexuality creepy and ass-backwards to shame them back into their hole.

It's clear from the above that you don't have much respect for organized religion, which is perfectly okay for a dude on the internet, but politically not okay for a President. And the underlying message sent by the original policy was marginalizing and disrespectful towards churches and religious people. Politically speaking, regardless of how much you hate religion, if you want to see another Obama term you'd better get behind the compromise, because this guy pulled more than half the catholic vote, without which he can say goodbye to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, maybe even Michigan.

NormanTheIntern wrote:
MacBrave wrote:

For me it appears to be the hypocrisy of the thing: You have the dogma and leadership of the Roman Catholic Church basically saying "Contraception is against God's wishes, don't use it" and then the rank-and-file members of the same church overwhelmingly saying "It's not that big of a deal, I choose to use contraception regardless of what the Church says." Yet these same rank-and-file members are now complaining that these Catholic institutions will have to pay for that same contraception for it's Catholic and non-Catholic employees. Frankly it's like they are talking out of both sides of their mouth

I'm not sure it's fair to consider responses based on principle "hypocrisy". Many people would not have an abortion but are pro-choice for the same reason.

The hypocrisy macBrave points out is one of the Church generally. The leaders are screaming about something their congregatiion has no problem with. The hypocrisy comes from the failure of the congregation to keep their out of touch leaders...in touch.

I think, anyway. My apologies, MacBrave, if I misinterpreted.