The Conservative War On Women

Nevin73 wrote:
Jonman wrote:
realityhack wrote:

In a secular country is it really too much to ask that public health policy be based on facts about public health instead of religions panic?

Your problem there is in assuming that the US is a secular country.

I mean, on paper, it is. In the minds of some of it's ignorant and crazy citizens? Not so much.

FTFY

This isn't a secular country. It's supposed to be but it isn't. And, honestly, people who say this is a secular country are the ignorant ones.

Benjamin Franklin wrote:

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble.

Jonman wrote:

Say what you like about 'em, it don't make 'em any less a citizen than you, pal.

It does however demonstrate that they are ignorant.

The US is one of very few countries that on paper has a secular government. And yet we yap about god in our legislatures more than most of the rest combined.
The grave danger is not just to other religions. The destruction of the wall between church and state by those to ignorant to understand it's function may well bite them back in a way they never imagined.

Abstinence only education, denial of basic health services, creationism in the curriculum, letting people off for killing their children because of religious conviction, second class status for non-heterosexuals.
A war on women in an effort to put us back in the 1600s.

The issue is that willful ignorance, or ignorance born of a twisted religious education, is resulting in people trying to turn their private choices into public policy. Frankly it scares the crap out of me.

realityhack wrote:
Jonman wrote:

Say what you like about 'em, it don't make 'em any less a citizen than you, pal.

It does however demonstrate that they are ignorant.

The US is one of very few countries that on paper has a secular government. And yet we yap about god in our legislatures more than most of the rest combined.
The grave danger is not just to other religions. The destruction of the wall between church and state by those to ignorant to understand it's function may well bite them back in a way they never imagined.

Abstinence only education, denial of basic health services, creationism in the curriculum, letting people off for killing their children because of religious conviction, second class status for non-heterosexuals.
A war on women in an effort to put us back in the 1600s.

The issue is that willful ignorance, or ignorance born of a twisted religious education, is resulting in people trying to turn their private choices into public policy. Frankly it scares the crap out of me.

And they would be in a twist if, say, Buddhism and its tenets were suddenly the state-mandated religion and law.

Demosthenes wrote:

And they would be in a twist if, say, Buddhism and its tenets were suddenly the state-mandated religion and law. :P

Don't have the link at hand but there was a recent blowup when someone realized that letting vouchers pay for christian schools also meant it could pay for Muslim schools.

Honestly though I think the real danger is the ultra-conservative super hypocritical evangelical movement that might end up making people suffer the most.
A lot of religious people are in favor of birth control. Many have had premarital sex, abortions, divorces, and are ok with other people being non-hetorsexual, teaching evolution, set theory, and geology.

They are even (gasp) just fine with women working.

Their failure to aggressively counter the fringe lends it power in pretend numbers, political clout, and tacit approval of their insane addenda. They are going to be just as screwed as everyone else as these policies continue to roll forward.

I think it is vital to show people in that position that they can choose their own religion, and also choose to have a secular government that acknowledges not everyone thinks exactly like them, and that is ok.

That's a pretty well phrased insight, reality. I've yet to meet a conservative in real life who actually agrees with the Brand Crazy that hate groups like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council are slinging, yet I've also yet to meet a conservative Christian loudly denouncing their actions.

Seth wrote:

That's a pretty well phrased insight, reality. I've yet to meet a conservative in real life who actually agrees with the Brand Crazy that hate groups like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council are slinging, yet I've also yet to meet a conservative Christian loudly denouncing their actions.

Majority privilege? Muslims have to denounce, personally, the actions of the extremist few. Christians, meanwhile, assume no one would think worse of them while these idiotic jerkwads run around spewing hateful, bigoted nonsense. Maybe it's just that they perceive themselves as different, and no one is too up-at-arms in the public eye trying to link them all together.

oh for sure it's a symptom of the privileged class. We never consider horrible actions to be indicative of the group, even when the horrible actors invoke the size of the group.

Obviously this is normal for the privileged class. As members of the privileged class people have the option of not speaking out where they would not if they were a non-privileged class. Unfortunately ignorance of this mechanism puts us all in danger. If privileged classes don't stand up to the extremist elements inside them... well all it takes for evil to triumph...

I denounce the horrible things this society and in particular it's men are doing to women and women's rights. It is deplorable. I speak out against it here, and in person. And I act on it wither through example, intervention, open discussion, voting, or donations.

On another note:

Unfortunately I do not have time to read through 99 pages of history. Hopefully this is not a duplicate post
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzxU2...

realityhack wrote:

The US is one of very few countries that on paper has a secular government. And yet we yap about god in our legislatures more than most of the rest combined.

The issue is that willful ignorance, or ignorance born of a twisted religious education, is resulting in people trying to turn their private choices into public policy. Frankly it scares the crap out of me.

It's almost as if... when you set up a system where people are "career politicians" who have to get re-elected every few years that they tend to say and do things that appeal to the popular opinion at the time in their districts and focus on quick, hot button issues instead of substantive policy.

I'm shocked I tell you, shocked.

bandit0013 wrote:

It's almost as if... when you set up a system where people are "career politicians" who have to get re-elected every few years that they tend to say and do things that appeal to the popular opinion at the time in their districts and focus on quick, hot button issues instead of substantive policy.

I'm shocked I tell you, shocked.

I think it has more to do with our culture. It isn't like other countries with at least somewhat better treatment of women don't have carer politicians that need to get elected.
It's just that the general population would react quite differently to what our politicians try to do.

Also, I do not think the most recent wave of insane right wing candidates aren't actually all that worried about re-election. The long term republicans as bad as they are on women's issues think the 'tea party' approach of no compromise on anything ever, and super extreme legislation that angers a vast majority of the population is a long term looser.

The real issue is... how do you change the popular opinion. That type of change has been the leading element of a lot of social changes.

Which countries are you referring to?

I think several European countries could be said to have a better current situation for women than we do. And they have politicians.
I admit I can't point to a nice concise source with neat ranking on all kinds of women's issues. But I don't think the US is the worlds shining star.

realityhack wrote:

I think several European countries could be said to have a better current situation for women than we do. And they have politicians.
I admit I can't point to a nice concise source with neat ranking on all kinds of women's issues. But I don't think the US is the worlds shining star.

Wasn't suggesting that the US is. But many European countries assign political seats by % of vote and thus avoid the 2 party system we have here.

*edit

Which isn't so much changing popular opinion, because I honestly rarely meet people who agree with more than half of their "party's platform". A lot of seats at the table are marginalized by only have red or blue to choose from.

bandit0013 wrote:

Which isn't so much changing popular opinion, because I honestly rarely meet people who agree with more than half of their "party's platform". A lot of seats at the table are marginalized by only have red or blue to choose from.

I think that is exactly what I was trying to get at. Even with proportional voting you still see any strongly anti-female parties marginalized to the point they not only can't get anything through but that their stance is a liability limiting their popularity.
Here regardless of a two party system it appears that being anti-woman is not a substantial liability or regardless of party people would change their stance to win.

It seems to me that we have a massive voting block in the US that will vote for candidates other countries citizens would not take seriously and who might in a proportional voting system get a single seat.

And I trace that to our culture. Our views toward women and sexuality. Politicians can say things here that appeal to a wide base where the same statement would alienate almost everyone in other countries.

"While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian." - George Washington
"Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual. ... Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us." - John Hancock
"And as it is our duty to extend our wishes to the happiness of the great family of man, I conceive that we cannot better express ourselves than by humbly supplicating the Supreme Ruler of the world that the rod of tyrants may be broken to pieces, and the oppressed made free again; that wars may cease in all the earth, and that the confusions that are and have been among nations may be overruled by promoting and speedily bringing on that holy and happy period when the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and all people everywhere willingly bow to the sceptre of Him who is Prince of Peace." - Samuel Adams
“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus....I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." - Thomas Jefferson

Why does everyone think the founding fathers were demi-gods?

The very specifically put together a secular government regardless of personal views. They saw serious danger in the mixing of religion and public policy even for those who's own religion was a clear motivating factor in their lives. Nobody can claim every famous person during that period is in their 'camp' religiously. Even amongst those who were, some viewed religion very differently than today's evangelicals.
Furthermore it doesn't matter. While people virtually deify them the reality is they were just the best politicians (and some of the best thinkers) available at the time. The built in a system for changing the constitution specifically because they KNEW they were fallible. Things were a lot different prior to the 14th amendment.

Also... isn't this thread about the conservative war on women? We have no way of reliably guessing how the founding fathers would react to the world today. But the brightest minds today can easily see that conservatives are attacking women's rights across the board. And that this is unacceptable.

Macbrave makes a food point. Like the Bible, the founding of America is disparate enough that it supports multiple conclusions.

“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus....I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." - Thomas Jefferson

This was mocking Christians of the time (and is equally appropriate today) for being Christian, but not Christ-like. The guy also wrote his own version of the Bible where he removed all divinity from Christ, all miracles, the virgin birth, etc... and considered it better basically as a good foundation for moral teachings, rather than religious belief.

Seth wrote:

Macbrave makes a food point. Like the Bible, the founding of America is disparate enough that it supports multiple conclusions.

Except one where the founders wanted a state-empowered religion right? Because... the First Amendment kind of suggests otherwise.

If that was Macbrave's point, I withdraw my comment... I thought he was just pointing out that not all founding members were anti Christian.

Seth wrote:

If that was Macbrave's point, I withdraw my comment... I thought he was just pointing out that not all founding members were anti Christian.

I don't know if that was his point, but it's a conclusion many people in the Christian Right like to draw with those same quotes. I really don't get where the whole religious nation idea comes from, personally. The very first amendment to the consitution was to specifically keep our government (or at least its laws and enforcement of those laws) as secular to avoid having any religion outweighing other religions. Checkmate is automatically established there... and yet... the other side want to keep playing after the king is down.

Not just the first amendment. The body has the religious test clause and the intentionally left references to god or a creator out.

Wait... weren't we talking about women's rights at some point here? I keep getting distracted.

I guess the right wing does use the 'christian nation' myth to promote some horribly sexist religions. So there is some relationship but unless I am missing something everyone agrees that despite common practice the US was intended to be secular.

Among all the other wonderful things it did the red scare really amped up this can of turds.

Seth wrote:

Macbrave makes a food point. Like the Bible, the founding of America is disparate enough that it supports multiple conclusions.

That is the point I was trying to make. Many of the founding fathers were individuals of faith although they believed that government should be secular, as do I.

http://www.npr.org/2013/04/30/180131...

I wonder if this is the first case in 99 pages of it being a D rather than an R.

On of the many things I disagree with President Obama on.

BTW that link no longer works. I think they renamed the story or something.

Edwin wrote:

http://www.npr.org/2013/04/30/180131...

I wonder if this is the first case in 99 pages of it being a D rather than an R.

I think the article is here now:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...

It doesn't surprise me that if it is the first case, it's a case regarding not just women's rights, but children's rights.

article wrote:

Half the nation's pregnancies every year are unintended

wha..bu...an....I'm just gonna slowly back away from that quote now.

krev82 wrote:
article wrote:

Half the nation's pregnancies every year are unintended

wha..bu...an....I'm just gonna slowly back away from that quote now.

I'll be honest, I'm not really surprised. Hell, even my own parents have implied that I was an accident.

Xeknos wrote:
krev82 wrote:
article wrote:

Half the nation's pregnancies every year are unintended

wha..bu...an....I'm just gonna slowly back away from that quote now.

I'll be honest, I'm not really surprised. Hell, even my own parents have implied that I was an accident.

As someone whose parents have different surnames on my birth certificate and whose sister was also an accident, I can say this wouldn't surprise me in the least.

Xeknos wrote:
krev82 wrote:
article wrote:

Half the nation's pregnancies every year are unintended

wha..bu...an....I'm just gonna slowly back away from that quote now.

I'll be honest, I'm not really surprised. Hell, even my own parents have implied that I was an accident.

It's no secret in my family that I was a happy little accident.