I’m a wee bit late to the party on this one, what with the press of travelling and preparing for the Naturalism meeting (I leave this morning).
This is the third time I’ve posted on Republicans—Republican MEN—who make fatuous and false pronouncements about women’s reproduction. This time it’s Richard Mourdock, the Republican candidate for senator from Indiana. According to Reuters, in a debate on Tuesday Mourdock said something unbelievable:
When he explained at Tuesday night’s debate that the only exception to a ban on abortion should be for the life of a mother, Mourdock said: “I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God, and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something God intended to happen.”
Here’s the video:
Yeah, he really, really struggled—given that his conclusion that all pregnancies should go to term was preordained by his faith and his party. And does Mourdock have a pipeline to God’s will?
Trying to backtrack, Mourdock asserted that he doesn’t think God wants rape, but just got deeper into it:
“God creates life, and that was my point,” Mourdock said in a statement. “God does not want rape, and by no means was I suggesting that He does. Rape is a horrible thing, and for anyone to twist my words otherwise is absurd and sick.”
If God doesn’t want rape, then why does he let it happen?
This, with Todd Akin and Paul Broun, makes the third Republican male to go badly wrong on human reproduction—all, of course, in the service of faith.
Mittens, of course, is still supporting Mourdock:
Former Massachusetts governor Romney’s spokeswoman Andrea Saul said: “Governor Romney disagrees with Richard Mourdock … We disagree on the policy regarding exceptions for rape and incest but still support him.”
Earlier in the week, the Mourdock campaign issued a television and radio ad featuring Romney’s endorsement of the Indiana Republican, saying that Mourdock’s vote in the Senate could be crucial to repealing Obama’s health reform law.
Romney’s campaign said he would not pull the ad supporting Mourdock despite Democratic calls for him to do so.
And for those of you who claim there’s no difference between Republicans and Democrats, just remember which party is denigrating women’s rights, trying to control their reproduction, and making idiotic statements about rape and pregnancy. Further, Obama has stepped up to the plate and responded properly. According to CBS News, Obama slammed Mourdock’s remarks during an appearance on the Jay Leno show:
President Barack Obama is criticizing a Republican Senate candidate for his comments about women and rape, saying that “rape is rape” and that distinctions offered by the Republican candidate, in Obama’s words, “don’t make any sense to me.”
The Tea Party-backed Republican in Indiana’s Senate race, Richard Mourdock, said during a debate Tuesday night that when pregnancy results from rape, that is “something God intended.”
Asked about Mourdock’s comment Wednesday on “The Tonight Show,” Obama told host Jay Leno, quote: “Rape is rape. It is a crime.”
Obama says such remarks reflect why politicians, mostly male, shouldn’t be making decisions about women’s health care. He also says that women are capable of making their own decisions and that intrusions by politicians is part of what’s at stake in the presidential election.
Indeed!
Truly, I don’t understand why any woman—or person, for that matter—would vote for Romney. The closeness of this election is due to one factor only: the economy. If the Republicans hadn’t ruined it, and Obama had been able to fix it before this election (a near-impossible task given the composition of Congress but also an inadequate stimulus package), Mittens wouldn’t stand a chance. And there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that Romney’s policies will improve our economy.
Even so, there is a clear choice here, and anybody voting for Romney is voting for the rich over the poor, the entitled over the dispossessed, the religious over the secular, men’s hegemony over women, and a return to the addled politics of George W. Bush.
Ceiling Cat has spoken: vote for Obama.
Using God to justify rape is just another example of the dangers of religion.
One minor detail to dispute, however – since when is God against rape? http://www.evilbible.com/Rape.htm
Deuteronomy 20:10-14: When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee
As if that wasn’t enough:
Zechariah 14:1-2: Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
And for those who are firm believers that “one man+one woman” is a biblical mandate, here’s something to prove you wrong:
Judges 5:30: Have they not sped? have they not divided the prey; to every man a damsel or two; to Sisera a prey of divers colours, a prey of divers colours of needlework, of divers colours of needlework on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil?
For someone who doesn’t like rape, he sure encourages it a lot.
In Bible times women were possessions and a man could have as many as he wanted and could afford.
No divine inteent at all,so those Repugs are just superstitious per the reduced animism argument.
So, His intent was for the Holocaust! That greater good and that unknown defense arguments – arguments from ignorance, standard theistic twaddle with its companion the argument from personal incredulity.
That Republi-cannot speaks for millions of his Goofy Old Plutocrats.
Fortunately, Obama-Biden will win and save the Republic and get it to do even better!
sub
Let’s not forget that the lesser of two evils is still evil. But I agree, given the horrendous state of the GOP, which has become the party of far-right theocratic ignoramuses, there’s nothing left to do but hold your nose and vote Obama.
Meanwhile, the Salt Lake Tribune has gone for… Obama! And look why – they have no clue what he really stands for. There is still some sanity to be found in unexpected places.
To be clear, they’re endorsing Obama because they do have a clue what he stands for, and they have no clue what Romney stands for.
Yes, thanx for fixing that!
Republican Logic
Let’s see…
Any interruption of a pregnancy is abortion and should be a crime.
If a woman is “truly raped” her body “shuts down” and somehow prevents pregnancy.
Therefore, if a woman is pregnant, she has not been “truly raped”.
Therefore, if a woman has been forced to have sex against her will, her body rejects the pregnancy, performing an act of spontaneous abortion.
Therefore, any woman who is raped and does not become pregnant is a self-abortionist and should be prosecuted as one (but don’t under any circumstances, give her the death penalty until after the fetus is born. After that, kill the mother and forget about the kid. After all – it’s not like it was a corporation or anything.)
Hey, makes as much sense as “Death Panels”.
That’s more sane than Murdouche. Therefore, all men are not lunatics, therefore only men that proclaim to hear god are lunatics.
I don’t know how any thinking human could vote for Romney. The United States of the Church of Latter Day Saints. Ceiling Cat we need some of your divine intervention…scratch either eyes out – kick ’em in the ass.
And when called on it, he accuses the media of twisting his words.
No, Mourdock, we understood what you meant just fine. What you meant to say is what we’re condemning.
Well, the God of the OT has form on rape. For Mourdock (where do these Republicans get their weird spellings from?), to claim that his god does not want rape (want????) means either that God has changed His mind or that Mourdock’s God is different to the OT God. This makes him a heretical Marcionite Christian if I’m not mistaken; I think his pastor needs to step in to put him right on his theology.
Quite apart from the good hiding he’s gonna get from those of us who manage to live our lives based on assumptions which post-date the middle of the second century.
I thought the Republicans wanted less government. When it comes to meddling in personal lives that’s not so obvious.
They want small government – small enough to fit inside a vagina. </oldjoke>
Vagina demagogues.
Looks like the Republicans have doubled down on the biblical view of women as chattel.
Actually God intended for him to lose this election. He works in mysterious ways.
jayp, indeed- were there divine intent! With Jefferson, let’s mock those cretins to the high heavens!
I see Mourdock frequently here in downtown Indianapolis; he lives in the same condominium complex as one of my lawyer colleagues and seems normal enough when not campaigning. I know quite a few men and women who are active in central Indiana Republican politics, and they were all shaking their heads ruefully all day on Wednesday, almost to the point of cervical strain.
If I knew how to send a telegram, I would send one to Mourdock, thanking him for providing such a prominent illustration of the pitfalls of dragging theodicy into public political discourse.
Anyone who goes out of his way, at nearly every opportunity, to engage in goddy talk in a pubilc forum deserves what he gets. I hope this was good enough to keep Mourdock’s main opponent, Joe Donnelly, ahead for the next 13 days.
“cervical strain”? Hmm, one could take that in a couple of ways. 🙂
It appears McCain has kept the flame alive by mentioning Mourdock on CNN, first asking for an apology for continued support, then saying “OK, good enough, I support him”.
I think McCain is playing a game with this… while all the Repugs want this story to go away, McCain keeps it front and center while nominally lending support. I think he hasn’t forgiven his party for screwing him over in 2000, and likes to chuck monkey wrenches in the works every so often.
You forgot to mention that the Democrat only accepts the woman’s right to an abortion in the case of Rape, Incest, or to save the life of the mother.
It’s only one step off.
There are some pro-life democrats, some blue dog democrats. I didn’t know that was the case in this race, as you mention.
The big difference here is that they are rare outliers in the party, not mainstream accepted dogma of the party.
Politics need not adhere to rigid ideological purity. There is room for pragmatic regional flexibility on certain issues. Isn’t it better to take a pragmatic attitude to win and nudge a district in the right direction than to abandon entirely for the sake of purity?
I am a pragmatic voter. Game theory and all. It’s just depressing that These are the options. No third party stands a chance.
It’s a catch-22. Third parties stand no chance in part because of the constant guilt-tripping of voters into being pragmatic.
The Green Party platform, for instance, makes a lot more sense than the current two-party corporatist system. But you won’t hear that in this or any other blog by a prominent New Atheist. It’s all about bashing Republicans and shilling for Democrats. Sad.
Third parties stand no chance because people are reasonable, want to win, and the mathematics of first-past-the-post vote counting forces them into the two party duopoly.
If we used some form of range voting (e.g. Instant Runoff) then we would see the true extent of third party support.
I don’t think you can legitimately blame this on guilt tripping. If Romney were to win, I would not feel guilty, I would be extremely pissed off if that ass is able to put more “corporations are people pro-life pro-gun” dickheads on the Supreme Court. For me just that issue alone is enough to deeply loath and fear the idea of him occupying our Presidency. And the list is much longer.
It really matters who wins, and I know if I voted green, and millions of others joined me, it would have the natural consequence of putting Romney in.
People have to have some reason to trust that a large enough number to win are likely to vote Green or Libertarian or whatever you really want, to make it a rational choice.
This unfortunate strategic voting is mathematically eliminated by range voting; it becomes a non-issue. Rather than pushing for an improbable third party plurality, we need to be pushing state legislatures to adopt range voting methods. The proliferation of third parties would then follow naturally.
People are reasonable? Not really. Most people are gullible and cognitively biased. That’s why it’s so easy to trick them into thinking that god exists and cares for them, that they live in a democracy and have free will.
I wish somebody was pushing for some kind of electoral reform in the US. It doesn’t have to be range voting necessarily. Most true democracies around the world don’t have such ridiculous rules (the Electoral College comes to mind) and barriers to entry into the political process (like those imposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates). The US can barely call itself a democracy. Sure, people vote, but so do people in Cuba and Iran. They do so for artificially limited choices.
The sad reality is that America is stuck with a unique, anachronistic two-party system run by corporations. And that’s something that will never change through reasonable means.
I’m sure Torquemada struggled in his soul (real hard) before deciding that torture and roasting alive was the compassionate way to treat witches and heretics, because he was giving them a generous opportunity to avoid the eternal fires of hell.
You can’t expect rational and humane decisions to come from minds poisoned by false beliefs.
Yes, he probably did struggle morally and we know because of two things. He set a minimum standard of evidence in his generous, liberal way before torture could be applied and he handed over the ‘guilty’ to the ‘secular’ authorities to be burned etc.
Rather like the mythical idea that Himmler couldn’t bear to see the extermination camps; not true in HH’s case, but accurate in the case of Torquemada.
I feel so much better about Torquemada now. lol.
So Himmler was a true sociopath, and Torquemada really did have a “tortured soul”?
The extent to which one can err by following ideological purity is astonishing; Mourdock is a case in point. It’s kind of like following the iPhone 5 map application. You could end up anywhere and have a hard time explaining why. hehe.
And Himmler’s sociopathy was truly boggling. He was deeply concerned with the degrading effect that all that extermination might have on the ‘decency’ – yes, he used that word – of his subordinates and how it might affect their family life.
William Lane Craig expressed the exact same idea (as Himmler), regarding the Israelite soldiers and their duty in killing the Canaanites.
So, in another context, did St. Hilary of Poitiers, Pope Sixtus IV and Gandhi. For the religious,a spirit pure on a rotten corpse.
Almost makes one wish the soul existed, so one could torture Torquemada’s. For ever.
I’ve long felt that if there were an afterlife, and if it were just, instead of getting what they hoped for people would ger what they feared they deserved.
Oh, my name is Torquemada, I’m the leader of the bandThough we are few in number, we are feared throughout the land!We work on Jews and Protestants, we kick them as they fall,But when we work on heretics, we work the best of all!Oh the racks they creak, and the thumbscrews squeakAnd the whips they flail away!The Jesuit slams the Iron Maiden shutWhile I sit in the corner and pray!Oh, the auto-da-fe is God’s chosen wayAnd the screams of the victims are grandAnother soul to Heaven….from Torquemada’s band!
That should have been:
Oh, my name is Torquemada, I’m the leader of the band
Though we are few in numbers, we are feared throughout the land!
We work on Jews and Protestants, we kick them as they fall,
But when we work on heretics, we work the best of all!
Oh the racks they creak, and the thumbscrews squeak
And the whips they flail away!
The Jesuit slams the Iron Maiden shut
While I sit in the corner and pray!
Oh, the auto-da-fe is God’s chosen way
And the screams of the victims are grand
Another soul to Heaven….from Torquemada’s band!
http://www.wbez.org/blogs/achy-obejas/2012-10/mourdock-and-meaning-moderate-103410
I agree with what you said and with how you said it with the exception of the Mittens thing. Mittens sounds like a name one would give a cute and cuddly kitty. Romney seems about as cute and cuddly as Vladimir Putin. Hence, I think Vladimitt would be the better nickname.
+1
You don’t need to change a thing. Remember that Romney’s real first name is Willard which has been re-rendered here.
In this clip, Colbert’s “Team Rape” is comprised of 5 men…
“… some girls, they rape so easy.” — Rep. Roger Rivard
!!!
I don’t remember Mary giving her consent to being impregnated with Jesus. You might say that their whole religion is based on a rape.
In fairness to Mourdock, if every life is a gift and if God has a devine plan (and certainly God doesn’t stop rapes from happening), then what the GOP candidate said is consistent with Christian religious beliefs. I’m seeing a lot of liberal Christian types jump all over him (I want the GOP to lose, so I’m glad for the attacks), but while their own moral instincts are correct, Mourdock illustrates what their own religious bullshit looks like when followed to its logical conclusion.
I would also say that many liberals don’t take on the main arguments of the pro-lifers. If life begins at conception and all human life is the same (an embryo is the same thing as a baby, for example), than abortion is murder regardless of whether it is a product of rape or not.
Yep. +1
The modern conception of rape as being intercourse without the consent of the woman is pretty new. When the Bible was written, “rape” meant having intercourse with a woman without the consent of her father or whatever man was “responsible” for her. Whether the woman consented or not wasn’t really relevant.
As in so many other things, trying to apply what the Bible says to modern life doesn’t really work, unless you’re willing to discard 2000 years of social progress. Oh, wait, that’s exactly what some people want to do.
+1
The pro-choice argument in this debate applies whether one accepts that life begins at conception or not. It’s also very simple, it’s a woman’s choice how her body is used and nobody else gets to tell her what to do with it. http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/10/23/texas-freethought-conventions-ferociously-one-sided-debate/
I’m not sure that it does because it’s no longer just about the woman’s body, but about the body of another human that she has control over. We don’t allow a mother to kill a newborn even if that child was a result of a rape. And if the life inside the womb is considered the same as a life outside it, why should the mother have the right to kill a human when it is temporarily inside her. One could think of other thought experiments as well. For example, would you give a siamese twin the right to kill her sibling if she feels it is her body?
I think the pro-choice side instinctively understands that there is an important difference between a potential baby and an actual baby, but those pro-choice liberals who say they’re Catholics or whatever, either don’t seem to articulate or acknowledge this view or they talk from both sides of their mouth.
“And if the life inside the womb is considered the same as a life outside it, ”
Why would we do that?
We wouldn’t.
We don’t force anyone to give blood either, donate kidneys, etc. We don’t force anyone to save anyone. Watch the video in the link. It addresses your concern. It’s a woman’s choice what her body is used for. It’s very simple.
Reblogged this on Reason Alliance and commented:
This, among many reasons, is why I’m voting Libertarian. I HATE THE GOP!
Go on. Throw your vote away!
I don’t get it. Why couldn’t it be the work of the devil? After all the event that led to the pregnancy, rape, is the kind of thing the devil promotes, right? So how do believers determine which one, god or the devil, is behind any particular event? Can they explain their methodology? Ah, of course, revelation. I forgot about that.
Ohhh I get it now. I forgot about all that god commanded rape in the OT. That must be why Mourdock thinks god must be responsible.
This is sad, but what is far worse to me is all the wives that will continue to support creeps like this, and all of the woman that will continue to support the GOP.
Indeed. Why couldn’t Plan B be the gift from God? If God sent someone to you, it seems more likely He sent the doctor rather than the rapist.
+1
For Catholics anyway, the devil can’t do anything without God’s permission. So even if the rape was the work of the devil, God still gave approval.
I’ve asked Catholics how that works logistically. Do God and Satan meet once a week and go over Satan’s schedule or something?
Satan: I plan on inspiring 120,467 rapes on Monday.
God: Ummm… make that 120,466.
I wonder… Does Mourdock think we should have a fire department?
he certainly would if his house was on fire! Hypocritical idiots.
Excellent question.
Amy Davidson, senior editor at the New Yorker, has a mordant analysis of “Richard Mourdock, god, and rape”.
Her final thrust regarding Mourdock’s token exception, “saving the life of a mother”, unravels the lethal logic:
Beyond the vital question of a woman’s rights, the same potentially infinite regression as with climate change. Evidence is rejected because there is no ultimate proof — yet. Not until it’s too late, for the individual and for the planet.
Nothing must change, no progress must be allowed.
Rather die and let die, in the name of a corpse on a cross.
The sanctity of life, so-called, is upheld until birth only. After that, it’s open game on all and sundry.
The culture of the religious reactionaries is a culture of death.
Yes indeed. Xianity has been referred to as a death cult for thousands of years, since its beginnings. For good reason.
Mourdock’s statement is not much different from the usual Christian formula about everything being part of God’s plan. Main differences: a)he’s running for office, &
b)he was pinned down with a specific question
about a particular hypothetical situation. Check out the Slate article, which makes the case that Mourdock is not an outlier but instead represents the new GOP orthodoxy.
Yeah right.
As much as any ancient religious kook and misogynist who can’t possibly ever get pregnant.
“If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” (Attributed to Florynce Kennedy, among others)
Needless to say, that woman was set up by god to be raped. The guy was set up by god to be a rapist.
All so this woman could receive a “gift”, being raped and then forced to give birth to an unwanted kid.
Such a god is a monster. Gods are just sockpuppets. Morlock’s god is a monster because he is a monster.
Isn’t that what happened to Mary?
So creationists believe that what makes women pregnant is God magically materialising new life inside their wombs and not, let’s say, fertilization.
Meet the new god, same as the old god. A favorite past time of gods throughout human history has been to get their rocks off with mortal woman whenever they feel like it. It seems perfectly natural that this new god would too. And since he somehow got rid of all the other gods, he’s got all the mortal woman for himself.
Hey, that gives me an idea. After careful consideration I have determined that the purpose of mankind’s’ existence, the reason god created us, is to provide god with fully interactive sex toys.
“Like genitalia to the gods are we; they play with us for their sport.”
Epic comment, that’s all I have to say.
I haven’t seen Leno, but it sounds like Obama dodged the question. Mourdock will agree that rape is rape and is a crime. What did Obama have to say about (1) god’s will in the matter and (2) a woman’s right to an abortion?
Your right, he was definitely dodgy about addressing several aspects of the question. But regarding your (2) he did reportedly say this.
That’s a pretty clear statement in support of women’s right to choose, and is the most unambiguous statement on the issue I’ve heard him make yet. I just wish that he was capable of making such statements even when the affect on the political climate wasn’t likely to be favorable.
Mittens has this vision of himself as being like Christian Bale in “Batman”.
Sadly, he’s quite a bit more like Christian Bale in “American Psycho”.
Ceiling Cat should be espousing the need for getting momentum behind third party voting so the system can be changed – Obama is only a pseudo alternative.
@21: Exactly. I’ve had a hard time parsing the outrage of Christians in the face of Murdock’s statement. Yes, it was repugnant, but it seems only as repugnant as the standard Christian response to tragedy or horror:
It’s all a part of God’s plan.
We hear that when villages are washed away, when infants die, when tornados strike. Really, whenever people suffer. Well, if that’s your view of how the world works, I think you have to claim the rapist as part of The Plan, too.
I mean Mourdock.
His name is Dick Moredick… er sorry.
Dick Moredork. My bad.
Dick Moorcock. No, that’s not it.
Dick Dourdick. Gah.
I’m giving up. As you were.
That’s Dick Mordouche!
Winner winner chicken dinner for the lovely lady from Texas!
😉
Then there is the fact that Obama is black…that just might account for all the vigor of the Republican campaign..
The guy could be right; after all, this gawd not only condones rape but actively participates, first known case being 9 months BC.
Dave, I think you, like others, you could be looking at this virgin birth through a Greco-Roman materialist lens rather than through the kaleidoscope of Judaistic idealism.
It was the Holy Spirit which somehow impregnated the young Immaculatee; but it was all a case of penetration-free parthenogensis, unlike Zeus and his zygotic, erotic coitum with a mortal.
The conception and birth of Jesus are disturbingly a-corporeal, some heresies going so far as to assert Christ’s birth as being like the passage of an entity through a pipe, leaving Mary as virginal as she was before, and Jesus therefore as not truly human; not from, but through, his mother, an entity from another dimension, the Pleroma.
Bizarre, fascinating, imo, and no more believeable than orthodoxy, which, in the spirit of Benny Hill, proclaimed to Mary that, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you…” (Luke 1:35, ESV).
Hmmm, but let’s take a broader definition of rape here as ‘not giving consent’, which she did not. Sounds like a rape to me, no matter what the fairy stories say. I miss Benny Hill.
Well, Luke 1:38, “And Mary said, ‘Behold I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
It’s all a bit droit de seigneur for me. Matthew doesn’t mention any swooning consent from La Christophe.
So 1-1 in the Bible on the rape question. Doesn’t even meet Torquemada’s minimum standard of evidence for a trial.
And all that’s before you penetrate the penetration issue; but anyway, we both know the story’s complete b***ocks anyway, as I suspect did Mark, who didn’t start his Gospel with it.
“we both know the story’s complete b***ocks anyway” Say no more.
Of course if a woman gets pregnant, God wills it. He can create the universe so he could change anything he finds distatsteful.
You know what else he’s obviously OK with? The cholesterol laden arteries of fat, old, stupid Republicans.
Hey, if God didn’t want you to have that heart attack, he would have stopped it! It’s obviously a gift!!
No bypass for you!!! Just sit around waiting for the second gift.
To say nothing of you or any member of your family getting any form of cancer.
God wants it, and could have stopped it. He didn’t, therefore no chemo or radiation for you or your family members. It’s the ‘natural law’-can’t interfere with that!!
(Obvious exceptions made for diseases of those under the age of 18-20 or so. We cannot blame these kids for the idiocies or sins of their parents, despiter various bibl;ical admonitions to do so for several generations. Because that’s real, true, Biblical morality!!)
Reblogged this on Mark Solock Blog.
All of these horrendous statements by so-called Christians can be classified as pious cruelty.
Joke (note the scare quotes) that came to me when I first heard about this comment this morning: So if conception from rape is from god, then a woman dressed so that she is “asking for it” is actually praying, right?
And this seems to be the right place to reference a Matt Bors cartoon from a little while ago:
http://www.gocomics.com/matt-bors/2012/02/01
“Even so, there is a clear choice here, and anybody voting for Romney is voting for the rich over the poor”
This would imply that if one is in fact rich, it would be in their interest to vote Romney. A couple of thoughts on this:
1) I have friends, hard working professionals and small business owners, who rake in close to 500K per year. They think of themselves as rich (snigger). That’s because they probably never hang around the sort of rich who have an army of lobbyists on their payroll and and who truly reap a windfall from toxic Republican policies.
2) Sociologists like Larry Bartels or economists like Alan Blinder would counter that whereas Democratic party policies do favor the poor, they also favor the affluent. It’s just the benefit to lower and middle class is more pronounced than is the benefit to the rich.
3) Economists like Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman would argue Republican policies don’t favor any broad swathe of citizens – low, middle or upper class. Republican policies actually undermine economic stability and incapacitate productive potential. Their policies largely exacerbate “rent seeking” whereby a handful few get to game the system at the expense of everyone else.
So to cap up, if you support Romney you are not really casting a vote for the well-off. All you are doing is demonstrating what a fucking imbecile you are.
“Republican policies actually undermine economic stability and incapacitate productive potential. Their policies largely exacerbate “rent seeking” whereby a handful few get to game the system at the expense of everyone else.”
Bravo …
ps … http://www.neweconomicperspectives.org
Who would subscribe to Obama’s policy on children born of rape, viz.:
“You should be dead. Ceiling cat wills it.”
I’m not sure if I understand what you’re saying. Are you suggesting that allowing women to have abortions after being raped is the same thing as thinking all children born of rape should be dead? Because if that is what you’re suggesting, I have some rather strong, foul-mouthed words to say to you…
Assuming you have communicated the intent of your thought, I can only respond by saying it is a despicable lie. Arguing that allowing women to control their own bodies and make their own decisions is the same as mandating abortions is simply dishonest. Shame.
Hey, don’t discourage them! I’d try to encourage every Republican candidate to state that rape is just a natural male instinct, it’s women’s punishment for Eve’s crime in making Adam eat the apple, yadda yadda… except that they seem to be quite capable of coming up with them for themselves. 😉
Sorry, a bit OT.
Seeing the news about Obama voting early, I gather that Romney won’t be doing so – he still has time to change his mind again.
Made me laugh.
Here’s a brain twister for a Republican: Is it OK to have an abortion if it can be shown that the child would be gay?
Well, they don’t believe that a person is born gay, but this does remind me of Bill Maher’s joke. “How do you convince a conservative that abortion is OK? Tell him that his daughter is pregnant and the father is black.”
Reminds me of another shorter one –
Q. What’s the worst thing you can say to a fundie about God?
A. She’s black.
😉
Surely, “the child is gay already?” What with the “soul arrives at conception” bull, and the reasonably good evidence that uterine hormonal exposure has considerable influence on sexuality. And finger length ratios.
I could probably make it more wrong, but the effort-to-return ratio probably isn’t worth it.
I pity you Americans your politicians.
Who needs evidence when you have faith? Their biggest target voting bloc is practically immune to evidence.
Because rape is really not about sex, but about control, domination, rage, resentment, power, grandiosity, narcissism, sanctimony, etc., I can understand why so many Rethuglicans seem to view it so “neutrally”.